Update on "Does your God approve of sex within adult-child marriages?"

I've been publicly attacking the biblical inerrancy doctrine since 2003.  The vast majority of inerrantists presume that the bible-god views pedophilia as a sin.  So to attack that view, I've been arguing for the last 20 years that this understandably popular doctrine has no support in the Mosaic Law.  The inference, that Christians seek to avoid like the plague, is that God doesn't condemn sex within adult-child marriages as sin, because he doesn't think such activity is sinful in the first place.  The whole notion that god thinks an act to be sin, but has nowhere plainly declared so, is theologically problematic.

The attack comes mostly in the form of arguing that Numbers 31:18 is not merely authorizing Hebrew soldiers to use underage girls as "house servants", it is also authorizing Hebrew soldiers to both marry and sexually consummate such marriage to such underage girls (i.e., sex within adult-child marriages, i.e, pedophilia).

17 "Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately.

 18 "But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves.  (Num. 31:17-18 NAU)

As you can imagine, Christian apologists have for more than 20 years been hitting me with everything they can possibly think of to justify their tendency to create god in their own modern western democratic image, in their effort to show that by some strange coincidence, the Old Testament YHWH just happens to hate pedophilia equally as much as today's Americans do.

The link-fixes that appear below are some of my reasons why such attempts to avoid biblical moral disaster fail, and therefore, my view (that YHWH had, in the days of Moses, approved of sex within adult-child marriages), remains reasonable.

These arguments do not prove that Christians are wrong in how they interpret the bible.  The arguments only show that us atheists/skeptics can be reasonable to interpret the bible the way we do. That is, these arguments refute the Christians who characterize my view as "unreasonable".  They may hate that view, but they are absolutely paralyzed from proving it to be unreasonable.  None of my views arise from improper exegesis.  Thus they are forced to say the view is reasonable no matter how distasteful or religiously incorrect they think it is.

If you disagree, then your job is not to show that I'm "wrong" (because I don't claim I'm right), your job is rather to show that my arguments fail to establish the reasonableness of the interpretation I advocate.  That's a much more difficult goal to reach, for daily reality tells us we can possibly be reasonable even if wrong.  Only a stupid fool insists that everytime somebody gets something wrong, it is because their method of truth-seeking, if any, was unreasonable.  No, sometimes we make innocent mistakes.  

Reasonableness can arise from accuracy, but it by no means demands accuracy.  Therefore, "you are wrong" is not sufficient to show my views to be unreasonable.  You must show that my exegesis is so poor that no person concerned for truth could possibly condone it.

If you can't do that job, then you must live with the knowledge that yes, at least some atheist bible critics, even if not all of them, can possibly be reasonable to view the biblical YHWH has having approved of sexual relations within adult-child marriages back in the days of Moses.

Does your god approve of pedophilia? Part 1: sin is transgression of God's law

-------In this entry, I argue that Romans 7:7 forbids the notion that we can know sin without the Mosaic law, therefore, if in fact the Mosaic law doesn't clearly condemn pedophilia, then you have no biblical justification for saying God thinks sexual acts within adult-child marriages are sinful.  The truth is that Romans 7:7 is itself false, but as a Christian, you don't have the option of winning the debate that way, you are forever stuck with what Paul meant with his words.

Does your god approve of pedophilia? Part 2: We can know what sin is by our conscience?

------In this entry, I argue that because the bible founds the human conscience upon the Mosaic law, it is reasonable to deny that the OT YHWH thinks "conscience" is a way, independent of Mosaic law, to establish any act as sinful.  Thus if your conscience bothers you when thinking of pedophilia in 2023, we are reasonable to conclude this "pang", even if it came from the NT God, did not come from the OT YHWH.

Does your god approve of pedophilia? Part 3: We can know what sin is by intuition?

----forthcoming

Does your god approve of pedophilia? Part 4: "In non-essentials, liberty"

----In this entry, I argue that if my opponent is the type of Christian who believes in the popular conservative maxim "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and in all things, charity", then because the Mosaic Law fails to clearly condemn pedophilia, what a Christian in your congregation thinks God's opinion is concerning sexual relations within adult-child marriages, constitutes nothing more important than a "non-essential".  Thus if a Christian in your church in 2023 thinks God doesn't condemn sexual relations in adult-child marriages, we are reasonable to view you as under an obligation to give that Christian liberty of conscience on the subject, meaning, we are reasonable to condemn you if, because of his viewpoint on the subject, you ever disfellowship or excommunicate him.

Does your god approve of pedophilia? Part 5: God establishes all the secular laws

----forthcoming

Does your God approve of pedophilia? Part 6: God expects Hebrews to use their "common sense"

----In this entry I argue that nothing in the bible indicates God ever expected anybody to use their "common sense" to fill in moral gaps created by omissions in the Mosaic Law.  Thus we are reasonable to presume that silence in the Mosaic Law means silence from YHWH...a god that seems to have a need to condemn nearly everything he sees.

Does your God approve of pedophilia? Part 7: Ezekiel 16 establishes nothing except more apologetics embarrassment

------In this entry I argue that, contrary to the hopes of many apologists, nothing in Ezekiel 16 renders unreasonable my view that the in the days of Moses, YHWH approved of sexual relations within adult-child marriages.

Does your god approve of pedophilia? Part 4: "In non-essentials, liberty"

Most conservative Christians agree with a non-biblical moral maxim:

"In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty, and in all things, charity."

The origin of this phrase is not important to this argument, but for the curious, here's the Wikipedia link that will start off the newbies with non-authoritative information.

This maxim seems to be saying that, if the area of discussion is a "non-essential", then it is not rational to view a Christian as sinful or non-Christian merely because they disagree with you on said non-essential.


What criteria should we use to figure out which bible teachings are "essential" and which aren't?

Let's review what modern conservatives have to say:

Credo House gives the following criteria:

1. Historicity: Does the doctrine have universal historical representation?

2. Explicitly Historical: Does the history of the church confess their centrality?

3. Biblical Clarity (Perspicuity): Is the doctrine represented clearly in Scripture?

4. Explicitly Biblical: Does any passage of Scripture explicitly teach that a certain doctrine is essential?

...Again, these four criteria, I propose, must all be present. I think I am committed to this. If one or more is lacking concerning a particular doctrine, I believe that it is not possible for one to legitimately argue for its core necessity. As well, all four feed off each other and are somewhat self-regulating. In other words, if someone doubts whether something is clear in Scripture, all he or she has to do is look to history.  If something is not clear in the Scripture, we will not find that it passes the test of historicity. This is why it is of vital importance that Christians not only be good exegetes, but also good historians.

 The minimum age and/or other traits a girl must reach/acquire before she can be legitimately married in God's eyes, has no "universal" historical representation.  That subject is not made "universal" by either the bible or the church fathers.  Singular expressions of opinions do not make something "universal".  Tertullian was a Montanist, but that hardly makes his opinion a universally recognized teaching.  The same with Origen's spiritualizing the text to get rid of contradictions/errors, and Irenaeus' belief that Jesus lived to be around 50 and had an earthly ministry of more than 10 years.

 The minimum age and/or other traits a girl must reach/acquire before she can be legitimately married in God's eyes, has no history of the church confessing it's centrality.  Nowhere in church history do we ever find statements about minimum age for marriage being declared to be "central".

 The minimum age and/or other traits a girl must reach/acquire before she can be legitimately married in God's eyes, has no clear basis in the bible.  When we think of doctrines that have "clear basis in the bible", we think of monotheism, existence of God, Jesus being the son of God, his rising from the dead, etc, etc.  Apparently then, "clear basis in the bible" requires multiple attestation.  God's opinion on the minimum age of marriage is hardly witnessed in the bible to that degree.

Norman Geisler's criteria for identifying essential teaching is to stress the creeds, and give the reader an overview of the Roman Catholic, the Reformed, and the Anabaptist criteria for essential doctrine.  But this doesn't help, since none of those sources even talks about the minimum age of marriage.

From this brief survey, it would appear that the minimum age a girl must be in order to be eligible for marriage in God's sight, cannot be "essential" teaching, it can only at best be "non-essential" (i.e., your salvation or orthodoxy cannot be compromised by the age you believe a girl becomes ready to marry), in which case, by your own creed, you must allow "liberty".  That is, you cannot disfellowship or excommunicate the man in your African congregation who is a member of a Bushman tribe and who has married a 9 year old girl consistent with the tribe's beliefs.

As an atheist, I'd cease being friends with anybody if I found out they were a pedophile, since I detest the practice in all forms.  There is no "how do we know what essential teaching is" to muddy up my moral intuitions.

You can escape this rebuttal by refusing to believe in the maxim stated at the beginning of this article, but you'd probably take a very big hit socially and personally, since you'd then become a bigot, and you'd give up on Christian friends as soon as they disagreed with  you on anything in the bible.

Face it, friend, you are sure that your god hates marital pedophilia as much as he hates bestiality, yet your god apparently chose to plainly prohibit the latter and say absolutely nothing about the former.

Does your God approve of pedophilia? Part 3: We can know what sin is by intuition?

 13 Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit."
 14 Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.
 15 Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that."
 16 But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.
 17 Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.
(Jas. 4:13-17 NAU)

This verse proves nothing, for even if we accept it as true, it is only saying that it is sin when we already know what the right thing to do is, yet we don't do it.

The question of what criteria we should use so that we can correctly identify what "the right thing to do" would be, is left unanswered.

Does your God approve of pedophilia? Part 2: We can know what sin is by our conscience?

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Some Christians will try to argue that because we can know sin by our conscience, as the bible says, then we can know that sex within adult-child marriages is sin even if biblical law is silent about the subject:

 12 For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law;
 13 for it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified.
 14 For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves,
 15 in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them,
 16 on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.
 17 But if you bear the name "Jew " and rely upon the Law and boast in God, (Rom. 2:12-17 NAU)

I don't see how this passage proves anything.  The world is filled with shameless pedophiles whose consciences don't bother them regarding their sexual life.  

The only way this verse can be used to support identifying pedophilia as sin, is to favor the conscience of all people who decry this sexual practice, and arbitrarily discount the conscience of those who see nothing wrong with it.  That is anything but objective.  You might get the congregation to signal their agreement with your view by clapping, but locating groups of other people who have the same conscience as you, is hardly an objective argument that you've got the morals figured out correctly

---------Update:  March 20, 2023

Romans 2:15 ("...work of the law written on their conscience") is surrounded in the immediate context with references to the Mosaic Law.  So it cannot possibly be unreasonable to conclude that many conservative scholars are wrong when trifling that "work of the law" is something different than the moral precepts of the Mosaic law.  And indeed, that makes practical sense:  Did or didn't God put "thou shalt not commit adultery" (Exodus 20:14) on your conscience?  

Shall we trifle about whether God did or didn't place some Mosaic moral law on your conscience?  Of course not.  Therefore, there is no room in Romans 2 to justify pretending that our "conscience" is an independent basis upon which to judge some human act to be sin.  That basis for the conscience in condemning some act as sin is still Mosaic law regardless, along with all of its omissions.

If Romans 2:15 is true, then your conscience troubling you as you think about pedophilia is not something that arises from the OT YHWH who gave the law.  

Inerrantists will carp that the OT YHWH also cleared up much in the NT thus it is the same God in both testaments, thus both words of God should be read harmonistically, but of course there is no universally recognized hermeneutic that says compilations of theological material produced by two different ancient religions who often disagree with each other on major points of doctrine (as Jews disagree with each other, Christians disagree with each other, and Jews disagree with Christians) still somehow "deserve" to be read harmonistically.  So when I refuse to do so, all I'm "violating" is a rule of exegesis that not even all Christians agree to (most Christian scholars deny inerrancy, it just seems otherwise because of how loud the inerrantist-minority bark about shit).

I lose no sleep violating a Jehovah's Witness's request that I clear all my bible interpretations with the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.

I also lose no sleep violating an inerrantist's request that I forget about all the numerous interpretive differences between Jews and Christians, and simply do whatever needs doing in order to find harmony between the OT YHWH and the NT Jesus.  I prefer rather to adopt the view of the 2nd century Marcion, who correctly held that the god of the OT was a demon, and not the father of Jesus.