God is Bigger Than My American, Evangelical, PROTESTant, Reformed, Dogmatic Constructs

Some great stuff over at Mark Berry’s blog regarding the Blah event in Manchester. Mark was particularly spurred on by Pete Rollins, whom I was able to see in London just over a year ago. What I appreciate most about Rollins is his ability to articulate how much bigger God is than our theology or our attempts to describe him and conceive of him. As Mark and the discussion in his comments section points out, the constructs that we use to describe and explain who God is fall short. From what I can tell, Rollins points out that, rather than starting with the presupposition that we can get a complete and accurate understanding of God by observing His revelation of Himself in scripture, we must start with the fact that our human constructs will, by nature of God’s transcendence, be incomplete.

While this does not give us reason to abandon our attempts to know God and to understand Him better, it does shake our confidence in our theological constructs. I think it also allows mystery and a more appropriate sense of awe to enter back into the picture, where once our Enlightenment confidence (and, dare I say, pride?) in human reason seemed to mitigate the mystery and replace it with a smug satisfaction that we had God all figured out. Along with the recovery of that sense of mystery and awe, I think it more effectively gives way to the transformational power of theological truth because it isn't as likely to be domesticated and tamed by our human constructs.

Of course, there are a myriad of questions and implications that this raises within modern day evangelicalism, especially the more fundamental versions. It certainly broadens one’s list of negotiable doctrinal issues (the likes of which I won’t attempt to articulate or flesh out for myself here). However, it does not “water down” truth or conviction. Rather, I think it waters down human ego in the context of wrestling with and searching for a better grasp on theological truth.

More on Blah over at Jonny Baker’s blog, as well as Sanctus1, who hosted the event (I think?).

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