I’ve recently been listening to a series of lectures from Muslim and Christian theologians called “A Common Word,” on the concept of “The Love of God,” where it is–frustratingly–presented by both groups as a self-evident truth. And while I appreciate the sentiment, without a theology that is firmly and exclusively rooted in the Cross, saying that “God is Love” is just that–a sentiment.
This morning, I ran across an article in Slate.com by David Plotz, which made me wonder if he had been listening to the same series. The article has the inauspicious title,“Good Book: What I Learned from Reading the Bible,” and opens:
After spending a year with the good book, I’ve become a full-on Bible thumper. Everyone should read it—all of it! In fact, the less you believe, the more you should read. Let me explain why, in part by telling how reading the whole Bible has changed me.
This certainly caught my attention. As I was blithely reading along about how the origins of many of our literary and cultural allusions can be traced to the Bible, how there are some really great stories, how it has helped him appreciate the Judaism of his youth, etc., etc., I suddenly came across the following section which violently wrenched me out of my casual morning reading:
You notice that I haven’t said anything about belief. I began the Bible as a hopeful, but indifferent, agnostic. I wished for a God, but I didn’t really care. I leave the Bible as a hopeless and angry agnostic. I’m brokenhearted about God.
He continues:
After reading about the genocides, the plagues, the murders, the mass enslavements, the ruthless vengeance for minor sins (or none at all), and all that smiting—every bit of it directly performed, authorized, or approved by God—I can only conclude that the God of the Hebrew Bible, if He existed, was awful, cruel, and capricious. He gives us moments of beauty—such sublime beauty and grace!—but taken as a whole, He is no God I want to obey and no God I can love.
When I complain to religious friends about how much He dismays me, I usually get one of two responses. Christians say: Well, yes, but this is all setup for the New Testament. Reading only the Old Testament is like leaving halfway through the movie. I’m missing all the redemption. If I want to find the grace and forgiveness and wonder, I have to read and believe in the story of Jesus Christ, which explains and redeems all. But that doesn’t work for me. I’m a Jew. I don’t, and can’t, believe that Christ died for my sins. And even if he did, I still don’t think that would wash away God’s crimes in the Old Testament.
The second response tends to come from Jews, who razz me for missing the chief lesson of the Hebrew Bible, which that we can’t hope to understand the ways of God. If He seems cruel or petty, that’s because we can’t fathom His plan for us. But I’m not buying that, either. If God made me, He made me rational and quizzical. He has given me the tools to think about Him. So I must submit Him to rational and moral inquiry. And He fails that examination. Why would anyone want to be ruled by a God who’s so unmerciful, unjust, unforgiving, and unloving?”
Having clearly expended his emotional energy on these passages, he concludes–Q.E.D.–the article with a whimpering, obligatory postmodern nod to the (supposed) intrinsic value of doubt as he, evidently, retreats back to agnosticism; however, the anger-cat is out of the bag, he has clearly played his hand, and I’m glad he did.
Sometimes it takes a complete outsider, or in this case, a self-described “lax, non-Hebrew-speaking Jew” to point out clearly the seeming absurdity of faith in a God of Love. And while his arguments are nothing new, they are gathering more and more cultural traction as people are becoming increasingly less content with the tired, pat answers for the existence of pain and suffering in light of an all-powerful God. The growing popularity of the (so-called) “new Atheist” movement is fueled, in part, by an ever-increasingly vacuous and vapid response from the Christian church.
T
he profession that God is Love, in the face of both experienced and recorded human history, is not a self-evident truth; it is a profession of faith, and, as Hebrews 11:1 states, “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”In The Bondage of the Will, Martin Luther’s treatise against David Plotz–I mean Erasmus–he describes this in customarily stark relief:
Now, the highest degree of faith is to believe that He is merciful, though He saves so few and damns so many; to believe that He is just, though of His own will He makes us perforce proper subjects for damnation, and seems (in Erasmus’ words) ‘to delight in the torments of poor wretches and to be a fitter object for hate than for love.’ If I could by any means understand how this same God, who makes such a show of wrath and unrighteousness, can yet be merciful and just, there would be no need for faith.(101)”
Outside of the message of the Cross the statement “The Love of God” is patronizing and meaningless, and even that we proclaim–sola fide–by faith alone.
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11 responses to “State of Love ‘n Trust”
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Nailed it: ‘The growing popularity of the (so-called) “new Atheist” movement is fueled, in part, by an ever-increasingly vacuous and vapid response from the Christian church.’
Jady,
Absolutely loved this, thanks. It is so true that there is no defending God. A righteous and all-powerful God is a terrible truth for us sinners. Praise God for Jesus Christ who tells us very directly, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” Frankly, I don’t know why anyone would want to outside of the cross.
I’ve got a post that should follow this up nicely on our hope in His promise. Stay tuned:)
Sean
Mr. Plotz is obviously, and with heavy-handed irony, playing on the stereotypical story of the skeptic who decides to read the Bible through in order to disprove the existence of God, only to become converted by it. It is interesting to note that the views expressed by Plotz are common in the relatively easy and coddled West, while this type of spoiled brat atheism is almost non-existent in places and among people where life “in this world” really is hard, brutal and short.
that’s a really good point Michael. . and I don’t think that its a coincidence that real questions of theodicy arose in 1709 w/ Leibniz…
Didn’t Forde address this issue in one of his books? The idea of theodicy didn’t arise until fairly recently…perhaps someone has chapter and verse, but I think it may be in OBaTotC.
However, I think it is pretty clear that theodicy raised its head periodically in Psalms and the minor prophets. [Voltaire has a famous little atheistic syllogism based on theodicy that isn’t worth repeating.]
yeah. . I was going to correct what I said because I think that Ecclesiastes and Job are pretty clear theodicies also!
I think the book you’re talking about is Oswald Bayer’s “Living by Faith: Justification and Sanctification”. . but I’m sure Forde must have talked about it as well. . the point is, obviously, that the emergence of a “problem with God” in the “modern” is a function of a decreased lack of creaturly humility.
Loved this Jady.
To follow up to what you and Sean have said, here is a lovely quote by Luther (meditation on the Nativity), who here and elsewhere emphasizes that apart from Christ the majesty of God will ALWAYS terrify.
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“Let us, then, meditate upon the Nativity just as we see it happening in our own babies. I would not have you contemplate the deity of Christ, the majesty of Christ, but rather his flesh. Look upon the Baby Jesus. Divinity may terrify man. Inexpressible majesty will crush him. That is why Christ took on our humanity, save for sin, that he should not terrify us but rather that with love and favor he should console and confirm. Behold Christ lying in the lap of his young mother, still a virgin. What can be sweeter than the Babe, what morelovely than the mother! What fairer than her youth! What more gracious than her virginity! Look at the Child, knowing nothing. Yet all that is belongs to him, that your conscience should not fear but take comfort in him. Doubt nothing. Watch him springing in the lap of the maiden. Laugh with him. Look upon this Lord of Peace and your spirit will be at peace. See how God invites you in many ways. He places before you a Babe with whom you may take refuge. You cannot fear him, for nothing is more appealing to man than a babe. Are you [terrified]? Then come to him, lying in the lap of the fairest and sweetest maid. You will see how great is the divine goodness, which seeks above all else that you should not despair. Trust him! Trust him! Here is the Child in whom is salvation. To me there is no greater consolation given to mankind than this, that Christ became man, a child, a babe, playing in the lap and at thebreasts of his most gracious mother. Who is there whom this sight would not comfort? Now is overcome the power of sin, death, hell, conscience, and guilt, if you come to this gurgling Babe and believe that he is come, not to judge you, but to save.”
If we have only this world as a guide, then I think the Aztecs got it right. But the “Prince of this world” is not the “Lord of glory”. After all, if there is no resurrection of the dead, “we are of all men most miserable…” If all our eggs are not in the death and resurrection basket, then we are in for a real shock called life. This is why, historically speaking, Alexander Pope was literary toast after the Lisbon earthquake of 1755.
Love that “SoLnT” by Pearl Jam. Last night the movie “Singles” was on TV, which is a funny coincidence because that’s the movie in which that song was featured. Great early 90s stuff.
haha. .yeah, I wanted to put it up originally, but now I put it up for posterity–because the title and all. . but anyway, got to love Ethan Hawke
The Care Bears are key!!