I
started reading a book entitled Is Your
God Big Enough, Close Enough, You Enough? Jesus and the Three Faces of God (St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2017) some
time ago as spiritual reading-research. Author (Theologian-Pastor) Paul Smith’s approach
is novel and intriguing, especially the “You Enough” part. He invites us to
think of and relate with God keeping firmly in mind what he terms the “three
faces of God”: God as "big" (transcendence), "close"
(immanence), and even as "me myself" (radical immanence).
One
major assertion of Smith is that these are the very same ways in which Jesus
himself related with God. There are actually abundant references to this in the
gospels. Jesus (the historical person) related with God as transcendent Father,
as the One over all beings and things (e.g., Matthew 11:26 / Luke 10:21 “I
bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of
earth …); Jesus also related with God as a close intimate Being (e.g., John
17:21 “May they be one as you are in me and I am in you”). But then, Jesus also
spoke “as God!” (e.g., John 10:30, “The Father and I are one!”). Christians
have always taken that last statement to be a reference to a special ontological
divine status that Jesus had. Smith, on the other hand, seems to suggest that relating
to God as “one with you,” that is, “as you” is something each and every Christian
should also do, just like Jesus!
I
was particularly intrigued, as mentioned, by the assertion that the God we
believe in and relate with should also
be “you [or ‘me’] enough.” I never heard that we have to think and relate with
God as being “myself” because, in traditional Christian doctrine, that is
tantamount to idolatry! However, on careful consideration, I can say that this way
of thinking of and relating with God has actually many things to commend it. It
leads to other significant insightful epiphanies. Among these are: it can be
linked with the principle of "nonduality," the goal, we can argue, of
every and all genuine spiritual paths, that is, of the whole enterprise of spirituality!
It could also be taken as an effective way (the most radical and thorough one
actually!) to explain the Christian Trinitarian (or any religion’s concept of) God’s
immanence. A third insight I picked up is that it can positively account for
the phenomenon in the Gospel of John of Jesus being clearly "divinized."
That
third insight requires more comment. At some point in my life-journey, after I
clearly realized that the portrait of Jesus in John is by and large
non-historical and more a reflection of John and his community’s kind of (high
Christological) faith in Jesus, I have to admit that John became somewhat of a
disappointment for me, given my zeal to seek for the historical Jesus. There
are many voices regarding the pluses and minuses of “divinizing” Jesus. We can
no longer change Christian history; it is what it is. However, my interest in
the historical study of Jesus has made me realize that John does present a
challenge for people to see Jesus as a truly historical, flesh-and-blood first
century carpenter-turned-rabbi!
So
this suggestion that <the God we worship actually desires to be and should
be appropriated by us as radically immanent> was a breath of fresh air. From
this vantage point, John’s Gospel is more clearly revealed to be mystical and
John, a mystic - someone who saw that Jesus and God are linked in a nondual
way, hence, Jesus could also be called "One with the Father" (Jn
10:30).
However,
why was John so unloving to his enemies in certain parts of his gospel? Here we
can use the principle from Integral Theory that one can have a "mystical
experience," a "waking up" experience in any stage of growth.
The waking up experience is not a panacea. The person will interpret his/her
mystical experience in terms of the stage of growth in which s/he finds
herself. John, it can be said, was apparently still in an ethnocentric stage,
even though he had a deep and significant "waking up" experience
about the non-duality between YHWH and Jesus!
The
logic then is: If relating with God as “Me Enough” was true for Jesus, that is
also true for each one of us. We, like Jesus, can be "one with the Father
(Abba-God, in his terminology). In other words, God should also be “me enough!”
“Theosis”
In
order to show us that his assertion that we should relate with God as “me
enough” is a bona-fide Christian practice, Smith provides us with a veritably
amazing, eye-opening substantial compendium of references in Scripture and from
tradition to the explicit declaration that “we are gods” or that “our goal is
to be divinized.” I'm just amazed at the constant thread in the Christian
tradition, particularly in the Christian East (but also some data from the
West), which makes reference to the fact that one of the most important matters
in Christian existence and Christian anthropology is the notion that humans are
called to “become gods” - that is, deification, theosis! (Cf. pp. 183-96 of the
book).
It is impressive that there are a great many
scriptural passages that explicitly mention the teaching of deification,
theosis (transformation into divinity), apotheosis (deification = apo [change]
+ theosis = changing into divinity), and the like. This teaching has indeed
been unfortunately by and large neglected in the Western Christian tradition! Now, thanks to
Smith’s insights, I am convinced that theosis is a major teaching of
Christianity because of overwhelming evidence in the tradition! Thanks also to
the Eastern Christian tradition that has treasured this principle in a
particular way! (Cf. pp. 196-203)
