| | I think I've finally found a workable starting point for this question! It all ties together: a true understanding of suffering isn't possible without covenant theology and a grasp of both law and gospel.
Are Human Actions and Consequences Connected?
First, we need to address the question of whether people's actions and the subsequent results show a positive feedback, a negative feedback, or little feedback at all.
Without going into great detail (after all, this is a starting point), covenant theology implies that there has to some feedback between our actions and the subsequent results. The cycle of sin followed by judgment, repentance, and then blessing implies that a feedback is present. So does the Fall.
One could argue that Christ's sacrifice on the cross eliminates this feedback, but this would create problems with a covenantal understanding of the relationship between the Old and New Testaments, especially with wisdom literature like Proverbs, and prophetic books like Isaiah and parts of Deuteronomy. And what of church discipline?
The decision-consequence feedback exists, but is it a positive or negative feedback? It would be difficult, again, to reconcile negative feedback with books like Proverbs and Deuteronomy. But it would also be hard to deny that there are periods in our individual lives, as well as periods in history, that demonstrate negative feedback. "I did things God's way and got whacked for it, over and over again!" The church has undergone periods of persecution at many points in its history.
Perhaps we could argue that positive feedback exists once we look at broad averages taken over many individual lives and a long period of time. We could then view periods of negative feedback as corrections in a long-term uptrend. This idea has some merit, as we have a higher standard of living and more tools to preach the gospel than we have had in any other period of history. We also have more tools for Bible study and a more developed theology than any other period of history, a fact that is hard to reconcile with any non-optimistic eschatology.
Job
There is still the question of why periods of negative feedback exist at all. There are examples of negative feedback that exist without any reason that can be observed by us. God tested Job, for example, in order to defend His reputation before an accuser. Job had no idea what was happening, and the explanation was not forthcoming even after the test was over. But note the overall net positive feedback: Job got back all that he had lost and more on top.
Systematic Reasons for Negative Feedback
I think there is also a systematic reason for negative feedback. The periods where this was strongest, such as when the church was persecuted, occurred at low points in the church's influence over the culture around it. At the very point where the church was getting hurt the most for doing the right thing, there was nowhere for the church to go but up in its cultural influence. If we lose hope in periods of negative feedback, we lose our greatest opportunity for the growth of the gospel and the resumption of the long-term uptrend.
But why would there be negative feedback when the church is small and weak? If God's people have been unfaithful, He will discipline us in order to humble us and bring us back to Him. This is part of covenant theology. But it is a positive feedback between actions and consequences. God disciplines us because we have sinned. Why would God cause the faithful remnant of the church to be hurt for doing the right thing at the very moment faith is needed the most?
Part of the answer is, of course, that individual Christians are in covenant with the rest of the community. We live among a people of unclean lips and must take responsibility for the failure of the church at large. When the church stumbles, we are also hurt.
Law and Gospel
However, I am also proposing that part of the answer also lies in the actual mechanism of cultural degeneration. As the church is disciplined and loses influence, we also lose the helpful interplay between law and gospel. Normally, law is present in society as a standard by which God judges us to live faithfully or unfaithfully to Him. It also has the purpose of protecting our freedom by restraining evil, and this is effective where the government is doing its job by enforcing laws that resemble God's own Law, commending those who follow it and punishing those who do not. (Romans 13)
If the church's influence in society temporarily grows weaker, the unregenerate people who dominate the culture change governmental laws and society's unwritten rules to benefit themselves. Now law has been turned on its head. Instead of granting freedom to those who do right and punishing evildoers, the breakers of God's Law are rewarded, and Christian faithfulness is punished. Doing the right thing becomes increasingly painful because there are no consequences to restrain injustice. Christians experience negative feedback because they are covenantally bound to society and experience God's judgment on the people around them.
Is this so hard a conclusion to accept? We easily believe that those who aren't Christians are blessed by the spillover of God's grace when the church increases in its faithful cultural influence, encouraging healthy families, stable money, productivity, and an environment where the gospel (as well as other forms of speech) can spread freely. This is common grace. Why not the converse, where Christians can be hurt by the spillover of God's curse?
The solution to this problem cannot be to enforce law without gospel. When we live in hypocrisy, honoring God with our lips but hating Him in our hearts, God brings us enough trials to break any motivation we would have to adhere to God's Law externally for legalistic reasons. Change comes from regenerate hearts who want to obey God's Law.
Gospel without law is also powerless, since there is no objective standard to keep people from walking all over the church and negating its influence. If our attitude is, "We don't care about law," we will soon be thrown to the lions for uttering those very words. And without Biblical Law, there is no cultural reminder of our sin, and we allow ourselves to create our own law which makes sin and obedience in our own image. This is extraordinarily unhelpful to the gospel, unless you think that definitions of sin which contradict the Bible are conducive to evangelism!
Discussion
This is a starting point for a discussion about the role of suffering in the Christian life. Yes, I could have added Scripture references and footnotes, but the goal here is to start a discussion, not to end it. I want to give us a sounding board to articulate Reformed thinking using new phrases in the hope that we will all understand our suffering better. Let's hear your feedback. |
| | Posted 8/11/2009 2:35 AM - 11 Views - 0 eProps - 1 Comment
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