Mike Stallard — Blog — Dr. Tim White

God’s command to kill the Canaanites in the book of Joshua, modern-day Jihad, and Just War Theory are related. Here is a question fielded by William Lane Craig:

I have heard you justify Old Testament violence on the basis that God had used the Israelite army to judge the Canaanites and their elimination by Israelites is morally right as they were obeying God’s command (it would be wrong it they did not obey God in eliminating the Canaanites). This resembles a bit on how Muslims define morality and justify the violence of Muhammad and other morally questionable actions (Muslims define morality as doing the will of God). Do you see any difference between your justification of OT violence and Islamic justification of Muhammad and violent verses of the Quran? Is the violence and morally questionable actions and verses of the Quran, a good argument while talking to Muslims?

Craig provides a more accurate contrast between the Old Testament Holy War and modern-day Islamic jihad.

Theological Method answers the question, “How do you do theology?”

This post will utilize the type of systematic theology described by Erickson, in his chapter “The Method of Theology” where Erickson discusses “the process of doing theology.”[1] That process generally moves from exegesis to biblical theology to systematic theology.[2] After discussing biblical theology, Erickson added that he places historical theology after biblical theology: “While the utilization of history may take place at any one of several stages in the methodological process, this seems to be a particularly appropriate point.”[3] Erickson instructed that the process of doing theology is to move from exegesis to biblical theology to historical theology to systemic theology.