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Topics
(These
topics and notes are primarily from Chapter
9 in Christian
Theology. An Introduction. Third Edition. Alister E. McGrath. Blackwell
Publishers, 2001)
1.
Is God Male?
1.1.
Use of Analogy To Provide Insight to God
1.2.
Summary
2.
A Personal God
2.1.
God is Not "Impersonal"
2.2.
Dialogical Personalism
2.2.1.
Meaning of "Personal"
Relationship to God
2.2.2.
I and Thou
2.2.3.
I-It Relationships
2.2.4.
I-You Relationships and Personhood
2.2.5.
God, the Absolute You
3.
Can God Suffer?
3.1.
Classic Greek understanding of God
3.2.
Some Views of the Church Prior to the
20th Century
3.2.1.
Anselm of Canterbury
3.2.2.
Thomas Aquinas
3.2.3.
Articles of Religion
3.3.
The New Orthodoxy of the 20th Century:
God Does Suffer
3.3.1.
The Reasons for Change to a New
Orthodoxy
3.3.2.
Theologies of a Suffering God
4.
The Omnipotence of God
4.1.
The Creed on God's Omnipotence
4.2.
What Does the Omnipotence of God Mean?
4.3.
The Two Powers of God and Divine
Self-Limitation
4.4.
Jesus' Divine Self-Limitation or
Kenoticism
5.
God’s Action Within the World
5.1.
Four views of how God acts in the world
5.2.
Deism
5.3.
Thomas Aquinas: God Acts Through
Secondary Causes
5.3.1.
Primary and Secondary Causes
5.3.2.
God Works in the World Indirectly
Through Secondary Causes
5.4.
Alfred North Whitehead: Process Theology
5.4.1.
Reality in Process Theology
5.4.2.
Criticisms of Process Theology
5.5.
Pierre Teihard de Chardin’s Point
Omega
6.
The Problem of Evil
6.1.
Definition of the Problem of Evil or
Theodicy
6.2.
Some Approaches to the Problem of Evil
6.2.1.
Irenaeus of Lyons
6.2.2.
St. Augustine of Hippo
6.2.3.
Radical Limitations on the Omnipotence
of God
6.2.4. A Theodicy of Silence
6.3.
Summary: The Problem of Evil
6.3.1.
No Satisfactory Explanation
6.3.2.
Taking a Message from Job
7.
God as Creator
7.1.
The Theme of God as Creator in the Old
Testament
7.2.
The Challenge of Dualism
7.3.
Implications of God as Creator
8.
The Holy Spirit
8.1.
Theological Evolution in the
Understanding of the Holy Spirit
8.2.
Images of the Spirit Found in Scripture
8.3.
The Spirit as the Bond of Love
Primary
Reference
1.
Is God
Male?
1.1.
Use
of Analogy To Provide Insight to God
-
Language in Old
and New Testaments intended as analogy:
In saying “God is our Father,” the intention is that the human role of father
can provide insights into the nature of God
-
Sexuality is part
of the created order. Hebrews never attributed sexual function to God (in
contrast to the Canaanite fertility cults)
-
“God as mother”
or “God as friend” can also provide insights into the nature of God.
Julian of
Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love,
May 1373:
“I saw that God rejoices to be our Father, and also
that he rejoices to be our Mother; and yet again, that he rejoices to be our
true Husband, with our soul as his beloved bride. . . He is the foundation,
substance and the thing itself, what it is by nature. He is the true Father and
Mother of what things are by nature.”
1.2.
Summary
-
God transcends
the created order of sexuality, is neither male or female
-
Personal roles
such as father, mother, friend, husband, wife, can provide by analogy, insight into the nature of God
2.
A
Personal God
2.1.
God
is Not "Impersonal"
First,
we can say God is not the
“impersonal” God of Aristotle or
Spinoza:
-
Aristotle: God
is an utterly transcendent, perfect entity, eternally contemplating its own
perfection and beauty
-
Spinoza: God is
a perfect being, and therefore cannot have passion, cannot love or suffer (for
then God would then change, becoming “more” or “less” perfect).
2.2.
Dialogical
Personalism
2.2.1.
Meaning
of "Personal" Relationship to
God
When we speak of
God as “personal,” we mean a being with whom we can have a relationship that is
analogous to the relationship we can
have with human persons. A
deeper description of the meaning of
"personal" relationship can be
found in Martin Buber's "dialogical
personalism".
2.2.2.
I and Thou
In 1923, Martin
Buber published I and Thou (the usual
English translations of the German Ich
und Du)
Buber
suggests we have two modes of
experiencing / relating to the world:
-
1. Experience
of an object = “I-it” Relation
-
2. An Encounter
with Another = “I-Thou” or “I-You” Relation (The
"You" here is the "You" of
intimacy, which once existed in English in the word “Thou”)
2.2.3.
I-It
Relationships
“I-it”
Relation:
-
We
objectify, conceptualize, fit into the “box of our understanding” that which we
see, hear, etc (“it”).
-
Impersonal
-
The
“normal” experienced world of space and time
2.2.4.
I-You
Relationships and Personhood
“I-You” Relation:
-
The “You” can
never be objectified, or “boxed” into our understanding. A “You” has no
borders, cannot be measured. A “You” “fills the sky” of our mind's eye
-
An encounter, a transitory event (the
“event of relation”) which is mutual and reciprocal
-
Can be called love
-
Comes to us by grace
A “person” then
is someone with whom we can have an “I-You”
relationship. The person of an “I-You”
encounter cannot be “objectified,” or “boxed-in,” turned in “content.” A person
of an “I-You” encounter is a Presence, is Presence as power.
2.2.5.
God, the
Absolute You
God:
-
A being with
whom we can have an “I-You”
relationship
-
Buber: God is:
-
God is an
active presence, an active subject, revealing God’s self in human history and
in personal relationships, not an “It” waiting to be discovered and examined.
3.
Can God
Suffer?
3.1.
Classic Greek understanding of God
-
God is perfect.
Perfection understood as static:
-
God is
therefore also unchanging and impassible (incapable of suffering or pain)
-
Christians
theologians of the patristic and medieval periods accepted this view of God
3.2.
Some Views of the Church Prior to the
20th Century
3.2.1.
Anselm of Canterbury
-
We can experience God as compassionate, but the
emotion of compassion is not part of
God’s divine being
-
The
language of love and compassion
is figurative
when applied to God
3.2.2.
Thomas Aquinas
3.2.3.
Articles of Religion
-
Articles of
Religion (p. 867 Book of Common
Prayer):
“There is but
one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of
infinite power, wisdom, and goodness. . .”
3.3.
The New Orthodoxy of the 20th Century:
God Does Suffer
3.3.1.
The
Reasons
for Change to a New Orthodoxy
20th
Century saw a radical change in this view of in God. Reasons:
-
1. Need to
respond to protest atheism
-
2. Rediscovery
of Luther and his “theology of the cross”
(God who is hidden in suffering)
-
3. History of dogma movement and
appreciation of how Greek ideas had influenced early Christian theology
-
4. Process theology (God has limited
himself to persuasion of the processes of creation and is a fellow sufferer)
-
5. Fresh Old Testament studies showing how the
God of the Old Testament shared in the suffering of God’s people
-
6. Idea that love requires some mutual sharing of
feeling.
3.3.2.
Theologies
of a Suffering God
Jürgen Moltmann’s
The Crucified God (1974): a God who
cannot suffer is not perfect, but deficient:
“A God who cannot suffer is poorer than any human.
For a God who is incapable of suffering is a being who cannot be involved.
Suffering and injustice do not affect him. And because he is so completely
insensitive, he cannot be affected or shaken by anything. He cannot weep, for
he has no tears. But the one who cannot suffer cannot love either. So he is
also a loveless being.”
Kazoh Kitamori A Theology of the Pain of God (1946):
God can give meaning and dignity to human suffering only because God is also in
pain and suffers.
4.
The
Omnipotence of God
4.1.
The Creed on God's Omnipotence
“I believe in
God, the Father almighty. . .”
4.2.
What Does the Omnipotence of God Mean?
Does the
omnipotence of God mean God can do
anything? Then there are problems:
“If God were good, he would wish to make his
creatures perfectly happy, and if God were almighty, he would be able to do
what he wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore God lacks either the
goodness, or power, or both.”
- The Problem of Pain,
C. S. Lewis
Omnipotence
does not mean God can doing
anything.
-
God cannot do
anything logically impossible
-
God cannot do
anything against the nature of God (for example, to lie, subvert justice)
-
God can make
decisions that limit the possibilities of what God can do
4.3.
The
Two Powers of God and Divine
Self-Limitation
The Two Powers of God (Duns Scotus and William of Ockham, 13th
century)
-
1. The Absolute Power of God:
God is
confronted by an array of possibility and can choose any of them
-
2. The “Ordained” Power of God:
Once God chooses
a possibility and actualizes it, other possibilities disappear. God’s choices
can limit God’s options and hence God’s power.
The “Ordained” Power of God is the power of
God after God’s divine self-limitation.
4.4.
Jesus'
Divine Self-Limitation or Kenoticism
Kenoticism: The divine
self-limitation and divine
“self-emptying” (Greek kenosis,
an emptying) of God taking on human form in Jesus; explored particularly
in the
19th century.
-
Philippians 2:6-7: “Jesus, though he was
in the form of God. . . emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born
in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became
obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.”
Dietrich
Bonhoeffer Letters and Papers from Prison:
“God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to
the cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the
way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. . . . The Bible directs
us to God’s powerlessness and suffering; only the suffering God can help.”
5.
God’s
Action Within the World
5.1.
Four views of how
God acts in the world
-
1. Deism
-
2. Thomas
Aquinas: God acts through secondary causes
-
3. Alfred North
Whitehead: Process Theology
-
4. Pierre Teilhard
de Chardin: Point Omega
5.2.
Deism
-
God is the
watchmaker; the world the watch.
-
God created a
rationale and ordered world, completely autonomous and self-sufficient. Once
set in motion, no further action needed from God
Deism
had a significant
effect on the Episcopal church
in the 18th century.
5.3.
Thomas Aquinas: God Acts Through Secondary Causes
5.3.1.
Primary and Secondary Causes
Example: consider the
quality and beauty of piano music at a concert.
-
Primary Cause:
the gifted pianist with the ability to play the piano beautifully
-
Secondary Cause: the
piano
-
The primary cause (the gifted pianist) must work through the
secondary cause (the piano) to achieve the effect they desire. If the piano is
horribly out of tune . . . .
5.3.2.
God Works in the World Indirectly
Through Secondary Causes
Aquinas:
-
God is the primary cause of everything, but has
chosen to work indirectly through
secondary causes. (i.e. “delegating” divine action)
-
Suffering and pain are due to the imperfection and
fragility of the secondary causes through which God works
5.4.
Alfred North Whitehead: Process Theology
5.4.1.
Reality in Process Theology
-
Process / change is the fundamental basis of reality (not
matter, substances, essences. . .)
-
Reality is composed of building blocks of processes called
“actual occasions,” or “actual entities,” each with a certain degree of freedom
to develop and influence adjacent processes
-
God is the permanent, imperishable background of order for
the developing processes
-
God can act to
influence and persuade the processes, but cannot violate the rules governing
the processes.
-
God can try to
persuade the murderer not to kill, but ultimately cannot violate the murderer’s
“free will.”
-
God can try to
persuade the processes of nature involved in an avalanche, but ultimately
cannot violate the rules of nature’s “free process”
-
God both
influences processes and is influenced by the processes. God is thus “a
fellow-sufferer who understands” (Alfred North Whitehead)
5.4.2.
Criticisms of Process Theology
5.5.
Pierre Teihard de Chardin’s Point Omega
-
Universe is an evolutionary
process constantly moving towards states of greater complexity and higher
levels of consciousness
-
There are no radical discontinuities or innovations in
this evolution. From the beginning,
there was a “biological layer” inherent in the fabric of
universe, a “rudimentary consciousness” in all physical matter (“there is a
Within to things” said de Chardin) that
was the basis for the evolutionary development of life and
consciousness
-
“Critical points” of transitions include emergence of life
on earth, emergence of human consciousness
-
The universe’s evolution is ascending towards Point Omega, which is both:
-
God is at work:
-
immanent within the
world, working in the process of
its evolution
-
as the “attractive” force drawing the process to its
divine goal and fulfillment in the
"Omega Point"
6.
The
Problem of Evil
6.1.
Definition
of the Problem of Evil or Theodicy
The problem of evil = Theodicy:
How can we
reconcile:
with:
6.2.
Some
Approaches to the Problem of Evil
6.2.1.
Irenaeus of
Lyons
-
The
world is a
“vale of soul-making.” (John Keat's
phrase). Human beings are
incomplete and to grow must participate in the world, freely responding to
God’s call by choosing between good and evil.
-
Evil
is thus a
necessary presence in the world to allow human development
Criticisms:
-
Appears to lend
dignity to evil
-
Does
not address the evil
that destroys rather than advancing human growth (Hiroshima, Auschwitz)
6.2.2.
St. Augustine of
Hippo
-
evil not a
created entity/substance, but is rather a defect
of being (like a hole in a
shirt, tree rot, blindness in an eye)
-
these defects
arise as a consequence of “free will,” from human beings willfully turning away
from that which will ultimately make us happy
-
thus evil is a
side effect of giving “free will” to the creation
6.2.3.
Radical
Limitations on the Omnipotence of God
Radically limit the omnipotence of God, as in Process
Theology:
-
God can only
persuade and influence the processes of the world, acting within the “rights”
and “freedoms” of the processes
-
God tries to
persuade the processes for the best possible outcome, but a bad outcome can
still result
-
God, having
done his best to persuade the process for a good outcome, is
Criticism: A God robbed of this much power would cease to be
God. One cannot have a faith that such a
God would be able to make all thing
right in the end.
6.2.4.
A Theodicy of
Silence
The answer of
some Jewish theologians to question of trying to justify God in face of
suffering.
-
“If I were to
know him, I would be him” (old Jewish saying)
-
Our
silence should be like Aaron's when
he was told of the death of his two sons killed by divine
fire: “And Aaron was silent.” (Leviticus 10:3)
6.3.
Summary:
The
Problem of Evil
6.3.1.
No
Satisfactory Explanation
Hans Küng: there
is no satisfactory explanation to
theodicy:
“. . . suffering,
-- excessive, innocent, meaningless suffering, both individual and collective
-- cannot be understood theoretically, but can only be lived through. For
Christian and Jews there is only a practical answer to the problem of
theodicy.”
6.3.2.
Taking
a Message from Job
-
In the last
resort, God is incomprehensible to human beings
-
Human beings
are given the possibility of showing trust in this God
-
God also
respects human protest against suffering (“protest theodicy”)
7.
God as
Creator
7.1.
The Theme of God as Creator in the Old
Testament
God as Creator a
major theme of the Old Testament:
7.2.
The Challenge of Dualism
Challenge of Dualism clarified the theology of God as
Creator in the early church. Gnosticism proposed two Gods:
-
Supreme God of
the spiritual realm (redeemer God)
-
Lesser, inferior
God (“the demiurge”) who created the imperfect and evil material world (the God
of the Old Testament)
Against Dualism, early Church affirmed doctrine
that:
-
God is creator
of both spiritual world and material world (of “heaven and earth” in the Creed)
-
God created
everything out of nothing (ex nihilo).
There was no “pre-existent material” that God fashioned as best God could into
the material universe
7.3.
Implications of God as
Creator
Implications
of the dogma that God is the Creator:
-
Creation is not God. God chose to bring into being that
which is not God, that which is wholly Other
-
God has authority over Creation.
Creation does not belong to human
beings; rather humans
beings have been given stewardship
over creation. This carries implications for ecology
-
Though “fallen” through sin, Creation remains God’s good
creation and capable of redemption
-
Creation has a meaning and purpose. Augustine: “You made
us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in
you.”
8.
The
Holy Spirit
8.1.
Theological Evolution in the
Understanding of the Holy Spirit
Steps in the
theological understanding of God in the early church:
-
recognition of
the full divinity of Jesus
-
recognition of
the full divinity of the Holy Spirit
-
development of
the full doctrine of the Holy Trinity
8.2.
Images of the Spirit Found in Scripture
Images of the
Spirit (Hebrew Ruach) found in
Scripture:
-
1. Spirit as
wind.
-
Calls to mind
surging energy of the “Lord of Hosts,” the dynamism of God
-
God experienced
not only as judge, but as one who refreshes the chosen people
-
2. Spirit as
breath
-
3. Spirit as
charism
-
“charism” =
filling of an individual with the Spirit of God
-
wisdom,
leadership, prophecy all endowments of the Spirit
8.3.
The Spirit as the Bond of Love
St. Augustine’s theology of the Holy Spirit as the Bond of Love:
-
Augustine suggested there are “triadic” traces of the Trinity in the
human soul: For example:
-
triad of self-knowledge
(memory, understanding, will)
-
triad of self-love
(Lover, Beloved, Love)
-
Taking “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16)
literally, and the idea that the
triad of self-love in human is a
trace of the Holy Trinity, Augustine
proposed
that:
-
within the Trinity:
the Spirit is the Bond of Love between the Father and the Son
-
within the church: the
Spirit is the Bond of Love between God and believer, and between believers
Primary
Reference
Chapter 9 “The
Doctrine of God” in: Christian Theology.
An Introduction. Third Edition. Alister E. McGrath, Blackwell Publishers,
Oxford, 2001
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