by Joan Mitchell, CSJ
We in western culture inherit a distant, transcendent God from the thinkers of the Enlightenment. This 18th-century movement questioned traditional values, exalted the individual, and emphasized human reasoning. Its theologians describe God by projecting human qualities to an infinite degree. God is all-knowing, all-seeing, omnipotent, ever-present.
In the 21st century we are finding the Enlightenment concept of God inadequate. Suffering people can’t believe in an all-knowing God who doesn’t hear them. Third World poor people insist the transcendent God is the God of the First-World privileged, who keep God distant to preserve the status quo that favors them on earth.
Women often find that the divine king imagery for God subjugates them to men on earth and alienates them from their own deepest spiritual experiences. The young question a God whose image has not evolved with science and the view of Earth from the moon.
Now as we live into the postmodern era, many theologians see God compassionately involved with every creature. God suffers with the suffering—with soldiers who put their lives on the line to defend their country and with people caught in war between rival factions. This God went to the gas chambers with the victims of the Holocaust. This God is with victims of violence and with the perpetrators.
God sides with the oppressed to liberate them. God hears the cry of the poor for life. The Creator calls us to care for Earth rather than dominate it. God gives humans the capabilities to co-create the human community. How this process will turn out is open-ended. The God of Sunday’s gospel is irrationally loving and generous beyond all reason.
- Describe the God on whom your heart rests, the one you trust at your center.