The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Q&A with Derek Flood- author of "Healing the Gospel"

Derek,

Now you are getting to the heart of the matter. Past all the theological categories and christian jargon into the broken, bleeding heart of the matter. A “good” all powerful God is a reason to be an atheist not a believer in such a god. That is the concept of God that causes people who care about the injustice and suffering in this world to become atheists. But a crucified God, that is a real God for a real world, the world we live in. It is the Gospel of that crucified God that the world needs to hear not that of the cosmic sovereign who has a plan, but a crucified God who has an unquenchable passion to overcome the injustice and suffering in the world at whatever cost to himself.

Most everyone here agrees that Jesus did not pay for the sins of the world, but would they not agree that he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. “Take away” as in really take away so that they did not happen to us, so that sin and death itself is removed from the chain of causality and replaced with a new Genesis that began with the Big Bang event of Golgotha and resurrection of Jesus.

In Jesus I see a God who takes the sin, suffering and dying of the world so seriously that he who is the very source of life goes into the unholy, godless places and expends himself unreservedly into that desolation and void to fill it with his healing, transforming, life giving, presence. This is the God of non-power.

The God revealed in the non-power of the powerless Jesus hanging from a Roman cross is also the God of resurrection. The resurrection is the universe creating and transforming life of God that does what a an almighty god with a plan and retributive “justice” can never do: He can make things new, he does not just forgive our sins he can forget them so that they are never a part of the reality of his beloved creation.

The end is the beginning: The ultimate reality when God becomes all in all, or to paraphrase: when all that God is is given to all that there is. This is the true beginning of all things, the new Genesis where all things are made new and the former things have passed away and no longer define the creation. A whole new chain of causality is established. The notion that the past of the universe is not fixed but can be changed is not based on mere fanciful speculation, it was proposed by physicist John Wheeler, one of the leading physicists of the 20th century. discovermagazine.com/2002/jun/featuniverse. All will be resurrected, born anew, not through evolutionary processes or genetic transmission but directly from the source of life, the Father (parent) of all creation. This is sadaq, the justice of God made real, true creative and restorative justice, not the counterfeit retributive justice that passes for justice in this world.

All of space/time, from the beginning of time to the end, is brought together into a new singularity of universal resurrection where all the laws of nature and the whole history of causality goes through the crucible of Golgotha. In this crucible all the inequitableness, pain and death experienced by the whole creation is judged (removed). The creation will be set free from the necessity of evolution; there we be neither survival of the fittest nor for that matter salvation of the fittest (being made fit for the new creation through punishment\correction). This was not accomplished by the plan of a sovereign, almighty cosmic potentate but rather through the passion of the Father and the powerless Lambkin hanging on a Roman cross. The Lamb has not paid for the sins of the world; he has taken away the sins of the world. He takes the injustices, pain and harm suffered by his creation so seriously that he, who alone is worthy and capable, takes exclusive possession of them. They will be hidden from us and only the all-bountiful life-giving and healing waters flowing from His presence among us will be seen and experienced by us — this is the new Genesis.

The world is facing an unprecedented convergence of crises that will shatter our civilization and bring suffering and death in scales never before experienced. This is not the ranting of Christian tribulationists but of hard nosed scientific thinkers such as Guy McPherson who recently wrote at his blog Nature Bats Last

Climate chaos is well under way, and has become irreversible over temporal spans relevant to humans because of positive feedbacks. Such is the nature of reaching the acceleration phase of the nonlinear system that is climate catastrophe.

As a result of ongoing, accelerating climate change, I’m letting go of the notion that Homo sapiens will inhabit this planet beyond 2030. I’m letting go of the notion that Homo sapiens will inhabit this verdant little valley at the edge of American Empire after it turns to dust within a very few years. I’m letting go of the notion that, within a few short years, there will remain any habitat for humans in the interior of any large continent in the northern hemisphere. I’m letting go of the notion we’ll retain even a fraction of one percent of the species currently on Earth beyond 2050. But I’m not letting go of the notion of resistance, which is a moral imperative.

If this sounds extremely implausible it is only because most of us are not well informed enough and paying attention to what is really happening to this living planet. Earth may well be the only living planet in the universe of 100 billion galaxies because the fine tuned parameters that allow the Earth to exist as the verdant place that it is are extremely improbable. Copernicus was only right about the insignificance of the Earth relative to its position in the solar system, the latest findings of cosmology and astronomy are that because of its unique parameters, which are many, the Earth may be the only planet that has complex life. This may go against the grain of the popular imagination fed by Star Trek but it is much closer to the real nature of the universe.

This is all well beyond the issues of Christian self-concern. Their sins, their repentance, their personal salvation… Soon, much sooner than we think, the ability to discuss these things comfortably from our computer over the internet will become impossible. Those who look for chastisement will get far more then they imagined, but it won’t be from the God revealed in Jesus but from the long suffering tormented Earth rising up against its tormentors.

If these things come to pass and we descend into a true hell on Earth, the Crucified Risen One will be there before us and the last one to leave that hell until all are healed and saved. And then all the dead and extinct will awaken into the dawn of the sunrise of God’s liberating, healing justice made real by the Crucified Risen One and all the former things will be no more, they will have never been. This is the unvarnished, unequivocal Gospel that the world desperately needs to hear in the coming hour of its greatest need.

Dave,
Here’s what I see as a problem. Almost everything you state, is compatible with EU. We agree with the summation of all things under Christ. This is what makes it difficult to really hash out the differences.

I agree with Jason that Ultra-U does indeed take sin seriously. But I hope you can see so does Evangelical-U. Our disagreements are on the nature of punishment and suffering and how we should see this sovereign/non-sovereign God at work in our universe.

Speaking last night with Bob, he stated that he thinks the notion of freedom (fee will) is really looming here. I think he’s right. In fact when I raised up an objection regarding Paul’s articulation of the account regarding the Pharaoh, no one has commented on why it’s a false interpretation. I imagine there are other valid interpretations, but if you’re going to allow us to see what you see, you must be able to contrast your view with our own by explaining how you see things. If you just declare the things you do, we simply can’t wrestle with them, we need explanations.

From what I gather you seem to, at the very least, embrace imputed righteousness. Christ died for all and therefore everyone is saved. Perhaps I’m wrong about that.

So while I agree with Derek regarding God not punishing an innocent man, I don’t agree that God does not punish the wicked. It seems from both my experience in life and in scripture, that is exactly what happens – there is suffering for those who practice evil and it doesn’t stop in this age. That is based on my interpretation of a plethora of verses. Yes I know my interpretation may be wrong (probably is) and Derek may have some great insight into that. But we have to be able to compare and contrast our ideas. The worst thing you can do in defending your position is to either ignore it or dismiss the charges by stating that the writers were wrong – Paul didn’t know what he was talking about regarding the Pharaoh. It seems to me that the one who really promoted the grace of God also had ideas that God indeed was causing people to “fall asleep” because of their lack of care for the poor. This Paul endorsed that it was God who hardened not only the Pharaoh, but also Israel that mercy might come to the gentiles. How do you understand these things?

Can you give some examples of what you mean when you say: “It seems from… my experience in life… that is exactly what happens – there is suffering for those who practice evil”

My observation (and that of the Psalmists) is that this is actually not the case. So I’m not sure what experiences you are referring to.

Except that I was talking about uncomforts and inconveniences that might be intense, too, even intense to the extent of being (in one or more senses) fatal. And whatever we decide to do with it, the textual fact of the matter is that Jesus Himself by report used a term for “torturer” when describing someone being handed over into prison until he should pay up the final cent.

I fully acknowledge and insist that we’ve dangerously misread the point of that (and several other related) judgment parable, if we try to make the punishment hopeless (such as by regarding the get-out condition as being an impossible sop to legality mocking the fate of the prisoner), or if we try to make the punishment about being an embezzler instead of being about being unmerciful and insisting on punishment for someone else. (“Was it not required of you to be merciful?!”) The point is lost if there is not really any threat of punishment to those who are unmerciful, though.

Is it the intensity of a condition that constitutes “violation” and “abuse”, or is the goal of the infliction of the condition? A child could easily regard being required (or outright made) to stand in a corner or to go to his room, as being an “abuse” or “violation”; there are adults who claim such a thing, too, for all practical purposes! What about light spankings?

If the child likes or doesn’t mind the punishment (YAY, I GET TO GO TO MY ROOM AND PLAY!–my own attitude as a child when told I had to go to my room :mrgreen: --what bothered me was that my Mom or Dad was unhappy with me), then what has been accomplished by inflicting the condition at all? And it is still technically an “infliction” and a “coercion”. So would be the “uncomfortable experience of being confronted with love” (aside from whatever the particular psycho-physical conscious sensastions of that experience would be).

What you proposed was “that Hell is not ‘redemptive’ and neither is any other kind of pain or suffering.” If by “redemptive” you meant that so much pain somehow weighs or pays out against so much injustice, then I agree; but that kind of thing isn’t what redemption usually involves anyway. What redemption does usually involve is repentance for injustice, insofar as we’re talking about moral redemption and the immoral person’s cooperation with it. But the redemption itself is inflicted on us by God whether we want it or not, too. Without God inflicting something on us we don’t at the moment want, we wouldn’t be healed enough to want to repent or even to have the capability of doing so.

I am not sure what the strict technical sense of “abusive” is, but I do know that the strict technical sense of “suffering” and “inflicting” involves God acting to bring about (or authoritatively permit) and maintain (for any duration) any experience we are compelled to react to whether we want to react to it or not. Even if we want to react to it, that infliction could be abusive: that’s why it’s still morally wrong to aggressively seduce someone sexually until he or she can’t help but respond to the pleasure in a particular way, or to use drugs to render someone pliable to suggestion in various circumstances. But the moral issue of abuse has to do with the selfishness and the goals of the person inflicting the suffering. As the old maxim says, abuse does not abrogate the use: we cause suffering (strictly speaking in a technical sense) when we please each other in making love (and very intensely, too, if we’re doing it right!), and we use drugs with psychosomatic effects in therapy to help heal a person or protect them from pain during a procedure. But the relevant moral differences involved are not reducible to pain or pleasure or the intensities of either. A drill sergeant trying to prepare soldiers for rigors of even non-combatant duty during a time of involuntary war (when circumstances dictate there isn’t a choice about resisting the opponents in some dangerous fashion), may have to inflict some rather intense suffering but he (or she!) is intending to help the other person. A broken leg may have to be set or even rebroken and then reset without aenesthesia.

"]"I didn’t want to face the possibility that perhaps the self that I was protecting was pestilent, deformed and malnourished from trying to feed upon myself in my pride.

"Sometimes a bone that has been broken, by foolishness or by fate, heals wrongly, crippling the shape and the function, destroying the joy that could be had, that still could be had again… if only the bone can be rebroken, and properly set to heal.

"But, it hurts to break a bone. And it hurts, beyond comprehension, beyond the bearing of consciousness, to break a bone that has badly been set, swollen with infection… infection that sooner or later will spread to corrupt and destroy.

"It hurts so badly sometimes to heal, that only trust will allow the healing to start.

“And no broken bone can be rightly rebroken and set, without some co-operation, some willingness to face the pain, some willingness to find someone to trust, some willingness to take such a risk.

“How much harder it is to heal, when one’s self is what has been broken… by foolishness or by fate…”

I think the danger in inflicting intense inconveniences in order to try to lead people to repentance is that, due to very real practical concerns, we often can’t ensure (against our own selfishnesses, and in favor of witnessing to our intentions) that we share the experience with the one who is being inconvenienced. The rabbinic tradition of YHWH going into exile with Israel, sharing her suffering, is a type of this: it helped Jews remember God’s actual intentions and goals in inflicting the exile upon them. It’s hard for a child being spanked to believe that it really does hurt the parent more than it hurts the child (and of course there are examples where this is not true, even though stated, or even when the punishment shouldn’t be done although it really does hurt the parent more).

But the child often grows up to learn that his mother and father were telling the truth: it really does hurt the parent more in sympathizing and grieving with the child, because the parent loves the child that much.

It’ll take me a while to catch up on later comments in this thread. Hopefully tonight!

I have to agree that there is a significant distinction between causing pain (and/ or suffering) for it’s own sake vs. the principle of harming to heal. I must also admit that I see the principle of “harming to heal” at work both in life and in scripture. The big question is; what do we do with that when it comes to understanding how God operates?

Derek,

You were gracious and clear! I’ve long thought the problem of evil is “THE” objection to theism. So I like most of what you say, especially that the mystery of suffering is what’s “sticky” here, BUT you (and Dostoesky) say that “God allows suffering for some purpose” is agonizingly ***un***believable. I respect that you genuinely feel that way.

But three problems with asserting God does Not “allow” our very existence’s nature, andcan’t stop pain” remain:

  1. This doesn’t at all exegetically address the claims that the Bible assumes the contrary.
  2. Classically, it’s theologically contradictory (unless God is finite - process theism).
  3. If God can’t stop evil, any confidence that “all shall be made well” seems completely irrational.

I’d much appreciate any further clarification on these three difficulties.

Jason,

I unfortunately lost my longer response so let me try and be brief:

From a psychological perspective, the issue is neither the intensity of the pain involved, nor is it the intent. The decisive factor is the damage that is caused, specifically in the form of psychological trauma.

So what we have found is that inflicting physical harm on someone is not good for them or corrective, but in fact results in severely damaging them. That’s why we have laws prohibiting it.

I don’t actually think that. I was trying to say the opposite actually. I do not see suffering as being caused “on purpose” by God for some higher purpose, I see it as the result of the fall (i.e the work of the devil), and as something that God is working against.

Derek, I fear you’ve reversed what I said. When I said it is “UNbelievable” to you that “God allows suffering,” I am recognizing precisely that you “do NOT see suffering as being caused on purpose” Thus, don’t my three objections to that belief still invite explanation?

Derek you said

In my experience, it seems good often punishes wickedness in order to correct/restore. Parents punish their children in order to teach them that consequences follow bad behavior. In scripture, it seems to follow this same pattern, God disciplines his children and can restore them by perfecting them through suffering.

My real point was that I don’t see the atonement as God pounding on an innocent man so he doesn’t have to pound on us. I see the atonement as a love letter, not about punishment (not even restorative punishment). But that does not require me to abandon all forms of punishment. I feel as though some people argue by reducing punishment to one form - abuse. I see this also done with anger. I hear Universalists say “God is not angry” and I see Paul include anger in his love list in Cor 13. So I think it’s quite ok to say God is angry with us when we do evil, but that’s not the same as saying God hates us when we do evil - something Christians often do.

Still, I’m open to you being right and love the discussion. I think there is truth to what you’re saying, from a certain point of view.

So thanks again Derek,

Gene

Ah, okay, thanks for clarifying. So your questions were:

This seems to be to be related to the classic debate between Arminianism and Calvinism. Both claim biblical support. Both have pretty wide acceptance among evangelicals. Both have verses that are challenging, similar to how there are verse that seem to speak for and against universalism.

In really basic terms, the difficulties with each position are these:

Arminians would tend to say that God cannot violate freewill. That puts us in a bind, because how can God save us then? This is I think what you are referring to
Calvinists would tend to say that God is doing this all on purpose. That creates a problem of God’s character. Many people find this even more problematic (I share this concern).

This brings us to the 3rd question: How can we hope?

I don’t know if God can prevent evil. I simply observe that God does not prevent evil. Rape happens. The Holocaust happened. So what’s going on? Is God good but not sovereign (Arminianism) or sovereign but not good (Calvinism).

My first answer is that I think it is good for us to struggle with this because we care about people. So I would never want us to have an answer that would cause us to passively accept suffering. I think God wants us to be upset and for that to translate into loving action to alleviate suffering where we see it.

But if I was trying to make sense of things, I think I would make the observation that God does not stop natural processes from happening – whether that is a tornado or a person with a gun. I wish he did. But experience seems to show that God does not.

So if God cannot or will not prevent bad things from happening, then how can we trust God? Here I put my hope in the Christ event. I see that God is with us in our darkness, and I see that he has risen and overcome death. What this points me to is the belief that God does not (as they thought/hoped in the OT) act with force. Perhaps we wish we lived in a world like that, but for better or worse we simply don’t. What I see instead at work is the persuasion of grace, the moving of the Spirit. I have experienced how God’s loving grace has turned my own life around, and how it has melted hearts of stone, and healed deep wounds. So while it may seem foolish to put my hope in that in a world with real evil and hurt, that is what I am doing. That I think is the foolishness of the cross. I bear the firstfruits in my own life, and I look to love overcoming all of our stupidness and folly with love. On some days I struggle and have doubts, on my better days I hold on to that hope.

Can you give me an example of where you have experienced or witnessed God punishing wickedness?

The examples you gave were of parents (which is not the same as God), and Scripture (which is not the same as experience).

Also,the specific Scripture example you site is not of God punishing the wicked, but of correcting children. I don’t think we should assume the two are equivalent.

Further, the specific context of the passage you mention in Hebrews is to encourage believers to endure hardship in the form of unjust persecution, arguing that it will work towards the strengthening of their character. I do not see it directly saying that God is doing this to them, rather it is drawing a parallel and saying that in the same way that something hard can be good in one case is also true in another. Key here is that the suffering they are enduring is unjust suffering.

Derek, That insight in the last paragraph particularly is why I don’t think that there is any real solution to Theodicy outside of universalism. If we have no hope that God will make all right in the end, then we really have no hope at all.

Derek,
I meant good punishes wickedness. But I’ll answer as if I had written God. No, I’ve never seen God stick his hand out of the sky (if he’s got one lol) and wack guys like hitler in the head. But then again, I’ve never seen God change a life either by doing anything tangible in this world. I credit it base on belief.

My point is that
A) in my experience in this world I literally see good (law) punish bad people (murderers or robbers).
b) My understanding of scripture is that it too endorses that good things (God) punishes bad people.

God is in the business of correcting people. That we agree on.

I would think we also agree on that - those who practice evil (violence lets say) will inherit violence.

I originally said “there is suffering for those who practice evil” so allow me to translate that:
There is a sword for those who live by the sword.
There is trouble for those who practice trouble.
That which you reap, you will sow.

I don’t think we disagree on that. Our difference is really (I think, correct me if I’m wrong) what is morally ok for God to do and what is not. Where you say that it’s illegal for people to break the bones of a child in order to correct them, we say it’s not illegal for a parent or doctor to break the bones of a child in order to heal them - as Pratt said earlier.

Again, I feel there’s a fallacy being demonstrated that: All punishment is abusive.

You yourself said “not all punitive consequences are evil” but then that means some punishment is good - and can’t that be from God? Jason has been arguing that it will seem to us to have harsh/severe form and probably even appear to us to be retaliation (by God), but I would assume that our irrational epistemic vision can keep us from recognizing that some suffering, however unpleasant, God causes in our lives is for our benefit.

So it seems to me your argument is: All punishment is evil, therefore God cannot punish.
If you argue some punishment is good, then can God do some punishments for corrective measure?

** also, I’m hearing you and I’m sympathetic.

Hi Auggy,

Thanks for your willingness to engage me in this discussion. I hope we can reason together.

I think you have identified the essential difference between our understanding. I realize that labeling or categorizing others as EU or Ultra-U is convenient but quite frankly I think it sets up more barriers than facilitates the flow of ideas. I try, but do not always succeed, to evaluate the merits of what a person is saying in the discussion at hand without prejudicing it with some prior assumption of where they are coming from. Actually, I am very sympathetic with Karl Barth’s position that he did not want to be labeled as an universalist. Sure everything that he said about the triumph of God’s grace through Jesus Christ screams that very conclusion and his opponents saw it and hurled their denouncements of “miscreant heretic” at him. But universalism is really an abstract concept that can be found in belief systems as diverse as gnosticism and Buddhism and yet they are definitely not the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

So all that being said I should disclose that I know I am definitely the odd-man out here. Not because I may be considered an “ultra” but because I am not, nor ever have been, an evangelical of any kind, or Protestant Christian for that matter. Aside from being raised as a Romanian Byzantine Catholic (hows that for an obscure church), which is my primary experience of church, I have had limited in-person involvement with protestant, arminian style Christians. However, I have through my own studies going back to 1974 a pretty good understanding of reformation theology and in 1981 I began to read Barth, Ellul and Moltmann and then the unlimited dimensions of God’s grace began to be revealed to me. But I have been in exile from Christianity for most of that time since and this has given me the perspective of the outsider closer to all those who are considered unbelievers while being a believer myself.

This question of Theodicy, the fancy word for how God relates to and fits in with all of the real world ugliness, pain and death suffered by this world is for me the the essential heart of the Gospel. My understanding of that essential heart of the gospel comes from the Crucified God and not the Sovereign God of the universe. Sovereignty is an interpretation imposed on the biblical witness whereas the crucifixion of Jesus is central to it. Sovereignty stems from theistic concepts of God that have informed the Christian understanding of the biblical narrative and creates untenable tensions such as: a good God who is love and is also all powerful and thus why is the world such a sorrowful, suffering, mess. My understanding of universalism is not coming from the starting point of the sovereign God who is in control, but from the Crucified God who accepts responsibility for the state of the creation and risks all that he is by taking on the consequences of a broken world in order to heal it and from there takes it into a new direction that is infinitely beyond creation-in-the beginning.

I suppose I once did long, long ago. But I have a problem with the word righteousness. It is often understood to mean moral virtue and purity; the antithesis of sin which is seen as immorality and impurity. About a year or so ago I came across a very import piece of information regarding the Greek work dikaiosune which is translated as righteous in every English translations that I can find. However, the third edition of the B.D.A.G Koine greek lexicon translates it as equitableness or even-handedness and fairness. This is one of those keywords in the scripture when accurately translated unlocks a host of previously hidden implications and dispels a lot of erroneous theological notions. The Koine papyri discovered in Egypt a century ago have slowly and carefully been studied by biblical scholars over the course of many decades and only in the past few decades are the results of their efforts being disseminated to the larger public.

So the righteousness of God formerly believed to be about the holiness and moral perfection of God in contrast to the uncleanliness and moral depravity of sinners, is a false dichotomy. The righteousness of God is in truth the equitableness, even-handedness of God who makes the sun shine and rain fall on both the just and unjust. Through Jesus the equitableness of God is made real to a world being crushed by the inequitableness of the powers and the men who serve those powers. So the equitableness of Jesus is not imputed, or credited to us; it is freely given to us and all creation so that ultimately because of Jesus’ singular, prodigious act of courage and selflessness at Golgotha he will make the dream and will of the Father come true: where all that He is is freely given and available to all that there is–the Equitableness of God fulfilled.

Auggy, one of the problems is the use of the word punish. The common dictionary definition of that word is: to subject to pain, loss, confinement, death, etc., as a penalty for some offense, transgression, or fault: to punish a criminal. This is clearly not what God does to sinners, not if we are to see God as the one revealed in Jesus. If that common definition is not your intended meaning then it would be a good idea to find a more appropriate word, or words, to accurately convey what you want to express.

So regards to Paul, what Paul is saying is not the problem per say, it is what the translators/interpreters of the English versions of what Paul wrote that is the problem. Righteousness/dikaiosune is a case in point and of course EU Christians are well aware of the aionos problem and how that has muddied the scriptural waters. So when we reference certain specific texts to make a larger more sweeping point we need to tread carefully. Exegesis is interesting and has value and I certainly appreciate the value of etymology, but the truth of the matter is that it is very unlikely that we will ever have an English translation of the Bible that will start from scratch using the best available Hebrew and Greek manuscripts using the latest findings of Hebraism and the Koine Greek papyri that will give us a more accurate reading of what the original authors of the Bible meant.

However, the Spirit of Jesus is alive and present in the world and continues to bear witness to the Crucified Risen One. I don’t think there will be another iteration of the gospel proclaimed as a message by Christians who finally got it right somehow. I think the next iteration of the gospel will not be a message proclaimed by Christians but an event: The aionian gospel that precedes the fall of Babylon (the death-dealing institutions and powers that deceive and oppress the world).

Frankly it is too late in the world for this exegetical debating among the Christian inner circle. It has contributed precious little to a world that is in desperate need for the good news of a God who is not against them but forever for them. I suppose my odd and peculiar way of trying to articulate the gospel seems to be deluded magical thinking to some, because of my radical understanding of what the universal implications of Jesus’ resurrection are i.e. changing the past and transforming physical reality by a union of the space of God (heaven) and that of the created universe (Earth and all the rest). Some may think this is some newfangled whacked out version of “pie in the sky” looking for the great deus ex machina to save us and fix our unfixable world. But if someone gets that impression it is either due to my failure to articulate my view well or their inability to give it a fair and open-minded reading.

Does my understanding of the Gospel discount the importance and significance of challenging the death-dealing powers and offering compassion and sustenance to those who are victims of the inequitableness of this world? Not as far as I am concerned, to the contrary it gives me all the more reason and stamina to make the effort to challenge the status quo and extend myself to those who are marginalized and victimized by the world as it is. The “here and now” is all we got at the moment but the “here and not yet” is not something we achieve by our world building efforts through social, political and technological progress. It is the gift of God made real through the death and resurrection of Jesus. All those acts of compassion and fair treatment and alleviation of suffering done by countless individuals are not lost but will be integrated into the new creation–they do indeed matter now and in the “not yet.” The last couple centuries of apparent progress for those privileged to live in the western societies and born into favorable circumstances is the real delusion. That window of opportunity is now rapidly closing and fewer and fewer will be able to pass through it, and even those few, i.e. the one percenters, will also eventually reap the whirlwind which our civilization has sown.

Thanks for your engagement Auggy, I really do get the impression that you, like I, are seeking the truth as far as we are able to perceive and understand it.

Dave

Hi Derek

So glad you are talking about this.

It so happens that today I ran across a piece complaining that where the author lives, legislation to prevent violence towards children is being proposed that would include the violence that is euphemistically termed “spanking”.

I thought of how Jesus touched children – only to bless, to heal, to liberate, and to free – just the same as when he touched everyone else.

I thought of how he spoke to the parents of his day: However bad you are, you do know what it is to do something good for your child: it’s clear to you that giving him bread to nourish him, give him energy, and take away his hunger pangs, is good, whereas to give him a stone that will break his teeth and give him pain, is not good. Giving him an egg, containing protein and sulphur and vitamins for healing and growth is good, whilst a scorpion will cause him suffering and fear. Feeding him a fish to make him feel satisfied and make his brain and heart healthy is good; but what child could trust a parent who brought them a snake to hurt and poison them?

Yes, thank you. This is how we know what God is like: what Jesus is like.

I’d say considerably more than “slightly” different!

The way you put the question on so many minds is, “How can a good and all powerful God allow evil or suffering?” You also say, “this world is full of injustice and pain that God apparently can’t stop”.

Finally, you want to put your hope in “the weakness of the crucified God”.

All of these things that you’ve said here, when I pull the threads together, seem to be saying this:

God is good. He is not all-powerful: instead he is the crucified God, the one whose very weakness is what overcomes the world (this must be so, as the world operates on power and can’t be overcome by him being just like it).

The only way “all shall be well” is not, as the character says to Alyosha, by making the victim love the monster, nor by making the monster experience hell: “What good can hell do, since those children have already been tortured?” No, the only way is to make it right - so right that the children have not been tortured, so right that the monster has never become a monster and done those monstrous things, so right that the mother has never suffered the anguish and grief.

Jesus’s apparent failure in being crucified is exactly how God’s “weakness” and “madness” make everything right and new. He doesn’t overcome so much as overwhelm, overfill, over-satisfy, over-give, overflow. The light has come into the darkness and the darkness can’t engulf it; the darkness doesn’t even really exist – so it simply ceases to be, when there is so much light.

Dave,
I too appreciate your heart and your willingness to discuss such wonderful topics.

I’m afraid I simply don’t resonate with much of what you say simply because we speak different languages. I ask about the Pharaoh and you come back and tell me the translations are wrong. Of course I’ll trust the majority of the translations. Yes I know none of them are perfect, but that’s all the more reason to trust your interpretation even less. I say that with respect, not as an inflammatory remark. What else can I do?

I trust the many translations that Paul raised the argument that so many reject when he writes “So some of you will object, how can God blame us who resist his will” - an obvious foresight of Paul’s as he sees the obvious - If God hardened the Pharaoh to disobey his command and then punishes him for doing so, God must be unjust or unfair. But why would I accept your view over Calvin’s? My point isn’t that I accept Calvin’s view because he’s John Calvin, rather because it’s what the writer says that makes sense to me. I understand the Calvinists, I understand the Arminians, but your explanations are esoteric to me. Again I say that with respect, I know you really believe what you believe. I simply don’t understand why.

You say:

What you don’t seem to explain is why the warnings of post mortem punishments - an axiom amongst most religions. Why the warning that people will not escape the wrath of God? Why the language of a God who punishes the wicked. I tend to think that your conclusion is mostly driven by a need to disprove retribution or punishment. That is what I see at the heart of your argument - a clear need to stand up against what you think is evil; ie retribution. I simply think it’s fallacious to say “all punishment is evil”. And if it’s not evil then there’s no reason to reject God can punish.

Blessings to you

And I’m committed to writing shorter posts. These long stataements are killing me LOL!

Dave,
Not sure if you’ve had a chance to read Derek’s book, but he’s got a very interesting and illuminating discussion of daikaiosune in one of the appendices of the book, very much in line with what you’re saying about it.

Auggy,

It is the warnings of religion that the Gospel is the antidote for. My stand is not against a negative: retribution which has no more substance and reality than the darkness, but rather a stand for the positive: the creative and liberating justice of God revealed in Jesus. As I concluded in my previous post, the Gospel will not come to light through exegetical debates that will produce another version of the gospel as a message/dogma, but instead as an event that will be revealed equitably and openly to all as an unequivocal transforming event. Until then we carry on the best we can.

Dave

Hi Mel,

Thanks for the heads up. I do have his book and will check that out.

Dave