Essays and addresses
'To make Christianity comprehensive in its design, to open its benefits to all’, Thomas Falconer
Contents
Even when I was an unbeliever, I found the key reason given for the dating of the gospels to the post-70 AD period doubtful. The scholarship seemed dubious. It relied on an understanding of a prophecy of Jesus predicting the destruction of the Temple being fulfilled in that year, yet ignored apparent evidence of prophecy that was, embarrassingly for the early church, unfulfilled. Prophesying the destruction of the Temple in the context of the barely contained hostility between Roman occupiers and the Jewish people, especially in the area of religion, would not have been remarkable. Nevertheless, it seemed a fixed and unshakeable tenet of mainstream Bible scholarship that the gospels were written after AD 70 with only a few works, such as Bishop John Robinson’s Redating the New Testament raising a scholarly challenge. However, Richard Bauckham’s book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, winner of the 2009 Michael Ramsey Theology Prize makes a strong case for pushing the dating of the gospels back to not very long after the death of Jesus, and for a greater measure of authenticity. While this reappraisal of the historical reliability of the gospels seems a problem for those who have constructed a sort of Christ-myth for their own theological ends, it should be no problem whatsoever for Christians more interested in the real man. We ought to welcome it. I think we can be rather more confident that the figure we encounter in the pages of the gospels is a real one.
We can also make more sense of Paul’s letters. For decades it has been supposed that his letters predate the gospels by over 20 or 30 years. This is not now clear. It has been noted that his letters contain virtually no reference to an earthly Jesus. About the life, the deeds, the words of Jesus of Nazareth, he seems to know virtually nothing and arguments by orthodox scholars to argue this is because he didn’t need to cite references are unconvincing. In general, what Paul’s letters refer to is fulfilment of prophecy in an abstract, spiritualised form with Jesus as a vague ‘Lord’. There are references to scripture, but scripture to Paul means the books of the Jewish Bible. By his own admission, his knowledge of Christianity was derived not from other people (except presumably those of the church he had persecuted) but from a vision. He writes, ‘I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ’.
This suggests one reason for the gospels being written was as an attempt to retrieve the real Jesus, who people remembered, from this Grecophile, ex-Pharisee theologising from the Bible, focusing increasingly on Gentiles and out of touch with, not to say ignorant of, the founder of the movement and his priorities. If so, they are an attempt to reclaim the recurrent theme of the immediacy of the Kingdom of God from the vaguely sketched, interior, personal Christ preached by Paul.
We can also make more sense of Paul’s letters. For decades it has been supposed that his letters predate the gospels by over 20 or 30 years. This is not now clear. It has been noted that his letters contain virtually no reference to an earthly Jesus. About the life, the deeds, the words of Jesus of Nazareth, he seems to know virtually nothing and arguments by orthodox scholars to argue this is because he didn’t need to cite references are unconvincing. In general, what Paul’s letters refer to is fulfilment of prophecy in an abstract, spiritualised form with Jesus as a vague ‘Lord’. There are references to scripture, but scripture to Paul means the books of the Jewish Bible. By his own admission, his knowledge of Christianity was derived not from other people (except presumably those of the church he had persecuted) but from a vision. He writes, ‘I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ’.
This suggests one reason for the gospels being written was as an attempt to retrieve the real Jesus, who people remembered, from this Grecophile, ex-Pharisee theologising from the Bible, focusing increasingly on Gentiles and out of touch with, not to say ignorant of, the founder of the movement and his priorities. If so, they are an attempt to reclaim the recurrent theme of the immediacy of the Kingdom of God from the vaguely sketched, interior, personal Christ preached by Paul.
By Roger P. Booth
A stumbling- block to following Jesus may be experienced by some in the apparent centrality in mainstream Christianity of the doctrine of atonement. This doctrine is illustrated in John the Baptist’s calling of Jesus “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”. (John 1.29). The reference to the lamb recalls the transference to a lamb of the sins of the people on the Jewish Day of Atonement. Thus the effect of Jesus’ death is explained as his taking away the sin of the world by suffering his own death to free people generally from bearing punishment for their sins.
The view that Jesus believed that part of the purpose of his death was to suffer in himself the punishment due to humanity generally for its sins, is primarily supported by his sayings at Mark 10,45 and at the Last Supper. At 10,45 Jesus is reported to say “…the Son of man came….to give his life as a ransom for many.” (in Aramaic ‘many’ in this context could mean people generally). The ‘ransom’ paid with the death of one man is there intended to liberate the rest of humanity from paying for their sins. Matthew copies the saying at his 20,28 but Luke omits it. Some scholars have doubted that Jesus uttered these words, arguing that they were a later addition.
At the Last Supper Jesus is reported by Paul as having said of the bread “This is my body which is (broken ) for you.” (1 Corinthians 11,24), and in Mark (14,24) Jesus is reported to refer to the wine as “my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many.” The covenant here may be the new covenant mentioned in Jeremiah which provides that God “will forgive their iniquity and remember their sins no more.” (31.31,34). Furthermore, Jesus may have seen himself as the ‘suffering servant’ of whom Isaiah says “he bore the sin of many” (53,12).
Standing against this evidence that Jesus believed he was to suffer for the sins of the people, is the evidence of his teaching that people would in fact suffer for their sins themselves. At Mark 9.43 Jesus warns that it is better to enter life maimed than “with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.” In the parable of Dives and Lazarus (Luke 16.19-31) the rich man is described as being in Hades in torment from the flame. In another parable, the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25.31-46), the ‘goats’ who did not help the needy, are banished to the eternal fire.
However, the two views are not inconsistent - Jesus did teach that people would suffer for their sins, but may have realised later that it was the will of God that he should bear the punishment instead. In my view the balance of evidence indicates that Jesus did believe that his death would take away sins, but then the question arises - was his belief mistaken? The prophets of Israel (e.g. Isaiah at 1.18-20) and Jesus himself had already stressed God’s willingness to forgive on genuine repentance (e.g. the parable of the Prodigal Son and the Lord’s Prayer). Indeed, God had forgiven many penitents before the time of Jesus, as in the case of David (2 Samuel 12.13). It is therefore arguable that it was unnecessary for Jesus to die to effect the forgiveness of the sins of the people.
Whatever be the nature of his divine status, Jesus was fully human, and so was capable of making mistakes (e.g. his teaching that the external Kingdom of God would arrive very soon - Matthew 10.23).
Perhaps the strongest evidence favouring a mistake by Jesus over the consequence of his death is that Yahweh is a loving and just God, and it is entirely inconsistent with this character that he should want an innocent man to be killed before he would forego punishment of the guilty. Hastings Rashdall wrote “no doctrine of the atonement can be genuinely Christian which contradicts a feature of that teaching so fundamental as the truth that God is a loving Father who will pardon sin upon the sole condition of true repentance.”
So what was the benefit conferred on the world by Jesus’ death - by his body “(broken) for you”? I suggest that Jesus thereby gave to mankind the supreme example of obedience to the will of God in that he suffered death because he thought (albeit mistakenly) that it was his Father’s wish. At Mark 14.36 Jesus is reported to pray “Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee; remove this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what thou wilt.” That example has doubtless enabled many to convert from sin and pursue a changed life-style based on his teaching. Jesus’ death did not literally ‘take away the sin of the world’ because sin has been as evident in the world since his death as it was before. But his death suffered in obedience provided the inspiration which can encourage a person to overcome temptation to sin. Thus the aspirant Christian may find himself able to follow Jesus untroubled by the conceptual difficulties surrounding the traditional doctrine of the atonement.
April 2011
A stumbling- block to following Jesus may be experienced by some in the apparent centrality in mainstream Christianity of the doctrine of atonement. This doctrine is illustrated in John the Baptist’s calling of Jesus “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”. (John 1.29). The reference to the lamb recalls the transference to a lamb of the sins of the people on the Jewish Day of Atonement. Thus the effect of Jesus’ death is explained as his taking away the sin of the world by suffering his own death to free people generally from bearing punishment for their sins.
The view that Jesus believed that part of the purpose of his death was to suffer in himself the punishment due to humanity generally for its sins, is primarily supported by his sayings at Mark 10,45 and at the Last Supper. At 10,45 Jesus is reported to say “…the Son of man came….to give his life as a ransom for many.” (in Aramaic ‘many’ in this context could mean people generally). The ‘ransom’ paid with the death of one man is there intended to liberate the rest of humanity from paying for their sins. Matthew copies the saying at his 20,28 but Luke omits it. Some scholars have doubted that Jesus uttered these words, arguing that they were a later addition.
At the Last Supper Jesus is reported by Paul as having said of the bread “This is my body which is (broken ) for you.” (1 Corinthians 11,24), and in Mark (14,24) Jesus is reported to refer to the wine as “my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many.” The covenant here may be the new covenant mentioned in Jeremiah which provides that God “will forgive their iniquity and remember their sins no more.” (31.31,34). Furthermore, Jesus may have seen himself as the ‘suffering servant’ of whom Isaiah says “he bore the sin of many” (53,12).
Standing against this evidence that Jesus believed he was to suffer for the sins of the people, is the evidence of his teaching that people would in fact suffer for their sins themselves. At Mark 9.43 Jesus warns that it is better to enter life maimed than “with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.” In the parable of Dives and Lazarus (Luke 16.19-31) the rich man is described as being in Hades in torment from the flame. In another parable, the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25.31-46), the ‘goats’ who did not help the needy, are banished to the eternal fire.
However, the two views are not inconsistent - Jesus did teach that people would suffer for their sins, but may have realised later that it was the will of God that he should bear the punishment instead. In my view the balance of evidence indicates that Jesus did believe that his death would take away sins, but then the question arises - was his belief mistaken? The prophets of Israel (e.g. Isaiah at 1.18-20) and Jesus himself had already stressed God’s willingness to forgive on genuine repentance (e.g. the parable of the Prodigal Son and the Lord’s Prayer). Indeed, God had forgiven many penitents before the time of Jesus, as in the case of David (2 Samuel 12.13). It is therefore arguable that it was unnecessary for Jesus to die to effect the forgiveness of the sins of the people.
Whatever be the nature of his divine status, Jesus was fully human, and so was capable of making mistakes (e.g. his teaching that the external Kingdom of God would arrive very soon - Matthew 10.23).
Perhaps the strongest evidence favouring a mistake by Jesus over the consequence of his death is that Yahweh is a loving and just God, and it is entirely inconsistent with this character that he should want an innocent man to be killed before he would forego punishment of the guilty. Hastings Rashdall wrote “no doctrine of the atonement can be genuinely Christian which contradicts a feature of that teaching so fundamental as the truth that God is a loving Father who will pardon sin upon the sole condition of true repentance.”
So what was the benefit conferred on the world by Jesus’ death - by his body “(broken) for you”? I suggest that Jesus thereby gave to mankind the supreme example of obedience to the will of God in that he suffered death because he thought (albeit mistakenly) that it was his Father’s wish. At Mark 14.36 Jesus is reported to pray “Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee; remove this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what thou wilt.” That example has doubtless enabled many to convert from sin and pursue a changed life-style based on his teaching. Jesus’ death did not literally ‘take away the sin of the world’ because sin has been as evident in the world since his death as it was before. But his death suffered in obedience provided the inspiration which can encourage a person to overcome temptation to sin. Thus the aspirant Christian may find himself able to follow Jesus untroubled by the conceptual difficulties surrounding the traditional doctrine of the atonement.
April 2011
by Tim Powell
It is a common characteristic of anyone interested in a particular activity that they assume this activity to be important and its importance evident to anyone with any sense. This applies as much, indeed perhaps more, to religious activity - of which this website is an example - as it does to a hobby such as supporting a football club. It is incumbent on me therefore to explain why the Free Christian tradition which this website promotes and to which I am committed should matter to anyone else.
Let us begin by admitting that as a formal entity the Christian religion is of marginal importance in modern Britain. The impressive intellectual framework and material structure built up over the centuries is now irrelevant in the lives of the majority of the population. An omnipotent, omniscient God, for example, appears a hypothesis no longer required, and in some contexts (the catastrophic floods in Pakistan, for example) life seems to be more easily explicable with God removed from the equation.
This does not mean that Christian precepts no longer have force. In many ways (care for the disadvantaged, protection for the vulnerable, measures against discrimination) our society is more truly Christian than it has ever been. Yet without the intellectual framework to explain and sustain them, can these precepts, which have guided so many developments in our society survive, or will they succumb to more selfish and brutal, market-friendly, heathen, forces?
I believe that it is in this context that Free Christianity comes into its own. It is Christianity not as a set of beliefs but as an allegiance and a way of life. It offers a view of Jesus Christ that can command devotion and a vision of a future for humanity that can transform lives, without requiring adherence to doctrines that require a leap of faith and subordination of judgement that many see as unjustified and more see as pointless.
It is disturbing how often those in mainstream Churches are at pains to undermine the idea that Christ’s teachings are comprehensible, let alone simple. The historical doctrines and institutional tutelage of the Church, even liberals among them maintain, are required to understand him and his significance. This attitude, to me, is wrong and hinders the cause to which they plead allegiance. Far from spreading the Good News, it renders it impotent.
This does not mean Free Christianity requires the abandonment of traditional theological concepts or liturgical richness; it means they are not to be required or presented as the core of Christianity. They are embellishments, some of which may be said to have aided understanding or met psychological needs.
So Free Christianity is not ecumenism. It is not broad churchmanship at its widest. Useful exercises within the Church they may be, but in the wider context they amount to moving together the deckchairs on the Titanic. Free Christianity is not a matter of Churches but of Christians.
It is a common characteristic of anyone interested in a particular activity that they assume this activity to be important and its importance evident to anyone with any sense. This applies as much, indeed perhaps more, to religious activity - of which this website is an example - as it does to a hobby such as supporting a football club. It is incumbent on me therefore to explain why the Free Christian tradition which this website promotes and to which I am committed should matter to anyone else.
Let us begin by admitting that as a formal entity the Christian religion is of marginal importance in modern Britain. The impressive intellectual framework and material structure built up over the centuries is now irrelevant in the lives of the majority of the population. An omnipotent, omniscient God, for example, appears a hypothesis no longer required, and in some contexts (the catastrophic floods in Pakistan, for example) life seems to be more easily explicable with God removed from the equation.
This does not mean that Christian precepts no longer have force. In many ways (care for the disadvantaged, protection for the vulnerable, measures against discrimination) our society is more truly Christian than it has ever been. Yet without the intellectual framework to explain and sustain them, can these precepts, which have guided so many developments in our society survive, or will they succumb to more selfish and brutal, market-friendly, heathen, forces?
I believe that it is in this context that Free Christianity comes into its own. It is Christianity not as a set of beliefs but as an allegiance and a way of life. It offers a view of Jesus Christ that can command devotion and a vision of a future for humanity that can transform lives, without requiring adherence to doctrines that require a leap of faith and subordination of judgement that many see as unjustified and more see as pointless.
It is disturbing how often those in mainstream Churches are at pains to undermine the idea that Christ’s teachings are comprehensible, let alone simple. The historical doctrines and institutional tutelage of the Church, even liberals among them maintain, are required to understand him and his significance. This attitude, to me, is wrong and hinders the cause to which they plead allegiance. Far from spreading the Good News, it renders it impotent.
This does not mean Free Christianity requires the abandonment of traditional theological concepts or liturgical richness; it means they are not to be required or presented as the core of Christianity. They are embellishments, some of which may be said to have aided understanding or met psychological needs.
So Free Christianity is not ecumenism. It is not broad churchmanship at its widest. Useful exercises within the Church they may be, but in the wider context they amount to moving together the deckchairs on the Titanic. Free Christianity is not a matter of Churches but of Christians.
In this splendid and readable book Professor Evans examines majority Christian beliefs, looking at how they originated and developed, and why. As she explains, ‘This book is mainly concerned with Christian beliefs and the way they have been pummelled into shape in the debates of history and emerged into the modern world’. Professor Evans considers what the Church has taught about God and Jesus, sin, atonement and the afterlife. Chapter headings include ‘What is reasonable?’, ‘Godness’, God’s in his heaven; all’s right with the world?’ and ‘A nice place to be?’ No fewer than three chapters look at beliefs about an afterlife and since I cannot remember a time I ever believed in life after death, I found myself surprised to be reminded of how central it is to the Church.
This book is not, however, simply a history of Christian theology - the for Today in the book’s title is important. In tracing the tortuous route that took the Church from the Jesus of Nazareth to the Christ of theology, the questions to which the author returns are, ‘What went wrong, and has the profound simplicity of the original idea [of Christianity] been compromised or even lost? Can it be recaptured?’
So, what did go wrong?
Readers will be familiar with the passage in Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians in which he declared, ‘Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified; a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles’. From an early date theologians decided that this wouldn’t do; they had no wish to look foolish. Thus the history of early Christian theology emerges as a study in how faith in God as revealed through the crucified Jesus of Nazareth was made acceptable to Greek philosophy. This meant that from an early date the message of Jesus was subordinated to the wisdom of the day. The edifice that is the doctrinal orthodoxy of the mainstream Church was erected largely to prove the intellectual respectability of Christian belief to pagan philosophers. This structure may have conformed to the philosophical ‘building regulations’ of the day but its fabric nowadays looks shaky.
Many Christians have suggested some dismantling is required, and this perspective is one to which Professor Evans appears sympathetic. She observes, ‘To get a sense of the authentic original quality of Christianity against which to measure all this, we cannot do better than ask what it was that the early Christians found so attractive in Jesus' teaching. The main thing was that it was liberating. It “worked” as a way of living. Socially it encouraged gentleness, kindness, making up quarrels and repairing misunderstandings straight away. It turned its back on the pursuit of power and wealth and exploitation of the disadvantaged. Christians gave to the poor and supported the weak and sick and visited those in prison. To the individual believer the freedom offered opened up another dimension of experience…a sense of life as moving forward towards a “perfecting” which was also a completion. It took away anxiety and guilt in a moment and offered a way of living supple and flexible, in which the believer could balance unwelcome moods and events and accept and forgive mistakes and misbehaviours. It gave the believer a place in the universe...all these features of this practical and aspiring way of life and belief, with its attractive simplicity, are to be found in the New Testament account and met in living people today’.
Yet it should not be thought that Professor Evans’ attitude is hostile or unsympathetic to mainstream Christian dogmas. She understands them and tries to explain why they have arisen and the reasoning behind them. At the same time she realises that they cannot endure as they are. In this sense her book is nothing less than a call for a new reformation.
In addressing her final question, ‘Can it be recaptured?’, Professor Evans offers us an optimistic conclusion. She observes, ‘Jesus said that things might most reliably be known for what they were by examining their fruits. The opening out of belief into a general loving hopefulness seems, as far as it is now possible to see, authentically Christlike. The believer who is honest with himself or herself in deciding what to believe, who tests it inwardly against a personal sense of “rightness” and “reasonableness” as well as outwardly as a practical way of living, is unlikely to go far wrong. And the future is wide open to unimaginably greater hope’. And I say ‘Amen’ to that.
This book is not, however, simply a history of Christian theology - the for Today in the book’s title is important. In tracing the tortuous route that took the Church from the Jesus of Nazareth to the Christ of theology, the questions to which the author returns are, ‘What went wrong, and has the profound simplicity of the original idea [of Christianity] been compromised or even lost? Can it be recaptured?’
So, what did go wrong?
Readers will be familiar with the passage in Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians in which he declared, ‘Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified; a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles’. From an early date theologians decided that this wouldn’t do; they had no wish to look foolish. Thus the history of early Christian theology emerges as a study in how faith in God as revealed through the crucified Jesus of Nazareth was made acceptable to Greek philosophy. This meant that from an early date the message of Jesus was subordinated to the wisdom of the day. The edifice that is the doctrinal orthodoxy of the mainstream Church was erected largely to prove the intellectual respectability of Christian belief to pagan philosophers. This structure may have conformed to the philosophical ‘building regulations’ of the day but its fabric nowadays looks shaky.
Many Christians have suggested some dismantling is required, and this perspective is one to which Professor Evans appears sympathetic. She observes, ‘To get a sense of the authentic original quality of Christianity against which to measure all this, we cannot do better than ask what it was that the early Christians found so attractive in Jesus' teaching. The main thing was that it was liberating. It “worked” as a way of living. Socially it encouraged gentleness, kindness, making up quarrels and repairing misunderstandings straight away. It turned its back on the pursuit of power and wealth and exploitation of the disadvantaged. Christians gave to the poor and supported the weak and sick and visited those in prison. To the individual believer the freedom offered opened up another dimension of experience…a sense of life as moving forward towards a “perfecting” which was also a completion. It took away anxiety and guilt in a moment and offered a way of living supple and flexible, in which the believer could balance unwelcome moods and events and accept and forgive mistakes and misbehaviours. It gave the believer a place in the universe...all these features of this practical and aspiring way of life and belief, with its attractive simplicity, are to be found in the New Testament account and met in living people today’.
Yet it should not be thought that Professor Evans’ attitude is hostile or unsympathetic to mainstream Christian dogmas. She understands them and tries to explain why they have arisen and the reasoning behind them. At the same time she realises that they cannot endure as they are. In this sense her book is nothing less than a call for a new reformation.
In addressing her final question, ‘Can it be recaptured?’, Professor Evans offers us an optimistic conclusion. She observes, ‘Jesus said that things might most reliably be known for what they were by examining their fruits. The opening out of belief into a general loving hopefulness seems, as far as it is now possible to see, authentically Christlike. The believer who is honest with himself or herself in deciding what to believe, who tests it inwardly against a personal sense of “rightness” and “reasonableness” as well as outwardly as a practical way of living, is unlikely to go far wrong. And the future is wide open to unimaginably greater hope’. And I say ‘Amen’ to that.
The Chapel in the Garden, Bridport, 2007
In Shiraz, in southern Iran, there are remains of an ancient Christian church. Carved in the stone over the doorway is this poem.
Where Jesus lives, the great-hearted gather.
We are a door that’s never locked.
If you are suffering any kind of pain,
stay near this door. Open it.
These are words not of any Christian saint but of the thirteenth century Islamic mystic Jelaluddin Rumi, born in what is today Afghanistan.
The title of this sermon, the annual Christian Compass sermon, is taken from Mark chapter 16 verse 15. ‘And he said to his followers, Go into all the world, and preach the good news to the whole creation’. Go into all the world, and preach the good news to the whole creation.
Christianity is the largest and geographically most widespread world religion. It has been an evangelical missionary religion according to which when Jesus said ‘make disciples of all nations’ (Matt 28.19) and ‘No-one comes to the Father except through me’ (John 14.6), he meant converting people from their existing faith to a new religion, an exclusive religion with a complex and, in fact, incomprehensible doctrine to which you have fully to subscribe in order to receive salvation.
Yet against this exclusive interpretation, Jesus has long been a figure of fascination to many who are not Christians. What I want to do this morning is open up another way of seeing Jesus. Not as the founder of the world’s largest religion but as a holy one of God who taught a way to understanding God that is open to all. I want to talk about an alternative view of being a Christian, a disciple of Jesus, that I think is truer.
Islam acknowledges Jesus as one of the great prophets, indeed there are references in the Qu’ran to him as the word of God. According to the Qur’an, a Muslim cannot be a Muslim if he rejects Jesus; and Jesus is regarded as one of the five greatest prophets of history, the others being Noah, Moses, Abraham and Muhammad.
Gandhi, a Hindu, said ‘Jesus occupies in my heart the place of one of the greatest teachers who have had a considerable influence on my life. I shall say to the Hindus that your life will be incomplete unless you reverentially study the teachings of Jesus... Make this world the kingdom of God and his righteousness and everything will be added unto you. I tell you that if you will understand, appreciate, and act up to the spirit of this passage, you won't need to know what place Jesus or any other teacher occupies in your heart’.
Swami Akhilananda (1894-1962), whose mission was to the West, interpreted Jesus Christ as one who is already an integral part of Hinduism. He said that the goal of Hindu dharma is self-realisation and Jesus Christ is the supreme example of the ‘soul which is totally illumined’.
It is interesting how readily Buddhists, religiously non-theistic, and Christians have so often found common ground. Here are some words of Ajahn Candasiri, a senior nun at the Amaravati Buddhist Monastery in Hertfordshire.
‘After re-reading some of the gospel stories, I would like to meet Jesus again with fresh eyes, and to examine the extent to which he and the Buddha were in fact offering the same guidance, even though the traditions of Christianity and Buddhism can appear in the surface to be rather different.
I have the impression that he is not particularly interested in converting people to his way of thinking. Rather it's a case of teaching those who are ready; interestingly, often the people who seek him out come from quite depraved or lowly backgrounds. It is quite clear to Jesus that purity is a quality of the heart, not something that comes from unquestioning adherence to a set of rules’.
I could give many other examples. So we have in Jesus a figure who has found a place in the hearts of adherents to other world faiths.
I haven’t mentioned Judaism. Jesus was of course, a Jew. There are Jews who regard Jesus as a great teacher in the Jewish tradition. Unfortunately the initial persecution of early Christians and then the longer story of Christian mistreatment of Jews soured the relationship and it is only comparatively recently that the implications of the ‘Jewishness’ of Jesus have been taken seriously by Christians.
I don’t think that any reputable theologian today would argue that either Jesus himself or his disciples had any intention of founding a new religion to rival Judaism. They were Jews and wanted to reform, yes, radically reform, Judaism in line with their interpretation of scripture. It is a matter of some debate, we must acknowledge, whether Jesus even wanted his message to be spread beyond the Jewish people. Remember his words to his disciples, when first sending them out. They were to go to the lost children of Israel, and he specifically instructed them not to go the cities of the Samaritans or to the Gentiles.
However, it’s not that simple. Jesus demonstrated an understanding that transcended religious allegiance – he remarked of the Centurion that never before had he encountered such faith. His parable of the Good Samaritan depicts a Samaritan as being more obedient to the commandment of God than pious Jews.
Perhaps persuaded by his encounters with non-Jews, Jesus did in fact take his mission beyond them. Chapter four of the gospel of John records, following his encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well,
‘From that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all the things that I have done.” So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. Many more believed because of His word; and they were saying to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Saviour of the world.” ’
So it seems possible that Jesus did in fact urge his followers to take his word beyond Israel, as words ascribed to Jesus from after his resurrection suggest. I quoted Mark earlier, similarly Luke 24.27 records that Jesus instructed his followers that repentance and remission of sins should be preached to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
We are used now to the idea that religions are like political parties. If you support the Conservatives you cannot at the same time support the Liberal Democrats. Even if particular policies are virtually identical, you claim your party has the idea first, or has it more accurately costed or whatever. In religion therefore, if you are a Buddhist, you cannot be a Christian. It’s an either/or. This is not an attitude that would have been held by the majority of the population in the Roman world of 30AD. This idea of exclusivity was an idea that the Jews had developed about their own religion. It was one of their great strengths in maintaining their identity as a small nation occupying strategically important territory in a frequently hostile world. Theirs was a single jealous God who had no rivals.
How does Jesus fit into this? Was he exclusive - salvation was not only from the Jews it was for the Jews - or was he inclusive? We know that Jesus had little patience for barriers, but he was nevertheless a Jew, with all that meant in terms of identity.
The position held by this Chapel and by the Christian Compass is that Jesus’s message, his insight into God’s plan for humanity, is one above all of simplicity. It is so simple that little children can follow it, yet so profound that the learned could not comprehend it. It is expressed in the two great commandments, expounded in the sermon on the mount, illustrated in his parables and manifested in his life and death. And, as Jesus says, though he taught as one with authority, it is not an original revelation of God’s word. How perverse would that make God? No, the eternal God does not change the rules and Jesus’s teachings are in that sense nothing new. He calls for a return to the way of love and repentance. The Jews are special insofar as they ought to know this, having been specially selected by God to receive his word, but the way itself is for all. It does not have anything in it that is specially or uniquely applicable to Jews.
Do we then go along with those who say that they follow the religion of Jesus rather than the religion about Jesus?
I don’t think it’s that straightforward. Jesus did do three things that mean we cannot regard simply him as a prophet reminding people of God’s commandments. Firstly, he identified himself very closely with God the Father. So closely that Jews at the time seem to have wondered just who he was claiming to be. He maintained that messianic prophecies were fulfilled in him and that he had a special knowledge of his Father’s will. Secondly, he gathered to him a body of followers to whom he imparted particular knowledge and entrusted particular tasks including that of spreading the good news. Thirdly, he gave instructions as to how he was to be memorialised. He established that the drinking of wine and eating of bread were a way not simply of preserving his memory but a means to establish a spiritual communion with him after his death. These are not the actions of a simple spiritual teacher.
So no, we cannot easily talk about the religion of Jesus as opposed to the religion about Jesus. We do still have to ask him, after two thousand years, who are you?
We come back to Jesus the Jew. From the start of his ministry he identified himself with the prophecies of Isaiah. I believe he was consciously taking on the mantle of the suffering servant, God’s chosen one, of Isaiah and through this reconciling God and humanity in himself. This means that Jesus did have a particular view of his relationship to God. Paradoxically this view was both highly exalted - he had a uniquely close relation to the Father - and yet was one which displayed the utmost humility in that he pointed us to God, not himself. He reminded us that it was love of God and love of others that is indeed all the law and all the prophets, but then went further. By opening himself utterly to God he became the definitive example of this love personified. Moreover, as we heard in the first reading, the prophetic vision of Isaiah is one that sees the love of God taken beyond the restoration of Israel, to encompass all nations of the world, the beginning of the establishment of the kingdom of God.
Where does this get us?
There is indeed good reason why the early Church came to see Jesus as the Logos, the word of God made flesh. Nevertheless, I would maintain that subscription to a doctrine that insists the only acceptable notion of Christ is as a component part of a Trinity of Deity is no more true to Jesus than the rigorous observation of regulations of the Pharisees. I am arguing that we need a way of seeing Jesus that is open to all. I believe this is a truer (and more effective) way of spreading the good news that Jesus brought than insisting on conversion and adherence to a creed.
Yet as we saw from the sentiments expressed by followers of other religions, it is not only the message of Jesus that attracts - it is a message you can find expressed in other faiths – it is also the person of Jesus.
What is it about him that remains so magnetic, two thousand years later?
What is it about him that makes so many accept follow him as their lord and his teachings as their rule for life regardless that they offer no path to fame or fortune?
I believe it is because he brought God so close to us. In his life, teaching and healing, in his person in fact, he made God’s love so accessible and God’s word so clear to us. He demonstrated that the kingdom of God was within the grasp of the poor, the oppressed and the sinful.
Unfortunately his learned and pious contemporaries, who thought God’s favour was confined to the deserving, couldn’t understand it, couldn’t believe it and certainly couldn’t allow it, and killed him for it. And today so many learned and pious Christians insist on surrounding Jesus with rituals and rules, dogmas and doctrines to keep his message of hope exclusively to faithful members of the Christian club.
But what of the words, ‘No-one comes to the Father except through me’. Do they not indicate that salvation is limited to Christians? No, of course they don’t. They refer back to Isaiah’s prophecy that the suffering servant will be exalted by God and will assume a role in judgement (Isaiah 42.1-4). And let us remember that Jesus also says that not all those who say, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of God (Matthew 7.21). No, it is precisely because Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, that he should be for all who love God and love others, regardless of religious adherence. It is not conditional. Jesus does not say, I am the way, and the truth and the light if you say you believe that I am the second person of the Trinity. He does say, talking to his disciples, that if you trust me and what I have said and done, then God is with you as He is with me.
Jesus wanted all men and women to hear his Father’s word and learn of his Father’s love. He taught this and he lived this. So this means that everything that makes for separation, every piece of ritual, every piece of dogma, everything that makes it harder for non-Christians to find the message of Jesus is not merely regrettable, it is to be abolished. Does this sound radical? Yes, it does. But is it any more radical than the words Jesus spoke?
Of course, the institution that is Christianity exists and Jesus Christ is its heart. It has accomplished great and noble things and the Christian Compass - and this Chapel of course - come from within its tradition. Yet I believe the life and teaching of Jesus necessarily take us beyond the traditional boundaries of what is thought of as the Christian faith. I believe that what we are called to do is to take Jesus beyond Christianity, to go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. To tell men and women of all religions and nations - Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jew, even Christian – the good news that Jesus showed us that we can be sure that all people who try to love God and love others are blessed by the Lord.
Tim Powell, October 2007
Where Jesus lives, the great-hearted gather.
We are a door that’s never locked.
If you are suffering any kind of pain,
stay near this door. Open it.
These are words not of any Christian saint but of the thirteenth century Islamic mystic Jelaluddin Rumi, born in what is today Afghanistan.
The title of this sermon, the annual Christian Compass sermon, is taken from Mark chapter 16 verse 15. ‘And he said to his followers, Go into all the world, and preach the good news to the whole creation’. Go into all the world, and preach the good news to the whole creation.
Christianity is the largest and geographically most widespread world religion. It has been an evangelical missionary religion according to which when Jesus said ‘make disciples of all nations’ (Matt 28.19) and ‘No-one comes to the Father except through me’ (John 14.6), he meant converting people from their existing faith to a new religion, an exclusive religion with a complex and, in fact, incomprehensible doctrine to which you have fully to subscribe in order to receive salvation.
Yet against this exclusive interpretation, Jesus has long been a figure of fascination to many who are not Christians. What I want to do this morning is open up another way of seeing Jesus. Not as the founder of the world’s largest religion but as a holy one of God who taught a way to understanding God that is open to all. I want to talk about an alternative view of being a Christian, a disciple of Jesus, that I think is truer.
Islam acknowledges Jesus as one of the great prophets, indeed there are references in the Qu’ran to him as the word of God. According to the Qur’an, a Muslim cannot be a Muslim if he rejects Jesus; and Jesus is regarded as one of the five greatest prophets of history, the others being Noah, Moses, Abraham and Muhammad.
Gandhi, a Hindu, said ‘Jesus occupies in my heart the place of one of the greatest teachers who have had a considerable influence on my life. I shall say to the Hindus that your life will be incomplete unless you reverentially study the teachings of Jesus... Make this world the kingdom of God and his righteousness and everything will be added unto you. I tell you that if you will understand, appreciate, and act up to the spirit of this passage, you won't need to know what place Jesus or any other teacher occupies in your heart’.
Swami Akhilananda (1894-1962), whose mission was to the West, interpreted Jesus Christ as one who is already an integral part of Hinduism. He said that the goal of Hindu dharma is self-realisation and Jesus Christ is the supreme example of the ‘soul which is totally illumined’.
It is interesting how readily Buddhists, religiously non-theistic, and Christians have so often found common ground. Here are some words of Ajahn Candasiri, a senior nun at the Amaravati Buddhist Monastery in Hertfordshire.
‘After re-reading some of the gospel stories, I would like to meet Jesus again with fresh eyes, and to examine the extent to which he and the Buddha were in fact offering the same guidance, even though the traditions of Christianity and Buddhism can appear in the surface to be rather different.
I have the impression that he is not particularly interested in converting people to his way of thinking. Rather it's a case of teaching those who are ready; interestingly, often the people who seek him out come from quite depraved or lowly backgrounds. It is quite clear to Jesus that purity is a quality of the heart, not something that comes from unquestioning adherence to a set of rules’.
I could give many other examples. So we have in Jesus a figure who has found a place in the hearts of adherents to other world faiths.
I haven’t mentioned Judaism. Jesus was of course, a Jew. There are Jews who regard Jesus as a great teacher in the Jewish tradition. Unfortunately the initial persecution of early Christians and then the longer story of Christian mistreatment of Jews soured the relationship and it is only comparatively recently that the implications of the ‘Jewishness’ of Jesus have been taken seriously by Christians.
I don’t think that any reputable theologian today would argue that either Jesus himself or his disciples had any intention of founding a new religion to rival Judaism. They were Jews and wanted to reform, yes, radically reform, Judaism in line with their interpretation of scripture. It is a matter of some debate, we must acknowledge, whether Jesus even wanted his message to be spread beyond the Jewish people. Remember his words to his disciples, when first sending them out. They were to go to the lost children of Israel, and he specifically instructed them not to go the cities of the Samaritans or to the Gentiles.
However, it’s not that simple. Jesus demonstrated an understanding that transcended religious allegiance – he remarked of the Centurion that never before had he encountered such faith. His parable of the Good Samaritan depicts a Samaritan as being more obedient to the commandment of God than pious Jews.
Perhaps persuaded by his encounters with non-Jews, Jesus did in fact take his mission beyond them. Chapter four of the gospel of John records, following his encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well,
‘From that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all the things that I have done.” So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. Many more believed because of His word; and they were saying to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Saviour of the world.” ’
So it seems possible that Jesus did in fact urge his followers to take his word beyond Israel, as words ascribed to Jesus from after his resurrection suggest. I quoted Mark earlier, similarly Luke 24.27 records that Jesus instructed his followers that repentance and remission of sins should be preached to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
We are used now to the idea that religions are like political parties. If you support the Conservatives you cannot at the same time support the Liberal Democrats. Even if particular policies are virtually identical, you claim your party has the idea first, or has it more accurately costed or whatever. In religion therefore, if you are a Buddhist, you cannot be a Christian. It’s an either/or. This is not an attitude that would have been held by the majority of the population in the Roman world of 30AD. This idea of exclusivity was an idea that the Jews had developed about their own religion. It was one of their great strengths in maintaining their identity as a small nation occupying strategically important territory in a frequently hostile world. Theirs was a single jealous God who had no rivals.
How does Jesus fit into this? Was he exclusive - salvation was not only from the Jews it was for the Jews - or was he inclusive? We know that Jesus had little patience for barriers, but he was nevertheless a Jew, with all that meant in terms of identity.
The position held by this Chapel and by the Christian Compass is that Jesus’s message, his insight into God’s plan for humanity, is one above all of simplicity. It is so simple that little children can follow it, yet so profound that the learned could not comprehend it. It is expressed in the two great commandments, expounded in the sermon on the mount, illustrated in his parables and manifested in his life and death. And, as Jesus says, though he taught as one with authority, it is not an original revelation of God’s word. How perverse would that make God? No, the eternal God does not change the rules and Jesus’s teachings are in that sense nothing new. He calls for a return to the way of love and repentance. The Jews are special insofar as they ought to know this, having been specially selected by God to receive his word, but the way itself is for all. It does not have anything in it that is specially or uniquely applicable to Jews.
Do we then go along with those who say that they follow the religion of Jesus rather than the religion about Jesus?
I don’t think it’s that straightforward. Jesus did do three things that mean we cannot regard simply him as a prophet reminding people of God’s commandments. Firstly, he identified himself very closely with God the Father. So closely that Jews at the time seem to have wondered just who he was claiming to be. He maintained that messianic prophecies were fulfilled in him and that he had a special knowledge of his Father’s will. Secondly, he gathered to him a body of followers to whom he imparted particular knowledge and entrusted particular tasks including that of spreading the good news. Thirdly, he gave instructions as to how he was to be memorialised. He established that the drinking of wine and eating of bread were a way not simply of preserving his memory but a means to establish a spiritual communion with him after his death. These are not the actions of a simple spiritual teacher.
So no, we cannot easily talk about the religion of Jesus as opposed to the religion about Jesus. We do still have to ask him, after two thousand years, who are you?
We come back to Jesus the Jew. From the start of his ministry he identified himself with the prophecies of Isaiah. I believe he was consciously taking on the mantle of the suffering servant, God’s chosen one, of Isaiah and through this reconciling God and humanity in himself. This means that Jesus did have a particular view of his relationship to God. Paradoxically this view was both highly exalted - he had a uniquely close relation to the Father - and yet was one which displayed the utmost humility in that he pointed us to God, not himself. He reminded us that it was love of God and love of others that is indeed all the law and all the prophets, but then went further. By opening himself utterly to God he became the definitive example of this love personified. Moreover, as we heard in the first reading, the prophetic vision of Isaiah is one that sees the love of God taken beyond the restoration of Israel, to encompass all nations of the world, the beginning of the establishment of the kingdom of God.
Where does this get us?
There is indeed good reason why the early Church came to see Jesus as the Logos, the word of God made flesh. Nevertheless, I would maintain that subscription to a doctrine that insists the only acceptable notion of Christ is as a component part of a Trinity of Deity is no more true to Jesus than the rigorous observation of regulations of the Pharisees. I am arguing that we need a way of seeing Jesus that is open to all. I believe this is a truer (and more effective) way of spreading the good news that Jesus brought than insisting on conversion and adherence to a creed.
Yet as we saw from the sentiments expressed by followers of other religions, it is not only the message of Jesus that attracts - it is a message you can find expressed in other faiths – it is also the person of Jesus.
What is it about him that remains so magnetic, two thousand years later?
What is it about him that makes so many accept follow him as their lord and his teachings as their rule for life regardless that they offer no path to fame or fortune?
I believe it is because he brought God so close to us. In his life, teaching and healing, in his person in fact, he made God’s love so accessible and God’s word so clear to us. He demonstrated that the kingdom of God was within the grasp of the poor, the oppressed and the sinful.
Unfortunately his learned and pious contemporaries, who thought God’s favour was confined to the deserving, couldn’t understand it, couldn’t believe it and certainly couldn’t allow it, and killed him for it. And today so many learned and pious Christians insist on surrounding Jesus with rituals and rules, dogmas and doctrines to keep his message of hope exclusively to faithful members of the Christian club.
But what of the words, ‘No-one comes to the Father except through me’. Do they not indicate that salvation is limited to Christians? No, of course they don’t. They refer back to Isaiah’s prophecy that the suffering servant will be exalted by God and will assume a role in judgement (Isaiah 42.1-4). And let us remember that Jesus also says that not all those who say, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of God (Matthew 7.21). No, it is precisely because Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, that he should be for all who love God and love others, regardless of religious adherence. It is not conditional. Jesus does not say, I am the way, and the truth and the light if you say you believe that I am the second person of the Trinity. He does say, talking to his disciples, that if you trust me and what I have said and done, then God is with you as He is with me.
Jesus wanted all men and women to hear his Father’s word and learn of his Father’s love. He taught this and he lived this. So this means that everything that makes for separation, every piece of ritual, every piece of dogma, everything that makes it harder for non-Christians to find the message of Jesus is not merely regrettable, it is to be abolished. Does this sound radical? Yes, it does. But is it any more radical than the words Jesus spoke?
Of course, the institution that is Christianity exists and Jesus Christ is its heart. It has accomplished great and noble things and the Christian Compass - and this Chapel of course - come from within its tradition. Yet I believe the life and teaching of Jesus necessarily take us beyond the traditional boundaries of what is thought of as the Christian faith. I believe that what we are called to do is to take Jesus beyond Christianity, to go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. To tell men and women of all religions and nations - Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jew, even Christian – the good news that Jesus showed us that we can be sure that all people who try to love God and love others are blessed by the Lord.
Tim Powell, October 2007
Here’s a well-known piece from Lewis’ book Mere Christianity
‘I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God”. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to’.
I seem to remember that my RE teacher at school tried this line. I wasn't impressed then, even at that young age. If there’s any folly here, it’s on the part of Lewis. But he was a very intelligent man so I don’t think he was being foolish, more, shall we say, disingenuous. Firstly, it is of course entirely possible to regard Jesus as a moral teacher (note the clever use of 'merely a man' to suggest that being a great moral teacher is nothing special). If one wished one could regard him perhaps in the holy fool tradition, but while Jesus's teachings were certainly startling, even shocking, they were not, particularly in the context of first century Palestine, insane. Secondly, we have the false identification of the title ‘Son of God’ with the theological claim ‘God the Son’. The two are not the same and no-one at the time would have thought they were. Of course, this abuse of language is by no means confined to Lewis; lesser apologists today are guilty of it. And thirdly, there is another option anyway. We can certainly regard Jesus – as the disciples evidently did – as the holy one of God without thinking that he actually was God.
‘I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God”. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to’.
I seem to remember that my RE teacher at school tried this line. I wasn't impressed then, even at that young age. If there’s any folly here, it’s on the part of Lewis. But he was a very intelligent man so I don’t think he was being foolish, more, shall we say, disingenuous. Firstly, it is of course entirely possible to regard Jesus as a moral teacher (note the clever use of 'merely a man' to suggest that being a great moral teacher is nothing special). If one wished one could regard him perhaps in the holy fool tradition, but while Jesus's teachings were certainly startling, even shocking, they were not, particularly in the context of first century Palestine, insane. Secondly, we have the false identification of the title ‘Son of God’ with the theological claim ‘God the Son’. The two are not the same and no-one at the time would have thought they were. Of course, this abuse of language is by no means confined to Lewis; lesser apologists today are guilty of it. And thirdly, there is another option anyway. We can certainly regard Jesus – as the disciples evidently did – as the holy one of God without thinking that he actually was God.
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men - robbers, evildoers, adulterers - or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'
But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'
I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
This is a familiar New Testament reading on sin. Like so many of Jesus’s words on the subject, he is less interested in the fact of sin itself than in the reaction to it.
Let's consider in more detail what we are talking about here. What is meant by sin? Like so many words in English translations of the Bible, it is a single word that is used to translate a number of different ones. The Bible scholar R.C. Trench in his Synonyms of the New Testament, discussed the various words for sin that appear in the Greek New Testament,
'It may be regarded as the missing of an aim ... (hamartia) ... the transgressing of a line ... (parabasis) ... the disobedience to a voice ... (parkoe) ... the falling where one should have stood upright (parap-toma) ... ignorance of what one ought to have known ... (agno-ema) ... not fully rendering a debt which should have been rendered in full measure ... (ettema) ... non-observance of a law ... (a-nomia or para-nomia) ... or a discord in the harmonies of God's universe ... (plemm-e-leia)'
So the word sin has many different meanings. However, it is even more complicated. The word most used is hamartia. Hamartia was used by the poet Homer to signify a thrown spear that misses its target. The second most common usage is that of debt, though translated in the familiar version of the Lord’s Prayer as trespass.
When you throw a spear at a target and miss, you know you've missed. When you're in debt to someone, you know that you owe them. Sin includes the awareness of sinfulness. It isn't that we have failed, we also know we've failed. It isn't that we've done wrong, it is that we know we have done wrong. It is superbly expressed in a poem by John Donne, his 'Hymn to God the Father.
Wilt Thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
For I have more.
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallowed in a score?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
For I have more.
Sin, the failure to follow the two great commandments to love, is inherent in the human condition, yet we are expected to strive to be free of it. As Donne observes, we acknowledge our sins and take responsibility for them and repent - we honestly will try better but we know that we will fail. No wonder so many today find this notion of sin a turn-off. And you can see why it would appeal to those in positions of religious authority, the Pharisees and their equivalents. Accordingly, there is a current of thought that suggests worrying about one's failings is not to be encouraged. Many people do not struggle against sin because they don't think they have anything to struggle against. Against this I believe a sense of sin is a positive requirement for a spiritual sensibility.
A little theology.
It's the early fifth century. The Roman Empire is crumbling but the Church is triumphant. In the blue corner, nowadays representing heretics everywhere, we have the British or Irish monk Pelagius. He has just been to Rome and is horrified at the lax moral standards there. One thing that really annoys him is a saying 'Love, and do what you will'. What sort of rule is that? Surely it’s a license to sin.
In the red corner, is St Augustine, one of the great Fathers of the institutional Church from the Roman provinces of North Africa. It is Augustine's saying that annoys Pelagius. Augustine has moved from flirtations with the schools of philosophy, through at least one heresy and ended up a bishop. Among his contributions to Church doctrine is the idea that humans are invariably sinful, that we are all dependent upon God's grace.
I read somewhere that an Anglican priest said that if his present day congregation were offered the views of Pelagius and those of Augustine, 7/10 would choose Pelagius. He sounds so reasonable. Pelagius' central message was that you cannot leave your salvation to God but that it can be earned through self-discipline in leading a sinless life. He regarded the moral strength of human will when steeled by asceticism as sufficient in itself to attain salvation. Human nature retains the ability to conquer sin and to gain redemption through perfection. So the fact that you need forgiveness for something and others don’t, means they are more in God’s favour. Of course, most humans won’t succeed and will have to throw themselves on God’s mercy but the crucial point is, it can be done. Augustine on the other hand believed that sinfulness was the inevitable lot of all humanity. It’s inherent in our existence and we are all dependent upon God for forgiveness.
Now this dispute is far from being theological hair splitting. It returns us right back to Jesus's words from Luke. Behind it there is a basic difference in how we see our relationship with God. The implication of Pelagius's teaching, and that of many others, is that some people are to be judged more worthy because they have done better in obeying the rules than others. Pelagius was a good man but, like so many good men and women, he missed the point of Jesus's teaching. The way of Pelagius is the way of the Pharisees, they too were good men, they too believed adherence to rules could earn them salvation.
Augustine is famous, infamous one might say, for his doctrine of ‘Original Sin’. However, I think a key point Augustine makes is right; we sin because we're human. But this means also, that we're forgiven because we're human. It is in this context that we see Jesus's words on the Pharisee and the tax collector in the Temple. It is not only that sinners who acknowledge their sins are more honest - though they are - it is that in seeking forgiveness they are accepting God's gift and hence building a relationship. They are not saying, ‘look I can do it all myself’, and not saying, ‘look at how much better I am than these others’.
Augustine's teaching is more humane because it recognises human weakness. Human imperfection struggling towards perfection, doomed to failure in that but God accepting this as part of humanity. You don’t have to succeed, you have to try. Of course, like the story of the Workers in the Vineyard – the workers who do two hours work receiving the same as those who do the full stint - by human standards this isn't reasonable and it isn't fair. This means of course that the Church, in its broadest sense, must embrace all of humanity - the good, the bad and the ugly. We must strive to become holy but must also accept we coexist with our fellow sinners and stand in the same need of forgiveness.
Behind this is a radical way of looking at God, one which can transform our understanding of our relationship with the divine as well as with others. You cannot earn your place in God's kingdom, it is a gift offered freely to anyone who will take it.
As St Paul writes in his Letter to the Christians in Rome,
Just as you Gentiles who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of the Jews' disobedience, so the people of Israel too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God's mercy to you. For God has bound all people over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.
Here’s a piece from the Revelations of Divine Love by the fourteenth century saint Julian of Norwich,
God showed that sin would be no shame but an honour to man, for just as for every sin there is an answering pain in reality, so for every sin bliss is given to the same soul. Just as different sins are punished by different pains according to their seriousness, so shall they be rewarded by different joys in heaven according to the pain and sorrow they have caused the soul on earth. For the soul that shall come to heaven is so precious to God, and the place itself so glorious, that the goodness of God never allows the soul which will come there to sin without giving it a reward for suffering that sin. The sin suffered is made known without end, and the soul is blissfully restored by exceeding glories.
Sin is its own punishment. God will show us that while we may feel the sin, it has no reality in Him. It gets stranger. She writes in a famous passage that she was told
Sin is behovely, but all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well .. Would you know our Lord's meaning in this thing? Know it well: Love was his meaning. Who showed it to you? Love. What did he show you? Love. Why did he show it? For Love ... Thus I learned that love is our Lord's meaning.
‘Behovely’ is usually translated ‘necessary’. This can mean either necessary in the sense of a requirement, or in the sense of inevitable. Behovely can also be translated as ‘useful’. It is not completely clear what is meant here. Julian may not have known herself, as she records herself questioning this statement with some puzzlement.
My understanding is this. Sin, as Augustine argued, is part of our nature. We are finite and limited and we cannot fully live up to the divine requirement of love, so sin is inherent in our existence as thinking and acting individuals. Going back to Donne, we may strive, and strive with some partial success, to do better but we cannot be what we are not. But the message we get from Jesus’s parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector - and from Julian’s revelation - is that God's requirement is that we know what we are and not pretend to be what we are not. It means accepting our failures, occasional, habitual and repeated failures, as part of ourselves. Not accepting them as good or not to be challenged, but understanding them.
And here’s the crucial bit: for if we do not accept our sinfulness, how can we be expected to understand - and hence forgive - the failings of others? We can't of course. We start thinking we are better than them. And looking at it the other way round, it is the effects that other people's sins have on us that should alert us to the effects our sins have on others. So, sin is the great leveller. Sin describes a state of being, the state of being human, the state of being that puts us in relationship to God and others. For understanding sin is crucial to our relationship with God and with others. In this way sin is behovely, necessary. We need a sense of our sins, our imperfections, our failings, if we can truly forgive others theirs.
In forgiving God wipes the slate clean. As Isaiah records, God blots out our transgressions and remembers our sins no more, or as Paul describes love: Love keeps no record of wrongs. God never ceases to love us and therefore will never cease to forgive us. The only way to love others is by striving to love as God loves us. The only way to forgive others is by striving to forgive as God forgives us. To illustrate what I mean, here’s another story of Jesus on sin and forgiveness.
The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me', he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, cancelled the debt and let him go.
But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. 'Pay back what you owe me' he demanded.
His fellow servant begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.' But he refused. Instead, he had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were distressed and told their master everything that had happened. Then the master called the first servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’
So forgiveness is not cheap grace. There is an obligation on us. We are required to be willing to grant to others that which we seek for ourselves. We are expected to forgive as we are forgiven. This is the difficult part. Sometimes we find it impossible to forgive. We try but the resentment and anger are too deep. We want the debt to be paid, we want vengeance. What then? Well this too is a sin. Will God not forgive us?
There is no paradox here. We can repent of this sin too, we can 'will to forgive' and this is enough. The point is not to succeed, the point is to try.
The natural conclusion then is to return, like T.S. Eliot in the Four Quartets, to the words of Julian.
‘Sin is behovely, but all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well ... Would you know our Lord's meaning in this thing? Know it well: Love was his meaning. Who showed it to you? Love. What did he show you? Love. Why did he show it? For Love ... Thus I learned that love is our Lord's meaning’.
But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'
I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
This is a familiar New Testament reading on sin. Like so many of Jesus’s words on the subject, he is less interested in the fact of sin itself than in the reaction to it.
Let's consider in more detail what we are talking about here. What is meant by sin? Like so many words in English translations of the Bible, it is a single word that is used to translate a number of different ones. The Bible scholar R.C. Trench in his Synonyms of the New Testament, discussed the various words for sin that appear in the Greek New Testament,
'It may be regarded as the missing of an aim ... (hamartia) ... the transgressing of a line ... (parabasis) ... the disobedience to a voice ... (parkoe) ... the falling where one should have stood upright (parap-toma) ... ignorance of what one ought to have known ... (agno-ema) ... not fully rendering a debt which should have been rendered in full measure ... (ettema) ... non-observance of a law ... (a-nomia or para-nomia) ... or a discord in the harmonies of God's universe ... (plemm-e-leia)'
So the word sin has many different meanings. However, it is even more complicated. The word most used is hamartia. Hamartia was used by the poet Homer to signify a thrown spear that misses its target. The second most common usage is that of debt, though translated in the familiar version of the Lord’s Prayer as trespass.
When you throw a spear at a target and miss, you know you've missed. When you're in debt to someone, you know that you owe them. Sin includes the awareness of sinfulness. It isn't that we have failed, we also know we've failed. It isn't that we've done wrong, it is that we know we have done wrong. It is superbly expressed in a poem by John Donne, his 'Hymn to God the Father.
Wilt Thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
For I have more.
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallowed in a score?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
For I have more.
Sin, the failure to follow the two great commandments to love, is inherent in the human condition, yet we are expected to strive to be free of it. As Donne observes, we acknowledge our sins and take responsibility for them and repent - we honestly will try better but we know that we will fail. No wonder so many today find this notion of sin a turn-off. And you can see why it would appeal to those in positions of religious authority, the Pharisees and their equivalents. Accordingly, there is a current of thought that suggests worrying about one's failings is not to be encouraged. Many people do not struggle against sin because they don't think they have anything to struggle against. Against this I believe a sense of sin is a positive requirement for a spiritual sensibility.
A little theology.
It's the early fifth century. The Roman Empire is crumbling but the Church is triumphant. In the blue corner, nowadays representing heretics everywhere, we have the British or Irish monk Pelagius. He has just been to Rome and is horrified at the lax moral standards there. One thing that really annoys him is a saying 'Love, and do what you will'. What sort of rule is that? Surely it’s a license to sin.
In the red corner, is St Augustine, one of the great Fathers of the institutional Church from the Roman provinces of North Africa. It is Augustine's saying that annoys Pelagius. Augustine has moved from flirtations with the schools of philosophy, through at least one heresy and ended up a bishop. Among his contributions to Church doctrine is the idea that humans are invariably sinful, that we are all dependent upon God's grace.
I read somewhere that an Anglican priest said that if his present day congregation were offered the views of Pelagius and those of Augustine, 7/10 would choose Pelagius. He sounds so reasonable. Pelagius' central message was that you cannot leave your salvation to God but that it can be earned through self-discipline in leading a sinless life. He regarded the moral strength of human will when steeled by asceticism as sufficient in itself to attain salvation. Human nature retains the ability to conquer sin and to gain redemption through perfection. So the fact that you need forgiveness for something and others don’t, means they are more in God’s favour. Of course, most humans won’t succeed and will have to throw themselves on God’s mercy but the crucial point is, it can be done. Augustine on the other hand believed that sinfulness was the inevitable lot of all humanity. It’s inherent in our existence and we are all dependent upon God for forgiveness.
Now this dispute is far from being theological hair splitting. It returns us right back to Jesus's words from Luke. Behind it there is a basic difference in how we see our relationship with God. The implication of Pelagius's teaching, and that of many others, is that some people are to be judged more worthy because they have done better in obeying the rules than others. Pelagius was a good man but, like so many good men and women, he missed the point of Jesus's teaching. The way of Pelagius is the way of the Pharisees, they too were good men, they too believed adherence to rules could earn them salvation.
Augustine is famous, infamous one might say, for his doctrine of ‘Original Sin’. However, I think a key point Augustine makes is right; we sin because we're human. But this means also, that we're forgiven because we're human. It is in this context that we see Jesus's words on the Pharisee and the tax collector in the Temple. It is not only that sinners who acknowledge their sins are more honest - though they are - it is that in seeking forgiveness they are accepting God's gift and hence building a relationship. They are not saying, ‘look I can do it all myself’, and not saying, ‘look at how much better I am than these others’.
Augustine's teaching is more humane because it recognises human weakness. Human imperfection struggling towards perfection, doomed to failure in that but God accepting this as part of humanity. You don’t have to succeed, you have to try. Of course, like the story of the Workers in the Vineyard – the workers who do two hours work receiving the same as those who do the full stint - by human standards this isn't reasonable and it isn't fair. This means of course that the Church, in its broadest sense, must embrace all of humanity - the good, the bad and the ugly. We must strive to become holy but must also accept we coexist with our fellow sinners and stand in the same need of forgiveness.
Behind this is a radical way of looking at God, one which can transform our understanding of our relationship with the divine as well as with others. You cannot earn your place in God's kingdom, it is a gift offered freely to anyone who will take it.
As St Paul writes in his Letter to the Christians in Rome,
Just as you Gentiles who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of the Jews' disobedience, so the people of Israel too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God's mercy to you. For God has bound all people over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.
Here’s a piece from the Revelations of Divine Love by the fourteenth century saint Julian of Norwich,
God showed that sin would be no shame but an honour to man, for just as for every sin there is an answering pain in reality, so for every sin bliss is given to the same soul. Just as different sins are punished by different pains according to their seriousness, so shall they be rewarded by different joys in heaven according to the pain and sorrow they have caused the soul on earth. For the soul that shall come to heaven is so precious to God, and the place itself so glorious, that the goodness of God never allows the soul which will come there to sin without giving it a reward for suffering that sin. The sin suffered is made known without end, and the soul is blissfully restored by exceeding glories.
Sin is its own punishment. God will show us that while we may feel the sin, it has no reality in Him. It gets stranger. She writes in a famous passage that she was told
Sin is behovely, but all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well .. Would you know our Lord's meaning in this thing? Know it well: Love was his meaning. Who showed it to you? Love. What did he show you? Love. Why did he show it? For Love ... Thus I learned that love is our Lord's meaning.
‘Behovely’ is usually translated ‘necessary’. This can mean either necessary in the sense of a requirement, or in the sense of inevitable. Behovely can also be translated as ‘useful’. It is not completely clear what is meant here. Julian may not have known herself, as she records herself questioning this statement with some puzzlement.
My understanding is this. Sin, as Augustine argued, is part of our nature. We are finite and limited and we cannot fully live up to the divine requirement of love, so sin is inherent in our existence as thinking and acting individuals. Going back to Donne, we may strive, and strive with some partial success, to do better but we cannot be what we are not. But the message we get from Jesus’s parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector - and from Julian’s revelation - is that God's requirement is that we know what we are and not pretend to be what we are not. It means accepting our failures, occasional, habitual and repeated failures, as part of ourselves. Not accepting them as good or not to be challenged, but understanding them.
And here’s the crucial bit: for if we do not accept our sinfulness, how can we be expected to understand - and hence forgive - the failings of others? We can't of course. We start thinking we are better than them. And looking at it the other way round, it is the effects that other people's sins have on us that should alert us to the effects our sins have on others. So, sin is the great leveller. Sin describes a state of being, the state of being human, the state of being that puts us in relationship to God and others. For understanding sin is crucial to our relationship with God and with others. In this way sin is behovely, necessary. We need a sense of our sins, our imperfections, our failings, if we can truly forgive others theirs.
In forgiving God wipes the slate clean. As Isaiah records, God blots out our transgressions and remembers our sins no more, or as Paul describes love: Love keeps no record of wrongs. God never ceases to love us and therefore will never cease to forgive us. The only way to love others is by striving to love as God loves us. The only way to forgive others is by striving to forgive as God forgives us. To illustrate what I mean, here’s another story of Jesus on sin and forgiveness.
The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me', he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, cancelled the debt and let him go.
But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. 'Pay back what you owe me' he demanded.
His fellow servant begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.' But he refused. Instead, he had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were distressed and told their master everything that had happened. Then the master called the first servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’
So forgiveness is not cheap grace. There is an obligation on us. We are required to be willing to grant to others that which we seek for ourselves. We are expected to forgive as we are forgiven. This is the difficult part. Sometimes we find it impossible to forgive. We try but the resentment and anger are too deep. We want the debt to be paid, we want vengeance. What then? Well this too is a sin. Will God not forgive us?
There is no paradox here. We can repent of this sin too, we can 'will to forgive' and this is enough. The point is not to succeed, the point is to try.
The natural conclusion then is to return, like T.S. Eliot in the Four Quartets, to the words of Julian.
‘Sin is behovely, but all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well ... Would you know our Lord's meaning in this thing? Know it well: Love was his meaning. Who showed it to you? Love. What did he show you? Love. Why did he show it? For Love ... Thus I learned that love is our Lord's meaning’.
A work in progress
I am a reluctant theist. I found atheism simpler and, perhaps for that reason, satisfying enough. There are still times when I should like to be able to give up God. And if I am asked whether I believe in God, I still need to ask, which God? For there is no understanding of God that has not been mediated through humans. Not the Bible, not the Qu’ran. The tablets Moses brought down have vanished, as have Joseph Smith’s Golden Plates.
The idea that God is the moral authority in the universe has been compromised by the dreadful things that have been done in God’s name by sincere people who are sure they are following God’s will. The name of God has been a blank warrant used to give external authority to and hence validate all too human means and ends. The Old Testament provides abundant examples where prejudices and, at times, wickednesses, are accorded divine authority. If I thought that such cases were revelatory of the nature of God, I would shun and oppose such a being.
I am uneasy with the notion of God as necessary physical creator of the universe. It makes sense until one has a scientific worldview that is adequate for explaining the physical universe, or at least giving an expectation that it will be able to do so satisfactorily at some point in the not too distant future. Once this view has emerged then the creator God idea is in trouble. It is possible, as science advances in credibility, to fight a rear-guard action - God as a first cause, God of the gaps, God as the creative principle etc. But the key point is that whereas a creator God used to be essential to any attempt to explain why things have existence, that is no longer the case.
And yet I am not an atheist.
Of course we find many, many references where God is shown urging us to goodness, truth and love, where God appears as the inner voice demanding that we examine our motives, consider our actions, and measure ourselves against the highest standards. There is, it seems to me, a reality here that has to be taken seriously. I cannot really believe that goodness and beauty are simply subjective notions that we project onto the world. It seems much more in line with how we experience things to understand them as inherent qualities which we discover, or recognise, and that they manifest a single underlying reality. This means I trust, have faith, that there is meaning in the universe. The alternative, that all our notions of good and beauty are, when all is said and done, however we dress them up, our passing fancies, seems to me not only horrific but, more importantly, actually unsustainable from human experience.
What proof can be offered, in a world in which there is so much suffering? There is no proof, and I am sure no possibility of proof. Yet there are evidences. Over time that which has enduring value, that which is judged worthwhile by its fruits, is overwhelmingly that which reinforces values of goodness. There is a natural human impulse, recognized as a mark of our nobility, to seek redemption, to look for hope, to strive for love. Alongside this there is the yearning for beauty and recognition of beauty, that which is right. We can see in the case of beauty that it is most assuredly not just in the eye of the beholder.
Referring to this sense of inherent meaning by using language that implies an intelligent, creative, moral agency (God, though the word is not important) seems the most satisfactory way available to us to describe the depth of experience involved.
But can we say more? Does this useful language amount to anything more than powerful metaphor? Even if we admit there is such a order to the universe, is God just our personification of it?
If there is inherent meaning in the universe, then this surely means that it has to be bound up within the very structure of things (and as we ourselves are part of the universe, this inherent meaning must be bound up within our selves as well). I cannot see how this can be without a creative and intelligent force that has imbued the universe - not necessarily by its physical creation - with this meaning.
I am a reluctant theist. I found atheism simpler and, perhaps for that reason, satisfying enough. There are still times when I should like to be able to give up God. And if I am asked whether I believe in God, I still need to ask, which God? For there is no understanding of God that has not been mediated through humans. Not the Bible, not the Qu’ran. The tablets Moses brought down have vanished, as have Joseph Smith’s Golden Plates.
The idea that God is the moral authority in the universe has been compromised by the dreadful things that have been done in God’s name by sincere people who are sure they are following God’s will. The name of God has been a blank warrant used to give external authority to and hence validate all too human means and ends. The Old Testament provides abundant examples where prejudices and, at times, wickednesses, are accorded divine authority. If I thought that such cases were revelatory of the nature of God, I would shun and oppose such a being.
I am uneasy with the notion of God as necessary physical creator of the universe. It makes sense until one has a scientific worldview that is adequate for explaining the physical universe, or at least giving an expectation that it will be able to do so satisfactorily at some point in the not too distant future. Once this view has emerged then the creator God idea is in trouble. It is possible, as science advances in credibility, to fight a rear-guard action - God as a first cause, God of the gaps, God as the creative principle etc. But the key point is that whereas a creator God used to be essential to any attempt to explain why things have existence, that is no longer the case.
And yet I am not an atheist.
Of course we find many, many references where God is shown urging us to goodness, truth and love, where God appears as the inner voice demanding that we examine our motives, consider our actions, and measure ourselves against the highest standards. There is, it seems to me, a reality here that has to be taken seriously. I cannot really believe that goodness and beauty are simply subjective notions that we project onto the world. It seems much more in line with how we experience things to understand them as inherent qualities which we discover, or recognise, and that they manifest a single underlying reality. This means I trust, have faith, that there is meaning in the universe. The alternative, that all our notions of good and beauty are, when all is said and done, however we dress them up, our passing fancies, seems to me not only horrific but, more importantly, actually unsustainable from human experience.
What proof can be offered, in a world in which there is so much suffering? There is no proof, and I am sure no possibility of proof. Yet there are evidences. Over time that which has enduring value, that which is judged worthwhile by its fruits, is overwhelmingly that which reinforces values of goodness. There is a natural human impulse, recognized as a mark of our nobility, to seek redemption, to look for hope, to strive for love. Alongside this there is the yearning for beauty and recognition of beauty, that which is right. We can see in the case of beauty that it is most assuredly not just in the eye of the beholder.
Referring to this sense of inherent meaning by using language that implies an intelligent, creative, moral agency (God, though the word is not important) seems the most satisfactory way available to us to describe the depth of experience involved.
But can we say more? Does this useful language amount to anything more than powerful metaphor? Even if we admit there is such a order to the universe, is God just our personification of it?
If there is inherent meaning in the universe, then this surely means that it has to be bound up within the very structure of things (and as we ourselves are part of the universe, this inherent meaning must be bound up within our selves as well). I cannot see how this can be without a creative and intelligent force that has imbued the universe - not necessarily by its physical creation - with this meaning.