Bad Theology

Text for today: II Chronicles 7 xii-xxii

After the completion and dedication of the temple at Jerusalem, God appears to King Solomon during the night and promises always to forgive His chosen people, as long as they grovel whenever He reminds them of His fatherly benevolence with drought, locusts or plague. God also tells Solomon that He will protect his throne as long as he remains obedient, and warns him against the grave sins of tolerance and open-mindedness.

God orders Solomon to emulate his father David in obedience to His statutes. This is of course disingenuous, since David was a serial law-breaker, committing the sins of adultery, murder by proxy of a virtuous dupe, and blatant enumeration. On this pretext God promised David that his dynasty would never be free of violence.

The fruit of David's union with Bathsheba was, of course, Solomon himself. Hence Solomon's future sins, the pretext for God's renewed vindictiveness towards His people, had already been predetermined by God's rage against David, if not by His unalterable Will since the beginning of time. In warning Solomon against the sins which He has predestined the king to commit, and in leading the king to believe that the sins of his father will not be visited on future generations, God deliberately lies to the man who has just built Him a gold-padded bunker and sacrificed to Him one hundred and forty-two thousand animals.