Tuesdays with Thomas - Introduction

About a year-and-a-half ago I discovered the writings of Thomas Aquinas, and I haven't been the same since! And to spare my wife's sanity, rather than pestering her with late-night questions about Aquinas, I have opted for a different outlet - YouTube videos. From time to time I would like to share some things I have learned from my study of Aquinas with you. "But why bother studying a 13th century monk?' you ask. Good question! That's what this video is all about. 

Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?

This week a professor at Wheaton College (a conservative evangelical school) was suspended for stating that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. Is she correct? The answer to this question is complicated. 

The Problem of Evil - Proof or Puzzle?

Many of you know that my wife has cancer. Her long-term prognosis is not great, but the most recent scan we had shows that the chemotherapy is reducing the size of her tumors, and we are very thankful. We are keenly aware that many other cancer patients received bad news this week, and are suffering terrible physical and emotional pain from this horrible disease.

The reality of pain and suffering – whether caused by diseases like cancer, disasters like tsunamis, or inhumanities like murder – is a great challenge to faith. The psalmist Asaph says his faith faltered as he “saw the prosperity of the wicked” (Psalm 73:2-3). In the midst of his anguish, Job complained about God’s seeming indifference: “It is all one; therefore I say, He destroys both the blameless and the wicked” (Job 9:22). And even the Lord Jesus cried out on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Matthew 27:46, quoting Psalm 22:1).

Philosophers refer to the difficulty in reconciling the existence of suffering with the existence of God as the problem of evil. To state the argument in its classical formulation, it goes like this:

Premise 1: Evil exists.

Premise 2: If God was all-powerful, He could prevent the existence of evil.

Premise 3: If God was all-good, He would prevent the existence of evil.

Conclusion: Therefore God does not exist.

What are we to make of this argument? Christians accept the first premise – evil does indeed exist. And Christians agree with the second premise – God is all-powerful, and He could prevent the existence of evil. But what about the third premise – that if God was all-good He would have prevented the existence of evil? This is the key contention, and it is the one that I want to focus on in a moment.

Israel and the Church

Recently I posted a response to an article defending Christian Zionism. Some of you who read that article may have encountered terms that you had never seen before, and felt like you were walking into the middle of a very confusing conversation. So I wanted to take some time to define as simply as I can (hopefully without being unfair) the basic terms I discussed in that article.

While Zionism is a broad term, it refers to a set of movements that hold in common the right of the Jewish people to have a homeland in the ancient land of Israel. Religious versions of Zionism believe that this right is divine, and that the modern state of Israel is the inheritor of God’s promises of a homeland for Abraham’s offspring. Christian Zionists believe that God maintains a special commitment to ethnic Israel, as distinct and separate from the church.

Most Christian Zionists are adherents to a theological system known as dispensationalism. This doctrine derives its name from the belief that God has worked through very different ages or dispensations of history, sharply distinguished from one another. But the essence of dispensationalism is the belief that Scripture should always be interpreted literally. This means that when the Old Testament makes promises about the nation of Israel, those promises must be fulfilled literally in ethnic, fleshly Israel. Therefore, the age of Israel is to be sharply distinguished from the age of the church, and the promises made to Israel cannot apply to the church.

I appreciate the motivation behind the desire to interpret Scripture literally. Dispensationalism emerged in a time when theological liberalism sought to explain away the miracles of Jesus as nothing more than parables. By superimposing on the gospels a bias against the possibility of the supernatural,  liberalism distorted the clear historical claims of Christianity. Ironically, by superimposing its own grid of “literal” interpretation on the Bible, dispensationalism likewise distorts the clear teaching of the New Testament.

The issue is not whether God has made certain promises regarding Israel and the land. The issue is, how did God fulfill those promises? We could answer this question by assuming that the only possible way God could fulfill them was literally – with reference to ethnic Israel and the geographical entity called Palestine. But from a Christian point of view, we must let Jesus and the apostles explain to us how God fulfilled those promises. And what the New Testament consistently teaches is that God has redefined and expanded “Israel” to include all of those - whether ethnic Jews or Gentiles – who are in Christ. And, God has redefined and expanded the “the promised land” to include a whole new creation, “a new heaven and earth.”

With regard to “Israel,” Paul says that all of those who have faith like Abraham and are baptized into Christ become “Abraham’s offspring,” whether Jew or Gentile (Galatians 3:26-29). For this reason, Peter takes an entire series of descriptions of Israel from the Old Testament – terms like “chosen race, royal priesthood, holy nation” – and applies them to Christians, regardless of ethnic identity (1 Peter 2:9-10). And this is precisely what Jesus envisioned, many coming “from east and west” to dine with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 8:11).

Christian Zionists disagree, and often describe the position I just laid out as “replacement theology,” the idea that the church has replaced Israel. Another term that is often used in theological circles is supersessionism, the notion that the church has superseded (supplanted) Israel. This terminology easily leads to caricatures, like the following claims from the article to which I replied:

• ·     “the Incarnation was supposed to turn the focus away from Israel” 
• ·      “no longer would God be concerned with the Jews”
• ·      “Israel has been left behind”

But of course these statements are completely false. Jesus came in the flesh to save Israel (Matthew 1:21), and sent the disciples to teach the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 10:6). God is most certainly concerned with the Jews, as he is with all people (Romans 10:1), and God has not rejected ethnic Israel in blanket fashion (Romans 11:1). That is why many theologians who reject Zionism and dispensationalism nevertheless also reject the terms “replacement theology” or “supersessionism.” Those terms are easily misconstrued. I prefer the term expansionism.

Maybe all of these “isms” are still confusing! Here’s an illustration I hope will help. Dispensationalism says that God has constructed two houses: first he built Israel, and then he built the church along side of Israel. Supersessionism says that God built one house – Israel, tore it down, and replaced it with another house – the church. But expansionism says that God built one house – Israel, and then remodeled it. This “remodeling” involved the removal of some parts of the house, along with the addition of other rooms to the house. The result of this remodeling is still Israel, but Israel expanded – the church.

It seems to me that this exactly the picture Paul gives to us in his own illustration of the olive tree in Romans 11:17-24. Israel is the olive tree. Some branches were broken off because of unbelief. Others, which he identifies as the Gentiles, were grafted in. And those who were broken off in unbelief may once again be grafted back in. ONE tree, pruned and augmented for sure, but still one tree. Other illustrations make the same point: there is one body (Ephesians 2:11-18), one temple (Ephesians 2:19-22), one offspring of Abraham (Romans 4:9-12; Galatians 3:26-29).

In contrast to dispensationalism and supersessionism, there is both continuity and discontinuity between Israel and the church. There is discontinuity in the sense that ethnic heritage is no longer the defining point of entry into God’s “Israel” – faith in Christ is. But there is continuity in the sense that it is still Abraham’s family.

This same concept of redefinition and expansion is true of the “promised land.” The New Testament takes the promises of a new land and temple and applies them to the glorious eternal dwelling of God with his people in the “new heavens and earth” in Revelation 21-22. While this may run counter to the “literal” matrix of interpretation, we must ultimately yield to the way the inspired writers of the New Testament inform us of how God intends to keep his promises.

In Ephesians 5 Paul uses the relationship of marriage as a model of that of Christ and the church. He calls this a “mystery,” which earlier in Ephesians he says describes the relationship of Jews and Gentiles together in one body through the gospel (Ephesians 3:6). By insisting on special privileges for ethnic Israel, Christian Zionism pulls apart this unity that Christ achieved in making Gentiles fellow heirs with Israel. What God has joined together, let not man put asunder.

The Impassibility of God - a Review of Thomas Weinandy's Does God Suffer?

Review: Does God Suffer?

By Thomas G. Weinandy, O.F.M., Cap. (Notre Dame: 2000).

The classical view of God defended for most of church history by

thinkers such as the early church fathers, later theologians like Aquinas, and reformers like Calvin and Arminius, was that God is impassible. This means that God does not experience changes of emotional states. But in recent times, this doctrine has come under sharp criticism by theologians of varied backgrounds.

Catholic theologian Thomas G. Weinandy’s book, Does God Suffer?, is a robust defense of the classical doctrine of impassibility. As he explains in the preface, his desire is to refute erroneous arguments made against the doctrine, and to present a positive view of God in light of this teaching. I think he succeeds on both counts.

In this review I will survey each chapter of Weinandy’s book and summarize his arguments. But before I do that, since the concept of impassibility may be foreign to many readers, I want to take just a moment to clarify what exactly this teaching means. But first, we need to understand some more basic ideas about God and language.

The Samaritan, The Problem of Evil, and Love

At the church where I minister we have just experienced an incredible season of grief. Two members in the span of a week passed away after multi-year battles with cancer. As you can imagine, the issue of suffering, what philosophers sometimes call “the problem of evil,” has been on my mind a lot, lately. The Bible says that when we suffer, we are experiencing the “discipline” or “training” of God (Hebrews 12:7). And it further says that this training is designed to train us to “share his holiness” (Hebrews 12:10), to become like God. How does suffering mold our character into conformity with God’s? To provide a partial answer to that question, I would like to offer some thoughts about Jesus’ most famous parable.

The Parable of the Good Samaritan is one of those stories everybody knows. A man was traveling on a route that was notoriously dangerous in Jesus' day - from the holy city of Jerusalem down into the Jordan River Valley to Jericho. He fell among robbers who were not content simply to steal from him. They beat him - so severely that Jesus says they left him “half dead.” 

Three people came upon this dying man. Two of them were part of the special religious class of workers in the temple back in Jerusalem, a priest and a Levite. And both infamously passed him by. Jesus doesn't explain why - we can imagine a backstory for them that would make them reluctant to touch a dead body, since that would lead to defilement under the purification rules of the Law of Moses and preclude them from service in the temple.

The third person who came upon this man was not part of the temple personnel. He wasn't even Jewish. In fact, to the shock of the people who first heard Jesus tell this story, he was a Samaritan. Although related to the Jews by blood, the Samaritans were not  of pure Hebrew stock, and they had many serious differences with the Jews about the right way to worship God. The Jews therefore despised the Samaritans as those who had racially and religiously contaminated the pure practice of the Law.

But when the Samaritan saw the victim of this brutal assault, he did not see things in terms of Jew vs Samaritan. He saw a fellow human being who needed urgent help, and Jesus says, "when he saw him, he felt compassion." This compassion was more than just an emotional reaction. It led him to care for the man immediately and tangibly. He "bound up his wounds,” which - given the fact Jesus says the man was left for dead - must have been severe. Giving aid to a man that grievously injured would have been messy business. No wonder the priest and Levite didn't want to help. But the Samaritan did. And you know the rest. He put the man on his own animal, took him to an inn, and personally cared for him - a total stranger. And when he had to leave, the Samaritan gave the innkeeper money to cover any further expenses.  

As Jesus told this story, He described a world in which bad things happen. The backdrop of this parable is the presence of evil. One form this evil takes is the wicked choices people make that cause harm to others, like what the thieves did to the man from Jerusalem. Another form of evil is the sort of suffering that compromises physical health, like infection and illness. In the parable, Jesus says that the Samaritan anointed the wounded man with oil and wine - oil to soften the wound, and wine to cleanse the wound. That's our world - people sometimes do terrible things, and fragile bodies are subject to injury, disease, and death.

So evil and suffering were the backdrop of the story of the Good Samaritan, just as they are undeniably present in our story. But that's not the main point of the parable. Do you remember why Jesus told this story in the first place? Here's what Luke 10:25-30 says:

And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers….”

You see why Jesus told this story? The Parable of the Good Samaritan is a story about the meaning of love. Love like God's love. Free, unconditional, and sacrificial.

Scripture says that “God is love” (1 John 4:8). And Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount that God’s love is universal - “for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good” (Matthew 5:45). Further, Jesus called His followers to imitate this wide love of God, “so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:45). But this is difficult. We are much more prone to love only those we like, or those who reciprocate. To love like “tax collectors” and “Gentiles” rather than God (Matthew 5:46-47). 

That’s why the story of the Samaritan is so significant. He loved generously and unconditionally - and it was the existence of suffering that provided the avenue through which he could demonstrate this. The Samaritan knew nothing about the man he helped. Most likely he was Jewish - an ancient adversary. And he certainly had no reason to think the man could ever do anything in return for him. But he tended to him personally and provided for him generously with no other motive than the desire to do good for this man. And it was the presence of evil that afforded the Samaritan the opportunity to love someone in this selfless, God-imitating way, and - ironically - it was the same evil that granted the anonymous victim the gift of the extravagant and undeserved love from the Samaritan.

Because it is so easy for us to have ulterior motives when we love others, the existence of evil and suffering provide us the training ground through which we learn to love others with pure motives and sincerity of heart. In other words, to share in God’s character. It is one way the Father trains us to be like Him.

What I am suggesting is that one reason God permits evil and suffering in our world is that such a world allows us to learn and experience His love. I am not proposing that - as the Beatles might say - “love is all you need” to understand the problem of suffering. But I have seen many Christians emulate the Samaritan-esque love Jesus described in this story through selflessly caring for others in great suffering, and by doing so, bearing unmistakable family resemblance to their Father. And I have seen Christians receive such love - like the precious sisters we just lost in our church - and experience on a human scale a glimpse of God’s infinitely beautiful love and care. This was only possible because of the reality of suffering.

As Paul reflected on the sufferings Christians faced in the first century, he wrote this:

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:3-5)

We have hope in the midst of our suffering because “God’s love has been poured into our hearts.” When the Samaritan anointed the wounded man with oil and wine, he was pouring the love of God into the man’s heart, and learning to be like his Father in the process. And this gives us hope that in the midst of the ugliness of evil, it is possible to experience even more beautiful love. 

Faith Isn't So Easy

“Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward” (Hebrews 10:35).

Sometimes I see and hear comments by unbelievers accusing people of faith of being wishful thinkers. In their eyes, faith is a crutch, an escapist fantasy, an illusory coping mechanism. Rather than face the cruel realities of the world with cold logic, Christians prefer the dreamy never-never-land of heaven. So the story goes from the viewpoint of some cynical skeptics.

I am sure that some Christians do indeed believe for very shallow reasons – just as I am sure that some atheists disbelieve for very shallow reasons. One atheist philosopher has candidly admitted that he doesn't want to believe in God because it’s against his wishes. “It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that” (Thomas Nagel, The Last Word, p. 130).

For my part, I can only confess that I have a deeply skeptical mind. I am the world’s worst second-guesser (wait – maybe someone else is worse!). So I have fought some pretty intense internal intellectual wrestling matches over the credibility of Christianity. And I must say that after the most intense period of doubt I have ever gone through, I have concluded – on rational grounds – that atheism is intellectually incoherent and that Christianity is true. But I still struggle with faith – for exactly the opposite reasons my more cynically-minded unbelieving friends may imagine. I don’t find faith to be emotionally easy at all. I find it to be extremely difficult.

Let me put this in context by describing what my last seven days have been like. On Tuesday of last week I went to visit a young lady in the hospital who has a brain tumor. Over several months we have watched her lose one function after another as the tumor has invaded more and more of her brain. While she slept I shared tears with her mother and brother who were staying with her in order to give her husband and two daughters a break to go home. I left from there to attend the funeral of a friend of mine who succumbed to melanoma after almost five years of fighting it. And on the way from the hospital to the funeral, I received word that another lady in our church passed away. A precious sister in the Lord who also battled cancer for five years. The last six months I visited her and her husband multiple times every week, and watched her body slowly yield ground, inch by inch, to this vicious disease. That was Tuesday.

On Thursday, my wife had to go into the hospital for an infection in her leg. The reason she needed to be admitted is because she is also dealing with cancer, and her immune system is compromised, making any infection potentially dangerous. Over three years – from the original diagnosis, and then the radiation and chemo, and the surgeries, and the recurrence and metastasis, and the countless side effects – I have watched her struggle bravely as her body has endured so much.

This afternoon we will bury our great friend who died last week. And tonight, Lord willing, I am flying to Nashville, where I will spend a little bit of time with one of my best friends (the man who performed mine and Kristi’s wedding ceremony), who learned two weeks ago that he has advanced lymphoma, and is now receiving chemo.

As I have watched with my own eyes these loved one struggle and suffer, it has been very difficult to maintain my trust in God at times. Not my intellectual belief in His existence. But my trust. My commitment to believe that in contrast to the very real pain and anguish I can see with my own eyes, that there is going to be a great reward for those who maintain their confidence in Him.

Christians don’t escape the harsh realities of life. We are called to roll up our sleeves and plunge into them to serve and minister to others. To bind up wounds like the Good Samaritan. To bear burdens and fulfill the law of Christ. To weep with those who weep. And when we are confronted with suffering this immediately and tangibly, it hurts.

And so I just want to say that – for me at least – faith isn’t so easy. And it apparently wasn’t for the people to whom the Book of Hebrews was written. Their faith was wavering. And the writer of that book called them to persevere (a term that would be meaningless, or at least unnecessary, if faith was so easy).

What I need to do in these times when I feel my faith faltering, staggering under the weight of so much suffering and pain, is what the writer encouraged these people to do: “And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart” (Hebrews 12:1b-3, NIV).

Jesus suffered and struggled – with “loud cries and tears” (Hebrews 5:7). But He kept His eyes on the “joy set before Him,” God’s promise to exalt Him to His right hand, and in that commitment, He scornfully disregarded the world’s attempt to shame Him on the cross, and endured. Jesus endured unimaginable suffering by entrusting Himself to God – and God was true to His promise. He will be true to us.

And so, don’t grow weary and lose heart.