Review of Greg Boyd's Crucifixion of the Warrior God Vol. 2

The Cruciform Thesis

In volume two, Boyd uses the cruciform hermeneutic developed in volume one to interpret the violence in the Old Testament.  He presents and defends four principles that comprise his thesis:

1. Principle of Cruciform Accommodation
2. Principle of Redemptive Withdrawal
3. Principle of Cosmic Conflict
4. Principle of Semiautonomous Power

Boyd's overall goal is to argue that God never commits any violence and his principles are ways he can both claim this while also agreeing that scripture is God-breathed.  His main thesis is that the violence in the Old Testament is only a literary mask that God allows himself to be strapped with in the same way as God's historical mask was a dying criminal on the cross.  God as guilty perpetrator of violence versus God as guilty victim of violence.

Cruciform Accommodation

Boyd contends that in the Old Testament God acted like a missionary that couldn't just will away certain barbaric practises of the natives.  He had to accommodate to the society he found.  As I stated in the volume 1 review, my main problem with Boyd's principle is that he hasn't argued well enough that the  New Testament doesn't accommodate either.  I also questioned the crucicentric lens.  Boyd thinks that the cross must be the lens we use to weed out the indirect revelation from the direct revelation.  I don't understand this because Boyd seems to speak out of both sides of his mouth.  For example, on page 783 he says that the cross and the resurrection are two sides of one event and quoting Barth that God's "No" is never spoken without his "Yes".  He also says that Jesus' whole life is a manifestation of the cross.  However, if Jesus' whole career is important, then why narrow the lens to the cross? 

Redemptive Withdrawal

My main critique of this principle and of this volume in general is that it undermines Boyd's crucicentric lens if by this we mean that the cross represents self-sacrificial, agape-centered love, which is certainly how Boyd glosses it.  Boyd's principle is that God punishes merely by withdrawing his providential care.  I claim that this means that God is no longer self-sacrificing; and this means that love ought not be reducible to mere self-sacrifice.  There are a few instances where Boyd admits that love is no longer self-sacrificing:

• p784: ...God sees that continuing to shower them with mercy would only serve them in their sin and thus become more deeply entrenched in it.
• p.788: ...there can come a point where God sees his merciful protection is being counterproductive...
• p.1136: ...the alternative of continuing to protect people from the consequences of their decisions would result in them sinking even further into evil.

If God allows people to destroy themselves, I can't see how this could be defined as "self-sacrifice" even if God grieves all the while and even if it is likened to "divine euthanasia" (p.789). 

Boyd makes much of the difference between doing and allowing and the dual-speech pattern.  He claims that the Old Testament sometimes speaks as if God is doing something when really he is just withdrawing and letting other forces do the acting.  He says that all the violence we see in the Old Testament is mere permitting. 

I have no real problem with the concept of withdrawal but it just isn't self-sacrifice anymore and is better accounted for in the mutuality model of love.  Boyd even highlights that when God withdraws he withdraws his presence.  However, God's presence is the ideal and identical with the mutuality model of love.  The reason why God withdraws is precisely because the mutuality of love is being contravened.  

One of the problems with the claim that God ought not to be viewed as doing violence because there is an ambiguous duality in the language is that there probably is a duality in the language when God is seen as doing anything.  In the words of Brueggemann Boyd quotes: "we are not told what Yahweh did or how it was done" (p.993).  God is transcendent and so his action in the world may be a bit opaque.  His promise to increase descendents to the patriarchs probably still required human participation.  Boyd admits that God could be working behind the scenes even when he withdraws but this is probably how he works in blessing too (p.830n.39; p.1000n.82).

The only emotion Boyd seems comfortable pinning to God is grieving because God is always self-sacrificing.  This explains why Boyd always puts "wrath" in quotes.  God's wrath is nothing more that what God's love looks like when people resist it (p.796).  But on the mutuality model of love, wrath becomes easy to accommodate.  Throughout the Old Testament God is seen as a jealous God (Ex 20:5, 34:14; Deut. 6:14-15, 4:22, 24, 5:9, 32:21-22; Josh. 24:19; Nah. 1:2-3; Ezek 36:5-6; Zeph 3:8; Ps 79:5; Num 5:14, 30).  On the self-sacrificial model this would have to be an indirect revelation, but on the mutuality model it is a direct revelation.  God really is angry and wrathful when he is not given his due.

Cosmic Conflict

I have no issues with Boyd's warfare worldview, it is what scripture demands.  I think his application of this principle outruns the evidence at times for I'm not entirely happy with some of his accounts (flood, Sodom and Gomorrah) but overall he has some very insightful ideas.

Semiautonomous Power

This principle gets around some violence in the Old Testament because by giving persons power, God let them have some say-so in how that power is used.  There are cases that Boyd claims where that power was abused and were not cases of God acting violently.  

My only comment on this principle is that Boyd gives an excellent account of Jesus' obedience. and I wish he had made that the centerpiece of his thesis and not the cross because the cross is too laden with bad theology in my humble opinion.  I take it to be Jesus' obedience (or his love for the Father) that is the engine of the atonement.

Conclusion

Boyd's work is very thought provoking and I would have liked a deeper treatment of the meaning of "God-Breathed".  I think the Church still needs to do a lot of work in thinking about Scripture/Canon/inspiration/God breathed etc.  For Boyd, there doesn't seem to be a lot of difference between saying the Old Testament is God breathed but very often false and just saying it is very often false.