Intimacy and Estrangement

¹⁶ “For God so loved the world . . .”^[1]

²¹ As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us,^f . . .”^[2]
 “See, the home^a of God is among mortals.
He will dwell^b with them as their God;^c
they will be his peoples,^d
and God himself will be with them;^e
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.”^[3]

I continue to find the concept of “intimacy” as the most compelling description of what God is up to in the world.  It is a desire to be intimately related to this world that motivated God’s creative activity in the first place.  “It is not good that the man should be alone. . .”  Perhaps this is a statement that God makes based on God’s own experience.  Being alone, God and nothing else, was probably not too fulfilling for God.  And so God began this venture in Being, and more specifically, in Being in Relationship.  “Yes”, God proclaimed, “this is good stuff, very good indeed!”

Yet we must also deal honestly with the reality of sin that pervades this otherwise good creation.  If the purpose of creation is intimacy with God and others, the nature of sin is to be estranged.  Estranged from God.  Estranged from others. Estranged from self. And Estranged from the world in which we live.

I’ve written before about the two polarities of Being, namely that of differentiation and association.  Every entity that exists simultaneously is differentiated from the Other, and is placed in relationship to the other.  To use Buber’s terminology, intimacy is achieved in the I-Thou relationship, when two individual “Thou’s” are in a balanced and harmonious relationship with each other.  This encounter of the Other as a person, a Thou and not an It, is the basis of intimacy.  In this manner, true intimacy will always be a matter of faith, not knowledge, of relatedness, not experience, for the mystery of the Other must remain.  To reduce the other to an It, the mere object of our experience, is the way of estrangement not intimacy.

Estrangement begins with the Self.  Estrangement can take two paths.  First, estrangement is the consequence of an inflated sense of the Self.  The human quest to be as god, to be the center of existence, to be the Lord of all, subservient to none, is the basic sin of this inflated sense of self.  Estrangement follows.

However the converse is also true.  Namely, that a deflated sense of Self, “I am a worm, and not human”, losing a healthy sense of self and being subsumed into the Other, also brings with it estrangement.  Neither a pride filled arrogance, nor a shame based self-deprecation allow for intimacy with the Other.

Likewise, when relating to the Other, estrangement occurs when the scale tips in either direction.  Whether the Other in question is God, or neighbor, or the natural world in which we live, either an inflated or deflated sense of the Other destroys intimacy.  The God who is so Wholly Other as to cause terror, is not the God that Jesus intimately revealed to us as “Abba”.  But a God whose very existence is a matter of indifference to us, hardly can be a partner in an intimate relationship.  We likewise experience estrangement when the Other is another human being, but one who we see as either so above us, or below us, as to disallow the mutuality of intimacy.  And this planet on which we live can be perceived as an overwhelming place in which we are powerless and vulnerable in the face of the natural forces—Or it can be seen as a mere object for our exploitation.

In other words, the intimacy that God envisioned for this world is one of a harmonious balance.  It begins with the recognition that we are children of God.  We are limited, children not God, but with great potential, Children of God, created in God’s image.  We are creatures, not the Creator, but creatures of God, indeed.

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^[1] The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. Nashville : Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989, S. Jn 3:16

^f Other ancient authorities read be one in us

^[2] The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. Nashville : Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989, S. Jn 17:20-21

^a Gk tabernacle

^b Gk tabernacle

^c Other ancient authorities lack as their God

^d Other ancient authorities read people

^e Other ancient authorities add and be their God

^[3] The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. Nashville : Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989, S. Re 21:3-4

Tov! Tov! Tov! Tov Meod!

Indeed, it is very good!  How can we read the Song of Creation in Genesis 1 without being moved by God’s unrestrained joy at the goodness of the creation?  And with God's shouts echoing throughout the cosmos “Tov! Tov! Tov!  Tov Meod!” [It is Good, Good, Good, Exceedingly Good!], how can we with integrity continue to focus so much on the fallenness of the creation?

First, a word about God as Creator.  God the Father, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, did not retire 5,772 years ago.  Quite to the contrary, God’s creative work is an ever present reality.  God is not just the First Cause who in antiquity, at the beginning of time, set things in motion and then retired to a beach somewhere in the South Pacific.  The Psalmist is quite correct in declaring that “It was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”  And also “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.”  [Psalm 139: 13-14, NRSV)

The more I learn about the creation of a human being within its mother’s womb, the more I marvel at the goodness of God’s creation.  Imagine, from one fertilized ovum, the explosions of cells dividing and redividing.  At maturity, trillions of cells make up the human body.  We begin with stem cells, as yet generic in nature, and then the process of differentiation and association unfolds.  Brain cells, bone cells, skin cells, muscle cells, cells that form the circulatory system, the digestive system, the nervous system, each emerging in their distinctive form.  Not only do these cells differentiate but they associate, aligning themselves in this incredible matrix of relationships that is life.  And then, in that right moment, through the birth canal the baby travels to awaken to the light of life, and to breathe the first breath of life.

Tov! Tov! Tov! Tov Meod!  This is the shout of joy shared by parents at that moment.  It is the shout of joy of the Creator that continually echoes throughout the universe.

The doctrine of original sin has numerous weaknesses.  First, it tends to restrict God’s splendid and “good” creative work to the beginning of time, and then asserts that because of the Fall, all subsequent occasions for the birth of new life are corrupted, possessing an “innate disease” and are condemned  “to God’s eternal wrath”^[1].  To reject this, the Augsburg Confession says is “insulting [to] the suffering and merit of Christ.”

However, if rejecting the doctrine of original sin is insulting to the suffering and merit of Christ, affirming the doctrine of original sin is equally or even more insulting to the work and word of the Creator who declares that it is good, very good!

To put it differently, as the father of four children, I can view their life in two ways.  First, that their birth is merely the result of the biological processes that have been running in an independent manner since the beginning of time.  Or, I can view each one of them as a creature of God, holy and precious.  If their birth is merely the result of a long line of cause and effects dating back to eternity, it is easy to postulate that something ‘went wrong’.  However, to hold the newborn infant in your arms and to see in them the marvelous work of the creator, is to recognize the inherent goodness of life and the image of God in them.

For Lutherans, I believe that the corrective for an over emphasis on original sin lies in the “simul” that is so central to our theological framework.  Just as we affirm the “simul justus et peccator”, simultaneously saint and sinner, so also I believe that we need to hold in tension the goodness of creation with its need for redemption.  Simultaneously Good, yet incomplete.

To use my fatherhood experience as an example, at the birth of Katie, Dieter, Jens, and Brita there was both an awareness of the fundamental goodness of this new life, held in my arms, and yet also an anticipation of all that was yet to come as their lives unfolded.  Without denying the goodness of what God had created, I was also aware of the capacity for both good and evil as their lives unfolded.  So it is with God, who can look at all that has been created and declare unequivocally “It is very good” and yet also anticipate the challenges that will lie ahead for this new creature.  But, the capacity for evil does not negate the inherent goodness of God’s creation.  “Tov! Tov! Tov! Tov Meod!” still rings loud and clear throughout the universe.

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^[1]Kolb, Robert ; Wengert, Timothy J. ; Arand, Charles P.: The Book of Concord : The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Minneapolis : Fortress Press, 2000, S. 38