Here's one of the biggest reasons you need to pay attention to social location in regards to the prosperity gospel. 

As we know, the prosperity gospel focuses upon material and physical "blessings." We also know how a focus upon these material and physical blessings gets twisted and distorted. We see prosperity gospel preachers living in ostentatious luxury and claiming their wealth to be a sign of God's favor. We see how these same preachers ask for donations as the "first fruits" so that their financial supporters will experience a "hundredfold" return. Tithe to me, here and now, and tomorrow God will fill your barns to overflowing. We also see the members of prosperity gospel churches captured by these same visions, where riches are equated with and justified as signs of God's favor. Idols are tricky that way. You become what you worship. And if you worship wealth and success, the outcomes are predictable. 

So, lest there be any misunderstanding, all this is horrible and twisted. I'll join you in criticizing the abuses of the prosperity gospel and how it distorts the Christian faith. And yet, I don't want to stand at an elite distance to level (very legitimate) criticisms at the prosperity gospel without coming to understand its appeal to those on the economic margins of society. Because if the prosperity gospel is a distortion of Biblical faith, it possesses a core truth. Because you can't twist something that isn't there in the first place. 

Here's the core Biblical truth behind the prosperity gospel: Salvation concerns your material conditions. What's fascinating about this is how elite theological reflection has been making this point for a generation or more. Salvation is embodied. Salvation is incarnated. Salvation concerns this world as much as the next. Salvation should not be over-spiritualized. Salvation isn't Platonic but material. For decades, elite theological conversation has been turning away from over-spiritualized and Platonic visions of salvation and the Kingdom of God to bring attention to how God cares about material conditions here and now on this earth.

Biblically, this focus upon material prosperity is the vision of the Old Testament. As you know, the Old Testament doesn't have a vision of heaven, hell, and the afterlife. God's favor and reward are, rather, experienced as gifts and blessings in this life. So when the prosperity preachers preach, they have the entire Old Testament in their corner. 

But here is where the differences begin to emerge. When elite theological discussion highlights the material implications of salvation, they talk about social justice. Salvation involves dealing with material oppressions. When elite theological discussion talks about salvation becoming "over-spiritualized" they are talking about how the church cannot ignore the poor and oppressed of the earth.

In this sense, elite theological discussion does preach the prosperity gospel. When justice and economic equality are achieved everyone will materially prosper and flourish. (BTW, elite theological conversation prefers the word "flourishing" over "prosperity.") The prosperity gospel--the material flourishing of the poor and oppressed--is the entire point of being a social justice warrior. That's what Marxism is, after all: the prosperity gospel. 

All that to say, it should be obvious why poor people would be attracted to this (very Biblical) message. God cares about your material conditions. On this point, the prosperity preachers and the social justice warriors agree.

The critical difference between these two points of view concerns the means by which improved material conditions come about in the world. When social justice warriors talk about improving the material conditions of the oppressed they talk about changing unjust political and economic structures. Change those structures and material fortunes improve. But for a poor person who can't pay their rent this month, they can't wait for long-promised but perpetually delayed policy changes. The rent is due at the end of the month. And so, they pray to God. They need the material "blessing" to arrive directly and immediately. They cannot wait upon Washington, DC to get its act together. 

That prosperity preachers manipulate this material and economic desperation is tragic. But the states capitalize on it as well with their lottery tickets. As do payday loan businesses. My point, though, isn't about how material and economic desperation makes people vulnerable to exploitation, religious or secular. My point is that material and economic desperation drives attraction for the prosperity gospel. Back to Kate Bowler, among the oppressed classes of society attraction to the prosperity gospel isn't due to "toxic positivity." Nor are the oppressed classes neurotically exhausted by elite visions of self-improvement and human perfectibility. The poor can't afford Botox or gym memberships. The poor aren't exhausted keeping up with Jones'. The poor don't have to aggressively position their kids for success for sports travel teams and elite universities. The poor just need to pay the rent at the end of the month. And so, they pray to God. And if the money comes, well, praise God for that blessing.

And so, let me suggest, here is a little discussed contrast between the materialism of elite social justice Christianity versus the materialism of the prosperity gospel among the poor: Praying for rent money. 

If you can't pay the rent this month, you don't have time for the social justice warriors to complete their political revolution. Because at the end of the day, everyone cares about the same thing, both the social justice warrior and the prosperity gospel. Everyone cares about getting the rent paid. Elites, though, want the rent to get paid through better political and economic policies. More affordable housing and better wages. Get those changes in place, and you can pay the rent. For the poor, though, the situation is more urgent and time-sensitive. They need the rent paid by the end of the month. Consequently, the poor turn to God for help. Psychologically and biblically, this is understandable. And yet, this sort of thing is regularly held up to elite ridicule: "Praying for rent money to magically show up! How superstitious!"

The same contrast can be made about health issues. Elites want universal access to quality health care. Again, the Kingdom of God concerns the healing of physical bodies along with our souls. But what if you currently don't have access to health care? You can't wait on the politicians. So, you'll turn to God. You'll pray for healing. And again, this becomes a target for elite ridicule: "Ha! You can't pray cancer away. How silly!"

What I'm pointing out here is this. Both the elite and the poor agree that God cares about our material and physical conditions. But where the imagination of the elite is disenchanted and political, the imagination of the poor is enchanted and supernatural. And the division here is largely driven by economic and material urgency as experienced among the poor, which elites are largely protected from due to their material affluence. 

Or, stated more simply: If you've never prayed for rent money you don't understand the prosperity gospel.

When did my mind start to change about the Prosperity Gospel? And why do I consider many criticisms of the Prosperity Gospel to be elitist? 

I shared this story a year ago, and would like to share it again as the moment when I started suspecting that something was seriously wrong with elite discourse about the Prosperity Gospel. 

Two years ago, I was teaching my hospitality class at Fuller Theological Seminary in their DMin program. As a part of that class we visit Homeboy Industries. You might know the inspiring story of Homeboy, how Fr. Gregory Boyle helped start the largest gang outreach organization in the world. The story is recounted in Fr. Boyle's best-selling book Tattoos on the Heart. 

The tours at Homeboy are given by the homeboys. In years past, our tour guides have been younger men, in their twenties. But our tour in October was led by a man in his 50s who had multiple felony convictions and had been in and out of prison for most of his adult life. He started the tour asking where we were from and about our interest in Homeboy. We told him we were in a seminary class at Fuller, and that most everyone in the group was a pastor for a church. Hearing that, our guide said, "I'm not very religious. But you know who my guy is? Joel Osteen. He's my guy." And then he went on to tell us how impactful Joel Osteen has been in rehabilitating his life after prison. 

You can imagine our surprise--teacher and students in a seminary DMin class, a group who had been sneering at Osteen and the Prosperity Gospel for years--standing there, for quite some time, getting a heartfelt testimonial about the impact Joel Osteen has had on this ex-felon's life.

When we returned to our classroom back on campus, I asked the class: "So what did you learn about Joel Osteen?" To a person, we all wished we had churches that could speak to our tour guide. But we also had to confess that our guide would never come to our churches, never listen to our sermons. And yet, he was listening to Joel Osteen. 

If you felt that my comments about Kate Bowler's work in the last post where overly harsh, I didn't intend them to be. But I did want to share this story again to explain why I had the reactions I did when I heard her lecture at the Chautauqua Institution. Recall, Kate's thesis is that the Prosperity Gospel is driven by "toxic positivity" and the American belief in human perfectibility. As I shared, I agree with Kate's analysis in regards to America's elite, striving classes--the professional, college-educated people who read the New York Times and attend lectures at Chautauqua Institution. These people really do need to loosen their death grip upon status, success, social comparison, and striving. If you're living in a highly comparative and competitive social and vocational world, it is life-giving to embrace your fallible humanity and imperfections. 

So, I agree with all that. And yet, I don't feel that this analysis of the Prosperity Gospel explains the appeal of Joel Osteen to convicted felons. I don't believe our Homeboy tour guide was in the grip of "toxic positivity." Quite the opposite. His life was grim, a wreckage. He already knew his imperfections, and they were out loud for everyone to see. (I think I mixed my metaphor there.) And I also don't think our tour guide was beholden to a belief in his perfectibility. He wasn't striving for the summit of success, he was holding on, for dear life, to the bottom rung of the ladder. 

This moment at Homeboy was the story that caused me to seek a deeper understanding of the Prosperity Gospel, its appeal to the lost, broken, poor, incarcerated, and destitute. I think Kate Bowler is absolutely correct in her assessment of the Prosperity Gospel and America's addiction to positivity. I just think her analysis doesn't apply to the lower classes and the marginalized. Something else is going on in these social locations. To be sure, I'm willing to admit that our Homeboy tour guide was drinking some bad theological kool aid. But before I paternalistically explain that to him, pitting my advanced college degrees against his criminal history, I have elected to pause here, to ask if elite criticisms of the Prosperity Gospel have been missing something important. 

Some people listen to authors, podcasters, and professors for insights about God. People with PhDs like me. But I've elected, from time to time, to listen to felons. And when one says, "Joel Osteen, he's my guy." I stop, lean in, and listen.

"the Lord will engulf them in his wrath, and fire will devour them"

I chose a cheerful line to meditate on this week. :-)

Psalm 21 is a song about the Davidic king, with the last half of the psalm praising his abilities in battle. It's a war cry. 

In many progressive Christian spaces and within the academy, it is unfashionable to be overly aggressive in reading Christ back into the Hebrew Scriptures. And yet, in my opinion, Psalm 21 is one of those places were I feel it is necessary to read the song Christologically. When the Messiah finally came he didn't come as a Davidic warrior in the style of the Maccabees. Jesus didn't, in the name of God, engulf the Romans with his wrath and devour them with fire. 

And yet, such "Day of the Lord" imagery inaugurated Jesus' public ministry in the proclamation of John the Baptist:

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I. I am not worthy to remove his sandals. He himself will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing shovel is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn. But the chaff he will burn with fire that never goes out.”

And as we know, Jesus repeatedly invoked an eschatological fire that would judge all of humanity. But the wrath and fire here have been radically reconfigured, shifted out of the political realm and into the spiritual. This, of course, creates new and different sorts of tensions, questions, and conundrums. But the one clear and decisive thing it accomplishes is taking the sword out of the hand of God's people. Judgement becomes eschatological and is the Lord's prerogative, not ours. 

I know lots of progressive Christians get squeamish around talk of hell, but they often miss the moral implications of hell: non-violence in this world, taking the sword out of our hands and leaving judgment to God. So: Three cheers for hell!

Because when you look at the world today, where terrorists and nation states use lethal violence to accomplish political ends, where children lay dead on the streets, you start to appreciate the sanity and safety of singing "the Lord--and not us--will engulf them in his wrath, and fire will devour them." 

Over the summer, Jana, our boys and I got to hear Kate Bowler speak at the Chautauqua Institution. As expected, Kate was smart, winsome, and insightful. She is a fantastic thinker, public intellectual, and witness for the Christian faith given her visibility at the New York Times. 

If you know Bowler's work she has written extensively about the American Prosperity Gospel, and how her cancer diagnosis caused her to confront her own version of that gospel. One of Kate's big points in the talk we heard is how the pervasive faith of Americans, secular and religious, is characterized by what she calls "toxic positivity." According to Bowler, what drives this uniquely American faith is the belief in human perfectibility. This belief drives the American obsession with self-improvement. Just look, Kate argued, at all the self-help and self-improvement books that fill American bookstores and top the best-seller lists. 

Kate's big sermon is that this belief in perfectibility is "toxic" because human life is filled with failure, disappointment, and, well, cancer diagnoses. As the title of Bowler's memoir says, there is no cure for being human. We cannot, via mind hacks or technology, solve the pain and ambiguities of the human condition. We need to reject toxic positivity to embrace, in the words of Brené Brown, the gifts of imperfection.

To which I say, Amen.

I'm a psychologist, so one of the things I do when I hear talks like Kate's is to observe the effect of the talk upon the audience. I find this fascinating, as I am notoriously hard on audiences. My temperament tends toward the prophetic, so I am prone to challenge audiences. Most audiences, no matter who they are, have a place where they feel smugly self-assured, even a bit self-righteous. I will purposefully seek out and unsettle that assuredness. 

What I noticed, and have noticed about the general reception of Kate's work at my church and university, is that her message about toxic positivity, along with the corrosiveness of the American belief in human perfectibility, falls like a soothing rain upon a desert. The audience at Chautauqua Institution loved the message, and as a psychologist I wondered why.

The answer, I think, is social location. Kate's main audience is America's striving class. People who read the New York Times. People who read non-fiction books about cancer survivors. People who follow podcasts. The white collar. The college-educated. The wealthy. The elite. 

Basically, Kate's audience are the very people who have bought in to the beliefs about self-improvement and human perfectibility. This was most certainly the case at the Chautauqua Institution. The audience was wholly wealthy, successful, highly educated, and White. Not a truck driver or a Black person in sight. 

So it makes sense why Kate's message was so intoxicating. As members of America's elite, striving class, the audience craved a message like Kate's. Let your cracks show. Embrace being human. Stop pushing so hard. It's okay to fail. You can be depressed. In a world filled with social comparison and competition, a world where appearances at cocktail parties matters way too much, Kate's message about "being human" is medicine for the soul.

And let me be very clear: I think wealthy, college-educated White people need saving. Because as a member of this group, I know I need saving. Darkness hunts everyone. And yet, I do wonder if Kate's message is niche and bounded by elite social locations.

This comes back to criticisms leveled at the Prosperity Gospel. I am in Kate's target audience. I'm a White college professor who goes to lectures at the Chautauqua Institution for fun during summer vacation. I am in the striving class. I live in a world of college professors who attend book clubs reading Kate Bowler and Brené Brown. And among this group, the Prosperity Gospel is a joke, "Ha, ha!" we laugh, "Look at all those stupid evangelicals who believe that God will make your rich and that cancer diagnoses can be prayed away! The fools!"

To be clear, we never say such things out loud. And Kate Bowler herself, as she shares in her memoir, has sympathy, albeit critically nuanced, for the Prosperity Gospel. Still, if you move in elite, college-educated spaces, you've likely seen the scorn directed at the Prosperity Gospel. And yet, if you're a regular reader of mine, you'll now that I've begun, over the last few years, to push back on this attitude of superiority. Much to the dismay of many readers. But just remember that I've warned you! I will seek out and challenge locations of self-assuredness. 

Now, reasons for this defense are not solely contrarian. They have to do with my experiences getting out of my elite, college-centric social bubble. Read Stranger God for the details about how this all happened, but I spend time in prisons and sharing meals with the homeless, places far, far way from the books clubs at my university and lectures at the Chautauqua Institution. And here's what I've noticed sharing life on the margins of elite society: No one out at the prison or sleeping on the streets is in the grip of "toxic positivity." No one behind bars or digging through trash cans is beholden to a belief in human perfectibility. And yet, and here's the point I want to make, these are the very people who find appeal in the Prosperity Gospel. And not just here in America, the Prosperity Gospel, as it gets fused with charismatic Christianity, also has appeal in the global south. And I find it, well, a wee bit colonial, when White, mainline Protestants, like the audiences at the Chautauqua Institution, make fun of thriving streams of South American and African Christianity. Maybe our global brothers and sisters have something to share with the dying churches of the West. 

My point here isn't to say that Kate Bowler is wrong. Just that her theory about the associations between toxic positivity, belief in human perfectibility and the Prosperity Gospel are only explanatory for a very particular demographic: America's elite, educated, striving classes. The appeal of the Prosperity Gospel among the poor and working classes, where it really thrives, in both America and the global south, is left unaccounted for.

Over the years, people have asked me from time to time why I've remained in the Churches of Christ. To their eyes, I don't seem like a good fit for the tradition. 

There are many reasons I love and embrace being a member of my tribe, and one of the little appreciated reasons is amillennialism.

It may be difficult to overstate the degree to which pre-millennial and post-millennial theology has twisted and distorted evangelical political theology.

Two obvious things jump out at me.

First, End Times expectations concerning the state of Israel have caused evangelicals to look upon Israeli-Palestinian relations and conflicts through an eschatological filter. This filter has had a distorting and over-simplifying effect upon how evangelicals perceive the very complex and tragic history still unfolding in the Middle East. 

Growing up as I did in an amillennial tradition, where Israel had no End Times role to play in ushering in the Second Coming of Christ, I was raised to view the Middle East as a troubled part of the world not significantly different from other troubled parts of the world. I've appreciated how my faith tradition has allowed me to approach news from the Middle East with more critical distance and nuance than what you find in evangelical spaces. 

(A comment about recent events in Israel and Gaza. As regular readers know, most of my posts are written a few months out. So this post wasn't written to comment about recent events. But the topic is timely. I'm not trying here to tell anyone what to think about Palestinian-Israeli relations. I'm simply expressing gratitude for an amillennial tradition that allows me to look upon a troubled world without dragging into my newsfeed End Times fever dreams. A compassionate, informed, thoughtful and critical understanding of history and current events is hard enough as it is without dragging the Antichrist into the mix.)

Second, growing up in an amillennial tradition gives you some immunity to conspiratorial thinking. I didn't grow up reading Revelation as a code to be cracked, or become fretful about "signs of the end times" playing out in daily news events. Politics, for us, lacked apocalyptic intensity. I recall absolutely zero political conversations or drama during election years in my church growing up. Presidents came and presidents went, and it never mattered all that much to the people I sat beside in the pews. And my church was very bi-racial. My youth group was half White and half Black. Much of the political equanimity and sanity I experienced in my church was due to our amillennialism. 

As I look back, these ways of seeing the world were the political gifts of amillennialism. Gifts I cherish when I look at the political pathologies within evangelical churches.

Last post in this series.

Many of my readers subscribe to universal reconciliation, that all of humanity will, in the end, embrace and be embraced by the grace of God. Given this, it's fair to ask how universalist accounts balance the tensions of grace.

I think the main point to make is that visions differ here. 

For example, you could posit the view that, since God loves all of humanity, always has and always will, there isn't much work for Christ to do in regards to atonement. Jesus' death on the cross is simply unnecessary, since God loves everyone already. Since no one is ever at risk, no one ever needs saving. 

Given this view, what then is the death of Jesus all about?

Many would argue that the death of Jesus makes the love of God visible within history, and exposes our rejection of that love. The cross, then, demonstrates God's love and persuades us to love. This is the moral exemplar view of the atonement. The cross shows us how much God loves us and teaches us how to love.

Stepping back, if you held a view like this, then your creation theology would be, in my estimation, carrying the weight of grace. Beyond a moral pedagogy, soteriology is simply not needed.

This is, in fact, why many people object to universalism, that it diminishes or nullifies the atonement and the work of Christ. However, you can believe in both universal reconciliation and the atonement. In this view, Christ is doing more on the cross than making the love of God visible. Christ is actually repairing the damage of sin and defeating the cosmic powers holding humanity captivity. Christ makes a way where there was no way. In this particular variety of universalism, soteriology carries as much grace as any traditional view of atonement. You can believe, for example, in both universal reconciliation and penal substitutionary atonement. To be clear, this isn't a common view, but there is no incompatibility between these views. The only issue is if you believe the offer of grace extends post-mortem. That's really the only issue between traditional views of atonement and universal reconciliation: Does death stop the soteriological clock? Traditional views of the atonement say, yes, the clock stops at death where you fate is fixed. The offer of grace is time-stamped. Universalist views of the atonement say, no, Jesus defeated death and holds the keys of Hades. Time never runs out on God, the offer of grace persists post-mortem.

The point to be observed is that, even in universalist visions of salvation, soteriology can still carry the weight of grace. Because of the fall, existence now demands saving grace. You still have to accept, by faith, the atoning work of Christ. As Acts 4.12 says concerning Christ: "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”

In summary, universalist accounts of salvation balance the tensions of grace differently. Some accounts will front-load grace and marginalize the atonement. Soteriology is put to the side. But other views of universal reconciliation place as much weight upon soteriology as any traditionally held views of the atonement. People are lost until they accept Christ. Full stop. The only issue is how death affects God's offer of grace, if it terminates at death or persists. 

We've been talking in this series about what I'm calling "the tensions of grace." The specific tension we're puzzling over is how much grace is intrinsic to creation versus how much grace is the work of Christ. 

The reason for talking this through is that we're seeing the rise of Christian theologies where creation carries more and more grace. Such theologies have a lot to commend themselves, but because they front-load grace into creation they struggle to make sense about what was accomplished, if anything, by the death and resurrection of Christ. If everyone, simply by existing, is already "graced" and "saved" then Jesus' death is rendered superfluous. In short, there is a tension between creation theology and soteriology. Phrased differently, how much continuity versus discontinuity is there between nature and grace?

An example of this debate is one I wrote about last year, the Catholic debate about if humans have a "natural desire for God." 

To recap, the origins of the debate go back to the French theologian Henri de Lubac and his book Surnaturel, which had a significant influence upon Vatican II. 

In Surnaturel de Lubac argues that humans have a natural desire for God. That is to say, human nature possesses a natural, intrinsic, and created desire for a supernatural end. God implants in human nature a longing for union with God. As de Lubac argued, this belief was held by the early church fathers. You see it right there in Augustine's famous statement, "Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee." Human life is restless and unfulfilled, less than what it was created to be, until it comes to rest in union with God.

Lubac's view won the day at Vatican II, and remains the widely held consensus. And yet, one of the authorities de Lubac cited in making his argument was Thomas Aquinas, and since the publication of Surnaturel Aquinas scholars have raised questions about if de Lubac read Aquinas correctly. In my assessment of the controversy, much of this has to do with Aquinas himself not being wholly consistent or clear, creating some interpretive ambiguity. 

At the heart of this debate, which bears upon this series, is an idea called "pure nature." The idea of "pure nature" suggests that human nature was created whole and complete in itself. Think of a tree. The nature of a tree is complete and whole in itself. A tree doesn't need anything "more" to be a flourishing tree. No miracles or supernatural "extras" are needed. 

Consider, in a similar way, a human being. The idea of pure nature says that humans are like trees, that humans have a nature and the "logic" of creation can actualize that nature to produce flourishing persons, a logic available to everyone. Happiness isn't extrinsic to human nature, but intrinsic, built into our DNA so to speak. Human nature is whole and complete as it stands. 

And yet, we've just stumbled back onto the tensions of grace! On the one hand, we affirm that our hearts are restless until they rest in God. But on the other hand, we affirm that humans can flourish simply by following the logic of their nature, that an atheist can be just as happy and well-adjusted as a Christian. So which is it?  Are atheists secretly ailing, less fulfilled and actualized in their development because they lack God in their lives? Or are they truly happy without God, all on their own, because God has given human nature the gift of joy simply because we are a human person? 

Facing this conundrum, Catholic theologians will describe how God gives humanity "two gifts." The first gift is the gift of existence, created human nature. Protestants here think of "common grace." The second gift is the gift of grace, (re)union with God. Protestants think here of special and sanctifying grace. There is an attempt here among Catholic theologians, in positing two gifts, to balance the tensions of grace.

Still, the "two gifts" attempt at balancing doesn't answer all the questions. There remains the issue of  continuity versus discontinuity between nature and grace.

On the one hand is the view that grace is radically discontinuous with nature, given that grace is an extrinsic gift. Grace accomplishes what nature cannot do on its own. Grace arrives as gratuitous surprise, wholly unanticipated and "beyond" nature.

This discontinuity seems right to us, almost definitional for what it means to call something "grace." If nature could, on its own, catalyze the beatitude we experience in a state of grace then that beatitude would not be an extrinsic gift but, rather, be latent within a creature's naturally endowed potencies. 

And yet, a problem is raised here. Specifically, if grace is radically alien to human nature--recall how Kathryn Tanner described grace as "alien" in the last post--then wouldn't the meeting of nature and grace be less a gentle embrace than an ontological collision? That is the argument David Bentley Hart makes against describing grace as "alien," arguing that the greater the discontinuity between nature and grace the more nature would "reject" grace as an alien intrusion, the way the human body rejects a transplanted organ. If grace is radically discontinuous from nature the union between them doesn't make a unified organic whole but a freakish hybrid. 

Again, as I've done in this series, I don't want to make a comment about the correctness of any particular view in these debates. My goal in revisiting this conversation from last year is simply to highlight, as I did with Kathryn Tanner's work, locations where these "tensions of grace" show up. In the Catholic debates concerning the natural desire for God there's a debate about just how "graced" is pure nature, how lacking and in need of God. Relatedly, how continuous or discontinuous are the "two gifts" of grace? As we've seen, Catholic and Orthodox theologians view all this differently, balancing the tensions in unique ways. As, I expect, do you.

"May the Lord answer you in a day of trouble"

As I described when we were in Psalm 3, Anne Lamott says we pray three main prayers: Help! Thanks! and Wow! Here, with Psalm 20, we're back to a prayer of help. May the Lord answer us in a day of trouble. 

And these are days of trouble. Here's a lovey prayer for such days, from Every Moment Holy, a liturgy for a time of widespread suffering:

Christ Our King,
Our world is overtaken by unexpected
calamity, and by a host of attending fears,
worries, and insecurities.

We witness suffering, confusion, and
hardship multiplied around us, and we find
ourselves swept up in these same anxieties and
troubles, dismayed by so many uncertainties.

Now we turn to you, O God,
in this season of our common distress.
Be merciful, O Christ, to those who suffer,
to those who worry, to those who grieve, to
those who are threatened or harmed in any
way by this upheaval. Let your holy compassions
be active throughout the world even now—
tending the afflicted, comforting the
brokenhearted, and bringing hope to
many who are hopeless.

Use even these hardships to woo our hearts
nearer to you, O God.

Indeed, O Father, may these days
of disquiet become a catalyst
for conviction and repentance,
for the tendering of our affections,
for the stirring of our sympathies,
for the refining of our love.

We are your people, who are called by you,
We need not be troubled or alarmed.

Indeed, O Lord, let us love now more fearlessly,
remembering that you created us,
and appointed us
to live in these very places,
in the midst of these unsettled times.

It is no surprise to you that we are here now,
sharing in this turmoil along with the rest of
our society, for you have called your children
to live as salt and light among the nations,
praying and laboring for the flourishing of the
communities where we dwell, acting as agents of
your forgiveness, salvation, healing, reconciliation,
and hope, in the very midst of an often-troubled world.

And in these holy vocations
you have not left us helpless, O Lord,
because you have not left us at all.
Your Spirit remains among us.

Inhabit now your church, O Spirit of the Risen Christ.
Unite and equip your people for the work before them.

Father, empower your children to live as your children.
In times of distress let us respond, not as those
who would instinctively entrench for our own
self-preservation, but rather as those who—in imitation
of their Lord—would move in humble obedience toward
the needs and hurts of their neighborhoods and communities.

You were not ashamed to share in our sufferings, Jesus.
Let us now be willing to share in yours, serving
as your visible witnesses in this broken world.

Hear now these words, you children of God,
and be greatly encouraged:
The Lord’s throne in heaven is yet occupied,
his rule is eternal, and his good purposes
on earth will be forever accomplished.
So we need never be swayed by the brief and
passing panics of this age.

You are the King of the Ages, O Christ,
and history is held in your Father’s hands.

We, your people, know the good and glorious
end of this story. Our heavenly hope is secure.
In this time of widespread suffering then,
let us rest afresh in the surpassing peace of that
vision, that your whole church on earth might be
liberated to love more generously and sacrificially.

Now labor in and through us, O Lord, extending and
multiplying the many expressions of your mercy.

Amen.

To share a concrete illustration of how theologians attempt to balance grace across creation theology and soteriology, navigating continuity and discontinuity, let's revisit Kathryn Tanner's insights from her book Christ the Key, which I wrote about a few years ago. 

Tanner's reflections in Christ the Key concern human nature and center on the question: What does it mean that humans are created in the image of God?

One common answer here is that humans possess, as created beings, some trait or capacity that is analogous to God's nature. For example, some have suggested that humans reflect the image of God in that we possess intellect and rationality. As Tanner writes:

Different creatures can be more or less the image of God in virtue of their particular created characteristics. Human beings in virtue of their rationality, for example, might naturally be better images of God's own Word and Wisdom than creatures without intelligence. 

Here we find a creational grace, how every human person "naturally" and "intrinsically" can be viewed as being an "image of God."

And yet, while Tanner accepts this sort of creaturely "imaging," she ultimately rejects creaturely imitation as the deepest meaning of what it means for us to reflect the image of God. Tanner calls creaturely imitation--the notion that our creaturely traits or characteristics reflect God's image--"weak imaging." The reason for this is due to the radical ontological difference between creatures and God. That is, any creaturely characteristic, like intelligence, is so ontologically diminished when compared to God, such a poor, broken reflection, that it can scarcely be called an "image of God." And beyond this ontological contrast, there is also the wound of sin. 

In contrast, then, to this "weak imaging," Tanner suggests that there is "strong imaging," where humans reflect the image of God by directly receiving and participating in God's own self and life. And this life isn't produced through creaturely striving, but comes to us as a gift. As Tanner writes,

God finds a way, however, to communicate the goodness of God's own life to creatures without abolishing of mitigating the difference between them and God. In a second, much stronger way of being an image through participation in what one is not, creatures would receive the divine image itself for their own, and end the futile struggles, so to speak, to approximate God in and through what they are simply in themselves. Creatures would receive from God what is beyond themselves--the divine image itself--and be considered the image of God primarily for that reason. They would image God, not by imitating him, but in virtue of the gift to them of what remains alien to them, the very perfection of the divine image that they are not, now having become their own. Rather than being in themselves merely similar to what God is in some full and perfect fashion beyond their reach, they would share in, hold in common with God, what is and remains itself divine, the perfect divine image itself.

Tanner calls this sort of "strong imaging" the imaging of "participation," and, per the title of her book, Christ is our key to understanding here. Christ reflects the image of God not through some human trait or characteristic pushed to the heights. Christ isn't super-smart or super-strong. Christ is, rather, the image of God through participation. "I and the Father are one," Jesus says. Jesus says the Father lives in him and works through him. And in this humanly participation in the life of God Christ shows us how human nature can strongly reflect the image of God.

Summarizing, human nature can reflect the image of God in a strong sense by "showing off the light of the divine image itself...by glowing with a light that remains another's."

And beyond a merely passive reflection, Tanner goes on to argue that the divine image remolds, remakes, and reshapes human nature. In this we see another contrast between creation theology and soteriology: 

All creatures can do something like this showing off or shining back the divine glory given to them. Even now creatures can glorify God, glow with a kind of divine penumbra by pointing to, and in that sense making manifest, the goodness of the God who made them. The wonders of the world speak of the wonders of God...

What remains unusual about human beings--and what therefore makes them the image of God as other creatures are not--is that the character or identity of human life is remolded in the process. Humans do not simply reflect the image of God. In doing so something happens to human life itself. Its very own character is altered or transformed for the better. Humanity takes on, in short, its own perfect shape by being reworked through attachment to the divine image.

By way of this attachment, its very human character becomes an image of God in a stronger fashion than before, beyond anything possible simply by participating in God as a creature...[H]uman nature becomes, so to speak, imprinted with the character of the divine seal itself by way of the impression that the very presence of the divine image makes upon it.

In light of the topic of this series, we can see in all this how Tanner is working to balance the tensions of grace, arguing for locations of both continuity and discontinuity. As for creation theology, all of creation glows with a divine penumbra. The wonders of the world speak to the wonders of God.

And yet, there is a "stronger imaging" available, beyond the "weaker imaging" of creation. This stronger imagining is soteriological, where human nature receives grace as a gift that is alien to it, an ontological participation in God's very life. Such a participation reshapes and remakes human nature, elevating it ways that go beyond mere creaturely potentiality. We cannot, solely with creaturely effort, bridge the gap to God. But God can elevate human nature and bring us into ontological communion. 

Now, to say this again, I'm not here judging Tanner's contrast between "weak" and "strong" imaging of God. Some theologians, for example, would object to Tanner's description of grace as being "alien." This goes to the debate regarding if humans have a natural desire for God. We'll revisit that issue in the next post. For today, however, I offer Tanner's contrast between weak and strong imaging to give a concrete example of how theologians attempt to balance grace across their creation theology and soteriology, noting locations of continuity and discontinuity. 

Both Catholics and Protestants balance grace in different ways in relation to the tensions I described in the last post.

I am by no means an expert in this area, but I know enough to share the basics. 

In Catholic theology, following from Thomas Aquinas, nature possesses an order and goodness that is not totally eclipsed by the fall. Creation is damaged and wounded, to be sure, but is not in a total state of ruin. Further, the goodness and order of creation is available to every human person. In this, we can say that creation is "graced," and that, overall, Catholic theology has had a much more optimistic view of the world and human beings generally. 

And yet, even in Protestant theology there are the notions of "common grace" and "prevenient grace." According to the notion of common grace, every good thing in the world is a gift from God. And these gifts are shared with all of humanity. Every sunrise. The joys of the day. All is grace. 

Relatedly, according to the doctrine of prevenient grace, God is at work in our lives up to and including the moment of our salvation (which called "sanctifying grace"). The critical point being that grace fills our entire lives, start to finish. There is a grace that brings us to grace. 

The point to observe in these Catholic and Protestant balancings is that each tries to hold in tension continuity and discontinuity. Created life is graced, a grace found in the goodness of creation and shared universally with all of humanity. All is grace, A to Z. That is the continuity. 

And yet, both Catholics and Protestants point to a discontinuity in relation to grace as well, what is called "special grace" or "sanctifying grace." This grace doesn't point to creation but toward the work of Christ, a work that heals the wound of the fall, bringing gifts that go beyond the gifts and goodness of created life.  

Like in my prior post, I'm not offering a judgment of any of this, simply pointing to how Catholics and Protestants try to balance the tensions of grace. Of course, some people might lean more heavily toward continuity and others toward discontinuity. In light of the last post, those who place the weight of grace in their creation theology will lean more toward continuity, seeing no real rupture that needs to be healed in the work of Christ. Creation is sufficiently graced, all on its own. By contrast, those who emphasize the work of Christ in gifting us "saving" and "sanctifying" grace will posit a discontinuity in grace. That is, there may be a shared, common grace but this grace is not sufficient, in itself, to heal the wound of the fall. In this view, a supranatural grace is required.

There are tensions one has to balance in our theology of grace. 

One of the most common tensions concerns creation theology and soteriology. 

In many conceptions of soteriology, because of the fall creation is a ruin. Nothing "good" remains in the world, or in us. Consequently, grace comes to us soteriologically, in Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection. 

However, many struggle with this view of the situation, especially when it is framed in the terms of penal substitutionary atonement. There is a desire to see goodness in creation and in ourselves. Consequently, creation theologies have proliferated which see creation and ourselves as primordially blessed and graced, in a way that the fall does not wholly eclipse. 

There is much to applaud in these creation theologies. And yet, it needs to be noted that the more grace your creation theology carries the less grace will be carried by your soteriology. To take an extreme example, but a very common one, if everything and everyone in the world is already "graced" and "blessed," already "saved" as it were, then you end up struggling to articulate why Jesus died on the cross. If your creation theology declares that nothing was ever lost, you don't need to describe why anything needs being saved. 

Basically, when grace gets front-loaded in your creation theology, Jesus' death on the cross becomes superfluous and irrelevant. Creation theology carries the weight of grace rather than soteriology. To be created is to be already "saved."

In noting all this I am not offering a judgment. I am simply making an observation to alert you to an oft unnoticed tension. I think there are a lot of good things about front-loading grace in your creation theology. It creates a positive and optimistic view of the world. And there's a lot to love about that posture. But you need to be aware of the downstream impact of how this front-loading of grace affects your view of the atonement. Maybe you don't need Jesus in your Christianity, but a lot of us do. Consequently, some of us will attend to these tensions, desirous to hold optimistic views of a blessed and very good creation, but also keen to confess that the world was saved by the work of Christ on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. 

I recently revisited here David Bentley Hart's essay "A Sense of Style: Beauty and the Christian Moral Life," where Hart seeks to conflate the ethical with the beautiful. Hart's argument, you'll recall, is that the beautiful draws us to the good, for the simple reason that God is the Good and the Beautiful. 

Hart writes: 

It may seem somewhat perverse, as I have noted, to suggest that the ethical should in this sense be ultimately reducible to the aesthetic; but it should be, even so, for the simple reason that what draws us to the good is that it is also eternal beauty. God himself is beauty, that is, and in the end, for Christians, we are joined to him in seeking the beautiful as he has taught us to recognize it in Christ...

This joining of the moral with the aesthetic may seem odd to us modern people. But it wasn't prior to the Enlightenment. Before the modern era, virtue ethics, rooted in Aristotle and the New Testament, held sway. And the Greek word for virtue--areté--often translated as "excellence" was as much aesthetical as it was moral. Virtuous living was artful, beautiful living. 

You see this conflation of the good and the beautiful in Paul's only use of the word areté, from Philippians 4.8: 

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence [areté] if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Notice the aesthetical focus of Paul's moral exhortation here. Contemplate the beautiful and let it draw you toward the good.

"The heavens declare the glory of God"

Psalm 19 might be Ground Zero for understanding what we mean by a "sacramental ontology." 

As I describe in Hunting Magic Eels, especially my chapter on Celtic Christianity, by "sacramental" we mean a visible sign of an invisible reality. By "ontology," a word I use way too much on this blog, we mean existence. Put together, a "sacramental ontology" is how existence itself points toward God, how creation is a visible sign of the Invisible God. 

As Psalm 19 says, "the heavens declare the glory of God." As the poem continues, the natural world is described as loud, vocal, and talkative: "Day after day they pour out speech; night after night they communicate knowledge." The rain is talking to you. The sunsets are chatty. The wind is whispering. The flowers are shouting. 

But then, on the other hand, there is not sound at all: "There is no speech; there are no words; their voice is not heard." 

Depending upon your posture toward the world, creation either speaks or is mute. You either hear its voice, or nothing at all. In the language of Hunting Magic Eels, your experience of the world is either enchanted or disenchanted, sacramental or material. You either see the signs--or in this case hear the voices--or you don't. 

One of the best descriptions of this contrast, between a sacramental versus material relation to the world, is from the sociologist Hartmut Rosa's work on what he calls "resonance." I use Rosa's work in one of the new chapters in the upcoming paperback edition of Hunting Magic Eels (due out Jan. 2). According to Rosa, modernity is losing its ability to "hear" the natural world. As the cosmos is increasingly conceived of as inert, material "stuff" it falls silent and mute. No voices are heard. The rain, the flowers, the wind and the trees, it's all silent to the modern, disenchanted materialist. 

But for those whose relation to the world is resonant, full, enchanted and sacramental, well, the natural world is alive and communicative. Day after day the world pours forth speech, as the heavens declare the glory of God. 

The flowers and the rain are speaking to you. 

For those who have ears, let them hear.

Today is my final reflection on the apophatic nature of Thomas Aquinas' arguments for the existence of God.  

When we think about how causality works in Thomas' arguments the temptation is to think of causality univocally. That is to say, we are tempted to think of God's "causality" as being similar to creaturely causality. In this imagination, which is hard to escape, God is a cause among or alongside other causes. Perhaps the "first cause," but a cause like all other causes. 

The problem here is that what makes God's "causality" different isn't its being "first," its temporal primacy. Rather, God's "causality" is wholly different from any understanding we might have of causality. When we say God "causes" something we have no idea what that might mean. Which is why I've been putting "causality" in scare quotes when applied to God. 

In the Summa, Thomas gets at this distinction by making a contrast between primary (God) and secondary (creaturely) causality. And by "primary" Thomas doesn't just mean "temporally prior to." He also means "ontologically different."

Now, people have long puzzled over how primary causality relates to secondary causality. Some even find the relationship incoherent. The "causal joint" between divine and creaturely causality is hard to specify. I don't want to deny those puzzles and questions. I simply want to note that the mysteries here are due to the fact that we can't conceive of how God is a "cause." There is an apophatic mystery on one side of the equation which means any "mechanistic" understanding of the divine/creaturely relationship will always be epistemically thwarted. We just can't imagine how God's "causality" is working on His side of the relationship. 

The simple point here is that when we think about Thomas' arguments for the existence of God, especially his arguments about infinite causal regress, we should never imagine a chain of dominos falling, where God is the first domino. God isn't a domino among other dominos. Whatever God does as "first cause" or "primary cause," as both Creator and Sustainer, is unlike anything we can imagine. God "causes" differently. And because of that, an apophatic Mystery haunts all of Thomas' arguments for the existence of God. So while Thomas' arguments seem to be logical proofs, they are actually the first step toward a mystical encounter with God. 

In yesterday's post I highlighted the apophatic nature of Thomas' arguments for the existence of God. The universe cannot provide its own explanation, has no answer to the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" The universe must come from "somewhere," some Reason, Source, and Origin. And as Thomas says in the Summa, the word "God" has traditionally pointed toward that Reason, Source, and Origin. 

To be sure, people might claim that the material universe itself is "eternal" and needs no start or beginning. But that simply brackets out the Ontological Mystery of it all. The issue here isn't temporal, but ontological. The question isn't about eternity, but about existence itself and where it all comes from. Because even if the universe were eternal, the ontological question remains: Why and how did it get here? 

Of course, a person can respond that such questions are "beyond the bounds of science." Indeed they are! But that doesn't mean there aren't cogent and legitimate questions here. And whatever the answers to such questions might be, the word "God" has traditionally been used here.

These confusions between eternity and ontology are another common misunderstanding about Thomas' arguments for the existence of God. Specifically, skeptics of Thomas' arguments have often rebutted his premise that an infinite regress is impossible. Why couldn't it be? Why can't it be turtles all the way down?

A closely related issue here, one I hinted at in the last post, concerns God being the "First Cause" or the "Unmoved Mover" at the start of a temporal chain of events. It's often retorted that Thomas' arguments simply trade the impossibility of infinite regress with the impossibility of a uncaused cause at the start of a chain. Which is more believable or unbelievable here, infinite regress or uncaused cause? 

But as I said, there is a misunderstanding of Thomas on this point. A full reading of Thomas makes it clear that Thomas does not think of God as the first domino that falls in a series. When Thomas speaks of God as being a "cause" his imagination isn't temporal, but ontological. 

Go back to yesterday's post where I mentioned the Big Bang. Our material universe doesn't exist prior to the Big Bang. So some domino drops at that point. Physicists speculate about the nature of that primordial condition and what transpired to bring the cosmos into existence. People of faith might be tempted to think that what happened at the Big Bang was God's creative act, when God started time ticking and brought the material universe into existence. The assumption is that in Thomas' arguments against infinite regress he's talking about something like the Big Bang. 

But this isn't, in fact, what Thomas is talking about, about some temporal chain of events "starting off." Ontologically, science can't get "behind" the Big Bang. Any theory of the Big Bang has to assume some ontological ground. The physicist has to posit some equation. And the word "God" names the Ontological Mystery behind that equation, the primordial conditions and potentialities that all scientific theories of the Big Bang have to assume. The "nothing" posited by science the moment "before" the Big Bang isn't really Nothing. The physicist always assumes there is an equation that is at work. And Thomas' point is that the human mind will ask questions regarding the Origin of Source of that equation. Why this equation and not another? Why any equation at all? Such questions point to what we have traditionally called "God."

Summarizing, debates about infinity are missing Thomas' ontological argument. Because even if an infinite series were granted, the ontological question remains as to why that series exists in the first place. It might be turtles all the way down. But why are there turtles in the first place? And why turtles and not rabbits? Scientists stop talking at this point, as they must, and might wish away such questions. But again, just because science can't answer these questions doesn't mean they aren't real and legitimate. 

Key to getting clear about all this is how Thomas thinks about creation. Again, most people adopt a temporal imagination when it comes to creation. God created at the Big Bang. Creation is the first domino falling. Creation is the first link in a chain of events. Creation is "the beginning." But while creation may have had a "beginning," when time started and subatomic particles emerged out of the quantum foam, Thomas means more than this Big Bang imagination. For Thomas, creation isn't the start of a temporal sequence but names, rather, the constant and comprehensive ontological dependence of the cosmos. As the Source of material existence, God has a pervasive and ongoing relationship with the cosmos. As the Ground of Being, God is ever-present to and ever-holding material existence in being. God is the Ontological Backing of the universe. In this fuller sense, creation is continual, even if it had a "beginning."  

So, before you start debating the issue of "infinite regress," remember that, for Thomas, creation isn't the first domino falling but that which holds all the dominos in being, first to last. Turtles, even an infinite chain of them, exist for a Reason. And to inquire about that Reason--"Where did those turtles come from?"--is to ask a question about God.  

There's a common misunderstanding of Thomas Aquinas. Due to the style of the Summa, the analytical prowess of Thomas' mind, and how we've characterized his arguments for the existence of God as "proofs," we tend to think we're in the land of logic rather than mysticism. But Thomas was most definitely a mystic. And few appreciate the apophatic nature of the Summa, especially when it comes to Thomas' arguments for the existence of God.

Let me explain.

When Thomas makes his arguments concerning the existence of God he is very clear in the Summa to make a distinction between God's existence and God's essence. People often miss this hugely important point. True, we might make an argument for God's existence, but that is a very thin claim. That God exists we might get our head around, but What God is and How God is, well, about such matters we have no clue. 

Consider how Thomas ends each of his five arguments for the existence of God. He makes his argument--like how a infinite regress of causes is impossible thus demanding a "first" cause--and then states the conclusion this way: "This is what everyone names as God." For Thomas in these arguments the name "God" functions as a cipher, a word that points toward a mystery. We name the Source and Origin of the cosmos "God," but we really have no idea what we're talking about, what the word "God" actually names or means. 

This is why it's a mistake to describe Thomas' arguments as "proofs for the existence of God." Thomas' arguments are better characterized as Signposts of Mystery. The human mind follows its innate metaphysical curiosity to the edge of the cosmos. And at that edge our minds stare into the Beyond. We know that the universe cannot be its own explanation. Why does it exist? How does it exist? We don't really know, but the word "God" points toward that Mystery. In this sense, even atheists agree with Thomas' arguments. All rational people know that a halo of Mystery encircles the material universe and fences in the human search for its Ultimate Source. And it's pretty well agreed, among both theists and atheists, that the word "God" has been historically used to point to such questions and mysteries. Whatever caused all this to come into existence, as Thomas says, "this is what everyone names as God," at least traditionally. And while today the word "God," as a metaphysical cipher, might be objected to, there should be no controversy that the Mystery the word "God" has traditionally pointed toward hasn't gone anywhere. 

Basically, the ontological questions that "God" names? These remain.

I've been reading Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica. The Summa has many famous parts, but perhaps the most famous part comes early in Part 1 of the Summa where Thomas presents his five "proofs" for the existence of God. 

I expect you've heard of a few of these "proofs." For example, everything must have a cause. But an infinite chain of causes is impossible. So, at the start, there must have been an Uncaused Cause who is God. God is, as we say, the "Unmoved Mover." 

Again, you've likely heard this argument before. And yet, many scholars would argue that the summary of the argument I made above is actually a misunderstanding of Thomas' argument. It also misunderstands how steeped in apophatic mystery are Thomas' "proofs," which is why I'm putting the word "proof" in scare-quotes. Basically, there's a whole lot of confusion, among both Christians and atheists, about what Thomas is doing with this five "proofs" for the existence of God. Because of this, I'd like to share some clarifying thoughts in this series. 

But before I do that, let's today review Thomas' five arguments. The ones I want to focus on in this series are the first three arguments, two of which famously appeal to "infinite regress." Here's ChatGPT's summary of the those first three arguments:

The Argument from Motion: Aquinas observed that objects in the world are in a state of motion. He argued that for something to be in motion, it must have been set in motion by something else. However, this chain of motion cannot go on infinitely because there must be a "First Mover" that initiated the motion. Aquinas identified this First Mover as God.

The Argument from Efficient Causes: Aquinas considered the cause-and-effect relationships that exist in the world. He claimed that every effect has a cause, and this chain of causation cannot go on infinitely. There must be an ultimate "Uncaused Cause" that set everything into motion. Aquinas identified this Uncaused Cause as God.

The Argument from Contingency: Aquinas argued that everything in the world is contingent, meaning they depend on something else for their existence. He reasoned that if everything were contingent, then at some point, nothing would exist because there would be nothing to bring contingent things into existence. Therefore, there must be a necessary being—an entity that exists by its own nature and does not depend on anything else. Aquinas identified this necessary being as God.

I've highlighted the contentious issues among these arguments. The first is the premise that "a causal chain (or chain of motion) cannot be infinite." You can go online to find a lot of YouTube videos where atheists dispute this claim, or make the obvious point that the question of "infinite regress" just shifts the mystery onto God, replacing one impossibility for another. So pick your poison.

The second contentious issue is from the argument from contingency, where Thomas argues that if everything in the world is contingent (i.e., doesn't have to exist) then, at some point, nothing would exist. The way Thomas frames this argument is a bit odd. He doesn't describe contingency in a temporal sequence as with the first two arguments, that at some point in the past contingent existence came into being. So you'll note the missing "infinite regress" premise in the Argument from Contingency. Thomas' premise is that, if all things are contingent, then "at some point" nothing would exist. Most of us would assume that this "at some point" would be "at the beginning" (like a "Big Bang" event). But that's not exactly what Thomas says. It's possible that, given an infinite amount of time, the "at some point" is in the future, like the "Big Chill," the final heat death of the cosmos. But even that idea raises the question, as we'll discuss, about if a quantum vacuum, at either the Big Bang or the Big Chill, really qualifies as being "nothing."

To wrap this up today, this is just a sketch of the three "proofs" to get everyone on the same page, with a gloss about their disputed elements. Tomorrow I'll turn to comment on some of the misunderstandings about these arguments.

"I love you" 

During many years of doubt, while I was in an intellectually agnostic space, it was my love of God that kept me tethered to faith. That may sound strange. How can you love something you think might not exist?

Reflecting back on this now, here's my best take on that season of life.

I think when we struggle with "belief" we're struggling with mental conceptions of God. Consequently, seasons of doubt and deconstruction, and even outright unbelief, aren't really about God. Rather, they are about mental constructions of God. We're rejecting ideas, intellectual propositions, and cognitive representations. 

But when it comes to the love of God, well, I don't think it's possible not to love God. Sure, you might have all sorts of doubts about God, but despite all that there is a longing within each human heart for God. You simply cannot imagine the truest most beautiful thing and not feel a desire for it. Even if you don't think it's true, you still want it. This is what makes former believers so sad when then stop believing in God. Intellectually, they cannot sustain belief, but they still long for God. We simply cannot not desire the true, the beautiful and the good.

Everyone loves God.

In thinking about David Bentley Hart's essay "A Sense of Style: Beauty and the Christian Moral Life" I was reminded of the argument made by Samuel Wells in his book Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics.

To review, Hart uses a "sense of style" to make an argument for a type of virtue ethics. At its heart, virtue ethics argues that the moral life isn't about following a list of moral Do's or Don'ts but is, rather, acquiring habits that lead to good moral outcomes. In his essay, Hart describes these virtues from the perspective of aesthetics, judging our moral actions as "beautiful" or not. Virtuous living is living beautifully, where Jesus becomes our standard of beauty. 

In his treatment of virtue ethics, Wells makes a similar sort of argument using the metaphor of theatric improv. 

To the audience, improv can look as if the actors are "making it up" as they go along. Improv artists don't follow a memorized script. But the spontaneity of improv belies the training, preparation and discipline underneath. Improv only looks spontaneous and effortless because of years of hard work and habit formation on the part of the actors. Learning improv is all about acquiring these good habits, habits like "Yes, and", that allow you and your partners to take the story coherently forward given the situation posed to you.

Wells argues that Christian living is a form of moral improv. The Bible isn't a rule book we consult to make ethical decisions. Rather, the Bible forms us into good improv actors. Wells writes:

Ethics cannot be simply about rehearsing and repeating the same script and story over and over again, albeit on a fresh stage with new players. This does not do sufficient justice to the unfolding newness of each moment of creation. The Bible is not so much a script that the church learns and performs as it is a training school that shapes the habits and practices of a community. This community learns to take the right things for granted, and on the basis of this faithfulness, it trusts itself to improvise within it tradition. Improvisation means a community formed in the right habits trusting itself to embody its tradition in new and often challenging circumstances ... Ethics is not about being clever in a crisis but about forming a character that does not realize it has been in a crisis until the "crisis" is over. It is just the same for improvisers in the theater. Improvisation is not about being spontaneous and witty in the moment, but about trusting oneself to do and say the obvious.

We can connect this vision of improv with Hart's "sense of style." Everyday, life will throw "a situation" at you, just like the improv artist is thrown a situation from the audience or a fellow actor. In these moments of life there is no clear script to follow. We've memorized no lines. There haven't been any rehearsals. We don't know where the plot is going. But we have to do something. And yet, we don't want to respond randomly. Here, in-between random and scripted, is improvisation. And as a Christian, we want this improvisation to be in the style of Jesus. We want to improv throughout the day artfully, skillfully, and beautifully. 

But here's the rub: to be a good improv artist you have to train in the craft. Consequently, if the Christian life is moral improv we must have the rhythms and movements of the Christian life habituated into our body and mind. Good art, like good improv, takes practice. Because once the lights are up, and you're facing a moral crisis, you won't have time to think. Your improvised actions in that moment need to flow from your training, and we want that training and improv to produce beautiful things.

After using the story of the woman caught in the act of adultery to illustrate Jesus' "sense of style" in his essay "A Sense of Style: Beauty and the Christian Moral Life," David Bentley Hart goes on to make this comment: "Admittedly, it is a difficult style to catch hold of, and not everyone cares to try."

For my part, I've always wanted to try. I've always been absolutely transfixed by how Jesus moves through the world, and obsessed with pondering how that style would translate into my own life.

And Hart's absolutely right, it's not a style you can emulate trying to piously follow a set of rules. Largely because this sense of style plays out spontaneously in human interactions, especially how you treat people, often on the fly. Do the people you encounter this day feel safe, seen, and loved by you? Not just and only our best friends during an intimate chat over coffee, but complete strangers whom we bump into the rough and tumble of the day in our hurry, distraction, and stress. Do those people, the mass of strangers, receive from you the beautiful gesture?

If we were to classify Hart's argument, it's a species of virtue ethics, acquiring habits of heart, mind, and action. Christian moral action is less about working through ethical puzzles than training oneself to respond to life, in an almost automatic, unconscious way, in ways that conform to the style of Jesus.     

What Hart helps us see is the artistry involved in this process. Discussions in virtue ethics and spiritual formation can sound grim, all about discipline and training. And that may be where we start. If the moral life is like learning to play an instrument, creative artistry is built upon a foundation of technical skill. Consequently, our early lessons are going to be rote and rudimentary. But the goal with advancing skill is the ability to perform creatively and beautifully in ways that surpass mere technical proficiency.  All this is a part of what the Greeks meant by arete, the word we translate as virtue. For the Greeks, arete has an aesthetic aspect. Virtuous living is "artful" living.   

And the purpose of this beauty in the moral life isn't some evolutionary spandrel, an unnecessary add-on, like so much Christmas tree tinsel. The purpose of beauty is to reflect and draw us toward God, the ontological heart of the cosmos and of your very existence. As Hart wraps us his essay (bold is mine):

[The story of the adulterous woman] enunciates no exact principles or laws, but it compellingly, beguilingly invites us to adopt the style pervading Christ’s actions as, so to speak, the most exquisite imaginable dernier cri [Note: French for "the latest fashion"]. In dispersing the woman’s accusers with a cool irony that leaves them haplessly silent, and in then granting her a forgiveness wholly unencumbered by any ponderous expressions of disapproving decency or piety, and without even any prescribed penance, Christ demonstrates how a single graceful gesture, per­formed with sufficient moral and aesthetic skill, can express all the dimensions of the beauty of charity. It may seem somewhat perverse, as I have noted, to suggest that the ethical should in this sense be ultimately reducible to the aesthetic; but it should be, even so, for the simple reason that what draws us to the good is that it is also eternal beauty. God himself is beauty, that is, and in the end, for Christians, we are joined to him in seeking the beautiful as he has taught us to recognize it in Christ, and in therefore seeking in every circumstance, however unanticipated, to express that beauty always anew, in ever more novel variations on that original “theme”—that unique and irresistibly attractive manner. At times, a sense of style really is everything.

In his essay "A Sense of Style: Beauty and the Christian Moral Life," David Bentley Hart argues that our actions should balance the True, the Beautiful and the Good. Christian life should imitate Jesus' sense of style. 

But what does that look like? Hart gives an example from John's gospel (my bolding):

To see what I mean, consider for instance the story of the woman taken in adultery: it is a tale that in a sense refuses to leave us with any exact rule regard­ing any particular ethical situation, much less any single rule for all analogous situations; but it definitely provides us with a startlingly incisive exemplar of an extremely particular manner for conducting oneself, even in circumstances that might be fraught with moral ambiguity, or even with terror, and for negotiating those circumstances by way of pure bearing, pure balance. Christ’s every gesture in the tale is resplendent with any number of delicately calibrated and richly attractive qualities: calm reserve, authority, ironic detachment, but also tender­ness, a kind of cavalier gallantry, moral generosity, graciousness, but then also alacrity of wit, even a kind of sober levity (“Let him among you who is without sin . . .”). All of it has about it the grand character of the effortless beau geste [Note: French for "beautiful gesture"], a nonchalant display of the special privilege belonging to those blessed few who can insouciandy, confidently violate any given convention simply because they know how to do it with consummate and ineffably accomplished artistry— aplomb, finesse, panache (and a whole host of other qualities for which only French seems to possess a sufficiently precise vocabulary). And there is as well something exquisitely and generously antinomian about Christ’s actions here. It embodies the same distinctive personal idiom that is expressed in the more gloriously improbable, irresponsible, and expansive counsels of the Sermon on the Mount—that charter of God’s Kingdom as a preserve for flaneurs and truants, defiantly sparing no thought for the morrow and emulous only of the lilies of the fields in all their iridescent indolence—and that is expressed also in everything about his ministry and teachings that, say, Nietzsche could interpret only as the decadence of a dreaming symbolist.

This is David Bentley Hart, so feel free to Google definitions. I had to check "insouciantly" (from the word "insouciant" meaning "showing a casual lack of concern, free from worry, or anxiety; carefree; nonchalant").

An important word to track down for what Hart is saying is his descriptions of Jesus' actions as "antinomian," meaning "relating to the view that Christians are released by grace from the obligation of observing the moral law." 

If you're unfamiliar with antinomianism you may want to explore that rabbit hole of Christian history, thought, and controversy. But at its heart Christian antinomianism simply follows St. Augustine's famous line, "Love, and do what you will." The idea being that, if we truly love others, we don't need to follow any moral rules, code, or law. Love, on its own, will create a good moral outcome. As Paul famously wrote, "Love is the fulfillment of the law." 

That vision goes to Hart's argument about Christian moral action embodying a sense of style rather than an adherence to a long list of Do's and Don'ts, treating life as a Christian ethics class. As Hart writes about Jesus' treatment of the woman caught in the act of adultery, "it is a tale that in a sense refuses to leave us with any exact rule regard­ing any particular ethical situation, much less any single rule for all analogous situations; but it definitely provides us with a startlingly incisive exemplar of an extremely particular manner for conducting oneself."

The story in John 8 leaves us no moral rules. If anything, Jesus seems antinomian in how he blows off the rules. Consequently, it's hard to translate Jesus's actions into hard ethical guidance. Rather, what is passed on to us is a sense of style, a beautiful gesture, an "extremely particular manner for conducting oneself."  

And it's that style that Christians try to capture and emulate.