Open Theism discussed

I've stumbled across another interesting discussion on Open Theism at The Sign of Jonah blog. The original blogger is critiquing Open Theism (although I didn't feel he was particularly successful in this. He seems a little confused about distinction between OT and the problem of evil/suffering, which although connected is not really the same question) and provokes some excellent (although very lengthy) discussion in the comments. I was particularly impressed by the contribution of a commenter called Wesley Brainard who is generally articulate and intelligent in his arguments for Open Theism - although I'm not sure I agree with everything he says about the way God has limited himself (e.g. spacially).

Here's a couple of examples of things which got me thinking:

...This began to take shape around the discussion of God’s freedom. Jim B admitted that God was free to create or not to create. If He was free to choose, then there was a time when God hadn’t yet foreknown. This demonstrates that foreknowledge is not eternal or essential. God is still God without exhaustive foreknowledge.

The open view says that God was free to create the kind of world you propose he created. Does the CV allow that God could have created a world with freedoms like His as the open view suggests?

Keith: I feel like you really ducked the issue with Cyrus. Your basic answer was, "I don’t know how God predicted Cyrus but I’m absolutely sure that it wasn’t through exhaustive foreknowledge". In all candor I think that’s pretty weak.

Wesley: Straw dummy... My argument was that what you offered does not prove exhaustive foreknowledge. I thought Will D.’s post was especially good on this point. If we use your argument for proving exhaustive foreknowledge, my wife would certainly qualify since she knows what I’m going to do or not do before I do or don’t do it. Knowing something does not prove that He knows everything. ...

Openness, the future and God's foreknowledge

One of the points that's often misunderstood about the Open Theism that Greg Boyd and others espouse, is that they are not saying that God does not know the future. On the contrary, they affirm that God does indeed have knowledge of everything, including what is still to come. What openness argues against is the idea that God only knows one future, in other words that the cosmos runs along a single timeline of 'ordained' possibility (Boyd calls this the 'blueprint worldview'). Open Theism states that God knows every possible future, an infinity of real possibilities (which exist within certain boundaries, of course). Openness asserts that God has given real freedom to individuals within creation to make choices that actually affect what happens in the world, choices for which they are responsible and will be held accountable. Within this He has set out certain conditions and boundaries - e.g. there will be a time of judgement and new creation etc. And of course God is not a detached observer of these events, but in fact the most active participant, always at work to redeem and restore His creation.

It is worth emphasising in this view that while free agents make real choices about the future, no choice or possible future is outside God's (fore)knowledge. God is never caught unaware! (although Jer 32.35 is interesting!) Every choice you make, every infinite possibility of decision has indeed been known by God since before the creation of the world. And in every single one of those infinite possible timelines God has been working for the good of those who love him. Not only has every  individual ever created been loved by God, but every single timeline has been known and lovingly worked into his glorious purpose.

This infinite, sovereign 'intelligence' is much more difficult for us to grasp than infinite controlling power. We have examples of controlling power that we can 'multiply up', but we have very few analogies for the type of intelligence required to weave together infinite possibilities. Perhaps the nearest model we can think of (although it has some significant flaws), and an example I've heard Boyd use, is that of the Chess Grand Master. If I play a Grand Master at Chess he doesn't have to know for certain every move I will make to predict (with 99.9999999% certainty!) that he will win. In fact probably most of the moves I make will be boringly predictable! Really good chess players see possibilities many moves in advance. But God, to use the same analogy, has seen every single possible move, planned his 'counter-attack' for each one and seen the final endgame before the first move was even made!

There are many other ideas I could talk about that fit alongside openness: for example, what it means for God to be in genuine relationship with us; the understanding that God's will is not always done (thus Jesus teaching us to pray "Your will be done...") and so on, but I think this post is long enough for now!

Altogether I find Boyd, in particular, pretty persuasive on this whole topic. I don't agree with everything he states (he's generally more systematic than I'm comfortable with), but I have a feeling that he - and folks like Prof John Polkinghorne - may be on the right lines. And part of why I find it so compelling is that it seems to match up with what the physical universe is actually like. The argument about the relationship between epistemology (what may be known) and ontology (what actually is) in quantum physics may have a little ways to go (does the limit of what it is possible to know correspond with what actually is?), but most physicists will tell you that at the most fundamental level it makes no sense to talk about certainties (future or present). In the strange universe we live in there seems to be something more 'real' about possibilities. As Polkinghorne says, reality is a lot 'fuzzier' than we'd like to think.

[See also: Ben Witherington's view on the 'script']

Wounds of a Friend

In this month's Christianity Today, complementarian (men and women have equal but different roles in marriage and church life - W) John Koessler and egalitarian (God freely calls believers to roles and ministries regardless of gender, class or race - W) Sarah Sumner have an "unexpected exchange" on the women's leadership debate.

Complementarians need to recover a fully biblical view of women — and of handling theological disagreement. By John Koessler

Egalitarians should rely more on careful exegesis and less on political ideologies. By Sarah Sumner

Both articles are refreshing and graceful additions to the conversation and I found plenty to agree with on both sides of the discussion.

When God created humankind in his image, he created them to be male and female (Gen. 1:27). It is often said that men and women bear the image of God equally. But it might be more accurate to say that men and women bear God's image together. Men and women collectively reflect the divine image; one without the other is incomplete. In addition, the Book of Genesis affirms men and women's joint mandate to exercise dominion over creation. Men and women share this responsibility; neither can fulfill God's mandate alone. ...

Complementarians need to be on guard against the temptation to use the Bible as a sanction for social constructs. The Pharisees tried to protect God's commands by putting a fence around the Law. I fear that complementarians, too, have gone beyond the Scriptures in our effort to preserve God's design. Have we added our own traditions to the Bible's teaching in an attempt to preserve biblical manhood and womanhood?

John Koessler

Egalitarians often argue that since God commands his people to submit to one another, women leaders have the right to be submitted to by men. When this doesn't happen, they feel angry. Yet a truly Christian ethic would remember that women have the duty, not the right, to lead as God calls them to lead. When God calls a woman to step forward, she is to step forward, regardless of how others respond. ...

When Galatians 3:28 is used out of context, the egalitarian argument can easily be perceived as promoting a genderless church. Though most egalitarians emphatically believe that men and women are not the same or interchangeable, it is hard for the unconvinced to hear the wisdom of their message— and easy for others, like the gender-confused, to twist the meaning of their message into something it is not.

Sarah Sumner

Christianity Today's Timothy George also addressed complementarians and egalitarians in his excellent article 'A Peace Plan for the Gender War'.

I'm sympathetic to George's stated position 'I am not a card-carrying member of either party', finding plenty to agree with on both sides and probably falling somewhere in the middle of the debate. However, realistically, I know I'd fit in more easily on the egalitarian side, given my openness to women in church leadership roles. Also I personally feel more confident of having the opportunity in an egalitarian setting to argue in a complementarian direction, than I'm confident of being able to even talk about a egalitarian direction from a complementarian position. Whether you understand what I mean may depend on your experiences with both sides of the debate, whether positive or negative.

Fun in the Playground

I missed church on Sunday, being away, so I was glad of this paraphrased excerpt(?) from Ruth's talk on Ben's blog:

Some people think of God's will, the plan God has for them, as a tightrope. You have to be really careful to stay on, otherwise it's a disaster. I think God's will is like a playground. It has a fence, and there are limits. Outside the fence it's dangerous as you could get hit by a car. Inside, there's slides, roundabouts, see-saws, swings - you can play on what you want. Sometimes God might say 'that's enough sliding for now, have a go on the swings'. You might enjoy some bits more than others, but you can have a go at different things. As long as you stay inside the fence, you're safe. But you don't have to walk a tightrope.

I like playgrounds!

(Thanks to Benbo Baggins!)

Questions from Feminist Theology

I went along to Theology 101 at church today and, apart from being perhaps the first Soup and Theology I've been to without Chris, and missing his particular brand of "Jubious theology" :) , I quite enjoyed learning about feminist theology...

Mark was doing 'What's Right About Feminism?'

Lots to critique in the texts, but I was left with some interesting questions and counter-questions:

• Given that the Bible was written by male authors, did it have to be this way?
• Would the Bible have been essentially different if it had been written by women? Assuming that it would have been, at least to some degree, different, what does this say about the nature of truth? Could it still have been the Word of God? (perhaps a meaningless question.. Scripture is as it is.)
  
• Did the Bible have to have been written by men? Was this a reflection of the (male-dominated) culture, or was it supposed to be this way - determining cultural norms? As in a hegemony, which comes first - the reality or the interpretation of that reality as normative? In other words, perhaps controversially, is the patriachal hermeneutic divinely ordained or the product of a fallen society obsessed with holding power over others? Or is it somewhere between the two?
  

These are complicated questions and raise questions about the authority and authorship of the Bible. Part of the answer may rest on how we see the divine / human authorship of the Bible. But asking 'could it have been otherwise?' is much the same as 'could it have been other?' and leads us onto difficult and possibly dangerous ground. Scripture defines itself.

I'm not normally a fan of feminism, but I have to admit these are interesting questions. Ultimately of course, we know Scripture - as it stands - as God's word and I'm not about to dispute that. But I do think it's a sensible idea to treat texts with a 'hermeneutic of suspicion' at times - as long as you remember to question this hermeneutic as well! As a good friend used to say, 'I'm learning to question my doubts'.

I also think it's important to learn from the way feminist theologians are explicit about their hermeneutical agenda, not claiming to be unbiased or objective. I have some serious issues with some of their conclusions, but I do think they raise some important issues about the importance of questionning our own hermeneutics and use of language.

However, at the end of the day I want to remember that we're involved in a searching for the Truth - above liberation, freedom, 'correctness', or anything else. Because we believe that ultimately Truth is a person (John 14.6), and he alone gives true freedom.

...Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. ...if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." John 8.31-36

Preaching the Gospel

[From a link on Undercover Theologian.]

I liked this article by Tim Keller on Christianity Today's Leadership Journal on 'The Gospel in All it's Forms' about the different aspects of the 'one gospel' and, especially, his wisdom on preaching them:

1. I don't put all the gospel points into any one gospel presentation.

When studying Paul's gospel speeches in the book of Acts, it is striking how much is always left out. He always leads with some points rather than others in an effort to connect with the baseline cultural narratives of his listeners. It is almost impossible to cover all the bases of the gospel with a non-believing listener without that person's eyes glazing over.

2. I use both a gospel for the "circumcised" and for the "uncircumcised."
- or the moralists and the postmoderns

...I use the biblical definition of sin as idolatry. That puts the emphasis not as much on "doing bad things" but on "making good things into ultimate things." ...I tell them that they are sinning because they are looking to their romances to give their lives meaning, to justify and save them, to give them what they should be looking for from God. ...Then Christ and his salvation can be presented not (at this point) so much as their only hope for forgiveness, but as their only hope for freedom. This is my "gospel for the uncircumcised."

3. I use both a "kingdom" and an "eternal life" gospel.

...I point out the story-arc of the Bible and speak of the gospel in terms of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. We once had the world we all wanted—a world of peace and justice, without death, disease, or conflict. But by turning from God we lost that world. Our sin unleashed forces of evil and destruction so that now "things fall apart" and everything is characterized by physical, social, and personal disintegration. Jesus Christ, however, came into the world, died as a victim of injustice and as our substitute, bearing the penalty of our evil and sin on himself.

4. I use them all and let each group overhear me preaching to the others.

No one form of the gospel gives all the various aspects of the full gospel the same emphasis. If, then, you only preach one form, you are in great danger of giving your people an unbalanced diet of gospel-truth. What is the alternative? Don't preach just one gospel form. That's not true to the various texts of the Bible anyway. If you are preaching expositionally, different passages will convey different forms of the one gospel. Preach different texts and your people will hear all the points. ...

Lots of wisdom there I thought! Read the full article.

Thanks Matt!

Your Atonement is Too Small

From an article on Christianity Today, reviewing 'A Community Called Atonement' by Scot McKnight. Looks interesting!

...A Community Called Atonement is not just a bridge-building book. It is also an expand-your-vision book. To parody J. B. Phillips's famous title, this book could have been called Your Atonement Is Too Small.

McKnight's gaze follows the way Paul focuses his wide-angle lens. McKnight reviews the various metaphors, pictures, and theories of Atonement implicit in Scripture and looks for the big picture. Taking themes expounded by the earliest church fathers—victory, ransom, recapitulation—he wraps them together into one package called 'identification for incorporation.'

Articles on the rise of Reform Theology

I'll be keeping up with this ongoing discussion on Christianity Today, between Tony Jones (no, not the Durham one!) of 'The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier' and Collin Hansen of Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist's Journey with the New Calvinists.

Also, I thought this guest post from Thomas McCall was interesting to read in its sympathetic - yet cautionary - portrayal of the New Calvinists.

How fixed is the script?

I was interested to read Ben Witherington's view on God's 'script' and the significance of human decisions.

"Whilst, God could have done otherwise, he has chosen to allow us to be viable partners with God in ministry and the working out of his will and Kingdom on earth, beings capable of making un-predetermined choices that have incredible consequences. The issue is not the sovereignty of God - the issue is how God has chosen to exercise his power and will. And what the Bible says about this is that he has not pre-determined all things from before the foundations of the world.

Human history is not merely a preordained play, played out perfectly to a pre-ordained script. On the contrary while there is a blue-print, or a general script, God has allowed, indeed invited us to make the drama like a night at the Improv, improvising our roles as we go, and making viable choices of moment and consequence along the way. Are we supposed to follow the general instructions in the script? Well yes, as they provide the boundaries beyond which we ought not to go and show us what character and kind of roles we should play. But of course we may fail to play our parts well, or indeed at all."

I absolutely agree. Saying that God always gets his way makes no sense of Jesus' instructions on prayer, in particular the Lord's prayer:
"Let your kingdom come, your will be done..."

Another interesting link I came across on Ben's blog is a 'blogalogue' between Bart Ehrman and N. T. Wright on the problem of suffering. Ehrman has just published a book called 'God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question – Why We Suffer'. NT Wright is as eloquent and graceful in his replies as ever. I always find him refreshing on this subject as he takes the existence of evil seriously and isn't content to attribute all suffering in the world to human choices.

"...the Gospels constituted, and still constitute, a challenge to all expectations, particularly in that they link – as readers for hundreds have years have found it difficult to do – the story of Jesus’ kingdom-inauguration with the story of his crucifixion and resurrection. Somehow, they are saying, this is what it looks like when the good, all-powerful and all-loving God is in charge of the world. You may say that if this is what they’re saying then the God of whom they speak is not ‘all-powerful’ in the way we might have imagined, and I suspect that is in a sense correct. Near the heart of Jesus’ proclamation lies a striking redefinition of power itself, which looks as though it’s pointing in the direction of God’s ‘running of the world’ (if that’s the right phrase) in what you might call a deliberately, almost studiedly, self-abnegating way, running the world through an obedient, and ultimately suffering, human being, with that obedience, and especially that suffering, somehow instrumental in the whole process. What ‘we would want God to do’ – to have God measure up to our standards of ‘how a proper, good and powerful God would be running the world’! – seems to be the very thing that Jesus was calling into question.

The mystery of Jesus himself, then, is for me near the heart of – not ‘the answer’, because I don’t think there is such a thing as ‘the answer’, but – the matrix of thought and life within which God’s people are called to continue to grapple with the problem. This is where, in Evil and the Justice of God, I try to draw together traditional discussions of ‘the atonement’ and traditional discussions of ‘the problem of evil’ and suggest that it’s odd that they should ever have been separated, since they seem to go together so closely in the Bible itself. (And can’t be reduced, I suggest, to the ‘God punishes sin’ logic; I have tended to include some elements of that within the Christus Victor motif, which, yes, involves suprahuman cosmic powers and all that. Hard though they are to describe adequately, they are even harder, in my view, to ignore.)"

What I know

I've been listening to Greg Boyd's recent sermons on prayer - inspiring and thought-provoking, as ever. Hopefully I'll get round to blogging further on my thoughts and response to these. But, listening to his sermon on the variables that affect answers to prayer ('Scorpions, Eggs and Prayer') I've been particularly reflecting on his explanation of what we DON'T know, that is almost everything! He explains that it's profoundly important to know what we don't know and to get comfortable saying 'I don't know'. As he memorably describes it, we "swim in an infinite sea of unknowability" and what we call the 'things we know' is an oasis of pseudo-knowledge floating in a sea of mystery! It is knowing this that keeps us from being sucked into formulas and trite responses.

I completely agree with him that the statement 'I don't know' can be enormously powerful in the right context. When faced with the question of suffering, I wonder whether it is indeed the only appropriate answer. It rings true with God's response to Job - there is far more in the Universe than you could possibly know or understand. There is a necessary humility when faced with the question of why a prayer has not been answered. Although it may ease our pain to find someone to blame, any answer cannot help but be simplistic and damaging - either to ourselves or others, or to our relationship with God.

However, while we may have to answer 'I don't know', this cannot be the end of our response. We are called to have compassion - and words may only be a small part of this. And as Christians we also have hope.

There is much we don't know, but one thing I do know: Jesus our Saviour was dead in the grave, and is alive again! Jesus is alive - that is the response of hope.

"I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades."
Revelation 1.18

Happy Easter everyone!

John Piper on the Prosperity Gospel

This a superb video highlighting comments by John Piper on the 'Prosperity Gospel' message speaking in Birmingham in 2005.



Those are full-on words, but I think he's essentially got it right.

N.B. The story he tells about the car crash happened to someone in his church.

God IN the story

I've been struck recently on the amazingness of 'God IN the story'. That it makes no sense at all to talk about God being 'unchanging' - partly because of the compassion issue - but primarily because of the incarnation. God is not so 'outside' time to the extent that it makes nonsense of the fact that at a particular time in history he changed in his very being... humanity has been 'added' to God (thus says the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity!). Yes, God's character has not changed, but fundamentally something has been added to his very being and importantly this has happened IN history. Wow!

Atonement ...further remarks

Here are a couple of things I've been reminded about in looking at the different theories of the atonement recently. I've called them 'things to keep in mind'.

Substitutionary Penal Atonement
In talking about the Father’s wrath on the Son it is important not to draw too firm a line between them. God takes sin on himself and suffers his own judgement in the person of Jesus. Ultimately God satisfies himself.

Christus Victor
It is important to remember that in talking about the triumph of Jesus over the powers of evil, that this is not a military triumph, a triumph of violence over violence, but a triumph of love. This kind of love is something that evil cannot understand… thus the powers are ‘disarmed’.

The Atonement and onwards

As I mentioned in my last post, I've recently been considering some aspects of the atonement and the different ways of explaining what God has done for us in the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In recent years I have become more sympathetic to the 'Christus Victor' theme as a way as describing in a cosmic sense what Jesus accomplished in his death and resurrection. In the context of this overarching triumph over the forces of evil, there are clearly many aspects to what Jesus' death means for us in particular. He took on himself the punishment for our rebellion against God and our evil deeds (penal substition), he paid the price (took the full consequences) for our sin ("the wages of sin is death" Rom 6.23), he died and rose again that we might have new life in him, he closed the book on the old covenant (see Romans 7)... and so on.

However, my recent re-reading of the NT and OT texts has given me lots of new things to ponder (some of which I hope to return to in later posts), and I am currently pursuing some avenues of thought in the OT (about blood if you want to know!). In my short investigation so far, none of the standard ways of speaking about the atonement (except for the most straightforward - e.g. 'Jesus died in my place'), have not felt entirely satisfactory, not quite telling the whole story. My hope, and it is a naive one perhaps, is that I will find a way to construct for myself a way of talking about the atonement that relies on Biblical language and reflects as best I can the fullness, and yet simplicity, of what God has done for us in Jesus' death and resurrection. I cannot pretend that I expect to complete this search but I'm sure it will be an interesting journey!

In my wanderings, I aim to keep three markers in sight. Firstly, I will keep foremost in my mind's eye a vision of the cross that once held the creator and saviour of the universe - but is now empty. In this I hope to follow Paul's insistence in 1 Corinthians 15 that "If Christ has not been raised... you are still in your sins."

Secondly, I shall keep my eye to the picture of Jesus that we have in Revelation chapter 5.

"See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah...has triumphed!"
Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the centre of the throne...

I am convinced that no doctrine of the atonement can be complete unless it embraces fully the picture of Jesus we see in these verses: both triumphant Lion and slain Lamb.

Finally, I will strive to keep in mind Paul's warnings about 'earthly wisdom' in 1 Corinthians 1. Ultimately it's not a question of wisdom, but of power: while the cross seems like foolishness to those that are perishing, to us who are being saved it is the power of God. At the end of the day, as my friend Archie says, 'It works'.

God at War

I've finally finished reading 'God at War' by Greg Boyd and I find I have mixed feelings about it as a book. The overall thrust of his argument is very compelling and his analysis of the warfare motifs in the ministry of Jesus particularly persuasive. I find his reading of the NT as being fundamentally about the Kingdom of God 'at war' with the world/the kingdom of Satan is hard to dispute.

However, attempts to build a coherent 'theory of everything', to systematize the Biblical material, should always be treated with caution. As NT Wright points out, when we come to the Bible "looking for particular answers to particular questions...we have thereby made the Bible into something which it it not" ('How can Scripture be Authoritative?' 1989, see also 'Scripture and the Authority of God'). Systematic theology never sits completely comfortably alongside the Bible taken as a whole - just when you think you've 'got it' an unruly verse turns up to confound the theory.

As with any thesis of this nature, 'God at War' seems a bit 'rough at the edges', where at times the thesis is stretched just that little bit too far. Boyd is an enthusiastic theorist and always interesting, but there were moments in the book when I felt uncomfortable with the extent to which he seemed to be 'trying too hard' to pull in a variety of Biblical material to support the warfare theme. Notable in my mind is his warfare re-interpretation of the Lord's Prayer.

Despite these criticisms, I found 'God at War' a provocative and always-interesting book which I would definitely recommend - if only as a starting point for conversation. Those who know me well will know I am a big fan of Greg Boyd - although more in his preaching and energetic exposition of ideas than in his books - and I came to the book already persuaded by his God-at-war theodicy and understanding of Jesus' ministry.

In my view, Boyd is most challenging and convincing in his teaching on Jesus and the Kingdom of God and I know that he would agree that it is these ideas that are worth paying the most attention to. As I mentioned in a previous post it is his high view of Jesus (as with NT Wright) which I find most compelling. I've often heard him start teaching / preaching with the statement 'God looks like Jesus Christ', from Jesus' statement in John 14.9 "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." He will then go on to explain how we should always move from the known to the unknown - our understanding of God should start with Jesus, who is "the exact representation of his being" (Heb 1.3). If we want to know what God is like we should start by looking at Jesus (as opposed to philosophy or religion). As Boyd often says, "God looks like a man dying on a cross for those who crucified him."

The strength of this concept is what anchors his theodicy - his starting place in explaining the problem of evil. Since, he argues, the evil in the world around us does not accord with a God who, as Jesus Christ, rebuked sickness (and the wind and waves - Mk 4.39) and battled Satan (e.g Mk 3.23, Lk 13.16) it cannot be God's will. Evil is the result of wills other than God's. This fits with the NT's teaching that Satan is the archon (ruler) of the world (Jn 12.31, 16.11), the "god of this age" (2 Cor 4.4) and the "ruler of the kingdom of the air" (Eph 2.2), who has the whole world under his control (1 Jn 5.19).

Further explanation I will leave to Boyd as he is much more articulate than I! 'God at War' is the first book in a Trilogy, of which the second is 'Satan and the Problem of Evil' (onto which I shall move) and the last is as yet un-published. I would highly recommend his January 2005 sermon 'Being the Kingdom in a Groaning Creation' - given in the aftermath of the Boxing Day tsunami - as a summary of some of these ideas.


'God at War' concludes with a declaration of hope:

"The hope that the New Testament offers is not the hope that God has a higher, all-encompassing plan that secretly governs every event, including the evil intentions of malicious angelic and human beings, and that somehow renders these evil wills 'good' at a higher level. To my way of thinking, at least, that supposition generates a truly hopeless position... If justice is, on some secret transcendental plane, already being served, what do we have to look forward to? If God is already vindicated because 'the big picture' justies [a victim]'s torment 'for the good of the whole', then we really have no reason to hope that things will fare better for [a victim] or ourselves in the world to come.

"In direct contrast to all this, the ultimate hope that the New Testament offers is eschatological. As sure as the Lord came the first time to defeat his cosmic enemy and our oppressor in principle, just as certainly he shall return again to defeat him in fact. Because sickness, disease, war, death, sorrow and tears are not God's will, and because God is ultimately sovereign, we can have a confident assurance that someday, when his foes are ultimately vanquished, God will end all sorrow, and will wipe away every tear from our eyes (Rev 20:4). Precisely because our present suffering is not God's will - however much he can now use it for our ultimate good - we can have an assurance that it shall not always be this way."

As Boyd likes to say, "we live in a Good Friday world, but Easter Sunday is coming!"

Send the Fire!

I've recently been appreciating the usefulness of the Kingsway music site for downloading individual worship tracks.

But I'm disappointed to find that one of my current favourites isn't yet available for MP3 download...

O GOD OF BURNING, CLEANSING FLAME:
Send the fire!
Your blood-bought gift today we claim:
Send the fire today!
Look down and see this waiting host,
And send the promised Holy Ghost;
We need another Pentecost!
Send the fire today!
Send the fire today!

God of Elijah, hear our cry:
Send the fire!
And make us fit to live or die:
Send the fire today!
To burn up every trace of sin,
To bring the light and glory in,
The revolution now begin!
Send the fire today!
Send the fire today!

It’s fire we want, for fire we plead:
Send the fire!
The fire will meet our every need:
Send the fire today!
For strength to always do what’s right,
For grace to conquer in the fight,
For power to walk the world in white:
Send the fire today!
Send the fire today!

To make our weak hearts strong and brave:
Send the fire!
To live, a dying world to save:
Send the fire today!
Oh, see us on Your altar lay,
We give our lives to you today,
So crown the offering now we pray:
Send the fire today!
Send the fire today!
Send the fire today!

William Booth (1829 –1912)
Adpt. Lex Loizides
Copyright © 1994 Thankyou Music

I especially love the last verse of this song. I love the beauty of the line 'to live, a dying world to save'. And the last few lines are, for me, the heart of the song. Their profound truth - and challenge - hit me every time I sing it. There's a principle which I've only recently been coming to grips with: the fire comes on the offering, on the sacrifice.

If I want to see the fire and the power of God in my life there has to be sacrifice. The power and righteousness of God is revealed in me when my life is given over to him. The fire comes to crown the offering - the sacrifice of my life. And as the first verse indicates, this is a consuming fire 'to burn up every trace of sin'. When I ask God to send the fire I better realise what I'm asking for! But how can we live with anything less?

This is my theme song right now - appropriate for the season maybe!
We need another Pentecost! It's fire I want, for fire I plead. Send the fire today!

Principles and Rules

Greg Boyd on Principles and Rules (MP3)

From Luke 6.1-11

Rules are made for people, not people for rules.

Be inflexible and uncompromising with the principles – love, mercy, justice, faithfulness – but be flexible with the rules. A least a little…

Sometimes in order to stick to the principles, we have to bend the rules.

Manifest life. Manifest love, mercy, justice, faithfulness.

Love people as they are – they don’t have to adhere to your rules.

Rules can make you stupid, preventing you adjusting to ambiguous circumstances.

Sometimes rules kill. They sometimes take on a life of their own.

Have wisdom: there’s a time to keep the rules and there’s a time to let them go.


(Sermons online at Woodland Hills Church)

Reading Genesis after Darwin

I attended a fascinating series of lectures today, hosted by the Theology Department and the Institute of Advanced Study (IAS) here at Durham, on science and theology, specifically looking at the impact of Darwin on theology - and on the reading of Genesis in particular. This is part of an ongoing series of interdisciplinary lectures put on by the IAS, which this year is looking at The Legacy of Charles Darwin.

I made it to four out of the five lectures today, all of which were extremely stimulating and covered a range of topics from Paley to Dawkins and Augustine to Koko the Chimp.

I've left with a range of responses to the different ideas presented, and plenty of questions. I'm left pondering the nature and status of evil, the pervasiveness of the 'God of the Gaps' and Deism, the significance of rationality and language in apes, the place of humans in the natural world...

Here's a selection of the some of the ideas presented today (some I agree with more than others):

o Does the idea that creation must have been instantaneous have more to do with a Deist God who creates the universe and then "goes off to have a cup of tea" than with the God of the Bible? (DW)

o Perhaps drawing the line between humans and animals on the basis of rationality, language or other qualitative differences is a 'God of the Gaps' approach. Are all of these elements, including moral choices, just a matter of degree? (DC, JA)

DC discussed one particularly fascinating example, Koko the Gorilla. I also recently came across the story of N'kisi, an African Grey Parrot with a vocabulary of 950 words and the ability to form sentences and even to use humour.

o In the early church and beyond, the understanding of the incarnation has moved from 'God became a Jew' through 'God became a man' to 'God became a human'. Can this be taken further, to 'God became a Creature'*? (DC) [*I have some issues with this from a Biblical perspective..]

o The question of evil, in terms of suffering and death, is more complicated than we at first imagine when we look at nature. "Competition, struggle, suffering, death and extinction" appear to be completely entangled in the way that nature functions - in reproduction, predation, life cycles, adaptation, evolution and so on.. Intended or permitted? (JA)

o The universe is so complex that it makes little real difference on a practical level to distinguish between which models of deism / theistic evolution / God of the gaps you employ to explain the Creator's relationship with the Creation. The universe is just as complicated whether you believe that God is constantly acting at the level of quantum uncertainty or you think he created the laws which govern it 'at the beginning'. The point at which the question becomes important is the difference in what you expect from God. (JA)

One of the ideas which I thought was most interesting, was Prof. Jeff Astley's observation (borrowed from Holmes Rolston III), that evolution makes a necessity of waste and suffering. That every part of nature has a 'cruciform' shape, a passion play in which the innocent die so that many may live. As Rolston puts it, in this 'slaughter of the innocents' we have perhaps,

"vignettes hinting of the innocent lamb slain from the foundation of the world. They share the labor of the divinity. In their lives, beautiful, tragic and perpetually incomplete, they speak for God; they prophesy as they participate in the divine pathos. All have 'borne our griefs and carried our sorrows'." (Science and Religion: A Critical Survey, 1987, p.145)

This is Karl Barth on a similar theme:
"The suffering, by which the whole created world of men and things is controlled, is His, His action, His question, and His answer." (The Epistle to the Romans, ET 1933, p.309)

JA argued that 'errors' in DNA copying are a 'happy fault' when seen from a species-wide or planet-wide perspective. It's hard to argue with the sense that the "imperfections of the world are a driving force for its perfections". (JA)

I also liked Astley's description of the way in which the way we look at nature can be likened to a religious experience. He talked about the way that in viewing nature we are both attracted and repelled for it is both lovely and terrible. The proper response is a 'shudder of otherness', akin to our experience of God, to have both awe and fear.


Lots to ponder here I think!

[DW - Dr David Wilkinson, DC - Dr David Clough, JA - Prof Jeff Astley]

The Cosmic Trilogy

I've finally got around to re-reading CS Lewis' Cosmic Trilogy: Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra and That Hideous Strength.

Overall, I'd best describe the trilogy as Very Odd, although not necessarily in a bad way! Not science fiction as you'd know it, but fantasy as Lewis does best, with talking beasts and fantastic creatures, only set this time in space. As in the Narnia stories he has woven in the 'Deeper Magic', the Story above - and below - all stories, while creating a cosmology entirely his own.

The Trilogy tells the story of a man called Ransom, a Christian professor who finds himself quite unexpectedly taken to Mars (or Malacandra), and then later to Venus (Perelandra). His journey out of the 'Silent Planet' (that is, Earth) leads to some remarkable discoveries about the universe, and a radical perspective change in his theology and cosmology.

My favourite book was the second. It's thoroughly fantastic, functioning as a myth in the way that Lewis does best. Ransom goes to Venus and witnesses the birth of a new race and its first temptation. Will this Eden also fall?

One of my favourite pieces of dialogue in the book is the conversation between the Green Lady and Ransom about why she is human and why fantastic creatures occur only on the more ancient worlds.

She is bewildered by his question and asks him, "How could they come again? Since our Beloved became a man, how should Reason in any world take on another form? Do you not understand? That is all over. Among times there is a time that turns a corner and everything on this side of it is new. Times do not go backward." Jesus is the turning point of all history. Nothing will ever be the same again.

The 'black archon' of Earth, whom Maleldil has blockaded on the planet (thus, 'the Silent Planet') has found a way to travel to Perelandra in the body of a twisted physicist called Dr Weston. In some of the most interesting scenes in the book, Ransom is forced to watch as the 'Un-man' uses every trick in the book to tempt the Lady to disobey Maleldil. Until finally, the Presence himself turns up.

Much to Ransom's dismay, there will be no supernatural intervention. He is Maleldil's representative on Perelandra and, not only must he 'do his best', in fact the very outcome of the battle is in his mortal hands. Literally in his hands, for the struggle he must have with the Tempter is a physical one, to destroy the human body that he inhabits. This is not what he expects, for "no such crude, materialistic struggle could be what Maleldil really intended...it would degrade the spiritual warfare to the condition of mere mythology." But he comes to realise that in the Incarnation, the spiritual has been bound up with the physical to such a degree that they can no longer be separated. He cannot draw a parallel between Eden and Perelandra because "What had happened on Earth, when Maleldil was born a man at Bethlehem, had altered the universe for ever."

It is Lewis' high view of the nature of humanity and his reflections on the universe-shattering nature of the Incarnation which is the most distinctive theme in the book. His use of Ransom reflects his understanding that God has chosen to effect his redemptive purposes through men and women:
"When Eve fell, God was not Man. He had not yet made men members of His body: since then He had, and through them henceforward He would save and suffer."

The task has come to this man, Ransom, to save a world from a fall. But, in one of the most thrilling lines in the book, the Voice tells him, "My name is also Ransom". He comes to understand that if even he fails "this world also would hereafter be redeemed. If he were not the ransom, Another would be...Not a second crucifixion: perhaps - who knows - not even a second Incarnation... some act of even more appalling love, some glory of yet deeper humility... her Redemption was beyond conceiving".

The outcome of the story I'll leave to you to find out!

Lewis' creations are always memorable, his fantasies tend to stick around in your consciousness, invading your worldview. You're left having to remind yourself that no, Mars really is just a cold and barren rock. And there's almost a sadness in coming back to reality and remembering the facts. Yet at the same time, it's a short-lived sadness, for his re-telling of the Big Story leaves me with a deeper, wider view of the real story. For, however fantastic the universes that Lewis creates, the reality is infinitely more glorious! Who can comprehend the mind of God, the intricacies of his plan, the delights he has in store for us?

(I've lots more I could say about That Hideous Strength, but that will have to wait for another day.)

I'd certainly recommend the first two books of the trilogy, for although they don't represent Lewis' best writing, they'll unsettle and stretch your worldview and that's never a bad thing!

The face of God

I've been reading a number of excellent books this holiday as part of my research for an essay on the Kingdom of God. Not least among them for good thinking material has been 'The Challenge of Jesus' by N.T. Wright, as well as his bigger tome 'Jesus and the Victory of God'.

The main thrust of Wright's argument is that Jesus' parables and teaching about the coming of YHWH to Zion, as well as his Temple prophecies (e.g. Mark 13, Luke 19) were primarily intended for his contemporary audience, to be fulfilled in their lifetimes and most centrally in Jesus himself. He argues that Jesus was concerned first of all with revealing God's purposes right now (i.e. in 30 A.D.) and was not principally interested in revealing his 'second coming' - something which would have made no sense to disciples who were still coming to grips with the nature of the 'first'.

Despite his focus on (re)discovering the historical Jesus, I was struck by his high view of Jesus and not only his description of Jesus as God, but his redrawing of God in light of Jesus. I'll let him speak for himself:

“I suggest that we think historically about a young Jew, possessed of a desperately risky, indeed apparently crazy, vocation, riding into Jerusalem in tears, denouncing the Temple, and dying on a Roman cross – and that we somehow allow our meaning for the word ‘god’ to be recentred around this point.” (p.92)

“The portrait [of God] has been redrawn. At its heart, as disclosed in biblical writings, we discover a human face, surrounded by a crown of thorns.” (p.92)

“The Shekinah glory turns out to have a human face.” (p.89)

(All quotes from 'The Challenge of Jesus' by N.T. Wright.)

All of this reminds me of a quote I've been meditating on these last few months from one of my favourite people, Greg Boyd. As he's fond of repeating in sermons, "God looks like Jesus Christ."