teleomyopia
It's funny that the most frustrating, trite, and inapprehensible conversations in theology come about when we set off logying about Theo--- to saddle Him, as it were, with a proper personality type. What does it mean, for example, that "God is Love"? Can that actually have a meaning for us?
posted by c at 4:57 PM
6 Comments:
Hi Cody,
Blogspot has been blocked in the PRC these last two weeks. Why? Who knows? Or maybe I could say, "Hu knows."
In answer to your last question, I have to put forth a resounding "Yes??"
Hey J,
i like what you've done with the beard. Makes you look younger. Thank you for spending some of your breakthrough time on me. i appreciate it.
i wasn't trying to be irreverent there, or even subversive. Just wanted to highlight what is to me a shoulder-shrugging, exhausting li'l conundrum. If God is, say, Love, then Love defines God; i.e., Love is God. Of course that doesn't mean that God is just whatever warped, infinitessimal, vacillating, two-bit emotion/sensation/mindset we make a habit of assigning to "Love". Rather, it seems to me it takes the term ("Love") and moves it out of our available vocabulary. To Love someone would be to God someone, or maybe to be God for someone. i'm not saying we can't Love someone in that sense, but that i'm not totally sure it's within our power to pull off, or even if we'd know it if we did manage it.
Somewhere back there it seems like God told Moses that he'd be as God for the people. But that wasn't a decision that Moses made-- and even then, what did it mean? What does it mean concerning Love the sort of leader, judge, oracle that Moses was? You end up with some gross, chunky generalities that are still kinda hard to tag God with as generalities.
Again, God tells him to tell the people that "I am that I am" sent him. It's as though this is the best you can do, this is the closest you can come to understanding: "'The One Who Is What He Is' has sent me." If you set us up in contrast to that (as we, clearly, aren't The One, the I Am) then we could be "the ones who aren't what we are." Maybe that means we aren't what we think we are: real. If that's the case, then you could truthfully say that in addition to being "Holy" and being "Love", God is moreover "Real". Now what does that mean? Seems like the more terms we define God by, the more terms we find we don't actually have control over, or even a meaningful working understanding of. i expect there's a point to that. Namely, when we're old and grey and out of fire, we'll find ourselves silent and still, whereat we might finally know that He is God.
In the meantime, it makes a weird and sorta goofy conversation to try to Biblically prove that God is not as easily offended as we are. God is slow to anger-- unless you pop in toward the end where He just opens up the earth and swallows you whole. Which in turn, obviously, is a work of Love. But does that particular movement of Love mean something with respect to how i'm supposed to treat another person? i can see it; i can acknowledge it; but what can i do with it but be silent and awed and mildly confused? God is what God is. i trust that He Loves me. i hope that He has eternal life in store for me. But i don't usually know what He wants from me, and i don't generally know whether He is more offended or less offended than i by a given situation. Forgive me if i offend.
May peace reign in the House of the Wards
Janko,
Your reputation for not making sweeping, unfounded, arrogant statements is impeccable and needs no defense. If you got a cold chill there, i got a really good chuckle thinking of you getting a cold chill. i certainly don't take exception to your statement (in fact, i'm pretty much banking my eternal soul on it being true). i think it just struck me as 100% arbitrary that the Board of Biblical Censors should pick that to parse apart and exegete. i think it's our job in life and our burden as believers to hope for things from God that we don't necessarily have a written contractual obligation from Him for. That's faith and humility on our part and grace from Him when He chooses to give it. No contract available (thank God).
Please don't recant.
heh heh.
Are you ever going to post again !?:)
Deborah
Deborah,
Hey. Yeah. i'm just waiting to be sure i'm the only one still left to read it.
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