Thoughts on God and Life

THE WHOLE ISSUE OF SPIRITUALITY Remains a compelling one for me. I have struggled with the idea of faith in the past. I was a Lutheran cleric for years and imagined that I would live out my whole life in the service of the Church and of God's people. Life has taken me in other directions and I find that I am starting to feel the stirrings of spiritual life within me again.

I would be loathe to say that this is simply a rehash of any Church Dogmatics; I am not a Barthian or neo-orthodox. I have grown in a different direction. I would never say that I have outgrown a faith tradition that has served humanity for over two millennia. That would be the nadir of arrogance. Suffice it to say that my faith journey has taken me on the road less traveled. I

Years ago I read St. Ireneus of Lyons. He has a beautiful doctrine of redemption that sees God drawing all things back unto God's self, even hell and the devil. This image of repristination is a strong one for me. I cannot conflate eschatology and ethics in a way that subordinates metaphysics to morality. That is simply bass-akwards; morality derives from metaphysics, ethics from eschatology. Ultimately, we are driven to a place of unknowing, where there is only faith and proof is not possible since the absolute Being can only reference Being-itself and, as such, will appear to be paradoxical. Thus, on the grounds of knowing or ethics I cannot know that I am among the redeemed. "I cannot by my own wisdom or knowledge come to God or know God..." as Luther had it in the Small Catechism.

Either all is redeemed or nothing is redeemed. I am involved in all flesh because I am made of flesh. My breath has been inspired by the breath of God who animated the dust and called life into being out of nothing. It is significant to me that in the Genesis myth that there is but one breath and that this breath is common to all human life. This image is seen again in Ezekiel and St. John. I live because I share a common animation, a common source and destiny. Thus, redemption, in order to be redemption, cannot be partial: grace must embrace all things and draw them unto God.

Faith is merely the realization that we stand in relation to God and therefore to each other.

I suppose that the theological issue is not as much eschatology as origin. If I originate in the arms of God than what shall be my destiny?

These are the questions that haunt my dreams... Fool that I am.