God's alien and proper work

Listening to: Polly Paulusma: Scissors In My Pocket

I realised in my last post I bandied about the theological jargon terms 'alien work' and 'proper work' along with the very non-theological talk of 'bad news' and 'good news'. A quick google search gave me this very helpful description which I thought worth quoting:

God's self-revelation is not direct. In fact God is revealed as God through what is God's opposite. The central core of God's revelation is the cross of Jesus Christ. What humans perceive in the cross is weakness, shame, humiliation, and suffering. Precisely here, in these experiences, God is to be found. Hidden beneath them, the eye of faith perceives God's power, glory, and love. Exactly where God seems most absent is where God is revealed most fully.

God is found not only in the suffering of the cross but also in the midst of the suffering that humans experience as God drives them to doubt, fear, tribulation, temptation, and finally despair. This is what Luther calls God's "alien work" (opus alienum Dei), God's work of wrath. Beneath it is to be found God's "proper work" (opus proprium Dei), God's work of mercy. For only when humans abandon themselves can they begin to trust in God's mercy alone. This experience, Luther believes, is what makes a theologian of the cross: "Understanding, reading or speculating do not make a theologian, but living, or rather dying and being damned." This is what Luther had in mind when he said, "The cross alone is our theology."

(Denis R. Janz, "Syllogism or paradox: Aquinas and Luther on theological method", Theological Studies, March, 1998)

As far as I know the phrase 'alien work' comes from Isaiah 28:21 (quoted in Luther's 1518 Heidelberg Disputation), and read in its context Isaiah 28:21 is probably provides about as good a definition as you can get: God will "will sweep away the refuge of lies, and waters will overwhelm the shelter" not as an end in itself, but so he can rebuild on the foundation of Christ (28:17-18).

"Misery loves company" v the active God

There have been some ugly responses from Christian's to the disaster in Haiti. There have also been some pretty weak ones. Neither are likely to be much comfort to the sufferers, or convincing to those observers hearing them on the news. Gerhard O. Forde characterises the weak responses we hear most in the UK:

God is supposed to be more attractive to us because he identifies with us in our pain and suffering. "Misery loves company" becomes the unspoken motif of such theology. (p. viii, On Being a Theologian of the Cross)

As Forde points out, the reason this is so unhelpful is that Jesus is seen to be utterly passive in this theology. We follow our leader, and those who see Jesus in this way are similarly passive in their response to suffering. They have nothing to say; although they may offer to pray, they don't seem to expect God to actually do anything as a result.

The story of the Bible, from Creation to New Creation, has something much more powerful to say. It warns us that suffering is God's judgment on humanity's sin - although that does not mean that particular events are caused by particular sins of particular people. But joyfully it also tells us that God hates suffering and, because he is not passive in his hating, has gone to war against it to destroy it completely for all who share in the New Creation life of Jesus Christ.

The classic question "if God is both able and willing to prevent evil, why is there evil?" may be unanswerable from our perspective; or at least answerable only partially. But that doesn't mean the church has nothing to say. It can say that is that God is not passively waiting to be examined but has acted, is acting and will act to save his people.