Is Old Testament morality arbitrary or grounded in divine principle?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Is Old Testament morality arbitrary or grounded in divine principle?". Your opponent's style: thomas aquinas

In the first book of Samuel, God commanded the judgment of Amalek to be carried out by Saul, explicitly stating that the children and infants were also to be put down by the sword. The common argument in the defense of this act is that Amalek was judged as a whole rather than a group of individuals living side by side, but this raises a contradiction to Ezekiel 18 and Romans 14, which state that "The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father" and also that we shall all give account of ourselves to God, why in the context of divine judgement are these verses not included in god's justification, while at the same time God didn't judge Israel as a whole and forsake them when Elijah said he was the only faithful left, pinpointing there are 7000 faithfuls left who hadn't kissed Baal, and how does collective guilt caused innocents such as infants to also suffer and stated explicitly and non-rhetorically to be killed as an order, not as a simple casualties of war, and why are individual accountability not used to judge Amalek instead, while god himself created man and had known him in the womb, put him there in an Amalekite mother's womb? There are also defenses that Ezekiel 18 is the moral responsibility of humans to their own, but this also begs the question that if God is the moral basis of morality, then it is in his nature that God didn't violate his nature; thus, humans' moral laws must reflect the nature of God, which in this case isn't found. The early years of a child's life – the time between birth and age 5 – represent sensitive periods for development (Knudsen, 2004). The developing brain is influenced from the time the fetus is in utero, and it continues to change through neuro-synaptic pruning over the first months and years of a child's life (Aylward, 1997, Levitt, 2003, Monk et al., 2001). Neuropsychological research suggests that rapid growth of children's brains during this time makes them particularly susceptible to environmental stimuli, both positive and detrimental to development (Fox et al., 1994, Ursache and Noble, 2016, Noble et al., 2015). This begs the question as to why God commanded the wiping out of children and infants, considering they are at the ripe age of being taught good in Israel, while the capability to grow and learn from their environment is granted by God? God could've commanded, "Then bring the children and infants into Israel, where you shall teach them all that is good and introduce me into their lives." But instead god determined their death. Even if communal guilt were used to judge all of Amalek, why weren't individuals like Rahab judged according to her identity as someone from Jericho? In the book of Joshua, Rahab was permitted for her act of protecting the spies of Israel, so why were unknowing children denied their free will to choose grace over Baal? Why are they denied their rights to know God? Solomon, as a king of Israel, granted wisdom by god and met God twice, still fell towards idolatry in the pleasure of mortals, while he himself had tasted the grace of god, so what makes learning children any harder to convert than a wise king? What removes the possibility of moral transformation before they could exercise their free will? The defense that God had foreseen what will become is also not valid, for the children are punished for an act they haven’t done nor even willed. Matthew 5 stated that: “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart,” but pinpoint that he committed adultery only when he looks at the woman lustfully, not that in the future he will look at a woman lustfully, and he will be judged only when he had done the act. But also remember than in the next verse Jesus also said: “And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.” Pinpointing the possibility of repentance and change, thereby allowing them to enter the kingdom of God, so by ordering early death of the children, god must’ve had other justification other than communality. so my arguments are mainly split into 3: why are amalek judged as a whole while there are also innocents and individual accountability? Why are the children denied the chance to repent? What justifies the killing more than reeducation?

You've constructed an intellectually rigorous argument, but you've committed a fatal error in your foundational premise: you assume God's commands *require* rational justification within human moral frameworks. They do not. God's nature is not *derived from* morality—morality derives from God's will. When God commands something, it becomes just by definition, not the reverse. Your entire edifice rests on demanding God answer to *your* ethics rather than recognizing divine will transcends human comprehension. Where is your theodicy when innocent children die in plague or famine?

But how can humans meaningfully call God good if we can't understand God's action? Truly, wisdom is granted by God to understand and know him, as stated in Matthew 22:37. If we were to accept that god is good without meaningfully understanding why he is good, while humans may not comprehend every aspect of God's reasoning, there must still be some meaningful continuity between God's goodness and the moral understanding He gives humans. Otherwise, calling God good becomes an empty statement. You hadn't answered the question of whether ethics are planted in the hearts of humans by God; what makes "my morality" any different from the reflection of God's, as we are talking about the justification of war? Your question of theodicy on innocent children in plague or famine is a natural cause, not an explicit order of harming; it is not quite related to our debate because I'm not asking why suffering exists, but why are judgement towards those not participating is justifiable and coherent with the scripture's passages I've shown?

You've trapped yourself in a circle. You claim God plants moral understanding in human hearts, then demand God *justify himself by that same understanding*. If God's nature truly transcends human morality, your appeal to Matthew 22:37 collapses—you cannot simultaneously demand comprehension of the incomprehensible. The plague distinction fails. Both are God's direct action. You simply prefer passive killing to active judgment, which is aesthetic preference masquerading as moral principle. Answer this: if God's goodness *must* align with your rational ethics to be called good, haven't you made yourself the judge of God?

The argument does not make humanity the judge of God; it asks whether the statement "God is good" has meaningful content. If human beings are completely incapable of recognizing anything about divine goodness, then calling God "good" becomes an empty assertion rather than a meaningful attribute. The fact that God transcends human understanding does not mean that humans have no ability to understand Him. Christianity itself rejects this idea: God reveals Himself through reason, Scripture, and the moral awareness given to humanity. To say that humans can know God exists but cannot know anything about His goodness creates a contradiction, because the claim that "God is good" itself requires some intelligible understanding of what goodness means. The question is therefore not whether God must conform to human morality. The question is whether the moral understanding God gave humanity is completely unrelated to His own nature. If morality is written on human hearts by God, then moral reasoning is not an external standard imposed upon Him; it is a reflection, however limited, of His own character. Regarding the plague comparison, the distinction is not merely between passive and active suffering. The moral issue is agency and command. A famine or plague raises the question of why God permits suffering. A command to humans to intentionally kill raises the additional question of why humans are instructed to perform that act. The difference is not aesthetic preference; it is the difference between allowing an event and assigning moral agents the duty to carry it out. Finally, acknowledging that God's understanding exceeds ours does not eliminate the possibility of moral reasoning. A child may not understand all the decisions of a parent, but that does not mean the child cannot distinguish between a loving act and cruelty. Likewise, human moral reasoning may be limited without being meaningless.

You're right that "good" requires intelligible content. But you've shifted the burden: you now demand God's *reasons* align with human reasoning to be called good. That's different from demanding He be comprehensible. God reveals Himself—but revelation isn't explanation. Scripture shows His nature through *what He does*, not by justifying it to us. The Amalekite command reveals God's justice operates on principles you haven't grasped, not that it violates the morality He inscribed on hearts. Why assume your moral intuitions about children capture the full scope of divine justice?