A Presbyterian colleague of mine, Bob Campbell, and I have been having a dialogue about theology. It is Conversations with Bob! Check to the right of this blog for previous posts! Here is the latest from Bob!
John,
Having never caught panentheism I can’t say if it itches or not. But is it communicable?
Seriously, one of your respondents quoted a definition of panentheism as:
the doctrine that God includes the world as a part though not the whole of his being
Nice call, Viola. Did you get that from an online Webster’s or from a book?
Viola’s quote points to my concern with panentheism. I do believe that God is both transcendent and immanent. I don’t believe that the universe is part of God. I do believe that God created the universe. I think there are both theological and ethical problems with the idea that the universe is part of God. And correct me if I’m wrong, I do think that mine is the Biblical position. Maybe this is something we need to explore in depth: just how much should we take from the Bible as truth about God, God’s relationship with humans, what God wants humans to believe and what God wants humans to do. You said a bit about it and I’ll respond in a later post.
Sin. What is it? On a day to day basis we sin when we do something that is wrong. Sometimes we know it is wrong and sometimes we don’t. Gossiping is wrong and is probably the most ignored sin in the Church. Sin is also a spiritual disease. We could compare it with a genetic disorder that gets passed down from generation to generation. Does that mean I believe in original sin? Yes, I do. I won’t say that it happened exactly the way it’s described in Genesis 3. After all, I do believe that the intent of the story is not to give an exact history of how sin came into the world but rather to describe the break of the relationship between God and humans. What concerns me most about sin is the exponential way it grows in Genesis. The man and the woman start out by disobeying God but disobeying God drives a wedge between the man and the woman. Then the man blames both God and the woman for his own sin. Then Cain kills Abel. And things just keep getting worse.
Does sin have a lack of knowledge problem? I mean does sin somehow limit human awareness of God and what God wants of us? Yes. Is sin limited to lack of awareness and can the problem of sin be fixed by simply having awareness heightened? I don’t think so. After all, Paul points out that he knows what he is supposed to do and what he isn’t supposed to do but he finds himself doing the wrong anyway! Humans need to be released from sin in a way that we are unable to do by ourselves.
And yes, I think Jesus does that for us. I’m traditional trying to be radically Biblical. I believe that the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus release us from our sin. I’m not going to talk about how that happens right now. Maybe if we agree that Jesus’ actions release us from our sin then we could talk about how that happens.
You’re right John. We have some large agreements about social ethics and war. I am sure we disagree about some ethical issues too. But my question is: how are we to know what is right and what is wrong. For me, the Bible either tells us directly or points us in the right direction to finding what is ethical and what is not. I suspect we may disagree about this.
Who is going to heaven? First let me say that I think the Bible talks more about entrance into the
Who are the elect? You seem to agree with Karl Barth’s conclusion, that all are elect in Christ, although Barth would argue that all are elect in Christ through Christ’s birth, life, death and resurrection alone. I suspect you might disagree with Barth.
I think part of our problem with the doctrine of election is the way Reformed types have misused it over the years. I see a clear theme in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, that God chooses some. Certainly God’s election of
What I can say about the doctrine of election is that it’s only purpose is for the comfort and humility of the saints. On our worst days the purpose of the doctrine of election is to tell us that no matter how bad we messed up and how sure we are that God must hate us, that God chose us before we were born. Of course election is also election to service to God too. The humility part is something we Christians have ignored way too often. That is none of us know who is elect and who is not. So we can’t make judgments about other people or misuse or mistreat them.
I will add to this that I agree with you about humans being created in the image of God. We must see the image of God in everyone, including in the person we hate the most. Thus all must be treated with love and respect. That doesn’t mean that I think serial murders and serial child molesters shouldn’t be in jail to protect society. But even, or maybe I should say more particularly prisoners must be treated with respect. And I believe that the American way of prison does just the opposite. The American way of prison denies that the image of God exists in prisoners and therefore is sinful.
One quick comment about religious choice and election. I think we experience religion as choice or what we inherited from being born where we were, although I do believe that Christians must choose to be Christians. You don’t really inherit Christianity. Having said that, while we experience religion as choice, from God’s perspective, people are elected, God chooses before we are able to choose.
I agree with you that God’s election means we don’t have to worry about an afterlife. I disagree with you about whether it matters if there is an afterlife. I’m less concerned with the human desire for an afterlife than I am about the clear message, at least in the New Testament and a slowly growing message in the Old Testament, that God intends life after death for humans.
Another quick comment here. Someone asked about hell. I think the best description is simply separation from God. The Biblical images of fire and worms and sulfur and outer darkness are images for what if feels like to be separated from God. Personally, I hope that C. S. Lewis is right, that there will be a regular tour bus from hell to the Kingdom of God where those who are separated from God can take a look and choose whether they want to be with God or not.
You mentioned organized religion and truth claims. I’m not all that comfortable with organized religion. In fact, after years of experience at presbytery and session meetings I think as organized as we Presbyterians claim to be we really have disorganized religion! I think what we seem to have forgotten is that the whole purpose of the Church is to express the love of God. Charles Wiley wrote a very interesting article on the task of discipline in the Church. Our experience of discipline is that it is punitive. But that was not how Calvin started it. The original purpose of the consistory in
www.pcusa.org/theologyandworship/issues/discipline.pdf.
As to the question of organized religion and truth, I think we have things backwards. We don’t have the truth. The Truth has us. If Jesus is the Truth, then we don’t possess the truth. We are possessed by the truth. We are called to do the hard work of evangelism to point to the truth that we do not possess.
On the other hand, from a human perspective, do people of faith make truth claims? Sure we do. People of some faiths claim that the universe exists in fact. People of some other faiths claim that the universe does not actually exist but is in some sense a dream. Personally I am a philosophical realist. I believe the universe actually exists, and I suspect we agree about this. Our faith claims sometimes say one thing is true and some other thing is not true. Others disagree. I personally have a problem with your statements that seem to say that all religious truth claims can be true, including the ones that are clear opposites of each other. For example: Christians claim that Jesus died on the cross. Muslims claim he did not. I find this particular disagreement to be a historical disagreement as well as a theological one. I think that saying that we can smooth over our differences is to dishonor those who disagree. Now that doesn’t mean that we should hate those who disagree with us, in fact the Christian faith demands that we love them. It means that we should get together and talk openly about our agreements and our disagreements both with people who share the same faith and those who are of different faiths. I think we need to do something like what we are doing here, John, although I think it probably works better face to face.
I wonder if I might propose an image to talk about how we disagree about the truth claims of Christianity. Some, maybe like you, see the truth of Christianity like a circle. The center of the of the circle holds the main truth and one can range out from the center finding other truths as well that complement the truth at the center. I see the truth of Christianity like the margins on a page. I got this image from Jack Rogers. Way back when we used DOS programs to write documents we had to set the margins for each document or your sentence would not loop around to the next line. It would just run off into infinity making it impossible to read. When I try to use a really old sermon from the 1980’s I have to go to WordPad and copy the long sentences and paste them in Word so I can read them. I think Christian truth acts like those margins. There are all kinds of things we can discuss and debate within the margins. But outside the margins is non Christianity.
So, when I listen to a statement of faith at a presbytery meeting I’m looking for some certain things like statements on the trinity, the divinity and humanity of Christ, the crucifixion and the resurrection and others. I’m not concerned that people say it with exact words. In fact I prefer if people say these things in their own language. But if someone says that they don’t believe that Jesus is fully divine and fully human I’m going to have a real problem voting to receive that person into the presbytery because I believe they have stepped outside the margins of Christianity. I suspect we disagree about this. I don’t know if the first image describes you or not. Let me know.
Grace and Peace
I'm still waiting for an answer to the question--if you don't think that God is everywhere, then where is God not found?
ReplyDeleteThis gets back to the point I raised earlier, which is that panentheism believes that God is both transcendent and immanent, and I think the only way one can claim to believe this and yet reject panentheism is to have a definition of immanence that is quite different from what is generally understood, or even to have a meaningless definition of the term. Either God is truly immanent, truly present everywhere, or God isn't. If you say that God isn't, then you believe that God is active in the world from the outside; call it something else if you will, but that doesn't sound to me like immanence.
Marcus Borg puts it this way in "The God We Never Knew":
The Christian tradition...has throughout its history affirmed that God is both transcendent and immanent, two semitechnical terms that are helpful for thinking this through. The transcendence of God refers to God's "going beyond" the universe, God's otherness, God as more than the universe. God's transcendence, on the other hand, means God's presence in everything or nearness to everything. Immanence means to dwell with or within, as its Latin root manere suggests (from which, for example, we also get "mansions"). The immanence of God thus means the omnipresence of God." (p. 26)
I have to say that I cringe a bit when someone says things like "mine is the biblical position". For one thing, the Bible often takes multiple positions on a whole host of issues, so you have to be careful when talking about "the" Biblical position on anything. If one wants examples of where the Bible supports panentheism, however, Marcus Borg devotes several pages of his book "The God We Never Knew" to the subject, pages 34-37. (One could also make the case, by the way, that Genesis 1 provides a theology that is consistent with process theology, which is a variety of panentheism that rejects creation ex nihilo.)
But if someone says that they don’t believe that Jesus is fully divine and fully human I’m going to have a real problem voting to receive that person into the presbytery because I believe they have stepped outside the margins of Christianity.
ReplyDeleteOne could always follow Calvin's example and have free thinkers executed, as in the case of Michael Servetus.
Bob,
ReplyDeleteInteresting aside on "election". I like where you were going.
I think that what the Scriptures say is that if you become part of God's people (saved and elect - for what?) you are predestined to being a priest to the rest of the world, >all< of which >belongs< to God.
You said:
"The Bible clearly says God elects, chooses people to be God’s people. But, except in some very limited cases, the Bible does not say, it seems to me, that God chooses people for damnation. The problem with the Scholastics is that they took one statement from the Bible, that God elects some, and drew a conclusion from the logical corollary, that if God elects some, God also damns others, both without any action by the elect or the damned. The problem with this logic is that it is Greek logic and not Hebrew logic."
Excellent! Not only that, but the purpose of the elect is to be priests to the non-elect.
One of my favorite passages in the Bible is in Ex 19 right before God gives Moses the Ten Commandments:
"4'You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings, and brought you to Myself.
5'Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine;
6and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.'
This is the key to understanding "election" and "predestination". God goes on to select from within the ranks of his people a tribe of priests. If you were born into that tribe you were predestined and elected to the priesthood (from before your birth) The relationship between the priesthood and the remaining tribes of Israel is the model for the relationship between all of God's people and the rest of the world!
It seems to me that if Calvin didn't get it wrong, then the very next generation of Calvinists surely did.
The bad thing is that so much bad theology has been built on top of a bad understanding of this core concept that to fix it you almost have to tear the whole thing down and start over.
The doctrine of (double?) predestination is a mess and just plain wrong (IMHO).
One could always follow Calvin's example and have free thinkers executed, as in the case of Michael Servetus.
ReplyDeleteOh, yes, that really follows from Bob's statement. *rolls eyes*
There are a couple of things that I have trouble with regarding this post. The first thing that made me raise my eyebrows was: "The problem with this logic is that it is Greek logic and not Hebrew logic." Perhaps I am too influenced by a more contemporary philosophical account of logic, but it seems to me there are only two kinds of logic, and its division is not related to ethnicity. There is good logic and there is bad logic. Good logic will allow tautologies, i.e. All bachelors are unmarried men, and rule out necessarily contradictory statements, such as x is 100% black and x is 100% white. This last statement, I suppose leads to one of my problems. If one were to make the above claim (which I will refer to as a truth claim candidate), no logical person would judge the claim to be relevant. So if someone says that x is FULLY divine and FULLY human, and expects it to follow any sort of logic, they must give up their enterprise as a logician. That kind of statement is not a valid truth claim candidate. It is, perhaps, a faith claim, but faith and truth are two very different animals and they don't seem to follow the same standards of verification.
ReplyDeleteMy other problem stems from the concern of God damning people to hell. If we accept the premises that to be a god is to be omniscient and omnipotent, then we must accept his responsibility, directly or indirectly, into the damnation of whosoever falls into that category. God willingly created a world in which he KNEW that many people would be damned. I think by most ethical standards this should be a cause for concern.
**After all, Paul points out that he knows what he is supposed to do and what he isn’t supposed to do but he finds himself doing the wrong anyway! **
ReplyDeleteIs it really him doing it, or the sin inside him? If this is pulled from Romans 7, I have a New English Bible translation that says, "and if what I do is against my will, clearly it is no longer I who am the agent, but sin that has its lodging in me." (verse 20)
I get what Bob is saying, because the chapter goes onto to say that God rescues through Jesus Christ. I've just always found it interesting that it's not exactly Paul who is doing the wrong action, but the sin that is stuck inside. I'm just always troubled by how the verse is used, because it makes Paul sound like a "willing" agent, almost -- and it's really not even something that he is doing, in a way.
Mystical,
**if you don't think that God is everywhere, then where is God not found?**
According to Psalms 139, God cannot not be somewhere. I think the complication comes from trying to put spiritual means into physical qualifications. Do I believe that God is panentheistic? Yes. But not in the sense that the physical part of creation is a "part" of God, but the shadow underneath, almost.
My mother likes history, and she said one time that when the Europeans first hit the Americas, the Native Americans could literally not see the ships, because it was so outside their realm of experience.
That's how I view a panentheistic God -- because I wonder how much of the true creation we really miss, because it's so outside our realm of experience. Which is locked into a physical mindset.
**But, except in some very limited cases, the Bible does not say, it seems to me, that God chooses people for damnation.**
If based on Romans 11, some are chosen to not be elected at a particular time, in order that others could have the option of being elected.
A few quick responses:
ReplyDeletemystical: Is it possible for God to be present in the world without the world being part of God? Panentheism says that the world is part of God. I think God is immanent without the world being part of God.
Oh, and as to Geneva burning Servitus as a heretic, I don't approve. Of course I wasn't there so no one asked me. This is where I think the enlightenment is a good thing. In the west we have gotten away from killing people because of what they believe.
dunstan: I think you proved my point. You just used a Greek form of logic. Different cultures do use different forms of logic. Just ask the Hindus.
Dustan,
ReplyDeleteGreek thinking tends to set up contrived dualisms. Things that appear to be mutually exclusive but that are not.
The Greeks called them paradoxes and allowed for the notion that they could not explain them, but that maybe someday somebody would. Like Zeno's paradox.
You used and example:
"So if someone says that x is FULLY divine and FULLY human, and expects it to follow any sort of logic, they must give up their enterprise as a logician. That kind of statement is not a valid truth claim candidate."
And yet in modern physics we know that light is fully wave and fully particle, two mutually exclusive extremes.
It's not really illogical, just counter intuitive. Like Hebrew thinking.
It all depends on how you look at it. Literally.
Jodie
Is it possible for God to be present in the world without the world being part of God?
ReplyDeleteI think that if God is present everywhere, if there is no place where God isn't, then there is no part of the world where God is not, and that of the world is necessarily a part of God.
This is the point that Borg makes in "The God We Never Knew", when he argues for a panentheistic understandic of God's nature.
By the way, I wasn't suggesting that you favored the execution of Michael Servetus. My comment wasn't a swipe at you. It was a swipe at Calvin. Sorry for not making myself more clear on that.
Hi Bob,
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry not to respond sooner, I have been gone on a mini vacation. I did take it from the on line dictionary I subscribe too. But I also put this on another comment below.
"There is a difference between the orthodox view of immanence and the panentheistic view. The biblical view is that God is intimately involved with creation but not a part of creation. The panentheistic view is that God is to creation as the head is to the body. In other words, creation is not God or God creation as in pantheism, but creation is a part of God. Or to put it another way God is more than creation."
I do thing this is one of the more troubling issues in theology today. Partly because people have become so confused about the terms. I think too many people equate immanence with panentheism. Whether the universe is a part of God and so it influences God, that is changes God's intentions, or the world is a creation of God but different then he is so under his complete care and direction makes all the difference in one's view of God. Not only that but the way we see the incarnation totally changes according to one's views on these issues.
I am not sure but I may have gotten that second definition from reading Whitehead's "Science and the Modern World" along time ago--I'm not sure. I had a very interesting teacher for American Philosophy; he was a Buddhist who was very much into Whitehead.
Thanks all for your comments! As it is Bob's post, I'll let him respond to specifics. Even when I do not respond, I much appreciate your input!
ReplyDelete