Twisting Lies of Presumption

I came across a quote on the internet the other day: “Every issue, belief attitude or assumption is precisely the issue that stands between you and your relationship with another human being; and between you and yourself”—Anonymous. Of course a quote from the internet is anonymous, but it doesn’t detract from the truth that our presumptions kill our relationships. True human relationships are founded on an honest mutual self-disclosure. Yet our presumptions, positive or negative, about the object of our affections twist reality to fit into our preconceived notions. When we relate on our assumptions the identity of our loved one isn’t real. If this is the case for our human relationships, then how do our assumptions twist our relationship with God? And how do we distort who God is by our presumptions about him?

To best answer my first question I think I need to answer how we distort the nature of God. Often I have heard people object to the God of the Bible by saying, “My God would not do such and such” or “My God would never allow this or that.” Yet doesn’t this put God in a box? Isn’t this the created defining the Creator? It’s like the pot telling the potter what the potter should be like.

However, the problem our presumptions can be much more subtle when speaking of God’s nature. The assumptions of the early Church Fathers constantly got in the way of an orthodox definition of who God is in relation to himself (Trinitarian theology, Christology, etc.). The early Church Fathers, like any thinker of the day, completely accepted Greek philosophy's assessment that the “ultimate god” must have certain attributes (such as omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience, immutability, impassability, incorporeality, even being nameless). Some of these attributes can be attributed to God’s nature in Scripture, but some are problematic. I’m sure the first one that caught your eye was “nameless”, how could this be when God names himself in Exodus and numerous names are attributed to Him? It seems problematic, yet Justin Martyr (a 2nd century Christian apologist) assumed Plato was right that God was immutable, impassable, incorporeal, and nameless. But does God even disclose Himself as a list of attributes?

Not at all, God discloses himself directly to Moses in Exodus 34:6-7 as God that is “compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin.” God declares himself to be emotionally perfect. He is love (1 John 4:8). He by his nature defines what love is and should be, mediated by Christ's condescension and suffering on the cross. He is perfect in his passions and his love for his children will not change (Mal. 3:6). God says "I do not change" in Malachi directly speaks of his unchangeable affection for Israel, not his unchangeable essence.

Now if one begins with the assumption that by reason we can best determine what or who God is by what is not (via negativa), we must than assume that God is not like us. Since we have passions he must be impassable. Since we are physical then his must be incorporeal because he would dividable, which is impossible. The list goes on, but what happens is that you end with a monadic God that is totally transcendent, who is completely self-concerned, and most importantly a God we don’t find in the Bible. God by his will chooses to love us, it is not a heartfelt affection. Therefore, we must rationalize God’s anger, jealousy, love, and compassion found in the Bible as being anthropomorphic language. The assumptions of some of the Early Church Fathers and later theologians create a situation where their presumptions that Greek philosophy is true, and since all truth is God’s truth, they end up twisting the true reality of who the Triune God declares himself to be. Does not this assumption keep us from engaging, experiencing, and enjoying the relational presence of the God in our lives?

To make my point more clear let us move away from some of the technical points, and think about a couple of stories. First is the story a Naaman—a valiant soldier and commander of Aram—who suffered from leprosy (2 Kings 5). One day his wife’s servant tells her that a prophet in Samaria could heal Naaman’s condition. Curious, he gets the king of Aram to send a letter to the king of Israel to inform the king that Naaman will be sent to Israel to be healed. You can imagine the response of the Israelite king: How is he going to do this? He can’t perform miracles. The king fears the king of Aram is just picking a fight by an impossible request. Elisha hears of the king’s dilemma and sends word that Naaman should be sent to him to be healed.

When Naaman reaches Elisha’s house, Elisha sends a servant to tell Naaman to wash himself seven times in the Jordan to be healed. Now if I was Naaman, a high ranking offer in a powerful army, I would be a little displeased that it was the servant and not Elisha. Naaman responds, “I thought that he (Elisha) would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than any of the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” In his pride and anger he turns to go back home.

Whenever I get to this point in the account I am always shocked by Naaman’s response. Why not just give it a try? What is keeping you from doing what Elisha said? The answer is pride. He feels he deserves to be seen by the actual prophet, not his servant; his rivers are better than the Jordan; and he assumed that it would just take a wave of the hand not seven washings. Naaman is blinded by his pride and presumptions, and his actions are entirely ridiculous.

To save Naman from his stupidity his servants quickly convince him at least to give the washing a chance, taking into consideration all the distance they’d travelled. They correctly diagnose his problem and tell him that if Elisha had told him to do something grand he would have done it. Why then not go to the Jordan and be dipped in the Jordan seven times? So he went, dipped himself and his skin becomes like that of a young boy. They all respond in praise and declare that “there is no God in all the world except in Israel.”

Naaman almost missed a chance to be healed because he assumed he knew how his healing should take place. I often wonder what I miss out on when I assume I know what God is going to do or how He is going to do it.

Before I move on to the next story I want to focus on the word “presumption.” It can have several meanings, but one caught my attention: Behavior or attitude that is boldly arrogant or offensive. This definition only affirms the common idiom concerning a synonym of presumption which usually goes “Assumptions can make an …” - well, you know the rest. Didn't Naaman arrogantly prove the truth of this idiom? Haven't we all assumed things when our arrogance in our rational abilities supersedes the fact that we do not have any proof for what we think or believe. Bad presumptions are capable of more than just causing us embarrassment or feeling like a donkey, but they can keep us from a biblical theology and a proper relationship with God (the pair goes hand-in-hand).

This brings me to the second story, a personal story that just recently took place. I had applied last year to go to school in the UK and applied for a student visa. In order to receive a student visa you must show that you have enough “maintenance funds” (for me it was about 12,600 GBP or 20,000 USD). Despite not having the money I sent off my application in hope that my circumstances would change. Three weeks then passed and I had only about a month before I had to leave for school; yet I still had not heard from the UK Consulate, still didn’t have the money, and I started to believe it would be impossible for me to go.

During this time I tried to sell most of my belongings, including my car. But I had no inquirers for weeks. I started to assume that there was no way that I would get the visa. To calm down, my wife and I spent some time with God. Both of us were reminded in our quite times that God can provide in ways that we can never expect, and that it is short-sighted to put any limits on God’s ability or methods to provide.

After a day of fun and a nice dinner we drove home that night. I turned off the car and noticed smoke. I jumped out of the car to discover the car was on fire. My family and I got out and we were fine, but the car insurance totalled the car and gave me more money than what I was trying to sell it for. So, when two days later the UK Consulate contacted me to ask if I had any updates for my application I sent in my new bank statement with all the money I needed for my visa - and it was accepted. God is so good!

I learned a valuable lesson that our presumptions, i.e. our arrogance and pride, get in the way of our relationship with God as we fail to trust Him to be God. Also, I learned that when we assume things, in some sense we play god because we want to be God or because we think we can do it better than Him. Our desire to be in control and to be God only separates us from Him, even our presumptions of how or when He might act. He is the one who declares what reality is through His Word; He reveals who He truly is in His Word; He created the universe by speaking. Let us stop assuming and trust the effective Communicator that He has communicated effectively.

I would suggest the best way to get to know the Triune God and to confront our presumptions of who God is, is to read the Bible—to quote a mentor and friend—boldly and relationally. Pick-up the Bible and read it from cover to cover in 6 to 12 weeks and experience God's self-disclosure. You will find a God who is beyond our wildest dreams and our most calculated logical arguments. Get into the Word and let Him define your reality and you will taste and see that God is good!

Introduction to the "Honey-Combe"

The title of my blog, “Honey-Combe”, some may recognize as directly drawn from John Eaton’s Honey-Combe of Free Justification by Christ Alone. Eaton was a seventeenth century puritan who repeatedly claimed to be preaching a theology in agreement with early Protestant Reformers—Luther and Calvin. Despite this, his colleagues and later theological historians have labelled him the heresiarch of antinomianism or the father of an “entirely new point of view.” So the question for me is whether Eaton is deceptively claiming to be in agreement with these Reformers in order to promote a new Christian spirituality? Or he is reacting to a new moralism in attempt to preserve the essential elements of the Protestant Reformation?

Now this blog is not devoted to the question of whether this particular figure is right or wrong, but a place to discuss similar historical and theological questions in the hope of communicating the goodness of God more affectively and thereby effectively. Even though this conversation I mention was almost 400 years ago, it is entirely essential for the life of any believer. The question of how human and divine activity interacts in salvation and sanctification entirely affects the way the Gospel is preached and taught in our churches. Is Christianity a duty-driven spirituality or is it a desire-driven spirituality?

Other basic questions must be asked first before I can begin to answer such a question. Is God a singular essence where "Trinity" is just one point on a list of many other attributes? Or is his oneness best described as an eternal unity of mutual love? What is the image of God in man? What is the purpose of the law? What is sin? What is grace? How does Scripture communicate and define these terms? How has the church in the past communicated these ideas? And what influences have distorted our views of God and of ourselves as his creation? These questions and others will be the core of my blog.

The hope is that people will encounter and respond to the God who is love and is one in love. Whose love spilled over into creation where the very purpose of humanity was to be in relationship with God through the Spirit. Sadly, the Spirit was pushed away and fellowship was broken when Adam and Eve were captured by a love for themselves--that is, the nature of sin and source of our spiritual death. From that point, God has continually pursued his creation in order to rectify this relationship. The culmination of God's pursuit to rectify lost relationship comes by the Father sending the Son to defeat death by his death on the cross and by his resurrection, which made way for the out pouring of the Spirit, who re-establishes our relationship with God. But this time the relationship is more intimate by our greater union with and affection for the Son, our bridegroom. In other words, God humbled himself so that we may participate in the fellowship that is God through Christ by the Spirit. This is the sweet nectar of God’s goodness!