Dogmatics 51 Captioning provided By: Caption First, Inc. P.O. Box 1924 Lombard, IL 60148 ******** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ******** >> Does this mean that God is involved in evil actions? Is God responsible for evil? >> Before I answer your question, let me talk about God's involvement, God's activity in creation further. When speaking earlier about Providence, we took note of the truth that God is active in the world. But how so? How does God relate to the actors, the agents in the world? For instance, what is the relationship between natural forces and activities? Like, say, gravity and heat and the movements of the earth, the air and the seas that go into our weather and our climate? What is the relationship between these natural forces and activities and God's activity in the world? Or, what's the relationship between, say, our doctors and our nurses and their work of healing and God's work in giving health to our bodies? To sum up, what's the relationship between natural causes or created causes and God's operation in the world? Our basic position is this: We hold that God's operation in the world and the operation of these created causes, natural forces, or human agents, they are not two actions, but one action. This is summed up by Psalm 127: Unless the Lord built the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stands in vain. So, when we say that the activity of God and the activity of creatures or of creation is one, we're saying here that God not only for instance set up the laws of nature and established orders and people within society to provide for aid and the like, but that He is at work in and through them. And so a doctor heals and God heals, and that's one operation. On the one hand then we want to affirm that in any one's action, God is at work. Whenever someone is at work, God is at work. Whenever something is happening in creation, God is at work. And further we want to affirm that this activity is a single action. In other words, we should not think of God doing one part and then a created cause, like you or me, doing another part. God is not just an influence to promote something or to make sure it kind of works right, but God is active in and through entirely. On the other hand we want to affirm, though, that creatures, that you are active or that I am active or that doctors are really working. We don't want to seem to deny that doctors really don't do anything. We don't want to deny that civil authorities govern. We don't want to deny that moms and dads raise their kids or that there are natural forces and causes and effects. No, we want to affirm this as well. So there really are, you might say, second or created causes in the world. And then if there really are second causes, if we really are agents in the world, then we have real responsibilities. We aren't like robots, we aren't like puppets on a string. Our responsibilities, our duties, are real, not imaginary. We are morally responsible. We are morally responsible for our actions and so we can't find an excuse for our shortcomings, our failures, our disobedience, our sin, in the fact that God governs all things. And when it comes to our lives on earth, we should acknowledge on the one hand that God is at work in and through people, in and through the universe, and we should acknowledge, also, that these are His means to give us good things and to preserve and protect us from all evil. In other words, that He works through means to do His providential activity. Nevertheless, from God's viewpoint, from the divine perspective, second causes are always means by which God works. That means our activity, that means the work and the things that happen in creation are always subordinate to God. But this is just a way of saying that God is involved and active in all things in the world. It's another way of saying what St. Paul said long ago: In Him we live and move and have our being. Now, if the operation of God and the operation of what we have been calling second or created causes, your activity, the activity of your doctor and the like, if these are regarded as one action and not two, then do things happen of necessity or do things happen intentionally? In other words, are things ordained to happen a certain way according to what God knows and plans, or do things happen by chance or by accident? Obviously this is not merely an academic question, something for philosophers to debate, but something very real for us. It involves us and our moral responsibility. It involves us and our relationship to God. Should we seek help? Should we help others, or should we just let things go? And the answer to this really comes from a matter of perspective. In other words, from God's point of view, from the divine standpoint, all things happen of necessity. In other words, nothing happens except that God knows and guides it. But, when we say this, we shouldn't regard the necessity as a matter of compulsion. In other words, like we were saying before, we shouldn't regard ourselves as, say, robots or puppets on a string. We have wills and we follow them. On the other hand, we do all things as God knows them. Nothing takes God by surprise. Nothing happens outside of His control. On the other hand, since we have wills, and since things actually are active in creation, that means from our standpoint things happen contingently. The car won't start. It rains unexpectedly. You get sick. Someone else dies. These things can happen without expectation or anticipation on our part. So to sum up, I think that Francis Peeper says it well: Scripture compels us to maintain both the necessity and the contingency. From the viewpoint of the divine providence, the necessity obtains; from the human viewpoint, the contingency. We can see this from the scriptures in the example of Jesus' own suffering and death. In Acts, in Peter's sermon on Pentecost, in Acts chapter 4, we see that Jesus' betrayal, Jesus' death happened according to God's plan and foreknowledge. The people acted as God had determined. In the same way, you can see this in Jesus when He is arrested in Matthew 26 jesus says: So it must be. On the other hand, though, about these same events, Jesus warns Judas and Jesus warns Pilate about these things. Jesus acts as if, of course, they might be able to do otherwise. From the divine perspective, things are laid out. But as we deal with them, the future, things are open. And that's what it means to maintain from the divine perspective the necessity, but from our perspective, the contingency. Now, this happens with all events. These things happen not just with things which seem to be good or to us indifferent, but even terrible things, even evil things, whether we're talking about actual disobedience or things that cause suffering. So let's take the second one first. For instance, how about the end of our lives? This is a typical question that is raised in connection with this. Is the length of our years determined by God or is that open? And I think the answer to that should be clear by now, God knows the span of our lives. God knows the years that we'll live and it will happen just as He knows them. These things are in His hands. Yet, from our perspective, who knows? As we say about these things, God only knows. Sometimes it becomes apparent that perhaps our life is going to end, and yet sometimes for who knows what reason God spares, God lengthens lives. But in this, too, in circumstances like suffering and death, God is in control. Now, about the importance of these truths, it is necessary -- it is important, really, to maintain them. Not necessarily to announce them, to make them a regular part of, say, teaching, but rather that the church's life, the preaching and teaching, the pastoral care, honor both of these truths. On the one hand we need to guard against a view that everything just happens. In other words, fatalism, that everything is set and that there is nothing for us to do. On the other hand, we want to guard against the view that God is not in control, that things happen by chance. That there are things that are outside of God's knowledge, outside of God's activity. So all things are in God's hands. But it's specially difficult to maintain these things not so much from an intellectual but you might say a personal or existential point of view. It's especially difficult when speaking about evil actions, something like murder. I remember a few years ago teaching on just this topic, just after the shootings at the high school in Colorado, the Columbine high school shooting. And in discussing that particular issue, I just -- just this particular point. Where was God? What was God up to during those hours? God was there. God was being God. God was, as we were saying earlier, present in His sustaining activity. In Him we live and move and have our being. And those are the good and the evil, the righteous and the unrighteous. Sometime after class I went to get a cup of coffee at the neighborhood coffeehouse and I walked out, a car drove by and a student from that class leans out and points to me and yells: God did not pull the trigger! This is a very difficult point, obviously. God is active in all things, even in evil actions. God is involved in the world. At the same time, and we need to be able to maintain this as well, God hates evil. God is opposed to evil. the promise of God in the end is to deliver us from all that is evil and to bring to us salvation in its fullness. Now, a way to handle this, at least theologically, dogmatically, is to speak like this: How does God concur? How does God participate in evil actions? He participates in them insofar as they are actions, because apart from God's providence, apart from God's sustaining life, things just aren't. So God does participate insofar as they are actions, but He does not concur, He does not participate insofar as they are evil, for He hates evil. The analogy sometimes is to using a tool. God in His providence uses a tool. If it is broken, if it is distorted, then of course what it produces is distorted when God uses it, but God is acting. Now, it has to be admitted that this only helps us to clarify the problem; it doesn't solve it. It helps us to speak more clearly about how God is involved, but nevertheless the truth is that God is involved in evil actions. It leaves us with something quite terrible. It leaves us with something quite difficult. Related to that, too, is the question about our own evil, our own sin. In the Augsburg confession, which speaks about the cause of sin, we say: Concerning the cause of sin, it is taught among us that although almighty God has created and preserves all of nature, in other words, this is speaking about God as creator and His providence, nevertheless the perverted will causes sin in all those who are evil and despise God. This then is the will of the devil and of all the UnGodly. And one respect certainly we want to say this. But, when it comes to the question that you've got, which really is talking about God's providence, we have to speak about God's activity in a way in which He remains God. The one who creates all things. The one who --