A HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY

notes prepared by Larry Brown

Part 3: Enlightenment and modern theology

Qualities of the Enlightenment

· Confidence in reason and critical thinking: Descartes said the search for truth must begin with doubt. Question everything. (Descartes remained a devout Catholic). Thomas Jefferson: “Question with boldness even the existence of a God, because if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blind faith” (letter to nephew 1785). John Locke (17^th c): “Nothing that is contrary to and inconsistent with the clear and self-evident dictates of reason has a right to be urged or assented to as a matter of faith” (Essay on Human Understanding 4.18.10) Although Locke thought that the essentials of Christian faith were reasonable, he opened the door to future skeptics whose reason would not be so easily convinced.

· Skepticism toward the past: truth not based on accepting authority (church, scriptures, Aristotle). Kant: “Think for yourself.”

· Verification of truth by experience: Francis Bacon and the scientific method; truth found by studying the world around you. Immanuel Kant eventually split knowledge into two separate fields, experience (empirical science based on observation of the physical world) and faith for which no rational proof was valid.

· Disgust over the chaos of religious divisions which in part led to the wars in the early 17^th century, and admiration of the clear, “undisputed” truth of the sciences: “There are no sects in geometry” (Voltaire)

· Belief in the inevitable progress of human society through education and science.

· Faith in humanity as basically good (rejection of the Catholic doctrine of original sin). If government and religious authorities leave people alone, they will be happier and more moral.

· Basic human rights founded on natural reason: freedom of thought and belief, protection of life, health, and property, trial by jury. Locke: “Man is naturally free, and nothing [should be] able to put him into subjection to any earthly power without his consent.” Government receives its authority from the governed. When it no longer respects these rights, the people have the right to overthrow it and form a new one.

· Christianity (especially Catholicism) was criticized for teaching falsehood (original sin), irrationality (miracles, Trinity), intolerance and persecution, supporting status quo and injustice in society (great chain of being), blind faith in church authority against common sense and experience, extravagant lifestyles of bishops, support of the divine right of kings

Question of Theodicy (God’s justice)

· Leibniz (1646-1716) coined the term “theodicy” as the title of his book; how do we reconcile the goodness of God and the existence of evil? Leibniz argued God created the best of all possible worlds – not the best of all conceivable worlds. But what appears to be evil is “necessary.” If God wanted free individuals, made in his image, then he had to allow for sin, since only the deity is infallible. The fact that evil exists “proves” that God could not have created a world without it. Natural evils occur because creation cannot have the perfection of the creator. God cannot create something as perfect as himself (see Aquinas). If humans could see the whole, we would see the place that natural disasters have in the divine plan.

· Voltaire (1694-1778) argued that the harsh reality of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake with 30,000 dead made a mockery of Leibniz’ optimistic theodicy. What conceivable reason could God have that would justify such horrors? What kind of God would that be? If God is so good, then he should explain his mysterious will to us.

· David Hume (1711-76): Theists want to reason from a good and orderly creation to the existence of God. But Hume looked around and saw suffering and disorder as well. What kind of God does that give us? How can an imperfect, evil-invested universe point to the existence of a perfect and good God? “If he is willing to prevent evil, but not able, he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.”

Challenge of the Scientific Worldview

· During the early church years, Christian writers such as Irenaeus and Tertullian (late 2^nd c) condemned the “natural philosophy” of the Greeks (thoughts on nature but without empirical testing), calling their teachings “a heap of miserable rags” and “uncertain speculation.” Christians should study the scriptures and not inquire into nature’s mysteries that only God can understand. Much of this criticism arose in context of the Gnostic heresies which relied on Greek philosophy.

· In the fourth century, Basil of Caesarea was the first churchman to offer an alternative to Aristotle’s works, laying foundations for a Christian philosophy of science. In his Hexaemeron, he discussed three points: being made in God’s image, humanity shares the rational nature of God and thus can use reason to explore the natural world; at creation God established natural laws which govern the universe (that is, God doesn’t intervene to “make” it rain, cause earthquakes, etc); against Aristotle, he thought the heavenly bodies were not spiritual beings but obeyed the same laws of physics as the earthly realm. We might restate these principles as the comprehensibility of the world, the relative autonomy of nature, and the unity of heaven and earth. Having faith in the practical application of the sciences, Basil founded history’s first public hospital which relied more on medicine than miracles for cures (Kaiser, Creation and the History of Science, 1991, 3-7, 43).

· In his Summa Theologiae Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) attempted to reconcile secular philosophy (in particular the writings of Aristotle) with religious faith. He argued that God’s revelation in nature is supplemented by his revelation in scripture. God does nothing contrary to reason, and since human reason derives from God, nothing in God is inconsistent with reason, and will not contradict revelation. A rational study of the world will point to God. This faith in a rational God as designer of a rational universe eventually laid the foundation for modern science.

· However, Aquinas also led to the church’s suspicion of science: “Theology surpasses other speculative sciences, in point of greater certainty because other sciences derive their certainty from the natural light of reason which can err, whereas theology derives its certainty from the light of divine knowledge, which cannot be misled” (ST 1a.1.5). “Whatever is found in other sciences contrary to scripture must be condemned as false” (ST 1a.1.6).

Medieval view of the cosmos

· With his admiration for Aristotle, Aquinas had in effect merged the classical Greek view of the world with Christian theology. In the Ptolemaic system (2^nd century AD) founded on Aristotle’s ideas, the earth was at the center of multiple concentric crystal spheres on which the sun, planets, and stars revolved. The heavens were eternal, unchanging, without defects. The planets moved in perfect circles. These concepts were adopted by the church to represent the perfection of God’s creation.

· Copernicus (1473-1543) proposed that the earth orbited the sun (the idea goes back to the Greek Aristarchus, 2^nd c BC). He also greatly expanded the estimated size of the universe: “How exceedingly vast is the godlike work of the Best and Greatest Artist.” (On the Revolutions, qt. in Ferris 68) We now know that the solar system itself is 100 times larger than Ptolemy’s entire universe.

· It is sometimes falsely claimed that Copernicus upset medieval man’s envisioned place at the center of the universe. On the contrary, they believed that hell was at the center of the earth. The place of prominence was heaven.

· Luther described Copernicus as “this fool who wants to reverse the entire science of astronomy,” citing the case in Joshua 10 of the sun standing still, not the earth. (in his Table Talks)

· Some other medieval “proof texts”: “The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved” (Ps. 96:10), “You set the earth on its foundations, so that it can never be shaken” (Ps 104:5). “The sun rises and the sun sets and hurries back to where it rises” (Eccl. 1:5) (Hopper, Modern Theology, 1986, 11)

· Tycho Brahe discovered a supernova in 1572 (nova means “new” star, although it’s actually a dying star exploding which becomes visible). Kepler and Galileo observed another in 1604 (very rare). This challenged Aristotle’s idea that the star-sphere was perfect and unchanging. Kepler also proved mathematically that the planetary orbits are not perfect circles but ellipses.

Galileo (1564-1642)

· Einstein: “Pure logical thinking cannot yield us any knowledge of the empirical world; all knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it. … Because Galileo saw this … he is the father of modern science.” (Ferris 83)

· When Galileo, through the use of the newly invented telescope, discovered four moons orbiting Jupiter, this challenged the idea of the crystal spheres. When he saw sunspots and mountains on the moon, he contradicted the idea that the heavenly bodies were perfect spheres without flaw.

· Some church officials refused to look through his telescope; their belief was stronger than what they might see; others thought it was the devil’s instrument. Under threat of torture, Galileo was forced to recant his findings.

· Galileo, a devout Catholic, said in his defense that the Bible could not be proven false, as long as it was read correctly, pointing out the figurative language describing God with human features: “The Bible teaches us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.” (Ian Barbour, Religion and Science 1999)

· “I judge the authority of the Bible was designed to persuade men of those articles and propositions which, surpassing all human reasoning, could not be made credible by science. … But I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended to forgo their use and by some other means to give us the knowledge which we can attain by them” (Drake, trans. Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo, 1957, 181-13).

· In 1992 the pope officially stated that the church had been wrong in condemning Galileo.

Isaac Newton (1642-1727)

· “Nature’s laws lay hid at night; God said, ‘Let Newton be!’ and all was light” (Alexander Pope)

· Argument from design, “This most beautiful system of sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.” He thought his studies of physics would lead to belief. Joseph Addison, Newton’s contemporary, wrote “The Spacious Firmament”: “In Reason’s ear they all rejoice.”

· Newton wrote more on theology than science. He respected scripture but did not consider it an authority in scientific questions, such as creation. He believed that Moses wrote in the thought-language of his day, concepts which should not be read as literal science today.

· He rejected the doctrine of the Trinity and the deity of Christ (illegal in England at the time), believing in Arianism, and did not consider Christianity the only true religion.

· He experimented with alchemy, using myths as symbols for chemical reactions: in the story of Vulcan catching Venus and Mars in a net, Venus = copper, Mars = iron, Vulcan = fire which creates the “net” chemical.

· From biblical prophecies he calculated the end of the world to come in 2060.

· Admit no more causes than necessary to explain effects, don’t jump to supernatural conclusions. Acts of God pushed more and more to the margins as scientific knowledge advanced.

· However, when Newton’s calculations of planetary orbits did not come out right, he hypothesized that God was somehow at work, not just the First Cause but continuing to be involved in running the Great Machine. Leibniz accused him of using God to fill in the gaps, and depicting Him as an incompetent craftsman, continually tinkering with the cosmic mechanism to make it work properly.

· Although Newton left room for God in the process, he opened the door to the view of nature as a self-sufficient and impersonal mechanism. In the 18^th c. Pierre LaPlace expanded Newton’s theory of cosmology in a way that “had no need for the God-hypothesis.”

Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

· Darwin did not invent the theory of evolution. Some of the ideas go back to the ancient Greeks. Lamarck published a major work on biological evolution in 1801; Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology (1832) challenged the idea of a recent creation, based on the fossil record (this book inspired Darwin’s research).

· Darwin’s contribution, in his Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859), was to suggest a natural means (without God’s help) for the development of evolution, with his theory of the survival of the fittest. His Descent of Man (1871) argued the logical conclusion of that theory, that humanity arose from the same process, not created out of dust in the image of God. He delayed publishing his work for 20 years, knowing the uproar it would create.

· The theory required extremely long periods of time, far more than Bishop Ussher’s 17^th c. estimate of 4004 BC (9:00 am Oct. 23 to be exact) which was printed in some King James Bibles and thus considered scripture by many. Augustine had set creation at 5500 BC.

· In Origin, Darwin suggested that the laws of evolution at least imply a designer, and could not be the result of blind chance. Before he died, however, he considered himself an agnostic. (Ian Barbour, Religion and Science 1999). “I cannot see, as plainly as others do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created [a world in which] a cat should play with mice” (Wright, The Moral Animal 331).

· Other discoveries challenged the literal reading of Genesis as well. Georges Cuvier, founder of paleontology, by 1801 had identified 23 extinct species in the fossil record (today we estimate that 99% of species that ever lived are extinct). This challenged the medieval idea of the Great Chain of Being, that God had created a full spectrum of creatures all at once. One Quaker naturalist protested, “It is contrary to the common course of Providence to suffer any of His creatures to be annihilated” (Ferris 224).

Christian responses

· Charles Hodge (1797-1878), professor of theology at Princeton, championed the anti-Darwinian cause, arguing for intelligent design in creation. Natural selection removed God from the world entirely. Hodge emphasized the difference in facts (which we all can agree on, such as the modern view of the solar system, comparative biology, the existence of fossils, etc) and the interpretation of facts: “If we admit the similarity in structure of all vertebrates, must we admit the evolution of one from another?” He recognized that in principle a theist could believe in evolution (the gradual development of life over eons of time) in a process directed by God, but felt that evolution contradicted a strictly literal reading of scripture. He also pointed to the intellectual snobbery of the scientific community: “[It is said that] Science and Religion are not antagonistic because they are in different spheres of thought. This is often said by men who do not admit that there is any thought at all in religion; that it is merely a matter of feeling.” (Keith Hardman, Issues in American Christianity, 1993, 216-17)

· Other Christians such as Teilhard de Chardin responded more positively to the idea of evolution. A Jesuit archeologist, he saw evolution as God’s method of creation, not a product finished 6000 years ago, but a continuing process, God’s spirit animating all life and nature, growing and developing in new directions.

· In the 19^th c. archeological discoveries of creation accounts from ancient Egypt, Assyria, Babylon shed light on the imagery used in Genesis. Many cultures describe the beginning before creation as a watery chaos. The word bara does not exclusively describe God’s ability to create “out of nothing” but means “to cut, divide” as he separates the waters below from above (applied to men cutting trees, Josh 17:15, Ezek 23:47). The word translated “firmament” (raqia) literally means a dome which holds back the waters above. The sun, moon, and stars are “set” in the heavens like jewels on the surface of the dome. In the flood account, the “windows of heaven” are opened to let the waters above rain down. If we understand these descriptions to be figures of speech, why must we insist on a literal reading of six 24 hour days?

· Many theologians through the ages worried over details in Genesis that did not make sense if taken literally. Origen and Augustine thought that Genesis 1 should not be read literally, due to the fact that light appears on the first day and the sun on the fourth. “Evening and morning” can’t exist without the earth’s rotation in relation to the sun. Gregory of Nyssa thought that dust motes seen in a beam of light were actually particles of light, which God created on the first day, then collected together to form the sun on the fourth day. In the middle ages Rabanus Maurus speculated that the firmament was made of transparent ice. Hugo of St. Victor read Gen 1 as allegory depicting the original perfection of creation (light), sin (darkness), gradual repentance (growth of plants), and the full daylight of grace in Christ (sun). Peter Lombard saw the creation of the four elements, fire (light), air (firmament), earth and water. Aquinas explained, “Moses was writing to ignorant people and that out of condescension to their weakness he put before them only such things as are apparent to the senses” (Stanley Jaki, Genesis 1 through the Ages, 1992, 80, 116, 124-5, 130).

Modern theology: redefining Christian doctrines for the modern world

D. F. Strauss, Life of Jesus (1835)

· Strauss considered the gospels meaningful myth, not history. Miracles, resurrection are not historical facts, but what matters are the eternal ideas they represent. We can’t find the historical Jesus in the gospels due to the layers of legend; all we see in the NT is the early church’s idealized, embellished portrait of Jesus. They honored his memory by recreating him as a wonderworker who rose from the dead.

· 19^th c OT critics such as Wellhausen began to rewrite the history of Israel, assuming that Abraham, Moses, David, were all legendary figures. Today “minimalist” archeologists don’t consider anything in the OT to be of historical value before the 9^th century (no exodus, no conquest of Canaan, no Davidic kingdom).

· Rudolf Bultmann, prominent NT scholar in the early 20^th century, wanted to “demythologize” the gospels, reinterpreting the supernatural elements in existential terms. Jesus’ death has meaning only if we appropriate it in our lives, dying to those things in the world that hold us back from authentic human existence. Jesus’ resurrection, not a real event in history, is a symbol of personal transformation and renewal.

· Emil Brunner, a contemporary of Bultmann, argued that he failed to distinguish between the use of pre-scientific, mythological language in scripture (God defeating the chaos monster Leviathan, Job 41:1; pillars of the earth, Isa 2:8; a three-tiered world, Phil 2:10) and the unique acts of God breaking into human history, such as the incarnation, atonement, resurrection. These fundamental tenets of Christianity are offensive to modern thinking not because of the scientific world view but because they run counter to our humanistic self-understanding, which deserves being called into question.

Adolf von Harnack (1851-1930)

· In What is Christianity? (1900) Harnack summed up liberal theology of the 19^th century. He called for a return to the gospel of Jesus, the simple message that he taught, and not the gospel about Jesus, created by Paul and the early church.

· Jesus spoke about the Father, not himself. His good news concerned the Fatherhood of God (of all people, not just believers), the infinite value of the human soul, and the higher righteousness of love.

· After Jesus’ death, the church under the leadership of Paul (who didn’t know the historical Jesus) embellished his story with supernatural tales of a virgin birth, miracles, and resurrection. Paul’s Jewish heritage emphasized the theme of redemption from sin by a blood sacrifice, and from the mystery religions he borrowed the idea of a dying and rising god, in the fashion of Osiris and Dionysos.

· Early Christianity had been contaminated with the Hellenistic thought of Paul, John, and the church fathers. Harnack wanted to restore the original gospel which Jesus taught, by clearing out all the accumulated rubbish of tradition and supernatural belief.

· H. Richard Niebuhr described liberal theology: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgement through the work of a Christ without a cross.” (Kingdom of God in America, 193)

Reinhold Niebuhr on original sin

· Niebuhr (1892-1971), America’s most prominent theologian in the 20^th century, criticized liberal theology’s optimistic view of human nature and its abandoning traditional doctrines such as sin and atonement. However, he attempted to redefine original sin for those who, in his opinion, could no longer believe in the Genesis story of eating an apple at the prompting of a talking snake.

· The doctrine of original sin developed from the church’s attempt to explain the pervasiveness of sin, not as individually conscious acts but as a taint on all humanity, universal corruption. Augustine attributed the spread of Adam’s sin to sexual reproduction, passed from one generation to the next. The inherent sinfulness of sex is an idea unacceptable to modern thought.

· Borrowing ideas from Kierkegaard (19^th c), Niebuhr attributes sin to the anxiety that arises from the tension between our freedom and our finiteness. God endowed humanity with freedom, a quality necessary for creativity and love to exist. But in our freedom, we recognize that we are not totally free, that we are restrained by limitations imposed on us because we are creatures and not the Creator.

· Neither our freedom nor our finiteness is the source of evil (the latter idea being the error of Gnosticism). Freedom is also the source of loving relationships and creativity. Instead, as free creatures, we struggle against these limitations, causing within us anxiety which leads to sin. We sense our insufficiency, our inability to control our lives completely. Anxiety results from our lack of faith in God.

· In attempting to relieve this anxiety by our own means, we fall into one of two types of sin. Pride causes us to deny our limitations and set ourselves up as our own gods. We may have too much confidence in our achievements, believing they will give our lives lasting significance (see Deut 8:17-18). We may believe our finite knowledge, gained from a limited perspective, is actually final and ultimate knowledge, the Truth. Writing in the 1930s, Niebuhr discusses the national pride of Germany and their claim to be the master race, measuring all others by their standards. But he also warns of similar tendencies in America as a world power having too much confidence in ourselves and our secure place in God’s plans.

· Sin also may take the form of sensuality, in which we seek to escape our limitations and responsibilities by losing ourselves in physical pleasures.

Contemporary approaches to Christology

· Donald Bailey, God was in Christ (1948): Most formulations of Christology prior to the modern age (as in the Councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon) began “from above” with the assumption that Jesus was divine, then attempted to explain his humanity. As Bailey notes, this approach led to a form of docetism, where Jesus was not truly human but only appeared to be. His human nature was described as something clearly different from our own, and suggestions based on scripture of limitations in knowledge, growing personality, inner struggle and temptation were avoided.

· In reaction, most 20^th century theologians have discussed the problem of Christology “from below” beginning with Jesus’ humanity and then proceeding to explain how he can be considered in some sense divine. “Put aside for the moment your perplexities about dogma and begin with the historical Jesus. … If the original disciples came to regard Jesus as Messiah and Lord and Son of God, it must have been primarily because his human life and personality made such an impression on them.” (31)

· Bailey compares the paradox of Christ’s humanity and divinity to several mysteries of the Christian life. History seems to proceed by a network of cause and effect relationships, by means of natural scientific laws and human agency; yet we believe that God in some unseen way directs history toward a providential goal. Likewise, the Bible is a collection of writings composed by men over thousands of years reflecting their historical context; yet we also believe the Bible to be inspired by God and important for us today. In our own lives, we attempt to follow the commands of God and example of Jesus; yet we acknowledge that every good work derives ultimately from God working in us: “I, yet not I, but the grace of God.” (1 Cor 15:10)

· In similar fashion, Bailey says, Jesus was united so completely with the will of God that one could say he became nothing in order that God might become everything in him. Jesus did not consider goodness a quality he possessed but instead derived from God. “There is none good but God” (Mk 10:17). “I can do nothing myself. As I hear, I judge and my judgement is righteous because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me” (Jn 5:30). “Did the Incarnation depend upon the daily human choices made by Jesus, or did he always choose right because he was God Incarnate?” Bailey says we must answer ‘yes’ to both questions and accept the mystery. (130)

· Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus: God and Man (1968): Pannenberg speaks of “revelational unity,” “the revelatory presence of God in Jesus” or “revelatory identity of Jesus with God” (132). Jesus revealed God perfectly: he spoke the words of God, he performed the deeds of God, he died to accomplish the will of God. Yet this revelation was not merely in words and actions. In Jesus, God did not simply communicate “truths” but God revealed Himself personally through Jesus as self-disclosure. (127) “He is the image of the invisible God … God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him” (Col 1:15,19). “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor 5:19).

Recent developments (to name only a few):

Vatican II (1963-65)

· Vatican II changes in practice: mass no longer in Latin, no prohibition of eating meat on Fridays (except during Lent)

· Protestants: “The Church recognizes that in many ways she is linked with those who, being baptized, are honored with the name of Christian, though they do not profess the faith in its entirety or do not preserve communion with the successor of Peter. For there are many who honor sacred scripture, taking it as a norm of belief and of action, and who show a true religious zeal. … In all of Christ’s disciples the Spirit arouses the desire to be peacefully united, as one flock under one shepherd, and He prompts them to pursue this goal.” (Documents of Vatican II. 1966. 33-4)

· Eastern Orthodoxy: “To remove any shadow of doubt, this sacred synod solemnly declares that the Churches of the East, while keeping in mind the necessary unity of the whole Church, have the power to govern themselves according to their own disciplines” (359)

· Judaism: “As holy Scripture testifies, Jerusalem did not recognize the time of her visitation (Lk 19:44), nor did the Jews in large number accept the gospel … Nevertheless, according to the Apostle, the Jews still remain most dear to God, for he does not repent of his gifts (Rom 11:28-9). … True, authorities of the Jews and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ (Jn 19:6); still, what happened in His Passion cannot be blamed upon all the Jews then living without distinction, nor upon the Jews of today. Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as repudiated or cursed by God, as if such views followed from holy Scripture. … The Church repudiates all persecutions against any man … she deplores the hatred, persecutions and display of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews at any time and from any source” (666).

· Islam: “Upon the Moslems, too, the Church looks with esteem. … Although in the course of the centuries many quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Moslems, this Synod urges all to forget the past and to strive sincerely for mutual understanding. On behalf of all mankind, let them make common cause of safeguarding and fostering social justice, moral values, peace and freedom” (663)

· Unbelievers: “While rejecting atheism root and branch, the Church sincerely professes that all men, believers and unbelievers alike, ought to work for the rightful betterment of this world in which all alike live” (219)

· While Catholicism in America is adding members (over 11 million in the 1990s), number of priests declined from 53,000 to 48,000 [Noll 166]

Open Theism

· The most significant biblical challenge to the doctrine of predestination since the 1600s (Clark Pinnock, et al. The Openness of God, 1994)

· “The fall into sin was against the will of God and proves by itself that God does not exercise total control over all events in this world. … To say that God hates sin while secretly willing it, to say that God warns us not to fall away though it is impossible, to say that God loves the world while excluding most people from an opportunity of salvation, to say that God warmly invites sinners to come, knowing all the while that they cannot possibly do so – such things do not deserve to be called mysteries when that is just a euphemism for nonsense” (115).

· “When God gave creatures freedom, he gave them an open future, a future in a degree to be shaped by their decisions, not a future already determined in its every detail” (123).

· Non-Calvinists have always had a problem with reconciling belief in free will and the foreknowledge of God (for the Calvinist this is no problem since God predetermines everything). How can my actions truly be free if God knows what I will decide to do tomorrow? Are not my choices confined to God’s foreknowledge (or else God might be proven wrong)?

· The idea of anyone knowing the future presupposes that the future already exists somewhere “out there,” fixed and unchangeable. If the future already exists, then all our decisions are determined beforehand, thus seemingly denying human freedom.

· Open theology proposes that, as the future has not yet happened, it is unknowable. Omniscience means God knows everything that can possibly be known, which is not the same as knowing everything. The future does not exist for God any more than it exists for us. Tomorrow is undetermined, open to many possible paths. God may see all the paths, but does not know for certain which specific path a person may take. “Instead of perceiving the entire course of human existence in one timeless moment, God comes to know events as they take place” (Rice, in Pinnock 17). Augustine considered this possibility, “It is impossible to see what does not exist,” but in conclusion rejected it (Confessions 11.17).

· Several texts imply God’s lack of certain foreknowledge about human decisions. God tested Abraham’s faith with the sacrifice of Isaac; afterward He says, “Now I know that you fear God” (Gen 22:12). Jonah’s message to Nineveh was, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” This was not a conditional prophecy (“unless”), but when the king repented, God changed his mind. “Perhaps they will listen and each will turn from his evil way” (Jer 26:3). “Perhaps they will understand, though they are a rebellious house” (Ezek 12:3). In some passages, God seems surprised: “I thought that after [Israel] had done all this, she would return to me, but she did not” (Jer 3:7, also 19).

· What about predictive prophecy? Open theists (conservative, Bible-believing evangelicals) make a distinction between God’s foreknowledge and God’s promises. God freely determines what he will do in the future, and since He is God, He can certainly bring it about. God didn’t “foresee” the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon, but instead determined to punish Judah for its sins in this fashion and worked within human history to bring it to fulfillment. Unlike humans who may promise to do something in the future but unforeseen events get in the way, God is not constrained by any accidents or other forces that would keep him from completing his will.

· The act of creation did not end once the world was finished. God continues to create in an ongoing process in which we participate, “calling forth new possibilities for the future” (112).

· The open view of God affects our understanding of history: “God interacts with his creatures. Not only does he influence them, but they also exert an influence on him. God’s will is not the ultimate explanation for everything that happens; human decisions and actions make an important contribution to [history]” (Rice, in Pinnock 16). Humans have genuine, not imagined, freedom in shaping our lives and the world around us.

· Open theism emphasizes that God created us as free beings in order to have a genuine, loving relationship with us. “God in grace grants humans significant freedom to cooperate with or work against His will for their lives, and He enters into dynamic, give-and-take relationships with us” (7). “By willing the existence of significant beings with independent status alongside of himself, God accepts limitations not imposed from without. In other words, in ruling over the world God is not all-determining but may will to achieve his goals through other agents, accepting the limitations of his decision” (113).

· “God so values freedom – the moral integrity of free creatures and a world in which such integrity is possible – that he normally does not override such freedom, even if he sees that it is producing undesirable results” (Basinger, in Pinnock 156). Practical implications for petitionary prayer: should we ask God to make someone love us, or to let us escape from the consequences of our bad decisions?

· Defending a more traditional view, C. S. Lewis credits Boethius (c.475-525) with the idea that God experiences all of time at once: He “does not foresee people making their free contributions in a future, but sees them doing so in His unbounded Now. And obviously to watch a man doing something is not to make him do it.” (Screwtape, ch. 27)

Eschatology: “the study of last things”

· Recent trends in the doctrine of eschatology have emphasized that the idea of “last things” in scripture is not limited to prophecies which (some think) are being fulfilled today. Eschatology is a much broader topic, beginning in the OT with the restoration hope and promise of a glorious age to come. Christians believe that this new age has already begun with Christ’s first coming.

· Some qualities of the new age, according to the prophets:

o Time of forgiveness and cleansing: “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you … You will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers; so you will be My people, and I will be your God” (Ezek 36:25-27). Restoration means more than a return to the land, but a return to God.

o New Life: the dramatic vision of the valley of dry bones, symbolic of life being restored to Israel (Ezek 37).

o Davidic King (Isa 11): the “Branch of Jesse” will bring a reign of justice, righteousness, and peace.

o Transformation of creation: OT expectations foresee more than a return to the way things were, not simply returning to the land, but a promise of a divine transformation of human heart as well as the natural realm, a peaceful kingdom where “the wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the young goat” (Isa 11:6-90), creation itself will be redeemed, “new heavens and new earth” (Isa 65:17, 66:22).

· Despite the popularity of premillennial views, biblical eschatology is not about looking for signs of the End. Jesus warns his disciples against looking for signs:

Matt 24

⁴ And Jesus answered and said to them, “See to it that no one misleads you. ⁵ For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will mislead many. ⁶ You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for [those things] must take place, but [that] is not yet the end. ⁷ For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes.

³⁶ But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. ³⁷ For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. ³⁸ For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, ³⁹ and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.

⁴² Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming. ⁴³ But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. ⁴⁴ For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think [He will].”

· False signs which Jesus mentions include: war, famine, earthquakes, persecution, apostasy, false prophets, false messiahs; but do not be alarmed, he says. These are common events that will happen throughout human history, not as signs of the End.

· Jesus admits that even he doesn’t know when he is returning, only the Father. If he didn’t know when, how could he tell his disciples any signs to look for?

· Always be ready, for Jesus will come as a thief in the night. There will be no warning signs.

NT fulfillment: realized eschatology, the beginning of the End

· As a Jew, Paul looked forward to this new age of righteousness and peace, but now with Jesus it seems as if the future has been brought into the present: “the ends [fulfillment] of the ages have come” (1 Cor 10:11), “the old has past away, the new has come” (2 Cor 5:17) – even though he acknowledges we are still in this “present evil age” (Gal 1:4). “Now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor 6:2), now is righteousness (Rom 3:21), now is reconciliation (Rom 5:11).

· Other NT writers believed that we are now living in the last days. At Pentecost Peter proclaimed the fulfillment of OT prophecy: “This is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams” (Acts 2:16-17; see also Heb 1:2; 1 Pet 1:20). Jesus himself is called the Last, the Eschatos (Rev 1:17, 2:8, 22:13).

· This is the concept of realized eschatology as God’s promises to his people have already begun their fulfillment in Christ, and their consummation depends on his return.

· For Paul the central issue of the gospel was not the life of Jesus, which he rarely mentions, but his death, which ushered in the Kingdom that Jesus had proclaimed (understood foremost as time of forgiveness, Mk 2:10), and his resurrection, seen not as an isolated miracle but as an eschatological event, the “first fruits” of the general resurrection (1 Cor 15:23). With Jesus the day of salvation and resurrection has begun.

· Furthermore, Paul sees the new work of the Spirit, given through Christ, as a sign that the age to come has begun, poured out on both Jews (Pentecost, Acts 2) and Gentiles (Cornelius, Acts 10), and offered as a guarantee (deposit, seal, pledge) of future blessings: “He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.” (2 Cor 1:22, also 5:5, Rom 8:23, Eph 1:14, 4:30).

· Biblical eschatology is much more concerned with the victory won at Christ’s first coming rather than his second. Although the latter is important for the fulfillment of all God's promises, determining its time is not.

SOURCES:

Byrne, James M. Religion and the Enlightenment. 1996.

Ferris, Timothy. Coming of Age in the Milky Way. 1988.

Kelly, Joseph. The Problem of Evil in the Western Tradition. 2002