Calvinism (Still) Isn't Beautiful. It Sings for Divine Power not for Divine Weakness, Suffering, and Sacrifice

“Young, Restless, No Longer Reformed” a Year Later:

Calvinism (Still) Isn’t Beautiful

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A Guest Post by Austin Fischer

by Roger Olson

February 2, 2015

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“They’re not going to embrace your theology unless it makes their hearts sing.”[1]

-John Piper

One of the more persistent myths regarding art (broadly defined) is that the artist understands what he or she is creating. It is, as it were, a half-truth. You understand parts of it, catch glimpses of its deeper meaning, shape it toward certain ends. But you certainly do not understand all of it. As Madeline L’Engle says,

“The artist is a servant who is willing to be a birthgiver…each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius, or something very small, comes to the artist and says, ‘Here I am. enflesh me. Give birth to me.’”[2]

Two years ago, I started writing. I didn’t intend to write a book so much as [to] document a journey I had taken in and out of Calvinism, with the hope it could help people in my own church who were treading similar paths. It ended up becoming a book and has helped people, and for that I am grateful.

But as I look back—now two years removed from when I started writing and a year removed from its publication—I feel as though I only now understand the deepest intention of the book. Bear with me if this seems indulgent....

 Back when I was a Calvinist, I came across the above quote from John Piper: “They’re not going to embrace your theology unless it makes their hearts sing.” And while I didn’t fully understand it at the time, I knew what it was about. I embraced Calvinism, not just because I found its exegesis and inner logic compelling, but because it made my heart sing. It was true, but also (and perhaps more importantly) good and beautiful.

Christians believe that truth (sic, "being grounded in God") is not only, well, true, but also good and beautiful. Beauty is “a measure of what theology may call true.”[3] Because God is infinitely good and beautiful, theology must be good and beautiful or else it’s not true. When properly understood, the truth invites not only the mind’s assent but the heart’s affection. The truth should make your heart sing.

This notion of the truth’s beauty is not an invention of secular humanism or some other boogey-man, but belongs to the deepest intuition of biblical Christian sensibilities. As the various psalmists never tire of telling us,

“Great is the Lord and highly to be praised,

and his greatness is unsearchable…

The Lord is gracious and merciful;

slow to anger and great in lovingkindness.

The Lord is good to all,

and his mercies are over all his works.”

- Psalm 145:3, 8-9

God is infinite power but also infinite grace, so beauty “qualifies theology’s understanding of divine glory: it shows that glory to be not only holy, powerful, immense, and righteous, but also good and desirable, a gift graciously shared.”[4]

John Piper understands this better than most, and his brilliant attention to the aesthetics of Calvinism (channeling Jonathan Edwards) is one of the (if not the) primary reasons for the tremendous surge of Calvinism among young evangelicals. Simply put, plenty of people have argued Calvinism is true. Piper’s particular genius has been in arguing that Calvinism is also beautiful.

Many young evangelicals have been convinced and their hearts sing for Calvinism. My exodus from Calvinism was set in motion when I came to believe Calvinism was not beautiful—indeed, when I realized that Calvinism (consistent Calvinism at least) was, at best, cold and brutally enigmatic (which is, perhaps, why many cannot be consistent Calvinists).

This realization then forced me to further reconsider its veracity. The heart of the book, then, was a challenge to the aesthetic of the New Calvinism. The New Calvinists attempt to paint a ravishing picture of the manifold excellencies of the self-glorifying, all-determining God of Calvinism, expressed primarily through the doctrines of grace.

• I say that picture is a false veneer that only works when you ignore the reprobate.

• I say that picture cannot contain, as its central image, a crucified God who would rather die for sinners than give them what they deserve.

Using the Bible as my measure of beauty, I say Calvinism isn’t beautiful. People have asked if I could ever see myself “going back” to Calvinism—a little less young, a little less restless, and reformed again, perhaps?

It’s a question I occasionally ponder. Depending on my mood, I can still find some of the exegesis and inner rationale for Calvinism compelling. As I’ve stated numerous times, I think Calvinism is one way to make sense of the teachings of the Bible (though as I also always state and many of my Calvinist friends have a hard time hearing, I think there is a better way to make sense of the Bible’s teachings that has far deeper ecumenical and historical roots).

And yet while I suppose I could again entertain the possibility that Calvinism is true, I don’t think I could ever again believe that Calvinism is beautiful. To my mind, calling Calvinism beautiful is to subject the very concept of beauty to so ruthless an equivocation that it loses any intelligible meaning.

So I agree with Piper: theology needs to make our hearts sing. That’s not a “strategic” statement about how to make Christianity more persuasive in its use of pathos. It’s a statement about truth. In terms of a quick (and perhaps overly simplistic) syllogism, I submit:

1 - Christian truth is (by biblical, theological and rational necessity) good and beautiful

     (as measured by the Bible).

2- Calvinism is not beautiful.

3- Calvinism is not true.

I’d imagine my Calvinist friends would accept premise one (unless they adhere to an extreme voluntarism and absolute equivocation between God’s aesthetic and/or moral sensibilities and ours) and reject premise two, arguing that Calvinism is indeed beautiful, but sin has crippled our aesthetic sensibilities to the point that we wouldn’t know beauty if we saw it. And of course I agree.

That’s precisely what Isaiah says in his cryptic words about the suffering servant: the beauty of God is not something we naturally appreciate (53:1-3). We’re far too intoxicated with power and status to appreciate the unforeseen majesty of deity suffering and despised.

But it is the very measure of beauty given us by the Bible (gratuitously aggressive and kenotic, self-giving love) that threatens to burst the wineskins of Calvinism. The good news of God’s beauty is too good and beautiful for Calvinism to contain. And it is the very intoxication with raw power that blinds us to God’s true beauty that fits so snugly within the Calvinist vision of God.

So instead of retreating to shopworn quips (“Well if you just trusted the Bible more than your ‘feelings’ and ‘aesthetic sensibilities’ then none of this would be a problem”), I hope more of the New Calvinists will allow themselves to grasp the gravity of the dilemma Calvinism faces when it comes to biblical, Christian aesthetics. It is not a blemish of the surface, but a chilling abyss at the very heart of God.

[1] http://www.latentdesign.com/pdf/young_reformed.pdf

[2] Madeline L’Engle, Walking on Water, 18.

[3] David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite, 3.

[4] David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite, 17.

Discussion on Calvinism & Arminianism by Dr. Roger Olson

Here's is an excellent discussion on the what and why and how of Arminianism (today's modern day Wesleyanism) led my Dr. Roger Olson whom we follow at Relevancy22. It is a rather long discussion so get out your notepad and listen to this theologian review his concerns and insights from a lifetime of reading, writing, teaching, and speaking. It'll be well worth the time spent.

R.E. Slater
February 11, 2014

Let's Talk Forum: Calvinism & Arminianism - by City On A Hill Church

Hosted by Pastor Russell Korets of City on a Hill Church in Federal Way, WA

Roger's Blog site can be found here at Patheos

Roger E. Olson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Roger E. Olson (born 1952) is Professor of Theology, George W. Truett Theological Seminary, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, USA.

Olson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, and studied at Open Bible College in Des Moines, North American Baptist Seminary, and Rice University.

He is also an ordained Baptist minister. He is married with two children.

He is a five-point arminianist and wrote a book (Against Calvinism, 2011) arguing for this school of theology.

He is noted for a broad view of what constitutes Protestant "orthodoxy." For example on annihilationism he commented that some evangelical theologians have "resurrected the old polemical labels of heresy and aberrational teaching" in order to marginalize other evangelicals holding the view (The mosaic of Christian belief, 2002). Olson is one of the writers who sees two "loose coalitions" developing in evangelical theology.

Olson coined the label "Pannenberg's Principle" for Wolfhart Pannenberg's argument (1969) that God's deity is his rule - "The divinity of God and the reign of God in the world are inseparable."

Bibliography: A Short List from Roger Olson

The Journey of Modern Theology: From Reconstruction to Deconstruction(2013) ISBN 0-8308-4021-4

Against Calvinism (2011) ISBN 0-310-32467-X

God in Dispute: "Conversations" among Great Christian Thinkers (2009) ISBN 0-8010-3639-9

Finding God in the Shack: Seeking Truth in a Story of Evil and Redemption (2009) ISBN 0-8308-3708-6

How to Be Evangelical without Being Conservative (2008) ISBN 0-310-28338-8

Questions to All Your Answers: A Journey from Folk Religion to Examined Faith (2007) ISBN 0-310-27336-6

Reformed and Always Reforming: The Postconservative Approach to Evangelical Theology (Acadia Studies in Bible and Theology) (2007) ISBN 0-0-8010-3169-9

Pocket History of Evangelical Theology (The Pocket IVP Reference (2007) ISBN 0-8308-2706-4

Arminian Theology: Myths And Realities (2006) ISBN 0-8308-2841-9

Pocket History of Theology (The IVP Pocket Reference) - (Olson & English) (2005) ISBN 0-8308-6709-0

The Westminster Handbook to Evangelical Theology (Westminster Handbooks to Christian Theology) (2004) ISBN 0-664-22464-4

The Trinity (Guides to Theology) - (Olson & Hall) (2002) ISBN 0-8028-4827-3

The Mosaic of Christian Beliefs: Twenty Centuries of Unity & Diversity (2002) ISBN 0-8308-2695-5

The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition & Reform (1999) ISBN 0-8308-1505-8

20th-Century Theology: God and the World in a Transitional Age - (Olson & Grenz) (1997) ISBN 0-8308-1525-2

Who Needs Theology?: An Invitation to the Study of God's Word - (Olson & Grenz) (1996) ISBN 0-8308-1878-2

Homebrewed Christianity Online Class - Paul: Rupture, Revelation, Revolution

Announcement

It's been a busy morning. Join with me for another High Gravity course (the fourth in 2 years) to be held on Monday's from March 2 to April 13, 2015. Our hosts will be the Homebrewed crowd as they wax eloquent on the Apostle of Apostles, our own dear Apostle Paul, servant of the King.

For you theological nerds out there this will be a classic throwdown and fun!

R.E. Slater
February 10, 2015

The class is titled, "Paul: Rupture, Revelation, Revolution." In this High Gravity course Peter Rollins and Tripp Fuller will tackle Paul by engaging 4 different philosophers along with contemporary Biblical scholarship and theological interpretations all packed into 12 hours of soul-boggling content.

Each session will focus on the thinker of the week with downloadable readings. In order to cover all the material we are going to have four 90 minute sessions covering an individual philosopher and two "teach-ins" over 2-1/2 hours - the first on the Bible and the second on Theology.

To open the March 2 course theologian Daniel Kirk of Fuller Seminary will be the first speaker to discuss Paul. Then, over the following weeks, philosophers will be discussed such as Heidegger, Badiou, and Zizek , amongst others.

There will be a moderate cost for these classes.

Join us!

 

A LiveStream Event. March 13-14, 2015. "The Church in an Age of Postmodernism"

Join me at the free Livestream event, March 13-14,  2015, sponsored by Homebrewed Christianity from Villanova University. Guest speakers will be John Caputo, Merold Westphal, Jeff Robbins, and Aaron Simmons. The topic will speak to "The Church in an age of Postmodernism" - a topic I've covered relentlessly the past 4 years at Relevancy22.

R.E. Slater

February 10, 2015

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"For some, postmodern thought signals the end of religion. For others, religion and postmodernism stand in a complimentary relationship- each deepening the other. The End of Religion? Faith in a Postmodern Age seeks to address the relationship between religious life and postmodern thought.

Villanova University's Theology Institute presents an opportunity to hear and interact with four distinguished scholars. Speakers John Caputo, Merold Westphal, Jeff Robbins, and Aaron Simmons will give lectures and answer live Q&A during panel discussions. Food and drink will be provided! Come eat, drink, and think with some of the leading scholars in postmodern philosophy of religion. This event is free and open to the public." - Homebrewed Christianity

registration link

Peter Enns - Is There A Resurrection from the Dead in the Old Testament?

brief Bible thought: is there resurrection from the dead in the Old Testament?

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2015/02/brief-bible-thought-is-there-resurrection-from-the-dead-in-the-old-testament/

February 9, 2015 by Peter Enns Comments

Is there resurrection from the dead in the Old Testament?

No. Not really. Well, sort of. O.K., yes, but it depends on how you look at it.

Resurrection is pretty central to the New Testament, in case you haven’t noticed. Yet searching for that kind of resurrection it in the Old Testament makes you come up basically empty-handed.

We do have one lengthy passage, Daniel 12, which is an important text for understanding the development of Jewish faith later in the Second Temple period (in the second century BCE) when “resurrection” of individuals was in the air generally within Judaism (more below).

2 Maccabees is another example of a text from roughly the same period and which mentions the future resurrection of the dead as if no one needs it explained to them (e.g., see 2 Maccabees 7:9)

Neither Isaiah 25:7 (the Lord will “swallow up death forever”) or 26:19 (“Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise”) seem to be “resurrection from the dead” texts.

The first seems to echo Canaanite mythology about Baal who hosts a victory banquet after his defeat of the sea god Yamm (representing chaos).

The second is a more likely candidate, but if both of these passages are read in the larger context of Isaiah, it’s hard to escape their metaphorical meaning: deliverance from the “sure death” of foreign oppression/threat. At any rate, even with these texts, the silence of the Old Testament on future resurrection is deafening.

But this brings me to where I think resurrection is very much part of the story of Israel, and it goes like this.

A perspective on the Adam story that I lay out in The Evolution of Adam and The Bible Tells Me So is that Adam represents Israel’s entire epic journey in the Old Testament–Adam is a “preview” of Israel, so to speak.

Just as Adam was created by God out of dust and placed into a Garden paradise, and remaining there was contingent upon obedience (don’t eat from the Tree of Knowledge), so, too, Israel was created by God from Egyptian slavery, placed into the paradise-like Canaan, and remaining there was contingent upon obedience (to the covenant, the Law of Moses).

This reading of the Adam story is not mutually exclusive of others, but it has medieval rabbinic precedent (Genesis Rabbah), and you have to admit the parallels are at least worth thinking about. So even if you’re skeptical, work with me here.

Remember that Adam was warned that “on the day” he eats of the the forbidden fruit, he would die (Genesis 2:17). Now, the fact of the matter is that “on the day” Adam and Eve do not die so much as they are banished from the Garden (Genesis 3:22-24).

That banishment bars them from the Tree of Life, their source of immortality, which is only in the Garden. The Lord places two cherubim at the entrance, which is on the east (hold that thought) to stand guard to make sure the doomed couple don’t go do back in and eat from the Tree of Life.

To be in the Garden means access to the Tree of Life. To be banished from the Garden to the east (keep holding that thought) means “death.”

Fast forward to Deuteronomy 30. Here we are at the final stage of Israel’s 40 years of wandering in the desert, and Moses is giving the people his last series of pep talks before they enter Canaan and take over the land as their own.

The whole chapter is worth a closer look, but we get to the real point verses 15-18. There we see that “life” means being in the land, and “death” means exile–the same notion we see in the Adam story.

If Israel will continue to obey God’s commands, the reward is life, which Deuteronomy 30 explains to be prosperity, an increased population, and longevity for the people as a whole (not individuals) in the land.

Likewise, disobedience to God’s commands yields “death and adversity,” i.e., “you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess” (v. 18).

So you see where I’m going with this. Or maybe not quite yet.

Flip to the chapter in the Old Testament that certainly is on most people’s top 10 list of weird passages: Ezekiel 37:1-14 and the “valley of dry bones.”

In a vision, Ezekiel sees a valley with dry bones that miraculously come back to life. Bones will be covered again with sinew and flesh, and God will “put breath” into those bones.

God brings to life through “breath.” Feel free to think of the Adam story here (Genesis 2:7).

Anyway, as weird as Ezekiel is in general, and chapter 37 in particular, at least the meaning of this vision is spelled out for us:

This says the Lord: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel (v. 12).

Death isn’t physical but metaphorical. The dry bones represent Israel in exile (the grave). Where in exile? In Babylon, which is in the east (thank you for holding that thought).

To be in exile, in the east, outside of the land of Canaan, is death. The be in the land is life. The Adam story is 2-chapter summary of Israel’s national plight.

So now we finally get to the resurrection part of all this.

If moving from the land into exile is to move from life to death, returning to the land is (all together now) to be brought back to life, to be raised from the dead (as Ezekiel’s prophecy lays out for us).

And that is where we find “resurrection” in the Old Testament: returning to the land, where God and his temple are, where there is peace and security, the land promsied to Abraham (Genesis 12), the land “flowing with mik and honey.”

Physical resurrection of individuals isn’t the hot topic of conversation in the Old Testament. Revival of a nation is.

So what about physical resurrection in the New Testament? Where does that idea come from? From developments in Judaism after the exile, especially in the 2nd century BCE.

Faithful Jews are being martyred by the Seleucid King Antiochus. 2 Maccabees relays a story that captures the crisis, where seven sones are executed in a gruesome fashion for remaining obedient to the law rather than eat unclean food and reject God. And earlier were several centuries of faithful Jews who might not have been martyred but who died without seeing God fully restore Israel as a nation.

Israel’s exile, though ending in 539 BCE, still continued in a manner of speaking for centuries thereafter. Ezekiel’s “resurrection” was not complete until Israel was “fully” in the land, which meant restoring Jewish independence.

To be sure, God would one day come through for his people. And those who died waiting for the “consolation of Israel” (to borrow Simeon’s phrase in Luke 2:25) would not just miss out but, as an act of divine justice, would be raised to take part in the messianic age.

Fast forward to the Gospels.

It is surely no accident that all 4 Gospels introduce Jesus’s public ministry by citing the opening verses of Isaiah 40, one of the key texts in the Old Testament announcing that God is about to bring the the captives back from Babylon–back home…back to the land of Canaan…back to the place of life, not death.

Why do all 4 Gospels introduce Jesus’s ministry by citing this major “end of exile” announcement? Probably because whatever Jesus is going to do probably has something to do with bringing an end to Israel’s exile/death.

The New Testament twist is that the resurrection of Jesus draws together both the national and individual dimensions while also redefining them.

Jesus’s individual physical resurrection fulfills Israel’s corporate national story by creating a new people, a new nation–a new humanity–where resurrection is a present spiritual reality and a future hope for each one who in “in Christ” (as Paul puts it).

So, we move from resurrection as nationalistic and metaphorical in the Old Testament, to a resurrection that also includes individuals physically in response to crisis by the 2nd century BCE, to the New Testament, where both are realized and redefined in Jesus.

If anything, this should remind us how New Testament theology is more than a process of back-referencing passages from the Old Testament, but must also include postexilic developments in Jewish thought. The resurrection from the dead in the New Testament isn’t “in” the Old. It grows out of and transforms an Old Testament metaphor, with a middle stage in Second Temple Judaism.

Misunderstanding God's Grace and Holiness. The Emphasis is Always on God's Grace.

Understandably Christianity is very interested in the righteousness of God becoming central to its practice and behavior. This stands out in Kevin DeYoung's book, "The Hole in Our Holiness." Obviously, for many practising Christians "holiness" is front-and-center to the Christian belief of what pleases God. Here is but one of twenty of Mr. DeYoung's firm beliefs and something we here at Relevancy22 would hotly debate:

“Not only is holiness the goal of your redemption, it is necessary for your redemption. Now before you sound the legalist alarm, tie me up by my own moral bootstraps, and feed my carcass to the Galatians, we should see what Scripture has to say. . . . It’s the consistent and frequent teaching of the Bible that those whose lives are marked by habitual ungodliness will not go to heaven. To find acquittal from God on the last day there must be evidence flowing out of us that grace has flowed into us.” (26)

If you wish to read more of these neo-Reformed gems of wisdom simply follow the link here provided - you will not be disappointed. Or visit the Google sites here and here filled with the images of Christian banners and book titles declaring the importance of God's holiness. I don't think it can be said enough that Christianity must ever wage war upon the legalists of its faith lest it become overwhelmed by an unloving, ungracious odor that reaches to the heavens even as it would fill the nostrils of those around us peering ever curiously at the kind of God we declare by our words and deeds.

Too often as Christians we get the proverbial "cart in front of the horse" leading out with God's judgment and wrath upon sin and evil when perhaps it may be better to explain by our actions and words God's grace as His very reason for relationship to this wicked world in the first place. Certainly DeYoung is describing the need of Jesus' substitutionary atonement as God's way towards holiness. This is not the debate. The debate is how evangelical Christianity places the weight of its Christian dogmas on holiness to the skewing of all following biblical church practices and doctrines. And thusly we at Relevancy 22 will say, "Not so!" It is God's grace that must skew all practices and doctrines and not God's holiness.

Why?

To simply favor holiness over grace creates an attitude of schism within the community of Christ's body by declaring one part of its body to be "more holy" than other parts of the body not observing those same rules and regulations. Even as it does with the watching world around the church which would misunderstand this attribute of our Lord's to be more important than His grace (I'll go on to explain what I mean by this in a bit).

So let us say this again, "It is not our works-righteousness that will make us righteous before God but through Jesus' substitutionary atonement that grants to us God's holiness. And yes, holiness to God is important but it is God's grace that makes God's holiness surmountable.

And to the church at large, neither are our ragged works done in Jesus' name what grants God's favor but that those works are done from hearts filled with God's grace thus forestaying any personal declarations of works-righteousness, pride, or legalism.

And more so, though Christians are to live as righteous people, we too often get this attribute of God ahead of God's grace. What? We end up holding attitudes and beliefs that would lower God's grace ahead of God's holiness. And when doing this end up affecting our attitudes towards God, mankind, the church's mission to the world, and even false beliefs about very basic Christian doctrine we should be holding in the hands of God's grace.

So let us say this again, it is not works-righteousness that makes us holy before God but God's grace through His Son to us. It is not by living "untainted" in the world that creates favor from God but that we know how to share God's love and grace to those around us while living and being a part of this world. Not as bigots, or judgers of men, or by proclaiming "sin upon everything we cast our eyes to." But by proclaiming God's mercy and forgiveness through ministrations of service and helps.

Are we then saying that God's attributes are ranked? That Holiness is more important than Grace. Or that Grace is more important than Holiness? Nay, let us not be so foolish! But know that God's attributes are not ranked except within His own foolish church when it seeks to proclaim its own self-righteousness as favor from God over a humbled heart crying "Thank you Father for your grace and mercy."

But, if we were to rank God's attributes, then as sinners saved by grace, God's grace is the one attribute that makes the most sense to our lives, to faith living, to our witness, and to our relationship with our heavenly Father.

Why?

Without grace, descriptions of God's holiness and righteousness sound as hollow things falling like tinkling brass upon the ears of our pagan hearts even as it does to our fellow man. Without grace, the holy Creator-God would never become our Redeemer-God nor would this be demonstrated in the Christian life of service. That is, God would not be moved to reach out to us if He were all austere holiness before all else. Nor would we as God's people ever desire to reach out to those sinners and evil doers around us whom we are but one redeemed by grace.

Appropriately so, the church's righteous means very little to the starving, the belittled, the hated, the envied, the harmed, and the condemned. But the grace of God as lived through His people is that very thing that will change all things within so many desperate lives lived impossibly on the edge seeking personal fulfillment, identity, and justice from God. But should God's people become like the vaunted Scribe or unbowed Pharisee filled with self-righteousness and condemnation upon others less worthy. Who turn a blind eye to the many grace-projects living about us - than fear and tremble and pray ye for God's forgiveness and repent of this evil thing by the winnowing Spirit of the Lord!

Yes, dear brothers and sisters, be righteous. Be holy. Let this fill all your actions to one another as to the world about us. But above all be gracious as your Lord is gracious sharing His mercy, love, forgiveness and hope. Let God's grace be the leading attribute in your doctrinal vernacular and dogmas and not those Pharisaical practices of condemnation and hatred to our fellow man. Be the grace-filled vessels of God in Jesus' name and learn to rewrite harsh doctrinal statements and church dogmas to more favorable treatises perfumed and scented with God's grace and love, hope and forgiveness. Amen.

R.E. Slater

February 9, 2014

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"God’s righteousness is that attribute of God that means he is determined to sort the mess out through the way that he has chosen, ultimately through Jesus Christ. That means that one has a solid platform on which to stand to talk about putting things right in the community.

"This is not something off on the side, as in, “Oh, Christian faith is over here, and then, oh dear, there’s some people in pain there. Let’s get the Band-Aids out.” It’s absolutely vital to make those connections between justice and justification, and to say God intends eventually to put the whole world right. He has already done it in Jesus Christ. We who live in between those two poles have got to make sure we are moving in the power of the Spirit from the one towards the other."

N.T. Wright

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"When we understand the character of God, when we grasp something of His holiness, then we begin to understand the radical character of our sin and hopelessness. Helpless sinners can survive only by grace. Our strength is futile in itself; we are spiritually impotent without the assistance of a merciful God. We may dislike giving our attention to God's wrath and justice, but until we incline ourselves to these aspects of God's nature, we will never appreciate what has been wrought for us by grace. Even Edwards's sermon on sinners in God's hands was not designed to stress the flames of hell. The resounding accent falls not on the fiery pit but on the hands of the God who holds us and rescues us from it. The hands of God are gracious hands. They alone have the power to rescue us from certain destruction."

R.C. Sproul

The Holiness of God

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2 Corinthians 12:8-9

8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

Romans 3:20-24

20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. 21But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

John 1:14

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Romans 1:1-5

1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God-- 2 the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures 3 regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, 4 and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. 5Through him and for his name's sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith.

Acts 6:8

8 Now Stephen, a man full of God's grace and power, did great wonders and miraculous signs among the people.

Ephesians 4:7

7 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.

Hebrews 13:9

9 Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by ceremonial foods, which are of no value to those who eat them.

Ephesians 2:8-9

8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

2 Peter 1:2

2 Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

Hebrews 4:16

16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

1 Peter 4:10

10 Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms.

James 4:6

6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."

2 Corinthians 8:7

7 But just as you excel in everything--in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love for us--see that you also excel in this grace of giving.

Titus 2:11

11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.

Romans 6:14

14 For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

Romans 11:6

6 And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.

Acts 15:11

11 No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are."

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The “grace” vs. “holiness” debate

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/2013/01/the-grace-vs-holiness-debate/

by Gene Veith

January 31, 2013

Comments

Christianity Today has set up a symposium discussing the following question: Do American Christians Need the Message of Grace or a Call to Holiness? As usual, no Lutherans were asked to participate, and the whole debate is maddening for a Lutheran to read, not just because of its false dichotomies but because of what is missing in the understanding of both terms.

For example, is it true that the Biblical definition of “holiness” means “being good”? For convenience, here is a link to every use of the term “holy” in the Bible, and here is a link to the uses of the word “holiness”. We learn that the Sabbath is holy, certain mountains and lands are holy; the Tabernacle (and later the Temple), its furnishings, the priests’ vestments and tools are holy. None of these inanimate objects are capable of moral action, but God’s Word declares them holy. There is a contrast with what is ritually unclean or profane, but this isn’t a matter of moral righteousness as such. God, above all, is supremely holy. So are His people. Christians constitute a “holy priesthood.” The holiness of Christians seems to be connected to the Holy Spirit. To be sure, God’s holy people must avoid contact with what is “impure,” just as holy objects must not be touched by something “unclean.”

There are indeed passages in the Epistles that call for holy conduct, but there is more to the concept than that. The word, of course, means “set apart” for God’s special use or for His spiritual presence. The word “sacrament” comes from the word “sacred,” which, says the Online Etymological Dictionary, derives from the “obsolete verb sacren ‘to make holy’ (early 13c.).” In Baptism, God sets us apart. He makes us holy. In Holy Communion, Christ makes us holy. In the Holy Bible, God’s Word brings us His holiness through the Holy Spirit.

I’m not saying this exhausts the issue, but it is strange, in Lutheran eyes, to talk about “holiness” simply in behavioral terms. It is also strange to talk about “grace” as an abstract quality without mentioning Christ, the Cross, or the tangible “means of grace,” which gets us back to “holiness.”

Good works? Of course! But these grow out of both grace and holiness. Both have to do with God’s gifts and what God bestows through Christ. How can they be set against each other?

Debating Christianity's Traditional Creational Explanation - "Creatio ex nihilo" or "Creatio ex continua"?

By way of a disclaimer here at Relevancy22 my overall premise is that (1) God is dependent upon nothing and (2) God is Creator of all - even if it is "nothing". This is my philosophical Christian position more commonly described as "creatio ex nihilo" - creation from nothing. It is also a widely held traditional position of Christian orthodoxy.

However, in physics - and especially in quantum physics - there is no such thing as "nothing." And so my creational position would go on to say that "nothing cannot be created out of nothing unless that nothing really isn't nothing but actually held something within its composition." This is the "creatio ex continua" position - creation from something which is a less widely accepted position but nonetheless orthodox teaching of Christianity as well.

The problem here is that one cannot be the other. Either it is or it isn't. And if we continue to define these positions in dualistic categories than we may miss the essence of each position as separately understood.

But before I go on to explain what I mean here I want the reader to know that "creatio ex continua" is not strictly a panentheistic position as some would like to read into it. But a more modified relational process theological position stating the ontological linkage between our Redeemer-Creator with His creation. That is, though God created from nothing philosophically speaking (for argument's sake) God is still uniquely linked to His creation even as a quantum singularity is linked to its point of origin.

As such, I am not describing an ontological interdependency between God and the world (sic, classic panentheism in the liberal process sense) but in another sense - in the more conservative sense of process theology - God and His creation are indeed uniquely linked creationally.

This then is the process side of God's creatorship without the antecental panentheistic elements that have been philosophically attached to it by a more liberal process theology which I take liberty to prohibit through a more conservative relational interpretation of process theology.

Now, let me return to my earlier thought. Within the realm of physics there is always "something" inside of "nothing" - whether it be a vacuum of space which really isn't a "vacuum of nothingness." Or tightly-wound inter-dimensional spaces which appear empty but aren't. Or even the primordial soup of the Big Bang itself which then consisted of a "nothing" composed perhaps of an intense (or blinding) darkness (or light) of "energy and force" intertwined with one other.

And remember, under intense gravitational forces, light cannot escape. Thus my supposition of a "darkness or void" as versus a "blinding light" per se.... But who knows, in the realm of poetry maybe all this primordial soup was very light itself with no darkness at all since space itself did not exist as we know and experience it today.

Nor did time before the eruption of the Big Bang. Why? Because time could not have begun having become overwhelmed in the spatial soup of gravity's forces and liquefied into 2 or 1-dimensional space itself.

And so, space was limited to 2 dimensions, or perhaps 1 dimension, and time was without existence so that in a sense you could describe these physical conditions of our early universe as a kind of "eternality" without presence, form, or prior antecedence. Moreover, creation's beginning point - as the science of quantum physics understands it - is known as a "singularity" of the space-time event.

Therefore, what traditional Christianity would call "nothing" - which played off the older Greek idea of "nothing" - is actually not "nothing" but something. Something quantumtative. But then again, how would the non-scientific church have known about this physical absurdity if quantum physics hadn't yet been discovered?

Too, it wasn't until the mid-20th century that these quantum scientific discoveries were known. And lest of all by traditional Christianity which historically runs decades, if not centuries, behind the academic curve of knowledge because of its religious belief structures so resistant to change. Let alone supposing that more ancient cosmologies (sic, Wikipedia) would be helpful in explaining this kind of singular discussion. Why? Because quantum physics is not yet a 100 years old. Till then the world never knew of early creation's physical description in these scientific terms.

And don't suppose the bible would either. It was written by ancient cultures thus immediately dating its resources of human knowledge. Which is both the beauty of the Bible and the frustration of its interpreters. Some would read into its pages more than it is saying thus overlaying personal dogmas with personal interpretations to orthodox doctrines. Whereas other readers would more properly hold back in granting too much interpretative license and when doing so gain the beauty of God's written revelation by its silence. And for many of us, the silence of Scripture is as helpful as its pointedness of salvific revelation. For by it we may think more creatively, more expansively, with the newer academic findings at hand across as many inter/intra-disciplinary fields as possible without the Scriptural inhibition of forbidding or detraction.

And so, to press the point a bit further - and in a kind of equivocal argument - the concept of "nothing" could be equivocated with the concept of "zero" - which in mathematics and science is the most infinite of numbers one can rest a theory upon (sic, Wikipedia again). Meaning that "zero isn't necessarily zero" and neither is "nothing necessarily nothing."

Hence, this blog site here leans to the philosophical grounds of traditional Christianity's "creatio ex nihilo" premises but posits that in the actuality of our current universe the alternate teaching of "creatio ex continua" may perhaps be the better physical explanation even as "creatio ex nihilo" is perhaps the better philosophical argument (cf. Wolfhart Pannenberg here and here and here).

My last thought is that the theological historian Dr. Olson makes "creatio ex nihilo" foundational for God's Transcendence, Grace, and Separateness from evil. However, we have demonstrated many times that this traditional Christian dogma (or blik) is not necessary in upholding this linkage in order to retain those foundational ontological, relational, and metaphysical arguments.

Lastly, if you're confused, then please read the traditional article below by Roger Olson and then look up all the "creatio ex continua" articles here on this site starting with the first several linked immediately above including the index given at the bottom of this post. Hopefully what I am doing here is not positing something new in a sense, but rather attempting to update the oldness of traditional Christianity with the newness of our technological age without grossly exceeding interpretive bounds with more pertinent and relevant questions.

When doing this it seems everything changes - and perhaps well it should! But in the changes we must attempt to neither bind the Scriptures nor our Lord in the process. Whether it be by our insistence upon adhering to the older doctrines of the church or by turning a blind eye to what newer discoveries are telling us about ourselves, the universe, and God Himself through the narrative of church history and human event as they provide greater depth to our reading of the Bible.

And yet, in all things, may all honor and glory be given to our glorious Redeemer God in the unity of the church bound in the great mystery of the Son and Spirit.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

February 2, 2015

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Why I Believe in “Creatio ex nihilo” (Creation out of Nothing)

(Even Though the Bible Doesn’t Directly Teach It)

source link

by Roger Olson

January 30, 2015

Comments

Every once in a while I meet someone who, while exhibiting every sign of being a true Christian, denies the traditional Christian doctrine of “creatio ex nihilo”—creation out of nothing. This belief, the “prior actuality of God” (Austin Farrer’s term), combined with the idea that God created in the beginning out of nothing (not “Nothingness”—Greek philosophy’s me-ōn), is not directly taught in Scripture. However, the early church fathers, especially (but not only) the Cappadocian Fathers (Basil of Caeasarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory Nazianzus), insisted on it against Greek philosophy and Roman religious myths. Gradually it was raised to the status of dogma by most branches of Christianity even if rarely, if ever, explicitly stated as such in creeds or confessions of faith.

Why?

Creation out of nothing is the only alternative to four alternative beliefs about creation that are absolutely untenable for Christian thought:

1 - One is pantheism or panentheism—belief that God and the world are either identical or interdependent. In either case the world is part of God or so inextricably united with God eternally that God is dependent on it. (Here “world” refer to creation, the universe, finite reality.)

2- Another alternative belief about creation is that God created the world out of some pre-existing matter that he did not himself create. In that view God “created” by organizing an eternal something that was chaotic and stood over against him.

3 - Yet another alternative belief is that God created the world out of himself in which case the world is made of “God stuff”—God’s own substance.

4 - Finally, a mostly modern, secular view is that some world (or substance, energy) has always existed and God, if he exists at all, has nothing to do with its origin or development.

If there is a fifth possibility, alternative to creation out of nothing, I am not aware of it. All that I have considered “boil down” to one of those four.

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Many Christians, to say nothing of non-Christians, embrace one of the alternative beliefs about creation, for whatever reasons, and feel permitted to do so because neither Scripture nor creedal orthodoxy explicitly requires creation out of nothing. (Some Christian denominations may require it, but most do not explicitly say so.)

So is creation out of nothing just speculation on the part of orthodox Christian theologians? Why has this idea been so prominent and defended so strongly by traditional Christian theologians if Scripture and creeds do not explicitly require it? Why do I believe in it while admitting it is not explicitly taught in Scripture and points to an impenetrable mystery?

Creation out of nothing is not mere speculation; it is based on other beliefs that are explicitly taught in Scripture and that are part and parcel of traditional, orthodox, classical “Great Tradition” Christianity.

Here is where I think many modern Christians, both conservative and progressive, across that spectrum, fail to realize there are necessary Christian beliefs that are not explicitly taught in Scripture. Yes, admittedly, they are “man-made doctrines” and are more part of Christian philosophy, Christian presuppositions underlying explicit dogmas about Christ, the Trinity, and salvation, than confessional, systematic theology itself. (This is a somewhat artificial distinction but I find it helpful at times and this is one such “time” or instance. Some would call it “the Christian worldview”—the set of basic perspectives, “blik” [to borrow a term from philosophy R. M. Hare], that underlie Christian dogmas about God, Christ, and salvation.)

Creation out of nothing is part of what Emil Brunner called “Christian ontology”—derived from revelation but not explicitly revealed. Without it certain revealed truths cannot be maintained or defended; they slip away without this ontological, metaphysical foundation.

Creation out of nothing (in the beginning, not moment-by-moment as Jonathan Edwards speculated) is necessary, as I said, because without it one will believe in one of the alternative views mentioned above and will eventually find crucial gospel tenets dissolving. It is the only alternative to those views of creation and alone supports and defends the revealed gospel of truth about God, Christ, and salvation.

Now, I find it necessary to warn not to attempt to provide an alternative to creation out of nothing by saying God created “out of love.” That is not an alternative to creation out of nothing; it is simply speaking of God’s motive or disposition behind and for creation—not the what out of which God created. It is completely compatible with creation out of nothing and does not replace it. When someone says God created “out of love” they are not expressing an alternative to creation out of nothing.

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All of the above is to say that there is a Christian ontology, a Christian metaphysical worldview, perspective about reality, that is not itself explicitly revealed but is established because it is the only support for what is revealed and expressed in classical, orthodox Christianity. Often its support is that alternative views are simply untenable in light of revealed truth and, if held, lead inexorably to distortions of the gospel itself.

So what revealed truths, held and taught by all branches of catholic and orthodox Christianity (including the Reformers) make creation out of nothing necessary in spite of its impenetrable mysteriousness?

First is the transcendence of God, God’s holiness, wholly otherness, majesty, power, glory and freedom. Throughout Scripture God is revealed as not dependent on anything in creation for his actuality. Do you need a proof text? Paul to the Athenians in Acts 17:22-31: God does not need anything and gives life and breath to all mortals. Some may point to another portion of Paul’s soliloquy in Athens—that we “live and move and have our being” in God and are “God’s offspring.” None of that undermines and indeed must be interpreted in light of God does not need anything. That is a constant theme throughout Scripture: That God is “above” creation and does not need anything outside of himself to be God. A God who needs the world for anything is not the God of the Bible. “Without the world, God is not God” is Hegel’s heresy, the root of all panentheism, and it undercuts and undermines God’s holy transcendence. This is “another God,” not the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Isaiah, Jesus and Paul.

Second is the gratuity of grace, the revealed truth that redemption is solely gift and that grace for salvation cannot be forced or necessary. It also cannot be presumed as if God owed it to himself or anyone or anything. This belief is integral to Christian soteriology and arises out of biblical revelation and out of the very meaning of grace itself: “For by grace are you saved…and that not of yourselves….” (Ephesians 2:8-9) If creation out of nothing is not firmly held and defended, the freedom of God in redemption and salvation, grace itself as sheer gift, slips away.

Third, finally, is the reality of evil and God’s non-involvement in and non-participation in evil. Creation out of nothing protects the reality of evil from being reduced to illusion (our not-yet-knowing of our own divinity) or necessity (in which case it is not really evil).

These three Christian ideas, derived from revelation itself, if not directly revealed, depend on creation out of nothing. One or more of them completely undercuts and undermines all the alternative perspectives on reality. Only creation out of nothing protects God’s holy freedom and wholly otherness, the gratuity of redemption, and the reality of creaturely opposition to God as evil/sin.

In other words, even though creation out of nothing is not explicitly revealed or normally stated in creeds and confessions of Christian denominations and churches, it inevitably appears as we bore down to inspect and think about the presuppositional pillars that uphold ecumenical Christian belief and experience. It is an aspect of Christian ontology which is just as important as Christian doctrine. The line between the two is admittedly blurry, not absolutely distinct, but we might say that Christian ontology appears not so much directly out of revelation as out of close inspection of Christian beliefs based on revelation in light of alternative religions, philosophies and worldviews in culture. Creation out of nothing was discovered, not invented, by the church fathers as they examined the worldviews, religions and philosophies around them in Hellenistic culture. So today we need to rediscover it and embrace and defend it as we examine modern and postmodern secular and pagan worldviews, religions and philosophies in and among which the same alternative beliefs about God and creation arise (as in Hellenistic culture).

In other words, we can no longer take creation out of nothing for granted; alternative beliefs about God and the world are seeping and creeping into Christian churches. We need to find spaces for teaching Christian ontology (under whatever name). We need to correct Christians who are confused about God and creation, especially those who are coming to believe that creation (e.g., our souls) are “part of God” or that God “did his best with what he had” in creation which is the explanation for evil.

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Note: This is an opening to a conversation among Christians. I don’t expect non-Christians to believe in creation out of nothing (although some might). If you choose to comment or question, please keep that in mind. If you are not a catholic-orthodox and/or evangelical Christian (concerned for biblical revelation and basic Christian orthodoxy) you are free to ask questions about Christian belief including creation out of nothing, but please do not misuse this blog to promote your alternative belief system or worldview (or metaphysical/ontological skepticism). If you perceive yourself to be a catholic-orthodox and/or evangelical Christian and choose to respond negatively (with disagreement) state whether you agree with the three basic Christian dogmas/doctrines I stated that I argue require (together) belief in creation out of nothing. In any case, keep in mind that the purpose here is dialogue. Keep it civil.

continue to -

Critique of Aquinas' View of God's Activity in the World

Index to past articles on "Particle Physics, Quantum Science, and the Universe"