Word
Gems
What is a
man but the sum of his thoughts?
God:
- Dr. Marcus J.
Borg's
- The God We Never
Knew
Imaging
God
... such [religious] experiences do not prove the reality of God or the sacred.
Such a demonstration is impossible. But I find the evidential value of religious
experience to be far more interesting and suggestive than the traditional
"proofs" of God's existence, which I am convinced do not work.
- The varieties of religious experience suggest that the sacred
-- God -- is an element of experience, not simply an article of faith to be believed in.
To put this point differently, experiences like these rupture
"Flatland." Flatland is the title and central image of a book written late in
the nineteenth century, allegedly by an author named (appropriately) "A Square"
but in fact by an Anglican headmaster and scholar named Edwin A. Abbott. Flatland is a
two-dimensional universe having only length and width (and thus lacking height or depth),
a plane inhabited by two-dimensional creatures--squares, triangles, rectangles, and so
forth.
The author invites us to imagine Flatland being intersected by a sphere and what the
Flatlanders would experience as the sphere passed through it. They would see a point as
the sphere first touched the horizontal plane of Flatland, then an expanding circle until
the sphere was halfway through, then a contracting circle diminishing to a point and
finally vanishing.
What kinds of explanations might the Flatlanders have for what had happened? Possibly
many--but
- they would have no chance at all of understanding what had
really happened so long as they tried to do so within the framework of a two-dimensional
understanding of reality.
Flatland is obviously an image for the modern worldview, the materialistic and
mechanistic image of reality that emerged during the Enlightenment. Though the modern
worldview, of course, knows three dimensions, there is a sense in which it is a
"flat" worldview--that what is real is the visible material world of our
ordinary experience.
- Experiences of the sacred shatter Flatland. Visions happen,
enlightenment experiences happen, paranormal experiences happen. These experiences suggest
that reality is far more mysterious than any and all of our domestications--whether
scientific or religious--make it out to be.
They suggest that reality is more, much more, than modernity has imagined...
- God is the "beyond in our midst," as the German
theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it in the last year of his life in a Nazi
prison cell.
The affirmation of God's presence runs throughout the Christian tradition. One of
the most famous and powerful statements comes from Saint Augustine about 1,600 years ago.
Reflecting on what seems to have been an introvertive mystical experience and addressing
God as "You," Augustine wrote:
- How late I came to love you, O Beauty so ancient and so fresh, how late I came to
love you! You were within me, yet I had gone outside to seek you. Unlovely
myself, I rushed toward all those lovely things you had made. And always you were with
me, I was not with you. All these beauties kept me far from you--although they would
not have existed at all unless they had their being in you. You called, you cried, you
shattered my deafness. You sparkled, you blazed, you drove away my blindness. You shed
your fragrance, and I drew in my breath and I pant for you. I tasted and now I hunger and
thirst. You touched me, and now I burn with longing for your peace.
"I was outside. You were within." Such was his experience. Yet for
Augustine, God was not simply within. Rather, "God is always present to us and to all
things; it is that we, like blind persons, do not have the eyes to see" God. It is
the same point made in this century by the Catholic monk Thomas Merton:
- Life is this simple. We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent, and
God is shining through it all the time. This is not just a fable or a nice story. It is
true. If we abandon ourselves to God and forget ourselves, we see it sometimes, and we see
it maybe frequently. God shows Himself everywhere, in everything--in people and in things
and in nature and in events. It becomes very obvious that God is everywhere and in
everything and we cannot be without Him. It's impossible. The only thing is that we don't
see it.
... [A church committee spoke of the need to introduce more inclusive language
into their] Sunday services. All agreed that the exclusive use of male pronouns for God
needed to be changed, but they were perplexed about how to do it. Suggestions to replace
"he" with "she" or to alternate "he" and "she"were
rejected as inappropriate or awkward. Then someone said, "Well, whatever we do, we
can't use "it," for whatever God is, God is not an "it."' A thought
suddenly occurred to me: the problem isn't really whether to use "he,"
"she," or "it"; rather, the problem is using third-person language for
God.
- When do we use third-person language to talk about somebody? When
she or he isn't there. Third-person language implies absence. But if we take
seriously that God is present, the most appropriate language for God is second-person
language--God as "You." God is "the you" in our midst, who knows us
already and who yearns to be known by us.
... In longing for a god, we try again and again to set up a greater, a more
genuine and more just image, which is intended to be more glorious than the last and only
proves the more unsatisfactory.
- The commandment, "Thou shalt not make unto thee an
image," does not, of course, refer merely to sculptured or painted images, but to our
fantasy, to all the power of our imagination as well. But we are forced time and again to
make images, and forced to destroy them when we realize that we have not succeeded...
Though our images and concepts of God are not sacred in themselves and are subject
to change, it matters whether we conceptualize God in the third person, as a distant being
who is not here. This way of thinking about God, which many of us learned as children,
does make God seem unreal, remote, distant, and problematic. The way sketched in this
chapter, I am convinced, makes God seem real and near.
Moreover, thinking about God as both transcendent and immanent, as the beyond who
is "right here," leads to a quite different image of the Christian life from the
one that dominated the early decades of my life.
- I now see that the Christian life is not essentially about
beliefs and requirements; it is not about believing in a God "out there" for the
sake of an afterlife later. Rather, thinking about God panentheistically leads to a
relational understanding of the Christian life, which is, I am convinced, both true and
profoundly life-giving.
Put very simply and directly, the course of my own Christian journey from
supernatural theism to panentheism has led me, experientially and intellectually, to three
central convictions:
- The Christian life is about entering into a relationship with God as known in Jesus
Christ.
- That relationship can--and will--change your life.
IMAGING GOD: WHY AND HOW IT MATTERS
"Tell me your image of God, and I will tell you your theology."
Thus far we have been concerned with two root concepts for thinking about God. These root
concepts are clothed with a variety of images of God, to which we now turn. Images are a
more visual and metaphorical way of seeing and speaking about God: God as king,
father, mother, shepherd, lover, rock, wind, light, and so forth. Our focus will be
on images of God in the biblical and Christian traditions.
Our images of God matter.
- Just as how we conceptualize God affects what we think the
Christian life is about, so do our images of God.
Ideas (which include both concepts and images) are like families: they have
relationships. How we image God shapes not only what we think God is like but also what we
think the Christian life is about.
People who think of God as a warrior may become warriors themselves, whether in a
Christian crusade, a Muslim jihad, or an apocalyptically oriented militia.
People who think of God as righteous are likely to emphasize righteousness
themselves, just as those who think of God as compassionate are likely to emphasize
compassion.
People who think God is angry at the world are likely to be angry at the world
themselves...
CATEGORIES OF BIBLICAL IMAGES
The diversity of biblical images of God can also be appreciated by sorting them into
categories. Anthropomorphic images portray God in humanlike form: God as king, lord,
judge, lawgiver, potter, shepherd, wise woman, father, mother, lover, healer, and so
forth. Nonanthropomorphic (nonhumanlike) images speak of God as rock, fire, light,
eagle, lion, bear, hen, cloud, wind, breath, fortress, shield.
A second category consists of images of distance and images of closeness. Images of
distance include especially "king" and the metaphors associated with king:
lawgiver, judge, warrior, and so forth.
- The king was distant: he did not live among the people but in
a walled city or palace, most often on a high place. Ordinary people did not often or ever
associate with the king; peasants were not invited to royal banquets.
So also with "father": in the framework of the patriarchal family, the
father was most often a distant figure, a little king within his family. Often the father
(and other men of the family) lived in quarters separate from women and
children. Images of closeness, on the other hand, include shepherd, mother, lover,
friend, healer, shield, fortress, and breath.
A third category comprises male and female images. Male images are by far more common.
This is not surprising, given that the Bible originated in a patriarchal culture and in
competition with religious traditions that had both male and female deities. What is more
surprising is that female images are sometimes used: God as nurturing mother, woman
giving birth, wise woman, and mother bird. There are other images that can
apply equally well to either sex: shepherd (both women and men were shepherds), potter,
lover, friend. Moreover, the Hebrew word ruach (which means spirit,
breath, and wind) is feminine in gender. Thus there is biblical warrant for female images
of God.
CLUSTERING THE IMAGES: TWO MODELS OF GOD
In the biblical and Christian traditions, these metaphors have commonly clustered around
two primary "models" of God. A model is a gestalt that is a
foundational or root image. As a gestalt or foundational image, each model constellates
several metaphors into a coherent pattern that also images God's relationship to us and to
the world. Each model of God thus goes with a model of the Christian life.
- The first model, which I will call "the monarchical
model," clusters together images of God as king, lord, and father; it leads to a
"performance model" of the Christian life.
- The second model clusters together images of God that point
to intimate relationship and belonging. I will call it "the Spirit model"; it
leads to a "relational model" of the Christian life.
Both models and visions of the Christian life are found throughout all periods of
Christian history, though the first is more common. From roughly the fourth century--when
Christianity became the dominant religion of Western culture--through the present, the
monarchical model has dominated. But alongside it, as an alternative voice, the Spirit
model has also persisted. Though features from each model are commonly combined into a
synthesis, usually by incorporating the second into the first, it is illuminating to see
them as contrasting models of God and contrasting visions of the Christian life. They
reflect two different voices within the Christian tradition.
THE MONARCHICAL MODEL
The central elements of this model are found in the root image of God as a king. Put most
compactly God is imaged as a male authority figure who is the ruler of the universe. As
with an earthly king, images of domination and subjection are central to this model. The
model has profound consequences for our images of ourselves, the internal dynamics of the
religious life, and the world.
Because I will be quite critical of this model, I want to begin by emphasizing that the
biblical use of the image of God as king does not have just one meaning and does not
intrinsically generate the monarchical model. In the Bible, the image of God as king has
two very different--indeed, opposing--meanings. On the one hand, God as king is spoken of
as the origin, legitimator, and enforcer of the social order. Not only is God the lawgiver
from whom the society's structures of order come (its laws, practices, and institutions),
as well as the judge who enforces them,
- God is also the legitimator of the king's position at the top
of a hierarchical social order centered in Jerusalem.
God's dwelling place on earth was in Jerusalem, which was also the home of the
king. According to the royal theology of the Hebrew Bible, the king in Jerusalem was no
less than the son of God, and God had promised to him and his descendants perpetual
rule." The social order (with its religious, political, and economic components) was
ordained and guaranteed by God.
On the other hand, the image of God as king is used in a very different way: not to
legitimate but to subvert existing social structures. In the voices of Moses, the
prophets, Jesus, and much of the New Testament, God as king not only relativizes every
earthly kingship but often becomes the basis for radical criticism of and opposition to
the existing social order. The conflict between the lordship of God and the lordship of
pharaoh, the kingship of God and the kings of Israel and Judah, the kingship of Herod and
the kingship of Jesus, and the lordship of Christ and the lordship of Caesar, sounds
throughout the tradition. It is a truly subversive voice, with a very different vision of
individual and social existence for humankind.
But what I am focusing on now is the way the image of God as king functions within the
common form of the monarchical model. The model has its own logic for us and for our
salvation, as the sacrifice required by God the lawgiver and judge; this sacrifice makes
our forgiveness possible.
Moreover, because Jesus is God's only son and has been sent by God, the sacrifice
is ultimately made by God. So deep is God's love for us that God provides the sacrifice.
In this fashion the Christian form of the monarchical model resolves
the tension between God's love and God as lawgiver and judge. It is by
being Christians that we are able to take part in the benefits conferred
by Jesus' death. Through some combination of believing in Jesus, true
repentance, and good works, we are reconciled with God as king, law- giver, and judge.
Finally, it is important to note how the image of God as king assimilates other
images of God. "Lord" is a virtual synonym. "Father" (though
it can have other meanings) within the context of the patriarchal family
functions in the same way:
- a somewhat distant male authority figure to whom obedience is
owed.
God as creator is frequently described using royal imagery: like a king ordering
his kingdom, God the creator brings order out of chaos. The humble image of
"shepherd" is sometimes assimilated: because David, the greatest of Israel's
kings, was a shepherd, the ideal king is the shepherd king. God as shepherd becomes God as
king. Within this model, even Jesus, whose message and activity profoundly subverted the
imagery and ideology of kingship, becomes the king who will judge at the last judgment.
The Effects of the Model
Popular Christianity has been very much shaped by "the myth of the crown"
enshrined within the monarchical model.
As Sallie McFague notes,
- this model is "so prevalent in mainstream Christianity
that it is often not recognized as a picture" but instead "accepted as the
natural understanding of the relationship of God and the world" Because of this
model's prevalence, it is important to analyze its effects.
EFFECTS ON THE IMAGE OF GOD
God as a Distant Powerful Being. As already noted, the monarchical model
with its root image of God as king suggests distance. It is a distance of both power and
place. Like a king ruling over his kingdom, God's power and authority stand over the
world. Like a king living in his walled palace high on a hill, God is separate from the
world.
- Thus the image of God as distant king and lord goes with the
concept of God that I described in Chapter One, the all-powerful god of supernatural
theism.
Indeed, the monarchical model of God provided the clothing for my childhood
concept of God as a supernatural being. Though I imaged God more as a father than as a
king, it amounted to the same thing: God as a powerful male authority figure "out
there." The monarchical image of God thus has the same problems as does the concept
of God as a supernatural being separate from the world.
God as Male. The monarchical model uses male images to speak of God. This
has consequences not only for the lives of women but also for the lives of men, a point to
which I will soon return.
God as Lawgiver and Judge. As noted, this model can speak powerfully of
the love of God. But it does so within the legal framework and logic of the model itself
God as lawgiver and judge; sin as violation of God's laws; people as guilty and
deserving of punishment; compensation as necessary; God as merciful and therefore offering
another way of becoming righteous (namely, through Jesus); and at the end, a final
judgment with eternal rewards and punishments.
Thus, even when the model incorporates Jesus as the sacrifice offered for us, it
essentially leaves intact the image of God as lawgiver and judge and images the Christian
life within the framework of law.
EFFECTS: A "PERFORMANCE MODEL" OF THE CHRISTIAN
LIFE
The monarchical model's use of legal metaphors and legal logic to image the relationship
between humans and the divine shapes the internal dynamics of the Christian life into a
performance model. It does so in three closely related ways.
First, the model makes sin and guilt central. Sin (understood as
disobedience to God) is the most important problem. The model's emphasis on sin affects
other key Christian notions, whose rich resonances of meaning are thereby impoverished and
even distorted. Repentance becomes contrition for sin, redemption becomes redemption from
sin, liberation becomes liberation from sin, and salvation becomes salvation from sin. The
model in effect co-opts the tradition by becoming a comprehensive lens through which the
tradition is seen.
Roberta Bondi's recollection of the centrality of sin in her childhood
Christianity makes the point well:
- Sin was what religion was about. If you had asked me in the fourth grade, "Why
was Jesus born?" I would have been glad to answer, "It was because of sin. Jesus
was born in order to pay the price for our sin by suffering and dying on the cross."
If you had pushed me about what it took to get our sins forgiven, I would have told you:
"We have to repent of our sins." If you had pushed me a little further to ask,
"And what does it mean to repent?" I would have said, "To feel really,
really bad about what a sinful person you are."
- The emphasis on sin thus affects not only the way the whole
Christian story is told but also confers an identity. It leads to the internal dynamic of
thinking of oneself primarily as a sinner who needs to repent, and it defines repentance
as feeling really bad about oneself. To be sure, we may also be forgiven sinners, but the
definitive characterization of us as sinful and guilty remains.
Second, this model easily confuses God with the superego and the Christian
life with life under the superego. The superego is the critical voice in our
psyches, a voice that stands over us in judgment, offering praise or blame. The superego
is the storehouse of oughts and shoulds within us, the cumulative product of messages
received in our socialization about what we should do and how we ought to live. Most
often, it is experienced as a punitive voice. Life under the superego is a life of
continually trying to measure up; it is life under the law. Yet life under the superego is
the most common adult way of being, the natural product of our socialization.
The monarchical model of God commonly reinforces the superego. The internal dynamics of
the model and the superego are the same: the superego functions in our minds as a little
king, an internal lawgiver and judge. It is thus easy to confuse the voice of the superego
with the voice of God, especially when the voice of the superego has Christian content.
God becomes "the internalized overseer, the policeman who never sleeps."
More lightheartedly, it is God imaged as a high school principal unhappily leafing
through our records. When this happens, the Christian life becomes confused with life
under the punitive superego. We are never good enough...
A DIFFERENT MODEL: GOD AS SPIRIT
How to name this model is not so obvious. The phrase "monarchical model" flows
naturally out of its root metaphor of God as king. But no single metaphor so clearly
epitomizes the alternative model. In the absence of an obvious choice, I suggest
"Spirit" as a root image for this model of God, and the phrase "Spirit
model" as a designator for the model itself.
- It leads to an image of the Christian life that stresses
relationship, intimacy, and belonging.
The Spirit Model
As a root metaphor for the sacred, Spirit images God as a nonmaterial reality pervading
the universe as well as being more than the universe. As used in the Bible (and as used
here), its meaning is broader than the specific Christian doctrine of "the Holy
Spirit," which sees it as one aspect of God. But in the Bible,
- Spirit is used comprehensively to refer to God's presence in
creation, in the history of Israel, and in the life of Jesus and the early church.
Its meaning is sufficiently broad to make it a synonym for the sacred. Spirit
"evokes a universal perspective and signifies divine activity in its widest reaches.
Strongly associated with God's presence in and engagement with the world (God's
immanence), Spirit also points to God's transcendence. It images "God's ongoing
transcending engagement with the world.
Some of its resonances of meaning are suggested by the Hebrew word for Spirit. Ruach
also means wind and breath. The associations of both are suggestive. Both are invisible
yet manifestly real. We cannot see the wind, though its presence and effects are felt; it
moves without being seen. When it blows, it is all around us. Breath is like wind inside
the body. For the ancient Hebrews (as for us), it was associated with life.
Metaphorically, God as Spirit is both wind and breath, a nonmaterial reality outside of us
and within us. Our breath is God breathing us, and God is as near to us as our own breath.
Speaking of God as Spirit, as both wind and breath, evokes both transcendence and
nearness.
The monarchical model also affirms that God is Spirit, of course. The king who rules the
universe is not a flesh-and-blood king.
But there is a difference:
- when Spirit is assimilated to the monarchical model, God is
not Spirit but a spirit--that is, a spiritual being who is out there, not here.
But when Spirit is not domesticated and diminished by the monarchical model,
Spirit retains the suggestive meanings associated with breath and wind: God is the
encompassing Spirit both within us and outside us.
Specific Metaphors for God as Spirit
The model of God as Spirit is clothed with a number of more specific metaphors. As we
shall see, their associations are different in important ways from God as king, lord, and
father.
Nonanthropomorphic Metaphors. There area number of
nonanthropomorphic images in addition to wind and breath. God as "rock" can
connote either God's distance or God's closeness. The Hebrew word for rock does not mean a
big stone but "cliff"--hence a mountain or high place. God as rock can point to
distance: God is in the heights, known at the top of a mountain (as in the Sinai story).
God as rock can also evoke closeness. A mountain or high place is a place of refuge and
safety; fortresses are built on high places, and a mountain may have caves in which one
can hide or seek shelter. Here God as "rock" is something that one can be
"on" or "in";
- it is a metaphor of nearness.
So also fire and light are images of nearness: one must be close enough to a light
to see it, close enough to a fire to be warmed (or protected or purified) by it.
God as Mother. Sometimes God as Spirit is imaged as a human mother,
sometimes as a mother animal. Resonances include birthing and nurturing. Like a hovering
or brooding bird, God as Spirit creates the world. Spirit is like a woman in labor, giving
birth. Spirit is like a mother caring for her children and comforting them. One of God's
central qualities is compassion, a word that in Hebrew is related to the word for
"womb." Not only is compassion a female image suggesting source of life and
nourishment but it also has a feeling dimension: God as compassionate Spirit feels for us
as a mother feels for the children of her womb. Spirit feels the suffering of the world
and participates in it.
God as Intimate Father. In common Christian usage, as previously noted,
God as father is most frequently assimilated to the monarchical image of God. But this is
quite different from the biblical use of the metaphor. In both the Hebrew Bible and the
New Testament, God as father is often used in contexts of intimacy--in contrast to the
postbiblical patriarchal use of father within the framework of the monarchical model. Its
frequency in the New Testament is probably because of Jesus' use of abba, an
intimate form of "father." It names God as the intimate father who is close at
hand and who may be trusted to give good gifts to his children.
God as Wisdom (Sophia). Another female image for the sacred in the Bible
is "the wisdom woman," "the wise woman," or "Sophia." Sophia
is the wisdom of God personified as a woman. She is an important figure in Proverbs and in
two other works of pre-Christian Jewish wisdom, the Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus
(sometimes known as Sirach). The latter two were part of the Christian Bible until the
Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century "demoted" them to "the
apocrypha," which gave them a secondary (though still important) status. Though they
remain in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles, they are not in many Protestant Bibles, which may
help to explain the surprise (and shock) that Sophia language causes in some Protestant
circles.
The relationship between Sophia and God is complex. Sometimes Sophia is spoken of as a
figure separate from God yet in very close relationship to God. She performs divine
functions and thus is the functional equivalent of God. Moreover, there are texts in which
the word Sophia is used when we would expect the word God to be used; the author treats
them as interchangeable terms. Thus Sophia is not simply a personification of God's wisdom
but also an image or metaphor for God.
Sophia as a metaphor for Spirit is associated especially with Spirit's presence in the
world. God as the wise woman is not only the architect and means of creation but is also
present in the created order. She is the Shekinah, the divine presence dwelling
with the Israelites in their history. She speaks through prophets, summons people to live
by her wisdom, and invites people to her banquet of bread and wine. Sophia as a metaphor
for Spirit suggests closeness and presence, guidance and nourishment.
God as Lover. Images of God as lover or spouse and of us as God's beloved
are found in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. Sometimes marriage imagery is
used, and sometimes the language is explicitly sexual. Hosea uses the image of God as
lover with particular frequency and power. The Israel of his day is portrayed as the
unfaithful beloved who has adulterously strayed from God; like a jealous lover, God is
angered, yet yearns for the return of the beloved, alluring her and speaking tenderly to
her. In the Song of Songs, whatever its original setting and meaning, the lover-beloved
imagery with all of its eroticism has commonly been understood in both Jewish and
Christian traditions as a story of the mystical relationship between God the lover and us
the beloved. In the New Testament, the church is spoken of as the bride of Christ, who is
the bridegroom.
Because the biblical image of God as lover developed within an androcentric and
patriarchal culture, the male is typically imaged as the lover and the female as the
beloved. But there is nothing intrinsically
male about the lover image. It is an anthropomorphic image for Spirit
that can be either male or female. The image is particularly rich. Lover
and beloved delight in each other. They prize and value each other.
They yearn for each other. It can also involve betrayal and jealousy. It
is a relationship of extraordinary intimacy. It is a striking image for the
divine-human relationship.
God as Journey Companion. Rather than a single image, this is a
category of images pointing to God as a companion who travels with us. It
includes the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day that led the
Israelites through the wilderness, as well as the presence of God that
tented among them in a mobile home (the tabernacle). God as shepherd
is another such image, but with the added dimension of nourishment
and protection. The shepherd not only travels with the sheep but leads
them to water and food, finds shelter, protects them, and seeks them
when they go astray. In the New Testament, journey companion imagery is associated
especially with Jesus. A disciple is one who journeys with Jesus... In the Emmaus Road
story, the risen Christ journeys with his disciples, even though they do not recognize
him. And in John's gospel, the image of God as shepherd is applied to Jesus: the Johannine
Jesus is "the good shepherd."
The Difference This Model Makes
This model leads to a quite different understanding of the Christian
life. Though for many of us it points to the God we never knew, it is also
a very ancient model of God and vision of the Christian tradition. It
springs from an alternative voice (indeed, a chorus of voices) within the
biblical tradition, one that counters the monarchical model's version of
God and of our relationship to God.
DIFFERENCES: EFFECTS ON THE IMAGE OF GOD
The biblical metaphors for the Spirit model affect our root image
of God in three quite obvious ways. First, these metaphors emphasize
the nearness of God rather than the distance implied by the monarchical model. They evoke
closeness, relationship, and connection.
- God as Spirit is near, at hand; indeed, we live within
Spirit.
Nearness also involves concern: God as Spirit is compassionate. God is the
womb-like one who gave birth to us, who nurtures us, cares for us, yearns for us.Yet
though these metaphors emphasize nearness and immanence, they also affirm transcendence:
God as Spirit is more than any of these metaphors, just as Spirit is more than the
space-time world.
Second, both male and female metaphors (as well as some that are neither) are used, rather
than the exclusively male images of the monarchical model. God is like a woman giving
birth, like a mother raising her children, like Sophia the wisdom woman; God is like an
intimate father. Moreover, some images go equally well with either gender: God as lover,
as companion or friend, even as shepherd. The use of both male and female metaphors makes
it clear, of course, that God is neither male nor female, something that we presumably
have always known (though the insistence in some circles on male imagery and pronouns
makes one wonder).
The awareness that there are female metaphors for God in the Bible
is helpful in a time of sensitivity to the impact of gender language: there
is biblical warrant for female images. Moreover, this is not simply a matter of linguistic
gender equality (important as that is), for these images affect the psyches of both men
and women and shape attitudes toward society and nature.
Third, rather than the essentially anthropomorphic image of God as
king, lord, and patriarchal father, the metaphors for God as Spirit include both
nonanthropomorphic and anthropomorphic images. The presence of both is suggestive.
Anthropomorphic images of the sacred are sometimes simply viewed as human projections
(which, of course, they are, just as all images of God are). But they are also the natural
language of relationship. That is, they suggest that there is a personal dimension to the
relationship to God.
Yet nonanthropomorphic images suggest that God is not simply a person. Combining
the two suggests that the relationship to God is personal, even as God is more than a
person. The sacred is not simply a nonanimate mystery but a presence. To use an ancient
image from the Bible, these metaphors lead to a covenantal model of the divine-human
relationship. The term covenant emphasizes relationship and belonging. It is an
intrinsically dialogical model, an "I-You" model of our relationship to the one
to whom we belong.
These metaphors also have an affective dimension. They do not simply lead to a set of
intellectual conclusions about God's nearness and concern but also affect the feeling
level of the psyche. Image God as lover, or as wind and breath, or as nurturing mother, or
as "the You" who is present whether we know it or not, or as any of the other
images we have reviewed. How does this feel as an image of God, compared to imaging God as
a distant king, lawgiver, and judge? How does it feel as an image of yourself in relation
to God?
DIFFERENCES: EFFECTS ON KEY CHRISTIAN NOTIONS
The Spirit model of God affects the meaning of a number of central
Christian teachings. It does so by changing the framework in which
they are seen. Because much of the rest of this book concerns its effects
on our vision of the Christian life, I will provide only a couple of illustrative examples
here.
Creation looks different. Within the popular version of the
monarchical model, God's creation of the world is typically understood as an event in the
distant past and as involving the creation of a universe separate from God. The Spirit
model, with its emphasis on connectedness, can see God's creation as an ongoing activity:
in every moment of time, God as Spirit (as the nonmaterial "ground" of all that
is) is bringing the universe into existence.
- Creation is not about what happened "in the
beginning" but about what is always happening.
To speak of God as creator is to speak of the ongoing dependence of the universe
on Spirit. Spirit is constantly vibrating (to use another metaphor) the world into
existence.
The human condition looks different.
- Our central problem is not sin and guilt, as
it is within the monarchical model. For the Spirit model, our central problem is "estrangement,"
whose specific meaning of "separated from that to which one belongs" is most
appropriate.For the Spirit model, we are in God, whether we know it or not; we belong to
God, whether we know it or not; and God is present to us, whether we 'experience that
presence or not.
But we commonly live our lives "east of Eden," outside of paradise
(where paradise is understood to be the manifest presence of God). Our problem is our
estrangement, our blindness to the presence of God, our separation from the Spirit who is
all around us and within us and to which we belong.
Sin looks different. For the monarchical model, sin is primarily
disloyalty to the king, seen especially as disobedience to his laws. The metaphors used to
express the Spirit model suggest something else. For the metaphor of God as lover, sin is unfaithfulness--that is, sin is going after other lovers.
This is a classic image for idolatry: making something other than Spirit central, giving
one's primary loyalty to something other than God. Idolatry--infidelity to God--is the
root sin from which more specific acts follow. For the metaphor of God as the
compassionate one who cares for all of her children, sin is failure
in compassion, whether individually or socially in the form of an unjust society.
Sin includes inflicting suffering on those who are also God's creation, as well as being
indifferent to their suffering.
Thus sin remains.
- Only now the emphasis is not on sin as a violation of God's
laws but on sin as betrayal of relationship and absence of compassion.
Repentance also remains,
- only now it does not mean primarily sincere contrition for
sins committed but a turning and returning to that to which we belong, God as Spirit.
Judgment also remains, only now it is not primarily the threat of eternal
judgment. Rather, how we live our lives has consequences. Blindness has its effects, both
for the individual and the social order. If we remain estranged from God, we will remain
unsatisfied and unfulfilled, even desperate...
The meaning of salvation also changes:
- it is not primarily in the future and after death, as the
monarchical model images it, but is something that happens in the present in our
relationship with God as Spirit.
Finally, God as king and lord looks different.
When freed from the monarchical model, these images have very different meanings.
Both point to the surpassing otherness of God. God as Spirit is glorious, radiant, and
splendid, like the splendor of a king. As the source of both life and death, God as Spirit
is lord of life and death. Moreover, apart from the monarchical model, these images have a
subversive and liberating meaning.
Rather than being the legitimator of domination systems, God as king and lord is
the subverter of systems of domination. God is lord, not pharaoh; God is king, not the
king in Jerusalem; Jesus is king, not the Herods or Caesars of this world; God is lord,
not the superego. God as king is the compassionate warrior who grieves with and takes the
side of those who suffer under domination systems.
Within the model of God as Spirit, monarchical imagery subverts the monarchical
model itself.
DIFFERENCES: EFFECTS ON IMAGING THE CHRISTIAN LIFE
The images of God associated with the Spirit model are rich, and they dramatically affect
how we think of the Christian life. Rather than God being a distant being with whom we
might spend eternity, Spirit -- the sacred -- is right here.
Rather than God being the lawgiver and judge whose requirements must be met and
whose justice must be satisfied, God is the lover who yearns to be in relationship to us.
Rather than sin and guilt being the central dynamic of the Christian life, the
central dynamic becomes relationship--with God, the world, and each other.
The Christian life is about turning toward and entering into relationship with the
one who is already in relationship with us--with the one who gave us life, who has loved
us from the beginning, and who loves us whether we know that or not, who journeys with us
whether we know that or not.
- The Christian life thus has at its center becoming conscious
of that relationship.
It is the response to the words of an unknown prophet who spoke of God's presence
and love in Israel's time in exile, the gospel as found in the second half of the book of
Isaiah:
- Thus says the Lord, the one who created you, who formed you:
"Do not be afraid, for I have delivered you. I have called you by name, and you
are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers,
they shall not overcome you.
When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.
You are precious in my sight, and I love you.
Do not be afraid -- for I am with you."
|