Here’s a challenge I received from an atheist on Twitter:
Is a God who endorses slavery worth following and truly moral?
How would you respond to someone who said this to you? I think you could come at this from different directions. You could respond to the slavery part, or challenge him on the concept of something being “truly moral,” or do both. Tell us what you would say in the comments below. Then come back here on Thursday to hear how Brett would answer this challenge.
[View Brett's video response. Explore past challenges here and here.]
Slavery of the bible is nothing like American slavery. It had a time limit, then slave is released with funding. The matter was not to cause injury to servant,and if injury occurred of any nature slave must released with funding. Master is to treat slave as family. It was more of indentured servant. Found in liviticus
Posted by: bruce Winans | June 16, 2015 at 04:32 AM
bruce is correct. If compared to the Hammurabic Code that governed Sumerian society, a slave's life was miserable with little recourse to justice. The Biblical code was the basis of indentured servitude, a short time of employment, all needs supplied, until a time of acquiring land and becoming a freed person. Slavery is a human construct. God involves Himself in the world at the terms the human construct offers, and supplements improvements to the oppressive system developed by the individual societies. He does not condone oppression, but ameliorates the harshness of servitude to grant the servant special treatment, a dealing with the worker fairly.
The status of the serf in the feudal system is similar. With no real economic apparatus to sustain a life of self-improvement, the serf was given land and a means of supporting family in exchange for the fief (rent) and a pledge of loyalty. The lord protects the serf in the system. In all abuses and oppression that could be created, it would be in the style of oppression that God opposes. This is the weakness of the challenge. God does not condone slavery, but can forge the servile state as opportunities for needed service. Only Jesus took up the basin and the towel on the night He was betrayed (Jn 13: 5ff).
On the flip-side: Marriage can be argued as a divine construct (Gen 2: 18ff). Under the concepts of human adjustments to this divine construct, marriage has been cheapened. The concept of one man and one woman in a life-long commitment is ridiculed as outmoded, when in reality, it is the only valid one and all other claims are delusional human constructs. Who condones this cheapening, as is such cheapening an immoral act? Divorce is accepted not for its integrity, but due to the hardness of human hearts (Mt. 19:8). The moral tone is set by God, but man seems to limit its impact.
Such is the underpinning of all claims of human morality. But unless you can surpass the righteousness of the Pharisaical and sanctimonious, you will by no means enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Posted by: DGFischer | June 16, 2015 at 06:27 AM
Leviticus 25:44-46
English Standard Version (ESV)
44 As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. 45 You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. 46 You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly.
Posted by: RonH | June 16, 2015 at 07:56 AM
Depends on what you mean by slavery. If you mean that the enslaved is property in perpetuity, lacking rights or opportunity to improve his position, subject to beatings at the whim if his master... nope.
If however, when you speak of slavery, you refer to an individual who has mad poor choices or encountered tough circumstances in the past that left him so indebted to an other individual that he could never manage to repay the debt in his lifetime, so he willingly indentures himself to another, retaining his identity, so he can work off his debt over the course of a set timeframe, expect to be cared for like a family member, and at the end of his indentureship return to his old life, probably with new skills and enugh money to make a new start... yup. That sounds like a hard, but perfectly moral, way to settle a debt.
I'd much rather follow the One who came up with that system, than those who invented debtor's prison. Where one can rot away while his family scrimps and struggles to both pay off the debt and feed themselves.
Posted by: Tobias | June 16, 2015 at 08:03 AM
What makes you think slavery is immoral? Most human societies throughout history have had slavery. In many cultures it was considered an economically viable way to deal with personal debt and preferable to the degradations of debtors prisons. It was the expected treatment of people conquered in battle. Human lives had value considering the work they could perform. Both Rome and Greece were built on the institution of slavery. Even some of the highest skilled workers (like doctors and architects) were contracted not as employees to employers, but as slaves owned by masters.
We only consider slavery immoral because of the Biblical idea, restated in the Declaration of Independence, that ALL humans are CREATED equal. Even in the laws God included in the Bible regulating the ubiquitous institution of slavery, the humanity of the slave was still recognized. That's why all slaves, except for POWs, had limited terms of service.
Evolution doesn't lead you to that conclusion. Evolution tells us that all organisms are inherently un-equal. Some are "more fit" and will (should) survive to pass on their genes to the next generation. Some are "less fit" (and shouldn't). There was a whole field of science implementing these ideas from Darwin's book on the Preservation of the Favored Races and his followup best-seller The Descent of Man. We called the field "Eugenics" and it was the scientific "consensus" of the early 1900s.
Sure, that short Austrian guy with the funny mustache who ruled Germany in the 1930s made the whole field of eugenics unpopular. We realized the eugenics was simply scientific racism. Even then, the Jim Crow laws that had been passed, in part, as eugenic policies since blacks had been deemed less evolved, less fit humans, persisted for decades after the Nazis showed us just how evil scientific racism really was.
And the eugenicists haven't gone away. They just don't use the term so people don't recognize them. When people like those at Planned Parenthood (an organization founded by the eugenicist Mary Sanger) advocate the extermination of Down's Syndrome children via abortion, that's eugenics showing up. When Peter Singer, the professor of ethics at Harvard teaches that parents should have 18 months after a baby is born to decide if they want to keep it, since it isn't a "person" yet, that's eugenics. People manufacturing humans (cloning) to harvest stem cells for research is eugenic slavery. When the "death with dignity" people advocate the doctors should have the power to kill patients, you see eugenics rearing its head. They view humans not as beings with rights, but as organisms whose value and worth is tied to amorphous traits like "personhood", "sentience", or "quality of life".
So don't give me the "Your God (who gave us the moral categories to judge slavery wrong in the first place) is immoral because there are rules in the Bible about slavery" line when your not-god renders the whole idea of Humans as beings with rights moot.
Posted by: liljenborg | June 16, 2015 at 08:11 AM
Yes, the Bible endorses indentured servitude - working off a debt.
It also endorses good old-fashioned slavery - the 'ruthless' thing you are not to do to a fellow Hebrew.
Posted by: RonH | June 16, 2015 at 08:32 AM
First question
"Can you tell me your definition of slavery?"
Second Question "Can you tell me what you mean by 'moral'?"
The conversation would have to flow from the answers and then, I would point out what the Bible actually says about slavery.
Posted by: Robby Hall | June 16, 2015 at 09:03 AM
Ron,
You rightly point out that there were different kinds of slavery (or different ways of obtaining slaves) in the Bible. I think in addition to the two you mention that one could also obtain slaves from war, but I don't recall where this is discussed off the top of my head.
Let's say there were three kinds of slaves in the Bible:
1. Slaves of indentured servitude.
2. Foreign slaves bought from foreigners.
3. Foreign slaves captured through war.
In the case of 2 and 3 these would have been permanent slaves. But does the Bible permit the Israelites to treat them "ruthlessly" (physically and verbally abusive)?
I don't see that it does. For instance the Bible says “When a man strikes the eye of his slave, male or female, and destroys it, he shall let the slave go free because of his eye. If he knocks out the tooth of his slave, male or female, he shall let the slave go free because of his tooth” (Exodus 21:26–27). There is no indication in these verses or the immediate context that suggest this law only applies to Israelite slaves. And from the broader context there is good reason to believe this law applies to foreign slaves:
Exodus 23:9 ““You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.”
Deuteronomy 10:19 “Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.”
The word "sojourner" doesn't just mean someone traveling through the land. It means foreigner, stranger, alien. Furthermore, the context suggests that it applies to more than simply foreigner passing through because it links the foreigner's "sojourning" with the Israelites "sojourning" and the Israelites were not just passing through Egypt but were slaves in Egypt.
No doubt this will not fully satisfy some atheists and many Christians will even find that to not be "nice" enough. Any form of permanent slavery may be seen as ruthless and unethical.
In my opinion, there is not much to assuage their fears. Perhaps one could say that the Bible has a trajectory which points away from slavery, but that hermeneutic is highly dubious in my opinion. Homosexual activists use the same trajectory hermeneutic. And I don't think that hermeneutic is dubious just because homosexual advocates employ it. The argument for it just doesn't seem very strong.
The Bible doesn't share modern western moral sentiments. To atheists who don't believe in objective morality that's not problematic per se.
Posted by: Coca-Cola | June 16, 2015 at 09:13 AM
Coca-Cola
I repeat adding some formatting to make this easier for you to read.Posted by: RonH | June 16, 2015 at 09:32 AM
Well, it's Colombo on this one. I think I know where they are coming from, but I don't think they do. So I'd start by asking why they think God endorses slavery and go from there. I'd ask what they mean by slavery and why they think that's what the Bible means when it's translated "slavery". I'd ask if God truly exists and endorses slavery, why we shouldn't still follow him? What other options do we have? If we get to choose who God is, why don't we make up a "better" god?
It all begs the question of God's reality and our desire regarding him. Maybe our cultural influences color how it is we that we view what the Bible actually says. If anything, this line of reasoning will help them question their presuppositions and open them to the possibility of a new (perhaps biblical) set of presuppositions.
Posted by: Jim Pemberton | June 16, 2015 at 09:33 AM
Coca Cola,
Why do you think this extends to you to 'property' you 'inherit as a possession forever?Exodus 21 English Standard Version (ESV)
20 “When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged.
21 But if the slave survives a day or two [!!!], he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money.
Posted by: RonH | June 16, 2015 at 09:56 AM
The New Testament condemns chattle slavery (cf. 1 Tim. 1:10). End of argument.
Whenever the NT speaks of slavery, it speaks of indentured servitude. In the OT, God didn't endorse slavery, He allowed it, much like God didn't endorse polygamy, but He allowed sinful people to do it for a time.
God doesn't have to answer to me or to you. He's God. Let's never forget that. People are so arrogant thinking that God owes us something. He owes us nothing. We owe Him everything. Stop shaking your fist at your Maker and repent. Enough is enough.
Posted by: John McN | June 16, 2015 at 10:05 AM
Of course the normal questions of "what do you mean by that?", or "how did you come to that conclusion?"'come to mind. But I might press the moral view point of the person asking the question.
As a Christian, not only do I believe morals are grounded in God I also believe that the God those morals come from, is a perfect, righteous, holy, just God. So all things that God does or condones are done in those attributes. So when God has Abraham offer up his son, Abraham trusts God, even though the situation sounds crazy. To be clear I don't think that God condones the type of slavery that this person is talking about, I'm just saying that if He did, His codoning would come from a place that was righteous, perfect, holy, and just. And if that's the case, I have to know what God is doing, is grounded in that.
Now that my grounding for morals is clearly God, I would ask the person where their morals are grounded, that as an atheist, there is no way that they can say slavery is wrong to begin with. It may be their opinion, but there is no objective moral standard for them to base that statement. Why is slavery wrong?
Posted by: Mark G | June 16, 2015 at 12:30 PM
Ron,
Because just as a person could pass their property down to their children, they could pass their slaves down to their children as well. The fact that slaves had some parallels to "property" does not mean they were not recognized as persons having certain rights. Slaves were recognized as being human beings that should be treated with dignity and respect like other people:
Job 31:13–15 ““If I have rejected the cause of my manservant or my maidservant, when they brought a complaint against me, what then shall I do when God rises up? When he makes inquiry, what shall I answer him? Did not he who made me in the womb make him? And did not one fashion us in the womb?”
Of course a slave has forfeited or lost some of his freedom.
Read the previous section and you'll see what the verse is talking about:
Exodus 21:18–19 ““When men quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone or with his fist and the man does not die but takes to his bed, then if the man rises again and walks outdoors with his staff, he who struck him shall be clear; only he shall pay for the loss of his time, and shall have him thoroughly healed.”
The point of Exodus 21:21 is that it makes no sense for the slave owner to pay the slave the money he would have lost from working, since the slave wasn't making money the way the man was in the previous case-law; rather, the slave is the man's slave-owners money in the sense that the slave-owner has merely injured his slave at cost to himself!
Posted by: Coca-Cola | June 16, 2015 at 12:50 PM
John makes a point that shouldn't be overlooked.
Laws don't necessarily advocate for anything and in no case do they try to establish an ideal. They often just circumscribe behavior. For instance we have laws circumscribe lying (perjury) but the government doesn't thereby endorse other instances of lying.
Posted by: Coca-Cola | June 16, 2015 at 01:00 PM
Coca-Cola,
You keep binning everyone referred to as 'slave' together.
A 'possession forever' is not an indentured servant.
Posted by: RonH | June 16, 2015 at 01:07 PM
Ron,
Since I never said "slave = indentured servant" (in fact I laid out three different types of slaves) I fail to see the problem (aside from your assumption that by "slave" I mean indentured servant).
Posted by: Coca-Cola | June 16, 2015 at 01:19 PM
Earlier I said "The Bible doesn't share modern western moral sentiments." A story just occurred to me: last year a Korean friend told me about how until very recently physical punishment was accepted and expected in school. He was goofing off in class once when the teacher called him to the front and kicked him in the chest. He mentioned that this is much more rare today, but wasn't unusual 20 years ago.
It's an example of how we approach the Bible with certain moral sentiments that the Bible itself may not necessarily share and which another culture may not necessarily share either. Some people in our culture are outraged that the Bible would suggest not "sparing the rod" from your child. Others in a different culture think "Of course!"
This doesn't mean our moral intuitions are useless, but it does mean they aren't infallible. We need to leave room for humility and correction. And this doesn't mean we shouldn't think slavery is wrong. Rather, we should recognize that a part of the solution to the problem of difficult ethical texts in Scripture is not just a careful look at the social context of the laws and a careful parsing out of what the laws do and do not endorse, but a recognition of the baggage we may be bringing to Scripture as well.
Posted by: Coca-Cola | June 16, 2015 at 01:44 PM
46 You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. - See more at: http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2015/06/challenge-your-god-isnt-moral.html#comments
Posted by: RonH | June 16, 2015 at 03:57 PM
Unfortunately for the Critic:
1) God simultaneously hates divorce and regulates actual divorces within Moses.
2) Moral Excellence - according to the OT and the NT - is to come - or is to be transposed into reality - or is to be imbued into Man - by a very different *Means* than Moses and in fact Moses is that which God designs to function in its own abdication.
There's more.
But that will do for now.
Because logic is enough.
#1 & #2 force the Critic - by force of logic - to embrace Scripture's meta-narrative - and to conclude that there is no (logical) possibility of equating [regulating X] with [condoning X] without the express affirmation of said meta-narrative on said X.
Most Critics only want to argue against Non-Christian truth predicates, as witnessed in this thread, as that is far easier than dealing with the truth predicates of Scripture's meta-narrative on their own terms.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 16, 2015 at 04:41 PM
"The Bible doesn't share modern western moral sentiments."
But it does endorse slavery.
Posted by: RonH | June 16, 2015 at 04:57 PM
A possession forever.
Unless he so much as looses a tooth.
In other words:
A slave in Israel's neighboring Nation in which people burn *their own* children alive is purchased by an Israelite.
And inherits what?
Absolute safety. For life. By force of Law. Or, if said tooth arises, he inherits freedom in a world void of banks and void of prisons.
But even the tooth thing is still Moses - and is thus - by force of logic - void of the Critic's absurd "regulate equals condone".
The meta-narrative yet looms large and logic takes us there as it defines all ontological start/stop points.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 16, 2015 at 05:00 PM
"God hates divorce and God condones divorce. Because the Bible."
That's the Critic's high-school.... make that grade-school capacity for analyzing more than a few verses at once.
It's the "at once" thing that seems to trip him up.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 16, 2015 at 05:12 PM
scbrownlhrm,
Excellent observation. Bruce Waltke and Charles You point out that "Jesus says God adapted his law according to the moral capacity of the Old Testament saint (Matt. 19:8; Mark 10:5)" (An Old Testament Theology, p. 818 n. 30).
Ron,
Where does the Bible endorse slavery? Laws which circumscribe behavior do not approve of that behavior per se. Some laws protect institutions because the state believes those institutions are beneficial to society. However, some laws merely permit institutions or activities.
Posted by: Coca-Cola | June 16, 2015 at 05:14 PM
The Critic cannot take the Tooth seriously because he has no intimate understanding (at all) of the Israelite *mindset* vis-a-vis Law and God. He can only think of America's South. He brings his own cultural baggage - full stop.
Grade school analysis.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 16, 2015 at 05:25 PM
Often, this question is a trap. Not necessarily an intentional trap, but a trap nonetheless.
The logic chain is usually "God is immoral for allowing slavery" <- "slavery is immoral" <- "I think slavery is immoral". The trap is that by debating any of the later steps in the chain implicitly validates "I think" as a basis for morality.
Therefore, the appropriate response is usually to verify the implicit claim "I think slavery is immoral" and then gently suggest that a precondition to responding to their claim is that they explain why God should be answerable to what they think. God willing, this leads to a discussion of the essence of human rebellion.
There is a related question that requires a different answer. "Given that God has moral authority, why would he condone slavery?". This is an interesting and perhaps difficult question, but it corrects the moral inversion that is fundamental to the original accusation.
(Incidentally, one could replace slavery with just about any other topic and the same would apply)
Posted by: Andrew W | June 16, 2015 at 07:00 PM
Where does the Bible endorse slavery?
....and they may be your property, Coca Cola.
Posted by: RonH | June 16, 2015 at 07:18 PM
I already pointed out the distinction between permission and approval. If endorsement is understood to be approval (and it is) then simply citing a law which says "You may do x" is not in itself sufficient to show approval.
Posted by: Coca-Cola | June 16, 2015 at 08:55 PM
The facts surrounding Scripture's definitions of Moses (on the one hand) and God's transposition of Moral Excellence into reality (on the other hand) push Scripture's meta-narrative upon us and forces the Critic to conclude that there is no (logical) possibility of equating [Regulating X] with [Condoning X] without first obtaining the express affirmation of said meta-narrative on said X. Hence CC's "If endorsement is understood to be approval (and it is) then simply citing a law which says "You may do x" is not in itself sufficient to show approval".
Justification of any definition requires that both the necessary and sufficient be satisfied. Such carries us beyond the unthinking - and into the meta-narrative of Scripture's A-Z.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 17, 2015 at 01:42 AM
A large part of dialogue with Critics is to get the Critic to dialogue about Christianity's actual truth predicates rather than about the Critic's own pet straw-men comprised solely of Non-Christian truth predicates.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 17, 2015 at 01:55 AM
Coca-Cola,
You stated that the Trajectory Hermeneutic is not a sound approach.
I agree, for the following reasons:
It seems that if we follow that out, then really it comes down to God employing Laws to accomplish the step-by-step change of Man such that the Moral Excellence we speak of is, vis-à-vis Law, transposed into reality, or imbued into Mankind, step by step - Law by Law....by Law... by Law.
But nothing can be further from the truth of Scripture's Meta-Narrative.
Take indentured servitude for example:
While absolute physical safety and/or freedom in a world void of banks and prisons is what every slave in Israel's neighboring Nations (who burned their own children alive.... no telling what they did to slaves) surely prayed for on multiple levels, and were indeed thankful for upon reception into the Israelite's world of the force of law, that is not a justification for the Trajectory approach in that the Trajectory thing embraces all the same mistakes of the Regulating/Condoning nonsense as it affirms Law as God's means to addressing the hell that is Man in his (Man's) Privation.
Rather:
The necessary and sufficient Means and Ends of Moral Excellence - and thus of all definitions - must not be, indeed cannot be, something ontologically less than Moral Excellence Himself.
Metaphysically speaking nothing else makes any ultimate sense when one tracks it out.
And, in Christ, we find the express satisfaction and convergence of all such vectors as Logos is transposed into the created order vis-à-vis God doing away with the Lesser, Old, Ministry of Death which fails – by design – to allow Man to enter into His Rest, which turns – by design – Man's eyes away from Self (Man) and towards Other (God). In a new creation God is found writing His Nature upon Man's Nature – as per the unpacking found in the book of Hebrews - as love's landscape of Trinity, that is to say, as love’s landscape of Self/Other in ceaseless reciprocity amid love's singular Us finds Man-In-God and God-In-Man actualizing within Time and Physicality. The peculiar semantics of incarnation emerge. Therein God intones His relentless love for Man such that Man's hell is, first, filled with His Company, and, subsequently, quenched, and Man – thereby – joyfully finds his final felicity.
Christian truth predicates vis-à-vis Scripture's Meta-Narrative house the narrative of Man within Reality. Law is, therein, but a passing semantic in the midst of Man's hell that just is Man's Privation – which by its isolated nature ipso facto excludes the very possibility of The-Whole. It is necessarily the case that The-Whole, that the God Who is love, outdistances all “parts” and defines all “lines”. Anything else just isn’t Christianity.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 17, 2015 at 03:56 AM
No one here has once again mentioned that making this statement once again implies that slavery is objectively morally wrong. If slavery is objectively wrong, then objective moral values exist. Where did they come from? In order to make his argument, the atheist here had to steal from our worldview. The whole arguments collapses in on itself.
Posted by: JBerry | June 17, 2015 at 04:45 AM
What surprises me to this point is that in all the jibber-jabber about verses in Leviticus 25, no mention has been made about the Year of Jubilee, where all debts were abolished and states of servitude were terminated. This was the status of slavery that God con condone, the temporary state.
This returns to the idea of the human construct and the divine construct. Slavery is purely a human origin, the use of men by men to accomplish tasks. The only matter that would make this state immoral would be the levels of coercion and oppression to motivate slave in service of master. In the classic abolitionist novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, the title character endures all levels of servitude, from the concept of the feeling of family structure working to keep up the plantation (problem: slaves need to be sold to do this) to the monstrous Simon Legree (problem: motivates by cruelty). This novel teaches that all states of servitude are flawed and the general trend is dehumanization of the server.
The Bible teaches that there will be always a concept of slave-master//employer/employee in daily living. The divine construct intrudes on the human and seeks a better solution. The radical notion contained in the book of Philemon is not that slavery must end, but that the slave is a brother, and this means one to be treated not just better, but preferentially.
One last note: the strength of the challenge is built upon a foundation of a Hollywood-style rendition of slavery, with men groaning at the oars, whips employed during tasks of horrific difficulty, and bodies discarded when no longer useful. If we see past this filter, we should try to take in slavery in its historical context, as a social feature which involved social acceptance of a practice that could easily have been abused as well as an ordinary part of life.
Historically speaking, we all have connections with servitude. Mine served the Romans (whenever we crazed Teutonic-types were not in revolt)and paid homage to the tsars.
Posted by: DGFischer | June 17, 2015 at 05:31 AM
Coca Cola,
Endorse: To support, to back, to give one's approval to, especially officially or by signature.
Leviticus 25:44-46 English Standard Version (ESV)
Posted by: RonH | June 17, 2015 at 05:43 AM
RonH,
Giving yet another.... and another... definition which fails to cohere with Christianity's truth predicates doesn't "magically" change Christianity's truth predicates.
You should try discussing Christianity sometime. Instead of your Non-Christian invention.
It doesn't hurt.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 17, 2015 at 05:57 AM
RonH,
We can only take you at your word and conclude that you assume God likes, morally approves of, divorce, "-Cause Moses", and this despite Scripture's wider narrative which shows God hating such fragmentation of relationship even while regulating actual divorce motions within such actual fragmentation of relationship. The ontological necessities there are quite problematic for your premises, even more so given the relational contours one unavoidably encounters within the Triune landscape of The-Whole, of Reality.
Again, you should try talking about Scripture's definitions sometime rather than your own (baggage laden) inventions.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 17, 2015 at 06:42 AM
JBerry,
You make an important point about actual moral facts and the Critic's claims.
But today's caliber of Critic cares neither for logical coherence in their own argument nor for tackling the actual (real) truth predicates of Christianity’s paradigm housed quite plainly in Scripture's meta-narrative.
They seem to pretend that eliminative mechanisms can free their end of any need for (real) final lucidity. In the same way they seem to pretend that arguing against Non-Christian truth predicates (God morally approves of divorce "-Cause Moses") can grant their end some degree of "lucidity". It's a rather bizarre dance going on over there on their end.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 17, 2015 at 07:47 AM
What makes slavery inherently immoral? The bible seems pretty clear that considering a slave nothing more than property is inherently immoral. You could make the argument that every person in prison is essentially what the bible would have called a slave, except that for individual private owners, they are kept by and labor for the State. This was one of the forms of slavery acceptable by Old Testament law. They didn't do prisons. They didn't have a "GITMO" to house prisoners of war.
But in the Christian cultures of Europe and America, slavery largely vanished. Even in the middle ages, serfs were not slaves. Where did the Christianized cultures come up with the idea that owning other human beings was immoral when NO OTHER civilization in the history of humanity had? (Including the Greek, Roman, Celtic, and Germanic cultures from which Europe springs.)
Slavery returned in the Enlightenment era when European colonists learned the exploitable economic value of forced labor from their Muslim and pagan African neighbors they began trading with as they expanded their trading networks into Africa. Even then, and though it took some long fought political, and military, battles, slavery was again outlawed in countries with Christian cultural backgrounds. Slavery is still practiced today in many places around the world.
So why is it considered immoral enough that people like RonH can try and beat God over the head with a passage or two from Leviticus that reveals that Israel (just like every other human civilization) practiced slavery?
We consider slavery immoral because the Law of Moses, including the passages RonH even quotes, reveals that God doesn't like slavery. God does not like humans considering other humans as nothing more than property whose value comes only from the economic contribution of their labor. The Israelites were not allowed to treat each other that way, and instructs them that they aren't really supposed to treat foreigners that way, either. The New Testament reveals that we are not supposed to treat any human that way.
Even though the Bible, even in the New Testament, never declares slavery, in and of itself, a sin, as Christianity became the dominant cultural force in post-Roman Europe, slavery vanished.
Humans still struggle against the tendency to use other people. Serfs had certain rights, but they were often little more than slaves. In nineteenth century America many apologists for slavery argued, correctly, that immigrant factory workers in the Northern States were treated worse than most Southern slave owners treated their slaves. Even today, how many of the products we buy with "made in China" labels are made by forced labor, but we buy them at WalMart because they are so inexpensive? In the U.S., how much of the fruit that we buy was harvested by illegal immigrants working off their debts to the coyotes who smuggled them into the country? How much of the chocolate in your candy bar was harvested by slave laborers? (And do we even need to get into how many people involved in prostitution and pornography are slaves? Check out the documentary now up on Netflix Hot Girls Wanted.)
Yes, slavery is immoral. But I know this because the Law (and the God who gave us the Law) teaches us to view other humans beings as Human Beings. No other civilization, no other religion, no other philosophy (including "enlightened" atheism) has ever come to that conclusion. Only those cultures informed by the God this challenge accuses of being immoral because He supposedly "endorsed" slavery consider slavery immoral.
Posted by: liljenborg | June 17, 2015 at 08:37 AM
Ron,
At this point you're just spinning your tires. You either need to mount an argument or the dialogue has clearly dissolved.
Merely quoting Leviticus won't settle the issue of whether the God's endorses (approves of) slavery or merely permits it. Since it's clearly true that God may logically permit and regulate something God does not (morally) approve/endorse, you need to do more than cite laws that regulate slavery.
Posted by: Coca-Cola | June 17, 2015 at 08:57 AM
Please drop the spinning tires stuff. Substance, okay?
We can probably agree on part of this.
Permission and regulation entail approval - at least at the level the permit or regulation allows.
I never said God (the character in the book) approved of slavery the way he approves of the smell of barbecue. If he did, he'd probably say so.
Neither endorsement nor approval always to mean "these are some of my favorite things".
Why would I?
Here are some of the 'regulations' you speak of.
You can kill them (if it takes long enough).
You can own them (forever).
These things were permitted.
The regulations allowed them.
That's the level of endorsement.
This part you won't agree with...
Look, this is EASY to understand.
This stuff was written by men.
Maybe these men either owned slaves themselves.
Maybe they were merely somehow beholden to others who owned slaves.
Either way they weren't going to write that you had to free your slaves.
In fact they wanted to be clear that they weren't calling for all slaves to be free.
This is indication that there WERE people around calling for exactly that.
Posted by: RonH | June 17, 2015 at 03:06 PM
RonH,
So Go morally approves of fragmented relationship. Divorce. Cause Moses.
Got it.
And btw, you can't kill them.
The context can be provided if you'd like.
It's a common strawman.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 17, 2015 at 03:21 PM
RonH,
We know you're talking about barbecue smells.
We get that.
But Scripture is talking about moral hatred for all the things you misquidedly base on "-Cause Moses".
So, again, perhaps you'd like to tackle Scripture's actual definitions one of these days.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 17, 2015 at 03:26 PM
Typo:
RonH,
So [Go] God morally approves of fragmented relationship. Divorce.
Cause Moses.
Got it.....
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 17, 2015 at 03:28 PM
RonH,
You point out "not one of my favorite things" as the relation God's posture takes here in relation to these X's.
As if Scripture defines God as in some gray zone on this or that part of Man's privation, Man's sins.
It's unclear where you would get such an odd idea about Scripture's God given that Scripture is clear about the love/hate line in all such lines.
Scripture is clear here. God *hates* the X's yet leaves Man to them within the wider border of Moses and Scripture is also clear in the how's and why's in all such terms housing coherence in Scripture's thematic meta-narrative on Means and Ends.
There is no "not one of my favorite things" posture.
Not even close.
That such isn't clear to you is revealing about your level of analysis .
This odd comment of yours on the nature of God's posture towards all these items in your list as something *other* than either (love or) hate added to your other "-Cause Moses" oddity makes one wonder if you've ever actually read Scripture or of Christianity.
This is merely an observation of two obvious mistakes that you've made now in your attempt to argue against Scripture's definitions.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 17, 2015 at 04:06 PM
Ron,
Pointing out that you were spinning your tires was precisely so that you would give us a more substantive response.
In other words, you acknowledge that there are senses in which God does not approve of or endorse slavery. But you want to say there are senses (within the range of permission) in which God does. That means there is an ambiguity.Great, the very fact that there is such ambiguity is why Christians are insisting on the permission/endorse distinction. We're trying to clear up something that it seems like some atheists would like to keep fuzzy because of its rhetorical (rather than logical) force. The word endorse or approve often mean often mean to believe that something is good (COED). This is what atheists usually mean when they say God approves of slavery. And this is why Christians are introducing the permissions distinction: to show how the atheist claim is unwarranted given the biblical data.
You're deriving that from a misreading of Exodus 21:20-21. As I already pointed out, the context (verses 18-19) show the sense in which vs. 21 is to be understood. The slave-owner could only kill the slave at the cost of his own life. Perhaps you're also misreading the verse because of the awkward wording of the ESV at this point. The Hebrew word translated "survives" is really just "take one's stand" or "stands up" and this is why, for instance, the NIV reads "recovers" -in other words, literally, "if the slave takes his stand after a day or two..." or "if the slave gets up after a day or two..."
That's not the level at which God thinks slavery is good (the common sense of "approves/endorses") that's the level at which God will permit slavery.
You're right, I don't agree with those other things you say and you've provided no reason for why anyone else should agree with them either. But your conclusion here is a non-sequitur. That the law regulates slavery does not entail that someone in that culture was calling for the release of all slaves.
Posted by: Coca-Cola | June 17, 2015 at 04:35 PM
"You're deriving that from a misreading of Exodus 21:20-21. As I already pointed out, the context (verses 18-19) show the sense in which vs. 21 is to be understood. The slave-owner could only kill the slave at the cost of his own life."
Accurately stated Coca-Cola.
"If so much as a tooth is lost... freedom" then ties up the other end. Jubilee may or may not mix it all up even more.
Of course, all such Laws are "insufficiency", in whatever form, per Scripture's definitions, and thus, though radical to Israel's neighboring nations, Moses still is not, indeed *cannot* be, the Means to the Ends of what is actually in play vis-a-vis God. According to Scripture's definitions.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 17, 2015 at 05:23 PM
"We're trying to clear up something that it seems like some atheists would like to keep fuzzy because of its rhetorical (rather than logical) force. The word endorse or approve often mean often mean to believe that something is good (COED). This is what atheists usually mean when they say God approves of slavery. And this is why Christians are introducing the permissions distinction: to show how the atheist claim is unwarranted given the biblical data."
Scripture clears this up for us.
It doesn't say "not really God's favorite thing".
And so on.
Not even close.
Rather, it says this: God Hates.....
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 17, 2015 at 05:28 PM
Exactly... How absurd would it be to say that if you knock out the slave's tooth you have to give him freedom but if you kill him you're a-okay.
Posted by: Coca-Cola | June 17, 2015 at 06:01 PM
JBerry: "No one here has once again mentioned that making this statement once again implies that slavery is objectively morally wrong. ..."
While your follow-up argument is legitimate, your introduction is somewhat unfair. liljenborg addresses this in his opening post. Robby Hall and Mark G play around it. Jim Pemberton approaches from a slightly different direction. I explicitly call out the meta-narrative. scbrownlhrm also refers to it.
"No-one" might sound good rhetorically, but it's also discourteous to the 6 of 31 posts prior to yours that at least allude to it.
Posted by: Andrew W | June 17, 2015 at 06:17 PM
How troubling for the Critic it must be that, from the opening pages of Scripture, we find the definition of Being in the lap of the triune landscape of ceaseless reciprocity within the immutable love of the Necessary Being. Indeed, all possible combinations and permutations of Being are subsumed by three inescapable vertices. In and by those three objective facts we find the objectively real – the true – in all that is found within the trio comprised of all that is the Self seamlessly amid all that is the Other seamlessly amid all that is the singular Us. All possible moral semantics emerge, that is to say, unless one pushes “I-Exist”, which just is Being’s Identity, to the purely subjective, that objective ontological archetype subsumes every statement we will ever make on two critical fronts: that of Being or what some refer to as, not being “this” or “that” but rather “to be at all”, and, secondly, that of all possible combinations and permutations of all moral contours. As C.S. Lewis reminds us, the human mind has never invented a single moral value – and we find this to be the case as logic’s lucidity unforgivingly carries us into those inescapable (three) vertices of Being. This objective and verifiable – and singularly triune – Archetype there in our undeniable Exemplar emerges pan-history, pan-world, in all moral codes, and objectively delineates – subsumes – justifies – all moral contours. “What purport to be new systems or ……ideologies…… all consist of fragments from the [whole] itself, arbitrarily wrenched from their context in the whole and then swollen to madness in their isolation, yet still owing to the [whole] and to it alone such validity as they possess……… the human mind has no more power of inventing a new value than of planting a new sun in the sky or a new primary color in the spectrum..” (Lewis) The Triune God, that great Exemplar of all that is objective Being, of all moral contours whatsoever, finds love's ceaseless reciprocity transposed in and by Logos into that which is the created order and Objective Morality finds - thereby - love's inescapable landscape as the categorical paradigm there at the end of all things.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | June 18, 2015 at 07:13 AM