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

On Icons and Idols

“The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him (Moses) there, and proclaimed the name, “The Lord”.  (Ex 34:5, NRSV)

There is something about the reverent awe with which Judaism treated the name of God that I find lacking in our world today.  A name so holy that God, and God only, can pronounce it.  There is a mystery surrounding God’s identity and being that remains wholly Other to us.  God is beyond the realm of our experience.  Our language is incapable of capturing God’s being.  We have no words or thoughts with the capacity to accurately speak about God.  What we are capable of is speaking to God.  God has gifted us with the ability to lift our voices in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving. 

Martin Buber speaks of this in “I and Thou”, a book that has shaped my life since my first reading of it many decades ago.  “The world as experience belongs to the basic word I-It.  The basic word I-You establishes the world of relation.”  (Buber p.56)

“Men have addressed their eternal You by many names.  When they sang of what they had thus named, they still meant You:  the first myths were hymns of praise.  Then the names entered into the It-language; men felt impelled more and more to think of and to talk about their eternal You as an It.  But all names of God remain hallowed—because they have been used not only to speak of God but also to speak to him.”  (Buber p. 123)

When we seek to speak about God our words, and the thoughts and symbols they convey, will function in one of two ways.  They may rightly function as icons, images that by their very nature are unreal, but which point beyond themselves to the reality of the Divine Mystery that is God.  Icons, for this reason, are traditionally painted in two dimensions, so as to avoid the appearance of reality.  They are windows through which one looks to the reality beyond that will always be clothed in mystery.

Our words and the thoughts and symbols they convey may also become idolatrous.  Here am I going to be very cautious.  Consider the Creeds of our Church, the Apostle’s Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed.  The Book of Concord, the Confessions of the Lutheran Church, speak of these creeds as the “Three Chief Symbols”.  The Orthodox Church refers to the Nicene Creed as the Icon/Symbol of our faith.  Used correctly as icons, these creeds and the doctrine of the Trinity they seek to definitively state, point beyond the words and the concepts that originate with us, to the mystery of God’s actual being that lies outside of our ability to experience, comprehend and grasp.

The Creeds become Idols when we worship the god that we have created with our own thoughts, concepts, and formulations.  This god, created by us, is an It, to use Buber’s terminology.  It is an idol.  This is the “Golden Calf” of the Christian Church.  The Israelites fabricated the calf at the foot of Mount Sinai.  It was a god they could see, while the Living God was hidden in mystery on the top of the mountain.  Likewise, the Christian Church, having encountered this Living God in the person of Jesus and in the Spirit present in the community, created an Idol.   We cannot define the essence and being of the eternal “You”, the Living God, with our finite words and concepts.  We can only point beyond to the mystery of God’s being that we encounter in relationship.  And yet, we have sought to define God’s very Being.

That the concept of the Trinity has become an idol for us is evident whenever we would differentiate between the god we worship, and the God that has chosen to enter into relationship with all creation, and specifically many peoples.  “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac (might we add, the God of Ishmael), and the God of Jacob.”  The Jews do not worship a Triune God, nor do the Moslems.  Yet both worship together with us the God “of Abraham”.  When our doctrinal statements trump God’s own self disclosure, then they have become idols.

As a Christian, my point here is not to deny the doctrine of the Trinity as defined in the Creeds and in Christian theology over the centuries.  What I do believe is that we have stated more than we are capable of, and in so doing, have created an idol.  I believe that when we moved from speaking to God, and speaking of the God who has encountered us in relationship, to speaking about God and seeking to define the very essence of God’s own being, then the object of our efforts ceased to be God at all.  God is always beyond our words and definitions.

However, when the symbols, when the scriptures themselves, point beyond themselves to the hidden God, the God clothed in mystery and divine glory, then once again it is the God of Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, and Jacob we encounter.

It is not doctrinal clarity about the essence of God’s being that is needed.  That is beyond us.  We cannot capture God in this way.  What is needed in our world is a greater sense of reverent awe as we encounter the God so clothed in mystery.  And, as humans, would that we be filled with such humility that we might stand before this God, as Moses did, silently, recognizing that God, and God only, can pronounce “the Name”, and so disclose himself to us.