today

today

i was asked a question: how could i be a devout christian and fit into berger's model of defining religion? as you may recall, or follow the link to read - which would be far more helpful - berger basically says that we can sustain meaningful ongoingness is because we forget that we created the means by which meaningful ongoingness is sustained.

in essence, the question asked: is berger's model self-defeating? does it ultimately collapse because the believer of the model has to forget that the model exists in order for it to be successful?

to some degree: yes. but ultimately, the answer is no. especially in the case of someone like me.

i subscribe to berger's model - yes, i believe humanity created religion - and remain, i hope for the most part, non-heretical. hear me out.

we have this being who ultimately cannot be described, who is ultimately unknowable. we say this being is personal, and we attribute qualities to this being, such as omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence. we also declare that this being has a name: God.

what we are doing is describing something that cannot be described in the best possible way we know how - through language - but still fail to come to grips as to what this being is. our language and descriptions create a picture of God, similar to the way a picture of a soda can is not the actual soda can. to be concise, the word "God", is not actually God. the word God is a human construct. it is the way we attempt to define the unknowable.

however, God does exist, even though our construction of God may not exactly match up, we try our best. but now consider that this God, of whom the depths of which cannot be fully known, chose to build his image (we'll use a personal pronoun in light of the christian tradition) inside of us. the full gravity of that choice, we will likely never understand, but it has something to do with us being able to know God. not only do we have the image of God inside of us, but God stepped into our time and defined what he was doing and continues to do, in the language of society and culture. God said to moses: "I AM." God stepped into our time as the form of Jesus, at the very least, to show us what God looks like in our skin.

even in the creation story at the beginning of the bible in the book of genesis, we have God in the beginning who speaks creation into existence. and God said, "let there be light." and there was light. now it may not actually be that God spoke words, but it's the best way we can describe what it is that God did when he created the heavens and the earth. it makes sense that God would speak things into being. we have a God who through his story, uses our language so that we may know him better and more fully, that we may glimpse what it was that he did.

at the end of the day, i realize the need to develop these thoughts more. i consider it nothing but a miracle all the incredible things that God does. it makes God feel so big. that he could take a system so inadequate for description and tell a story through it... in ways that we can understand. he takes broken things and uses them for his purposes. imagine, if God can use our language... how much more can he do with us?