A Phenomenon of God

Different objects, and even the same object, can draw different meanings. Take for instance the flower of a plant. Many people (commonly our female counter-parts) take pleasure in the flower of a rose. Why? I guess usually because of the smell, colour, shape, and the cultural significance of the rose. A red rose from a boyfriend to a girlfriend can signify love and romance. However, a red rose is also often used at the funeral of a person in loving memory of them. The variation also streches across cultures. One persons flower of beauty is another persons weed. Some look at a flower with delight, another with disgust. Meaning seems to come from humanity - not the rose. So how do we interpret God? Or, how does God manifest himself to people (I have in mind un-believers here)? Is one persons observation of the manifestation of God beauty, while to another it is disgust? One would assume (and I think NZ people do believe this) that God manifests himself in a favourable way that would bring a person into a full [believing] relationship with him. So is every manifestation of God a good one? Or, how do we know that what we observe is actually God and not a human interpretation placing God in the event? It doesn't take a long look into contemporary protestantism to notice the many denominations and doctrines. How can one manifestation of God be contrary to another? For example, those who believe that the Gifts of the Spirit ended in the first century vs. those who believe it's in full swing today. I think there are two sides to this. I think there is the, what I will temporarily dub, 'the external' manifestation of God - where God is actually active in an event. And then there is (also temporarily dubbed) 'the internal' operation of God. That he is working in the interpretations of a person as they observe the external manifestation of God, or as they place God in an event. The external requires the internal observation, whether the observer believes the external manifestation is God or not, God is still working in the interpretation. Whereas the internal does not need the external, as observers can place God in an event, regardless of God's actual manifestation.

In regards to the seemingly contrary nature of God and the Church (i.e. Spiritual Gifts, Calvinism vs. Armenianism vs. Open Theism vs. Process Theism), I think it is to be remembered that there is a mystery to God. As humans we are unable to speak adequately of God, and therefore must not assign our beliefs to one logical way of thinking about God. It would seem that God isn't overly concerned with fitting into the logic of humans - hence Jesus as flying in the face of this - and would rather leave us in mystery as we observe and try to take part in the unfolding plans of God.

As a side note I think that external manifestations are more what people look for. They are defintely a more conscious awareness of God. This is opposed to the internal which is a more unconcious operation of God, though, I guess, we can be aware of the conviction/discernment of the Spirit in some circumstances without any external manifestation.

Does God Have A Head?

As Briar and I were flying over NZ last night I was looking down on the land and wondering if this is what it is like for God to be looking down on us. At least by my experience most people - including myself - tend to think of God as 'out there somewhere,' even though at the same time we try to think of him around us. So does he have a head up above the clouds looking down on us? Or is he an invisible Spirit around us in the world? Or is it the Holy Spirit that is around us in spirit form while God and Jesus both have heads up in the skies talking somewhere? Or are head's anthropomorphisms and God really is best described as a spirit that is both here and there, while Jesus remains in human form? Or has Jesus rid himself of his body and taken on Spirit form and resides around us too? Does the difference between the Trinity come down to function then as all three are Spirits? What does it mean for humans to have a body then if Jesus got rid of his?

I guess what I think is that God does not necessarily have a head (although he may do - I've never seen him, except I know Jesus was a human). So I describe him as something like a Spirit, but I do this understanding that the description of Spirit probably doesn't do justice to what God actually is (which I am guessing is something we aren't able to comprehend). I think Jesus remains in his human form, and that when the second coming happens and everything is wrapped up we will remain in a renewed human form. This is opposed to the idea that we become spirits in heaven or leave this body behind and move into eternity. God and Jesus are somewhere, I dunno where, and the Holy Spirit is what is in us and around us. The Holy Spirit connects us and the world to Jesus, and Jesus connects us to God. Yet weirdly we have to remember that they are at the same time all one. So I dunno how to reconcile a God in which we describe as one third human, and two thirds Spirit, but I'm sure God has that sussed and one day, when he reveals himself to us, we'll understand.

Positive Theology

Positive theology (by my understanding) is 'how to speak about God' - which seems to be a good question in itself. While negative theology is talking about what God is not, we reach a place where we talk about what God is. For example, God is sovereign over all things or God is limited by the bounds of time. This seems the more traditional and common approach to talk about God. The bible is read, and a statement about God is made. "God parted the Red Sea and therefore controls the natural elements."

However it also seems that too much positive talk also risks the creation of idols rather than recognizing God. God is not an object waiting to be defined, he is a subject in which we are to try understand. I think the key is to not hold too strongly to a definition of God, but allow fluidity and remain open to change. As humans I feel that we are unable to adequately talk about God, but find ourselves in a position where we are forced to. Positive Theology will never capture everything that God is because it is always limited to human language. Thus we must remain fluid and aware of the inadequacy of any sort of speech about God. The positive and negative should be used to temper each other.

Canaan-o-cide & Morality

This post is partially inspired by a post I wrote on another blog and part from a conversation I had with Briar the other day. It seems hard to deal with texts like Joshua 5 & 6 - i.e. is genocide ok? Recently I was listening to a lecture on morality and the lecturer talked about the possibility of viewing morality in 3 categories:

1) Autonomous: equality, rights, freedom.
2) Community: interdependance, duty, status, hierarchy.
3) Divinity: purity, sin, sanctity.

Apparently Autonomous Morality is what Western philosophers call morality. It is highly rational (Kantian morality is an example of this), e.g. is it ok for two adults who aren't married to sleep together? Autonomous morality would say yes, [Christian] Divinity Morality would say no, Community Morality would ask 'what does our culture and traditions say about this?' The West mostly operates from an autonomous morality, with a mix of the other two. But what does this have to do with genocide in the Old Testament?

I think it's more of a hermeneutical awareness. It has to be noticed that the Israelites didn't work from a rational autonomous morality like the West does. They were Community and Divinity; more concerned about maintaining the commands of the Holy Yahweh [God] than rationalising everything out. I guess I want to note two things here; 1) the Canaan-o-cide is a fulfillment of prophecy made many years before, it was going to come to pass anyway. It is said their inequities had come to fruition and this would have definitely influenced the Israelites if they lived side-by-side.
2) I'm not sure how else they were going to take the land, perhaps the inhabitants would pack up and move off? A natural disaster wipe them out first ready for the Israelites to walk in?

What ever the case God commanded the genocide, and [textually] the Israelites had no quelms executing the order. Which brings me to an interesting thought - how much was God accommodating the development of Israelite e.g. philosophically, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually etc. We are riding on the back of thousands of years of development and experience. We can learn in 3 years at Uni what initially took people their lifetimes. As we are still developing so were the Israelites, they hadn’t moved through an ‘enlightenment’ period which emphasized rationality. My guess is that they still thought in what we would call ‘primitive’ thinking, their conclusions perhaps not making a lot of rational sense e.g. the stoning of a family over stolen goods [Achan]. If you get what I mean here, I wonder how much God accommodated them at their stage of development. He operated in a way that made sense to them, but this way of operating is not indicative of all of God, nor revealing all he is nor how he actually operates if we could somehow manage full comprehension of God. My suspicion is that he continues to operate now in a way that makes some sense to us – which is different as we operate differently to the Israelites. For the sake of this post I might continue this line of thought in another post.

Negative Theology

Negative theology, by my understanding, is not speaking about God in a bad way. Rather, it is about how to not speak about him. We define God by saying what he is not. For example; God is not fickle, God is not hateful of all humans, God is not tempted by sin. I think that this is useful to keep in mind as a balance to the more traditional positive theology which will be a post coming soon.

However, to focus too much on 'how to not speak of God' is to create an idol rather than recognize God. One - perhaps influenced by the likes of Nietzsche - can take it too far and say that we can actually say nothing about God. This could be motivated by ideas such as; we cannot truly know 'God' or that any talk about God is just speculation - or both of these. It could also come from the idea that any human definition of God would put humans above God, rather than below. Even by saying what God is not, we are implying what he is, and therefore defining him.