Monday, December 16, 2019

Wm. Curtis Holtzen on God Exercising Divine Faith and Doubt


In his book defending “relational theology,” Wm. Curtis Holtzen wrote the following about determinism and compatibilism:

Most theological determinists emphasise that in the human-divine “relationship” God is the determining power but also that humans are free to act upon their desires. Such theologians, called “soft-determinists” or “compatibilists,” maintain that determinism and human freedom are logically compatible . . . According to theological determinists, God causes everything that takes place for God’s own purposes; nothing, including our free actions, happens outside the will of God. The limits of freedom are linked to one’s desires for one is free if one can do what is desired, but no one is free to choose his or her desires. If either theological determinism or compatibilism is true, then there is no need for divine faith. (Wm. Curtis Holtzen, The God Who Trusts: A Relational Theology of Divine Faith, Hope, and Love [Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP, 2019], 11-12, emphasis in bold added)

In his book, Holtzen provides many instances of God divine faith and even expressing divine doubt about people and groups. As one example, he wrote the following about Israel and God during the time of the prophet Jeremiah:

Jeremiah. The prophet Jeremiah also uses imagery of marriage, and even divorce, in communicating divine doubt regarding Judah. The question is asked, “How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me, and have sworn by those who are no gods . . . Shall I not punish for these things?” (Jer 5:7a, 9a; see also Jer 9:9). God had once believed Judah would return after following other gods: “And I thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me’; but she did not return” (Jer 3:7). Again,

And I thought you would call me, My Father,
and would not turn from following me.
Instead, as a faithless wife leaves her husband,
so you have been faithless to me, O house of Israel (Jer 3:19b-20)

These passages show a God who “suffers the effects of the broken relationship at multiple levels of intimacy” (Fretheim, The Suffering of God, 116). Can we expect anything less than God having reservations, concerns, and doubts about continuing the relationship?

While such statements and questions reveal God’s hurt, frustration, and other doubt, they do not constitute God’s being unfaithful. In the end, God never forsakes those who have betrayed God but is ever hopeful of their return. As Fretheim states, while passages such as these indicate that, “God is indeed a vulnerable God, touched and affected in the deepest possible way by what people have done to the relationship, God’s grief does not entail being emotionally overwhelmed or embittered by the barrage of rejection” (Fretheim, The Suffering of God, 111). It could also be said that God is not overwhelmed by doubt and questions. This is the faith God made real—God overcomes doubt that comes with being in relationship with fallible beings. God remains faithful—trustworthy and trusting. Summing up Jewish history, Gerald Shapiro says, “Jews doubt God, and God doubts the Jews—it’s been part of our relationship since the golden calf” (Gerald Shapiro, Bad Jews and Other Stories [Cambridge: Zoland Books, 1999], 185). While Shapiro is being a bit tongue in cheek, he nonetheless has captured the logical effects when humans mistrust: divine doubt. (Ibid., 124-25)

This is all the more significant as Calvinists tend to abuse some of the metaphors used in Jeremiah, such as God being portrayed as a potter, notwithstanding texts such as Jer 18:7-10 which explicitly teach the contingent nature of prophecies and promises which should caution against those who would try to make a systematic theology out of such a metaphor! For a fuller discussion, see: