With Georgia Right to Life’s (GRTL) annual Georgia Stand for Life right around the corner (Jan. 24), now is a good time to brush up on your Personhood apologetics while making plans to attend the event.
Every year, there are pro-aborts who attend a local or national Stand/March for Life just to record pro-lifers struggling to answer the “gotcha questions” they throw at them. These shorts usually paint pro-life advocates in a bad light as uninformed Christians who can’t explain or defend what they believe. However, Christians have an obligation to be “all things to all people” (1 Corinthians 9:22) and “be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope” (1 Peter 3:15).
Is God Pro-Life?
Two questions that made headway on social media in 2022 were, “Is God pro-life?” and the related question, “Is the Bible pro-life?”
The answer that probably comes to mind is “of course!” And that is where the pro-abort “gotcha” moment arises. If God is pro-life, why did he wipe out most of humanity with the Flood? Surely there were pregnant women at that time, and God killed them all, right?
What is “Pro-Life?”
Before hastily answering “of course God is pro-life!” it is first important to define pro-life.
Being pro-life is broader than just anti-abortion.
Pro-life is not against all killing, which is an intentional act of the will to end a life. Many pro-lifers recognize that the state has legitimate authority to end culpable human life, through capital punishment, for heinous crimes like murder (Genesis 9:6).
So, before engaging with a pro-abort wielding a camera, it is essential to define pro-life in the context of Personhood to avoid the pitfalls that may arise in a conversation with someone attempting to delegitimize your beliefs.
Personhood
There is wisdom in GRTL’s definition of pro-life as synonymous with pro-Personhood. Personhood acknowledges the scriptural truth that all human life, within the womb or without, has dignity because all have been created in the image of God (Imago Dei) and therefore must be safeguarded.
Personhood entails advocating for the preborn person and the person with disabilities, the elderly person being pressured to end his life through euthanasia, and the comatose patient whose very life is threatened by the medical ten-day rule. This is what it means to be fully pro-life.
Responding to the Problem of the Flood
After establishing what being pro-life means in light of Personhood, perhaps the camera-toting pro-abort still brings up the Biblical Flood. Now, the response to this question, “what about the Flood,” becomes very simple.
God is Master over life and death (1 Samuel 2:6).
God alone, as Creator and Author of Life, has the authority to take away human life. We are kept alive through the will of God, and we each die according to His will, whether it be of old age or in a flood. Taking away life is reserved to God’s will alone. Pro-life Christians are against taking the life of other innocent humans because they believe that humans do not have that right.
Joshua and the Slaughter of the Canaanites
Another seeming Biblical contradiction to the Bible being pro-life is the conquering of the Canaanites in the book of Joshua. God commanded the Israelites to kill the inhabitants of the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 20:16-17). Since there must have been some innocent people in Canaan, even if only the young children, how can the Christian justify this slaughter? If humans ought not take innocent human life, at least this story must be contrary to the Christian assertion that God is pro-life…
…or so the pro-abort would say.
The easiest line of defense is the same as with the Flood: God is Master over life and death. God explicitly commanded the Israelites to kill people, thus making them His instruments to carry out His will toward their lives and deaths. Never in Scripture, or in the history of the world, did God command a mother to murder her innocent child, so equating these two situations is entirely unfounded.
This is also a more nuanced answer, if you are speaking to someone more open-minded. While the Christian maintains that God commanded the Israelites to kill the Canaanites, there is room in interpretation to consider whether or not they followed God’s word to the letter.
A prime example comes in the case of King David. On many occasions, God commanded David to kill people. However, David was barred from building God’s temple, and the reason for this was revealed in 1 Chronicles 22:8: “You have shed much blood, and you have waged great wars. You may not build a house for my name, because you have shed too much blood upon the earth in my sight.”
So, David, the greatest King of the Jews before Christ, “shed too much blood,” though presumably he initially followed God’s will. Men are fallen, even Biblical men. Perhaps there were moments when the earlier Israelites went overboard too. Biblical stories about fallen men who sometimes err does not negate Biblical principles that life is sacred as demonstrated in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17), in the saving of baby Moses from infanticide (Exodus 1:22-2:10), and even in the nativity story (Luke 1:44), among other places.
Lastly, the killing of the Canaanites can also be read on a spiritual level. Just as Joshua so vigorously drove the pagans from the Promised Land, so too must the Christian vigorously drive out sin from his soul and refuse to compromise with the Evil One.
This is a lesson for the pro-life movement at large. No, we should not go out and kill our enemies. We are in a different situation than Joshua! But, we should fight vigorously against the evil forces that attack the Imago Dei, and we must refuse to compromise until all human life is protected. That much God does command. Never forget Christ’s warning in Matthew 25:45: “Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.”
Sources:
The Holy Bible, RSVCE
https://thoughtfulcatholic.com/on-violence-in-the-old-testament/
Rachel Krause
Georgia Right to Life
Newsletter Coordinator