Creation in Context

The early chapters of Genesis are "lost" to many of us precisely because we expect this ancient text to anwer our twenty first century questions. We come to this text asking it to answer all of our questions concerning creation and evolution, even though the text was never written and edited with that specific agenda.

Many want to treat this ancient text like a sceince book and attempt to reconcile it with contemporary sceince, no matter their theological convictions: young earth creationism, progressive creationism, or theistic evolution. Others have understood the text as mere polemic -- that its only value as literature is to oppose the religious texts and thoughts of Israel's neighbors.

We must learn to see how the text would have operated as a theological text within the ANE context. If we fail to do so, not only will our understanding of the text be anachronistic, but we will miss the profound theological reflection of ancient Israel.

It may help to begin with a text that is not quite so controversial in order to illustrate my point. First some background: The Christians that wrote the gospels had a decision to make about how they would engage the classical Greek world with the message of Jesus.

They had continue their tradition in a specific language and they chose the Greek language. They could have continued in the Aramaic tradition like the Jewish rabbis, but since they were trying to make disciples of all nations they engaged the classical world in their native language. They also appropriated Greek ideas. In the gospel of John we read: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us (John 1:1; 14).

Most readers today might think, “Word? What an interesting metaphor.” But it wasn’t just a metaphor for the evangelist trying to engage the classical Greek world. The word John uses “Word” is the Greek term logos, which in the classical world meant something like “the logic or rationality that holds the world together.” It is the logic, reason, or superglue upon which the world is built. Most importantly, it was an impersonal force (think Yoda and the Force here).

So any Greek reading John’s Gospel might find himself agreeing with John saying "Oh yeah, logos, sure," until he read the “logos” became flesh and made his dwelling among us. For a Greek the physical world is something to be escaped not to “enter into,” and to attribute personality and flesh to the “logos” would have been absolutely revolutionary. He either throws the book across the room in disgust or is so intrigued by this idea for which Christians are so willing to give their lives that he keeps on reading.

This short treatment of John 1 is analogous to the way in which we must encounter and understand the creation narratives of Genesis. The ancient language, metaphors, structure, and ideas of Genesis must be allowed to move around and say what they were intended to say in their historical context before we draw on them for contemporary theological reflection.

A Creational Theology

Over the last couple years I have become convinced that we must understand God's activity in creational terms and ways. God as Creator is the lens through which we see all of God's activity, including redemption.

This is a growing trend in Old Testament studies, that creation, in the words of Walter Brueggemann, is the new "horizon of biblical faith." His article "The Loss and Recovery of Creation in Old Testament Theology" can be read by clicking on the link provided on the right side of the blog, and is helpful in that it traces the main trajectory of Old Testament studies over the last century with respect to creation theology.

What I am going to do is post several summaries of lessons I taught in a series I recently finished entitled Reclaiming Creation. I taught this at our church and the summaries will flesh out the what and the why of understanding creation as the horizon of biblical faith. The series was a great opportunity to read, study, and "try on" many of the ideas presented in Terence Fretheim's book, God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation. Fretheim's book was provocative and mind-stretching for me, and he has become one of my very favorite theologians to read.

While I am insistent that our theology be thoroughly creational, it must also be eschatological--it must have in mind the intended goal God has for the entire cosmos. An eschatological orientation, will, in the words of Jurgen Moltmann, "transform and revolutionize" our present lives, goals, and theological renderings.

As a footnote, I must add that while creation is the broad lens through which we see God at work in the world, there are two more motifs which must be employed in order to articulate a more fully-orbed forward-looking or eschatological view of creation. Those motifs are Kingdom and Community. Creation is our broadest category, the starting point and the goal (new creation)of God's work, the Kingdom motif provides us with the means of God's creational activity, and the Community motif is the resulting effect of God's creation activity.

At a later date I will be fleshing out the two motifs just named, but for now I want to concentrate on the motif of Creation by examining the rich creation theology of Israel.

Trinity Illustration

The traditional belief in God sees him as a Triune God. This means that God has revealed himself as three persons in one being. These persons can be distinguished in their work and nature; they cannot be separated in work and nature. -Dr. John Castelein.

This has been a helpful illustration for me when thinking about the Trinity. Here is why:

The orthodox understanding of the Trinity is that God has been revealed as three persons (hypostases) and one essence (ousia). This is illustrated in this drawing if we take the gold triangle to represent the Father, the blue as the Son, and the orange as the Spirit, we get an illustration of distinct "persons" with one "essence." See also that in the very middle of the drawing where the triangles converge we get a smaller triangle or "essence" if you will. Jesus says, "If you have seen me, then you have seen the Father." In keeping with the illustration Jesus says, "If you have seen my essence or come to know who I am, then you know the Father."

Each member of the Trinity is distinguished in their work. If we think about the creation of the world, all persons are said to have been involved, althought in different ways. The Father speaks, Jesus holds it together, and the Spirit is the life-breath of God which animates the creation. This is seen more clearly in the economy of salvation: God sends the Son, the Son is victorious, the Spirit applies the victory of Jesus to our lives. Each member of the Trinity can be distinguished in work, but are never seperated in their work. They each have their "hand" in the project.

I think this illustration is helpful, but like all other illustrations of the Trinity it leaves something to be desired. The trouble with illustrations is that none of them are really that good at describing the reality of God; who would have thought, right?

Most of our illustrations can "warm people up" to the reality of the Trinity, but usually end up illustrating something the early church rejected.

Even so, one of the most helpful tools in teaching someone about the Trinity is to show them why certain analogies don't work, even though the illustration may hint at the reality of the Trinity. This can help clarify for them what we are not saying so they can better grasp what we are saying.

For example, the illustration offered: one man fufilling three roles as father, son, and brother is similar to the water/ice/steam analogy of the Trinity, which is actually a really good illustration of Modalism. http://www.theopedia.com/Modalism

It can be helpful to get someone thinking about these realities by referring to these every day relationships and objects (egg, water, will/understanding/memory), and by pointing out the errors in these analogies, we can paint a clearer picture of what we mean by Trinity.

A Trinitarian Metaphysic

At the heart of Christian theology is the doctrine of the Trinity, which means all theology arises from this understanding of God and all portions of the Christian belief-mosaic point back to the reality of the Triune God.

The doctrine of the Trinity had been an important theological subject for the early church, reached a high point in Thomas Aquinas, but declined during the time of the enlightenment. Hegel and Barth restored the Trinity to its proper place and Karl Rahner became famous for his statement concerning the matter. Walter Kasper writes, "What K. Rahner sets down as a basic principle reflects a broad consensus among the theologians of the various churches."

During the period of the Enlightenment the doctrine of the Trinity was largely ignored by most theologians no matter what what side of the modern-fundamentalist controversy they landed. While the doctrine was cast aside as an embarrassing relic by more liberal theologians, conservative theologians did little more than affirm the classical doctrine of the Trinity handed down through the western tradition. The Trinity was something to affirm as a part of Christian tradition, but not a subject worth developing or reflecting upon, because of its mysteriousness.

It was Hegel and then later Barth, who began to break from the enlightenment treatment of the Trinity. They saw the Trinity as a necessary element of Christian proclomation and placed it at the heart of Christian theology. They paved the way for Karl Rahner and his now famous "rule:" "The economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity and the immanent Trinity is the economic Trinity."

By immanent Trinity he was referring to the speculative Trinitarian theology present in the neo-scholastics that relied little on the biblical narrative, which sought to understand God "in himself" in contrast to the God "experienced in the economy of salvation." Grenz writes, "the experience of God that arises in the economy of salvation remains a genuine experience of the eternal God, for through the process of salvation the eternal God reveals his own true self to humans.

Rahner writes that God is, "actually internally just the way we experience the divine in relation to us, namely, as Father, Son, and Spirit." Catherine LaCugna writes, "The identity of 'immanent' and 'economic' Trinity means that God truly and completely gives God's self to the creature without remainder, and what is given in the economy of salvation is God as such."

The important point that emerges from this discussion is that God has revealed himself as the most perfect and eternal community. He is a social God. God, according to LaCugna is not a "by-itself" or an "in-itself" but a person or a "toward-another."

The most important thing we can say about God is that he is relational and has revealed this to us in history. To quote Scripture, "God is love" (1 John 4:8) and he has revealed this love through his son supremely in the cross. God is the Triune God of self giving love.

This has many implications for theology, for it means that God must be understood in relational terms and ways. It has implications for how mankind is to understand his relationship to God, creation, and to himself. It has implications for the community called the church, and shapes our understanding of the goal God has for his creation.

Theology and Furniture

My wife Lyndsay and I were talking last night while we were washing and drying dishes. That's right, we don't have a dishwasher, so everything that gets washed around our house has to be done by hand. While we were doing this daily chore, we were discussing how we had rearranged our toy room/hobby room with the advent of another computer being added to the room for Lyndsay's use. I pointed out how often we find ourselves re-ordering our home as a result of either adding a new piece of furniture or item to our house for the purpose of organization, efficiency, or style.

Sometimes these changes require an entire overhaul of living spaces that come for example with moving the futon into the living room from the hobby room, or buying a new entertainment center and end tables. Other occasions only require simple changes like the adding a stuffed animal organizer in Xander's room, only requiring his torchere lamp be moved over one foot.

Just when we get things the way we like them some new situation presents itself and we find ourselves innovating new ways to make room for our Christmas tree. Once Christmas is over and we get things "back to normal," I'm sure we'll find something that we want to change or rearrange like moving the poang chair out of the hobby room. We always do. . . . and I like it.

Now, I am a preacher's kid; I grew up eating, sleeping, and breathing church. I have been serving the local church in some capacity for almost 12 years now. I have master's degree in theology and have been pastoring in the church for about eight years, and I grow increasingly astonished at how much and how often my study of Scripture and experience of God has forced me to shuffle around the furniture of the faith. I am completely humbled by the frequency and the magnitude of the "aha moments" that I experience with respect to what I really believe about God, the world, and the way of Jesus.

I have created this blog in the hopes that it will afford me an opportunity to articulate the basic shape of theology and spirituality of a person living in the way of Jesus. I feel the need to do this, because for the first time in my Christian life I feel as though my theology is less a hodge-podge collection of a billion different ideas I've learned and is also not a regurgitation of what "I've always heard" and has truly become what I think and believe. It is as if I have found a place for all the pieces of furniture in the house, instead of them all being piled up in the middle of the living room floor. One could actually sit down in this house. So, this blog is a chance to lay the furniture out and invite any readers to have a seat with me, to eat a meal together, watch an episode of Lost, or take a nap on the furniture. And through this eating, watching, napping, and sitting we may say to ourselves and to each other, "Wow I really like where this couch is located, but this lamp has gotta go. Where in the world did you even find this?"

I will be making several assumptions about specific theological subjects as well as assumptions about the nature of theology. The following is not a comprehensive list of these assumptions, it is a good snapshot of the ideas that will explicitly and implicitly frame most of the posts on this site.

My most important assumption is rooted in a Trinitarian metaphysic that that God is fundamentally relational. Therefore all theology must be grounded in this reality and point back to it.

I will be assuming that the biblical text is authoritative but not the only source of theology. Reason, science, experience, and tradition play an important role in the forming of our theology and must always be in conversation with our interpretation of the biblical text.

I will be assuming that theology, in the words of the late Stanley Grenz, "is always on its way."

Finally, my understanding of theology is such that all Christian practice is theological and all Christian theology is practical if it is truly Christian. Theology's most important task is to serve the church in order that she might better live out the way of Jesus.

So, I am inviting you into my home. Sit down, relax, have a cup of coffee, and let's talk.