Pretension Buster: Blame

www.despair.com -- "Increasing success by lowering expectations"

(so much like the Old Adam and the Old Eve)

Arrogance cannot be avoided or true hope be present

unless the judgment of condemnation is feared in every work

--Martin Luther

(Heidelberg Disputation, Thesis 11)

And the Lord God said, “Who told you that you were naked?

Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

The man said, “The woman whom you gave me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it.”

So the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

And the woman replied, “The serpent tricked me, and I ate.”

Genesis 3:11-13

When confronted with the question: "Did you eat...?" notice how both Adam and Eve admit to eating. But... oh what bondage they are in. Not only do they confess to eating but they also confess to being helpless pawns to the wills of others. The two of them point accusing fingers of blame to the ones who caused them to eat: Adam points to Eve; Eve points to the serpent.

Lurking in the text is another object of blame--explicit for Adam; implicit for Eve. In Adam's casting of blame upon Eve, he explicitly names the woman as "the one whom you [God] gave me." For Eve--behind her naming the beguiling serpent--lies the implicit words "whom you created." Genesis 3:1 tells us that this serpent was the most shrewd of all the animals the Lord God had made. So our lapsarian parents both implicate their creator as responsible for not only their eating but also for their nakedness and all its attendant consequences.

Adam and Eve's pointing fingers of blame are inclusive: neighbor (Eve), creation (serpent), and Creator (God) are all responsible for the condition the fallen couple now suffer. No wonder Luther could say that after the Fall free will existed in name only (Heidelberg, #13). Certainly, after their fall, Adam and Eve claim to be helpless victims "bound" to the will of others.

This gives rise to the possibility of another perspective on the contrast between "blame" and "blameless." As demonstrated by this Genesis story, "blame" is that pointing finger--directed away from self and toward the other--that pointing finger declaring: "It's not my fault, it's yours!" "Blameless," on the other hand, has meant that one possesses nothing to which an accusation can stick--there is no place in you for "blame" to be affixed. Thus, as typically used in Scripture, "blame" and "blameless" are not the strict antonyms their structure would indicate. But what if they were?

If "blame" and "blameless" were strict antonyms, then 'blameless" would mean "one who does not 'blame.'" For Adam and Eve to have been "blameless" they would have said something like this: "I ate. It was my own fault, my own grievous fault. I ate." Now that sounds like a real confession.

Hans Iwand--a German theologian of the 20th century--once declared that the first justification that takes place in "justification by faith" is the "justification" of God. That is, sinners--rather than "blaming" God as the cause of their problem--now see that God is "justified" in his accusation (his judgment) against them. God is "just" in his judgment of them. These sinners--justified by faith--no longer "blame" God for their difficulty; they are "blameless." Presumably, then, these justified sinners no longer blame creation or neighbor and so are "blameless" before them as well.

However much we desire success, it will never be ours until that accusing finger of blame bypasses neighbor, creation, and Creator and points solely at ourselves. Then, abjectly and honestly confessing our failures we will come to know--not the success of our own work--but the success of God's work in us.

And you were at one time strangers and enemies in your minds as expressed through your evil deeds, but now he has reconciled you by his physical body through death to present you holy, without blemish, and blameless before him – if indeed you remain in the faith, established and firm, without shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard.

Colossians 1:21-23a