A Lesson from the Pagans (1)
Who is like You among the gods, Lord? Who is like You, majestic in holiness, awesome in praises, working wonders?Exodus 15:11 NASB
Among the gods – Because we live in a post-Christian world, we often forget that ancient civilizations were typically not monotheistic. Hosts of gods filled the divine realm. Israel stood alone in its commitment to a single divinity although there are many hints that Israel was quite aware of competing polytheism in surrounding cultures. Job’s story begins with a description of a divine counsel, perhaps not polytheistic but certainly portraying a spiritual realm with other beings. Even Moses, brought up in the Egyptian panoply, sets YHVH in contrast with other divinities whether real or imagined. This ancient background has something to teach us, something we may have forgotten in two thousand years of monotheistic preoccupation. Robert Palmer’s introduction to Walter Otto’s Dionysus: Myth and Cult offers this insight:
“things or objects to be known exist independently of the knowledge we have of them.” Applied to religion, this principle could easily echo Tersteegen’s statement: “Ein begriffener Gott ist kein Gott” (A god who is understood is no god). Dionysus, as Otto so clearly illustrates, is a god of paradox. Any study of him will inevitably lead to a statement of paradox and a realization that there will always be something beyond, which can never be explained adequately in any language other than the symbolic—and yet concrete—language of poetry or myth.[1]
Shouldn’t we apply this to our attempts to understand YHVH in Job’s story? Otto provides another insight that helps us anchor Job’s story in the lived experience of his time:
How could they [conceptions of the idea of God] ever have fulfilled the demands of devotion, lifted up the spirit, elicited the powerful forms of cultus? No life proceeds from a concept, and if the great forms of the gods, which could motivate the creative spirit of a culture of highest genius, are to be understood historically, then there would be no more unproductive application imaginable than this.[2]
Job’s friends offer theological constructs, ideas about God. They are lifeless calculations motivated by the need for a systematic architecture of the divine. Much like modern systematic theology, these constructs build a logically consistent web of belief without the lifeblood of worship. This is the difference between a theologian and a believer, a difference that we must never forget when we experience Job’s struggle for ourselves. Paradox is persistent. To expect it to fade away in rational theology is to force God to fit our cognitive box. That does not mean we can simply plead “His ways are greater than our ways” as a convenient excuse for lack of logical rigor, but it does mean that we should not be too surprised when we encounter divine paradox. Such an encounter only emphasizes the fact and God is God, and not a man.
Topical Index: rationality, paradox, theology, monotheism, Exodus 15:11
[1] Robert Palmer, “Introduction”, Walter F. Otto, Dionysus: Myth and Cult (Spring Publications, 1965), pp. xix-xx.
[2] Walter F. Otto, Dionysus: Myth and Cult (Spring Publications, 1965), p. 11.
“Paradox is persistent. To expect it to fade away in rational theology is to force God to fit our cognitive box.“ We thought we had it down pat, or should I say Him. We had Him all figured out, and I’m fond of telling people as a result, “if you think you’ve got God in a box, He will blow up your box.”
Systematic theology was the answer, or so I thought, to charismatic excess. But what it boiled down to was something like the health and wealth gospel in its functioning, even though not openly taught. Much like Job’s friends, if you do right you will be blessed, prospered. And when they couldn’t “fix” you, you were marginalized and pushed out because your life was a living refutation of their theology. “You must be hiding some sin.” I wasn’t, but what I didn’t know I needed was to shake off religion that only leads to hypocrisy, thinking you are something you’re not. You know stuff, but not in a way that changes you from the inside out; until you suffer. You get the system down, and that’s what it leads to, thinking you’re someone you’re not. You don’t realize the creeping self-righteousness that comes with it, holding others in disdain who don’t have it down, or don’t seem to “get it”. Thankfully in the west, for the most part in religious circles, that mistake hasn’t led to violence against those who “don’t get it”. Certainly has led to harsh treatment and adversarial words, words of death spoken on the part of those who consider themselves “godly”, or think they “get it”. Whatever “it” is. Blessed certainty.
”My grace is enough for you, for my power is brought to perfection in weakness”. Amen
Indeed, Kent… Blessed certainty— both enough for us and most powerful… brought to perfection in weakness. Amen.
“…we should not be too surprised when we encounter divine paradox…” Neither should we be surprised to realize that any anomaly we perceive derives from our human condition of incongruity. That is precisely why God as God made himself known in the form of humanity… yet possessing Divine Life… within the existential experience of humanity; “just as you [God] have given him [Christ Jesus] authority over all flesh, in order that he would give eternal life to them—everyone whom you have given him.” (Cf. John 17:2)
“No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God resides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we reside in him and he in us: that he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son… Savior of the world.” (1 John 4:12-14)
“Just as the Father has loved me, I also have loved you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have spoken these things to you in order that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be made complete. This is my commandment: that you love one another just as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this: that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.” (John 15:9-14)
Careful, Richard. One might conclude that the universe is entirely rational. That smacks of a very deep Greek epistemology, not so evident in the Semitic view.
Point well taken, Skip. I’m persistently trying to “catch on” to just how this possession of a “new mind in Christ” cogitates!
Moving away from the old paradigm to the new just hurts my head some days…