For Tozer, Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac showed the level of his obedience. He is in the James category--James uses the Abraham story to show that a person is considered right with God by the things they do and not simply because of what they say they believe (James 2:20-24).
By contrast, Soren Kierkegaard predictably saw Abraham as an example of faith in the preposterous and absurd. As for Paul, Abraham was the consumate example of faith (cf. Romans 4; Galatians 3).
For Kierkegaard, the thing that God commanded of Abraham was absurd. After all, God himself had given him Isaac as a miracle in his old age. And now God was taking him away! Who among us would not doubt? Am I sure that it was God talking to me? Maybe God isn't really serious.
Yet Abraham believed unwaveringly. Without a moment's doubt he got up early, proceeded at a measured pace to Mt. Moriah, and proceeded to sacrifice.
To me, Kierkegaard's Abraham is a reminder that I can't put God in a box. There is something just a little fearsome about Him, and my puny mind can't hope to understand His ways.
There are some Christian philosophers who think they can tell you about God's nature, how He must behave because of who He is. I say with Kierkegaard that we can talk about who God is because of who He chooses to be. I don't think for one moment that I have God all figured out or that I can assure you how He's going to act on any given occasion.
Are you going through a time of great suffering? As we speak there is a funeral going on at College Wesleyan--that's why we're here in the PAC. I won't pretend to tell you why God allows the innocent to suffer or why we sometimes endure the things we do. I don't know why God allows tsunamis or 9-11's.
But I believe that God is good and loving, and I believe that God is in control. And perhaps He'll let me in on the details when we get to heaven.
Footnote: Fear and Trembling is the work where Kierkegaard discusses Abraham. Of course I also think Kierkegaard goes too far with his idea of blind faith. I don't think God is a trickster, and you'll eventually see where I come out in terms of the original meaning of the Abraham story.
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So do you feel that God could choose to no longer love? Or to no longer be three persons. I get a little nervous (My still very modern tendancies raising its head). Can we trust this God to have properly revealed himself through the Bible and councils? (which I realize had very human elements to them) Even your last statement "I don't think God is a trickster.
I would like to think that God has normalized his identity in relation to this universe. Perhaps I should (help me realize this) say that talk of God's "nature" is completely appropriate for us to do without it actually saying anything about His essence, which is beyond this universe and thus our comprehension. It is true and yet "metaphorical" without us knowing what the literal might even be.
With regard to the Trinity I am on much shakier grounds and submit thoughts without full commitment. I do wonder if what we call the Trinity is in some sense the way the "literal nature" of God plays itself out in this universe. This comment borders on a kind of metaphysical modalism that could be heretical or at least skirting awefully close to it.
In this sense God the Father is our apprehension of God's literal nature primarily in relation to His existence outside this universe. God the Holy Spirit is our apprehension of God's literal nature primarily in relation to His existence throughout this universe. And God the pre-existent Word now fully human also Jesus is our apprehension of God's literal nature in relation to the connection between God's transcendence and immanence.
Now if this suggestion is not fully unorthodox, it comes close. My argument for orthodoxy is that I think this plays itself out as three distinct persons and yet one God.
I am not a theologian, so I don't have plans to develop this scheme as a scholar. However, I do believe that the framers of the creeds did not understand the distinction between natural and supernatural as we do. Some decry this distinction as an Enlightenment by-product--indeed I think it is. But I think it does relate to an important distinction between this universe and God as outside it, and it does so with an important awareness of how the rules might be different for God than they are for us.
In this sense, I believe I could argue for legitimate room for not so much doctrinal development but doctrinal refinement in relation to the Trinity.
This is not my area and of course I have no desire to be sacrificed like Isaac.
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