Welcome to the Thomistic Institute podcast. Every talk on this podcast was originally delivered at an in-person event for university students, perhaps for one of our Tamistic Institute chapters on a university campus or at a Tamistic Institute retreat or conference. These lectures and events are happening around the country and around the globe all the time.

To learn more, visit us at www.comisticinstitute.org and sign up for our email list.

We'll keep you posted about what's happening next.

And finally, please subscribe to this podcast, and don't forget to like and share these recordings with your friends

because it matters what you think.

Wrath and love, do the Old and New Testaments have the same God.

The issue that we're addressing, the image of a harsh, wrathful God in the Old Testament,

presents a challenge for those seeking to understand the biblical God, especially in a culture like ours that tends to see God as a big

celestial smiley face. How can a big smiley face in heaven be wrathful, unhinged, an inciter of violence,

etc.? The former must give way to the latter.

Even stronger is the challenge presented by the so-called new atheists who point to the

Old Testament in order to disparage belief in the biblical God and as evidence that God does not

exist.

And they do not mince words. One notable among them, Richard Dawkins, calls God

a moral monster, as well as a child abuser, a malevolent bully, and a warmonger who gives commands

for ethnic cleansing and bloodthirsty massacres with xenophobic relish.

Further, he is petty, a control freak and vindictive.

Strong words, to be sure.

I should also note that while issues with the God of wrath of the Old Testament are in a sense

quintessentially modern, they're at the same time

as ancient as the church itself. There was an ancient heresy known as Marseonism that held

that the harsh God of wrath and of strict justice of the Old Testament and the God of mercy

...