Lately I’ve been thinking about the moral problems that the Bible often presents. When this topic comes up, the first thing that comes to mind is God’s command to kill the Canaanite children, and although many apologists like William Lane Craig have tried to argue that such an act was morally correct, the most adequate response is to affirm that the text is a hyperbole that does not imply that children actually died in the conquest. However, that problem can be transferred to the flood that occurred in the time of Noah, and although it can also be applied to other cases (such as the death of David’s newborn son or Sodom and Gomorrah), this is simply the clearest example that comes to mind. I want to carry out a process that I like to call “evaluation of theodicies under restricted conditions.” I’ve been thinking about this and I cannot find any that are truly satisfactory, and many of them simply seem like attempts to avoid facing the real problem and to downplay it. I would be especially interested in hearing new responses or stronger versions of existing ones, because so far none seem successful to me. First, I want to clarify the framework I am assuming in order to avoid answers that change the playing field. 1. The flood in the Book of Genesis corresponds to a real historical event (although possibly regional rather than global). 2. The event was caused or intentionally brought about by God. 3. God is morally perfect and omnipotent. 4. The flood was carried out as a punishment for human beings. 5. Children below a certain age do not have full moral responsibility, and therefore are not guilty of wrongdoing. 6. No one who is morally upright would want to kill innocent children when there is a way to avoid it. Under these conditions, I am evaluating theodicies with a very specific criterion: is the flood morally justifiable? The focus of this post is on children because it is easier to empathize with children than with animals or plants, since although they share innocence, there is debate about whether they have souls, suffer, or even consent to death, but the argument could also be extended to them.

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