Identifying God with Kathryn Tanner
Sixth, another part of this conversation
in identifying God is the notion of the spiritualty, knowledge, and will of
God. Most of us would assume such things of God. Such language is personalist. It
suggests we have a psychological disposition to appeal in worship to what is
like oneself. Yet, such language is a useful way for us to talk about God as a
creative agent.[1] Yet,
such anthropomorphic notions came under suspicion through Spinoza, Hume,
Fichte, and Feuerbach. To take one example, to refer to divine intelligence is
a metaphor similar to saying God is a rock or light. Interestingly, Hegel
viewed the Absolute or the Concept as creative power that is constantly
realizing itself. “It” has a “personal” quality. Further, the Hegelian logical
categories have an anticipatory nature, opening the door for freedom and the
significance of the future. The knowledge of God means nothing in creation has
escaped the attention of God. The notion of the will of God derives from the
human experience of a reality that presses upon us with power. The orientation
of this will is as creative and life-giving Spirit.
Seventh,
how are we to think of divine action? In particular, how are we to think of
divine action in relation to created beings that have their own power and
efficacy? We will need to explore metaphysics if we are to deal with the
question of divine agency.[2]
God is radically transcendent and God is immediately present in creative agency
with respect to all that is. How can we speak coherently in holding such truths
together?[3]
The result of creation and history has been suffering. Christianity at this
point will remind us of the eschatological consummation of creation and history
in this future action of God. The Eternal God is present at all times. The goal
of divine action incorporates the creatures of God into the eternal fellowship
of the Trinity. The preaching of Jesus regarding the nearness of divine rule is
an example of how we are closer to the consummation of divine action than we
are to its commencement. Think of it as divine self-actualization in the
spiritual and loving relations of the Trinity. A notion of self-actualization
within Trinitarian relations with the world opens us to the discussion of
between classical theism and open or process theism. Classical theism describes
God as pure act, a corollary to the notion of the unchangeable quality of God. It
affirms the power of God in creating and governing the world as unconditional
and unlimited, an affirmation that can imply coercive tyranny to modern ears. It
suggests the fullness of divine actuality. It would also suggest the absence of
realized potential. In contrast, actualization denotes change and movement. Yet,
even with classical theism, the gift of life is perpetual action of the divine
toward the creature. The divine is always moving toward particular creatures in
giving and sustaining life. The divine is always intimately involved with
particular creatures and is never aloof from them. The divine fullness of
actuality sustains temporal contingent existence during each of these moments.
In giving being to each particular creature, God knows, wills and relates to
each contingent creature. The will of God is intentional and always active in
each moment of contingent creatures even in the “not-yet” in the unfolding of
time.[4]
Eighth,
the Infinity of God is also a discussion of holiness, eternity, omnipotence,
and omnipresence. What Christianity needs to do is move away from the tempting
path of God as first cause, derived from Aristotle and Aquinas. It needs to
move toward the unthematic awareness of God in which philosophy offers the
notions of the Infinite and Eternal. Our first thought of the Infinite is that
it is in contrast to the finite. Through Hegel, we learn that if all we do is
contrast the Infinite and the finite, we place a limit on the Infinite, which
would be a contradiction. We can resolve the contradiction in a Hegelian way by
understanding that the true Infinite embraces the finite. Non-thematic
awareness of the Infinite can gain in clarity as we engage in theological
reflection.
One, considering
the Infinite as embracing the finite (Hegel), divine holiness is separate from
the profane, but also embraces it and brings it into fellowship with the holy
God.
Two, considering
the Infinite as embracing time, the eternity of God opposes the frailty of the
finite, but is more than just endless time; it becomes the basis for our
experience of time. Eternity examines, weighs, measures, and tests the
genuineness of being. Being and non-being are what they are in relation to
eternity. This means that it is a poor and shortsighted view to understand the
eternity of God only from the standpoint that it is the negation of time.
Eternity is separation between beginning, succession, and end in the context of
a positive characteristic that as true duration, the duration of God is the
beginning, succession, and end. Boethius gives the positive quality of
eternity. He took up the concept of eternity in Plotinus in his famous
definition of it as the simultaneous and perfect presence of unlimited life.
Eternity is the unending, total, and perfect possession of life. Eternity
becomes an authentic duration and not just a negation of time. Aquinas offered
the definition of “Total, simultaneous and complete possession of unlimited
life.” This positive meaning of the concept of eternity suggests that the
statement that God is eternal tells us what God is, rather than what God is
not. The path to the goal is time, suggesting again the primacy of the future
in our understanding of time. Boethius describes eternity as the perfect
possession of life. Eternity has a positive and embracing relation to time. We
experience life with an anticipation of its wholeness. A melody has a sequence
of notes, but we hear the whole. Speech is a sequence of syllables, but we hear
it as a whole. True eternity includes this possibility, the potentiality of
time. True eternity has the power to take time to itself, this time, the time
of the Word and Son of God. Eternity has the power itself to be temporal in
Christ. In virtue of Trinitarian differentiation, the eternity of God includes
the time of creatures in its full range, from the beginning of creation to its
eschatological consummation. The eternity of God accompanies time. Time may
also accompany the eternity of God which creates it and in which it has its
goal. The eternity of God goes with time. The eternity of God is in time. Time itself
is in eternity. Its whole extension from beginning to end, each single part of
it, every epoch, every life-time, every new and closing year, every passing
hour, are all in eternity like a child in the arms of its mother. Time does not
limit eternity. Eternity is in the midst, just as God is in the midst with us.
It is not a divine preserve. On the contrary, by giving us time, God also gives
us eternity. Our decisions in time occur with a responsibility to eternity that
is not partial but total, and we may and must understand and accept the
confidence with which we can undertake them as a complete confidence that we
gain from eternity. Having loved us from eternity, and granted us from eternity
our existence, fellowship with God, life in hope and eternal life itself, God
also loves us here and now, in the temporality ordained for us from eternity,
wholeheartedly and unreservedly. We move to God as we come from God and may
accompany God. We move towards God. God is, when time will be no more.
Three, with the
notions of the omnipresence and omnipotence, we can see the Infinite as the
presence and power of God as comprehending all things. The Trinity makes the
transcendence and immanence of God compatible. We see in God the art of using
power to make free.[5] To
turn aside from the source of life is to fall into nothingness, while the
omnipotence of God shows that God can save the creature from the nothingness
the creature chooses. Divine activity is universal and immediate in such a way
that created beings depend upon God for their independent agency. Created being
becomes itself in this intimate relation to the divine. God works in all
things, but God does not work alone. The work of God does not negate the
integrity of the action of individuals. Alongside the divine activity is a
place for the activity of the individual. Individual agency and the freedom
suggested in it are a gift of God. Within limits, one can even think of created
beings influencing divine activity, especially through prayer. It suggests the
mutuality of divine and human agency.[6]
Such a way of viewing the divine and human relation avoids the Pelagian
tendency of modern discussions, in which individuals have a sphere of activity
separate from divine activity. We are preserving the sovereignty and priority
of divine action.[7]
[1] (Tanner, God and Creation in Christian Theology:
Tyranny or Empowerment? 1988) Kindle edition, Location
862, 864.
[2] (Tanner, God and Creation in Christian Theology:
Tyranny or Empowerment? 1988) Kindle edition,
Location 29.
[3] (Tanner, God and Creation in Christian Theology:
Tyranny or Empowerment? 1988) , Kindle edition,
Location 596.
[5] (Tanner, God and Creation in Christian Theology:
Tyranny or Empowerment? 1988) Kindle edition
Location 1029.
[6] (Tanner, God and Creation in Christian Theology:
Tyranny or Empowerment? 1988) Kindle edition,
Location 1068, 1077, 1115, 1161, 1236, 1272.
[7] (Tanner, God and Creation in Christian Theology:
Tyranny or Empowerment? 1988) Kindle edition,
Location 1972, 1997, 2027.
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