Orthodox Christian Relativity

To some recent respondents:

I may have, unintentionally, misled some with my use of “relative” and “absolute.” I agree with all criticisms if I meant these words in the ordinary sense. I need to define my terms more specifically. The root meaning of relative is “relate-ive,” and that is what God is all about. God is love. Love is a relationship, not a principle, a thing, or a theory. The incarnation, the atonement, and the resurrection of Jesus are all meant to make possible a restored relationship with God. A Christian is a person who is in right relationship with God.

God is love. God is all about relationship. Sin is anything that disrupts our relationship with God. God is eternally trinitarian. Christianity is not a mere monotheism, it is a trinitarian monotheism. The God Christians worship, serve, and trust is Father, Son, and Spirit in eternal relation to each other. This is one way I use the term, “relative” in connection (relation) with God.

There is a second use of the term, however, in my theology. That is that God relates to his creation according to his purpose, human need, or the historical situation. This has many implications I will deal with another time. It means, among other things, that he dealt with Israel differently than he dealt with the New Testament church. He dealt with ancient Egypt differently than he dealt with the Roman Empire. As I wrote before, Jesus dealt with each individual relative to their unique situation, and the New Testament epistles are relative to local situations.

One specific issue needs to be addressed. The book of Hebrews doe not says that “God” is the same yesterday, today, and forever. It speaks of Jesus as “the same yesterday, today, and forever.” One of the major emphases of Hebrews is that Jesus was in all points tested like we are, that he is our brother (See ch. 2), that he understands by experience what our life is like and therefore can be a faithful high priest on our behalf. That is who he was yesterday (in his days on earth), that is who he still is, and that is who he will be forever: “our “faithful and merciful high priest.” That will not change.

Now to the word, “absolute.” “Ab,” plus “solvere.”
ab-prefix, from L. ab-, ab "off, away from," from PIE base *apo-“
L. solvere "to loosen, dissolve, untie," from PIE *se-lu-, from reflexive pronoun *swe- + base *leu- ‘to loosen, divide, cut apart’ (cf. Gk. lyein ‘to loosen, release, untie,’ away; see ab-1 + solvere, to loosen.”

The above demonstrates the historical roots of “absolute.” It means “away from,” “loosened from any connection to,” i.e., “all by itself with no connections–relations--to anything.”

This would be true of a mono-theistic God, but the God who is a trinitarian monotheos is not separate from all connections or relations. Rather, as Father, Son, and Spirit, God is eternally relational in his very nature. He is not a “lone.” He is one God, an eternal, divine relationship–a relational mystery.

To believe God is absolute in the sense I have just described is heresy. I understand why so many use the term, however. Absolute is commonly understood as the ultimate, the highest and supreme attribute that can be given to anything. It is used as a term of worth-ship. I understand that, but consider the word misleading. Here are the words I use for the same: ultimate, universal, supreme, and, of course, holy.

This is a bit long for a single blog, but I must make one additional statement. I am a Christian. I’ve trusted my life into the hands of the Son of God, the Messiah of Israel, the one who by his life, death, and resurrection made complete atonement for sin. I believe the historical statements of orthodox Christian theology. I do interpret the meaning of these doctrines differently than they have been commonly interpreted, but I do completely believe in the meaning of traditional Christian thought.

I believe a Christian is a person for whom Jesus Christ is decisive and definitive in all things present, past, future, and eternally.

On the other hand, I don’t worry about human judgments of my relation to God. I don’t have to be conservative, liberal, evangelical, Catholic, orthodox or neo-orthodox, post-modern, emergent, or traditional. “On Christ the solid rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand.”