Theology With Skin On

After being immersed in reading Augustine's collected works against the Pelagians for several days, and seeing the lengths Augustine was willing to go to, including taking verses out of context, in order to thoroughly discredit Pelagius' teachings (a lot of which were flaky and heretical), I have come to the following belief and commitment:

"Theology must be able to look people in the eye."

Allow me to illustrate: (This is just an example -- I'm not trying to start a debate on predestination vs. free will here, honest!)

When I was in seminary in Toronto years ago, at a school that is reknown for its hardcore ultra-Calvinist viewpoint, I would often get into spirited debates with our theology professor regarding some of his teachings:

• that God has created people who have no chance of salvation, but for "God's good will and pleasure" (a favourite Calvinist phrase) they were created solely in order for God to damn them to hell
  
• that if a Christian falls away later in life, for any reason, then they were never a Christian in the first place (so ultimately, you couldn't be sure you were a Christian even if you thought you were -- until you died and woke up in the right place)
  
• that God is the Author of evil, which to our prof was an ugly doctrine, but less ugly than the alternative (the "horrendous" concept that humankind might actually have a free will)

This prof was only four years older than I was, and we were both new dads that semester, so I finally asked him at one point during our debate:

"Sir, can you honestly tell me that you can go into your son's bedroom, while he's sleeping peacefully in his bed and you feel the incredible love filling your heart that a father has for his newborn child, and think to yourself 'the God whom I serve with my whole life may have, for His good will and pleasure, already chosen to damn my son to hell, and there's nothing that can be done about it'?"

He was very quiet for a moment, and then quite honestly said something to the effect of "my theology falters at that point".

Which is exactly the point I want to make -- theology that is developed in the abstract and does not "have skin on" often ends in error because it does not take into account the Father-heart of God. It is simple to say (if you're an extreme predestinationist) "on paper" that only some people can be saved and the rest are created by God to send to hell, but when you look at real, live people -- you realize that "if you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" (Matthew 7:11 NIV)

You have to wonder, in Augustine's attacks on Pelagius, whether he would have developed his teachings to such a severe extent, if he hadn't been reacting against Pelagius. I wonder sometimes how many of our precious doctrines are based on our refusal to see any benefit in other peoples' positions, so we "throw the baby out with the bath water" and end up polarizing our theology far, far beyond what is reasonable and reflective of God's character.

St. Augustine, who taught for years that any unbaptized infants who died went straight to hell, later developed a rather unique invention ("Limbus Infantum" -- literally, "Baby Limbo") that said that unbaptized infants went to a place that was neither hell nor heaven, but was generally pleasant, where they existed for eternity. He could have just admitted that perhaps his doctrine of original sin & predestination might need some further thought & development, but he was unwilling to give any ground to those who believed in "free will", so instead he invents the rather imaginative (dare I say "heretical"?) alternative of "baby limbo".

Even St. Augustine, determined as he was that his view of predestination must "win", couldn't ultimately bring himself to look into the eyes of a grieving mother and say that our Lord & Savior's mercy was not available for her unbaptized child.