Encountering a Silent God

John Maus Album Cover:
We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves

Jason Upton once observed that we often walk away from God and then blame him for the distance. Whenever I make negative claims about God's role in my life (or, at times, his existence), I am usually reminded of this sentiment.

Earlier this week, I decided to let go of my faith in Christianity. I won't go into all of the reasons, but essentially I was sick and tired of trying to explain the dissonance between what I believed (that God is active in my life) and what I experienced (a silent and absent, or all-together non-existent God).

While my thoughts and feelings are quite genuine, I am not uncritical of them. Am I just blaming God for the distance that I have created? Am I just taking my frustration with life out on God? While these notions are quite possible (even probable), I still don't know what to do. How do I resist distancing myself from God? How do I pursue him so that I come to experience him as an active part of my daily life? How do I make it so that God does not remain unheard? What do I do when I encounter what seems like God's silence or absence?

Oddly enough, I found help from Friedrich Nietzsche. He said that forgetfulness does not just happen upon a passive person. Forgetfulness, he said, is an active "power responsible for the fact that what we have lived, experienced, taken into ourselves, no more enters into consciousness."(1)

Likewise, memory, to Nietzsche, is also active. With its help, "forgetfulness is . . . kept in check." Memory "is by no means a mere passive inability to get rid of a once indented impression, not merely the indigestion occasioned by a once pledged word, which one cannot dispose of, but an active refusal to get rid of it, a continuing and a wish to continue what has once been willed, an actual memory of the will."(2)

With this understanding of forgetfulness and memory, he can say, "how thoroughly must man have first become calculable, disciplined, necessitated even for himself and his own conception of himself, that, like a man entering a promise, he could guarantee himself a future."(3)

The Israelites understood this, which is why they again and again relived their Heilsgeschichte, their salvation history, with Yahweh. It would be a terribly huge task to count all the times in the Old Testament in which the Exodus is recalled. The entire Old Testament is the product of reliving the past to serve the purpose of the present. As Eugene Peterson says, "present gladness has a past and future."(4)

I thought about all of this, and then I thought about Jeremiah, whom I have critiqued for so often failing to appreciate his solidarity with Yahweh. His entire experience was one with the experience of Yahweh, and yet he frequently criticized Yahweh for abandoning him.

He had forgotten what Yahweh had promised. He had forgotten the central characteristic of Yahweh's nature, steadfast love and faithfulness. I don't want to do that to God. But I also don't know what to do in the face of a seemingly silent and absent God. It is easy to make an enemy out of a silent God (or, maybe better, an unheard God).

Maybe the best that can be said is that the wrestling is okay, the lamenting is okay, but if one is to be honest and faithful, one will ultimately return to the affirmation of God's steadfast love and faithfulness, with the help of memory. Through memory, we can, with intellectual integrity, refuse to get rid of faith in God's steadfast love and faithfulness. Through memory, we can continue the faith in God that was once our wholehearted will. When memory becomes "calculable, disciplined, necessitated" in us, then we can grasp the promise of God, from which a future with him can spring forth.

For me, to doubt God's presence, to doubt his fidelity, is to forget. For me to deny God because he isn't presently experienced is to embrace amnesia.

These are the thoughts I have so far. We'll see where the journey takes me from here.

If I say, "I will not remember him, or speak anymore in his name," then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.
Jeremiah 20:9

Notes:
(1) Freidrich Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals (Mineola: Dover Publications, 2003), 34.
(2) Ibid., 35.
(3) Ibid.
(4) Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 97.

Book Review: "The Nature of Love: A Theology" by Thomas Jay Oord

Oord, Thomas Jay. The Nature of Love: A Theology. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2010. $22.49. pp.vii-195. ISBN 978-0-827208-28-5. ★★★★★

In his book The Nature of Love: A Theology, Thomas Jay Oord seeks to construct a theology centered around the defining element of God's nature: love. In his introduction, he highlights the demeaned role love has played in theology, and understands well the reasons for this. For example, he recognizes the difficulty of building a theology of love given the loose definition of the word. In spite of the often undefined nature of love, he provides a well-rounded and helpful definition, the essential element of which is promoting overall well-being.

After his introduction, he has four sections. The first deals with Agape, the second with Eros, and the third with Philia. The three together encapsulate what love is to Oord. Agape, he says, is love in spite of; Eros is love because of; and Philia is love alongside of. In each section, he deals with an interpretation of one of the love forms that he subjects to critical analysis. His discussion of Agape dialogues with Anders Nygren. In the Eros chapter, he deals with Augustine. With Philia, he talks about the theology of Clark Pinnock. The last chapter of the book is dedicated to laying out his "Essential Kenosis" theology of love.

The Agape and Eros chapters are very strong. He exposes the flaws of Nygren's and Augustine's ideas about love. Nygren essentially said that love means self-sacrifice, and that humans do not love, but God is the one loving through us. Augustine said that love is either enjoyment of something for its own sake, or enjoyment of something for the sake of something else. He also believed that God is the only one who should be loved, and that we should love others for the sake of loving God, instead of loving others for their own sakes. While their ideas of love involve much more, this provides a general idea of what Oord was arguing against. And his arguments against these views are quite convincing. He completely dismantles the validity of their claims, and in a cool and collective way. I've seen Oord speak before, and I was struck by his charm and the smoothness of his presentation. This demeanor is present in his book. He describes the views of Nygren and Augustine as 'insufficient' while the reader thinks 'ridiculous'.

The chapter dedicated to Clark Pinnock is not quite as strong as the previous two. As he lays out Pinnock's Open theology, it's almost like he's making a case for it, which is to be expected since his Essential Kenosis theology lines up with Open theology on many issues. But there is one crucial difference: Pinnock said that God sometimes coerces, and Oord believes the God of love never coerces.

The problem with Pinnock's thinking, Oord says, is that God has the ability to prevent evil but doesn't, which is why Pinnock fails to resolve the problem of evil. Included in his discussion of coercion is a discussion of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo--creation out of nothing. Oord says creatio ex nihilo, which Pinnock embraced, implies coercion. He uses this to justify dedicating a section of his book to refuting creatio ex nihilo. However, I don't think it fits well with the rest of the book. He doesn't really explain how exactly creation out of nothing implies coercion, and his alternative understanding of creation is not given the extensive explanation that it warrants. It almost seems like he put it in there so that he could have another thing to critique Pinnock on.

The ideas present in Oord's Essential Kenosis theology that distinguish it from other theologies are fascinating and worth consideration. He says that since God's nature is love, he loves others necessarily. In this, there is no divine self-limitation to provide freedom for creatures; God necessarily provides freedom for creatures because it is his nature as love to do so. I find this concept compelling, and while he can be and probably often has been accused of down-playing the omnipotence of God, I think his theology provides a better approach to the problem of evil than theologies that claim that God can and sometimes does unilaterally intervene to prevent evil, but most of the time thinks human freedom is more important than preventing evil. While I advocate Greg Boyd's warfare worldview, Oord makes significant contributions to the theodicy discussion.

It is difficult to write a review of this book because so much is said in it and I have so many things to respond to. Being concise is something Oord does well; he says a lot in a small amount of space. The Nature of Love is a short book, but it covers a multitude of topics (though, a few of them could use more elaboration). He gives the reader a lot to think about.

Oord has presented a robust and reasonable theology of love, which resolves problems that other theologies bring up, without creating too many of its own. He also provides a good platform for dialogue between Open theists and Process theists. His book is very thought-provoking and it brings to the table ideas that need to be given significant attention in addressing God's nature as love.

Purchase "The Nature of Love: A Theology" on Amazon (here)

Jesus Wants Us to Doubt

We all know that our knowledge of the truth is incomplete. We all have an understanding that, at the end of the day, humans trying to understand all there is to know about God is like ants trying to understand the universe. If we're humble, we'll acknowledge this.

Because our knowledge of truth is incomplete, we should never be certain. We don't know everything there is to know, so we cannot make absolute claims about truth.

Part of why our knowledge of truth is incomplete is because our own personal bias always accompanies our truth claims. To use Plato's analogy, we all have caves. No matter how much we try to escape our caves, we will always remain in them to a certain extent. We cannot stop our own humanness from interfering in our truth-seeking.

Jesus understood the human condition. He understood that human knowledge is incomplete and that we all have our own caves that get in the way of us seeing the full truth. Because he understood this, he taught us to doubt.

Let me give you a few examples.

Jesus said in the sermon on the mount, "You have heard that it was said, 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth'. But I say to you. . . ." (Matt. 5:38-39). Here, Jesus was taking something that his audience accepted as true, and calling it into question. "You think this, but I say..."  He does this a few more times in the sermon, teaching them to call into question what they accepted as an ontological given.

In the garden when Jesus was about to be arrested, Peter took out his sword to defend Jesus and cut off a soldier's ear, for which he was admonished by Jesus. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus does this to his disciples. They do something--and most of the time with good intentions, thinking that they are operating in truth--and Jesus corrects them. He causes them to subject their actions to criticism; he teaches them to doubt.

Now let me explain what I mean by 'doubt' here.

Because our knowledge is incomplete, Jesus taught us that we should be self-aware and self-critical. We should question our own motives and actions. We should subject our claims and our decisions to critical analysis. This is a form of doubt.

Paul said, "Test everything; hold fast to what is good, and reject every kind of evil" (1 Thess. 5:21). Testing something, subjecting it to criticism, is a form of doubt. He could have just as well said, "Doubt everything; hold fast to what is good, and reject every kind of evil."

Mainstream evangelical Christianity teaches us to know what we believe. We have to be confident and certain. We cannot compromise. We cannot question. We cannot doubt. What comes out of this is a bunch of yes-people who just drink the Kool-Aid, putting their faith in and embracing a fixed, systematized Christianity that looks human and not like Jesus.

Jesus doesn't want us to put blind faith in a dominant ideology. He doesn't want us to just accept what is given to us. He taught us to call into question content control and the fixed systems of humanity. Jesus isn't a control freak; he wants us to doubt control freaks.

And guess what! We are control freaks. We have our own caves that we adapt Jesus to all of the time. We so often make Jesus in our own image. As long as we practice doubtless certainty--as long as we "know what we believe"--we will be embracing a portrait of truth that is infected with our own selves. Because we never know truth completely, as long as we completely embrace one understanding of truth, we will be in a cave, hidden from Christ's truth.

Jesus wants to save us from our caves, and that requires calling our conclusions into question. That requires doubting our caves. We often claim that we hear from God. But what if what we heard from God wasn't actually God? Moses thought he was hearing from God when he advocated the teaching of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" (Deut. 19:21; cf. Lev. 24:20, Ex. 21:24), but Jesus revealed to us that that theology was more human than God-like.

We need to be self-aware. When we commit to a conclusion to the point of uncompromising confidence, we are basically saying, "I refuse to do anymore learning." We need to acknowledge our limits as humans. We need to acknowledge our bias when we make truth claims, especially when we make them about God. As long as we doubt, as long as we call into question our conclusions, and subject our truth claims to criticism, we can be sure that we are staying true to the search for truth, we can be sure that we are seeking Jesus and not just our version of Jesus.

That all being said, there is a balance. While we shouldn't embrace doubtless certainty, we should also reject doubtful uncertainty. Nihilism is a recipe for despair. But since we can be never be certain that what we believe to be true is actually true, we have only to do the best we can, seeking truth.

As Christians, we need to seek Jesus. We need him to determine for us what is true, and that means always leaving the questions open. That means never being certain, because Jesus will always show us the limits of our thinking. Never remain comfortable with the status quo, but always be growing and adapting in the journey to Jesus.

And while we can never know if what we think we hear from God is actually from God, we can find peace in the knowledge that we are seeking truth. We can find assurance and rest in knowing that, while we can't know if we are right, we can know that we are genuinely seeking Jesus, and that's all that matters to him.

Intellectual Scarecrows: More Reflections on Faith in Christianity

I went to an event featuring Jason Upton Friday night, and Jason never ceases to give me something to ponder and write about for weeks afterward. He sang a song about a bird who comes along a field with a scarecrow in it. The chorus of the song goes something like this:

If I were a bird
If I were a foolish bird,
I'd listen to my fear, and fly away from here.

But if I were a bird
If I were a wise bird,
I'd listen to my heart, and find the treasure waiting in the field

After hearing this chorus, I realized it was describing my very situation. Christianity is definitely not without its scarecrows. So do I fly away because of the scarecrows, or do I embrace the field in spite of them?

In another song, Jason sang, "I will never forget what you've done for me" (speaking of God). I realized as he was singing, that faith in Christianity is not a now-and-never-again decision. That is to say, it's not something that one decides one is or isn't going to embrace for the rest of his or her life. I had a friend admit to me that he is tired of my intellectual mood swings and my shifting beliefs. I got the sense that he just wanted me to make up my mind about Christianity. But I don't think Christianity is that kind of decision. I think it's a day-to-day decision. The Israelites had to get up every day and decide if they were going to put their faith in Yahweh, if they would remember and embrace the God of their Heilsgeschichte, their salvation history.

I could think of the times when I felt I was experiencing God, and I could choose to doubt their authenticity and explain them away, or I could put my faith in God again. When I think of the peace I randomly experienced after weeks of depression, I could choose to explain that peace as some kind of psychological phenomenon, or I could have the faith that that peace came, and only could have come, from God.

The faith decision I talked about in my last blog is a decision that has to be made every day, and it has to be made when remembering the past, when responding to the present, and when looking to the future. When I look back, I have to have faith that God was present. When I go through my day, I have to choose to have faith that God is present. When I look to my future, and I wonder where I'm going to be and what I am going to do, I have to choose to have faith that God will be present.

I still think that faith needs to be assessed and re-assessed. I still think doubt is, to use Plato's analogy, an essential key to escaping our caves. As long as I call my faith into question, I can be sure that I am not living in an ignorant bliss, happily assuming Christianity as a priori truth. As long as I doubt, I can be sure that I am genuinely seeking truth. But, just as well, as long as I refuse to exercise faith, I will be living in doubtful uncertainty, in nihilism and despair.

Life is filled with millions of opportunities to answer the question, "Which version of the story is more worthy of your faith?" If I were a foolish bird, I would see the scarecrows, listen to my fear and fly away; but if I were a wise bird, I would listen to my heart and have faith. Let's hope I find the treasure.

Should I walk away from Christianity?

So, I've been at somewhat of a crossroads with my faith. This is nothing unusual, as I kind of always am. This time, it's a battle between nihilism and despair, and faith in Christianity. I can't know that Christianity is most certainly true (see my blog on this here), which distresses me because I want to be certain. I have to use faith. And sometimes Christianity doesn't seem worthy of my faith. Angels and demons and heaven and hell? Human fingerprints are all over these notions, and they're beginning to seem simply ridiculous. And then there's the added benefit that there are so many loud Christians who are incredibly hateful and ignorant.

So what's keeping me a Christian? Well, for one, Jesus' teaching is so profound to me. It is a perfect, counter-cultural alternative to the systems of this world that will forever fall short. At the very least, I guess I could adopt a very liberal understanding of Christianity as a paradigm for social change.

However, there's also the personal God of Christianity, with whom I believe I have experienced genuine intimacy. But was it really genuine? After all, the human mind is a fragile thing. For all I know, those experiences could have simply been an opiate.

So, what if I do stop being a Christian? Well, I'd still have to deal with the loud, hateful, ignorant Christians. Leaving Christianity wouldn't make them any easier to deal with. I would also lose an objective reality to at least believe in, and would have to simply accept my inability to know truth as an ontological given that can never be overcome. I can never know truth, and what's the point of believing in anything if I can't know it's true? Nihilism. Which, for me, will inevitably lead to despair.

But what if I leave Christianity, and the personal God comes chasing me? Like, let's say I have an intimate experience with him again. Couldn't I simply explain that as a by-product of the despair I experience as a result of my recently developed sense of nihilism (another opiate)? Reasonably so.

At the end of the day, it all comes back to faith. Is Christianity worth the faith? It's exactly like the end of Life of Pi, where [spoiler alert!] you have to decide if the boy was with the tiger the whole time, or if it was fictionalized, mythologized history. "And so it is with God," he said.

Walter Brueggemann says that the systems of this world are fairy tales, so if Christianity is a fairy tale, that puts it on a level playing field with the other systems of thought in the world. So if we say fiction vs. fiction, we have only to decide which is more worthy of our faith.

Cory suggested to me that I can decide whether or not to stay a Christian by deciding if I can or cannot see meaning in anything without it. My friend Andrew also suggested that I should look to what is better for me as a person.

My fear is that the God I pray to every day, the God I spend my life attempting to have a relationship with, the God to whom I am dedicating my entire life's work (i.e. biblical studies, ministry)--doesn't actually exist. I don't want to be in an ignorant bliss. I don't want to be a Christian simply because I'm too scared to walk away. I don't want to be a Christian because I'm afraid of death, or of despair and nihilism. I don't want an opiate. I want to be a Christian because it's real. 

My wife told me I of all people shouldn't worry about being in an ignorant bliss. She said this because I doubt everything, and because whatever worldview I'm in will never actually be bliss, partly because of the frequent doubting. Cory agreed and said, "all you can do is honestly pursue knowledge and question so as to make sure you're going down the right path."

Does Christianity give life meaning?
Is it better for me to be a Christian?
Is it worth my faith?
I think it is. We'll see.