You have questions.
Is God good or not? Awful or not? Cruel or not?
You want to know if God can be trust, is loving, is just.
You want to know what to do with Judges and hell and all that.
But before and behind these questions comes an implicit decision.
In the Christian deconstruction and reconstruction process, you ultimately are making a fundamental decision about God, which leads to fundamental decisions about the Bible.
This decision is unavoidable practically (even if ignored consciously as mere a doctrinal concern or a quibbling over orthodoxy).
Before you affirm or deny that the Bible is in some way “the word of God”, that the Bible—in some way—has or doesn’t have the authority of God, we must first be clear about this fundamental decision.
A Decision Like Driving on the Right or Left
This decision about the God and the Bible is kind of like driving a car.
Either you are driving on the right (in America), or on the left (England). Functionally you make a decision when you pull out of your driveway—even if you consciously understand that people do things different in different parts of the world.
It is all just talk until you pull your car out of the driveway.
But you’ll crash if you make the wrong decision while actually driving.
Talking or Driving?
And some of us just want to talk about deconstruction and reconstruction of faith, staying safely in the spiritual driveway.
And that is fine for a little while.
It might be needed.
But then there are those who are ready to drive.
Or you are already driving again.
If so, you’ve already made this decision.
Have you made the right one?
Fundamental Decision #1: Has God Remained Silent?
Either you answer “Yes” or “No”.
Yes, God has remained silent.
Or, No, God not remained silent.
This is how Catholic theologian and philosopher puts it:
“The decisive question is whether God has spoken to the human race—about himself, of course, and likewise about his reason for creating man and the world—or whether the Absolute remains the Silence beyond all the words of the world” (Christian Meditation, 7).
Your answer to this fundamental decision leads to two other decisions. But we will get to those in future posts.
(If you want to connect this fundamental decision to 4 other necessary shifts, please check the NEW COHORT 5 Shifts for Reconstructing Faith: Renewing a Jesus-Centered Christianity forming now.)
Yes, God has Remained Silent!
If your answer is “Yes”, then what does this mean for that project called theology, and doctrine, and orthodoxy, and for that things called the Bible?
For theology, to say that God is silent means that truthfully theology is really only about humans, and our various meditations about and meditations toward the the silence of transcendence, of union, of absorption—into nothing, the Nothing, into everything, the cosmos, the Absolute (as philosophers like to say).
Human words about God or the gods are just projections of ourselves, reflections of our ideal selves and our absolute fears.
If God and the gods are silent, then theology is really just various forms of psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Theology, and doctrine, and orthodoxy, are just human constructs competing for adherents, vying for power, seeks survival.
The Silence of the Bible
And if this is the case, the Bible is really just one among many ancient human texts that speak for God—or about the gods.
But really the Bible is just speaking about us—our all too human thoughts about the gods, or God. Our all too human experiences of reaching out into the unknown and trying desperate to put to words the ultimate silence
No, God has not Remained Silent
If your answer is “No”, then theology is some kind of response to the Speaking of God. Theology might involved psychology, sociology, and anthropology, but it can’t be reduced to them.
Doctrine and orthodoxy might be humans constructs, but they are accountable to, they must correspond to, or better, be conformed to that in which exists beyond it.
Better still, theology, doctrine, and orthodoxy must be conformed toto the one who spoke and is speaking.
The Speaking of the Bible
To answer “No” to if God is silent means the while the Bible certainly bears the marks of its human composition, but it can’t reduced to these, for this would negate that God has really spoken.
The Christian Way says God has Spoken
To affirm that God speaks—has spoken, is speaking—is to remain on the Christian way.
The way that says…
“In the beginning God said…” (Genesis 1).
“In the beginning was the Word… (John 1).
“In the past God spoke to our ancestors…but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son…” (Hebrews 1).
To deny it is to leave the Christian way—even if you like to keep using Christian language, symbols, and rituals.
This doesn’t mean people don’t love God or Jesus. It just means their life (their actions and thought) are failing to be integrated, and might drift into maladapted and disintegrated forms.
Other Fundamental Decisions
Certainly the move from God speaks to an affirmation that the Bible is some kind of gathering of the “speakings of God” requires more to be said.
And that is where the next two fundamental questions come in.
And that is for next time.
Please check out the NEW COHORT forming for 5 Shifts for Reconstructing Faith: Renewing a Jesus-Centered Christianity.
Also, don’t miss the next post in this series AND disrupt the social media algorithms!!! Sign up to get these emailed to you and receive the FREE Does God Really Like Me? ebook.