Recap:
God is love. It is God’s DNA. The Bible says it (1 John 1:12) we sing about it. In church we preach it, but seldom do we stop and think about what that means. Love cannot be coerced. It involves a mutual relationship. We cannot make God love us and reciprocally God cannot make us love God back. Apparently, there are things God cannot do. And if that is true there are things God cannot know, namely whether we will love God back.
This is not because God is weak but because God designed creation this way. And so, God resigns God’s self to relentlessly call, influence, and “walk alongside” as God is omnipresent. And should we as creatures respond positively to these callings, life in general goes better[1]. . .But should we refuse or encounter other uncooperative elements that interfere with God’s best intentions there may be negative consequences but even here, God’s “mercies are new every morning.” (Lamentations 3:23).
In 2004-2006, CBS television debuted the TV series Joan of Arcadia. It was a fictional drama that unfortunately lasted only two seasons, but it had an interesting premise. Joan, the lead character played by actor Amber Tamblyn was a high school student whose ordinary life was interrupted each week by God in unordinary ways. God would show up in disguise as a man or woman, as a janitor, doctor, high school student and others. God essentially blended in with the environment and would reveal God-self to Joan. And each week God would send Joan on a seemingly random mission that at the end of the episode affected everyone in Joan’s circle. At first troubled by these “incarnations”, Joan learned to accept them even though truth be told she was not always appreciative.
In one such encounter, Joan of Arcadia notices a woman (God) struggling to staple a sign to a tree. The woman calls out to Joan.
Woman/God - Excuse me. Could you just hold this for me?
Joan - But... what is that? That's my address.
Woman/God - Then you must be having a yard sale on Saturday
Joan - oh, ok, yeah, like, pulling all your embarrassing stuff out of the garage and putting it on the front lawn for your neighbours to ponder?
God - That's what I mean.Joan -
Joan: - Ok, look... you wanted a boat, I built you a boat.
God - Half a boat, and you saw why I wanted it.
Joan - I'm not saying that it wasn't cool. It's just that while I'm doing all this, I'm also in school and just trying to do better and occasionally, you know, entertaining the possibility of having a personal life and maybe even a boyfriend. Do you understand the concept of time management?
God - Well, I don't care much about time. That's one of your innovations. But here's what I'm wondering, Joan-- when are you gonna get it? That whenever I ask you to do something, it's for your best interest.
Joan - The point is, I cannot have a yard sale on Saturday.
God – Then don't have a yard sale on Saturday.
Joan - This is gonna get old real soon.
In the end Joan had a yard sale which had an unanticipated result.
The dialogue between Joan and God was undoubtedly meant to be humorous and is not the stuff of scholarly theology, but who among us has not had this conversation with God at one time or another. "I can't do that God! Then don't do it...."
Could Joan have refused? Absolutely! Had Joan stuck with her objections could God’s plans have been interrupted? Probably. Would God’s plans in this case be completely thwarted? – not likely. But they would have been different. I know it is a TV program hardly the stuff of biblical authority. But it is not without biblical precedent. Consider.
Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, King Saul and David, Ishmael, Hagar and Sara and the list can go on. In each of these cases agents acted against God’s call and God strategically altered God’s plans. Did God foresee that each of these actors would disappoint God’s plan – not according to the plain reading of the text. Were God’s plans thwarted? – of course not, but they were altered.
In bygone years to explain this seeming tension between human agency and God predeterminism I took the approach of theologian D.A. Carson. Carson came up with the axiom “compatibilism” – a closed arguably soft Calvinistic approach. It consists of two propositions that must be held together.
God is utterly sovereign, but his sovereignty never functions to mitigate human responsibility.
Human beings are morally responsible creatures, but their moral responsibility never functions to make God absolutely contingent.[2]
He argued that the two propositions are mutually “compatible,” even if they cannot be fully reconciled. And if that makes our brain hurt, we are then admonished to let it go because in circular reasoning it is ultimately beyond our understanding. At this point in a blog I cannot get into all the philosophical permutations for and against such a philosophy. But from where I stand today, Carson does not lessen the migraine, in fact, it could be argued he exacerbates it. God gets a free pass, and we are damned as the responsible agents of our own demise.
On the other hand, open and relational thinking is not without its difficulties. Critics like to argue Open Theism leaves too much in flux, too much uncertain, but I wonder today, does not God’s actions of making ways out of no ways even more impressive when we drop the determinism factor.
Then comes the big question. how does an open and relational understanding of God function in conditions of human struggle, either through illness or tragedy. I confess I am reluctant to go down this path. While I am living in the final trimester of my days, currently my life is going relatively well leaving me a poorly qualified source for instructions on suffering. In our circles to those who complain about the price of groceries, inflation, carbon tax, waiting for health care, I suggest visiting a homeless shelter, palliative care unit, a cancer ward at the local hospital or even travel outside of Canada.
Nonetheless what would a relational theologian say to people in dire straits.
1. God’s love is self-giving, and uncontrolling. It cannot be thwarted; God never leaves us alone. Psalm 22, may ask, “My God my God why have you abandoned me” – a legitimate rhetorical emotion but it is not true. Arguably in those moments God is closer than ever.
2. God works to cure with us. Sometimes through conscious agents, and sometimes the remedy is not there but healing is always the sought for possibility.[3]
3. God does not send pointless pain for a greater good, but God delights in squeezing good out of bad.
4. God joins with God’s people in the complex problem of overcoming evil.
5. It turns out some of God’s best ambassadors of healing are those amid their own suffering.
6. How does a relational God respond? truly investigate the life of Jesus.[4]
Of course, this barely scratches the edges of this conversation. I finish with another episode Joan of Arcadia. Season 2 episode 8. Joan’s friend has been stabbed in a drug transaction that went bad. Her friend Judith is in a hospital bed and is dying. The doctor shows up and Joan identifies him as God incarnate. And Joan is angry because Joan knows he can “fix” this.
Judith to Joan - Hey. Chill. Don't piss off the only doctor I like. He's the only one that'll look at me.
Doctor/ God incarnate - It's difficult not to look at such a beautiful person.
Judith: See? He's my angel.
God - Oh. I'll leave you two alone.
Joan to Doctor - Why didn't you tell me this was gonna happen? You could have stopped it.
God - Events unfold after choices are made, Joan.
Joan: But why couldn't she see all the other choices she had?
Doctor: It's about juggling. Good choice, bad one. Good friends, bad ones. Light, dark.it's hard. You said so yourself.
Later Joan is back home on a porch grieving with her friends when she sees a man walking his dogs on the street. She recognizes him again as God. She goes to confront him.
Joan - You let her die! What are you doing here? Haven't you done enough?
Dog Walker/God - She loved you, Joan.
Joan - And I loved her. What am I supposed to do with that now?
God - Did you ever hear the riddle about the man, his boxes, and the bridge?
Joan - S...s...stop !I... I just want my friend back.
God - A man had 3 boxes. Each box weighed 5 pounds. The man weighed 190.The bridge could only support 200. How did the man make it across the bridge with all his boxes?
Joan - This is just cruel.
God -How did he get across, Joan?
Joan - He juggles. Yes, ok. I get it. He keeps one box in the air the whole time.Yes, I get it. What are you saying? That...that if I juggled boxes across a bridge, I'll see Judith again? God - Joan, the bridge is life.The boxes hold your feelings...your love, your joy, your pain, your loss. Everyone is crossing a bridge with more weight than they can bear.So you juggle.
[1] “…it goes better” this doesn’t mean everything has a reason. Stuff happens all the time with no reason behind it. It’s called living. I woke up this morning and had cereal for breakfast. There was no reason for my choice except I was hungry, and the cereal was convenient. And I did not have to pray about my choice.
[2] See D.A. Carson, How Long, O Lord? (Baker Academic: 2006).
[3] Here I distinguish between cures which are always at best remission and healing which is more holistic. One can be healed and not cured, and one can be cured but not healed. For a fuller explanation see my paper Healing in Search of Atonement, Journal of Pentecostal Theology 23 (Brill Press, 2014): 50-67. (https://www.academia.edu/28008940/Healing_in_Search_of_Atonement_With_a_Little_Help_from_James_K_A_Smith
[4] For more on this see Thomas Jay Oord, Open and Relational Theology: An Introduction to Life-Changing Ideas (SacraSage Press, 2021).
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