An amazing interview with one of our heros, from the website for something called the Chicago Sunday Evening Club (www.csec.org). You can also find a couple of his sermons on their site.
Interview with Robert Farrar Capon
Interviewed by Floyd Brown
Floyd Brown: Here again is Robert Farrar Capon. I want to thank you for a fine presentation and also say that you are a very challenging man. I have difficulty with many of the things you said, just as you suggested. You told me that if we would follow the commandments everything would be worked out all right, but if we don’t follow the commandments here, or anyway we haven’t done it….I have got to have a script. You have got to give me a worksheet. What am I to do from day to day?
Robert Farrar Capon: Well, one of the problems with any authentic pronouncement of the gospel is that it introduces us to freedom. The point is that as long as the world runs this show what it tries to say is that if you do something wrong God will get you. What it said in Jesus is, by the blanket absolution of everybody in the death of Christ, that God is not going to get anybody.
For example, who is in heaven? People think it is good guys. There is nobody in heaven but forgiven sinners because there was nobody available to go to heaven except forgiven sinners and there is nobody in hell except forgiven sinners. The difference is that in heaven they accept the forgiveness, in hell they reject it. That’s it. You can’t get into hell by being bad. You get into heaven by being bad and accepting forgiveness. Now, that does in a way mean you have permission to be bad. If you want to stick your hand in a meat grinder, you are free to do that. It’s stupid, but God isn’t going to run the universe that way. God is not going to punish. He cares more about relationships than behavior.
Brown: I think I understand philosophically what you are saying here, but it is still hard for us slow learners there in the back row. I’ve got to have a plan here. I know that if I go out and I fight and I’m the kind of guy who causes disruptive things, I’m a threat to society. I do bad things and bad things result. I know that if repent of these things, God will forgive me, but if I don’t ever repent of these things, what’s going to happen?
Capon: He forgave you before you repented. That’s crucial. See, that is why it is so outrageous. The gospel is really vulgar, crass and immoral because it says God forgives the world before it repents. In the gospel, repent is always repent and believe. It means turn yourself around from not trusting the forgiveness and trust it. That’s it. It doesn’t mean that you earn it by repenting. You had it before.
If you do something to me and you are wrong and I am right, you can repent all you want but until I forgive you, it’s not going to do you a bit of good. It only helps when I have already forgiven you and you can enter into the restored relationship and turn again to me. Only I can decide to forgive you and God for His own idiot reasons decided to absolve the world. He really did. It’s outrageous. It’s immoral. It’s tough.
Brown: It’s outrageous, immoral and very difficult for many of us to comprehend at the level that you have, but I feel assured in listening to you here that I am forgiven and that there is a future for me in the better place because He is going to forgive me, but I have got to accept that only through Him can I get this forgiveness.
Capon: That’s the whole point.
Brown: But I’ve got to understand that we have got to love one another. We’ve got to follow the commandments if we are going to live together and have a good earth in which to enjoy.
Capon: That would work but that won’t do the job. Only He can do the job.
COMMENTS
21 responses to “He Forgave You Before You Repented: An Interview with Robert Farrar Capon”
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I love that y’all are discovering Capon! He’s the man.
“The gospel is really vulgar, crass and immoral because it says God forgives the world before it repents.”
I’m tearing up…
Where did this guy come from? Terrific.
‘Jesus must not be read as having baited us with grace only to clobber us in the end with law.’ Kingdom, Grace, Judgment p. 356 (Giggling to self), has there ever been a better quote? I can’t wait to drop it into a sermon!
Capon seems to be saying that hell is only for those who maintain an eternal ‘NO!’ to God’s equally eternal ‘YES!’ in Christ. I suspect that this is different from what many of us grew up hearing: that hell is a once-for-all judgment rather than an open-ended consequence. I can see how Capon uses this to maintain God’s grace as an essential aspect of His being/nature, but I wonder what it means for the doctrines of election and predestination. This is terribly deep, but does anyone have some thoughts about this?
From p. 357: ‘The difference between heaven and hell, accordingly, is simply that those in heaven accept the endless forgiveness, while those in hell reject it. Indeed, the precise hell of hell is its endless refusal to open the door to the reconciled and reconciling party that stands forever on its porch and knocks, equally endlessly, for permission to bring in the Supper of the Lamb (Rev. 3:20)’
This guy is certainly a refreshing voice, and a plug from Rod Rosenbladt carries a lot of weight. But, I’ve got some thoughts I’d love to run by you guys. . .
He writes:
If you want to stick your hand in a meat grinder, you are free to do that. It’s stupid, but God isn’t going to run the universe that way. God is not going to punish. He cares more about relationships than behavior.
This quote can be understood through the “uses” of the Law, but I don’t think that it does justice to the reality where people live. Its true that the Cross means that God “cares more about relationships than behavior,” but God continues to judge–to punish–old Adam.
The anguish of Romans 7 is not because Paul simply refused to acknowledge his sinfulness and already-absolvedness. The anguish comes from the experience of living under the dual reality of being forgiven on one hand, and under the weight of God’s active punishment on the other.
I agree completely with his radical understanding of the God who justifies only the ungodly; however, I think that saying that God is not actively involved in the destruction of all idolatry–both in the lives of Christians and non–is not really that profound, and ultimately ends up making the message of the Cross a platitude.
Jady,
I agree with your reservations about some of what Capon wrote. I am uneasy with the implication that it is again up to us to either accept or reject God’s forgiveness. It puts power in my hands when Paul clearly presents us as powerless in relation to God (Romans 3).
God saves us. He is the acting party. We are the passive party. He is the subject, and we are the object.
I love a lot of what Capon has to say, but I must confess I am not comforted by this aspect of his writings.
I agree with Dylan that Capon is attempting to stress God’s grace, and, while that is a noble goal, as you rightly point out, that grace is pointless without the judgment of the cross suffered by Christ on our behalf. The judgment must occur in order for grace to occur. This, as you imply, is the profoundest truth for us. Christ took our sin so that we might be given His righteousness. God is indeed gracious, and He is also just. Our sin must be dealt with, and He deals with it for us.
This is why the cross is such Good News.
I would like to flush out more about your comment regarding “God’s active punishment” on the sinful nature. I understand that you are presenting it as our experience a la Romans 7 (simul justus et peccator), but I wonder about the “active” part. Is God’s punishment active, or has it already been suffered once and for all on the cross? If it is finished, then what are we experiencing? I guess it is the ongoing purpose of the law to drive us back to the cross and our justification, but I am just working through this, and I want to get your thoughts regarding this.
Thanks:) (Please forgive my extensive and sometimes confusing use of commas.)
Yes, agreed, he’s not that good on the matter of the will. But he’s great on Jesus and the movement of God in Christianity being primarily a “left-handed” affair. Those two elements open the door nicely to the Gospel as being a Theology of the Cross, and not a Theology of Glory. But Capon on the will,…not so much.
Dave Z, you might post some of the other quotes that I sent you from him.
Call me crazy but this guy sounds a lot like Karl Barth!
Dear Christopher,
It could be that you are calling for the right thing.
Three thoughts:
1. John, yeah, I suspect that Capon might be a bit weak on the will (and substitution as well). But he’s certainly great on the primacy of Grace, the impotency/addictiveness of the Law, and reality of death/resurrection. And that’s saying A LOT.
2. Dylan and Sean, I see what you’re getting at and I agree. The phrasing here could definitely give the impression that Capon believes salvation to be a matter of us “choosing” forgiveness rather than being chosen. Which is clearly very problematic. Still, what he writes is descriptively true, isn’t it? I mean, there’s nothing more depressing than meeting someone whose fist is so closed – someone who is so convinced of their own victimhood – that they can look you in the eye and claim that there’s nothing for which they need to be forgiven. I imagine that kind of a life might feel pretty hellish.
3. Jady, I wonder if you might explain yourself a bit more, as I think Sean makes a good point. I mean, is it really true to your experience that God actively punishes the “old Adam” in you for everyday acts of idolatry? Or is it more that the idolatry itself wreaks havoc? Of course, I suppose you could argue that God is involved either way. But if the “old adam” is already sentenced to death, what might additional “active” involvement look like? I sincerely doubt that Capon is denying the reality of judgment that we find in death (though maybe he is, who knows).
In terms of Romans 7, though, absolutely – clearly Paul is not just frustrated with himself for being unable to internalize his absolution. There’s something more going on, and I’ve always thought had to do with the bondage of the will, or as you put it, the pain of the dual reality. Which is where it sounds like we all might part company with Capon anyhow.
That said, I’ve always felt the Old Adam/New Adam distinction was a bit confusing. Or at least, abstract in an unhelpful way. Don’t we experience life (primarily) as Old Adams? That any emphasis on the New Adam only signifies the reassertion of the Old?
But all that aside, I want to hear what you thought of the Battlestar mid-season finale!! I am reeling.
p.s. Dad, thanks a pantload for the super-cryptic comment.
You’re welcome.
Some more thoughts. .
Schnizzle and Dave–
I’m working through this stuff too, so I appreciate the discussion.
I’m hesitant to view the Law, and its subsequent effects, as distinct from the action of God; therefore, I have trouble conceiving of some sort of world where I get judged by the Law as a force outside of the control of a loving God.
That being said, I think that my experience is certainly not that God actively judges every idolatrous act, but my experience would certainly attest to the continued assault on idolatry (as was promised in Exodus) in my life as a whole. At the very least, we can see the onset of age as destroying the idol of beauty (although we all know it is on the inside!).
The message of the Cross is that although our lives seem to be one long march towards death–one where we bury our dreams daily–that God is actually in control and actively involved in both the killing and, more importantly, the making alive.
I don’t know. . just some thoughts. . what do you think?
BTW Christopher, I think you’re completely right.
I think that Elert’s critique of Barth in “Law and Gospel” could be applied to Capon as well. . .
Jady,
I agree with you on the fact that the law is not somehow separated from God, and that He is in control of both the dying and the living.
I still run into difficulty when I think of what actually happened at the cross. Christ suffered the punishment for our sin, namely the death and complete separation from God, so that we would not have to. So, my question remains, what are we experiencing when we experience the “deaths” in life? Is it us experiencing the already complete reality in the cross? Is it, dare I say, “the already and the not yet”? (For some reason I really hate that phrase). I guess I am still uncomfortable with the word punishment to describe it.
Let me go back to first principles. The law is vital throughout life because it is the whip that drives us back to the cross where we “wake-up” once again to the reality of what Christ has already accomplished for us. It crushes my notion that I can do something to save myself. In the midst of my hysteria of trying to take control, the law smacks me in the face with my inability and wakes me up once again to my need for salvation.
SO, I guess that’s it. Our experience of “dying” is the notion of our ability being killed and our “waking up” once again to our need, which then points us back to what He has already done on the cross to meet that need. In short, it is us realizing our justification.
I know this is just a description of what you mean by “active punishment”, but for some reason it makes me more comfortable. The word punishment gets me all wound up into a mess because it makes me think that there is something left to be suffered after Christ’s death.
What do you think Jady, and anybody else? Am I nuts to be uncomfortable with the language of continued punishment?
Sorry for kind of spilling my brain out onto to the blog here:)
Hi fellas, I’m gonna weigh in here, although I really haven’t formed a complete thought in regards to this “continued punishment” thing, thus I’ll probably be all over the place. Glean what you can, if possible.
I can’t bring myself to the place where I can go along with the idea of God continuing to punish us. That would seem to me some kind of “finishing” work being done in relation to my sin.
I believe that my sinful acts have consequences (sometimes) and I believe that ultimately God is in control.
But, and this is somewhere in scripture, is it not the case that the evil one has some, indeed, a great deal of room for making it hard on us down here? I mean, the world is still in a state of falleness, right? Fire burns me if I get to close to it, if I grasp a rose in the wrong place I may be pricked by a thorn. I hardly think that I’m being punished by God because of my actions in these examples. Some may say, “Well, there was no evil intention, perhaps, in these scenarios.”
But that just brings us to the place, again, where we think that we actually have a good grasp on what “good” and “bad” is.
Thoughts?
Last night at Mockingbird’s “The Gospel According to The Office” Dave, Jake, and I talked a bit about this discussion, and I think some helpful thoughts were put forward.
Jacob reminded me of what Dr. Mattes said at the Mockingbird Conference a few months ago:
“God is so for you in his defense of you that he is against himself in his accusation of you.”
I found this very helpful because it clearly does acknowledge that it is in fact God who accuses our sin through the law, but it also shows that it is His grace that trumps that judgment. The point of the judgment/accusation/punishment is so that His grace might be realized to us.
I know we have basically been in agreement over this, but I just found this reminder by Jake extremely clarifying.
After some more thought I realized why I was so bothered initially with the punishment language. It was/is because of the pastoral implications. People that are suffering don’t need/want to hear that God is punishing their sin. That would be very bad news to the sufferer. Their pain is evidence that they already know the law – it is written on their hearts – and they can feel the fact that they are not matching up. They are living in the reality of Romans 1.
The message of God’s unconditional grace is what they need/want to hear. This is what PZ taught us about preaching to the lowest common denominator. We preach to the sufferer because we believe that everyone is suffering on some level.
We certainly do not ignore the wrath of God by any means, without it we do not understand His grace. I just do not find the emphasis of it necessary.
Sorry, the above comment is not Kate’s. I didn’t realize that I was still signed in under her name:)
Dear Mike, I appreciate your thoughts. There is indeed a train of thought in some theological circles that suggests that the suffering/punishment that Christians experience does not come from God, but, rather, from the devil. It is God who (like in Job) allows the devil to do his thing, but never God inflicting punishment upon those he (supposedly) loves.
Personally, I don’t buy into that approach as a way of explaining all suffering, though I do think it’s probably a good explanation in some circumstances. Here’s why:
1) where experience is concerned, the difference between suffering that comes from the devil and suffering that comes from God is negligable, and God’s allowances anger me just as much, if not more, than the idea that he is in fact the inflictor.
2) Because of fallen wiring, the cross always sits in my flesh as an offense, as a kind of punishment. And so I go around calling a good thing bad and a bad thing good, wrongly almost always. In light of this counterintuitive relationship with the Gospel, if I say that suffering is from the devil, I am often in fact saying that love is of the devil. It is so often the case that the collapse, that a person dreads, swears is the “attacking evil one”, proves very often to be a great blessing, the source of ministry and love. I do believe that God’s love is often experienced by us (incorrectly) as suffering; he treats us like his son.
I think of Luther’s line: “God must first be the devil before He can be God.” God’s grace has to be an intervention, which means it will fly in the face of our own desires, which feels like suffering. In wake of that, it seems to me that much of our suffering comes directly from God. If it does not, then God is no deeper than my own perceptions, which is glory.
Can you see where I’m coming from on this? -JAZ+
2)
Mike, I just re-read your comment, and think I sort of misinterpreted the point you were making. Mine is in response to a particular situation which your comment brought to mind, one where a person refuses to consider their own problem in light of some particular hardship, because they want to pass the problem off as being the devil. i.e., “She can’t possibly want to leave me, and God doesn’t want us to break up, so the devil is attacking my relationship.” Could it possibly be that the dude is a tool (as the girl well knows) and that God refuses to let it stay that way? …
Could we be confusing punishment with discipline? As sons and daughters, God lovingly corrects us, even when such correction is painful. He does not leave us in our mess. And thank goodness He does not! Discipline in no way compromises God’s grace or mercy towards us; nor does it bind us once again to the law. Please consider the verses below:
1 Corinthians 11:32
When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world.
Hebrews 12:5-11
And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons:
“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
because the Lord disciplines those he loves,
and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.”
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
So good…
[…] [15] Ibid., 291-292. Also read Floyd Brown’s interview of Capon. […]