Bad Theology

Text for today: James 1 xiii-xvii

The epistle of James was rejected by some early theologians for its lack of guidance on those matters of church bureaucracy and the nature of Christ which make the Pauline and pseudo-Pauline epistles such hypnotic reading. Instead James concentrates on obedience to the Jewish law: an emphasis which might displease the church fathers, but would certainly gain a degree of approval from a rabidly chauvinistic and stridently reactionary Jew such as Jesus.

Undeniably there are difficulties. James states outright that God is not the source of temptation, thereby flatly contradicting the Lord's Prayer as well as the Saviour's own statement that God has deliberately created a world in which temptation is necessary. One might argue that James is merely re-stating the Saviour's observation that God uses selected human beings as a temptation delivery system, so that He may in good conscience inflict upon them the punishment for His own sadistic crimes; but James goes on to state that the real source of temptation is human desire.

This is entirely in accordance with the Saviour's view of any wish that does not coincide with His own; but the question remains how James can assert that God, without Whose sanction a sparrow cannot fall to earth, is somehow disengaged from the vital and virtuous process of condemning people to the eternal flames. James states immediately afterwards that God is unalterable in His dictatorial rigidity, thereby eliminating the argument that He has simply changed His mind since the Saviour's time.

Presumably the statement on temptation refers only to the elect, since these are not the ones whom God has chosen to take the blame for His machinations. God does not tempt, or allow to be tempted, those He has predestined for His kingdom; therefore, when such people pray to be spared temptation their prayers will come true and their faith will be justified. As for the chaff, they can blame themselves and suffer while their loving Father stokes the waiting fire.