Romans 9 and the responsibility for sin
March 9, 2016 2:53 AM Subscribe
In the recent book by Pope Francis, The Name of God is Mercy, I stumbled at the following in chapter VI: "None of us should speak of injustice without thinking of all the injustice we have committed before God. We must never forget our origins, the mud of which we were made." If God made us out of mud (i.e. something base and, literally, dirty), why is it the Christian view that God is upset when we act according to our base and dirty nature, and that we must seek forgiveness for our actions and our nature?
(I'm aware that my question has been asked, and answered, in Romans 9, but I always found the answer there unsatisfying:
"God not only shows mercy as he chooses, but also makes men stubborn as he chooses. You will say, 'Then why does God blame a man? For who can resist his will?' Who are you, sir, to answer God back? Can the pot speak to the potter and say, 'Why did you make me like this?'? Surely the potter can do what he likes with the clay."
This response seems like a bit of a dodge. In the Christian worldview, the stakes are higher for a sinful human than for a pot; but Paul answers as if this were not the case.)
(I'm aware that my question has been asked, and answered, in Romans 9, but I always found the answer there unsatisfying:
"God not only shows mercy as he chooses, but also makes men stubborn as he chooses. You will say, 'Then why does God blame a man? For who can resist his will?' Who are you, sir, to answer God back? Can the pot speak to the potter and say, 'Why did you make me like this?'? Surely the potter can do what he likes with the clay."
This response seems like a bit of a dodge. In the Christian worldview, the stakes are higher for a sinful human than for a pot; but Paul answers as if this were not the case.)
Not a theologian here, but my interpretation of 'We must never forget our origins, the mid of which we were made' is more pointing out that we should be humble, than that we are 'base and dirty'.
posted by Dorothea_in_Rome at 4:15 AM on March 9, 2016
posted by Dorothea_in_Rome at 4:15 AM on March 9, 2016
But Christian orthodoxy holds that we are not base and dirty by nature (i.e. by the original act of creation), we become so through the original sin of Adam and our own inclination to sin.
But isn't the point raised by the OP's question, in relation to Romans 9, that our inclination to sin is a result of the way that we are formed by God? The answer in Romans 9 is arguably pretty unsatisfactory, saying essentially "you don't have a right to question the way that you are formed" and employing an analogy that makes little sense to me (it's not that pots don't have a right to question potters, it's that they are..well..pots, without any mental capacity at all).
The point that we are not inherently sinful as a result of our pre-divine origin seems to call for more scrutiny on the role of the creator in creating beings that are inclined to sin. There are, of course, a range of theological responses to such scrutiny.
posted by howfar at 4:48 AM on March 9, 2016
But isn't the point raised by the OP's question, in relation to Romans 9, that our inclination to sin is a result of the way that we are formed by God? The answer in Romans 9 is arguably pretty unsatisfactory, saying essentially "you don't have a right to question the way that you are formed" and employing an analogy that makes little sense to me (it's not that pots don't have a right to question potters, it's that they are..well..pots, without any mental capacity at all).
The point that we are not inherently sinful as a result of our pre-divine origin seems to call for more scrutiny on the role of the creator in creating beings that are inclined to sin. There are, of course, a range of theological responses to such scrutiny.
posted by howfar at 4:48 AM on March 9, 2016
I think the key point there is that it's human nature to be shits to each other, but we also all of us have the ability to surpass that nature and do good - and this is reminding us that it's a constant, ongoing struggle.
Kind of like keeping a clean house - you will never come to a day when you've cleaned your bathtub for the last time, and then you can sit back all "yay, I never have to do that ever again" and you enjoy a clean bathtub for the rest of your life. No, it's a constant maintenance thing, where if you don't keep cleaning it periodically, it'll revert back to being dirty and gross.
For me, this is the same thing - reminding us that we will never be done striving to overcome the baser bits of human nature. We will slip up, we will never get to a point when we're perfect. The idea isn't that you do some mammoth work and then you're perfect and can just chill, you have to always remember that you're going to have to keep striving to be a good person your whole life.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:56 AM on March 9, 2016 [11 favorites]
Kind of like keeping a clean house - you will never come to a day when you've cleaned your bathtub for the last time, and then you can sit back all "yay, I never have to do that ever again" and you enjoy a clean bathtub for the rest of your life. No, it's a constant maintenance thing, where if you don't keep cleaning it periodically, it'll revert back to being dirty and gross.
For me, this is the same thing - reminding us that we will never be done striving to overcome the baser bits of human nature. We will slip up, we will never get to a point when we're perfect. The idea isn't that you do some mammoth work and then you're perfect and can just chill, you have to always remember that you're going to have to keep striving to be a good person your whole life.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:56 AM on March 9, 2016 [11 favorites]
You're saying that mud is dirty, conflating mud with injustice, but it isn't a direct link. Mud is just mud. It's a metaphor for flesh rather than the spirit. We're incarnate, flesh and physical - something that God experienced as well in Christianity when Jesus was born, a baby that was swaddled and diapered and fed and sneezed and laughed and wept and bled and died. By being made from mud, as incarnate creatures, we struggle with conflicting physical desires and the spiritual path, and that's where we end up committing injustices before God.
A lot of this is understanding what God considers unjust over what we, as ordinary limited humans think is unjust at first is often revealed to be personal limited selfish desires. The truth of what God sees as unjust requires we accept that we are flawed and limited and that our own injustices have a weight that it's up to God to measure, not us. That's very humbling to do and requires accepting that we aren't angels in inconvenient flesh vehicles but truly humans, made from mud.
Mud is not dirty or shameful or sinful. It's the stuff of the world incarnate.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 5:01 AM on March 9, 2016 [4 favorites]
A lot of this is understanding what God considers unjust over what we, as ordinary limited humans think is unjust at first is often revealed to be personal limited selfish desires. The truth of what God sees as unjust requires we accept that we are flawed and limited and that our own injustices have a weight that it's up to God to measure, not us. That's very humbling to do and requires accepting that we aren't angels in inconvenient flesh vehicles but truly humans, made from mud.
Mud is not dirty or shameful or sinful. It's the stuff of the world incarnate.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 5:01 AM on March 9, 2016 [4 favorites]
"If God made us out of mud (i.e. something base and, literally, dirty), "
I'm not sure the id est is correct there. God makes Adam from earth (or clay or mud) in Genesis 2:7, and indeed "Adam" is a pun on "earth" and there's no particular implication of it being base or unclean; man is created to till the earth, which God had just been musing on the fecundity of. I think the implication of "mud" is more one of potentiality that can be formed, as a potter forms a pot or a farmer tills a field or God forms man.
If you want to deal with Francis specifically, I'd read that as "You're mud made in the image and likeness of God, try harder, smart mud!" (Very Bokononist of me.)
If you want to get into the question of how man can be held responsible for sin when God is all-powerful, I think you want Luther; no theologian has been more obsessed with, more anguished about, or written more extensively on the problem. His thinking informs every modern theologian, no matter their faith tradition, because everyone who wants to approach the question has to reckon with Luther's attempts, whether they agree or disagree with his conclusions.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:59 AM on March 9, 2016 [8 favorites]
I'm not sure the id est is correct there. God makes Adam from earth (or clay or mud) in Genesis 2:7, and indeed "Adam" is a pun on "earth" and there's no particular implication of it being base or unclean; man is created to till the earth, which God had just been musing on the fecundity of. I think the implication of "mud" is more one of potentiality that can be formed, as a potter forms a pot or a farmer tills a field or God forms man.
If you want to deal with Francis specifically, I'd read that as "You're mud made in the image and likeness of God, try harder, smart mud!" (Very Bokononist of me.)
If you want to get into the question of how man can be held responsible for sin when God is all-powerful, I think you want Luther; no theologian has been more obsessed with, more anguished about, or written more extensively on the problem. His thinking informs every modern theologian, no matter their faith tradition, because everyone who wants to approach the question has to reckon with Luther's attempts, whether they agree or disagree with his conclusions.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:59 AM on March 9, 2016 [8 favorites]
It might help if you thought more about mud and clay. Both are used in brickmaking and construction. Clay is used to make pots and figures.
There's not a consistent equal sign between soil/mud/clay and "dirty" as you are seeing it.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 6:32 AM on March 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
There's not a consistent equal sign between soil/mud/clay and "dirty" as you are seeing it.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 6:32 AM on March 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
The Bible is actually very pro-mud. Good things come out of mud, humans included. Jesus was a pretty dirty guy, but the Bible has quite positive feelings about him.
The idea behind "I need to remember I am mud" is not that I need to view myself as bad and dirty, but that I need to remember that I am a created being, animated by God's breath, and that my attempts to act in God's place are hubris.
I think the "animated by God's breath" thing is the most important part, actually. According to biblical theology, without the spark of life and soul that God has placed in my body, I'm a pile of meat. Dust to dust. God is the one animating me, he is the source of all life, so keeping that in mind will prevent me from taking too much credit for any of my accomplishments.
One of my former pastors used to use this example a lot: A lot of people like to say that they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, and that their success is due to hard work and moral fiber. 'I built my business all by myself,' these people like to say. But if that same person, with the same bootstraps and moral fiber, had been born on a mountaintop in 13th century Mongolia, that person would probably have found it much more difficult to graduate from an elite US college and raise the funds necessary to open an e-commerce business.
Basically, I am where I am, becoming the person I am becoming, because God animated my dust at a particular moment, in a particular place, where he felt I could do the most good. Remembering my mud-ness is meant to make me feel both special (I have the breath of God inside me, I am precious to him), but also to keep me cognizant of my place in the created order (I am created, not creator, and should shape my worldview accordingly).
posted by a fiendish thingy at 9:46 AM on March 9, 2016 [5 favorites]
The idea behind "I need to remember I am mud" is not that I need to view myself as bad and dirty, but that I need to remember that I am a created being, animated by God's breath, and that my attempts to act in God's place are hubris.
I think the "animated by God's breath" thing is the most important part, actually. According to biblical theology, without the spark of life and soul that God has placed in my body, I'm a pile of meat. Dust to dust. God is the one animating me, he is the source of all life, so keeping that in mind will prevent me from taking too much credit for any of my accomplishments.
One of my former pastors used to use this example a lot: A lot of people like to say that they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, and that their success is due to hard work and moral fiber. 'I built my business all by myself,' these people like to say. But if that same person, with the same bootstraps and moral fiber, had been born on a mountaintop in 13th century Mongolia, that person would probably have found it much more difficult to graduate from an elite US college and raise the funds necessary to open an e-commerce business.
Basically, I am where I am, becoming the person I am becoming, because God animated my dust at a particular moment, in a particular place, where he felt I could do the most good. Remembering my mud-ness is meant to make me feel both special (I have the breath of God inside me, I am precious to him), but also to keep me cognizant of my place in the created order (I am created, not creator, and should shape my worldview accordingly).
posted by a fiendish thingy at 9:46 AM on March 9, 2016 [5 favorites]
I think the "animated by God's breath" thing is the most important part, actually. According to biblical theology, without the spark of life and soul that God has placed in my body, I'm a pile of meat. Dust to dust. God is the one animating me, he is the source of all life, so keeping that in mind will prevent me from taking too much credit for any of my accomplishments.
You've actually reminded me of a "joke" I heard once in passing, which also comments on the whole "Bible relationship to mud" thing. I forget the exact setup, but it was a case in which some guy challenged God to the whole creation thing. We can both make people out of mud, the guy said. And God took him up on it, and did the whole fashioning-a-man-out-of-mud thing and animated the new person, and then sat back and told the guy "your turn." But then when the guy started scooping up handfuls of mud to get to work, God stopped him: "not so fast - make your own mud first and use that."
Mud isn't "dirty" or "bad" as such; after all, God created mud too.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:54 AM on March 9, 2016 [3 favorites]
You've actually reminded me of a "joke" I heard once in passing, which also comments on the whole "Bible relationship to mud" thing. I forget the exact setup, but it was a case in which some guy challenged God to the whole creation thing. We can both make people out of mud, the guy said. And God took him up on it, and did the whole fashioning-a-man-out-of-mud thing and animated the new person, and then sat back and told the guy "your turn." But then when the guy started scooping up handfuls of mud to get to work, God stopped him: "not so fast - make your own mud first and use that."
Mud isn't "dirty" or "bad" as such; after all, God created mud too.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:54 AM on March 9, 2016 [3 favorites]
Have a look also at original sin vs. original guilt. The Reformers (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli et al.) were very concerned with these things. The concern goes back to Augustine, and then to Paul. Look up also supralapsarianism.
posted by persona au gratin at 12:12 AM on March 10, 2016
posted by persona au gratin at 12:12 AM on March 10, 2016
"God not only shows mercy as he chooses, but also makes men stubborn as he chooses. You will say, 'Then why does God blame a man? For who can resist his will?' Who are you, sir, to answer God back? Can the pot speak to the potter and say, 'Why did you make me like this?'? Surely the potter can do what he likes with the clay."
My take on this: God's omnipotence and human responsibility are like two overlapping layers, rather than different parts of the same plane. When it says God "also makes men stubborn as he chooses," the most helpful point I've heard about that is to consider that when it comes to God, temporal causality gets a bit funny. This is because God is somehow external to - and unbound by - time and space, and has perfect information about time and space. So humans act, and have responsibility for their actions. But God is never surprised by those actions; He knew "in advance" (keeping in mind temporal issues) what was going to happen. Does God act to influence his creation? Certainly, at the very least he wrote himself into his own story at one point. But does anything happen that is outside his control? No, because he "knows the end from the beginning" and can see the endpoint of human history before he set it in motion. So (I think) that's the way in which humans have responsibility while God remains omnipotent.
So when God "makes" (keeping in mind temporal/causal issues) men stubborn, those men are still making their own decisions which they're responsible for. But God is ultimately running the show, since he started human history and knows its outcome. In that latter sense God is the author of the stubbornness, without diminishing human responsibility.
Hope that helps :)
posted by iffthen at 1:38 AM on March 10, 2016
My take on this: God's omnipotence and human responsibility are like two overlapping layers, rather than different parts of the same plane. When it says God "also makes men stubborn as he chooses," the most helpful point I've heard about that is to consider that when it comes to God, temporal causality gets a bit funny. This is because God is somehow external to - and unbound by - time and space, and has perfect information about time and space. So humans act, and have responsibility for their actions. But God is never surprised by those actions; He knew "in advance" (keeping in mind temporal issues) what was going to happen. Does God act to influence his creation? Certainly, at the very least he wrote himself into his own story at one point. But does anything happen that is outside his control? No, because he "knows the end from the beginning" and can see the endpoint of human history before he set it in motion. So (I think) that's the way in which humans have responsibility while God remains omnipotent.
So when God "makes" (keeping in mind temporal/causal issues) men stubborn, those men are still making their own decisions which they're responsible for. But God is ultimately running the show, since he started human history and knows its outcome. In that latter sense God is the author of the stubbornness, without diminishing human responsibility.
Hope that helps :)
posted by iffthen at 1:38 AM on March 10, 2016
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Nor is it sufficient to say that God is 'upset' by our actions, because -- except in the most extreme form of Calvinism -- we are not just sinners in the hand of an angry God, we have the offer and the promise of redemption. Donne again: posted by verstegan at 4:09 AM on March 9, 2016 [3 favorites]