213 How Can I Believe in a Angry and Arbitrary God Pt.2

It is essential to understand these 8 aspects of the ancient writings of Scripture. Without this understanding we all run the risk of concluding with Richard Dawkins that God is an absolutely terrible being. The list of adjectives he uses to describe God is horrific. Join us on this journey today to understand the God that Jesus knew.

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SHOW NOTES

The Blaming of God

The Hebrews have, from their inception as a nation, worshipped an all-powerful,

monotheistic God. In their zeal to defend this only true God against the polytheism of the

surrounding nations they would admit no other supernatural beings. Allowing any other

supernatural being, good or bad, would fly in the face of the daily repeated Shema

Our God is one God. (Deuteronomy 6:4)

and this was unthinkable. Consequently, in their world view, evil could only occur if God

sent it. Jewish people at the present time do not believe in a supernatural devil. They attribute the belief in the devil to the Christian's need to blame someone else for their own wickedness.

The Old Testament and many parts of the New Testament are written from the Hebrew

world view. Every author, inspired or otherwise, describes events through their own world

view. As a current example no Innuit author could write about "the lamb of God," since

there are no lambs in the white, world of the Arctic. Innuit writers might use "the pup seal

of God" or some other metaphor out of the world they are familiar with.

The classic blaming of God in the Bible is God hardening Pharaoh’s heart (Exodus 7-11).

Moses has Pharaoh hardening his heart 9 times (7:13,14,22; 8:15,19,32; 9:7,34,35); and

God hardening Pharaoh’s heart 9 times (4:21; 7:3; 9:12; 10:1,20,27; 11:10; 14:4,8). It is

legitimate to ask then if God and Pharaoh are both working to harden Pharaoh’s heart?

The neo-atheists of our time blame religion, a euphemism for God, for being responsible

for much of the evil in our world. Here is a compendium of blaming claims for God by one

writer:

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all

fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive,

bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal,

genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously

malevolent bully.” Richard Dawkins

Dawkins could give chapter and verse from the Bible for each of his claims. We will notice some of this evidence in this presentation.

The importance of the writer’s world view is illustrated by an example William Barclay, a

well-known Bible student, gives of the diderent perceptions of the same event described in 2 Kings 19:35

“And that night the angel of the Lord went forth, and slew 185 000 in the camp of the

Assyrians . . .” Herodotus (a Greek historian) gives the Egyptian version: “One night a

multitude of field mice swarmed over the Assyrians encampment and devoured

their quivers, bowstrings and the handles of their spears. The enemy fled unarmed

and many perished.” Josephus (a Hebrew historian) gives a version attributed to

Berosus, a Chaldean historian: “A pestilential distemper came upon the army of the

Assyrian king, who in great dread at this terrible calamity fled back to his kingdom

with the survivors.” Which one is right? Maybe all three. The Bible writer attributes

all to the honour of God. He is not concerned with the mechanics of the situation.

His world view tells him, “God did it!” Rats are notorious carriers of bubonic plague.

The rats over-ran the camp, ate the weapons and left the plague. Diderent writers

see it in diderent ways. (The Mind of Jesus. SCM paperback, p85)

In addition to the world view of the author, consider the further complication of the use of

idioms. We speak about “the kettle boiling” when we mean the water in the kettle is boiling.

A mother claims she loves her baby so much she could “eat it up.” She is not a cannibal.

To be “so hungry I could eat a horse,” has nothing to do with eating horse steaks. This is an accepted way of speaking, at least in English. These idioms could be very misleading to someone not familiar with the English language. What about going to pick blackberries and discovering they are green because they are red! We must attempt to understand both the world view and the language usage of the writer to do justice to the meaning of any passage. Consider this statement:

Go and serve your idols, every one of you! (Ezekiel 20:39)

This statement means exactly the opposite of what it says. It is one of the best examples of full-blown irony in the Scriptures.

As another example of the need to correctly understand language, consider the Old

Testament story of Job.

According to 1:16

The fire of God fell from the sky.

We know from reading the rest of the story that this fire was caused by Satan himself. God was forced to allow Satan access to Job because God runs a free universe, and the author describes the lightning caused by the evil one as “the fire of God.”

But then we still speak of "acts of God" in insurance documents, so this usage should not

trouble us too much. We must not get caught up interpreting metaphors or word pictures

literally when they are idiomatic in nature. Loving someone "to bits" does not mean theobject of my love will end up in a thousand pieces. We must find the meaning the author intended in the first place. We do it with Chaucer and Shakespeare, why not with the Bible?

Take the larger context of Isaiah 45:7:

I form the light and create darkness; I bring prosperity and disaster. I the Lord do all

these things.

Shall we conclude that God is the source of both good and evil from this one verse? Here is one explanation which attempts at exonerating God. Verse one of this chapter identifies the message as being addressed to Cyrus. Cyrus would have believed in the Yin Yang philosophy of Persia where light and darkness, good and evil are kept in balance by Ahura Mazda the supreme god. Thus Cyrus, reading verse seven would understand this message to be coming from the great God. Without understanding this context our picture of God could be seriously distorted by this one verse.

However, there are many passages which confirm a more literal reading of Isaiah 45:7. One of the most important is Moses’ summation of the character of God at the end of his life. Deuteronomy 32:39 (NLT)

Look now; I myself am he!

There is no other god but me!

I am the one who kills and gives life;

I am the one who wounds and heals;

no one can be rescued from my powerful hand!

Some other passages which convey the same understanding of God’s violent character are Leviticus 26:16; Numbers 21:6; Deuteronomy 28:63; 1 Samuel 2:6, 16:14; Ruth 1:20; Psalm 50:22; Isaiah 27:28, 41:4, 43:10; Ezekiel 5:16-17, 20:26.

But we must come back to what this chapter is about, blaming God for what might not be

His work or actions. We start at the beginning.

Genesis 3:12 NLT The man replied, “It was the woman you gave me who gave me

the fruit, and I ate it.”

Adam, the first man, is not shy about blaming God for the gift of Eve and by implication the cause of the problem if sin in his life. The veiling of women in the Middle East follows this blaming by Adam. Women are regarded as irresistible temptations and must be covered to reduce the power they have to tempt men.

According to Numbers 21:6, the LORD is blamed for sending snakes to kill Israelites in their wilderness wanderings.

Then the Lord sent fiery serpents (venomous snakes) among them . . .

A parallel passage which must have a bearing on deciding if God produced these adders to sober up his rebellious people is in Deuteronomy 8:15:

Who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and

scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water?

The prophet Isaiah believes the snakes were there in the desert all the time (Isaiah 30:6).

They did not have to be sent, rather the Israelites had to be protected from them, from

scorpions, from thirst and hunger.

One Bible student comments as follows:

The Israelites, up to this time, had been preserved from these serpents in the

wilderness, by a continual miracle; for the wilderness through which they travelled

was infested with poisonous serpents. (1BC1116; PP429)

Knowing that the devil is a liar and a murderer (John 8:44), he waited until the Israelites

forfeited the protection of God by choosing to actively join forces with him. Then in direct

rebellion they blamed God for the violent evil caused by the devil. Why does changing

sides forfeit God's protection? In a free universe there must be consequences for every

choice we make. If God protects us from negative consequence then the universe is no

longer a predictable place. Choices become irrelevant, and we are puppets and nothing

more.

When we choose the devil’s side, the inherent consequences of our choices come upon

us, others and God. Once the Israelites chose his side God’s protection was forced away

and the snakes, already in the desert, did their devilish work. To crown his deception, he

has the people believing that this was God's punishment. Here is an example of this type

of deception.

On April 18 and 19, 2020, 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman committed multiple shootings and set fires at 16 locations in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, killing 22 people, and injuring three others before he was shot and killed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in the community of Enfield. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nova_Scotia_attacks

Wortman wore the RCMP uniform and drove a police cruiser to gain access to his victims.

He masterminded this deception for the greatest mass killing in Canada’s history.

After King David had committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered Uriah the Hittite,

the prophet Nathan speaks as follows:

This is what the Lord says: . . . Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give

them to one who is close to you and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. (2 Samuel 12:11)

The language of this verse, at face value, implies that God could imagine this activity, and

furthermore that the welfare of the women concerned was of not much consequence to

him. These conclusions fly in the face of a holy, righteous God. The holiness of God means that He will respect and regard women with the same dignity He accords men. After all, He made women as much as He made men.

It is appropriate to read the following at this point.

They have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as oderings to

Baal–something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind (Jeremiah

19:5).

This comment by Jeremiah indicates that God cannot imagine violent evil. The New

Testament writer, who came to know God best, having changed from “a son of thunder,” to “the beloved,” describes God as follows:

God is light; in him there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5 NIV).

Darkness, in this context, refers to evil. Is it possible that God would stoop to immoral acts

to punish David? Hardly.

Consider this explanation:

Not that God prompted these acts of wickedness, but because of David's sin He did

not exercise His power to prevent them (PP739).

If we keep in mind that the Hebrew writers, because of their monotheistic world view

repeatedly attribute to God that which He does not prevent we will be saved from the

traditional distorted picture of God.

Some argue that since God had the power to prevent these evil consequences of David's

sin and chose not to do so, He, God, is responsible for them. The point that is missed in

this line of thought is that if God were to step in and prevent the consequences of our bad choices there would be no real freedom. To be free means we must be able to experience the consequences of our choices. I will never know if I can fly an aircraft on my own until I fly solo. But when I fly solo, I must face the consequences of my flying skills or lack thereof.

Some further examples which apparently support the idea of God punishing evil are as

follows:

And enquired not of the LORD: therefore, he slew him and turned the kingdom unto

David the son of Jesse. (1 Chronicles 10:14)

This passage is dogmatic that God killed King Saul and yet in verse four of the same chapter the mechanics of Saul's death are described.

So, Saul took a sword and fell upon it. (vs 4)

We would call this suicide. Did God cause Saul to commit suicide? It is possible but hardly plausible considering what we know about God. A Hebrew would understand that Saul’s suicide was supernatural since he had been chosen and anointed by God’s prophet, Samuel. This means his death by suicide had to be supernatural, which meant that God had to kill him.

Two parallel accounts of the same census in Israel are as follows:

And again, the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David

against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah. (2 Samuel 24:1)

Compare this with

And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel. (1 Chronicles 21:1)

Do God and Satan work hand in hand to tempt God's children? The author of Samuel is

clearly a hard-line monotheist to the point where all influences, good or bad, come from

God. The writer of Chronicles, one of the last books written in the Old Testament,

understands that there is another supernatural being, and an evil one to boot, who does

bring about events which place God in an evil light.

And to the others He (God) said in mine hearing, “Go ye after him through the city,

and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: Slay utterly old [and] young,

both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom

[is] the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which

[were] before the house.” (Ezekiel 9:5-6)

Reading this passage concerned with the destruction of Jerusalem might suggest that God was directly and actively responsible for it, but it was the wicked, cruel Babylonians who did the slaying. We must ask how was the way prepared for the Babylonians?

Ezekiel 8:6 NIV And he said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing—

the utterly detestable things the house of Israel is doing here, things that will drive

me far from my sanctuary? But you will see things that are even more detestable.”

What forced God out of His sanctuary so that both it and the city were destroyed?

According to Ezekiel 12:19 it is specifically because of the violence in the land. Say to the people of the land:

“This is what the Sovereign LORD says about those living in Jerusalem and in the land of Israel: They will eat their food in anxiety and drink their water in despair, for their land will be stripped of everything in it because of the violence of all who live there.”

Today, considering our world view, we would describe what happened as follows: because of the violence in the land, God's protecting presence was forced away and consequently the Babylonians came and captured God’s apostate people. But that is a very diderent perspective from the Hebrew writer’s view of the matter.

In some instances, God is directly blamed for instigating untruth and evil:

And the LORD said unto him, “Wherewith?” And he said, “I will go forth, and I will be

a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.” And he said, “Thou shalt persuade

[him], and prevail also: go forth, and do so.” Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath

put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken

evil concerning thee (1 Kings 22:22,23).

The message is similar in 2 Chronicles 18:21:

I will go and be a lying spirit in the mouths of all his prophets,” he said. “You will

succeed in enticing him,” said the Lord. “Go and do it.”

Does God send “lying spirits” to do His work? How do we harmonise these accounts with

. . . in Him there is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5)

Here are similar examples in the New Testament:

But when the king heard (thereof), he was wroth: and he sent forth this armies and

destroyed those murderers and burned up their city. (Matthew 22:7)

In this parable Jesus predicts the destruction of Jerusalem. Who then are the armies of the Lord? From history we know the city was destroyed by the Roman soldiers under Titus. Are these violent, corrupt men really the soldiers of the Lord? Here is an illuminating comment from a student of the Scriptures.

The Jews had forged their own fetters; they had filled for themselves the cup of

vengeance. . . . Says the prophet: “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself;”; “for thou

hast fallen by thine iniquity” (Hosea 13:9; 14:1). Their suderings are often represented as a punishment visited upon them by the direct decree of God. It is thus that the great deceiver seeks to conceal his own work (GC35).

The same author presents the larger picture as follows:. . . It is the restraining power of God that prevents mankind from passing fully under the control of Satan. The disobedient and unthankful have great reason for gratitude for God's mercy and long-sudering in holding in check the cruel malignant power of the evil one. But when men pass the limits of divine forbearance, that restraint is removed. God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the sentence against transgression; but leaves the rejecters of His mercy to themselves, to reap that which they have sown. . . . The Spirit of God, persistently resisted, is at last withdrawn from the sinner, and there is left no power to control the evil passions of the soul, and no protection from the malice and enmity of Satan. The destruction of Jerusalem is a fearful and solemn warning to all who are trifling with the oders of divine grace and resisting the pleadings of divine mercy. Never was there given a more decisive testimony to God's hatred of sin and to the certain punishment that will fall upon the guilty. (GC36)

What shall we make of these examples? Evidently not all that is attributed to God is God's

work. Often when the prophets say, “God is going to do this . . .,” they simply mean, “This is

what is going to happen . . .” In their minds it is the same thing because if the omnipotent

God does not prevent a particular event then He is responsible for that event.

But what about instances like the flood? Did God send the flood, or did He predict the

flood to Noah? How shall we decide if the Bible does not tell us? Shall we say that we only accept that God was allowing or predicting the event when we can prove it and that in all other instances God was actively causing the punishment? This is the option some have chosen. But is that the truth about the matter? The question really boils down to: “What is God like?”

Does God cause evil? Has sin so adected God that He will change the way in which He

relates to the created universe? Will He now use means that He would not have used prior to the origin of sin in the universe. God is not under pressure to use the means of sin. He is right in every way. So, it seems that if we are to follow the revelation that Jesus gave us, that God will never cause any evil.

Does God permit evil? Could God prevent all, much of, some of the evil on the planet? To

answer these questions, we need to consider what we mean by freedom. Freedom and

control are opposites. When I give you freedom I lose control over you. If we are free, then God cannot control us or prevent the consequences of sin on the planet. He can work to counteract many of these consequences, but He is also forced to accept many of them to preserve or guarantee the freedom He gave us.There are situations, illustrated by the story of Job, where what happens is not the result of natural consequence but the machinations of the devil. In this instance God can exercise

some control over the situation. These concepts are discussed further in the chapter

“‘Who Done It?’ By Job.”

In our search for understanding, there is one source that we can go to with the greatest

confidence: the witness of Jesus Christ. The four gospels should be our starting point if we wish to know what God is really like. Here we have an account of Jesus Christ who is more intimately familiar with the invisible God than anyone else (John 1:18; Colossians 1:15; 1 Timothy 1:17; 6:16; 1 John 4:12). He came to earth with the express purpose of revealing what God is like:

John 3:34 (NIV) For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God

gives the Spirit without limit.

He is referred to as the “Word” (John 1:1). He is the express image of God according to

more than one New Testament writer (John 3:32; Hebrews 1:3). In the end we shall have to

admit that all our questions are answered by Him, who is “the truth” (John 14:6). Our most

pressing problem may yet turn out to be that we simply do not believe what Jesus came to tell us about God, and this would explain Jesus’ statement in John 6:29:

The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.

Finally, we recognize that for the last 500 years we have blamed God for the death of his

Son. The Penal-Substitution model of the Atonement postulates that God had to kill his son before he could legally forgive us of our sins. In this way we literally fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah.

Isaiah 53:4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.

It is over time to take responsibility for our wickedness which did not spare the most

innocent and compassionate man who ever walked our roads.

Finally, to be a blameless person like Job, Noah, and the saved in the book of Revelation

(14:5) may mean that we have stopped blaming others for what happens in our lives. We

have decided to take responsibility for ourselves, and we no longer need to blame God, the devil or anyone else. This reminds me of someone bigger and better than us who came and died rather than blame anyone else for the mess on the planet. Instead of blaming us, He forgave us. Forgave us in our ignorance and wickedness. Now that is blamelessness at its best.

Ian Hartley, August 2025.