The Story of God
For the few that follow my blog, you will have noticed that I took about a six month hiatus from posting; and that was no accident. The last year has been, more so than is usual, a time of immense doubt and skepticism; and I still occupy that place. However, as I complete the semester, I have been tasked with composing an essay depicting the narrative through which I understand theology. The next few posts will be excerpts from that essay, the first of which was my post on the Trinity.
What follows is the beginning of my theological narrative. In order to avoid the typical identification of God as male, which I would conjecture is a false understanding of God’s character, I have here coined the pronoun “yh.” It may seem a bit silly upon first reading; but I would note that it is interesting the frequency with which, if God were to be call “him,” “he,” or (for the more progressive) “her”, this theological reflection would reinforce the notion that God would correspond to either gender. If anything, both genders embody something about the character of God; but neither is fitting to become the exclusive identifying pronoun. And any pronoun is less cumbersome to read than the title “God” used in every instance (For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only son…).
God Is-
God is the ground of all being. All existence and truth finds identity and purpose in its origin, which is its creator: God. Yh is the only purely-creative being—meaning God alone is without origin and has eternally been yh-self. Thus God’s identity and purpose are contingent to nothing: Yh will be who yh will be (or yh is who yh is). This is the self-described identification of God (Ex. 3:14). Through history, God has revealed yh-self as relational. This appears to be the driving impulse for not only creation but also one of the central tenets of who God existentially is.
These, then, are the two most certain principles of theology: 1.God is; 2. God exists in relationship. In regards to the first principle: To say that “God is” is not a claim about the certainty of the reality of God, in an ontological sense. It will be assumed here that God is “real.” Thus the claim that yh “is” relates to the idea that yh is not only part of reality, but that yh’s very nature is reality: reality derives its “isness” from the substance of God. Regarding the second principle: the reason for God’s desire for relationship is not clear (yh will be who yh will be), but it appears that God is only yh-self in the context of relationship. In this sense, God’s absence from relationship could not be, as 1. God, by yh’s very nature, must exist (thus there is no way to speak of God as not existing at any given time, existence is yh’s very essence), 2. and God must exist in the context of relation to yh-self. For God to exist, which yh must , yh must be present to relationship at all times.
The next section is about the Trinity in the story of God.
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What does “Yh” mean, or from where is it derived? I am reading your post(s) for the first time and if you have explained this previously, forgive me.
It is a term which I coin for purposes here, but it comes from “God’s name:” Yahweh or YHWH from Exodus 3:14.
Hey man, I just found your blog. Three things:
1) Nice pronoun. It made me think of an episode of Futurama where they start worshipping a tentacled monster and to avoid the gendering pronouns they decide to call it “schlim” or “schler”. Anyway, of all the attempts to leave gender out of discussions of God that I have seen this is one of the best.
2) If you are going to base arguments from scripture (like your “God is” theme), there is another aspect of God’s nature that must be addressed: God’s goodness/holiness. This seems to pervade scripture right alongside the discussions of God’s desire to be in relationship with yh’s people. What must be decided is how seriously we take these verses alongside the others and how we understand God’s goodness. Is God good simply as an inherent characteristic of yh’s “isness” or is yh good because yh consistently chooses the good having the capacity for evil?
3) I miss pickleball.
1) I love that episode
3) I miss pickleWall
2) I find it a difficult question to address. To claim that God is good raises the difficulty of defining goodness (if God chose to kill all redheads, for example, would this be good by the very fact that God is the one doing it?) However, to claim that God does good is to make a value of some goodness which is higher than God, a value yh must strive to somehow be. This would defeat the claim that yh’s nature is contingent or subject to nothing: God would be subject to goodness. It is not a conflict I find easy to resolve, though I would lean more towards the second possibility. I would suggest, though, that there are instances in which, if the biblical witness is to be taken as accurate, God does things which I would claim are not good; even “un-godlike” (i.e. Numbers 31).
I would welcome your thoughts on the matter.
That is the problem. Can we know what is good? If yes, then we can fully know what God should do since yh is good. Yet, can we fully know what God should do? Most cringe at answering this question in the affirmative. If we cannot know what is good, then how are we to do it? Can we be like God without an understanding of yh’s actions?
You and I have had a conversation about this before, so I will leave out some of the discussion. The basic question I have is, are we willing to serve a god who would hold us to a standard that yh has to put no effort into keeping?
The goodness of the pre-fallen creation seems to not reside solely with God but in creation itself. God looks at creation objectively (if yh can be said to do so) and (perhaps seeing a reflection of yhself?) declares that IT is good.
As I try to argue in the Anthropology post, I think it is this state of relationship in creation which God finds “good.” Perhaps we might argue, then, that we can expect God to act out of this relationship 1. as it is good, and 2. yh could not be expected to act other than yh has decided to act (this “good” state of relationship). The question, then, as you stated but if I put it into my own words is this: Are humans willing to trust that this Divinely ordained relationship is good? Or will we elect to exercise our Will to Power in choosing autonomy over relationship?
I realize that this makes Goodness a bit subjective, but isn’t it? Isn’t the story of the garden raising the question about who’s knowledge of good reflects true Goodness or Evil? So do we trust that what God says is good really is?
I like the word, ‘isness’.
We were taught at school that the verb ‘to be’ is an auxiliary verb. That is certainly not true when used to talk about God. It’s probably not true at other times wither.
To be needs rescuing from auxiliaryness.
Looking at the creation account, not all that God created he said that it was Good. (Gen 1:6-8)
The true question is, does God choose and prefer. To say that God exist in relationship limits the scope of his being. Can you answer the question- does God exist in space or does space exist because of God. I don’t think that God’s reason for creation is His desire for relationship. According to the biblical account the Spirit we call God has relationship with Himself and had relationship with His angelic creation prior to the first human voice.
The key lies in the reason for His creating creation, Being a theologian and experiencing the supernatural realm of the Spiritual. I still cannot fully comprehend his ultimate reason. However, I must quote, “that the ultimate end of man is to have God and to enjoy Him forever.”
[...] reviewing my friend’s blog series Doubter’s Theology, I would like to adopt his terminology in not referring to God with descriptive gender pronouns [...]