| Is God in two minds about
us?
Humans
have always cast God in a script or role that is amenable, which is the essence
of idolatry and adamantly resisted in biblical testimony. This is also a modern
propensity, for revelation is deemed neither to be rationally feasible nor relevant
within a milieu of relative truth. Even if not believed, “God” is nevertheless
a projection of incompetence that either cannot or will not deliver human happiness.
Atheists too, cast their scripts for God to play. If
we are in two minds about ourselves, which a burgeoning industry promoting a quest
for the self suggests, then this will be inscribed in human projections of God
or whatever divine reality this name denotes. Such divinity will also be in two
minds about us. This scenario is not hypothetical. In a medieval analogy to the
human will, which was perceived to be ineffective, the will of God is divided
from its effects. God’s will is also ineffective. If
the will or word of God is one thing and its expression for human life is another,
God can only be in two minds about us. Yet if God is in two minds about us, affirmations
of the sure word or promises of God in biblical testimony in general and by Christian
witness in particular are of no consequence. v The
division of God’s will from its effects, Luther observed, is a ruse that projects
ambiguity in the human will onto God, so that human ambiguity is given legitimacy
by presumed ambiguity in God’s will. This ruse is also unwittingly presumed in
modern conjectures of ultimate reality, whether framed religiously or not. Within
popular assertions of religious relativity, any religion’s projection of ultimate
reality is as feasible as any other. It is therefore plausible to speak of divinity
as relative to diverse human cultural, social and philosophical scripts for human
life. Divinity or ultimate reality is diversely projected and evaluated from these. It
is not an exceptional idea that an ultimate will could only endorse human harmony.
Yet if such a will is identified with various social mechanisms and cultural phenomena
as the means for achieving global harmony, which is conveyed in religious and
secular aspirations alike, experience of this desire as stymied implies the ineffectiveness
of an ultimate will, however this is conceived. Dissonance
within an ultimate will is located in inadequate social systems or perhaps the
intrigues of rogue tribes. Whether expressed religiously or not, these are responsible
for ultimate intention being divided from its tangible effects in human life.
Deputed
right mechanisms of human phenomena are attributed ultimate will and power to
redeem or to make good the problems of human life. Yet these are ineffective in
achieving this because tacitly, such mechanisms only reflect human competencies
and prejudices. In this way, ultimate intention is divided from its effects, as
divine will is divided from its effects in medieval sophistry. Conjectures
concerning a divine will or ultimate intention, whether projected into heaven
or cast over human phenomena, are meaningless if finally, they are ineffective.
Such conjectures are impervious to conflicted human volition and the necessity
of redemption to which Christian faith gives testimony. Recognising
both the capacity for human compromise within self-justifying hubris and our need
of grace is essential to knowing ourselves by the sure word of God. Can we know
human dignity without a word otherwise than our own prevaricating but self-justifying
will? Whether religious or political, any conjecture concerning divine will is
already undone by aligning human competencies and phenomena with the projected
effectiveness of these conjectures, in whatever cosmic script they are written. Conjectures
of divinity founder on the implicit supposition that whatever is of ultimate value,
shares our attributes and aspirations. v To
be in two minds about ourselves, as a pervasive quest for the “true self” suggests,
is looking for grace that can never be found in convoluted scripts written from
the self. The
ability to make decisions is not real freedom if it cannot embrace what it wills
without prevarication or reluctance. Even in the things we choose to do, we are
invariably compromised, whether by omission, diminution or error. “Divinity” cast
in our own image—in heaven or on earth, as religious or atheist, for it makes
no final difference—shares this same ambiguity. To
cast God in our own image, Luther argued, is to attribute God with no real power
at all and to divide the will of God
from its effects. As an attempt to endorse human autonomy and distinction, casting
God in our image only enslaves us to our own scripts. Any assumption that we are
wholly free, even if our freedom is not always effective, fails to recognise the
fallacy of justifying our lives as self-standing from our compromised existence.
Contrary
to becoming enmeshed in religious conjectures seeking to discern a divine will
that is merely a reflection of human will, Christian testimony speaks of human
compromise in sinfulness and the necessity of salvation promised in the sure word
of God. There
is dissonance within humans between willing and doing, willing and willing effectively
to do, or even knowing what is to be willed. God’s will, by contrast, is consistent
as gracious and righteous; it is wholly effective and not impeded in its promises.
Humans
can resist grace but not the will of God. God’s righteousness will be accomplished,
even if by the “left hand” in which, by apparent concession to evil, God remains
just. For example, Unlike
us and any analogy projected onto divinity—what God wills, God gives effect to.
The will of God is effective. This is essential to the saving promises of God—what
God wills, God will do. Faith depends on God’s veracity. If God wills and gives
effect to what is willed as promised, God does not prevaricate over us. v It
is a consistent human propensity to script ideals to be played on a divine stage,
whether this is other-worldly or this-worldly, explicit or implicit. Yet by doing
so, intrinsic ambiguity is installed—ambiguity that runs through our own existence
within our volition, competence and actions. The
propensity to cast divinity in a role that is amenable to human life, reflecting
specific yet contested social and religious values, effectively projects divinity
in two minds about us and humans in two minds about God. To project an ultimate
will in our own image is unwittingly, to cast it with ambiguity as reflecting
ambiguity in human life. Humans
are never wholly singular in motive and expression of their highest ideals and
essential imperatives. Human self-compromise demonstrates this; human quest for
the true self within the self, compounds this. Projecting this into God only destroys
the possibility of response to God who is for
us in love. By
contrast to God being in two minds about us, because cast in our own image, God
who calls to be things that are not in giving
life, time and possibility for response to a vocative call toward righteousness
as gift, calls us to recognise our necessary transformation through love that
is without prevarication. Christian scepticism concerning the veracity and freedom of God—that is, the word of God—is a contradiction. The good news of God’s love in Jesus Christ declares that God is not in two minds about us. For this reason, we need not be in two minds about declaring such good news. |
