Ante-Nicene Ressourcement: Interpreting The Anger of God (Part 4 of 4)

Last updated on: October 27, 2016 at 12:46 pm by Henry Karlson

Ante-Nicene Ressourcement: Interpreting The Anger of God (Part 4 of 4) 2016-10-27T12:46:22-05:00 Henry Karlson

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This is the last of four posts looking to the way various Ante-Nicene Fathers engaged the image of God seen in the Old Testament, with a specific concern on how they dealt with the way God’s anger was represented within it. For the first part, click here, for the second, click here, and for the third, click here.

We have briefly explored examples of two different traditions from the Ante-Nicene era in regards to the way Scripture was interpreted. The focal point of our search has been to examine the ways authors looked at and explained the anger of God to critics of the Old Testament. St. Clement of Alexandria and Origen developed a more in depth means to study and interpret Scripture. This was, in part, because of their own particular position to Scripture, where they believed it was filled with allegorical or spiritual meanings which must be discovered in order to obtain the true meaning of the text. Others took a simpler approach with Scripture; while accepting it was not all to be taken at face value, they thought it best to try to read the text in as literal a fashion as was possible. It should not be surprising that after what Clement and Origen suggested, some followed them to varying degrees (like St. Gregory the Wonderworker, a student of Origen, in his work, To Theopompus, On the Impossibility and Passibility of God), while others returned to the simpler approach, and criticized any attempt to engage the philosophers as a means of interpreting Scripture.

Lactantius Pittura murale del secolo IV.[Public Domain] via Wikimedia Commons

While in some places, his writings indicate a high level of culture and interest in the philosophers so long as they are useful for his apologetics, we nonetheless find this return to a simpler engagement with Scripture with Lactantius. He wrote a defense on the notion of the wrath or anger of God, criticizing those philosophers who wanted to see God as being without passion. He recognized that Christians should not believe God’s anger was an irrational passion, and so he suggested that it was best to see it as the rational by-product of God’s justice. He indicated that religion itself requires a belief in God acting in justice and that means there must be some way for God to correct evil through punishment. Such punishment is what is to be understood as God’s wrath, which Lactantius curiously believed was a manifestation of God’s kindness:

These are the opinions entertained by the philosophers respecting God. But if we have discovered that these things which have been spoken are false, there remains that one last resource, in which alone the truth can be found, which has never been embraced by philosophers, nor at any time defended: that it follows that God is angry, since He is moved by kindness. This opinion is to be maintained and asserted by us; for this is the sum and turning-point on which the whole of piety and religion depend: and no honour can be due to God, if He affords nothing to His worshippers; and no fear, if He is not angry with him who does not worship Him.[1]

Lactantius wanted to make it clear that he believed God’s wrath was for our own good. God did not get angry out of vanity. He did not desire admiration and simply punish people for not rendering him glory. God works for what is just and good. Those who reject him reject some element of the good, and what they suffer results from the lack of that good. His wrath then is a manifestation of this, where his anger is related to the promotion of what is good, encouraging those who fail to do what is good to repent and seek it out for their own benefit. Thus Lactantius believed it was an issue of justice and establishment of the good which was key to understanding God’s wrath: whatever is not good will be rejected by the good. The experience of that rejection will be seen and understood as anger. God’s anger is the wrath of justice. So, Lactantius continued:

Therefore, as innumerable good things have been given which it might enjoy, so also have evils, against which it might guard. For if there is no evil, no danger— nothing, in short, which can injure man— all the material of wisdom is taken away, and will be unnecessary for man. For if only good things are placed in sight, what need is there of reflection, of understanding, of knowledge, of reason? Since, wherever he shall extend his hand, that is befitting and adapted to nature; so that if any one should wish to place a most exquisite dinner before infants, who as yet have no taste, it is plain that each will desire that to which either impulse, or hunger, or even accident, shall attract them; and whatever they shall take, it will be useful and salutary to them. What injury will it therefore be for them always to remain as they are, and always to be infants and unacquainted with affairs? But if you add a mixture either of bitter things, or things useless, or even poisonous, they are plainly deceived through their ignorance of good and evil, unless wisdom is added to them, by which they may have the rejection of evil things and the choice of good things.[2]

While there were many divisive elements which we can find between various Christians in regards the interpretation of Scripture, as well as how to deal with and engage secular philosophy, we can note that they still held many presuppositions in common. They agreed that God’s anger should not be seen as irrational, and that such anger, however it was interpreted, served to promote and establish the good. God’s anger, even with those who wanted a simpler interpretation of the text, could not be read as being the same as the passionate form of anger found in humanity. But when a Clement or an Origen suggested we purify our image of God by looking at the spiritual interpretation of anger, others saw that such exegetical maneuvers removed the just predication of anger from God. They believed that there had to be a way in which we can see and understand God as being angry.

And so we come to the end of this brief examination of the way some Ante-Nicenes dealt with the problem of God’s anger and two different kinds of responses which developed. In and through it, we saw how Christians disagreed with each other on some rather fundamental issues, and yet, despite their differences, they remained united under Christ as Christians accepting the basics of the faith, including the Holy Scriptures the Church declared to be authoritative. This shows us that there is indeed ample room for diverse, indeed, contradictory theological opinions, so long as they do not lead people away from the core tenets of the faith. This is a good thing, because it shows how Christianity, far from the anti-intellectual fideism some believe it to be (and some Christians try to make it), is one of the greatest promoters for the exploration of the truth. There needs to be a level of liberty for this to be possible, a freedom to explore and speculate, even to hold wrong opinions, so long as all such exploration subsumes itself in humility to the revealed truths of the faith itself; without it, faith either becomes blind or lost, or paradoxically both, because once we follow our faith without any understanding of what it is we are expected to believe, can we truly call it faith?

[1] Lactantius, “A Treatise on the Anger of God” in ANF(7):262.

[2] Lactantius, “A Treatise on the Anger of God,” 271.

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