Birds, the Bible, and broken down cars

Update #1: Jenell (no, not my wife Jenell surprisingly), has posted a brilliant and hilarious response to John Piper’s latest strange rant about the Lutheran and bad weather. Trust me, read it.

Update #2: Greg Boyd has the unforgivable audacity to weigh in on the discussion of John Piper’s recent post with scientific understanding and common sense. Scandalous!

Update #3: Today (8/22) John Piper clarifies his intentions about the tornado blog post. I have tremendous respect for Piper’s life and work, but frankly I’m having a hard time swallowing his explanation. His entire original post was written to single out the ECLA and their particular sin. How can he credibly claim that he was making a general point?

Update #4: Michael Spencer (aka the Internet Monk) weighs in with his thoughts on the whole topic. His post is excellent…but then, I would think so because I agree. : )

_____

Daryll Dash began his blog series on the topic of God’s sovereignty and evil today, and he does a great job of modeling a humble, reasonable, and irenic tone. In other words, he’s everything I’m not.

The whole post is worth reading here, but the main scriptural points he makes are:

Let me begin by addressing the passages themselves:

Bullet #1: The excerpts from the Psalms are poetry, meant to magnify the power of God visible in creation. It does not follow from these that God causes every natural event – though it’s easy to see that in these passages if that’s one’s prejudice, or one’s hermeneutic. The Jeremiah & Acts passage are simply using creation as evidence of God’s existence and/or power. No argument there. God IS all powerful.

The Nahum passage is spot on. God has used natural events to punish and bless at times, and Nahum threatens as much here (and that addresses Bullet #2, which I basically agree with – and my guess is so would most Arminians). But, that is a far cry from the proposition that God governs nature.

Bullet point #3: Matt 5:45 was a curious choice because one could make the case that it argues for a God who is passive regarding nature. Either way, Jesus isn’t addressing the issue at hand. He’s basically telling us to defer judgment of our enemies to God, which will come after this present age (i.e., God doesn’t judge now, through nature, so neither should you).

I think Matt 6:26-30 does bolster the idea of the direct sovereign involvement of God – at least, in the Kingdom that is. That’s the whole point of the sermon on the mount; i.e. this is how the people of God living in the Kingdom will be. Moreover, it isn’t wise to stretch Jesus’ analogy too far, for if we do we make him a liar. After all, God has certainly made provision for the birds of the air – just as he has for us – but that doesn’t mean birds don’t have to willfully work for their food. They do (well, maybe just the Arminian birds), as do we. Birds – just like people – die every day for lack of provision. So, where was God when the little bird I found dead on my back porch starved to death, or was killed by a cat?

I could just as easily say, “Consider the birds of the air. They have to fly to and fro to hunt for food in order to survive, and they must watch out for cats while they’re at it. So too, get off your lazy arse and get to work or you and your kids will starve.” …And it would be true. Biblically. In fact, that’s what half the proverbs say. So, isn’t that evidence of God’s lack of involvement? My point is simply that Jesus isn’t using the analogy to argue for God’s total provision in this fallen world, he’s using it to argue for God’s total provision in the kingdom. Which is a whole ‘nother can of worms (ahem, pun intended).

Luke 12:4-7 is not about God’s governance of the 5 sparrows, only his knowledge of them and value for them. That’s subtly different…unless, that is, one is arguing that their being sold was somehow in their best interests. ; )

Bullet #4: Matt 8:23-27: This definitely demonstrates God’s ability to control nature. But again, I don’t think that’s in dispute. I may be wrong, but I think the heart of this matter is:

  • Whether or not God is intimately governing all natural events. Or alternatively,
  • Whether he is intentionally behind at least some of those natural disasters which seem to be so horrifying – and if so, how do we know which are God’s wrath and which are not?

I can deal with the first question here, but the second will have to wait until later.

Personally, I think there are other options besides a) God governs all of it b) the Deist position of the “watchmaker God” and c) God can’t do a damned thing at all.

Here’s one other option: Strictly speaking God doesn’t govern the earth – we do. That was our charge at creation (Gen 1:28-30). When we broke from God, the created world under our authority also broke from God. Hence, chaos entered the natural world and this is where thorns, and storms, and death come from.

Of course, in the grandest possible sense God still governs creation. None of it, or us, would continue to exist without the sustaining grace of God (indeed, of Christ himself). But, as I proposed in my previous post, while God has chosen to actively sustain the world, he is intentionally abstaining from repossessing it so that hope and love might be preserved.

Here is a poor analogy: Let’s say you own a car that is financed through the bank. Who governs the car? Well, you do, of course. You drive it, and maintain it, and fill it with fuel. But in another, larger, sense the bank governs it too. Just because they’re not the ones directly caring for it, doesn’t mean they’re passively disengaged (that is, they’re not a Deist bank). They check the payment balance, make sure it’s properly insured, etc. But otherwise, they trust you as the steward to govern the car.

Abandoned Car_DSC0136 - 2007-10-17

But what if you stop making the payments and refuse to answer the bank’s phone calls? Well, normally, the bank will repossess the car. But God has not done that. He has let us keep our car and continue to govern it because in his great mercy and forbearance he doesn’t want to cut us off totally. He even occasionally sneaks into the garage and changes the oil, or fixes a broken tie rod. Maybe he tops off the gas tank too. Why? Because he has a longer range plan to grow us up and and hand over the keys to a brand new car when the time is right.

In the meantime though, despite these little interventions, all kinds of things go wrong with the car. It get’s old and ugly, and breaks down on the freeway. One way or another it hurts us. Is the lien holder behind every mishap, breakdown, and accident? Of course not. You, the steward, are the one responsible. It was your choice to cut yourself off from the graces of the lien holder and those resources.

Likewise, God intervenes in nature to advance his plan of redemption without destroying our freedom. We sometimes call this the in-breaking of the Kingdom. But neither the magnitude of creation itself, nor these occasional in-breakings lead to the conclusion that God is always directly controlling nature.

Indeed, part of what made Jesus’ control of nature a powerful sign of the inaugurated Kingdom was the fact that it stood in direct contrast to the usual state of affairs – which was, of course, partial chaos. God’s in-breaking, inaugurated Kingdom was the indication that the post-fall chaos was now returning to a pre-fall order (actually, more properly, it was moving toward a post-post-fall transformation). Hence, we have Jesus’ words about birds and lilies in Matt 5. Jesus wasn’t saying, “Look at nature…God is directly behind everything that happens in nature, and that is true in your lives as well.” That is Calvinist’s position, but it is not Christ’s. Instead He was saying, “Look at an example of goodness in nature; the world still contains a spark of the goodness and provision that is now true and available to you in the Kingdom if you choose it.”

Likewise, when Jesus calmed the storm, it wasn’t a demonstration of what was already true whether the disciples knew it or not, it was a demonstration of what had once been true a very long time ago but was now, in Christ, becoming true again (thank God!).

The gospel only makes sense in a milieu of chaos where God isn’t always getting his way – even with nature. And so we pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” We don’t pray for the things that are already true, we pray for the things that we hope will become true.

Now, as I said, this is just one possible alternative view to Calvinism or Deism, but it happens to be my own. There certainly are other ways of attempting to reconcile the issue.

Blog Widget by LinkWithin

Post to Twitter Post to Delicious Post to Digg Post to Facebook