Free of Charge
A book review (Miroslav Volf)
Christ stands before the closed door of a grace-resistant heart and knocks gently with a nail-pierced hand.
Volf was always a name known to me, at least from seminary days, as friends in different electives dove into his work, most notable Exclusion and Embrace, but also his trinitarian theology. I, however, never quite picked up more than an excerpt. Until recently, when a good friend recommended this book to me, as I struggled with the twin pains of having hurt others, and been hurt in turn.
The book falls into two halves, and part of its pitch is that we live in a world, or a culture more specifically (and US culture, really), that has lost the practice of generosity (and forgiveness) and asks how we might regain that.
A Generous God
The first half is concerned with Generosity, and proceeds in 3 parts: God the Giver, How we should Give, How Can we Give? Volf grounds generosity in God himself as a giver. That all of our existence and being finds its source in his generous giving, and that gifts are given in order to enable our giving. I found Volf's analysis of the nature of 'giving' and 'gifts' to be clear and insightful. He also talks us through false images of God as giver: God the Negotiator and God as Santa Claus.
All this is framed around the Christian life, and our response to God's gifts, in terms of faith, gratitude, and participation.
In chapter 2, Volf analyses three modes of exchange: taking, getting, giving, and pushes us to understand how our giving should imitate God's. In the third chapter Volf takes us into how giving is even possible, exploring our innate goodness, and inescapable fallenness, and God's redemptive power at work to make giving simply possible for us. We give in God and God gives through us.
Forgive as God Forgives
As helpful as I found the first half, not least because I feel that I have grown somewhat less generous over the years, it is the second half that really touched me. Here Volf turns (after a powerful personal interlude from his family history) to forgiveness. Again, we have 3 chapters, around the topics of God as Forgiver, how we should forgive, and how we can forgive.
The analysis of forgiveness is just as sharp. For Volf, forgiveness involves names wrongdoing and condemning it, and then the gift of not counting that wrongdoing against the wrongdoer. It is a gift, a special type of gift, which overcomes evil and mends relationships. One again, we are taken through two false conceptions of God: the implacable judge, and the indulgent grandparent. If God were the first, we would be hopelessly condemned, if the second, wrongdoing would never be condemned. Rather, God condemns wrongdoing, and spares wrongdoers.
A few points stood out to me about the clarity with which Volf presents central elements of the Christian faith. Firstly, in his insistence that it is the one God who punishes and the one God who substitutes in for that punishment, the Cross can never be seen as the divine mistreatment of the Son by the Father. That is a defective view of God in Trinity which leads to a defective view of satisfaction. Secondly, Volf notes that substitution is not merely exclusive, but also inclusive, that is we died in Christ, so we ourselves died. It is not simply that Christ died so that I don't have to, but rather condemned-I died in Christ, so that I can be uncondemned-I.
It should come as no surprise that the pattern of how we forgive parallels how we give - like God, and in God. We forgive as God forgives, with some caveats, and we forgive in God as God forgives through us. Human forgiveness names wrongdoing against us, and releases the wrongdoer from debt, retribution, justice, payment, guilt. Forgiveness rightly precedes repentance, and is rightly followed by forgetting of the offence. These ideas, too, I found challenging but powerful.
The parallel between giving and forgiving makes sense too, of the dynamic of forgiveness, repentance, and reconciliation. Just as forgiveness is itself a gift, repentance is an act of faith, a gracious reception of the gift. Where forgiveness is offered but repentance is not, it is a gift refused. Where forgiveness is merely 'private', it is a gift not given, which is not a gift at all. It is only the gift of forgiveness received in repentance, which effects reconciliation.
The final chapter wrestles with how can we forgive. It is all very well and nice to talk about forgiveness, but Volf knows it is hard. And the examples of heroic forgiveness that litter his book may seem so far beyond us. How can I, mere mortal, possibly forgive? Volf anticipates us, and answers with wisdom and care almost all the questions and objections that arose in my mind. The core of the answer is that it is Christ in us and us in Christ that makes forgiveness truly possible.
Perhaps you are wondering, as I did, what about where there is forgiveness but no repentance? Or repentance but no forgiveness? Recognising the pain and difficulty of both situations, Volf speaks of the first as a gift offered but rejected; in the latter case, we may know Christ's forgiveness, but still carry an unhealed wound through this lifetime.
I couldn't helped but be moved by this book, and I can't help but recommend it to anyone and everyone. I hope it is as beneficial to you as it has been to me in reflecting on these twin themes.