The Great Exchange

"I am singing of a violent, timeless mystery; that one would give his life to save his enemies."-Thrice

Not to make a mountain out of an ant hill, but, there was just so much transpiring at Calvary and we may never be able to grasp that. Such love that we are called imitate ...

Divine goodness and the Intolerable compliment.

Little by little I have been weaving the reading of "The problem of Pain" by C.S. Lewis through all my other reading. As I look back I have realized that the past 5 books I have read have been attempts to give a thorough theodicy. In chapter 3 of Lewis' "The problem of Pain" he really makes some astounding points, points that find their corruption in the question of pain in our world that is governed by a loving God. The question he is attempting to reconcile is "how does pain exist in a world created by a God who is also good?" Though Lewis is simply commentating on this topic, and never affirms that he considers himself anything more than a layman, he certainly picks the brain. I will admit that his view of love is one very comparable to my own (one I had prior to reading this book) ... maybe that is why I loved this chapter so much? Call me biased. Many christians flock to Lewis for penning "The chronicles of Narnia" but I think that when people get over the magic of Narnia and walk into this mans mind we see so much more.

In Lewis' own words:

Christ calls men to repent- a call which would be meaningless if God's standards were sheerly different from that which they already knew and failed to practice. He appeals to our existing moral judgement-'Why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?' (Luke 12:57) God in the Old Testament expostulates with men on the basis of their own conceptions of gratitude, fidelity, and fair play: and puts Himself, as it were, at the bar before His own creatures-'What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me?' (Jeremiah 2:5) After the preliminaries it will, I hope, be safe to suggest that some conceptions of the Divine goodness with tend to dominate our thought, though seldom expressed in so many words, are open to criticism.


By the goodness of God we mean nowadays almost exclusively His lovingness; and in this we may be right. And by Love, in this context, most of us mean kindness-- the desire to see others than the self happy; not happy in this way or in that, but just happy. What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, "What does it matter so long as they are contented?" We want, in fact, no so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven-- a senile benevolence who, as they say, 'liked to see young people enjoying themselves', and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, 'a good time was had by all'. Not many people, I admit, would formulate a theology in precisely those terms: but a conception not very different lurks at the back of many minds. I do not claim to be an exception: I should very much like to live in a universe which was governed on such lines But since it is abundantly clear that I don't, and since I have reason to believe, nevertheless, that God is Love, I conclude that my conception of love needs correction.


I might, indeed, have learned, even from the poets, that Love is something more stern and splendid that mere kindness: that even the love between the sexes is, as in Dante, ' a lord of terrible aspect'. There is kindness in love, but love and kindness are not coterminous, and when kindness (in the sense given above) is separated from the other elements of Love, it involves a certain fundamental indifference to its object- we have all met people whose kindness to animals is constantly leading them to kill animals lest they should suffer. Kindness, merely as such, cares not whether its object becomes good or bad, provided only that it escapes suffering. As Scripture points out, it is bastards who are spoiled: the legitimate sons who are to carry on the family tradition, are punished. (Hebrews 12:8) It is for people we care nothing about that we demand happiness on any terms: with our friends, our lovers, our children, we are exacting and would rather see them suffer much than be happy in contemptible and estranging modes. If God is love, He is, by definition, something more than mere kindness. And it appears, from all the records, that though He has often rebuked us and condemned us, He has never regarded us with contempt. He has paid us the intolerable compliment of loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexorable sense.


We are not metaphorically but in very truth, a Divine work of art, something that God is making, and therefore something with which He will not be satisfied until it has a certain character. Here again we come up against what I have called the 'intolerable compliment'. Over a sketch made idly to amuse a child, an artist may not take much trouble: he may be content to let it go even though it is not exactly as he meant it to be. But over the great picture of his life-- the work which he loves, though in a different fashion, as intensely as a man loves a woman or a mother of a child-- he will take endless trouble-- and would, doubtless, thereby give endless trouble to the picture if it were sentient. One can imagine a sentient picture, after being rubbed and scraped and recommended for the tenth time, wishing that it were only a thumbnail sketch whose making was over in a minute. In the same way, it is natural for us to wish that God had designed for us a less glorious and less arduous destiny; but then we are wishing not for more love but for less.

Later on Lewis parallels the love of God and man between that of a man and a dog to show the differences in perception of love in the 2 ...

Great merit lies in the fact that the association of man and dog is primarily for the man's sake: he takes the dog that he may love it, not that is may love him, and that is may serve him, not that he may serve it. Yet at the same time, the dog's interest are not sacrificed to the man's. The one end (that he may love it) cannot be fully attained unless it also, in its fashion, loves him, nor can it serve him unless he, in a different fashion, serves it. Not just because the dog is by human standards one of the 'best' of irrational creatures, and a proper object for a man to love- of course, with that degree and kind of love which is proper to such an object, and not with silly anthropomorphic exaggerations- man interferes with the dog and makes it more lovable than it was in mere nature. In its state of nature it has a smell, and habits, which frustrate man's love: he washes it, house-trains it, teaches it not to steal, and is so enabled to love it completely. To the puppy the whole proceeding would seem, it it were a theologian, to cast grave doubts on the 'goodness' of man: but the full-grown and full-trained dog, larger, healthier, and longer-lived than the wild dog, and admitted, as it were by Grace, to a whole world of affections, loyalties, interests, and comforts entirely beyond its animal destiny, would have no such doubts. It will be noted that the man (I am speaking throughout the good man) takes all these pains with the dog, and gives all these pains to the dog, only it is an animal high in the scale- because it is so nearly lovably that it is worth his while to make it fully lovable. He does not house-train the earwig or give baths to centipedes. We may wish, indeed, that we were of so little account to God that He left us alone to follow our natural impulses- that he would give over trying to train us into something so unlike our natural selves; but once again, we are asking not for more love, but less love.


When Christianity says that God loves man, it means that God loves man: not that He has some 'disinterested' because really indifferent, concern for our welfare, but that, in awful and surprising truth, we are objects of His love. You asked for a loving God: you have one. God's love, far from being caused by goodness IN the object, causes all goodness which the object has, loving it first into existence and then into real, though derivative, lovability. God is goodness. He can give good, but cannot need or get it. In that sense all His love is, as it were, bottomlessly selfless by very definition; it has everything to give and nothing to receive. Hence, if God sometimes speaks as though the Impassible could suffer passion, and eternal fullness could be in want, and in want of those beings on whom it bestows all from their bare existence upwards, can this mean only, if it means anything intelligible BY us, that God of mere miracle has made Himself able so to hunger and created IN Himself that which we can satisfy. If he requires us, the requirement is of His own choosing."

-C.S. Lewis

The Adjustment Bureau

"Calvinist angels employed by an Open Theistic God ..."

Last night I went to see "The Adjustment Bureau" with some of my dearest friends. I remember seeing the preview for this movie last year, we saw Robin Hood the night before we left for Chile on May 15th and "The Adjustment Bureau" was previewed there. I remember the impression that the trailer left me with, "this movie is a take of God's sovereignty" and upon actually seeing the movie I can say that that parallel, and that struggle was present in the movie. I will admit, for me this movie was very frustrating and uncomfortable to watch. Now, while I can see why Ed Stetzer and Dave Ramsey were tweeting about this movie being a modern day take on the struggle between Calvinism and Arminianism, if you ask me this movie portrayed a nice re-enactment of the open theistic model of God's sovereignty.  One of the key points of Open Theism is that human and angelic agents are not pre-ordained to make such and such decisions, because both humans and angels have free will- as a result the choices we do make cause a ripple effect through out our lives and the people that, at any point, come in to contact with us or the byproducts of the choices we make. There were points in the movie where the Bureau stalks the couple and says "we have to prevent this from happening because it will create a ripple and this whole thing will be harder to prevent." This is a beautiful, but can often times be demonic, way to show how we have not evolved towards perfection like biology likes to claim, but rather that we are warring against the wills of an unseen force, both Divine and angelic ... but also we are warring against the wills of one another. The second big point of the movie that stresses the open view of God's sovereignty is that Ben's character was thwarting the will set forth before Him. I think this is where the Calvinistic thought process comes to light; no matter the interactions, the emotions, the sheer humanity of this man, his choices had been made for him and he needs to abide to that plan- which is definitely not free will. Maybe we misunderstand God's will in this way?

I think what hit me the most was how much I can relate to the main characters struggle. After I put aside the philosophical articulations of God's sovereignty and human free will I saw different aspects. In the movie "the bureau" occupied a 2 fold position- to some they were the good guys, and to others they were the bad. However, the agents weren't aware of what the plan was, they just knew that they had to follow it. So for me this movie was more of a reflection of spiritual warfare. The warfare motif is something that is amplified and stressed to the max within the view of open theism. I see David's struggle to maintain his drive and focus on what he knows is right despite the opposition from those, who have a considerable advantage over him- id say because of their vantage point. These agents can actually, to some degree, see how the choices he makes will or will not effect him and many others. I can say that I know what it is like to be opposed by a force with a higher vantage point than my own. There were times when the agents would come to David and tell him that the choices he is making are not ones that will make the most of his life or Elise's life (he is a politician with a promise to become president and she is a world class ballerina). But, this is to disregard the unity of the 2 individuals. I am not one to talk about that sort of thing but in the movie the advantage that David had over the Bureau was that he could feel the situation; the agents spoke from a formulaic aspect as opposed to David's very aesthetic standpoint- by this, he struggles to make sense of the 2 opposing vantage points. David decides to abandon his relationship with Elise because he buys into the Bureau's plan, but it was until he finds out that she is getting married that he is once again lifted back up to fight this battle. He grabs Elise in a bathroom before she is to be wed and starts proclaiming his love and filling her in on everything that has happened (which makes him sound crazy), she naturally freaks out, but she follows him as they flee from the pursuing agents who are now out to seize them and erase their memories. At a point, Elise becomes overwhelmed and stops running and says "what is going on? I do not understand?" (she actually asked for an explanation) ... He just looks her in the eyes and says something to the effect of "you can go back through that door and walk away or you can trust me." Needless to say she trust him and they continue running. David decides that the only possible way to make his love for Elise work is to re-write the "plan" so he heads that the agencies headquarters, He is going to negotiate with the "Chairman" (who is never revealed in the movie but is given the impression that he occupies the position of "God").

When ever they reach the headquarters they are being pursued by many many agents and the scene concludes on the roof of the headquarters. They realize that this is it, they are about to have their memories erased, so they make the most of their last moments by professing their love for one another. When they look up all of the agents have disappeared except one. He tells them that because Elise trusted David and chose to follow him (instead of taking the doorway back to regular life) that that decision altered the plan ... the plan changed. The "chairman", despite the choices of David and Elise, and the plan for David and Elise (which separately would have meant very successful lives in their professions).

2 things-

1. the Chairman re-wrote the plan. This is a typical standpoint of open theism. The plan is not set in stone but the outcome is. God is working for the good despite our inabilities.

2. Separately they had 2 different opposing destinies. Together they had 1 destiny that shadowed all the other destinies in light of their love. Maybe i'm a sap but I couldn't help but be drawn in by that. If you remember, the cornerstone that became the deciding factor for the Chairman to re-write the plan was Elise's decision. She could have said yes to David long ago BUT given her enlightenment to the situation, and her determination despite that, the plan actually worked out to her benefit. Also, I think love becomes a more amplified virtue when your free will to love or not to love is reciprocated by another free will that has chosen to love you instead of not loving you. 2 for 1! Maybe what truly re-writes things is that people love one another and work together. Love is not easy and though love is seen as a gain in society (and it is ... in its proper context) it will also cost you quite a bit (i.e. Jesus)

Rob Bell has said "love wins" ... maybe he is right in a less eschatological sense? Thats what Jesus was teaching us ... advance the Kingdom of God by reflecting my light.

"Free will is a gift that you'll never know how to use (I add "for good") until you learn how to fight for it"-The Adjustment Bureau

Our natural inclination, because of sin, is to abuse free will ... maybe we all need to learn to use our free will to fight for what is good and the victory that has been promised to us?!

We all know what it is to intend to do something good & to do something bad instead. Aristotle called it "akrasia" or "weakness of will" ... maybe our intentions and our outcomes need a more thorough reevaluation?


#lovewins

Jesus as celebrity worship?

I have had many beneficial conversations this weekend with great friends of mine. I am always so thankful to have friends, but I am exceedingly thankful that I have friends who can dialogue with me about the things that really need to be talked about. In typical Seth fashion, I confronted a friend about their lack of vigor in the scriptures. What really truly worried me was that this person leads small groups, and Bible studies simply because it is assumed, since they grew up in the church and around christians, that he has the "know how" to facilitate a Bible study. I had always had my suspicions of this individual. You can look at someone's orthodoxy on the premiss of their orthopraxy so often that you really don't have to do as much digging as you probably thought. Some may call this "judging" and it is, using discernment to judge a fellow Christian is neither wrong, nor should it be discouraged. However,  I would encourage you to take a read into what Jesus says in Matthew 7 about judging others. The point of this blog is not to critique any sort of specific principle from a few selected bible verses, or to voice my opinion on a topical matter but its to involve you in my thought process surrounding this individual, and many of the same caliber.

If you have read my previous blogs you know how I feel about the modern view of good and bad. I argue that this assumed backdrop is not based on Jesus, or scripture, but it is rather based off of an emotional response in conjuncture to whatever experiences the individuals have had. The whole idea of good and bad has permeated our understanding of scripture and thus engendered a movement of morality that is, often assumed, equivalent to the Gospel of Jesus. What I have seen is that people are becoming more concerned with looking like Jesus instead of knowing Jesus. One time I had a student approach me after a wednesday night service and confessed that he was having sex with his girlfriend, this situation for him was particularly sticky because she was not a believer. He asked "what should I do?" and I thought for a moment and said "You need to spend more time with Jesus, bro!" you looked at me and said "I know man, I want to! But, what do I do about having sex?!" ... He was surprised to find out that his real problem (not knowing Jesus deeper) was in fact his answer to all his other shortcomings! Now, I don't know that this student took my advice in a practical manner but I told him what I thought the truth was. Afterwards, a youth leader asked me what the student had wanted and I told him about our conversation. The leader became irritated that I had not told the student to stop having sex. Really, the student knew he needed to stop having sex ... but he needed to be reminded of something bigger.

I couldn't help but ponder what good abstinence is, or is not, if the person doesn't know Jesus? I have seen this sort of thinking everywhere I go. This is really a worship issue. The problem is that people have taken a "good" thing and made it an "ultimate" thing ... thus we see idols spring up all around us. But, as a continued this thought I began to wonder how this lifestyle of looking like Jesus and not knowing Jesus was any different that celebrity worship? The whole premiss of idolizing celebrities is that we wish we could be them but we cannot, we wish to look like them in place of actually knowing them, and we are convinced that their live is much better than ours ... they have it all figured out. The problem is that the person (the celebrity) we think we know from a distance is probably not the same person we would admire if we knew them. I think some of the same things can be said about Jesus, as there are many false ideas and backdrops concerning Jesus that people inherently assume. Its one thing to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher ... it is a world of difference to accept Him as the son of God.

The whole idea I am trying to get across to everyone is that idolizing Jesus without knowing Him is no different than idolizing Justin Bieber when you don't know him ... and none of you know J Bieber. A lot of people make following Jesus out to be something easy but, from my experience, the more I explore Jesus and look at this world through His eyes the harder life becomes. Jesus even warned us of these things time and time again. But, I think we may be biased in our reading of the gospels in light of certain attributes that are easier to swallow.

If the goal is holiness, how can you worship Jesus AS He ought while still harboring idols in your heart? I find in curious that Jesus never elevated anyone, he encouraged people, but he also rebuked them and was a bit of a tough nut to them (definitely not the nice guy Jesus I learned about growing up), but he never entertained even the thought of elevating others EVER. The problem in this for so many people is that they think that this praise is a sign of love, and and affection for someone they don't know, but really thats the antithesis of sacrificial praise.

I encourage you to read through Acts 19. The preaching of the Gospel was so affective in Ephesus that the economy was greatly affected and men feared that they would lose their jobs! Can this happen in our society today? I think it can ... but some of us are going to have to be put Jesus back at the right hand of God!

Life makes a hard living ...

Last night a good friend of mine named Justin came through town with his wife and brother on their way to Nashville. He called me up earlier in the day and told me that he would be through and he would enjoy getting together so we could catch up and talk. Of course I was more than willing to cancel my plans in order to see and talk with Justin. Justin and I met this past summer when a band I was playing with played a concert with his band, Life in Rescue. The transmission on their van went out on the way to the concert so they were stranded in Hot Springs for a whole week while they waited on their van to get repaired. Justin and I hit if off really well immediately when we discovered that we both had a thirst for scripture. Though he and I disagree on a handful of things we are always eager to converse about our struggles in all of life, but we also have found that our theological struggles, to a great degree, precede all other struggles. I cannot tell you how valuable and reassuring for me it is to find more people that I can talk with on these subjects, in fact these struggles are meant to be handled in a communal nature according to God. I think that is something that people in my town of Hot Springs, Arkansas have either forgotten, or never really realized. Justin and I are very similar in this sense- we both want the truth! We both will go kamikaze in order to make sure the truth is going forth. This is often called "unmerciful" in most christian circles but I think if you reevaluate that idea you will find that such a label is preposterous. The point I am making is that I, you, WE need this sort of fellowship ... and we cannot make everything a gender battle! If you divide you are not unified!

I told a friend the other day that I felt like I had been playing tea party for so long with people. I would set people in their chair and pour their drink and hope that they would play along ... but just like the little girl who ask her older brothers to play tea party with her, it often involved way too much humility to see any sort of benefit. I desperately want to engage in spirited conversation but it is often met with either a lack of interest, a lack of input, or a pacifistic attitude. I cannot fault someone for having a lack of input all the time but it is my desire to use these moments to inquire of these individuals, and use it as a time of learning and growing. I guess my thought is "maybe I can spark the flint in their mind and pray for a wild fire!" I also sympathize with the people who are scared of theology, doctrines, and orthodoxy. I have seen people use political correction, from within a theological context, to destroy people. If I ever been like this I ask for your forgiveness, if I did so it was not my intent. I just want people to explore God within community, I want people to be open and honest with everything- but, that position is one I have gained from scripture. Let me say it this way ... I am starving for it and if it doesn't happen its not going to be beneficial for me or you.

I have this idea that people are afraid of learning because if they learn too much then they will start to wrestle with their faith, and if they are wrestling then their faith will waver and this will not be beneficial for their walk with God. Unfortunately, its the exact opposite- the more we wrestle the stronger our faith becomes and the deeper our love for God becomes. Listen to me- I can say that because of my studies I have been able to weed out the bad ideologies I had acquired from inherited assumptions that are the byproduct of growing up in this region of America, more specifically- the bible belt. I can say that my faith has strengthened so much because of my pursuit of knowledge and understanding because I have learned humility through it, in that, I can not understand everything about God, there is room for mystery ... and this has worked to strengthen my faith. If I believe but I don't understand I have to have faith in order to keep on believing. I want this for so many people. How do I help facilitate this sort of movement without losing the few friends I have left?

I guess I am at a point of throwing my hands up. I have always been a fighter but I have noticed more and more lately that I am fighting more and more battles that are keeping me from the real battle. I can't display my love for people enough, and though I want to, I just can't spend my time meeting the expectations of everyone ... it is impossible. Plus, its hard to believe the accusations of others that say "you are not loving" when I am trying to measure up to their impossible standards of love. I have committed idolatry in this sense I do believe. Maybe I have become an idol? Maybe instead of showing people the love of God I am trying to show them the love of Seth. But, can I truly be faulted? I bear God's image in the sense that I love, and I want to be loved. Periodically people, girls mostly, will say "what is your love language?" It took me a while but I came to the conclusion that I like spending time with people. I love people and I love getting to know them and I LOVE helping! I think whenever people upset me and I find myself knowing that I need a bit of solitude and that is a hard battle for me because I want people so badly but I can't have them. But, I think I like giving more than time ... in fact I think I want time in order to give. I love spending time with people and seeing that time cultivate a relationship that bears the fruit of honesty. I want to give people the truth (as best as I know it) with a total lack of regard for myself. I am self-sacrificial in this way. I will totally, in the moment, rid myself of myself in order to proclaim the truth ... often times it is NOT what a person wants to hear, thus- I am labeled as an asshole. This is the hardest battle for me. Lately in life I have wondered more and more how it is that I can set out to love people and have them run from me. I can try to rationally reconcile all of this as long as I like ... but at this point I think I would rather just accept the humility and count my losses.

I want to run away from and into community ... what the hell is going on?