So What?

Idolatry 2: The Shema

The opening verses of Deuteronomy 6 state the basic principle underlying Israel's law.  A principle of friendship; the commandments were and are seen as a gift from God.  To follow them means the people will not make the mistakes so often made by nations.  The Old Testament is mostly about the consequences of breaking, ignoring or forgetting these commandments.

The main commandment is known as the Shema (Hebrew for 'to hear', from its first word) and is found in verses 4-6:

Hear,O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord alone.  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.  Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart.  (NRSV)

In the following verses, the importance of remembering this commandment and passing it on to future generations is stressed.  This parallels the first of the ten commandments, in its emphasis on the one God.  Most people agree it is best to devote your life to what is right.  The problem is how to identify what is right. 

The closer we are to worshiping God, the more likely we are to deceive ourselves into believing our god is the God.  It is this the Shema warns us against; the belief that we have understood God and so are absolutely correct.  It is hard to know God, consequently the need for use of all our heart, soul and strength.  We need to heed this warning when we choose to enforce our beliefs over the beliefs of others.  No-one according to the Shema can be right; if you think you are right, you need to try harder.  Hence the details in later verses of the need for constant reminders that all are prone to forget who God is.

The Shema appears again in Mark 12:28-34, where Jesus is asked by a scribe, which commandment is the greatest.  Jesus quotes the Shema, subtly modified, and the scribe agrees with him.  Jesus responds by telling him 'You are not far from the Kingdom of God'. 

Why is the scribe 'not far' rather than 'there'?  After a lifetime of study, the man is not far.  Will he ever arrive?  He must try harder!  However small the distance he must travel, it is still significant as we shall see later.

The Case Against Predestination

 

The mind is its own place and in itself

Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.

What matter where, if I still be the same ...

(Milton, Paradise Lost)

I have mentioned my occasional Bible Studies with John Rogerson before.  Recently, we studied these verses from Paul's letter to the Romans 8: 28 - 30:

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.  For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family.  And those whom he predestined, he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.  (New RSV).

These verses are often used by Calvinists to support their doctrine of predestination.  This is the belief that God chose the elect at the start of time and they are therefore predestined for salvation.  The rest of us are predestined for damnation and this is therefore sometimes known as double predestination.  Obviously, single implies double, because if the rest of us are not predestined for hell, where are we supposed to be going?

This doctrine undermines the credibility of the Christian faith.  If love for God cannot be freely entered into, what is the point of it? 

The Calvinist mistake is to interpret this passage as about individual salvation.  It is not about some ethereal afterlife but about the here and now.  This passage is about those who are called to serve God in the present age.  They are not some super powered elect, they are a frail and vulnerable people, just like Paul who elsewhere writes of his sufferings and boasts of his weaknesses.

Old Testament prophets are also called and some of them, eg Moses and Jeremiah, do not want the job!  It is a privilege to serve God but it is a difficult and painful path.  The pain and suffering experienced by God's people is a penalty of love. 

Paul rarely writes of Christians as those who love God (v28) but the experience of 'all things working together for good' is well known.  The good is not to be understood as salvation or answering prayers for immediate wealth.  It is as if things conspire to facilitate the call of the believer.

So, this passage is about those who are called, not those who are saved.  But what does Paul mean by 'predestined'?  Paul seems to mean those who are called are known to God from the beginning.  There is no necessary contradiction between foreknowledge and free will.

I think what Calvinists forget is that God is not a part of this universe.  Today we have insights from physics which help us understand the nature of reality or creation.  (Creation is the word I use to describe the universe as created by God and which therefore does not include God.)

For humanity, time is a half dimension.  The three spatial dimensions are full dimensions because it is possible to move along them in either direction.  For us time moves in one direction.  This has fascinating implications because although we can imagine the possibility of moving in two directions, it is not possible.  This means for us history is unchangeable.  It allows the universe as we experience it to be stable.

For some sub-atomic particles however, time is a full dimension.  Unlike the universe on our scale, where everything is different, sub-atomic particles of the same type are absolutely  identical.  So, the ability to travel backwards in time effectively has minimal impact on reality.

Now, imagine the same event viewed by a human being within the universe and a creator outside the universe, a creator for whom time is a full dimension.  What to us is a free choice is known to God from the beginning.  This knowledge does not take away free will.  Knowledge is not the same thing as predestination at all. 

I think Paul and other early theologians understood this on their own terms.  They did not have the knowledge of physics we have but were able to understand the relationship between creator and created.  When a prophet decides to serve God, the stories imply a free choice and would be meaningless if it were not a free choice.  I have written elsewhere about how God interacts with the universe, follow the link and explore around it.