Theology for Dummies - Natural Theology

".. a branch of theology based on reason and ordinary experience." - Wikepedia.

Natural theology is best described as looking at the world around us and using what we know to come to conclusions about the divine. This is ultimately man looking at things and saying "this means God is X".

The value of natural theology in Christan circles has long been debated. The Scripture writers, particularly guys like David in the Psalms declare that the world proves there is a creator. Other writers point to other things. Theologians fall into many different camps from those who say natural theology is a key tool to those that reject it outright.

The basic problem is that all nature religions, polytheistic systems, animism, etc. all have as their base this understanding of looking at the world around us and drawing conclusions about the divine. The problem is natural theology is often in the eye of the beholder unless there is some other authority to guide it.

I have no problem with natural theology as a support to other kinds of theology, the problem is when it takes center stage you can go anywhere with it. That is its inherent weakness.

Next: Revealed Theology

Re-Thinking God: Is God Immutable?

Immutable -- adj. -- not capable of or susceptible to change.

Seems to be straight-forward does it not? Everyone knows God does not change. God never changes in any way. Psalm 55:19 says exactly that, does it not?

Unfortunately, there is also many verses of the Bible itself that indicate some changeableness to God -- God does demonstrate some mutability. Some examples:

1. God's Emotions: In my reading through Scripture, back in my agnostic state of mind, I discovered something very quickly -- The God of the Bible has emotions. Now the implications of this are not apparent at first but they are staggering if we take them seriously. Let's take a typical case where God gets angry. There are many of these so we do not need a specific one. The question comes: what happens when God gets angry at someone? The implication is that he was not angry before but then gets angry. It means God goes from a state of no anger to one of having anger -- a change. Some of the other implications of God's emotions we will see in later posts in this series.

2. God's Relationships: There are several ways to illustrate this a) covenants "If you have faith, I will do this"; b) "If...then..." statements themselves outside of covenants and c) commandments. All of these indicating God establishing boundaries and conditions of relationship with others that require God to be one that both acts and reacts depending on the situation.

3. God Changes His Mind: I have written on this at length in many of my Open Theism blogs and simply put God changes his intended actions and does something else other than what He originally intended. It does not just happen once but at least five times. Jeremiah chimes in on this as well in Jeremiah 26:13 indicating a promise that if people would repent then God would change his mind. Action: People repent. Reaction: God changes his mind.

All of this, plus other things opened up the possibility in my mind that there may be certain things about God that do indeed change and because of verses like Psalm 55:19 (which is talking about God's justice and holiness) certain things that do not change. After I was done, I drew the conclusion that God's core character (love, holiness, justice,etc.) do not change but God in His experiences does indeed change both reacting and acting in the context of relationship with other free beings.

What this means is that God can be approached and appealed to and if a person approaches God with a genuine heart, God will react and change the situation and his emotions will change toward that person or group of people accordingly.

Is God immutable? No - He is capable of change and indeed He is susceptible to it. He has the power to both act and react. What does not change about Him is His character as He reacts and acts to what people do. As we look at some of the other attributes of God in this series, we will see how this plays out in how we have to re-think God.

Next: God's Imminence and Transcendence

Engaging God's Problem -- Disagreements with Chapter Seven

Bart Ehrman's God's Problem considers the 'end of the world' answer to the problem of evil. I have a few disagreements with Bart about this although the chapter does have some problems:

1. He plugs some social issues again -- malaria and water issues around the world. Both could be dealt with by humans but were going to blame God.

2. I disagree with Bart's assessment of origin of the apocalyptic view in Scripture. The fact is that it occurs in the writings of Solomon in Ecclesiastes as well as David's psalms and the idea of judgment occurs in Job as well.

3. When people assess that the Jewish people failed to keep the covenant and thus received punishment for not keeping the covenant it is not anti-Semitic. Did not the prophets and Jesus (all Jews) say the same. If Christians simple say the sames things Jews say about themselves how are they anti-Semitic. Jesus pointed this out further in his own when he called the religious leaders self-righteous -Is Jesus anti-Semitic

4. He has some interesting theories about the date of Daniel -- that Daniel is written in Aramaic is proof of a later date for Daniel after the fact of all the predictions of course. The fact is if Daniel is educated by the Babylonians his language would a have been changed into Aramaic along with the rest of the Jews seeing Aramaic is the result of Babylonian influence.

5. Because he does all this his version of apocalyptic views is assume that God has relinquished control for now and will bring things back to right in the end -- The apocalyptic view does not have god out of control at anytime.

Next: Agreements with Chapter Eight

The Five Continuing Conversations of Long Term Reationships -- Part 2 -- Children

Solomon wrote a Psalm -- Psalm 127 in which he states: "Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one's youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; They will not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gate. " Being that he had 700 wives and 300 concubines at the end I wonder how blessed he was? I don't even want to know what the logistics of that big a family should they all have produced at least one child would be. The thought on the production of the children in the first place with one man and 1000 women is enough to boggle the mind.

In any case if your headed to marriage one of the purposes of marriage is to produce and raise children. Any long term relationship that is going to have marriage at its end needs to talk about them.

There are a few issues that need to be discussed and continue to be discussed.

1. How many children do you want? Now in this day and age it is possible to choose if you are a believer in birth control, a subject we will take up in a few seconds. it can be very annoying to one half of the relationship if one of you wants twelve kids and the other only wants one. There are also some who figure it is God's choice how many kids you have, but then again sex is required which requires the couple to engage in it. If momma says I don't want any more and dad decided to leave in the hands of God then momma may just decide that sex is no longer in the cards. This will cause conflict. See why this discussion has to continue until both agree it is time to stop?

2. How are the children to be disciplined and who is going to do it? This one is important because if you don't have agreement about how the children will be brought up you are going to have fights of your own. It is also important that both parents do the discipline and respect the discipline of the other parent when it is done. There is nothing more annoying than to punish a child and then have the other spouse rescind it or not back it up. Both better be involved -- it is not fair for one spouse to always be the disciplinarian either -- take turns.

3. Birth Control? If your thinking about marriage you better know ahead of time if your going to use birth control or not. If the future momma is expecting to and the future dad doesn't believe in it your going to have a problem. The theology you have may be important on this issue and you better get into agreement. The continuing part involves when you have had the number of children you both want -- now what? -- who is going to do some thing permanent or are you going to wait using non-permanent solutions in case you change your mind?

4. Once the children leave the home and get married themsleves what are you going to do and how involved will you be?

In all cases agreement is important and as the situation changes you need to keep talking.

Next -- Finances

The Citizen of Zion

Psalm 15 – A Psalm of David.

1O LORD, who may abide in Your tent?
Who may dwell on Your holy hill?
2 He who walks with integrity, and works righteousness,
And speaks truth in his heart.
3 He does not slander with his tongue,
Nor does evil to his neighbor,
Nor takes up a reproach against his friend;
4 In whose eyes a reprobate is despised,
But who honors those who fear the LORD;
He swears to his own hurt and does not change;
5 He does not put out his money at interest,
Nor does he take a bribe against the innocent
He who does these things will never be shaken.

I have often reflected on this Psalm and I have in recent days begun to break it down for a possible set of sermons if I ever get the chance to preach again. It is a lot more work than people would like to indicate to be a citizen of God’s kingdom. People like to make it easy to ‘get saved’. Accepting Christ is not a magic formula with a free pass to heaven for simply praying prayer and crying a few tears of sorrow over sins. Salvation involves a change of citizenship. Citizenship implies civil responsibilities of the citizen to his new country.

Unfortunately, too many view salvation as a single event and not a lifestyle of citizenship in a new country. They trust the event and not the new relationship formed with the Father through Christ and the Holy Spirit. They place their faith in their prayer of salvation rather than the giver of salvation. Citizenship in the Kingdom of God is rarely the issue in such cases. It also does not help that many Christian leaders seem to promote the idea of event based salvation and have turned away from the idea that a person is a transformed new creature in Christ.

In a recent conversation with a fellow believer, he highlighted a problem that we teach our children to behave according to the rules of the Bible and then they become frustrated that they cannot uphold the standard we teach and that they fail to see others live this standard. I submitted to him that the problem is that we do not teach our children that the main issue is not their behavior, but their transformation into disciples or Christ and citizens of God’s kingdom. We focus to much on the ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ and spend very little time teaching our children what it means to be ‘born again’ and a new creature in Christ. We create the impression that it is merely a question of their own will to do the right thing. Nothing could be further from the truth because if this were so then Romans 3 could not be true. The law is insufficient when written on tables of stone; only the law of love written on a person’s heart can change a person sufficiently enough for them to be obedient to God. Only by being born again can a person be changed enough for genuine love to guide them and only by emphasizing that this is life transformation not religious ritual

No citizen of any country will behave properly if they do not share the ideals of that country. Ideals are not shaped by simply saying I am a citizen and signing a card; a person’s heart, the very seat of their passions, be must be changed and then behavior follows. A person who loves their country will act accordingly. The person who truly loves God will obey him out of personal transformation not outward obligation. But if salvation is reduced to a few ‘repeat after me’ sentences and a membership card it makes me wonder if a person has had a genuine chance to be reborn in Christ.

It is only when genuine transformation takes place that a person can live the life a citizen of Zion is called to live. A life that reflects Psalm 15.