In my last post (directly below), I mentioned that I had made a decision which qualified as irrational because I based it on a feeling. I had two ministry opportunities to choose from, and I chose the one which paid less and had less potential for growth. In fact, the other church I was looking at was offering quite a bit more money (more money than I have ever made in a job) and was in a growing community. The reason I chose the smaller community was that I just felt better about it on a personal level, so I closed the door on the other ministry and pursued it.
In the end, though, I was completely derailed. In the independent Christian Churches, we vote on hiring ministers. As it turned out, when it came time for the church to vote on me a faction in the church stirred up support against me. This faction was angry at the leadership of the church and wanted to work against them and us. I don't know why they did this to us, they didn't tell us.
Anyhow, there were several people I know who believed that the reason I chose this church was in response to God's leading. In fact, one of the elders had told us over and over again that too many things had fallen into place for us to not interpret our coming to the church to be by God's hand. Yet, after the vote he said, "I always say God is never surprised," indicating that God knew this was going to happen the whole time. If God is leading it, why didn't it work? Three quick options:
1. God led us there but knew we would be voted down. Likelihood rating: Dumb.
2. God did not lead us there, and either knew or did not know we would not be accepted. Likelihood: Possible.
3. God may have led us there and may not have. Either way, he couldn't know for certain the outcome because there were so many factors. Likelihood rating: Good. Only the position of open theism is logically consistent with God's freedom to interact and the church's and our ability to decide the outcome. Also, it is not possible to know whether he was leading or not.
In any case, the whole affair ended with heartbreak and my family and I are hurt and back at square one. I think the case is clear that speaking with certainty of God's leading is foolish. Make the wisest decisions you can and trust God, but don't attempt to know what you cannot know.
5.29.2007
Another Case for Coincidence
Posted by Jason at 1:14 AM
Labels: epistemological certainty, God's leading, openness, providence
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6 comments:
Why do you say that God leading you to the church knowing you would be voted down is dumb? That is looking at the situation purely from your viewpoint, which is much smaller than God's.
God often uses bad situations for one, for the good of others. Remember Paul's words to the Philippians while in prison? "What has happened to me has actually resulted in the advancement of the Gospel." Perhaps your vote is what was needed to bring people in the church to repentance so that she might be a better witness.
Or, maybe you would have otherwise chosen the other church and been miserable.
Or, maybe God has a place in mind for you to go, and needed this roadblock.
I do not have the answer, but you admitted that you felt this was the right decision. Your family also felt the same. Why dismiss that this was God's leading?
I think it is a very dangerous thing to say "God couldn't have known for certain the outcome because there were so many factors." Where does this road stop? If we follow it long enough, there is no reason to trust God. He does not know what will happen. And why pray? Even if God knows the "best" option, we could never follow it, for we would not know if it was God leading us or not. Eventually, God becomes just a being with no real value (ability to help) for us. God must know. Otherwise, he is not God. If he doesn't, he is no different from any other god.
The Bible shows us God leads. Paul wrote several times that he wanted to see the people, if God would allow (lead) him to the opportunity. Read the book of Acts, leading took place. God is still the same as he was then.
Deep down, I believe you know that God leads. Why are you so afraid to admit it?
Thanks for your response; I want to answer every one of your statements, but I don’t want you to think I’m trying to pummel you. It’s just that you made a lot of comments which I have spent a lot of time thinking about. They are some of the questions I have had to wrestle with in my own thinking on openness.
I have to admit, the word "dumb" wasn't a good choice, but it reflected how I felt at the time. However, I have come to the conclusion that the "God's viewpoint is bigger than yours" argument, while true, is a lousy defense for the problem of suffering and troubles.
The problem with it is that the idea you are defending is that God must be causing all evil or troublesome actions--and I don't believe this is the case. It is a Calvinistic response, based on the presupposition that all creatures are determined, they have no free will. However, if we believe in free will, we can assume that evil and trouble is caused by the free choices of people and evil angels. My problem with your answer is that I don't think God causes evil, I think he answers it. Therefore, it is ludicrous to me to think that God purposefully led us into a situation which hurt us.
One person said to me today, "God must still have plans for you at your current workplace." To which I responded, "But what if this wasn't God's plan? What if God had planned for me to go there?" The simple truth is the reason we are not preparing to move is that some people stirred up trouble against us. It was not God causing it, it was the free choices of people.
Bottom line is, I believe that people have freedom. They can choose evil and work evil because God created a system in which they could. That means that sometimes his plans are thwarted. And this is a central idea that most Christians accept without realizing it. Most Christians will state that God intended for there to be no sin on earth, but Adam and Eve chose to disobey--introducing the world to sin. Think about it, the very concept of leading indicates that the person being led has the choice not to follow--in other words, your own idea contradicts the notion that God is behind evil actions. Deep down, I think you really believe that people have the ability to make free choices and can cause evil. For that reason, I don't see the value of the argument that God causes or even allows evil to happen because it is in line with a bigger plan.
Romans says that God causes all things to work for good to those who love him. And the evil things that happened to Paul were used by God for good. But this is not a killer to my viewpoint either. It doesn't say that God causes those events for a purpose. It says that he takes those evil events which happen because people cause them and uses them for something good. I fully believe he will work good out of this. What I don't believe is that he caused it. I think it happened because some people with some bad ideas made it happen. Besides this, saying that this happened so that the church would come to repentance sounds an awful lot like saying that God caused these people to do this so that they would come to repentance. But is this how God calls people to repentance in the Bible? I think he called them to repentance by having preachers point out that they needed to repent. Hobbes the tiger, from Calvin and Hobbes, was once asked, "Do you think there is an evil being (the devil) bent on tempting man to sin?" Hobbes replied, "I don't think man needs the help." I don't think people need any help being sinful--they're good enough at it on their own. God calls us to repentance as a response to sin, not by causing us to sin.
It is possible I would have been miserable at either church. But it is also possible that I would have not been. Who knows? The future is what free agents make of it in response to God. I think it could have been different if people would have chosen to obey God and act in love rather than anger.
I will admit that it is possible that God wants me to go somewhere else. But, again, we turn to whether or not these people acted freely. I think they must have. I will address this further in a moment.
I did feel it was right--I want to comment on this again in a moment.
Terry, I don't think I'm getting the idea of openness across very clearly. I guess I don't expect people to move to it, but I hope that they'll at least see why I believe it. The reason I say this is that I don't think that believing that God doesn't know the future means that we can't trust God. It just doesn't follow. I don't trust God because he knows everything that will happen. The truth is, if he knows everything that will happen, I actually have less reason to trust him. If he knows what will happen, how can he change it? If he changes it, then what he previously knew, he didn't know. That is the entire point of my paper on openness.
We don't trust God because he knows what will happen. We trust God because we know he will keep his promises and that he'll take care of us and that he has provided eternal life for us even if we die trusting him. The issue of foreknowledge really has no bearing on our ability to trust. I trust that God is trustworthy and true even though I don't think he has the future all planned out. I think his openness is exactly why I trust him, because it allows him to act freely. Perfect foreknowledge does not allow him to act freely. I trust God because he is worthy of trust and because he promised that he has plans to bless us and not to hurt us.
Terry, you are correct that I believe that God does, sometimes, lead us. I have never said that God doesn't lead us. What I have said is that we cannot know with certainty when he is leading us because our feelings are too unstable of an indicator. My feelings jump all over the place every day based on a million things. How can I trust that God was leading me? Maybe it was my own desire? Maybe it was the devil tricking me? Who knows? I can’t know—that is exactly my point. For this reason, I think we have to quit trying so hard to figure out where he is leading, and trust that if he has a specific plan in a specific instance he will make that clear. But I have never ever seen a case where it was absolutely clear that there could be no other option in following God than one choice. Do you realize that what you’re really saying when you say, “I know that God is leading me,” is that “I trust my own ability to discern so well that there can be absolutely no doubt that I am right.” To me it is very arrogant to say that I could not be mistaken. I have to assume I could be wrong about this, so I have to be very careful. I also have to assume that God knows I am in this position and will take that into account when leading me.
I really hope you see that I’m not afraid to admit that God may lead us sometimes. I am saying that I don’t agree that “feeling led” is a perfect indicator of his leading. God gave us minds to figure things out and I think he values our ability to make decisions. I think the future is wide open in the mind of God—in reality. Therefore, I think he is fine with many options for us and as long as we follow the leading revealed to us in the Bible.
Bottom line is, I don’t see the purpose in trying to decide whether God is leading me to a specific church. If I follow the instructions in the Bible, I will be successful wherever I go—even if I am stoned to death—as Paul was several times. I just think it is silly to spend so much time worrying about whether God is leading me to that church or this church when all Jesus said was, “Go into the world and preach.” Just go somewhere, anywhere, just go.
And here the futility of blogging is seen. First, things are not clearly communicated. Second, it is a slow form of communication.
First, let me just say that I never meant to imply that God caused you pain. There is a difference between "causing" and "allowing." God allowed Job's suffering (I believe it to be a true account and Job a real person). God allowed Paul to go to prison. And so on...
My point was not that God caused the church to bring you pain, but allowed it for an ultimate end that we do not yet know.
Second, I still do not see how God knowing what decisions we will make takes away from our free will. Today, when Kinsey gets dressed, I am absolutely confident, to the point I might be brave enough to say I know that she will wear three headbands. How do I know? She does it every day. There is a pink, a yellow, and a purple headband that she wears together. Am I forcing her to do this because I "know" she will? (I understand that this is a weak illustration. First I am not God. Second, she may not wear all three, but again, I am not God and do not know all things, which I believe God does.)
I admit that the ultimate reason we trust God is that he keeps his promises and has promised eternal life. But I believe that divine foreknowledge does play a part in that trust. If God does not know what will happen because there are too many variables, then he really rolled the dice on sending Jesus. God could not have "known" that Jesus would have been crucified. Now, if you say that he did know, then you must admit that there is divine foreknowledge. To say that he knew about the death of Jesus, but does not know other things is, well, a questionable argument at best.
As far as God leading, I believe we can know with certainty. Do we always get it right? No. We are human and make mistakes. But that does not to mean we can never know. Is that not one of reasons for the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer? Romans 8:14 say "All those led by god's Spirit are God's sons." The immediate context is talking about putting to death the deeds of the flesh and receiving the Spirit of adoption, granted. But the context of the chapter is God working all things out for good. Of course the good spoken about is not necessarily immediate good. I believe that it has to do with heaven, that is when we finally get to be with Christ. But the Spirit of God somehow leads us to this. If we are willing to listen and trust, can we not use our minds to figure out God's leading. If we can, which you admit, what is wrong in saying it?
If he can and does lead, then I believe it is highly important for us to try and follow that leading. He is God, and he does know what is best. To not follow his leading because of the excuse "well I am human and can't figure it out anyway" is simply a form of ignoring God and doing what I want. While God is mysterious, he may not be as complicated to understand as you are trying to portray him. Why would he promise to lead if we could never follow him anyway? (Granted, it may not be easy to understand God, but I believe he has revealed more to us and made more clear than what you are allowing.)
Also, if he can and does lead, which you admitted he does, then does that not tell us that he has at the very least some foreknowledge?
All in love and good conversation my friend.
I think it is a good conversation, but I've come to the conclusion we have a few "disconnects" in our thinking that makes dialogue about this difficult. I'll get to that in a moment.
Well, I know that you never meant to say that God caused me pain. However, I think that when you say that God led me into a position knowing that it would cause me pain, it is implied that God's actions are bringing about the events that caused pain. And that is the crux of my argument about that. I think people who choose evil are the cause of pain, and the sacrifice of Christ is God's answer to it. I no longer feel the need to argue the problem of pain apologetically any more--I think God is actually in the pain with us.
I think you'd better understand my position on God's foreknowledge and the certainty of events if you read my ERP. I know time is an issue for you, though. But I am not saying, nor is any other open theist, that God's foreknowledge causes events to happen. At the heart of the issue here is that your writing indicates you're not understanding what we mean by "knowledge." In order to know something will happen, it has to be that that event will happen and nothing else can happen. You said that you "know" Kinsey will wear the headbands, but later you admitted that she may not wear them. In other words, you don't "know it," you just have reasonable cause to believe it is likely. That is not foreknowledge.
To insist that God knows what will happen is to say that the events that God knows are certain, and nothing else can happen. Think about it: if God knows I am going to die in a car wreck on the way home, can anything else happen? If he knows it will happen and then something else happens (i.e. he changes it), then what he knew before was wrong--which means he didn't know it. If you say he knew he would change it, then he actually knew the car crash would never take place. Foreknowledge is only logically possible if events are determined.
I think that God does roll the dice in some ways--God does take risks. Creating people was a risk because he created us with the capacity to choose evil. But there is a difference between rolling the dice about what we will choose and God deciding what he is going to do. When God sends Jesus, he knows he has the capacity to make things come out the way he plans. I think trust in God does not necessitate foreknowledge because God is eternally able to keep his promises, even within an open system. I'm not saying he foreknew the death of Jesus but not other things. I'm saying he planned the death and resurrection of Jesus. God didn't look into the future and say, "Oh, that's how we're going to do it." He said, "This is how we're going to do it." It is the predetermined plan. But I don't think he knew exactly how everyone in history would respond to it.
You actually contradict yourself in the paragraph about knowing leading with certainty. If you say we can know with certainty (which means I know I am right and cannot be wrong), then it doesn't make sense a moment later to say I could be wrong (which means I'm not certain). Certainty categorically denies the capacity to be wrong. That is my point about leading. It is that you have to admit when you think you're following God's leading that you could be mistaken. I'm not saying that if you think God is leading you you should ignore it. I'm just saying it is possible you are mistaken. Therefore, I don't think it is possible to say "I know God is leading," but you can say, "I think or believe God is leading."
You can reason that God is leading you, but you can't know it. I don't think I'm trying to justify doing what I want and ignoring God. I'm saying, I have to make the best decisions I can because I can't be sure if God is leading me or not.
Terry, this is all about epistemology. The heart of our disconnect is that you and I are operating on different wavelengths about what the definition of "knowledge" is. When I use the word knowledge, I mean it in the sense that knowledge is justified, true belief. Knowledge must be true to be knowledge, and to know if your belief is knowledge it has to be provable. If you can't prove it, then it is just belief. And I think faith is believing something that is not provable--it is the evidence of things unseen.
When you use the word "knowledge," the ways you use it seem to indicate that you see knowledge as intense belief. "I believe Kinsey will wear the bands so much that I'm brave enough to say I know it." But that is not the same sense of the word knowledge, and it is a poor definition of it. Muslim radicals who strap bombs to themselves intensely believe they are right, but do they know they are right? They don't know it because they are wrong--their belief is justified but not true, therefore it is not knowledge.
At the heart of all of our disagreement about openness and knowing God's existence is our disconnect about the nature of knowledge. And I really don't know that you and I will ever resolve this discussion. It may be that we will have to agree to not understand one another. I hope, my friend, that you don't think less of me for it!
Think less of you? No. I am okay with agreeing to disagree. Perhaps this conversation would be better in person, for I think we are both being misunderstood.
I do have just one final question for you - it is not a clincher or anything, just a question. With your definition of knowledge, can you know anything? To me, it seems that you can't. It is kinda like the philosopher (and you must forgive my ignorance in this area) who said you can know nothing for sure. I really can't even know that this computer I am typing on is really here - it may just be a figment of my imagination.
And how do you think this view will affect witnessing for Christ? The best you can say is, "I think God is real. I think he sent his Son. You should think this too." But the person says to you, "But what if you are wrong?" To which the best you can say is, "Yeah, I may be."
What does this do with knowing the truth, and the truth setting you free?
We have to know, Jason.
One last thing: my "contradiction" that you pointed out was admittedly a bad illustration. I said that in the typing of it. The only reason I said I could be wrong is I was trying to say only God is all-knowing. But for the record, she wore all three headbands.
I guess I can know some things.
We must continue this in person, for I am tired of written words being tossed back and forth in a misunderstood way.
Hope to see you soon.
Ironically, now that you are at the point where you have a distaste for the intensity of the discussion, I think you are raising a legitimate concern about my position. Your question about the possibility of knowing anything is exactly what I am currently wrestling with in my thinking.
There are many philosophers who doubt everything. Their system is called skepticism. But it was Renee Descartes who truly changed the world with his system of methodological skepticism. He was answering this same question when he came to the conclusion he had to find one thing he absolutely could not doubt--and he settled on the fact that when he was doubting, he could not doubt that he was doubting. Hence, that famous phrase "cogito ergo sum," "I think therefore I am."
Descartes is usually criticized by Christian thinkers because he founded his epistemological system not on the objectivity of revelation, but on his own existence. Existentialism is born.
Other philosophers have attempted to answer the question. Where Locke believed that the mind is a tabula rosa or blank slate on which knowledge is written through reason, Hume argued that there are certain inherent bits of knowledge that people are just born with.
It was Kant who finally harmonized these two views when he said that the mind has innate categories (like the formatting on an old floppy disk) into which knowledge is programmed via sense experience. What Kant did was to found epistemology on what can be sensed--what we can know is only what we can taste, see, touch, and reason about. What he claimed we couldn't know was metaphysical things--i.e., God, spirits, life after death, etc. He still believed, but he thought belief in God required a "leap of faith." Kant argued that he was removing rationalism from religion in order to make room for faith. It is his legacy that has really made room for naturalism in the 19th and 20th centuries and has, arguably, caused all these problems about belief in God. Before these guys, no one asked these questions.
However, there are skeptics out there who claim everything can be doubted--and it is not unheard of to claim that we cannot even know physical things. The Matrix is a great example of that kind of Cartesian doubt. And, to be honest, there are moments when I have to admit that my senses could be fooled. As a child I used to wonder if I really did exist or if I was just a figment of someone's imagination as they read a book about me (which must have been a very boring book). I finally concluded that I couldn't prove it one way or the other, so I came to the conclusion that I had to act as if I was not a character in a book. There are days, though, that my real question is whether the book is a tragedy or a comedy.
I don't think we actually do have to know. I think we have to assume that some things are foundational and that there is no point in doubting them. However, I cannot avoid the idea that everything is doubtable on some level.
As far as witnessing goes, I see your point. But the truth is, I don't think my view eliminates my witness. If someone were to ask me, "what if you're wrong," I think I would fall back on, "I suppose I could be. But I think I have good reason to believe what I do." Pascal dealt with it in a different way in his book, Pensees, when he broke it down into a wager. I've come to wonder if this isn't a better option than the apologetic option.
I think the problem with apologetics is that it attempts to ground belief in reason or evidentialism. There is legitimate reason and evidence to believe in God, but I think that these systems of apologetics don't really lead to the God of the Bible. I think, now, that people come to belief in God existentially. They recognize they need him in some way, and somehow belief comes quite naturally--perhaps because God created us to believe in him!
Your criticism of my definition of knowledge is legitimate. But, like Castelein said, once you move to this definition of knowledge, it really isn't possible to get away from it any more. I don't think I'll ever be at the point where I feel certain that I cannot be wrong about something. I can always be mistaken. But to me, faith is about trusting even in weakness. So, I'm really ok with it. I mentioned in one blog that the Polanyi book Personal Knowledge attacks this narrow view of knowledge. In a class discussion on this topic, John recommended this book in dealing with this issue. In the end, though, I think he still wrestles with it too.
I hope you don't feel like our discussion has been an argument. I certainly didn't mean it that way. This discussion is really at the heart of what I think about most of the time, so it feels good to write it out with you. I have enjoyed it. And I'm sorry if I have misunderstood anything you've said.
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