Monday, September 29, 2008

Response to Victor Reppert on 1 Samuel 15

Victor Reppert wrote (not to me ... but it is also relevant to me):
How can you be so strongly pro-life on abortion and also defend killing "babes in arms" as enjoined by I Samuel 15?
I answer:
a) Killing is ordinarily a lawful and just part of warfare; and
b) More particularly, Israel's genocide of the Canaanites was specifically authorized by God as a punishment on the idolatry, necromancy, etc. of the nations of Canaan; but
c) Killing is not ordinarily a lawful and just part of life; and
d) More particularly, killing of unborn infants (at any stage of development) is not ordinarily authorized by God.

-TurretinFan
to the Glory of God, at

3 comments:

  1. Victor ReppertTuesday, September 30, 2008 2:35:00 AM

    I thought I answered myself on that.

    ReplyDelete
  2. TurretinfanTuesday, September 30, 2008 3:56:00 AM

    Victor Reppert, your answer was: "Oh, wait, there's was a divine command there. I forgot."

    ReplyDelete
  3. GeneMBridgesTuesday, September 30, 2008 7:59:00 AM

    Indeed, Dr. Reppert, I don't recall you telling us why abortion - the voluntary murder of an unborn child by its mother - is parallel to anything in 1 Samuel 15. Like I said at Tblog, for a Christian philosopher, you rarely engage the text itself.

    By the way, I find this entire exchange rather ironic, considering you were the one railing not just a handful of months ago about Calvinism and how, among other things, God is responsible for evil. Well, here we have a divine command - and that by your own admission - and here you are apparently disagreeing with its morality, or perhaps we're wrong here - are you saying this command resulted in an "immoral" act, and if so, then you have to agree God commanded them to do something "immoral," which, thereby means you believe God commands men to do immoral things.

    Aside from the obviously blasphemous note that strikes, that seems rather problematic for somebody who has problems with Calvinism - since you've got a problem with God ordaining evil. Well, if God commands something "immoral" doesn't that mean He ordains it?

    ReplyDelete

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