From: hedrick@cs.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Questions about the Bible
Date: 29 Sep 92 08:36:24 GMT

Kapila Ranasinghe poses yet again the question of God's responisibility
for human failure.

In my opinion, this question is actually dealt with in Paul's letter
to the Romans, ending in Rom 11:32.  Unfortunately the set of
questions involved here is one where we're likely to end up giving a
confusing variety of answers, since it involves issues of free will
and providence which are historically among the most controversial
issues in theology.  Thus I'm afraid people don't agree in how to read
what Paul says.  However I'm going to try to summarize the answer I
think he is giving.

Much of the letter up to this point has dealt with the question of the
Jews' reaction to Christ.  Paul is obviously very upset at the fact
that his fellow Jews had largely not accepted Christ.  One of the
questions he seems to be struggling with is how God could have allowed
this to happen.  His answer revolves around two poles: (1) God is
responsible.  If it has happened, it's part of God's plan.  (2) God's
plans are aimed at our salvation, not our damnation.  Thus Paul
concludes that, yes God is responsible for the fact that Jews rejected
Jesus.  But he intends the rejection to be temporary.  It is to
provide an opportunity for Gentiles to hear about Jesus.  Once this
has happened, the Jews will end up accepting Jesus.  In summary: "For
God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon
all."  (Rom 11:32)

Much is made over Paul's discussion of the potter.  (Rom 9:19 ff) As a
potter has the right to decide what kind of pot he wants to make and
what happens to it once it's made, the implication is that God is free
to make people for damnation if he wants to.  While Paul does seem to
say that God could make people for damnation, I don't think he is
actually saying that God has done so.  I think the following chapters
make it clear that in fact his intention is salvation, and any
blindness that he brought on is temporary, or is a judgement against
somehow who is already lost (as in the case of Pharoah).

What is less clear is at what point Paul is speaking of individuals
and at what point he is speaking of groups.  I'll say something about
the two possible readings shortly.  But in either case, the sort of
plan Paul is attributing to God is interesting indeed.  If we take
seriously 11:32, God intends to save people, but in a manner that is
rather different than the approach most of us would take.  Rather than
creating people who are inherently sinless, or putting people into
situations that would not result in sin, his plan calls for creating
people who will in fact fall, but who will be brought through that
experience of failure to eventual salvation through Christ.  Paul
never says why God would do such a thing.  His basic comment is "O the
depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable
are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!"  (11:33).

This has not stopped Christians from considering the question.  While
answers differ in detail, normally they seem to come down to a
question of what is necessary in order to get people to be fully
responsible, mature individuals.  Without being able to do a detailed
analysis of the alternatives, many of us have a gut feeling that both
a world that doesn't present morally serious challenges and people who
are above being seriously challenged are both in some way
unsatisfactory.  At any rate, for one reason or another, God seems to
have adopted the strategy of bringing people through suffering and
failure, rather than avoiding it either by not having it in the first
place or having people who would not be affected by it.

Note that the role of Jesus is closely tied to this issue.  Again,
most of us would probably have thought that if God were going to
intervene in the world, he would do so more directly, wiping out
either evil or evil people.  But instead when he intervened it was to
join us in our failure and suffering, and in that way cause them no
longer to separate us from him.  I believe these two things are "in
character."  A God who would deal with sin through the cross is also a
God who would bring people to himself through failure, rather than
avoiding the issue by creating a world without challenge or people who
would always withstand the challenge.  Some consider this vision of
God evil.  I don't, but I understand how one might.  Certainly the
book of Job suggests that God is not dismayed by people who are mad at
him for how he has chosen to do things.

Now, for some differences in interpretation.  A common reading of Paul,
which I'm going to adopt as a reference point is:

(0) that when he describes God's plans, he is thinking in terms of
groups, not individuals.  He says that the Jews have rejected Christ
temporarily but eventually all will be saved.  In this interpretation,
"all" is not taken literally.  God intends his plan to bring us good,
but he understands that in fact not everyone will be saved.  God is
responsible for the fact that evil exists; he plans to turn it into
good; but some people do not allow him to do that, and end up being
damned.

But there are a number of alternatives to this reading:

(1) A few people believe that when he says "all" he means all.  In
this case, everyone is going to end up saved in the end.  The problem
with this interpretation is that it conflicts with Paul's statements
in other letters that speak about judgement, and also with Jesus'
statements about judgement.  It is possible to interpret all of these
things in light of universal salvation.  I'm greatly attracted to this
view, and now and then believe it.  But it requires some very fancy
interpretive footwork, particularly with Jesus' teaching.

(2) Many people (indeed probably a majority, at least in the U.S.)
reject the idea of a God who would intend failure and suffering, even
if his eventual intention is to bring good out of it.  In this
alternative, God created human beings good, and they fell, contrary to
his intention.  While this sounds like a major difference, in fact it
may not turn out to be as different as it sounds.  Because almost all
Christians (the term "all Christians" has almost no application --
somebody somewhere will disagree about anything) believe that God is
all-powerful and all-knowing, he at least knew what was coming, and
created us knowing the failure and suffering that would occur.  Thus
we must still assume that he had some reason for thinking that this
was an acceptable outcome, even if he didn't positively intend it.

(3) A few people believe that God intends specific people to be
damned.  In my alternative (0), I assume that people are responsible
for rejecting God's plan to bring good out of evil.  As a result they
end up damned.  In this alternative, the view is that God actually
intends specific people to be rejected.  While there is surely a
difference in these two interpretations, many of the same issues are
present in either case.  In both cases, God knows that some people are
going to be damned, and goes ahead anyway.  The question is simply
whether he positively intends specific people to be damned, or
simply allows it.  In an omnipotent being, the difference between
intending something and allowing it is rather subtle.

(4) One logically possible view is that God is not all-powerful.
Almost no Christians actually take this position, because of fairly
clear Biblical statements about God's power.  However a very small
number of writers suggest that the universe and God are co-eternal.
The creation story can be understood as involving God bringing order
from chaos, rather than creating from nothing.  In this
interpretation, creation has a certain basic intransigence, which God
is simply stuck with.  Failure is attributed to this.  However this
view is held by only a very small number of people.  And even it
doesn't really get God off the hook.  He still made the basic decision
to impose order on chaos.  Without that decision, no higher entities
such as man would exist, and the problem of failure and suffering
would not be there.

So one way or the other, we are stuck with a God who has chosen to
work through failure and suffering.  There are differences in the
details, but the basic "scandal of the cross" is there, no matter what
choice you take.