Did God second guess Himself? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
I was expecting that in a book such as this one, to defend same-sex intercourse, I would come across some interesting ways of interpreting texts like Leviticus and other passages. I figured Genesis 1 and 2 would be interpreted in ways that didn’t rely on a male-female relationship. Unfortunately, I was wrong in all of that. Early on in chapter two, I got this and I was stunned as I read it.
Yet we see here the emergence of a God who is already changing his mind in response to the reality of the world he has created, and especially to humankind. The first indications of this are very subtle, and are easily overlooked; they seem to fall into unspoken seams in the story. In Genesis 2:17, God warns the humans: “You shall not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”1 Of course, they go on to do just that. And yet, they do not die on that day.
Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 46). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.
Hays is not a philosopher. He does not understand the ramifications of what it means to say God changes His mind. This means that in some sense, God is limited. By what? God somehow gains new knowledge. From where? How can God be the God of all truth if all truth is not known?
Not only that, but this is on matters of morality. Did God decide that it would be wrong for Him to kill Adam and Eve on that day? If so, then there is a moral standard outside of God that God has to follow. God is not ultimate. God’s goodness is subservient to something outside of Himself. Hays isn’t really arguing about God. He’s arguing about Superman. God is just a really big man.
Still, the passage needs to be addressed. I contend that they did die that day, in that they fail away from everlasting life from being in covenant with God. I do not think man and woman were created immortal because they needed the tree of life to survive. They could have lived forever had they ate of it, but that was blocked off from them.
Yet it was at this point, I had hoped that this would be a one-off thing on the part of Christopher. I hoped I would not see this language often. As I went through the book, I saw that I hoped in vain.
Not only that, it gets worse. Hear what Christopher says when describing the flood.
After the auspicious start to creation, things have not worked out the way they were supposed to. The whole thing has been a mistake.
Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 49). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.
God made a mistake?
If these are the lengths you have to go to to defend LGBTQ behavior from a Christian standpoint, then the case should be rock-solid that Scripture cannot be used to defend it. In order to justify man in this case, you have to lower God. That is what is consistently done in this book. God is lowered while the creation is exalted.
In describing the story of Hagar, he says:
The second theme is God’s propensity to relent from punishment, to show mercy even at the cost of changing his mind and bending his principles of justice.
Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 56). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.
God bends principles of justice?
If you are part of the LGBTQ community, the Hayses have not done you any favors here. They have shown how much they have to change God for their argument to work. I can only wonder if this is something that Christopher just noticed in his work when he wants to justify LGBTQ lifestyles that he somehow missed all these years.
Something is being widened here, but it isn’t God’s mercy.
And yet this is just the start.
I wish I could tell you it will get better, but no. It will not.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
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