So I've been thinking more the past couple days about my Zeus-for-Jesus exchange...and why it's so easy to do.
What the Greeks did when they made up their gods was simple: they started with humans and projected them into gods. It sounds silly when we read the stories, but really most of us do the same thing with God. We start with ourselves, filter through our experiences and guesses and feelings. We then project them onto a god that we then either accept or reject based on...well, based on ourselves.
My theology professor had a cool phrase for this circle of understanding God and understanding ourselves in relation to God: the Circle of Analogical Predication.
One way around this circle is what I just described: start with ourselves, project who we think God might be, and then we decide what to do with that. This approach to God, my professor argued, was going around the circle the wrong way.
This is the question: Who is first and who is the analogy? Am I first and so the character of God is predicated on or analogous to me? Or is God first and so my existence is predicated on and analogous to him?
When it comes to the Christian view of God, we've been given something outside of ourselves to approach Him. We've been given Jesus, the fullness of the Godhead in flesh. So we are no longer stuck in ourselves, no longer stuck with our own experiences, feelings, genetic predispositions, digestive track issues that might cloud our thinking on any given day, etc. We can start our way around the circle with God, not us. In a culture so self-absorbed we're absorbed with how sick we are of our self-absorption, this is good news, indeed.
So we start with Christ, listen and watch and study and begin to understand what he says about who God is and who we are (none of us really know that apart from Him) and then we are free to respond authentically, genuinely, in faith, hope and love. No longer in fear, guilt, anxiety, anger or apathy. This is going around the circle the right way.
You'll note that the only way to do this is by faith. It takes faith to go around the circle the right way, starting with God. Faith is the only vehicle for true understanding of God and consequently for understanding ourselves.
And so I'm freed from my Greek foolishness to understand and experience a God much bigger than my own projections of him. I'm free to no longer exchange one set of myths for another but to exchange my myths for reality.
1 comment:
great question, dabney. here's the tension: in the scriptures it says that without faith it's impossible to please God. So clearly there's an issue for someone who just 'doesn't have it.'
but i would argue that faith, like worship, is something that is intrinsic to all of us, it's just often mis-directed. so everyone is currently placing their faith in something to bring them happiness and fulfillment--you know the typical 21st century american list: work, relationships, ipods, etc. clearly 'believing in yourself' is a faith statement, and a rather large leap if you ask me.
it's not a question of whether or not you'll live by faith to find meaning in life, the only real question is what will you place your faith in? i think that once you can establish that faith is always in operation, it moves the conversation on to the object of that faith.
maybe faith in God is still a too-far leap; really, the Holy Spirit is the only one that can re-direct our lives of faith around the source they were intended to be lived in, but i think that pointing out that all of us live by faith you can move past that initial wall.
Post a Comment