the doctrine of God...a rough sketch

The vast expanse of the infinite that is God, asks of humanity to attempt an explanation of the infinite. I believe that it is productive to speak about God in more than simply via-negativa theological language. To speak of God does not by necessity imply that we must speak in absolute terms, our language about God is fluid, thus it is always changing depending upon our context, the important inference regarding our assertions about God, however, lies in our ability to speak in the same direction towards the infinite together. When we speak about God we do it in contextual human terms in contextual worldly and all together human places. When speaking about God we have no obligatory necessity imposed upon us to speak about God upon God’s terms objectively but upon God’s terms subjectively. This subjective and symbolic partnership with humanity is the God we see attested to in the scriptures and particularly in the story of Jesus. This God who meets humanity not on the terms of the creator over the creation, but this God who meets humanity on the terms of the creator with humanity, a God pro-humanity. The focus of this paper will be to explore the humanity of God and what this reveals about the way in which humanity speaks about and interacts with God and what it reveals about God in and of God’s self to humanity which, I suggest, are our capacities for good, love and freedom.
We cannot attempt to condition God, or break God down to core concepts or statements to which God must equally agree upon. For even theologians must ask the question of who can reveal God but God God’s self. This is the difference between believing in the dogmas about the Christian God and to believe in the following sense: ‘to give one’s heart, one’s self at its deepest level to the post-Easter Jesus who is the living Lord, the side of God turned toward us, the face of God, the Lord who is also the Spirit.’ As an example, to say that Jesus is God based upon the resurrection alone is to say something that no one expected or inextricably linked to divinity as the reason that Jesus has come to be spoken of as God. For there is nothing in pre-Christian Jewish literature to suggest that anyone would connect the fact of someone rising from the dead with their being divine, whatever that might mean, so of course there is nothing to connect such an event with that person being Israel’s Messiah. The revelation of God is left in full reserve to the actions and will of God, thus to box God is irrelevant for it is a logical impossibility.
The attempt to box God is an exercise in futility, if humanity is to speak about God in absolute or objective terms. It is my humble opinion that God is not impassible in the Greek philosophical connotation for it is deeply rooted in humanities limited sense of perfection. However, I do believe that there are characteristics included in the triune Godhead that do not change in any sort of completeness, but in the freedom of God can be nuanced, God’s love, as an example, is manifested in human terms in human contexts. Though we cannot speak about God in objective or absolute terms, we are not left with a deep sense of thin relativism either, we can speak about God in contextual, inspiring and significant terms as subjective beings who commune with God by the power of the spirit. Therefore the question, which I am proposing regarding the Doctrine of God, and more specifically the Humanity of God, is simply what is revealed to humanity in the Humanity of God.
I believe that in the humanity of God we have the greatest expression of who God is. God enacts a symbolic parable of who God is, as God creates humanity and then becomes human in the person of Jesus. In the very act of creating humanity, God has created a being that is authoritative and more capable than any other being to do the will of God, a being who has the ability to create life, art, beauty and to embrace God the supreme other. As God becomes human in the person of Jesus of Nazareth the climax of God’s work in history is achieved as God overcomes sin to enter the world to restore, recreate and reclaim the cosmos from the powers of darkness. In the humanity of God, as God becomes present among humanity, we are shown the possibility of what humanity could be. We are a promising race, above all our capacity for good and the power we possess to imagine a different world; however, due to ‘the fall’ we lack the light to guide the way toward God. Due to this fall God then becomes humanity in order to guide the way toward God in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. I firmly believe that in the person of Jesus of Nazareth God instates the New Covenant to restore the balance of peace, through a mutual communion between God, humanity and the Cosmos. This is the point at which the revelation of love comes to us in the humanity of God.
I believe that it is in the person of Jesus that the Love of God is manifested toward humanity. Love is a volitional act within the capacity of humanity to do the will of God, it is purposeful for all to embrace and be embraced by the other. It is not unfounded affection, conjured by humanity, rather through possessing the capacity to relinquish all claims we relinquish our rights and our freedom from each other, it is a matter of contemplative reflection as well as human empathy. The purpose of love is exclusively determined by God’s will for the other, namely to subject the other to God’s rule through and by the purposeful act of love. This volitional act of love, loves the existentially connected real neighbor, or any individual to which we are present. Thus God’s will for humanity is revealed in the humanity of God, through the vehicle of self-sacrificial love, to put it simply a love that costs us something.
This capacity for good, which lies within every human individual, is our capacity for sincere and effectual love. This capacity for love is not a metaphysical connection to God, we do not love God in the ‘neighbor’ rather I and We love in the concrete and real by the means of You or They. We love by placing ourselves, and our entire capacity for love in the service of the other and of God. Love provides the power to truly embrace the other through the Spirit, which means to overcome sin, for sin cannot be simply overlooked or ignored by God, sin must be overcome through the power of God in and through humanity. This brings us to a question, is love that loves only the neighbor, therefore, purely spontaneous and not goal orientated love? I humbly suggest that it is both. The person who loves God must, but necessity of God’s will love the other. For love is nothing other than continuing the story of Jesus by bringing the will of God into the realm of the actual by our capacity to love. To live in and to love through life’s, problems, duties, triumphs and failures is to live unreservedly in this world, to live completely in this world is to take seriously not our own sufferings, but those of God and the world, through this unreservedly living one throws themselves completely into the arms of God. This is how one comes to have faith and thus this is where one comes to be truly free, but not a freedom from others, rather a radical freedom for the other.
In the humanity of God, through God being present or with humanity, humanities capacity for freedom is reclaimed and restored through the power of the spirit in community in the Presence of Christ. ‘Humanity is free to bring ‘his or her’ pleas before God. In so doing ‘we’ are free to hope for the great light, the great vision that will illuminate the world, the Church, ‘our fellow brothers and sisters and ourselves’. A Christian is one who makes use of this freedom to pray and live in the hope of the end which will be the revelation of the beginning.’ This radical freedom is not and cannot be a self-absorbed freedom; rather it is a freedom that asks something of humanity in order for it to be enacted sincerely. Freedom is given back to humanity through the Victory of God in Jesus Christ. The freedom of God is not a freedom from the cosmos but a freedom to and for the cosmos. It is in the reverence before the free God who accepts humanity as God’s partner without relinquishing God’s sovereignty. This event alone is the event of freedom. When genuine human freedom is realized inevitably the door to the “right opens” and the door to the “left” is shut. This inevitability is what makes God’s gift of freedom so marvelous, and yet at the same time so terrifying. Freedom is revealed to humanity by the enacted and symbolic parable of God becoming humanity to bare the sin of the world. Just as sin reigned through one man, Freedom reigned through another and thus in the divine speech act of God becoming humanity, humanity is given a light to guide the way, love and freedom at the hands of God God’s self.
This is a rough sketch of the humanity of God and the revelations and implications that this has for humanity. In the grand scheme of things the humanity of God is vital to the contemplative reflection of individual Christians and to Christian communities, that God came to be with us, that God continues to be with us, that God reveals God’s self to us are vital to the project which God wills, the restoration and reclamation of humanity and the cosmos. The right and form of manifestation of all revelation, especially concerning the doctrine of God, continuously rests in the hands of God. Humanity cannot force God to reveal God’s self, but in God’s absolute freedom God partners with humanity in the eternal hope of restoration, reclamation and renewal. This eternal hope will one day be actualized and the world that people of God have imagined will no longer be something imaginary, but something realized, tangible and actual. To imagine the world differently and to actively pursue that world is to throw oneself completely into the arms of God and thus to have a sincere and authentic faith.