Peter Enns, "You and I have a different God, I think"

Enns is always interesting.

I’ve been watching the Adam and evolution debates/discussions on line, in social media, and in print. I think I am beginning to see more clearly what accounts for the deeply held, visceral, differences of opinion about whether Adam was the first man or whether Adam is a story.

The reason for the differences is not simply that people have different theological systems or different ways of reading the Bible. A more fundamental difference lies at the root of these (and other) differences.

I think we have a different God.

Christians are supposed to think about God they way Jesus showed us to think about him.

That God does not hesitate to participate in the human drama, to encounter humanity within the limits of the human experience. That means that biblical writers wrote about the God they encountered as they understood him within their cultural limitations.

True encounter with God, expressed in truly human, cultural, terms.

That’s why I have no problem reading the Adam story as a story of origins like other stories of the ancient world, or understanding Paul’s take on Adam as an outworking of his Jewish world (where biblical texts are molded to fit an argument), and calling this kind of writing “God’s word.”

The Gospel teaches me that this kind of Bible reflects the character of God. This kind of Bible is what I have come to expect.

The Gospel does not teach me that it is a problem for God to enter into the human experience and allow that human experience to shape–from beginning to end–how the Bible behaves. The Gospel teaches me exactly the opposite.

And the Gospel certainly does not teach me that God is up there, at a distance, guiding the production of a diverse and rich biblical canon that nevertheless contains a single finely-tuned system of theology that he expects his people to be obsessed with “getting right” (and lash out at those who don’t agree).

When it comes to things like Adam and I hear how people explain their position, the question I ask myself now is “what kind of God are you presenting to me here when you say X….?” Is it

an incarnating God–Immanuel, God with us, or

a Platonic god–where you have to peel off the obscuring “down here” hindrances to get to the untainted “up there” god, with the Bible as an encoded inerrant guidebook to get you there.

I don’t like the platonic god. I don’t think Jesus did either.

You can tell something about the god people believe in by paying attention to how they talk about controversial issues of the Bible–like Adam.  Do you see a system-dispensing administrator who keeps his distance or “God with us”? If you keep your eyes open, my bet is that you will see one or the other coming through loud and clear.

Patheos/Enns

--Nick

The Daily Beast, "Blue Like Jazz and the Christian Movie War"

I'm planning on seeing BLJ this weekend. We'll see if it deserves the controversy. But, just in case others are interested:

It was arguably the most boneheaded thing erstwhile presidential hopeful Rick Santorum said.

 

Back in February, while addressing a group of supporters at the Americans for Prosperity forum in Michigan, Santorum quipped, “President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob.” He then proceeded to rant about “liberal college professors” trying to “indoctrinate” students. His audience of acolytes gave him a standing ovation.

According to filmmaker Steve Taylor, a similar closed-minded crusade has been unleashed within the “calcified” Christian movie industry.

On March 21, Taylor wrote a blog post entitled “The Christian Movie Establishment vs. Blue Like Jazz,” which is the title of his upcoming film centering on an impressionable young evangelical who flees his Baptist community and enrolls in left-leaning Reed College. There, his experiences befriending gay and liberal college students open his mind, granting him a different perspective on his Christian faith. The independent film, which opens in theaters on April 13, is based on Donald Miller’s popular, semi-autobiographical tome of the same name that’s sold over 1.5 million copies worldwide.

In the post, Taylor rails against the artlessness and—as Captain Louis Renault would put it—rank sentimentality of the “Christian Movie” genre, such as the popular oeuvre of the Kendrick brothers, who are responsible for the Kirk Cameron-starring Christian film, Fireproof. Then, the bombshell: the irate filmmaker alleges that Jim McBride, the executive pastor of Sherwood Baptist Church, where the Kendrick Bros. films are distributed via his company, Sherwood Pictures, “issued what amounts to afatwa against Blue Like Jazz when he made it known that nobody who worked on our movie would be allowed to work with them in the future.”

Marshall Allman as "Don" and Justin Welborn as "The Pope" in Blue Like Jazz directed by Steve Taylor. , Jonathan Frazier / Roadside Attractions

“There was an email that was seen by two people [from McBride], so I put the blog together very carefully and vetted it,” said Taylor, who is a Christian, in an interview with The Daily Beast. “When you’re doing something like that, people are afraid for their jobs and other people’s jobs, so they’re afraid to go on the record. But before I put it out there I confirmed it with the two witnesses.”

Furthermore, Taylor reprinted an email he obtained from Kris Fuhr, the vice president of Provident Films, which co-distributed each of the Kendrick Brothers’ movies, and is currently distributing the pro-life film October Baby. It read:

“I think exhibitors  are going to try to play the Blue Like Jazz trailer with october baby this can not happen - the trailer actually has the words “I hate Jesus” in the voiceover along with a number of images that will be very offensive to catholics it is in the best interest of theaters to not run the trailer because they are going to have a lot of angry patrons if they do thanks for your help here.”

Fuhr confirmed the authenticity of the email to Christianity Today, claiming it was sent to Michael Silberman, co-president of Samuel Goldwyn Films, which is distributing October Baby, and acknowledged she misquoted the voiceover in the trailer (the character actually says, “I’m ashamed of Jesus.”) Both Fuhr and McBride refused to comment to The Daily Beast.

For their part, Samuel Goldwyn Films released an exclusive statement to The Daily Beast through their representative, saying, “We believe from past experience that the faith-based audience is easily offended by trailers (playing ahead of our faith films) in which they find language and/or other scenes and expressions to be controversial. We have also been advised by our faith marketing partners that some audience members feel that placement of a trailer ahead of a faith film implies an endorsement of that film by the distributor and producer. In an attempt to avoid negative situations, we passed our concerns along to some of our exhibitors. The placement of trailers was and continues to be under the control of exhibitors.  Compatibility of audiences is an important factor in trailer placement and it’s possible that for these two films, the audiences may not be compatible. The Blue Like Jazz trailer did in fact play ahead of October Baby in a number of theaters and we have been advised by some theater managers that they received complaints about the trailer fromOctober Baby movie goers.”

Howard Cohen, the co-president of Roadside Attractions, which is distributingBlue Like Jazz, says he believes that Samuel Goldwyn Films is exaggerating the number of complaints received from October Baby filmgoers that prompted the distributor to allegedly remove the trailer from many of its prints.

“We heard about one or two complaints, literally,” Cohen told The Daily Beast, adding, “[Sherwood] movies are limited in their scope and hermetically sealed. They don’t really allow real life to enter into the story. The interesting thing about Blue Like Jazz is it doesn’t hew to a storyline that is purely instructional. Those movies are more dogmatic, but this one is more experiential.”

And it’s this lack of scope within the “Christian Movie” genre that seems to be the issue at the heart of the Blue Like Jazz controversy.

“It frankly infuriates me—the degree to which people who make media for fellow Christians assume the audience isn’t that smart,” says Taylor.

While Blue Like Jazz isn’t the most boundary-pushing entry in the “Christian Movie” genre—it’s rated PG-13 and is sex-free—the film also doesn’t shamelessly pander to Christians. It’s a bildungsroman that follows a young man who turns his back on his Baptist community when he discovers his mother is sleeping with a young, televangelist preacher. After enrolling at Reed College, he befriends a group of radical liberal protesters, including the most radical of them all—a young, drugged-out wild child who parades around in a Pope costume and, it’s later revealed, was molested by a priest as a youngster. The film’s climax is a 9-plus minute conversation between the protagonist and the wild one, where both characters make peace with their troubled pasts, as well as their faith.

October Baby, on the other hand, is a dogmatic film with an extreme pro-life agenda. It tells the story of an emotionally troubled 19-year-old who realizes she is adopted, and that her birth mother tried to abort her. She sets off on a journey to meet her birth mother, and when she does, she’s consumed by anger. However, after seeking consolation from a Catholic priest, she errs on the side of forgiveness.

“I think the difference between our movie and their movie is the climactic scene,” Blue Like Jazz author Donald Miller told The Daily Beast. “From the Christian movies that I’ve seen, they don’t seem to be based in reality. They present this idea that Jesus makes everything better here and now. That’s not the story of Jesus. The story of Jesus is that if you’re a Christian, ‘life continues to be very hard, and I have hope that someday I’ll be reunited with Him.’”

According to Taylor, Blue Like Jazz doesn’t jive with other “Christian Movie” fare—like October Baby or the Kendrick Brothers’ films—because it’s not crafted like a sermon being preached to the choir, and forces Christian viewers to leave their comfort zones. By having it’s young protagonist not only befriend liberals and gays, but also be taught valuable life lessons from them, it also seems to clash with the political zeitgeist. Since, as Newsweek’s Andrew Sullivan so succinctly put it, “the Republican base is made up of evangelical Protestants who believe that religion must consume and influence every aspect of public life,” by challenging certain tenets of conservative Christianity and embracing aspects of leftist politics, Taylor’s film may be seen by the Jim McBrides of the world as an affront to both evangelism and the GOP.

“It’s certainly reflective of a younger generation of evangelical Christians who just weren’t buying the menu that seemed to be going along with declaring yourself a Christian—particularly the fusion of Christianity with right-wing politics,” says Taylor, adding, “I think part of it was a rebellion against the fact that declaring yourself a Christian means you’re de facto declaring yourself a right-wing Republican.”

Daily Beast/ Blue Like Jazz

--Nick

A Most Introspective Feline; a brief video

Do you often wonder how cat's view the world? Are you dissatisfied with how The Far Side has demonized and stereotyped felines? Do you long to see cats made into skyscrapers of stone?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Q34z5dCmC4M

--Nick

Roger Olson, Time Magazine and "Heaven"

I found this to be interesting. 

And Now…It’s Time’s Turn: April 16 (2012) Cover Story about Heaven

It seems the major weekly news magazines are competing for readers by having more frequent covers stories about religion. A few days ago I blogged about Newsweek’s cover story about embracing Jesus and abandoning the church. The current issue of Time has a cover story entitled (on the cover) “Rethinking Heaven.” The actual title of the story (inside) is “Heaven Can’t Wait: Why Rethinking the Hereafter Could Make the World a Better Place” by Jon Meacham.

Two recent books seem to provide the catalyst for the story: the best-selling Heaven Is for Real (the story of Colton Burpo’s trip to or vision of “heaven”) and N. T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope. Other books about heaven are mentioned as well.

The point of the story seems to be that some Christians, especially scholars like Wright and “activist” young Christians, are “rethinking” heaven as what happens here and now when we lead good lives helping others and the future renovation of earth after Christ returns. The article seems to say, or at least imply, that belief in a disembodied, purely spiritual existence after death is the traditional view of heaven.

The article talks about two “two camps in the heaven debate” as if they are equal in terms of basic biblical Christianity. The one camp that emphasizes an immediate and permanent disembodied bliss in a purely spiritual heaven is labeled the “Burpo-Graham view.” The other that emphasizes resurrection, both of the body and of the earth, as heaven is treated as the Wright (not necessarily “right”) view also held by theologians such as Christopher Morse of Union Theological Seminary.

According to Meacham, the second view better lends itself to activism in the here and now to make this world a better place. He acknowledges, however, that at least some in the first camp, holding the first view (purely spiritual heaven) also believe in working to make this world a better place.

What I wonder is why these are treated as separate and incompatible “views” of heaven with two camps of believers who supposedly disagree about heaven? I am sure that Billy Graham believes in the future bodily resurrection and eventual renewal of earth with the joining of heaven and earth that Wright talks about. (I won’t dare to speak for Colton Burpo or his parents, but there’s nothing in that view—yes, I read the book—that rules out a future resurrection.) And I’m confident, or at least hopeful, that Wright believes in Paradise as the disembodied existence of the dead in Christ awaiting the resurrection.

Toward the end of the article the author seems to acknowledge the “two step” view of life after death in Christian theology with the first step being a disembodied waiting for resurrection in a heaven-like paradise and the second step being the new heaven and earth joined together with resurrected bodies. This is, of course, the traditional view of life after death (for believers) held by most Christians throughout two millennia. Catholics would throw in purgatory as part of that “intermediate state.”

The thrust of the article seems to be that some Christians believe in an intermediate state and others don’t and that some Christians believe in a future resurrection and renewed earth that is heaven (for believers) and some don’t. Only occasionally does the author acknowledge that the two views can be combined. What is missing is any hint that the combination is the traditional Christian view!

I admit that books like Heaven Is for Real worry me. They may tend to reinforce folk religion that thinks of heaven in purely spiritual terms without any idea of a future resurrection and new heaven and new earth. But nothing in the book necessarily denies that. Similarly, I worry that some theologians’ strong emphasis on the resurrection and new heaven and earth as the primary referent of “heaven” may mislead people to deny the intermediate state.

What I do is talk equally about two future realities for believers: “paradise” and “heaven.” I think it is appropriate to reserve the word “heaven” for God’s place now and our future home when this world and our bodies are freed from bondage to decay and God is all in all or everything to everyone. But I think we need to talk also about “paradise” as that place many people, in their folk religion, call “heaven”—the abode of the dead in Christ about which we know little. But the apostle Paul wrote the Corinthians about it and even suggested that he (or a man he knew) went there in some kind of “near death” experience.

A holistic account of life after death takes both equally seriously even though it emphasizes the resurrection of both our bodies and creation as the “blessed hope.”

Olson/Time/Heaven

--Nick

The Daily Lewis Black

This is Grand Theft Auto 3. The object of this game, WHO CARES? I'm too busy randomly hitting an old lady with a bat, carjacking a station wagon and running over people, or, my personal favorite, running over the person whose car I just stole, WITH THE CAR I JUST STOLE! Now, THIS is a video game! Rescuing the princess is for PUSSIES!

For my boy Chance. Get better man!


--Lewis Black

Scot McKnight, "Top Five Most Influential Books"

Mine are in no particular order:

1) The Inescapable Love of God by Thomas Talbott


Thomas Talbott's ability to make an exegetical and logical case for trinitarian exclusive universalism that leave room for a will that could be free is refreshing. A very logically concise and rigorous example of an evangelical universalist who deals with proof-texts and actively engages with those who disagree with him.

2) The Coming of God by Jurgen Moltmann


As Talbott is logical and philosophical, Moltmann is very Eastern in his thinking. He writes as if he is telling a very grand story that is far beyond anything you've ever heard. His background as a drafted German soldier experiencing hell in prison camps and him saying "Jesus found him" is not only a powerful example of God's sovereignty, but also God's desire to be all in all. An intimate and powerful case for universalism. 

3) Man and Woman, One in Christ by Philip B. Payne


I was raised Complementarian, and this book certainly helped changed my mind on the entire issue. Payne spends countless pages addressing each counter-example, using his experience in textual criticism and detailed exegesis, leaving no stone unturned. His findings on I Corinthians 14 are unprecedented, and he has indeed shown me that it is very reasonable to be an Egalitarian. Of which I proudly am. 

4) Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard


Most people put Mere Christianity here. When I first read MC at Biola, I was going through a pretty rough time spiritually, and found MC trite. This is not to suggest that MC *is* trite, but after rereading it several times, I didn't find much of it compelling. However picking up F&T did indeed offer a different way of looking at things. That is the strength of Kierkegaard. 

5) God At War by Gregory A. Boyd


If one is looking for not only a holistic take on atonement, theodicy and God's foreknowledge, look no further. Boyd tackles all three in this weighty book, which reads like a textbook filled with mythological battles. His use of Scripture is compelling, his belief in Christus Victor has given me much food for thought, and even his "open" view of God has shown to be reasonable, even if I don't believe in it.

Jesus Creed/ Top 5

McKnight's top five are:

Martin Buber, I and Thou
Augustine, Confessions
Dante, Divine Comedy
John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship

Which books make your top 5? Excluding the good book, of course.

--Nick

Jurgen Moltmann Quote, "The Crucified God pg.xii"

"The translation of The Crucified God into many languages brought me into the community of many struggling and suffering brothers and sisters. The book was read in Korean and South African prisons. People working in slums and hospitals wrote to me, as well as people who were themselves suffering under 'the dark night of the soul.' I came into contact with Catholic orders vowed to poverty and the mysticism of the cross, and with Mennonite congregations who are following the path of Jesus. I need not tell it all. What I should like to say is this: even more than Theology of Hope, this book brought me into a great company. I believe it is the company of people under the cross. Beneath the cross the boundaries of denominations and cultures collapse. The community of the sufferers and the seekers is an open, inviting community. 

It is about this community that I am thinking, now that this book appears again, for it is there that I am home."

--Jurgen Moltmann, "The Crucified God", preface xii.

Eating Like a Damn Dirty Hippie, days 6 & 7

So. Today was different. I went to a wine tasting for work, had some great wine and hung out with some cool people. Had Chick-Filet only because I was dying of hunger having not eaten the entire day.

So, I did some math and I gained about 100 calories today. Considering that I went a while without eating and while running around work, I'm entitled.

Roughly 100 goldfish. Some rice and plain chicken. A lot of tea. Two chick-filet sandwiches. A lot of wine. And some water.

And a lot more wine.

--Nick

Sin City Sequel a 'Go'

This will be welcome news for fans of the stylized and gritty adaptation of Frank Miller’s Sin City that prompted Robert Rodriguez to exit the Directors Guild because the DGA wouldn’t let Miller co-direct the film with Rodriguez. Dimension Films, which released the first, announced that deals have been made and casting is underway. Rodriguez will have another sequel selling at Cannes. That is the Danny Trejo-starrer Machete 2, and I’ve heard that Rodriguez is chasing cast that includes Michelle Williams and Mel Gibson. Here’s the release on ‘Sin City.’

AUSTIN, TX (12 April 2012) — Filmmakers Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller, along with producer Alexander Rodnyansky, have announced that production will commence on the highly anticipated sequel to 2005’s Sin City, entitled Sin City: A Dame To Kill For. The film will be produced by AR Films and Quick Draw Productions, financed through AR Films U.S and released domestically by Dimension Films.

“The first question I am always asked is “When will you make another Sin City? ,” said Rodriquez. “I have wanted to re-team with Frank Miller and return to the world he created since the day we wrapped the original, but have felt a duty to the fans to wait until we had something truly exceptional that would meet and exceed what have become epic expectations. A Dame To Kill For will certainly be worth the wait.”

Sin City creator, screenwriter and co-director Frank Miller said, “The first Sin City knocked out audiences who had never seen anything like it before. Robert Rodriguez and I are going to shake things up and deliver a ferocious film experience that is going to go even further than the first.“

The script and details of the film’s story have been kept tightly under wraps. Casting will begin next week, with many of the original cast expected to return. The film, a Quick Draw Production, will be produced by Rodriguez and producing partners Aaron Kaufman and Iliana Nikolic; and by Alexander Rodnyansky and Sergei Bespalov and Stephen L’Hereux. Miller, The Weinstein Company’s Harvey and Bob Weinstein and Miramax’s Adam Fields will act as executive producers. Sin City: A Dame to Kill For was developed by Frank Miller based upon his graphic novel, with a screenplay by Frank Miller and Academy Award winner William Monahan (The Departed). The film is expected to begin production this summer at Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios in Austin, Texas.

Alexander Rodnyansky said, “We are delighted to continue our relationship with Robert Rodriguez and Quick Draw Productions. It is a rare opportunity to produce and finance a film with the high profile and enormous fan base of the Sin City franchise. AR FIlms will be managing worldwide sales of Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, as well as Robert’s Machete Kills at the Cannes Film Festival in May.”

The original Sin City was brought to the screen by Rodriguez and Miller and released by Dimension in 2005, and proved to be a landmark step forward in filmmaking, breaking ground with immersive green screen to create its iconic stylish look. The first film, released on April 1, 2005, grossed over $160 million (US) worldwide and is a consistently strong home video and television performer.

“Audiences have been clamoring for Sin City 2 with Robert and Frank for a long time and trust me, it will be worth the wait,” said Bob Weinstein, co-chairman of The Weinstein Company. “This will be my 11th collaboration with Robert in 16 years and he’s become a great friend. I look forward to continuing our long lasting relationship and partnering on more projects in the future.”

The deal was negotiated by Aaron Kaufman, Craig Emanuel of Loeb & Loeb and Robert Newman of WME on behalf of Rodriguez; David Glasser and Andrew Kramer on behalf of Dimension Films; Schuyler Moore of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan and Jere Hausfater on behalf of AR Films; Kenneth Keller and Garth Rosengren of Krieg, Keller, Sloan, Reilley & Roman and John LaViolette of Bloom Hergott Diemer Rosenthal LaViolette Feldman Schenkman & Goodman on behalf of Stephen L’Heureux and Solopsist Films; and Mark Lichtman and Neil Meyer and Allison Binder of Stone, Meyer, Genow, Smelkinson & Binder on behalf of Miller.

Deadline/Sin City

I'm so happy. So so so so so happy.

--Nick

George MacDonald, "The God Revealed in Jesus Christ"

This article was offered for free by author Thomas Talbott on his website. It is from the anthology "All Shall be Well; Explorations in Universal Salvation and Theology, From Origen to Moltmann," edited by Robin Parry (or Gregory MacDonald, as he was known).

This post will cover pages nine through thirteen, and continue in the essay written by Thomas Talbott on my favorite deceased theologian, George MacDonald.

Universal Salvation in the Theology of George MacDonald (1824-1905) by Thomas Talbott

Now if, according to MacDonald, Jesus Christ is the very revelation of God to us, just what is the nature of the God he reveals? In a sermon entitled “The Creation in Christ,” MacDonald asked: “Now what is the deepest in God?”27 That is, what is the most basic attribute of divinity, the one that explains God‘s most basic reasons for acting? It could not be his power because having the power to do something could never, by itself, provide a reason to do it. Neither does having the power to do something exclude the possibility of doing it for a selfish or even for a demonic reason. So, because Jesus himself described God as our “Father in heaven,” because his entire message, as MacDonald understood it, was one of love and forgiveness, and because I John 4:8 & 16 declares twice that God not only loves but is love, MacDonald likewise wrote: “In one word, God is Love. Love is the deepest depth, the essence of his nature, at the root of all his being. . . . His perfection is his love. All his divine rights rest upon his love.”28 But if it is indeed God‘s nature to love, how then should we understand his holiness and justice? Are not these also attributes of God? People sometimes say, as if it were an illuminating remark, that God is not only loving and merciful, but also just; they then exhort us to take into account God‘s justice, as well as his love, and to avoid an overly sentimental understanding of his love. According to MacDonald, however, God‘s justice is itself an expression of his love and, beyond that, his justice and mercy are exactly the same attribute. Nor was MacDonald‘s understanding of God‘s perfecting love, which a sinner might sometimes experience as wrath, harsh judgment, or even a temporary hardening of a heart, even remotely sentimental.

“I believe that justice and mercy are simply one and the same thing; without justice to the full there can be no mercy, and without mercy to the full there can be no justice; that such is the mercy of God that he will hold his children in the consuming fire of his distance until they pay the uttermost farthing, until they drop the purse of selfishness with all the dross that is in it, and rush home to the Father and the Son, and the many brethren—rush inside the centre of the life-giving fire whose outer circles burn. I believe that no hell will be lacking which would help the just mercy of God to redeem his children.”29

So God is not, in other words, a split personality whose justice pushes him in one direction and whose mercy pushes him in another. In order to illustrate the point, MacDonald chose, as a text for his sermon entitled “Justice,” the King James translation of Psalm 62:12: “Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy; for thou renderest to every man according to his work.” He then pointed out that, given the prevailing Calvinist theology of his day, one would have expected this text to read very differently, something like: “Also unto thee, O Lord, belongs justice; for thou renders to everyone according to his or her work.” But if MacDonald was right about justice and mercy (and the Calvinists of his day were mistaken), then it matters not which term one might choose. For the two resulting statements are, if not synonymous, at least logically equivalent, and so both are true if either one is true.30 MacDonald might also have pointed to a text such as Isaiah 30:18, according to which God‘s mercy expresses his justice: “Therefore the Lord wants to be gracious to you; . . . he will rise up and show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice.” Or he might have pointed to the eleventh chapter of Romans, which explicitly teaches that God‘s severity towards the disobedient, his judgment of sin, and even his temporary hardening of a heart all express his boundless mercy. The point is that, according to explicit teachings in the Bible, God‘s justice and mercy both require exactly the same thing, namely, an absolute destruction of sin and the separation of every sinner from it.

This single move, that of affirming an identity between divine justice and divine mercy, strikes at the very heart of Calvinism as a system of theology. Many Christians who might reject MacDonald‘s universalism—Arminians, Roman Catholics, and other freewill theists—can nonetheless accept such an identity, but a Calvinist cannot. You cannot consistently affirm a doctrine of limited election (much less that of limited atonement) unless you suppose that God deals “justly” with some people—namely, the non-elect—without being merciful to them. In defense of limited atonement, therefore, the Calvinist philosopher Paul Helm has argued that mercy differs from justice in just this respect: By its very nature mercy must be supererogatory, an expression of undeserved love, and hence cannot rest upon a moral necessity of any kind. “What is essential to such [undeserved] love is it could, consistently with all else that God is, be withheld by him. If God cannot but exercise mercy as he cannot but exercise justice then its character as mercy vanishes. If God has to exercise mercy as he has to exercise justice then such ‘mercy‘ would not be mercy [i.e. would not be undeserved love]. . . . A justice that could be unilaterally waved would not be justice, and a mercy which could not be unilaterally waved would not be mercy.”31

Now the first thing to observe about such an argument is that it is not a biblical argument at all; that is, it does not rest upon the interpretation of some biblical text or combination of texts. It is instead a quasi-philosophical argument of a kind that MacDonald encountered repeatedly and always rejected on the ground that it rests upon an utterly pagan understanding of justice and mercy.32 The easiest response would be to make Helm a present of the word “mercy” and then simply to replace it with any one of the following: “beneficence,” “kindness,” “compassion,” or even “pity.” One could then note the absurdity of the following claim: “If, given his essential attributes, God cannot but exercise beneficence [kindness, compassion, or pity] as he cannot but exercise justice, then its character as beneficence vanishes.” And, finally, one could point out that Romans 11 culminates in the statement: “For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful [or beneficent] to all.”33 As I have suggested elsewhere, the basic Pauline concept here, typically “translated in our English Bibles with the word ‘mercy,‘ is not that of undeserved love at all. It is instead that of beneficence, kindness, compassion, or pity. It has in view not the setting aside of a just punishment, as Helm supposes, but the relief of misery or distress.”34 In fact, MacDonald himself rejected as absurd the whole idea of God withholding a deserved punishment from someone. For if divine justice and mercy are the very same attribute, then God withholds a deserved punishment only if he withholds his mercy as well.

Behind the widespread idea that God‘s mercy is supererogatory lies the more general absurdity that, even as our Creator, God owes us nothing in our so-called fallen state; in particular, he has no obligation (no responsibility grounded in necessity) to save sinners. But MacDonald rejected that view as patently absurd. For just as the decision to have children entails an obligation to care and to provide for them, however disobedient they may become, so God‘s decision to create us entailed a freely accepted obligation to meet our true spiritual needs. MacDonald thus exclaimed:

Away with the thought that God could have been a perfect, an adorable creator, doing anything less than he has done for his children! . . . The idea that God would be God all the same, as glorious as he needed to be, had he not taken upon himself the divine toil of bringing home his wandered children, had he done nothing to seek and save the lost, is false as hell. Lying for God could go no farther. As if the idea of God admitted of his being less than he is, less than perfect, less than all-inall, less than Jesus Christ! less than Love absolute, less than entire unselfishness! . . . It will be answered that we have fallen, and God is thereby freed from any obligation, if any ever were. It is but another lie. No amount of wrongdoing in a child can ever free a parent from the divine necessity of doing all he can to deliver his child.35

So here, once again, we see how MacDonald‘s vision of God‘s all-pervasive love so inflamed his imagination that he found much of the Western theological tradition, insofar as it departs from a consistent expression of it, deeply offensive.

--Nick

Footnotes:

27 “The Creation in Christ.”  In Unspoken Sermons, 420.

28 Ibid., 421.

29 “Justice.” In Unspoken Sermons , 535.

30 Two statements need not be synonymous in order to be logically equivalent. For example, “The triangle on the board is equilateral” and “The triangle on the board is equiangular” are not synonymous statements. But they are logically equivalent. It is necessarily true that both are true if either one is true.

31 Helm, “The Logic of Limited Atonement,” 50.

32 There are in fact powerful exegetical arguments in support of MacDonald‘ s contention here. For an exceptionally careful study of how the translation of the Hebrew Bible into the Septuagint and the subsequent translation of the Septuagint into the Latin Vulgate distorted the Hebrew understanding of justice and drove an unwarranted wedge between justice and mercy, see McGrath, “Justice and Justification”; for a discussion that non-specialists might find somewhat more accessible, see Brinsmead, “The Scandal of God‘s Justice: Part 1”; and for an exhaustive review of the biblical evidence, see Marshall, Beyond Retribution, chapter 2: “The Justice of God in Paul and Jesus.”

33 Rom 11:32.

34 See Talbott, “Grace, Character Formation,and Predestination unto Glory,” 22.

35 “The Voice of Job.” In Unspoken Sermons , 340, 342– 43.