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.