In this lesson, we covered the last source of theology (religious experience) from last week and then went on to how God is revealed to His creation. Using human religious experience to understand Christian theology is something that I guess most Christians do, but maybe the charismatic or AOG (Assemblies of God) churches rely on more? I know that I’ve definitely noticed how the “rah rah churches” (as I like to call them) use music to create an atmosphere and stir up the emotions, particularly during altar calls. I’ve come to distrust this as I see it as a kind of psychological manipulation.
I remember attending cell group leader training at one church and being taught how to select songs which move from fast to slow so that you can build up the atmosphere… yes, they really said that! “Build up the atmosphere”! It made me wonder, do we actually believe that the Holy Spirit can move people or are we feeling like we have to “help” Him – or worse, simulate His presence?
Anyway, to move on before I get stuck here and write 1,500 words on this alone, there’s also intellectual experience and religious experience, so not everything is about emotions and psychological experience. Religious experience includes divine encounters (such as the moment you are convicted by the Holy Spirit and decide to accept Christ) but also just simply trusting God’s promises and participating in acts of worship such as praying and singing worship songs. All this is not an issue for me but I feel that there’s a fine line between divine encounters and psychological experience because I think sometimes we want something so much that when we pray for it, it’s easy to misread the “signs” and interpret them to mean whatever we want them to mean.
When we moved on to the “revelation of God”, things turned so philosophical that I gave up on even writing notes at some point. The lecturer sends us his slides after every class, but I prefer my notes because I try to write things down in a way that I can understand them. He does go through the slides so fast that I can barely write anything down sometimes, but I still try to take things down because I can’t just sit there and listen – I would fall asleep 😂
We started with “natural theology” and what I think was a chronological progression through the views of natural theology through the ages? That is a question mark because I’m not sure lol. But first we were given Thomas Aquinas’ views on natural theology, then John Calvin’s views on it, then the concept of “God’s two Books” during the Renaissance in the 17th century, then the Eastern Orthodox view of natural theology, then Karl Barth & Emil Brunner’s opposing views of natural theology. So I looked it up: Aquinas lived from about 1224 to 1274; Calvin from 1509-1564; Barth from 1886-1968; Brunner from 1889-1966. That is chonological. But the Eastern Orthodoxy concept of natural theology pre-dates Aquinas (it was already being spread during the Byzantine era, as stated by Bradshaw (2020)) so I’m not sure why this was in the middle of all the others instead of being the first?
I think I kinda understand natural theology because Rom 1:19-20 states that God's “invisible attributes” (ESV) have been revealed and therefore can be perceived in all of His creation, in the natural world. So Aquinas' idea that creation carries God's fingerprints definitely is Scriptural. I don’t think Calvin's theory contradicts Aquinas; Calvin said that we can understand or know God as Creator by reflecting on His creation, as it reveals His divine wisdom & grace. So they’re all essentially saying the same thing, even the Eastern Orthodox dogma, except for Barth, who was against the idea that you could get to know God by studying His creation, and insisted that we can only rely on revelation from God through Christ (at least, that’s what I understood from the lesson). Everyone else seems to have accepted that you could have both sources of revelation. I would have liked to know how Barth interpreted or explained Rom 1:19-20.
After that we moved to “philosophy of religion” – this is where I stopped taking notes, and I didn’t really absorb anything until we moved on to “revelation of God”, where we got back to Barth and his concept of the three forms of the Word of God. But I was confused why we went from “philosophy of religion” to “revelation of God” – because isn't natural theology also part of the revelation of God, so shouldn't it be a sub-topic? Therefore this topic of “revelation of God” should come first, and “natural theology” come later as natural theology is a more specific form of revelation? (To be precise: revelation through God's creation)
I quite liked the “revelation of God” part, in particular Barth's concept of “three forms of the Word”. So we have the revealed Word (Christ), the written Word (Scripture), and the proclaimed Word (teachings and sermons which contextualise Scripture and make it relevant for today’s believers). All this makes sense to me; also his 3Rs concept that shows that each member of the Trinity is involved in revealing God to us: The Father starts the ball rolling by revealing Himself, then Jesus is sent as a concrete embodiment of God and a tangible revelation, not to mention He is the Word (Jn 1:1) so this revelation also includes the Bible, God’s Word. Lastly, the Holy Spirit dwells in us, helping us to understand God (Jn 16:13), and illuminates Scripture as well, making it come alive for us. The 3Rs are not a new concept to me, just that I had not heard them presented in such a neat package next to each other. They are called 3Rs because the Father is the Revealer, Jesus is the Revelation, and Holy Spirit is the Revealedness(!). From the point of view of an English teacher, I really think Barth was trying too hard with that last R...
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