Thursday, July 16, 2009

The subjectivity of religion

An interesting strand in theology is one called "apophatic theology" or the knowledge of God obtained through negation. The strand is quite old, dating back to the church fathers like Athenagoras of Athens. In fact, the great St. Thomas Aquinas was a major supporter of apophatic theology. These theologians believed that God is so perfect he is unlike anything that is created and as such God can only be described as what He is not. This strand tends to emphasize the transcendence of God (although often employed by mystics), that a infinite God is unable to be comprehended by a finite mind. Our Eastern Orthodox brothers highly value the idea of the mystery of God. At a certain point, we must rest in the unknowability of God. Perhaps my Protestant brothers would recall Job's final realization that God's ways are higher than his ways and must simply trust in that mystery. So, with this in mind, must we accept that to a certain extent religion is subjective? We cannot truly say anything with complete certainty about God so we must rest in this mystery. That being said, we must also affirm that the special revelation of God via the person of Jesus Christ and the prophets must provide objectivity. But can we say that our verbal equations, called theology, truly captures the person of God? Where do we, or even should we, allow for subjectivity in our understanding of our religion and theology?

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