Random theology

Random theology isn’t written to systematically organize personal beliefs. The writing is more ambiguous and messy, both random and theological. Random because ideas verge on stream of consciousness, tangents of thought uncritically traveled during immediate moments of reflection. Theological because ideas focus on God while existentially fleshing out His existence and truth on practical and abstract levels.

Two quotes, which help – partially – explain my purpose and approach:

The modern sense of entertainment [is]…everything that would turn our thoughts away from fundamental existential matters. By escaping the questions of the ultimate meaning of our own lives, or of human life in general, our minds slowly get used to that fictitious reality, which we take for the real one, and are lured by its attractions.

Ryszard Legutko, The demon in democracy

Random theology offers regular – hopefully – opportunities to abandon Charles Taylor’s diagnosis of postmodern society’s “disenchanted world,” which, knowingly for some and unknowingly for others, denies (at least on the practical day-to-day level) the existence of the transcendent, supernatural, or otherworldly. To unplug our entertainment-saturated lives and ponder human experience’s fundamental questions against the cosmic backdrop of the Divine; cultivating a constant awareness of God in the mundane.

God truly reveals himself in this world and in human language, so that this world really does have being, and human worlds really do attain to the mystery of God…[but] God’s transcendence implies that it surely would be erroneous to equate our being with the being of God or to assert that human language could adequately comprehend God.

Hans Boersma, Heavenly Participation

God lovingly shares Himself with people – you and I – through general and particular revelation. And Jesus, the Son of God, in “becoming flesh and dwelling among us,” teaches the physical’s sacramental participation in the spiritual – a visceral connection between the lesser and greater realities. Therefore, God isn’t and is unknowable. He’s the immanent Father deeply known through intimate relationship, and the transcendent Creator clothed in infinite mystery beyond knowledge. Random theology desires to balance God’s immanence and transcendence while facilitating discussion. God’s immanence supplies real meaning to discussions of Christianity’s beliefs while His transcendence must inspire reverent humility in the midst of conversation. And I hope the balance protects from skeptical speculation (relativism) and arrogant dogmatism (tribalism).

Last thoughts. I think. I invite you, dear reader, to participate in rooting these random thoughts in a biblical theology, which will result in ideas being affirmed, ideas being altered, and ideas being rejected. The blog is an exercise in vulnerability. As I try to be honest with you, please try to be honest with me. Comments are encouraged, but let’s commit to learning as a community seeking truth, and resist the tendency to turn beneficial conversation into dehumanizing debates.