Brian's Musings: On Open & Relational Theology

 

Pandemic Prayers & the Nature of God

[Mark G. Karris gave his permission for his FaceBook post to be copied and posted. I will post my reaction to his article in the next few days.]

Over a year has gone by and millions of prayers have gone up to the hazy sky to beg an all-powerful and controlling God to snap His fingers to make this pandemic go away. Am I really to believe that God has the power to instantly eradicate the microscopic virus, but has chosen not to? Am I to believe that God could have saved the 2.24 million people who died from it in the past year, but said, “I could have, but I simply chose not to. However, I will speak a word or snap my finger and instantly give this person a parking space, this person the job they always wanted, and this person healing for their back pain.” Don’t you feel the cognitive dissonance?

I have seen many prayer requests, such as "So and so died from Covid. Please pray for their family."

Hold on a second. There were over a hundred people praying for that precious person to live and God had the power to instantly heal them but chose not to, and they died. And now, you want me to beg God for their family for comfort, or finances, or whatever else we should pray for, and expect God to give it to them? So, I am supposed to trust that God, who devastated us by simply watching the slow death unfold and allowed our friend or family member to die, would open up His stingy hands and unfold His arms to miraculously provide comfort or finances to their family members? Is that what God does anyway? Is God really standing idly by as a person is grieving the loss of their loved one and doesn’t comfort them until someone else miles away begs God to do so? Or, better yet, God would only do so if 49 people prayed for God to comfort them? And, if 48 people on the prayer chain prayed, then tough luck? Don’t you feel the dissonance?

Our prayers to this kind of fickle God must be reminiscent of how our fear-ridden ancient ancestors prayed as they anxiously begged the Gods for rain or sunshine for their crops. Some things really do not change much.

I don’t want to just engage in another deconstruction post. So, let me offer you an alternative view of God. Certainly, God is a God of the dead and the living; of deconstruction and reconstruction.

Perhaps God is Love. And, love doesn’t force its way into our lives. Perhaps, God can’t singlehandedly control the outcome like a Puppeteer because that would be what a controlling authoritarian deity would do? I mean, is God NOT being able to do certain things out of the question? It seems that even from a biblical perspective, God can’t do a lot of things. God can’t lie. God can’t sin. God can’t cease to exist. God can’t tempt others. God can’t be prejudiced. Etc. Therefore, is it also possible that God whose nature is LOVE cannot singlehandedly and forcefully intervene in human and creaturely events but CAN only do so through cooperation? Perhaps God can’t stop evil or Covid like a divine Whack-A-Mole because we are freer, and all the elements in existence are freer, than we ever imagined. I agree, that thought can conjure up existential dread and is a scary thought. However, just because it is anxiety-provoking doesn’t make it any less true.

I don’t have all the answers. I am trying to figure it out like everyone else. But, this whole idea of God having the power to stop evil and senseless death but chooses not to, at least a whole lot of time, but chooses to do so some of the time, is just untenable for me. This idea of begging what appears to be a fickle, moody, tribal God is just unfathomable. If I had the cure to my son’s illness you can rest assure he wouldn’t have to repeatedly beg me or have ten of his friends beg me to give it to him. What kind of narcissistic monster would that make me?

I have said before, at the end of this pandemic, we will not have experienced a magic act, where God poofs Covid out of existence. There will have been countless doctors, nurses, and other health care workers who heeded the call to love and who sacrificially gave their lives for the sake of others. There will have been thousands of hours of research, testing, and the manufacturing of mitigating products by those who are using their God-given faculties and who cooperate with a God who values human flourishing. There will have been people like you and me—those who cooperated with Love and made sure we were keeping ourselves, our loved ones, and our neighbours healthy, safe, and well-resourced.

So, by all means, let us pray. Let us share our lament, anguish, and heartfelt desires before God. Contrary to popular opinion, I am not suggesting we don’t talk with God. I am for prayer and intimacy with God. I am just suggesting that perhaps God can’t control us like puppets and control viruses like microscopic robots. Perhaps God is more loving than we imagined? Perhaps God’s arms are not folded, and they are perpetually unfolded, in each moment, loving to the extent that God is able given the sheer freedom of creaturely existence? Perhaps God wants the eradication of the virus more than we do? Perhaps God is comforting and healing to the extent that God can—before we even pray. Perhaps we should talk with God, listen to God’s heartbeat, AND be the hands and feet of God on the earth, doing our part to make this beautiful chaos a little bit more livable for each other.

––Mark G. Karris (reprint with permission)

Re-examining the Nature of God

[This is part 1 of 2 (and maybe more) of my reaction and response to Mark Karris' post: see Feb. 2 post -- Pandemic Prayers and the Nature of God.]

Of all the ways my faith has evolved, especially over the last 15 years, this post will be, for most people who know me, my most radical departure from conservative evangelical theology.  

However, once (1) I saw the doctrine of biblical inerrancy as indefensible, (2) I accepted Jesus as the best revelation of the unseen God (John 1:18, etc) and (3) I replaced sola scriptura with a Wesleyan-like quadrilateral basis for my theology, I was free to consider other theological perspectives. 

I used to believe that my understanding of God based on sola scriptura was best because I thought it was “objective.” I believed that those people who relied on experience were “subjective” and thus they could create God in whatever image was pleasing to them. But what I came to realize was that we can never eliminate subjectivity when it comes to understanding God. When we claim that we are holding to sola scriptura we still have to interpret scripture, and interpretation is never 100% objective no matter how much we try. In order to try to better understand God's nature and how he works in the universe (and in my life), I now start with scripture but also consider experience (and observation), tradition and reason. I no longer fear the theoretical "slippery slope" since the quadrilateral provides the necessary checks and balances that control my rate of descent into the abyss [That's a bit of joke, OK?]

While working as a Teaching Assistant at Trinity Western University (a conservative evangelical post-secondary institution) for their introductory Old Testament course, I was introduced to the concept of Open and Relational Theology (ORT). What I initially read appealed to me because so much of my theological cognitive dissonance had to do with the inconsistencies I saw between the nature and working of Yahweh in the Tanakh as compared to the nature of Jesus as portrayed through the Gospel accounts, both in word and deed.

According to the Gospels' authors, Jesus taught that God truly loves all humanity (i.e., the world) to such an extent that God voluntarily sent the one and only Son of God into the world to save as many as possible. As we read later in the NT, God does not want any to perish but all to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.  

For most of my Christian life, I'd been troubled by the violence in the Tanakh (i.e., Christian Old Testament) which was either commanded or condoned by God.  As well, so much of this violence, which was reputedly perpetrated by those men and women who are upheld as faith heroes, was either praised for its zeal or, at the very least, was not condemned or corrected. I simply could not see that aspect of God’s nature and will to be, in any way at all, consistent with the life and teachings of Jesus. 

In addition to many violent portrayals in scripture, I was also troubled by the genuine evil that has existed in the world for all of human history. If God is truly omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent AND loving how could he allow genuine evil to be perpetrated, especially against the innocent, the vulnerable, the disenfranchised, the marginalized, the abused, etc. and not intervene? For me, the portions of the Tanakh (and the New Testament) that call upon God’s people to care for, provide for and protect all such people are the most convicting, challenging, motivating and hopeful passages in all of scripture. Yet, if indeed God has the power to intervene and protect the most vulnerable humans and doesn’t do so, that is deeply troubling to me. Add to that, is my experience and observation that the sincere and desperate prayers of literally billions of people of faith (as now evidences in this pandemic) don’t seem to move the reputedly omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent AND loving God to act on behalf of those for whom they are praying (often with unceasing loud cries and tears)! 

Two million and counting! That's the global death toll from COVID-19 in its first year. And who has suffered the most and greatest losses, if not the poor, the vulnerable, the disenfranchised, the marginalized, the abused, and other helpless innocents? Yet, these are the very humans scripture challenges God's people to provide for, take care of and protect. Their unwillingness to do so is given by the prophets as the reason why God rejected Israelite worship and sacrifices. [E.g., the often quoted Isaiah 59:1–2 is preceded by infrequently referenced Isaiah 58 which clearly lists the sins that separated the Israelites from God. Please read it.]

The scriptural portrayal of God who commands and condones violence, combined with God's perceived unwillingness to protect the most vulnerable humans from the ravages of genuine evil, created in me such a degree of cognitive dissonance that I could no longer ignore it and still claim I had an authentic faith. 

How ORT significantly reduced my cognitive dissonance and calmed my inner atheist, will be the subject of my next post [or two, or more].

Open & Relational Theology (ORT): What is it?

[This is Part 2 of a few, inspired by Mark Karris' article, posted earlier in this blog. Also, these are my thoughts about a theological perspective that seems to be more consistent with my reading of Scripture, my experience and my observation. However,  after 65 years of life I am still striving–and always will be–to better who God is and how he works in the cosmos.]

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was introduced to the ideas of ORT when I was a Teaching Assistant (TA) at Trinity Western University (TWU) for the "Introduction to the Old Testament" course. At that time I had been a follower of Jesus and a student of all things biblical for forty years, and up to that point, I'd never heard of ORT. What I did know, however, was that the theodicy that I'd been taught and had embraced, had left me "wanting" in terms of my faith.  I had understood God to be omniscient (all knowing), omnipresent (everywhere present at all times) and omnipotent (all powerful). Yet, God is also love––not that God is loving, but that God is love––that is, that love is God's nature, that love is at the very centre of who God is. Therefore, God can only act in ways that are loving, because God is love! 

However, that is not always the God I read  about in the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments. That is not what I experienced and observed in my world. I tried to convince myself that God was all those things: omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent and love, but the longer I live, the more I read, the more my conservative theology left me "wanting." However, I didn't want to acknowledge my doubts, so I just continued to push through for years and refused to consider any other views of who God is and how God works in this world. 

As a hard working TA, I believed that I needed to explore ORT more; after all, it was part of the course material for which I was responsible. And what I read, started to gradually, make much more sense to me than what I had held to for four decades. Through my research, I stumbled upon the writings of Thomas Jay Oord. I read (and I listened to) his book, The Uncontrolling Love of God: An Open and Relational Account of Providence (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2015). Later I read his less academic version, God Can't: How to Believe in God and Love after Tragedy, Abuse and Other Evils (Grassmere, ID: SacraSage Press, 2019). Then I attended a week-long workshop hosted by the Vancouver School of Theology (VST), where Oord explained his theology in greater detail and where we had the opportunity to get to know the person. 

While I won't try to explain his take on ORT in detail, here are some key quotes from his book, Uncontrolling Love, page 107:

Open and relational theology embraces the reality of randomness and regularity, freedom and necessity, good and evil. It asserts that God exists and that God acts objectively and responsively in the world. This theology usually embraces at least these three ideas: 

1. God and creatures relate to one another. God makes a real difference to creation, and creation makes a real difference to God. God is relational.
2. The future is not set because it has not yet been determined. Neither God nor creatures know with certainty all that will actually occur. The future is open.
3. Love is God's chief attribute. Love is the primary lens through which we best understand God's relation with creatures and the relations creatures should have with God and others. Love matters most. 

Oord acknowledges that there are ways in which advocates of ORT disagree and that ORT is a rather large umbrella under which its advocates interact, discuss and even debate (in love, of course). 

Since God is love (1 John 4:7–12), God can do nothing other that what is loving. It is God's nature. To make it clear––though it is terrible grammatically––God can't not love, or God can only act in ways that are loving! The portrayals of God in Scripture (and elsewhere) that demonstrate that God is anything but loving are, in my opinion, incorrect because they are inconsistent and even contradictory to the life, teaching, deeds, death, resurrection and high-priesthood of the Logos (the Word) who became flesh and pitched his tent among us; aka, Jesus Christ (John 1:1–18). I cannot prove that Jesus is the Word become flesh, but I have my reasons for choosing to believe that claim. 

And because I believe that claim, I cannot believe that his Father––to whom he prayed and whose will he came to accomplish––commands, commits or condones the mass murders of men, women, children and all other creatures, as depicted and described so clearly throughout the Old Testament and referenced in parts of the New Testament. I also cannot believe that God, who is love, if God could intervene, would ignore the desperate pleas and petitions of human beings who strive to live by faith––and even those who don't, because we are all God's children, Acts 17:28––in the face of intense and ongoing suffering caused by genuine evil. These portrayals of God are written records of how those humans conceived of God and God's work in the world, and in their lives. They got some of it right, and they got some of it wrong––just like I do––and you, too, I'm guessing. What they are to be commended for––and I hope that I am as well––is that they continued in their search to know God better and to make sense of who God is and how God works in the world, to the best of their ability.  

[My Next Post: 'ORT and the Present Pandemic' in which I will be sharing some of my thoughts on A Letter from Catherine Keller, dated April 2, 2020]

An ORT God & the Pandemic

On April 2, 2020 in A Letter from Catherine Keller, the theologian shared her answers to four questions with regard to what God is doing in this Pandemic:

1. Is God punishing humanity?
2. Is God testing humanity?
3. Is God teaching humanity a lesson?
4. Is God fixing the world?

Keller wrote, 

For many folks who find solace and guidance from their biblical faith, those questions must somehow be answered ‘yes.’ And this sense of divine intervention may lead them to do good, moral things...I respect anyone’s sincere faith. But faith can get trapped in misguided interpretations.

It is important to note that on the date that she wrote her letter, globally, just over 1 million people had tested positive resulting in 50,000 deaths. In the U.S.A., 240,000 had tested positive and 5,000 had died. At the writing of this post: globally, 106 million have been infected and more than 2.3 million people have died. In the U.S.A. more than 27 million people have been infected by COVID-19 and 473,000 have died! Thus, the questions raised by Keller are even more pertinent for, and are in urgent need of answers from, people of faith. 

To say one believes in an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent AND all-loving God while tens of millions of people have been infected and millions have died, as well as hundreds of millions suffering mentally, physically, emotionally and economically as a direct result of this pandemic, must be enough to make one question such a perception of God. 

Conservative evangelical theology had stopped working for me well before the pandemic, specifically due to a whole series of personal experiences from 2016 to 2018. My choices boiled down to three: (1) God either doesn't exist or isn't engaged in the universe; (2) God is cruel and sadistic; or (3) God is not omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent AND all-loving. The standard answers from proponents of conservative theology no longer made any sense – that is, (1) God moves in mysterious ways, (2) God works for the good of those who love him, and/or (3) God is in control. So, yes, I was longing and hoping to be able to see God from a different perspective as the cognitive dissonance became unbearable. Then, in steps ORT, and specifically and initially, Thomas Jay Oord. 

The question is: Could not an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent AND all-loving God find another way to bring about justice, test and teach us, and/or fix the world? Could God not have found a way that didn't involve the very real, intense and ongoing suffering of hundreds of millions and the deaths of tens of millions, most of whom are among the poorest, most disadvantaged, vulnerable, marginalized, and abused? But what if there is a God who, at the very core of God's nature, is love and thus who can't control those creatures whom God created with free will? What if God is at work in the universe for the good of creation but requires the cooperation of creation to bring about the most good? In other words, what if Oord (and others) are on to something theologically and that in reality God Can't?

I really appreciate that Catherine Keller answered each of the above questions with a resounding, "No!" So what is happening and why? Keller concludes,  

God did not create the pandemic in order to test any of us; God didn’t create the pandemic! But perhaps we are being tested. Not by the torments of a bully God, but by invitation to rise to the occasion. To find the courage and the care that will sustain us...But isn't the ultimate biblical test always and only love? If we rise to the occasion, it is because we grow in that dauntless love that casts out fear..

How do we think about such a God? How do we relate to such a God? How do we pray? I so appreciate this prayer, posted by Mark G. Karris (author of Divine Echoes and Religious Refugees). This is the God whom I seek to know better. This is the God with whom I long to cooperate, to be God's fellow worker, as I learn to love as God loves.