Three Books about God

Three books about God have found themselves amongst my reading recently.

God is Impassible and Impassioned – Toward a theology of divine emotion – Rob Lister (IVP 2012).

Lister takes us helpfully through the arguments surrounding whether, and if so how, God ‘feels’ and ‘suffers’. His thesis is that God is impassible in the sense that he cannot be manipulated, overwhelmed, or surprised by an emotional interaction that he does not desire or have or allow to happen. This is not at all the same as saying that he is devoid of emotion (how could that be so when we have a God in Scripture who is angry, delights, loves and grieves?) nor is it the equivalent of saying that God is not affected by his creatures. On the contrary, says Lister, God is also impassioned, that is, perfectly vibrant in his affections, and he may be affected by his creatures, but as God, he is so because he wills to be so affected.

Lister outlines the historical context from the patristic authors onwards, looking at contemporary evangelical authors who reject impassibility - often because it is widely thought to be in conflict with God’s love and relationality, two modern pre-occupations - and then moves on to construct a biblical and theological model (summarised above).

Lister develops this a bit more: God’s passion transcends ours both in an ontological sense (who He is) and in an ethical sense (what he promises and does). The former (God’s ‘ontologically transcendent passion’) is what we term impassibility; the latter (God’s ‘ethically transcendent passion’) we may call his impassionedness. Passion now becomes the dominant factor, virtually equivalent to a description of God in emotional terms. Only now, in terms of God’s being, this translates as the quality of not being vulnerable to outside influences, while in terms of God’s actions and promises, it become his burning, vibrant affection.

One cannot help feeling that ‘passible’ in ‘impassible’ and ‘passion’ in ‘impassioned’ are used in different senses – the former from the original meaning of the word in Latin, that is, something that one suffers, while the latter is a strong (in God’s case perfect) affection. So how helpful it is to use it in these two ways, to call God ‘impassible ‘ and ‘impassioned’, or say that God’s ‘ontologically transcendent passion’ is his ‘impassibility’ is questionable. I know what Lister is saying, and his thesis is very helpful, but perhaps the vocabulary is not.

One other unsatisfactory part of the book is that in 284 pages only 20 are given to the incarnation and the atonement in a ‘Concluding Christological Reflection’. God’s revelation in Christ and the cross deserves more attention than this in a book on this subject.

But this is an excellent book, very full of useful discussion and Bible exposition, and is highly recommended for getting to grips with this important and difficult subject.


God’s Greater Glory – The Exalted God of Scripture and the Christian Faith - Bruce Ware (Crossway 2004)

In 'God’s Lesser Glory' Bruce Ware carried out a good demolition job on Open Theism. In this later (but now quite old!) volume he constructs a far better picture of God’s providential care of his creation. He has excellent material on God’s transcendence and immanence, the Creator–creature distinction, divine sovereignty and human freedom, and ‘concurrence’ – what he calls God working through creation.

The weakest part in my view is his section on ‘Calvinist middle knowledge’ which he constructs in an attempt to avoid God being charged with being the author of sin – in other words it is a kind of apologetic. His view of God’s government of good acts is that the government of the human will is direct, for God is the author of good and there is no conflict. But there is a difference in God’s government of evil. If we take the view that we are free when we act according to our strongest inclination, then if God, knowing how an agent will act in given circumstances, so ordains events that an agent will choose to do evil, then we cannot say that evil is done by God or due to the factors in the situation, but by the sinful nature of the agent acting freely.

This does not seem to be very effective apologetically, because is a God who prepares an evil act in all but final execution, any better morally than a God who actually moves the human will up to and including the very act (as Phil 2:12,13 seems to suggest God controls us; as also Genesis 50:20 suggests)? Give a bad man a gun knowing he will kill someone with it, or a naughty child a firework knowing he will put it through someone’s letter box – but then say ‘It wasn’t me guv’. Are you off the hook?

Of course the precise way God governs evil and good are different, but this is surely the place for a robust application of the doctrine of concurrence (which Ware discusses elsewhere), and to say with Calvin in commenting on ‘the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord’ (Prov 21:1) that ‘in general the will not less than external works are [sic] governed by the determination of God’.

So I was not persuaded by Ware’s argument here. But overall it is a very helpful book and I enjoyed it.

Simply God - Recovering the Classical Trinity - Peter Sanlon (IVP 2014).

Peter Sanlon is a rising star in the Reformed Anglican firmament, vicar of St Mark’s, Tunbridge Wells (sorry, Royal Tunbridge Wells), and a fine young theologian.

This book is primarily reminding us of the wonder of God’s ‘simplicity’, which Sanlon calls the basic grammar of language about God, ‘the engine in the car of a healthy theology’. God’s simplicity is the doctrine that he is one, not composed of parts, and that ‘he is what he has’. All God’s attributes are co-extensive with God himself. God does not ‘have’ attributes such as patience, truthfulness, love and knowledge; he is patience, truthfulness, love and knowledge, and all perfectly. God is love, not loving; in love he gives nothing less than himself.

Sanlon works the theme of simplicity through in relation to God’s eternity and omniscience, omnipotence and goodness, immutability and impassibility.

The second part of the book looks at God’s relationality and threeness, but the burden of the book is to remind us of the importance of the oneness and especially the simplicity and unity of God, perhaps redressing a Trinitarian overload in evangelical theology in recent years. The Creator–creature distinction is emphasised, as is the classical ‘perfect being’ theology of Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas and others, and the importance of remembering that language about God is always analogical rather than univocal (i.e. words cannot mean exactly the same thing when used of God as they do when used of us – he is a different order of being – but true communication is possible – hence analogy.)

Sanlon ends with a stimulating chapter applying his thesis to the areas of entertainment, religious freedoms, work and ministry, mission and church.

Every chapter concludes with a meditation and prayer.

This really is a great book.

I have enjoyed reading all these, and benefitted greatly from them. Do not let the fact that I have been critical in parts make you think that these are not good books – the overall quality is high. Ware and Lister are more overtly biblical in their treatment, Sanlon possibly more obviously philosophical and theological, really because of the nature of the subject; his final authority is evidently Scripture and where appropriate he cites it freely.

There is no greater subject for reflection than our great God, and although I did not set out to read these books with any single plan in mind, their different yet complementary theses have refreshed my mind, expanded my knowledge and spurred me to worship. Thank you to the authors!

Os Guinness on 'True Truth'

About 100 people gathered at the Round Church, the home of Christian Heritage in Cambridge on the evening of 15th May for a commemorative meeting 30 years after Francis Schaeffer's death.

Ranald Macaulay and Andrew Fellows began proceedings with fairly brief and light but enjoyable introductions, first to Schaeffer himself (Ranald is one of his sons in law, a former director of L'Abri and founder-director of Christian Heritage) and then to L'Abri(Andrew is director of English L'Abri in Greatham, Hampshire).

After refreshments, the 'main course' was Os Guinness on 'True Truth' - a very Schaefferish phrase. He spoke brilliantly for 45 minutes without a note. He spoke of the two sources of our present crisis of truth - ideas, and also social and cultural influences.

He encouraged us that scepticism is the fruit of the over-reach of rationalism and sceptical periods never last.

He exhorted us as to the importance of this moment for Christians - unless we have a biblical view of truth our faith will be vulnerable to quick dismissal. Truth is ultimately a matter not of philosophy but of theology.

For the west this means that if there is no truth everything is a matter of power games and manipulation. Education becomes just a matter of jumping through hoops to get your qualification. Also, freedom requires truth - not only freedom from, but positively, freedom for - and this is where Christianity comes in. We need to know who we are and what we are living for. The truth will set you free.

To answer the 'heavy sceptic', (following Peter Berger and Schaeffer) we must be able to 'relativise the relativiser' - point out where the relativist is holding on to an absolute somewhere, as he surely will. Positively, point people to signs of transcendence in their own lives - inconsistencies they cannot avoid as they are living in God's world. All of us are 'suppressing the truth' (Rom 1:18-20).

We must be people who shape our desires to the truth, not like Aldous Huxley (see Ends and Means) and others who shaped truth to their desires.

Truth he concluded is ultimately about the Lord - personal.

A full audio recording of this address is available on the Christian Heritage website from next week.

Banner of Truth conference 2014

This is a bit belated - the conference was 22-24 April.

It was good.

Andrew Davies was his usual warm, winsome and edifying self, preaching at the beginning and end of the conference.

Garry Williams was crisp, clear and challenging, on 'Always Reforming' and 'Metaphors for ministers'.

Donald John Maclean stood in at the last minute for Iain Murray and gave us a helpful biography of John Knox.

David Meredith spoke on preaching sin today, and preaching Christ today. My very personal opinion was that he failed to get to grips with the subjects but I know others found him very helpful.

Norman McAuley preached encouragingly on the church from John 17 and Ephesians 1.

Finally O.Palmer Robertson gave two stimulating papers on the Psalms, with a wonderful schematic overview which he strongly hinted may at some time see publication.

Three days instead of four - a bit short, but enjoyable and refreshening.

CDs will be available .

Is Britain a Christian Country?

The debate has been engaging the airwaves,internet and print runs again: is Britain a Christian country, or was it ever? Of course it all depends on what we mean by ‘Christian’. There was never a time when every Briton was a Christian; nor even when the majority of Britons attended church; even in 1851 it has been estimated that in real terms only 25% of the nation went to church, once double counting has been allowed for.

If, however, we mean that the institutions, education, health care, laws and values of the nation have been strongly, even predominantly, influenced by Christianity, then we must say yes, of course Britain is a ‘Christian’ country. Even humanists and secularists will agree with that; what they say though is that Christianity’s time is up; move over – let other ideologies and value systems have their day.

Establishment?

A complicating factor in Britain is the establishment of the Church of England. In a recent radio discussion one defender of the ‘Christian nation’ view was also defending the establishment as if the two ideas were inseparable and a humanist was making mincemeat of him. It is pretty easy, after all, to pick holes in the idea of bishops being in the House of Lords and the monarch being head of the church. Non-conformists and secularists can make common cause on this.
Some would say that it is the establishment that makes Britain a Christian country. I am more inclined to agree with an evangelical Anglican friend who said to me recently that what made Britain Christian was in fact the great revivals and what we needed urgently today was another movement of God’s Spirit. The establishment will accomplish nothing. Surely this is nearer the truth. Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones said many years ago that Wilberforce and Shaftesbury only achieved what they did because they were riding the crest of the eighteenth and nineteenth century revivals.

Monarchs

When a monarch is a Christian and actually has power to do something, then this can be a force for good. But for this we are going back to Alfred the Great (in the ninth century) who laid the legal and institutional basis for Britain to be a ‘Christian’ country. Edward VI would be another, short-lived, example. But this is going back a bit, and Alfred was not ‘head of the church’ and Edward’s influence was hardly due to his official title as 'Defender of the Faith'. As the dissident Puritan Roger Williams (1603-83), pointed out, if you would have an established religion, remember the history of English monarchs: Henry VII found the country Catholic and let it Catholic; Henry VIII found it Catholic and left it half Protestant; Edward left it more fully Protestant; Mary turned it Catholic again; Elizabeth left it Protestant; and whither the Stuarts…?

Roger Williams

Williams was writing in the 1640s. Out of the English Reformation had come the Elizabethan Settlement and there would be a hundred years of tension before Non-conformity experienced the most painful of births in 1662. Williams was a non-conformist by conviction long before this. He went to New England in 1631 and soon found himself in conflict with the Congregationalist establishment. The men he clashed with were men whom he respected and with whom he shared the great points of Reformed theology. But Williams was committed to the separation of church and state in a more thorogoing way than any of the leading Puritans. The state, he argued, is a civil institution and not the defender of or judge of spiritual things; freedom of worship should be allowed to pagan, Jewish, ‘Turkish’ or antichristian consciences and false religion should only be fought with the sword of the Spirit, not the power of the state; uniformity of worship is not to be enforced. Fundamentally he argued that the state of Israel is not a pattern for any civil state today – a claim that hit against the very heart of the New England establishment’s rationale.

Separation of church and state

Was this because Williams was indifferent to religious truth? Not at all. In his seventies he rowed thirty miles to debate with Quakers for three days because he saw their teachings to be wrong; but Quakers were only free to be there (in Rhode Island) because of his equally strong commitment to religious freedom. He argued that a relationship of separation between church and state would in the end benefit both. He loved peace and saw this as the way to peace. He saw that ‘true civility’ (peaceful co-existence in society) and Christianity could both flourish notwithstanding freedom of conscience, and indeed fare better because of it. He had confidence that the gospel was best left to the work of God to establish and prosper. Indeed, he argued convincingly that established religion would in the end harm the gospel and the church; when the care of religion is committed to the state, argued Williams, ‘ by degrees the gardens of the churches of the saints were turned into the wilderness of whole nations…’ The ‘wall of separation’ (a phrase he used long before it was taken up by Thomas Jefferson in 1800) was needed for both church and the state to be truly themselves.

Word and Spirit

Is Britain a Christian country? In a sense, it is irrelevant. We are saddened by the ignorance, immorality and wilfulness of the campaign to dislodge Christian influence from our nation, but our task as Christians is not to build a Christian nation. It is to proclaim and bear witness to the kingdom of God. This does not mean ‘just evangelise’ but it does mean that political influence is not our primary consideration. It also means we rely not on the legal establishment of religion, but on the Spirit of and Word of God.