Professor Gordon Kaufman has published a new work outlining his theological proposal. He aptly titles it In the beginning . . . Creativity, for this book is a sustained argument for reunderstanding "God" as serendipitous creativity. He reacts strongly against many traditional understandings of God, and after a relatively brief historical look at use of the word or symbol "God," he puts forth his radical restatement of God as "creativity."
The foundation for Kaufman's book is found in the prologue, in which he (writing with Francis Sch�ssler Fiorenza) outlines an understanding of the history and development of the word or symbol "God." In this survey, he identifies three important strands in its meaning, the first being the intermingling of the anthropomorphic and philosophical images of God, the second being the relation of "God" to subjectivity and the realization that God or awareness of the infinite resides in the soul or is part of human experience, and the third is the use of negative theology to understand God. While the first two strands are important, it is the third strand which seems to be definitive for Kaufman's "positive" statements. He seems to rely almost solely on negative statements about God, content to assert that almost all positive statement of God is anthropomorphizing, is inadequate, is a human creation or projection. Finally, he is able to make only the most basic and minimal statement of God, as being the serendipitous creativity that is manifest throughout the cosmos. God is not like human beings, God is not personal, God is not adequately described by the theologizing of the past, God is only dimly reflected in the biblical witness . . . These statements bring Kaufman to a place where he clings to the mystery of God, seeing God's activity as "creative," but even in this categorization, he is nearly helpless in articulating a clear understanding of God, because he seems to be stuck up against a need to define "creativity," a task that inveitably either caries strong anthropomorphic overtones, a tendency he is continually attempting to avoid, or it becomes ethically useless, which would result in the undermining of the Menonite ethic which seems to provide the only genuine anchor for his reflections. Looking at Kaufman's survey of the history of God talk and the positive statements he makes, one must conclude that negative theology becomes one of his central tools for describing God.
One must wonder what would bring about this radical shift, and Kaufman is very honest with readers about why he believes the traditional understandings of God are inadequate. First, he discusses today's ecological crisis, and asserts that the situation of our world today, and the threat of global disaster and decay through human actions is unlike anything Christianity has ever faced before. He not only concludes that this is a bigger issue than Christianity has ever faced (it is before been preoccupied with existential questions of guilt, sin, happiness, and so on), but he further concludes that Christianity may be in the way. The second major development that in his view stands in the way of traditional faith in a personal God is the developments of science (specifically evolutionary cosmology and biology) have shown us a much bigger universe than was once thought to exist. A personal God is not an idea that is comprehensible in this type of setting.
The first objection raises a number of questions concerning Kaufman's proposal. First, it seems to conflate that which "Christians" (an by that would seem to be meant both those who consider themselves Christians, and basically all of Western society) have historically done. Although it is true that you can learn about a religion by looking at the practice of its adherents, this is much too broad of a brush to give a sufficient understanding of that faith, and its potential or lack thereof. Christianity, far from being a detriment to modern ecological thought and an obstacle to overcoming today's "ecological crisis," has profound and extensive resources to bring to bear on this issue. Far from abandoning Christianity, a closer embrace, admittedly always with a critical eye on our current theological thinking, of Christian theology and of the "Christian story" would be immensely beneficial to ecology. Christianity, at its most fundamental level is affirming of the created world. It is God's creation, and we humans are a part of that creation. Creation bears the glory of God, and further, all that is not ours to destroy as we please, but is instead fundamentally God's. Reviving and remembering the very Christian notion of stewardship has immense potential in calling Christians to look differently at the world around them.
On to his second objection to a personal God, that of the sheer size of the universe. Professor Kaufman, in part three of chapter 2, asserts that our knowledge of the universe, which is fundamentally greater and wider than our forebears in biblical times understood, makes traditional conceptions of God untenable. Knowing how large the universe truly is, and understanding how small of a fraction of the entire universe is the segment we can see, even with our best telescopes, we must imagine God to be larger than traditional religion does. He writes, "The kind of personal intimacy with God fostered by many of these images�especially such anthropomorphic ones as "father," "lord," and "king"�no longer seems appropriate, or even imaginable or intelligible. So our human "relationships" with God will have to be conceived in much vaguer and less vivid terms than in the piety of the past . . . and our understanding of human existence as "under God" will be experienced as much more open, much looser, much less determinate and specific." For Kaufman, God becomes too big to relate to humans. This would seem to fundamentally misrepresent the theological tradition which is firmly founded in the Bible. Theology and Scripture have not traditionally represented God as a being a little higher than human, sitting on Mount Olympus and easily available for relationship, since He has nothing better to do. Instead, Christianity (and Judaism) has fundamentally recognized this fundamental otherness and transcendence of God. In Christian theology, it is not merely appropriate that God has a relationship with his creation, and specifically with humans: it is remarkable and beyond comprehension, but also wonderfully real. The God of traditional Christian theology, the God of the Bible, is not in need of a fundamental shift to transcendence such as Kaufman seems determined to give it. Soren Kierkegaard stands firmly in the orthodox tradition when he asserts the fundamental qualitative distinction between God and humanity. This does not require a negation of all other Christian beliefs, though it may at times be a good reminder and a good corrective to wayward theology. But clearly Kaufman has gone too far, and has sought to throw out almost all insights of theology except this one insight of distinction and size. Truly, science has taken over theology, and his theology seems to tend toward a dressed-up scientific materialism.
I also have a second objection to Kaufman's reasoning regarding the size of the universe, which is more philosophical in nature. It would seem that he is too preoccupied with the sheer size and vastness of the cosmos to realize that although small, we too are part of this vastness. I would argue it is no more unthinkable that a God could be as vast as the cosmos and still relate to humans than it is to think that we humans are part of a cosmos this vast. While understanding the sheer magnitude of the universe, we cannot thereby discount the reality of our own existence; and it would seem, the same argument holds true for God: simply noting the necessary difference in scope doesn't make the relation any more unfathomable than it started, even though it may deepen our appreciation for both God's size and his wonderful condescension.
Reading Kaufman's book and reflecting on his conclusions with regard to evolution and the cosmos, I can't help but thinking that it is precisely the thinking that orthodox Christians have been fearing and reacting against when they handle evolutionary biology and cosmology with such tentative reluctance and care. For Christians have been fearing just this type of slide toward a naturalistic interpretation of the world, which relegates God to the margins, or completely off of the page, depending on the interpretation one wishes to make of Kaufman's notion of creativity. Kaufman sets at odds the Christian "theistic" idea of a personal God and a relationship with this God, and what he calls the "growing awareness that human existence is essentially constituted by, and could not exist apart from, the complex ecological ordering of life that has evolved on planet Earth over many millennia" (124). The "discovery" that humans are part of nature (which somehow apparently is different from the long-held Christian idea that humans are part of Creation), and that this creation developed over millions of years (apparently God can't be conceived of when too much time is present), means for Kaufman that God cannot be the God of Christian theism. For him, evolution categorically rules out a personal God. He speaks instead of "autonomous nature" (40), and asserts that this is the way the universe is thought of today, implying this is a result of modern science. It is interesting that he puts his book forth as (partly) a work in the science and religion field, since he seems to ignore the fact that this particular opposition of God and evolution is almost universally dismissed, except by popularizers such as Richard Dawkins and a few others. While there certainly are Christians who share Kaufman's assessment of the relationship of God and evolution (and who instead dismiss categorically the possibility of evolution), it is relatively safe to say that most people who write in the field of science and religion are more interested in the how of the relationship than the if.
Yet, having talked of Kaufman's radical reunderstanding of God in light of evolutionary thinking, it is interesting to return full circle. Kaufman asserts in the prologue that "Darwinism sounded the death-knell for a natural theology of design." Now that biologists and cosmologists understand the world to have formed over billions of years, there is no conceivable way to assert that God designed the world. Yet, in seemingly ironic fashion (an irony he doesn't seem to notice himself), Kaufman ultimately asserts that God is none other than the creativity that has brought the world into being and is present at every turn, serendipitously working in the world, evident in the amazing fruitfulness and seemingly improbable character of the world in which we live. It seems that after announcing the death of natural theology of design, that is precisely where his own theological system finds its home. Kaufman's "serendipitous creativity" would seem to be a minimal assertion of God's identity taken from an observation of the natural world around us, that is, from natural theology.
One of the important things for Kaufman is the moral imperatives he sees with regard to human life. He talks, in the epilogue, about the development of his theological position, and he continually makes clear that the Mennonite emphasis on morality is at the foundation of his developing framework. He concludes, though, that Christian theology is a human imaginative construction, which provides a picture of God and humans that served well to make intelligible this moral grounding. But, as he makes so clear, it is only a human imaginative construction, without correspondence with reality. It only serves as a somewhat useful framework for morality (a framework which he no longer finds valid). I would assert very strongly that he has very seriously mixed up his priorities in this analysis. His concern with ethics and morality is admirable, and I don't have any particular objection to it. Would that we all were as concerned about the world around us and acting morally with regard to it. But, I believe he has dismissed far to quickly the grounding of that morality. He sees Christian theology as an illustrative device for this morality, which he sees as basic. I would very strongly object to this characterization, and instead would assert that this morality which he uplifts gains its validity and foundation in the Christian faith. It is precisely the theology which he dismisses that produces the ethic he seeks. If he dismisses much of Christian orthodoxy, which seems to be a danger when its doctrines are subordinated to some superior norm, his ethic must eventually crumble because it has no frame of reference. There is nothing to say that his desired ethical stance is any better than its opposite. Creativity, that which he seeks to term "God," cannot serve as an adequate foundation. I would assert that instead it will eventually lead to a conclusion like that of Pope, "Whatever is, is right." We cannot critique this Creativity because we are ourselves a product of it, and we have no way to value ourselves in regard to this impersonal force. There is nothing to say that humans shouldn't ultimately destroy themselves, for that in itself has potential for "creativity," just as the continued existence of humans does. Here, I feel, we have gotten to one of the fundamental flaws in Kaufman's reasoning. He consistently seeks moral action, but it is a moral action that he seeks to ground in the situation, seeking to ascertain what the "creative" action in the situation should be. But without an all-knowing and loving God, we can do little more than make anthropocentric guesses as to what will preserve our own race the best. Has he really advanced at all beyond the position of anthropocentricity ("andropocentricity") he so strongly and consistently critiques? I would finally assert that he has not. I believe he has simply brought together Christianity and naturalism in a creative, but finally unhelpful, way.
Kaufman's critique of theology seems caught up in his search for verification. He recounts, in the epilogue, how he had often heard claims of the experience of God, but he asserts that he seemed "tone deaf" to these experiences. (For those interested in the relationship of experience to the Christian life, among other writings Joseph Sittler has a masterful sermon, "The View from Mount Nebo," which deals very well with these issues [see: The Care of the Earth, Facets, Fortress Press, 2004]). Kaufman was eventually led to conclude that all talk of this type, regarding the experience of the divine, was a "category mistake." It would seem that he subjected Christian theology to experiment, found it wanting, and dismissed it. He then alludes to just such an operation later in the epilogue, when he discusses the testing of symbol-systems (of which Christian faith is one), asserting that "the only possible test of our central symbols is pragmatic." We should analyze our symbol-system with regard to its results, and should ask, "Is some other fundamental paradigm or 'root metaphor' more apposite or adequate for grasping the world so as to enhance and deepen human life, or does the theistic imagery and pattern most effectively perform this function?" (119, quoting from his own earlier writing) He has a clearly instrumental view of faith, in that its value is merely the result that it can give with regard to the deepening of human life. His test is how a belief allows us "to live in the world." Now, I certainly agree to some extent with his assertions, in that there is no objective certainty of truth claims that can be attained in our present state of knowledge. Yet, I do not agree that we should reduce these truth claims to their instrumental value, for this doesn't even acknowledge the content of the truth claim. Instead, it presupposes the values being sought, and then sets this interpretive grid over the symbol-system to see if it matches up. It is no wonder Christian theology was found wanting in Kaufman's eyes; it didn't bring exactly the result he wanted. But, from within the Christian "symbol-system," this is no surprise. Christianity does not seek to satisfy our desires, but instead to reform them. No matter how much we seek some type of epistemic or moral neutrality or objectivity from which to evaluate symbol-systems, we can never attain it, and thus, our experimental results will always be skewed.
So, why read Kaufman's book? I have outlined above a number of what I perceive to be weaknesses or misapprehensions in his assertions about "God" and about the relationship of God to history and to science. Yet, I think his critical and constructive statements can be very important and helpful tools for reflecting on our own images and understandings of God. In chapter 1, Kaufman speaks of why the Christian faith is inadequate to face today's ecological crisis (and in fact in many ways responsible for the root problem). What he sees at the root of this inadequacy is the human-centeredness of Christian conceptions of God, going back through Christian and Jewish understandings of God. This can provide an important critique for our own theological understandings, because theology certainly should not be human-centered. Many theologians of various persuasions make this same type of critique, that theology has become fixated on the human. We focus too much on our own existential situation, and our own existential benefit from God. This same critique can be heard from a conservative Calvinist and from a progressive "naturalist." And it should be heard from both quarters, in addition to many others, because only in hearing these critiques will we constantly reassess the formulations of our understanding of God, returning always to God's Word, in submission to God, who is not a human.
Kaufman provides a very good reminder of the tendency in theology to become "us-centered" or human-centered. We have a tendency to think of ourselves as the center of the universe, with God as "our" creator, "our" savior. It is important to be reminded that while these are true understandings, they are incomplete, because God does not exist to be in our service, but instead, we exist, and theology should exist, to worship and glorify God. It is to be a God-centered enterprise, not a human-centered one. Sometimes, it takes a radical critique like Kaufman's to remind us of this latent tendency in theology, and to constantly be mindful of it as we speak and write about God, and about us as humans. |
