Unmovability of God

A reader asks, "How can God create the Earth and express emotions?  If he is perfect would that not mean he is unchanging and the creation of the Earth and emotions would be changes to his perfect state?"

A good question, and one that theologians have been wrestling with for ages.  If God (Pictured here wrestling with Jacob from "The Brick Testament") is unchanging, doesn't that mean that he would also be completely unemotional?  If he's perfect and omniscient, doesn't that mean that everything happens completely according to his will and that therefore there's nothing for God to get upset or angry over?

It's a good question, but it makes several assumptions.  The first and most basic assumption is that God operates by human logical principles.  There is an assumption that God is bound by the same causation and effect that we are.  This can lead to some pretty bizarre trains of thought, such as one of my favorite passages from the comic science fiction novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - referring to the "Babel Fish," which is a fish you put in your ear, absorbs thought from outside, and translates it into brain waves so you can understand any language,

"it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the NON-existence of God. The argument goes like this: 'I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, `for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.' `But,' says Man, `The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.' `Oh dear,' says God, `I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly disappears in a puff of logic."

But God is actually the first cause, the prime mover, and is not necessarily bound by causation and certainly cannot be "boxed in" by human logic.

However, there is, IMHO,  a better reason for believing that God is not uncaring.  That would be the weight of all the world's religious scripture, which ascribes emotion and sometimes ignorance to God.  Of course, I'm more familiar with the Bible, so I'll work with that.  God shows emotion throughout the Bible,

"Then the LORD was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, " (1 Kings 11:9)
"How long, O LORD? Will you be angry forever?
        Will your jealous wrath burn like fire?" (Ps. 79:5)
"You have done all this with your own hand; you have done great good to Israel, and God is well pleased with it. May the Almighty Lord bless you forever!” (Judith 15:10)
"By faith Enoch was taken so that he did not experience death; and 'he was not found, because God had taken him.' For it was attested before he was taken away that 'he had pleased God.'" (Hebrews 11:5)

And God even seems to be genuinely surprised or mystified at some times in the Bible,

"They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, 'Where are you?'" (Gen. 3:8-9)
"Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.   He said to her, 'Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.' But she answered him, 'Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.'  Then he said to her, 'For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.' So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone. (Mark 7:26-30)

People will argue that in both these examples, God is only testing the other person.  Others will argue that since the second example is Jesus, this is a function of his humanity and not his Godhood.  Sure, whatever.  But the point is, examples exist throughout the Bible that attest that God does indeed have an aspect that we would call "emotional" and that at some times he exhibits what at least appears to be "ignorance."  How do we square this with the idea of an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent God?  Some will talk about "Kenosis," or emptying, especially in relation to Jesus.  God could choose to not know everything in order to protect free will, couldn't he?

Of course, maybe we should be asking why we want to fix this logical problem in the first place.  This quandary first appears when Hebrew religion encounters Greek thought.  Note that all the "Omni" words derive from Greek concepts transferred to Latin writing.  Hebrews never had any problem ascribing emotion to God.  It was only when Judaism and Christianity encountered pagan Greek philosophy that we started to try to mix Hebraic religion with philosophical categories.  This has led to a lot of good thought, but we shouldn't be surprised if they don't always mesh perfectly.  Aristotle and Moses are not of the same cloth.

I think the best way to deal with this is to hold it in tension.  We DO believe that God is the prime mover, the first cause, and is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent.  However, we need to recognize that these terms are human constructs and at their best feeble philosophical attempts to describe God.  We also believe from scripture that God is not immovable.  Scripture tells us that  God does care and does show what appears to be pleasure and anger. But we have to recognize that these are human categories and that they cannot contain all of God's emotional being.

In short, nothing of our human philosophy or religion can completely encompass God.  At best, all of our images give us snapshots - icons of God's nature.  Fixating on one often leads to heresy.  Worrying about the contradiction between two can be stimulating but not ultimately helpful.  God is a mystery whose being encompasses all of our icons and infinitely more than we can imagine.  The best way we can approach God is to meditate on that mystery, holding as many icons in tension as we can.

David+

Comments

[Ches]

I certainly agree with and am interested in many of the things you are saying here about holding in tension the various symbols and icons that we use to represent the divine. My question to you is in regards to that last paragraph and the role of orthodoxy in the kind of tension you describe.

Are you advocating that, when we encounter new symbolic representation of the divine (or rediscover old ones), we take an inclusive stance toward them all, adding their tension to our spiritual ruminations? Or do you believe that there is a litmus-test for icons and symbols for the divine that, when applied, will mark out definitive "wrongs" even if it is unable to give us specific "rights" due to the narrowness of our human capacities when attempting to behold the enormity of the divine? Or have you thought of another route through the issue?

It seems to me that in the case of the first, by taking the expansive and inclusive path, one is charging headlong away from orthodoxy and traditional practices of exclusivity, including "No one comes to the Father except through me." In the second case, by establishing an orthodox litmus-test that works toward the exlusionary, it seems that the ensuing sifting of symbols becomes exactly the kind of fixation you describe that leads toward its own brand of heresy. The orthodoxy itself becomes the icon and the focus on correctness boxes up the divine, destroying all notions of tension.

To me, the first seems more altruistic and vital, if perhaps over-simplified and potentially (if not explicitly) anti-institutional. The second seems more stable and respectful of tradition, although it carries a heavy potential slant toward heresy (itself a concept born of orthodoxy) and a strong bent toward exclusivity at the expense of humanity.

Thoughts?