many are called, but few pick up
many are called, but few pick up
The aphorism above—from Laeth’s latest installment of small talk—reminded me of a post I had written a few years back concerning God’s apparent unresponsiveness. I still stand by what I expressed in that post:
Yet perhaps there is a reason for God's seeming unresponsiveness - a reason that has everything to do with co-respondence. By co-respondence, I am not referring to an exchange of letters, but rather to the notion that perhaps God's seeming unresponsiveness to us has a great deal to do with our unresponsiveness to Him.
I cannot believe God has ceased communicating with us. What I can believe is the notion that perhaps our communications with God - those tried and true, good, solid Christian methods of communication that served so well in earlier times - have become inadequate and insufficient in the here and now.
By the same token, our adherence to these tried and true methods of communication might very well be making us deaf and blind to God's communication. Simply put, perhaps God does not appear to be responding to us because we are not properly responding to Him.
In other words, I believe that God communicates with every one of us consistently but most of us are unreceptive to the signals—communication—he transmits. Or, as Laeth puts it, many are called, but few pick up.
In that post on unresponsiveness, I posited that our lack of response to God’s communication may lie in an overreliance on tried-and-true, conventional methods of communicating with God.
I believe God is our loving father, and that he desires what is best for his children. Like all loving fathers, God wants his children to grow up and mature. This entails different approaches to and different levels of communication.
God has taken this step forward; we, in turn, have not. Put another way, God is trying to talk to us like adults, but we continue to talk and listen to him like adolescents (and fairly apathetic adolescents at that).
God will respond to us once we understand how we should begin responding to him. Part of responding to him as adults must contain an element of understanding our role as co-creators.
According to Berdyaev, the next step in Christianity involves not only Man discovering himself in God, but also God discovering Himself in Man. This type of discovery necessitates a new, unprecedented form of co-respondence.
It includes viewing God from an entirely new perspective - not as some distant, autocratic ruler one must obsequiously and blindly tremble before and obey, but as a relatable friend and partner one can love and work cooperatively with, in the same manner as an adult son or daughter can love and work cooperatively with a loving parent.
Some might regard referring to God as a relatable friend and partner as a denigration of God; the culminating pipedream of human illusion saturated in syrupy human emotions and intoxicated by erroneous notions of God as existing in the same category of being as us.
Yet the same criticism can be directed to human descriptions of God as a largely unknowable, impassible, distant monarch who exists in a different category of being altogether.
Laeth’s aphorism also contains two unspoken questions. The first is, why is God calling?
How one perceives, frames, interprets, and understands that question hinges entirely on one’s consciousness of God; and how one frames, interprets, and understands God.
If we believe the Christian God is an omnigod, then this belief will ultimately determine the possible reasons for God’s call, though I suspect the reasons for the call would be rather limited in scope because, at the end of the day, the omnigod already knows everything and doesn’t need us.
However, what if we consider the unthinkable and unspeakable and ponder whether God needs us? Traditional/conventional Christianity vehemently denies that God needs man. The mere act of suggesting that God might need man for anything is not only heresy but an automatic demotion of God because it suggests that the divine possesses some sort of lack, deficiency, or incompleteness.
Such concerns seem to be rooted in the potential devaluation of God’s power. If God needs us for anything, then he is not all-powerful and not ultimate. And if he is not all-powerful and ultimate, then he is not God.
I sense this sort of focus reveals far more about the believer than it reveals about God. I suppose the problem lies in the definition of need. Do wealthy, self-sufficient parents need communcative relationships with their adult children to live, survive, or be wealthy and powerful? In the strictest sense, probably not. Does this lack of need increase or decrease their wealth or power in any way? Again, probably not. However, would it be entirely correct to say that such wealthy, self-sufficient parents do not really need their adult children?
This brings us to the matter of love. Do the wealthy, self-sufficient parents mentioned above really need the love of their adult children? Once again, in the strictest sense, probably not, but yet again, would it be entirely accurate to claim that this sort of love between parents and their adult children is not needed, at least in the sense of being optimal and desirable? Wouldn’t the wealthy, self-sufficient parents be better off if their adult children picked up the calls?
I’m not sure if the analogy above communicates what I am attempting to express when it comes to the matter of God needing us, but it’s a start.
Okay, but what about Creation?
Here is where we get back to basic assumptions and first principles. If we believe God created us from nothing, and that he is the only being capable of such creation, then our potential contributions to creation are severely narrowed and limited. On top of that, we can confidently proclaim that God does not need us for anything at all.
However, if we consider the possibility that God did not create us from nothing, then the question of God’s potential “needs” becomes a little more open-ended.
Each of us can contribute something to Creation that no one else can -- and, yes, "no one else" means not even God.
The statement above comes via a comment Wm Jas Tychonievich left on a post in which I touched upon the idea of God’s needs.
I include it here to connect it to the idea of God’s call and communication and to address the second silent question in Laeth's aphorism about many being called -- why do only a few pick up?
Perhaps God’s call has everything to do with our potential contributions to Creation; contributions God cannot manifest on his own, which ties into the concept of co-creation.
God is not responding to us because our communications with him are not creative. God will respond to us fully the moment we begin creatively communicating with Him.
Once we learn to do that, we become co-creators. Our creative spirituality will become enhanced through God, and God's creative spirituality will become enhanced through us.
The new co-respondence involves a fortifying and enhancement of both God and Man, a fortification and enhancement that can occur only when we understand our creative role.
Spiritual creativity requires initiative from us. This initiative must derive from freedom.
According to William Arkle, once Man shows this initiative, he escapes all determinism and becomes actively creative - to the point that God can no longer accurately predict what Man will do. This is the essence of co-creation. This is the essence of the latent spiritual power within us - a latent spiritual power demonstrated fully by Christ.
I should include that the essence of co-creation also includes love; or, more precisely, the essence of co-creation is love.
Does God need co-creation from us in the strictest sense? Maybe not.
All the same, would it be inaccurate to say that God does not desire such co-creation and, perhaps, that the very motive behind Creation is to nurture such co-creative relationships?
And maybe that’s the basis of God’s call and communication in this time and place. Shouldn’t we at least consider being open to the possibility of such a call?
And if we happen to hear it, wouldn’t it be best to pick it up?
The aphorism above—from Laeth’s latest installment of small talk—reminded me of a post I had written a few years back concerning God’s apparent unresponsiveness. I still stand by what I expressed in that post:
Yet perhaps there is a reason for God's seeming unresponsiveness - a reason that has everything to do with co-respondence. By co-respondence, I am not referring to an exchange of letters, but rather to the notion that perhaps God's seeming unresponsiveness to us has a great deal to do with our unresponsiveness to Him.
I cannot believe God has ceased communicating with us. What I can believe is the notion that perhaps our communications with God - those tried and true, good, solid Christian methods of communication that served so well in earlier times - have become inadequate and insufficient in the here and now.
By the same token, our adherence to these tried and true methods of communication might very well be making us deaf and blind to God's communication. Simply put, perhaps God does not appear to be responding to us because we are not properly responding to Him.
In other words, I believe that God communicates with every one of us consistently but most of us are unreceptive to the signals—communication—he transmits. Or, as Laeth puts it, many are called, but few pick up.
In that post on unresponsiveness, I posited that our lack of response to God’s communication may lie in an overreliance on tried-and-true, conventional methods of communicating with God.
I believe God is our loving father, and that he desires what is best for his children. Like all loving fathers, God wants his children to grow up and mature. This entails different approaches to and different levels of communication.
God has taken this step forward; we, in turn, have not. Put another way, God is trying to talk to us like adults, but we continue to talk and listen to him like adolescents (and fairly apathetic adolescents at that).
God will respond to us once we understand how we should begin responding to him. Part of responding to him as adults must contain an element of understanding our role as co-creators.
According to Berdyaev, the next step in Christianity involves not only Man discovering himself in God, but also God discovering Himself in Man. This type of discovery necessitates a new, unprecedented form of co-respondence.
It includes viewing God from an entirely new perspective - not as some distant, autocratic ruler one must obsequiously and blindly tremble before and obey, but as a relatable friend and partner one can love and work cooperatively with, in the same manner as an adult son or daughter can love and work cooperatively with a loving parent.
Some might regard referring to God as a relatable friend and partner as a denigration of God; the culminating pipedream of human illusion saturated in syrupy human emotions and intoxicated by erroneous notions of God as existing in the same category of being as us.
Yet the same criticism can be directed to human descriptions of God as a largely unknowable, impassible, distant monarch who exists in a different category of being altogether.
Laeth’s aphorism also contains two unspoken questions. The first is, why is God calling?
How one perceives, frames, interprets, and understands that question hinges entirely on one’s consciousness of God; and how one frames, interprets, and understands God.
If we believe the Christian God is an omnigod, then this belief will ultimately determine the possible reasons for God’s call, though I suspect the reasons for the call would be rather limited in scope because, at the end of the day, the omnigod already knows everything and doesn’t need us.
However, what if we consider the unthinkable and unspeakable and ponder whether God needs us? Traditional/conventional Christianity vehemently denies that God needs man. The mere act of suggesting that God might need man for anything is not only heresy but an automatic demotion of God because it suggests that the divine possesses some sort of lack, deficiency, or incompleteness.
Such concerns seem to be rooted in the potential devaluation of God’s power. If God needs us for anything, then he is not all-powerful and not ultimate. And if he is not all-powerful and ultimate, then he is not God.
I sense this sort of focus reveals far more about the believer than it reveals about God. I suppose the problem lies in the definition of need. Do wealthy, self-sufficient parents need communcative relationships with their adult children to live, survive, or be wealthy and powerful? In the strictest sense, probably not. Does this lack of need increase or decrease their wealth or power in any way? Again, probably not. However, would it be entirely correct to say that such wealthy, self-sufficient parents do not really need their adult children?
This brings us to the matter of love. Do the wealthy, self-sufficient parents mentioned above really need the love of their adult children? Once again, in the strictest sense, probably not, but yet again, would it be entirely accurate to claim that this sort of love between parents and their adult children is not needed, at least in the sense of being optimal and desirable? Wouldn’t the wealthy, self-sufficient parents be better off if their adult children picked up the calls?
I’m not sure if the analogy above communicates what I am attempting to express when it comes to the matter of God needing us, but it’s a start.
Okay, but what about Creation?
Here is where we get back to basic assumptions and first principles. If we believe God created us from nothing, and that he is the only being capable of such creation, then our potential contributions to creation are severely narrowed and limited. On top of that, we can confidently proclaim that God does not need us for anything at all.
However, if we consider the possibility that God did not create us from nothing, then the question of God’s potential “needs” becomes a little more open-ended.
Each of us can contribute something to Creation that no one else can -- and, yes, "no one else" means not even God.
The statement above comes via a comment Wm Jas Tychonievich left on a post in which I touched upon the idea of God’s needs.
I include it here to connect it to the idea of God’s call and communication and to address the second silent question in Laeth's aphorism about many being called -- why do only a few pick up?
Perhaps God’s call has everything to do with our potential contributions to Creation; contributions God cannot manifest on his own, which ties into the concept of co-creation.
God is not responding to us because our communications with him are not creative. God will respond to us fully the moment we begin creatively communicating with Him.
Once we learn to do that, we become co-creators. Our creative spirituality will become enhanced through God, and God's creative spirituality will become enhanced through us.
The new co-respondence involves a fortifying and enhancement of both God and Man, a fortification and enhancement that can occur only when we understand our creative role.
Spiritual creativity requires initiative from us. This initiative must derive from freedom.
According to William Arkle, once Man shows this initiative, he escapes all determinism and becomes actively creative - to the point that God can no longer accurately predict what Man will do. This is the essence of co-creation. This is the essence of the latent spiritual power within us - a latent spiritual power demonstrated fully by Christ.
I should include that the essence of co-creation also includes love; or, more precisely, the essence of co-creation is love.
Does God need co-creation from us in the strictest sense? Maybe not.
All the same, would it be inaccurate to say that God does not desire such co-creation and, perhaps, that the very motive behind Creation is to nurture such co-creative relationships?
And maybe that’s the basis of God’s call and communication in this time and place. Shouldn’t we at least consider being open to the possibility of such a call?
And if we happen to hear it, wouldn’t it be best to pick it up?
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