Implications of the Sovereignty of God
Polygamist Mormons: The train wreck scandal of a misogynistic polygamist cult continues.
Weather: Today I’m feeling some solidarity with Calgary, though our snow is beginning to go.
Monarchy: 8th in line to the British throne is christened. Will Richard Dawkins call this child abuse?
Episcopalians: Yet another Congregation leaves The Episcopal Church (the American version)
Well, hello my long-suffering blog readers.
My last academic semester in my masters is now over but for the shouting. I did quite well this semester it appears, and I don’t really need to worry much.
It’s a strange feeling though. I have nothing I have to have done in the near future. All the academic work is finished until my convocation on May 5th.
So, any ideas about how I should celebrate my 3rd degree (golly, sounds like a burn, doesn’t it?)
This post is a result of several things, including a conversation with a friend and a post on John Stackhouse’s blog (found here).
The main reason for this post, though is not quite Stackhouse’s point (which I believe to be true), but an implication that I believe makes it far easier to remain truly Christian in the standard debates that surround being a Christian among thinking non-believers (by far my favorite kind of non-believers).
It is easy to get wrapped up in the certainty of our own faith (and don’t get me wrong, I am quite convinced that Jesus Christ really is the truth) so much that we come to believe that it is not Christ who saves people, but our own ideas of Christ that do. This is, to be frank, idolatry, and a fairly subtle form of it, made far more dangerous by its subtlety.
It is this idolatry that leaves Christians unable to actually hear the critiques brought against our faith, and in so doing be able to respond as Christ would have us respond, humbly and in the grace the Spirit provides. It is also dangerous because it has at its centre a resounding lie. One that can slowly eat away at the over-certain believer and leave their faith either rank hypocrisy, or non-existent (and provide a similarly overconfident disbelief). I mean, seriously, how does anyone with any experience of being incorrect ever assume that they cannot still be incorrect? I seem to remember the Magnificat having something to say about God scattering the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
It is my contention that the faith a Christian is to have is less arrogant, but every bit as strong (perhaps stronger as it is not based on my own epistemic ability). We are called to point to the God that is truth, to seek that truth with all we are, with the full recognition that we are fallible, but trusting that God will lead us into truth if we are willing to see it. Indeed, God may be gracious to open our eyes where we have been blind to something till now.
Could I be wrong? Sure. Am I? Well, if I thought I was, I’d change my beliefs to something I think more closely accords to reality. The fact that we “could be wrong” does not prove that we in fact are, but leads us to remain on the path in seeking truth (as long as we don’t raise the “could be wrong” to “probably are”, the latter being as silly as unwarranted certainty in what we believe).
Most importantly, this allows us to see those who disagree with us as no more “foolish” than we see ourselves. It puts our knowledge as as much a function of grace as is our salvation, and it idiotic to pretend that what we are given by grace is a reason to deride another. Similarly, it allows us to speak, act, and preach what we have become convinced of.
Of course, as with everything, I stand ready to be corrected. :-)
Well, It had to happen sooner or later, the Google Search no longer sees my blog at the top, and so my daily hits have gone back down to their normal levels.
S’too bad, with the semester ending I was soon going to have time to actually blog again, though I’ll be happy to no longer raise the ire of the more rabid and illogical atheists.
Okay, I think the comments line of my “why do people go to hell” post is getting too long, and replying in the comments in that line is getting tiresome for people. So here goes me trying to simply post a reply when the questions are good (and don’t have quite as much swearing in them, please people, I try to run a family-friendly blog). I’m answering these not because I’m smarter, but because people ask.
Today’s installment: Questions from Jake (thanks for the really good queries BTW):
I’ve enjoyed reading the earlier blogs, and have learned much from your words. I myself am Agnostic. A fence-sitter if you please. I was raised a Baptist, and have attended a few Catholic churches, but I do not claim to be Catholic. I don’t know if its true or not, but I have heard that the old testament of the bible claims that our god is vengeful god, full of destructive power to rain down upon sinners. Yet, in the new testament, supposedly, he is depicted as the exact opposite. Are these correct?
Unfortunately, this is a pretty common understanding of scripture. Indeed, in the early Church it found full-flower in the heresy called Marcionism which saw in the Old Testament a different “vengeful” God from the one found in the New (so they rejected the Old). Scripture is not nearly that simple. For one thing, the Old Testament has mixed in among the plague and smitings and such, amazing acts of kindness and grace to his covenant people (Israel) despite their many many failings. God is seen as a shepherd to the hurting soul, not in the New Testament, but the Old (Psalm 23), and even in the midst of some very extreme punishments in Deutreronomy, there is clear forethought for the poor, the foreigner, the outcast, and the widow. Indeed, one of the most common words associated with God (Hesed) essentially speaks of a faithful love.
Similarly, in the New Testament, we see among the grace of God poured out for sinners in Christ Jesus, promises of wrath and of punishment. Most of the comments about hell are on Jesus’ own lips, and the book of Revelation has some very gory scenes concerning the punishment of the wicked on the earth (Chapters 8 and 9), and of the final judgment (Chapter 14).
So Honestly, God in both the Old and New Testaments is both vengeful and graceful.
I have designed a theory of my own, and I’d like to hear your opinion. God is perfect. But in most opinions, perfection itself means to be all good. Well we have seen that god has a dark side, so maybe to be perfect, you have to do what isn’t good, OR bad, just what is necessary. For every good a bad. Ying-Yang of christianity.
A possible interpretation, though by way of proviso, I don’t think of evil “existing” any more than a hole or any other absence “exists”. Evil for me is the lack of good. It only exists insofar as there is a good to be lacking something. Lies don’t exist without truth, injustice doesn’t exist without justice, and holes in paper don’t exist without paper. Truth can exist without lies, and paper can exist without holes.
But you are onto something. In the book of Job, in the face of Job’s suffering God comes to answer Job out of the whirlwind to say essentially that “your perspective is a little limited on this”. There’s more at play in any given situation than you can see at first (or even 20th) blush. That’s why I take as the title of this blog a reference to Romans 8:28. All things work together for good…. It’s a promise, and I’d say also an epistemology of morality. God is good, but we can’t always see that.
I haven’t been able to deciede whether or not god exist or not, but I have a hunch that there is something else after this. What it is, I don’t
know, but there is something.
You’ll excuse me for a second on this one, but it does seem a little surreal to have you deciding whether God exists or not. You can decide on your belief, you cannot decide on the reality. :-) Remember too, that god isn’t simply “what comes after”. Most theists would argue that God forms a grounding for reality itself, so we would say that there is something beyond the reality we see that in fact grounds reality itself.
Also, I don’t agree with the christian idea that if you don’t repent your sins, and embrace god, jesus, and the holy spirit, you won’t get into heaven. What if you lead a good, honest life? Shouldn’t that count for something? Does a small tribe in the middle of no where, who has never heard of our god, deserve to go to hell for not embracing him? I don’t think so…
This was more closely dealt with in the post you’re replying to (this one). Works really do not have a lot of value for a Christian when it comes to salvation. They don’t count for that AT ALL. My good works count no more than do the good works of some guy in an unreached tribe, they both count equally at precisely zero. This does not mean that good works are not important, but that they are the effect of salvation, not the cause. There are many causes possible for good works, and not all of them are good, so Christians don’t tend to look at the works as necessarily getting people saved.
The question is actually why do people go to hell. I think that it is because people turn away from God to the enjoyment of other things instead of God. If the Bible is to be believed (see Romans 3:10-18) everybody is in that boat. Now, if someone manages to turn to God , trusting in His righteousness and mercy not relying on his own works, but on God’s mercy, then He is saved. It’s unlikely that people will do that spontaneously, though.
Anyway, I hope this has been somewhat helpful.
(considering) 8:28 