Saturday Night Theologian
30 May 2010

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

The Greek word logos in the first verses of the Gospel of John are traditionally translated as Word, but the translation Reason would be more consistent with its intended meaning. "In the beginning was the Reason, and the Reason was with God, and the Reason was God." The passage speaks of a divine order lying behind the universe, an order that encompasses both the physical and spiritual planes of being. This Reason imbues the universe with structure, meaning, and purpose. In writing the passage, the author drew on contemporary Greek Stoic thought and on today's reading from Proverbs. Using traditional wisdom language, the author of the Proverbs passage personifies Wisdom as a woman who was present with God before the beginning of time and was in effect God's instrument in creation. Nineteenth century naturalist William Paley wrote a book, Natural Theology, in which he provides evidence from nature that God indeed created the world. His book was influential for decades, and Paley's ideas strongly impacted the young Charles Darwin in the years before he set sail on the Beagle as the ship's naturalist. After Darwin's publication of The Origin of Species in 1859, Paley's work declined in popularity, only to be revived in the late twentieth century in the context of discussions of creationism and, more recently, intelligent design. The problem with basically all creationists, including most who consider themselves proponents of intelligent design, is that they praise Paley's work without considering (1) his historical context, including the state of science in his day; (2) the fact that Paley, like most of his contemporaries, assumed that many species of plants and animals had evolved over time; and (3) advances in science since the days of Paley and Darwin, particularly in the areas of genetics, microbiology, and paleontology. Even the more scientifically oriented adherents to ID, who accept some aspects of biological evolution and generally accept scientific views of the age of the earth, stumble in their attempts to specify the ways in which God can be shown to intervene in the luxurious blossoming of life that has emerged since the Cambrian explosion some 540 million years ago. How can thinking Christians, who rightly eschew both creationism and ID as contrary to both good science and good theology, understand God's role in the universe? An idea that I've been playing around with recently is something I call Intelligent Metadesign. One of the theological problems I have with ID is that it posits a God whose design of the universe is flawed, because it needs constant, or at least periodic, divine intervention. I prefer a model in which God created a universe whose metadesign--that is, the principles that lie behind its primary design mechanisms, including biological evolution, the laws of Newtonian and Einsteinian physics, quantum mechanics, and even the randomness implied by chaos theory--has allowed the universe to develop entirely according to natural laws, and yet in accordance with the divine will. Although I will need to investigate this matter in much greater detail, I suspect that IM will have natural allies in process theology, philosophical investigations of the mind-body problem, and possibly multidimensional string theory and the idea of multiverses. Far from a new Deism with a remote God, the God I envision in the IM hypothesis is immanent and a part of both the world and all that inhabit it. If Paley's characteristic symbol was the artificial functionality of a watch on a heath, IM's icon might be the natural beauty of the fractal, a mathematical construct with innumerable real world examples and applications. If this hypothesis proves to be fruitful, it will again support the words of the biblical writer who looked at the world around him and saw wisdom.

Psalm 8 (first published 6 June 2004)

Alas, and did my Savior bleed,
And did my Sov'reign die?
Would He devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I?
So reads the first line of the hymn "At the Cross" as originally written. Now let's turn to "Amazing Grace."
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
Christianity has a long history of making people feel worthless. Of course, there is biblical precedence for such statements. Take, for instance, Psalm 22:6: "But I am a worm, and not human." Many theologians would argue that the degrading language is simply figurative: we are all no more than worms in the presence of a holy God. Perhaps, but too often the "total depravity" of humankind has been used by church leaders to exert the control of the church over the individual. Only if you acknowledge that you are completely worthless apart from the church (or some particular religious leader) will you have some chance of finding value in your miserable existence. The psalmist who wrote Psalm 8 disagrees. The NRSV entitles this psalm "Divine Majesty and Human Dignity," a concept foreign to those who would like to see people grovel in the presence of God, but one that is quite consistent with the creation story in Genesis, where God declares that all of creation is "very good." In Psalm 8, human beings are compared not to worms but to God (or divine beings, or angels, depending on the translation). God has created humans with a dignity that is only a little less than God's. We are not worms, we are not wretches, we are not worthless. We are created in God's image, and we are of immense value to God. The corollary to this understanding is that people should treat other humans as valuable, too. The treatment that Iraqi prisoners received at the hands of some American soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison (tacitly approved, I believe, by their superiors up the chain of command) is not only outrageous, it's blasphemous, because it denies the value that each human being possesses as a part of God's creation. As children of God, we must first recognize our own value, then we must accord that same sense of worth to everyone with whom we come in contact.

Romans 5:1-5 (first published 6 June 2004)

Today is Trinity Sunday, a day set aside in many churches to honor the triune God who is at the center of traditional Christian faith. The passage from Romans is one of several in the New Testament that are cited as illustrative of the threefold nature of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We have peace with God (the Father) through our Lord Jesus Christ (the Son) and have received the Holy Spirit in our hearts. Some of the earliest controversies in the church revolved around doctrines that would later be circumscribed by the concept of the Trinity: the divine and/or human nature of Jesus (Arianism, Nestorianism, monophysitism), God's relationship with Jesus after his baptism (adoptionism), and the question of whether the Father suffered on the cross (patripassionism). The doctrine of the Trinity was developed by Augustine in the West and by the Cappadocian Fathers (Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus) in the East. Despite opposition by a variety of people (Marcion, Arius, Socinius, etc.) the idea of the Trinity was adopted by the vast majority of the church and remains part of traditional creeds and confessions of most denominations today. Nevertheless, some Christians are calling for a reexamination of the doctrine today, in part because classical arguments for the Trinity are based in philosophies and worldviews that no longer hold sway. Does the doctrine of the Trinity still have meaning for Christians today? I think it does. The Trinity encompasses both the divine and the human. This suggests that the divine is closer to each of us than we might normally be aware. More than just a divine spark, I think humans have the capacity for a rich, deep interaction with God, to have an almost incarnational relationship with the creator of the universe. That is not to say that humans are divine, but that they are capable of participating in the divine, which permeates all of creation, and especially humanity. Ethically, humanity's participation in the divine should enhance our value in one another's eyes. Even eyes clouded by racial, ethnic, or nationalistic prejudice might be opened if we were to understand that all human beings, in a sense, carry God in them. What we have in common with our fellow humans should supersede those things that separate us. Finally, the Trinity is a divine mystery, as is life itself. One of the greatest errors of the early church was its attempt to explain the nature of God in minute detail, then force others to believe it. Christians persecuted other Christians--not to mention non-Christians--over tiny deviations in their understanding of the relationship between the divine and the human in Christ and other similar doctrines. The problem was that all who argued that their understanding of God was right were wrong. A God who can be explained is no God at all, and a religion without mystery is nothing more than a human construct, without a hint of divinity. Yes, the Trinity is still meaningful today, if the concept reminds us that we partake of the divine every moment of our lives, that every other person also participates in the divine, and that the true nature of God is shrouded in mystery that the keenest intellect doesn't have a prayer of penetrating.

John 16:12-15 (first published 6 June 2004)

A documentary based on Robert McNamara's book The Fog of War has recently been released on DVD and video. The film focuses on eleven lessons that McNamara says he has learned over the years regarding war. Lesson number seven is particularly applicable to today's gospel reading: "Belief and seeing are both often wrong." This statement flies in the face of the aphorism "seeing is believing," but it correctly points out the difficulties of arriving at the truth concerning a given situation. Jesus tells his followers, "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth." The Spirit, Jesus says, will speak what he hears from Jesus, whose message reflects that of God. It is our duty as followers of God to seek the truth, to proclaim the truth, and to live by the truth. No one has a corner on the market of truth. For that reason, we should admit that we continue to seek the truth, even if we believe that we've already apprehended part of it. The truth is only revealed to people whose minds are open to receive it. The great danger of fundamentalism is not its particular set of doctrines but its claim to possess the truth. As McNamara says, believing and seeing are both often wrong. The one who is not open to changing his or her mind on doctrinal issues, on political stances, or on ethical evaluations has no understanding of the nature of the truth. Many white Christians of an earlier time were convinced that people with black skin were naturally inferior. They believed this with all their hearts, but they were wrong. Many Christian men (and women as well) believe that God has designated certain roles in the church for men--especially leadership roles--and others for women. The believe this with all their hearts, but they are wrong. One things about God's truth is that it is consistent. If all are created in God's image, there are none who are superior to others by virtue of birth. God's followers are called to seek the truth throughout their lives. Although truth can be found in the Bible, it is an insufficient witness. Although truth can be found in the church, it is an insufficient witness. Although truth can be found in a theological analysis of the world around us, that, too, is an insufficient witness. Truth must be sought in many places in order to fully grasp it, to the extent that it can be fully grasped. We need to integrate our understanding of the Bible, the teachings of the church, our theological analysis of the world, and truth that we see in other sources in order to come to a better understanding of God's truth. No, we won't ever attain all truth, but such an approach will put us on the right path.