How (not) to speak of God – Chapter 5: The third mile

Rollins begins his book with setting up a dialectic between Ludwig Wittgenstein’s statement “What we cannot speak of we must pass over in silence.” and evangelical christianity’s approach which suggests “God is the one subject of who we must never stop speaking”. What results from this is an approach which suggests “That which we cannot speak of is the one thing about whom and to whom we must never stop speaking”. This dialogue between mysticism and dogmatism sets the scene for Part 1 of How (not) to Speak of God  and Rollin’s discussion of post-modern continental philosophy and theology. 

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Chapter 5: The Third Mile

“Chapter 5 draws out the centrality of love in Christian thinking.” (p xiii).

Truth as soteriological event

In opposition to Greek thought, the Judeo-Christian tradition discusses (metaphysical) Truth (or the Real) not in descriptive terms but in relational terms, “the Judeo-Christian view of truth is concerned with having a relationship with the Real (God) that results in us transforming reality. The emphasis is thus not on description but on transformation… For here Truth is the ungraspable Real (objective) that transforms the individual (subjective).” (p. 56).

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love… No-one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and Hilo is made complete in us… God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. – 1 John 4:7-16 -

“Here John equates the existence of religious knowledge with the act of love.” (p. 57). Thus, knowledge of God (Truth) is removed from propositional doctrines, instead finding its expression in love for others. In this way, Truth is seen to be any act that positively transforms reality, rather than empirical data.

The prejudice of love

This approach calls into question the modernist prerogative for ‘right interpretation’. The religious approach even calls for a prejudice when interpreting a text (or ethical situation): a prejudice of love (Truth).

Infinite readings and transfinite readings

We know from the ‘critique of ideology’ that we all read the bible (or any other text/situation) with a certain cultural bias. However, this does not mean that there are an infinite numbers of interpretations. For example, while we might understand the concept of love differently, it would be irresponsible and dishonest to read the bible as a call to hate or do violence to others. In this way, the number of ‘readings’ is seen to be transfinite, rather than infinite. To help this interpretative process, the prejudice of love is essential. When we embrace this ‘double reading’ of the text we can overcome (cultural) difficulties which might be seen to be supporting such things as slavery.

Ethics and love

“It is this double reading that ensures that we are never absolved from the difficult job of making moral decisions.” (p. 64). Through this method, the bible is never read as an ethical textbook which offers ‘the answers’; instead we are encouraged to constantly be challenged and encouraged by the call to walk the extra mile.

From knowledge to love: reading from right to left

“In the same way that contemporary religious thought has set transcendence in opposition to immanence, and has considered theism to be the binary of atheism, so ‘orthodoxy’ has been interpreted as necessarily excluding heresy… However, there is another way of understanding the word ‘orthodoxy’, one that does not set it in a binary opposition with heresy but embraces the idea that we all get God wrong.” (p. 65-6). Instead of understanding orthodoxy as right (ortho) belief (doxa), we need to read right to left and and understand it as believing in the right way.

Faith and works

“if we love because we are compelled through force [or for reward], then it is not love… This means that my argument for love can in no way be taken as a justification for works-based salvation, for as soon as love works in order to receive something, it is not love.” (p. 68).

Acts of love

There are “three criteria for the perfect, loving gift – that is, one that we would not use in order to get a reward: (1) the receiver does not know he or she has been given a gift; (2) nothing [concrete] is actually given; and (3) the giver does not know he or she has given anything…. For a concrete example of this, we can say that an act of love could involve giving money to someone on the street without stopping to think, or talking to someone who is in pain without thought that we are doing anything special or different from any other daily activity.” (p. 70).

“Yet here is the difficult bit, for we cannot force this radical, Christlike love, we cannot work it up or commit to living in this way. We cannot… Say, ‘OK, today I will live this life of love’, for that would not be the life of love, it would be forced and would lead to condemnation and/or arrogance. So what can we do?” (p. 71).

Letting go

“The underlying love cannot be worked up but is gained by giving up… To affirm the approach that I am advocating means that we must accept that to be a Christian is to be born of love, transformed by love and committed to transforming the world with love… In doing so, we will not merely sit around describing God to the world, but rather, we will become the iconic spaces in which God is made manifest in the world… a journey that willingly walks that thisrd mile with Christ.” (p. 71).

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