Tuesday 24 November 2015

Comfort and the Psychology Behind Providence: On Divine Pancausality, Open Theism, and Thomas Jay Oord and the Paris Attacks

It seems to me that attention is rarely given to the psychology behind our theological convictions. By ‘psychology’ here, I mean nothing more than the mind-set each of us has that shapes both what we believe and why we believe it.

Sometimes it’s difficult to determine precisely why we believe what we do, and I think it’s only fair to admit that we might only believe what we do because we stand in a particular tradition of interpretation, even though we might claim legitimate biblical support for it. One area where this is obvious to me is the canon of Scripture. As a Protestant, I do not hold the apocryphal books – such as Tobit, Ecclesiasticus, and Bel and the Dragon – as authoritative Scripture; but as a member of the Church of England, I do not reject them outright as I might have done in my earlier years (I came to faith in a Brethren-influenced independent evangelical church). Indeed, as a member of the Church of England, I am not above reading the apocryphal books as part of my devotions, because Article 6 of the Thirty-Nine Articles allows the Church to read them ‘for example of life and instruction of manners’, even though they shouldn’t be used ‘to establish any doctrine’. So the question arising here is simply this: Do I accept an authoritative canon of sixty-six books simply because I am an Anglican? Honesty compels me to answer this in the affirmative, not least because nowhere do the sixty-six books of the Protestant canon advise me of the specific texts that should constitute the Protestant canon.

Another area where our psychology affects what we believe is surely the doctrine of providence. I remember listening to a sermon about twelve or thirteen years ago, not too long after the 9/11 attacks, and when open theism was the outrageous Evangelical heterodoxy of the age. The preacher admitted she couldn’t accept that God did not or could not foresee the destruction of the World Trade Center. After all, she added (and I’m paraphrasing here), what comfort can be found in worshipping a God who doesn’t know for sure what’s going to happen?

The psychology at play here appears to be of the sort that takes comfort in knowing the path ahead, or at least in knowing Someone who knows the path ahead. One only has to read John Calvin to see the beating pastoral heart within a doctrine of divine pancausality. But the flip side of this, of course, is that psychology which cannot accept that God would determine bad or evil things to happen – things such as the recent Paris attacks, to name an obvious recent atrocity now indelibly seared onto the eyes of Western consciousness. Some might take comfort from knowing that for currently imperceptible reasons, God somehow caused (remember: Calvin himself saw no distinction between God’s causing and God’s permitting of an event) the Paris attacks; but many cannot. And for many of those who cannot accept God’s determination here, a theology of providence such as open theism – a theology that posits a God who doesn’t see the future, who willingly limits divine foreknowledge seemingly to allow for genuinely free creaturely actions, good or ill – offers more comfort than a teaching that ostensibly makes God the instigator of every murder, every rape, and every injustice and catastrophe that has ever happened, is happening, and ever will happen. But for every person repelled by such an understanding of God, there is another who’s cheered by knowing that nothing happens without God’s meticulous orchestration. Both sides will draw passages from Scripture to make their points; but the point I’m making here is that it’s our psychology, our mind-set, that shapes what we believe about God’s providence and why we believe it.

One very recent book is Thomas Jay Oord’s The Uncontrolling Love of God. I’ve not had opportunity to read it yet, but I’ve read a couple of online reviews, and Oord himself is (appropriately) publicising the book through various channels. In a blog post, Oord comments specifically on the Paris attacks. He notes that many people could argue that God’s intervention to stop the Paris attacks from happening would violate the ISIS terrorists’ God-given free will, even though God could, in principle, intervene. But, says Oord, the fact that God apparently chose not to intervene raises questions about why God chose not to intervene. (It’s a fair point, but hardly a novel one.) Oord’s own response, which appears to be the argument put forward in his book, is to say that God is not self-constrained but constrained by that which God has created – that is, God is limited by God’s free creatures. And this is necessarily so, because in order for God to create something that is other than God, ‘God must give freedom, agency, self-organization, being, or law-like regularities to creation. God cannot control free will creatures or creation.’ This is open theism cranked up to eleven.

I cannot comment on Oord’s wider argument, as I’ve not read The Uncontrolling Love of God. But to ascertain the legitimacy or otherwise of Oord’s argument is not my objective here. Instead, I’ll draw attention to the next paragraph in his blog post:

I find comfort in believing that God could not have stopped the terrorist attacks. If a loving God could have prevented them, I think this God should have done so. But if divine love is such that God is metaphysically unable to thwart such attacks, I can without scruples maintain my faith in the steadfast love of God. My hope is that this uncontrolling love will one day winsomely win all creation to right relationship.

Note well: ‘I find comfort in believing that God could not have stopped the terrorist attacks.’ Once more, the psychology behind the doctrine of providence plays its part. Some find an all-determining God comforting: nothing happens outside the will of God. Others find a self-limiting or self-constrained God comforting: God does not know what will happen, but God is with us all the same. And still others – assuming Oord is not in a minority of one – find comfort knowing that while God cannot prevent what happens through creaturely self-determination, some day God will triumph. Regardless of what one thinks about these three basic positions (can each of these be summarised more simply as ‘God does determine’, ‘God does not determine’, and ‘God cannot determine’?), I cannot help but think that each is shaped primarily by what their champions find to be of most comfort.

And in case you’re wondering, I am comforted knowing that God is faithful to God’s plans for the whole universe – guaranteed by the resurrection of Jesus, and anticipated in the Spirit-filled Christian community as it consumes the body and blood of Christ – and knowing that we can protest against injustice and lament the absurd presence of evil in this good world.

10 comments:

  1. Greetings Terry. I think this may be one of the most profound pieces you've published - or it might just be that I agree wholeheartedly with it :)

    I think you hit the theological (or psychological) nail on the head. For the most part, I'm sure we're predisposed into particular patterns of thought and belief on complex psychological, emotional, social and cultural grounds, and then we bring our largely unconscious preconceptions to our theology and our reading of the Bible.

    You may recall I posted recently about whether God *could* save everyone but chooses not to, *wants* to save everyone but can't, or indeed *will* save everyone. Of course each of these positions can be read from the Bible, with a bit of effort, but none of them is unequivocally 'The Biblical View'. So we have to make theological choices based on additional factors, and often these come down to our deep inner preferences - what we find comfort in, or for perhaps some people what we find discomfort in.

    For me, the more conservative evangelical beliefs are deeply discomforting, and part of me therefore thinks that they're probably true. But as they're definitely *not* what I want to believe, I manage to override them with the nice liberal stuff.

    And I will almost certainly be plagiarising, er, picking up on some of these ideas in my next post!

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    1. Dialogue's always a good thing. Can you imagine basing an entire theology solely on one's own preferences? *shudder*

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  2. Hi Terry, I do not see this as merely picking a preference, but we do our best to pull together all the biblical teachings and observtions in the universe while making the most sense of all. I see some imagery in the Old Testament that says God can meticulously control everything. But I also see Daniel 10 depicting a messenger archangel who is delayed for 21 days, which suggests that God cannot meticulously control everything. And I also cannot imagine that God would permit the most horrific cases in the universe if God could have meticulously prevented them. Unlike Oord, I hold that God created the physical universe out of nothing accord the conservation of energy. For example, in the beginning, God said let there be photons and gravitons, and there was an equal ratio of photons and gravitons that is consistent with the conservation of energy. I carefully analyzed that implication of an all-loving God creating the material universe, and I did not see clear evidence that God could then unilaterally meticulously intervene in creation. I also see the biblical emphasis of God working through agents such as humans and angels. I came to the conclusion that God requires synergism with agents to intervene in creation, so my view came closer to Oord's. I will also write more about this in the future in other avenues. Peace, Jim

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    1. I also want to add two more primary points to my view:
      (1) God directly communicates to the minds of humans.
      (2) The incarnation of God could have unilaterally used carpenter skills to build a table but cannot do unilateral intervention from heaven.

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    2. Hi, James - thanks for this.

      I see your point about merely picking a preference, but I hope I wasn't saying that. My main angle was to look at why our preferences (if we're using that word) are what they are. So given that you've said that some OT imagery looks like meticulous control and that other OT passages depict a lack of this meticulous control, why do we incline to one position over the other? In a fallen world, why do some people focus on the biblical texts that indicate divine control, and why do others focus on the texts that allow room for divine limitation?

      Once more, we see why the doctrine of providence is a fun one! :)

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    3. Hi Terry, In my case, when I first converted to serious Christian belief in 1984, I recall leaning toward "open theism," not that I knew that term. I had a powerful experience with God in the context of Charismatic/Pentecostal movement while I recall doubt that God could definitely foreknow the future when random events occur. I had no support for open theism among all leaders that I knew and I bought in to their biblical arguments for simple foreknowledge. A few years ago, I reconsidered the topic and wished that open theism had more support when I first considered it as a new believer back in 1984. More recently, I took one step further and disbelieve that God can occasionally meticulously determine events while he lets horrific evil occur for higher reasons that any human can possibly figure out. I understand that I risk alienation from other Christians while I do this because until now only variations of process theology supports this. But I see that it is consistent with original creation from nothing, unlike process theology. Well, that is my journey. Peace, Jim

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    4. I neglected a main point to my anecdote. The psychology of peer pressure can influence what doctrines we believe.

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    5. I can certainly appreciate the peer pressure angle! When I was doing my doctoral research, I felt I was in a minority of one because I didn't accept the whole 'God and humanity operate from different levels' angle really helped to solve the issue of primary and secondary causation. And I still feel in a minority. The pressure to comply is immense, sometimes!

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  3. Terry, that's interesting. By the way, I'm curious about your view of God and humanity *not* operating on different levels. Do you've a summary on that?

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    1. Sure. Drop me your email address via Facebook or the link on my 'About Me' page, and I'll send you something.

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