Failed to Death: If God Refused to Intervene During the School Shooting, Then Why Should the Police?

*This post is a personal op-ed by its author and does not necessarily reflect the beliefs of the GCRR Board of Directors or its Affiliates . . . though it probably should. Just sayin'.

19 little children . . . 19 elementary school kids and 2 teachers. MURDERED! By someone who shouldn't have been allowed to possess a weapon of mass destruction in the first place. What's worse: the local police in Uvalde, Texas did not act with any courage or competence to stop the shooter in time. The cops retreated to safety while boys and girls were gunned down just so they could sit tight and wait for the carnage to end.

And what's the answer we are repeatedly told by the gun lobbyists?

The only thing to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

Well, I happen to know a "good guy" with abilities even more powerful than a gun: GOD. And he refused to intervene to stop the mass shooting. So why would we expect anything different from the police or anyone else?

God and Mass Shootings: A Case for Misotheism

Misotheists argue there exist certain situations that demand an intervention by any agent available because of a prerequisite belief in the sanctity and quality of life. Had it not been for GOD refusing to intervene, those little children could have lived a full and healthy quality of life. This prerequisite principle is the empirical basis for every ethical system today, concluding that the lives of children are inherently valuable and warrant protection as an end unto itself. Indeed, agents cannot act morally toward a dead person, making the intrinsic value of life a precondition for its own sake. Hence, ethical agents have a duty to preserve each other’s right to life.

Significantly, misotheism does not insist that GOD should intervene in every human rights violation, social injustice, or instance of extreme suffering, but misotheists do insist that GOD is morally obligated to intervene in some circumstances, such as the mass shooting that took place at Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022. This insistence is because those cases are of such an acute degree above routine human misery that the shocking display of cruelty meted out on innocent children demands an immediate intervention by any agent available. Nonintervention is simply not an option because the need is far too great. If an ethical agent can prevent vulnerable children from being killed, then that agent has a responsibility to do so unless demonstratable evidence shows that such help would result in morally worse conditions. And many apologists would likely concede that it is difficult (if not impossible) to prove that failure to intervene in these mass school shootings would result in worse conditions. As such, if an agent possesses the knowledge, authority, means, safety, and opportunity to stop children from being gunned down, then that agent is morally obligated to intervene in all conceivable situations of a similar nature.

Is God Really the Answer to America's Gun Problem?

If we were to listen to ultra-conservative pundits, the problem is not easy access to guns. The problem is that people have forsaken GOD and have welcomed the devil into their lives.

But I'm not so sure that GOD is the moral example we ought to be emulating. According to misotheism, for an ethical agent to refuse intervention, despite having no prohibitions or constraints, is egregiously unethical. The wrongness of nonintervention is demonstrated using Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative, which identifies whether a decision is immoral based on the consequences of universalizing its precedent. The Categorical Imperative asks how an ethical agent’s inaction would shape society if it were emulated. When universalized, an agent’s refusal to act would translate to the principle, “No person should intervene to stop a child from being shot to death.” From a consequentialist perspective, the repercussions would be quite deplorable. In terms of virtue ethics, the question is whether society would be ethical if people were to refuse intervening on behalf of vulnerable children.

Furthermore, Kant’s reversibility (or “Golden Rule”) criterion establishes that nonintervention is immoral by simply asking whether individuals would promote inaction if they (or their children) were the ones being shot to death. If staunch defenders of GOD’s ethical character were being murdered (or knew of their own kids being murdered), would they not want GOD to intervene? Would they not praise GOD if he came to their aid?

“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing”

It is apparent that in mass school shootings, “to intervene” is morally superior than “not to intervene,” even for a deity. For example, GOD intervening would be in his own self-interest since it would manifest his glory, love, integrity, and value for the sanctity of life, thereby eliciting more worship and praise from theists. Refusing to intervene on behalf of vulnerable children, on the other hand, demonstrates a lack of respect and concern for their welfare, as well as fosters suspicion and distrust in the deity’s claim to be loving and compassionate. Moreover, choosing to intervene would be in the best interest of everybody else since it would increase the longevity and well-being of the victims, in addition to providing opportunities for the future creation of happiness, excellence, and harmony in the lives of everyone involved. Not intervening guarantees the exact opposite for the children and further increases pain and suffering for others.

Indeed, choosing intervention would not only produce beneficial consequences, but it would help minimize the negative aspects of these criminal acts while maximizing happiness for the greatest number of people. From a social-functionalist viewpoint, ethics should not be selfish or short-sighted but, instead, ought to promote actions that better society and generate long-term benefits. It should go without saying that everyone would benefit if no child was ever shot to death ever again; thus, it is in everyone’s best self-interest for ethical agents to prevent mass shootings wherever and whenever possible. In the case of Uvalde, Texas, there was no obvious downside to GOD intervening. He just chose not to.

What of Free Will?

The argument here is not that GOD was causally obligated to intervene as if he created the wicked circumstances in the first place, although a case could be made elsewhere for that very assertion (cf. 1 Sam. 18:10; 2 Thess. 2:11‒12). What misotheists argue is that GOD had a moral obligation to intervene precisely because he met the sufficient conditions of intervention (by possessing the knowledge, authority, means, safety, and opportunity to stop the murders) when no one else was willing or able to act. The victims had a reasonable expectation of care for their wellbeing by any moral agent available. Indeed, agents of good moral conscience should agree that people have a responsibility to care for children in crisis.

GOD is still assumed to be smart enough, powerful enough, capable enough, and loving enough to stop horrific acts of child murder. At no point is GOD asked too much of himself to intervene since he is a total Sovereign with infinitely more resources, intellectual competencies, opportunities, and potentialities for making any circumstance work in his (and everyone’s) favor. Certainly, GOD would not be sacrificing something of comparable moral importance because abstract (and perhaps unscientific) notions of free will, eschatology, and teleology are not more important than an innocent child’s life.

Besides, for many religious traditions, GOD has already unilaterally intervened (or sent his angels and human emissaries to intervene) in far less horrific circumstances on behalf of far less needy people in the past. As such, it is not presumptuous, or an example of inverted theology, to expect GOD to intervene in far more extreme cases of human cruelty. An innovative and ingenious GOD could even figure out a way to stop children from being tortured without affecting the free will of others (cf. Ps. 33:10–11; Prov. 19:21). After all, even humans are capable of such ingenuity themselves. Nothing should be unrealistically too demanding for GOD (cf. Eph. 1:11); and even if it were laborious for him to intervene, some actions are still obligatory for those with the sufficient responsibility and capacity to act. As soon as GOD knew that no human was going to help, he should have taken it upon himself to demonstrate compassion through intervention.

Divine Nonexemption

It is no more unreasonable or unreflective to expect a positive response from GOD than it is to expect positive actions from any other ethical agent. It is simply the right action to do regardless of whether the agent is natural or supernatural. Indeed, when discussing ethics, there is an assumed universal imperative that applies to GOD and humanity equally: all moral agents are morally obligated to help others in need (cf. Luke 10:25‒37; 16:19‒25). Misotheists view certain crises, like mass shootings, as having the “highest degree of incumbency,” meaning no weightier moral duty, exemption, or exception should override the duty to stop a child from being shot to death. Saying that GOD is exempt from these same moral obligations, or that GOD’s divine status somehow makes him immune from moral scrutiny, merely engages in special pleading.

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To claim otherwise is to demand that humans follow moral principles while failing to apply those same rules to GOD without satisfactory evidence to support such an exception. Apologists have no other reason to exempt their deity other than a personal interest in dogmatically asserting GOD’s absolute goodness. It is neither self-evident nor logical to conclude that a being, by virtue of being divine, is therefore a species-specific class of exemption.

Should Cops Intervene in Mass Shootings?

Kind of a silly question, right? But for some apologists, the weightier moral duty is to preserve the free will of the perpetrators involved, though these same apologists also often believe that GOD has intervened in the past (and thwarted people’s free will in the process). However, if for God preserving free will is morally superior to stopping the torture and murder of children, then (in accordance with the principle of consistency) it would be equally superior for humans to refuse intervening, as well. Herein lies another contradiction. Apologists often argue that since GOD is truly “good,” then his refusal to help those children must have been an act of divine goodness. Indeed, GOD would be morally obligated not to intervene if it meant adding more goodness to the universe. By claiming that GOD’s inaction is somehow morally superior, theists are saying that more real-world good exists in the universe because GOD let those children be shot to death than what would have been the case if GOD had stopped their murder. The problem is immediately apparent. If nonintervention is a moral good, then the police ought to defy the parable of the Good Samaritan more often by hoping for (and praising) GOD’s continued nonintervention in other cases of mass shootings. In fact, it would be humanity’s moral obligation to increase the total good in the universe by allowing more children to be murdered since GOD’s refusal to intercede is supposedly the morally superior choice to make.

Based on this logic, people should murder more children so as to provide GOD more opportunities for nonintervention, thereby elevating more goodness in the universe. If people do intervene to stop a child from being murdered in cases where GOD would have refused, then they would be making a lesser moral choice. This contradiction is akin to the so-called “reformer’s dilemma” in that theists quite possibly act against the will and moral judgment of GOD whenever they help someone in need. If it is morally wrong for GOD to do something, then it would be equally wrong for his creation to act, as well. The reverse is also true. If it is morally necessary for humans to intervene on behalf of vulnerable children, then it would be morally necessary for GOD to intervene, also.

Theology of Apathy

Claiming that GOD simply allowed evildoers to act of their own accord (but did not directly cause their behavior) is actually evidence in favor of misotheism because it indicates that GOD gives tacit approval for mass shootings. The theological concept is “concursus,” which states that GOD provides the continuing divine support for all secondary human actions (whether those actions are free, contingent, or necessary). In order for people to shoot children to death, GOD must still be in accord with those actions because all contingent creatures depend upon GOD for their very existence. During these acts of child murder, the self-subsistent being of GOD is directly and immanently involved in those acts (immediatio suppositi) as he lends the effective and operative power necessary for his creation to carry out their crimes against children (immediatio virtutis). GOD willfully sustained the actions of those shooters as they continued their rampage.

Theologians argue that these grotesque murders are done kata synchōrēsin (κατὰ συγχώρησιν), by permission, of the permissive will of GOD in order for him to effect his opus alienum (“alien work”) in and through human cruelty. Here, GOD’s alien work purposely defies goodness and justice, but it is done for the sake of his penultimate purposes. Allowing children to be murdered is an act of GOD’s providence whereby he supports human actions and then directs them toward an ordained end. For misotheists, the prolonged torture and murder of little children is far too gratuitous and, thus, unnecessary for a wise Sovereign to need (or passively accept) from his contingent creatures. GOD has merely subordinated clear moral principles to facilitate Machiavellian ends. The innocent children were shot to death, and GOD deliberately refused to stop the mass shooting when he could have chosen otherwise.

Misotheism believes that if GOD exists, then humanity has a reasonable expectation for him to behave at least as morally conscientious as his own creation. A deity who is not moral enough to intercede on behalf of vulnerable children is not a deity worth worshipping.