6
Punishment and Pardon

New Testament theology adds a new injustice, topped off by a new sadomasochism whose viciousness even the Old Testament barely exceeds. It is, when you think about it, remarkable that a religion should adopt an instrument of torture and execution as its sacred symbol, often worn around the neck.

—Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion1

A recovery of the old sense of sin is essential to Christianity. Christ takes it for granted that men are bad. Until we feel this assumption of His to be true, though we are part of the world He came to save, we are not part of the audience to whom His words are addressed.

—C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain2

Like Martin Luther, the atheist pounds on the door of heaven and demands freedom from injustices. We have discussed six grievances thus far: submission and favor, death and faith, guilt and rules. Unlike Luther, the atheist may call for reformation but cannot seriously hope for it. As the Bible says, God is unchanging. Release from these perceived injustices comes only after emancipation from God; that is the only way. Now we arrive at two injustices that are very likely to be to the atheist what the practice of indulgences was to Luther. We come to what might easily have been the cause of the atheist’s first or primary revulsion—not with the world but with God himself. We are referring to the passages in the Bible that made them wince. It was reading the Bible from cover to cover that served as Richard Carrier’s confirmation in the unfaith. He says, “When I finished the last page, though alone in my room, I declared aloud, ‘Yep, I’m an atheist.’”3 This chapter allows the atheist to comment on those passages that first forced his misgivings about God’s character. He is a punisher and, only in that dark context, a pardoner of some.

Unrighteous Anger: God as Punisher

The history of atheism could be traced through famous atheists or through the various philosophical stages of atheism. Perhaps it would be interesting to trace the history of atheism through the atheists’ attempts at devising the greatest one-line insult to God. Much like preteen boys trading ever-escalating smack talk, it is a competition in which the point is to prove “I can do better than that.” Let us start with deist Thomas Jefferson’s description of God as “a being of terrific character—cruel, vindictive, capricious, and unjust,”4 a description that makes Jefferson’s indictments of King George in the American Declaration of Independence look quite restrained. Jefferson’s friend Thomas Paine felt he could do better: “Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God.”5 Perhaps Charles Darwin’s wife’s devoutness helped to tame him out of the running; to Darwin, the Old Testament’s God is merely a “revengeful tyrant.”6 Sam Harris adds, “A close study of our holy books reveals that the God of Abraham is a ridiculous fellow—capricious, petulant, and cruel—and one with whom a covenant is little guarantee of health or happiness.”7 To further pack the punch, he adds, “If these are the characteristics of God, then the worst among us have been created far more in his image than we ever could have hoped.”8 Dan Barker scores votes in our anti-bullying culture with, “Having to spend eternity pretending to worship a petty tyrant who tortures those who insult his authority would be more hellish than baking in eternal flames. There is no way such a bully can earn my admiration.”9 Nonetheless, Richard Dawkins probably wins, unless excessive thesaurus consultation is grounds for disqualification: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”10 One wonders if these atheists are trying more to shock believers, embolden unbelievers, or simply vent. Whatever the case, their point is clear: A judgmental God deserves judgment; he should be treated as he wants us to be treated.

After all, the Bible as they read it presents a God with all the humbug of Scrooge mixed with the superpowers of Santa. Where Jonathan Edwards sees “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” atheists see victims in the clutches of a maniacal one. What no one disputes is that it is fearsome to be on his bad side, no matter how the church nursery is painted. According to Dawkins, “The legend of the animals going into the ark two by two is charming, but the moral of the story of Noah is appalling. God took a dim view of humans, so he (with the exception of one family) drowned the lot of them including children and also, for good measure, the rest of the (presumably blameless) animals as well.”11 That is just the tip of his iciness, says Barker:

We hear a lot of “God is love” sermons from the pulpit, but even a cursory glance at the Bible reveals that God kills a lot of people. He drowned the entire population of the planet, saving one family. He sent a plague to kill all the first-born children in Egypt, human and animal. He rained fire and brimstone on Sodom, killing everyone—boys, girls, babies, pregnant women, animals. He sent his Israelite warriors to destroy the neighboring pagan tribes—men, women and children.12

On the other hand, perhaps it is just as unfortunate to be one of the chosen on his good side. Citing the prohibitions on idolatry in Israelite law and the accompanying punishment by stoning, Harris writes, “The above passage is as canonical as any in the Bible, and it is only by ignoring such barbarisms that the Good Book can be reconciled with life in the modern world.”13 In other words, today such a judge would be thrown out of our courts. The only places he might find a job, thinks the atheist, are regions where age-old quarrels of rival gods have trickled down into everlasting war between adherents. Michel Onfray explains: “Thirty centuries, from the earliest texts of the Old Testament to the present day, teach us that the assertion of one God, violent, jealous, quarrelsome, intolerant, and bellicose, has generated more hate, bloodshed, deaths, and brutality than it has peace.”14 Atheists want reconciliation between people, and that necessitates divorce from the God whose punishments send us trembling into the old battle formations.

Unholy Cross: God as Pardoner

So the atheist asks God to lighten up, maybe enroll in anger management seminars. At the very least, he should stop killing people; perhaps he could soften the sentence or try to be more understanding. Maybe he could channel all that wrath into creative, rather than destructive, avenues. But God offers a better solution. What if God were to take all that wrath, every bit of it, and ingest it back into himself, so that it need never threaten us again? To be exact, it would not be ingested into but rather boomeranged back upon himself. Regardless, the wrath would no longer be ours to shoulder, but his. What would the atheist say to that? If it has anything to do with a cross, the atheist says, “Thanks, but no thanks.” There are six reasons the cross is unacceptable, even revolting, so that no real progress is made from the Old to New Testament.

First, Christ’s redemption is said to be barbaric. If we did not applaud the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament, what will make us applaud the human sacrifice of the New? Both should make us shudder at humanity’s primitive savagery. Harris explains, “The notion that Jesus Christ died for our sins and that his death constitutes a successful propitiation of a ‘loving’ God is a direct and undisguised inheritance of the superstitious bloodletting that has plagued bewildered people throughout history.”15

Second, redemption is incoherent. In The End of Christianity, we discover that Bob Jones University–trained, Baptist-turned-atheist Ken Pulliam would have enjoyed time travel to further muddy up the christological heresy wars of the early Christian empire (as if that were even possible). For example, he asks why it is that only the Father needed to be propitiated when the three persons of the Godhead are allegedly equal. Moreover, did Jesus’s atonement temporarily sever the unity of the Godhead, which is impossible? If not, then Jesus did not really die spiritually, and thus could not offer complete atonement. In the end, Pulliam concludes that the redemption story is incoherent.

Third, redemption is impossible. How can someone else take your sins upon himself? Impossible, says Christopher Hitchens: “We cannot, like fear-ridden peasants of antiquity, hope to load all our crimes onto a goat and then drive the hapless animal into the desert.”16 Pulliam remarks that “it is logically impossible to punish an innocent person.”17 Our evolved sense of justice forbids such a notion. Says Pulliam, “Punishment, according to the retributive theory of justice, is an appropriate response for one who is guilty of breaking the law. . . . [T]he guilty party and only the guilty party should be punished.”18

Fourth, redemption is unnecessary. It sells a manufactured solution to a manufactured problem. On the one hand, if it can be assumed that original sin is a myth, then Dawkins is free to say, “So, in order to impress himself, Jesus had himself tortured and executed, in vicarious punishment for a symbolic sin committed by a non-existent individual? As I said, barking mad, as well as viciously unpleasant.”19 On the other hand, the notion of contemporary sin is dismissed as a myth as well. As Barker puts it, “It does no good to say that Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins. I don’t have any sins, but if I did, I wouldn’t want Jesus to die for my sins. I would say, ‘No, thanks. I will take responsibility for my own actions.’”20 So the whole show—ailment and remedy—is unnecessary.

Fifth, redemption is obnoxious. Dawkins calls it a “repellant doctrine.”21 Elsewhere, he claims that it is “almost as morally obnoxious as the story of Abraham setting out to barbecue Isaac, which it resembles.”22 Nietzsche exclaims, “Sacrifice for sin, and in its most obnoxious and barbarous form: sacrifice of the innocent for the sins of the guilty!”23 Moreover, if it is an obnoxious doctrine in the pages of the holy book, it is likewise obnoxious on your doorstep or in a tract under your windshield wiper. Hitchens explains, “It can be stated as a truth that religion does not, and in the long run, cannot, be content with its own marvelous claims and sublime assurances. It must seek to interfere with the lives of nonbelievers, or heretics, or adherents of other faiths.”24 In other words, believers can never be content to do the one thing Hitchens asks: “that they in turn leave me alone.”25

Sixth and lastly, redemption is immoral. Hitchens paints the picture:

Ask yourself the question: how moral is the following? I am told of a human sacrifice that took place two thousand years ago, without my wishing it and in circumstances so ghastly that, had I been present and in possession of any influence, I would have been duty-bound to try and stop it. In consequence of this murder, my own manifold sins are forgiven me, and I may hope to enjoy everlasting life.26

Recall Hitchens’s answer: “I can pay your debt. . . . But I cannot absolve you of your responsibilities. It would be immoral of me to offer, and immoral of you to accept.”27 According to atheist professor Elizabeth Anderson, such “vicarious redemption” is immoral because it violates personal culpability: “The practice of scapegoating contradicts the whole moral principle of personal responsibility. It also contradicts any moral idea of God.”28 According to Pulliam, it is immoral because it punishes the innocent: “Is it ever moral to inflict suffering on someone as punishment for something they did not do? Our moral intuitions tell us that it is not.”29 Above all, it is immoral because it is child abuse at its worst. Barker writes, “I do understand what love is, and that is one of the reasons I can never again be a Christian. Love is not self-denial. Love is not blood and suffering. Love is not murdering your son to appease your own vanity.”30

On the Other Hand

So the atheist’s position is clear: punishment is bad; thus, pardon is unnecessary. Actually, such a summation is simplistic. First, it cannot be said that the atheist is anti-punishment. Take even Bertrand Russell, outspoken as he was against moral culpability. As someone who lived during the Holocaust, Russell urged treatment, not punishment, for many of the convicted Nazis. Notice, however, the revealing parenthetical element:

In Germany at the present day, there are, of course, many men among the Nazis who are plain criminals, but there must also be many who are more or less mad. Leaving the leaders out of account (I do not urge leniency toward them), the bulk of the German nation is much more likely to learn cooperation with the rest of the world if it is subjected to a kind but curative treatment than if it is regarded as an outcast among the nations.31

Notice that even in perhaps the friendliest British reaction to the Holocaust of its day, punishment is still prescribed for many Germans. When the Germans are divided into criminals and madmen, the criminals, especially the leaders, do not escape punishment. Some incitements to punishment are not so friendly. From Peter Atkins’s venomous quip, “May you rot in hell,”32 to Hitchens’s threat that abusive religious teachers ought to be glad hell was a myth “and that they were not sent to rot there,”33 we find the atheist is not above what he would consider righteous anger. Some actions ought to be punished. Indeed, according to Harris, perhaps some people ought to be punished, even killed, on account of the very beliefs they hold:

Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them. This may seem an extraordinary claim, but it merely enunciates an ordinary fact about the world in which we live. Certain beliefs place their adherents beyond the reach of every peaceful means of persuasion, while inspiring them to commit acts of extraordinary violence against others. There is, in fact, no talking to some people. If they cannot be captured, and they often cannot, otherwise tolerant people may be justified in killing them in self-defense.34

Some atheists are so convinced of the need for punishment that one of God’s faults is being too lenient. According to Emma Goldman, we must deal punishment precisely because God does not:

The burden of all song and praise, “unto the Highest” has been that God stands for justice and mercy. Yet injustice among men is ever on the increase; the outrages committed against the masses in this country alone [Russia] would seem enough to overflow the very heavens. But where are the gods to make an end to all these horrors, these wrongs, this inhumanity to man? No, not the gods, but MAN must rise in his mighty wrath.35

So if punishment is not immoral in certain cases when administered by humans, why is it immoral when from God? It seems that were these atheists there at the collapsing of the Red Sea back on Pharaoh’s army, or at the parade around Jericho’s wall, they would have lined the sites with bullhorns and protest signs. What is their problem with God’s punishments? Clearly, the issue is not punishment itself, which seems to be necessary. Instead, the problems seem to be culpability and extent. Take the flood. We find two possible problems with it. Either the people were innocent victims of God’s overkill, or else they were flawed victims of God’s oversights in programming their sense of right and wrong. He either punishes the innocent or creates the guilty. Either way, any extent of the punishment is always necessarily disproportionate to the crime. In this way, it can be said that, whatever the actions of the accused, punishment from God is always immoral. Being the severest in depth (death penalty) and width (human race), the flood is utterly unconscionable.

Recall from the first chapter, however, that such an argument is and must remain a God-in-the-Dock (GITD) argument. You cannot say that God is immoral to punish them and then introduce the atheistic assumption that they were innocent or that God created them guilty. The Bible is clear. At creation, Adam and Eve were created sinless and free, while in Noah’s day, “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). It cannot be assumed that this was a mass of duped sheep following a handful of extraordinarily evil people; no, this was a mass of extraordinarily evil people. Of course, if they were innocently murdered or robotically guilty, such a judgment can be called into question. But neither option is open to the atheist who is challenging the morality of God. While the morality is on trial, the historicity must be assumed. The question cannot fairly be, “Was it moral of God to condemn people that probably were not all that bad?” The question can only be, “Was it moral of God to condemn a people so thoroughly evil, by their own design, that they had become incapable of good?” To such a hideously culpable people, was the extent of the punishment too severe? Recall that even to Russell, the culpability of the action determines the extent of the punishment. In no less than the fiercest biblical case of punishment—the flood—extraordinary wickedness seems to demand a proportionate extent of punishment.

If the extent of the punishment depends on culpability, and if culpability is assumed biblically, as it must logically be, then the biblical extent of divine punishment seems completely permissible. Then how can the atheist still maintain his argument against divine punishment? For example, how can Harris, who does not condemn and perhaps even condones the death penalty for certain beliefs, denounce a God for plaguing the infanticidal Egyptians or for sending armies to chase out the child-sacrificing Canaanites from the promised land? We humans can administer whatever punishments we feel appropriate for the action, but God cannot, even toward people for whom “every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). The problem cannot be punishment, for many, if not most, atheists are not anti-punishment. The problem cannot be culpability or extent, for in questioning God’s character, the atheist must assume the utter lows of human culpability as found in the Bible. What is the problem then? Once again, the problem behind God’s punishment is not punishment but God.

Yet perhaps that conclusion is simplistic. Suppose the wickedness of Noah’s day, the infanticide of Moses’s day, and the child sacrifices of Joshua’s day were precisely as the Bible describes. Would such people deserve punishment, even death? Aside from some plan B that includes a reduction of freedom, most atheists would agree that such people, if they were really that awful, would deserve something similar to what they got. So the problem is merely that God is the one administering the punishment, right? No, the problem is not merely God but who we become when God is in the picture. If the atheist could affirm the depths of wickedness in those whom God punished, the atheist’s objections would likely disappear, but he cannot. The problem is not merely that God punished them but the insult that they needed punishing. On entering, God introduces more than punishment; he introduces majestic holiness, unbending standards. In short, he makes us look bad. Under God, we are no longer evolving splendors but spoiled children. So the problem is still God, but it is not merely him but what he turns us into.

It is in this sense of what it implies about humanity that the atheists denounce divine punishment. It is possible that God could be justified in such extensive punishment but only if humanity could ever have been that bad. God is the problem because he makes us the problem. If it were not for this amplification of our wickedness, atheists could even pardon God for pardoning us. Forgiving us is not a problem in itself. Besides the costliness of the sacrifice, the problem is what such a costly sacrifice implies about humanity. It should have been so easy, says Anderson: “If God is merciful and loving, why doesn’t he forgive humanity for its sins straightaway, rather than demanding his own son? How could any loving father do that to his son?”36 Taking such great pains to solve such an easy problem is insanity, says Dawkins: “I have described atonement, the central doctrine of Christianity, as vicious, sado-masochistic and repellent. We should also dismiss it as barking mad, but for its ubiquitous familiarity which has dulled our objectivity. If God wanted to forgive our sins, why not just forgive them, without having himself tortured and executed in payment?”37

“Which would give you more dignity?” asks Barker. “[L]earning you were released because you were pardoned by the good graces of the governor, or because you were found to be innocent of the crime?”38 Obviously, pardon via innocence would, and so that is the type of pardon God should have offered. Grace by faith is too demeaning. After Barker became an atheist, Barker’s father followed suit. He told a reporter, “I’m much happier now. To be free from superstition and fear and guilt and the sin complex . . . is a tremendous relief.”39 That could have easily been a quote from a newly born-again Christian. The difference is that the senior Barker was freed from his sins by something much less costly than a cross. Atheists praise such “forgiveness.” What they protest is not pardon itself but what the enormity of the debt’s cancellation says about our debt. The problem with pardon is the same as the problem with punishment. The problem is neither punishment nor pardon but the imposition that is God. God-sized punishments and pardons alike magnify our mistakes to sins and reduce us to sinners. The problem is not that God is a wrathful judge or a merciful judge; we want neither. Presented two options—to be treated fairly (punishment) or unfairly (pardon), we opt for a third, in the form of a prayer of admonition to God: “Judge not, that You be not judged” (cf. Matt. 7:1).