Archive for the 'Theology' Category

Natural Disasters?

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bcg
on 18 May 2010
in Sci & Tech and Theology
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I am currently watching an excellent series on the BBC called The Story of Science.  The third episode, which I have just watched, is called 'How we got here'.

It of course raises all the red herrings and difficult questions surrounding geology and biology, but one observation from the presenter hit me squarely between the eyes.

The episode ended on a geological note, Dr Mosley talked about how violent Earth is, with the volcanic eruptions and earthquakes caused by continental drift, and the tsunamis that occur when those events happen underwater.

His point was that the development of life is not in spite of Earth being so violent, but is actually helped by it. Some catastrophic events do wipe out entire species, but most of the time the violence actually encourages life to flourish by giving it new opportunities.  His best example was the Rift Valley in East Africa, which is home to hundreds of thousands of animals and birds.

I found this a fascinating argument, that natural 'disasters' help and encourage life to flourish far more often than harming it.  And it made me think – well that's exactly how God operates, bringing life out of death, even totally dead and arid places like the deserts of East Africa, transformed into lush savannah by the violent separating of two continents.

It should not surprise us that he created the world in such a way – that no matter how dreadful the catastrophe, life always survives, somehow, somewhere.  Even at its most harsh and devastating, creation does exactly what it says on the tin.

Does God need chance?

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bcg
on 10 April 2010
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I have long disliked the central place that 'chance' has in modern scientific theories, particularly the 'random' mutations that drive evolution forward. As a Christian I don't like the idea of utter randomness, of chance being the determining factor in the development of life.

I am also aware that as a concept it is lauded by many of the new atheists as the final nail in God's coffin: there is no need for God, there is no proof for God's existence in nature; everything is down to chance, and therefore there is no creator, and no ultimate purpose to life.

A good friend pointed me recently to this article, by Paul Ewart. It is one of those articles that forced me to look at something from a slightly different angle, which is no bad thing.

Paul Ewart argues that – maybe – chance is a necessary aspect of theology, because it helps us to understand the relationship between a sovereign creator and human agency (often called 'free will' – I'm not sure humans actually have free will, but that's another argument).

Perhaps life is like a game of chess, with God as 'an infinitely wise grand master.' No matter what we do, which moves we make, God always wins, the outcome is always good, in the end: 'God adapts his actions in sustaining the world in existence to take account of whatever happens.'

Of course, we would want to argue that God also knows which moves we are going to make, before we make them. We don't 'catch him out' with our wickedness. We mustn't take the chess game analogy too far; instead it is perhaps a helpful way for us to understand how the world appears sometimes (that there is no benevolent almighty God in ultimate control) with what the Bible insists is the case (the Lamb is on the throne).

The Message for the Broken

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bcg
on 22 February 2010
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Jesus' teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing, religious people of his day. However, in the main, our churches today do not have this effect. The kind of outsider Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones. We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people. The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginal avoid church. That can mean only one thing. If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did. If our churches aren't appealing to younger brothers, they must be more full of elder brothers than we'd like to think.

Tim Keller, The Prodigal God, p.16

Thanks to Custard for the great quotation.  I suppose this question has haunted me for quite a long time.  We are quite convinced that our preaching is faithful, that we are saying the right things, encouraging the right things, but the churches I have known have almost universally been precisely not irreligious.

Is it that we don't know how to encourage the right kind of practice?  Or is it more that there is a tendency to want to think the 'correct' things, rather than go out of our way to do the hard, un-selfish, loving and caring things?

I love things to be in order, to be just so, but that is precisely not how Jesus operated, and it can so easily lead to the kind of situation Tim Keller describes.  I find Keller's words hugely challenging.  They seem to me to be to be vital for the church's mission, yet at the same time almost impossible to put into practice.

Because, to me, I want a church for the broken, not a church for the religious.  I feel like a broken man, not a religious man, and somehow that means I don't feel like I belong in the church – the very place I should belong, in the arms of God.

Communities of Grace

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bcg
on 30 April 2009
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Over the years I have frequently thought about the relationship between the uncompromising ethical stance of much of the New Testament (not least the Sermon on the Mount), and salvation as the free gift of God, through the cross, while we were still God's enemies.

With the help of various theologians (John Calvin, Karl Barth etc), as well as sustained reflection on the Bible (not just the New Testament) I have come to think of it in terms of a response.  We are given a free gift of live, salvation through Jesus Christ, which we must live out.  We must live a life worthy of the calling we have received.

But of course the context of that life is always that it is a free gift.  We didn't earn it in the first place, and we can't mess up so badly that there is no way back.  We can't lose our salvation in Christ through our failure to live it out.  There is nothing we can do that is so bad God won't forgive us—if we repent.

And right there is the crux of the issue.  We can stuff things up terribly, but if we repent and turn back to God, he will forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  Although our sin cuts us off from God, there is always a way back, through the cross, if we repent.

Unrepentance I think comes in two guises: first, refusing to repent of what we know is sinful behaviour (this is the most obvious kind); second (more subtly perhaps), failing to acknowledge that we are simul iustus et peccatore, at once justified and sinner, and that we do mess things up.

The first is perhaps more common in our individual lives, the second much more common in our communities.  In many (evangelical) churches I have been privileged to be a part of, there has been an unspoken culture / expectation that actually things are all right for everyone.  Maybe that's my perception, I don't know, but that's how I've felt.

When the culture is like that, it is very difficult for individuals to acknowledge serious failures.  Yeah we can all say a confession, I haven't put God first, that kind of stuff, but when there is a serious problem, the sense of failure is so strong that it is difficult to tell anyone, because you are worried they will judge you for not being a good enough Christian (or whatever).

I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that.  Often in churches it can feel as if we are expected to be perfect, so when things aren't it is very difficult to talk to anyone about it.  Somehow we need to create an atmosphere in which failure (privately and publicly), while not accepted as 'right', is not condemned or judged, but accepted as 'real' and worked through, drawing on God's grace and power.

We need to create communities of grace (I'm sure I've not made that phrase up, but I don't know where it's come from), which accept sinners, but challenge sin and encourage an atmosphere of repentance and forgiveness.

We need not to expect people to be perfect, or even close, but to be real about the messed-up world we live in, that things don't always work out, that people get things wrong, that we all do, just some of us more obviously than others.  People need to be aware of all that, so they feel comfortable and able to be real and honest, to share where they are really at, so that sin can be dealt with in God's way (by repentance and forgiveness) rather than being allowed to fester within our congregations.

Unscientific Questions

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bcg
on 17 April 2009
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I watched an excellent programme on BBC One last night, called the Narnia Code.

One of the points of the documentary was that CS Lewis preferred a medieval understanding of the universe to the modern scientific one, which he claimed made things cold and mechanical.

A couple of the interviewees (which included John Polkinghorne) made this point: science is very good at answering its own questions (how does this work, what happens if we do this, etc).

But there are two important questions that science can't answer:

Why is there something rather than nothing?

Why is nature ordered and comprehensible?

I'm sure there are others, but these two are a good start.  This is from The Voyage of the Dawntreader:

"In our world," said Eustace, "a star is a huge ball of flaming gas."

"Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of."

We need to ask both kinds of questions, I think – and use science and theology together to enrich our understanding of the universe.

Incorporation ‘in Christ’ and Justification

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bcg
on 17 February 2009
in Bible, Reviews and Theology
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I am currently reading Tom Wright's latest book, 'Justification: God's plan and Paul's vision'.  I am about a fifth of the way through, and so far it is typical Wright: engaging, well-written and thought-provoking.

The back cover quotes someone as saying that he 'out-Reforms' the popular 'neo-Reformed' writers in America.  Wright's starting position is that we should not privilege tradition over Scripture – even the Reformed tradition.  He critiques contemporary evangelicalism for failing to be critical enough of its own tradition in the light of Scripture.

One of the areas he highlights as particularly lacking, is that of 'incorporation'.  This is one of Paul's main themes (just count how many times he uses the phrase 'in Christ', let alone the number of times he relies on the concept) yet it is one of the least developed in contemporary evangelical theology (argues Wright).

I would agree with him whole-heartedly.  He says that incorporation (among others) is one of the main themes, of which the evangelical definition of justification is a part.  His book is therefore making explicit his position, attempting to look at what Paul actually said, rather than what the Reformed tradition says he said.

This is a bold move, but if there is anyone who can pull it off, it's Tom Wright.  Methodologically, he's spot on.  It has been one of my constant frustrations that there is an implicit 'correct' and 'sound' interpretation and understanding of the New Testament, far beyond the basic and fundamental non-negotiables of the Christian faith (e.g. Jesus' resurrection) – especially when this 'correct' interpretation (in my view) ignores the Old Testament, or treats it simply as the backdrop, rather than as the way of understanding what Paul is really talking about.

I am looking forward to reading the rest of Wright's book – and will no doubt post a full review when I'm done.

Assurance

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bcg
on 18 April 2008
in Bible, Church and Theology
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I had a long conversation last night with a good friend about various theological topics.  Some of them will find their way on here, in time.  The first of them is the doctrine of assurance.  How can we be confident that we are saved?  Is such confidence possible?

For Methodists, 'assurance' historically refers to a feeling of peace and joy that our sins are forgiven.  An example might be John Wesley's famous line, 'I felt my heart strangely warmed.'  He goes on to say:

I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation. And an
assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and
saved me from the law of sin and death.

Assurance of God's love

On this understanding, assurance is the feeling that accompanies faith in God's promises.

The difficulty is of course that feelings can mislead us.  It is entirely possible for someone to feel 'assured' of their salvation, without having the accompanying faith.

It is therefore perhaps more helpful to talk about assurance in terms of faith.  God has promised that those who believe in him will have eternal life, that if we believe in the salvation won for us by Jesus on the cross, we will be saved:

It is not possible for someone to be genuinely broken by sin, genuinely
to believe that Christ is the only way to salvation and genuinely to
have asked God for salvation, and yet still to be unsaved.

Assurance and Election

This is the most we can say: God has promised certain things in Scripture.  Therefore if God is true to his Word, then what God has promised will happen.  At the end of the day we can never be 100% certain that God exists, or we would not have faith, we would simply know.

However we can be almost 100% certain that he does, and therefore almost 100% certain that we will be saved if we trust in his promises.