The impossible God

Christian Century, Feb 13, 2002 by Lois Malcolm

Luther rejected Dionysius and started instead with suffering and sin, and utter fragmentation. He had this extraordinary and profound sense of the cross--that we understand God through weakness. But he also had this second sense of the hiddenness, this very strange sense of God beyond the word of the cross. When I think of what that must mean, there is no theoretical solution. You must flee back to the cross. If one wants to see this second type of hiddenness beyond the word, look at the great artists. See an early Ingmar Bergman film--like the one in which the minister screams that God is a spider. If you start with this Lutheran theology of the cross, and this apocalyptic sense of history, then your focus is exactly where it should be: you can't have a totality system; you must focus on the other. As Luther would say, you must focus on the neighbor.

Your early work was concerned with how to think about God. How do you think about God in apophatic and apocalyptic terms?

Most of the discussion on God, including my approach in Blessed Rage, has concerned panentheism. That is a valuable discussion. But I don't begin there any longer--especially if the spiritual is deeply involved with the theological. I begin with the categories of the "void" and the "open." I am persuaded to think about God not simply in modern terms but in terms of the categories of faith. When you talk about God you are talking about two "impossible" options. Lucretius and Nietzsche talk about the void, but there is no one better on the subject than Luther. History is apocalyptic for him. It is a series of openings into the abyss. Nature is that too. The "void" has to do with experiences of extreme suffering, injustice, terror, despair or alienation.

And there is no one better than the apophatic mystics with respect to regarding God as "open." I first called this category the "gracious void" but realized this was too Christian a term. So I use the term "the open." The experience of the open happens when you "let go." That's why Buddhism is such an attraction to so many contemporary people, including postmodern thinkers. It's the "let-go" aspect of faith. Even Aristotle speaks of the mystery of religion as a genuine experience.

The experience of "the open" either happens or it doesn't--or it can happen suddenly--but spiritual disciplines can prepare you for it. The "open" has to do with experiences of the sheer giftedness of life--the sense of awe and wonder one might have about the beauty of the natural world or the sheer happiness one might find in human relationships.

Are we simply left with fragments--and with the opposition between the "void" and the "open"?

Part of my project involves gathering the fragments. In this effort, I will draw explicitly on biblical and liturgical metaphors. Though you can't have a totality of symbols, you do need to order and gather them--without losing the sense that religious expressions are simply fragments. The three principle "gathering forms" I use to do this are the narratives of the Gospels, doctrines and liturgy.