God, the paradox July 30, 2009
Posted by Damian in Relating to God.Tags: bible, complexity, evolution, God, New Testament, old testament, paradox, predicability, progressive revelation
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John Anderson recently posted about God’s character. It was a thought provoking post, and well worth reading yourself. He asked three questions (paraphrased):
- What is the relationship between the Testaments? Specifically between a wrathful, murderous God of the Hebrew Bible and a kind, loving God in the NT.
- What role does the Hebrew Bible play in one’s faith? What role should it play? And should (or does?) the Church employ it properly?
- Is God’s unpredictability ever tempered by predictability? Constancy?
And offers his opinion about who God is in the Hebrew Bible:
God is . . . a trickster, deceptive, cunning, and unpredictable figure.
God is . . . the one who elects Israel and chooses her for covenant relationship.
God is . . . steadfast in the covenant with Israel.
God is . . . intimately and deeply affected by creation to the point that God at points changes His mind, repents, withdraws, mourns, etc.
God is . . . one who suffers because of, with, and for creation.
God is . . . a paradox. Vulnerable yet powerful. Tricky yet faithful. Present yet absent.
Now, I approve wholeheartedly of John’s take on God’s personality. I think it’s important to realise that God is very unlikely to be the simple personality the New Testament portrays him to be. Often God’s unpredictability, the fact that he changes his mind, the fact that he is occasionally deceptive, the fact that he is responsible for evil as well as for good throughout the Old Testament, all should be taken into account.
Personally, I feel a lot of these factors can be accounted for by looking at the Bible as a whole as a record of the evolution of man’s understanding of God. Imagine a series of paintings, the first in darkness, painted in increasingly bright light, until at last the subject of the portrait is revealed in clarity. I think that lens is a very important one through which to view the Bible.
However, I still think there is something to be said about reconciling God’s Old Testament personality with his New Testament one; and I mean reconciling, not explaining away. God has done things (regardless of our understanding) that are difficult to understand, and contrary to many portrayals of God as a somewhat simple creature. I doubt that, at the end of all things, we’ll meet God and be surprised by his simplicity. No, I suspect we’ll be shocked at his complexity and contrariness.
We shouldn’t shy away from paradox, when it comes to ineffable creatures.
Why should I let reading the Bible be the basis of my faith? July 29, 2009
Posted by Damian in Relating to God.Tags: apocrypha, bible, canon, church, faith, Hebrews, tradition
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Today, Doug Chaplin asks:
Why should I let reading the Bible be the basis of my faith?
Because the Bible says so?
Because the Church says so?
Because the creeds say so?Why?
I’m interested in the answers to this question. Answers are often the recursive first option (as Doug points out). Many people point to tradition (I suppose that’s the second option). Some people point to faith. Personally, a combination of Church tradition having weight and faith in God’s ability to provide is what sustains my reasons for basing my faith biblically. However, I also don’t hold strongly to canon, reading apocryphal texts and exhibiting a strong tendency to disregard points made in certain texts I’m not convinced the validity of (for example, Hebrews).
Do any of my readers have an answer? Why do you base your faith upon the Bible?
If I can go to hell… July 28, 2009
Posted by Damian in Devotional.Tags: atonement, Christ's sacrifice, efficacy, faith, God, hell, sacrifice, salvation, self control, sinner
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Michael Spencer said something very simple, and very true today in his defence for the Gospel:
If I can go to hell, I will.
I wrote a series on atonement a while ago, based on issues I had with Christ’s sacrifice. Basically, if there’s any conditionality to it, I feel that it belittles Christ’s sacrifice. He’s God, after all. And if there is any conditionality to it, I will go to hell (if one believe in it), because there is no way I can, for the entirety of my life, live up to almost any condition (aside from being a sinner). I am, after all, merely a sinner.
So, when it comes down to it, I can’t believe there is any conditions. Because we’re all sinners. Our faith always falters, our commitment comes and goes, our self control wavers. If it’s possible for me to go to hell, I will.
It’s only Christ that saves me. It’s only Christ that saves us all. And if he saves me, he will save us all. Because I’m no better than anyone.
The sacrifice of Abraham and trust in God July 25, 2009
Posted by Damian in Biblical Exegesis and Interpretation.Tags: God, old testament, Genesis, violence, abraham, Joseph, sacrifice, progressive revelation, Old Testaent, prohpets, Molech, evolution of theological understanding, prophets
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In a recent post on violence in the Old Testament, Greg Boyd asks:
Is it possible that some divinely inspired material is not supposed to reveal to us what God is like but what he is not like? Is it possible that some material is inspired precisely because God wants us to follow Jesus’ example and repudiate it?
Now, I’m a great believer in this: One of my favourite readings of the Bible is as a record of a people’s changing understanding of God over thousands of years, from a God not unlike the others of the time (the God of Joseph), to a God who rejected sacrifice dramatically (Abraham) to a God who wanted not sacrifice, but the love of his people (the prophets), and beyond that to Christ. My answer, then, to Greg’s question, is a resounding yes.
However, Greg goes on to say this:
Abraham believed God told him to sacrifice his child, yet he trusted that God was not really like the bloodthirsty Canaanite god Molech and thus would not make him follow through with his request, even though he had no choice but to move forward in obedience. He trusted that God would supply the commanded sacrifice , if only at the last minute (Gen. 22:8).
Now, I’m sorry, but 22:8 was not evidence of trust in God; it was a lie to placate his son. I see no evidence in Genesis that Abraham ever trusted that God was not like Molech or any other God of the time. Abraham knew his God was powerful, and believed (based on his experience with other gods) that not to do as God said would result in disaster. Of course he did not want to sacrifice his son, but he did it anyway, because all the gods he had known would turn their wrath on him and his family if he did not. And if Abraham had fully intended to sacrifice his son at that time, then the blessing of v.15-18 makes no sense at all: It’s a reward for Abraham’s commitment in giving up his only son.
Whilst I’ll look forward to Greg Boyd’s new book – we need more on interpretations of the bible that involve the evolution of theological understanding in the bible – I just hope he can find some better examples.
Jon Busch on Sex July 23, 2009
Posted by Damian in Sex, Sexuality and Marriage.Tags: adultery, divorce, fornicator, israel, Jesus, kingdom of Heaven, Leviticus, marriage, Paul, premarital sex, prostitutes, sex, sex before marriage, solomon, women
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Michael Patton linked to this post by Jon Busch. I have to say, he takes some interesting perspectives on scripture that I appreciate:
In Old Testament times a woman was a commodity, a luxury, the plasma screen television of the day. We’ve read into the story of Solomon that he was punished for having too many wives, but God really just seems angry about him taking wives from foreign lands. And in the old laws in Leviticus, there is the conspicuous absence of traditional, positive definitions of marriage and appropriate sexual relations. Not really until Jesus comes along, it seems, do we get some helpful information about sex: he scolds those guys who wanted to divorce their wives just because they were bored of them, denounces adultery, and expresses open frustration with the viewing of women as property. (See the “whose wife will the widow be in heaven” debate.) But as far as I can tell, he doesn’t have any words on premarital sex. Paul throws “fornicators” in with a slew of deviants who “will not inherit the kingdom of heaven,” but he seems to be talking about people who love to sleep around, particularly with prostitutes, as a recreational activity. It’s more than a small stretch to extend that harsh imperative to over-eager teens in dating relationships.
Whilst I’ve written plenty about the importance of sex and what I believe its relationship to marriage is, I think that clarity about the scriptural basis for things that seem to have a death-grip on the popular Christian consciousness, such as premarital sex, is very important. Jon here makes the point here clearly: That scripture has a lot to say about sex, things like:
- Israelites should marry Israelites
- Women are not property
- Divorce should not happen except in extreme circumstances
- Adultery is bad
- Sex with many partners should not be treated as a recreational activity
But it avoids saying a lot about premarital sex, or about a lot of other sexual matters that our modern society seems to think foundational to the Christian faith. I wonder why?
