Faith and Theology: It's a Boy! A Christmas Eve Homily by Kim Fabricius.
"Today the boy is neither the focus of a faith nor a justification for violence.... Today he cannot be used for anything, particularly to endorse our own agenda. Today he just lies there, wiggling. ... As for me, today I bring you good news about the God disclosed in this child, who happens to be the Word made flesh."
I'm just taking a quick breath in the midst of my present attempt to articulate (with concision!, and clarity) the problems with Blackburn's supervenience challenge to the moral realist (see Blackburn 1993, Essays in Quasi Realism, essays 6 & 7).
Ben Myers has blogged in brief today on Karl Barth and a Christian theology of sickness & death (Faith and Theology: "Karl Barth on sickness, health, and doctors"). And already this entry has generated a little discussion.
Myers and Kim Fabricius note a tension in Christian theology between, as I take it, God's opposition to sickness and death as the Creator of life and sustainer of health on the one hand, and God's permission of human mortality on the other.
For example, Myers says (citing Barth) that it is in virtue of "God’s own opposition to sickness" that "doctors and patients are together following God’s will as they resist the demonic power of sickness". Fabricius then opines (based on his reading of Genesis 2-3) that "it is not death but the fear of death that is the condition of fallen humanity, and not the disintegration of the human body (which in fact begins at birth) but our frenetic attempt to avoid and delay it at all costs that speaks of the sin of pride," and he goes on to note that the Apostle Paul remarked that "dying is gain" and boasted of his physical infirmities.
(I say:) It seems Paul came to accept his own death as good, right, and proper, situated in God's plan for Paul's life as a small piece of God's plan for the unfolding of His Kingdom. Yet Jesus also healed the sick and raised the dead as a sign of the immanence of the Kingdom of God.
Some application: On the one hand, we are on God's side in condemning and resisting sickness, decay, and death. On the other hand, we are on God's side in accepting an end to (this) life from His hand, knowing perhaps that physical, literal death is a necessary precondition for the resurrection of the (superior) body.
So with fear and trembling and proper humility, we should fight to live, but not condemn others who wish to accept death (rather than say one more round of chemo); also we should accept death, but not condemn others who fervently desire to go on living. James' admonishment against boasting about the future in 4:13-16 seems appropriate here: "You ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live...'"
I wonder also if this tension might have bearing on Michael's questions regarding the benefit of the doctrine of Providence ("The Purpose of Providence"). To quote Myers:"After speaking of sickness as a demonic threat which must always be resisted, Barth goes on to say that real freedom to live comes only when a person realises "that he is in God's hand, that he is surrounded by Him on all sides", i.e., when we accept the limitations of our own lives. And so Barth also says that sickness "ushers in this genuinely liberating insight". In a "concealed" form, sickness is also "the witness to God's creative goodness, the forerunner and messenger of the eternal life which God has allotted and promised to the person who is graciously preserved by Him within the confines of his time" ([Church Dogmatics] III/4, p. 373)"
Michael's questioning points me to ask the frightening question: "What can I trust God for?" It seems we know so little of God's will, such that He may allow or prevent fatal highway accidents. This not only raises the epistemic question: "Is faith in God falsifiable?", but the acute existential question: "Does God really take care of me?"
Myers' quotation of Barth suggests an answer which my philosophically-trained instincts have already prompted: God always acts for my good (and, I believe, for every person's good and for all our good together), and sometimes what is good for me is mortality; other times what is good for me is healing. Ultimately, on my reading of scripture, God says what is good for me is eternal life: both spiritual (now & ongoing) and literal (future) resurrection from the dead.
If universal restorationism is the true view of Hell, then ultimately God will bring every person to their ultimate good: eternal life with God. If annihilationism or ECT is the true view of Hell, on the other hand, I think to be consistent we should say it is for each person's good that they not be brought into the reality of eternal life with God against their will. (Indeed, the restorationist would also say this, but simply leaves the door open to the will of the damned's undergoing change.)
The problem is not, perhaps, that we know so little of the will of God--we know, trivially, that God's will is for our good--but the problem is that we seem to know so little of what is truly our good.
The believer in divine Providence must say that, given our empirical evidence, sometimes it is good for some people to get sick and die; other times it is good for some people to get sick and then get better, or to die and then be resurrected. (Remember Mary & Martha's question to Jesus: Why didn't you come sooner so that Lazarus didn't die in the first place?)
So here are two questions: (1) Can we accept the conclusion that sickness and death (or whatever apaprent evil, including permanent or temporary damnation) is really for the good of those upon whom it befalls? (2) Given this consequence of belief in Providence, does believing in Providence make someone a better person? That is, is the belief itself good?
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"Make me a channel of Your Peace."
-St. Francis
The Lord is Risen Indeed!
From Kim Fabricius, Ten Propositions on the Resurrection
8. It is characteristic for the risen Christ to greet his disciples with the word shalom: “Peace be with you!” He calms their fear – of retribution, perhaps? After all, these were the men who, despite their protestations of loyalty, had abandoned their master to his fate. Perhaps now it was payback time for their betrayal? And what of Caiaphas and Pilate and all who had connived in the murder of Jesus – might we not expect a risen Terminator: “I’ll be back – and this time it’s personal”? Christian pacifists are often accused of arguing their case from the Crucified who refuses the way of violence. But the power of pacifism equally comes from the Risen One who refuses the way of vengeance. “Jesus is judge because he is victim; and that very fact means that he is a judge who will not condemn” (Rowan Williams).
So let us love, deare Love, like as we ought,
– Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.
(Edmund Spenser, “Easter Sunday”)
(alternate post title: Maundy Thursday Reading and Discussion of Christian Pacifism)
(The full post is displayed.)
Looking for a little Maundy Thursday reading late this morning, I followed this link on M. Anderson's blog, where I found this post (dated today, March 20th, containing a hymn by Kim Fabricius), which led me both to this Maundy Thursday sermon by Kim Fabricius, and to this series of posts by Kim Fabricius, and within that series I linked to: Kim Fabricius' Ten stations on my way to Christian pacifism which contains a worthwhile series of comments at the end.
Also within that series, see his:
Ten Propositions on Peace and War
and its postscript
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