God is Unloving?: "Death of Canaanite Children: Clay Jones Model" || John Pesebre || Kaliwanagan Kay Kristo (Nov 21, 2017)

Makinig sa weekly broadcast ng Kaliwanagan every Tuesday at Thursday sa Tanglaw sa Landas ng Buhay sa 702 DZAS sa oras ng 7PM

Nagpapatuloy ang ating pagtalakay kung paano ang response natin sa mga difficult passages where God commands complete annihilation o yung utos na patayin lahat. Bunsod ito ng aking interaction kay Zane isang university professor who is struggling about reconciling the loving God in the Scripture at 'yung vengeful na Diyos din ng Bible as depicted in passages tulad neto sa Deut 20:16-18 --

In the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction…. as the Lord your God has commanded, that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the Lord your God.

Last week we responded particularly sa passage na ito

Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’” (1 Sam 15:2-3)

to this issue with the Paul Copan Model kung saan ang mga linggwaheng ito ay tinatawag na “war rhetoric” na standard na linggwahe noon (at ngayon din actually) kung saan ini-exaggerate ang linggwahe especially kapag pinag uusapan ang engagement with the enemies. Hindi daw ito literal, but expresses the urgency of the zeal to win the battle they are about to face. In short, may literary genre siya. Parang tula, pag sinabi ko sa asawa ko na “Ika’y liwanag sa kadiliman” hindi gustong sabihin non ay isa siyang gasera o kandila. Para naman kay Jones, literal na utos yan to show the anger of God over this people.

Ang Clay Jones model po ay yung tinatawag din na “God Meant It” model and expresses the idea that God was wrathful in His judgment to the Canaanites who God thinks deserves capital punishment. In doing so, He gave a direct command to His people the Israelites to carry out the punishment. Hindi nangangahulugan na God did not give these people time to repent and flee judgment. God gave them 400 plus years for that. We even read from Joshua that some people have already left and some also submitted to God’s power like the family of Rahab and the Gibeonites.

So when we read about this judgment, we see this as the right time in God’s mind. And this provides for us the basic foundation for this argument -- that God determined ang action na ito na nararapat. Kumbaga to put it simply, God na all-knowing, all-powerful, all-wise etc, deemed it a rightful judgment to include children. God as Creator alone has the right to determine when each shall live and die.  (Job 1:20-21).  End of story.

However, we are left still with our finite reasoning to further seek at least a divine rational, although inadequate as we infer from the data of Scripture. Kaso kumbaga parang ipapainom sa akin ang isang dam ng tubig gamit ang isang maliit na baso. So let me just explain that whatever I will try to explain dito are attempts ng mga tulad nila Clay Jones na mag provide ng finite reasoning to infer yung reasonable action ng Diyos, pero I would expect that many of you would probably find loopholes. Ang reason kasi may principle ng sufficiency, gustong sabihin ay “Everything has a sufficient reason, or a cause, for being what it is.” Kaso kung ang action comes from the wisdom of God na infinitely wise, mukhang may limitation tayo. Yet, we cna still infer certain things from His word why He would make that judgment.

For example, baka kasi akala natin mga kalmadong bata etong mga Canaanite children. Hindi po sila yung mga batang inosente kasi lumaki silang nasa environment ng evil. We can derive this caution sa Deuteronomy 20:16-18,

In the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction…. as the Lord your God has commanded, that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the Lord your God.

Because of their past, they have the potential of teaching Israelites abominable practices. It would not be an easy alternative din to adopt them kasi sooner or later these kids would learn that their community were the ones who killed their parents. Pero I really do not have an adequate explanation to this from the very mind of God yet I see this as one potential reason given the finiteness ng ating isipan. Bear in mind that in the Christian view God is all-good and all-knowing and we can deduce from these attributes that God had an adequate reason for doing so. Kung ipo-fault natin ang kamatayan ng mga batang ito as a type of criminal indictment sa Diyos, di isama na rin natin lahat ng mga tao na namatay noon at yung mamamatay pa na tulad natin. Yet we understand that while what I said could be one of the reasons, yet we in reality do not know the entire reason. What we do know is that God did not want them to transfer anything they learned from their upbringing.

Subalit maari ninyong sabihin na eh paano kung sanggol pa ang mga batang ito? One of the possible reasons ay binanggit ni Clay Jones na maski adoption was not an option,

Now some will say that surely infants wouldn’t bring their culture into their new family. But bonding begins at birth and even infants, as they grew, would inquire about what happened to their birth parents. Most adopted or foster kids possess an almost insatiable desire to know the details of their birth parents’ lives. Can we imagine these Canaanite kids not wanting to know all about their parents and what practices they did that made them worthy of death? When they heard the Law read with its descriptions of Canaanite practices, how many would take those practices as their own identity?*

Dagdag naman ni William Lane Craig, na ang pagkamatay ng mga batang ito

was [God’s] way of preserving Israel’s spiritual health and posterity. God knew that if these Canaanite children were allowed to live, they would spell the undoing of Israel. The killing of the Canaanite children not only served to prevent assimilation to Canaanite identity but also served as a shattering, tangible illustration of Israel’s being set exclusively apart for God.†

Were these infants never given a chance to enjoy life? I do not fully know because that is a question na may future element that only God can know. What I do know however is that children before the age of accountability will get to the afterlife with the presence of God. Kumbaga sa madaling salita, sa langit sila pupunta at hamak na mas enjoyable na pangyayari ‘yon.

Yan po ang ilang mga dahilan na maari pong ipresent na reasons for God’s judgment. However, these are just the mechanism of our finite minds to figure out the compelling reasons why God would decide to do this. As I have said, feeling ko iinumin ko ang tubig sa isang dam gamit ang isang baso -- masyadong malawak ang kaisipan ng Diyos. The Israelites back then would have felt the same thing concerning the warrant for this action -- well probably a few of them -- because in God’s commands, it is presupposed that He is all-wise and all-good.

(C) Photo Credit
__________
*  Clay Jones, "Why Couldn’t Israel Adopt Canaanite Children?" Clay Jones (website); http://www.clayjones.net/2015/05/why-couldnt-israel-adopt-canaanite-children/#footnote_0_1314

†  William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, http://www.reasonablefaith.org/slaughter-of-the-canaanites#ixzz3YclWgRDs, Accessed 4-28-2015.