This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis: You Can Go Your Own Way . . .

February 15, 2005

You Can Go Your Own Way . . .

. . . or why getting what you want is its own judgment.

My reading this morning was, in part, from Romans 1 and 2. This passage caught my attention and reflection.

᾿Αποκαλύπτεται γὰρ ὀργὴ Θεοῦ ἀπ᾿ οὐρανοῦ ἐπὶ πᾶσαν ἀσέβειαν καὶ ἀδικίαν ἀνθρώπων τῶν τὴν ἀλήθειαν ἐν ἀδικίᾳ κατεχόντων, διότι τὸ γνωστὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ φανερόν ἐστιν ἐν αὐτοῖς· ὁ γὰρ Θεὸς αὐτοῖς ἐφανέρωσεν. τὰ γὰρ ἀόρατα αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ κτίσεως κόσμου τοῖς ποιήμασιν νοούμενα καθορᾶται, ἥ τε ἀΐδιος αὐτοῦ δύναμις καὶ θειότης, εἰς τὸ εἶναι αὐτοὺς ἀναπολογήτους, διότι γνόντες τὸν Θεὸν οὐχ ὡς Θεὸν ἐδόξασαν ἢ εὐχαρίστησαν, ἀλλ᾿ ἐματαιώθησαν ἐν τοῖς διαλογισμοῖς αὐτῶν, καὶ ἐσκοτίσθη ἡ ἀσύνετος αὐτῶν καρδία· φάσκοντες εἶναι σοφοὶ ἐμωράνθησαν, καὶ ἤλλαξαν τὴν δόξαν τοῦ ἀφθάρτου Θεοῦ ἐν ὁμοιώματι εἰκόνος φθαρτοῦ ἀνθρώπου καὶ πετεινῶν καὶ τετραπόδων καὶ ἑρπετῶν. Διὸ καὶ παρέδωκεν αὐτοὺς ὁ Θεὸς ἐν ταῖς ἐπιθυμίαις τῶν καρδιῶν αὐτῶν εἰς ἀκαθαρσίαν τοῦ ἀτιμάζεσθαι τὰ σώματα αὐτῶν ἐν αὐτοῖς, οἵτινες μετήλλαξαν τὴν ἀλήθειαν τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐν τῷ ψεύδει, καὶ ἐσεβάσθησαν καὶ ἐλάτρευσαν τῇ κτίσει παρὰ τὸν κτίσαντα, ὅς ἐστιν εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας·
For the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven upon all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold back the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known of God is manifest in them; for God manifested it to them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived by the things which are made, both His eternal power and divinity, so that they are without excuse, because, having known God, they glorified Him not as God, nor were thankful, but were brought to nought in their reasonings, and their heart, void of understanding was darkened; asserting to be wise, they became foolish, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into a likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and of quadrupeds, and of creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness in the desires of their hearts, that their bodies be dishonored among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and reverenced and worshipped the creature beyond Him Who created, Who is blessed to the ages. Amen. (Romans 1:18-25), Orthodox New Testament*

The word used in verse 24 above and in v. 26 ("For this reason God gave them up to passions of dishonor.") and 28 ("And even as they did not approve to have God in full knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do things which are not fitting"), is παρέδωκεν (aorist active indicative third person plural), from παραδίδωμι, I give up or hand over. (A related noun, παράδοσις, is the word "tradition.")

Three times the text indicates that God "gave them up" to their own desires, passions and their own minds. A look at the text in question clearly reveals that this is the wrath of God being visited upon them. Not disordered lives and bodily penalties (though the text acknowledges these consequences in addition), but rather God's judgment on them is to give them what they want. They know better, for God's power and divinity is evident to them from the created order. But instead, they "hold back this truth," they "exchanged the truth of God for a lie," and they are ungrateful.

God "is long-suffering toward us, not willing to have any perish, but to have all come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9), and his patience with us is great. Furthermore, he will not forcibly remove a person's free will. And so there comes a time when, though he is the Father who has gone out to look for his prodigal children, he realizes that for this particular prodigal child, a line has been crossed, free will has been given full rein. The prodigal has chosen to never return; his decision is set. God's judgment then is not a punishment so much as it is a ratification of a stubborn desire on our part to reject the manifest evidence of God's eternal power, divinity and the "law written in [our] hearts" (Romans 2:15). He says to us, in effect, "You can go your own way." And we then are "brought to nought in [our] reasonings, and [our] heart, void of understanding [is] darkened; asserting to be wise, [we] became foolish."

It is not hard to see the relevance of this text. Ours is a society that has stubbornly rejected the manifest truth about God, let alone his revelation in Jesus Christ. We have, I think it fair to say, been given up to our desires. As such we are darkened in our understanding, our reasonings have been nullified, we are fools.

We claim that an unborn child is not human and can therefore with impunity be suffocated, burned, dismembered and killed on demand. We claim, by our actions, that the point of human existence is sexual pleasure; we think by it to gain intimacy, connection, union. So we use sexual pleasure pervasively. In a damnable and damning "man's paradise," women and children are taught to present themselves sexually, in their dress, in their own aggressive initiation of sex. We use sexual pleasure to sell nearly all our products. And yet we dare to be troubled that our youngest children are sexualized, turned into objects, abused, and their innocence and souls ripped out of them. We have not progressed in our treatment of children from the ancient world: they are still our slaves and chattel, mere economic products that are meant to please us, renters whom we are desparate to turn into our consumerist clones as soon as we can. Our minds are darkened, void of understanding. We proclaim freedom, but all our precious reasoning is undone as we chain ourselves and our disciples to a bondage of unimaginable proportions.

Is God going to sweep away our nation with plagues and locusts? Some think so. But I rather suppose we are already trampling the grapes of wrath ourselves. What else but the punishment of God--that is to say, the delivering of us up to our own chosen desires, passions and darkened thoughts--could explain our psychoses and hysteria? We trample people to death at Christmas time to buy on sale the newest video recorder. We have lost the capacity for rational moral judgment, thinking it a matter of fundamental human rights to be able to spend billions of dollars on the most violent and virulent of pornographic media and yet object when our government sets aside some tens of millions of dollars to more fully fund sex education materials that stress the benefits of sexual abstinence.

Welcome to depravity of mind. Welcome to your own little preview of hell.

Posted by Clifton at February 15, 2005 10:52 AM | TrackBack

Comments

I think you need to keep reading. There are "fruits" apparent for the depraved - perhaps a test to see if they are indeed depraved.....Paul is going somewhere with all this........eventually we learn we all sin and fall short..........and that none of us have been given the "judge" role, that's for someone else.

Posted by: David at February 16, 2005 09:47 AM

Father David:

Yes, the discussion about judging others clearly follows in chapter 2, which then leads to the declaration that we have all sinned in chapter 3.

But I'm afraid I'm not following you. It seems you think my reading flawed in some way, but I'm not sure what flaw(s) you are indicating. Could you clarify for me?

Posted by: Clifton D. Healy at February 16, 2005 09:59 AM

Clifton, my friend,
I know I am way under qualified to debate this at length...but to me I agree with much of what you say. Where I would disagree, based on other things you have written about, is that, for instance, all same sex relationships fall into this depraved category - again looking at what Paul says happens to those who God allows to live in their depravity. The fruits I spoke of don't show up for many gay / lesbian couples in long term committed relationships. So does that mean for those whose nature may be that way (and I understand the jury is out on that, but as a possibility for this argument), that Paul was not refering to them? If they are not "filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness" etc, becoming "God-haters...ruthless...heartless", does that mean then that they DO "acknowledge God"? It seems to me that Paul makes a specific connection between those whom God allowed their depravity and some pretty horrible behaviours once that occurs.

Posted by: David at February 16, 2005 10:59 AM

Father David:

My point, which perhaps wasn't expressed so clearly, is that the looking for visible consequences of the disordered mind is a largely unhelpful program. The point is not that depravity of mind always and formulaicly results in x, y, z behaviors and consequences, but rather that the punishment itself is depravity of mind.

I did not say it explicitly, but for the record, I do not think, as some wrong-thinking Christians opined in the 80s, that AIDS is "God's punishment" on gays. If my reading of Romans 1 presented here is true and accurate, such a notion is opposed to what Paul is saying.

And although chapter 2 takes up the Jewish judgmentalism of Gentiles, I think it fully in line with Paul's intent to say that the looking for visible signs of God's judgment is the sort of spirit Paul was criticizing in chapter 2. The point is, indeed, that all of us have sinned.

Furthermore, just as it is wrongheaded to look for visible signs of God's judgment, I think it also mistaken to note exactly who it is or when God has given up to their own depravity of mind. We do well to warn of hell, but do even better to work like the dickens to see that every person is given every opportunity to hear the Gospel and to repent. Our very own "having been given up to a depraved mind" may well be found in our judgment of others to have been so given up.

Furthermore, it seems clear to me that implicit in Paul's account here in chapter 1 is a sort of progressive depravity. It's not as though yesterday they still had the ability, through God's prevenient grace, to discern truth from error, but today God has given them up. Rather, I think it the case that we may say, theoretical person Smith today is heading away from the mind of Christ. Smith may well still be able to discern truth from error, but unless Smith repents of his departure from God's truth, Smith will over time become increasingly incapable of adequately and accurately discerning truth from error.

Posted by: Clifton D. Healy at February 16, 2005 11:48 AM