A Pint And Theology?

The other day i was having a pint with one of my brothers at one of the local bars in town. He is well known there, and whenever he takes one of his brothers with him he tends to introduce us to all his regular friends (or acquaintances, to use his terms-he doesn't like to admit that he actually has friends). I have attended a few times and it seems to be that whenever i go i am drawn into conversation in some way about theology. Not out of my own doing, mind you. But someone will inquire about what i graduated in and once they learn i studied theology, off we go on an hour long tangent. From cracks against redheads, union worker griefs, and motorcycle intrigue to God, Jesus and the Bible (or whatever suits the regular's fancy). In some way it seems to seek me out, theology that is, and i don't mind it. It keeps my mind rolling which, many of my friends know, accumulates quite the momentum at times. It is interesting to observe the diversity of people's reactions to me once they realize i majored in theology. I have come across excitement, avoidance, interest, apathy, and hatred-from the well meaning to those out to smother anyone who mentions the dreaded term 'religion'. It's kind of fun to be around such a mixed group of people, even if it takes a good dose of patience to understand what people are trying to articulate.

The last time i went i had a conversation with a man in his late 40's. When he learned of my studies he became quite excited (granted he had had quite a few by that time), and went on to describe quite a story. I'm sure i couldn't go through it all, but to keep it simple he told me about his life. How he had spent much of his younger years as a fisherman and, after a fiscal blow to the industry, found himself on the street selling cocaine to support his daughter. After a few years of this he then took the road back to being sober (that is, free from drugs) and into construction work. He told of his quite mystical experiences and finally explained how he came to Christ. Though it was quite a jumbled mass of information, the most interesting part is how he had realized the faithfulness and presence of God in his life through thick and thin. He had quite the testimony to God's patience and was quite grateful in spite of coming to grips with the fact that he is dying from cancer and has not the means for the proper medical procedures. The same night i found myself talking with a younger man who had attended a seminary in Portland and now finds himself in a most militant manner against the idea of God, Jesus, and the Bible especially. He couldn't get past the legitimacy of the flood, or other 'grandiose' ideas presented in the Bible and therefore had nothing but bitter criticism for the Church and its people. Quite the mixed bag, for sure.

Of late i have been reading Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind by P. T. Forsyth. It is quite the exploratory book, as it delves into preaching, modern thought, historical inquiry and theological musing, to name a few. Here is a passage from the book in the chapter 'The Preacher and the Age' that i found most intriguing.

'It is very singular that on the most grave concern of life a serious man so often makes up his mind in an offhand way. His religious views are of the most casual kind. He seldom really takes pains with the matter. He does not attend to it. His opinions are a sort of spontaneous deposit on the surface of his mind. If it were a business matter he would go into it. If it were a scientific question he would train his mind, and then examine. He takes business and science seriously. But his religion he does not. Scientific people who begin to desire some acquaintance with theology will betake themselves, not to the masters of that discipline as they would with any other science, but to popular sciolists who happen to have a vogue. It is not a matter worth study, as history, literature, philosophy, economy, or the markets are. I do not say a man's religion must be the result of professional or technical study, like these subjects. But it should receive no less earnest attention, and engage him no less seriously and personally, and not be taken at haphazard. That casualness is the source of most of the confusion of the time. Every important topic of human discussion seems a pathless thicket to the person who gives it no attention. It is only after you have taken it seriously for a year or two that it opens into clearness and order. Religion is confused and pathless chiefly to those who treat the greatest concerns with most levity. And it is clear and great not from without the Church, but from within. To look at a building like Albert Hall, or even St. Paul's from the outside, you would have no such impression of its vastness or grandeur as you receive from its interior. And so with Christian truth. It is really and mightily true only from within.'

It is interesting to me that on one hand, during my time at the bar the other night, there is a man who has had no learned education and yet finds 'God' a most appealing topic, and on the other, a man who has spent time in study, possibly years, and finds no more room for 'God' in his life. I'm not trying to infer that by these two gentlemen Forsyth is wrong in any way. In fact, possibly just the opposite. The older gentleman mentioned to me a that there was a reason for the younger man to be so callous. He told me, 'it's because he hasn't had to see someone die yet'. I don't know if that is true, but i heard him out just the same. It's interesting to me because although the younger man had spent time in 'professional' study, he had not the life experience that the older man had. Not to say that age is the only factor here. And maybe its because the younger man has '[made] up his mind in an offhand way' or maybe its because he hasn't given Christianity the opportunity to really engage him seriously and personally. Obviously i cannot be for certain, but again it sets my mind wheeling.

I have been thinking for a time that i may go to seminary. In light of this i have been given quite a large amount of advice concerning this thought. One idea came up when i was talking to a married couple, friends of mine, who are enrolled at Fuller Seminary in California. They told me that the reason why so many fellow students are having a hard time in seminary is because 'they spend there whole time talking about God and they never actually talk to God' (they may be quoting someone, maybe one of my professors, but it escapes my mind for now). I think this may shine a little bit of light on what Forsyth is saying when he says, 'it is clear and great not from without the Church, but from within'. It is easy for one to delve into the arguments about the historical validity of the Bible and whether or not things actually happened the way they are told. Or get hung up on one iota and completely miss the point. It is easy to talk around a subject and never actually engage with it. It is a technique of arguing that happens quite a bit in conversation as i have discovered. And it is so with Christ. As one begins to study theology it can be a slippery slope, and one can lose track of the purpose. As Paul wrote it, 'knowledge puffs up'. Theology is not free from the same danger. But if i can quote a great professor of mine, Adam Neder, (i believe, in summary of another theologian) 'the study of theology is unique in that you do not master the subject, the subject masters you'.

God Hidden and Revealed

In the course of my (relatively) short foray into Lutheran Theology (which, by the way, is teaching me just why it is that theologians peak in the latter part of their lives), the doctrine that I have struggled the most with is that of the hidden God and the revealed God.

Let me start by attempting to summarize the relevant parts of Lutheran Theology as I understand it now. One of the primary, if not the primary, distinctions in Lutheran theology is that of Law vs. Gospel. Law is defined functionally rather than ontologically (not sure if that's the right word). In other words, Law is defined by what it does rather than what it is. When Luther says Law, he doesn't necessarily mean the Mosaic Law or some abstract moral law, although he could, but he means anything that does Law to us. Luther talks about two functions of the Law: the pedagogical (from Paul's use of παιδαγωγός [paidagogos] in Galatians 3:24-25) and the civil. The civil use (function) of the Law refers to keeping order here on Earth in our day-to-day lives. This could mean Mosaic Law, but it could also mean the laws of our government and society. The pedagogical use is that which shows us our separation from God, that which shows us our sin. This can refer to anything, from Jesus' greatest commandments to Romans 3:23 (for all have fallen short) to a nagging conscience. One of my favorite images Luther uses is that of leaves rustling in the wind on a dark night in the woods. Anything that causes fear in you, anything that reminds you of your own mortality̶̶̶̶-- this is fulfilling the pedagogical function of the law.

Obviously we find the pedagogical use of the law to be... unpleasant, and we are willing to do anything to silence that voice. We look for solutions and schemes which will bring us closer to God and make us worthy of him. At the same time, we are terrified of God and are bound (like, with chains) to reject him. I know that, for those of us brought up in the Church, it can be hard to really understand that kind of fear of God. We, at least in the tradition I grew up in, are much more likely to talk about being buddies with God than subjects of him. Imagine for a moment what we know about God on our own apart from what has been directly revealed to us. We end up with the "God of the philosophers," as Pascal calls him in Pensées. We end up with an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent God. This God is the creator/source of all there is (good and bad) and yet we want to say that he is all-loving as well. This God is so big as to be incomprehensible to us and he is the one in charge of our destinies. Luther refers to this God of natural theology as the "Hidden God." This is God in himself. This is a God that, ultimately, is hidden from us. In his book Where God Meets Man, Gerhard Forde puts it this way:

...general concepts and ideas such as almightiness, immutability and even predestination do not in the first instance reveal God to us so much as they hide him from us. They do not at first comfort or console us so much as they frighten or even repel us...But the point in saying that God is hidden is to lead us to recognize that this is exactly the way God intends it to be. He does not want to be known as he is "in heaven," in his mere "almightiness" or even merely as "the God of predestination."

Note that we are not denying that this is how God is, but we are saying that we can never really know God in this way. This God, the Hidden God, is just too big and too frightening for us to know. We are never sure if he is for us or against us. We're never quite comfortable saying what he is or isn't doing. Luther says that the Hidden God is often indistinguishable from Satan. Who's responsible for Hurricane Katrina? What about the earthquake in Haiti? 9/11? Many said that this was God punishing us while others would say that it was the act of Satan, if they gave it a supernatural cause. The fact is that we have no idea what the Hidden God is doing or not doing, nor do we know why. So how can we know God? I'll continue Forde's quote:

He wants to be known as the God in the manger or at his mother's breasts, the God who suffered and died and rose again. His almightiness, his unchangeability, the threat of predestination- all these things are "masks" which God wears, so to speak, to drive us to look elsewhere, to look away from heaven and down to earth, to the manger and the cross, to preaching and the sacraments.

God is hidden in the abstract so that he can be revealed in the concrete, in his history with humanity culminating in Jesus Christ. This God, the Revealed God, is the source of Gospel. This is the good news that we have: God is indeed for us and not against us and has worked everything out for our good.

So here's my issue: what does it mean for God to be both Hidden and Revealed? How can we say that the Revealed God is the same as the Hidden God, who is so hidden as to be easily confused with Satan? How do we know that the promises made to us by the Revealed God will be upheld by the Hidden God? I have some beginnings of ideas, but for now I'll let the questions stand.

The Blog Blog.

So, this is a blog about the blog of the brothers buther.
Who, might you ask, are 'the brothers buther'?
Well it is simple, but obviously not apparent.
Answer is, John and Tyson.
Although, i assume, as the 'primary author', John will be less active than I.
Why name a blog such?
Well, it's pretty lame so figure it out.

This will be a pool of our thoughts and probably others too.
We have at times thought about things with a strong theological focus.
So, i apologize if that doesn't suit you so well.

I'm sure that we may find some way to get the dialogue rolling, but this is not that blog.
And since i find it hard to initiate activities involving multiple people i'm sure this blog is one step in the right direction.

Tyson out.