Most of us have pondered the passages in the Bible where God is depicted as a warrior or when he orders the destruction of people and places. These episodes often push people away from God.
Atheist and anti-theist, Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion, uses God’s destructive side as evidence against any divine being: “God’s monumental rage whenever his chosen people flirted with a rival god resembles nothing so much as sexual jealousy of the worst kind, and again it should strike the modern moralist as far from good role-model material” (p. 243).
Dawkins draws attention to God’s involvement in a host of violent episodes in the Bible. We cannot deny their presence. But we can ask why they are there and what they say about God.
In “God and Violence in the Old Testament” (Word and World, Winter 2004, page 21) Terence Fretheim delves into the theology behind this violence. He makes one especially critical point: “If there were no human violence, there would be no divine violence.”
God permits human violence. At times it grows so out of control that God counters that violence with violence. Proverbs 21:7 reflects on this point: “The violence of the wicked will sweep them away, because they refuse to do what is just.” When violence gets out of control it even comes back on those who started it. Someone has to stop what people start. Fortunately for the sake of humankind, God takes up that task.
One technique in stopping a wild fire is back burning. A small controlled fire is used to destroy an area in front of the wild fire. When the out of control wild fire reaches the back burned area, the fire goes out because its fuel is gone.
Fretheim points out that in Scripture God’s involvement in violence always occurs in response to human destructiveness. He responds in order to save people from the violence or to discipline those who use violence recklessly. More can be said about the violence of God, but a central point is we can be assured that there is a divine being who resists human evil. You can count on it.