A couple days ago, I wrote a short bit on Dick Cheney's Larry King interview. The comment section has metastasized in to a thoroughgoing theological discussion on the nature of God. I thought it would be better to provide a relevant forum for such a discussion. While I admire the way discussions can take on a life of their own, I much prefer comments to be on topic.
One of the interesting aspects of the discussion there are the assumptions on the part of Mom2 (welcome, by the way; come early and often, but bring your own coffee) that seem to come through. First, she seems to assume that the content of her claims about God - friend, savior, that his blood saves - are unknown here. At the same time, she seems to assume that repeating them to an audience that she seems to think is unaware of them will somehow make sense. In comments, Parklife makes the point that there seems to be a disconnect between Mom2 and the other commenters. I would have to agree and it is an obvious disconnect that can be missed if one is not looking for it. Mom2's claims concerning God are meaningless to others. Her words carry no emotional or intellectual weight for us. This is not to say they are inherently meaningless, or that she doesn't understand what she is saying, or that we are either so corrupt or obtuse here that we refuse what should be so obvious. On the contrary, as Parklife noted, and as Democracy Lover noted quite a while ago, we three are all acquainted with the religious vocabulary Mom2 is employing. We understand it, can give dictionary-like definitions of the way she is using the words. That does not indicate they have any meaning, however. They have no impact upon us at all.
I do not fault Mom2 here. This is the language with which she is familiar, these are the images of God that are useful for her, that guide her in her life, that comfort her when she is conflicted, and that serve as an anchor when doubts may assail (if they do). The problem, however, is that Mom2 seems to believe this is the only legitimate way of speaking and thinking about God in a way that is authentically Christian. All others are wrong.
I have tried to make a point, and usually have failed, but it is important to realize and recognize that there is no one normative Christian doctrine on anything. Different faith traditions may use the same words - the Trinity, salvation, the sacraments, whatever - but Coptic Christians in Egypt and Ethiopia, Marionite Christian in Lebanon, Syriac Christians in Damascus and Baghdad, Orthodox, Lutheran, Reformed, Evangelical all believe very different things, and understand their faiths very differently. None of them are wrong; one of the blessings of the diversity of expressions of Christianity is its demonstration of the limited nature of humanity in the face of the ultimate mystery of faith.
When I said that Mom2's God was too small, I was not trying to be deliberately offensive or insulting. I was attempting to convey to her that, for me, such a description didn't capture the fullness of my own experience of and thinking through concerning the Divine. Her God is someone she can approach, to whom she can speak of her troubles. For me, God is an awesome presence, both loved and feared - the two parts of the feeling of "awe". For Mom2, Scripture provides all the information she requires to understand the God in whom she believes. For me there is scripture, but there is also two thousand years of Christian tradition (hardly a tiny bit of which, beyond certain generalities, I really understand fully), my own experience as well as the experiences of those who have gone before me in the faith (and some who have not been Christian at all), and understanding and the faculty of reason. The Wesleyan Quadrilateral is a wonderful way of checking oneself against a too one-sided approach to thinking and talking about God. Scripture is contradictory and fallible. The tradition is both too large and too diverse to be used definitively. Reason is limited and, being fully human, fallible as well. Experience is too myopic, which can lead to solipsism. Taken together, however, they all serve to check an individual, to remind him or her of the limitations we all face, and open one to the possibility that, no matter how many words we use, or how we use them, we are probably wrong anyway.
