Does God's Knowledge Mean God's Justice?

Is God right just because God knows more than we do?  That question entered my mind years ago when I was reading the Book of Job in the Bible.  And it entered my mind recently when I was going through two books in volume 1 of James Charlesworth’s Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: the Greek Apocalypse of Ezra and the Apocalypse of Sedrach.

Michael Stone in the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha dates the Greek Apocalypse of Ezra to the second-ninth centuries C.E., and S. Agourides dates the Apocalypse of Sedrach to the second-fifth centuries C.E.  The English translations that I will quote in this post are those in the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha.

In both the Greek Apocalypse of Ezra and the Apocalypse of Sedrach, the protagonists (Ezra and Sedrach, respectively) wrestle with God on such issues as hell and God’s judgment of sinners.  They question God’s fairness in these areas.  Both think that the animals are in a better position than humans, since at least animals do not suffer God’s judgment!  Ezra and Sedrach try to intercede for the sinners, that God might have mercy on them.

God sometimes offers an answer to their questions, but God also says that God knows more than they do, and so they are not particularly qualified to be in the discussion.  God says to Ezra in the Greek Apocalypse of Ezra 2:32: “Count the stars and the sand of the sea and if you will be able to count this, you will be able to argue the case with me.”  In Apocalypse of Sedrach 8, God asks Sedrach a variety of questions: How many people have been born?  How many people have died and will die?  How many hairs did the people have?  How many trees have there been in the world?  How many trees will fall and come to be?  How many leaves did the trees have?  How many drops of rain have fallen?  God also asks questions about the different waves and the winds at sea.  And, of course, Sedrach did not know the answers to these questions.  (Note: I draw some, but not all, of the language of the questions from the translation in the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha.)

The Greek Apocalypse of Ezra and the Apocalypse of Sedrach are probably basing these scenes on the Book of Job in the Hebrew Bible.  Throughout the Book of Job, Job is questioning God’s fairness, not only regarding Job’s own suffering after Job had tried to be righteous, but also concerning the perceived unfairness in the world.  In Job 21 and 24, Job wonders why oppressors get off scot-free; live long, happy, and prosperous lives; and die in a state of peace.  In Job 38-41, God confronts Job and essentially argues that God has been around longer than Job, made things the way that they are, can do more than Job can, and knows more than Job does.  God asks Job some questions about nature: for instance, does Job know when goats and deer give birth?  Job, of course, cannot answer God’s questions.

When I read Job 38-41 years ago, I had a problem with God’s argument.  So God has been around longer than Job has, made things the way that they are, can do things that Job cannot do, and knows more than Job does.  Does any of that necessarily mean that God is right?  Just because God made and runs the world a certain way, that does not necessarily mean it is the best way.  Might does not mean right.  And knowing a bunch of trivia about nature does not necessarily mean that one is right, moral, or just.  That was what was in my mind when I was going through the Greek Apocalypse of Ezra and the Apocalypse of Sedrach: God knowing all those details about life and nature does not mean that hell is just.

I might as well incorporate my church write-up into this post, since it is relevant to this topic.  The pastor at the church that I attended last Sunday was preaching about James 3:13-18, which contrasts two types of wisdom.  The wisdom from below leads to envy, strife, and self-glorification, whereas the wisdom from above is about purity, peace, gentleness, and mercy.  The pastor was saying that wisdom and intelligence are not necessarily the same thing, for a person can be intelligent and use his intelligence for evil ends.  What is important is the goal towards which one’s intelligence is being applied.

That said, how can God appeal to God’s intelligence as justification for God’s actions?  If intelligence by itself does not necessarily entail morality or wisdom, can God’s intelligence truly justify God’s actions?
One can make a case that we should not dismiss the value of God’s intelligence too quickly.  A person who knows more about a machine than I do is more competent to use that machine in a productive manner.  Similarly, one can say that God is more qualified to run the universe than humans beings are, since God knows more about it.  In addition, while Job could look around and see things in life that struck him as unfair or as just plain wrong, Job may have felt that, overall, the cosmos ran rather well.  The animals got fed.  The birds flew.  Job may have believed that there was some wisdom and order in the course of nature, so God could appeal to that in defending Godself before Job.  We, too, can point to strange and seemingly wrong details of life and nature, but nature does work for our benefit, on some level.

But perhaps there is another way to understand how God’s superior knowledge can justify God’s actions.  Maybe God’s point to Job, Ezra, and Sedrach is not that God knows more than they do, and thus God is right, and how dare they question God!  Maybe God’s point is that God has this intimate knowledge of God’s creation because God cares about it.  Job, Ezra, and Sedrach are questioning whether God cares and is truly good. God’s response may be that God knows God’s creation better than they do, so they cannot accuse God of not caring.  Like many of us, God intimately knows and pays attention to what is important to God.  To quote Matthew 10:29-31:

29 Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.
30 But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
31 Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows. (KJV)

The point could be this: God’s knowledge is an indication of God’s love, so God was not being flippant when God constructed hell or does anything else that puzzles us.  God does these things for a reason.

The question would then be whether one can make a case for this interpretation from the Book of Job, the Greek Apocalypse of Ezra, and the Apocalypse of Sedrach.  In all honesty, it is ambiguous.  The Book of Job could lean in that direction, for God’s maintenance of the cosmos is arguably an act of love.  God could be saying to Job that God lovingly maintains nature, and thus Job is wrong to argue that God is unjust.  The Greek Apocalypse of Ezra is rather punitive.  So is the Apocalypse of Sedrach, and yet its opening chapter is about the beauties of love.

Still, seeing God’s knowledge as an act of love could help us better understand the way that God is: God is not one who bullies people with God’s knowledge, but one who knows because God cares.

Church Write-Up: Bill Lumbergh-God (or Worse)?

I visited two churches last Sunday.  One was a non-denominational church that I visited before.  The other was a Baptist church.  The Baptist church was like an African-American church, in that it had an African-American choir, an African-American preacher, and enthusiastic call-and-response.  But there were a lot of white people there.

I will visit the Baptist church again in the future.  People were friendly, but not intrusive.  I also enjoyed the worship.  The songs varied, as they included old-time hymns, classic praise and worship songs that I used to sing at Intervarsity in the 1990’s, and modern praise songs.  At a lot of churches that I visit, we sing the modern songs, and I miss the praise and worship songs that I sang in the 1990’s (“Shout to the Lord,” “As the Deer,” etc.).  The worship at the Baptist church that I attended last Sunday was, thus, a refreshing experience.

To be honest, the sermons at both churches did not make me feel that good about God or myself.  At the non-denominational church, the sermon was about I John 4:18.  The translation that was being used was the New Living Translation, which states for that verse: “Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.”


The preacher was saying that love and fear cannot co-exist in the same person.  I can understand that fear can hinder us from showing love to other people.  But to say that fear and love cannot co-exist in the same person?  Why can’t a person have a concern and a desire for another’s well-being, while still dealing with fears and phobias about life?  I don’t see why the two cannot co-exist.

And then my mind was unravelling the potential implications of what the preacher, and possibly I John 4:18, are saying.  Love is part of the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22).  I John 4:8 says that those who do not love do not know God.  Since fear and love cannot co-exist, that must mean that people with fear lack love, right?  Does that mean that they lack the Holy Spirit, do not know God, and are unsaved?  Wouldn’t that kind of conclusion make a person more afraid of God’s punishment, not less, which would go against the spirit of I John 4:18?  Plus, would the preacher truly suggest that Christians are never afraid?  Everyone is afraid, on some level—-unless I am the only imperfect person to walk into a church!

I do not think that the preacher was intending for people to arrive at those kinds of negative conclusions.  After all, he said that only imperfect people are allowed at church.  He contrasted God with the boss Gary Cole plays in the movie Office Space, Bill Lumbergh: God is patient, not a tyrant who keeps secrets from employees.  The preacher would probably say that, when we fear, we are not truly grasping the depth of God’s love for us.  We are still loved by God in that case, but we have not truly or sufficiently internalized that love.

The Baptist church that I visited was going through the Book of James.  The preacher was talking about what James said about good works being an expression of faith.  The preacher was chiding those who attended church, yet did not serve the church, or somebody, in some capacity.  He was saying that every Christian has a spiritual gift, and, if we do not know what ours is, shame on us!  The preacher was saying that there will be Christians on judgment day whom God would let into heaven, yet God would do so with frustration: “Oh come in, you lazy person!”  The preacher did not mention this, but I thought of Jesus’ condemnation of the servant who hid the talent in Matthew 25: Jesus called that servant lazy and unprofitable, then ordered him thrown into outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth!

I have a hard time seeing this God as unconditionally loving.  Even if I were to start doing service projects to make this God happy, I would still feel like I am serving Bill Lumbergh-God.  Maybe worse, since I read on wikipedia that Bill Lumbergh was not exactly confrontational.  I somewhat agreed with what the preacher was saying about giving back: we should not just be takers and consumers, but we should give.  But the picture of God that was in my mind after that service was not particularly positive.

Book Write-Up: James the Just

Dr. David Friedman and B.D. Friedman.  James the Just Presents Applications of the Torah: A Messianic Commentary.  Clarksville: Lederer Books (a Division of Messianic Jewish Publishers), 2012.

Dr. David Friedman and B.D. Friedman are Messianic Jews—-Jews who believe that Jesus is the Messiah and who observe Jewish laws.  This book is a Messianic Jewish commentary on the New Testament Book of James.  Its argument is that the Book of James is a record of James’ teachings about Leviticus 19, which were originally delivered orally in Mishnaic Hebrew and were translated into koine Greek and written down so that they could be delivered to Messianic Jews in the Diaspora.  According to Friedman and Friedman, Messianic Jews in the Diaspora would value what James had to say, for James was a prominent leader and judge in the church, whose headquarters were in Jerusalem.  Friedman and Friedman not only seek to convey the distinct Jewish nature of the Book of James, but they also contend against those who maintain that there is a rift between faith and works, and between Paul and James.  For Friedman and Friedman, James supported the Jewish idea that obedience to the Torah flowed from faith, and Paul deferred to James rather than acting in opposition to him.

This book makes interesting arguments.  Its most interesting argument is that the prayer of healing that saves the sick in James 5:15 refers to the Nazirite vow (Numbers 6).  Friedman and Friedman note that the Greek word often translated as “prayer” refers to a vow in Acts 18:18 and 21:23, and they refer to Josephus’ statement in Wars of the Jews ii.15.1 that people in distress made vows.  Another interesting argument Friedman and Friedman make is that Peter at the Jerusalem conference in Acts 15 had prominence because he was a “Tamid Hakam,” a rabbi’s chief pupil who was an example to other pupils and who carried on the rabbi’s teaching after the rabbi’s death.  (In this case, the rabbi would be Jesus.)  Friedman and Friedman do not offer evidence for this, or for the “Tamid Hakam” being a first century phenomenon, but the notes refer to a book that discusses this issue in greater detail.

I did not entirely agree with some of the Friedmans’ connections between the Book of James and Leviticus 19 or Judaism, and some of their parallels were between elements of the Book of James and things that existed after the first century C.E., the time of the Book of James (which, to their credit, they sometimes actually acknowledge).  Still, as they note, other scholars have argued that the Book of James reflects a distinctly Jewish perspective, and at least one other scholar, Walter Kaiser, has contended that there are parallels between the Book of James and Leviticus 19, so the Friedmans’ thesis is not implausible.  Moreover, while the chapter of the book that argued that the Book of James reflects the Torah rather than Hellenistic thought jumped to conclusions, in my opinion (since even New Testament letters to Gentiles draw from Jewish Scriptures, and there is no rule that a document cannot draw from both the Torah and Hellenism), it did well to highlight how the Book of James could have drawn from the Torah and Jewish life in Israel.

If there is one question that I would ask Friedman and Friedman, it is whether they believe that only Jews are obligated to obey the Torah, or if Gentiles should, too.  They call the Torah the “Heavenly blueprint for human life,” yet they go on to say that it is “the communicator of truth for the entire Jewish people worldwide” (page 93).  I should also note that some of the books advertised in the back of the book are by authors who believe that the Torah was intended to be kept by Jews only, meaning that Gentiles are not obligated to follow Jewish rituals.

I received this book from the publisher through Cross Focused Reviews in exchange for an honest review.

More on Virtue

I want to add some things to my last post, Stoics on the Unity of Virtue.

1. I presented James (of the New Testament) as a perfectionist who says that we need to be perfect to deserve the label of "virtuous." That's only part of the story. In my post from a while back, Why I Dislike I John So Far, I present another side to James, a James who says that God meets imperfect people (all of us) wherever they are.

2. One thing that disturbs me is how I hate people. I continually take people's moral inventory. "Evangelicals are bad because they do this." "Liberals are bad because they do this." I dislike people being smug and judgmental, who act as if they know what makes other people tick and critique them from their high-and-mighty pedestal, who put on airs as if they're so much better than others.

But aren't I being the same way when I critique them? Do I critique them out of love, out of a desire for them to change their ways and have a healthier outlook on life (like I have that myself!)? Or do I do so out of pride, a sense of superiority. "Yeah, I'm imperfect, but at least I acknowledge my faults," I say to myself. Yeah, but does that make me virtuous? We're all pretty much in the same boat, since we're flawed creatures!

I want to assume that I'm more virtuous than those I criticize, and I get mad when I don't get recognition and adulation for my good deeds, or lack of bad deeds. I flinch at being just part of the crowd. But maybe that's what I am. Can I be content with that, trusting in God's love to make me feel good about myself? Can I stop fretting about what everyone else is doing and focus on my own love for God and neighbor?

Don't get me wrong: I will criticize evangelicals, liberals, conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, etc. in future posts. But I hope that I can do so without hating them, and that I can present positive ways to look at situations.

Influence and Intertextuality

The following is part of a paper I wrote on influence, intertextuality, and James 2's interpretation of the akedah (the binding of Isaac). It may be relevant to my Fishbane paper.
-------------------------------------
There are at least two models that are relevant to readers in their attempts to understand James’ interpretation of the akedah: the model of influence and that of intertextuality.1 For the influence model, influence occurs when one unity or tradition is applied to another context, as when an author consciously borrows images from a specific source for her own work.2 The influence model tends to focus on the author (her background, biography, ideas, etc.) and her agency in shaping the borrowed images that she employs.3 According to Michael Baxendall, an author as an agent can use a source in a variety of ways, including quotation of the source, misunderstanding of it, parody, reaction against it, and agreement with it.4 Under the influence model, scholars seeking to grasp James’ reading of the akedah would hunt for possible sources that he used as keys to understanding the intentions of James the author.5 Weaknesses some have identified in the influence model include the difficulty of distinguishing genuine influences from images that are commonplace in the author’s culture and its tendency to exalt authors over readers.6

Unlike the influence model, the model of intertextuality focuses more on the reader, who brings to the text her own questions, experiences, cultural motifs, and knowledge of other texts, all of which affect her reading (and thus transform the text’s meaning).7 Rather than emphasizing texts that could have influenced the author, the intertextuality model allows readers to read texts in light of other texts, regardless of which one has historical priority.8 Jay Clayton and Eric Rothstein treat intertextuality as the continuation of previous literary approaches that undermined the importance of the author: New Criticism, which regarded the work as an autonomous unit independent of the author, and post-structuralism, which viewed authorial intention as a mere link in a chain.9 Intertextuality still seems to address the author, however, in that it asserts that an anonymous cultural text authorizes or produces what writers do, an approach that possibly views the author as an unconscious receptor of anonymous cultural images.10 The problem some have identified in the intertextuality model is that it makes every text the potential intertext for all other texts, since it appears to impose no controls on the associations readers can make.11 The intertextual model can be useful in considering James as a reader of the akedah story, for (as we shall see) the interpretations of his culture play a role in how he reads the story and perhaps transform it into something slightly different.

1 There is some diversity in both approaches, but what follows is some attempt to generalize and clarify the differences between the two.
2 Jay Clayton and Eric Rothstein, “Figures in the Corpus: Theories of Influence and Intertextuality,” Influence and Intertextuality in Literary History, ed. Jay Clayton and Eric Rothstein (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991) 3.
3 Clayton and Rothstein 5-6.
4 Clayton and Rothstein 6.
5 Clayton and Rothstein 9.
6 Clayton and Rothstein 5, 12.
7 Clayton and Rothstein 16-17, 20, 22.
8 Clayton and Rothstein 12.
9 Clayton and Rothstein 7, 9.
10 Clayton and Rothstein 3, 11, 29.
11 Clayton and Rothstein 23.

Why I Dislike I John So Far

For my daily quiet time, I'm in John's first epistle to...Christians, I guess. The book doesn't specify the exact location of its audience.

I still have other write-ups to do for my daily quiet times. There are Luke topics that I want to write about, but I haven't gotten to them yet.

Yesterday, I read I John 1. Today, I read I John 2-3. I'm somewhat of a Paul-man myself, or a "Paul as Martin Luther interprets him" man. I need to believe in God's free grace and unconditional love, since I have a lot of sins, plus my deeds are not good enough to please God.

But the Epistle of James looks good next to I John! And, to be honest, I actually like the Epistle of James (Martin Luther's opinion notwithstanding), and it's not only because its author shares my name. I like it because James seems to meet people where they are. Consider the following verses:

James 1:5: "If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you" (NRSV).

James 3:3, 8: "For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle...but no one can tame the tongue-- a restless evil, full of deadly poison."

James 3:14: "But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth."

James 4:7-10: "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you."

James 5:13: "Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise."

What's the common theme in these verses? To me, it's that we shouldn't lose hope if we find spiritual flaws within us. If we lack wisdom, we should ask God for it, and he's eager to help us! We should come clean if we have bitter envy and selfish ambition, rather than patting ourselves on the back. We all make mistakes with our tongues, and only God can tame them. We should draw near to God if we find ourselves in a spiritual ditch. And we should pray when we are suffering. James meets people where they are.

Granted, James still has his perfectionist tendencies. In James 1:6-7, he states: "But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind; for the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord." My problem with this passage is that I will always have some doubt when I pray to God. I'm not perfect! James would encourage me a lot more if he said that God is faithful in spite of my doubts.

James also affirms that faith without works cannot save a person (John 2:14). My question here is, "How many good works must I do before I can finally be assured of salvation?" It's not that I fail to see James' overall point. James says, for example, that belief in one God is not sufficient to save (James 2:19), and that makes sense. If I believe in one God, yet I don't have any desire to live a holy life, then what's so meritorious about my faith?

But, overall, James presents the reader with a place to go, or more accurately, someone to go to. He offers hope, even though he includes works in the salvation process.

I John, however, is more like: "Look, these are the characteristics of a true Christian, and, if you don't have them, then you're not really saved."

There are a variety of texts that indicate this (I John 2:3-4; 3:14, et. al.). But what really disturbed me was I John 1. In vv 6-10, we read the following:

"If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."

My problem is this: in order to be assured that I am saved, I need to be walking in the light. But if I say that I have no sin, then I'm a liar. So I just can't win! I must convince myself that I'm a righteous person in order to have any assurance of salvation, but I also have to see myself as a sinner.

Also, I John presents things as so automatic. If we have a relationship with God, then we're walking in the light. If we're walking in the light, then we have fellowship with other believers. But are things that automatic? Does having a relationship with God necessarily mean that I will click with other believers, or fit into their nice little Christian cliques? For me, "fellowship" means Christians socializing. But if one struggles with social skills, then that shuts him out of fellowship!

But maybe I John offers some hope. He calls his readers "forgiven" (I John 2:11-14), so he seems to assume that they're saved. But not all of them are carrying out the implications of their salvation. On the other hand, he appears to manifest a Calvinist sort of approach, the "there are true believers and false professors" school of thought. He says in I John 2:19: "They went out from us, but they did not belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. But by going out they made it plain that none of them belongs to us."

Another possible verse of hope is I John 2:8: "Yet I am writing you a new commandment that is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining." Is this saying that the people in John's audience are on the path to holiness, as God sweeps away the darkness within them that there might be light?

Overall, however, I John's message seems to be that we need to be righteous before we can have assurance of salvation. But how righteous do I have to be?