There is a new blog on the market by scholar J.R. Daniel Kirk. Just when I was beginning to question the raison d'etre of blogs, reading Storied Theology gave me hope. For example, how about this for pulling the pin out of a grenade and launching it into the ranks of centuries of theology:
Now I like A Few Good Men as much as the next person, but I think I'm ready to hop on board Kirk's train when he says this.
And then there's his take on the one we Christians call "God":
The structure of the universe is not law, the story of the universe is not a court drama.
Now I like A Few Good Men as much as the next person, but I think I'm ready to hop on board Kirk's train when he says this.
And then there's his take on the one we Christians call "God":
We have not spoken of the Christian God when we have spoken of a “spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.” We have talked about an ideal for a divinity. We speak of the Christian God when we speak of the God who has acted to send His own Son, to give that Son up for us all, to raise that Son from the dead, and to see to it that the message of this son is sent to the ends of the earth.In other words, one of the most important pay-offs for being willing to have our transhistorical theological categories exchanged for the biblical categories is that it creates space to reconceive of the identity of God as put on display in the biblical narrative itself: a God who is relentlessly on mission to draw the world to Himself.
Praise be to the blogging gods, for they have looked favourably on us in this new year.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
ReplyDeleteWe need mamma's castor oil here, not her gravy.
ReplyDeleteBut seriously. Perhaps we have not FULLY spoken of the Christian God when we reference power, spirit, immutability etc. But we have spoken of Him. Surely both these "definitions" are not mutually exclusive.
ReplyDeleteKirk must be an Aristotelian, rejecting the "Platonic Ideals" for the former's idea that a man (and for that matter a God)is what he does, not what he thinks or supposes himself to be on the inside. There are no ideal qualities, only actions.
Provocateur!
Kirk certainly isn't arguing for mutual exclusivity. Rather, he's arguing that we should talk about God the way the Bible talks about God - the God of particulars, he might put it.
ReplyDeleteI can talk about a 53 [!?] year old male with a beard, rather long arms, and a mind full of Scripture. Now I can certainly be talking about my Dad, but I can also be talking about someone else. In order for my talk to be meaningful, it has to be relational. Who is this bearded, long armed man to me? What has he done? What is he likely to do?
The same should be true for Christian talk of God. He was never revealed in the abstract. He was and is a God in relationship - with Israel, human beings, creation etc. He is a God who has tied himself to his creation, seen no more clearly than in the man Jesus.
It sounds presumptuous to speak of God in such terms but I think the Bible gives us permission to presume. I've yet to grasp this of course, but I think the sooner I stop thinking of God in the abstract and start seeking out a loving Father who has acted to redeem all of creation (including me) and who desires to know his children and be known by them, the sooner this thing called life starts to make sense.
preach it Brother...or Son...i would swap my head knowledge of God anyday, for a real genuine encounter with Hin.. As Tozer says..Doctrine can be a highway to God or from God...just give me a bush...and some fire..and see what happens..
ReplyDeleteInteresting that you should write that. Here is what one preacher thinks of the state of mainline preaching today:
ReplyDelete"there is plenty of morality and good counsel, but no desert bush bursting into flame."
He also says that
"Sermons on 'Five Ways to Keep Your Marriage Alive' or 'Keys to a Successful Prayer Life' or even 'Standing Up for Peace in a Warring World' may possess some ethical wisdom and some utilitarian helpfulness, but they often have the sickly sweet aroma of smoldering incense in a temple from which the deity has long since departed"
What you're really saying, Dec, is that systemmatic theology flattens. It flattens God into a manageable, two dimensional caricature of who he really is. Of course this only becomes a problem when, in practice, sys/theo becomes the exclusive lens through which we view God. This may be a problem in some sections of the church today and needs to be borne in mind by anyone thinking of going to Bible College (ahem hem hem).
ReplyDeleteAs for the 53 year old man analogy, any number of men could indeed be 53, grey beard, long arms and mind full of scripture...........I think. But there's only one omnipotent, omniscent, omnipresent, immutable, eternal, holy, just, loving, gracious one. When you talk of this one, you cannot be talking of anyone else.
That having been said, many years ago my brothers father in law asked me what God was to me. I said He was good, just, holy, loving. He interjected and said he wasn't asking me to describe God, just to tell him what God meant to me, how I related to Him. I thought for a moment and then said, though with little conviction, that He was my Father. You see I realised in that moment I had little real, intimate, experience of being in a living and loving relationship with Him.
It is interesting that the "flattened" God of I Tim 1:17 (eternal, immortal, invisible), is
preceeded by the interventionist God(eat your heart out Nick Cave) of verses 15-16, who came into the world to save sinners and took hold of Paul's life that he (Paul) might be a living example to us of another of God's "flat" attributes, His patience.
We must have some abstract revelation of God. There is much about Him that cannot be revealed to us in His interactions with us. Moses wanted to see His glory but God said it was not possible, his mortality could not bear it, though He gave him a veiled glimpse. You see, for all His interaction with us, and all that is revealed of Him in the scriptures, we still only have the veiled glimpse. This is true, even though John could say: "and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." Now, through the glass, darkly, then, face to face. But my hope is that "now, through the glass, darkly" is still more than enough to consume us whole.
If Manuman is quoting Tozer, then Manuman can only be one person....keep him at arms lenght, I say.
ReplyDeleteSorry to dissappoint you GRASSHOPPER, but this MANUMAN is Present, Mortal,Mutable, Ingracious, at times, but yet I am seeking to know Him, who is invisible.Maybe that is in part what is wrong with the Evangelical Church today, we do not really know Him. How can I know Him, apart from revelation? Thats good GRASSHOPPER, you have obviously picked something up from all your "hopping" around...keep hopping...
ReplyDeleteSo mainline, bible believing, evangelical/charismatic/pentecostalchristianity embodies the "sickly sweet aroma of smouldering incense in a temple from which the deity has long since departed". I suppose I should add the qualifier "western" to the above list. That is a pretty damning commentary on western christianity. It's a long time since I heard anything like that. Whoever he is, he's certainly not the Uncle Tom of the western church. Perhaps he's getting on a bit now, preaching only from memory, in the hope of enticing the deity back into the sickly sweet temple. I can tell him now, the deity won't return. He doesn't do "sickly sweet". We'll have to throw open the doors, throw out the incense, breath in the stench, and cry "MERCY".
ReplyDelete