Epiphany

This was a first.

Today's Theology class featured a discussion on predestination. I went into the class with a nasty headache, and the conversation, while fascinating and rich, certainly didn't help.

We worked our way through Augustine and Pelagius and Calvin and Arimaeus and Wesley and Origen. And then the teacher gave us a thumbnail sketch version of Barth's take on predestination (do NOT ask me to replicate it here, because I know I can't just yet).

And there in the classroom I began silently to weep.

I cried because it struck me as so beautiful and so true. I sat there with tears streaming down my face, with joy and relief and gratitude in my heart. They are flowing again as I write this.

After class I went up to the instructor and explained what was going on with me. I thanked him for helping me to hear and understand this. I told him that it was a big fat huge deal for me, and that in this moment I considered him as much or more a pastor than a teacher.

It was for an experience like this that I signed up for classes at seminary. I know it's just a tip of the iceberg, and that I'll need to inwardly digest and keep learning. But for now, just this: thanks be to God.

What does God want from us? (re: Predestination)

Overview of Christian Theology: Assignment 4

The difficulty with predestination, as I see it, is located in two primary notions: the idea of exclusivity (that only knowledge and acceptance of Jesus Christ offers salvation) and in the premise of eternal damnation (that the sinner will be perpetually punished for choices made in the context of a finite and limited human life). It is hard to reconcile these notions with the premise of a genuinely loving and just God.

Suppose I build two robots, and endow them with a desire to survive and a limited but meaningful form of artificial intelligence, which among other things allows them to chose whether or not to obey orders given for their own good by the one who made them. The two robots are identical in this respect. Then, for some perverse reason, I make one robot deaf to the sound of my voice or place it in a soundproof roof where it cannot possibly hear me. I tell both robots who I am and that I will destroy them if they do not obey only me. I give both of them instructions. While the first may occasionally fail to follow my orders (as I have created it to do), not surprisingly the deaf or sequestered robot does not even know I have given an order or understand that its survival is at stake. It may obey me from time to time, but if it does so it will be a happy coincidence — perhaps it is following similar instructions given by someone else or that it has worked out on its own. I see that the robot has failed to follow my orders, so I dismantle it and melt its body down for scrap while its mechanical brain (now informed of its error) sits on a shelf suffering forever the forfeiture of its life.

How can the deliberate creation of the deaf robot possibly be described as loving? How can the destruction and perpetual punishment of the deaf robot for failing to follow orders, as given by a master it could not hear, possibly be described as just?

I am afraid that I am a dyed-in-the-wool universalist. With Julian of Norwich, I can only say that, whatever the teachings of the church, I believe that “all will be well and all manner of things will be well,” and that every soul will somehow be saved. I cannot bring myself to worship and praise a God that deliberately created some for eternal damnation. (A loving parent doesn’t keep punishing a child for behavior that stems from a congenital birth defect!)

In wrestling with the notion of God’s righteous judgment, I can only think that we do not understand the form that judgment might take and that our understanding of punishment in perpetuity is misguided. Perhaps there is some form of salvation through judgment... although I freely admit I haven’t yet managed to figure out what that might mean. We human beings think of justice, fundamentally, as at best a tit-for-tat proposition (“karma’s gonna get you!”); my hope and expectation is that God’s justice is as much deeper and more expansive than human justice as God’s love is wider and more comprehensive than human love. In any case, the Jesus of scripture is most emphatically not a tit-for-tat kind of guy; he’s not even a three-strikes-and-you’re-out guy (apparently you get at least 70 x 7). Forgiveness is an attribute that can be predicated both of love and of judgment.

I do, however, agree with Guthrie that those of us who have come to know a just and loving God made manifest through Jesus Christ are under obligation to serve as God’s messengers in word and deed, and that we have a special responsibility toward those for whom God is invisible or silent. If we, the church, are now the Body of Christ in the world, we must embody God’s extravagant love and justice to all, and especially to those who have not or for some reason cannot or will not hear the Word of God for themselves. Let them then at least see us, as we attempt in our feeble and limited way to be witnesses to the good news. As St. Francis is reported to have said, we must preach the Gospel at all times... and, if necessary, use words.

We are all made of stars...

A recent study shows that human hands (and the soles of our feet, and our foreheads) emit photons. Read more about it here.

I'll try to keep that in mind as I juggle writing one of four papers for my NT Gospels class (due tomorrow), my brother's visit, and the paying work I'm not doing.

Gah.

Who is God? (And why is the answer in triplicate?)

Overview of Christian Theology: Assignment 3

If ever there were a stumbling block for the convert, the doctrine of the triune God has got to be it. One God is a concept just about anybody can grasp, and it has the virtue of simplicity. “Three-in-one” raises all sorts of problems, the most obvious of which is: Why three? Why not two or six or an infinite number? And even if you’re willing to go with three as a biblically-derived set (God the Creator and Holy Spirit as first set forth in the Hebrew Bible, with Jesus Christ revealed as always having been there in the New Testament), you’re still left with a mind-boggling array of epistemological and metaphysical challenges associated with assigning “works” to each Person and finding appropriate and meaningful ways of talking about them, their relationship to one another and to humankind. It’s hard for the newcomer to not see this as unnecessary multiplication of entities, on the one hand, or arbitrary limitations on the personhood of God on the other.

These problems are compounded in our times by the legacy of patriarchal language which, as Guthrie (Guthrie, 70-96) says, can be seen as “both sexist and idolatrous because it makes God in the image of a male human being.” It is all very well to wave one’s hands and say that all talk of God is necessarily analogical or metaphorical, but we human beings are sadly literal creatures, and we tend to internalize and reify our metaphors to a shocking degree. (I am reminded of a vesting room conversation I had with a fellow parishioner after a service in which I had used the pronoun “she” for the Holy Spirit when reciting the Creed. He was outraged and wanted to know how I could justify that language. I asked him whether he felt certain that God the Holy Spirit had a penis, which I’m afraid wasn’t particularly Christian of me, as it had the effect of ending the conversation abruptly. I don’t think that informing him that the word for Holy Spirit is feminine in Hebrew and neuter in Latin would have been much more soothing to his offended sensibilities.)

I was interested to learn of the Eastern church’s notion of the social trinity, and in particular of the concept of perichoresis. In addition to just being a beautiful word (I could say it all day), it adds elements of dynamism and, dare I say, aesthetic loveliness to the trinitarian model. I also found it helpful to work through Guthrie’s outlining of various trinitarian heresies, many of which are easy to fall into given our cultural conditioning and the traditional labels of the trinity. I will, in future, be mindful of the admonition that the works of each Person of the trinity are indivisible, and strive to apply that understanding consistently in the proclamation of the Gospel.

While the prospect of providing a summation of our Augustine reading (McGrath, 3.12) seems hopeless, I nonetheless feel obliged to say something about it and him. Despite being the lucky recipient of a top-notch liberal arts education, sadly my first encounter with Augustine did not occur until I first began seriously contemplating the notion of becoming a Christian. My discovery, through reading Augustine, that it was possible to be absolutely brilliant, nay, an astonishing genius AND a Christian was—I’m a bit embarrassed to say—an important factor in my conversion. That he lived and wrote in the fifth century made him even more amazing to me. Our reading this week, however, does little more than persuade me that, had Scripture and doctrine mandated a four-Person Godhead, Augustine would have found an extremely clever way to construct a model demonstrating the inevitability of that Fourness. I could adduce some other objections around the reification of things like “love” and “knowledge,” or point out the risks inherent in looking to the human mind for an image of God (and presuming to posit exactly in what ways it is and is not Godlike). I’m sure someone has written a fascinating Ph.D. thesis on just this topic, so I’ll be quiet now.

Seminary Humor

I arrived at class this morning a few minutes late, having not had a chance to eat breakfast. At our break, I dashed down to the dining hall and got some coffee, which is provided free of charge in reusable mugs. As I filled my cup I commented to the woman next to me about how delightful it was to not have to pay for it. She said, "Jesus paid for it!" *beat* "Jesus paid for everything!" Another *beat*. We both burst into laughter. "Hallelujah, thank you Jesus!" I said. And she said, "You know it," and though she was still smiling, she wasn't really joking any more. I sipped my coffee and said, "Taste and see how good the Lord is!" She nodded because she knew I meant it too.

Upstairs in the student lounge, as I fed money into the slot and selected a strawberry Poptart, I was bemoaning aloud my failure to pursue a healthier eating agenda. Another student in the lounge said to me, "Sometimes we have to be satisfied with the first fruits of Nabisco."

Things She Does That Are Adorable

• Prefers to curl up on chairs that I have just vacated, no matter how temporarily. Clearly, the seat I have been in must be the best seat.


• Reaches out to touch my cheek with her right paw and looks deeply into my eyes to convey how wonderful it is that I am paying attention to her. She's the only kitty I know who doesn't prefer that you blink slowly and regularly when looking her in the eye.


• Accompanies me to the bathroom and pees when I pee. If I'm doing it, it must be time for her to do it too, apparently.


• Takes up position between the transparent curtain liner and the bath curtain when I'm showering. That way she can keep an eye on me and on the water droplets that chase down the liner in such a charming fashion. She also will keep watch while all the water drains from the tub, because nothing is more fascinating than water in the vicinity of a drain, except perhaps water in a toilet.


• Stands on the back of my office chair with her front paws on my shoulder and gnaws gently on my ear. This is to signify that insufficient attention is being paid.


• Delivers a musical kitty-chirp when I sing out "Where's the kitty? I don't see a kitty anywhere around here." It's like one of those key-finder thingamabobs.
  
  
• Repositions herself half a dozen times in my lap while I brush her, thus insuring that every portion of her body receives an appropriate level of brushing.

Someday I'll make a list of the not-so-cute things she does. But her adorableness is slaying me today.

Who would have thought...

...that it would give me such intense pleasure to sit in a room with 10 other people and talk, for example, about how we know God?

I have been striving to bite my tongue, as I dearly wish to answer every question put to the class, and have something to add in response to virtually everything any of my classmates has to say. I don't want to be a pest or overbearing, however, so I am trying to listen at least twice as much as I speak.

So far, I've been favorably impressed by most of my classmates: their participation is thoughtful and candid. I'd be curious to know their life stories, and how they arrived in the seats next to mine.

I'm also really happy with the quality of instruction. I love an enthusiastic teacher... one clearly brimming over with eagerness to convey ideas and provoke thought about a beloved subject. As important as it is for students to listen, it's just as important or maybe more so for a teacher to be a good listener. Students are not always as articulate as they'd like to be. It's wonderful when a teacher can tease out the intended thought and bounce it back for further development and discussion. I also like it when a teacher encounters a new thought, or a new perspective, and you can genuinely see him or her chewing it over and filing it away for future serious consideration.

Still and all, the most startling thing for me is how much I'm enjoying this. I feel like someone is scratching behind my little furry ears and saying, "What a good girl! Do that again!" You should hear me purr.

How do we find God? How does God find us?

Overview of Christian Theology, Assignment 2

As a life-long seeker, I find these questions absolutely essential. If I am candid, I must also say that I have yet to encounter an answer to these questions that seems entirely satisfactory — both intellectually and spiritually.

This week’s readings (Guthrie , 39-69; McGrath, 1.19; 2.16; 2.17; 2.37) introduce us to two distinct ways in which we may come to know God: general and special revelation. General revelation of God is that which is available to all humanity by observation of nature, through the experience of one’s individual life and of human history, and in the working of reason. Special revelation is that knowledge of God which proceeds from our encounter with the Word of God in three forms: the person of Jesus Christ, the history and understanding of God’s dealings with humanity as set forth in the Bible, and in the community of the church. We say that we may find God through general revelation, but that God finds us in special revelation.

In defense of general revelation, we cite the order, beauty, rationality, and seeming purposefulness of the material world. We point to the promptings of conscience as the voice of the divine. We call upon the universal human awareness of a spiritual dimension to reality and to our own experience of an indwelling presence. We describe the shape of human history as progressing to a more just and happy world, and ascribe that movement to God. These claims are deeply challenged by modern science, which finds no need for God to explain the deep order of the natural world. They are disputed by post-modern thought, which tells us that conscience and human history are products of circumstance and constructs of human systems of control. The social sciences undermine claims of universal moral truth, and history itself puts the lie to the notion of continual progress. Perhaps the only portion of the general revelation project that remains relatively unscathed is the widespread phenomenon of personal spiritual experience. Yet each of us knows people who say that they have never had any such experience, and that those of us who have are delusional or, at best, indulging in harmless wishful thinking. (Maybe it was something we ate?)

By contrast, special revelation asks us to put our faith in sources and, by extension, in the ultimate Source outside ourselves. The premise is that in the person of Jesus, in Biblical texts that attest to him, and in the history and experience of the Holy Spirit alive in the church, God makes God’s true nature known to us most completely. We are asked to value the witness of the Bible, and the traditions, experiences, and judgments of community of the church over our own when they conflict. (In the Vatican I document, for example, we were instructed to condemn any scientific claim which contradicts the “doctrine of faith” as error with “the appearance of truth.”)

Since in special revelation it is God who seeks us, knowledge of God in this context is grounded in relationship. We are not studying an object, but rather getting to know a Person who has introduced Godself to us. We cannot be content with knowing about God. Nor is God some celebrity who we “know” by reading tabloid papers or watching entertainment news shows. One does not have a close relationship with another person intellectually or abstractly, but rather passionately, intimately, and in ways that grow and change over time. The challenge for Christians is that we dare not aspire to direct knowledge of God, but must have faith that we can find and be found by God in our own very earthly, very worldly, very specific human circumstances and relationships. We have to take care that, in the process, we are not misled into making an idolatrous god out of our own needs, desires, and perceptions.

One may ask how, then, this Christian project differs from that of any other human religion? Christianity seems to make claims for exclusivity: the revelation of God in Christ Jesus is the definitive revelation; all others are partial, uncompelling, or — which is worse — deleterious. As Guthrie says, we must “always be modest about what we think we know of God and God’s will.” Many of humanity’s greatest sins, some of the most extraordinary acts of evil, have been committed by people who were convinced they were doing God’s will. As there are no definitive rational arguments for God generally, or for the God we encounter in Jesus Christ, our knowledge of God must be located in a realm outside or beyond that of the merely rational or scientific. As we experience God in relationship, we are responsible for living into and modeling that relationship with everyone, everywhere. Since our human apparatus is inadequate for perceiving or defining God, we need to accept and rejoice in God’s freedom to act, to reveal, and to inspire in ways, people, and places that we could never anticipate and that we may not recognize. This is yet another reason to walk very humbly with the God who we only see now in an imperfect, darkened mirror.

Readings:

McGrath, Alister E. 2001. The Christian Theology Reader, Second Edition.
Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers Inc.

Guthrie, Jr., Shirley C. 1994. Christian Doctrine. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press.