CAN GOD RISE?

WHERE TO NOW?

So there you have it–my argument that the stool upon which we sit when we do theology is horribly unsteady. No matter how careful we are in our deliberations, the work is little more than individual and societal projections on material that is more or less archaic and irrelevant. Theology may be helpful for critical self-reflection but I am not sure about much else. However, the big problem is not for theology as a discipline. There is still much to be examined and dissected–histories to reconstruct, ideas to be unpacked, theologies to be contextualized. What is scarier to me are the implications of this post (and they do scare me). I am not just talking about the limits of our understanding but also how we encounter and understand the divine. If text, tradition, and reason/experience are unreliable guides, where then shall we turn?

The big question for me as the sun sets on Good Friday is whether or not I should be waiting for a resurrection. God is dead. Can God rise?

The three legs of the stool to which David Creech, a postdoctoral teaching fellow in the humanities at Loyola University Chicago, refers are Texts, Tradition, and Reason - yes our own Anglican stool, which is perhaps not so useful to us Anglicans as it once was.  First off, I'd suggest that you read Creech's entire post in which I found much to value.  At the end, he asks for feedback, and I left the comment that follows.

Grandmère Mimi

I agree that each of us who thinks seriously about our faith makes up our own theology based in one degree or another on text, tradition, and reason (and experience). Is God dead? Yes. Can God rise? Yes. For me the cycle happens every day. Daily, I experience death and resurrection with God. Without the grace of God in my life, I don’t know that I would be capable of carrying on. Not that my life is extremely difficult, for it is not, especially compared to the lives of others whom I know and others whom I don’t know, but I hear their stories.

The Scriptures contain a few verses which I call my touchstone verses, which I firmly believe point to the way I ought to live my life.

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)

“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 7:12)

‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, ‘ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’ (Matthew 22:36-40)

Holding on to these life-giving words as my ideal as to how I live my life, I’m able to theologize away and, at the same time, keep my my view of God and my faith life simple. Even if I completely lost my faith tomorrow, I believe I’d still want to live my life according to the instructions in my touchstone verses.

Theology is all well and good, and I enjoy reading, discussing, and thinking about theology, but the practice of my faith has much more to do with what happens to me in my encounters with God, because my relationship with God is what gives true meaning to my life of faith.  Intellectualizing my way into faith would not take me far without the experience of what happens between God and me.  A purely intellectual faith, if such a faith exists, is an enigma to me.

And, as I said in my comment, for me, it is necessary to find a way to keep my faith simple for those periods when I have much on my mind and little time for theologizing, and I want to acknowledge and accept the grace of God operating in my life.

H/T to Jim Naughton at The Lead for the link to David Creech's post.