William Lane Craig has a really good response to those who ask how a just and loving God could command the Israelites to kill every Canaanite (including children). In the same article he makes some poignant distinctions between the Jewish conquest of Canaan and Islamic jihad.
August 30, 2007
How Could God Command the Killing of Children?
Posted by Jason Dulle under Bible Difficulties, Theology[2] Comments
Thinking to Believe 
August 30, 2007 at 5:54 pm
He argues that God was just in killing the wicked adults, and also just in killing the innocent children because they would go to heaven. And murder is not immoral for God because God is above morality.
I think that works to rescue God. But by taking the mass murder of children from being “malum prohibitum” to merely “malum in se,” it essentially praises infanticide. Killing kids becomes a moral good, even a moral necessity, but for the technicality of God’s arbitrary prohibition against it.
“This is an argument I’ve heard a number of times throughout the years: ‘Babies will go to heaven anyway, so abortion isn’t so bad—in fact, it’s actually in the child’s ultimate best interests.’ Though this letter wasn’t written by a pastor, two pastors (not from my church) have expressed the same idea…. Ah, now we can feel relieved. Abortion really isn’t so bad for the babies. And since God is sovereign, why not let them die? I have actually been told, ‘Don’t you believe babies go to heaven when they die? That means they’re better off anyway. In fact, if you ‘rescue’ them, they may grow up to be non-Christians who go to hell. Dying now is probably the best thing for them.’ This argument is based on a sterile logic so chilling as to suggest its place of origin—the pit of hell. Does Scripture buy into such logic? Not for a moment. God hates the shedding of innocent blood in an unqualified way….”
http://www.epm.org/articles/betteroff.html
Justifying murder by saying it’s not inherently wrong, and that God is above his own arbitrary rules, ultimately fails.
“If God is God, he is not good. If God is good, he is not God.” – Nickles in Archibald MacLeish’s “J.B.”
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September 5, 2007 at 9:58 am
Arthur,
I disagree with your characterization of Craig’s argument. He did not say God is above morality. It is simply not immoral for God to take the life of anyone. God is the author of life. It is His. He can do with it what He wants. He can create it, and He can take it. He has sovereign control as the Creator. We cannot take life because it is not ours to take.
That’s why your jump to infanticide is incorrect as well. There is a difference between God doing with His creation as He wills, and His creatures doing with His creation what they will. No one is arguing that since babies go to heaven, we should support infanticide. But if God wants to take the life of a child—a life that He created—that is His prerogative. Our lives are not our own. See http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5271 for further substantiation.
Craig realizes that most people don’t have a problem with evil people getting what they deserve, but we do have a problem with kids getting killed. His point was that the outcome for the kids is actually not a bad one. Indeed, God took them to be with Him in Heaven. Only a materialist who sees no hope of the afterlife views premature death as the worst evil.
As for abortion, I think it is true that the aborted babies go to heaven, but that does not mean it is not an egregious evil that is being committed against them, and that we should do nothing to stop it. Human beings are unjustly taking their lives. That is a moral wrong. The good that comes out of it does not justify the evil that is done. We have a responsibility to try to prevent evil insomuch as possible.
And Christians don’t believe that God’s moral rules are arbitrary. They are not. They are rooted in His person. Islam’s God’s moral rules are arbitrary, not ours. See http://www.apostolic.net/biblicalstudies/divinecommand.htm for further substantiation.
Jason
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