Is God into quid-pro-quo?

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Iain Dale thinks that some Church of England Bishops think so. Shall we do some unwrapping?

Iain Dale says:

The piece says that the Bishop of Carlisle believes that pro-gay legislation has provoked God to send storms to the North and flood people out of their homes. No, seriously. The Bishop of Liverpool agrees. “If we live in a profligate way then there are going to be consequences. God is exposing us to the truth of what we have done”

Iain, I can see how you might think the Bishops were saying that, but if you read carefully what they said you’ll see it’s not that simple. Yes, Dow, Jones et al said that the Government has enacted immoral legislation over the past years and that also the west as a whole is guilty of ignoring it’s stewardship over creation. The Bishops also said that God’s judgement on sin is something we have pushed out of the way whereas it is a real thing. But none of the Bishops actually said that the floods were directly linked to homosexuality. Rather, the tone of the Bishop’s argument is that sin distorts the world into an ever more broken state, environmentally and spiritually, so as we become more broken and rejecting of God, so creation responds. Chartres said:

“We are all part of the problem and part of the solution. Instead of living as if we owned the earth we need to recover a sense of being participants in a web of life with responsibilities to other life forms and to our children.

Do you see the difference Iain?

Cranmer, of course, has a much longer, and highly recommended, exploration of the issue of theodicy:

It may, of course, be modern Britain that is out of touch with God. Never one to cast pearls before swine, Cranmer would like to make his detailed exegesis available to his communicants, not least because divine retribution is rather more complex than simple cause and effect, especially if exegetes take Job into account.

If God is omnipotent (acknowledged in 9:5-7, 8-10, 26:7-14, 12:7-10, 15-25), Job has no hope of establishing his innocence once God has decided to treat him as a sinner (9:20, 29-32), so that when Job speaks of God’s power, the emphasis is on God’s destructive force (9:22-24, 12:13-25). His understanding is therefore limited as God is viewed through the filter of suffering and thereby becomes an enemy (6:4, 16:6ff, 30:19ff), or a persecuting presence from whom respite is desperately sought (7:11-21). Such a hostile response to a deity or ‘fate’ is endemic in victims of trauma. Job is presented with a theological dilemma: If God is good, he cannot be omnipotent, and if he is omnipotent, he cannot be entirely good. We cannot conclude God only has limited control (42:2), because he controls even the satan (42:11). Job may question God’s goodness, but God rejects this (40:8).

It has to follow for Job that God’s unjust treatment of him was always a part of God’s secret plan (10:8-13), like the modern view of those suffering catastrophe that God playing some kind of divine chess game which he is foreordained to win. Job desires to somehow make sense of his trauma, but knows he has done nothing to ‘deserve’ such suffering. Christians have to wrestle with the question of how can we relate to God when the world he made does not make sense, for it often appears that the God of Job is not merely one whose thoughts and ways are simply higher than ours (Isa 55:9 [show]Isaiah 55:9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
), but quite often grotesque and totally alien to them.

Cranmer recalls a song some years ago with the lyric: ‘Why does it always rain on me?’ It was followed with the line: ‘Is it because I lied when I was seventeen?’ – an expression of the pervasive belief in exact retribution (Prov 9:10-12 [show]Proverbs 9:10-12 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. For by me your days will be multiplied, and years will be added to your life. If you are wise, you are wise for yourself; if you scoff, you alone will bear it.
), as prevalent in twenty-first century ‘church’ culture as it was in Job’s. The principal plea of those traumatised is ‘Why me?’ or ‘What have I done to deserve this?’, and the easy and comforting answer is to believe that the suffering is deserved, and that some personal wickedness or ‘sin’ was its cause, because associated guilt places the catastrophe in a comprehensible universal order, namely that suffering is explicable in terms of punishment. Job shares the premise of his friends that because God is just, he rewards the righteous and punishes the guilty, which is why Job can make no sense of his own suffering (10:5-7). ‘I’ve been wronged!… There’s no justice’ (19:7), he cries.

It isn’t easy to square Ps 146 [show]Psalm 146 Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD, O my soul! I will praise the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish. Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever; who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets the prisoners free; the LORD opens the eyes of the blind. The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down; the LORD loves the righteous. The LORD watches over the sojourners; he upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. The LORD will reign forever, your God, O Zion, to all generations. Praise the LORD!
with Job 24:1-12 [show]Job 24:1-12 "Why are not times of judgment kept by the Almighty, and why do those who know him never see his days? Some move landmarks; they seize flocks and pasture them. They drive away the donkey of the fatherless; they take the widow's ox for a pledge. They thrust the poor off the road; the poor of the earth all hide themselves. Behold, like wild donkeys in the desert the poor(1) go out to their toil, seeking game; the wasteland yields food for their children. They gather their(2) fodder in the field, and they glean the vineyard of the wicked man. They lie all night naked, without clothing, and have no covering in the cold. They are wet with the rain of the mountains and cling to the rock for lack of shelter. (There are those who snatch the fatherless child from the breast, and they take a pledge against the poor.) They go about naked, without clothing; hungry, they carry the sheaves; among the olive rows of the wicked(3) they make oil; they tread the winepresses, but suffer thirst. From out of the city the dying groan, and the soul of the wounded cries for help; yet God charges no one with wrong. Footnotes 1. [24:5] Hebrew 'they' 2. [24:6] Hebrew 'his' 3. [24:11] Hebrew 'their olive rows'
, or Deut 30:15-20 [show]Deuteronomy 30:15-20 "See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God(1) that I command you today, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules,(2) then you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them." (ESV) Footnotes 1. [30:16] Septuagint; Hebrew lacks 'If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God' 2. [30:16] Or 'his just decrees'
with Eccl 8:14-9 [show]Ecclesiastes 8:14-9:18 There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked, and there are wicked people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity. And I commend joy, for man has no good thing under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun. When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on earth, how neither day nor night do one's eyes see sleep, then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out. But all this I laid to heart, examining it all, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God. Whether it is love or hate, man does not know; both are before him. It is the same for all, since the same event happens to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil,(1) to the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As the good one is, so is the sinner, and he who swears is as he who shuns an oath. This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead. But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun. Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do. Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might,(2) for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going. Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all. For man does not know his time. Like fish that are taken in an evil net, and like birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are snared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them. I have also seen this example of wisdom under the sun, and it seemed great to me. There was a little city with few men in it, and a great king came against it and besieged it, building great siegeworks against it. But there was found in it a poor, wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city. Yet no one remembered that poor man. But I say that wisdom is better than might, though the poor man's wisdom is despised and his words are not heard. The words of the wise heard in quiet are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good. (ESV) Footnotes 1. [9:2] Septuagint, Syriac, Vulgate; Hebrew lacks 'and the evil' 2. [9:10] Or 'finds to do with your might, do it'
:4. The writer of Job clashes directly with the ideology of Proverbs. Proverbs seems to say, ‘Here are the rules for life; try them and find that they will work.’ Job and Ecclesiastes say, ‘We did, and they don’t’. But Job isn’t necessarily a contradiction to Proverbs; more a modification or qualification.

Therein lies the depth and richness of Christian theology. Bishops would be wise to avoid reducing such complex issues to tabloid headlines.