#STRask - Aren’t God’s Moral Laws Merely Subjective If He Can Command Us to Break Them?

Episode Date: October 15, 2026

Questions about whether God’s moral laws are merely subjective if he can command us to break them, and whether contrasting the Torah with barbaric Near Eastern laws to show moral improvement proves anything since you can’t justify bad laws by comparing them to worse ones.   Are God’s moral laws objective, or can they be broken if God commands us to break them? Aren’t his laws merely subjective if we can go against them when he sees fit? In Is God a Moral Monster, Paul Copan often contrasts the Torah with barbaric Near Eastern laws to show moral improvement, but if I kill an adult and justify it because others kill children, aren’t I still a monster?

Welcome back to hashtag STR Ask. All right, Greg, we are starting today with a question from Elizabeth. All right. And this one is a little bit long. I'm going to let it stand. I usually don't do such long questions, but we're going to take this one. All right, here it is. I was having a long back and forth with a non-believer, and we were discussing morality.

I had mentioned that abortion is bad because it's against God's moral law to murder. unjustly take a life. He brought up God commanding the killing of children in the Old Testament and asked, is his law objective or can it be broken if God commanded it? He understood why God himself could take a life, but not how he can command us to break his moral laws. I explained all the reasons why God may have commanded them to take the life of infants and children and the reasons God commanded the killing of different groups of people in the Old Testament, but he still insists that his moral law must be subjective if we can go against it when he sees fit. Okay.

This is a very fair question, but it is not sound to say it's subjective if he can go against it when he sees fit. Because this reflects a difference in the way maybe even some Christians will approach the concept of morality. One way of understanding morality is that moral laws are absolute. And the way that's characterized oftentimes is it's true for all people at all time and all places. I do not like that characterization. I don't think it's useful.

But you find it in all kinds of books. And I understand where they're going, and I think for many purposes, it's sufficient. The problem is that you actually run into this difficulty that the atheist, the objector, has raised. Okay, God says this is wrong, and then he says it's okay to do it. So if it's wrong, but sometimes it's okay to do it, that's subjectivism. Well, it's not subjectivism. So there's a misunderstanding there on his part, but the question is appropriate, given the way morality has been described by the Christian. I don't like the word absolute because of that problem. I think the word objective is much better. And because the word absolute suggests that there are no conditions

under which this particular moral principle can be violated, or there might be some exceptions to it, or maybe some exemptions to it. It's rigid, it's unmovable, it's complete, it's absolute, is the idea. But we know, of course, that there are, many times where we run into moral dilemmas. Now, moral dilemmas when you are stuck in a circumstance between the, you know, rock and a hard place, people say, because you have to choose one or the other. That's the nature of a dilemma. There's no third alternative. And taken individually, both would be wrong. All right. And what do you do then? Now, if everything is a rigid absolute, you can't make the decision. You have no resources by which you can decide what to do. And the multitude of moral

dilemmas that we encounter in our life could never be resolved. We're stuck. But if it turns out that some moral rules are objectively sound, but more weighty than others, when the two come into conflict, then you choose the greater good, or some would say maybe the lesser evil, but I think it's actually a good, especially the way scripture characterizes it. And when you do the greater good, then you are doing the right thing. Now, I'll give you an illustration from the scriptures, and some people are really uncomfortable with this. But Rahab the Harlot, Rehab the innkeeper, remember that with the spies, when they were scouting out the land. She believed the God of the Jews was the true God. And she had heard about what he had.

accomplished to the Egyptians a whole generation before, 40 years before that. And so she's, you know, she's siding with the Jews and protecting them. But in order to protect those men, she had to hide them from those soldiers in her town that were searching for them, and then she told a lie. She said, they went this way. They went out that way, and they're gone. But they were actually hidden in her house. Well, it's wrong to lie, but she lied. And she's applauded for doing it. Why is she applauded? Because the alternative is giving up the lives of these men who were not just human beings that would be killed, but they were God's people. She's in the line of Jesus even. Oh, that's right. She is. And she's applauded implicitly by that and also applauded explicitly explicitly, certainly the book of James Chapter 2. And I think even in the Hebrews 11, I'm not sure if she's in there or not.

But in any event, what she did was the right thing. It was right for her to lie. Why was that? because lying isn't wrong. No, all things being equal lying is wrong, but they weren't all equal here. In this particular case, human lives were at stake, and so she lied to protect human lives. And you find this happening all the time in wartime and really difficult,

where you have oppressive regimes, like the Third Reich and the Pol Pot and, you know, red Chinese, blah, blah, blah. There's all kinds of situations like that. When you're protecting human beings, you've got to do a lot of lying and deception in order to accomplish that. And so what this then identifies is not an absolutist system, but an objective moral system

in which some things are worse than other things or some goods are greater than other things. And Jesus makes this clear in his own teaching. The man who delivered me over to you, he says, Tobias, has the greater sin. Not all sin is equal. Sin is sin in that it's wrongdoing, but it's not of equal weight. and because some things are worse than others, and some things are better than others,

we have the resources now to resolve moral dilemmas. Now, it doesn't mean resolving them or easy, but we have the resources if we don't have this absolutist kind of system, but we have what maybe would be called weighted absolutes, or some absolutes are more important than others if you want to use that language. And this is what we come into, find here. It would not be surprising that God would say it's okay to do this. In fact, he said

it's okay to kill people before he said it's not okay to kill people. Genesis 9-6, if man sheds man's blood, by man, his blood should be shed for in the image of God God created him. I don't know if you could say that's before, since you've got Cain and Abel being punished. It's implicit, but it's not commanded. It's presumed in Cain and Able, and it's also presumed even in Genesis 96, that if man sheds blood. Yeah, it's a punishment for doing it. But it's initiated right there. There is a wrong with taking a life.

And when a life is taken like that, then that life is surrendered, but it's surrendered at the hands of human beings who God has ordained or has empowered to carry out his wishes for them. So in a certain sense, what's convenient about this complaint, to the example about killing is that from the very beginning it's been like this. And this is why both in English and in Hebrew, there are two different words for taking a life. One is called murder. Killing, the other one is murder. Murder is the inappropriate taking a life and killing. Well, it could be generalized. It could be used in both cases, but killing could simply be taking a life

without any moral consequences associated with that. And so this is what you have. In Genesis 9, 6, if someone murders, you kill him. And this is why there were, I don't know, a dozen different, more than that, maybe capital crimes in the Old Testament than Mosaic law. It's not in our law. We don't have to do it the exact same way. But the point is that God himself arranged for legitimate killing. And he sent out armies as combatants in legitimate wars.

So, and in those legitimate wars of children and women got killed, and this was part of the deal. and there are involved reasons for why that was the case. But in any event, the key here is that he's trading on an absolutist system that some Christians, maybe unwittingly advance, that is not really the biblical system. Okay, so sometimes it's okay to kill. I mean, that's the simple answer. In God's system, it's right to kill. It's good to kill.

And so capital punishment would be an example. and other times it's not. And in the circumstances that he described, and it sounds like Elizabeth did a good job of showing that there were morally sufficient reasons for God to come down. What's wrong in one situation is right in another situation. We see this all the time. And the illustration I always give is,

is it okay for you to put someone in a cage? No, it's wrong. In fact, the government tells you it's wrong, and what will they do if you do that? They're going to put you a cage. A bigger cage. So it's— With other nasty people. It's wrong for me to do it, but it's right for them to do it. Why? Because they have a different authority and role.

In fact, God has said in Romans 13, he talks about how he is appointed the government as he's instituted the government as a minister for God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. So this illustration is great because not only does it illustrate that it can be wrong for one person to do something and right for another person to do it, but it also illustrates that God can give that authority to human beings to accomplish his will. Because it sounds like, Elizabeth, your friend says that he understands, why God himself could take a life, but not how he can command us to break his moral laws. And the answer is, in the case of the government, what God has done is, yes, it's right for God to punish, and it's not right for me to punish someone, but it's right for the government

because God grants that authority to them to stand in his place and to accomplish that good for society. Like a delegation. Yes, a delegated authority, right. So there is an example of why God himself can punish and can command human beings to punish. So when you apply this to the Old Testament and the judgment of the Canaanites, God did give that authority over to the Israelites. And I think he doesn't explain exactly why he did this way rather than doing it in a different way like he did with the Egyptians, where it was all God. enacting the plagues on them. But I suspect it may have had something to do with the fact that

God was making a point to the Israelites through all of this too, and he wanted them to know they're being put in this land not because they're better than the Canaanites necessarily, although the Canaanites were worthy of judgment, and God waited 400 years for them to be worthy of that judgment before he brought in the Israelites. But he says it's not because you're better or you're more numerous or anything. But it's because I'm bringing you in and I'm punishing them and removing them because they've been evil. And if you do the same things, I will do the same to you, which, of course, he did eventually. That's right.

Which proves this is not ethnic cleansing. Yes, exactly. It's a moral judgment. It doesn't matter of the ethnicity. Right. So what you have here, if God's bringing them in to do it, they're participating in, just like the government participates in, bring about the round. of God on those who break God's law. He brings in the Israelites to do it because he wants them, this is my suspicion, because he wants them to see the judgment that they will experience

if they go so far as to follow these Canaanites into the evil practices that they were practicing. Which they did. Which they did. And they got destroyed and removed from the land, just like the Canaanites. I'm in Second Kings right now. I just read through First Kings, then Second Kings. I just keep having this impulse with my pencil too, right, in the margin. Idiots! Idiots! Don't you see what just happened to your day? Idiots!

I can't believe it. But that's fallen human beings. Yeah, it just goes to show it's not a matter of being smart. It's a moral problem with us as human beings. Let me make a clarification of something I said earlier and then you offered a ramp up for it. And that is, you said, if, and this is the difference between more. moral relativism and moral objectivism. And what you said is, if the circumstances are different than the same act in one place,

that's bad, what might be good in the other place. And that's the key here, if the circumstances are different. Objectivism says that when all the circumstances are all exactly the same, there is an objective moral rule that applies. If the circumstances change, well, then the rule could change, all right? relativism says that you could have the exact same circumstances, but a different person in it. Right. And then that different person could have a different idea of what's good or bad.

And so that's why given abortion, someone could say, well, it may be wrong for you, but the same act could be right for me. Okay. Same set of objective circumstances, different rule based on the subject, which is why it's called subjectivism. And that's the difference between the two. So the answer to 3 plus 4 is objectively 7. It's objectively 7. Wait, I had to, yeah, you're right. But if you change it to 3 plus 5, now the answer is objectively 8 because the equation changes, the answer changes.

Slow down. I'm used to 2 plus 2. But you can see there is one objective. Sure, of course. Answer. It's actually a really good illustration. I've never heard it before, Amy. All right, let's go to a question from Caleb.

I am currently reading, is God, a moral monster? Paul Copan. Yes. Copan often contrasts the Torah with barbaric near Eastern laws to show moral improvement, but this seems weak to me. If I kill an adult and justify it because others kill children, I'm still a monster. So what am I missing in his argument? Well, I think the observation that Paul Copan is making here is legitimate.

And the reason is, is because I don't know that Paul is using this to justify all of the killing of children. He's got different nuanced arguments regarding that. But he is making a legitimate point. He isn't going into the ancient Near Eastern cultures and trying to instantly create a moral nirvana. He is steering these cultures towards a better thing. And so what you have in the law is an improvement over what was there before. It's not in a certain sense the ideal. The ideal.

And you have brought this up before. Do you want to make this point? I know you would go with this. So it's a New Testament application. So when the Pharisees come to Jesus and they say, well, God commanded men, to divorce their wives, give a certificate of divorce. Can they do that for any and every reason?

And then Jesus says, God gave that commandment because of the hardness of your heart. In other words, that was there to kind of regulate what was already going on. And then he says, but that's not the ideal.

The ideal is Adam and Eve, you know, coming together, being one flesh and not being separated. that's the ideal. So we shouldn't be sitting there talking about, oh, what are all the different ways that we can, you know, because God commanded us to get divorced. And he's like, no, no, no. He wasn't commanding you to be divorced.

He was regulating something that was going on because of the hardness of your life. Yeah. So what I've said in the past is just say, for example, with regards to Abad, which means it's translated servant or slave. And this is a little bit difficulty in the translation because sometimes when it's translated a slave, we have a connotation of that. Now, when we think about American slavery and the whole slave trade, and that wasn't the circumstances that was faced, at least in Israel. My point is that the so-called slaves, if you will, had union representation. It's called the Mosaic law. There were all kinds of regulations as to what you could do and you could do with those that were under your control.

as Avad. And so therefore, was this the most ideal circumstance? No, but it really took a bad circumstance and made it better. By the way, we know God's ideal is not being in slavery because the entire Old Testament is centered around God rescuing the Israelites from slavery, showing that that is not what God wants for his people. So go ahead, Greg. No, that was it, pretty much. One thing I did forget to say in the last question, and I think it also applies in this question too, but when you're answering questions like this where someone is questioning either God's character in some way, they're taking something for the Old Testament, they're questioning God's character. all you can do is make these distinctions as clearly as you can, but don't be surprised if they cling

to their challenge. And this goes back to what we were saying, I think, in the previous episode of how people really hang on to this challenge, especially nonbelievers. This is a way to attack God's character. And so when they think they have a way to get at God here and you explain it, I rarely have anyone say, oh, I see what you're saying. I rarely have that. And a lot of times what you'll see is that they'll keep repeating the same thing or they'll say, well, that's different, well, that's different, well, that's different as you're making the distinction. So don't be surprised if they hang on to what they're claiming. I just, but don't let that stop. But don't let that stop you. I would pray for them. And later on, as they're thinking about it, maybe it'll sink

in and they'll be willing to look at it. But when you think you've got God on this genocide thing and this is a slam dunk, you don't necessarily want to hear an answer. Right, right. No, that's right. But it also runs into the problem. You're raising a moral objection against God. And if that is meant to justify your atheism, then the question can properly be asked, where are you getting your moral standard from to judge God in this circumstance? What's wrong with the Israelites doing this if there is no judge over the world? If there is no moral standard that governs the world, then they're not doing anything wrong. And we've come back to this point, not just in this show, but more recent shows,

because it's a very important point with regards to the problem of evil. This is why, in my view, the moral argument for God's existence is so powerful because the second premise of that moral argument says that there's evil in the world. First premise is, if there is no God, there is no evil. Second premise is, there is evil. Conclusion, there is a God. Now, that is a valid argument, and I think it's sound because both of the premises are true, especially the second everybody knows there's evil in the world, except for some people who foolishly deny it, but they know better deep down inside, in my view at least.

So, and which is interesting, which I should say it this way, which is testified to by the challenges that they bring against Christian. They're pointing at the evil in the world. And so they know there's evil in the world, but what worldview makes sense of that? And sometimes it's fair to ask when you get to this point, maybe you've done your best job and then say the objector, as Amy's just said, it just doesn't buy it. You ask him this question. What's the alternative? What's the alternative? Okay, so this is wrong.

Where are you going now? And if you go to atheism, you've got a bigger problem with the problem. of evil. So where are you going to go? Some kind of mysticism. I don't know, but that's a fair question to ask frequently about lots of things. What's the alternative? And in terms of this particular question from Caleb, he doesn't go into what specifically he's referring to when he says, if I kill an adult and justify it because others kill children, I'm still a monster. There's no situation where God justifies killing an innocent human being that I'm aware of in the Old Testament. So this goes back to what we were saying about looking at the situation more carefully,

finding out what is going on there. And most of the time, you can see the principle that's being enacted here that God is trying to accomplish. And a lot of it will make more sense, even if you don't have to go to this idea that God is moving this culture towards a certain end. ends. So it's hard for me to respond specifically to this one about killing an adult because I'm not actually sure unless he's talking about the judgment of the Canaanites, which was God's judgment on evil wiping out this civilization. So even in the case where there are things that don't

make sense, I encourage you all to look into it a little more and find out what is the principle behind what God is doing here and figure it out that way. So hopefully, That gives you some things to think about Caleb and Elizabeth. We thank you so much for sending in your questions, and we'd love to hear from you. Go to our website at STR.org and look for our hashtag STRSk podcast page, and you'll find a link there to send us your question. Thank you so much for listening. This is Amy Hall and Greg Kokel for Stand to Reason.