Apologetics: Debunking Deconstruction – Happy Father’s Day, Abraham!

Father’s Day weekend is upon us, which, just like my Mother’s Day post, is your reminder to go call your dad. PSA aside, it’s also a good time to talk about possibly on of the most controversial fathers in the entire Bible who is constantly brought up by atheists to show how God is supposedly terrible. You know him, you love him, we’re talking about Abraham, the guy who almost sacrificed his son in Genesis. Is this story an example of how God is evil and unjust, or are the atheists missing something big here?

The answer is the latter and the thing that atheists are missing in their interpretation of the story is the surrounding cultural context and the earlier promise that God had made to Abraham that he would have innumerable descendants. To start with the cultural context, in the culture Abraham came from and was familiar with, child sacrifice was the biggest offering you could give to the gods. The reason why was because your child was one of the things that you valued most, especially if the kid happened to be your firstborn. This made sacrificing them a big deal and the reason it was done was because of the belief that greater blessings – be it better crops, more kids, more livestock, etc. – would come from it.

With this context in mind, we can better understand Abraham’s motivation for following God’s command to kill Issac. Being from that culture, he understood that if God is asking you to kill your kid, he usually has something better in mind down the road. But deepening this belief was Abraham’s understanding that God was always going to provide a way out. This was just a test to reinforce to Abraham that God could be trusted and to test Abraham’s trust in that.

In earlier chapters, God had promised to give Abraham a bunch of descendants, something that, given Abraham and Sarah’s old age and Sarah’s barrenness seemed impossible. However, God provided for them a son, Issac, through whom Abraham’s line would continue. It would’ve made no sense for God to kill Abraham’s only legitimate son after making such a promise, so Abraham had faith that God would provide a substitute or even raise Issac from the dead if he had to go through with killing him (Hebrews 11:19). And sure enough, Issac was ultimately spared, and they instead sacrificed a ram that God provided for them, strengthening Abraham’s faith.

Until next time,

M.J.