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[Steve]

This is what I figure at the moment. God exists, but he does not causally interact with the world. That would break the laws of physics, laws God himself created. He only interacted at one special instance when God the Son incarnated himself on earth, was crucified, and then resurrected to atone for the sins of the world. This then brings up the question, if God isn't causally interacting with the world, how do we know him? I would answer that God made the universe with clues about himself. The laws of nature and the laws of logic tell us a great deal about God, and particularly about morality. Through reason we can determine what is moral and immoral, this is natural law theory, first proposed by Aristotle, and then made specifically Christian by Thomas Aquinas. One thing in particular that makes my theory "out-there" so to speak is that if God doesn't causally interact with the world, then the Bible can not be inspired and prayer doesn't do anything. Things in the world just happen based on human action or the causal unwinding of the universe. My beliefs about afterlife are even more un-orthodox. I believe in only one afterlife location, and it is here that all souls will be in the presence of God, and here that punishment will be leveled for the sins committed in life, like iron cast into a refining fire, the souls will be cleansed by the loving fire of God, to be sanctified like they were intended to be. In my view eternal punishment for a temporal sin is unjust, and God is a God of justice. This is a pluralistic belief, like the thought problem C.S. Lewis gives in the Last Battle, the good the Calormene man did in the name of Tash counted for Aslan, just as the evils done in the name of Aslan counted for Tash. So it goes in the world. I do believe in the trinity, because a unitarian God is incompatible with God's nature. God is all loving, but before there was creation God was still all loving, but if God was unitarian God could only love Gods self. That would be narcissistic, and God is a maximally excellent being, narcissism is not a character trait posessed by a maximally excellent being. However if God is a trinity, Gods all loving nature can be expressed in a communal fashion within the trinity, all the parts in willful submission and equality to the other parts, but at the same time all one.

This is basically were I am at now.

[jimwalton]

Thanks for writing to me. I’d love to discuss this stuff with you. One presupposition is this: if you acknowledge that God exists, then we are not free to decide what he is like, but instead our thoughts are subject to the reality and truth of his being. This all passes to the epistemological questions that I assume you have that you mentioned in an earlier e-mail. Since God exists, how can we reliably know about him? Well, since you have already admitted to the inescapable veracity of the resurrection, and therefore concede the deity of Christ, several truths are immediately clear:

1. God exists
2. God reveals himself, and
3. God causally interacts with the world

Given those unavoidable conclusions, we’re left to determine only the “how” answers: how does he reveal himself, and how does he causally interact with the world.

Through the testimony of Jesus, we learn that God reveals himself in general ways (the universe with clues about himself), in special ways (through the spoken words of the prophets, acknowledged by Jesus as having authority as God revealing himself), and causally (through the testimony of Jesus referring to different causal interactions of God with people in the Old Testament). And so your theory about the Bible not being inspired and prayer accomplishing nothing sinks like an iron axehead in a river. One of the most prominent characteristics of God is that he speaks. Genesis 1.3 begins the tale, the prophets and the Law continue it, and Jesus himself is the Word who IS God. God does not just speak the Word, He IS the word. The Word in John 1.1 is not merely existent, but was also the efficient principle of God revealing himself both generally in creation and specifically in the Word. You are likely familiar with the philosophy of Heraclitus who defined the Logos as the principle which causally controlled the universe. Logos implies the intelligence behind the idea, the idea itself, and the transmissible expression of it. As I said, if we admit the existence of God, then we must learn what He says He is like, and we are not free to create Him as makes sense to us.

Regarding the efficacy of prayer, again Jesus teaches that God causally interacts with the world. You can’t both acknowledge that Jesus rose from the dead and is God, but also didn’t know what he was talking about concerning revelation and prayer. Those are inconsistencies in reason that don’t befit you.

I agree with you a large extent about God’s interactions with the world. I am convinced that God hardly ever interferes with the cause-and-effect cycle of this life, but I also believe that he can, and that he did and does, more than just the ministry of Jesus.

I did a Bible study once to try to discern what the nature of God’s interactions in this world are. Here’s what I learned:

Almost everything the Bible says about what God does for us has to do with salvation. Almost everything. So I looked harder: Other than salvation (forgiveness, redemption, justification, etc.), how does God help me through life?

1. Comfort in time of mourning (Matthew 5.4; 2 Corinthians 1.4; 7.6); rest (Matthew 10.28), and peace (John 16.33; 14.27; Romans 5.1; 15.13; Philippians 4.7, 9)
2. May answer some requests in prayer (Matthew 7.11; James 5.16)
3. Gives me words to say at martyrdom or oppression (Matthew 10.19)
4. Teaches me about Himself:
a. Gives knowledge of himself (Romans 1.19-20; 1 Corinthians 4.1; 2 Corinthians 4.6; Ephesians 1.17)
b. Gives knowledge of his kingdom (Matthew 13.11)
c. Makes his righteousness known (Romans 3.21)
d. Gives knowledge of his will (Colossians 1.15) and equips us to do it (Hebrews 13.21)
e. Gives knowledge of salvation (Hebrews 2.4)
5. Gives me the Holy Spirit
a. teach me about God (John 14.26) (see 4a above)
b. helps me in my weakness (Romans 8.26)
c. intercedes for me in prayer (Romans 8.26-27) (see #2 above)
d. gives me spiritual gifts to use in ministry for Him (Romans 12.6ff; 1 Corinthians 12.4ff; Ephesians 4.11)
e. seals me for the day of redemption (Ephesians 4.30)
6. God is always at work to mold us and make us into his image, which is possible through any circumstance. (Romans 8.28; 2 Corinthians 2.14; 3.18; Ephesians 1.4; Hebrews 13.21) He is renewing us day by day (2 Corinthians 4.16) and making us righteous (2 Corinthians 9.10)
7. Gives me faith in differing amounts (Romans 12.3)
8. Plays some role in installing and deposing governing authorities (Romans 13.1-5).
9. Gives me strength, endurance and encouragement (Romans 15.5; 1 Corinthians 1.8; 2 Corinthians 1.21; 4.7, 11, 16; 12.9; Colossians 1.11; 1 Peter 4.11; 5.10)
10. Gives a spirit of unity (Romans 15.5) among Christians
11. Gives us joy (Romans 15.13; 2 Corinthians 8.2)
12. Enriches me in every way: in speech and knowledge and good works (1 Corinthians 1.5; 2.13; 2 Corinthians 9.8, 10-11) (See #4 above)
13. Provides a way of escape from temptation (1 Corinthians 10.13)
14. Gives me grace (2 Corinthians 9.14; 12.9; Ephesians 4.7; James 4.6)
15. Blesses me in the heavenly realms with spiritual blessings (Ephesians 1.3)
16. Disciplines us for our good (Hebrews 12.10)
17. Generously gives us wisdom (James 1.5)
18. He comes near to us when we come near to him (James 4.8)
19. Cooperates with doctors and medicinal treatments to bring healing to the sick (James 5.15)"

To me it’s fascinating that we see almost nothing here about God changing our circumstances. Almost everything in the New Testament (at least 98-99%) of what God does for us is internal, spiritual things. Almost none of it, if any, pertains to our external lives, our circumstances, our money, our possessions, our health, our relationships, or anything else.

This is not to say that he cannot causally interact with us. There is plenty of testimony in Scripture that he can, did, and does. But I believe these are by far the exception, hence the label “miracle.”

And as far as your theories about the afterlife, again we must pass to the words of Jesus. (Everything but everything hangs on this guy.) He told us some things about the afterlife that are categorically opposed to your theories. As I’ve said before, the guy who rose out of his own coffin gets my vote. Here are my thoughts about the afterlife, based on my reading of Scripture, and I’d be curious to hear your response to them.

Heaven and hell both have to exist, to be consistent with the teachings of Jesus on both subjects. The whole purpose of turning from sins and denying self is to be reunited with the God we were stolen away from. But since God is so oblique and cryptic in this life, and I can't tell where he is and where he isn't, and his interactions with me are mostly internal, then this life can't possibly be the famous reunion and fellowship that the Bible crows about. If this is it, then I've been lied to and cheated. I mean, my life still has purpose and significance, and even if there were no heaven it would be worth it to turn my life over to him for His will and His Kingdom, but this surely ain't the fellowship of my wildest imaginations. Despite the worth of this life to me, this can't possibly be the big dream. There HAS to be an afterlife where it's REAL, and face-to-face, and the stupid sufferings of this life really DO go away. Otherwise, if life just ends at death, then we've been lied to.

And as far as hell is concerned, there are only a couple of sensible choices: (1) everybody gets to go to heaven no matter what, (2) believers go to heaven and non-believers cease to exist, or (3) heaven for believers and hell for non-believers. As to the first, that doesn't make a shred of sense. If everybody gets to go to heaven no matter what, then there's no sense to civilized behavior. We could all just live for ourselves and for pleasure, destroying whatever lives and whatever else in the process, because nothing matters. We're all going to the big vacation in the sky anyway. It's a nonsense option that only leads to destruction, given all we know for certain about observing human behavior. The second one sure is enticing, because the love of God carries through for his own children, and it makes him far less cruel if the nonbelievers don't just suffer for eternity, if they just get to be annihilated. The problem with it, in my thinking, is that it's ultimately unfair—it's unjust. We both know that some people are terrible people, but they live lives of fame, fortune, power, self-centeredness and the (wicked) pleasures that brings; they abuse people and they feel no remorse. The worst examples are people like Josef Stalin. For a person like this to pass away and just cease to exist, where's the ultimate justice in that? It seems to me that the universe is out of balance if people like that just get to die and that's the end. The flip side of that picture is the people who try to live good lives, who try to be good people, but they don't "know Jesus"—for them it would seem to be more just for them to cease to be rather than endure punishment.

The third choice also has its problems. A hell that endures forever is beyond cruel, especially if, as I illustrated, they were good people. So what actually makes sense to me is C.S. Lewis' picture of hell in "The Great Divorce." Have you read it? It makes sense to me because of my understanding of heaven, so I should talk about that first. The parables Jesus tells in Matthew talk about heaven in the sense that if you are faithful in little here, you'll be given more responsibility there. He talks about giving you charge over X number of cities. Combine that with what we know about Genesis 2, and that Adam and Eve were given responsibility of caring for the sacred space of earth (all the earth). Combine that with the idea in Revelation 21.1-4 that there will be a new earth, and the new Jerusalem will descend to earth, and that is where believers will live, tending to the "temple" which is God himself in his real presence. OK, put all those ideas together, and what we have is that heaven will be a revised form of life like we have now, sort of like what the Garden of Eden was. We will spend eternity on this planet, doing work that we were made to do and find delight in. Take that, and multiply it, because your senses will be enhanced, suffering will be taken away, and every work you do will bring joy and fulfillment. And we will be caring for sacred space and we will KNOW it, and it will be an immense privilege, and the earth will cooperate with us in our work. It's like the ultimate dream of humans come true: we don't have to die. Nobody wants to die; they just want the pain and the meaninglessness to stop. And we also want direct contact with God. And in heaven, it will be exactly like that. I believe that is a very scriptural picture, and it's very easy to conceive of degrees of "reward" in a heaven like this. To me it's both scriptural and sensible.

But since THAT is a scriptural picture, to be consistent we can't have hell as a place of torture and torment in fire, with people screaming. First of all, it doesn't square with picture #1 of heaven, and, though it seems to go along with the Bible's teachings about hell, there is a disconnect here that alerts me that we are not reading scripture right. Secondly, as we've established, it's not just; it's not fair. Hell has to be the counterpart of heaven, which means it's like Lewis' vision of dull, dreary meaninglessness, day in and out, filled with aches and pains and stupidity, and no God. Just drudgery in a life that goes nowhere. It's also easy to conceive of degrees of punishment in a place like this, consistent with the teachings of Scripture. The "fire" hell doesn't have degrees of punishment—we've all had a burn severe enough to let us know that a burn is a burn is a burn. Am I making sense?

[jimwalton]

The evidence is strong in Scripture that God does causally interact with us as humans, but we certainly have to define what we mean by that. First of all, as I sent to you yesterday, I believe, as you have mentioned, that in one sense God hardly ever intervenes in our circumstances, but allows cause-and-effect to take their normal course. Most of what prayer is all about is inner, spiritual things, as I wrote in that listing. But the Bible does outline for us 3 other possibilities as far as God’s intervention/causal interaction.

1. In very natural ways that don’t interfere with the laws of physics one iota. Examples of this would be lightning on top of Mount Sinai, an earthquake that swallowed up Korah and his fellow rebels, and the flurry of quail into the Israelite camp. In cases like this, it’s impossible even to tell God had anything to do with it unless you interpret it that way by faith, or a bona fide prophet of the Lord tells you that that’s what was going on. It’s very possible that 98% of God’s activity falls into this category.

2. In ways that intervene with the laws of physics and biology but not in disruptive ways to the normal cause-and-effect chain in play on the planet. Examples of this would be healing of lameness, healing of the man’s chopped off ear in the Garden of Gethsemane (if the ear had been sutured on, it may have healed on its own in the process of several weeks. Jesus did it on fast-forward in half a second), turning water to wine (wine always comes from water, but it usually takes months, through the vine and through the grape. Jesus did it on fast-forward in half a second). It’s possible that maybe 1-2% of God’s activity falls into this category.

3. In ways that are outrageous contradictions to life as we know it. Almost ALL of these fall in the lifetime of Jesus, which you acknowledged was a time of special causal intervention, but we do have a few others in the sun moving backwards, the sun standing still in the sky, and such. Activity like this is almost unheard of, and clearly less than half of 1% of God’s activity.

So saying, God almost never intervenes in the natural cause-and-effect sequence of our lives and on earth. His activity is so well blended with ours, there’s no way to tell where one stops and the others starts, so it’s not such much like a layer cake as it is chocolate milk. From anyone’s perspective, it looks like we’re doing it all, and one can’t see God in things at all. But the Bible tells us different, so we must understand that God has a strong, hidden role in things, but it’s almost always in a way that falls into category #1, making it very difficult to see and even harder to interpret. That’s where we need Scripture to help us, and eyes of faith to try to discern where God is and what he is doing.

[Steve]

I see what you're saying, and I think that God does interact with our soul, therefore prayer does have an effect, in fact it is highly significant. I'm still having trouble though with the idea that God would disturb the natural causal chain.

[jimwalton]

My understanding is that the times when God disturbs the natural causal chain are very few and far between, but the life of Jesus verifies that it's possible for God to disturb the causal chain without making a mess of nature and natural life. With that evidence, extrapolated, we must be open to the possibility of other "disturbances". The Bible gives evidence of a few such disturbances.

Others of God's disturbances in the natural causal chain, however, may be a series of disturbances, all so subtle as to be indiscernable by human reasoning or measures. For instance, when Jesus told the fishermen to throw their nets on the other side and they dragged in a netful, we may assume a string of subtle interferences that brought a group of fish together and brought it to that place at that time. We are left to reason that God's masterful sovereignty can construe cause-and-effect events in various ways all along the scale of observability and disruption.

Having said that, PLEASE NEVER assume that I am saying that God controls everything. I don't believe that, and I'm confident the Bible doesn't teach that. As a matter of fact, I've come to despise the Christian cliche of "God is in control." Nor am I saying that God regularly disturbs the causal chain in subtle ways. If he does, it's impossible to know, but I don't believe that he does. All I'm contending is that he CAN and has a habit of certain kinds of interference.