The more and more that I venture into theology, and in particularly systematic theology, the more I am convinced that there is something central to the being of God which might serve as a guide to theological reflection. So, my question is this - "What do I place at the center of my theology?" Understand, I am not trying to claim that there necessarily is some absolute thing which is central t0 theology over all other things, but I do think that when we attempt to say something about God it must be rooted in some characteristic which makes God - well, God. So what is it, then?
While I could spend a lot of time juggling a bunch of different answers to this question around as an exercise in rhetoric, I want to cut to the chase and deal with what I have already been working with as the starting point for my theology - relationality - which frames the essence of God, then, as love.[1] OK, don't laugh - I know that it seems a wee bit sappy to say that it all comes down to love. While I am certainly a romantic in many aspects, I hesitate to bring all of theology down to love, not only because it is mushy and "chick flickish," but primarily because it appears, at first glance, overly-simplistic and, at the same time, incomprehensibly abstract. What in the world does it mean to say that God is love?
Let me take a shot …
Before it began, God was perfect community – as history fuses with our present existence, God is perfect community – and as we journey into the future, God will be perfect community. Since the beginning the story has been about God’s action in history, and so it is our prerogative to tell the story about the human-divine encounter as we perceive it from the human experience. Thus, we reflect on our experience of God in history and understand that it is from God that all experience flows. Theology, thus, is not an objective endeavor but is the reflection from the human experience trying to explain who God is and what God is doing in the encounter with humanity.
In the beginning, the God-head existed in perfect relationship and communion within itself. The relational trinity existed as the Father (Creator) shares with the Son (Redeemer), and the Son with the Father, the love which is the Holy Spirit (Sustainer). Prior to the creation of the world and the universe, God existed, as God still exists, as the mysterious paradox of the interpenetration of three persons-in-one being – the Divine dance of love (perichoresis). God exists transcendently in perfect diversity (relationality) and in perfect unity (Shema – “The Lord our God is one”). Thus, prior even to the creation of the world the story has its purpose and meaning, the story of God is one of relationality and the formation of community that proceed from the self-giving love of God – whose divine essence is perfect love.
From the self-giving love of the relational trinity creation is born, because God is love it is natural for God to extend the communion within the God-head to that which is created. Therefore, creation is not necessitated by divine loneliness, or anything else, but it exudes from God as an act of freedom and of perfect love. Ultimately, it is this love, bringing creation into divine communion of God, which the divine-human encounter throughout history is directed toward. Because God is love, God creates, and calls that creation into relationship with one another and with himself. God created the world, therefore, in order that it might participate in the relational trinity which means that the purpose behind the creation of humankind is founded upon life-in-community with one another, with creation, and ultimately with God.
The implications of understanding the essential nature of God to be love are tremendous and life-changing. Therefore I want to spend some time flushing out these implications and trying to wrap my mind around what it means to (not) know a God who is love.
[1] To give credit where credit is due, much of my understanding of relational theology comes from Stanley Grenz's systematic theology, Theology for the Community of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994).
