Created Human Divinity: A Theology of Empowerment Developed Through Dialogue

Contents

Preface

Abstract

Chapter I. Introduction

Chapter II. Kathryn Tanner: Rules and Range of Christian Discourse

Chapter III. Friedrich Nietzsche: Original Humans Claim Power

Chapter IV. Søren Kierkegaard: Seeing God Directly

Chapter V. Not So Radical After All

Chapter VI. All the Implications

Chapter VII. Final Thoughts

Appendix Human Divinity: John 10:22-39 as Jesus’ Proclaiming Divinity to All

Works Cited

Bibliography for Created Human Divinity

Endnotes

Preface

The kernel of this book is my master’s thesis, written in the spring of 2012 at Wesley Theological Seminary. As such, you might expect that most of the book is academic and potentially esoteric to all but a few interested university students. I hope you’ll find that my writing style makes itself available to people of all educational backgrounds. All that is required of you is a little attention and open-mindedness.

I do not expect many people to agree with the concept that humans are created divine like Jesus Christ. To a great majority in the West, such an idea probably screams heresy. While I, of course, would prefer that you, my reader, agree with me, I’d much rather that your reading this book provoke you into reflection and prayer and then into deeper faith and greater opportunities. That’s all any Christian writer should ever really pray for: that others are called into prayer.

I must also admit, as I do later in the book, that the theology I’ve developed of a created human divinity perhaps evolves out of my own faith and emotional struggles. Before we all put down my book and decry it as merely subjective, personal meanderings, I will paraphrase both Nietzsche and Kierkegaard by saying that it is precisely through our own personal lives that we come to know the Eternal. God, I think, is indeed an objective, unchanging, universal character of truth, but we come to know God subjectively by means of our personal reflection, prayer, and devotion. God must be true to me before I can praise God as true. So again the important thing to remember is this: reflect on created human divinity and provoke yourself into prayer so that you as a person trying to understand and follow God can come to a further knowledge of who God is, and who we are in relation to God.

My greatest thanks to the Westbow Press team, especially Tadd Butler, for reaching out to me and going above and beyond my expectations of a publishing company.

My thanks also to Rev. Joel Walther, for reading this book when it was still just a thesis and offering his two cents; to Dr. R. Kendall Soulen for overseeing the writing of the thesis, pushing me until I reached my potential; to Dr. Scott Kisker, Maggie and the Rev. Rob Ulmer, and Rev. Thomas James, for arguing with me to help me refine my ideas; and to Rev. Will Waller for always asking questions.

More emotional thanksgiving for my family, sticking with me after the first book; for the Palardy and Pelletier families treating me like a natural son or brother or cousin; for Marcelle Durrenberger and her relentless friendship.

My soon-to-be wife, Danielle Palardy (Lucy), has spent countless hours reading this book and also patiently listening to me spout off ideas, some good but most ridiculous, which is not only the definition of love but exactly what I need. She is my perfect companion and no acknowledgement in any book can adequately say thank you.

The ultimate thanks always goes to God, who alone knows what good we are capable of.

Abstract

Humans, as creatures and creations of God, are created divine like Christ: that is the argument of this book. While this paper does consider some Christian traditions that have asserted the deification of humanity I also draw a clear distinction between the traditions of God’s making humans divine in our lifetime through sanctification and what I argue, which is that God has already created humans as divine like Christ. By elevating the power and status and meaning of the human creature I intend to develop a new and unique theology of created human divinity that empowers humanity in the midst of a corrupted and apathetic world.

My theology of created human divinity is developed mainly through dialogue with three thinkers. First by dialoguing with Kathryn Tanner I outline the boundaries and necessary elements of a possible theology of human divinity. Then I dialogue with Friedrich Nietzsche and Søren Kierkegaard, who I believe to be fairly representative of non-Christian and Christian thought, respectively, to capture a well-rounded understanding of the thrust of human thought concerning the power, status, and meaning of humanity and how life should be lived. Within the framework of acceptable Christian discourse established by Tanner, dialogue with Nietzsche and Kierkegaard points to the characteristics of created human divinity as well as how humans must live and believe in order to reclaim the divinity equal to Christ already created within them. The biblical witness and implications of this new theology are then also considered in detail.

The theology of created human divinity that is here developed in order to empower humanity challenges the traditional Western Christian theology of an overly transcendent God that humans cannot reach or relate to fully. As such, in developing the theology of created human divinity I seek to free every individual to direct relationship with God and a more liberated and responsible pattern for making life choices while elevating every individual’s self-conscious awareness.

When the good man truly stands on the other side of the boundary line inside the fortification of eternity, he is strong, stronger than the whole world.

-Soren Kierkegaard

Chapter I. Introduction

Comparative theologian Rudolf Otto argues that a creature-consciousness universally pervades and undergirds all religious experience and knowledge.¹ We certainly must deal with what it means that there is a creator and that we have been created when we develop our theology and relationship with God, and the life that should follow. Most theology of creation and God as Creator considers the power and purpose of God and thus how humans should relate to our Creator as clearly distinct, lesser and less powerful beings.

Yet we must ask if creature-consciousness and the fact that we humans have been created necessitates a strict distinction between the creation and the Creator. Could not an all-powerful God do whatever he pleases with his creatures? We must answer with a resounding ‘yes,’ and then move on to the question of what type of creatures God would create, and why. Bluntly stated, the Christian understanding of humans as creatures of God will be re-evaluated in this book in order to lift humans to the status of divinity, blurring the distinctions between created humans and Creator God.

The basic argument that will run throughout this book is that God the Creator created us humans, his most treasured creations, as divine. What that divinity is and how it can be evidenced will be discussed, but it is important to note that the basic reasoning for God’s creating humans as divine is that, quite simply, divine creatures would be and are the height of God’s power as Creator of the universe. Behind that reasoning lies a simple question: why would God not create humans as divine?

Most of this treatise will explore the possibility of human divinity and, if possible, what that divinity would look like. Very little of the treatise will actually try and suggest that a created human divinity is indeed the foundational state of our being. The purpose of approaching the book this way is to avoid declarations of universality while at the same time pointing to a dialect that is wholly Christian but also capable of dialoguing with the secular world. What is here said about human divinity and its resulting implications should be, or at least can be, acceptable as a possibility to people of all backgrounds.

To accomplish the task of producing a theology of created human divinity that is universally possible, I will sift through three major and relevant works by authors from, basically, the three points of the spectrum: the defense of orthodoxy that states God is Creator and divine and humans cannot compare (Tanner), to the opposite side that states God is irrelevant and humans are all there is and thus divine (Nietzsche), and an existential probe into the power of an individual that maintains the position and importance of God (Kierkegaard), the latter of which will serve as a sort of synthesis of the first two leading into a full development of the argument. This approach will allow the development of the argument by extracting from and contending with the major philosophies and theologies pertaining to humans as creations. Using works from Tanner, Nietzsche, and Kierkegaard as a framework also serves the purpose of developing a theory of creaturehood, or humanhood, that both secular and Christian worlds can possibly accept. Similarities between Nietzsche and Kierkegaard will be particularly useful in that regard.

Clearly, then, one of the first tasks of this work will be to show that human divinity is not dangerous to or conflicting with the range of orthodox Christian theology. Tanner’s work will be used to dialogue with the range of orthodoxy. Without establishing that human divinity can be a functional and appropriate part of Christian theology, and not a heresy, then the rest of the book would be meaningless to most readers. From there, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard will further dialogue with the possibility of human divinity, what it could be and is, and why it is important to begin including human divinity in our theologies. Because Tanner supports and outlines orthodox Christian theology and Nietzsche is not a Christian or religious writer, the synthesis of human divinity we will develop by dialoguing with Kierkegaard will be both very Christian and very comprehensive. It will be important, while reading the exposition on the three works, to read everything in the light of the possibility of human divinity within or in addition to our current philosophical frameworks and worldviews.

After developing the possibilities of created human divinity and gaining assurance that it can be a Christian concept with the help of the three authors, we will then synthesize what has been developed with other established Christian theologies. It will become evident that the traditions that have considered some form of deification or perfection a possibility generally only consider the question from God’s perspective. Since the traditions approach divinity from the perspective of God’s doing and God’s relation to humanity, they will only be used as a support to the thesis which considers the question from the human perspective and how humanity relates itself and to God. When all is said and done, though, it should be clear that not only is created human divinity an acceptable Christian concept but that incorporating created human divinity into our theology does not require a radical overhaul of what we already believe.

Language for God

Before diving in, however, I need to address three issues. The first of those issues is a disclaimer for the language of God that I will use throughout the writing of this treatise. What language we use for God has become a heated argument, but, as will be argued later in the paper, I believe that each individual must develop a direct relationship with God as an individual. As such, every individual should use language that speaks to their own experience and relationship with God. The experiencing of our living God is a subjective manner, though God is an objective reality, so no one can claim, nor do I, that our individual vocabulary for God is the only vocabulary. The name/s that each individual Christian uses to refer to God is only a reflection of individual subjective experience, for as Kierkegaard says, in eternity, conscience is the only voice that is heard. It must be heard by the individual, for the individual has become the eternal echo of this voice.²

Generally when God is referenced in this paper it will be a reference to God the Creator, the first-person of the Trinity. Personally, I experience God the Creator as a divine father, believing that God listens to the requests and suggestions of His children like a Father.³ I, then, will use male language for God at times. Respecting non-sexist language, however, I will use ‘God’ for the first reference to God and male relative pronouns for grammatical smoothness. Also, I will not capitalize the male language that I use for God because it should be clear who and what I am referring to and to further remind the reader that there is nothing universally absolute in using male language.

Creature-Consciousness Revisioning

It is important to revision the status of the human creature in relationship to God the Creator, to revision the possible meaning of creature-consciousness, because there are a number of issues at stake. For starters, the orthodox theology of creation leads to an extreme dependence understanding of creature-consciousness. Otto, for instance, argued that creature-consciousness leads to a great awe of God, which creates a feeling of impotence and general nothingness as against overpowering might, a feeling that does and should result in self-depreciation.⁴ There is certainly nothing wrong, per se, with such an understanding of creature-consciousness, otherwise the faithful would have protested long ago. The real problem is whether or not our orthodox understanding of Creation and creature-consciousness logically jives with one of the more famous Christian proclamations, God is love.⁵

If God is love then we must ask what that God of love would do with omnipotence, another traditional Christian affirmation. Is it not strange that an omnipotent God of love creates human beings and then those creations speak of God as Lord and King and reject their own will as ineffectual, unimportant, irrelevant, and/or evil? Bonhoeffer argues that God created the world and humans for his glory and his glory alone.⁶ That theology of Creation maintains God’s sovereignty but it also means that