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the system is not the solution
Every systematic theology, every air-tight system, every completely consistent view of the bible, every logically constructed and perfectly put together faith, crashes like waves on the shoreline of God. Because the Bible is not the system in written form and the system, once “discovered” (read: invented) is not the solution. The Bible is a living, breathing, personal witness to a living, breathing, personal God, with whom we have to do. This is what drives us crazy about the God revealed in the Bible–a God of mystery, paradox, plain speech, simple commands, subtly, a.k.a. a personal God: a someone with whom we have to do. Directly. Last night I went to sleep dreaming-praying…
In my dreamy prayer, people in my life–their faces that is–appeared before me and we looked at each other, like a baby before self-consciousness dawns, looks at a mother or a father or a sibling or a stranger in the supermarket and the mother or the father or the sibling or the stranger looks back, and in a brief moment, forgets their own self-consciousness.
You know how it is in your everyday life–there’s always someone, a family member, a co-worker, a teacher, a fellow student, a neighbor with whom you are processing a little relational tension, working through a rough patch. Even with these faces, it was just this face to face presence. I was trying to remember while it was happening what the C.S. Lewis book I read thirty years ago was about: Till We Have Faces.
This is what we have in store, knowing God face to face like this. If ever we get to know another person like this it is but a foretaste of what is called “the Beatific Vision” which is nothing other than being face to face with God and surviving.
Who can blame us if we cling to our systematic theologies in the meantime? Who can blame us if we receive or patch together our own air-tight orthodoxies through which we can run all of life’s and loose ends and have them come out tied like bows? It’s a comfortable land of no contradictions, no true dilemmas, no bad choices between two evils–none of the intrinsic-chaotic messiness of the human condition. The system sees to that. But it is not the solution.
Signs That We Trust the System as the Solution
How can we tell if we are clinging to the one when only that other–the face to face encounter–is the end of our heart’s longing? We iron the wrinkles out of the Bible, forgetting that the wrinkles are the sign that the thing is to be worn. And we are on the constant search to resolve contradictions–between free will and predestination, between James and Paul, between this verse and that–not because the contradictions cannot contain the truth but because we can’t stand them.
And we seek–always, above all things–balance. We seek to strike the balance between “judge not” and “go ahead and judge.” Or between “unless you hate your father and mother” and “honor your father and your mother” or between, “love your enemies” and “defeat your enemies.”
Balance is so, well, so balanced. Who could object to balance? Especially in a world so horribly off kilter. Let us strike the balance between loving the sinner on the one hand, and hating the sin on the other. Love and hate, perfectly balanced.
But shouldn’t it give us pause when after we’ve done our balancing act, it’s the words of Jesus that always seem to lose their punch?
We do it with the best of intentions. We love Jesus but he speaks in such an unbalanced way at times. Who ever heard Jesus speak and came away saying, “What a perfectly balanced take on the truth! Jesus, you struck the perfect balance!”
Read any book by an evangelical pastor to any evangelical readership, any book by any priest to any catholic readership, and you find a never-ending balancing act. I mean this, and not that. Distinctions galore. One the one, and on the other. Going up to the edge of a cliff, but always pulling back. And so often the truth that these books tell is a dull one.
Compare this to the bare naked words of Jesus in the gospels, resonating with the fire and anguish and tears of the Hebrew prophets, with the cravings of the psalms, the dancing wisdom of the proverbs, and the strange but compelling stories of Genesis and Exodus and Joshua. As different as day is to night.
Perhaps that’s as it should be, or perhaps it’s simply as it must be, or maybe it just is.
Having tasted both, I like my truth straight up in all its mystifying and maddening wonder. I like the like I like my wife, personal.
Tags: balance, bare naked words, bible, Jesus, love the sinner-hate the sin, paradox, systematic theology, truth, words of jesus, wordz
June 12th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
I don’t know these people who have an “air-tight system” and “perfectly put together faith” even though I might be counted in that group by some. Just because some of us do not elevate uncertainty to a virtue doesn’t mean we think we have an “air-tight system.” Or that we don’t understand the Bible points us to a relationship with a living God.
I like what Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck have to say in “Why We’re Not Emergent”. “Uncertainty in light of our human limitations is a virtue. Uncertainty in light of God’s Word is not.”
If what I read here was simply an acknowledgement about our own limitations in understanding God’s Word, I would lead the cheers for uncertainty. But much of what I read here seems to be more uncertainty about God’s Word itself than uncertainty about our own limitations in understanding God and His Word.
June 12th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Brian, What I have in mind are systematic theologies like Calvinism, and systematic theology in general. I think the Bible was written in such way as to disabuse us from the notion of systematics
And I do think that much of American evangelicalism has modern tendency toward having a “system” approach truth. I think this is particularly pronounced in Fundamentalism and Dispensationalism but it also influences the broader evangelical community. And of course, ministering in a University town like Ann Arbor, I’m tuned into the fact that many people see Christianity through the lens of the media portrayal of Christianity which leans toward highlighting the fundamentalist tendencies within evangelicalism. So speaking with more certainty than is allowed by our frail humanity is a very ready turn off for such people. It’s a turn for me. There’s a difference between conviction held with humility and certainty.
I think it corresponds to the fact that we do have a natural tendency away from humility and assume that we can know more and with more certainty than our frail humanity even aided by revelation allows.
I think we can perceive enough truth to be faithful.
My problem is NOT with the Bible but with interpretive schemes that lack humility and over-state what can be known. Over-realized eschatology such as you have in Corinth, applied to knowledge. I think much of American evangelicalism is still in reaction to the 1950’s mainline Protestant liberalism which did make a virtue of questioning everything and did go the way of a very washed out faith. It’s time for us to stop driving by using that particular rear view mirror, though.
June 12th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Brian,
A “chastised epistemology” is a virtue. How can we not recognize that past evangelical movements have been hateful in so many ways? E.g., Luther on the Jews; Calvin’s defense of Servetus’s execution for heresy; fundamental Protestantism’s opposition to the abolition and civil rights movements. How can we not look — self-critically — at the fruits of evangelical theology?
Evangelicals should be chastened — very chastened — by that history.
Frankly, I don’t see much evidence that professed certainties about the Bible have produced good fruit in our own time or in the course of human history.
Moreover, the insistence that people buy into a huge systematic theology, or accept all of the Bible as literally true — including, for example, viewing all of life and creation and eternity through the theme of sin; the 6000-year-old-earth Creation story; pre-millenial eschatology; and doctrines that present God as a terrible wrathful God — have so deterred unbelievers from Christianity that…
…the profound salvific ideas that God is a personal God who (1) loved man so much that He became “One of Us,” (2) identified with mankind by enduring its sufferings and shame and even death, and (3) who is a God we can not only search for, reach for, and find (without being smote to death), but also “eat” and “drink” …
… are lost. My agnostic friends haven’t even heard that message.
It’s not surprising with all the distraction caused by evangelicals’ certitudinous, arrogant denunciations of:
evolution (contradicts Scripture!),
conservationism (it exalts/idolizes nature!),
humanism (it puts man at the center!),
helping the poor (they’re replacing God with government!),
peacemaking missions (they’re plotting one world government!),
concern for immigrants (they’re breaking the law!),
respect for homosexuals (they’re committing an abomination!), etc.
Yes, all of the foregoing sprout from various evangelical certitudes about the truths of the Bible.
But does all the certitude lead anyone to Christ?
Or does it drive them away in droves?
June 12th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
I once heard this quote about our society’s current direction when it comes to objective truth:
‘To seek is sacred, to find, suspect.’
It seems that as long as one claims to know nothing and to just be a seeker, one is respected, but God forbid you find a truth that is preeminent and all of the sudden, you are narrow minded.
I read the above post and part of me sees the risk of a ‘too balanced’ view of things and the value of passion.
But I think part of Jesus’s fiery rhetoric such as ‘hate your parents’, etc, was just a cultural middle eastern type of communication. Look at all the crazy things that Ahmadinejad says about Israel, and Saddam Hussein’s promised ‘mother of all battles’ when the US invaded Iraq. It’s a cultural thing.
While I accept that we can get bored with too much ‘balance’. I think that the alternative can be harmful. It’s called extremism. Notice the recent events in the Holocaust museum and that abortion doctor’s murder. I would say the perps in both events threw ‘balance’ to the winds.
So I guess my point is that I see balance as a positive thing. Maybe it’s just me.
June 13th, 2009 at 9:26 am
I have NEVER read a systematic theology book in my Christian life. In fact, I have never “officially” studied the scriptures for more than a semester. I am under the belief that the bible was written to be understandable. I do enjoy studying the culture of Jesus’ time to get a perspective on the audience he was addressing.
So I don’t have a perfect theology of the bible. I do have certain things that I’m pretty certain about. They are truths that I’ve read in the bible and then experienced as true in my life.
Ken, I love “Til We Have Faces” by Lewis. I read it annually. It always speaks to me of the warped and twisted ways that we view ourselves instead of the beauty that God sees in us.
Eric C. you said:
“Frankly, I don’t see much evidence that professed certainties about the Bible have produced good fruit in our own time or in the course of human history.”
I find that interesting since in nearly every post I’ve read by you, you seem VERY certain of your theology on sin.
June 13th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Sometimes I think that saying anything about God is presumptuous. Who are we to make pronouncements about God? Let God speak for himself.
Jesus didn’t ask us to understand him or understand the Father or understand the Councellor. He asked us to follow him, and by following him, join him in his work.
Let’s let Jesus do the talking for us. Let’s be his arms and legs and arms and hands. He is our head. Let’s let him do our thinking for us. Our talking for us.
Sometimes I think action in silence is the most faithful mode of being.
June 14th, 2009 at 8:37 am
When I first heard of predestination, I wondered why anyone would try to define this aspect of the mind of God; Or for that matter, any aspect of the mind of God. I think that we should filter every thought about how God is, through the living, breathing, human Jesus. I think the primary method of doing that is prayer, meditative thought, and fellowship with others, all the while centered on scriptures but focused on Christ. When we try to define the providence of God, with minds and hearts that are currently clouded in a mirror, we are led on paths best not taken.
Please forgive me for quoting the least of all apostles.
“…The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God… no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God…This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words…The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment:”For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.” 1Cor 10-16.
I have always loved this flow of words from Paul. Notice he said “we have the mind of Christ,” not that he had the mind of Christ. Individuals don’t have the mind of Christ, it is his mind. But as he is working through his body the church, we get to live out his thoughts and express his love and will, as we carry around the head, Christ.
I think that theologies like Calvinism have the potential to lead to theological holocausts where people make themselves as God and decide who gets thrown into the ovens of hell.
June 14th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
“Sometimes I think action in silence is the most faithful mode of being” Notbell
I agree and find that helpful. Why do we spend so much time bickering about words and interpretations when we have work to do, and its not about us. It would keep me from misprepresenting God if I just kept my trap shut more often!
June 15th, 2009 at 7:20 am
I think I agree with Ken on this one…
BD
June 15th, 2009 at 9:09 am
Ken avoided the use of the word “doctrine” but I’d go so far as to say it falls into the same category of spiritual failure. We’ve all been taught that if we don’t have a consistent doctrine, we risk slipping into “error” and be easily led astray. I’ve never found that to be the case (or maybe I am already astray in which case I guess it’s working out for me).
When we try to organize God’s story into something more than core principles and insights into his heart, we end up with something lifeless and powerless. Building human constructs around spirituality is an incredibly risky business and has much more likelihood of leading to that theological error which we were trying to avoid in the first place.
The other problem with systematic theology/doctrine/dogma is that it’s way to difficult to make it our own because we don’t get the underlying principles for it in many cases. I’ve always been very aware of many of the “sins” in my life as a result of the teaching I’d received, but it wasn’t until much of the dogma and doctrine in my life fell away that I was able to really get it. It was truly like being born again…again…for me. The measure of motivation I have now to deal with junk in my life is not even comparable to what it was like before.
Give me wisdom teachings all day long about the Bible and I’ll eat it up and it will give me life. Try and turn any of those teachings into an official church “position” and I can feel the spiritual life draining right out of everything.
June 18th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Wow! Reading everyone’s explanations here have led me to one final conclusion. We are the smartest, wisest and, finally, only right ones when it comes to understanding the bible in the last 2,000 years of Christian history. Hallelujah! I’m so glad we’ve finally got it all right!
We are right, right?
June 24th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Happylad…Sarcasm aside, many of the above perspectives reflect theological perspectives that have been around, and considered orthodox by many, for much of the church history. It’s the evangelical theology that is the new kid on the block.