\u201cGod\u201c is a relationship word\u2014a word of devotion similar to sweetheart, lover, friend, rock, foundation, shepherd, mother, father, and other such words of devotion.\u00a0 When\u00a0 we call the Final Mystery \u201cGod,\u201d we are making a religious confession.\u00a0 If we are not making a religious confession, we do not need the word \u201cGod.\u201d\u00a0 We can get along without the word \u201cGod\u201d or any word like it, unless we are a self-conscious Jew, Christian, Muslim, or a member of some other religious community that uses \u201dGod\u201d as a devotion word\u2014as a relationship word for the Final Mystery.<\/p>\n
Honestly living within today\u2019s culture, we find no heavenly realm of rational meanings that humans can access to make sense of the absurdity of a Big Bang Beginning, or of an evolution from the single-celled organisms that mysteriously arose on this minor planet of a marginal star in one of the hundred billion or so galaxies.\u00a0 The sheer Mystery of this vast expanse and of the infinitesimal minuteness of\u00a0 this physical cosmos is not made less Mysterious by presuming a First Cause or an Ongoing Creator of all this wonderment.\u00a0 As a solution to scientific meaning or contemplative awareness, the word \u201cGod\u201d is not needed for any rational solution.
\nIf we call this Final Mysteriousness \u201cGod,\u201d we are making an act of will, an act of devotion, an act of commitment, a leap of trust.\u00a0 Trust of this Final Mysteriousness does not alter the fact that we still know absolutely nothing about this Mystery\u2014 nothing with our scientific research and nothing with our contemplative inquiry.\u00a0 We know things, but all that we know is approximate and changing.<\/p>\n
\nThe famous Sufi Muslim poet, Rumi, captured the shock of calling the Final Mystery \u201cGod\u201d with this provocative verse:\u00a0 \u201cLife and death are two wings on the same bird.\u201d\u00a0 For Rumi, the name of that \u201cbird\u201d is \u201cthe actions of God.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Rumi uses the word \u201cGod\u201d devotionally.\u00a0 And the object of his God-devotion is Whatever this IS that is ISING what is ISED.<\/p>\n
Some theologians are trying to say that God is changing.\u00a0\u00a0 It is true that our human uses of the word \u201cGod\u201d can be said to change or evolve.\u00a0\u00a0 But \u201cchanging\u201d is not something that can be said about this Final Mystery\u2014this Mystery about which nothing can be said.\u00a0 Similarly, \u201cunchanging\u201d cannot be said about the Absolute Mystery, unless \u201cunchanging\u201c means that the extent of the Absolute Mystery is no less Mysterious today than it ever was or ever will be.<\/p>\n
The human mind cannot speak about the Absolute Mystery itself, but only about our relationship with this Absolute Mystery.\u00a0 Therefore, there can be no models of God, no images of God, no attributes of God.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because Absolute Mystery cannot be thought by a human mind.\u00a0 The much rehearsed God-talk found in our Bibles, Torah, Koran, and other theologizing is now seen to be story-talk about our human relationship with this Mystery.\u00a0 The entire 3000 years of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim \u201cGod-talk\u201d is story-talk about our human relationships with the Unspeakable Mystery, not about the Unspeakable Mystery that remains unspeakable in any human language.<\/p>\n
We can indeed describe our experiences of our conscious relationships with this Indescribable Mystery.\u00a0 We actually know a lot about our experiences of this Mystery.\u00a0 We often call these experiences \u201cWonder\u201d or \u201cAwe\u201d\u2014 where \u201cAwe\u201d means a shaking of our rational foundations resulting in a deep dread and fascination\u2014 experiences for which we need courage to sustain them as our conscious state.\u00a0 Such courage is part of our faith, our trust-devotion that reveres this shattering Awe as good for us.\u00a0 Strange as it can seem to our knowledge-hungry egos, we can revere our total ignorance before the Absolute Mystery as good for us.<\/p>\n
Following S\u00f8ren Kierkegaard\u2019s insights, we only have two basic options for our relationship with this Absolute Mystery, (1) \u201cYes, this is my life, and it is good\u201d or (2) \u201cNo, I will insist on having some other \u2018reality\u2019 or resign myself to consciously fleeing, fighting, and inwardly hating what IS.\u201d\u00a0 The word \u201cGod\u201d fits into this awareness as a devotional name for the Absolute Mystery when \u201cYes\u201d is being said.\u00a0 In other words, the name \u201cGod\u201d is a name that is expressing a positive relationship with the Absolute Mystery.\u00a0 \u201cGod\u201d is not about some rational understanding of this Mystery.\u00a0 Similarly, Father, Mother, Friend, Rock, etc. are all words of story-time talk that describe a relationship of trust with the Mystery for which we have no description.<\/p>\n
What does it mean to have a relationship with any object or process?\u00a0 Relationship includes an encounter of my consciousness with some otherness plus a response by my consciousness to that otherness.\u00a0 We have all sorts of relationships with temporal entities and processes: parents, stars, planets, children, enemies, gravity, etc.\u00a0 Some of these others can consciously respond back, some cannot.\u00a0 We also have relationships with internal others, such as our own bodies, minds, feelings, and consciousness.\u00a0 And we have an unavoidable relationship with that Absolute Mystery that is ISING every temporal isness and all our relationships with these temporal othernesses.<\/p>\n
The argument that there is no otherness, that we humans are simply an inseparable aspect of an inescapable Oneness is only half the truth.\u00a0 This Mystery is indeed an Everythingness in which we and all things exist.\u00a0 But this Mystery is also a Nothingness, an otherness from which we and all things have come and to which we and all things return.\u00a0 This paradox of Everythingness\/Nothingness is simply an expression of the realization that we know nothing and will forever know nothing about this Absolute Mysteriousness.<\/p>\n
The Oneness of the Absolute Mysteriousness is part of our faith, our leap into the darkness of Mystery.\u00a0 We who cherish a truly monotheistic faith do not believe that we face two powers\u2014one that is for us and another that is against us.\u00a0 Rather birth and death are two wings on our experience of the same Oneness.\u00a0 The same \u201cLove for us\u201d is trusted in our death as in our birth.\u00a0 In other words, our faith in Oneness is not about a description of the Unknown Mystery.\u00a0 Rather, Oneness is about our relations with the Absolute Mystery.\u00a0 Again, the Absolute Mystery is that about which nothing is known, including Oneness.<\/p>\n
When monotheistic faith seems to be in rejection of the many warring, quarreling, battling mysterious powers, this only means a rejection of\u00a0 scatteredness in our human devotion, not a rejection of the many Awesome aspects of life.\u00a0 To worship Venus as help for our love life and Mars as help for our conflict life is a scatteredness in our devotionality.\u00a0 Of course both love and conflict are real powers in our human existing.\u00a0 But worship is not about whether something exists, but about the quality of our devotion to what does exist.\u00a0 Monotheistic faith is about an affirmation of the goodness of every Awe-filling aspect of the Overall Awesome Mysteriousness.\u00a0 This quality of Oneness in our monotheistic God-talk is a confession of faith\u2014a relational quality of trust in THAT WHOLENESS about which we know nothing with our mental faculties or with our emotional sensibilities.<\/p>\n
Every Psalm in the Bible is a poem about a relationship of trust with the One Eternal Mystery.\u00a0 Here is one of my favorite Psalms, plus a bit of substitute wording and some notations for reading it aloud, as I believe all Psalms are meant to be read.<\/p>\n
Eternal Mystery, my God, . . .
\nYou see through me. . . .
\nYou know everything, . . . when I sit down or rise up; . . .
\nYou watch my thoughts. . . .
\nYou have traced my journeys and my resting places. . . .
\nYou are familiar with all my paths. . . . . .
\nThere is not a word on my tongue that has missed your observation. . . .
\nYou have kept a close watch in front of me, behind me, and over the top of me. . .
\nYour knowledge of me is beyond my understanding. . .
\nI cannot comprehend it. . . . .<\/p>\n
Here there is a shift in tone of voice: it is louder now, more openly full of dread, a tone of satirical humor is added.<\/em><\/p>\n Where can I escape from Your presence? . . Now the voice tone shifts to sheer amazement.<\/em><\/p>\n It was You who fashioned my inward parts. . . I marvel at Your presence, You see me through and through. . . O trusted One, how deep is Your sense of things! Now the voice tone is loud and angry.<\/em><\/p>\n O trusted One, if only You would slay all those who oppose You. Now the tone is more quiet, but with the intensity of humble confession and sober trust.<\/em><\/p>\n Examine me, O trusted One, . . . know my thoughts. . . . Theologizing is a confessional witness meant for a community of faith and for the building of that community.\u00a0 Theologizing is a planet-wide address only in the sense that it is about the profound humanness that is possible for all human beings.\u00a0 But as rational content, Christian theologizing is only one of many viewpoints on this quest for realism.\u00a0\u00a0 And Christian theologizing is a group process, rather than a merely individual opinion process.\u00a0 If that group is a vital community of Christian faith, we theologizers in this group work together on a common theological project for our era.\u00a0 We Christian theologizers serve each other, and we do so in obedience to a specific revelation of Final Reality, a revelation called \u201cChrist\/Jesus.\u201d<\/p>\n When the best of Christian theology speaks of revelation, it speaks of an encounter that illuminates all encounters for those who join this revelation.\u00a0 When the best of Christian theology speaks of faith, it speaks of a current human response to a current human encounter with specific events in the life of a living human being.\u00a0 In faith, specific current events are viewed through the Christian revelation of the meaning of all events.\u00a0 Christian theologizing is reflection on such revelations of the Christ Jesus revelation.<\/p>\n A similar theologizing is taking place among many members of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.\u00a0 In what I view as the best of Jewish theologizing, we find an inquiry into a revelation about Final Reality given to us in the event of the Exodus and its accompanying new mode of law writing. In what I view as the best of Muslim theologizing, we find an inquiry into a revelation about Final Reality pulled into focus by events surrounding the life and teachings of Muhammad, who is also a devotee of the God of Abraham.<\/p>\n At least some of the theologizing within each of these vast religious communities can be seen to grapple with the implications for living the total round of life in the light of a unique revelation about the meaning for humans for living every event.<\/p>\n We can discern a great deal of overlap among the deepest theologies of these three monotheistic religions.\u00a0 There is also considerable uniquenesses in each of these three religious points of view concerning how Final Reality is to be viewed and trusted.\u00a0 In spite of these differences, all three of these Arabian-originated religions emphasize \u201ceventfulness\u201d and history and living that history in the light of a specific revelatory vision.<\/p>\n Buddhists, in their theoretics about Final Reality, make little or no use of the word \u201cGod\u201d or \u201ceventfulness,\u201d so their theoretics need not be called \u201ctheologizing.\u201d\u00a0 But Buddhists also revere a type of revelatory event found in the life and teachings of the one called \u201cBuddha.\u201d\u00a0 Christians talk of participating in dying with Christ Jesus in order to be resurrected with him to newness of life.\u00a0 Similarly, Buddhists talk of participating in the enlightenment of this historical Buddha.\u00a0 As actual experiences of the depths of human living, resurrection and enlightenment have overlapping meanings.\u00a0 Clearly each of these four religions have enrichments to share with each of the others.\u00a0 All revelation is a unique viewpoint on the Absolute Mystery of Final Reality\u2014unknown to everyone.<\/p>\n The above summary is a bare-bones picture of what a confessional theology or a confessional religious theoretics looks like.\u00a0 \u201cTheologizing\u201d is reflective thoughtfulness about an event of\u00a0 revelation concerning what we are encountering in every event.\u00a0 Each event of revelation includes the response of a primal choice of trust toward living that revelation\u2014a response often called \u201cfaith.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 In other words, revelation only becomes revelation when it is revelation to someone making the choice of faith to allow their lives to be so revealed<\/em>.<\/p>\n For more on the philosophy of religions that undergirds this mode of theologizing see:<\/p>\n
\nWhere can I flee from Your sight? . . .
\nIf I travel out beyond the last galaxy, . . You are there. . . .
\nIf I bury myself in the grave, . . You are there. . . .
\nIf I flee to the east where morning begins,
\nor go west till the ocean ends,
\neven there You will find me . .
\nYour awesome actions will grasp me. . . .
\nIf I say, “Surely darkness will cover me,
\nblack night will hide me.” . .
\nNo darkness is dark for You.
\nThe night is as luminous as the day. . .
\nDark and light are alike to You.<\/p>\n
\nYou stitched me together in my mother’s womb. . . .<\/p>\n
\nfor You fill me with AWE.
\nYou overwhelm me with WONDER,
\nAnd each specific entity You bring forth is full of WONDER. . . .<\/p>\n
\nMy private body is no mystery to you.
\nYou saw as I was secretly shaped,
\npatterned in the depths of earthiness. . .
\nYou saw me unformed in the womb.
\nYou marked down in Your records each of my limbs,
\nas day by day they were formed.
\nNot one limb was late in growing! . . .<\/p>\n
\nHow inexhaustible the subjects of Your wisdom.
\nCan I count them? . .
\nThey outnumber the grains of sand . .
\nTo finish the count, my years would have to be as numerous as Yours. . . . .<\/p>\n
\nIf only those killers of Your truth would but leave me in peace–
\nthose who challenge You with their deliberate falseness,
\nthose who viciously rebel against You. . .
\nHow I hate them, O Eternal One, those that hate You.
\nI am cut to the quick when they oppose You.
\nI hate them with undying hatred.
\nI hold them all as my enemies. . . . . .<\/p>\n
\nTest me, . . see my ignorance. . . .
\nWatch me, . . lest I follow any road that departs from You. . .
\nGuide me, . . in Your primordial path. . . . . . . .<\/p>\nTheologizing<\/h2>\n
\nIn what I view as the best of Christian theologizing, we find an inquiry into a revelation about Final Reality given to us in the \u201cNew Exodus\u201d event of dying\/resurrecting into the ongoing body of Christ Jesus.<\/p>\n