God and Love
A parishioner in my former church complained about my preaching so much on the Love of God or that God is love. That she was behind my ouster as pastor could be telling, but I won't go there. I will admit that sometimes our exposition of God's love can be a bit mushy and not too substantive -- my own preaching included. But if we assume that God is love, then how do we understand God's relationship with creation?
The first letter of John is quite clear:
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God's love was revealed among us in this way: that God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. (1 John 4:7-9).
Now I didn't quote the following verse that suggests that Jesus is the atoning sacrifice for our sins. That next verse is troubling in its own right, because it raises questions about the nature of God's love. But with the first 3 verses quoted, we have a starting point. I'm of the opinion now that the biblical text isn't always consistent, but it is always suggestive.
So, if God is love what does that mean for our theology? What fits and what doesn't fit?
In my own understandings, that description of God early on required that I give up the idea of hell. Yes there are passages in Scripture that speak of such a place, but I reconciled them to be metaphor. My first movement was to embrace an annhilationist position regarding those who had not affirmed Christ as savior. Eternal fire and torture with no hope of redemption simply did not comport well with the affirmation of God's love. If a parent would be judged incompetent if such a parent tortured one's child, then how can we affirm God as holy and just if God did just that? As time has passed, I've had my thinking broadened. I'm not sure that I'm totally a universalist, but I have come to the opinion that God will not stop seeking reconciliation with us, no matter how long it takes.
On the atonement. Yes, there are plenty of texts that suggest that Jesus atones for our sins, but whether or not that involves penal substitution, is a different story. If God's wrath must be assuaged by Jesus dying on a cross -- that is God's wrath is satisfied by taking it out on Jesus -- what does that say about God's love?
So what is my standard for theological discourse? It is God's love. If God is love and Jesus is the embodiment -- that is, Jesus is the incarnation of God's gracious love, then I must judge theological statements from that vantage point. Where a doctrine falls short of love as even we would practice it, then how can we attribute to God actions and attitudes we would find abhorrent in our own lives?
Comments
First, my wife and I talk about the idea of hell often. I love what Barth's response was when he was once asked if he thought there was a hell. The issue was if his doctrine of election was in fact espousing universalism. His answer was that yes, there was a hell, but no, he did not think it was populated. When my wife and I discuss it we both believe in a final judgment like the parable of the wedding in Matthew (ch. 22? - bible not handy right now). In that parable when the one invited guest refuses to wear the robes after the master pleas for him to do so and after everyone who would accept (which is everyone but the scribes and the holders of the law), he refuses the robe and is rejected from the party. We read that as an illustration of what an idiot that person was to refuse the robe when presented with a great opportunity. It's like hungry little boy to Chuck E Cheese because he did not want to wear a Chuck E Cheese shirt or something else so trivial. We tend to read this as saying, at the end we will all be invited and all asked to wear a robe. It's up to us to choose rejection or acceptance. How many of us would refuse at that point? I think Jesus' point is that none of us will!
Second, I have gone back to a wholehearted Cross-centric theology and believe that this is the central and decisive event to which all other events are relative - including every word of scripture. This event reveals God's radical love for us - a love that forgives murderers as a last act while in the process of slowly dying at the hands of those it came to save. When we read John through the Cross that Paul understood, it takes on a different flavor when we make the pronouncement God is love. The Cross is where that entity that is love is truly revealed.
What is amazing to me is that it is so clear that this is the heart of the Gospel, yet so many Christians are in the practice of refusing the robes to join the party of reconciliation because they are so set in maintaining the boundaries of purity and correctness. I truly feel sad for that lot for they seem to have stopped responding to the Gospel itself.
I would rather live in the midst of this living and present hope and joy and welcome and affirm literally everyone to join in, than reject anyone based on my fragile ideas of what it might mean. Err on the side of God's grace is one one of my friends says. I could not agree more. Whether I am right or wrong on the outcome does not change the faithfulness I try to make operative in loving the world - a struggle in itself for sure.
Like Drew, I think the Cross is a central hinge of this theology, too. (Shocking, I know, coming from an Augustinian and ex-Lutheran.) If you haven't read Benedict XVI's encyclical Deus caritas est, I highly recommend it. As I mentioned in my review post on it last year, Benedict describes the crucifixion as the moment in which the Divine's overwhelming love for humanity actually turns God against Godself in trying to reconcile that love with justice. It's powerful stuff, and has really informed how I understand the love of God. (As has the qualified universal of Barth and von Balthasar — I too hope ardently that hell is empty.)