This book has been a great companion book as I read through the Old Testament.  By comparing Old Testament statements next to their contemporary counterparts, the differences are compelling.  If the same amount of criticism and skepticism were directed at these, they would give Christianity a pass.  The bottom line to any truth claim is does it work.  Like the Apostle Paul discovered, 

Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

It is like Keith Green said, "I know God is real because He changed me."

  This is a review of Is God a Moral Monster by Paul Copan with study questions added to turn them into lessons.  These lessons are part of a wider study on Sanctification by Faith which has as its goal the fulfillment of Gal 5:16

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. 

  Because sanctification depends upon faith, doubt will be seen as a hindrance.  Misunderstanding can lead to doubt as well as ignorance, deception, and experience like - it doesn't feel right.  This lesson seeks to combat ignorance, deception, and misunderstanding.  By erasing these, our faith is free to function at a higher level.  

  I’ve set all of these studies in a specific order so that anyone may easily build on the foundation of Christ with the finest materials - gold, silver, and precious stones (1 Cor 3:10-13).  God has gifted the Church with amazing evangelists, pastors, and teachers to do the mining so that we have these materials to complete the building project. (Eph 4:11-16).  I invite you to study along with me.  You can see an overview of the complete Sanctification by Faith study here.  To go to the start of the current lesson (Is God a Moral Monster) click here. 

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Thess 5:23 

20: We Have Moved beyond This God (Haven’t We?) Jesus as the Fulfiller of the Old Testament

The Gifts of the Jews

On February 16, 1809, John Adams wrote a letter to F. A. Vanderkemp in which he insisted that “the Hebrews have done more to civilize man than any other nation.” Not only did their laws help bring a civilizing influence to the nations, but they preserved and propagated to humankind “the doctrine of a supreme, intelligent, wise, almighty sovereign of the universe, which I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization.”^[1]

In his fascinating book The Gifts of the Jews, Thomas Cahill reinforces this argument. This ancient nomadic desert tribe helped introduce to humanity a sense of history-a past, present, and future-and the idea that history is going somewhere, that it has a point.^[2] For the Mesopotamians, Egyptians, and other ancient peoples, time was cyclical—the same old same old. We could say the same about many Eastern philosophies and religions today; they espouse the doctrine of karma with its reincarnation cycles of birth, death, and rebirth.

What’s more, the Old Testament reveals a God who has a global (cosmic) plan and who involves humans as history-shaping participants in that plan. Yes, humans matter. The Old Testament’s genealogies reflect the important role that humans play in the unfolding of God’s purposes.

On top of this, the Jews introduced a robust monotheism. Rather than being just one god in a pantheon of others or just a regional deity, Yahweh was/is the only deity who matters. Indeed, he is the only one who exists. Along with this, the Jews introduced a new way to experience reality. There is a divine being who regularly, personally engages humans, whose choices really make a difference. Human decision making has great significance, and God interweaves these choices into his overarching plans. We’re not the pawns of fate or at the mercy of the whims of the gods. On the other hand, humans aren’t so powerful that they can manipulate God to do their bidding. These themes are some of the gifts of the Jews to the rest of the world.^[3]

The Gifts of the Christians

Horrendous, anti-Christian actions have been carried out in the name of Christ: the Crusades, the Inquisition, witch-hunting, or fighting between Catholics and Protestants in Europe could be named. Not that Jesus wants to be identified with this kind of religious zealotry. Many things can be done in God’s name that cause it to be “blasphemed among the Gentiles” (Rom. 2:24).

The problem with Christopher Hitchens’s claim that “religion poisons everything” is that it’s both vague and extreme. The term religion in the existing literature is notoriously vague and difficult to define. And if Dennett and Hitchens suggest that Stalin was somehow “religious,” then at this point we throw up our hands in bewilderment. Hitchens’s statement about religion’s noxious influence is also extreme in its lopsidedness.^[4] Does religion poison everything and bring no benefits whatsoever? More thoughtful, sophisticated atheists would strongly disagree. As atheist philosopher Walter Sinnott-Armstrong responds, this religion-poisons-everything slogan is “inaccurate and insulting.” He advises atheists not to cheer on or laugh at Hitchens’s jokes, nor should they remain silent. To Sinnott-Armstrong, Hitchens’s critique of religion is “like a senile relative” who is constantly making “bizarre statements”; his assessment is neither fair nor very illuminating.^[5]

Ironically, the New Atheists’ moral grenades lobbed against the Christian faith in the name of morality are actually historically founded upon the very faith they criticize. Historians have documented that the values of human rights, tolerance, social justice, and racial reconciliation are the legacy of the Christian faith, not some secular Enlightenment ideals. For all her flaws, the Christian church has played an important part in bringing huge benefits to civilization. This impact has often been inspired by devotion to Christ, which overflows to love for one’s neighbor to the glory of God.

These documented achievements include the following:^{[6] [7]}

Jesus as the Climax

The Scriptures begin with the creational affirmation that all humans are made in God’s image. In many ways, the improvements of the Old Testament over a good deal of other ancient Near Eastern legislation were a significant move toward that ideal. The Old Testament provides us with enduring perspectives about human dignity and fallenness, not to mention moral insights regarding justice, faithfulness, mercy, generosity, and the like.

However, if we stop with the Old Testament, we won’t see the entire story line as it’s brought to completion in Jesus. The Old Testament was in many ways anticipatory of something far greater. So if Jesus truly brought a new covenant for the true Israel and has begun to renew the creation as the second Adam, then we ought to concern ourselves with how his incarnation, ministry, atoning death, and resurrection shed light backward on the Old Testament, with all its messiness. To stop with Old Testament texts without allowing Christ, the second Adam, and the new, true Israel to illuminate them, our reading and interpretation of the Old Testament will be greatly impoverished and, in certain ways, misrepresented.^[16]

One day we’ll fully enjoy the realization of pristine goodness and shalom. In the new heaven and earth, no social or racial discrimination will exist. Swords will be beaten into plowshares. Peace will reign. In his own day, Jesus reaffirmed Old Testament texts about loving God and neighbor and called Israel back to live by God’s creational designs. That was then, but hardened hearts are still with us today. Yet Jesus’s approach to the Old Testament should instruct us Christians living in the already/not yet. We’re living with many benefits of the cross of Christ (already), but we still live in a fallen world as we await the new heaven and earth and the receiving of our resurrection bodies (not yet).

Though the New Atheists don’t intend it and though they often go about it in wrongheaded ways, they can serve as a proper challenge for us Christians.^[17] How? By reminding us to be more thoughtful in our faith, to live kingdom-centered lives with greater Christian passion and consistency, to deepen our commitment to justice and opposing oppression, to think through contemporary obstacles to belief, and to offer a more compelling vision in word and deed to a watching world. We all need to take a fresh look at Jesus and let our gaze at him shape our devotion to him, our love for others (even our enemies), and our concern for the culture and world in which we find ourselves. Author and pastor Tim Keller gives us a start for our reflection:

If your fundamental is a man dying on the cross for his enemies, if the very heart of your self-image and your religion is a man praying for his enemies as he died for them, sacrificing for them, loving them-if that sinks into your heart of hearts, it’s going to produce the kind of life that the early Christians produced. The most inclusive possible life out of the most exclusive possible claim-and that is that this is the truth. But what is the truth? The truth is a God become weak, loving, and dying for the people who opposed him, dying forgiving them.^[18]

While we may stumble or be troubled when reading certain Old Testament texts, we can put them in proper perspective by looking in the right places. The ultimate resolution is found in God’s clarifying Word to us and the One who became flesh and lived among us, who died and rose again on our behalf. The God whom the New Atheists consider a monster is not just a holy God to be reckoned with but a loving, self-sacrificing God who invites us to be reconciled to him.

Further Reading

Hill, Jonathan. What Has Christianity Ever Done for Us? Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2005.

Schmidt, Alvin. How Christianity Changed the World. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004.

Stark, Rodney. The Victory of Reason. New York: Random House, 2005.

Wright, N. T. Evil and the Justice of God. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006.

Click on the "Is God a Moral Monster" tag below to see all the posts in this series. To go to the start of this series click here.

Questions & Notes

1. John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: with a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations, by his Grandson Charles Francis Adams, vol. 9 (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1856). Available at http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php&title=2107. ↑

2. Thomas Cahill, The Gifts of the Jews (New York: Anchor, 1999). ↑

3. Contrary to the New Atheists, what contributions have Jews made to civilization? This book lists some of them. Can you think of others? ↑

4. When Christopher Hitchens says that “religion poisons everything,” what does he mean? What is the problem with his claim? ↑

5. Walter Sinnot-Armstrong, Morality without God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 154. ↑

6. Jonathan Hill, What Has Christianity Ever Done for Us? (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2005), 176-77. For thorough documentation on these phenomena, see Alvin J. Schmidt, How Christianity Changed the World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004). ↑

7. What have been some of the contributions Christians have made to the world? What Christ-inspired effects have brought light, help, and hope to the world? Can you think of any other contributions not mentioned in the book? ↑

8. Jaroslav Pelikan, Jesus through the Centuries (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), 33. ↑

9. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006), 37. ↑

10. Rodney Stark, The Victory of Reason (New York: Random House, 2005), xi. ↑

11. Look at Jürgen Habermas’s quotation on the influence of the Christian faith. What do you think of it, and why is this important in light of the New Atheists’ critique? ↑

12. Jürgen Habermas, Time of Transitions, ed. and trans. Ciaran Cronin and Max Pensky (Cambridge: Polity, 2006), 150-51. ↑

13. Max Stackhouse, “A Christian Perspective on Human Rights,” Society (January/February 2004): 25. ↑

14. Ibid., 24. See also Max L. Stackhouse and Stephen E. Healey, “Religion and Human Rights: A Theological Apologetic,” in Religious Rights in Global Perspective, ed. J. Witte Jr. and J. D. van der Vyer (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1996), 486; and Mary Ann Glendon, The World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (New York: Random House, 2001). ↑

15. David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity Is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2003), 5. This quotation serves as an exclamation point to round out Rodney Stark’s study, The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism and Western Success (New York: Random House, 2005), 235. ↑

16. How does the coming of Jesus bring clarity to the Old Testament and some of its challenges? ↑

17. Overall, what have been some benefits you’ve taken away from reading and discussing this book? What have you learned about the character and activity of God across the two testaments? How have you been stretched and even strengthened in your faith? ↑

18. Tim Keller, “Reason for God,” The Explorer (Veritas Forum) (Fall 2008), www.veritas.org/explorer/fall2008.html#story1. ↑

This section gets to the root of the atheists values for critiquing Christian values.  It turns out, they have no root.  They are like that obnoxious weed that grows in the garden that is easily pulled up and eliminated but appears again and again.  

  This is a review of Is God a Moral Monster by Paul Copan with study questions added to turn them into lessons.  These lessons are part of a wider study on Sanctification by Faith which has as its goal the fulfillment of Gal 5:16

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. 

  Because sanctification depends upon faith, doubt will be seen as a hindrance.  Misunderstanding can lead to doubt as well as ignorance, deception, and experience like - it doesn't feel right.  This lesson seeks to combat ignorance, deception, and misunderstanding.  By erasing these, our faith is free to function at a higher level.  

  I’ve set all of these studies in a specific order so that anyone may easily build on the foundation of Christ with the finest materials - gold, silver, and precious stones (1 Cor 3:10-13).  God has gifted the Church with amazing evangelists, pastors, and teachers to do the mining so that we have these materials to complete the building project. (Eph 4:11-16).  I invite you to study along with me.  You can see an overview of the complete Sanctification by Faith study here.  To go to the start of the current lesson (Is God a Moral Monster) click here. 

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Thess 5:23 

Part 4: Sharpening the Moral Focus

19: Morality without a Lawgiving God? The Divine Foundation of Goodness

Christopher Hitchens throws down the gauntlet: “I defy you, or anyone, to name one more deed that I would not do, unless I . . . became a Christian.”^[1] Sam Harris writes of the “myth of secular moral chaos”—that is, morality and social order don’t need God or religion as their basis. After all, there are plenty of moral atheists and many immoral religious devotees. He rejects the notion that rape or killing children is wrong just because God says so.^[2]

Likewise, Daniel Dennett challenges the notion that goodness is opposed to scientific materialism: “There is no reason at all why a disbelief in the immateriality or immortality of the soul should make a person less caring, less moral, less committed to the well-being of everybody on Earth than somebody who believes in ‘the spirit.'”^[3] He adds that a “good scientific materialist” can be just as concerned about “whether there is plenty of justice, love, joy, beauty, political freedom, and yes, even religious freedom” as the “deeply spiritual.” Indeed, those calling themselves spiritual can be “cruel, arrogant, self-centered, and utterly unconcerned about the moral problems of the world.” ^[4]

In his BBC antireligious documentary The Root of All Evil? Richard Dawkins insists that kindness, generosity, and goodness can be found in human nature and that Darwinism explains this. How? We have altruistic genes. We’re genetically wired to scratch another’s back. In other words, genes create morality; God or religion doesn’t. We humans have a moral conscience and a mutual empathy that are constantly evolving.^[5]

The message from all of these atheists is loud and clear: people can be moral without believing in God. A more careful examination reveals that the New Atheists are right on one level but wrong on another.

A Matter of Consistency?

Though accusing Yahweh of being a moral monster, Dawkins has his own problem: he has gone on record denying the very existence of evil and goodness.^[6]

If the universe were just electrons and selfish genes, meaningless tragedies . . . are exactly what we should expect, along with equally meaningless good fortune. Such a universe would be neither evil nor good in intention. . . . The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.^[7]

In A Devil’s Chaplain, he asserts, “Science has no methods for deciding what is ethical. That is a matter for individuals and for society.”^[8] If science alone gives us knowledge, as Dawkins claims, then how can he consider God’s actions immoral or religion the root of all evil? As we’ll see, Dawkins is helping himself to the metaphysical resources of a worldview he repudiates.

Knowing vs. Being

Let’s be clear: the New Atheists are absolutely correct that we don’t need to believe in God or follow the Bible to have a general knowledge of what’s right and wrong. Like theists, atheists have been made in God’s image, and they can recognize the same sorts of virtues and behaviors, as atheists themselves like to point out. Having been made in the divine image, we’ve been designed to function properly by living morally. So if we take our conscience seriously (as we see Gentiles should have done in Amos 1-2), we can get a lot right morally. Those denying that kindness is a virtue or that torturing babies for fun is wrong don’t need an argument; they need psychological and spiritual help! They’re suffering from moral malfunction. When people tell me, “Well, the 9/11 terrorists sincerely believed they were doing what was right,” I reply, “A lot of people in psychiatric wards sincerely believe they’re Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, or Napoleon Bonaparte!” Sincerity isn’t necessarily an indication of proper function.

Some atheists will say that we know rape is wrong because it violates the victim’s rights and rips apart the social fabric. The problem with moral atheism, though, is that it doesn’t go far enough. Notice how atheists who believe in real right and wrong make a massive intellectual leap of faith. They believe that somehow moral facts were eternally part of the “furniture” of reality but that from impersonal and valueless slime, human persons possessing rights, dignity, worth, and duties were eventually produced. These moral truths were “anticipating” the evolution of morally valuable human beings who would have duties to obey them. Yes, atheists can know that rape is wrong, but that’s no surprise if they have been made in the image of God, whom they refuse to acknowledge. The more fundamental question that atheism seems unable to answer is: How did they come to be rights-bearing, valuable persons?* The problem isn’t one of knowing; it’s one of being.^[9]

Let’s change the scenario from a rape on the street to the use of a date rape drug at a party. Wanting to get what he wants, a young man places this drug into the drink of an unsuspecting woman. Suppose he’s nice enough to take certain precautions so that there are no obvious consequences to his actions. The woman wakes up later not knowing the difference. Why is this act still so repugnant? After all, the woman doesn’t know anything, the guy had his pleasure, and no one is the wiser. And why should Dawkins be outraged at such an action? After all, as Dawkins says, human beings simply “dance” to the music of their DNA.^[10] If there’s a deviation from genetically produced kindness and generosity, it’s not truly immoral; it’s just a genetic glitch.

It’s wrong to rape a girl—whether she knows what’s happening or not—because she has intrinsic dignity and rights. For the same reason, it’s wrong to mock and insult the mentally challenged even if they don’t seem to be hurt by these verbal assaults. Where then do dignity and rights come from in a world of electrons and selfish genes? The doctrine of the image of God supports our strongest intuitions that humans aren’t objects to use and abuse but persons who should be respected and treated fairly before the law.

Intrinsically valuable, thinking persons don’t come from impersonal, nonconscious, unguided, valueless processes over time. A personal, self-aware, purposeful, good God provides the much-needed context that a God-less universe just can’t. Personhood and morality are necessarily connected; moral values are rooted in personhood. Without God (a personal Being), no persons—and thus no moral values—would exist at all. Only if God exists can moral properties be realized.^[11]

Some atheists will claim that moral values are “just there”—necessary truths that are part of the furniture of the universe. If that’s the case, as we just noted, then what a whopping cosmic coincidence that these moral laws were somehow anticipating the eventual emergence of moral creatures who would have duties to obey these laws.

God’s existence and creation of humans makes better sense of the connection between genuine, universal moral standards (rooted in God’s nature) and human dignity and worth.

Even secular ethical systems—whether variations on the ethical views of the philosophers Aristotle or Kant or perhaps some social contract view—may affirm many truths that believers in God affirm. These systems may agree that we ought to carry out certain moral obligations or cultivate certain character qualities. Even so, these systems are still incomplete because they don’t offer a basis for human dignity and worth.

The Hitchens Challenge

What about the Hitchens challenge? Can we name one moral virtue in a Christian that an atheist like Hitchens doesn’t have? Yes! How about not honoring God or giving him thanks (Rom. 1:21)? What about the sin of human self-sufficiency and the refusal to submit to God’s authority (Ps. 2)? What about Hitchens’s despising God’s offer of salvation or his refusal to depend on God’s grace (Matt. 23:37)? If the two great commands are to love God fully and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, and Hitchens is as good as he says he is, then he still flunks the test at 50 percent. He has rejected the “great and foremost command” (Matt. 22:38-39).

I wonder if Hitchens worries about things; he isn’t interested in casting his cares on the One who cares for him (1 Peter 5:7). Does Hitchens love his enemies and do good to them (Matt. 5:44)? Does he take God’s name in vain (Exod. 20:7)? Does he forgive others as he has been offered forgiveness (Eph. 4:32)?^[12]

Perhaps we can take things a step further. Guenter Lewy, the agnostic political scientist who taught at the University of Massachusetts, has observed that there are some moral virtues that atheism is unlikely to produce:

Adherents of [a naturalistic] ethic are not likely to produce a Dorothy Day or a Mother Teresa. Many of these people love humanity but not individual human beings with all their failings and shortcomings. They will be found participating in demonstrations for causes such as nuclear disarmament but not sitting at the bedside of a dying person. An ethic of moral autonomy and individual rights, so important to secular liberals, is incapable of sustaining and nourishing values such as altruism and self-sacrifice.^[13]

Along these lines, the Christian writer Malcolm Muggeridge wrote that he spent many years in India and Africa, where he witnessed “much righteous endeavor undertaken by Christians of all denominations.” By contrast, however, “I never, as it happens, came across a hospital or orphanage run by the Fabian Society or a Humanist leper colony.”^[14] Even if we consider such undertakings of self-sacrifice morally praiseworthy and even heroic, they don’t seem to be very biologically advantageous.

Can Naturalistic Evolution Explain Morality?

Dawkins claims that kindness and generosity are rooted in our genes. We’ve developed an awareness of morality that proves to be biologically beneficial. Although I go into more detail on this question elsewhere, let me offer a few responses here.

Why Trust Our Genes?

If we’re nothing more than the products of naturalistic evolution trying to fight, feed, flee, and reproduce, why trust the convictions of our minds—whether about truth or morality? If we’re just dancing to our DNA—over which we have absolutely no control—how do we know we’re right about anything? We’d only be accidentally right, but this can’t be called knowledge. As Charles Darwin mused, “With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?”^[15]

We could accidentally believe true things that help us to survive. But we could just as well have many false beliefs that help us to survive. For example, we might be hardwired to believe that humans are valuable and have rights or that we have moral duties to perform. Such beliefs might help us survive as a species, but they would be completely false.

The naturalistic evolutionary process is interested in fitness or survival, not in true belief. So not only is objective morality undermined, but so is rational thought. According to atheistic evolutionists Michael Ruse and E. O. Wilson, morality is a “corporate illusion” that has been “fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate.”^[16] We think we really ought to love little children, but we’re wrong to conclude that right and wrong really exist. This illusion that we have moral duties is compelling and strong. Without it, we’d ignore or disobey our moral impulses. However, having moral inclinations is far different from having moral duties, which brings us to our next point.

Moving from “Is” to “Ought”

According to the skeptic Michael Shermer, whom Dawkins approvingly cites, asking “Why should we be moral?” is like wondering “Why should we be hungry or horny?” Shermer insists that “the answer is that it is as much a part of human nature to be moral as it is to be hungry, horny, jealous, and in love.”^[17] Such drives are hardwired into us by evolution. But as C. S. Lewis noted, moral impulses, given such hardwiring conditions, are no more true (or false) “than a vomit or a yawn.”^[18] Thinking “I ought” is on the same level of “I itch.” Indeed, “my impulse to serve posterity is just the same sort of thing as my fondness for cheese” or preferring mild or bitter beer.^[19]

In effect, all Shermer can do is describe how human beings actually function, but he can’t prescribe how humans ought to behave. There’s no difference between whether I ought to be moral and whether I ought to be hungry, since both are functions of evolutionary hardwiring. These states just are.^[20]

If, on the other hand, humans are made in the image of God and have value from the start, then we don’t have to wonder about how to move from the “is” of nature to the “ought” of genuine moral obligation. A supremely valuable Being is at the heart of reality; no is-ought problem exists if theism is true.

Arbitrary Morality

Ruse and Wilson report that instead of evolving from “savannah-dwelling primates,” we, like termites, could have evolved needing “to dwell in darkness, eat each other’s [waste], and cannibalise the dead.” If the latter were the case, we would “extol such acts as beautiful and moral” and “find it morally disgusting to live in the open air, dispose of body waste and bury the dead.”^[21] So our awareness of morality (“a sense of right and wrong and a feeling of obligation to be thus governed”) is of “biological worth,” serves as “an aid to survival,” and “has no being beyond this.”^[22] Naturalistic morality is arbitrary and could have developed in opposite directions. We happen to admire the morality that evolution has passed on to us, but we could be singing the praises of the very opposite morality for the same reasons: we dance to our DNA.

To further illustrate, consider the book A Natural History of Rape, coauthored by a biologist and an anthropologist.^[23] The upshot of the book is that rape can be explained biologically: when a male cannot find a mate, his subconscious drive to reproduce his own species makes him force himself upon a female. After all, such acts happen in the animal kingdom with, say, male mallards or scorpion flies. The authors don’t advocate rape; in fact, they claim that rapists aren’t excused for their (mis)behavior. But if the rape impulse happens to be embedded into human nature from antiquity and if it bestows biological advantage, how can the authors suggest that this behavior ought to be ended? The authors’ resistance to rape, despite its naturalness, suggests objective moral values that transcend nature. An ethic rooted in nature appears to leave us with arbitrary morality.^[24] Theism, on the other hand, begins with value; the is-ought gulf is easily bridged.

Again, it’s hard to see how the naturalist/atheist can move from material, valueless, nonconscious processes to the production of valuable, rights-bearing human beings. From valuelessness, valuelessness comes. Matter doesn’t have the capacity to produce value. Physics textbooks don’t include goodness or even consciousness in their attempted definitions of matter.

By contrast, the God hypothesis doesn’t force us to make a huge leap from valuelessness to value. Rather, we begin with value (God’s good character), and we end with value (divine image-bearing humans with moral responsibility and rights). A good God effectively bridges the chasm between is and ought. Value exists from the very beginning; it is rooted in a self-existent, good God. So for all their criticisms of religion, New Atheists still lack the moral foundations to justify genuine moral criticism of theism, nor can atheism truly ground moral value or human dignity and worth.

Further Reading

Copan, Paul. “God, Naturalism, and the Foundations of Morality.” In The Future of Atheism: Alister McGrath and Daniel Dennett in Dialogue, edited by Robert Stewart. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008.

-. “True for You, but Not for Me”: Overcoming Common Objections to Christian Faith. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2009.

Copan, Paul, and Mark D. Linville. The Moral Argument. New York: Continuum Press, forthcoming.

Hare, John. Why Bother Being Good? The Place of God in the Moral Life. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2002.

Click on the "Is God a Moral Monster" tag below to see all the posts in this series. To go to the start of this series click here.

Questions & Notes

1. Cited in Michael Novak, No One Sees God (New York: Doubleday, 2007), 76. ↑

2. Sam Harris, “The Myth of Secular Moral Chaos,” Council for Secular Humanism, www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=sharris_26_3 (accessed September 19, 2009). ↑

3. Have you ever discussed the topic of morality with an atheist or skeptic? How have the conversations gone? ↑

4. Daniel Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (New York: Viking, 2006), 305. ↑

5. Richard Dawkins, The Root of All Evil? directed by Russell Barnes (BBC, 2006). ↑

6. What is the glaring inconsistency in Richard Dawkins’s claim that God is a “moral monster”? ↑

7. Richard Dawkins, River out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life (New York: Basic Books/ HarperCollins, 1995), 132-33. ↑

8. Richard Dawkins, A Devil’s Chaplain (Boston: Houghton & Mifflin, 2003), 34. ↑

9. Why is it important to distinguish between “knowing” and “being” when it comes to morality? ↑

10. Dawkins, River out of Eden, 133. ↑

11. Why is it so difficult to account for human dignity and worth if God doesn’t exist? ↑

12. Atheists commonly claim that they are just as good as any religious believer. However, what are some moral obligations that atheists don’t carry out? ↑

13. Guenter Lewy, Why America Needs Religion (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 137. ↑

14. Malcolm Muggeridge, “Me and Myself,” in Jesus Rediscovered (New York: Pyramid Publications, 1969), 157. ↑

15. Letter (July 3, 1881) to Wm. G. Down, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, ed. Francis Darwin (London: John Murray, Abermarle Street, 1887), 1:315-16. ↑

16. Michael Ruse and E. O. Wilson, “The Evolution of Ethics,” in Religion and the Natural Sciences, ed. J. E. Huchingson (Orlando: Harcourt Brace, 1993), 310-11. ↑

17. Michael Shermer, The Science of Good and Evil (New York: Henry Holt, 2004), 57. ↑

18. C. S. Lewis, Miracles (New York: Macmillan, 1960), 37. ↑

19. Ibid., 38, 37. ↑

20. How do you respond to the claim that evolution explains morality? What is missing in purely naturalistic accounts of morality? ↑

21. Ruse and Wilson, “The Evolution of Ethics,” 311. ↑

22. Michael Ruse, The Darwinian Paradigm (London: Routledge, 1989), 262, 268. ↑

23. Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer, A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000). ↑

24. How does the existence of a good God who makes human beings in his image offer a more likely context for objective moral values? ↑

The claims that religion causes violence always appeared to me to be rather shallow thinking. What do you think? Does Copan's explanation support that thought?

  This is a review of Is God a Moral Monster by Paul Copan with study questions added to turn them into lessons.  These lessons are part of a wider study on Sanctification by Faith which has as its goal the fulfillment of Gal 5:16

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. 

  Because sanctification depends upon faith, doubt will be seen as a hindrance.  Misunderstanding can lead to doubt as well as ignorance, deception, and experience like - it doesn't feel right.  This lesson seeks to combat ignorance, deception, and misunderstanding.  By erasing these, our faith is free to function at a higher level.  

  I’ve set all of these studies in a specific order so that anyone may easily build on the foundation of Christ with the finest materials - gold, silver, and precious stones (1 Cor 3:10-13).  God has gifted the Church with amazing evangelists, pastors, and teachers to do the mining so that we have these materials to complete the building project. (Eph 4:11-16).  I invite you to study along with me.  You can see an overview of the complete Sanctification by Faith study here.  To go to the start of the current lesson (Is God a Moral Monster) click here. 

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Thess 5:23 

18: The Root of All Evil? Does Religion Cause Violence?

In Mark Juergensmeyer’s book Terror in the Mind of God, he claims that religion is violent by nature. How so? It tends to “absolutize and to project images of cosmic war”—even if a religion’s ultimate goal is peace and order. Juergensmeyer’s recommendation? Injecting into religion the softening Enlightenment values of “rationality and fair play”; this will help stop the violence and killing to produce peace and harmony in this world.^[1]

Three years earlier, Regina Schwartz wrote The Curse of Cain, challenging the “violent legacy of monotheism” (which includes Judaism, Islam, and Christianity). Belief in one God (monotheism) and exclusive truth claims go hand in hand, which allegedly leads to problems for everybody else. Those embracing the “one true God” will reject, hate, and remove all outsiders, who don’t accept their God or their worldview.^[2] Monotheism and exclusive truth claims create an us-them mentality: to preserve our identity and religious purity, they must be removed. This is what Richard Dawkins means about Israel’s God being obsessed with “his own superiority over rival gods and with the exclusiveness of his chosen desert tribe.”^[3]

That’s why Cain, whose offering was rejected by God in favor of his brother Abel’s, rose up and murdered him. Likewise, God unfairly chose the younger Jacob over Esau, which produced conflict between them. For similar reasons, the chosen Israelites ended up killing the un-chosen Canaanites; God was on Israel’s side, not the Canaanites’. Alienation and murder are the predictable results of monotheism. So we shouldn’t be surprised by acts like the September 11 terrorist attacks—the very claim the New Atheists make.^[4] The alternative to coercive religion would be Enlightenment values of tolerance favoring diversity and pluralism; these values generously welcome outsiders and don’t stifle creativity.^[5]

Do We Just Need Enlightenment Values?

To the contrary, we could argue that we don’t need less religion and more Enlightenment values. Ironically, the barbarity of the Enlightenment’s French Revolution turned the pursuit of liberty, equality, and fraternity into inhumanity and a nightmare of cruelty. As many have argued, institutionalizing pluralism and diversity in society can have the effect of excluding and eliminating traditional religion from the conversation.

Properly understood, we actually need more religion, not less. But we need the right kind of religious values, not simply anything that calls itself religious (think Jim Jones, David Koresh, and jihadists). When given proper consideration, a truly biblical worldview should have a place at the table given its foundation for morality and its positive culture-shaping influence, a point we’ll explore in the last chapters. The biblical faith actually supports tolerance: despite our disagreements, human beings are still God’s image-bearers, and we are to seek to live at peace with all insofar as we’re able (Rom. 12:18). It supports diversity: because of Christ’s death, he has broken down dividing walls of race, class, and gender (Gal. 3:28; Eph. 2:11-22). While the apostle Paul talks about warfare, he refers to spiritual warfare in Ephesians 6. But while we can bracket the topic of fighting a just war (e.g., to stop Nazi aggression), the Christian’s war doesn’t require earthly weapons (2 Cor. 10:4). The kind of conquest Paul calls for is overcoming evil with good (Rom. 12:21).

So we’re not talking about generic religion, as though all religions are alike and that any one religion is as harmful as the next. Also, we should ask if a religion is true. Does it square with and explain reality?^[6] We shouldn’t make the mistake the conquering Assyrians did, who “spoke of the God of Jerusalem as of the gods of the peoples of the earth, the work of men’s hands” (2 Chron. 32:19). So when we’re talking about more religion, we’re also talking about one that’s true.

What about Schwartz’s claim that monotheism leads to violence? It’s hard to see how God’s oneness could lead to violence in itself. For one thing, Schwartz ignores Old Testament references to God’s grace, compassion, patience, and mercy (e.g., Exod. 34:6-7). Theologian Miroslav Volf argues that if one gets rid of monotheism, “the division and violence between ‘us’ and ‘them’ hardly disappears.”^[7] In the eyes of pagan, Roman, emperor-worshiping polytheists (i.e., worshipers of many gods), Christians were persecuted as atheists: belief in one God was close enough. Ironically, monotheistic Christians were singled out for attack by the diversity-affirming religionists in the Mediterranean world!

Beyond this, history (in addition to tomorrow’s headlines) is littered with not-necessarily monotheistic tribes warring against each other or this communist government attacking that religious group. And why the focus on religion per se? Why not attack politics and political abuses of religion? What about ethnic tribalism that gives rise to hostility and violence, as in the former Yugoslavia? Why not consider complex sociological and historical factors that contribute to conflict? Alienation, poverty, disempowerment, racism/ tribalism, power structures, historical feuding, and animosity may give rise to anger and then to violence. Religion often turns out to be the label used to justify violence between warring parties.^[8]

So why think that religion is the sole factor, the entire cause of blame? Rather than dragging God into the situation to cover over the root problem(s), we should resist the manipulation of God for our purposes. And what about the positive effects of a religion? What if more benefit than harm comes from a particular religion? The notion that religion causes violence or harm typically obscures a complexity of factors involved.

Raising Cain

What of Schwartz’s problem of Cain? God didn’t choose Abel at the expense of Cain. God had warned Cain of his sinful attitude, saying that he must master the sin that is “crouching at the door” (Gen. 4:7). Cain could have offered an acceptable sacrifice if his resentment had turned to humility. Though Cain was angry and his “countenance fell” (Genesis 4:5-6), God reminded him that such a condition wasn’t inevitable: “If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up?” (Genesis 4:7). Plainly, God didn’t favor Abel at Cain’s expense. In fact, even after Cain killed Abel, God still granted a protective grace to Cain.

The same applies to Jacob and Esau. Though Esau didn’t receive the inheritance rights, he was still reconciled to his trickster brother at story’s end (Gen. 33:4). Esau succeeded while Cain failed. God shouldn’t be blamed in either scenario.^[9] And when it comes to Israel and the nations, God’s choosing Israel didn’t exclude other nations from salvation (e.g., Rahab, Ruth, Nineveh in Jonah’s day). Indeed, God’s desire is to include all who will come to him.

Even within Israel, God chose the tribe of Judah, through which the Davidic Messiah would come. Again, this was a means of bringing salvation to the Jews but also to the Gentiles. Just because God chose to work through Judah, who had a besmirched reputation (Gen. 37:23-27; 38), didn’t mean that Joseph (a man of faith and integrity) couldn’t experience salvation or receive God’s blessing through trust and obedience.

Besides this, consider how some persons are more intelligent, athletic, artistic, or pleasant looking than others. We don’t have perfect equality here, except in the dignity and worth of each individual. Yes, those apparently less endowed can become resentful or jealous of those seemingly more endowed, or one can recognize the graces one has received and constructively deal with disappointments. In fact, some of the presumed assets of money, good looks, or intelligence can actually be spiritual hindrances and sources of pride and self-sufficiency.^[10]

Think of the blind hymn writer Fanny Crosby (1820-1915). When she was six weeks old, a doctor applied the wrong medicine-a hot poultice-on her inflamed eyes, which resulted in permanent blindness. Rather than becoming resentful, she vowed to be content with her lot in life. She wrote some of the most uplifting hymns sung by Christians such as “To God Be the Glory, Great Things He Hath Done” and “Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross.” Reflecting on her blindness, she wrote these stanzas:

Oh what a happy soul I am,
Although I cannot see;
I am resolved that in this world
Contented I will be.
How many blessings I enjoy,
That other people don’t;
To weep and sigh because I’m blind,
I cannot, and I won’t.^[11]

The Rights of Self-Exclusion

Schwartz’s problem is that she hasn’t taken the doctrine of the Trinity seriously enough. The Triune God—Father, Son, and Spirit—is not a self-enclosed deity. He graciously creates human beings to share in his life, joy, and goodness. God is indeed humble and other-centered, serving his creatures and showing kindness to all (Matt. 5:45). A central distinguishing feature of God—and of those who take his rule seriously—is love for one’s enemies. This isn’t the easy love of being good to those who are good to us but the tough, gritty, and most complete love over all other types of love (Matt. 5:46-48).

Someone may object: “Isn’t there the doctrine of hell, the ultimate exclusion? Why doesn’t God show absolute hospitality to all without exclusion? Isn’t this the truly peaceful alternative?” Miroslav Volf astutely observes that “absolute hospitality” becomes difficult when the unrepentant perpetrators sit down with their unhealed, violated victims.^[12] Such a perverse view of hospitality would actually “enthrone violence because it would leave the violators unchanged and the consequences of violence unremedied.”^[13] The older brother in the prodigal son story (Luke 15) was left with a decision: would he stay outside to sulk and pout, or would he come in to celebrate the return of his younger brother and thus show honor to his gracious father?

Hell itself is the act of self-exclusion from God, the final act of self-assertion and control.^[14] If we want a divorce from God, he will grant it. Hell isn’t a torture chamber of everlasting fire. Hell is ultimately a realm of self-separation and quarantine from God’s presence (2 Thess. 1:9). Spirit beings (the devil and his angels) will have the final separation from God that they desire. C. S. Lewis puts it this way:

I would pay any price to be able to say truthfully “All will be saved.” But my reason retorts, “Without their will, or with it?” If I say “Without their will” I at once perceive a contradiction; how can the supreme voluntary act of self-surrender be involuntary? If I say “With their will,” my reason replies “How if they will not give in?”^[15]

No, the problem isn’t religion, although many religiously inspired actions are certainly perverse and grotesque. In the Old Testament, we see that God desires to include Jew and Gentile, friend and enemy alike in his saving purposes. When we come to the New Testament, this vision of one people from all ethnic groups is finally being realized.

Properly understood, the Christian faith (and not some generic category called religion), with its doctrine of the self-giving and other-centered Trinity, is actually a beacon of hope for peacemaking and reconciliation (Rom. 5:6-11; Eph. 2:14-17). Some may refuse to participate and continue the conflict, but that is not the fault of the Christian faith.

Questions & Notes

Click on the "Is God a Moral Monster" tag below to see all the posts in this series. To go to the start of this series click here.

1. Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 242, 159, 243. ↑

2. Regina Schwartz, The Curse of Cain (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 63. ↑

3. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006), 37. ↑

4. In this chapter, I’ll be following Mirsoslav Volf, “Christianity and Violence,” in War in the Bible and Violence in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Richard S. Hess and Elmer A. Martens (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2008); and R. W. L. Moberly, “Is Monotheism Bad for You? Some Reflections on God, the Bible, and Life in the Light of Regina Schwartz’s The Curse of Cain,” in The God of Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 94-112. ↑

5. What do you think of the claim that monotheism leads to violence? Are exclusivistic truth claims the problem? Why are Enlightenment values not the solution? ↑

6. Why is the term religion in this discussion often being used unfairly? ↑

7. Volf, “Christianity and Violence,” 8. ↑

8. What do you think about the claim that sociological, historical, ethnic, or economic factors commonly lurk behind religious hostilities? Can you give some examples? ↑

9. Regarding Regina Schwartz’s critique, why is Cain not a good example of monotheistic exclusion? What about Esau? ↑

10. Must all gifts from God (e.g., intelligence, artistic abilities) be distributed equally to show that God is truly just? Why or why not? ↑

11. This poem can be found online at ChristianHistory.net, “Fanny Crosby,” August 8, 2008, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/131christians/poets/crosby.html. ↑

12. Why is absolute hospitality a picture of injustice? ↑

13. Volf, “Christianity and Violence,” 13. ↑

14. What do we mean by speaking of the right of self-exclusion? ↑

15. C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: Macmillan, 1962), 118-19. ↑