Summary of text [comment] pages 49 and 50

[The so-called European Enlightenment elevated Greek thought over so-called Judeo-Christian superstition. These thinkers claimed to be “not religious”. I call them “postreligionist”.

The self-labeled enlightened ones made two columns labeled “transcendence” and “immanence”. They then put Yahweh into the “transcendence” column, thereby unconsciously projecting onto Him all the attributes of Zeus. Zeus is a majestic, transcendent and capricious god. So also, by association, is Yahweh.

Postreligionist (enlightenment) thinkers then put Jesus into the “immanence” column, thereby unconsciously projecting onto Him all the attributes of someone like Socrates. Socrates undermined the Athenian social system with his persistent questions. By association, so did Jesus. Jesus was a political animal.

Postreligionist (enlightenment) thinkers never imagined that there was a third element. The list itself constituted a third.

They also never imagined what made their list possible. Paper, pen and ink turned their list into something that they could see.

Neither the paper nor the pen nor the ink have the character of a Zeus or Socrates.

They reflect a mystery that the postreligionists could not imagine.]

Summary of text [comment] pages 49 and 50

[So we have two columns with the headers of transcendence and immanence.

Both Yahweh and Jesus go into the column of immanence.

So does everything in the Bible.

The Bible is a record, even if that witness is buried in forgetfulness and oral tradition. The Bible witnesses the Real.

So, what goes into the header of transcendence?

Go outside and look at the sky.

It is not in the sky.

Go outside and feel the earth.

It is not in the earth.

Feel the breeze touch your face.

It is in the wind.

The Holy Spirit goes into the column of transcendence.

How different is the Holy Spirit from Zeus?

The idea of the Holy Spirit allows us to divorce Greek philosophy from Greek mythology.

The schoolmen of the Latin Age began this divorce.]

Summary of text [comment] pages 49 and 50

How can sin both hurt God’s feelings and not injure God Himself? Schoonenberg claims this is not a problem to be solved.

[Once again, we meet the mystery. We already know why “transcendence” is on the list. That is the Greek logical view. These characteristics go with a Supreme God.

Why is “immanence” also on the list? Greek logic does not require this. Instead, the Bible witnesses God’s immanence. The Old and New Testaments declare that God created the heavens and the earth; fashioned the first human out of earth; made a covenant with Israel; was born as the Son of Mary; and presently moves us through the Holy Spirit.]

Summary of text [comment] pages 49 and 50

[So, let me transform my list from two items to two columns.

The title of one column is the quality of the One True God of Greek logic: transcendence. Under this title I write the word “majesty”.

I title the other column is “immanence”. In this column I list various scenes from the Bible. Yahweh is portrayed as a God who yearns to create a people, fashions a covenant with them, then prospers or punishes his people. Jesus is portrayed as a scapegoat, humble, submitting to the will of the Father, and powerless.

Given this list, what do we intuitively want to do?

We want to keep Jesus on the immanent list. After all, he is one of us.

We want to shift the Bible’s portrait of Yahweh to the transcendence column.

Once this is done, Yahweh becomes a mimic of Zeus; temperamental, demanding, capricious, majestic and transcendent. But this mimic is not the Biblical Yahweh.

What does this imply?

Greek philosophy is not readily divorced from Greek mythology.]

Summary of text [comment] pages 47, 48 and 49

[Does the juxtaposition of God’s transcendence and God’s immanence make God mysterious?

I take a sheet of paper and make a list. The title of the list is “What makes God mysterious”. I list the two items.

But, then I have this weird thought: How can I possibly check off both items without realizing that the list itself is the principle that brings these two together?

I see two items. Do I even register the third?

Yet this third itself is also conveys the mystery of God. The ink and paper that the mystery is written literally brings the two items together.

Schoonenberg did not quite realize that the mystery of God (the list & the paper) underlies the Immanent (the Semitic view) and the Transcendent (the Greek view).

Oh, but “the mystery of God” also contextualizes. It is the title of the list.]

Summary of text [comment] pages 47, 48 and 49

[So, let me propose the following theatrical production as a mystery play:

Greek linear thought, following the intrinsic logic of the concept of One God, deduced the qualities of majesty and transcendence. These qualities are necessary for logical truth.

The stage is veiled by a curtain painted with an image Zeus or Jupiter, poised to cast bolts of lightning.  The sky flashes. How transcendent. How majestic. All other possibilities have been discarded. We recognize the One Transcendent Majestic God as the One True God.

Then the curtains parts, and what do we see? A poor woman delivering her baby in a shed.

To me, this theatrical moment expresses the Semitic point of view, a juxtaposition of images asking the witness to recognize the possibilities.

Recognize the possibility of Jesus.]

Summary of text [comment] pages 47, 48 and 49

If God is not harmed, then who is harmed?

Schoonenberg noted: Ultimately it is sinful man himself that is harmed by sin. (This is explicit in Jer. 7:18 and Job 35:5-8.)

Schoonenberg continued: We are standing here before the mystery of God himself, of his transcendence and immanence. There is no possibility of solving this question like a math problem. But, we may try to appreciate the mystery.

Summary of text [comment] pages 47, 48 and 49

Does sin affect God?

The Scriptures say yes. God emotionally reacts to provocation and disdain. God may be rash, slow to anger, and regret prior stances. Yahweh exhibits anger, pity, jealousy and commitment.

But does that mean that sin affects God?

From the Greek point of view [a linear development of ideas honing the possibility of recognition], God’s majesty and transcendence implies that He endures no injury and no harm.

Summary of text [comment] page 47

Schoonenberg’s essential definition gives rise to another set of questions about the relations between God and humans:

1. Does sin really effect God?
2. Does God affect sin? Does He cause it, since He is the universal cause?
3. What do we mean when we say that “God punishes sin”?

Summary of text [comment] page 47

After all these blogs, let me again state the two points in Schoonenberg’s list:

Sin is an opposition to God’s salvific activity and to His creation, hence a crime against the world and against humans.

The opposition (to God) derives from our freedom. The opposition materializes on a variety of levels. It both resembles and differs from evil in the prepersonal level.