A couple of great posts from the Reformation21 blog: Derek Thomas applying lessons from Job and Phil Ryken comparing Rick Phillips to Tony Campolo (Thought suddenly hitting me out of the blue: These men’s names seem chiasmically relatated. I wonder if “Ryken” is etymologically related to “Richard.”)
A couple of thing about Ryken’s entry:
First, it is completely startling to me that Campolo attacked the Gospel. The whole lesson of the death and resurrection of Christ is precisely that the curse leads to vindication for those who entrust themselves to God and don’t decide to distrust him (yes, there is much more, but this is quite literally crucially important). There are lots of platitudinous posturing which Campolo has ever right to take a shot at, but blasting away at Romans 8.28 is like using nuclear warheads on NYC to take out a shoplifter in Manhatten.
Second, I don’t think Ryken’s fourth point can be stressed enough. That limiting God’s power or knowledge does not provide a theodicy but rather elimates any possibility that there will ever be one. It really comes down to this: Was God ignorant of the Hurricane Katrina? Did he not know about Louisian being under sea level? Is he less powerful than a hurricane?
Yes, you can get God off the hook, but only by demoting him to the point that he is a minor daimon wondering around hither and yon hearing about what is going on in the world from some sort of connection with his worshipers. Anyone who has watched Buffy awhile will recognize this as magic rather than religion (Remember early in season four when Xander demand Willow not use magic when they are playing cards and Willow claims she is not casint spells but praying…). The whole attraction of “free-will theism” is that they can convince people that we still have a recognizable deity after downgrading a few of his powers. But the deity that results ends up being someone who allows unplanned evil for no reason at all with no ability to work out some result (any result) in doing so.
(Incidentally, this is why I’ve never understood the attraction of infralapsarianism, but that’s a post for another day)
(Afterthought: While Thomas is the scholar who has written on Job, not me, I was somewhat surprised that he wrote, “the book of Job is primarily a book about God. It is the issue we shall have to return to again and again as we unfold its message. It is not so much, why do we suffer? But, why does God make us suffer?” It seems to me that this makes Job all about a theodicy justifying God. While that is true, surely Job is also about the justification of a believer. He is beset by accusers and he needs vindication, right? Of course, that wouldn’t necessarily be as relevant to applying Job to Katrina so there is more than one reason why it wouldn’t be mentioned. Besides, it is only one devotional among twenty-eight.)
All Saints in Austin, TX had a great sermon online by Jerram Barrs which he delivered after the tsunami that would be timely and worth hearing, if they hadn’t already taken it down. But if you can get your hands on it (or if you want to host it, I can email it to you), you should. My response to this is the same as my response to death, in general – it’s God’s enemy. God hates it. It’s utterly demonic. That hurricane is an abomination. Whatever else we say, that is the truth. We need to be careful that we don’t leave that out of the calculus when trying to interpret this storm’s theological meaning (not that you weren’t, but I haven’ tread the links you posted, and I suspect some of them might not).
Perhaps for greater clarity you could say Ryken is contrasting Phillips and Campolo. I thought before I read the entry that you were implying that Phillips and Campolo were saying the same thing.