A Different Way to Think

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Theology is thinking about God, and our thinking is in words. But those words are appropriate to creatures, and he is the creator. So we use words by “analogy” as they are given to us in Scripture, knowing they can fit the one who is “immortal, invisible, God only wise” only to a degree.

There are different kinds of analogies we might employ. We who pass away and die have being but not as the One Who Is.

Someone recently asked me what I wrote my dissertation about. The answer is the famous modern German theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg. Among the things he notably said is the following.  We have a future and so does God, but in an analogous way. You might say that God owns the future and that He is coming to us from it, namely His kingdom. To us the future is all uncertainty and doom. Do I understand wholly what I have just said? Hardly, but it does have a meaning, and it points to something true. And as “resurrection people” it reflects back on what our walk and are hope are too. 

Peace

+GRS

Posted by The Rt. Rev. George Sumner with

Complete the Race (II Timothy 4:17)

At the end of our vacation we find ourselves in Chicago for its Marathon weekend (the fastest, I have read this morning, perhaps because it is cool and relatively level). Marathons offer many good things. You can see world-class athletes from places like Ethiopia and Kenya. There is a feel of fiesta with signs by family members, getups by some for-fun runners, and food for sale.

But as I looked out my hotel window at 7:30 a.m., I watched the race of competitors who have lost legs or their use. Wheeling vehicles by arm for 26 miles means serious fitness and determination.

Those competitors were to me, this morning, a symbol of the Church too. For each is wounded. The larger family cheers them on. Each by grace has risen up to run the race. Ahead is the goal, the prize, the welcome home. We find the companionship of Jesus the Lord, there, and along the route too.

Amen.

GRS

 

   

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