In both my inner dialogues and my attempts to defend my beliefs to others, I’ve resorted to all the standard rationalizations:
- God’s ways are not our ways. What appears to us as vicious cruelty or gross injustice might appear quite different from God’s eternal perspective.
- Humans are so depraved, and God is so holy, that whatever God does with us, up to including annihilation and even eternal torment, is deserved and just.
- We live in a fallen creation. The incredible cruelty in the animal kingdom is the result of the fall.
- Jesus accepted the OT, so we have no right to question it.
- The pot has no right to question the Potter, period.
- Those troubling OT passages aren’t really saying what they appear – pretty clearly – to be saying.
- God had to deal with primitive people in what might appear to us primitive ways in order to get His message across.
- Yada yada yada.
I’ve read all the books, heard all the arguments. No, believe me – I have. I've been a Christian almost 50 years, been part of Campus Crusade in my formative years, attended a Baptist seminary and Baptist churches, immersed myself in theology and apologetics until I was cross-eyed.
I finally had to admit, “I just don’t believe some of this stuff.”
OK, I and everyone I know falls far short of holiness – but are we depraved, deserving of the sorts of stuff described in the OT? Eternal torment, even? Nah.
Would an omnibenevolent Creator act in the manner described in the OT, or even allow such an unflattering and troubling portrait to exist? Nah.
Can the vast evil in the world really be explained in a convincing manner by any of the standard rationalizations? Nah.
What I believe explains much of the OT is a small, vulnerable tribe called the Jews trying to magnify their importance and make sense of their history through the exploits of their tribal God. The OT contains many worthwhile spiritual insights and truths, but I no longer feel compelled to insist it is the Word of God in any literal sense, anything like an accurate historical account before the time of David (or later), or a scientific treatise in any sense whatsoever.
This is quite liberating. I no longer have to pretend to believe things that I know in my heart of hearts aren’t true. I no longer live in a state of cognitive dissonance.
Christianity stands or falls with the Resurrection. It doesn’t stand or fall with the OT.
I’m perfectly candid with God about this. When I pray, I explain exactly what troubles me and why. I explain that it would do a disservice to Him, and to me, to pretend to believe things I simply don’t believe or can't reconcile with God as Christians conceive Him to be. I wouldn’t be fooling Him anyway. I explain that I have no choice but to accept grim reality as it is and that, if the standard rationalizations are correct, I will have no choice but to accept that this is who God is – but I’m not going to pretend to believe it just because it’s in some 3,000-year-old book or I'm told that this is what "real Christians" believe.
This is, of course, heresy of sorts. Christianity has become sort of like the Marines: Just shut up and do what the drill sergeant says, even if you know it’s silly or wrong. Just pretend. Don’t be that rude kid in “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”
Am I questioning the Potter? Yeah, I guess. I don’t think I’m a pot. I think God blessed me with an excellent brain, a conscience, free will, and a fairly good sense of discernment and judgment. I think He expects me to use them. I think He expects obedience but not slavish, irrational obedience.
The God in whom we believe is, we believe, omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, perfectly holy and perfectly just. I, at least, am simply not willing to keep reading OT (or even NT) passages that are completely at odds with this and trying to invent plausible excuses for God or chalking it all up to “unfathomable mystery.” I see no great virtue in this.
Even at the level of someone like William Lane Craig, the nonsense becomes more than I can tolerate. “Maybe all those Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists in other countries who have essentially no chance of ever coming to Christ were born there in God’s perfect wisdom and foreknowledge because He knew they wouldn’t become Christians anyway.” Oh, shut up –
please.
Not only has this approach been liberating, but my Christianity is now far simpler and, I am convinced, much closer to what Jesus was actually talking about.
I must add, I have not become one of those New Age quasi-Christians who cherry picks the Bible verses he likes, mixes them in with a bit of Ramtha, and reinvents Jesus as some feel-good “I’m OK, You’re OK” guru of cosmic benign tolerance. My Christianity is actually quite conservative. I’m simply not willing to live any longer in a state of cognitive dissonance and "pretend belief” when biblical passages are impossible to reconcile with the God in whom I actually do believe.
Take it for what it’s worth. Your mileage may vary.
Just keep in mind that I don't mind that other's don't mind that I put philosophy before faith ... because for me, without philosophy, I probably wouldn't have faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior, and as the Son of God, the second Person of an eternal Trinity!
