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Here is a conversation between friends,
Or maybe among two colleagues.
No, a teacher and a student definitely . . .
Whatever! It is a relationship with which to pretend.
Here it goes.
Just know the two are not foes.
(Evodius):1
There’s one thing I have long understood:
That God gets to define God’s own version of good.
(Boso):2
Is that not the epitome
Of dictatorial tyranny?
(E): Why should it be thus understood
Since God is good all the time and all the time God is good?
(B): I guess it depends, maybe,
On what God is defined to be . . .
(E): We define God?
That sounds rather odd.
(B): Yes, we must be clear on what we mean
Should the word or title, “God” communicate anything.
(E): But God is God and God is who God will be.
Just read Exodus 3:14.3
(B): Narrative word play is not definition.
It is a clever name in this instance
Contrived precisely to avoid definition.
Still, a name does not necessarily convey substance.
(E): God’s name proclaims that God is free.
God is more powerful than the Egyptian deities.
(B): That is adjective
Not substantive.
(E): But adjectives describe.
That is much of what it means to define.
(B): Yes, but your name does not designate you a human.
In fact it does little other than say you are not her, him, or them.
(E): But to the ancients there was power in a name,
Authority and control coming with the name one proclaimed.
(B): Man named woman in Genesis,
But God already gave her substance.
(E): Sure. God can do that with God’s creation,
But we cannot do that which exceeds our station.
We do not define God or grant God’s designation.
That would make God a product of our imagination.
(B): Precisely! Now we are getting to substantive conversation.
Set aside that hierarchical intimidation.
(E): Okay now I am lost.
Are you saying humans are higher than God?
(B): No. Come back to the issue at hand:
“What is God?” Not what structures does God demand.
(E): I feel like we are entering a fog of heresy . . .
At the very least abandoning any sense of orthodoxy.
(B): Maybe, but such things are secondary to this issue.
Our definition of God provides parameters for those two.
(E): I am officially confused.
Will you just say what you need to?
(B): Why, you already said it,
And we must not forget it.
(E): I said we know God’s name,
But you said that is not the same.
(B): No no, the part about an imaginative product,
One which we together thought up.
(E): We thought God into existence?
That idea will meet with terrible resistance.
(B): It is not a matter of existence.
We are talking about what God is.
(E): You do believe God is real right?
That there is a God presently alive?
(B): Of course I believe.
That is the root of my curiosity.
But you are getting distracted.
Follow the conversation. Stay on track.
(E): I started this discussion. It is mine to direct.
You have deviated from the initial subject.
(B): The first mover might not control
Every direction the moved might go.
(E): But the creator determines the designed intention.
That can be said without causing contention.
(B): Intent and result are different
Read chapters 2-4 of Genesis.4
(E): Parsing and dissecting every little thing . . .
Why can you not simply believe?
(B): I said I do. Were you not listening,
Or were you distracted by all your notions preconceived?
(E): I just wanted to share my wisdom.
It is you who would not listen.
(B): I simply asked a question.
Is that not essential to learning a lesson?
(E): Sing it with me, “Trust and obey”5
That’s what I was taught and what I now say.
(B): Ok listen,
Can we get back to definition?
(E): Yes I’ll come back around.
God is not bound.
When I say God is good
Good is what God is. Understood?
(B): Then good needs defined,
And good can be whatever we decide.
(E): We don’t decide, God does.
God defines all that will be, is and was.
(B): If God is good then good defines all
Making everything good since under it everything falls.
(E): That’s nonsense.
Use some common sense.
(B): So we agree that good is no definition for God.
Instead it is an adjective and we must move on.
(E): Good is not all that God is.
There is too much to say if I’m honest.
(B): So be honest and say you don’t know God’s definition.
And continue to join me as we pursue this question.
(E): It is not that I don’t know.
It is that God is too expansive for one to express.
No matter how far we go
I fear we will never end or even find a place to rest.
(B): That is excellent! Fear not!
I agree, the collective community gives shape to God.
(E): No! God shapes us, not the other way around.
God is the potter. We are the clay spinning round.
(B): Fine, whatever. The point is we.
God is defined by community.
(E): “I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”6
Where two or three are gathered there I will be.7
And then there’s the blessed Trinity8 . . .
Yes, communion is obviously essential.
(B): Exactly, and how do we know God’s will,
What God intends, wants or feels?
(E): Through the holy scripture,
God’s Word, and the Spirit in the church . . .
(B): And who deciphers all these things?
Who interprets scripture and provides the lens through which to see?
(E): It is God through the Spirit working in the disciples of the Son.
God works through the people until the day of judgment comes.
(B): In other words the church fosters an experience of God.
The particular community defines God’s will through collective thought
Weighing things with one another
To determine what is of God and what is other.
(E): That is such a crude way to express it.
The church is the body of Christ living out the good message.
(B): There’s that word “good” again,
The point at which we began,
That which the community aspires too,
That which you would say God will always choose.
(E): Yes it is rather important that we reach for what is good,
Set our minds on such things9 to embody the creation declaration of being “very good . . .”10
(B): To be judged “good and faithful”11 as a flock of sheep
Together working toward something greater than one’s own imagining . . .
(E): To become one with God freed from devastation
Like the new city in chapter 21 of Revelation12 . . .
(B): A living part of the collective imagination,
The divine experience of transcendent cooperation . . .
(E): In the kingdom of God with the river and tree of life with leaves to heal the nations.13
Death and corruption are gone because the fullness of life has replaced them.
(B): What is God but that which pushes us to fulfill this dream,
That which brings us together to create a society beyond our wildest imagining?
(E): God is more than that but that is surely part.
If God must be defined that may be a decent start.
(B): I agree. God will always be more as long as we continue imagining a heavenly society.
For it is the collective imagination in which God finds being so we might become the good we want to see.
(E): Yes, the good God wants to be
For God created good in the beginning.
God determines what good is
Because God is goodness.
(B): The only way that isn’t tyranny
Is if God is the collective imagination about the society we wish to be.
(E): I reject that potential way of understanding
But I see there is still some upon which we agree.
(B): Ugh . . .
You’re too much . . .
(E): I am the wall upon which your ideas bust
[shrugs].
Two parties each unconvinced by the other.
Frustrated and sometimes confused,
Uncomfortable with the way words are used,
Often growing tired of one another.
And so it goes in conversation.
We explore and test our imagination.
see Augustine, On Free Choice of the Will, in which Augustine utilizes the structure of a conversation between colleagues (himself and a person named Evodius) to expound on the theological concept of free will.
see Anselm, Why God Became Man, in which Anselm argues for the necessity of the divinity of Christ for salvation using a question and answer model with Boso who insisted Anselm write this work.
“God said to Moses, “I am who I am.”[a] He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”” (Ex. 3:14 NRSVue; textual note [a] from the translators says, “Or I am what I am or I will be what I will be.”).
In Gen. 2-4 God creates Adam and Eve and places them in a lush garden called Eden. God gives the garden to the two humans and tells them to care for it. God tells them all the plants are good for food except for one which is set apart (much like the Most Holy Place (i.e. Holy of Holies) residing in the innermost part of the tabernacle (and later the temple) which was in the center of the Israelite encampment as they wandered in the wilderness after liberation from enslavement. The humans were not supposed to eat from the tree which was set apart, but they still did. As it seems, God did not intend the humans to die and was very reluctant to renege on that intention as indicated by the serpent’s speech to Eve in Gen. 3:4-5. The next thing we know, one of Eve’s and Adam’s sons kills another one of their sons. God’s intention goes wildly awry.
J. H. Sammis, “Trust and Obey,” https://www.hymnologyarchive.com/trust-and-obey “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way | To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”
Jer. 31:33, see also Jer. 32:38; Eze. 11:20, 14:11, 37:23, 27; Zec. 8:8; 2Cor. 6:16; Heb. 8:10; Rev. 21:7
Mat. 18:20, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” (NRSVue)
The doctrine of the Trinity was established through debates among many in the christian community. These debates were delineated in a sort of representative style for the first time at the first council of Nicaea (CE 325). This established a form (though very corruptible) for creating collective community parameters by means of gaining input for people dispersed throughout the wider communion.
see Col. 3:1-3, “So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” see also Philp. 4:8, “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (NRSVue)
Gen. 1:31, “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.” (NRSVue)
see Mat. 25:21, “His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things; I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’” (NRSVue)
Rev. 21:3-4, “See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them and be their God;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.” (NRSVue)
Rev. 22:1-5, “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.” (NRSVue)