Lent 2.

Here's the link for the week: http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=25

I'm sorry to have rambled on. None of this is a finished thought. I was just taking a stab at it. Be merciful, as your Father in heaven is merciful...

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I’ve got St. Augustine on the brain, and you’re going to have to forgive me for that. As much as I love the Saint, and what he had to say, when it comes to his interpretation of the lectionary passages for the week he’s a hard pill to swallow. Unless you’re a Calvinist. If you’re a Calvinist than you’re in luck.

Now, why am I frontloading an apology for this entry? Because I’m going to talk about predestination. I kind of have to. Having sat with Augustine’s Ad Simplicianum for the last three weeks and then seeing this week’s lectionary won’t let me get around it, and it’s not something that can be gotten around. This has been rearing its ugly head for centuries and its not going to stop now. Case in point; The fact that Rob Bell has been in the news thanks to the “neo-Calvinists” (who really are just Calvinists) clamoring over his “universalism” in his recently released book. I guess now is the right time to talk about it. I’ll try to tread lightly.

The thing that I really want to highlight in all of this is the question of agency, and who has it. I really think that that’s at the heart of the predestination question. Who is responsible for our salvation, God or Us? If it’s a blending of both than who does how much? The historical answers range all over the spectrum, and rightfully so. It’s a really big question. But let’s look at the lectionary and see how we can take it.

The narrative of the call of Abram is a great place to explore questions of Agency. We’ll let Paul throw a wrench in the works later, but for now lets keep it pretty clear. God calls Abram out of “your country, and your kindred, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” There’s and imperative at the beginning of that quote that didn’t flow with the way I wanted to phrase that sentence but it is very important to note. God told Abram to “Go.” Abram then could have said “No.” Or could he have? Did Abram make a choice to leave? Scripture doesn’t say. Linguistically we know that any call has a response, and that the imperative is a mood that is not indicative, that is to say not indicating events that have happened, are happening, or will happen, with a fair degree of certainty on the part of the speaker. The imperative is a kind of strengthened subjunctive. The action you’re ordering the object of your speech to do might not happen. You’re just saying it with a lot of gravitas and the expectation that it will get done. The linguistic structure typically acts like this.

Go! -> Object of command deliberates -> Object of command acts, becoming subject of commanded action, or subject of disobedient action.

The deliberation is crucial here. Whether or not it actually happens, whether God has done all the deliberating for you or not doesn’t really matter. It’s not grammatically significant, and therefore I’m going to say that it isn’t experientially significant.

“Abram went as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him.” If we are interpreting this as an act in history, then we can assume that Abram decided to go. Abram had agency. I would like for the discussion to end here. Abram has agency, ergo we do too. Happy day.

But the call, there is still the issue of the call. Abram only has Agency in the story insomuch as he is responding to the call. God says, “Go.” Without that we just have a man in Sumeria living out his life in his Father’s household. Thanks be to God, there was a call, and the story goes on.

Before we get to the Gospel I want to take a quick look at St. Augustine’s treatment of John 3:5 and see what it brings to the table.

“And the Lord himself says: “Except a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (John 3:5). There are therefore inchoate beginnings of faith, which resemble conception. It is not enough to be conceived. A man must also be born if he is to attain to eternal life. None of these beginnings is without the grace of God’s mercy. And good works, if there are any, follow and do not precede that grace, as has been said.” –Ad Simplicianum http://www.romancatholicism.org/jansenism/augustine-simplician.htm

Oh Lord. Here comes the born-againner talk. Nope. Not going to do it. Not only was Jesus talking to Nicodemus in the singular here, but the rhetoric of “being born again” has been so co-opted that I’m not even going to try to touch it on those terms. Not going to do it. All of you who were worried can breathe a sigh of relief.

What I do want to look at here is where the agency is in this. There are a few things in our lives that we have little to no say in. Being born is one of them. It happens to us. It’s a choice made for us. That’s why so many are right in saying that “I didn’t ask for this.” At the heart of it we didn’t. But when it comes to re-birth, perhaps there is a bit more agency there. John Rist, and impeccable Augustine Scholar, points out that Augustine has defined faith as “thinking with assent.” Assent implies agency, and therefore we can read into Augustine’s assessment of the Gospel that there is a response that we take part of. It is our response to Assent to the command that Jesus gives to Nicodemus. “You must be born from above.” The call’s there.

I still don’t know what to think of the entire scope of the Gospel reading for the week. I know that I stand squarely on the side of our place in reaction to the call. Therefore I don’t buy predestination. We have agency. If its an illusion, its immaterial. Everything about our experience would say that we have a will to respond to the various calls around us.

I would like to close with a brief thought. I know I’ve rambled, and I apologize for that. I’m trying to work all this out just as I’m typing it. Its been a busy week. Forgive me.

There’s a simile that Jesus uses in talking to Nicodemus who, as a Pharisee, I’m certain would be familiar with it. In John 3:14 the Gospel writer refers to Numbers 21:9, or the story of the poisonous snakes in the wilderness. The Israelites were having a problem with snakes in the desert, so God told Moses to place a serpent made of bronze on a tall pole in the center of the camp, and all who looked at it were healed from the snake venom. The healing was broadcast. Open to all in the camp.

So was the Son of Man lifted up, as a broadcast, as a beacon for the whole world. I think its safe to say that the call is there, and that we can respond to it.

TL;DR. We have agency. God makes the call.