What do we do about the big, bad God of the Bible?

From time to time, I’ve heard atheists incorrectly try to refute that a creator God exists because of all the evil and suffering in the world. But as atheist Richard Dawkins says, that’s flawed thinking: “The problem of evil, to me, shouldn’t be a real problem because you just say, ‘Well there’s an evil god,’ and so that’s a lesser question.”

The thornier issue is the question of evil and a God that’s supposedly infinitely benevolent and good. That, as I’m sure you know, has been debated endlessly with lots of both real and digital ink spilled (see my latest discussion on it here).

In that same vein has been the charge of skeptics who demand an explanation for a good God and all the various acts of violence that are recorded in the Bible, some of which God commanded. Dawkins addresses that issue in his book, The God Delusion, by saying he sees God as: “Arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

Atheist Charles Templeton piles on in his work Farewell to God: My Reasons for Rejecting the Christian Faith by writing (pg. 71): “The God of the Old Testament is utterly unlike the God believed in by most practicing Christians … His justice is, by modern standards, outrageous … He is biased, querulous, vindictive, and jealous of his prerogatives.” He’s joined by writer Robert Anton Wilson, who stated: “The Bible tells us to be like God, and then on page after page it describes God as a mass murderer.”

Admittedly, there are some passages of Scripture that, on the surface, appear to depict God as being pretty ruthless. Take the Flood described in Genesis as one example: “Behold, I, even I am bringing the flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall perish” (Gen. 6:17).

Then we have God’s orders to Israel about the land He was giving them and the people who lived there; the Lord told Israel: “You shall utterly destroy them … you shall not leave alive anything that breathes. But you shall utterly destroy them” (Deut. 7:2; 20:16).

And let’s not forget the overthrow of Jericho “They [Israel] utterly destroyed everything in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox and sheep and donkey, with the edge of the sword” (Joshua 6:21), and the end of Amalek: “Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey” (1 Sam. 15:3).

These and other biblical episodes provoke the creators of evilbible.com to say: “For far too long priests and preachers have completely ignored the vicious criminal acts that the Bible promotes. The so-called God of the Bible makes Osama Bin Laden look like a Boy Scout. This God, according to the Bible, is directly responsible for many mass-murders, rapes, pillage, plunder, slavery, child abuse and killing, not to mention the killing of unborn children.”

To quote Ace Ventura, “Alrighty then.” So, how do we respond to the supposedly big, bad God of the Bible?

The biblical pattern of judgment

Let me start by saying that in the short space I have here at CP, I can’t provide the extensive reply needed to address everything above in detail. I’ve written a lengthier article on this, which you can read if you’re interested, and for a strong in-depth examination on the topic, please see Dr. Paul Copan’s book Is God a Moral Monster?

For now, let me give you two things to think about.

First, the overreaching claim made by some skeptics, like evilbible, of God “promoting,” commanding rape, etc., is way out of bounds. Yes, the Bible mentions rape, incest, polygamy, and other detestable things, but any reader of Scripture needs to understand that the Bible records many things of which it doesn’t approve; describes many things that are not necessarily prescribed.

Hopefully that’s clear, but if you can find a verse that explicitly has God commanding rape, let me know.

Second, when you look at nearly every major episode of God’s judgment falling upon certain peoples in Scripture, a clear pattern emerges.

It begins with God declaring a very rare and grave form of judgment, handed down to stamp out a human kind of cancer. Far from being capricious, the future capital punishment judgment is publicly pronounced in response to extreme sin (e.g., “The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave” Gen. 18:20).

Next, God’s terminal judgments are preceded by warnings and/or long periods of exposure to the truth and time to repent. Amalek, for example, was given 400 years by God to repent (Gen. 15:13-16). During the construction of the ark, which lasted at least 100 years, Noah is described as a “preacher of righteousness” (2 Pet. 2:5) to the people around him. 

When it came to Israel’s land conquests, any and all “innocent” adults were often given a path of escape with their families and provided a way to avoid judgment (expulsion from land was the most common judgment, not death). When it comes to sparing the innocent in general, in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah for example, Abraham asks if God would dare destroy good people with the bad, and begins to whittle down a hypothetical number of good people left in the city, starting with 50 and ending with 10, asking after each amount if God would still destroy the city if that particular number of good people resided within its walls (Gen. 18).

If the people targeted for judgment repented, God relented, and His wrath was avoided. Cases such as Jonah’s preaching at Nineveh (Jonah 3:10) and even individual cases like King Ahab avoided God’s judgment by repenting (1 Kings 21:27–29).

Lastly, someone is almost always saved (redeemed) from the evil culture God targets (e.g., Lot and his family, Noah and his).

If this pattern of judgment seems familiar to you, it should. It’s the same design found in the New Testament gospel of Christ, which is being played out right now with you and me.

Far from the false caricature painted by critics of being a bloodthirsty and evil deity in the Old Testament, God’s character is consistent in both the Old and New, with it being summed up by Jonah who said: “I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity” (Jonah 4:2).

But even when God’s judgment falls, it does so with a purpose. For example, Isaiah writes, “At night my soul longs for You, indeed, my spirit within me seeks You diligently; for when the earth experiences Your judgments the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness” (Is. 26:9).

It would be nice if we could learn righteousness apart from God’s judgments, and in truth, that’s part of the New Testament Gospel of Christ. We see His righteousness, understand our sin, and look to turn from it out of gratitude for His sacrifice, love, and forgiveness.

Which makes Him about as far as you can get from a big, bad God of the Bible.