News
Marianne Borg will explore Days of Awe and Wonder and being Christian in the 21st Century at Ring Lake Ranch, a retreat and recreational center in Dubois, Wyoming, July 15-21, 2018. Ring Lake is in the Wind River Range, 90 miles east of Jackson Hole, a beautiful setting at 7,500′ with trails, lakes, mountains, and horses, too. Register at: ringlake.org
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REFLECTION
What will save us is closer at hand than the God of Supernatural Theism
In the last eNewsletter, I quoted Marc’s description of the God of Supernatural Theism from his book The Heart of Christianity. In the same chapter Marc describes a second concept of God that imagines the God-world relationship differently: panentheism
“Though the word ‘panentheism’ is only about two hundred years old, the notion is very ancient. Rather than imagining God as a person-like being ‘out there,’ this concept imagines God as the encompassing Spirit in whom everything that is, is. The universe is not separate from God, but in God. Indeed, this is the meaning of the Greek roots of the word ‘panentheism’ pan means ‘everything,’ en means ‘in,’ and theism comes from the Greek word for ‘God,’ theos. Its clearest compact expression is attributed to Paul in the book of Acts: God is the one in whom ‘we live and move and have our being.’ This concept of God does not reduce God to the universe or identify God with the universe. God is more than everything, even as everything is in God. Thus, God is not only ‘right here,’ but also ‘more than right here.’ Thinking of God as the encompassing Spirit leads to a different way of thinking about the God-world relationship. The notion of ‘intervention’ disappears in the precise sense in which I define it: intervention presupposes that God is ‘out there,’ somewhere else and not here.” (p. 65-66)
“The universe is not separate from God.” And neither are we. The concept of panentheism suggests that God is as close to us as our breath. There is an integral connection between God and us. An ontological one, if you will. Whatever God is, it lives in us and through us and also has effect beyond us.
The God of supernatural theism with its ancient imaginative origins in a three- story universe (and some philosophical idealism) presumes our separation from God. God is “up there.” We are “down here.” This worldview is no longer operative or credible (even though it is the world view of the Christian tradition and permeates its story telling and our confessions of faith). Panentheism, also an ancient idea, gives us a more workable conceptualization of “God” and suggests that something in our very nature is integral to God and God is integral to us. Here. Now.
And together we “dance,” “cheek to cheek,” “the light fantastic.” How effortless is the default to anthropomorphizing God! Perhaps whenever we attempt “God” talk, we would do well to do so with a wink and nod, a reminder that we can’t fully name what we are trying to name. Whatever images we use they are arguably metaphors, not literal applications.
Continue the conversation on our website marcusjborg.org and in our next newsletter.
Quotes
“If, when you use the word ‘God,’ you are thinking of a being who may or may not exist, then you are not thinking of God.”
– Paul Tillich
“The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.”
– Lao Tzu
A poem about Awe and Wonder, Here and Now.
Mysteries, Yes
by Mary Oliver
Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.
How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds
will never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.
Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.
Post Script
“Heaven, I’m in heaven, and my heart beats so that I can hardly speak.
And I seem to find the happiness I seek when we’re out together dancing, cheek to cheek.”
– Frank Sinatra
To “trip the light fantastic” is to dance nimbly or lightly, or to move in a pattern to musical accompaniment. It is often used in a humorous vein. It is impossible to construct a meaningful literal-scene from the formal structure. (Emphasis mine.) Phrase attributed to Milton in his poem “L’Allegro” (1645) which includes the lines: “Com, and trip it as ye go, On the light fantastick toe.”
A wink and a nod. A way of saying you have understood something that someone has said, even though it was not said directly. The full phrase is “a nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse.”
