God Supports Cannibalism, Infancticide and Genocide

Before I begin my two-point rebuttal and extend my arguments, I would like to point out to the voters that my opponent has committed a “straw man” fallacy. My argument is laid out in round 2 for anyone to see, and it is not, as my opponent has fallaciously asserted, “God kills for a reason.” I propose that it is more along the lines of “God intends life for man, and does everything possible to save life while holding true to his own just nature. God allows man to choose, and man brought death upon himself by his sin. To show his will for man to live even after this, God took death upon himself in the form of Jesus, providing a way of salvation and eternal life for all who believe.” Any death in this world is a result of man’s sin. Point 1: God can morally bring Death God is the creator of man, and gave man his life. Thus, he has power to take it. Death is not something that is out of his control, and is not something that is immoral for him to enact. It is immoral for us to bring death to others, for we do not have control of their life. Matthew Henry, speaking on Ezekiel 18:4: “God may certainly do what he pleases both with fathers and children, and none may say unto him, What doest thou? He that gave us our being does us no wrong if he takes it away again, much less when he only takes away some of the supports and comforts of it; it is as absurd to quarrel with him as for the thing formed to say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?” [1] Point 2: God Desires Life for Everyone And note: as I pointed out in round 2, God is merciful to us! He does not desire death, but in his will for us to live wants us to repent and turn to him! Listen to these words from Charles Spurgeon, the great Prince of Preachers, in his book Power in the Blood: “In this present life, the Lord treats sin as a disease. If He were to treat it at once as sin and summon us to His court to answer for it, we would immediately sink beyond the reach of hope, for we could neither answer His accusations nor defend ourselves from His justice. In His great mercy he looks upon us with pity, and for now He treats our ill manners as if they were diseases to be cured rather than rebellions to be punished.” This is direct and convincing evidence that God does not want death even though we have chosen it willingly: Listen to Ezekiel 18:23: “Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?” God wants sinners to repent and be saved; he stays his hand from punishment so that men might live. Explanation: Justice Demands Judgment Why, then, do we have these grievous examples of death inflicted by God himself, who has stated that he does not want men to die? There is another attribute of his that bears mention here. Justice. Ezekiel 18:20: “The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.” God judges each man by his own actions, in perfect justice. Let’s look one more time at each of the occurrences brought up by my opponent, and this time let’s look at the two things each of them have in common. Leviticus 26:29: God would only bring this curse if Israel rebelled, and continued rebelling after many other curses had been laid upon them. Justice. The curses were not all immediate death, and if Israel repented, the curses would cease and blessing would be given. Mercy unto life. Lamentations 4:4: Punishment for sins the nation of Israel had willfully committed. Look at the verse right before the one quoted! Lamentations 4:3: “Even the sea monsters… give suck to (nurse) their young ones: the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.” They brought this on themselves! They are the ones denying their children food and starving infants! God isn’t committing Infanticide, Israel is! And yet the promise still applies from Leviticus: if they will repent, the curses will cease, and they will be forgiven. God desires life. Exodus 12:29: I dealt with this soundly in round 2. God was just, because they had slain the Israelite’s children before this; merciful, because if Pharaoh had let the Israelites go before this (he was given 10 other chances, a lot more than he deserved), this would never have happened. And even when it did, God was merciful. Which would have caused more deaths for the Japanese: dropping the atomic bomb or carrying out a full-scale invasion that would result in warfare taken to the Japanese continent, with bombings, battles, artillery, tanks, guns, grenades, devastation? In light of this, was the atomic bomb not merciful to them? In the same way, God prevented large-scale death of the Egyptians by only bringing as much as was necessary to show them his power and convince them of their defeat. Jeremiah 50:21: Again, we see God’s justice. His mercy is self-evident in the very fact that he had allowed them to remain alive and not judged this long; yet, judgment must come, because God is a just judge, and cannot let sin go unpunished. “It is sin that makes men a mark for the arrows of God's judgments. An abundance of idolatry and immorality was to be found in Babylon, yet those are not mentioned as the reason of God's displeasure against them, but the injuries they had done to the people of God, from a principle of enmity to them as his people. They have been the destroyers of God's heritage (v. 11); herein indeed God made use of them for the necessary correction of his people, and yet it is laid to their charge as a heinous crime, because they designed nothing but their utter destruction. 1. What they did against Jerusalem they did with pleasure (v. 11): You were glad, you rejoice. God does not afflict his people willingly, and therefore takes it very ill if the instruments he employs afflict them willingly. When Titus Vespasian destroyed Jerusalem he wept over it, but these Chaldeans triumphed over it.” [2] What do we see is common among all these events? Justice and mercy; God is both. His will is that men might live, but in his justice he judges sin if men so choose – not, notably enough, without warning; he is merciful. My opponent began to bring up the topic of the flood in Noah’s day. I would point out that God’s mercy was evident here as in every other judgment. The scriptures tell us that there was a time period of 120 years between when Noah started to build the ark and when God judged the world. Can we truly think that God would have rejected a man if he had truly repented, saying, “I believe it will flood as judgment for my sin! let me in to thy salvation, O Lord!” God forbid! It is against his nature! Mankind was given chance to repent. This shows, yet again, that God’s will is not death. It is life. Ezekiel 18:25-27: “Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal. Hear now, O house of Israel; Is not my way equal? are not your ways unequal? 26 When a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and dieth in them; for his iniquity that he hath done shall he die. 27 Again, when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive.” Conclusion: God Desires Life God does not will that man should die. But the punishment for sin is death, and as a just judge, God does not back down from that if we so choose. He does not support cannibalism, infanticide, or genocide. He hates them; they are death in the most gruesome forms! But when necessary, he brings them as judgment as a means to awaken others to life and as justly deserved judgment on sin. Even then, he does not do so without warning. Mercy and Justice. He certainly orchestrated these acts; however: there is absolutely no evidence that he wanted to do it or supports the acts themselves. But to not do it would be to do two things that God will not do: 1. To deny his just nature. God is just, and he will not change or violate this by becoming unjust. 2. To allow mankind to continue in sin, leading ultimately to death. Think of what would happen if these nations had been allowed to continue in their sin. The children that were killed by the destroying angel in Exodus (the children went to heaven I believe, by the way; they were put in a better place) would have grown up in a pagan nation and been in a horrid, savage culture; at the end, they would have to face God at judgment and answer for sin, and many probably be sentenced to hell. God had mercy through their death. His judgment on earth is always to prevent man from traveling further towards death. And do not forget the Cross; when Jesus died, he took the sting of death upon himself so that it could no longer touch those that believe in him. 1 Corinthians 15:55: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” This is the ultimate sign; even though mankind willingly chose death, God gave up everything so that men might be able to live. Justice was served at the cross; if we choose to, we can accept his mercy and live. It is his will. It is absurd to propose, in light of all of this evidence for God’s support of life, that he is so depraved and hypocritical as to give his support to cannibalism, infanticide, and genocide. Through the prophet Malachi, in 3:6, God said “I am the LORD, I change not;” “with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” (James 1:17) Spurgeon said: “Whatever his attributes were of old, they are now; his power, his wisdom, his justice, his truth, are alike unchanged.” [3] God is not hypocritical. He either supports death, or he doesn't. Consider the evidence, and choose. 1: https://www.blueletterbible.org... 2: https://www.blueletterbible.org... 3: https://www.biblegateway.com...