Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: death

  • On Hebrews 5:1-10 and Prayer

    I’m going to do something I almost never do on any of my blogs—re-post. But first a few comments.

    Hebrews 5:1-10 is the epistle lesson from this week’s lectionary. Hebrews has always held a special place in my heart (my study guide on it), because it is such beautiful prose bringing a very deep message. In addition, passages such as Hebrews 1:1-4 and 4:12-14 helped shape my views of scripture and my christology at the same time, and Hebrews 6 became a key passage at a pivotal point in my own experience. (This isn’t “book advertising” week, but I discuss that experience in my book Not Ashamed of the Gospel: Confessions of a Liberal Charismatic.)

    But one of the most critical passages for me has been this one, which has helped in developing my understanding of prayer and its value and purpose in the life of a Christian disciple.

    Since our son James died, Jody and I have found that the one thing most people want to hear about when we speak or teach is just how one lives through such a thing. How do you deal with the grief? How do you deal with the questions? Why would God let your child die while you were busy teaching about prayer?

    On this especially I must let Jody answer for herself. Each person’s walk with God in such a situation is individual. In many ways my answer is much like that in another of this week’s lectionary passages, Job 38. I don’t know why, but I know God. But then I also realize that I don’t even know God all that well, but I can still strive to know what surpasses knowledge and in that active relationship, I can withstand even the whirlwind.

    So herewith the re-posted post from May 3, 2007:

    7Who, in the days of his flesh, offered entreaties and petitions to the one who was able to save him from death with loud cries and tears, and he was heard because of his piety. 8Even though he was a son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered, 9and being made whole he became a means of eternal salvation to all those who obey him, 10since he was designated by God as a priest according to the priestly order of Melchizedek. — Hebrews 5:7-10

    I’m writing this on the national day of prayer. A “national” day of prayer makes me wonder just what we’re praying for and how. But it reminded me of a question I hear frequently: “Why should anyone pray if they’re not going to get what they pray for?” That question starts with a false premise. It assumes that you won’t. But since I believe that quite often you will not get what you pray for, I should give it consideration.

    In Hebrews 5:7-10, we have the statement that Jesus prayed. He prayed to “the one who was able to save him from death.” I presume such a prayer might have, and did, occur many times during his ministry, but likely this reference is primarily to his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” He also placed that prayer under subjection to God’s will. Now if the text stopped in the middle of verse seven, we might imagine that the prayer of Jesus was not heard because he didn’t get what he was asking for.

    But the text explicitly says that Jesus was heard. And there is what’s hard for us to get hold of. Praying is not about getting stuff. Praying is about our communion with God. That’s why all these scientific tests about prayer and healing largely miss the mark. They’re interesting, but the can’t test prayer because prayer is not a means of getting things.

    What if the prayer of Jesus was counted in a scientific test? It would certainly go into the “failed” column. He didn’t get what he asked for. And yet he was heard, and what actually happened was better–in the end–than what he had requested. It happens that way because there’s a lot more knowledge on God’s end of the prayer than on mine.

    So a national day of prayer invites me to commune with God, and that is the only purpose I have to have. If I have communed with God, my prayer worked. The amazing thing is that I often would rather have God do it my way. I’m in touch with infinite power and infinite knowledge, but what I ask is that God use his infinite power to make things work the way I–oh so incredibly finite–want them to.

    One of the most blessed characteristics of this universe is that God doesn’t always answer our prayers in the way that we would prefer.

    Jesus was the great example of this. One thing was refused him–escape from the cross. Through that one refusal, a refusal he invited by saying “not my will but yours,” our salvation was secured.

    Aren’t you thankful that God doesn’t do things your way?

  • An Answer for Mark: Death as a Divine Tool

    Mark responded to my post Dealing with the Theological Implications of Evolution, and in turn poses a question to me, well summarized in the last sentence of his last paragraph:

    What is the particular problem that is raised that Stegosaurus had a million or so years in the sun but now is no longer?

    Which reminds me that I get in the most trouble for the things I don’t say in a post. That question needs to be put into the context of the point I was trying to address in the post. Some Christians respond to evolution by saying that it doesn’t really make any difference. Genesis tells us that God created; evolution tells us how God created.

    Depending on your audience, that will mean substantially different things. In some ways I regret growing up and essentially completing my formal education as a young earth creationist. There are so many lines of inquiry I would have pursued. I don’t mean things that would have advanced knowledge generally, but that could have advanced my knowledge.

    At the same time, I understand how young earth creationists think, and telling them that evolution doesn’t make any difference is quite futile. You see a substantial part of the young earth creationist background involves an understanding of the fall. I’m not saying that every young earth creationist feels this way, but I personally haven’t encountered one who doesn’t.

    The fall of humanity happened at a specific historical point. There was no sin in the world before that, and there was sin afterward. The physical world suffered as a result of sin, and was, in fact, dramatically altered because physical death was introduced at that point. (Never mind how an ecology would function without death.) In the particular form in which I learned it, the deteriorating ages of the patriarchs in Genesis 5 & 11 indicates the deterioration of the very fabric of the universe, or at least of life, so that people became less and less long-lived as they separated from God.

    In that context, to say that evolution makes no difference theologically is nonsense. Evolution makes all the difference in the world. If God used evolution as his tool to create the world, not only is the chronology different, but the connection between sin and physical death is broken. There might be some deterioration of the world after sin, though no evidence of this is available, but the direct connection cannot exist.

    For people who hold the young earth creationist viewpoint, at least in the form I grew up with, evolution is a devastating blow to all they hold dear. If the fall did not cause deterioration, then how can redemption cause recreation? Remember here that they believe this does involve the physical world, all of creation (Romans 8:22). Everything from God’s personal care of everyone, to redemption, and finally to the life hereafter and the new creation falls under their system if evolution is true. The theological impact is massive.

    I would add a side note on the “gap theory” or “ruin and restoration creationism” which holds that the earth is very old, the same age as that held by mainstream science and by old earth creationists, yet that sin was brought to earth before the creation that occurred in Genesis 1. In their view sin caused death, but did so before Adam was created. Adam then participated in that death at the fall. For them successive extinction events can become successive acts of destruction by God intended to wipe out or punish evil. Evolution is still devastating to their theology and they would reject it vigorously.

    One other odd view is Bill Dembski’s view that death was introduced prospectively, i.e. God knew that evil would occur and dealt with it before the fact. Adam was thus responsible, even though he sinned much later. I blogged about it a bit here, and Dembski’s article can be found here. (Note that he has revised this several times, so quotes from it in any earlier articles may be wrong. I’ve tried to note the date, but I think I forgot a few times. I always used the version that was online as of the date I posted.)

    Old earth creationists and theistic evolutionists are in essentially the same place on this. Death must be seen as a natural part of the way the universe is designed, and death becomes God’s tool. I would say that the issue is even harder for old earth creationists. Let me digress for a moment to explain why.

    I’m not much impressed with the common argument that God didn’t create evil; God created Satan, who then rebelled. In other words, I don’t feel the separation between God taking action directly, God creating someone who has the option to take an action, or God creating a process that has that same effect. If God created Satan knowing he would do evil (a requirement if one accepts foreknowledge, which in the traditional sense I do not), then God is equally responsible. If God creates a world in which the holocaust can occur, he can’t evade responsibility. In scripture, I don’t see any great effort to avoid God’s responsibility for whatever happened. That seems to be mostly a later effort.

    Let me illustrate. Supposing I have responsibility for a group of children, and I let them loose in a room full of valuable but fragile items. I don’t set any parameters, but simply tell them to play and then I run off. I don’t come back, observe, and most importantly intervene when their play gets lively and the valuable items are broken.

    If the owner of the valuables comes to me and charges me with responsible, will he except the excuse that the children did it? I suspect not. I put the children there. I didn’t instruct them properly. I didn’t monitor them, and I didn’t intervene to stop them. I think most people would regard me as responsible for the breakage.

    In the same way I regard God as responsible for the universe. I think I have warrant to believe that God regards God as responsible for the universe.

    But the fact is that in my experience most people do not agree with me with regard to God. They do find “the devil did it” to exonerate God in some sense. In that context, I think the old earth creationists have a bit of a problem. As a theistic evolutionist I believe that God so ordered the universe that there would be processes that would bring about life and allow it to diversify. I must accept that God is thereby responsible for such things as scarcity of resources; no diversification would occur if there was no selective survival.

    The old earth creationist, it seems to me, must see God as creating an incomplete process. Variation and natural selections works some, but appears to be defective. Thus God allows the process to work and then steps in and creates greater variations from time to time. So God is not merely using a tool that is part of the fabric of the universe; he is also getting involved on a day to day (or more likely age to age or period to period basis. I think if they were consistent the same people who accept a devil based theodicy should regard this as God with dirty hands.

    I must restate, however, that I think theistic evolutions and old earth creationists are in the same boat on this one, and that evolution does not make a theological difference on this one point. But that is only true between old earth creationists and theistic evolutionists. Young earth creationists or ruin and restoration creationists would see it somewhat differently.