In the letter to the Romans Paul makes a hopeful confession of faith: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
It is a confession about the fundamental, irreducible nature of the universe. For the early Christians, and many Christians since, there is one irreducible reality and that one reality is the love of God. Of course, to say love is the one reality involves relationship, for love is always a subject in relationship to an object. The Christian understanding of Holy Trinity is the relationship of love, subject and object: the Lover the Beloved and the Love between them, as Augustine has it. This understanding of love in reciprocal relationship is a major problem with the Neoplatonism of Plotinus and his conception of the universe as the One. If there is no differentiation in the One, then there is no love. The Holy Trinity provides such a loving differentiation. In Paul’s understanding, because we, and all creation, are “in Christ” then all are enfolded in the love of God. Nothing can separate us from love. “All shall be well,” wrote mother Julian.
How do we get to that hopeful confession?
To oversimplify, our understanding of the universe might be like an onion or a peach. Peel away every layer of the onion and you are left with nothing at all. Take away the flesh of the peach and you are left with something solid: the stone. This is why critical study is a very risky business. It is possible that the more we study, the more we question, the more we debunk silly things, then we may be left with nothing at all. I suspect this is why fundamentalisms of all kinds tell their adherents not to study, not to think deeply, just to accept. Fundamentalisms are often carried along by the fear that they may be wrong. Study only those things that confirm your position or don’t study at all’
Was Paul’s hopeful confession of the love of God like that?
To know something is quite complex, though we often pretend it is not. Some suggest that the only true knowledge is empirical knowledge. That is, knowledge is gained through experiment and verification. We know that all solid objects fall to the ground when dropped. How do we know? We observe again and again and again. We experiment and the conclusion is always the same. It is so sure we give it the status of knowledge. Yet, the process of knowing is often more subtle. We know two plus two equals four. How do we know? For most of us, not because we have proved it to be so, but because we have been told by competent authorities. It is also pragmatically useful in everyday life. We can depend on two and two always equaling four. They never equal five. With the knowledge of gravity and elementary math there is no ambiguity.
But, there is a great del of ambiguity when we approach the great metaphysical questions; questions about the nature of being. When we think about these first order questions (the really big questions) like “is there a God?” or “what is the nature of the universe: good, bad or indifferent?” we are faced with the not provable. Can you prove that God exists? I do not think so, though many have tried. Could you prove that nothing can separate us from the love of God? To try a proof would be futile.
There is ambiguity because the evidence tells us different things. Evidence here does not serve us well in metaphysics. The world is very mixed in all of our experiences. Wonderful, joy-filled events happen. Terrible, agony-filled events happen. What doe the evidence say? That nothing separates us from love? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. There are times when some people feel so overwhelmed with goodness that they could burst with joy. There are times when we feel so dejected that we are separated from love and goodness by an unbridgeable gulf. Which evidence would we accept as proof for the nature of all that is?
So the hopeful confession that nothing can separate us from love is not one based on empirical knowledge. It is a first order faith claim. It is an existential leap in the dark. There can be no proof. It is arrived at more by intuition than evidence; more from a story-formed tradition than by experiment.
Yet, we need to exercise care here. It seems to me that we can only make this kind of claim for very few things. Fundamentalisms make this kind of claim for just about everything. “Simply accept this as true,” however absurd the truth claim, and however contrary the evidence. Remember, “The world,” the explorers were confidently told, “is flat.” We ignore the evidence at our peril; we cannot cease to question.
Yet, for the big questions, the evidence is always mixed. No one clear answer can be reached. Here, simply we trust. Nothing can separate us from love. The evidence is mixed, but we trust it to be so and live as if it is so.
+Ab. Andy
It is a confession about the fundamental, irreducible nature of the universe. For the early Christians, and many Christians since, there is one irreducible reality and that one reality is the love of God. Of course, to say love is the one reality involves relationship, for love is always a subject in relationship to an object. The Christian understanding of Holy Trinity is the relationship of love, subject and object: the Lover the Beloved and the Love between them, as Augustine has it. This understanding of love in reciprocal relationship is a major problem with the Neoplatonism of Plotinus and his conception of the universe as the One. If there is no differentiation in the One, then there is no love. The Holy Trinity provides such a loving differentiation. In Paul’s understanding, because we, and all creation, are “in Christ” then all are enfolded in the love of God. Nothing can separate us from love. “All shall be well,” wrote mother Julian.
How do we get to that hopeful confession?
To oversimplify, our understanding of the universe might be like an onion or a peach. Peel away every layer of the onion and you are left with nothing at all. Take away the flesh of the peach and you are left with something solid: the stone. This is why critical study is a very risky business. It is possible that the more we study, the more we question, the more we debunk silly things, then we may be left with nothing at all. I suspect this is why fundamentalisms of all kinds tell their adherents not to study, not to think deeply, just to accept. Fundamentalisms are often carried along by the fear that they may be wrong. Study only those things that confirm your position or don’t study at all’
Was Paul’s hopeful confession of the love of God like that?
To know something is quite complex, though we often pretend it is not. Some suggest that the only true knowledge is empirical knowledge. That is, knowledge is gained through experiment and verification. We know that all solid objects fall to the ground when dropped. How do we know? We observe again and again and again. We experiment and the conclusion is always the same. It is so sure we give it the status of knowledge. Yet, the process of knowing is often more subtle. We know two plus two equals four. How do we know? For most of us, not because we have proved it to be so, but because we have been told by competent authorities. It is also pragmatically useful in everyday life. We can depend on two and two always equaling four. They never equal five. With the knowledge of gravity and elementary math there is no ambiguity.
But, there is a great del of ambiguity when we approach the great metaphysical questions; questions about the nature of being. When we think about these first order questions (the really big questions) like “is there a God?” or “what is the nature of the universe: good, bad or indifferent?” we are faced with the not provable. Can you prove that God exists? I do not think so, though many have tried. Could you prove that nothing can separate us from the love of God? To try a proof would be futile.
There is ambiguity because the evidence tells us different things. Evidence here does not serve us well in metaphysics. The world is very mixed in all of our experiences. Wonderful, joy-filled events happen. Terrible, agony-filled events happen. What doe the evidence say? That nothing separates us from love? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. There are times when some people feel so overwhelmed with goodness that they could burst with joy. There are times when we feel so dejected that we are separated from love and goodness by an unbridgeable gulf. Which evidence would we accept as proof for the nature of all that is?
So the hopeful confession that nothing can separate us from love is not one based on empirical knowledge. It is a first order faith claim. It is an existential leap in the dark. There can be no proof. It is arrived at more by intuition than evidence; more from a story-formed tradition than by experiment.
Yet, we need to exercise care here. It seems to me that we can only make this kind of claim for very few things. Fundamentalisms make this kind of claim for just about everything. “Simply accept this as true,” however absurd the truth claim, and however contrary the evidence. Remember, “The world,” the explorers were confidently told, “is flat.” We ignore the evidence at our peril; we cannot cease to question.
Yet, for the big questions, the evidence is always mixed. No one clear answer can be reached. Here, simply we trust. Nothing can separate us from love. The evidence is mixed, but we trust it to be so and live as if it is so.
+Ab. Andy