God, Justice and Love

Have you ever wondered what is the purpose for Justice?

Is it an arbitrary consequence for a broken law... or is there more to it? What is God's idea of justice from His perspective? Have we settled for a far simpler version of justice than God intends?
It has been a tendency of societies to punish people without the intention of restoring them - i.e. through imprisonment and capital punishment. Not only that, but often Christian doctrine upholds a punishment concept of justice instead of one focused around love and restoration. Often concepts of justice seem to seek to satisfy some abstract idea of justice, and to force people to be "good" through fear and compulsion. 

Yet, there is another way of looking at justice. If we look at justice from the perspective of love ("God is love" - 1 John 4:8) it brings a different perspective for the purpose of justice. By seeing justice through love, ideally we can seek after a practical restoration of wrongs where all parties experience compassion and love. Such a practical restoration could be where the wrong done is made right, both within the wrong doer and with the victim. I ask, is it really enough to try make people "good" through arbitrary judgements? Does it even "work"? Shouldn't our aim be to restore the conscience of a person to the point where they want to do good, not out of fear, but out of courage? Surely that would produce a more wholesome society. 
It is interesting that studies show Restorative Justice is more successful than punitive punishments on many accounts such as reducing recidivism, reducing post-traumatic stress amongst victims (including revenge), and both offenders and victims are more satisfied with Restorative Justice than conventional criminal justice. (See Restorative Justice: The Evidence)

We were having a heartfelt and thoughtful discussion with Cindy Skillman over at the Evangelical Universalism forum on the subject "Post-mortem punishment and the perfect love of God". She had this gem to share which I thought was so well put I had to post it here on the Benevolent Hecklers. She compares human justice with God's justice. She ultimately asks what God's attitude is towards post-mortem punishment using a Biblical concept of love. Let me know what you think!   

"This is what God (through Paul) says love looks like:

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails.

Some say that God would LOVE to save all people, but He cannot because they refuse to be saved. Love never fails. Some say that when we die in the flesh, God gives up on us. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. AND Love never fails.

Sure God can punish for the purpose of healing. Earthly parents do this, and we submit to it. How much more should we willingly submit to chastisement from our Heavenly Father who always does it for our good? Earthly parents who punish for the sake of punishing and NOT to heal and reform an erring child, are considered monsters--rightly. And THAT is only temporal, temporary, earthly punishment. Yet we think that our Heavenly Father will punish to no purpose other than revenge and so-called "justice," not for a short time, not to reform, not to cure, not to make anything right but ONLY to administer far in excess of Moses's limits of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth--forever and ere.

Justice is NOT taking an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. That is only a limitation on excessive punishment. Justice is not eternal torment, whether or not eternal torment is deserved. Justice is not the chair for a murderer or prison for a lesser criminal. Those things are human attempts at justice, or human attempts at imagining ultimate justice.

Justice is making things right.

None of the punishments we could administer or imagine could ever make things right. Justice means you get your murdered wife back, and the man who murdered her becomes the loving brother to you and to her that he ought always to have been. THAT is making things right. Everything else is a poor, impoverished human attempt to prevent the criminal from having an advantage he denied his victim. Did he kill? Let him not live, for his victim is dead. Did he steal? Let him have nothing, for he has diminished his victims, forcing them to support him without their consent. THAT is the best WE can do. It is far, far from the best God can do."

God is With Us

Last Sunday I heard this great sermon from down here in New Zealand, preached by Matthew Guddatt. He is a Britain, come down to NZ and is currently a youth pastor.

So what is the big deal about this sermon?
I haven't often heard a sermon where God's sovereignty and power is connected to our daily lives.

Here is a summary of what the sermon covers:

- Matthew talks about the greatness of God and how we cannot limit God to one name, but He encompasses many names describing Him.
- He also talks about how the church today can have a tendency to go back to Old Testament ways by having super spiritual "priests" (pastors, and elders) who harbour spiritual connection with God for the lay people. Matthew points out that we are all called to be priests and all can access God.
- Lastly he talks about how God is omnipresent. I like how he says that God is in the very breath of the atheist, and that church is not the only place to find God. Matthew points out that God can be found anywhere and we don't need to chase conjured up feelings and emotions, but to know and have faith that God is with us anywhere.

Matthew has a good sense of humour and is easy to listen to. Click the link below to listen -

http://christianrenewal.org.nz/god-is-with-us-2/

Photo Retrieved from:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6gDvNsJRUMUMcJWOAGf2kzikQvzrJUIgNIwZ7J6IpGxid8USzNElMBDO_LZAEXL9EHgvutQXCaYRRCRzP9Jk2CMjgonXZKoo6rUdHl1haH3cpVy8WH29l0AXnDmIoPE_Od-WLziO2zq0/s1600/galaxy_universe-normal.jpg

        

Faithfully Valuing the Limits of Scripture (PART 7 - HOW TO READ)

This series explores the nature of Scripture (specifically those aspects which many of us find uncomfortable) and what our approach to Scripture should be as a consequence. This exploration is needed because our intrinsic human biases cause us to assume that God's nature / aims / priorities / etc all line up with our modernistic worldview, which focuses on detailed accurate synergistic information. However such an approach to Scripture clashes with many of its properties. Our response tends to be to curate Scripture, or to minimize our engagement with the aspects we find difficult to explain. Instead, we should engage with all of Scripture as God designed it, and challenge our perspective on it when needed. What does it look like when we value the uncomfortable aspects of Scripture?

The series so far:

1. Introduction
2. Progressive Revelation
3. Relationships and Cognition
4. Morality and Evil
5. Coping with Evil I
6. Coping with Evil II
7. How to Read (this post)

So far I've spent a long time justifying my belief that God is more interested in the meta-cognitive goals of person-hood, expression, and relationship. Now I want to start exploring the practical aspects of reading Scripture. 

Scripture's purpose, specifically, is to be a collection of some of the individual progressive revelations of God's person-hood throughout history, which taken together He has deemed to be the most universally useful expression toward encouraging relationship with Him. It does this in an incredibly dynamic way. If we focus on cognitive information and a harmonious synthesis of theology, we can miss a lot of what the Bible has to offer toward relationship with God, and at its worst it can lead us to minimize aspects of Scripture to the point that they are almost useless to us. How should we approach Scripture keeping relationship in mind, and balancing the usefulness and limitations of cognition toward this ultimate aim? I have some general principles to share, but this is something I'd like to grow in more, so please share your own thoughts!

How to Read Scripture:

1) Immerse yourself in the passage, allowing every aspect of yourself to be impacted by the experience. We don't expect each expression of a person to be perfect and balanced - and likewise with each revelation - but they are unique and beautiful and insightful. By reading Scripture and inviting the Holy Spirit to speak through it, you are touching an aspect God, a deliberately designed expression of Himself! Never let this slip by you. 

2) Utilize flawed cognition to your relational advantage. Despite its limitations - which I have emphasized in my defense of God's relational aims - cognition is central to our approach to Scripture for obvious reasons. Firstly, Scripture is written in a language, meaning cognition has to be engaged to even start experiencing it with your other non-cognitive faculties. Secondly, 'Immersing yourself in the passage' is something that's not under much of our direct control, since all our faculties are overwhelmingly influenced by external circumstances, our subconscious, and each other. However, cognition is unique in that it is also (at least partly) consciously controlled, which gives us an avenue to steer and focus our other faculties of experience. If we are discussing how we should control our approach to Scripture, this control has to occur through our cognition. 

3) Attempt to cognitively understand what God intended for people to experience from his designed expression in Scripture. How Scripture's designed relational purpose is realized - or whether it is realized at all - varies between individuals. Our cognition needs to understand the intended experience if it is to steer our experience in the right direction. 

4) Deliberately consider multiple different experiences of God from the passage in mind. I think this is one of the most productive ways to attempt to properly experience God's expression through Scripture. These different perspectives help us break out of our worldview and so avoid subconscious worldview hijacking of our cognition, so we can consider God's intentions for the passage more clearly. But more profoundly, they help us stick to the first principle of relational experience (rather than cognitive accuracy). If we understand another person's relational experience, it allows us to experience an echo of God ourselves. In addition to the hypothetical 'universal intended experience' we're trying to understand from a passage, it's as if we were experiencing a personalized expression of God by proxy (albeit one with greater potential for error in our understanding, and with less universal benefit than Scripture itself). 

5) Start with some 'high yield' perspectives. Perhaps most useful is that of the original intended audience or of the author, since these are clearly going to be integral to God's intended experience of his expression in that passage of Scripture[1]. Also helpful to consider are the experiences of early and/or orthodox church consensus[2]. A final group of helpful perspectives are those of individual saints who you discern to be relating well to God in a holistic sense - these may be dead or living saints, famous or privately known[3]. 

6) Allow your cognition to function naturally and form a harmonized view of God as a person. Try to see God through each of the expressions you experience which you deem to be intended by God, or genuine healthy relationships. Remember you are trying to understand a person in the light of all their complex expressions. Don't make a God up who wraps perfectly around all these 'experiences' (this can never take into full consideration the dynamics of person-hood). Instead try to understand the God who expresses Himself in these ways. 

7) Don't let our modernistic worldview hijack your cognition and make an idol of it. This is an imperfect process and does not define 'relationship', though it is useful and natural.  Do not be distracted away from the aim of relationship with God.  Remember that the hypothetical 'universal intended experience' is actually going to be a spectrum of experience, just like any public expression in earthly relationships. Do not become obsessed with the difficulties of forming a harmonized view of God. Focus on God's intentions for Scripture (rather than picking 'the best' interpretation), and focus on God as a person (where Scripture springs from Him, rather than the reverse). Where cognitive perplexity exists, relate to God through this (some perplexity is a normal part of any relationship).

Its more (or less) intuitive

This approach is fairly intuitive and natural - read the passage for what it is, and consider the spectrum of legitimate ways to experience God through it (even if they contain different mixes of cognitive gaps). Despite its simplicity and intuitiveness, this approach IS difficult - because our worldview isn't happy with cognitive gaps, and because this approach requires us to put aside our preferred priorities and seek God as HE wishes to be found.[4][5]

Summary:

Reading Scripture should utilize cognition to focus the rest of our faculties and allow our whole being to experience God as He intends. At the same time we need to be vigilant not to focus excessively on our cognition, or elevate its importance above other aspects of relationship. One way to do this is to deliberately consider the spectrum of legitimate experiences of others through Scripture - including the original audiences and authors, church consensus, and individual saints. We should let our cognition form a harmonized view of God, a God who would express Himself through all these experiences. But there will always be perplexities of person-hood and relationship that our cognition cannot 'solve', and we need to be careful not to assume that this means something is 'wrong', and not to let this distract us from relationship.

• Are there any other reading / interpretation techniques that you feel are important to enhance a proper relationship with God?
• Do you agree that considering a variety of perspectives is important?
• Do you agree that considering the whole experience - not just the cognitive aspects - is important?
• When deciding which experiences are useful to consider in your interpretation of Scripture, how much attention do you pay to the cognitive aspects of that experience?
• How do you feel about accepting inevitable perplexities when it comes to forming a harmonize cognitive view of God?

Coming soon...

• Next I'll deal with some further issues people have with this approach to Scripture, specifically how it can seem to threaten traditional theological processes and the concept of 'inerrancy'.
• After that we'll explore some specific examples of progressive revelation and how a relational approach to Scripture leads ancient and modern saints to Him, but through different cognitive paths. 

Footnotes:

[1 - When attempting to understand the experience of the original audiences and authors, it can be helpful to remember how progressive revelation functions to serve relationship with Christ. Each passage was written to enhance as much as possible the revelation of Christ to the intended audience, taking into account their interpretive bias, and the historical processes God intends to drive as part of his expression to mankind. Thus this consideration can be helped a lot by an understanding of the times and cultures and language etc (which can seem daunting), but a lot of this can be gleaned from the Scripture itself. Important things to remember is that these audiences did not have subsequent revelation to balance their cognitive experience of God, that they had different priorities and worldview to us, and that they had genres of language that we aren't too familiar with in our modernistic society .]

[2 - Church 'concensus' is clearly not unanimous, and has also frequently been plagued by political and selfish motivations. However, the greater unity there is among those who seem driven by a desire to relate to the God of Scripture, the more authority this consensus has as a legitimate intented experience of God.  After all, the church - functioning this way - is the means by which we trust God to have chosen and preserved Scripture in the first place. This kind of concensus can allowing many doctrines labeled as heretical by the modern American/Western church, and can also be troubled by the influence of the current worldview (e.g. Greek thinking paved the way for modernism and tended to idolise cognition).]

[3 - The more you know a person yourself and are persuaded of there relationship with God, the less 'orthodox' their cognitive views need to be in order to be useful. Conversely, some 'orthodox' saints may have an experience of God that is less than convincing, and so may not be worth considering.]

[4 - Our modernistic mind will search for reasons to avoid worldview reform - e.g. by disregarding it as 'post-modernism'. This view is post-modern in the sense that it recognises the problems with modernism, but it is NOT postmodern in the sense of denying the reality or importance of cognition, absolutes, truth, consistency, etc. This approach relies upon the essential foundation of absolute reality and consistency in the person of God - but our experience of God should not derive all its meaning from how well we grasps all the cognitive details of God's absolute reality and consistency. The incarnation reveals how God is more than willing to 'empty himself', forgoing some aspects of His reality in order to better express others (e.g. His willingness and ability to relate to us).]

[5 - Even if we agree with this approach to Scripture, it doesn't make the difficulties go away! Our preference for cognitive information is deeply ingrained in our culture, and makes us constantly think about how this approach deals with cognition. What a shame to miss the beauty of the big picture, because we are thinking too much about how the picture is bigger than the sum of its parts and can't be contained in a cognitive description of it! What a shame to miss Jesus because we're thinking about how a person can't be described well with words alone! It can be good to understand how cognition and relationship interact - but Satan can use anything to distract us from actually relating to Jesus.]

Expressing Doubt Builds Faith

Introduction

Many of us have felt guilty for feeling doubt regarding our faith, whether it be our whole faith or parts of it. I hesitated about using the word doubt in this article because of its potentially negative connotations. However, I choose to use it because it captures the emotion behind what many of us feel when we question or enquire about areas of our faith that we don't understand. Interestingly, Fuller Seminary completed a study on what is most helpful for young people to retain their faith and build maturity, and found that wrestling with doubts was a key. Experiencing doubt can be emotionally draining and a fearful experience, and this needs to be recognised and addressed. When looking at the Bible, it seems to portray God as being merciful (in some cases praising) towards those who express questions or doubts. Faith doesn't seem to be an unquestionable act of trust in God, but more a choice to trust God, whilst acknowledging and wrestling with our doubts.  

 Retrieved from http://www.redletterchristians.org/wp-content/uploads/Faith-in-times-of-uncertainty.jpg

Opening questions to consider:

Is it right or wrong to question our beliefs?

Is it unhelpful or helpful to question our beliefs?

What does God expect us to do?

What does evidence suggest we do?

Two Mindedness is not Necessarily Helpful

I admit that the Bible does emphasise that it is not helpful to be two-minded in our beliefs according to James 1. After looking at many scriptures relating to uncertainty and faith, what James appears to be referring to here is a person who is permanently indecisive and without conviction in life. Most people would say that a person having no conviction about social injustice or various issues would be a person who is unhelpful and impractical to reality. Edmund Burke said "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing".

Scripture and Doubt

There are many situations in the Bible where people experience a type of doubt and it is not always seen with disdain. What God appears to respect in His Word is the sincere seeking of truth that people partake in. As the Bible says "seek and you will find".  The prophets would repeatedly appeal to what God has done in the past as evidence of God's power and glory, rather than just claiming that God is God. This suggests that God does not expect blind faith, but faith based on evidence. Paul also took time to argue the gospel reasonably and based on evidence. If faith is based on evidence, then it is based on conviction of that evidence and not a fake conviction of nothing. God is more concerned about the sincerity of heart than about shallow publicly espoused allegiance to Him, as Jesus so often accused the Pharisees of doing. 

Mark 9 shares a story where Jesus answered a doubting man's prayer. Jesus said that he needed to believe in order to receive His assistance. The man replied that he believed, but also asked Jesus to help him with his unbelief! What the man requested seems to be an oxymoron, but Jesus had mercy on him and granted his request. It seems that an admission of faith while experiencing doubt can even have prayers answered! God doesn't seem to need our unwavering faith to bring about His purposes. This story suggests that Jesus is more interested in a sincere pursuit of Him, even if that pursuit involves admission of doubt.

Paul says at the end of Roman 14 that we need to be congruent (consistent) or true to ourselves. He says that if we go against our conscience, it is more or less akin to sin. In the context of doubt, this could mean that acknowledging the doubt and wrestling with it, rather than going on pretending it isn't there, is the more helpful way of living.

Matthew states that even Jesus expressed a form of "doubt" when He cried "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?". I am not saying that Jesus necessarily intellectually doubted His Father's existence, but that He existentially doubted (experiencing emotional or intellectual doubt) God's faithfulness to Him while He was on the cross. We all go through periods in our lives where we experience doubt about God's existence, goodness, or our understanding of "correct" doctrine - whether it be emotional or intellectual. Christ seemed to be free to express his anguish without worrying about the judgement of religious lofty eyes.

Jude 22 also chimes in on how to deal with doubt. He emphasises the mercy that we need to show to those who doubt. Rather than thinking less of those who experience doubt, he appears to imply being slow to judge and quick to hear. 

Expressing Doubt Builds Faith 

I have been reading a book recently by Nancy Pearcy called "Saving Leonardo: A call to resist the secular assault on mind, morals, & meaning".  In it she brings to our attention a fascinating study by Fuller Seminary that investigated High School graduate's tendency to lose their faith after school. In the study they found a key factor that influenced whether youth kept their faith or not. They found that the most effective factor was not prayer or Bible studies, but the safe exploration of questions before leaving home. The college students said that the more they felt they could safely express their doubts meant that they developed higher levels of faith and spiritual maturity. Pearcy believes that the best way for teens to be prepared to give an answer for their faith (1 Peter 3:15) is by personally wrestling with questions. Jesus interestingly said that we are to be child in like some way. Pearcy and Francis Schaeffer said that being childlike is not about believing the first thing we have been told, but about a tendency to ask questions! Pearcy concludes that we need to have the attitude of Paul "Test Everything; Hold fast what is good". 

As counselling theory has well established, safely and honestly exploring our realities (without fear of judgement) helps us to have a greater awareness and understanding which equips us to live more fruitful and sincere lives.   

Doubt and Fear

The alternative extreme to double mindedness is when people engage in a blind following of one belief without questioning it or hearing and entertaining another's viewpoint. I wrote a post recently on the subject of Group Think, its' dangerous tendencies, and how to combat it. I do believe in the usefulness of constructive talk around what we generally see as evidence for the faith (and there is a lot), but if this talk is not balanced it can produce fear amongst people when they doubt something that is taken for granted. Why do we fear? It could be because it has been ingrained into us to believe blindly or else be condemned, instead of engaging honestly with our doubt. I have felt at times that the attitude within church culture can be that to doubt is a sin or a weakness. However, there is a more helpful and God honouring way to view doubt.If I love truth, and God is truth, then I love God. The search for truth comes first, if it doesn't, then we just believe whatever we first come in contact with, or whatever suits our fancy. That would not be honouring God to believe something for the sake of it. On a similar note, if I expect someone else to question their world view in the humble pursuit of truth, then I must also too. God wants us to love Him with our heart, strength and mind. I am not saying that we blow about in the wind 24/7, but how C.S. Lewis put it: "Faith... is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods". People believe things for many reasons, and it would often take a huge amount of evidence before their belief would change anyway. I believe the honest pursuit of truth is the attitude that God would find most helpful to work with, rather than a dogmatic adherence to creeds with the suppression of doubt.    

Conclusion

Scripture suggests that it is not evil to experience doubt, but part of the process of finding out who we are and why we believe what we believe. Instead, we can be true to ourselves. The Fuller Seminary study shows that being real, and safely exploring our doubts leads to a stronger faith. It suggests it is more dangerous to not safely question your faith. However, it is not helpful to always be wavering and double minded, but instead having a humble conviction about what we do have evidence for. Experiencing doubt is not something people can always avoid due to the enquiring minds God has given us, but it can be extremely frightening and painful. One way to help relinquish this fear is by sincerely searching for truth while having an attitude of trust towards God, that if He is truth, He will guide our sincere searching in the most helpful direction. We cannot ever understand everything. Being true to ourselves is the best we can do, and what I believe God wants us to exhibit. I am not suggesting giving up on faith, but suggesting the necessity to express doubt as a part of our faith.

P.S.

Joshua Griffiths is currently doing a series talking about how relationship and the existence of knowledge gaps is essential for a full understanding and experience of faith - Faithfully Valuing the Limits of Scripture (PART 3 - RELATIONSHIPS)

Faithfully Valuing the Limits of Scripture (PART 6 - COPING WITH EVIL II)

This series explores the nature of Scripture (specifically those aspects which many of us find uncomfortable) and what our approach to Scripture should be as a consequence. This exploration is needed because our intrinsic human biases cause us to assume that God's nature / aims / priorities all line up with our modernistic worldview, which focuses on detailed accurate synergistic information. However such an approach to Scripture clashes with many of its properties. Our response tends to be to curate Scripture, or to minimise our engagement with the aspects we find difficult to explain. Instead we should engage with all of Scripture as God designed it, and challenge our perspective on it when needed. What does it look like when we value the uncomfortable aspects of Scripture?

The series so far:

1. Introduction
2. Progressive Revelation
3. Relationships and Cognition
4. Morality and Evil
5. Coping with Evil I
6. Coping with Evil II (this post)
7. How to Read

We've discussed how Scripture suggest that God is more interested in the non-cognitive goals of personhood, expression, and relationship, and deliberately utilises a thoroughly human Bible along with cognitive 'gaps' (biases or 'errors', according to our modernistic perspective) to achieve these aims. 

Many cognitive / experiential 'gaps' can be considered normal or conducive toward relationship. One challenge to this view is that not all 'gaps' easily line up with this supposed aim of God's - some gaps can legitimately be called 'evil' even from a relational perspective. We've been discussing how our relationship copes with these gaps in the form of faith, which again is not primarily cognitive. One strategy faith uses is to wrestle with God's purposes for these gaps, and to provide potential answers which sustain our relationship through these 'evil' gaps. These answers also demonstrate that 'evil' gaps do not ultimately conflict with God's relational aims. 

This discussion has led us to analyse 'progressive revelation' (with its obvious cognitive 'deficiencies') as a specific form of 'evil', recognizing that it still specifically serves God's relational aims, and discussing how faith grapples with Scripture.

We've already covered how the these 'gaps' are required for the expression of faith, which is the most vivid display of the authenticity and health of any relationship. To round off my defence of God's relational aims, we'll explore a couple of other potential 'answers for evil' that faith can grapple with.

Full Expression

First, In a broad sense Evil allows a more complete expression of God's character. God is not merely good, He is ANTI-evil - meaning ultimate evil (real persisting gaps in the expression of God) cannot exist. This very impossibility - God's anti-evil nature - itself needs expressing, and what better way than to give evil the opportunity to assert its own existence, only to be gloriously and satisfyingly overcome by Gods goodness?{1} Sometimes this is obvious and temporally relevant (i.e. God meets our needs when we pray to Him), but other times it is more subtle and eternally focused (i.e. by some of the other purposes for evil, discussed below). 

Progressive revelation likewise allows the more full expression of God's character. The ANTI aspects of God's nature need revealing - including the faults  of the previously biased views, which requires their existence to start with. Harmonious summary statements about God are not enough - certain aspects require a full and mature dealing, which may require a partially biased expression for a time. If these biases also produce evil gaps, it is so that they can be overcome by integration into the whole goodness of God, and so that we can enjoy the full spectrum of views and perspectives on our unified God. And the unity of God's people - under a common spirit-wrought love for Christ, in varying states of cognitive awareness - is meant to demonstrate the impossibility of evil ultimately winning, even if it is given opportunity (through the existence of cognitive bias and disagreement). 

Specific Effects

Second, evil performs its own specific purposes more directly. Some events - which are required in Gods expressive narrative - require evil in order to occur, or require evil to setup the context for another expression of God's character. Examples of these kinds of evil include huge parts of Israel's story (which gives so much meaning to the rest of God's revelation in Scripture), and the murder of God's son (which was ordained before the world was even created). Another big class of specific purposes for evil, is the individual development of our characters as free agents. Some character developments REQUIRE the existence of evil.{2} Gods relational nature wants a large number of different characters in heaven, which require various patterns of mixed experience, including (temporary) evil which is ultimately overcome by God's goodness.

Progressive revelation has direct effects as well, in terms of intended messages, directing historical events, and molding specific characters. Each revelation had an intended message and intended effect, which might change with the historical context. The bias, the truth content, and the omissions all have a necessary role in accurately conveying the message and creating the intended effects. 

Summary

Even 'evil' experiential gaps in God's expression are readily assimilated by God's relational aims. Relationships persist in the form of faith, a valuable self-evident manifestation of the health of any relationship. Faith can sustain itself by grappling with some of God's purposes for evil (such as allowing alternative expressions of God's goodness), and how it fits with his relational aims. Faith can also grapple with God's purposes for the 'evils' of progressive revelation, which (like all 'evil' gaps) allow the goodness of God to take on alternative expressive forms, enhancing relationship rather than posing a challenge to God's relational aims.

• Does it feel wrong to attribute deliberate good original purposes to 'evil'? 
• Do you agree that the it is better if you are given a chance to express your relationship in faith? Does this 'purpose' for evil give you any comfort?
• Are there other purposes for evil you can think of?
• Do you think that having good 'purposes' for evil, is enough to justify its existence? Or the existence of 'gaps' within progressive revelation?

Please comment below! I need feedback to tailor my views and stay faithful to Scripture...

Coming Soon...

• Next I'll attempt to summarise how to approach Scripture, with everything we've already discussed in mind.
• After that we'll explore some specific examples of progressive revelation and how a proper approach to Scripture leads ancient and modern saints to Him, but through different cognitive paths. 
• We'll also reverse course a little, discussing some cognitive 'gaps' that WE impose on Scripture (making progressive revelation seem more full of gaps than it really is, or than ancient readers saw it).

Footnotes:

1 - Some will object that God's goodness can't require even a temporary experience of evil for it to be expressed, as this would make Him dependant on something other than Himself for full expression of His goodness. This view has several problems, one of which is that it defines evil as something that does not originate with God. The Bible's definition of evil, however, includes things that originate from God. Also, this view simplifies the concept of God's expression down to a single mode (where everyone is aiming for an identical relationship, which includes only an abstract understanding of any evil and God's victory over it). I agree that God does not require every person to experience every form of evil and His victory over it, but people will experience varying degrees of isolated goodness vs. its victory over evil in a wide spectrum. This is a beautiful thing in the end, when we consider the natural and desirable variety of relationships God desires.

2 - God can't simply create specific characters from thin air, just like he can't perform other logical contradictions. Strength, experience, maturity, and other aspects in our souls exist precisely BECAUSE of how they are formed. They can't exist in isolation of their development - that doesn't make sense, and to try and fake them would result in poor substitutes, and we would easily and quickly discover that they lack any basis.

Biblical Support for Universalism - Part 6

In Search of a Coherent Narrative

Introduction

Part 1: Arminianism – A Seemingly Attractive Narrative

Part 2: Arminianism’sScriptural and Philosophical Problems

Part 3: 'Freewill'? Arminianism's Philosophical Problems

Part 4: Calvinism’sScriptural and Philosophical Problems

Part 5:  A Biblical Universalism
Part 6: Biblical Support for Universalism
Part 7: A Systematic Understanding of Universalism 

Previously we looked at how ambiguous the Greek and Hebrew words for "forever" are in both the Old Testament and New Testament. It seems wise to interpret them as indefinite periods of time rather than strictly "forever". Doing this means that it is unnecessary to conclude that people will be in hell forever and opens up God’s potential activities in the future aions that make up eternity. What I would like to address now is various scriptural support that suggests that all people will eventually be saved. I emphasise again that this does not mean that I am suggesting people don’t go to hell, only that we have misinterpreted the length of “punishment” or “rehabilitation” within hell.

Photo retrieved from: http://jesus-photos-pictures.blogspot.co.nz/2010/11/god-holding-world-in-his-hands-photos.html

Both Calvinists and Arminianists talk about God’s heart and his desire to save all people, but don’t really go much further than that. Alternatively, Universalism emphasises God’s will and determination to save all people.

Here are some verses that emphasise God’s determined will to save all people:

Romans 5:15-19 is an amazing passage exclaiming the power and extent of Christ’s death in comparison to Adam’s sin. The wording here is extremely fascinating and seems to point towards Universalism. The passage states more than once that Adam brought death to the many, but Christ’s death brought the gift of life to the many. In Arminian and Calvinist tradition one would think that it should say "through Adam death came to the many and through Christ life to the elect few". But no, Paul illustrates that Christ’s impact is just as big and if not bigger than Adam’s impact on humanity. Isaiah 53:11 also emphasises the many and not the few that Christ will save.

1 Corinthians 15:20-26 has another direct comparison between those that are brought to death through Adam and those through Christ. Although this one is even stronger because this time it says, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive”. This passage also states, “the last enemy that will be destroyed is death”. The Bible talks about the lake of fire as the second death in Revelation. Therefore, I ask, if death is destroyed then how can it survive in the greater part of humanity… for eternity? Will hell fire reign forever or will Christ rule with all things under His feet and destroy death altogether? Oh death where is your sting…

At this point, I would like to be intellectually honest and point out that the Greek word pás meaning “all”, which is often used in the New Testament, actually could mean “all”, or “all types of”. From what I found there is disagreement about what it means generally speaking and therefore people say that the context should interpret its meaning. In this context, it would not make much sense to suggest that through Adam all types of people die, and through Christ all types of people shall be made alive. As with the following verse in 2 Peter 3:9 where pás is interpreted as “everyone”… it does not make much sense to say that God is not willing that any soul should perish but that “every type” of people be saved. It appears the word “any” would directly interpret what is meant by “everyone”.

The classic verse 2 Peter 3:9 is often interpreted as an expression of emotion by many, but the Greek suggests that it is so much more than that. It says, “The Lord is not slow to fulfil His promise as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but wants everyone to repent”. The Greek word for “wishing” is boulomai, which actually means "to determine". HELPS Word-studies is worth quoting:

1014 /boúlomai (“resolutely plan”) is a strong term that underlines the predetermined (and determined) intention driving the planning (wishing, resolving). In contrast, 2309 (thélō) focuses on the desire (“wishfulness”) behind making an offer (cf. TDNT, 1, 629).

[While God’s “thélō-offers” can be rejected (see 2309 /thélō), His 1014 /boúlomai (“planning”) always works out His purpose, especially in conjunction with presetting the physical scenes of history.]

This word seems much stronger than what many translators have put into English. If God intends or determines that not any should perish, I ask, who could possibly thwart the determined plans of God? Unless of course God is deceiving Himself that He is able to save everyone, but He actually cannot and is grasping at the wind.

Colossians 1:19-20 is one of my favourites because it exclaims the supremacy of Christ and His mission to reconcile all things to Himself. It says that God is pleased to reconcile all things to Himself through Christ, both on earth and in heaven. Once again, here is very broad universal language seeming to include all things. Not only does it say all things but it specifies what it means by all things - and includes both heaven and earth.

On a similar note, we also have Ephesians 1:7-11. 

“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth. In Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will”. 

The Greek for unite in this passage, anakephalaioó, means to “sum up” or “bring a head to”, which implies that Christ is in the business of reorganising everything in Him. I would question God allowing sin and death to reign in hell as a means of summing up everything in Him. Interesting though how at the end it says that God works everything according to the counsel (Greek is boulé = God’s resolved plan) of His will (Greek is thelo = desire), which has huge implications for verses such as 2 Peter 3:9 and many others which use stronger words than thelo. It does not sound like God is intending to fail at completing what He desires to happen.

John 12:32 is straightforward when it says that when Christ rises up He will draw all men to Himself. I assume He means women also… J

1 Timothy 4:9-11 is an extremely odd verse to read when not read from a Universalist perspective. It says that God is the Saviour of all people (there it is again), and especially of those who believe. It seems strange to me to talk about God being the Saviour of all people, but then talk about how He is the Saviour especially of those who believe. To me this sounds like it could be a grand plan of salvation that is in the process of saving all people, but has not yet saved all.

1 John 2:2 also is fascinating because he is reminding us believers that Christ died for the wider whole. In it John states that Christ’s death was not just for the propitiation of our sins but for the whole world.

Lamentations 3:31-33 is a powerful few verses talking about God’s longsuffering. It says,

“For the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though He cause grief, He will have compassion according to the abundance of His steadfast love; for He does not afflict from His heart or grieve the children of men”. 

This is further evidence that God is not in the business of eternal conscious torment, but instead to reconcile all back to Him.

Acts 17 states that God determined the boundaries of the nations so that they would seek Him. Here is a different Greek word, horizō, which also means “to determine” and the passage states that the purpose of determining the nations is that they would seek Him. Once again, it says nations and not the elect. Verses such as Luke 11:9-13 say that if we seek we will find, and therefore illuminates the potential that God determined all nations would seek Him.

It is interesting that God says that He does not take delight in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 33:11 & 18:32). Alternatively God desires and commands that all men everywhere come to repentance (Ezekiel 33:11, Acts 17:30).

Last, but not least, comes an amazing chapter from Paul - Romans 11. Some of you may be surprised this contains evidence for Universalism, but on the contrary it is full of it. In the beginning, Paul talks about how God has reserved a remnant of Israel for Himself and these select few are ones that follow Him. In v7 Paul calls them the elect, and refers to the non-elect as the “others”. Paul refers to how God caused these non-elect to stumble and fail to see. However, in v11 Paul asks, “Have they stumbled that they should fall?” He goes on to answer his own question. “By no means,” he says, but that through their trespass salvation shall come to the Gentiles to provoke them to jealousy. It would not make much sense for Paul to be talking about the elect stumbling and falling. What Paul seems to be saying is that the non-elect or non-chosen have stumbled, but will not fall. Paul says this is because of a grand plan to bring in the Gentiles also. The point of this is that Paul includes the non-elect into at least a position for potential salvation. Paul gets firmer later in the chapter. He says:

"For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience, that He may have mercy on all."

Here Paul expresses God’s ultimate grand plan, that through a process of experiencing sin and disobedience everyone can experience mercy and reconciliation with God - the Jew, the Gentile, the elect, the non-elect… everyone. Paul finishes with an open-ended exclamation about how wondrous and unsearchable are God’s ways… let him speak for himself:

"Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgements and how unscrutable His ways! "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counsellor? Or who has given a gift to Him that He might be repaid?" For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen." 

The final verse completes the evidence provided in this part of the series. There are many more concepts and verses in support of Universalism, but these scriptures stood out the most as providing clear examples. All things are from God, through God and to God, and I would suggest that sometime in the future aions, all things includes all people.

Conclusion:

We have seen how the Bible has many passages suggesting that all people will be saved. It suggests it by the language its uses such as “all”. It suggests it through God’s determining language used to speak about saving all people. It suggests it by direct comparisons between the many who have sinned through Adam and the many who have life through Christ. It suggests it through the salvation of the non-elect and ultimate mercy shown to all people. Last but not least, it suggests it through the all-encompassing power and extent of God’s control and grasp of all things. 

Next, I plan write a post that seeks to philosophically pull the idea of Universalism into a systematic theology. I welcome any thoughts and comments from people who may agree or disagree with something I have said. We are all a work in progress and hopefully we all seek Truth.

Next

Part 7: A SystematicUnderstanding of Universalism

Faithfully Valuing the Limits of Scripture (PART 4 - MORALITY & EVIL)

So far we've discussed the impact of our (extra-Biblical) worldview on our approach to Scripture. We've used progressive revelation as a practice engagement with the tricky complexities of honest Scriptural interpretation, and being willing to challenge our worldview. We've explored the nature of relationships, and discovered the cognition and communication fall short of defining 'relationship' because of their very nature, and not just because we humans can only handle them imperfectly. In addition, it seems as if God - technically capable of using 'perfect' communication and cognition - seems to have deliberately utilised bias in these things in His pursuit of what really matters to Him - a relationship of love.

Morality

A discussion of morality flows naturally from our discussion of communication, because it functions very similarly. Morality refers to the pattern of our behaviour. Like communication, it is inherently cognitive - we consciously decide what to do, and so it is a window into another person's cognition, but also suffers similar interpretation inaccuracies as communication. And just like communication and cognition, morality finds its true purpose in relationship. It is meant to be person-based, not abstract. We are meant to want to be like Christ and to please Christ, based on our flawed cognitive understanding of Him through our relationship. 

Because cognition cannot reach a static full encapsulation of a person, our morality will never be able to fully encapsulate them either. For this reason, some argue that we are meant to disengage our morality from cognition, and just follow the rules God has set down without question or interpretation, because this is the only reliable way to reflect God. I don't think this is the case, because the only way morality can reflect anything, is through people's interpretation of it - and they interpret it by trying to see through to the person that produces it. We reflect God by being a person that people see God in, and by behaving in a way that springs forth from this person. This cannot occur if our morality is disengaged from our cognition - it actually makes the reflection of God's character less accessible, not more accessible. Besides, the very nature of relationships and people means that things like morality and cognition could never capture a person, even if we disregard the link between morality and cognition. Relationships are meant to be dynamic processes that engage with the other person, and so a static cognition and a static morality cannot fully capture this. 

In other words, you cannot legislate the kind of morality God is after through fixed laws. They could never be nuanced enough, and there is always the possibility of life situations bringing together multiple conflicting values and unique considerations for the relationship which could NEVER be exhaustively described. No doubt God has a preferred way to behave in each situation, but we can only know this if we know God through relationship. So instead of prescribed living, there has always been a need for prioritisation, flexibility, and pragmatism BASED upon the right living relationship with God. I'm not advocating a liberal lifestyle - the relationship I'm advocating includes a desire to submit to God, and also a recognition of the complexity of applying God's values to real life situations. 

But God still legislated morality - if this was not for 'prescribed personal morality', then what was it for? We can argue for some specific purposes behind the OT law e.g. Societal coherence, which was difficult to maintain in a largely 'religious' society where God was never-the-less rarely relationally known, and where cognitive understanding of God was incomplete. But a big reason - the one that applies to ongoing legislation even in the NT - ties back to the purpose of communication. God wants us to see a prioritised understanding of His cognition THROUGH the commandments, and then base our morality on the relationship, which will include submission to our cognitive understanding of Him. Our morality will often look 'prescribed', but the different emphasis allows for deviations that please God when situations arise that aren't covered by the legislation with enough contextual relational nuance. 

Because morality is cognitive, it will change with progressive revelation and an evolving cognitive understanding of God. It needs to be emphasised that God does not want us to take the burden upon ourselves to guess / determine the 'next phase' of morality and progressive revelation. Its also worth mentioning here that morality (and to a lesser extent, communication) DOES have non-cognitive influences, which could potentially reflect non-cognitive aspects of the relationship. These are, however, much less precisely expressed and are readily overwhelmed by cognitive influences.

You can see that morality behaves much like communication and cognition - dim but important reflections of the underlying important spiritual love relationship. The intrinsic biases of morality must also be deliberately designed by God as they are natural consequences of deliberately designed cognitive biases. And just like we don't need to properly cognitively understand the God we love, we also don't need to legalistically and un-critically 'submit' to any particular legislation from God in order for the love to be real - but we DO need to engage in the process of submission. 

Evil 'Gaps' in the Relationship

I've talked a lot about what a relationship intuitively means to us, and about how our modernistic mindset can cause us to wrongly perceive many 'normal healthy' aspects as imperfections. But we all know that there ARE real cognitive deviations and gaps in our relationship with God, things that should not be considered healthy. And often it can sure seem as if its the 'healthy aspects' of normal relationships that become the culprits. Using our example of progressive revelation, it is often the intrinsic bias in communication and cognition that leads to problems in our relationship with God - and yet we've discussed them as natural and healthy, and something God has deliberately designed. What is it that makes some 'imperfections' normal and healthy, and others problematic? What is God's purpose behind allowing 'gaps' in the experience of Him through relationship, when He knows they will often cause problems? If modernism is wrong and many gaps are actually healthy and good, can we find another way to talk about the reality of bad gaps, ones that are real deviations from God's ideal relationship?

I think we can :) Lets start with some definitions - these are entirely my own definitions, which I think are supported by Scripture, but they're open to debate in the comment section! 'Good' and 'Evil' are terms which describe the quality of the experience of God through relationship. God is intrinsically 'good', and everything else is 'good' to the degree that it brings about the experience of God. 'Evil' is any lack of 'good' i.e. any gaps in the experience of God's goodness. This makes sense from a more Jewish perspective as well, where 'good' and 'evil' refer to something close to 'function' and 'dysfunction'. If God's fundamental aim is for us to experience Him in a relationship of love, anything which fulfils this function (i.e. our experience of God's character through His expression) is 'good', while anything that does NOT fulfil this function is 'evil'. Evil is intimately linked to sin, because sin harms our experience of God through relationship. Because these things are tied to relationship, you can see that 'good' does NOT refer to an attainable 'full' end outcome, but rather to an ideal uninhibited experience of a process (the ongoing relationship). Even from an eternal perspective, the 'good' all things work toward is an ideal ongoing relationship with God. Likewise 'evil' refers to the inability to have this ideal uninhibited experience of the process of relationship.

Note that both of these terms are dependent on your perspective. From an eternal perspective, we know that ALL things work together for 'good' i.e. are functioning (ultimately) to enhance our experience of God through relationship, even if it is 'evil' from a temporal perspective. And this makes sense, since ultimately all things are in some way an expression of God and Christ, even if you think He is merely 'permitting' their existence. God says that He Himself performs 'evil', where the experience of God in relationship is clouded or confused in a temporal sense - and yet he also says that all His actions are 'good' in an eternal sense. Also, both of these definitions are dependent on our interpreted experience of God from various perspectives, NOT on how well God is actually expressing Himself (I'm sure He is never actually limited in the expression of Himself, even temporally). This is why some 'normal' aspects to relationships, like incomplete cognitive understandings and varied and incomplete expressions of God, can be perceived as 'evil' when occurring in specific contexts. Its not these healthy normal aspects that are the culprit per-se, but the entire context has led to an impaired experience of God, which means the whole situation can rightly be called 'evil'. I believe 'evil' will not exist in heaven, but this is not because I think relationships will fundamentally change - I still think God will express Himself in varied and incomplete ways, and that our cognitive understanding of God will be incomplete and growing. Evil ceases to exist in heaven, because God will express Himself in ways that He KNOWS we will experience clearly (in a temporal sense). In this life, 'evil' exists because God chooses to express Himself in ways that He KNOWS we will NOT interpret clearly, even though they ultimately work toward enhanced experience of relationship.

Scriptural 'gaps'

Its obvious at this point that Progressive Revelation ties into our discussion of 'evil'. From many perspectives it enhances our relational experience of God, and is clearly 'good'. But from some perspectives progressive revelation can also be called 'evil'. You've probably felt this already yourself, when considering the implication that God has deliberately introduced bias into our cognitive understanding AND into our morality . As I've discussed earlier, much cognitive bias is a normal part of healthy relationships, but in some contexts it can also function as an 'inhibition' of our experience of God through relationship, especially when we can sense the spirit-wrought ache in our hearts for a more accurate cognitive understanding. It is thus sometimes a temporal 'evil' designed by God as part of the 'good' of progressive revelation. The 'good' of progressive revelation becomes more obvious as the revelation accumulates to produce a more accurate picture, and as we learn things from God that would not make as much relational sense if not for the previous 'unbalanced' cognition, and as we realise the limited role cognition and communication can play in relationship anyway. We should experience these unbalanced views of God as part of the ongoing expression of our relational God - simultaneously acknowledging the 'evil' this can encourage / allow from our temporal perspective AND the 'good' from other perspectives.

Summary

Reality is not as idealistic as I've been suggesting in the series so far. 'Evil' refers to NON-healthy gaps in our experience of God through relationship. But its not a simple division between gaps which are 'evil', and gaps which are normal and 'good' (i.e. the nature of relationships and cognition and morality). These descriptions depend on your perspective, and since there are usually multiple appropriate perspectives, there is usually a mix of recognising 'good' and 'evil' in these gaps. And some apparently 'evil' aspects may in other contexts be considered normal and 'good' aspects to healthy relationships, and continue to exist in some form in heaven. Importantly, all forms of 'evil' are ultimately 'good' and serve to enhance our ultimate experience of God, because permitting their existence is still itself an expression of God, and He is ultimately good (which is why He works all things work together for good). Progressive revelation demonstrates this nicely, as this variously biased revelation - with all its 'problems' - is still 'God-breathed' and good and trustworthy as part of the expression of His character. 

Do you agree that morality should be relationship-based, and thus more flexible / pragmatic than mere legislation? 

Do you agree with my relational-experiential definition of 'evil' and 'good'? 

What do you think of the assertion that 'evil' is ultimately good (from an eternal perspective), and an expression of God? 

Would life or Scriptural interpretation be easier / better if things could be definitively  divided into 'good' and 'evil' categories, instead of being both from different perspectives?

Coming Soon...

• Next I'll explore how relationships deal with the 'evil' gaps we've just discussed - through 'faith'. This will open up some more possibilities to discuss, regarding what God is doing by deliberately creating / allowing these gaps (especially those we find in Scripture).  
• After that, I will have (almost) finished my defence of the bias God has created within Scripture :) And I can work toward positively addressing how God wants us to approach His Scriptures, given its divine inspiration, purpose, and 'gaps' / biases. 
• Then we'll  explore this in more detail over some of the phases of progressive revelation. 
• And then onto the practical implications of a  proper vs improper approach to Scripture.

The series so far:

1. Introduction
2. Progressive Revelation
3. Relationships and Cognition
4. Morality and Evil (this post)
5. Coping with Evil I
6. Coping with Evil II
7. How to Read

Faithfully Valuing the Limits of Scripture (PART 3 - RELATIONSHIPS)

Last post I used the example of progressive revelation as a sort of 'practice' engagement with the issues of faithful Scriptural interpretation, and being willing to reconsider our world-views. Progressive revelation suggests that God's purpose for Scripture may not be focused on perfect unbiased clear communication of cognitive knowledge. In fact, it demonstrates that God deliberately creates bias. This doesn't sit well with the modernistic components of our worldview, and so we tend to minimise this aspect of Scripture, and thus divert from a completely faithful approach to Scripture.

Next I want to start working through to the purpose of Scripture. But before we get to that, we need to explore what God's fundamental aim is in ALL His dealings with us. Often Christians use the same words to describe this topic, but haven't fully considered what these things really mean.

I'll always reiterate that my aim is not to challenge things for the sake of it. I just want us to be willing to challenge our worldview IF being truly faithful to Scripture and God requires it.

Background

First, some broad assumptions. I don't feel these need to be justified in this post, but feel free to use the comment section to disagree or help unpack these things more :) I think it is evident from Scripture and experience that God's fundamental aim in all things, is to express His character in as full and diverse a way as possible, so that other beings can immerse themselves in this expression and 'know' Him. Christ IS God, and contains the fullness of God as a person - something that all other expressions of God cannot come close to doing! In essence, then, all other expressions of God are actually expressions of Christ, and God's aim is that we experience and know Christ through them. This is true regardless of how clearly Christ has been cognitively identified as a distinct person - even in the Old Testament era, God's aim was for people to experience Him (which means experiencing Christ). 

Framed from our perspective, humanity's purpose has always been to experience Christ in a positive and reciprocal way - otherwise known as a relationship of love. This love involves an inclination of our heart toward enjoying this relational engagement with God's character (Christ), wrought by the Holy Spirit. God and Christ are unchanging, therefore the inclination of all God's people's hearts have been directed (by the holy spirit) toward the same person - despite the fact that the conscious experience / revelation of Christ's character varies enormously in its cognitive clarity. This is why Christ accused the Pharisees of not accepting Him - although they appeared to have the right relationship outwardly, they did not have the mark of the Spirit in their hearts - they did not love Christ unconsciously before He was revealed, and so they did not recognise or love Him when he was revealed. God wants us to have this relationship of love even when our conscious cognitive understanding of the details of this relationship are not clear. As it becomes clearer, we will rejoice because the relationship of love already exists in a less 'realised' form. 

But how exactly does a 'relationship of love' behave? What do we really mean when we talk about relationships? There are several interesting observations about relationships (as God's fundamental aim) that run against our 'modernistic' leaning to prioritise detailed cognitive information. Essentially, it makes no sense to conceive of a relationship in terms of a definable 'fullness' that we can attain to. To start with, relationships are ongoing - no amount of expression is enough for a person to have fully expressed themselves or been experienced by another. Also, the expressions and experiences of relationships are creative and dynamic - it is good for individual snapshots of a relationship to express varied aspects of the person rather than everything at once. Even focusing on the concept of 'fullness' in a relationship can be detrimental and insulting - we enjoy the interaction of friends or spouses in the moment, because it expresses who they are. Analysing the clarity of our perception of them through this experience misses the point entirely.  Finally, two people could potentially have the 'same' relationship with another person (i.e. two of my close friends, two of my brothers brothers, two of my elders, two children, two soccer opponents), and yet because each of THEM is different,  each relationship will look different. Even if I can't distinguish between the two relationships in terms of 'health' or 'fullness' or 'inferiority/superiority', the relationships will still be different (including the cognitive conscious interpretations). This isn't because each is imperfect - even in the theoretical (impossible) case where each person fully and accurately cognitively grasping me, the emphases and flow of awareness of each person's cognitive understanding of me will still be different. This isn't because each is incomplete, but because a static definable 'fullness' doesn't make sense, and so identical 'fullness' is impossible. It's just an integral positive aspect of what 'relationship' means. 

Cognition

Am I really saying that cognition is not very important to relationship, which is God's fundamental aim? Well, yes and no. To start with, there is dissonance between specific cognitive information and proper relationships, as discussed above. Cognition is merely one way to experience someone - just like no particular 'experience' or 'set of experiences' can define a relationship, so neither can a particular cognitive understanding. Even for God, complete intimate and perfectly accurate cognitive knowledge about someone (which I believe He has) does not mean He 'knows' a particular person in the sense that matters (He talks about 'never knowing' people who He casts out), and doesn't seem to be a big part of what He means when He does 'know' us this way. But on top of its problems integrating into relationships, cognition on its own can't even live up to what we expect of it, at least not for humans in this life. It is inherently inaccurate and extremely fallible due to both the inabilities of our mind AND due to deliberate strategies our minds employ! Our minds can only conceive of things that it has developed to be ABLE to conceive of - experience, background, developmental framework, personality and creativity types, what is suggested to us in the moment, all limit our abilities to actually think of or interpret certain things. Not only that, but our minds deliberately employ strategies that make life more efficient but extremely biased - e.g. confirmation bias. Our world-views, desires, existing understandings, etc ALL automatically / subconsciously heavily taint our interpretation of cognitive data - which is what they are designed to do, and which is what makes them useful in everyday life. 

God certainly has the ability to overcome and manipulate all of this as He sees fit when it comes to our theology, but experience and research suggest that He certainly does not do so within His church - we all still adopt a multitude of aspects in our worldview from our cultural surroundings which almost universally predict what our theology will be. And Scripture does not suggest God wants to manipulate this too much either - instead, the Spirit's primary activity seems to be in inspiring love in our hearts (as already discussed), and bringing the experience of the expression of Jesus to us in a more personal way. The Scriptural concept of 'mind' is actually closer to our modern idea of 'will' or 'intentions' or 'attitudes' than anything else, and not detailed cognitive information. And when Paul does speak of doctrine's importance, he uses much the same language as when he talks about works - important, but not God's fundamental aim or method. When we insist that God must routinely enable us to overcome our cognitive weaknesses when it comes to e.g. 'salvation doctrinal issues', we usually do this as a blatant attempt to protect our worldview (by maintaining the importance of detailed accurate cognitive information). God seems to have left us with a very flawed and tainted cognitive interpretation of our otherwise healthy Spirit-wrought relationship with Him - which, like everything He does, must be a deliberate decision for a good purpose. So particular accurate cognitive information is not as important to God as we tend to think. 

But I'm NOT saying that cognition as a process (fallibility and all) is unimportant to God. There are actually several ways that cognition is unique as a mode of experiencing someone, despite its limitations, and thus becomes uniquely  important. First of all, the process of cognition is still required for us to actually consider a relationship 'valid'. You can't enjoy and experience another person in relationship, when their expressions seem to you to be merely a bizarre set of unrelated random experiences. You must engage your cognition to form a picture (incomplete and evolving) of the other person. This picture also enables a relationship to persist when the experiences are limited in some way. And it enables us to grow in a relationship far beyond the concrete limits of our experience - We take our experiences and extrapolate back to what the person must (or could) be like, and where our relationship could take us, exploring this in our minds and 'experiencing' it in an abstract way. This cognitive picture has serious problems as mentioned above - but the process of engaging the cognition in this way is essential to relationships. Second, cognition is required for a relationship to mean anything to us. Relationships have qualities attached to them, like love and hate, which are necessarily driven to be expressed. This drive is partly experienced in our cognition, and requires the cognition to make deliberate decisions that express love or hate - if it is love, the drive is to seek further experiences of the other person, and to express yourself and your love back to them. If these drives are able to be expressed, the relationship quality is enhanced, otherwise it seems incomplete. Its not that you must cognitively understand what you love in detail, but love necessarily engages the cognition in its drive to express itself. This means love's expression may change as it 'discovers' itself more and more in a cognitive sense. 

Communication

Cognition has another purpose - it IS part of the expression of someone. For most of us it is a very inaccurate and distant window into our heart, but even God's perfect cognition is a poor representation of His heart - that's just the nature of cognition. But it is a window into the heart, an expression of the person, and so it is important in relationship to experience the other person's cognition. Which requires our cognition to function. The process of deliberately targeting the other person's cognition is called communication. This does not necessarily mean that the mode of communication is verbal or even cognitive, or that the ultimate distant aim is necessarily cognitive either. Communication is simply a means to an end through the use of targeting cognition.

Communication suffers from three extra steps of terrible and extremely variable accuracy when it comes to capturing cognition (EVEN IF the cognition of the author is 'perfect' in accuracy, like God's arguably is). The first step is translation of cognition into communication. Communication can NEVER capture the fullness of our cognition, because it would take years to do so in any 'language' (and I doubt any 'language' has the capacity to capture all the subtle nuances of cognition). Instead, communication must have specific prioritised cognitive targets and intended effects. The second step is the interpretation of communication, which obviously (naturally and appropriately) varies between different recipients. We NEED to introduce bias into our communication if we are to help another different cognition understand our cognition - and this should never apply equally to every individual. This means that IF we are attempting to generalise our communication, we must pay even more attention to prioritising our messages, accepting that efforts spent reinforcing one message to as many people as possible, will probably sometimes have opposing effects on other associated messages or on other individuals. The third step is the impact this cognition has on individuals - in terms of integration into their existing cognition, associated non-cognitive effects, interpretation of other associated cognitive messages, etc. This varies between individuals EVEN IF they all accurately interpret the intended cognitive message.  These three steps mean that communication can simply never be a 'pure' transmission of the authors cognition, and that biased interpretations MUST exist - but this is not a problem if this very bias works towards the best interpretation of the main intended message, or toward the main purpose.

God has also specifically elected to use communication (i.e. Scripture, prophecy, doctrines, prayers) as a one of the primary tools through which we interpret the hearts of others and reach out to them, and establish and grow a relationship of love with God. This does not necessarily mean that God has elected to use PURE communication toward these ends. I don't think this makes sense (as discussed above), but also progressive revelation deliberately included some very unbalanced cognitive presentations of God. God may wish one person to grasp a particular truth strongly at the expense of other truths, while he wishes something different from a different person. In fact, since God's intentions for Scripture are relational, He must have deliberately designed the particular pattern of bias in scripture for this purpose. The fact that a particular doctrine was useful for me at a particular point in time, to grow my relationship with God, does not mean it is the 'most accurate' or 'best' (in some other way) understanding of God, or that I will never change my beliefs to give my relationship better expression in the future. I may see flaws in a particular doctrine, but it may be just as true as my doctrine (just in a different way), and it may spring from a heart that is more established in a loving relationship with God than mine - making that 'wrong' doctrine fulfil its purpose better than mine. Just like our highly fallible interpretation of works and fruit are a useful but dirty window into another's heart, so too are our highly fallible interpretation of another person's doctrines. 

Summary

You can see that I'm contrasting two things here: the spiritual relationship of love is the important underlying reality. Whereas cognition (the conscious reception of God's expression) is a dim (but important) reflection of this love. We don't have to properly understand this love in order for it to exist - and some of the improper aspects to our cognition are deliberately designed by God, which must fit with His fundamental aim of relationship with Him. Cognition & communication have many flaws and fallibilities by virtue of their very nature, and are never intended as full encapsulation of the relationship. Instead they are meant to be based upon the relationship, partial expressions of the relationship, and dirty windows into the spiritual relational realities occurring in our hearts.

Comments? Questions? Please discuss below :) Do you agree that relationship is God's fundamental aim? Do you agree with my description of relationships? Are there other ways that our cognition is meant to function in relationship? Are there other limitations to our cognition or communication? 

Coming Soon...

• Next week I'll quickly talk about morality as very similar to communication - a flawed but important expression of cognition (itself a flawed but important expression of a person). I would have slotted it in here, but the post got too long!
• After that we get a bit more theological and discuss why God allows bias and ambiguity and confusion about His nature. This is, after all, something I keep insisting He is doing deliberately. This discussion will specifically re-address progressive revelation, but will also expand to the general problem of evil. I'll also (hopefully, space-allowing) talk a little about how faith relates to this fundamental love relationship (as I've been calling it).
• After that I think we'll be ready to summarise how God intends for us to approach Scripture. And then we can explore this in more detail over some of the phases of progressive revelation. 
• Then we can talk about the Jewish and Christian MIS-approach to Scripture and the problems its created. And the inverse implications that properly approaching Scripture can have. 
• Finally we can discuss some contemporary issues with this approach to Scripture in the back of our minds, to see how it informs our discussion and approach.

The series so far:

1. Introduction
2. Progressive Revelation
3. Relationships and Cognition (this post)
4. Morality and Evil
5. Coping with Evil I
6. Coping with Evil II
7. How to Read