Why does God give contradictory commands in the Bible?

[Compassionist]

The Bible presents a serious moral contradiction. In the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:13; Deuteronomy 5:17), God explicitly says:

“Thou shalt not kill” (or more accurately in Hebrew, *lo tirtsach* — “you shall not murder”).

Yet, throughout the very same scriptures, this same God commands genocides and mass killings. For example:

Deuteronomy 20:16–17:

“You shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall utterly destroy them — the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.”

1 Samuel 15:3:

“Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.”

Numbers 31:17–18:

“Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him keep alive for yourselves.”

If “murder” means intentionally taking a human life, then these divine commands directly violate the very moral law God is said to have given.

Apologists often respond in one of three ways:

1. “Killing in war isn’t murder.”
But these passages go far beyond war — they include killing infants and non-combatants. Calling it “warfare” doesn’t make it morally right, especially when commanded by an allegedly all-good being.

2. “Those people were wicked and deserved it.”
But collective punishment of entire populations, including children, contradicts basic moral justice — even within the Bible itself. Ezekiel 18:20 says:

“The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father.”
So how can innocent children deserve death for their ancestors’ actions?

3. “God’s morality is beyond human understanding.”
This argument essentially abandons moral reasoning. If God’s morality can justify genocide, then anything — slavery, rape, torture — could be justified as “God’s higher purpose.” That makes morality arbitrary and destroys the very meaning of good and evil.

In short:
If the command “Thou shalt not murder” is absolute, then the genocidal commands are immoral.
If the genocidal commands are moral because God gave them, then “Thou shalt not murder” has no fixed moral meaning.

Either way, the Bible presents a contradiction that cannot be ethically reconciled without abandoning either moral consistency or divine goodness.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to Hawkins in post #95]

Because God’s value system is based on the soul, letting every person die once is God’s fundamental responsibility — only the manner of death differs.

This framing quietly assumes what is under dispute.

If everyone must die anyway, then the moral difference between death by old age and death by divinely commanded massacre becomes irrelevant only if morality itself is evacuated of meaning. If the manner of death “doesn’t matter,” then torture, genocide, and mercy collapse into the same moral category — which contradicts every biblical appeal to justice, compassion, and righteousness.

A moral system that treats all manners of killing as equivalent is not morally superior; it is morally indifferent.

The Canaanites were already spiritually dead… therefore only by eradicating them could God’s plan succeed.

This is a post hoc moral reclassification.

Declaring a population “spiritually dead” after deciding to kill them does not justify the killing — it merely relabels it. By that logic, any group can be exterminated once defined as irredeemable, including children, infants, and non-combatants — all of whom were explicitly included in the biblical commands.

This is not moral reasoning; it is out-group dehumanisation, the same logic used in every human atrocity.

God had only a very narrow time window… prolonged warfare would mean certain defeat for the Jews.

This argument quietly abandons omnipotence.

An omnipotent God does not face “time windows,” “logistical constraints,” or “strategic disadvantages.” Those are human limitations. If God can part seas, collapse walls, and rain food from the sky, then genocide is not a necessity — it is a choice.

If God cannot achieve his aims without exterminating entire populations, then either:
• God is not omnipotent, or
• God’s goals are not morally constrained

You cannot preserve both.

Allowing the spiritually dead to live while letting those who should be saved perish eternally violates God’s fundamental values.

This introduces a false moral dilemma.

It assumes only two options existed:

1. eradicate the Canaanites, or
2. allow universal damnation

There is no reason to accept that dichotomy unless one assumes God is incapable of persuasion, reform, relocation, or moral transformation — all things humans attempt without omnipotence.

If human societies can abolish slavery without exterminating slave-owners, an all-powerful deity is not morally trapped.

Earth is the platform for testing human faith… the Canaan story is one of the exam questions.

This analogy is deeply revealing — and deeply troubling.

It implies:
• mass death is pedagogical
• genocide is instructional
• moral horror is a test of obedience

That reframes faith as compliance under terror, not moral insight. A system that rewards those who can justify atrocity while penalising those who object on ethical grounds does not test virtue — it filters for submission.

An exam where the “correct answer” is endorsing slaughter is not moral education; it is moral inversion.

The harder the question, the better it identifies humans of great faith.

This reduces faith to willingness to suspend conscience.

If “great faith” means endorsing actions that would be crimes against humanity if done by humans, then faith is no longer aligned with goodness — it is aligned with authority worship.

At that point, calling the commands “good” becomes tautological: they are good only because God commands them. That empties moral language of substance.

Summary

Your argument does not resolve the contradiction — it relocates it.

• Omnipotence is replaced with strategic limitation.
• Moral responsibility is replaced with outcome-based reasoning.
• Compassion is subordinated to obedience.
• Ethics is reduced to “who survives the test.”

That may preserve theological coherence internally, but it does so by severing morality from moral intuition, proportionality, and universalisability.

If genocide can be justified whenever a sufficiently large future benefit is claimed, then the moral distinction between divine command and human atrocity disappears — and with it, any meaningful sense of goodness.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to Hawkins in post #96]

There's a huge hole/flaw in your reasoning. You are trapped in a game which the devil wants you to play while you stand no chance to win.

This response does not identify a logical flaw — it relabels disagreement as demonic deception.

Once you attribute any moral reasoning that challenges your position to Satanic manipulation, discussion becomes impossible. At that point, you are no longer offering an argument; you are immunising your belief against critique.

That is not refutation — it is a conversation-stopper. You have not proven that the Biblical God and the Biblical Satan exist.

Both Eden and Earth are divine sandboxes designed to emulate Heaven…

This entire framework is theological narrative, not an ethical resolution.

Even if one grants every element of this cosmology for the sake of argument, the original problem remains untouched:

How does a morally perfect being issue mutually incompatible moral commands without collapsing moral meaning?

Invoking angels, sandboxes, exams, or cosmic courts does not answer that question — it postpones it.

Humans cannot rival angels in intelligence or capability… the weapon is faith.

This reframes morality as epistemic submission rather than ethical coherence.

If humans are cognitively outmatched and therefore must suspend moral judgement, then moral language loses its grounding. “Good,” “just,” and “loving” become labels applied after obedience, not criteria used before action.

That is not morality — it is authority compliance.

Not to kill refers to murders by humans' self motivations.

This is a retrofitted exception, not an explanation.

The commandment does not say:
“Thou shalt not murder unless God commands it.”

Once you add that clause, the command no longer has fixed moral content. It becomes:

“Murder is wrong except when redefined as obedience.”

At that point, the distinction between murder and righteous killing is determined solely by authority, not by moral principle.

The Canaanites were already dead… therefore the command is irrelevant.

This is moral laundering by redefinition.

If a population is declared “already dead” in order to justify killing them, then any atrocity becomes permissible once the victims are spiritually reclassified. This logic has no internal stopping point.

If infants, children, and non-combatants can be killed because they are labelled “spiritually dead,” then moral prohibitions have ceased to function.

More often human reasonings turn out to be a joke… manipulated by fallen angels.

This concedes the argument rather than answering it.

If human moral reasoning is fundamentally unreliable, then:
• humans cannot meaningfully recognise God as good.
• humans cannot distinguish divine goodness from tyranny.
• humans cannot rationally trust any moral claim.

Yet the Bible repeatedly appeals to justice, fairness, mercy, and righteousness — concepts that presuppose reliable moral cognition.

You cannot simultaneously claim that humans are morally blind and morally accountable.

You are blinded from accessing the correct answer…

This is theological ad hominem, not argument.

Disagreement is pathologised as blindness; critique is reframed as captivity. That move protects belief, but it does so by abandoning rational accountability.

A position that can only survive by declaring all critics deceived is not defended — it is isolated.

Bottom line

My argument still stands untouched:


If “Do not murder” is absolute, then divinely commanded genocide is immoral.
If genocide is moral because God commands it, then “Do not murder” has no stable moral meaning.


Your response does not resolve this dilemma. It avoids it by:
• redefining morality as obedience
• exempting divine commands from moral evaluation
• disqualifying human moral reasoning altogether

That preserves theological certainty, but at the cost of moral coherence.

And once moral coherence is surrendered, calling God “good” no longer communicates anything meaningful at all.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to Avoice in post #135]

Obedience, Understanding, and the Problem You’re Skipping

Avoice, you’re raising an important contrast — but you’re also oversimplifying it in a way that hides the real issue.

1. “Just do what God says” Is Not a Method — It’s a Conclusion

Saying “Whatever God says, we don’t have to understand Him” already assumes two things that still need justification:

• that God has spoken,
• that we know which commands actually come from God.

Obedience only becomes meaningful after those questions are answered. Otherwise, “just do what he says” collapses into “just obey the tradition you inherited.”

That isn’t humility — it’s epistemic surrender.

2. Appealing to Hebrew Does Not Solve Disagreement

You say Christians misunderstand Scripture because they don’t consult the original Hebrew.

But Jews themselves disagree — profoundly — about how Hebrew texts should be interpreted. Rabbinic Judaism is built on centuries of debate, commentary, and argument, not simple literal obedience.

Appealing to “the original language” does not magically remove ambiguity. It simply relocates the debate.

3. The Pork Example Misses the Deeper Divide

Yes, many Jews answer “Why not eat pork?” with “Because God said so.”

But that answer only works within a covenant framework they already accept. It does not explain why anyone else should accept that framework.

Christians don’t reject dietary laws because they want excuses to eat bacon. They reject them because they believe the covenantal structure has changed. You can say they’re wrong — but that is a theological disagreement, not moral laziness.

4. Judaism Has Reasons Too — They’re Just Framed Differently

Judaism does not operate on blind obedience alone. The Talmud is full of reasoning, debate, ethical struggle, and questioning — including questioning God himself.

The difference is not:

• Jews obey without thinking.
• Christians think and disobey.

The difference is that Judaism places obedience inside a living interpretive tradition, while Christianity centers belief in a redemptive figure.

Both involve reasoning. Both involve authority. Neither is simply “do whatever you feel like.”

5. “Jesus Lets Them Do Anything” Is a Strawman

The claim that Christians believe they can “do anything” as long as they believe is not accurate, even within Christianity.

Christian theology still includes:

• moral accountability
• judgment
• repentance
• ethical obligation

You may think the system is incoherent or morally flawed — that’s a legitimate critique. But portraying it as license without consequence misrepresents what Christians actually teach.

6. The Core Issue You’re Avoiding

The real disagreement here is not about pork, Hebrew, or Jesus.

It is this:

How do we distinguish divine command from human tradition without circularly assuming the answer in advance?

Saying “God said so” does not answer that question — it simply ends inquiry.

That may be a valid faith posture.
It is not a justification.

Obedience without understanding can be sincere.
Understanding without obedience can be sincere, too.

But neither sincerity nor tradition answers the epistemic question of how we know that God or Gods exist and what God/Gods has/have actually said — especially when multiple communities, all claiming fidelity, arrive at mutually incompatible conclusions.

That’s the problem on the table — and bacon isn’t really the point.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to RBD in post #144]

You have your own personal moral code. It's not the Bible God's nor mine.
Calling your moral code truth, and judging others by it, doesn't make it true, nor others guilty of evil.

Yes — everyone reasons from a moral framework. That is not the issue.

The question is whether moral terms such as good, justice, and righteousness have any intelligible meaning beyond “whatever an authority commands.”

Your position is not that my moral reasoning is mistaken — it is that moral reasoning itself is illegitimate unless backed by power. That is not a rebuttal; it is a redefinition.

Correct. Your personal moral code declared to be truth and to judge others thereby, is a statement of power.
Meaningless without the power.

This is precisely my point.

If moral claims are “meaningless without power,” then morality does not guide power — power defines morality.

At that point:
• “Good” adds no moral content.
• “Righteousness” becomes a synonym for authority.
• Moral praise becomes vacuous.
• Justice collapses into obedience.

You are not defending morality here. You are endorsing moral voluntarism backed by force.

God does not declare moral standard for moralize men to accept or reject.
He declares divine righteousness and eternal truth.

I am not convinced that any God exists. Please prove that the Biblical God exists. Then moral language no longer functions normatively at all.

If righteousness is neither assessable nor intelligible, then commands to “do justice,” “love mercy,” or “walk humbly” are not moral guidance — they are imperatives divorced from meaning.

Yet Scripture repeatedly appeals to moral understanding as such. That creates an internal tension you have not resolved.

Every time I judge one interpretation to preserve "Scriptural integrity", I apply intelligent reasoning - linguistically logical.

Exactly — and that concession matters.

You must use human cognition, inference, and evaluative judgment to determine:
• Which texts govern others.
• Which readings are “undivine.”
• Which commands reflect righteousness.

That is not avoided by invoking authority. It is simply relabelled after the fact.

Calling one interpretation “divinely righteous” because it preserves divine righteousness is epistemic circularity, not a solution.

Faith in the text still depends on divine intelligence and discernment given by the text.

That is the circle stated openly:

You trust the text because it is righteous →
you know it is righteous because the text says so →
you know you are interpreting it correctly because the text grants discernment.

No external standard is permitted, yet judgment is constantly exercised. The circle remains.

A system in which divine command defines right and wrong has no independent moral standard.
Correct. Now you got it.

Yes — and that is the problem.

Once you accept that, you have also accepted that:
• “Good” does not mean non-cruel.
• “Just” does not mean fair.
• “Righteous” does not mean morally admirable.

It means only: commanded by sufficient authority.

That is not morality. It is authoritarian obedience given theological language.

That is righteous power demanding surrender of moral code to its eternal authority.

Then we are no longer debating ethics.

We are debating whether might makes right becomes morally acceptable when the might is called “divine.”

I reject that — not because I “prefer my own moral code,” but because a system in which power alone defines goodness empties moral language of all content.

You may affirm that surrender.

I am explaining why it is not morality.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to RBD in post #145]

It's pious worship if surrendered freely and gladly.

Only if what is surrendered to is intelligibly good.

A “free and glad” surrender to sheer authority does not rescue moral meaning — it confirms its absence. If goodness is defined only by command, then surrender is not moral insight but submission to power. Calling that “piety” does not change its structure.

It's unsurrendered moral self-repression to disguise worship.

This reframes moral reasoning itself as rebellion. That move dissolves morality rather than defeats my argument.

If moral discernment is illegitimate by definition, then moral exhortations in Scripture are reduced to tests of obedience, not guides to justice, mercy, or compassion. At that point, moral language ceases to function normatively at all.

I.e. go green and don't eat animals. Oh boy.

This is dismissal, not rebuttal.

Reducing an evidence-based ethical framework to mockery avoids its substance:
that sentient beings can suffer,
that actions causally affect that suffering,
and that reducing involuntary harm is a coherent, publicly examinable standard.

You have not addressed that claim — only mocked it away.

Destroying the evil to save the good, is compassion on the good by vengeance on the evil.

That is retributive logic, not compassion.

Calling vengeance “compassion for others” does not alter its moral character — it simply relabels harm as righteousness. A framework that treats destruction as a primary moral tool cannot meaningfully distinguish justice from cruelty.

Perfect philosophy for unrestrained evil in the name of rehabilitation.

This is a false dilemma.

Holding offenders causally accountable is not permissiveness. It is intervention aimed at prevention, not suffering for its own sake. Deterrence, restraint, and rehabilitation are compatible — vengeance is the outlier.

Punishment that increases total suffering without reducing future harm is not justice; it is retaliation.

Personal morality of man, is personal right to defy divine righteousness, and to judge it rather than be judged by it.

You are not refuting moral reasoning here — you are forbidding it.

Yet you still rely on judgment:
• to interpret texts
• to rank verses
• to decide what counts as “divine righteousness”
• to label alternative readings as “false.”

Moral judgment is not avoided — it is merely declared infallible after the fact.

That is the circularity I identified.

Repent for divine power, or die for moral meaning.

This sentence crystallizes the issue perfectly.

If the choice is obedience to power versus moral intelligibility, then morality has already been abandoned. You are not offering an ethical system — you are offering an ultimatum enforced by power.

Threat does not generate truth. Mortality does not invalidate moral reasoning. The grave proves nothing.

God's righteousness is not moral, and man's morality is not righteous.

Then we agree on the central point.

If divine “righteousness” is explicitly non-moral, then calling God “good” is not a moral claim at all. It is a declaration of supremacy.

My critique stands unchanged: this is not morality — it is power theology.

Quoting from a Book with favor, that is attacked with disfavor, is called hypocrisy.

No. It is called internal critique.

Appealing to a tradition’s own moral language to expose tensions within it is not hypocrisy — it is standard philosophical analysis. Quoting Scripture does not require affirming its infallibility; it requires only literacy and consistency.

I am not trying to tell you how to be a Christian.

I am explaining why a system in which:
• goodness has no independent meaning,
• power defines rightness, and
• moral reasoning is treated as rebellion

does not preserve morality — it replaces it with authority.

You may embrace that openly.

I am naming it accurately.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to RBD in post #146]

Correct. Since man's morality will not comprehend divine righteousness, then repenting of personal morality is the only way to receive divine righteousness.

Then you are no longer talking about understanding righteousness at all — only submitting to the Biblical God. This is similar to the way Muslims talk about submitting to the Quranic God.

Once moral comprehension is renounced, words like good, just, merciful, and righteous cease to function as moral descriptors. They become labels attached to power, not meanings grasped by minds.

That is precisely why I said the result is not piety but moral nihilism disguised as worship.

All moral discourse about God's divine righteousness, is meaningless.

Then this debate is already over — not because you have refuted my position, but because you have abandoned moral discourse altogether.

If all moral discourse about God is meaningless:
• calling God “good” says nothing
• calling commands “just” adds no content
• praising righteousness becomes a tautology
• condemnation becomes sheer authority.

At that point, you are not defending morality — you are explicitly discarding it.

Denying there is a shared moral framework between God and man is to repent of our own morality, and receiving His righteousness.

No — it is to forfeit intelligibility.

Receiving something that cannot be understood, evaluated, or even meaningfully described is not moral transformation; it is epistemic surrender.

A righteousness that cannot be morally grasped is indistinguishable from arbitrary force.

In other words, to choose one's own moral framework rather than God's righteousness, is to deny the possibility of meaningful discourse with God.

You have it backwards.

If there is no shared moral framework, then meaningful discourse with God is already impossible, because discourse presupposes shared concepts.

Threats, commands, and punishments are not “discourse” — they are coercion.

Yes, the verse declares the transcendence of God’s righteousness, and the irrelevance of human morality.

Transcendence does not entail incoherence.

If divine righteousness is so unlike anything humans can morally grasp, then:
• Moral exhortations are empty.
• Repentance has no intelligible target.
• Justice cannot be distinguished from cruelty.

You are not defending transcendence — you are asserting moral opacity.

God's reasoning ends in judgment and destruction for those who refuse to reason His way, rather than their own.

That is not reasoning together.

That is an ultimatum: agree or be destroyed.

Threat-backed compliance is not rational persuasion. It does not vindicate righteousness — it demonstrates power.

The prophets 'presuppose' nothing. They only quote God's words of righteousness.

Yet you must still:
• interpret those words
• decide which texts govern others
• determine what counts as literal, metaphorical, or conditional
• judge rival interpretations as false.

Human reasoning is not eliminated — it is merely declared infallible after it reaches the “approved” conclusion.

That is the circularity I have been pointing out from the start.

If the Biblical God is real and made us and everything else, then our limitations are 100% his fault.

Yes — and that is a logical consequence, not an accusation.

Creating beings with limited moral cognition and then condemning them for failing to grasp a morality declared unintelligible is not justice — it is manufactured guilt.

Anyone declaring their own personal moral code to be eternal truth without vote, is declaring themselves to be the one above all.

No — that description fits divine command theory, not moral realism.

Declaring a standard immune from reason, evidence, empathy, or critique and enforcing it by threat is precisely what it means to place oneself above all.

Appealing to sentient welfare does the opposite: it anchors morality in shared vulnerability, not authority.

He did. Until man turns from His righteous command, to judge by their own moral code.

If judging cruelty as cruelty is rebellion, then morality has been outlawed.

At that point, “righteousness” no longer means morally good — it means commanded by the one with power.

And that brings us full circle.

You are not arguing that God is good in any moral sense.
You are arguing that God is above morality.

That is exactly why moral language, under your view, collapses into meaninglessness — and why my critique remains untouched.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to RBD in post #147]

Affirming that divine righteousness can be “reasonably understood by any person on earth,” does not affirm that moral reasoning has anything to do with that understanding. Divine righteousness “reasonably understood” already implies no use for human moral faculties.

This sentence defeats itself.

“Reasonably understood” is not a mystical placeholder — it already presupposes cognitive faculties such as:
• comprehension
• inference
• evaluation
• distinction between justice and injustice.

If no human moral faculties are involved, then “reasonable understanding” collapses into mere submission or recognition of authority, not understanding at all.

You are quietly redefining understanding to mean obedient assent.

No one trusting in their own moral code and reasoning, can comprehend any divine righteousness, that does not share anything with their moral code and reasoning.

Then comprehension is no longer epistemic — it is conditional loyalty.

By your own account:
• disagreement proves blindness,
• agreement proves illumination,
• dissent proves moral darkness.

That is not understanding; it is belief validation by outcome.

Under this rule, no counter-evidence is even conceptually possible.

Only if I repent not like you. But I do see, because I repent, unlike you.

This is not an argument — it is a testimonial closure.

You are saying:
• I understand because I agree.
• You don’t understand because you disagree.

That makes comprehension unfalsifiable and non-transferable. If that is your position, then public reasoning has already been abandoned.

Man's moral tools are not the only tools.

Then name the others — without presupposing the conclusion.

If these “tools” cannot be articulated, evaluated, or shared, then they are not tools of understanding but claims of privileged access.

Understanding that cannot be explained or examined is indistinguishable from assertion.

Abraham’s question only makes sense if “right” has a meaning only from the Judge.

No — the question only makes sense if Abraham already has some grasp of what “right” excludes.

If “right” simply means whatever God does, then Abraham’s question is meaningless. He would be asking nothing more than:
“Will the Judge do whatever the Judge does?”

That is not trust — it is semantic emptiness.

There is no Scriptural appeal to moral conscience, repentance, and justice.

Then the words evil, justice, mercy, oppression, innocent, and wicked lose all descriptive force.

If humans have no capacity to discern these concepts, then:
• commands do not guide,
• warnings do not inform,
• repentance has no intelligible object.

Revelation becomes a list of imperatives backed by threat — not moral communication.

Such imperatives are meaningless only if humans use a moral capacity to discern good from evil.

Exactly — and that is the problem.

If moral capacity is dismissed as “false light,” then the imperatives lose meaning. You cannot simultaneously:
• deny moral discernment, and
• rely on it to make commands intelligible.

That contradiction is structural, not rhetorical.

It's not about understanding words, but about comprehending the commandment of them.

Comprehending a command is already an act of understanding.

If comprehension requires no moral cognition, then the difference between:
• justice and cruelty
• mercy and abuse
• righteousness and violence

vanishes entirely.

At that point, any command whatsoever becomes equally “righteous.”

How can anyone comprehend God's divine righteousness, that allows for no shared human moral understanding?!

They can’t — and that is precisely my conclusion.

A “righteousness” that shares nothing with moral understanding is not morally comprehensible. It can be obeyed, feared, or submitted to — but not meaningfully called good, just, or merciful.

That is not my refusal to comprehend.

That is the cost of the position you are defending.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to RBD in post #148]

To call that discernment “false light” is to accuse the very moral awareness that Scripture presupposes it's audience to repent of.

This sentence quietly concedes my point.

If Scripture presupposes a moral awareness in its audience, then that awareness must be functionally intelligible — otherwise repentance, warning, instruction, and exhortation are meaningless noises.

You cannot both:
• say Scripture presupposes moral awareness, and
• declare moral awareness “false light” devoid of meaning

without hollowing Scripture out from the inside.

Since morality has no meaning to God, then all human moral judgments - that excludes God is righteous - become meaningless.

You are applying a double standard.

If all human moral judgments are meaningless, then no human utterance about God’s righteousness carries content either — including yours. Exempting one preferred conclusion (“God is righteous”) while voiding all others is not coherence; it is special pleading.

Meaning does not survive selective exemption.

The entire contrast between righteousness and wickedness is clear, since neither requires moral differentiation.

This is incoherent.

A contrast without differentiation is impossible by definition. If righteousness and wickedness require no moral distinction, then they collapse into indistinguishable labels.

Invoking “light” and “darkness” does not solve this — those metaphors only work because humans already grasp the moral contrast they signify.

Metaphor presupposes meaning; it does not replace it.

This leads to moral nullification…

Yes — and that is precisely the problem.

Once moral categories are declared void:
• praise loses content
• justice loses meaning
• condemnation becomes brute authority.

Calling God “righteous” under those conditions is no longer a moral claim at all — it is a declaration of supremacy.

That is exactly what I meant by moral unintelligibility.

And when righteous, were made powerful. And when became unrighteous, were made unpowerful.

This simply restates power theology.

If righteousness is inferred from power, then power is doing all the work. The Biblical distinction between Pharaoh’s power and moral rightness disappears — yet Scripture itself explicitly condemns powerful regimes as wicked.

Your account erases that distinction rather than explaining it.

To call God “righteous” must therefore mean something more than omnipotence - it must entail praiseworthiness greater than moral platitudes.

Agreed — and this undermines your position.

“Praiseworthiness” is a moral concept. If morality is meaningless, then praise is meaningless too. You cannot appeal to “greater than moral platitudes” while denying the moral framework that makes praise intelligible.

I continue to use language - human language - to speak of divine righteousness without morality.

Language without shared meaning is noise.

Words like righteous, just, merciful, and good do not carry content merely by being spoken. They require a semantic bridge — not necessarily equality, but continuity.

You deny that continuity while relying on it every time you speak.

Preach righteousness without morality, and righteousness is all that's preached, not any morality.

Then “righteousness” becomes a contentless placeholder — a word that signals authority but conveys no evaluative meaning.

At that point, preaching does not communicate; it asserts.

Since there is nothing in common between divine and human goodness…

Then revelation cannot instruct, commands cannot guide, and obedience cannot be understood — only enforced.

That is not transcendence. That is semantic severance.

Correct. Without repentance of personal moral code… there is indeed complete silence between self-moral man and God.

Then discussion, teaching, warning, exhortation, and persuasion all evaporate.

If silence is the only coherent position, then theology itself collapses into proclamation backed by threat — not communication.

This is not a discussion… It's a debate between irreconcilable opposites.

On that, we agree.

One side holds that moral language must retain intelligible meaning for justice, praise, and righteousness to be coherent.

The other side holds that moral meaning must be surrendered entirely to Biblical authority.

That is the divide — and it explains everything.

By declaring moral reasoning “false light,” it severs any semantic bridge that allows words like righteousness, justice, and goodness to mean anything like morality.

Yes — and once that bridge is severed, those words no longer mean anything at all.

What remains is not divine transcendence, but power without moral intelligibility.

That is the conclusion — not because I reject it, but because your position entails it.

[Face to face]

..

the reason God commanded the Jews to destroy Jericho was to teach them about himself and instill or install his very own likeness and very own mind, thought and his ways into them

Just as when God destroyed the rape and murder culture of Sodom and Gomorrah he approached Abraham before doing this and asked let Abraham participate in the judgment

SODOM AND GOMMORAH

:23  And Abraham .........said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? 


GOD SAID

Gen 18:19  For I know Abraham, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment;

this is how God works, just as he used Noah to destroy the earth with a flood by warning Noah of the oncoming destruction and Noah.... Noah preached

2Pe 2:5  Noah - a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; 

it was Noah's preaching and warning and actions that was a part of the worldwide flood, this is is How God works in Judgment.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to Face to face in post #159]

The reason God commanded the Jews to destroy Jericho was to teach them about himself and instill or install his very own likeness and very own mind, thought and his ways into them

That claim does not solve the moral problem — it simply relabels it.

Saying “God did this to teach” does not explain why the lesson required the killing of non-combatants, including children and infants. Moral instruction that depends on slaughter is precisely what is under dispute. Invoking “God’s ways” at that point functions as a moral exemption, not a justification.

If the argument is that God’s character is instantiated by commanding mass killing, then the conclusion is unavoidable: the moral standard being appealed to is no longer recognisable as justice in any ordinary sense. You may accept that consequence, but you cannot avoid it by calling the violence “instruction.”

Just as when God destroyed the rape and murder culture of Sodom and Gomorrah he approached Abraham before doing this and asked let Abraham participate in the judgment

Abraham’s protest actually undercuts your point.

“Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?” is a moral challenge, not an endorsement. Abraham appeals to a principle of justice that even God is expected to honour: that the innocent should not be destroyed with the guilty.

The narrative only has force because Abraham’s moral intuition is treated as meaningful. But that same intuition directly condemns collective punishment and indiscriminate destruction — exactly what is defended in the conquest narratives.

You cannot use Abraham’s moral reasoning when it suits you and discard it when it condemns Jericho.

this is how God works, just as he used Noah to destroy the earth with a flood by warning Noah of the oncoming destruction and Noah.... Noah preached

This merely restates the pattern; it does not justify it.

Warning prior to destruction does not morally cleanse the destruction itself. If a ruler announces in advance that they will drown the world — including infants, animals, and people incapable of moral agency — the announcement does not convert the act into justice.

Moreover, the flood narrative intensifies the problem: it explicitly involves the killing of beings who could not possibly be morally culpable. If that is “how God works in judgment,” then the issue is not human misunderstanding — it is the moral framework itself.

The core issue remains untouched by your response:

• Teaching does not require killing the innocent.
• Participation does not justify collective punishment.
• Warning does not excuse atrocities.
• Declaring something “God’s way” does not make it morally correct and coherent.

What you are offering is not a moral explanation but a theological exemption clause: whatever God commands is good by definition, even when it contradicts justice as normally understood.

That position is internally consistent — but only at the cost of abandoning any meaningful moral critique. And once morality becomes whatever power commands, the distinction between justice and might collapses entirely.

If that is the view you wish to defend, then it should be stated plainly — not presented as though it resolves the problem.