The God Who May Be

Last year some Gordon faculty hosted a panel discussion as a response to much of pop-atheist literature (Hitchens, Dawkins and that slew of writers). One student brought up a reference to the post-internet movement "Why Won't God Heal Paraplegics?" by asking that same question. Of course if God wanted the world to turn to Him all He would have to do would be to perform some great miracle of healing, right? Dr. Gedney responded above most of the audience's heads when he said that that is the wrong question. It is not that God doesn't perform miracles; rather it is our response to these miracles that needs to be called into question. He mentioned that some of the greatest miracles ever performed were by His incarnate Son, and certainly not everyone fell at the feet of the Almighty even then. Would we prove any more responsive to shows of His power today? Thus the question and its assumed answer is misappropiated

In similar enigma--actually, I'm not certain that's entirely fair--Richard Kearney talks about "the God who may be," the God not of imagined existence, but the God our imaginations know. He is not, he claims, resorting to mere atheistic resignation, but rather encouraging--exhorting, requiring!--the use of imagination, of story, as means to God's incarnation post-ascenscion. In this way I'm encouraged; it is my responsibility--and, indeed, gift--to become a co-creator of this world by inviting God, through imagination--which doesn't imply fantasy or mere myth--to become incarnate.


Scripture as the human transcription of the divine.

Rabbinical interpretation is more generous--and no less aware of the divine nature. Certainly Christians have the knowledge of the incarnation, and yet Christ's mystic nature and enigmatic commandments are given little weight in our frantic efforts to "translate" the words of Scripture. Isn't interpretation then a more faithful approach to the divine, a method more in line with Christ Himself? Kearney argues that Christianity has, as one of many flaws, become all-too-eager to possess Christ, to worship Him as God understood (despite Christ's command "not to build a shrine here") rather than seek after Him as God-who-is-yet-to-be-grasped. When we ask "who is God?" we ask it unfairly, because we assume we already have right knowledge and correct answers.

We can't hope for the kingdom without interpretation.

"Hence there is hermeneutics in the Christian order because the kerygma is the rereading of an ancient Scripture. It is noteworthy that orthodoxy has resisted with all its force the currents, from Marcion to Gnosticism, which wanted to cut the Gospel from its hermeneutic bond to the Old Testament. Why? Would it not have been simpler to proclaim the event in its unity and thus to deliver it from the ambiguities of the Old Testament interpretation? Why has Christian preaching chosen to be hermeneutic by binding itself to the rereading of the Old Testament? Essentially to make the event itself appear, not as an irrational irruption, but as the fulfillment of an antecedent meaning which remained in suspense. The event itself receives a temporal density by being inscribed in a signifying relation of "promise" to "fulfillment." By entering in this way into a historical connection, the event enters also into an intelligible liaison. A contrast is set up between the two Testaments, a contrast which at the same time is a harmony by means of a transfer. This signifying relation attests that the kerygma, by this detour through the reinterpretation of an ancient Scripture, enters into a network of intelligibility. The event becomes advent. In taking on time, it takes on meaning. By understanding itself indirectly, in terms of the transfer from the old to the new, the event presents itself as an understanding of relations. Jesus Christ himself, exegesis and exegete of Scripture, is manifested as logos in opening the understanding of the Scriptures." (Paul Riceour)

Coalescence of the "no longer" and the "not yet."

So we are fated to wait, but wait in imagination.

At the Transfiguration God becomes enshrouded in white cloud and we don't know who He is anymore.

Even those who spent years with Christ, Kearney notes, didn't immediately recognize Him, because God decided against full self-disclosure. We cannot possess God, nor the idea of God. Thus the reality of God is manifested and actualized through, interestingly enough, the realm of the possible. We are not--like children--questioning the raw existence of God, but rather our idea of Him, a task to which He holds us responsible.

Story is the great mediator of the Bible.

Is it almost more heretical and blasphemous to read the Bible literally? Of course, Riceour would say that we're only reading an interpretation of an interpretation...

Kenneth Cauthen says that "the modernist view is that everything in Scripture must be judged by what is most excellent in its witness, and it is we the interpreters who decide that. Authority resides in the fact that the biblical witness evokes acceptance by our reason in the light of our experience and all the relevant evidence we can bring to bear from all sources. This provides for me the best way to use the Bible with integrity."

And yet God is something to be reached for. God is something to be grasped!

Rather than an object to be completely known and/or contained.

We are given the choice--and the power--to become co-creators of the seventh day, to help complete the work God left unfinished.

God’s very narrative of creation leaves room for His creation to not just dwell, but to live. To effect, and not be affected.

God is calling for incarnation, but this cannot be unless and until we respond to these cries.

Just as we are co-creators with God, we become in a sense agents of His return, the means of His incarnation and vessels of His incarnation--to the least of these.