THE DOCTRINE OF CREATION AND PROVIDENCE 

One of the main issues in Christian theology is that of the question of "how did it all begin?"  We could easily relate to the questions of "what happened" and "who were the key players in all of this?"

When I served as a professor of Latin American history and religion at Boricua College in Brooklyn, New York, one of the first questions that I would pose to my students when I met with them was the question of  "Como fue que comenzo el bochinche (How did the gossip begin)?"  In fact, that question was presented to me by one of my students from a country in Central America, a country whose history he knew much about.  He explained to me in his own words how we got to the present situation in Latin America.  He was very well-versed in the history of his own country, and that of Latin America as a whole as well.  It was a question that described the seeds of historical narrative.

We find the same thing in the Hebrew/Christian Scriptures regarding the origins of the earth and supposedly the beginning of human history.  I say "supposedly" because the Hindu Scriptures were written thousands of years before the Hebrew/Christian Scriptures, and they contained creation narratives of their own, albeit in a speculative manner.  

Both the author of Genesis and the writer of the Gospel according to John start with the words, "In the beginning."  They point to a certain point in time as to when all things came into being, though that particular point in time is not specifically spelled out.  

Jewish/Christian theology posits the person of God as being present "in the beginning," whenever that was. The Scriptures of both religion point to God as the originator of being, of life, and of history.  The narratives of Scripture correspond in some way to the notion of God as the "ground of being." 

Traditional Christian beliefs about the divine origin, governance, and final disposition of the world were for many centuries foundational components of the dominant world view in Christian culture. Residues of these beliefs can be found today in various places, in arguments advanced by the pro-life camp in the abortion controversy, for instance, and in such quasi-religious sentiments as "Life is a gift" and "Things tend to work out for good in the long run."  But the powerful convictions once expressed in traditional formulations of the doctrines of creation and providence do not now have a vivid and compelling life in the churches.  In secular thought the convictions and the doctrines have been in deep recession for centuries (Julian N. Hart, "Creation and Providence," in Christian Theology: An Introduction to its Traditions and Tasks.  Peter C. Hodgson and Robert H. King, eds. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994, p. 141).

One cause of the inclusive decline is to be found in a tendency of the doctrines to distort or obscure the convictions and passions of the religious life.  But many important elements of doctrine and conviction have been powerfully challenged, if not overthrown, by views inspired by modern science.  The traditional teaching of the doctrine of creation is that the world as a whole had an absolute beginning: before creation nothing but God existed; everything begins when God said "Let there be."  Modern scientific theories concerning the origin of the physical universe have virtually nothing in common with traditional Christian teachings.  The life sciences offer explanations of the origin and development of human beings which are strictly incompatible with historic creation.  So also for the doctrine of providence.  The theological tradition holds the view that events great and small, cosmic and historical, faultlessly operate to serve a divine ordination.  This exaltation of purpose-controlling-indeed defining-every entity and every set of entities in the cosmic spread funds afoul of the decision made very early in the modern world, and powerfully reinforced at critical junctures thereafter, to drop the category of purpose altogether from scientific explanation.  So the conviction that God the Creator has oriented human beings toward a perfectly fulfilled good beyond nature and history, and makes all things conspire to this end, has fallen into a deep and persistent recession-but not simply because the facts, none of which is more appalling to than the Holocaust, ruinously assault the Christian view.  It is also because hardly any large and potent intellectual current in the modern world seems to support Christian teaching about providence (Ibid., pp. 141-142).

An issue which I sincerely and strongly believe is both apropos and relevant to this discourse is that of literary dependency.  So for example, we have those who believe that  the Babylonian account of Creation served as the basis for the Creation narrative in the book of Genesis.  So, the question could be, "Did the author of Genesis 'borrow from' or 'copy' from the Babylonian account of Creation (Enuma Elish) in order to compose the Genesis narrative of Creation?"  Was there literary dependency on the part of the Genesis author?  Because of the similarities in both narratives, the person who examines the Bible exclusively in its literary composition and not as an "inspired, inerrant, or infallible" document would tend to believe that there is indeed, literary dependency on the part of the Genesis author.  

As a theologian who is not a biblical "literalist," I would say that whether the biblical account of Creation is more authentic than the Babylonian account of Creation, or whether the writer of Genesis actually borrowed from the Babylonian account, the important thing is for us in this day and age to decipher both the meaning and of the value of the biblical account of Creation, and also what is the theological significance in the narrative.  Theology, in my humble, but informed view does not have to depend on a literal reading or exposition of the Scriptural narrative in order to convey a message of truth and value to its readers.  The truth of Scripture and theology do not hinge on biblical literalism.

To be continued. 

In the name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer. Amen! 

Rev. Dr. Juan A. Carmona 

Reformed Church in America 

Past Visiting Professor of Theology 

Tainan Theological College/Seminary 

                                      ISSUES AND PROPOSALS REGARDING THE DOCTRINE 

                                      OF REVELATION 

In the first half of the twentieth century, the doctrine of revelation became such a prominent feature on the theological landscape that questions began to be raised as to whether modern theology did not suffer from an "inflation of revelation."  Questions were also raised about the intelligibility of the new interpretations of revelation.  If modern theologians emphasized revelation only in order to sidestep the critical questions of the Enlightenment and to affirm an objective basis for faith, then some critics questioned whether revelation could serve as a foundational principle and the basis for further theological reflection (Troup, op. cit., p.134).

Questions have also been raised as to whether the modern concepts of revelation have basis whatsoever in the Hebrew Scriptures or the New Testament.  Although most contemporary interpretations of revelation are concerned with what can be said about God, they are even more concerned with how it is possible to speak intelligibly of "God."  This may not have been an urgent problem for the writers of Scripture, but it is an urgent problem for theologians who recognize the historicity of human understanding and the cultural relativity of all human assertions. Most of the major proposals in contemporary theology concerning the interpretation of revelation include not only a foundation for knowledge about God, but also and most importantly, a hermeneutical description of how revelation takes place (Ibid.).

Because of the emphasis on hermeneutics in contemporary interpretations of revelation, it seems that future descriptions of revelation will focus on the historicity of human understanding and the role of Scripture and tradition in the Christian community as the locus for revelation.  If revelation were interpreted in this context, special attention would have to be given to the importance of history for an understanding of human identity and the crucial role of memory in the construction of personal identity. The life, language, and texts of the community would be seen as the medium for revelation, with the hermeneutical encounter occurring in the collision between personal identity and the language (or tradition) of the community.  The emerging discussion of narrative theology offers at least one proposal for how revelation might be interpreted in these terms (Ibid.).  

In narrative theology, revelation refers to that process in which the personal identities of individuals are reinterpreted and transformed by the means of the narratives which gave the Christian community its distinctive identity.  What might be called "Christian narrative" is the confessional narrative that results from the collision between an individuals's personal identity narrative and the narrative identity of the Christian community.  A narrative theology developed in this manner properly recognizes  that the identities of persons and communities cannot be separated from an interpretation of their respective histories, and that in most cases, it is the narrative identity of the community (articulated in its Scripture and traditions) which provides the context for the interpretation of personal identity (Ibid., pp. 134-135). 

In essence, what we have been encountering in this discourse is the issue of divine revelation and our response as humans to that revelation.  As pointed out several times, hermeneutics plays a large role in that response.  God reveals, humankind responds in a variety of ways.

Another issue is that of personal identity vs. communal identity.  We might respond to divine revelation individually by saying "I believe," or "I think." The historical creeds such as the Apostle's Creed and the Nicene Creed begin with the words "I believe," and yet they are designed to express and reflect the beliefs of the Church as a communal entity.  

How do we integrate communal and individual identities in responding to divine revelation?  Do we make room for individuals running amok and expressing what they believe to be the right response to divine revelation, or do we assert the communal "take" on divine revelation to be the "binding" one?  If we overemphasize the individual narrative, we run the risk of having a variety of hermeneutical perspectives.  On the other hand, if we overemphasize the communal narrative, we run the risk of the individuals in that community becoming automatons, just parroting and regurgitating the "party line." 

The issue of divine revelation, just like the other doctrines of Christian theology have their challenges.  We continue to meet those challenges with candor and honesty.  We do not bury our heads in the sand, pretending that those challenges are not there.  We face them in the face of history, as we seek to decipher how we apply  and practice in our time "the faith once delivered to the saints."  

In the Name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer. Amen.

Rev. Dr. Juan A. Carmona 

Past Visiting Professor of Theology

Tainan Theological College/Seminary 

             HOW PEOPLE RESPOND TO NEW TRENDS 

It goes without saying that every time there is a new movement of thought, whether it be in the realm of philosophy or theology, that there are reactions and responses.  Thought trends always elicit responses, whether in the form of public outrage, or in quiescent meditation and reflection.

George Stroup the following:  

In the nineteenth century, several reinterpretations of revelation were offered in response to the impasse created by the Enlightenment.  Two appeared in the first third of the century and overshadowed subsequent discussions of revelation.  The first was the theology of Friedrich Schleirmacher, who argued in the Christian Faith that doctrines are reflections of the piety that emerges from the experience of redemption in the Christian community.  Christian piety articulates the experience of redemption as it is lived in the church and attributed to Jesus Christ, the founder of of the community.  By making the experience of redemption the basis for theological reflection, Schleirmacher  proposed a new foundation and method for the critical explication of the Christian faith.  Neither knowing nor doing but that form of feeling Christians refer to as "redemption" became the basis for theology.  Schleirmacher's turn to the experience of redemption created a new theological paradigm which escaped the the Kantian critique of classical metaphysics and theology, and also suggested a new interpretation of the meaning of revelation (Troup, p. 127).

In essence, what we have here is witnessing how new approaches to theology, and to revelation in particular, began to emerge.  The notion of an "unfiltered" divine revelation was called into question.

In the introduction to his major theological work, Schleirmacher denied that revelation has primarily to do with intellectual assent to revealed truths, since that would imply that revelation can be limited to the cognitive dimension of human existence. He readily acknowledged that revelation leads to the formulation of doctrines; nevertheless, he contended that that revelation refers primarily not to the apprehension of propositions but to the "originality of the fact which lies at the foundation of a religious communion."  This original fact shapes the life of the community and "cannot itself be explained by the historical chain which precedes it (Friedrich Schleirmacher, The Christian Faith, p. 50).

We stop at this point to ask the question as to whether revelation is something which is divinely initiated or humanly generated claiming to be "from God?"  All sectors of the Christianity (Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant with all its variations) claim in one way or the other that revelation is divinely initiated, i.e. that God initiates the process of self-disclosure.  

Then we deal with the hermeneutical question, i.e. is our hermeneutics (interpretation) also divinely initiated?  Another way of posing this question would be to ask if our interpretation of divine revelation is the interpretation that God intended and wants us to have, or is hermeneutics a humanly generated response to the divinely generated self-disclosure?  

Given the fact that there are a variety of hermeneutical perspectives, we cannot make the claim or pretend that any one particular perspective is the "correct one."  Indeed, there are many who will claim that their particular hermeneutic was "revealed" to them by God as a way of shutting down all other hermeneutical perspectives.  

Insistence on the authority of a particular hermeneutical perspective reflects human arrogance and presumptuousness.  One can claim that the Catholic Church's Magisterium is the depository of the true hermeneutics, or that the Protestant churches, with their emphasis on "Sola Scriptura" have the "correct" hermeneutics, but in the final analysis, the claim to the inerrancy or infallibility of a particular hermeneutic is culturally-conditioned.  Theology is tentative and "in progress."  Revelation is absolute, authoritative, and final, but human response is always tentative.

In the Name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer. Amen.

Rev. Dr. Juan A. Carmona 

Past Visiting Professor of Theology 

Tainan Theological College/Seminary 

THE HOSTILITY BETWEEN THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND THE DOCTRINE OF REVELATION 

I think that it is safe to say that in the early years of Judaism, Christianity, and even Islam, the notion of divine revelation was somewhat taken for granted.  In other words, we don't find too many, if any at all, references to hostility between the faith community's claim to divine revelation through Scripture, tradition, and experience, on the one hand, and on the other, opposing forces that would fight to negate the claim to revelation.  It was basically assumed, that the claim to divine revelation was more than a claim, i.e. that it was a reality not to be questioned or challenged.

George Stroup points out that in the seventeenth through the nineteenth century, the belief in divine revelation came under attack.  Subsequently, the notion that theology was a "revealed religion," came under attack and scrutiny.  The notion of a "revealed religion" came to be replaced by the belief in the human origins of religion and theology.

The period from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries marks a watershed in the interpretation of revelation.  During this period, several developments occurred to create an intellectual climate in which it became increasingly difficult to defend the classical models of revelation.  Francis Bacon's discovery of the "new science, " Isaac Newton's formulation of a mathematical physics in which nature is conceived of as a rational and unified order, the emergence of reason as the primary authority for the interpretations of experience, the distrust of tradition and superstition-all these created an environment in which classical theology found its way under attack and on the defensive the dominant intellectual movements of the day. Three developments in this period were especially important for subsequent discussions of revelation: the emphasis given to human reason as the chief interpreter of reality and the final arbiter of conflictual claims, the denial for revealed truths about God (or for that matter, any statements about God), and the discovery of the historical character of human reason and understanding (Troup. op.cit., p.123).

In essence, then, human reason and science were deified, i.e. elevated to the status of inerrancy, and infallibility.  There was, for all effects and purposes, a "dethroning" of revealed religion.  The Scriptures, the traditions, and experience now came to be interpreted through the lens of reason and science.  The notions of inerrancy and infallibility were now transferred from the realm of religion and theology to the realms of reason and science.  And, in the same manner that religion and theology spoke about a universe that was dictated by divine decree, reason and science now came to speak about a universe that was subject to the decrees of reason and science, whatever flaws or shortcomings they may have had. Reason and science became, in essence, the new "Gods."

The content of the classic models of revelation was confined to revealed truths about God.  Although these objective truths could not be known by a human intellect marred by sin, they could be known through the work of the Spirit in illumination or in Scripture.  In these classic models the primary criterion for the interpretation of experience and reality was "revealed" truth.  In the Enlightenment, however, the focus shifted dramatically.  No longer were the revealed truths the final arbiter, now human reason became the final court of appeal for the interpretation of reality.  Even though God remained the "primary substance" in the metaphysics of Rene Descartes, his method began with a search for clear and distinct ideas, a search which had led Descartes to the cogito-the human being's existence as a thinking being-as the primary datum for reflection.  Descartes's significance is not tied to the success of his method or his philosophical proposals; rather, his philosophy represents a benchmark in human thought. Human reason rather than tradition or authority is now to be seen as the ultimate measure of truth (Troup, op. cit. p. 123).

The combined effects of these developments -the authority given to reason,  the redefinition of the limits of reason, and the recognition of the historicity of knowledge and understanding-made it difficult, if not impossible, for any theologian sensitive to the climate of the day to continue to advocate a theology grounded on classical models of revelation.  It is not surprising, therefore, that the overarching concern of theologians in the nineteenth century was to establish a new foundation for Christian theology (Ibid., p. 126).

How, then, do we living in the twenty-first century, deal with the notion of reason vs. revelation?  Many in our time would resist the emphasis given during the Enlightenment period for the simple reason that this climate was generated in Western Europe.  And because of the claims of Western Europe's claims and pretenses to define its "truth" in universal terms, the opposite reaction is to negate the claims, i.e. invalidate them or making them "irrelevant" to the world outside of Europe.  The reaction, becomes, then, a visceral one, with a tone of anti-intellectualism.  Experience and revelation tend to be equated with "feel good" emotions and in some cases, the elevation of emotion to the status of ultimate truth. So rather than attempting to prove the existence of God, and subsequent divine revelation through reason and science, the tendency becomes to validate the existence of God based on "I don't see Him, but I feel Him in my soul."  The experience that comes through dreams, frenzies, and visions becomes the ultimate barometer of what is true in Christian theology.  These experiences, rather than interacting with Scripture and tradition, become the "Supreme Court" of Christian theology.  

This essay was not intended to glorify the notion of intellect and  reason vs. emotion and  passion, but rather to pursue a theology which integrates all of these elements into a cohesive whole through which we as believers can live out our spiritual journey.  The dichotomies that have us entrenched in separating them must be replaced by a healthy integration. We must also do away with the binaries of "either/or" in our approach to a responsible theological system.  

In the Name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer. Amen.

Rev. Dr. Juan A. Carmona 

Reformed Church in America 

Past Visiting Professor of Theology 

Tainan Theological College/Seminary 

 

THE DOCTRINE OF REVELATION-CONTINUED 

At this point in our discussion, we ask the question of what role do the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit play in God's revelatory acts and self-disclosure?  This is a very important question because historically speaking, in Christian  theology, the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures have always been given prominence.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

In Catholic and Eastern Orthodox theology, the Scripture, together with experience and the traditions of the Church, play a very important role in the formulation of theological systems.  The Scriptures are considered to be the product of the experience (the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church) and the traditions handed down by the Apostles and their immediate successors.  Subsequently, the notion of "Sola Scriptura" (the Scripture alone as the only rule of faith and practice) is absent in Catholic and Eastern Orthodox theology.  Even the notion of "Prima Scriptura" does not exist in these two communities, because it is believed that experience and tradition, carry equal weight in the theological task of the Church and its ministry in the world

In Protestant theology (both historic and independent churches), Scripture is considered to play the only, or at the very least, the primary rule in the formulation of doctrine and theology, and also as a norm for faith and practice.  The historic (mainline) Protestant churches maintain intact the value of and respect for tradition, but see tradition as subservient to Scripture.  In fact, they believe that tradition derives from Scripture, and subsequently should be evaluated and judged by Scripture.  Independent Protestant churches believe that tradition plays no role in the formulation of doctrine and that theology should be based exclusively on "what the Bible says."  To them, the Bible vitiates the need for tradition.  

George Stroup points out the following regarding the role of Scripture and Spirit in divine revelation:

During the Reformation, subtle but significant shifts took place in the interpretation of revelation.  Both Martin Luther and John Calvin took the position that there is knowledge of God apart from revelation but this knowledge is of little or no consequence.  The general knowledge of God derived from the created order is for all practical purposes useless.  What is decisive is knowledge of God's will for the world, and that cannot be known apart from Jesus Christ (Stroup, op. cit., pp. 119-120).

For Luther the Word of God is Jesus Christ, but we have access to that Word only in the words of proclamation and scripture.  Luther does not simply identify the Word of God with the external of proclamation and scripture, since these words only become God's Word (that is, become revelatory) when the Holy Spirit makes Christ present in them.  The Word of God is both what is revealed to faith and what does the revealing, but the Word can never be separated from the Spirit, since it is the Spirit who enables the external words to become the internal words (Ibid., p. 120).  

The gospel is the living Word of God,  Jesus Christ, and it is this Word which is the sole content, center, and unity of scripture.  This Word is the criterion for determining what is law and what is gospel in scripture, but this external clarity cannot be separated from scripture's internal clarity, which is the illuminating work of the Spirit "required for the understanding of scripture, both as a whole and in any part of it (Martin Luther, "On the Bondage of the Will:, LCC 17:112)

In conclusion, we have seen that Luther, the "architect" of the Protestant Reformation, stresses the role of both Scripture and the Holy Spirit in God's self-disclosure, not only to humankind in general, but to the community of faith as well.  Other theologians such as John Calvin, the architect of Reformed theology, had different models, but that were similar in their emphasis on the role that the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures played in divine revelation.  In essence, we move in Christian theology from general revelation (through nature) to specific revelation through the Holy Spirit and through the Scriptures.

In the Name of the Creator, and of the Word, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

Dr. Juan A. Carmona, 

Past Visiting Professor of Theology 

Tainan Theological College/Seminary 

  

                                                THE DOCTRINE OF REVELATION (CONTINUED)

At this point in our discussion about revelation, we now turn to an important consideration.  We will now look at the element of illumination.  What is illumination? Some may think of illumination as an "enlightenment," or perhaps as an "epiphany," or something that comes all of a sudden out of nowhere and that is not the result of human effort or initiative.  I personally would place illumination in the same category as revelation, i.e. something that is external to the human mind.  

Illumination presupposes that the intellect or mind is darkened and not able, on its own to comprehend truth.  In the past, it has been suggested and thought that the mind has been darkened by the effects of sin. In other words, the notion is that the rupture in the relationship between God and humankind has affected the human's ability to grasp divine truth.  

Because of the Christian mission to the Gentiles, Christian apologists in the second century were drawn into conversation with Hellenistic culture.  Like many theologians after him, Justin Martyr, the premier apologist of the period, appealed to the prologue of John's Gospel account and its description of Jesus Christ as the logos or the Word of made flesh for a common ground with Hellenism, especially Platonism and Stoicism.  In his Second Apology, Justin argued the superiority of Jesus's teaching to that of Socrates and all other human wisdom on the basis that Jesus alone was the entire Word of God.  Justin did not argue that the Word of God could be found only in Christ.  On the contrary, he believed that the teaching of Plato, along with other Greek writers, was not different from that of Jesus but only a dim interpretation of Him who was the word incarnate.  The logos, as he conceived it, is implanted in all people, but although it can be found in various places, is fully embodied only in one place or person-in Christ, who in turn illumines all others (Stroup, op cit., pp. 117-118). 

This, of course, raise the question as to whether everyone at one point or another in history, had a notion of Christ.  Did the Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, and others who lived thousands of years before the emergence of the Judeo-Christian tradition  experience the "Word" in their own way?  If so, what then, are the implications of Jesus having said that He is "the way, the truth, and the life?"  Was the Christ incarnate in some pre-existing way in these other faith traditions?  

Justin was only one of many theologians who have used the prologue to John's Gospel account as a warrant for interpreting revelation as divine illumination.  The claim that  it is God who enables the believer to come to the knowledge of deity was a major theme in the theologies of Augustine, Bonaventure, and Thomas Aquinas.  In his commentary on the Gospel according to John, Augustine sounded a theme that is to be found throughout his theological writings: the identification of Jesus Christ as the light which illumines the darkness of the human intellect and overcomes the blindness created by human sin (Stroup, p. 118). 

"We too, have been born blind of Adam and have need of Christ to enlighten us," said Augustine.  His description of illumination is strikingly similar to Plato's comparison of the idea of the good with the sun, except that for Augustine the Word of God is not only that which illumines the the darkness of the intellect, evokes faith, and makes understanding possible, but also that which is itself illuminated and made known to the believer.  In order to make this point, Augustine drew a distinction between the Word's illumination of the intellect and what the intellect knows when it is illumined.  In his treatise on the Trinity  he maintained that the light which illumines the intellect is not intellect itself, but the intellect cannot know what is true apart from this illumination.  What remained unclear in Augustine's theology was the precise nature of the "light" and its relation to the intellect (Augustine, "Homilies on the Gospel of John," NPNF 7:203). 

So once again we raise the notion of a prior "light" which may have enlightened humankind throughout its history.  Is is possible that when Buddha claimed to be "the enlightened one," that he was experiencing the illumination of the pre-incarnate logos?  Was the logos already operative in human history prior to Bethlehem or did He/It appear suddenly in human history in the first century C.E.? 

The problem received considerable clarification in the theology of Aquinas in the thirteenth century.  Aquinas modified and extended Augustine's description of the divine illumination of the intellect.  He began by describing the human intellect in terms of two powers: the passive intellect and the agent intellect.  The latter, he argued, has its origin in the divine light but is not the divine light itself.  In order for human beings to attain ultimate happiness-which Aquinas understood to be the supernatural vision of God-they must first be taught by God as pupils are taught by their master.  Faith, for Aquinas, was an act of assent by the intellect to those things "taught" or revealed by God.  But the intellect cannot even assent to what has been revealed unless it is illumined by God's grace.  When grace makes faith possible, the object of faith is that of truths taught in Scripture and the traditions of the Church (Stroup, p. 119).

It appears from what has been said above that Augustine and Aquinas were "on the same page."  However, I am not sure that Augustine would leave room for the volitional assent of the intellect as Aquinas did. I am not suggesting that Aquinas was leaning more towards Pelagianism, nor the later development of Arminianism.  But it does certainly appear that Aquinas was not so deeply entrenched in the notion of the "noetic" effects of sin as to completely paralyze and incapacitate human volition.

How can we, if at all, solve the tension between volitional assent to illumination, on the one hand, and on the other hold fast to the notion that an entity which "dead in trespasses and sin," is incapable of being receptive to illumination on its own?  It is, indeed, a very complex issue, and to which we may not find an answer in our lifetime.  Nevertheless, we continue to "live with the questions," and to acknowledge that when we deal with the fine and technical points of theology, that even then, theology is a human construct, and that whatever conclusions we arrive at are tentative, and only "true" until proven otherwise.  

In the Name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer. Amen.

Dr. Juan A. Carmona 

Former Visiting Professor of Theology 

Tainan Theological College/Seminary 

                                                  

                                 THE DOCTRINE OF REVELATION (CONTINUED) 

Like with every other doctrine, we raise the question of "how did it all begin?"  In this case we ask the question as to when did the Church start to construct the doctrine, or even the notion of God's self-disclosure? 

It should be obvious to the readers of the New Testament, that the first-century Church did not have an elaborate or well thought-out system of doctrines or a "systematic theology," as such.  The first-century Church was too focused on how to deal with the persecution that was coming against it on the one hand, and on the other hand, the emergence of heresy within its circles.  Indeed, the Church had "a lot on its plate."  It was a real active and busy church.

There is no "doctrine" of revelation as such in the Bible, and many of the problems addressed by recent interpretations of revelation were simply unknown to the writers of Scripture.  Indeed, there is considerable evidence for one biblical scholar's argument that for the writers of Hebrew scripture, "apart from some quite limited concessions,  there is no stage at which God is not known (James Barr, Old and New in Interpretation: A Study of the Two Testaments.  New York: Harper and Row, 1966, p. 89)"

The writers of Hebrew scripture do not offer arguments for the existence of God  and do not discuss the plausibility of claims about God in relation to competing alternatives, whether those of natural sciences or the human sciences.  The Bible assumes knowledge of God.  The issues that have come to constitute the "problem" revelation-the relation of reason to revelation, the limits of reason, and the historicity of human understanding-are not issues in scripture.  That does not mean, however,  that the Bible is not  used as a resource in later discussion of revelation.  Both classical and contemporary discussion of revelation appeal to themes in scripture as warrants for their interpretation (George Stroup, op. cit., p. 116).

Although in the first seventeen centuries of the Church's history theological reflections on revelation assumed various forms, it is still possible to identify certain formal features that characterize most interpretations of the doctrine.  Usually revelation is interpreted as having both an objective and a subjective dimension.  The objective dimension refers to what is revealed, while the subjective dimension refers to how revelation is received.  The precise way in which revelation is interpreted often depends on which of the dimensions is given primary emphasis (Ibid.).

The objective dimension of revelation (what is revealed) may be construed in various ways.  It may be understood as proposition, an infallible teaching of scripture, the Gospel or Word of God, God's will toward the world, the personal being of God, or the moral order.  These different interpretations of what is revealed yield distinctive doctrines of revelation, and not surprisingly, different interpretations of Christian faith.  If the object of revelation is understood to be the Word of God in the person of Jesus Christ, faith will take a different form than if the object of revelation is understood to be a proposition or a doctrine, regardless of where it is found it is found (in scripture or in tradition).  Some versions of the former interpretation tend to emphasize the  effect of revelation-the Spirit's gift of saving faith-while some versions of the latter seek a more objective basis for faith in an inspired scripture or church (Ibid.).

In our continued search, things will become clearer as we sketch two models of revelation in classical theology.  They are: 

Revelation as illumination of the intellect 

Revelation as encounter with the Word and Spirit of God  

In both of these models, we will discover that  some interpretations  lean in the direction of the objective, and others that lean in the direction of the subjective (Ibid. p. 117).

En fin, our inquiry on the doctrine of revelation leads us to ask if there is a distinction between the objective and the subjective in divine revelation, or if they are one and the same.  We will learn to identify or distinguish between the "giver" and the "given."  We will also deal with whether the way we appropriate revelation is the way that God intended or wants us to appropriate it.

In the Name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer. Amen.

Dr. Juan A. Carmona

Former Visiting Professor of Theology

Tainan Theological College/Seminary 

 

THE DOCTRINE OF REVELATION 

One of the things that is unique in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition is that of revelation.  By revelation, we are referring to the notion of God's self-disclosure in history.  In this tradition, God takes the initiative to reveal Godself to humankind through Scripture, tradition, and experience.  In some respects, Christian theology builds on the tradition of revelation in Jewish theology, and Islam builds on the tradition of revelation of both Jewish and Christian theology.  

Traditionally when Christians have attempted to explain what they know about God, and how they have access to that knowledge, they have appealed to something called "revelation."  In most versions of Christianity, revelation has served as the epistemological (knowledge base) for theology, that is, an appeal often has been made to revelation in order to account for knowledge of God.  Today, however, it is no longer clear what revelation means or how it provides knowledge of God.  Revelation is sometimes understood to refer to  dramatic moments, such as Paul's experience on the road to Damascus, or highly emotional events of the sort that take place at revivals.  While these interpretations of revelation are not uncommon, they are unfortunate because they obscure what revelation has traditionally meant and the important role that it has played in Christian faith and theology.  Furthermore, these misinterpretations of revelation are symptomatic of much deeper problems besetting any attempt to reinterpret revelation in the contemporary world (George Stroup in "Revelation."  Christian Theology: An Introduction to its Traditions and Tasks.  Peter C. Hodgson and Robert H. King, eds.  Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994. p. 114).

Revelation has generally been understood to be correlative with faith.  Christians feel compelled to talk about faith in terms of "revelation" because they believe that faith is not the result of human discovery or inquiry.  Faith does not discover its object; it is on the contrary, constituted by it.  Christian faith is human response to what has been unveiled or disclosed by faith's object.  The unveiling or disclosure is what theology refers to as "revelation (Ibid.)"

So, in essence, what we are talking about relative to revelation, is the interaction between the one who initiates the revelation, and the one (or ones) who respond to it.  God is the initiator and humankind is the respondent by way of inquiry and research.  

Three aspects of this broad interpretation of revelation are worth noting.  First, revelation means an unveiling or, to use a more contemporary idiom, a "disclosure."  When revelation takes place, a veil is dropped and that which had been masked or hidden from view is disclosed (Stroup, op. cit. p. 114).

Second, the event in which this unveiling occurs cannot be initiated by human activity.  The initiator of the event is not the individual who witnesses the disclosure, but rather the agent  disclosed or unveiled in the event.  The very use of the word "unveiledness" and "disclosure" suggests that what makes itself known in a revelatory event is the stuff of mystery.  Revelation yields not the solution to a problem, or the answer to a difficult question, but the unveiling of a mystery (Ibid.).

Third, although faith is a human act, revelation is not.  Because revelation refers to an event in which what is made known exceeds the grasp of human inquiry, the event is attributed to God's grace.  Whatever else the doctrine of revelation is about, it is a statement about the grace of God.  Revelation is not at the disposal of human inquiry or control, and consequently, it becomes an even only by means of grace (Ibid.).

NOTE: It should be indicated, that in the Pauline-Agustinian-Calvinist tradition, faith itself is a gift of God, divinely given to those who God has predestined to eternal life.  In other Christian traditions, faith is a volitional act on the part of those who hear the proclamation of the Gospel, and subsequently, those who willfully respond in faith to the proclamation, are elected to eternal life.

While most interpretations of revelation share at least some of these formal features, there are also important differences between the classical descriptions of revelation and various contemporary forms of the doctrine.  These differences are so severe that in many respects contemporary interpretations of revelation bear only a formal resemblance to their classical predecessors, and sometimes not even that.  One reason for the sharp differences between classical and contemporary interpretations of revelation and for the present disarray in contemporary theology is that revelation, the traditional foundation for knowledge of God, has become problematic; it is no longer clear what revelation means and whether revelation provides theology with an adequate basis for its claims about God.  Why this alteration in the interpretation of revelation has taken place and what it implies about the future of theology will be the major concerns of this ongoing inquiry (Stroup, op. cit. p. 115).  

Since theology is an ongoing constructive task, we will be subject to redefinitions and redactions in terms of the language which we use.  Because theology is tentative, we remain open to ongoing revelation and to how that revelation is defined and understood.  We keep in mind, during this journey of inquiry that theology is a humanly-generated construction, and that subsequently, it is subject to redaction and revision relative to its approaches, methodology, and hermeneutical usage.

In the Name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer. Amen.

Rev. Dr. Juan A. Carmona 

Past Visiting Professor of Theology 

Tainan Theological College/Seminary 

 THE DOCTRINE OF GOD (CONTINUED) 

THE ENCOUNTER WITH OTHER RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS 

What are the possible new issues confronting Christian theology at the present time?  We can say that there are various issues, and yet, in examining them, we will discover that many of them are not so new. Many of them are really a regurgitation and resurrection of issues that have been  brought up in the past.  We may think that they have been "laid to rest," just to find out that they were simply buried and "put on hold" until another time.  

One of the most, if not the most important one is the encounter with other religious traditions.  Some may say that it is not a valid theological pursuit to engage with other religions, because from our Christian theological standpoint, these other traditions are either totally false or "partially true."  As Christians we may be so arrogant as to think that we have the truth of God "sewn up in our pockets."  That would amount to, in my humble opinion as both a believer and as a theologian, to presumptuousness and also to Christian theological imperialism. 

In our present situation, religious faiths, like political and economic systems, encounter one another regularly and intimately.  Since this encounter of the religions, in the last several decades, has become an omnipresent reality, the relation of Christian theology to other, non-Christian modes of "theology" has emerged as a burning issue.  Not only have Christianity and Christians "encountered" other religions, they have also encountered this religions as bearing power and and as embodying vital, healing, redemptive forces providing unique illumination  and grace to our ailing cultural life and our somewhat impoverished existence.  No longer, therefore, is it possible for Christians to declare other faiths either devoid of truth (as did orthodoxy) or primitive or less developed steppingstones to the absoluteness of Christianity (as did the early liberals). The suggestion that within other religions the promise of salvation is present and also the truth is experienced is now admitted and affirmed by many.  But if that be so, what does it mean for the uniqueness of Christian revelation, for the finality of Christ's incarnation, and atonement, for the salvation of non-Christians-and a thousand other important theological questions (Gilkey, p. 111)?

I know that many Christians will fall back on the passages of Jesus saying that He is "the way, the truth, and the life," and Paul saying that there is only "one mediator between God and humankind," and Peter saying that "there is no other name given under Heaven whereby we must be saved."  Having said that, we can easily pose the question as to just exactly what do those passages mean? Does that mean that the millions of people who lived and died before the Christian era have no hope because they never heard the name of Jesus the Christ.  Did God condemn them to eternal damnation for lack of knowledge?  Or can we say that there are universal elements in those passages which we have not cared to explore, taking the easy and dismissive way out?  Is Jesus the "Cosmic" Christ who transcends all religious doctrine, dogma, and theology, or is He restricted to the Christian faith? Does a person have to shed their prior faith and religious tradition in order to have a relationship with God through Christ?  

Understandably, most of the new debate on these matters has centered on the crucial questions of special revelation and Christology. And many have assumed that that, were these christological doctrines to be liberalized or toned down, the issues vis-a-vis other religions would dissipate. Important divergences (say, with Hinduism and Buddhism) appear in connection with every significant theological or philosophical question, from the that of the nature of reality and our knowledge of it, through the nature of human being and its "problem," to the understanding of history and final salvation (Ibid., p. 112)

In conclusion, it is safe to say that the encounter of religions with one another and their subsequent dialogues with one another will effect radical changes in the discussion of God carried out by every present form of Christian theology.  To predict what new directions these changes will represent is really only to state what our preferences are, where we think the understanding of God "ought to go," granted this encounter.  As for the direction it will in fact go, we have no insight except to suggest that, even more than an encounter between Catholicism and Protestantism, a close encounter with the other religions will effect noteworthy changes in every recognizable form of contemporary discussion about God (Ibid.).

We might choose to remained entrenched in our theological cages, believing that there is no "truth" outside of them, or we might open our cage to engage with people in other cages, who together with us are in search of truth.  We might "close down" on dialogue with non-Christians, or we may opt to engage in a "give and take" dialogical exchange.

This theologian/writer opts for the latter, believing that no religious tradition has a monopoly on God, and that God-in-Christ, comes to us in ways that God alone determines, regardless of how obstinate, reticent, and stubborn we may be.  Let God be God.

In the Name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer. Amen.

Dr. Juan A. Carmona

Past Visiting Professor of Theology 

Tainan Theological College/Seminary  

 THE DOCTRINE OF GOD (CONTINUED)

In spite of the difficulties relative to defining the doctrine and idea of God, the quest continues to obtain  an understanding  of what and who God is.  Because we cannot understand God in God's full essence and nature,  is no reason to give up on trying to articulate an idea of God that makes it possible for us to acknowledge and affirm the existence of God, in spite of the reality that we are "living with the questions."

All the answers that can be offered to the myriad of questions concerning the nature of God, each answer has its power and persuasive adherents.  Those who emphasize the knowability of God by reason have offered one version or another of the classical "proofs" of God: the cosmological, from the existence of the finite world, the teleological, from the order of the finite world, the ontological, from the implications of the concept of God itself as a concept of a perfect and so necessary being ; and the moral argument, from the implications of moral existence.  These widely variant forms of philosophical approach have been united in in arguing that any theology intellectually respectable enough to speak to modern, intelligent people must represent its religious heritage in the intellectual form of such a rationally grounded philosophical theology.  Without such a philosophical base for our knowledge of God, our certainty of the divine reality and our comprehension of the relation of this concept to our other concepts will be seriously lacking.  As a consequence, the idea of God will increasingly be regarded as merely subjective and idiosyncratic, a private matter of "feeling," and therefore unreal, a private image unrelated to to the width of all experience, vacant of content, and in the end meaningless (Gilkey, op. cit. p. 101).

There are those who have shared a jaundiced view of culture's reasoning  and of its philosophical "proofs"; on religious grounds they have emphasized the transcendence and mystery of God.  They are not at all unaware that most contemporary philosophy has come to regard metaphysical speculation and all proofs of a divine reality as representing a dubious and uncritical use of reason, and therefore itself devoid of certainty, objectivity, or meaning.  They also have sensed the ideological and invalid character of such "modern" thinking.  For them modern thought, far from providing an objective and valid ground for our ultimate faith, itself represents a significant aspect of the modern problem, needing itself new principles of illumination if it is to help our religious existence (Ibid.).

More important, the main problem of the knowledge of God, they insist, is not that we cannot know God with our finite minds, but that in fact secretly we do not all wish to know God.  Thus natural theology represents the persistent and systematic attempt of self-sufficient people to create a "God" of their own and so to avoid relationship with or knowledge of the real God.  A philosophical God, the product of our own metaphysical thinking and the construct of our own wayward modern wisdom, may be infinitely more comfortable for us to live with.  Nevertheless, such a "God: is a far cry from the real God who confronts us in judgment and may confront us therefore also in grace.  Furthermore, the very center of Christian promise resides in the re-creation of what we are, and of how and what we think, not in their mere extension and solidification.  Thus God-not "our own words to ourselves"-must speak to us in revelation. Such an event of revelation provides the sole basis and the sole norm for the religious existence of the Christian community from which and for wish valid and legitimate theology speaks.  To be sure, theology does not speak to the world as well as to the church, but in its speech it must seek to represent not the wisdom of the world, but the message of the Gospel, not the word of humanity, but the Word of God. Theology may use philosophy in explicating this message in coherent and adequate form.  Its primal obligation, however, is to be faithful to revelation and not to pressures of public rationality as the world defines rationality.  Faith therefore precedes and controls the use of reason in theology, i.e. "I believe in order to understand," rather than I understand in order to believe" (Ibid., pp. 101-102)

Therefore, we understand that the doctrine of God has its rational component and foundation.  Having said that, we deal with the issue of whether theology constructs God in a human image, or whether the human, as the Scriptures state, are created in the image and likeness of God.  Theology also has its revelational component, i.e. bases itself on the divine self-disclosure, which comes at God's initiative.  Theology sees to it that the language it uses about the divine is a a language of concepts and terms that are understandable to whose who are engaged in the theological task, whether they be lay, ordained, or professional in their engagement.

In the Name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer. Amen.

Dr. Juan A. Carmona 

Past Visiting Professor of Theology

Tainan Theological College/Seminary 

 

MODERN REFORMULATIONS OF THE DOCTRINE OF GOD

The doctrine of God in Christian theology has been formulated and reformulated time and again.  The formulations tend to be a response to the Church's self-understanding and to its understanding of God in different times and in different social contexts.  

The question about how God is to be known-by rational inquiry of some sort, through religious experience, or through a revelation responded by faith-has been a traditional and recurrent question throughout Christian history.  In that history, there have been those who, while denying neither the efficacy, nor the significance of mystical experience or of revelation, have insisted that the existence of God can be established by philosophical argument and so the nature of God known and defined, at least in part, by reason alone, that is, by "natural theology." On the other side have been those who distrusted philosophical reason as "pagan" or at least as misguided; correspondingly they have argued that the true and living God, the God of Abraham, Jesus, and the Church, can only be known in revelation.  As a consequence for them a valid understanding of the nature and intentions of God must proceed from revelation and not also from philosophical reasoning. While the developments in modern culture have not effaced this traditional issue and its contesting parties, still these developments have to some extent effected changes in the way each side argues its case (Langdon Gilkey, p. 99). 

So,  the question remains "How do we know God?"  Is God known through self-disclosure?  Is God known through experience, both collective and individual?  Is God known through philosophical speculation?  Is God known through rational deduction?  Each of these perspectives have been submitted as the dominant or exclusive way of knowing and understanding the divine.

There are three points of difference submitted by Langdon Gilkey.  They are:

1.  The question of the possibility of a concept of God, the most radical question about God's reality has come to the fore.  Thus each side, the natural theologians and the revelationists, find themselves more concerned than their predecessors with the source or point of origin (in a "godless" natural and historical world) of this idea in philosophy or in the experience of revelation respectively, that is, with the question "How do we come to know God?' as well as with the question "What do we know about God in the way we do know it?" (Gilkey, op. cit., p.99).  

2.  Though the sharpness and difficulty of the question of the reality of God and of the intelligibility of that concept has made a natural theology eminently desirable if not necessary for modern believers, still the drift-not to say the flow tide-of modern rationality away from metaphysical speculation has raised increased difficulties for that enterprise in modern culture.  Whereas in many epochs only the use of philosophy in theology and especially at the idea of a natural theology, now is the philosophical community more than the theological community that raises questions about the possibility of metaphysics and of natural theology of any sort.  In modernity (as possibly the end of the Hellenic era) natural theologians have had to contend with philosophical resistance to their speculative, metaphysical labors as well as with religious-theological resistance, and they face the bizarre and arduous task, not forced upon their predecessors, of presenting a reasoned defense of metaphysical reason even before they begin their quest via such reason for God (Ibid., pp. 99-100).

3.  The modern critique of authority, the emphatic denial of absolute authority to any document or institution, has transformed the interpretation of revelation and its cognitive meaning.  Prior to this the "revealed faith" could refer to sets of prepositions in the scriptural corpus or the dogmatic tradition, and how one "knew God" via either one could be plainly and intelligibly stated.  With the modern critique of scriptural and dogmatic authority and of a "propositional view of revelation," at best revelation comes through the words of scripture and tradition and is received not in terms of objective propositions but on the "religious" level as an experience or "feeling," as an "encounter" resulting in a personal acknowledgment or a decision of faith, that is, as an existential reality and activity, so to speak, below the conceptual and ordinary cognitive level.  The obvious problem of a cognitive event taking place in a prelinguistic, preconceptual, and preexperiential "experience" thus plagues contemporary revelationists as it did their predecessors.  We should note that neither one of the traditional avenues to the knowledge of God, metaphysics or revelation, is in the least straight and smooth in our own day (Ibid. p. 100).

So, as in ancient times, and especially in as in the days of emerging Christianity, we are faced with the challenge and the task of postulating,  editing, redacting, and revisiting our formulations for understanding the divine.  We ask ourselves if our notion of God is culture-based, faith-based, or a combination of several approaches and foundations.  Is our approach to the "knowledge" of God a one-track approach or is it multi-pronged?  Our attempts to know and understand God constitute the journey of "theology in transit."

In the Name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer. Amen.

Dr. Juan A. Carmona 

Past Professor of Theology

Tainan Theological College/Seminary 

 MODERN CONSCIOUSNESS ON GOD 

At the start of the post-Reformation period there were two dominant conceptions of God, one Catholic and the other Protestant.  They differed markedly in the categories with which God was described,  yet to our modern eyes they exhibited the same paradoxical character: the Catholic conception of an absolute, purely actual, changeless being "illegitimately" related and the Protestant conception of an eternal sovereign, divine will ordaining and effecting all temporal events from eternity, thus again "illegitimately" related and even responsive to historical crises and human needs.  Understandably, subsequent modern on the issue of God has, at least since the seventeenth century, been largely constituted by philosophical and theological criticism of these two inherited conceptions, and thence characterized either by humanist and naturalist rejection of the concept entirely or by a more or less radical reformulation of it.  Perhaps the best way to examine this extensive process is to remind ourselves first of the grounds in modern (Enlightenment and and post-Enlightenment) sensibility for this criticism,  and second to describe some of the characteristic forms of these reformulations as those forms appear in the present theological discussion (Langdon Gilkey in "God," p. 96).  

So in essence, what we find is a "clash" or competing conceptions of God during this period.  One conception (Catholic) was rooted in a synthesis of tradition, experience, Scripture, and philosophy, while the other (Protestant) was rooted in the primacy of Scripture, tradition, and experience, in that order, with a subsequent embracing of philosophy and other branches of human knowledge as ancillary.  Both sides attempted to be faithful to what they believed was the faith delivered once and for all by Jesus and HIs Apostles.   Both sides believed that indeed, their position was "Apostolic" in nature.

THE ENLIGHTENMENT CRITIQUE 

The grounds for the modern critique of the idea of God have been essentially three:

1.  The new emphasis on experience as the sole relevant and dependable source for valued and meaningful concepts and the sole ground for the testing of those concepts. (Gilkey, op. cit. pp. 96-97).

2.  Corresponding shift to the subject as the sole seat of legitimate authority in all matters pertaining to truth and as the sole originating source of significant moral and/or personal action (Ibid., p. 97).  

Finally, since the principle of authority in matters of truth and morals has moved radically inward to the subject, all external forms of authority are radically questioned, especially those coming from Church traditions or Scripture (Ibid.).

In modern-day Protestantism, there is a question as to what really is the sole or primary authority.  Some Protestants believe in the "Sola Scriptura (the Scripture alone)" principle, while others believe in the "Prima Scriptura (the primacy of Scripture and secondary status of experience and tradition)" principle.  In Pentecostal theology, we have a what I would call a "theological conundrum."  While Pentecostals as a whole subscribe to the notion of the Scripture being "the only rule of faith and practice," there is a strong emphasis on the experience of the Holy Spirit being an authority in and of itself.  So far example, if someone calls out an aspect of Pentecostal theology to be at "variance" with scriptural revelation, the answer just might be "Well the Holy Spirit has revealed to me (or to us) otherwise."  It appears on the surface, at least, that in Pentecostal theology, there is room for a private experience with the Holy Spirit superseding the words of Scripture, though the claim is still made that the Bible is our only source of faith and practice.  

Thus, the question of the reality of God, even of the possibility of the concept in any of its forms, has been sharply raised in modern culture.  On the one hand, a powerful "naturalistic " viewpoint, which finds belief in God anachronistic and incredible and thus a relation to God either offensive or irrelevant, has arisen and spread pervasively throughout the Western and Communist worlds into almost every class.  From this viewpoint "nature," as understood by science, is the seat and source of all that is real; men and women are the source of values, and their needs and wishes are the sole criterion of values.  Thus this world and its history represent the sole locus of hope.  Whether in socialistic or capitalistic form, or as theorized by Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Jean-Paul Sartre or Albert Camus-or by most if not all the leaders of the scientific and and philosophical communities-this naturalistic humanism has dominated the cultural scene.  As a consequence its powerful presence has posed the central intellectual issues for theologians concerned with the defense and reformulation of the concept  of God (Gilkey, op. cit., p. 97).  

So here we are faced with the question of whether our theology is a revealed theology or a humanly constructed theology.  Personally, I find it difficult to submit to that dichotomy.  The reason for that is that even if we state that our theology is a "revealed" one, we cannot bypass the element of human filtering and mediation.  In other words, we cannot treat theology is if were written in Heaven and thrown down to Earth.  Whether we subscribe to the Catholic (and here I am including Eastern Orthodoxy) notion of God, or the Protestant notion of God, the agency of human mediation cannot be either bypassed or ignored.  While we might believe that divine revelation contains "absolutes," we cannot claim or pretend that our appropriation of divine revelation is either absolute, inerrant, or infallible.  In the final analysis, theology is a human construct, and subsequently is, as my theology mentor and professor at New Brunswick Theological Seminary said many times, "tentative."  

Whether or not "naturalistic humanism," a non-religious understanding of reality generally and of human existence, is a lasting possibility has also become problematic in the modern period.  This possibility of a totally "secular" world view was assumed in the French Enlightenment and taken for granted by most of the nineteenth-century critics of religion (e.g., Aguste Comte, Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, et. al).  However, recent history has seemed to show that as traditional religion wanes as the symbolic center of a community's life, "ideology' tends to take its place, and ideology with important religious aspects or dimensions.  Thus even if God has receded from the center of Western (or even Eastern) consciousness, "the religious" has apparently not-for the political and social worlds of Western culture are structured ideologically, and thus its major conflicts are still inspired by competing forms of religiosity (Gilkey, op. cit. pp 97-98).  

En fin, regardless of the root or source of our conception of God,  our conceptions result in enclosed and even entrenched ideologies.  Very few of us, if any, are open to the idea that there is truth in other conceptions of God, especially if those conceptions prevail and are rampant in faith communities other than the Christian Church.  We treat our conceptions of God as if we Christians have it "all sown up" in our pockets, and that any opposing concepts are demonic and heretical.

Dr. Juan A. Carmona 

Past Professor of Theology

Tainan Theological College/Seminary 

 THE SYMBOL OF THE TRINITY 

In the early patristic period, with Justyn Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, the absolute aspect of God was unequivocally affirmed and regarded as designated by the traditional biblical symbol of the "Father," the utterly primordial, unoriginate, changeless, eternal , and unrelated source of all else.  The related aspect of God, equally central to the life and piety of Christian faith, was consequently expressed through the symbol of the "Son" or the Logos, the principle of divine outreach and self-manifestation (almost a "second God," or as Justin and Origen put it) through which the transcendent Father. changeless, and inactive, created the world, was revealed in it, and acted to redeem it.  The Holy Spirit completed the relationship by assuring the presence of the divine will in the community and in persons.  Thus at the outset of the philosophical career of the Christian God, the symbol of the Trinity served to provide conceptual expression for the dialectical polarity of the Christian God as at once the self-sufficient creator of all, transcendent to all t                                         finitude (Father), and as the active, revealing, loving redeemer (Son), present in grace and power to God's people (Holy Spirit)  Landon Gilkey "God."  Christian Theology: An Introduction To Its Traditions and Tasks.  Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994, p. pp. 93-94.

By the inexcusable and possibly ironic logic of events and ideas, however, the important mediatorial role of the symbol of the Trinity soon disintegrated.  As the doctrine of the Arians quickly made evident, a Son or Logos that genuinely mediates between the absolute  and the relative and that is related to the creaturely, the temporal, and the changing in time can be itself unregenerate, eternal, changeless, nor fully "God" if God is defined solely by the truths of a transcendent absolute. An original, related, mediating principle is by that token hardly God, but in monotheism such a subordinate, semiabsolute, and partly divine being, however, "good," is inadmissible and partly divine being as representing incipient polytheism.  Besides, if Jesus Christ is not fully God, how can He save? These unanswerable arguments of Athanasius pushed the conception of the entire divine Trinity in an absolutist direction; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were at Nicea and again later at Constantinople all defined as fully divine, that is, as essentially negating every creaturely attribute: temporality, potentiality, changeableness, relatedness, and dependence.  As a consequence, the Trinity  ceased to be the central symbolic expression of the polarity of divine relatedness.  To put this point more precisely, a distinction now appears in post-Nicean theology between the essential Trinity, (the "three-in-oneness" characteristic of the eternal God's inner life) and the economic Trinity (the "three-in-oneness" characteristic manifested and expressed externally in God's creative, revealing, and redemptive activity in relation to the world).  Clearly this distinction, in contrast to the pre-Nicean concept of the Trinity, where a "halfway absolute" Son mediated between the absolute Father and the world, covered over rather than resolved the fundamental problem or dialectic of the Christian concept;t of God, namely, how the absolute God can be related to the relative world.  Now in the new form the same old question arises: How can the essentially trinitarian God in whom Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are alike eternal, changeless, and impassive participate in all the actions and reactions in relation to changing temporality entailed in the economic Trinity (Ibid., pp. 94-95)?  

As pointed out previously, the Church was not advocating for a polytheistic doctrine, i.e. a doctrine of multiple gods.  Neither was the  Church advocating for a doctrine of semi-humans or semi-deities.  While the doctrine of the Trinity was not stated explicitly in the New Testament, the seeds of the doctrine was there in a latent way.  The doctrine of the Trinity was that God was  revealed in the relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, whether one wants to take these to mean that the three were distinct as to person while being fully divine, or distinct as to historical roles.  

As the appearance of the distinction makes plain, at no point did Christian theology allow itself to deny God's continual relatedness to and activity in the world of change.  How could it, since the entire corpus of Christian belief from creation to redemption, very aspect of its ritual of Word and Sacrament, its entire sacred law and its sanctions, and every facet of its piety of prayer, miracles, and special angelic and saintly powers depended on the reality in past, present, and future of that divine presence and divine activity?  Nevertheless, that a deep theological problem remained for the classical theological conception of God is also evident.  Once God was defined in theology as "pure actuality,"  "eternal being," "changeless," and thus quite void of potentiality, alterability, passivity, or temporality, it became virtually impossible, if not contradictory, to express intelligibly the obvious relatedness and mutuality of God to the changing world necessitated by the Scriptural witness and by the structures of the Christian religion itself (Gilkey, op. cit., p. 95). 

One of the major problems in theology relative to the person and work of God, is the inevitable use of anthropomorphic language, i.e. attributing human-like qualities to God.  In addition, the matter is complicated because of the fact that in the early stages of the construction of Christian theology, just like we previously encounter in Hebrew/Jewish theology, and subsequently in Islamic theology, God is spoken of in masculine terms, an issue which is challenged and questioned by feminist theology.  Moreover, the doctrine of God in Christian theology is complicated by the doctrine of the Trinity which on the surface, at least, appears to be an advocacy for polytheism, or at the very least, tritheism, i.e. the notion of three deities.  When we take into consideration the integration between Christian theology and Western philosophy (namely Greek philosophy), the problem is further compounded by the fact that God is depicted as detached from the world and totally unaffected by what goes on in the world.

Although with the Reformation the philosophical or metaphysical definition of God as absolute, changeless, eternal being or actuality radically receded in prominence in theology, the same problems remained.  In the "biblical" theology of the major reformers, God is conceived centrally through personal rather than metaphysical categories: as almighty or sovereign power, as righteous or holy will, as gracious and reconciling love.  The "ontological" concepts of self-sufficiency remain, but what now determines the shape of the doctrine of God in each reformer is the center of Reformation piety or religion, namely the new emphasis on the priority and sole sovereignty of divine grace in redemption;tion, on the utter unworthiness and inactivity of the recipient of grace, and finally on the absolute priority and decisiveness of divine election (Gilkey, op. cit. p. 95). 

What is here eternal and changeless is the divine decree destining, yes predestining, each creature to grace or to its opposite.  The first cause of being, that led Thomas to the concept of pure actuality has become the first "cause" of grace, leading to the concept of the eternal, and changeless divine decrees.  Thus for primarily religious rather than metaphysical reasons, the same paradox tending toward contradiction appears: an eternal, hidden, and yet all-sovereign divine electing will on the one hand, and the affirmation of the presence and activity of God in relation to a real and not sham sequence of historical events and of human decisions on the other hand.  Although it was Calvin especially who drew out most clearly the implications of this new paradox based on Reformation piety rather than on traditional philosophy, still the same paradox in this new form is evident and fundamental for the theologies of Luther and Zwingli as well (Ibid., pp. 95-96).

Like all other aspects of Christian theology, the doctrine of the Deity has its challenges, and difficulties.  Theology is an ongoing task, and the component of the doctrine of the divine, is a part and parcel of that task.

Dr. Juan A. Carmona 

Past Professor of Theology

Tainan Theological College/Seminary 

 

HOW THE EARLY CHRISTIANS THOUGHT OF GOD 

We may inquire as to what the concept of God was in the Early Church.  In other words, we might pose the question as to what are the differences or the similarities in the way that the Early Church conceived of God in comparison to how God is thought of in contemporary Christianity.  Landon Gilkey invites us to explore this.

The origins of the understanding of God lie in the Hebrew and Christian religious traditions,  especially in their sacred scriptures.  In what we call the Old Testament, God or Yahweh is "undeniably," and "jealously" one, and  transcendent to all the limited and special forces and powers of our experience of nature, society, or self.  On the other hand, Yahweh's central characteristic or, better, mode of experienced being or self-manifestation is a concern for and relation to history and especially to a particular people in history-Israel.  Although God manifests power and glory throughout the vast scope of nature, the main area for the divine "works" is the particular sequence of historical events related to the calling, establishment, nurture, and protection of the chosen people.  In this activity in history, moreover, God is revealed as a moral or righteous God, the source of the law, and quick to punish those, even chosen ones, who defy this law.  Yahweh is, however, also a God of mercy, patience, faithfulness,  and grace, since according to the prophets, despite Israel's obvious unworthiness and continued betrayal of her covenant with God, God promises to redeem Israel in the future.  This God of history, covenant, judgment, and promised redemption is throughout assumed to be, and often clearly affirmed to be, the ruler of all events.  All agree that the divine purposes shape, reshape, and in the end will complete history.  Finally, by inevitable implication, this sovereign Lord of history is seen to be also the creator and ruler of the entire cosmos (Langdon Gilkey in "God." Christian Theology: An Introduction to Its Traditions and Tasks, pp. 91-92).   

In essence, Gilkey's presentation of God in Church History is one of reflection of the conception of God in the Scriptures.  Whether the Hebrew/Jewish and Christian communities derived their conception of God from their Scriptures, or the Scriptures reflected their conception of God in the period of the oral tradition, is very debatable.  

These themes in the notion of God are continued, albeit with modifications in the New Testament: God is one God, a God concerned with history, judgment, and redemption, the God who is Creator, and Redeemer, Alpha and Omega.  Only now the central manifestation of  the living God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the "Son," Jesus of Nazareth, through whom the divine righteous and loving will for human beings is revealed, the divine judgments made known, the divine power to save even from death effected, and in whose speedy return God's sovereignty over all creation will be fully and visibly established.  The presence of God, moreover, is now less in the temple and in the law as in the Spirit, dwelling in the hearts and minds of the Christian community and in their witness and hopeful expectation.  Thus appears a new set of Christian symbols  helping to define "God," and the divine activity, not only creation, and redemption, covenant, law, and messianic promise, but now also Son/Logos, incarnation, atonement, Holy Spirit, Parousia, and, as a summation of these "new concepts, Trinity (Ibid., p 92).

The concept of "Trinity" should be clarified.  The Church was not adopting a polytheistic view of three deities, nor a view of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, running amok, each doing their own thing, but rather a view of God's self-disclosure coming in the notion of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, being three different modes of being in the deity, each of which retained the divine nature.  

In briefly tracing the development of this complex notion from the beginning of the Christian era  to our own times, we should recall that once Western culture became Christian (A.D. 325), the concept of God became the symbolic center for every aspect of life and for the understanding of nature, society, and human existence generally.  Consequently, it became not only the object of  endless philosophical and theological speculation, but also the foundation for every special discipline of thought, every representative mode of action, and all important social institutions.  Thus, inevitably,  this notion and the modes of thinking that expressed it made union with the sciences, and ethical, legal, and political theories, and above all, with the philosophy of each epoch (Gilkey, op. cit., p. 92).

During the crucial formative centuries of Christendom, the dominant intellectual inheritance through which Western life understood itself and its world was that of Greco-Roman philosophy.  Thus it was natural that during this long period, the biblical notion of God outlined was given its main conceptual shape with help first of Platonism and Stoicism, and then during the High Middle  Ages, of Aristotelianism.  In this philosophical tradition, especially in its later Hellenistic stages (200 B.C.- A.D. 400), the sense of the reality, value, or meaning of the changing, temporal, material world, and of earthly human and historical life in time noticeably weakened.  Correspondingly, for this tradition, the divine was precisely that which infinitely transcends change, time, matter, flesh, and history (Ibid., pp. 92-93).

As a quite natural consequence, those transcendent and absolute aspects or implications of the biblical or implications of the biblical creator and ruler were, in the developing conceptualization of God from A.D. 150 to 400, enlarged and extended: God became eternal in the sense of utterly non-temporal, necessary in the sense of absolute non-contingency, self-sufficient in the sense of absolute independence, changeless in the sense of participating in and relating to no change, purely spiritual instead of in any fashion material, unaffected and thus seemingly unrelated and even unreliable to the world.  It would, however, be false to conclude that the absoluteness of the patristic conception of God stemmed entirely from Hellenistic philosophy, though it expressed in the latter's categories.  It also stemmed from the character of patristic piety.  Since that piety emphasized, as did most Hellenistic spirituality, the victory of the incorruptible, immortal, and changeless principle of deity over the corruptible, mortal, and passing character of creaturely life, the divine is and must be that which transcends and conquers the passingness of mortal flesh (Ibid, p. 93). 

En fin, we can see that the concept of God in Christianity, has undergone evolution.  It has gone, if I may say so, from the simple to the complex.  Only time will tell if it goes back to the simple.

Rev. Dr. Juan A. Carmona 

Past Professor of Theology

Tainan Theological College/Seminary 

  THE FORMULATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF GOD 

All doctrines and theological tenets must be examined in historical perspective.  By this I mean that we must inquire as to how the doctrines or dogmas of the Church came into existence, who were the key players, and what were the reasons and circumstances surrounding their development.  

Historically speaking, humankind has always had a notion of the divine.  Those notions come from observation of nature, from oral traditions, and from inscripturated documents and texts.  In this essay, we set out to examine the historical development of the notion of God within the framework of Christian theology.  

I must say that the notion of God in Christian theology is not monolithic by any stretch of the imagination.  There have been, and are, if I may say so, a variety of notions and perspectives concerning the person of God.  In other words, in spite of the belief in the "unity" of God, Christians have expressed a variety of opinions and views concerning how they see God.  

In this essay, we continue to examine the formulation of the doctrine of God as presented by Langdon Gilkey, a retired Professor of Theology at the Duke Divinity School.  Dr. Gilkey lays out the development of this doctrine in a historical/sequential manner. 

The General Idea of God

In Western culture, dominated as it has been by the Jewish and Christian traditions, the word or symbol "God" has generally referred to one supreme, or holy being, the unity of ultimate reality, and ultimate goodness.  So conceived, God is believed to have created the entire universe, to rule over it, and to intend to bring it to its fulfillment or realization, to "save" it.  Thus, as a functioning word, in our own cultural world, God in the first instance, refers to the central and sole object of religious existence, commitment, devotion, dependence, fear, trust, love, and belief-and to the center of worship, prayer, and religious meditation.  Secondarily, "God" has been the object of religious and philosophical reflection, the supreme object of theology, and of most (though not all) forms of speculative metaphysics (Langdon Gilkey in "God."  Christian Theology: An Introduction to Its Traditions and Tasks.  Fortress Press, 1994, pp. 89-90).

So understood, God represents a puzzling and elusive notion by no  means easy to define, as the traditions of the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic religious thoughts have been clearly recognized.  As the supreme being or ground of being, the Creator and ruler of all, God transcends (exceeds or goes beyond) all creaturely limits and and distinctions, all creaturely characteristics; the reason is that the divine, so conceived, is the source and therefore, not simply one more example of those limits, distinctions, and characteristics.  As Creator of time and space, God is not in either time or space as is all else; dependent and vulnerable as is every other creature, in time and passing as we are, or mortal as is all life-lest the divine be a mere contingent creature and thus not "God."  For these reasons the concept of God inevitably tends toward that of the transcendent absolute of much speculative philosophy: necessary, impersonal, unrelated, independent, changeless, eternal.  And for these reasons as well as others, the customary reference to God as "He" is now seen to be extremely problematical (Ibid., p. 90). 

On the other hand, as we shall see, God in Jewish and Christian witness, piety, and experience is also in some way personal, righteous, or moral, the ground or  base in actuality of value, concerned with all creatures, with people and their lives, impelled and guided by important purposes for them individually and collectively, and deeply related to and active within the natural world and the course of history.  The reflective problems in the concept of God, illustrated by debates throughout Western history, therefore have a dual source: in the fact that God, however described, is unlike ordinary things of which we can easily and clearly speak, and in the fact that inherent in the religious reality itself, and in its reflected concepts are certain dialectical tensions or paradoxes-absolute related, impersonal-eternal-temporal, changeless-changing, actual yet potential, self-sufficient or necessary and yet in some manner dependent.  Such dialectical tensions stretch, if they do not defy, our ordinary powers of speech, definition, and precise comprehension.  However, one may approach the divine, religiously or philosophically, therefore, one first encounters "mystery," and with that encounter appear, among other things, special procedures and special forms or rules of speech-a characteristic as old as religion itself (Ibid., pp. 90-91).

Gilkey challenges us to determine as to whether our concept of God is philosophical/speculative, or theological/faith-based.  He also stimulates us to determine if we think of God as an abstract entity or as an entity with personal characteristics akin to ours.  The issue of anthropomorphic language (attributing human-like characteristics to the deity) comes into play here.  For example, do we think of God as someone who in addition to being compassionate and loving, is also one who is prone to have tantrums and get "all bent and out of shape" because of our wrong-doing?  

Another important consideration for us is the issue of thinking theologically in a "Western" mode.  Is the Christian concept of God rooted in Western culture, or should we examine this concept (or concepts) from the standpoint of the Asian/African roots of Christian theology?  As we continue to follow Gilkey's layout of the formulation of the doctrine of God in Christianity, we will expand our search of how God has been conceived of throughout the history of Christian theology.  

Rev. Dr. Juan A. Carmona 

Past Professor of Theology

Tainan Theological College/Seminary 

 THE NOTION OF GOD 

Since theology is the study about God (it cannot be the study of God, since God cannot be studied), our attention should be drawn to God.  The topic of God should be the main focus of the theological enterprise.  Everything else in theology revolves or should revolve around the idea or notion of God. The study about God is what I would call in the words of the late Dr. James Cone, the "central semantic axis" of Christian theology.

We do not need to compare the beliefs of one religious system with those of another religious system in order to see notions about God.  Within any given religious systems, we can encounter various notions or ideas about the Deity.  Even within the Christian faith itself, the notion of God is not monolithic by any stretch of the. imagination.  Christians, both collectively and individually speaking, have different ideas of God.  Even when they make use of the Scriptures, which by the way utilize language that attributes human qualities to God (anthropomorphic language), they have different ideas and notions of God.

The idea of God is at once the most important and yet the most questionable of all religious doctrines or "symbols" in the West, and I dare to add, as well as in the East.  This idea or symbol points to the central object of Christian and Jewish faith, the sole "subject" of their revelation, and the final principle of  both reality and  meaning throughout human existence.  Nevertheless, of all concepts in modern cultural life-and in varying degrees for "believers" and "doubters" alike-the idea of God remains the most elusive, the most frequently challenged, the most persistently criticized and negated of all important convictions. Is there a God? Can such a One be experienced, known, or spoken of?  Is such knowledge experience testable, such knowledge verifiable, and such speech meaningful.  Or is all such experience illusory, such  seeming knowledge in fact a projection, and such speech empty?  These issues represent the primordial issues for philosophy of religion, for philosophical theology, and for confessional theology alike (Langdon Gilkey in "God." Christian Theology: An Introduction to Its Theology and Tasks. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994, p. 88).

Almost every dominant motif and movement in modernity-its expanding scientific inquiry, its emphasis on what is natural, experienced, and verifiable, its persistent search for the greater well-being of humans in this world, its increasing emphasis on autonomy and on present satisfactions-has progressively challenged the concept of God and unsettled both its significance and certainty.  This challenge has been on two fronts.  They are:

1.  The traditional concepts of God, inherited from the premodern cultures of medieval, Renaissance, and Reformation Europe, revealed themselves in almost every aspect to have anachronistic elements and to be unintelligible in the light of modern knowledge and modern attitudes towards reality, with the consequence that these concepts have had to reformulated on a fundamental level (Ibid.).

2.  More important, these same aspects of modernity challenged the very possibility of an idea of God, its knowability, its coherence, and its meaning to much of modernity such an idea is on a number of grounds an impossible idea and, as a consequence, the whole enterprise of a theistic religion appears as a futile, expensive, and even harmful activity (Ibid., pp. 88-89).

Because of this second point, the prime problematic connected with the symbol of God has in modern times differed noticeably from earlier problematics.  Our fundamental questions on religious reflection are not about the nature of the divine and the character of God's activity or will toward us, which represented the main questions of an earlier time.  The question now is the possibility of God's existence in a seemingly naturalistic world, the possibility of valid knowledge of God and meaningful discourse about God, and the possibility of God's existence in a seemingly naturalistic world, the possibility of valid knowledge and meaningful discourse about God, and the possibility of any sort of "religious" existence, style of life, or hope at all.  As a result, the efforts of religious thinkers in our century have by and large been directed at at the following interrelated problems:

1.  A justification of the meaning and the validity of the concept of God in relation to other, apparently less questionable forms of experience-scientific, philosophical, social political, artistic, psychological, or existentialist (Ibid. p. 89).

2.  A reformulation of that concept so that it can be meaningful and relevant to the modern world (Ibid.)

Despite the new and sharper edge to the question of God in modern times, certain continuing issues characteristic of the traditional discussion of this concept have also been present, albeit in specifically modern form.  In the concept of God, as in the reality experienced in religious existence, dialectical tensions have appeared and reappeared as the center of theological discussion.  It is a strange notion filled with paradoxes and polarities.  These perennial problems internal to the concept of God (whether orthodox or reformulated) also characterize modern discussions and manifest themselves with each option characteristic of modern theology and philosophy of religion.  We shall continue to explore their career in modern theologies as well as to show the way modern views of God have handled the question of the reality of God and if the possibility of such a concept.  (Ibid.).

Questions for reflection:

1.  What is your notion of God?

2.  Where do you derive your notion from?

3. How does your notion compare to other people's notion?

4.  Do you think that your notion of God is inferior or superior to that of other people's notions, or is it just different?

Rev. Dr. Juan A. Carmona 

Past Professor of Theology

Tainan Theological College/Seminary