“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:11)
Self-Perception and the Indubitable Reality of God as Radical Other
This is a particularly vexing issue today in that two fundamentally not entirely resolvable precepts have attained a powerful pull in our contemporary culture. The one is the predominance of self-perception, without which it would be difficult to fathom how one could function at least in our western setting. Whatever its ultimate truth (and the Bible itself is clear about the importance of personal consciousness and conscience), to deny or even downplay its centrality as a core axiom of personal identity would be a most unfortunate mistake. Yet when developed into a fully blown axiom accepted both as self-evident and at some inexpressible level as the truth--that is, as far as anyone can come to any notion of "truth" in the contemporary era which I argue is inescapable even in its very postmodern denial, takes on a religious aura in its own right. It is such a denial expressed in the guise of a self-evident truth statement that I would characterize as a major idolatry of our time.
No doubt faith comes to believers through their self-understanding, but that to which it points, the revelation of God through Christ, extends to a reality beyond the self that cannot be reduced to any level of self-perception. Granted that the faith proclaimed speaks directly to the self even in language beyond self-reference, making any claim of transcending self-understanding exceedingly problematic and at some level, irreducibly circular. Self-circularity may be unavoidable in a faith stance that proclaims to reveal itself to consciousness--even consciousness collectivized in the body of Christ. At the very least, the proclamation of God revealed in a particularly unique manner in Christ needs to extend beyond self-referential reductionism in order to gain an appreciative grasp of what it is and more scandalously who it is that is being veiled through the fragile instrumentalities of human understanding. For the very basis of faith is the belief "that he exists," without which one lacks an axiomatic starting point that makes further inquiry into the phenomenological experience of the Christian pathway on its own terms, impossible.
This struggle to transcend the self in proclaiming the revelation of God was a challenge mightily struggled for in the neo-orthodox theologian Karl Barth, who in his partial success opened up a fresh taproot into a transcendent theology which at the least broke the stranglehold of the hegemony of a religious orientation grounded first and foremost in feeling. Feeling, what Barth formally referred to as “actualization” remained important, though Barth’s more fundamental contribution to 20th century theology was the emphasis he placed on “objectivism;” that is, the reality of God as radical other who also lives within us as a theological; bulwark against what Barth and others viewed as an excessive reliance on self-understanding as the basis of rather than the outgrowth of faith in a fully-orbed biblical theology grounded ultimately in the awesome depth of a personal yet infinite God revealed most fully to human beings in and through the Incarnation of Jesus Christ as Son of God and Son of Man.
Rudolph Bultmann and Paul Tillich, central figures in the neo-orthodox school of early-to mid 20th century theology, accepted and sought to extend the implications of Barth's dialectical theology in grappling with the ineradicable tension between faith and culture. However, they rejected his emphasis on dogmatics as grounding point, and opted instead for some version of an existential theology based on the centrality of self in critical dialogue with the biblical God and 20th century European philosophy.
The Gap Between the "One Truth" Claim of Faith and the Enduring Reality of Cultural and Religious Pluralism
The seemingly counter problem is the belief in a pluralistic world view in which in principle, one idea or reality is as equally valid as another, whether one is examining world religions or different realms of religious and secular thought. Thus, while noting that there are obvious differences between religions, especially among those that are monotheistic and those that are not, a commonly held belief is that at the most fundamental level each religious tradition is ultimately a pathway into the inexpressible or what Rudolph Otto refers to as The Holy.
Whether one is speaking of diverse religious or secular perspectives, and there are many world views, the extent to which they are compatible with each other based on a core belief in egalitarian pluralism is a major issue in itself. It is this, which needs to be viewed as a faith stance as powerfully adhered to as any "traditional" belief. Assuming this to be the case, that all world views, secular or religious, are faith stands at the axiomatic level, then the counter question needs to be asked, on what grounds is this presupposition of pluralism grounded; to further press, what are the underlying assumptions upon such a conjecture buttressed? In asking these questions I am not categorically rejecting the claims of a pluralistic universe (William James), but am seeking to press into a better understanding of the underlying frames of belief that ground all claims of knowledge. What I am challenging is any taken for granted assumption as an ultimate world view and countering it with the claims of the Bible that ultimately, God is all in all (1 Corinthians 15:28). Obviously, this cannot be proven, though there is a great deal of first-hand testimony and “evidence of things unseen” that, in my view, merit a great deal closer look than is commonly granted, though knowledge in its own right without the salvo of faith is insufficient and will not likely be persuasive on its own grounds.
Whatever the difficulties, a key stumbling block in coming to terms with Christian faith claims as reflected in 20th century philosophy and cultural life is the knotty matter of seriously grappling with any notion of "truth," some serious notion upon which Christianity is based. This namely is the truth claim that God exists and that he is revealed and embodied in the full human sense in Christ and only in Christ, though reflected in part in other revelations even as the knowledge of Christ through the prism of faith can only be grasped and lived out in part.
This grappling with “truth” is obviously a difficult philosophical issue that I can only begin to address at this point. The core issue is whether there can be any such reality as truth even as the search for it, however imprecisely one defines it, seems to be built into the hard wiring of human existence. Thus, one might say (and I can't "prove" this) we are meant for the truth and can never rest satisfied unless that desire were met in at least fundamentally reorienting our lives in moving toward it. Thus, at the very least truth servers as a clarion call to human fulfillment and satisfaction, however much the gap between the desire and attainment, which, I argue, is unsearchable and ultimately beyond comprehension, persists.
The fundamental claim and the scandal of radical Christianity is Christ's proclamation that he is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6) in which no other truth claim can possibly compare. On this profession satisfaction in the full sense of the term can only be found in a thorough embrace of Christ as the fullness of God in human flesh. This is an incarnational faith revealed to human beings through the Spirit of God, as an essential dimension of God himself in his Trinitarian fullness. Its entry requires the way of the cross emblematic of utter self-denial as the basis itself of coming into the glorification of God revealed in and through Christ consciousness, which as New Adam engulfs and humanizes our own. It is this denial of old self to aspire toward new self in Christ that, in juxtaposition to the many exigencies of personal life and more visible public history that may be one of the most troublesome stumbling blocks to a solid embrace of the Christian faith. Yet, it is a direction established by God himself as revealed in the Old and New testaments to counter our own innate selfishness, a major source of much alienation and pain we cause others as well as ourselves in the very process of living our lives in which God through Christ became our vicarious High Priest.
To restate a core contention of C.S. Lewis, either there is something fundamentally true about the core New Testament claim that in Christ the fullness of God in human flesh resides or that the claim of incomparability in which Christ is the Alpha and Omega of human existence and experience is profoundly flawed to its core. If the latter pertains, the claim needs to be needs to be categorically rejected even as Christianity as a metaphor of one way to God or the inexpressible, among many other ways may have merit at least for those to whom the metaphor speaks.
At some root level it is impossible to evade the dilemma on the need to decide on the unconditional claim of Christ as the fullness of God in human flesh who both models and offers salvation to all who receive him. However smoothly or subtly one seemingly slides by the possibility of a decisive encounter with the living God, is at some core level a choice itself with indeterminate, but substantial, though not irreversible consequences in which the door of God’s revelatory grace may or may not be open to a particular person at another time. Now very well may be the appointed time if you hear the voice of God ever so faintl. For seeking to make a "decision" for Christ simply when one will without the grace of God intervening, is on the operative assumptions of Christian biblical theology an untenable impossibility. For the wind blows where and when it will.
However improbable all this may seem, it is impossible to attain first-hand experience of the depths of the Christian revelation without entering into and remaining in its pathway of understanding which entails a subtle blending of the will with the very prompting of God, however that ineffable presence may become manifest. The veracity of such a revelatory truth can only be revealed in the movement in faith itself in which "the good shepherd" will make his voice known (John 10:1-18). While there is a certain sureness in God's revealed voice (John 10:4-5)such knowledge remains only partial since given the natture of who God is, it is impossible to know him fully (Deuteronomy 29:29). Rather, the Christian pathway is a life from faith to faith in a mode of greater knowing where sight as the breadth and depth of God's glory is beyond our capacity to fathom and hence to perceive even as the promise of greater fullfillment extends into eternity where immortality swallows up mortality (1 Corinthians 15:50-55)
Showing posts with label apologetics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label apologetics. Show all posts
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Further Probing the Interface between Apologetics and Dogmatics: Part Two
Further Probing between the Interface Between Apologetics and Dogmatics: In Search of the Living God Part Two
In laying forth the following I will draw on both the language of faith and secular reasoning in providing a rationale in the effort to explain something essential about the Christian revelation, which in some fundamental ways is beyond understanding. An essential part of the “mystery” of Christ is that the Christian pathway can only be entered by some basic commitment to faith as the basis of “know[ing] the truth” in Christ, “the truth [that] will set you free” (John 8:31-32) in a way that would be difficult to imagine from a purely naturalistic perspective. However circular this may seem, a step of faith in utter sincerity, however feeble, is a precondition, though not the only one in gaining a first-hand sense of the revelation of God in Christ reconciling the world (1 Corinthians 5:19). The power to convey something of the depths and riches of the Christian pathway may well be beyond my limited persuasive powers, in which conversion, in any event, is the work of God. The wind blows where it will (John 3:3), but if today, you hear the voice of God, ever so faintly, I encourage you to pay heed to the small still voice that can easily fade, for upon its prompting, a great deal resides.
The starting point with which I will begin is the core claim of faith that Christ is the full embodiment (Incarnation) of God in human flesh, “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), which if accepted as valid makes other claims of truth, problematic, at the very least. There is much packed into this statement, including the very notion of "God," particularly when viewed in the monotheistic traditions as defined, however analogically as a being as well as "a dynamic, pulsating activity" (C.S. Lewis) that incorporates being, in which God is both outside history, culture, and nature (that is, transcendent) while totally immersed (or immanent) within.
There is no pantheistic sense of engulfment implied here in which God is somehow perceived as synonymous with the universe or even in the sense in which the earth might be viewed as "God's body" as some eco-theologies have it. Rather, God's loving, transcendent presence infuses the created world--a presence that is both veiled and partially visible through the eyes of faith as a discerned revelation of a power that is not simply our own. This presence has biblical, theological, personal, and interpersonal warrant which in its 2000 year totality adds up to "a mighty cloud of witnesses" (Hebrews 12:1). Any vital encounter with or even the effort to understand the faith from a distanced perspective would be well served through a substantial grappling with some of the many voices and texts of the claims made by these witnesses as a critical baseline of “the evidence [though clearly not proof) of the things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).
Thus, the legacy of the saints and sinners who have made up the body of Christ for 2000 years serves as a crucial source of evidence in its own right which is often ignored or simply too easily dismissed by many within and outside the household of faith. The depth and breadth of such testimony as "the assurance of things hoped for,” serves as a type of prima facie evidence in which any entrance into its pathway, and also, simply understanding on its own terms, requires. Such appreciation, in turn, opens the possibility of its viability as well as a more grounded basis for its rejection. If nothing else, such receptivity to the radical possibility of faith if at the least, as an evocative hypothesis with serious intent, opens up the receptivity of God's indwelling, which, itself, as the grace of God, is a gift that no mere willing could ever bring around.
When one enters into the Christian pathway the possibility of further unveiling of the revelatory insight of God is opened up; an unveiling which can only remain incomplete, given the nature of God's reality in which we can know something, in fact, through Scripture, theological and ecclesial reflection, and our own personal probing, a great deal, but even so, much remains clouded in the enduring mystery of Christ in which we can only know in part with the promise in eternity in knowing in full. Thus, the Christian revelation is a perpetual process of unveiling in which faith becomes the basis of further knowledge and insight.
There are other ways much more elegant and persuasive than that attempted here to convey something of the ineffable, but partially knowable God grounded in the biblical revelation; one, for example, that the Apostle Paul utilized when seeking to communicate with ancient Greek philosophers (Acts 17:16-34) through the analogy of the "unknown God." Yet, he was only partially successful at best in persuading just a few, as Paul moved on from "pagan" Athens to the newly formed faith community in Corinth. There he spent a great deal of concentrated time on instructing and building up the "saints" through the persuasive power of discerning dogmatics as embodied in the First and Second Epistles to the Corinthians. As Christ expressed it about the Holy Spirit, "the wind blows where it wishes" in which a small still voice may be discernable which requires highly attuned ears to hear a most softly spoken intonation of God through a voice that may sound like foolishness to many (1 Corinthians 1: 18-25).
The underlying reality is that the persuasive argument of faith cannot be squared with language constructs outside of its premises in which dialogue as an ultimate value in its own right can lead too easily to compromise, with much lost, or at the least, stalemate with little gained in relationship to the ultimate objective of faith (Matthew 28:19). In the final analysis, the mystery of God in Christ reconciling the world cannot be penetrated by reason or even the logic of the better argument, though these can be resources. At some fundamental level one needs to give a positive assent in which the “proof” is the evidence of things not seen that has the capacity to be revealed, however much through a mirror dimly through a discerning heart and mind receptive to the persuasive voice of God, the source of almighty power and of all infinite indwelling love.
Until my own conversion in 1972, I had no understanding whatsoever of anything beyond the natural; that there could be transcendent reality was not something I fought against. It was simply beyond my comprehension, though not beyond my acquired knowledge given my early faith formation in the Greek Orthodox Church where I gained a basic knowledge of the language of faith. It was a faith, the living language of which was outside of my then current sense of reality, which did serve as a touchstone as I re-encountered the possibility of faith in God in Christ as a young adult.
What happened was as “simple” and as subtle as the following. I was asked directly to consider Christ as my Lord and Savior. The evangelical language was a bit strange, but in perceiving something of the quality of the moment I stayed with the process that was opening up to me. I said to this college student who I never met before; a friend in the most spiritual sense of the term who was pivotal in a radical re-orientation of my life. I said to him something to the effect that when I was a child that “other voice” one hears in the realm of conscience I took as the voice of God, but then at age 24, I “knew” that that voice was simply another aspect of my own consciousness. Thus, my young adult belief was that there was no reality, if not beyond, in some way, the existential self, that there was no beyond the natural realm, in any event that could be associated with reality.
It was at that precise moment that I did hear a small still voice; an utterly non-threatening perception that that other voice in fact, could be God. In this imperecptible moment, an invitation was offered to explore that possibility with the most radical and unswerving intent as if it were true that God was, in fact real. I discerned at that point that some level of unswerving commitment to the "hypothesis" was essential in order to find out the reality of it, and more significantly, that there was something of fundamental significance in this matter.
More precisely put, the doorway of faith in God became unveiled, opening to me a relaxed and adventurous assurance that this is the pathway I should follow. This was more than a possibility, but a source of revelation itself that came to me in a way that I could recognize as the most authentic reality that I could fathom, what the gospel writers refer to as a pearl of grace worth which requires all of one’s wealth as the price of purchase (Matthew 13:45).
In that experience the revelation of God linked in some way that I did not thoroughly understand, to Christ, became clear, even as the fuller implications of God’s awesome significance can only be but continually worked out through and beyond a single life process. What did become crystal clear in that long ago event in 1972 was a distinctive understanding of God, who was unfathomably different than what could be perceived through the natural, though incredibly immersed within my own sense of reality as well as throughout the entire created order.
From this basis, I gained an appreciation for the significance of the Bible as a primary source in understanding and grappling with God as well as the central role of Christ as touchstone for and embodiment of the living God for the human race and of the entire created order, subjects of which will need to be discussed at another time.
In laying forth the following I will draw on both the language of faith and secular reasoning in providing a rationale in the effort to explain something essential about the Christian revelation, which in some fundamental ways is beyond understanding. An essential part of the “mystery” of Christ is that the Christian pathway can only be entered by some basic commitment to faith as the basis of “know[ing] the truth” in Christ, “the truth [that] will set you free” (John 8:31-32) in a way that would be difficult to imagine from a purely naturalistic perspective. However circular this may seem, a step of faith in utter sincerity, however feeble, is a precondition, though not the only one in gaining a first-hand sense of the revelation of God in Christ reconciling the world (1 Corinthians 5:19). The power to convey something of the depths and riches of the Christian pathway may well be beyond my limited persuasive powers, in which conversion, in any event, is the work of God. The wind blows where it will (John 3:3), but if today, you hear the voice of God, ever so faintly, I encourage you to pay heed to the small still voice that can easily fade, for upon its prompting, a great deal resides.
The starting point with which I will begin is the core claim of faith that Christ is the full embodiment (Incarnation) of God in human flesh, “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), which if accepted as valid makes other claims of truth, problematic, at the very least. There is much packed into this statement, including the very notion of "God," particularly when viewed in the monotheistic traditions as defined, however analogically as a being as well as "a dynamic, pulsating activity" (C.S. Lewis) that incorporates being, in which God is both outside history, culture, and nature (that is, transcendent) while totally immersed (or immanent) within.
There is no pantheistic sense of engulfment implied here in which God is somehow perceived as synonymous with the universe or even in the sense in which the earth might be viewed as "God's body" as some eco-theologies have it. Rather, God's loving, transcendent presence infuses the created world--a presence that is both veiled and partially visible through the eyes of faith as a discerned revelation of a power that is not simply our own. This presence has biblical, theological, personal, and interpersonal warrant which in its 2000 year totality adds up to "a mighty cloud of witnesses" (Hebrews 12:1). Any vital encounter with or even the effort to understand the faith from a distanced perspective would be well served through a substantial grappling with some of the many voices and texts of the claims made by these witnesses as a critical baseline of “the evidence [though clearly not proof) of the things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).
Thus, the legacy of the saints and sinners who have made up the body of Christ for 2000 years serves as a crucial source of evidence in its own right which is often ignored or simply too easily dismissed by many within and outside the household of faith. The depth and breadth of such testimony as "the assurance of things hoped for,” serves as a type of prima facie evidence in which any entrance into its pathway, and also, simply understanding on its own terms, requires. Such appreciation, in turn, opens the possibility of its viability as well as a more grounded basis for its rejection. If nothing else, such receptivity to the radical possibility of faith if at the least, as an evocative hypothesis with serious intent, opens up the receptivity of God's indwelling, which, itself, as the grace of God, is a gift that no mere willing could ever bring around.
When one enters into the Christian pathway the possibility of further unveiling of the revelatory insight of God is opened up; an unveiling which can only remain incomplete, given the nature of God's reality in which we can know something, in fact, through Scripture, theological and ecclesial reflection, and our own personal probing, a great deal, but even so, much remains clouded in the enduring mystery of Christ in which we can only know in part with the promise in eternity in knowing in full. Thus, the Christian revelation is a perpetual process of unveiling in which faith becomes the basis of further knowledge and insight.
There are other ways much more elegant and persuasive than that attempted here to convey something of the ineffable, but partially knowable God grounded in the biblical revelation; one, for example, that the Apostle Paul utilized when seeking to communicate with ancient Greek philosophers (Acts 17:16-34) through the analogy of the "unknown God." Yet, he was only partially successful at best in persuading just a few, as Paul moved on from "pagan" Athens to the newly formed faith community in Corinth. There he spent a great deal of concentrated time on instructing and building up the "saints" through the persuasive power of discerning dogmatics as embodied in the First and Second Epistles to the Corinthians. As Christ expressed it about the Holy Spirit, "the wind blows where it wishes" in which a small still voice may be discernable which requires highly attuned ears to hear a most softly spoken intonation of God through a voice that may sound like foolishness to many (1 Corinthians 1: 18-25).
The underlying reality is that the persuasive argument of faith cannot be squared with language constructs outside of its premises in which dialogue as an ultimate value in its own right can lead too easily to compromise, with much lost, or at the least, stalemate with little gained in relationship to the ultimate objective of faith (Matthew 28:19). In the final analysis, the mystery of God in Christ reconciling the world cannot be penetrated by reason or even the logic of the better argument, though these can be resources. At some fundamental level one needs to give a positive assent in which the “proof” is the evidence of things not seen that has the capacity to be revealed, however much through a mirror dimly through a discerning heart and mind receptive to the persuasive voice of God, the source of almighty power and of all infinite indwelling love.
Until my own conversion in 1972, I had no understanding whatsoever of anything beyond the natural; that there could be transcendent reality was not something I fought against. It was simply beyond my comprehension, though not beyond my acquired knowledge given my early faith formation in the Greek Orthodox Church where I gained a basic knowledge of the language of faith. It was a faith, the living language of which was outside of my then current sense of reality, which did serve as a touchstone as I re-encountered the possibility of faith in God in Christ as a young adult.
What happened was as “simple” and as subtle as the following. I was asked directly to consider Christ as my Lord and Savior. The evangelical language was a bit strange, but in perceiving something of the quality of the moment I stayed with the process that was opening up to me. I said to this college student who I never met before; a friend in the most spiritual sense of the term who was pivotal in a radical re-orientation of my life. I said to him something to the effect that when I was a child that “other voice” one hears in the realm of conscience I took as the voice of God, but then at age 24, I “knew” that that voice was simply another aspect of my own consciousness. Thus, my young adult belief was that there was no reality, if not beyond, in some way, the existential self, that there was no beyond the natural realm, in any event that could be associated with reality.
It was at that precise moment that I did hear a small still voice; an utterly non-threatening perception that that other voice in fact, could be God. In this imperecptible moment, an invitation was offered to explore that possibility with the most radical and unswerving intent as if it were true that God was, in fact real. I discerned at that point that some level of unswerving commitment to the "hypothesis" was essential in order to find out the reality of it, and more significantly, that there was something of fundamental significance in this matter.
More precisely put, the doorway of faith in God became unveiled, opening to me a relaxed and adventurous assurance that this is the pathway I should follow. This was more than a possibility, but a source of revelation itself that came to me in a way that I could recognize as the most authentic reality that I could fathom, what the gospel writers refer to as a pearl of grace worth which requires all of one’s wealth as the price of purchase (Matthew 13:45).
In that experience the revelation of God linked in some way that I did not thoroughly understand, to Christ, became clear, even as the fuller implications of God’s awesome significance can only be but continually worked out through and beyond a single life process. What did become crystal clear in that long ago event in 1972 was a distinctive understanding of God, who was unfathomably different than what could be perceived through the natural, though incredibly immersed within my own sense of reality as well as throughout the entire created order.
From this basis, I gained an appreciation for the significance of the Bible as a primary source in understanding and grappling with God as well as the central role of Christ as touchstone for and embodiment of the living God for the human race and of the entire created order, subjects of which will need to be discussed at another time.
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