The
sixth chapter of my book The Limits of Liberalism, which I am currently
revising, slightly, and updating for re-publication at the end of this year, is
titled “Limits of Liberal Views of God.” This blog post is based on parts of
that chapter.
Is
God’s Transcendence a Problem?
Among theological liberals, there has been rather strongly
stated opposition to what some label as “supernatural theism.” For example, the
noted British scholar Karen Armstrong has publicly rejected what she calls “the
God of supernatural theism.”
This
opposition is, in other words, a rejection of the transcendence of God, the
idea/belief that God is “above” and “beyond” the natural world that we humans
can know by science.
Since
there is a tendency to think that all knowledge of the physical world (nature) can
be obtained by modern scientific means, whatever is considered not a part of
nature is, therefore, supernatural.
Consequently,
belief in a “supernatural” Creator of heaven and earth, the concept of God who
is somehow not completely an integral part of the natural world, is rejected.
For modern people, for whom liberal thinkers seek to speak,
the transcendence or “otherness” of God—or the “infinite
qualitative distinction” between God and human beings that Kierkegaard
emphasized—is seen as a problem to be overcome by a newer, more enlightened,
view of God.
Is
God’s “Domestication” the Answer?
Over
the last seventy years especially, many liberal theologians and philosophers
have rejected the concept of God’s transcendence by emphasizing the complete
immanence of God.
William
C. Placher was a leading postliberal theologian in the United States. Back in
1996, he published a book titled The
Domestication of Transcendence: How Modern Thinking about God Went Wrong.
In his book, Placher (1948~2008) contended that the
shift from a transcendental theism to an immanental pantheism led to what he
calls (and titles his fifth chapter) “the domestication of God”—a pregnant
phrase that indicates a significant aspect of the limits of liberal thinking
about God.
That
is part of the reason that Scottish philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre quipped in
1966, “Theists are offering atheists less and less in which to disbelieve.”
What
about Experience of God?
In
the fall of 1957, I began my final two years of college as a transfer student
at William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri. One of my courses that fall was
Philosophy of Religion.
Professor Murray Hunt chose Philosophy of Religion as our textbook. It
was authored by the Quaker scholar D. Elton Trueblood, Professor of
Philosophy at Earlham College, and published earlier that year.
Because
of that course and Trueblood’s book, the philosophy of religion became my main
academic interest, and it remained so for decades.
Part
II, the heart of Trueblood’s book, is titled “Theistic Realism,” which,
although he doesn’t use those words, is a rebuttal/rejection of the movement
toward the domestication of God.
Trueblood begins “The
Theistic Hypothesis,” the first chapter of Part II, with these words: “God,
when carefully defined, either is or is not.” He then goes on to explain,
To say that God “is” means to give assent to the proposition that the idea of God is not merely an idea in the minds of men, but actually refers to what is objectively the case—something which was before we came to be aware of it and which now is, independent of our awareness or lack of awareness (p. 79).
Those
who have sought to domesticate God have often spoken of the “God within” human
beings. Thus, God is understood as a subjective experience of individual
persons. This stands in contrast to the theistic realism Trueblood expounds,
and his position, I believe, is far more coherent.
The
last chapter of Part II is “The Evidence of Religious Experience.” I was
studying philosophy of religion because I was preparing to become a
Christian pastor—and I was preparing for that vocation (literally) because of
what I firmly believed, and still believe, was a definite “call” by God.
My
experience was not highly ecstatic or “otherworldly.” It was much more like the
“still small voice” that the prophet Elijah heard (according to 1 Kings 19:12,
KJV). But it was unquestionably real.
Those
who wish to domesticate God would explain my, and Elijah’s, experience as only
a subjective one. But I am convinced that making everything related to God
subjective, or immanent, is one of the debilitating limits of liberalism.
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Well, there are several problems here. To begin with, you're representing liberal views in a way that makes them sound like pantheism, which is a misrepresentation of most liberal views of God. The idea that in God "we live and move and have our being" is not a liberal invention. That God is in everything goes back, even in Western faiths, to very ancient times and is easily found in the mystical traditions of Christianity. The concept of God as separate from creation is not more compressible than that God includes creation. In fact, the greater problem with the radical notion of a God separate from creation is that it suggests there are places where God can't be. Hm... Sounds a bit limiting to me!
ReplyDeleteAnton, thanks for your response and for raising important issues.
DeleteThe problem with writing a 700-word article about a 22-page chapter is that it can't include all the points made and ideas explained in the chapter. And part of the problem in writing about liberalism is that there is a great variety of "liberal" positions, whereas it was not so hard to write about fundamentalism as there is a lot more unanimity there.
I did not mean to imply that all liberals are pantheists, although some are. I thought I was asserting that many liberals are immanentalists who for the most part reject the notion of God's transcendence. I think Karen Armstrong is representative of a large percentage of liberals in her rejection of "supernatural theism."
But since I didn't want to make the article any longer, I didn't say that my personal belief is in a concept of God that embraces both transcendence and immanence. I think it is incorrect and highly delimiting to emphasize only one or the other. But in seeking to "rebut" liberal views of God, I wrote mainly about the transcendence of God. Certainly, as in most theological issues I advocate a paradoxical, both/and position.
Leroy, I think you are missing the point. Religious experience is one thing - it is totally personal and simply is what it is. But as soon as you try to talk about it, or even think about it in your own head to make sense of it, you are immediately and 100% enveloped in human language. To bring that point home for this discussion, God Talk is above all else, Talk - i.e., human use of human language. Human language emerges from human communities of human beings. Human beings are 100% mortal, not immortal/transcendent. Human language is a valuable tool for interpersonal communication, but it emerges from and remains embedded within the mortal human sphere. Even while we use language to DESCRIBE what is outside of that sphere, we can never lose sight of the simple recognition that what we are actually describing is a picture in our own mortal imaginations. It is of a qualitatively different level of abstraction than when we use human language to describe to each other persons, places or things that are inside the sphere. It SOUNDS the same, describing God and describing a chair, and thus we are easily confused, but we simply must keep well in mind that despite the similar grammatical forms, these are very different uses of language. When we insist that our God Talk is describing that which is outside of the limited mortal sphere within which we all live and have our being, we are either: being total fools, claiming to know that which we simply cannot know, inside the sphere looking outward but fooling ourselves that we are outside the sphere looking in; or, by assuming a 'God's-Eye-View' of things, insisting that when WE speak we KNOW what is actually outside the sphere, we make ourselves God, or at the very least create a human artifact (our God Talk) and then bow down and worship it as if it were actually God (which is the classic biblical definition of idolatry.) So, we have three choices in relation to God Talk: 1. recognize from the beginning and throughout that what we are talking about in the first place is human experience, human imagination, ways of putting into language those aspects of life most precious, sensitive, small t transcendent, etc.; 2. foolishness that inevitably tends toward leaning into chauvinism, bigotry, claims to superiority over others (we of the RIGHT view, you of the FALSE view); 3. abject idolatry in the clearest biblical sense of the word. Actually a 4th position would just be to refuse God Talk altogether. I respect #4 folks, but find I can't live a full life and satisfying that way. #1 is my choice, which I find to be very full and satisfying and offering bridges of communication with people I would have otherwise missed, even with folks of #2 and #3 intentions, though I obviously don't hear many of their claims in the way they might think I am hearing them
ReplyDeleteDan, I don't know who you are, but I appreciate you taking the time to write such a long and erudite response to my blog article.
DeleteOn the one hand, I appreciate your emphasis on the ineffability of God and the problem of all God-talk. That is the eternal problem for all of us who are involved in being preachers or teachers of the Christian faith, or of any religion. Certainly, there are limits to speaking about anything, and especially anything related to God and anything that is not just a part of the physical world.
But I was not writing about my explanation of God but about what I believe was my experience of God. And as I say in the chapter on which this article is written, a true experience of anything depends on an objective reality as well as a subjective reaction to that reality. We can say that we experience the beauty of a sunset, but that is not just a subjective experience, for the objective colors of the western sky are there.
There are all sorts of problems which can arise, and which have often arisen, from those who claim to have experienced God. And it is always possible that those who claim such an experience may have been mistaken--and I am sure there are people who could "explain" that my experience of God was a mistaken notion. And certainly, it is something I have re-considered and evaluated from time to time. But I have lived and worked for 68 years now with that experience as a pivotal point in my life, and see no need whatsoever to renounce the reality of it, even though I am unable to articulate the experience adequately.
Oops! Don't look up "compressible." I meant "comprehensible." :D
DeleteSorry, I meant that to follow my post, not Leroy's response to Normal Dan. I like Normal Dan's important observations about the use of language and God-talk. It's a most important insight and something I made the case for in one of my books, where I quoted with approval this from St. John of the Cross: “One of the greatest favors bestowed on the soul...in this life is to enable it to see so distinctly and to feel so profoundly that it cannot comprehend God at all.”
DeleteAnton, you may be glad to know that #1 in my book "Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now" is "God Is Greater Than We Think, Or Even Can Think" and in the first paragraph I quote a statement that may go back as far as John Chrysostom: "A God comprehended is no God."
DeleteHere are comments from Thinking Friend Eric Dollard in Chicago:
ReplyDelete"Thanks, Leroy, for sharing Chapter 6 of your book. I have skimmed over it, but I hope to take a deeper look sometime this weekend.
"The chapter mentions two theologians with Chicago connections: Paul Tillich, who taught at the University of Chicago, and Carl Braaten, who taught at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC). Although our pastor, Jason Glombicki, at Wicker Park Lutheran Church did not graduate from LSTC (he graduated from the ELCA seminary in Philadelphia), he is a panentheist and recently gave a sermon about it."
Thanks, Eric, for your comments, and I do hope that you will have time to read the chapter carefully and give me feedback on it. I always appreciate, and profit from, your comments.
DeleteYes, I think highly of those two theologians with connections to Chicago. Tillich is on the liberal side and Braaten somewhat on the conservative side, but they are both thinkers whom I would like to include in the "radiant center" that I advocate in the final chapter of the book.
And then there is this direct question and comment from Thinking Friend Glenn Hinson in Kentucky:
ReplyDelete"Do you believe God is immanent as well as transcendent, Leroy? We humans should hope so. The emphasis on immanence goes back to the mystics or contemplatives and their experience of God."
Yes, I certainly believe in God's immanence--but in harmony with and not in contrast to God's transcendence. And I believe that mystical or contemplative experience is possible only because of both immanence and transcendence--and that is my problem with the sort of theological liberalism that seems to emphasize only God's immanence and rejects "supernatural theism." It seems to me that all real "experience of God" is based on some affirmation of "supernatural theism," although there is a lot of baggage associated with that term that needs to be jettisoned.
DeleteLeroy, this discussion is (almost) beyond my understanding. Christian ethics is closer to my heart. I'm curious, if you were ever tempted to go in that direction, rather than the philosophy of religion? If so, what steered you away from ethics?
ReplyDeleteFor instance, right now I am pondering the dilemma of short-term pro-growth political support for the economy and mitigating the current pandemic and long-term de-growth advocacy by environmentalists for mitigating climate change. What would Jesus do?
Phil, I wrote in the article that philosophy of religion was my main academic concern for decades, but that concern gradually shifted to social ethics. At the end of my teaching career in Japan, I was much more interested in teaching Christian Social Ethics than Philosophy of Religion. And in the last 11 years, far more of my 820+ blog posts have been related to social ethics than to the philosophy of religion. But I still think that the latter is of considerable importance.
DeleteSo I guess the correct question is, what steered you towards Christian Social Ethics? Was it 9/11 and the war on terror? Was it Clinton's compromise with Newt Gingrich in ending welfare as we know it? Was it the My Lai massacre and the impulse to destroy a village in order to save it?
DeleteIn teaching Christian Studies to Japanese students, 98% of whom were not Christians, I initially thought that I needed to deal with intellectual problems. Since most of my students were atheists, to varying degrees, I developed a whole course on the "God-problem."
DeleteBut I gradually came to realize that the main question most of my students had was with the problematic ethical activities of Western Christians--the Crusades, racial discrimination, the Indo-China war, etc. So in the 1980s I developed a new course that I called "Radical Christianity," and I dealt primarily with social ethical issues and talked about people such as Martin Luther King, Jr., and the great Japanese theologian/activist Toyohiko Kagawa.
So after about three decades (beginning in 1957) of being primarily interested in the philosophy of religion, by 1987 my main interest had shifted to social ethics. However, I in no way gave up my interest in the former.
Way to open a real can of worms, Leroy! :-) I am no longer confident of any acceptable terms for this topic. Transcendental immanence?? Immanental transcendence?? :-)
ReplyDeleteThe Beyond (or “more-than”) in-our midst? Not “in” us, rather “between” us or in which we have our being. Not “somewhere else” but “here and now”. “otherworldly” “this-worldly” “world-to-come-ly” , etc., etc.
I wonder if “supernatural theism” is taken to be the equivalent of claiming God to be “wholly [completely] other”. Not sure, of course. Not sure of anything. But I am inclined to hear the language which focuses on God as transcendent, wholly-other, sovereign, etc. as foreign to biblical images of God-with-us as “Emmanuel”.
The holy God is not “separate” [completely other?] from us (or the world), but “distinguishable” in the midst of our (ordinary?) events. The “holy” in our experience is the “extraordinary” not the “anti-natural”. [Does supernatural come to mean anti-natural, other-worldly?]
This stream-of-consciousness is an excuse to share this quote of which I have long been fond! [Walter Kaufmann, “Critique of Religion and Philosophy”, p.357, Harper, 1972 edition]
“There is a sense in which a radiator is more nearly wholly other than we are than is the God in whose image we are made.”
Perhaps talk of the “human face of God” [in Jesus, in the reconciling/restoring-to-relationship Esau] does not so much “domesticate” a transcendent “being” so much as it alerts us to a “becoming” in our midst: vocatus atque non vocatus deus aderit [Invited or not, God shows up!] Shalom, Dick
Dick, thanks so much for your sharing significant points to ponder--and for emphasizing the importance of seeing/affirming the immanence of God as well as God's transcendence. I emphasize transcendence mainly in seeking to rebut those who place what I consider too much emphasis on God's immanence. But for those who place too much emphasis on God's transcendence, I want to emphasize the importance of seeing/affirming immanence.
DeleteAnd thanks for the closing words, which I am using in the introduction to my July 30 blog post
Leroy, thanks for the profound thinking points. On a personal note Trueblood was my first experience in Philosophy of Religion at Southwest Baptist College taught by Dan Cochran.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I want to affirm your approach to the subject and the need to re-think some of our thoughts during the era which we live. There is a sense that "this is that" and "that is this" a loop that is looking back to see, and a look forward to this is that. Using your example, your experience was a subjective, personal, experience, that has given way to your own history to become objective. Others have been able to affirm you and your experience at the time of ordination and since then. Your history as a pastor/professor have been able to make your call as pastor measurable and concretized by others beyond your own subjectivity.
What has been concretized in the history by the church and others began with a subjective "lets see" type of experience about their history. It seems the limits of "Liberalism" is caught by the reality that no matter the extent of empirical evidence. The evidence is drawn in, synthesized, filtered by biases and the human condition. So one looking for freedom from subjectivity when considering God is never free from personal experience. Additionally, the slogan "God said it so that settles it" is another form of harm and difficulty for the non-believer.
Frank, thanks for your comments -- and for mentioning Dan Cochran, who I came to know and to appreciate greatly when my family and I lived in Bolivar during the 1971-72 academic year. I don't remember knowing that he used Trueblood in his Philosophy of Religion class, but I am not surprised. We shared many common ideas and he was, by far, the SWBC professor I was closest to during that year in which I taught a couple of courses at Southwest--but not directly related to the philosophy of religion.
DeleteWhile there is a lot to chew on in Chapter 6, what stood out to me today was a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
ReplyDelete"Honesty demands that we recognize that we must live in the world as if there were no God. . . . We stand continually in the presence of the God who makes us live in the world without the God-hypothesis."
I am curious just what he meant by that. To me, it sees to say that ethics is more important than doctrine. Yet, God is there reminding us that our ethical choices are profoundly important. In a world where we find ourselves overwhelmed by questions of Black Lives Matter, global warming, police issues, plastics pollution, over population, economic imperialism, and so much more; it seems Bonhoeffer is telling me I need science even more than theology. Or, at least, the churches that have become regional COVID-19 hotspots need science! (Yes, from Korea to Colorado, they have done it.)
Yes, Bonhoeffer's enigmatic words have caused a lot of speculative talk about what he meant by them. I think that it is quite likely he was speaking against the old idea of "Deus ex machina," a phrase that you are probably familiar with since you have considerable knowledge about theatrical plays.
DeleteIn commenting here I feel like a child among giants. I have not read Christian philosophy in over forty years. My introduction was in 1970 at the University of KY with the book by John Hick, The Existence of God. Then there was The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and its philosophy classes. After all these years I have grown more conservative and more moderate at the same time as I seek to understand the Bible as being the word of God without it being the end-all history, science, and sociology book.
ReplyDeleteSo I fall back on the words in Isaiah, "My thoughts are not your thoughts..." At the same time I see the writer trying to describe how God can be the "friend" of Abraham and speak with Moses face to face. As Normal Dan said, human language falls utterly short of trying to describe the reality of the incomprehensible. God-talk must always fall short of what we are trying to say, but that doesn't mean we stop trying. Mathematicians understand this as they try to describe a four dimensional concept in terms other than mathematics. It gives some of us a headache.
To speak of the transcendence of God without negating his immanence is to use a language which can give us only a very limited appreciation for the subject. If God is only transcendent, then he is unknowable and unexperienceable (is that a word?)from a human perspective. If he is totally immanent, then science is our path to God and we can all become animists. God to be God must be both/and as you said, Bro. Leroy. It is paradoxical.
Thanks, Tom, for your comments and especially for your concluding paragraph, with which, of course, I fully agree.
DeleteConcerning John Hick: I also read him in the 1960s and 1970s, and I liked his philosophical and theological positions more then than in the following decades when he became more liberal.