EngineeredTheology

1. The Shape of the Universe Modern western thought constructs the universe lie a two storied house, with the natural world on the first story and God (who is removed from the story we live in) is on the second floor. For God to do anything down here, he must interrupt the laws of nature and perform a miracle. This is a way of describing a secular culture that separates daily life from God (which is different from atheist). This can be seen in our ideas about death and prayer.

2. Sitting in a Cave in Mar Saba
We think of the dead as totally inaccessible, but in other areas seeing and communicating with the dead is commonplace. The ancient church teaches that “those who have died are separated from us in the body – but the Church remains One” (16). This is termed the communion of the saints. These saints surround us and pray with us. Orthodox faith sees humanity as coming out of communion with God, severed from that which gives life, and therefore dead. They do not see humanity as having a legal problem, but needing a change in ontological status. “Jesus did not come to make bad men good; He came to make dead men live” (25).

We Live in an Alter
We can say that God is everywhere, but it could be tantamount to being nowhere. We must then think of how God is everywhere present. Literalism fails when we go to the Sistine Chapel and see a collection of colors and we say that things really only are their physical components. Anything more is subjective, and therefore less real, and another manifestation of the two storied universe. This is different from the description of the last supper where the “sacraments do not make things to be something they are not – they reveal things to be what they truly are” (29).

4. The God Who is Not There
We do not know or experience things in general, only in the particular. We may say that all days are holy, but a day is holy in a unique way, the statement has no meaning. We generalize God resulting in no knowledge of Him whatsoever. “A God who is exiled from the mundane is understandably difficult to find when the mundane turns into the tragic” (40).

5. Christian Atheism
“To live in a wolrd where God is not everywhere present, or is present in only the most generalized fashion, is to live as a functional athiest” (47). Some form of Christian fundamentalism fall in this group where everything to be known about God comes from scripture, and have no direct knowledge of Him. Business models take place within the church and pastors become managers (handling problems and conflicts), and there is little difference between an atheist manager and a church pastor. The sacraments should be used not just to point to themselves, but to God and everything around us. “Holy Baptism must remain, but it should change all water as well” (52).

6. The Shape of a One-Storey Universe
The church fathers had a tradition of seeing allegories in scripture, a deeper meaning. “If there is nothing within, between, or behind the world, then we must place God and all that we call ‘spiritual’ somewhere outside the world” (57). People cannot be exhaustively known (in terms of comprehension) but is better described as relation or participation. There is not something there because I infer it, but because I discern it. The same is true of the text of Scripture.

7. The Hallway at the End of the World
American culture has always been concerned with end times, and has viewed the apocalyptic as linear, and the end times are coming. Classical Christian understanding says that “just as the universe is a single storey, so time itself is not linear, but shaped revealed, and given its meaning by its end, which has already made itself manifest within history” (65). The end is not an event in time, but the person of Jesus. Learning to live in a one storied world also means learning to live not as prisoners of time.

8. A Room with a View
Icons are “a revelation of truth of existence – an existence that is more than we may see at first encounter” (70). Our perception of the world is rooted in our relationship with it. Marking and venerating icons is not only pleasant, but necessary. Truth is not an abstract, but a function of love and holding things in their proper place of honor.

9. The Literal Truth
Literal reading of Scripture implies that meaning is found within the intent of the author. This gives the illusion that if we can understand history and the chain of cause and effects we can understand the present causes and predict the effects. Fundamentalism asserts that the texts are infallible in their historical content (other history and science are secondary). If it says Jonah was swallowed by a fish, then historically it must be the case because its “facticity” is what is important. The scriptures, both old an new, are Passover shaped stories. “We cannot remove Christ’s resurrection to a place of meta-meaning, a second storey where religious truth dwells” (86).

10. The Mystery of Persons
“You only know God to the extent that you love your enemies” (89). The truth of a person is more than they know and always more than anyone else knows, and each person should be approached in “fear and wonder”. To exist as a person is to exist by love, so there must be others to love and one cannot exist as a person by himself alone. My enemy is not someone I am commanded to love, but the means of my existence.

11. A Life of Careful Devotion
Some suggestions at overcoming a false sense of God are:
1. Recognize that though “God is everywhere present and filling all things,” you often go through the world as if he were not.
2. Always approach the church and the sacraments with awe
3. Make careful preparation for communion
4. Learn by heart psalms of presence (such as Psalm 23 and 91)
5. Throughout the day, search of God
6. Approach others with deep respect and wonder – it will often be the foundation for love
7. More than anything, give thanks to God for all things