Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Christian Piatt

Home
Progressive Christian
If You Meet God On the Road, Kill Him

If You Meet God On the Road, Kill Him

Last updated on: September 30, 2011 at 7:21 pm by Christian Piatt

If You Meet God On the Road, Kill Him 2011-09-30T19:21:40+00:00 Christian Piatt

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I was talking to a woman at Church on Sunday who has been through more than her share of hard times. She wears her life in the lines on her face and along the scars and blemishes on her fragile hands. Through it all, she’s held on to her faith in God.

But the relationship has, at times, been strained by hardship.

“I know everything happens for a reason,” she said, “but sometimes I just can’t imagine what the reason is. I know I shouldn’t but I just get so mad at God from time to time.” I reassured her that any God worth believing in can likely handle a little bit of human anger. I reminded her of the scene in the movie, “The Apostle,” when Robert Duval rages against God up in his room.

“I love you, God,” Duval hollers, “but I’m mad at you!”

The woman smiled and thanked me for assuring her that simply being mad wasn’t cause for eternal damnation. What I didn’t tell her was that I disagree with her belief that everything happens for a reason. Sometimes, the universe is a chaotic, violent and unreasonable place. To suggest there’s a greater reason for it all seems to limit the Divine to the confines of human nature and logic.

This mentality about everything happening for a reason comes mainly from the constructs we build up around who we believe God is. As Jean Jacques Rousseau said, “God created man in his own image. And man, being a gentleman, returned the favor.”

There’s a fear that, if we don’t construct an image of God we can identify with, we will lose our connection. If we take the more anthropomorphic descriptions of God in scripture metaphorically, we then have to wrestle with what is left. For some, like Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre and Thomas J. J. Altizer, it leads them to proclaim, “God is dead.”

It’s understandable why this might feel terrifying for those still struggling to articulate what they believe. But there are those, like John Caputo, who approach Christianity from a deconstructionist point of view and show that Christian faith can be pretty exciting for those willing to wade into unfamiliar waters. Here, deconstruction doesn’t negate the role of faith but keeps it open so that it might be expressed in fresh ways that aren’t limited to our all-too-human images of God.

Following is an excerpt from a description of Caputo’s book, “What Would Jesus Deconstruct?”

“Deconstruction is not destruction but rather a breaking down of the object in question so as to open it up to its own future and make it more loyal to itself. This is because in deconstructing, the undeconstructible is revealed, in this case, the eternal truth of God revealed in the gospel.”

The title of this article comes from a frequently used paraphrase of a Buddhist koan (a poem used to provoke thought) attributed to Zen Master Linji, founder of the Buddhist Rinzai sect. The saying is, “If You Meet The Buddha On The Road, Kill Him.” Though this sounds a little bit shocking, its intent is to shake the reader out of their spiritual or intellectual slumber to consider the deeper truth of the koan.

On the website, Daily Buddhism, Brian Schell explains the heart of this particular koan as follows:

“Whatever your conception is of the Buddha, it’s wrong! Now kill that image and keep practicing. This all has to do with the idea that reality is an impermanent illusion. If you believe that you have a correct image of what it means to be Enlightened, then you need to throw out (kill) that image and keep meditating.”

For some like Nietzsche, the deconstruction process led them to believe that there was nothing left at all. No God, period. For Caputo and fellow postmodern theologians, the deconstruction process actually is a liberation of God from the preconceptions we have built up about who or what God is.

It’s easy to assume that such theological perspective is a product of twenty-first-century philosophy. In fact, this way of thinking has been centuries in the making.

St. Augustine said, “If you comprehend it, it is not God.” He lived from 354-430 CE.

Thomas Aquinas said, “The highest human knowledge of God is to know that one doesn’t know God.” His work, though more than seven centuries old, still influences our way of thinking about faith today.

Meister Eckhart, a 13th-14th century philosopher, prayed that God would rid him of God.

As a side note, indicating differences even within the postmodern camp: John Caputo would challenge Eckhart on this point because for him God is “wholly other.” Deconstruction opens us to the other by emphasizing Kierkegaard’s ‘infinite qualitative distinction’ between god and ourselves. Caputo isn’t referring to God as a presence “out there” on the plane of being, but rather on the hope and dream of a different future that disrupts what is.

Even the Jews of the Old Testament, or Hebrew Bible, never dared to utter God’s true name, because to do so was to try in vain to pin down God. In Exodus 3:13-15, God orders Moses to lead the Israelites, to which Moses responds, “If I now come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ they are going to ask me, ‘What’s this God’s name?’ What am I supposed to say to them?”

God’s response: “I Am Who I Am. So say to the Israelites, ‘I Am has sent me to you.’”

A literal interpretation of such a text might argue that this passage supports an anthropomorphic God image: a God who speaks directly to humanity in an actual, audible voice. Taken in cultural and historical context, however, many scholars understand that the Jewish narrative was told generally in parable form, much like the stories Jesus himself told his followers.

Although such stories are not considered to be factual (the emphasis of literal, historical fact came along centuries later as a more Western way of thinking), they each contain an important truth that the reader or listener has to reveal for themselves, much like the Buddhist koan. The central message of this passage as it relates to the nature of God:

God is.

One can imagine Moses following up with something like, “You are what, God?” longing for more clarity. But instead he gets the message that God simply is what God is.

There’s a long-standing debate about theodicy, which questions how God could be both all-powerful and entirely good while such pervasive evil exists. It’s easy to get tied up in knots over this, especially if you conceive of a human-like God, with something resembling human consciousness and will. With this come all the questions about why a loving God would cause horrible things to happen, or would at least allow them to happen.

But all of this presumes an awful lot about the nature of a God we know really very little about. By killing all preconceptions we have about who or what God is, we do indeed free God simply to be, as stated in Exodus and by great theologians and philosophers ever since. Arguments about theodicy dissolve, claims that God punishes certain people selectively for whatever reason we deem valid lose their teeth.

In the preface of his book, “The Weakness of God,” John Caputo responds to the tendency of many pastors to try and explain away the devastation caused by the 2004 Tsunami in the Indian Ocean:

“Many religious leaders have been rushing to the nearest microphone or camera to explain that, while these are all innocent victims, we cannot hope to explain the mystery of God’s ways–implying that this natural disaster is something God foresaw but chose not to forestall. Others are telling us that God has taken this terrible occasion to remind us that we are all sinners and to dish out some much-needed and justifiable punishment to the human race…Those are blasphemous images of God for me, clear examples of the bankruptcy of thinking of God as a strong force with the power to intervene upon natural processes…the decision depending upon what suits the divine plan.”

In letting go of these proscribed human constructs, we actually free ourselves from a great deal of suffering, some of which we tend to blame on God. God is. We are. Let that be enough.

(Special thanks to Phil Snider, who contributed to this article.)

Christian Piatt is the creator and editor of “Banned Questions About The Bible” and “Banned Questions About Jesus.” He has a memoir on faith, family and parenting being published in early 2012 called “PREGMANCY: A Dad, a Little Dude and a Due Date.” For more information about Christian, visit www.christianpiatt.com, or find him on Twitter or Facebook.

jean jacques rousseau

Previous Post

September 29, 2011

Would You Change?

Next Post

October 2, 2011 Considering the options, I'll take suffering

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category atonement belief bible Bill O'Reilly Buddhism CCM children christian piatt christianity Contemporary Christian Music current events derek flood Easter education Everyday Sunday faith faith and culture Frank Schaeffer great commission Haaz Sleiman Hobby Lobby Homebrewed Culture humor ISIS Jesus John Paul Lederach Killing Jesus LGBTQ marc driscoll Mission Year Music My Jesus Project Nat Geo parenting politics popular culture postChristian prison reform Ray rice religion republicans sacrifice sexuality theology Uncategorized video violence wild goose festival World Vision young adults

Select a Month December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What was Bezalel's profession?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Soldier Craftsman Farmer Priest