Book Review: On Giants' Shoulders

 

This is less a book review and more a recommendation. Michael Reeves' book introduces us to some of the most influential theologians of the last 500 years with the plea that we don't ignore them. Reeve's desire is that we study the theologians of the past. In their own words. We should understand their works and influence, the questions they were asking and where they went wrong. And so this short book is designed to whet our appetites for their works. In short: it works for some of them.

Each chapter of the book is devoted to a theologian: Luther, Calvin, Owen, Edwards, Schleiermacher and Barth. The chapter begins with a summary of their life and the context of their writings. This is helpful for understanding what and why they wrote, and gives us an impression of their character. Reeves then summarizes their main works. He finishes with suggestions on which of their writings to make a start. Importantly Reeves comments, not just on each work's importance, but also on their readability. For example, I've always been put of reading Barth by the obscure quotes I come across, but Reeves claims this is the result of his writing style involving long sweeping arguments that don't lend themselves to being quoted. The result of all this is that I'm quite keen to get hold of works by Luther, Barth and Calvin's Institutes. I'm less eager to read Edwards and Owen. And I'm not tempted by Schleiemacher; though I'm probably more sympathetic towards him than I was before reading this book.  There's only so much time avaliable in life for reading. 

So my advice for you: give this book a read – it doesn't take long – and see if you can resist wanting to read some of the works mentioned within.

 

Beware what you believe.

That's right. Beware what you believe, lest it blind you to the truth.

None of us are a blank slate, we all believe lots of different things, and this affects how we interpret the Bible, historical evidence, everything. For example, I was once listening to a sermon, and a possible interpretation of the passage (I can't remember the one) was that Paul could have lost his salvation, but this was ruled out on the basis that the rest of Bible teaches you can't loose your salvation. This rather irked my Arminian sensibilities as I could think of various passages, such as Hebrews 6, that many Christians would interpret to say that you could loose your salvation. So what's going on?

We're confusing our belief system, which (hopefully) we've based on scripture with what the Bible actually teaches. Whenever we interpret a passage we only consider possibilities that fit within our system. Is this wrong? Not necessarily. It's good practise to interpret confusing passages in the light of the more obvious ones, which hopefully form the basis of our belief system. However we should be aware that we're doing this. We should acknowledge that other Christians have come to different conclusions, also based on scripture, and we should (I say this to myself) try to understand why they believe what they do and their methodolgy for doing so. This may change what we believe. It may not. But at the very least it should widen the possible ways a given text could be understood. And this may allow us to arrive at a more accurate interpretation, even if this challenges our nice, neat, pre-existing, beliefs.

True Greatness.

Who do you think of as great?

Churchill leading Britain through WWII, Napoleon sweeping all before him or one of the Caesars ruling the known world? But what makes them great?

We see them as supremely successful, dominating the world in which they lived. They had great power, commanding thousands of men and anyone thwarting their purposes was crushed. But what does God think of as greatness?

Jesus is the Messiah. He's the promised king of the Jews who is to reign over the nations. But when He's heading up to Jerusalem with His disciples, He says that He going there to be handed over to the Romans to be crucified.

“We are going up to Jerusalem,” he said, “and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise.” Mark 10:33-34

That doesn't make sense. The great king of the Jews being humiliated on a cross?

But the problem is our view of greatness.  Jesus says

“You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  Mark 10:42-45

Sacrificial love is the measure of greatness.

Making yourself nothing for the sake of everyone else. Doing the dishes, cleaning the toilets, picking up litter and doing all the jobs that people hate, not for the praise you'll get, but because you consider others more important than you. That's what counts.

So why is Jesus going to Jerusalem? He going to die. For us. Why did He leave the unimaginable splendour of His throne in Heaven and live a tough life in Israel? To set us free. You may not agree that Jesus needed to die for you. But just savour the picture the Bible presents us with. The Word of God who made you, left all His majesty and honour, to die for you.  On a terrible cross. He didn't command great armies. Or rule a nation. He wandered through Palestine healing the sick and teaching people. All with the aim of going to Jerusalem to die. Doesn't such self-giving love make your heart sing? And turn all our other views of greatness upsidedown?

God's Knowledge of the Future.

In my previous post I gave an example, at least to my mind, of God foreknowing something without ordaining it. But this doesn't answer how this is possible for God to do. And nor does it demonstrate it to someone who won't trust the Bible.  So how does God know the future?

I've heard agnostics and atheists say something along the lines of: “If God knows what my choices are how can He judge me?” Their argument seems to be: if God knows my choices, then my choices must be determined, so I only have an illusion of choice. Thus, how is it fair for God to judge me for an action when I could do no other?

I think the problem with this view, and with Calvinist statements such as

God foreknows what will be because He has decreed what shall be. From here.

No event can be foreknown unless, in some sense, it has been predetermined... Foreknowledge demands certainty, and certainty demands foreordination. From here.

is that they think of God as stuck in time like us. They picture God in the present peering into the future. Because He knows the present perfectly He can run the universe forwards in His mind to see the future. This view only works if we live in a deterministic universe. If indeterminate things are possible then this view of God's foreknowledge can't work or else God can't know the future. But I think that this is a mistaken view of God. Time is part of the universe. Time came into being when the universe began. In fact, according to General Relativity, time flows at different rates at different parts of the universe. This necessitates that God is timeless. He sees the whole of time at once. He knows the outcome of an indeterminate event in the future because He is there, observing it occurring. Just as me observing a coin spinning and twisting through the air and finally landing – didn't determine whether it was a head or a tail – so God observing me in the future doesn't imply that my actions, desires or decisions were predetermined.

It's hard for us temporal beings to picture God knowing all of time at once. So maybe this will help.  Imagine a one dimensional object moving randomly along a line between two points A and B. Because the object is moving randomly we can't predict, from its initial position, where it will be at time t1. But if we are outside of time (see the picture) we can see that at t1 it will be at point B. So because we can see the whole of time we can know with certainty where the being will be at a given time without its position being the result of some deterministic law.

 

I hope this post shows how it is possible for God to know the future exhaustively and allow the possibility that not all our choices are predetermined. However it doesn't answer why God chose to make this particular universe containing you and me and the choices we make.  And I'm not sure if we'll ever be able that question. But we can rejoice that God knows all things.

Remember the former things, those of long ago;
   I am God, and there is no other;
   I am God, and there is none like me. 

 I make known the end from the beginning,
   from ancient times, what is still to come.
I say, ‘My purpose will stand,
   and I will do all that I please.’

Isaiah 46:9-10 

A Question for Calvinists.

I go to a Grace Baptist church and we've just started a two part series on the Ordo Salutis (the Order of Salvation) which is essentially a series on Calvinism. The first of these sessions was on Foreknowledge and Election. Therefore I think this might be a good time to do a couple of posts... or more... on the age old debate about Calvinism. As last night's sermon was on foreknowledge I think I'll start there.

Ignoring what exactly foreknowledge means in some of the hotly disputed passages (context determines the meaning of a word in any given passage), I'll just limit myself to the question:

Can God foreknow something unless He ordains it?

Or, to put it another way: Can people have genuine freedom if God knows what decisions we will make?

Here's a quote from a Calvinistic website:

Simply put, what God foreknows, must, of necessity, be as fixed as that which He has decreed. Therefore, to argue for foreknowledge over against predestination by appealing to the freedom of the will is to argue in a self-contradictory fashion. No event can be foreknown unless, in some sense, it has been predetermined... Foreknowledge demands certainty, and certainty demands foreordination. [Emphasis in Original]

Clearly, he along with others, believes the answer is no. But rather than getting into long philosophical debates I think I'll just raise a question for Calvinists:

Did Adam and Eve have genuine free will at the Fall? Could they have resisted the temptation and not eaten the forbidden fruit?

This is a yes or no question and whatever you answer it has important implications.

If you answer yes, then we have an example of genuine free will and of God knowing what the result of that free will would be. This demonstrates that human freedom can coexist with God's omniscience. It doesn't tell us how it's possible, nor even if we currently have free will, but it does show us that it's possible. God can foreknow a decision without determining it.

If you answer no. Then you claim that God ordained the fall. And to my mind, this makes God the author of sin and evil. And that's not something I'm happy to believe.