Philetus said:
Seekinganswers,
Yes the Body of Christ is real and is found wherever two or three (million) gather in His name.
All the catholicity I need is grounded in the scripture.
The minimal praxis is also found in scripture.
Neither is enough.
I have great respect for the creeds, yet they are a step away from origin.
In fact even searching the scripture is not enough, and I have absolute confidence in the scriptures as God’s Word.
But, we are not made One in practice or by agreement on scripture.
We are one in Christ.
The protesting church claims scripture as sole authority.
The protested church claims the church as authority.
Jesus said “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”
You might say, “Yes, but …”
No if, ands, or buts about it. In Him we live and move and have our being.
Jesus accused the religious of his day of searching the scripture, yet refusing to come to Him for life. The details are important. Yet, we are all guilty of over emphasizing the details and minimizing the big picture.
It is not practical to speak as though the church invisible does not exist. The only time the ‘entire’ church will be gathered is in ‘the hear after’ and even the presence of Jesus will be visible in His resurrected and glorified body. (We shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.) The reality we live with now is that this whole (all the redeemed in the present) is ‘invisible’ yet evident in its members as they gather in part. In that sense every gathering is whole, lacking nothing, because Christ is present in the members. The church is not Christ. Christ is present in the church.
There is also a reality in the absence of those not yet realizing that God is for them. Open Theism doesn’t directly address this, except in recognizing that God is still actively involved in informing and drawing and that it remains to be seen who will and who will not respond. There remains a tension between the not yet and the already. A balance between and interplay of what may seem to some as opposing elements or tendencies. No doubt, in our diversity, an over emphasis of one or the other is evident here and there and often evident to the point of distortion.
I think we were arguing past each other by prejudging and over reacting to perceived exaggerations or over emphasis. The ‘altar call crowd’ would likely find our approach lacking in the necessary emphasis on ‘Substitionary Atonement’. We don’t have an altar in the alley. Our emphases isn’t on that aspect of reconciliation though it plays a major roll when an individual comes to realize that “Jesus died for their sins and there is nothing they can do about it except accept it and yield..” (I can just see eyes rolling on both sides of the isle.) The question is: does the Gospel inform your living? People must experience the “bigger picture” (the narrative as you call it). And for those who have embraced it, it is very real here and now. Open Theism doesn’t address that issue, except in acknowledging that the conclusion is yet to be realized. But, because God has declared it and demonstrated it in the resurrection of Jesus, it will happen. We have this hope, and this hope doesn’t disappoint us.
The difference is in how we live. But that isn’t the point. We will never be strong enough, smart enough, spiritual enough or holy enough. Grace is in living and loving God with all we have - heart, mind and soul. Neither the baptistery nor the altar is center stage. Both, conversion and baptism; the altar and baptistery; salvation and discipleship; and even the church are secondary to the Christ-centricity of the Gospel. How one ‘gets saved’ is not really important compared to knowing one is saved and expressing it by living it out in the everyday ordinary details of life. Here is where OVT shines brightest. Salvation involves an act of volition, but choice is not what saves. Yielding to the Lordship of Christ involves many acts of volition, whether expressed in baptisms or not, but discipleship is not what validates our witness to the power of His resurrection. Christ in you and Christ in me is the only thing that counts. Living in such a way and loving our neighbor as if our neighbor is Jesus, until our neighbor realizes that it is in fact Jesus loving them (for we are as wretched as they and our measily love for one another will never compare to His love for all) and us loving Jesus who is alread at work in them whether they realize it or not, is the only experiencing and representing that I speak of. In that sense it is the bigger picture that I am following. There is a point in an individual’s life when she realizes and expresses in faith that Christ is living in her. That may be a moment or a journey.
All this experiencing and representing, however expressed, is only a shadow or pale demonstration of what God is really doing in the world. I think I understand your point that sin is no real threat to the definitive Narrative. But, in chapter 12, it plays a very real and potentially destructive part to those living out the struggle of realizing the future God has planned for chapter 46. And it remains to be seen by all, including God, who is the author and finisher of our faith, exactly how the final chapter will be written item by item in meticulous detail. But, the big picture will not change and nothing will escape inclusion.
I hope words don't get in the way as I struggle to express what I mean in a way that is broad and yet faithful to the Gospel.
Philetus
Thank you Philetus for your eloquent response. I'm glad that my words did not incite debate this time (as they are in the habit of doing), and I am thankful that I can now learn from your response (because I didn't start into the conversation in an attack). It is so easy for me in a conversation (as it is with almost anyone) to find what I don't agree with (on principle) and place myself in opposition to it, never hearing the things which I might not have been thinking about, but things which may serve as an instruction for me to live. My conversations with certain people on this site, and my inability to refrain from those conversations are at fault in this. Debate is never constructive, but always results in a further polarization of the sides, so that either side becomes more than they had ever imagined they would become, and frankly, they become their own worst enemy (because instead of changing minds they just become ranting lunatics before all). I am sorry that you had to witness my own lunacy (and I am sorry to everyone else whom I pulled down with me). This is my confession that will hopefully lead to repentance.
I will no longer attack Open Theism, but I will make clear that I am not an Open Theist and leave it at that. However, I would also like to point out that there are more than two options in this debate, so I will take it as grace that people not label me a Calvinist (or closed theist). My refrain from the categories is based on the objections I raised in the previous post (I don't agree with the foundational question that leads to the two categories). Please note that it does matter which question you ask in how you identify your position, and the open/closed debate presupposes certain questions that I find to be unimportant, because the questions that they try to answer do not bring up anything that is very significant
from my point of view; people have volition and make choice and this is nothing new to me; people are also grounded in a greater framework of power struggle, which drives their volitional qualities in certain overarching directions, which means in certain ways humans are not "free" (you, Philetus, probably know this better than anyone; I myself have spent time with drug addicts and alcoholics who lived on the streets of San Diego, and they demonstrate this volitional quality that enslaves them quite well); I just don't think we have to frame the discussion in such a way as to make one side eclipse the other. In otherwords, I think we need to hear both the closed and the open views and see that neither side has satisfactorily addressed the scriptures in a wholistic manner (a wholistic approach, I might add, is a very difficult thing to accomplish in the first place). And when one side or the other simply dismisses the texts that the other side brings to view, they fail to see the issues at hand. Our interpretations of the scriptures are not sacrosaint (as you pointed out to me, Philetus); so let us hear the other side (from a common grounding [maybe the creeds?]) before we dismiss them.
As a minority on this site (since I have effectively removed myself from the debate) I hope that I might at least be able to ask some interesting questions; my goal is no longer to convert the Open or Closed Theists to my own position (partially because I now realize that my position is not as grounded as I would like it to be). I can't ask anyone else to stand on anything that I am not certain of myself (though that does not mean I will not work hard to strengthen my own position). So we can agree with Christ as our foundation, and I think if we can agree on the terms outlined in the Apostle's Creed concerning a very basic interpretation of the scriptures by the early church, we have at least a common ground (where we will not be excommunicating one another in our appeal to our own authority). You, Philetus, are my brother, and I have no right to question you on that or to frame my posts in such a way as to put you at odds with me.
(WARNING: WORD COUNT ERROR - this is my engagement with Open Theism in a prolonged manner; read on if you dare!!!)
Now I want to address an issue within the previous post, and I will simply try to communicate to you where I am having frustrations. You see, Christ does not come to us as a universal principle uniting all people to himself. In fact, Christ causes more divisions than does he form unity. His words are not pleasing to the ear, nor do they set people on equal grounds to receive his message. Christ, if anything, reverses the disparities that were once favoring the other side. So the rich, in Christ, are at a disadvantage in receiving status in the Kingdom (of even entering the Kingdom) because previously their riches had served to give them status in this world and now they accomplish the very opposite in the Kingdom. But the poor can receive his message with ease, for they were the ones, who because of their lack of wealth, did not have a place in this world (and they even faced death because of their poverty); now they have access by means of their poverty. In Christ their poverty makes them good candidates of the kingdom (just as a rich person in this age has an easy time rubbing shoulders with the leaders of nations). Thus, Christ does not bridge the gap between the disparities in his first coming; he turns them on their head ("It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God"). I will add that the rich were not without hope, but it is left up to God ("What is impossible for men is possible with God"; a statement not very different from one like, "It would take a miracle for that homeless, drunkard of a man to ever look face to face with the President of the United States," though there is much more power backing Jesus' statement than their is in the synical one of our time).
The current turmoil of our world for me is located in this reversal of disparity (as opposed to an ending of it) that leads to the current uneasiness of the time between the times. The reason why our world continues to be in turmoil is because the disparity has not been removed in Christ, but has, in fact, been agitated to its breaking point. When Christ says, "The meek will inherit the earth," this does not bring a conversion of the world, but rather incites the world to kill him, to put him on the cross so that his words can no longer be heard, and the former disparities are encouraged all the more. Christ does not bring peace, but a sword, cutting down even the closest of ties in this world. And our hope for an end to this disparity must be pushed off into the future, when Christ will come again. There is a real disparity in this world, and in this much we cannot be ignorant. Though our place in this disparity is always with the disadvantaged (for we do not want to be on the side of advantage in this world when the Lord comes!).
So the struggle is a very cosmic one, and yet there is assurance (hope) that it will be brought to an end. Our hope in the second coming of our Lord assures us that peace
will (assured but still future) reign on the earth as it is in heaven. So our patience is with the conversion of the world because we should not pretend that we can act in such a way as to convert the whole world. That will only happen with the coming of our Lord. This is the mistake of Chrisendom and of the eutopias (which I might add both had forgot to wait for the Lord to come). Our Catholic brothers and sisters or even our Pilgrim descendants who continue to pretend that there are no divisions in the political realms that we envision as humanity, and that they are a restored earth of sorts are living in the clouds, and have forgotten the people who are submitted to their order of things. That is not to say that we cannot learn from our Catholic bretheren (as I said before we cannot deny that we are here as a direct result of their actions; their history is our history, and we cannot pretend that we are not affected by it; in fact, ignorance concerning this history only leads to an inevitable repetition of it; we need to stop listening to the biased retelling of history by protestants and Catholics and honestly listen to our past, or at least in as much honesty that we can muster, and receive it as our own, for better or for worse). Needless to say, I am not enamoured by some eutopic vision of peace on earth at least not in the way presented by Catholics or even by the eutopian societies. The disparity is still here, and we have to deal with it.
So I guess your qualms with me are concerning the church, because when I speak of the church I speak with almost this eutopic vision (or as you put it, too much emphasis on the "already" aspect of the Kingdom). To address this, first I would like to point you to the scriptures. Have you ever read what Paul has to say about the
ekklesia? There is not an ounce of reserve in his voice. When Paul talks about the church (the
ekklesia), Paul is clear that the apocolyptic action of God in Christ continues in the church. The fact that Paul equates the church to Christ's "Body" ought to be very striking to us. And Paul's depiction of the church as a Body is very literal (with "ligaments" and "sinews"). He doesn't wax symbolic (in fact his language is much more metaphorical), but rather paints a very vivid picture of the church as a Body and calls the church as a Body to witness to the world. Individuals are not primary in this witness; it is rather a testimony held within the gathering, as the members of the Body build it up.
I have found a very practical illustration of the importance of the church. My mom has taught my sister and me to engage in personal evangelism. There have been a few occasions on which she demonstrated it in her own life. One of these examples took place with neighbors from down the street (a couple of kids with whom my sister and I played often in our childhood). As we developed a very close friendship with them (and as they began to know both me and my sister and also my mom) they were told about Christ. In fact, it led to their desire to receive Christ, at which time my mom led them in the sinner's prayer. You would think this would be wonderful news, and, in fact, that is exactly how we received it. And over the following months, we continued to be closer in this much. But a few months later, they moved. Their mom had to go to Utah for a job of some kind. And they were left on their own to develop their "faith." A number of years later they returned and visited us, and it was a surprise, because we really didn't keep in contact with them very well (and their move had been a bit of a surprise). It turns out that when they moved to Utah they became involved with a Mormon gathering. Because their "faith" was emphasized over their participation in a life demonstrated by a body, they were drawn into a bodily life that was not grounded in Christ, even as they continued to "confess him as Lord." Another example comes with my mom's former boss, who had witnessed my mom's life (because my mom is very open about her faith). My mom's open life and friendliness was crucial in her boss' asking her one day about this "Christianity stuff." And later my mom invited her to our local gathering (I guess she had learned over the years the imporance of this). Her boss later received Christ (in personal faith) and received the same formation that is taught in a large majority of Awakening churches throughout America. Yet, it remained for her a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" and eventually this began to bring about tensions for her and my mom. As her personal relationship with Christ didn't lead her to live within the body, she began to feel tensions about her relationship with my mom, and began to use her position as my mom's boss to make things very difficult for my mom, when she began to stray away from the gathering. My mom wasn't trying to make her feel guilty, but she somehow felt guilty, and this tension was lived out at work. Because she only saw "personal faith" as being central to her "salvation" she failed to live out her life of salvation as a member of the body (and made my mom's life a living hell).
I know these are only two examples, but they are very instrumental in how I approach the idea of "evangelism" that we find to be so important in our mainstream "evangelical" churches today (and in how we understand God to be working for salvation in this world). And I'm not the only one who has experienced this tension in evangelism. Billy Graham's "Crusades" have undergone major structural changes as he has learned that this evangelism must be tied to a body if it is going to be successful. In this time Billy Graham works closely with local congregations in a way he had never done when I was a kid. Billy Graham of course is not engaged in "personal" evangelism, but we can at least see the tension between personal ties leading to conversion and the need for those relationships to be grounded in a larger gathering. But even in the case of the conversion of my friends down the street, though it was very personal (I assure you), it did not last.
This evangelistic tension is what leads me to say that both the Open and Closed views need to be heard (because they both imply a certain structure for the church). You see, God's salvation is particular in such a way that God is "closed." God is going to save the world not by a "personal relationship" with everyone on the planet. No, God is going to save the world through a particular people, namely Israel, and in a particular way (certain practices and a particular life). And God is going to be faithful to this plan of salvation whether Israel is faithful or not. Israel will be his "elect" people. And you will find this language in both the Old and the New Testaments. When God elects, God is not acting in an open manner. So "salvation is of the Jews" as Jesus tells the Samaritan woman. It is not merely in a personal relationship with him. It is about being a part of a visible people in this world (a people with certain practices and a certain bodily life). Now the liberals detest such an understanding of salvation (because they want to believe that everyone has a "spiritual grounding" and they also want to categorize Christianity and Judaism and Hinduism and Budahism and Islam under the same category of "religion" or "faiths."). But people do not have a "spiritual grounding" that makes them predisposed for a "religious life". Christ isn't just appealing to a common spiritual grounding. People in the world have exchanged the Spirit for a humanistic life. And in this way humanity has utterly rejected the Spirit of God. Now as one who is influenced by Wesley, I know that God's grace preceeds our salvation, and that God's grace preserves even those who are unrighteous so that they might be saved. God comes before us in grace (I don't much care for "prevenient grace" because I can't think of any grace that doesn't come before, meaning prevenient is just a redundancy), a preventing grace. But to say that we have any capacity for relationship with God in ourselves is utterly foreign to me. We are like the wayward son who in his despisement of his Father, treats his Father as though he were dead, and then leaves to go on his own way. We have turned to our own way, and we are without hope. But God does not allow us to break the relationship. The Father sits waiting for the son (waiting in such a way as to expect his return). And it is not until the son remembers the grace of the Father that he is willing to return. "Even the hired hands were taken care of in my Father's household, I could at least have that place." The son had to see the Father as who he really was (a loving and caring Father) before he could come to the Father again. You must understand, the Father never changed in the entire story of the prodigal son. The son just needed to realize who the Father really was. The Father didn't go out and pull the son out of the slops of the pigs, but he did act graciously before his son always, and it was this grace which brought the son back to him.
We cannot leave it at a closed view, however. Clearly God's acting in a closed manner does not mean that all things are closed. God does not foreordain all things throughout the Creation; God elects in a way that grounds God as the actant in the story of Creation (God is the one who drives the narrative, not humanity). But a God who longs for all to come to him is the image of a Father who waits for the return of a wayward son (and in this waiting, in this patience, God is very open). This is clearly not the image of a closed God. It is reflected much more closely in a very personal engagement with the world. Yet it is not the God who has left the future open either, for God will send Christ once again, and "every knee will bow," and "every tongue will confess." Clearly the patience of God has a limit (the Father does not go to the son in the slops). But God's closed nature does not occlude an openness within, an openness which allows for uncertainty, even as it is enclosed within certainty.
So, if I were to talk about God being "open" I would have to say that God is open in the present. With regards to the future, openness is absurd. Clearly God is not going to let things as they are continue into eternity. There will be an end. Those who practice evil will not be sustained to act out their evil forever. God will bring their evil to an end. In this much, "their days are numbered" and God knows the number of their days. In fact, God will micro-manage at that point, everything that was once held "in darkness will be brought into the light."
Not only is God closed with regards to the future, but God is also closed in the beginning of Creation. There is a moment in which God enters into the void and creates. We cannot say that we have always known God. We can only say that once God has revealed Godself to us, then we knew him. Israel could not say, "We were always the people of God." Israel had to say, "Because God is our deliverer, we have become his people." In the beginning God created (and that is defining for us, and sets a very clear limit on us).
The only point of openness is the now. "I set before you life and blessing, death and a curse, choose life that you might live." As I said before, God is the "Alpha and the Omega" enclosing time within himself. It is the trinity (and in many ways the incarnation) which is presented to us at the beginning (God enters the scene). And it is the trinity and incarnation that will bring us to the
telos (the culmination). It is in these closed actions of God that openess is possible (for God wraps us up in himself). God enters the void (which has no will) and God moves it toward the
telos (which is grounded in God's own will), so that we who are in middle of this might also share freely in it (a will in harmony with God's own or it becomes no will at all).
Pure Calvinism envisions the God who has his doll house; Pure Open theism is the God who cannot control the Creation. The very fact that we can put a close on the beginning and on the end shows that you cannot possibly support an entirely Open God.
The Open Theists cannot deny God's election, an election that demonstrates a God who is faithful even when the ones whom he elects are faithless; even YHWH can use Pharoah for YHWH's own glory, as he does. What is amazing about it is that whether Pharoah is stubborn, or whether Pharoah relents, he is still bringing glory to God; yet the scriptures tell us that he is hardened for the sake of God's elect, just as Israel is hardened in Paul's time for the sake of God's mercy to the Gentiles as Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans.
And the closed theists cannot deny a present openness of God (a
divine patience, for I don't think
I could be that patient; whenever I built cities in SimCity as a kid, I had to find all the cheats so that I could do it quickly; it is good that I am not God, but we can see where such impatient "gods" have a real distortive power in our world as the city planners and the ones who govern those cities). God can desire that no one perish, and yet there are those who do. So Christ does not elect those who follow him; he calls them by name, and invites them to his cross (and to his table). It is not irresistable grace (for grace is not a coersive move; it is like a ruler who gives up a portion of his land in a way to force another to relinquish theirs; it is only an act done by one who is not master of the Kingdom over which he reigns; if God must coerce, than God is powerless).
So there are my ramblings. Take them or leave them (I warned you before you set off on the journey, so if you ended up reading them, it was by your choice). But I would appreciate it if at least a few read the words I wrote.
Peace,
Michael