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Who thinks that they can subdue Leviathan? Strength resides in its neck; dismay goes before it. It is without fear. It looks down on all who are haughty; it is king over all who are proud. These words inspired PJ Wehry to create Chasing Leviathan. Chasing Leviathan was born out of two ideals: that truth is worth pursuing but will never be subjugated, and the discipline of listening is one of the most important habits anyone can develop. Every episode is a dialogue, a journey into the depths of a meaningful question explored through the lens of personal experience or professional expertise.
PJ Wehry (00:01.784)
Hello and welcome to Chasing Leviathan. I'm your host PJ Weary and I'm here today with Dr. Paul Moser, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Loyola University Chicago. We're here to talk about his book, God on Trial, Testing for the Divine. Dr. Moser, wonderful to have you on today.
Paul (00:18.453)
Thank you, PJ, my pleasure.
PJ Wehry (00:21.483)
So just kind of that initial question, Dr. Moser, why this book?
Paul (00:29.365)
It's been motivated by a lot of thinking about what does God really want and how does that relate to evidence of God's reality and goodness. And so I went back to the Hebrew Bible and tried to figure out what exactly does God want from humans. And as I tracked that down,
from the Pentateuch through the prophets, I came up with the view echoed throughout the Old and New Testament that God wants to vindicate himself, justify himself to humans because the whole debacle started in Genesis with humans questioning God's goodness as if
not eating from the tree was somehow God withholding something good from us. And so is God really good? I mean, that's really what Eve is wondering when she gives in to the temptation. Is there something here that's really good and God's being grudging? And I think the rest of the story
is an unfolding of that human attitude and God trying to correct it. You see it come out front and center in the book of Job. It's all about is this God really good in light of all of the difficulties we face. So I started tracking that down and it echoed throughout
PJ Wehry (02:13.25)
Yes.
Paul (02:28.341)
various passages. One that focuses the book is Isaiah 43, where in some translations you have God saying, let's meet in court. In other translations, let's go to trial. In others, let's reason together. And so God is saying to people, wake up, I'm here to meet
challenge of my goodness or in the typical language righteousness. Is God truly righteous? Or in other words morally good. And that becomes the open question. How could God be in light of the debacle you see among people? And so the big question becomes who is at fault? Is it God?
or is somehow the people of God at fault. And this is an ongoing struggle throughout the Hebrew Bible right into the New Testament where the letter to the Romans makes this up front and center and Paul is saying in Romans 3, let God be true. And he means let God be proven true. And he tries to explain how God
shows God's righteousness. And the question is, have we noticed this? I think it's a widely neglected theme and I'm trying to put it front and center because once you do, a bright light shines over everything. And we can talk about how God vindicates himself, but that's the context of it. It comes back to really the big question of
PJ Wehry (04:21.761)
Yeah.
Paul (04:27.215)
Why do we neglect God? Why do we take God for granted? Why do we get sidetracked in lesser things? Why do we trivialize God? And my view is that it's because we don't understand at a felt level what God is trying to do in this world of trouble and difficulty and goodness as well.
PJ Wehry (04:53.89)
Thank you. And that's a great way to frame it. That even helps me understand a little bit better as we head into this discussion. As you talk about, you're trying to put, I feel if one way to put this is to put the thread of this front and center, right? The thread of God's vindication. There have been a lot of threads that theologians have used to tie together the scriptures. I think of salvation, judgment, salvation and judgment often go together.
Paul (05:11.892)
Yes.
PJ Wehry (05:23.33)
glory, communion with God. How does your thread interact with those other threads?
Paul (05:29.525)
Good. What I'm trying to do is to say, if we get this thread right about what God is doing, then we will get the pearl of great price. Namely, we will find God where God is. And the secret is that this God who wants to vindicate himself is to be found
PJ Wehry (05:37.614)
Mm-hmm.
Paul (05:59.501)
in what I call moral decision making or Gethsemane. What happens there? For me Gethsemane is the non-negotiable because that's where you get the signature of Jesus as he's on his way to the cross and once that is in place salvation is assured but so is partnership with God and how he does that is by
being honest. He's looking at God and he's saying, really? I have to go up to Jerusalem and be put on a criminal's cross? And what does Jesus say? He doesn't say, let's go. No, he's honest. He says, Father, and it is Father, it's Abba, Mark 14, take this cup from me. In other words,
No, that's not my initial inclination. I don't want to go. And this is how you know Jesus is genuine. He's not some phony prop who just says, great, I get to go up to Jerusalem and be crucified. I mean, that would just be dishonest. So instead he says, is there a plan B? Father, Abba, is there a plan B?
And he's hoping the answer is yes, I'll bail you out with Plan B, but instead no Plan B. And at that point, Jesus makes the pivotal decision that the whole universe relies on. He says, okay, not my will be done, but your will be done, Father.
That is the deciding moment of the history of the universe. Why? Because at that moment, Jesus says, I will be the perfect sacrifice for my father. If he had balked and said no, no perfect sacrifice, no perfect God who can resolve the human predicament. So it's pivotal.
Paul (08:25.737)
Gethsemane is the signature. It's the center of the universe and the rest for Jesus is just carrying it out going up to once that's in place. Jerusalem is just a step continuing what he has already accomplished. Now. Here's the thing.
In that moment of decision making, and for me this is critical because for me the question is, where do you find this God? In fact, one of the psalmists says, hey, you know, there are a lot of people who are really annoying me because they're coming to me and they're saying, where is your God? You've got all this God talk. Where is he? Show us. And that's a fair challenge. If you're going to talk this way, deliver, come clean.
Well, here's the answer. God is to be found in those moments where you and I are making a moral decision. And this is frequent. We're in Gethsemane a lot. We don't recognize it as part of our problem, but Gethsemane is our life. In fact, it's a kind of constant Gethsemane and Jesus passed at every point. And he's saying, you have to do the same. In fact,
If you don't do the same, if you don't take up your cross and follow me, says in Luke, you can't be my disciple. What is he saying? If you aren't with me in Gethsemane, forget about it. You're not one of mine. You're not with me. You're of your father, the Dalai, he says in John. So what am I talking about? This. When you and I are making moral decisions.
We are front and center facing the God who says, choose righteousness, choose the life of righteousness set before you, echoing the challenge back in Deuteronomy. I've set before you life and death, choose life. Or if you like, in Malachi, I've shown you what goodness is, choose it, walk in it.
Paul (10:46.767)
How does this happen? Now here is where I say something that has been neglected in the history of theology with one exception. And I found the exception after I developed the view and searched all of history wondering, well, how so? How is it that God is present in these Gethsemane cases, in our decisions? The crux
PJ Wehry (11:06.018)
Yeah.
Paul (11:15.273)
which opened everything up for me is Galatians 5 22 23. Why? Because there Paul gives us the fruit of the spirit as the moral personality traits of God. ? He's in his personality traits. Where are they? Wherever the fruit of the spirit is offered.
or emerges, love, joy, peace, goodness, faithfulness, kindness, gentleness, self-control. Wherever those are on offer, presented, that's where God is because that's who he is morally. And so when people ask, where's your God?
PJ Wehry (12:09.027)
Hmm.
Paul (12:12.841)
He's in the fruit of the Spirit that you yourself have experienced and either neglected or turned away from or maybe embraced. And if you embrace the fruit of the Spirit, guess what? You begin to satisfy God's primary goal, what we can trust God for. And it's one thing, one thing to bring us along
PJ Wehry (12:17.262)
Hmm.
Paul (12:42.367)
to be conformed to the image of his son. Forget about wealth, forget about health, forget about fame, forget about a long life. All of those are idolatrous distractions. What can you trust God for? Bringing you into the image of himself in his son Jesus, Romans 8. It's all about being conformed to the image.
his son voluntarily, not by coercion, not by a kind of billiard ball effect, but by really entering into partnership with him. And that's what fellowship is with God, entering into partnership. That's what a covenant is. God's covenants are an effort to bring us into partnership with him.
in his son who is his perfect image. So where do we find God? Wherever the fruit of the Spirit is present.
PJ Wehry (13:54.094)
thank you. that, again, great answer. And it does lead me to this question, though. Where did you find it apart from you? You said you came to this yourself, but then you found somewhere else. Yeah.
Paul (14:05.333)
I'm glad you asked. mean, hit me like a ton of bricks one day when I was reading Galatians, that if you think of these as the moral personality traits, as God's actual features showing up, everything changes because then you have God being present directly to you. And so I started pounding the literature. the only place where I would say is very close.
is in an obscure sermon by John Wesley on the assurance of the spirit. It's kind of a rambling, Wesley's very rambling. I love John Wesley. I think he's the greatest reformer. think he's just, I mean, think he's the cat's meow in some ways, he's, Wesley's all over the place. So he hints at it in there, but then there's a hint of it, just a hint, but not, he doesn't go anywhere with it. In an obscure Quaker.
PJ Wehry (14:41.326)
Mmm.
You
Paul (15:03.701)
called Rufus Jones, who's a wonderful writer. I mean, I love Rufus Jones, but he's just in a different era. But he touches ever so closely, but nobody has named it in a way that they should. Because once you say these are the moral personality traits of God, then you have your basic evidence.
for God's reality and goodness. Then you don't have to worry about this obscure argument, that far-fetched argument. You don't need natural theology. You have God showing himself directly. And so Paul cites Isaiah to say, God manifests himself to people in Romans 10. Self-manifestation?
And then you see that that's self-authentication. You want self-authentication from God or self-indication, you got it. Whenever the fruit of the Spirit show up, that's God self-authenticating. So forget about the philosophers and their cosmological arguments, their teleological design this, design that. It's a distraction. It just...
It's misleading. That ain't where God is.
Even if you grant all those arguments, the question is still, how do you get to a morally good God worthy of worship? And the answer is you don't.
Paul (16:48.329)
You're only going to get there if God does it. And so there's this theme in the Old Testament, and it's a wonderful theme. It comes up as
How is God going to...
give an oath, give a swear. What's God going to swear by? That's the language. By what does God swear? And God looks around, I can't find anything. I can't swear by people. They're going to fail. I have to swear by myself. I'm the only perfect being who can do this. And then let me add the hitch that, I mean, everything sounds wonderful.
PJ Wehry (17:21.271)
Yeah.
Paul (17:35.005)
Isn't that great? Isn't that lovely? everything pie in the sky. But then here's the hitch. And it's in some ways a crying shame, but it gets better. It starts out as a crying shame. Ezekiel 36. God says to his people, look.
Paul (17:55.541)
covenant partnership, we're in this together. Guess what? I'm gonna vindicate myself through you, he says in Ezekiel 36. What? We're gonna be the medium for this vindication? Yes, because the fruit of the Spirit is gonna come through you and people are gonna see you and Paul says you're gonna be letters of Christ in Corinthian.
PJ Wehry (18:03.789)
Hmm.
PJ Wehry (18:21.486)
And forgive me in Ezekiel 36, are we talking about moving from the heart of stone to the heart of flesh? Is that the connection we're making? Okay.
Paul (18:27.573)
And that's part of it too, because it's through getting the Spirit of God and the new heart that we get God's power as the fruit of the Spirit. That's right. Ezekiel is pivotal. He's the most neglected prophet, but the profundity of Ezekiel is unmatched.
PJ Wehry (18:51.982)
Well, first, I've been actually preaching. I don't preach often at my church, but sometimes I do, and I've been working through Ezekiel, so I was actually stunned how little work has been done on Ezekiel. You can find lots on Isaiah and Jeremiah, but anyways.
Paul (19:04.67)
It's...
It's terrible. mean, because initially he comes across as crazy. mean, some of his visions, some of his, let's be honest, if you met him on the street, you'd say, the guy's crazy. But he's a profound prophet of God. The things that he saw are just breathtaking.
PJ Wehry (19:22.562)
lying on his side.
Paul (19:35.701)
I highly recommend Ezekiel and there's a very fine commentary on Ezekiel that I like in the Old Testament library.
Paul (19:51.593)
So, but I don't want to go down that road. just want to I just want to say the silver lining that I'm talking about here through the Bible winds right through Ezekiel in a way that is, I consider, priceless.
PJ Wehry (19:53.825)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
PJ Wehry (20:12.366)
Now, I want to make sure that I'm tracking with you. So is one way to talk about this. And if I'm going off memory here, I believe the last book that we I had you on for was Divine Guidance. Is that right?
Paul (20:26.003)
It may have been.
PJ Wehry (20:27.246)
Okay, well that makes me feel better. But, and in that one you were talking about how a better apologetic, that the way that the Bible always speaks to people is to direct them to these kind of moral conundrums and to make them feel the need for righteousness, often in their own lack of righteousness. And so it feels like in some ways this book is a further development
Paul (20:29.941)
you
PJ Wehry (20:53.514)
And if I understand, even if you can give the cosmological or the teleological argument, in that, even if those are granted, God is still an object of study, when instead he's supposed to be a person who's supposed to be known. Is that a better way? Is that not a better way? I'm sorry. Is that another way of saying it? Am I tracking with you?
Paul (21:08.757)
That is exactly right. And the language I use now is what we need more than anything is to meet God firsthand in our experience. We need to meet God.
I don't like the idea of knowing right away because it's subject to so many different understandings and quickly becomes abstract. But if you talk about meeting God...
PJ Wehry (21:36.738)
Yes.
Yes.
Paul (21:42.289)
and understand it in a person-to-person way, you can bring it down to where it needs to be. And I think we meet God when we're acquainted with the fruit of His Spirit as they're reflected through conscience, through our moral experience, and we can begin to say, this is very different. Before we can say it's sacred. Now,
Here's the thing, and this is vital. You say, that just sounds lovely. That's just the kind of thing a philosopher would make up. I mean, aren't you imaginative? And the answer is no, I'm actually not. I'm the least imaginative person I know. Here's the key. When we take seriously, meeting God in the fruit of the Spirit,
and cooperating with the spirit. In other words, eating in the fruit, taking in the fruit, eating the fruit, digesting the fruit. Guess what happens? We become different people.
We become what Paul calls a new creation. We are remade. I'm no longer the person who hates my enemies. I'm no longer the person who lives for selfishness. I'm now the person.
who can be compassionate even toward my enemies, toward the worst people, toward those who kill innocent people in Minneapolis, to those who kidnap five-year-olds. I can now, I can now be merciful and pity even them.
Paul (23:32.293)
That's not a natural response. The natural human response is, let's do the same. They've done evil, let's do something similar. But all of a sudden, the fruit of the Spirit, when we meet God in that fruit, are convicted of our shortcoming and turn to cooperate.
we truly enter a new mode of existence that Paul calls in 2 Corinthians, new creation. We enter that new creation and we see it continuing to make us new. Where we're surprised when we don't return hate for hate, evil for evil, but instead,
take the line of Jesus and say, forgive them, they really don't know what they're doing. That's the litmus test showing that we aren't just blowing hot air, that we're seeing new creation here now. And Paul calls that a down payment on the full redemption when our bodies are fully redeemed. The down payment is here.
in the fruit of the Spirit that has begun the kingdom to be fulfilled in God's fullness of time. And that's where hope comes in, Paul says. We hope for the future.
PJ Wehry (25:41.868)
When you talk about Gethsemane and the difficulty of that moment,
It's not just a blanket mercy, right? When you talk about, if I understand correctly, when you're talking about Minnesota and the person being shot, there is a wisdom that is developed and it's not just about mercy and the love for the perpetrator, it's also justice for the victims. Is there, and that
and it's finding the way forward between those two things.
Paul (26:18.58)
Yes.
Yes, and the way toward that is in what I call the kind of love you see in the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament, and I call it righteous love. It's not just compassion, but it's righteous compassion. In other words, God maintains God's goodness.
And out of that goodness, this is why you can't make do with love alone. You can love a partner in crime. I mean, you can love somebody in the evil mode. And the way God excludes that is by basing it all on his righteous character. And so the love that comes out is from a righteous character. And that means a morally good character. So love must be grounded.
in moral goodness, and that includes a kind of justice that Paul is trying to work out in Romans. The big question in Romans for Paul is does God's grace trump righteousness? Does it exclude God's righteousness? And Paul is saying no. In fact, it comes out of God's righteousness.
because God is out to bring good out of evil. That's what the cross is all about. That's what the life of Jesus is all about. That you come into the midst of evil and instead of tolerating it, instead of giving into it, you allow it to do its work without returning evil.
Paul (28:18.879)
but by bringing good out of it. And we are called to do the same. Whereas our natural tendency is to want to go around the pain, the suffering, and any evil. And Jesus says, sorry, we're going right through it. Because why? God has something to prove. God has something to vindicate. And it comes down to this.
that God's own people show in their righteous suffering that God is worthy of being our God.
Paul (29:02.697)
He's worthy of it and our loyalty in the suffering shows that he is.
Part of the book of Job is about this, I mean, the challenge for Job is this. Will he be loyal to God, even if all the good gifts, the lesser gifts are taken away? It's about whether the gift giver is worthy of our loyalty, regardless of the lesser gifts. And so often, we're clinging to the gifts. We're clinging to the health, the wealth, the fame.
the worldly power, we're just hanging on for dear life. To those, and the Lord says, let go, I'm the gift giver, I'm the real gift. And this is what Jesus had to show in Gethsemane. And guess what? And here's the hard part, we do too.
Paul (30:07.849)
There's no substance. Yeah, in Gethsemane, what Jesus shows is that his father is the one gift giver worthy of our all. Listening to him is our one thing, he says in Luke 10. She's attended to the one thing and it won't be taken away from her. And that is attending to the gift giver and letting the gifts
PJ Wehry (30:08.086)
You mind repeating that?
Paul (30:37.087)
go if they're pulled away instead of giving up on the gift giver. Now here's where we have a lot of bad theology. Isn't this wonderful? Jesus is our substitute. He did this. We're free. Now there's a sense in which, yes, Jesus made the perfect sacrifice. God called for a perfect sacrifice. But, but, but the way we receive
that sacrifice, Romans 12, 1, is by presenting ourselves as a sacrifice to God so that we will discern the will of God, Paul says. So the key is we have to follow in the self-sacrifice of Jesus even though ours is not perfect and his is. That's the hitch. That's what we leave out. We say, no, I'm just saved by faith in Christ.
Yeah, you are. But guess what? That faith is the obedience of faith that calls you to die with him. What does that mean, die with him? Go through Gethsemane and do the same. See, we have so
minimized the emptied faith of his significance that the church is impotent. We think, I'll declare Jesus as Lord. Jesus is my Lord. Aren't I great? No, no, no. Trust or faith in this God means going through Gethsemane in obedience towards him and putting that front and center.
PJ Wehry (31:59.47)
Hmm.
Paul (32:24.553)
There is no faith as mere belief that saves you. And so Jesus can say in Matthew, those who do the will of my father will enter the kingdom. It's about doing God's will, not just believing the answers to a pop quiz, to getting the intellectual story right. Even the demons get that right according to Jesus.
PJ Wehry (33:14.19)
If it's not transformational, if the gospel, the good news is not formational, then the church is indeed impotent.
Paul (33:21.033)
That's Exactly, exactly. And this is what Paul was saying in Romans 12, the renewing of your spirit or mind by the transformation as you offer yourself, present your life as a sacrifice to God, Paul says in Romans 12. short of doing that, we are not following Jesus. We're following a counterfeit.
And he means it in Luke when he says, unless you take up your cross. Notice he doesn't say, if you believe that I took up my cross, you're my disciple. He doesn't say that. He says, unless you take up your cross, you cannot, this is literal, be my disciple. He meant it. And so we must take seriously what he said and we must read Paul as a whole.
not by taking out some easy verses that allow us to say, well, I believe that such and such, I'm okay. No, you're not. As James says, even the demons believe.
PJ Wehry (34:35.566)
Throughout church history, I've started to study the Psalms, and I was shocked to see how central they were to Christian devotion throughout church history. And it becomes immediately apparent when you look at the New Testament, which has the most quotations of the Old Testament in the New Testament are the Psalms. Do you see a connection between the Psalms and you have that chapter on prayer?
and these kind of Gethsemane moments, that this is the inner life of these kind of Gethsemane moments.
Paul (35:11.317)
It is except and I have a book coming out with fortress on the Psalms in several months. It's called Jesus perfect Jesus perfects the Psalms and It's a short book. It's not scholarly it attempts to relate Jesus to the Psalms because the Psalms need they cry out for a Focus a guidance because there's a lot of stuff in the Psalms
that's really very dangerous. mean Psalms 5 and 11 say God hates evil people. Well, try getting that through Matthew 5 where Jesus said God loves his enemies. I mean, what's going on here? You got to tell a story. Who's Lord, the psalmist or Jesus? And so I came up with the view that Jesus is our canon within the canon. He's Lord even of the Psalms. And so the book takes Jesus
in his life, his teaching, his person and says we have to read the Psalms through him as Christians. Because if you don't, you're going to be afraid to read the Psalms. There's some stuff in the Psalms that's just horrifying. I mean, what some of the psalm say is just I mean, they've got kids being smashed against rocks and teeth being crushed. mean, some of these psalm were were angry.
They had been through wars and had seen abuse and that anger is red hot. And if you take that as normative, as I've been in church services where they sing some of these songs and nobody vetted them. And so you're singing about, you know, torturing your enemies. And I'm thinking, whoa, we're singing this in a Christian worship service. Where's Jesus? And so the book,
takes Jesus and says, here's how you read the Psalms. That'll be out, the book's done, it'll be out by next Lent.
PJ Wehry (37:15.406)
I
PJ Wehry (37:19.958)
I didn't realize I was going to give you an extra ad in here. That's funny though. Yeah.
Paul (37:26.483)
Why not? It's not out yet. It's not out yet, but it's done. And it's short. It's relatively short. You can read it.
PJ Wehry (37:36.45)
Yeah. And I appreciate what you're saying with the argument side and reading it through Christ. From the side of how long, Lord, those kind of questioning moments, do you see those as kind of Gethsemane moments?
Paul (37:53.979)
yeah, definitely, definitely. Because that's the point where you have to say, what's my move? mean, wherever you're challenged like that, the underlying question is what really is my response now? And really we just have three. We have three. The first one is curse God, curse God. And that's an option for Job. And, and, and a lot of people do that. A lot of my friends do that. The other option is
Go indifferent, desensitize yourself. And that's a kind of agnosticism like, whoa, I'm just, I'm torn in between. I have nothing really to say. I'm just going to fold. That's indifference. That's failure too. And then there's a third option. And this is what we get in Gethsemane. And at the end of the day, we get it in Job. Now, Job is really given a pass.
by God because he's been complaining, he's been up and down, but God says to him, and this is just mercy, just pure mercy. Job, you've been righteous here, and when it's really been a really mixed story, but Job's hanging on for dear life. And so in the end, Job says, he gives the right answer. He says, what a fool am I? After God dresses him down,
with all those questions, right? Where were you when I did this? Where were you when I did that? In effect, saying, Job, shut up. And Job gets the message and says, I was a fool to open my mouth. I mean, I didn't know what I was talking about. And he says, and this is critical.
He says that he's seen the Lord, he's been acquainted with the Lord, and now he can move on. In other words, he's met this God of righteousness and can say, and this is, think, one of the most important chapters in God on trial, God's higher ways. You get all these words about evil and excess suffering and what the heck do do at this point? And the chapter is written,
PJ Wehry (40:05.986)
Pssshhh! Pssshhh!
Paul (40:11.765)
in the spirit of Isaiah's view that God has higher ways that go beyond ours. And here's the point. We shouldn't expect to have a full understanding of God's in allowing evil or extreme suffering. And I don't identify suffering and evil. It's a mistake to identify them. But God's higher ways in allowing them, we must be honest and say,
I don't know. And notice Jesus is given a theodicy question in Luke. know, Jesus, why, why were these people killed like that? Why was there blood mixed with the sacrifices put right to him in Luke? Jesus doesn't bite. He doesn't say, here's my theodicy. He says, no, unless you repent, you're going to be in a similar
bad situation. In other words, unless you turn to my father and relate to him. So what I do is I draw a distinction in the book between knowing God's character and knowing God's purposes in allowing evil. And I say that what Jesus is after, what his father is after, is knowing his righteous, loving character, even if I don't.
know all his purposes. And that's not really completely new. I remember as a child having to say many times to my parents, I'm not sure what they're up to here. But I didn't throw away their good character. I still said, my mother, father, they're loving toward me. So you can't confuse.
knowing somebody's character and appreciating it from understanding all of their purposes. You have to separate those two. And for us, we have to say, we don't understand yet all of God's purposes. And who knows? Maybe we never will. But the point is having those purposes from a good God doesn't undermine God's good character.
Paul (42:38.438)
It just calls into question our understanding and we should expect that limit.
PJ Wehry (42:47.704)
You mentioned knowing a couple times here and how it can be a problematic term. When you talked about divine cooperative prayer, that God is vindicated through divine cooperative prayer, part of it has a section on epistemology. How does divine cooperative prayer teach us about knowing?
Paul (43:10.581)
good. I love that question because it's such a neglected area and I've been writing lately on that. My last book is a may call God is near and as on finding God in prayer and other things. But what really opened my eyes to this was Romans eight and I have an article on this called Paul's suffering God. It's in a journal called Theology Today.
It's a short article. It's right to the point. And it really opened my eyes because there Paul says, it's really amazing that God prays through us, through his spirit. His spirit, he says, groans, groans in language untranslatable through us.
in our weakness in prayer. Now get that picture. God prompts prayer in us by groaning in his spirit through us. This is in Romans 8. This is Paul's new prayer. People neglected it. It's hugely neglected. And he doesn't mean speaking in tongues. He means groaning as just groaning God's spirit in God's compassion. If you don't understand God's compassion,
You'll never understand this. you know, C.S. Lewis, the famous Christian apologist, didn't understand it. I just published an article on Lewis misunderstanding God's love because he had no place for this kind of compassionate love because he held that God is impassable, that God can't be moved by humans. It's an old view. It's a bizarre view and it's dangerous. But he held it.
And Abraham Hestel wrote the book The Prophets to refute that view that comes out of Plato and Parmenides. But what Paul is saying in Romans 8 is God moves first in our lives. We just overlook this. mean, often in my experience, you go to pray and you just feel like groaning. I mean, when I just read so much of the news now, you know, a little five year old being kidnapped.
Paul (45:34.897)
by the feds out of Minneapolis, taken to Texas, put in detention, taken away from his parents. You just want to groan. If you have any kids or grandkids around five, you have no words. And when you groan like that, Paul is saying that is God expressing his compassion through you in your weakness in prayer. Paul says that in Romans 8.
That's evidence of God's direct presence in our life. I know it's not fancy the way philosophers want it. Give us some fancy argument. Groaning in compassion, suffering with, drawing us into love's suffering in prayer. It doesn't have to be wordy. It doesn't have to be flowery. It has to be felt, the felt, compassionate love.
And that's what that chapter is trying to get to that God wants us to cooperate in that compassionate suffering love. That's what compassion means to suffer with until we're doing that in prayer. We're playing games and we're very good at prayer. We have really nice sounding prayers, right? We can write them out and isn't this lovely? And God says with Amos, I hate your
I hate your festivals. They stink. I mean this is what the prophet Amos says to the people of God. Why? Because there was no felt compassion for justice. They had all of the fancy stuff, the nice. God says I hate your songs. I hate your music. This is coming from the prophet of God. I mean people want to read that every worship service. Begin the service with that. I mean let's get
PJ Wehry (47:28.142)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Paul (47:33.545)
Let's be real, because God is serious about righteous love, compassionate love. If we aren't focused on that, we're not focused on God, we're focused on a false God.
PJ Wehry (47:46.35)
.
Paul (47:47.711)
Because that's where his power is. Once that's in place, the power to change people, if they're willing, is there. And it's not just talked about, it's felt. That compassion is to be felt. And so I have a chapter called, Feeling God. Feeling God's compassionate love. That's what Paul's up to in Romans 8.
on prayer. I urge people to go back and read it and find out how God is to be there in feeling, in compassionate prayer. It was a real eye-opener for me and people just don't go there. I mean it's one of those neglected areas that people just don't touch like the fruit of the spirit stuff in Galatians 5 is evident. People just don't touch it. I don't know why but my view is until
PJ Wehry (48:31.726)
Hmm.
Paul (48:47.091)
You bring that stuff together in Gethsemane for a decision, you're wasting your time. You're not following in the spirit of Jesus because he ties those together.
PJ Wehry (49:02.99)
Dr. Moser, phenomenal answer as always. I want to be respectful of your time. Besides buying and reading your excellent book, what would you say to someone who's listened to us for the last hour? What would you tell them to do or to think about in response to this over the next week?
Paul (50:00.991)
Paul says that, again in Romans 8, which is just priceless, those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. Not those who know it all, not those who know everything in theology, not those who have arguments, those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. Ask the Lord. And Jesus says to ask, ask, ask. Ask the Lord, because each case could have special needs.
just, you know, Lord, lead me, lead me in a way that will open me up to meeting you. And, and then be patient enough to keep in mind that the Lord may come in groanings. He may come, he may come as you feel a kind of emptiness, a kind of, that's the beginning of the spirit.
praying through you, Paul says in Romans 8. And then you can start to put that together with Jesus groaning in Gethsemane. Luke said that he sweat blood in Gethsemane. mean, here's Jesus. We're like the disciples. They fall asleep. He's at his defining moment in the history of the universe. And he says, stay awake with me and pray. And what, three times they fall asleep?
He has to go back. Are you guys sleeping well? You're enjoying your sleeping? Because the history of the universe is right before you and they're snoring away. I mean, we're like the disciples. But relate it to Mark 14, what's going on in Gethsemane, and then ask, how do I follow him as my model? And let the Lord, it's interactive.
Here's a recipe, now let me follow. Let him lead you slowly with fits and starts toward how he wants you to respond in a Gethsemane manner where we can say, and this is the key, your will be done.
Paul (52:21.959)
If we can get there at a felt level.
That is the solution. But getting there honestly ain't easy. It's easy to say, you're well not. But really, really? You mean that? If we can get there in a felt way, we become free. Everything changes.
PJ Wehry (52:46.562)
Dr. Moser, a beautiful answer to end today. As always, it's a joy to have you on. Thank you.
Paul (52:53.769)
My pleasure, God bless.