"God who is beyond fullness did not bring creatures into being out of any need of his, but that he might enjoy their proportionate participation in him and that he might delight in his works seeing them delighted and ever insatiably satisfied with the one who is inexhaustable."
Random Theological Reflections
1. Life is movement-in-love (if it can be defined beyond the parameters of the act and unfolding succession of moments that it is, as existence-in-movement), movement around, in, and towards the Holy Trinity through the remaking centering axis of the Cross of God Incarnate.
2. The movement of the Holy Trinity, in so far as we can speak of movement in God, is precisely that movement of love between the Persons of the Holy Trinity. It is the movement of self-giving love from one Person to the Other, which is eternal and is the origin of all movement and indeed existence in the created world. For it is out of the overflow, as it were, of God’s love in Himself that He creates and loves His creation.
3. Christ becomes man in order to bring man into motion towards and in God; Christ returns humanity to its proper orbit around God. This is the arc of forgiveness, reconciliation, and remaking-in-love, the transition of man from his self-centered fragmentation to orbit-in-love about God. Man once again gives glory to God, the fulfillment of the mission of Christ Incarnate, in being fully human and living with his orientation towards God.
4. Christ is the only reference point around which the world can at all derive meaning. This is only reinforced in the postmodern world as we see how evanescent our constructions and meanings whether in text or interpersonal definition in fact are.
5. The Cross, as the place where all things undergo an ultimate deconstruction and breaking (for it is the throne of the King Who Himself is broken and dies); out of this ultimate deconstruction that is itself contextualized within God Who is life comes the remaking of the world, of the reuniting of a cosmos of disparate dying fragments.
6. Outside of orbit about the Holy Trinity revealed in the Incarnation personhood is continually shifting as our points of reference change from one temporal contingent object or text or idea to another.
7. II Corinthians 5:20: man becomes partner in reconciliation in the redemption of the world; the mission of Christ is transmuted into human life through the Holy Spirit Who penetrates the broken places of the world. For it is in the weakness of the vessel that reconciliation is achieved; nonviolence proves stronger than the violence rendered against these vessels, for it is the interpenetrating power of God that operates in the weak and broken.
8. Words revive in meaning under the great narrative that God weaves into the world, from its inception in the story-making of creation, to the incarnated narrative of Christ and the on-going unfolding story of the Church. Within this overarching narrative are many other stories that unfold and exist within it, having the great divine narrative as their anchor point. The divine narrative is reflected and indeed ensconced within human stories, in varying degrees. Human apprehension of God and the divine story lies in so many places, in every culture, as reflections and yearnings of the single divine story. This is why so many mythologies and stories and folk-tales sound similar and why they so often approach Christian elements without being so. The secular scholar often explains these things in such a way as to dilute Christianity; Christians in turn often seek to negate similarities with Christianity and other faiths or mythologies, thinking that they do in fact dilute the faith. Or it may be that people imagine that then all systems collapse into one, rather than leading up to the revelation of the fullness of truth. This in turn is often seen as ‘intolerance’ in the modern world but is in fact an acknowledgement of the truth inhering in humanity’s struggle and story-telling. But it does not negate the ultimate value and totality of truth within the revelation of Christ.
2. The movement of the Holy Trinity, in so far as we can speak of movement in God, is precisely that movement of love between the Persons of the Holy Trinity. It is the movement of self-giving love from one Person to the Other, which is eternal and is the origin of all movement and indeed existence in the created world. For it is out of the overflow, as it were, of God’s love in Himself that He creates and loves His creation.
3. Christ becomes man in order to bring man into motion towards and in God; Christ returns humanity to its proper orbit around God. This is the arc of forgiveness, reconciliation, and remaking-in-love, the transition of man from his self-centered fragmentation to orbit-in-love about God. Man once again gives glory to God, the fulfillment of the mission of Christ Incarnate, in being fully human and living with his orientation towards God.
4. Christ is the only reference point around which the world can at all derive meaning. This is only reinforced in the postmodern world as we see how evanescent our constructions and meanings whether in text or interpersonal definition in fact are.
5. The Cross, as the place where all things undergo an ultimate deconstruction and breaking (for it is the throne of the King Who Himself is broken and dies); out of this ultimate deconstruction that is itself contextualized within God Who is life comes the remaking of the world, of the reuniting of a cosmos of disparate dying fragments.
6. Outside of orbit about the Holy Trinity revealed in the Incarnation personhood is continually shifting as our points of reference change from one temporal contingent object or text or idea to another.
7. II Corinthians 5:20: man becomes partner in reconciliation in the redemption of the world; the mission of Christ is transmuted into human life through the Holy Spirit Who penetrates the broken places of the world. For it is in the weakness of the vessel that reconciliation is achieved; nonviolence proves stronger than the violence rendered against these vessels, for it is the interpenetrating power of God that operates in the weak and broken.
8. Words revive in meaning under the great narrative that God weaves into the world, from its inception in the story-making of creation, to the incarnated narrative of Christ and the on-going unfolding story of the Church. Within this overarching narrative are many other stories that unfold and exist within it, having the great divine narrative as their anchor point. The divine narrative is reflected and indeed ensconced within human stories, in varying degrees. Human apprehension of God and the divine story lies in so many places, in every culture, as reflections and yearnings of the single divine story. This is why so many mythologies and stories and folk-tales sound similar and why they so often approach Christian elements without being so. The secular scholar often explains these things in such a way as to dilute Christianity; Christians in turn often seek to negate similarities with Christianity and other faiths or mythologies, thinking that they do in fact dilute the faith. Or it may be that people imagine that then all systems collapse into one, rather than leading up to the revelation of the fullness of truth. This in turn is often seen as ‘intolerance’ in the modern world but is in fact an acknowledgement of the truth inhering in humanity’s struggle and story-telling. But it does not negate the ultimate value and totality of truth within the revelation of Christ.
posted by Jonathan | 3:01 PM
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