1.1 What Christians believe about God

Last week on Friday I started this journey through the flow of revelation in the Bible.
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Cbapter 1
God 

1.1 What Christians Believe
1. We will be taking several trips through the Bible on our journey, each one in a different part of the land. In preparation for each trip, we start with the map. For example, we are going to start our pilgrimage by talking about God the Father, our first trip through the land of Scripture. Before we begin, let's look at the map to see where we're headed. That is to say, what do Christians believe about God?

Christians believe that there is only one God. Uniquely, we believe that the one God exists as a Trinity -- one God, three persons. How this works exactly is a mystery. The early Christian councils prohibit us from confusing the three persons or dividing their substance. The Christian councils of the first few centuries said everything they could say without really being able to clarify how one God could be three persons. Virtually every illustration or picture used to try to explain it breaks down. 

We will discuss the divinity of Christ, the nature of the Holy Spirit, and the Trinity in general soon enough. For now, we want to focus on God the Father.

2. God is often said to have two kinds of attributes or characteristics. One set is usually connected with God as he is in himself (incommunicable attributes). We humans do not possess these attributes to any degree. The other category of attributes then relates to aspects of God that we might also possess to some degree (communicable attributes). For example, just as God is love, we can also love.

God's self-characteristics include attributes like his self-sufficiency (aseity), his unchanging nature (immutability), his eternity (timelessness), and his simplicity (unity). To be frank, I wonder whether we still conceptualize these attributes inevitably in relation to our universe. God exists beyond our universe, and God reveals himself in terms we can picture at least a little. We may have no point of reference for God outside this universe, leading God to communicate himself to us by analogy.

To expand on God's incommunicable attributes, God does not need the universe. He does not need us. He would still exist if the universe were not here. He is self-sufficient. In relation to our sense of time, God is eternal. From what we can perceive in this universe trying to look out, God cannot be broken down into parts like we can (simplicity). God's nature does not change in the way he relates to his creation (immutability).

An attribute that Christians have classically believed but that is sometimes questioned today is a sense that God does not experience emotional change as he interacts with the world, called God's impassibility. This attribute follows naturally from the sense that God is all-knowing or omniscient, another characteristic of God that is sometimes questioned or modified by some today.

If God knows the future -- which is classically part of what it means for him to be omniscient -- then the events of time do not surprise him. That is to say, his reactions to events were known from eternity past. By contrast, human emotion (when it is not merely biochemical) is always a response to a new thought or new information. We get angry because we find out someone has done something unjust, for example. But in God's case, he knew that evil was going to be done from eternity past. Accordingly, his reaction must be planned rather than in the manner of human anger as a reaction. 

We will explore many of these concepts in further detail as we work through the biblical texts.

Along with omniscience, God is also classically said to be all-powerful (omnipotence) and everywhere present in the universe (omnipresence). God's omnipotence is usually connected to strength rather than to possibility. That is to say, there are logical contradictions that are not usually included within omnipotence. To say that God can make a literal rock that is not literally a rock is logically incoherent. It is not what is usually meant by God's omnipotence.

3. God's communicable attributes are usually connected to the concept that God created humanity in his image. So, just as God is love, we humans are commanded to love. Just as God is holy, we are called to be holy. We will find that the holiness of God is a little tricky because, in many respects, the holiness of God relates to the Godness of God, which humans do not possess. Holiness in people is somewhat different from holiness in God.

Knowledge, wisdom, justice, mercy, truthfulness, patience -- these are all attributes of God in Scripture that ideally would also be characteristics of God's people. Christians have traditionally tried to hold in tension the concept of God's love with his justice. 1 John 4:8 says that God is love. Yet God is also holy, a characteristic that is often associated with judgment (cf. Isa. 6:3-5). 

This will be a key aspect of the biblical flow of revelation about God that we will explore in this chapter.

Key terms

attribute -- a characteristic of God
aseity -- God is self-sufficient.
immutability -- God's nature does not change.
eternity -- God has always and will always exist.
simplicity -- God's substance is undivided. He does not have parts.
impassibility -- God does not experience emotional change.
omniscience -- God knows everything, classically including the future
omnipotence -- God is all powerful and can do anything that is possible
omnipresence -- God is everywhere present

Final Excerpt -- God with Ten Words

I finished my project to write a short book capturing my basic thoughts on God, using ten key words. I'll probably self-publish it this next week. Below is a final excerpt from near the end of the final chapter on God as Savior.

Here are previous excerpts from God with Ten Words:

• Mystery
• Love
• Power (excerpt 1)
• Power (excerpt 2)
• Knowledge (excerpt 1)
• Knowledge (excerpt 2)
• Presence (excerpt 1)
• Presence (excerpt 2)
• Immanuel (excerpt 1)
• Immanuel (excerpt 2)
• Good (most of the chapter)
• Parent (excerpt 1)
• Parent (excerpt 2)
• Justice (excerpt 1)
• Justice (excerpt 2)
• Savior (excerpt 1)
• Savior (excerpt 2)

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It is interesting to remember my own path on the location of eternity. I grew up thinking that eternity was in heaven or hell in some other dimension. Having grown up on Star Trek, I never thought that eternity would be in this universe.

I remember reading a Christian comic book in high school that mused whether a particularly beautiful galaxy could be where heaven was. I chuckled, amazed that the comic writer would think heaven was in this universe. If God created this universe, then surely heaven—where God is—is somewhere outside of it!

Then again, I was amazed to find out at one point that my father did think that hell was in the middle of the earth. I had always assumed that hell must also be in some other dimension. After studying the Bible now for some time, I have realized that my father probably wasn’t wrong on where the New Testament writers pictured hell or at least the realm of the dead. Paul says those things “under the earth” will bow before Lord Jesus (Phil. 2:10). But surely this is a picture rather than something we should take literally.

So there are people that take this biblical imagery literally, with heaven up somewhere and hell in the middle of the earth. And for some reason, I grew up thinking that heaven and hell were in some other dimension. I also grew up thinking that, when we die, we went to that other dimension for eternity. I believed in the second coming too, but apparently, it was just a gathering expedition before Christ destroyed the earth.

As I further studied the New Testament, I came to realize that most of the New Testament does not picture eternity as off in some other place at all. It pictures eternity on a transformed earth. At first, this idea seemed heretical to me. After all, isn’t that what Seventh-Day Adventists think? I guess I took Revelation 21 as a picture rather than literally, the new Jerusalem descending to earth.

But Jesus speaks of people coming from north, south, east, and west to feast with him in the kingdom of God (Luke 13:29). When Paul talks about the creation being freed from corruption (Rom. 8:21), he seems to be saying that the material world has been damaged by the power of Sin and needs to be “saved” too. We already mentioned that, when he talks about the power of Sin over our flesh, he seems to be saying that Sin somehow has a foothold over my body (Rom. 8:14). Scholars like N. T. Wright have particularly emphasized the transformed earth focus of the New Testament.

As is often the case, continued reflection leads to new questions and new possibilities that almost take you back to where you started. What has especially done this for me is reflection on the vastness of the universe and the possibility that there might be beings elsewhere in the past and future who will need redemption. The authors of the Bible only knew of the relatively flat “land,” probably not even that the earth was a sphere. Why would God doom the rest of this immense universe upon the sin of two people on a small, insignificant planet? And therefore, why would God transform all the rest of this universe because of the moment of salvation on one tiny little planet?

Perhaps the idea of a new earth in another dimension is not so ignorant after all. It would be a transformed earth, not least because it would be freed from the power of Sin over it. At the same time. it would fit with the sense that Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us so that where he is, we may be also (John 14:3).

Perhaps that other dimension is still part of this universe in some way. After all, it is hard to imagine that we would be able to exist in “wherever” God outside this universe might be. We can even wonder if the angels as we know them are part of this universe, just in the spiritual part of it. These are all things above our pay grade, and no doubt we will laugh in heaven at how foolish I was even to speculate.

Chapter 10 Excerpt -- Savior

We now get to the final word about God in the book I plan to self-publish by the end of the week: God with Ten Words:

• Mystery
• Love
• Power (excerpt 1)
• Power (excerpt 2)
• Knowledge (excerpt 1)
• Knowledge (excerpt 2)
• Presence (excerpt 1)
• Presence (excerpt 2)
• Immanuel (excerpt 1)
• Immanuel (excerpt 2)
• Good (most of the chapter)
• Parent (excerpt 1)
• Parent (excerpt 2)
• Justice (excerpt 1)
• Justice (excerpt 2)

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God is our Savior. Although it may not fit with the way we normally think, salvation is part of biblical justice. Biblical justice is about putting things right, which means that God has “brought down the powerful from thrones and exalted the humble” (Luke 1:52). For a season, God may allow evil for reasons we have already seen. But evil is never the final answer.

God allows evil because it is better for us to freely choose the good rather than be forced to do the good. The corollary action of God is for salvation. Counterbalancing the constant presence of evil in the world is the constant action of God for salvation in the world. The culmination of this action was and is of course in Christ.

The thread of salvation runs throughout the Bible. Typically, we are well acquainted with God’s actions toward eternal salvation. We know the storyline of Scripture. Sin entered the world, and death through sin. Jesus came to destroy the power of Sin and death and free us to eternal life. This is the lens of salvation through which Christians predominantly read the Bible.

In much of Christianity, this story is read as a personal story. That is to say, it is a story about me and my individual salvation. It is also a spiritual story about my eternal, individual destination. Of course that thread of the story is true.

It also is only part of the story of salvation in Scripture. For one, this story of personal salvation in Paul’s writings is even more a story of corporate salvation. It is also a cosmic salvation, the setting right of all things. It is our culture that leads us to focus on our individual piece of that puzzle. The biblical world was a more group-oriented world. The story of salvation in Romans and Paul’s letters is thus more a story of God's people being saved together rather than mere individual salvation. Election in Paul is more about us collectively and God’s plan corporately than about any individual’s salvation.

Sermon Starters: God's Loving Justice

I'll backfill last week's sermon. This is the second of two sermons on God at Brookside Wesleyan Church in Wellsville.

God's Loving Justice

Text: Hebrews 12:5-11

Introduction

• Getting my children shots for kindergarten--not because we were evil parents, a moment of pain to save death or a lifetime of trouble
• We think pleasure is good and pain is bad. This is not actually the case.

Some preliminary questions about God and justice:

• God allows evil because it is better for us to choose him freely than to be forced to. But then there will be evil.
• We have to believe that God allows suffering for a greater good, though we don't often know why (relative that died of cancer, Star Trek episode "City on the Edge of Forever")
• Abraham discussing Sodom with God--God will do what's right

1. God's loving justice gets us back on the right path.

• pain is a good thing--it is a warning
• CIP and hot stoves
• consequences remind us of the way God has made the universe
• "Spare the rod and spoil the child" -- episodes in parenting

2. God's loving justice protects others from us.

• Speed laws and seat belt rules
• Traffic lights
• Think of justice as protection rather than punishment
• Jail as protection

3. God's loving justice lets us go if we ultimately abandon him. 

• God lets go. Romans 1
• hardened hearts
• C.S. Lewis' thought experiment in the Great Divorce
• "Life imprisonment"
• Hell as letting us go to the torment of self-imposed separation from God

Conclusion

• training for a race and discipline

Another Chap 9 Excerpt -- Justice

Excerpts so far from God with Ten Words:

• Mystery
• Love
• Power (excerpt 1)
• Power (excerpt 2)
• Knowledge (excerpt 1)
• Knowledge (excerpt 2)
• Presence (excerpt 1)
• Presence (excerpt 2)
• Immanuel (excerpt 1)
• Immanuel (excerpt 2)
• Good (most of the chapter)
• Parent (excerpt 1)
• Parent (excerpt 2)
• Justice (excerpt 1)

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How can God’s justice fit within the context of loving us and the world? First, one dimension of “justice” is redirection and redemption. The last chapter mentioned the discipline of God in Hebrews 12. The purpose of discipline is to help us both get on track as well as to help us grow.

For one thing, God has wired the world a certain way. If someone has Type 2 diabetes and eats lots of sugar and starch, bad things will happen to the body. They may find themselves unproductive because their body struggles to process what it is eating. Individuals may find their minds clouded. In time, they may begin to have vision problems or begin to struggle with heart problems.

These consequences follow naturally from the laws of nature. God is not being mean to people if they begin to experience such things. On the other hand, if they discipline themselves in their eating, they may find their energy returning, their thinking clearing, and they may find themselves healthier than some others who do not have diabetes.

As we saw in Romans 1, one dimension of God’s justice is simply letting us experience the consequences of our choices. God has created our world with a certain moral wiring as well. If a person is untrustworthy, it will have consequences. When such individuals need others to trust them, such trust will be a hard time coming. If a person is violent, violence gives birth to more violence. “The one who lives by the sword dies by the sword” (Matt. 26:52). Similarly, indiscriminate sexual activity and adultery usually bring turmoil and unhappiness in one’s life, not peace or lasting joy.

Along these lines, some of God’s discipline is a warning. Perhaps we experience a check on how we are thinking or acting, one that foreshadows where we will end up if we keep on our current course. Let’s use the example of a speeding ticket. The reason speeding is against the law is because it is dangerous both to ourselves and others. A ticket is a kind of warning. “You should slow down before you get into an accident.” If we listen, we may save our own lives as well as the lives of others. Discipline or “justice” thus helps get us on the right path.

Chapter 9 Excerpt -- Justice

Excerpts so far from God with Ten Words:

• Mystery
• Love
• Power (excerpt 1)
• Power (excerpt 2)
• Knowledge (excerpt 1)
• Knowledge (excerpt 2)
• Presence (excerpt 1)
• Presence (excerpt 2)
• Immanuel (excerpt 1)
• Immanuel (excerpt 2)
• Good (most of the chapter)
• Parent (excerpt 1)
• Parent (excerpt 2)

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We know God is love (1 John 4:8). Scripture also tells us that God does what is right (Gen. 18:25). On the one hand, the “righteousness of God” leads to salvation (Rom. 1:16-7). We should be careful not to see God’s justice solely in terms of judgment or punishment because the Bible also connects it clearly with salvation. Paul in Romans is arguably drawing from passages in Psalms and Isaiah where God’s righteousness is especially shown by bringing salvation to Israel and the world (e.g., Ps. 98:2; Isa. 56:1).

At the same time, the other side of God’s righteousness is the fact that “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and human unrighteousness among those who hold back the truth with unrighteousness” (Rom. 1:18). Notice the reason for God’s action in such cases. It is to release the truth. We are prone to think of God’s wrath in terms of fire and brimstone, and we will come to those images in a moment. However, in Romans 1, God’s wrath mostly plays out by “letting go” of those who have gone astray (Rom. 1:24, 26, 28). God lets them experience the consequences of their conscious turning from him (Rom. 1:21, 27).

How do God’s love and justice (in its more prevalent English sense) fit together? I do not believe they contradict each other when properly understood, but it is very difficult for us as humans to hold them in proper balance. It seems that in the end one or the other must ultimately be made the primary characteristic. It seems that we must either locate God’s justice within his love or locate God’s love within his justice.

I believe it is most biblical to locate God’s justice within the context of God's love. God’s primary orientation toward the world is for salvation rather than condemnation. We see this dynamic in John 3:16-17. “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” … “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world.” James 2:13 says that “mercy triumphs over judgment.” If indeed God would prefer for everyone to be saved (1 Tim. 2:4), then God’s love and mercy must be the primary attitude of God toward the world, with a good but regrettable reason for justice to be an exception. Again, I am using the word justice here in its more prevalent English sense rather than its much richer biblical sense.

Chapter 7 Excerpt -- Good

Excerpts so far from God with Ten Words:

• Mystery
• Love
• Power (excerpt 1)
• Power (excerpt 2)
• Knowledge (excerpt 1)
• Knowledge (excerpt 2)
• Presence (excerpt 1)
• Presence (excerpt 2)
• Immanuel (excerpt 1)
• Immanuel (excerpt 2)

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... The classic answer is the second one. God is good. God could stop evil and suffering. But God has good reasons not always to do so, even though we often do not know what they are.

When I think of this question, I often think of the story of Abraham arguing with God over the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18. God knows how the conversation is going to end. God knows how many righteous people are in Sodom and has since the creation of the world. But God walks through the conversation with Abraham for Abraham’s sake. Abraham is a creature in time. God is outside of time and knows exactly how it will turn out without forcing it to go a certain way.

“Will you save Sodom for fifty righteous people?”

“Sure,” God says.

“What about forty?” “What about thirty?” “Twenty?” “Ten?”

Again, God saw this conversation before the foundation of the world. God knew what Abraham would (freely) ask, and God knew what would be answered.

What I find particularly interesting about the conversation is one of Abraham’s questions. “Will not the Judge of all the land do justice?” (Gen. 18:25).

To me, this is an excellent picture of our situation. We know that God is good and will always do what is the best and what is right. The problem is that we do not always know what that is. God does, but we don’t.

Another chap 5 Excerpt -- Presence

Excerpts so far from God with Ten Words:

• Mystery
• Love
• Power (excerpt 1)
• Power (excerpt 2)
• Knowledge (excerpt 1)
• Knowledge (excerpt 2)
• Presence (excerpt 1)

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The New Testament goes further. While in the Old Testament, it might not be entirely clear that the Holy Spirit is a distinct person, the New Testament begins to talk about the Holy Spirit in those terms. In a famous blessing, Paul prays for the Corinthians that “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Cor. 13:13). The Great Commission instructs the disciples to baptize “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19). In these and other places, the Holy Spirit is treated as a distinct person from God the Father and Jesus.

Perhaps the most striking references are in the Gospel of John, where masculine pronouns are used in relation to the Holy Spirit. The word for spirit in Greek is a neuter word, pneuma. Accordingly, neuter pronouns are normal to refer to spirit: “it.” But more than once John uses masculine pronouns: “he.” “That one [masculine] will teach you all things” (14:26). “That one [masculine] will witness concerning me” (15:26). “I will send him to you” (16:7). “That one [masculine] will convict the world” (16:8). “Whenever that one [masculine] comes… that one [masculine] will glorify me” (16:13, 14).

The point is not that the Spirit has male anatomy. And someone might rightly point out that the word “advocate” is masculine, so the masculine pronouns, more than anything, are referring to the Spirit as the advocate. That is all true. But it does not change the fact that the Spirit in these passages is discussed in strikingly personal terms.

Chap 6 Excerpt -- Immanuel

Excerpts so far from God with Ten Words:

• Mystery
• Love
• Power (excerpt 1)
• Power (excerpt 2)
• Knowledge (excerpt 1)
• Knowledge (excerpt 2)
• Presence

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We are now halfway through the ten words with which we are trying to get a small glimpse of what God is like. But something very crucial is missing. More than one religion understands God to be all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-present. The fact that mystery and holiness surround God would again be a common understanding. But from a Christian perspective, no sense of God could be complete without knowing that God came to earth as Jesus Christ. "The Word became flesh and tented among us" (John 1:14).

The 1600s saw the rise of the scientific revolution. That century saw the foundations of modern science laid in physics with great thinkers like Isaac Newton and Galileo. A shift had taken place toward seeing the world as something like a machine that operated according to certain rules or "laws" that God had built into the machine. Rather than see a thunderstorm as God or a demon trying to get me, these thinkers looked for patterns and laws in nature that God had put there--laws that we could discover with our human minds.

There is nothing wrong with this perspective. The inventions and technological developments of the last few centuries are obvious, including this laptop that I am typing on. Laws were discovered. As I write this chapter, the first space launch entirely made up of non-astronauts has gone into space. The achievements of science are astounding and undeniable, and they follow directly upon a shift of thinking that sees the world as something God has created to run to some extent "on its own." [1]

There is also a danger here, and that danger also reared its head in the 1600s. The danger is Deism...

[1] We can debate whether it really runs "on its own" or whether God is just pulling consistent and predictable levers on a deeper level.

Another Chap 4 Excerpt -- Fine Tuning Argument

Plugging a hole in chapter 4. Excerpts from a writing project so far, God with Ten Words

• Mystery
• Love
• Power (excerpt 1)
• Power (excerpt 2)
• Knowledge
• Presence

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However, regardless of evolution, the particulars of the universe are just right in a Goldilocks kind of way that simply boggles the mind. For example, if our universe had more mass, it would have crunched before any solar systems or planets could form, and we would not be here. If the universe had less mass, it would have ripped apart before any solar systems or planets could form. Frankly, the fact that we have matter at all is good fortune in itself. If the early universe had been completely symmetrical, all matter and antimatter would have annihilated itself into energy, and we would not be here.

Why does the universe operate on the basis of an inverse square law? Both the force of gravity and electricity increase or diminish in relationship to the inverse square of the distance between objects. If it were an inverse cube relationship or a one-to-one relationship, nothing would work in the universe. Atoms can exist because the gravitational force is weak, the electromagnetic force is strong, and the strong nuclear force is very strong but only works at a very small distance. Everything is just right or the atom wouldn't work... and we would not be here.

The universe expanded just right for some helium to form early on but for most of it to remain hydrogen so stars could form. The process by which helium can fuse together is just right for carbon to form in supernovas. If none of these aspects to the universe were not just right, we would not be here.

An atheist would not deny any of these things. They would perhaps invoke what is called the anthropic principle. Yes, it is highly unlikely. But, hey, we’re here having this conversation so we must just be lucky. The only plausible way to deal with the sheer improbability of such things by chance is to invoke the concept of a multiverse. Maybe there is some universe bubble machine that is constantly spitting out random universes. Maybe there are countless, nearly infinite dead universes out there that did not work. We are here because we just happen to be on the extremely, extremely lucky one that actually can work.

Or, we can believe that there was an Intelligence that designed the universe to be just right. And this Intelligence we call God. It is thus perfectly reasonable to believe both that God exists and that God is all-knowing.

Chap 3 Excerpt -- Power

Excerpts from a writing project so far, God with Ten Words

• Mystery
• Love

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Belief in ex nihilo creation fits very nicely with what physics currently believes. The landscape can change, but it is a very satisfying agreement at this moment in history. For one, physics agrees that the universe had a beginning point. Interestingly, most of the famous physicists of the mid-twentieth century did not like the idea that the universe had a beginning because it played too neatly into the idea of a Creator. The term “Big Bang” was originally a term of derision, not from Christians, but from scientists.

In the 1950s, the favorite theory among physicists was what was called the “steady-state” theory. Championed especially by a man named Fred Hoyle, it argued that the universe did not have a beginning but that matter was constantly “coming and going” from the universe, as it were. When a Catholic priest named Georges Lemaître pointed out that Einstein’s equations could support a beginning, his hypothesis was fairly strongly rejected.

Sometimes I hear Christians express a negative view toward the idea of a “big bang,” but I believe they are mostly opposing the atheistic version of the theory. The idea that God started the universe with a bang fits extremely well with the way most Christians understand Genesis 1:1 and creation out of nothing. In short, while we might debate about how long ago it was, the latest theories in physics of the universe’s beginning fit very nicely with our sense that God created the world out of nothing at a specific point in time in the past.

Chapter 2 -- Love

 Here's an excerpt from chapter 2. Here's the overall book concept and an excerpt from the chapter on mystery.

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So what is God’s attitude toward those who are not “on God’s team,” so to speak? We have already seen that the Bible says “God is love” and that “God loved the world.” That seems fundamental. Does this apply to God’s enemies?

Jesus says so in Matthew 5:43-48. “You have heard it said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’ but I say, ‘Love your enemies’” (5:43). Jesus goes on to say that this is exactly how God acts toward the unrighteous, giving them sun and rain. The paragraph ends by saying that we need to go the whole way like God does and love our enemies.

Verses like these in the Bible show us that God is not only loving toward those who follow but also those who do not. The "righteous" are not the only ones. 1 Timothy 2:4 says that God wants everyone to be saved, including such ungodly people like the Roman emperor. 2 Peter 3:9 says that God does not want anyone to perish but for everyone to be reconciled with God.

The book of Jonah in the Old Testament has an astounding message when you think of how focused the Old Testament is in general on the people of Israel. One of its messages is that God cares even about Ninevites. When they turn to God, God forgives them. God cares about the sailors on the boat who serve other gods. In fact, the person who is the worst example in the book is the Israelite Jonah himself, the preacher guy who knows the most about God with his head. God even seems to care about the animals in Nineveh (Jonah 4:11). Jesus says that God even notices every sparrow that dies (Matt. 10:29).

This is something that is impossible for me to grasp! My family has been raising chickens of late. We are not raising them to eat but for eggs and just for fun. We have named them and every one is special to us.

Yesterday, one of the smaller ones died. We’re not sure why. Perhaps it had something to do with the chill of the morning. Perhaps one of the other chickens pecked it just wrong. Who knows?

But we were all sad yesterday for Ellie. We will ask why God allows so much death in the world soon enough. I do think that death is perhaps not as bad as we sometimes think it is. It is natural, at least as the world is now. We will ask those questions in chapter 7.

For now, I note that the almighty creator of the universe, who put the stars into space, noticed the passing of Ellie yesterday. It is dumbfounding. It is unfathomable. If it is hard to grasp the vastness and tremendous mystery of God, it is thereby even harder to understand that God cares about the sparrows and chickens of this small planet.

God with Ten Words

I was thinking of self-publishing a short, simple book on God. Just some very basic stuff that a child could more or less understand. Very short chapters. Maybe some illustrations.

Here's an outline:

1. Mystery -- God is beyond anything we could comprehend. God speaks baby talk to us to give us pictures. 

2. Love -- God created the universe not because God had to but out of the overflow of God's love.

3. Knowledge -- In order to design the universe, God must be amazingly smart.

4. Power -- In order to create the universe, God must have more power than we can imagine.

5. Presence -- As God made the universe out of nothing, God's Spirit filled it with God's presence.

6. Immanuel -- God became human in Jesus so that God might be with us and in us and so that we might be with God forever.

7. Good -- God does not cause evil, although God allows it for greater goods. God wants our best. God protects us. God ultimately removes evil from the universe.

8. Parent -- God wants us to grow up to be good too. This means that God gives us the freedom to walk away. God disciplines us at times to help those of us who choose the right path.

9. Authority -- God is ultimately in control. Nothing happens that God does not allow. We are quite fooled if we think we have any authority that God has not given us.

10. Savior -- God wants to save us. God does not want us to self-destruct, although God often does not stop us if we stubbornly refuse help.    

Wesleyan-Arminian Theology of Creation

I have now completed my posts on the Theology of Creation, part of my ongoing series called, "My Theology in Bullet Points." Below the links on creation are the links for the other completed section on the Doctrine of God.

The Doctrine of Creation
1. God created everything that exists out of nothing.
2. Everything God created was good.
3. God is in control of everything that happens.
4. There are good and evil spiritual beings at work in the world.
5. Human beings were created in the image of God.
6. God intended us to live forever.
7. All humanity is of equal value to God.

The Doctrine of God
1. God didn't need to create. (God's self-sufficiency)
2. God isn't literally a guy.
3. God has the power to do anything. (God's omnipotence)
4. God is present in all places and all times. (God's omnipresence)
5. God knows every possible thing to know.
6. God knows every actual thing to know. (God's omniscience)
7. God can do whatever he wants. (God's sovereignty)
8. God loves everything he has created. (God is love)
9. God's justice fits within the context of his love. (God is just)
10. To say God is holy is to say God is God. (God is holy)
11. There is only one God, but God is three persons. (God is a Trinity)

3b God, the Almighty

My Sunday work on Biblical Theology continues.

Chapter 1
Introduction to Biblical Theology

Chapter 2: Revelation
2a From Text to Scripture
2b NT Understanding of Scripture
2c God's Speakings before Scripture
2d God's Speakings in the Old Testament
2e The New Testament Church

Chapter 3: Theology of God
3a God, the Basics

Now 3b God Almighty
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... A biblical theology of God thus will organize biblical teaching both with a view to the historical and literary contexts of various Scriptures as well as to the trajectory God seems to have led his people throughout the ages. The Apostle's Creed gives us an excellent place to start as it highlights God as Father, as all powerful, and as creator.  All three are clearly characteristics of God in Scripture, and we can arguably derive almost all the other key Christian theological beliefs about God from them.

God's power is a good place to begin because arguably power and immortality were the earliest and most central features of divinity in history, including the biblical text.  We can perhaps see traces of God's power even in some of the earliest names of God in the biblical text.  The Genesis text remembers the very early title "El Elyon," which means "God Most High," from the time of Abraham and Melchizedek (Gen. 14:18).

This title for God reveals both the polytheistic background of Abraham (e.g., Josh. 24:2) and the henotheistic nature of official Israelite religion at one point, although polytheism clearly continued (e.g., 1 Kings 18:21).  Henotheism is the belief that there is only one legitimate God to worship, although other gods exist.  Thus Israel must not have any gods before YHWH their God (Exod. 20:3), but there is no denial that those other gods exist. The very imagery of Psalm 82 assumes the existence of the gods of the other nations, although God Most High (82:6) is clearly far superior to them in authority and power.

As Christians we would follow Paul's lead and think of these gods more as demonic powers (1 Cor. 10:20) than as gods per se.  By the later parts of Isaiah, the sole existence of YHWH as God even seems to be affirmed (Isa. 45:5). [1] This is a truly monotheistic position.  The rise of demonology in the centuries immediately before Christ then provided a category in which to place the spiritual powers represented by the gods of the other nations.

The original sense of the Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4 is thus captured well by the NRSV translation: "Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone."  Nevertheless, both Jews and Christians alike have come to understand the Shema in terms of the sole divinity of God.  "Hear O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one."  As Christians we affirm both the original and the theological sense that Jews and Christians later heard in this verse.  There is only one God, even if there may be subordinate spiritual powers.

The creation narrative of Genesis 1 may also reflect a truly monotheistic perspective.  Unlike the creation stories of the Ancient Near East, creation in Genesis 1 does not involve conflict between gods in a struggle for power. Rather, Elohim (God) alone is involved and creation flows directly from his word alone. He speaks and it is done. His authority and power are unchallenged.

Christians and Jews would eventually come to believe that God created the universe out of nothing. A majority would say this belief solidified in the second century after Christ, perhaps as Jews and Christians fought off Gnosticism...

[1] However, even here we need to be aware that such language can be somewhat poetic.  For example, is Isaiah saying that YHWH is so far superior to any other deity that, for all intents and purposes, we can say he is really the only God that truly exists? Nevertheless, a case can be made that Isaiah literally means that the other gods do not really exist at all.

Grudem 10: The Knowability of God

Grudem continues...
__________
Summary
This is a relatively short chapter with three main points. First, we cannot currently know God unless he reveals himself to us (149). Several proof texts are mentioned, including Matthew 11:27, "No one knows the Son except the Father, and non one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (RSV, italics his).  For Grudem, Scripture must filter any other way of knowing God as well, including natural revelation. "The Bible alone tells us how to understand the testimony about God from nature" (italics his).

His second and third points respectively are then that 2) we cannot never fully understand God but 3) we can know God truly. God is infinite and we are finite.  Therefore, we can never fully understand God. This is how Grudem defines the word "incomprehensible," not that we cannot understand God but that we cannot understand him fully.

This is true not only about God in general, but also that "we can never fully understand any single thing about God" (150). And it is not only true now but also in the age to come. Our inability to understand God fully is not simply a matter of our sinfulness but of our finitude, the fact that we cannot comprehend the infinite. "There will always be more to learn" (151).

It is important nonetheless for Grudem to qualify that we can still know God truly. "All that Scripture tells us about God is true" (151). Further, more important than facts is the fact that we want to know God as a person (152). Christians have the far greater privilege of knowing God personally above mere knowing facts about God.

Evaluation
Much in this chapter is commendable.  It seems beyond question that we cannot know God fully or completely because he is infinite and we are finite.  Surely Grudem is also right that it is more important to know God relationally than to know God cognitively. Finally, it seems possible that there are some facts we can know about God that are not skewed in any way. For example, "God knows everything there is to know about the creation" seems like a true statement that is absolutely true and completely literal.

To say something is literal is to say that we are using words in their ordinary sense. If I say, "he went through the roof," I am not speaking literally.  To go through the roof literally is no doubt to die of massive head injuries from your body being propelled through all the wood and roofing materials.  If I say "I have a son" and am talking about my dog, I am speaking figuratively.  If I say, "I have a son" and am talking about my son, I am speaking literally.

It seems quite likely that much of our knowledge of God is figurative to some extent, not completely literal.  To say much of what we believe about God is figurative is to say that we are saying true things about God but we are describing him by comparing him to something in our world that we can relate to.  "God is my fortress," not because he is a literal building structure I can hide in when someone is trying to attack me, but because he is like that.

So when the Christians of the 300s and 400s wanted to describe the three members of the Trinity, they described them as "persons."  I accept this language as true.  Is it literal, or is it God helping the early Christians find something in our world that expressed what the members of the Trinity are like? The principle of revelation, one that Grudem fails to appreciate, is that God primarily speaks to humanity in terms we can understand. By contrast, Grudem seems to think that God reveals himself to us in his own absolute categories, that he lifts us up to his level more than he reaches down to ours.

Thus we return to the underlying problem with his hermeneutic, that he implicitly reads the Bible as a document that stands outside of human context.  He treats the words as propositional statements of absolute truth rather than as words in genres written in situations in cultures, as God speaking to humans at particular times and places largely within their own categories and "language games." The meanings of the Bible were comprehensible to those to whom its books were first revealed; therefore, its original categories were largely those of the audiences to whom they were first revealed.

The Bible primarily gives us pictures of God, snapshots at particular times and places. Most of what we know of God we thus know more by analogy than on a fully literal level.  But yes, surely we can know some things about God literally as well, without saying he is "like" something we can relate to. And Grudem is surely very right to say we can know God personally and relationally--by far the most important way that we can know God.

God in Wesleyan Theology

Last Saturday, I threw out an outline of what a short overview of Wesleyan theology might look like if I wrote one.  On Sunday, I spun out the outline of a possible introductory chapter.  Today I thought I would brainstorm the outline of a second chapter on God. By the way, I guess Chris Bounds does have the workings of a short book of this sort. My "Wesleyan" theology is much more "constructive," while Chris' is much more "dogmatic." [1]
______
2.1 Trinity
A Wesleyan theology might emphasize the relational dimension of the Trinity over individualism. In particular, it might see love as fundamental to the nature of God, as a fundamental aspect of the Trinity's inner identity. These might not be uniquely Wesleyan, but they are probable emphases of a Wesleyan theology of the Trinity.

2.2 God as Creator
I'm not sure that a Wesleyan theology of God as creator would differ much from any other orthodox view. I personally see features like omnipotence and omniscience as functions of creation. For me, they primarily define God in relation to what he has created (this is part of my theology rather than a distinctively Wesleyan theology).  Omnipresence also is a feature of God in relation to the creation.

Where I personally would be perhaps a little unique is to see holiness primarily as a function of God as creator.  Holiness is, in its fundamental sense, God-ness.  It is sacredness.  In a fallen world, holiness can take on an added sense of purity.  But is it possible that, even if the world were not fallen, there would be the distinction between sacred space/time and the ordinary?

2.3 God as Love
Any Wesleyan theology will emphasize God's nature as love.  Mercy takes priority over justice.  God's justice is formative in making people better.  It is protective in keeping the righteous safe from the unrighteous.  And it is final when there is no hope of redemption.  God's goodness is another way of saying that he always acts in love toward his creation, with his justice providing a loving framework for the creation.

I would say that my thinking on these things is more a working out of a particular Wesleyan perspective than anything like the Wesleyan perspective.

[1] These are technical terms.  "Dogmatic" theology is much more a matter of presenting a "deposit" of theology from the past.  "Constructive" theology tries to re-present and synthesize theology in the light of new elements in a never-ending discussion.  The former is more a given, the latter more dynamic.

Sunday Oden 3: Nature and Character of God

Not Sunday, but alas...

Oden divides the attributes of God into three categories. Chapter 2 is about God's intrinsic attributes and His relational attributes. Chapter 3 is about His personal attributes, those similar to human character. Parentheses are Oden, brackets are me talking...

Intrinsic Attributes (incommunicable, primary, essential attributes)

• God is before time. [understandably, we can't quite be sure what this means]
• God is self-sufficient (aseity). [I think I disagree with where Oden will take this, namely, when he claims that God's self-sufficiency does not imply He could have been as happy without the creation. I personally think God was just fine without it. Maybe I misunderstand Oden]
• God is one.
• God is not composed of parts (simplicity). [I never understood this one--I suspect it is a pre-modern left-over that has more to do with the way God looks to us within the creation rather than the mysterious ineffable of God beyond the creation]
• God is infinite.
• God is immeasurable.
• God is eternal.
• God has no impulse to suicide. :-)
• God is incomparibly alive.

Relational Attributes

• omnipresent
• omniscient (Oden claims that the Arminian position on foreknowledge is the consensual one, and thus that Augustine and Calvin are the exception rather than the rule)
• omnipotence (God can do anything consistent with who He is; He allows for secondary causes and thus does not directly cause everything that happens; He is transcendent)

Personal Attributes (chapter 3)

• Scripture represents God with personal characteristics [although we always have to be careful about anthropomorphism] God can say "I."
• God has a name.
• Impersonal terms inadequate
• God is Spirit.
• God has a free will. [classically, His freedom is connected to His nature, meaning that in a very real sense, God is not free to tell someone to murder their child... oops. I am slightly unorthodox here in that I see God's freedom as more extensive than what we think of as His nature]
• "God deals with human beings not coersively but persuasively" (61).
• Among God's chief moral characteristics are holiness and love, where Oden defines holiness as perfect goodness [I personally don't think that this is the primary meaning of holiness in the Old Testament. I think it imposes a much later understanding of goodness on an Ancient Near Eastern world]
• God is love--1 John defines God most succinctly [technically not a definition but a metonymy where something associated with something else is metaphorically used to describe it. The standard distinction between types of loves is also an overreading, although we can probably see a distinction between eros and agape far more than between agape and filos]

Divine happiness brings together all His attributes.

Sunday Oden 2: Name of God

Each Sunday, I am trying to summarize a chapter of Tom Oden's Classic Christianity. For some thoughts on the Preface, see here.

First there is the Introduction to Book One: "The Living God" (3-11). Oden expresses ambivalence at the personal pronouns "he" and "she," since God is not literally a particular gender. Indeed, part of the scandal of particularity is the specificity with which Christ had to come to earth. So he was a Jew and not a Greek. He was a man and not a woman. "It" doesn't adequately convey God's personhood.

The intro distinguishes "natural" and "revealed" theology, a distinction most will know.

Chapter 1 is called "The Name of God" (15-37). "Christian revelation refers to the disclosure of God in the person and work of Christ" (18). This is a crucial point. To speak in general of a divine Being is not to speak of God in a Christian way. Christ is the focal point of talking about God for Christians historically. "The Christian study of God is faith seeking understanding" (21).

Here is Oden's understanding of the "consensual" definition of God: "God is the uncreated source and end of all things; one; incomparibly alive; insurmountable in presence, knowledge, and power; personal, eternal spirit, who in holy love freely creates, sustains, and governs all things" (23).

Oden mentions five ways of knowing God's character:

1. revelation
2. inferred through causality
3. what God is not (via negativa)
4. God as greater than (say of heightening characteristics--via eminentiae)
5. a priori sense of God, inferred from the very idea of God

He then sets us up for the next two chapters, which deal with attributes of God. Attributes first, then he will look at arguments for God's existence.

One thought that struck me is a potential critique in the making with regard to Oden's "consensual approach." It comes from the fact that almost all his sources are pre-modern, pre-Cartesian. The pre-modern way of looking at the world is essentially reflexive. It reads an order to the world out there that is possibly subject to Feuerbach's claim that God is simply a projection of the best collective traits of humanity. When we say God is the greatest possible Being, for example, are we setting up a portrait of God that is unthinkingly based on our perspective of the world?

I would thus modify Oden's list in this way:

1. God has revealed a nature in relation to this universe. We have no point of reference to say much of what God is outside this universe.

The consensual tradition is pre-Cartesian and so was unable to think in these terms. The order it read "out there" was largely a reflection of an order within its own understanding, not an order that would really correspond to a universe created out of nothing. Its picture of God was thus in many respects simply an extension of this universe rather than the other way around, as it must be.

In this respect, I suspect the consensual tradition must be translated in a post-Cartesian world. Oden's fundamental enterprise--not to say anything new--thus potentially consigns his theology to the pre-modern domain. To continue to view the world in this way is to hobble theology from the very start. The fathers and mothers are crucial, but we have an immensely better understanding of the world than they did and this does matter.

2. inferred through causality
This remains a key way to think about God, and we can do it much better than the consensual tradition could because of our immensely improved understanding of creation. Certainly we may be way off still.

3-4. via negativa and via eminentia
Again, these seem to work well in relation to this universe. I am unsure what if anything they might tell us about God outside this universe, but I look forward to reading on.

5. Being itself
I am less confident that we can know much of God through this path. I suspect in our modern paradigm, this collapses into #2.

These are musings, not claims. I have mused over them for years. Charles Taylor has helped me conceptualize them a further step.

God in the Old Testament

I got this question from a friend yesterday that went something like this: "I was asked today how I could reconcile the picture of God in the Old Testament with God in the New Testament. The question was along the lines of why God is vindictive and punishing in the Old Testament and yes forgiving and loving in the New Testament."

Certainly God is forgiving and loving in the Old Testament too (e.g., the story of Jonah, God sparing Israel) and God judges with punishment in the New Testament (e.g., Ananias and Sapphira; final judgment). But I don't think we can completely deflect this observation. In Joshua and Numbers, God has Israel in effect try to commit genocide down to children and even animals. In Ezra God commands Israelite men to divorce their non-Israelite wives and children. There are puzzling things in the OT from a Christian standpoint.

There are also things like the stoning of a man for gathering sticks on the Sabbath (Saturday). Remember that strange story at the beginning of Exodus where God tries to kill Moses until Zipporah quickly circumcises his son? Moses intercedes for Israel like you would someone almost out of control trying to beat someone else up. God is sorry he created humanity just before the Flood--not possible if God is omniscient. God sits in council with the gods of the other nations in Psalm 82, having assigned them to those nations in the first place in Deuteronomy 32--sounds like Zeus in the Lightning Thief.

A point of growth here, in my opinion, is to realize that every word of the Bible is "incarnated" revelation. God reveals himself in the categories of those to whom He reveals himself. And why not? This makes perfect sense if He wants to be understood! If God revealed himself in my categories, then no one would have really understood Him in the Bible until now, when people started looking at the world through contemporary categories.

Strangely, that's how we often treat the Bible. When we say, "God revealed the Bible as timeless, absolute truth for all time," we are really saying, "God revealed the Bible in my categories, which are the same as the categories of everyone else who has ever lived." However, this is not true. The paradigms of other times and places have differed wildly from my Western categories. The person who wants the Bible to give revelation that is unparticular to the times of its original audiences is certainly unaware of how differently those of other times and places have understood the world. Myopically, we make our time the time finally when the Bible can be understood properly, which of course is wrong and rather inadvertently self-centered.

Some will remember those denominations who used to make a distinction between infallibility and inerrancy by saying that infallible meant the Bible was without error in matters of faith and doctrine, but not necessarily science or history. This was naive, for the nature of thought and language--as I have just been saying--is for all of it to be incarnated, to take on the flesh of its time. It is thus misguided to try to consider the biblical revelation transcendent, removed from human categories, in some areas and time-conditioned in others, even in those areas related to God himself.

The necessary corollary is that even the picture of God in the Old and New Testaments is time-conditioned in the sense that it relates directly to the categories of their day. Frankly, this becomes true of the "revelations" we find in the Nicene Creed as well, meaning that theology must forever be represented in new categories, realizing that my current categories are not absolute either.

It is no surprise to me, therefore, that the Old Testament is by and large more henotheistic than purely monotheistic, meaning that God is treated as the only legitimate God to worship, though not as the only God. God also cannot change His mind if He is omniscient, meaning that I find open theism naive. I will say also that I am equally perplexed by Wesleyan-Arminians who vigorously oppose it. You you have to be conservative to be an open theist because it takes the OT picture of God very literally--more literally in fact than its opponents. It also is not process theology, as some confuse it. I understand why Calvinists would oppose it, because it emphasizes free will to the exclusion of God's determinism. But why Wesleyan-Arminians have gotten up in arms about it seems likely because of ignorance on their part.

In the end, the biblical images of God must be integrated with each other and organized from a theological fulchrum point outside the text just as all other biblical teaching. A friend of mine has as his fundamental hermeneutic "What does this text tell me about God?" This is a wonderful lens for appropriating Scripture. And we must, as with all biblical teaching, also recognize that no one biblical passage has autonomy on the answer. It is what the Bible as a whole has to tell us about God, processed through the rule of faith as encapsulated in the consensus of Christian faith, that is determinative--not the localized, time-conditioned picture of God presented by an individual passage.