Abraham

[leinad]

I know this has been discussed a million times, but why did God command Abraham to kill his son (even though He ultimately stopped him)?  In case you didn't know or forgot, the story is in Genesis 22 (and also, I just found out, Sura 37:102-111 of the Qur'an.)

[Josh]

It was a test, but a test that was administered for the benefit of the testing process itself rather than the end result; God knew in advance what Abraham would do, so He wasn't just collecting knowledge. He must have been teaching Abraham something through it.

[leinad]

It was a test, but a test that was administered for the benefit of the testing process itself rather than the end result; God knew in advance what Abraham would do, so He wasn't just collecting knowledge. He must have been teaching Abraham something through it.

I know it was a test, I'm just not quite sure why it was administered.

[Harenil]

God new that it would be a very hard thing for Abraham to do...

[Vlad!]

I'm not sure whether God knew in advance what Abe would do, but I think He had a pretty good guess. Frankly, the idea that the test was for the sole purpose of teaching Abraham was something I hadn't considered before, but it has some merit. My inclination is that He issued the command to see what Abraham would do and also to show a part of Himself to Abraham.

Is it just me, or does this seem to be paralelling our Job discussion? As in, did God already know what Job would do?

[leinad]

Is it just me, or does this seem to be paralelling our Job discussion? As in, did God already know what Job would do?

I wasn't really looking at it from that angle, although that's a legitimate question as well.  When I found out that Muslims also believe this story, it occurred to me that God commanding someone to kill for no good reason other than that He said to, and then rewarding them for obeying, raises troubling moral questions.  

[oneafroboy]

Yeah, I've often wondered about this...

I mean child sacrifices are *bad*. Period. They're wrong. And then God comes along and tells Abraham to kill Isaac. And he prepares to do it! I mean, honestly, if I heard a voice that told me it was God and it wanted me to kill someone as a sacrifice, I would really question whether that was a voice of God or one of a demon. I guess Abraham was sure it was God. I mean, no doubt God had an purpose, but it just seems a real odd thing to do. Things like this really show how we can't fit God into a nice, little, neat box.

Vlad!: I'm pretty sure God knew in advance what Abraham was doing. I think it's clear that God foreknew who would be a Christian or not, so I think it's pretty safe to think He can see other things in the "future" also. I've always thought of God within and without our universe; meaning that God is within our universe, holding it in place, but He is also outside of that. Today, we understand (or the evidence suggests) that the universe isn't made of two separate entities, space and time, but instead, it consists of a fabric that is space-time. So, if God is outside of this space-time fabric that is the universe, then I think He would be able to see the future--for him, it wouldn't be the future. All time would just be there in front of Him. Maybe you've thought about this before and still see it as incorrect or false, but I'm just putting this forward to show how I see it (and I'm not saying I understand it correctly, but I'm pretty certain that God is all-knowing) with the hope that this will help you and foster critical thinking.

[BigBird]

did God know ahead of time or behindtime? or outoftime? or anything i say will relate to time. time? beforetime? anatime? timey-time time? when? what the heck yo!!!!!

[Skrappybiskit]

Well, God controls the future, so problem solved.

Anyways. I think the purpose of the "child sacrifice" was two-fold, or three-fold or something. 1: to test A's faith by getting him to basically flush what was the only potential of fulfilling God's own promises down the drain, but more importantly 2) as a prefiguration of the sacrifice of Christ. Like when it says

And Abraham said, "My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering." So the two of them went together ... but the Angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" So he said, "Here I am." ... and He said, "Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me."
... so Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son. And Abraham called the name of the place, The-LORD-Will-Provide; as it is said to this day, "In the Mount of the LORD it shall be provided."

I find that strongly prefigurative.

Skraps

[GusX:]

Perhaps, the focus shouldnt be on the deed, as to what this actually was.  - I've read - and am convinced, that this is mearly God showing us his sovereignty. Not only is He testing Himself, He is showing us how He does not break covenant with us - sinners -  Just a thought ......

[oneafroboy]

That's a cool analogy, Skrappy. We could think of Isaac as humanity, but God provides a lamb to take out place as the sacrifice. Not that we can tell what God was thinking, but I don't think that's a coincidence. I mean think about it. We *are* supposed to be damned and sent to Hell, but God (as His Son Jesus) took our punishment for us. God provides. I likes it.  =)

Also a good point, Gusx. God will *not* break His covenant with us. And this is not putting God in a box. He is unchanging, and for that reason we *can* trust Him, because He is faithful. He would not lie to us. (Btw, I'm not saying God is safe or sterile or a little meek lamb, but it is true that we can believe in His promises, because He is faithful to His people.)

[Vlad!]

I mean child sacrifices are *bad*. Period. They're wrong. And then God comes along and tells Abraham to kill Isaac. And he prepares to do it! I mean, honestly, if I heard a voice that told me it was God and it wanted me to kill someone as a sacrifice, I would really question whether that was a voice of God or one of a demon. I guess Abraham was sure it was God. I mean, no doubt God had an purpose, but it just seems a real odd thing to do.

I agree. You notice that we rarely are told HOW God contacts people in these stories? I recently read through 1 & 2 Samuel, and many times it says someone (often David) heard the voice of the Lord. So was he sitting on the crapper and a disembodied voice goes "yo, Abe, kill your son"? Or did an angel give him instructions? Because frankly if I heard a voice in my head telling me to kill my kid, I'd see a priest or a shrink, not go do it....

[Vlad!]

Ok, time to bring this thread back. Because it's a freaking good thread. We talked about this story in my Religious Ethics class today, but I'm not really any closer to being able to explain it. But that's never stopped me before:

Soren Kirkegaard had some real trouble with this passage. He says that either we must accept faith as something between us and the absolute, that is, between us and God, OR we must condemn Abraham as we condemn others who do the same thing. After all, if Abe can use "God told me to do it" as a justification for offing his kid, why doesn't that stand as a valid justification for, say, crashing a passenger plane into a skyskraper?

Plato asks an illuminating question: is X good because God says it is, or does God say X because it is good? If the former is true, then kidnapping with intent to harm is perfectly fine because God commanded it. If (as Immanuel Kant and John Locke would argue) God Himself is not the ultimate good but rather there is a good independent of God, we are freed from the empty tautology of "God's commands are good; God is good because He follows His commands and His commands are good."

So (back to the topic at hand), how is Abraham upheld as the model of faith for doing something that God EXPRESSLY forbids later in the Torah and elsewhere? And why didn't our spiritual forefather muster up the chutzpah he showed when challenging God over the fate of Sodom and Gemorrah?

One last thing to throw out (and I've been nearly lynched by Stanton and others for suggesting this before ), Moses (traditionally) wrote most of the Torah (though obviously not the parts about his death, and probably Deutoronomy as a whole was transcribed by someone else), and most of Genesis was written long after the fact. Is it possible that the story of Abraham and his near-sacrifice of Isaac was either oral tradition handed down but possibly told as an example of faith rather than actual truth, or that God told it to him as a parable of faith rather than as a true story?