Day 741 - The Two Foundations of Practical Christian Theology, or Why Should God Shape Our Behavior?

The Two Foundations of Practical Christian Theology, or Why Should God Shape Our Behavior? (The object is not to judge but to love.)

A note to any Reformed “orthodox” theologians and others reading it on the previous post in this series  (Why Do We Worship?) and on this post: 

A perceptive reader will see that I have posed an argument about “knowledge of God” somewhat similar to John Calvin’s (See Chapter 1 of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 1). I assure you this is a result of the intuitive nature of the idea, and that so far it has not been necessary (yet) to drag into the consideration any of Calvin's subsequent voluminous academic arguments about Christian Faith and interpretation of scripture that influence so much of modern Reformed orthodoxy. 

This series is not an adventure embarking on an academic exercise of systematic theology. I hope you will see that two straightforward questions lead to a framework of Christian worship and action, perhaps subsuming Christian Faith. This framework consists of the practical conclusion that the entire experience of God is (1) a personal experience as a created being and (2) a collective experience of humanity signifying our reconciliation with God and each other; therefore, the critically important theology is a practical theology that guides believers’ behavior in the presence of others. Practical theology is inherently a collective theology. I will propose only one other “Calvinesque” idea on this possible path to a practical theology, the importance of scripture. I made this point in the closing paragraph of the previous post wherein I invoked (without naming it) the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral” modified by John Cobb (see Day 685). But read on…

Who is God? What is God?

Why have "Christians" burned people at the stake or shunned them from our communities for stating the “wrong” answers to these two questions? Why do we still do it? Ought these simple questions have simple answers?

It all depends on how you begin.

The simplest answer is to begin with another question, “Is this persecution of persons and worshipping communities that voice the answers that the self-appointed guardians of orthodoxy judge as “wrong” God-like behavior?” That forces a more thoughtful question, “Why should God shape our behavior?”

If you will bear with my circuitous approach, in order to suggest an answer to “Who, or what is God?” let’s think about the idea of  “creatio ex nihilo,” or “creation out of nothing.” 

If we argue that language reflects, or is intertwined with the innate character of being, then we can offer the most fundamental verb, “to be” as the expression of God, “I am,” or “God is,” or just “be-ing.” So, first, let us consider the proposition, “God should shape our behavior because ‘God is.’ ” 

If we believe there is a God (or an “all powerful” God) who brought everything into existence out of nothing (rational Greek philosophy calls it “creatio ex nihilo.”), then we may logically conclude this “God is” exists outside of our created existence. Otherwise God must have created God, an interesting idea that is both heretical to the “orthodox” and gets us no closer to understanding “creation.”

We could resort to scripture to look for an answer. However, Biblical scholarship is not exactly conclusive on this idea of creation out of nothing. Genesis 1:1 simply says “In the beginning God created the heavens (sky) and the Earth (land).” (I inserted in parentheses the actual meaning of the Hebrew words.)

The Genesis passage does not speak to what existed prior to this creation of land and sky, or even what exists beyond the sky and land of Earth, even though a rationalist will say it implies something about prior existence. Rationally without judging, we read these verses to say, “Absolutely nothing existed before God created the sky and land except God." But there is a profound assumption in that statement rooted in Greek philosophical thought.

An astute biblical scholar, even a self-appointed “defender of orthodoxy,” may explain creatio ex nihilo and God’s transcendence (transcendence = independence of, or existence outside the world) by pointing to John 1:1-3 (NRSV), “ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  2 He was in the beginning with God.” Doesn’t this mean God was present before creation?

But we must acknowledge we are reading a Greek account and there are some things about the Greek usage we need to know. First our favorite verb,  “to be,” is in the imperfect indicative form that in Greek describes a continuing action from an inception(beginning). That is “The Word is and has been with us since the beginning of our existence.” It does not say anything about what existed before the beginning.

We know from history and New Testament scripture itself that most likely John was written to a Christian (Jewish) congregation associated with the synagogue. It is fair to conclude that this “beginning” has the same sense as used in the Hebrew Genesis 1:1ff. So we are in the same boat, the text does not speak to what existed prior to “the beginning.”

Only by assuming the text speaks to the existence of a prior reality before creation containing God alone can we can say God is transcendent. Transcendence does not lead us any closer to a definition of explanation of God that can help us practically. I argue that we cannot make statements about what reality existed prior to creation based on biblical texts without making hypothetical conclusions rooted in our thinking shaped by our rational Greek philosophical tradition.

In fact even using reason, "before the beginning" is an inaccessible, if not absurd reality. It is a moot point, or an intellectual nicety useful for argument but irrelevant to either Hebrew or Christian thinking. So I guess I could stop right here!

A defender of “orthodoxy” who is steeped in a rational Greek philosophical outlook is not happy with that conclusion because we have a “loose end.”  We want the answer to the question, “Who was God before creation?” In fact, atheist or believer, most of us want to know what existed before creation even though practically it is moot. If transcendence is moot, what about immanence? Essentially immanence means, “being present” (technically it means being within, or existing in all parts of reality in a theological sense). How can God be immanent and transcendent?

This brings us to the second big problem, the large elephant in the room: rational Greek philosophy or worldview (see the next section). This Greek worldview has caused real problems for these two important theological concepts, the idea of immanence and transcendence. The Gospel narratives of the birth of Jesus describe Jesus as Emanu-el, or “God is with us.” (This  scripture itself poses a problem for transcendence, of course because a transcendent God is above, or outside reality and not a part of it.)

In fact through out the history of the Hebrews the idea of God being present and among them is more common than the idea that God is transcendent (the ark of the covenant, the relationship of God and Moses, and the complex confrontation of Job and God where both immanence and transcendence seem coincidental, for examples).

Who is God?

We are driven to describe the one who created us, and whom we worship and obey. Many people describe God by a particularly meaningful personal experience with the real world. They may say, “I see God in budding flowers,” or “I see God in the mathematical equations of quantum theory,” for examples. This forces the self-labeled “orthodox” theologians, such as we read in the Presbyterian Outlook or in Ms. Larson’s blog, to label people who seek to describe their immanent experience of Divinity through elements of the world as being victims of pantheism (which means something like “the totality of God is in everything”). They accuse them of saying God is (the orthodox judges add or imply ‘only’) a part of the sensory experience of reality, rather than the transcendent God. Pantheism is quite closely related to transcendence and immutability and we will explore it in the next post.

Such defenders of orthodoxy would say God is inexplicable (transcendent) with some biblical authority but then proceed to label those struggling to express their sense of God as part of the reality God created as “heretics.”

If you think about it, it is almost moot (because it is so self-evident) that humanity perceives God as part of the sensory experience of reality (“things”) since our only access to God is a human sensory experience (even if one invokes the Holy Spirit).

But, let us first address the elephant in the room.

Our Greek Philosophical Outlook

A professor of Computer Science at Carnegie-Mellon University dying of pancreatic cancer wrote a bestselling book, “The Last Lecture” in which he said something to the effect, “Everything I learned, I learned before I was five years old.”

This observation captures the entire essence of the development of our thought process that forms being, our worldview. Our world view is shaped by the process of learning to speak, think and express our self immersed in a collective cultural experience that provides a philosophical, interpreted reality to us as we learn it. We adopt an image of the world from people and things around us before we are able to process it cognitively. In the West, we are immersed in a Greek, rational worldview.

The world view of the Western World, people and things, in fact, our entire Western civilization including Protestant theology, is built on the rational thinking of Greek philosophy - ideas of cause and effect, good and evil, either-or, right-wrong, even ideas about God. It is like being subject to a propaganda campaign in utero and after birth until the time we learn to talk, reason and explore the world. This Greek philosophical outlook learned in our first five years so colors our Western sense of reality that as adults we cannot look beyond it except with great difficulty and emotional discomfort.

Immutability is a good example of the problem Greek philosophical thinking causes. One of our favorite “orthodox” critics would say God is immutable. This means God is unchangeable. If God does not change God’s mind then God cannot not be subject to emotional feelings (influence). It is logical. It gives us comfort God is reliable in God's value of things.

Immutability, they would say, is the one thing that differentiates humanity from God. Humanity is mutable, or changeable. We are ruled by emotion and pride, we love, we kill, we steal, we control, we die. The subliminal power of this idea of divine immutability is that God does not change his mind. God does not feel emotion. This is rationally essential to a trustworthy, transcendent God. If God is trustworthy (that we hope God is), there can be no changeable emotion or evil in God. God cannot be the source of evil.

For example, an orthodox critic would argue: “If there were evil in God then he could do good and bad things. Thus God’s promises could not be trustworthy.”  But how do we explain the flood, if God said after surveying creation, everything God created is good? How do we explain the treatment of Job who God said was a blameless and upright man? These are questions you should decide wether they can be answered.

We think this way because from our first breath we are constantly exposed to these ideas of a rational (scientific) world based on Greek philosophy.  “If A and if B, then C.”

Some would use this line of argument to justify “postmodernity” as an overthrow of Greek-based modernity. However, it is fairly easy to poke holes in the whole idea of “postmodernity” as being nothing other than a time-gap or finger-in-the-dike working solution between the construction of an expression of the meaning of the world that may transcend our Greek rationalism or empiricism.

The bottom line is “modern” Protestant ”orthodox” theology, and almost all of our thinking about the experience of living in the world is rooted in the axioms of Greek rational thought. In this thinking, there is always a cause and effect, and God is immutable. It all flows from Greek thought. It is the basis of modern scientific society that ironically fueled the orthodox rebellion of Barth against science and modernism.

But we have conundrums. If God is immutable, then how do we explain passages such as Exodus 12:7-14, where God clearly is described “changing his mind?”

For that matter, how does the “orthodox” theologian explain this immutable God in the complete context of the reconciliation of the Gospel: A God who changed his mind and became a human to die a human death? That is, explain an immutable God who decided to reconcile with humanity, much more to reconcile at all.

Even more perplexing, how does the “orthodox” theologian explain the idea of “Trinity.” They rely on an old Greek word that tries to glue the idea of transcendence with immanence. Any honest person who says the argument is cogent deceives us all. It is an attempt to apply rational thinking to explain something even scripture says cannot be explained; namely, what is the reality of the  mind of God? (Refuting the orthodox argument about Trinity of the Nicene Creed does not refute the existence of God in multiple (three) forms, so don’t throw “heresy” at me.)

I argue that those who seek to describe what cannot be described are victims of rational Greek philosophy and fail to appreciate Paul’s observations. Do you remember Paul said in Corinthians that the Gospel looks like foolishness to the rational Greek philosopher? Need I say more?

But I confess that I lie. I do not want you to abandon all of rational Greek philosophical thought. It is part of you that you can’t expunge therefore your philosophical housecleaning ought to proceed with care. I want you to appreciate how rational Greek thought informs your worldview and decide if tweaking in your theological outlook might give a better personal understanding of how you live in your world.

Cosmos

Let us consider the Greek word “cosmos” as another Greek philosophical idea that surreptitiously informs our thinking.

Cosmos, to most of us, characterizes “everything,” the universe including what we do not know and cannot see. It is all of reality, including the first 400,000 years of existence of this universe we cannot see with our telescopes because we are blinded to it by the flash of the explosion that happened upon its creation (beginning). (The scientific term for the flash is the cosmic background radiation (CBR). Some very recent observations suggest science is on the verge of peering further back towards that singular moment of creation.)

We think of cosmos as everything but it really means only everything we know. How can you define everything that you do not know? You define the set of all things known and say that set by logic also must define everything else unknown by exclusion. In a feat of logic the Greeks created a word that uses everything we know to make a concrete expression for everything beyond what is known, e.g., the cosmos. It is an exquisite circular argument.

Sallustius, a Roman who wrote in the 4^th Century, very accurately captures the Greek philosophical argument that leads the “orthodox” theologian to the idea about the immutability of God and the Greek logical insistence evil cannot reside in God. (see for a starter, http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sallustius, and http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cosmos),

“The cosmos (e.g., the transcendent God) itself must of necessity be indestructible and uncreated. Indestructible because, suppose it destroyed: the only possibility is to make one better than this or worse, or the same, or a chaos. If worse, the power which out of the better makes the worse must be bad. If better, the maker who did not make the better at first must be imperfect in power. If the same, there will be no use in making it; if a chaos...it is impious even to hear such a thing suggested. These reasons would suffice to show that the world is also uncreated: for if not destroyed, neither is it created. Everything that is created is subject to destruction. “

Technically cosmos means the world, or everything that is knowable; therefore it defines everything else as “not the knowable.” [You should see how this is a circular, and extra-rational argument by Sallustius’ comment on chaos by his statement, “it is impious even to hear such a thing.” It is very hard to escape our learned Greek world view.]

A Final Word on “Who Is God”

This idea of the transcendence of God expressed in Genesis and John (and in Psalm 8) does imply something intrinsic about the nature of God.  Reason says God must exist outside the created reality within which we live (unless God created God) and has continued to exist at least as long as created reality exists. Conversely, the Gospel story intrinsically depends on an immanent God. We simply do not know “Who God is” other than “our creator and reconciler.”

I am comfortable thinking of the transcendent God as the Cosmos, and Emmanu-el as everything knowable about world that points to that transcendence. In my mind this refutes orthodox judgment of heresy against those who point to elements of creation signifying God.

Good and Evil?

Recall the idea resident in the question “Why do we worship?” implies that humanity is fundamentally bound by a conflicting duality of humble thanks for the gift of existence and a struggle for power (or against death?) evinced by pride. Psalm 8 expresses the human struggle for pride and thanksgiving in its statement that we are created just a little less than God. Perhaps our self-realization of this conundrum means our choice to let pride rule us is “The Fall?”  If so we must possess an intrinsic kernel of evil. Does that mean we cannot posses a kernel of God? After all, God said we are created in God’s image, and all of creation is good. How can there be a kernel of evil in it? (Abhorrence of this argument is why the orthodox so strongly cling to immutability, evil must be outside God, they just cannot explain how. I think I hear Paul laughing.)

So are we best served to put aside all this scholastic arguing about transcendence, immanence and immutability, and just rely upon our biblical tradition (the Word), and our personal experience (what we learn), scripture, tradition and when necessary our old friend reason that shapes our mind. Perhaps we can rely on the characterization of God that I offered earlier:

The simplest answer is “God is.”

Our language is rooted intrinsically in our physiological thought process and is one way we express meaning.  The definition of Divinity is intertwined in a far more sophisticated and deeper way to physiological thought process than to Greek rational philosophy. Our definition of God is intertwined in the verb we use to describe existence, the innate character of being.

I suggest that most fundamental verb, “to be” (etre, esse, ehyeh), is the expression of God, “I am,” or “God is,” or just “Be-ing.” We must do this because we cannot truly capture another more quantitative expression of something that is indescribable to our mind than to answer “Who is God?” with  “God is.” “Is” encompasses both transcendence and immanence.

Reprise

This post explained my sense of why the “orthodox” argument over immutability, transcendence and immanence of God is a “false dichotomy” rooted in Greek rational thought serving to create unjustified, destructive discontent and unrest in the congregation of believers. If we let go of the mortal sin of pride (e.g., Who is in?, Who is out? because only God knows) we must acknowledge neither side of the orthodox argument touches the essential matter of belief in the Gospel. It also should convince us that in the theological context, reason is a standard bearer for pride, it seeks to explain in human terms (by antithesis) what cannot be explained.

The only logical argument left on the floor after we strip pride from reason that we are able to grasp is that if God created us, and if God reconciled with God our pride of being; then the ultimate worship experience of humanity that honors God is to honor God’s creation and to be reconciled, not only with God, but per force with each other. Jesus remarked these are the greatest two commandments of the law and by implication the measure of faith. I propose these are the only two core foundations of practical Christian theology.

Such a practical theology does not judge others, for example for how they express their devotion to God, how they understand the Christ event, or profile them because of their race, creed, sex or economic status. We cannot judge without judging ourself because we are all brothers and sisters in a community of faith whose objectives are to honor the Creator and the created. The object is not to judge but worship God the Creator and to love as God loves.

The next post will address what these two objectives or propositions mean to practical, personal and collective theology.