It is a common presumption of many theologians and students of theology that such a pursuit as THEOLOGY is one where we analyze logical and natural evidences to derive WHO God is or if there are many gods.
Western religious thought has finally "logically" matured to the point of either concluding or assuming that there is just ONE God. Such a presumption may be attributed mainly to Judeo-Christian teaching and partially through the monotheistic propositions of Platonic theosophy. Prior to these two schools of theological thought, most civilizations were either polytheistic or pantheistic. In fact during Paul's day in the book of Acts chapter 17, while in Athens, there were still strong evidences that Platonic theology was ignored by the majority of the Hellenistic world.
If theology is the pursuit of the understanding of God, we must first make sure that we are studying the One True God who is none other than the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the I AM.
Of all religious documents that exist, only the Judeo-Christian Bible claims to be words coming out of God's own mind and heart. The theological propositions of these writings claim to be no less than divine revelation. Most other religious writings are were simply penned by individuals simply opining about what they think God is or should be. Many others are traditional beliefs, the content of which defy both reality and history in many of its premises or historical or scientific contexts. a theory and not a law. In fact, much of the Old Testament historical and archeological claims have been verified even when they were initially opposed by the existing sciences of the day, and even when they were initially set out to be disproven.
The Bible on the other hand, has never been conclusively proven to be false either in its historical contexts nor its propositional concepts. Even creation, for example, cannot be contradicted and evolution has been shown to have too many contradictions that it has remained a theory and NOT a law. This is where, for example, Mormon theology is suspect as its historical context are not verifiable and can fall in the realm of fiction.
Theology, therefore, to be completely meaningful and worth any value has to be the study of the ONE True God and not just the study of someone's god.
For the Christian Theologian, theology has to be the pursuit of God according to Jeremiah 9:23,24. God has to be discovered from the viewpoint of inspired scripture and not just any philosophical writing like those of Plato or Aristotle. This means that even if these great Greek philosophers discussed a monotheistic deity, their concept of God is still sans revelation and must be considered faulty or flawed.
This implies that Hellenistic philosophical concepts of God's attributes including timelessness, immanence, transendence, impassive, changelessness, sovereignty, etc have to be discarded or reinterpreted in the light of what Scripture reveals.
To know the one true God, one has to discover Him through the pages of revelation and with the eyes and viewpoint of a Jew. Any other viewpoint will miss too much from the revealed word and, at worst, will lead to misleading concepts of God which would be logically tantamount to idolatry, the sin of creating one's own God apart from revelation.
Now you can see quite clearly why this blog on relational theology rejects or defies classical Christian theology in many ways. Many modern concepts of God and His attributes are legacies of the Christian scholastics like Aquinas, who possibly wanted to have a concept of God that would be acceptable to a predominantly Hellenistic intelligentsia; and that is their greatest downfall, ignoring revelation in favor of pleasing the prevaling and popular bias of those who were the known intellectuals of their world.
It is unfortunate that many in our modern Christian theological world do not see this and accept these classical concepts of God hook, line and sinker. Theology of any form should always be discussed with skepticism knowing that God can defend His own and True theology will prevail amid all the muck.
Relational Theology as presented here seems to survive any skeptical onslaught. I have opened this blog to generate challenges from any quarter. So far, there has been a lot of silence even from the theologies I explicitly criticize.
Of all religious documents that exist, only the Judeo-Christian Bible claims to be words coming out of God's own mind and heart. The theological propositions of these writings claim to be no less than divine revelation. Most other religious writings are were simply penned by individuals simply opining about what they think God is or should be. Many others are traditional beliefs, the content of which defy both reality and history in many of its premises or historical or scientific contexts. a theory and not a law. In fact, much of the Old Testament historical and archeological claims have been verified even when they were initially opposed by the existing sciences of the day, and even when they were initially set out to be disproven.
The Bible on the other hand, has never been conclusively proven to be false either in its historical contexts nor its propositional concepts. Even creation, for example, cannot be contradicted and evolution has been shown to have too many contradictions that it has remained a theory and NOT a law. This is where, for example, Mormon theology is suspect as its historical context are not verifiable and can fall in the realm of fiction.
Theology, therefore, to be completely meaningful and worth any value has to be the study of the ONE True God and not just the study of someone's god.
For the Christian Theologian, theology has to be the pursuit of God according to Jeremiah 9:23,24. God has to be discovered from the viewpoint of inspired scripture and not just any philosophical writing like those of Plato or Aristotle. This means that even if these great Greek philosophers discussed a monotheistic deity, their concept of God is still sans revelation and must be considered faulty or flawed.
This implies that Hellenistic philosophical concepts of God's attributes including timelessness, immanence, transendence, impassive, changelessness, sovereignty, etc have to be discarded or reinterpreted in the light of what Scripture reveals.
To know the one true God, one has to discover Him through the pages of revelation and with the eyes and viewpoint of a Jew. Any other viewpoint will miss too much from the revealed word and, at worst, will lead to misleading concepts of God which would be logically tantamount to idolatry, the sin of creating one's own God apart from revelation.
Now you can see quite clearly why this blog on relational theology rejects or defies classical Christian theology in many ways. Many modern concepts of God and His attributes are legacies of the Christian scholastics like Aquinas, who possibly wanted to have a concept of God that would be acceptable to a predominantly Hellenistic intelligentsia; and that is their greatest downfall, ignoring revelation in favor of pleasing the prevaling and popular bias of those who were the known intellectuals of their world.
It is unfortunate that many in our modern Christian theological world do not see this and accept these classical concepts of God hook, line and sinker. Theology of any form should always be discussed with skepticism knowing that God can defend His own and True theology will prevail amid all the muck.
Relational Theology as presented here seems to survive any skeptical onslaught. I have opened this blog to generate challenges from any quarter. So far, there has been a lot of silence even from the theologies I explicitly criticize.
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