Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Apologetics three fifteen podcast with
your hosts Brian Auten and Chad Gross. Join us for
conversations and interviews on the topics of apologetics, evangelism, and
the Christian worldview.
Speaker 2: What he means is Old Testament mister mayor real Wrap
of God type.
Speaker 3: Stoffick, Welcome to the Apologetics three p fifteen podcasts. This
is Chad Gross. I am flying solo today. Brian Auten
is off on a mission for me. He is at
the Public Library in New York looking for any spooks
or specters that have been reported. So welcome to today's conversation.
I am going to be joined by Christopher Clues of
the Christian Philosophy Academy, and recently he had a really
thoughtful debate with theologian Randall Rouser on those difficult Old
Testament violence texts as the called and this is one
of the most debated and difficult issues in Christian theology,
how to understand these violent commands that are attributed to
God in the Old Testament. In this conversation, we're going
to unpack rousers approach. We're going to look at doctor
Klues's response, and we're going to reflect on what went
well in the debate, what could have gone differently, and
why this topic matters deeply for anyone that's wrestling with scripture, morality,
and the character of God. So let's get ready. Switch
me on, doctor Klues. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm so glad you agreed to come on. I've
been following your stuff for quite some time. Featured your
five Powerful Arguments for the Existence of God's study guide
on truth Bomb and I have gotten so much out
of that and lately, well not lately, for quite some time,
I guess you've been diving deeply into the difficult Old
Testament passages, and I was just curious if you could
tell us a little bit about yourself and then tell
us what led you to those passages that you wanted
to divulge so much time into those.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Chad, again, thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, my background is really in philosophy, so I've got
my bachelor's degree in philosophy. Then I sort of went
out and worked in the regular world for a number
of years as a technical writer. Then I went back
got my master's in philosophy and then went on to
get my PhD from UC Santa Barbara. So my background
is in philosophy. But the thing that happened to me
when I went to UC Santa Barbara was that I
met a lot of theists who were rigorous philosophers but
at the same time applied that to their faith. And
in my mind, for a number of years they were
just almost two separate domains, Like I did secular philosophy
and then I did biblical studies, and so to see
them bring together the two into analytic theology was really inspiring.
So I got my graduated, I worked as a professor
for a time at cal Poly a little bit, and
then also you see Santa Barbara, and then eventually we
found out we were adopting, so that kind of changed
the priorities.
Speaker 4: And then I became a stay at.
Speaker 2: Home dad to two young boys, and so yeah, so
now I'm getting a little bit more freedom. Yeah, they're
growing up, and so now I'm able to get back
in and do this as my primary way of teaching.
Speaker 3: So these challenging Old Testament passages probably don't seem that
hard after you know, caring for two young boys all
that time.
Speaker 2: Right, and the extra little layer was right when we
moved to be near Grandma and Anti and raise our boys,
the pandemic hit.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 4: So I was raising.
Speaker 2: Two little boys who were very close in age, seventeen
months apart. During the pandemic, we we were just locked
in the house.
Speaker 3: You were quarantined. Wow. Yes, Yeah, So you have put
a significant amount of time into looking at these difficult
Old Testament passages, and we're talking a number of videos,
lengthy blog posts that are so helpful. I was just
curious what led you to decide that you really wanted
to zero in on that.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I was watching a video where Alex O'Connor was
interviewing William Lane Craig right.
Speaker 4: And I woke me from my dogmatic slumber.
Speaker 2: I heard some of the things Craig was saying, and
of course I have a ton of respect for him,
and sure I'm even reading and working on videos on
his new systematic philosophical theology. I just sort of was
stunned by how his view seemed to neglect the moral
intuitions that Alex O'Connor kept bringing to him. And that
was what got me thinking, wait a minute, there's there's
got to be a way of balancing both accounting for
the moral intuitions but at the same time not letting
that completely drive the steer the ship. And so that
kind of got me thinking. Then I just bought like
all the Biblical violence books or a large chunk of them,
and listen to the podcasts and the videos and just
kind of and then did scripture and just kind of
deep dove into it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well in case I forget, But at the end
of the podcast, I want to make sure that you
put out there where everybody can find your stuff, because
it is it is exhaustive, and I mean that in
a great way, super helpful. And you know what I
love about your videos. And this is going to sound
I hope this sounds like a compliment because I mean
it to be is. It's just you talking, and I
love that. It's just very straightforward, very clear, in depth,
and you make things accessible and so I can't I
can't recommend your stuff highly enough.
Speaker 4: Oh, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's at Christian Philosophy Academy dot com and on
the blog which you're you're referencing, Chad, there are a
number of articles that go, as you mentioned, very in
depth on some of the things we'll touch on today.
Speaker 3: Yes, So recently you had a debate with theologian Randall
Rouser on some of these difficult passages. And before we
get into I'm hoping to kind of hash out like
how his approach and your approach clash in a sense,
But just tell us a little bit about the debate.
For especially for I'm thinking of a listener who maybe
hasn't watched it yet. Kind of tell them what it
was about, and then maybe wet their appetite so they'll
go look it up and watch it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So the debate was around the proposition that the Bible
contains moral and theological errors due to the targeting of
noncombatants in these difficult Old Testament texts. So, as you
may be familiar, one of the important text is for
Samuel fifteen, and there we get the message.
Speaker 4: From the Lord.
Speaker 2: It says, this is what the Lord Almighty says, he's
going to punish the Amalekites. And then he goes on
to say, do not spare them. Put to death men
and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.
So the question becomes, obviously, it's we have the intuition
that it's just wrong to kill infants and women and children,
noncombatants in war and so on. So how could this
square number one with a perfect God who's morally perfect,
and then number two Jesus in particular, who tells us
to love our enemies and to turn the other cheek.
How how can we make sense of this if this
God in the Old Testament is really the same God
as the God in the New Testament.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's really helpful. And so I've followed Dr Rowser's
work for some time and he puts forth what's called
providential in errancy theory. Am i am I getting that
correct errantism?
Speaker 4: Yeah, providential errancy theory.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So it's it's like you can think of it like
God providentially allowed in errors errancy.
Speaker 3: Right, and those and those are for the purposes of teaching, right,
So God got So let me make sure I have
it correct. And I have listened to a lot of
your stuff. I've watched your debate with doctor Rowser a
couple of times, so hopefully I have this right at
this point. But so God providentially allows errors into the
text on the human author's part in order for pedagogical
or teaching purposes, correct, okay, okay.
Speaker 2: And just as a slight philosophical background, Yeah, I found this.
I found this surprising. So maybe this will be rising
for some of our your listeners. But in particular, Rouser
says that he embraces William Lang Craig's Mullinism, which is
a view called middle knowledge that God basically when he
was creating the world had all these what they call
counterfactuals of creaturely freedom, and that's basically what people would
do if they were in certain situations. So for Rauser,
God had regarding inspiration and the infallibility of the text.
God used his middle knowledge to sort of survey all
the situations, and he fore knew the human writers of
the Old Testament would project onto God things that aren't
actually of God. But in his wisdom, God chose to
allow that in to as you mentioned, for teaching purposes,
and to allow them to maybe even see what doesn't work.
And ultimately the goal of this is to sort of
drive everyone back to Christ. Okay, So that's his big,
big thing is it's very much a chrystocentric hermutic.
Speaker 3: Okay, So before we take a kind of zero in
more closely on kind of your struggles with his approach.
How does that contrast with how you address these passages?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, thank you for asking. And that was
one of the things, as you mentioned, And when we
were talking, it wasn't until the very end of the
debate that we actually got my view on the table.
And it was one of those things I was like, Oh,
this is my last comment. Do I come, you know,
reply to everything Rouser just said, or do I finally
just get it my view out there?
Speaker 3: No, I could tell. I could tell, like, I think
you even said something like, oh so I'm just like
kind of responding and then we're done.
Speaker 4: I was sort of shocked.
Speaker 3: I can tell.
Speaker 2: I could tell, yeah, because he he originally said we
had a fixed timeline. Yeah, but Jordan the host, who
did an excellent job hosting and summarizing the points, but
he originally said, we're gonna put Rouser's view out there,
You're going to raise some objections, then we're gonna put
your view out there. Then he's going to raise some
So it just the way it worked out, we didn't
even get to mine. So yeah, thank you for asking.
So where I start is The heart of what I
call covenant virtue ethics is what does the Bible say.
Speaker 4: About who God is?
Speaker 2: And in particular, an important passage is Exodus thirty four,
and this is when God passes before Moses before reaffirming
the Covenant, after the Israelites had worshiped and made and
worshiped the Golden Calf, and Moses pleads spare them. So
he's before he renews the Covenant, he says, look, this
is who I am. And so he says, I'm loving, merciful, gracious, patient, faithful,
and just. And so that last thing is really important
because he also talks about innergenerational justice, judgment, and punishment,
and so that Christian are covenant virtue ethics basically kind
of takes that as a non negotiable. This is who
God says he is in scripture in a context, it's
very relevant to the conquest, namely the Covenant. And so
from there we have God's virtues grounding morality, grounding what's
morally good and right. And what God does with these
virtues is he in a particular situation.
Speaker 4: There are things that call for various.
Speaker 2: Responses, and so his target in responding in a given
situation is always good and because it reflects his perfect
virtuous nature his targets. But what he does do as
well is he accommodates people where they're at. So he
will use a means or a mode that's familiar to them,
like amy warfare. That's what his people were doing and using,
so he will accommodate that, although he also tries to
improve as well. But that's sort of the big idea
is so given that we have to add for any
of these difficult passages God, what was God aiming to
do in this situation? What were the things he was
responding to, the reasons in play? And then how does
this field or this domain of covenant really shape his
response or reaction in this given situation. Yeah, yeah, and
just briefly when we see that when we when we
start there, then we see there really are no errors
in scripture. We don't have to posit errors because God
is responding faithfully to who He is in a difficult,
severe circumstance to bring about a good target, like to
fulfill his covenant promises. That's big reason why he took
the took the Israelites into the land of Canaan and
drove them out or actually exacting justice for longstanding unrepentant sin.
Speaker 4: And so that's another piece. But that's a good target
that reflects his justice.
Speaker 2: Faithfulness reflects him fulfilling his promises, being true to is
who he says he is.
Speaker 4: So that's kind of the big idea.
Speaker 3: Okay, yes, yeah, and it's very clear. Thank you for
laying those two views out. So going back to and
we'll revisit covenant virtue ethics as well, but going back
to doctor Rouser's view this providential air and see theory
if you will. One of the things you guys discussed,
I don't know if I want to say clash that
might be the right word over was moral intuition and
how moral intuition should inform how we interpret it these texts.
How do you view the role of moral intuition and
for example, biblical exegesis, especially concerning these morally challenging passages.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 2: I think intuition is a good starting point. If we
have the moral intuition that this seems wrong, that it
just seems wrong to command killing children and infants, then
that should, as Christians, give us pause and we should
say what is going on here and so, and we
should factor in our intuitions that should be part of
us wrestling with these texts like they have a certain weight.
At the same time, we need to contextualize things in
order to understand properly what's actually happening, and so we
can't simply And I think this is after having hashed
through a lot of rouser stuff. I think primarily he
takes the text at face value, almost in a I
don't want to say wood in literalistic sense, but that's
kind of what it is. He just says, Look, the
text says kill infants, so baby killing must have been
on the agenda.
Speaker 4: That must have been what God was commanding, kill all
the babies.
Speaker 2: And I want to say, whoa, whoa Are we understanding
this properly? And once you really dig into the context,
using even tools like hyperbole, merisms and so on, you
start to get a clear picture for what God, given
his goodness, was actually trying to achieve through a very difficult, difficult,
unrepeatable situation in order to advance his redemptive purposes. So
it all is pointing toward Christ ultimately, and so our
intuitions again just sort of get us going and our factors,
but they aren't the ultimate sort of trump card, if
you will.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I hope listeners are getting the appreciating what
I was talking about about how doctor clus is able
to take these challenging concepts and make them very accessible
and understandable. I think that was a great example of that.
I have a question that I was hesitating to ask you,
not because I think it'll be challenging, but because I'm
afraid I will sound foolish. But I'm going to go
ahead and throw it out there anyway. As I've listened
to doctor Rouser in the past, for example, I know
I'm not sure when it was, but I listened to
a discussion he had with doctor Copan on these difficult
passages as well, and I mentioned we've had doctor Copan
on the podcast to talk about these one of the things.
And I'm not quite sure how I want to articulate this,
but one of the things I struggle with with this
idea of the moral intuition is I agree with you
that it's a great starting point. I was listening to
one of your videos earlier today and I thought, wow,
that's a great way of putting it. It's like it
should be a great starting point, and if our moral
intuition says, uh, that doesn't seem right, then we shouldn't
ignore that. I thought that was really good. But at
the same time, I'm almost worried, and you might be
able to clear this up for me about like a
chicken and egg problem in the sense of should our
moral intuitions shape the way we interpret scripture or should
scripture shape our moral intuitions.
Speaker 4: Oh, that's a great question.
Speaker 3: Okay, So that doesn't sounds as foolish as I was
worried that it would. Is that what you're saying.
Speaker 2: No, I think so you're asking, like, look, we have
these intuitions, and should they have the capacity and ability
to change the way we interpret scripture or should scripture
you know, sort of change our intuitions.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, that's a great question. That's why you're the philosopher.
You put that much better than me.
Speaker 2: For me, I think what we do is we try
to create a match between our intuitions and principles, normative principles,
and try to align them. But we don't just stop there.
We also look at the bigger picture. So sometimes when
we look at the bigger picture, our intuitions might change.
We might say, oh, I thought that passage was saying this,
but it's not really saying this. So even though I'm
having the intuition this is morally wrong, that was sort
of based on a misunderstanding of the text or a
partial understanding of the text. And then I do think
other times we can have you know, we can have
our intuitions, and that can actually shape how we read scripture.
Speaker 4: So I think that I don't think it's like a.
Speaker 2: Dichotomy and there are two mutually exclusive alternatives. I think
it can be an important dance, and especially when you
factor in the context, which is sort of the background.
Speaker 3: So it could be you're saying that in a sense,
it's a both and it's not a neither or correct. Okay, okay,
because I guess my concern is, and if this is
going to off path, please let me know. My concern
would be is if my like, let's imagine like we're
our moral intuitions are are very much shaped by our
modern sensibilities, the environment we grew up in. All of
those things informed those right. I mean, God's written the
law in our heart, But at the same time, there's
factors that influence it as well. So my fear or
worry it would be that we would have a tendency
to almost if we're if moral intuitions are solely the
way that we or strongly the way that we interpret scripture,
it's almost like we're reading scripture into our own image
in a sense. So let me explain, like with an example.
So let's say that I have a very good friend
who is in a homosexual relationship, right, and I love
this person, care about them very much, and yet I
read in scripture that that is something that God forbids. Right, Well,
my moral intuition or or my gut, you know, it's
it's hard for me to adhere to that. So it's
almost like I try to interpret that text in a
way that makes me more comfortable, if that makes sense,
or maybe I'm not understanding moral tuition properly.
Speaker 2: Intuition properly, Okay, So tell me if I'm getting it
right or wrong. Yeah, you have a friend who's in
a homosexual relationship. You read scripture it says just kind
of reading off the surface, off the page, it seems
condemned or like it's a sin, right, and then what's
the intuition though.
Speaker 3: So I'm imagining that my intuition because of the way
it's been shaped. It's it's like my intuition would be, Oh,
I don't want that to be wrong. I don't. I
don't want that to be a sin ice, you see
what I'm saying, because of my personal connection to this person, right,
And so if I'm not if I'm not willing to
use proper exegesis and to understand that passage and the
contact it was written and to say, Okay, my moral
intuitions are my starting point, but scripture's got to be
the final authority. It could lead me into error, is
my concern.
Speaker 4: I see.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you're worried about you get in there. You
do the ex to Jesus, either partially or in a
biased way, and perhaps you're motivated to get a certain outcome.
And let's say you do the ex of Jesus and
you realize that on the surface it's saying that homosexual
relations are wrong, but as you go deeper, you realize
it's not. But maybe in fact you're getting it wrong right,
and you're just sort of making the text match your intuition, right,
Is that sort of the worry?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so I think that is
that is a legitimate worry. One thing you really have
to worry about is the amount of subjectivity you're allowing
to creep in to how you're reading scripture. And we
all have to battle this, right, sure, but a view
that makes intuition primary really has to battle this. And
then not only that, but a view like Rousers that
says we're going to use intuition not just just to
get an interpretation, but to actually find errors in the text. Okay,
then you really have to make sure you have a
strong grounding for intuition and its reliability.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and my.
Speaker 2: Claim is intuition can't bear that burden. Intuition can take
us so far, but ultimately we need to look at
things like archaeology. We need to look at you know,
biblical textual analysis, We need to look at like some
of the more objective features of interpretation in order to
not just if we're doing this with intuition, not just
to sort of try to get out of our studies.
What makes us feel better?
Speaker 3: Yes, you've brought that around perfectly perfect good okay, yeah, yeah,
that's a legitimate worry. Yeah, Okay, Now I want to
ask one more question about one of the issues that
you guys clashed about, and then I really want to
get into your view because number one, I find it persuasive.
In number two, you really, as we've mentioned a couple
of times, didn't get a chance to kind of lay
it out there, and I want listeners to be able
to hear that. So another issue that came about that
I thought was fascinating and I've heard you discuss it
in another one of your videos outside of the debate,
was this idea that your concern that when doctor Rouser
uses Jesus and his interpretation of Jesus as a tool
to interpret these Old Testament passages, that that also is
a bit of a concern, and you also even charged
him against it it possibly being I'm not sure if
it was self defeating or or undermining his own point
or something to that effect. Could you unpack that a
little bit, Yeah.
Speaker 2: It was the epistemic circle gularity objection. Yes, so that's
kind of a fancy term, but basically it means it
actually sort of dovetails perfectly off what I was just saying, Like,
if you're going to use intuition in this way to
strung as a strong way of making sense of scripture
and finding errors in the text. Then you need to
have a epistemically solid foundation from which you can be
doing this. And so one thing that Rouser does with
what he calls a Jesus principle is he sort of
reads a passage, checks his moral intuition, and then tries
to align that with Well, in the New Testament, what
do we see regarding Jesus, Well, we see a lot
of non violent teachings, like what I said sort of
at the start, and so Rouser actually he makes the
point sort of viscerally too. Sometimes he says, could you
imagine Jesus sort of sticking a spear into a baby?
Speaker 4: Like he says stuff like.
Speaker 3: That, right, yes, yes, I've heard that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And you're like, whoa, No, it's.
Speaker 3: Very rhetorically powerful, yes.
Speaker 2: Rhetorically powerful, yes, yes, And so okay, that's fine, that's powerful.
Speaker 4: Not denying that. We should take that in.
Speaker 2: And if infants were killed, this is the other part
of my view. If infants were killed, albeit as a
foreseen side effect of the primary target God was aiming for,
which was good and aligned with his character, then that's tragic.
So I acknowledge the tragedy of non combatant deaths. My
main point is that God is not intending those deaths
as the primary target. But if what winds up happening
with Rauser is because he sees air, because this doesn't
match up with who Jesus is. A perfectly morally good
God wouldn't command these horrible things.
Speaker 4: This looks like genocide.
Speaker 2: What he then does is he uses again his interpretation
of Jesus that's very nonviolent. He doesn't really include a
lot of the harshness and the judgment that we see
in the New Testament from Jesus, and then he basically uses.
Speaker 4: That to find the years.
Speaker 2: Well, the worry is, you have to assume the tool
is reliable in order for the tool to determine whether
the very thing you're using.
Speaker 4: It from is reliable.
Speaker 2: So let me say that in another way, you Rosser
want wants to use the portrayal of Jesus in the
New Testament as his controlled texts or his guide to
whether he's getting an interpretation right or wrong. Where do
we learn about Jesus from the New Testament? Okay, but
then how can we be sure that the New Testament
portrayals of Jesus, even the harsh ones are not just
also distorted by human projection.
Speaker 4: I mean, maybe the.
Speaker 2: New Testament authors were putting things in Jesus's mouth that
he didn't actually say. Why Because Rouser's let in that
there can be errors in the text, So this becomes
a live.
Speaker 3: Possibility, right, yes, and correct me if I'm wrong here.
It seemed to me. And again, you know you're talking
full disclosure here. I am an elementary school teacher who
does apologetics as a passion, you know, so I'm not
a philosopher, so I could be totally missing this. But
it seemed to me I thought that doctor Rouser was
missing your point because your point was is on your view,
correct me if I'm wrong here? On his view there
are errors in the text, you were saying on my view,
because he was trying to say that you're just, as
you know, prone to this as he is, because both
of you have to interpret the text. But I didn't
think that was your point. Your point was to say that,
but on your view, there aren't errors in the text.
Speaker 4: Correct.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you can say that when I'm operating from
interpreting using the New Testament to interpret the Old Testament,
or whatever it is. I'm coming at it from the
view that that scripture is an errant. But when you
introduce the idea of error, how do you how can
you have any inclination that your interpretation of Jesus is
correct because it could be an error? Is that right?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 2: And then and then the bigger yes, that's the starting point.
And then the circularity is you're you have to then
to use that tool even though it could be an error.
Speaker 4: You have to assume it's not an.
Speaker 3: Error to use it, right, right, Otherwise.
Speaker 2: You're using a broken tool to try to fix a
broken problem or sort o a broken problem.
Speaker 3: Right. And even if we're not agreeing that it is
a broken tool, it's at least on his view a
potentially or a possibly broken tool, which is which is
the problem? Right?
Speaker 2: And I understanding you need it, Yeah, so you need
he needs whatever his interpretation of Jesus is. He needs
a very solid basis for that portrayal, and maybe he
could give it. Look, look, the the Gospels are uniquely reliable.
They always got Jesus right or you know, got Jesus
right on the main thing. So all these teachings I'm
using as my control texts, whatever they are, whatever parts
you know, the turn the other cheek and and all
the more nonviolent stuff. Jesus says that they got right,
and so I can have trust and faith in that
in order to use it to sort out the rest
of scripture, whether it's an error or not. But my
point was he hasn't provided that, and he's still, to
my knowledge, hasn't really given a sufficient answer for this
circularity problem.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, that's helpful. That's helpful. So let's turn to
covenant virtue ethics here. Let's consider a passage like I
think the best way I was thinking about this today
earlier today, kind of the best way to help our
listeners kind of get a grasp of this is to
take a passage like you mentioned for Samuel fifteen, And
that's one of the more like graphic you know, the women,
the babies, you know, take them all out of course,
paraphrasing there. How does your view address a difficult passage
like that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so thank you for asking about that. And for
Samuel fifteen primarily focuses on Saul's disobedience regarding Amelek.
Speaker 4: Now, the first thing.
Speaker 2: We ask when we're evaluating this through the covenant virtue
ethics framework is what was the covenantal context? So the
command regarding Amlek and for Samuel fifteen occurred within what
I call the field or the domain. You can think
of it like the playing field where the action occurs.
And it was Israel's early monarchy, and God was ultimately
testing King Saul's obedience and faithfulness within that covenant structure,
the mosaic covenant, and Saul as acting explicitly also as
God's agent. Now what within this context, this field, what's
the basis? Now, that's basically the reasons for God acting,
and so the basis is God's long standing to creed
judgment against Amelek. This goes all the way back to
Exodus seventeen when they attacked the Israelites when they were
weak and coming out of slavery. And so we have
to ask what was the purpose there?
Speaker 4: Well, he said.
Speaker 2: Back then, I'm going to blot out the memory of Amelek.
So this wasn't like in first Samuel fifteen. This isn't
like a rash off the cuff. God's just vengeful and
all of a sudden prone to anger. This is a
sort of a long time coming judgment that is reaching
its coming to fruition, and then we have to ask
the second stage is the character, like, what is the
intended target God's trying to hit. Well, it's a retributive
punishment given the basis, given the attack they did on
Israel when they were coming out of Egypt.
Speaker 4: This is a retributive.
Speaker 2: Judgment against Amelek and a demonstration of his faithfulness to
his prior word. So God gave his word. He's going
to blot out Amelek and make them pay for what
they did to Israel at a very crucial weak point.
And so this is partially God. His character is hitting
target of faithfulness. Now the command mode, this is really important.
The mode or the means is herrim, and that's a
fancy word that's often translated as total devotion to destruction.
And what God is signaling by using this harrim mode
is complete judgment. So you need to separate everything from
the profane. You're going to dedicate everything to me and
you're going to leave no room for human profit or compromise.
And remember the big picture is testing Saul. Will he
be faithful to my word? Next we look at the
means end relationship. So what does that mean? Well, the
text presents that hairim mode that herrim means, as the
necessary and commanded means to achieve that target of definitive
divine judgment and separation from this persistent enemy against Israel. Now, Saul,
of course, maybe, as you know, disobeyed God. He's spared
a gag and the best of the livestock. And why
was this a failure? Well, Saul used a different mode.
God commanded use the mode of herrim, devote everything to
total destruction. And Saul thought, you know what I know better,
I'm gonna spare the king and I'm gonna you know,
God's gonna love this, and then I'm gonna devote to
him the.
Speaker 4: Livestock and da da da.
Speaker 2: But that's within covenant virtue ethics, we can see why
that's a problem. He's using a different mode, driven by
a different target. Those Saul's target doesn't align with God's target.
Why Well, Saul was swayed by his people to do this,
and it was likely Saul's self glory, perceived economic benefits,
or misplaced piety in wanting, you know, to give God sacrifices.
So basically that substitution breaks the men means in linked
that God specified in the divine command when he actually
gave the command hit this target. Faithfulness to my word
and long standing judgment through herm sall comes along uses
a different means to hit a different target. So now
we can look and we can see, well, but wait
a minute, isn't her rim really brutal? Isn't this like,
you know, just totally disproportionate, or isn't that of the
killing of innocence as the target?
Speaker 4: And there's a lot I could.
Speaker 2: Say there, but let me just briefly say sort of
the big takeaway. The big takeaway is that it was
proportional and God did minimize harm, but at the same time,
it wasn't the target. So the Harim mode wasn't God
saying this is my target killing babies, qua billing killing
babies or something like that, or like killing children to
killing to kill children is somehow like what I'm trying
to achieve. No, God was working within this very harsh environment,
working with a mode they understood and knew, and he
was trying to achieve a good target. Now on covenant
virtue ethics, he foresaw that there would be innocence killed,
but that wasn't his primary target. And ultimately, the last
thing we can ask with Covenant virtue ethics is is
this hitting the long term te loss or end of
God's redemptive plan that he's working.
Speaker 3: Is real long term purpose, right right, right right?
Speaker 2: And so hitting that target of executing judgment on Amelek
using the Harim mode serves his broader tilS by establishing
boundaries against forces persistently opposing his redemptive plan and reinforcing
this is the takeaway for all the kings, the necessity
of complete obedience for the covenant people and their king.
And then Saul's failure basically underscores the importance of aligning
with God's target and mode over having like human rationalizations
or ritual substitutions.
Speaker 4: And so that's that's the big picture of how CVE
would handle this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is very helpful, very helpful. And now, now
what role does hyperbole play in your view? Kind of
the ancient the ancient near Eastern hyperbole if you could
just explain what that is to the listener and then
kind of what role it plays in your view.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you for asking.
Speaker 2: That's this is a really important point, and I think
this was something that because my view didn't get fully
on the table.
Speaker 4: I think Randall missed this in our debate.
Speaker 2: But that's why I put out other videos and I
try to, you know, kind of get my view more
so on the table. With First Samuel fifteen, in particular,
we see a merorism that is a standard rhetorical device
that was common in these times, in the ancient Near
East and in particular in warfare, that signaled a totality
by just simply mentioning pairs of contrasting opposites. So, for instance,
in First Samuel fifteen, we have you know the target.
The command says to target men, women, children, and infants,
young and old or you know any So that what
that is expressing is on the coven virtue ethics isn't
a literal commanded hit list. It's not God saying you
need to go in and kill all the babies, you
need to go in and kill all What it's doing
in that contest is saying this is a total judgment.
And so what that is doing in covenant virtue ethics
is it's not the target, right, So what this is
is it's part of the mode. So it's using this
rhetoric that would have been understood in those times to
communicate definitive judgment. It isn't the target, it's the mode,
and it's not a definitive like I say, like you've
got to wipe out all these demographics. Now, Rouser actually
just sort of takes the text to face value and says, look,
this is what it is, or he confuses the laying
out of these rorisms this rhetorical device as like, like
I said, like a targeted hit list God saying literally
go in and kill the infants, kill the children, kill
the data DA and that's his target. Well, and Covenant
virtue ethics says, that's not his target. That wouldn't align
with his good character. And so this is just the
mode by which he's doing this. And he foresees that
some non combatants will be killed, but that's not that's
not what he's saying here in this this command, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And in regard to hyperbole, the example that I've
heard doctor Coopen use just for clarity for listeners and
see if you agree with this. For example, when the
Bible might say something along along the lines of like
wipe them all out, just generically, right, it's kind of
like the modern equivalent of like the I don't know,
I don't watch a ton of I watch hockey, So
I'll say that, you know, the oilers annihilated the Kings,
right well, they nobody thinks they really annihilated them, like
there's dead people out on the ice. It just means
they beat them really badly. It's it's a totality. Right well.
Speaker 4: So, actually this is where I differ with Copan.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, well I'm glad I mentioned that. Yeah, I'm glad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm glad you said that, because I saw the debate.
I watched this several times between him and Rouser, and
Rouser's response is going to be, h are you saying
no noncombatants were killed? That this is like like so
much hyperbole that like no innocence were caught up and
killed in the battle.
Speaker 3: You know what a is you're saying that? Sorry, sorry,
real quick as you're saying that, that is refreshing my
memory of doctor Copin had to work very hard in
that debate to try to demonstrate that that totally refreshed. Yes,
go ahead, I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: It Actually I'm glad you said that.
Speaker 2: It's actually a little bit worse because he seemed to
avoid it because I'll start kept pressing up on that way.
Speaker 4: You say, are you using hyperbole.
Speaker 2: To say no non combatants were killed? And he as
best I remember, he sort of went on to something
else and didn't fully address it. And I want to
offer coopana tool. I want to say, you've got the tool.
I mean, he's done so much work, and I really
respect all he's done, but I think he just needs
to situate it properly within the mode and say no.
I'm not saying no when I use hyperbole or merisms.
I'm not saying no non combatants were killed.
Speaker 4: For all I know they were. We don't know.
Speaker 2: You know, this isn't like precise military reports or something
like in a modern sense.
Speaker 4: I'm not saying there were none killed.
Speaker 2: What I am saying is that they weren't intentionally targeted
because that wasn't the target. That was the mode by
which God was hitting the target, but it wasn't the
target itself. Innocence, we're not being targeted as an end
in themselves.
Speaker 4: So that's the important.
Speaker 2: Thing, because if you don't situate hyperbole properly in the
mode in the harim and put it to work, then
what you wind up and say it's not an intentional
targeting of non combatants, then you're just sort of left
with like having to say, no, no non combatants were
killed because of this hyperbole, and that just seems like,
on the face of it, really problematic and unlikely given
the brutal nature of any warfare.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, And I'm recalling now too that he tried
to argue that only military outposts were hit and that
non combatants would have been gone by then or something.
Speaker 4: And just on that point, that's a great point.
Speaker 2: He uses Richard Hess's reading of that, and that I
think is really important because it tells us that this
isn't a genocide, This isn't like just mass slaughter of
indiscriminate slaughter of everyone, right, right, So it was targeted,
it had a good military The mode itself was was,
you know, using good military means to hit this broader
target that God is trying to hit. But even so,
here's the problem though, even if you say military fort
then Rouser comes back and says, wait a minute, Rayhab was.
Speaker 4: There and her family.
Speaker 2: And then and then Rouser says, well, that just shows
that there were some noncombatants in this sportified city, and
I would add there must have been more to support
the functioning of the city. I mean, I'm sure a
lot of the military did a lot of things, but
it's not I would be shocked if Rayhab was the
only non military personnel in this fort city. So then
it's very becomes very likely that some non combatants were killed.
And that's still a problem. And that's where I think
Copan's view doesn't go far enough and acknowledge, Yeah, this
happened probably, and this is horrible, and that's what covenant
virtue ethics acknowledges. This probably happened.
Speaker 4: It was horrible.
Speaker 2: God foresaw it what happen, But he had good targets
that ultimately using this means necessitated this this way of
operating in order to communicate his definitive judgment, in order
to enact his definitive judgment, in order to make a statement, Hey,
you got to follow what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: You can't like make up your own.
Speaker 2: Script here when I give you explicit command for my profit.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad I brought that up because that was
that was great, That was super helpful what you shared there.
In response to that praise the Lord. That was great.
So let me see if you agree with this statement.
And then I have just like a couple like one
kind of a question about your approach when you approach
other views that differ from your own. Would you say
that the reason the key difference between your view and
doctor Rowser's view and trying to reconcile these texts is
that your view preserves God's good moral character without having
to introduce errors into the text, whereas Rowser's view preserves
God's good moral character but introduces errors into the text.
And therefore years would be at least on that for
that one reason, yours should be preferred.
Speaker 4: Correct. That's an excellent yes, okay, excellent clear statement.
Speaker 3: Yep, okay, all right. So one of the things that
attracted me to your work even before you started doing
the work that you're doing on these difficult old Testament
passages is the way you engage with people, particularly on
social media. I'm thinking here of X on X. Even
in these videos response videos that you've done with doctor Rouser,
you go out of your way to be charitable, to
call him a brother, to thank him for engaging with
your work. And I find that to be something in
some apologetic circles, if I'm being honest, is lacking. And
I love your demeanor, your charitability, and your willingness to
engage with other views so respectfully and to even I
could even tell during the debate that there were a
couple things doctor Rouser said that surprised you, For example,
that he was a divine command theorist, and I could
tell that that surprised you, and you said, I really
want to hear more about that, and I could tell
you meant that like you really wanted to get him,
And to me, that's just rare. So how do you
encourage other thinkers, apologists, Christian philosophers, whatever their stripes might be,
how do you encourage them to engage age in these
types of discussion in the manner that you do.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 2: First, I have to just I say thank you, and
I'm glad that that you've noticed that, because I'm very
much trying to aim for that in where it comes
from is both my past failures and wanting to represent
Christ well, not just by quote unquote defending the truth,
but how I defend the truth? Am I defending the
truth in a loving way? Am I really trying to
seek the truth? In an honest and open way. And
I in my background doing philosophy, I have made so
many mistakes where I got heated and I was coming
at it for the wrong reasons, and I was trying
to score points. And through many many seasons of doing
that and realizing that is definitely not the best approach,
and then coming back to my faith, which happened many
many years ago, but that was also a big thing.
I realized, you know, I'm not trying to win anything here.
I'm trying to get people to think. I'm trying to
explore truth in a in a posture of humility. And
I would what I would say to others that are
struggling with that, and just feel like you got to
win the point and do it in a way that
kind of almost puts the other person down or snarky.
Speaker 4: And you don't have to do that. You can.
Speaker 2: You have everything you need in Jesus. We are full
and complete in Jesus. You don't have to get anyone's
approval other than God ultimately, and I struggle with seeking
human approval as well. But you can just speak the
truth and love, and when you do that, then you'll
find you go way further in the dialogue, and you
make friends along the way. So, for instance, I debated
Justin Sheeber, who is an atheist, and I seriously feel
like he's a good friend of mine for as much
as we've talked. And right, yep, yeah, And then and
my discussion with Randall Rausser could have really gone sideways
because we both care, we're both passionate about our position,
and it's a very heated issue and very important issues.
So I just praise God that I was able, we
both were able to maintain our posture of humility and
seeking the truth in love. And I would say, don't
beat yourself up if you're an apologist who's made those mistakes.
You're in good company from so many others. But just strive,
strive to be open, strive to ask questions, strive to
seek understanding, and ultimately strive to represent Christ well by
how you search for the truth, not just that you
search for the truth.
Speaker 3: Thank you. That was very well put, and just thanks
for being a great example. I really appreciate it. So
I'm imagining here somebody listening, and if anything, I hope
we've piqued their interest in this topic, or maybe they
struggle with this topic and they're thinking, Wow, this sounds great.
I want to learn more about this. I want to
learn more how to understand these passages. Where would you
point them to? Where would you say? Here's where I
would start if I were you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So thanks for the question. I would give a
couple different resources. I would give three. First, I would
actually start out with Paul Copan's Is Got a Moral Monster?
I think that's a great place to start. It goes
over a lot of the ground that gets covered in
the later literature, and yet it's pretty accessible. So I
would start with Copan's book. And then, actually, if you
wanted a step up from that, I would recommend Copan
and Flanagan's book Did God Really Command Genocide? It's a
little bit more advanced, but it's still relatively accessible. And then, last,
if you really want to do this in a class
type situation, I am working on a course that will
do this.
Speaker 4: So I'm working on a course where we'll go.
Speaker 2: Through the passages, We'll look at the context deeply, and
then try to come up with a way of interpreting
these that's faithful both to Scripture's authority and God's perfect goodness.
Speaker 4: So again you mentioned my website.
Speaker 2: You can go to Christian Philosophy Academy dot com and
you can get on the wait list for the course,
so that that would be another great resource.
Speaker 3: Excellent doctor Clues. Thank you so much for coming on
the podcast. This has been so helpful and it's been
great to meet you.
Speaker 4: You're welcome, Chad, thank you, and thank you for all
the work you're doing.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you.
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