Theological Cartographies: Mapping the Encounter with God, Humanity, and Christ

By Benjamin Valentin

Benjamín Valentín presents a substantive yet accessible introduction to the three central doctrines of Christian theology: God, humanity, and Christ. In an engaging style, Valentín offers an overview of each of these doctrines, delving into its tradition within the Christian community throughout history, from the writing of Scripture forward. He further explores what contemporary life tells us about this doctrine and how that compares to traditional understandings and then determines how we can reconstruct this doctrine in light of our new assessment of it. Each chapter concludes with suggested readings for further study. Throughout, Valentín highlights the diversity of Christian thought, bringing together past tradition and contemporary questions to arrive at a new understanding of what these important doctrines can mean for us today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Release date: Mar 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781611645538

Benjamin Valentin

Benjamín Valentín is Professor of Theology and Culture and Director of the Orlando Costas Lectureship in Latino/a Theology at Andover Newton Theological School in Massachusetts. He is the author of the award-winning Mapping Public Theology: Beyond Culture, Identity, and Difference.

Book preview

Introduction

The present-day student of theology doesn’t lack for books that introduce and advance the discussion of key Christian theological themes. I have read and used many of these books myself, for personal enlightenment, research pursuits, and classroom teaching. For example, I can mention Justo Gonzalez’s A Concise History of Christian Doctrine; Shirley Guthrie Jr.’s Christian Doctrine; Bradley Hanson’s Introduction to Christian Theology; Tyron Inbody’s The Faith of the Christian Church: An Introduction to Theology; Alister McGrath’s Christian Theology: An Introduction; Daniel Migliore’s Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology; Dorothee Soelle’s Thinking about God: An Introduction to Theology; and Clark Williamson’s Way of Blessing, Way of Life: A Christian Theology.¹ These are just some of the single-authored introductory theology texts that are currently available for purchase and reading. There are also many multi-authored, edited textbooks about Christian theology. These include Peter Hodgson and Robert King’s Christian Theology: An Introduction to Its Traditions and Tasks; Serene Jones and Paul Lakeland’s Constructive Theology: A Contemporary Approach to Classical Themes; William Placher’s Essentials of Christian Theology; and Francis Schüssler Fiorenza and John Galvin’s Systematic Theology: Roman Catholic Perspectives.²

Even so, there seems to be a need for a theology text that traces the historical origins and development of Christian tenets. We know that Christian ideas and convictions did not drop from the sky ready-made for our consideration and utility. We know that they emerged at a particular time in human history and that they developed through time as Christians reflected on such things as the possibility of a transcendent reality, the great riddle of the human condition, and the question of the significance of Jesus of Nazareth. Christians were reflecting on these issues to gain meaning and direction in life. Some theological textbooks do not consider this human, historical, and contextual element. But theological constructs cannot be fully understood if they are divorced from the movement of human history. It is important, therefore, that theology texts help us to see how and why Christian ideas and convictions emerged and developed in and through time.

I also sense that there is still room in the theological domain for an introductory text that highlights the diversity of Christian thought. Christian theology has always been a more complex phenomenon than some have realized, with a variety of perspectives, languages, schools of thought, options of belief, and expectations or hopes. There are some who recognize this variety but renounce, downplay, or hide it as if it were something to be afraid of or ashamed of. But we should not be scandalized by diversity: we should be able to see that variety is usually a good thing. This holds true even in theology. I submit, therefore, that the variegated, prismatic, and colorful form that Christian theology assumed very early on is to be acknowledged, studied, valued, and highlighted. Some theology texts do this well and encourage us to do this as well. Yet many do not.

Also, there is a need for theology texts that place Christian theology in conversation with other disciplines and fields of inquiry, such as science, archaeology, sociology, psychology, and the history of religion. Indeed, I sense that there is a need for theology texts that place Christian theology in conversation with the pressing problems and concerns of our time, calling attention to some of the central points at issue in contemporary Christian reflection. And there is room for a text that can carry out these kinds of efforts in an engaging, conversational style.

This book will try to be the desired theology text I have just described. Yet in it I do not explore all of the big issues of Christian theology, only the topics of God, humanity (i.e., theological anthropology), and Christ (i.e., Christology). I have chosen to limit my inquiry to these themes or topics in order to examine them as thoroughly as I can. The truth is that it would be extremely hard to comply with the list of requisites and directives I mentioned above if one were bent on trying to cover all or most of the big topics and doctrines of Christian theology. That would make for a lengthy and unwieldy text, quite possibly for a costly one as well. Furthermore, a text of that magnitude would take an extremely long time to write. This one took me long enough to write! For these reasons I have chosen to focus on three of the big topics of Christian theology.

I have selected the themes of God, humanity, and Christ because they take us to the very center of Christian theology. The other classic themes and doctrines of Christianity are important, of course, and they do complete the Christian picture or narrative. Topics such as creation, ecclesiology, eschatology, and all the other traditional doctrinal loci deserve our continuous reflection so that we may learn about their emergence, historical development, and present state and relevance and so that we may be better able to determine how and why they need reformulation today. But we must admit that the topics of God, humanity, and Christ are very big topics in Christian theology. And there is a sense in which they take us to the heart of the Christian proposition and story. They present Christianity’s picturing of the God, human, salvific drama, one could say. In this wise they even seem to go together or to join together well. And this is another reason why I have chosen to focus on them in this book. Simply put, the topics of God, humanity, and Christ cohere well and provide for a coherent text.

Because it explores three Christian themes at length, the book contains three sizable chapters. Each one offers an introduction to and an overview of the history and contents of a Christian theme. Chapter 1, That Than Which Nothing Greater Can Be Conceived, traces the unfolding of the Christian understanding of God. It begins with a consideration of the nature of God-thought and God-talk. But it moves on from there to reflect upon three questions: How did the prevailing Christian conception of God develop? What are the main tenets of this conception? And how has this understanding of God been taken on or revised in more recent time?

Chapter 2, Deciphering the Riddle of the Human Condition, surveys the insights and efforts of Christian theological anthropology. Here I reflect upon the essential Christian affirmations about human being. I submit that Christian anthropology revolves around eight essential affirmations about human beings: (1) that human beings are created, are creaturely beings; (2) that human beings are created in God’s image; (3) that human beings are created to be good; (4) that human beings are embodied persons; (5) that human beings are created for fellowship; (6) that human beings are both bound and free; (7) that human beings are fallen, sinful creatures; and (8) that human beings can look to Jesus for a revealing and inspiring example of a righteous and authentic life. These are not the only declarations Christianity has made with regard to humanity, I clarify, but they are some of the more central and prevailing ones. After offering an interpretation of the sum and substance of these historic affirmations, I proceed to throw light upon four recent trends and developments that have marked contemporary Christian anthropology. These include, first, the reclamation and accentuation of our social and relational nature; second, the rethinking of original sin; third, the acknowledgment and cherishing of our corporeality and sexuality; and fourth, the recognition of our relation to nature.

Chapter 3, God and the Potentiality of Life as Seen In and Through Jesus, tenders a summary of Christology. Christology can be defined as the subdiscipline in theology that seeks to decipher the religious or saving significance of the figure of Jesus of Nazareth. And often it is spoken of in the singular form, Christology. But the truth is that, because every generation of Christians has had to construe Jesus Christ’s importance by using the resources of their time and place, we have inherited multiple renderings of the significance of Jesus—various different Christologies. In this chapter I explore some of the more important, influential, and lasting ones of these. Here I include several early Christologies that appear already in the New Testament documents, and the so-called classical or orthodox Christology that came into view at the early church councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon. I also take a look at the atonement theories that emerged in the patristic era and in the eleventh and twelfth centuries of our Common Era because these convey an understanding of the salvific impact and enduring significance of Jesus. Finally, I survey some of the recent developments in the contemporary christological scene to give an idea of the ongoing evolution or flowering of Christology.

These are the three chapters of my book. And just on the basis of my brief descriptions, it should be evident that they are substantive ones. But this is the idea and intention of the book. It is meant to be a substantive, historically sweeping, well-founded, up-to-date, and yet rhetorically accessible introduction to the Christian themes of God, humanity, and Christ. As partly introduction to Christian doctrine and partly history of Christian doctrine, the book aims to provide readers with a solid overview of the history and content of these three key topics in Christian theology. To help students and teachers in their further exploration of these topics and their subtopics, each of the book’s chapters ends with suggested readings.

The structure of the book’s chapters is grounded in a particular vision and understanding of the vocation of theology. As I see it, theology is defined by a tripartite set of tasks that includes (1) the retrieval and interpretation of a religious tradition; (2) the questioning and assessment of the tradition; and (3) the rethinking and reconstruction of that tradition so that it can remain relevant and living. The headings of the chapters do not always bear these exact words, but it should be easy to see that they comply with this understanding of the theological vocation and that they follow a pattern of retrieval and interpretation; contemporary questioning and assessment; and present-day rethinking and reconstruction.

As for the title of the book, it derives from the sense that what these chapters tender are maps of the theological terrain. Each chapter attempts to map out or trace the contours of a Christian theological theme, with attention being given to the nature of the topic, the history of the topic, the contents and meanings of the topic, and the contemporary relevance and reformulation of the topic. In the case of this book, the topics mapped out are about God, humanity, and Christ.

The title allows for another association. Maps are mostly used when one is going to take a trip. In fact, they can even encourage travel and make travel easier. I am hoping that my theological maps will encourage and help people to traverse, explore, or wander over the Christian topics of God, humanity, and Christ.

For all those who are intrigued and want to come along with me on this journey of theological discovery, I am glad you will be joining me, and I hope you enjoy the trip. The journey now begins.

1.   See Justo L. González, A Concise History of Christian Doctrine, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005); Shirley C. Guthrie Jr., Christian Doctrine (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994); Bradley C. Hanson, Introduction to Christian Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997); Tyron Inbody, The Faith of the Christian Church: An Introduction to Theology (Grand Rapids: Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2005); Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction, 5th ed. (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011); Daniel L. Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2004); Dorothee Soelle, Thinking about God: An Introduction to Theology (New York: T&T Clark, 1997); Clark Williamson, Way of Blessing, Way of Life: A Christian Theology (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 1999).

2.   See Peter C. Hodgson and Robert King, eds., Christian Theology: An Introduction to Its Traditions and Tasks (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994); Serene Jones and Paul Lakeland, ed., Constructive Theology: A Contemporary Approach to Classical Themes (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005); William Placher, ed., Essentials of Christian Theology (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003); Francis Schüssler Fiorenza and John Galvin, ed., Systematic Theology: Roman Catholic Perspectives (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011).

1

That Than Which Nothing Greater Can Be Conceived

The Making and Remaking of the Christian Doctrine of God

Whatever this word God points toward is greater than our understanding and greater than everything we think we mean. God transcends our understanding of what that word God means. That should be the source of deep religious humility on our part.

—Diana Eck¹

All that we say about God is an approximation, a model for expressing our perplexed grasp of the mystery that envelops us.

—Ivone Gebara²

INTRODUCTION

It seems that human beings have long been moved to wonder about the possibility of a transcendent reality. Some believe that the history of religion reveals that human beings have always been inquisitive in this way, that human pondering of the transcendent or divine has always been a fact of life. Others are not so sure that this capacity or penchant has always been a feature of human life. They surmise that the human mind’s aptitude for ecstasy, for concepts that transcend it, arose only later, along with cognitive and linguistic evolution. But whether the arresting characteristic of the human mind to be able to conceive concepts that go beyond it³ has always been a fact of life or not, what is clear is that at some point in our history, we humans began to display this apparently peculiar inquisitiveness about transcendence and/or divinity. At some point, sometime long ago, something deep within our human psyche began to prompt us to conjure up the existence of a greater power or reality at once within us and beyond us, a greater something or other that includes us yet also transcends us. Quite possibly, as the great historian of religion Rudolf Otto suggests, this penchant arose and continues to spring up today out of the recognition of the great mystery that engulfs our lives, but it may also emerge as a result of our fundamental need for meaning and orientation in life.⁴

The different religions that we humans have created and the different great traditions of faith we embrace refer to this transcendent reality or greater power in varying ways. Some call it Ultimate Reality, Allah, Brahma, Buddha, the Far Shore, Mother Nature, the Higher Power, as well as other names, and some may deny that this transcendence can or should be described by name at all. Just the same, it is clear that the different religions of the world not only give distinct expression to but also distinct content to the transcendent. Hence there are many different expressions for and ways of thinking about transcendence. Indeed, we should not assume that the same transcendent reality underlies all of these distinct conceptions. In Christianity and in the English-speaking world, however, the word most commonly used to think about, to speak about, and to give content to the idea of a greater power or transcendent reality is God.

I dare say that in our usual day-to-day experience, perhaps especially in the Western parts of the world, we may hear much mentioning of God, much talk about God—whether it is done by religious persons or nonreligious persons. Many of us often use the term God, all the while probably and unreflectively holding on to some understanding of what that word means or points to. However, deliberate or careful attention to what this word God means, what it refers to, how its meaning emerged and developed over time, and how it functions in our religious thought and practice—all this is not something we commonly do ourselves. In my own experience, I have found that practicing Christians do not often take time to ponder questions regarding the shape and content of their convictions, especially when it comes to their belief in God. Many actually have only the sketchiest idea of what they mean when they use the term God, and few are aware of what Christianity has actually said about God. Even Christian theologians themselves often fall short when it comes to giving full attention to the meanings and functions of the word God and to examining how these have emerged, developed, and multiplied over time within Christianity. More often than not, they take one or another more or less traditional understanding of God so much for granted that they simply operate under its suppositions and therefore end up ignoring the implications of the complex nature of God-talk.

This situation is unfortunate, I believe, because deliberate reflection on the meanings and functions of the term God, and consideration of the way in which these have emerged and developed over time, could be a worthwhile activity. Such an exercise could aid us in clarifying what we really mean when we use the word God, and what it might mean to believe in God. It could also lead us to want to become better aware of the understandings of God present in our inherited or accepted religious traditions. Deliberate reflection on the meanings and functions of the word God can potentially also lead to an increase in understanding of those of other faiths and even of those who share our faith but yet hold differing views about God. How so? you may ask. Well, it could lead to the realization that there are in fact many ways of thinking about God and to the recognition that this is so because the reality we refer to as God is ultimately a mystery. In these and potentially other ways, all may benefit from reflection on the meanings and functions of the term God. However, I think it is especially important that those who see themselves as religious scholars and educators, or as religious leaders and ministers, devote some attention to what is meant when the word God is employed: exploring the manner in which ways of thinking about God have functioned in our past and present, and the manner in which such ways of thinking about God developed over time.

One thing I am quite sure of is that if we granted ourselves more time and freedom to reflect on the history, meanings, and functions of this word God, we would come to realize how enormously weighty and perplexingly complex it is. I think we might come to realize that God is simultaneously the most important and yet the most elusive and therefore the most persistently questioned of all religious symbols, postulates, or convictions, perhaps especially in our late modern Western cultural context. The importance of the word, symbol, or idea of God is apparent when we consider that it functions for us as an impersonal absolute, providing us all at once with an ultimate point of reference; as a central object of religious existence (of devotion, belief, worship, prayer, and contemplation or meditation); as a vision of the human and humane (of what is good, just, loving, and righteous); and as a relativizing point of reference in terms of which all of our human values, meanings, concepts, decisions, aspirations, activities, practices, and institutions can be called into question, assessed, and reconstructed. As theologian Gordon Kaufman puts it, By means of the symbol or word ‘God,’ humans hold together before their minds—in a complex of powerfully evocative images and concepts—those values and meanings, criteria and norms, which they believe will orient them in the world and motivate them to address their most pressing problems, while simultaneously alerting them to the questionableness and necessary tentativeness of all their this-worldly commitments.⁵ Beyond this, the word or symbol God also functions as a kind of proper name, particularly for those who have embraced or been influenced by the great monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). God is the name often used to refer to that reality (whatever it might be) or to the supreme or holy being that not only brings into existence but also sustains and intends to bring everything that exists to its ultimate fulfillment. In more personal terms, God is understood and believed to be the creator of the world and of all that is in it, the protector and savior who provides for creaturely wants and who sustains women and men undergoing evils of all sorts.⁶

As if these intricate meanings and implications were not enough, it is also true that the term God encompasses an amazing variety of convictions and views regarding that to which it is taken to refer. They range from personalistic ideas of a supreme being or entity who can intervene in the affairs of the world to nonpersonal ideas of an absolute reality or ultimate force with more limited influence on life and the natural forces of the universe. There are those who conceive of God as eternal and immutable (unchanging) and those who conceive of God as temporal and/or in constant change. Some see God’s relation to the world as one that is so intimate as to be indistinguishable from the world (i.e., God is everything and everything is God—a position known as pantheism). Others strongly emphasize a distinction and separation between God and the world (i.e., God is an otherworldly reality or being that created the universe as something separate from God’s self yet comes to involvement with it by virtue of God’s creative conservation of each part of the universe and by virtue of God’s interested engagement with human history through revelation, special miraculous events, and incarnation—a position known either as conventional Western theism or supernatural theism). Then there are persons who view God and the world as dynamically interacting so that they in some ways transcend each other and yet in other respects are inwrought with each other (i.e., God dwells within and interrelates with the world yet is also more than and beyond the world—a position known either as panentheism or dialectical theism).

Besides this great variety of views regarding the character of the reality that the term God is taken to refer to, there is equal diversity as to what it means to believe in God. Some say belief in God requires belief in the existence of a supreme being; others take it to require the adoption of certain affective states, dispositions, or attitudes; and yet others understand it as the entrance into a specific form of religious life, with its own language and style of ritual activity.

As I am sure we can already agree, this word God is one that is truly remarkable and involved: it at once offers us a center for consciousness, for religious devotion, and for humane service. And it is a term, symbol, or idea connected to many distinct convictions. Thus there is good reason to call it the most important of religious symbols, postulates, and/or doctrines. Nevertheless, of all concepts in modern cultural life—and in varying degrees for ‘believers’ and ‘doubters’ alike—the idea of God remains the most elusive, the most frequently challenged, the most persistently criticized and negated of all important convictions.⁷ Many questions are at times asked about both the referent for the word God—that is, about the supposed reality to which the word points or refers—and about the import and use of the word God itself. Is there a God? If so, can such a God be experienced, known, or spoken of? And if yes, then is such experience testable, such knowledge verifiable, and such speech meaningful? Or can it be, as some have alleged, that all alleged experience of God is ultimately illusory (e.g., Sigmund Freud); that all seeming knowledge of God is but a mere projection of our human needs and wishes (e.g., Ludwig Feuerbach); that all speech about God is in fact empty and meritless (e.g., strict humanists and atheists)?⁸ Besides these fundamental queries, other questions can be posed and ought to draw our consideration, at least from time to time. For instance, are some ways of thinking about and talking about God today more responsible than others? Might it be that some of the individuals and groups who use the word God actually abuse or misuse it? And if so, what psychological, spiritual, and sociocultural consequences does this have? Is it appropriate at all to speak of proper and improper uses of this word? And if so, how can we determine this? What are the foundational tenets or features of the Christian understanding of God? What are the origins of these, and how have they developed over time? What problems or questions have been raised in regard to the predominant or conventional Christian understanding of God, and what attempts have been made to reconstruct or reconfigure Christian faith in God? These questions call attention to important issues and concerns that should be much more freely considered and discussed.

In the pages that follow, I will make an effort to give a basic explanation of how the fundamental or prevalent Christian conception of God has emerged, evolved, and been questioned and reconfigured, from biblical times to the present day. I will also seek to give at least a cursory response to some of the fundamental questions just mentioned. Admittedly, all I can do here is simply to introduce the bare outlines of the evolution of the Christian doctrine of God. The aim of this chapter is not, therefore, to grasp or to give answer to all of the implications involved in the discussion of such a complex topic, but rather to lay the foundation for a basic understanding of some of the prominent lines of development, insights, and conceptual tensions that underlie the Christian doctrine of God.

I will proceed in the following way. First, I will briefly explore the nature of language about God, highlighting its symbolic, metaphorical, and analogical character. Second, I will survey three prominent and important strands or trajectories in the history of the Christian conception of God, accounting for the Hebrew origins of, the Greek philosophical influence on, and the unique Trinitarian markings of this understanding. And third, I will discuss three kinds of problems or prominent lines of criticism expressed in more recent time regarding traditional Christian understandings of God while giving a glimpse of some ways in which various contemporary Christian theologians and traditions of thought have sought to respond to these by reconstructing or reconfiguring Christian God-talk. It is my hope that this brief tour will serve to answer some questions important to a better understanding of the origins, evolution, and ongoing configuration and significance of Christian faith in God.

MORE TRULY IMAGINED THAN DESCRIBED: THE NATURE OF GOD-TALK AND GOD-THOUGHT

It should already be evident that the word God is a unique and complex word, rich with many layers of meaning and implications. We are, after all, speaking here about a word that does double duty: first, as a functional noun with great religious, ethical, and reflective import, it names the ultimate in reality and value and meaning for humans; and second, as a descriptive name, it intends to point to that which is in and under and behind all things everywhere and always, ‘the Creator of all things, visible and invisible.’⁹ As we have noted, it is also a word that is infused with many different convictions. And, as we shall soon see, it is a word with a most interesting and even obscure history—a history that includes two millennia of Christian reflection but has an even longer genealogy that stretches back at least as far as four thousand years.

But, as if all of this were not enough, there are two other peculiarities or distinctions that add to this word’s complexity. First, that to which the word God is taken to point or to refer is not something that is accessible to us for our observation and direct perception. The complication here is basically that God (whatever God may be) is not an object among other objects in the universe, and therefore God cannot be brought forward for immediate observation and description. Unlike words or symbols such as tree, table, book, man, and woman (words classifying objects or things that can be immediately observed), the word God functions at a remove from direct observation and perception. This is in part the insight that the biblical writer is trying to communicate in 1 John 4:12: No one has ever seen God. The implication of this point is that what this word God points toward or refers to cannot be picked up and then set down in an ordered place in time and space for identification, observation, and evaluation. For this reason, God must to some extent be conceived of as ultimately transcendent—that is, we must admit that the reality we refer to as God inevitably eludes our grasp and eye reach and therefore transcends our understanding—even our understanding of what the word God means.

To be sure, it is important that in thinking about God we make sufficient allowance for the notion of God’s indwelling in our world and in our very own being, so as to avoid the negative implications of a conception of God as a being or actuality that is wholly separate from the universe. It is important that we think of God as a reality or dimension of reality that is all around us and moves outside us, within us, and in between us. In the words of the biblical passage in Acts 17:28, we can and perhaps ought to envision God as the one in whom we live and move and have our being (alt.). This permits us to view God as all-encompassing and thus to consider nature and our lives as being sacred or God-infused. But it is equally important for us to recognize that, because the real referent intended by the word God is not directly accessible to us for our tangible scrutiny, God must also be considered to be more than what we can experience and fathom.

The second peculiarity of the word God is this: whether we take this term to refer to the highest of ideals or take it to be the name of an objective, living being or reality that created and sustains everything that exists, the fact is that with the word God we are always in some sense attempting to indicate an ultimate point of reference, one that we can never encompass and beyond which it is never possible to extend. In other words, whatever this word God points toward is regarded to be absolute, ultimate, infinite, and thus indeterminable. It is no wonder that the twelfth-century Christian thinker Anselm defined God as that than which nothing greater can be conceived. It is little wonder too that Christians and other religious persons today can say that God is the Creator, the most high, the holiest, the Alpha and the Omega. In each case what is being expressed is the idea that God is the absolute beginning and ending point, beyond which it is never possible to extend. Thus God is conceived of as the Ultimate, the Absolute: as that which grounds and circumscribes everything but yet can never be actually reached and certainly not surpassed.

These two hallmarks (i.e., transcendence and absoluteness), both of which belong intrinsically to the meaning of the word God, imply that whatever this word points toward must eventually be conceived of as a transcendent, intangible, imperceptible, incomparable, unsurpassed idea or reality—an idea or a reality that can only be inferred but never actually observed or grasped or prevailed over. And it is precisely because these two inferences belong intrinsically to its meaning that the word God can do duty as (1) an ultimate point of reference for our lives—indicating that beyond which we cannot extend in value, thought, and imagination; and (2) an appropriate object of worship—denoting that to which persons and entire communities can completely give themselves in unconditional devotion.

An immediate implication of all of this is that our language about God cannot reflect, as in a mirror, the ineffable reality of God’s very self. If God is transcendent and absolute in the way we have just indicated, then logically our theological statements about God cannot be viewed as literal inquiries into the nature of God but rather as symbolic, metaphorical, analogical, and therefore essentially imaginative renderings of God. Simply put, because the ineffable reality of God is beyond our grasp, beyond our perception, and thus beyond our knowledge, no language about God can be taken to be applicable in a literal way. We must instead conclude that all of our talk about God is symbolic, metaphorical, analogical, or imaginative, each of these terms emphasizing that our language for or about God does not directly correspond to or literally describe God. At best, all of the words, names, concepts, and images that we use to refer to or to say something about God will be only symbols, metaphors, analogies, or models: the use of a set of figures of speech as we in reverie try to indulge the mystery that engulfs us and that we believe to be alive within our own being.

Because the real referent intended by the word "God’ is never directly accessible to us for our observation and description, we must be willing to admit that all of our language about God and all of our ideas and conceptions of God will necessarily fall short of actually describing God. We simply do not possess direct access to God. Therefore, we also possess no literal, true-to-God’s-nature language about God. All we can do is to represent to ourselves the unknowable reality we call God through the use of selected ideas, words, and images that can help us develop our thoughts about what is ultimately an incomprehensible subject. These ideas, words, and images help us develop our thoughts about the ineffable reality of God by allowing us to picture it in terms of something familiar to us, in terms of our culturally infused experiences in and of the world. All we can do, in other words, is to imaginatively construct, to conjure up, to deduce the transcendent absolute we call God by way of representational ideas and analogous