Justice

Wow. This is a sermon by George Macdonald, read by David Baldwin. It is long, but worth it.

h/t Undeception.



Some highlights:

"If anything be against mercy it cannot be called justice for it is cruelty."

"To say on the authority of the Bible that God does a thing no honourable man would do is to lie against God."

"I will accept no explanation of any way of God which explanation involves what I should scorn as false and unfair in a man."

"Such justice as Dante's keeps wickedness alive in its most terrible forms."

"The notion that a creature born imperfect, nay born with impulses to evil not of his own generating, and which he could not help having, a creature to whom the true face of God was never presented, and by whom it never could have been seen, should be thus condemned (to hell), is as loathsome a lie against God as could find place in a heart too undeveloped to understand what justice is, and too low to look up into the face of Jesus. It never in truth found a place in any heart, though in many a pettifogging brain. There is but one thing lower than deliberately to believe such a lie, and that is to worship the God of whom it is believed."

 "Love, and not self-love, is Lord of the universe."

"Our business is not to think correctly, but to live truly."

"One chief cause of the amount of unbelief in the world is, that those who have seen something of the glory of Christ, set themselves to theorize concerning him rather than to obey him."

Not How Satan Rolls

Dear Pat Robertson,

I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher.

The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth -- glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven't you seen "Crossroads"? Or "Damn Yankees"? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox -- that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it -- I'm just saying: Not how I roll.

You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings -- just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract. Best, Satan

Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Tough Titties Devil Worshippers!

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PODcast Episode #2

Episode 2 - Watch us Suffer

Enjoy the second installation of Two Friars and a Fool. This topic is hosted by Nick and deals with the ever present topic of God and Human Suffering. How does God relate the vast suffering present in the world? What does it mean to deal with this theodicy question? How do we actually deal with suffering in our ministries and lives?

*for real this time, I swear*

Good Friday

Today I go back to the hospital, and one of the things I feel that I need to do is to have another conversation with a patient who has given up. I don't want to go into details, so as to maintain his anonymity, but essentially he is facing a difficult and debilitating treatment of what amounts to the slow rotting of parts of his body. If he lets the treatment occur, no clinicians have told me he's likely to die just yet. He'll lose mobility, have to endure pain, but will be able to return to his life.

Yesterday I decided I wasn't giving up until he talked to me. He hadn't talked to nurses except to refuse even basic care (blood sugar checks, wound care, etc.) and hadn't talked to doctors at all. He was just in the fetal position on the bed staring out the window. I pulled a couple chaplain tricks, and got him to talk to me - barely.

It isn't often that you see someone that desolate. Its haunting just to think about and remember even in my living room.

And it turns out that he is Christian, and today is Good Friday.

Normally we don't really do anything for Good Friday as such in the hospital except work to facilitate patients and staff who want to observe in some way. But I was thinking about this guy, and of some way I could reach him. Good Friday seems like the day to face a guy who is choosing to die.

As I thought about it, I came to a slightly deeper understanding of Good Friday. It wasn't so much that Jesus was deciding to die - is a temporary death even a death at all? Rather, I think that Jesus was choosing to suffer for the sake of resurrection. To suffer torture and the grave, but not to succumb to it.

So this is what I'm going to bring to this guy tomorrow. Its going to be really hard, and I'm way past the point where I think my words will be magic and have some huge impact on him. But maybe this guy sees death looming over him (Hell, given his situation, I'd feel it) and can't let himself see past it...because of the pain, or the humiliation that comes with losing mobility you once had, or the frankly icky nature of what he's suffering from.

I see one hope for this guy, really, and it has to lie past the pain and the death and the mess. It has to be some kind of resurrection, some kind of return to life that is healthier than it was before. I think he has that chance, and I don't see much else he has to hope for.

It doesn't make him Jesus for making the choice to live despite death any more than I'm Jesus for talking to him. It's my job, and my reasons for putting this much time in are selfish. I feel awful that this guy has given up. I don't want to watch him deteriorate, and watch the nurses get upset and take it personally because they care so much, and the doctors throw up their hands because he can't heal if they can't cut, and they can't cut if he doesn't let them.

So this guy has a choice either way - choose death, or choose life beyond a kind of death. I know I can't choose for him, or be in his head, but I want to clearly say what I see.

Providence?

A plane crash-landed into the Hudson River and everyone aboard survived. Christians around the country were claiming it was God's providential care that kept those people alive.

Two weeks later a plane went down in flames in Buffalo. 50 people died. To be consistent we have to explain where God's providence was in this second case. Was it inability on God's part? He just didn't catch it in time? In which case God is not omnipotent as traditionally claimed. Was it God's will? Did God have some reason for killing those 50 people and saving the ones in the Hudson? Could there possibly be rational gymnastics sufficient to resolve the dilemma in a way that is consistent with the claim that God is just and merciful?

To be clear, I won't accept the usual cop-out, "God works in mysterious ways." That is not an answer, but a way of avoiding an uncomfortable question.

There is a more reasonable, simpler, and more likely to be correct answer: God was not involved. God did not save the first group and ignore the cries of terror from the second. The first group was saved by a combination of circumstance and human action, and the second doomed by the same combination. There is no moral to be gleaned from the continued existence of the people on the Hudson, or from the deaths of the people in Buffalo. It is arbitrary and sad and unfair. End of story.

But of course, the story doesn't end, because we are storytellers we humans, and many of us survive to attempt to make some meaning out of apparently meaningless events. Such meaning making is strange, but necessary, and it can and does result in good things. Various survivors on the Hudson commented to news outlets that seeing their salvation as an act of God gave them renewed courage and deepened their desire to live lives of gratitude and service. Choosing to make meaningful experiences out of meaningless events is how we weave a narrative which informs our actions and gives them context. Everyone has such a personal narrative.

Providence is just this: people making meaning out of their lives by situating them in a grand narrative that includes the inscrutable purposes of God.

As a meaning-making technique it is neutral, neither good nor bad. It is bad, in my opinion, when it turns God into a monster by attributing horrible things to God's will. It is also bad, when it is used as a bludgeon to suppress the emotions and doubts of others. It is good when it helps someone overcome a tragedy, or dedicate themselves to a noble cause.

But bad, good, or indifferent... is it true? Are we just lying to ourselves? Is there any reason to see the hand of God in any particular event, whether positive or negative? Isn't everything adequately explained, even better explained, by natural causes and human behavior?

What Do I Mean By "Good"?

In my previous post I said that my #1 rule of theology is that God is Good (all the time). That got the pretty obvious follow-up question in the comments, "what do I mean by good?"

It's a reasonable question. We might agree, after all, that "God is Good" (all the time), and disagree entirely on what that looks like. I think it is important to keep your core affirmations simple, precisely so they are stable enough to support a rational system of ideas and beliefs. So while, I'm happy to try and give some definition to my meaning of "good" I wouldn't include this stuff in my rule, because my opinions can and do change sometimes (and on a rare occasion I'm even wrong).

So what can I say about "good"? I will say that it is an immense concept - a quality which can be applied to people, situations, behaviors, and things. It has overwhelmingly positive connotations, be they moral, artistic or emotional. When we say someone or something is good, it is a positive affirmation. A statement of support. An indication that it is "right" or "virtuous". A "good" thing is itself in a way that is proper or laudatory, even exemplary. But these are all ways of getting at the concept generally. I can be more specific.

"Good" is the object of moral reasoning. It has been defined variously, by different schools of ethics, as "seeking the greatest benefit for the greatest number" (utilitarianism), "never treating another person as a means to an end, but only as an end in themself" (deontology), or "perfecting oneself through habits of virtue" (virtue ethics). There are more ways of approaching this, but the central agreement here is that there is such a thing as "good" and it is possible to deduce what is good for a particular person or in a particular situation via reason, experience, observation and rules.

One way of describing the process of moral reasoning for arriving at the "good" is the ascription of value. We ascribe value to tangible and intangible factors alike in attempting to determine what is the best course of action or way of being. For example, we value things like "freedom", "truth", and "safety". By placing relative value on these things we can then begin to discern right from wrong by whether or not it promotes or injures these values. Everything, from individual actions, to patterns of behavior, to the substance of a person is valuable in this sense, in different degrees. When something is highly valuable we call it "good". When something has extremely low value, or a primarily detrimental effect on higher values we call it "bad". This makes ethical calculation complex indeed, but also crucial.

There is no way of getting around the fact that relative valuation of moral "goods" is extremely subjective. You and I are going to disagree on whether "freedom" or "truth" is more valuable. This makes it difficult to make very definitive statements about what is good. Openness to persuasion is thus a virtue, a "good", I believe we should value, but ultimately we have to agree that the "good" is something worth pursuing and it is attainable in some degree. If we don't at least agree on that, then the conversation was over before it started.

How does this relate to what I mean by saying "God is Good"?

First, "goodness" like God is somewhat inscrutable. It eludes perfect understanding. However, like God, "goodness" is indeed knowable, and it is imperative on us to seek to know it. The quest to know God and the quest to know what is good are intimately related, because God is the ultimate definition of good. Where we are forced often to choose between relative goods, sometimes sacrificing a lesser good for the greater, God retains the value of all goods at all times. Indeed, God increases the value of all goods infinitely. In God, every good attains its perfection and no imperfections are found.

To say "God is Good", is not like saying "Mozart's music is good" or "charity is good". It is saying, "God IS Good". God is the essence of good. God is pure, distilled, good.

So many of our theological questions, failing to grasp this, start with false premises. For example, the possibility of universal salvation is often said to be in conflict with free will. Some will say, for God to be good God must save everyone and permit no suffering, but others will say that for God to be good God must permit his creation a choice, which means there is a possibility some will not be saved. God does not have to choose between valuing freedom and salvation. God is capable of valuing both to their utmost or God is not Good. And God is Good. (All the time).

Aric's Rule #1 for Theology

Everyone has basic assumptions they make which shape everything else they believe. In many cases these basic assumptions may be subconscious, unknown to even the believer. When these assumptions can be known and revealed it makes understanding much easier, because you can trace the roots of someone's thought. Knowing a person's core assumptions also gives you a good idea whether you will ever see eye-to-eye with them since these are the interior foundations, the things upon which a person cannot compromise because (as Doug would put it) to do so would threaten that person's immortality project.

Here is my #1 rule, my #1 assumption, my core belief regarding God. On this I will not compromise:

God is good.

God must be good in my belief because if God is anything else then God is not my father, my creator, my protector, my sustainer, my savior, or my friend. If God is NOT good, then God is my enemy. For Christianity, for faith, for the world to make any sense at all God must be good.

Furthermore, goodness is apprehensible. Maybe not fully. Maybe not in every single situation for all time, but we can make accurate statements about the general contours of goodness that have meaning, and that meaning because of rule #1 is applicable to God.

For example:

Murder is not good. Anywhere. Ever. It is a synthetic moral norm that murder is always wrong. Therefore we can say conclusively that God does not murder. If God ever did murder God would not be good, and God is Good.

Torture is another synthetic moral norm. It is always wrong, by definition. This is why the Bush administration is bending over backward to define the techniques they've authorized as something other than torture. The moment they admit they have condoned torture they have no moral authority left. Anyone attempting to argue torture is ever morally acceptable is sadly confused. Because torture is wrong, God does not ever torture anyone. If God ever did torture someone God would not be good, and God is Good.

The pattern coming out of this is that for all my love of postmodern shades of gray, on some things I am an absolutist. When I say God is Good, I mean absolutely good, perfectly good, the definition of good. God is good in such a way that no human being (except Christ) ever has been or could be.

I have a little imagination game I play with myself when trying to discern God's Will - I think of the best possible situation, and then I try and think of something better than that. Somewhere beyond the limits of my best ideas, are where God's hopes and plans actually lie. Whatever we can dream of, God's dream is better than that.

Thus when it comes to questions of afterlife and eschatology and all of these fields of theology about which we really know nothing and are left to our imaginations, I am comfortable with saying that it is better than the best I can imagine, and since I can easily imagine much better solutions to injustice and evil than hell, and since I can easily imagine much better solutions to faith and righteousness than heaven I have no trouble tossing them out.

Hell in a Handbasket

Hell has been on my mind lately.

What brought it up this time is that I was listening to the Albet Mohler Program and he was talking about how upset he was that the majority of American Christians don't believe that non-believers are going to burn in Hell. For Mr. Mohler, this sounds like a serious problem. He's afraid that believers aren't willing to tell people that their non-Christian loved ones are burnig in Hell right now. Yes, he said that.

I understand that his beliefs are not unusual. I wish he understood that they were never, historically, universal, but oh well. What bothers me is that this bothers people. It bothers people that there aren't a billion souls burning and screaming in Hell for eternity.

Here's an example of one of the many ways this makes no sense. Here's a story from a couple days ago in the Marin Independent Journal: it is about a "horrific" tale of a teenager being held captive for more than a year and tortured in someone's basement. He finally escaped, showing up with nothing but boxer shorts and a padlock around his ankle. The horrorific nature of the crimes against him inspired a girl at the local high school to start fundraising to help him. Many Marin families have offered to adopt the boy (he was in the foster system).

Now, people rightly identify this story as horrific, and I think the outpouring of compassion for this kid was, in its own way, beautiful. But compared to what some people believe about God, this whole story is pretty tame. The kid was only held captive and tortured for a year, not for eternity. He was able to escape - but no one escapes Hell, right? Once you're in, that's it.

Maybe I'm crazy, but I believe that God has to be, at minimum, more merciful and loving than whoever it is that tortured this teenage boy in their basement for over a year - because what happened to this kid is horrifying and disgusting and disgraceful.

But imagine if the kid could never escape. Imagine if there was no hope the torture would ever end. Imagine if we told that kid's family that he deserved to be tortured in that way because he never had the right kind of faith in the right kind of Jesus.

That would be pretty cold-hearted, right?

So how can we say that about God?

What I'm not saying is that Hell has no meaning, or that we should toss out the few scriptural verses that talk about Hell. What I'm saying is that under no circumstances will I worship a monster. That is a preconception that I bring to theology - that God is not a horrific monster who is willing to commit moral crimes beyond human imagination. Call me crazy, but I'm just not willing to go there.

Ok, open fire.