Forgiveness and repentance (part 3): The pastoral dimension (i)

(Read parts 1 and 2.)

In this meta-series, we have been exploring the question of whether we (and God) can or should forgive someone when they have not repented. This time around, we are going to turn our attention to some difficult pastoral situations and ask how they work when we hold that forgiveness can only take place when there has been repentance.

Let’s begin with families. Consider marriage: if forgiveness can only exist where there has been repentance, then a partner should not forgive their spouse for any sin of omission or commission, no matter how small, until that spouse has repented of it. Every sin needs to be confronted, talked over, repented of and then forgiven. The Man in Black may well have been right when he stated, “Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.” But there’s pain, and then there’s Ultimate Suffering (cue The Princess Bride references), and such a view of forgiveness within marriage elevates pain right into Ultimate Suffering territory. Does anyone seriously imagine that their spouse does not have an almost unlimited ground for complaint for all the inadequacies of one’s love, let alone one’s manifold inconsiderations? Build a dog house and move in because you’re never getting out of it! You can’t possibly repent enough to address every sin you commit in the course of living in a marriage relationship with someone. Your love is so very short of perfection.

Or consider raising children. Children sin against parents regularly, frequently and enthusiastically. Good luck on getting repentance out of them for 90+ per cent of those sins! Part of the parent’s job is to teach the child to repent when they sin against someone—and that’s a long, long-term project. So there will be many years’ worth of sins before the child really begins to even ‘get’ the idea of repenting, let alone grasp that ‘saying sorry’ is is anything more than an externally imposed discipline. Is the parent really supposed to not forgive their children for the multitude of rebellions, carelessnesses and misdemeanours until there has been genuine, heartfelt repentance for each and every one? How can even a parent’s love be expected to stand up under the load of carrying such a rapidly multiplying debt? But if the child’s repentance is the only way whereby forgiveness can be offered, then there is no choice but to store up more and more debt against one’s own children.

To this, someone will likely suggest 1 Peter 4:8b: “love covers a multitude of sins”. They may also suggest that it is the solution to my reductio ad absurdum argument. Because love covers a multitude of sins, they will argue, and marriages and families are (hopefully) full of love, then all those little sins are covered, and we only have to deal with the significant actions that disrupt the relationship—through confrontation, repentance and forgiveness.

I wholeheartedly give an “Amen” to such a response. But I would gently suggest that this can only be true if we don’t have to wait for repentance before we can cancel someone’s debt. If forgiveness is dependent on repentance, then love can only cover a multitude of sins in the context of the offender’s repentance, and so offers no assistance to spouses or parents dealing with the multitude of ways in which they are pettily sinned against.

In fact, I would suggest, passages like 1 Peter 4:8 act like signposts, pointing to the existence of another way to deal with sin committed against us than having to wait for repentance. Love covers a multitude of sins; marriage and family life wouldn’t be possible otherwise. It is something so basic to daily life that we often pass over it. Close, long-term relationships can only continue if we offer forgiveness far in excess of the repentance offered us by our perpetually offending loved ones. And it is only possible if they do the same for us in return. So don’t hold onto those hurts as though you are entitled to some recompense; seek to outdo those around you in the competition to extend the most forgiveness. The grace of God in Christ opens up the way for us to escape the zero-sum universe of trying to match our forgiveness to someone’s repentance, and encourages a generosity that goes beyond what we get back.

This is one of many areas in which it is truly more blessed to give than receive.

(Read part 4.)

16 thoughts on “Forgiveness and repentance (part 3): The pastoral dimension (i)

  1. Hi Mark,

    I’m enjoying these postings very much.  I’m just curious, this one is Part 3, Section 1.  How many Sections will there be to this Part and are there more Parts to come as well?

    Cheers.

  2. Hi Andrew,

    Glad you’re enjoying them.  It is effectively 4 series combined together into one larger series.  So the first two posts were essentially a ‘series’ each – each post dealt with a distinct topic.  We’re currently looking at the pastoral dimension and there’s four installments or parts in this:
    Forgiveness in the light of:

    1. minor sins in family life (current post)
    2. earth-shattering sins
    3. false and inadequate repentance
    4. the need to not sweep sin under the carpet

    Once that’s done, then there is a fourth and final section with two parts – the first looks at what it would mean for our relationship with God and the forgiveness we offer each other if God really did only forgive sin that has been repented of and that is the model for us.  The final post looks at the question in light of the doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone, picking up concepts like the Law, sin, and repentance.

    So it’s a long ride, but I’m hoping that it will be more than just a series of posts arguing for one idea over against another. 

    I’ve tried to write them so that they encourage a sustained reflection on the nature of forgiveness, relationships, God’s actions in Christ as a model for us, repentance, and even the nature of sin.  Part of that means I’ve put the pastoral up front and I’ve tried to focus on the ‘cash value’ and implications of what I’m saying for life lived following Christ.

    In a sense, I’m using this as an excuse to just spend time getting us to think about a range of issues that bear upon the nature of our relationships with each other and with God.

  3. Hi Mark,

    Thanks for the work you’ve done so far in this series. I can see something of the problem you are raising with the Forgiveness (as a “completed transaction”, for want of a much better phrase), Requires Repentance view. Our repentance is always incomplete and imperfect.

    However I think you are very aware to describe your argument as reductio ad absurdum. And this method of argument – extending a position to its logical conclusion which appears absurd or unworkable – works sometimes if the issues are crystal clear. It may show a practical unworkability with the claim.

    However, the method is also sometimes recognised as a logical fallacy if the issues are not so clear cut. It may only demonstrate that the general position does not apply in all cases, especially when it takes the argument beyond its natural scope or stated intention. (I.e. there can be exceptions to rules.)

    Indeed reductio ad absurdum can be applied the other way. You say

    offer forgiveness far in excess of the repentance offered us by our perpetually offending loved ones

    . I could reply that this means you are saying a child must even forgive the person who abuses him or her repeatedly and even says they see nothing wrong with their behaviour and plan to continue.

    Now from knowing you a bit and from the list of your posts still to come I am pretty sure you won’t want to put it exactly that way yourself. Indeed I am certain you would be far more pastorally sensitive and you would also want to rebuke the abuser and not offer cheap grace.

    I am simply trying to illustrate that reductio ad absurdum can be used both ways, and may not be a knock-down argument.

  4. Mark, on a related tack, I think you raised the possibility in an earlier post that the position I have argued for (human forgiveness conditional on repentance) is in danger of modelling itself on a Catholic understanding of salvation (justification dependent on faith and repentance) rather than a reformed and biblical one (justification by faith only).

    Now I was challenged by this and am very eager to hear more about this, although my instinctive reaction (which I have not gone back and checked yet) was to comment that Protestants have often understood repentance and faith as two sides of the one coin, or that biblical faith contained repentance in a sense. Now I may well have made a mistake in this.

    But it certainly reminds me that I don’t see repentance as a work, and I don’t hold to a mediaeval Catholic view of repentance. I was reminded of this reading English Reformer, John Bradford’s sermon on repentance.

    He distinguishes biblical repentance from the Catholic view of repentance or penance as containing three parts namely contrition, confession and satisfaction. Bradford noted that contrition involved the Catholic in full and complete sorrow for sin, and rightly asked how could a person ever do that properly. He noted that confession meant a complete numbering of all your sins in the ears of a priest, and again pointed out the impossibility of this. He noted this view of repentance could never lead to any assurance of forgiveness.

    But he worked off a different definition of repentance as (i) “sorrowing for our sins” (not modified by “full and complete”), (ii) with a “good hope or trust of pardon” (in Christ), leading to (iii) a “purpose to amend” (in the new life – the third not being strictly a part of repentance but its effect).

    In other words, I agree that when we are talking of repentance, we are not looking for or expecting some sort of perfect sorrow and comprehensive confession, and it might be wrong to use a Catholic understanding of repentance which we don’t hold (at least I don’t think I do!) to suggest that our view of the relationship of forgiveness to repentance is potentially absurd.

    [By the way everyone, please remember that people who say forgiveness might be conditional on repentance still strongly believe and stress in being gracious, in loving enemies, in holding out the offer of forgiveness, in avoiding a bitter spirit, etc.]

  5. Hi Sandy,

    Thanks for the work you’ve done so far in this series.

    You’re welcome, Sandy.

    I am simply trying to illustrate that reductio ad absurdum can be used both ways, and may not be a knock-down argument.

    Absolutely agree.  None of these posts are meant to be a knock-down argument (except the last one I suppose, it’s going to take an awful lot to push me off the stance I take on that one).  This series of four ‘worked pastoral examples’ is more about explanatory power – which alternative seems to be a better fit for life lived as a follower of Jesus in light of the Bible’s teaching on love, forgiveness and mercy.  None of them prove anything, but I’m hoping they push us to think hard about how forgiveness and repentance relate to each other in our relationships with one another.

    . I could reply that this means you are saying a child must even forgive the person who abuses him or her repeatedly and even says they see nothing wrong with their behaviour and plan to continue.
    Now from knowing you a bit and from the list of your posts still to come I am pretty sure you won’t want to put it exactly that way yourself. Indeed I am certain you would be far more pastorally sensitive and you would also want to rebuke the abuser and not offer cheap grace.

    Heh.  Well no, I won’t put it that way when I get to choose my words.  But if someone forces me into a corner and puts those words in my mouth I’ll probably need to accept that the cap fits (so thanks very much smile ).  Hopefully the next post will indicate why I think that position is gracious for the abused, and the nuances that enable it to be so.

    As far as the abuser goes, that’s a different story entirely.  Some hint of the answer will come in the post on false and inadequate repentance, but there’s not much – dealing with such an issue would probably need another series.  (I’ll make a note of that, so thanks – it probably wouldn’t be a bad series to attempt down the track: Dealing with the high-handed sinner).  This time around I’ve focused in the posts on the issue of forgiveness, not how to get the sinner to repent.  Maybe it’ll get thrashed out a bit in the comments…

  6. Hi Sandy,

    …I think you raised the possibility in an earlier post that the position I have argued for (human forgiveness conditional on repentance) is in danger of modelling itself on a Catholic understanding of salvation (justification dependent on faith and repentance) rather than a reformed and biblical one (justification by faith only).

    I’m afraid I have to say that I think that it is not just in danger of that, but that it actually is that, if we say that God forgives us on the basis of faith and repentance. 

    That doesn’t mean that I think you or anyone else proposing such a view is in any sense Catholic.  I think this is one of those areas where people say things but when it gets chased through, they go, ‘No, I absolutely reject that idea.  If what I was saying really is anything like that, then I repudiate it.”  Much like your comments on Bradford’s sermons and your rejection of medieval views of repentance. 

    I’ll flag that I’m not entirely happy with Bradford’s definition.  His point two tends to collapse the distinction between repentance and faith (at least in the way that he has set things up in your summary), and his third point reduces the scope of repentance by limitting it to just sorrow for sins.  And his description of the Catholic position doesn’t really ring true to me – I doubt any Catholic thinks they can be perfectly contrite.  His view of repentance seems to be just as much ‘contrition’ as the Catholic view – repentance is sorrow for sins, a sorrow that is not perfectly a match for the sins we commit but is a substantial step in that direction.  I would almost completely reverse his definition, as you’ll see in some later posts, what he makes an effect of repentance I think is almost the essence.

    One of the interesting things in the discussion is going to be what people mean when they talk about ‘repentance’.  My suspicion is that we’re going to find that many people understand repentance as a kind of faith, hence why they don’t see that making forgiveness dependent on repentance threatens justification by faith alone.

    In other words, I agree that when we are talking of repentance, we are not looking for or expecting some sort of perfect sorrow and comprehensive confession, and it might be wrong to use a Catholic understanding of repentance which we don’t hold (at least I don’t think I do!) to suggest that our view of the relationship of forgiveness to repentance is potentially absurd.

    I agree.  I’m hoping that that is not what I do over the course of these posts.  I think what I’m going to try and do is bring out aspects of what repentance really is and ask how that fits with the two views.  I’m not trying to say, “My noble opponents have a Catholic view of repentance and so they’re wrong.”  I’m trying to say, “Once you see what repentance involves, making God’s forgiveness dependent on repentance locks you into some kind of Catholic view of salvation.”  I’ll be trying to focus on the view rather than the proponents, and on what repentance really involves for the substance of the argument.

    If I drop the ball, please call me on it.  I hate doing to other people’s positions the kind of things you’re flagging here.

    By the way everyone, please remember that people who say forgiveness might be conditional on repentance still strongly believe and stress in being gracious, in loving enemies, in holding out the offer of forgiveness, in avoiding a bitter spirit, etc.

    Yes, I was a bit worried that starting with concrete people in the first post might mean that people read the whole thing as a sustained attack on their Christian character and doctrine.  I’m hoping that I expressed sufficient genuine admiration to flag that that’s not the case – I’m just exploring the two views, not the people who hold them.  Starting with real people was an attempt to capture the human face and conversational nature of blogging.

    And I agree, I think that in practice there’s usually not a lot of difference between the advocates.  Often it’s just different words are used to describe something similar.  I am arguing that we should forgive whether there is repentance or not, and seek whatever reconciliation is possible.  But those who disagree do, as you say Sandy, believe that even in the absence of forgiveness we must be driven by love, a desire to reconcile, and the avoidance of grudges and bitterness.  Neither position is driven by a desire to let Christians off the hook about the shape and standards of the Christian life in the face of those who trespass against us.

  7. I would be interested in knowing how you would both think predestination fits into the comparison between God’s forgiveness and ours (if at all). You might cover this later Mark and if so sorry for jumping ahead (feel free to just say so and we don’t have to discuss it now).

    However, surely as Calvinists (without denying human responsibility) we would say that our repentance was conditional on God’s choosing of us and that He worked in us to bring repentance about (and that His choosing had nothing to do with any supposed future knowledge of whether we would repent or not). How does this affect our view of forgiveness?

    Surely, you could say that whilst forgiveness is in one sense a condition (i.e. there is no forgiveness from God without repentance), God had chosen to forgive despite any repentance from us; he simply ensures that it is there…

    Now obviously we can’t directly parallel our forgiveness then with God. We can’t really follow Him exactly in this because He unconditionally chooses to forgive AND brings about the repentance. I can’t do both these things, and so can choose to either unconditionally forgive (with the hope of repentance) or wait for repentance to forgive. To me the nature of God’s forgiveness when considering predestination leads me to the first one – he chose me regardless of repentance but ensured that I did repent. Although I can’t ensure others will repent, I can follow God and choose to forgive unconditionally, simply hoping that they repent.

    I haven’t really thought this through much however, and so this is a genuine question (rather than one of those point-scoring question style statements).

  8. Hi Cameron,

    I would be interested in knowing how you would both think predestination fits into the comparison between God’s forgiveness and ours (if at all). You might cover this later Mark and if so sorry for jumping ahead (feel free to just say so and we don’t have to discuss it now).

    Great thought, and not a direction I had really considered at all before I read what you wrote.  The way you are thinking here reminds me of an extraordinarily elliptical comment by David Juniper way back during Jennie’s original post:  http://solapanel.org/article/the_nuts_and_bolts_of_forgiveness/#3753

    The biggest issue for people seems to be the issue of forgiveness when there is no repentance.  I suspect the divide is an outworking of our understanding of the atonement.

    I had to think for a while before I grasped (I hope!) what David was getting at.  Some of us tend to be of the view that Christ died for everyone and that that death was more or less ‘flat’ – it was sufficient to atone, but didn’t save anyone in particular.  Others are more down the direction of saying that the key thing about the cross is that it accomplished something – it didn’t just make salvation possible, it actually purchased men and women for God, real, specific people. 

    The first view is concerned to say that the cross includes everyone, and so has to look outside the cross for qualities in an individual as to the reason why this person rather than that one has the possible salvation effected by the cross actualised in their specific case.  By itself, the cross saved no-one.  Faith (and maybe repentance) are needed as well, and require a separate act of God through the Holy Spirit to give to the elect.  And it’s this personal quality that they have (which is a gift of grace) that reconciles them to God in practice – the cross on its own reconciles everyone potentially and no-one actually.

    The second view tends to see that faith itself (and maybe repentance) is an effect of the cross.  The cross doesn’t just make reconciliation with God possible, it actually does the whole job.  This means that the faith the elect have is somehow the effect or fruit of the atonement, and not a separate act of God that makes the atonement effective in their specific case. 

    So the ‘general’ view of the atonement tends to see faith as a condition for the cross to work, the ‘particular’ view of the atonement tends to see faith as a fruit or effect of the cross.

    If this is what David was referring to (and if so, I’m awarding him the inaugural “Mr Miyagi Award” for one of the most obscure yet profound pieces of terse prose I’ve ever read.  It’s the theological equivalent of ‘wax on, wax off’) then I think he’s making an observation similar to yours, and it’s going to be critical to the whole question. 

    In God’s relationship with us, putting to one side faith, there are three things in play: God’s forgiveness, our repentance, and reconciliation.  All three occur together, you will not find any of them without the other two.  We never find an unrepentant person who is forgiven by God, nor someone forgiven by God yet unreconciled to him.

    Hence why ‘forgive as God in Christ forgave you’ is often taken as an argument against us forgiving one another without either repentance or reconciliation.  For us to forgive someone without repentance and reconciliation separates out what in God is held together.

    I’ll conclude this in the following comment…

  9. Concluding…

    But, if I’ve grasped you and David correctly, you are making the kind of point I was trying to make in the impassibility posts.  God’s love is, in many ways, quite different from ours. 

    We say, “It is better to have loved and lost, then never to have loved at all” – our love comes with no guarantees as to its results, it makes us vulnerable to possible hurt and rejection, it is a risk. 

    However, in defiance of pretty well the overwhelming majority of contemporary Christian thinking on the topic, I would argue that the Bible’s description of God’s love is nothing like that.  God was not making himself vulnerable, or taking a chance when he made the world and made people in his image. 

    His love is powerful and effective and accomplishes its desire.  Those he loved and foreknew from all eternity are absolutely and definitely won by him.  He does not choose the ones he chooses because they repent of their enmity and start loving him, but his loving choice of people ensures that, sooner or later, they will be reconciled to him and start loving him. 

    God’s love is effective and powerful in a way that ours is not.  It changes us in a way that our love for one another is unable to copy or reflect. Hence the doctrine of predestination, as you point out.

    When that is factored into the question, I think it adds an important dimension, one that you highlight in your comment. 

    Forgiveness, repentance, and reconciliation occur together between God and us for two basic possible reasons. 

    On one view, it is because God has to wait until we repent, once that occurs he can then forgive us and we are reconciled.  Here, God’s love is a bit more like ours (but with a robust doctrine of predestination one can still avoid making God’s love a gamble that might lose), in that it doesn’t change the person, but has to wait for them to change first before a relationship is possible. 

    On the other view, God’s love in Christ saves people.  That salvation has three elements to it – forgiveness, reconciliation, and repentance.  All three are what happens when God saves someone.  When God saves you, you are forgiven, you are reconciled, and you are regenerated so that you now are able to live a life of repentance. 

    I think this is fairly clearly Calvin’s position.  I’m pretty sure it is Luther’s.  And I’m fairly confident it’s in the Thirty Nine Articles, if only a bit obliquely.  So I tend to call it ‘the’ Reformed position. 

    So I see an important difference here.  I think God’s saving love causes our repentance, and is not dependent on repentance coming first.  So repentance cannot be a condition for our forgiveness either if we are imitating God.  But that means that in our case it is a genuine possibility that we forgive and they never end up repenting, and we are never reconciled.

    That’s a bit of chewing the cud, but I hope it synergises with what you were wrestling with in your comment.  Thanks for the comment, I think it was a really helpful contribution.

  10. Hi Mark,

    Thanks for your stimulating thoughts.

    I’m only just a beginner in prying into some of the grittier seams of systematics, so please feel free to correct me.

    My question is regarding your last comment and the ‘order’ of salvation, as it were. 

    You said, “When God saves you, you are forgiven, you are reconciled, and you are regenerated so that you now are able to live a life of repentance.”

    My question is similar to Cameron’s, perhaps, in that it is grappling with how you deal with the paradox between divine sovereignty and human responsibility in this context.  It seems to me that your statement picks one of these over the other in this particular context.  Am I reading you right in saying that?

    If so, how are the standard prooftexts for the ‘general’ view of the atonement to be understood?  (I’m thinking John 3:16 may be one such example)

    I’m absolutely with you on the order of salvation and the nature of faith as a gift of God (not sure about a ‘fruit of the cross’ for some reason though.  Why so specifically the cross??) but I’m wondering if you think that here there’s a clear-cut answer or whether in fact there are two truths which seem opposed but must be held in tension.

    Don Carson’s comment about the paradox being between God’s omni-ness (or whatever it is) and his personality have sparked some of these thoughts.

  11. Hello Kutz / Peter / Peter Kutuzov / Peter Kutuzov (Kutz) – in what I think should be roughly ascending order of formality.  Pick whichever you think is appropriate for this conversation smile

    My question is similar to Cameron’s, perhaps, in that it is grappling with how you deal with the paradox between divine sovereignty and human responsibility in this context.  It seems to me that your statement picks one of these over the other in this particular context.  Am I reading you right in saying that?

    Hmmmn.  Not sure.  The fact that God ordains everything we do and yet judges us for doing it is a paradox.  But I’m not sure how what I’ve said picks one of these over the other.  That makes me wonder if you mean the paradox between divine sovereignty and human freedom – that somehow God ordains my decisions and yet those decisions are also truly my free choice and not done under compulsion.  I could see how you might see that I’ve backed one side to the exclusion to the other in my response to Cameron.

    So, just so we’re clear, I do not believe in fate, I believe in predestination.  Fate is something like Oedipus Rex – there is a prophecy that the newborn hero will kill his father and marry his mother.  Everyone works very hard to prevent the prophecy coming true.  They don’t want it, they are repulsed by it.  They constantly choose what they think is most calculated to not bring the prophecy to pass.  And yet, Lo and Behold! Oedipus kills his father and marries his mother – all without knowing it.  His fate was sealed and it couldn’t be changed no matter what he chose.

    That is almost the complete opposite of predestination.  Judas isn’t forced by tricky providence into betraying Jesus when he really didn’t want to, nor is he forced to commit suicide in unbelieving despair.  Those who plotted against Christ and crucified him weren’t striving to avoid a fate cruelly imposed upon them.  They all did what they really wanted to do.  They were all being true to themselves.  And if they had acted differently they wouldn’t have had the roles in events that they had.  The predestination lines up with their choices, it doesn’t make their choices futile empty gestures.  Where the predestination comes in, is that they really wanted the roles they had, everything they did was a free expression of their own hearts.  They don’t have power over their own hearts (none of us do) but we’re no less free to make choices for that.  We’re not free to be someone other than we actually are – that’s the predestination aspect – and we are held responsible for being the kind of person we are (that’s the paradox), but we are free to make whatever choices we want to make (that’s the freedom).  God’s predestination doesn’t ‘stack the deck’ the way fate does.

    With that in mind, I have no problems with ‘picking one over the other’ in various contexts.  In some contexts (like us forgiving each other) – I will talk more or less exclusively about what we do and why we do it.  I don’t feel the need to keep adding something like, “and of course, we’ll only do whatever God has ordained in eternities past” or “and of course, we can only do what is right anyway by the work of the Spirit of God in us” and the like.  I’ll just focus on us, our actions, and why we should act some ways and not others.  Most of the posts and discussion in this series has been along these lines I think.

    But if I’m asked to reflect on possible links between the sovereignly powerful nature of God’s love for us and his forgiveness of us and our repentance then that pretty well is a question about the divine sovereignty side of the pair.  And so I’ll just run with that.  I won’t toss in things to try and balance it out.  It’s worthy of discussion in its own right too.

  12. If so, how are the standard prooftexts for the ‘general’ view of the atonement to be understood? 

    Well, someone who actually believes in particular atonement would be better placed to explain than I.  The explanations I’ve heard have been so strained that they (rather than the passages themselves) have kept me from being a ‘full five pointer’.  I don’t really like either the general or the particular atonement position, both seem to be based on great strength at one point (a number of clear texts for the general atonement position but disastrous theology; only a couple of texts, and those less clear, for particular atonement but much better theological coherence) but I can’t see a third way. 

    What I don’t like doing is presenting the best of one case against a weak form of another case.  I try and present both cases as strongly as I can – and then make my case if that’s what’s called for. 

    Interacting with Cameron didn’t call for it, so I just presented the two sides – one that most people in Sola’s circle take for granted (Christ died for everyone) and one that most seem to think is a bit of a punchline to a joke, something that no-one would seriously entertain (Christ died for the elect). 

    As my judgement is that people are too cocky about one view and too dismissive of the other, I beefed one up a bit.  But that wasn’t showing my hand on the question, that was serving my general purpose of getting people to think about God and not just coast.

    not sure about a ‘fruit of the cross’ for some reason though.  Why so specifically the cross??

    Yeah, that seems a bit odd to me too.  It’s probably because I’m trying to just make a point simply and (relatively) clearly, not make it sophisticated and immune to counter-challenge.  The basic point is: Christ doesn’t die for everyone and no-one so that, unless God acted outside the cross, Christ could have died in vain.  By dying Christ purchased people for God – real, specific people.  Once he had died the elect simply had to end up in Heaven – election and regeneration by the Spirit are not ‘value adding’ to the Cross but the outworking of it (the relationship between election and the Cross is a bit more complex than that, but you get the basic idea).  So it’s not faith as such that is the fruit of the cross, it’s believers.

    Don Carson’s comment about the paradox being between God’s omni-ness (or whatever it is) and his personality have sparked some of these thoughts.

    Hmmmnnn.  I don’t remember reading this bit – and Carson was profoundly formative for me, it feels a bit strange to be dissenting from him at all.  But if he has said something like that, then I think he should be horsewhipped (in the nicest possible way of course, horsewhipped ‘in love’).  This goes back to my post “When God Uses A Word It Means What It Says” http://solapanel.org/article/interchange_when_god_uses_a_word_it_means_what_it_says/
    and the discussion with Nathan and Martin in the comments (sans Barth).  But it probably also lies behind why Carson rejects classical theism and adopts a passible God who is affected by us, who suffers, and who dies on the Cross.

    Do you need to be finite to be a person?  That seems to be the question that Carson is implicitly answering ‘yes’ by saying that this is a paradox at all, let alone that it is the paradox. 

    I don’t went to go getting all bullish, but Emil Brunner, Schliermarcher, and the whole school of liberal theology would cheer at that answer. 

    You can only answer ‘yes’ to that question by starting with our experience of personhood, deciding that that is just ‘what the word means’ and then reading that into God because he reveals himself in personal language and categories. 

    Then, surprise, surprise, you find there’s a tension because God also reveals himself to be, in your felicitous word, omniness, which he obviously can’t really be if he’s really a person. 

    Bleah!  How is that not ‘God’ simply being ‘Man’ writ large?

    If God reveals himself as being both person and having omniness then that is the starting point for thinking about what it means to be a person

    God isn’t some interloper trying to get a seat at the table on our terms.  He was personal for an eternally long time before we were.  His infinite personhood is the source for our finite personhood.

    Now, if you qualify the statement ‘these two truths are in tension’ with something like what I’ve just written, then okay, possibly not the best way of saying ‘we’re going to find it hard to understand God at every point because he is well, God, and we’re not’ but if all you say is that they are a paradox, then my considered response is “Bleah!” 

    …Even if one of my heroes said it.

  13. Hey Mark,

    Thanks for all those thoughts.  God willing I’ll have the time to process it and perhaps ask something more further down the track.

    I’ve not dealt with this gear before, so it’s hard trying to get your bearings when you’re treading water while blind-folded and can’t reach the edge of the pool.

    Also, with respect to the comment by Don, I’ll see if I can dig up where I heard it, lest I unnecessarily make you “Bleah!” at a hero.

  14. Hi Kutz,

    You’re welcome for the thoughts, take whatever is helpful. 

    I quite agree that in theology some questions can land you faced with some high-falutin principle that two different people say you have to jump their way and so you find yourself in the deep end without a map.

    I wouldn’t sweat it too much.  In those situations I ‘flag’ the issue, try to avoid burning any bridges (not easy to do anyway when you’re blindfolded, in a pool, and treading water) by ‘signing up’ to some theological commitment that locks me into one side or the other.  And then I just keep trying to move forward in knowing God and his ways through Scripture and pray that over time God’ll give me insight onto the issue.

    I wouldn’t feel that you have to back either what I said or what you think the Don said here and now.  It’s something that you can hold back on a bit and weigh up.

    And the quote from Carson would be nice, but don’t sweat it.  The reaction was to the idea, not to him – he’s still one of my heroes even if it turns out he said it.  It’s just that I reject that idea so strongly my reaction is unchanged even if it turns out one of my heroes is committed to it.

    Thanks for the chat.

  15. No.  Next up (after a break) is two short series looking at the ‘political’ dimension of where the debate on women’s public ministry roles is up to.  That’s to prepare the ground for looking at complementarianism (equal but different) and egalitarianism in a range of pastoral and theological areas later this year/early next year. 

    After those five posts, I will probably start a loose collection off posts about preaching inspired by something Andrew Richardson blogged on last year.

    Providence is a nice idea though.  I’ll keep it in mind and see what percolates.  Thanks.

Comments are closed.