A thought experiment: Imagine that you are taking a hike away from civilization, and you meet some person. You start talking, the person is generally nice, but at some moment mentions having an Amalekite ancestry. You remember from your Bible studies that God wants you to kill all Amalekites. You are pretty sure that if you kill this person now, no one will see you (i.e. no risk of secular punishment). What would you do?
a) Kill the person, of course. It’s fun, and there is nothing wrong about it! Remember, the only reason murder is generally considered wrong is because God forbids it… but in this specific case, God approves of killing Amalekites, so there is absolutely no reason not to do so.
b) Kill the person, because obeying God is the most important thing… but you will feel kinda bad about it and kinda wish that God didn’t give you this command. (Later you realize that second-guessing God is also wrong, and then you will feel even worse.)
c) Not kill the person… and hope that merciful God will forgive you for this horrible act of disobedience.
d) Not kill the person, because you decide that God certainly didn’t mean literal killing of literal Amalekites. It is known that killing people just because they belong to some ethnic group is a bad thing, and certainly God would not command a bad thing. Later you check with your priest who confirms that “killing Amalekites” is definitely just a metaphor for… well, no one really knows what, but certainly nothing important.
In my opinion, any answer other than (a) means that your gut already has a source of morality different from “because God said so”.
A thought experiment: Imagine that you are taking a hike away from civilization, and you meet some person. You start talking, the person is generally nice, but at some moment mentions having an Amalekite ancestry. You remember from your Bible studies that God wants you to kill all Amalekites. You are pretty sure that if you kill this person now, no one will see you (i.e. no risk of secular punishment). What would you do?
a) Kill the person, of course. It’s fun, and there is nothing wrong about it! Remember, the only reason murder is generally considered wrong is because God forbids it… but in this specific case, God approves of killing Amalekites, so there is absolutely no reason not to do so.
b) Kill the person, because obeying God is the most important thing… but you will feel kinda bad about it and kinda wish that God didn’t give you this command. (Later you realize that second-guessing God is also wrong, and then you will feel even worse.)
c) Not kill the person… and hope that merciful God will forgive you for this horrible act of disobedience.
d) Not kill the person, because you decide that God certainly didn’t mean literal killing of literal Amalekites. It is known that killing people just because they belong to some ethnic group is a bad thing, and certainly God would not command a bad thing. Later you check with your priest who confirms that “killing Amalekites” is definitely just a metaphor for… well, no one really knows what, but certainly nothing important.
In my opinion, any answer other than (a) means that your gut already has a source of morality different from “because God said so”.