PRESUMPTION

There’s a wonderful passage in Marilynne Robinson’s delightful, thought-provoking, often deeply-theology novel Lila that resonates with me and makes me do some serious self-reflection when I read and re-read it. The Rev. John Ames, an elderly but very wise and humble country parson is speaking with Lila about hell. She’s not sure what she believes about it, even if it exists; and if it does, is she or the ones she loves destined for it. She tends to dwell on the subject a bit too much.

He says to her: “Theologically hell doesn’t help me live the way I should. I believe this is true for most people. And thinking that other people might go to hell just feels evil to me, like a very grave sin. So I don’t want to encourage anyone else to think that way. Even if you don’t assume that you can know in individual cases, it’s still a problem to think about people in general as if they might go to hell. You can’t see the world the way you ought to if you let yourself do that. Any judgment of the kind is a great presumption. And presumption is a very great sin. I believe this is sound theology in its way.”

It is also very wise. It is so easy to allow ourselves to get caught up in the trap of knowing the

mind of God, certainly determining who’s in and who’s out as far as hell is concerned. Surely, we presume, the terrorists who killed all those innocent people in Paris are burning in hell, are they not? Surely, we presume they presume that it was their religious duty to kill those who in any way made satirical fun of their Prophet and anyone who stood in their way. Those people should burn in hell and now are, they presume. They did Allah’s work for Allah.

As John Ames says, presumption is indeed a very great sin because it assumes that we know the mind of God. And when we act as if we do know God’s mind and God’s will, we can and, as the incident in Paris blatantly exemplifies, do commit horrific crimes against our fellow human beings. And even if we do nothing in response to the actions of others other than presuming their guilt, we have already separated ourselves from the other. Once we have pushed the other away, if only mentally, the damage has been done.

To presume is to judge and we know what Jesus says about judging others. That does not mean that we do not condemn both those who perpetrated that atrocity in Paris and what they did. There is no justification for those actions. God/Allah for whom they believed they were acting weeps. God’s children killing God’s children is not God’s idea nor is it something God ever condones and supports. Never has, never will be.

Yes, we can read Scripture and read where God orders God’s people/children to kill and maim other people who are also God’s people/children. I don’t believe God ever made such an order. The people did it and then justified their actions by saying and presuming that they were only following God’s orders, much like the murderers in Paris. We human beings has acted far too long presuming we know the mind of God and then justifying our actions by presuming we know what God would have us do. I presume John Ames would ask: “Where has it gotten us?”