Seeking One’s Own Glory
While Meredith, JR, Amanda and I were visiting Cassie and Tom in Wilmore, KY, we had the chance to sit around and talk some theology. We touched on quite a few topics, such as pacifism and the pros/cons of postmodernism. One of the topics we tossed around was the nature of God’s glory. It started with a quote Tom read me from Free of Charge: giving and forgiving in a culture stripped of grace:
Some theologians claim that all God’s desires culminate in a single desire: to assert and maintain God’s own glory. On its own, the idea of a glory-seeking God seems to say that God, far from being only a giver, is the ultimate receiver. As the great twentieth-century theologian Karl Barth disapprovingly put it, such a God would “in holy self-seeking… preoccupied with Himself.” In creating and redeeming, such a God would give, but only in order to get glory; the whole creation would be a means to an end. In Luther’s terms, here we would have a God demonstrating human rather than divine love.
Boom, shocka-locka. This encapsulated my thoughts and intuitions on the matter. Then Tom read me the next paragraph:
But we don’t have to give up on the idea that God seeks God’s own glory. We just need to say that God’s glory, which is God’s very being, is God’s love, the creative love that wants to confer good upon the beloved. Now the problem of a self-seeking God has disappeared, and the divinity of God’s love is vindicated. In seeking God’s own glory, God merely insists on being toward human beings the God who gives. This is exactly how Luther thought about God. So should we.
 |
| Galactus, after being freed from Annihilus by the Silver Surfer |
Boom, Sho—-wait. Is Volf trying to have it both ways? Meredith, Tom, and I wrestled with this quotation for quite a while. First off, what in the world is glory? Glory seems to be intimately tied to honor – exchangeable, as a matter of fact. Honor is a fundamentally a status ballast – receiving honor lifts your status up and losing honor lowers it – at least in antiquity and any other cultural setting that I am aware. When I give my wife honor, I am elevating her status in my and my community’s eyes. It is the same when we honor Christ (or give Him glory).
Given this, seeking one’s own honor is fundamentally a selfish act. The being in question is attempting to gain status for herself in a given society. Now, for God to assert and maintain God’s own glory, He must fundamentally be acting selfishly (see Barth and Luther as quoted in the quotation). However, a selfish God seems contrary to God’s character, which is the motivation for Volf’s first quoted paragraph. However, Volf immediately switches gears and says that if God’s very being is love, the whole problem goes away. He says “[i]n seeking God’s own glory, God merely insists on being toward human beings the God who gives.” What Volf does not do is tell the reader how this is accomplished.
After talking through this with Tom for a half hour, we came to the following conclusion. There are two types of glory; glory that seeks its own gain and glory that seeks the flourishing of others. The first one, which we are most familiar with, is a flawed human since of honor and glory. The second, which is foreign to the historical record and counter-intuitive, is divine glory – the evaluation of status, not because of majesty or might (fear based glory), but based on love that seeks the flourishing of others and not of itself. I don’t give God the glory because He is a mighty being who could squash me like a bug (although He most certainly can), but I give God the glory because of what he hath done for me and for Meredith, and for my good friend Scott. Here, God is not really seeking his own glory (at least in the human sense) but receives it because he is not doing so.
In God’s eyes, real glory and honor is seeking the good of others for their own sakes, not one’s own.
Thoughts? (Tom – I am recounting this several weeks after we talked about this – what would you change or add?) I would love to hear from my reformed and my Church of Christ friends. It is hard to phrase with the succinctly with the correct nuance.
Man, I’ve been wrestling with this every since. I don’t know. I, too, would like to hear the thoughts of those from the Reformed position.
Yeah, I hear you. Hopefully we will hear from Travis, Brad, or Hank soon or some other Reformed person. Would you phrase anything differently? I know the general content is there from our conversation, but I don’t know if there are better ways to put it.
No, I think the issue was pretty complicated and we were wrestling with our abhorrence of the idea in general and the way Volf was trying to make it work. I think you said it just fine.
Hey guys!
This is the first post I have done in awhile, and it’s great to talk to you all again.
This is a great post on God’s glory. I do not think that what I will say will be particulary Reformed in character, so hopefully all might be able to take something from how I deal with this tough issue.
First, I want to (try to) dispel the notion that God seeking His own glory is somehow morally wrong, an act of egotistical will, and something this is ultimately unloving. If this were the case, God’s own self-love would be just as wrong as well. But does God love Himself? Of course He does for He loves His own Son! From all eternity, God has been loving God through the mystery of the Trinity, and this Trinitarian love is the ultimate prototype for all love that is found in creation. So it is between the three persons of the Godhood that love forms the bind between the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Now I claim that the same is with God’s own glory. God glorifies His Son from all enternity outside of time, and he does so within time on the Mount of Transfiguration and at His resurrection. Likewise, the Son’s entire earthly mission is an act of glorifing God and bending to His will. In doing so, when God glorifies His Son, and likewise the Son to the Fater, God is glorifying God. There is a self-glorification here, but it is by no means anything comparable to honor/glory that we find in our own world. Lest we anthromorphize the Trinity, it must be said that the love and glory among the persons of the Trinity is completely transedental, yet revealed to us in Jesus and the Word.
So I think it is in the doctrine of the Trinity that we might find a solution to this “problem.” I think Barth and Luther might find this agreeable, maybe not though. All of the redemptive act of God in history is God ultimately bringing us into this fold of Trinitarian love and glory. How could God glorify us and not His Son, Himself? How could He love us as Sons and Daughters without loving His own Son, Himself? Thoughts?
(P.S. While reading my post, perish any thoughts that the Trinity is trithestic. Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Ghost are all of one substance, and three and subsistence. I know this is a mystery, but it will help elucidate what I am trying to say.)
Travis, Thanks for commenting!
While I am thinking on what you are saying, let me ask you a question in the meantime – what is this glory stuff?
I want to nuance your language more, Travis. It is not merely that God loves the Son – it is that the Father loves the Son and the Spirit loves the Son. Each member of the Trinity loves the other members of the Trinity. This is important – for love amidst the Godhead is always others oriented – each member loves the other members. In this, God loves himself. But it is never first and foremost self-directed. It is others directed and results in God’s love of himself.
Even so, when we are invited into trinitarian love, it is to a fuller participation in Trinitarian love – we love the Son, the Son loves us. We love the Father and are loved by the Father. God loved us first and invited us into the Trinitarian love precisely b/c God’s love is always others oriented. There is no selfishness in Trinitarian love b/c it is not God loving Himself, per se, but the Father loving the Son and the Spirit – and them loving us. It is ALWAYS others oriented. You will not find a single statement that says ‘God loves Himself.’ Rather, God’s love is always described as extending to others – to others in the Trinity and other on the earth.
This may seem silly, but I think it’s an important nuance to bring out.
I may be extending this verse beyond what it should be used for, but what about when Christ says to “Love your neighbor as yourself”? Certainly, it is saying that you have this self-love, and you need to make sure that you treat others just as well as yourself, but what I don’t see it saying is to “Love your neighbor and don’t love yourself.” I’m not necessarily advocating a selfish theology, but I do wonder a little bit if “anti-self” thought is entirely rooted in the Bible, or if it draws from other religions (Hinduism, Buddhism) or from non-Christian philosophies (I don’t necessarily know any offhand).
Even writing this, though, I wonder how it fits into statements like “the first shall be last” and “whoever would be great among you must be your servant.”
Interesting thoughts, Scott. I don’t think ’self-love’ is entirely negative. But the question here is what is your motivation for serving others? Is your motivation based on your own self-love or based on a genuine love for them as a distinct other apart from you?
This is the question at hand. Is God’s love for us primarily motivated by his own self focus or is it an others-focused love? What is the motivation for the cross? – making himself look more glorious, or eliminating sin so that we may participate in his love?
I, also, don’t see the above as anti-self, but placing other selves above your own – which I would call love. I think that there is a place here for self-love. I see Jesus’ comment as a corrective aid, I don’t know of many people who have a problem with not acting selfishly. I point to the other logia that you give to bolster this claim.
I have a question for Tom and Honzo, how would you or the author of the quoted material handle the honor language so prevalent in the prophets? For example Daniel bases his prayer for Yahweh to end the exile and return the Hebrews to Jerusalem in God honoring his own name (cf. Daniel 9). Yahweh grounds the new covenant as defined by Ezekiel’s prophecy in restoring his own name as holy and honored, not for Judah and Israel’s sake (cf. Ezekiel 36:22-28). Even Isaiah’s language reflects Yahweh having a concern for the honor of his own name. Thus he defeats the false gods of the ANE and saves Israel from foreign invaders. Idolatry in Isaiah is seen as giving the honor due only to Yahweh to something or someone else.
I personally have little problem in seeing God’s seeking his own glory in terms of loving others. But I think in today’s world the language of “God is love” needs to be carefully nuanced. That statement if found twice in 1 John 4 and it forms somewhat of an inclusio around Jesus being the propitiatory sacrifice that manifests God’s love. The concept of wrath and hatred towards sin must be part of understanding God’s love or else we don’t get God’s love as fully expounded upon in the Scriptures–Jesus did make a whip of cords and drove the money changers out of the Temple and overturning their tables after all.
Hank,
Arminians are not afraid to talk about the glory of God. We’re just concerned that it not be taken to mean the wrong thing.
If we do not glorify God, my gosh, the very rocks will cry out! So it is not a big deal, in the midst of a people who refuse to glorify Him (prophetic context), for God to say, well then I will just lift up my own name and honor myself in spite of them. The goal in this is not for Israel, but that He might lift himself up amidst the pagan nations – showing them that He is a beautiful, glorious, loving, and most of all, faithful God. Unlike those ridiculous ANE deities, Yahweh is truly good and beautiful and sovereign. No one else is worthy of glory.
If Israel refuses to honor God, then he will just have to do so himself. This is not problematic, me thinks.
Tom,
Hey man I did not say Arminians were afraid of these texts. I was merely asking for your reading. And speaking of which, could you then explain how what you have said differs from what Piper teaches? I’m seeing what the problem is when what your saying is what he says, judging from your comment above. I know that you and Honzo don’t like his views on the supremacy of the glory of God.
Hank,
No worries, man. I didn’t mean to come off as abrupt. My bad. I was just cuttin to the chase…
I think my reading differs from Piper because I do not see God’s seeking his own glory as God’s primary motivating factor in all that he does. It is a result, not a motivation – the prophetic citations you gave are the exception which prove the rule, me thinks…especially considering how that explicit of a reference is restricted to not only a few books, but a few books from the same genre and similar time periods. There is something historical/cultural/theological happening at the time that prompted this. I have not done all the exegesis to know what, though.
Where as Piper would say such a statement by God is normative, I would say it’s really conditioned – based on, like I said, the surrounding events of the prophetic ministry.
Furthermore, and probably most offensive to me, is that Piper holds that God glorifies himself through benevolence and malevolence. To me, that is so far from the biblical God that, to be honest, it sickens me. (I don’t say that disrespectfully, I’m just being straight with you about how I feel.)So, in the end, I think Piper and I have totally different conceptions of God’s glory and what it is all about.
Does that clear anything up?
Again, my bad for coming off as abrupt. I know you weren’t accusing Arminians of not caring about God’s glory or being afraid of those texts. I was just sort of responding off the cuff.
Cheers brother,
Tom
Tom,
I completely understand.
The view of God’s glory being the motivation and not just a result is not just only in the prophetic literature of the Old Covenant. There are the Psalms like Psalm 31 and Psalm 79 and Psalm 143 as some examples. I could also go into the Torah and the historical accounts of the OT as well. It permeates the whole of the Old Testament. Also I would note that even though in the prophetic text the statements might be historically related, the nature of the text, like in Isaiah, where the Scriptures are speaking about what the real god is like is the location of the statements about God seeking his own glory as the ground for saving Israel. It is what defines Yahweh as the only true God, the Holy One of Israel.
Having read more of Piper and other scholars I do think Piper is too guilty of reductionism on this topic. He does not allow the full tapestry of why Yahweh acts in both the OT and NT. He too quickly moves to the glory of God for everything.
But I will say that the Bible does not shy away from God authoring malevolence for the sake of his honor. Israel’s being conquered multiple times is evidence of that, as well as the fact that Isaiah 45:7 says that God creates both good and evil. Click here to see that the same Hebrew verb is used in Isaiah 45:7 of evil as in Genesis 1:1 in the creation of the heavens and the earth (the LXX of Isaiah 45:7 doesn’t reflect this in exact precision but uses ποιέω and κτίζω interchangeably). There is also the parallel of Hebrew verbs in Genesis 50:20 to show that God does do something we deem evil but I will grant there is no grounding in the glory of God. I don’t think Piper is without some textual warrant.
Thanks for understanding, Hank. Written communication is so fraught with misunderstanding…it’s a wonder more misunderstanding doesn’t happen.
Per the citations of the Psalms – I’ll have to check them out. Again, I see no huge problem with God glorifying himself when rebellious humanity refuses to do so. But again, for me this is largely a result of his actions, not a motivation for them.
Per malevolence – I think your citation of Is. 45 lacks a fuller, contextual basis. Bad and Good in that passage are not about evil in a general sense. We’re talking about God bringing calamity (bad, evil, darkness) on rebellious people, but bringing blessing (good, light) on those who are faithful to him. This is not any different than what we would expect from obedience and disobedience in Deuteronomy.
In the words of Terrence Fretheim, this language “is not cosmic in orientation, but language typical in the prophets for specific (historical) divine judgments….God’s ‘creating’
here is not ex nihilo, but action which gives specific shape to a situation of historical judgment.As he says later, “No claims are made that God is the all-determinative actor in this (or any other) situation.”
To me, if God operates with Good and evil in the same way, then he is morally ambiguous. In fact, he is fighting against his own kingdom.
So, I guess I’m just trying to say the hermeneutical principle of context, context, context, eliminates the Calvinistic reading here. Which, again, causes me to differ from Piper. From what I understand, there are numerous texts which Calvinists use the same way – all of which I think can be invalidated in a similar way by analysis of context or structure.
Ultimately, I think the character of God is at stake here. Is God truly good or does he create, ordain, predetermine evil – a charge which, to me, would make him morally ambiguous and not worthy of worship. I would seriously choose another religion b/c I can’t see how this is good. There’s a lot at stake in this disucssion, which is why I don’t think quoting specific verses helps, we must do an analysis of the context – exegetical, stuctural, historical, cultural, theological. And not just the context of the passage, but also an analysis of our contexts as readers.
Ok – more than I wanted to write, but hey…it’s all in good spirit.
cheers, brother.
I must ask how do you read the story of Joseph? I don’t disagree with your reading of Isaiah 45, although I don’t think you are allowing the text itself to speak enough and letting the historical context to come too much to the foreground. Isaiah 45 is declaring to us the nature of who God is and he is a God that will receive the honor that is due him, from all generations. Hence the new covenant that ensures obedience. But in the story of Joseph, Yahweh is viewed as bringing about Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers and then being put in jail for the purpose of saving many. When Joseph looks back over his life and gives his great statement in Genesis 50:20, the same verb is used to describe both God’s actions and his brothers’ actions in his being sold and imprisoned. How would you account for that? Is there a textual warrant in Genesis 50 to say that “God uses the evil for good” when the text says God “meant” the evil for good in the same way the brothers’ “meant” the evil for evil?
One of the things that I find bothersome about Christianity today is the need to defend God so much. It almost feels like we believe that when people are allowed to see who God is in the whole Bible they may not like him and so we have to reinterpret the Bible so that he really isn’t that bad. Cannot the Spirit take what the contemporary reader sees as morally ambiguous and convince that reader that God is good? Can’t we just allow the text to speak for itself when Genesis 50:20 says that Israel and Egypt were both saved because God worked Joseph’s life the way it was? Or when it says that God is the one who killed Jesus through the hands of morally corrupt men? Shouldn’t we just let people see who God is by what has been recorded and let the Spirit do the convincing? I don’t know, sometimes I just feel like we try too hard to defend a God who doesn’t need our defense. Instead of defending God I feel like we need to tell people that he is the true ruler of the universe who will judge all for their sins and send them to suffer his wrath lest they turn to Jesus as their advocate. In the Gospels and Acts, Jesus and the Apostles don’t spend much time defending God but rather telling people about their dangerous situation. Again, it’s late for me and I need some sleep before a long day at work tomorrow.
And as a Christmas message, none of the prophetic texts really see their fulfillment until Christ comes. Jesus’ life and death and resurrection restores the honor to God that humanity has denied him.
Hank,
I’m am allowing the text to speak for itself precisely b/c i’m not restricting the text to a couple of lines, but placing it the broader context. The text IS the the historical background b/c that’s the background Isaiah gives us in vs. 1-6. So, I don’t think I’m ignoring the text. Rather, I’m seeing it in light of the context – always a good hermeneutical principle.
And I agree, this is about the nature of God – a God who has repeatedly said he will bless and curse base on obedience. This is Isaiah’s historical outworking of that idea.
As for Joseph, first let me say that we can do this forever. You can quote a verse and I can appeal to the context to demonstrate why I am justified in rejecting the Calvinist reading of a single verse. I’m going to do the same thing with Gen. 50. But, as this can go on forever, I think this will be my last one. However, I think I’ll write a post on it and post it in a few days. Will that suffice? I don’t want to skirt your question, I just think that if I’m going to write this much on a topic, then I should ‘make it official.’ ya know?
oh yeah – sorry for the typos.
And get some rest, man, there are no doubt more important things to do tomorrow than wax eloquently about a theological debate the church has been unable to answer for hundreds of years. Sure is fun, though.
Tom,
It sounds weird that 6:45 pm is late until one sees that my day starts at 2:30 AM and ends at 4:00 PM. It just sux that this can be fun when done respectfully.
It wasn’t my intention to start a throw-a-verse match. We were on the topic of sovereignty and I think you are one person I haven’t heard comment on this text and I really wanted to hear it. But I was going to be finished with the thread regardless of your response. That game gets to be a very vicious cycle that doesn’t break easily. Looking forward to your posts.
[...] 5 posted at Think Wink.. Does the New Testament discuss Limited Atonement? Henry M Imler presents Seeking One’s Own Glory posted at Theology for the Masses. God’s glory, which is God’s own being, is [...]
Before turning to the substance of the discussion, I want to register a complaint I’ve made before about how several people here treat this issue. Piper’s reductionism about God’s glory as his fundamental motivation is not a Calvinist view. It’s a view that some Calvinists hold, and certain segment of the new phenomenon of Reformed Baptists who have been influenced by Piper will tend to hold to this view. Those who have been schooled in other circles of Calvinism (such as Presbyterian ones or most other Reformed churches) will not be as inclined to hold this view. Also, those who tend to derive their views from the manifold ways the Bible itself discusses things (as, e.g., D.A. Carson, not raised in a Reformed tradition, seeks to do) will often resist this kind of reductionism.
So here are several issues to distinguish. One issue is about whether all of God’s motivations are reduced to God’s seeking of his glory. Another issue is about whether God does seek his glory as an intrinsic good. A third issue is whether God does seek his glory for the sake of some other good or goods.
According to Piper, God’s glory is the highest good and thus the most important and basic motivation of a perfectly good being. On his view, anyone acting out of the purest motivations will place the highest goods as most important, and nothing is higher than the glory of the most perfect being in existence. So it would be evil for God not to seek his own glory. His reasoning is that God would be diminishing his commitment to seeking the highest good if he were to be seeking his glory only for the sake of some lower good.
Now selfishness is hard to define in such a context. For a human, selfishness is placing your interests above someone else’s, when your own interests aren’t any more important. If you sacrifice others’ good for your own, you aren’t merely being self-interested (as, for example, when you brush your teeth, which is self-interested but hardly selfish). If you steal others’ things for your own material benefit, you elevate your immediate concerns above where they should be.
Is it selfish for God to place his glory above all other things? In theory, no, because God’s glory is the highest of all things, on this view, so it’s not even necessarily self-interested, never mind selfish. A self-interested pursuit is one you pursue for your own sake, i.e. the reason you seek it is because it’s your good. On the other hand, you might do something that happens to be self-interested but not simply because it’s your good. When someone decides to save himself rather than someone else, it’s often selfish or at least self-interested. But if I save myself not because it’s me I’m saving but because I’m the only one with the cure for some virus that the entire world has become infected with, then saving myself is of the utmost importance for reasons that aren’t even self-interested.
Here is where I think Volf’s suggestion comes in (although I don’t think he says enough to be sure if this is what he really means). What it sounds to me that he’s saying is that objections against the Piper-style view ignore something crucial. They ignore the actual content of God’s glory. If you’re just talking about whose glory is most important, I’d still say much of the above (but I don’t want to reduce God’s motivations to simply seeking his glory, as Piper does). But I would insist on fleshing out what makes God’s glory so glorious. The reason God is morally the most perfect being is because the content of his glory includes his moral character, which includes bestowing goodness on those who don’t even deserve it. Recognizing the glory of beings who are most glorious is an important part of the best way to live, but another part is demonstrated by God’s insistence on bestowing undeserved favor.
Given that this is God’s character, it’s especially not selfish (even ignoring what I’ve said above) for God to seek his own glory, once you account for the content of what makes God glorious and thus deserving of being honored.
I don’t think this is trying to have it both ways. I think Volf clearly does think God’s moral character underlies why he’s deserving of glory, and that’s how he can get away with this. I’m not sure if Piper can get away with this move, though. Piper thinks the only reason God bestows grace is to increase his glory. Volf, on the other hand, thinks the reason God is glorious is because he bestows grace. The second view says God seeks his glory but doesn’t reduce all other motivations to God’s glory. It has to flesh out God’s glory with a moral character that’s being glorified. Once it does that, it’s no longer possible to ground God’s love in God’s glory, just as it’s not possible for Piper to ground God’s glory in God’s love. But on Volf’s view it might still be true that God does everything for his glory, as long as that doesn’t mean that glory is the most fundamental motivation the way Piper means it. So I think Volf can be consistent here, if he means it the way I suspect he might.
In my recent post I footnoted the fact that I have come to believe this kind of Piper/Calvinism is not Classical Calvinism. Piper differs much from JC on this matter and a few others. I believe, then, he would be a more Edwardsian Calvinist.
That said, as Hank and a few of the others who respond here are Piper-style Calvninist, our discussions have generally resorted to just calling it Calvinism for shorthand. That may be why you get the impression that we continue to make this mistake. It’s not a mistake; it’s shorthand. If Classical Calvinists were more involved in the discussion I have no doubt that we would be willing to grant that they are not Edwardsian and therefore make a distinction.
Finally, let me say that your conclusion is similar to the conclusion that Henry and I came up with while he was here at my home and we were originally discussing it. God’s glory, defined as his moral character of self-giving love, should be maximized, even by God himself. When defined that way, there is no selfishness at all. Sure, there is some self-interest, but that self-interest is grounded in spreading His perfect love to undeserving creatures.
That’s why I think the conversation shifted to whether or not God as a predeterminer of malevolence took place. The question is, what is the content of God’s glory and what does it look like when he is glorified.
Piper finds this view in Edwards, and he also finds it in Augustine. I’m not convinced that Edwards went quite as far as Piper with it, and I’ve read enough Augustine to be sure that Augustine didn’t go as far as Piper. But my point isn’t whether there are people in the Calvinist tradition outside Piper’s direct line (or predecessors to Calvin who held similar views). It’s that this isn’t a Calvinistic issue at all. It’s an issue that some who are Calvinists happen to go a certain way on, but those of a different view on divine sovereignty and salvation (the defining issue for Calvinism) could easily hold exactly the same view. In fact, I’m sure I’ve met people who hold this view of Piper’s while rejecting his Calvinism.
I wouldn’t say that God’s glory is defined as his self-giving love. I would say that his character, which includes that self-giving love, is at least part of what makes his glory so good. His glory, however, is simply how fully his goodness is displayed.
On the malevolence issue, I want to make sure I’m interpreting you aright. Are you saying that Piper thinks God does malevolent things and thereby glorifies himself? If so, then you’ve got him way wrong. He doesn’t think God does malevolent things. He thinks everything God does is good, even if it’s something we might wrongly call malevolent (or even if, were we to do it, it would have to be malevolent). On the other hand, if all you’re talking about is human malevolence, the Bible is quite clear that God uses human malevolence for his glory. He used it at the cross most notably, but Joseph points out that God meant for good what Joseph’s brothers meant for evil. There are plenty of examples. There are different views on how to interpret the metaphysics of these cases, but all views agree that God uses malevolence for good. So I’m at a loss as to what it is about Piper that you’re criticizing here. It seems either unfair to him or a criticism of a biblical teaching that all sides agree on.
No, I’m not saying Piper says God does malevolent things. Clearly Piper wouldn’t say that.
What he does say is that God does author evil – in that he sovereignly determines it. He, in the case of Joseph, did not merely “use” the malevolent actions of Joseph’s brothers for good – everyone agrees on that. Rather, God determined that Joseph’s brothers would do this evil deed. (Am I representing you right, Hank?)
Everyone agrees that God can use evil to bring about good. The question is whether God actually determines the evil. So, not all sides agree that God determines the evil – and that is my beef with Piper. For him, God authored malevolence originally and locally….this I find untenable, and I see no way of reconciling that with human responsibility. (But of course, I’m not a Calvinist so I find his Compatibilism insufficient, as well.)
As for self-giving love as God’s glory – I see all of God’s attributes expressed through love…a love that is self-giving. So His character, and all its characteristics, are fundamentally related to and expressed in love. God is love. (Probably an oversimplification, but it’s all I’ve got time for)
Calivinists need not think God caused the evil. Calvinists usually see Augustine’s view as Calvinistic, for example, and he insists that God causes all things only in the sense that nothing would exist without God. He insists that God decides which events will occur and either causes it directly or ensures his plan by means of intermediate causes, in other words by ensuring certain events will happen that will lead to people choosing certain things. So it’s proper on that view to speak of God ordering certain things and allowing others. To avoid this sense of God ordering evil, you have to go further than Arminianism, too. You have to be an open theist. There is a view that endorses more direct causation of evil to God than Arminianism does, but I’m not sure why Calvinism has to hold such a view, and I don’t think most Calvinists I know of actually do. I’m pretty sure Piper doesn’t, in fact, because of his paper on the two wills of God or however he puts it.
Henry,
Thanks for the post. Can you name the book or article by Piper and page number both for Volf and Piper? Thanks for for the discussion.
[...] In another post on God seeking his own glory, Tom and I had a wonderful discussion on some different texts that really had this issue at heart. [...]
Jeremy,
Thanks for clearing some of these things up. B/c the Calvinist circles I run in (SBC) are quick to do these things, it is good to hear that not all Calvinists do.
In a previous post, I believe I entitled “Why I do not permit a Calvinist to use permit language” I gave several citations from Piper suggesting that He believes that God actively determines evil, not merely passively allows it. Clearly not all Calvinists agree, but I am pretty sure I was reading him rightly…unless you have an alternative way of reading him that takes into account his criticism of John Calvin and others who do not go far enough.
Good note Tekle. This post was borne out of a discussion I had with Tom while I was visiting. I don’t own the book; Tom was reading the passage to me. As for the Piper reference, I did not bring up Piper in my post. Perhaps those who evoke him will cite him. In the meantime, it might be helpful to read his post entitled “The Goal of God’s Love” at DesiringGod.org.
Tom, can you give the page numbers from Volf? I only copied the passage, not the page number when we were at your house.
Thanks, Henry!
Don’t you think it is somehow difficult to interpret passages from Volf? I almost complete term paper on Volf’s theology. Friends may I suggest you to explore his theological methods and themes like Perichoresis, Personhood and Social Trinity. His use of analogy has double edges correspondences and limitations.
as far as my reading Volf’s argument requires closer reading and contextual interpretation. a look at his theological method is additional benefit.
Tom, the only quote you give from Piper in that post seems to be about a different issue. All Piper says there is that God ordains every event. But surely Arminians have to say that too, since God would prevent anything he didn’t want happening. Thus God has ordained every event, if at the very least by not preventing it.
As for Calvin, you don’t even give any quote for him, so I’m not sure what he even says that you’re taking this way. I could see Calvin getting upset at the idea of mere permission if that’s supposed to mean that God sort of concedes to something happening that he doesn’t prefer, so maybe that’s what Calvin means in whatever passage you have in mind. I’d be surprised if he said anywhere that there’s no sense in which God permits some things while causing others, as long as it’s true in both cases that both happened the way God wanted them to happen.
Some compatibilists do insist on saying that compatibilist freedom means you couldn’t do otherwise, but the original compatibilists, the Stoics, refused to say that, and I think they had good reasons. There’s certainly a sense in which the only possibility is the one that happens. That sense is that there’s only one possibility consistent with the past and the deterministic laws of nature. But it’s also true that you considered options and genuinely chose one, on any halfway decent compatibilist model of freedom. That means it’s perfectly legitimate to talk about those other options and call them possibilities. You, of course, didn’t know that the one you chose was the only one your faculties would lead to compatible with the deterministic laws and the past. But it seems to me to confuse efficient causes and final causes to care about that. What matters to me is not whether efficient causes lead to what I do in a way that traces back to events outside my control. What matters to me is whether the reasons I have for doing what I do are my own reasons and whether different reasons would have led to different choices. With compatibilist freedom, you certainly can have the latter, and it is a kind of genuine potentiality.
Jeremy,
Here are some quotes by Piper on the subject:
“It is right, therefore, to use permission to apply to God’s ordination of sin. But we should not assume, as Arminians do, that divine permission is anything less than sovereign ordination.”
“For the problem of evil asks how God can ordain evil without authoring it. And, as Calvin pointed out, the distinction between remote and proximate cause is also inadequate to answer the questions before us, however useful it may be in stating who is to blame for evil. Nor is it a solution to say that God permits, rather than ordains, evil. As we have seen, God’s permission is as efficacious as his ordination”
both from:
.http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/788_does_god_empermitem_sin/
“God does bring about sinful human actions. To deny this, or to charge God with wickedness on account of it, is not open to a Bible-believing Christian. Somehow, we must confess both that God has a role in bringing evil about, and that in doing so he is holy and blameless. . . . God does bring sins about, but always for his own good purposes. So in bringing sin to pass he does not himself commit sin.”
in: http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/786_does_god_emauthorem_sin/
As for Calvin – that’s my point. He allows for permissive will. Piper castigates him for it. So I’m not really sure what you’re looking for in terms of a quote.
Now, if you still hold that I’ve misunderstood Piper, that’s fine…maybe I have. But in the beginning of one of those blogs he notes that after making these comments he received a lot of emails from people who were also confused about what he is saying. So, I suppose I’m not the only one.
For him permitting sin is the same as effectively ordaining it. God ordains sin…though, for Piper, he is not morally culpable in doing so.
The first quote says that everything is sovereignly ordained but that it’s right to call it permission if it’s ordination of sin. This is the position I’ve been saying Piper holds. It all fits into God’s sovereign plan, but some of it is correct to call permission, while other parts of the plan are not. He doesn’t in this quote specify the reason for making the distinction, but it’s the same view I’ve been saying he holds.
The second quote makes a philosophical point. It doesn’t answer every question posed in the problem of evil to say that God permits some things but directly orders others. It does answer some, and Piper doesn’t deny that. He doesn’t think there’s no point in using permission-language, as evidenced by the first quote. But he acknowledges that if God permits something evil, it still makes sense for there to be a reason why God permits that evil rather than not permitting it. So it doesn’t solve all the problems raised by the problem of evil. This is perfectly consistent with what I’ve been saying about Piper, so again I’m not sure why you’re bringing it up as evidence against what I’ve been saying.
The third quote deals with exactly one level of the two levels Piper is willing to speak on. As he says in the first quote, it’s quite proper to refer to God as ordaining sin in one sense. He insists elsewhere that we should make the distinction between ordaining in a direct sense and permitting, but on another level God ordains everything that happens, or else it wouldn’t have happened. God’s permission is required for it to occur, and so it makes sense to call it part of God’s ultimate sovereign plan. In that sense, God is causally responsible for its coming to be. So again, I see no inconsistency between this and what I’ve been saying.
Then you go on to say that Piper castigates Calvin for allowing for permissive will. I’m not sure where he does that. The only mention of Calvin in the quotes you gave was to agree with Calvin, so it can’t be in any of these quotes. Where does this castigation take place? I’ve never seen anything of the sort in Piper, and I have seen him take the view that Calvin takes, so I still have strong doubts about what you’re saying.
Piper is not always clear, and he’s not always careful. There are some important issues where I disagree with him also. But on this issue I think he and I agree, and I think it’s the same view held by Calvin once you get around some of the looseness of his terminology and, as Obama would say, inaptness of his choice of words. So I’m not surprised that he got lots of emails by confused people. But I think he’s clear enough in his published works that I’m pretty confident of what his view is, and I haven’t seen anything to disabuse me of that notion in the quotes and links you’re giving.
Your last statement is false. He doesn’t think permitting sin is the same as effectively ordaining it. Permitting is a kind of ordaining (otherwise the third quote makes no sense, and I’m not sure the first one does either), but it’s not the same kind of ordaining as the stronger sense that he would distinguish from permitting (otherwise the first quote makes absolutely no sense). The reason God isn’t morally culpable has to do with this difference, but Piper isn’t willing to specify exactly what the difference amounts to. That means he hasn’t fully explored his view, but he’s willing to insist on the things that I think Calvinists need to insist on to be faithful to scripture, even if they don’t explore the philosophical implications as carefully as they could.
Thanks for the response Jeremy. Even though it’s only been a few weeks, I had to go back through and read our discussion to even remember what we were talking about.
I’ll take your word for Piper’s published works, but I think the ambiguity of some of his language explains some of my confusion…at least in his unpublished works.
As for his castigation of Calvin, I actually read that a few months ago (and when I looked for the quote recently I couldn’t find it…either that or it was someone else, but in my memory it was Piper – which is possible), so I look again to try to find it.
But, I think in the end, I’m not really the one to talk about Piper’s view…as I’m not even a Calvinist. So, I think your disagreement is really with Hank, not me….though, clearly I have had things to say about Piper.
So, as I admitted before, it’s entirely possible I’ve misunderstood him, but I find it interesting that Hank (our local Piper listener) is in disagreement with your position. (just an observation, not trying to prove anything).
I’ll get back to this discussion later. A bit busy right now to engage it a thoroughly as I did a few weeks ago when school was out.
Oh yeah, I’m also starting to realize that you’re right – this God seeking his own glory thing is not ‘Calvinism.’ (per your early comments)
Let me clarify something about the whole “permission language” discussion. The primary reason that I agreed with Tom is that I acknowledge the sense in which God ordains that there be sin as per Jeremy’s most recent comment on this thread. Too many times Calvinists aren’t willing to admit that to be so. But that doesn’t mean I don’t use the “permission” paradigm to understand how that plays out so that God does not compromise his holiness and righteousness and justice. I do not hold to equal ultimacy (SP; the idea that God predetermines who goes to heaven and hell in the same way) but I do acknowledge that both decisions are God’s alone.
As for Piper, I haven’t read much of Piper over the last year or so. I read his critique of Tom Wright and started Don’t Waste Your Life but never finished. I don’t think it’s entirely accurate to call me the local Piper listener any more. I just don’t have the time to read him and everyone else I need to read (i.e. Waltke and Gesenius for Hebrew and Wallace and Robertson for Greek, to name a few).
Thanks Hank, and sorry if I misunderstood where you were coming from or was unclear in how I relayed your connection with Piper.