Posted on 02/13/2004 1:29:29 PM PST by MegaSilver
In the January 26 issue of National Review, in the aftermath of the Iran earthquake, William F. Buckley, Jr. reprinted "A Christian Struggles to Understand the Earthquake," an excerpt from his book Nearer My God recalling his reactions to the quake that struck Turkey in 1992. Not surprisingly, the piece muses about the problem of natural disaster coexisting with an Almighty God, pondering the mysterious, almost paradoxical existence of the God we worship.
Voltaire, although far from devoutly (or even at all) Christian, perhaps summed it up best: "In the opinion that there is a God, there are difficulties; but in the contrary opinion there are absurdities." At times, though, many Christians see the line between the difficult and the absurd blur to one degree or another. We can't help but occasionally wonder, "What if there is no God? Am I just fooling myself? Do I just want so badly to believe that God exists that I can't see the unvarnished truths before me?"
It's important to keep in mind that, as Buckley points out, belief in God does not require us to "abandon reason; we [must] merely recognize its limitations." Unfortunately, this often is easier said than done. As humans, we want something tangible to grasp, to connect with on a direct, face-to-face basis. Fortunately, God knows this, and has given us something to rectify the problem: Himself.
Jesus Christ, Incarnate Deity, proclaims in the Gospel of St. John, chapter 14, verse 6, "'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me'" (NIV). Christians, whether Eastern Orthodox, Protestant, or Roman Catholic, all understand this to mean that Christ is the key--the only key--to eternal Communion with God in Heaven. Might Christ also be the key with which we take down our intellectual barrier to acceptance of the concept of God? Perhaps, but in order to answer that question, let us first summarize the two basic approaches Christians take in modeling the work of Christ.
"Occidental" Christians--Catholics and Protestants--traditionally define Theology in terms of humankind's legal relationship to God. Christ, therefore, lived to die, and His death was an atonement for our sin. He was the perfect Lamb, sacrificed to fulfill the debt we could never pay ourselves. This line of thought is consistent with the prediction of Isaiah ("Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows... he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed" [53:4-5 NIV]), but it has a huge practical advantage: it brings us to terms with the gravity of the human condition. When we recall the horrific nature of the Crucifixion, we are at once both forced to fall helplessly before God, drawing upon His grace for salvation, and compelled to love Him all the more for His Charity. In addition, it explains quite well why Christ is necessary for Communion with God.
As with all things human, however, the legal model of Theology has limitations. While it certainly highlights our reason for loving God, it does not clearly explain the need for or the concept of a deep personal relationship with Him. Further, under this model, the purpose of the Resurrection--beyond merely demonstrating Christ's divinity--is somewhat ambiguous. Finally, we still have yet to demonstrate how Christ might be the key to our knowledge of the existence of God.
With all this in mind, perhaps we Westerners might gain some insight from what our "Oriental" Brothers and Sisters have to say.
The Orthodox approach to Theology is radically different from the Western approach. Rather than viewing our relationship to God as a legal one in need of intervention (creation-fall-redemption), the Orthodox see humans as working towards union with the Divine Energy (creation-divinification). Under this model, the essence of God, the head of the Trinity, is separate from the energy, or grace, of God. This explains how God is both knowable and unknowable--and, perhaps, how our acceptance of the concept of God requires us to "recognize [reason's] limitations." But there's more.
Under the divinification model, the Incarnation was necessary because humanity could not work its way toward union with the Divine Energy; as Kallistos Ware put it, "Since we could not go to God, God came to us." The Crucifixion, then, represented the God experiencing the utmost of human suffering, making Him once and for all within our reach. The Resurrection represented a human overcoming the single most human experience: death. This combination not only proved Christ's divinity, but also established Him as a vital link between God and humanity by being both fully God and fully human at the same time.
While the divinification model lacks some of the strengths of the legal model, it does offer us a better insight into the dual nature of Christ and more clearly implies the need for a personal relationship with Him. Our goal is eternal participation in the divine energy of God; however, we cannot go there, so God must come to us, and He did, as Christ; therefore, the key to participation in the divine energy is a personal relationship with Christ. God is unapproachable, unknowable, yet through Christ, we can approach and know Him.
Perhaps, also, when we struggle against the mental meltdown that comes with contemplating God, it would help to think of Christ as the key to certainty of God's existence. Though I may wonder if I can ever prove that God is really up there, I am absolutely certain that Christ lived, died, rose, and ascended into Heaven.
And that's all the proof I need.
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