How green is God? A reply to Lionel Windsor

Is my God greener than Lionel's?
I've just come across a talk written by Lionel Windsor, whom I know and respect from my MTC days. It was published at some stage in the last 12 months by AFES's SALT Magazine under the title, "Is God green?". It can be found in five parts: #1, #2a, #2b, #3a, #3b. Having recently written a similar kind of piece for the same publication, it was interesting to note how much overlap our pieces had. His was longer, more conversational and an easier read but I'd say we agree on about 90% of the theological and ethical content.

We agree on the goodness of creation distinct from human usefulness, on the depth of human sinfulness and its effects on ecological health,* on the distinction between treating symptoms and treating the underlying disease, on the centrality of Christ and his death and resurrection for any theological discussion of treating this disease, on the universal (not merely human) scope of Christ's redemptive action, on the church as the first fruits of a redeemed humanity, on the anticipatory nature of Christian discipleship, on the impossibility of our actions "saving the world", on the significance of eschatology and God's future judgement and renewal in ecological ethics, on the aptness of yearning and active waiting, on the endurance of love and the passing away of the present form of the world,** on the cruciality of gospel proclamation and probably on much else as well.
*I think his analysis of the links between ecological destruction and human sin could be extended into social structures that give our greed, pride, apathy and so on extra momentum, and make some of these issues "built in" to the way we collectively and habitually do things.
**I would phrase certain sections of his talk quite differently and also emphasize the continuity of the resurrected body with the corpse - that it is this body that is resurrected and transformed, not some replacement for it - and so also expect a measure of continuity between the renewed creation and the old. Though since Lionel is happy to speak of creation being perfected and makes reference to Paul's seed analogy in 1 Corinthians 15, I don't think we're really too far apart here.

Our differences (such as I can discern from a single article and I apologise if I've misread him) seem to revolve around two issues. First: the relationship of ecological catastrophe to divine judgement. Lionel says,

"[T]he judgement day will not come before God is ready. So if you think that the human race will wipe itself off the face of the map through environmental disasters, then that is actually an arrogant attitude. Final judgement is God's job. Right now, God is keeping the world until he is ready to judge. We can’t wipe ourselves out because God will not let that happen until he is ready to judge us!"

He seems to imply that divine judgement is limited purely to the final judgement, whereas I think that the unveiling of God's wrath against human folly is already evident today in our being handed over to the consequences of our own greed and stupidity as discussed in Romans 1. Thus, ecological catastrophe can already be understood as manifestation of God's judgement in allowing us to experience the destructive effects of our search for invulnerability. We taste our own medicine and find that it is poison; we have to lie in the bed we have made. So, Lionel's contrasting of ecological catastrophes with divine judgement in order to avoid misunderstanding of eschatological judgement masks their present connection. I suspect, however, he may well be entirely happy with this nuance.*
*UPDATE Lionel has clarified that he was here only referring to final judgement and quite rightly pointed out that he discusses my concern in part 2a. My apologies for not re-checking my point.

But there is a further claim being made here, even about the day of eschatological judgement, namely, that human actions will have no part in bringing it about (even inadvertently). To my mind, the fact that the timing of the day of judgement is in the hands of God and so is hidden from human knowledge (two common scriptural themes) doesn't necessarily mean that God might not use human instruments in bringing about an end to human history. God's actions are frequently mediated by imminent agents and the images used of ultimate judgement are, I take it, largely metaphorical, such that its actual shape is not known in advance, only its inevitability and decisiveness (amongst other things). But Lionel seems to see final judgement as God's exclusive prerogative without any human instrumentality (apart from Christ the judge, of course).

And this means that Lionel is confident that, try as we might, we can't wipe ourselves out. I am not so sure. Certainly, we can so damage the living systems on which we thoroughly rely that our civilisation and way of life falls apart (whether quickly or slowly). Indeed, we can do this through the speedier nuclear option as well as the slightly delayed ecological route. Can we entirely "wipe ourselves out", presumably meaning the extinction of the human race as a whole? At a practical level, I don't see that it beyond our present power and theologically I see no promises that this cannot happen. This doesn't mean we thereby escape judgement, or that all hope is lost, because even if we entirely destroy ourselves, God can raise the dead. Suicide is no way out, either individually or collectively. The closest I think we see to a scriptural expectation of humanity's continued existence until final judgement is Paul's comment in 1 Corinthians 15 that "we shall not all sleep, though we shall all be changed" (a comment also applicable to babies, by the way). However, even this is not decisive as I think Paul's point is that death is not a necessary route to the kind of transformation of which he speaks. That Paul does not mention the possibility of the self-destruction of the entire human race may have more to do with a pre-industrial imagination not yet shaped by the staggering increase in human agency that has come in the modern era than with a divine promise of the imperishability of our species.

But the point is a minor one, and I don't place much weight on it. It is enough that we certainly have the power to wound ourselves grievously, to decimate the possibility of life on earth and shatter or erode the conditions under which our society is possible. And while these may not have ultimate significance, their penultimate import is weighty indeed.

The second, and I suspect more important, difference concerns the relation of the good to the best, or of deeds of love with words of love. Lionel paints a moving picture of composting out of love for neighbour, or even lobbying the G8 for the same reason. But then he places such activity in direct competition with "speaking the word of the Lord to others", and implies that doing one means the inability to do the other. They are competitors to my limited time and energy:

"But what is the greatest labour in the Lord? Compost heaps take time. Lobbying G8 leaders takes even more time. And we don’t have an unlimited time here on earth. Sure, these are good ideas, but how do I decide what is the most urgent thing? The primary, the greatest labour in the Lord? Isn't it to speak the word of the Lord to others? Isn't it to share Jesus with your friends and family?"

But I say, why either/or? Why not both-and? The good need not be the enemy of the best. The promotion of the gospel is not a zero sum game between words and deeds. Both are necessary; neither is sufficient. There is no conflict between loving God and his word of life for all and loving my neighbour in a dying world.

And so, despite much in common, I suspect that Lionel and I end up with somewhat different estimations of the place of ecological responsibility in Christian discipleship. My subheading was of course tongue in cheek, as though it were a matter of competition. But the differences between us are nonetheless of (penultimate) importance, since Christians have too often been too quick to sidestep the gospel invitation to love our ecological neighbours, or to relegate such matters to mere optional extras.

With these points mentioned, I warmly recommend you read his piece as a cogent introduction to an evangelical ecological theology.

The end of grace III

The graciously delayed end
I've been posting recently on grace and eschatology, or rather, grace in eschatology, or perhaps, eschatology as grace.

God takes his time with us. He is patient with us, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentence. At least from our perspective, there seems to be a chronic postponement or delay in God's decision to call a halt to the ongoing catastrophe of life ruled by death. However, this pause is actually itself motivated by grace. Strangely, while the end will be the culmination of God's free action to defeat evil and reclaim his world, that he doesn't make it happen now is also a gift. The temporal 'gap' between rebellion and its consequences might make rebels bold. The causal 'gap' (or at least inadequacy of correspondence) between those who perpetrate destruction and those who suffer as a result might lead to the prosperity of the wicked and the pain of the (relatively) innocent. But God's patience is motivated by his desire for human repentence. While the victim cries for justice, God commits their cause temporarily to fallible and provisional human courts - courts which not only often fail, but always must fail to provide the infinite justice that grief demands. This too is gracious: avoiding the destruction of society in a mounting storm of reprisals, a multiplying echo-chamber of vengeance. Abel's blood cries from the ground, but God graciously marks Cain to prevent human attempts at pre-empting final justice.

Final judgement delayed speaks of mercy; the guilty may turn aside from their fatal path and live. Provisional human judgements upon wrongdoing are a partial and often bitter gift. But the open question of the when of divine justice grates those who have received injustices. Mercifully pausing for the sake of the guilty, graciously providing for the continuance of human society despite grievances that threaten to tear it decisively apart, God reminds us that the victim is not the only party in need. The wrongdoer is threatened by internal disintegration, social recrimination, and divine wrath. Their plight is dire indeed, and without the merciful space afforded by divine delay and the limits set upon human retribution, the self-destructive logic of their acts would itself bring about a catastrophic end.

Yet where is God's grace for the victims? How long will they have to wait for their day of vindication? Sorrowful concern for the sinner comes after righteous indignation for the sinned against. What gift does God have for them? How is the gospel good news for the poor and oppressed? The blood of Abel still cries, as does the shed blood of all the martyrs, innocents and wronged: 'how long, O Lord?'

But there is a better word than the blood of Abel. The cry of those faithfully leaving room for God's vengeance is not forgotten. But it is not answered on its own terms either. The sprinkled blood of Christ is a better word than the victim's cry for vengeance. God's justice involves not simple and immediate retribution, but a gracious sacrifice made on behalf of wrongdoers. For God's desire is that none should perish. He asks the victims to relinquish their demands, or at least to let them be transformed in the light of divine wisdom. He asks for trust: that his dealing with wrongdoers will satisfy the wronged.

Does he then go easy on the perpetrator while asking the victim to lower her expectations? Must she exchange her thirst for retribution and accept God's reforming work in the criminal instead? A partial answer is that the wrongdoer does not avoid death through repentence, but accepts co-crucifixion with Christ. But this is not the full answer. God's eschatological justice has arrived and been executed upon Calvary, but it remains hidden - as Christ is hidden. In Christ, God has begun graciously satisfying both victim and offender.

But grace is not over yet. There is more yet to come...
Series: I; II; III; IV.

The end of grace II

The Trinitarian foundations of an eschatology of grace.
After a pause, I return to my theme of grace in the end. I began with some thoughts on the end as a free gift for humanity. Of course, despite - or actually, because of - their eschatological theme, these thoughts are intended as reflections upon the way, not as pronouncements from the end.

What is grace? Not a thing, but a reason, a motivation, a desire. Or perhaps, the lack of a reason. That the end is all of grace means that it is brought about by the free act of God. Divine freedom is not conditioned or constrained by anything outside the love of Father : Son : Spirit.

So perhaps better than grace as lack of reason, is grace as superabundance of reason, but reasons located within the Trinitarian life. A free gift does not arise from fear. God's grace is not driven, a chasing after. God's acts towards us are free because of the overflowing joyful love of the Father for the Son, Son for Spirit, Spirit for Father - and back again: 'You are my Son, the beloved; in you I am well pleased.' The Father's affirmation of the Son as he begins his task of restoring and renewing the world is thus the basis for Christian hope. At the same point, the Spirit rests upon the Christ in bodily form as a dove as an indication of the unity of the Trinity in this task, bound together not by the world's need, but in common love, fellowship, koinonia. The Father's work undertaken by Christ in the Spirit is therefore gracious, arising from the very identity of God, not through an external constraint or debt owed to his creatures.

And the corollary is that the Son delights to do his Father's work:

At that same hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, 'I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and revealed them to infants: yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father; or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.'

- Luke 10.21-22

The closed circle of divine knowledge in which only the Father knows the Son and the Son the Father is the basis for all human knowledge of God. Who Jesus is and what he does are closed to those who don't know the Father. Who God is and what he does is closed to those who don't know the Son. It is only by an initiative from the divine side, from inside the circle, that we can know anything at all. This is why our hope is based on divine grace. Without the final startling exception (and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him) we would remain ignorant of God and his promises.

Since it was not our goodness or need or failure to disqualify ourselves that resulted in God's action, we need have no fear that humanity can thwart God's intentions. Indeed, the very point at which the powers of humanity against God were at their strongest was the very point at which God achieved the centre of his purpose (Acts 2.23): what we intended for evil, God nonetheless used for good (cf. Gen 50.20).

God's love for the world, the love that resulted in his sending his Son so that whoever believes may have the life of God's coming age (John 3.16), is not based on the worth of the world, but on the faithfulness and joy found within the fulness of Father : Son : Spirit. And that love is never exhausted.

Grace is not over yet. There is more to come...
Eight points for the first to link to another shot of this cross.
Series: I; II; III; IV.

Theodicy & eschatology VI

This will be the final post in this series (unless I have more thoughts...) on why any attempt to speak of God in the face of evil must be both evangelical - focused on God's action in Christ that is truly good news to those who walk in the valley of the shadow - and eschatological - leaving space for more to come in God's response. We yearn and wait and groan because (i) the cross and resurrection display God's settled opposition to all that opposes life in his good world (and not just display, but are the decisive step in turning the tide) and (ii) because we do not yet see the conclusion of these divine actions. Without (i) we would be without hope; without (ii) we would no longer need to hope: who hopes for what is seen? We groan because we know something of the future of Christ, but it remains future.

BUT in Christ, in the Spirit: the future has begun. Thus the believer is not left merely groaning; we groan with God’s Spirit. The disciples were not left orphaned, with simply the knowledge of God’s decisive victory and the promise of its completion. For once Jesus departed, the Spirit arrived (John 14:16-18). Since Jesus pours out this Spirit, and it was this Spirit who raised him from the dead, this Spirit also connects us to the risen Jesus. In his Spirit, we are ‘in Christ’. That bit of the world that has been raised and created anew, is now the location of our hidden identity (Colossians 3:1-4).

So it is now that we can trust, love and hope in the face of evil, but since God has not yet ultimately solved the problem of evil, we still grieve and groan. In Christ by the Spirit we have the down payment, the pledge, the guarantee of God’s promised future, but we do not yet have that future. Or at least not in its fullness: the Spirit as first fruits (Romans 8:23) is more like a kiss than an engagement ring. Both promise the future, but while a ring is a somewhat arbitrary sign, a kiss is an actual taste of what is coming.

Hope for the resurrection of the dead is in one sense a comfort, but it is also an intensification of the problem. It is because we have hope that the world will be different that we can’t stand to see it as it now is. It is because we know that God will rid the world of evil that we can live in the light of that future: trusting, loving, hoping.

This is an intensely practical and personal problem for each and every human. Rather than seeing it as an apologetics ‘issue’ that needs to be ‘solved’ (or sidestepped) so that people will listen to the gospel, I propose that it is itself the very problem to which the gospel is such good news. The problem of evil is the primary reason I am a Christian. Or rather, I am a Christian due to the fact that in the death and resurrection of Jesus, in which I see the destiny of the world and my own destiny, I can hope that one day there will be a real, existential, moral, social, cosmological, theological more-than-intellectual solution. Come Lord Jesus. Amen.
Series: I; II; III; IV; V; VI.

Theodicy & eschatology V

I have been claiming that any theodicy worth the name must abandon three common features of most 'answers to the problem of evil':
(a) the belief that explanation is solution. We need more than a conceptual reshuffling of divine attributes. Any solution to evil must not be simply re-interpretation, but transformation.
(b) the belief that we are the ones to solve the problem. The answer to the problem of evil is found in God's decisive action through and in Jesus.
(c) the belief that the solution must be completed now. Either as an a-temporal (or at least synchronic) account of God's present providential rule, or as an over-realised eschatology in which there is nothing more to happen other than the unveiling of what is already the case.

Instead, any specifically Christian theodicy must be evangelical and eschatological. Evangelical: it must be focused on the good news of what God has done in Christ. And eschatological: it must leave room for more to come, for the ultimate solution to still be in the future.

I have already discussed the evangelical necessity. Jesus on the cross defeats evil through refusing to fight fire with fire, and the cycle of violence is buried with him. The resurrection is a demonstration that God will not abandon his perishing creation. Easter is a promise, a first down payment, of God’s intention to remove evil, root and branch, from his entire world, to hand it over to eternal destruction, to ultimate and irreversible exclusion. The gospel, the story of Jesus' life, death and resurrection, is God's solution to the problem of evil. In short, the gospel is theodicy. (To borrow a phrase from my good friend Matheson).

But we find ourselves in the midst of the gospel narrative, not yet at its ultimate conclusion. There is more to come. My contention from the start has been that only an eschatological theodicy will do. As long as evil continues to have the dominant hand, any attempt to account for its presence and influence is mere reinterpretation. As Marx famously said, philosophers have hitherto interpreted the world, the point is to change it. Or rather, the point is that God will change it. That change began with Jesus’ death and resurrection; there is now one piece of the world that is an evil-free zone, namely, Jesus’ resurrected body. Death no longer has dominion over him (Romans 6.16).

But it does over us. Jesus has been given all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28.18), including authority over the evil forces and powers and multinational corporations and corrupt governments and globalisation and the capitalist system and disease and decay and death. But we do not yet see all things in subjection to him (Hebrews 2.8).

There is more to come: the resurrection of the dead, the final triumph over the last enemy. This is not to add something to the achievement of Jesus or replace it with something else, because it is Jesus’ own future that we are looking forward to. But Jesus’ final victory over death – that great last enemy of God and humanity (1 Corinthians 15:20-28) – is not simply the unveiling of what is already the case. For Jesus’ resurrection is only the first fruits (1 Corinthians 15:20), and while he is the firstborn (Rev 1:5), the harvest, the great family, is not yet here. ‘The Christ event cannot then itself be understood as fulfilling all promises, so that after this event there remains only the sequel of its being unveiled for all to see.’* Therefore, the believer’s present experience of an unredeemed groaning world is not to be downplayed as mere appearance awaiting the exposure of its hidden redemption.

* Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 214.

Series: I; II; III; IV; V; VI.

Theodicy & eschatology IV

In earlier posts, I have claimed that theodicy must be eschatological, that any attempt to solve the problem of evil prior to the eschaton is a futile and even wicked collusion with the deadly status quo of suffering and death. We must not look for an explanation of evil, of how it arose, or why it remains (the arrival and survival of evil). I suggest that to answer either of those questions in more than tangential ways is to have given the game away. Yes, we need pastoral responses for hurting people (indeed, are there any other kinds?) and even sometimes yes it is useful to clarify what we mean by some of the key terms in the discussion. But unless our response centres on the gospel, it is no longer a Christian response.

Christianity doesn't offer a philosophical (or sophical) response to evil. The gospel is not simply information, but event. God doesn't explain why evil has a useful role in society, or how in his master sceme it makes a cameo appearance. He does something. His response is to limit it, to condemn it, to restrain it, to oppose it, to undo it. And this is what we are seeing in the cross and empty tomb. Here I am taking the Christus Victor reading of the atonement, not as the only sign pointing into the Calvary mist, but as the most relevant to this discussion. Because on the cross, the full extent of evil doing its worst is manifest and exhausted. Though betrayed, scorned, violated, and ignored, Jesus never replied in kind. He was not overcome by evil, but overcame evil with good. He broke the vicious cycle, or spiral, of blood for blood, curse for curse. Trusting in the justice of God, he gave up his breath in blessing. He never pretended his situation was less than blackness; his godforsaken cry must not be read as a pantomime. He died in agony, the absent Father his only hope. Despair? Yes. Because he knew God - the God who hates evil. And he was located in the heart of darkness.

Holy Saturday is the Father's grief over the world. Died; was buried. This is not a theodicy - yet.

Easter is the theodicy of God, or at least its first dawning. For here, the injustice is righted, the scorned one glorifed. Here is the firstfruits of the defeat of death, the tasting of life beyond the deadliness of decay: death no longer has dominion over him.

But this 'over him', is our hope, our grief. For it does over us. We still die: in shame, in pain, outside justice, without peace. God has not redeemed his creation. Or not enough of it. The achievement of the cross can be overstated. It is finished? Not yet.
Series: I; II; III; IV; V; VI.

Palingenesia and futility

I have usually arranged my eschatological thought under three headings: (i) the return of Christ, (ii) the resurrection of the dead, and (iii) the last judgement. However, I'm becoming more convinced that there is a fourth heading: (iv) the renewal of all things, or palingenesia (Matt 19.28). I used to consider this as a sub-point under resurrection (since the revelation of the children of God is the condition for the creation's own liberation in Rom 8), or perhaps as a consequence of the judgement in which that which is evil is finally repudiated and brought to an end, while that which is good is affirmed and released and revealed and vindicated. But illustrating intersecting themes does not itself justify their conflation.

Corresponding to this hope for universal restoration is a fourth fundamental aspect of our present situation. Not only is (i) divine presence hidden or absent, not only do (ii) all the living die, not only does (iii) evil infect every good thing, but (iv) the entire created order is subject to futility. In each case, the solution is found in the inbreaking of the kingdom of God in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and in his pouring out his Spirit upon all flesh. The solution is Christ and the Spirit: (i) God with us, (ii) new life to the dying, (iii) forgiveness and vindication - and (iv) liberation. These have each begun, but the problems remain until the end. This is often called 'inaugurated eschatology'. Neither side of this dialectic can be safely neglected. The kingdom is geniunely at hand, but not yet established beyond dispute. It appears as the mustard seed, the field shot through with weeds (seedy and weedy): holding out the promise of great things and purity, but presently small and ambiguous.

So 'now and not yet': perhaps nothing particularly new here. But my point is that futility must also be placed within this dynamic. Christians too continue to find life frustrating and thwarted. The good gifts of the earth are filled with - vanity. Even as we give thanks for them we groan and yearn for what they are yet to be (just as we give thanks for health even as we waste away, just as we give thanks for forgiveness even as find ourselves once again sinning, just as we grasp the promise of Emmanuel in Word and Spirit even as we await the coming of God). Without this, Christian interaction with our physical context becomes either a gnostic hostily (in both active and apathetic varieties) or a triumphalist presumption. The former is found in endless world denying dualisms that justify the marginalisation of environmental considerations; the latter in prosperity gospels (found in both pentecostal and bourgeois comfortably complacent varieties). Admitting futility doesn't come easily.

Biblically, this theme, apparent in the 'thorns and thistles' of Genesis 3, is also evident in the life of Cain, marked as a wanderer (as suggested by Andrew Shead in a sermon today). Futility and exile belong together. For the rootless existence of the wanderer is also fruitless. It is the child of Cain who first builds a city, an attempt at civilisation, at a lasting legacy. But the mark that lasts is the one that God inscribed upon Cain. The very soil recoils from his touch. Adam, taken from the ground, given to it as its servant (Gen 2.15), begets a son to whom the ground no longer yields. The ground cries out with his brother's blood. This chthonic cry remains (Heb 12.24); the earth groans at being thwarted (Rom 8.18ff).

But the blood of Christ speaks a better word, a word of hope for spilled blood, untilled earth, fruitless labour.

I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! Poison-mixers are they, whether they know it or not. Despisers of life are they, decaying and poisoned themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so let them go.

- Friedrich Nieztsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Prologue §3

Someone has testified somewhere

Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels. But someone has testified somewhere, “What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals, that you care for them? You have made them for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned them with glory and honor, subjecting all things under their feet.” Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

- Hebrews 2.5-10 (or if we're go to with the spirit of the passage: "Somewhere")

Here's the question: if we don't currently see Psalm 8, is that because our eyes aren't good enough, or because it's not (yet) true? Have the many children already been brought to glory? If there's a 'pioneer' and then 'many children', doesn't this imply a gap between what happened to Jesus and what is yet to happen to us? And if that all seems obvious, then why is Jesus already 'perfect' if he hasn't finished his job?
Twelve points for naming the city that contains this beautiful early medieval mosaic.