Ears To Hear...

Dorothy Sayers was once confronted by this atheist-style statement: If a clam were to conceive of God, it would conceive of God as the Great Clam in the Sky.

Her response?

"Naturally."

The argument of the atheist (or whomever is making this statement) is that God must be the creation of the human mind because all indications are that God is simply an "archetype" or a larger-than-life human in the sky.

But when Sayers responds, she is not confirming the position of the atheist, but countering the position. Briefly, her argument is as follows.

God as Creator - and thus creative - is always true to the nature of his creation, just as all good artist are true the material they are working with. In other words, a sculptor would ask from his material only what is true of that material. So that, what our artist asks of granite may be quite different than what what she would ask of plaster or marble or metal.

AND...

AND - here's the kicker - if the artist were to make a self representation in marble, the true artist would never ask the marble to be an exact replica - not flesh and blood and softness and...hairy. A true artist who loves her substance (marble) and herself will be true to the material and limit her self representation to the fullness of the material - nothing less but neither nothing beyond the capability of the material.

So if God were to reveal himself to a clam, he would reveal himself in his creation (clams) to the fullness of that particular creation. In other words, he would be the clammiest clam he could be, and nothing more.

The reason for this is that the clam's experience of God is limited by the clam. To say "God is a Warrior" to a clam would be paramount to telling humans that God is a baglachi-catini-lehu.

So how do you feel about that?

Unless I am very much mistaken, you don't feel anything at all - except perhaps confusion. Why? Because (unless I'm mistaken) you've had no experience whatsoever with a baglachi-catini-lehu. So, it's absolutely useless for God to reveal herself as a baglachi-catini-lehu to you. Meaningless. Whatever the word means to God is lost on you, and that's no knock on God or you. It just means you are human and, limited by your humanness, you cannot relate to the God as baglachi.

Neither can a clam relate to God as Warrior.

So when those biblical characters such as David, Isaiah, Malachi, John and even Jesus refer to God as "Father" or "King" - we start with the assumption that God is revealing God's Self to them in the best possible way. The obvious thing with Jesus is that he is God so the perspective shifts a bit (slight understatement) but the principle holds true. Jesus as God, as well as God who spoke to the Prophets, is continually revealing within the experience of the creature.

So, if God reveals himself to his creation living in a patriarchal social construct, and these people are in near constant oppression and/or captivity, then it has a powerful meaning to say that God is King - the true ruler of all the nations. God as Father - the provider and guider of his children. God as Warrior - the rescuer and defender of his people.

The question is, do these words mean the same to us now?

I would suggest that they do not. That doesn't mean that they should not be used, but if we are to respect the Scripture, we must stand in the shoes (sandals) of those who penned it.

The word "King" means something quite different to us, living in The United States than it would to a people living in captivity in Babylon 3000 years ago.

The same is true for Warrior and Father.

The bottom line is this, though. We are right to stand in the shoes of the Ancients and receive God's revelation, but we are also right to stand in our own shoes and receive God's revelation. In fact, the reality is that we must and cannot help but to stand in our own shoes.

And so when children of a culture of single parent homes suggest that God is Mother and that "Father" is meaningless, they are justified and right to use the metaphor Mother. Mother is the Provider, the Disciplinarian, the Comforter.

This we can understand.

But what of a culture (ours) that creates a strong divide between male and female (there is a masculine soul and a feminine soul)?

Would we be surprised that a God who cares deeply for all of her children would groan to express herself as female as well?

How else can female ever be imago Dei in this culture?

God, my Mother...
God, Madam President of the Universe...
God, the Great Female Physician...
God, my Mother Theresa...

Revelation is about intimacy (popular among my circle of friends) but it is also about redemption.

Feminine metaphors of God reveal and redeem the imago Dei of females.

(And just for the record, I don't believe in male souls and female souls and think there is little divide at all between female and male. But that's another post...)

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 5/16/2005 09:24:00 AM

 

Comments:

what a post!
Could it be that over a life time, a person's imago dei could change several times?

# by:  Captainwow : 7:36 PM

 

LoisLois:

1. I am too lazy to go to email right now so I will just comment! Yay! Thanks for being so enthusiastic about my book :) Not many people are. I'll send you a copy after I've read it once through to get a holistic effect and then gone through again and revised it.

2. Beautiful point. I'm glad my sister is so smart.

3. I think that God being revealed to a clam is possibly the greatest thought ever.

# by:  S. Grace : 3:07 AM

 

Captain Wow - the "person" aspect of the imago dei should always be growing, changing, expanding...of course you are right. But (I don't think) the imago dei is confined to the person...

Grace - it's fine to be lazy and yes, of course, you need to re-read and revise...I'm waiting patiently...

And - I'm really glad you grove on clam revelation! I do to! Btw, you would like this book...Dorothy Sayers "The Mind of the Maker"

# by:  Headless-in-GR : 9:23 AM

 

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