In Who Is God?, John Markey's Vast Knowledge Of

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“In Who Is God?, John Markey’s vast knowledge of the Christian tradition is distilled and explained in clear and simple language. But such clarity and simplicity are in no way a ‘dumbing down’ of the tradition’s richness and complexity. On the contrary, it takes a master teacher to tell this story, and Markey suc- ceeds admirably. Integral to the book as well are the artistic reflections of Greg Zuschlag and Paul Contino. They offer a wonderful context in which this story can come alive in readers’ experience.” —Stephen B. Bevans, SVD Louis J. Luzbetak, SVD, Professor of Mission and Culture Catholic Theological Union

“Informed by the best of contemporary theology and biblical studies, John Markey’s Who Is God? is wonderfully concise and surprisingly accessible. Carefully chosen poetry and literature serve as an entryway and invite the reader into a vision of a God of infinite loving compassion whose ‘heart’ is tuned to the cries of the poor. Remarkably thorough, Markey’s narrative deftly surveys the major historical developments and key figures who have honed and plumbed this vision through the centuries and ends by revealing the contemporary relevance of such an understanding of God.” —Wendy M. Wright, PhD Professor of Theology Creighton University

“John Markey’s Who Is God? tackles a big question by telling the compelling story of a loving God who is profoundly interested in us, a God who is profoundly for us. With ample questions for reflection built around classic poetry and contemporary film, Who Is God? will prove a valuable conversation starter in college classrooms, parish programs, and adult study groups. It is a gift from teachers to teachers . . . and to their students.” —Edward P. Hahnenberg, PhD John Carroll University

“‘Who is God?’ There is no more central—or highly debated—theological question. Drawing on the riches of the Christian, and specifically Catholic, tradition, as well as contemporary cultural resources, John Markey’s Who Is God? is learned and poetic, engaging and accessible. Markey and his colleagues Greg Zuschlag and Paul Contino, master teachers all, have provided an excellent and creative text for a broad readership. Highly recommended for undergraduate students, pastoral ministers, faith-related discussion groups, and all engaged in the quest for ultimate meaning in human life.” —Mary Catherine Hilkert University of Notre Dame Author Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Greg Zuschlag for his help and friendship, and both Greg Zuschlag and Paul Contino for their invaluable contribution to this book. I would like to acknowledge the outstanding and dedicated work of my research assistant, Joseph August Higgins, and thank him. I am grateful for the insights and support of my friend Steve Bevans, my associate Theresa Galan-Bruce, my colleagues at Oblate School of Theology, and my Dominican brothers Wayne Cavalier and Ramón González. Finally, I am deeply indebted to Brad Harmon, Jerry Ruff, Paul Peterson, and especially Maura Thompson Hagarty, at Anselm Academic, for their support, advice, companionship, and trust.

Publisher Acknowledgments

Thank you to the following individuals who reviewed this work in progress: Jeannine Hill Fletcher, Fordham University, Bronx, New York Paul F. Lakeland, Fairfield University, Fairfield, Connecticut Who Is God? Catholic Perspectives through the Ages

John J. Markey Created by the publishing team of Anselm Academic.

The scriptural quotations in this book are from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, and 1970 by the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC. Used by permission of the copyright owner. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Cover image: © Lukas-Art in Flanders VZW / Bridgeman Images

Copyright © 2016 by John J. Markey. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the written permission of the publisher, Anselm Academic, Christian Brothers Publications, 702 Terrace Heights, Winona, Minnesota 55987-1320, www.anselmacademic.org.

Printed in the United States of America

7074

ISBN 978-1-59982-850-3 Dedication Thomas F. O’Meara, OP

Contents

Introduction...... 9

1. God: Scriptural and Cultural Conceptions...... 15 GOD IN FILM EXPLORING LES MISÉRABLES, Greg Zuschlag / 16 God in the Hebrew Scriptures / 19 God in the Christian Scriptures / 24 Hellenism / 35 Heresy and Orthodoxy / 36 The Christian Understanding of God after Nicea / 42 Two Approaches, One Ultimate Mystery / 45

GOD IN FILM VIEWER REACTIONS TO LES MISÉRABLES, Greg Zuschlag / 47 Review Questions / 51 Discussion Questions / 51 Additional Resources / 52

2. God: From Medieval to Contemporary Understandings..... 54

GOD IN POETRY INTRODUCING “GOD’S GRANDEUR,” Paul J. Contino / 55 The Great Medieval Synthesis / 58 The God of the Enlightenment / 70 The Twentieth Century: Incarnation and the Trinity / 74 Vatican II / 78 Contemporary Perspectives / 81

GOD IN POETRY IS IT “BOTH/AND” OR “EITHER/OR”? Paul J. Contino / 86 Review Questions / 89 Discussion Questions / 89 Additional Resources / 90

Conclusion...... 93 Introduction

nter the word god in any internet search engine and you will receive more than one billion results. Where to begin? Which god? How do you Ebegin to sort through the innumerable versions, variations, and competing claims about God that each entry represents? Which God hears prayers, or answers them? Does God have concern for the whole world or only certain members of it? How do you narrow the search and determine which if any of these entries is helpful, interesting, or valuable, let alone true? Ultimately, the search for God depends on the context and reality out of which the searcher comes. The top of the internet list depends on the search engine used and the searcher’s country and past search history. The great question of the contemporary age is not whether God exists, but which God exists. That is, many people in the United States are most interested in asking about what kind of God is being presented first, before considering whether that particular portrait of God is real or not.1 One cannot talk about God in the abstract. Talking about God ultimately depends on a complex web of history, beliefs, cultural and social conditions, and individual human experience. Narrowing the search ultimately depends upon one’s historical context, specific questions, or personal needs or problems, as well as one’s connection, by upbringing or choice, to a particular religious tradition. This short book attempts to convey one particular religious tradition’s view of God: the Catholic, Chris- tian tradition in the West. Catholics claim knowledge of God that is unique and special but also accessible to other people who will investigate what Catholics are trying to say. Adherents of this tradition have spent thousands of years trying to “make sense” of God. Given the number of ways of understanding God, it is necessary to ask whether anyone or any tradition can ever be “right” about such a complex

1. See www.gallup.com/poll/1690/religion.aspx and www.gallup.com/poll/147887/americans -continue-believe-god.aspx. See also “American Piety in the 21st Century: New Insights to the Depth and Complexity of Religion in the US” (Selected Findings from The Baylor Religion Survey, Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion, September 2006), 4–5.

9 10 Who Is God?

subject. How do human beings know what is true, let alone what is true about God? To “make sense” of God must in some way follow the same process or rules that determine how humans make sense of anything else. Furthermore, if there is some way to make sense of God, why are there so many different and often competing interpretations of God? Shouldn’t human beings be able to come up with some kind of consensus about God in the same way they do about mathematical, chemical, or physical realities? Part of the complexity of understanding God is rooted in the way that human beings know anything at all. If the reality of God pervades all aspects of human experience, then the attempt to make sense of it will require an integrated examination of all the dimensions of human experience.

Ways of Knowing

Those who study human thought and the ways that we make sense of the world recognize that people generally employ two different but inter- related ways of grasping or knowing reality. There are multiple ways to categorize these two dimensions but in general the human mind “knows things” in two ways: the prerational (or nonrational) way and the rational way. Nonrational or prerational does not mean irrational or unreasonable. Prerational knowing involves sensations, perceptions, feelings, intuitions, imagination, memories, creative insights, and random ideas. These are part of people’s thinking continually, and they create the conditions for rational, logical reflection. The prerational dimension of knowing sets the stage for the rational dimension, which primarily serves to clarify, interpret, and judge the data it receives from the prerational dimension of the mind. The rational mind makes hypotheses, deduces the implications that would be the case if a hypothesis were true, and sets out to produce, find, investigate, and analyze data to determine whether these deductions and the hypotheses that give rise to them are in fact true. Furthermore, the rational dimension of the mind not only interprets data it receives from the other dimension of the mind, it considers strategies and makes plans to act on or implement these ideas. In this way the human mind continually engages reality, interprets it, acts on it, and then evaluates those actions. The nonrational and rational dimensions of the mind therefore are not in competition with each other; neither is the “true” or “best” way to know reality. Both forms of knowing are always complementary and interacting. So for instance, imagine that you are driving to school. A thousand different things may call for your attention: the cars in front of and behind you, flashing lights, stop signs, sounds from the radio, a conversation with other people rid- ing with you, the shops that you are passing, people walking along the street, Introduction 11 birds in the trees. Suddenly, a ball rolls into the street in front of you. You react quickly by applying the brakes before hitting the ball. You turn instinctually to look for the child who you presume from past experience will be coming after the ball. The presence of this child makes it evident to you that you are passing an elementary school and playground that you had not noticed before. After the child has picked up the ball, you automatically proceed more slowly and with more caution because you always drive carefully when you are near a school or playground. Noticing the school, you also recall your own childhood and briefly ponder your elementary school days and how you used to play ball at recess. This nostalgic reflection cedes to an immediate concern when you come to a four- way stop sign and have to determine when it is your turn to cross. You suddenly remember that the street ahead is closed for a university event and therefore you must decide upon a different route to get to the campus. After thinking through the possibilities, you go left up two streets to a major road that you usually avoid. After checking to ensure that the way is clear you proceed through the intersection, noticing that one of the cars at the intersection happens to be the exact one that you dream about owning someday. Most daily experience is filled with nonrational dimensions: noticing passing stores and trees, listening to the radio, being aware of other people in the car, paying attention to the street ahead, remembering the past, feeling happy or content, desiring a new car. Sometimes something will intervene in this ongoing flow of sensations, intuitions, memories, feelings, and perceptions and cause you to make a sudden judgement based on memory, a perceived threat, or practical, learned experience. Occasionally, you will be confronted with rational consid- erations that require a more sustained process of reflection, like deciding what speed to go in a certain area or adjusting your route to school in response to new information. Daily life constantly requires human beings to use both dimensions of their minds to experience, make sense of, and make decisions about reality. The jobs or careers that people choose often focus particular attention on one aspect of knowing and interpreting reality. Many jobs in fact require people to “abstract” from their immediate experience to focus on a broader concern or interest in which they specialize and to which they devote much of their lives, becoming experts. In this sense, human knowledge is always both immediate and direct and a product of long-term investigation and development. Peo- ple can literally know more and more as time goes on, as well as constantly learn new things or have new experiences that change or expand what they already know. Human knowledge therefore constantly emerges from personal experience but also from the sharing of these experiences with other human beings. In this sense, human knowing is virtually infinite and can develop from generation to generation, age to age, through both nonrational and rational processes. 12 Who Is God?

Thinking about God

Theology is thinking about God. One can think about or try to understand God through both dimensions of human knowing. Such things as poems, paintings, films, stories, gestures, and prayers can convey human experiences of God as much or more than an essay or an article in a journal. To do theology in an academic sense, however, requires one to think rationally about God, and to employ the same processes and use the same methods as any other kind of rational investigation. One develops a hypothesis about the existence of God or the nature of God based on all kinds of prerational data, including perceptions, intuitions, imagination, memories, stories, visions, and creative insights. Once a person or a group of people develop a hypothesis about God, the theologian sets out to analyze this hypothesis; understand its development and implications; deduce its consequences; identify data that clarifies, confirms, or challenges these deductions; and then consider, judge, and strategize what needs to be done in the light of this analytic process. When one studies a topic as far-reaching and complex as God, one can assume that this process will go on indefinitely and will only occasionally produce final or absolute conclusions. Normally, this process will arrive at tentative decisions and conditional conclusions that allow the process to continue but that may be subject to revision as time goes on and new data emerge. Theology is also such a general term that it often refers to many dimensions of this investigative process.

What Is Theology?

Theology, literally “God-talk,” from theos (“God”) and logia (“speech”), refers to the task of critical reflection upon and pastoral application of the meaning of God’s message revealed in the Christian Scriptures. The- ology asks questions such as, “What does the Bible say about this subject?” “How has the church interpreted this teaching over the centuries?” “How does this teaching apply to today’s Christian audience?” The goal of theology is to present the Christian message in an accessible way to the church and to the world.

Sources for Understanding God

Christian theology likewise depends on both the nonrational and the rational dimensions to “paint” a full picture of God because ultimately God is more complex than any single interpretation can convey. The two main sources of the Christian understanding of God are the Bible and the Christian church. The Bible, written over many centuries, has two main parts: the Hebrew and the Introduction 13

Christian Scriptures (sometimes referred to by Christians as the Old and New Testaments). The Hebrew Scriptures, written over hundreds of years, seek to tell the story of how the Hebrew people were established by God, rescued from slavery, and given a land and special relationship with God that was continually challenged by sinfulness and lack of faithfulness of these chosen people. The Hebrew Scriptures are not a history book or even a single narrative story. Rather, these Scriptures include stories, poems, prayers, lists of rules and laws, prophetic monologues, and theological reflections that were drawn together over the centuries to form a text considered to be holy and sacred by Jews, Christians, and Muslims, among others. The Christian Scriptures, written during a span of fifty to sixty years, are also composed of a variety of kinds of texts. These include stories, letters, hymns, personal memories, and legends. This collection of texts attempts to tell the story of Jesus of Nazareth and the experience of his life, death, and Resurrection, and of a community of followers (eventually called the church) that emerged out of his extraordinary life and that began to tell both Jesus’ story and their own story of following him. Together the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures form the basis of all subsequent Christian reflection on God and the relationship of God to the world and human persons. Scripture is the foundation upon which all Christian theological reflection is built. The second source of Christian theology is the church. The church here refers to the community of believers that come out of the historical experience of Jesus Christ and that first proclaimed him and his message and produced the Christian Scriptures that explain his life, message, and meaning to the first and all subsequent generations of Christians. The church is not primarily an organization or institution, but a community of people who hold common beliefs about the unique way that God has worked through the historical person of Christ and continues working through the people that follow him. Over time this community developed ideas, theories, practices, rituals, and lifestyles that aided it in continually interpreting Jesus’ life and message for their own lives. This ongoing process of interpretation from generation to generation throughout the centuries can be called a tradition. This tradition also forms a foundation that contemporary Christians refer to when they consider how they should understand and interpret God in their own lives. Theology is the process of interpreting both Scripture and the Christian (or church) tradition in any contemporary context or present historical circumstance. Theology seeks to “make sense” of what Christians believe God has revealed through the Scriptures and tradition to those people who are trying to live as Christians in a particular place and time. In this sense, theology represents the ongoing attempt of the Christian community to understand, judge, and act in the present time based on the past experiences of the community. 14 Who Is God?

Overview of This Book

This small book attempts to lay a Western, Catholic, Christian understanding of God. As such, its goal is to do theology through a variety of modes, employing both nonrational and rational means to explore a Christian interpretation of God. This study is synthetic in that it tries to bring together some traditional Christian understandings of God with some nonrational attempts to understand God and God’s presence in human history. Contemporary theology has become increasingly interested in the artistic expressions of the human experience of the divine. The visual arts, music, poetry, drama, and literature have all become important for theologians trying to reflect on the profound mystery of God. This book invites readers to engage both the prerational and rational dimensions of their minds to explore the mystery of God for themselves. This book begins by inviting readers to watch scenes from a movie, Les Misérables, which has been adapted from a nineteenth-century French novel. These scenes convey a creative and imaginative reflection on the nature of God’s mercy and love for human beings and the need for human beings to share in that love. The second chapter begins with a poem, God’s Grandeur, by Gerard Manley Hopkins. This poem artistically interprets the understanding of God that its author learned as a young man studying to be a Roman Catholic priest. Again, the hope is that by combining rational theology with a remarkable poem, readers will consider the implications of the rational material in terms of broader, nonrational dimensions of human life. The authors, Greg Zuschlag, Paul Contino, and myself, believe that explorations of the major themes that emerge out of the Christian tradition are best explored through both modes of human knowing. This study is not exhaustive or complete in that it does not investigate every possible interpretation of God offered in either Scripture or even the Western Catholic tradition. Rather, as described above it uses a rational process to determine a hypothesis, consider its implications, and search for evidence that supports or challenges that hypothesis, with the goal of helping contemporary students of theology to think more clearly about their own experience and interpretation of God. Often you have to begin by choosing something that is known and available, then rationally and intuitively try to determine if this interpretation—this hypothesis—makes sense to you and for you. What follows then is an analysis of one particular hypothesis about God that one specific community developed over more than two thousand years. 1 CHAPTER

God: Scriptural and Cultural Conceptions

hroughout the Western world, and within Christianity and specifically Catholicism, attempts to address the question of God have drawn most Theavily upon two distinct but interconnected cultural realities. The first is the ancient Near-Eastern world of the Hebrew people, living in and around modern-day Israel or Palestine. The second is the classical, Greco-Roman world. These two cultural ancestors intertwine in the two major sections of the central sacred text for Christianity, the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. The following discussion will trace the main contours of this history.1 For Christians, God ultimately reveals Godself through the life and preach- ing of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus, as a Jew, inherited the scriptural and cultural conception of God portrayed in the Hebrew Scriptures and in the dynamic Jewish culture in which he lived. Jesus’ life and teaching, the interpretation of his message and destiny by his earliest followers, and the Christian Scriptures that followed can only be fully comprehended by understanding the underlying Hebrew tradition. This chapter explores that tradition and its reappropriation by Jesus and his followers. In addition, this chapter invites readers to consider the nature of God by exploring the film Les Misérables in conjunction with learning about the Catholic tradition’s understanding of God. First, a sidebar introduces the film and guides readers to view and think about select scenes. Text boxes placed throughout the chapter pose questions for further consideration of the film’s messages and their relevance for exploring the nature of God. Finally, the chapter’s conclusion pres- ents several viewers’ thoughts about the film’s theology of God.

1. See Paul E. Capetz, God: A Brief History, Facets (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 1–30, for more information regarding the two cultural and scriptural origins of the Christian conception of God. 15 16 Who Is God?

GOD IN FILM

Exploring Les Misérables

Greg Zuschlag2

Many consider Victor Hugo’s 1862 Les Misérables among the great classic novels. Many who have not read the book know the story from the stage musical or one of the four film adaptations, including director Tom Hoop- er’s 2012 adaptation starring Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway. © Photos 12 / Alamy Stock Photo Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean in Les Misérables While not an explicitly religious work, Les Mis—as it is popularly known—is also recognized by many as embodying several theological and spiritual themes, particularly the nature of redemption, forgiveness, and conversion as well as the question of the primacy of mercy or grace over justice and the law. While all of these are appropriate routes for exploring the musical film, Les Mis also says much about the nature of God. As one of the key characters says at the close of the film: “To love another person is to see the face of God.”

Plot Summary Les Mis is set in France some twenty-six years after the beginning of the French Revolution. The monarchy has been reestablished to the

Continued

2. Greg Zuschlag is assistant professor of systematic theology at Oblate School of Theology, San Antonio, Texas. God: Scriptural and Cultural Conceptions 17

GOD IN FILM: EXPLORING LES MISÉRABLES Continued

disappointment of many of the working class and poor. The story follows a decades-long attempt by a former prisoner, Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), to evade arrest by the doggedly determined Police Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe) for breaking the terms of his parole. In the midst of this struggle, Valjean rescues Cosette, the young daughter of a poor factory worker, Fantine, from her caretakers, an innkeeper couple, who are exploiting her as slave labor. Valjean’s decision to care for and raise Cosette alters his life forever as she later, as a young woman, falls in love with the student revolutionary leader, Marius. The story reaches its climax as the lives of these characters become further intertwined in the June Rebellion in the streets of Paris. Most scenes take place on the streets (and in the sewers) of Paris; the grit and the grime everywhere and on everyone gives the viewer a sense of the true harshness of life during the period. The story’s title doesn’t translate so much as “the miserable ones,” which is what we think of when we are sick or depressed, but rather as “the dispossessed” or even as “the outsiders,”3 which brings to mind the incredible poverty and inequality experienced during the time after the French Revolution. In the first scene, Jean Valjean, who has just been released from a nineteen-year prison term for stealing bread for his starving sister, is found sleeping in the doorway of kindly Bishop Bienvenu (French for “welcome”). Instead of throwing him out, the bishop invites Valjean into his residence. Watch the scene “The Bishop” (www.youtube .com/watch?v=yhpwV4cwB4o; time: 0:03:19) and then take a moment to reflect upon the following questions:

• What do you think about Valjean’s behavior in the bishop’s house? Does it make sense? Does it seem right? Why or why not? • What is the reaction of the bishop’s maids and the gendarme who have caught Valjean? Does their reaction make sense? Why or why not? • Does the bishop’s response to Valjean’s theft surprise you? Why or why not? How has he “saved” Valjean’s “soul for God”?

In the film’s next scene, “Valjean’s Soliloquy,” Valjean is deeply affected by the bishop’s treatment of him. Holding his parole papers, which identify him as an ex-convict, he utters a soliloquy or prayer to God.

Continued

3. Alleyn, Susanne. “No, It’s Not Actually the French Revolution: Les Misérables and History.” Historical Fiction eBooks. Historical Fiction Author’s Cooperative. Jan. 7, 2013. 18 Who Is God?

GOD IN FILM: EXPLORING LES MISÉRABLES Continued

Watch Valjean’s Soliloquy (www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP31L6AhB3M; time: 0:03:38) and reflect upon the following questions:

• What is Valjean’s initial response to the bishop? What happens to him during his “soliloquy”? What kind of “new story must begin”? What does the camera work and the music at the end of the scene seem to be saying? • Have you seen or experienced anything that you might compare to what happens in the scene? If yes, describe this as best you can.

Following this exchange with the bishop, Valjean starts a new life with a new identity. However, since he has broken his parole, the law is looking for him. In this scene, Valjean discovers that another man has been arrested as him and is to be sent to prison. Here Valjean faces his first real challenge to leading a different life than the one of his past. Watch the scene “Who Am I?” (www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2sanq2SM0k; time: 0:02:47) and reflect upon the following questions:

• What is Valjean’s moral dilemma when he sings “Who Am I?” at the end of the scene ? • What would you have done if you were in his shoes? Could Valjean have chosen any other way? Why? Why not?

Most of the rest of the film chronicles how Valjean goes on to live a life of sacrifice, forgiveness, and love, despite the fact that society and the law still consider him a criminal. In the very last scene in the film, Valjean is in a convent, exhausted and near the end of his life, but undiminished in spirit. Accompanied by his loving adopted daughter, Cosette, and her husband, Valjean is escorted to the afterlife by Cosette’s mother, Fantine, who died sacrificing herself for her daughter. As Valjean “passes over” he is reunited with the many people who have died during the course of the film. Watch the film’s final scene (www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dFIz5ZG4DQ; time: 0:03:45) and reflect upon the following questions:

• What do you make of Valjean’s dying words as Fantine begins to sing? How is love understood in the scene? What does this scene call viewers to do in this life? • What is the significance of the final anthem sung by the dead, who refer to themselves as the “wretched of the earth”? What does it mean when they sing “we will live again in freedom in the garden of

Continued God: Scriptural and Cultural Conceptions 19

GOD IN FILM: EXPLORING LES MISÉRABLES Continued

the Lord” and “somewhere beyond the barricades is there a world you long to see”? What is the “tomorrow” of which they sing?

Below the Surface Analyzing theological themes in Les Mis reveals something about the Catholic view of God, which is the subject of this short book. In the scenes discussed above, two figures stand out for theological consideration: the bishop and Jean Valjean. The bishop seems to eschew the human tendency to turn away from others who are les misérables. Instead of throwing out the homeless ex-convict Valjean as a trespasser, the bishop invites him in like an honored guest, feeds him, and gives him a warm bed on which to rest. Moreover, when the down-and-out Valjean steals from him and is brought back to be punished, the bishop, contrary to what many might do, not only forgives him but allows him to keep that which he has stolen and gives him even more. At the close of the scene, the bishop tells him that by doing so, he has “saved [Valjean’s] soul for God.” The final scene of the movie shows Valjean near death in the convent, a place of holiness. Valjean hands Cossette what he calls a “confession,” which tells the life story of one transformed by God’s grace. As he dies, he is joined by Fantine and the bishop. Together they sing, “And remember the truth that once was spoken, to love another person is to see the face of God.” This is the key to understanding the film’s message about the nature of God. Reflect upon these questions:

• What does the statement imply about the nature of God? • As you read this chapter, consider how this statement and the film’s message about the nature of God relate to the understanding of God presented in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, as discussed in this chapter.

God in the Hebrew Scriptures

Genesis (Greek for “beginning”) is the name given to the first book of the Hebrew Bible. In one sense, the book is so named because it offers an account of God’s creation of the world and of human beings. The main subject matter of the book, however, is the long and complex story of God’s unique relationship with the Hebrew people and how that relationship began, according to Hebrew tradition. 20 Who Is God?

The Hebrew Scriptures

The Hebrew Scriptures, or Tanakh in Hebrew, are essentially the same writings that compose the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The Tanakh is composed of three major sections, the Torah (or Law), the Nevi’im (or Prophets), and the Ketuvim (or Writings). The word Tanakh is an acronym formed from the first letter of these three parts: Torah-Nevi’im-Ketuvim =TNK. The Torah contains Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deu- teronomy, and is the source and foundation of the Hebrew Scriptures. The Torah contains the religious, ethical, and moral laws given to the Hebrew people, and tells how God gave the Hebrew people these laws and established his covenant with them. In turn, the Prophets and the Writings represent a retelling of the Torah in new situations and times responding to concerns and issues facing the Hebrew people and serves as a continual reminder for them to remain faithful to the covenant of God and to God himself, who is the source of their life and identity.

In most ancient religions, people offered their gods sacrifices, gifts, or promises, expecting that the gods would then grant them safety, good fortune, or specific benefits. In effect, their relationship with their gods was based on a quid pro quo (something for something) agreement, like a modern contract. For example, when you buy something from a vendor, say Ama- zon.com, you enter into a contractual agreement with them in which you “give” them X amount of money and they “give” you Y product. A contractual relationship is utterly conditional, contingent, short term, and is broken if one of the parties fails to uphold Private Collection / © Look and Learn Bridgeman Images their end of the bargain. That is, if Ruth, in the book of that name, promises Amazon doesn’t deliver the product, her mother-in-law that she will never leave her or forsake her (Ruth 1:16–17). In so the customer isn’t obligated to pay. doing, she illustrates the steadfast interper- Conversely, if a customer doesn’t pay sonal commitment implicit in the biblical for an item, Amazon isn’t obligated to concept of covenant. deliver the goods. God: Scriptural and Cultural Conceptions 21

The ancient Hebrew concept of “covenant” is like such a contract, only there is much more to it. Covenants function more like treaties, agreements that concern how two parties relate to or treat each other. Covenants bind two parties to one another for the long term by commitment and oath or pledge. If one of the parties fails to live up to the terms of the covenant, not only are there repercussions, but the covenant—unlike a contract—continues to exist.

Reflect and Discuss

Do the scenes from Les Misérables shed light on the nature of covenants and contracts? In what ways does the relationship between the bishop and Jean Valjean represent a covenant, or a contract? How might their relationship inform issues such as justice, punishment, and right and wrong when thinking about notions of God and God’s relationship to humanity?

In one of the central biblical stories in the book of Genesis, God approaches a man named Abram (later known as Abraham) and offers to make a covenant with him (Gen. 12:1–7, 17:1–22). Abram is an old man with no heirs and therefore his family name and lineage will die out with him. God offers to give Abraham an heir and to create a great nation out of his bloodline. The God that makes this incredible offer to Abraham is the same God who in earlier chapters of the book of Genesis has created the universe and established all the creatures and people in the world. This God is not just one local or tribal god, but is the source of all that exists and has power over the whole of reality. God makes this covenant with Abraham without any conditions or exchanges—there is no contract as such. While Abraham barely seems to comprehend this offer, he accepts it and places his complete trust in God’s promise. In this story, the ordinary pattern and understanding of religion in the ancient Near East is profoundly altered in a way that makes the Hebrew faith— and the Hebrew God—unique. God in the Hebrew Scriptures is always the one who reveals, initiates, invites, and offers the relationship with human beings. God is also revealed as forgiving, re-calling, and willing to reconcile with people when they betray or break off this relationship. God does not place preconditions on God’s love or favor. Nor in this case does God require something of Abraham and his descendants in exchange for God’s blessings. The God of the Hebrew Scriptures turns ancient expectations on their head. This remarkable understanding of God is developed in two more books of the Torah: Exodus and Deuteronomy. By the end of the book of Genesis, 22 Who Is God?

Abraham’s descendants have become a very large tribal family. Seeking relief from a famine, they go to Egypt. There they grow into a large people, but over time the leadership of Egypt comes to see the Hebrews as an underclass that they can enslave. Exodus tells the story of how God hears the cries of his people suffering in Egypt, rescues them through the leadership of Moses, and promises to give them a land of their own. Again, at no point does God place preconditions on this intervention, nor does God do it in response to some kind of contract or sacrifice: the suffering of the people is sufficient to moti- vate God’s action.4 Clearly, the image emerging is that of a God of generosity, mercy, and compassion.

The Divine Name

During this story a new aspect of the Hebrew understanding of God emerges: the divine name. God reveals the divine name to Moses when God calls Moses to return to Egypt and rescue the Hebrew people. Moses asks what he should tell the people when they ask him the name of the God that sent him. God’s answer is complex.

God replied to Moses: “I am who I am.” Then he added: “This is what you will tell the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” God spoke further to Moses: “This is what you will say to the Israelites: The Lord [literally, Yahweh] . . . has sent me to you.’ ” (Exod. 3:14–15)

Yahweh serves as a formal name for God. It is the way that the Hebrew people identify their God as distinct from any other god or deity. This name is used 6,823 times in the Old Testament. Nevertheless, the ancient Hebrew tradition is that this name is so sacred that it is not to be actually spoken in either prayer or teaching. On most occasions the divine name Yahweh is replaced with the formal term “Lord.” That the Israelites are given a proper name to call God implies that they have a very special and even personal relationship with God. What does the name reveal about that relationship? Does the name reveal anything about God’s nature? The name “Yahweh” derives from the Hebrew verb “to be” (hayah). The divine disclosure that accompanies the giving of the name—“I am who am” (or “I am the one who is”)—strongly suggests that God is assuring the Hebrew people that the God who is coming to rescue them is the only God that truly and

4. Of course, with God’s covenant came expectations that the Israelites would live in fidelity to the covenant; there were promises of blessings if they would do so, and warnings of negative consequences if they proved unfaithful (see Deut. 12–33). The point to note is that, even given such expectations, the covenant cannot be reduced to a simple quid pro quo arrangement: God offers the covenant without preconditions, and the covenant cannot be rendered null and void by Israel’s infidelity. God: Scriptural and Cultural Conceptions 23 fully exists and is the source of all that is, or “be-ing.”5 Some scholars, empha- sizing the idea of the covenant as the central defining aspect of the Hebrew peoples’ understanding of and relationship to God, have translated the “to be” as something like “I shall be who I am as I am with you.” Thus who God is and what God is can only be understood through relationship.

The Mosaic Covenant

In Exodus, this special relationship between God and the Hebrew people is further revealed and clarified by God’s gift of the Mosaic covenant to Israel—the covenant God established with the Israelites through Moses, following the Exo- dus. The Mosaic covenant both formalizes God’s relationship with the Hebrew people and reveals to them how God intended for human beings to live in the first place. In many ways, the covenant brings the book of Genesis to its conclusion by beginning a new relationship between God and human beings that enables and empowers the Israelites to understand and live the way that God originally intended all people to live.6 The covenant sets out the fundamental plan of God that was intended from the beginning for all the earth. The covenant in this way is not just God’s gift to Israel but to all human beings. The covenant given through Moses, like the covenant given to Abraham discussed above, does not fit the traditional religious mode of exchange whereby people establish a “deal” with some god for special treatment or favors. In the book of Deuteronomy, God freely offers Israel the covenant with no preconditions. Furthermore, while there are serious consequences if Israel proves unfaithful to the covenant, God will always remain true to the covenant. The rest of what Christians refer to as the Old Testament constantly refers back to the gift of the covenant by calling Israel to live according to the covenant and warning of the consequences of failing to do so. Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, God is the faithful one who remains true to his people even when they break or ignore the covenant. God is often described as reaching out in this way to individual persons. God is the one to whom people can turn whenever they are suffering, lost, or oppressed.

5. The divine name itself (“Yahweh”) appears to be a causative form of “to be,” i.e., “he causes to be”; thus, “he creates,” “he makes things happen.” For further information on the meaning of the divine name, see Christopher J. H. Wright, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God (Chicago: IVP Academic, 2011), 24–25. For an examination of the theological significance of the name of God for the Hebrew people, see Walter Brueggemann, Old Testament Theology: An Introduction, Library of Biblical Theology (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2008). 6. Many provisions associated with the Mosaic covenant are specific to Israel alone, including such matters as kosher dietary practices and the offering of sacrifices. The point here is that the “moral and ethical” requirements of the covenant, as they are sometimes termed, reveal how God intends for all people to live. Such requirements include love for one’s neighbor and providing for the poor and needy. 24 Who Is God?

The Breath of God

The Hebrew Scriptures present another fascinating dimension of God’s relationship with human beings. In the second chapter of Genesis, God formed the first human being (adam) out of the fertile soil (adamah)—a play on words— and “blew into its nostrils the breath (ruach) of life, and so the man became a living being” (Gen. 2:7). Human beings receive their life directly from the lips of God, these Scriptures tell us. Ruach also means “wind”; in the previous chapter of Genesis, “a mighty wind” (ruach) sweeps over the great formless abyss, and the process of creation ensues. Throughout much of the Old Testament the image of the ruach or breath of God serves as both a source of life and religious enlightenment. The ruach of God inspires the prophets to speak and raises up inspired leaders like Moses, Joshua, the judges, Saul, and David. God’s breath descends on both the prominent and the lowly, giving them faith, the gift of prayer, fidelity to the covenant, and sensitivity to God’s will and saving acts. In the later books of the Old Testament the ruach of God closely associates divine creativity with human wisdom, so that human beings seek the ruach as the greatest source of enlightenment, conscious development, and artistic insight. In this sense, the divine or holy ruach functions as the source of faith, holiness, and spiritual illumination. As such, the ruach represents God’s presence in the world. As the Hebrew understanding of God develops, the ruach serves as the ongoing and practical source of God’s providential care for human beings in general and for the people of Israel in particular.

God in the Christian Scriptures

The Christian Scriptures, commonly referred to as the New Testament, are a collection of texts written by and for the early Christian communities between approximately 50 to 100 CE. The New Testament is composed of two primary parts: (1) the Gospels and (2) the Epistles.

The Gospels

The four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) all tell the story of the life, teachings, and significant events of Jesus of Nazareth. The Gospels are not historical accounts like a newspaper report or even a memoir. The Gospels are rooted in the memory of the community and have many elements that are probably historically accurate, but their primary intention is not to convey an objective report of historical events or persons. Rather, each Gospel narrates its accounts from different perspectives and with different emphases, but all try to convey the central message of Jesus, the way that he embodied his understanding of God, and how this understanding both illuminated the Hebrew Scriptures and transformed them. God: Scriptural and Cultural Conceptions 25

The Gospels also all focus upon the central event of Jesus’ life and ministry: his betrayal, trial, torture, and death at the hands of both the Jewish and Roman authorities. Likewise, they affirm his Resurrection from the dead, his gift of his own Spirit (pneuma, a Greek term that corresponds to ruach) upon his followers, his return (ascension) to his place in God’s life, and his promise that he will come again to redeem and restore all of creation according to God’s plan. The central event of Jesus’ suffering, death, Resurrection, and giving of his Spirit to the community is commonly referred to in Christian theology as the Paschal Mystery.

Paschal Mystery

The phrase “Paschal Mystery” has its origins in the Old Testament story of the Passover (Pesach in Hebrew) recorded in Exodus 12. The Jewish people celebrate Passover every year as a remembrance of God liberating the Hebrews from slavery. This story is central to the book of Exodus in the Old Testament. In this story, God instructs the Hebrew people being held in slavery in Egypt to sprinkle the blood of a lamb on their doorframes as a sign that Hebrew people (God’s people) lived in the house. The Spirit of God passed through the land of Egypt bringing death to all of the first- born Egyptians and their animals but it “passed over” the houses that were sprinkled with the blood of the lambs. This terrifying sign finally con- vinced the Egyptians to free their Hebrew slaves. Every year the Jewish people celebrate their liberation from Egypt by gathering together and, among other rituals, eating a young lamb sacrificed specifically to com- memorate this event. Jesus’ Crucifixion happened during Passover; therefore during the same time of year (usually March or the early part of April) Christians celebrate Easter as a remembrance of Jesus’ paschal mystery. For Christians, Jesus, like the lamb in the Exodus Passover story, serves as a sign of God’s mercy and salvation.

The Epistles

The second main division of the New Testament is composed of the epistles or letters from apostles and early disciples of the risen Christ to various individuals and Christian communities. These letters usually focus upon the practical application and implementation of Jesus’ life and message for ordinary Christians and their communities. They also often reflect theologically on the implications of the paschal mystery for the Christian understanding of Jesus and his unique revelation about the inner life and remarkable nature of God. 26 Who Is God?

The Reign of God

In the Gospels, Jesus announced that his fundamental mission was to bring humanity “good news” (the meaning of the word “gospel,” euangelion in Greek) by proclaiming and offering an example of the reign of God. “He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives” (Luke 4:16–30). This liberating reign of God is a central theme throughout the New Testament. Echoing the Old Testament prophets and their call for justice, mercy, and repentance, Jesus’ message of the reign of God is both a con- tinuation of the unfolding story of God’s interaction with the Hebrew people and a radical expansion of God’s plan to include the Gentiles, or non-Hebrew people. Catholic theology holds that Jesus’ ministry inaugurated this new and expansive vision of the reign of God, and it continues historically through the work of the Holy Spirit in the church and in the world. In many ways Jesus followed in the line of the Old Testament prophets by proclaiming the love and mercy of God. What was new was that Jesus claimed to have a unique relationship to the reign of God, declaring that he was ushering in a new moment of salvation through his unique relationship to God, whom he called his Father. Moreover, Jesus’ claim that he was ushering in the reign of God expanded the scope of the Old Testament covenant between Yahweh and the Hebrew people to embrace the entire world and all people. Jesus’ life and ministry on the earth inaugurated this new reign of God. Catholic teaching asserts that the willingness of those who encounter Jesus to follow his example and accept his teaching already serves as a sign of the presence of God’s reign. In other words, Jesus was not simply reiterating the covenant, nor proclaiming some future reality that would eventually come to fruition, but he was demonstrating the power of God’s presence and the promise of God’s salvation through his own life and ministry.

Reflect and Discuss

Does the bishop’s treatment of Jean Valjean embody the reign of God as presented in the Gospels? If so, how? Does Valjean’s action that freed a wrongly accused man in the scene “Who am I?” embody the reign of God? If so, how? In what ways does contemporary society bring “liberty to the captives”?

Jesus’ View of God

The Gospels portray Jesus explaining the reign of God mainly through parables or through the example of his own life. Parables are simple stories or analogies that Jesus tells that have a kind of “twist” to them. In other words, these God: Scriptural and Cultural Conceptions 27 stories do not turn out as expected, or characters in the stories act in ways that are unexpected and even shocking. The parables offer a valuable insight into Jesus’ understandings of God and God’s plan for the world that often contradict the listener’s preconceived notions or expectations.7 Jesus’ own life also tended to shock and offend ordinary religious people of his time (Luke 4:16–30). It seems, therefore, that Jesus wanted to challenge people’s ordinary understanding of God and God’s plan for human beings and human society.

Reflect and Discuss

The Gospels paint a picture of God. Are there parallels between Les Misérables and the Gospels, and specifically the God they suggest or reveal? Explain.

The passage known as the Sermon on the Mount offers an exemplary collection of Jesus’ teachings and parables (Matt. 5–7).8 The Sermon on the Mount in a way summarizes Jesus’ vision of the reign of God and reveals how Jesus understood his own unique role relative to God and God’s plan for the salvation of the world. The first section of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:1–16) is a series of eight short sayings, each beginning with “blessed are . . . ,” commonly referred to as the Beatitudes. The Beatitudes reflect the qualities of the reign of God being inaugurated with Jesus. The second section (Matt. 5:17–48) out- lines Jesus’ teaching concerning the application of the Old Testament laws in light of his declaration of this new reality of the reign of God that radically includes all people, including one’s enemies. This section concludes with the seemingly impossible challenge, “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). The third section (Matt. 6) is concerned with religious practices and religious devotion in a way that includes Jewish and Gentile people in the reign of God. The fourth and final section (Matt. 7) is concerned with the social ethics of the reign of God in a way that transcends the boundaries of specific religious practices to embrace all people. These teachings also prefigure the establishment of a new covenant from Jesus at the Last Supper before his Crucifixion.

7. See further, John R. Donahue, SJ, The Gospel in Parable (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), 1–27. 8. The Sermon on the Mount can be divided into four parts, each focused on a specific aspect of Jesus’ teaching concerning the reign of God. See Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament, 1st ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997), 178–80. A closely related collection of teachings known as the Sermon on the Plain is found in Luke 6. 28 Who Is God?

God as Present in the Other

The Beatitudes provide an alternative vision to the values of a society that, both at the time of Jesus and today, prioritizes power, wealth, and self-interest. Instead, the Beatitudes elevate those who are “poor in spirit,” those who “mourn,” the “meek,” those that “hunger and thirst for righteousness,” the “merciful,” the “clean of heart,” and the “peacemakers” as those who reveal the values and therefore the presence of God on earth (Matt. 5:3–12). God is intimately present with the outcasts, those on the margins of society. In this Gospel passage Jesus repeatedly insists that God is most fully present in and to the world through the lives of other people. Furthermore, Jesus main- tains that God is particularly realized in the lives of the poor, the outcasts, the suffering, and all of those whom society (and religion) often deems farthest away from God’s love and attention, people whom we see as “the others.” Jesus also implies that God can often be best seen as present and most deeply experienced when one finds oneself thrown into or living among these groups of people.

The Compassionate God

Jesus represents God as “suffering with” (the meaning of the word compassion) human beings. The Beatitudes reveal that God’s compassion is most visible for those who live according to the virtues of the reign of God. Those qualities correspond to the unique and powerful love of God. In one of the clearest examples in the Beatitudes, Jesus tells the pure in heart that they will see God (Matt. 5:8), which is something that even Moses was not able to do. The peacemakers in this life are boldly called sons and daughters of God (Matt. 5:9). The Beatitudes reveal that God is now present in the world in a new way through Jesus and this presence allows God to experience what human beings experience, even extreme suffering and death. This will be especially and uniquely borne out in the suffering that Jesus will undergo in what Christians refer to as “the Passion.” Jesus, God’s concrete presence in the world as a human being, is the sign that God, in and through Jesus, practices what God preaches: namely that all are called to love God and love other people with absolute trust in the power of this love to rescue and restore human life.

Reinterpreting the Old Testament Laws

Jesus expands the values of the Beatitudes into a new and dynamic relationship with the Law of the Old Testament. The new message of God’s presence on earth through Jesus Christ does not somehow negate or otherwise cancel the revelation of God recorded in the Old Testament. On the contrary, the author of Mat- thew claims that the promises delivered to Abraham, Moses, Isaac, David, and the prophets are now fulfilled in Jesus’ ministry. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say God: Scriptural and Cultural Conceptions 29 to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place” (Matt. 5:17–18). Central to this question of fulfillment is Jesus’ claim that he is the Son of God. Jesus refers to God in a very intimate and personal way, as Abba, literally as “daddy” or “papa.” This implies that God is never distant, impersonal, or uncon- nected. Jesus insists that God remains intimately close to human beings, closer than the relationship of parent to child. For Jesus, then, one cannot be without God any more than one can be without a biological father and mother (Matt. 6:32–34). Furthermore, the affectionate name implies that God not only loves people in a general way, but loves them personally and intimately. This parental language is most clearly expressed in what is referred to as the Lord’s Prayer, the prayer that Jesus teaches his disciples and that Christians continue to recite across denominations worldwide (Matt. 6:9–13):

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and do not subject us to the final test, but deliver us from the evil one.

The Just God

In this section of the Gospel, God’s justice is revealed as something far greater than justice as typically understood in Jesus’ time or today. Jesus announces not only a new, more intimate, caring, and merciful understanding of God; in his call for God’s justice, or “right relationship,” he elevates the status of all people, not just those of the Jewish faith. In the Gospels, Jesus spends a great deal of his time criticizing individuals and institutions (governments, religions, and economic systems) that take advantage of or disregard ordinary people, especially those people who are weak and vulnerable. For Jesus, human beings, not rules and regulations, are absolutes (Matt. 6:25–31). Every human being is a child of God and therefore worthy of infinite dignity and respect. This means that human society and its institutions are here to serve and improve the lives of people, not the other way around (Matt. 6:24). Religious systems, even the Jewish traditions with which Jesus grew up, are meant to serve ordinary people and help them in their daily life; people are not here to serve or be held captive to these institutions (Matt. 7:21–23). 30 Who Is God?

Similarly, governments, social systems, economic structures, and cultural practices are to be judged on how well they serve to protect and promote the infinite dignity and value of each human life. These institutions are especially held accountable for how they treat the “others.” All human institutions are meant to serve and protect the most vulnerable members of society: the poor, the elderly, orphans, immigrants, prisoners, and social outcasts. People will ultimately be judged by God on how well they recognize and treat the neediest members of their family, community, and society (Matt. 7:12, 25:31–46). The Torah and its rules for daily and social life are not rejected by Jesus, but they are put in a new context. Even the Torah is to be interpreted through the lens of the reign of God and the life of Jesus. His treatment of people and his elevating them above mere rules or religious doctrines become the new standard for correct understanding of God and God’s will for human beings and creation (Matt. 7:24–27).

Reflect and Discuss

How do the bishop’s acts toward Valjean compare with the way US society treats the people Hugo calls les misérables? Give examples to illustrate.

Religious Practices in the Reign of God

Jesus speaks about the piety, or religious practice and devotion, of the reign of God in Matthew 6. In this section of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus highlights the providence, or protection and divine guidance of God, for all of his children, and indeed the whole world. God not only loves human beings (and even likes them), God also knows each one as an individual and is working to make each life as rich and full as possible. Jesus makes it clear that although God gives humans control of the world and their personal lives, God does not abandon people to simply make it or not on their own. God has a plan and intention for each person and is constantly working to help each person realize this plan as fully as possible. For Jesus, life is not an obstacle course with winners and losers, those who make it and those who don’t at the end. Jesus asserts that human life is a project, with many possibilities, one of which is the choice to completely trust in the power of God (Matt. 6:19–34). Jesus reveals that God can be trusted completely and uncondi- tionally to bring about the fullest possible life for everyone.

Reflect and Discuss

Do you see a relationship between Valjean’s story and the providence of God highlighted in the Sermon on the Mount? Explain. God: Scriptural and Cultural Conceptions 31

The Reign of God and Society

Jesus contends that God is not only present in individual persons but expands the notion of God’s presence and agency to the world as a whole. This is primarily demonstrated through Jesus’ insistence that the ethical principles he espouses have wider, even universal implications (Matt. 5:13–20). Many contemporaries of Jesus thought that God was only “present” in the Temple, or the Torah, or both, in particularly “religious” ways (worship, observances, and rituals) that were unique to Israel. In the Sermon on the Mount and the Gospels as a whole, however, Jesus boldly asserts that God’s presence and love is not confined to any one place, people, or religion and even goes so far as to claim that God “dwells” in him and is present in his words and actions, and thus God is accessible to everybody. In this manner, Jesus is saying that God is available or present to all people at all times. While Jesus never denies that God is present to people through traditional religious activities, he insists that God’s presence is not limited to such activities. In fact, the normal arena of God’s activity in the world is the daily life of ordinary people. Human beings primarily experience God’s presence and respond to this presence in their daily activities, in their relationships with others, and in the seemingly insignificant events that make up day-to-day life. In another place in the Gospels Jesus makes this clear when some religious leaders ask him where the reign of God is and when it will come. Jesus says some leaders will claim it is here or there but people should know that it is already among them and in their daily lives (Luke 17:23).

The Holy Spirit

In the Gospels, Jesus claims to have a unique and ultimately radical relationship to God. Jesus calls God “Abba.” Jesus invites his disciples to share in this special filial relationship with Abba. In Jesus’ Resurrection from the dead, his life and mission are revealed as something fundamentally different from anything that the Hebrew tradition had previously witnessed. In what is called the “Christ event,” or more properly the paschal mystery ( Jesus’ death, Resurrection, and sending of the Spirit), the risen Christ actually shares his own ruach/pneuma with his disciples, thereby demonstrating that he was not merely one filled with the divine ruach/pneuma, but that he had the capacity to bestow the divine presence on others. Furthermore, throughout the Gospel narratives Jesus is seen doing things that, it was believed at the time, only God could do: forgiving sins, effecting and controlling the natural elements like storms, casting out evil, raising the dead, and having power over the Torah and its proper interpretation. And while in the Gospels Jesus only seems to allude to his unique status on a few occasions, even his persecutors presume that he is claiming some kind of special and blasphe- mous participation in God’s own life. So while the Gospels offer no explicit discussion of Jesus’ divine nature, they presume it. For the Christian communities 32 Who Is God?

that gave rise to the Gospels, the paschal mystery redefined not just their understanding of God’s will but also their understanding of God’s life and identity. The conclusion of the Gospel of Matthew brings this new understanding to its greatest clarity. The final dramatic scene in Matthew is often called the “Great Commission” (Matt. 28:16–20). After his Resurrection from the dead and appearance to Mary Magdalene and the “other Mary,” Jesus gathers the disciples one last time on a mountaintop near Galilee. From there he sends them out to continue his mission—to proclaim the reign of God and to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that [ Jesus] commanded” (Matt. 28:19–20). For believers, following Jesus after the paschal mystery entails a transformed understanding of the God who created the world, saved Israel, and made a covenant with them. Through believers, God continues to reach out to all humanity through the action of both the Son and the Spirit.

Reflect and Discuss

Consider again the character of Valjean, particularly as revealed in the first part of Valjean’s soliloquy; Valjean is clearly in turmoil over how the bishop has treated him. In tears and on his knees before an altar he asks himself, “What spirit comes to move my life?” The music swells and Valjean shouts, “Another story must begin!” What can the viewer infer about Valjean’s personal understanding of God? Consider how Valjean’s understanding of God compares to that presented in this chapter.

The Epistles’ View of God

In the other primary part of the New Testament, the Epistles, God is usually referred to by a new proper name (or some variation thereof ): Father (Abba), Son ( Jesus Christ), and Spirit (pneuma). The Epistles include letters from the Apostle Paul; these letters, actually written earlier than the Gospels, convey the active faith of the Christian communities in which Paul circulated. That is, when the Apostle Paul became a follower of Jesus, he was received into a community of disciples that already referred to God as Father, Son, and Spirit in both normal speech and in the ritual language at the heart of their shared life.9 They not only assumed that Jesus Christ is part of God’s own divine life and identity; they saw Jesus as revealing God in a profoundly new way. Jesus is not only sent by God, he acts as only God can act. This implies both that Jesus is divine and

9. For the story of Paul’s call to be an Apostle see Acts 9:1–30. God: Scriptural and Cultural Conceptions 33 that God is composed of relationships analogous to a parent and child: God is “Abba,” Jesus is “the Son.” Christianity also teaches that believers are given the Spirit (pneuma) of God; they experience the Spirit as both a personal and communal source of illumination and animation. This Spirit is given them by Christ so that they may share in Christ’s own filial relationship with the Father. Consequently, the Spirit itself must be part of the shared life of the Father and the Son. So the Spirit is not merely an expression of the Father or the Son (or both), but itself is an active participant in God’s life. That the Spirit is both divine and also constantly in a relationship with the Father and the Son means that Christians, through the revelation of the paschal mystery, have been given a privileged window into God’s internal life. Early Christians presumed that the God revealed to them by Jesus Christ is the same God that was revealed to the Hebrew People as

Yahweh. In fact, early Christians © Olga_Anourina / Shutterstock.com presumed that one could only fully In Matthew’s Gospel, the risen Jesus understand Christian revelation by asserts that “all authority in heaven and on being immersed and initiated into earth” has been given to him (Matt. 28:18). the great tradition represented by the Christ Pantocrator (“Ruler of All”) is a common type of Eastern Orthodox icon. This Hebrew Scriptures. Nevertheless, they thirteenth-century example is from Hagia also discovered that they simply could Sophia. not describe the God of Jesus Christ without constant reference to this “triad” of relationships: Father, Son, and Spirit. The following passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans illustrates this belief.

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. (Rom. 8:14–17)

The Epistles suggest that early Christians used such language rather loosely, but they consistently referred to God in some variation of this triad. This, in turn, 34 Who Is God?

implies a common pattern of internally talking about God. It became the way they thought about God, prayed to God, and proclaimed God to others. No evidence suggests that the early Christians logically examined or systematically explained this new language for God; they were in all likelihood simply expressing what they believed had been revealed to them, what they had experienced of God. The Epistles endorse and expand on the attributes of God that Jesus con- veyed through his life and message. The early Christians interpreted the message of the historical person of Jesus of Nazareth through the lens of his paschal mystery to understand that Jesus himself was God’s own presence as a human being. Furthermore, they concluded that God became human so that human beings could come to share and participate in God’s own life in the fullness of the reign of God. This divine life is itself already characterized as a shared life of intimate relationships analogous to a family and is related to the Christian community itself. The First Epistle of John, probably written toward the end of the first century, brings together the new understanding of God, the reign of God that Jesus proclaims, and the new triadic language for God. The author proposes a clear and straightforward answer to the question that could be posed by any human being: “Who is God?” The author answers, “God is love” (1 John 4:16). This answer encapsulates the long history of both Hebrew and Christian reflection on God. God is identified as the one who calls them, saves them, makes a covenant with them, and then continually remains faithful and true to that commitment even to the point of entering into the human condition and taking on human problems, sorrows, injustices, and destiny. The author of this Epistle not only identifies God’s motive for this history, but also something about the nature of God itself that is revealed by this persistence and fidelity.

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. (1 John 4:7–8) We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. This is the com- mandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. (1 John 4:19–21)

The wider context of this quote points to the fullness of Christian revelation about God and the distinctive way Christians come to transform and ultimately reinterpret the Hebrew God portrayed in Genesis. Jesus Christ represents a new beginning, a new opportunity for all human beings to receive and enter into the divine offer of love. This love is not given with conditions, but the author of 1 John does assert that it has ethical consequences. Those who accept God’s love God: Scriptural and Cultural Conceptions 35 are empowered and expected to love other people the way that they are loved. The action of God that saves human beings also enables them, with the power of God’s Spirit, to live in this new social and ethical manner. Those who love God will love their neighbors; those who show no love for their neighbors most likely don’t love God either.

Reflect and Discuss

In what ways do the relationships shown in the scenes from Les Mis reflect the claim that “God is love”? How might Les Mis help someone understand the relationship between God’s love for the world and human expressions of love? How are they the same, and how are they different?

Hellenism

Jesus and his disciples were Jews; likewise, the first Christian communities were composed of Jews. Increasingly, however, Gentiles were attracted to the movement. Some early Christians felt that these Gentiles should adopt Jewish religious and cultural practices if they were to be incorporated into the Christian community—in effect, that they should convert to Judaism first. Others, cham- pioned by the Apostle Paul, insisted that Gentiles be accepted as they are, as Gentiles, and Paul’s position carried the day. Over the course of the first century the church experienced a huge influx of Gentile converts. As a result, the church increasingly lost touch with its Jewish origins and began to reflect the cultural and social life of the Roman Empire and the pervading cultural heritage of Hellenism.10 Hellenism names the language and cultural heritage of the Greek Empire and its enduring systems of education, political thought, social organization, and cultural expression like art, literature, and religion. Hellenism was a Gentile phenom- enon, although it had already left its mark upon Judaism in Jesus’ day; over the course of the first century, as more and more Gentiles joined the Jesus movement, Hellenism came to have an increasingly profound impact upon the church. Important elements of Hellenistic thought can be traced back to the Greek philosopher Plato (ca. 424–347 BCE). Plato divided all reality into two parts: (1) the unchanging, invisible, spiritual realm of ideas and ideals and (2) the material realm of particular things, constant change, and illusion. Over time, Plato’s followers developed theories and even whole systems of thought based on this

10. See further Jaroslav Pelikan, Christianity and Classical Culture: The Metamorphosis of Natural Theology in the Christian Encounter with Hellenism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993). 36 Who Is God?

fundamental dualism between spirit and matter, ideas and particular physical things. This systematic dualism creates a way of viewing the world and particularly human experience as fundamentally divided between the real and eternal realm of ideas, and the illusory and deceptive, unreal world of time and physical existence. Eventually Platonic thought came to have a profound effect upon virtually every aspect of the Hellenistic worldview. This systematic dualism led to an almost mythic cosmology: the world was seen as divided into the real (spiritual, immaterial, eternal, changeless, and good) and unreal (material, temporary, changeable, and evil).11 In the mid-third century CE, various philosophical and religious movements ultimately gave rise to what is referred to as Neo- Platonism. The dualistic worldview of Neo-Platonism would profoundly affect the theological debates that resulted in the creeds, discussed later in this chapter.

Heresy and Orthodoxy

Problems arose when, from time to time, an early Christian group embraced overly Platonized Christian doctrines in an attempt to make certain teachings more “logical” and consistent with Hellenistic patterns of thinking. These reworked doctrines, called heresies (literally “false choices”), too radically changed or compromised the basic nature of Christian teaching, which at points appeared self-contradictory or contrary to logic. While heresies threatened the integrity of Christian teaching, they also acted as a catalyst that drove Christian thought toward a more precise formu- lation of orthodoxy (literally “right [or correct] belief ”). In response to heresy, theologians attempted to develop key Christian doctrines with greater clarity and precision. Since the heresies tended to introduce new language and new formulas into the discussion of doctrine, the orthodox response to heresies nec- essarily used such language as well.

Marcion

The first heretic of note was Marcion (d. 160),12 a wealthy son of a Christian bishop. Marcion saw a fundamental dualism between the God of the Hebrew Scriptures and the God of the Christian Scriptures. Marcion mistakenly believed that the Hebrew Scriptures presented a wrath- ful, vengeful God radically different from the redeeming God of love and mercy

11. See further Richard Tarnas, The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View (New York: Ballantine, 1991), 98–138. 12. It is important to note that what is said about Marcion here is a scholarly best guess, ham- pered by the fact that all that is “known” about him comes by way of the writings of persons who set out to refute him as a heretic. See further Johannes Quasten, Patrology, vol. 1, The Beginnings of Patristic Literature (Maryland: Newman Press, 1950), 268–72. God: Scriptural and Cultural Conceptions 37 proclaimed as Abba by Jesus Christ in the New Testament. Marcion began to teach that the God of the Hebrew Scriptures was not truly God but a lesser and petty being he called the demiurge.13 He reasoned, therefore, that the entirety of the Hebrew Scriptures should be excluded from the Christian Bible; Marcion accepted as Scripture only an edited version of Luke’s Gospel and ten of the thirteen letters attributed to Paul. In essence, Marcion taught that Christianity nullified and replaced Judaism.14 While it is impossible to know exactly what motivated Marcion’s heresy, it seems clear that he was deeply influenced by a type of Platonic thought that held that the world was fundamentally dualistic: the material realm was evil while the spiritual realm was good. The Old Testament God was the Creator of the material realm, therefore he could not be truly good or truly God. While Christians in Marcion’s day agreed that Jesus Christ had revealed something new about God, they rejected Marcion’s interpretation that this new revelation negated that of the Hebrew Scriptures. After all, Jesus himself accepted and used the Hebrew Scriptures. In response to Marcion, the church affirmed that the God of the Old Tes- tament was the same God of the New Testament. The church also insisted upon the full acceptance of the Hebrew Scriptures as sacred revelation, along with all four Gospels. Thus, while Marcion’s position was deemed heresy, the controversy he began prompted the early church to come to a solid consensus regarding orthodoxy by defining what it actually believed about God and Scripture.

Heresies Involving the Triune God

Besides Marcionism, a whole series of heresies arose in the first five centuries of the church, all involving the understanding of God as triune.15 The following sections describe the major examples of these heresies, over against which Chris- tian orthodoxy increasingly defined itself.16

Modalism

Modalism asserts that the triadic language in the New Testament (Father/ Abba, Son, and Spirit) are only modes or expressions of God acting in distinctive

13. The demiurge is described in the section on Gnosticism. 14. According to Quasten, Marcion taught that Jesus Christ was not the son of the “second god who created the world and man,” or the demiurge, but rather superseded the god of the Old Testa- ment precisely because Jesus did not share any part of his divine nature with created nature. Thus Marcion’s rejection of the Old Testament also led him to reject the doctrine of the Incarnation. See Quaston, Patrology, 270. 15. Quasten, Patrology, 254–77. 16. Robert W. Jensen, The Triune Identity (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982), 65. The analysis and definitions here closely follow Jensen. 38 Who Is God?

ways in human history.17 These modes of action are only the human interpretation of the One God’s diverse appearance to us as creator, redeemer, and sancti- fier. The human perception of God’s action enables greater understanding of the profound love at the heart of God, but does not actually reveal something about the inner divine life because such knowledge is utterly inaccessible to human minds. Humans can think of and even pray to God using triadic language and Trinitarian imagery, but this is only a human attempt to make sense of God and the remarkable story of God’s saving intentions toward human beings. The church would later describe the relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as “one God in three persons”; modalism, in contrast, posited a sort of chameleon God who appeared, in different contexts, in the guise of Father, Son, or Holy Spirit.

Subordinationism

Several early Christian heresies share the belief that Jesus, God’s “Son,” was not really divine in the same way that the Father is divine. An early form of this heresy is known as adoptionism. Adoptionists claimed that Jesus was not always God’s Son, but that he was in effect adopted, becoming God’s Son at some point in Jesus’ ministry.18 Gnosticism is an umbrella term for a variety of quasi-Christian belief systems that flourished primarily during the second and third centuries. While the different gnostic systems differed greatly in detail, they shared a conviction that Jesus, although sent from the true God to redeem mankind, was fundamentally distinct from that God. This understanding of Jesus appears to be influenced by the “demiurge” of Platonism. This demiurge was understood as a kind of demigod: a divine being, created by the One, who descended into the physical world with the mission to recover the spiritual beings that were imprisoned there in human bodies. The descending and ascending power of this demigod enabled it to act on God’s behalf in both the transcendent spiritual realm and the material, limited world of illusion and evil, meaning that it had a supreme status over any other spiritual modes of existence. This heresy could affirm much of the language and imagery of the New Testament about the Father/Abba, Son, and Spirit while also remaining perfectly consistent with the logic of Platonism and Neo-Platonism. Because of their acceptance of Pla- tonic ideas about matter as evil, gnostics often embraced a particular heretical teaching known as Docetism (from dokeō, Greek for “seem”). Docetism is the belief that Jesus was a being of pure spirit who merely “seemed” or “appeared” to be an actual, physical human being.

17. This heresy is also known as Sabellianism, after its chief proponent, a third-century priest named Sabellius. 18. For example, Theodotus of Byzantium (second century) taught that God adopted Jesus at his Baptism. God: Scriptural and Cultural Conceptions 39

Arianism

An important subordinationist heresy derives its name from Arius, a priest of Alexandria (d. 336).19 Arius wanted to clarify what he saw as the vagueness and incoherence of his contemporaries on the nature of God. He believed that God is the supreme One for whom no differentiation is possible at all.20 Arius asserted that all relationships must take place outside the reality of the Father. He maintained that both the Son and Spirit were divine but not in the same way that the Father is divine; rather, they were the first of God’s created beings.21 The world, in turn, was created through the action of the divine Son. By identifying the Son so explicitly as the mediating link that enables all existence outside of the divine One, Arius preserved the undivided oneness of God while explaining how the Son and Spirit participate in the creative and redeeming plan of the Father. The Son then represents the most perfect of all creatures and is indeed the source of the rest of creation, both spiritual and sen- sible, which exists in a diverse spectrum of cascading and reduced perfection.22 In this way Arius felt that he could adequately explain how it is proper to say that the Father, Son, and Spirit are all divine, while maintaining that God is ultimately One, without any internal differentiation. Arius’s proposal was popularly compelling because it rationally explained to ordinary Roman Hellenists how the One God could also be represented by the Son and the Spirit, who “bridge the gap” between God and the rest of creation, between eternity and time. Arius demonstrated a real relationship between the transcendent divine reality and human beings. Arius defended his construct by maintaining that he alone could explain the world-oriented aspect of God without jeopardizing the complete oneness, simplicity, and transcendence of God. For Arius, the Father must differ essentially from the Son. If that were not the case, the Son could not have suffered, died, and risen again as narrated in the Gospels, because it would be impossible for God to actually enter into history as a particular human being as Jesus did.

19. Arius is another key figure known primarily through the writings and descriptions of his opponents; consequently, there is a great deal of uncertainty about what Arius actually taught. 20. John Courtney Murray, The Problem of God: Yesterday and Today (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964), 31–78. This is a wonderful summary of the controversies and debates about God in the first five centuries. See also Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, vol. 1, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100–600) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975). 21. Here, though, the Spirit itself is created second, through the action of the Son, in a world of descending perfections. 22. In John’s Gospel, Jesus is termed the Logos (Greek for “word” or “reason”) of God (1:1–18). Christian thinkers at least since the second century had drawn connections between Jesus as Logos and the divine logos discussed in Middle Platonism; for more on this see Donald Gelpi, The Divine Mother: A Trinitarian Theology of the Holy Spirit (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984), 104–5. Although the sources of Arius’s thought are not known, it seems likely that he equated the demiurge of Neoplatonism with the Son, Jesus. 40 Who Is God?

Reflect and Discuss

Throughout Les Mis, there is a tension between truth and goodness; sometimes they are the same thing, and at other times they seem very different. The first clip shows the bishop discussing with the soldiers Valjean’s alleged theft. Was the bishop telling the truth? Were his actions toward Valjean good?

The Ecumenical Councils and the Creed

Early in the year 325 a local church council at Antioch condemned the Arian position as heretical. Later that year, through the intervention of the Roman Emperor Constantine, a general council was called to take place in Nicea.23 This began a series of ecumenical councils that would continue to the year 381 where the gathered bishops attempted to protect the core of revelation against what they perceived as over-Hellenization. The bishops tried to find a way to articulate the fundamental teaching of the New Testament that would be accessible to Christians steeped in the Roman Hellenistic cultural context. Initially, the bishops at Nicea probably merely adapted familiar and longstanding baptismal formulas in a way that ruled out Arian or other subordinationist explanations of the relationship between the Father/Abba and the Son. Over time, the church leaders who attended these councils developed a creedal formula—later to be revised and adopted as the “Nicene Creed.” The creed was meant to offer a definition of the church’s faith that simultaneously brought together the truth contained in the New Testament with the language and modes of Hellenistic Roman culture.24 This type of creedal definition did not impede further discussion and speculation about the nature of God revealed by Jesus Christ, but it set the boundaries within which any orthodox theology must remain. Basically, the creed makes clear that neither the Son nor the Spirit is “created.” In fact, they exist in unity of being with Father; together they com- prise what Christians mean as “God.” That the Father, Son, and Spirit share common identity of being25 or unity of life becomes the basis of what Christians mean when they refer to God as a tri-unity or Trinity.

23. See particularly Anthony J. Godzieba, “The Trinitarian Mystery of God: A ‘Theological Theology,’ ” in Systematic Theology: Roman Catholic Perspectives, ed. Francis Schussler Fiorenza and John P. Galvin, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011), 131–200. See especially pp. 166–78. 24. See further Luke Timothy Johnson, The Creed: What Christians Believe and Why It Matters (New York: Doubleday, 2003). 25. In the creed, the term for this unity of being is homoousios, often translated as “consubstantial,” such as in the Catholic liturgy of the Mass. God: Scriptural and Cultural Conceptions 41

The Nicene Creed does not propose an abstract theory as the core of Chris- tian belief but instead follows the narrative of the Scriptures. The text explains its assertion about the nature of the triune God by describing the saving action of God in the human life and person of Jesus Christ, who reveals his unity with the Father not as a mere idea about God, but in a way that would enable his followers to participate in that unity. Through the power of the paschal mystery—and particularly the gift of God’s own Spirit to illuminate, unite, and guide them— Christians form a community of believers that becomes the Body of Christ. Because the members of his Body share in Christ’s life, they will also share in his death and Resurrection. God, in the Christian creedal formula, is not only three-in-one in Godself, but three-in-one in love for and saving action toward humanity and indeed all creation. In this sense, the creed returns to the Scriptures’ proclamation that God is love. Love explains how God is in God’s own inner life and in relationship to us. Over against the heresy of modalism, the Nicene Creed insists that God’s own identity and the saving action that Christians experience are the same thing. God is the God who saves, because God is love, and vice versa.

The Nicene Creed26 (381–382)

I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered death and was buried, and rose again on the third day Continued

26. As revised and adopted by the Council of Constantinople. 42 Who Is God?

The Nicene Creed (381–382) Continued

in accordance with the Scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son,27 who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.

I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.28

The Christian Understanding of God after Nicea

After Nicea and the ensuing councils,29 the fundamental question was not whether God was three in one, but how to explain and interpret this doctrine. There were two fundamental approaches to this question: (1) begin with God’s oneness or unity and explain how God can also be three, or (2) begin with God’s threeness and explain how these three can in fact also be one. In both approaches, theologians looked for analogies to the Trinity in ordinary human experience and then tried to show how this analogy could, through logical refinement and by making careful distinctions, demonstrate the validity or at least plausibility of the doctrine of the Trinity.

27. The phrase “and the Son” was subsequently added by the Western church; the Eastern church has not accepted this addition. See Justo L. González, The Story of Christianity, vol. 1, The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation, rev. and updated ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 2010), 312–13. 28. “What We Believe,” United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, accessible at www.usccb .org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/. 29. There were a total of seven ecumenical councils in the first millennium of the church, from the Council of Nicea in 325 to the Second Council of Nicea in 787. These councils were largely called to clarify the creed formulated at the First Council of Nicea and to refute varieties of heresies that rejected or misinterpreted the creed. See further Gerald O’Collins, The Tripersonal God: Under- standing and Interpreting the Trinity (New York: Paulist Press, 1999), 114–27. God: Scriptural and Cultural Conceptions 43

The Cappadocian Fathers

A group of three highly renowned theologians attempted this second strategy— beginning with the three persons and demonstrating that they are in fact one God. Known as “the Cappadocians,” they were Basil of Caesarea (d. 379), his younger brother Gregory of Nyssa (d. 395), and Basil’s friend Gregory of Nazianzus (d. 389). Together they developed the basic formula that became the source of all Trinitarian reflection: God is “one ousia, three hypostaseis,” usually translated, “one substance, three persons.” They began by insisting that language and analogies only approximate and can never fully explain the utterly different and mysterious divine nature. Nevertheless, the Cappadocians claimed that the persons were not mere names humans give 30 God but describe both some- Russia / Bridgeman Images Moscow, Gallery, © Tretyakov thing about God’s interactions Andrei Rublev’s “The Trinity” (ca. 1425) exem- plifies the social analogy of the Trinity, char- with human beings in history acteristic of Eastern Orthodox theology. This and God’s own inner life—the approach begins with the three divine Persons, relationships among the three then considers how the three can also be one. persons of God. According to the Cappadocians, Christians proclaim God as internally differentiated as three precisely because God reveals Godself this way in history. The Cappadocians likewise insisted that the existence of three persons in God does not imply that there are three separate Gods.31 Rather, these three persons share a common and single unity of life and purpose that is never diminished by their unique functions; all three participate equally and neces- sarily in one shared identity and source of life. Therefore, there can never be any question that there is only one single purpose and life that can be identified as love. That God is love presumes that even within God there is a shared love between persons that is the most supreme and complete unity of life that exists. This shared love is precisely the common substance (ousia) that all three persons share in and live out of.

30. That is to say, they rejected the modalist interpretation discussed earlier in this chapter. 31. This heresy is called tritheism. 44 Who Is God?

The Cappadocians’ foundational explanation of one substance and three persons remains the basic framework of Christian theology. Their strategy of beginning with the three persons and their shared mutual relationships and then demonstrating how this comprises their common substance came to character- ize the theology of Eastern Christianity for centuries.

Augustine

The course of the Western theological tradition—and likewise its understanding of God—was set by Augustine (354–430). Trained as a philosopher and thoroughly steeped in the varieties of Platonist thought, he spent most of his career reflecting on the Trinity. Augustine strove to develop an analysis that could articulate how oneness and threeness belong together in God by empha- sizing God’s unity. Augustine posited that the distinctions in the Trinity do not belong to the substance of divinity, but rather to the mutual relations of the persons in the mystery of the inner-Trinitarian life. The central question for Augustine remained, “If the Father is God, and the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God, how are believers to understand that this Threeness is not three gods but one God?”32 Augustine responded to this question with an analogy: “As the human mind is one substance that exists with distinct powers or operations of memory, understanding and will, without the substance being divided (the knower remains the same person while exercising these diverse functions or powers), so the one God exists as Trinity, without division or confusion, in the Father’s generation of the Word and the procession of the Holy Spirit.”33 For Augustine, each of the divine actions could be attributable to the entire Trinity in a similar way that diverse actions within the human psyche could all be attributed to the same mind. For example, imagine that you are driving a car and see a stop sign ahead: immediately your mind begins a complex process of identifying, interpreting, and decision-making to act in a certain way. You remember the meaning of the sign; you then use your power of reason to “make sense” of the meaning of the sign, interpreting it as a call to act in a certain way; then you decide upon a course of action: you stop the car at the intersection. Each of these functions is distinct and unique—memory, understanding, and will—but all are part of the working of one mind that exists in you.

32. Augustine, The Trinity 1.5.8. Translation from Augustine, The Trinity, in The Works of St. Augustine, ed. John E. Rotelle, trans. Edmund Hill (Brooklyn, NY: New City Press, 1991), 70. 33. Ibid. Augustine offered another psychological analogy of the Trinity: “The Mind cannot love itself unless it also knows itself, for how can it love what it does not know? . . . Therefore, the mind itself, its love and its knowledge are a kind of trinity. . . . But in these three, when the mind knows itself and loves itself, a trinity remains: the mind, love, and knowledge; and there is no confusion through any comingling, although each is a substance in itself, and all are found mutually in all” (Augustine, The Trinity 9.3–5). God: Scriptural and Cultural Conceptions 45

Augustine felt, however, that any further attempt to give a more precise description of the three-in-oneness of God is always defeated by the transcendent mystery of God; God is so utterly unlike anything that human beings are capable of experiencing that any attempt to define God’s nature is doomed to fail. Augustine’s psychological analogy helped explain the central paradox of the Trinity, but it tended to blur any real distinctions among the divine persons. Looking again at the stop sign example, the different dimensions of the human mind noted there are not always clearly distinguishable and present in every instance of interpretation and decision making. Humans often make decisions without adequately employing their memory, or their reason. Consequently, the human mind offers only an imperfect analogy to the perfect divine life of God. This blurring of the internal and external roles of divine persons gave rise in Western theology to a certain “breach” between the inner life of the Trinity and the action of God as the Father, Son, and Spirit in the history of human salvation proclaimed in the New Testament. In the medieval and modern period, Augus- tine’s psychological approach to the Trinity went on to have far-reaching consequences. What Augustine originally proffered as an analogical way of talking about God would become increasingly formalized in such a way that each of the persons of the Godhead would become identified with specific aspects of the human mind. It is clear from what has been said before that this tendency to formalize and philosophically explain an analogy can have both positive and negative repercussions.

Two Approaches, One Ultimate Mystery

The Cappadocians, on the one hand, and Augustine, on the other, represent what would eventually become distinct Eastern and Western theological traditions within Christianity. While it would be several centuries before the East- ern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church of the West formally broke from each other,34 a distinctiveness that would come to define both great Christian traditions is already perceptible in their different approaches to the Trinity. Each approach attempts to preserve the transcendence and mystery of the supreme unity of the Godhead as well as the Christian confession of faith in one God such as is found in Paul’s affirmation: “[There is] one body and one Spirit, as you were also called to the one hope of your call; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Eph. 4:4–6). Christian theology would come to approach the ultimate mystery of God in two related but ultimately distinct ways. The first approach, the kataphatic

34. González, The Story of Christianity, 283–96; Capetz, God: A Brief History, 54–58. 46 Who Is God?

tradition of theology (from kataphasis, Greek for “affirmation”), attempts to describe God’s reality according to how God has been revealed through Scrip- ture, tradition, and church teaching.35 This approach tries to “make sense” of God through human rational processes and methods. This type of theology, therefore, will often enter into a dialogue with disciplines like philosophy and science or whatever a particular culture and historical context use to make sense of their world. The alternative approach to the mystery of God is the apophatic tradition (from apophasis, Greek for “denial”).36 The apophatic tradition takes all of the positive affirmations of the kataphatic tradition, like “God is good,” or “God is Triune,” and theologically denies these designations and ultimately all designations as inadequate representations of the true essence and reality of God in God’s self. This tradition exposes the limits of finite humanity and all human language to perfectly capture the true essence of God’s nature. It instead relies on nonrational or prerational modes of talking about the God affirmed by the tradition. It will often speak of God in stories, analogies, and feelings rather than in terms of reason and rationality. Furthermore, it will often employ the artistic and creative dimensions of the human mind to express the deeper truths about God that cannot be expressed in normal human language.

Reflect and Discuss

What qualities describe the bishop who not only forgives Valjean but treats him like an honored guest in his home and gives him more on top of what he has stolen? How do these qualities compare to the understanding of the qualities of God presented in the chapter? How do they fall short of these qualities of God?

Thus, for apophatic theologians, it is valid to say both that “God is love” and that “love is not God.” The apophatic tradition begins with kataphatic affirmations about God but believes that true theology must push beyond the limits of reason to deeper theological reflection. The apophatic and kataphatic approaches developed simultaneously and were often complementary approaches in the tradition. This combined theological approach was cultivated by the emergence of the monastic and mystical traditions of the early church and continued throughout the Western theological tradition, which is the subject of the next chapter.

35. Capetz, God: A Brief History, 70–73. The kataphatic model is most clearly articulated by the great Western medieval scholastic movement and great theologians such as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. These traditions will be examined in greater detail in the following chapter. 36. Ibid., 70–73. God: Scriptural and Cultural Conceptions 47

GOD IN FILM

Viewer Reactions to Les Misérables Greg Zuschlag

Roman Catholic Bishop Robert Barron says that the portrayal of Valjean in the film Les Mis reflects “the heart of Christian Spirituality” with its “central claim that ‘God is love.’ ”37 For Christians, “God is gracious self-gift. . . . God wants us to receive that gift and then participate in that further by giving it away. He wants us to become imitators of the Grace that He is.” He goes on to say, “Grace is a participation in God’s own life.”38 This is a powerful, and especially Catholic, understanding of God as present and active in and through other people, a perspective also discussed in the chapter. Moral theologian Beth Haile writes,39

Victor Hugo apparently had a strained relationship to the faith but the story has a very Christian message: “To love another person is to see the face of God.” As human beings, we are made for mercy. It is in mercy that we live; it is in judgment that we die. Jesus tells his disciples in the Gospel of John, “I have come that you might have life, and have it more abundantly.” Jesus comes in mercy to lead us to life because we are incapable of finding it on our own. . . . Jesus in turn asks us to lead others to that life by loving our neighbor, by showing them mercy, by forgiving them as we wish to be forgiven. In living a life of love and mercy, whatever our circumstances, whatever our class, whatever our faults, we come to know God, and we come to see God in this world, this broken and fallen and oftentimes all-too-miserable world he came to redeem.

While Haile does not explicitly say people become agents of God in the world, she hints at it in her comments about how people come to know God through loving and showing mercy. This resonates with Jesus’ view of God as compassionate and just, as discussed in the chapter.

Continued

37. His comment occurs around minute two of his Youtube video about Les Mis, www.youtube .com/watch?v=8APhduR3G1s. 38. Around minute seven. 39. See the blog “Catholic Moral Theology” at http://catholicmoraltheology.com/doing-moral -theology-with-les-miserables/. 48 Who Is God?

GOD IN FILM: VIEWER REACTIONS TO LES MISÉRABLES Continued

Retired pastor and college chaplain Addison H. Hart offers another, related perspective:40 “Hugo sees God as loving, knowable, present, and merciful. Mankind’s situation is, ideally, [quoting Hugo] ‘the march from evil to good . . . from Hell to Heaven, from nothingness to God.’ ” The idea that the journey of the human soul is to God underlines the idea of some type of union with God. Hart continues, “While it is true that Hugo renounced the Catholic Church, it is equally true that he retained the Cath- olic imagination, especially as he delineated the relationship of God to the human soul.” This is especially true, Hart argues, in how the bishop embodies God. Regarding that scene, Hart suggests, “This is the moment upon which the remainder of the novel depends: the redemption of the undeserving Valjean, his transforming encounter with the forgiveness and charity of God embodied in the bishop.” This idea that the bishop embodies God to Valjean, who in turn embodies God for the remainder of his life until he is united with God at the end of the film, puts a fine point upon the idea that in the Christian tradition, God is present in and through others. In contrast to the three predominately positive assessments just discussed, comes a dissenting interpretation. Professor John McAteer takes issue with the story’s basic premise regarding the role human beings play in divine mercy and forgiveness. When the bishop forgives Valjean, saying, “By the Passion and the Blood, God has raised you out of darkness; I have bought your soul for God,” it is not an accident that the subject of the last clause is “I.” The bishop’s act of grace, not God’s action on the cross, has bought Valjean’s soul. For Les Mis, it is up to us to transform the world through love, and Hugo argues that this is best accomplished through political revolution.41 McAteer asserts that Les Mis’s notion of God is inconsistent with Christian belief. In essence, McAteer sees the characters of the bishop and Valjean as usurping God’s sovereignty over everything and displacing the divine forgiveness and mercy that is only accomplished by God in Christ, especially in his sacrificial death, which forgives the sins of all (Rom. 4:25, 8:3–4; 2 Cor. 5:21). For McAteer, no one but Jesus Christ can “embody” God or be an agent of grace in the world. This perspective, which seeks to

Continued

40. Hart offered these observations well before the 2012 movie version. See Addison H. Hart, “Sen- timents Abstractly Christian,” Touchstone, www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=11-03-018-f. 41. John McAteer, “Javert Is ‘Right’: The Demonization of Conservatives in Les Misérables,” CRI, www.equip.org/article/javert-is-right-the-demonization-of-conservatism-in-les-miserables/. God: Scriptural and Cultural Conceptions 49

GOD IN FILM: VIEWER REACTIONS TO LES MISÉRABLES Continued

safeguard the agency of God from human encroachment, stands in stark contrast to the other approaches presented here and in the chapter. Catholic theology argues that God becomes incarnate in the human being Jesus precisely so that human beings, by the power of the Holy Spirit, can be, as St. Paul describes, the “body of Christ” (1 Cor. 12:27) in the world. Thus, from the Catholic perspective, the overall idea in Les Mis that people are empowered by God to carry out God’s mercy and forgiveness in the world, rather than that people take from God what is properly God’s, is consistent with the Catholic perspective.

Reel to Real Victor Hugo’s Les Mis artistically conveys much the same understanding of God as that embraced by the Catholic Church. But does that have any relevance to the real world? What difference does one’s understanding of God make? During his 2015 visit to the United States, Pope Francis gave a pub- lic address in the U.S. Congress.42 At the heart of his address was a trib- ute to four Americans, whom he called “representatives of the American people”: Abraham Lincoln, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Day, and Thomas Merton. Three sons and a daughter of this land, four individuals and four dreams: Lincoln, liberty; Martin Luther King, liberty in plurality and non-exclusion; Dorothy Day, social justice and the rights of persons; and Thomas Merton, the capacity for dialogue and open- ness to God. . . . The complexities of history and the reality of human weakness notwithstanding, these men and women, for all their many differences and limitations, were able by hard work and self-sacrifice—some at the cost of their lives—to build a better future. They shaped fundamental values which will endure forever in the spirit of the American people. A people with this spirit can live through many crises, tensions and conflicts, while always finding the resources to move forward, and to do so with dignity. These men and women offer us a way of seeing and interpreting reality. Given what Pope Francis says about these people, reflect upon the follow-

ing questions: Continued

42. See “Transcript: Pope Francis’s Speech to Congress,” www.washingtonpost.com/local/social -issues/transcript-pope-franciss-speech-to-congress/2015/09/24/6d7d7ac8-62bf-11e5-8e9e -dce8a2a2a679_story.html. 50 Who Is God?

GOD IN FILM: VIEWER REACTIONS TO LES MISÉRABLES Continued

• Does the Pope’s description of these four Americans fit Jean Valjean as well? If so, how? If not, why? • Do these four people, in offering a different way of “seeing and interpreting reality,” “embody God” in our world? Explain. • Who do you know that could be considered “representative” of God in the world, given the attributes of God as delineated in the chapter?

For Further Exploration This exploration of Les Mis has focused on scenes related to Jean Valjean’s encounter with the bishop, but many other scenes are equally thought- provoking from a theological perspective. Indeed, one could say the real theological “heartbeat” in the film is the contrast between Jean Valjean and the inspector who relentlessly pursues him, Javert (Russell Crow). Watch the following film clips and analyze the Valjean-Javert conflict as it relates to how each understands God:

1. Opening Scene (“Look Down”): www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6jp _MKI_6w (time: 0:03:43) 2. The Javert/Valjean Confrontation (“A Man like You Can Never Change”): www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykrB0YbvglA (time: 0:01:57) 3. Javert’s Soliloquy/Prayer (“Stars”): www.youtube.com/watch?v =dfoJEYicu7c (time: 0:03:02) 4. Valjean Spares Javert (“Freeing Javert”): www.youtube.com /watch?v=23wh1h0UWZM (time: 0:02:34) 5. Javert’s Suicide: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRzvdQh8D2Q (time: 0:03:12)

Present your findings according to these steps:

1. Plot Summary and Questions: Summarize the scenes and provide a series of questions that might guide a viewer. 2. Below the Surface: Explore notions of God presented in these scenes and provide a series of questions that might guide a viewer. 3. Viewer Reactions: Research theological reflections on these scenes and compare and contrast these with the Catholic understanding of God presented in this chapter. 4. Reel to Real: Consider implications of your analysis for life today. What differences might an individual’s or a community’s understanding of God make? God: Scriptural and Cultural Conceptions 51

Review Questions

1. What is the difference between a contract and a covenant, as the latter term is used in the Hebrew Scriptures? What does this distinction imply about the relationship between God and the Hebrew people? 2. How does the life and teaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount reflect and expand upon the depiction of God in the Hebrew Scriptures? 3. What are the attributes of God revealed by Jesus in the Gospels, and how are those attributes developed in the Creed? 4. What distinguishes the way in which the Epistles reflect on the revelation of God in Jesus Christ from the way in which it is reflected in the Gospels? 5. What characteristics of Hellenistic culture did Christianity confront in the second and third centuries? 6. How did Christian theology both assimilate and critique Hellenistic culture? 7. What is the relationship between heresy and orthodoxy, and how did they eventually shape the development of the Creed? 8. What are two approaches to understanding the Christian doctrine of the Trinity? 9. How do the Cappadocians and St. Augustine represent two different approaches not only to the doctrine of the Trinity but also to Christian theology as a whole?

Discussion Questions

1. If you believe in God, do you tend to think of God in covenantal or contractual terms? Explain. 2. Describe your reaction to the New Testament view of God. 3. Describe the relationship between the doctrine of the Trinity and the New Testament affirmation that God is love? 4. As Hellenism was the cultural context that shaped early Christianity, what cultural context shapes your understanding of God? How does it do so? 5. Can you think of any additional analogies that might help explain the Trinitarian teaching that three can be one and one can be three? 6. Some find elements of the debates over heresy and orthodoxy still present in contemporary understandings of God. Discuss what those elements might be and their possible effect on Christian theology today. 52 Who Is God?

Additional Resources

Brown, Raymond E. An Introduction to the New Testament. Anchor Bible. New York: Doubleday, 1997. Brueggemann, Walter. Old Testament Theology: An Introduction. Library of Bibli- cal Theology. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2008. Capetz, Paul E. God: A Brief History. Facets. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003. Carvalho, Corrine L., ed. Anselm Companion to the Bible. Winona, MN: Anselm Academic, 2014. Carvalho, Corrine L., ed. Anselm Companion to the New Testament. Anselm Aca- demic, 2014. Fiorenza, Francis Schüssler, and John P. Galvin, eds. Systematic Theology: Roman Catholic Perspectives. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011. González, Justo L. The Story of Christianity. 2nd ed. New York: HarperCollins, 2010. Jenson, Robert W. The Triune Identity: God According to the Gospel. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982. Johnson, Luke Timothy. The Creed: What Christians Believe and Why It Matters. New York: Doubleday, 2003. Murray, John. The Problem of God: Yesterday and Today. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1964. O’Collins, Gerald, SJ. The Tripersonal God: Understanding and Interpreting the Trinity. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Paulist Press, 2014. Pelikan, Jaroslav. The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doc- trine. Vol. 1, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100–600). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975. Pelikan, Jaroslav. Christianity and Classical Culture: The Metamorphosis of Natural Theology in the Christian Encounter with Hellenism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993. Powell, Mark Allan. Fortress Introduction to the Gospels. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998. Powell, Mark Allan. Introducing the New Testament: A Historical, Literary, and Theological Survey. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009. Tarnas, Richard. The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View. New York: Ballantine, 1993. God: Scriptural and Cultural Conceptions 53

Other Media

Harper, Kyle. “The Origins of Christianity.” Six audio podcasts. Accessible at https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/origins-christianity-by-kyle/id477733361 ?mt=10. Into Great Silence. Written and directed by Philip Groning. 2005. Time: 02:42.00. This documentary examines life inside a French monastery. Martin, Dale B. “Introduction to New Testament History and Literature.” Twenty-six audio podcasts. Accessible at https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u /introduction-to-new-testament/id341652017?mt=10.