Area 5 of questioning
The dualisms of Divinity/Humanity and Heaven/Earth and the supernatural dimension which underpin the whole Bible story and much church dogma.
This is another fundamental which, for me, points away from panentheism. I suppose this is a predictable area of ‘faithful questioning’ because of what has gone before. I press on.
I acknowledge that we live in the midst of untold dualisms, usually understood as contrasting opposites; inside and outside, up and down, black and white, wet and dry, object and subject, and so on. Almost everything is understood in terms of contrast and/or separateness. All these dualisms, if that is an appropriate description, are fundamental to my understanding of reality.
As I have said, when talking about dualisms in this venture, I am referring specifically to only two dualisms - the theological dualism of God and Humanity and the cosmological/theological dualism of Heaven and Earth. For me, these two dualisms announce fixed and unalterable separateness in orthodox theology.
Conventional supernaturalist ideas give rise to the need for the dualism of Humanity/Divinity and Earth/Heaven and these dualisms in turn create a special space for the activity of the supernatural. These dualisms and the supernatural, affirm each other and build on each other in the biblical story, from start to finish. They form the building blocks on which, I believe, most regular church goers view reality and on which most church liturgies are created. They are basic and in my experience are never questioned.
With the dualism of God and Humanity, one of the great conundrums of Christianity debated over the centuries, has been, “How can it be possible to combine and unite both divinity and humanity in Jesus?” He has to be the God-man. I have been taught that he is human but he is also the second person of the Trinitarian God. The Chalcedon Decree, one of the early statements of orthodox Christian belief, tries to unravel the issue but most of us regular church-goers who have read it, find that it just adds to our confusion.
The orthodox Trinitarian doctrines of the church rely on Jesus’ divinity; not his humanity. Many times in church liturgies I hear the phrases, ‘God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit’, or ‘God, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost’.
In my past church teaching, Jesus’ divinity was always primary and his humanity, secondary. He was God become Man. Not Man become God. The Incarnation has been taught to me as God becoming flesh or taking on human flesh but never flesh becoming God. Jesus’ humanity is no difficulty for me but his divinity, in the orthodox way of explanation, is. His divinity separates him from me but his humanity connects him to me and me to him. Any supernatural powers attributed to Jesus or any supernaturalistic framework for understanding him makes him other-worldly. Without his divinity, he becomes one with the rest of us. For me, his orthodox divinity takes him away with the away-God but his humanity brings him close. One of the big continuing debates in the church is whether to take the stories associated with a supernatural Jesus literally or metaphorically. The story about the Resurrection of Jesus taken literally, I believe, needs a supernatural, dualistic framework. Taken metaphorically, I believe the story can be owned and understood without that framework.
The way I have spoken about the person-ising of God in the Bible, points to the underlying dualism of God and humans. They are not united. This is obvious for me, from the beginning of the Bible in Genesis chapter 1. God creates and humans are created. For me, this confirms a dualism. I find it unhelpful.
In my church life I have always been encouraged to think of Heaven and Earth as separate and distinct. The Heaven/Earth dualism is present in church services I attend now and have attended all my life - ‘Our Father who art in Heaven.’ It is totally present right throughout the Bible from Genesis chapter 1, through the Jesus story, to the end of the Bible with the Book of Revelation.
Without these dualisms we would not have many of the current hymns we are requested to sing in church services today. The language in prayers I hear today would have to be changed as would other parts of current liturgies, if these dualisms were abandoned. A huge change would be required.
Rudolf Karl Bultmann, a German Lutheran theologian, was one of the major figures of 20th century biblical studies and a prominent voice in liberal Christianity. When writing about the world view of biblical times, Bultmann comments,
Heaven is the abode of God and of celestial beings ‑ the angels. The underworld is hell, the place of torment. Even the earth is more than the scene of the natural, everyday events, of the trivial round and the common task. It is the scene of supernatural activity of God and his angels on the one hand and of Satan and his demons on the other. These supernatural forces intervene in the course of nature and in all that men think and will and do. Miracles are by no means rare. Man is not in control of his own life. Evil spirits may take possession of him. Satan may inspire his thought. Alternatively, God may inspire his thought and guide his purposes. He may grant him heavenly visions. He may allow him the supernatural power of his Spirit.[1]
For 1st Century people, this quotation states the belief in the two dualisms and supernatural activity. I believe that most regular church-goers have dispensed with this view of reality but most have retained a more sophisticated belief based on these dualisms. I think many regular church-goers have at least a vague idea of going to Heaven to be with God after they die. When we sing of Heaven in many of our hymns, we are not thinking about our present experience of living here on the Earth.The content of the Lord’s Prayer presupposes these dualisms.
In my church past, the supernatural realm was a ‘given’ and I was not encouraged to question or doubt it. Marcus Borg addresses this issue.
The most common modern understandings of God in the church (as well as in our culture) are deist or supernaturalist. …. The supernaturalist way of imaging God... sees God as being out there,…affirming that God from time to time supernaturally intervenes in this world (especially in the events reported in the Old and New Testaments). [2]
I have no room for supernaturalism in my view of reality and thus the supernaturalism of the Bible makes little sense to me. For me, it belongs to 1st Century thinking. The dualisms which support this supernaturalism, appear to be the way the Bible and the church explains and uses the concepts of transcendence and immanence, being separate and distinct. Transcendence belongs to the supernatural realm and imminence belongs to our earthy experience. I believe differently.
So what for me now?
‘Transcendent’ and ‘imminent’ are two words I wish to ‘faithfully affirm’ from my past church teachings. However I wish to use them somewhat differently to the orthodox and conventional way. I wish to combine them. I realize this is uniting two concepts which seem virtual opposites and to do so is to create an oxymoron or at least a deep paradox. However, I wish to speak of imminent transcendence – me and everything being in God, and transcendent imminence - God being in me and everything.
The meanings for transcendence are,
transcending, going beyond ordinary limits, surpassing and extraordinary.[3]
and for imminent, the meanings are,
remaining within, indwelling, inherent.[4]
I wish to unite these meanings, suggesting that what is ‘remaining within, indwelling, inherent’ in our ordinary experience of life, there is a ‘going beyond ordinary limits, surpassing and extraordinary’ dimension. There is an extraordinary dimension which is in our experience of our ordinary living. There is a significant, mystical, aspect to the mundane. Drinking a glass of water can remind us of that on which humanity is totally dependent and that which cosmologists look for when searching the cosmos for signs of life. Dropping a packet of chips is an example of us experiencing one of the most universally prevailing forces of the universe - gravity. Walking across a road to avoid on-coming cars gives us evidence of the inexplicable but inseparable connection between time and space. All, I believe, are examples of ‘the transcendent’ being embedded in our ‘imminent’ experience of life.
I often spend the last hours of the night, 4am to get-up time, in a chair, slipping in and out of sleep. It is a very comfortable chair where I spend much time relaxing. It is in a room where I can view the beautiful Lake Macquarie, a large fresh water lake, near where I live. This room faces east so I can be captivated by the sunrise if I happen to be awake at the time. This morning was one of those times. There were a few long thin clouds low on the horizon and they were quite dark, looking somewhat foreboding. As the sun rose, their colour slowly, nearly imperceptibly, turned to a blazing gold and then to a glistening silvery white. What a privilege to view such mysterious magic! As I linked into my Christian heritage, I thought ‘God is light and in him is no darkness at all’, from 1 John 1:5. For me, this is another example of the transcendent dimension of my imminent experience. Extraordinary, yet it happens every day if I wish to make myself available to it. I get a feeling of transcendence in my imminent experience.
On a maybe somewhat more trivial note, trying to open the possibility of seeing depth meanings in the ordinary; a hair comb can bring order out of chaos. Some harsh and even rough treatment can bring about cleanliness when using a toothbrush; tough love. Buttons, joining and securing two separate pieces of material together, or uniting the boundaries/edges of the one piece, can speak to me of forgiveness. A button, of course, needs a buttonhole into which it can be inserted. So too, forgiveness needs to be accepted for it to be truly effective.
There is a transcendent dimension in all my imminent experience. God is in everything and everything is in God.
I reckon this way of thinking may point to some of the genius of Jesus in his teaching. I think he saw the transcendent dimension in the imminent experiences of life and tried to communicate this to his listeners. “You are buttons to the world” would have been thought of as stupid and I suppose he would have had to explain what he meant, whereas he didn’t have to explain the metaphor of salt. I think, because it is familiar to us, we do not think he was stupid saying such things as “You are the salt of the Earth.” or “The Kingdom of God is like a sower who went out to sow.” But, whoever thought of speaking about repentance when talking of a woman, sweeping her house searching for lost coins? Whoever thought of teaching about the Kingdom of God by speaking of a grain of mustard seed or a woman’s cooking with leaven or about weeds and good grain growing side by side? All this could be said to be metaphorical thinking or using parables, allegories or analogies to point to some depth meaning. True. I am comfortable suggesting that it is unearthing the transcendent dimension from within imminent experiences.
The dualism of Heaven/Earth is addressed with another maybe trivial example of the song I’m in Heaven.
Heaven, I'm in Heaven,
And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak
And I seem to find the happiness I seek
When we're out together dancing, cheek to cheek.[5]
The transcendent is experienced in our imminent experience. I believe it’s profoundly true!
Theologically, in this way, my panentheistic belief invites me to unite God and humanity, to do away with this particular dualism. I believe there is this transcendent dimension of humans because we are in God. My ordinariness is sacred. I believe we imminently experience the transcendent, because God is in us. The sacred is always present and can be experienced. The sacred is ordinary. That sounds like a demotion. For me it is not. It is a recognition of unity. The sacred is ordinary and the ordinary is sacred.
I enjoy playing with the word ‘supernatural’. Maybe a bit over the top. I like to retain the word in my theological thinking but with a meaning that is not ordinarily held. It is opposite to the traditional, conventional meaning. This fun exercise is when I suggest it is made up of the two words ‘super’ and ‘natural’. ‘Super’ points me towards the transcendent, going beyond normal limits, and ‘natural’ is imminent. When I am loved and when I love something ‘super’ happens. I feel vitally alive. Colloquially, it really is ‘super’. And when I cooperate with God Within it’s normal for me to love. It becomes ‘natural’. By uncovering God Within, love just happens. It’s ‘natural’. So I believe that when love is given and received, something ‘super-natural’ occurs. I know I am playing with words but I am not being flippant. I am trying to unearth the transcendental dimension of our real and personal imminent experience. Transcendence and imminence belong together. So I retain ‘supernatural’ in my theological vocabulary but I don’t use the word when talking to others because I think that probably no one else thinks of it the way I do.
One of the reasons why, I think, some people believe in the theism I ‘faithfully question’, is the occurrence of an extraordinary or miraculous happening in their life. These happenings seem to me to be not all that rare. Some church-goers have told me about such an ‘event’ in their lives and I appreciate that when such an event occurs, it is a major event, one which they will never ever forget. It is so unusual and is often extremely dramatic. Some remember the event as one which has changed their life; a turning point for them. It has redefined how they look at reality and God. Some have spoken to me of a reaching out to ‘they know not what’, when in a desperate situation. A positive experience of the Unknown has occurred and made a life-changing difference to them. They speak of a transcendent, out of the ordinary, reality which they do not understand but which they have experienced. Many attribute such events to God’s intervention. Such events sit very comfortably with the concept of a supernatural God who, from time to time intervenes to make things happen, things which are extraordinary. For people who experience these events, this explanation can be satisfying and they seek no other. In my experience, others have put the event down to Mystery and have left it at that. The transcendent has been dramatically paramount in what they have experienced. These experiences, I believe, are part of many people’s authentic living and not something they dream up. For me, they belong to Mystery.
I believe that the two dualisms of Divinity/Humanity and Heaven/Earth make supernatural activity essential if there is to be any interaction between the traditional God and Humanity, between Heaven and Earth.
For many regular church-goers, I believe, this framework gives answers to the mysterious events which happen. So-called miracles and other strange occurrences raise questions and this dualistic framework helps many people accept how and why they happen. That’s fine but this framework no longer works for me. I reject supernaturalism and its accompanying dualisms.
I put all these unusual happenings in the basket named ‘Mystery’. For me, it is a big basket and it’s full. While not wishing to diminish these experiences in any way, I assert that God can also be experienced in the ordinary, everything ordinary.
Let us not exempt ordinary experiences from being experiences of God. The Mystery of God is all around us and, I believe, within us. When confronted by the inexplicable and extraordinary we are confronted in a dramatic way by the Mystery. Sometimes in our experience, the transcendent dimension is dominant and sometimes the imminent dimension is.
Mystery is Mystery.
From my lyrics (One of my Christmas sets of lyrics), No. 15:
The Ordinary is Marvellous
Tune Irby
When we ponder on the Advent story,
When we contemplate the wondrous birth,
Let us sing of miracle and glory,
Bursting through our hist’ry here on earth.
Let us also prize the common,
That which happens ev’rywhere and often.
For, although each human birth is special,
It is also very commonplace.
Jesus born in Bethlehem, quite normal;
Numbered with us in the human race;
Born as us, dependent child.
Treasured infant, gently meek and mild.
So we treasure all the common graces,
Live each day as precious and unique.
God is present at all times and places,
On the plains, as on the mountain peak.
Plain yet wondrous, every hour,
God within, enriches us with power.
Many regular church-goers I think, probably have a supernaturalistic, biblically theistic belief system, believing in a separate supreme Being and the dualisms that go with it. They might not be able to explain what they actually think or believe. Fair enough! I also find it difficult to talk about the Mystery, as is obvious from what has gone before and also from what follows. Down the ages, we humans have had many different beliefs about God and the reality in which we live. Obviously, this is still the case today. I believe we have to acknowledge that we cannot answer all our questions. Some simply remain unanswered. I believe this will always be the case. Understandably we hang onto our beliefs, our faith, that which cannot be proven or disproved by science, reason, logic or anything else. This, I believe, is totally legitimate. I believe it is our universal human experience. I am sure that it is possible for us to live comfortably with Mystery. We have to. It’s there/here. When confronted by the ultimate questions of human life and our experiences of it, as well as the very existence of the cosmos, I suppose we all eventually end up at the same place; Creationists, Intelligent Design-ists, Evolutionists, Cosmologists, Big Bang-ists, Atheists, Pantheists, Agnostics, Theists, Deists, Panentheists, Scientists, Biblical Theists, etc. In the end, I believe we all eventually encounter Mystery with a capital ‘M’
From my lyrics, No. 16.:
God is Mystery
Tune Lasst Uns Erfreuen
God in all galaxies beyond,
Yet in our hearts and we respond;
God of mystery shares our history;
God in the gentle breeze that blows;
In every creature as it grows;
God gives glory to our story;
God of mystery shares our history;
Alleluia.
In God we live and move and be;
In God we find our destiny;
God of mystery shares our history;
God is the love that fills our soul:
God is the love that makes us whole;
God gives glory to our story;
God of mystery shares our history;
Alleluia.
[1] Rudolf Bultmann, Essay on Kerygma and Myth.
[2] Borg, Meeting Jesus Again for the First time, 38.
[3] Macquarie Dictionary, 2245
[4] Macquarie Dictionary, 1068
[5] Irving Berlin, Cheek to Cheek. 1st verse.