Gospel of Karin

Stay warm…

In my last three posts on panentheism, I discussed the views of some theologians whose perspectives I described as interrelational.

The next set of essays present panentheistic perspectives in which God is understood primarily by way of the concepts of energies and wisdom (although the relational dimension is strong in these theologies as well). I begin with Celia Deane-Drummond.

God as Energies and Wisdom, Part I
Like some of the theologians I described in my earlier posts on interrelational perspectives, Celia Deane-Drummond backs away from the body of God metaphor. She is critical of the more naturalistic panentheistic views (Peacocke, Clayton, and so on) because they blur the boundaries of God and world so much that the relational dimension is lost.

Further, she views these theologies as being too abstracted from daily life to have practical significance. Instead, she favors a modified form of classical theism in which God is other, revealing Godself both inherently through our creatureliness and externally through the Bible and the incarnation.

Deane-Drummond proposes a “Sophianic theology” that takes insight from scientific findings and provides a basis for practical ethics. She claims that, in the Gospel of John, the Wisdom figure of Sophia, God’s “agent of creation,” is used synonymously with the Logos (236-37). Further, she argues that John assumed a general cultural understanding that Logos and Sophia could be used interchangeably.

According to Deane-Drummond, we need to rediscover the Wisdom of Christ as revealed through his life and suffering on the cross. Christ’s suffering points us to the pain, fragility, and brokenness of creation, as well as the “radical nature of evil in the universe” into which science gives us greater insight (241).

Christ’s Wisdom also establishes an ethical basis from which to critique science and other sources of human wisdom. With respect to the God-world relationship, Jesus, through his radical participation in the world, represents God as friend to all creatures, sharing their joys and sorrows.

Works cited
Deane-Drummond, Celia E. “The Logos as Wisdom: A Starting Point for a Sophianic Theology of Creation,” in In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God’s Presence in a Scientific World (233-45).

Painting: “The Snake Charmer” (1907), by Henri Rousseau, courtesy Mark Harden’s Artchive, www.artchive.com

Flurries of the non-snowy kind are flying in the New York Times Science section today. The storm of responses to Paul Davies’ op-ed continues. See this article by Dennis Overbye:

Laws of Nature, Source Unknown

Have fun!

Here in the Northeast, we’ve been pounded with several feet of snow over the past three days. My partner and I have a very small home on a tiny lot, and we’re quickly running out of room to put the stuff. He and I were out a few times today, huffing and puffing, often pausing to scan the yard for any nook and cranny that might be amenable to just one more shovel full, struggling to fling it ever higher atop the heaping piles of snow.

I caught myself starting to grouse under my breath. My arms hurt. My hands were cold. But then I remembered my father and his old pickup truck and plow. It was celery green. Big as a battleship. My brother once told me how, back in the early 80s, he used to ride around with dad during snow storms as he plowed out driveways at no charge, just for the fun of it. And I could picture my father, smile plastered across his face, Pall Mall dangling out one side of his mouth, shoving that snow into mountains, and yelling at my brother over the rumble of the giant engine “The old man’s pretty good, huh?”

And then I thought of a time years later when he broke his wrist shoveling. The truck was gone. It was expensive. He was sick with bone cancer, pretty far into it by then. He shouldn’t have been out there, but perhaps it never occurred to him that there was no reason he shouldn’t. He was doing what he’d always done, what most of us do when the snow falls, and the mess must be dealt with. We clean it up because that’s what we do and we’ll do it again next storm, next winter, next year. And maybe we complain a little. It’s tradition. I like it.

Today I moved the snow as always after a storm. My wrist did not break. My bones did not hurt. With luck I have a few more storms left in me. I paused for a breath then lifted the shovel a little higher.

On December 2, The New York Times ran an op-ed entitled “Giving You Christmas When You Want It” by Simon Doonan, Creative Director of Barneys New York.

I sent a letter to the editor in response, which the Times published today. You can read it here: “The True Meaning of Christmas,” or here:

“Giving You Christmas When You Want It,” by Simon Doonan (Op-Ed, Dec. 2), attributes our perennial holiday shock to a sense that the spiritual dimension of Christmas has been lost.

But I believe it has more to do with a feeling that the holiday season marks the passing of yet another year.

We wonder, where has the time gone? What have I done with my life? In other words, it’s not Christmas that sneaks up on us. It’s mortality.

A little holiday shopping is great fun. Too much numbs our innate sense that life is too precious to waste in the mall.

Note, I’m a frequent letter to the editor writer. My reasons are as follows:

• It’s a great way to engage with topics that interest you.
• The letters to the editor section is popular–you reach a lot of people.
• It’s fun to see your name in print!

Happy Holidays,
Karin

In an earlier post, I provided a link to a New York Times op-ed by scientist Paul Davies entitled “Taking Science on Faith.” Here’s an excerpt:

Clearly…both religion and science are founded on faith — namely, on belief in the existence of something outside the universe, like an unexplained God or an unexplained set of physical laws, maybe even a huge ensemble of unseen universes, too. For that reason, both monotheistic religion and orthodox science fail to provide a complete account of physical existence.

This shared failing is no surprise, because the very notion of physical law is a theological one in the first place, a fact that makes many scientists squirm.

What made me squirm was that quote. Here’s an unpublished letter to the editor of the Times:

I agree with Paul Davies that science involves a certain amount of “faith.” But I think it’s a mistake to make a straight comparison between scientific faith in immutable laws with religious, or spiritually-oriented belief (”Taking Science on Faith,” op-ed, Nov. 25).

For many people, faith may entail believing that the universe is necessarily ordered and rational. However, it also involves a basic sense of the sacred in everyday life. In other words, faith is not just about the intelligibility of the cosmos. It’s also about the way in which God or the divine is spiritually present in the world and in our lives.

We can’t explain faith by getting to the “bedrock” of physical reality. It defies such simplistic notions of certainty.

A couple of days after publishing Davies’ op-ed, the Times ran a rash of letters (none representing a religious or theological perspective) in response. After reading them, I sent yet another unpublished letter (the Times can be a tough a nut to crack):

The Nov 27 letters to the editor about Paul Davies’ op-ed, “Taking Science on Faith” (Nov 25), illustrate a theological shortcoming of Davies’ comparison of religious and scientific “faith”: his argument equates God with science. In other words, science, correctly oriented, will be able to explain the “laws” of the universe (i.e., God) within physical limits. Then I suppose, the key to reality will be ours.

Obviously, many of your scientifically-minded readers were miffed by this merging of science and religion. I can tell you that, as a theologian, I’m pretty troubled by it too.

Take a look at the op-ed if you haven’t already. I’d love to hear your thoughts.