Pantheism Isn't The Only Danger
No.122: August 26, 2022
Dear Friends,
I am glad that jury duty got cancelled. Here I was, blissfully thinking that this week was a perfect time for Daughter #2 and I to head up to the cabin for a songwriting retreat. It’s the end of summer, and she’s not starting school yet, and she had the week off from work. What could possibly stop us from disappearing literally off the grid for a few days? In the wee hours of Thursday morning in the midst of strange dreams I vaguely remembered that I was supposed to show up for jury duty on Friday morning. Oops. I should look at my calendar more closely.
Thankfully, we didn’t have to cut the trip short. I managed by some magic to get a single bar of coverage on my phone and texted my wife. She called ahead and found out that the case had settled. Whew!
That enabled us to spend last evening under the soft glow of oil lanterns (no electricity) to polish up a new song. We like it, and hopefully you’ll get to hear it sometime soon.
Another big highlight was sitting on the deck and watching a Whitetail doe and her spotted fawn grazing twenty yards away. That is remarkable not just because we didn’t scare them away, but because I haven’t seen deer of any kind that high up on the mountain in twenty years. I’ve long surmised that bears and mountain lions moving in on the plateau behind the cabin kicked the deer down to the river bottom. There are also occasionally wolf packs roaming the Absaroka-Beartooths (oh, did you think they stay in Yellowstone Park?), but its a million acres so I doubt it’s them. All in all, it was a lovely thrill to see Mom and baby.
And that little trip also means I’m writing on a deadline since I didn’t get The Square Inch prepped early. I wanted to write some comments on this essay by Mark Jones, “Does God Really Get Angry?” but I think it is the better part of valor to let that rest a bit. It is an important and deep (not to mention mysterious) topic that doesn’t lend itself to quick judgments. But you will rightly surmise that my interest in writing about it means that, for all my sincere admiration and respect for Dr. Jones, I think his article causes more problems than it solves. There are hermeneutical and theological moves being made that I find, at least initially, unnecessary and unhelpful.
So I will stop myself now before my fingers launch into a lengthy explanation of what those are. I plan to meditate on it a bit and write something a bit more responsible than a quick reaction. Your assignment is to go read it yourself in preparation. Just know that this is why people are arguing these days about “classical” theism, scholasticism, theological retrieval of Aquinas, and so forth.
Oh, I won’t leave you totally hanging. Awhile back I was asked a question about this in an interview, and I stand by my answer more than ever:
CCL: One of the hot theological topics the last few years among conservatives has been over the traditional attributes of God. All conservatives are classical theists in the broad sense, but some are convinced that a few attributes need “tweaked” to bring them more into like with the Bible’s picture of God. Example: “hard impassibility” (God’s creatures cannot affect him) or “soft impassibility” (man can affect God but not overthrew his will). What’s your general impression of this debate?
BGM: My impression is that this debate always exists; it may subside for a time, but then flares up with varying degrees of urgency. Talking about how an infinite, eternal, and unchangeable God (as the Westminster Shorter Catechism puts it) interfaces and interacts with a finite, temporal, and changeable world is bound to be a mysterious subject matter, in the very nature of the case. How can God be and act in space, time, and change without this being at the expense of his very nature?
On the one hand, I am sympathetic to the concerns of the “hard” classical theists, as you describe them. Many modern attempts at expressing the God/world relation have sacrificed God’s transcendent Lordship in the interests of a more “involved” and/or “relational” Deity. I have in mind the basically pantheistic (or panentheistic) approaches of process theology, Open Theism, the Emergent movement, etc., which essentially deny that God is a se, “of himself,” having “a life and existence of his own” (Bavinck). God needs his creation in order to be God!
But pantheism is not the only danger. We must be careful that, stepping back from the pit of pantheism, we don’t stumble backward into the ditch of Deism, in which God is so transcendent and removed from the finite and temporal world that he is entirely “above it all.” I worry that some recent advocates of the classical view are veering into this territory when, for example, they understand “anthropomorphism”—God’s appearing to act in “human” ways (e.g., angered, grieved, relented, repented, etc.)—to mean mere appearance. It only looks like God was angry one moment and merciful the next. In fact, what happens in history—say, a sinner repenting—doesn’t affect God in any way at all! This strikes me as losing altogether the relationship between God and the world, in an (over)reaction to blurring the distinction between them. This is the Epicurean answer to the Stoics, and I fear that if it is carried out consistently to its logical conclusion we will lose much else of greatest importance. Who, exactly, suffered and died on the cross? To attempt an answer to that question is to realize that this stuff really does matter.
The Christian answer must be to get our understanding of what “transcendence” means and what “immanence” means from the Bible, not principles of pagan philosophy. It is paganism that constantly vacillates between a pseudo-transcendence or a pseudo-immanence, Deism or pantheism, Parmenides or Heraclitus, Epicureans or the Stoics. We ought to submit to how the Bible describes God’s transcendent Lordship of space and time and how he can—precisely because of that sovereignty—engage fully in his own story without sacrificing that Lordship. That is, it seems to me, the very uniqueness of the Christian message, over against all other philosophies and religions that vacillate on these very questions. The Word who was in the beginning, and who was with God, and who was God, became flesh and dwelt among us. And it is real.
For now I will let you be the judge of whether that essay veers to some extent into problem territory, and I’ll write my thoughts more fully soon.
On Wednesday I gave paid subscribers a sneak peek of the cover of a new collection of essays I plan to publish this Fall. While I am sorely tempted to share it with all of you, I’ve got to keep up the “value add” for paid subscribers somehow! You’ll see it in due course. If you think that’s mean of me, there is always a solution to your problem—upgrade to get the Monday and Wednesday editions! They’re really fun. For now, just try to contain your excitement that there’s a new book coming. I know I’m excited about it.
I hope you have a wonderful weekend and close of the summer months!
Excellent, Brian. God’s sovereign transcendence is not diminished, but, rather, enhanced by his sovereign immanence.