Older, Wider, Wiser…

 

For as long as I can remember there have been parts of my belief system (which is the traditional evangelical one) over which I have intellectually and perhaps morally struggled.  I do not want to overstate the near lifelong hesitancy nor suggest this has been a daily struggle for me.  Far from it.  For most of the time, my doubts have been buried deeply enough within me not to trouble my daily pursuit of faith.  Only occasionally have they risen to the surface.

And at those times when I have tentatively raised these doubts with others I have received the standard answers that have reassured me enough for me to bury the doubt again – but never eliminate it.  The sun rose next morning as usual and I continued on my way.  I have recognised that the issue has been avoided, rather that dealt with, but have never known what else to do or where else to go.

It hasn't just been one doubt that has plagued me – there have been several.  And they haven't all always been there either.  They have been added to as I journeyed and particularly over the last five years I think.

For instance for years I have wondered about the trinity – it has such shallow (overt anyway) biblical support.  But I wonder why it is apparently so important a doctrine.  Why does it matter in the way that it seems to?  Perhaps it is that the underlying theology needs it as part of its system.  However I am relaxed about that – I can take it or leave it.

My main issue at present is one that has been troubling me for the last six months or so – the unconditional love of God.  I have learned (from experience mostly) that this is true but its implications are so far reaching.  Earlier I was questioning the need of a hell in the face of unconditional love.  But having, to some limited extent, satisfied my questions by temporarily adopting the ‘conditional mortality' position, it has to go a step further.

If God loves unconditionally, then why do we need a salvation programme at all?  Shouldn't it superfluous?  Why does a loving God demand the sacrificial death of another before being able to forgive creation?  Is God's love for me dependant, firstly upon the (excruciatingly ugly) death of another and then secondly upon my accepting that sacrificial death as a substitute for my sin?  That doesn't sound unconditional to me.

Am I ‘saved' by grace or saved by adopting a believing position about that grace?  If I have to do something (i.e. believe) before I receive grace, then it is no longer grace, is it?  Grace is supposed to be, by definition, unconditional.

I'm not looking for answers because I have had a lifetime of those.  I am just happily working my way through the questions.

 

However, as always, I reserve the right to change my mind by tomorrow