A simple question for theists

[Catholic_Lady]

It's because you don't understand. 

As a person who believes in God, I cannot separate Him from reality or from morality. Because I believe He created both. I believe He created this world in such a way that directly killing an innocent person goes against Natural Law. Meaning it goes against the way our world works, because that is how God created our world to work. Thus we have an inherent understanding that directly killing an innocent person is wrong. 

That is what I believe about God. If God told me to kill an innocent person, I would think "well, obviously everything I thought I knew about God is completely wrong, and this entity who is speaking to me is not the God that I thought I was worshiping." If that happened, literally nothing would be what I thought it was. And so I would stick to the only thing I know for sure - myself and my own instincts. My instincts tell me that I shouldn't kill innocent people, and so I would follow that.  

As for Abraham, remember that God did't actually have Abraham kill his son, but was merely testing him. Furthermore, I personally find it hard to believe that story actually happened in the literal way it was written. Was there a highly religious Jewish man named Abraham who had a son? I believe so. But did the story happen exactly the way it was written? Did God's voice sound from the sky and tell Abraham to kill his son, and then tell him not to? My guess would be no. Perhaps the way it was written was allegorically to show that this man, Abraham, was tested by God in some way during his life. But not necessarily that things happened literally as they are written in this Old Testament story. I can't speak for all Christians, but as a Catholic, I am free to take a literal or allegorical approach to the Old Testament stories. I tend to lean to the latter. 

Lastly, Christianity is defined by the New Testament. The gospels, the teachings of Christ, etc. Christ clearly taught us that killing is wrong. And if you're Catholic, the main authority is the Church, not the bible. The Church teaches that the direct killing of an innocent person is a very serious sin that goes against God. That's what I believe.

What you are essentially expressing here is that you do not trust God if he tells you to do something you feel is wrong. Isn't that contradictory to your belief that God is the perfect moral standard for everything? If you claim that God is just "testing" you, how would you be sure that's the case?

Apart from that, I generally find your answer quite insightful.

Again, I trust the God that I believe is real. The God that is Himself goodness and love, and who created morality through establishing Natural Law in this world.

IF God wanted me to kill an innocent person, I would know that this is not the God that I thought existed and that I worship and that I trust. And for reasons I explained above, nothing would make sense to me at that point. It wouldn't simply be God wanting me to kill someone. It would be "Holy crap, everything I thought I knew about the world and about reality has been turned on its head!"

It's much deeper and more complicated than you're giving us credit for.