The Helpless God
A group I'm in are currently talking about this artice. http://www.commonwonders.com/archives/col294.htm
It kind of links in to the wounded healer stuff from a couple of posts ago, about God making himself very week when he came to earth to live amongst us.
The writer of the article ends with a reflection on holding his baby nephew.
It kind of links in to the wounded healer stuff from a couple of posts ago, about God making himself very week when he came to earth to live amongst us.
The writer of the article ends with a reflection on holding his baby nephew.
But still, this is what I thought, that there was a quality to Joey’s helplessness that seemed more godlike than anything else I had ever encountered. What if, I thought, the nature of God were openness and helplessness? What if destructive power were a human quality, not God’s? This changed everything, from the creation myths (man expelled God from the Garden of Eden) to the day’s news and our relationship with our planet.
This answers the problem of 'if God is so good why is there so much bad in the world'. God was so good that not only did he give us free will but he totally empowered us as humans (ie let us take all the power) to live exactly as we wanted and make our own choices. A God who is empowering rather than oppressive. It is that quality of God that I engage my choice and free will and chose to follow Him. Not because I 'need' Him, but because I want to.
Still thoughts in process- what does anyone think?
Still thoughts in process- what does anyone think?
Labels: God Kingdom Theology
posted by Nikki @ 8:59 pm
4 Comments:
At 11:24 am,
Anonymous said…
Hi Nikki,
I think I agree in that I can no longer subscribe to the view that God has it all 'in control' and if only I follow him and pray etc. etc. then it will all work out. Blatantly it doesn't necessarily all work out and the more I have thought about this the more I have decided that actually the idea of God being in control doesn't go with free will. So many things in life..maybe in fact all things depend on my choices and the choices of others and to my mind the idea of God being in control means that he would have to be manipulating that free choice of me or other people... so I think he has chosen like you say to be 'powerless'. Not in the sense that he couldn't intervene if he wanted to but in that he has given us the choice. I think I can believe that he is able to help us in giving us strength or ability to deal with what life throws at us in a positive way but not that he is somehow able to make everything work out okay.
At 6:44 pm,
Nikki said…
Yeah- I agree with you on all those Katie.
Just now I'm having one of those times when I want to think that God will make it all work out ok in the end... and it would be easy in a sense to go back to the old 'God is in control' thinking.
I kinda feel like I felt today on the climbing wall. As you start to climb harder routes, you stretch your foot out for where you think a hold should be and there isn't one, and as you put the wieght down you find nothing between you and the floor!
At 1:58 pm,
Anonymous said…
Good analogy! and i know exactly what you mean - sometimes I wish I could go back to my old way of faith which seems so much easier! Hopefully we will end up with something far better...far more meaningful and that makes some sense of life...at least that's what I am hoping for...
At 12:27 pm,
Kathryn said…
Can we manage a both/and way of thinking, I wonder....because I too struggle with the concept of God in control of every tiny detail, and only our disobedience preventing the garden from being lovely...but against that I believe with every fibre of my being that there is nothing so damaged and distorted that it is beyond ultimate redemption. Maybe I'm deceiving myself but I would go with Julian in her view that while "sin [and disaster and all those things which we can't instantly attribute to human agencies] is behovely [or at least inevitable] yet all shall be well...."
In my more positive moments I even dare to believe this about the church !!! ;-)
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