Life's Biggest Questions
By Erik Thoennes
Jul 1, 2011
http://thegoodbookblog.com/2011/jul/01/lifes-biggest-questions/A book I wrote came out today. It's called
Life's Biggest Questions: What the Bible Says about the Things That Matter Most (Crossway). I pray it will help people to know God and his truth better.
Here is a portion of the chapter on knowing and loving God.
"Doctrine equips people to fulfill their primary purpose, which is to glorify and delight in God through a deep personal knowledge of him. Meaningful relationship with God is dependent on correct knowledge of him. Any theological system that distinguishes between “rational propositions about God” and “a personal relationship with God” fails to see the necessary connection between love and knowledge. The capacity to love, enjoy, and tell others about a person is increased by greater knowledge of that person. Love and knowledge go hand in hand. Good lovers are students of the beloved. Knowledge of God is the goal of theology. Knowledge without devotion is cold, dead orthodoxy. Devotion without knowledge is irrational instability. But true knowledge of God includes understanding everything from his perspective. Theology is learning to think God’s thoughts after him. It is to learn what God loves and hates, and to see, hear, think, and act the way he does. Knowing how God thinks is the first step in becoming godly."
Alex's comment:
"God" is Good
When I first read this passage, I thought, "nonsense, how can limited human beings 'understanding everything from his [God's] perspective' and 'learning to think God's thoughts'?"
But a solution is possible: redefining "God."
I have been thinking recently of the possibility of understanding "God" as a creation of human beings through a psychological process of
isolating the ethical aspect of human nature,
extracting it out of the human and
projecting onto a single unified external entity, in order to make concrete an abstract concept (the ethical), and then
personify it and
inflate it to infinity (to hold as infinitely important the ethical). The human race does this for ease of identifying, glorifying and worshiping (thus needs the step of personification), and acting out the
ethical side of human nature to help maintain a
stable peaceful society.
I tried it on this passage. Pleasantly surprising, when I interpret this passage by replacing every word "God" with the term "Good," the passage suddenly makes sense and becomes very important in affirming and promoting human morality.
Reference: Michael Benedikt,
God is the Good We Do
Locked
