The narrative of Genesis 22 is one of the most unsettling and sophisticated stories in all of Scripture. Modern Christian interpretation often reduces it to a single takeaway: obedience to God—even when it violates moral intuition—is the ultimate virtue. But such a reading collapses the story’s depth and ignores the deliberate tension the ancient authors preserved.
This past Sunday was no exception; we neither allowed the story to unsettle us nor engaged its complexity. Instead, the familiar tropes were repeated, creating more problems than they solve. However unintended, the traditional reading effectively implies that: (1) God can and will command morally abhorrent actions; (2) faithfulness means unquestioning obedience; (3) morality is whatever God declares it to be in the moment; and (4) human moral discernment is irrelevant, even dangerous. Without a willingness to interrogate the absurd, we risk repeating the past and calling it faithfulness. If the 2,000-year-old orthodox interpretation stands, then pressing questions remain:
How does one distinguish God’s voice from a deceptive or delusional one?
What safeguards exist against atrocity?
Is God good because He is inherently good, or merely because He is powerful?
And is obedience still moral if it requires silencing the conscience?
A careful reading reveals something far more nuanced. Genesis 22 is not a celebration of blind obedience. It is an exploration of discernment, a challenge to destructive religious assumptions, and a revelation of a God who interrupts sacrifice rather than demands it.
The Ancient Setting: A World Where Child Sacrifice Was Normal
To modern readers, the command to sacrifice Isaac is horrific. But in Abraham’s world, divine beings—Elohim in the generic sense—were widely believed to require such offerings. The initial command would not have violated his cultural expectations. This was the religious air he breathed.
This context matters enormously. It prevents us from making the simplistic claim that “whatever God commands is moral by definition.” The narrative’s deliberate use of Elohim, not YHWH, at the outset functions as a warning signal: Abraham is navigating an ambiguous religious landscape, not yet fully attuned to the character of the covenant God. He is operating within the framework of his inherited religion, not yet the revealed one.
Covenant in Crisis: The Impossible Command
Genesis 22 intentionally collides with the promise of Genesis 12, where God pledges descendants, land, and blessing through Isaac. Isaac is not merely Abraham’s beloved child—he is the carrier of the covenant, the embodiment of every promise God has made.
Thus the command to sacrifice him is theologically impossible.
- If Abraham obeys, the covenant collapses.
- If he refuses, he appears to reject the God who initiated the covenant.
This paradox is designed, not accidental. The story demands that readers sit within the contradiction rather than resolve it too quickly. Any reading that bypasses this tension has already missed the point.
The Danger of Obedience Without Discernment
If obedience is treated as a virtue in itself—detached from moral clarity and relational reality—then any voice can demand loyalty. A cultural voice. A religious institution. A fear-driven theology. A family patriarch. Through Abraham’s peril, the text exposes the fragility of an obedience ethic unanchored in the true character of God.
The Akedah does not say “obey no matter what.” It asks: How do we discern God’s voice amid the many voices that sound religiously authoritative? And it reveals the answer through its climax.
YHWH Interrupts the Logic of Sacrifice
At the decisive moment, YHWH appears and stops the sacrifice. This shift in divine name is not incidental—it is the theological hinge of the entire story. The God who prevents the harm is not the generic Elohim of ancient sacrificial norms; He is the covenantal God who rejects those norms entirely.
YHWH does not demand the child’s death. He interrupts it.
In doing so, He reveals Himself as a God who turns humanity away from violence and appeasement, and toward a relationship rooted in life, future, and covenant. The ram in the thicket is not a consolation prize—it is a theological statement. This is not who I am. This is not what I require.
Love of God and Love of Neighbor: Two Commands, One Reality
Traditional readings frame Genesis 22 as a test of competing loyalties—God versus Isaac, religion versus family, the divine versus the human. But the Bible’s wider witness refuses this dichotomy.
When Jesus is asked to name the greatest commandment, he answers with two that cannot be separated:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. Love your neighbor as yourself.
“The second is like unto it”—not lesser, not supplemental, but the same in kind and essence. And 1 John makes it explicit: one cannot claim to love God while causing harm to another. The two loves are not competing duties; they are one unified posture of the heart.
Why Separating Them Distorts Both God and Us
If we try to prioritize love of God above love of people—as though people were secondary, expendable, or obstacles to faithfulness—we inevitably replace love of God with love of an idea of God. And ideas are dangerously malleable. We can adjust them, refine them, weaponize them, and selectively choose the principles we personally prefer and treat them as divine. At that point, we are no longer loving God. We are creating God in our own image.
This mistake is far harder to make with a real person. People push back. Their needs, their presence, their voice, their suffering, and their dignity all resist reduction to an abstraction. To love a real person is to encounter someone who refuses to fit neatly into our categories—and in that encounter, our assumptions about God are chastened and reshaped.
Loving people keeps our love of God honest.
The Sacrifices We Are Still Making
The story now turns its gaze toward us. Most of us are not asked to raise a knife over a child on a mountain. But many of us bind our own Isaacs with surprising regularity—and we do it in the name of faithfulness.
LGBTQ Children and the Altar of Doctrinal Purity
Perhaps no modern parallel is more painful or more common. Parents who love their children deeply discover that child is gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender—and then face the perceived demand: loyalty to God or loyalty to your child? Framed that way, many choose what they believe God requires. They withdraw affirmation. They send their child to conversion programs. They issue ultimatums. They maintain “biblical principles” while watching their child spiral into isolation, depression, and sometimes worse.
This is the Akedah replayed. A beloved child. A perceived divine command. A knife raised in the name of faithfulness.
But the God of Genesis 22 is the God who calls out before the knife falls—the one who says, This is not what I require of you. The question every parent in this situation must ask is not merely “what does my tradition teach?” but the deeper question Abraham never stopped wrestling with: Is this truly the voice of the God who gives life, or is it the voice of a religious system that has never actually asked for this?
The statistics are not abstract. LGBTQ youth rejected by their families face dramatically elevated rates of homelessness, self-harm, and suicide. Whatever theology drives that outcome, it is not the theology of a God who interrupts destruction.
Faith Crisis and the Demand for Silence
When a family member—a spouse, a child, a sibling—begins to question the faith they were raised in, the religious community often responds with alarm. Doubt is treated as contagion. Questions are framed as spiritual danger. And the implicit demand is made: choose your integrity or choose your belonging.
Families fracture. Marriages collapse. Adult children are cut off. Parents mourn children who are still alive and reachable, simply because those children can no longer affirm a creed with honesty.
Here again, something precious is being bound and carried up a mountain. The relationship, the future, the person—sacrificed to preserve a particular form of institutional faithfulness. But the text asks: Is this the God who demands this sacrifice? Or is this the voice of something else wearing God’s name?
A faith that can only survive by silencing questions was never as strong as it claimed to be.
Divorced or Remarried Family Members
In many conservative religious communities, the divorced or remarried person occupies a painful liminal space. They are tolerated but not fully welcomed. Their new family is quietly delegitimized. Grandchildren from a second marriage are treated differently. A parent’s new spouse is never truly accepted at the table.
The justification is theological. But the cost is borne by real people—people who are present, who are loved, who have futures. Relational wholeness is sacrificed on the altar of doctrinal consistency, and the family grows more fractured with every passing year.
Vocational and Financial Obedience
Sometimes the sacrifice is less dramatic but no less real. The family that gives so generously to an institution that their children lack stability. The pastor who pours every hour into a congregation while his marriage quietly dies. The missionary family whose children grow up feeling secondary to the “work of God.” The breadwinner who, under pressure from religious community, declines necessary medical care or financial planning out of a theology of total dependence.
These, too, are forms of obedience that consume the future. They, too, deserve the question: Is this what God is asking? Or is this what a religious system has asked, and God has been credited by default?
Returning to Genesis 22
Viewed through this lens, Genesis 22 does not teach that loyalty to God must eclipse loyalty to the people entrusted to our care. The intervention of YHWH reveals something far more important: the true God will not ask us to destroy the relationships, futures, or persons He has given us. The God who stops the sacrifice is the same God who, in Jesus, binds love of God and love of neighbor so inseparably together that neither can be understood without the other.
Love of God is expressed through love of people. Love of people is sustained and oriented by love of God. The two form one indivisible command—and where they are torn apart, something has gone wrong.
Are We Listening for the Second Voice?
In the story, the saving word is the second voice—the voice of YHWH, the one that stops the knife and restores the future. Abraham does not ignore the first voice, but he is open to being interrupted. He does not mistake his initial religious framing for the final word.
That posture of openness is itself an act of faith.
Genesis 22 presses two questions into our modern lives:
What forms of obedience today are destroying the very futures God intends to preserve?
And are we cultivating the kind of discernment that can hear the voice that calls us away from that destruction?
The text does not offer easy answers. It offers something harder and more valuable: a story that refuses to let religious certainty have the final word over living, breathing, beloved people.
Conclusion: The Paradox That Heals
Genesis 22 is not a story about blind obedience. It is a story about how dangerous blind obedience can be—and how essential discernment, love, and relational integrity are to genuine faith. It reveals a God who breaks with violent religious norms, who interrupts destructive devotion, and who refuses to pit love of Himself against love of human beings.
When we bind our children, our spouses, our doubting loved ones, our LGBTQ family members, or our own futures on altars constructed from inherited religion, we are not necessarily being faithful. We may simply be doing what Abraham almost did: obeying the first voice so completely that we cannot hear the second.
The true God calls our name—twice, if necessary—and says: Do not lay a hand on the child. Do not destroy what I have given you to love.
Real obedience, in the end, will always be aligned with love, life, and the flourishing of those entrusted to our care. The ram is already in the thicket. The question is whether we are listening for the voice that points us toward it.
Discussion
The purpose of this post is not an attempt to solve or even provide a different orthodox position, but to wrestle with the story, perform critical thought, apply it to a modern context, and ultimately, perhaps, make some sense out of a story that is otherwise morally absurd. Plenty of questions in the article.
Feel free to vent, question, offer new ideas, or provide an argument for the traditional one.
Wheat & Tares 
Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac was the topic of Sunday School this week. As per usual the lesson elicited a lot of bad comments and analysis.
The story brings up an important topic that was has been debated and wrestled with not just in the ancient Near East, but throughout the world, which is: is human sacrifice necessary to appease demanding gods and spirits who control the weather and human fortune. Human sacrifice has been practiced throughout the world across time and space. Ancient Andean groups would throw girls into volcanoes to appease angry gods and spirits. The ancient Chinese practiced human sacrifice. The ancient Mesopotamians practiced it. There is evidence of human sacrifice at Ur circa 2500 BC of individuals to accompany rulers into the afterlife. Human sacrifice is a practice that continues on to this day. In many parts of Africa today, traditional healers practice human sacrifice on behalf of patrons promising them health and wealth from the spirits whose demands they seek to appease by killing members, often young people, of the community. There are many campaigns to bring about an end to this barbaric practice.
Abraham was out to satisfy the demands of the patron god YHWH. He didn’t just believe in God, but gods. Different gods who governed different aspects of nature and patronized different communities. The silver lining of the Abraham Isaac sacrifice story is, however, that YHWH eventually demanded that humans not be sacrificed and that animals, instead, be sacrificed to appease deity. Thenceforth the Israelite community practiced animal sacrifice and not human sacrifice. Ultimately, however, the question of human sacrifice would return again along the Israelites with Jesus’s followers claiming that the crucifixion of Jesus was a necessary part of an eternal cosmic plan to appease the vengeful and jealous God of the Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who would become repeatedly angry over human sin and sometimes cause natural calamity because of it. Jesus was the sacrificial lamb of God “who taketh away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29). Because the Israelite god accepted the sacrifice of Jesus, the Christian community now no longer has to perform animal sacrifices. Christ was the ultimate human sacrifice, performed not by the willingness of his followers to actually ritualistically kill him, but performed instead by the Sadducee Sanhedrin who delivered Jesus to the Roman authorities governing Judaea who crucified him likely on suspicion of rebellion.
Perhaps its because I’ve been on a Dan McClellan kick recently, but I feel like the story of the Binding of Isaac is precisely an area where we need to look critically at how the texts of the Bible were developed over time, how they represent different people’s disagreements with each other over centuries, and how uncomfortable theological propositions from an earlier era were then renegotiated in later eras. When we understand this, we do not need to hold to the conclusions of yesteryear. We can ask ourselves: how do we want to interpret and renegotiate these texts for our day?
Most critically, Todd notes that the text *starts* with Elohim and *ends* with YHWH. This is an absolutely critical observation! But I think that the significance of this is different. It’s that the first part of the story is from an older, Elohist source and the latter part is a redaction or renegotiation from a later Yhwhist tradition.
Compositionally, we are trying to read this as one consistent story, but as the story would have actually been communicated, there simply was a different answer in the older source than the later source. In Elohist tradition, there is no ram. Abraham comes back alone. Isaac doesn’t ever speak to Abraham again. It’s possible to reason that Isaac possibly actually was sacrificed according to the Elohist source/community tradition.
But this conclusion *became* unacceptable, hence details from other traditions were later added regarding the replacement ram.
(This “Dark Akedah” isn’t a perfect rock solid explanation, but nearly all mentions of Isaac “afterward” are from non-Elohist sources. [And the alternative explanations from scholars only complicate the narrative further, not simplify it. There’s just a different level of trauma for Isaac. The relationship has been severed. Even when he does appear, he doesn’t speak to Abraham])
I have a few thoughts about this:
1. Doing research into this made me think of comparisons to LGBT children with fraught relationships with their parents. There isn’t usually a “ram” that gets sacrificed. Even when the worst outcomes are avoided, the relationship between parent and child is usually severed permanently. I’ve seen so many stories of non-accepting parents bewildered at why their children have gone no-contact with them. The “Silent Isaac” interpretation (which avoids his death) feels like a son who has gone no contact with his father. This is a better story than a conclusion that Isaac is dead, but it’s not that much happier. I don’t think people in 2026 are learning the right lesson since so many parents still think their religious faith is worth losing contact with their children.
2a. The Bible is not univocal. We have to negotiate with the texts, determine which parts we accept and which we don’t. When we read carefully, we can see the seams when communities in the ancient world did this. Rather than looking for the Bible for solid, unchanging answers, it feels like the value of religious text is to look for questions, and to look to see how different communities have renegotiated answers over centuries.
2b. Even in LDS thinking, we have to deal with multivocality. We should be so much better at this since we deal with it with our contemporary leaders! And yet, many of us still want to hold on to the idea that the prophets and apostles speak in a united fashion.
Brad D – Not to belabor the point, but yeah, that’s basically it. The issue with our modern scripture is, as Andrew mentions, the English translation just uses the word “God” across the board, which makes it easy for readers to assume it’s always the same voice speaking. But in the Abraham story, YHWH isn’t the one who gives the initial command to take his son—his “only” son (which isn’t even technically true)—and offer him as a sacrifice. That command comes from Elohim, which Latter-day Saints almost immediately conflate with God the Father.
Even if LDS readers did notice the two distinct voices, the instinct is still to harmonize them and assume Heavenly Father and Jesus are working together. But that’s not how ancient authors were using these divine names. The text is deliberately creating tension: Elohim as the inherited, traditional “God(s)” voice, and YHWH as the emerging, distinct one.
In this narrative, YHWH is intentionally not portrayed as the typical ancient Near Eastern war or storm deity. The author seems to be carving out a new kind of divine identity—one pulling the culture away from destructive patterns it still sees as “good.” That contrast is the literary point, and it gets lost when everything is flattened into just “God.”
I’d put it this way: the story itself is “repenting.” It’s illustrating the struggle of human development and transformation. We’re so bound to inherited tradition—so convinced that what we’ve always done must be right—that it can end up threatening the very things with the most potential. The narrative is showing how hard it is to break from those patterns, not just for individuals but for a whole culture trying to grow into something new.
Andrew – I’ve also been on a Dan McClellan binge lately. Your example about LGBTQ kids and their relationships with parents is a perfect illustration of what happens when culture sounds like God.
Across time, humans keep running into the same problem: inherited assumptions that feel divine simply because they’ve been around so long. We act out of loyalty and faith, convinced we’re serving God—when in reality, the echo of culture can drown out the voice of promise. We’ve been here dozens of times before, both as humans generally and as Latter-day Saints in particular.
Two thousand years of Christian development have layered assumptions onto who God is and what God wants. Communities absorb moral instincts from scripture, leaders, and tradition. Those instincts feel righteous because they’re familiar. Social norms solidify into a way of life, and when that way of life is threatened—by new information, new demands, or new voices suggesting we may be wrong—the response is predictable: double down and defend.
Slavery was once defended with scripture. It felt moral. It felt faithful. Entire theological frameworks were built to uphold it. And anyone who challenged it was accused of opposing God’s order.
Within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Black members were denied priesthood and temple participation until 1978. The restriction was taught as divine will, as covenant faithfulness. Believing members defended it. Leaders framed it as doctrinally grounded. And although most today can clearly recognize the folly of that discrimination, the spiritual eyesight—and the willingness to drop the knife commanded by inherited tradition—was brutal, slow, and deeply resistant.
It wasn’t presented as prejudice.
It was presented as obedience.
And then the shift came.
What once felt like protecting the covenant was revealed to be something else entirely.
This is also why I believe “Revelation” is really a form of “Repentance”. New. Expanded. Sight. Not new privileged information. I was blind and then I could see, is the proper scriptural metaphor to frame revelation.
There are a lot of points and ideas that are important here. But the outcome for for Abraham was costly in terms of relationships in that he would never again have conversations with not just Isaac but as stated by Andrew S. He would never again converse with with God and Sarah. the readers can make of that what they will.
Raymond — This is the part of the story that never gets talked about. And even if it were brought up, the standard response would simply be, “But he was obedient.” The way we answer these questions reveals how much we prioritize obedience over the idea of eternal families being central to God’s plan.
If we keep obeying a God who asks us to do things that damage our relationships, then the Celestial Kingdom is going to end up feeling pretty lonely.
I really really love this post. Thank you so much ❤️
I struggle with the “never again speaking with… ” interpretation of this story. It takes the contents of the Bible as currently written to be something it is not. It was never intended to be a complete representation of all of Abraham’s conversations with Isaac, or with Sarah, or with God. How many times do Isaac and Abraham converse even before this story? Are the stories of Abraham in Genesis even compiled in their true chronological order? I don’t think a critical reading of the text supports it.
I really appreciate the insight of Elohim at the beginning and YHWH at the end. I think there is so much to unpack in that idea, much of which has been expressed here beautifully. I will keep chewing on this for awhile!
I have always read this as a failure on Abraham’s part. He was willing to argue with God for Sodom and Gomorrah, even pleading for the wicked to be spared, yet when it came to his own son, he said nothing? My thought is God (Elohim) gave a commandment expecting an argument, but got compliance. God waited to see if Abraham would come to his senses. When he didn’t, YHWH, as the mediator, was then brought in to intervene. The test was not about obedience, but whether or not Abraham truly understood that he could have a collaborative relationship with God, not a subservient one.
https://reformjudaism.org/blog/akeidah-abraham-failed-gods-test-god-loved-him-anyway
Gilgamesh – J Richard Middleton wrote a Book titled “Abraham’s Silence”, which confronts this very issue, willing to act as a vigorous dialogue partner in Genesis 18, and then tongue tied four chapters later.
Here is the conversation Middleton imagined could have happened.
After these things, God tested Abraham. He said, “Abraham.”
His faithful servant answered, “Here I am.”
“Take your son,” said the Lord, “your only one—whom you love—Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him up as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I will show you.”
And Abraham was dumbfounded.
Was this God speaking? The God he had come to know?
Abraham knew there were many gods, as many as the peoples of all the lands he had traveled through—from Ur in Mesopotamia to Haran in Aram to the towns and cities of Canaan. And many of them required child sacrifice as a sign of devotion.
But could his God be asking this too? He thought he had been coming to know the character of the one called El Shaddai—that this One was different from the gods of the nations.
Could God really mean for him to kill his own son? Why? What would it prove? How could this be God’s will?
Abraham was shell shocked—and silent for a time.
**********************************
But then he plucked up his courage and with the chutzpah that would come to be recognized as emblematic of the later people descended from him, Abraham spoke up. At first his voice was quavering.
Ah, Lord God, he said. Are you really asking me to kill this young, innocent lad?
Do you really want me to live with the everlasting memory of his blood on my hands? Do you want to subject me to a lifetime of nightmares and flashbacks of me taking a knife to his young neck? Do you really want to do this to me?
Have mercy, Lord.
I know that I have not been close to this boy, not nearly as close as to my firstborn, Ishmael. That boy I loved, and you forced me to send him away.
Now you want me to kill the only son I have left.
Isaac was always Sarah’s favorite. Do you know what this will do to her? She will die too—if not physically, then she will die inside.
She and I already have problems between us, because of Hagar and Ishmael. I know it was her idea; but it backfired. Sarah is already distant from me. Do you want to drive us further apart?
But if you don’t have pity on me or my wife, Lord, have pity on the boy! He has done nothing to deserve this. Why should his life be cut short just to show my dedication to you?
Do you want his last memory to be of me, his father, tying him down like a sheep for slaughter and then taking a butcher knife to his neck? You can’t want that, Lord!
Are you angry with me? Why does your wrath burn hot against me, the one you brought out of Ur of the Chaldees and out of Haran, to this land? [Exodus 32:11] What have I done to so offend you, Master of the Universe?
Plus, you made a promise to me and to Sarah, that through this boy our descendants would become a great nation. What will become of your promise then?
No—I am going to hold you to your word, Lord. I have told many of the peoples of this land, whom I have met, of what you pledged to do through the line of Isaac.
But if they hear of this, that you have commanded his death—for whatever reason—do you know how that will look? It will reflect badly on you.
The Philistines and the Egyptians (whose kings I deceived that Sarah was my sister) will hear of it and they will think that it was with evil intent that you gave me this boy—only to kill him on the mountains and to consume him from the face of the earth. [Exodus 32:12a]
The arrested sacrifice *is* the sacrifice–because it isn’t interrupted until our hearts are proved. And so no matter how we may approach the ethical questions involved–Abraham for all intents and purposes had made the sacrifice in his heart because he would have gone through with it had the angel not stopped him.
I find Paul’s dialogue on the subject interesting. He doesn’t philosophize over the moral ramifications of Abrahams potential actions. He simply mentions that he had faith that God could raise Isaac from the dead if need be. And so when the Lord says that now he knows that Abraham will not withhold is *only* son from him–he’s speaking to the fact that he (Abraham) had perfect trust in the Lord’s power to fulfill his promises.
And all of us will be tried in the same way–to some degree at least. Because faith precedes the blessings of Abraham and Sarah.
This Mormonish leap to instrumentalize Isaac so Abraham can have a consequence-free moment of perfect obedience is exactly how we end up with LGBTQ teenagers offing themselves as much more eloquently argued above. Or tithing being more important than financial realism, because bubble-gum machine God will save you. Or well-correlated sunbeam lessons being used for adult gospel doctrine classes, because the members cannot be trusted wrestle with contradiction. If God tells you to pre-meditatedly kill someone, you might want to check your meds, and meanwhile, please stay far away from humans. /rant
Jack, I am wondering what precisely is so attractive about the blessings of Abraham and Sarah? Also, I cannot reconcile myself to that concept of “trying” people. I know it’s a hugely prevalent idea in the church. But still. It doesn’t make me feel like I can actually trust that kind of a god.
We discussed this topic in class on Sunday, and I said that I thought Abraham should have argued with God.
Hedgehog:
“Jack, I am wondering what precisely is so attractive about the blessings of Abraham and Sarah?”
It is essentially to have the power to do what God does. I understand that that may not interest everyone–but those who are interested in participating with God in the expansion of his Kingdom must be absolutely trustworthy.
“I cannot reconcile myself to that concept of “trying” people.”
It is scriptural, though. And so the way I make sense of it is in the “Old Testament” way of trying and testing metals until they’re proven to be sound. And so, as it relates to people, it’s less about moral fiber and more about raw character–though the latter may include the former.
We can’t be a capricious “Q” (Star Trek) running around the cosmos doing whatever we fancy.
Jack,
Unfortunately, your definition of the blessings was not scriptural. The list of blessings is:
* Having a vast posterity, including royal lineages (lots of kids, some overachievers)
* A covenant land (real estate)
* Protection and great wealth (safety and money)
* Being an ancestor of a messiah
The “power to do what God does” is not found in scripture. In the Bible, Abraham is depicted as a faithful servant of God, but never as someone who shares God’s divine authority. In fact, adherents to most Abrahamic religions would find your definition blasphemous.
The idea of trying or refining people in the Old Testament implies that God is simply showing what he knew was already there. But some (including yourself) seem to imply that God gives tests that human beings can fail and suffer from. I find it difficult to discern between what God does and what the Devil does in your worldview.
Pretend for a moment that God decided to test you by having a religious zealot move in next door to you. This zealot is the father of little children. One day, your neighbor has decided that he is being tested as Abraham. He tells you this. He builds an altar in the backyard to sacrifice his only son. The knife is raised. Do you stop him? You have no idea whether God inspired him to do this or not. Either way you go, justify your answer.
Jack, your description of the reason’s for God’s actions in the Binding of Isaac denies His omniscience. If God knows the end from the beginning, He knows how Abraham will react if He asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Itcs unnecessary for Him to command Abraham to do it. It proves nothing that He doesn’t already know. Unless of course you don’t believe in God’s omniscience and that’s fine, but it makes God out to be pretty insecure and it also doesn’t align with current Latter-day Saint teachings on the subject (Brigham Young’s ideas on God growing in knowledge and power notwithstanding).
“The arrested sacrifice *is* the sacrifice–because it isn’t interrupted until our hearts are proved. And so no matter how we may approach the ethical questions involved–Abraham for all intents and purposes had made the sacrifice in his heart because he would have gone through with it had the angel not stopped him.”
Huh. It has never occurred to me to parent this way. Count me as not interested in a relationship with a God that parents this way. Life is hard enough without manufacturing hardship to feed someone’s ego. As the kids say, if this is how God is, I will cut them off and will not be going home for the holidays.
The very purpose of this life is for us to learn to distinguish good from evil. At least that is what we are taught in the temple. If we are here to learn good from evil, that means 1) good is NOT subjective and 2) the Lord isn’t going to do a bait and switch. I think the most obvious answer is the true explanation: Abraham fell into the evil traditions of his fathers and the Lord corrected him.
Jack, I don’t think anyone would disagree with the aims you describe—developing trustworthiness and character. Those are admirable traits. The issue isn’t the goal; it’s the method you believe produces them. Which also raises another question for me.
If God’s purpose is to form trustworthy, morally mature people capable of participating in divine work, why would the ultimate test be an act that violates our deepest moral instincts?
Why not demand an act of moral beauty instead—something that transcends ordinary self-interest? Something like the Good Samaritan, Jesus touching the unclean, radical generosity, or sacrificing one’s own well-being for the sake of another person. Those acts require enormous courage and trust in God, yet they move humanity toward greater compassion rather than toward violence. If the entire trajectory of spiritual development is meant to elevate our moral vision, why would the pinnacle test of faith require the suspension of it? Why would the validation of Abraham’s faith lie in his willingness to perform an act that, in any other circumstance, we would call profoundly immoral?
It seems far more consistent that the ultimate test of faith would be the courage to enact radical goodness, not the willingness to override it.
You seem to equate trustworthiness and character with unflinching obedience. But if that is the definition, we immediately run into a serious moral problem. By that standard, the individuals who flew planes into the World Trade Center could also be described as “trustworthy” and possessing strong “character.” They acted with absolute loyalty to what they believed God required of them. In other words, they operated under the same framework you are defending—what we might call holy violence.
If devotion to God ultimately requires suspending devotion to morality—if harming innocent people can become righteous because God commands it—then the God Christians profess becomes indistinguishable from the many ancient gods who demanded appeasement through violence.
This leads to the classic divine command problem: the idea that something is good simply because God commands it.
But LDS theology itself complicates that idea. The Doctrine and Covenants famously teaches that there is a “law irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated.” That statement implies that God operates within a moral framework—that there are laws even God does not violate.
Yet the divine command model seems to imply the opposite: that God stands outside moral constraints and can redefine good and evil at will. If that were the case, morality becomes relative to whatever God happens to command in a given moment—a position LDS leaders regularly argue against.
The tension becomes even clearer in the doctrine of the Atonement. In LDS theology, Christ’s suffering is required to satisfy the demands of justice. The idea is that God could not simply bypass justice; the law had to be fulfilled. Whether one accepts penal substitution or not, the premise is clear: God cannot arbitrarily override the moral order.
So this raises an unavoidable question.
Is God bound by moral laws, as the doctrine of justice and eternal law suggests?
Or does God stand above those laws, able to suspend them whenever a command requires it?
Because the story of Abraham only functions as a character-building test if the second option is true. But much of LDS theology—including its teachings on eternal law and justice—seems to assume the first.
And that’s the contradiction I can’t reconcile.
Anon asks an interesting question above.
It is one thing to ask and answer the question in the first person — “I” will obey! But it seems we approach it differently when the second or third person is used. But wouldn’t integrity require a common answer? If I will obey, as a matter of obedience to God, shouldn’t (or mustn’t?) I also allow you or our neighbor to also obey?
Can’t it be both? Hugh Nibley walked on both sides of this question. He accepted the possibility of two stories combined in Genesis 22. Elohim, the traditional Canaanite deity that requires human sacrifice, and Yahweh appearing at the moment of sacrifice to correct that tradition. But he also accepted Jared‘s take in the BOM: God provided the true sacrifice of Jesus as the ram in the thicket.
Todd S:
“Why not demand an act of moral beauty instead—something that transcends ordinary self-interest?”
I’m of the opinion that that’s the way Abraham lived on a daily basis.
“By that standard, the individuals who flew planes into the World Trade Center could also be described as ‘trustworthy’ and possessing strong ‘character.'”
The scripture comes to mind, “that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.” Prior to his conversion Paul was of such a character that could be trusted to get the job done–but that doesn’t mean that he could be trusted by God to do the right thing. And most importantly, he could not be trusted with God’s power until after his conversion.
“The Doctrine and Covenants famously teaches that there is a “law irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated.” That statement implies that God operates within a moral framework—that there are laws even God does not violate.”
Perhaps–but we should be careful not to assume that we have enough knowledge in this sphere to judge the extent of the laws by which he governs his Kingdom. And furthermore, some folks argue that there’s really only one law–which is the Law of God or his Word. As the Savior said to the Nephites, “I am the Law.”
“Yet the divine command model seems to imply the opposite: that God stands outside moral constraints and can redefine good and evil at will. If that were the case, morality becomes relative to whatever God happens to command in a given moment—a position LDS leaders regularly argue against.”
I don’t think there is one guiding doctrine in the church on this subject. I’m open to the idea that rather than God being constrained by external limitations he constrains himself by acting in ways that are most beneficial towards others. Even so, the net outcome vis-a-vis the church’s teachings is the same–which is that we should obey God.
“The tension becomes even clearer in the doctrine of the Atonement. In LDS theology, Christ’s suffering is required to satisfy the demands of justice. The idea is that God could not simply bypass justice; the law had to be fulfilled. Whether one accepts penal substitution or not, the premise is clear: God cannot arbitrarily override the moral order.”
Joseph Smith said (in so many words) that if we want to go where God is we must become like him. And so, what looks like the Savior being bloodied by the demands of justice might actually be his suffering with us as he draws us into close proximity to himself–which he must do in order for us to receive enough of his transforming power so that we might become like him. God is making us fit to dwell with him not so much because it would be unfair if he didn’t–but rather because we would whither in his presence if he didn’t.
All of that said, if we approach this conundrum with the idea that God does everything for his children out of a sense of perfect love–then what he did for Abraham (and Isaac) in that instance was the very thing he needed to experience. As Hugh B. Brown famously said when Truman Madsen asked him about the purpose of Abraham’s sacrifice: “Abraham needed to learn something about Abraham.”
And so it is for all of us. Joseph said that God will wrench our very heartstrings at times. There is no person on earth who hasn’t experience that wrenching–and often with the saints those severe “tugs” are calculated to prepare us to receive the gifts that the Lord has already promised to give us. You see, Abraham, in my estimation, had already received the promise of eternal life. But he still needed to become fit to receive it.
Anon:
“The “power to do what God does” is not found in scripture. In the Bible, Abraham is depicted as a faithful servant of God, but never as someone who shares God’s divine authority.”
Some folks would argue that it is found in the scriptures. Even so, it is certainly found in the temple.
Not a Cougar:
“Jack, your description of the reason’s for God’s actions in the Binding of Isaac denies His omniscience.”
The Lord certainly knew how Abraham would respond–I agree. But it is Abraham that had some things to learn. And when the Lord said to him, “for now I know that thou fearest God,” he was stating a fact vis-a-vis the degree of spiritual maturity to which Abraham had arrived–which is what Abraham needed to hear.
Chadwick,
I admit it is a conundrum. But one of the things we may learn from Abraham’s ordeal is that though God may try us to the core he we will never come close to suffering as much as he did. Abraham’s sacrifice was arrested. The Lord’s wasn’t. The Father actually went through with it–so to speak.
And so Abraham’s sacrifice serves as a pattern for us. In following the Savior we must be willing to go with him to the “nth” degree in order to be prepared to receive all that God is willing to give us. But here’s the catch: it’s a test of *willingness*. The Lord will not require us to make the sacrifice that he has already made for us. But he will prove our willingness at times by requiring sacrifices on our part that amount to no more than a zillionth of what he suffered on our behalf.
He wants to prepare a people with whom he might share *everything*. And that means that we must become sanctified by “yielding our hearts to God” as per the Book of Mormon. Otherwise we must receive a lesser portion of his inheritance.
Jack, respectfully, you’re ignoring the plain reading of the text. God doesn’t say, “Now you [Abraham] know…” He says “Now I [God] know…” Sure, Abraham learned something about himself (Was it positive or negative or a mixed bag? Maybe a mid-Bronze Age man would have a different take on the story than an early 21st century man, but I don’t know for certain), but that’s not what God states is the main takeaway from the incident. It’s God’s need for absolute proof of Abraham’s unwavering fidelity to Him. We can all change the facts or add to them to arrive at whatever point we think is valid (the response above mentioning the theory that this event caused a permanent estrangement between Abraham and Isaac being an example – it’s an argument from silence, and I wouldn’t bet the farm on it being true), but we should be up front about what we’re doing when we’re editing the text to support our conclusions.
I’ll add that based on how God is presented here, the writer/editor/compiler of this chapter most likely didn’t think of God as omniscient (God in the Pentateuch is sometimes portrayed as not knowing everything, e.g., asking Adam, “Where art thou?”), but an omniscient God is what we Latter-day Saints and the wider Christian world accept as true, so that’s how we approach this chapter. The problem is that that view of God doesn’t fit the facts of the story.
Jack,
You engage in a lot of elaborate, apologetic handwaving in your comments, telling us, in effect, “These aren’t the moral conundrums you’re looking for,” proving Todd’s point that members of the Church gloss over the difficulty inherent in the story. It IS a story that is meant to challenge us, to require us to consider what we would do. The ancient scripture that brings us the story of Abraham did not anticipate the meek, non-conquering Messiah who came. Applying a Christic lens to the story, we would and should be expected to choose our loved one over obedience to a static law. That appears to be the message YHWH sent with his intervention. But we don’t have that interpretation unless we read our Christian beliefs into the story (thanks, Dan McLellan!). What we have is what Todd described, a story full of complexity, that requires us to sit in discomfort, that does not provide the certainty that is so zealously proclaimed by Christians of all stripes. An interpretation that starts and ends with certainty deprives us of our opportunity for growth by denying us space to exist in paradox, and from there to seek out our own “ram in the thicket” that allows Christ to intercede for us in our own lives.
“Yet the divine command model seems to imply the opposite: that God stands outside moral constraints and can redefine good and evil at will. If that were the case, morality becomes relative to whatever God happens to command in a given moment—a position LDS leaders regularly argue against.” Do they??
Joseph Smith clearly taught that whatever God commands is right. The “Happiness” letter to Nancy Rigdon is a good example. So is TPJS p.193, and the murder of Laban for the brass plates (a codex did not actually exist until centuries later).
“That which
is wrong under one circumstance, may be,
and often is, right under another.”
“Whatever God requires is
right, no matter what it is, although we
may not see the reason thereof till long after the events transpire. If we seek first the
kingdom of God, all good things will be added.”
(JS Papers – Happiness letter)
Not a Cougar & Concrete Cowboy,
I admit that I view Abraham and Sarah as archetypal characters as well as real people. And as such I find their particular pattern of discipleship everywhere in the scriptures. They truly are the father and the mother of the faithful–that is, in the sense that everyone who searches diligently for God will experience–in some measure–what they experienced.
And so, while it can be useful to let the story stand alone–isolated from other inspired commentary–I think it’s when we view Abraham in the broadest possible context–a cosmic context if you will–that we get the most from his overall story. And so, while the Akedah is perhaps the most “defining” moment in Abraham’s story, it is only one of many important moments in his life’s saga. And its when we take all of those elements together that the sacrifice of Isaac takes on even greater meaning–IMO.
Having said that, I’m not sure that a more comprehensive view does a whole lot to lessen the immediate pain we experience we God tugs at our heartstrings. But it might give us just enough fortitude to–as Neal A. Maxwell said: “drink the bitter cup without becoming bitter.”
i admit being a bit mystified by the endless arguments and discussion over people who a long,long time ago, who may or may not have existed, who most likely (in a direct way) did something that never specifically happened. (Was that a run on sentence? It;s suppose to be a runaway sentence, like a train wreck)
My foundational myth was on the gift of a blinking red nose and an elf, who rejects making toys, and becomes a dentist. So here’s to outcasts and misfit toy and how much better society is for having them.
All this talk over murdering a loved one cuz God said so. Jeez.
When I was much younger, in Logan Utah, this couple use to live in my grandparents basement (thank the Goddess this couple was living down the street when IT happened) My Grandmother was also mystified, she couldn’t believe it, and what a good guy(very faithful) he was. Does not compute.
Somehow he got it in his head that he needed to reenact this whole Abraham sacrificing Isaac thingee, only this time there wasn’t a ram in the thicket.
I much prefer stories(as problematic as they are) where the abominable snowman puts the star on top of the Christmas tree.
Jack,
The problem is is that individuals like yourself separate the story –and Abraham himself– from the biblical narrative and turn it and him into something else entirely. You can’t handle the facts of the story, so you create something you can handle. Well, that is not a productive response for many of us.
Jack wrote: “Perhaps–but we should be careful not to assume that we have enough knowledge in this sphere to judge the extent of the laws by which he governs his Kingdom.”
I agree that there is value in epistemic humility. Value in recognizing that we don’t know and can’t know all that God knows. However, in this case and the case of the genocides that we will touch on in future weeks (the CFM manual has a whole lesson about the virtues of obedience rooted in the commandment of genocide in 1 Samuel) and the case of slavery, we are talking about moral issues that normally seem to us to be pretty black-white, cut-dried. Human sacrifice is about the most barbaric of practices and seems nigh impossible to justify as the “least evil” option in whatever moral/ethical dilemma you propose. Are we really saying that human ability to judge right and wrong is so flawed and incompetent that we cannot possibly judge the rightness/wrongness of things like human sacrifice or genocide or slavery? At some point, this argument tends to lead me to propose that perhaps we are also unable to really judge the rightness/wrongness of committed, monogamous same sex marriages.
It seems to me that this line of thinking really highlights a major tension in the modern church — the tension between individual moral authority versus institutional or other external moral authority. I find that argument that we cannot assume to be able to judge the morality of these kinds of actions is usually intended to keep a person attached to the church by encouraging the person to defer to the institution’s moral authority rather than their own moral authority — especially when they come in conflict. On the other hand, many in the church (Elder Bednar seems to be a big proponent) like to encourage righteous use of our own moral agency — learning to discern right and wrong for ourselves then choosing the right. I don’t think we have adequately explored the gray area where the institutional moral claims conflict with the individual’s moral claims.
““Why not demand an act of moral beauty instead—something that transcends ordinary self-interest?”
I’m of the opinion that that’s the way Abraham lived on a daily basis.”
Was that when he was pimping out his wife or marrying his sister?
I’m curious: where is the evidence that the Israelites routinely practiced human sacrifice? I’m not talking about Canaanites and war-related sacrifices, But Abraham’s religious community.
Some “historical” stores of human sacrifice, like virgins getting tossed into a volcano, is from Hollywood.
I have a strong suspicion that after Abraham took Isaac off to do a sacrifice, and Sarah looked around and saw that the herd was not down a single animal, she began to get really pissed off at Abraham.
When YHWH enters the scene in Genesis 22:12, the first thing he does is stop the sacrifice. Then he says: “Now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son.”
Traditionally, this line is read as a form of divine praise—something like “well done, good and faithful servant.” But that interpretation hinges on how we understand one key word: “fear.”
The Hebrew word used here is (yirah), which fundamentally means fear, dread, or being afraid. Over time, many Christian interpretations soften it to mean respect or reverence. But Hebrew already has words that communicate trust or faith, such as (emunah), meaning faithfulness or trust.
If the author wanted YHWH to affirm Abraham’s trust, there were words available to say exactly that. Instead, the text says fear.
Read that way, the statement sounds less like a congratulation and more like an observation: “Now I know that you fear God.” In other words, Abraham has demonstrated that he is willing to comply even out of fear.
Rather than celebrating a perfected relationship of faith, the moment may be revealing something more primitive: Abraham is still operating within a framework of appeasement—a relationship governed by fear of the divine. The narrative may even be marking the point where that paradigm is interrupted, when the sacrifice is halted.
Another difficulty for the traditional Christian reading appears later in the theological framework itself. Christianity often teaches that fear and faith are opposites—that perfect love casts out fear and that genuine faith replaces fear.
I’m coming late to this discussion. Some years ago I heard Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem for the first time. It features poetry of Wilfred Owen, a soldier killed in World War I. One of the most haunting passages of music is set to the following text. I’ve never been able to think of the story of Abraham the same way since then. It seems worthy of repeating given present-day events:
The Parable of the Old Man and the Young
So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an Angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.