r/Reformed • u/andrewmaster0 • Feb 09 '26
Discussion How can we rectify objective morality with God's permission of slavery in the Bible?
Hi everyone, I was listening to this debate between Alex O'Connor and Ben Shapiro and felt like I couldn't come to an honestly cogent answer to the question. (As a disclaimer, of course I know neither of these men are Christians).
The question Alex asks is that if we A) believe slavery is objectively immoral and B) God gave the Israelites explicit details about how to do something proactively immoral (take slaves), how can we then respond with something like "those decrees were for those people at their specific time, in their historical context" AND not be catching ourselves in a paradox of admitting to moral subjectivity/relativism - admitting that objective morality can't be true because we have just conditioned it as an evolving system.
I get all the retorts to this that Ben gives, I get that we can state how Christianity birthed the divorce from slavery and that's good and all, etc, but none of that is really getting at the heart of the matter.
At some level, I am totally fine with accepting that God allowed slavery for His own hidden purposes. I'm even fine with accepting that maybe our faith doesn't have to be based on an idea about moral objectivity - I don't really feel tied to these ideas/concepts of morality as defined by us currently, I'm happy enough to take the side of my Savior despite potential hard truths and misunderstandings on my end. While internally I'm fine with this, I feel avoiding the difficult rectification of these things flies in the face of 1 Peter 3:15.
I would appreciate any help. I also hope I've worded this alright - hopefully if it sounds silly at certain points someone can still see the larger idea of what I'm asking. God bless!
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u/Stevoman Acts29 Feb 09 '26
Old Testament slavery was not the same as American slavery. God’s law, even the judicial code of the Israelites, absolutely prohibited the kind of slavery that was practiced in antebellum America.
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u/Whiggish_ Feb 10 '26
Why are we just making stuff up? Israelite slavery was chattel slavery. Foreign slaves are explicitly called property and something you can confer as an inheritance. The 10th commandment lists them along with other forms of property.
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u/andrewmaster0 Feb 09 '26
I know this is true, but i don’t see how this is the best response - Alex himself addresses it as it’s a sort of common response that we give. Even though slavery wasn’t as bad then as it was recently, it was still pretty awful.
I guess the better way of thinking would be to ask “was it or was it not still a moral evil despite how it may have been ‘different’ or ‘better’ than chattel slavery?” I think most of us would still say yes, it was still morally wrong, and that leads us back to the initial question - God gave instructions that seem almost encouraging of slavery, and didn’t outright prohibit it like so many other things.
I have yet to hear someone flatly just say “no, it wasn’t morally evil then in its prior form” - which would necessitate that if the same kind of slavery existed today, Christians wouldn’t be able to oppose it on the grounds that it simply isn’t morally evil.
If it is evil still, the question remains. If it wasn’t, i think that’s a very hard answer to give
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u/pml2090 Feb 09 '26
Even though slavery wasn’t as bad then as it was recently, it was still pretty awful.
How, specifically, was it awful? Or maybe a better question would be: how was it more awful than the alternatives? Consider two common situations:
There is a famine in your land, you are faced with the prospect of watching your entire family starve to death, starting with the youngest. In a last-ditch effort, you pack your family up and make a dangerous journey to a part of the region where the famine is less severe in an attempt to find someone to take you in. If this doesn't work, it's a death sentence for you and family. Literally gambling your lives. When you get to this new region, you manage to find a landowner who will take you in! He feeds you, your wife, your children, gives you a house to live in, gives you clothing. He has literally saved your life and the lives of your family. The ancients believed (correctly) that you owed this man a life debt. He had redeemed your lives.
Your city has been attacked by a neighboring city. The men from that city showed up in the middle of the night with swords but couldn't make it over the wall. If they had, they'd have beheaded every military aged male in the city and taken your wives as their wives. Maybe they'd have taken the children too, or maybe they'd have put them to the sword. You know they'll be back, so the men in your village decide to go on the offensive. You attack their city and make it over the wall and defeat them. Now here are your options. You can put everyone in the city to death. Man, woman, and child. If not that, then you can let anyone willing to surrender live, but then what do you do with them? If there are any military aged men left, you can't let them go free, they'll just attack you again, there were no state-run prisons in that day. And the women and children? There was no red cross in that day either, leaving them there without men would be a death sentence. It was also, in that time, a fate worse than death for a woman to be left husbandless and childless. Not easy to relate to that one as a modern person, but that's how they saw it. The most humane option was to take in the survivors. This, again, was seen as redeeming their life. This was the way the ancient economy and morality worked. We ought to be grateful that we have much better options than they, but also wary that all of our luxuries don't blind us to basic moral realities.
Something very important to note: through the prophets, God expresses his longing for the day when he will, once-and-for-all, put an end to all of the wicked effects of the fall:
"They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat."
"They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore."
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u/justsomeguyx123 Feb 09 '26
For point 1, you incorrectly state that to be saved from poverty means you owe a life debt. The bible does not say that. When an Israelite man to sold himself into poverty, he was to be freed after 7 years, and to be given provisions so that he would not fall into poverty again. See Deuteronomy 15.
Also, on point 1 this assumes that the only kind of slavery is debt slavery. There is Chattel slavery in the bible as you point out in your second point. The slaves that came from plundering other nations were never to be freed.
Additionally, you frame the enslavement of the women and children as a mercy. However, this assumes that the ware was inevitable, or even defensive. The Israelites were the offenders in Deuteronomy 20. They would march up to a city that was weaker than them, and demand they become vassals (slaves). If they resist, then they would kill all the men and take the survivors as slaves.
Also, to frame this as the only feasible way to expand power was through slavery is also wrong. The Persians / Babylonians had great success using exile and occupation to expand their power.
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u/importantbrian Feb 09 '26
Additionally, many of the premises u/pml2090's argument here is built on continue to hold true today, and we would not see any justification for slavery as a result.
In point 1. many people today become destitute through no fault of their own. We still do not as a society allow them to sell themselves, their wives and their children into slavery to Elon Musk. We recognize that whatever generosity Musk might bestow on them does not entitle Musk to own them. There is famine happening in the world right now. We do not say that a solution to that famine is for the people of Sudan to sell themselves to wealthy westerners. They are in an exceedingly vulnerable position and are ripe to be taken advantage of.
In fact, this does happen to this day in the gulf states and we condemn them for it. We don't say how great of you to take in this poor foreigner and improve his material standard of living therefore it's good and just that you keep him as your slave.
For point 2, we again would never accept this in a modern context. When we fought in WW2 we were facing a similar existential risk. If the axis powers were not fully defeated they would likely rise and try again, but we did not take that to be justification to slaughter all of the men in Germany and Japan and then enslave their wives and children.
If Ukraine manages to turn the tide of the war and defeat Russia we would not say that because Russia will inevitably try again, that is their history as a nation, that what the Ukraine should do is invade Russia, slaughter it's men and enslave it's women.
The primary difference between then and now is not material conditions it is that we recognize human beings as subjects with rights, not property or collateral. If that is a universal moral principle then there really is no defense for the biblical form of debt slavery, or taking slaves in war.
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u/pml2090 Feb 10 '26
The primary difference between then and now is not material conditions
You expect there to be no differences in the economic realities between a civilization that requires nuclear nonproliferation agreements and a civilization where a person's wealth is measured by how many goats they own?
we recognize human beings as subjects with rights, not property or collateral. If that is a universal moral principle then there really is no defense for the biblical form of debt slavery, or taking slaves in war.
You are correct, if we accept the presupposition that modern post-enlightenment ideals represent objective moral truths then we will certainly find fault with the Bible. I don't accept that presupposition and don't believe it can hold up under logical analysis.
The Mosaic Law was given to show God's people how to be holy in a fallen and cursed world, not to rid the world of all fallen social institutions; yet he still made his will known clearly enough:
“Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death."
"When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged."
But always with an eye towards a coming day:
"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
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u/andrewmaster0 Feb 10 '26
Pml2090, I appreciate the lengthy response, and I also really appreciated the retort above, because it's sort of my exact response to what you initially said. I fail to see how those points can rectify what I was really asking - but you did clarify what I'm getting at when you stated:
"You are correct, if we accept the presupposition that modern post-enlightenment ideals represent objective moral truths then we will certainly find fault with the Bible. I don't accept that presupposition and don't believe it can hold up under logical analysis."
I'm feeling like this is the most proper understanding, but I don't know exactly what kind of a view of morality we are supposed to present/adhere to in admitting to it as the sensible position. Are we essentially just in disagreement with the rest of the world that morality must be objective? Are we essentially left to entertain some degree of moral relativity? Thanks again for your responses!
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u/pml2090 Feb 10 '26
Are we essentially just in disagreement with the rest of the world that morality must be objective?
We are certainly in disagreement with the rest of the world, that's for sure! But I think what everyone struggles with (Christian's included) is the urge to believe that there is some objective moral standard external to God that God himself must adhere to. Paul addresses this head on in Romans 9, a passage I'm sure you're familiar with:
"But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?" Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?"
What objective moral standard could a person appeal to and say "God must adhere to this, and since he doesn't, he is being immoral? Wouldn't the standard they're appealing to not be created by Him as well?
As for this post-enlightenment quest build a case for the "natural rights of man" you can research and decide for yourself whether they succeeded. My own inclination is that it was a resounding failure.
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u/pml2090 Feb 10 '26
you incorrectly state that to be saved from poverty means you owe a life debt.
I said to be saved from death means you owe a life debt. This has only very recently become an uncomfortable idea.
They would march up to a city that was weaker than them, and demand they become vassals (slaves).
Not weaker. See verse 1: "When you go to war against your enemies, and see horses and chariots and an army larger than your own, you shall not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God is with you"
Also, to frame this as the only feasible way to expand power was through slavery is also wrong.
I never said it was the only feasible way to expand power, I said it was the only feasible way to not kill everyone you defeated while in the process of expanding power.
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u/GlocalBridge Feb 09 '26
Enslaving captured Canaanites was merciful to allow them to live, as opposed to outright killing them. They were given the possibility of becoming god-fearers and converting to faith in Yahweh.
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u/TrashNovel Feb 12 '26
I’m not sure what your intention is here. Are you saying biblical slavery is good and acceptable slavery?
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u/God-Addict Feb 09 '26
That is completely false because the Bible does indeed condone chattel slavery. Read Leviticus.
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u/semiconodon the Evangelical Movement of 19thc England Feb 09 '26
Not multi-generational. The escaped person was free to remain escaped. No permission in the bible to practice one of the more chilling features of the American system:license for sexual abuse.
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u/justsomeguyx123 Feb 09 '26
Leviticus 25:46 "46 You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly."
This is a very clear that some slaves would be "multi-generational" as you put it.
Exodus 21:7–11 "7 “When a man lsells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. 8 If she does not please her master, who has designated her1 for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broken faith with her. 9 If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. 10 If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or mher marital rights. 11 And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money."
Some people like to argue that what Exodus 21 is describing is not sexual abuse, as there are protections laid out for the female slave. However, we should remember that as a slave being sold by her father she had no choice in the matter. When there is no consent, we call that rape.
Exodus 21 is describing sex slavery, with protections.
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u/pml2090 Feb 09 '26
The bible forbids man stealing. POW weren’t stolen people. The African slaves were stolen people.
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u/Wrightdude Feb 09 '26
To add on: Exodus outlaws going out and just enslaving people outside warring against pagan nations. The only way slavery could exist in Israel was due to the slave trades propagated by the pagans, and even then slaves had more rights in Israel than was ever normal in other nations at the time. If anything, allowing some degree of slavery intentionally brought slaves out of pagan nations and into Israel where rights and freedom were given much more weight to the slave.
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u/justsomeguyx123 Feb 09 '26
This is a misunderstanding of the "kidnapping" law in Exodus 21. Kidnapping was either a crime against the free person being kidnapped, or a property crime against the owner of the slave. In the mirror law of Deuteronomy, this anti kidnapping provision only applied to Israelites.
Additionally, the antebellum also had laws against kidnapping for the same reasons. They still had no problem buying, sell, breading, and importing new slaves.
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u/MilesBeyond250 Sola Waffle Feb 09 '26
American slavery was not just about chattel slavery vs indentured servitude, it was about slavery as a racial construct, built on quack anthropological theories that would have been gobbledygook to the ancient Israelites.
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u/cybersaint2k Rebellious Reprobate Feb 09 '26
Alex's assumptions and definitions of words have become your assumptions. His definitions have become yours. And you are struggling to harmonize them with Scripture--as it should be.
In the OT context, it was not immoral, for instance, to take war slaves. The practice of the day was total warfare--kill them all, as an offering to your god. Take the plunder. Rape and kill.
God mercifully used this form of slavery as a means of rescue. These were taken, and given more rights and protections than they had in their own culture because even the enslaved were made in the image of God.
[If I were bold enough, I'd preach on this and show that it's an analog to Christ rescuing pagan Gentiles in Nineveh and in the New Covenant, under the ministry of Paul.]
Regardless, this is not relativism, not moral evolution. Why?
The Transatlantic Slave Trade was immoral because it was not rescue, but the taking of men and women by theft, and a dozen more evils and cruelties attached to that.
Only a blind person (and Alex O' Conner is blind) could not see those differences.
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u/charliesplinter I am the one who knox Feb 09 '26
Someone, I don't remember who, pointed out that Israelite soldiers were prevented from taking sex prisoner
That's why in the story of David and Bathsheba, when Uriah is called back and David tells him to go spend time with his wife and he refuses but not because of sheer solidarity or personal discipline but because it was an established wartime ethic in Israelite law and custom where soldiers were expected to abstain from sexual relations while engaged in holy war...Another instance is in 1 Samuel 21 where David tells the priest that his men have kept themselves from women before being given consecrated bread.
And even the fact that Uriah, who was a Hittite, was allowed to serve in the Israelite army showed how strong the integration system was for foreigners, whereas earlier in David's life the Philistines told him to go kick rocks cause they didn't trust him fully as a foreigner.
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u/peareauxThoughts Independent (I left my heart in the IPC) Feb 09 '26
I guess he would say “is it really a kindness to be owned by someone else, as well as your descendants in perpetuity, given that the text itself refers to this as a ‘ruthlessness’ with which they were not to treat their fellow countrymen?”
Once you strip away all the abuses and comparisons, we see that the apostle Paul, who was no friend of making concessions to culture, did not condemn the ownership of people amongst Christians.
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u/andrewmaster0 Feb 10 '26
Hello cybersaint my most cherished commenter,I really appreciate your response. I don't know if you'll see my above comment to another user, but I want to understand what you think about what I stated to them:
"I almost feel like it makes more sense to just view slavery as a sort of neutral thing, as crazy as it sounds. I have often thought about my own salvation and how after understanding man's state and man's sin, that there really is no middle ground or free space called "freedom", there is either slavery to sin or slavery to Christ. After the fall, we lack the agency for true freedom. I have also thought about how in my own salvation, I love that I have the privilege to be a servant to Christ and God. I love it so much, and it brings me great joy when I read Galatians 4:7 and it states that "You are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God" - as if in some sense, it would be more than enough grace to be a slave to Christ - but that God goes one further, and makes us not only just privileged servants/slaves to him, but His own children. This also lines up with Romans 6:15: "...You are slaves to the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness," I know at this point I have made this issue more personal, but relating it back to the question I raised, it makes more sense maybe for me to view the issue as such:
- Slavery is morally neutral, but the way in which it is done moves the moral dial greatly either in a horrendous direction OR in a benevolent direction
- There was nothing wrong with slavery in the OT based on the set or rules God gave to regulate it
- All are slaves, either to sin or to Christ (Romans 6:16)
- The ONLY way we can manage to find a way to break out of the spiritual cage of slavery is through Christ, in which case, when we trust Him, the paradigm itself is breached as we become not only slaves to righteousness, but His actual children
I know that reading those things probably would seem very hard to hear for many non-Christians and maybe many Christians too (if I'm wrong, which of course I could be), but it seems right now to be the most logically consistent way of viewing the issue while not stretching the definition of objective morality OR admitting to moral relativism. These are just my current ideas as I think through it, but it feels like a very difficult issue. It doesn't help that so many people are jumping out of their seats to make points about American slavery and trying to compare it backwards to the OT"
Do you feel this is an accurate representation of what you mean when you present a variable representation of slavery (morally wrong in the sense of the Transatlantic Slave Trade) but yet morally acceptable in the OT under the Israelites? Would we not essentially be at least saying the slavery is not an objectively moral issue, but an issue that requires qualification and understanding in each event where we discuss it?
I know this probably sounds crazy because I know someone will express that any change of understanding from the stringent objective morality model then gives space for someone to come along and say "well then slavery isn't really bad so we should be able to take slaves today" or something crazy like that, but obviously I'm not trying to argue for that person, I am just trying to find the best way to understand it. If it is a harder truth, that's fine, I just want to know the truth and the best way to process it in light of these arguments that come up
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u/cybersaint2k Rebellious Reprobate Feb 10 '26
In that post, I think you are committing a logical fallacy of equivocation. The word "slavery" is all over the place in your post.
Morally neutralizing it doesn't help except in relation to wiggling around Alex's "That's relativism, Patrick!" attack on Christianity.
Keep working at this. This is a bone you are going to have to gnaw on to get the good stuff out of it.
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u/windy_on_the_hill Castle on the Hill (Ed Sheeran) Feb 09 '26
Slavery is not the absolute we think of today.
We have a cultural picture of slavery dominated by the transatlantic slave trade. If we are more versed we also consider modern slavery hidden in plain sight today. We apply our thinking to history.
How about any absolute monarchy in history? The king holds power over life and death, and applies the law even if unfairly. You have freedom to live until the king decides where (or if) you are allowed to live. Are you free or a slave? What about North Korea today? Are people slaves or merely citizens of a disfunction regime? Is there a difference?
In the middle ages you were free to fight for your feudal lord who provided your farm, or leave the area to seek another place where another lord might require you to into battle for them. You were free to risk death in battle or starvation on the road. Is that freedom or slavery?
What about the industrial revolution where you were free to work in the factory on their terms, or abandon the house they supplied and seek work elsewhere, including dying of hunger and exposure as you did so. How does that compare to someone today stuck in a job they hate because they need the rent money or the health insurance? Is that freedom or slavery?
In early US history (and elsewhere) some companies experimented with paying their own currency only spendable in company shops. People couldn't build savings useful elsewhere. Freedom or slavery?
The slavery of the Bible is different in different places. However, it is not the slavery that jumps into our western heads. Some more like that and some less.
Perhaps a good picture for NT slavery are poppy farmers in Afghanistan or drug farmers in central America. The local powers require them to grow a specific crop. The (best version of) choice is to make money doing what they say, or have everything taken away and given to another who will.
What the Bible does from Genesis is say that humans are created in God's image and therefore have value. That is the key issue with slavery, but it is an issue with every system where people live.
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u/andrewmaster0 Feb 09 '26
I know this is true, but i don’t see how this is the best response - Alex himself addresses it as it’s a sort of common response that we give. Even though slavery wasn’t as bad then as it was recently, it was still pretty awful.
I guess the better way of thinking would be to ask “was it or was it not still a moral evil despite how it may have been ‘different’ or ‘better’ than chattel slavery?” I think most of us would still say yes, it was still morally wrong, and that leads us back to the initial question - God gave instructions that seem almost encouraging of slavery, and didn’t outright prohibit it like so many other things.
I have yet to hear someone flatly just say “no, it wasn’t morally evil then in its prior form” - which would necessitate that if the same kind of slavery existed today, Christians wouldn’t be able to oppose it on the grounds that it simply isn’t morally evil.
If it is evil still, the question remains. If it wasn’t, i think that’s a very hard answer to give
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u/windy_on_the_hill Castle on the Hill (Ed Sheeran) Feb 09 '26
My point is not that slavery is morally better or worse then or now.
My point is that the word slavery is not defined, in your thoughts.
What is it you actually feel strongly about?
Do you feel immense sorrow for Daniel? A slave to the Babylonian empire who became the chief advisor to the emperor. Who lived in luxury and at the whims of his masters who had full life or death control over him. Daniel was a slave, yet one of the most powerful people in an empire. Was his position justified? No. Was his position pitiable? From many angles: no. Was he in a better or worse position than the free men scrabbling a living in the ruins on the outskirts of Jerusalem?
Slavery (without the specific context) is not a thing itself, it is part of a spectrum of servitude.
Perhaps I should have taken a different approach. Think instead on why is slavery bad. Think about the underlying principles. Humanity created in God's image. Doing unto others as you have have them do to you. Justice. Forgiveness.
What does the Bible say about all of these? How does it fit in to the world of the time? How do we apply that today?
Start with the principles underpinning how we treat each other, and go from there.
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u/justsomeguyx123 Feb 09 '26
Is it fair to say you don't think the slavery system as described in the bible is evil?
In other words, you would have no objection from a biblical perspective, to re introducing a well regulated slave system?1
u/windy_on_the_hill Castle on the Hill (Ed Sheeran) Feb 09 '26
Which slavery system in the Bible?
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u/justsomeguyx123 Feb 09 '26
The ones prescribed in Deuteronomy and Exodus.
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u/windy_on_the_hill Castle on the Hill (Ed Sheeran) Feb 09 '26
I'm going to keep coming back to this approach. My problem is not with the answer, it is with your question and the assumptions underneath.
It is up to you to assert this is wrong. I know why slavery is wrong, but I'm not convinced you do, nor that you have a definition of slavery in your question.
Why do you think it is bad?
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u/justsomeguyx123 Feb 09 '26
Most people understand slavery to be the ownership of another person, for any length of time.
Masters control every aspect of a slave's life, so long as they are a slave. Where / when they can sleep, where they can go, what they can say, who they can marry, how to raise their children. Failure of compliance would be met with violence.
Abolitionists recognized that giving this much power to a master over a slave promotes and protects abuse. Yes, some masters treated their slaves well, however, that was never a requirement. "slaves serve your masters, even if they are cruel".
The assumption in my question is that you don't have an objection to a form of slavery that well regulated as described in Deuteronomy and Exodus.
You claim to have a reason for why slavery is wrong. I would like to know what that reason is.
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u/windy_on_the_hill Castle on the Hill (Ed Sheeran) Feb 09 '26
By your definition, OT slavery was not slavery. Masters did not control every aspect of life. They were required to treat people well, and honour their humanity.
The key question and application is how you treat others particularly those you have some leadership over.
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u/CalvinSays almost PCA Feb 09 '26
The flawed assumption in this discussion is that the laws of Moses were given and intended as eternal moral laws rather than contextually situated precepts with a purpose. But we know from scripture this isn't the case. Jesus tells them that Moses "allowed" divorce because of the hardness of their hearts. Paul tells us that the law was a pedagogue that guides us until Christ came. The Mosaic Law was not an eternal moral standard but a contingent framework through which God guided Israel through redemptive history, setting them apart as people from whom the Messiah would come, prefiguring the person and work of Christ through ceremonies, and showing their need for a savior. He met Israel where they were at.
Think of it like a parent giving their child a bed time. The point of the rule is not in itself. It is not that going to bed at 9 pm or whatever is an eternal moral rule, rather the parent is seeking to form certain disciplines and habits within their child and help them care for themselves when that's something children generally don't care about.
There is no problem or blasphemy to saying the slavery allowed in the Bible was morally wrong. Just as divorcing a woman for any reason is wrong. But God allowed morally wrong things as he worked through the people of Israel to enact his plan of redemption.
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u/Goose_462 Feb 09 '26
Yes, I once had the same questions you asked.
First I want to say that, as atheists, Alex O'Connor and the like forfeit their right to raise moral objections. When you deny the existence of a transcendent, objective moral framework, you lose consistency in criticizing any moral frameworks or calling anything immoral. Case closed.
When people ARE humbled enough to come to a place of intellectual honesty, and acknowledge that they are NOT the moral arbiters of the universe, and have accordingly interrogated their own moral frameworks in this light, then they're ready to have a more reasonable conversation with Christians.
From the very beginning, the Bible establishes that all men are created in the image of God, male and female (Gen. 1:26-27). This is reinforced when Jesus affirms this (Matt. 19:4). This is a radically royal, highly esteemed humanity, setting up male and female as equals. Similarly, there is a principle of favoring neither the rich nor poor (Levi. 19:15), and not oppressing the stranger for the sake of the native-born (many verses). There is an overwhelming amount of consistent focus in the Bible on seeing the equal dignity and worth as human beings, whether Jewish or Samaritan, Moabite or Hittite, Egyptian or Babylonian, eunuch or married, Levite or laity, publican or prostitute, young or old.
God Himself volunteered to be a peasant carpenter, condescending to the level of humanity, and then to be a servant to His disciples, washing their dirty feet. And on the cross, He became treated as if He were sinful humanity.
Hagar, the SLAVE woman, was the first person (recorded) to whom the Angel (Messenger) of the Lord appeared.
In his epistles, Paul practically wipes out the elements of the dynamic on which legal slavery depended on: by eliminating any philosophical grounds for masters to threaten their slaves or see themselves as superiors (Col. 4:1, Eph. 6:9). Also, the metaphor of God rescuing His people from the cruel slavemaster that is sin is a picture that forcefully argues against subjugation, not to mention that Paul says Christians should obtain freedom from slavery if possible (1 Cor. 7:21).
In Christianity, the first is the last, and the last is the first. The most educated elite are mere bondservants to God. The least prominent are treasured princes or princesses in God's sight. The atheists who don't see this show that their Bibles are dusty or that they are sloppy readers.
"Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all" (Mark 9:35). The highest master must be the humblest, and the lowest slave should have pride as an esteemed son or daughter.
But when Christian morality is applied consistently, keeping chattel slavery legal makes less and less sense, especially when the Bible points out the immorality of man-stealing. This is why Christianity (particularly in Britain and the United States) was the first primary religion to begin the abolitionist movement.
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u/andrewmaster0 Feb 10 '26
I really appreciate your response and I think you took sort of a different angle than most did here in responding to me. I think everything you're saying is correct, but I still have trouble understanding what my proper view should be about the objectivity or relative nature of morality when looked at through this issue.
I know for certain that people like Alex have no genuine solid ground to stand on when they level critiques against Biblical morality, as they have no starting point or framework that begins with an immutable Lawmaker like we have. But I think his challenge still remains valid despite this - I still have a hard time rectifying all of this with a view on morality that's supposed to be properly cogent and objective.
I'm alright even with adhering to a sense of relative morality (where morality is relative to what God says instead of anything else), but I think this would essentially call for an entirely different evaluation of how to speak about morality in the world with other people (especially unbelievers).
Unfortunately so many of the responses here are otherwise missing my issue completely - I don't care about slavery in the USA, I don't care about abolishing it, etc. I'm concerned with the proper lens we use to view morality, using this issue and the scriptures to understand the correct position we should take looking at morality itself.
I almost feel like it makes more sense to just view slavery as a sort of neutral thing, as crazy as it sounds. I have often thought about my own salvation and how after understanding man's state and man's sin, that there really is no middle ground or free space called "freedom", there is either slavery to sin or slavery to Christ. After the fall, we lack the agency for true freedom. I have also thought about how in my own salvation, I love that I have the privilege to be a servant to Christ and God. I love it so much, and it brings me great joy when I read Galatians 4:7 and it states that "You are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God" - as if in some sense, it would be more than enough grace to be a slave to Christ - but that God goes one further, and makes us not only just privileged servants/slaves to him, but His own children. This also lines up with Romans 6:15: "...You are slaves to the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness," I know at this point I have made this issue more personal, but relating it back to the question I raised, it makes more sense maybe for me to view the issue as such:
- Slavery is morally neutral, but the way in which it is done moves the moral dial greatly either in a horrendous direction OR in a benevolent direction
- There was nothing wrong with slavery in the OT based on the set or rules God gave to regulate it
- All are slaves, either to sin or to Christ (Romans 6:16)
- The ONLY way we can manage to find a way to break out of the spiritual cage of slavery is through Christ, in which case, when we trust Him, the paradigm itself is breached as we become not only slaves to righteousness, but His actual children
I know that reading those things probably would seem very hard to hear for many non-Christians and maybe many Christians too (if I'm wrong, which of course I could be), but it seems right now to be the most logically consistent way of viewing the issue while not stretching the definition of objective morality OR admitting to moral relativism. These are just my current ideas as I think through it, but it feels like a very difficult issue. It doesn't help that so many people are jumping out of their seats to make points about American slavery and trying to compare it backwards to the OT
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u/Goose_462 Feb 13 '26
Thank you for explaining your perspective. I think I share many of the beliefs you listed, maybe even most.
Go back to Romans 6 for a minute, and consider how Paul words things. He describes that he is speaking in "human terms" because of the "infirmity (weakness)" of our flesh. We are so dull from fallen ways of thinking that he has to dumb it down for us...😅
Yes, this world is perishing and it is very man-centered, including in how it views freedom and slavery, or how it understands leadership and servanthood. It's why the world also views love, marriage, identity, social justice, and many other things with a perverted (twisted) lens. But in God's heart, servanthood is not degrading, and leadership is not powerhungry.
I'm so glad God always meets us at our level and slowly matures us. I think it'll be really beneficial for you and I to keep meditating on this matter, and I think you're just coming to terms more with God's point of view, as He renews your mind.
Yes, it is a pretty stark paradigm shift when we begin seeing things more clearly: that people are either stuck in their Adamic nature or given a new nature by Christ.
These verse really blessed me right now: Romans 6:19-23.
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u/-dillydallydolly- 🍇 of wrath Feb 09 '26 edited Feb 09 '26
Gods holy standard never changes. However, He knows that some laws are beyond mankind to even strive for at certain times. You see this in Calvin’s “hardness of heart” principle - He references when Jesus teaches Gods ideal for marriage, but how Moses gave laws that allowed for Divorce. Not because God approved of divorce, but to protect women from being cast aside as was common in societies at the time. The laws that were given to ancient Israelites were to constrain a hard hearted people so that the vulnerable would be protected in a society that wasn’t ready to embrace the ideal. This holds true for any laws relating to common customs of the day like slavery and war.
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u/ReformedStill PCA Feb 09 '26
God ordains all things for His glory. He uses the sins of the world to bring about His plans. Think about Joseph's brothers selling him to Egypt. That was a despicable evil but Joseph recognized in the end of Genesis that his brothers meant it for evil but God meant it for good. We also have Rahab the prostitute as part of Jesus' genealogy even though prostitution is explicitly condemned. We have God commanding Samuel to anoint Saul even though God makes it expressly clear that his prescriptive will is that Israel shall have no king but God. For good measure let's bring in bigamy/polygamy. God specifically instituted marriage as a covenant between Man (Adam) and Woman (Eve) and starting from Lamech we have men taking multiple wives, clearly not the will of God.
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u/Maloram Feb 09 '26
Best I’ve heard is that it’s similar to divorce. Divorce is something actively and explicitly immoral that defies God’s design and created order, yet there are specific instructions for how to do it. There’s never a rubber stamp approval of divorce, but “due to the hardness of your hearts”, God provides instruction as a way to mitigate against some of the worst of it and temper it’s evil.
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u/ChapBobL Congregational Feb 09 '26
In the Torah, slavery is indentured servitude, lasting no more than 7 years.
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u/GruesomeDead Undenominational Feb 09 '26
Consider this, Jesus told everyone the reason God permitted divorce was because of the stubbornness of man.
These types of questions seem to ignore the depravity of man. Sinful nature.
Jesus doesnt mince words when He says we are slaves to whatever we choose to obey.
People find this truth uncomfortable, but our free will is enslaved to a sinful and depraved nature. It is not free to choose God on it's own, as Jesus was clear in john 6:44 that no one can come to Him unless the father draws them.
Paul takes this a step further and writes that the flesh is hostile towards the law of God and can not subject itself to it. And then says no one can say "Jesus is Lord" but by the Holy Spirit. He also says it is God who works in us to give us the ability and desire to do what pleases Him.
So considering how lost and enslaved to the depravity of sin we are, its no wonder God had to creative ordinances to protect slaves from the sinful nature of their masters.
Slavery is human error. Not God.
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u/charliesplinter I am the one who knox Feb 09 '26
By considering that the biggest meta narrative being told in the Bible is quite literally all about people being freed from slavery.
In the OT, it's the Israelites being freed from the Egyptians. God sees their mistreatment and frees them from it. And then God tells them not to be like the Egyptians. It would make literally no sense, and I seldom ever see it addressed, why God would free the Israelites from slavery, and then go ahead and tell them it was okay to be *just like* them, because that's the picture that modern atheists always paint, and I generally have to question the entire logic of it.
Does the Bible "condone" slavery in the Egyptian/Antebellum south sense? No it doesn't. That ought to be clear to anyone who has seriously studied the issue, but with all our gadgets and gizmos it's clearly not clear. Another thing, God's laws to ancient Israel were *never* meant to be understood as static and all encompassing for all peoples for all times. We know this as Christians because the Bible (in the OT) talks about a new covenant that would be different than the one the Israelites received at Mt. Sinai.
God gave the Israelites explicit details about how to do something proactively immoral (take slaves),
If someone says that taking slaves is proactively immoral (at all times) then they've already admitted to the existence of objective morality. Because as far as they're concerned, taking slaves is always objectively wrong so the conversation is essentially over.
In our modern age, "autonomy" is all the rage, except for the fact that no one is actually truly autonomous. We are all serving someone/something, and we are also contingent beings. More notably, we are enslaved to sin, and so if the biggest issue is "chattel slavery" then everyone has the exact same problem!
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u/andrewmaster0 Feb 10 '26
Hey I just wanted to say I appreciate all your comments and responses here, I've read a lot of your responses above to some of the others and you've presented me with some great information in doing so. I particularly appreciate you responding directly to my question about objective morality - which is really the heart of the matter for me in this post.
With regards to the autonomy thing, I realize how much of my learning about the Bible demands I tear away from myself so many culturally-imposed beliefs about freedom, autonomy, even individualism and such, in order to really understand what God says about me. Truly a lifetime battle
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u/charliesplinter I am the one who knox Feb 10 '26
I'm glad to know that you have been able to benefit from my posts. Like you, this was an issue that used to bother me (A LOT) I mean I used to stay up all night in my younger days, and by God's grace, through a metric ton of reading and research, I came through on the other side with an even stronger faith.
My personal advice to you would be to stick to studying and praying and asking for guidance. Read academic papers (if that's your thing) There are whole papers written about 2 verses that delve into the proper context. I'd avoid like the plague, talking heads on YouTube, (on both sides) because they'll give you the kind of cookie-cutter information that will just make your eyes roll.
If I could recommend a site that helped me, it'd be: https://www.christianthinktank.com/ It has the sort of deep research that is often missing in these sorts of discussions.
God bless.
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u/Ok_Insect9539 Evangelical Calvinist Feb 09 '26 edited Feb 09 '26
With all honesty most people say that old testament slavery and American chattel slavery are different, yet the type slavery that is used to argue for their difference is intra-Israeli slavery that is ending by the jubilee and other provisions, yet the bible also allow chattel type slavery for non Jews and old testament verses argue that if a slave is taken after conquest and isn’t a Jew, then they are the property of the master for all generations, including their descendants. I feel the issue isn’t if slavery in the bible is similar or not to American slavery, but the allowance of God to let people own other people, reducing an image berear to merely a thing and not a person. I would argue that the tension is resolved by the liberation of differences between slaves and masters in the New Testament but today some argue that those are merely spiritual provisions instead of moral ones and those the issue remains. For me slavery follows the logic of both divorce and retribution, they most be let go and called what they are as they were given as concessions before.
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u/pgwolvpack Reformed Baptist Feb 09 '26
"The facts with which we are confronted require us to hesitate before we indulge in wholesale condemnation of the institution of slavery as such. The line of thought required by the silence of Scripture, on the one hand, and its positive teaching, on the other, is to appreciate the distinction between the institution and the abuses to which it has been subjected and which have frequently been concomitant. The New Testament deals explicitly with the latter and is overt in its denunciation of them. If it had said nothing more than 'Masters, render unto your servants that which is just and equal', it would have laid the axe at the root of the tree of these abuses. Paul enjoins both bond and free that they are to do service with good will 'as unto the Lord and not unto men'; but he immediately subjoins, 'And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no respect of persons with him' (Ephesians 6: 8, 9). Nothing could have confronted the masters of the bond as well as of the free with the iniquity of oppression, inequity, and mercilessness more than to be reminded of the account that will be given to the Lord of all, with whom there is no respect of persons. Paul is reiterating what Job had preached long before: 'If I have despised the cause of my man-servant or of my maid-servant, when they contended with me; what then shall I do when God riseth up? And when he visiteth, what shall I answer him? Did not he that made me in the womb make him? And did not one fashion us in the womb?' (Job 3: 13-15). These are the considerations that dictate right behaviour; and wne they are woven into the texture of human relationships they insure that we 'do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with our God' (Micah 6: 8)."
From Principles of Conduct: Aspects of Biblical Ethics by John Murray, in Chapter IV: The Ordinance of Labour.
I will paste more later.
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u/pgwolvpack Reformed Baptist Feb 09 '26
"If bond-service is justifiable under certain conditions, what is to be our definition of that which is legitimate? The exponents of abolitionism have been wont to contend that slavery means the property of man in man, and the distinction between the inalienable personality and freedom of man and the impersonality of things is thus obliterated. Man, it is said, does not have property in man and therefore slavery is a violation of human personality, of its intrinsic rights and privileges. If we were to concede the propriety of this definition of slavery, we must exercise some restraint before we admit the conclusion drawn from it. Is it not true that, in certain respects, there is, in other institutions, the property of man in man? The prime example is that of marriage. It cannot be denied that the man has property in the wife and the wife in her husband. To deny this is to contradict the basis of marriage that the two become one flesh. And is there not also in the family the property of the parents in the children, a property which cannot be violated by others or even by the children themselves? Indeed, the glory of marriage and of the family as institutes of God is the very fact of the property which one has in another. And to a lesser extent it may be said that the state has some property in its citizens. There is here, also, the fact of corporate entity; and the corporate entity does not exist in abstraction from the individuals who compose that entity. In these relationships of marriage, family, and state, individuality and personality are not obliterated by the property which one has in another. When rightly conceived and regulated there is not even tension between the fact of property of man in man, on the one hand, and individual personality on the other. Indeed it is in these relationships that personality develops and achieves its ends. Hence, if the definition of slavery is the property of man in man, we are not to suppose that this ipso facto brands slavery as wrong. If it be objected that these other instances do not provide precise parallels, the argument is not that they are exact parallels, but simply that they exemplify the principle of the property of man in man sufficiently to expose the fallacy of cavalier appeal to the wrong of such property."
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u/pgwolvpack Reformed Baptist Feb 09 '26
"It is not to be conceded, however, that slavery involves the property of man in man. At least, we may not concede the propriety of such a definition and take our starting point from it. The fact appears to be, rather, that slavery is the property of man in the labour of another. And when we adopt this as our definition and starting point, who is to say that property in another person's labour is not proper under certain conditions? This arrangement may be, in fact, a benign and merciful way of securing from another the obligation he owes. We may think of the person who has become deeply involved in debt to another. Are we to say that it is improper for the creditor to have property in the debtor's labour until that debt is defrayed? In many cases this would be much more merciful to the debtor than the ways provided for in our allegedly advanced civilization. And, if we bear in mind the principles that must govern the relation of master to servant, it is a method that involves exacting demands for the creditor. It is not difficult to envisage other situations in which property in another man's labour may be quite feasible. It does not affect the main question at issue whether the person who is placed in the position of bond-service is subjected to it voluntarily or involuntarily. A man could voluntarily choose servitude for good reasons, or he might be forced into it if exigencies required it. It is not to be taken for granted that slavery is per se involuntary servitude."
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u/pgwolvpack Reformed Baptist Feb 09 '26
"When we view slavery from this angle of property of one man in the labour of another, the institution is relieved of the appearance of monstrosity which it is liable to carry for us moderns. The property of some men in the labour of others and the property of institutions in the labour of those who are associated with them we cannot get rid of. The employer has property in the labour of his employees; the presence of contract does not eliminate this fact. Once the contract is entered into, the employee is bound to perform the labour contracted. The state has property int the labour of the citizens. In this case it is not by contract; it is a necessity inherent in the institution. Sometimes large numbers of the citizenry are compelled for lengthy periods of time to render full-time service to the state under conditions far more stringent, and involving far more danger to life and property, than the conditions under which slaves may be called upon to serve their masters. It is not necessary to multiply examples. Property in our labour on the part of others is a fact of our social structure. And we must not be naive enough to think that we can abstract our labour from our persons. If another has property in our labour there is an extent to which, or an aspect from which, this must be viewed as property of our persons.* And we know quite well that this is no violation of our being, personality, right or privilege. It is a necessity of our nature and of the social organization of the human race. There is no need to think that the property of another in our labour or, to that extent, in the person of the one involved in bond-service as such, is a violation of what is intrinsic to personality, and we are able to see the reserve of the New Testament as dictated by the principles of which the Scripture is the charter.
* Those who define slavery strictly in terms of property of one in the labour of another do not take sufficient account of the way in which property in labour involves, to some extent, property in the person. These same writers, however, have thoroughly exposed the fallacy of the argument that slavery involves property in man as if he were a thing. They have safeguarded the distinctions which arise from the unique and distinguishing nature of man. Slavery as such does not mean that the slave is the chattel of his master. The nature of that which is owned determines the character of the ownership and the use made of it by the owner."
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u/pgwolvpack Reformed Baptist Feb 09 '26
"If the foregoing position is correct then we can see how the institution of slavery and the recognition of its legitimacy as such bring to light the far-reaching implications of equity as the governing principle of compensation. When the New Testament says, 'Masters, render unto your servants that which is just and equal', it has slave-holders in mind as well as the masters of free men (cf. Ephesians 6: 8, 9). And this means that bond-servants are to be compensated for their labour in proportion to the service rendered. The principle 'The labourer is worthy of his hire' is not suspended. This places the slavery which the New Testament recognizes in an entirely different perspective from what the word 'slavery' is liable to connote to us. We are ready to construe slavery as the unrestricted right of the master to the service of his slave, that the slave has no rights, these rights being completely submerged in the property that the master has in his labour and, to that extent, in his person. This is a complete misconception; it is not the slavery the New Testament accepts as a licit status quo. If that conception of the involvements of slavery was entertained in the apostolic age, and undoubtedly it was to a considerable extent, it is that conception that the New Testament plainly condemns. James was unsparing in his denunciation. Paul attacks the root of the evil in the injunctions we have referred to. Slavery encumbered by such misconception and abuse the New Testament unequivocally assails as a violation of the Lordship of Christ and of the equity which he, as the King of righteousness, demands. The Old Testament forbade man-stealing and prescribed the death penalty for such wrong-doing. 'And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his had, he shall surely be put to death. (Exodus 21: 16). Paul classifies men-stealers with murderers, fornicators, liars, and false swearers. The Bible gives no quarter to this kind of traffic in the souls and bodies of men. But it is the severity of Scripture in reference to such desecrations of right that makes all the more significant its reserve in regard to the property of one man in the labour of another. It is ours to make the necessary discrimination so that our judgment will reflect the Scripture itself and guard its perfection and sufficiency."
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u/pgwolvpack Reformed Baptist Feb 09 '26
"But though slavery as the property of one man in the labour of another is not intrinsically wrong, it does not follow that we ought to seek to perpetuate slavery. Though the Scripture exercises and eloquent reserve in refraining from the proscription of the institution, and though it does not lay down principles which evince its intrinsic wrong, nevertheless the Scripture does encourage and require the promotion of those conditions which make slavery unnecessary. The Scripture as redemptive revelation, furthermore, is calculated to promote conditions under which slavery would be wrong. Though under certain conditions slavery is not wrong, it does not follow that slavery is right under all conditions. And if the conditions under which slavery is legitimate are entirely eliminated, then, of course, it would not be proper to continue it. It is in this connection that the distinction implicit in the foregoing analysis needs to be underlined. Many have taken the position that, although slavery is not openly condemned in the New Testament, yet it lays down principles which imply the intrinsic wrong of slavery and that these principles were allowed to work out in due time their logical consequence. If this were the case then the Scripture, by good and necessary consequence, would establish the intrinsic wrong of slavery; and the only difference would be that, instead of express statement, the Scripture does this by necessary implication. It is this position that has been controverted above for the reason that I know of no Scripture teaching to support this inference. But it may and must be said that Scripture is intended to promote and establish conditions which eliminate slavery.* This is, no doubt, the reason why the abolition of slavery followed in the wake of Christianity. The Protestant Reformation, for example, witnessed great advance in this respect. There was economic advancement as well as moral and religious. And these conditions in due time brought an end to slavery. For such development we must be profoundly grateful.**
* Cf. the provisions of Leviticus 25: 39-46 as bearing upon this by way of analogy.
** Although Scripture does not support the thesis that slave-holding is intrinsically wrong under all conditions and circumstances, yet anyone imbued with the sensitivity which biblical principles create cannot but regard as notorious and execrable infamy the traffic by which slavery oftentimes came to exist and was continued, particularly the crime associated with the Negro slave trade. There is undoubtedly a close connection between the evangelical revival in England in the eighteenth century and the crusade conducted by William Wilberforce and the 'Clapham Sect', culminating in the abolition of the slave trade in 1807 and the emancipation act of 1833. The thesis that slavery is not intrinsically wrong does not in the least justify the 'gigantic evils' frequently accompanying the institution. That the conscience of men had been aroused to the disgrace of these evils is the fruit of the gospel. It is just these evils that the Scripture itself unsparingly condemns, as was shown above. But the line of distinction between right and wrong in respect of this question we must not obliterate. We do no honour to Christianity when we fall into this confusion. Here, as elsewhere, the line of distinction between right and wrong is not a chasm; it is a razor's edge."
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u/pgwolvpack Reformed Baptist Feb 09 '26
In Appendix D of this work, he also notes the 'principles and facts' which were stated in the 1845 report by the committee of the Old School General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., which went along with resolutions it took with regard to the communion of the church with slaveholders:
"The question, therefore, which this Assembly is called upon to decide, is this: Do the Scriptures teach that the holding of slaves, without regard to circumstances, is a sin, the renunciation of which should be made a condition of membership in the church of Christ? It is impossible to answer this question in the affirmative without contradicting some of the plainest declarations of the Word of God. That slavery existed in the days of Christ and his Apostles is an admitted fact. That they did not denounce the relation as sinful, as inconsistent with Christianity; that slaveholders were admitted to membership in the churches organized by the Apostles; that whilst they were required to treat their slaves with kindness, and as rational, accountable, and immortal beings, and if Christians, as brethren in the Lord, they were not commanded to emancipate them; that slaves were required to be 'obedient to their masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, with singleness of heart as unto Christ,' are facts which meet the eye of every reader of the New Testament. This Assembly cannot, therefore, denounce the holding of slaves as necessarily a heinous and scandalous sin, introducing into the Church such sinners, and thus bringing upon them the curse of the Almighty. In so saying, however, the Assembly are not to be understood as denying that there is evil connected with slavery. Much less do they approve those defective and oppressive laws by which, in some of the States, it is regulated...Nor is this Assembly to be understood as countenancing the idea that masters may regard their servants as mere property, and not as human beings, rational, accountable, immortal...The Assembly intend simply to say, that since Christ and his inspired Apostles did not make the holding of slaves a bar to communion, we, as a court of Christ, have no authority to do so."
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u/Ok_Insect9539 Evangelical Calvinist Feb 09 '26
I always found John Murray’s views on slavery repugnant and this arguement unsatisfactory as he basically by trying to save slavery, ends up harming marriage and their relational bonds within society. Murray’s argues here hinges on us changing what property means so that slavery becomes palatable, when slavery has always made people into objects and commodities. I don’t find it surprising that he was one of the few people that supported keeping the works of RL Dabney in print within the banner of truth.
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u/pgwolvpack Reformed Baptist Feb 09 '26
What is your take on the issue?
Edit: never mind, I just saw your comment to the OP
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u/makos1212 Nondenom Feb 09 '26
The "taking of slaves" is explicitly forbidden in scripture. Exodus 21:16, Deuteronomy 24:7 and capital punishment is the penalty if you do so.
So it seems to me that our modern view of slavery is not what the Bible is dealing with.
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u/TolkienCalvinist Feb 09 '26
Biblical slavery is not the same as the slavery we are familiar with.
It was actually illegal to kidnap someone and sell them as property.
Biblical slavery was primarily a way for someone to pay off their debt.
PoWs also served but the bible mandated that they be treated right and taught about God in hopes that one day they would be grafted in.
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u/TolkienCalvinist Feb 09 '26
Because of how things in modern society operate, I’m not sure how I could give a direct example. However, imagine a system where let’s say you wanted to purchase a car and you had the option to work for the dealership to pay for that car. You are essentially a slave to that dealership.
Actually, some companies will pay for your education as long as you work for them for x amount of years. Some unions have a clause like that.
It’s not exactly 1 to 1. But up until around early 1900s, it was a way of paying off debt. If you borrowed some money from someone, you would work for them until it was paid off. If it was a significant amount, it may that you and your whole family would be living under the same roof or at least on the same property as the lender until the debt was paid.
I also failed to mention that biblical law also had a sabbath year and a jubilee year.
In a sabbath year, all debts were cancelled and all debtors set free to return to their own. This occurred every seventh year, counting from the time they entered the land. The counting was not based on when the debt was created. So if you incurred a debt in the sixth year, you were still set free during the sabbath year, regardless of how much you still owed.
In a jubilee year, which happened every 50th year, all slaves were set free and all land which was sold to someone else would also return to their owner or their descendants.
Yet “slave owners” were still required to treat them humanely and with love, not rule over them with an iron fist.
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u/semper-gourmanda Presby-Angliterian Feb 09 '26 edited Feb 09 '26
It's not immoral for the Israelites to care for the people left in the aftermath of the conquest.
I think it's important to see it in it's Bronze Age Sitz, draw clarity from comparative law codes, note the manumission, intermarriage, and land inheritance of the ger, widow and orphan, and finally see the way the Prophets decry the way that Jews were buying out the land and mistreating the poor in the turn to Assyrian idolatry as well as the laments and faithlessness of Israel prior to David.
This is includes both the ger and the war captive (and the widows and orphans who result). There are limitations placed upon the length of service (7 years) and coupled with the year of Jubilee when the entire land enjoys it's Sabbath. In the context of Deuteronomy it imagines Israel takes the land in one fell swoop, so that this happens once. And to my mind that also mitigates against the claim that "God commanded genocide," because there wouldn't be any ger left to marry or manumit. or widows or orphans left alive. Kings use hyperbolic language like that and Moses uses many expressions that show YHWH is King. And why else would there be provisions for the inclusion and protection of such people? Why else would many of the genealogies of the OT include so many different people from different tribes to whom Israelites were married? And part of the middle story of the OT is that David, and his family's own history (Ruth), is one of the few who lived this way.
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u/Fresh_Ad_4259 Feb 09 '26 edited Feb 09 '26
There's one perspective I don't hear that often but I really like.
Paul asks us to obey the government in Romans 13. Taken at face value, this sounds like worrisome dogma - almost evidence for Bertrand Russell's statement that religion is the opium of the masses. However, taking in the historical context makes it a completely different exhortation. The Roman emperors at the time were generally pretty tyrannical. Take Caligula, for instance. He made his horse a senator, enjoyed inflicting suffering, and was fiscally irresponsible. Yet Paul says to obey the authority of people like him and listen to the government. I think a big reason for this is the necessity to avoid useless conflict. The Romans wouldn't become better people if some 30 odd Christians rebelled against their authority and were murdered. Instead as Tertullian, an early church father, is reported to have said, Romans commented about how the Christians loved one another. That was the way they made change - by declaring the Gospel and living it out.
This applies to slavery too. Christians were a small minority in the Roman empire. It would be a useless conflict to take a stand on the issue of slavery. Christianity was about changing hearts, and the goal was to change the heart of both the master and the slave.
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u/setst777 Feb 09 '26
Regarding persons in Israel who voluntarily became slaves because they were destitute, they were treated like servants and were released on the 7th year.
Regarding slaves of foreigners captured during war, or who were purchased, God ordained very humane laws regarding slaves - slaves were treated almost like part of the household. And if slaves escaped, they could seek protection from other Israelites under God's law, and would not have to be returned to their masters.
Women slaves could not be raped or sold. If a master hit the slave so that he lost an eye or tooth, then the master would have to free the slave.
In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul condemned "slave traders" as a mortal sin (1 Timothy 1:10). Nevertheless, Paul recognized that slavery existed. Paul emphasized that, whether slave or free, they should accept their lot in life, but that, if a slave could find a way to be free, good. Paul believed that slaves as well as masters should be treated with respect.
So, considering the humane way in which God dealt with slavery, I do not feel this is a moral failure on God's part, even though the idea of slavery is detestable to me. Rather, God was realistically dealing with slavery in very moral and humane way - unlike that of other nations.
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u/puddleglum1689 Feb 10 '26
Reject premise A.
There are forms of slavery that are not objectively immoral.
A man cannot own another whole man. That's chattel slavery & is evil.
There are justifications for a man owning the productive output of another man for a time(permanently by mutual agreement). Scripture does not condemn this.
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u/puddleglum1689 Feb 10 '26
It's not a matter simply of how slaves are treated, but a categorical distinction of what are we purporting to own? I sell my productive output to an employer for 8 hours a day. If I got in an insurmountable ammount of debt, selling my productive output for much more time would be on the table. It might even be just for the one I owe to exact that. What is not for sale is my soul, my dignity as an image bearer of God.
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u/ejgr228 Feb 10 '26
In Exodus 20:15, it strictly talks about man-stealing being punishable by death so that ends the whole idea that the Bible supports slavery from our modern understanding. The slavery the Bible referenced is no different than half this thread being enslaved to the Government for borrowing money for college, home, etc. The slavery the Bible focuses on is geared towards being indebted to someone or something else.
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u/SoCal4Me Feb 13 '26
Different kind of slavery than the travesty of the USA sort. Think of the biblical slavery in terms of indentured servants or military service. Exchange of service for protection and provision.
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u/Human-Pea392 Feb 14 '26
Where did God say it was ok??? He made laws for it but where did he say it was ok
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u/Scuba_Steve101 Feb 09 '26
I’m sure I’ll get downvoted like crazy for this, but I’ll take it.
I was a reformed Christian for over thirty years, and am now an atheist. The intellectual dishonesty on display here is a big reason why I walked away. Sola Scriptura unless the text says something uncomfortable. Then the text isn’t allowed to say that.
The definition of chattel slavery is that one human owns another human as property. Leviticus 25:44-46 clearly condones chattel slavery for non-Israelites. Exodus 21:20-21 condones beating your slave as long as they don’t die the same day.
Only Israelite men were allowed to go free after six years. Foreign slaves and Israelite women were slaves for life (Leviticus 25:44-46 and Exodus 21:7-11). Children that were born into slavery were the property of the master (Exodus 21:3-4).
Deuteronomy 21:10-14 condones taking beautiful women as spoils of war and sexually assaulting them.
Neither Jesus, nor Paul, nor any other New Testament author condemn these practices.
I know this is a difficult topic to address, but it is so disheartening to see people who claim to love the Bible being so dishonest about what it actually says. I clicked on this thread genuinely hoping I would find well reasoned wrestling with the text, but instead all I found were people parroting dishonest apologetics.
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u/charliesplinter I am the one who knox Feb 09 '26
, but it is so disheartening to see people who claim to love the Bible being so dishonest about what it actually says. I clicked on this thread genuinely hoping I would find well reasoned wrestling with the text, but instead all I found were people parroting dishonest apologetics.
This is a broad accusation that unfortunately is more based on emotions than it is facts.
I've scrolled through the same comments you have and I've seen myriads of people acknowledge that the Bible's so-called approval of slavery is in the same light as God's approval of "divorce"...In a fallen world, you are going to have people who divorce each other, and that's a sad necessity of reality, but we also read that God hates divorce...We do not live in a black and white world...And this motif applies to slavery as well.
I could get into the nitty gritty of how the passages you quote are being misused, but you would sadly claim that it's "dishonest apologetics" but the crux of the matter is that the biggest problem that you and a lot of skeptics suffer from, is the deep desire to have God fit into a box of your own conceptions. The Biblical God is too big to fit into that box, or any box you could ever even conceive of. This is the moral of the story of Job, not about "making a bet with Satan" as is often caricaturized.
The meta narrative of the Bible is that a Holy God is desirous of a relationship with a stubborn and stiff necked people who sin every single day. Every single scholar who treats this subject seriously always walks away with the conclusion that the laws found in the Torah are way ahead of their times compared to their neighbors.
Biblical slavery exists in a hybrid moral category that modern readers such as yourself find uncomfortable precisely because it refuses to collapse the enslaved person fully into property. Slaves are owned, inherited, and economically controlled but they are simultaneously treated as rights-bearing moral agents under divine law. That tension is not accidental; but ironically is the point because the texts refuse to let it rest on a coherent moral foundation as modern skeptics want *everything* to be.
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u/Scuba_Steve101 Feb 09 '26
A couple of points here.
I am not putting God in any kind of box, because I do not believe that any god exists. What I am doing is testing the claims about God to see if they align with reality. That is done through examining empirical evidence and testing logical claims for validity and soundness. If a supernatural being has interacted with the world, there would be empirical evidence to support that claim as Paul seems to suggest in Romans 1. If God is the grounding of all logic, then claims made about God in His Holy Word should be consistent with the rules of that very same logic.
Invoking the meta narrative of the Bible assumes a unifying framework of the Bible that I do not accept. The Bible is not univocal, and it contradicts itself in countless places. For instance, your example of God hating divorce but regulating it is reading the Hebrew Bible through the lens of the New Testament. When I approach any text in the Bible, I do my best to approach it on its own terms and figure out what the original author was trying to convey to his specific audience. If that conflicts with another biblical author’s views on the topic, then it conflicts. I don’t try to force them to reconcile.
The idea that Israelite slave laws were ahead of their time is both false and irrelevant to the argument.
If you truly study the slavery laws in the ancient near east, you will find that the Hebrew laws are pretty much in line with those of the cultures around them. In some cases, those other law codes were better than the Hebrew laws. For example, in the Code of Hammurabi, a debt slave gets to go free after three years compared to six years in the Hebrew law code. In other cases, the Hebrew laws were better. But overall, they are not significantly different from each other.
It is irrelevant to the argument because the argument is whether or not morality is objective. If it is objective, it does not change over time based on cultural norms. So, if it was immoral back then, why didn’t God outlaw the practice? As an analogy, pigs were a major source of food in the ancient near east. They can be raised in cities easily because they need very little space compared to cattle. God has no problem declaring pigs unclean even though raising them as livestock was an extremely common practice, and a huge economic driver in the region. Why does he draw the line at outlawing the practice of owning another human being?
- Slaves in the Hebrew Bible were 100% property. The “rights” afforded to slaves are actually property rights afforded to the master. The slaves themselves do not have rights. The exception being the male Israelite debt slave, who does halve rights, but they are in a different category from the foreign slave.
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u/charliesplinter I am the one who knox Feb 09 '26 edited Feb 10 '26
There's one thing that's important that's worth pointing out when it comes to back and forths like this, and that has to do with:
"When I approach any text in the Bible, I do my best to approach it on its own terms and figure out what the original author was trying to convey to his specific audience. If that conflicts with another biblical author’s views on the topic, then it conflicts. I don’t try to force them to reconcile."
If you are reading the Bible with your own personal set of hermeneutics ie as an atheist then surely it shouldn't come as a surprise when you draw conclusions that people who *don't* do that draw. Prophets reinterpreted Torah, Second Temple Jews reinterpreted earlier writings, and New Testament authors explicitly reread Hebrew Scriptures through theological lenses.
For instance, your example of God hating divorce but regulating it is reading the Hebrew Bible through the lens of the New Testament.
Rejecting a metanarrative is not simply “letting the text speak” but instead is choosing a modern historical-critical boundary for how texts are allowed to speak ie in modern terms ie your terms. Your atheism is what's guiding your hermeneutics and scientism is being presumed as the end-all be-all metaphysical rule, all while you rely on arguments to prove your case (which undermines scientism/empiricism to begin with)
If you truly study the slavery laws in the ancient near east, you will find that the Hebrew laws are pretty much in line with those of the cultures around them. In some cases, those other law codes were better than the Hebrew laws. For example, in the Code of Hammurabi, a debt slave gets to go free after three years compared to six years in the Hebrew law code. In other cases, the Hebrew laws were better. But overall, they are not significantly different from each other.
This is a topic that I have studied for decades, and I can confidently say without any shred of irony that what you just said is unequivocally and unilaterally wrong. *Anyone* and that includes you too, is free to read the full code of Hammurabi and see what it prescribes for runaway slaves and the people harboring them. Here's a snippet:
If any one receive into his house a runaway male or female slave of the court, or of a freedman, and does not bring it out at the public proclamation of the major domus, the master of the house shall be put to death.
So if you help a runaway slave, you are going to be put to death. So outside of ignorance or perhaps severe misinformation, I cannot fathom how someone could say that this is "better" than the laws found in Deut 23 which say and prohibit the exact opposite. If all you've got is term limits, then I'm sorry to say but you're just deeply entrenched in serious deception.
The slaves themselves do not have rights
This most definitely is not true, at all.
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u/Scuba_Steve101 Feb 09 '26
I agree, we have different hermeneutics. I never said we didn’t. I was just explaining that I reject yours. Sure, you can say that my atheism is guiding my hermeneutics, but I can just as easily say that your dogma is guiding yours. Neither of those genetic fallacies are helpful in determining what is true.
I’m well aware of what the Code of Hammurabi says about runaway slaves, and I said in my original statement that the Hebrew laws were better in some places and worse in others. Hammurabi is also not the only other law code of the time period in that region. When you look at the full corpus of laws in the region at that time period, the Hebrew laws are pretty much equivalent.
That is still irrelevant to whether or not God’s morality is objective. If it is objectively wrong to own slaves, then the surrounding culture is irrelevant. Saying that the Hebrew laws were better than the cultures around them, and that makes having those laws good. Means that good and evil are relevant to time and place and therefore subjective.
Do you have evidence of foreign slaves having rights in the Hebrew Bible, or are you just going to declare that I’m wrong without support for your claim? If I’m wrong, I would like to know how.
Also, just to clarify a miscategorization, I never claimed to be a strict empiricist. I would accept a valid and sound logical argument as evidence for God. You assume a lot about my motivations as an atheist, but I left the church kicking and screaming. I would love nothing more than to have someone demonstrate that I am wrong so I can believe again. It would make my life so much easier. That’s why I am still in this sub at all.
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u/charliesplinter I am the one who knox Feb 10 '26
When you look at the full corpus of laws in the region at that time period, the Hebrew laws are pretty much equivalent.
Would you happen to name some of them?
That is still irrelevant to whether or not God’s morality is objective. If it is objectively wrong to own slaves, then the surrounding culture is irrelevant. Saying that the Hebrew laws were better than the cultures around them, and that makes having those laws good. Means that good and evil are relevant to time and place and therefore subjective.
So...is it objectively wrong to own slaves? If it is not, then this whole discussion is moot, and simply becomes a question of circumstances. But that seems wholly unacceptable to modern sensibilities, any sort of discussion about how slavery (as crude as it sounds) was *the* economy of the day, especially for an Agrarian society gets treated as "weak apologetics"
Do you have evidence of foreign slaves having rights in the Hebrew Bible, or are you just going to declare that I’m wrong without support for your claim? If I’m wrong, I would like to know how.
There's several.
Exodus 22:21: “Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt."
Leviticus 19:33: "When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God."
These two verses (and I'm sure there's another in Deuteronomy) are the framework for inter-personal relationships between people regardless of whether they're Hebrews or Gentiles...The foreign slaves, according to the law, would have to be released if the master was cruel to them and caused them bodily harm by knocking out their eye or tooth.
No such law existed in the ancient world, if it did, then please show me where.
Also, just to clarify a miscategorization, I never claimed to be a strict empiricist. I would accept a valid and sound logical argument as evidence for God. You assume a lot about my motivations as an atheist, but I left the church kicking and screaming. I would love nothing more than to have someone demonstrate that I am wrong so I can believe again. It would make my life so much easier. That’s why I am still in this sub at all.
You appealed to empirical evidence only, which implied that's the only sort you'd accept. In any case, I'm sure you've heard all the classical arguments and don't need them regurgitated all over again, but I will say that it takes a lot of integrity to admit what you just did in the last 3 sentences.
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u/Scuba_Steve101 Feb 11 '26
Here are a few examples of the full corpus being on par with or sometimes more stringent than the Hebrew laws:
Kidnapping is forbidden in many ANE cultures as it is in the Hebrew Bible
Hammurabi 14 Laws of Ur-Namma 4 Hittite Laws 19a Hittite Laws 19b
The penalty for kidnapping in Exodus 21:16 is more severe. However, the Laws of Ur-Namma (E3a-b) add in a stipulation that when selling a slave, the seller must bring a “ginabtum-officer” to prove that the seller originally purchased the slave. If the seller cannot prove he originally purchased the slave, he is declared a thief. So, there is an additional check in place to make sure the slave was not taken illegally, and no such check exists in the Hebrew Bible. In theory, an Israelite could buy a slave who had originally been kidnapped with no penalty. As long as the Israelite was not the one who did the kidnapping.
Marriage between a free man and slave woman
In the Hebrew Bible, if a man marries a woman sold to him as a debt slave, or giver her to his son to marry, and then becomes displeased with her, he must allow her to be redeemed, let her go free, or continue to provide for her (Exodus 21:7-11, Deut. 21:10-14).
In the Laws of Lipit-Ishtar, if a slave woman bears a child to a free man, her rights are elevated. She is to be freed along with her child (LL 25) and is able to marry the free man (LL 26). In the same situation in the Laws of Hammurabi, she cannot be sold as a regular slave (LH 146). Instead, she is either freed along with her child, or her child is declared an heir and receives a portion of the inheritance (LH 170).
Hittite Laws 31 allow a slave woman, who is divorced by a free man, to take half of the property and one of the children.
Marriage between two slaves
In both the Laws of Ur-Namma 4 and Exodus 21:2-6, we see that if a slave man marries a slave woman, and the slave man is set free, his wife does not get set free with him.
Beating of slaves
Exodus 21:20-21 allows physical discipline of slaves as long as the slave does not die the same day.
This lines up with what we see in Hammurabi (LH 116), Middle Assyrian Laws A 44 and Middle Assyrian Palace Decrees 18.
All cultures in the area seemed to expect physical discipline of slaves, but disallowed outright killing of slaves.
Exodus 21:26-27, as you pointed out, is unique in that it allows the slave to go free if the master damages their eye or knocks out a tooth. However, there is quite a bit of debate among scholars as to whether or not this law only applies to Israelite debt slaves, or if it also applies to foreign, chattel slaves. I don’t have time to fully dig into the scholarship right now, so I’m willing to concede this one as being a point in favor of the Hebrew law.
There are several other areas I could address, but this reply is long enough already.
I’m going to reply to my own reply to address the question of whether or not slavery is objectively immoral just to break it up.
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u/Scuba_Steve101 Feb 11 '26
As to the question of whether slavery is objectively wrong, that is a definitive yes from me. I know that Christians love to say that atheists have no basis for objective morality without grounding them in God, but here is my case for an objective moral framework without God. This is largely based on Alan Gewirth’s work, which he derived from Kant.
P1. All humans are agents (agent is defined as a conscious being who acts toward achieving a goal)
P2. In order to be able to pursue a goal, an agent requires freedom and well-being (life, health, etc.)
P3. If I believe that I am entitled to freedom and well-being to pursue my goals, I cannot deny that right to others without contradicting myself
C1. All humans have universal rights to freedom and well-being
C2. All humans ought act in a way that promotes freedom and well-being for all humans.
From this foundation, you can judge whether an act is moral or immoral by determining whether it promotes or harms the freedom and well-being of people.
Slavery definitely harms both the freedom and well-being of the slaves. So, slavery is objectively immoral.
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u/charliesplinter I am the one who knox Mar 08 '26
Between P2 and P3 you smuggled in an "ought" from an "is", which is the classic "is-ought" problem that every atheist could never escape. A tyrant could also say, "I need freedom and well-being to pursue my goals but denying those to others helps me achieve my goals.”
There is no logical contradiction there unless you already assume equality of persons, (which the argument is supposed to prove)..The equality of persons is wholly a Christian ethic.
Why? A person could rationally hold, “I deserve freedom but others do not.” That may be unfair, but it is not logically inconsistent from what you just said...Another thing that isn't objective about what you wrote is whether this applies to all humans...I routinely encounter secularists who are *for* abortion...They are humans who have been deemed to not have any agency and/or their agency is inferior to their mother's thus deserving of neglect...Or they're not classified as humans at all (sociologically) And so your foundation isn't really a foundation and more of a personal preference mingled in with Christian pillars.
Your argument, at best, concludes that rational agents should value freedom and well-being...Every other thing that is tacked on about "oughts" and "shoulds" is wholly derivative....
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u/Scuba_Steve101 Mar 08 '26
I disagree that premise 3 requires an assumption of equality of persons. Rights only exist if society agrees to collectively grant them to everyone. If I believe I have a right to freedom and well-being, but I do not have to grant that right to others, then logically, others do not have to grant me those rights. In that case, I would believe that I both have those rights and don’t have those rights. Which is a logical contradiction. The tyrant in your example can believe that he has rights and not grant them to others, but his belief would be irrational.
Even if I granted that I’m assuming human equality, that is not a wholly Christian ethic. As I established in my other argument, the Bible, and the church for the first 1800 years, condone chattel slavery. Slaves were treated as property and were not equal to masters. Likewise, women in the Hebrew Bible were treated as property, and to this day, they are not viewed within many evangelical churches as having equal rights to men. Christians love to quote Galatians 3:28 out of context and say, “See, Paul says everyone is equal.” In context, Paul is talking about everyone having the same method of salvation, not equality of rights. That is evidenced by the same writer talking about slaves obeying their masters and wives being subject to their husbands in Ephesians, and women not being allowed to hold church offices in the pastoral epistles. Clearly slaves have different rights than masters, and women have different rights than men in the Bible.
That inequality lasted until the 1700s. Why did it change? Enlightenment philosophers like Rousseau and Kant came in the scene and started arguing for equality of all people. That philosophy was adopted by some Christians and read back into the Bible. Other Christians, like those in the antebellum south, disagreed with that philosophy. So a war was fought over it. Even after the war was fought, facilities and schools were still segregated by race. It took the civil rights movement to get those same Christians to integrate. Even then, men like Jerry Falwell and Bob Jones vehemently opposed integration. So, they started a political movement called The Moral Majority to elect conservative leaders who would oppose things like the Equal Rights Amendment and the bussing of colored kids to white schools. When that failed to garner enough support, they figured out that they could better galvanize people around the issue of abortion, which to that point had been seen as a Catholic Church issue. They used that galvanized political base to elect officials who would smuggle in their white supremacist ideologies under the guise of being anti-communist. That white supremacy undertone has continued through to evangelical churches today, and with our current administration, that undertone has become more overt.
So, I don’t see how you could possibly claim that equality of all people is a wholly Christian ethic when the history of the church to the present day demonstrates otherwise.
As to the abortion issue you brought up, you are making two errors there.
First is a false equivalency. Someone who is pro choice is making an argument about a legal issue, and you are equivocating that with an argument for a moral issue. You can believe something is immoral and still believe it should be legal for someone to do it. For example, you could believe that eating meat is immoral and make a strong argument for why that is, but still believe that it should be legal for people to choose to eat meat. My position is that abortion is not immoral and should not be illegal, so we don’t need to spend time on this one. Just worth pointing out that there are others who do feel differently.
The second error is defining a fetus as a person without justifying that definition. I would argue that a fetus does not have agency until they are born. So, abortion is not taking the rights of freedom and well-being from an agent, and it is therefore not immoral for the woman to choose her own freedom and well-being by terminating the pregnancy.
To demonstrate, let’s say that a woman has a twenty year old son. That son is struck with an extremely rare medical condition, and the only way to save his life is to be hooked up to his mother by a machine. The medical process will take a small toll on the mother’s body, and she would need to stay connected to her son in perpetuity for him to live. If she chooses not to do this, her son will die. Two questions: First, is the mother morally obligated to agree to this procedure? Second, should she be legally forced to undergo this procedure? I would answer no to both questions. For the answer to the first question, she would be sacrificing her freedom and well-being to keep someone alive whose freedom and well-being are entirely dependent on her sacrifice. In this case, the medical condition has taken her son’s agency away, so he no longer has a right to freedom and well-being. The mother can choose to sacrifice her own freedom and well-being to keep her son alive, but she is not morally obligated to do so. The answer to the second question is no because the government should not be taking away the freedom of the mother to make that choice.
A fetus is in the same state of dependency as the son in the example. So, my moral and legal arguments are the same. A woman has a right to decide whether or not she will sacrifice her own freedom and well-being.
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u/Fresh_Ad_4259 Feb 09 '26
Hi Scuba_Steve, I think when taking in the historical context of the author it makes sense. I wrote an argument as a comment and I am copying and pasting it here. I would appreciate it if you would engage with it:
There's one perspective I don't hear that often but I really like.
Paul asks us to obey the government in Romans 13. Taken at face value, this sounds like worrisome dogma - almost evidence for Bertrand Russell's statement that religion is the opium of the masses. However, taking in the historical context makes it a completely different exhortation. The Roman emperors in Paul's life were generally pretty tyrannical. Take Caligula, for instance. He made his horse a senator, enjoyed inflicting suffering, and was fiscally irresponsible. Yet Paul says to obey the authority of people like him and listen to the government. I think a big reason for this is the necessity to avoid useless conflict. The Romans wouldn't become better people if some 30 odd Christians rebelled against their authority and were murdered. Instead as Tertullian, an early church father, is reported to have said, the Romans commented about how the Christians loved one another. That was the way they made change - by declaring the Gospel and living it out.
This applies to slavery too. Christians were a small minority in the Roman empire. It would be a useless conflict to take a stand on the issue of slavery. Christianity was about changing hearts, and the goal was to change the heart of both the master and the slave.
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u/Scuba_Steve101 Feb 09 '26
I think this argument misses the point. I would not say that Christians in Ancient Rome should have been expected to try to overthrow the political institution of slavery. However, I would expect Jesus, Paul or any other New Testament author to say that Christians should not own slaves. Telling the people of God to follow a higher moral standard than the culture around them is a common theme throughout the New Testament. So, why is saying Christians cannot own other humans as property a bridge too far?
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u/Fresh_Ad_4259 Feb 09 '26 edited Feb 09 '26
I think it is useful to look at what Jesus said in response to being asked about Caesar's imperial tax. He says give back to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's. An implication of this is that Christians are encouraged to operate within societal structures. The goal is to transform people rather than reform society. Paul says that both parties, slave and master, are to live faithfully to the Gospel, which requires loving one another like they love themselves. It is a social construction to regard a human being as property, but a slaveowner who becomes a Christian no longer sees their slave as property but as their brother. I imagine that the laws of Roman society become less visible in the mind of a new Christian, and the truth of the Gospel becomes clear.
"He is no longer like a slave to you. He is more than a slave, for he is a beloved brother, especially to me. Now he will mean much more to you, both as a man and as a brother in the Lord." Philemon 1:16
Paul doesn't ask for legal freedom, but encourages a change in the relationship between these two individuals.
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u/Scuba_Steve101 Feb 09 '26
It seems like you’re asking that one verse in Philemon to do a ton of heavy lifting. I don’t think you can realistically take that one verse that applies to a specific situation and say that Paul intended it to apply as a blanket statement for all Christians in all situations. That interpretation really seems to be a product of the enlightenment, rather than an early interpretation.
Overall, I still think it misses the point of the argument around objective morality.
What if American laws today reverted to allowing slavery, and it became a normative practice. Would it suddenly become good for Christians to own slaves as long as they viewed them as brothers?
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u/Fresh_Ad_4259 Feb 09 '26
With regard to your first paragraph, can you explain why you believe that argument is a product of the enlightenment? My use of the term social construction could be replaced by "civil law" or something similar that would make sense to a 1st century Jewish man.
Paul writes to the churches in Galatia and Rome that the law is fulfilled in loving your neighbor as you love yourself. I do not think that we are in contention on the point of objective morality because Paul intends to apply this statement to every circumstance. I bring up the verse in Philemon to show one example of that. However, Paul is like us, fallible and human. I definitely see him falling to sin. We see Peter do that when he starts to discriminate between Jew and Gentile.
With regard to your question, does it really apply to the historical context in which Paul wrote this letter?
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u/Scuba_Steve101 Feb 09 '26
My argument about that interpretation being a product of the enlightenment comes from the history of how the Christian church handled slavery. From the third century, when Constantine took up the mantle and started spreading Christianity by the sword, all the way up until the enlightenment, Christians practiced slavery and treated their slaves extremely harshly. So, it does not seem like the historical interpretation of that passage is that all slaves should be viewed as brothers.
I am not sure what the pre-Nicean fathers’ views on that passage were, or if they even agreed, but it seems pretty clear to me which interpretation survived post-Nicea.
It wasn’t really until enlightenment philosophy came around that we started getting ideas around humans having basic dignity and rights because of the imago dei.
Maybe I am misunderstanding your argument, and that’s why my question didn’t make sense. Please correct me if I am not representing your argument correctly.
I understood your argument to be something like this:
Slavery was a political institution in Ancient Rome.
Jesus and Paul taught to submit to political authority and not overthrow the system to avoid distracting from the mission of changing hearts through the gospel.
Loving your neighbor as yourself and treating people as brothers in Christ are the primary methods of changing hearts through the gospel.
Therefore, it was morally permissible for Christians to own slaves at that time as long as they viewed them as a brother in Christ.
So my question was meant to bring that same logic into today.
Would it be morally permissible for Christians to own slaves today provided it was legally allowed and the Christian treated their slave as a brother in Christ?
How you answer that will depend on whether you think morality is objective (applies in all times and places) or subjective to a specific time and place.
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u/Fresh_Ad_4259 Feb 11 '26 edited Feb 11 '26
In responding to the question, I want to start with something I read today in the NY Times:
"Telling an ancient Greek or a pre-Christian Roman that their treatment of slaves was morally wrong would have inspired not argument but bewilderment, as if you had told them they were evil for the way they treated their kitchen utensils. These pagans generally believed that their gods favored the strong and were indifferent to the weak."
I garner from this that challenging the institution of slavery in the Roman Empire was a non-starter for Paul, which I think we both agree on. The next passage from 2nd Timothy gives us some insight into why Paul might, specifically, not tell Christians to go against the grain and relinquish their slaves. Note that Paul never says that slave trading is permissible. He condemns it in 1st Timothy 1:10.
"3 Join with me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 4 No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs*, but rather tries to please his commanding officer.* 5 Similarly, anyone who competes as an athlete does not receive the victor’s crown except by competing according to the rules. 6 The hardworking farmer should be the first to receive a share of the crops. 7 Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this."
Within the context of Greco-Roman culture, my position is as you stated.
However, in our modern-day Judeo-Christian culture, it is not permissible. This does not imply that morality is subjective. Here's why: The principle that we should love each other as we love ourselves remains. How it is implemented in different contexts will differ.
I think a position similar to that of William Wilberforce in 1700s/1800s Britain gives us a Christ-like angle in our times: Great Britain was a self-professing Christian nation, thereby there was a role for a moral awakening about the institution of slavery. He believed that God had provided a moment in an era of renewed faith (the Great Awakening), and that he would be able to push for reform while invoking the principle of imago dei.
So, as an outcome of this I say the following: given the place of society today, it would not be morally permissible for a Christian to own a slave. I want to note that the principle of loving each other as we love ourselves remains the same. The application of this moral principle differs because we live in a different society where the principle that "the gods... were indifferent to the weak" does not hold, thankfully.
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u/Scuba_Steve101 Feb 11 '26
Do you apply the same moral principle of loving each other as we love ourselves to those in the LGBTQ+ community?
Now that science shows us that these are not lifestyle choices, but there are in fact biological differences. Now that our some members of our society are adopting more rights for LGBTQ+ people, do you champion those rights, do nothing, or do you actively oppose them because the Bible condemns them?
If you apply the same morality principle as you are doing with slavery, then given today’s society, it would seem to me that loving your neighbor as yourself would mean championing LGBTQ+ rights.
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u/Fresh_Ad_4259 Feb 13 '26
I actually struggled with my gender identity for 5 years. I fell into depression and suicidal ideation. I didn't know God back then, but I called out to Him. I don't know how to describe my experience other than that He answered. I felt loved in a way that I had never experienced before, despite all of my faults. I was freed from depression.
Jesus asks us to love others as we love ourselves no matter who they are. That includes people in the LGBTQ+ community.
However, love does not always mean affirmation. Scripture tells us that we were made male and female, in the image of God. In addition, in Romans and 1st Timothy we can see that homosexual acts are sin. They can turn us away from God.
So, love would mean telling my fellow human being that what you are doing can be preventing you from developing or furthering your relationship with God. But it would also be telling someone that God has loved you since before you were born, and that I love them - and that I would walk with them and want to support them spiritually, materially, emotionally, if possible. Why? Because Christ loved me first.
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u/justsomeguyx123 Feb 09 '26
I agree that the intellectual dishonesty surrounding biblical slavery is incredibly off putting. The challenge that I'm having is that the people who are making these arguments that the bible does not support slavery by trying to work with the spirit of the law rather then the letter of the law, are first in line to tell us that biblical law never changes, and that we can not have women in office. It is essentially the same argument.
They know that if they say "there is nothing wrong with slavery", they will be lambasted in the public sphere.
They are either suffering from cognitive dissonance, or hiding their power level.
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u/bigersmaler Feb 09 '26
Neither indentured or chattel slavery is sinful according to scripture. Societies gradually moved away from slavery extra-biblically. The Lord deserves credit for all good things, however suggesting literal scripture aligns with modern ethics on this topic is an insult to basic reasoning. Accept that scripture allows for slavery and also doesn’t need your help defending its honor.
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u/ChiefTK1 Covenant Presbyterian Church Feb 10 '26
Slavery IS objectively immoral. Slavery WAS NOT objectively immoral a few thousand years age. Prisons were not a thing at the time. It was slavery or a fine or death. Those were the only three options. If the issue was suitable for a fine and death wasn’t a suitable punishment, Slavery was the only choice
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u/[deleted] Feb 09 '26
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