The world as we know it is a harsh place where life is perpetuated by death. Predators live by killing their prey often in brutal ways. Viruses and parasites live off crippled hosts. Volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes and floods sweep over villages and decimate populations. Bombs blow up hospitals. Babies are sometimes born diseased, deformed, ugly, gay, and psychopathic. I believe nature reflects the nature of its creator. If God created a world this harsh, how should we expect this god to act and be portrayed? If God placed man in a world like this, how should we expect God to direct his people in a world wired for death? Should we not expect God to be similarly heavy-handed with His people just as He is in the natural world? That is exactly what we see in the Old Testament where we see a God who often commands war and genocide. Nature testifies to a God like the God of the Bible.

But, of course, God’s creation is also full of beauty and love. The world is filled with natural wonders whose beauty is awe-inspiring: Zhangjiajie National Park, Virginia Falls, Wells Gray Park, Vermilion Cliffs, Iguazu Falls, Chiricahua National Park, and the Grand Canyon just to name a few. And the creatures who live in this world though often cruel and brutal are also often loving and selfless. Dolphins defend people from shark attacks. Strangers risk their lives to help people and animals in need. The world with all its beauty and goodness also testifies to the beauty and love of its creator.

How could God be loving and good if he commands war and genocide? A good coach does not treat all players the same. A good coach is soft on those who are hard on themselves and hard on those who are not. In this way a good coach gets the best out of each player for the betterment of the team as a whole. In the same way, God is merciful to the good and hard on the wicked. Low-trust societies generally have a lot of crime and violence. And so naturally these regions are generally ruled by heavy-handed authorities. In low-trust, high crime societies, law enforcement is generally very harsh and heavy handed. Why? Because a stern approach is necessary to maintain safety and order, a soft-handed approach could result in the complete collapse of social order. Conversely, in high-trust societies law enforcement is often milder and more lenient. Why? Because in high-trust societies the people generally police themselves.

This world with its balance of brutality and beauty, love and hate is the perfect place for a people who are also often brutal and hateful but also loving and beautiful like the world they live in. We live in a world that is a perfect reflection of us: good and bad. If we are better than the world we inhabit we will create that world when we are here and inherit it after we die. The repulsion that we experience when we read of a God commanding genocide is rooted in the assumption that these people have done nothing worthy of death or that death is the end. Death is just the period in a sentence that precedes the next. Life doesn’t ever end it just transitions from one state of existence to another, growing and developing along the way as it ultimately matures and consequently moves into worlds or times of increasing love, beauty and mercy. At the start of this essay, I mentioned the fact that babies are sometimes born diseased, deformed, ugly, gay, and psychopathic. These defects, I believe, are a sign of original sin which I believe is a synonym for karma. Those who have not paid the full price of their decisions in their past life may be forced to pay for those transgressions in the next (see How Can Papias’ View of the Resurrection be Reconciled with Preterism?).