What's Restoration All About?
This is one of those ideas that probably should be left alone. I’m not even sure I can articulate what’s in my head, and even less confident that I can present it in a way that stimulates curiosity, is understandable, and worth our time.
The content may be unsettling, because it takes a philosophic approach to an easily expandable topic, making discovery ripe for disordered thinking. Staying on topic – resisting the inclusion of the horde of topical tangents that stormed through my mind – was difficult.
This post is about God restoring creation, and what that looks like – acutely aware that paradigms have shaped our thinking. Considering previous discussions on paradigms, I want to prompt your memory that our paradigms:
Interconnect, perpetuate, and influence our other paradigms,
Are difficult to recognize, and
Ultimately, and collectively, shape and support our overall worldview.
Our paradigms are either a cause or an effect of a cause, whether we recognize it or not.
Consider the parental paradigm employed for shaping children. Most parents I’ve been aware of, including me and mine, functioned within a paradigm of “carrot and stick.” This, and other variations, is based on a system of reinforcing positive behavior and discouraging negative behavior. We can’t assign “good” or “bad” to all behaviors, because different parents have different paradigms for acceptable / unacceptable behaviors. The paradigms belong to the parents.
We see this shaping paradigm recurring in classrooms, board rooms, backrooms, court rooms, locker rooms, and other human playgrounds where shaping behavior, and/or outcomes, is inherent.
Is this punishment and reward philosophy, a cause or the effect of another cause? I honestly don’t know, but I’m clear there is a common belief that a reward and punishment philosophy is foundational in theology and religion. Many would say that it appears on the first pages of the Bible, and, therefore, is the cause of all future iterations of the philosophy. I’m not sure the philosophy appears as we interpret it, and I’m sure my current thinking is not indisputable!
Could our understanding of reward and punishment be the result of multiple paradigms that originate from the way we read and interpret the Bible? Have we accurately discerned God’s approach for shaping humanity? And, in general, how does shaping humanity relate to the restoration of creation?
If we see Eden and the Fall as a classic reward and punishment story, then what I’m about to write may be difficult to swallow. Before you stop reading, though, please consider Jesus’ statement in John 15:1-2, paying close attention to the vinedresser, the vine, the branches, and the observers. Please consider:
The intent, and character, of the vinedresser is everything. In intent, a vinedresser prunes or chops. Pruning is for increasing fruit. Chopping is for removing branches that don’t bear fruit. The vinedresser is God, and God’s intent is everything.
Jesus tells us He is the vine. Bearing that vine’s fruit can only happen when the branches are connected to the vine. Producing fruit is the purpose for a vine’s existence.
The branches perceive no difference between pruning or chopping. Potentially, an observer might discover the vinedresser’s purposeful intent, but not the branches, who painfully experience the event almost identically. A pruned branch continues to exist and bears more fruit.
As a listener or reader, those who observe a vinedresser pruning or chopping branches, can’t easily, and clearly, discern which is taking place. Without knowing the vinedresser’s intent, he/she can’t discern pruning from chopping. If an observer seeks to understand the intent of a vinedresser, he/she may discern pruning from chopping. Assuming intent has never been a reliable, or effective, approach to discernment.
So, an axe is applied to a branch, and the branch experiences pain. As observers, do we see pruning or chopping? Would an observer consider one, or both, to be punitive because of the pain?
If we see the John 15 statement as an example of reward and punishment, wouldn’t we need to insert the idea that a branch can choose to bear fruit or not, and the vinedresser is reacting to that choice? Once we’ve made that leap in thinking, would we see pruning as a reward and chopping as punishment? Is seeing chopping as punishment the result of the fate of the non-producing branches, stated later in John 15? Is it possible our hell paradigm is shaping our interpretation of this statement? Accepting a “hell as punishment” paradigm would then require an accompanying reward paradigm. Is pruning a reward? Remember, the vine, and its branches, exist to bear fruit. Some branches bear, some don’t, and some can be worked to bear more.
How could this apply to restoring creation?
Isn’t it fruitless to search for reward in Eden? Weren’t humans given the blessings and privileged status they lost? Paul reminds us in Ephesians 2, “so that none might boast.”
For humanity, the blessings of innocence, providence, and perfection – the image of God in which they were made – existed only in the presence of God. Reflecting the image of God in and to creation was their fruit to bear, and when they no longer bore that fruit, they were removed from the presence of God. Temporarily.
If there is no reward, should we consider separation from the presence of God as punishment? Is the separation considered chopping or pruning? Is there any association with reward and punishment in Genesis 2 or John 15?
Is it possible that our shaping paradigms, passed to us or generated by us, have created our current eternal reward and punishment paradigms?
As I mentioned at the start, there are many tangents – multiple arms with numerous fingers on each arm – that will cross our minds. Trust me, if we allow all these elements to creep in, we will become overwhelmed, and the whole discovery exercise can become a very uninviting path to take. This discovery exercise is not for settling matters; it is for stimulation. I hope, perhaps, it achieved its purpose.