Either we want God to intervene to stop evil, such as the barbaric practices of child sacrifice prevalent amongst the Canaanites, or we want him to keep his hands off all human affairs altogether. But we are contradicting ourselves if we insist, on the one hand, that God isn’t good because he never intervenes and then, with the other, insist he isn’t good because he sometimes does.

If there really is a God, surely he would do something about all the evil and suffering in the world?

It’s a common enough objection to the existence of God, isn’t it? Surely, the argument goes, a good God would do something about the existence of evil. Why doesn’t he step in and do something.

How can a good God command such heinous things in Canaan? That is the behaviour of a megalomaniacal despot!

That’s another common one that often gets thrown out. If God is good, they aver, how can he order such horrors from his people. His behaviour hardly seems good to me. Why does he command such things?

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