At June 16, 2026, 2:07 p.m. Bleed_For_Love said: For me I do not really understand why God killed a lot more people in the Old Testament while in the New Testament he healed. In fact in the Old Testament He has wiped out entire nations I'm pretty sure and some people have been pointing out this "inconsistency". We know God to be infinite and unchanging and way beyond comprehension, but how can this be explained?

At June 17, 2026, 10:10 a.m. Real_The_Founder said: I will explain this to the best of my ability, but if you want a fuller answer, you should check out many Catholic Apologists that do talk about this, like just to name a few Trent Horn, Joe Heschmeyer, Patrick Madrid, and others like them. Now for the answer: Across the Old Testament, some cases in which entire nations were wiped out were probably one of these three: one, God's righteous judgement cleansing the world; two, it was in hyperbolic language; or three, it was really the Israelites on their own who did most of the killing. For case number one, God did enact his righteous judgement on entire nations, but only because they were unwilling to repent, unwilling to change their ways from evil to virtue, and unwilling to cooperate with God. This could be seen with the people before Noah's Ark: every single human (except Noah and his family) always had an inclination towards evil and sin. In a sense, every human became a partaker of the evil satanic nature. Evil was so widespread during that time, that in order to preserve the goodness of Creation, God needed to cleanse the world with a huge flood. Even so, he gave them some 40-80 years to come to repentance from their evil ways before the huge flood, but humans did not take the way out. That's case one. Case two is that when we read accounts of God commanding the Israelites to wipe out entire nations, it's hyperbolic language. The Ancient Jews loved hyperbolic language, and even Jesus used hyperbolic language, as anyone who has read the Sermon on the Mount can tell you. So when we read of God in the OT commanding Israel to wipe out entire nations such as in Deuteronomy or Joshua, they are more than likely using hyperbolic language. The goal for the Israelites is to get into the Promised land, not to exterminate entire populations. So, only a little bit of people had to be removed in order for Israel to come to the Promised Land. Plus, these people were not innocent, they were evil and practiced evil and believed in the goodness of evil. This way of thinking is not to be tolerated. And finally for the third case, that it was probably the Israelites who did most of the killing on their own. Recall the books of 1 and 2 Sammuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and Judges. Was most of the blood shed there commanded directly from the mouth of God, or only in God's name? There is a difference. When you are commanded by God himself to do something, you will do it, for God himself spoke to you. But if you do it on God's name without being assured that God himself wants you to do it, then you are probably not doing God's will, but your will. We are assured that God wants us to do something when it is revealed in the Scriptures, the Lives of the Saints, the teachings of the Saints, or even in very extraordinary cases which are extremely rare, when he appears to us or speaks to us in a way that it is clear that it is from God. Some of these mass killings were not commanded directly from God, but only done in God's name. There have been millions killed in Jesus' name, but in Jesus' own life, he commanded Peter to put down his sword and allow himself to proceed with the Passion. This topic is for another time. But yes, this is the answer I have come up with after praying to the Spirit, and remembering the Scriptures. I hope this helps!

At June 17, 2026, 10:16 a.m. Real_The_Founder said: And give God the glory and thank God if this has helped you!

At June 17, 2026, 10:29 a.m. Bleed_For_Love said: Yes, will do!