Knowing God?

I feel like the question of how we come to know God occupies a lot of my time.  It's a funny question.  For me, it doesn't spring from any anxiety about my own knowledge of God.  Perhaps there is some angst over the fact that other people don't see what I think I see.  Mainly, though, the question is not an existential but a theological one for me.  Given that we know God, how are we to understand that knowing?  Given that it is the case, how can it be the case?  The question is important because at all stages of the theological development of the church the different answers that have been given have represented fundamentally different views of what it means to be a Christian, and by implication what it means to be a human being.  More importantly, different views of how we come to know God lead to different views of the God we come to know.

Consider the first few centuries of the church.  The initial strong consensus that one comes to know God through Jesus Christ - the visible Son of the invisible Father, the precise image of God in the flesh - is challenged by a culturally much stronger and more acceptable form of mystery religion.  Yes, Jesus, but also some sort of mystery - a kind of top-up knowledge.  To really know God, you need Jesus+spiritual experience, or Jesus+secret knowledge.  And of course, because knowing God is caught up with salvation, it turns out that your ascent to salvation is also through secret knowledge.  And given this secret knowledge, one is able to 'see' that of course Jesus was not God in the flesh, but something else, something more refined and more worthy of the dignity of the deity revealed in the mystery.

Or consider the reformation period.  Here there is a more promising starting point, for all are agreed that one comes to know God through Jesus.  The question at issue between Protestant and Catholic is actually 'which Jesus?'  Is it the historical, once-for-all Jesus, to whom the Scriptures bear witness with a finality that cannot be gainsaid?  Or is it the Jesus who is present in the church, to the extent that the church's tradition and teaching reveal him?  That cannot be unrelated to the main difference between the two sides when it comes to salvation: is it by the once-for-all achievement of Christ on the cross, or is it by the repeated sacrifice of Christ on the altar?

Or think about the 'enlightenment'.  The early church period is in some ways reversed.  The prevalent view is that common sense and experience can lead all people to know God.  Jesus helps to clarify that knowledge, and sharpen it, and give shape to the relationship with God that all people everywhere have by virtue of creation.  This view was opposed by versions of the Protestant and Catholic dogmas of the reformation era, both to some extent hardened and weakened, but both demanding (rightly) that Jesus comes in some sense first - although this was sadly muddied on the Catholic side by a strong commitment to the Aristotelian thought of Aquinas.

What is the point?

The point is simply this: whenever you see something co-ordinated with Jesus Christ as a source of knowledge about God, you know you are in trouble.  Doesn't matter whether it's spiritual experience, natural theology, church tradition or anything else.  It's trouble.

On which, more shortly...

Lead me all the journey through

"Holy Scripture may be compared to the fiery cloud and pillar which in every age precedes the community and all its members as an invariably authentic direction to the knowledge of its Lord, to the gift which he gives and the accompanying task which he sets.  It can and should be confessed always and everywhere and by all.  It raises the claim to be heard, to be heard obediently and to be recognised as authoritative always and everywhere and by all.  The biblical word is thus the concrete vinculum pacis of the church in every age and place.  The community is always and everywhere summoned to regard its claim, to gather around its message, to pursue its investigation, exposition and application.  We never do injury to a Christian or the community, nor are we in danger of leading a Christian astray, nor is it arbitrary but always and everywhere salutary and good, if we set ourselves and the community on the way which leads backwards or rather forwards to Holy Scripture.  For since in Holy Scripture true words are always to be heard, this way is always the way backwards or rather forwards to Jesus Christ, to the one Word, to the reconciliation accomplished in him, to the one covenant between him and man, to the salvation effected and to be found in this covenant.  However well or badly it may be followed, this way is always the good way, and to tread it is always and in all places commanded of the community and individual Christians, and is full of promise for them."

-CD IV/3, p130

Angels

My reading in the Church Dogmatics has recently brought me to the end of volume III/3, meaning I have now read nine out of thirteen volumes (yes, I have skipped ahead).  Towards the end of this volume, Barth conducts an intriguing discussion of angels and demons, a topic I've read very little about, and even less that came from the pen of one of the 'big hitters' in the theological world.  So I was very interested to hear what he had to say.

Turned out I didn't like it much.

But one of the things that struck me, and pleased me, was Barth's matter of fact insistence on the reality of angels (and, in a sense, demons) and their work in the created world.  He notes that angels often accompany and witness to God's revelation - the absence of angels during most of the incarnation being an obvious and important counter-point, showing that something unique is happening here, where God reveals himself and witnesses to himself, making the angelic witness doubly superfluous.  But, as Barth points out, in some senses the angelic witness is always utterly superfluous.  When we read in the Bible that an angel did something, we surely must understand the Scripture as saying that God did something through an angel - and if this is correct, is it not the case that God could have worked without an angel to the same effect?

So, why angels?  Barth argues that their presence reminds us that God is not imminently within us, or easily within our grasp, but actually transcends our being and our understanding.  Angels, coming from heaven, remind us that God always comes to us from elsewhere.  Angels, turning up out of the blue, remind us that God does not come at our will but at his.  Perhaps most importantly, angels keep us from an almost deist conception of God that binds him to the normal course of events, preventing him from surprising us with his presence and his grace.

I read somewhere that Francis Schaeffer used to open university missions by talking about angels.  I don't know if that's true.  If it is, I imagine his aim was to show what a very different, and in many ways very surprising, world we live in if Christianity is true.

I certainly wouldn't want to be without the ministry of angels.

No to AV

I've been meaning to write about this for a little while, but it seemed too trivial to occupy blog space in the run up to Easter.  But now the referendum draweth nigh, and we must all make a decision.

I will vote no.

I realise that this will come as no surprise to anyone.  As a Conservative, it was always likely that I'd be saying no.  And if I'm honest with myself, I recognise that one factor in the decision making process for me has been that deep instinct to resist change which lies in the heart of every Tory.  I hope, however, that this has not been the only or indeed the most weighty factor.  I hope I am not deciding on purely party lines - although I do recognise that the Tories arguably have the most to lose under AV.  I hope, as well, that I am not making my decision on the basis of so much of the campaigning from both sides, which has been thoroughly negative throughout.  Frankly, the No campaign has sickened me, and the Yes campaign has also left me faintly nauseous.

To be clear: I am not voting no because I think AV would benefit the BNP - it wouldn't; I am not voting no because I think AV would be too complicated to understand - it isn't (although it is more complicated if one wants to vote tactically, but one ought not to do so in my opinion); I am not voting no to spite Nick Clegg - I rather like him; I am not voting no because AV would cost too much - if it were really better, it would be worth spending the money.

I should also point out that I am a Tory in a seat where a Tory hasn't stood a chance of winning for 20 years - one of the 'safe seats' which the Yes campaign have been talking about.  It is frustrating for me.  But I just want to point out that it is absolutely not true that my vote 'doesn't count' because of this circumstance; it counts just as much as anyone else's.  It's just that not enough people agree with me to make a difference in the outcome.  If I was really that bothered, I should get out there and try to persuade them, not complain about the voting system.

And that brings us to the heart of it for me.  It's about what sort of politics you want.  The Yes people have been saying that AV would force MPs to work harder, to appeal to a broader range of people.  Doubtless that is to a certain extent true.  Except that it strikes me that very often the best way to appeal to a broad range of people is to be vague, bland, unexceptional.  I think AV favours that sort of MP.  It encourages non-ideological politics.  Now, you may think that is a good thing.  There would be more consensus.  But I think that politics is about having a vision of a better society and persuading people to get on board with it.  Political differences are not, after all, purely a product of circumstance - it is not that those less well off must support Labour, whilst the wealthy support the Tories, and the wealthy with a bad conscience support the Lib Dems.  These differences are about ideas - huge, significant ideas, about humanity and society and morality.  And ideas need arguments.  They need arguments to showcase their grandeur.

I think AV would stifle that.  To pick up second preference votes - and in many seats, that is what will matter - you're best off being the guy the others don't object to all that much.  I think it's a shoddy way to choose MPs.

But I invite you to show me why I'm wrong...

Night

Elie Wiesel, from 'Night':

The SS seemed more preoccupied, more worried, than usual.  To hang a child in front of thousands of onlookers was not a small matter...

The three condemned prisoners together stepped onto the chairs.  In unison, the nooses were placed around their necks.

"Long live liberty!" shouted the two men.

But the boy was silent.

"Where is merciful God, where is He?" someone behind me was asking.

At the signal, the three chairs were tipped over.

Total silence in the camp.  On the horizon, the sun was setting.

"Caps off!" screamed the Lageralteste.  His voice quivered.  As for the rest of us, we were weeping.

"Cover your heads!"

Then came the march past the victims.  The two men were no longer alive.  Their tongues were hanging out, swollen and bluish.  But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing...

And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes.  And we were forced to look at him at close range.  He was still alive when I passed him.  His tongue was still red, his eyes not yet extinguished.

Behind me, I heard the same man asking: "For God's sake, where is God?"

And from within me, I heard a voice answer:

"Where is He?  This is where - hanging here from this gallows..."

Francois Mauriac, from his preface to 'Night':


And I, who believe that God is love, what answer was there to give my young interlocutor whose dark eyes still held the reflection of the angelic sadness that had appeared one day on the face of a hanged child?  What did I say to him?  Did I speak to him of that other Jew, this crucified brother who perhaps resembled him and whose cross conquered the world?  Did I explain to him that what had been a stumbling block for his faith had become a cornerstone for mine?  And that the connection between the cross and human suffering remains, in my view, the key to the unfathomable mystery in which the faith of his childhood was lost?  And yet, Zion has risen up again out of the crematoria and the slaughterhouses.  The Jewish nation has been resurrected from among its thousands of dead.  It is they who have given it new life.  We do not know the worth of one single drop of blood, one single tear.  All is grace.  If the Almighty is the Almighty, the last word for each of us belongs to Him.  That is what I should have said to the Jewish child.  But all I could do was embrace him and weep.

Using Easter well

I wasn't brought up in a tradition where Easter was a big deal.  On the whole, we maintained our non-conformity by ignoring the liturgical calendar.  Christmas was a purely secular event; Easter was about chocolate.  The rationale was two-fold: firstly, that we should be remembering the great events behind Christmas and Easter all the time; secondly, that Scripture didn't mandate or command the observance of these or any other festivals.

In more recent years, I've observed Christmas and Easter more closely.  In essence, I moved away from the version of the regulative principle that said you couldn't do things that weren't directly commanded in Scripture, although I still think nobody can criticise people who choose not to observe the festivals, since there is no Biblical authority behind them.  Moreover, I came to think that it was just impossible for human beings to remember everything all the time.  Without a focus to our remembering, our remembering melts away.  It's why we have communion, why we come together to worship: to provide a focus to our remembering of Jesus.  Christmas, and especially Easter, helps me with that.

But I did make the mistake, as I moved to this position, of treating Easter as if it were mythical.  Consider Tammuz, if you will.  Tammuz is an annual dying and rising god.  He comes and goes.  In some ways he quite clearly stands for the coming and going of the seasons.  His dying and rising were observed annually, with funerals and celebrations.  These rituals did not commemorate anything; there was nothing to commemorate, since Tammuz was never thought of as a historical person per se.  He was rather a personification of a timeless reality.

To treat Easter as a myth is to see the passage from Good Friday to Easter Sunday as a sort of re-enactment.  In my case, it meant trying to find the right emotional response for each day: remorse passing into grief passing into joy.  I suppose acting as if my participation made it real.

Easter is history.  It happened once and for all.  So, this weekend I will be remembering and celebrating, not re-enacting.

House of Mourning

Last night, I think we walked home past a house where someone had died.  I don't know that for sure, but the circumstantial evidence was strong: police car, ambulance, paramedics bike.  The biggest indicator, a wail of grief.  Inbetween sobs, somebody was crying out 'please, please!'  I don't know with whom they were pleading: the paramedic, the departed, the universe, God?  It was indescribably painful to hear, and although we only heard it in passing it left me really quite shaken.

Made me think about death.

I think everyone is either terrified by death, or doesn't understand death.  To have such a final limit - and a limit which nobody knows when they will cross - is surely the most horrific thing.  No matter how much people try to persuade themselves that death is just a part of natural existence, I cannot believe anyone is really as resigned to death as that position would lead us to expect.  To pass from life - which means to pass from everything, including yourself - is the most appalling prospect.  I will be honest: I dread it.  In fact, I think dread could be defined as the subjective reaction to the objective prospect of death.

In the face of that, Christianity is about dying well.  Oh, I know, it's about living well, enjoying the here and now, delighting in God's good creation, loving people around us, investing in the world.  Of course it is.  But all that stuff is just the stuff that is threatened by death.

If my faith in Christ doesn't help me to die, what use is it?  If I cannot die in peace, how can I live in peace?