Theodicy Part 2

An ongoing problem in the debates between Calvinists and non-Calvinists is a matter of defining terms. The most common objection to the Calvinist view is that it unavoidably makes God out to be the "author of evil". Calvinists often respond by denying this and reiterating a definition of theological compatibilism. They might leave the question of how evil came into existence in the first place as a mystery, God somehow simply intends evil to be in service to a greater good.

There is a minor satisfaction in this response. After all, we all can imagine situations of suffering, pain, the actions of morally evil agents, etc. bring about a desirable outcome, whether intentional or not. Just as one example, Dieter Dengler was a German immigrant in the U.S. who after joining the U.S. Air Force ended up being shot down over Vietnam. Dieter explains in Herzog's documentary "Little Dieter Needs to Fly" that his hardships growing up in post war Germany -- with the severe hardships of poverty and physically exhausting work as well as the experience of his grandfather being persecuted for the only one in his village who did NOT support Hitler -- had somehow prepared Dengler for his life threatening experiences as a POW in hostile, exotic territory. We would in fact never know of any notion of virtue in the absence of evil, injustice, suffering.

The bible itself is replete with examples where people are confronted with doubt about God's goodness when evil seems to be unfolding right under a sovereign God's watch. The disciples of Jesus must have had one heck of a time wrapping their head around recent events while in hiding between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday. It was bad enough that Jesus, who demonstrated his authority and identity as the Son of God through signs and miracles and teachings, did not fulfill his messianic mission of restoring Israel. But the way in which he failed, being at the mercy of a kangaroo court thrown together by petty religious power-mongers, then yo-yoed among the whims of Gentile rulers, finally abandoned to a cursed, criminal execution, exposed to public shame: Where is God in all of this? Has God gone mad and revoked his promises and his integrity? It's easy to imagine what kind of serious questioning and doubting of God's goodness and justice occurs when we don't have enough information in certain circumstances.

While Calvinism is a form of theological compatibilism, it is not a philosophy in the usual sense. It is evaluating and logically arranging the biblical data, not in a way not to satisfy our demand for answer, but in a way that demands of us to be satisfied with the data given. This is not to say it is irrational or logically invalid. Only that there is necessarily a psychological aspect to seeing through these things. Because of the subject matter it is a process of submission not validation. I know that runs the risk of sounding condescending or accusatory, but it is more autobiographical than anything.

Thus as I hope to give an answer in terms of a causal model, I am proposing something to be useful and sufficient for us to best make sense of the data. I've already mentioned that our innate sense of justice ("common sense") is a liability and we need to be careful to examine ourselves whether we are prone to be overly dismissive of unsatisfactory answers on the one hand, or overly speculative of concealed matters on the other hand.

Nevertheless, I haven't yet addressed ultimate beginnings. How does God relate to the introduction of evil as a state of affairs?

Statements like "This makes God the author of evil" don't move the discussion along. We need to look at the possible meanings of "author" while keeping in mind that the word is not preferred because of its ambiguity.

What exactly is mean by it? Based on semantic variants and etymologies, here are some possibilities:

1) God is the prime cause / Creator / originator

2) God is the performing agent

3) God is the responsible agent or principal party

4) God is the authority-figure who authorizes another to act in his stead

5) God is the instigator

6) God is the exemplar

From a Calvinist view, only some of these senses are affirmed and even then carry qualifications. The non-Calvinist may object that these turn into distinctions without a difference, a way of escape the opening charge of attributing the origin of evil to God himself.

But that is exactly the problem, according to the Calvinist. We are not concerned with giving a simple Yes or No answer because the objection is oversimplified and poorly frames the issue.

So let's go through each of these.

(1) Can be basically affirmed by the Calvinist. But with the qualification that there is a distinction between primary and secondary causes.

(2) is rejected since according to the distinction in (1) it is the sinner, as secondary cause, who performs the sin.

(3) depends, because on the one hand God is in no sense obligated to "give a response" to man for his ways. To borrow Paul's analogy, it would be as futile as the clay demanding a response from the potter "Why did you make me thus?" There is a fundamental distinction between Creator and what he has created which makes such a question inappropriate.

On the other hand, there is a sense in which Calvinism affirms that God is responsible for all that happens in the world. But in relation to sin and the propogation of evil, God is never responsible as proximate cause and thus never subject to blame. According to (2) the sinner is proximate cause.

(4) and (6) can only be said of God in terms of his holiness and his redemptive works, not in relation to sin.

(5) can only be affirmed of God in a narrow sense. God does not provoke someone into sin who would have been unwilling to do so otherwise. God "instigates" sin in the sense that he establishes the environment and arranges the circumstances through which man is allowed to express his free moral agency. For example Romans 5:20, "The Law was added so that the trespass might increase", giving a broad historical overview of the function of the Law through the circumstance it put Israel under. God had sovereignly arranged a circumstance for sinful people to live under a legally binding covenant by which their inherent guilt was prolifically demonstrated as a matter of public record of offense and falling short. God did not coerce nor provoke the Israelites to sin more, he arranged the circumstances where they freely increased their trespasses due to their inherently rebellious attitude towards God's holy standards (Rom. 7:7-13).


Now consider this case. Person A has a gunshot wound and Person A dies. These two simply facts about Person A are not enough for a moral valuation of what has transpired. So we work backwards.

Person A is dead. Too much blood was lost through the gunshot wound. The aim of the barrell and the velocity of the bullet upon impact was such that the wound had a high probability of causing a fatality. The trigger on a gun was fired in the direction of Person A. The gun did not go off spontaneously but was fired by another Person B. Person B who was aiming the gun at Person A had these thoughts immediately prior to pulling the trigger: "I need to kill this person in order to take all his money and get away without being caught."

So we have a chain of events, from cause, to intermediate causes, to effect. Now, the hole in Person A is a more proximate cause to Person A's death than Person B, since the hole was the means by which a fatal amount of blood poured out of Person A resulting in the shut down of vital organs. However, the hole in Person B is not the sole cause of the death, nor is the hole a morally responsible agent.

So we continue to move backwards in the chain of events. The bullet, the gun, the trigger mechanism, until we reach Person B. We have now identified the nearest cause to the death of Person A who is also a morally responsible agent. Person B was neither a mere material cause nor a coerced agent. Person B performed an action with morally culpable intent. Thus we have moral valuation in the event of the death of Person A. This was a murder in which Person B as the nearest morally responsible agent is implicated for evil intent according to a set standard of justice.

According to the Calvinist, God is the primary cause of all that comes to pass including this instance of Person A's murder. God ordained Person A's murder; he arranged the circumstances such that Person A's murder would necessarily come to pass when it did. God sustained every link in the chain between Person A's death and Person B's murderous intent and free action, but God himself was not any one link in that chain.

This distinction between God as ultimate cause and man as proximate cause is not a minor point but the crux of the whole matter. Because the corrolary point is that there is a necessary psychological distinction between human and divine motives in any given event in which sin is involved.

If the corollary point of psychological distinction can be established from the relevant biblical data, then the ultimate cause/proximate cause distinction is a reasonably valid inference. This is in fact how the Calvinist reasons from scripture on the matter. Genesis 50:20, as one example, is considered one of the more explicit statements on this psychological distinction (which is also a goal-oriented distinction), where Joseph interprets the events of his life to his brothers. His brothers are morally responsible agents for intending evil to come upon Joseph. But in fact God had ordained these events for a greater good, "the saving of many lives".

Do these incompatible intentions at work in the same chain of events truly sustain God as blameless since he is both ultimate cause and determined the ultimate goal? (We still must ask, blameless before whom? The mankind of Romans 1:17-3:20?)

Scripture indeed states as axiomatic (not needing proof that satiates our innate sense of justice and fairness) that the greater good, a second-order good, is sufficient justification for the ordained introduction and temporary existence of evil as a state of affairs.

So essentially we need to push the issue from beginnings to telos, the goal-oriented intent of God's decreeing all that comes to pass. Scripture affirms, without apologies, that first order evils are necessary to attain a second-order good.

"Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. John 9:3

Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind." John 9:39

Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful. Romans 7:13

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." ... What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory ... Romans 9:17, 22-23

For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. Romans 11:32

But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. Gal. 3:22




All well and good, but this only proves God uses certain instances of man's evil intent for a greater good.

Theodicy Part 1

This post is in the interest of those who want to have a reasonable explanation of God and the problem of evil from the Calvinist perspective.

A few preliminary points need to be made.

1) Human language is a gift from God, an instrument by which divine revelation is accessible by man. God saw fit to provide man with a rational mind so that, though finite and limited in perspective, he can sufficiently understand essential truths pertaining to the nature of God and his relation to the world. This does not mean, however, that human language is able to comprehensively grasp every aspect of God's being and his relation to the world. In the case of theodicy, i.e. the question of how evil came into existence under the watch of a good and holy and righteous God, no single word would encapsulate the relation between the Creator and all other things in existence, particularly sin as a subset of all other things in existence. What is needed is a causal model instead of a single word. This will be more clear when a slippery word like "author" is considered.


2) It could be argued that at least some members of the early Church were concerned with the relation of divine sovereignty and human responsibilty, a topic that can't really be separated from theodicy. Otherwise, how is it that the apostle Paul delves right into this issue in Romans 9? His flow of thought -- going from the historical perspective to the atemporal perspective of divine decrees -- indicates a bigger issue needed to be identified, underlying the more specific issue of how God's promises reconcile with the widespread rejection of the Gospel by the nation of Israel.

All very well, but there is a tremendous blindspot for all of us. Since questions about God and the existence of evil focus on fairness, and the justice in it all, we must make sure we have a valid starting point with our notions of justice and fairness.

However, as Christians we are bound to a starting point behind that starting point, the teachings of scripture. Earlier in Romans, Paul set out an argument in 1:17-3:20 that all mankind, Jew and Gentile alike, are willing co-conspirators in the problem and propagation of evil. Exhibit A in Paul's case is the Law of God as it operates to implicate both Jew and Gentile universally (the Mosaic covenant for the Jew Rom. 2:1-13, 17-29, and the functional equivalent of the Law in the conscience of the Gentile Rom. 2:9-16). His case is summed up that all are implicated in their violation of God's standards of justice and righteousness (Rom. 3:9) and further corrobative evidence is submitted in Rom. 3:10-20, considering how we all fall short in our actions, our ways, our speech, our very thoughts.

Here is an existential problem then. We are unable to cooly and neutrally consider the problem of the existence of evil and the justice of God. To put it simply: if we don't like the answer we still cannot evaluate the justice of God's ways because we are unjust.

Paul has to remind his audience of this very fact (our moral and thus existential deficiency) in the midst of Romans 9 when he anticipates the objection that God is unjust in judging the actions of those whom he ordained to commit such actions: "But who are you, O man, to talk back to God?" This is not just some accusatory, rhetorical question. We are being asked to take a second look back in Romans 1:17-3:20 for the precise answere to this existential question "Who are you O man". And the answer ain't pretty. If we neglect that answer, we have no basis for asking any further questions.


3) Like the doctrine of the Trinity, there is nothing in human experience that is perfectly analogous to how God as an eternal being relates to all other things in existence. We are, as rational creatures, still creatures and are only capable of time-bound, discursive thoughts.

This ontological limitation compounds the moral limitation explained above in (2). But even if we were in a morally innocent state, and God disclosed all aspects of all things to us, we wouldn't get it anyway. His thoughts are not our thoughts. So God condescends in the way he reveals himself, dressed in language and actions that are pedagogical in context of the contingencies of finite human experpiences, relating to the world in time-bound actions accompanied by anthropmorphisms and symbolisms to help describe who he is and what he has done. All so that we can have sufficient analogous knowledge (not perfectly comprehensive, univocal knowledge) of his eternal character and attributes.

J. Gresham Machen - Atonement of Christ, Satisfaction for Sin

"If then we ask what is the Biblical doctrine of sin, we observe, in the first place, that according to the Bible all men are sinners.

Well, then, that being so, it becomes important to ask what this sin is which has affected all mankind. Is it just an excusable imperfection; is it something that can be transcended as a man can transcend the immaturity of his youthful years? Or, supposing it to be more than imperfection, supposing it to be something like a definite stain, is it a stain that can easily be removed as writing is erased from a slate?

The Bible leaves us in no doubt as to the answer to these questions. Sin, it tells us, is disobedience to the law of God, and the law of God is entirely irrevocable.

Why is the law of God irrevocable? The Bible makes that plain. Because it is rooted in the nature of God! God is righteous and that is the reason why His law is righteous. Can He then revoke His law or allow it to be disregarded? Well, there is of course no external compulsion upon Him to prevent Him from doing these things. There is none who can say to Him, ‘What doest thou?’ In that sense He can do all things. But the point is, He cannot revoke His law and still remain God. He cannot, without Himself becoming unrighteous, make His law either forbid righteousness or condone unrighteousness. When the law of God says, ‘The soul that sinneth it shall die,’ that awful penalty of death is, indeed, imposed by God’s will; but God’s will is determined by God’s nature, and God’s nature being unchangeably holy the penalty must run its course. God would be untrue to Himself, in other words, if sin were not punished; and that God should be untrue to Himself is the most impossible thing that can possibly be conceived.

Under that majestic law of God man was placed in the estate wherein he was created. Man was placed in a probation, which theologians call the covenant of works. If he obeyed the law during a certain limited period, his probation was to be over; he would be given eternal life without any further possibility of loss. If, on the other hand, he disobeyed the law, he would have death — physical death and eternal death in hell.

Man entered into that probation with every advantage. He was created in knowledge, righteousness and holiness. He was created not merely neutral with respect to goodness; he was created positively good. Yet he fell. He failed to make his goodness an assured and eternal goodness; he failed to progress from the goodness of innocency to the confirmed goodness which would have been the reward for standing the test. He transgressed the commandment of God, and so came under the awful curse of the law.

Under that curse came all mankind. That covenant of works had been made with the first man, Adam, not only for himself but for his posterity. He had stood, in that probation, in a representative capacity; he had stood — to use a better terminology — as the federal head of the race, having been made the federal head of the race by divine appointment. If he had successfully met the test, all mankind descended from him would have been born in a state of confirmed righteousness and blessedness, without any possibility of falling into sin or of losing eternal life. But as a matter of fact Adam did not successfully meet the test. He transgressed the commandment of God, and since he was the federal head, the divinely appointed representative of the race, all mankind sinned in him and fell with him in his first transgression.

Thus all mankind, descended from Adam by ordinary generation, are themselves under the dreadful penalty of the law of God. They are under that penalty at birth, before they have done anything either good or bad. Part of that penalty is the want of the righteousness with which man was created, and a dreadful corruption which is called original sin. Proceeding from that corruption when men grow to years of discretion come individual acts of transgression.

Can the penalty of sin resting upon all mankind be remitted? Plainly not, if God is to remain God. That penalty of sin was ordained in the law of God, and the law of God was no mere arbitrary and changeable arrangement but an expression of the nature of God Himself. If the penalty of sin were remitted, God would become unrighteous, and that God will not become unrighteous is the most certain thing that can possibly be conceived.

How then can sinful men be saved? In one way only. Only if a substitute is provided who shall pay for them the just penalty of God’s law.

The Bible teaches that such a substitute has as a matter of fact been provided. The substitute is Jesus Christ. The law’s demands of penalty must be satisfied. There is no escaping that. But Jesus Christ satisfied those demands for us when He died instead of us on the cross.

I have used the word ‘satisfied’ advisedly. It is very important for us to observe that when Jesus died upon the cross He made a full satisfaction for our sins; He paid the penalty which the law pronounces upon our sin, not in part but in full.

In saying that, there are several misunderstandings which need to be guarded against in the most careful possible way. Only by distinguishing the Scripture doctrine carefully from several distortions of it can we understand clearly what the Scripture doctrine is. I want to point out, therefore, several things that we do not mean when we say that Christ paid the penalty of our sin by dying instead of us on the cross.

In the first place, we do not mean that when Christ took our place He became Himself a sinner. Of course He did not become a sinner. Never was His glorious righteousness and goodness more wonderfully seen than when He bore the curse of God’s law upon the cross. He was not deserving of that curse. Far from it! He was deserving of all praise.

What we mean, therefore, when we say that Christ bore our guilt is not that He became guilty, but that He paid the penalty that we so richly deserved.

In the second place, we do not mean that Christ’s sufferings were the same as the sufferings that we should have endured if we had paid the penalty of our own sins. Obviously they were not the same. Part of the sufferings that we should have endured would have been the dreadful suffering of remorse. Christ did not endure that suffering, for He had done no wrong. Moreover, our sufferings would have endured to all eternity, whereas Christ’s sufferings on the cross endured but a few hours. Plainly then His sufferings were not the same as ours would have been.

In the third place, however, an opposite error must also be warded off. If Christ’s sufferings were not the same as ours, it is also quite untrue to say that He paid only a part of the penalty that was due to us because of our sin. Some theologians have fallen into that error. When man incurred the penalty of the law, they have said, God was pleased to take some other and lesser thing — namely, the sufferings of Christ on the cross — instead of exacting the full penalty. Thus, according to these theologians, the demands of the law were not really satisfied by the death of Christ, but God was simply pleased, in arbitrary fashion, to accept something less than full satisfaction.

That is a very serious error indeed. Instead of falling into it we shall, if we are true to the Scriptures, insist that Christ on the cross paid the full and just penalty for our sin.

The error arose because of a confusion between the payment of a debt and the payment of a penalty. In the case of a debt it does not make any difference who pays; all that is essential is that the creditor shall receive what is owed him. What is essential is that just the same thing shall be paid as that which stood in the bond.

But in the case of the payment of a penalty it does make a difference who pays. The law demanded that we should suffer eternal death because of our sin. Christ paid the penalty of the law in our stead. But for Him to suffer was not the same as for us to suffer. He is God, and not merely man. Therefore if He had suffered to all eternity as we should have suffered, that would not have been to pay the just penalty of the sin, but it would have been an unjust exaction of vastly more. In other words, we must get rid of merely quantitative notions in thinking of the sufferings of Christ. What He suffered on the cross was what the law of God truly demanded not of any person but of such a person as Himself when He became our substitute in paying the penalty of sin. He did therefore make full and not merely partial satisfaction for the claims of the law against us.

Finally, it is very important to observe that the Bible’s teaching about the cross of Christ does not mean that God waited for someone else to pay the penalty of sin before He would forgive the sinner. So unbelievers constantly represent it, but that representation is radically wrong. No, God Himself paid the penalty of sin — God Himself in the Person of God the Son, who loved us and gave Himself for us, God Himself in the person of God the Father who so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son, God the Holy Spirit who applies to us the benefits of Christ’s death. God’s the cost and ours the marvellous gain! Who shall measure the depths of the love of God which was extended to us sinners when the Lord Jesus took our place and died in our stead upon the accursed tree?" - John Gresham Machen, "The Doctrine of the Atonement"

Children of Men and Overlapping Worlds

The problem with most scifi films are those unnatural lulls in the script that are used to teach and explain to us all the reasons why we should be convinced of their vision of the future. The more that is explained, the more potential for holes in the script anyways. It's refreshing when a story both begins and continues to basically say, "this is just the way it is". Don't ask for reasons, because everyone's got all their own theories and that's the best we can do. So in that sense, the world in Children of Men is more convincing because we can easily relate to aspects of reality that don't seem to have good explanations, even while many political and philosophical sectors will give their own answers or criticisms. In this kind of sci-fi, the air is cleared for a purer development of a simple allegorical narrative that dances over the roaring undercurrents of existential dilemmas.

Children of Men works better than other dystopia films because the blame game is not so cut and dry. We have competing philosophical interpretations of the state of the world: pure chance or the trials of faith. Unexplainable circumstances, you know "this is something that just happened", clear the air for the real drama: how are individuals, institutions, and basic world views reacting to it? What sort of character will be expressed and intensified in these hyperbolic situations? How will society redefine itself due to something over which it has no control? Are we learning something more pure and unveiled about basic human nature? Political and blunt social issues currently under debate are only there to obscure the real investigation. So the fact that the story doesn't completely depend on political debates and overt social issues makes it way more ominous in what we are being asked to face.

Cinematically speaking, Children of Men is perhaps the first film to effectively and masterly transpose that unique kind of environment and sense of fluid movement in space that we have been experiencing in newer video games. Ironically the video games themselves have been borrowing heavily from film and now we are seeing the seeds of their labors being planted back into film, taking along with it the new visual language invented in video gaming. The camera has us following our hero (more our avatar) in a way that could only have happened in the wake of embedded video journalism. We are in the midst of the action, even getting caught up in militant protest marches, bumping into dangerous strangers, having guns waved in our face, weaving in and out of buildings sieged by tank batallions. Yet we are mostly reporting what we see, we are just passing through towards transcendent aims, and our hero survives not through violent confrontations (except one moment) but through cleverness and keeping on the move.

And notice how the shifting of scenarios keeps engaging us from one moment to the next. So fluid, so natural, to have this sort of dystopian opera unfold before our wandering eyes. And our eyes must wander a lot. This is where Kurosawa's ghost has returned. The multiple layers of action in one frame are all brought out in equal focus. With this, it is like we are watching a staged play with mulitple simultaneous scenes, our eyes have to dance from one place on the stage to the next so we can absorb it all at once. Or like that form of Japanese art that eschews Western perspective by placing equal relevance on foreground and background subject matter. It flattens the visual space in order to vivify the psychological space.

The moment where the film took off was the extended sequence of the country drive that resulted in Julian's death and the copkillings. This is much more rewarding than anything I have seen from Altman, PT Anderson, Welles, or any of the others who have indulged in extended uncut shots. It is what Cuaron has made use of within the space of that shot. It begins when playful, slightly uncomfortable yet nostalgic car conversation is elegantly interrupted by a car on fire rolling into our path. There are no obvious cuts. It is a staged costume drama of guerrilla warfare that intensifies with every second. But the visual eye (our place in this world) is disembodied in the very midst, reporting reporting reporting these events from an embedded journalism point of view. The camera is too fluid to be pure documentary style, thus highlighting the psychological atmosphere in which we dwell, in an ironic, zen kind of fashion. Why are we, the camera eye, so fluid and calm in this violent turn of events? Why are there no quick cuts or outside shots to take us out of that mess? There is nothing there to reassure us, are we really just another passenger in this car? Are we safe from the action as the collective eye of the audience?

Where we really see the fruits of genius brought forth is in the final sequence. The narrative by that point, in and of itself, is purely subtext brought out in the full light of day. It is the crowning of the entire effort where these looming themes had been running along in lesser streams before they coalesced. But even more, the glory of the final moments is in visually bringing together all the strings of cinematic experiments for a unique sequence of pure movements that shift us from the disembodied state of embedded pseudo-journalism, to becoming the locus of attention and even bending the environment back upon ourselves. It's as if to say: "Now that you have tried to comfort yourselves in believing you are an immaterial participant in this brutal noir opera, the world has stopped and turned all its eyes upon you. You have affected this world by your presence, but this world has also mortally wounded you after all." And then with the next tank explosion, we are shifted again via tunnel (passageway to the next cinematic world of pure space). Although the director has borrowed many elements from the masters, he has in that last scene brought together something altogether new and defining in the history of cinema. We haven't seen anything like this before, period. I'm amazed at the collective genius that came together for this film.

Christian thematic ties

At the level of story this is, no doubt, a Christian meditation on how so many are attempting to interpret the circumstances and events of the world, and how they react to it. And it is an ongoing critique of how human nature operates, and how various belief systems stand in the face of ominous defeat. The story is shaped by the particular Christian vision of the world as actually being an overlap of two worlds, or two ages. This present, dying age, and the age to come ("Tomorrow" if you will) which cannot be reached or understood without blood being spilt by the one who secures safe passage to that transcendent space.

Clamoring one's way through the violent clash of methods in making the world somehow "better", with the miracle birth hid close to one's bosom, they may only pause momentarily and wonder at the anomaly. But just momentarily because no one can really understand how it is even possible but to either accept the world as it is, or instead try to change it according to our fragmented endeavors. There is no third option, because this is all we have. The problem is, if this is all we have, we are headlong ready to be losing it. What then?

"Lord, thou hast been our refuge: from one generation to another. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made: thou art God from everlasting, and world without end. Thou turnest man to destruction: again thou sayest, Come again, ye children of men. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday: Seeing that is past as a watch in the night" Psalm 90:1-4

I think it would do Christians good to ponder a bit on the overall scenario. For some inexplicable reason, women have universally stopped conceiving, and that for some time. The film opens with the world's youngest human (about 20 years old) being assassinated on the news, and worldwide grief pours out at an obviously symbolic blow to any hope for the future. So, we are being asked to consider family-building as an extinct concept. There is no explanation given for why it happened, only that it is a situation that cannot be fixed by science, philosophy, political movements or counter-movements. It just is. Now what is there left in life to value, really?

The film in various forms of allegory then asks us to consider two ways of understanding reality. One way is to think that we live in a one-world existence. What you see is what you get. And so we may have a number of theories and programs to address the problem of the human race standing on the edge of extinction, but in the end none of them really matter. What you see is what you get, but what you see is slowly vanishing before your very eyes.

The other way was already mentioned, a two-world schema. This present dying world, and another world with a quality of existence unhindered by the ominous tragedy of this world.

I'm pontificating on this because I think it somehow draws together on the one hand the unfixable problems many people face which tempt them with despair, and on the other hand the heavenly vision which restructures our thinking about these problems. Then there are those who place highest value on the temporary blessings of this world, (as good as they are in themselves, such as marriage and family). And yet those who lack blessing and ever despair because of it, are in the same boat as the temporarily blessed as far as needing that heavenly vision of the world to come. The next world that even now partially overlaps just enough to give substance to hope.

For example, by turning "family values" into a political slogan that is supposed to represent a whole way of interacting with the broader culture, is it possible this is a form of worshipping the family? Does this not war against Jesus' teachings on the kingdom, where even the eunuch (or fill in the blank for any outcast who would have no real possibility in society to be fruitful and multiply) has a blessed place in this new society? The conclusion is that the world to come must inform and temper our thoughts about what happens in this world, and not vice versa. It would make it more possible for the blessed and the unblessed to rejoice together AND grieve together, would it not?

Reading a Living Text in the Shadow of the Cross

File under "Clarifications on Christianity"

In the bible's Gospel of Luke, there is this passage explaining a moment in Jesus' public career:

Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.'"
(Luke 14:25-30)

There are a lot of ways Jesus' teachings have been characterized. Some say that he was basically a good religious teacher who wanted others to learn a little bit about a better spiritual life, and how to treat others. Others say he was radical and exploited the political and social conditions of the day to his advantage, pitting the religious and political elite against the "common folk". And so on.

But there's rough spots in Jesus' words, and this part in Luke about the cost of following Jesus is one of the most difficult, disturbing, and misunderstood statements. Who in their right mind would teach potential followers to hate their own families and friends in order to be a follower, who but the most crazed megalomaniac?

That reaction is understandable, because Jesus was deliberately using a form of hyperbole to address the immediate situation. If that hyperbole is taken as it stands without understanding the dynamics of the moment, we miss the point and would write it off as nonsensical misanthropy. Hold off on that conclusion for just a moment.

At that point in Jesus' public ministry, right before Jesus says the statement above, the author notes that "great multitudes were going along with him."

This is interesting because Jesus was not much of a crowd pleaser, nor a traveling showman doing and saying the right things to try and get large followings. So he looks out at the massive crowd and says the above statement point blank.

To catch the force of the moment, you need to reckon with the fact that what goes on here is typical throughout all the Gospels. Despite any protests on our part, we never simply read in the bible about Jesus, not the "we" right now in the 21st century readers nor the first century crowds. It's not us who are reading and studying Jesus, so much as it is Jesus reading us. It's a living text; when we sit down and open the bible to the four Gospels, we are not passive observers to the unfolding of this story, detached from any involvement through the vast distance of time and location. No, Jesus continually turns around and addresses us now today even as we read about his teachings and deeds, because when we read we are a part of that great multitude who were going along with Jesus for all sorts of reasons. He turns around and says the above. What are you looking for when you "go along with him"? What interests you about him? Are you, like many in that great multitude in Luke 14, simply curious about something new that came along? Are you fascinated by controversy? Are you just wanting to see a miracle? Did you hear about him healing a leper or feeding 5000, and hoping that he can come along and fix some certain problem in your life? Does he seem so far like just the right fix to a fundamentally chaotic life? Is he worth following along the path because you might hear some agreeable nuggets of wisdom that confirms our own opinions on life? Does he seem rather liberal in dishing out blessings to the common people and is his righteous anger and criticisms against the religious and conservative elite feel like sweet poetic justice? Does he seem like he's on my side in this crazy drama of life?

Okay, so why are all these implicit questions found in Jesus' teaching and deeds, why is he scanning all of us?

Because if we are reading these texts, or hearing them, we are taking the time to peer into his life, which is not a normal life. And we may tend to quickly forget that his story is the twists and turns of one long procession to a lackluster death on a tree outside the walls of Jerusalem, where he was taken out like the absolute lowest of criminals. So on the way to that morbid appointment, Jesus is going to keep turning and asking us, this great multitude of observers and readers and listeners, "Why are you going along with me? Do you wish to follow me? or is it something else?" He reads us, he exposes us for our own sakes. He murders our ambivalence, and weeds out ulterior motives. He wants us to know that he is not just one more lost cause trying to muster up a counter-movement for his generation to the powers that be. He is claiming a possession of both divine approval and divine participation in a way unique to himself, so that to follow him is to be in devoted allegiance to him. It is to trust him as we could never be expected to trust just any good, mortal man.

"If any man comes to me and hates not . . . "

This is a figure of speech. The point is incisive: "if you are going along with me and are not commited to my cause above any other cause in your life, the sooner you leave the better." Thus the hyperbolic language used, where any other relationship, in comparison to one's commitment to the cause of Christ and the way of the cross, is going to looke like hatred relatively speaking. Although yes, they actually are relationships of love, but by comparison they will look like hatred in that Christ is demanding a way of following him where his cause must be the central concern of any potential follower. All other loves and relationships are to flow out of that one. He speaks for nothing less than a death to self as we know it. Ambivalence and competing commitments will not fare well in the steps of his path to the cursed tree (which stands in the way of the tree of life).

Say what you will about who Jesus is or who you think he is, he was always conscious of the intentions and inner workings of those around him, those of us who read him, and those who look over his shoulder to see what was going on and to see what they can get out of it. When he turns to address the intentions of our hearts, he is meek but he is never mild. And that for our own good.

The Lost Soul of American Protestantism

I started reading "The Lost Soul of American Protestantism", a book that is helpful in tracing the history and movements behind the current state of affairs in American religion.

American religion is a unique brand in the history of the Christian religion because ideas such as "conversion experience" (emphasis on personal crisis), a radically casual view of Jesus, the right of private individual judgment in determining the meaning of scripture apart from historical statements of faith, and the assumption that its about having a radically individual relationship with God... these were all invented on American soil. It really picked up in the 19th century with all the revivalist movements, as a sort of spiritualist reaction to Enlightenment influences on the larger culture. Liberalism and fundamentalism arose as two sides of the same coin, both recasting the Christian faith in pragmatic terms that were useful in making us better citizens, better political animals, and better aware of issues of social justice. The non-denominational movement, fringe cults, charismatic chaos, modern evangelicalism, and liberal mainstream Protestantism are all from the same stock, historically speaking. In different ways they have trivialized the Christian faith in order to claim sectors in the public life of Americana, especially through reshaping the Christian faith to accommodate the particular sentiments of the American soul. They all believe in a faith that is pragmatic (for social justice, for growing numbers, for political gains, for real experiences, for material blessings, for reforming lives and mending relationships, etc).

The lost strand in all this is confessional Protestantism, which has been quietly moving along under the public radar. Ironically, confessional Protestantism was the only form of Protestantism before the 18/19th centuries and remains to be the true heritage of the Reformation. And more broadly, "confessional" Christianity was the only Christianity of note in existence before the American innovations. The assumption is that a Christian's relationship with God is defined primarily in terms of participating in the life of the confessing Church. Private worship, prayer, and good works ('acts of mercy'), all come together so that the community humbly stands as a beacon and a Christ-imaged society within the larger society (as opposed to just being another subculture with their own codewords and T-shirts).

Most importantly, confessional Protestantism is characteristically _confessional_ rather than fill-in-the-blank -- evangelistic, socially aware, politically triumphant, revivalistic and open to the free work of the Spirit, etc. Confessionalism is a cluster of traditions that consciously stand together in a sober unity despite the variations within the traditions, confessing one holy apostolic faith before a watching world. The method is bringing self-aware sinners to repentance and renewal, understanding that God works through the appointed means of Word and sacrament. The goal is to create and expand a community who worships the triune God in Spirit and in truth. The goal of right worship is therefore the soul of confessional Protestantism, and worship is something that engages the mind, the thoughts of the heart, as well as the affections. Hence the emphasis on right doctrine and practice. The worship services are structured as teaching instruments to consume the mind with poetic and didactic descriptions of the mighty redemptive acts of God as revealed in scripture. And worship is liturgical; a scripted event in which God is the audience and the worshipers are the collective performers.

This book's author claims that paradoxically, by trying to make the Christian faith relevant in society, American Protestantism (especially in the liberal mainstream and fundamentalist strands) has rendered itself irrelevant through various techniques and religious pragmatisms. Though they appear on the surface as polar opposites, Jerry Falwell and Martin Luther King Jr. have in fact much more in common than either have with any confessional Protestant theologian. Marrying the Christian faith with any particular social or political cause may get good pragmatic results but it is also one more nail in the coffin of the church as the visible body of Christ. It is the dangerous mingling the kingdom of God with the kingdoms of men.

The lost strand, confessional Protestantism, is the antithesis proposed against all extremes and trivializations that typically get the attention from the media and historians.

The major strands of American Christianity are being called upon to stop repackaging Christianity, stop taming God and stop pushing a public religion that transcends the particulars of biblical theology, just so it can achieve certain worldly agendas in the public square. The call is to return to the roots of confessional tradition, that firmly keeps the community planted in a counter-culture focused on a God who seeks true worshipers, and the rest shall be added. Become more relevant by stop trying to become so relevant.

Truth is subjective! Because... er...uh...

It's humorous to me whenever someone claims truth is relative or subjective, and then proceeds to spout off a number of propositional statements ("X is ..."), which to some intensity they will actually defend against another position, as if those statements they made are (read carefully) something higher than their own personal opinion. Every statement you'll ever make can, by your own admittance, be simply and easily defeated by the counter claim, "well that's a nice little autobiography into your subjective thought, but really that's nothing more than your subjective opinion". End of debate.

Be consistent. If truth is subjective, then there's nothing you hold to that can be rationally argued for. Any rational argumentation presupposes the absolute truth that valid reasoning is always preferred over invalid reasoning.

Why couldn't God have given everything at once?

One objection to the bible being the Word of God as written by men is that it seems to limit and/or contradict the omnipotence of the very God revealed in the bible. In other words, if God is able to just give everyone all the necessary information and teaching at once without the limitations of time, location, language barriers and human agencies, why did he instead choose to go the route of the bible? Why reveal himself in such a small way, through a collection of human-authored documents written over thousands of years within a very limited geographic area?

In thinking about this objection, I recalled the story of King Belshazaar and his experience of a direct, divine revelation,

King Belshazzar made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in front of the thousand.

Belshazzar, when he tasted the wine, commanded that the vessels of gold and of silver that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem be brought, that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them. Then they brought in the golden vessels that had been taken out of the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines drank from them. They drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone.

Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace, opposite the lampstand. And the king saw the hand as it wrote. Then the king's color changed, and his thoughts alarmed him; his limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together. The king called loudly to bring in the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the astrologers. The king declared to the wise men of Babylon, "Whoever reads this writing, and shows me its interpretation, shall be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold around his neck and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom." Then all the king's wise men came in, but they could not read the writing or make known to the king the interpretation. Then King Belshazzar was greatly alarmed, and his color changed, and his lords were perplexed.

Daniel 5:1-9

Mortal, sinful men who go their own way are ignorant of the Lord who sits enthroned and rules in righteousness over the heavens and the earth. When the Lord issues direct speech-acts, like in Daniel 5 with the king of Babylon, it strikes fear at the core of man's being, because man is suddenly conscious of standing naked before the blazing and awesome power of a holy God who is the Sovereign over all things, including life and death, blessings and judgment. Just the mere vision of a human hand writing some words on the wall is enough to cause even a mighty king to completely freak, turning pale and getting wobbly in the knees.

The nature and timing of the writings of the bible are related to the basic message of the bible overall: that God is calling out a redeemed people for himself, and it doesn't happen all at once. There are many twists and turns in the story to teach mankind about God's character and his purposes that must be accomplished in human history in due time. His plan of redemption and self-revelation occurs in a very instructive manner; in order to condescend in communication across the creator/creature barrier, as Calvin put it, "God clothes himself with our affections."

And the written records, the divine revelation, must come through the hands of commissioned human authors. Man was originally created in the image of God anyways, so it only makes sense that God's communicative acts are supervenient specifically upon basic human language modes like recorded history, law, literature and poetry, songs, oaths and promises, and everything else that makes sense to us.

And just to be more explicit in my point, because God is an all powerful entity that created the entire universe, we cannot handle him revealing all things at once in some direct fashion without appointed mediators. That story from Daniel proves that we cannot handle even a few words coming directly from God's "hand", it would fill us with endless terror as our sinfulness and our deeds and hearts are exposed. We need a mediator.

The Parable of the Talents and the Parable of the Workers
Seeming contradiction?

With the parable of the talents, this has to do with God's covenant community, in particular the necessary presence of service as an essential component to living under the blessings received. Those who have been "good and faithful" servants - producing more via the blessings they have been given - will be rewarded and enter into the master's "joy". Those who prove "wicked, " "lazy," and "worthless" servants - by doing nothing with what blessings they have been given will lose whatever they have and will go away into "outer darkness". They have proven themselves to be in unbelief concerning the promises of the covenant and hence not true recipients of the blessings. The point is simply being a member of the outward community doesn't mean one has eternal life.

With the parable of the workers, the point is that the only legitimate thing we can boast about is our weaknesses, because the grace of God is proven to be sufficient through human weakness. We have no basis to boast in, or be self-impressed with, our deeds and charities, no matter how much we do, because in this parable of the workers, after all is completed (with no qualifier on exactly how much is done) we are still to say "We are unworthy servants". The perfect charity of God towards us in Christ puts us in our place. If our labor includes the motive of impressing God, or to increase blessing, or to increase our worthy standing before God, we are violating the principle of unworthiness taught in this parable. The reason why is because the labor itself (sanctification) does not contribute to our accepted and worthy standing before God (justification). We are worthy because of Christ's work who has met the terms and earned the blessings. Our labors are simply the reasonable response of gratitude for the blessings received, not to add on to the worthiness we already have as servants in the kingdom.

Apostleship: its office and authority

why the office of apostle did not continue

To be an apostle, it was required to be a witness of the resurrected Christ (Acts 1:22; cf 1 Cor. 9:1). This was for the purpose of the Church being founded by specially commisioned eyewitnesses who would in turn bear witness to the risen Christ and their teachings were to be received with the authority of the risen Christ himself. Their message was additionally confirmed with signs and gifts which specially demonstrated the message of salvation, forgiveness of sins, and an inbreaking of the new creation upon the old creation through the ministration of the Holy Spirit in the Church.


Paul mentions that he was the last of the apostles (1 Cor. 15:7-9).

So it is important to note that no one simply proclaimed themselves to be an apostle because it sounded like a good fit. Even Paul after witnessing a direct revelation of the risen Christ had to undergo review by the larger apostleship because the body of apostles were commissioned together not as isolated individuals with special private revelations. There had to be parity among them as equals bearing witness from the same source of authority.


At the end of Paul's ministry (and life), his successor, Timothy, is never given the title of apostle but rather is admonished to keep in the apostolic faith he received.

This point highlights an important distinction that is inferred from all the NT data on this issue: the apostolic office itself (with its authority and gifts) does not pass down to another generation, but remains as the foundation and pillar of the Church. The apostolic teachings however, as proclaimed in the apostolic churches both by word and letter (as summarized in the NT documents) must be both received and maintained in its doctrinal purity in order for the ongoing Church to continue as a legible heir to the apostolic faith.

So there is no mandate by the apostles themselves for apostolic succession, but rather the establishing and admonishing of elders and deacons and teachers so that the Church may contend for the faith which was "once and for all delivered unto the saints" (Jude 3b).


Why did God need to send forth apostles in the first place?

The answer is found in 2 Corinthians 3. Paul there defends his apostolic ministry. And in doing so, he gets into a compare/contrast of the old covenant with the new covenant:

Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory.

Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end.
2 Cor. 3:7-13

What is remarkable is that Paul draws a direct line of connection between the role of Moses in the old covenant and the role of the apostles in the new covenant. Moses was the mediating inaugurator of the old covenant. He went up to the mountain and received teachings directly from, before the very presence of YHWH, and then he in turn delivered these teachings to the people who themselves could not even touch that mountain lest they die. And Moses' face reflected a glory, since he was just before the Glory-presence of YHWH.

Paul is saying that they apostles, as ministrators of the new covenant, behold, mediate, and deliver a greater glory in the ministry of the Spirit among them. It would be quite arrogant for Paul to simply trump Moses' ministry for the sake of winning the loyalty of the Church. No, Paul understood exactly what God was accomplishing through the apostles' ministry: the receiving and delivering of the glory of the new covenant promised in the prophets of old.

So Paul says of the apostles "we are very bold, not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face". The obvious conclusion is if anyone wishes to behold the unveiled glory of God in Christ, they must receive the teachings of those apostles. And like Moses, the only covenant mediator who did not appoint other covenant mediators for an ongoing succession, so the apostles stand as mediators at the inauguration of the new and better covenant, having beheld with their own eyes of flesh the unveiled glory of God in the risen Christ.