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Randal Rauser

Home of progressively evangelical, generously orthodox, rigorously analytic, revolutionary Christian thinking (that's what I'm aiming for anyway)

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Matthew Flannagan

Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan Don’t Want to Debate Me. But if They Did, I’d Ask Them This

July 31, 2021 by Randal

Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan offer extensive critiques of my views in their book Did God Really Command Genocide? In turn, I devoted most of a chapter on what I called “The Just War Interpreters” to an extensive critique of their ‘kinder, gentler’ interpretation of the Canaanite genocide by demonstrating that it collapses into ethnic cleansing […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: biblical violence, Did God really command Genocide?, Jesus Loves Canaanites, Matthew Flannagan, Paul Copan

My review of Did God Really Command Genocide?: The Shorter Version

February 12, 2015 by Randal

Yesterday I posted my review of Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan’s Did God Really Command Genocide? as an Amazon review. Alas, Amazon required me to shorten the review since it was a couple thousand words too long to fit on Amazon’s platform. But after some diligent work I managed to pare it down in length. […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: apologetics, biblical ethics, biblical violence, divine command theory, genocide, God, Matthew Flannagan, Paul Copan, review, theism

Did God Really Command Genocide? A Review (Part 3)

February 10, 2015 by Randal

Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan. Did God Really Command Genocide? Coming to Terms with the Justice of God. Baker, 2014, 351 pp. Welcome to the third (and final) installment in my review of Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan’s book Did God Really Command Genocide? For part 2 click here. The second installment of this review ended […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: apologetics, biblical ethics, biblical violence, Did God really command Genocide?, divine command ethics, ethics, genocide, Matthew Flannagan, Paul Copan, review

Did God Really Command Genocide? A Review (Part 2)

January 30, 2015 by Randal

Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan. Did God Really Command Genocide? Coming to Terms with the Justice of God. Baker, 2014. 351 pp. This is the second (and penultimate) installment in my review of Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan’s book Did God Really Command Genocide? For part 1 click here. I recommend readers begin with part […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: apologetics, biblical violence, divine command ethics, ethics, genocide, hermeneutics, Matthew Flannagan, Paul Copan

Did God Really Command Genocide? A Review (Part 1)

January 27, 2015 by Randal

Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan. Did God Really Command Genocide? Coming to Terms with the Justice of God. Baker, 2014. 351 pp. Given the spate of books recently published on the Bible and violence, you might think this is a newly discovered problem. That would be a misreading, however, for theologians have wrestled with this […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Bible, biblical ethics, biblical violence, divine command ethics, ethics, genocide, Matthew Flannagan, morality, Paul Copan, review

John Loftus bizarrely rants against me on Unbelievable. Sadly, all too believable.

January 25, 2015 by Randal

This week Justin Brierley’s popular UK radio show “Unbelievable” featured part 1 of a debate between John Loftus and David Marshall on Marshall’s new book How Jesus Passes the Outsider Test: The Inside Story which provides a critical response to Loftus’s own “Outsider Test for Faith.” (You can listen to the show here.) After some […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: David Marshall, John Loftus, Justin Brierley, Matthew Flannagan, outsider test for faith, Unbelievable

58. Matthew Flannagan on God and Genocide

January 13, 2015 by Randal

In his bestselling 2006 book The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins throws down the gauntlet against the Judeo-Christian God. While much of Dawkins’ book is devilishly quotable polemic, he arguably reaches his rhetorical apex with this oft-quoted passage: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud […]

Filed Under: Podcast-The Tentative Apologist, The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Bible, biblical ethics, biblical violence, Did God really command Genocide?, divine command, ethics, genocide, interview, Matthew Flannagan

39. Matthew Flannagan on God, ethics, and divine commands

March 11, 2014 by Randal

Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” Genesis 22:1-2. People of faith have wrestled with the ethics of the […]

Filed Under: Podcast, Podcast-The Tentative Apologist, The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Bible, biblical violence, divine command, ethics, hermeneutics, interview, Matthew Flannagan, metaethics, podcast

On William Lane Craig’s defense of the Canaanite genocide (Part 5)

March 1, 2013 by Randal

In the fourth installment of my critique of William Lane Craig’s podcast defending the Canaanite genocide, Matthew Flannagan reiterated an objection he had posted in response to an earlier installment of the series, namely that Craig does not understand himself to be defending genocide. Matt writes: “Craig has repeatedly explicitly denied that the command was to […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: genocide, Matthew Flannagan, Old Testament, war, William Lane Craig

Committing moral horrors in God’s name revisited (yet again)

February 6, 2011 by Randal

In “The mutilation of Isaac” I argued that it would have been wrong for Abraham to kill and mutilate his son as a burnt offering. This was in response to Matthew Flannagan’s argument that there is nothing inherently wrong with God commanding a father to kill his child if the father does so knowing that God […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Abraham, defeater, human sacrifice, justification, Matthew Flannagan, warrant

The mutilation of Isaac

January 25, 2011 by Randal

Matthew Flannagan, respected analytic theologian, Christian apologist and faithful blogger, has taken issue with my argument that God would not ask a parent to sacrifice their child. Matt asks us to consider why it is that killing a human being is wrong. It is wrong, he avers, because it deprives one of their future life. […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Abraham, faith, human sacrifice, Matthew Flannagan, Old Testament ethics

An update in the wake of Atlanta (plus a bit on rape and child killing)

November 23, 2010 by Randal

Well I’m back (as if anybody cares). Wait a minute. I care, so I’ll keep talking to myself if nobody else. It was a good time at the annual ETS conference (with a day at SBL thrown in). Let me say the weather was fine. It has been seven or eight years since I was in […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Bible, ETS, genocide, herem, Matthew Flannagan, murder, Paul Copan, rape, Richard Hess, SBL

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