The Theology of Prosperity and its Link to Proverb and Promise
A belief exists which whittles God down to a function: if I do this, God will do that. Whereas this belief pretends to exalt God’s faithfulness, in effect the belief causes God to be subservient, a reversal of Creator and creature. The belief’s basic form shows up in the form of “If I do right, God will bless me” and its inverse “If I do wrong, God will punish me.” This belief is illustrated biblically in the Proverbs where simple minds reinterpret proverbial wisdom into divine promise. “If God said He’d do it, He’ll do it!” is the guiding logic for these readers. (The logical fallacy here begins in the misrepresentation of the genre of proverb. In other words, because proverb is not promise God did not, in fact, say that He would do it. “Not p” for those logicians who may be reading.)
The more advanced forms of this belief only carry it to its natural end. If God can be manipulated through his “promises” (or, more accurately, His proverbs), then we have only to act upon them through virtuous action (a form of legalism) or verbal acquiescence (name it and claim it). If we fail to receive the ‘blessing’, per se, it is because we have failed in our virtue (point 1) or failed in our “faith” or belief (point 2). This is in essence the argument used by Job’s “friends” to explain his suffering. The dangers in this line of thinking are twofold, first seen in the above response by Job’s friends and secondly by those who elevate the successful as being ‘blessed’ by God. Clearly, however, the righteous do in fact suffer (see Job) and the wicked do in fact ‘prosper’ (Isaiah 2:7-8). These realities require a change, then, both in our hermeneutics and our perspective.
Our perspective is changed when we view from the end of time (the last days) when God makes everything ‘right’ and consequences are inevitably doled out to those who deserve them, both wicked and righteous. More pressing, however, is our hermeneutical understanding of God’s “promises” or God’s “proverbs”. Proverbs and promises should never be equated because whereas the first, by virtue of God’s power and character, should always come true if God exists, the second may in fact not come true, but should more often than not come true. The latter concept is a hard pill to swallow if one does not consider the Bible with a more sophisticated understanding than most do.
