Undeception

You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you.

~ St. Augustine

There are profound theological implications for one’s understanding of the fate of sinners depending on whether one believes Augustine’s words. Was Augustine correct?

Much of the church’s soteriology in the last several centuries has taken its cue from the very old notion, found in Augustine, that the will of every human is utterly opposed to God. But stated this way, that stance takes no position on the more important issue of whether this state of opposition is intrinsic to us. Many Protestants have mistaken Augustine’s opposition to Pelagius’ tabula rasa as implying that humanity is intrinsically opposed to God, but even Luther’s own terminology recognized that our wills are not naturally predisposed toward enmity with God: rather, our wills are in bondage. The universality of the bondage of the will undercuts the instinct of some among the Reformed who will be quick to suggest that Augustine’s words refer only to the elect. Remember, Augustine was the most important advocate of what we call Original Sin: his contention was that there was a vacuum in every human soul that could only be plugged by God. We are all fallen, but we are fallen into a restlessness of heart, not into a complete rejection of that aspect of our hearts. We are fallen into a bondage of the will.

For me, this basic belief – that whatever fallenness all flesh is heir to is a corruption rather than a default orientation intended by our Creator – frames the whole debate over the fate of those who die in rebellion against God. The human species is designed such that it finds rest only in its home, and its home is with God.

At the outset, I cannot believe that God made people in a certain way and now condemns a majority of them to suffer irredeemably for it. There is no room in my heart or mind for such a view of hell and the afterlife, nor room in this post to persuade those committed to the idea. If you are content with that view, I will not pry it from your fingers, though I hope better for you; I will look elsewhere.

A more Arminian view (although you needn’t be a five-point Arminian to hold this view) is that many sinners will reject God despite having been presented the alternative and being given a genuine choice. They are responsible for their own damnation by defying and resisting God, who (more reluctantly than in the Calvinist view) sends them to hell as just punishment. But to grant this we have to grant a few things that I find problematic. To begin with, I have severe problems with calling a punishment meted out in mere retribution, without any intent or hope for exacting compensation and reconciliation, a “just punishment”.

Perhaps the most popular alternative to that conception of hell as divine satisfaction of justice through punishment of sins, a conception present in both Arminian and Calvinist forms, is that of C. S. Lewis. His famous understanding of hell as outlined especially in The Great Divorce avoids my objection by contending that hell is not as much divine punishment as it is the result of a final and irreconcilable discord between God and sinners that, crucially, is attributable not to God but to a conscious and persistent choice on the part of sinners. For Lewis, those who finally choose to reject God will never, even given endless opportunities in their post-mortem state (the door is “locked from the inside”), take Him up on His offer of reconciliation. To those who wind up in hell, their selfishness is their home and their reward, and God mercifully lets them go with a sigh and a “thy will be done.” This is Lewis’s hell.

That may be a satisfactory solution to my first objection to the Arminian view, but there are pitfalls shared by both the Arminian view and Lewis’s. Once you grant the position of Augustine, Luther, etc. that God crafted the human soul to be oriented even in its fallenness toward home with Himself, you’ve got to satisfactorily answer the question of why certain souls would never ultimately find their way home. I have trouble accepting that anyone who knew enough about hell to make a reasoned and responsible choice would choose hell: these views require either that God callously accepts the impaired decision of an impaired will or that He designed some of us to have wills that, even if let out of their chains long enough to make a free decision, would point in the polar opposite direction from Himself. We have to ask why a God who loves us all would make some of us in such a way that we would not be attracted to His goodness, preferring a destiny where we’d waste away, all to His own bereavement. Would you have a child if you knew beforehand that he would hate you and die in selfishness and bitterness at a young age? Finally, notice that in these views, God is made out to be an incomplete victor in His war against sin and death. Neither view is much of an alternative to the Reformed one, which after all has a certain terrible logic to it.

The best solution I am aware of comes from the man C. S. Lewis regarded as his mentor (posthumously). George MacDonald’s view was that, because God created humans in such a way that our deepest yearnings are for communion with our Maker, God’s purposes would not – could not – be successful unless those children He made remembered where they belonged and eventually turned back homeward. God is the Great Physician who heals all our diseases, even if they have penetrated deep into our wills and desires. Inasmuch as our wills are misshapen, God’s intention and chosen responsibility is to restore them, through what will undoubtedly be a painful process for all involved (this is MacDonald’s “hell”), but it will eventually be accomplished in all alike. As the greatest and highest objective Goodness, God is wholly and utterly lovely to all He has made. He has never made a soul that could become so blind as to be utterly incapable of recognizing Him as Father, and MacDonald doubted to the extreme that there ever existed a soul that would not be irresistibly drawn to Him and His goodness once it did recognize Him. Our wills are bound, bound by our biology, bound by our cultures, habits, and prejudices: what else would a loving Father do but make every effort to free His children from that bondage? “The will of God should be done. Man should be free—not merely man as he thinks of himself, but man as God thinks of him.” Neither a final death (annihilationism in its various forms) nor eternal death (an eternal hell) would be acceptable to God, because it is Death, not the wayward will of one of His children, still less His child itself, that is truly His enemy; He intends to put Death under His feet once and for all, swallowing it up in Life that He may be all in all.

Conceptions of salvation, beliefs about the fate of the damned, and interpretations of biblical eschatology — as nearly all doctrines — have tolerated variations and fluctuations throughout church history, but what has remained a constant underpinning of Christianity is an understanding of God as quintessentially good, loving, and just. For my part, I cannot reconcile the latter bedrock assumption with any of the views discussed above except that of MacDonald. While I cannot claim certainty that his stance is true, I find it to be the least damaging to the character of God as understood by Christians throughout the ages, and with him I believe that God would rather us think the best of His character as reflected in that majority Christian testimony than doggedly defend the factuality of every depiction of Him we can find in the Bible.

Moreover, if the problem of pain, which is probably every bit as much responsible for strife, heartache, and savage acts of sin as it is a result of them, has any solution, it’s in a God who will emerge as the victor over suffering by conquering it and redeeming it for the good of everyone He allowed to endure it. Scoff if you like, but my heart was restless until it found its rest in this God, and I will cling to that hope until my dying breath.

I am more convinced than ever that many Christians suffer from a massive misunderstanding of the nature of justice.

Now for the record, I’m no Rob Bell groupie (I’ve never read anything he’s written), and I certainly don’t intend to critique any and every critique of him or his ideas. Nor do I intend this as an endorsement of soteriological inclusivism or universalism, but as a plea for a reevaluation of what justice means.

To begin with, this “remake” of the infamous Love Wins promo video (the makers insist that they don’t intend to parody) illustrates the problem well.

Source: YouTube

First, I’d like to thank those involved for the spirit in which this video was made. If there’s nothing else to commend it, I can at least be happy that it’s not so appallingly smarmy like that one popular parody many of us have seen (which I won’t even bother linking to here).

It starts off by turning Rob Bell’s question about Gandhi around: whereas Bell asked how right it would be for God to condemn a good man like Gandhi, this video asks how right it would be for God to let Hitler off the hook. I’m beginning to think that Godwin’s Law deserves a corollary: ”As a discussion of non-exclusivistic soteriology grows longer, the probability of an appeal to emotion regarding Hitler approaches 1.” Call it the Lovewins Law.

The video goes on to ask how the bad things that those of us who aren’t genocidal maniacs do can legitimately be distinguished from the acts of genocidal maniacs. On that, all I have to say is that if your system of thought gives parity to the life of a decent yet non-Christian teenager killed in a car-wreck and the life of Hitler, it’s up for examination during the next common sense audit. But that’s part of the problem with this video: it pulls Hitler out as a trump card, but then tries to argue that to God, we’re all as bad as Hitler, which of course makes it useless as a trump card.

Many objectors to universalism, like the makers of the above video, do so on the grounds that the victims of evil acts, such as Holocaust victims, must be vindicated if God is going to show Himself just. This is an appeal to our almost unavoidable emotions, especially anger, toward wrongdoers. Hey, if someone were to kill my family and I had the immediate chance to kill him in response, I’m the first to admit that I’d probably not be able to avoid doing just that, and probably as cruelly and as painfully as I was able to. It’s part of our instincts, a social defense mechanism that’s no doubt played into our survival as a species: eliminate even small-scale offenders for large-scale protection.

So don’t get me wrong: wanting to make sure that offenders pay is understandable. It’s completely human. And I mean completely: it’s not divine.

It should be a dead give-away that the predominating view of justice is somewhat askew when we see the line blurred in all sorts of TV and movies by troubled characters trying to get back at wrongdoers and justifying their actions by saying, “It’s not revenge. It’s justice.” The very fact that the lines are so blurry suggests that we should rethink it. Is there a substantive difference between revenge and justice?

One of the first factors people will suggest to distinguish the two is motive: we should prosecute perpetrators impartially and according to the law (=justice), not because we’re angry about what they’ve done (=revenge). But what’s the motivation for good justice? “Well, to stop offenders from hurting others and discourage harmful behavior.” I ask you: what does this have to do with the afterlife? Is God worried that a redeemed Adolph might not be able to resist the urge to pull wings off of heavenly butterflies (or angels…yeah, that’s probably it)? “Ok then, to comfort the victims.” And this is different from outsourced revenge how?

I used to think that pursuing a justice system that sought to reform rather than punish criminals was solely the interest of out-of-touch Woodstock left-overs. But now, even though I still have doubts about the corrigibility of many people and the ability of our current structures to truly reform them, I at least understand the motivation better. A truly impartial justice system should ensure that the desire for vengeance on the part of the victims or the victims’ loved ones does not eliminate our attempts to restore them and heal the holes in their souls that caused their destructive behavior. As MacDonald wrote, “Suppose my watch has been taken from my pocket; I lay hold of the thief; he is dragged before the magistrate, proved guilty, and sentenced to a just imprisonment: must I walk home satisfied with the result? Have I had justice done me? The thief may have had justice done him—but where is my watch?”

If we have to keep wrongdoers locked away in the interest of public safety or to deter crime, it’s a concession we have to make as humans. But God’s not a human.

Or is He only a bigger, better human? Is He, as C. S. Lewis believed, a slave to some “deep magic” that cries out, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth — unless you can get some perfect, sinless guy to come along and lose his eye or tooth for you”? Jesus did not seem to think so: he weighed the lex talionis and, for all the balance implied (it’s not an eye plus a $100 fine for an eye, after all), found it wanting, because it does not get to the root of the problems that cause our hurtful sins. We as humans (especially as victims) find it impossible to be objective about what those who do wrong deserve.

Image via Wikipedia

Who, then, would be in the best position to understand all the environmental and internal factors that would warp the mind and will of a child who delights in painting pictures for his mother into an adult who destroys millions of children and mothers — who other than that person’s Creator? If He is not an impartial judge, we are all in trouble; but if He is, and He chooses to heal all our diseases, casting aside our sins as far as the east is from the west, who can say that His justice is deficient, even if it means that our desire for revenge against the Hitlers of the world is thwarted?

The question is not mercy vs. justice: it’s love versus revenge. Justice can never be about revenge. My hope is that God’s overwhelming, all-consuming righteousness will be revealed in His scandalous mercy.

I doff my hat to Robin Parry…

I used to think that if I could see the lost in hell, surely I must weep for them. If I could hear their horrid wailings and see the dreadful contortions of their anguish, then surely I must pity them. But there is no such sentiment as that known in heaven. There the believer will be so satisfied with all of God’s will that he will quite forget the lost in the idea that God has done it for the best, that even their loss has been their own fault, and that he is infinitely just in it.

If my parents could see me in hell they wouldn’t have a tear to shed for me, even if they’re in heaven, for they would say, “It is justice, O great God; and Your justice must be magnified, as well as Your mercy;” and not only that, but they would feel that God was so much above his creatures that they would be satisfied to see those creatures crushed if it might increase God’s glory. Oh yes, in heaven I believe we will think rightly of men. Here men seem great things to us; but in heaven they will seem to be nothing more than a few creeping insects that are swept away in plowing a field for harvest; they will appear no more than a tiny handful of dust, or like some nest of wasps that ought to be exterminated for the injury they have done. They will appear such little things when we sit on high with God, and look down on the nations of the earth as grasshoppers, and “count the isles as very little things.”

Oh, the satire! Wait…it is satire, isn’t it?

Unfortunately, no. In fact, apart from a few tweaks in wording I applied in order to obscure its provenance (the 19th century), the above was from an actual sermon, ”The Hope of Future Bliss.“ by none other than Charles Haddon Spurgeon. It’s amazing how this much revered preacher (who I have little time for) breathlessly affirmed almost the identical picture recently painted by Chad Holtz, but at least Chad wrote his piece actually conscious of how problematic that picture was. I dearly hope that those Christians whose theology lines up with Spurgeon’s will feel ashamed to see it so starkly stated; yet my fear is that instead, many will feel emboldened and more dedicated to haranguing us all with this cancer that they call “the gospel” (“good [sic] news”).

Theologians like Spurgeon certainly paved the way for a movement that currently seems to be gaining in influence in America. But how did Christians miss the fact that his concepts of the relationship of justice, mercy, and love, though popular even now, were questioned and (I do not hesitate to say) soundly defeated within twenty years of this sermon?

Perhaps the most unsettling aspect of Spurgeon’s words is the fact that it’s hard to propose a rationale for why the dehumanization of humanity and especially the devaluation of non-Christians should not be acknowledged right here and now, long before that time when we, the elect, are issued our harps in the sweet by and by. In fact, Spurgeon impatiently emotes that this disregard for the well-being of our fellow humans, and even our own family, is something precious that we can look forward to fully grasping only in the hereafter!

No wonder some among us have more of an interest in transplanting wasps’ nests up to Glory Land than they do for alleviating the suffering of the wasps’ deservedly baneful existence!

Incredible.

Sometime during the meandering introduction to the sermon this past Sunday, my five-year-old son turned to me and whispered, “What is hell?”

The service suddenly got a lot more interesting. I don’t think anyone had said anything about hell in that service. But that’s my son: a chip off the old blockhead.

Deep breath. “We’ll talk about it later, ok?” It’s not like he could expect me to explain that subject on the spot, right? Right in the middle of the service! But regardless, I considered, I should take this quiet time to gather my thoughts.

Then I realized I needed to answer another question first: what do I believe about hell?

Image via Wikipedia

I have said a lot of things on my blog lately in defense of universalism. So am I a universalist? Well, right now, I’m confident enough that I should defend it against the bum rap it’s been given, and although I’m not confident enough to decide on that question myself (much less to proclaim it as truth), my heart is there.

But even if I do accept universalism, does that answer the question about hell? Most Christian universalists throughout church history have believed in hell. So I still had to answer my son’s question. What do I believe about hell?

At this point, I believe that hell is where we are separated from God. I do not believe that it is a place God sends us to in order to make us pay for our sins (which can never be done, so it drags on and on and on and on…), or a death sentence that will satisfy His sense of justice, or His chosen method of getting rid of those stubborn souls who won’t tell Him how awesome He is. If it’s locked, it’s locked from the inside, as Lewis said, emphasizing that those who stay there are not bound there against their wills. “Separation from God as a result of sin” struck me as a very ecumenical definition of hell that I can find a lot of sympathy for.

In fact, it reminded me of something…something very recent…

Then it hit me. And instead of waiting until after the service, I thought I might be able to give him a starting place in some quietly whispered words.

“Remember this morning when your little sister was screaming and acting really hatefully? She wouldn’t let Mommy or Daddy help her pick out her clothes or do anything for her, and when I tried to talk sweetly to her and hug her, she just kept screaming at me?”

“Yes.” Trust me — we hadn’t seen a meltdown like that one in a very long time. We were late for church because of it.

“Remember what we did? Mommy and Daddy shut her in her room and let her scream until she got it all out and realized how bad it was to treat everyone that way. It didn’t take long for her to realize it, and when we let her out a couple minutes later, she was better, and she really acted very sweet, didn’t she?”

A thoughtful nod.

“That’s what hell is like…”

He perked up, realizing that I wasn’t just reminiscing, but answering his question about hell. “You mean Satan’s world?” Oh man, the dualistic Sunday School teachers have already gotten to him. Undeception has to begin at home, I guess.

“That’s one way people think about it. But what I am talking about is when people who hate God and act mean to everyone die, and God sends them to a place where they can understand how badly they acted and remember how much He loves them and how much they miss and need Him. It’s a really sad place. We call that place hell. Do you know what I mean?”

Another nod. This time he leaned against me, satisfied. For now.

Like I said, just a starting point – and I’m certainly not at the end of my own journey. Perhaps the best part was that I didn’t have to answer my own lingering question: whether every sinner will ultimately leave his or her “room” and enter communion with God. But at least I’ve planted a view of God that my young son can understand.

It wasn’t a view he would have found reflected in the pastor’s sermon about the “gospel” as defined by penal substitution theory, I hate to say. But he didn’t really listen to the sermon anyway.

I just wish the rest of the congregation had been so lucky.

Vimeo (via Δεσποσύνη)

My paraphrase: “Hey, we’re not the ones calling Rob Bell a heretic: it’s God. Through us, naturally. As Paul said, ‘We do not preach ourselves, but [our own doctrine masquerading as the very truth of God].’ If someone questions our dogmatic understanding of the Bible and resents being called out as a heretic, it is that person who is arrogant, not us.”

Not helpful, Doug.

I’m very much disturbed to see how often it is that Christians are so devoutly interested in upholding their scriptures that they don’t mind if either God or neighbor gets black and blue in the process.

The trick to being an evangelical these days seems to be the willingness to maintain that evil is not necessarily evil when it comes to God. Besmirching His character under the ironic cover of defending God, what passes for good Christian apologetics is actually much more of a defense of prized doctrines such as inerrancy or Augustinian/Reformed soteriology than the only thing worth defending, viz. God’s character. Defending both our carefully constructed doctrines and God’s character cannot always be done simultaneously because they are often at loggerheads (or else many popular apologists would be without a job). Slick, ear-tickling apologetics serve the much-in-demand function of reassuring people that the Bible is everything they think it needs to be in order for their faith to remain comfortable and unquestionable.

Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a more successful result if someone were consciously trying to relieve Christians of their responsibility to grow up into mature men and women of God. Unlike what I wanted to believe long ago, I do not find it so easy to believe that the truth can be discerned by looking for “that than which nothing more counterintuitive can be conceived.” Now I am convinced that we need to be willing to question things that conflict with our conscience. In some cases, we may have to disagree with Scripture; in many others, we may find that we have simply been forcing something unnatural onto the text.

Regarding the atrocities of the Canaanite conquest: do you think it’s better to worship a God whose morality requires exceptions and redefinitions of key concepts than to live with the uncertainty that perhaps even the biblical authors were not fully aware of the depths of God’s grace? Are you content to excuse even the worst charges against God if by any means it vindicates your Bible and the comfortable theological confidence it gives you?

Regarding the destiny of unbelievers: are you willing to accept lying down the damnation of your unbelieving brothers and sisters, shrugging it off with a mere, “Like it or not, that’s what the Bible says”? Forgetting the examples of Moses and Paul, are you content to cling to that ill-founded defense in assurance that your own fate is secured? Search your heart: are you nursing a strong prejudice against the idea of inclusivistic or universalistic Christianity in order to ensure the relevance of your religion’s special claims? I beg you to reconsider your priorities. As with the brutalities described in the Old Testament, if the Bible truly does unequivocally aver that some souls can never be recovered (which I doubt), it should be the fervent hope of every lover of God that the Bible is wrong about it. Where is the passion for what is right and compassionate that motivated the characters of Job, Abraham, Moses, the prophets, and Paul to contend with their Maker over their understanding of His words? “The Bible says it” simply isn’t good enough.

I’ll be blunt: Holy Scripture or “historic, orthodox” doctrines notwithstanding, the only way God is worth worshiping is if He’s good and loving through and through. I will not subjugate love to scarcely warranted glory or petty retribution disguised as justice. My faith is in a God whose soul is more lovely than ours, who has a higher, more wholesome sense of love and justice than we are able to walk in as humans. My hope is built on nothing less than this!

Despite Robert Burns’ own considerable moral indiscretions, he certainly had no trouble decrying religious phonies such as he saw in William Fisher, elder in Mauchline Kirk in 1785. In “Holy Willie’s Prayer”, Burns paints a vivid picture of a womanizing hypocrite whose excuses and even theological justifications strike me as authentic and potentially accurate. But forget those for this post. So as not to give the false appearance of indicting any of the Reformed with Willie’s moral failures, I will cut out all but the first five and final stanzas (but here’s the rest).

O Thou, who in the heavens does dwell,
Who, as it pleases best Thysel’,
Sends ane to heaven an’ ten to hell,
A’ for Thy glory,
And no for ony gude or ill
They’ve done afore Thee!

I bless and praise Thy matchless might,
When thousands Thou hast left in night,
That I am here afore Thy sight,
For gifts an’ grace
A burning and a shining light
To a’ this place.

What was I, or my generation,
That I should get sic exaltation,
I wha deserve most just damnation
For broken laws,
Five thousand years ere my creation,
Thro’ Adam’s cause?

When frae my mither’s womb I fell,
Thou might hae plunged me in hell,
To gnash my gums, to weep and wail,
In burnin lakes,
Where damned devils roar and yell,
Chain’d to their stakes.

Yet I am here a chosen sample,
To show thy grace is great and ample;
I’m here a pillar o’ Thy temple,
Strong as a rock,
A guide, a buckler, and example,
To a’ Thy flock.

………………

But, Lord, remember me an’ mine
Wi’ mercies temp’ral an’ divine,
That I for grace an’ gear may shine,
Excell’d by nane,
And a’ the glory shall be thine,
Amen, Amen!

Love that meter and rhyme scheme!

Isolating the theological content, and certainly not including Willie’s justification of his own hypocrisy in the omitted portion of the poem, on the whole I found that the depiction of Reformed doctrine in the first four and last stanzas, with its preoccupation on God’s acting in the interests of His “glory” via damnation and grace to fallen humanity, sounded very much like presentations I hear nowadays.

But considering Willie’s pompous demeanor, I must say that the ugly side of his attitude certainly bears a resemblance to someone I recently interacted with. (H/T to Matthew Raymer for reminding me of this poem.)

Again, I want to be careful not to bind Reformed theology – and still less all those who accept it as truth – to the personal flaws of Willie Fisher. But I do have to ask: considering their insistence that total depravity of the will, monergism, and unconditional election actually highlight our need for humility, why is it that the popular stereotype of those who are the most committed to Reformed theology as being insufferably arrogant seems to find so many matches in the real world?

My guess is that it would be hard not to let the idea of being “chosen” inflate the heads of those convinced that it applies to them. I know it would be hard for me to chalk up my own election (if I believed in such a thing) fully to divine mystery: I suspect that deep down I’d feel pride in somehow being one of those few whom God thought He could use to bring Himself glory, no matter how much my innate uselessness was necessary to qualify me. I suppose that in the end, even if I believed I had no merit going into it, that the act of divine election itself would afford me a special status in God’s economy and be a coat of many colors difficult to wear in humility. I must say, I know many very humble Reformed people, and I must applaud them for not succumbing to the temptation they face!

But the problem isn’t just with the Reformed, is it? It’s with all exclusivist Christians. Heck, it’s with all humanity. How can we avoid it?

Perhaps it’s in loving “the outsiders”, even our enemies, no less than we love ourselves. In kenosis, we forget whatever privileges we think we have and devote our very lives to making them available to others. A deep-seated, God-empowered will to love and act in love to all indiscriminately; a conscious decision on our part not to elect some and damn others, or treat anyone as though God had done so.

Gosh, it’s still a difficult balancing act, but it’s worth trying to keep in mind.