"Discipline" - an unhelpful translation?

Here's a passage which I find really unhelpful when you're going through a hard time, but which shouldn't be...

And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,

‘My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.’

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined – and everyone undergoes discipline – then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
Hebrews 12:5-11, NIV

So what? We're meant to endure hardship as discipline? Try telling that to the woman whose child has died – that it's God disciplining her! How's that a “word of encouragement”? It's stupid, pastorally insensitive, and just plain wrong. We don't live under the law. We don't believe in a God who gives us petty material rewards for obedience and punishments for disobedience. Maybe that's the way it worked in Leviticus, but not for the Christian.

There are two problems here. The first is the word “discipline” - most translations seem to use it in Hebrews 12, but I don't think it's warranted.

Discipline: the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behaviour, using punishment to correct disobedience.
παιδεια: upbringing, training, instruction.

The Greek word which we translate as “discipline” doesn't quite mean that though. “Training” would be a better translation – it's the idea of an adult training a child. Sometimes that involves punishing disobedience - we suffer because we do things wrong. Sometimes, like with hard physical training, it's difficult and painful when we do it right as well. The word used for "discipline" here carries both ideas - it's the same word translated “training” in 2 Timothy 3:16. The passage isn't saying that all hardship is discipline. It's saying that God uses hardship to train us, like any kind of training can be hard, but we respect it and work with it.

The NIV translators generally did a great job – it's just about the best translation of the Bible into modern English. But they had a shocker when it got to Hebrews 12:7, and most other translations didn't do a lot better...

“Endure hardship as discipline – God is treating you as his children.” (NIV)
“It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons.” (ESV)
”Be patient when you are being corrected! This is how God treats his children.” (CEV)
”Endure what you suffer as being a father's punishment; your suffering shows that God is treating you as his children.” (Good News)
If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons;” (NJKV)

The NRSV is probably the most helpful of the major translations here, except that it still uses “discipline”; “Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as children...”
I think Eugene Peterson pretty much nails the sense though in the Message:

God is educating you; that’s why you must never drop out. He’s treating you as dear children. This trouble you’re in isn’t punishment; it’s training, the normal experience of children.

The idea is that we should endure difficulties and hardship because God uses them to train us. God is our Father. He hasn't let go of us; he isn't leaving us to the ravages of chance or punishing us for our own weakness. He knows what he is doing, and he is training us to trust him, even in and through the difficult times. Now that's a comfort, and an encouragement to keep going!

God and Suffering talk by Glen Scrivener

Sermon on Habakkuk 1:12-17

I've cleaned up the audio from this sermon, which I preached a few weeks ago. The results are here. Sorry it's not great quality, but it's better than it was. short link.

Kent & Barbara Hughes Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome

This book was given to me as a Christmas present, and I've greatly enjoyed reading it over the last few weeks. It's basically about how the most important thing in ministry is staying close to God rather than growth in numbers and so on. I've found it very good for devotional reading.

The book itself is very good - some of the quotes from other writers are outstanding.

Someone once asked George MacDonald why, if God loves us so much and knows everything we need before we ask, must we pray. MacDonald's magnificent answer remains wonderfully instructive.

What if he knows prayer to be the thing we need first and most? What if the main object in God's idea of prayer be the supplying of our great, our endless need - the need of himself? What if the good of all our smaller and lower needs lies in this, that they help drive us to God? Communion with God is the one need of the soul beyond all other needs; prayer is the beginning of that communion.

(p.72)

(quoting Malcolm Muggeridge)

If it were ever possible to eliminate affliction from our earthly existence by means of some drug or other medical mumbo-jumbo, as Aldous Huxley envisaged in Brave New World, the result would not be to make life delectable but to make it too banal and trivial to be endurable.

(p.121)

GK Chesterton once described a paradox as "truth standing on its head crying for attention."

(p.138)

(quoting Bruce Thieleman)

The pulpit calls those anointed to it as the sea calls its sailors; and like the sea it batters and bruises, and does not rest... To preach, to really preach, is to die naked a little at a time, and to know each time that you must do it again.

(p.183)

Bits and Bobs - Livingstone and legalism

John Piper quotes David Livingstone:

For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. . . . Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.

The Telegraph had an interesting article about Christians fleeing from Iraq.

And Mark Driscoll describes how to become a legalist:

You Can Change - Tim Chester

This is just about the best book I've read on the subject of changing the way you think and act. It's certainly the number 1 book I'd recommend to people wanting something on that sort of topic.

Tim Chester starts from a well-thought-through theology of who people are and why we sin. He avoids the usual pitfalls of legalism and saying that sin doesn't really matter. He really questions and challenges our motivation to change in a really helpful way. Brilliant.

Here are some quotes:

For all eternity your past experience of evil will enhance your eternal experience of glory.
p.71

Listen to Ed Welch: 'Perhaps the person is mad at himself for repeating the same sin over and over again. This is actually a veiled form of pride that assumes he is capable of doing good in his own power. He is minimising his spiritual inability apart from God's grace.' Jerry Bridges claims: 'God wants us to walk in obedience - not victory... We are more concerned about our own victory over sin than we are about the fact that our sins grieve the heart of God.'
p.128

Being True to Yourself

There's something I've noticed where the Church is blindly following society, and getting into all kinds of trouble as a result.

In general, it's more of a problem the more the church understands and identifies with contemporary society. So I'd guess that a clear majority of charismatic evangelical leaders I know believe this in some form, with fewer conservative evangelicals going along with it (but then, I think charismatics are usually better at relating to postmodern society - conservatives are often still relating to modern society, which explains why in university towns people doing artsy subjects tend to be a lot more charismatic than people doing sciencey subjects).

Liberals seem to believe this far more than traditionalists. And I've hardly come across it at all among conservative Anglo-Catholics, but they often seem to relate to modern society by having rituals which contrast dramatically with it.

The belief that I think the Church has absorbed from culture is this:

It is very important to have "personal integrity" - to be true to yourself and to act in a way that fits with who you are.

I want to think about this area briefly. I think it's very important. For example, I think it is one of the key issues underlying the whole gay debate, and unless it is dealt with, could well lead to a big split among evangelicals.

Personal Integrity

Firstly, I'm pretty sure that's not what "personal integrity" means. Personal integrity means keeping your word, even when it hurts (Ps 15:4) and sticking by moral principles rather than by some sense of who I am.

God's Integrity

The closest passage I can think of in the Bible to this common view is 2 Timothy 2:13 - "if we are faithless, God will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself." But things are different for God, because he's perfect. Compare the following two sentences: "I should not disown God." and "I should not disown myself." Which is more important? Isn't it obvious that the key issue is not disowning God rather than no disowning myself? Why? Because to disown God means acting in a way that doesn't fit with his perfect character. God cannot disown himself, so we should not disown him.

The crunch issue here is the Incarnation and the cross.

Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death —
even death on a cross!

Philippians 2:4-8, NIV

Was Christ true to himself? In the sense of being true to his Father and to his Father's moral character, yes he was. But in today's sense of being true to who he himself was, he most certainly wasn't true to that. He was something and made himself nothing. When the moral and ethical imperatives of being true to God clashed with the ontological imperatives of being "true to himself", Jesus Christ became nothing, and he did it for us.

The Way of the Cross

And actually, that's meant to be a big part of the pattern for our lives.

Then Jesus called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.
Mark 8:34-35, NIV

Are we meant to be true to ourselves? No. We're meant to deny ourselves, be true to Jesus and to his Father, and follow in the glorious way of the Cross and Resurrection into new life in him.

The Way of the Cross in Mission

We are called to be Christ in our societies - Christ crucified to our old lives and raised in our new ones. And part of what that means is extreme adaptability in missions, because Christ became human and made himself nothing for us.

Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.
1 Corinthians 9:19-22

Those words grate with contemporary assumptions about being true to yourself. We have got so good at becoming like modern society to win modern society, that we have absorbed far too many of the unhealthy aspects of it. Some of us have often ceased to be merely in the world - too often we are of it as well. And others are not sufficiently in it because we spent so long in a past world that we got wedded to that instead.

Paul was willing to place the issue of who he was up for grabs, because it was far more important that he reach people for Christ than that he be "true to who he was". Paul was true to Jesus - willing to deny himself. Are we?

Lifestyle Apologetics, Glory and Suffering

Some more quotes from "Christian Leaders of the 18th Century" by J.C.Ryle.

[Whitefield] was among the first to show the right way to meet the attacks of infidels and sceptics on Christianity. He saw clearly that the most powerful weapon against such men is not cold, metaphysical reasoning and dry critical disquisition, but preaching the whole gospel - living the whole gospel - and spreading the whole gospel... Infidels are seldom shaken by mere abstract reasoning. The surest arguments against them are gospel truth and gospel life.

"His fundamental point was to give God all the glory of whatever is good in man. In the business of salvation he set Christ as high and man as low as possible."
John Wesley, speaking about George Whitefield

The tools that the great Architect intends to use much, are often kept long in the fire, to temper them and fit them for work.

Thoughts from Psalm 10

This is a rough outline for a sermon I haven't been asked to preach (that being by far the most common type).

When we look at the world, it is hard to ignore the injustice, the suffering, the inhumanity of humans to other humans. And we rightly cry out to God for justice. And the message of this Psalm is that God will hear the cries of the oppressed, the victims. He will hold the Hitlers and the Pol Pots and the perpertrators of genocides and the paedophiles to account. He sees. He hears. He listens. And he will act.

But that is only part of the story. You see, we love to think that there are good people and there are evil people, and that there's something seriously wrong with the evil people, but we're ok. But actually, when you look at it and think about it, that's rubbish. Hitler was democratically elected in Germany. If we had been German in the early 1930s, half of us would probably have voted for Hitler. The Hutus in Rwanda were people, just like us, and yet so many of them were driven by their situation to kill and main their neighbours. As GK Chesterton wrote in his Father Brown stories, we are each capable of pretty much any crime, it just depends on our background and the situation. That is why there is an increasing emphasis on restorative justice, on trying to help people break cycles of criminality and so on. Now, I'm not saying for one minute that we shouldn't condemn people who do wicked things. I think we all know that we have to condemn them. I'm saying that when we do condemn them, we also condemn ourselves.

God is ready, willing and able to act against the criminals of this world. So why hasn't he done it yet? Because when he does, it will mean utterly destroying humanity, which is of this earth.

And yet, instead of that, he comes to earth himself as a man and suffers injustice. He becomes the victim of the oppressor as well as their judge. And because he is the victim, he can then forgive the oppressors. He suffers at our hands the punishment we ourselves deserve, so that we - the wicked - need no longer stand under his judgement if only we will put our trust in him and be born again.

The Stone the Builders Rejected...

Isn't it interesting that people's number one problem with God as depicted in the Bible (or pretty much anywhere else) is that innocent people suffer?

And isn't it interesting that the way God solves people's real number one problem - the fact that we all reject God and ignore him and deserve to be separated from him - is by the suffering of the one truly innocent man - Jesus? That God takes what people see as the greatest problem of divine existence onto himself, and uses it to solve what he knows is the greatest problem of human existence?

Truly, as it is written:

The stone the builders rejected
has become the capstone;
the LORD has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes.
Psalm 118:22-23, NIV

God and Suffering - the Pastoral Question

In part 2 of my recent series on "Does God Suffer?", Iconoclast asked me about pastoral responses to suffering.

Of course, often it's best not to say anything, and just to be with people.

However, the following theological points are relevant:

1. God suffers with us and for us. He is not a remote God who inflicts suffering on humanity; he is a God who shares in the suffering of humanity through Jesus.
2. In Jesus, God overcomes suffering and demonstrates that it is not the final word.
3. In Jesus, God redeems suffering and shows that he can and does use even the rubbish of his son being crucified for good.

Does God Suffer? Part 4

Sorry for the infrequent updates. I've been very busy lately - I've got a lovely girlfriend who takes priority over blog posting and I'm helping to run a quiz tournament. Back to God and suffering...

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

We need to reflect first on what it means for God to act in history before we can reflect on what it means for Jesus to suffer in history. The Bible strongly affirms that God does not change, but clearly also states that he can and does act in history, which seems to conflict with a naïve notion of what change is. In 500BC, God was not incarnate. In AD20, he was. And yet God is unchanging. Grudem summarises the Biblical evidence well:

God is unchanging in his being, perfections, purposes and promises, yet God does act and feel emotions, and he acts and feels differently in response to different situations. This attribute of God is also called God's immutability.

Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology

I think Grudem is unhelpful when he says God feels emotions. God feels love, anger, compassion and so on, but when God feels them they don't change, they aren't wrongly motivated, they're always totally consistent with his character. I would say they're like emotions, but it's truer to say that emotions are a bit like them. But otherwise, Grudem's about right

Grudem also clarifies the Bible's teaching on divine eternity well:

God's eternity may be defined as follows: God has no beginning, end or succession of moments in his own being, and he sees all time equally vividly, yet God sees events in time and acts in time.

Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology

If we combine Grudem's conceptions of what it means for God to be unchanging and eternal, a conceptual model of God starts to emerge which allows him to be both transcendent in the sense that the impassibilists affirm and suffering in the sense that the cross and human experience seem to require. It is further aided by the insight from General Relativity that time and space are so strongly interconnected that to be outside one would require being outside the other. If then, God transcends both time and space yet can act into time in exactly the same way that he can act into space, the way starts to become clearer.

God's changing emotions as presented in the Bible could then be seen to be true expressions, though also accommodations to our understanding, of unchangeable “themotions”, which change only because our position in history changes, and therefore we see some aspects of God's unchanging nature more clearly at different times, because our situation is different.

So God acts into history and therefore can and does suffer in history. And yet what is true of God in history is also true of God in eternity. God suffers in eternity because of what he chooses to experience in history.

So does that mean that suffering wins? If suffering goes on into eternity, doesn't that mean it's won? No.

For in God taking suffering into himself in eternity, yes, suffering itself becomes transcendent, and yet God transcends it, because the centre of the Christian faith is not Moltmann's Crucified God, but the Crucified and Risen Christ. Suffering is transcended because it is defeated and exceeded by the glory of the Resurrection.

Does God Suffer? Part 3

Sorry about the delay in writing this bit. One of the hazards of having a life is that it sometimes gets in the way of blogging ;)

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 4

Christ on the Cross - Traditional Views

The key for any theological answer to the question of whether God suffers is how it handles the crucifixion of Jesus. Of course, if God can't suffer and Jesus is really God and suffers, there's a problem.

Arius used that problem as one of the main reasons he decided Jesus wasn't God, and it was an important challenge for the Church. The answer they came to eventually was that Jesus was one person, both fully human and fully divine, and that his human and divine natures were distinct. So Jesus suffered in his human nature, but not in his divine nature. Christians could even say that God suffered in the humanity of Jesus.

On one level, that's a really important statement to make. I was rightly asked after my last post about pastoral responses to suffering, and one really important point to bear in mind is that God does suffer in the person of Jesus. He isn't a God who is immune from suffering.

Problems with the Traditional Answer

However, the Greek philosophy underlying us talking about Jesus as having two distinct natures has pretty much fallen away. We can rightly say that he is fully human and fully divine, but I don't know anyone who could actually tell me what it means for God to suffer in the person of Jesus but not in himself.

In addition, there are plenty of references in the Bible to God seeming to suffer because his people are suffering or because they are sinful.

How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, Israel?
How can I treat you like Admah?
How can I make you like Zeboiim?
My heart is changed within me;
all my compassion is aroused.
I will not carry out my fierce anger,
nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim.
For I am God, and not man—
the Holy One among you.
I will not come in wrath.

Hosea 11:8-9, NIV

It seems so much simpler to say that God can and does suffer, though that suffering is because of us and because he chooses to love us. Choosing to love someone often leads to pain, especially when they aren't perfect...

But that then raises the questions about how an eternal God can suffer in time, and whether an eternal God suffering means that suffering wins in the end...

Does God Suffer? Part 2

Part 1 | Part 3 | Part 4

Dealing with Traditional Philosophy

In part 1, I described the traditional philosophical view of why God can't suffer. The problems with that are twofold.

First, God isn't ontologically dependent on us - we can't make God suffer, but he can choose to suffer for us and because of us. This is actually just the doctrine of grace.

The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8 But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
Deuteronomy 7:7-8, NIV

God didn't choose Israel because he had to - he did it because he wanted to. There wasn't anything about Israel that forced him to do it. In the same way, there isn't anything about us that can force God to suffer. But God can still love us, by his own choice, and that might well affect whether he suffers.

The second problem is that suffering doesn't imply the sort of change that God doesn't do. The Bible teaches that God doesn't change, but also that he acts and that he was incarnate. In 500BC, God wasn't incarnate as a man. In AD20, he was. When we say that God doesn't change, if we are being true to the Bible or to the idea of the Incarnation, then we need to be careful what we mean by "change".

Wayne Grudem describes what the Bible teaches about God's unchangingness as follows:

God is unchanging in his being, perfections, purposes and promises, yet God does act and feel emotions, and he acts and feels differently in response to different situations. This attribute of God is also called God's immutability.
Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology

I think Grudem is unhelpful when he says God feels emotions. God feels love, anger, compassion and so on, but when God feels them they don't change, they aren't wrongly motivated, they're always totally consistent with his character. I would say they're like emotions, but it's truer to say that emotions are a bit like them.

When we have that understanding of what it means for God to be unchanging, it starts to become clear that it doesn't actually mean that God can't suffer. There's also the possibility that God might suffer eternally - I'll discuss that more later.

Jurgen Moltmann

I've avoided talking about dead Germans up until now. But Moltmann is really important here because if you read any modern books on God and suffering, they always spend a lot of time discussing his views, which have been very influential. And in true Monty Python style, he isn't dead yet either.

Moltmann effectively centres his whole theology on the question of God and suffering, even on the question of what it means for God to be with us in our suffering. Here's probably his most famous passage, which starts with a quote from a Holocaust survivor.

“The SS hanged two Jewish men and a youth in front of the whole camp. The men died quickly, but the death throes of the youth lasted for half an hour. 'Where is God? Where is he?' someone asked behind me. As the youth still hung in torment in the noose after a long time, I heard the man call again, 'Where is God now?' And I heard a voice in myself answer: 'Where is he? He is here. He is hanging there on the gallows...'”

Any other answer would be blasphemy. There cannot be any other Christian answer to the question of this torment. To speak here of a God who could not suffer would make God a demon. To speak here of an absolute God would make God an annihilating nothingness. To speak here of an indifferent God would condemn man to indifference.

Moltmann sees the idea of God being crucified as central, even to the point where it twists large chunks of the rest of his theology. He also sees the answer to the problem of suffering as being that as God is crucified, he takes into himself all the suffering in the whole world, past, present and future. So God is seen as sharing in and participating in the suffering of the world.

Along with many modern theologians who put God's suffering central, Moltmann tends to end up in panentheism - the belief that God is in everything and everything is in God.

In part 3, I'll look at the traditional understanding of how / whether God suffered when Jesus was on the cross, and whether it's enough.

Does God Suffer?

I wrote an essay on this recently. Here's part 1 of a summary, without all the references to dead Germans that are so much a part of theology essays, and with a slightly better understanding as a result of arguing about it with other people.

Part 2 | Part 3 |Part 4

Why Can't God Suffer?

The traditional understanding of God in Christianity is that he is impassible, though since the World Wars, most Christian theologians say that God is passible instead. One big problem is that the words passible and impassible have slightly different definitions depending on who you speak to, and the definitions make a big difference, so I'll ignore the words altogether.

None of our pictures of God ever manage to be exhaustively accurate. But it's very easy in this sort of topic to end up with a picture of God that gets important bits wrong, especially when it comes to keeping God's transcendence. It's important to affirm that:

• God is not part of creation and creation is not part of God.
• God is ontologically independent of us. We can't, in and of ourselves, make any difference to God whatsoever. We can't hurt him, we can't make him happy, we can't cause him pain, unless he decides to let us.

• God does not change. The big question that raises is what it means for God to act, given that he doesn't change. I'll discuss that later.

The traditional philosophical understanding of suffering means that it needs God to be ontologically dependent on us - if he suffers because of us, that means we can hurt him. It also means that God changes - he goes from a position of not suffering to a position of suffering. I think the traditional philosophical understanding of suffering is wrong in both respects....

Deprecatory Psalms

Several of the Psalms contain what are often described as "deprecatory" sections - bits where the Psalmist is praying for God to break the teeth of / hurt / defeat enemies. And yes, I know Psalm 137:8-9 is worse than that.

Anyhow, Dale Ralph Davis has an interesting insight on this, while reflecting on how David treated Saul. David, of course, is credited as having written many of the Psalms, some even before he came king. Saul was David's predecessor as king, and spent several years trying to kill him because he was worried that David would take over. David had quite a few opportunities to kill Saul (e.g. 1 Samuel 24), but made a point of not taking them.

Davis points out two important features of deprecatory Psalms:

1. The Psalmist wanted nasty things to happen to people
2. The Psalmist didn't do them, but left vengeance to God

Should our attitude be different to 1? Maybe. In some cases, it is quite understandable to feel that way though. On a trivial level, I know I have briefly wanted nasty things to happen to people who (for example) turn left across the path I was trying to ride on a bike, in at least one case forcing me to skid off the road to avoid being hit. On a more serious level, the author of Psalm 137 had almost certainly seen the brutal destruction of his home city at the hands of the Babylonians, who had in all probability killed infants he knew by throwing them against rocks. In such situations, being angry and wanting nasty things to happen to people is understandable.

But given that anger, what should we do with it? Well, the message of the deprecatory Psalms is that we should pray about it and we should leave it to God to sort out. Revenge is not our job.

Job and the difficulty of wisdom

I'm still meant to be revising, so here's another Old Testamental post.

In Proverbs, we saw that wisdom was fundamentally making sense of the world around us as something God was in control of. Job shows us that it's not always that simple.

Storyline

Job is a very rich very good guy. God and Satan have an argument about Job - Satan says he's just following God because things are going well for him; God denies it; Job ends up losing everything, except his nagging wife and is left sitting in the ruins of his house, scratching his sores with bits of broken pot. As if that wasn't enough, three of his "friends" show up and start arguing with him about why he is suffering in epic-style Hebrew poetry. They're later joined by another guy too. In the end, God shows up and tells them how amazing he is, then they all shut up and in the end Job lives happily ever after.

Did it really happen? I don't know. Does it matter? No. Unlike most of the rest of the Bible (except Jesus' parables and a few other bits) the important bit is not whether the events actually happened, but what we learn from them, in particular about wisdom and suffering.

Job and Wisdom

In Proverbs, wisdom was really worth finding, but often reasonably possible to find - by reading books, obeying God, and so on.

My son, if you accept my words
and store up my commands within you,
turning your ear to wisdom
and applying your heart to understanding,
and if you call out for insight
and cry aloud for understanding,
and if you look for it as for silver
and search for it as for hidden treasure,
then you will understand the fear of the LORD
and find the knowledge of God.
For the LORD gives wisdom,
and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
Proverbs 2:1-6, NIV

In Job, however, even though wisdom still comes from God, it's a little trickier to find...

"But where can wisdom be found?
Where does understanding dwell?
Man does not comprehend its worth;
it cannot be found in the land of the living.
The deep says, 'It is not in me';
the sea says, 'It is not with me.'
It cannot be bought with the finest gold,
nor can its price be weighed in silver.
It cannot be bought with the gold of Ophir,
with precious onyx or sapphires.
Neither gold nor crystal can compare with it,
nor can it be had for jewels of gold.
Coral and jasper are not worthy of mention;
the price of wisdom is beyond rubies.
The topaz of Cush cannot compare with it;
it cannot be bought with pure gold.
"Where then does wisdom come from?
Where does understanding dwell?
It is hidden from the eyes of every living thing,
concealed even from the birds of the air.
Destruction and Death say,
'Only a rumor of it has reached our ears.'
God understands the way to it
and he alone knows where it dwells,
...
'The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom,
and to shun evil is understanding.'
Job 28:12-28, NIV

Sometimes, as Job points out, we cannot make sense of the world. We cannot see how to "live skillfully". Job manages to refute his friends, but does not get an answer to the problem of his own suffering.

Job and God

What Job does get is God showing up and spending quite a while telling everyone how amazing he is and how feeble they are. The implication - why should we expect to be able to understand the universe or how God works?

This explains the apparently unsatisfactory climax in which God does not answer Job’s questions or charges, but though he proclaims the greatness of his all-might, not of his ethical rule, Job is satisfied. He realizes that his concept of God collapsed because it was too small; his problems evaporate when he realizes the greatness of God. The book does not set out to answer the problem of suffering but to proclaim a God so great that no answer is needed, for it would transcend the finite mind if given; the same applies to the problems incidentally raised.
H.L. Ellison in New Bible Dictionary

So wisdom literature basically summarises what it is to be human. One one hand we can make great progress in understanding how the world works. On the other, we are mortal and so cannot find real significance in life apart from God, and we are small and foolish so cannot always understand the world, especially when it comes to understanding God and his motives.

Ellison on Suffering

I'm reading a lot of stuff about the Wisdom Literature in the Bible at the moment, and came across this great quote on Job, and suffering, which kind of ties in with various comments on the blog...

For quick reference, the book of Job is basically a poetic exploration of questions about God and suffering, based around a guy called Job who suffers a lot. (There is a debate among Christian academics over whether or not he actually existed - it's possible the story is a kind of God-inspired poetic dialoguey parable, but that's a different discussion.)

This explains the apparently unsatisfactory climax in which God does not answer Job's quesitons or charges, but though he proclaims the greatness of his all-might, not of his ethical rule, Job is satisfied. He realises that his concept of God collapsed because it was too small; his problems evaporate when he realises the greatness of God. The book does not set out to answer the problem of suffering but to proclaim a God so great that no answer is needed, for it would transcend the finite mind if given; the same applies to the problems incidentally raised.
H.L. Ellison, writing in the New Bible Dictionary

Intellectual Honesty

I'm currently at a Church of England theological college in Oxford. One of the things that really struck me when I moved here was the intellectual honesty of the place.

I'm used to people thinking through issues, but then trying to make their position look stronger than it is by using arguments that don't really work, and if they're really honest, they know don't really work. That's certainly true on both sides in the women bishops debate; it's certainly true on both sides in the creation / evolution debate; it's certainly true on both sides when arguing about the existence of God. To be honest, it's part of the reason I quit taking sides in the 144-hour creation / 14 Gy creation debate (unless anyone is arguing their case more strongly than is tenable, in which case I sometimes try to argue them more into the centre).

That doesn't seem to happen anywhere near as much here though, especially among the staff. It's a real challenge for me as well - although I really don't like it when others do it, I know I still occasionally use arguments I know aren't solid. So I'm trying to stop doing that.

Here's a challenge for readers of this blog. You try doing the same. Try being honest with yourselves and with other people about when your position is solid and when it's not, about when arguments work and when they don't really work but you like the conclusion anyway.

One of the people who posts comments on this blog gave me a really funny example of this with a modified version of the old (and hideously flawed) so-called Argument from Evil, which he described as an "irrefutable disproof of God". I'll assume he was being humourous and self-deprecating by deliberately hugely overstating his case with a very poor argument. But if he'd been doing that seriously (which I'll assume he wasn't), and if I was observing, I'd think that he was desperate for arguments for his position if that was the best he could come up with.

The "Problem" of Evil

Here's a quote from a comment on one of my recent posts:

The problem from evil DOES disprove the existence of a loving omnipotent god.

I figure it needs a bit of space to respond to, so I might as well write a bit on it...

The "Problem"

The classic statement of the "problem of evil" goes something like this:

1) If God is omnipotent (all-powerful), he can stop suffering if he wants to
2) If God is loving, he will stop suffering if he can
3) So if God is loving and omnipotent, he will stop suffering
4) Suffering exists
5) Therefore God is not loving and omnipotent

As you can guess, I don't think it works at all.

Problems with the "Problem" - 1. Misdefining "love"

There are a few problems with the so-called "problem of evil". First, statement 2) is flawed. It assumes that "loving" means "wanting others to avoid suffering as much as possible". As far as I can tell, that's a fairly modern cultural assumption, and it's one of those assumptions that stops working if you look at it for long.

For example, a loving parent will often allow their children to play, even if it might mean the children hurting themselves. If they wanted to minimise pain, they'd put the child on a morphine drip and lock them in their room. As the child gets older, a loving parent might well allow the child to cross roads on their own, despite the risk of getting run over. They might allow or even encourage their child to learn to drive, despite the risks of road accidents. The best way of minimising pain is to give someone a massive dose of anasthetic and kill them. And if you let them live, don't let them ever get romantically involved with anyone else. Love does not mean "aiming to minimise pain".

But what if we're talking about serious suffering? What if when we say "suffering", we mean "dying before age 35"? Once again, love doesn't mean "always wanting to preserve life". Steve Irwin died recently in what seems to have been a freak accident with a stingray. Was it loving of his wife and family to let him go? Yes. Given what Steve Irwin's persona seems to have been like, it would have been unloving not to let him go.

In the same way, God lovingly allows us the dignity of the consequences of our actions. If I hit someone, they can feel pain. If I sit alongside someone, they can be comforted. If I drive at 100mph off a cliff, I die. If I bury a landmine, it might explode and hurt or kill someone. Our actions are our fault.

Problems with the "Problem" - 2. Missing the Point

Another problem with the "problem" is that it completely misses the point. Christianity doesn't claim that God makes life pain-free or suffering-free. Actually, it claims it makes life more painful, with more suffering (and more joy and hope) for those who follow it.

What is promised for Christians who are suffering is endurance, hope and joy, not freedom from suffering.

Problems with the "Problem" - 3. REALLY Missing the Point

What is the main thing Christianity says about suffering?

That God himself is not an impassive observer - that he came to share in the world's suffering - that he was rejected, persecuted, beaten, suffered, and that he died, and that somehow through that suffering and death, he accomplished a great good. Jesus showed that suffering and death is not the final word - he showed that he can and does use it for God's glory and for the good of God's people.

Problems with the "Problem" - 4. Forgetting the tenses

The other point worth mentioning, of course, is that God has promised that he will one day deal with suffering totally (for his people, at least). There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. But that isn't yet - God hasn't yet finished what he is doing and the way he is working in the suffering of this world to accomplish his purposes.

God is omnipotent, he is loving, he shares in our suffering, he suffers for us, he promises that one day there will be an end to suffering. I'm grateful that he's God, and not me, and not anyone else.