Passages from the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures)

Abstract

This chapter analyses in depth a number of passages from the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures): Genesis 50:20, Exodus 4:21, Deuteronomy 2:26–30, Joshua 11:18–20, Judges 14:3–4, 1 Samuel 2:22–25, 2 Samuel 24:9–14, 1 Kings 22:19–23, Job 1:9–22, Psalm 105:25, Proverbs 16:4, Isaiah 6:9–10, and Ezekiel 20:25–26. For each passage, the chapter considers the amount of evidence (strong, moderate, or weak) that it provides for the book’s thesis, that God intends that sin occur. Also, for each passage the chapter considers alternative interpretations, interpretations on which God does not intend that sin occur. These interpretations are the substratum interpretation, the Kammian interpretation, and the combined substratum–Kammian interpretation.

Our procedure is as follows. Several verses or passages from the Christian Scriptures have been proposed by various people to show that God intends that sin occur. Welty (2018) details many of them. We proceed through them in the order in which they occur in the Scriptures, and then determine whether they do in fact indicate that God intends that the sin in question occur. We cover passages from the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures) in this chapter and passages from the New Testament in the next chapter. Some of the verses are not quite the sure-fire proof texts they might at first seem to be, and where that is so we say as much. Others make it only plausible, rather than compelling, to suppose that God intends that sin occur. Nevertheless, some of them carry the requisite clarity for us to be confident in inferring that God sometimes intends that sin occur.

For each of the passages we discuss, we indicate whether the substratum strategy, perhaps combined with the Kammian strategy, can be implemented, and note how its interpretation might go. With respect to each passage, we ask first whether we can derive a proposition of this form from it:

• (P) God chooses to bring it about that [a sin] occur in order that [a state of affairs] should obtain.

As we have already noted, our opponent can try to respond to this, however, by saying that while God intends that he bring it about that a sinful action occurs, God does not intend that the sinfulness of that action should obtain. For example, while it is true that, as a matter of fact, Pharaoh’s saying (the Egyptian equivalent of) ‘no’ to Moses was sinful, it could be responded that God did not intend that it be sinful. Rather, it could be maintained against us that God intended only that Pharaoh say ‘no’ to Moses, and did not intend that he do so sinfully. To respond to this approach, it would be good for us to find a passage from which we can derive a proposition satisfying (P*):

• (P*) God chooses to bring it about that [a sin] occur in order that [a state of affairs that can obtain only in virtue of the sin’s occurring] should obtain.

In this case, our opponent would have a much harder time of it, since in this case God would need the sinfulness of the sin in order to achieve his goal. For example, if—as we later argue—God did choose to bring it about that Pharaoh say ‘no’ to Moses in order to bring about a state of affairs that could obtain only in virtue of that sin’s occurring, then it will not suffice for our opponent to say that God intended only that Pharaoh say ‘no’ to Moses without intending that he do so sinfully. The reason why this will not suffice is that the mere intention that Pharaoh say ‘no’ to Moses does not suffice to accomplish God’s goal in this case, since that goal precisely requires that sin occur. We explore in detail below whether our opponent can come back at us here.

We also rank the passages we discuss according to the following categories: Strong, Moderate, and Weak. In other words, the passage in question gives Strong evidence that God intends that sin occur, or Moderate evidence to that effect, or Weak evidence to that effect. Moderate evidence is, of course, still evidence. Moderate evidence for p should dispose you to believe p ceteris paribus.

In practice, if the probability is only around 0.5 that the verse or passage in question affirms that God intends that sin occur, we call it ‘Weak’. If the probability is greater than 0.5, but the combined strategy appears to offer an alternative possible interpretation, then we call it ‘Moderate evidence’. If the probability is greater than 0.5 and the combined strategy yields what seems to us a very improbable interpretation, then we call it ‘Strong evidence’.

6.1 Genesis 50:20

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.

We have already discussed this verse in the preceding chapter. The following proposition was derived, satisfying (P):

• (1) God brought it about that Joseph’s brothers sinfully sell Joseph, for the sake of saving many lives in Egypt.

We noted that the substratum strategy was viable here, since the sinfulness of the brothers’ action was not strictly necessary for getting Joseph to Egypt, suggesting the following proposition instead:

• (1′) God brought it about that Joseph moved to Egypt, by dint of his brothers’ and the slave traders’ moving their bodies thus and so, for the sake of saving many lives in Egypt.

There are, however, reasons to doubt (beyond the usual ones noted before against the substratum strategy) the plausibility of this application of the substratum strategy here.

The verse says that ‘God meant it for good’. But what is the antecedent of ‘it’? Its antecedent, we suggest, is surely the ‘meant evil’. But then the verse is saying, per our original suggestion, that God intended that the meant evil, the evil intended by the brothers, occur. Thus, the substratum strategy is undermined: God chose that sin occur as a means on that occasion, and intended that the sin occur.¹

Another problem is that it appears that v. 20 explains v. 19, and this fact cannot be incorporated into the substratum approach. In Genesis 50:19, Joseph says that he feels prohibited from punishing the brothers because he is ‘not in God’s place’. It appears that v. 20 explains this: because Joseph knows that God intended that their wicked actions occur for good, it appears to him that to punish the brothers for their misdeeds is in some way to go against the plans and counsels of the Almighty, or to display ingratitude to him, who employed the occurrence of such wickedness to such good effect in Joseph’s life and in the lives of many others. But if God didn’t intend that the evil deeds in question occur, as the substratum interpretation states, then the force of this reasoning diminishes, if not vanishes, particularly when we note that Joseph strikes a parallel between the brothers’ intentions and God’s: If the brothers’ intentions were not Kammian, why should we expect God’s to be?²

Ranking: Moderate

6.2 Exodus 4:21

And the Lord said to Moses, ‘When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go’.

God doesn’t want Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. To this end, he hardens Pharaoh’s heart so that Pharaoh will refuse Moses’s request to release the people. This refusal is, of course, sinful, so we seem to have a proposition satisfying (Q):

• (2) God brings it about that Pharaoh’s heart is hardened in order that Pharaoh sinfully refuse to let the people go.³

Evaluation: It might immediately be objected that the word ‘sinfully’ is not in the text, and that we should have written simply:

• (2′) God brings it about that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened in order that Pharaoh refuse to let the people go.

The objector’s point might be that it does not follow from the facts that God intended that Pharaoh refuse and that God knew that Pharaoh’s refusal would be sinful that God intended that Pharaoh refuse sinfully. Perhaps, so the objector might say, God merely foresaw the sinful aspect of Pharaoh’s refusal.

In response, let us make some remarks on God’s broader purposes in this passage. While it does indeed appear that God hardens Pharaoh’s heart in order that he refuse to let the people go, that is surely not God’s ultimate objective here. So, what is? Why is God concerned to secure the occurrence of Pharaoh’s persistent refusal? To what end is the occurrence of that refusal a means? The explanation is surely that offered in Exodus 9:12–16:

But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as the Lord had spoken to Moses. Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Rise up early in the morning and present yourself before Pharaoh and say to him, “Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, ‘Let my people go, that they may serve me. For this time I will send all my plagues on you yourself, and on your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth. For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.’”

God could have finished the whole business earlier (v. 15—‘For by now I could have put out my hand […]’). Why has this not happened? Because God has been hardening Pharaoh’s heart (v. 12), that is, making him refuse to let the Israelites go—a sinful refusal. Why has God been doing this? The answer given (‘But for this purpose’ (v. 16)) is that God’s power would be more displayed this way, leading to a greater proclamation of his name both to Pharaoh and to the whole earth. God intended that the sinful refusals occur, as per this further proposition satisfying (P):

• (2″) God chose to bring it about that Pharaoh would sinfully refuse to let the people go, in order that God might give a greater demonstration of his power in plagues and in destruction of the Egyptians.

It seems from this further information from the Scriptures, then, that the sinfulness of Pharaoh’s refusal is integral to God’s plans. In the first instance, this is because the way in which hardening is described in the Scriptures appears always to be a hardening to sin, as a review of every instance of ‘hardened’ in the Scriptures would bear out.⁴

Secondly, we saw in Exodus 9:16 that God intended to display his power to the world, and God’s chosen means was a great display of his wrath or punishment.⁵ But each of wrath and punishment is justifiable only given sin, so, given that only sin would have enabled God to make the required display of wrath or punishment, it is more natural to read a sinful refusal on Pharaoh’s part as the chosen means. (In other words, (2′) is better read if interpreted as a (P*) text.)

The objector may insist that God intends only that Pharaoh perform the substratum of the sinful action, not that he do it sinfully, even though every refusal of God’s command is sinful: this implementation of the substratum strategy presupposes a fine individuation of intentions, according to which God may intend that p and not intend that q even though God knows that it is necessarily the case that it’s true that p if and only if it’s true that q. Finally, another, simpler, possibility is that the objector may hold that God intended merely that Pharaoh have the good of a strong will (albeit a will that God foresees will be bent on evil)⁶ or the good of having his first-order desires correspond to his second-order desires (albeit desires that God foresees will be bent on evil).⁷

Against all these implementations of the strategy, we plead (a) that these are very unnatural interpretations of the text, and (b) that God’s stated aim, of making a show of his power in wrath or punishment presupposes that Pharaoh will continue to sin.⁸ Now, the defender of the substratum strategy may say here that Pharaoh’s continuing to sin is a foreseen, but unintended, consequence of God’s action (God’s bringing it about that he refuse, or God’s giving him a strong will). But what, then, would be God’s end in bringing it about that he refuse, or that he have a strong will, if not that Pharaoh continue to sin? The text seems to say that God’s end is to bring about a display of his power and proclamation of his name. But, as we have seen, the way in which Pharaoh’s refusing, or his having a strong will, contributes to that is by constituting a sinful rejection of God’s command.

At this point, the objector may combine the substratum strategy with the Kamm-inspired strategy, and insist that (1) God intends that he permit Pharaoh to sin and merely foresees that Pharaoh will sin, and that (2) God acts because the unintended but foreseen evil of Pharaoh’s sin is outweighed by the goodness of God’s display of his power and proclamation of his name. But we want to ask what God’s intention is, on this interpretation, in permitting Pharaoh to sin. For a start, it is very implausible to understand hardening in terms of permission, but even if the idea is that God hardened Pharaoh by strengthening his will to carry out his already-existing desires or his second-order desires, we have to say again that this is not portrayed as God’s goal in the text.

Ranking: Strong

6.3 Deuteronomy 2:26–30

‘So I sent messengers from the wilderness of Kedemoth to Sihon the king of Heshbon, with words of peace, saying, “Let me pass through your land. I will go only by the road; I will turn aside neither to the right nor to the left. You shall sell me food for money, that I may eat, and give me water for money, that I may drink. Only let me pass through on foot, […] until I go over the Jordan into the land that the Lord our God is giving to us.” But Sihon the king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him, for the Lord your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, that he might give him into your hand, as he is this day.’

In this passage, Moses is relating to Israel her recent history. He comments that when the Israelite people requested passage through the land of Heshbon, which belonged to Sihon, the king of that territory, he refused it to them. This refusal seems clearly to have been wicked, because it is described as coming from a hardened spirit and an obstinate heart, and because it justified what seems to be punitive action from God: the invasion of Sihon’s land and the slaughter of its people as related in Deuteronomy 2:32–36. Thus, we derive the following proposition satisfying (P*):

• (3) God chose to bring it about that Sihon sinfully refused to let the Israelites pass through his land so that God might punish him and give his land to the Israelites.

Evaluation: Perhaps an opponent might try to deny that Sihon’s refusal was sinful. Perhaps he was merely taking sensible precautions. But the stress on his obstinacy in the passage makes this implausible. Perhaps it might be responded that the invasion of Sihon’s land was not punitive, and, hence, that we cannot infer that his refusal to let the Israelites pass was sinful. In the context, however, it seems pretty clear that the refusal was sinful, not least because Moses’s request was couched in words of peace (Deuteronomy 2:26). And what would happen to the punitive element of the invasion if God did not intend that Sihon sinfully refuse? At this point, the objector might combine the substratum strategy with the Kamm-inspired ‘because’ strategy to suggest that God intentionally permits Sihon to refuse, and foresees that Sihon will sinfully refuse, and does this because of the opportunity it provides to punish him. But, once again, it seems implausible to read ‘hardened’ just in terms of permission, and, once again, it does not seem to fit with the text to insist that God did it simply for the good of a strong will, or for some other reason than the punitive one alluded to in the text.

Ranking: Strong.

6.4 Joshua 11:18–20

Joshua made war a long time with all those kings. There was not a city that made peace with the people of Israel except the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon. They took them all in battle. For it was the Lord’s doing to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle, in order that they should be devoted to destruction and should receive no mercy but be destroyed, just as the Lord commanded Moses.

Joshua leads the Israelites in the conquest of northern Canaan. The Gibeonites had made peace with Israel through deception (Joshua 9), but the rest of the region is determined not to submit to Israel. Moreover, they are determined in this way because of God’s actions. He has decided to harden them to make sure that they come out to make war with Joshua. Again, the text paints this as a wicked action on their part, and, again, God’s response is punitive. We therefore derive the following proposition satisfying (P*):

• (4) God chose to bring it about that the kings of northern Canaan sinfully refused to broker with the Israelites in any fashion so that God might punish them and give their land to the Israelites.

Evaluation: This case is structurally parallel to the one from Deuteronomy 2:26–30. Again, because of the satisfaction of (P*), the substratum strategy by itself will be of no avail—the punitive nature of the treatment of the kings seems even clearer than the punitive nature of Sihon’s defeat in the previous passage. Suppose that, once more, the objector tries to combine the substratum strategy with the Kamm-inspired ‘because’ line, suggesting that God intentionally permits the kings to refuse to broker with the Israelites, foresees that they will do so sinfully, and acts because this will provide him an occasion for punishing them and giving their land to the Israelites. Again, the language of ‘hardening’ in the text does not seem adequately reflected in the suggestion that God permits them to sin, and, again, it seems that it cannot be that his goal is to punish them and give their land to the Israelites if he does not intend any means to that end; that would be merely to hope or wish for the end, rather than to intend it. And it does not ring true to the text to suggest that God’s ultimate goal was merely to permit the kings to refuse to broker with the Israelites, with everything else’s being merely foreseen.

Ranking: Strong.

6.5 Judges 14:3–4

But [Samson’s] father and mother said to him, ‘Is there not a woman among the daughters of your relatives, or among all our people, that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?’ But Samson said to his father, ‘Get her for me, for she is right in my eyes.’ His father and mother did not know that it was from the Lord, for he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines.

Here Samson has set his eye upon a Philistine woman, and is desirous that a marriage should be arranged between the two of them. His parents resist the idea of his marrying a Philistine, but they aren’t aware that Samson’s request is ‘from the Lord’. We see later in Samson’s story that this betrothal leads to conflicts between Samson and the Philistines, and culminates in Samson’s slaughtering many of them. That sort of punishment is presumably what God was seeking opportunity to bring on the Philistines through Samson’s initial marriage. So, we suppose the following proposition satisfying (P) can be derived:

• (5) God chose to bring it about that Samson sinfully request a Philistine bride, in order that he might give Samson opportunity to inflict suffering on the Philistines.

Evaluation: The substratum strategy can be deployed straightforwardly. We can leave Samson’s sinfulness out of the picture, and replace (5) with (5′):

• (5′) God brought it about that Samson uttered various sounds and made the correct bodily movements, etc., in order to give Samson opportunity to inflict suffering on the Philistines.

Samson’s inner mental life was not necessary to give the Philistines cause for offence; just so long as he said the right things and his body moved in the required ways, this would have been enough for a betrothal to have been arranged and for the Philistines to seek his life, and so on. Samson could have been devoid of any inner consciousness, and yet performed the required part equally well. So, God didn’t need to intend the sinfulness for his desired end.

We concede that this is in principle possible, but we also press, as we did in the case of Joseph, the point that the reference of ‘it’ in v. 4 is surely most naturally taken as referring to Samson’s sinful request. But then a natural reading of the text is that this occurrence of sinfulness on Samson’s part is also from the Lord.

Ranking: Moderate.

6.6 1 Samuel 2:22–25

Now Eli was very old, and he kept hearing all that his sons were doing to all Israel, and how they lay with the women who were serving at the entrance to the tent of meeting. And he said to them, ‘Why do you do such things? For I hear of your evil dealings from all the people. […]’ But they would not listen to the voice of their father, for it was the will of the Lord to put them to death.

Here, Eli counsels his sons to abandon their wickedness, but the Lord, desiring to put them to death, ensures that they remain unrepentant, and therefore fit for his judgment. We therefore derive the following proposition satisfying (P):

• (6) God chose to bring it about that Eli’s sons sinfully refuse to heed their father’s warning, in order that he might bring about their continued unrepentance.

Evaluation: It is important to note that we reject one reading of this passage on which God brings it about that Eli’s sons sinfully refuse their father’s counsel so that God can put them to death for precisely that sinful refusal. This circularity would leave unexplained why God wanted them put to death. We think, by contrast, that God antecedently desires to put Eli’s sons to death for the sins mentioned in verse 22, and the sinful refusal on the part of the sons is God’s means, not to their death, but to their continued unrepentance, which was, in turn, a condition of God’s being able justly to put them to death.⁹ This is why we derive (6).

In this example, the substratum strategy could be deployed either, as it was in the case of Samson, that Eli’s sons merely perform certain physical actions, such as making the noise (corresponding to the Hebrew equivalent of) ‘no’ in response to their father’s entreaty, or that God didn’t intend anything positive, merely that they should not heed their father—a mere lack as opposed to a positive omission.¹⁰ But we don’t think that either of these is true to what is related in the passage. When it says, ‘they would not listen to the voice of their father’, this means that they heard and understood what Eli said, and made a decision to reject Eli’s counsel. For, once they have heard, a decision is forced on them, for even if they decide not to think about it anymore, that constitutes a de facto decision to disobey. It might be retorted here that the decision to disobey is a foreseen but unintended consequence of the intended lack of heeding. But the question arises: Why, on this view, does God intend that they not heed their father or, on the first way of running the response, that they make the noise (corresponding to the Hebrew equivalent of) ‘no’ in response to their father’s entreaty? The only answer available from the text is that God intended that the sons be justly punishable with death, which presupposes that they continue to sin. So, it seems inevitable that God chose to bring it about that they reject their father’s counsel in order to bring it about that they continue to sin in order that he might justly put them to death.

Ranking: Strong

6.7 2 Samuel 24:9–14

Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, ‘Go, number Israel and Judah’. […] But David’s heart struck him after he had numbered the people. And David said to the Lord, ‘I have sinned greatly in what I have done. But now, O Lord, please take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have done very foolishly.’ And when David arose in the morning, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Gad, David’s seer, saying, ‘Go and say to David, “Thus says the Lord, Three things I offer you. Choose one of them, that I may do it to you.”’ So Gad came to David and told him, and said to him, ‘Shall three years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days’ pestilence in your land? Now consider, and decide what answer I shall return to him who sent me.’ Then David said to Gad, ‘I am in great distress. Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but let me not fall into the hand of man.’¹¹

Here God desires to punish Israel for their sins, and to provide an occasion for this, he brings about the occurrence of sin from Israel’s king, David. David sinfully numbers the people, and he is very soon sorry for what he has done. God offers David the choice of three ways in which the people are to be punished, and David chooses pestilence for a reason that suggests he associates it more closely with God’s punishment than the other two ways. About 70,000 of the Israelites die, and God thereby achieves the end he sought. We therefore derive the following proposition, satisfying (P*):

• (7) God chooses to bring it about that David sins by numbering the people in order that God has an opportunity to punish Israel.

Evaluation: Part of the puzzle with this passage concerns why it is that God is angry with Israel—no particular sin is specified on their part. But even if we suppose that they have sinned in some unspecified way, then there is a further puzzle concerning why it is that God appears to need to get David to sin before he can justly punish Israel. If the people are sinful on their own account, why does God need to get David to sin too? One might, on those grounds, push for the suggestion that God intended only the substratum of David’s sin, that is, that God intended that David number the people, but merely foresaw, without intending, that in this context numbering the people would constitute a sin. One might assert it not to have been strictly necessary for God’s purposes that David sin, for Israel had already sinned on their own account—God just wanted to create an impression of a necessary conjunction between Israel’s sins and the sins of their king.

Yet several things in the passage make this implausible. (1) In the retelling of the event we find in 1 Chronicles 21, it says in verse 7 that ‘God was displeased with this thing [David’s census], and he struck Israel’. Although it is not explicitly stated that God struck Israel on account of this census, that is surely the natural implication. (2) In 1 Chronicles 21:17 and 2 Samuel 24:17, David declares the people are but innocent sheep in this regard. It would be strange if this were simply untrue. (3) It is surely the thrust of the passage that for David to sin in this regard is a significant and necessary step for God to bring upon Israel the punishment he wishes. To deny it is to favour an implausible reading. And if it is not to create an appearance of sin that God incites David to number Israel, for what other reason could it be, other than in order that David actually sin?

For these reasons, we think that the circumstances and God’s reasoning process are best captured by the following: God is (for an undisclosed reason) angry at Israel; but, for God to punish Israel in the way he wishes, it must be the case (again for an unspecified reason) that David, Israel’s king, sins; only then can God vent his anger on Israel in the desired way. But if this is the fairest portrayal of the matter, then it seems that God intends that David sins in order that his end be realised.¹²

Ranking: Strong

6.8 1 Kings 22:19–23

Micaiah said, ‘Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left; and the Lord said, “Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?” And one said one thing, and another said another. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, saying, “I will entice him”. And the Lord said to him, “By what means?” And he said, “I will go out, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets”. And he said, “You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do so”. Now therefore behold, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; the Lord has declared disaster for you.’

Here God, as reported by Micaiah the prophet, tells a lying spirit to go and entice Ahab into going up to Ramoth-gilead. The lying prophets say to Ahab, ‘Go up to Ramoth-gilead and triumph; the Lord will give it into the hand of the king’ (v. 12); their ‘prophecy’ does indeed turn out to be false (vv. 34–37). Lying is said in the Scriptures to be a sin (Leviticus 19:11), so it looks as though God here intends the occurrence of the sin of lying in order to bring about the goal of Ahab’s going up. We thus derive this proposition:

• (8) God chooses to order that a lying spirit lie in order that Ahab might be enticed to go up to Ramoth-gilead.

Evaluation: Our opponent here could argue that God did not intend that the lying spirit lie, merely that the lying spirit utter the sounds (or the mental equivalent) corresponding to the Hebrew equivalent of ‘Go up to Ramoth-gilead and triumph; the Lord will give it into the hand of the king’. But, since the lying spirit says itself that it will be ‘a lying spirit’, and not merely ‘an uttering spirit’, it seems that the spirit intended to make a false assertion, and that when God says ‘go out and do so’, he is, therefore, asking the spirit to be a lying spirit, rather than a mere uttering spirit. Nor will it do to say that the Hebrew here translated ‘lying spirit’ should actually be translated ‘false spirit’,¹³ since to assert something that one knows to be false just is to lie.¹⁴

Or perhaps our opponent here could say that God intended merely that the lying spirit entice, and didn’t have any intentions at all with respect to the means by which the spirit would entice. On this interpretation, ‘go out and do so’ just means ‘go out and entice’, not ‘go out and be a lying spirit’. Against this, however, it seems implausible that God would use the lying spirit if he did not intend that the spirit lie: Surely God, being omnipotent, could have achieved the desired end of Ahab’s going up to Ramoth-gilead by other means?

Our opponent here could also deny that the lying spirit sins. Our opponent could argue that the Scriptural prohibition translated ‘you shall not lie to one another’ (Leviticus 19:11) rules out only the asserting of an untruth to someone that has the right to know the truth (Ramsey 1968: 89). Since Ahab, it could be argued, has no right to know the truth here, there is no sin in asserting an untruth to him. This would also explain why God seems to be encouraging or ordering the spirit to lie.

This possibility undermines the usefulness of the text for our purposes.

Ranking: Moderate.

6.9 Job 1:9–22

Satan answered the Lord and said, ‘Does Job fear God for no reason? […] stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face’. And the Lord said to Satan, ‘Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand’. […] Now […] there came a messenger to Job and said, ‘The oxen were ploughing […] and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword […]’ […] Then Job arose and […] said, ‘[…] The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord’. In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.

Here there are two sins mentioned: the sin of Satan in trying to get Job to curse God to his face and the sin of the Sabeans in stealing Job’s oxen and killing his servants. The text also mentions two things that are not sins: Job’s saying that the Lord had taken away his blessings (‘In all this Job did not sin’), and God’s so doing (‘Job did not […] charge God with wrong’). Not only does Job say that the Lord has taken away, but the book’s concluding chapter states that Job’s family ‘showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him’ (Job 42:11), and God himself says that Job has spoken of him what is right (Job 42:7). So, we seem to have two propositions satisfying schema:

• (P) God chooses to bring it about that a [sin] occurs in order that a [state of affairs] should obtain.

In other words:

• (9) God chooses to bring it about that Satan sinfully afflict Job in order that Job’s patience and faith under affliction may be demonstrated.

• (9a) God chooses to bring it about that the Sabeans sinfully rob Job in order that Job’s patience and faith under affliction may be demonstrated.

Evaluation: It seems that our opponent could use the substratum strategy here, as Arminius notes:

In the affliction of Job, God desired that the patience and constancy of His servant should be tried, and it was tried by the affliction not as a sin but as an act. (Arminius 1853: 433)

Indeed, it would suffice for God to intend the bodily movements of the Sabeans without intending their guilty mind, and it would suffice for God to intend that Satan cause the natural disasters that befall Job, without intending that he do so sinfully.

There is a plausible reply to the substratum strategy, however: it seems important that the book records both the occurrence of evils that are obviously sins (the robbery and murder committed by the Sabeans and the Chaldeans) and the occurrence of evils that look like natural disasters (the fire from heaven that consumes his sheep and shepherds, the great wind that takes the lives of his sons and daughters, and the loathsome sores that cover Job’s body). If, in fact, God intended the occurrence of the natural evils, but not the occurrence of the moral evils, then that might weaken the force of the book, since the book presents Job as, in some ways, an archetype for all human suffering. The book is intended to speak to those feeling the distinctive pain of being sinned against, as well as to those feeling the general pain of hurt (cf. Welty 2018).

Ranking: Moderate.

6.10 Psalm 105:25

He turned their hearts to hate his people, to deal craftily with his servants.

This psalm relates Israel’s exodus from Egypt, and it says of the Egyptians that God turned their hearts to hate the Israelites, and that this led to the Egyptians’ dealing craftily with the Israelites. One therefore might try to derive the following proposition satisfying (Q):

• (10) God chose to turn the hearts of the Egyptians to hate the Israelites in order that the Egyptians would deal craftily with the Israelites.

Evaluation: We don’t think this verse is of much use for our purposes. The crafty (and therefore presumably wicked) dealing of the Egyptians, and their hatred of the Israelites, can both be read as mere consequences of God’s turning the Egyptians’ hearts, not as intended effects. Although we think that the more natural reading is that God did intend both effects, we think it is hard to prove that from a short, poetic text.

Ranking: Weak.

6.11 Proverbs 16:4

The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.

This verse would appear to provide the opportunity to derive a proposition satisfying (P*). The verse is ambiguous in what exactly it is communicating. It may be that the wicked are made for a day when their wickedness will be unleashed to cause trouble; or it may be that they are made for the Day of Judgment when God’s glory will be displayed in their destruction. But, in either case, it must be that they are wicked for those purposes to be accomplished. God therefore must intend their wicked deeds as the means to either of these described ends. The proposition satisfying (P*) could, therefore, be:

• (11) God chooses to bring it about that wicked people exist in order to punish them for their wickedness on the Day of Judgment/let their wickedness be unleashed in the day of trouble.

Evaluation: Sadly for our purposes, there is another way of reading this verse. The New International Version prefers this other reading, and renders the verse as follows: ‘The Lord works out everything to its proper end—even the wicked for a day of disaster.’ On this understanding, the verse is only understood to communicate that God is working eventually to punish the evildoer. The NIV reading is a minority reading, and perhaps to be avoided ceteris paribus on that ground—most translations accept, broadly, the ESV reading we gave above—yet we concede that the possibility of this other reading implies that the text is not sufficiently clear for our purposes.

Ranking: Weak.

6.12 Isaiah 6:9–10

And God said, ‘Go, and say to this people; “Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.” Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.’

One might think that the passage licenses the derivation of the following proposition satisfying (Q):

• (12) God chooses to bring it about that Isaiah makes the heart of the people dull in order that they should refuse to believe.

Evaluation: Sadly for our purposes, we do not think that the passage demands the truth of (12). The text does not specify refusal as God’s stated objective, merely an absence of seeing, hearing, and understanding—an absence of belief. Such an absence is not an action, it is a state of affairs not, by its nature, sinful. After all, a rock displays a similar absence of understanding, but that is not sinful, nor even an evil. It is possible that God’s intentions as described in Isaiah may therefore be fully captured by the following proposition:

• (12′) God chooses to bring it about that Isaiah makes the heart of the people dull so that they do not believe.

One should also bear in mind certain instances where Jesus cites this verse in the Gospels. In Mark 4:12, Matthew 13:14–15, and Luke 8:10, Jesus cites Isaiah 6:9–10 to explain why he speaks in parables. He does it to ensure that certain people will not believe. Again, however, we think that the same move that is made with respect to the Isaiah passage may be made on those occasions also: it isn’t clear that Jesus intends as his end any sinful refusal to believe, merely a deficiency in mental or spiritual acuity.

Ranking: Moderate to Weak.

6.13 Ezekiel 20:25–26

Moreover, I gave them statutes that were not good and rules by which they could not have life, and I defiled them through their very gift in their offering up all their firstborn, that I might devastate them. I did it that they might know that I am the Lord.

In this chapter of Ezekiel, God gives a brief history of Israel, pointing out the continual wickedness of the nation. Towards the end of this history, God, presumably out of his great anger at the repeated moral failure of Israel, decides to give to the nation of Israel statutes that are ‘not good’. There is some debate about what these statutes were.¹⁵ But, whatever they were, one consequence of them was that the Israelites were defiled (whether by their failure to keep them, or because they were wicked statutes that tended to defilement). And God brought about this defilement that he might devastate them. This devastation surely refers to punitive wrath, and, thus, culpable failure on the Israelites’ part with regard to their defilement is presupposed. So, we derive the following proposition satisfying (P*):

• (13) God chose to bring it about that the Israelites be sinfully defiled, in order that he might devastate them in his wrath.

Evaluation: We cannot think of any plausible way out for an opponent. The objector might try to argue that God intended only to permit the Israelites to defile themselves, and merely foresaw that they would in fact do so, but the punitive nature of the wrath requires the very sinfulness of the sinful offerings the Israelites made, for only thus could they merit punishment. The objector might here once more deploy the combined substratum-and-Kamm-inspired strategy, and insist that God permits the Israelites to defile themselves because of the fact that they will then merit punishment. But the text holds out only one intention, namely that they might be defiled so that they might be devastated.¹⁶ We therefore consider this verse strong evidence that God intends that sin occur.

Ranking: Strong.