Reductionist glasses give a marginalized view of God.
A couple of days ago I heard one radio host talking about a sports issue and he said something like, "we try to reduce it down to something simple, and it will never be a simple."
For years I have tried to help my daughters become critical thinkers by helping them see that most things in life are complex. I have encouraged them to "add to" rather than "subtract from" complicated issues.
However, most people like to cut things down to size so that it will fit with their lifestyle or beliefs. As it relates to God, the saying "In the beginning, God created man in his own image, then man returned the favor..." seems accurate.
How do you view God? Life seems to teach us to look for less, not more. "Taste Great, Less Filling" is the too common theology of the day. Our political framework is built upon flimsy sound bites that look sturdy to those wearing reductionist glasses.
If you look at the immigration issue through reductionist glasses, then the solution is to build a wall and close the border; or let everyone in; or let illegal immigrants have immediate citizenship. Would any of these ideas by themselves work? Doubtful, because the issue is complex!
Terrorism? Simple, we will invade a country start a war and prevent future attacks. Simple, we will be passive and do nothing so that we will not provoke future attacks. Simple, we will march and demand world peace.
Education Crisis? Simple we will require standardized testing to hold teachers and school districts to higher standards. Simple, we need more money! Simple, we need to allow school choice. Simple, we need to get back to the basics. Simple, we need to use new teaching methods that lead to personalized discovery.
Abortion? Homelessness? Poverty? Taxes? Health Care? Discrimination? Divorce?
Are bumper stickers right? Know Jesus Know Peace. No Jesus No Peace. Is it really that simple?
God?
Dr. Albert Mohler said, The god of reductionistic theology is nothing more than a dehydrated, domesticated and demythologized version of God. It compromises the ‘omnis’ of God to make him something less than Omni. (Source)
Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck drew a distinction between pagan and biblical thought. Bavinck said that modern (and ancient Greek) thinkers attempted to find the “essence” of a thing, that which makes a thing uniquely what it is, by subtraction. To discover the “essence” of a pencil, we subtract its color, its size, its shape — all of which may vary without changing the nature of the thing and all of which may describe something other than a pencil. (There might be a red apple as well as a red pencil, a six-inch slug as well as a six-inch pencil, etc.) When we have subtracted all the variables, what we have left is the “essence” of the pencil, what might be called “pure pencilness.” (Of course, what we really have left is nothing at all.)
Scripture, by contrast, describes the essence of a thing by addition. Only when we know the fullness of a thing, all of its attributes, do we really know its uniqueness and “essence.” God’s “essence” is not some “bare minimum” of deity, or some “basic attribute” from which all the other attributes can be derived. Instead, the “essence” of God is the fullness of all his attributes — Peter Leithart, The Kingdom and the Power, pp. 93-94. (Thanks John)
Add to your understanding of God by subtracting the aforementioned glasses.
I am finding that the only reduction required is the reduction of myself. When I reduce God to fit in my world, or to address things in way that might work for me, I always end up with a version of God that is not really Him at all. When I reduce myself from the equation God begins to look a lot more like God. I cannot reduce Him, but need to reduce me.
Luke 9:23 Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."
Good words Rob, thanks for the insight!
Jeremy
Posted by: Jeremy Hughey | May 16, 2008 at 09:30 AM