20-20 Vision

At the Alpha conference I went to a few weeks ago I had a very interesting conversation with a colleague on the more liberal end of our denominational spectrum. It was particularly interesting in that the Alpha program is for evangelism, and I was surprised to see someone on the other end interested enough in spreading the Gospel to spend two solid days on the subject. As it turned out he was doing research for a paper, sort of like an anthropologist observing the natives... It was also interesting because we actually talked about the issues which divide our church, at least sort of, and the most interesting exchange of all ended when he said “How can we know the mind of God?” Expecting me to agree, of course, that we indeed cannot know the mind of God.

And that is the big difference between us. I believe that we can know the mind of God - at least enough of it to make the decisions which we are called on to make in the world with a pretty solid degree of confidence. "What we have received is ... the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us." [2 Cor 2:12] But there’s a cost. Paul says in the twelfth chapter of his letter to the Romans, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God-- what is good and acceptable and perfect.” [Rom 12:2] So in order to know the mind of God, as you’ve just heard, we have to stop being “conformed to the world,” and we have to “be transformed by the renewing of our minds.” And that isn’t easy.

In last week’s prayer of confession, there were two lines which capture a classic human tendency: “We have been afraid to ask you for sight, in case we should see ourselves too well.” and “We have not even wanted to know your will, let alone do it.”

This is a tendency that exists in us all, because, as the saying goes “Ignorance is bliss.” It’s sort of like the happy oblivion we were all in before 9/11. We weren’t in any more danger on 9/12 than we were on 9/10, but we sure felt a whole lot more insecure on the 12th, and so our priorities shifted accordingly. But in fact the full saying is conditional: “Where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise.” So you see it’s only foolish to try to become informed when there’s nothing you can do to improve your circumstances. And of course there is, but there’s that cost we talked about.

There are three things that we need to know the mind of God: we need Scripture, we need the Holy Spirit, and we need the desire. We have the first two, Scripture and the Holy Spirit, whether we choose to take advantage of them or not. What’s really lacking in most cases is the last - the desire. We really have to want to know God’s take on things. And that, I think, is the real problem with my colleague at the conference, and many of the others who agree with him. Because, you see, as long as we can claim it’s not possible to know what God wants, we’re free to do what seems right in our own eyes. We can say, as many of us do, “If God is just, then God’s idea of justice must be the same as my idea of justice.” Or we can say, and many of us do, God is loving, therefore he should express his love in the way I would if I were God.”

And we see this in the smorgasbord approach to religion which is the fashion in this new century: many people pick one item from this faith tradition, and then choose another one from that, and so construct a spiritual framework which is comfortable and satisfying for them, which answers their questions and soothes their uncertainty without challenging them in any meaningful way. Paul foresaw that trend in his second letter to Timothy: “The time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths. [2 Tim 4:3-4]

If it’s true that we cannot know the mind of God, we’re free to do this. If we cannot know the mind of God, we have no response to make to the subjectivism and relativism which permeate our culture and threaten to destroy churches and schools and denominations and movements. Dr. John Piper, a brilliant scholar and preacher from my home town of Minneapolis, defines relativism as “the assumption that there is no such thing as absolutes. What is true or right or good or beautiful for you may not be for me. It’s all relative,” and subjectivism as “the assumption that I, the subject, have the right to determine what is good and bad, right and wrong, true and false, beautiful and ugly for me without submitting my judgment to any objective reality or any objective authority outside myself.”