The Problems of Deism & It’s Possibilities: All Things Work Together For The Good.

The Overview, Some Problems, A Google Chat With Eric, Praying For Rain

Ok. So I guess I’m a bad guy because I don’t believe God “causes” events in the world. I don’t think God is sitting in some big gold chair with a Risk game board on his coffee table, debating with the rest of the Trinity where to attack next.

A tsunami in the South Pacific? A hurricane along the Gulf? Famine in Africa? Nuclear tension between India and Pakistan? Perhaps a flood in the Midwest and an earthquake in South America for good form? Killing our family with cancer and heart attacks? All so that we’ll learn to trust him? What will he think of next in his boredom?

I know I’m prone to exaggeration/extremes when making my points. It’s a rather immature way to argue and one that is not very healthy in the long run. So I fully recognize that. But when I think about a God who causes events to happen in the world, I get this creeped out vision of Mickey Mouse in Fantasia waving his wand around bringing things to life. A smile here, a cackle there. Doing it with half bored amusement and half with a diabolical smile.

I’m just not comfortable with a God who causes pain in order to get people to trust him, creates catastrophe in order to get people to love him, creates destruction in order to bring life, causes death in order to bring hope.

I don’t think this robs God of his relationality or the scope of his incarnation.

So in many ways, I think God created everything and then was, for the most part, hands off. He intervenes at times, enters into the mess at others, and is in conversation with his people and answers them as well sometimes. But I believe the life and death of Jesus were catalytic enough to effect change into humanity in a scope that I don’t think we are prepared to embrace. If the life and death of Jesus mean what he said they meant, then everything has truly changed. And we are indeed new creations. And we are indeed the change agents in the world. And we are indeed to be the change we won’t to see in the world.

Again . . . God is not hand’s off at this point. But rather he’s not a micro-manager. He gives us way more credit than we give ourselves.

Here’s a comment I left in yesterday’s post:

i’m not prepared to throw away prayer. or to dismiss it’s formative power. so i agree it’s a legitimate (even primary) form vehicle for communication and relationship between creation and creator. my proposal is that it is much more of an inward/global act, in that it is humanity in conversation with god, not attempting to align god to humanity, but instead align ourselves with god’s visions and dreams for the world. in that way it is individualistic so that through it we begin to see god’s dreams for the world. so it is inward transformation. at which point it shifts and becomes local and global. if transformation has truly happened and we are getting a bigger and bigger picture of god’s dreams for the worlds then we begin to act and “be the change we want to see in the world” instead of relying on god to bail us out.

again . . . this is not to say that god doesn’t, can’t, or won’t bail us out. but rather his direct intervention is not or should not be the first or primary goal of prayer. rather prayer is the medium in which we align to god. when we beg god to intervene without our inner transformation and without us becoming the change and solution, we are seeking to align god to our ways, agenda, etc. at which point he becomes the commercial, consumerist, santa claus god to which we bring christmas lists.

nick made a good point the other day when he said he’s fasting from “asking god” for anything. while i don’t know that i’m willing to never ask god for anything, i think this is a useful perspective for us to realize that prayer is not always about asking but rather becoming.

in this light, prayer becomes much more relational, holy, transformative, spiritual, disciplined, etc.

Here’s my point . . . as roundabout and obscure as it may be.

I have a hunch that God is not controlling. That there is freedom in our choice and a freedom of will. I also believe that God is loving and caring and relational. This is not to take away or minimize the Old Testament, but I believe Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God. And the narrative of scripture takes on that evolutionary nature of progressing throughout history so that the life and death of Jesus is the ultimate expression of God. Fulfilling the old way doing things and ushering in a new way. Not temporarily. Not as a pregnant pause before some big and violent Second Coming.

This is my starting point. It’s the lens through which I see everything. Perhaps I’m wrong and perhaps I’ve got foggy glasses. Or I’m even wearing the wrong ones.

But as long as I’m wearing this particular lens . . . its going to be awfully hard to convince me that God is a controlling puppet master. That God is a micro-managing CEO. That God is a disconnected being waiting for us to say the right words, get enough people to say them with us, and for us to collectively mean it enough . . . so that he gives us what we want. Or so that he holds off the next coming disaster that he was going to create to make us trust him.

We’re not game pieces on a game board. And God is certainly not a Santa Claus that gives us what we want and aligns to our dreams and wishes.

Rather God is relational without being a dictator. God is involved without being a hyper-interventionist. And God is interested with how we are going to allow his life, death, and resurrection shape us into a community that becomes the change we want to see in the world. Instead of relying on some pre-modern, blood-thirsty, tribal deity who bails us out of the messes that we create.

He’s there. He’s available. And who knows . . . from time to time he might even lend a helping hand. But perhaps we are the ones we have been waiting for.

Listening: Veneer by Jose Gonzalez

The Problems of Deism & It’s Possibilities: Praying For Rain.

The Overview, Some Problems, A Google Chat With Eric

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve felt like contributing anything else to my thoughts on Deism. I think I’ll give a few more thoughts and talk about what got me thinking about this in the first place. I had a healthy conversation with Seth about this a couple of weeks ago after a Sunday Vespa drive down to Decatur. He pushed back with some insightful thoughts and I gave my feedback. I wish I could have transcribed that conversation because it feels like such a better way to share than blogging about it. But I’m going to do my best to recreate it as best as I can.

It all started with this talk of praying for rain due to the drought in Northern Georgia. I’m not sure why, but the whole idea just bothered me. And I guess I started thinking about prayer in relation to natural and supernatural events.

If you aren’t aware, Georgia is in the middle of a pretty big drought. Bad enough that the entire metro of Atlanta might run out of water in a couple of months. So kind of a big deal. In response to this escalating problem that is only getting worse by the day, many people have been begging us to pray for rain. The governor has run a few commercials, as well as hosted a “prayer day”. Many people have begun placing signs in their yards and businesses are using their marquees to urge people to do the same.

Now I suppose these are good thoughts by good people. But it really bothers me. Perhaps I’m the one with all of the issues. But I find it such an odd thing to beg God for intervention.

I’m not saying that God doesn’t intervene into the world. The incarnation kind of proves that he does. I’m also not saying that God hasn’t intervened throughout the course of history at the request (and on the behalf) of his people. God has intervened before and will in all likelihood intervene again. Who am I to say what God can and can’t do?

But I would like to raise some questions (some questions that I scratched the surface with here).

Why do we use God like a Get Out of Jail Free Card? Meaning, we get ourselves into this mess with our lack of stewardship, over-consumption, and poor planning . . . and then we expect God to get us out of it? It might be one thing if we just realized how much of a role we played in screwing up and then asked God to bail us out. While I still probably wouldn’t be on board, I could at least give you the benefit of the doubt. But to pretend like we have had nothing to do with the problem and then expect God to fix the problem? There’s a big disconnect there for me.

And what about when it comes to rain? So we pray that God will make it rain here in North Georgia? Well every effect has a cause. And if it rains here, somewhere else in the world is going to be effected as well. So what if we’re praying for rain here but someone else is praying for no rain and sun? Is it really that simple as God counting up each side who ever has the most (numbers or earnest) wins and God grants their request like a magic genie?

I think we give God to much credit sometime. Maybe we are not just the problem, but perhaps we are the solution as well. Perhaps instead of asking God to bail us out, he actually wants us to figure out the systemic issues that we created that caused the problem in order to fix the root issues instead of just expecting God to treat the symptoms.

Perhaps that’s a good way to describe my frustration. I’m ok with an interventionist God who helps fix “the roots” but I’m not ok with an interventionist God who fixes the symptoms.

And I’m just musing here, but I think the connection between a Get Out of Jail Free/Santa Claus God and a God who causes events in the world to happen is rather close. The whole “all things work together for the good” God. I’m thinking that those who have a strong belief in this type of God who causes events (drought, hurricanes, tsunamis, etc) to happen as a sort of weeding out or a test of some sorts, will probably have a pretty strong belief in a God who intervenes to pick up the pieces when we shatter the mirror.

But I’ll talk about that tomorrow.

Listening: Lon Gisland EP by Beirut

19 Theses.

Instead of just linking to this, I went ahead and just copied the whole thing. Better chance of you reading it. This is good stuff. Really, really good stuff. You can find the original here. It’s Walter Brueggemann’s 19 Theses. It’s from the 2004 Emergent Theological Conversation. I’ve listened to it before but I forgot how good these thoughts are. You can get the full audio here as well.

1. Everybody lives by a script. The script may be implicit or explicit. It may be recognized or unrecognized, but everybody has a script.

2. We get scripted. All of us get scripted through the process of nurture and formation and socialization, and it happens to us without our knowing it.

3. The dominant scripting in our society is a script of technological, therapeutic, consumer militarism that socializes us all, liberal and conservative.

4. That script (technological, therapeutic, consumer militarism) enacted through advertising and propaganda and ideology, especially on the liturgies of television, promises to make us safe and to make us happy.

5. That script has failed. That script of military consumerism cannot make us safe and it cannot make us happy. We may be the unhappiest society in the world.

6. Health for our society depends upon disengagement from and relinquishment of that script of military consumerism. This is a disengagement and relinquishment that we mostly resist and about which we are profoundly ambiguous.

7. It is the task of ministry to de-script that script among us. That is, too enable persons to relinquish a world that no longer exists and indeed never did exist.

8. The task of de-scripting, relinquishment and disengagement is accomplished by a steady, patient, intentional articulation of an alternative script that we say can make us happy and make us safe.

9. The alternative script is rooted in the Bible and is enacted through the tradition of the Church. It is an offer of a counter-narrative, counter to the script of technological, therapeutic, consumer militarism.

10. That alternative script has as its most distinctive feature, its key character – the God of the Bible whom we name as Father, Son, and Spirit.

11. That script is not monolithic, one dimensional or seamless. It is ragged and disjunctive and incoherent. Partly it is ragged and disjunctive and incoherent because it has been crafted over time by many committees. But it is also ragged and disjunctive and incoherent because the key character is illusive and irascible in freedom and in sovereignty and in hiddenness, and, I’m embarrassed to say, in violence – [a] huge problem for us.

12. The ragged, disjunctive, and incoherent quality of the counter-script to which we testify cannot be smoothed or made seamless. [I think the writer of Psalm 119 would probably like too try, to make it seamless]. Because when we do that the script gets flattened and domesticated. [This is my polemic against systematic theology]. The script gets flattened and domesticated and it becomes a weak echo of the dominant script of technological, consumer militarism. Whereas the dominant script of technological, consumer militarism is all about certitude, privilege, and entitlement this counter-script is not about certitude, privilege, and entitlement. Thus care must betaken to let this script be what it is, which entails letting God be God’s irascible self.

13. The ragged, disjunctive character of the counter-script to which we testify invites its adherents to quarrel among themselves – liberals and conservatives – in ways that detract from the main claims of the script and so too debilitate the focus of the script.

14. The entry point into the counter-script is baptism. Whereby we say in the old liturgies, “do you renounce the dominant script?”

15. The nurture, formation, and socialization into the counter-script with this illusive, irascible character is the work of ministry. We do that work of nurture, formation, and socialization by the practices of preaching, liturgy, education, social action, spirituality, and neighboring of all kinds.

16. Most of us are ambiguous about the script; those with whom we minister and I dare say, those of us who minister. Most of us are not at the deepest places wanting to choose between the dominant script and the counter-script. Most of us in the deep places are vacillating and mumbling in ambivalence.

17. This ambivalence between scripts is precisely the primary venue for the Spirit. So that ministry is to name and enhance the ambivalence that liberals and conservatives have in common that puts people in crisis and consequently that invokes resistance and hostility.

18. Ministry is to manage that ambivalence that is crucially present among liberals and conservatives in generative faithful ways in order to permit relinquishment of [the] old script and embrace of the new script.

19. The work of ministry is crucial and pivotal and indispensable in our society precisely because there is no one [see if that’s an overstatement]; there is no one except the church and the synagogue to name and evoke the ambivalence and too manage a way through it. I think often; I see the mundane day-to-day stuff ministers have to do and I think, my God, what would happen if you talk all the ministers out. The role of ministry then is as urgent as it is wondrous and difficult.

That’s what I call comprehensive starting and end points. Any thoughts, feedback?

The Problems of Deism & It’s Possibilities: A Google Chat With Eric.

The Overview, Some Problems

Update: I was unaware that Nick is hosting a rather robust conversation over on his post about pretty much the same thing. Part of the problem of reading blogs via RSS is that you miss out on the comments. Thanks to Andrew for the tip.

I’m not really sure how this conversation got started with Eric and I this morning. But it basically turned into a 15 minute chat conversation. To be fair, I didn’t give Eric near enough time to respond while I was hammering my thoughts out and monopolizing the conversation. And my thoughts are no where near absolute. They would barely pass as “theological” at all. But they were on the fly and I think they are a pretty good indication of what I think are the positive elements behind a deistic framework. Prayer was sort of the main analogy or theme that drove the thoughts. If you’re not used to reading a chat transcript, then I apologize in advance. I tried to clean it up as best as I could so that it was easy to read. Enjoy.

Josh Brown: i’m just a deist when it comes to prayer
Josh Brown: prayer is for us
Josh Brown: and not for god
Josh Brown: it’s an internal centering device for outward change
Eric: whens your next deist blogasm
Josh Brown: tomorrow
Josh Brown: i’ve got a blog about adium first
Josh Brown: naturally
Eric: naturally
Eric: so what’s the reasoning on how prayer doesn’t effect god whatsoever
Josh Brown: just a hunch
Eric: nice
Josh Brown: its conversational, i just think it’s lame to think that we can get god to do what we want
Josh Brown: i think god enjoys the conversation and wants us to have it, but not so that he can here what we want (which he supposedly already knows) so that he can grant it or not grant it
Josh Brown: he just needs us to say it aloud to him so that it counts and he can do something about it
Josh Brown: kinda weak basis of prayer
Josh Brown: makes prayer seem sort of plain
Eric: is that consistent with your experience, previously, currently, or otherwise?
Josh Brown: yes
Josh Brown: well, honestly, most of my prayers
Josh Brown: following the 95% rule of course (95% of the world is “inept” at life)
Josh Brown: for myself and others
Josh Brown: prayer is never a centering device to align our hearts with god’s dreams for the world
Josh Brown: instead it’s a christmas list of things we need or want
Josh Brown: so and so is sick
Josh Brown: i need a raise
Josh Brown: i need a wife
Josh Brown: etc, etc
Josh Brown: its a speaking device used to align god with us
Eric: so how is that an issue with prayer and not an issue with selfishness and individualism
Josh Brown: its one and the same
Josh Brown: i don’t have an issue with prayer
Josh Brown: i like prayer
Josh Brown: i use it
Josh Brown: i pray daily
Josh Brown: outwardly and inwardly
Eric: sure, unless your not selfish and individualistic
Josh Brown: thats the thing though, i try not to make it selfish and individualistic
Josh Brown: but global and sacrificing
Josh Brown: i hesitate to use the word
Josh Brown: but it should work like meditation does
Josh Brown: except instead of praying to the “self”
Josh Brown: you’re in conversation with god
Josh Brown: and as you meditate on god’s dreams and heart, your heart begins to change
Josh Brown: this is the power of prayer
Josh Brown: that you become in line with god
Josh Brown: but that’s somewhat deistic in that god is not going to do what we tell him or ask him
Josh Brown: he’s not on a rope
Josh Brown: he’s removed from the process and its up to us to determine the middle part of the story
Eric: so how is this any different than what I’ve heard at least 10 or 15 times in churches
Eric: ahh
Eric: the deist part
Josh Brown: yes
Josh Brown: set up my friend
Josh Brown: it’s all about the setup
Eric: well played
Josh Brown: prayer is the example
Josh Brown: thats where deism makes sense
Eric: so how does that reconcile with abraham and exodus pleading with God to change his mind
Eric: would God have changed his mind if they didn’t pray?
Eric: exodus = moses
Josh Brown: 1 example doesn’t outweigh the other 20
Eric: it’s not 1
Josh Brown: but i agree
Eric: its 2
Josh Brown: i’m not saying that god doens’t interfere or intervene
Josh Brown: that’s shaping god into a purely natural form
Josh Brown: which is what the jesus seminar wants to do
Josh Brown: who am i to say that god can’t intervene and heal someone
Josh Brown: or perform a miracle in someone’s life
Josh Brown: but it’s also a miracle when there is an inward change from an inward conversation between god and man known as prayer
Josh Brown: miracles aren’t always supernatural
Josh Brown: i think when you have a view of an interventionist god who steps in and everytime we screw up gives us a hell of a big pass
Josh Brown: if god steps in and fixes things every time we jack them up, then whats the point in trying to make the world a better place. we can just sit back and pray to god to fix things
Josh Brown: or wait until the rapture and the trumpet and the clouds and stuff
Eric: so your confident that if he doesn’t intervene, your actions will have a net positive effect?
Josh Brown: no
Josh Brown: but there’s a dynamic tension between my choices
Josh Brown: i guess this is just the natural jump for me in my anti-reformed perspective
Eric: but josh
Eric: yesterday was reformation day
Josh Brown: if god is ultra involved in humanity controlling the puzzle pieces
Eric: oct 31
Josh Brown: well played cowboy
Josh Brown: its just how funny some one prays for rain for a drought while someone else prays for the sun to end the flood
Josh Brown: both are praying against each other
Josh Brown: but both give thanks to god if there prayer “works”
Josh Brown: could it just be that god is detached from the weather and that sometimes it floods and sometimes theres a drought
Josh Brown: that’s a much more holistic view of sin and the “fall”
Josh Brown: i think
Eric: a far greater example
Eric: would be the civil war
Josh Brown: nice point on the civil war
Josh Brown: how the hell do i save this chat
Josh Brown: this is the blog post
Eric: lol

The Problems of Deism & It’s Possibilities: Some Problems.

The Overview

Let’s go ahead and get the problems out of the way so I can talk about a few possibilities tomorrow. For the most part these should be pretty obvious.

Problem 1: God is mechanistic and industrial
This was covered in the overview but God ultimately gets shaped into the God of the Industrial age. He makes things out of raw materials and uses them for his own uses. This detaches God from creation but I think the larger problem is that it makes God out into some sort of indiscriminate force that creates things only to “use” them. God is a clock-maker who makes clocks for tools. Creation then become arbitrary, faceless tools that God uses for his own fancy. While most conservatives would denounce this deistic God in definition, in practice many have a deistic view of God and creation. Their God is rational, mechanistic, natural, scientific, cold, calculating, concise, deterministic, etc.

Problem 2: God is not personal
This is a huge problem for me. If God is not relational then what is the point of God? God in essence (the triune relationality) is intimately connected to humanity and humanity is intimately connected to God. But for the Deist God is neither relational or connected to humanity. God is but an architect and creation is nothing more than the natural result of his architecture. No emotion. No care. So a faith without a personal God becomes nothing more than a black and white moral code.

Problem 3: There is no supernatural
I have the least amount of problems with this one although it is still admittedly a problem for me. And I’ll hopefully explain why it’s not a major problem for me tomorrow. But there has to be some room for supernatural. If I/we can explain God, then “it” isn’t a God but rather a construction from the mind of man. This is why there has to be some supernatural elements to my faith. And this is why the broader presuppositions and starting points of the historical Jesus movement only go so far for me. In the end, they reject most/all supernatural elements in the same way that fundamentalists embrace most/all supernatural elements.

This will do for now. Anyone else want to jump in and share your problems with Deism.