Review of
Frederick Sontag and M. Darrol Bryant (eds.), God: The Contemporary Discussion.
[1]
I include this review
[2]
of a
book that well illustrates the confusion in contemporary theology about the
doctrine of God. It is an especially clear statement of what I have described
in this volume as "non-biblical views of transcendence and immanence.” The
book is so confused that I often find it amusing, and I hope you will too.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
In
December 1981 a group of scholars met on the
Evidently
it was not difficult to get the scholars to come to
The
Unificationists themselves keep a fairly low profile in this volume. Two essays
represent their viewpoint. The one by Kwak, mentioned above, is a simple,
straightforward exposition of their teachings; it does not even mention the
Rev. Moon. The other, by Young Oon Kim, relates Unification theology to other
viewpoints with which it has some initial affinity. Kim draws some interesting
parallels and distinctions between Unificationism and process theology, also with
Swedenborgianism. This essay has some importance: the
An
information sheet which I received with the book explains that this volume
intends to respond "to the growing call for a world theology." I
missed that call; must have come while I was out of the room. Seriously, I
doubt that anyone has uttered such a call, except for a group of academics
unrepresentative of their religious communities. Still, within that group of
academics, at least within the group that met on
1. First, there is
consensus on the nature of divine transcendence. Huston Smith in his brief
opening remarks to the conference announces (with the apparent assurance that
he is saying nothing controversial: this is part of the "shared
discernment that we have in common") that the "sacred" is
something "completely beyond us" (p. 3). To Ott, the great mystery of
religion ("whether we call this mystery 'God,' 'Dhamma,' 'Brahman,' or
whatever") is "fundamentally inexpressible" (p. 9, cf. p. 11).
It is (in Ott's terms) "wholly-other" (p. 12). It (sometimes called
"he," sometimes "she") should not be regarded as
"a" being among others (Macquarrie on Heidegger, pp. 157f, 163;
Scharlemann, pp. 266, 270ff; Kadowaki on Zen, p. 375). It is not an
"object" (Murti on Hinduism, pp. 29ff; Kadowaki, p. 384). Thus this
mystery cannot be known by objective means, the means by which we come to know
the things around us. Its name is "mystery" (Ott, pp. 9ff). The
object of religious awareness is "utterly disproportionate to the human
perceivers" (Hick, p. 176). "The Truth in itself is inexpressible"
(Tiwari on Hinduism, p. 248), "indefinable…indescribable" (ibid., p.
256). God is "wholly other than our thinking and other than the being of
the world or of Dasein" (Scharlemann, p. 267; Dasein = human nature). According
to Scharlemann, the most adequate thought about God conceives him "as
other than God" (p. 270), an otherness best symbolized by the crucified
Christ.
Thus our authors have
no sympathy for any rational "proofs" of God's existence (pp. 104,
163, 249, 255, 297ff, 363ff, 391, 395ff). It is possible to speak about
revelation, as long as we remember that "in his revelation, in the
incarnation of the logos, he does not cease to be mystery, he does not make
himself into a seizable and comprehendable object…. [Before him] silent
adoration is finally the only adequate attitude…. [Language] grows out of
silence and opens into silence, and even as language it still remains
penetrated by silence" (Ott, p. 14). For such reasons, the Hindu Murti
concludes that revelation comes only through myths (p. 26). Smart insists that
any revelation in words can be interpreted in various ways and thus, by its
very nature, will fail to communicate unambiguously (pp. 398ff); thus
revelation cannot be said to communicate "knowledge," though it does
"stir creativity in us" by its "character of strange openness."
2.
This consensus on divine transcendence leads to a further consensus regarding
trans-religious ecumenism. If God is really nameless, inexpressible, beyond all
description, then all the would-be describers of God (including writers of
scriptures) must admit their fallibility and inadequacy. Thus Ott warns us that "A Christian, for example, may not enter into such dialogue [with those of
other religions—JF] with any prefixed judgments about the truth of the other
religion" (p. 7). Dialogue, he says, is necessarily an "open situation;"
it involves "risk." It demands "rejection of
presuppositions" (p. 9). We must, of course, be faithful to our own
religious convictions (p. 8); but those convictions, rightly understood (as
under #1 above) will not lead a Christian or anyone else into a dogmatic
stance. If we properly understand the mysteriousness of God, we will not claim
for our religion any exclusive truth to which we must bear witness (p. 16).
Thus we can sympathize with the Hindu conviction that the different religions
represent different paths to God (pp. 34f); we will not seek to convert others
(p. 39). We can commend the Anlo people of
The
ecumenical spirit of the conference was not only theoretical; it was evident
also in the wide variety of views presented for serious consideration. Not only
did the delegates sit still (we assume) for Kim's learned comparison between
Whitehead and the Rev. Moon; in itself that would have been mere good manners,
since the Unificationists hosted the conference. But we also have in this
volume a highly sympathetic account of popular Filipino religion by V. R.
Gorospe, S.J. Roman Catholicism is the majority religion in the Philippines;
but among the less-educated majority, this Catholicism is mingled with
influences from older Eastern religions, with animistic beliefs and practices,
and with thaumaturgy (faith healing, possession trances, ecstatic preaching,
etc.). Gorospe generally commends this mixture, noting that such religion can
teach us much about respect for the earth (pp. 104f), about the need to
overcome the "separation of the sacred and the profane" in modern
life (pp. 120f). Gorospe finds something good in every popular superstition.
His defense of flagellation rituals is worth the price of the book (p. 124):
Penitential
flagellations have been regarded in the past as signs of perversion,
exhibitionism, sadomasochism, fanaticism, or anti-clericalism and are now being
exploited by the tourism industry. But these penitential rites can be
sacramentalized by bringing in the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the
Eucharist and by harmonizing the reading of the Passion with these flagellation
penances. They can become "signals of transcendence" for ascetic renewal
and self-denying love.…The value of the flagellation rite can be defended by
relating it to a primary principle of Christian asceticism, the need for
self-discipline.
The Jesuit talent for
syncretism is not dead in our time! Similarly, Christian R. Gaba expounds the
religious beliefs and practices of the Anlo people of west Africa. They worship
God through the mediation of ancestors and lesser deities. While it appears
that these lesser deities crowd God out of the picture at times, Gaba reassures
us that it only appears so because of the nature of the formal ritual which "leads to a permissible exaggeration of the functions of these spirit
beings" (p. 133). (My guess is that if the priests of Baal had used such
an argument on Elijah they would not have had great success.) Gaba tells us
that to the Anlos sin is not a "state" but "life-negating"
acts (p. 140) and that for them salvation is by works (p. 144). He commends
them (as Gorospe commended the Filipinos) for having a good perspective on the
"sacred dimension of life" (p. 146).
The
approach of process theology is a bit different at the outset, but ends up at
the same point. Process theology is mentioned a number of times in this volume,
and not only as a foil to Rev. Moon. Macquarrie notes some common emphases
between process thought and Heidegger (pp. 162.f), and Hick, after the manner
of the Whiteheadians, tells us that God changes as the traditions about him
change (p. 176). Gorospe even informs us that the popular Filipino religion "acknowledges God as Creator and His active presence without in any way
denying scientific evolution and process philosophy" (p. 112). I wonder if
he asked them about that. But the most extensive discussion of process thought
is the article by Theodore Vitali. It is obscure, as much process theology is;
and thinkers of this school are never so obscure as they are when seeking to
resolve intramural disputes.
In
this article, Vitali criticizes the views of fellow-Whiteheadians Norris Clarke
and Robert Neville. These men (to make a very long story short) find that traditional
process philosophy lacks intelligibility because it lacks a clear concept of
the world's origin. Since God and the world "create" one another in
process thought, the God-world complex lacks any unequivocal cause and thus
rests on chance. Clarke and Neville offer two different ways to remedy this
problem, both returning to sort-of modified, amended, revised forms of creation
ex nihilo. Vitali doesn't like these expedients because they compromise what he
deems essential to process thought—the notion that the universe produces
changes in God. He thinks that the problem of intelligibility can be solved by
more "traditional" process resources: Hartshorne's ontological
argument which establishes God's necessary existence, which provides, in turn,
a rationale for the existence of the world. (Of course, Hartshorne's argument
establishes only the "primordial" nature of God, God's most abstract
features. God’s concreteness comes through his interaction with the world; and
in my view there is still a major problem of intelligibility at that level, and
thus with the process-god in general.) At any rate, Vitali makes it clear that
for the process-thinker, as for those mentioned in the previous paragraph, man
has attributes that traditionally have been ascribed to God; and he admits that
such confusion between creator and creature leads to problems in the system.
Such
is the consensus which emerges from this volume. My critique can perhaps be
discerned from the tone of my exposition; but some points deserve more explicit
treatment. First on the concept of transcendence: The statement that God is not
an "object" or "a" being among others has become a kind of
litany in modern theology. Everyone treats it as perfectly obvious. I confess,
however, that I really don't find it obvious; I'm not even sure I know what it
means. Someone without theological sophistication would probably take these
statements to mean that God is not a material "object"—a
"thing" that we can see, touch, manipulate, etc. But of course no one
except cultists and Stoics would claim that God is material. Do these
statements mean, then, that God is not an "object" of discourse? That
he is not a "being" in the sense of object of predication, something
that can be thought of or spoken about? Well, all the language about God's
"inexpressibility" suggests such a notion. But surely the writers in
this volume do claim to speak about God. Even the statement that "God is
not an object" is a statement about God. If God is literally inexpressible,
how did these thinkers manage to produce a 419-page book about him? The Muslim
theologian Gaafar Sheikh Idris, dissenting significantly from the general
consensus outlined above, argues against some of his fellow Muslims who believe
that only negative or metaphorical statements can be made concerning God. His
arguments are good on the whole; they show that consistent
"negationism" is impossible and contrary to the requirements of
religious worship (pp. 279ff). From a Christian standpoint, I must point out that
Scripture does not teach anything like the doctrine of transcendence presented
in the consensus. There is in the Bible a doctrine of divine
incomprehensibility (Isa 55:8f, Rom 11:33–36): we cannot comprehend God's ways
or thought. He has not revealed himself to us exhaustively; thus there is
always more to him than we know. But Scripture never deduces from this fact
that there is any defect in its own account of God. Although the word of the
prophets, apostles and Scriptures is not exhaustive, it is nonetheless true.
Thus God is an object of predication, and, in that sense, he is "a"
being among others, an "object."
Second,
on the subject of trans-religious ecumenism: Just as it is self-refuting to
publish a 419-page book about an "inexpressible" God, so it is self-refuting
to promote an all-inclusive ecumenism. If dialogue must be totally open,
without any presuppositions about the truth or falsity of another's religion,
then of course one must also leave open the question of the truth of one's own
convictions, including his convictions about the legitimacy of ecumenism. But
in fact, the book shows very little openness to those who would deny the model
of "many paths to one transcendent reality." Tiwari, indeed, does
differ somewhat from the consensus at this point, indicating certain
differences between Christian and Hindu conceptions and making it clear that a
choice must be made (pp. 245ff); but in general the book's authors are
exceedingly dogmatic and exclusivistic in their ecumenism. Thus it is not
surprising that the one religious view which is conspicuously missing here is
that of evangelical Christianity; such Christianity cannot be tolerated in the
ecumenical discussion, for it must necessarily challenge the consensus at every
point.
Then on the consensus
view of immanence: clearly it deifies the creature and demolishes the Lordship
of God over his world. In Scripture, God's transcendence is his sovereignty—his
supreme power and authority. Because of (not in spite of) that power and
authority, God is the most significant, the most prominent fact of our
experience. Thus he is intimately present, immanent, clearly revealed, in his
world. The consensus-theology reverses this structure: therein, man or creation
has supreme power, authority, divinity. God, then, if he exists, is either
identical to man-creation (immanence) or totally other—absent, hidden from
creation (transcendence).
Thus
we do find in this book the beginnings of a "world theology"; but it
is a world theology contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ, a world theology
devised by "the prince of this world." It has no more authority or
power than any other bit of academic speculation. Interestingly, Theodore
Vitali, after resisting the attempts of Clarke and Neville to reintroduce
creation ex nihilo, expresses some concern with the situation created by
arguments like his own. He realizes that to oppose the Christian tradition as
he has done produces a real problem, for the future of process philosophy will
depend upon its ability to function within the Great Tradition.
If process philosophers and theologians are unable to retain
and enhance the formal elements in the Christian Creeds, it is my opinion that
process philosophy will slip off into the wayside of Western thought. (p. 242]
Well, that is a problem,
and not only for Vitali; it calls the whole conference into question. What do
these people know about God anyway? They do not even claim the gift of
prophecy, only academic credentials. But since when do academic credentials
confer upon anyone a knowledge of God? Yet they feel perfectly free to reason
autonomously, ignoring, patronizing, or attacking the "Great
Traditions" of living religions, creating an artificial religion of their
own. Indeed, for the most part, they are quite ignorant of the theology of the
true God and his way of salvation in Christ. It is symbolic that this
conference was convened under the auspices of the Unification Church; for this
volume demonstrates graphically the extent to which modern theology has gone
cultic: autonomous reasoning, rejection of biblical doctrine, phony tolerance,
creation of a new, exclusive religious community in which Whiteheadians can
converse amiably with Unificationists and Filipino animists, but from which
disciples of Jesus Christ are excluded.
There is a true world
theology.
Jesus
shed his blood, not for our sins only, but for those of the whole world (1 John
2:2). And he calls us to "go into all the world and teach all
nations" (Matt 28:19). The gospel of Christ is not captive to the
"Western mind." To the Hindu and Buddhist, it proclaims a way to
overcome the suffering of life, not by escaping into nothingness, but by a new
life of fulness and abundance. To the animist and idolater, it proclaims a
direct path to the very presence of God, through Jesus whose death destroyed
the veil in the temple. To the modern Jew, who (like Roth in our volume, pp.
345ff) is more preoccupied by