A Jealous God

Dan Barker and the Immoral God of the Bible by Steven Lewis

Answering the Music Man

 

“If you claim to be a good person, then the bible should embarrass you and disgust you.”

“The God of the Old Testament rarely gets angry when he sees his people doing morally harmful things. The Lord jealous becomes enraged when he sees someone loving a god other than himself.”

Dan Barker

In the previous blog we examined Lewis’s reasoning for justifying the problematic passages in the bible. In the next couple of blogs, we will take a look at some of those problematic passages concerning 1) God’s jealousy, 2) the issue of slavery and 3) God’s genocidal commands in the bible. Hopefully, we can shed some light on how evangelicals (like Lewis) find ways to defend the indefensible.

We’ll start with…

God’s jealousy

The proverb has it that God is a fiercely jealous lover.

What the bible says,

Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name. Ye shall not go after other gods of the people which are around about you. For the Lord thy God is a jealous God among you, lest the anger of the Lord thy God be kindled against thee and destroy thee from the face of the earth. Duet. 6:14-15

Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. Exo. 20:5

For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous is a jealous God. Exo. 34.14

God is jealous and the LORD revengeth; the LORD revengeth, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies. Nahum 1:2

Not sure why Lewis is choosing to ignore these verses, but he maintains (contrary to what the bible says) that the God he believes in is incapable of experiencing jealousy.

He writes,

When speaking of a perfect and eternal God, Barker’s definition of jealousy makes little sense. Humans often want things for selfish reasons, or even from a sense of loss or incompleteness when a desired object is absent, but an infinite being lacking nothing would be wholly incapable of such desires.

This philosophy (borrowed from Aquinas) says that since God is necessarily perfect, nothing in the created universe can be beneficial for God. The god of the bible is perfectly complete and requires nothing other than itself. Therefore, since God lacks nothing, God can’t be jealous and can’t experience envy. It might be good philosophy, but it’s certainly not the god we find in the bible.

Not all believers agree with Lewis’s conclusion that God cannot experience jealousy. While researching this topic I found another christian blogger who explains God’s jealousy like this.

“Holy jealousy is central to the fundamental essence of who God is. Jealousy is at the core of God’s identity as God. Jealousy is that defining characteristic or personality trait that makes God God. Whatever other reasons you may find in Scripture for worshiping and serving and loving God alone… paramount among them all is the fact that our God burns with jealousy for the undivided allegiance and affection of his people.”

For the record, this is just plain cringe worthy! Is this believer really saying that jealousy “for the undivided allegiance and affection of his people” is the defining characteristic of God? What ever happened to Love being the defining trait of God?

So, how does Lewis justify his claim that the God he believes in is incapable of jealousy? He continues,

If the Bible is right, then God’s jealousy is never out of some selfish desire or need for self-fulfillment or divine ego-stroking, but actually out of God’s own love for the good of the those for whom he is jealous. If God is the perfect, eternal creator that the Bible portrays, then he is by nature the ultimate source of good in all that exists, and, thus, all people who reject God in favor of false alternatives are only harming themselves.

Atheists would object the statement that “God is by nature the ultimate source of good”. It’s just another idea that Lewis proposes without any evidence to support it. Atheists would also object to Lewis’s conclusion that anyone who rejects God does so based on “false alternatives”. Many former evangelicals who “rejected God”, did so because they began to realize that what they were being taught in church wasn’t actually true.

Barker writes,

When I learned that Christianity is not true, I had to decide: “Do I want God, or do I want truth?” You can’t have both.

Lewis continues his defense,

Humans often want things for selfish reasons, or even from a sense of loss or incompleteness when a desired object is absent, but an infinite being lacking nothing would be wholly incapable of such desires. If God exists as he is portrayed in the Bible, one must pause to consider whether there is any other reasonable sense in which jealousy could be ascribed to God.

So, how is God “portrayed in the bible”? Let’s “pause to consider” this verse from Duet. 4.

For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. If you make any kind of idol, you will arouse his anger and you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed. The LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive.

If the bible clearly says that God is a jealous God, and other believers say that jealousy is God’s defining trait, how does Lewis justify his claim that God, by nature, is incapable of jealousy?

Lewis continues,

While the word “jealousy” in its typical connotation seems more of a flawed character trait than something to be proudly proclaimed of a good and honorable being (such as God), this is not the only sense in which this word is used. Instead of leaping to conclusions that jealousy is always evil or bad, one must consider in what sense the word is being applied to God.

Here we go again. According to the authors of “Answering”, christians have a different view of what constitutes faith and now we’re told that they also hold a different view of jealousy. How convenient.

The question then becomes, “Is God described as ‘jealous’ because he desires something that is rightfully his, or because he is forcing admiration on something that belongs to another?” The context of the Bible makes it clear that the answer is the former. God’s jealousy is for Israel to remain devoted and committed to him as the ultimate and perfect source of all that is good.

Is Lewis actually saying that the Israelites rightfully belong to God? Like a woman rightfully belongs to her husband? This is definitely a warning sign of a jealous lover. Can you imagine a husband saying something like this to his wife on their wedding day?

“I love you so much that I want the very best for you and I know that I am the best husband for you. Since you belong to me, if you ever leave me for another man, you will not be happy with him, so I must kill you to save you from yourself, because I love you so much.”

Lewis can put whatever spin he wants on the definition of “jealousy”, but the bible clearly shows a god who is a controlling lover. “You belong to me and must be devoted to me and only me, or I’ll destroy you”.

Conclusion

Lewis’s argument that a perfect God is incapable of jealousy fails here because the bible clearly states that God is jealous. Faced with this inconvenient truth, Lewis then attempts to convince us that there are different kinds of jealousy. “Okay, the bible may say that God is jealous, but it’s a “holy” jealousy. God only wanted what was best for the Israelites.” But even that argument fails. The bible describes God’s jealousy as a consuming fire which is ready to consume the Israelites if they worship other gods. We are told that they will arouse God’s anger and will certainly be destroyed. This view of a jealous God does not match Lewis’s portrayal of a benevolent deity who is incapable of jealousy. Lewis is attempting to justify the problematic passages in the bible. And therein lies the problem.

Let’s be perfectly clear…

Even though I am arguing that the deity of the bible is portrayed (in the bible) as a jealous God, I am not saying that the God of the bible actually exists. I do not believe in God. And no, Ferrer it is not necessary for me to prove that God doesn’t exist, I can simply say that I don’t believe in the god of christianity nor, for that matter, the gods of any other religion.

As I wrote in the previous blog, when Barker and other atheists make their statements regarding the nefarious character of God, they are not saying that God actually exists. They are simply trying to point out that those who call themselves believers fail to realize that the deity of the bible is portrayed (in the bible itself) as a nefarious character.

Final word:

Barker writes,

“If you claim to be a good person, then the bible should embarrass you and disgust you.”

So, what if the problematic passages in the bible don’t embarrass christians? Are they not “good” people? Certainly, that can’t be the case. The problem is not with their character. The problem is with their unquestioned devotion to their beliefs. When believers are taught to justify (rather than face) the problematic passages in the bible, it can lead to a skewed sense of morality. We’ll see more of this justification from Lewis in the next several blogs.

Coming Next:

We will examine what the bible has to say about slavery. Wait until you see how Lewis spins that one! Here’s a preview.

“Furthermore, the (Hebrew) laws did more to protect the slaves than the slaveowners; the human dignity of the slave was always protected and preserved.”

 

From Where I Stand

Dale Crum