Daily Excerpt: Joshuanism (Tosto)

 

excerpt from Joshuanism  by Tosto - 

The post/Christian God

A profound moment in my journey to seek and know God took place in an art gallery. I was in Seattle, visiting a friend of mine. I had some free time, and John had some free time, so I decided to fly out and kick it in the Emerald City for a few days. This was during the height of my Christian experience when I was still green behind the ears and miles away from questioning any of the marvelous things I believed. In fact, I was working at a church at the time, directing the music and worship ministry. The trip west was a welcome diversion.

John and I were strolling through the gallery, surveying the local talent, when a curious painting caught my attention. John went over to ask the docent something, and I stood in front of the unusual painting, studying it deeply. The painting, you see, was titled God. But the painting itself was quite simple. The artist only used two colors: a purple sphere on a black background. That was it. And the artist called it God. I found this quite mystifying. So, I stood there perplexed until John retuned. He sidled up to me and looked at my face. Then he looked at the painting. Then he looked back at my face again.

“What’s the problem?” he asked.

“No problem. I just don’t get it.”

“What don’t you get?”

“A purple ball on a black field? What does that have to do with God?”

“Are you sure the artist intends that this is a painting of God?”

“Well, it’s called God.”

“Yes, I know. But maybe the artist is communicating something about God, rather than trying to portray what God looks like.”

“Maybe.”

“Think about it,” John said. “I am going to the bathroom.”

So, there I stood for what seemed like hours but what was probably only a few minutes. I kept staring at the painting, trying to decipher some hidden message. Black field. Purple ball. God. Was there possibly some kind of significance in the colors? Did black mean something? Did purple? Was the sphere important? I just did not get it.

I finally wandered away and sat down in a corner, waiting for John. Black field. Purple ball. God. I just kept mulling it over.

Then, it came to me. Whether or not my conclusion was what the artist intended or not, I’ll never know. Nevertheless, the conclusion satisfied me and delivered to me a completely new attitude about God.

What was my conclusion? This: by merely painting a purple ball on a black background and calling the painting God, the artist was making a statement about our perceptions of God. By creating an image that had no prior association with God, the artist communicated that God is probably nothing like we imagine him to be, that he is most likely so far beyond our concepts of him that nothing we know about him could ever come close to actually hitting the true target. I was fascinated by this insight. By simply painting a purple ball on a black field, the artist reminded me that humans are made in God’s image, not the other way around. But here I am, a human, always trying to fit God into my own image. The more I thought about that, the more I began to wonder what, if anything, I was believing about God that was completely erroneous. I was sure there had to be something. I am, after all, a human being. If to err is human, then to be human is to err.

After a few weeks of chewing on that thought, I actually found something. It turns out there was something I was believing about God that was completely erroneous. It had to do with my biological father. Now, I am sure I am not the first human to experience what I am about to describe or the first human to figure it out. But the epiphany in my own life was staggering, for more reasons than one. So what was this erroneous belief? Well, you see, my father, who was not a bad man, was not exactly the best father. Oh, he provided for my material needs but nothing beyond that. In the almost three decades I knew him (he died when I was 28), I cannot remember a single instance when the man ever said he loved me, that he was proud of me, that he was there for me, or that he valued the person I was becoming. Neither did he ever hug me, touch me, or any other way show me the least bit of warmth. Nothing sensitive, emotional, affectionate ever came from that man, or if it did, it never came in my direction.

It was not until that obscure painting in Seattle got me thinking about my perceptions of God that I realized how I had transferred my association with my dad over to God. Because my dad made it quite clear that I was a huge disappointment to him, it was only natural for me to assume God must have felt the same way. As a result, I formed these perceptions: God is hard to please; God is easily disappointed; God is not affectionate; God is cold, distant, and insensitive. Now, I would never have cognitively communicated these things to myself or anyone else. On a conscious level, I didn’t even know that I thought this way. But I did. And because I did, my interactions with God were corrupted and infected by an erroneous perception. Why erroneous? Because God is not hard to please. God is not easily disappointed. God is affectionate. God is warm and close by and full of love. The funny thing is that I would have acknowledged those things verbally. But in my heart, something else was going on. In my heart, I believed contrarily to what my verbiage declared. The scary thing is how long I went before realizing it.

This discovery led to other discoveries, and before long, I was constantly evaluating what I believed about God. This tendency stayed with me and developed over the years until finally it became second nature to me to continually question my perceptions. As I did, it seemed like God kept changing. Of course, he wasn’t changing. It only seemed like he was. I was the one who was changing. Little by little, as my eyes opened more and more, I had to keep shedding old, erroneous concepts of God and embrace new ones. I can look back now and plainly see the unfolding of these changes, thanks to my journals. Ah, yes…my journals. I have made many mistakes in my life. Many, many mistakes. Terrible ones. However, one of the good decisions I made long ago was to begin documenting my journey with God. I have kept detailed records of my pilgrimage for the benefit of my own review and reflection. I am glad I did this because as I look back today and review and reflect I can see clearly the evolution of my perceptions about God. What I believe about God has changed. I must therefore assume it will keep changing. I hope that this change is actually leading somewhere. I hope each stage of change in perception is bringing me closer and closer to the accurate image. I suspect this is the case.

In view of these matters, we must observe that just as Christianity is associated with the Christian God, so, too, is post/Christianity associated with the post/Christian God. Now, are we talking about two different Gods? No, there is still only one God. But we are talking about two different attitudes toward that one God, or two different perspectives.

Before we go any further, let’s first review some elementary information about God. Perhaps the most elementary aspect of God is this: he does not change. The person, the entity, the being, the soul, the heart, the mind, and the spirit of who God is (the Judeo-Christian God, the triune God, the only God) never changes. We know this, of course, and no believer with a sound understanding of Biblical theology would ever challenge this bedrock belief. Why? First of all, we choose to believe that. That’s called faith. But aside from that, we also know logically that if God did change, that if he were subject to change, then he would thus prove himself unstable, rendering himself something that is not God. For to be God is to embody all the things that being a God requires. One of those things is constant. Another one of those things is consistent. To be subject to change (i.e., mutation, modification, adjustment, unsteadiness, and the like) not only nullifies the possibility of being constant but is also therefore the exact definition of inconsistent.

Now this all sounds like doubletalk. Nevertheless, it serves to establish a basic fact about the God we profess to believe in: he…does…not…change. Nothing about God changes. The substance of who God is never changes (by “substance” we mean the elements of his being, or his nature, whatever those may be). The personality of God never changes (by which we mean his disposition, his attitude, his character, and so on). The attributes of God never change (he is forever love, he is forever light, he is forever good, etc.). The will of God never changes (that is, he never changes his mind, he is not subject to whims or mood swings, he doesn’t reverse that which he has set in motion, he doesn’t say one thing and do another, he doesn’t suddenly abandon the plan midstream). The pace of God never changes (he will never cease to do things in his time, he never rushes nor retards his speed, he carries on the same manner at all times). The work of God never changes (he will never suddenly decide he is no longer interested in the salvation of his creation). And the existence of God never changes (God will never cease to be). Nietzsche was wrong. If God is dead, he was never God to begin with. God is God precisely because he cannot die.

Not only is all of this so, but we must also acknowledge that which is painfully obvious but perhaps easily forgotten: we cannot add anything to God, nor can we subtract anything from him. We cannot alter God in any way. We cannot affect the continuation of his existence (we cannot kill God or give him life), the nature of his being (we cannot make him something he is not), the qualities of his character (we cannot make God sin), or the boundlessness of his knowledge (we cannot teach God something he does not know). Why not? He is God. We are not. He is the creator; we are the created. He is not made in our image, but rather we are made in his.

So, in view of this, the idea of a post/Christian God cannot really mean anything all that scandalous since we are openly acknowledging beforehand that God does not change either on his own or at our bidding (now, we can touch God’s heart, we can elicit his response to our prayers, we can affect his interactions with us based on whether or not we believe in him since without faith one cannot please God, or so the Bible says—but we cannot alter his nature). No one disputes the constancy of who God is. Therefore, just as post/Christian does not mean anti-Christian, so the idea of a post/Christian God does not mean anti-God, or un-God, or something other than God, or a new version of God. Nor does it mean anything rebellious, sacrilegious, blasphemous, disrespectful, atheistic, or even satanic. We are not attempting to add anything to who God is, take away anything from who God is, or propose any kind of alteration in our core beliefs of who God is. 

The term post/Christian God is merely a continuation of the same train of thought we had when we discussed post/Christianity. Now, Christianity does change. We have established that. But God does not. Since he does not, then the term post/Christian God must be a reflection, similar to post/Christianity, of that which does change. We change, and just as our expressions of Christianity follow suit as humanity evolves, so too do our perceptions of God follow suit. Or at least, they should.

 

[post/Christian God] – 1) a term referring to a deliberate effort by believers to begin thinking of God in new or different ways; 2) the idea that it might be okay to begin asking new questions about God, re-evaluating previously held notions about God, and re-examining our theologies to determine whether or not our perception of God must change as we do; 3) an attitude of openness toward our thoughts about God; 4) a willingness to entertain the possibility that we might not and probably don’t have all the information on God, nor could we, when we’re brutally honest, since that which is infinite cannot be fully, thoroughly, or finitely ascertained; and 5) a term referring to a commitment to seek God, a commitment to discovery, a commitment to the belief that if we seek we will find, and a commitment to a mindset that admits there is definitely still more to learn.

 

We cannot alter God, obviously. What we are altering, then, what we are adding to or subtracting from, is our perception of God. Therefore, the term post/Christian God actually has more to do with us than with God. After all, the created cannot change the Creator, and the created cannot invent a new Creator. Nevertheless, the created can endeavor to look at God anew, pushing past any archaic or erroneous perceptions, continuing to seek the truth.

 

Changing Perceptions

Let us consider this question: what do you believe about God? This is a key question because believing in God is only half the battle here (the easier half, to be honest). It’s what you believe about God that counts. So, be honest with yourself. What do you believe? Do you really believe he is good? Do you really believe he is just? Do you really believe he cares about the minutiae of your daily life? Do you really believe he has your well-being in mind? Do you really believe he can do the things he says he will do? Do you really believe he wants to do the things he says he will do? Do you really believe he is loving? That he is love? That not only is he love but also that he loves you specifically? That he is forgiving? That he forgives you—especially you—for the terrible things you have done?

Or perhaps you tell yourself and your fellows that you believe these things, but if someone were to shine the light within the deepest, darkest, dankest recesses of your heart of hearts, maybe you would find out that you do not. Maybe your lips say you trust him, but your heart says otherwise. Maybe your head pretends to believe in something that your soul rejects in reality. Because, you see, your faith in God’s existence actually does very little. Plenty of people believe in God and continue to live dead lives. Why? Because it’s your faith in what God is like and who God is that has any real bearing on that which brings life or changes life. It’s what you believe about God that has any meaning. In other words, our perceptions of God are everything.

Now, I do not wish to repeat myself, but by way of a recap: we have already established that humanity changes. Of course, humanity changes. After all, we are not still living in caves, right? We have also already established that since its inception, Christianity has changed, and will continue to change and evolve as humanity changes and evolves. If this is so, then the most relevant question we can ask is also the first question we must ask, and the question is this: do our perceptions of God change as well?

The answer is yes! Shall we prove it? Let’s monitor the changes in humanity’s perception in God, beginning with three pre-Christian examples:

 

1.     Prehistoric humans believed God was responsible for earthquakes and thunderstorms and any kind of disruption to their world that they could not explain. But we now know that was just the Earth doing its geological thing. We have access to scientific knowledge they did not. Therefore, while we would view their perceptions of God as painfully primitive, they would view their perceptions as normal because to them and their time these perceptions were normal.

 

2.     Some ancient civilizations, like the ones in pre-Columbian America, believed God was a bloodthirsty God, that he desired the sacrifice of virgins. But we now know, through God’s revelation of himself, that God does not desire violence as an act of worship, that all the violence (if you want to look at it that way) needed to satisfy God took place when Jesus died on the cross. However, to the peoples of that time, their perceptions were normal.

 

3.     Many ancients believed that God, or gods, resided in statues of stone called idols. They believed the likeness of the idol captured the essence of God, or the god in question and that placing these idols about one’s abode, praying to these idols, and sacrificing to these idols would prompt the corresponding God or gods to interact favorably with the humans who worshipped them. But we now know that there is only one God and that he does not reside in the hand-fashioned objects of stone. We know he resides everywhere at once.

 

Why did these perceptions change? Because people changed. They grew, and as they grew, they outgrew erroneous perceptions about God (and not only about God, but about the world, the Universe, reality, etc.). Whenever humanity reaches a new stage in its development, perceptions of who God is and what God is like always end up developing alongside, bringing the perceptions of God in step with knowledge humans have attained at that time. This means that as the human race evolves culturally, socially, scientifically, technologically, cosmologically, and even spiritually, so too does humanity’s perception of God evolve to match those advancements. Why shouldn’t this be the case? It makes perfect sense.

What about the Christian perception of God? Has the Christian view of God changed in the last 2,000 years? Consider these three examples:

 

1.     The Gnostic Christians of the second century did not even believe God created the Earth. They believed an intermediary entity called Demiurge did. They also believed in dualism, that the forces of evil in the world were equal in power and divinity to God. Mainstream Christianity has rejected these ideas, preferring to adhere to the New Testament’s version of God as the Creator of the Universe (including the Earth) and as the Supreme Being in that Universe, with the forces of evil not only unequal in power (lesser) but also conquered and subdued by the work of Jesus.

 

2.     The medieval Christians believed God was an old bearded man in the sky, much like Zeus, angry and irritable, ready to pounce on the first sign of wrongdoing, but we now know that was just a concept their medieval minds had created based on their own cultural evolution and wherewithal and the erroneous version of God imparted to them through the teachings of the priests and the passing down of old conceptions and customs. The medieval Christians also believed that God was honored by the proceedings of the Inquisition, that punishment and purification through torture or even hideous execution brought not only glory but also a smile to God. This is frightening notion when you think about it. It’s one thing to burn someone at the stake, as bad as that is, but it’s quite another thing altogether to imagine that this delights God.

 

3.     The Christians of the Crusades, the Christians of African slavery, and the Christians of segregation and racial persecution all saw God as being on their side or of their same opinion. Their perception of God was filtered not through what God had revealed about himself but rather through what they wanted to see. They called on the name of the same Jesus you call on and attached his name to their position, their agenda, and their view. We know their perception of God was mistaken, but these men and women operated under the banner of the same Christianity you operate under. The passage of time showed the Crusades to be largely political and based on greed. The passage of time showed slavery to be ungodly and appalling. The passage of time showed segregation to be unjust and archaic. The passage of time showed racial hatred to be contrary to the Bible’s command that we should love each other. Nevertheless, at the time these things were being done, the humans doing them believed God was right there with them, grinning, with thumbs up. But we grew. We evolved. And these perceptions (though they still live on in some parts of the world) crumbled.

 

There are more examples we could review together. Many, many more. What can we conclude from this? Even Christians, who are famous for assuming their ideas about God are as constant as God himself, are not immune to shifts in perception. Some humans are Christians, but all Christians are human. And no human, believer or unbeliever, is immune to a changing world and the alteration in perceptions that change always brings.

Here’s a thought: if you were to pluck out of history the medieval men or women we just discussed and ask them what they believed about God, what they believed about who God is, and what they believed about what God is like, their answers would undoubtedly seem outdated to us, but to them they would be perfectly understandable, perfectly balanced, perfectly expressed, and perfectly contemporary. Why? Because the medieval man could not have imagined or fathomed the changes humanity would undergo in the next 700 years. Wherever they were in their evolution, their perception of God was filtered through that position. You see, our perceptions of God at any given point in history are a product of 1) his revelation of himself to us; and 2) the evolution of our capacities for understanding him or his revelations at that time.

Whatever they thought 700 years ago, that is where they were. So the question, then, is this: where are we? Do we know all we need to know? Will people 700 years from now look back on us and view some of the things we thought about God as being bizarre? Will they reflect on our perceptions and say to themselves, “Those people believed crazy things,” just as we say when we reflect on what the ancients thoughts about God? This is an interesting question because it implies that we, us, now, in this great age of information and knowledge, might still be believing things about God that are just as false as some of the things humans believed hundreds of years ago.

Let’s think about that for a moment. Just what is the state of our current perceptions of God? The question is vital because the truth of the matter is this: even now, knowing all we know, not all believers alive today view God the same way.

Suppose you assembled a hundred believers in one room, representing the many different denominations and expressions of contemporary Christianity. If you could search the innermost hearts of each person, would you see identical perceptions of God dwelling within them? Better yet, suppose you assembled a hundred believers all from one particular group like, say, the Presbyterians. To make it even more interesting, let’s say these one hundred Presbyterians are all pastors and ministers, trained in Christian theology, steeped in Presbyterian thought. Would you still see identical perceptions of God dwelling deep within them? Or would each person’s perception, although completely bathed in and filtered through the same scriptures, the same church teaching, and the same denominational doctrines, be unique to each person?

We all know the answer even if not all among us will admit it: we each see God a little differently. Why is this? After all, God is who he is whether we see him or not and regardless of how we see him. He exists as he is apart from our perceptions, right?[1] So, why, then do humans from all walks of life with access to the same Bible containing the same revelations tend to perceive God differently?

Let’s look at it this way: when you say or hear or see the word God, what images are brought to mind? What stigmas? What baggage? What associations? What false notions? What polluted opinions? What subtle errors? These, too, are important questions because everyone sees God not fully through God’s own revelation of himself but also through his own filters. What you—you specifically—believe about who God is and what God is like could quite possibly be affected and filtered or even tainted through whom you saw your parents as, what you were taught as a child, what your experiences on this planet have been like, what nation you grew up in, if you were loved or abused, and any number of other cultural and environmental factors.

This is why we could have a hundred Presbyterians, or Catholics, or Baptists, or whatever group you want to insert in there, and still have a hundred different perceptions of who God is. The voiced facts may not change. If asked, they will probably give the standard answers about what they are supposed to believe about God. However, a deep probe of the hearts of each person would undoubtedly reveal a veritable tapestry of differing perceptions.

It is a firm fact: God does not change, but how we see him does. It just does. God knows this. He understands it. He expects it. I suspect also that he waits for humanity to evolve so he can show us more of himself, more of who he really is.

Therefore, what we have here is an interesting dichotomy. On the one hand, we have God, who does not change and who has revealed himself to humanity. The revelation itself is immovable (though unfinished). On the other hand, we have humans, who do change, and who may or may not be interpreting that revelation of God differently. Our perceptions of the revelation are not immovable.

In a dichotomy like this, should God conform to that which humans believe about him, or should humans aspire to deepen their knowledge of what God is really like? I suspect you know the correct answer.

Now, you might be wondering what I meant when I said that God’s revelation is unfinished. You may even have bristled when you read that. Let me explain how it actually makes perfect sense that God’s revelation to humanity is unfinished by sharing with you a term I conceived to communicate this very notion.

 

[Perpetually Incomplete Revelation] – the idea that since God is infinite, he can never be finitely known; therefore, his revelation of himself to humanity is, by definition, unfinished.

 

In other words, God’s revelation of himself to us can never be complete. Even if we accept that God has chosen to say no more, to reveal nothing further of himself to humanity (and post/Christian thought does not accept this), the window of sight we have regarding God is woefully incomplete. It has to be because, as I have said twice in this section already, that which is infinite cannot be finitely ascertained. It would not make any sense if we assumed that God has no more of himself to show to humanity. If that were the case, God would have to be as finite as we are. If God is infinite, then he has no end, and that which has no end could never be fully observed or comprehended. Therefore, God could never be fully revealed to humanity because the fullness of God has no end, and if God can never be fully revealed to humanity, then his revelation is incomplete and will always remain so.

The good news here, however, is that the idea of a Perpetually Incomplete Revelation suggests that humans can see more of him, know more of him, and receive furthered revelations of him as they evolve in their capacities to do so—but even then, there will still always be more to learn, more to grasp, more to discover; perpetually unto infinity.

Even if you are uncomfortable with the idea that God’s revelation is unfinished, even if you choose to go on viewing his revelation as complete; surely you can still acknowledge that you yourself have not yet thoroughly exhausted the fullness of that revelation. Surely you can admit that even if you lived to be 120 years old you could still never reach a place in your theological or spiritual consciousness where you know everything there is to know about God. The revelation is incomplete no matter which way you look at it: either the revelation is itself fundamentally incomplete, or it is incomplete in your own life and will forever remain incomplete in your own life. Regardless of which approach you choose, the result is the same. God’s revelation is everlastingly incomplete and forever unfinished. It has to be because if you knew everything there is to know about God then you yourself would be God.

Are you God?

Then you still have more to learn, as do I.

---

[1] I call this Perception Separation, which we will get to in a moment.

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