Schrodinger's Theology

This is a conversational response to a post over at Ken Schenck's blog, "The war of the 2 natures". As Mr Schenck writes, "After reading about the crazy battles that resulted in what we now call orthodoxy, there seem two possible conclusions: 1) God was behind the scenes making sure the right answers won out or 2) it's all a crap shoot and orthodox Christianity is a sham." I don't think that either of those statements represents the actual situation in which we find ourselves. To make this post accessible I'll back up the conversation enough to be self-introducing ... 

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Knowing God may be the highest goal of human thought. And there are countless people who have sought knowledge of God in nature, in meditation, from prophets or even from the Messiah, and (in absence of these) from holy texts. But eventually we come to a problem: after we run through all the material that we can learn from those sources, we have some questions that none of our sources directly answers. We may get hints or glimpses. We may get likelihood. We may even get strong probability. But once we have gone beyond what is spelled out by trusted materials, we rarely get certainty. I'll come back to this point as I wrap up. 

This isn't a new thought to the modern age; even in the apostolic age St Paul wrote that "we see through a glass, darkly." While that won't stop us trying to see, it rightly leads to humility about the precision of our speculations. It's like the recognition of significant digits in science: it's not right to claim a precision that outpaces our data. (Deeper dive on that.) 

With the common claim that "the winners write the history books," is the underlying cynicism justified in the case of Christian beliefs? What do we make of the early controversies in the church? 

I'd like to look at some of the ways in which the church has approached questions, going from more conclusive to less conclusive: 

• Some questions were addressed by Jesus during his earthly ministry. Almost all Christians consider these to be definitive answers. 
• Some questions were addressed by the apostles during their lifetimes. Since they knew Jesus in person, these are often considered definitive answers, especially when the answers were included in the canon of Scripture. Granted, some groups allow variation for how firmly various New Testament writings are accepted, with some groups having different status for the once-disputed books of the New Testament from the days when the canon of Scripture was still under review. 
• Some questions are addressed directly by Scripture and there is only one view in Scripture. 
• Some questions had clear and widespread support from the earliest church while the opposing view was a late-introduced novelty. There was an ancient test whether beliefs had been held "everywhere, always, and by all," with the understanding that there could be asterisks for outliers, while providing a framework to objectively identify those outliers. 
• Some questions are not addressed directly by Scripture, and are instead inferred. These are answered based on a preponderance of evidence from Scripture and compatibility with known facts. 
• And some controversies are not answered directly by Scriptures, and the preponderance of evidence is not clean or not conclusive. 

From the earlier approaches, the church of Christ has a great body of teachings which are held solidly, without being open to the charge that it's merely a winner's privilege. 

In the later categories we get into more contested territory. This tends to happens when we are asking questions that Scripture never directly addresses, for example the relationship of the human and divine within Christ. It is especially problematic when we are asking questions that Jesus never addressed, that were never considered during the apostolic age, and where the earliest church is silent. In these cases we are left with a handful of tangential verses as we try to infer where they lead, with little to no guidance from trusted sources. I'll come back to that. 

Mr Schenck notes that "[t]he century between Nicaea (325) and Chalcedon (451) primarily argued over the two natures of Christ". I've mentioned before that I mark Chalcedon (451 A.D.) as the date when the "one holy catholic and apostolic church" became damaged; as a result the answers to those doctrinal questions (and new questions since) have been problematic. (Deeper dive on that.) After Chalcedon, those particular points of orthodoxy were upheld less by consensus and more by risk of excommunication. In my opinion, that is the point at which we ought to have admitted we outran our data, and come back to "seeing through a glass darkly." I would not say that every view advanced on the topic held equal validity; some views ultimately might have been considered out-of-bounds. But there is room for a collegial approach where the School of Alexandria has one view and the School of Rome holds another, on how the human and divine interact. 

To go back to the point I mentioned at the outset: We have some questions that none of the holy texts directly answers. We may get hints or glimpses. We may get likelihood. We may even get strong probability. But beyond what is spelled out by trusted materials, we no longer get certainty. The issue to me is not whether the right or wrong arguments won out; it's why we define "orthodoxy" so much in terms of issues that are beyond the scope of what we were given, where there is no indication that either Christ or his apostles considered the question (as we frame it) important. The problem goes deeper than whether we have the right answers to the questions we are asking. I'm fairly sure our relentless pursuit of non-Scriptural questions means we are not pursuing the best questions. 

Knowing God may be the highest goal of human thought. But are we pursuing that knowledge through how God has revealed himself, and letting his self-revelation set the curriculum for what we learn? What would happen if we tried? I believe we are called to the theology that Christ has taught, and the orthodoxy that the apostles proclaimed. 

"The abundance of the heart" for good or evil

How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. (Matthew 12:34)

There were people who had seen Jesus heal a man who was blind and mute, and saw that Jesus had driven out a demon from the man. So Jesus' opponents accused that he was demonic, to explain why he had power over the demons. Did they believe themselves and their accusations? Only God knows that. I suspect that the decision to be "against" whatever Jesus did put them in a tough spot: they had to oppose whatever he did. 

This is the conversation in which Jesus reminds us: we know a tree by its fruit. The surrounding material is "A tree is known by its fruit.... The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil." (Matthew 12:35)

In the face of a miraculous good, the response of his opponents was an accusation of absolute evil. This pattern isn't uncommon, when evil accuses those who do good. Someone whose own conscience is uneasy may produce a steady stream of accusations against others. And the easily misled will be misled. 

When we say that someone "speaks from the heart" we generally mean they speak honestly and earnestly. Yet it is possible that someone can be honestly and earnestly a mess. 

"Speaking from the heart" reveals the heart. And our human hearts are not always an oasis of love. Whenever we dwell on fear or anger, we tend to speak words of fear or anger. Whenever we think too much of our own value, we speak too much of our own value. Whenever we think about enmity towards other people, we tend to speak about enmity toward other people. It's not as if our thoughts and words are far separate. 

Or as St Paul once said to identify better things and "think on these things." (Philippians 4:8)

Recognizing the strategies of evil, the better to resist it

In the season of Lent, we turn to resisting the powers of evil. I'd like to start by surveying some tools and strategies of evil that we see in the Bible: 

1. Deception - whether outright lies, half-truths, or omissions, the intent is to mislead (see Genesis 3). As Jesus said of the devil: Lies are his native language (John 8:44).
2. Confusion - a half-truth can be more confusing than an outright lie (see Genesis 3). While an outright lie might lead to the target shutting down the conversation or walking away, a half-truth can lead to a follow-up conversation and leaves the door open. Paul points out that God is not the author of confusion (1 Cor 14:33)
3. Doubt - the goal may be to create doubt about someone's allegiance or intentions (again, see Genesis 3). 
4. Enmity and divisions - Following from the prior point (Genesis 3), doubt about someone's allegiance or intentions creates a division. Jesus is clear that he desires our unity (John 17). 
5. Accusations - One of the titles of the evil one is the Accuser (Revelation 12:10). It is an ironic thing when evil brings a temptation but then blames their victim if the temptation succeeds. When we see someone who has taken the bait of temptation, we are called to restore them gently and privately (Matthew 18:15-20). 
6. Some calamities - In the book of Job, we see that some calamities are to bring the temptation to fall away from trusting God
7. Other general temptations - Genesis 3 is not the only time we see the powers of evil bringing temptation. In the New Testament we see the tempter with Jesus in the wilderness (Matthew 4, Mark 1, Luke 4), starting off with the simple temptation to be self-serving with powers that are given him for the service of others. 

There are probably more. Feel free to add more in the comments! 

The faces of evil

This past Monday I was called for jury duty, which normally makes for an uninteresting morning in the jury pool followed by (usually) a week on call or (sometimes) a trip to a courtroom for voir dire, in which some lawyer (usually the prosecutor) decides they don't want a professional programmer/analyst on the jury. 

On Monday, the immense size of the potential-juror pool was the first sign of a high-stakes case. In round numbers, 100 of us were packed into the courtroom. The trial was for murder, and was legally a capital murder case because the victim was under 10 years of age. (That's based on the cutoff age in state law; the victim was roughly a year and a half old.) The state was not seeking the death penalty so the other allowable consequence under state law was life in prison. 

Whenever sitting through voir dire, it's interesting to focus on which arguments the lawyers are test driving. Clearly, the defense was arguing insanity. The defense seemed to be trying to carry the argument by shifting the mood to a blameless acceptance of an unfortunate tragedy, with the main tool being the defense attorney's stage presence. The defendant's unremorseful face wasn't helping the defense lawyer. When the defense lawyer asked the jury pool which of us simply did not care about the reason why a toddler was killed, I raised my juror number card -- I had plenty of company in that -- and was disqualified from the case. (Under state law, the insanity defense requires that at the time the actions took place, the person did not understand that the actions were wrong. If the defendant did not understand that that was wrong, that seemed possibly worse. A good percentage of the jury pool was disqualified for having that opinion.) 

As the non-selected jurors like me were dismissed, I had a lot of time to consider the faces of evil. The defendant who seemed unremorseful. The defense attorney who seemed cheerfully, craftily misleading,  and who seemed openly impatient when the prosecutor and judge had to call her back to the legal side of what she was allowed to say to the jury pool. The whispers in the jury pool about how unfortunate that the death penalty hadn't been sought and whether anything could be done for justice. My own growing feeling that, if the death penalty had been available, I might have been okay with that, even with the awareness that self-righteousness is one of the most common "winning" temptations for truly horrific acts. 

There is no one righteous; no, not one. 

The jury did return a conviction at the end of the week-long trial. That may be the closest to justice we can manage as mortals. 

Toolkit of verses for my own temptations

Last week's post reviewed the verses that Jesus employed to rebuke the tempter. 

My own temptations are different. Of course I'm as much at risk of temptation as any person is. Still I am confident that the tempter will never try to goad me to turn stones to bread or offer me the kingdoms of the world. 

So what are my own common temptations? What verses would I want to call to mind for the temptations I am likely to face? 

1. The temptation to over-rely on knowledge, or to consider it the most worthwhile thing for me to develop: 
   Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. (I Corinthians 8:1)
   
   
2. The temptation to overvalue work, and to undervalue rest: 
   In six days you shall do all your work, and on the seventh you shall rest. (Exodus 20:9-10)
   
   If ever I faced the opposite temptation, to overvalue rest and undervalue work, it would also be a suitable verse. 
   
   
3. The temptation to anxiety about the future: 
   And who among you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his life? (Matthew 6:27)
   
   
4. The temptation to resentment about ill-treatment, especially from people from whom I could (by relation) hope for fairness. 
   Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord. (Psalm 19:14)

I expect it would be a good practice for me to review what temptations I've faced each day, and review the places where I'm taught to fend it off. 

The illusion of being alone in temptation

It's fairly well-known among Christians that Jesus fended off temptations by quoting the Torah. Here's a brief summary of the temptations recorded in Luke 4:

Temptation #1

After 40 days' fast in the wilderness, to use his power as Son of God to feed himself. 

Jesus' response: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God." 

Temptation #2

To be handed the kingdoms of the world, with power and glory, in return for worshiping the tempter. 

Jesus' response: "You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve."

Temptation #3

In which the devil quotes Scripture to tempt Jesus to test God's providence. 

Jesus' response: "You shall not tempt the Lord your God." 

It is some comfort that Jesus' only tool in defeating Satan was the Scripture -- even just the book of Deuteronomy, which is in some ways a recap of what had gone before in the Torah. But I've felt stumped how or why Jesus chose those particular verses. Of course there is always the plain fact that Jesus' knowledge of Scripture is infinitely above my own, that he is the Christ. And of course they're apt verses to meet the occasion. But on the sense that I was still missing something, a context-check of those quotes shows some things that I had not noticed before. 

After the temptation to turn stones into bread after 40 days in the wilderness, the verse that Jesus quotes is from a passage about how God did not provide bread during Israel's 40 years in the wilderness, and yet He did provide for them. In Jesus' temptation in the wilderness, his situation was similar to Israel's journey in the wilderness: 

And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. (Deuteronomy 8:2-3)

Israel entered the wilderness as refugees and were humbled and tested for 40 years. But they didn't eat bread. They left having received God's word. They were transformed in the wilderness to a people with a calling, a vocation, bearers of the Word of God, people of a covenant. 

The tempter then promises to Jesus kingdoms and power, honor and glory, in return for his worship. The verse that Jesus quotes in response calls back to how Israel left the wilderness ready to take possession of kingdoms that others had prepared: 

 And when the LORD your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full,  then take care lest you forget the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.  It is the LORD your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you. (Deuteronomy 6:10-14)

By the time of Jesus' temptation, Israel had lost the promised land to more than one set of conquerors by bowing down to other gods besides the LORD. Anything gotten wrongly, or kept unworthily, cannot be kept forever. 

For the final temptation, the tempter borrows Scripture as well, but uses it against God's purposes. In reply Jesus quotes a passage that follows quickly after the one above: 

You shall not put the LORD your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah. (Deuteronomy 6:16)

The context-check for Jesus' chosen verses made it clearer to me how those verses carried messages not just of standing up against temptation, but of reprising Israel's temptations -- and our own. That is, it built an awareness of how my temptations are like others throughout time, and how that likeness can open doors to resist that temptation in ways it has been resisted before. I think everyone who has read the Old Testament is aware of Israel's struggles in the wilderness. Jesus' replies to the tempter show me how the writings of the Old Testament can be useful in my own struggles. Given that in my own struggles I will be imperfect. But in those struggles, Scripture also teaches that I am not as alone as I may think. 

The profanity of our culture v. the kingdom of God

I expect it's hardly news that western Christian culture has been enduring systematic attack for some time. Public opposition to Christianity has often taken shape as rudeness, crudeness, raunchiness, and above all mockery. I could develop that point further, but anyone who reads this is already on the internet; enough said. 

This desert landscape of pop culture leaves people desperate for something better. So this same cultural wasteland, seen from another vantage point, is an opportunity of epic proportions. Here are a few ways that Christians can help bring the kingdom of God closer to our homelands: 

1. A break from nastiness
   Cruelty is contagious. When we associate with each other, it's disturbingly easy to normalize each others' sins. Many sins have a certain social contagion to them, whether it's habitual anger or arrogance, habitual fear or fury. Are our own spirits rooted deeply enough in God so that we can stand fast? 
2. A return to personal connection
   It's easy to blame the internet for the decrease of personal connection because it's so easy to see. But there are other factors like tribalism, or the sheer scale of the modern world in which it is easy to be lost in a crowd. Hospitality -- the art of creating occasions to build relationships -- is worth reclaiming. The entry price for a closer connection is often as small as remembering what was bothering someone last time we spoke, and seeing if that's any better. Those are just two possible implementations of God's call that we love each other. Which leads us to ...
3. Restoration of love
   The "bar-hop" culture, along with over-sexualization of relationships, has led to less emphasis on love, or mislabeling it. We can bring a fuller idea of love as human connection,  as knowing and valuing other human beings, as having compassion and understanding for each other. This is one of the places where God has called us to excel. As the church has said for many centuries, "Knowledge becomes love."
4. Restoration of beauty
   Our culture is lacking in good aesthetics. Art, architecture, and literature are often intentionally unattractive, even in ways that are unrealistic. When positive aesthetics are attempted, they are often either commercial or cartoonish. J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis showed what a mature sense of beauty can do to capture the imagination and delight the heart. If art is someone's field, we can proclaim God's goodness through making goodness visible in our world. 
5. Restoration of integrity
   Few things are more necessary to relationships -- to real human connections -- than integrity. But honesty, faithfulness, and humility -- some of the key components of integrity -- are in short supply. The more we cultivate these in ourselves -- and refuse to be shamed for them -- the more people may recognize the value of godliness. 
6. The existence of forgiveness
   Our culture has substituted permissiveness for mercy. Rather than say someone is forgiven, there is a general view that there is no standard and no wrongdoing, or that the standard/wrongdoing paradigm only applies to those in a disfavored group. And so there are no guardrails for common decency (see previous), and no path to redemption if a modern taboo is crossed. Genuine mercy is relatively rare in our culture. The extension of forgiveness -- and the willingness to treat a transgressor as still human -- distinguishes God's way from the world's way. 

I'd be interested to hear other thoughts on ways in which the ills of society actually make it easier for our light to shine to the glory of God.