Man is made in the image of God by the fact that he/she can create and destroy. No other creature in the cosmos has this ability. What man (often) lacks is wisdom on to use this gift in ways to glorify God. Man's creativity can produce works from his/her hands at transcends our creaturely limits, yet at the same time those same hands can wreck chaos and destruction and pull all of creation down to the depths of despair. Animals can kill, but man is the only creature that can abuse, twist and distort things to the point that all creation groans.
As a post-Christian “Friend of Jesus” (Quaker) who was a Lutheran preacher’s kid and seminary dropout, I can readily appreciate the importance of distinguishing between creational grace and participatory grace. However, I still carry the wariness of theological theories and categories that—among other things—led me to leave seminary after one very rich and life-changing quarter in 1972.
I can and do still sometimes use the Christian language which is my native tongue. However, all religious languages, theologies, and communal behaviors are at best attempts to describe and evoke in others the experience of living interrelationship with Sacred Reality. They are not descriptions of that Reality, which is before and beyond conceptualization.
When, in 1987, I was introduced to the Quaker way by the man who is now my husband, I recognized that I could reclaim my intimate childhood knowledge of and relationship with the Christ within, without picking up again the conceptual baggage of the church.
At 73, I look back over thirtysome years of secular ministry, first as a prison counselor and then as a public librarian, as well as that many decades of volunteer roles with American Friends Service Committee and with my own monthly and yearly Quaker meetings.
What I recognize—and what this series on grace helps me to articulate—is that it is participatory grace, not any sort of transactional salvation, which enlivens and guides our lives together on this planet.
I’ve heard people say “a better version of themselves” which implies there is worse version. Dr. Jordan Peterson has said “a higher resolution of oneself”. I like Peterson’s descriptor better. I believe that even the worse dredges of society have the seed of God placed in them at inception. (I don’t believe everyone chooses the salvation of God or chooses to participate in the wonders of God.) As we awaken to the realities of God’s presence in this world we come to understand more about ourselves & since God is inside of us we come to understand more about God. The real question is do we see our expanded or higher resolution understanding as God or scientifically about ourselves. Most self proclaimed intellectuals only go as deep as the scientific. Most of these “intellectuals” can concede that there is Someone ordering life, they believe the universe begins & ends with the human mind whether religious or not. There’s little to no humility in these people.
To look soberly at our own humanity there isn’t a more complete description than the reality of Christ & Abba His Father. Our minds & intellect will always only carry us so far in understanding & copping with the entirety of the entire cosmos. Sure we know more now than 100 years ago yet when honest we only know more of what we don’t know. A Creator is the only concept that calms the devastating fears of that reality. He gives us His Spirit to guide us in a manor that makes us participants in & responsible for His grace & glory. This isn’t an “opiate of the masses” idea. I mean the more we understand about the vastness of God’s creation the more anxiety about what we don’t know & can’t control becomes ever present. His increased revelations about Himself & His creation was only intended to reveal more of Himself which includes our ever increasing dependence on Him.
What’s cool about all this is that while there are more intellectuals in the world, mostly caused by population growth & concentration, the conversation is more spiritual than ever. Less & less people truly deny the existence of the Supreme, ex. The increasing talk of ethics & morality. My prediction is that within 2 generations, when the harms of low resolution religiosity are healed or gleaned out, the western world will see & acknowledge the realities of Jesus as God’s Son. Nothing explains a cohesive human morality better.
As you have correctly stated Alan, most people have an awareness that something is "off" so to speak when it comes to the overall condition of man and there is a latent desire to be good or maybe even pure (or clean as it is stated in the Bible), to have agency and purpose in life. However, living your life in way that constantly gives glory to God may not be one of those human objectives. :)
A psychologist I spoke to one time about the existence of God told me something that I will never forget. "Most people know that God exists, he said. Knowing about God or even acknowledging Him is not the real question. The real question is "How close do you want to be in proximity to Him?"
Mankind has struggled with issue since Day One after the Fall and as my psychologist friend said to me, for some people, drawing near to God is something they could not imagine being without. For others, being in the presence of God is like getting hit with lightning and they narrowly survive the encounter. Even if that is an extreme picture, in reality we are not really inclined to stay within God's holy presence for long periods of time. We quickly lose interest and spend most of our time trying to meet our temporal needs without His involvement.
The conversation about spiritual things is increasing, but even then, spirituality movements are mostly focused on being altruistic towards others (or possibly your own group), which in itself is not a bad thing as long as it does not go to the extremes (we all want own version of heaven on Earth). Declaring your total dependence on God and living into that reality is actually a very hard thing for us humans to do...even the disciples muttered to themselves that Jesus's teachings at times were difficult (cf. John 6: 59 -71) and that a lot of people abandoned walking with him when he talked about total dependence on God because it was totally different from what they were hoping.
Lucy, thank you for your response. I’m a bit of a Jordan Peterson-afile & one of the central points that he’s helped me articulate is that what people are striving for in the world is God. They are just striving for it “in the world”. The desire for union & unity with the Devine is something that God put in each human life upon conception. So God’s nature is unity & connection with Himself & since He created us that same nature is in us as well, to be connected with Him.
Just like in public policy we see that extremes can’t sustain we also see that the people who have “ran (or been pushed away) from God” can’t stay that way for too long without the perils of being away from the Center which is God. Truth, God’s Truth, always prevails. It’s the “You can run but you can’t hide” truth that Adam & Eve found out in the garden. It’s not that I’m a forever optimist, I just don’t doubt the power of God or His claim that He has overcome the world.
I look forward to reading more of your comments on Richard Beck’s substack. I may have already shared this with you, I have my own substack where I share my written morning meditations with those who want to read them. Most of my audience is men. The call God has given me is to build men so I write with that in mind. My prayer is that it’s Him not me stroking the keys. I invite you to read & comment on my writings as well, if you are able.
Thanks for the invitation Alan and I would love to check out your work and your ministry. :) As you can see by reply, I tend to follow a different stream in psychology, more in line with the work of Victor Frankl, Martin E. P. Seligman, Michael Arloski, with a little bit of Jung thrown in there. Peterson is Jung and a lot of existentialism and the existentialism is what keeps me distant from him.
While I think we both agree that God is sovereign and His will has and shall prevail, were we diverge a little bit is when it comes to the human response to God. Humans are the only creatures who choose actively choose whether or not to participate in God's reign. Human free will is always the wild card. Will we prevent God from setting things right with His creation? No and it's laughable to think that we could even try to do so. Can we be royal pains in the rear end and try our best to frustrate His plans? Absolutely. The entire Bible makes that painfully clear, lol.
I doubt we diverge as much as you might think. There is the amazing beauty of free will. I don’t know about you but I never want to be friends with someone who hasn’t chosen to be friends with me. His will in the world is unavoidable, His companionship & friendship is just available. Those in the world who choose to deny Him don’t reap the benefits of life in Him. They, myself included, make a hard go at existence in His world by being out of step with Him. Since the wages of sin is death, when we run from Him we exhaust our own resources to the point where He is our final choice. Chuck Chamberlain coined the phrase “We aren’t ascending to Heaven as much as back peddling from hell.” That is the plight of all human spiritual existence I believe. Some don’t go down the rabbit hole of sin as far as others. We will exhaust our resources before we choose Him. He is after all “the way, the truth & the light.” All other ways are the opposites of those. Out of necessity not virtue we choose Him, if we are really honest with ourselves.
Man is made in the image of God by the fact that he/she can create and destroy. No other creature in the cosmos has this ability. What man (often) lacks is wisdom on to use this gift in ways to glorify God. Man's creativity can produce works from his/her hands at transcends our creaturely limits, yet at the same time those same hands can wreck chaos and destruction and pull all of creation down to the depths of despair. Animals can kill, but man is the only creature that can abuse, twist and distort things to the point that all creation groans.
Lucy C. I wrote a comment on this post I’d love to get your thoughts on. I always appreciate your comments.
As a post-Christian “Friend of Jesus” (Quaker) who was a Lutheran preacher’s kid and seminary dropout, I can readily appreciate the importance of distinguishing between creational grace and participatory grace. However, I still carry the wariness of theological theories and categories that—among other things—led me to leave seminary after one very rich and life-changing quarter in 1972.
I can and do still sometimes use the Christian language which is my native tongue. However, all religious languages, theologies, and communal behaviors are at best attempts to describe and evoke in others the experience of living interrelationship with Sacred Reality. They are not descriptions of that Reality, which is before and beyond conceptualization.
When, in 1987, I was introduced to the Quaker way by the man who is now my husband, I recognized that I could reclaim my intimate childhood knowledge of and relationship with the Christ within, without picking up again the conceptual baggage of the church.
At 73, I look back over thirtysome years of secular ministry, first as a prison counselor and then as a public librarian, as well as that many decades of volunteer roles with American Friends Service Committee and with my own monthly and yearly Quaker meetings.
What I recognize—and what this series on grace helps me to articulate—is that it is participatory grace, not any sort of transactional salvation, which enlivens and guides our lives together on this planet.
I’ve heard people say “a better version of themselves” which implies there is worse version. Dr. Jordan Peterson has said “a higher resolution of oneself”. I like Peterson’s descriptor better. I believe that even the worse dredges of society have the seed of God placed in them at inception. (I don’t believe everyone chooses the salvation of God or chooses to participate in the wonders of God.) As we awaken to the realities of God’s presence in this world we come to understand more about ourselves & since God is inside of us we come to understand more about God. The real question is do we see our expanded or higher resolution understanding as God or scientifically about ourselves. Most self proclaimed intellectuals only go as deep as the scientific. Most of these “intellectuals” can concede that there is Someone ordering life, they believe the universe begins & ends with the human mind whether religious or not. There’s little to no humility in these people.
To look soberly at our own humanity there isn’t a more complete description than the reality of Christ & Abba His Father. Our minds & intellect will always only carry us so far in understanding & copping with the entirety of the entire cosmos. Sure we know more now than 100 years ago yet when honest we only know more of what we don’t know. A Creator is the only concept that calms the devastating fears of that reality. He gives us His Spirit to guide us in a manor that makes us participants in & responsible for His grace & glory. This isn’t an “opiate of the masses” idea. I mean the more we understand about the vastness of God’s creation the more anxiety about what we don’t know & can’t control becomes ever present. His increased revelations about Himself & His creation was only intended to reveal more of Himself which includes our ever increasing dependence on Him.
What’s cool about all this is that while there are more intellectuals in the world, mostly caused by population growth & concentration, the conversation is more spiritual than ever. Less & less people truly deny the existence of the Supreme, ex. The increasing talk of ethics & morality. My prediction is that within 2 generations, when the harms of low resolution religiosity are healed or gleaned out, the western world will see & acknowledge the realities of Jesus as God’s Son. Nothing explains a cohesive human morality better.
As you have correctly stated Alan, most people have an awareness that something is "off" so to speak when it comes to the overall condition of man and there is a latent desire to be good or maybe even pure (or clean as it is stated in the Bible), to have agency and purpose in life. However, living your life in way that constantly gives glory to God may not be one of those human objectives. :)
A psychologist I spoke to one time about the existence of God told me something that I will never forget. "Most people know that God exists, he said. Knowing about God or even acknowledging Him is not the real question. The real question is "How close do you want to be in proximity to Him?"
Mankind has struggled with issue since Day One after the Fall and as my psychologist friend said to me, for some people, drawing near to God is something they could not imagine being without. For others, being in the presence of God is like getting hit with lightning and they narrowly survive the encounter. Even if that is an extreme picture, in reality we are not really inclined to stay within God's holy presence for long periods of time. We quickly lose interest and spend most of our time trying to meet our temporal needs without His involvement.
The conversation about spiritual things is increasing, but even then, spirituality movements are mostly focused on being altruistic towards others (or possibly your own group), which in itself is not a bad thing as long as it does not go to the extremes (we all want own version of heaven on Earth). Declaring your total dependence on God and living into that reality is actually a very hard thing for us humans to do...even the disciples muttered to themselves that Jesus's teachings at times were difficult (cf. John 6: 59 -71) and that a lot of people abandoned walking with him when he talked about total dependence on God because it was totally different from what they were hoping.
Lucy, thank you for your response. I’m a bit of a Jordan Peterson-afile & one of the central points that he’s helped me articulate is that what people are striving for in the world is God. They are just striving for it “in the world”. The desire for union & unity with the Devine is something that God put in each human life upon conception. So God’s nature is unity & connection with Himself & since He created us that same nature is in us as well, to be connected with Him.
Just like in public policy we see that extremes can’t sustain we also see that the people who have “ran (or been pushed away) from God” can’t stay that way for too long without the perils of being away from the Center which is God. Truth, God’s Truth, always prevails. It’s the “You can run but you can’t hide” truth that Adam & Eve found out in the garden. It’s not that I’m a forever optimist, I just don’t doubt the power of God or His claim that He has overcome the world.
I look forward to reading more of your comments on Richard Beck’s substack. I may have already shared this with you, I have my own substack where I share my written morning meditations with those who want to read them. Most of my audience is men. The call God has given me is to build men so I write with that in mind. My prayer is that it’s Him not me stroking the keys. I invite you to read & comment on my writings as well, if you are able.
Alanlyon.substack.com
Thanks for the invitation Alan and I would love to check out your work and your ministry. :) As you can see by reply, I tend to follow a different stream in psychology, more in line with the work of Victor Frankl, Martin E. P. Seligman, Michael Arloski, with a little bit of Jung thrown in there. Peterson is Jung and a lot of existentialism and the existentialism is what keeps me distant from him.
While I think we both agree that God is sovereign and His will has and shall prevail, were we diverge a little bit is when it comes to the human response to God. Humans are the only creatures who choose actively choose whether or not to participate in God's reign. Human free will is always the wild card. Will we prevent God from setting things right with His creation? No and it's laughable to think that we could even try to do so. Can we be royal pains in the rear end and try our best to frustrate His plans? Absolutely. The entire Bible makes that painfully clear, lol.
I doubt we diverge as much as you might think. There is the amazing beauty of free will. I don’t know about you but I never want to be friends with someone who hasn’t chosen to be friends with me. His will in the world is unavoidable, His companionship & friendship is just available. Those in the world who choose to deny Him don’t reap the benefits of life in Him. They, myself included, make a hard go at existence in His world by being out of step with Him. Since the wages of sin is death, when we run from Him we exhaust our own resources to the point where He is our final choice. Chuck Chamberlain coined the phrase “We aren’t ascending to Heaven as much as back peddling from hell.” That is the plight of all human spiritual existence I believe. Some don’t go down the rabbit hole of sin as far as others. We will exhaust our resources before we choose Him. He is after all “the way, the truth & the light.” All other ways are the opposites of those. Out of necessity not virtue we choose Him, if we are really honest with ourselves.