A few quotes from Chapter Five, “How Can a Loving God Send People to Hell,” of Tim Keller’s The Reason For God
In short, hell is simply one’s freely chosen identity apart from God on a trajectory into infinity. (pg 78)
When we build our lives on anything but God, that thing-though a good thing-becomes an enslaving addiction, something we have to have to be happy. (pg 78)
Hell is, as Lewis says, “the greatest monument to human freedom.” (pg 79)
If Keller’s assessment is correct, and it seems reasonable, then the next question is: How do we build our lives and identities on God? Your comments and ideas are most welcome.
randy
Posted in keller.
By randy
– August 12, 2008
A couple of years back, Cathy and I were visiting family in the Bay Area and as we drove from SF Airport north into the city of San Francisco, I noticed a big banner in front of a United Methodist church, “Doctrine divides – Love unites”. I thought, “how messed up is that?!” New agey/PC liberal simple think at work. This kind of forced dichotomy is most prevelant and most ridiculous. Let’s think about this. Love requires the proper show of affection - we call that boundary setting. The proper show of affection requires diligence and discrimination – the right spirit coupled with the right understanding. The setting and observance of boudaries is the most simple and principled way of showing love. Out of love, you don’t let little Jr. out on the street – even though he wants to – because he become tire-fodder. In truth, proper love unites precisely because it divides. Love asks the discriminating question, “What is best for the beloved?”. Out with the bad, in with the good; out with the false, in with the true. In St. Paul’s sublime observations in 1 Cor. 13, as an adult putting away childish thoughts (the new agey simple-think for example), we know that LOVE REJOICES IN THE TRUTH. Keller makes this point most elegantly on the same page Randy pointed to with his question about absolute truth, secular or Christian. Keller writes mid-page 39, “Every human community holds in common some beliefs that necessarily create boundaries, including some people and excluding others from its circle” (italics mine).
Starting on page 40, Keller rightly points out the Christianity isn’t culturally rigid at all. The religion of the Jewish people is adapted by the wider mediterranean gentile community on the heels of Jesus’ messianic career. The faith has been appropriated by many different cultures over 2 millenia. I agree with Keller’s main point, however, I take a slightly different point of emphasis in terms of Christianity’s cultural expression, especially in the church’s life of worship. It’s not so much that the Christian faith can find various forms of expression among cultures, but more like, various cultures that have embraced Christianity willingly take upon themselves the history and cultus of the Jewish people. Their history becomes our history. As St. Paul observes, we are grafted on to the rootstock of the Jewish faith, brought to its completion in Christ Jesus. This has very important practical cultural implications. Take worship for instance. Not just “anything goes”. Our ancient Christian faith inherited the whole “word” portion of our worship service from our Jewish forbears and their synagogue worship. We then added the “Eucharist” part to our worship service, stemming from Jesus’ own approprition of the Passover meal, as now the Paschal meal. All thoroughly Jewish. All thoroughly Christian. As Ralph Martin writes in his excellent book Worship in the Early Church, “Christianity entered into the inheritance of an already existing pattern of worship, provided by the Temple ritual and synagogue liturgy… The backround of early Christian worship must be sought in these two institutions.” Martin concludes, “The typical worship of the Church is to be found to this day in the union of the worship of the synagogue and the sacramental experience of the Upper Room; and that union dates from the New Testament time.” This means that our worship as 21st century North Americans is informed by this deep Judeo-Christian-ancient Mediterranean way of worshipping. This should exert a continuing normative influence. I fall out of league with post-modernist Christian worshippers who well-meaningly but naively assert that the “form” of worship is unimportant. (I don’t think that this is what Keller is asserting, but I feel he needs to be a little more careful on page 45) Right worship entails us being formed and informed by the ancient (and always current!) form of tthe deep tradition of liturgy, word and sacrament. Any careful read of the real history of Christian worship would illustrate that we as modern Christians willingly take on this Judeo Christian nexus in terms of our life of worship. Such are my thoughts… sorry about the length of the rant!!
Glenn+
Posted in keller.
By Glenn Baaten
– August 2, 2008
From the Reader’s Guide for The Reason for God:
In chapter 3, Keller responds to criticism of absolute truth. He contends that in opposing the validity of a claim of absolute truth, the critic is necessarily making a truth claim of his own. As an example, Keller points to democratic values. “Western society is based on shared commitments to reason, rights, and justice even though there is no universally recognized definition of…any of these” (p. 39). Do you agree that the values of Western democracy constitute a type of secular absolute truth, and that adhering to the rightness of those values is no different than a Christian holding to the truth claims of Scripture? Why or why not?
Posted in keller.
By randy
– August 2, 2008
If you listened to the White Horse Inn broadcast The Glory Story (mentioned in the previous post) you heard a quote from Gerhard Forde. Forde is professor of systematic theology at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. The quote was from his book On Being A Theologian of the Cross. In the same book, on pages 89 and 90 Forde says:
True knowledge of God, therefore, does not come on a theological platter. We are predisposed to distort things, to see wrongly, and to speak falsely. We construct a doctrine of God amenable to our projects. So the only way to know God is through suffering, the suffering of the one who saves us. God, so to speak, has to get our attention so that we will see at last. Knowledge of God does not comprise sets of doctrinal truths that may be taken or left at our discretion, not even if those truths call themselves “A Theology of the Cross,” which we subsequently take steps to put into practice. Whether we take it or whether we leave it makes no difference. As long as we think the matter is at our discretion, we remain the acting subjects. God is ultimately an insignificant cipher. There is no way through here. God can be known and had only through suffering the divine deed of the cross. The cross does not merely inform us of something, something that may be “above,” or “behind” it. It attacks and afflict us. Knowledge of God comes when God happens to us, when God does himself to us.
Would you agree or disagree? Is this quote even understandable? If we can understand this, and agree with Forde’s statement, does it line up with what Tim Keller says about suffering in the chapter we are now reading? Any and all thoughts are welcome.
randy
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Posted in cross, suffering.
By randy
– July 24, 2008
Those whom the Lord has chosen and honoured with his intercourse must prepare for a hard, laborious, troubled life, a life full of many and various kinds of evils; it being the will of our heavenly Father to exercise his people in this way while putting them to the proof. Having begun this course with Christ the first-born, he continues it towards all his children. For though that Son was dear to him above others, the Son in whom he was “well pleased,” yet we see, that far from being treated gently and indulgently, we may say, that not only was he subjected to a perpetual cross while he dwelt on earth, but his whole life was nothing else than a kind of perpetual cross.
This is what John Calvin says in his Institutes about trials, afflictions, and suffering. There are two things worth noting here. First, that Christ is not primarily identifying with our suffering, but that we are following Him in His. Second, these ‘crosses’ come from the hand of our Heavenly Father, this being His way of conforming us to the likeness of His Son.
This is a ‘theology of the cross.’ What is opposed to this and more commonly heard today is a ‘theology of glory.’ The theology of this story has Jesus suffering so that we don’t have to, and if you are suffering, well, you just lack faith. Just follow these seven simple principles and you will be on your way to living the victorious life. It’s easy to see how this story perpetuates itself. If these seven principles don’t work for you, then how-about forty days to a new you.
Make no mistake, Jesus did suffer and die in our stead. This was not to remove suffering from our lives, but to transform the end of the suffering. We do get to the glory, but it is through following the path our Savior walked, not leaping over it. It is through trial, tribulation, and suffering and finally through the grave, that we come to a glory to be revealed. We know that we can make it, but only because He made it first and has set our place at the table. He is aware of our weakness, and He reminds us weekly in the bread and the wine that we have a seat in the great banquet to come.
If you get opportunity, listen to The Glory Story on the White Horse Inn. The White Horse Inn is a listener supported, weekly syndicated, round-table talk show centered on Reformation doctrine and practice. The panelists are well informed, articulate, and quite entertaining. You can download for free with registration or listen online. Archived programs are available at no charge.
randy
Posted in cross, suffering.
By Glenn Baaten
– July 21, 2008
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