Slavery in the Old Testament has been a contentious subject for a very long time. I’m not sure how long. The historical and biblical evidence regarding slavery is complex, and discussions about it have been emotionally-charged when they have not been much worse.
Questions about Old Testament slavery arise immediately and regularly: “Why doesn’t God explicitly forbid slavery in the Old Testament? If the biblical God is good, loving, and interested in the welfare of his creation, then why not just establish a complete prohibition of slavery in the ancient world? Why do we find God giving laws which are to govern the acquisition and treatment of slaves?”
These are great questions. Here are three possible answers. Either,
- The Christian God does not exist, and the Old Testament documents reveal the moral values of ancient peoples who are ‘making up’ supposedly divinely-inspired documents.
- The Christian God does exist, but he’s either a cold-hearted despot, or a capricious deity who changes his mind on moral issues over time, or
- The Christian God does exist, and had morally-sufficient reasons to permit slavery as a temporary socio-cultural institution.
Obviously, I have been defending this third option. In revealing complex moral codes to the ancient Jewish people, God gave moral instructions which met slavery as a long-standing (and often ‘pragmatic’) solution to persistent socio-cultural, economic and military challenges. Such a ubiquitous human phenomenon could not simply be abolished in an instant, any more than a fully laden cargo train can stop on a dime. The larger and heavier something is, the longer it takes to slow it down and stop it. This is true of trains, world wars, pandemics, ecological destruction, and slavery. Instead of thundering from the heavens “I forbid slavery!” (as if humans really care about what God says anyway!), God set in motion laws which began to transform how slavery was viewed and practiced. As I noted in my previous post on this subject, God’s Old Testament revelation not only changes the overall ‘tone’ of how we are to see slavery, it also points forward to a time when slavery will be overcome. If I may be so bold, I’d like to quote myself:
Anyone reading Old Testament slavery laws without regard for the wider context of the hopeful biblical narrative arc (which culminates in blessing and freedom) is either disingenuous or doesn’t know how to read texts responsibly.
Based on the arguments I have already given, including basic sociological and biblical evidence, God gave slavery laws in such a way that the enslavement of human beings would be diminished and eventually overthrown. Therefore these slavery laws (and the historical narratives connected to these laws) do not show that God truly desires or condones slavery.
I am sure there are many other arguments that could support this conclusion. However, I want to add one final argument which I believe is actually the most important one. Here goes,
If the God of the Bible does not exist, arguments against slavery laws in the Old Testament are fundamentally transient and logically invalid.
Let me explain.
If there is no ultimate, objective grounding for all of reality, then moral predications made by human beings are simply enculturated opinions without foundation. If there is no ultimate lawgiver by whose law and character we make moral judgements, then all our complaints about slavery (and a God who allegedly condones it) are just result of biochemical processes in our brains. Why would moral judgements made by the descendants of fish (which is what we essential are, according to evolution) have any grounding in objective reality? If moral values and duties are simply socio-biological spinoffs of evolution, they are subject to change and adaptation over time. Just like everything else. Therefore, human slavery might have been considered morally normative in the past – but even though it’s thought of as an evil now, there is no reason to think that in another 3,000 years our general view of it might change again.
The heart of the issue can be located in the difference between the words “subjective” and “objective”. Something subjective pertains to the subject (i.e. you) holding a perspective about something, such as our views on music. You like jazz, I like heavy metal. Who’s right? It doesn’t matter because these are subjective opinions. There isn’t a “true” kind of music in a strict sense. There is just music. Our appreciation of it is subjective – limited to the personal views, knowledge and preferences of an individual or group of individuals.
But objective refers to something real, independent of our subjective experience or knowledge. It’s objectively true that there is a large spherical moon orbiting the earth. It doesn’t matter if we’ve seen it or not. It doesn’t matter if we agree about it. It doesn’t matter how we feel about it. It’s there. It’s objectively true the earth has a large moon which orbits it roughly once a month. Objective truths are true no matter if we like them, agree with them, or even know about them! The core of moral thinking relies on an objective moral standard. Not subjective opinions and preferences.
Consider this moral judgement: “The laws given in the Old Testament regarding slavery show God condones slavery, and that’s bad.” Bad? Why? According to who? If we are just evolved primates, how any anything be ultimately, permanently bad (or good, for that matter)? According to what standard can we judge slavery to be bad? If our moral judgements are subjective because there is no abiding objective foundation for them, then our moral statements are matters of mere preference. You like jazz, I like heavy metal. You like freeing slaves, I like keeping them. Same same. It’s all subjective – even if these beliefs are held by large groups of subjective individuals.
Implying there is an objective standard of right and wrong whilst also denying there is such an objective standard exists is absurd and logically fallacious.
Deep down we know that ultimate questions about morality are not purely subjective matters at all. Turn on the TV, Google the news, listen to how people talk at the coffee shop – we generally speak of certain things being objectively, really right and wrong. People don’t usually organise protest marches because they support jazz (subjective preferences). When people protest they are appealing to a sense of morality which they expect should be shared by everyone (objective morality). But this way of thinking and speaking does no comport with the view morality is simply an evolved phenomenon with merely ‘survivability value’. Slavery is not jazz. Eradicating slavery is not about actualising our enculturated, arbitrary opinions. It’s about truth and the knowability of fundamental rights and wrongs.
The Christian worldview asserts there is a Trinitarian, loving God who is the ultimate grounding of all reality. He is the Creator who governs and guides history. Here’s how Paul speaks of God when he addresses a crowd of philosophers in the first century:
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ (Acts 17:24-28; NIV)
Human beings are not the byproduct of purposeless, meaningless physical processes over time. We are created by a personal, powerful, creator God. He has made human beings to know and enjoy him, and to serve him by working for all that’s truly good and God-glorifying. He isn’t far away. He’s close. In him we live and move and . . . engage in moral reasoning. Even if we deny God’s existence, we have a deep abiding pre-conscious knowledge of his reality. As the Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga argued so forcefully, God is ‘properly basic’ to all aspects of reality.
God is the ultimate grounding for all of the reality we see and experience. Paul again,
33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
34 “Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay them?”
36 For from him and through him and for him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen. (Romans 11:33-26; NIV)
What this means is there isn’t a little bit of evidence for the existence of God. It means that evidence for the existence of the Christian God is all there is. There isn’t any BUT evidence for the Christian God. “From God and through God and for God are all things” – meaning truth, beauty, matter, energy, logic, reason, love, mercy, and hope. All the fundamental aspects of reality are not floating in a purposeless space for no reason. Instead, they have a reason – a grounding that makes them ‘real’.
It’s the same with our moral statements, values and duties. These don’t just float in mid-air. They are, at bottom, grounded in the objective reality of God. But without a lawgiver, everything is up for grabs. Slavery, love, murder, genocide, kindness, greed – who cares? If it’s all relative, it’s all relative.
The belief in a divine order which provides absolute morality and a hopeful story for our hurting world has, in generations past, given coherence to our lives in the Western world. This is why it was Christians, and countries based on Christian values, which first started to push for the complete dismantling of human slavery.
Does God condone slavery in the Old Testament? Of course not. God meets slavery as a deeply embedded socio-cultural phenomenon, and works to transform hearts and whole societies so that human flourishing can take place, as the good news about Jesus Christ has an effect on every aspect of life and society. Ultimately, God wants human beings to find true life and freedom in loving fellowship with him, through Jesus Christ.
If we are advanced bags of primordial goo, slavery is a matter of subjective opinion. Its practice or abolishment is ultimately a matter of personal preference and pragmatism. But if we are created in the image of a loving God who is working to suffuse the world with freedom and blessing, then our moral choices have abiding value. Human beings are meant to live joyfully as ‘slaves’ – servants – of the God who has loved them and given them a beautiful world to enjoy. But humans becoming enslaved to other humans was never a permanent part of that purpose. This is why, in light of the freedom and life found in Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul says,
” . . . do not become slaves of people.” (1 Corinthians 7:23; CSB)
Instead, we are called to become ‘slaves’ to God in joyful, willing, trusting submission to his Son. In loving service of Jesus Christ you will find purpose, joy, and freedom. Jesus make that very clear,
“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:36; ESV)
Whether you’ve found my arguments in this rambling series of posts convincing or not, I hope you can see that the slavery laws found in the Old Testament are given in the broader context of what the whole Bible says. And that hopeful narrative arc is so glorious and inspiring that it becomes difficult to argue that God genuinely “condoned” slavery in the Old Testament.
And for those of you who think that slavery laws in the Bible are evidence that God does not exist, I would have to disagree. Jazz isn’t my thing, man.
spes clara 