I found this quotation at Solidaridad http://marydaly.blogspot.com/
It is a fascinating blog by a theology student who is struggling to make the church more inclusive and accepting of people in all our frailties. She is sharing some important insights over there. Perhaps you should take a moment to check it out.
This quote was particularly interesting to me because it helps clarify a new understanding taking root in my spirit. The idea that sin (Adam and Eve's apple episode) is required for humankind to Be(come) like Christ. Our becoming requires that we possess the freedom to choose in a world of consequence and interrelationship and this experience of freedom requires that we leave the garden of innocence to enter a world of suffering, knowledge and be-ing. If we do not leave the garden we could not Be or Become, nor would we be able or need to Believe.
Our becoming like Christ (not remaining like Adam) is so important to God that He(?) risks all in giving us the choice to Be or not to Be like Jesus. To Be or not to Be n relationship with Him(?).
For many years I have been trapped, very uncomfortably trapped in a condemning and judgemental conception of history and God's involvement with the world. The usual theology of history and God's Plan has been, 'Creation, Fall, Redemption' (aka return to paradise lost). This story leaves us at the mercy of a bloodthirsty deity who hates our humanity (our frailty) but is somehow able to appease his wrath by a complicated sado/masochistic orgy of violence and blood sacrifice. Thankfully I have heard of a new way to understand the story of God's involvement with us in history it goes like this, 'Creation, Incarnation, Recreation' (into the image of Christ, becoming a fully formed Imago Dei by means of the beatific vision....we shall become like him(?) when we see Him(?) as he is.)
This new way of thinking about God and History lets me see God as loving but with a restraint upon His(?) power. The restraint has to do with the process of recreating us in the likeness of Christ. This recreation is the meaning and purpose of history. For some reason it can not be accomplished without the problematic elements of free will, and it's consequence which is suffering (deserved and undeserved). It is the mysterious necessity for which Jesus was and is the answer. His incarnation, His becoming like us, and suffering and dying like us is the means by which we (God and mankind) can overcome the restraint of the mysterious necessity.
Life is still a perplexing mystery to me. Why suffering is so random and extreme? Why do innocent people suffer for the sins of of others. I don't know why. But God no longer seems as capricious, wrathful or maniacal as He(?) did when I thought it was all about Creation, Fall, Redemption.
This new understanding has Redeemed God for me and somehow the mysterious necessity fulfilled in Jesus has redeemed me to God.
LH
8 comments:
I dont even know what to say to this post. Do you understand how borderline blasphemous it is for you to write: "This new understanding has Redeemed God for me and somehow the mysterious necessity fulfilled in Jesus has redeemed me to God." It is a wonderful blasphemy I think. I resonate w/ what you're saying. I don't know that I trip over the bloody part of the substitutionary atonement theory as much as I do the rationalistic judge (God) in that theory. Anyway, this is a great post...thought provoking to say the LEAST.
You have a name :-) Leonard!
I will come back to comment soon - but I had to say hi when I saw your name :-)
I enjoyed this post. But it left me with some confusion regarding the re-definition of sin. If sin is "freedom to become" what's left to forgive? Or do we use another word for our complicity to structural evil? With the redefinition in place I would agree that "sin" is required for us to be-come like Christ. Otherwise "sin" is always merely the obstacle.
For me, Sin, as J. Alison has pointed out, is simply that which can be forgiven. Freedom to choose may result in "sin" but somehow to bring these two things together requires a mental adroitness I'm not capable of.
Anyway, outside of my own confusion, which I own, I loved the rest of this post.
(Perhaps I just need to read more Mary Daly...but then in view of her gynocentric vision, I would be made redundant.)
Thanks Frank for your compliment and your incisive warning about walking too close to a cliff's edge.
I know that it walks close to the edge of blasphemy (I really loved the description you gave it, 'a wonderful blasphemy').
The mysterious neccessity idea has elements that are difficult but I don't believe they step us over the cliff historic Christianity.
These elements may hearken back to pre-Anslem days or into the mysteries of the Eastern rites but they are reconcilable with the scriptures as I understand them and to the meaning of the way, truth and life revealed in Jesus.
The 'mysterious neccessity'idea is, in my opinion, a more logically coherent way of thinking about the story.
I will eloborate on this in a future post. Perhaps in the one where I make good on my promise to Jenn to reveal what a ray of light, a pond full of giant gold fish and a mallard duck has to do with my salvation.
Hi Steve
I do have some things to say about sin. (I can only scratch the surface tonight.)
Sin still is important and nasty but it is brought within the plan as a part of the mysterious necessity.
It itself is a mysterious necessity, just as all things are made for God's purposes, even the evil one for the day of destruction. Or like the formulation that Paul used when he said, 'All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose'
Without the fall there would be no transfiguration, no transformation, no becoming the bride of Christ. By becoming a fit bride for the second member of the Godhead (a real aspect and part of God's very person) we will be (in fact are), by extension, a part of the very Godhead (this is a subject about which I don't know how to speak properly and it is always possible to stray offside and over the cliff when our language is insufficient to the reality being discussed.)
If Jesus was not the first, last, and only plan then He is relegated to being a stopgap measure, an ad hoc reply to the monkey wrench that Satan and Adam and Evie threw into God's better plan.
The scriptures teach that Jesus was crucified from the foundations of the world because He is the first last and only plan.
The object of the plan is to make beings like Himself. Adam was not it. The fall into freedom and real consequence for our choices is good on the highest level, even if it leads to unpleasant (sometimes unbelievably unpleasant) experiences on a lower level.
Any action that is intentionally against the highest law of love is a sin but if a sin leads to consciousness of sin and to the need for salvation thru grace it is no longer unmitigated evil. And so I say the fall is not unmitigated evil. It is momentary mitigation of Good on a lower scale in service of the eternal fulfillment of the highest Good on a higher scale.
There is a lot more to it but I hope that is a start on the question of what happens to sin when salvation is not all about sacrificial atonement.
One last clarification.
Don't go and whack the guy who cuts you off in traffic, or cheat on the wife who has supported you in your most difficult moments, or let your neighbour's donkey drown in your swimming pool because the 'cheap bugger' wouldn't agree to fix the fence between your properties.
And don't stop trying to bring justice and mercy into the experience of all peoples (especially the least of these my brethren).
But do know that sin does not hold us under lock and key because Jesus (plan A) has been crucified from the foundations of the world and sin's power has been broken and it is (and has been all along been)in service to the higher good of creating the sons of God.
Perhaps we can and should really give thanks/rejoice in and for all things.
(Not to say that I can or do, but I'd like to think I will some day.)
Hi xochitl:
Thanks for stopping by. I am looking forward to your comments.
You have a beautifully exotic name.
I hope you haven't been offended when I addressed you as xxx. It is just that I am an atrocious speller and your name is so unusual that I am sure to butcher it most of the time.
If you would like me to spell it out in full please let me know and I will try to honour that request.
But you will have to forgive me when it comes out wrong.
Just as an aside,
have you heard the song by the British performer Seal in which he claims that
'Love helps me know my name'?
I am impressed by that thought.
Indeed without our identification with Jesus Christ in and thru the love of God it is impossible to really know who we are...to truly know our name.
Take care and God Bless
Hi again :-)
I do not mind xxx. not at all :-) (it's way better than a butchered attempt ;-) although I don't mind those that much either :-)
So, my two cents about 'sin' (to what the word traditionally speaks)...I would say that with *sin* defined as be-ing, then 'sin' would refer to *not* be-ing. So to 'sin' against my neighbor would be to participate in obstructing, or impeding her ability to *be.* For example, Jesus spoke against the rules and rituals to which the pharisees required strict adherence. Because in reality, all these rules did was keep people from being able to fully participate in the religious life of their community. They were used to impede people's full participation and expression of their faith. So that which the pharisees demanded, only served to get in the way of people's *be-ing;* because of that, it can be said that pharisees 'sinned' against their neghbors...
Ideally, we were created to be in full participation and communion with the divine. At this point all I know is that we are born into a state where there is systematic obstruction toward that happening (I am not yet where you are in terms of explaining the reason for our 'fallen' state within the xian meta-nattarive, that might have to be the next move!) and I also know that we are all interconnected within that system and because of our inter-relatedness with the divine. So, if we are to move toward full participation with Intimate/Ultimate Reality, toward *be-ing,* we must do it in a way that not only connects us more deeply with the Divine, but simultaneously in no way impedes our neighbor from doing the same...Because the moment that we become an obstacle to another's be-ing (participation with the Divine), then we know we are not truly be-ing - by definition participation with the Divine should in no way be another's obstruction to the Divine, but the opposite. And so, it is in becoming an obstruction to another's *be-ing* that would cause us to be in need of forgiveness; that would be the moment of 'sin' ('sin' in it's traditional sense).
This will be a much better theology when I find a better way of talking about it!! haha...
But I love to be in dialogue with others who are genuinely open and interested and are actually true dialogue partners - not people who pretend to be interested in dialogue but in reality they think they have it all figured out and only want to 'dialogue' about how wrong everyone else is! So, Thank you for your openness :-)
Oh, and I haven't heard that song...but I will look for it - it sounds like something I could benefit from listening to :-)
hi xochitl:
May I call you Ms. X in future communications?
Ms.X has mystery, it is easy to spell, and I intend it to be respectful of your values. I hope that name is OK with you.
I added the video about love helping us know our name on my blog today. I hope you get a chance to see it.
Thanks for your great reply. It is full of interesting ideas that I believe will be fruitful for me as I meditate on them.
The concept of helping one another to realize the fullness of our being (our being made in the image of God) is extremely important to me.
I have two children with fragile X syndrome. This has led me to advocate for the inclusion of people of all abilities, qualities, and unchosen characteristics in my charasmatic/evangelical church world.
Your developing theology may become a lantern of light shining into the dark corners of my faith community.
I am hoping that the ideas you are exploring will become powerful tools to open up the hearts and minds of churches that are infected by prejudices and to heal them.
God's Blessings on you and yours.
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