Theology: The Science of the Intangible?

In A Handbook of Theological Terms Van A. Harvey writes; “theology involves a systematic and rational clarification of Faith through the use of technical concepts and logic.”  Having established that our beliefs color our view of every experience, that everyone’s perception is unique and different, to be fair, it seems that these technical concepts and logic should be subject to the same scrutiny as Faith.

Through whose lens have come the criteria for the concepts and logic with which we are to systematically and rationally clarify Faith?  What color was it?  Would I agree with it if I knew?  I’m sure there are many different concepts, forms of logic, and systems that can be applied to the study of Faith.  Each one of them with their own biases and flaws according to someone else with a conflicting yet just as valid concept, logic or system.

 How do these systems, etc. gain acceptance?  Do a group of people (and who were they?)  just get together and decide?  How?  By consensus?  (I think that’s how the platypus was created.)  Is it just the way it’s been done, FOREVER?  Is it a popularity contest?   So many questions and only 3 years to answer them.  Welcome to theology.

As a nurse I have a somewhat scientific mind that that requires hard data with graphs and percentages to come to conclusions about things.  I find myself wondering how one applies technical concepts and logic to something as intangible as Faith. (Oh yeah, that’s what this course is about.)  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve yearned for a logical, rational clarification of Faith but what hit me as I contemplated this blog is that theology is truly the study of MY Faith, through MY lenses.  It’s the only way it can be as it seems we can never be completely objective in this in the realm of the intangible.  I came to school with the hope that I would be given one clear solid answer from “out there” somewhere,  only to find that while I will be given wonderful tools, the excavating is mine to do and the answer is not out there but deep inside me.

I keep coming back to my current embedded theology that God is an experience, very subjective, very personal.  Perhaps it’s THE experience.  Perhaps just experience.  Any way you look at it the systematic analyses of God and Faith is  a challenge.  There’s little that is quantifiable or verifiable except within one's own experience.

Yesterday I was in a rose garden and was literally smelling the roses.  I love the smell of roses.  I can tell you about it all day long but I will never be able to get you to have the same sensory/emotional experience that I had. Even if you smelled the rose at the same time I did your experience of it wouldn’t be the same.  How much more difficult it is to describe let alone analyze my concept of God.  Apparently it can be done as hundreds of students have gone before me and went on to graduate.  I look forward to the challenge.

What I Believe Today (subject to change)

What I Believe Today (Subject to Change)

As I consider describing my theology to date I find words inadequate.  It’s like trying to describe color to someone who is blind or music to someone who can’t hear.  God is the indescribable essence of the Universe which we as humans can only intellectually comprehend by examining the parts, yet intellectual comprehension does not mean we know God.

Helen Keller’s story comes to mind.  Helen became deaf and blind at the age of 19 months, an age at which the use of words is only beginning to develop.  Her teacher, Annie Sullivan, incessantly tried to get Helen to understand sign language, the key to opening up the world for Helen.  She ceaselessly spelled words into Helen’s hand, resolutely working toward her goal.  Helen just didn’t get it. 

We are similar to Helen Keller in that there is this ineffable essence is within us (actually, as us but we don’t have room to discuss that), there for our use, just like sign language was there for Helen, but we just don’t get it.  God doesn’t seem to speak our language so we continue to blindly bump up against things in the world that appear to us as obstacles because we don’t understand.  Helen finally had her breakthrough after a particularly difficult temper tantrum.  Suddenly, she understood that there were words that correlated with everything she came into contact with, she finally got it and the world opened up.

Often, we too, must experience a deep upheaval before we arrive at our experience of God, the “AHA” moment that suddenly shifts God from an abstract idea to something much deeper and richer.  Not that God changed, no, we changed. 

This is how I understand God now.  God is Principle, THE law.  Like any principle there are certain immutable ways to use THE Principle that when followed allow us to function fully and effectively in the world.  Some of these are: practicing the feeling of Gratitude, the laws of circulation, the practices of prayer and meditation, being in service, what we focus on becomes our reality, consciously utilizing the 12 powers, seeing God in everyone.  

God is not an entity that judges how well we follow Principle; we can see how well we follow God (Principle) by the results we get in our life.  If we don’t flip the light switch we will never get the light bulb to turn on.  It’s not that electricity doesn’t like us or is judging us; the power of electricity just doesn’t work if we don’t understand and follow the rules. God as Principle works this same way.

Far from being just a cold hard principle, God is also Love, supportive, nurturing, you can’t make me not love you, Love.  We are never unloved by God.  All the shame and blame, condemnation and damnation I absorbed as a child just isn’t any part of this God I know now.

God is Good and anything to the contrary simply isn’t.  That doesn’t mean that “bad” as we interpret it doesn’t exist in our world.  It means that as we grow in Christ consciousness we truly understand that if God is omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence and it is only Good then evil can’t be real (I feel some serious discussion coming on).

I believe that every human being has a spark of this essence within them just seeking to connect with every other spark.  It is by fully expressing ourselves as our unique divine idea (with love always the essence of the idea whatever it is) that we fully connect with each other in community as God.  Most of us become deaf and blind at an early age to the beauty of what we truly are.  I believe we are here to empower each other, to keep signing into each other’s hands until we get it.  Only until we are united in Oneness will we truly see the colors and hear the music that is God.