Part I of this series demonstrated that the genocidal God objection (GGO) is an emotional reaction to the biblical text, not a logical objection leveled at the God of the Bible. Part II demonstrated that God’s actions with regard to the GGO were in actuality full measures of grace and mercy on His part, as His actions always are.

Part III intends to forward an idea relating to the GGO discovered at William Lane Craig’s Reasonable Faith site. WLC is one of the premier Christian philosophers alive today and Reasonable Faith is an easily accessible, excellent resource for Christians of all stripes. In fact, for you free willies out there, be sure to check out Molinism while you’re visiting. It just may be the best theological position for those of you of a semi-pelagian bent. Better yet, check out the Scriptures for the reformed view…

At any rate, the GGO, as it turns out, is not only not a logical objection, it’s not an objection aimed at the existence of God, the truth of Jesus Christ, or the resurrection. Stunningly, even if correct, the GGO succeeds only in refuting a certain Christian doctrine: the inerrancy of Scripture. If it were true, and in no sense do I grant that it is, the GGO would only demonstrate that Moses–or if the inerrancy of Scripture is false, perhaps several redacted sources–was incorrect in his assessment of the nature of God as it relates to the conquest of Canaan.

That’s it.

Nothing more is demonstrated by the GGO. It does not question the existence of God. It does not provide any rationale for believing the resurrection is not an historical fact. It does not question any major doctrine of Christianity, except biblical inerrancy. This is an outright startling conclusion…thanks, WLC. Lastly, and most importantly, because of this, even if true, the GGO in every real sense imaginable provides absolutely no support or rationale for rejecting Jesus Christ or the God of the Bible.

To be clear, the Bible is, in fact, inerrant in the best estimation of The Areopagus. GGO Part IV to come…

It seems that the internet accusations continue unabated: one must be irrational to believe that God could be justified in ordering the Israelite’s conquest of Canaan. Justified, rational, and warranted Christian believers must marvel at the lack of justification offered for this claim. Apparently, the accusers feel the allegations are self-evidently true, given that justification for the claim is rarely, if ever, attached.

Nevertheless, part I of this series demonstrated that, logically, God was not unjust for His role in the conquest of Canaan. Not only was God found true and every man a liar, but it appears to me that resting in the foregoing conclusion alone is itself misleading, and perhaps misrepresentative of the God of Scripture’s character, for God’s act of ordering the conquest of Canaan is in actuality a full measure of grace and lovingness on His part.

The God of the Bible is not a testamental Sybil. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, which necessarily entails both testaments of Scripture. How, then, are we to think of this Old Testament God who orders the wholesale destruction of sinners? And make no mistake, it’s wholesale destruction. The Canaan episodes are but first-reader accounts of judgment when balanced against the worldwide flood of Noah. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

Scita > Scienda’s continuing series is a virtual catalogue of God’s grace in light of the conquests and the historical background in which they occurred. It comes highly recommended with the certified Areopagus seal of approval, and no Christian or skeptic should maintain an opinion on the subject without studying it or something very similar.

To grace then. It’s sometimes omitted that god was longsuffering in His ultimate judgment of the Canaanites. Centuries prior to Israel’s conquest, the lord spoke to Abraham:

Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sins of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure. Gen 15:13-16

The text is clear that God postponed the destruction of the Canaanites for roughly four hundred years, until the sins of the Amorites reached its full measure. By any definition, that’s longsuffering.

Now, the Canaanites did in fact reach their full measure of sin. Theirs was a horridly depraved and sinful culture, even to the offering of their children in the fire. Incidentally, am I the only one who detects the irony of the skeptics’ concern for children here? At any rate, we would not criticize modern military action to prevent such atrocity, have engaged in it justifiably in the past, and probably could do so as we speak in places such as Darfur. Nonetheless, these types of actions are considered acts of mercy, no less on God’s part as ours—actually, infinitely more, given that He is altogether holy.

But that’s not the full measure of God’s grace in this matter. The full measure is theological. What is it exactly that happens to children when they die, according to Christianity? The church is split with regard to this question, but either way a genuine picture of God’s grace emerges. Clearly, if there is an age of accountability, Canaanite children under this age were translated directly to heaven upon death. Presumably, this would not be their fate had they lived. How are we to not recognize the grace of God in the lives of these Canaanite children? Moreover, the women who survived the bloodshed were ushered directly into God’s earthly kingdom. At times, grace is cloaked in trauma.

If the age of accountability is not a deliverance of Scripture, then the Canaanite children slaughtered would receive the same fate as their unregenerate parents. How are we to recognize grace in this outcome? The answer is sought and found in the doctrines of heaven and hell. Since I should develop properly Christian doctrines of heaven and hell here before discussing them deeply, let me just say this: hell is worse for some than it is for others as any punishment in hell is meted in exacting and precise commensuration with the sin debt owed: no more, no less. For the unregenerate Canaanite falling by the Israeli sword, the forfeiture of years of actual and accountable sin by virtue of this judgment is a direct act of God’s common grace whereby He limits the sin debt owed by those who perished. In the case of the children, supposing there’s no age of accountability, this measure of grace is astounding on the part of God.

Perhaps our humanistic culture has influenced us to think that this life is all there is, and any disruption of unfettered pleasure on this earth is an evil. Or, in the case of Christians, this life is somehow the truer, more important life that must be prolonged at all costs. Perhaps North American and European prosperity has blinded us to the true evils on this planet. In this, we value this life above all else and, in so doing, deny the very God that created us for an eternity with Him. How sin persuades us to exchange the substitute for the genuine article, the schlock novel for a Crime and Punishment, this fleeting realm of degradation and becoming for the realm of never-ending heavenly lights—and we do so all along cursing a holy God openly for acting justly. It’s as if we’re cursing the rehabilitation doctor that denies us our heroin. The church needs an Amos.

But the Bible screams that this life is not the sum total of existence: I consider that our present sufferings are not worthy with the glory that will be revealed in us. Rom 8:18. Does any Christian truly think those Canaanite children are presently accusing God of injustice? Or, rather, are they endlessly and eternally expressing their gratitude to Him for the Israelite conquest of Canaan, where God sovereignly chose to intrude into their lives and sever them from their life in bondage to sin? If you listen closely, you might hear them joining in with that celestial choir, worshipping Him in the glorious, great beyond for his inexplicably wonderful grace, singing:

Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty…

This post over at Scita > Scienda has me thinking of CS Lewis. How one pleasant morning, John was spurred to a Pilgrim’s Regress by an otherworldly musical call– a call that embodied his deepest, innermost desires. John soon discovered that while the world mimics this calls in various, multifaceted ways, it never fulfills them. Lewis henceforth postulated that we all have these unfilled desires, and that nature would not plant within us a desire that could not be satisfied. After all, how could it, naturally. Thus, the desire must derive from regions beyond, perhaps that great undiscovered country in which we must all ultimately find ourselves.

As a supplicant of the pentatonic minor, that bane of piano players throughout history, this intuition on the part of Lewis rings true.  Sure, we can scientifically explain the tonal qualities of sound, how the sound waves travel through space, how our inner ears receive the signal, process it, and transmit the signal to the brain. We can also describe wholly in terms of natural causation how the brain chemically and electrically interprets the signal and presents it to our minds. Alas, equations and engineering diagrams are not music, however.

To lapse into philosophy, music seems to present us with qualia. But even then, lapsing into philosophy does not seem to do our perception justice. There’s just nothing quite like the sensation produced by bending a G-string at the fifth fret. Ah yes, bending–another bane of piano players throughout the ages. Pianists of the world unite, though your keytars will not save you! There’s also nothing quite like power chords, the mixolydian, phrygian, for the minoric among us, 80’s glam band hair (huh?), or turning amps to 11, not to mention a thousand other deliverances of music. Pick the one that does it for you.

Philosophy, science, technology, engineering…they explain the physical, but not the experience. The experience of music, the way it feels to you, the way it moves you, the magic that is in your mind: that’s the real thing…the thing that somehow transcends the physical strike of the string and the sound wave it produces. We allow the skeptic to tell us it’s the sound wave that’s real, the rest is merely human, when all along we know it’s somehow more than that. Firsthand.

So we find ourselves again at that mystical crossroad where we are forced to choose a path if we wish to move forward. It’s a junction of the physical and the mystical, the natural and the supernatural, the mind and the body. Some of us will choose to turn and follow the austere path of the naturalist: a path paved with matter alone, where the sounds of joy are melded into ultimate nothingness. Others will choose a different path: one where the sounds of joy are somehow more real than the road of matter that brings them to us.

Choose the second road. it’s not a dead end, and the further you walk along, the clearer the sounds of joy become, for you are nearing their source.

Then I looked  and heard the voices of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they sang:

Worthy is the lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!”

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them singing:

To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power for ever and ever!”