408: The Value of Being 'Tested'
Abraham, Self-Knowledge, and Ascesis
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“After these things God tested Abraham, and said to him, ‘Abraham!’”
So opens Genesis 22, which ranks among the most difficult passages of all Scripture, the binding of Isaac. God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice his only son seems cruel, to the point of violating the apparent goodness of God.
The author of Genesis underscores, though, that God tested Abraham. The demand is an unnecessary one: it asks an obedience of Abraham that is heroic, that exceeds the ordinary strictures of goodness or virtue. Yet even with that, what precisely is the point?
Augustine’s answer in a sermon on the passage emphasizes the self-knowledge that such tests provide. Augustine notes that God knows the contents of human hearts in advance, and so does not permit tests to learn about what we are made of. Though Augustine does not invoke it, a constraint like that seems to stand beneath Paul’s contention that “God will not let you be [tested] beyond what you can bear” (1 Corinthians 10:13). Instead, Augustine cites John 6:5-6, where Christ asks Philip where they are going to get bread as a test, even though he knows what he is going to do.
Which is to say, God’s testing is like an interrogation: it puts us under scrutiny, so that we discover our weaknesses and frailties. As Augustine notes, the tests of God are ordered toward teaching, while the temptations of the devil try to mislead. God wants to bring into the light the hidden recesses of our hearts, which can only happen by putting us in situations where our capacities to obey or respond are stretched beyond what we are used to.
There is a communal dimension to this testing, to be sure. Abraham is tested in such a way as to reveal to us his inner life, so that we can know how to imitate him. Augustine emphasizes that behind the sacrifice of Isaac lies the miraculous gift of Isaac. God’s faithfulness to His promise to Abraham despite this great age grounds Abraham’s faith in His ability to raise Isaac from the dead. Abraham “trusted [God] on the point of begetting a son, he trusted him on the point of killing him.” God’s command chastens us (in Augustine’s readings) from attaching ourselves to God’s gifts, more than the giver.
There’s a healthy way of thinking about ascetiscm within the Christian life embedded here. The renunciation of temporal, earthly goods is a form of inviting God’s testing upon us, so that we discover the hidden weaknesses and confess them to God. Augustine at one point cites Psalm 19:12, “From my hidden faults cleanse me, O Lord.” The things that are hidden within us “won’t come out,” he goes on, “or be opened up, or discovered, except through tests and trials and temptations.”
His inclusion of ‘temptations’ there underscores the ambivalence and danger of thinking there is some positive good to being tested. We pray in the Lord’s prayer to not be led into temptation, and James 1:13 forbids us from saying that God is tempting us. Formally, there seems to be little difference between temptation and being tested. Both demand obedience; both disclose our character.
One way to think about ‘testings,’ though, would be that they are ordered toward turning away from visible, temporal goods for the sake of turning toward the eternal, invisible Good who is God. Temptations, by contrast, arise in contexts where we are enticed to not simply affirm a creaturely good but do so in a distorted manner. The internal conflict we feel might be similar—we are, in both, enticed toward disobedience to God. Yet the nature of the disobedience is crucially different. If we fail the test, we do so because we love God’s good creation as God’s good creation—and if we fail temptation, we love it as our the canvas for our own disordered desires.
Framing the ascetical aspect of the faith through ‘testing’ explains features of it that sometimes turn people away from it. I have met some people, for instance, who decline to fast on grounds that they get angry and feel alienated from God. The answer to such an objection is: Of course you do, and that is precisely the point. We are angry and alienated from God, only we do not realize it because the comforts of this life mostly keep it all in check. Removing those pleasures discloses us to ourselves in ways we would not see otherwise.
Thinking of ascesis as testing also means, though, that we should consider ordering it in conformity with the church’s practice and life. If our churches decide we should conform to God’s life here and now by abstaining from earthly goods, then we as individuals can do no other but join with the body of Christ in doing likewise. There might be heroic, saintly renunciations of this world’s goods at other times and in other ways. But for the rest of us, we should allow God’s timing to prevail on us and to rest content that the hidden arenas of our heart will be revealed in due course.
Around the Web
I went on my friend Rabbi Dr. Ari Lamm’s podcast recently, and it was a blast. We talked about: how I think about ‘public theology,’ pro-natalism, nationalism, and reputation. Ari is a terrific podcaster, and an even better person.
And speaking of podcasts….
This episode of Mere-Fi was spicy.
I had no idea that couriers of genetic material (like sperm, eggs, and embryos) existed. But here we are.
Today I learned that the Queen’s grandfather was euthanized.
This is an excellent review by my friend Elizabeth Corey of a fascinating (sounding) new examination of the effects of religion on America’s young people. My only question: she’s very interested in the lack of effects of religion on America’s elite, but why does it make such little difference on the lowest quartile of income, namely, the poor?
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