Is God Morally Evil? What Scripture Says About His Justice

Editor’s note – Skeptics like to frame God’s judgments in Scripture as proof of a petty, vindictive deity, and that charge deserves a real answer rather than a shrug. In this piece, the author walks through several of the Bible’s hardest judgment scenes – a king humbled to madness, a ruler struck down, a couple who lied to the Holy Spirit – and asks whether the label “morally evil” actually holds up. She traces a consistent pattern: judgment tied to pride, and mercy always available. It’s important to recognize that how we understand God’s justice shapes how we understand His mercy.

Introduction

What is moral evil? According to Wikipedia, “Moral evil is any negative event, pain, or suffering caused by the intentional actions, choices, or negligent inaction of a moral agent, such as a human being.” Atheists, such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris, think that God is morally evil by labeling Him as a “malevolent bully”, a “cosmic dictator”, and “morally unworthy of worship”. They believe He deserves those titles because they see Him as controlling, cruel, and unreasonable after reading about His divine judgments in Scripture. But is God really spiteful and abusive, and does He actually delight in executing judgment for sin? This article will examine these accusations about God to see if they are accurate and justified.

Background

The Bible doesn’t minimize or sanitize human sin, and it also doesn’t soften God’s actions to administer justice. It faithfully and accurately records human acts of pride, betrayal, greed, violence, and rebellion, and vividly illustrates the sometimes horrifying consequences of these rebellious acts against God.

A King Humbled

In the image below, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon (605 BC to 562 BC) is on his hands and knees, crawling around in a pasture eating grass with the other animals. His story in the Old Testament shows the consequences of extreme pride. God had given him wealth, military success, and ultimate authority over vast lands. However, instead of giving glory to God for His blessings upon him, he looked over his magnificent estate and boasted that he had built it himself, by his own power and for his own glory and majesty (Daniel 4:28-30).

God had warned this King earlier to turn away from pride and show mercy to his people, but he didn’t. As a result of his continued pride, God caused him to lose his sanity, drove him away from society, and had him live among animals for seven years. Was this arbitrary cruelty on God’s part? No! It was God executing justice for the king’s people by disciplining the king fully and completely. God’s intent was to lead the king to recognize reality: the reality that God rules over every human kingdom and grants power and authority to whomever He chooses (Daniel 2:21). The discipline worked, and the king’s sanity was restored when he finally acknowledged the supremacy of God and His righteous justice.

Editor’s note – Nebuchadnezzar’s seven years among the animals is one of Scripture’s strangest judgments, and also one of its clearest mercies. God didn’t destroy a proud king; He humbled him until he could see straight again. That’s worth remembering whenever we’re tempted to think discipline and love are opposites.

A King Struck Down

In the New Testament, we see King Herod Agrippa, the powerful and brutal ruler of Judea, Samaria, Galilee, and surrounding areas, meet a horrifying end because he accepted glory from representatives from Tyre and Sidon that belonged only to God. These men were trying to win the King’s favor and praised his speech as being the voice of a god rather than a mere man. Instead of correcting them, King Herod accepted their praise. As a result of the king’s idolatry of accepting exaltation that rightfully belongs only to God, God sent an angel to strike him down immediately. Scripture says he was eaten by worms and died (Acts 12:21-23).

So was God’s judgment on King Herod Agrippa unnecessarily cruel and excessive? Absolutely not! It was executed as the righteous consequences of the king’s egregious actions and behavior. This king had James, the brother of the apostle John, killed with a sword. He also threw the apostle Peter into prison with the intent of killing him after the Passover. He accepted divine honor and refused to give glory to the Creator. His pride told him that he was answerable to no one, but Scripture reveals that every human breath, ability, position, and opportunity is a gift and blessing from God.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. [James 1:17]

Fatal Results for Lying to God

Acts 5:1-11 in the New Testament was written during the early, foundational period of the church, right after the resurrection. The setting in this account is Jerusalem, where the apostles and early believers were sharing all they had with each other after the apostle Peter urged everyone to give what they could. Ananias and Sapphira were included in this group, and they decided to sell some of their property and donate the proceeds to the cause. However, Ananias lied to Peter when he said that he gave all the money from the sale of his land. Peter knew he had kept some of the money for himself and confronted him, saying he had actually lied to the Holy Spirit.

At that point, Ananias fell dead, and later so did his wife, after she lied to Peter about the amount she and her husband received from the sale of their property. Why did they do this? Were they trying to impress the group that they were exceptionally spiritual with their extravagant giving? The underlying sin was their greed, but their pride was also their downfall.

These serious punishments were due to the contempt and deceit of the perpetrators. It was a rare, public act of divine judgment during the foundational period of the church. It showed the early Christian community that God is holy, and He won’t stand for contempt of His commandments. It showed them that His grace must never be treated as a cover for deceit. If not called out, the people could have deduced that they could get away with pretending and hiding their sin. By confronting and judging these sins, God showed that He always knows people’s hearts. He calls people to be truthful, repent of their sin, and demonstrate sincere faith.

Editor’s note – Ananias and Sapphira didn’t die for giving too little; they died for pretending. The early church needed to learn, at its very founding, that God cannot be managed with a performance of faith. That lesson hasn’t expired.

Judgment Against Pride

There are other Biblical accounts of God’s extraordinary judgments befalling people due to their serious sin and rebellion against Him. In Numbers 16:31-33 in the Old Testament, we read about Korah’s rebellion, where Korah and other important Israelite men challenged Moses and Aaron and rejected their authority. They actually were rejecting God’s authority because God had appointed Moses and Aaron to lead Israel during that period. These prideful, arrogant, self-exalting rebels were, in essence, saying that Moses and Aaron shouldn’t be exalted above the rest of Israel and that they should determine what was true and right. Moses wisely went to the Lord and asked Him to make the judgment clear. The Lord didn’t hesitate to answer Moses’ prayer. Immediately, He opened the ground beneath the chief rebels’ feet, causing them and their households to fall into the hole and be killed. The rest of the rebels were killed by fire, and they all ended up in Sheol (the place of both the righteous and unrighteous dead).

Was God’s punishment of these rebels too harsh? Not when you consider how many times the Bible has warned people about the dangers of spiritual pride (Proverbs 11:2, Proverbs 16:18, and James 4:6). Prideful people resist God’s Word, resent His authority, and hate the fact that they are accountable to Him. God rejects this pride that tries to treat His authority as negotiable. Because God is Creator, and because of all that He’s done for us, our proper response to Him should be humble gratitude, remorse over sin, repentance, and worship, not self-exaltation.

In 2 Samuel 6 is the account of Uzzah, the Ark of the Covenant, and the oxcart. This incident is a tragic reminder that people cannot treat God’s holiness casually. The setting is when King David was bringing the Ark back to Jerusalem. The Ark represented God’s covenant presence with His people, and explicit instructions were given on how it was to be handled. First of all, King David put the Ark on a new cart, which wasn’t in the instructions. Next, Uzzah irreverently touched the Ark to steady it when one of the oxen stumbled, and immediately, he fell dead. He had touched what God had definitively declared holy and forbidden for anyone to touch, ever. Only the Kohathites, a specific clan of Levite priests, were allowed to transport the Ark of the Covenant.

Was God being unpredictable and excessively cruel in this account? No, it teaches us that God’s holiness is sacred, and it’s never to be treated casually even if a person’s intentions are practical and sincere. Israel’s failure wasn’t due only to the action of Uzzah; it was also due to the people’s failure to observe all that God had commanded regarding the Ark of the Covenant. The mercy seat on the cover of the Ark was the place where God was enthroned, demonstrating His presence with the Israelites.

Editor’s note – Uzzah’s death unsettles modern readers because his instinct looked so reasonable – steady the Ark, keep it from falling. But God had already told Israel how the Ark was to be carried, and reasonable disobedience is still disobedience. Good intentions don’t rewrite God’s instructions.

Conclusion

These accounts aren’t meant to shock us or make us feel morally superior to those who fell and experienced the consequences of their actions. The people in these accounts seriously offended God by indulging in pride, rebellion, hypocrisy, betrayal, and careless worship. All sin is an offense against God’s justice and separates us from Him. It also damages those around us. These accounts impress upon us that God is holy and takes sin seriously.

Yes, the Bible warns people of the certainty that judgment for evil will be executed. However, it also announces the love and genuine mercy of God through His Son. He guarantees forgiveness and eternal life to all who repent and come to Him through Jesus Christ.

In these sober accounts, God isn’t trying to cause believers to fear approaching Him. His intent is to make us realize the importance of humility, repentance, and trust in Christ. Through Christ, Christians can confidently come to God because Jesus is the perfect High Priest and final sacrifice for sin. We must never presume that we can come to God on our own righteousness. Our confidence depends entirely on Christ’s mercy and righteousness.

So contrary to popular belief of some atheists, God doesn’t delight in the destruction of sinners; He calls them to turn from sin and live. The heart of the gospel is that Christ bore the penalty and judgment that sin requires so that repentant sinners may be forgiven, cleansed, and reconciled to God.

Therefore, since we are receiving an unshakable kingdom, let us be filled with gratitude, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe. "For our God is a consuming fire." [Hebrews 12:28-29]

For I take no pleasure in anyone's death, declares the Lord GOD. So repent and live! [Ezekiel 18:32]

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. [1 John 1:9]

A Word from the Editor
None of these accounts exist to make us feel superior to Nebuchadnezzar, Herod, or Uzzah – they exist to show us that sin against a holy God has always been serious, and that His patience has never meant indifference. The same Bible that records these judgments also records the cross, where Jesus absorbed the judgment sinners deserved so that repentant sinners could be forgiven instead. “For our God is a consuming fire” is not the whole story; so is “So repent and live!” Both are true, and the second is only possible because of the first. That is the God this article defends – just, holy, and astonishingly merciful. Having said that, there still remains the underlying question of the beginning of evil, from Lucifer to Satan.

Editor Comment: Thank you for showing that God's judgments in Scripture flow from His holiness, not cruelty, and that even His harshest discipline calls people to repentance and grace. You move through Nebuchadnezzar, Herod, Ananias and Sapphira, and Uzzah, and each account builds toward the same conclusion: mercy through Christ for those who repent.

This article appeared on Medium and is reprinted with modifications and by permission.