Faithfully Valuing the Limits of Scripture (PART 5 - COPING WITH EVIL I)

So far we've discussed that God uses cognitive biases (which many of us, with out modernistic worldview, would label 'errors') in his progressive revelation as he works toward his ultimate aim of relationship with us. Relationships include inevitable and healthy ‘gaps’ and ‘excesses’  of experience (and cognition). But some of the gaps God allows go beyond this to create 'evil effects' of limiting our experience of God BEYOND these normal and healthy experiences of relationship. In this post I want to talk about how our relationship copes with such messiness. And we'll start to think about why God allows gaps and cognitive 'errors' that he knows will have negative effects.

Love becomes Faith

In the face of these gaps of experience, our relationship takes a form known as faith. We go on seeking and living out the relationship, even while we are temporarily deprived of the experience of the relationship{1,2}. Faith has all the usual characteristics of a relationship. And as a relationship it needs a basis, which include all forms of experience (e.g. Scripture communication, the Holy Spirit's inner witness, The human character of Jesus, our experience of God through other people and events, reason and science, etc). It is not necessarily about any particular accurate cognitive view of the person we're relating to, but it nevertheless engages our whole being (including the process of cognition), and all experiences of the person (including cognitive understanding) will strengthen the relationship. Faith then uses the grounds it has, to bridge the relational gaps we are faced with, persisting when the relational experience is impaired. Faith thus simultaneously co-exists with both the grounds of the relationship AND the ongoing doubt and uncertainty. 

There are multiple ways to describe how faith uses its existing relational strength to bridge gaps. It can remember God's universal goodness expression which must pervade even the 'evil' we are facing (treating 'evil' as ultimately a matter of temporal perspective). It can grapple more intimately with what God's good purposes for these gaps might be. Specific answers can even be an experience of God which subsequently strengthens the relationship and faith. Faith can also remember that God’s ultimate solution to evil is an actual change in reality, not just in our minds - and so faith can work concretely to oppose evil, attempting to be the means by which God expresses Himself in these gaps. Faith doesn’t necessarily consciously engage in all these methods – it is a relationship, and so it will express itself in unique strengths and weaknesses. We can tend to react to some legitimate expressions of faith (within us or within others) as if they are actually opposed to faith, and squelch them in favour of our preferred expressions of faith. ‘Submitting to God’s will in suffering’, ‘questioning God’, and ‘fighting suffering’ may sometimes spring from a lack of faith (in which case they need redeeming by a right relationship with God), but often they can simply the unbalanced form a healthy faith naturally takes in the face of evil. We need to encourage our faith to express itself in all these ways in order for the relationship to flourish maximally in the face of evil{3,4}.

'Questioning' and working concretely against the 'gaps' created by the complexities of Scripture can likewise be an expression of faith, just like how faith deals with evil. And we can squelch faith (in ourselves or others) by squelching particular modes of its expression. It is common practice to focus on techniques and strategies that distance us from the reality and weight of the uncomfortable aspects of Scripture, making it easier for us to dismiss them without engaging in other full flourishing-faith dealings (e.g. emphasising the harmony of Scripture, and engaging in rhetoric which belittles claims to the complexity of Scripture). These uncomfortable aspects of scripture are real and weighty and deserve a proper dealing{5}. 

God's purposes for Evil

So if faith grapples intimately with the specific good purposes God has for allowing 'evil gaps', what kinds of answers can it come up with? The first purpose to think about, is that evil allows relationships to take the form of faith. This is important because Faith (when understood as above) is the most undeniable demonstration of a relationship possible. Faith demonstrates the authenticity and health of a love relationship because the relationship it is based on persists even if the desired experiences are not there. Our responses to gaps reveal where our heart really lies - the degree of distress at gaps reveals the value of what is now lacking, and the degree of relational resilience DESPITE these gaps reveals the strength of relationship{6}. 

Progressive revelation allows for the demonstration of faith by leaving us with cognitive questions and challenges, with grey zones and apparent conflicts. How we navigate these based on our relationship to the person of Jesus, and not based on a commitment to a set of rigid interpretations of particular aspects of revelation, reveals our faith.

I’ve run out of room for this post, so the other two purposes for evil will have to wait for next post (allowing the full varied expression of God, and directly causing specific historical or character development effects). These are also important for faith to consider as it wrestles with God's purposes for evil and progressive revelation.

Summary

Faith is the form a relationship with God takes when there are experiential gaps in that relationship ('evil'), including the difficult aspects of progressive revelation. A healthy faith will deal with these things in multiple ways - one of which is to wrestle with God's purposes for evil and provide potential answers. One answer is that evil provides opportunity for relationships to take the form of faith, which is important to God.

What do you think of this relational definition of faith? Does it fit with Scripture?

How do you think faith ought to respond to evil and difficult aspects of Scripture / revelation? What do you think of the concept of 'questioning God' in a positive way, as opposed to the Devil's way?

Do you agree with that one purpose for evil is to allow the expression of faith? 

How do you think our faith is meant to interact with God's secret will when it comes to actively opposing 'evil'?

Coming Soon...

• Next post I'll discuss the other two major purposes for evil and progressive revelation. 
• After that I've got a couple of other interesting properties of progressive revelation to talk about, including our modernistic OVER-estimation of the bias that exists in progressive revelation. 
• Then I can finally summarise how I think God actually wants us to approach Scripture, how to practically use it faithfully in our relationship with God while still valuing those aspects we've been discussing that can seem uncomfortable and confusing! And then we can explore some practical implications.

The series so far:

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

Footnotes:

1 - This definition of faith fits well with Scripture. It explains why faith is the 'substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen' - it IS the manifestation of a relationship that has real substance, but is nevertheless 'hoped for' and 'not seen'. It explains why God must first call people with experience before faith can arise. It explains why many of the qualities of faith in God (including exclusive rewards like grave and salvation) are also ascribed to individual components of this relationship (like love, humility, wisdom, obedience). It explains why sin (NOT living in a love relationship with God) is naturally opposed to faith, and why faith results in sanctification. It explains why faith is a constant integral part of our relationship with God here on earth, but disappears in heaven (by way of graduation to a form without ‘evil’ experiential gaps). It explains why faithful saints can still powerfully express strong doubts and wrestle with God.

2 - This description of faith still encompasses the more specific 'faith' we can have in particular promises or blessings. Technically according to Scripture we should not 'have faith for’ any particular blessing, but we can have faith in God’s goodness and faithfulness to His promises. This alters our hope / assurance / expectation / confidence regarding specific blessings - they can exist on a spectrum from possible to very likely to absolutely certain, depending on the context and God’s revelation on the matter.

3 - Faith which works to concretely oppose evil may seem at odds with a faith which submits to God's purposes in evil. But this is not necessarily true. Firstly, faith must express itself because it is relational - even if it cognitively understands that God has purposes for evil, our desire for the ultimate solution God promises (a changed reality in the new heaven and earth) MUST express itself in working toward this. Building on this, one of God’s purposes for evil IS to allow faith to express itself in this way - so God's purpose for evil may well include its defeat by the very faith it encourages. God may make it clear to us if He has other ongoing purposes for evil that require its ongoing existence – but many times, God wants both the demonstration of our faith AND the ongoing existence of that evil, in which case He keeps simultaneously encouraging our faith and thwarting faith’s efforts to defeat the evil.

4 - Also worth noting is that these abstract / concrete reactions of faith toward gaps, are also reactions our relationship can have on behalf of others. Our relationship with God is not self-centred, but God-centred - and as such, we seek ongoing experiences for ourselves AND for others. When others relationships are taking the form of faith and wrestling with gaps, we will bear their burdens and help them wrestle in abstract and concrete ways with these gaps.

5 - Some worry that wrestling with and questioning God's revelation is a lack of faith because this is what the devil tried to get Adam and Eve to do – but their ‘bad’ questioning was aimed at pushing the boundaries of God's revelation as far as possible in order to satisfy their own curiosity and independence and desires. Faith’s aim is to pursue a relationship with God. Some also worry about concretely working to oppose the 'evil' of the uncomfortable complexities of progressive revelation - as if this implies a deficiency in God's expression Himself. Faith views it instead as a designed opportunity to exercise itself - obviously valuing God's chosen expression, but seeking a more desirable relational state without as many 'gaps'. It utilises 'secular' disciplines (such as science, archeology, linguistics, history, logic and philosophy) to do so. All our efforts - as with our efforts to oppose generic 'evil' - are sincere but flawed. We rely on God to either work alongside us with His power, or to clarify our limits (as He has done by banning tampering with his revelation), or to simultaneously encourage and thwart our ongoing efforts.

6 - Obviously this is highly contextual - sometimes faith might be only mildly distressed at financial strife, because what ultimately matters is the relationship with God, which is persisting despite this 'gap', and is probably being experienced in a myriad of other ways. This same faith might be more distressed by more direct reflections of the relationship (e.g. besetting sin, a difficult ethical problem, or a lack of access to Scripture or fellowship). Or the financial hardship may become so pressing that our human minds simply cannot focus to appreciate the other more direct expressions of God, so that the immediate problem BECOMES the most direct relational expression of God that is possible in the circumstances - in this case, although the relationship continues to persist in the form of faith, there will obviously be a greater degree of distress.

Musings on Vaccines

The vaccine debate is important to me. 

I have spent a considerable amount of my time, money, and energy to train and work as a doctor, largely because I genuinely care about helping people, especially those who are most disadvantaged (i.e. children from poor minority-ethnic families). Generally speaking, I am persuaded that  vaccines are one of the best means to this end. The vaccine debate is about more than just vaccines though. Its about how we as Christians interact with the health-care system, indeed with any secular system. I think more damage than good has resulted from those who are publicly anti-vaccine, and even MORE damage results from those displaying unhelpful attitudes (even if their vaccine-specific rhetoric is more 'moderate').

Below are some of my musings :) 

Just a few points to note before we begin. Obviously there are legitimate concerns about vaccines (and about the secular health-care system) that need acknowledging and addressing. And despite (mostly) exemplary motives, the health care professions do frequently fall short of the high ethical and communication standards society sets for them. And Christians do have a complex mix of responsibilities that are difficult to balance - which includes a responsibility to think and act differently within the world. This is far from a complete discussion on vaccines, and my aim is mainly to provide some balance to some specific biases I believe already exists. So I won't be delving into the legitimate concerns I acknowledge above - but I'm happy to discuss them if they become relevant in the comments. Also, these musings belong to me and do not officially represent any professional consensus (though I think it closely matches the medical consensus). 

I would like to see a robust discussion in the comments! We're all in need of ongoing learning, and even if our beliefs remain unchanged, I would like us all to become more understanding and empathetic of those who disagree with us. 

Ultimately I just want Christians to be able to navigate this issue well, while remaining Christlike, and without damaging the health of the most vulnerable in society.

NO 'BENIGN' POSITIONS

Refusing vaccines and promoting refusal is not a benign 'natural' decision - just like 'vaccines' are reported to do, refusal has potential to contribute to diseases and death in children, particularly amongst the most deprived. We can't hide behind the excuse of 'not rushing into an unjustified decision', since both are decisions claiming huge consequences. 

And we can't hide behind our individual isolated 'rights' to choose - we also have ethical responsibilities to those around us. The effects of vaccine refusal on our community is not spread by disease, but by rhetoric and attitude as well - and so our responsibilities to others require us to take all these things seriously.

INFORMED RISK-TAKING

We all take informed risks all the time (think about driving a car). Acknowledging risk in no way makes a decision a bad one. And 'risk' has a pretty broad definition when it comes to contemplating different choices - this is important to remember when considering the alternatives to a choice that is deemed risky (i.e. taking vaccines, or driving a car). The 'risk' of NOT driving your car, for example, includes having less time free to work and play and do household chores, and being unable to attend your favourite band's concert in a neighbouring city. Refusing vaccines carries its own risks - not only to you, but to others - and not only of risk of disease, but of spreading ideas and attitudes and rhetoric. People have a right to make their own choice between the various risks, and other members of their community also has the right to ask them to behave in a way which (they think) maximises the wellbeing of the community.

We should never take any risks based on fear or pressure, even if your decision may happen to line up with what's best - don't take vaccines based on fear, but equally don't avoid vaccines based on fear. The motivation behind the legal requirement to interview adolescents away from their parents, and parents away from each other or their midwife / friends etc, is to remove very common external pressures. Its the motivation for 'probing' into the reasons for refusal. People are rarely emotionally coerced into choosing vaccines (though it does occasionally happen, unfortunately) - but this is a common reason for refusal. Obviously it is difficult to achieve freedom from emotional coercion - while still providing information - when one believes there are serious risks behind various choices. But we need to try.

GETTING INFORMATION

The best chance of making an informed decision about risk, is to trust the summaries provided by those who have trained hardest to interpret the evidence and provide such summaries, and who are genuinely motivated by your wellbeing without being too emotionally attached. 

Extensive training is required to make any progress in avoiding our ingrained human biases and interpreting evidence properly. Even with extensive training, it is a headache to navigate these turbulent waters. Its not a simple matter to 'reading' studies or personal anecdotes. We are designed to jump to conclusions quickly, and from that point on to doggedly (subconsciously) interpret the world in a way that supports our conclusions. We can be drastically unreasonable about this. We can't avoid it altogether (doctors suffer from the same human condition), but at least we can minimise it through training, and through maintaining some level of emotional objectivity.

Attempts at providing information for informed risk-taking should avoid the converse problem of information overload. If doctors find it difficult to interpret that evidence, how do we expect those without training - or those with emotional investments - to do so properly? Often people react to this overload by making a decision they deem as a 'natural middle ground' - which actually means sticking with their pre-existing position i.e. vaccine refusal. 

This is why doctors find it difficult to provide 'evidence' for vaccines to concerned parents. The evidence is not simple to navigate (anyone who claims otherwise is lying), but this doesn't mean that conclusions can't be drawn which are overwhelmingly supported. And they have to navigate parental emotional investment, an inclination to refuse vaccines when faced with information overload, and powerful vaccine-refusing rhetoric (claiming that their evidence IS straightforward).

'EXPERIMENTAL' MODERN MEDICINE

The supposed tension between 'modern experimental' medicine and 'alternative' medicine is an illusion - all foods, drugs, and treatments have a degree of uncertainty associated with their effects, but this doesn't mean reasonable conclusions can't be drawn from the evidence. Honesty about the evidence is what leads doctors to recommend what has come to be known as 'modern Western' medicine, over alternatives - there's just more evidence available for the former. Our conclusions about modern medicine are actually more robust than those that can be formed about alternative approaches to health - even IF those conclusions end up being are a complex mix of negative and mildly positive effects. This doesn't mean we've found the best treatments - it just means that, with the greater body of evidence, we can make more certain claims. Homeopathy and vaccine refusal may end up with greater health benefits than vaccines, but they can't meaningfully talk about it because they don't have as much data. Unfortunately money does drive most research, so it is difficult to gather data about treatments that can't be patented - but this doesn't change the fact that we have a better chance of being right about our conclusions regarding modern treatments, than about any claims from alternative medicine. 

Money can cause most people (not only doctors, but alternative treatment proponents as well) to become untrustworthy, including doctors. NZ has one of the least medical biased systems in the world precisely because the money side of things is removed from the picture. The politicians deal with money and advertising and purchasing. This means doctors are restricted in which treatments they can offer, but this is a reasonable sacrifice for the benefit of being free from monetary pressure and advertising bias. We are free to act based on our genuine concern for people's welfare. This is why we recommend vaccines. There is nothing more sinister going on - for most of us as individuals, anyway. 

NEGATIVE EFFECTS

The 'side effects' of vaccines have always been exaggerated - but they are gradually getting minimised by the accumulation of evidence. By far the majority of concerns regarding vaccines have been systematically and thoroughly disproven as we gather more data, and the position in favour of vaccines becomes stronger and stronger. There are still some unanswered questions and uncertainty - particularly surrounding newer vaccines - but the track record of allaying fears is encouraging.

Studies that demonstrate side-effects are often poorly designed to produce bias. Or, when incorporated into the big picture of all the OTHER evidence available, they don't produce significant results. Many of the studies are also taken out of context and interpreted in a way that was never intended - for example, most countries have a system for reporting adverse effects to medicines and vaccines. Even when legally 'mandatory', the data collected is still ultimately volunteered by health professionals or patients - so the system is automatically biased to collect data confirming patient's suspicions. There are no measures in place to confirm the validity of this reporting, or to discover the 'real' incidence of such 'adverse effects' in the vaccinated / unvaccinated populations. These systems can highlight areas for further robust research, but they can't produce conclusions on their own because of the rampant bias.

An important consideration is incidental correlation (as opposed to causation). People really do just randomly die, have seizures, develop influenza, get early menopause, have headaches and nausea, etc - all for no apparent reason. A certain proportion of vaccine takers will also have these things, but not caused by the vaccine. But those that occur after vaccines will get noticed, remembered, and reported (unlike many of the others). This is especially true for childhood vaccines, which are given around the time that such symptoms / effects can become obvious (e.g. learning disabilities, epilepsy, etc), leading to the assumption that the vaccine was causal.

Vaccines can contain heavy metals, but at lower concentrations than many foods. They contain immune-stimulating molecules (some call these 'toxins'), but vastly fewer than what babies encounter through their normal external environment. Very few vaccines have any link to human embryos, but some do require normal human cells to culture - these cells are almost always obtained from replication after replication stemming back to two aborted foetuses decades ago. They are normal human cells, the don't make their way into the finished vaccine product, and no further embryos are aborted for vaccine development or research.

HPV VACCINE

There has been recent debate over the HPV vaccine, a relatively new vaccine which differs to most others in that it doesn't prevent a nasty childhood disease. It prevents infection with the HPV virus - a sexually-transmitted virus which is the major cause of cervical cancer. So the vaccine prevents adult cancer which is typically seen as a consequence of behavioural choices - hardly the virtuous image of vaccines we typically recognise. Because it is new, we have less data available for this vaccine than for other vaccines. And we are still learning (as we should) about the full effect of the vaccine - both positive and negative.

Some take issue with the idea that children are vaccinated to prevent an STD. Why assume they will contract the disease? Why not aim for abstinence until marriage instead? However, HPV is NOT a disease only of sexual license - any number of partners >1 can pass it on (and likely will, given that most people are infected). It can also be passed on without sexual contact. And multiple 'partners' doesn't necessarily equal immorality - think of divorcees, remarried widows, victims of abuse, and those used to live in sin but have now repented. Its not that we're questioning a child's morals - we're trying to protect them from future worry.

NZ cervical cancer rates are very high (internationally speaking). While the numbers may seem small, the risk of cancer needs contextualising - its higher than the risk of dying on our roads. This priority of cervical cancer probably resulted in more 'rush' for the HPV vaccine than for other drugs/vaccines. But this doesn't make the rush unreasonable - we just need to inform parents that there's slightly more uncertainty about its effects.

CHRISTIAN ATTITUDES

Christians are called to love, gentleness, submission, grace, humility, and a focus on the good God has preserved in society. Whereas in-submission, speaking your mind too quickly, being prideful about your viewpoint, and not giving people the benefit of the doubt is seen as anti-Christian. There's no simple formula about how to integrate these things with our commands to be wise and to stand against injustice and societal evils. But its something we should feel the weight of. This should come through our discussions.

The rhetoric I hear around vaccines all too often demonstrates the opposite - we don't 'feel the weight' of getting our attitudes right. We just blurt our minds out. We just assume we (somehow) know better. We automatically distrust others. We are happy to use misleading rhetoric (choice of words, selective reporting of facts, distraction techniques, etc) to maximise the powerful effect of our opinions till it is way out of proportion to what they deserve. For example, doctors aren't out to 'bully' you into taking vaccines, or to 'experiment on little girls' - we genuinely want to help. But stating the facts (we try to talk to pre-sexual girls away from their parents about the vaccine in order to minimise emotional coercion) just doesn't have the emotional impact. Would Christ be pleased with such rhetoric? Does it display Christ-like attitudes? I don't think so.

What frustrates me most is that displaying these opinions on the internet contributes to much of the devastation I have to deal with daily, and makes it more frustrating and difficult because the people I'm trying to help don't trust me. Those most affected by these opinions are the poor and disadvantaged - something people often don't realise when they make such statements.

Obviously I need to have the same attitudes in my promoting of vaccines. That's something I'm working on :) Hopefully the discussion in the comments below will be help!

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

Calvinism’s Scriptural and Philosophical Problems - Part 4

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 

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Introduction

After spending some time on Arminianism, which tends to represent the power that mankind has through Freewill, we will now look at a belief that rather contrasts it. Calvinism is basically where God is so sovereign over everything that He even predestines whether we are saved and whether we are not. As Calvin and Hobbes illustrates, predestination can be a scary thought; and as we explore Calvinism, we find likewise that there is much in its narrative that can make us feel uneasy. Modern Calvinism, like Arminianism, is a popular belief in Christianity and has many variants, which range from low Calvinism to Hyper Calvinism (http://www.puritanboard.com/f15/where-you-calvinism-chart-20840/). I will seek to address Calvinism as a collective rather than focusing on its variants due to it having much in common. The five points of Calvinism will provide us with the basic overview of Calvinistic beliefs (http://www.graceonlinelibrary.org/reformed-theology/arminianism/calvinism-vs-arminianism-comparison-chart/). The five points that contrast the five Arminian points are:

-    Total Inability or Total Depravity - This concept emphasises mankind’s subjection to evil and their inability to redeem themselves from it. Even the desire to be delivered from evil is not necessarily within mankind. Many verses suggest this concept such as Jeremiah 17:9 which states that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”

-   Unconditional Election - In opposition to Arminism’s point where mankind is FREE to choose God and contribute towards the salvation process, the Calvinist side states that mankind cannot come to salvation without God’s initiation. The emphasis is on God’s CHOICE on who to save and has nothing to do with man’s generation of faith toward God. God is the one who gifts faith, and therefore mankind is not the one who originally provides it. Due to Total Depravity, mankind has no merit that would cause God to choose one person over another - there are no conditions. God chooses whom He chooses according to His plan. It is solely by God’s sovereign grace that He chooses certain individuals to be saved.

-    Particular Redemption or Limited Atonement - Christ’s death, and therefore salvation, only has an EFFECT on those who are chosen by God to receive it. Although many Calvinists believe that Christ’s death is sufficient for all, they believe there is no general atonement effective for all mankind. People cannot access Christ’s atonement of their own accord but a limited number are chosen by God. God gives the faith necessary to accept the atonement of the cross.

-      The Efficacious Call of the Spirit or Irresistible Grace - This is concerning the call of the Spirit. There are two types of calling to salvation. The first calls people generally, such as the preaching of the gospel, which can be resisted. The other calling is where the Holy Spirit calls inwardly to those who are chosen by God. The latter call is irresistible and therefore results in the salvation of those whom God choses to call inwardly.

-    Perseverance of the Saints - On this point, Calvinists agree with some Arminianists that salvation is permanent. There is no chance of falling away. Thus, those who are chosen by God, persevere without the possibility of falling away.

It is worth mentioning that some people only adhere to some of the five points of Calvinism, but I will leave that to one side for the purpose of this post.

General Framework

Calvinists still have the same general Biblical framework as Arminianism but differ on the process (which we shall see further along). For example, they believe in the fall of man and the Biblical narrative of moving towards and completing God’s master plan. This plan was to send His Son Jesus Christ to pay the price for mankind’s sin and draw them to Himself. So Calvinism falls very much into a Christian theology like Arminianism.

Calvinist ideas can vary according to the different nuances they hold, but they have the same underlying current in their thought. Some Calvinists believe in the “kind” gesture offering where God calls literally ALL mankind to salvation and desires all mankind to be saved, but God values some other (unknown?) higher priority or reason other than effectually saving all people. Arminianists are similar in that they do not believe that God will save everyone, because He considers His adherence to Freewill greater than His desire to save all people (1 Timothy 2:4). I am not actually certain what the Calvinist big picture is that could warrant not saving everyone, but one suggestion I have heard is that evil must continue to exist as an example of sin and justice – if one cannot comprehend or experience evil, then how will one know what good is? Calvinism emphasises that grace and therefore salvation from this evil is given to a few rather than to the many. Even Matthew seems to claim it – “Many are called but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14). In both paradigms of Arminianism and Calvinism, God actively chooses not to save some people. Ultimately, the Calvinist paradigm says that God is on the throne and He is sovereign to do as He wishes, and Arminianism suggests that God’s hands are tied behind His back and so He has handed mankind’s destiny over to themselves.

A denial of Freewill and an emphasis on Free Agency

Some Calvinists tend to deny Freewill and rather see people as being Free Agents. Free Agency means that people are who they are; people are not free to decide what their will is to be, but they are free to act out what their will is. Their will is subject to and intimately connected with their nature (how they were originally made to be). It is to be noted that Calvinists can claim Freewill in some aspects, but deny that this Freewill has any ultimate ability to choose God without God’s assistance. For the purpose of this post, I will address Calvinist thought from a Free Agency perspective because I believe this best addresses the issues at hand.

Scriptural Attraction

The attraction to Calvinism has a scriptural basis. Calvinism adheres to verses such as the ones I have already mentioned earlier in Part Two which point out God’s sovereignty over our lives. Here are some verses Calvinists hinge their beliefs on: In Calvinism, God gifts to each a measure of faith, therefore mankind doesn’t generate their own faith (Romans 12:3). This is important because Hebrews tells us that without faith it is impossible to please God. Romans 9 also is a chapter that seems to support Calvinism where God is situated as the potter and we are the clay. The potter shapes and we respond. He makes some vessels for wrath and destruction, and some into beautiful vases. Calvinism also emphasises the predestination of God’s choice regarding who will be the elect (Romans 8, Ephesians 1). To a Calvinist, God is the initiator of salvation, not man. He opens mankind’s eyes, they do not open their own - John 6:44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.” The logical conclusion of Calvinism is that of recognising that God is sovereign in all aspects of reality. Many years ago I remember hearing R.C. Sproul Jr saying that if we truly understood the very first of the Bible “In the beginning God…” then we would all be happy Calvinists. Why? Because this verse states that everything that exists comes from God. God is the Creator and He does not give up His sovereignty.

Consequential Comfort

Calvinists tend to enjoy the idea that God is Sovereign over everything and this ultimately gives comfort. God being sovereign leads to believers having surety that He will keep them as His. The changes that He requires in them, He will do. They do not need to stress about their ability to become like Christ, because He will do the work in them. I am not saying that Calvinists do not believe in wanting to or trying to become like Christ, but that they do not need to worry about falling away. The attractiveness of Calvinism is that it gives God more power in everything that happens. To the Calvinist, God can be relied upon, instead of worrying about the outcome of our lives.

River Analogy

A helpful way of looking at Calvinism would be to use the drowning man in the river analogy mentioned in an earlier post. Joshua Griffiths, a good friend of mine, came up with the idea that a Calvinist would tend to see salvation like a man drowning in a river who is powerless to save himself. He is even unable to grab hold of a rope that is thrown to him. He is so delirious that he does not even want to. God would need to jump into the river, give him a shot of adrenaline, wake him up and swim with him to shore. The Calvinist would say that he did not choose to be saved but God placed a desire within him to be saved, thus persevering to shore with God’s strength. Arminianism contrasts this scenario by suggesting that the drowning man of his own accord saw the merit in grabbing the rope and in the end allowed God to pull him to shore.

Criticisms of Calvinism

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The Elite and the Excluded

The criticisms of Calvinism that I have are from a scriptural and a philosophical angle. As the Arminians point out, the scriptures talk of God holding mankind as responsible for their own actions, and His anger is lit against them to the point of eternal separation (some say even “eternal conscious torment”) or even annihilation. Yet in Calvinism, mankind has no option to choose salvation, only the few elite that God has chosen. The “many” who are left behind may be able to consider being saved, but ultimately due to Free Agency and Total Depravity they will always be separated from God. This thinking leads me to a moral criticism. If God expects people to act a certain way and gets upset that they do not (when they are unable to), His expectations are obviously far above people’s abilities. Not only this, but He gets so upset that He ultimately punishes them with eternal separation from Himself. To me, this does not fit the character of God that the Bible reveals to us. Any father who banishes his child forever from His sight because his child made a wrong choice, even though he had no real choice, would be a horrendous father. In Calvinism, the separation of a group of people from Himself is sometimes seen to serve as an example of evil for the benefit of the few chosen. To me this turns God into an arbitrary monster, loving some and not others for some reason that no one can truly clarify why. If someone could come up with a good reason for God rejecting and sacrificing the majority for the sake of a few as part of a big “glorious” narrative, then I am all ears. However, as of yet, there is no cognitive reason that I see in the narrative that the Bible provides that would allow God to act in a Calvinist paradigm, especially according to the Biblical value placed on human responsibility and the expectation to act a certain way.

A Call to Love

As hard as it may be to accept the idea that we are expected to obey God and yet cannot, it gets worse. Under the Calvinistic paradigm, God expects us to love and value Him. However, Calvinism’s narrative also makes it very difficult to love or value God. At this moment, I cannot see how I could truly love and value a God who picks and chooses between people based on no apparent conditions, i.e. arbitrarily. To put it mildly, it would be like a child trying to love a father who permanently picks and chooses between His favoured and disfavoured children in the family for eternity. The child who is chosen by the father may for a moment be able to reciprocate the love the father shares with him. However, the child may look at his sister and ask why the father chose to love him instead of her. It seems unjust. Rather, throughout His Word, God often (if not always) appeals to past good works He has done for people in order to evidence why they should follow Him. He is appealing to them to understand that He is good to them, and that He is not just the God who whimsically or arbitrarily does as He pleases.

Death’s Persistent Sting

Another philosophical problem I have with Calvinism is that God detests evil and yet allows it to exist in the majority of his creation for all of eternity! Not only this, but God claims to have created man in His own image. I realise there is much ambiguity as to what this means but by principle if God created man in His own image, then how can man be forever estranged from their Creator, living under an entirely different image? Even if man was annihilated (as in Annihilationism), there would have been in existence an “image” of God in the creation of man where a man had no potential good in him worth saving. This brings me to a further thought; If God created this universe to be “good” and even called it “good”, how on earth (literally) did it go “bad”? Since He called it “good”, one would expect it to be “good” with no existing or potential evil. However, He planned for evil or at least knew that it would become evil. According to Calvinism, the evil that came after God had called creation good became a large part of creation. Paul’s question of “death where is your sting?” might be a boast about his own salvation from death, but the majority of humanity are subjected by God to receive for eternity this sting, or at least until annihilation. The evil in a Calvinist narrative is not merely temporary in the lives of the human populace, but exists permanently in the majority of mankind.

Calvinist Sovereignty is not Comforting

One of the values that many Calvinists seem to find comforting is the idea that God is in control of where their lives are going. For me this is not comforting. Why? Because under a Calvinist paradigm only a few are saved – thus my chances of salvation are rather slim. My chances and my neighbour’s chances of being rescued from our sins is more or less a lottery to us, and the chances are actually against us. I have no confidence that God will work out my life for good.

From my perspective on scripture, I also question the very concept of “once saved, always saved”. Many strong scriptures point towards the ability for mankind to come to and also fall away from God. The scenario of the olive tree in Romans 11 seems to be rather clear about that. Some people who were a part of the Olive tree were actually cut off and a warning given to us who had been grafted in! In John 15 where Jesus prunes off the branches which do not bear fruit seems to be an indication of the very real ability to lose our place within Christ. I realise the scenarios given include “if’s”, but the warning is real I believe, especially because some natural branches were actually cut off. The “comforting” idea behind God’s sovereignty over our decisions in a Calvinistic paradigm is not comforting, but rather troublesome and promotes worry. God has given no revealed reason to choose or not to choose me or my neighbour for salvation.    

Denied Pleasure

If God is the most desirable, fulfilling Being that provides “real” happiness in the universe, then Calvinism does not allow for this mind-set. If people in total depravation do not desire God or desire to be saved then technically they desire something else. From their perspective they are “happier” than if they were submitted to God. This means they have found pleasure that is greater than God. What if they technically would be happier and more fulfilled in a relationship with God, but do not realise that God could provide that happiness? Then God would be withholding that pleasure at the same time as blaming the majority for failing to grab hold of it. In Calvinism, I feel that the joy about us having found the greatest joy is taken away, because with thought we realise that it is not that simple. I would feel uncomfortable celebrating my joy in finding Christ my Saviour once realising that the majority people out there will be left without finding that joy in God. Not only this but the joy is not merely something that they reject, but joy that God actively prevents them from finding. They forever look over the treasure that the man “lucky” enough to have found it buried in the field (Matthew 13:44)                    

Calvinism is not all Unfavourable

Some who hold the Calvinistic viewpoint have good intentions that aim to put God back on the throne in a big way. They try to emphasise the “surety” they have in Christ’s work within themselves. Some try to sugar coat the Calvinistic paradigm by talking about the “kind gesture” of Christ’s offering of salvation to all (John 3:16). Yet these nuances are emphasised to make the appeal of Calvinism palatable, and I hope this write up would have assisted us to look at Calvinism’s core issues in a fuller light.

Summary

A key motivation of Calvinism is that it seeks to put God on the throne and places the power of man’s choice in subjection to God’s will. This appeals to those who hold Calvinistic beliefs for many reasons. The scriptures speak of God’s absolute power and sovereignty over mankind. The same scriptures are not only clear about this but also tend to make logical sense. Calvinism also claims to provide some personal comfort for those wanting to follow Christ. These reasons open up many criticisms, some of which I covered in this post. Calvinism creates a compulsory elite class and forces the elected non-elite to be excluded from the perks of being elite. Not only this, but we are expected to love the God who implements this. Contrasting Paul’s boast, under Calvinism, Death’s Sting is easily found in the masses of people subjected to it for eternity, and therefore God’s image in mankind is permanently marred with evil for eternity. Many Calvinists may seek to comfort people with certain salvation, but if we act a little less selfishly and look further than ourselves we will see that there are many who are not in comfort. Not to mention our own security within salvation is questionable due to scriptural challenges on this security. Finally yet importantly, under Calvinism, the Ultimate Pleasure is denied to the majority of mankind and what naturally follows is an alternate pleasure that is subjectively “greater” than God. For me, Calvinism like Arminianism does not provide a coherent enough narrative to satisfy my queries about the goodness of God, logical coherence and scriptural revelation. 

My next post will be the beginning of a different narrative that I believe provides a solution to the disparities in the Arminian and Calvinistic narratives. It will come from a scriptural basis, as well as from what I believe, a more logical basis than either Calvinism or Arminianism.

Next...

Part 5: A Biblical Universalism

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