| "God loves everybody"
First, what kind of divine–human encounter is being articulated? Second, what assumptions are being made about humans? Third, what kind of relationship is assumed in the religious encounter? Finally, what is meant by the word “God” in all these possibilities? v First, what kind of divine–human encounter is being articulated? Religious traditions articulate some form of redemptive or enhancing conditions under which divine–human encounter occurs and in particular, occurs as beneficial in spite of human misdemeanour. These conditions are articulated as salvation, purification or rectifying neglect, error or transgression. This also relates to the significance of persons beyond their mortality. Religions specifically define and give a context to divine–human encounter in personal and communal experience that is distinct from human life lived with an absence of religion. That is, religion is not “secular.” Any particular religion articulates specific qualifications and distinctions that are of ultimate significance concerning everybody. Second, what assumptions are being made about humans? What is meant by “everybody” and what form of human identity is articulated? Religions differ dramatically in their perspectives of human identity, the nature and purpose of the body, and the ideal human disposition, which can range from divine affirmation of personal uniqueness to the elimination of individual identity. The diversity of views on how humans are religious is inseparable from conditions articulated for divine–human encounter. Is there a necessity for mediating agents between the divine and “everybody,” so that it is not “everybody” but everybody through specially qualified somebodies? Is a phenomenon, such as a book, temple or ritual, be the definitive medium between the divine and everybody? How the nature and purpose of the body—whether the body of anybody or the collective bodies of everybody—are understood within a particular religion, will also determine what ethical demands are made on bodies personally and socially within any claim to divine–human encounter. Third, what kind of relationship is assumed in the religious encounter? What is meant by God “loves”? How God is perceived to love is directly related to how humans, in any particular religion, are assumed or expected to love. This in turn is shaped by perspectives of both God and the human person. Religions differ in their approaches to human freedom and relationships. Enhancement of human freedom as a premise for the possibility of love is also exposure to choosing what is antithetical to love as the possibility for evil. Freedom to love is a risk. Alternatively, love can be corralled within religious legislation that organises stable communal life as its central imperative, which can diminish the potential for love initiated out of genuine freedom. A particular religion may promote relationships in such a way that it is difficult to identify the freedom of unique personhood; it may be promoting something else instead, such as obedience to absolute authority and its mediated expressions in relationships. A particular religious orientation may promote the submersion of identity in the assumed divinity of all phenomena, thereby trading the uniqueness of personhood for supposed gains of spiritual identity with all things. Confusing volitional humans with the vitality and rhythms of life would give natural phenomena the same status as human relationships. This is problematic, for the vitality of nature is also inherently violent. In religion, diverse perceptions of divine–human encounter are reflected in desired or even prescribed expressions of love. Finally, what is meant by the word “God” in all these religious possibilities? Can we refer to God as a commonly understood term connoting the same thing, even among the religious? In some religions, there may be many gods. Or yet, a religion may refer to an enlightened state of consciousness without reference to God. The countenance of God or gods can range from ineffable light to a mask of death or from beatific vision to demonic persona. Religious response to these diverse visages can range from seeking a mystical way through meditation to invoking benign conditions through superstitious adherence to ritual or talisman. Religious views of God are inseparable from diverse views of personhood and forms of redemption by which the differences between human and divine are negotiated in order to give some form of benign or beneficent end for human life. v What implications are therefore suggested for religion by probing this apparently simple statement—“God loves everybody”? Like so much that is articulated in the realm of religion, particularly within the levelling impetus of religious relativity, the most general and seemingly amenable perspectives and values are much more complex than are often assumed. In their apparent similarities, religious sentiments may connote radically different views of reality, human persons, society, evil, responsibility, accountability, love, purpose and the destiny of human life. Religious traditions are loaded with perennial differences that go to the heart of life in its valuation, ethics and ultimate focus of reference for those who hold them. Christian faith celebrates the surprising initiative and disclosure of God in grace for humanity. For this reason, Christian theology articulates the centrality of revelation—a word otherwise than our own—in hearing and responding to God’s possibility for humanity. This word is finally not a book, tradition or religious apparatus but a human being who is also the Word always with God. What Christian faith articulates concerning the initiative and intimacy of God’s love for humanity, exceeds any possibility within religion. Second, Christian faith articulates the limits of human self-perception, for Jesus Christ is the focus of integral humanity, with the possibility of giving effect to this humanity beyond our purview and resources. Christian theology articulates the necessity of human transformation in the Holy Spirit, with life in Christ as the focus and shape of this metamorphosis in grace. Third, the dynamic triune life of grace discloses the nature of love in the face of our glaringly depleted and fragmented expressions of love. This love is given tangible focus as self-deference within triune communion (perichőrẽsis), participating also in the extremity of human existence in suffering through self-giving love. Ultimate reality in God is relational as triune, therefore love as self-giving or kenotic is redemptive in its effects, prevailing over evil and its impetus toward nothingness. Finally, New Testament testimony, following the wisdom of Israel, is unapologetic in affirming that God remains otherwise to all human conjectures and speculation after the Pauline and Johannine inscrutability of God. Precisely here, Christian faith gives testimony to the otherness of God meeting us intimately in triune love as the possibility of transformed humanity in enduring community. This is the context for the Christian claim that “God loves everybody.” |
