Worship at the well: From Dogmatics to doxology (and back again)

Trinity Journal, Spring 2002 by Vanhoozer, Kevin J

The cognitive dimension of Christian worship is essentially the story of Jesus Christ, together with its implications for the identity of God. Jesus is the truth; he is God's truth claim as well as God's claim on humanity. This Jesus truth-that God loves sinners so much that he becomes one of us so that we might be one with him-is explosive: "you shall know the truth," Jesus tells his disciples in John 8, "and the truth shall make you free." Truth sets us free "from" idolatry: from false religion and false striving after meaning and happiness and righteousness. Consequently, truth sets us free "for" right worship, for worship bent on ultimate reality.

2. Worship In Spirit: The Experiential Dimension

To this point, we have seen the importance of having the right objective knowledge. But worship also requires the right subjective attitude: "spirit." The truth of who God is and what God has done for us engages not merely our mind, but our whole being or "spirit": not only minds, but hearts, hands, and imaginations too.

The philosopher Kant is rarely invoked in sermons, especially in contexts concerning worship. Kant was infamous for his dislike of formal or ritualized religion, and would regularly duck out of academic processions just as they were about to enter the church. Like Kant, some today, in the context of modernity, with its emphasis on individualism, have appealed to Jesus' words as a justification for privatized religion. On this modern view, Jesus is calling for piety: the inward devotion of individuals. I think the moderns have it wrong. Jesus is not contrasting external worship with internal worship. John 4 is not a charter for individuals to worship in private. No, the point is that the Father has created real worshipers by begetting them again in the Spirit. The Father is creating a new temple in the form of a new people: the body of Christ.

As we have seen in v. 22, real worship depends on knowing God-on knowing who he is and what he has done. Of course, in our contemporary context it is all too easy to pit ideas of God (theology) against an experience of God (worship). But this divide is just as fatal for the knowledge of God as it is for knowledge in general. Here it is not Kant's example that I want to invoke, however, but his doctrine. Kant believed that knowledge necessarily involves both ideas and experience. Hence his dictum: "concepts without percepts are empty; percepts without concepts are blind." Let me adapt Kant's dictum to reflect what I think Jesus is saying about worshiping in spirit and truth: "Ideas or concepts of God without a corresponding experience are empty; experience of God without ideas or concepts of God is blind." Stated somewhat differently, and perhaps more provocatively: "Theology without worship is empty; worship without theology is blind." Even this adaptation of Kant's dictum does not go far enough. In fact, it leaves us with the impression that theology provides the brain power and worship the experiential aspect. Now this may in fact be what happens, but it should not be the norm. What we need to do is make worship more like theology and theology more like worship. The point is that worship concerns objective truth and our right relation to the truth.