To apprehend something is to understand it, at least in part whereas to comprehend something is to understand it fully. We may apprehend something without comprehending it. As Oden says on page 44 of The Living God, “God is apprehensible, not comprehensible.” We can know of God, but we can never fully know God. The [...]
A Theology of Systems
We live in an integrated world, with heaven and earth as one reality and the spiritual held within the physical held within the spiritual held within the physical and so on and so forth. In such a world, there is no dichotomy between the physical and the spiritual, for it all simply is. The cosmos are an integrated reality.
A Theology of Breath
My first experience upon entering this world was a gasping breath with my newborn lungs. My last experience in this world will be one final exhale from my aged body. And between these two points the spectrum of my life is filled the constant rhythm of in-breath and out-breath, a perpetual process that my primary participation in is to simply witness it as it happens. Without even trying, I am sustained by every breath. My awareness, or lack thereof, does not control it, but simply recognizes this life-giving act that is always with me. I breathe in, I breathe out, and I exist.
A Theology of Chaos
Instead of a creation-from-nothing, we live in the midst of an ever creating world that always has and always will come from something.
A Theology of Falling Down (and Getting Back Up)
I don’t believe in a fall. I believe in a falling down and a getting back up and a falling down and a getting back up and a falling down and a getting back up and so on and so forth. God is the cosmic Alfred Pennyworth, reaching a hand to an ever-stumbling world, lovingly saying, “Why do we fall down? So we might learn to pick ourselves up.” And God is always there, helping us to our feet, present with every fall and rise, ever moment of breaking and building, curse and blessing, suffering and celebrating wrought with our lives.
A Theology of All Things
Because God made it all. And God continues to make it all today. We hope for a day when God will make all things new, knowing that we are called to be both made new and join God in making all things new. Rabbi Lawrence Kushner writes, “This world and everything in it is a manifestation of God’s presence. Our goal and challenge is to find it and then act in such a way as to help others find it too.”
A Theology of Incarnation
God does not cause the pain and the hurt, but God is present with it. This is incarnation: God joining us in our flesh, often messy and unkempt, celebrating and suffering alongside us. God does not cause evil, nor does God “allow” it in the way we understand control (i.e. meticulous sovereignty). God does, however, co-opt evil and non-good, turning dust, ash, and decay into something beautiful.
