Theology Proper / Paterology: Readings
For the coming month, we are turning our attention to consider what Christian thinkers have said of God. Much has been said through the ages. Because most of us are familiar with traditional Western Christian thoughts on God the Father, we are turning brief attention to thoughts from the East to begin with. Then we'll look at excerpts from a recent conversation between two contemporaries regarding the nature of God's love.
So, let's get started.
I. On Seeing and Understanding God
"He (God the Father) conceals Himself in His power from all His works. For it is not permitted for any being who is subject to change to see Him who changes not." Melito (c.170 AD)
"It is a difficult task to discover the Father and Maker of this universe. Yet having found Him, it is impossible to declare Him to all. For he is by no means capable of expression...The apostle will testify: I know a man in Christ caught up into the third heaven, and thence into Paradise, who heard unutterable words that is not lawful for a man to speak. He thereby indicates the impossibility of expressing God. He indicates that what is Divine is unutterable by human power." Clement of Alexandria (c. 195 AD)
How do these quotes relate to and complement each other? What do they tell us about comprehending God? Can they be reconciled with evangelism?
II. Paradise, God, and the Rest of Us
"Paradise is the love of God and those who are punished in Gehannah, are scourged by the scourge of love." St. Isaac the Syrian (c. 565 AD)
"God Himself is Paradise and punishment for man, since each man tastes God's "energies" (His perceptible presence) according to the condition of his soul. The next life will be light for those whose mind is purified in proportion to their degree of purity and darkness to those who have blinded their ruling organ (their mind), in proportion to their blindness." St. Gregory the Theologian (335-394)
"Life in the Orthodox Church as defined by the Fathers, is experiencing the perfect, pure and infinite love of God in ultimate harmony and intimacy for eternity, and death is experiencing God's energies in torment, darkness and disharmony for eternity." Peter Chopelas (c.2001)
What are these Orthodox thinkers telling us about heaven and hell, about life and life after death? How do their thoughts contrast with those prevalent in the West? How do the divergent interpretations in the East and West speak something different about God?
III. The Nature of God's Love
"I was recently reading through the proofs of a new book on New Testament Theology, and it was stated that the most basic theme or thesis of NT theology is --'God magnifying himself through Jesus Christ by means of the Holy Spirit'.
What's wrong with this picture? How about the basic understanding of God's essential and moral character?
For instance, suppose this thesis stated above is true-- would we not expect John 3.16 to read "for God so loved himself that he gave his only begotten Son..."? [ . . .]
Let me be clear that of course the Bible says it is our obligation to love, praise, and worship God, but this is a very different matter from the suggestion that God worships himself, is deeply worried about whether he has enough glory or not, and his deepest motivation for doing anything on earth is so that he can up his own glory quotient, or magnify and praise himself.
If we go back to the Garden of Eden story, one immediately notices that it is the Fall and sin which turned Adam and Eve into self-aware, self-centered, self-protecting beings. This is not how God had created them. Rather, he had created them in the divine image, and that divine image involves other directed, other centered love and relating. It follows from this that not the fallen narcissistic tendencies we manifest reflect what God is really like, but rather other directed, self-giving loving tendency." Ben Witherington, III (2007 -- Read the blog here)
"The real cultural bondage today is not that too many people are making God radically God-centered, but that most people cannot conceive of his being loving unless he is man-centered." John Piper (2007 --Read this response to Witherington)
"God’s love for us is not mainly his making much of us, but his giving us the ability to enjoy making much of him forever. In other words, God’s love for us keeps God at the center. God’s love for us exalts his value and our satisfaction in it. If God’s love made us central and focused on our value, it would distract us from what is most precious, namely, himself. Love labors and suffers to enthrall us with what is infinitely and eternally satisfying: God. Therefore God’s love labors and suffers to break our bondage to the idol of self and focus our affections on the treasure of God." John Piper (2007 --Read the full post)
What are these men saying about the nature of God's love? How do they differ? Why is understanding the nature of God's love so important? In light of the readings in Section I, what do you think about these arguments?
