The God of the Old Testament — Part 8: The Defense Begins; The Opening Statement
By Mark L. Carlton
John Calvin began The Institutes of the Christian Religion with this observation:
“Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists of almost entirely two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.” [i]
Some years after I first read this statement, while traveling in India, I had an opportunity to read the first part of the autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi. While reading it I was struck by the fact that Gandhi’s search for truth consisted in his search for these very things, knowledge of himself and God. He writes that he gained great insight through self-examination. But of God, he writes, “I have not yet found Him, but I am seeking after Him.”
My more cynical readers might say, “Of course he could not find Him, He does not exist.” Gandhi would not be impressed by such cynicism. In his search for truth he briefly visited what he referred to as “the dry Sahara of atheism,” and rejected it. And though he confessed that his search for God had not yet led him to Him, he does not say that he found nothing; “Often in my progress I have had faint glimpses of the Absolute Truth, God, and daily the conviction is growing upon me that He alone is real and all else is unreal.” Nevertheless, He wrote these sad words at the end of the introduction to his book:
“Where is there a wretch
So wicked and loathsome as I?
I have forsaken my Maker,
So faithless have I been.
“For it is an unbroken torture to me that I am still so far from Him, who, as I fully know, governs every breath of my life, and whose offspring I am. I know that it is the evil passions within that keep me so far from Him, and yet I cannot get away from them.”[ii]
As I read Gandhi’s book, and as I reflected particularly on its introduction — which I find unusually profound - I was struck at how close Calvin and Gandhi came in their conclusions about human nature. By any human standard, Gandhi was one of the best our race has to offer, and yet he refers to himself as a wretch, wicked, and loathsome. He speaks derisively of himself as one who has forsaken his maker. He speaks of himself as faithless. He speaks of evil passions within him that keeps God far from him, and speaks despairingly of his inability to get away from them. But perhaps the most striking sentence in his entire biography is his confession that it is unbroken torture that he is still so far away from God.
At this point Gandhi and Calvin part company even though Calvin might have written much of Gandhi’s self description about himself. Calvin would have testified that though all of these terrible things and more are true of him, God found him and He bestowed a grace upon him that was greater than his sin.
So how did these two men who agree with each other so completely on the moral state of their hearts reach such different conclusions? Why did one find rest for His soul in God while the other, by his own admission, lived a life of “an unbroken torture” because he was so far from him?
As I considered this I came up with this answer: Gandhi sought, and urges us, to begin the search for truth by looking within. In contrast, Calvin directs us to begin the search by looking outside and up:
“[The knowledge of God and ourselves] are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes, and gives birth to the other…But though the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves are bound together by a mutual tie, due arrangement requires that we treat the former in the first place, and then descend to the latter.”[iii]
I agree with Calvin that the knowledge of God is the beginning of wisdom. This is why I began my defense of the God of the Old Testament with a discussion of God.
Unbelievers may be mystified that we believers can defend the God of the Old Testament. But my answer to them is really very simple; if you just knew who He is you would be well on the way to understanding or at least being able to accept the things the scriptures say about Him. But in order to gain a complete understanding and acceptance you need one more thing; you need to know who we are - the human race - in relation to Him.
So with this message we begin that same journey of self discovery that Calvin and the young Gandhi embarked on. It is time to look at ourselves, within ourselves, to discover what kind of creatures we are. It is time to ask, who are we, really?
In my opinion, one of the reasons modern men and women have so much problem with the God in the Old Testament is that they beg this question and assume an answer to it that does not stand up very well once we begin to seriously examine ourselves. For example, in one of my on-line arguments with a disciple of Richard Dawkins, I was told that God is a sadist. In support of this he pointed to the great flood and said that my God had killed millions of innocent people. This is a serious charge. What could more reprehensible than the killing of millions of innocents? But were they innocent? The Bible says they were not. But more importantly, are we innocent, or are Calvin and Gandhi’s analysis of the state of the human heart a more accurate assessment?
The Bible does record terrible slaughters and it attributes them to God or human beings acting as His agents. Clearly, if the people were innocent victims then God cannot be. But there is another possibility. God’s defense, the one given throughout the Old Testament, is that these civilizations were not innocent, nor are God’s actions with relation to the civilizations the actions of a sadistic God. Rather, they are the long delayed judgment of a righteous and holy God.
So if we are going to set ourselves up as the judges of God we need to understand His defense. His defense is actually a good offense, the best defenses always are. His defense is not just that He is not guilty, but that we are. Indeed, if God has done us an injustice it is not having destroyed the entire human race.
God looks at us and says the same thing about us that Gandhi said of himself:
“Where are there wretches
So wicked and loathsome as these?
They have forsaken their Maker,
They have been faithless.
They are far from Him
Who governs every breath of their life.
It is their evil passions that keep them far from Him,
And yet they cannot get away from them.”
Truly, the real question in considering the actions of the God of the Old Testament is this; does the sovereign God who created them in the first place not have the right to judge creatures such as these? Are not these the real issues on the docket: (1) Does God have a right to judge the wicked? (2) Are we innocent or guilty of the charges of wickedness that God brings against us?
This ends the opening statement in my defense of the God of the Old Testament. In my next message I will be addressing one of the main charges brought against Him; that he is unjust in putting us in such a bad world.
