{"id":1188,"date":"2020-04-06T17:36:27","date_gmt":"2020-04-06T17:36:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awakeningheart.spiritual-christian.com\/?p=1188"},"modified":"2020-04-06T18:25:06","modified_gmt":"2020-04-06T18:25:06","slug":"the-shape-of-classical-christianity-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/awakeningheart.spiritual-christian.com\/?p=1188","title":{"rendered":"The Shape of Classical Christianity: Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Consensus Christianity<\/strong>
\nCentral to what is being said here is the idea that classical Christianity is characterized by consensus \u2013\u2013 not always a perfect consensus to be sure but a consensus nevertheless. While, for example, any two patristic writers may not agree with one another in every instance there is a common understanding of what Christianity is \u2013\u2013 of the beliefs and practices which inform, shape, and determine the life of the believing community. Indeed, the community of faith is itself crucial in determining the parameters of this consensus. So Thomas Oden wrote:<\/p>\n

Consent was not ecumenical if it was not found worldwide in all twenty centuries. The clergy did not create this consent; it was achieved by an act of the worshipping community confirmed by the laity in song, prayer and Scripture. If all of the clergy in Christian history had agreed on a point of Christian doctrine that had received no universal consent by the worshipping community it would not be ecumenical consent.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The first agreement in this historical and ecumenical consensus is, of course, that “We are made for God, made to love and to be loved by God, and our hearts are always restless until they find their rest in God.”<\/p>\n

The God Beyond Belief<\/strong>
\nThe entire Judeo-Christian tradition is a common and continuous declaration that God is beyond human comprehension, thought, imagination, feelings, concepts, or ideas. Whatever notions I have of God, whatever I believe about God, no matter how true, whatever feelings of the sacred I experience, no matter how genuine, and regardless of any qualities I attribute to God, no matter how accurate or appropriate, that is not God. God is always more than what I can conceive or say. Nevertheless, learning to speak well and truly of God is a part of our spiritual progress. And so the consensus of classical Christianity is that God is:<\/p>\n

The Uncreated One<\/strong> \u2013\u2013 God is Self-sufficient, Independent, Necessary, Underived Being. God is the Source, the Beginning and the End of all things (Psalm 90; Isaiah 40:28;i Corinthians 1:30). Isaiah speaking as the voice of God declares, “Before me there was no god fashioned nor shall ever be after me. I am the Lord, I myself” (Isaiah 43:10). God’s name as Yahweh, “I Am,” suggests God “simply and incomparably” is.<\/p>\n

The Unity of God<\/strong> \u2013\u2013 there is no pantheon of gods. “I am God, there is no other” (Isaiah 45:22). “For us,” wrote Saint Paul, “there is one God, the Father from whom all being comes, toward whom we move and for whom we exist” (1 Corinthians 8:6).<\/p>\n

Indivisibly Simple<\/strong> \u2013\u2013 since God is not composed of parts the whole of God is present in all that God does. Whatever distinctions the human mind may make regarding the qualities of Divinity, God remains one. All the attributes of God are “interfused and joined together in one indivisible essence in a way that transcends partial human perception.”
\nImmensity, Immeasurability, and Infinity \u2013\u2013 “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and of his greatness there is no end” (Psalm 145:3). “God’s center,” said Saint Bonaventure in the Middle Ages, “is everywhere, and God’s circumference is nowhere.” And Julian of Norwich, the Medieval English Christian mystic, wrote: “Human imagination stands in numbed silence in the Presence of the Measurement of all our measures.” The Latin root of immense means “unmeasured” (im – mensus, not to measure). To classical Christians this has always suggested what is beyond measurement, unfathomable, boundless.<\/p>\n

Eternal<\/strong> \u2013\u2013 God is without beginning or end; and, therefore, the guarantee of unending life: “Because I live, you shall live also” (John 14:199)”. But what is envisioned is more than life of unending duration. The Divine life, the life of God is shalom, harmony, peace. To have eternal life is not only timeless existence but is to enjoy the same quality of life, the same joy, peace, and harmony as God. Augustine said, “Join yourself to the eternal God, and you will be eternal.”<\/p>\n

Omnipresent<\/strong> \u2013\u2013 God is everywhere and always present. When Paul was invited to address the philosophers gathered on Mars Hill one of the key things he said to them was: “God is not far from each one of us, for in God we live, move, and have our very being” (Acts 17:28). And Scripture is filled with the kind of thing we find in the writing of the Prophet Jeremiah: “‘Am I a God nearby,’ declares the Lord, ‘and not a God far away. . . Do not I fill heaven and earth?’ declares the Lord” (Jeremiah 23:24). “No atomic particle is so small that God is not fully present to and in it, and no galaxy so vast that God does not circumscribe it. No space is without the divine presence. God cannot be excluded from any location or object in creation” (Thomas Oden in cc ). Classical Christianity believes that God is a constant presence with them on the best and worst of life’s ways as an enjoyable and comforting companion and friendly help.<\/p>\n

Omnipotent<\/strong> \u2013\u2013 God is not limited by anything external to God. There are no\u00a0limitations upon God’s ability to influence the world; or, to do all that is consistent with the divine character. Nothing that God conceives or wills is beyond God’s power to accomplish. Yet, God’s power over all things is such that it empowers, encourages, and enables the freedom of all creation. Scripture points not simply to God’s limitless power, but to the way in which God’s power is employed for the good of humanity and the whole of creation. The question is not simply whether God has power, but whether God has the power to help me in my darkest and most despairing moments. To put it in evangelical terms does God have the power to save humanity? Rudolf Otto spoke of primal spiritual experience as mysterium tremendum et fascinans<\/em> \u2014 that is, a mystery before which humanity both trembles and is fascinated. God’s power, when recognized, elicits feelings of overwhelming awe, simultaneously accompanied by a sense of absolute safety, graciousness, and of being loved.<\/p>\n

Omniscient<\/strong> \u2013\u2013 The omniscience of God is the recognition that God’s consciousness is all inclusive, \u2013\u2013 that God knows completely, limitlessly, holistically, exhaustively, and knows it simultaneously. I think it is J. B. Philips, one of the first to translate the New Testament into modern English, who told in his book Your God Is Too Small<\/em>, of an Oxford University Professor who liked to ask his students to shout out their spontaneous response to the following question as soon as they heard it. “Does God understand nuclear fission?” Invariably the majority of the class would shout out “No!” Everyone would then laugh since obviously if there is a God then all physical processes are known to God as the all-knowing Creator. God’s understanding says Psalm 147:5, is without limit. And Paul wrote, “O the depth and wealth of the wisdom and knowledge in God! How unsearchable God’s judgement, how untraceable God’s ways!” (Romans 11:33-34). Unfortunately, this attribute has frequently been used negatively to frighten children with the image of a God who is always watching to catch them doing something wrong, rather than as kind assurance of God’s caring. “God knows all,” said Saint Augustine, “and is greater than our self-condemning conscience.” “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father\u2019s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don\u2019t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows” (Jesus in Matthew 10:29-31).<\/p>\n

Holy<\/strong> \u2013\u2013 Unlike the “force” in Star Wars God has no dark side everything about God’s character is light. \u00ac\u00acGod is perfect in goodness, truth, justice, love, wisdom, and mercy. To describe God as perfect is to portray God as entire, whole, and complete in goodness. It is what many theologians mean in speaking of God as “Wholly Other;” that is, God in these moral qualities, or characterological excellence is not like anything we know or can describe. Indeed, the best way to understand the holiness, the sacred mystery, the otherness of God is through awe, wonder, gratitude, and reverence.<\/p>\n

Just<\/strong> \u2013\u2013 God gives to all things what is right. Pause briefly and read Psalm 23\u00a0slowly and carefully. It is a wonderful portrait of God’s justice. When in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus talks about God’s care for the birds of the air and the flowers of the field, he is picturing God’s justice. When the Apostle Peter wrote, “God’s divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3), he was writing of God’s justice. When workers are paid a sustainable wage that is justice. When the earth is cared for like a natural garden that is justice. When there is food for the hungry, medicine for the sick, and shelter for the homeless that is justice. Because God is holy and just it is expected that we too will be holy (different or other than the avaricious world) and just. No one can claim to be spiritual, or a Christian, who is unjust.<\/p>\n

Loving<\/strong> \u2013\u2013 The classic consensual Christian attempt at a definition of God in human terms, which unfortunately fail us in the end, can be stated concisely this way:\u00a0God is the uncreated source and end of all things; one; incomparably alive; insurmountable in presence, knowledge, and power; personal, eternal, spirit, who in holy love freely creates, sustains, and governs all things.\u00a0However, there is no more concise, simple, or profound statement of the character of God than 1 John 4:16, “God is love.” It is in, through, and with sacred love that God creates, sustains, and governs or guides all things. That God, as shown in Christ, is loving means that you were made in love, by love, through love, for love; and, when you die you go into love \u2013\u2013 not as a sentimental abstraction but as the concrete reality of your ultimate destiny.<\/p>\n

Notice that John says God is love, not that love is God. To say the latter would be to worship our idea and image of love, or a single characteristic of God rather than God. But to say that God is love is to say that God’s every intention for us is kind, that God’s every action toward us is meant to sustain and nurture our life and the creation of which we are a part. “The glory of God,” said Irenaeus, “is a man or woman fully alive.”<\/p>\n

Living and Personal<\/strong> \u2013\u2013 In biblical Greek life has three meanings:1. Bios<\/em> refers to the life of the physical body. It is used in Luke 8:14: \u201c\u2026 the anxieties and riches and pleasures of this life.\u201d 2. Psuche<\/em> refers to the psychological life of the human soul, that is, the mind, emotions, and will. It is where we get the word psychology. It is found in passages like Matt. 16:25: \u201cFor whoever wants to save his soul-life shall lose it.\u201d 3. Zoe<\/em> is the uncreated and eternal life of God, the divine life uniquely possessed by God. It is divine bliss, and light. It is the beatific peace, love, and joy that God is. Zoe<\/em> is the kind of life meant in John 1:4: \u201cIn Him was life, and the life was the light of humanity.\u201d Since God is Spirit and not a physical being (John 4:24) bios<\/em> is obviously not what is meant when we speak of the Living \u00a0 God<\/em>. At the risk of being misunderstood we not only may, but find it necessary to describe God as living in the psychological sense \u2013\u2013 as aware, willing, choosing, loving, communicating. The only way that classical Christianity, following ancient Judaism, knows how to describe God is relationally, as the sort of encounter of mutuality and reciprocity, and even intimacy, that exists only between persons. Father, Son, Paraclete (Helper or Comforter), shepherd, friend, forgiving, loving, kind, are, of course, only metaphors, but they are necessary metaphors and refer to something quite real. “God is not a nameless energy or abstract idea. God is not an ‘it.’ God is inadequately described by impersonal philosophical and theological terms such as, ground of being, the Unconditioned, eternal infinity, Space – Time Deity, Reality Idealized, Phenomenology of Mind, or the Center Event.”<\/p>\n

Trinitarian<\/strong>\u2013\u2013 Classic Christianity worships the “Three Personal God,” the Holy Trinity of what has traditionally been known as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The New Testament itself contains no formal doctrinal statement of the Trinity. In fact, it is not until the second century that the term occurs in the works of Theophilus (trias<\/em>) and Tertullian (trinitas<\/em>) and it is not until the fourth century that it becomes a fully developed theological concept with technical disputes over the meaning of words like “person” and “essence.” What the earliest Christians were aware of is the paradox in their absolute belief that God is one while also believing Jesus was divine. The paradox was further heightened by their recognition of the Spirit as a “person.” So, how could God be three and one at the same time? The writers of the New Testament did not look to Greek metaphysics or esoteric philosophy for understanding the paradox. Their understanding was shaped more by how they had experienced God; that is, the approach of the writers of the New Testament was more practical than speculative, and more focused on understanding in terms of relationship and how it functions, and on the character of God than on the metaphysical complexities of the divine nature. Their concern was more about what the relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit meant for them in spiritual, relational, and functional terms. If the center, the heart, of reality is personal and relational, that obviously determines and affects absolutely everything in ways that cannot be fathomed. And when we say God is love we are saying infinitely more than that God has a warm attitude of benevolence. We are saying, among other things, that God is the very rhythm, music, dance, flowing movement of love. No wonder Thomas \u00e0 Kempis said he would rather experience the Trinity than to be able to discuss it learnedly.<\/p>\n

The Names of God<\/strong>\u2013\u2013\u00a0The names of God are important both because they maintain the continuity of the Christian Way with the ancient Hebrew spiritual tradition, and because they tell us something about the nature of God. In looking at the Hebrew names for God it is helpful to note in Hebrew thinking the world was seen and understood in concrete ways \u2013\u2013 ways that can be seen, touched, tasted, smelled, or heard.\u00a0There are three different words in the Bible that are translated into English as God.
\nEl<\/em> is the most frequent name in the Hebrew Scriptures translated into English as “God.” El<\/em> means the strong and mighty one who shows or teaches the way. In its original pictograph form what is now the “E” in English represented the head of an ox \u2013\u2013 a symbol of strength. The “L” originally represented both a yoke and shepherd’s staff. Two oxen were normally in the yoke together when pulling a plow. An older more experienced ox was matched with a younger and inexperience one who learned the task of plowing from the older one. God (El<\/em>) is the “strong leader” (the older and stronger ox) who teaches the people (the younger ox) how to plow by working along with them (Genesis 26:28). Elohim<\/em> is the plural form of El. However, the plural is not quantitative but qualitative, so that it is intensifies or emphasizes the might and creative power of God. If, for example, this form were used of a tree it would mean the largest, strongest, tallest tree. Elohim<\/em> suggests the wonder, the majesty, the fullness and completeness of all God’s powers. Sometimes El<\/em> is combined with Shaddai<\/em>. Translators usually render El Shaddai<\/em> as “God Almighty.” This is because the translators of the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament) thought that Shaddai<\/em> came from a word meaning “to overpower” or “to destroy.” More recent scholarship indicates it may actually related to the word shadaim<\/em> \u2013\u2013 “breasts.” In this case what is pictured is sufficiency and nourishment. God is enough, completely sufficient, to nourish the life that is really life in both the individual and in the community of faith.<\/p>\n

The name Yahweh<\/em> is an intensification of the Hebrew verb to be. In Moses’s mystical encounter with God at the burning bush he asks what he shall say\u00a0when the Israelites inevitably ask, “What is the name of the God that sent you?” And God answers, “Tell them I Am<\/em> has sent you to them.” I<\/em> Am<\/em> as a name, is as awesome as it is mysterious. It may be translated as “He Who Is,” or I Will Be What I Will Be,” or “I Am the One Who Is.” Thomas Oden therefore concludes, “Yahweh<\/em> incomparably IS.”<\/p>\n

Because they regarded the very name of God with such reverence the ancient Hebrews were reluctant to write it; instead, in copying the Old Testament they often substituted Adonai<\/em> meaning “Lord.” In reference to God the Hebrews used the plural form as an intensifier so that it means something like: “the Lord \u2013\u2013 the greatest one. It is translated into Greek as Kyrios<\/em>. “Christ is Lord” is generally considered to be the oldest Christian confession. When the Apostle Thomas sees the resurrected Christ in the Upper Room and is invited to touch the wounds in Jesus’s hands and feet, all his doubt is overwhelmed and he cries out, “My Lord, and my God.” It is this insistence of Christians that Jesus is Lord that brought the enmity of Caesar and the wrath of the Roman empire upon them. No dictator or totalitarian regime can tolerate the possibility of a subject having a loyalty to anyone or anything greater than themselves, and that is exactly what is means to confess Jesus Christ as Lord.<\/p>\n

I want to offer one more observation on the names of God. The word for “name” in the Hebrew is shem<\/em> and can also mean “character.” The name of someone, then, can say something about their character, as for example when Jacob’s name (meaning manipulator, deceiver, or cheat) changes to Israel (meaning one who has struggled with and seen God). So, we can therefore translate God’s response to Moses’s question (Exodus 3:15) like this:<\/p>\n

And God said to Moses, You shall say to the children of Israel, \u201cHe That Is,\u201d the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you: this is my character forever, and this is my memorial to all generations.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The names for God are not merely abstract or academic labels, but affirmations of who and what God is \u2013\u2013 attempts to say something, as limited as it is, about the essence of God in the Judeo-Christian tradition.<\/p>\n

Knowing and Knowing About<\/strong>
\nIn Classical Christianity there is a distinction between knowing about and knowing\u00a0God. One may know in the sense of having an intellectual grasp on numerous sophisticated theological and philosophical ideas about God, and even be expert at explaining complicated concepts without knowing God. When Jesus says, “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3), he is talking about a knowing as deep and as mysterious and as personal and as intimate as when a couple’s love making is truly making love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Consensus Christianity Central to what is being said here is the idea that classical Christianity is characterized by consensus \u2013\u2013 not always a perfect consensus to be sure but a consensus nevertheless. While, for example, any two patristic writers may not agree with one another in every instance there is a common understanding of what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakeningheart.spiritual-christian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakeningheart.spiritual-christian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakeningheart.spiritual-christian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakeningheart.spiritual-christian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakeningheart.spiritual-christian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1188"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/awakeningheart.spiritual-christian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1201,"href":"http:\/\/awakeningheart.spiritual-christian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188\/revisions\/1201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakeningheart.spiritual-christian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakeningheart.spiritual-christian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakeningheart.spiritual-christian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}