Author: BOB
To: St (John Listening)
Steve’s last piece makes three different points or assertions that need to be addressed one-by-one: (1) Bob has improperly defined free will and God’s protection as mutually exclusive, (2) God seeks to protect us by nudging people gently in the direction of good, and (3) God seeks to protect us by nudging people forcefully in the direction of good. I agree with Steve on the middle point, but disagree on the first and third points.
The “Mutually Exclusive” Issue
Steve sort of garbles the
two poles which I was claiming were mutually exclusive. He interprets my point
as a claim that God’s desire to give us free will and his desire
to protect us are mutually exclusive. That wasn’t my point. I do think that God
can and does desire for us to be both free and safe.
In Post 146, my statement
was that “God cannot give human beings the free will to act, and yet control
their actions.” And I still think
that’s correct – the grant of full freedom and the exercise of full control are
mutually exclusive actions. I also think, though, that God could seek to
achieve a certain balance between the two extremes of full freedom versus full
control. In fact, that idea led me in my piece to wonder why God doesn’t let
free will operate but not beyond the point where great evil or gratuitous
suffering are inflicted. Yes, some lines would have to be drawn on a continuum as
to when intervention becomes necessary, but the creator of the universe, it
seems, could handle that.
God Nudges Us Gently in the Direction of Good
Steve goes on to conclude
that God does let free will operate and “in a sense, God does allow his gift
for choice to trump his gift for good.” But along the way, Steve argues that
God is not on the sidelines. Steve writes that God gently nudges us in the
direction of good, but not to the point of “substituting his action for our
choice.”
Now, I think that this
point is the strength of Steve’s piece. I agree with Steve on this issue. I like
the way that he frames this as God gently “nudging” us toward good. I agree
with Steve’s statement that God does not appear to substitute his action for
our choice. All in all, I agree with Steve on this issue. I have long stated in
this trialogue that I believe in God’s subtle presence in human beings and in
the world.
However, because I have not
only argued for God’s subtle presence in human affairs but also argued
against the likelihood of God’s forcefully intervening presence,
my position has received a pretty chilly reception in this trialogue.
God to me is… The creator
of the cosmos. The creator of natural laws and the conditions supporting life.
The bestower of gifts of human consciousness and intellect and conscience and
creativity. A subtle source of peace and strength nudging human beings in the
direction of love and compassion. The welcomer of souls to existences in other
planes of reality. The guarantor of ultimate goodness in the cosmos. The One
who affords hope that all things will be brought to satisfying resolution and
communion.
Still, John in particular
has been quick to argue that this sort of outlook makes God so puny that I
might just as well go off and be an atheist!
Unless God acts to
effectuate change in the external world based on our prayer, or intervenes in
direct and physical ways, then it seems that John thinks believing in God is
pretty pointless.
Hence, it seems consistent
with his outlook and therefore not surprising that John has said more than once
in this trialogue when we’ve discussed Jesus (this is paraphrased): Darn it,
Bob, do you believe that Jesus performed miracles or not? Do you believe that
Jesus healed people?
As a brief aside, I’d
like to address this matter here … I think that John and I agree that a measure
of skepticism is appropriate in dealing with miracle stories written down a few
decades after Jesus’s death by proselytizing believers who were not
eyewitnesses to the events described. Bishop Spong has credibly pointed out that
a number of miracle stories appear to have been attempts by the gospel writers to
say that Jesus is the new or greater Moses, by putting forth a series of one-upmanships.
(For example, Moses with God’s help is said to have parted the sea, but Jesus
does not have to part the sea, he can walk on it). Another reason for some
skepticism is that we are dealing with writers who see miracles in terms like
the casting out of demons or evil spirits.
It should also be noted
that if we are to fully believe in New Testament healing accounts, we are not
just accepting the notion that Jesus could heal people. The Book of Acts says
that “many signs and wonders were done among the people through the apostles.”
Acts says that the sick were brought out into the streets on cots and mats “in
order that Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as they came by”. In Acts
3:2 to 3:8, an incident is described in which Peter is said to have taken a man
lame from birth by the right hand and raised him up, and “immediately his feet
and ankles were made strong. Jumping up, he stood and began to walk.” Most
astoundingly, Acts 9 claims that Peter brought a dead woman named Tabitha back
to life. Peter prayed and then turned to Tabitha’s body, telling her to get up,
and then “she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up.” According to Acts
8, Philip was responsible for signs such that “unclean spirits, crying with
loud shrieks, came out of many who were possessed; and many others who were
paralyzed or lame were cured.” Paul in Acts 14 is said to have healed a man who
had been crippled since birth. Acts 19 says that “God did extraordinary
miracles through Paul, so that when the handkerchiefs or aprons that had
touched his skin were brought to the sick, their diseases left them, and the
evil spirits came out of them.”
The bottom line is that
though I am skeptical of the miracle stories, I don’t rule out the possibility
that Jesus was able to heal some people. The issue just does not have an impact
on my faith or spiritual optimism, however. I do not find the miracle claims to
be the most impressive aspect of Jesus as he is portrayed in the New Testament.
Jesus as portrayed is one of the most incredible advocates ever gracing the
planet to cry out for an ethic of love to replace an ethic of power and
domination that produces injustice, evil, and social ruination. That’s
impressive. He appeared to have a deep belief that this change in ethic was
needed for the kingdom of God to be realized on earth, and he risked his life
to promote this ideal.
God Nudges Us Forcefully in the Direction of Good
I disagree with Steve on
this point. By definition, a forceful nudge is an oxymoron; but a much more important
objection than the semantics is that Steve’s assertion here takes us right back
into a realm in which God isn’t all-good or is an underachiever.
Steve says that God
forcefully intervened in the Jonah story by sending a storm and a rescue. It
seems clear, though, that a God who takes these kinds of forceful actions could
help force a whole lot more good and help us avoid a whole lot more evil than
this world suggests. For example, a forcefully intervening God could make sure
that any number of unstable people get the emotional support or the mental
health care which they need before they get to the point of killing people. A
forcefully nudging God could find a way to disrupt a mother from an intent to
drown her own small children in a bathtub.
Sometimes tragic events
slap us in the face with the faith-challenging reality that God does not
intervene in the forceful or dramatic ways which we might wish. For example,
you may recall from a few years ago the incident in which about a dozen coal miners
were trapped in a mine. The mine had been cited for a number of regulatory
violations. However, it did not appear that the owners of the mine had been
forcefully nudged by the government or by God in the direction of “good” – that
is, concern for employee safety translated into much enhanced employee safety provisions
and practices. During the crisis, a report reached the news media indicating that
all miners but one had been found alive. The Governor pronounced this a miracle,
and numerous people appeared on television thanking God and Jesus for their
intervention. And then, it turned out that the reverse was true, that one miner
was alive, while all the rest were dead. Talk of God’s intervention in the
matter then ceased.
But should there have
been an assumption of a miraculous intervention by God in the first place? I
don’t think so.
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