"Knowing God" - the Problem of Humanity

Well in answering one of my good friend's questions to my post below on Brian McLaren's book and doctrine I basically wrote a long enough answer to put it up as a new post. So here's the context. In the review I wrote:

Bonhoeffer wrote, “it is only when one knows the unutterability of the name of God that one can utter the name of Jesus Christ” Thus what we DO know about God is that ultimately God is unknowable. So doctrine is not an end in itself, thus aNKoC is not an end in itself.

Seth has some other good questions which you can read in the post below, but here's the heart of what he's saying:

But I don't get from that quote (and again I don't know the whole context behind the quote from Bonhoeffer) is that God is unknowable. Jesus seems to say the exact opposite. He identifies himself with the Father, and says several times that if you know me, you know the Father; if you see me, you have seen the Father, etc. It seems that God is knowable, but ultimately he is known through the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

Here's my response:
Well, I want to be careful because there's this strange dialectic I'm trying to walk here (creating a both/and or neither/nor category). In some ways I want to say what you are saying about Jesus, but in a more or differently nuanced way.

First, in regards to JC's words about knowing the Father. Thomas asks Jesus to show them the Father and the way to get where JC is going. I think we can agree that this passage isn't about doctrine (as if Thomas is saying, so is God eternal or everlasting?), knowing God categorically, conceptually, or perceptually. Instead, what Jesus is talking about is "the Way," the life and person that best reflects God on earth (himself). These verses in Jn 14 seem to point more toward relationships, allegiances, and ways of life (or mission) more than doctrinal statements about God.

There are many different ways of "knowing" in the Bible, but I think of the most metaphorical, physical way..."knowing" as sex. This knowing is about something deeper and more personal then concepts. It seems that "knowing" in the Scripture is almost always a deeply human, physical, and relational term as opposed to abstract, categorical.

Second, and ultimately I believe the greater truth is that God is unknowable. What I mean (not sure about Bonhof) is that we cannot use scientific reasoning and the 5 senses to create concepts that tell us "what" God is, God is neither provable or disprovable. We cannot point to God and say, "see God suffers or no God is immutable."

Language about God is tricky, but I don't think our words or categories ever fully satisfy the reality of what God is in his being. It's very important to say, or maybe admit (since there have been many abuses) that what we can know about God is that God is unknowable, un"what"able. But while our language, concepts, and perceptions of God always fall short of his Being that doesn't mean they aren't important. While we cannot say "what" God is, we can say "that" God is...that God is loving, good, infinite, simple, just, faithful, unified, etc. Now do these words describe God metaphysically, ontologically? No, but they do give us categories to understand how God can be the way he is, and relate the way he does (and possibly just as important it helps us understand how we should relate to God and each other).

Since we cannot claim what God is, but only what God is not (Bonhof's Christology) we can speak doctrines without fear of logical incoherence...like the idea that Christ is fully God and fully human (real logical right?). And that bring us back to Bonhoeffer, where he is saying that this way of talking about God (the "that," not "what") allows us to speak logically and coherently about the existence of God while being able to make statements about the incarnation.

I agree that we do know God through Christ, but I cannot say that doctrinally speaking I better understand God's being because of Jesus. Actually, because of Jesus I am a little more confused about God's existence. Did God die on the cross? Does he suffer? 3 and 1, 3 in 1, 3 = 1?

God is knowable, as in we can relate to and be in relationship to God. God is unknowable as in, I cannot point to and make conceptual statements that exactly describe the reality of God's being. Jesus leads us to what is really important, a life giving relationship with God; but after that we are stuck in our limited human categories to think about ways of describing conceptually and perceptually this reality. And that is theology in a nutshell, the aftermath of being swoon by God.

Not an acceptable Christ

It is not that a "Christian culture" must make the name of Jesus Christ acceptable to the world; but the crucified Christ has become the refuge and the justification, the protection and the claim for the higher values and their defenders that have fallen victim to suffering. It is with Christ who is persecuted and who suffers in his Church that justice, truth, humanity, and freedom now seek refuge; it is with the Christ who found no shelter in the world, the Christ who was cast out from the world, the Christ of the crib and of the cross, under whose protection they now seek sanctuary, and who thereby for the first time displays the full extent of his power. The cross of Christ makes both sayings true: "He that is not with me is against me" and "He that is not against us is for us."

-Bonhoeffer, Ethics.

Is Christ in Your Christianity?

Christianity without the living Christ is inevitably Christianity without discipleship, and Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.

The disciple is dragged out of the relative security into a life of absolute insecurity (that is, in truth, into the absolute security and safety of the fellowship of Jesus), from a life which is observable and calculable(is in in fact quite incalculable), out of the realm of the finite (which is in truth the infinite) into the realm of infinite possibilities (which is the one liberating reality).

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, 58-59.

Be Careful What You Wish For

“He who loves the dream of a Christian community more than the community itself, often does great damage to that community, no matter how well-intentioned he might be.”

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, quoted in David Bosch, Transforming Mission, 387. via.

Rollins & Bonhoeffer in Coversation

"The argument can be made naming church is never really naming church but only our understanding of church." *I have taken the liberty in the quotations from Rollins to replace "God" with "church" in light of Bonhoeffer's discussion on the church as revelation.

The funny thing about revelation for Rollins is that although it may be the opposite of concealment, it still has concealment built into it. He tests his case by showing the various and even contradictory forms of God revealed throughout the testimony of the Scriptures do not paint a complete or clear picture of God for every case. "Hence, revelation ought not to be thought of either as that which makes church known or that which leaves church unknown but rather as the overpowering light that renders church known as unknown."

Rollins states, "Consequently, we do not do theology (church) but rather are overcome and transformed by it; we do not master it, but are mastered by it." We must be willing to give up our talk about God and the church, or hold it loosely for the church to overcome us. I'm concerned that the emerging church conversation has become a place to master church, instead of be mastered by it. We are grateful and appreciated or generous enough to appreciate the ancient church, but too bitter to do the same for the modern church.

In line with Rollins' thinking about God, the church is not an object to be studied, replicated, etc. Rather, she is a subject to be in faithful relationship, understood not through study but experience, an experience with reality that transforms reality, not describes it.

Thus, God or the church as revelation can be met through the a/theistic religious community or church. Instead of a gross fundamentalism that excludes all other interpretations of reality that differ from one's own, "the a/theistic approach can be seen as a form of disbelieving what one believes, or rather believing in church, while remaining dubious concerning what one beleives about church."

Bonhoeffer & Rollins in Conversation

In his PhD. dissertation, Sanctorum Communio (SC) Bonhoeffer (DB) writes a sociological/theological account of the church and community. Instead of arguing for a narrow individualism, DB argues that humans exist as communal beings. This does not take away from the uniqueness of individuals, but rather highlights it.

The individual personal spirit lives solely by virtue of sociality, and the ‘social spirit’ becomes real only in individual embodiment. (SC)

DB then explicates a very helpful understanding of sin as both individual and communal so that guilt lies within both realms evenly (which I believe is a very important theological statement to make).

Thus, sin is not a biological problem, but a societal and individual problem. Every individual falls into sin, thus making the human race fall into sin anew. So here is where the church comes in:

It is 'Adam', a collective person who can only be superceded by the collective person 'Christ existing as church-community.' (SC)

The reality of the church is to be either denied or trusted, because it is by nature revelation. By nature man is capable of sin, not church which is understood by Bonhoeffer to be the presence of Christ.

Thus, everyone beomces guilty by their own strength and fault, because they themselves are Adam; each person, however, is reconciled apart from their own strength and merit, because they themselves are not Christ. (SC)

These thought by Bonhoeffer will be helpful when I bring Pete Rollins into the conversation. We'll need to remember that the church when it exists, exists not by the actions of 'Adam', but instead by the revelation of Christ, the church is Christ and Christ is the church. There is much that can be said here, but our focus is that whatever may be said of the church, it is the real presence of God in the world through the revelation of God himself.

Emerging Church Fundamentalism

I wonder if the way the church is talked about in the emerging missional church (EMC) conversation is related to fundamentalism. Because the emerging church can be complex and multifaceted, I'm not necessarily talking about any one thing. As a matter of fact I'm not talking about a thing or doctrine at all, but rather a way of thinking. Truly that's what fundamentalism is, a way of thinking (as noted by Pete Rollins in How (not) to Speak of God).

Rollins describes fundamentalism as holding a "belief system in such a way that it mutually excludes all other systems, rejecting other views in direct proportion to how much they differ from one's own." From my own experience in the EMC conversation, it seems that many who are going through the deconstruction process or are simply in the conversation can be the most excluding group of people when it comes to ecclesiology, writing off in a reactionary fashion any forms of the modern church.

Could it be possible that we've been so careful to have a generous orthodoxy, that we cannot have a generous ecclesiology toward the churches and institutions that have parented our faith. In a forthcoming post I'm going to bring together the thought of Bonhoeffer who claims the church is revelation and thus Christ and Peter Rollins who claims that Christians must be a/theists and "not master theology but be mastered by it." Or maybe that Christians must not master the church, but be mastered by it.

Holistic Christianity: Bonheoffer

Our being Christian today will be limited to two things: prayer and righteous action among humanity.

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

via.

Setting Boundaries, the Importance of Heresy

Although I finished this post a few weeks ago, I've had a hard time posting it. I'll give the reason's afterwards, but here's the post in full:

"In discussing the historical Jesus, Bonhoeffer explains why critical christology is important. Not everything about Christ is comprehensible, but the work of critical christology is to limit the incomprehensible, thus it determines the boundaries of "what may not be said about Christ."

It certainly is important to figure out what we should not say about Christ, otherwise our faith truly is nothing. This does not mean of course that we must completely understand the questions of "who" or "how" Jesus, but it does give us categories for comprehending the God-man, incarnate one.

In our pluralistic society one of the dirty words has become heresy, which Bonhoeffer links to critical christology. "If critical christology is concerned with fixing limits, that means it is concerned with the concept of heresy."

Bonhoeffer's notes on heresy are helpful for understanding its role and why there is a need to point it out. I do recognize that heresy often arises from power struggles and can lead to paternalism, but there is still a need to recognize what cannot be said about Christ, the limits. Heresy thus "emerges from the fellowship of the Church and not from an absence of love." To love someone in a brotherly or sisterly way means to speak the truth in love, and "if I do not speak the truth, then I treat him like a heathen."

Here's the reasons I had a hard time posting:
1) Heresy can often and is often what the "winners" say it is, thus the history and theology written by the western church does not mean its the only correct theology. Our own neo-colonial attitude toward theology in the global South and East (read nonWestern) is that we have to guide and protect "them" from heresy. We must speak the truth in love, when in actuality we are speaking are perspective on truth. In actuality, the more loving thing to do is to allow them to have their heresies.
2) We have our own heresies, so we should let others have them too. If I recall, most Christians that I know would be called a heretic by someone (i.e. Joseph Ratzinger).
3) The idea I found most resonating with me from Bonhoeffer's thought is that heresy arises from the fellowship of the church. This is what we need, for the church global and local to be connected and united in its diversity. We must have boundaries, but boundaries do not exist for the sake of judgment but rather for love. Boundaries help us know as much what we are for as what we are against.

The Real Work is Humbling

God sets out upon the humiliating path of reconciliation and thereby pronounces the world free. God wills to be guilty of our sin, and takes over the punishment and suffering sin has brought upon us. God answers for godlessness, love for hatred, the saint for the sinner. Now there is no godlessness, no hatred, no sin which God has not carried, suffered, and atoned. Now there is no reality, no world that is not reconciled and in peace with God. God did this in the beloved son Jesus Christ.

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Meditations on the Cross via

Setting Limits, Fighting Heresy

Although I finished this post a few weeks ago, I've had a hard time posting it. I'll give the reason's afterwards, but here's the post in full:

"In discussing the historical Jesus, Bonhoeffer explains why critical christology is important. Not everything about Christ is comprehensible, but the work of critical christology is to limit the incomprehensible, thus it determines the boundaries of "what may not be said about Christ."

It certainly is important to figure out what we should not say about Christ, otherwise our faith truly is nothing. This does not mean of course that we must completely understand the questions of "who" or "how" Jesus, but it does give us categories for comprehending the God-man, incarnate one.

In our pluralistic society one of the dirty words has become heresy, which Bonhoeffer links to critical christology. "If critical christology is concerned with fixing limits, that means it is concerned with the concept of heresy."

Bonhoeffer's notes on heresy are helpful for understanding its role and why there is a need to point it out. I do recognize that heresy often arises from power struggles and can lead to paternalism, but there is still a need to recognize what cannot be said about Christ, the limits. Heresy thus "emerges from the fellowship of the Church and not from an absence of love." To love someone in a brotherly or sisterly way means to speak the truth in love, and "if I do not speak the truth, then I treat him like a heathen."

Here's the reasons I had a hard time posting:
1) Heresy can often and is often what the "winners" say it is, thus the history and theology written by the western church does not mean its the only correct theology. Our own neo-colonial attitude toward theology in the global South and East (read nonWestern) is that we have to guide and protect "them" from heresy. We must speak the truth in love, when in actuality we are speaking are perspective on truth. In actuality, the more loving thing to do is to allow them to have their heresies.
2) We have our own heresies, so we should let others have them too. If I recall, most Christians that I know would be called a heretic by someone (i.e. Joseph Ratzinger).
3) The idea I found most resonating with me from Bonhoeffer's thought is that heresy arises from the fellowship of the church. This is what we need, for the church global and local to be connected and united in its diversity. We must have boundaries, but boundaries do not exist for the sake of judgment but rather for love. Boundaries help us know as much what we are for as what we are against.

Bonhoeffer on the Sermon & Truth

Continuing in my reading with Bonhoeffer I enjoyed his short exposition on preaching. The person of Christ exists in preaching. Humans words don't cloak the Word of God, "rather, God's Word has really entered into the humiliation of the words of men. Man's sermon is the Word of God, because God has freely bound himself and is bound to the words of men."

The role of the sermon as the Word of God is an idea that can be disconcerting. I often feel our churches often allow the preacher to become an authoritative figure towering over the congregation, thus disembodying the body of Christ. But to understand Bonhoeffer means that the sermon never stands over the body, but rather is shared within the body.

Truth is non-objectivistic for Bonhoeffer, which I was glad to read:

Truth is not something in itself, which rests for itself, but something that happens between two. Truth happens in community.

I have struggled with the task of preaching in our culture. A culture that doesn't trust authoritative figures that pull objective truth from the sky (read: their ass), a participatory culture, and an entertained culture. But I was reminded this week about the power and reality of the spoken word, especially when it is the Word as Bonhoeffer would argue.

Because of the many facets of preaching, I like that Bonhoeffer calls the sermon "both the riches and the poverty of the church." Our broken, frail human words become the Word and "what is impossible for man and what God promises are the same."

I think I believe in preaching if the sermon is formed by the community, for that is where truth happens. The sermon must be a shared act of the church. I'm not sure what this means exactly in my context, but I think it means intertwining the people's narratives with God's, forming and informing the Scripture with the people and forming and informing the people with the Scripture.

Maybe preaching is the task of asking better questions. Maybe preaching is learning to have fluid conversations about faith and Jesus over shared food, a camp ground, and a car ride.

Do you think that preaching is a necessary tool for the church's proclamation of the gospel? What does the task of preaching look like in our culture?

A Protestant Saint?

Since leaving seminary and beginning my work as a pastoral resident I've been asking myself the question of how I'm going to engage theology while remaining faithful to the task at hand, my job. My fear is that I'll leave behind something I love (theology) in the midst of the craziness of life OR that trying to engage in a continual study of some kind will distract me from my work.

To experiment I thought I would study Bonhoeffer's works and thought. I figured of all the choices out there, Bonhoeffer would be a strong friend in my ministry setting. I'm not sure how this will work since I'm also coupling my mentoring to finish my M.Div. this fall to graduate in December with my residency. With mentoring I'll be reading 6 or so books this fall, which isn't alot except that I'm also trying to figure out work.

I've already read a few books on or by Bonhoeffer: The Cost of Discipleship, Life Together, & Psalms by Bonhoeffer and The Bonhoeffer Phenomenon by Stephen R. Haynes. Inspired by a few friends who have recently read or are reading Bonhoeffer I'l be picking up Ethics, Sanctorum Communio, Letters and Papers from Prison, Bethge's timeless biography and I'm currently reading Christ the Center. I'll probably return to The Cost of Discipleship a few times, since I haven't read it since college.

There are many reasons why to choose Bonhoeffer, but his context and death in a Nazi concentration camp, his life, and his Christocentric theology that pushes for church reform are just a few.