At last week's Communio Circle, the discussion turned from whether the practice of reading great literature was intrinsically valuable or whether that practice was a snobbish tic and no more worthwhile than going to tractor pulls. Somehow the conversation turned to the old chestnut of whether something is deemed morally “good” because there is an absolute and transcendent “good” or simply because God deems the thing good. [The turn in the conversation may have been caused in some small way by the fact that I am listening to the Leaning Company’s Philosophy of Religion series by Professor James Hall (which, by the way, I am enjoying.)] Since I was arguing for the non-relativistic value of literature, I decided that consistency required that I advocate for a transcendental essence of goodness.
This pitch was immediately, and I mean immediately, eviscerated by Mike, who pointed out that God had commanded that a father (Abraham) murder his own son (Isaac.) (See e.g., Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22.) Certainly, argued Mike, if that didn’t show that goodness was goodness only relative to God’s commands, then nothing did. Mike’s point was completely apposite. Proving the universal value of literature, Norman Podhoretz’s new book, The Prophets, explicitly observes that with respect to Socrates question about whether something was good because it was good in itself or because it was deemed good by the gods, the Jews come down on the side of the second position, citing the Abraham and Isaac story.
To me, this story and the conclusion to which it leads are unsettling. The conventional definition of God is that He is all powerful, all knowing and all loving. According to Prof. Hall’s definition of ethical monotheism, God is the only One deserving of worship because of his infinite capacity for those three attributes. Commanding the death of a child in order to “test” the faith of the father seems more akin to Saddam than to God, as so defined.
According to Dori, the Abraham/Isaac story plays a pivotal role in the recent movie The Believer, where a “clever Yeshiva student” repudiates Judaism and becomes a neo-Nazi skinhead because of the ethical conundrum in God’s order that Abraham kill his son.
Genesis 22 and Predestination.
Jeff, though, made what I thought was an interesting observation. What does it mean to have God “test” Abraham. Presumably God knows what Abraham will do. What kind of a test is it where God already knows the answer? Dori’s response was that all teachers know the answers to the tests they give. But, as I pointed out, teachers do not know the answer to the question of what the student knows, which is why they give the test. If a teacher knew what grade to give to a student in the first place, why would they give the test? So, I sided with Jeff on this point.
The problem is that this leads to predestination, a conclusions that apparently is even less appealing than child sacrifice. Both Dori and Mike argued for the position that Abraham had the free will to obey or not obey. The analogy here is with Mary whose choice - “I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "may it be to me as you have said." - is a substantial basis on which she is so esteemed. Mike and Dori’s argument may have been that God did not know the outcome of Abraham’s choice before it was made, although squaring that with the idea of God’s omniscience is something for further development.
Mike’s further development of his observation about the “non-test” in Genesis 22 was that there was a “test” and it was a “test” for Abraham. Now, interestingly, that is Norman Podhoretz’s view also. Podhoretz believes that the mission of the Prophets was to end idolatry and that the “test” in Genesis 22 proved to Abraham that he must trust the true God and not the false, nonexistent gods of idolatry.
Did God premeditate the death of Isaac?
The moral difficulty suggested in Genesis 22 is based on the idea that Isaac’s life was threatened by God. The story takes the reader detail by detail through the sacrificial ritual - wood is gathered, Isaac is bound, the knife is raised - and then Isaac is miraculously saved. In the nick of time, it would seem. These details, however, are nothing more than a cheesy - but effective - literary device like the annoying background music which is played in horror movies designed to heighten anxiety, because Isaac was never in any danger.
If we accept the proposition of Abraham’s free will, then there were only two outcomes and under either outcome, Isaac would live. Either Abraham would obey God and God would stay Abraham’s hand or Abraham would disobey God and Isaac would live. In either case, God is not complicit in the murder of Isaac and, in fact, clearly intended that Isaac would not die. [I will leave it to others to discuss the moral implications of causing Abraham to premeditate the murder of Isaac, which I understand under both Jewish and Christian tradition is tantamount to murder.]
Which leaves us where we started: is there an absolute good such that child sacrifice is wrong or is it the case that things are good only in relation to God’s commands?
[A last, telling point was made by Mike. In essence, who are we to talk to God about the morality of a son being sacrificed by a father? The core of Christianity, after all, is premised upon a Son who is a sacrifice in accordance with the will of His Father.]
Further Reflections: If you're interested, and who wouldn't be?, here's the relevant passage from Norman Podhoretz's The Prophets: Who They Were, What They Are:
But among the differences here is that what the idolators do voluntarily in pursuing a goal of benefit to them or theirs, Abraham is ordered by God to do, and for no such purpose or reward. Indeed, none is specified. The point is to put him through the most extreme of all imaginable tests of his readiness to obey. In passing this test, Abraham demonstrates an understanding that acceptance of the one true God who has been revealed to him first and foremost entails submission to His will. (One might say that, to the unresolved conundrum posed by Socrates in Athens many centuries later - "Is that which is holy loved by the gods because it is holy, or is it holy because it is loved by the gods?" - the Hebrew Bible has an unequivocal answer: it is holy because it is loved, or commanded, by God.)
But at the same time, Abraham has discovered that what God wills is radically at odds with what many gods of all the pagan religions are believed to demand. Unlike the pagan gods, He will have nothing to do with child sacrifice, the most horrendous in the Hebrew Bible's eyes of all the many "abominations" closesly associeated with and flowing from idolatry.
Generations after generations of believers have been tormented by this story, asking why it was necessary for God to devise so cruel a test. My own theory is that only by undergoing the experience himself - in is own person, and on his own flesh - can Abraham come to fully realize that idolatrous practices are an ever-present danger even to God's chosen people, and that they can exert their insidious power even through the voice of God Himself.
(Id. at p. 24 -25.)
From this perspective, Genesis 22 seems to offer an implicit theodicy. The evil that Abraham experienced - his pain and suffering in being forced to make this cruel choice - is not really evil. It is a good because of the pedagogic benefits that flow from Abraham's experience of the test. Is this explanation sufficient to explain all instances of suffering, or is all suffering a test? I doubt it, and as Podhoretz notes, this easy approach to Genesis 22 is probably not entirely satisfying since the story has "tormented" believers for generations. As I observed above, I have been told that the recent movie, < ‘Believer,’ plays on this torment as the device which kicks off the movie's plot.
I appreciate any comments you have. I intend to take the comments back to my Communio Circle for discussion and reflection.
Further Update: David Heddle has been kind enough to respond to my request to provide the Reformed perspective on Genesis 22, the issue of predestination and an answer to Socrates' question. Check it out. I also find interesting the theodicy implied in the post. I think I understand some portion of that theodicy to go as follows: It seems that the problem of evil is explained by man's fallen state. Man is a sinner and deserves whatever ill falls his way. Because of his natural state, whatever man suffers is better than he deserves or can expect, absent God's grace. Although my initial reaction to the perspective is negative, one has to be honest and acknowledge that my orthodox faith is willing to consign non-believers to eternal damnation, which is altogether more severe than the trials and tribulations of the natural world.
Comments, points of clarifications?
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