Is God held to a different moral standard?

[Angel]

The Bible mentions several acts of God that if a human did would be considered wrong. Some examples would be when the Bible mentions God killing babies and ordering others to do so. I wonder if God is obligated to follow the same morals as us. One common response I get from some Christians is that God is God so he can do what he wants. If we try to do some of the objectionable things on our own that he's done then we're guilty of playing God. For example, if a human kills an innocent baby, the human would be guilty of murder, but if God does it, some Christians defend it as being right since it's God. Christians with that position see no wrong in it just as long as the child goes to a better afterlife but they don't factor in the means of the baby's death which is by 'murder' as far as I could tell. Why the double standard?


Debate Question:
1) Does God have a different set of morals to follow or does he follow the same ones that he expects humans to follow?

2) If God does not follow the rules he expects us to follow, is that fair to his followers? Why or why not?

[1213]

Debate Question:
1) Does God have a different set of morals to follow or does he follow the same ones that he expects humans to follow?

God does not have different set of morals.

God has given life so he has right to take it away. (Having baby is not giving life, it is letting life to continue). If human creates something, he has right to destroy it. And good human does that only with good reason.

[Goat]

Debate Question:
1) Does God have a different set of morals to follow or does he follow the same ones that he expects humans to follow?

God does not have different set of morals.

God has given life so he has right to take it away. (Having baby is not giving life, it is letting life to continue). If human creates something, he has right to destroy it. And good human does that only with good reason.

And why is 'giving life' having the right to 'take it away'? Might makes right??

[AquinasD]

Before I give my answer, let us first examine the prospect of different moral standings that result from different statuses attendant to persons.

A lynch mob and a jury can have the same end; the execution of a criminal. Yet, we recognize that one can do so morally, and the other cannot. This is due to their different moral standings. A lynch mob cannot enact due process of the law, while a jury of peers can. Therefore, even though both groups have the same end, they cannot be judged moral or not merely by their resultant actions.

Thus, we must recognize that certain differences of status can hold between different individuals.

It can be right for a father to deprive his daughter of her cell phone in order to punish her for disrespecting her brother. But it could not be right for a stranger to deprive that same daughter for the same wrongdoing.

So we must recognize the demand for perfection from Christ in this way. We are to be perfect, as God is perfect; but our individual perfections can lie in different actions.

Consider how the perfection of the chef is different from the perfection of the golfer. We recognize a chef as "good" is his food is good. We recognize a golfer as "good" is his game is good. Likewise with other professions.

This same principle applies to humans and God. God's perfection is a perfection, and a human's perfection is a perfection, but the perfection of each does not necessarily require that one perform the very same actions.

For example, God would be free to deprive a person of life even if that person had committed no crime. This is because all life is God's, and as such, is His to take. But a human is not free to deprive another of life, at least not without due process of law (which requires a jury of peers).

So is God held to a different moral standard? In a sense, I suppose, considering He is a being with a status removed from all other beings.

[1213]

Debate Question:
1) Does God have a different set of morals to follow or does he follow the same ones that he expects humans to follow?

God does not have different set of morals.

God has given life so he has right to take it away. (Having baby is not giving life, it is letting life to continue). If human creates something, he has right to destroy it. And good human does that only with good reason.

And why is 'giving life' having the right to 'take it away'? Might makes right??

If the question is, do human and God have same rights, answer is yes. Because if human creates something, he has right to destroy it, same way as God has right to destroy what he has created.

And that right is, because it has not been taken away, at least in Biblical point of view.

But I am ready to change my mind if you can somehow justify that I am wrong in this.

[Goat]

Debate Question:
1) Does God have a different set of morals to follow or does he follow the same ones that he expects humans to follow?

God does not have different set of morals.

God has given life so he has right to take it away. (Having baby is not giving life, it is letting life to continue). If human creates something, he has right to destroy it. And good human does that only with good reason.

And why is 'giving life' having the right to 'take it away'? Might makes right??

If the question is, do human and God have same rights, answer is yes. Because if human creates something, he has right to destroy it, same way as God has right to destroy what he has created.

And that right is, because it has not been taken away, at least in Biblical point of view.

But I am ready to change my mind if you can somehow justify that I am wrong in this.

So, if I build a bridge, I have the right to destroy that bridge??

Nope.. doesn't work that way.

[Angel]

I can agree with Aquinas' response regarding God having some different rules than humans. One thing I don't agree with is the explanations regarding God killing.

This seems to be the standard response from some Christians here when asked about God killing 'innocent' people:

This is because all life is God's, and as such, is His to take. But a human is not free to deprive another of life, at least not without due process of law (which requires a jury of peers).

So from this I gather that not only can God arbitrarily take the life of another human, but He can also do so in the most horrible ways like drowning babies or ordering others to put them to the sword. I can see if God used a pain-free means to end the life of an 'innocent' person but that is not the case all the time, apparently.

Is this compatible with a 'loving' God? Isn't 'love' suppose to involve doing no 'harm' (or at least harm to the innocent)? Or does God only love some babies and not others?

[JohnPaul]

The Bible mentions several acts of God that if a human did would be considered wrong. Some examples would be when the Bible mentions God killing babies and ordering others to do so. I wonder if God is obligated to follow the same morals as us. One common response I get from some Christians is that God is God so he can do what he wants. If we try to do some of the objectionable things on our own that he's done then we're guilty of playing God. For example, if a human kills an innocent baby, the human would be guilty of murder, but if God does it, some Christians defend it as being right since it's God. Christians with that position see no wrong in it just as long as the child goes to a better afterlife but they don't factor in the means of the baby's death which is by 'murder' as far as I could tell. Why the double standard?


Debate Question:
1) Does God have a different set of morals to follow or does he follow the same ones that he expects humans to follow?

2) If God does not follow the rules he expects us to follow, is that fair to his followers? Why or why not?

The only moral standard that applies to God is "Might makes right!" By any human standard, the God described in the Bible is pure evil, and his followers too often have followed his example and justified their own evil by calling it "God's work!" For example, the Israelites were commanded to "kill everythng that breaths" when they invaded Canaan. Later, God was used to justify the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Witch Hunts, and the Jewish pogroms in Europe. God's alleged command "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" was used to justify the torture and horrible murders of 70-100 thousand helpless women by the good Christians in Europe, doing what they called "God's work."

Fair? What does "fair" have to do with it?

John

[JoeyKnothead]

"It's cool for God to flood an entire planet, killing untold millions, but it ain't cool for humans to be a-doing it" is proof positive there's some double standarding going on - for right or wrong, good or bad.

[AquinasD]

So from this I gather that not only can God arbitrarily take the life of another human, but He can also do so in the most horrible ways like drowning babies or ordering others to put them to the sword. I can see if God used a pain-free means to end the life of an 'innocent' person but that is not the case all the time, apparently.

Is this compatible with a 'loving' God? Isn't 'love' suppose to involve doing no 'harm' (or at least harm to the innocent)? Or does God only love some babies and not others?

Comfort is also God's, and it is His freedom to give and take away comfort.

But since when is comfort the highest end? This would require some sort of obscure deontic ethics to rule out "no being may ever cause pain in others." Though I don't think this is usually agreed to; for instance, surgery may cause pain, but the pain is permissible under double effect, i.e. the pain is allowed to be caused because a good thing, namely the health of the individual, is the end.

Could God arbitrarily cause ceaseless suffering to individuals? I'm not sure, since the question doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. Any action taken by a being has an end. Only if pain is a good in-itself would God cause it for itself; but causing pain isn't taken as a good in-itself. Causing pain is okay under double effect. So, if God is causing pain to some individual, there is a good reason for this. The particular reason may not be knowable at the time.