An atheist reviewing a theology book? He must be a friend of the author.
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And yes, Curtis is good friend — an excellent friend, actually. He played bass in The Reign, that Christian band that I was a part of so long ago. For a time, I shared a house with him and his wife and little kid. And we still keep in touch, with (too rare) visits and various Facebook interactions. So I’ll admit it: I would not be reading his book if Curtis were not my friend.
Equally, though, I wouldn’t be writing about it if I didn’t find it interesting.
A simplified version of his argument might run like this: if God is love, and if I Corinthians 13 (the “love chapter,” as many call it) correctly characterizes love, then it would make sense that God would have those characteristics. And among those characteristics: “[Love] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.“
And that raises questions about things that I, at least, was taught about God. I was taught that he is omniscient, that he knows everything — past, present, and future. I remember conversations about God creating time, which put him outside of it, perceiving all of history in one, all-encompassing view.
But if that is what omniscience means, then it’s nonsensical to say that God trusts or hopes. We don’t trust that things are a certain way if we know for a fact that they are; we don’t hope that something will come true if we already know it will (or, a fortiori, has already) come true. Indeed, in some of the stricter definitions of omniscience (e.g., Calvinism) free will completely evaporates — and that creates a whole other chain of problems.
I’m sure that oversimplifies things a bit, but I think I’ve caught the gist.
I was losing my religion right around the time that “open theism” — the idea that God does not know the future, that it is open because God has made it conditional on human choice — started to make a splash. I may have read Swinburne and/or Pinnock, though I don’t remember for sure. And “relational theism,” which is the tradition that (I think) Curtis is writing in, is even more recent. (Is it too soon to call it a “tradition”? It doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page yet!)
Anyway, I certainly was done with Christianity before these ideas would have had a chance to sink in. So this is all relatively new to me — and a breath of fresh air, in many ways. It has been nice, as I read, to learn the context of this more recent theological conversation. Said a different way: though I haven’t paid attention to theology for two and a half decades, Curtis’s strategy of building on previous conversations has taught me about open and relational theism — nice enough on its own merits, but also helpful in understanding his argument.
All that said, I’m still atheist, so theology — traditional or open/relational — reads more like literary criticism than anything else. That’s not an insult, coming from me (though I wouldn’t be surprised if theologians took it as such). I love close reading, especially against the grain. And the notion that God trusts, with all its corollaries — God doubts, God regrets, God doesn’t know, or, as the title of another recent book in this vein says, God Can’t — is definitely against the grain, especially of the often shallow theology of white, American evangelicalism (or, worse, the prosperity gospel… <shudders>).
I mention God Can’t, by Thomas Jay Oord — a friend (and, I think, mentor) of Curtis — because of its subtitle: How to Believe in God and Love after Tragedy, Abuse, and Other Evils. My sense is that relational theism, at least (and possibly open theism, as well), emerged in part as a response to the “problem of evil,” of the question of how or why a God who (as more traditional theology would have it) is love, and knows everything, and can do anything, would allow the types of evil and suffering we see in the world.
I know it’s on Curtis’s mind, anyway: he makes it explicit as he wraps up his discussion of the story of Job, in his chapter about God’s belief in “us”:
I have no final answer on why the world is filled with the evils it is, but I am sure that if we knew that God not only hoped that we would triumph but also believed in us, perhaps such trials could be overcome with even greater success.
As you might expect, I don’t know that open and/or relational theism really solves much, but that skepticism is deeper than simply a rejection of their premises (God exists; God is and gives love; God requires us to work with God to bring about God’s will). My problem is that I don’t see it grappling with the amount and depth of suffering in the world.
I’ll give an example from Curtis’s book. In his third chapter, “God Believes,” Curtis explores the story of the “binding of Isaac.”
For those unfamiliar with the story: God commands Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. On the way to the mountain, Isaac notes that they’ve got all the supplies for a sacrifice, but no animal, and Abraham says, “God will provide.” They make it to the mountain; Abraham binds Isaac and raises his knife to kill him — only to be stopped when the “the angel of the Lord” calls out to him (talk about deus ex machina!): “now I know you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” Abraham sees a ram stuck in the bushes, and sacrifices it instead.
As Curtis notes, a lot of ink has been spilt about Abraham’s experience (for example, Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling). But, Curtis suggests, perhaps we should also look at this from a different angle: “we should also ponder God’s thoughts and God’s emotional state.”
I’m with him on that, though we’d probably disagree on what we should conclude when we ponder these things. But that isn’t really the point I want to make here.
What I want to know is: what about Isaac?
That’s emblematic of my problem with open and relational theism, at least the bits I’ve seen (admittedly, I’m no expert): I don’t see much talk about the collateral damage from all this “co-creation.” It works out great for “the chosen” (though I would presume that open and relational theism would want to undermine that particular trope). At best, it leaves a lot of people out in the cold. At worst, people like Isaac, who was a mere instrument in this test of Abraham’s faith, are left to deal with the trauma — in Isaac’s case, the trauma from a father actively willing to sacrifice his son in obedience to his (loving) God. (Look again at that Rembrandt picture. He gets it.)
The Bible — what Christians term the Old Testament, as well as the New — and the history of the Church are riddled with such collateral damage.
But set aside my allergy to theism for a moment. I’ve enjoyed reading The God Who Trusts, for two main reasons. The first I’ve already mentioned: I’ve enjoyed getting a sense of where theology went after I left Christianity. I obviously don’t have a complete view (nor will I when I’ve finished); that isn’t the purpose of this book. But Curtis does a good job introducing the specific concepts that he wants to build upon, and his methodical approach produces a solid presentation of what came before.
I also have enjoyed his exploration of various aspects of relationships — love, belief, faith, trust, hope — as he delves into what the metaphors we’ve used to understand God might mean (God as spouse, as parent, as friend). That examination reveals a lot about the complexities of relationships among mere mortals. And given my current struggles as a parent, good chunks of the book have genuinely touched me.
So: if you’re Christian — if that’s the way you’ve chosen to make meaning in a meaningless and often harsh world; or if you are Christian-curious, interested in what a thoughtful and committed Christianity (as opposed to our current politheistic hypocracy) might look like, then I can recommend this book to you.
And not just because the author is my friend.