Mere Reflections

Let me say first of all that this is a topic that has been floating around in the back of my mind lately. It surfaces when I’m not doing much or when I’m working on a graphic design project that doesn’t take much thought. Some of my best thinking comes that way…ha. But anyway, here’s the question: What do I think about the doctrine of election? I mean, (as Trey so eloquently said of me) I’m a universalist in that I want everybody to go to heaven, but not in that I believe everybody will go to heaven. More recently I’ve been of the thinking along the lines of this quote from the end of an article written by Shane Claiborne to non-Christians:

In closing, to those who have closed the door on religion — I was recently asked by a non-Christian friend if I thought he was going to hell. I said, “I hope not. It will be hard to enjoy heaven without you.” If those of us who believe in God do not believe God’s grace is big enough to save the whole world… well, we should at least pray that it is.

(Read the rest of this article here for an interesting point of view to consider from a very legit, if a little extreme, Christian.*) Not so much of the “It will be hard to enjoy heaven without you,” part, though it definitely pains me thinking about friends I have and other people who won’t be in heaven (all the better reason to live out Christ’s love and forgiveness), I’m guessing I won’t be concerned with much else than God. I’m more talking about the last sentence. I’m of the mindset that I should believe that God’s grace is big enough to save the whole world and pray that God will use me and every other Christian to help that be accomplished.

I was fairly conflicted with my line of thinking I’d been following in my mind and the doctrine of election that is so prevalent in the Christians that I know personally until I read a post the other day that made perfect sense to me. This is what John Piper posted about election, and it’s the best way I’ve heard it explained so far:

Is it a sin to dislike the doctrine of election?

It’s sin not to like the true doctrine of election. It’s sin not to like what God likes.

I want to say it like that because many people have conceptions of doctrines—all kinds of doctrines—that are inaccurate. And therefore their good hearts dislike them.

So you could say, “I dislike election,” and be a good person, because you don’t see election clearly. And what you’re disliking should be disliked. Or you may be a person who is starting to see it clearly and your old self, which is bad, is rising up and not liking what ought to be liked.

So I don’t know whether this person should be chastised or not. The principle would be, “To the degree that you see biblical truth clearly, you should like it.”

Hell is a biblical truth. So when I say, “You should like hell,” what I mean is that you should like it the way God does.

God, it says, “is not willing that any should perish.” God “does not delight in the death of the wicked.” God “afflicts us, but not from his heart” (Lamentations 3). So there is in God himself a willing that hell be and a liking that it exists in that big picture. And yet he grieves over sending anybody there.

So the word “like” is just a little bit difficult here, because you’re going to have to do double perspectives again.

If God ordains that Jerusalem be destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, should we like that? My answer is both yes and no. We should not like women boiling their children, but we should approve of God’s decision that it happen.

And so there’s a double perspective in which the things that you see in the small lens should be disliked, whereas what you see in the bigger lens of how God runs the world should be liked.

So there you have it! While I may not appreciate that people go to hell, I should appreciate the place hell has in God’s plan. Though I’m definitely still not saying I’m a Calvinist in regards to this debate as a whole. I feel like that’s too simple of putting it. I believe there is a tension between the two sides and I believe that John Piper pegged that tension very well in that post.

(I feel like I didn’t write this post as well as I could have, so please feel free to call me out on anything that is unclear.)

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*Though from what I’ve read of his work, he would greatly appreciate me saying I thought he is a little extreme, because he believes that if everyone agrees with him he’s doing something wrong, but that’s another subject I can post later. If you are looking for a book that is challenging/a different perspective, try Claiborne’s book The Irresistible Revolution. Though I don’t agree with everything he says, he poses very interesting points.

This is something I read a while ago that has been resounding in my mind recently, so I decided to share it. This is a quote from Richard J. Foster’s book “Freedom of Simplicity.” Here, Foster is talking about balance; how many teachings in the Bible are two seemingly opposite ideas that must be kept in balance, otherwise they become distorted. This is a great subject to have in the back of your mind when thinking about different ideas presented in the Bible.

“Christian simplicity lives in harmony with the ordered complexity of life. It repudiates easy, dogmatic answers to tough, intricate problems. In fact, it is this grace that frees is sufficiently to appreciate and respond to the complex issues of contemporary society. The duplicitous mind, on the other hand, tends to confuse and obscure. While the dogmatic person cannot understand the divercity in simplicity, the double-minded person cannot perceive the unity in complexity.

This brings us to the central paradox of our study: the complexity of simplicity. The fact that a paradox lies at the heart of the Christian teaching on simplicity should not surprise us. The life and teachings of Christ were often couched in paradox: the way to find our life is to lose it (Matt. 10:39); in giving we receive (Luke 6:38); he who is the Prince of Peace brings the sword of division (Matt. 10:34). Those with simplicity of heart understand the Lord, because much of their experience resonates with paradox. It is the arrogant ad the obscurant who stumble over such realities.

Paradoxes, of course, are only apparent contradictions, not real ones. Their truth is often discovered by maintaining a tension between two opposite lines of teaching. Although both teachings may contain elements of truth, the instant we emphasize one to the exclusion of the other the truth becomes distorted and disfigured. We can see this easily enough when we insist–rightly I think–that God is both imminent and transcendent, both in the created order and beyond the created order. If we stress imminence to the exclusion of transcendence, we end up with some form of pantheism. Conversely, if we stress transcendence to the exclusion of imminence, we will end up with a detached, disinterested, wind-the-clock-up kind of God. If we embrace either end of the teaching exclusively, we get a distortion; if we hold both in tension, we find the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We could just as easily take concepts sich as the love and justice of God, the deity and humanity of Christ, or and number of examples that abound in Scripture.”

I continually find that this is a true idea. Molly has mentioned this concept many times when we’re in a group that is discussing controversial subjects. Most times those conversations end up with the concession that both sides must be kept in a balance.

What do you think about this subject? Is there and teaching in the Bible (or an idea in general) that you’ve realized recently must be kept in a balance?

btw, I recommend this book, it’s very interesting.

Alright, readers, here’s your chance to sound off so we can figure out who is reading this blog.

Leave a comment with your name!

This helps us (or at least me) understand who’s reading this thing.

Also, I challenge you to give us feedback on our posts if you’re not already so we can know what you think. If you know me, you know I’m all about discussion. I’m not a big fan of one-way blogging. That would be no fun at all! So there’s your challenge. And thanks to our faithful commenters (new word) Molly, Andrew, and Marie. Other readers, help us out here and let us know whatcha thinking!

-Riley

My survey is getting buried amidst a slew of Riley’s non-answers-to-my-question-that-he’s-promised-me-a-million-times. I won’t stand for it. I’m trying to start some discussion on politics here, and Riley has to go off on an awesome rant/rebuttal of atheist absurdities. That’s not fair at all. No way I can compete with that.

PLEASE answer the survey, even if you don’t think you know anything about government. I doubt that anyone else who reads this blog knows what they’re talking about either, except maybe Andrew. But I do want to get some feedback on this.

Thanks.

[Update: I'm now officially expanding the question to "what do you think is the more biblical position on how men should be governed? and why?". Oh, and please comment on the original post.]

So I was thinking about political ideologies, and more specifically their view of man as played out in their policy. I know that sounds vague, but this is what I mean: based off the typical policies of the two major parties in the US, what can we say about how they view man in terms or ability, morality, self-interest, responsibility, etc.?

And so after writing out what I thought pretty fairly described the two sides, I wondered to myself what the Biblical perspective would be. Now, I am usually able to be pretty unbiased/objective in stuff like this so that I would be able to answer the question without considering my own political views, but I thought I would ask other people, who haven’t seen my first two lists and thus don’t know what the “right answer” is, so that I could get some outside help in this little endeavor of mine.

I’ve talked to Riley some about this, and Brian a little I suppose, but I would love to hear your feedback. Please don’t tell me what political party you think is more Biblical, but please do answer the question: what does the Bible say about the nature of man, especially as it relates to how he should be governed? Try your best to be objective, and we’ll compare notes. I’ll summarize my findings when the discussion ends.

Thank you kindly for your feedback.