An Explanation of My Tongue & Cheek “Reformed” Post.
Saturday I quoted Mark Driscoll in a recent interview. You can see the quote that I mentioned here. Some of you wanted me to explain my issue with the comment. So here’s my shot at it. I’ll break it down into four issues I had with the comment.
Also, this is also going to be really boring if you don’t like cyclical conversations about theology. Pun intended. This is a conversation that also might “trip up” some of my younger readers (and I’m only 25!). So I would encourage you not to read this, or at least sit down with me so that I can explain both points of view to the issues that I’m addressing. I am only approaching the topic from my point of view, but I certainly realize and believe that there are other valid points of view out there.
Insert introductory comment here: I am neither reformed or “un”-reformed. Or maybe I am both reformed and “un”-reformed. That was not what I was trying to point to. I think both sides bring many valuable insights and offerings to the conversation. I just think the conversation in most cases is fundamentally flawed because they both create doctrines and positions out of something that in the sacred texts is at best mysterious and at the worst, full of contradictory statements written by people who had contradictory view points on the topic. Not to mention Paul’s seemingly “all over the place” thoughts on the topic.
My first issue was with the idea that reformed theologians tend to feed off of certainty. Mike wrote an excellent comment about this under the original post. I know there are some reformed theologians who are not as dogmatic. But I tend to hold my beliefs much more loosely. Especially in something as complicated and mysterious as this topic.
My second issue is that I do not believe God is either masculine or feminine, but beyond gender. While an argument can certainly be made that God is male from the fact that the historical Jesus was male, I also think that there is enough uncertainity (since it is never specifically spelled out) to conclude that God is of the male gender. The fact that we even talk about such trivial things, as if his gender plays a role in his deity, is enough for me to lose sight of the fact that God is God regardless of what gender we think God is. It is my personal opinion that God is beyond and above the human roles of gender. Mike also quoted a question his former spiritual director used to ask when confronted with this topic. Although I won’t repeat it because I don’t want to offend anyone, it just shows how we tend to think of God on our terms instead of terms that transcend our normal modes of reasoning. Again above and beyond us. Not one or the other.
My third issue is with the idea of God crushing Jesus on the cross. My views on the atonement (although I hold these just as loosely): While I certainly believe that God played some role in the cross. I also believe that the cross had just as much to do with the willing self-sacrifice of Jesus as it did with the iniative of God. I also think to use language that separates the two figures of God and Jesus, borders on undermining the Trinitarian belief structure. If God is Jesus and Jesus is God, then God couldn’t crush the separate figure of Jesus. Jesus would have to willingly do it himself. Or to put it more planinly, the Trinity (which is one person) would have to punish itself. But to talk about God punishing the external figure of Jesus, to me at least, divides and separates the figures of the Trinity into three separate gods. Again, I think it has less to do with “God” crushing “Jesus” and more to do with “the Trinity” giving life for us. (As a complete side note, you could make the argument that Jesus sits at the right hand of the father and Jesus praying in the garden give support to the idea that God could in fact crush Jesus if he wanted to. However, in my mind at least, I think that does just as much to undermine the idea of the Trinity, although I certainly hold to a belief in a Trinitarian deity.)
My fourth issue is with God sending us to hell. I believe that God does not send us to hell. That if there is in fact a literal place called hell, that we choose that destination for ourselves. I think an argument can certainly be made that hell may not be a literal place but a metaphor used by the New Testament writers referring to what a terrible place it is to be in the abscence of God. One could also argue that hell, if it is a literal, phsyical place, it is not an eternal place. Some of my concerns with the idea of “God sending us to hell” have to do with the video link that I posted on the original comment. With how God basically gives us free will our entire lives, but the second we don’t do what he thinks we should do with our free will, he all of a sudden switches gears and becomes a pissed-off, vindicative God that punishes us for not doing what he wanted us to do. I do believe that there are eternal consequences for how we live in the present. But I just don’t know that God sings a different tune at the end of this than he has the rest of the time.
I could also go on and on about how I don’t think humanity sucks as bad as the reformed position holds and how I actually still believe that we are created in the image of God and have the same capacity as image bearers of God as Adam and Eve. Although we are still flawed and can not or will not live consistenly in the ways that we were created for. But I believe the capacity for the highest exists in every soul. Not in a humanist way. But in a “created in the image of God” way.
Again, it’s not that I have issues with the differing points of view, but with the dogmatic certainity that some views approach things with. I certainly understanding the reformed point of view and appreciate the valuable insight that it brings to the table. But these are my initial, loosely held thoughts as to why I struggle with the aforementioned comments.
In conclusion, I firmly stand in agreement with the prophet from Isaiah who was telling about the future servant who would come and make things right through his sacrifice. To renew and recreate all things unto himself.
Isaiah 53:4-6
The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling,
a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him,
nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over,
a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him,
that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through his bruises we get healed.
We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost.
We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong,
on him, on him.
james
Monday, 10. July 2006 um 8:38 am Uhr
Thanks for choosing to open up the discussion on this Josh. To your fourth point. I think for us to concretely say that we send ourselves to hell, or that God does not send anyone to hell (whether it be a physical place or annihilationism), is to reveal our inability to adequately wrestle with the text of Romans 9. And I certainly don’t have this thing figured out.
Dude, sometimes I’d like to toss out the following: “For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. 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.” Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.”
I’m with you though in the sense that I believe that it is our choice. But at the same time i believe we need to make room for God’s ability to raise vessels “prepared for destruction” in order to “make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy.” I don’t like this at all. In fact, I kind of treat the latter case like it is something that seldom happens.
I’m not really a tried and true Reformed guy by any standard. But when it comes down to God’s abilities, I believe his soverignty trumps our free will. I believe both predestination and free will exist. And I believe we can indeed send ourselves to hell, just as God can choose to create a subject for his purposes prebound for the same destruction.
Dude, again thanks for opening up this dialogue. Good stuff.
The Blog of Seth » A River if Fire
Monday, 10. July 2006 um 9:30 am Uhr
[...] Josh is currently talking about why he’s neither reformed nor unreformed (in my opinion, he’s def. not). one of his reasons was that he didn’t like the idea of a viscious, vindicative God who sends people to hell. [...]
Josh
Monday, 10. July 2006 um 10:41 am Uhr
make sure you go and read seth’s pingback. it’s really good. and has to do with my 4th issue.
Nicholas
Monday, 10. July 2006 um 5:53 pm Uhr
Yeah, stirring up the pot huh?
The quote is troubling because it is a binary reduction of sorts. I don’t see these two theologies being 1) Correctly defined 2) nor do I see them being the two ‘hot’ theologies of the day. I see an array of theologies that are ‘hot’.
Is driscoll saying that if I am part of Emergent Theology, I agree with his idea of what that is. I mean I haven’t seen him at the conversations so I don’t know how close he is to what my theology is.
But either way I don’t think God crushed Jesus. I am pretty sure it was the Romans who did that.
mike
Monday, 10. July 2006 um 10:24 pm Uhr
josh,
as with james i am glad you opened this up a little more.
i like that you emnbrace uncertainty, i think that [certainty] is the log in the eye of modern (little m) christianity.
however, i would like to insert that none of the things you listed, or rather, the way you describe them are reformed dogmatics. having been steeped in the tradtion for a decade i would like to think i have a little room to say that – AND with all respect to you josh – man i hope i don’t sound all jerk***.
but i can see how one would perceive those things in reformed theology esp from some of the folks who think they are reformed. but that is another conversation.
anyway thanks again for flushing this out man. this stuff needs to be talked about.
oh and sorry for the primetime language. i will be more careful next time i comment!
Josh
Monday, 10. July 2006 um 11:00 pm Uhr
no worries mike. you can use any type of language that you want. i just tend to get nailed by all sorts of people for a good portion of what i say or think or link to. so i tend to be a little cautious on my end. but its definitely kosher by me.
as far as your comment, i agree, i probably was resorting to stereotypes and i grew up in and was schooled in a very reformed tradition. so my comment was really more just a tongue in cheek comment on why the original quesiton and answer bothered me. not with reformed theology in general. just with the idea that the interviewed guy had that if you weren’t reformed, you were dumb. or just a limp wristed pansy. and that’s not the case for me.
mike
Tuesday, 11. July 2006 um 12:38 am Uhr
no doubt man, no doubt.
keep up with the good postings.
oh and your video thing and podcast and all that made me covet a mac…
so yeah.