On Being Terrible with Titles and Following up on Abraham's Dialogue with God

[[ Hi Sister Laurel! I noticed you changed the title on your Abraham post and I was curious why. You also changed a few other things and I wondered if you do that a lot on posts once they are "finished." My pastor also gave a homily on bargaining with God and I think Pope Francis said something about this too one time. Couldn't Abraham be said to be bargaining or negotiating with God because it sounds to me like he is trying to convince God about what justice really means, especially that God shouldn't destroy the innocent with the evil.]]

Hi there yourself! Yes, I changed the title, mainly in an attempt to shorten it. I am not really good with titles (actually, I am awful with them!) and am always happy when I can come up with one I actually like. This is one place where I think of my former pastor a lot. He was great with titles and would ask me what title I would give a reflection I had done, for instance, as a way of summarizing and characterizing the piece. It's something I never managed to learn from him --- unfortunately, I could rarely come up with a good title!! On the Abraham piece I wish I had entitled it something like, [[God we know you love us, but how much?]] or [[Just how merciful is this God of Ours?]] or [[Justice AND mercy, how can God do both?]]

Notice in the lection as we had it for Sunday it is presupposed that God is one that destroys evil (and thus too, the innocent with it). This conception of God is almost hard-wired into religious folks' brains. Thus, floods were signs of God's wrath, as was illness, bad luck, famine and catastrophe of any kind. However, the reading itself does not say God is going to destroy the city, only that he is going to visit it and find out for himself if the hue and cry against it is warranted. Abraham is the one who raises the issue of destruction, not God. In fact, in the text of Genesis a few verses earlier there is no reference to God destroying the city; there is only the question when God muses to himself, [[Should I tell Abraham what I am about to do?]] We assume we know what God will do with evil --- if, of course, God has the power to deal with it at all.

This suggests to me that the lection as we have it, and the dialogue between Abraham and God which stands at its heart is meant to reveal something we believe we already know about God and about how God "does justice" or deals with evil, when in fact, we need to be taught the truth and allow the real God to be revealed to us. In other words, it is meant to correct our presuppositions and assumptions, especially the ones we hold about God and the way God works in our world (i.e., our idols and common blasphemies). I think it is also meant to correct assumptions we have about ourselves too, especially our assumption that we know better than God how to deal with evil or how to define and do justice. 

When I read Sunday's text, Abraham does not come across so much as a clever and just man as he does a bit of a fool in dealing with God as he does. This is another reason I tend to read the text not as Abraham himself bargaining with God or demonstrating a better justice to God, but more as the personification of a long debate going on in humanity and particularly in those who would become God's own people regarding what divine justice really looks like and just how merciful could God possibly be. Those questions are not definitively answered until the Christ Event, but Sunday's reading takes us a long way in preparation for that definitive answer.

So, while you are correct that the dialogue is couched in terms of haggling or bargaining (with bits of wheedling thrown in for good measure), and while Abraham's persistence in pushing the point with God gives another lesson re perseverance in prayer, for instance, I don't think we can say the reading is about bargaining with God (nor do we want to encourage folks to bargain or haggle with God). Instead, it is a literary way of representing perennial questions that occur in the face of suffering, loss, and actual evil, questions about the nature of Divinity and divine justice as well as about divine sovereignty and the existence of good in the midst of evil. I think too that the lection demonstrates how important God is to our ability to ask questions and to push them as far as we need to do without having to worry that that is not appropriate with God. 

Though this takes the reading in a very uncommon direction it is an important one for those who believe faith cuts off questioning in science, theology, etc. Quite the opposite is true and Abraham as the Father of genuine Faith demonstrates this; faith allows questioning. In fact faith in God allows and actually invites us to push our questioning as far as we need to push it as an expression of genuine faith. So, for instance, science and faith belong together, not only because they are compatible and complementary ways of knowing, but because faith, which affirms the existence of the One we know as infinite Mystery, assures us we can push our questions as far as we need to without ever reaching the end of what is knowable. It is the infinite Mystery we call God which makes faith necessary and science possible. 

Regarding Pope Francis, yes, you are correct he spoke about bargaining with God in a homily about this text once. I referenced that in a follow up question to the original post (published several years ago). I will see if I can locate it and put it up here -- perhaps as part of this response, but at least as a link.

Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi (partial reprise)

My God and My All! Deus Meus et Omnia!  Despite being displaced by the Sunday festivities, all good wishes to my Franciscan Sisters and Brothers on this patronal feast! I hope it is a day filled with Franciscan joy and simplicity and that this ancient Franciscan motto echoes in your hearts. In today's world we need more than ever a commitment to Franciscan values, not least a commitment to treasure God's creation in a way which fosters ecological health. Genesis tells us we are stewards of this creation and it is a role we need to take seriously. Francis reminds us of this commission of ours, not least by putting God first in everything. (It is difficult to exploit the earth in the name of consumerism when we put God first, and in fact, allow him to be our God and our All!) 

Another theme of Francis' life was the rebuilding of the Church and he came to know that it was only as each of us embraced a life of genuine holiness that the Church would be the living temple of God it was meant to be. The analogies between the Church in Francis' day and our own are striking. Today, the horrific scandal facing a Church rocked by sexual abuse and, even more problematical in some ways, the collusion in and cover-up of this problem by members of the hierarchy, a related clericalism Pope Francis condemns, and the exclusion of women from any part in the decision making of the Church makes it all-too-clear that our Church requires rebuilding. So does the subsequent scapegoating of Pope Francis by those who resist Vatican II and  an ecclesia semper reformanda est (a church always to be reformed). 

And so, many today are calling for a fundamental rebuilding of the Church, a rebuilding which would sweep away the imperial episcopate along with the scourge of clericalism, and replace these with a Church which truly affirms the priesthood of all believers and roots the Church in the foundation and image of the kenotic servant Christ. The parable of new wine requiring new wineskins is paradigmatic here (and part of the reason we speak of ecclesia semper reformanda est). On the other side of this "silent schism," some are calling for a Church that retreats into these very structures and seeks to harden them in an eternal medieval mold. Yes, in some ways we are already a Church in schism; we are a divided household, so it is appropriate that on this day we hear Jesus' challenging commission to his disciples (Luke) or grapple with the lection from Job where Job struggles to come to a mature and humble faith in the midst of his suffering, and to do so in order to remind us of the humble world-shaking faith of St Francis of Assisi.

Francis of Assisi, despite first thinking he was charged by God with rebuilding a small church building (San Damiano), knew that if he (and we) truly put God and his Christ first what would be built up was a new family, a new creation, a reality undivided and of a single heart.  Like so many today,  Ilia Delio calls for the systematic reorganization of the church and the inclusion of women at all levels of the church's life, but she adds the need for a scientifically literate theological education as part of achieving the necessary rebuilding. So, in a broken world, and an ailing church, let us learn from these  Franciscan "fools for Christ" and begin to claim our baptismal responsibility to work to rebuild and reform our Church into a living temple of unity and love. The task before us is challenging and needs our best efforts. 

Again, all good wishes to my Franciscan Sisters and Brothers on this Feast! Meanwhile, as a small piece of my own continuing education towards a genuinely "scientifically literate" theology, I am reading again in the area of Science and Faith (John Hough) and then, because I need to get in better touch with my Franciscan roots over the next weeks, I am or will be rereading Daniel Horan's The Franciscan Heart of Thomas Merton, along with  Ilia Delio's  Francsican Prayer; Crucified Love; and Clare of Assisi, A Heart Full of Love. I wholeheartedly recommend all of them but especially Franciscan Prayer and Clare of Assisi. If you are a fan of Thomas Merton (or Daniel Horan), that one is also really excellent.

Faith makes Science Possible, Science Makes Faith Necessary

I did a homily yesterday on the first reading from Wisdom (Wis 13:1-9), a reading which, though written about 100 years before Christ, I found to be incredibly contemporary. The text reminds us of the wonders of nature and how they point beyond themselves to the One who created them; it also condemns those who cannot allow the revelation of nature to be what it really is in this way. What is incredibly contemporary is the way we find ourselves in continuing debates about the relation of science and faith, whether "nature is enough" to answer the profound questions we humans have and are or whether there must be something we call God. One of the authors I read regularly is John Haught and one of his books is entitled Is Nature Enough? Haught argues that nature alone is not enough to give our lives a sense of meaning or to provide an answer to our religious desires and needs. Others like Loyal Rue write direct responses to Haught entitled Nature is Enough and argue just the opposite; nature does not need to point beyond itself but is sufficient to account for our religious desires and need for meaning (and supposedly to answer these as well).

Theologians point out that faith or at least pre-faith is necessary to even engage in science. Scientists make a decision; they chose to trust that the world is intelligible, that it makes sense and hangs together enough to make science, the disciplined, ordered empirical exploration of nature possible and meaningful. Again, this decision that nature can be understood and explored in a meaningful way and that human beings are capable of doing this is the necessary pre-condition for doing science at all. Theologians understand that faith and the existence of God doesn't conflict with science but makes it possible. More, our belief in the infinite God who ultimately grounds the existence and meaningfulness of reality ensures that scientists can go on doing science without ever reaching a limit to reality's intelligibility. The idea that nature itself is enough to account for and satisfy our desires and needs for meaning, truth, or God is new and naïve  -- though it is a better response to faith than simply vilifying those who are believers as unintelligent or unreasonably credulous.

A related question theologians feel compelled to ask themselves and scientists is, "Why is there something and not nothing?" Everything that exists has a beginning and ultimately there must be something or someone that is the ground and source of everything that is and has existed. We cannot have infinite regress; if behind everything is nothing at all then order is chimerical at best and our world is essentially absurd. Nothing comes from nothing so the question about why there is anything at all throws scientists back upon an ultimate source or cause that must exist and must itself be "uncreated" and infinite. When we combine this question about being and the former related question about the meaningfulness or intelligibility of all that exists, we have the question of God, the One theologians identify as the ground and source of being and meaning, the One we affirm is the source and ground of the order, truth, beauty, depth, diversity, energy, and power of all we know.

The author of Wisdom looked at the world around him and felt awe as it revealed the existence of God to him. He felt denial of the existence of God was foolish but could understand where some could mistake nature for the creator of nature. After all, nature is profoundly beautiful and powerful; it has an order, scope, and energy beyond anything else we can point to. And today we find scientists and philosophers writing books like Nature is Enough. Most of us are not directly involved in doing science or theology in academic or professional ways, but as believers, we are called to be attentive to God's creation. For us, yesterday's first reading calls us to cultivate a sense of wonder at all we see. We are called to stand in some awe at the incredible order of our world and at the fact that we can know this world, explore it scientifically, and come to see and understand ever greater depths of order and beauty, come to ever greater knowledge. Faith and Science are complementary realities, complementary, not opposing, ways of knowing. As we cultivate the wonder and awe creation inspires, I think we are called to recognize that while some degree of faith makes science possible, science actually makes faith necessary. That is the nature of the world Wisdom's author extols and what he urges us to truly appreciate.