I've been thinking about the Atonement lately. The doctrine of the Atonement has been coming under attack in recent years. It shouldn't be surprising, since by many who hold to progressive theology, personal sin has been denied or its extent or gravity has been lessened, and the second person of the Trinity (Jesus Christ, the son of God) has been devalued (his divinity is denied, his actual resurrection is denied, and/or obedience to him is no longer sought). So in such a climate, an act by Jesus Christ that takes away the consequences of personal sin is bound to become a target for elimination.
For example, a recent attack on the Atonement occurred not long before Easter, when Canon Jeffrey John of the Church of England was slated to speak about it on BBC Radio. In his view, the traditional doctrine of the Atonement, in which Jesus takes the punishment for the sins of humankind, so that, when we acknowledge that he has done so, and submit our lives to him, we can be forgiven and live eternally with God, "makes God sound like a psychopath". Instead, he suggests that Christ was crucified merely to share in our suffering.
If that's all Christ has to offer us on the cross, it doesn't give us much hope. If he just hung there and died so that God could say, "There, there, I understand how much it hurts," I don't think I'd be all that grateful. I'd rather have a God and a Savior who could really do something about the mess we're in, and fortunately, that's what we've got, because of the Atonement.
People who see God and Christ in this way--people who deny the Atonement--necessarily have a vision of God as a weak God. This is because they're saying that the Bible got it wrong all these years when it described Christ's death on the cross as paying for our sins. So that must mean that God was not powerful enough to make sure that the Bible got written correctly. Unfortunately for him, it ended up written wrong and was misunderstood for all these long centuries, and he just wasn't able to inspire the writers to get it put right. But now, at last, people have come along who really do know what is right--they know that the Atonement is not true! This implies that we are fortunate to be living in a time when there are really intelligent people who at last know the truth. In fact, God should be grateful to these people who can finally correct the Bible and do what he has been unable to do all these years.
Of course, I disagree with this point of view. So let me attempt to answer some of the arguments that have been made against the Atonement.
1. Argument 1: God wants to kill us because we wronged him. Why is it that God is supposed to be more merciful than we are, yet almost none of us wants to kill those who wrong us? Answer: God isn't out to kill us. This is stating the problem the wrong way. Here's the right way: God is out to keep us from dying eternally. The problem is that God is utterly, completely good, and evil cannot exist where he is. Once we have sinned, we are tainted with evil. Evil cannot live forever with God; it has to die, because it cannot be where God is. However, God loves us and wants us to be with him, and he is so merciful that he has worked out a way to make that happen, via the Atonement. God, as Jesus, takes the consequence--death--of sin, and we are counted as good if we accept what Jesus did for us.
2. Argument 2: God's killing his own son makes him the ultimate child abuser. Answer: This separates God and Jesus too much. God and Jesus are both separate and the same, as part of the mystery of the Trinity. Because God and Jesus are the same, God himself died for us when Jesus died. Moreover, Jesus did it freely, and not under compulsion. Jesus chose to die for us because he loves us and wants us to be with him forever.
3. Argument 3: Jesus' suffering isn't sufficient because it's not the worst suffering the world has ever seen; other people have suffered more. Answer: It's not the degree of suffering, it's who suffered. Jesus wasn't just a man, he was God. If God takes our punishment, it has been taken to an infinitely greater degree than if it were taken by a mortal. But also the degree of suffering must be greater than any suffering any other person has ever endured. At the moment when Jesus bore all the accumulated guilt and shame of our past, present, and future sins, he was separated from God's love, and that is suffering that is magnitudes beyond what anyone else has ever undergone.
4. Argument 4: It doesn't make sense that nobody is able to be perfectly good and that all people need salvation by God; why should all people be sinful and none be good? Or at least, aren't there some sins that don't need atoning for, that wouldn't keep a person out of heaven? Answer: God apparently didn't want perfect robots, preferring us to have free will. Thus we were left free to sin. But this is a mystery, and I assume that God's mind is bigger than mine, so I don't pretend to understand why we inevitably sin. But as for there being some sins that aren't so bad, and that shouldn't keep us out of heaven, I like what I heard our pastor Scott Dudley say once. He suggested thinking about what heaven would be like if people were let in with the sin that you think isn't too bad. Suppose you thought that irritability wasn't so bad and shouldn't keep you out of heaven. Would it still be heaven if irritable people were there? Maybe for some thick-skinned people it wouldn't be so bad, but for some others it might make it hell. Besides, all sin is a grave problem to God, who is perfectly good, and to whom we owe thanks for everything good in creation. When we commit even little sins, we repay God's goodness with evil, and by doing evil, we work against his good will for creation.
5. Argument 5: The Atonement requires a view of God as an angry, bloodthirsty God. Answer: Again, the Atonement is not something that God did because he's out for blood. It's true that sin makes God angry, but not in a bloodthirsty way. God is angry with sin because of the hurt that it causes people and his creation. Sin causes death, and God doesn't like death. So, to rob death of its victims, and give us a chance to be with him forever, God provided the Atonement. All we have to do is acknowledge what he did for us. He has made it very easy for us. Rather than being a bloodthirsty punisher, because of the Atonement, God is actually the most tender, merciful, loving God that can be imagined. (Of course, we want to respond to this love by obedience and service, but that's another part of the story.)
As I've said above, it is predictable that the Atonement should be targeted for disposal, since the doctrine of personal sin is also unpopular now among many people. This is a pity, because when we don't acknowledge our own sin, we miss out on being forgiven by God. And forgiveness is a beautiful and precious thing.
I thank God for the Atonement. Because of it, I will have life forever with God.
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24 comments:
This is a great post on the atonement Debbie. I have been listening all week to a u-tube video of one of the important songs sung during the Welsh revival. A revival I think happened about 100 years ago. Here are the first two verses of "Here is Love":
"Here is love, vast as the ocean,
Lovingkindness as the flood,
When the Prince of Life, our Ransom,
Shed for us His precious blood.
Who His love will not remember?
Who can cease to sing His praise?
He can never be forgotten,
Throughout Heav’n’s eternal days.
On the mount of crucifixion,
Fountains opened deep and wide;
Through the floodgates of God’s mercy
Flowed a vast and gracious tide.
Grace and love, like mighty rivers,
Poured incessant from above,
And Heav’n’s peace and perfect justice
Kissed a guilty world in love."
I'm glad you addressed what some see as a problem of child abuse. Those who call the death of Jesus child abuse simply don't understand the Trinity or the deity of Jesus Christ. A great little book on the death of Christ as well as the deity of Christ is "God Crucified: Monotheism & Christology in the New Testament" by Richard Bauckham.
By the way the u-tube video which is mostly in the Welsh language is at http://youtube.com/watch?v=liWYLxitHkU.
Thanks, Viola, that's a great hymn! This morning in church we sang "How Deep the Father's Love for Us", and it occurred to me that it's also quite appropriate to the Atonement. If our progressive friends will forgive the gender-specific use of the word "sons", I hope they will find the beauty and meaning of the words. I'll paste in the lyrics below; the tune can be heard here:
http://www.adlerworshipministries.com/audio/LINDA_ADLER-How_Deep_the_for-clip-2-70.m3u
I prefer it, however, sung as a congregation. It is a very moving song, I find.
How deep the Father's love for us,
How vast beyond all measure,
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure.
How great the pain of searing loss –
The Father turns His face away,
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory.
Behold the man upon a cross,
My sin upon His shoulders;
Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice
Call out among the scoffers.
It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished;
His dying breath has brought me life –
I know that it is finished.
I will not boast in anything,
No gifts, no power, no wisdom;
But I will boast in Jesus Christ,
His death and resurrection.
Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer;
But this I know with all my heart –
His wounds have paid my ransom.
Stuart Townend.
Copyright © 1995 Thankyou Music
Thanks for the post Debbie.
On the ramp up to Resurrection Sunday we were 'bathing' in those 'bloody' songs. 'There is a fountain' being one of them.
I reacted in similar way to the posting you were answering. Its hard to aruge with integrity against what amounts to personal opinion, and 'the bible is wrong.'
The atonement is a many faceted thing, no doubt. The metaphors used in scripture indicate healing, being freed from slavery- to name a few. But- as a prof. in grad school reminded this rather mediocre theology student, it isn't so much what many of the alternative views of the atonement affirm that is the problem, its what they deny- substutionary atonement- that makes them unsatisfactory when measured against the canon of scripture.
Good news indeed, although I still stumble sometimes over Cranmers, '... and there is no health in us...' in the confession of sin. Wish it weren't so, but it is.
grace & peace,
dm
I'll 'ditto' the amens to your post!
The problem that these revisionist theologians have with the atonement is their problem with Scripture itself: it does not back their agenda for the church!
So what do they do?
They discard the inconvenient truths of the Bible and begin making a religion of their own invention.
And all in all, that's nothing new. Like countless sects and cults before them, these liberal revisionists take their place in the Hall of Failed Religions.
The more things change...
The more Christ is the same: Thanks be to God for the precious atoning blood of Christ!
Hi Debbie--thanks very much for this thoughtful post. I also saw this article by NT Wright on the same topic (which I haven't read yet, but thought might be of interest). http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/news/2007/20070423wright.cfm?doc=205
I'm glad to learn of your blog and wish you a happy Eastertide!
Steve
Wow. What a great post.
When I came before Presbytery for my exam, I was quizzed on my view of the Atonement. My questioners presented some of your objections, and I had answers straight from the creeds. I was approved and eventually ordained.
There is such richness in the Atonement, that to water it down does it a grave injustice, and is so theologically weak that it ruins any faith it tends to support.
Pastor Chris
EvangelismCoach.org
Hmm. Perhaps I will be the token progressive Christian to respond to the post. I've posted at length about why I reject substitutionary atonement already, so I won't belabor that here. I will say that, if you must have sub atonement, the version you present is richer than what I usually see presented.
(Obviously, I take issue with characterizing this discussion of atonement as truth vs. opinion, but I've also talked about that at length before)
My question is: is the only function of atonement, in this view, that it grants the chance for eternal life after death if we have faith - that is, if we gratefully understand that Christ died to pay the debt for sin? Or does it also have effects in the here and now?
Doug, thanks for commenting! To answer your question, yes, the Atonement does have effects in the here and now. Once we have responded to Christ and acknowledged what he has done for us through the Atonement, and become his follower, then we have entered into the Reign of God. Although that Reign will not become complete until Christ's coming again, we still experience it in part in the "here and now" because of the Atonement.
In addition, when we understand what Christ has done for us, it makes us want to respond to that with gratitude by serving him and by obeying God's commands. So although we don't have to do anything to earn our place in heaven, we end up doing the things that God desires as a response to his great love because of the Atonement. We still continue to sin, because we're still human, and we still continue to ask for forgiveness, but we're started on a process where we are growing to be more and more like him (although this is measured in small increments compared to his awesome goodness.)
The way I have presented the Atonement is pretty much the standard orthodox view. I'm wondering who you have heard it presented by in the past. Was it only from people who disagreed with it? The reason I ask is that, usually when I hear orthodox views described by progressives, I don't recognize them. They don't describe them at all the way we actually would describe them ourselves.
Debbie:
Yeah, that definitely happens on both sides. When I hear progressive theology talked about, it sounds like someone else.
My encounters with sub atonement have come through lots of reading of various sources, mostly in favor of it and some critical of it to varying degrees (from changes in nuance to total rejection) as well as a lot of conversations about it with various people with all kinds of views. It was the topic of my senior thesis in undergrad, so I did a year of research on atonement/soteriology, and have continued reading in that area since and having periodic conversations.
Part of it is just a difference in perception, based on the person you are when you hear about a certain theology. My own views appear to (some? many?) as a complete rejection of everything valuable or true about Christianity. In the same way, I think its possible to see negative things about sub atonement, particularly if, say, you had an abusive parent, or if you think killing is wrong and so its hard to imagine God having to be killed to satisfy a requirement.
Also, it depends on how you approach the issue. How much focus you put on Heaven versus what happens here, perhaps, or what you think the nature of sin is. I know that the argument is out there that such things are made extremely clear in scripture and the tradition, but they certainly aren't unanimous (in my opinion, which all of this is). In the NT, there are many interpretations of Christ's death and resurrection, many kinds of language used to describe their effect and power. This is also true throughout Christian history. Everything from Christus Victor to Anselem to modern and postmodern interpretations. The agreement is that Christ is crucial (pun intended) to our understanding of God, ourselves, and the cosmos. Because of this, I see it as something to which I don't give one answer, and I don't feel comfortable accepting one answer.
To me, there are going to be problems with every theological view, every biblical interpretation, and every claim about God that we make. We're limited creatures, and everything we can say or understand is at best partially true. But I also think there are things we can mutually affirm. We're all here, doing theology, because God has reached out to us and captured us in some way. We all want to be truthful and not lead anyone away from God. We're all also rational people who have a very wide range of experiences and backgrounds that will lead us to some different conclusions. The richness of the resulting language of God, for me, is a benefit, is even beautiful. Since we (IMO) cannot decisively say things about the transcendent/immanent/infinite creator of the universe without committing idolatry, I take the view that an incredible variety of language is the best way to approach God.
Personally, I like it and wouldn't have it otherwise - but I know there'll be lots of disagreement there.
I don't agree with your distinction in emphasis on Heaven vs. here and now. The Atonement to me is not a "pie in the sky bye and bye" issue. Certainly I do believe that the world will never be perfect until Christ comes again. There are some things we just can't fix on our own. Humanity is too selfish for us to be able to realistically hope to definitively end things like war and oppression (although that doesn't give us the excuse not to try.)
Nevertheless, because the Atonement puts us into a new relationship with God through Christ, it makes a difference in our lives. When I said that we want to respond in gratitude by serving and obeying God, I wasn't just talking about our own personal morals and piety. The response would definitely include compassion and social justice as well; that should be a major part of our response to God. (By the way, there is an interesting study out recently that shows that although evangelicals talk about social justice less than progressives, they actually accomplish more of it than progressives do. I should try to find the reference for that. Anyway, like I said, it's part of the response in gratitude for what Christ did for us.)
I agree, though, that one's view of the nature of sin does make a big difference here. If you don't have a sense of personal sin, then the Atonement is not going to feel very necessary. My impression has been (but correct me if I'm wrong) that progressive theology does not place much emphasis on personal sin, but instead focuses on corporate sin (sins of societies, nations, and other groups). The problem I have with that is that sometimes I see progressives definitely assigning blame for things to certain individuals, such as George Bush or certain evangelicals. So, is there or is there not personal sin? And if there is personal sin, and there is no substitutionary atonement, then how is it dealt with?
Another important difference may be one's view of God. It may be for some people who question the Atonement that they do not see God as vastly, immensely, Other from us. He is not subject to our rules and criticisms. As C.S. Lewis said of the lion Aslan, he is not tame. Judging him by our sense that killing is not right, and therefore rejecting the Atonement on that basis, is presuming that our limited intellects, senses of justice, and sensibilities are a match for his. Rather, if we have any sense of right and wrong, of justice and goodness, at all, it is because we have been given it from him. He is complete goodness, complete justice. If the Atonement is the method he uses to bring about our salvation, then we can trust him that it is just and good.
I think its probably fair to generalize that progressive theology focuses more on corporate sin over personal sin. I'd be curious how, in the study you mentioned, "social justice" was defined. As in, are these part of programs aimed at conversion (you can have a meal if you stay for the sermon sort of thing) etc.
I think that our limited intellect is a double-edged sword. Why should we assume that our limited intellect understands atonement at all? Even if the Bible were perfect, why assume that we can interpret it correctly in any instance? There seems to be as much reason to believe that I can reason ethically as to believe that I can interpret correctly. At least to me.
I think that a strength of progressive theology is the recognition of limitations in everything, including interpretation of scripture. Whereas, in some cases, I have perceived the evangelical viewpoint as one that is unwilling to look critically at its own biblical interpretation - or sometimes even admit that it is interpreting (regarding "plain sense" arguments).
A weakness of this view, which I embrace really, is that you lose a sense of absolute truth which you can refer back to. For me, there is no such thing, not for me first of all, and then not in what I see around me.
To say that everything is relative, however, for me, doesn't mean that nothing is meaningful. There is still the comparison of more or less - more true and less true, rather than completely true and completely wrong. How is this discerned without an absolute measurement of some kind? With great difficulty, and always involved with as many viewpoints as you can bring to bear.
For example - your post pointed out to me that my own post on atonement only dealt with a particular view of atonement that was most distant from mine. I still have a lot of work to do thinking about the many other views one might have. Because I take the progressive viewpoint that my truth is not Truth, it (ideally, not always) opens me to change and, I would say, improvement on what I believe.
One potential pitfall is when, in a relative framework, my own viewpoint becomes an unconscious absolute. Lots of conversations and reminders help inoculate against this, but there is no ultimate cure.
Doug,
If there is no such thing as absolute truth for you, how can you be sure that your "progressive viewpoint," if it opens you to change, is causing an "improvement" on what you believe? Couldn't you be changing in a regressive manner even transforming into something dreadful in your thinking?
And isn't it possible that God is powerful enough to give you truth. For instance if Jesus Christ is truly the Son come to give you forgiveness of sins and abundant life by his life, death on the cross and resurrection, isn’t it possible that God is powerful enough to let you know that? That of course wouldn't be all there is to know about God but it would be true. And if true that would be an absolute truth.
Well, I can't seem to find the study I had in mind. The only one I can find at the moment is just about charitable giving, which is here: http://www.amazon.com/Who-Really-Cares-Compassionate-Conservatism/dp/0465008216/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-7890304-2219146?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177995526&sr=8-1.
But I for what I had in mind, social justice and compassion done by evangelicals would not just be conversion-oriented programs, although I don't object to those. (You must remember that from the evangelical point of view, conversion is life-saving. We don't do it because we want to make other people be like us; we do it so that they can be saved from eternal death.)
But the types of social justice and compassion programs that I am familiar with do not require people to listen to sermons, etc., as a condition for receiving the aid that is being offered.
For example, our church celebrated its 50th anniversary recently and in observation of that, we established a Jubilee Center in another part of town where there are many low-income families, many of them with single mothers. Children can come to the Jubilee Center before and after school for something to do when their parents aren't home. We also have tutoring, nutritional education, etc., there.
Further afield, we have a center in Rwanda where we are working with street kids and with prostitutes, teaching them job skills so that they can break out of the poverty cycle that they are in. We are also working to get irrigation established in an area of southern Sudan. In addition, we have built a village in Guatemala for oppressed Ixil people and are working on a second one.
These are only some of the things that we are doing.
For none of these things do we require anything of the people as a condition for their receiving aid.
On another tack--I still would like an answer to my question about personal sin. If corporate sin is what progressive theology focuses on, does that mean that progressives don't believe in personal sin, or is it just deemphasized? If progressives don't believe in personal sin, then how do they explain their assignment of blame to people like George Bush and individual evangelical leaders? How do they explain people like Hitler? If they do believe in personal sin, how does progressive theology deal with it? I really do want to know the answer to these questions, because this is a (seeming, at least) incongruity in progressive theology that has always really bothered me.
Thanks--
Debbie
Viola:
The short and honest answer is that I don't. I don't know that I am changing for the better. All I can do is take what information I have, from introspection and from people around me, and discern as best I can.
In theory I would certainly say that God has the power to give me absolute knowledge. For a variety of reasons, though, I personally don't think that God has or will. The first reason is that I don't have any experience or basis that leads me to conclude that I have absolute truth/knowledge about God. There's nothing I believe now that I've always believed, basically (having been an atheist for a while, among other experiences), so why assume I'm right now when up to this point change has been my main experience? Another main reason is that I think that absolute truth impinges on free will. Free will requires indeterminacy. If I know beyond doubt certain things about God, then for me God becomes something more like gravity. And I can't meaningfully choose regarding gravity - it is deterministic, and can be predicted once you understand how it works. The same goes, for me, for an absolute knowledge of God. If I have that, my decisions are foregone. If I have absolute knowledge of God, then I understand God like gravity, and can predict things about God. If I can't do these things, it isn't absolute knowledge.
Because I think God values our free will (insofar as we are truly 'free', which is another long conversation...) I don't think God will make absolute truth about Godself available.
(And I do realize that this theological decision would in theory make it harder for me to perceive absolute truth of God if it was available, and so like all assumptions, it is self-reinforcing. That, though, seems unavoidable. The reverse assumption might very well blind me and make me see absolute truth where it wasn't present...so part of my job is to choose assumptions that seem best, where I can, and try to bring unconscious assumptions to light.)
Debbie:
I understand the desire to convert others is (almost) never a desire to simply make them like you, but that you feel you are offering them life instead of death. Its just that many progressives would see that as still being conditional charity, and therefore perhaps less charitable than it could be.
I'm not in a position to speak for progressive theologians, but I can give you some ideas. There will be as many answers to your question as there are progressive theologians. One general response might be that, taking Hitler for example, it is a fallacy to locate all of the evil of that regime with Hitler. He was helped in his atrocities by an inner circle, as well as by the military and the general populace. There were tens of millions who had some idea of the horrible things that were being done, and either helped or did nothing. So Hitler is just a convenient placeholder for what was a systemic evil of vast proportions, involving a whole society, and reflecting the rampant anti-Semitism that was prevalent throughout the Western world at the time.
I think, rhetorically, George Bush (and no I'm not calling him Hitler or anything close) is also a placeholder of sorts for what is perceived as an avaristic, callous and megalomaniacal political viewpoint that can't distinguish killing people from liberating them, or value in dollars from *value*. You couldn't just get rid of Dubya to fix the problems he's caused. The problems he's caused are much larger than him in their causes and effects. The impulse toward imperialism is as ancient as agriculture and the wheel, and using the poor as a means to an end has an equally long history in human power relations.
Partly he also, I have to say it, makes himself such an easy target. But I also know that is a matter of viewpoint.
These are just a couple of responses one might find represented in progressive theology. One of its strengths that I see is that it helps innoculate against scapegoating. I implicated in the injustices of our society, and of the world at large, because living at the apex of human consumption, I benefit so tremendously from it. So progressive theology (ideally) points from the mote in one eye to the log in others, including back at the theologians themselves.
It also takes seriously the power of social systems to influence how people act. It points out things like the poor aren't necessarily poor because they are lazy - hard work doesn't necessarily pay off. At the extremes, the conditions you are living in have a larger influence on how you turn out than your effort of lack thereof. And most of the world lives in the extreme of poverty. Accident of birth location is incredibly important in how we turn out. Those of us who are well off like to think its because we deserve it, and I think progressive theology is very well-placed to critique that view wherever it rears its ugly head. (And I can see how evangelical/conservative theology would potentially critique it for different reasons)
This can lead to a reduction of focus on personal responsibility, which I think is often the honest and good thing (re: scapegoating), but it can go to extremes, where everything is blamed on 'society'. As I alluded to in my response to Viola, there are a lot of things that limit our agency, but we still have agency. Our choices still matter, ever when the deck is stacked against us.
A few comments on this thread, if I may. First off, Doug, I'd have to disagree with your contention that "absolute truth impinges on free will. Free will requires indeterminacy." I'd say two things to that. One, just a matter of terminology, but (despite the sports connotation) I think "free agency" is a better term than "free will," because the latter makes it seem like our wills are somehow separate things from our selves. Minor deal, but it's had major consequences in philosophy and theology.
Two, substantively, I don't think our freedom as active agents rests at all on whether the reality around us is determined. Whether there is an absolute reality outside ourselves (which is to say, absolute truth) or not, our freedom consists in our ability to react to it, to choose what we will do in response to it--which includes how we interpret it, how we understand it, and ultimately whether we choose to accept or deny one portion or another of it. Put another way, our freedom is about us, not about what exists outside of us, beyond the limitations marked off by our skin.
Second, with regard to theories of the atonement, I've come to believe over the years that they're all correct (even that wretched one of Abelard's, for all that it only makes sense in the context of the others being true). They aren't mutually contradictory, after all; rather, as I see it, each points up a different facet of a very large diamond.
Third, Jesus came to give us life--true life--his life--the life of the Spirit of God. The effects of that are eternal, certainly, but they are also present, not merely in the moral response of gratitude (though that's certainly important), but in the transformative and re-creative work of the Spirit in our lives. In the application of the Atonement to us, we are being renewed and remade into the people God created us to be; and if that's usually a slow process, it's nevertheless an inexorable one.
As a final comment, I believe one only has to maintain that truth is relative if one accepts the modern absolutization of the self. If we accept that it's we ourselves who are relative, then the problems people associate with a belief in absolute truth disappear. (And really, given that we are limited beings, as most people understand and accept, the absolutization of the self makes little sense.)
Rob:
1.1 Interesting. To clarify, I use free will and free agency interchangeably; by both I mean the capacity to make meaningful decisions.
1.2 I'd still contend that knowledge that everything around us is determined implies that we are also determined (we're not separate from what is around us). If everything is determined but we don't know it, then we can still act as if we had free agency and even feel that it is meaningful. I don't think its possible to respond to determinism with agency - I still only see choices in a situation of indeterminacy, or at least limited indeterminacy (I can choose what to say but not whether to levitate, for example).
2 Basically, I tend to agree, but I certainly choose to talk more about some ideas of atonement over others because I view some of them as potentially very destructive. There is probably some value and truth in all of them, but our ideas of God shape how we live, and so I've also got an eye to likely or historical effects of the various theologies. I'd like one that opens as few doors as possible to abuse and as many doors as possible to reconciliation.
3 Yes, I agree completely. That is one major way I understand atonement.
4 I would actually relativize the self as well as everything else. I don't think of myself as absolute anything, and whatever borders I put around my "self" are illusory anyway. In fact, I'd say that the idea of a self as a distinct thing from other selves or from the world is untenable philosophically. Its a shorthand way of managing identity, of simplifying an infinitely complex system of connection and causality which, I think, precludes determinism.
Doug,
You write, “If I know beyond doubt certain things about God, then for me God becomes something more like gravity. And I can’t meaningfully choose regarding gravity.” But gravity is impersonal and a mechanical law while God is personal, full of compassion and love. I don’t think you can use an analogy of something impersonal for something personal.
I didn’t mean to imply that you could have absolute knowledge of God. I meant that God has given us some truths about himself that we can know.
I am thinking here of Hebrews the first chapter, “God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the world. And he is the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature, and upholds all things by the word of his power.”
I don’t mean to be impolite quoting scripture at you but that says so much about what I am trying to say. We can know God through the Son. But what is so great about this verse and the subject of gravity and God and determinism is that behind that law of gravity, of which we can predict things, is a personal God “upholding all things,” who we cannot predict all things about because he is infinite. But we can know what he wants us to know, for instance getting back to Debbie’s subject; we can know that he loves us enough to give his life for us. And we can know that he will keep us as his own eternally, it’s not a chance thing.
So Scripture again, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” While I’m writing this I’m thinking of a favorite poem of mine by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Who Am I? He wrote it in prison, and he was writing about being confused even uncertain of his own person. He writes that some see him as a hero, but he sees himself as someone in despair and uncertain, perhaps even a hypocrite. But at the end he writes,
“Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, thou knowest, O God, I am thine.”
I believe we can know that we belong to Jesus.
I hope you don't feel like we're all jumping at you from different angles! Viola and Rob have raised good questions, and I'm really glad they've joined the conversation. But I still have more questions of my own.
Getting back to personal vs. corporate sin, I think I understand you to say that, at least in your understanding of it, progressive theology would say that what someone like Bush or Hitler does is a product of the group they are in and not something they are individually responsible for. (I think it's unfair, then, for progressives to rail against Bush as an individual. By the way, I'm not necessarily a Bush supporter, but he's a good example here.) I suppose that this reasoning would then also extend to individuals who commit crimes such as murder; their culpability would derive from the family and society in which they were raised, and they would not truly be personally sinful?
If I am understanding your explanation correctly, then, no individual people are actually sinful. It is only societies, cultures, nations, corporations, etc., that are sinful.
My question then is this: how do those groups of people get to be sinful if the individual people that make them up are not sinful? Evil must arise from somewhere. If people are inherently good, but there is such a thing as corporate sin, where does that corporate sin come from?
Debbie
Doug, I'd be interested to know what you make of the article "Faith and Quantum Theory," by the particle physicist Stephen M. Barr. (I keep meaning to blog on that, and I've never yet remembered. Maybe today . . .)
W/R/T your comment that "knowledge that everything around us is determined implies that we are also determined"--why? And wouldn't it depend on who or what was determining everything, and how? And for that matter--see Barr--is to say that truth is absolute necessarily to say that everything is determined? I think there are some assumptions going here that need to be examined, though I'm not sure at the moment just what exactly they are.
I will say, though, that I like your concept of "limited indeterminacy"; I think you're on to something there. I think, too, that lurking in your comments is the implicit understanding--perhaps explicit for you, if you've studied systems theory--that we're part of an interlocking network of relational systems, and cannot be understood as free radicals. Given that, I think we can't escape determinism by positing that truth is relative--truth could be relative and we could still not be free--I think we have to do it another way.
Finally, from my own (not recent) training in philosophy, I'd argue that much of the philosophical grounding for determinism rests in the idea of "free will" as something separate from the self. The only way I've found to maintain the idea of human freedom against much of modern philosophy is to challenge that unconscious linguistic assumption, to recognise that the will is not an abstraction but a quality possessed by the self which chooses.
viola:
I agree that one way we can come to know Jesus is through scripture, and that one way we come to know God is through Jesus.
In scripture, we have four distinct stories of Jesus, and they can't really be harmonized (historical attempts have been made and subsequently rejected by 'the tradition' and scholarship). They are very different from each other. So even our main source of information about Christ is very indeterminate. Add that to the diversity of experiences of Christ that people have had throughout history and in the present day, and objective, certain knowledge just doesn't seem to be an option.
So, in this case, I think of "knowing" in the sense that we know another person. We can say general things about them, but they might contradict us at any time, and they can always surprise us. We can talk about their attributes, or their past actions or words, but those things don't encapsulate the person - even when you meet a person and spend time with them, there is a great deal you don't know. How much more would this be the case for Christ, who is both a person and a part of the trinity?
debbie:
I don't feel at all jumped upon, I just need to block out time to respond to all of the comments.
I should clarify - I'm not saying that pesonal sin doesn't exist or that it isn't meaningful, and I don't know of any progressive theologians who would say that. Its a matter of focus and weight.
I personally think that focusing on personal sin without corporate sin leads to scapegoating and a lack of understanding of interconnectivity. I think it can also lead to complacency in the face of systemic evil and injustice, and can perpetuate the idea that people are poor, or in prison, because they deserve it personally, because they are inferior people, etc.
Focusing on corporate sin over personal sin can lead to a mentality that a person isn't responsible for what they do, but that it is society that did things to them. This is fatalistic and amoral at best.
A strength I see of the idea of personal sin is the focus on responsibility and individual ethics - that the choices you make matter, and that you are not determined by your circumstances. It is also easy to make...personal, to talk to an individual about, to identify and repent away from. It is a viewpoint more in line with John the Baptist in the NT, calling on individuals to be baptized and repent.
A strength I see of the idea of corporate sin is that it implicates all of us in injustice and evil and doesn't let us foist it off on "those people over there who are sinful". It forces us to face the fact that society is something we create, and we can create one that is more evil or less evil. It is a viewpoint more in line with the OT Prophets, proclaiming judgment on injustice and hypocrisy on the societal level.
I think that progressive theology focuses more on corporate sin because it is doing so in critique of evangelical theology which focuses more on individual sin. Progressive theology tends to arise out of social movements, like civil rights or women's rights or apartheid in South Africa, with the idea that in a more just society we'll have better people and relationships.
It seems that evangelical theology comes more from personal piety movements, where the focus is on the individual and the individual's relationship with Jesus/God or their spiritual experience. It seems that the claim here is that, with more righteous individuals, we'll have more just societies and relationships.
rob:
I've read that article a while ago, and other things along those lines. I still have my copy of Quantum Theology by Diarmuid O'Murchu and a few books on quantum physics for the layperson.
My perception of quantum physics is that it presents a universe which is composed of probabilities rather than facts. As you determine one probability more accurately, others become more nebulous (Heisenberg). Rather than matter and energy, we have fields and relationships and charges. It seems that there is still physical determinacy on the marco level, but that determinacy on the micro level is impossible.
I haven't studied systems theory as such - but I do have a strong sense of interconnectivity which I see reflected in everything from Barth to Buddhism to neuroscience to ecology to feminism. Its just all over the place, and I've definitely absorbed that premise - interconnectivity of everything.
I don't buy "free will" as something separate from the self (which I dimly recall as Kantian). I imagine it like a sliding scale, with mechanistic determinism at one end and absolute freedom at the other. People don't get close to the freedom end at all, but I wouldn't say we're at the determined end either. We're relatively free in a limited number of situations. Things like poverty and disability or imprisonment move us closer to the determined end, and things like the right to vote and physical freedom and psychological counseling might move us toward the freedom end.
Maybe it would be fruitful to talk about God in the language of probability. For example, "it is highly probable that God desires liberation for the poor" or "it is improbable that God wants women to have fewer rights than men", etc. At least, those would be some I believe in.
I don't know if that would be helpful at all, but its interesting (to me) to think about.
Doug
Doug,
Thank you for responding; we seem to be taking you so many directions and you so graciously meet us at each turn.
I agree that we have four distinct, (perhaps differently formed is a better way to put it), stories in the four Gospels, but it is very clear that they are about the same person. While harmonizing the events can be a problem, the person of Jesus does not change in any of the Gospels.
We see Jesus presented in several apologetic modes, for instance Matthew is writing his Gospel to the Hebrew people and Luke to the Gentiles. Some scholars believe that Mark is writing to the suffering church perhaps in Rome.
But certainly Jesus does not change although his identity as the eternal Son of the Father is perhaps more clearly filled out and explained in Luke and John. On the other hand the many times that Jesus refers to himself as Son of Man in Matthew and the two places in Mark are of cosmic proportions if you do a study of the meaning of the title Son of Man.
There is no mistaking who he is in any of the Gospels. He is the eternal Son of the Father who has taken on human flesh, who lives, dies and is resurrected for humanity. That story is everywhere the same in the Scriptures. And his character is always the same, loving, forgiving, compassionate; yet, he warns the unbelieving, the unrepentant, the haughty, and those who turn others away from him. I would not say that “our main source of information about Christ is very indeterminate,” at all.
And yes God may surprise us and we might be saying something false about God in which case he will or has already contradicted us, but that doesn’t change the truth about who he is nor does it change the truth he has given us in the Scriptures. It just means that often we need to change.
I am sure even in eternity we will never know all there is to know about Jesus but at least we have the privilege of digging in his word learning more about him and hopefully, (I am speaking here for myself) growing more like Him.
Doug, I don't think we're going to end up convincing each other in these discussions, but I do want to make a couple more comments.
First, I've noticed that a few times you've made comments that poor people shouldn't be regarded as lazy, etc., an attitude which you feel is a consequence of focusing on personal sin. I think this is a straw man opponent. There undoubtedly are some evangelicals who have fallen into the error of blaming all the poor for their predicament (and certainly there are some poor people who ARE to blame for it, by dint of poor decision-making, etc.), and therefore of doing nothing about it. However, it is not fair to imply that all evangelicals have this point of view. I think that the majority of evangelicals care about helping the poor, no matter how they got that way. After all, aside from any compassion that we feel for them, which we do feel, we are told to do this by God (it's in the Bible, which we take seriously), and so we do it. The media portrayal of evangelical Christians as hard-hearted and uncaring towards the poor and downtrodden is unlike any evangelical Christian I've ever known. Also, evangelicals do not ignore corporate sin. But we must be aware of the log in our own eye first, and then we go forward to work on other problems. It has seemed to me in the past that progressives denounce only the corporate sin of others. If they are including themselves in that corporate sin, which you seem to be saying, then that is a new insight for me, and I thank you for that.
The second thing I want to say concerns the fact that you often talk about being unable to really know about God--to really know God. This seems to me to be a great pity. It makes me think of the group of dwarves inside the stable at the end of The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis. (Have you read that?) Everyone else finds that they are in the most beautiful country they have ever seen, but these dwarves, who won't open their eyes to it, still think they're in a dark stable. The beauty is there, but they won't see it.
God can be known, personally and intimately, and God wants you to know God that way. God's will for you can be known, and it is exciting and beautiful. I feel like you're missing out on so much while you are turning your eyes away and debating over the philosophy of it all.
Psalm 16:6 speaks to me of God's will for my life, and how good it is: "The lines fall for me in pleasant places." God has put me where he wants me, and the limits surrounding where he wants me are good; where he wants me is pleasant and makes me happy. I'm so glad I know God. That happiness leads me forward to serve God and to serve others in God's name.
Viola:
Whether its healthy or not, I'm easy to entice into a discussion about something interesting and/or important, and this has been both.
I will say that I both agree and disagree. I think that there is a chronological development, seen in the Gospels, of the early Church's idea of Jesus. In Mark, Jesus isn't presented clearly as the Incarnate God. He is presented as the Messiah, and as a surprising one at that, but Jesus is seen as increasingly divine as the Gospels progress from Mark to John. I think this is at least noteworthy.
I agree, however, that the person in the four Gospels seems to be the same person. Like four very long anecdotes about the same individual, each is familliar to the others in its own way. In some ways, perhaps, this points to Jesus as more-than-a-person, or at least more than the people we know in the usual sense.
Debbie:
Ah, I see - it wasn't my intent to indicate that all Evangelicals think the poor are poor because they are morally lacking. Actually, that's a view that I see implicit throughout American culture, liberal and conservative and 'other', and it seems to be implicit elsewhere as well. What I was saying was that progressive theology seeks to dismantle this assumption which under-girds our success-obsessed materialist culture.
As always, there's a range in any theology. The best progressive theology turns its lens most accutely on itself, on the theologian's own position. That, or it arises out of the poor, such as is often the case with liberation, womanist, minjung, mujerista, etc. theology. And sometimes you get affluent white people in towers of academia pointing an accusatory finger at those problematic people out there. You get that sort of thing from both sides too.
For the second issue - thank you for the pastoral response! It was touching, in the midst of a debate that could otherwise become heated easily.
It really depends on what you mean by "know", which I know probably makes you roll your eyes a little :). For example, I know my wife very, very well. Maybe better than anyone in her life right now. But she's still mysterious, indeterminate, I would say. She always surprises me, always changes. I can generalize about her, and most of those generalizations are...generally true. And I have much more direct information about my wife than I have about God. (You could say I have a special revelation of my wife.)
I always felt I was pretty odd, especially compared to some other people I met at church for example, and had trouble thinking about or talking about why. One change was reading The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts. It is a wise and beautiful book about indeterminacy, how living in the midst of uncertainty is living a genuine life. Rather than this deep uncertainty being a divide between me and God, I began to see how it actually could bring me closer. Uncertainty, I think, can lead to openness, and to seeing clearly. Maybe it makes changing a little easier when it is necessary. It does make things difficult, though, and sometimes lonely, sometimes painful. I don't miss the strangeness of being a person of faith for whom faith comes with difficulty...
It's also, perhaps, unavoidable. Its part of my thought process and personality. I've become allergic to certainty, more so over time, so of course I'll find all sorts of justifications for how I feel and think anyway. So it could just be self-justification and not so deep as I would like to think.
A final note: I think of Job during this conversation, and the incredible lyric play J.B. by Archibald MacLeish. In Job, we see God saying, with great force, "you don't know me at all." I see my own experiences of God echoed there, and in the Gospel of Mark, where it ends with an empty tomb and a rumor that, no, Christ is already moving on ahead of you.
I think here I'll say I'm done with this long thread, taking up digital space and whatnot. It was very interesting, but I don't want Debbie's blog to explode.
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