A few months ago I provided a link to an article from Scientific American that discussed the blind salamander and Christopher Hitchen’s musings about the follies of faith. The thing that I was really reacting to, and the reason I posted anything in response to this article, was because of Hitchen’s reference to Job 1. Interestingly, Bjorn continued this focus in his recent post “…Because He is Love”. What follows is not meant to argue with Bjorn but provide my thoughts on this Biblical reference. More than anything, this is for me and I am sure not everyone will agree with my thoughts. I do hope that my thoughts below will not appear argumentative or condescending but rather serve as an opportunity to flesh out my thoughts more thoroughly than I have previously.
The image of God “giving and taking away” is one I have a hard time reconciling with the love, grace, and compassion of the Christ I see in the New Testament. I know the line appears in scripture (and in a popular song), but does that mean that Job’s interpretation of God giving and taking is appropriate given what we know about what God wants to do for all of humanity (John 3:16)? The reality is that Job is much deeper and more complicated than one verse found in Job 1. In my view, the focus of Job is on the fact that hardship in life is not easily explained and that God can do whatever He wants (Job 42 in particular). In fact, there are at least two places early on in the reading of Job where one can see incompatibilities between Job’s image of God and what we know about God because of Christ (Job 7: 20-21; Job 9: 22-24). I would argue that Job’s view of God might have been appropriate in that day when the “fire of God fell from the sky” (Job1: 16) and people didn’t know the natural explanations for storms or lightning. Ultimately, what apparently makes Job’s response appropriate, is that his heart remained in the right place as he grappled with his “earthly-situation” and God’s role in his circumstances (Job 1: 22). God did not hold it against Job for questioning or, I would argue misunderstanding, His role in the process.
I truly believe there is a better way to look at the “giving-and-taking-God”. I believe that this alternative view - a view that I see supported by a number of other Christians – could be referred to as the “allowing-God”. This is clearly just a semantic twist that relates back to the all important question of God’s sovereignty. But I believe it is an important twist that is discussed well by Philip Yancey (in the clip below from Biologos). I don’t see it as necessary for Christians in general to take this view. What is more, I don’t think it is particularly helpful for those going through some deep, profound tragedy to be told God is “giving and taking”. Rather I see it as potentially destructive, not necessarily for the Christian whose view of the world is already revolving around a sovereign and loving God, but for the seeker who is longing to know that love. Moreover, my problem with the “giving-and-taking-God” is that it doesn’t align with what I have learned from God’s Word or Works (to use Collin’s term for Creation). What I have learned from Scripture is that Christ is going through Life, the good and the bad, with us. He has bled for us, He has cried for us, He has prayed for us and I believe he continues that today as well.
So what is God’s role in the process? Several years ago I came across this quote from a Buechner devotional that sums up well how I view God working and interacting in our lives. This view of God and his interaction with our lives is extremely compatible with the way I see the world working (and it harkens back to Bell’s “Marker Trick” below) and God’s desire to speak to us; it is compatible with God’s desire to be glorified in the “everydayness” and “crises” of our lives. It goes like this:
The question is not whether the things that happen to you are chance things or God's things because, of course, they are both at once. There is no chance thing through which God cannot speak - even the walk from the house to the garage that you have walked ten thousand times before, even the moments when you cannot believe there is a God who speaks at all anywhere. He speaks, I believe, and the words he speaks are incarnate in the flesh and blood of ourselves and of our own footsore and sacred journeys.
Chance things are God’s things. I do not see God as a tinkerer where He manipulates events but allows them to unfold and emerge. I see God as speaking to us at all times, not just when something great happens or when something not so great happens. What he does want, and I believe this is clear from Scripture (unlike God’s role in the tragedy of life –Job provides few answers anyways), is to be glorified by our responses to our circumstances. I also believe God is continually trying to speak through the unfolding of life. As Buechner said in another place, “I choose to believe that he speaks [and the words are]… fleshed out in the everydayness no less than in the crises of our own experience.” I am beginning to see that our circumstances in this world are all pointing to God (both His presence and, dare I say, even His absence). And despite the fact that our earthly circumstances are in large part influenced by the emergent nature of Creation and our freewill as humans, God is working to get our attention by allowing. I do agree, that we see only dimly now and that some day we will see clearly (1 Corinthians 13:12) so I am in no way claiming to have it all figured out – obviously. But for me, this perspective is one that offers me hope, is consistent with the emergent properties of Creation that I have come to understand, and beckons me to find God more in the seemingly mundane (1 Corinthians 10:13) and significant portions of life.
