For there is no other God, nor ever was before, nor shall be hereafter, but God the Father, unbegotten and without beginning, in whom all things began, whose are all things, as we have been taught; and his son Jesus Christ, who manifestly always existed with the Father, before the beginning of time in the spirit with the Father, indescribably begotten before all things, and all things visible and invisible were made by him. He was made man, conquered death and was received into Heaven, to the Father who gave him all power over every name in Heaven and on Earth and in Hell, so that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and God, in whom we believe. And we look to his imminent coming again, the judge of the living and the dead, who will render to each according to his deeds. And he poured out his Holy Spirit on us in abundance, the gift and pledge of immortality, which makes the believers and the obedient into sons of God and co-heirs of Christ who is revealed, and we worship one God in the Trinity of holy name.
Posts Tagged ‘Theology Proper’
Pride Translated Into Praise
As I’ve been reading my Old Testament lately, I’ve been doing a little mental exercise. At first, it was a form or rebellion and then it turned into something better.
When you read in the Old Testament “the LORD” what you’re seeing is God’s covenant name “Yahweh” with the vowel dots for “Adoni” or “Lord”. The Masorite Jews did this in the 12th century when the included the vowel dots in the Hebrew manuscripts because traditionally the Jews would see YHWH and say “Adoni” so as to not violate the Third Commandment, “You shall not take the Lord’s name in vain.” An admirable effort but not really what is intended there. It would easy to never say “Yahweh” and yet profane his name in any other number of ways.
Also, this convention winds up running into some translation issues. For one example (and there are many more) in 1 Kings 2:26 it says “because you carried the ark of the Lord GOD before David…” Literally it is “adoni Yahweh” and here Yahweh is translated as “GOD” because to follow the normal convention, it would read “of the Lord the LORD” which is a bit weird.
So my act of rebellion was to see “the LORD” and read it as “Yahweh” every time. After a bit I got worried that I was just being proud and clever; never a good thing. But then I thought about how the New Testament handles this. There the word “Lord” is used quite often in the context of Yahweh in the Old Testament. It is also used in a more familiar manner such as we might say “sir” today. Then another fashion it is used is as an act of political rebellion when the church affirmed that “Jesus is Lord” instead of Caesar.
And that’s when it came together. What I was actually doing was what the church had been doing. Seeing “Yahweh” and thinking/saying “Lord” for whatever reason; theological persnickety-ness or honoring God. But in the New Testament “Lord” is applied to Jesus. So when I read in the New Testament “Jesus is Lord” and hear in my head that habit from reading “Lord” in my Old Testament as “Yahweh” I’m actually doing the right thing! Jesus is Yahweh! Amazing how God turned my cleverness on its head and brought me to honor him even more through an translation oddity. I love him.
Sins of the Father
A while ago I called Tony Campolo a heretic. I sadly stand by that because I haven’t heard him recant or say something better and clearer. The issue then was that he was stripping God of his sovereignty in order to excuse God from the damage of Katrina.
The old adage “the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree” is generally right in both positive and negative ways. 1The adage fails in that it fails to take into account God’s sovereignty and his grace. God intervenes or we would all be lost, each patterning ourselves after Adam. There is also a principle in the scriptures where God sometimes threatens to visit the sins of the father upon the son 2It is not an absolute principle. God is free to apply it as he will. Consider the counterexamples in Ezek 18:20, Jer 31:29-31 as promises in the New Covenant. for example in Exodus 20:5 and Leviticus 26:30.
This principle (at least) sometimes involves not the innocent children being punished for the father’s sins but the pattern of the father’s sin repeating itself in the son. I fear that may be what has happened with Tony’s son Bart. It appears that Bart has been drawn away from the authority of Scripture in revealing who God is. Bart works in inner city missions and he’s struggled with theodicy. 3Theodicy is the area of dealing with God and evil. How can evil exist and God be good? He announced this in an article titled “The Limits of God’s Grace“ in the November/December 2006 edition of the Journal of Student Ministries. 4The paper was hosted on the Youth Specialties website but they pulled it due in part to the negative response it generated. The editor said, “without a strong lens of understanding as to why the questions raised by the article are worth talking about, or a counter-argument by someone else, we were concerned that the article could be more damaging than helpful.” They did the right thing. Updated 7/31/07 – The original link was replaced but I googled it and found the original at a different location. To demonstrate this rejection, allow me to quote part of his paper and include in square brackets some of the scriptures he’s rejecting. (Also, I “tamed” the text a bit by removing some of the specifics of the evil and generalized it.) Know that Campolo has a very concrete, very disturbing and very evil event in mind.
Perhaps, as many believe, the truth is that God created and predestined some people for salvation and others for damnation, according to God’s will. [Romans 9, Ephesians 1, Jude 4] Perhaps such caprice only seems unloving to us because we don’t understand. [Job 42:1-9] Perhaps, as many believe, all who die without confessing Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior go to Hell to suffer forever. [John 8:21-24, 14:6, 2 Thessalonians 1:9] Most important of all, perhaps God’s sovereignty is such that although God could indeed prevent [bad things from happening], God is no less just or merciful when they [do], and [the victims] and we who love them should uncritically give God our thanks and praise in any case. [Job 13:15, 1 Peter 4:19 5This verse is significant. Here, those who suffer are called to entrust their souls to God. If he is not in control then what good would it do to entrust our souls to him when we suffer? He can’t do anything about it. But if he is sovereign, then entrusting our souls to him is the best and wisest thing we can do.]
My response is simple: I refuse to believe any of that. For me to do otherwise would be to despair.
Indeed, Campolo is blunt in his statement about the relationship between his conception of God and revelation: “First of all, while I certainly believe my most cherished ideas about God are supported by the Bible (what Christian says otherwise?), I must admit they did not originate there.” So where does the Bible stand in reference to his conception of God? “I required no Bible to determine it, and honestly I will either interpret away or ignore altogether any Bible verse that suggest otherwise.”
At least Bart is honest in announcing where his concept of God comes from: experience. So what has his experience taught him a real God, one he can worship, should be like:
Please, don’t get me wrong. I am well aware that I don’t get to decide who God is. What I do get to decide, however, is to whom I pledge my allegiance. I am a free agent, after all, and I have standards for my God, the first of which is this: I will not worship any God who is not at least as compassionate as I am. (Emphasis mine)
Bart has set his ideal and his timetable for compassion as the standard by which God must measure up. Not only must God be at least as compassionate as Bart is, but apparently he must do so in the amount of time Bart has alloted him.
So in this configuration who is sovereign here? That’s right, Bart is. Consider:
You can figure out the rest. I don’t hate God because I don’t believe God is fully in control of this world yet.
I don’t hate God because I believe God is always doing the best God can within the limits of human freedom, which even God cannot escape.
I don’t hate God because, although I suppose God knows everything that can be known at any given point in time, I don’t suppose God knows or controls everything that is going to happen. (Emphasis mine)
Since Scripture cannot be appealed to with Campolo, at least not in this area, we’ll have to use reason. However, once you cast off God’s self-revelation the kinds of things listed above seem reasonable. But that’s exactly the problem; human reason is not in tact. The doctrine of total depravity is not that man does all the evil he can all the time, it means that man is corrupted by sin in all his faculties. There isn’t one part of man that is not affected by the fall; body, soul, mind, will, emotions, reason. All of them are corrupted by sin. So when we cast off revelation, we are not left with pure, naked reason to guide us. We’re left with a compass with a bent needle and an misaligned magnet. Bart is using this to guide him to a true doctrine of God and it can’t. That faulty compass must be corrected by revelation. This leaves us in a pretty horrible situation since Bart won’t allow Scripture to correct his compass.
Why does any of this matter? Why should I get so excited about this? Because “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises.” (2Pt 1:3-4) The doctrine of God is not important just so that we don’t commit idolatry, it reaches much further. Without a proper understanding of who God is we cannot advance in our Christian growth!
I’ve been reading in blog comments things such as “he’s just being honest about his struggle” and “he’s out there working with the poor and you’re not so shut up till you get out and see what he’s seen.” First, it doesn’t sound like a struggle. It sounds like a done deal. “I refuse to believe any of that” is a far cry from “I’m struggling to understand how it fits together.” And second of all, all the good works in the world are as spider webs if he rejects the One, True and Living God. You see, even if I am not engaged in feeding the hungry (to my shame) my righteousness surpasses his because I am clothed in Christ and he is not. Also, seeing evil does not excuse what he’s done. Consider Job, Job experience evil first hand and he never said things like Campolo has said. He was righteous.
Part of the “knowledge of Him” that Peter puts forth as our only hope for life and godliness requires that we wrestle with theodicy. A better, more Biblical engagement with theodicy can be heard here. After the tsunami in 2005 NPR interviewed John Piper to get a Christian perspective. They only used about 3 seconds in the show but Desiring God presented most of the interview. It made me cry when I first heard it.
Since we believe in a sovereign God who can and does change human hearts, who has revealed who he truly is, who loves the fallen world and redeems people out of it, we need to pray for Bart, Tony and those who think like them. God can change their hearts and inclinations and correct their view of Him.
Sovereign Lord, please have mercy on this father and son. Grant them repentance and faith in the True and Living God as You have revealed Yourself in Your scripture, not in their vain understandings. Amen.
[HT: Justin Taylor]
UPDATE: The Journal of Student Ministries has since pulled down the link to Campolo’s article. I still have a hard copy of it in my office. Also, Campolo has, tragically but not surprisingly, come out as an agnostic humanist.
| ↩1 | The adage fails in that it fails to take into account God’s sovereignty and his grace. God intervenes or we would all be lost, each patterning ourselves after Adam. |
|---|---|
| ↩2 | It is not an absolute principle. God is free to apply it as he will. Consider the counterexamples in Ezek 18:20, Jer 31:29-31 as promises in the New Covenant. |
| ↩3 | Theodicy is the area of dealing with God and evil. How can evil exist and God be good? |
| ↩4 | |
| ↩5 | This verse is significant. Here, those who suffer are called to entrust their souls to God. If he is not in control then what good would it do to entrust our souls to him when we suffer? He can’t do anything about it. But if he is sovereign, then entrusting our souls to him is the best and wisest thing we can do. |
God is not a Vulcan
According to classical theism, God is “without body, parts, or passions” (LBC 2.1). The real trick is understanding what the confessions meant by “passions.” It is typically taken to mean emotions. So what does classical theism make of the Bible’s language when it says “God so loved the world” or “Jacob I love but Esau I hated”? These are termed anthropopathisms. The word is strange but the concept is familiar. When the Psalms speak of God’s outstretched right arm, these are anthropomorphisms. God uses human physiology to explain something about himself. His “mighty right arm” is an accommodating term for his strength and power. It does not mean that God has a physical body since we know that God is spirit (Jn 4:24), what is happening is that God is communicating to us in a manner we can understand.
The notion, then, is that the same happens with God speaks of his love or hatred or anger. In using anthropopathisms he is explaining something about himself to us in term we can understand. Phil Johnson wrote a piece called “God Without Mood Swings” to take a shot at Open Theism’s moody god. This was my first real exposure to the doctrine of impassability and I wasn’t comfortable with it at the time. I’m still not.
When it comes to anthropomorphisms, we have John 4:24 and Luke 24:39 to tell us clearly that God is spirit and spirits do not have a body. What scriptures do we have to tell us that God does not have emotions? None that I’m aware of. What might be meant be better understood by the term “without passions” (whether the original framers of the confessions meant it so or not) is that God is not carried away by his emotions. When we are hit with a strong emotion we can be carried away and regret decisions we made and actions we took. God is not like that, since he is perfect he never makes mistakes and never has regrets.
Consider this on Johnathan Edwards’ view of how God relates to creation, “We can safely say that Edwards clearly left behind him the old classical theism’s Aristotelian concept of God as Unmoved Mover, who is absolutely impassable and unaffected by what happens in the world of space and time” (God’s Relation to the World, in The Princeton Companion to Jonathan Edwards, Sang Hyun Lee, 68). Now it could be that Lee is just plane old wrong. Wrong about either Edwards or Classical Theism. Though I am not familiar with how Classical Theism understood impassibility, I am sure Lee is correct on Edwards. When I took Systematic Theology with Kevin Vanhoozer, he explained impassability as God’s inability to suffer, not his inability to feel. Indeed, Johnson says the same thing.
However, Johnson takes Wayne Grudem to task in his paper for not being clear enough about God’s unchangeableness even though the part of Grudem’s Systematic Theology that Johnson cites comes right after Grudem’s lengthy explanation of how God does not change:
In fact, His joy, His wrath, His sorrow, His pity, His compassion, His delight, His love, his hatred–and all the other divine affections–epitomize the very perfection of all the heartfelt affections we know (albeit imperfectly) as humans. His affections are absent the ebb and flow of changeableness that we experience with human emotions, but they are real and powerful feelings nonetheless. To suggest that God is unfeeling is to mangle the intent of the doctrine of impassibility.
So when we discuss God’s impassability, we are not claiming that God does not feel. What is being affirmed is God’s immutability and his omniscience. He isn’t surprised by something unexpected that happens and suddenly carried away by his emotions. God does love and hate. He is pleased and angry. He is joyful and sorry.
Here is Edwards in his own words:
Nor does anything that has been advanced in the least suppose or infer that it does, or is it in the least inconsistent with the eternity, and most absolute immutability of God’s pleasure and happiness. For though these communications of God, these exercises, operation, effects, and expressions of his glorious perfections, which God rejoices in, are in time; yet his joy in them is without beginning or change. They were always equally present in the divine mind. He beheld them with equal clearness, certainty and fullness in every respect, as he doth now. They were always equally present, as with him there is not variableness or succession. He ever beheld and enjoyed them perfectly in his own independent and immutable power and will. And his view of, and joy in, them is eternally, absolutely perfect, unchangeable, and independent. (Edwards, The Ends for Which God Created the World)
You can see that Edwards held the truths of God’s immutability, his foreknowledge and his emotions all together without creating the god of the Open Theists as Johnson fears. I think I’ll side with Edwards (and Grudem!) on this one.