For purposes of space, I want to interact here with Jameson on his latest post charting his reading through the Bible.
It seems to me that he's assumed, more than anything, the mantle of arbiter of morality.
What does he mean by "experiencing the text firsthand, before making... a judgment" on why one should bother? That seems naive; he didn't stumble upon this book in the absence of any prior information on its history or its context within a larger set of texts. No one does, not really. I appreciate the notion of reading the text without trying to eisegete one's prior theological commitments or hobbyhorses into every passage, but it seems to me very much the case that he's decided to go into his reading with an eye toward judging the text, as opposed to going in with the intention to be instructed by God. I don't think there are more alternatives than that.
The clear message of the entire Pentateuch is that Yahweh is far more consistent than any people. Whatever the commentators might say, God's anger with Moses isn't that hard to explain: Moses just didn't obey. He took it upon himself to decide how things would be done, whatever details you latch onto. God isn't like that; He isn't shown to waver. He is merciful and compassionate, but He hates sin. There's no flinching from His purpose to raise up a people in fulfillment of His promise to Abraham, and even in threatening to obliterate the people He's been leading through the wilderness He never abandons that promise. God is consistent; we aren't.
You know what? If Allah is God, and if his commands are what the Qur'an indicates, then it can't be wrong to blow up buildings in his name. It can't, because "love" and "righteousness" are not eternal attributes of Allah, and "right" and "wrong" are not rooted in his revealed character. But they are of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit - which means that, unless someone can show me where our God condemns Israel's attempts to practice this genocide, then those commands cannot be inconsistent with His love. Period.
That doesn't make this easy to work out. It doesn't make it easy to stomach the thought of wholesale slaughter and destruction. It makes me thoroughly grateful to live in the era in which I do live. I know Jameson isn't not very impressed with DeYoung's defense of the doctrine of God's wrath, but what about God's wrath as a function of His love in the face of human scorn?
And whatever else God's wrath is, it's not arbitrary. Don't forget that Israel's failure gave Canaan an extra generation of life, prosperity and stability. Don't forget that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all their people lived in Canaan as worshipers of Yahweh for centuries before their exile in Egypt. Don't think God didn't judge Canaan for a multitude of atrocities of their own; this was God striking down kingdoms that were utterly perverse. And even in the midst of that, as he notes, the tribes do keep popping up later - for all God's anger at Israel for an incomplete extermination, He didn't truly wipe everyone out, and in quite a few cases, one may notice, He allowed for the preservation of individuals, families, and even peoples - to the point of incorporating them into the Messianic family tree.
I hardly think God's wrath went away with Jesus, either! Who talks about hell more than anybody else in the Bible? Goodness, the nonviolence of Israel's mission was established long before Jesus' time. This wasn't under the new covenant - it was God's direct command to His people before the coming of the Messiah, and it was the establishment of a new way for them to become a blessing to the whole world, though they failed at that too. Like it or not, the commands God gives His people are progressive in nature; He is not using them for the same particular goals in every epoch, and it is terribly arrogant to presume that because we know God's commands for us, we can judge whether it was the same God who gave other commands to people in another time or place. But our questions are continuous with Israel's; it is the same God, and the different commands at different times are part of the same plan. If that's not the case, Jesus makes no sense at all.
Let me be clear: I'm not saying "God doesn't work like that anymore, but it was okay back then." I'm saying that it would be okay right now, if that were where "right now" fell in God's plan of redemption. And it would not have been okay for Israel to execute God's judgment on Canaan if God had not so ordered. We have the benefit of living 2,000 years after God permanently defined the mission of His people as the discipling of all nations. Our culture and our assumptions, praise God, have been radically shaped by Christ (whether that's acknowledged or not). The definitive judgment of God that He executed through mankind has been accomplished in Jesus' suffering and death. But how can you say that the slaughter of the only innocent man who ever lived was an act of love and not be willing to say that war can be such as well?
If war, slaughter, death and destruction are incompatible with God's love, then He is either not love or not there. I don't think you can get around that.
06 March 2011
death, destruction and love
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2 comments:
If God's commands really are progressive in nature, why has Scripture ceased to be written? Why settle issues like homosexuality or women's roles in the church using the New Testament? In other words, what does biblical authority even mean?
What's arrogant is to act like you know what God has commanded us to do now, or in the past. Making moral judgments is a matter of being informed by experience and the traditions that have sustained human civilization--in other words, it's a matter of knowing what gives life. Your moral theory appears to be based on the idea of accepting whatever God says right now, which is inconsistent with the idea that God is faithful to a particular way of acting in the world. It's telling that you admit that the issues I raise are difficult to deal with, and that you're glad we live in a different era of redemptive history. On what basis do you express this preference? It can't be on moral grounds, since your moral theory gives no such grounds. It is frightening to think about people acting in accord with such a moral theory. One can point to examples of people who claim to hear God speak, and you know what? They're insane, and often incredibly destructive.
"But how can you say that the slaughter of the only innocent man who ever lived was an act of love and not be willing to say that war can be such as well?" This totally dishonest. The answer is quite obvious when you sort out the actors and the actions. In the one instance, Christ gives himself freely for the life of the world. In the other, God destroys others in vengeance. Vengeance for what? Well, sometimes just moving sticks on the Sabbath! Other times just for grumbling! If these things don't seem diametrically opposed to one another, it's only because you desperately want to harmonize what is otherwise incompatible.
"If war, slaughter, death and destruction are incompatible with God's love, then He is either not love or not there. I don't think you can get around that." Once again, totally dishonest. There is a world of difference between God ordering slaughter of individual human beings and God creating a universe in which human beings choose to slaughter one another. The problem of evil is still an issue, whether or not the Bible is true. But this isn't about the problem of evil; this is about the problem of God in the Bible appearing to be himself evil.
After several years of prayer, discussion, contemplation, prayer, weeping in my bed as I hope to God that he'll answer me, more discussion, more contemplation, more prayer--you know what? I've finally realized: there's nothing wrong with giving up on this absurd notion that the entire Bible fits together into a coherent whole. It just doesn't. We've been keeping it all together out of sheer reverence. Reverence is not a bad thing, but willful blindness? I just can't do it anymore. And why? Why do we need to justify Scripture? Is Scripture God?
Don't answer that. I know all the answers that orthodox Protestants give, and I don't care. They don't actually make any sense, no matter how many great and wonderful people believe in those answers. I just hope you won't continue to accuse me of assuming the "mantle of arbiter of morality," when I'm simply struggling like an honest person who loves Jesus and wants more than anything the redemption of the whole world. A humble approach doesn't always lead to orthodox conclusions.
Well, a lengthy comment I just wrote in response was just eaten by the Interweb.
I'll try again with a shorter version. First, I do want to moderate my tone and my rhetoric; I regret having made some harsh pronouncements without nuance or explanation, and I'd like to start addressing various issues with a little more care.
First, as to my statement about Jesus' death, I think that was cheaply rhetorical, but the basic point is still valid, to my mind. Especially if you don't assume the unity of Scripture, you can certainly find a diversity of interpretation on who exactly was responsible for Jesus' death (see Acts 2:22-3) and how voluntary it was on his part, and since the notion that the Crucifixion was an exercise in "divine child abuse" is actually in vogue among a lot of New Atheist types, I think it's something that does have to be addressed in this connection.
As to the other comment, about death and destruction and their compatibility with God's love, I likewise regret the tone I took without any theological or philosophical legwork beforehand. I think I assumed what you reject explicitly here: that God really cannot be less culpable for creating a world in which slaughter takes place than He would be for ordering (or directly accomplishing) that slaughter Himself, unless the world really was created by a mischievous, incompetent demiurge, or unless God has no control or interest in the world once created.
This hints at a larger issue of where we stand over against God to pass moral judgment on Him, but that's probably another post of its own.
This reply has been briefer than my last, and may seem curt - but I really just want to get some response put down and then take some future posts to interact with various aspects of our disagreement in more detail and with more focus. I hope this will be a step toward a more nuanced and thoughtful interaction - and for my part, I truly hope to interact rather than simply react, as I've been wont to do thus far.
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