ViaCrucis
Confessional Lutheran
- Oct 2, 2011
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A combination of looking to good biblical scholarship and critical analysis, Christian tradition (what the Church has historically believed and how Christians have historically looked at the texts), and a dose of reason.
For example, let's take a look at Genesis again, here is how Origen of Alexandria, the 3rd century head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria (essentially the first Christian seminary) talks about the following:
"Now who is there, pray, possessed of understanding, that will regard the statement as appropriate, that the first day, and the second, and the third, in which also both evening and morning are mentioned, existed without sun, and moon, and stars — the first day even without a sky? And who is found so ignorant as to suppose that God, as if He had been a husbandman, planted trees in paradise, in Eden towards the east, and a tree of life in it, i.e., a visible and palpable tree of wood, so that anyone eating of it with bodily teeth should obtain life, and, eating again of another tree, should come to the knowledge of good and evil? No one, I think, can doubt that the statement that God walked in the afternoon in paradise, and that Adam lay hid under a tree, is related figuratively in Scripture, that some mystical meaning may be indicated by it. The departure of Cain from the presence of the Lord will manifestly cause a careful reader to inquire what is the presence of God, and how anyone can go out from it. But not to extend the task which we have before us beyond its due limits, it is very easy for anyone who pleases to gather out of holy Scripture what is recorded indeed as having been done, but what nevertheless cannot be believed as having reasonably and appropriately occurred according to the historical account." - Origen of Alexandria, De Principiis IV.16
St. Augustine of Hippo, the most esteemed theologians of the Western Church, writes the following in his treatment on the book of Genesis,
"Was the sequence of so-called ‘days’ merely a necessary narrative device? That is how divine concepts are introduced to simple mortals: every discussion has to have a beginning, middle and end.
Or does it mean the luminaries were actually created within time? Humans measure time by how long it takes for physical bodies to move. If there were no luminaries moving, then there was no time of this sort; and this is the meaning of ‘time’ most obvious to humans. Granted, but then we should ask whether time could be measured by the movement of unbodily creatures (like the soul, or the mind itself) rather than in the movement of physical bodies. The mind ‘moves’, of course, when it thinks, and therefore has different states ‘before’ and ‘after’. This can only be understood as a time interval.
If we accept this, then we can deduce time did exist before the heaven and earth as long as angels were made first. Then there were already creatures with non-bodily movements, which implies time existed. If this logic applies for the human soul (despite it being accustomed to bodily movements due to its bodily senses) then it applies all the more for the angels. But then again, perhaps the angels and higher beings did not exist before heaven and earth?
This is all quite baffling and impossible for humans to understand. But at any rate and whatever the explanation, we must certainly take the following statement on trust even if is beyond us: every creature had a beginning, and time itself is created and had a beginning, and time is not co-eternal with the Creator." - St. Augustine of Hippo. De Genesi ad litteram, 3.8
Additionally, in the same work, Augustine offers this bit of important advice,
"Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although “they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion." - ibid. 19.39
I believe God has made Himself present with full transparency, that's what the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation is.
The things I've said probably should be better contextualized:
I'm a Lutheran, as such I hold to a Lutheran approach to Scripture and theology. One of the chief elements of Lutheran theology is the dichotomy between God hidden and naked (Deus absconditus et nudus) and God revealed and clothed (Deus revelatus et velatus). We say God is hidden and naked when talking about God's power, wisdom, glory, etc. In Lutheranism we talk about "God's wrath" as what men, in their sin, behold of God in His Law; but when we approach God revealed, and present, making Himself known (in Jesus Christ) we do not behold wrath, but the Fatherly love of God.
As such comes one of the more famous sermons of Martin Luther's,
"If you have a true faith in Christ as Savior then you should understand you have a gracious God for faith leads you in and opens up God's heart that you should see pure grace and overflowing love. This it is to look upon his fatherly friendly heart in which there is no anger nor ungraciousness. He who sees God as angry does not see him rightly but only looks upon a curtain, as if a dark cloud has been drawn upon his face."
The "dark cloud" is the veil of the Law, that is, that which says, "Do this" but is never done because we are sinful.
This is the heart of the Lutheran experience and expression of Christianity: Anytime we talk about God behind the veil of the Law we have a hidden God, hidden and "naked" in His incomprehensible divine glory. And trying to look to God through that dark storm cloud only gives us a distorted, warped picture of God. We behold Him as angry and dreadful because we are looking to God by the measure and power of our own human shortcomings; or worse we have become arrogant in our false perception of ourselves as holy or righteous, and thus see God not as angry with myself, but with "those other people".
The condemnation of the hypocrisy and arrogance of the Pharisees in the Gospels had nothing to do with their general theological positions, but rather that they used religion to condemn "those sinners" while forgetting that they themselves were sinners. Arrogance and despair are flipped sides of the same coin: Man trying to find God in His holiness, glory, power, and commandments.
Hence, for Lutherans, the true theologian isn't the person who says, "God is very powerful" or "God is Almighty" or "God is glorious and wise". The true theologian is the person who sees God revealed and wrapped up in the humble, weak, suffering flesh of Jesus Christ.
"He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross. The manifest and visible things of God are placed in opposition to the invisible, namely, his human nature, weakness, foolishness." - Martin Luther's 1518 Heidelberg Disputation, Thesis 20
As far as the "wrestling with God" or wrestling with Scripture I mention. I'm not sure how else to describe it.
There are stories in the Bible that are very difficult. I try to hold myself to a standard concerning them that refuses, on the one hand, the heretical views of Marcion; while also refusing the kind of narrow view that tends to crop up in modern Fundamentalist circles.
I believe that the Old Testament, rather than presenting a static portrait of God instead presents a dynamic portrait of a people struggling with God. Struggling to make sense of God.
So very early on we see those people view God much as their neighbors viewed their gods. The nations each have their own patron god, and so YHVH is Israel's patron God. As such YHVH leads Israel's armies in battle, and punishes Israel's enemies.
But as time passes, and we start to look at the writings of the Prophets, we start to a progressive view of God in Israel. In the book of the Prophet Isaiah we have this wonderful passage about how one day God is going to bring together Israel, Assyria, and Egypt together in peace together, as brothers. It's not an accident that it mentions Assyria and Egypt, two of the great powers that Israel constantly were facing against. Assyria who conquered the northern kingdom, and Egypt who kept Israel as slaves.
God isn't in the business of "punishing bad guys" and "being on the side of the good guys". Instead, the picture that emerges over the course of the Old Testament is that the Covenant God of Israel--the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--is the God of promises, and the God of justice. Not just for Israel, but for the whole world.
God's justice, by the way, is not in "bad guys get what they deserve" and "the good guys prosper"; it's a justice that lifts up the poor, the hungry, the needy; a justice that will reconcile enemies together and make them friends and compatriots. God's justice is about mercy and forgiveness.
So rather than the Old Testament simply being a list of stories about God that are to be taken woodenly literal as historic episodes of God destroying entire nations of people; the Old Testament is instead the ongoing saga of Israel's struggle with comprehending the God of promises.
I have no idea.
I put my trust in Christ that the same grace that saves me is big enough for anyone. I don't think it's possible to generalize everyone who isn't a practicing Christian.
I believe in allowing myself to be surprised by hope, that the good Creator God who made all things, who intends to put all the broken pieces of the world back together, is going to do just that.
Talking about "hell" is not a talk about where "bad people go" or "where God sends the unbelievers". Rather hell is a discussion about what it means for a person to so thoroughly reject what is good and real that they would rather collude with death and refuse life.
My views on "hell" have been shaped a lot by the works of St. Isaac the Syrian, the general tradition of the Eastern Churches as a whole; as well as the works of C.S. Leiws and N.T. Wright.
St. Isaac calls hell "the fires of God's love". "Hell", in the view of St. Isaac (and the Eastern Churches in general), is the same "place" as "heaven". That is, in the end, when all is said and done, everyone will be together in the same place. What makes heaven heaven and hell hell in that future world is how people choose to experience God's love. Isaac says that love acts in two ways: it fills us with joy when we love in return; and it can be a source of anguish when we reflect upon how we have betrayed those who love us. The anguish of "hell" is the anguish of "bitter regret" says Isaac.
A rejection of forgiveness and mercy means an existence of self-hatred and remorse. That is, as it appears, to be how St. Isaac understands the meaning of "the second death".
The thing to understand about Christianity and hell is that there simply isn't a Christian view about hell. There are many views, lots of opinions. But at no point in the two thousand year long history of Christianity has there ever been a dogmatic position about hell.
There are a lot of dogmas in Christianity, such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, the resurrection of the body and the renewal of all creation in the Age to Come for some examples. But "hell", or the ultimate fate of the wicked, there has never been a dogmatic consensus in the Christian Church.
I believe the Bible itself presents us with a vision of hope. In the Revelation of St. John, the last book of the Bible, the final vision that is written down is a vision of the marriage between heaven and earth described as a heavenly city, a "new Jerusalem" descends out of the sky down to the earth. We read that God makes all things new, God wipes away every tear, that God is now dwelling on the earth and that He will be their God and they will be His people. Outside of the city are the "drunkards, the liars, the poison-makers" etc. And yet, the vision closes with this: There is a river of life that flows out from the city, and on the banks of that river the tree of life grows, and we read "its leaves are for the healing of the nations". That is, even here, with all the "wicked people" outside of the city, there is a river of life, with leaves from the tree of life, flowing out from the city to those outside the city.
That is, I believe, a powerful image and vision of hope. I don't think we can make bold dogmatic claims on that basis, but I believe in some respects the Bible--and the historic teaching of the Church--has been intentionally vague.
Because it isn't our (I mean Christians here) place to judge who is and who isn't "in" or "out". That's God's business.
Our job is to pay attention to the logs in our own eyes, to put our trust in Jesus, and to take up our cross and love our neighbor.
-CryptoLutheran
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