Iñigo Montoya, is that you?

William Willimon, United Methodist Bishop, wrote a review of Bart Erhman's God's Problem in The Christian Century. Good lord, this man is a crank. While complaining that Bart Erhman is a narcissist, the Bishop - a man elevated as an example of Christian behavior - heaps such scorn on the man that I almost couldn't finish the review. His disdain is breathtaking. Apparently Erhman "assumes a position of moral and intellectual superiority" to which Willimon is immune. Questions of suffering seem universal but Willimon considers the honest questioning of young adults "puerile theodicy." Such humility!

This is not my first encounter with Bishop Willimon, having read his "United Methodist Beliefs." In that work he occasionally lets slip a curmudgeonly snark about how deluded and idiotic non-believers must be. I got news for ya, Guv. We are doin' just fine.

The maddening thing is that his own sense of superiority is not so deserved as he seems to hold it. In his review he waves away the whole of the theodicy issue first by scolding anyone who might notice suffering and then drops this bit of sarcasm:

It's just too confusing to imagine that God's alleged omnipotence might be something other than what we think of as omnipotence or that God's love might be other than what we conceive of as love.

So God's love is something other than what we think of as love? Then it isn't love!! It is something else that apparently we humans can't understand. In other words, God's love appears to humans as indifference but don't worry it really is love. Follow up with this bit of reasoning:

Trouble is, ambiguity, dissonance and conflict are the usual way that scripture presents its peculiar truth.

So truth doesn't mean what you think it means either.

This is a practice N T Wright indulges in as well, using normal, descriptive language as if it doesn't have it's usual meaning, hardly any meaning for that matter, and then infusing the whole argument with a knowing appeal to mystery. Some intellectuals relish their ability to hold two contradictory notions in their head at the same time. Unfortunately theologians have mistaken this for argument and now routinely spread their contradictions on the table and then reach for the chips as if the matter was settled rather rephrased and obfuscated.

I seem to be having trouble coming to my point and I apologize. I suppose I am still trying to articulate what is serious flaw in high-end apologetics. Perhaps some day my thoughts will crystallize. Let me attempt a paraphrase. If God's ways are so transacendant or whatever that his creation can not understand them ot that any attempt to explain them ends in contradiction what justification do we have in believing that we will be okay in the end of things? Christopher Wright explicitly suggests that if God's purposes are served than any colateral damage is justified. Give me the opportunity to sacrifice for a worthy end but if this is Divine Love imposed, than you would have to be daft to worship its God.

Update: The word I was looking for to describe the Bishop Willimon's attitude in his book review: Self-Righteous.

Grace for the Goose is Grace for the Gander

I sometimes hear Christians say that observant Jews cannot be saved by the law of Moses because it is humanly impossible to keep all the laws. On the other hand we have widespread acceptance of Total Depravity, the believe that no human has the capacity to save himself or even the capacity to turn to God for assistance. Arminians, like the United Methodists, teach that God provides prevenient grace ahead of time to allow us to be saved and even move toward perfection. The good ol' Calvinists tell us that God will save whom he pleases and nothing you do can change it one wayt or the other.

Now, if a person can not even accept Christ and salvation without God's direct intervention, why do these people assume that the Law fails because it is humanly impossible to obey it strictly? Why isn't it assumed that God can intervene and give a Jew the power to live in the Law? (I assume some Jewish theologians assume this aid is available.) The Almighty is universal in His grace, in the Arminian view, but incapable of it with regards to his chosen people?

Let's think before we make these kinds of arguments.

This has been an public service announcement on behalf of the International Brotherhood of Theologians, Local 777

A lifetime in their moccasins

Just finished reading Dr Bart Ehrman's God's Problem about the ol' theodicy issue. It is an interesting mix of analysis of how different Biblical authors view the problem of suffering and Dr Ehrman's own views on the matter.

In the last chapter, Ehrman sums up and points out that some suffering in the world is avoidable. When he states that the income and goods in the world could be redistributed if we had the will I was thrown back in my mind to my days in Junior Achievement and my attendance of the National Convention in Terre Haute, Indiana. One speaker claimed that if the incomes of the millionaires in the US were redistributed it would amount to such-and-such an amount, implying that it would be a pittance. I don't know if this was true but I have noticed that people who make arguments about how happy the poor are or how money can't buy happiness or how a few thousand dollars isn't going to make a difference to the poor, these people NEVER offer to trade places with the poor. If being poor is so satisfying and so little different from being affluent, why do these people pursue affluence so eagerly. The same argument goes for school funding. If "throwing money at the problem" is not an excuse for taking no action at all, then let's just reduce the school budgets for their precious children to the level of Alabama's Black Belt or the Mountains of Honduras. There is a certain minimal level of food, medical care and educational resources below which life is really hard or a child's education will be incomplete. There is probably a point where "enough" needs are being met and anything else is just tennis teams but of the worlds 6 or so billion people, how many are getting enough.

I am no saint and am haunted by my own laxity, greed and inability to do anything but, shit, at least acknowledge the issue people!