‘A more Christlike God’ – 1
Chapter 1 – What is God really like?
Human thoughts and language about God must always be deeply inadequate, writes Brad Jersak.
Any pronouns we use for God – ‘he’, ‘she’, or ‘it’ – are inadequate.
Even saying that God is a ‘being’ may be unsatisfactory: God should, rather, be thought of the ‘ground of being’.
It may be that the very exercise of theology is an attempt to put God in a box, to turn God into a specimen to be examined under the microscope, to reduce him to our own puny proportions.
‘The stubborn fact is that whatever we say about God or for God with great certitude is sifted through the thick veils of our religious traditions, cultural assumptions and personal interpretations.’
After all, there are countless versions of God not only between the different faiths, but within each of these faiths. John Wesley thought that John Calvin’s God was worse than the devil! And, among today’s pastors, John Piper’s grasp of God is poles apart from that of Brian McLaren. Perhaps we are talking about entirely different religions and different gospels here (cf. Gal 1:6-8).
A person’s ownl views of God may have changed drastically over the years. Am I now worshiping a different God to the one I prayed to in my youth?
Those who claim to believe in ‘the God of the Bible’ must become much more aware that they do so ‘through the thick lenses of [their] own unconscious biases’. We do not get to fashion God in our own image: we need to rely on his own self-revelation.
What God is not…
Some think that the best we can do is describe God in terms of what he is not. God is a father, a king, a shepherd…but in what ways is God not like these things?
This approach reminds us that God is always bigger than any metaphors – including biblical metaphors – that might be applied to him.
For example, the imagery of a serpent represented God’s healing love in Num 21 (cf. Jn 3:14f). But, later, the same image became an idol (2 Kings 18:4).
A negative theology prompts us to ask both/and questions. God is present – so why does he feel absent? God dwells in unapproachable light – so how can we be invited to draw near with confidence?
What God is…
But there are some vital truths about God for which there is no negative counterpart:
- God is good and is never evil. He is the perfection of all we call goodness.
- God is love and every other aspect of God must align with his love.
- God is light and in him is no darkness whatsoever (1 John 1:9).
- God is perfect beauty and in him is no ugliness at all.
- God is perfect truth and let no one call him a liar.
- God is perfect justice and in him is no injustice at all.
But, whereas systematic theologians tend to speak of the divine attributes in rather sterile terms, Paul speaks of the divine energies:
‘Energeia is also translated in the New Testament as ‘power’ (Eph. 1:19), ‘working’ (Eph. 3:7; 4:16; Phil. 3:21; Col. 1:29) and ‘operations’ (Col. 2:12). We see God’s energies at work when Paul says, “That energy is God’s energy, an energy deep within you, God himself willing and working at what will give him the most pleasure” (Phil. 2:13 MSG).’
These energies are not merely attributes: they are God in action. And,
‘We will never penetrate the infinite depths of God’s essence, but God’s uncreated energies penetrate our world and our lives.’
God is like Jesus
Beyond the negations of apophatic theology, and the divine energies previously mentioned, we encounter a person who is the perfect image of God.
Jesus is Emmanuel (God with us).
The incarnated life of Jesus – his birth, ministry, death and resurrection – is the decisive revelation and act of the God who is love (1 Jn 4:8). And that is so because Jesus is God. He is the exact representation of God (Heb 1:3). All the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in him (Col 1:19; 2:9).
Rejecting the un-Christlike God
It’s not surprising that many non-Christians reject, not Jesus himself, but un-Christlike perversions of God.
For others, it is life’s tragedies and disappointments that cause us to doubt the existence of a good and loving God. So it was with Charles Darwin, whose fragile faith was dented, not so much by his theory of evolution, but by the death of his beloved daughter Annie.
But could it be that what such doubters are rejecting is not the God who is revealed in Jesus, but some un-Christlike version of God (i.e. no God at all)?
Trigger questions
Once we accept that God is completely Christ-like, many of our inherited Christian beliefs and practices are called into question. Indeed, large swathes of Scripture itself are found to be inconsistent with the Christ of the Gospels. Especially, expressions of absolute divine power are undermined by Christ – especially in his Passion.
‘Yes, he proves victorious, especially in his resurrection, but remember that Paul resolved to preach ‘Christ and him crucified’ (1 Cor. 2:2). You could resist him, you could mock him and beat him up. You could kill him. And we did. Our God is the cruciform Christ, the ‘weakness of God’ (1 Cor. 1:25) who is stronger than men. Why? Because he operates by overcoming love, not by overwhelming force.’
If God is ‘in control’, why is this world in such a state? –
‘If God is the loving Father Jesus proclaims, what about suffering and affliction? Why does God allow evil people to have their way? Why doesn’t God prevent or protect us from natural disasters? And what’s the deal with Jesus’ death? Was God really punishing Jesus for our sins? And God’s wrath? Why does God seem to over-react and get so violent in the Bible? Then there are the wars and merciless acts of genocide committed by God and in God’s name! Didn’t God incite these atrocities? The Bible says he did. How is that Christlike?’
And what about hell? –
‘“I love you, but if you don’t love me back, I will torture you with fire forever and ever!”’
Jersak concedes:
‘Sometimes even Jesus seems to describe this kind of God. It’s not as simple as tossing the Old Testament; God the vengeful king makes a cameo appearance in several of Jesus’ parables. Awkward!’
It is time for Christians to stop evading these questions, and face up to them honestly.
Removing boulders
These questions are not merely theoretical. They are personal. Thoughtful people are deeply troubled by questions about God’s supposed goodness in the light of what they’ve heard and experienced about life, death, hell, violence and so on.
The Father’s love revelation
In recent decades, many Christians have moved on from the controlling, punitive God of their childhood. They now speak and sing of ‘the Father’s heart’. But countless others have fled the church and have not yet received this ‘upgrade’. They still have nothing to place the tired hell-fire rants of old-style revivalists and would-be prophets. But is not an obsession with other people’s sin just a cover for our own deeply repressed cravings? Is the message of God’s love and grace not sufficient, or do we really need the threat of hell as well? Is not hedonism itself a reaction to this:
“I’m going to hell anyway. May as well enjoy myself while I can”.
But many have been rediscovering the authentic gospel (as opposed to the ‘gospel’ of ‘moralism and hellfire revivalism’). We have experienced the good news of God:
And this is a message which is increasingly being written about, sung about, preached, and experienced.
It is the gospel of God as Abba, Father, who, in the teaching of Jesus, offered:
‘extravagant love, affirmation, affection and belonging. It meant scandalous forgiveness and inclusion.’
It is the gospel of God who is exactly like Jesus (Jn 14:9).
*****
I appreciate two things in particular from this chapter. Both spring from Brad Jersak’s embrace of Eastern Orthodoxy. Like Jersak, I find the notion of negative (apophatic) theology helpful up to a point. Moreover, I thought that the brief discussion of divine ‘energies’ was helpful and stimulating, as an alternative (or complement) to the more usual talk of divine ‘attributes’.
Disappointing, however, was Jersak’s simplistic and cavalier dismissal of those whose views and practices he aims to ‘improve’. His stock-in-trade consists of soundbites. Who, exactly, are these terrible ‘hell-fire revivalists’ he affects to despise? When he does name names, we are treated to nothing more than a rhetorical wave of the hand. For example, it is highly misleading to simply state that ‘John Wesley thought that John Calvin’s God was worse than the devil’, as if that proved that they were at opposite ends of the theological specrum, and they worshipped almost entirely different gods (on which, see here). A fairer and more nuanced approach would be to say that:
- Wesley said that the God of Calvinism was worse than the devil in one particular respect: the doctrine of predestination.
- Wesley also stated that Methodist doctrine came within ‘a hair’s breadth’ of Calvinism.
- Wesley, as an Arminian, came into serious doctrinal conflict with George Whitefield, a Calvinist. But the two men loved each other (Wesley preached at Whitefield’s funeral) and had high regard for one another’s ministries. And, in the handling of their theological differences, it happens to be Whitefield who handled the situation with the greater grace and forebearance (Whitefield wished to keep the peace by not publicising their differences, but Wesley thought otherwise).
Now, it may well be that Jersak knows all this. But, if so, he should not deceive his readers with gross over-simplications.
But, more serious yet, what is beginning to emerge from Jersak’s book is a large-scale rejection of the Bible’s witness to God. If Jersak is right, large swathes of the Old Testament must be jettisoned. And even the Gospels, the prime sources of our knowledge of the God who is revealed by Jesus, contain some ideas (in the parables) that are inconsistent with Jersak’s account of the God of love.
So, is it in fact, a truncated, rather than an enhanced, doctrine of God towards which we are being led?
We shall see.