Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Let’s Take Nicea Apart, Part III B


Okay, maybe the Universe doesn’t turn on a word.  However, it certainly does turn on the Nature of God.  Everything we talk about will ultimately start and end with the Nature of God.  That’s why the word ousia is so important and why we must find a way to agree about it.

Singling out a Single Attribute

Eventually we want to look at all the attributes of God’s Nature together.  That investigation is way down the road.  What’s important here is the realization that God’s Nature is one piece, and doesn’t function in parts.  The problem of taking things one-at-a-time constantly confronts us humans.  We must do our best to understand that each piece fits into the whole picture.  That’s hard, but we’ve got to do this if we’re going to keep any sense of balance, or even sort things out halfway right.  We must struggle to understand God as three persons, not as one attribute, or a collection of attributes, or a series of attributes.

We can’t help the one-at-a-time problem.  That’s built into us; it’s just another human weakness.  However, we’re not forced to pick out one attribute of God, throw all the other attributes away, and build up a wall of separation with anybody who dares to disagree.  That’s the source of tension.  That’s what causes the problem.  That’s what no one has any right to do.  Yet, it happens all the time.

Sources of Single Attribute Thinking

We might suppose that certain logic methods are less prone to this error.  But, lo and behold apophatic thinkers are just as guilty of this as cataphatic ones.  Now why would anybody be so fussy about logic structure and walk into a silly blunder like this?  I think it’s because we have an inherent love for idols, and we just hate it that God is Who He says He is.  How dare God behave like that?  Just Who does He think He is?  In any case, the sources of single attribute thinking are all around us everywhere.  We even have to fight and work to avoid this human tendency in ourselves.  The source of single attribute thinking is our human flesh, which is always at war with God.

Attributes don’t Define God

“God is defined by His unknowability.”  That’s a really dumb thing to say.  Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude.  But, that’s a really dumb thing to say.  Nothing defines God.  God is undefined and undefinable.  Doesn’t anybody study logic anymore?  Legs don’t define the cow.  The cow defines the legs.  Nothing defines God.  God defines everything else.  God defines what it means to know, and God defines what it means not to know; what is possible to know, and what is impossible to know.  Nothing makes sense if you try to take God out of the equation.

Love is the Popular Single Attribute

Are you surprised?  It’s very cool to say things like, “Love defines God.”  I even know of examples where apophatic theologians say such absurd things.  What an apophatic theologian ought to be saying is something like, “God is not unloving.”  Nobody should be saying anything as outrageous as, “Love defines God.”  God defines love!  We wouldn’t even have a clue of what love is like if God hadn’t taught us what it is on the Cross.

People who say things like, “Love defines God,” or Love is God, and sometimes even, “God is Love,” are guilty of creating an idol.  Yes, even though, “God is Love,” comes right out of the Bible, you don’t have to follow the conversation very far to realize that some speakers mean the exact opposite.  We just want to have an idol created in our own image.  I suppose we instinctively know that idols only do what we tell them to do; even though God is “not a tame lion,” and we do have to obey Him (C. S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia).

I don’t suppose that this is a hangover from Hasidism, though sometimes it feels that way.  Hesed is one of the Hebrew words for love.  The tendency of this kind of love is toward a manufactured piety and a superficial mysticism.  It tends to produce the sort of person that is “so heavenly minded, they’re of no earthly good (Oliver Wendell Holmes, perhaps).”  No, I’m not criticizing monasticism.  I have great respect for monasticism.  I’m criticizing folks that have forgotten that the God Who defines love also defines righteousness, and a ton of other things.

I’m addressing folks who have forgotten that our Lord Jesus Christ is a priest forever after the order of Melchisedec (Hebrews 5:6, 10; 7:1, 17, 21).”  Since Paul takes pains to repeat this four times, it must be important.  Zedek is the Hebrew word for justice or righteousness, and Melchisedec means king of justice or righteousness.  In spite of the fact that the Psalms are filled with the word Hesed, the King of Love is not found in the Bible, but the King of Righteousness is.  Certainly, Jesus is the King of Love, but without the King of Righteousness, the King of Love does not exist.

Most of us have figured out that you can’t have one without the other.  As soon as righteousness is removed from the equation, a false sort of love is fabricated which is “of no earthly good.”  Not only is it devoid of reality, but it’s even devoid of love, for love is now reduced to nothing more than a subjective, senseless, nihilism.

Even so, there are multitudes of those who loath any juridical idea of God.  For them a juridical God is a God of hate.  Their denial of reality is astounding.

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