At Toledo Mennonite Church, we are spending 24 days (starting today, Feb. 9, 2009) together as a congregation studying the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective, one article at a time.
For more on the Confession of Faith, including a full text, go here.
The title of this document is very deliberate. There is no definite article in the title; it is neither the definitive confession of faith, nor is it the Mennonite perspective on the Christian faith (let alone the perspective of the Church of Jesus Christ on matters of doctrine). While according to the introduction to the Confession of Faith, Anabaptists have been writing confessions of this sort since the 1527 Schleitheim Articles, it has been my impression that Anabaptists are not so into creeds as certain other movements arising out of the Reformation have been. (My impressions on this point are, I believe, drawn from John Roth's Beliefs: Mennonite Faith and Practice: namely, that Anabaptists value "doing theology in community", emphasize "the priesthood of all believers" and Protestant notions of "sola scriptura", and see Anabaptist theology as an ongoing conversation albeit within a certain traditional framework). The Anabaptists of the Radical Reformation rejected, I think, the new Reformed scholasticism which defined orthodoxy in terms of a (practically) authoritative tradition that replaced the authoritative tradition of the Catholic Church. (My historical theology here is admittedly sketchy--please correct me if I am guilty of error!)
Still, the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective is intended by its authors to serve six stated functions:(1) to provide guidelines for the interpretation of Scripture, while at the same time, the confession itself is subject to the authority of the Bible.
It is my view that the Confession serves primarily a pedagogical and ecumenical purpose, and at the same time offers Mennonite-Anabaptist congregations with some basis for ongoing conversation as we practice doing theology in community. It provides a common framework, but not one with absolute authority. Our own congregation at TMC values its ideological diversity. I myself would offer the metaphor of the raft: we may be redesigning and rebuilding it while we are sailing on it, but we certainly need enough raft to stand on while we do so. (And there are limits to how radically we might redesign the raft without sinking and drowning!)
(2) to provide guidance for belief and practice; a written statement should support but not replace the lived witness of faith.
(3)to build a foundation for unity within and among churches.
(4)to offer an outline for instructing new church members and for sharing information with inquirers.
(5) to give an updated interpretation of belief and practice in the midst of changing times.
(6) to help in discussing Mennonite belief and practice with other Christians and people of other faiths.
Here is the summary statement of Article #1, entitled "God". (Link to full-text):1. We believe that God exists and is pleased with all who draw near by faith. We worship the one holy and loving God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit eternally. God has created all things visible and invisible, has brought salvation and new life to humanity through Jesus Christ, and continues to sustain the church and all things until the end of the age.
The short devotional offered by one of our members for today is a meditation on 2 Corinthians 9:8:And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.
He writes: "This verse describes for me some of the primary attributes of God as well as demonstrates God’s care for creation, especially those who have been created in God’s image."
Consonant with the historic, orthodox Christian faith, Mennonites believe in the Triune God as the whole Church confesses in the Nicene Creed. What we believe about God pertains to the acts of God in redemptive history. God is the Creator of heaven and earth. God has acted through Christ to give life to humanity in calling a community of faithful disciples. The article declares: "Beginning with Abraham and Sarah, God has called forth a people of faith to worship God alone, to witness to the divine purposes for human beings and all of creation, and to love their neighbors as themselves. (Gen. 12:2-3; Lev. 19:18; Rom. 4:11-25; 1 Pet. 3:9-11) We have been joined to this people through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ and by confessing him to be Savior and Lord as the Holy Spirit has moved us (Gal. 2:20; Rom. 3:22)."
Mennonite identity is centrally, first and foremost, membership in the people of God. We are a community of faith, not merely a class of individuals. And it is as a community that God--acting in Christ and in the Holy Spirit--has created us, His Church (see article #9).
We believe that God is beyond our understanding (Exod. 3:13-14; Job 37; Isa. 40:18-25; Rom. 11:33-36); yet we also believe that God has communicated truth to us about him. "We believe that what we know of God through revelation fits with who God really is." "God both surpasses human understanding and is truly knowable through revelation. Our knowledge of God rests in this tension."
We believe God is most fully revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word, as the Nicene Creed says "very God of very God" (John 1:14, 18; Heb. 1:1-4).
We believe God is revealed as love. "We confess that in the divine being these attributes [which sometimes appear contradictory to us] are perfectly united." Yet, "according to Scripture, the love of God has a certain priority in relation to other divine attributes." So, we confess that God is "holy love", "almighty love", "preserving love", "righteous love", "redemptive love", "suffering love", and "faithful love" (Exod. 20:4-6; 34:5-7; Ps. 25:4-10; Isa. 6; 54:10; Matt. 5:48; Rom. 2:5-11; 3:21-26; 1 John 4:8, 16).
----
Biblical theism is the cornerstone of Mennonite Christianitiy. Christianity is about being in relation to God, as part of a community of faith. Above all, God relates to us by His love--love which surpasses our comprehension and experience of human love, yet which is sufficiently analogous to our concept of love that the word--but more the experience of Jesus' life and actions--communicates God's nature to us.
As Rich Mullins wrote, "We didn't know what love was 'til He came, and He gave love a face, and He gave love a name".
Loving my neighbor as myself, one of two equally great commandments summing up the whole will of God for His people according to Jesus, means then to live as Christ lived with respect to all other human beings: clean or unclean, sinful or righteous, Jew or Gentile, Christian or non-Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or agnostic, friend or enemy.
------
"Make me a channel of Your Peace."
-St. Francis
Monday, February 9, 2009
Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective, Article 1: God
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
2 comments:
I'm making the first comment on my own post! Does this break a law?
I want to talk about this article of faith in connection to religious pluralism--I'm thinking in particular of John Hick's variety.
On Hick's view, as I understand it, "God" refers to the Transcendental Real, which is incomprehensible. Or, at the same time, "God" refers to some one particular human conception -- choose from: the God of philosophical theism, the Triune God of Christianity revealed in the biblical witness, the God revealed in the Qur'an, Krishna as conceived by ISKCON, Ekankar as conceived by Sikhism, et al.
On Hick's view, all of the above human conceptions are wrong: they are filled with inaccuracies insofar as they are intended as a representation of the Real. Or, perhaps it is better to say that on Hick's view, all of the above human conceptions are wrong because the Real is not something that can be cognized by human beings. The Real can therefore neither be accurately represented nor can it be misrepresented, for it cannot be represented at all.
At the same time, a Hickian pluralist might put a generous spin on the relationship between human conceptions of God and the Real. There might be something helpful in these conceptions--helpful in our attempting to grasp the Real with our minds. All of these understand God as Transcendent and beyond human comprehension. All of these understand God as the ground of being. So, these human conceptions of God have something in common, a way in which they are all good and right: they are aimed at the Real.
For the Hickian pluralist, these various religious conceptions can also be good in this way: insofar as a conception contributes to a human being (individually or communally) living well, or growing in moral virtue, or loving other human beings, it is a good conception of the Real.
I think there's a lot to criticize here. If the Real is something we cannot cognize, then isn't Hick's cognition of the Real just as misguided? Hick cognizes the Real as: Transcendent Being. Is there something special about these categories of thought that makes them applicable to the Real in a way that specific Hindu, Muslim, or Christian categories are not?
And second, Hick seems to assume that the Real is concerned with human moral goodness, and that the Real is interested in humans loving one another. Hick will probably admit that attributing concern and interest the Real in this way is anthropomorphism. But what exactly is the purpose of such anthropomorphic language for the pluralist? And can pluralism, which contains these ideas of the Real, stand out from particular religious conceptions of God as different in kind? Isn't this just one more religious conception of something that cannot be conceptualized?
Isn't it us, or Hick, human beings, that are interested in human moral progress and in humans loving one another? How might such interests Really relate to the Real?
Perhaps someone more sympathetic to Hick--or a proponent of an alternative form of religious pluralism--might be able to respond to some of my questions, or to correct my representation of Hick's view.
But, let me talk now about how this first Article from Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective relates to a Hickian pluralism.
1. "We believe that what we know of God through revelation fits with who God really is." "God both surpasses human understanding and is truly knowable through revelation. Our knowledge of God rests in this tension."
Hickian pluralism denies the first sentence, and the second conjunct of the second sentence. Or, perhaps, pluralism admits that God is truly knowable through special revelation, but says that such revelation is imperfect, and that Christian special revelation is on a par with Hindu and Muslim and Sikh revelation. The pluralist will probably still deny that through revelation we know God as God really is.
A Thomist could probably give me substantial help in explaining what I might think about the tension between God's incomprehensibility and God's knowability. But let me take a stab at it. There's lots we don't know about God's essence, because it isn't revealed to us. Hence, God is beyond our understanding. What revelation we have involves metaphor and anthropomorphism. God transcends the human language that God uses to describe Godself. However, God has used human language to describe Godself. And so such language is able to help us grasp something of God's nature.
Also, since we believe humans are created in the image of God, and since we believe God is personal, perhaps not quite so much of the biblical witness of God's nature is anthropomorphic metaphor. For if we are God's images, then knowing something about human beings does in fact help us know something about God as God really is. And if God really is personal--analogously to human personality--then our psychological terms may indeed track with God's mind as it really is. The Tripersonality of God, of course, is one way in which God transcends our conceptions, for it is one way in which God transcends our own human personalities.
Christians confessing in a Mennonite perspective also emphasize the personal revelation of God in Jesus Christ. (And Mennonites are not alone in the Church in doing so). Jesus is the supreme human image of God. When we see Jesus, we see God as God really is. Even if much of who God is still transcends our understanding and cognitive capacities. Indeed, as Jesus is now glorified and exalted, much of who Jesus is transcends our cognitive capacities--at least as they are now, in our unglorified state. But Jesus was God before He was glorified, and Jesus was a perfect (in the sense of complete--God's complete revelation, if not a revelation giving us a complete picture of God) revelation of God before He was glorified. (I mean, before He was resurrected and transfigured. Jesus most fully revealed the nature of God in His glory on the cross, which is what the Fourth Gospel means by Jesus' glorification).
I think the confession of God revealed in Jesus is something that Hick cannot sign on to. I am suspicious of the claim that a religious pluralist could confess this article of faith in good faith. The Christian claim that Jesus is the fullness of the revelation of God is an exclusivist claim. The Qur'an, Guru Nanak, Krishna--these are not revelations on a par with the revelation of God in the person of Jesus. Although I might be pluralistic enough to admit there is some truth to the way these traditions talk about God. (For example, they might get the Transcendent Reality part right, and perhaps the love of fellow man part right).
I am not a religious pluralist, with respect to my theology of how we know God and how God has revealed Godself to humanity. And I think that this article in the Confession agrees with my position, and that it would be bad hermeneutics or worse to affirm this article and maintain a Hickian philosophy of religion.
(Michael A., I'd be really interested in your response here. Can you use this particular article of faith to illustrate how your brand of pluralism would relate to the Christian tradition? Is this article something you can "dig deep" into? And if so, how? And, it goes without saying, I'd like to be corrected if I'm misconstruing pluralism or using Hick as a straw man.)
I'm not going to try to defend Hick; I find him to be a good start to the project, but I think that you've by and large pointed out the problems that I'm trying to work out as well. Since dealing with these point by point would take too long, I'll jump to how I could see pluralists interpreting this creed, and we'll see where the discussion takes us.
"1. 'We believe that what we know of God through revelation fits with who God really is.' 'God both surpasses human understanding and is truly knowable through revelation. Our knowledge of God rests in this tension.'"
I think that pluralists would start by pointing out the "tension" in the second part, as evidence that Christianity cannot explain itself; it can at best be only symbolically or mythically true (as you pointed out, the Thomist could have a response, but that's another can of worms). As this is the case, there would be a reason already in affirming the creed to go beyond it.
The Mythological pluralist would not keep this fact in mind most of the time, however. One cannot worship Jesus as the truest form of God at the same time as Krishna, or as regarding Muhammad as His Prophet. One cannot abstain from choosing one path, as we are not contextless (we can never purely worship the Real in itself). In theory, it may be best to keep switching between contexts (what does Jesus look like from a Hindu perspective? Buddha from a Muslim?), but as finite human beings we can't manage that well either.
So, the Mythological pluralist will use her thoughts about pluralism to choose a path (for whatever reasons), and from that point be more or less an inclusivist member of such a group. She will live her life, think her life, as if e.g. Christianity were true, although she would lean toward communities which are more open to discussion with other religions (which can involve critical discussion as well).
She will, at this point, agree that Christian revelation does show who God really is, at least as far as anything can, and she won't be trying to think herself beyond it as if she really could have non-perspectival knowledge (although she would try to extend it). Jesus is the true representation of God, though this has been a volitional act of hers as much as a statement about reality (it really is the latter, though not in an explainable fashion since we have no independent recourse to the Real). And I don't think that she has any more wrestling with revelation to do to figure out who God really is then the inclusivist Christian; it's not like any of us exhaust the possiblities there anyhow, even within the context of the Christian narrative.
The Rationalist would take a different stance (and I think this really ends up being closer to Hick's view, though he doesn't want to acknowledge it). Revelation does fit with who God is; at least, enough for most people.
It is like how we present seriously outdated models of the atom for junior high students. Yes, it's wrong, but it's what they can understand. Those who continue on in science, can learn the truth about particle-wave duality and the mathematical structure of it all, and those who do not are better educated than they would have been (the model used is not simply wrong; it is connected to the truth in a distorted and simplified fashion).
So, the Rationalist would hold that the Christian narrative does provide a way of helping the average believer respond appropriately to the Real, though how it does so would depend on the Rationalist. For example, if I were to take a Neoplatonic stance, then yielding to the will of God and practicing compassion after the manner of Christ may help people attain to union with the One insofar as they can, by removing their minds from earthly concerns and helping them to see the interconnectedness of us all as many faces of one Soul. Since most people would have trouble understanding that, though (I would be accused of nonsense as much as of heresy in my church), we give them concrete stories.
And these stories can be motivating for the pluralist as well, although she now understands them as allegorical (and allegorical interpretation does have a history within the church).
If nothing else, though, the pluralist realizes that she cannot achieve anything without a community, and that this community will inevitably include people who cannot understand the naked truth (children brought up in the community, for example; or perhaps the pluralist has a duty toward coming back down into the cave and gradually leading others out). Hence, she will go back into the tradition of the community, relying on their revelation to fit the image of God as an imperfect image. And the revelation can serve to genuinely lead one to God, as a step in that ladder. Jesus, for example, would be an important (and perhaps even necessary) part of understanding who God really is; it is simply that the historical Jesus would make way for the allegorical Jesus. One has to start from somewhere, after all, since the purely rational/mystical/etc. interpretation takes many years of study and preparation to understand.
Of course, the Rationalist would probably embody your worst fears about the pluralist project, and I'm not exactly comfortable with her either. But, I am haunted by the fact that if she is right about reality, is there any better option?
Post a Comment