THE PROBLEMATIC ABSTRACT GOD

A motivation behind some of my posts has been to counter the problems of an abstract God.  Too often, popular Christian theology treats God like an impersonal, auto-response machine.  Behind this treatment lies abstract definitions of God.

Long explanation.  I noticed that NET2 translates Rom 4:3 (Greek) quotation of the OT Gen 15:6 as "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."  There is a note at “credited” (logizomai) citing a reference to it being a commercial term in secular Greek.  But, the same reference source continues to note that this word was used in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible for a more personal, subjective term and that this subjective nuance influence later Jewish use of logizomai!  And, Paul had just used it in the subjective sense of “consider” in 2:26 and 3:28!  (I would translate, "Abraham entrusted himself to God, and that was considered [by God] a right relationship."

[Note: accounting terms are used in the Bible as one symbol of forgiveness, for example the forgiveness of debts in the Lord’s Prayer, to which I will return below.]

So, why the impersonal accounting term?  Although I do not know the mind of this particular translator, an impersonal God goes back to a trajectory in Christian thinking that was influenced by Neo-Platonism in which God is defined “from the bottom up” (by our reasoning) and which used abstractions in an absolute way: God is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, omnibenevolent, apathetic (not moved by emotion), etc.  So, for God to be absolutely just, salvific images had to be viewed literally: Jesus’ death was a literal ransom (Origen; one might ask, paid to whom?); Jesus’ death was a debt payment necessary to satisfy a feudal God (Anselm); Jesus’ death paid the criminal penalty for our sins (e.g. Calvin).

However, that is not the picture we get of God when we move from “the top down” (from the revelation of God in Scripture).  There God is not an abstraction ruled by definitions, but very personal.  Rather, this gracious, merciful God even asks us to be merciful and to forgive debts as God has done for us; that is, not demanding payment!  "And forgive us our debts, as even we have forgiven our debtors" (Lord’s Prayer, Matt 6:12).  (This is why I recently wrote that "God is not just" in an abstract sense, 8/31/23.)

Application:  Once again, my heart is moved by the mercy of the personal God who seeks relationship with me, a debtor.
Lord, may I learn to be more appreciative of your grace and grow to be as merciful to others as you are to me.  Amen.