Does God go too far? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
In this chapter, Christopher tells us about how God goes too far sometimes in His judgment. Surely, I’m exaggerating that. Right?
If only I was.
God destroys in wrath, but God also repeatedly repents of his wrath. God changes his mind about his methods and decisions. Sometimes this takes the form of realizing after the fact that punishment has gone too far.
Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 91). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.
So we have then a story of a God who gets angry and then brings about destruction and then says “oopsie. I went too far that time.”
Excuse me. Why should I trust this god with anything? This doesn’t come across as the loving god that the Hayses want us to believe in. This comes across as a flippant god who will fly off on a whim and then want to say at the end, “Hey. A few lives lost. No harm done. Right?”
The idea that God does not foresee and control everything, and feels pity and regret even concerning his past judgments, is troubling for some theological views, but if we take the Bible seriously, it is hard to deny.
Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 92). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.
It’s nice to know that Christopher has declared with one sentence that thousands of years of theologians and scholars didn’t take the Bible seriously. Where would we be without his magnificent wisdom to guide us? It would be bad enough to say that all of them were wrong. I am to believe that the church fathers, the medieval writers, and the reformers who held to classical doctrines didn’t take the Bible seriously?
Christopher brings up Calvin, who apparently didn’t take the Bible seriously. Whether you are a full-fledged 5-point Calvinist or a total devotee of Arminius, most all would agree at least that love his doctrine or hate it, Calvin took the Bible seriously. So what did Calvin say?
Calvin goes on to explain that “the change of mind is to be taken figuratively,” like every instance in which God is described in human terms. These descriptions of God are “accommodated to our capacity so that we may understand it.”
Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 95). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.
Which is a reasonable idea and what has been held for thousands of years. Unfortunately, it is also one Christopher doesn’t interact with. I remember when I was going through this book at first that I shared a quote on Facebook and someone said that the Bible says God doesn’t change His mind. Being humorous, I said “Well, maybe God changed His mind on if He changes His mind.” I thought it was funny.
And yet what do I soon see in the book itself?
All this tends to undermine the relevance of these statements. But in light of what we know about the Bible as a whole, it may be better to admit that there are indeed contrasting perspectives in dialogue with each other in the Bible. So if the Bible as a whole is the word of God, then perhaps we should say that God changes his mind about whether he changes his mind.
Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 96). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.
Just even thinking about this leads to nonsense. God changes His mind on if He changes His mind? Did He forget His past apparently and that He had changed His mind? Did He say “I don’t change my mind” and then say “Oh. I do change my mind here” and then say “Well, I have changed my mind and now state that I never change my mind.” Do you need a Tylenol yet?
In the end of this chapter then, Christopher has written about a god who he says shows mercy. Unfortunately, we cannot trust this mercy since he could change his mind for all we know. Maybe tomorrow he will change his mind and decide to thoroughly punish all people who claim he changed his mind and that also say he is LGBTQ friendly.
The Hayses are an example of what happens when you fail to take seriously the history of the text and the tradition it came out of.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)