MacDonald (as selected by Lewis)

It catches the attention of some in a “hopeful” sort of way, and of others in a red flag sort of way, because it sounds suspiciously like universalism, which (as I think you suspect and allude to) is one of those red-flag heresy words for many. And not just because they’ve been taught that and often have an arsenal of scriptural quotations at the ready to put it down, but because it is scandalous … to all of us. All you have to do is protest “well, what about ______” - insert your favorite bad boy from history or personal experience. (Usually Hitler will do as history’s generic go-to evil man.) We’ve even had people right here on this site voice what many actually think, even if they won’t say it out loud all the time, and that is: "Well - if he’s in heaven, then that’s not a place I would want to be.

I certainly do have my feelings about this (of course feeling all that scandal I just described). I don’t represent Biologos, much less any other wider group of Christians - only myself - as I perceive the challenge of the implications for what MacDonald recognizes in Christ’s life and teachings. It isn’t easy, and most cultural Christianity today won’t go that far. To them (or I should say, most of us), Christ’s love (God’s love) has de facto limits.

[And just to be clear - I’m not making any claims about how or if MacDonald would own these labels at all. My sense of him is that he is happy to leave such questions where they belong, in Christ’s hands, and attend to the only thing any Christ follower needs to know: what does Christ want me to do here and now? And such obedience does not typically include anything like the command: “discern for all time and categories of people who ends up where.” It’s a question that stems from a deficiency of trust that our Creator will get things quite right without our ‘help’.]

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I’ll confess to both types of attention, because I’ve never heard (until very recently) anything remotely resembling universalism that also included essentials of Christianity. But the hopefulness carried the greater weight.

Here and now often feel like more than enough. Eternal things that are beyond my control–it’s overwhelming. Simply easier not to “go there.”

I understand these things, but I think you were wise to repeat them here:

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I agree with you and Mervin. It’s sometimes hard to understand, but I think if you’ve ever read “The Great Divorce” by CS lewis, or else the last chapter in “Mere Christianity,” or even if you get to see the last portion of “The Last Battle,”, these all reflect McDonald’s quite strongly. I read that Dorothy Sayers was one of the Christian intellectuals who found McDonald’s reasoning about ultimate Justice and reconciliation to be a reason she stayed in the Christian faith. I don’t think it is universalism as we think of it …more like supernatural patience. JPM referenced an explanation to me.

Beck’s description of Macdonald’s writing compasses my understanding in nearly a nutshell here, too…that he was full of goodness

God wants to save us from sin. Not the consequences of sin

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Mercy!
Oh, wait. I think that’s it, isn’t it?
How do I give your post 1000000000 likes?

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I think it’s a severe mercy, like in Sheldon VanAuken :slight_smile: well put.

Why did these novels from the dustbin of literary history so affect me? Two reasons. First was MacDonald’s view of sin and grace and the refining and inescapable love of God. Many of MacDonald’s protagonists make horrible mistakes. And their salvation is this slow journey though the purifying love of God. Sin is “forgiven” in MacDonald’s novels when the character embraces the harsh consequences of sin and moves through that painful fire. Salvation isn’t a simple “forgiveness,” avoiding God’s consequences for sin. In fact, the worst thing possible, the real hell, is NOT suffering the consequences sin. Salvation, in short, is about character formation. And this formation must, absolutely must, involve removing sin from our hearts and minds. God, I learned from MacDonald, wants us to be clean. Not pseudo-clean, not bait and switch clean, not imputed righteousness clean, not “God sees Jesus and not me” clean, but really, truly clean. You and I, finally, coming into the love of God and becoming the people we were created to be. And you have to go through the purifying fires of hell to get there. God wants to save us from sin. Not the consequences of sin.

The second thing that affected me about MacDonald’s novels were his protagonists. Despite MacDonald’s religious slant his protagonists were, conspicuously, devoid of religiosity. And yet, these characters were rooted in faith. What shows through most clearly is their virtue, not their piety. Most of the time the characters are lower class, but the way they carry themselves is almost regal. There is something inside them that just glows from the inside out. Moral integrity is their defining feature. And kindness. And courage. And a simple, easy unpretentiousness, feeling at home in one’s skin and with anyone in the world, king or tramp. And that’s how I define Christ-likeness to this day: Moral integrity, kindness, courage, lack of overt religiosity, simple manners, unpretentiousness, at ease with rich and poor. In short, I saw a vision of Christ in MacDonald’s characters. The plot lines were goofy, but I loved the Christ-likeness of the characters. They showed me ways to be like Jesus in my day to day interactions with others. I wanted to be like the characters in the stories.

Maybe I’m not saying this right…he certainly does mean mercy, too

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Thanks for these, Randy.

This:

actually reminds me of the article that Timothy posted today over in this thread:

Thanks for all of this, Randy. I”m looking forward to the articles.

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What an interesting blog overall — Experimental Theology. I think I’ve seen Phil mention it. Maybe you or Merv, too?
Good posts you shared. THank you.

Edited to add:
I finished the articles this morning, and they were interesting. A very different view than I am familiar with. Reading these clarifies much of the little I have read (or more likely heard quoted) by Lewis as well. I have really only read a few things by him myself.
I am a bit concerned that MacDonald is employing a strawman in his description of PSA, but many of his concerns seem legitimate nonetheless. I am not attempting here to begin a discussion of PSA;there are plenty of threads for me to read through, but am only attempting to respond to MacDonald as quoted in the blog posts.
I understand that Lewis is seen to have held to some view of purgatory, and I understand how, knowing of his interest in MacDonald.
Thanks for much good food for thought.

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I echo Kendel’s gratitude for your links above, Randy - and will let those stand in for today’s addition here, because they are worthy of that attention. And also because I discovered that in sharing the more complete thought of MacDonald’s yesterday, I inadverdently included much of what Lewis had put down for the next day under the heading “Sinai.” And just to include the rest of what Lewis wrote there, I will include it below.

… He is altogether and always for them. That thunder and lightning and tempest, that blacknes torn with the sound of a trumpet, that visible horror billowed with the voice of words, was all but a faint image…of what God thinks and feels against vileness and selfishness, of the unrest of unassuageable repulsion with which He regards such conditions.

As completed in Lewis’ Anthology: “MacDonald”.

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Thanks, @Kendel .I am so sorry for all the posts; there tis no need to read it all. I agree … I enjoyed @Paraleptopecten ’ article very much and discussed its theme with my wife.

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I have enjoyed the reading and thinking. You have given me a gift, not a burden.

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(7) No.

For, when we say that God is Love, do we teach men that their fear of him is groundless? No. As much as they fear will come upon them, possibly far more. But there is something beyond their fear,–a divine fate which they cannot withstand, because it works along with the human individuality which the divine individuality has created in them. The wrath will consume what they call themselves; so that the selves God made shall appear, coming out with tenfold consciousness of being, and bringing with them all that made the blessedness of the life the men tried to lead without God.

As found here: Unspoken Sermons by George MacDonald: The Consuming Fire

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Thanks. I was discussing with my mom the other day how I remember, as a very young boy (maybe 3 or so), testing my parents’ good will when they told me to do something by looking my dad in the eye and saying, “No!”. Interestingly, the spanking I got really converted me. I suddenly identified more with their goals, and I had very few spankings the rest of my life!. Everyone is different, but the fear of my father’s spank (as much as I loved him) changed my relationship, as Coriakin hopefully was able to change the relationship with his Dufflepuds.

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That is an interesting (and hard) lesson for us to receive. I don’t like to think of God as a wrathful God, and nor is spanking in much favor today among currently favored parenting practices.

I’m not sure what effect spankings had on me growing up. I didn’t get that many - but it wasn’t zero either, and was always roundly deserved when I did (and I often deserved them when I didn’t get them too). It’s probably a good thing I didn’t have parents that were violently inclined in that regard or I might have gotten beatings - and maybe on a somewhat regular basis.

Maybe there is something to that too, because I very much respect both my parents while they were alive and as a remembrance now too, and I don’t think I would have as much had they been violently inclined to deal with everything they saw me do in some “consistent-to-a-fault” application. That might have broken my spirit - and maybe in some very regrettable ways in terms of my relationship with (and respect for) them. There must have been times when they wanted to break my spirit, and I now imagine it may have been a grief to them that I failed to exhibit as much broken spirit as they might have wanted at certain points.

It is also interesting to me that in scriptures we read of God valuing “a broken spirit and a contrite heart.” I think there must be such thing as “good brokenness” and “bad brokenness” - though all of it seems pretty bad to us at the time. I’m not sure I’d be able to tease those apart, though, other than perhaps in whether they drive us to God or away from God.

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This reading is a tough one. All the while I was asking myself, “How does one endure this?” How is it possible before perfection to endure this process of being perfected? How does imperfect faith perservere through this process?

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Great example of legitimate authority, rebellion, coercion and edification! Not everyone will quell their rebelliousness and allow themselves to be edified though, even with coercion. Maybe the major factors involved are pride and honesty – we’re happier and healthier if we humble ourselves and recognize legitimate authority, cheerfully obeying mandates.

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I’m also going to guess (just from knowing you here, @Randy ) that you have something of a more tender spirit than some other people would have? …and probably did even as a kid?

I also know people (wonderful people, well-adjusted adult people - don’t get me wrong), who have quite the aggressively contrarian spirit, and for whom being told they “can’t do something” is the only thing they need to hear to goad them into doing it. (Tempered by reality, - they aren’t stupid, and if somebody tells them they can’t jump off a building they don’t go and do that, of course.) But if you tell them they aren’t supposed to do something, and their hyper-sensitive ‘BS’ detectors go off, then their gut reaction is to go there in a heartbeat - and they tend to scoff at the beatings, and see those as a reflection on the one administrating the punishment rather than on themselves.

[They also (if they’re successful in life - and the ones I’m thinking of seem to be) tend to be the ‘go-getters’, the ‘gitter dun’ people, the entrepreneurial sort, the employers rather than the employees.]

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(I was editing while you were writing, and I think we agree. ; - )

I sadly remember an incident in my youth (early grade school) where I refused to let coercion humble and edify me and I’m sure it was especially painful for my parents.

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The reason I brought up the ‘contrarians’ above as I did, Dale, is because it seems wrong to me to think that we have a “one-formula-must-fit-all” approach to righteousness, or ‘good Kingdom citizenship’ as it were. I know that conventional Christian wisdom is that there must be some universal truths across all humanity, and that humility before God is one of those universals, and I’m not disagreeing with that. But I’m also fairly sure that we don’t all know what humility even looks like in all cases. I think that sometimes the stuff that looks really culturally humble to us isn’t, and some of the stuff that doesn’t pass for humility might actually be born of it in deeper ways than we imagined.

That, and I think that I would put a much higher premium on the infinite patience of God, than I do about the coerciveness of God. How or even if God coerces is far from obvious from me (in either direction).

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I’m certainly not saying that we all have the same temperament. Submission to legitimate authority, or even recognizing it, is certainly going to be harder for some than others. But speed limits are fairly firm and easier to submit to for some drivers than others.
 

I don’t believe it is, nor do I think the Bible teaches it, speaking of the overall arc. Skeptical theism comes to mind, as does lèse-majesté, to do wrong to majesty.