Pope Francis, it’s not unloving for God to “lead us into temptation”
Pope Francis, head of the Roman Catholic Church, has made news for being one of the most unconventional recent popes. He has suggested that the Catholic Church needs to change its attitude toward certain issues, opted to eschew the typical papal residence for a modest guesthouse, and occasionally drawn the ire of both political conservatives and theologically conservative Catholics. He seems to find the sometimes-over-formality and over-opulence the Catholic Church is known for a bit distasteful, a view I can sympathize with. He also has a far greater concern for charity and grace than he does for being the morality police, an attitude I could use some improvement on.
His most recent newsworthy suggestion, though, is that the common translation of the Lord’s Prayer should be changed. In particular, he believes the line “lead us not into temptation” is “not a good translation.” He prefers “do not let us fall into temptation.” His reasoning is:
“It is not He that pushes me into temptation and then sees how I fall. A father does not do this. A father quickly helps those who are provoked into Satan’s temptation.”
Now, as a Protestant, the Pope’s opinion does not affect me. The major Protestant translations will probably not follow suit if he does change the form used in the Catholic liturgy. But because he is a spiritual authority in Christendom, his opinion will still influence a lot of people.
This prompts three thoughts from me, or rather, three additional questions to be answered.
One, Is the traditional rendering a good translation? Two, Would God ever actually lead us into temptation? Three, Is it unloving for God to do so?
So first: Is the Pope right, that this is a bad translation? Of course, I obviously don’t have as much scholarly education or experience as the Pope. However, it seems clear from what he said that his opinion is not based on the translation, but on his own preconceived notions on how a loving Father should act. The two words at play here are peirasmos (translated “temptation”) and eispherō (translated “lead”).
Peirasmos is actually a pretty broad word that can mean “temptation,” “testing,” or “trial.” The idea is a difficult situation where your faith and convictions will be challenged and tested. So the phrase could be accurately rendered, “And lead us not into trial,” and still be faithful to the original translation. “Temptation” probably gets it across better because it better gets across the sense that there’s a risk of devastating failure, but the translation could be changed. And maybe if we understand the word to mean “testing” or “trial,” and not just “temptation,” that would alleviate many of our concerns right there. But oddly enough, this is not the part Francis wants to change. Instead he wants to change…
Eispherō, which is a compound word composed of eis (in) and pherō (bring). Unlike peirasmos, these are pretty basic words. I can’t see any alternative here. You can nuance the word all you want, but there is bringing going on. The prayer asks God not to bring us into a situation where we will be tempted or tested, not simply to not allow us to fall into one. And the verb tense in the Greek is clearly the active tense. In essence, you’ve got to do quite a bit of theological dancing to rationalize a passive meaning out of that word. Basically, the Pope is saying, “Here’s what I think God is like. The Bible looks like it says something different. Therefore, we must reinterpret it so it agrees with what I think.” Even in Catholic theology, where tradition and councils are given equal weight with Scripture, I don’t think that’s legitimate.
Now there’s question #2: Would God ever actually lead people into temptation/testing? Consider these scenarios: God calls a man to be a pastor of a church in Houston. He moves there with his family and things go well for six months. Then, a hurricane hits, and his home and all his possessions are destroyed, as well as his church building. Or, God brings a great man into a woman’s life, and they get married. Two years later, the man cheats on her and abandons her. Or, a woman goes to church on Sunday as always, where she contracts a severe illness from the person seated next to her; subsequent complications make the illness life-threatening.
In all three of these scenarios, God led these people into these situations, knowing the disaster that would result. God didn’t cause the storm or the adultery or the illness, but he knew it would happen. He led them into a place where their faith would be challenged and tested. This might be what’s most surprising about Francis’ statement, because he declares God does not do this. Ask anyone their story, and they will tell you otherwise.
So the third very important question: Is it unloving for God to do so?
Francis claims that a loving father wouldn’t do something like that. And certainly, God doesn’t tell someone to steal a pair of shoes and then get mad at them for stealing them. He doesn’t tell a man to go into a strip club and then get mad at him for lusting. That’s what Francis appears to think “leading into temptation” means, but I think it’s more like the circumstances above.
The fact is that we live in a fallen world, where there is evil. Our fallen natures are so distorted that sometimes the only way we will take the next step in our relationship with God — and in carrying out his mission for us in this world — is through trials. We know this. Loving fathers, plenty of times, put their children in situations where they know the child will experience some trials, so they will grow. For example, a father sends his daughter to school. He knows she will encounter troubles at school. Her relationship with her father will even be tested as other things, even harmful things, compete for her attention. At times she will be tempted to disobey him. It’s distressing to her at times, and the father may offer her comfort and even assistance, but not pull her out of school because he knows it’s better for her to work through it. Never putting her in any situation where she will be tempted is unloving. And the difficulties of grade school are minor compared to the reward they bring.
We might protest that putting a girl in school is not the same as putting her in a hurricane. Some things that happen to us on earth have no silver lining and no ultimate reward, at least not here. But God knows that even the years, maybe 70-80 of them we have here on earth, will be nothing after 80 million years in eternity. Such trials, if they have no rewards on earth, may enhance our eternal experience in ways we can’t see.
But if God leads us into situations where he can see the disaster that will tempt us on the horizon, he can also see what ultimately results from it. It is loving for him to lead us somewhere he knows will result in ultimate good.
So why do we pray that prayer then?
Because it’s okay to tell God that we would prefer not to have to go through trials to carry out his mission for us in this world. I mean, wouldn’t we rather grow closer to God through good things that happen to us than bad things — or through our good choices rather than bad ones? We can and should express that. Then we will see how God answers it every time he does deliver us out of a trial.
Sometimes the English translators translate the biblical text in a subpar way. I don’t believe this is one of them. In this case, it’s not the words that need to change, but our view of God.
