Approaching the Abyss

Please Pray!

2009-04-04T00:00:00.002-04:00

Unfortunately, as is completely obvious I have not had time for another post for months! My preaching and my teaching schedule have just made it impossible to post.

That being said, my schedule, hopefully, will get even busier. I've applied to do a research PhD at St. John's University. If my abstract is accepted, I'll be doing a research PhD there.

Please pray that it is!

Jason

When You Arrive...

2008-09-21T22:16:00.004-04:00

Not an especially theological theme today—although there is plenty to be theological about. Still not quite done with Stricken by God? yet, but I finished Brita Miko’s chapter the other day and read it again. Even though her’s is a narrative approach and dramatic, I was moved by the way she wrestles with the call for us to forgive as Christ does. I think, for me, it speaks in this way: when I move to a theological position, part of the struggle is understanding and accepting the practical ramifications of the position. And the non-violent love and forgiveness of God is packed with practical application.

I guess tonight I feel a little more devotional and personal. Miko’s chapter realized in me my own struggle with forgiveness. Basically her point is if the point of the cross is forgiveness, then Christ’s call to pick up our crosses means he is truly showing us how to live (forgiving as we’re crucified) as Christians. In her essay she wrestles with God’s offering forgiveness to a serial killer in her town.

I’ve been preaching (I have to admit, some of my best work) through Matthew and focusing on the profound counter-cultural, counter-political, even counter-ethical impact of Jesus’ life. My point has been that Jesus life and teaching is a critique of the world’s ways of doing things and EVERYTHING he does challenges EVERYTHING we already think. Inherent in that is a call to love, forgive, and refrain from judgment as Christ did and does. On a daily basis, I’m getting there. But I’m realizing just how much I’ve struggled with the events of my recent past.

Let me put it this way…the other day my closest friend called and asked how I was doing. I told him our church is doing well, we’re growing, we’ve improved financially (drastically), and we’re moving into a bigger location. They’re open to my preaching and I’m free to explore the Bible the way I read it. I don’t know where I’d find this kind of freedom in the pulpit anywhere in the area we moved from. I couldn’t ask for a better situation.

Furthermore, I told him I’m doing some adjunct teaching and it looks like it’s only going to open into more. I’m doing Old Testament Survey and have developed the course into an online course, so I’ll be doing the hybrid AND online Old Testament Survey course. This November I’ll do Old Testament Survey AND Life of Christ (I’m excited about that one) and I’ve worked with the guy writing the curriculum to develop a postmodern approach to it. I’ve even developed a pretty decent beginning to a friendship with him. Next spring I’ll be doing Understanding the Bible, and later Biblical Theology. As an adjunct in a new program, I couldn’t ask for a better situation.

On top of it, I explained that I’m doing some writing. I’m even publishing an article in Christian Standard November 2. I love writing, but until now I hadn’t met anyone who was very enthusiastic about my writing. It’s an opportunity to explore that option, something I’ve always wanted to do. I couldn’t ask for a better situation.

As our conversation went on I finally said, “Paul, I don’t know. I seem to be at the beginning, having opportunities I always wanted. I think I might be happy.” He laughed and said it sounded like I was waiting for it to fall apart. It was then that I realized that he is right. I am waiting for everything to fall apart. I’m not saying everything is perfect all the time, but I’m beginning to realize some dreams and I’m truly enjoying using all my gifts to do kingdom work. So I had to ask myself, “Why AM I also so scared?” Why is it that I keep putting pressure on myself not to make any mistake? The truth is, when I do make mistakes, I find myself panicking, expecting people to lose respect for me and pull their support—expecting them to question me at every turn and to oppose me publicly. And yet, the people around me continue to show me patience and support. I’m just still unsure how to handle it.

I think I know why. My last work experience was a negative one. I dealt with being judged, being denied forgiveness, and being constantly questioned as far as my maturity, dignity, and faith. As a result, I’m constantly waiting for failure and struggling with self-doubt where I am now.

Here’s the problem. Even though I’m now realizing the three biggest dreams I’ve had, I still struggle to be Christlike about the men who passed judgment on me and who caused me and my family so much pain. I still struggle with hoping that they fail and that they run into the kind of barriers to their success that they threw up in front of me.

However, when Jesus was on the cross he looked down at the people who were torturing him to death and made this statement, “Father, forgive them, because they don’t know what they are doing.” Now that I understand that the cross is not about God’s anger, but about mine, I realize that he is talking also about me. He is offering forgiveness to me. He is offering it to everyone. And his call to those who would follow him is to pick up a cross and do likewise. That means that my call is to forgive even those men who crucified me.

Why is that a problem? They aren’t crucifying me now. They don’t even think about me now. And, truthfully, God’s taken that screwed-up mess and made it 1000x better than it would have been if I’d had what I wanted there! (The only drawback is that we deeply miss some of the relationships we had in that place.) I’m doing everything I wanted to do (I’m not saying I’ve reached the end, but that I’m on the way to being who I really want to be). My family’s ENTIRE situation is better now. My crucifixion is over. Why is it that I still haven’t repeated Jesus’ words of forgiveness for my torturers? Why do I still relive it? Why do I still sometimes hope for their failure?

So, here goes. I forgive them. I recognize in them what God sees—limitless worth. Are they perfect? No. Does God love them even so? Absolutely. Does he want me to? Um,………….. well……………..yes. I don’t trust them and don’t want a close relationship. But I love them and forgive them (forgiveness and reconciliation are just not the same thing--until you get to Miroslov's chapter, and one of his comments that stood out to me is that complete forgiveness isn't really possible until justice is at least recognized). At any rate, I hope they succeed in Christ.

But I’ve been here already. Many times. And here’s my real struggle. I have every reason to believe I will be again. Because the truth is that forgiveness is possible, forgetting isn’t. And I can’t forget. I can’t wipe it away. And there are moments when it still hurts. Floods of emotion return especially when I have victories. That’s the most bitter part of it. When I should be really happy because of a success, I find myself saying, “See, you were wrong about me. What did you know? I CAN do it. I’m NOT who you said I was.” And what should be great moments become bitter moments.

I think I’ve concluded that, even though I’m moving in this non-violent direction, I’m still a violent person at heart. But what Miko proved to me is summed up in this quote in which she wrestles with God’s forgiveness of someone who would destroy someone else over and against her own desire to enact revenge upon the destroyer. I’m changing it in brackets to reflect my own struggle.

“I need you [she’s speaking to God] to be like me. We cannot be gracious to the one who annihilates the vulnerable. We cannot be gracious to these destroyers. Do you understand me, God? Do you know what you do? What is inside [them], is inside me. I could kill. I could kill even God, because of my beliefs.

“I do not want to have only these two choices.

“Your forgiveness would mean I either satiate my need for justice by killing you, or I forgive [them] with you and die myself. Your forgiveness leaves me with only two options. I become like [them] or I become like you. This is not what I want. I want a third option to be that we damn [them—or rather that they fail the way they set me up to fail]. You and I survive and [they fail]. (pg. 246, Brita Miko’s chapter in Stricken by God?).”

Of course, I can’t hope for their failure. That’s not forgiveness. Isn’t that what Jesus meant when he told his followers to deny themselves, pick up their crosses, and follow him? Doesn’t following him to the cross mean following him ON the cross? Doesn’t it mean that I MUST, somehow, move past these feelings that return all the time to me, and find a way to love them even though they STILL don’t recognize how they hurt me and my family? I think it does. But, honestly, I don’t even know if it’s possible. Somehow I’ve got to respond to them with the part of me that they didn’t damage, the part that God is using even now. And I’ve got to heal from all of that.

I feel like I’m finally arriving now. It’s like I’m finally becoming what I might actually be best at. And I’ve wondered for years what it would be like to have the options just open up and things start happening. I never dreamed it would be so bittersweet. And what makes it that is not what is good and noble and true, but the damage done to me from the past. Jesus, however, when he rose from the dead didn’t walk around with a chip on his shoulder towards the people who crucified him (me). He simply forgave them. He showed me how to get past it. I know I need to. I think I want to. I just don’t know if I can.

My prayer, Jesus, is just please help me be more like you.

Stricken by God?

2008-08-17T00:24:00.007-04:00

I have to admit that I have different reactions when I open up a new book and start to interact with it. For instance, I’ve been using a book for my Old Testament class at ACC by Ronald Youngblood. When I first opened it and read the chapter titles, the book told me what to expect—and as I plodded through it, it did not surprise me. It’s the same old classic Calvinistic approach to sovereignty and election—and it makes the classic mistake in Old Testament studies of assuming you can understand it in its own context apart from a Christocentric emphasis. Even my students have commented that it has very little to do with my class.

The book I’m reading right now, Stricken by God? Nonviolent Identification and the Victory of Christ, is providing exactly the opposite experience. The book is deconstructing the classical Anselmian view of the atonement (propitiation), also known as the Penal Substitution view. That view states that God, in response to sin, is full of wrath. This wrath is the kind that can only be satisfied through violent retributive justice towards those who have incurred it. Thus, God is violently angry at sinners—but has mercifully offered the solution to that situation in the suffering of his son. In that event, God fully unleashed his wrath upon Jesus—Jesus stood in the way and “took our punishment” on himself. Few verses provide more impetus for this view than the suffering servant passage of Isaiah 53:4.

I’ve had the book on my currently reading list for several weeks, but have only just now had time to really open it. And I was looking forward to it. But having only competed one chapter, not only am I looking forward to it—I believe it may be a life-changing type of read for me (similar to what happened when I began reading the open theists). And the list of authors (including N.T. Wright, Richard Rohr, C.F.D. Moule, and Miroslav Volf) intensifies the anticipation of the great things to come (not to mention the blurbs from René Girard, Stanley Hauerwas, Brian McLaren, and my favorite, Gregory A. Boyd). It is doubtful I could find a book with as many exciting theologians.

Brad Jersak—editing with Michael Hardin, opens up with a chapter explaining the title of the book beautifully. He defines the theological stakes, “In the midst of our wondering, we run into a relatively recent dogmatization of penal substitution as the evangelical atonement creed. No longer content to call it a theory, many preach it as the required content of belief in order to be ‘saved.(18-19)’” And songs like “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us” and “In Christ Alone” ("and on the cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied") emphasize how deeply this doctrine has been ingrained in our theology. But should it be?

Jersak establishes these three themes in the book as a challenge to penal substitution: 1) God’s nonviolence in Christ at the cross—this is especially relevant when one considers how much nonviolence is a part of Jesus’ teaching, 2) Christ’s identification with humanity in incarnation and suffering, 3) the victory of Christ over Satan, sin, and death (19).

To me, the most exciting of those themes is identification, as this has been a theme of my own theology and teaching for some time. Later in the chapter, Jersak discusses the notion of God “turning his face away” from Jesus on the cross as he cried “eloi, eloi, lama sabacthani.” For some time, I’ve been teaching that Jesus is not responding to God’s absence from him but is identifying with the human condition as it is expressed in Psalm 22. Jesus is fully experiencing death, suffering, and the violence of our sinful world. Jersak defines that thought on page 37-38.

Most exciting, however, is his treatment of the suffering servant passage. On page 29 he begins to deconstruct the traditional juridical understanding of sin and punishment. He charges that sin is NOT something that God cannot see or look at—this would remove God’s knowledge of MOST of history! Hence, the cross is not a case of God’s punishment, but of his healing of our sin (31). God is not acting his violence out on his son instead of us—he is suffering in an experience of our situation in order to defeat it and heal it. He is identifying with us this way:

“At the Cross, Christ identifies and unites with all humanity in his incarnation and identifies with every victim (crying, ‘My God, my God’ with all who have experienced abandonment) and perpetrator (‘he numbered himself with the transgressors’).
“We begin appropriately by identifying with those who crucified him. We put him there. Isaiah 53—we thought he was smitten by God, but it was our sins that put him there.
“We repent by choosing to identify instead with Christ in his commitment to actively resist the powers, but in his way (nonviolently and with forgiveness). Not the substitution of him dying instead of us or experiencing God’s active punishment for us, but rather, dying with him (Romans 6) so that we might also live with him… (32)”

In the cross, rather than the violent retribution of God , we see the response of humanity to the message of God’s love. As Irenaeus said, God “does not use violent means to obtain what he desires…(34).” It is people who are violent. And the Bible is very clear that it is not God who is crucifying Jesus, it is humanity!

As I said, I am excited for what this book has in store. Jersak’s deconstruction of the classical interpretation of Isaiah 53:3-5 (36) is a simple yet brilliant reason why I think this book is going to be life-changing! Highly recommended!

The Cost of Discipleship

2008-06-29T23:32:00.002-04:00

Not a very theological theme today. But here’s what you get after a week of vacation.

Leaving vacation at the beach last Saturday was, as usual, inevitable yet excruciating. For me, the bottom line had as much to do with returning to work and reality as anything else. The rhythm of the waves, salt air, and near constant breeze of the Atlantic was invigorating. I didn’t want to return.

For me and my family, though, the real problem was leaving family. We stayed at Myrtle Beach with my in-laws, my kids' grandparents, aunts, and uncles. We hadn’t seen most of them for over a year—and one of them for over two years! Spending the week with them was wonderful, though not without all those little family hiccups that we’re all familiar with. And I’m willing to admit that the family hiccups are one of the things that make the experience so great.

Yet the time came, once again, to leave. As the week wore on we could feel it coming. By Friday, even the fun activities we did were tinged with sadness. We made statements like, “well, it’s our last trip to the beach,” and, “let’s hit the hot-tub one more time before we leave.” And by Saturday, we sort of waited for the inevitable moment when we’d drive away in different directions, not knowing when we’d be together again.

Myself…I’m used to it. I grew up a preacher’s kid, so I know what it is to say goodbye to family. In fact, I was always surprised to meet people who’d lived near their grandparents their whole lives. As a child, I learned little tricks for how to survive those sad goodbyes. You make jokes, tell yourself you’ll see them again, and talk about how much fun you had. Then you cry silently on the way home.

My kids, however, are still rookies at it. And between the two, my son is the most expressive. I watched this time as we tore them away from grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. My son’s face reflected a sort of depressed acceptance. He tried hard to control his sadness and, eventually, simply lost. He cried with each goodbye hug and nodded at whatever words people tried to comfort him with. My daughter, a few years younger and less comfortable expressing her sadness in public, resolutely held her ground—refusing to cry. She smiled, told silly jokes, hugged everyone , and avoided eye contact. I had to say, between the two I probably behave more like Grace. But Christian expressed my feelings.

When we got in the car and started to drive away, Christian could barely contain himself. He was crying hard. We looked back at Gracie and she had finally given in . Her face was contorted and sad and she was genuinely sobbing. Finally, Christian’s grief turned to anger. He slammed his fists down and he screamed, “I’m sick of living away from my family! I hate it!” We’ve moved them now twice, ripping them from family and friends in our desire to minister.

I didn’t want him to feel that way. But what could I say? Was he wrong to feel that way, if only for a moment? And, did I feel any differently? I didn’t. In fact, Christian and Grace were expressing what we were all feeling. It was the natural pain that comes with being ripped away from people you love. It shreds you inside and tears your heart to pieces. And it begs the question: why? Why walk away from family and friends to pursue a job, a few of the descriptions of which might read:

Little to no job security
Low pay
Unlimited hours
Travel required?

Now, I love my job and I love the church I serve. I am glad to be here and many of my dreams are coming true! But I have to admit that, sometimes, it seems like it would be easier to just quit and go home. It would be financially easier to just get a secure job doing something I’m not crazy about but that paid well. Why do it? Why agree to break our hearts over and over? Why pursue this crazy lifestyle?

I guess, the bottom line is, Jesus promised we’d suffer as Christians. And he promised that doing ministry would hurt. It calls for sacrifice. It calls for pain. It calls for risk. It’s the cost of following. Jesus said that whoever does not hate his father and mother for his sake was not worthy of his kingdom. I don’t hate them. But I’m willing to lose them if he wants me to. And in Philippians 3:8 Paul said that he considered all of the things he gave up when he came to Christ to be skybalon, which literally means crap. He considered everything he lost to be nothing—it’s all sewage—compared to knowing Jesus. And, I believe Paul was right. Even though it hurts to leave, it’s really no sacrifice at all. Jesus is worth it. He deserves it. He deserves a whole lot more than that. So, I guess bring it on. I’m ready to give more.

Jesus for President

2008-06-04T22:27:00.004-04:00

Just a note to the faithful few who still check up on this blog. As you can see, I've been a bit too preoccupied with other things to do much blogging. In fact, I'm not getting a whole lot done very quickly any more. My reading is at a slow crawl right now. I've found that the preaching/teaching thing is pretty time-consuming.

I'm reading a book I picked up at BN last week, Jesus for President. It's not especially heavy reading (not compared to some of the other stuff I'm reading). It's also put together in a format that is postmodern and visually interesting. Dare I call it "emegent?" The book is a critique of contemporary American Christian idolatry. Here are a few quotes. To find the book, look in my currently reading list and click the link.

"So can you pick up what we're putting down, smell what we are stepping in? Jesus would make for a bad president. It's hard to imagine Jesus wearing a 'God bless Rome' T-shirt and promoting his campaign with stickers and buttons and a hundred-million-dollar campaign. And he would be considerably uncomfortable as commander in chief of the largest military in the world. Nevertheless, he was political. All of his titles granted him political authority. Calling hm Messiah or Lord is like acclaiming him--unlikely as it is--as president. He was the president who did not want to be a president. His politics aspired to something different from state power (86)."

"Author and professor Walter Wink does brilliant work exploring Jesus' creativity in his teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, especially in the familiar 'turn the other cheek' verses (Matt. 5:38-42). Wink points out that Jesus was not suggesting that we let people sadistically step all over us. Jesus taught enemy love with imagination. He gave three real examples of how to interact with our adversaries. In each instance, Jesus points us toward disarming others. Jesus teaches us to refuse to oppos evil on its own terms. He invites us to transcend both passivity and violence a third way (92)."

At any rate, it's been an interesting side read so far.

Jason

Sorry No New Posts

2008-05-07T14:49:00.002-04:00

If you're one of the few who checks back on the Abyss every now and then, you've probably noticed I haven't posted anything for a while. I've been really busy with a part-time teaching gig I picked up on top of my ministry. Also, I'm going to be teaching this Summer as an adjunct at Atlanta Christian College, so I'm going to remain busy.

But I have a few thoughts about things I've read recently and I'll probably post something soon!

Thanks!

Jason

Deconstructing an Anti-modern

2008-03-02T21:37:00.006-05:00

One of the most important classes I took in my Master's degree dealt with modernity and postmodernity as meta-mindsets. The instructor, my advisor, demonstrated a brilliant understanding of postmodernism's root in modern rationalism.

As I went through that class, he presented a V-shaped chart to explain the progress. Across the top were five "mindsets." First was the naive premodern, second the premodern (or willful premodern), third the modern, fourth the anti-modern, and fifth, the postmodern. Moving down from the top left of the chart, a line shows the progression of philosophical thought through these columns as those who began as naive premoderns came to embrace the enlightenment experiment and modernity as a philosophy. However, as modern philosophies (such as logical positivism) took their toll, postmodernism was the end result. The line moves to the bottom of the page, past the point of despair to complete postmodernism. This line downward remains under the label of the modern mindset.

From there, he posits that many people reconstruct a metaphysic and move from the position of postmodernism under the modern mindset to a postmodern mindset which no longer holds to that complete subjectivity. The postmodern mindset still recognizes the questions and issues of modernity, but no longer trusts modernity to solve the problems it claims to solve. The class was brilliant!

However, I think one of the most interesting concepts I encountered in the class was the mindset of the "antimodern." To my instructor, the antimodern was the Christian who, because he had dealt with the questions posited by modernity, could no longer be a premodern. But in many ways, the anti-modern should be seen as someone who embraces the mindest of modernity in order to break down its foundation. The study of apologetics is an anti-modern endeavor, it attempts to call into question modern philosophy on its own basis and prove Christianity according to modern standards.

When I first went to Bible college, apologetics was one of my most passionate interests. Without really knowing what it meant, I had embraced the mindset of the anti-modern. My goal was to provide rational and empirical evidence which would be undeniable and would compell reasonable people to believe. I really intended to construct a modern argument proving why the gospel message was absolutely compelling and impossible to deny. As anyone who has read my blog can see, I abandoned that endeavor some time between my junior year of college and my first year of graduate school. At some point I acknowledged that it isn't possible to work in the realm of "knowledge." That being said, I really consider my change in this area to be growth.

One of the apologists who I have listened to and appreciated for years is Ravi Zacharias. In fact, for a few years I had pipe-dreams of doing something similar to what he does, as much of his work is an anti-modern critique of postmodernism as a philosophy. There is no question that he understands postmodernism and sees its faults. However, I no longer feel that the apologetic approach is the way to get at postmodernism. Here is why: the whole notion of apologetics, to me, is an attempt to prove that scripture measures up to modern thought when, in truth, modern thought ought to be measured against scripture. The anti-modern mindset really is rooted in modern rationalism more so than in scripture, in that it takes seriously enough the claims of modernity to force scripture to measure up to it.

A two-part message on Ravi's podcast, which was actually delivered several years ago, was called Cultural Relativism and the Emasculation of Truth . In it, Ravi began unpacking the issue of truth in our time. He delivered three reasons why the world has been led into falsehood in our time. The most wonderful was the first: that reason has replaced revelation. He, correctly, traces the beginning of the enlightenment experiment to Kant, who set in motion the wheels of modernity in his claim that all that can be known is phenomena. Of course, Kant still believed in the noumena. But as modernity went on, those who followed gradually removed the supernatural from the discussion altogether. At the end of the 19th century, it was Nietzsche who came out and blatantly said that it was now up to mankind to deliver an ethic apart from any supernatural influence. God was dead, we had killed him. Now it was time for the superman to come forward and create a new world.

Ravi, also, correctly pinpointed the real issue in that point. It is that Kant really isn't the forerunner of that line of thinking. In fact, it goes all the way back to Genesis 3. The fundamental mistake was to look inward for a sense of right and wrong rather than to trust what God had said was true. This is why the serpent asks, "Did God really say you would die if you ate from this tree?"

Ravi's first point in this lecture was, I think, brilliant. The goal is to move to scripture, to begin with scripture as a starting point in theology. From there, it is possible to build a system which is, really, self-authenticating. In this way, I thought Ravi was consistent with a most post-modern of all theological movements, Radical Orthodoxy.

However, his second point disappointed me because it displayed a massive anti-modern influence. The first problem was that reason had replaced revelation. The second was that truth has been subverted by agnosticism. Here is why I find this interesting. In a sense, Ravi's first point is an attempt to abandon Kantian thinking and begin with scripture as a foundation rather than rationalism. It doesn't really try to address Kant as much as to leave him behind. To my mind, however, the second point is really an abandonment of the first point.

His goal in the second is to prove that we CAN have knowledge. Of course, the Kantian definition is that knowledge is "justified, true belief." In this definition, especially in metaphysics, knowledge is really impossible. This is why agnosticism has become so popular. In this, I don't think Ravi is far off. The Kantian idea about knowledge has caused problems. But, is the solution to insist on our ability to "know?"

Scripture, of course, uses the word "knowledge" a lot, even in reference to our knowing God. However, I think the line is blurry between the relational and rational notions of knowledge in scripture. Is the Bible referring to our ability to know God or know of him? The first is relational, the second rational. To my mind, the Bible concentrates on the first, the relational knowledge. The second, the rational, I think is exemplified in the cry one man made to Jesus, "I believe...help my unbelief!" It really isn't possible, in a modern sense, to come to knowledge about God. This is what faith is: belief even in the admission that "I don't know with certainty."

What I thought was strange about Ravi's second point was how often he equivocated rational knowledge with belief. His point was that when we rule out rational knowing, we have ruled out the ability to believe in anything. But I think he's wrong! Postmoderns, those moving from modernity (especially from postmodernism), are re-embracing faith but still affected by modern ideas about knowledge. In other words, just because I claim it isn't possible to KNOW something, doesn't mean I can't BELIEVE it! In fact, I think faith is only possible in the absence of knowledge!

Oh, anyway...I'm not sure that came across. I guess my point is that I can see that the anti-modern may never really click with postmodern culture. While Ravi, in his genius, will continue to be a favorite of mine, I have to admit I don't think he and I would ever be on the same page. Interestingly, where I now live is about 40 minutes from his headquarters! If ever the opportunity came to meet him, I now have it. But, interestingly, I feel further now from his thinking than I ever did.

Later.

William Hasker, "Persons as Emergent Substances"

2008-02-18T22:36:00.003-05:00

One of the issues I have been most interested in the past few years has been the theological understanding of anthropology. How does one define a human being scripturally and philosophically? My fascination and opinion on this began in my undergraduate studies, when I wrote a paper on the dichotomy vs. trichotomy issue for a theology class. The options presented to me in that class for a biblical anthropology were dichotomy (human beings are made up of body and soul/spirit—two separate things) and trichotomy (human beings are made up of soul, spirit, and body—three separate things). As I recall, the battles were heated, though in retrospect there is precious little difference between either of those views. They are both rooted in Cartesian dualism.

In my paper, I actually began to depart from that thinking. I proposed a third possibility, which really began as little more than a redefinition of terms but actually set me on the road to thinking about anthropology from a radically different perspective. I proposed that the term “soul” was a reference to the “whole person,” which is how man can become a “living soul” in Genesis. The term “spirit” was a reference to the spiritual part of a human, and the body was the body. At the time, I had not radically departed from the dualist interpretation, but the definition of the terms paved the way for my departure.

In the Christmas series I preached in December of 2007, I proposed a radically different understanding of the incarnation of Christ based on a completely different anthropological understanding (you can go here to subscribe to those podcasts—the series was called “The Theology of Christmas”). My understanding of anthropology, though, was not born in December of ’07, but evolved over the years from my original dualism.

My current concept of humanity is that people can only be understood properly in the context of the physical body. The notion that who we really are is our “souls” or “spirits” (loosely thought of as a kind of “ghost” which animates our physical shells) does not really seem like the understanding developed in scripture to me. We are created to be physical, we live physically, and we are destined to be in eternity physically. We are physical people. Hence, while the terms in my paper did begin my journey toward this view, they did not encapsulate it. In my anthropology, based largely on the creation account of Genesis, man is primarily physical (God formed man of the dust of the earth) with a “spirit” breathed into him. The “spirit” must be defined, and it really never is in the Bible. I have defined it to myself as “personality.” God “breathed” personhood into the man when he animated the lifeless body. The “spirit” isn’t really a ghost, but the ability to think, feel, and relate. It is something special which not every physical body (as in the animals) has in equal proportions, but it is not a ghost. This spiritual body is called the “soul” in Genesis. It is not two parts, but a single entity. It is a physical body which operates on a spiritual level.

I think this view is not only a better understanding scripturally, it is also a better understanding from the view of modern science. Scientifically, the function of the brain for thought, emotion, and even ethics has been empirically verified. This article in TIME magazine is a great example of the physiological root of human ethics. My graduate advisor at LCS has also done a lot of research into this topic. He has published his own conclusions about this, and has influenced my thinking as well.

This, of course, does not fly with many, many people! But, it is the view I have. Until very recently I had not read a lot that interacted with it, and then I opened up a book I’d been putting off for some time. A few Christmases ago, I’d gotten the book edited by Kevin Corcoran, Soul, Body, and Survival: Essays on the Metaphysics of Human Persons. It is a collection of essays from primarily three perspectives: Cartesian dualism, physicalism, and the unity view. I have to admit, I am glad to have finally explored this book.

Interestingly, the chapter I enjoyed the most was by William Hasker, who has written a lot from the perspective of Open Theism (is it any wonder I like him?). He did a chapter called “Persons as Emergent Substances.” His argument is that, basically, physicalism (materialism) and dualism are up against series crises. He proposes a third option, the Middle Way.

The purely physicalist interpretation, which might be what my view above sounds like—though I don’t mean it to—is seen as inadequate. It doesn’t account for “the phenomena of mind (108).” Furthermore, he feels the view is going to be completely out of vogue very soon as “ethics, religion, metaphysics, and science all go about their business largely untroubled by the positivist assault, which is well on its way to becoming a distant memory (108).” In other words, logical positivism (empiricism) is on its way out. So goes materialism. Perhaps.

His critique of dualism is much more fun. I’m including some quotes which may help outline some of his thought.

“My complaints against Cartesian dualism are basically two. The first is that it cannot plausibly account for the extensive and intimate dependence of mind on brain that we find to exist. Some forms of dependence, of course, are readily understandable on Cartesian assumptions. The immaterial mind will be dependent on the brain as the channel for sensory information, and as the control center for bodily movement. It is therefore to be expected that sensory and motor capacities will be brain-dependent, and that impairment of brain function will interfere with those capacities. But why should consciousness itself be interrupted by a blow to the head, or dose of medication? And why should a personality be drastically altered—sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently—by injury to the brain or chemical inbalance in the brain? (112)”

“the functioning of the brain, and indeed of quite specific regions within the brain, is required for and intimately involved in some highly sophisticated mental processes; we do not have a situation, as Cartesian dualism might lead us to suppose, in which the body and brain merely serve up raw perceptual data which is then understood and interpreted by the immaterial mind. I believe, therefore, that an adequate theory of mind must allow for the dependence of mental activity upon brain function in a way that is stronger than Cartesian dualism can readily accommodate (112).”

“Cartesian souls, of course, cannot be replicated through biological reproduction; they must be directly created by God. And, given the universal divine activity of conservation, they are ‘naturally immortal.’ This fact seemed to Descartes good reason to deny souls to the beasts; thus his infamous doctrine that animals are mere atomata. Surely we cannot follow Descartes on this; a contemporary Cartesian must assign souls to the animals as well as to human beings (113).” Interestingly, I think scripture does as well. Genesis 9:10 refers to the animals as “living creatures” in the English translations, but the Hebrew is “nephesh” or “souls.” Also, I think Romans 8 paints a picture of the realm of nature waiting for its redemption. There will be animals in heaven, I think. They, too, are souls. Yet, I am not tempted to become a vegetarian, yet.

I began to be uncomfortable with Hasker at this point, “There is need, in short for a middle way in the philosophy of mind, a perspective which reduces the gulf between mind and matter without doing violence to the nature of either (114).” At first I thought he was looking for some type of “hypostatic union,” which is an idea about Christology which I have largely abandoned. But, I was pleased to read a much different idea.

“Cartesian dualism simply accepts the chasm, postulating the soul as an entity of a completely different nature than the physical, an entity with no essential or internal relationship to the body, which must be added to the body ab extra by a special divine act of creation. This scheme is not without initial plausibility from a theistic point of view, but I believe it carries with it insuperable difficulties. (paragraph break) In rejecting such dualisms, we implicitly affirm that the human mind is produced by the human brain and is not a separate element ‘added to’ the brain from outside. This leads to the further conclusion that mental properties are ‘emergent’ in the following sense: they are properties that manifest themselves when the appropriate mental constituents are placed in special highly complex relationships but which are neither observable in simpler configurations nor derivable from properties which are thus observable (115-116).”

I like this idea, but it is still not complete. “A conscious experience simply is a unity, and to decompose it into a collection of separate parts is to falsify it. So it is not enough to say that there are emergent properties here; what is needed is an emergent individual, a new individual entity which comes into existence as a result of a certain functional configuration of the material constituents of the brain and nervous system (116).”

The problems Hasker claims to solve are these: “This theory makes intelligible, as Cartesian dualism does not, the intimate dependence of consciousness and mental processes on brain function. And, finally, it is completely free of embarrassment over the souls of animals. Animals have souls, just as we do...(117)”

Hasker is becoming one of my favorites. A look at my wish list reveals a few of his books I’m looking for. I really feel that in this chapter all that is needed is a re-deployment of terminology and he would be very close to the anthropology I have posited. The “soul” which is commonly used in philosophical theology, and which he also uses, for “mind” I think should be the “consciousness” or the “unity,” the whole person. What he calls “soul,” I call the “spirit.” If the brain produces mind or spirit, what emerges then is “soul” or the unity.

One last implication before I trudge off to go to sleep. If the Cartesian view of creation of new people is true, one wonders why God participates in giving souls to people born to terrible situations. It seems to me that when two people produce a child, they are in fact producing a new soul completely apart from the decision or will of God. God gave us the ability to create new people entirely. They are souls without his immediate participation, but he participates by creating the system in which they can be created by people. Furthermore, if technology is developed which would clone humans, I believe the cloned humans would be genetically similar to their hosts, but would be different souls—not soulless creatures similar to the “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” scenario. In this way, this anthropological view is more closely in line with Open Theism. Perhaps this is why Hasker and I are intrigued by it.

Anyway, it is an interesting idea. I still wonder if Hasker’s view doesn’t differ very strongly from my view of unity. If it does, I’m tempted to move to Hasker’s view. The bottom line is I don’t think we are as much a mixture of different parts as the dualists have made us out to be. We are a unity of things, and that unity is really inseparable. The dichotomy/trichotomy issue is an internal struggle of the dualists. I have abandoned that discussion.

Much of the book deals with the ramifications of these ideas on resurrection. Truthfully, I don’t really have a lot of questions about that, but I do think the contributors have adequately defended the resurrection value of my view.

At any rate, I heartily recommend this book to those of you who are dealing with this topic in your thinking.

Boyd, Prayer, and God's Will

2008-02-11T09:07:00.000-05:00

I was visiting with a dear, sweet lady from our church who has been dealing with cancer for many years. Recently she underwent a very drastic surgical procedure in an attempt to remove the cancer from her body. She has been recovering for weeks but is still in a nursing home. The surgery caused a minor stroke, she lost use of one of her arms, a leg, as well as a portion of her personal dignity. For what it's worth, I think she's been wishing that she had not done the surgery at all.

On one of my first visits to her since she was transferred form the hospital to a nurshing home, she looked up at me and asked me, "Jason, you don't think God did this to me, do you?" Wow, what an interesting question. How to answer?

Well, I have to admit the answer wasn't difficult for me at all. I have a lot of thoughts on this, and a very strong opinion. At the nursing home that day was not the place for a passionate theological treatise, I knew my answer needed to provide comfort and help. So I told her, "No, God did not do this to you. But the wonderful thing is, he is experiencing it with you and loving you. He knows what it is to endure pain and indignity." Of course, God did NOT do this to her. To my mind, the answer is simply that God has created an open system in which free choice can happen, has happened, and has introduced evil and suffering into the system. From there, bad things happen because people choose to do them and because nature responds according to its programming, which allows for random evils like sickness and tragedy. There are coincidences! God is working within that system, but not in any way which overrides human free will. God does not have a specific reason for allowing suffering or causing it--instead he accepts it as a part of the situation and works within those events to bring good out of them. The ultimate answer, of course, is that he deals with the situation of our pain and suffering by enduring it--on the cross.

Let me try another explanation. In a system in which people are free to make decisions, if person a and person b both desire to be in one place at one time, without knowing the other is there or wants that, there will likely be an accident. This does not mean that God decided for there to be an accident, but that those people, coincidentally, decided to be there. Think about it. In a system in which there are billions of free agents and a natural system in which natural things operate according to programming among those free agents, why must accidents and problems be attributed to divine will? Existence really a chaos of sorts. So is it surprising that things happen which are good and things happen which are bad?

This makes it impossible to know with certainty that God has acted in a certain situation. I heard a guy on a Christian radio station the other day telling a story about a man who sold his home--shortly before the land was taken over by the government. The preacher insisted that this was a proof of God's involvement, that God's plan was working out for this person. Perhaps! I have to admit it could be the case. But must it necessarily be? Not to mention the fact that in saving this man from the problem, God subjected another to it. What about the fact that in a system in which sometimes people buy, sometimes people sell, and sometimes the government takes over land--in a large system in which these things happen all over the place on a daily basis--is it really so hard to believe that it might be a coincidence that the man sold his house shortly before the government took it over (and another bought his house shortly before the government took it over--the same house)? There simply MUST be a capacity for coincidence in an open system. There CANNOT be freedom if there are NO ACCIDENTS.

But I have to admit also that I don't think a lot of the people I know would have been able to answer it the same way I did. Good Arminian theologians, raised and educated in Arminian tradition have prescribed to the position which says that everything which happens has a specific pre-ordained purpose in the plan of God. They say that either God "allowed" it for a purpose or "caused" it for a purpose. Both of these, I think, are biblically and intellectually unintelligible. How do you tell someone that God's plan and intention was for them to suffer in this way to bring about some good? Why do you tell them that? What is the purpose?

I know I mention him a lot, but it always amazes me how often I listen to or read Greg Boyd and discover our similarity on an issue. He has been preaching on the Lord's Prayer in Luke and has done three sermons (as of the writing of this post only two have been podcasted, but I assume the third will be available this week). They are available on the Woodland Hills Church podcast (follow the link on the left under Theo's Podcast Picks). The first message, "The Insane Importance of Prayer," introduces the ideas. But it is "Scorpions, Eggs, and Prayer" which really begins to get at the heart of this issue.

He asks, "Why is it that Jesus promises that if someone asks for an egg the Father will not give them a scorpion but that sometimes it looks exactly that way?" Sometimes bad things happen to us even when we pray that they do not. He examines two classic answers in that message. The first is that it was God's will for us to endure the problem. The second is that our faith was insufficient. In Greg's words: "The first is God's fault, the second is our fault." Both of these answers he finds insufficient.

Boyd's answer is that both of these answers are too simplistic. They attribute all causes of effects to only one variable. In the first case, that everything which happens is the will of God, the only variable is God's will. This means that there is no freedom and the system is closed. This is Calvinism at its worst--but it is still the answer of choice even for many of my Arminian friends. In the second case, that everything which happens is dependent on my faith, the only variable is FAITH.

Here is a great example he uses. Say that a parent prays that his child, who has grown to adulthood and left the faith, is saved--or comes to the Lord. Say, then, that the child never does. He rejects God his entire life and finally dies in a cruel accident. The parent had prayed for years, but now there is tragedy. Why did God say "No?"

The one influenced by Calvinism will say that either we can't understand it, or there are things we don't see, or we must simply trust God. His ways are not our ways. The Lord works in mysterious ways.

But is this the only answer? Why not answer that in an open system it isn't only God's will that decides what is to pass? God has created a system in which the child could always choose which way he could go. As much as God may work on an issue, it may be that his will was thwarted by the free decision of the child.

The bottom line is that in an open system, God's will is not always the one that comes to pass. It can't always be. Sometimes what God wants to happen DOESN'T happen! People often say to me, "If God wants it to happen, it will happen." Well, sin happens, did God want that to happen? If someone sins, does that mean God wanted it to happen? If someone rapes someone, does God want THAT to happen? I think not. God's will is not the only variable. Furthermore, the interconnectedness of events makes knowledge of why any event happens absolutely impossible.

Now, I know this smacks of a theodicy. And maybe it is. And, in strictly theological circles I would affirm that theodicy-making is not always an appropriate endeavor. Yet, on a practical level, when Christians endure these things, the questions cannot be avoided. There must be an answer which arises from scripture to comfort people in the face of their suffering. To my mind it is the suffering Savior. To many Christians, it is the ultimate plan of God. To others, it is the absence or presence of faith among the believers. If this post is a theodicy, so be it. But I think it is the only TRUE theodicy. The other answers are speculation and defense. I am appealing to the cross, not to a speculation about "God's ultimate plan!"

I highly, HIGHLY, recommend Boyd's recent sermons on prayer. Go download them today.

A Moltmannian Agreement to My Last

2008-01-30T20:56:00.000-05:00

I wrote my last post on certainty quickly and without a lot of research. Blogging I find to be very much about saying whatever happens to be on my mind. It's not like writing a research paper or anything.

That being said, I found a quote in Theology of Hope which I think is relevant to my thoughts. Moltmann's section is "The Historical Question of the Resurrection of Christ and the Questionableness of the Historical Approach to History." In the initial paragraphs, he is making a point about the epistemological standpoint of the writers of the NT and how they perceived the resurrection narrative. In it he says this (the emphases are mine):

"They did not merely wish to tell of their own new self-understanding in the Easter faith, but in that faith and as a result of it they reported something also about the way of Jesus and about the event of the raising of Jesus. Their statements contain not only an existential certainty in the sense of saying 'I am certain,' but also and togeteher with this objective certainty in the sense of saying, 'It is certain.' They did not merely proclaim that they believe, and what they believe, but therewith and therein also the fact they have recognized. They are 'selfless witnesses' so to speak (Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 172-173)."

Is the Claim to Knowledge a Product of the Fall?

2008-01-21T14:56:00.000-05:00

Earlier in 2007, I wrote four blogs on the concept of epistemological certainty (see May and June). The conclusion I came to was that it isn't really possible to have "knowledge" of the existence of God in a modern sense. That kind of knowledge requires an empirical certainty which is not really available to any metaphysical concept. Of course, many of the discussions I had with people who disagreed, or didn't understand exactly what I was saying (due chiefly to my inability to articulate it properly), indicated that the problem this would produce was an inability to believe. They said that if you cannot say "I know God exists" you might as well say "There is no reason to believe." In fact, it has produced the opposite. I no longer feel the need to PROVE God, I am free to believe. The Bible itself has been opened up to me as a self-authenticating system.

Recently, some reading I've done and thoughts I've had in other areas (specifically ethics, the fall, and anthropology) have shed a new light on the discussion which, I think, supports my conclusion on the issue. Unfortunately, I'm not really sure how much of this will stem from my reading and discussions with friends and how much is really from my own mind. And, I'm not really certain how relevant these thoughts are to those topics.

I've begun rethinking this issue by breaking down the sentence "I know God exists." In the sentence, the subject is "I" and the object is, really, "God's existence," or "God." This means that, when someone claims to have knowledge of God's existence they are not really saying anything about God or the certainty of his existence but are chiefly speaking of themselves. In other words, the sentence "I know God exists" speaks chiefly of the knower, not the thing known. It's claim is that "I have God figured out and am beyond the capacity to be wrong about him. I own that knowledge by virture of my own ability to understand, perceive, and prove this." The claim to knowledge of God's existence is a claim to have within oneself the answers.

Recently, much of my preaching has dealt with the concept of the fall and its nature. I've concluded that the real temptation of the fall of man was not about eating a piece of fruit from a tree in the garden but it was a seeking of "knowledge of good and evil" within oneself and not in God. In fact, all sin is really concerned with seeking within oneself what can only be found in God, whether that be life, joy, peace, happiness, fulfillment, whatever.

Prior to the fall, God was the subject and man was the object. The Bible begins with the sentence, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Pronouncements about God and his existence begin, scripturally, with his existence and draw conclusions from there. In fact, the central theme of scripture is that God is always the subject.

It seems to me that the central theme of Christianity has always been to orient Christians away from themselves and toward God. Epistemologically speaking, this means that the goal of Christians is to arrange the sentence so that "I" am not the subject, but "God" is. In other words, it really is a fallen idea to claim that "I know God exists." I was never really created to own the knowledge of God or to have that kind of understanding. I am to begin with God and move from there. As soon as I put myself at the beginning, I am guilty of committing the same sin that Adam did at the beginning of time.

Furthermore, the notions of apologetics or the classical arguments as starting points of theology are also fallen. The attempt to begin with the cosmological argument (the universe exists and has a beginning, therefore we know God exists) is to base belief in God on the existence of the universe and (really) my own existence. It is as if we are changing Genesis 1:1 to say, "Right now our existence necessitates God's existence." It is exactly the opposite statement because the foundation has moved. The foundation for God is the universe, whereas, in scripture, the foundation for the universe is God.

Hence, it really is appropriate to abandon that knowledge or the pursuit of that knowledge and adopt as the starting point for theology God himself. This means that the burden of "proving God" is no longer upon me. Instead, I can start talking about God by looking to revelation.

I guess that this blog isn't really about certainty at all. Of course, it isn't possible to say with certainty, "Yes, I know God exists." That question, from an enlightenment standpoint, is still resolved in my mind. What this blog does say is that the concept of knowledge from an enlightenment viewpoint is not the goal of Christianity at all. Faith in God is exactly that--belief in what we cannot prove. So, my goal is not to prove it but to believe it. That I can do.

An Anthropological Case for Annihilation

2008-01-11T09:12:00.000-05:00

Every Christian has been faced with the question, and most have actually wrestled with it themselves. The question is, “How could a loving, benevolent God punish people in an eternal Hell?” Of course, there are several theodicies which attempt to solve this seeming contradiction. But, to my mind, the recurring weakness in all is that each makes God the defendant and assumes his actions need to be justified. That is one of the troubles of a theodicy. They are based on human reasoning and fallen ethics rather than scripture.

As a theodicy, Annihilationism (the doctrine that those who are not saved do not suffer eternally in Hell but are annihilated) is among the worst offenders. Most of the arguments I have heard for this viewpoint have centered on the notion that God’s love is inconsistent with eternal judgment. Passages which discuss judgment in terms of eternal destruction are interpreted literally, perhaps rightly. But I have never been tempted to accept the Annihilationist viewpoint for its value as a theodicy.

I have, however, become more open to it from an anthropological standpoint. Some years ago I began to reanalyze dualism as a legitimate anthropology and came to the conclusion that the biblical understanding of humanity is that a human is a UNITY of body and spirit. The model described in Genesis is that God created the body, breathed life (spirit) into the body and man BECAME a soul. So that, people don’t have souls, they are souls.

Going one step further, most Christians accept, without much reflection, the idea that the spirit is a ghost-like being that lives inside their bodies and that the real person is the spirit, the body is just a shell or cloak which the spirit “wears.” This is easily more compatible with 2nd and 3rd century Gnosticism than biblical theology. In fact, the silly Gospel of Judas states that Christ’s goal was to shed the physical body so that the real person underneath could be free. This is why Judas is seen as the hero, because he freed Jesus from “the man that clothes me.” This view necessarily separates “mind” from “brain.”

Phenomenologically speaking, science seems to be coming to the conclusion that the brain and thought and feeling are inseparably linked. The recent Time article a few weeks ago was about how it may be possible to link a person’s moral viewpoint with problems in their brains. (Who knows whether there is a causal link one way or the other?) But it seems to me that this view is much closer to biblical anthropology than any other. We were created physical and meant to live physically. We are physical people with spiritual application.

To my mind, the spirit is literally our personality. It is that part of us which thinks, feels, loves, and wills. It is inseparably linked to our body. That being said, if my view is the most scriptural (and I believe it is—I should be presenting a lot more research and scripture, but I’m in a hurry and want to get this on today…I may add more later), this has massive implications on eschatology.

It seems to me that Romans 8 describes the “redemption of our bodies,” vs. 23. Someday, those who are in Christ will be raised from the dead and have their bodies renewed, just as their spirits had been renewed, redeemed, and reconciled to God in life. The new, glorified body will be like Christ’s, vs. 29. We will have physical bodies which are incorruptible. This is the only way we can continue life—it is not possible for us to be as God designed us and live outside of our bodies. We are not spirits who happen to be in bodies but can live apart from them. We are soul-units!

The implication this has on Hell is also plain. If Hell is a place of eternal destruction—the picture is always fire—how can it be that our bodies would survive in such a place? The question is then, does God resurrect the unsaved into glorified bodies for the sole purpose of torturing them for all of eternity? It certainly doesn’t make sense to believe that a spirit can live forever without the body—because humans are souls, not ghosts trapped in machines. If my anthropology is correct, and if I’m understanding Hell as an eternally destructive place, then it does not make sense to see the punishment of Hell as being an eternal place of pain and suffering.

What, then, is Hell? Certainly it is a place of suffering. And, certainly it represents eternal separation from God—and ultimate separation from others and within ourselves. To the unsaved, death would represent the ultimate destruction of the body. Those who survive until the return of Christ would be destroyed in the final judgment, sent to the final separation of Hell. But the suffering would only last until the body was destroyed. At that point, the being is completely and eternally separate from God and unable to continue on.

I’m just sitting on this right now. I’ve had difficulty motivating myself to blog lately and am working on beginning a new project exploring the implications of the incarnation on divine immutability. But I may return to this to beef it up and add things later.

Open Theism as the Antidote to Theistic Fatalism and Prosperity Theology

2007-11-14T22:12:00.000-05:00

Well, I haven’t written much for a while! We’ve been so busy adjusting to the Georgia lifestyle, that I’ve found it difficult to think about one thing long enough to put together a blog entry. That being said, I’ve finally developed a few thoughts on—you guessed it—Open Theism. My favorite topic and hobby horse.

Unquestionably, no other theological concept has been as profoundly influencing as my move to the Openness of God position. It has shaped nearly every idea I have of God, Christ, and humans. In fact, it is so fundamental to my thinking now, that I’m really thinking of it less and working out more of the implications of that theology in my own practice and preaching.

As a preacher, I haven’t done any sermons directly on God’s openness. Really, I doubt I will for this reason: most people pretty much already operate on the assumption that the future is open and that God is responding to us actively, not as if he has eternally known all events. They may pay lip service to eternal foreknowledge, but few are really operating under that system.

I do, however, hear it from pulpits. One of my favorite preachers, Alistair Begg, recently did a few lesson sets on his podcast called “The Benefits of Expository Preaching” and “The Basics of Expository Preaching.” (See “Theo’s Podcasts” to the left to download.) Both sets were excellent and well balanced. However, within these he reemphasized his own Calvinist background under the assumption that, in expository preaching, you don’t begin with Calvinism, but if you teach the Bible, you’ll get around to it. One experiences moments of despair when one realizes just how many people do not hold to one’s own position. But I don’t have to convince anyone do I? Why pressure myself to do so? That having been said, I find that few methods for developing a blog entry are as prolific as listening to someone say something and working out a response to it. Recently, there are two events inspiring this entry: one is a statement made by a local minister, the other an investigation of a few area ministers.

The Statement:

A theological statement made recently has led me to dub a new term: Theological Fatalism. I have coined this term to describe the position, whether Calvinistic or Arminian (what’s the difference any more?), that God’s foreknowledge of our suffering somehow works into his master plan for the human race. The statement I heard was something like this:

“So and so is dealing with cancer again. We don’t know why God is allowing her to experience this. But we can bet that God has been preparing her throughout her entire life to deal with this tragedy.”

Personally, one of the weaknesses of the Calvinistic and Arminian views of foreknowledge is that it requires Christians to develop theodicies explaining why God would allow them or why we shouldn’t ask why. In this case, the classic “soul making theodicy” is appealed to: God knew it would happen, decided to use it for a certain purpose, and went about preparing this person (presumably through other hardship or trials?) to deal with it. I think it begs a few questions:

QUESTION: If God knows the event is going to happen, how much sense does it make to say that God is “preparing” someone to experience it, or planning to “use” it?

EXPLANATION: If God has KNOWLEDGE of an upcoming event, then we must understand that he KNOWS the event is going to happen. It seems ridiculous and repetitive, but it is necessary to point this out. What Arminian Christians seem to misunderstand is that foreknowledge (the knowledge that something will happen) NECESSITATES that no other event CAN happen. In other words—if God eternally knows an event will happen, NO OTHER EVENT CAN HAPPEN. If another event happens, then God didn’t really know it would happen. He can’t change that event, because the event he knew would happen has to happen. So the idea that God “knows” an event will happen and works around it within time is really nonsense. Here is why: for any one event which happens, there are millions—perhaps billions—of events within time which lead up to that event and which are necessary for that event to happen. The holocaust, for example, did not happen suddenly and with no warning! A very specific set of events happened which led to the Nazis taking power and Hitler’s regime.

Let’s say God KNEW with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY that the holocaust would happen. If this is the case, he knew exactly what every person in the world would do—who would try to stop it and fail and who would not do anything about it until after it began. He knew who would die, who would suffer, who would react. He knew every event in time. Hence, we can see that if God pre-knows with certainty that one single event will happen within time, he has to know EVERY single event which will ever happen in time which leads up to that event. He has to KNOW everything.

If he knows everything that will happen, how can he “prepare” any of us for anything? If he knows what will happen, all that can happen is what he knows will happen—and if he interacts, he changes what he knew would happen to what he wants to happen. What happens then is not what he knew would happen—so he couldn’t have KNOWN it, he could only have “thought” it. What he “knew” wasn’t what was going to happen—his “knowledge” wasn’t knowledge, but “belief.” And his belief was wrong.

God’s “preparing” someone for an event is only possible if God can interact with those of us in time. He must be able to work within our lives to change us and move us. In order to do that, we have to be ABLE to change. If God knows what we are going to do, then he must allow us to do what he already knows we are going to do—we cannot change from what he already knows we will do. He cannot interact with us within time. (At this point, let me reiterate that my position is that the God of the Bible is ALWAYS interacting with those of us in time—the future is open to possibilities, even within the mind of God—see the verse in the upper left hand corner of the page!).

To say that God is “preparing” someone for something can only be understood in one of two theological positions: Calvinism or Openness. The open sense allows God to work within time because God does not know all of the events of the future—they are open possibilities in his mind. In the Calvinist sense, God has decided what will happen to everyone and is just working out the entire system outside of any free-will of humans.

The notion that God will prepare someone for something he knows will happen, or plan to use an event he knows will happen, necessitates that he knows and is planning to use ALL the events of history. In fact, it really necessitates that God is “determining” all of the events of history. In other words, if we assume that God is able to do anything—to act at all—within a system in which he knows the future, then you must abandon any understanding of human freedom because you have become a determinist. ARMINIAN FOREKNOWLEDGE BREAKS DOWN INTO AUGUSTINIAN DETERMINISM when you start talking about God acting or using events he knows will happen. If you combine God’s foreknowledge of an event (which cannot be wrong) and his eternal desire to use that event then there is little else one can turn to other than determinism. Let me explain one more way. If God knows all events are going to happen and decides to use one of them within his plan, then it must be that all the events leading up to that event happen in order for that event to happen in order for God to use it. Nothing else CAN happen other than the event which God wants to happen so that he can use it.

The entire system must be determined if we are going to assume that God is able to act within the system and knows what will happen (i.e.: no human freedom). If the system isn’t determined (i.e.: human freedom), and God knows what will happen, then he is not free to act within it and contradict anything he knows will happen. God is, therefore, limited by his knowledge (which is the point of my entire master’s degree project). Arminian theology really breaks down into determinism or deism. Take your pick.

Another problem with the statement is this: if God is preparing a specific person to experience a specific problem, what does that say about other people who suffer? Perhaps one can speak of God’s use of the suffering of someone battling cancer in their old age. Perhaps God prepared that person to experience that to use it to his glory (in my opinion, it is just happening and God is working within it). But what about a young girl who is molested by her uncle or cousins? Does God prepare young girls when they are toddlers to experience such things and use them for a specific purpose? The soul-making theodicy is VERY, very poor at explaining these things.

Open Theism doesn’t require a theodicy. God does not plan events or plan to use events he knows will happen. He created an open system with a possibility of evil and works within that system. But I don’t have to justify God’s foreknowledge of terrible events! I can concentrate on God’s answer to the problem of pain being the CROSS, not a theodicy.

The Investigation:

No doubt the reader has heard of an investigation of six nationally known religious leaders regarding their personal finances. Two of those being investigated come from the Atlanta area. One is Creflo Dollar, of World Changers. Dollar, according to an article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution on November 14, 2007, is defending his lavish lifestyle based on his belief that his riches are directly proportionate to his faithfulness. It’s straight prosperity theology.

The area I currently live in is a very affluent area. We, personally, are not affluent by the same standards as some of our neighbors (by others we are). However, I’ve noticed a real emphasis on prosperity theology in this area and I’ve come to a conclusion.

Prosperity theology is really only popular in affluent areas! One doesn’t go to the Christians in Haiti and preach that the reason they are in poverty is because they don’t have enough faith! The truth is, in prosperity theology the “faith” has not preceded the wealth, but the other way around. Those who are wealthy have examined their belongings, asked why they have them and concluded, “It must be because we are such faithful Christians!”

It’s idolatry, not Christianity. It seems to me that the promise in the New Testament is that Christians will suffer. And the example of the New Testament is that those with the most faith are showing their faith in suffering, not in riches and glory. Show me a New Testament exception to this rule!

It seems so clear in the New Testament. Why do people not see it? I think that Augustinian determinism has something to do with it. Why would one need to explain one’s financial success theologically? Why can’t a Christian who has a lot of money simply chalk it up to his own financial prowess, hard work, inheritance, luck in the lottery…whatever? Why does God have to be behind that? Well, if God is determining every event which happens, one has to start asking why some people have so much and some people do not!

At any rate, Open Theism seems much better suited to deal with disparity of incomes. God is not deciding every event which happens, but the system is open. People can become millionaires if they are so inclined and able. Some people will suffer in poverty because that is also a possibility. God may work within the system and may promise to take care of his people (provide their needs to a point). But I don’t have to answer the question, “Why does God choose some for riches and some not?”

A lot about a little, I guess! Comments?

Hubben and Why I May not Vote in the Upcoming Elections

2007-10-11T00:54:00.000-04:00

I just finished (actually, it's taking me so long to read or blog lately, that I really finished it weeks ago but am just getting around to finishing this blog) reading Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Kafka by William Hubben. Not an especially long read, the book is a brief analysis of the life and works of four wildly important existentialists. Hubben does a good job outlining a type of progression of thought, beginning with Sören Kierkegaard. Dostoevsky is next, then the nihilism of Friedrich Nietzsche, and finally Franz Kafka desperate in hoplessness and lack of meaning.

One amazing insight of these "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," as Hubben refers to them, is how insightful they are about 19th century Christianity. Each, for different reasons, found the merging of Christianity and government to be ultimately distasteful and a complete rejection of what Christianity has always stood for. Though Dostoevsky's Russian nationalism is emphasized as a theme, this paragraph on Nietzsche said much:

"In the vein of Kierkegaard's thinking, with which he was unacquainted, Nietzsche, the Antichrist, is indignant about the unholy fusion of state and religion, as he also believes that the state prevents the Single One from attaining his dignity. Original Christianity taught man not to conform to the state and even to separate himself from his family for the sake of the spirit. Our statesmen, 'anti-Chrisitians in their deeds,' have clearly changed this. They attend communion. they promote 'Christian' thinking in their speeches and schools. The chasm between the world and the faith of Jesus has been eliminated. Now the Christian is a soldier, a judge, a patriot who knows nothing about non-resistance to evil. He defends his honor instead of accepting humiliations; he is as proud as though he had never heard of the humble Galilean's teachings, and the Church has become precisely that institution Jesus had wanted to abolish." (108)

Assuming that Hubben's treatment of Nietzsche's thoughts on Christianity are accurate (and from what I've read of Nietzsche, they certainly don't contradict his thoughts on Jesus), I think this paragraph has some weight. Though Nietzsche's relationship to Christianity is, at the very least, antagonistic, he does make a particularly insightful observation of the result of the fusion of government and Christianity--that it damages Christianity. Though I don't think the statement "separate himself from family for the sake of the spirit" is accurate, the notion that the statesmen misunderstand Christianity is absolutely true.

In my time I have noticed that this fusion is most often used as a manipulation tactic by both of the main political parties. Each has a propensity to proclaim itself "Christian," and loves to relate its planks to Christian values. This consistently sets Christians in a strange position in which they feel the need to "vote their Christian values," but find themselves voting for a person whom they do not understand, know, or trust, because they have assumed that his views are really the "Christian" views.

Let me start another way. I have always been turned off by businesses which advertise on their signs or in their Yellow Page ads that they are "Christian" businesses. You find plumber ads with the ichthus symbol and lawyer signs with Bible verses. But what does one have to do with the other? What does the business owner gain from such a maneuver? Is he promoting the Kingdom of God? Is our call to advertise that we are Christians or is the call to behave like Christ? My conclusion is that the reason business owners do this is that so many Christians are convinced that Christianity is supporting Christian entertainment and frequenting Christian businesses to promote other Christians.

Similarly, politicians love to talk about their "faith." But I've never heard a politician describe a faith that I felt I had much in common with. I have voted pro-life since I was old enough to pull a lever because I felt my Christian faith necessitated that. Yet, those who claimed to be pro-life never acted on their pro-life positions. And, on top of that, the global situation has only worstened as those I have voted for have made decisions which have now turned into other problems.

The bottom line is, I'm not sure I'm voting this time for two reasons. One, as a citizen I doubt very much I'm going to find someone I really can get behind. Two, as a Christian, I don't think it's the point!

I think Bonhoeffer's thoughts on Luther are relevant to my thinking on this now:

"It was the Reformation that broke asunder the unity of the faith. That was not because Luther willed it so. He was indeed wholly concerned for the true unity of the Church. But the word of the Bible forced him to the conclusion that the unity of the Church can lie only in Jesus Christ as He lives in His word and sacrament, and not in any political power. In this way he shattered the whole structure of the Church, which was founded upon Roman tradition. Only a Pope who submitted unreservedly to the word of the Bible could be the shepherd of a united Christendom. But the Pope, bound as he was by tradition, was incapable of submission, and that is why the unity of Christendom was destroyed. The corpus christianum is resolved into its true constituents, the corpus Christi and the world. In His Church Christ rules not by the sword but solely with His word. Unity of Faith exists only in obedience to the true word of Jesus Christ. But the sword is the property of the secular government, which in its own way, i the proper discharge of its office, also serves the same Lord Jesus Christ. There are two kingdoms which so long as the world continues, must neither be mixed together nor yet torn asunder. There is the kingdom of the preached word of God, and there is the kingdom of the sword. The kingdom of the Church, and the kingdom of the world. The realm of the spiritual office, and the realm of secular government. The sword can never bring about the unity of the Church and of the faith. Preaching can never govern the nations. But the Lord of both kingdoms is the God who is made manifest in Jesus Christ (Ethics, 95-96)."

For what it is worth, I'm not certain how closely Bonhoeffer's synopsis of Luther on the topic actually mirrors his own views, but I like the paradox offered here.

This is a disjointed thought--but I've found my time so precious lately! I'm busy and loving my new job.

Final thought. Please pray as I'm working on a new article submisson. The last few weeks have done more to solidify some of my thinking on church leadership and gender roles than any time I have spend studying. I am considering writing an article rethinking 1 Timothy 2-3 based on my recent sermons. You can check them out by clicking the link to my podcasts.

Thanks!

Scattered Thoughts: Pacifism, Bonhoeffer, the Move

2007-09-25T14:43:00.000-04:00

Greetings to those who occasionally visit my Abyss. Amidst the frenzy of our move and all of the emotions we experienced in picking up our lives and going to Georgia, and as I have attempted to develop a routine for writing sermons (which, now that I have time to do it right, I am actually enjoying again), I have had some random thoughts to share.

First, thanks to all of my friends who interacted with me on the topic of pacifism. Between the posts (which are immortalized in print) and the discussions we had in person, I feel I have a much better grasp on the topic than before--and I've come to understand more fully the view that many of my closest friends hold. Believe it or not, you all influenced me much more than I may have let on. I think I've been forced to re-evaluate my dilemma and approach it from a strictly Christian viewpoint. In asking, "How did Christ approach the dilemma that I have posed?" I found myself thinking of the woman caught in adultery and how Jesus dealt with that. Here we have a woman who was being unfairly persecuted (where was her lover?) and was going to be killed by a merciless gang of lynchers. Granted, their actions, by some interpretations, were protected by Jewish law. Yet, Jesus understood the real ins and outs of the situation. How did he approach it?

My pacifist friends will be proud of me, I hope! Jesus did not fight. He knelt in the sand and wrote something (I have my theories). Then he stood up and told whoever had not broken the law to cast the first stone. Jesus approached the situation non-violently. Ironically, he risked a great deal of violence to himself in doing so. And I think that may be the key. As Christians, on a personal level, where we can, perhaps we are called to suffer for others more so than fight for them. That was, actually, Jesus' entire philosophy of dealing with violence, was it not? It was to receive violence in lieu of someone else. There. I've said it. You've moved me.

I still cannot get past the separation I find inherent in NT teaching about the role of government and its use of violence in situations. It seems to me that, if God has ordained this, then there is some justification for war. I still hold that there is a paradox on war in Christian teaching. Yet, I am moved closer in my own walk to the position of many of my friends.

Interestingly, Bonhoeffer moved from being a pacifist to an attempt to assassinate Hitler. The explanation provided to me was that Bonhoeffer recognized that Hitler's regime was a product of the non-action of the church when it could have done something. Therefore, he moved to violence as a secondary position--not as good as the primary, but necessary according to situation. I think I agree with Bonhoeffer. There is a point at which it is too late to say, "This is what we should have done."

I'm reading Ethics by Bonhoeffer right now (amidst other things--see Theo's Picks for the link). My new schedule affords more time for reading and personal study. (Perhaps I should have made this move a long time ago.) Bonhoeffer is fascinating me with the idea that the whole study of ethics is really a product of the fall--in that people believe they can be the source of knowledge of good and evil. In fact, my first sermon at Castle really ended up being about that (I borrowed heavily from Paul Axton's genius chapel sermon). Once we have updated Castle's podcast, I will add the link to the Abyss. Because of the profundity of some of his comments, I was thinking of just adding a few quotes for discussion, if anyone is interested.

"To know good and evil is to know oneself as the origin of good and evil, as the origin of an eternal choice and election. How this is possible remains the secret of Him in whom there is no disunion because He is Himself the one and eternal origin and the overcoming of all disunion. This secret has been stolen from God by man in his desire to be an origin on his own account. Instead of knowing only the God who is good to him and instead of knowing all things in Him, he now knows himself as the origin of good and evil. Instead of accepting the choice and election of God, man himself desires to choose, to be the origin of election. And so, in a certain sense, he bears within himself the secret of predestination. Instead of knowing himself solely in the reality of being chosen and loved by God, he must now know himself in the possibility of choosing and of being the origin of good and evil. He has become like God, but against God. Herein lies the serpent's deceit. Man knows good and evil, but because he is not the origin, because he acquires this knowledge only at the price of estrangement from the origin, the good and evil he knows are not the good and evil of God but good and evil against God. They are good and evil of man's own choosing, in opposition to the eternal election of God. In becoming like God man has become a god against God." (Ethics, 23)

"Man's life is now disunion with God, with men, with things, and with himself." (24)

"Knowing of good and evil in disunion with the origin, man begins to reflect upon himself. His life is now his understanding of himself, whereas at the origin it was his knowledge of God. Self-knowledge is now the measure and the goal of life. This holds true even when man presses out beyond the bonds of his own self. Self-knowledge is man's interminable striving to overcome his disunion with himself by thought; by unceasingly distinguishing himself from himself he endeavours to achieve unity with himself." (29)

"No longer knowing good and evil, but knowing Christ as origin and reconciliation, man will know all. For in knowing Christ man knows and acknowledges God's choice which has fallen upon this man himself; he no longer stands as the chooser between good and evil, that is to say, in disunion; he is the chosen one, who can no longer choose, but has already made his choice in his being chosen in the freedom and unity of the deed and will of God. He thus has a new knowledge, in which the knowledge of God, yet no longer as the man who has become like God, but as the man who bears the image of God. All he knows now is "Jesus Christ, adn him crucified (I Cor. 2.2), and in HIm he knows all. As one who is without knowledge he has become the one who knows only God and all things in Him." (37)

One of my favorites:

"The voice of the heart is not to be confused with the will of God, nor is any kind of inspiriation or any general principle..." (41) He goes on to discuss that the will of God, at its base, is the metamorphasis of the human.

In some of my earlier wrestlings with the "will of God," Bonhoeffer sums up beautifully and solves the problem:

"But when all this has been said it is still necessary really to examine what is the will of God, what is rightful in a given situation, what course is truly pleasing to God; for, after all, there have to be concrete life and action. Intelligence, discernment, attentive observation of the given facts, all these now come into lively operation, all will be embraced and pervaded by prayer. Particular experiences will afford correction and warning. Direct inspirations must in no case be heeded or expected, for this could all to easily lead to a man's abandoning himself to self-deception. In view of what is at stake there must be a lofty spirit of sober self-control. Possibilities and consequences must be carefully assessed. In other words, the whole apparatus of human powers must be set in motion when it is a matter of proving what is the will of God. But in all this there will be no room for the torment of being confronted with insoluble conflicts, or for the arrogant notion that one can master every conflict, or even for the enthusiastic expectation and assertion of direct inspiration. There will be belief that if a man asks God humbly God will give him certain knowledge of His will; and then, after all this earnest proving, there will also be the freedom to make a real decision, and with it the confidence that it is not man but God Himself who, through this proving, gives effect to His will." (43-44) Beautiful!

Anyhow, I'm liking Bonhoeffer! Thoughts?

Pacifism and Reality

2007-09-06T15:25:00.000-04:00

Numerous recent discussions with some of my closest friends have repeatedly concerned the topic of pacifism. It is no wonder to me that this view is enjoying a revival of sorts. Myth of a Christian Nation deals largely with it. And I think that it is good that the discussion is reemerging. (Perhaps I am just being re-introduced to it.) Evangelical Christians have not helped the kingdom of God by taking (on the whole) what appears to be a radical pro-war stance which is Zionistic and not consistent with Christian values.

However, I think the pacifist view has a few weaknesses. I've dealt with those in earlier posts, but I wanted to throw out a few responses to comments made by a friend of mine in a discussion on pacifism recently.

The central idea (as I can tell) to the Christian pacifist viewpoint is Jesus' claim that his kingdom is not of this world--else his servants would fight! What is drawn from this, and from the command to love our enemies, is that Christians are not called to fight--that's worldly kingdom thinking. And, from the point of view of the role of the church and the method of evangelism the church is to use, I think it is relevant to discuss this. But is this teaching in all cases relevant to the Christian's attitude toward civil government?

In our discussion, I (again) threw out the topic of the holocaust. In the early 40's of the last century, Hitler's Germany was mercilessly slaughtering millions of people. The question is, "Is this not a justified reason to enter a war--even as a Christian called to love his enemy?" One of my friends asked the question recently, "Do you think when Jesus said to 'love your enemy' he meant we shouldn't drop bombs on them?" The sarcasm of the comment implies that war is a direct contradiction to the teaching of Christ. However, I asked my friend a few days ago, "Yes, we are commanded to love our enemy. But we're also commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves. So, what do I do when my enemy is trying to kill my neighbor?" I ask, "Do you think when Jesus said to love our neighbor, we should be concerned that they not be murdered?"

The answer I bumped into that evening is the same one I've found in similar discussions. It is that "You can always argue some exception to the rule, but we don't develop theology based on these exceptions." In other words: the reality is that WWII is the anomoly, and the rule is much easier to apply in every day life. However, I think the pacifist forgets that the doctrine of pacifism has inherent practical implications. OF COURSE, the first thing someone who does not subscribe to pacifism is going to say when approached is, "So, how do I put this into practice?" Is it really such a rare thing that a Christian must decide whether to go to war? In reality, it is doubtful whether any generation in the last two hundred years (maybe ever) has NOT had to wrestle with this question. So, I don't think the pacifist escapes the practical consequences of his viewpoint by arguing that pacifism's practicality is irrelevant. Violent situations do happen and it is up to the pacifist to explain how his view is rightly lived out in light of real-world conflicts.

Also, I think the pacifist muddies the water by referring to Jesus' statement that the kingdom of God is not of this world. Here is how: when Jesus refers to the kingdom of God, it is a reference to the church--not the nation! (Thanks, Greg Boyd--though I'm not sure you'd like the conclusion I'm drawing.) And Paul also stated that government is ordained by God to bear the sword. There seems to be an implication that human government has the God-ordained responsibility to utilize violence in order to protect the welfare of the public. Keeping in mind that Jesus' indictment regarding the kingdom of God is specifically about the church, it would seem that there is a difference between the attitude Christians take regarding the role of the church in the world, and the attitude we might rightly take in participating in violence in civil matters. I think this is a much better way to understand the instances in the New Testament in which Roman soldiers come to belief in Christ, yet no mention is made of their abandonment of their posts. Even the NT reveals a paradox on the issue--perhaps reality in theology lies somewhere between the poles of conservative zionist warhawk and pacifism?

It seems to me that the church's role is a counter-cultural phenomenon--but one which operates within culture. New Testament teaching is not polar, it is paradoxical. Our job is to discover the proper balance.

I welcome responses from some of my friends on this issue!

The Goal of Relative Timelessness: Have My Cake--Eat It Too

2007-08-30T15:25:00.001-04:00

Just finished Alan Padgett's chapter in Ganssle's edited work, God and Time. The book describes four different views on this relationship, with contributions from Paul Helm (Augustinian), William Lane Craig, Alan Padgett, and Nicholas Wolterstorff. I bought the book largely for Nicholas Wolterstorff's chapter on "Unqualified Divine Temporality." Wolterstorff defends what is, largely, my view on God and time. His chapter was good, no doubt. For the most part, I related to what he was saying the best. However, it was Padgett's chapter that, I think, really went the furthest in attacking a strictly atemporal view of God.

Padgett really makes the distinction between two extremes: everlasting eternity (temporal eternity), and timeless eternity (atemporal). With a very short section on what he sees as the weaknesses of the former, he spends many pages taking apart the latter. At the center of his complaints about atemporality are its problems with coherence. It is not, to Padgett, that the atemporal model is, in itself, a completely incoherent view. "The main objection [Padgett has] to the timeless model is simply stated: It is true only if the stasis theory of time is true. Since the stasis theory of time is false, we should reject the timeless view because we should, whenever possible, bring coherence to theology." (GT, 95)

Padgett goes on to make a very good argument for the "process" view of time over the stasis view. According to process theories,"temporal passage is a real part of the physical universe" while stasis theories "deny the reality of temporal passage."(96) He insist that "even a timeless God must await the present moment to act on really existing (present) things, if the process theory of time is true."(97) In fact, Padgett even seems to admit the concept of real change in the person of God, something classical theology works very hard to deny--yet clearly contradicts scripture.

Overall, I like Padgett's approach to atemporality. However, I found him a little frustrating, and here's why: he insists that atemporality is necessary for a coherent theology, but still tries to bring stasis theory into theology in the back door. In his section "Eternity as Relative Timelessness," having argued brilliantly against atemporality, he turns around and affirms a "God outside of time" mentality. Distinguishing between "pure duration" and temporality within created space-time ("measured time"). His reasoning, God has created space-time and so, must transcend it. His transcendence over time must be such that even his own time (God's time--pre-created space-time) must be ontologically dependent on him. But my question is, "why?"

It seems to me that we are sometimes too worked up about the transcendence of God. The notion that God created or is necessary to his own temporal (or atemporal) existence seems silly to me. What is wrong with stating that God has a nature, whether it is temporal or eternal? Is there something wrong with God if he doesn't transcend his own nature?

Scripture speaks of God's inability to lie. Does this mean he doesn't transcend truth? He cannot be tempted, either. There is nothing wrong with stating that God has a nature. I happen to think his nature is temporal, so that his temporality is not something he must transcend. It simply is what he is.

Just a short note on Padgett's chapter. Overall, it is good, but in the end he moves to atemporality in order to protect God's "Lordship over time." But I think this is unnecessary.

A Boydian Response to the Bridge Tragedy

2007-08-09T23:46:00.000-04:00

In several of my posts, I've discussed the topic of God's will and attempts to: interpret how events fit in God's will, discern what God's will is, and explain why God allows bad events to occur. I have taken the position of an open universe, meaning that God simply created a system in which people (and angels) can choose wrong and events like this can happen. This system means that sometimes tragedies will occur, disease will attack, and accidents will happen. It means God has created a system in which the agents of that system have some control over what happens. It also means that God does not control every event, but interacts with that system dynamically. There is reaction with God--and not every event fits into his cosmic plan. Sometimes what God wants to happen doesn't happen.

On Greg Boyd's blog, Greg posted a response to an Augustinian preacher who attempted to rationalize the bridge collapse in Minnesota in light of God's purpose in the event. As Greg usually does, I think he nailed the response perfectly. Read his blog entry here.

Greg Boyd's Spiritual Warfare Q&A

2007-08-06T23:58:00.001-04:00

Greetings friends. This post is just a quick one. I want to share a message by Greg Boyd and Paul Eddy. It is actually a 2 hour Q&A session on spiritual warfare. In it they touch on certainty, openness, the will of God, sin, Christianity and the political spectrum, and many other topics. They come to a lot of the conclusions I've come to and published on this blog. And, since we all have a tendency to promote who we agree with, I think the whole thing is definitely a stroke of brilliance.

You can find Greg Boyd's podcasts by searching for "Woodland Hills Church Sermon Podcasts" in iTunes or by clicking Greg's name.

You can also go to Greg's website and download a non-iTunes version. Either way, the message you want is "Spiritual Warfare Q&A."

Why It Doesn't Matter to Christians if the Government Sanctions Homosexual Marriages

2007-07-30T01:31:00.001-04:00

OK, the title is over the top, I know. But I want it to catch your attention. Let me begin by saying that I am a committed Christian and that my view of homosexuality itself is in line with that of most conservative evangelicals. The Bible is pretty clear that homosexual acts are sinful. Though I think most Christians really misunderstand homosexuality and underestimate its roots, I can't say I approve of it as a legitimate alternative lifestyle.

That being said, I have to admit that the whole legal battle to keep marriage between a man and a woman does not interest me in the slightest. Here are two reasons why:

1. Those concerned have a tendency to say that allowing homosexuals to marry one another will "destroy the sanctity of marriage." Because marriage has traditionally been seen as heterosexual only, giving legal sanction to same-sex marriage will set America on a slippery slope. If the government sanctions gay marriage, before long polygamy and bestial marriages will follow. And Christians all over are worried sick that America will take one step further from God (as if it is currently close to God). But does it follow that allowing homosexuals to have a legal union similar to marriage (even called marriage) removes the God-ordained sanctity of marriage? I don't think so.

When I was a child, we often played a game called "house." Most of us have done it. You get together with your friends, someone acts like a mommy, someone else like a daddy, you line up some teddy bears as "the kids," and have tea. "Mommy" and "daddy" call each other "dear" and "honey." If they are particularly adventurous, mommy and daddy may pretend to kiss each other when daddy or mommy leaves for work. "House" is a game played by children in which they mimic the actions of their parents, playing a game about marriage. It's pretty innocent and normal. In the game, however, the children refer to themselves as "married." They pretend to be "married." They even refer to themselves as "husband" and '"wife." Yet, the sanctity of marriage is generally considered intact throughout the charade.

Of course, there is a difference. The government does not sanction "playing house." Children who pretend to be married to not have legal partnership as spouses. They do not actually act as beneficiaries of life-insurance policies. They are not given legal, married status. But here is why I think they are no different:

If marriage has sanctity, it has inherent sanctity. The ground given by Christians is that God created and ordained marriage, therefore it has a special place and role. I think they are right about that. I even think they are right that marriage is designed by God to be between a man and a woman. In fact, I believe it so firmly that I don't think someone who does it wrong can remove that sanctity. If two children pretend to be married as a game, they don't impugn the sanctity of marriage. They're just playing a game. In the same way, if two men decide they love each other and want to get "married," does what they are doing (which isn't marriage as defined by scripture anyhow) really remove the sanctity of marriage? If someone else comes along and says, "I recognize this as a legal union," does it remove it then? No. It doesn't. God planted its sanctity. It cannot be removed just because people do it wrongly. If it could, those of us who have done heterosexual marriage so poorly would already have ruined it.

Let me use another metaphor. Say all of America recognizes the game we've come to know as golf. There is usually a course involved, people use little white balls and expensive clubs, and you try to hit the ball into the cup in as few strokes as possible. But, say a small group of people have decided that they want to play golf by using small wooden mallets to hit larger wooden balls across the lawn through metal wickets (croquet). They begin to petition the government to get croquet recognized as a legal form of the game "golf." They want recognition that those already playing croquet, have, in fact, all along been playing "golf." Say, then, that the government sees no problem with this and begins to consider sanctioning croquet as golf.

Now, of course, avid golfers all over the country are furious. The golfer's rulebook clearly defines what golf is, and it is not croquet! Some even say that no respectable golfer in his right mind would even consider touching a croquet mallet, much less calling that silly game "golf." They argue that, changing the name of croquet to "golf" will impugn the inherent dignity and beauty of golf.

Let's say that the duffers lose, and those with the mallets are now golfers. Now what? What happens? Well, you have a lot of people playing golf as it was. You also have a lot of people playing the game formerly known as croquet. Have the games changed? No. Just the names. Are croquet players actually playing golf? Only in name. They still aren't doing the real thing. They've just changed the vocabulary. Golf itself hasn't changed at all. It's just that some people are now more easily able to live in their fantasy. But they'll never win the Masters! And, most likely, real golfers will just start calling golf something else (like American golf--remember the same thing happened with football when Americans started calling their game the same thing the rest of the world calls "soccer!").

If the government gives homosexual couples the legal right to refer to themselves as "married" it doesn't actually change marriage. Marriage as ordained by God is intact. It always will be. Marriage doesn't need our protection to survive. We, as individuals, need to use it correctly to survive. And this requires individual commitments. So what if the government decides to redefine marriage? God hasn't. But the interesting thing is, he doesn't ever stop people from sinning. He only warns them not to. So, two men now think they are married and receive legal benefits? Is their relationship any less sinful than before? No. Is marriage, in God's eyes, any different? No. Does it matter that they can collect life insurance on one another now? I don't see why. Why should I care who is the beneficiary on their life insurance policies? I'm concerned, primarily, with the condition of their souls, not their work benefits.

That's reason one.

2. I used to think differently about this. But when did Jesus tell us to legislate Christianity? It just seems odd to me that we expect a nation that is so far from God (and all nations as nations are far from him) to want to live by his rules. Sinners sin. Why should I expect them not to? Why do we expect people who aren't Christians to behave as if they were? Is that the way Jesus approached sin?

Look at it this way. God ordained the sexual relationship between a man and a woman, within marriage. Yet, since time began people have been getting it wrong. Throughout history there has been adultery and prostitution (isn't it called the oldest profession?). Yet, when Jesus (God in flesh) walked on this earth, he didn't lobby the Roman government to make adultery illegal! He didn't even try to illegalize prostitution (which we have done). In fact, when Jesus did find someone about to be stoned for adultery (within Jewish law), what did he do? He rescued her from that fate and told her to stop sinning.

Jesus met sin differently than contemporary American Christians want to. We want the government to enforce Christian values on people who aren't Christians. But Jesus met sin by living among sinners and offering them love, hope, and a way out of the problems caused by their sins. Aren't we actually doing the opposite of early Christianity in demanding that the world bend to make us more comfortable?

Greg Boyd's book The Myth of a Christian Nation has been helpful to me in these thoughts. I've been thinking this way for some time, but he's given me some fuel. His idea is that we aren't called to legislate Christianity from the top down, but to evangelize from the bottom up. His point is that, even if we win the battles for prayer in school, heterosexual marriage, and abortion (which we won't), we aren't doing the work of the kingdom.(pp.114-115) Let me add to his point. Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world, or else my servants would fight." Perhaps today he'd say, "or else my servants would lobby." Really, when we concentrate on keeping Christian values as the legal norm, we aren't thinking of others. We're thinking of ourselves. We're trying to keep America comfortable for us. But that's not the proper mindset for Christians. First century Christians weren't about governmental reform. They were about a counter-cultural phenomenon known as Jesus Christ. They preached love, acceptance, and repentance. Why aren't we?

So, let them get "married." It doesn't affect my marriage. And, more importantly, it doesn't change my mission at all.

Post-post: Having read a little further in Boyd's book, I stumbled across some pages in which he deals specifically with this (really!). I thought it prudent to include a few quotes:

"Do evangelicals fear gay marriage in particular because the Bible is much more clear about the wrongfulness of gay marriage than it is about the wrongfulness of divorce and remarriage? No, for the Bible actually says a good deal more against divorce and remarriage than it does against monogomous gay relationships. Do they go after this particular sin because the research shows that gay marriage is more damaging to society than divorce and remarriage? It seems not, for while one might grant that neither is ideal, there's no clear evidence that the former is socially more harmful than the latter--especially given the fact that divorce and remarriage is far more widespread than gay marriage. But in any case, this point is completely irrelevant since the present issue isn't over gay unions. The issue is only over whether these unions should be called 'marriages.' To the best of my knowledge, no one has shown that the social welfare of our nation is significantly harmed by what monogamous gay unions are called." (Myth of a Christian Nation, 137)

"We evangelicals may be divorced and remarried several times; we may be as greedy and as unconcerned about the poor and as gluttonous as others in our culture; we may be as prone to gossip and slander and as blindly prejudiced as others in our culture; we may be more self-righteous and as rude as others in our culture--we may even lack love more than others in the culture. These sins are among the most frequently mentioned sins in the Bible. But at least we're not gay!" (Boyd, 137-8)

"To be clear, I'm not suggesting that the church should publicly take a stand for gay marriage, nor am I trying to influence how evangelicals vote. Some may feel it best for society to outlaw gay marriages--others to allow it. In a democracy you're asked to give your opinion on such matters, so give it according to your conscience. I'm simply maintaining that, in our role as public representatives of the Kingdom of God, Christians should stick to replicating Calvary toward gay people (as toward all people), and trust that their loving service will do more to transform people than laws ever could. [paragraph break] If your particular burden is to free people from their homosexuality, then go aobut it in a Calvary-like fashion. Commit to suspending judgment, start befriending gays, and then serve them in love--for years. Perhaps your loving kindness will lead some of them to faith and open doors for dialogue as God gently works in their lives--just as he works in yours. You may eventually develop a trusting, committed relationship in which you are invited to address issues in a gay person's life as you invite them to address issues in your life, for God uses relationships like this to lead us all into greater conformity to Jesus Christ." (Boyd, 138-9)

Talking Points: Mercy and Pacifism

2007-07-08T23:44:00.000-04:00

No one single topic for this post. I want to throw a couple of ideas out there for the minds on my list to comment on.

First, I'm still finishing up Pinnock's A Wideness in God's Mercy, but I'm moving it into Theo's Picks because I think it is simply a must-read. His concept of an optimistic soteriology is refreshing. This is a thoughtful available light theology with a contemporary pragmatic value. It's not always comfortable, but it is a real shift in thinking. It is a hopeful theism.

Second, I want to throw out a couple of ideas I've had in recent discussions about pacifism. I've just started Myth of a Christian Nation so I haven't run across any of Boyd's ideas about pacifism, but I've heard a few of them. Also, several of my closest friends hold to some form of Christian pacifism, and I want to throw out a few questions for discussion.

Generally, the argument is something like this: The thrust of the teaching of Christ on violence is decidedly non-violent. Therefore, though governments do bear the sword for a defensive and punitive purpose, the position of the Christian should be a non-violent one.

For now, I want to avoid the topic of war. I think it is far too broad to cover in a forum like this. There are too many different types of wars and different motives to treat it fairly. Also, since our country is at war, and there are so many different feelings and thoughts on this war, I fear it is difficult for us to be objective.

However, on the topic of personal protection, I think there is some room for discussion. Our friends Scott and Anna stopped by tonight and we touched on the subject (before a hungry baby interrupted our discussion). The question I think we were approaching was, "Is it ever justified to attack an intruder (or even to kill) in defense of my family?" Or are we to "turn the other cheek?"

A few discussion points:

It is interesting to me that Jesus, while telling us to love our enemies in Mt 5:43-48 and to not resist an evildoer and to turn the other cheek in verses 39 and 40 is the same Lord who told his disciples to buy a sword just before he died (Lk 22:35-38). Presumably, he knew about Peter's sword well before Peter struck the soldier's ear in Gethsemane! Why does he allow swords to be carried by his disciples? Perhaps the injunctions to pacifism in Matthew 5 should be understood in the context of revenge for wrongdoing, not protection from it. That is certainly the thrust of verses 37 ff. I can only turn the other cheek after the first one has been struck. Perhaps this is another exaggeration to make a point--just as the command to hate our mother and father is really a command to love Jesus more, perhaps "turning the other cheek" is merely an injunction to avoid exacting revenge.
It seems to me that Jesus tells me to turn my cheek when someone wants to hurt me--but does he command me to turn my daughter's cheek when someone wants to hurt her? If an intruder hurts me and takes my belongings, that is one thing. But should I stand buy and allow my wife, daughter, or son to undergo rape because of this command? Whose cheek do I have the right to turn anyhow? Does the injunction apply to someone who desires to harm my family because of some sick, perverted fetish? Does Jesus command to give someone who takes my cloak my tunic also mean that if someone takes my wife I should also give him my daughter? I cannot imagine it.
In the case of rape, if the injunction to turn the other cheek applies, what of the command to sexual purity? Isn't a person facing rape justified in fighting back from the perspective of attempting to obey the command to sexual purity?

These are just a few thoughts. Ecclesiastes 3:3 states that there is a time to kill and a time to heal. Perhaps Jesus' teachings on pacifism need to be understood in the context of the rest of scripture. Perhaps there is a time when it is appropriate to "turn the other cheek" and a time when it is appropriate to stand up to an attacker. Does my love for my family--and for my community--not warrant my desire to protect the innocent from the criminal?

Was Pelagius Right and, If So, Is Christ's Death Unnecessary?

2007-06-26T00:05:00.000-04:00

I'm reading Clark Pinnock, A Wideness in God's Mercy, and it is as fascinating as it is encouraging. Pinnock is trying to find a balance between a pessimistic soteriological stance, in which very few are saved, and Universalism--in which all people are saved. Both extremes are unacceptable, in his view. The discussion attempts to find an optimistic theology of salvation centered around the concept of the "pious pagans" of scripture like Job, Melchizedek, Cornelius, etc. ("pious pagans" is my paraphrase).

In the early chapters of the book, he finds fault with Augustine (rightly) for founding a narrow, pessimistic view of salvation. "There were features in Augustine's thinking which led him inexorably to a pessimism of salvation. In the bitter Pelagian controversy, for example, he was driven to emphasize the sheer gratuity of divine grace at the expense of any human contribution....Augustine took it in the direction of a pessimism of salvation. People are hopelessly lost in sin, can do nothing to save themselves, and deserve nothing from God as judge."(p.38)

Basically, Augustine, in response to Pelagius, went to the extreme of claiming that man cannot do any good on his own and is completely in need of God to offer Grace--even to give him the ability to accept it. But what was Pelagius saying? What is the Pelagian controversy?

I don't want to oversimplify it, but Pelagius was a theologian who claimed that it had to be possible, logically, for the average person to live a sinless life. And throughout history, the name "Pelagius" has been synonymous with controversy--if not heresy. At the heart of people's problems with this idea is the notion that, if it is possible to live a sinless life, Jesus' death is irrelevant. Most likely, the reader feels the same way. But, in the spirit of the Abyss, let me challenge the prevailing wisdom against Pelagius with my own thoughts!

It seems to me that taking a side in the Pelagian controversy is a natural thing to do, and unavoidable. And I understand why most people are offended by Pelagius. There are difficult ramifications to his idea. However, I think there are difficult ramifications of the opposite idea, as well. Let me explain.

Romans 3:23 states, "All sin and fall short of the glory of God," as I remember it. In other words, there is no person who does not sin--for this reason, the point of the epistle is that all people (Jew and Gentile) need a savior! I agree, otherwise I would be a heretic. But does this mean that it is impossible for me not to sin, or does it mean that I am tainted by the human condition to desire sin so much that the odds are infinitesimally small that I should live my entire life without ever giving in once?

Here is the crux of the argument. Most of us, except those of us who have accepted hardcore Calvinism, accept that we are free agents with the ability to choose what we will do from moment to moment. I think biblical Christian theology rests heavily on our own responsibility in sin. For that reason, I have to accept that in any case in which I am tempted to sin, I am faced with a choice. I can give in to the part of me that desires to sin, or I can choose not to. And, if I'm going to be transparent with you--sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. If, in every case I am tempted to sin I have a choice, then it has to be logically possible (not probable, but possible) that I should make the right choice in every instance.

Now, most people accept that in each individual case I have free choice. But they tend to stop short when it comes to the overall picture. We have a tendency to say, "No, we can't live a sinless life--it's impossible." But I ask this question then, "At what point in my life do I enter a situation in which I have no choice but to sin?" Which time is it impossible not to sin? And if there is a point at which it is impossible not to sin, how can I be held accountable for something I have no choice in doing? Freedom necessitates the possibility of a sinless life.

Mind you, I'm not advocating that this is likely, or that any of us will achieve this. But I think it has to be possible--if not pragmatically, at least logically.

Usually someone will say something to the effect of, "Well, on a cognitive level, perhaps. But the fact that we can sin without knowing it makes it impossible to go through life without sinning." In response, I offer two answers:

1. Personally, I don't believe it is possible to sin without knowing it--the essence of sin is willing disobedience and rebellion. Romans also states that sin is not imputed when there is no law--and Paul states that when he learned the law sin sprang to life and he died. I think if a person does not understand an action to be sinful, it is not accounted to him as sin because he is not willfully disobeying. I think this is what Jesus means when he tells his disciples that they will not enter heaven unless they become like children--innocent. Anyone who has children understands the profoundness of this verse--children lie and do things wrong all the time, but they are considered innocent because they are not able to comprehend that their actions are rebellion against a transcendent law.

2. Even if it is possible to sin without knowing it, it's still non sequitur that a sinless life is absolutely impossible. Even if is possible to sin without willful disobedience, it is still conceivable that a person should do the right thing in every situation. It isn't likely, but it is possible.

But doesn't this eliminate our need for Christ? If we could live sinlessly, doesn't that mean he didn't need to die? This is the question that I always run into in this discussion. But the truth is, I don't understand why people jump to that conclusion. Let me illustrate with an analogy.

Let's say that I can't swim, but I am invited to a party which will be held on big yacht floating in the middle of a very deep lake. Now, let's say that at one point, someone asks me if I would like to swim in the lake. I know what I should do--I should stay on the boat and put on an extra life vest. But let's say that I choose to jump in the water and immediately begin drowning. Now, I had several choices to avoid my immanent death. I could have decided not to attend the party. I could have made sure to wear a life vest. I could have chosen not to jump in the water. In all choices, I was free--and I made the wrong choice each time. Now, does the fact that I chose the wrong thing mean that I don't need a lifeguard to save me? Quite the opposite--the fact that I freely chose to do something so deadly is exactly why I need a savior!

I think the problem with the argument is that we're assuming that our need for Christ's sacrifice precedes our actual sin. But did Adam and Eve need a savior before they chose to disobey? They lived a sinless life, until they decided to rebel against what God had told them. After this, they needed a savior. Unless they were predetermined to sin, which some people do believe, they could have chosen to do the right thing--in which case, Jesus' death would not have been necessary for them.

In my opinion, the fact that it is possible for me not to sin does not eliminate my need for Christ. Quite the opposite--it emphasizes it. The fact that I could have chosen not to sin makes Christ's sacrifice all the more loving and, well, unfair! We believe that he willingly died for people who are guilty of willing disobedience--they could have chosen to live sinlessly, but they didn't. At the heart of the profoundness of Christ's sacrifice is the fact that we don't deserve it! It is our freedom in the choice to sin that makes Christ's sacrifice so much more profound.

On the other hand, if I can't help but sin then it really isn't my fault that I do, and it is questionable that we need someone to take a punishment that we don't really deserve.

One last note... We are unable to save ourselves--but only after we sin! Before we sin, we don't need a savior. This is why children are innocent.

I am very happy to take comments about this post. What I'm trying to do right now is find a way to come to grips with my own inadequacies and faults as a man and a Christian. I'm getting counseling right now and my counselor and I tend to bump heads about this a lot--he's trying to convince me to not be so hard on myself and others, but I'm stuck on the fact that I must be able to choose to do the right thing from one moment to the next. This is the theology I believe, but in practice it's a hard one. I'm trying to come to grips with self-forgiveness. Any help?

A Benefit of Non-Certainty

2007-06-07T14:33:00.000-04:00

In my recent posts, I have dealt with epistemological certainty when doing theology. My view gets a bad rap sometimes, but it is honest. However, last night I think I discovered a real benefit to acknowledging doubt.

My family and I went out to do some clothes shopping (a truly rare occurence). Of course, after two hours of shopping, I was delirious and groggy. We decided to eat at Applebees (another rare occurrence), and were seated at a table just outside the bar area.

The restaurant was not crowded and it was easy to listen in on the conversations of other people in the room. One man was very easy to hear--he was seated at the bar and talking to a woman there. He sounded like he was a university student, but he was a little older than what is typical. He had had anywhere from two to nine beers, apparently, and was feeling pretty confident. Ironically, he looked and sounded pretty ridiculous. He was one of those lucky guys whose reaction to alcohol was largely philosophical. He began to explain to the woman next to him--in several different wordings and volume levels--this basic idea: "God" is just a human construct developed to provide people with comfort in the face of their struggles.

Now, I was immediately interested and were it not for the fact that I was there with my family and this guy was nearly incoherent, I would have attempted to engage him in conversation. But here is the crux--his statement really had me thinking, and had me a little worried. I began to wonder how I would respond to him if he had presented that idea to me. How do you answer such a claim? The worst of it was, I've heard the question before and even talked about it in classes. This was exactly Ludwig Feuerbach's idea when he inverted the Hegelian Dialectic and claimed that God is a projection of man.

Of course, if God is a projection, he is a poor projection. If we were creating him for our comfort, you'd think we'd create a more comfortable God. That's the first and easiest problem with his statement. But it is not a proof that the man was incorrect. How can I show him that he cannot possibly be right? I came to the conclusion that I couldn't prove it one way or the other. I flirted with despair!

It finally occurred to me that the reason I was having a hard time trying to argue in my mind against his statement was that his statement really wasn't an argument. He wasn't giving a reason not to believe in God, he was giving an explanation for the question, "If God doesn't exist, why is there so much talk about God?" He was shouting (literally) that God is a figment, but was really beginning from the paradigm that God does not exist. But there is a central flaw here related to certainty.

I really think the strength of Christianity lies in something other than knowledge. What do I mean . . . ? The man at the bar last night was resting on the assumption that God definitely does not exist. And his anger was reflective of the feeling of assurance he had about God's ontological status. This is the weakness of atheism: it claims to have all of the ins and outs well in hand--it claims that it knows with certainty that God definitely does not exist. From there, it attempts to explain why we have all of this talk about God. But that kind of knowledge is exactly what is not possible from an enlightenment definition of knowledge--even though that is what modernity claims about God. It really is impossible to prove God's ontological status one way or the other with a modern understanding of knowledge. At last, non-certainty has a bright side!

That is also the strength of Christianity. We don't claim to have complete knowledge--far from it. We are limited humans with limited ability to know anything with certainty. The atheist claims he knows that God does not exist--if he doesn't claim that, then he is really just an agnostic. But the Christian is free from this prison of knowledge to refer to himself as a believer. I finally breathed a great sigh of relief last night when I realized, I don't have to prove it, only believe it. Christians are not knowers in the Kantian sense, but believers.

Really, it takes a great deal of hubris to claim to have knowledge of God's existence or non-existence. As my friend said to me today, what a person is actually saying when he claims to know is that he himself owns that knowledge, he has complete grasp of it. Saying "I know" is really a statement about my ability to know something. But I don't think I am capable of knowing or having a complete understanding.

The Bible means something else completely when it refers to knowledge. It is an experiential knowledge, not an acquiring knowledge. It is this concept of knowledge that I hope to understand someday. I am just about ready to start reading Polanyi's Personal Knowledge and have also picked up Wittgenstein's On Certainty. When I finally come to my conclusion, I'll let you know!

Relative Certainty, Within Assumed Paradigms

2007-06-04T02:09:00.000-04:00

Whereas the last few posts have dealt chiefly with our ability to know whether God has acted in a certain situation, it became clear in a continuing series of comments (see the article entitled, "Another Case for Coincidence" and the following comments) between me and one of my close friends that at the heart of this discussion is the nature of knowledge and certainty. I have explained that I, due to the influence of modernism, have ascribed to the enlightenment concept of knowledge as justified, true belief. In Kantian form, I have accepted that it is not really possible to have certainty about anything metaphysical. As my friend Terry has pointed out, it would seem that anything can be doubtable from this viewpoint. And I have to admit, I wrestle with skepticism in my own life.

This post will deal with one question he asked which resonated with me and forced me to wrestle with it. I want the reader to know that I hold my friend in high esteem and respect his viewpoint entirely, though he and I are approaching these issues from radically different mindsets. So that you will know the context of the question he asked, here are the preceding words:

"And how do you think this view will affect witnessing for Christ? The best you can say is, 'I think God is real. I think he sent his Son. You should think this too.' But the person says to you, 'But what if you are wrong?' To which the best you can say is, 'Yeah, I may be.'"

The question Terry is asking is relevant. He is saying, "If you say you cannot know with certainty that God exists, etc., how do you effectively evangelize? Aren't you really shooting your effort in the foot to admit that you could be wrong?" I think I have an adequate response to this. I think that the seriousness of this discussion merits my humility and people should expect that I do not claim to have certainty. Besides this, the person being evangelized who does not believe already thinks I might be wrong. So, displaying a little humility is a positive thing. From his eyes, the scientific naturalists and other atheists are also claiming certainty. But I think it is a much better answer to say, "It is possible that I could be wrong. I'm not perfect and I may not see everything. But from what I can see, I think I have very good reason to believe as I do. Let me share those reasons with you." From and apologetic standpoint, in postmodern culture, I think that's about as far as you're going to get. In reality, I've concluded that most people do not approach Christianity rationally anyhow. Most people do not come to Christ because they've reasoned Christianity to be true or because they heard a well-informed argument about the modern trustworthiness of scripture, but they move to it existentially. It is felt need that drives people to faith in Christ.

But Terry made one more statement that I had no answer for until today. It was this:

"What does this do with knowing the truth, and the truth setting you free? We have to know, Jason."

Now, on the second part of the statement, I think my friend's thought is insightful, though this specific wording doesn't communicate the point I think he is making. Whether he feels we have to know or I feel we do not is irrelevant. Either we know or we don't know. "Have to," doesn't fit the discussion. But what is relevant, and what I think he is really trying to say here is that we do have to speak with some certainty when dealing with the truth claims of the Bible and of Jesus Christ. And here he has a valid point. How do we speak of the truth of the Bible, or the assurance of salvation, or Jesus Christ as the "way, truth, and life" while affirming that it is not possible to have certainty in metaphysical pronouncements?

Truthfully, Terry has really had me thinking this week about this. And a sermon by Mark Driscoll I heard today also emphasized my problem. He said (in a rough paraphrase), "We must preach the gospel with certainty." But how, with a mind moved by the modern notion of knowledge, do I accomplish this?

For me it is too late to retreat to premodernism. I will never experience, this side of judgment, the type of certainty I once had as a child. In many ways, I envy that of some of my friends and I don't want to steal it from them. But I have accepted this concept of knowledge which claims that something must be true to be known, and to know that you know it you must be able to show with certainty the truthfulness of the thing claimed to be known. Since I cannot "prove" the gospel, what hope is there?

In my defense, in one post I mentioned that there is a blindness to our faith. It is the evidence of things hoped for. Faith is, in many important ways, unprovable belief. When Thomas, who sought epistemological certainty, claimed that he would not believe Jesus was alive until he had seen with his own eyes and felt with his fingers, Jesus responded afterwards by saying, "Blessed are you because you have seen and believed. But more blessed are those who will not see and still will believe." I think Jesus was saying that there will be those who recognize that they don't have the type of Kantian certainty that Thomas demanded, but will still choose to believe. Because of this, in a sense, I think the person who claims he does not know with certainty but still believes really demonstrates greater faith than the person who says, "I know this is true and cannot possibly be wrong." One acknowledges doubt and believes anyway (I believe, help my unbelief!), the other claims to have no doubt. Well, I really don't know who has the more faith! There is a good argument for either.

But how do I approach the truth of scripture? I think the answer is actually pretty simple. I think I can believe that Jesus is the "truth" while still acknowledging that I do not have the certainty my friend believes he has this way.

The other day I was talking with someone about my dreams for the future, and what I thought might happen. I was lamenting that a certain opportunity I had desired had not opened up for me and stated, "This opportunity will not happen for me. It is closed to me." Someone I love dearly replied, "With all your claims about certainty, how can you know this is true?" I was immediately frustrated because this person is adept at using my own words to reveal my duplicity. But the truth is, there is relative certainty within specific paradigms. She was right that I don't know everything that is going to happen. In fact, anything can happen. But what I meant when I said, "this opportunity will not happen," was really, "based on what I know about the opportunity offered to me currently, and based on recent events, I feel certain that my chances are virtually nill." My certainty was not epistemologically sound, but within the paradigm of my current career path, my judgment is accurate.

It is the same of the truth of Christ. The bottom line is, I do not think that we can know metaphysical realities with certainty. But I can say this, "within the paradigm of Christianity, we can have confidence that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We can have confidence that he will keep his promises and that he does not lie. We can believe that he is true." In other words, "I can't prove it is true. But I can say that, if it is true--Jesus is your answer. And he is a better answer than anything else you're going to try. So, it is reasonable and good to believe it and trust it, even though you may not ever feel you know it to be true."

Oh, when I write it down it feels so weak. But it is the best I can do for now. What else is there for someone who is acknowledging that his life goal of proving Christianity is true is unattainable? If it could be done, why wouldn't it have been done before now? Why wouldn't God have revealed it in ways that were undeniable? I can prove that it is better . . . that it is reasonable . . . that it is practical . . . that it is meaningful . . . and hopeful. But I cannot prove that it is true. That I must take on faith. And I am willing to do so.

Assuming the paradigm, Jesus is undeniable. But I only assume the paradigm on the basis of a reasoned faith.

Another Case for Coincidence

2007-05-29T01:14:00.000-04:00

In my last post (directly below), I mentioned that I had made a decision which qualified as irrational because I based it on a feeling. I had two ministry opportunities to choose from, and I chose the one which paid less and had less potential for growth. In fact, the other church I was looking at was offering quite a bit more money (more money than I have ever made in a job) and was in a growing community. The reason I chose the smaller community was that I just felt better about it on a personal level, so I closed the door on the other ministry and pursued it.

In the end, though, I was completely derailed. In the independent Christian Churches, we vote on hiring ministers. As it turned out, when it came time for the church to vote on me a faction in the church stirred up support against me. This faction was angry at the leadership of the church and wanted to work against them and us. I don't know why they did this to us, they didn't tell us.

Anyhow, there were several people I know who believed that the reason I chose this church was in response to God's leading. In fact, one of the elders had told us over and over again that too many things had fallen into place for us to not interpret our coming to the church to be by God's hand. Yet, after the vote he said, "I always say God is never surprised," indicating that God knew this was going to happen the whole time. If God is leading it, why didn't it work? Three quick options:

1. God led us there but knew we would be voted down. Likelihood rating: Dumb.

2. God did not lead us there, and either knew or did not know we would not be accepted. Likelihood: Possible.

3. God may have led us there and may not have. Either way, he couldn't know for certain the outcome because there were so many factors. Likelihood rating: Good. Only the position of open theism is logically consistent with God's freedom to interact and the church's and our ability to decide the outcome. Also, it is not possible to know whether he was leading or not.

In any case, the whole affair ended with heartbreak and my family and I are hurt and back at square one. I think the case is clear that speaking with certainty of God's leading is foolish. Make the wisest decisions you can and trust God, but don't attempt to know what you cannot know.