Yesterday I wrote a sort of touchstone post about the soap opera that is my on-again, off-again romance with the church. As time goes by and our relationship unfolds, I’ll write about the ups and downs, the petty fights and misunderstandings, and the torrid embraces (“passing the peace”) that lie ahead for the church and me. But for now, this is a similar “You Are Here” post about theology.
This is a tricky topic for me because I don’t consider myself a particularly deep or original thinker. But I also think that theology is something everyone does every day, whether they are big-brained or not, and it’s way better to apply the meager intellect one has to God stuff than to vote with one’s feet (or gut or heart) without second thought.
A caveat, however: I think there are more ways of knowing than reason alone; it’s important to consider what one’s gut (or feet or heart) knows, as well as what the community (past and present) knows. History and my own experience indicate that we humans have highly evolved and sophisticated skills of self-deception, so it seems like an awfully good idea to use all the tools at our disposal to dismantle our recalcitrant stupidity. (I just noticed that I’ve already made several theological suppositions—or at least philosophical suppositions that have implications for theology—which totally supports my argument that everyone does theology whether they mean to or not.)
Since this is the “where I’m at with…” post, I suppose I should actually say where I’m at instead of condemning you to death by tangent.
- I affirm the historic Creeds of the church (Apostles’, Nicene, sometimes Athanasian). On some days, I gladly and unhesitatingly give intellectual and spiritual assent to these beliefs. On others, doing so is a conscious act of faith. On a few, I’m pretty sure they’re all bollocks.
- The Christian assessment of humanity aligns most closely with my experience as a human being. Everyone I know, including me, is beautiful and terrible, capable of both generative and destructive acts. We long to transcend the impulse to wreck ourselves, each other and the world, but try as we might, we can’t stop being Godzillas with guilt.
- I’m postmodern by culture and by temperament. I can’t help but ask questions like “How do we know that?” and “What does it mean?“, and I resist accepting absolutes based on authority. “Because I said so” is a really difficult thing for me to hear; my inner fourth grader comes roaring out: “Oh, yeah? Well, you suck because I said so!”
- I love Jesus. I don’t get him much of the time, but man! He’s just so … good.
Filed under: theology Tagged: | apostles creed, athanasian creed, epistemology, hermeneutics, Jesus, nicene creed, postmodernism
Hey Aly,
Just came across your blog. Thank you for the post. What a beautiful picture of faith.
I love theology! Like you, my definition of theology is broad. Theology is saying something, anything, about God (or gods).
My knee-jerk reactions (which are way more fun than deeply contemplated responses) to your blog:
1. Can bollocks be helpful in certain situations? I think so. I think it is interesting that we Xians form creeds, but Scripture bears witness to much more than creeds. In other words, Scripture is more important than creeds because it bears witness to God, not to what we believe about God.
2. Yes! Although I think guilt might be more societal-driven than Scripture-driven. After the so-called Fall, there was no break in the relationship if we believe Genesis. Yhwh was still in relationship with humans, but the location was different. And people’s lives were harder. Psychologists tend to think that the Fall was a positive thing, Adam and Eve (or at least Eve) thinking for themselves. I tend to agree.
The issue in Genesis for God wasn’t to keep humans from knowing about good and bad (Proverbs assumes God wants people to know that) but that he wanted to see if humans would obey him even when it didn’t make sense. God learned that people are like you, Aly..they don’t normally give a shit about “because I said so”. One notable exception is Abraham, who passed the test that Adam and Eve failed when he was going to sacrifice Isaac. And then God stopped Abraham before he carried out the sacrifice.
I think God would have let Adam and Eve eat of the fruit eventually.
On the other hand, God found that people’s hearts were bent towards their own plans (e.g., tower of babel) and that people tend to gravitate towards what is bad. Because of this, God changed the way he deals with people (8:21 in the Hebrew reads “because every inclination of his heart is bad from childhood” the NASB gets it right but the NIV is scared of this theology.)
3. Yes. Job tells God he sucks…and God tells Job he is right and his friends’ theology (which is remarkably akin to Christian theology) is wrong.
4. If being a Christian means to be in a relationship with God, then we should expect that we don’t always get him. That’s part of a real relationship. For example, spouses tend to surprise each other at least occasionally even after a lifetime of marriage. We will never know everything about our spouse, and we will never know everything about God.
But who says that being a Christian is about knowing everything? (We do, but we are wrong.)
Someday I’m going to get a blog of my own…
My knee-jerk reactions to your knee-jerk reactions:
1. I think Scripture is also important because it bears witness to what others in our human family have believed about God, and how those beliefs affected their lives.
2. The point I was trying to make, I think, is that the writers of Scripture and many generations of Christians since have recognize the mixed motives that come with being human, and have made some pretty compelling stabs at explaining why this is true—and I have found their explanations more compelling and clear-eyed than others’ attempts.
3. Yep. I have a hard time understanding some of the modern streams of Christianity that insist on this kind of unquestioning obedience. In the biblical record, I see God really digging his relationships with people who can’t stop asking “But why?”
4. Can’t agree more—and am pretty sure that, just like in marriage, we’d be bored to tears if with God there were never any surprises.
And Jamie – thanks for stopping by!
P.S. Steve, re: #2. I think guilt—or perhaps regret is a more accurate word—can be a very good thing, regardless of its origin. Feeling remorse can be a catalytic experience. (Of course, just like anger and other “secondary” emotional responses, it can be contorted into something destructive.)
Very good! Knees are bouncing up as we speak!
I agree with you, and would like to point out that on #2 it is crucial to see that Scripture for the NT crowd was the OT, and that the writers, scribes, and communities of the OT were not Christians. For much of Scripture, they weren’t even Jews, but were Israelites.
I too think regret can be good. I suppose I’m reacting in part to the huge emphasis that Christians have historically placed on guilt. Jesus didn’t operate on a guilt-driven ethics, but rather on what is good and in another word, loving. In this way Jesus’ teaching was a lot like Scripture.
Aly, thanks for starting a blog. I love the way you think and process your beliefs thoroughly, and that you allow room for them to change and grow. I have appreciated every discussion that both you and Steve have been a part of on Facebook over the last months.
I refrained from entering any of them at first because I hated how heated they were getting. But I absolutely LOVE discussions! Sharing ideas about theology, politics, life and relationships is the most interesting kind of discussion for me. The more and more comfortable I become with who I am and how I process, finding out how my beliefs differ from others can be really exciting. I think we have so much to gain from each other.
Thank you.
Steve – I’m down with your reaction to the (over)emphasis that’s been put on guilt. But I don’t want to throw away something perfectly useful and even beneficial just because someone else has tried to make it into junk. Remorse is an experience that motivates some people to turn to God, and in my book, that’s an okay thing.
Wendy – I’m SO glad you’re here. I’ll try to keep this a safe place for sharing—I too dislike discussions that start out friendly and devolve into hysteria and mean-spiritedness. I believe that relationships grow through difficult and sometimes painful dialogue—and in fact, if one is destroying relationships every time one opens one’s mouth to make a point, perhaps one is doing it wrong. I’ll try to be both vigilant and graceful as I create this space for growing.
Can’t wait to read more of your thoughts.
Some of my thoughts on guilt… regret, remorse, contrition, and so on. I believe they ABSOLUTELY serve a purpose to lead us to repentance. (I could write a REALLY long comment here about my own experiences, but I’ll save you all.)
Like you said, Aly, those emotions can be a catalyst to action or change. It’s when you live in that place, underneath it, buried by it, that it can become destructive. And I don’t believe that guilt is from God.
If my knee accidentally knocked remorse off of the table, I’d better pick it up and dust it off a bit.
Far be it from me to attempt to throw out remorse! I think God perpetually hopes that his people feel remorse and return to him. This is evident in both the OT (especially in the prophets) and the NT (especially Revelation’s letters to the churches). I just don’t see it as much in Genesis, except on the part of God before the flood…
[...] post, and a thought that surfaces again and again is that my politics are deeply entwined with my theology — so much so that sometimes I’m not sure which is guiding the ship (or steering the snake). [...]