Ways Higher Than YHWH's: 03 May 2004
Tonight I was talking to JB about the book of Job and I realised one of the key things that led me to lose my faith. I told him that I had always wondered why God had not just ignored Satan, instead he sought to prove himself to him and allowed Job to be harmed in the process. It seems unlikely, that he would have more likely to ignore him like one would ignore a bully trying to pick a fight, or how a rich famous person would ignore the insults of a poor nobody, how a king would ignore a peasant's challenge. It just doesn't make sense that it would bother God. JB said that trying to justify God's action is a trap because it gets you to thinking like Job's friends, they just try to find reasons why God was right to do it. I said then it comes to the question of what makes something good—does God do it because it's good, or is it good because he does it? JB goes with the second because he says God is the first cause, the source of morality. And I think he needs to if he is to keep his faith. It's the same kind of thinking that makes RH say that genocide is okay sometimes—otherwise his God has sinned and he can't have that. I realised though, that means God doesn't have anything moral, the statement that he is good means nothing if good is just determined arbitrarily by him. Then anything is good, so long as God does it. Thus God is actually amoral if he is the source of morality. There's no gurarantee he won't tell you to kill your son, Isaac. JB points out that he stopped that at the last second, apparantly that makes it okay. I should ask him what would he think if God hadn't stopped him? I should find that story where the father kills his daughter because she was the first out of the tent and it was a pact with God. I lost my faith when I realised that I believe in a higher moral code than YHWH. I think he is not good.
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