Scot McKnight starts a series on a “third way” between “liberal” and “conservative” versions of the Christian faith. Good and important stuff.
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Category: Theology
“Christian mission is participation in the liberating mission of Jesus, wagering on a future that verifiable experience seems to belie. It is the good news of God’s love, incarnated in the witness of a community, for the sake of the world.”
-David Bosch
One of the issues Daniel Harrell deals with in his excellent “Nature’s Witness: How Evolution Can Inspire Faith” is the problem of divine action.
“Divine action” is the question of how God acts in history. Biological evolution raises questions about divine action because the process of evolution is “random.” Christians have historically believed in a God who is sovereign — that is, a God who is “in control” of history. How can “random” evolution be reconciled with a “sovereign” God?
Some Christians argue that these notions cannot be reconciled. The “Intelligent Design” movement, for example, is fueled in large part by a belief that “purpose” or “design” must be empirically detectable in order to demonstrate God’s sovereignty over creation. /FN1/
In my view, most of these “strong” Intelligent Design arguments about “randomness” are misplaced. The theological notion of God’s sovereignty has never required that all of God’s activity in history be empirically demonstrable. In fact, the Calvinistic understanding of “providence” is that God’s purposes often are hidden from human understanding. What seem like a set of “random” circumstances from the human perspective are sensible and ordered from God’s perspectives. The assertion that God is sovereign is a theological claim based on revelation and faith. This claim is supported by some important empirical data — most notably the historical resurrection of Jesus — but it is not primarily an empirically testable claim.
Thomas Aquinas wrestled with the problem of the hiddennes of providence when he addressed the problem of evil in the Summa Contra Gentiles. Aquinas wanted to show that God is not the cause of the evil acts of human beings. A standard response to this problem is the “free will” defense: human beings are free to chose or not choose evil, and God is not culpable for those choices. But if God is sovereign even over human affairs, how is it possible to claim that God did not ultimately cause human evil?
Aquinas framed his response in terms of different levels of causality. God determines the ultimate purpose, role and function of each element of creation. However, God gave some creatures, particularly humans, at least some capacity to choose among different courses of action. When creatures make choices, those choices are the secondary cause of whatever consequences result. However, God remains the primary cause in that God in His sovereignty ordained that human beings should be creatures that are free to make moral choices, and God’s will continually sustains that ability.
This notion of primary and secondary causation can help us understand how we can talk about “randomness” in nature without impinging on God’s sovereignty. As Christian theists, by “random” we don’t mean metaphysically random. We mean only “random” from our human perspective. We acknowledge that many things that appear random to us as human beings are not random to God.
In fact, the question of “random” events seems to present no problem at all to most Christians except where biological evolution is concerned. Take a pair of dice and toss them on the desk. Unless you have extraordinary skill in manipulating dice, the result will be “random.” Log onto a secure website. Your browser is using an encryption algorithm based on a “randomly” generated encryption key. Follow the stock market. Its fluctuations are “random,” or more accurately, “stochastic” — they follow no statistically predictable pattern. Observe a thunderstorm. The storm develops stochastically, which explains why predicting the weather involves so much guesswork.
In all of these cases, we have no problem asserting that God is ultimately sovereign. Indeed, scripture gives us express support for this belief: Many times in the Biblical narratives people make descions or seek to determine God’s will by “casting lots” — an activity similar to playing dice (see, e.g., Leviticus 16, Numbers 34, 1 Samuel 14, Josua 19, Esther 3, Esther 9, etc.). Proverbs 16:33 offers some wisdom about this practice: “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.”
There seems to be no reason why this can’t also be true concerning biological evolution. Though it appears “random” to us, there is no reason why it can’t at the same time happen within the boundaries of God’s sovereignty. There is no reason why God must have “intervened” at discrete points in natural history to maintain His sovereignty. /FN2/
Of course, this suggests only that a theory of biological evolution that accepts apparent randomness is consistent with classical Christian theism. Theories of biological evolution that insist on metaphysical randomness are not consistent with Christian theism (and further are “philosophical” and not “scientific”). Moreover, a Christian theist might insist on other grounds, particularly on the basis of scripture but also based on tradition, experience, and reason, that God did “intervene” in natural history at certain points — most notably, perhaps, in the creation of that which makes human beings “human.” But these are not meta-questions about God’s sovereignty.
For a longer and truly outstanding discussion of how a Thomistic understanding of creation relates to the question of divine action in evolution, see William E. Carroll, Creation, Evolution, and Thomas Aquinas.
Footnotes:
/FN1/ It’s important to note that Intelligent Design is not primarily a critique of the “common descent” aspect of evolution. Many Intelligent Design advocates, including Michael Behe, fully accept common descent. This means that Behe and others like him agree with mainstream science that the history of life on earth generally reflects a long, gradual transition from one common ancestor to all the diversity of life today. In other words, most Intelligent Design advocates argue for or at least implicity accept some form of “guided” or “front loaded” evolution. This, by the way, is one of my biggest arguments with some evangelical apologists: they improperly cite Intelligent Design as a refutation of common descent in favor of some kind of direct creationism.
/FN2/ At the same time, it’s important to note that not all theologians, even outside the Intelligent Design camp, are comfortable with this admittedly simplified Thomistic model of primary and secondary causation as applied to nature. This is a rich and very interesting area, which has spawned a variety of nuanced models. Many of these nuances also attempt to respond to the theodicy problem raised by even an apparently randomly evolving creation (why would God create a world that develops through predation and competition?). These range from making “space” for divine action in quantum indeterminacy to suggestions that move in the direction of open theism and panentheism. See, e.g., Robert John Russell et al., Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action (Vatican Observatory Publications / CTNS 1997). In my view, however, the Thomistic model remains very useful and retains the decided advantage of falling within classical and Reformed understandings of God’s transcendence, sovereignty and foreknowledge.
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God Showed Up?
This is a preview for Rob Bell’s latest Nooma, “Open.” I watched this on Monday and really enjoyed it. In this clip, Rob voices something that has been bugging me for a while: why do we so often use the phrase “God showed up”? It seems like one of those hip Christianese things we like to say: “man, we’ve been praying about this mission trip, and God really showed up in a big way.”
I feel like a grouchy old man when I hear this. My gut churns a bit, and I think, “what do you mean God showed up? Isn’t God everywhere? Doesn’t He know everything? Is He like Baal or Zeus, off doing his own thing, until our supplications make him finally pay attention and sort of reluctantly do some magic? Are we surprised — like whoa, God, I didn’t think you got the invitation, but you showed up, dude!?”
Ok, I am a grouchy old man. But I do think there’s something subtle here that is good to correct. I feel like we lose something of God’s majesty, wisdom, and mystery when we say something like “God showed up.” I like to think that God is fully there even when it seems to me that He hasn’t shown up. When I pray for my son’s disability to be healed, and it isn’t; when I pray for justice in the world, and there doesn’t seem to be much of it; when I hear a story on the BBC world news about the global sex slave trade and how little can actually be done about it; when I study the Bible in depth and find it to be unruly and untameable, often more of a challenge than a clear guide; when I look at the list of things I hope to accomplish in life and realize that, at age 42, I’ll never succeed in all of it; when I consider the precautions I have to take to avoid giving in to the disease of depression — in all this and more, God doesn’t have to show up, he’s there, just as much as when He opens doors I thought were sealed shut or blesses me with health and success, as He often does.
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Quotes on Sin
Some good quotes on sin:
“The sinner is therefore someone who goes against nature, and it is the nature of human beings to live rationally. Sin is therefore something which must be regarded as absurd” (Theophylact of Ohrid, Byzantine Archbishop, c. 1000 A.D.)
“It is not a speculation but a description which even the veriest child can understand simply to say of evil in the first instance that it is what God does not will. But to say this is also to say that it is something which He never did nor could will, nor ever will nor can. It is thus that evil is characterized, judged, and condemned in the self-disclosure of the living person of Jesus Christ. As opposition to God, it is that which is simply opposed to His will, and from eternity, in time and to all eternity negated, rejected, condemned and excluded by his will.” (Karl Barth, Curch Dogmatics IV/3, 1:177)
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What is Man?
This my “Q&A” response for this Sunday’s Project Timothy meeting:
What does Psalm 8 teach us about man’s place in the universe? What, if anything, was the original writer trying to spell out concerning God’s hierarchy of living things? As a result, what do we take away from the Psalm today?
Exegesis:
This Psalm opens with a declaration of on God’s majesty (v. 1). It offers a vindication of God against His enemies (v. 2). This vindication comes in an unexpected form: “the mouth of infants and nursing babes” (v. 2). Verses 3-8 expand on the ways in which human beings, created by God and acting as His vice-regents over creation, bring God glory. Verse 9 repeats the declaration of God’s majesty as a sort of liturgical response.
The statement that human beings rule over God’s creation and that “all things” are “put under [man’s] feet” (v.6) is picked up in two Christological passages in the New Testament, 1 Cor. 15:27 and Heb. 2:6-11. Both of those New Testament passages refer to the parousia, in which everything that opposes God’s mission of bringing shalom to the world, including death, will finally be subject to Christ. The NT authors see Christ as the perfect type of humanity, faithfully executing the role of the Father’s vice-regent in creation.
Hermeneutics / Application
This Psalm affirms that human beings have a unique role in God’s economy of creation and salvation. God did not have to choose humanity for this role, as creation is filled with other wonders that bring God glory (v. 3). God’s choice of a creature that is born weak and helpless reflects His unexpected, paradigm-changing grace, and demonstrates the foolishness of human beings who wish to exalt themselves over God. It also imbues humanity with extraordinary dignity (v.5). The New Testament references to this Psalm present Christ as the culmination of humanity and the hinge on which God’s plan of redemption turns.
We take away from this Psalm that human beings deserve a high degree of respect. If man is made “a little lower than God” (v. 5), then every human being is in a sense god-like. This has enormous ethical implications. It provides a foundation for human rights law, for example.
At the same time, the Psalm and its application in the New Testament remind us that humanity is not autonomous from God. In fact, humanity, like all of creation, is designed to bring God glory. Moreover, the “first” humanity has turned from its responsibility and has exchanged its God-given glory for the broken visage of sin. Only in Christ, the “new” perfect man, is humanity fully restored to its place and able to enjoy all the blessings God intends for us.
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Old and New Thoughts on Hope
“Therefore we live as children of God even in this present life, sanctifying ourselves by virtue and striving toward the likeness of something even better. Encouraged by this, we shall be fashioned according to the brightness of the resurrection, when we shall see him, insofar as that is possible, as he is.” (Severus of Antioch, 520 A.D.).
“[T]he church that takes seriously the fact that in and through Jesus the Creator God has grasped the world of matter once more and has transformed it by his own person and presence, and will one day fill it with his knowledge and glory as the waters cover the sea, not only will seek to celebrate the coming of God in Christ in and through the sacramental elements but also will go straight from baptism and the Eucharist to make God’s healing, transforming presence a reality in the physical matter of real life.” (N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope).
This is the next entry in the Text(s) of Scripture series with yours truly and Thomas. Our text this go-round is 1 John 2:4-11:
We can be sure we know him if we obey is commands. The man who says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.
Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new command: its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.
Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.
Thomas:
This passage makes apparent that the Word is not fulfilled until it is obeyed. That is why prophecy is only cautionary and rhetoric if it is not fulfilled. When prophecy is fulfilled, the words achieve their full purpose and meaning. We should view the words of Christ in the same way: that God’s love is not made complete in us until we obey his words.
Obedience has often been maligned for being “works” or “the law” or false “justification.” True obedience is not like this. As John writes, obedience is a journey or pilgrimage: “whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.” Obedience is staying on the right path, the path we are on because of faith as well. Faith and obedience need each other to survive and grow—the “law” or “works,” in their sparsest and cruelest followings, do not need faith. Obedience is finding the old within the new, as Jesus himself was the new covenant that fulfills and surpasses the old covenant. This obedience to the Word, to Christ, is not a woeful and bleak struggle against the flesh—it is a purifying pilgrimage that sees the light at the end of the tunnel. Often when the “struggle against the flesh” is framed in conversation the struggle is made out to be futile. We never seem to be able to win out over it. That is the narrow-minded and short-sightedness of viewing obedience as only “works.” When we have faith and works, we can trust that though we struggle, and sometimes struggle mightily, we can rejoice “because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.” The Word is the light that shines on our faith-journey. Our obedience to the Word of Christ is the calling we all follow faithfully as we pilgrimage to the place where the true light is already shining.
If we lose our way, as the person who hates their brother does, we will find darkness precisely because we have strayed from the path of our pilgrimage. We have no longer been obedient to the race we have been called to run, to borrow from Paul. This is why viewing obedience not as “works” but as walking in the footsteps of Christ makes sense of the grim outlook of John’s example here. If we step off the path and are no longer obedient, and the more we are disobedient and venture further and further from the narrow road we have been called to travel on, we loose sight of the Light of the Word and become lost in the darkness. Like a traveler who becomes lost in the wilderness, or a horse who ventures off the path in the night, we may suddenly find ourselves in the impenetrable darkness of this world. We should fear for our selves and our soul, but we should never fear that Christ has abandoned us. His Word is written on his followers’ hearts, and those who have lost there way should repent and begin to follow his commandments. When we follow his commandments, we will find the darkness of our surroundings and our soul begin to fade, as the darkness fades at dawn, and the Light of Christ the eternal Word will guide us back onto the pilgrim’s path.
Dave:
I want to focus on the connection between obeying God’s “word” and “walk[ing] as Jesus did.” We sometimes focus so much on the “word” as a set of commands and restrictions that we forget Jesus is the incarnate “Word.” You can’t imitate the “walk” of a written word.
Written words can offer instruction, guidelines, and rules useful to a practice. I’ve read lots of things about playing guitar — the rules of music theory, things to avoid or to do (“use the back of your picking hand thumb to produce pinched harmonics…”), stories of other players’ successes and failures. But with any difficult technique, at some point I need someone to show me how it’s done. Then I need to just do it, to get it into my own hands and fingers until it becomes automatic.
So it is, I think, with following Jesus. The written words of scripture are transformative. They begin to seep into our ways of thinking about what life is for and how it should be lived. But the words aren’t given for their own sake, and they aren’t given alone. The walk of Jesus, his way of dealing with people, his way of relating to the Father, his strength in temptation, his heartbreak over evil and suffering, his sacrificial death, is there for us to observe as well. So “word” is only really “Word” in us when our “walk” starts to look like our Rabbi’s.
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Priests Pointing People to God
The sermon at church last week focused on Exodus 19 and 1 Peter 2: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light….”
This is profound on so many levels, but I particularly appreciated how Pastor Fred tied this into small group ministries. Each of us involved in a small group is a “priest” to the others. We are able to offer each other words of encouragement, reassurance of forgiveness, and hope in difficult circumstances, because we represent Christ to each other. And the same is true for our local communities and our world. This is missional theology at work.
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Nature's Witness
If you read one book on the relationship between faith and science this year, it should be Daniel Harrell‘s Nature’s Witness: How Evolution Can Inspire Faith.
Harrell is Associate Minister at Park Street Church in Boston. Park Street has been a leading evangelical church for 200 years. Given its location in Boston, near some of the world’s greatest universities, Park Street’s missional context requires it to maintain a significant level of intellectual rigor. It is important that a Pastor in this church has been able to take on the challenge of examining evolutionary biology honestly and forthrightly from the perspective of evangelical faith.
There are three key strengths to Harrell’s book that I think are lacking in varying degrees in similar books recently authored by scientists such as Francis Collins. First, Harrell recognizes the discomfort this subject causes for many evangelicals, and uses a conversational style that diffuses some of that angst. Second, Harrell is thoroughly trained in evangelical theology (he studied at Gordon Conwell Seminary), and therefore is more careful with scripture and theology than some other faith-and-science writers. Third, Harrell offers some frameworks for resolving the tensions that arise from honest efforts to relate an evangelical commitment to scripture and a fearless look at the scientific evidence. He is not willing to accept false dichotomies between the truths of nature and the truths of scripture, yet he is able to make space for the tensions that inevitably result from any efforts at synthesis.
Harrell’s overall approach is summed up in this passage:
The controversy between Christian faith and evolution is exacerbated by increasing mounds of scientific data that lend weight to evolution. Paleontology, biochemistry, cosmology, physics, genetics—you name the discipline—each regularly puts forth newly discovered evidence in support of Darwin’s simple idea of descent with modification. While some people of faith choose to keep their doors closed, shutting out science is not necessary. Christian faith by definition defies human conceptions of reality (1 Cor 3:19). Its claims are grounded in extraordinary events that defy scientific explanation (most importantly the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus). But God is not only present where science is silent; he remains present even where science speaks loudest. The expansiveness of the universe, the beauty and complexity of organic life and the remarkable makeup of human consciousness—naturally explicable occurrences—are also interpreted by Christians as manifestations of God (Rom 1:20). Christianity consistently asserts that all truth is God’s truth, implying that faith and science, despite differences when it comes to explaining why, nevertheless should agree in regard to what is. Why bother talking about God if God has no relation to observable reality?
The last line in this paragraph — why bother talking about God if God has no relation to observable reality — is essential to a missional stance today, I think. We cannot shut our church doors to reality, we cannot bury our heads in the sand, we cannot deny what is obvious. If our faith requires us to run and hide from discoveries about the natural world, it is not a faith worth having. If our only apologetic response to surprising evidence from nature is to villify, attack, question the motives of the discoverers, and construct an elaborately obscuratanist epistemology grounded in massive conspiracy theories (all of the world’s scientists are lying to us!), then it should be no surprise if “church” becomes more and more irrelevant in our culture. Thankfully, there are more an more people like Harrell who are capable of winsomely thinking things through in the best tradition of evangelical faith.
I hope to do a series on this book, as follows: (1) more on God and reality; (2) the problem of divine action; (3) important theological tensions; (4) missional conversations on faith and science in local churches.