Unsurprised by injustice?

In the Bible, there seem to be conflicting views about quite what to expect from God in this life in terms of justice. On the one hand, you have the idea that if you are good, then God will reward that good attitude and action with blessings and safety, and conversely, woe betide the one who crosses God's law. The biblical authors, really early on, worked out that is not at all how it works out in reality. The sun rises on the good and the wicked. Job realised this; others realised this; yet they continued to believe.

Today, faced with the apparent injustices of our world, coupled with other reasons, many no longer feel a need to embrace theism. They don't "reject God". If the world rejected me, I would be the loneliest man alive, but I would still be alive. Rejecting-God language is the language of believers - not of unbelievers. But let's get back to this interesting slice of the biblical worldview that says:

- God is about justice!
- This world is unjust!
- God, what is going on?! This is rubbish, God!

What I like and what I don't like about this biblical view

I really like the way in which writers like Philip Yancey encourage honest and disappointed Christians and seekers (I put myself in both categories) to properly wrestle with the incompatibilities and ask God all the hard questions. Nothing - literally no deep, disgusting or shameful desire or emotion, should be kept from God. He wants 100% honesty, and as a result, we become more honest too. Who would not count it as a blessing to be more integrated and single-minded human?

I also like the fact that the biblical promises of justice can be interpreted eschatologically. That is to say that one day, from a Christian worldview, there really will no longer be any selfishness, pride, manipulation, pain, harm, and so on. To feel a sense of injustice now, is not only a confirmation of the later but a commissioning to do something about it. With Tom Wright's utter blessing, John Dominic Crossan describes the period in which we live as participative and collaborative. What he means is that God enrolls his people is a powerful Judeo-Christian mutation from within the Jewish worldview in order to advance to completion the establishment of his Kingdom, no longer through fairly dramatic and direct divine intervention, but from the new Christian perspective, Christ has spent his Father's Spirit in order to empower his people to usher in this future kingdom rule in the here-and-now.

What is there to not like? Well, like everyone else, there are times when I suffer and question. I hope that I will never give up my faith as a result. I very nearly did do exactly that when in 2014 I realised how weak I saw the direct biblical evidence to be for Jesus being "fully God" (according to my categories), and I can say it was not a very liberating experience. I always want to question things and doubt things - sounds awful, right? But in this context, not liking some aspects of how I see this biblical perspective I think can be healthy in keeping me honest in my faith.

I currently co-host a podcast with my friend Reinald in which I play a role - a role that is true to my mind - of being skeptical about some Christian apologetics. We are scheduled soon to do an episode or two on the question of biological evolution. I always want to identify the risks of the various positions that seem available. I side strongly with the dominant scientific consensus that evolution has indeed taken place to produce life. I enjoy linking this to God's enormous creative ability and the privilege of being shown more of his workings than previous generations (and thereby realise that this is less than future generations). Also, and in part thanks to Reinald's caution on evolution, I am in no way discouraged in thinking this happened despite the limitations in current explanatory power of the workings of evolution. It's humbling, that's all.

But I am nonetheless exposed to risk. There's nothing special about that - all views about pretty much most important things that people debate are exposed to risk. What is my risk? My risk is the deist God. This is the God who doesn't need to intervene much in human history. He set things up so perfectly, why should he? And there's the apparent paradox. A perfect creator doesn't need to fix anything.

What about apparent injustice? Well, it's just about drawing people closer to God, that way they can go deeper and get properly philosophical about truth and God and meaning? It mobilises people into a sense of empowered, corrective action? But what corrective action is there for the profoundly loving and caring Algerian mother in palliative care probably just months away from abandoning her three daughters?

The risk is the same as with evolution. On the one hand, it can be deeply inspiring and mobilising. On the other hand, you can legitimately ask the question: what difference does God actually make, i.e., what is the difference between belief in the active existence of God and active belief in the existence of God? That is my risk. The point is that, at the end of the day, we have a choice. To believe or not to believe, the choice is yours. It is a true choice. Since I am a skeptic, I am deeply skeptical of Christian views that overstep their bounds about the evidence for the active existence of God, and I also feel very skeptical about refutations of the Kalām cosmological argument, from which I am certain all theistic apologetics must flow.

So, belief that justice and injustice have meaning is a choice. To believe that they have theological meaning is another.

I have to confess, as I wrestle with my model of the Triune Hub of first-century Christian faith, why on Earth might God confer a new perspective through me, someone who struggles with the fundamental choices? Perhaps God needs skeptics, loves skeptics even! Maybe they help keep us sane and encourage honesty on important issues that affect him and how he is perceived in his world.

For me, the fundamental choice is eternally preserved by the New Testament writers, who insist over and over and over again, that God acts in this world through his agents. A lot of Christian apologetics ignores this, in part because it undercuts some of their other concerns, such as demonstrating the deity of Christ. But it is perhaps the most radical message of the Christian gospel, right there, that we are significant in this Kingdom-come melarky.

Blessings. Choose well. John

Key notions defined series: 5. God

Having completed my main review of the New Testament (and some Old Testament) texts, cataloguing almost 500 passages, I am "celebrating" that milestone by publishing a part of the paper that helps me in the processing and weighing of these texts, which is currently entitled Chapter 2: Key Notions Defined. It also is an opportunity for me to tidy up these definitions. Here is the next one:

God

“Oh my God, she’s beautiful!” exclaimed the younger sister to her older sister, Millie, cradling the new-born baby in her arms.

“O my God, in you I trust; let me not be put to shame”, writes the Psalmist 3000 years ago, pleading to Israel’s all-powerful, universe-creating, divine council-presiding and nation-founding God, Yahweh, to keep his country and people.

What we mean when we say a word like “g-o-d” can vary a lot (see “Deity”). One of the questions of this paper is do we understand that the “God” of Paul is the same “God” of Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa and the other fourth century religious authorities, and if it is redefined what does that mean for us?

Dr. Carl Mosser also informs us that the word God – θεός or theos, in Greek – might not originate in Greek as a being. In early antiquity it was frequently used in an adjectival sense, i.e. of that divine realm. For Greek-speaking Jews who carried belief in Yahweh, ultimate supreme creator and presiding among the heavenly council (Psalm 82), the fullest sense of theos in the first century was of “that ultimate one, the God of Israel” when prefixed by “ho” (the). However, because theos does not originate in Hebrew, but in Greek, it seems possible that it came to be used increasingly as a noun with the expansion of its empire into Jewish areas. Mosser notes that the earlier more generic sense was not instantly replaced and that in the first century both usages could be happily used alongside, relying on context to communicate the intended meaning. Dr. Winfried Corduan, who makes an interesting case for original monotheism (that monotheistic religions did not “evolve” from a pantheistic root), might take issue with this slow shift in usage from one language into another.

Dr. Paula Fredriksen is also in agreement with Mosser, however, that we need to be careful about the application of words like “deity” and “god” in the early Christian era. In the ancient world, it was a commonly held view, monotheistic cultures included, to see other divine gods as present and active, but that towering above them all was the one True God, the Creator of all things.

The Old and New Testaments, with a possible few exceptions, like Isaiah, seem to accept and presuppose the existence of other gods, and yet Christians are often sheltered from this more ancient form of monotheism. Indeed, Psalm 82 and other Old Testament passages  would suggest a more plural divine picture, but all the same: allegiance and worship were reserved for God Almighty, El Shaddai, as shown in Exodus 6:3 as YHWH.

Some of the most famous words in the Old Testament are the ten commandments given to Moses, and the very first, and possibly most important of these seem to pre-suppose other gods:

You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God (Exodus 20:3-5).

Another final point we stumble over a few times in the paper is the issue of this definite article preceding “theos”: ho (the). In Greek, you get a strong idea of the subject being a specific being when this definite article is used, i.e. “ho Theos”. First century believers – like Arabic-speaking Christians in North Africa to this day – are quite comfortable about saying “the God” all the time. When it is without the article, well, that is a big debate!

Key notions defined series: 2. Deity

Having completed my main review of the New Testament (and some Old Testament) texts, cataloguing almost 500 passages, I am "celebrating" that milestone by publishing a part of the paper that helps me in the processing and weighing of these texts, which is currently entitled Chapter 2: Key Notions Defined. It also is an opportunity for me to tidy up these definitions.

Here is the next one.

Deity

I have had an increasing sense of wariness about the confusion hanging over this word, which is why it will not feature strongly in this paper. Deity has come to be used like a measuring tape of the degree of heresy and damage you might be capable of wielding on the belief of an individual or even of a church. How much deity does Jesus have? Seven? Fourteen? If we use expressions like “fully divine” or “full deity”, what would it mean to say “partially divine” or “partial deity”?

Dale Tuggy voices a similar complaint here commenting on the sacking of a World Vision employee over the issue of the Trinity:

The words in their doctrinal statement […] fail to clearly express any precise views about God and Jesus. It seems to me that a lot of evangelical talk of the “deity of Christ” (or him “being God” or “being fully God” or “100% God” etc.) functions primarily as a sort of shibboleth, and that’s what is going on here. Their statement also owes something to a distinctively American anti-creedal tradition, which goes back to the founding of [the United States of America…t]he result is a distinctive sort of Christian tradition zealous to police itself for correct beliefs, but without interest in making precise distinctions.[1]

More and more, I feel that the word deity does not really reflect anything we can find in the Scriptures regarding God (except one single verse, Colossians 2:9, which I will not be examining) in the way we use the word. It also places major question marks over the roots of Fourth Century Trinitarianism itself, for the second and third centuries are full of church fathers and writers who would not have professed the “full deity of Christ” in the sense understood one or two centuries later.

The term deity also – in my view – is now spoiled with a misunderstanding of what we now define as monotheism, please see below.

Finally, deity does not even reflect what the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed actually states (or the church movement behind it) in the fourth century. Take the legendary Athanasius for instance, who strategically made the otherwise inconsequential Arius into a heresiarch. This is the same Athanasius who is famous for being such a strong proponent of salvation as deification: Jesus became man, so that men could become gods, deified. There was arguably no-one more central to the creed most churches hold so dearly to today. See “God” for more on the evolution of the word “theos” in antiquity.

---

[1] See full article No Trinity, No Job – Part 2, http://trinities.org/blog/no-trinity-no-job-%E2%80%93-part-2-dale/

---

[1] See full article No Trinity, No Job – Part 2, http://trinities.org/blog/no-trinity-no-job-%E2%80%93-part-2-dale/