Theology from the ground up

Christianity would be a lot more fun if it weren't for two aspects of our faith that at times make it almost unbearable. The first of these is the reality of evil and suffering. The second is the doctrine of free will, or human choice. The two tend to come as a package deal.

I can't be bothered to give you the usual theological explanations for these two phenomena. I find that they satisfy me cognitively, but leave me cold in the affective domain. I draw my own conclusions on the basis of human experience rather than from systematic theology books.

Although my late, sainted father-in-law never said these words to my knowledge, they certainly suited his view of human existence: "Life is hard, then you die." While not entirely lacking joy, happiness, or contentment in his life, he still plowed through the years with a sobriety, a wariness, and the conviction that "we are not of this world", which in the main he found baffling and off-putting.

In some ways, I don't blame him. Not only is human existence one of constant compromise as one tries to live in this world of shifting and relative principles, values, and goals, but one has to hold to absolutist notions of the goodness, power, and love of God while trying to explain why bad things happen to good people. I nearly lost my faith when six aviation students, some of them my students at Trinity Western University, encountered very bad weather and flew into the side of a mountain. One of them was a former police officer with a lovely wife and a young family who left his profession to attend a Christian university.

People of faith have gone various directions with this. The Calvinists remove the problem of free will by holding to predestination of the saved and the damned. The universalists try to remove the problem of suffering by maintaining that every human being, no matter how evil, will eventually be reconciled to God and to the humanity that they have brutalized for a life-time. Mr. Hitler, meet Rev. Bonhoeffer and Rabbi Cohen. Shake hands and hugs all round.

Ron Sexsmith's song (see my post of April 26/11) falls into this latter category:

There's no need to be saved
No need to be afraid
Cause when it's done
God takes everyone.

Here's my problem. God appears to take our life on earth very seriously. I often wonder why he does. It's such a short time as compared to the eternity that is to follow. It's so full of pain, hopelessness, and despair for so many of the world's inhabitants. Yet he sees it as so important that not only does he permit horrid things to happen, but more often than not he does not interfere with what goes on, no matter how opposed these events are to what he says is his will. The controversial book The Shack by William Young wrestles with this reality.

Through all this garbage Christians are to be faithful, joyful, optimistic, and self-disciplined, even when the world appears to be going to Hell in a hand-basket.

God's plan made a hopeful beginning
But man spoiled his chances by sinning.
We trust that the story
Will end in God's glory,
But at present the other side's winning.

The only conclusion that I can come to about this is that God places an incredibly high value on free will. Nothing else can explain it.

[Well, that's not strictly true. God not really being all-loving, all-powerful, or everywhere present would also explain it, but then we're on to a very different topic.]

If human choice, and the consequences that flow from it, are that important to God, why would he, in the final analysis, cast it aside either by predestination (no real choice), or universalism (no real consequences).

Thus I am looking for middle ground that makes better sense of God's revelation than the tradition of certain knowledge, which I have been exploring in earlier posts. neXus is on that road with me. Taking God's revelation to its logical conclusion, what is the eternal fate of his creation?

Caution--Protestant lurking

One great strength of the Protestant movement is that interpretation of the scriptures is not left up to one or a few people.

Now I can already hear my R.C. brethren/sisters shouting out their protestations (if you'll pardon the expression). "That's the trouble, not the strength, of your protest movement. Everyone does (or believes) what is right in their own eyes. Look at all your different churches." Or as the Pope likes to call them, not churches at all but merely ecclesiastical communities.

Actually I'd rather not look at them thanks. But I have three reactions to this common complaint. Firstly, the German Shepherd to the contrary notwithstanding, there does seem to be a good deal of variation of belief among Catholics on many topics, even if there is a widely taught official position--the role of women in the church, the celibacy of the priesthood, gays, and contraception being four that come quickly to mind.

Secondly, there is a pretty wide consensus among Protestants on most of the major theological issues, the greater portion of which are shared with the Catholics and the Orthodox church.

And thirdly, I would rather have various groups of Protestants have a few things wrong, than one gigantic denomination not get it right. Imagine if the Pope were to receive a phone call in the night from the Lord. "Joseph, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I am going to unite all the people of the world under one leader centered in one historic city. The bad news is that I'm calling from Salt Lake City."

At any rate, the reason why I call Protestant individualism a strength (and yes, it is also a weakness, like most strengths) is that we are thrown back on the scriptures, creation, the Holy Spirit, Christian experience, prophecy, and so on for guidance rather than putting all of our eggs in one basket--a basket which was constructed largely in the medieval period.

I said all of that to tell you this. I'm not a fan of systematic theology--Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox. I reserve the right to look for new insights, even better understandings, of the character and will of God than we have traditionally been taught. Systematic theology is a speculative human endeavour, trying to piece together from the Bible an airtight explanation for every theological matter, and then being prepared to die (or kill) for those speculations.

So we had the Catholics burning the Anglicans, and the Calvinists imprisoning the Anabaptists, not to mention the Inquisition, for digressions in systematic theology. The Church even burned Bibles lest they get into the wrong hands. What nonsense. This is the purest speculation on my part, but I can't help but think that there has been the odd Pope who, in the quiet of his study or bedroom, has said, "I wish I weren't stuck with this doctrine!"

Therefore, I am willing to listen to earnest, devout, open-minded discussion on biblical topics without immediately writing it off as heresy if these conversations veer into new understandings of what God's intentions are for his creatures.

I call this form of doctrine-building 'theology from the ground up'. I use Scripture pretty widely in my religious ramblings, but since the Bible speaks to human experience, I also understand it, to some extent, from human experience as well.

Thus while I am looking at some of the issues that are raised at neXus, I want you to know that I am bringing a Protestant and earthy approach to it.

Now back to Ron Sexsmith, universalism, and why I reject this particular view of unconditional love.

Does God always get what he wants?

Departing from my stroll down soteriological street for a moment, I want to have a look at a contemporary Canadian music artist who recently performed in Vancouver BC, Ron Sexsmith.

Sexsmith wrote a song entitled "God Loves Everyone" that has almost become the theme song of neXus. Apparently his inspiration for the lyrics was the horrific murder of a gay Univ. of Wyoming student in 1998 named Matthew Shepard.

"The crime itself was horrible enough," says Sexsmith, "but I remember reading about the trial, where there were these folks standing outside with signs saying, 'God hates fags' or "Burn in hell fags.' I couldn't believe that people could actually have those kinds of thoughts. That's where the song started for me. From there, I got in to just trying to write a song about unconditional love, I guess."

Here are the lyrics. If you would like to hear it sung, YouTube has it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7Bs7Do8yAI.

God loves everyone
Like a mother loves her son
No strings at all
Unconditional
Never one to judge
Would never hold a grudge
'Bout what's been done
God loves everyone

There are no gates in heaven
Everyone gets in
Queer or straight
Souls of every faith
Hell is in our minds
Hell is in this life
But when it's gone
God takes everyone

Its love is like a womb
It's like the air from room to room
It surrounds us all
The living and the dead
May we never lose the thread
That bound us all

The killer in his cell
The atheist as well
The pure of heart
And the wild at heart
Are all worthy of its grace
It's written in the face
Of everyone
God loves everyone

There's no need to be saved
No need to be afraid
Cause when it's done
God takes everyone

God loves everyone


The words are true to the extent that that nothing is beyond the reach of God: not evil, not hardship, not death. As the lovely old George Beverly Shea hymn puts it:

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell.
It goes beyond the highest star
And reaches to the lowest hell.

My difficulty with Sexsmith's song, which is the same problem I have with universalism, is that it suffers from the identical fundamental flaw as Calvinism/Lutheranism; i.e., it fails to account sufficiently for the doctrine of human choice, or free will.

If we were to accept the position that the Kingdom of God, rather than Hell, is the default position for all of humankind (the idea that I have been exploring in earlier posts), we still have to decide if one can opt out of the Kingdom as an exercise of free will. [Whether opting out means one is doomed to a literal Hell or to something else is not the main point here.]

Or to put it another way, while God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, does God always get what he wants? I invite your comments.