The first of my ten-part series on a basic systematic theology deriving from the Nicene Creed.

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Preach the gospel always. If necessary, use words. - St. Francis of Assisi

Words are deeds. - E.M. Forster, Maurice
 

There is an inadequacy in using words in expressing the gospel. In the course of this essay and the next, I shall attempt to express something of that which I’ve always felt to be essentially beyond expression. Even then I shall not get near full expression, but perhaps shall get to that beginning of wisdom which desires a disciplined approach whose ultimate care is love.

Before discussing what the gospel is, or what attributes it may have, I shall devote this article to exploring what the gospel is not. In a later article, I shall explore the positive characteristics. Finally, I’ll develop a series which, I hope, will act as a synthesis and refinement of the previous two to bring together a more coherent view of the gospel. Also, one more note: for the sake of more user-friendly reading, I shall not put the words ‘I believe’ in front of everything, as roughly half the article would then be taken up with those words. The reader may assume that any assertions I make are in the character of my belief, not as in geometrical or logical proof, but as a statement of my faith at the present time. And insofar as those beliefs parallel others whose quotations and arguments I enlist to support, so much the better!

First, some basic ‘nots’: God is not completely unintelligible. To say that God is essentially renders God irrelevant. There must be some part, some attribute, some way or process of God, some evidence, which must be intelligible for the discussion to be worthwhile.

God does not work in secret. Creation is meant for all, and God’s presence is throughout creation. Our interpretation of that creation varies. Sometimes, as in Westhelle’s discussion, creation is not seen as a good, or particularly relevant, thing to the experience of God here and now. However, God is not, as Spinoza’s (and, to some extent, Einstein’s) general direction of thought was going, merely the sum total of all things, making nature or the universe God in a pantheistic way. Further, the revelation of God in Jesus Christ was also meant for all. This is not to discount, however, the activity of the Holy Spirit, or God’s continuing action in the world through other revelation. Some part of revelation is contained in the ‘sacred history’ of the Bible, and thus accessible to any who can read or hear (as in Pannenberg’s discussion of this kind of reasonable revelation), but God also works on a much more personal level. (RCT, pp. 109-112) The same divine influence carries forward into today, either as dramatically as saintly actions or as subtly as small ethical and social choices – that we don’t call people ‘prophets’ any longer (except, perhaps, as a term of suspicion or derision) does not deny the fact that divine influence can touch each of us today.

‘Revelation does not mediate a world-view, but rather addresses the individual as an existing self. ... For existence in the moment is his authentic being. ... It is the obedience that obeys God not in general or in abstracto, but in the concrete now.’ (Bultman, RCT, p. 102) Revelation is an open possibility, a gift offered through grace, to each person at every moment. The sustaining power of God is present in creation at all times. Revelation, being a word pregnant with meaning, can be overplayed as always requiring thunderbolts, mountaintop experiences, chariots of fire. Revelation can be as subtle as a flower in bloom (and in fact, some find a basic division in Buddhism to be based on such an experience). Firey mountaintop revelations can be ignored (as indeed it was, and continues to be) whereas simple revelations may be the most powerful and most profound. God does not have a prescribed way of communication, but uses the entirety of creation, at each moment, in all of its particularity, to reveal his truth and will.

God is not uncaring, unconcerned, or uninvolved. Certainly any Christian sense of theology must accept the involvement of God in some way, at some level, in the person/event/concept of Jesus Christ. Much depends upon the interpretation and definition of the Christ, but that God became involved in the affairs of human beings is, to my view, axiomatic of Christian theology. And more broadly, through prophets who have spoken through the Hebrew scriptures to the Israelites, and through other prophets and means to other people, God has been involved in the affairs of humankind since the creation. With regard to this, we must not put God in a box and narrow the focus of divine activity to one people or one mode. ‘A closed canon excludes the many voice of the minjung and freezes our imagination,’ argues Kwok Pui-Lan, in advocating the recognition of the presence of God in all cultures throughout history. (LEV, p. 285)

Attendant to God’s intelligibility and God’s involvement, God does not exist alone with the purpose of being alone. A caring God must have something to care about. And an interactive God must have beings with whom to interact. ‘Creaturely freedom is all important, for without it God is deprived of the one thing the world can provide which God alone cannot have: a genuine social experience.’ (Ford, RCT, p. 138) Without freedom, creation becomes a huge variant of video gaming, unlikely to hold the divine attention for long, and less likely to be the object of care and concern. And, in Christian theology, the Christ makes God’s interaction all the more special and caring. ‘It is when we look at Jesus Christ that we know decisively that God’s deity does not exclude, but includes his humanity.’ (Barth, RCT, p. 79) For God so loved the world….
Humanity, as God’s creation, is not something cast aside to be forgotten, or even remotely observed (as in idea of the watchmaker God). And despite the fact there is a disconnection between the divine will and the human will, God is not simply a judge and executioner, nor has God been willing to abandon humanity in whole (the story of Noah) or in part (faithfulness to the covenant of Israel) even when all evidence points to the reality of (and justification for) abandonment. (Brueggemann talks a lot about God in relation to faithfulness and abandonment.) This is made even more clear for Christians. ‘In Christ we see that God is not a wrathful taskmaster and judge but a gracious and kind father, who blesses us....’ (Luther, RCT, p. 91)

Unlike Anselm and other early church fathers and theologians, I do not believe that God is completely unchanging. To be unchanging implies an inflexibility, a powerlessness that God, if God is God, must not have. God must have the power to act and to feel, and thus to change. Kung’s idea of indefectability over time (although applied more toward the church than toward God) can be applied in such a way that makes God perfect without seeming so to human perception, which can never perceive the total existence of God in any case.

God does not appear as an infinite being to a finite mind, but this merely means that we as finite beings are incapable of grasping the infinity. Human beings have little enough success understanding themselves and each other. Prophets have been warned about looking at God – the human being is simply incapable of complete comprehension of the experience. No matter to what degree we expand our concepts of infinity, mathematically or logically (as in recent writings by Rudy Rucker), or scientifically (as in Paul Davies, et al.), God is always a little bit further away. However, God reveals to us those parts of the divine will and attributes as is necessary to get the point across. Likewise, God is not confined to a specific timeline, or even the concept of time. As God is often not taken to be in a particularly defined coordinate in space (x, y, z) neither should God be taken to be in particularly defined coordinate in time (w). Perhaps the best mathematical expression would be to set all coordinates to infinity, but this is simply to deflect the issue. Whether we treat the coordinates as infinity, undefined, or inapplicable, we still have no greater grasp on the totality of God.

Finally, God is not remote and isolated. God’s presence is not confined in heaven, or in the future, or in the historical Jesus Christ, but rather God is present at every moment, in community and communion with the creation God has made. God has had a specific historical presence that has made itself known, through scripture among other evidences, but God is not limited only to that. God is present in the revelations to his creatures as individuals and communities, but is not limited to that, either. God is present to God, but is not limited to that. God is beyond limits, but as we cannot conceive this, God allows us access to the divine in limited ways, that grow and have as a direction the infinite as we grow through grace to be able to better comprehend. God’s presence in community is likewise not limited, either by social convention or established order or culturally determined moral imperatives, but rather gives us a limited access that grows as we as a community grow in grace toward a more perfect communion with God and each other.



Bibliography

Christian theology: An introduction. Alister E. McGrath. 1994: Blackwell Publishers.

Lift every voice: Constructing Christian theologies from the underside. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite & Mary Potter Engel, eds. 1998: Orbis Books.

Readings in Christian theology. Peter C. Hodgson & Robert H. King, eds. 1985: Fortress Press.

Theology of the old testament: Testimony, dispute, advocacy. Walter Brueggemann. 1997: Augsburg Fortress Publications.