Absolute

This is a work in progress, words put onto screen in order to map out my thoughts. It is not complete, and I do not think it will be for some time. I write this to my “Senator” in the hopes of making it personal rather than merely theoretical. I hope that it is a help in some way and if it is a stumbling block, I hope it makes a discussion possible. Ultimately, I hope it leads to more healing than division, but I can see where it may seem angry or inhospitable. May grace abound from you as well as My Father, I ask humbly for your patience…

“Absolute truth” are two words we hear a lot when we turn on Evangelical Radio, or listen to an impassioned sermon decrying the destruction of society. This current destruction of society is of course due to another philosophical vocab word (or words, depending on your spell-checker): post-modernism. Pulpits across the land decry the denial of absolute truth in society and incite panic in those who may have just wanted to worship God in His sanctuary.

Postmodernity is not the focus of this post as there are far more learned and gifted writers who can articulate the postmodern issue as far as Christianity is concerned. In fact the whole idea of Absolute truth has been treated by many of those same folks. Read at your own peril, I suppose! Rather, I wanted to say a few things about the mis- and over-use of the idea of Absolute truth.

Talking about truth in this way is a dicey prospect. Are we talking about God’s existence being absolute? This is a real problem because it almost negates the role of faith (see Hebrews 11 for those biblically inclined). If He is truly absolute, that is, completely defined with all parameters known, then faith is superfluous. This is almost a reaction against many so-called philosophical proofs of God. Now, I recommend contemplating and thinking intelligently about God, but as a believer, I find it almost grotesque to use a word like Absolute when speaking about God. Paraphrasing a theologian friend of mine, absolute in this case means that we are able to “plot” God on some sort of graph. Now mind you, I am no mathematician, but there is simply not enough space on any TI-83 to graph the Glory of God. If I type |6| or |-6| we are expressing the absolute value of a numeral. Can we carry this idea over? |God|? Seems absurd. Although the mathematical analogy breaks down quickly upon careful scrutiny (as do all analogies when speaking about the Lord), Absolute is a definition that seems a little suspect to me when we who worship God understand Him as infinite, eternal, unlimited, and transcendent. May I add that not only is God all these things, he is fully available and with us at all times. And yet, not contradictory in His nature. I get confused as I write these things, you know?

It seems as if those who wield the Absolute truth dictum do so due to their disdain for the morality of culture at large. This tried and true method of sequestering the church from the morality of the outside world has been in use, well, since the earliest days of the church! Holiness, imparted to us through the work of the Jesus on the Cross and worked in us by the Holy Ghost makes us separate from the rest of the world. And yet, as Jesus showed us His great love for us, we are to reflect God’s holiness in the same way: caring for his creation and serving our fellow humanity and remaining humble before God. Still the church has always been fooled into creating moral fortresses for itself rather than relying on the only Fortress that can truly defend us. Morality outside of the church has always been crap. It will be crap. It will get to be worse crap. Morality inside the church should not be crap. And a lot of times it looks like crap. And guess what! There are plenty of good people outside of the church, regardless of the existence of an Absolute moral system or not!

My point is we cannot pretend as if we are superior and have this absolute moral mandate if we are not ourselves completely obedient, which will never happen. The absolute is irrelevant if we ourselves refuse to acknowledge it.

Now, I believe with every part of me that God exists, loves me, loves you as you read this, and died for both of us, even if that is not a comfortable place for one’s belief. I can relate that as truth. I will even go so far to say that God existing, etc is a fundamental reality of this universe and any other. This sounds a lot like Absolute truth, and I know it. It is a difference of semantics in a way. I rather prefer the more nuanced term of God’s meta-narrative. I just refuse to use this as an argument to use as a weapon against those who don’t believe, or as a way of defending a pet,or worse, convenient theology or hermeneutic against new ideas or detractors. That is my main complaint. In fact I would only like to use the words Absolute truth in regards to the one thing that seems fully real to me all the time, everyday:
God loves us. God loves me.
What else is there? What else should drive us? The Lord Almighty, the Author of Salvation, el Shaddai, YHWH, elohim, kurios, Christ, Holy One, Holy Spirit…
He has so many names. And they are all for us to know Him by and to call. That we know them and that the Godhead behind these names truly loves us (you and I!) is the ultimate mind-blow. This truth changes people, so much more so than rational dogma and posited science! Brothers and sisters in faith, may we believe and live out of this rule and none other, regardless of scholarly definition.

It’s not that I don’t believe in an Absolute, I just think we are talking about it in a way that does not reflect fully what He has done for us nor is the term sufficient for who He is.