Trinity Sunday 2010

05/30/10
Trinity Sunday 2010
Hudson UMC

Today is Trinity Sunday. What is interesting is that, in spite of the fact that the Trinity is both the form and the content of the great classic Christian creeds, we do not often think about it from day to day. The simple fact of the matter, whether we like it or not, is that the Trinity is one of the very few beliefs that makes Christianity unique in the world both today and throughout history.

Christianity is not set apart because of its particular views of ethics and morality. If you look around in our world today, you will find all kinds of organizations which exist simply in order to do good to other people. If the only thing about Christianity that is attractive to you is its take on how we should live, there are many other groups around that can offer you a good way to live.

When you get down to it, at the very end of the day, the one absolutely fundamental belief that sets Christians apart from all other groups, the one idea that lies at the very root of everything else we have to say as Christians, is the fact that the one God of the universe, who created everything that we can see and everything that we can’t see, became a man, a human being, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh; that He lived, died, was raised from the dead, and was ascended back to heaven. This fact, as born witness to in the New Testament, set up a tension between what people thought God was like, a single, isolated individual, and what God actually is, a community of Persons in absolute unity. Eventually, this revelation that we see in the Gospels and further laid out in the epistles, forced the church to come to a Trinitarian understanding of God.

So, even though the Trinity is a basic Christian belief, and though we all know that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, it does not always impact our Christian lives. When we think about how important we say it is, we figure that it should impact our lives but we do not always see how. It is made worse when we see the kinds of images we usually use to explain the Trinity to small children. Often we will say, “God is kind of like water, because water can be a solid, a liquid, or a gas.” Another image we sometimes use is, “God is kind of like an egg, because, though there is only one egg, it is made up of a yolk, a white and a shell.” We hear those images and we don’t say to ourselves, “Wow! Now I understand why the angels veil their faces and cry ‘Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty!’” Instead, we are more likely to say, “Boy, I know the Trinity is really important and that it should impact my life, but after hearing that, I don’t think I understand it at all.”

Now, we shouldn’t get mad at people when they use images like this. After all, they are doing their best to explain a very difficult concept. The fact of the matter is that there is absolutely nothing in our daily experience that can really show us what God’s triunity is like. It is one of a kind. And yet, in spite of the fact that this is a difficult idea, our Christian faith is rooted in the Trinity. After all, when we baptize a person, we baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. If I were to ask you, “Are you accepted in the eyes of God?” You would say to me, “Yes!” Then I would ask you, “How were you accepted by God?” Your answer would be something like, “Because God became a man in Jesus Christ and died for my sins.” Finally, I would ask you, “How did you come to know that you were accepted?” Your answer might not be quite like this, but it would be similar. “Because the Spirit of God bore witness in my heart that I am a child of God.” Our very most basic Christian experience is rooted in the fact that God is triune. So, if the Trinity is so very important, we should spend some time thinking about what it means.

I can remember when I first started paying attention to the Trinity and getting excited about it. What amazed me is when I realized that, when we say that God is a community of Persons in absolute unity, we are not just highlighting that, within the being of God there is a Father, a Son and a Holy Spirit, but that we are saying that the relationships between them are part of who God is. The relationship between the Son and the Father, for example, is every bit as real as the persons themselves. It is my prayer that, though we will never exhaust the depths of the majesty of God, we will come to just a little more clarity about the divine relationships within the Trinity and how it shapes our lives.

In order to help us do that, I want to point out what we can actually see about the relationship between Jesus and the Father and then Jesus and the Spirit in the texts that we read earlier. Jesus, when speaking to His disciples, tells them that He is going away but that they know where He is going. Thomas says to Him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus’ response is very famous. “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

What Jesus has just said here is often used to point out that other religions are not the same, that they are not just “different paths up the same mountain.” This is indeed true and Jesus could not have said what He said if that were not true. However, Jesus is not primarily concerned with inter-religious dialogue. He wasn’t primarily trying to help Christians maintain their distinction from Muslims among others, but trying to explain the incredible relationship that He shares with His Father.

Jesus has said that absolutely nobody comes to the Father except through Him. When He says this, He is saying that they are the same God, that though there is indeed a distinction between Him and His Father, they are not finally different gods, but are both within the very being of the One God of Israel. When we realize that are dealing with a man who is not just a prophet but also God in flesh, His statement makes a lot of sense. Jesus saying that nobody comes to the Father except through Him is not the same as if someone like the Muslim prophet, Mohammed, had said the same thing. We are not called to come to God through a particular prophet, but to come to God through God. No one can come to the Father except through Christ. If we were to try to come to the Father outside of Christ, by somehow bypassing the actual person of Jesus, we would be trying to come to God by avoiding God. It simply can’t be done. There is only one way to God and that is through God. In so many ways, Jesus is saying, “I am God. If you want to come to God, come to me. If you want to know the Father, get to know me. If you know me, you will know my Father also.” God has come among us. Thinking that we can come up with some other way to God other than the way that God has actually prepared and made known to us would be the height of arrogance.

Right after Jesus says that, because the disciples know Him, they know God, Philip speaks up and says, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus’ response is, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’ Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” The disciples have grasped that Jesus is not speaking of Himself when He speaks of the Father, so they ask to see Him. However, they don’t want God to be as rich and complex as He really is. They want a God who is simple and easy to understand. They want a God who is just a supreme individual, someone who is just like them only better. They want an idol; a god of their own making rather than the one that actually is. Jesus responds by saying that a request to see the Father from those who know Him is silly. If you know God, how can you ask to be shown God, as if you did not know Him? He is saying to them. “God is in your midst, living as one of you. God is right in front of you if you have eyes to see it.” The same God that the Father is has come among us as the man Jesus. When we look deeply into the face of Christ, we do not simply look into the face of a man, but into the very face of God. If we have seen Jesus, we have seen the Father, not because there is no distinction between them; after all, it is the Son and not the Father who died on the cross. However, there is a profound unity of being, a deep connection that lies within the very being of God that makes us realize that the Father and Son, while personally distinct, are the same God.

I want to shift at this point and emphasize the unity that we see between Jesus and the Spirit. In John, chapter sixteen, in what is quite possibly the most amazing Trinitarian passage in the entire Bible, Jesus says, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

Jesus tells us here that that Spirit is not some totally separate being that does something totally different than He has been doing. In fact, He says here that the Spirit does not speak on His own, but takes the things of Christ and declares them to us. The ministry of the Spirit is bound up with the ministry of the Father and the Son and cannot be separated from it. As Paul says when he describes spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12, “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all people.” The gifts of the Spirit are not finally different than the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ and the effects of God the Father.

When we look at the entirety of the Biblical message, we see that, when we are living lives that are filled with the Holy Spirit, it is the same thing as Jesus living His life in and through us in obedience to God the Father. Jesus says here that everything that He has was given to Him by the Father and those very same things are declared to us by the Holy Spirit. In everything that God does, it always involves all three persons. You never have the Father doing one thing, the Son doing another, and the Spirit doing some third thing that bears no relation to the others. God is always and everywhere triune and every activity of God is the activity of the Triune God.

If I were to stop this sermon on the Trinity without tying it to the daily life of the church and individual Christians, I would simply be contributing to the problem I spoke of at the very beginning of it, that we don’t take the Trinity seriously because it plays no role in our daily Christian lives. I want to share a few ways that this really does impact the way we live in a deep way.

The fact that God is a Trinity of Persons in union and communion impacts us because we have all been made in the image of God. There are some who would argue that being made in the image of God tells us that we are all creative individuals who choose to engage in relationship when it suits us. However, if the Trinity tells us anything, it is that God is not an isolated individual who only enters into relationship when He feels like it. Relationship is intrinsic to God. There is no God other than the God who is in eternal relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The oneness of God is not any more basic to the identity of God than these relationships.

So, if we are made in the image of this Triune God, we would expect that we are made for relationship and that we cannot be who we were made to be if we do not allow those relationships to touch the core of who we are. The fact of the matter is that, whether we like it or not, we already are affected by our relationships. More and more it is becoming clear that our relationships make up part of who we are. If our relationships with other people are not centered in Christ, there is a part of us that is not centered in Christ. If we surround ourselves with people who do not love the Lord, who live in ways that are not compatible with the Gospel, it is only a matter of time before those relationships begin to drag us away from our God. However, there are other people whose lives are so characterized by faith that it is the easiest and most natural thing in the world to be a Christian when we are around them. When we surround ourselves with people like that, it is only a matter of time before we begin to become more faithful, joyful people. Both of these things happen because our relationships really do affect us.

When people turn to the Bible to find passages that tell us something about the church, they often turn to the place where Jesus says that “Where two or three have gathered together in my name, I am there in their midst.” While it is indeed true that Christ is present, even in small groups, Paul actually comes out and defines the church in trinitarian terms in the book of Ephesians. He says, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.” The church is the one body of people who are united to God through Christ and in the Spirit.

If this is true, that the church is defined by communion with God, then we cannot invent distinctions and pretend that they have divine authority. We cannot say that those who use a different translation of the Bible are not part of the church. We cannot say that those who sing different songs or order their worship service differently than we would like them to are not part of the church. We cannot say that those who have different practices of preaching, baptism and the Lord’s Supper are not part of the church. We are bound by the fact that it is relationship with God that defines the church to allow that same God to be the standard that we measure ourselves by. Our likes and dislikes, our traditions, our opinions, our passions, are all trumped by God. Brothers and sisters, whether we have been in the church for decades or just a few days, we are not the ones who are in charge of the church. The church exists, not to serve our social interests or to provide a club by which we can separate ourselves from others, but because God has done the impossible, has entered into our midst and has given us everything when we had nothing to give.

We have been created in the image of a Triune God, a God who has shown us by His action that we are beloved in a way that we would not believe if we could not see the incredibly lengths He has gone to to save us. We are bound together by a common reality, that we are broken people who have received mercy. We are called as the church to preserve the unity in the bond of peace. We are called to have the kind of deep, personal relationships with one another that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, make us ever more like the Persons of the Holy Trinity, bound together in relationships that are so real that they are indeed part of who we are. Let us give thanks to God that He has come among us, not only two thousand years ago as Jesus Christ, but that He is present even right here and now by the power of the Holy Spirit; and may that knowledge fill us with joy and love for God and neighbor. Let us pray.

AMEN

Pentecost 2010

05/23/10
Pentecost 2010
Hudson UMC

This morning we celebrate Pentecost, the day that the Holy Spirit was given to the people of God without measure and the church was born. The Holy Spirit is absolutely pivotal to our Christian lives. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, says, “if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him.” Strong words indeed. Paul is saying that, if we belong to Christ, the Spirit of Christ, that is, the Holy Spirit poured out upon the church at Pentecost, dwells within us; and if we refuse the Spirit, we have nothing to do with Christ. So, as we celebrate the giving of the Holy Spirit, God in God’s freedom to be present with us, we need to remember that the story of the Spirit is the story of the church, and it is our story. It is a story that shapes who we are, whether we like it or not.

This morning, we heard four different texts, only one of which is what we expect to hear on Pentecost Sunday. And yet, this extended reading from the Bible is very intentional indeed. Not only do they each play directly into the themes of this special day, their importance is driven home all the more fully because we are recognizing graduating seniors today, and sending them into the future with the promises of the Gospel and confidence that God is working, even in their lives.

The first text we heard was the story of Jesus being baptized in the Jordan. We considered how important Jesus’ baptism is when we last celebrated the baptism of a baby. Now, we are reflecting on how important it is for our understanding of Pentecost. After Jesus went down into the river and came up again, we read that “the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’” You might be wondering what this has to do with Pentecost. It is important because it is here that Jesus is the first human being to really receive the Holy Spirit in its fullness.

In the Old Testament, we read about prophets who did the work of God with the power of the Spirit of God. However, we read about this spirit coming and going, accomplishing the purposes of God but then going away. It is very important that we understand the response that people in the Old Testament had when they encountered God. In the Disciple Bible Study, we noticed several times that, when people encountered God, or even just an angel of God, their response was amazement that they had seen God and yet were left alive. The people in the Old Testament knew that even a basic encounter with God was something that would put their life in danger. To actually have God meet them in any kind of intense, personal way, was not necessarily a good thing, because they would surely be consumed by the holiness of God.

This is why it is so important that we have Jesus receiving the Spirit from within our humanity. In Jesus, we have the fullness of God completely united with real and total humanity. In Jesus, God took all of our brokenness, our alienation from God, and entered into it. We might say that it was God’s goal to give us the Holy Spirit, but that the only way He could give it to us was by becoming an actual, particular human being in Christ, and strengthening our humanity enough so that it could actually receive the Spirit without being completely consumed by it. Then, when Christ received the Spirit on our behalf and in our place, we might say that the Spirit learned to compose Himself within our humanity, so that, when the day of Pentecost came, it would not be a tragedy where countless people were consumed by the awesome holiness of God, but where thousands of people received the very life of God.

The other major thing that we learn from the story of Jesus’ baptism is that baptism and receiving the Spirit are tied together. Jesus receives the Spirit into our humanity when He was baptized. The second reading we had picks up this theme again. After Jesus had been crucified and was raised from the dead, He remained among His disciples for forty days. At the end of that time, Jesus ascended into heaven, but before He did so, He gave His disciples one more bit of advice. He said, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

When Jesus is about to leave His disciples, He tells them that the one thing that must consume their minds and lives, and be the driving purpose for all who would follow Him, is to go into all the world, starting with where they were, and baptize people, teaching them the good news of Jesus Christ. We read about the first sseveral years of the missionary work of the church in the book of Acts, but what I want to point out is how the people are to be baptized. Jesus does not say just to baptize the people in the name of God the Father, nor would He have people baptized in the name of both the Father and the Son, but He sees it as vitally important that people are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. A person is not baptized as a Christian unless all three persons of the Trinity are invoked, because, unless you have all three Persons, you are not speaking of the Christian God.

The gift of the Spirit to the church cannot be overstressed. Sometimes, people will speak so romantically about the people who were able to see Jesus in the flesh and how easy it would be to believe if we could have been there. And yet, this is not what we actually see in the gospels. We have people who have been with Jesus for three full years, who watched Him die on the cross, and who were now in the presence of the risen Lord, and yet what did we read? “When they saw Him, they worshipped Him; but some were doubtful.” Even though they were there and could put their hands in Christ’s wounds, it was still very much possible to doubt. Even the resurrection of Christ was not enough to convince the hardness of the human heart.

It was only after the Holy Spirit was given that the disciples became the apostles, those who are sent out, because up until the very moment that the Spirit came, they were all huddled together in one place, scared to go out into the world, for everyone knew that they were followers of Christ, and, to many of the people, they were guilty by association. And yet, when the Holy Spirit came, everything changed. Those who were able to doubt, even when the resurrected Christ stood right before their eyes, were transformed into people who had such strength of faith that they were able to endure beatings and serious mistreatment and yet stay true to the gospel. Remember, with the exception of John, every one of the twelve apostles met a rather unpleasant end. They were beheaded, crucified, skinned alive, and burned, just to name a few of the ways they were treated cruelly. And yet, not once did they turn their backs on their Lord.

The last passage that was read this morning concerns the conversion of Saul, who we know better as Paul, the author of many of the letters in the New Testament. The reason why I wanted to make sure we considered Paul’s story is because it is all too tempting, when we think about the story of Pentecost, to convince ourselves that it was an event that happened in the past and is over, with no more impact on the world in general or for our lives in particular. Nothing could be further from the truth. If there was ever a single event that impacts your life today, it is the crucifixion and resurrection. However, outside the incredible event of God suffering and dying on our behalf and in our place, and overcoming death from within our humanity, no other event in the entire history of the world has as much of an impact on your life today as Pentecost.

You see, the Holy Spirit was not just given to twelve guys once upon a time and the church exists simply to remember what God did “back then.” No. The Holy Spirit was given to every single person who came to believe in Jesus Christ. Indeed, it is because every single Christian has received the Spirit of God that Jesus was telling the truth when He told us He would be with us until the end of time. Perhaps there is no greater example of the life-changing power of the Holy Spirit than the life of Paul.

We often think about Paul as one of the greatest and most dynamic leaders in all of Christian history. We owe so much to the labors of Paul that he has been called “the real founder of Christianity.” Though it was indeed Jesus, through His life and ministry on earth and His giving of the Holy Spirit to commission the apostles, who really started the Christian movement, Paul is one of the leaders who took the call to mission so seriously that he traveled throughout the known world telling everyone he could about this Messiah and His good news.

However, Paul was not always the great hero of the faith. The first thing we hear about Paul is that he oversaw the execution of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, giving approval to the killing of Christians. The next thing we read is that “Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way,” that is, the Christian faith, “he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.” Saul was so determined to bring an end to the church that he was willing to travel great distances just to bring Christians back to be put into prison in Jerusalem.

It was to this kind of person that God revealed Himself. I will not read through the entire story again, but, while he was on his way to Damascus, Saul encountered the risen Lord and was immediately struck blind. He struggled to get to his destination. When he got there, he prayed for three days and nights, being so disturbed that he neither ate nor drank. Finally, God calls a man named Ananias, who is not an apostle, but just an ordinary Christian like you and me, and tells him to go to this Saul, this enemy of the church, who is directly responsible for putting Christians in prison and having them killed, and pray for him to regain his sight. Ananias goes up to him and says, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you were coming, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Immediately, at the prayer of this ordinary Christian, Saul’s sight returned, he was filled with the Holy Spirit, and was baptized on the spot.

So, what do all these stories have to say to us today? They tell us that, just as we participate in the baptism of Christ, we also participate in the gift of the Spirit that Jesus received on our behalf and in our place. They tell us that, even though we get sidetracked from time to time, the only real business we have as the church is to go into the nations, starting right where we are in Hudson, and baptize people in the name of the Triune God, teaching them everything that God has to say to us in Christ. They tell us that, even when we feel alone in this ministry, or even when we try to do it alone, Christ is with us through the power of the Holy Spirit, and is doing His ministry in and through us. They tell us that, though we may be weak and faithless at times, God is fully capable of overcoming that weakness and empowering us to be bold ministers of the gospel, even here and now. Finally, they tell us that, even if we have sinned in the past, even if we have made fun of people for their faith, or even if, in our heart of hearts, we have spent our entire lives resisting God, we too can be utterly transformed to be what God has made us to be.

Brothers and sisters, this is the good news of God, that our sins, whether they are many or few, do not need to hold us down. Though our sins are more serious than we can ever fully realize, God has acted decisively, taking those very sins upon Himself and nailing them to the cross, cleansing us and purifying us so that we too, broken as we are, can receive the very power of God into our lives so that we, too, might join in God’s earth-shaking ministry to all the world, just like the apostles. When we remember how utterly transformed Paul was on his way to Damascus, it makes perfect sense that he would say, “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” Fellow Christians, whether you are male or female, old or young, staying in this community for the foreseeable future or going out into the world, God has given you the Holy Spirit, not so that you might remain the same, but so that you might bring hope to the hopeless, joy to the downcast, and life to those who are dead. Let us go into the world and let God change it through us. Let us pray.

AMEN

The Incarnation: God's Solution to the Problem of Evil

The following was an essay I wrote for a class on T. F. Torrance, a recently deceased Scottish Reformed Theologian. I won the Alberta Swanson Prize for it (though I might have been the only one who entered).

The Incarnation: God's Solution to the Problem of Evil
T. F. Torrance's doctrine of Providence

By Travis Stevick
The Trinitarian Theology of T. F. Torrance
Fall 2009

Christocentrism

It is clear that Thomas Forsyth Torrance’s favorite theologian is Athanasius. One Athanasian statement that he liked to quote frequently was, “It would be more godly and true to signify God from the Son and call him Father, than to name him from his works and call him Unoriginate.” The unbroken bond of being between the incarnate Son and God the Father (the homoousion) is absolutely central to Torrance’s theology. It is the backbone of his entire “scientific” approach to the discipline. If one hopes to understand any of Torrance’s theology, not least his doctrine of providence, this key point must be grasped.

Torrance phrases it this way. “Since the Father is never without the Son, any more than the Son is ever without the Father, all that the Father does is done in and through the Son and all that the Son does is identical with what the Father does.” Because of this, all theological reflection and articulation must be worked out with constant reference to the reality of the incarnation of God as the man Jesus of Nazareth. Any attempt to think abstractly about God, or to arrive at any theological conclusion that is not Christologically rooted, is to silently sever the connection between the Father and the Son. When this happens, the best one can hope for is some form of Arianism.

Once this groundwork is laid, it should come as no surprise that Torrance works out his doctrine of providence in an entirely Christocentric way. Because we take our cue about how God interacts with humanity by how God has actually interacted with us in the Incarnation, we can come to some basic convictions, the most important of which is that God’s providential care of creation must be thought of as personal; just as personal as God is in Jesus Christ. This means that, contrary to many other Christian thinkers, providence cannot be thought of as impersonal or deterministic.

Another key insight that must be appropriated from the self-revelation of God in Jesus Christ is that, as it is the same God who has both redeemed humanity and also guides it providentially, these two concepts must be intimately related. Providence is soteriologically significant. It is above all in the cross that we see providence in action, because it is in the cross that we see just how far God was willing to go to redeem us, which must influence how we think of God’s providential care of the world. We must think out our understanding of providence in light of the love and compassion evident in the cross. Anything less is unworthy of the gospel.

Because Torrance’s understanding of providence is Christocentrically grounded, as various sub-topics are explored below, inferences from the life, death and resurrection of Christ will be frequently brought to bear on the discussion. It is important that, as we examine the concepts of evil and divine omnipotence, we define our terms in light of Christ because, if we allow our concepts to determine how we think of God rather than allowing God to determine how we think out our concepts, we tacitly admit that we really believe our concepts to be greater than God.


The Problem of Evil

We are meaning seeking beings. Throughout our lives, either in our personal experience or by witnessing that of another, we see evil in the world and we want to know “why.” Evil is always a problem because it is always understood as something that is not commensurate with human happiness; however, it only becomes a “problem” in the philosophical sense when the conditions are right. There are some conditions that solve the so-called “problem of evil” in one fell swoop.

If one’s concept of deity is that God (or the gods) are not all-good, or perhaps not even good at all, the answer to the question, “Why is there evil” is easy. God (or the gods) is simply not good. Evil would not only not be prevented by God, but might even be inflicted by God. On the other hand, God can be all-good, but if God is not all-powerful, evil can be explained away just as easily. If God is not all-powerful, like in Process theology, for example, the answer to the problem is evil is simply that God is doing the best that God can, but is struggling along just like we are.

It is only when God’s almightiness and God’s goodness are both absolutely asserted that the classical statement of the problem of evil arises. “If God is all good and if God is all powerful, why is there evil in the world?” Since the Judeo-Christian tradition has always asserted both of these two concepts to be true, this has caused no small degree of mental anguish. And yet, Torrance will not have us consider evil, or God’s goodness and power in an abstract way, divorced from the reality of Jesus Christ. Indeed, as we shall see, if we think out the nature of evil and God’s power in light of what we actually see in the Incarnation, the problem of evil as traditionally stated should never arise and God’s goodness would never be brought into question.


Divine Omnipotence

That God is omnipotent, or almighty, cannot ever be in doubt. The Old and New Testaments both bear witness to this fact. The question that we must ask if we are to be engaged in responsible theology is, “What does divine omnipotence look like?” All too often, we take our cue of omnipotence in by an a priori, logical process. We look at human power, posit its perfection (often by multiplying it by a million or so), and assume that this must be what God’s almightiness is like. However, when we do this, we are reading our own subjective motives and insecurities back into God. Instead, if we look at divine omnipotence through the lens of the Incarnation, we end up with a radically different understanding. Indeed, like all theology, this can only be done by probing into the reality of God as revealed in Christ, which is inescapably a posteriori.

As we have alluded before, since the Incarnation demonstrates that God’s interaction with the world is intensely personal, God’s omnipotence cannot be thought to be any less personal than what we see in Christ. Since the providential power and activity of God is personal, we cannot think of it in “logical-causal or deterministic categories.” Both of these would presuppose that how God is toward us (personal in the Incarnation) is somehow different than God is in God’s own life (deterministic and detached).

As soon as we ask the question, “What can God do,” we have ventured firmly into abstract speculation. The only way we can get our minds around divine omnipotence is to examine what God has actually done in Jesus Christ. Again, we need to allow omnipotence to be defined in light of God, not vice versa. Only when we do this do we have some kind of a firm foundation upon which to build. Indeed, we will go astray if we look only to the mighty acts of creation, because the relation of God to creation is external to God, whereas the relation between the Father and the Son is internal to God’s being. When we allow what God has actually done to shape our thoughts about divine omnipotence, it breaks down our speculative categories but proves to us that God is more powerful than we ever imagined.

The Incarnation shows us concrete examples of how we must think of divine omnipotence. For example, we see the power of God when God becomes a human being as an infant. When God became a human being, God was doing something that was new, even for God. Such an idea would have been seen as unworthy of God by Greco-Roman philosophy, which considered such an idea to be “irrational and impossible.” God’s omnipotence flows from a being that is dynamic, not static and impersonal. God was free to become creator, and to become Incarnate (though, of course, God was always able to do these things). “God is so wonderfully and omnipotently free that he is able [to] do things and bring about events that are new even for himself, all in fulfillment of the purpose of his measureless Love not to exist for himself alone but to bring other beings into coexistence with himself that he may share with them his triune fellowship of Love.”

Throughout his life, Jesus continued to demonstrate God’s power, particularly in God’s power over the forces of evil. When God became a human being, an attack was launched on evil. As Jesus preached the word of God, the enemies of God (both human and demonic) were assaulted; as he proclaimed the forgiveness of sins and healed the sick, he liberated humanity “from enslavement to the power of Satan, the prince of evil.” In doing this, God shows that he does not wage war with evil simply in the spiritual and intangible realms, but also in and through humanity. As humanity had been invaded by evil, God entered the battlefield of human flesh, which had been occupied by the enemy, and restored humanity to “its truth and right as God’s creation.” We will examine the significance of this for understanding the nature of evil and the human condition below. Above all, the Incarnation shows us that God’s omnipotence (and thus, God’s providential activity) is not worked out from a distance in a deistic or dualistic sense. We see that, even though God maintains his transcendence over the world, God is not hindered in being “directly present and active in creation, even in its fallenness.”

The most astonishing display of divine power is the cross of Christ. It is true that God’s power is such that God can “take hold of that which resists God’s will (including evil and death) and make it bow down and serve God’s love,” but this cannot be thought of in an abstract way. When we think about how this overcoming of evil actually takes place in the Incarnation, we find that we must think this out in light of the cross, as the decisive event whereby God overcame evil in a personal way.

This is the key point for reflection because it is at the cross more than anywhere else that God actually moves in a way that is radically different than we would expect. We would expect God to prevent the crucifixion. We would expect that, if God would want to stop any act of evil, surely it would be the most evil action ever done by human beings, and yet this is clearly not the case. What God actually does is something greater than we could think. Instead of preventing the crucifixion, God uses the evil motives of humanity to accomplish God’s plan. By taking this action, God shows us that even the greatest evil that human beings can muster cannot stop God from accomplishing his purposes. God’s omnipotence over evil manifests itself, not by stopping evil with a snap of the fingers, but by allowing evil to run its course and forcing evil to serve the will of God.

Indeed, this way of overcoming evil is not something new in the cross, but is brought to its fullest expression there. Torrance has pointed out that God has repeatedly taken the sin and failure of his people to become the means by which they are bound to him. God took the failure of Israel and used it to draw them closer to himself. He takes our sins upon himself, eternally implicating us in redemption, even if we damn ourselves. In the cross, we see, all at the same time, the greatest act of human evil, the greatest example of divine love, the most awesome display of divine omnipotence, and the intense evil of sin. In light of the cross, we see that God’s power is the power to make the “worst things that happen to us serve God’s design and the purpose of God’s grace in our lives.”

The cross overthrows our desire to have a God who overcomes the evil in the world by a sheer display of brute force. The only God there is brings his power to bear on evil through suffering love. He has invaded humanity, bringing the conflict between God and humanity to its apex and overcome the evil lodged in the hearts of men and women from the inside. Torrance says that the power of God is brought to bear “through submitting to the violence of the violent and thereby storming his way by meekness and passion into the ultimate citadel of evil in order that by atonement he might bring about redemption and emancipation.” God’s astonishing power is manifest in the cross because it is there that God enters even into our death. The power of God is so great that the immortal is able to take on mortality, the strong can take on weakness, and the loving can endure hatred.


The Nature of Evil

In order to understand Torrance’s doctrine of providence, we must come to terms with his understanding of evil. Often, throughout church history, evil has been understood to be primarily or exclusively privative, that is, the absence of good. Torrance does not think that this is adequate, calling evil, “directly negative in its character.” Indeed, it seems that thinkers have thought about evil as privation because they wanted to make evil not seem so bad (or at least not have a real existence). This, of course, is hard to reconcile with the narrative of the Fall; Adam and Eve are not portrayed as falling because they had the absence of good, but because they had done evil.

However, as we would expect, Torrance does not oppose the privative view of evil primarily on philosophical grounds, but in light of God’s self-revelation to us in Jesus Christ. For him, we only know how deeply evil has penetrated into the created order and how serious a thing it really is because of how God had to deal with it. “The fearful depth of evil has been exposed by the fact that in the incarnate life and death of his beloved Son God himself had to descend into the very heart of the world’s evil and into its terrible darkness and enmity, even into the depths of its ultimate domain in death itself and its fearful finality.” The death of Christ shows us that nothing less than the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of the second Person of the Trinity could wrench humanity out of the clutches of evil and death.

Though evil, as demonstrated through the cross, is far worse than we would care to admit, we also see through the cross that God does not deal with it in an impersonal way. God does not use coercion or brute force to overcome evil. Instead, God confronts the fullness of evil, penetrating to the depths of sin in the created order, and vanquishes it “from within through his own holy love.”
The Human Condition

For Torrance, the dreadful state of the human condition is a sub-topic of the kingdom of evil. There is not even a trace of the inherent goodness of humanity affirmed by so many modern thinkers. Again, the human condition is revealed in the cross. On the one hand, the cross shows us the glory of God because Christ did not remain in the tomb but was raised from the dead on the third day. However, on the other hand, the cross reveals to us the frightening condition of unredeemed humanity. It is in the cross that we see God’s judgment against sin brought fully to bear on Christ. Torrance contends that we simply cannot see the wretched state in which humanity finds itself through abstract and speculative means. We simply cannot understand the depth and gravity of sin in which we are implicated until it is “unmasked at the cross.”

Torrance points out that nowhere in the Old or New Testaments do we see a doctrine of sin developed independently from God’s decisive self-revelation and then, once the evil of humanity is established, present the grace and love of God against such a background. Despite the fact that this has often been used as an evangelism tactic, it is utterly absent from the scriptures. The Bible makes no further attempt to demonstrate the evil that is bound up in humanity beyond the crucifixion.

Perhaps this is the reason that so many modern theologians have promoted the intrinsic goodness of humanity. And yet, the strongest affirmation of the brokenness of humanity is latent in the single event of the cross, for it is in the cross that we are shown the terrible guilt of humanity: human beings are so sinful and opposed to God that they would kill him by nailing him to a cross. We desperately do not want to admit that we are every bit as evil as those who actually drove the nails into the Son of God, so we romanticize the cross and soften it in our artistic portrayals.

How is God related to all of this? If we operate with a deterministic understanding of providence, we are forced to conclude that God is so far from lamenting the sin in the world, he is in some sense the cause of it, seeing as nothing could happen unless directly from the hand of God. And yet, if we allow the reality of Jesus Christ to challenge our thinking, we find that God did not preordain our fallen condition but laments it. Indeed, our whole understanding of what God has done must start with the “vexation of the heavenly Father over the condition of his children.”

Part of the reason why God has such compassion on his children is because, in spite of the fact that we are willingly in bondage to sin, our condition is not entirely our own fault. During his ministry, Jesus never points his finger at those he is healing or forgiving. Instead, he “stoops to shoulder their weakness.” In fact, even this shouldering exposes the direness of the human condition. In the taking of our brokenness, sin and liability upon himself in his vicarious humanity, God in Christ reveals that we are completely helpless without such an utterly astonishing gracious activity.

Torrance was not in any way prone to theological speculation, determined to remain rooted in what God has actually revealed. However, there are times when what God has done is so astonishing that it seems as though it drives him to at least some degree of speculation. When this happens, he makes a point of acknowledging the radical nature of what he has to say and its disputable character. It is on precisely this topic that Torrance puts forward a conclusion that he feels is implied by the Incarnation, yet does so in fear and trembling, lest he should make an impious claim. In Christ we see God going to the cross, enduring death for our sake. “It is only when we see that in the incarnation, in the entry of the Son into our alienated existence under the determinism of evil, and even into our death…it is only when we see that the presence of God in all that means that God (and here we clap our hands on our mouth) has staked and risked his very being as God for our sakes, that we can begin to grasp the fearful gravity of our human condition.” Perhaps we must consider that human sin is so serious, that God, in his love, might have been in some kind of danger on the cross.

However, even when Torrance makes a statement like that, he does not mean to imply that such a risk is the result of an attack of evil but from the full exercise of divine judgment. It is because the utter wrath of God was being poured out on the Son of God that made the cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” so completely agonizing. In that moment, God was “bowed under his own judgement (sic) on sin, a judgement not mitigated but utterly fulfilled.”


Providence

Once Torrance’s positions on divine omnipotence, evil and the human condition are brought to light, it is clear that, for Torrance, the problem of evil as traditionally stated simply never arises. God’s power is not exercised over and against humanity in a coercive way and evil cannot be dealt with simply by a show of brute force, but must be conquered by a personal invasion of the very being of God, overcoming it from the inside. In light of the above reflection, we are forced to give up most of the standard ways of reconciling God’s goodness and God’s power because the tension never arises. It also allows us to see, with much greater clarity, the major motifs in Torrance’s doctrine of providence.

God’s providential care over the created order is intensely personal. It is so personal that God has pledged his very life and being for us. God has entered into our suffering in the vicarious humanity of Christ and has taken our suffering upon himself. God’s care for creation is so intense that God has been willing to become a real human being, with a nature like ours, and endure our condition. In order to care for us, the Creator has become a creature (while nevertheless remaining Creator).

Evil must be considered in light of three major points, “which in their interconnection,” Torrance claims, “have a bearing upon how we are to think of the ongoing activity of divine providence.” First, all of creation has been implicated in the Fall. Humans are impacted both my moral evil as well as physical evil. Our salvation is of both our bodies and our souls so we can maintain no body/soul dualism. In light of this, God’s providence “involves material as well as spiritual power.”

Secondly, evil is utterly irrational and yet, inexplicably, also personal. The scriptures do not simply have evil as an impersonal force, but, as Torrance points out, portrays “an organized kingdom of evil and darkness with a kind of headquarters of its own, the power house of an utterly rebellious will or spirit which the Holy Scriptures call Satan.” We cannot grasp how God overcomes evil but we see in the life of Jesus and in the resurrection that God does indeed overcome it.

Thirdly, evil has a kind of impossible reality. It is completely contrary to the being of God and yet seems to be confirmed in its existence by its very forbidden character. Somehow, God’s “No!” to evil gives it “a mode of reality which it does not have and cannot have of itself.” We can see how deadly real evil really is in the cross. We believe that, just as God uses even the cross, in its abject evil, to accomplish God’s good, holy and perfect purposes, God will do the same with the evil in our own lives. We can trust that no evil that we have been implicated in can overcome the love and grace of God because we have already seen God overcome the most evil act possible and transform it into the greatest example of God’s love for us.


Pastoral Application

Torrance’s doctrine of providence is far more helpful in pastoral care than ways of understanding that think of God as omni-causal. Depending on how such a view is interpreted, it would either result in evil not really being allowed to be evil or else there would be a serious division in God. Torrance’s view does not allow us to conclude that there is some dark, inscrutable deity behind the back of Jesus Christ. The only God there is has given God’s own life for us, pledging Christ for our redemption. We can look at the care that God has taken of humanity in the Incarnation, especially in the cross, and trust that, even when our experience might lead us to conclude otherwise, God’s love and mercy will indeed triumph over the evil in our lives.

The fact that God’s providential care is not simply a spiritual reality but manifests itself in and through the physical world in the vicarious humanity of Christ, shows us that God cares for our bodies as well as our souls. Moreover, we can participate in God’s providential care of creation by joining in Christ’s radical compassion and sacrifice. We are not the sources of providence, but we become vehicles for that providence, manifesting God’s love and compassion to those who are hurting.

Most importantly, Torrance’s doctrine of providence opens the door for real pastoral care. When a person has suffered evil, Torrance’s view allows us to acknowledge evil for what it is, tragic and contrary to God’s will. We can rely on God’s providential care, not because the evil that has happened to us is not really evil, but because God has condescended to join us in our suffering. God suffers in the midst of our suffering because God, in the vicarious humanity of Christ, has made our suffering God’s own. One who is no less than the God of the universe stands in solidarity with us in our trials.

God has penetrated into our humanity and we are implicated by the actions of God. Just as Christ has cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” on our behalf and in our place, in which we participate in the Holy Spirit, he has also cried, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” Though it may take some time to reach the point in the healing process where we can join Christ in that cry, Christ has cried in on our behalf and in our place nonetheless.

Torrance’s doctrine of providence is humanizing and personalizing. Jesus indeed goes bail (a phrase frequently used by Torrance) for God, so we can rely that the care shown by the Incarnate Son is the same care that the Father takes for his children.

Reflections on Theological Language

Reflections on Theological Language
By Travis Stevick
John Calvin’s Use of the Fathers (Independent Study)
Spring 2010

Introduction

For most people, the limits of human language does not impact the way they live their lives from day to day. They are able to communicate with others and function in society. However, there are certain moments where it becomes painfully clear that our language is simply not capable of communicating what we want. This has become particularly clear in light of the work of Austrian philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, who “pointed out that it [is] impossible to describe the aroma of coffee using words.” If it is impossible to describe something as simple as the aroma of coffee using words, how much more difficult is it to describe the realities of the Christian faith: God, sin, redemption, among others?

As it turns out, the question of how we use language as Christians to talk about God is not a new topic, though recent philosophical works, like that of Wittgenstein, have raised it again within the modern and post-modern contexts. One of the most significant areas that the topic of theological language has arisen throughout history is regarding the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. This is, in large part, because there is a matrix of human experience that enables us, to a greater or lesser degree, to understand most of the words that we use to speak of God. However, when we turn to the Christian doctrine of God, that there is only one God, but that this one God is a community of Persons, each of whom are personally distinct from one another yet absolutely united in being, we find that, more than anywhere else, our language falls far short of the realities that we intend.

When we attempt to use data from human experience to understand the Triunity of God, we immediately run into problems. We can understand threeness from our human experience; the same is true for oneness. There are even some images that can demonstrate threeness and oneness, such as a single egg being made up of shell, white, and yolk, or H2O being able to take the form of solid, liquid or gas. However, when these examples are pushed to their logical conclusion, they either tend to image a Tritheistic or Modalistic understanding of God, respectively. Nothing in our general human experience can function as a frame of reference by which to understand the personal distinctions within the unity of God.

This paper will explore several important motifs of the functions and limitations of theological language in dialogue with significant thinkers within the Christian tradition. Throughout, it will be rooted in the discussion of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, not simply for the reason that it is a topic in which many issues surrounding theological language come to a dramatic climax (as alluded to above) but because, for most of thinkers involved in the present dialogue, their most insightful statements on the topic of theological language arose in various discussions of the Trinity.

The Priority of Being over Language

In spite of the tendency throughout the history of the church for theologians to draw from the language and methodology of secular philosophy, it is important that we consider theology as a discipline that is inescapably a posteriori rather than a priori. It is not possible to conclude before an investigation of God as revealed in the Old and New Testaments and primarily in the person of Jesus Christ, what the fruit of such an investigation will be. The reason for this is because the subject of our theological reflection is a personal God who can only be understood on the grounds of that God’s revelation of himself to us. As has been observed many times throughout Christian history, when we attempt to bypass special revelation, we tend to create God in our own image; that is, we make an idol.

Since this God with whom we have to do has objective existence and this God is who he is independently of our knowing of him, our task in theology takes the form of attempting to articulate the complexities of God as accurately as possible much in the same way that a scientist attempts to articulate the complexities of nature. This unavoidably subordinates our language about God to the reality of God itself (if it is possible to use a non-personal pronoun for a personal God).

Athanasius had a particularly illuminating way to articulate this basic conviction. He wrote, in his second discourse against the Arians, that, “Terms do not disparage His nature; rather that Nature draws to Itself those terms and changes them. For terms are not prior to essences, but essences are first, and terms second.” This statement makes a few important points. First, it emphasizes what was said above, that God is who God is before we ever apply terms to speak about him. Secondly, God being infinite and our words being finite, we should not expect our terms to be able to encompass the reality of God. This is further complicated if we maintain the conviction that God is fundamentally unlike anything in our daily experience. Our terms are not, then, intrinsically capable of bearing divine meaning, but must be redefined in light of the nature of God (or God’s essence).

Thomas Aquinas, in the very first question of his Summa Theologica, at least hints at the priority of God over our terms about him. He argues that “sacred doctrine” is a science but that it is not a science like “arithmetic and geometry and the like,” which “proceed from principles known by the natural light of intelligence.” Instead, it is a science like music, which derives its principles from a “higher science” which, in this case, is “the science of God and the blessed.” He does not here use technical metaphysical terms like Athanasius’ use of “essence,” but he is still pointing to the fact that the entire practice of attempting to understand God is secondary to the God we are hoping to understand. We can see that he is clear on this utter dependence on God rather than on independently generated knowledge because the title of the very first article of the Summa is, “Whether, besides philosophy, any further doctrine is required.”

In light of these two thinkers and their acknowledgement of the priority of the being (or “essence”) of God over the terms used, we come to the methodological conclusion that we must operate, that is, think theologically, from what God has actually revealed, rather than from human experience. Gregory Nazienzen was very aware of the problems of finite human beings attempting to understand God on the basis of our their limited experience. In his fifth theological oration, Gregory is responding to a desire of others to explain the details of what is meant when it is said that the Holy Spirit “proceeds.” He was hesitant to probe too deeply into the meaning of the word, challenging those who are overwhelmed by curiosity to explain what it means for the Father to be “unbegotten” before he makes such an attempt. He concludes this thought by saying,

"And who are we to do these things, we who cannot even see what lies at our feet, or number the sands of the sea, or the drops of rain, or the days of Eternity, much less enter into the Depths of God, and supply an account of that Nature which is so unspeakable and transcending all words."

Perhaps even more strongly stated, Gregory comments shortly after that, “It is very shameful, and not only shameful, but very foolish, to take from things below a guess at things above, and from a fluctuating nature at the things that are unchanging.”

This prioritization of reality over words marginalizes the terms we use to describe the reality of God. If any language we can use falls short of the reality it is attempting to explain or describe, then it makes no sense to insist on one particular way of speaking about God because, while one term might lend itself particularly well to being changed by the divine nature (as Athanasius said), there is nothing intrinsic in that term that makes it the only term that can be accepted.

Athanasius was particularly aware of this necessity to allow the reality of God to forge divisions between people (such as between Arians and those who came to be known as Orthodox) rather than the terms the people use. This meant that there was rather significant room for diversity of language to speak of God. Athanasius, who fervently attacked Arianism, did not insist on absolute linguistic conformity.

"Those, however, who accept everything else that was defined at Nicaea, and doubt only about the Coessential, must not be treated as enemies…but we discuss the matter with them as brothers with brothers, who mean what we mean, and dispute only about the word. "

This, however, is not a simple passing over of terms as insignificant. Athanasius continues on and explains exactly why he agrees with these “brothers” in spite of a linguistic difference. “But since they say that He [Jesus] is ‘of the essence’ and ‘Like-in-essence,’ what do they signify by these but ‘Coessential?’” Not all terms point to the same reality, but if they do, they should be accepted.

In his letter to the church of Antioch, Athanasius discusses differences in the use of “hypostasis” and other theological terms used by others. He relates that he has inquired into the use of those terms, as to whether they intended the same things as those like Arius and Sabellius. When the answer is negative and, articulating that what they mean by those terms is fully in line with what would become Orthodoxy, he cannot find any reason to exclude them from communion.

"These things then being thus confessed, we exhort you not hastily to condemn those who so confess, and so explain the phrases they use, nor to reject them, but rather to accept them as they desire peace and defend themselves, while you check and rebuke, as of suspicious views, those who refuse so to confess and to explain their language."

In this way, Athanasius takes the emphasis off of linguistic uniformity and onto a unity of meaning. Because of this, a stubbornness and unwillingness to explain the use of terms is a greater problem and danger to unity than the use of different terms in itself.

Once it has been established that language and terms are of secondary importance when compared to the realities that are referred to with our language, there remain a few major topics of consideration. First, a statement about how our theological language and terms actually relate to the realities they intend. Second, a caution about the limits and weakness of our language. Finally, some important considerations about how theological language actually functions, that is, how and why we use theological language, including the use of non-biblical language.

Relation of Language to Reality

Language is particularly finite. The realities of daily experience have existence and concrete meaning even if there is no language by which to describe and understand them. A child or other person who cannot use language to express their experiences to others nevertheless still has those experiences. Further, the same experience is often expressed in different words, as some early Greek philosophers noticed, as when one person comments that something is warm while another states that the same thing is cold. We have learned, especially in more recent times, that our words do not have a kind of logical or necessary connection with reality, but take their meaning from their context. This means that the use of words does not necessarily yield true and complete communication. There is a sense that all words take on the character of technical terms, with meanings that are fixed, but only within a particular context and, should someone encounter those words outside of the appropriate context, misunderstanding is possible and even likely.

So far, this paper has emphasized the limitations of language and sharply distinguished between terms and the reality that is intended by those terms. In light of such a distinction, a connection or relationship must be established between terms and the realities they intend if the terms are to carry any meaning at all. St. Anselm of Canterbury provides an excellent way to consider this issue at the beginning of his work, “On Truth.”

Anselm distinguishes between two “truths of statements.” If a statement is grammatically correct, that is, if it is a well-formed sentence that conforms to the rules of language, it has a kind of truth inasmuch as it is truly a statement. However, such a statement can signify what is false, or “that what is not is,” to use Anselm’s language. When this is so, even though it has a kind of truth and therefore has one of the two “truths of statement,” it is not true in the usual sense of the word. A statement only has both of the truths of statement if it is not only a grammatically correct sentence, but also is consistent with what it is attempting to convey, or rather, in Anselm’s language, “When it says that what is is, it doubly does what it ought to, since it signifies both what it undertakes to signify and is a well-formed sentence.”

This idea, that statements are true if they correctly indicate what “is,” is crucial to our understanding of our language about God, especially regarding the doctrine of the Trinity. It enables us to conceive of truth in a way that exceeds the literal, but is always bound to it. Even Thomas Aquinas, who affirmed that there are multiple senses of the Biblical text, emphasizes that non-literal senses of the text are bound to and built upon the literal sense and that no doctrine of faith is devoid of literal support. After all, words do not have truly arbitrary meaning, but are rooted to large social conventions that span centuries. The main point is that, when we speak of truth, we are not speaking of words but realities. Our terms are true inasmuch as they point beyond themselves to reality; that is, to what really is. This manifests itself in a non-technical way when we reflect on and realize that the word “God” is not the same thing as the reality of God as born witness to by the Old and New Testaments.

Shaping of Terms by Reality

Terms and statements are not only judged in light of reality, that is, shown to be true or false by the reality signified, but they are shaped by that reality. This is true of all language, but is especially true of Christian language of God. Christianity, especially with its doctrine of the Incarnation, is a revealed faith, that is, it depends on the revelation of God and, therefore, cannot be understood in any way that bypasses the actual revelation of God. This is, perhaps, one of the main reasons that God was so angry with the tendency of Israel toward pagan conceptions of God and pagan responses to God. Such conceptions and practices bypassed the actual revelation of God in their midst.

Though the Hebrew language was so thoroughly shaped by God’s interaction with Israel, this was not the case with the Greek language. The assumption of Greek language by Jews and early Christians meant using language for God that had pagan connotations. And yet, the early Christians did not abandon the Greek language on this basis, but carefully used even these words in such a way that their meaning was radically reinterpreted on the basis of their use in relation to and in light of God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ.

By understanding terms in light of the realities they intend, not only are the terms reshaped, but the weakness of those same terms is brought to light in ways that remind us that the reality of the Christian God is far greater than can be expressed merely in words. Gregory Nazienzen pointed out that, even though the Greek terms that were employed to speak of God possessed grammatical gender, this did not project gender into God. Sarcastically, he says, “Or may be (sic) you would consider our God to be male…because he is called God and Father, and that Deity is feminine, from the gender of the word, and Spirit neuter, because It has nothing to do with generation.” Though other cultures (including, incidentally, the Greeks) assigned gender to their various gods, this is not appropriate for the Christian God. It is interesting that Gregory insists on God being independent of gender, even though that same God became incarnate in a particular man. Even an incarnation as a male human being does not, for Gregory, make God male.

To bring the discussion back to the specific issue of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, we run into the issue of how God is both three and one. As was mentioned above, there are no analogies to God’s Triunity as expressed in the ancient creeds and by the ecumenical councils. However, this fact is only appreciated when one allows the reality of God as revealed in Jesus Christ to challenge and redefine theological language. One particularly persistent way to account for God’s threeness and oneness is to say, if we use the language of “three persons, one substance,” that person is related to substance like species is related to genus. This was taken up by Augustine in his monumental work on the Trinity.

Augustine points out the weakness of this manner of speaking because, in spite of naming three persons, Christian faith affirms only one God. He uses the example of horses, which is a particular species of animal. If there are three horses, we say “There are three horses” but we also say “There are three animals.” If we think of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as various species of the genus, God, we would be forced to say “Three persons, three Gods,” which is not at all what Christian faith had been struggling to say.

Another, and at first more convincing, analogy for the Trinity is the image of three statues, all made out of gold. Augustine confesses that, at this point, we would say, “Three statues, one gold.” And yet, this does not solve all the problems. After all, these three statues do not exhaust the reality of gold. There are other statues made of gold; there are also a multitude of other things made of gold, such as rings. Augustine claims that, when we speak of God being one substance but three persons, we are also claiming that there is nothing outside of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit that shares in their “godness.” These two examples both seem, at one level or another, to cope with the problem the early church had in articulating their doctrine of God. And yet, when the problem is engaged at the level of reality and not just the level of language, the inadequacy of these two other options becomes abundantly clear.

The Necessity of Theological Language

In light of the discussion so far in this paper, with its repeated claims that language is finite and disconnected from the reality of God, one might ask the question, “Why do we use theological language at all? Why not just be silent?” At this point, we are reminded once again that the issue of theological language touches the realm of metaphysics. In spite of the poverty of human language and its inability to capture the entirety of God, Christian faith is rooted in a deep conviction that there is a God, that this God has willed to make himself known to human beings, and that this self-revelation is most full and complete in Jesus. If this is indeed the case, we are bound to say something, not because we hope to bring the reality of God to full and indubitable expression, but because we must bear witness to the utmost of our ability to this reality (God) that has made itself known to us.

Alister McGrath recognizes this need to bear witness to the reality of God as manifested to us in Jesus as the first of his four purposes that doctrine serves, which is, “to tell the truth about the way things are.” The is of God generates in us an ought to bear witness to it, to tell the truth as fully as we are able. This is not only important in itself, but becomes even more pressing when the “orthodox” view comes into contact with opposing views. If there is indeed a reality to be known (God), and this reality is somehow knowable (as revealed in Jesus Christ), then human beings are not free to say whatever they want to about the reality, but are bound to speak in accordance with how things really are.

Precisely this problem arose in the Christological and Trinitarian debates of the early church. In particular, Augustine, in his work on the Trinity, wrestles with the challenge of the Sabellians, who argue that there are no personal distinctions within the unity of God. “Yet, when the question is asked, What three? Human language labors altogether under great poverty of speech. The answer, however, is given, three ‘persons,’ not that it might be [completely] spoken, but that it might not be left [wholly] unspoken.” Two books later, he states, “What therefore remains, except that we confess that these terms sprang from the necessity of speaking.” Augustine does not presume that simply the utterance of the word “persons” will solve the debate since there is a fundamental disagreement about content (that is, Augustine believes that there is a threeness in the unity of God while the Sabellians do not), but is attempting to bear witness to what is. The point is not that a human conception of “person” will exhaust the reality he intends to communicate, but that the reality of God reshapes and redefines the word “person” in light of who God really is.

Calvin, writing considerably later, as one of the major voices in the reformation, agrees substantially with Augustine, and even cites his views. “On account of the poverty of human speech in so great a matter, the word ‘hypostasis’ had been forced upon us by necessity, not to express what it is, but only not to be silent on how Father, Son, and Spirit are three.” Calvin’s particular debate was over the use of non-Biblical words in theological expression, a topic that will be treated below, but his fundamental point is important to take into consideration. In order to grapple with the mystery of the Trinity, and to not remain entirely silent regarding what God has revealed to humanity, a word had to be used to express the threeness of God. That is what “hypostasis” or “person” was intended to do, not because of any innate worth of the word or any intrinsic connection of the word to God, but because something must be said and others were misunderstanding this fundamental point.

Calvin continues on and encourages those who would find fault with such theological language to take the dilemma seriously. “But let these very persons, in turn, weigh the necessity that compels us to speak thus, that gradually they may at length become accustomed to a useful manner of speaking.” In essence, Calvin is challenging those who would be contentious to attempt to express God’s Triunity without making use of non-biblical language. It is Calvin’s claim that heresy cannot be protected against without such use.

The Use of Non-Biblical Language

The use of language not found in the Bible has been a subject of discussion in any community that places a high priority on the supremacy of the scriptures as the sole source and norm of faith and practice. John Calvin was the leader of such a community and, presumably was under fire for his use of non-biblical terms. And yet, his use of non-biblical terms was not new; he was merely following in a long heritage of great theologians who borrowed language from other fields to help bring their theological convictions to precise articulation.

Athanasius, who spent considerable time defending and promoting the statements of the council of Nicaea, wrote often on the topic of the uses and limits of biblical language. He often provided an argument from scripture by reminding his readers that, when Jesus was tempted, the devil effected this temptation by using scripture. This comment is meant to establish a negative barrier, where it is maintained that words are not good simply because they appear in the Bible. He says, “The devil, though speaking from the Scriptures, is silenced by the saviour.” Here is a biblical argument that scriptural language is not infallible in all contexts, as it can be used as a vehicle of temptation.

Right after Athanasius makes this comment about the devil’s use of scripture, he comments about Paul’s use of non-biblical language. “The blessed Paul, though he speaks from profane writers, ‘The Cretans are always liars,’ and, ‘For we are His offspring,’ and, ‘Evil communications corrupt good manners,’ yet has a religious meaning, as being holy.” By placing these two examples from the New Testament together, Athanasius is effectively saying that Biblical language is not a guarantee of orthodoxy, neither is non-biblical language incompatible with orthodoxy, but rather the language that is used is rooted in the intention of the author or speaker and how that person actually uses the language.

To this point is another statement by Athanasius:

"Irreligiousness is utterly forbidden, though it be attempted to disguise it with artful expressions and plausible sophisms; but religiousness is confessed by all to be lawful, even though presented in strange phrases [that is, phrases not found in scripture], provided only they are used with a religious view, and wish to make them the expression of religious thoughts."

Athanasius will not allow us to mindlessly weigh the value of statements based on where the words came from, but must probe into the realities intended by the words. This, again, is an a posteriori practice. The orthodoxy of a statement cannot be determined before actually examining the statement and understanding whether it accurately points beyond itself to the true God.


To bring the discussion back to Calvin, the use of non-biblical language, especially as technical terms, helps to cut through useless debate and establish a position with clarity. Calvin has a very practical approach to the use of non-biblical terms, which will be quoted at length.

"Arius says that Christ is God, but mutters that he was made and had a beginning. He says that Christ is one with the Father, but secretly whispers in the ears of his own partisans that He is united to the Father like other believers, although by a singular privilege.
Say ‘consubstantial’ and you will tear the mask off this turncoat, and yet you add nothing to Scripture. Sabellius says that Father, Son, and Spirit signify no distinctions in God. Say there are three, and he will scream that you are naming three Gods. Say that in the one essence of God there is a trinity of persons; you will say in one word what scripture states, and cut short empty talkativeness."

For Calvin, particular non-biblical terms, like the technical term, “consubstantial,” are very useful for concisely stating a position and refuting opposing views.

This observation dovetails in with several points made above. It is the reality of God that matters, not the terms we use to speak of that reality. The terms are only really true inasmuch as they point beyond themselves to the truth they intend to signify; that is, our language about God, biblical or not, is only true if it conforms to what (or rather, who) God really is. The Latin term “consubstantial” or other terms do not project content into God but are reshaped by the reality of God. Because of controversy, something must be said about God’s Triunity, but what needs to be said depends just as much on how the words are used as the words themselves.

Conclusion

If the above discussion bears any relation to the truth, it would imply a few practical conclusions. First, there should be considerable latitude regarding how we speak of God. Calvin expressed this well, when he said, “Really, I am not, indeed, such a stickler as to battle doggedly over mere words. For I note that the ancients…agree neither among themselves nor even at all times individually with themselves.” Also, Gregory Nazienzen expresses a healthy distaste of linguistic battles. “Since, then, there is so much difference in terms and things, why are you such a slave to the letter…and a follower of syllables at the expense of facts?”

A second practical implication is that, though there should be great liberty of expression, there should be, through increased discernment and dialogue, be greater unity in content. That is, though we may use a great diversity of terminology to speak of God, we should not assume that all terminology is equally helpful, nor that all the diverse terminology is necessarily describing the same reality. Increased discernment would help reduce arguments based only on words, but help unify those who agree on the realities of the faith, and disagree only in the words used to speak of those realities.

A final idea we should take away from this reflection is that truth does not find its locus in our words, but in the realities that are intended by those words. In the case of theological language, it reminds us that truth is not static and impersonal, but that God is truth, that this truth is dynamic and personal in character, and that it cannot be collapsed into rigid propositions about God. It is as Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”


Bibliography

Anselm of Canterbury. “On Truth,” in Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works. Translated by Ralph McInerny, 151-174. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologica. Literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Second and Revised Edition, 1920. Available from http://www.op.org/summa/

Athanasius. “Ad Afros.” in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Fourth printing. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Volume 4, pages 488-494. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2004.

_________. “Ad Episcopos Ægypti,” in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Fourth printing. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Volume 4, pages 222-235. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2004.

_________. “De Decretis,” in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Fourth printing. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Volume 4, pages 149-172. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2004.

_________. “De Synodis,” in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Fourth printing. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Volume 4, pages 448-480. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2004.

_________. “Orationes Contra Arianos IV,” in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Fourth printing. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Volume 4, pages 303-447. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2004.

_________. “Tomus Ad Antiochenos,” in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Fourth printing. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Volume 4, pages 481-486. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2004.

Augustine. “On the Trinity,” in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Second printing. Edited by Philip Schaff. Volume 3, pages 17-228. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1995.

Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion (1559 Edition). Translated and Indexed by Ford Lewis Battles. Edited by John T. McNeill. Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press, 1960.

Copleston, Frederick. A History of Philosophy. Volume 1: Greece and Rome, Part 1. Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1962.

Gregory Nazienzen. “The Fifth Theological Oration” in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Fourth printing. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Volume 7, pages 318-328. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2004.

McGrath, Alister E. Understanding Doctrine: What It Is – and Why It Matters. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondarvan Publishing House. 1990.

John 14:1-14

05/09/10
John 14:1-14
Hudson UMC

There are some passages in the Bible that just take your breath away. I think that I find more joy in this passage every single time I read it. When I first began to organize my thoughts in a serious way to prepare to preach on this marvelous text where the beauty of God is so evident, I realized that there was entirely too much to cover in one sermon. However, I also knew that I actually want to complete John at some point and that I did not want to spend two weeks of ordinary time on the same passage. So, I decided that I would focus on one main point and save the rest for another time. All of this is to say, then, that you might hear a sermon on the rest of this text very soon; perhaps on Trinity Sunday in a few weeks.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.” Jesus here is giving us tremendous promises about the life that is to come. He is asking His disciples to trust Him as He tells them about things that they have never seen and so He wants to assure them that trusting in Him is the same as trusting in God. If God is faithful and never wavers from His promises, we can be assured that the same is true for Jesus.

After saying that there are many rooms in His Father’s house he says, “If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” Jesus is saying that, since He has made this promise, has uttered these words, it is as if the deed were already done. Human beings often say things like, “My word is my bond,” but with Jesus we have something even more important. With Jesus, we do not have His word over here and His action over there. In Jesus, Word, Being and Activity are all inseparable. He does not say one thing and do another, and what He says and does is not different from who He is. We, however, are not the same way. We often say things that are not true to who we are, that is, we lie. We often do things that are out of character for us. We put of facades, we project a version of ourselves that we want others to see, but we keep the real “us” hidden away. What we say to others does not necessarily tell them anything about who we are deep down inside.

Not so with Christ. Christ does not seem to be one way but is actually something else. He encounters us as a real incarnation of God, God with us, God for us, and God who has become one of us and one with us. This is indeed who He is. What God is toward us is what He is in Himself. So, when Jesus promises us something, that He is going to prepare a place for us in His final kingdom, we can believe it because it is rooted in the very being of God and, so long as God is God, His promises will never pass away.

Jesus has just commented that His disciples know the way to the place where He is going. “Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’” Jesus explains that His disciples know the way, but they don’t think so. This is because the disciples were thinking about directions that they could learn, or in our case today, that we can print off from the internet. This is not what Jesus was thinking, because Jesus knew that the way is not a what, but a who.

The fact that the way is a person, that it is the person of Jesus, changes everything. Now, being a follower of the way, which seemed at first like it was following a list of “do’s” and “don’ts” as if it were a kind of roadmap to heaven, turns out to be far richer. It turns out that, when God provides a way into His very heart, He does not just provide a path to take that, if we are not careful, we can wander off and get lost. Instead, He sends us His very self, not just to walk along side of us as we follow the way, but to be that way. One of Paul’s very favorite ways to speak of believers is that we are “in Christ.” What a wonderful thing, to be in Christ. If we are in Christ, we are not outside of Christ as if Christ were somewhere “out there,” rather than so very close that He has taken up residence in our very lives through the Holy Spirit. If we are always in Christ, we do not ever need to worry about losing our way, even if we have times when we feel lost. If we are in Christ, who is the way, we will always be on the right track.

Jesus says here also that He is the truth. Again, Jesus radically overturns our usual way of thinking about truth, because, again, we usually think of truth as a what, but again, it is a who. Truth is not a bunch of well thought out, carefully constructed statements. It is not the greatest philosophical system available at any given time, or even the greatest one that human minds can come up with. Because Jesus is the Truth, we can’t think of truth as if it is some impersonal idea that is somehow independent of space and time, that, if we can just possess it, we can know the truth. We see here that truth is not something that we can possess, but something in which we participate. The truth is a person with whom we can have a relationship, that we know the truth because the truth decided to be known by us and has revealed Himself to us.

Towards the end of the Gospel of John, when Jesus stands before Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, at the end of his interrogation, He was asked, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered him, saying, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.” Pilate responds with the critical question that is on the lips of so many people during these uncertain times where truth always seems to be beyond our grasp, “What is truth?” Pilate was so sure that he knew that truth was relative and that human beings did not have real access to truth that he was not able to recognize the Truth Himself, standing right in front of Him.

The last thing that Jesus claims to be at this moment is the life. Once again, Jesus shows us that something that we often think of as a what is actually very much personal. Sometimes, we think of life as if it were a commodity, something that we have. We do it when we think of life in quantitative terms, that is, according to length of time that someone is alive. Someone has a long life or doesn’t have a long life. Our usual goal is to have a nice, long life, though thinking about the end of our lives pushes us to think of life in qualitative terms. We begin to think about how good our life is, whether someone has a good life or a bad life.

But what Jesus is telling us here is that life is not something that we have at all, but something that God is. Way back in chapter five, we heard Jesus speaking of the resurrection of those who believe and He said, “For just as the Father has life in himself, even so he gave to the Son also to have life in himself.” Jesus is the life and it is because He is the life that we trust that, when this life ends, our existence and life before God is by no means over. Because we are in Christ, because, as Jesus will say at the beginning of the next chapter, we are united to Christ like branches on a vine, we really do receive life from Him. And if we are personally joined, body and soul, to Christ, who has life in Himself, we will enjoy His life for all eternity.

This is what Jesus means when He tells us that we will have eternal life. We do not have the promise that we will remain in these broken bodies that we have today. We have instead the promise that there will come a day that we will put on new bodies, that are free from decay and destruction, and we will join Jesus who is our elder brother and stand in the very presence of God, and enjoy all the wonderful things that Jesus spoke of as the kingdom of God. Things like the great banquet that is described several places in the Bible and the celebration that is in heaven because sinners turn to God.

We are only two weeks from Pentecost, so we should be thinking more and more about what role the Holy Spirit plays in our lives and considering the things that Jesus says that should help us expect to see God’s mighty work in our lives. This passage indeed gives one of the most extravagant, and therefore potentially frightening promises to the church about the kind of astonishing work that the Spirit will do in and through us. Throughout His ministry on earth, Jesus did amazing thing after amazing thing. He healed the sick, He gave sight to the blind, He made the lame walk again, He even raised the dead. Bear all that in mind when He says to His disciples, “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.”

The question that we need to ask ourselves when we encounter passages like this one is, “Do we believe that we will do the things that Jesus is doing?” Are we healing the sick, taking care of people’s physical needs in such a radical and complete way that we can say that we are indeed doing the things that Christ was doing? However, the question that I think is even more important is, “What in the world are the greater things that Jesus was talking about that He says that we will do?” because, to be perfectly honest, it is sometimes hard for us to think of anything that is greater than raising the dead to life.

And yet, He gives us a clue. The greater things that we will be doing are based on an actual historical event. Jesus says we will do these things, “Because I am going to the Father.” What does His going to the Father have to do with it? Throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus going to His Father is a euphemism to say that the Holy Spirit was going to be imparted to the disciples and all who follow them. The reason that we will do greater things than Jesus is because the Holy Spirit has been given to us. God Himself has returned to God, but because God has returned to God, God has imparted God’s own self to each and every one of us in such a way that God can be said to be “in us.”

When we read the book of Acts, we see the words that Christ spoke here to be completely fulfilled. First, it is indeed true that the apostles were doing what Jesus was doing, because they were healing people, raising the dead, and performing all kinds of miracles wherever they went. But that was not all, because we read that something else happened that is even greater than what happened during Jesus’ ministry.

Think throughout all the stories we have heard in John’s Gospel. Recall back in your memory all the stories you have heard from the other Gospels where you see Jesus ministering among the people. Over and over again, we see people misunderstanding Jesus. We see this first and foremost in the Pharisees, who make no secret of their hatred of Jesus. However, we see it among the people, who follow Him because He gives them bread, but abandon Him when He says things they don’t want to hear. Even the disciples themselves don’t get it. The strongest example I can think of, aside from Peter’s denial of Christ on the night He was betrayed, is the scene where Jesus asks His disciples who people say He is. After a bunch of answers are given, He asks them who they say He is. The response that Peter gives is, “You are the Christ.” This is, on one hand, the correct answer because Jesus is the Christ. However, Peter and the other disciples’ understanding of what it means for Jesus to be the Christ was so completely warped by popular culture that, even though the word was right, the content was very wrong.

But when the apostles go out into the world after Pentecost, filled with the Holy Spirit of God, who is the very same God as the Father and the Son and just as much God as they are, all of that changes. There are indeed some who still resist, who beat the apostles, put them in prison, and even execute them, but this is by no means the only response. After the very first Christian sermon is preached, a full three thousand people were so overwhelmed by the presence of God that they felt compelled to join with the apostles, even selling their property and giving all their money to the work of God in their midst.

As amazing a thing as it might be for a body to be raised from the dead like Lazarus, it is a far more amazing thing for the life of God to be imparted into our lives. Sometimes, in our culture where we all too often collapse Christian faith into a system of ethics, we forget how amazing it is that, broken as we are, the Almighty God of the universe has actually taken that very brokenness upon Himself, even being willing to suffer and die on our behalf and in our place, just so that you and I would not get what we deserve. And as if that were not enough, God does not just save us for pie in the sky when we die, but enters into the very depths of our lives in order to give His life to us, to empower us to live our lives with abundance, to be Christ for our neighbors and to participate in God’s work in their lives as well.

Brothers and sisters, God’s promise did not end with the disciples. You and I are part of that very same tradition and we have been united to Christ, who does these miracles in our midst. You and I have been entrusted with a sacred calling, to take the words of Christ into the world and to make disciples of all nations, starting right here in Hudson, Iowa. If you are here today, it is because someone at some point in time, reached out to you. Maybe it was a parent, a friend, a pastor, or someone else altogether, but everyone here has encountered God through another person. I declare to you today that you are called to be that person to others, to be the one who presents the promises of God, to be the one who does the greater works than even Jesus did on earth because the Holy Spirit has taken up residence in your life. The Gospel is real, brothers and sisters, and it changes lives. It has changed my life and it has changed your life. Let us go into the world and participate in the changing of the lives of others.