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predestination as jazz

the-jazz-messengers143Usually when we hear about "predestination" it is a scary word that has at its root the notion that God's grace is not universal but particular. Some receive the grace God has given them and others do not receive it not because they choose not to, but because God never gave it to them in the first place. What this idea does is effectively pull human agency totally out of the equation. It is a legacy that we have inherited primarily from Augustine's issues with Pelagius who essentially argued that through human effort, God grants grace as a reward. Augustine's solution late in his life is perfectly logical and works, but on rather abstract grounds. That is to say, it does not have much to offer regarding human experience other than to offer an abstract explanation for events that have already happened.

It can also lead to rigid systems of determinism. I remember in one church I attended for some time, the pastor's wife was rather adamant about her position that God literally determines everything from healing and joy to the most base forms of suffering and pain. Yet, for example, for someone struggling with her faith due to her step-father dragging her upstairs to rape her repeatedly while her mother helplessly let it happen over and over again, I am not sure that telling her that God willed that to happen for a greater mysterious purpose is a very helpful position in the moment. Even if hindsight is 20/20 as it is in many cases, it does not comfort a prisoner while his fingernails are being torn out one by one or a child's mother telling him that he is useless and dirty because he happens to be attracted to a person of the same gender. In short, this foundation for making sense of predestination does not have much to say regarding suffering as it happens.

However, the later Augustine's hand was forced to make this logical conclusion which was picked up by Calvin and onward through Dort and Westminster. History shows that orthodoxy cannot live without heresy as  purity cannot live without dirt. Augustine's original position especially in the initial books of De Libero Arbitrio was far more interesting. It was that predestination basically sets a limit in which human freedom can act. Moreover, even if we say that God wills everything to occur, it just so happens that the human will is simultaneously free. Human freedom and predestination mysteriously coincide. This does not mean that freedom exists apart from dependence on God, nor does it mean that God must will everything to occur for such would eliminate the possibility of a free will. It just means that we are both free and absolutely dependent on God's will to have that freedom.

Think of this as a composed piece of music. Even with classical music where the orchestration and structure is more determined than say, a small ensemble jazz piece or a remix of a previous work of music through sampling, there is interpretation of how that music will sound and conductors have a range of freedoms and possibilities to change the sound of the music. The path is the same, but the stops along the way change as each new interpretation of a piece of great music adds to its complexities, dimensions, and ranges of human experience that connect the music do different peoples over time. The musician who improvises, the conductor who directs, the producer who remixes all have complete freedom to work with a piece of music and they have the choice to either play it or ignore it altogether. But when they choose to interpret that piece, they also choose to limit what they can play in terms of notes and rhythms in order for that piece of music to make sense as that particular piece. This is true no matter how outlandish an interpretation might become.

With predestination, God gave humanity a piece of music called life to interpret. God asks us to make something of the world using the freedom of our wills. We do not have absolute freedom since freedom always has limits. It just so happens that God composed this particular piece for us to play and gave each of us an instrument with which to play it and put us in the ensembles that make the best sense with our talents. It takes a lot of practice and a lot of discipline to master an instrument and the true masters will tell you that they have much more to learn. It also takes wisdom to understand that even if you really want to play lead all the time, most of the time most musicians accompany someone else. In the Christian traditions we have a good idea of how this piece of music ends in Jesus Christ who rose from the dead and is going to come back to conduct all of us together and for eternity. So paradoxically, the end signals a new beginning and a new song to play when this one is done. But for here and now, we have all been given the task and the permission to make beautiful music with the world in which we all live.

Nota Bene: I have not read Blue Like Jazz nor do I have a clue what it's about :-)

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