Questions for Which I Must Find, or at least Earnestly Seek, Answers Before I Leave Seminary

What follows is a personal list of theological questions I feel responsible to pursue answers for through my studies at seminary. Seminary provides a unique opportunity and precious resources to pursue these questions which I should not waste. I started the list toward the end of last semester and plan to continue to maintain it until all the questions have been laid to rest.

I make this list public with some trepidation. In my earlier life, difficult questions such as these haunted my thoughts and dragged me into doubt and depression, but in recent years I've learned to approach even "scary" theological questions with optimism and joy. Others may find these questions distressing; I do not want to lead anyone to despair through them, so please, enter into the discourse rather than bottling up fear and doubt. Some may say that no true Christian could ask these kinds of questions. To that I can only say: Hogwash.

For many of these questions, I already "know" the answer or part of it. That is, I either have an intuition as to what the answer may be, or I know the official "party line" answer. In these cases, the point in asking the question is to develop a solid, complete, reasoned response rather than a flimsy or rote one. The abundance and severity of these questions should not be taken as a measure of faithlessness on my part. I have no doubt in the goodness, love, holiness, and power of God. I ask these questions in a spirit of humility and submission, recognizing that some or all of them may not be answerable by human investigation and that God may not be willing to reveal an answer. When I discover in the course of pursuing a question that no answer can be found, I accept that result with sincere happiness. I've found in the past that even when you discover a question is unanswerable, the "non-answer" itself is usually illuminating and satisfying—as we can observe in the case of Job.

Here is the current list of questions which I feel responsible to seek good answers for as part of my seminary education. I'll continue to update it as answers are found and new questions arise.

• Has the law been abolished or fulfilled (see Matt 5:17, Eph 2:15)? In either case, why should we feel free to eat pork, for instance, and yet still be bound not to drink blood (Acts 15:20)? Isn't there still a kind of "law" or code of conduct in force even for those under Christ? And if not, how should we view Christian morality?

Notes: Paul discusses these issues thoroughly in Romans, Galatians, and elsewhere. Hebrews also deals with them extensively. I've read these books more than once but still don't have a true understanding of the answers.

• What in the world was the point of all that Mosaic Law stuff anyway? The OT goes to great lengths to spell out and celebratethe law, including animal sacrifices and so forth, only to say it's all worthless in the end (Ps 40:6, Hos 6:6, Heb 10). Why go to such lengths over rules that were ultimately abolished? How were the Israelites supposed to understand that the law was really just a "shadow" and that faith was the true way to salvation?

Notes: I understand the dispensational response to this question, that God's institution of the law was a temporary arrangement designed to demonstrate to all mankind that we can never obey God by our own power, even with clear instructions. Paul also says that part of the purpose of the law was to make sure people knew what sin is and experienced the fact that law gives power to sin rather than making it more avoidable, though I don't fully understand his thinking. Also, the sacrifices were symbolic of Christ's ultimate sacrifice, and prepared people to understand what he was going to do—though I can't say I really understand why sacrifice atones for sin, only that it does. Despite these answers, I imagine if I told an Israelite of Joshua's time (for instance) that the Mosaic law would be done away with eventually and would no longer be considered authoritative, he would laugh at me, then stone me. I'd like to have an answer that would make him think twice about doing that, if possible.

• Why do the NT Authors make crazy with OT quotations, modifying them, taking them out of context, stretching their apparent original meaning, etc.? For example, Jesus quotes Isa 6:9-10 in Matt 13:13-15. In the Isaiah passage (NIV), the (spiritual) deafness and blindness of the people is in the imperative (though the NIV text note points out that in the LXX the quote is as Jesus has it). In Jesus' quote the people's situation is described rather than ordained. Has Jesus modified the text, or used an alternative translation as if it were Scriptural? Is it OK for us to do the same?

Notes: Here's a good resource toward this problem: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Pines/7224/Rick/Septuagint/spindex.htm. Offhand, it looks like most of the "making crazy" is actually very subtle, not changing the meaning at all. In many cases, (as in the Matt 13:13-15 case) the difference arises based on whether the NT author used the Masoretic text or the LXX. In some cases, though, the NT authors did paraphrase and mix together their OT quotes to a degree that we would no longer accept. Perhaps we should? Do we learn from their usage that the force of the message is more important than perfect recollection of the text?

• How is it just to torture people in hell for eternity? I can perhaps imagine someone who is really nasty deserving eternal torture—although the older I get, the harder it is for me to feel it—but what about all the "normal" people out there? I know everybody sins, but eternal torture? I don't "feel" the justice of this. It feels unjust to me.

Notes: I recognize, prayerfully, that the real issue here and in the following question is with my own awareness of God's holiness. I know intellectually that God is totally holy and that my own sense of goodness and justice is compromised and degraded. Therefore I ask God to answer this question suspecting that the answer will come in a greater inner awareness of his holiness.

• Related to the question on hell: How is it just for God to have ordered the genocide of the Canaanite nations, including men, women, the aged, and children—"anything that has breath"?
• Christians say that even a little sin means eternal separation from God; we say that every human is born into sin, stained with sin from birth; and yet many of us (Anabaptists, anyway) also believe that children up to some age, level of conscience, or severity of sin are allowed into heaven. How do we reconcile these beliefs? Incidentally, those who practice infant baptism can respond to this question with, "Ah-ha! This is why you need to baptize your babies to ensure they don't go to hell." But now you've got a belief system that says God sends unbaptized babies to hell! I can't imagine believing that.
• Did animals die before Adam sinned? Unless you believe in a literal 7-day creation, you'll have a hard time saying that animals lived forever prior to the Fall. Were there carnivorous animals before Adam sinned? If so, nature was "red in tooth and claw" when the world was still perfect—just as God had ordained it. Predation involves what certainly looks like horror and suffering on the part of prey. We certainly see pain here, and death. How can this be consistent with the idyllic pre-Fall creation we infer from Genesis, or with God's goodness as expressed through creation?

Notes: Interesting discussion on this question at http://www.christian-thinktank.com/predator.html.

• Would hurricanes, earthquakes, and other deadly natural disasters have occurred had the Fall not occurred? If so, can we imagine a "perfect," Garden of Eden-style creation coexisting with such calamities? If not, then how is it that man's sin caused the natural world to deteriorate in this way? We may ask the same question regarding nasty creatures like viruses and poisonous bugs. How did human sin—a relatively abstract thing—cause the world to become such a nasty place on such a grand scale?
• What is Dispensationalism, and why does DTS invest so much of its identity in it? Can a belief arising this late in church history, dealing with concepts so removed from daily Christian living, really be worth any amount of controversy? Why hang your hat on this peg rather than a more fundamental or useful one?

..posted at 10:52 AM