Faith and Fury

Christianity got over the difficulty of combining furious opposites, by keeping them both, and keeping them both furious.
G.K. Chesterton

A few days ago I attended a funeral at a home for a 6 months old child who died unexpectedly in his sleep. It was an intense experience. There was mourning and crying, evangelism and repentance, love and embracing. There was none of the distant “I’m here to pay my respects” atmosphere of a lot of American funerals. It was, well, real.

One of the things that struck me was that no one questioned that God was responsible for the death of this child. At the same time, those present were seeking God for comfort. The Taker of life was appealed to as the Giver of comfort. There was peace in that house. But don’t misunderstand me: the peace in that home was not an easy peace, but a peace that came from the imponderable balance of God as King, and God as Father. There was a certain fury in it. And that reminded me of Chesterton’s words.

Christianity has always had vigorous contradictions in its deepest mysteries, and the poles of each contradiction are heresies. God is three Persons in one Essence. But He is neither three Gods nor one Person in three modes. The truth is in the wonder that is neither. The Son of God is two natures in one Person. But He is neither an amalgam of two natures, nor two Persons in one body. The truth is in the wonder that is neither.

The fact is that the great mysteries invoke not understanding, but a confession of faith. The early creeds do not begin with “I comprehend,” but with credo (“I believe”). And I like to think that the church of those days did not mumble the credo, but spoke it with profundity and energy.

I remember teaching a discipleship class years ago in Guatemala. Somehow we got on the subject of the attributes of God. I went to the board, and at one end wrote Sobierno (sovereignty), and at the other Bondad (goodness), and asked if the students could reconcile the two, or if they had a favorite. There ensued the usual heated argument that arises over these two poles. One side accused the other of believing in an arbitrary tyrant, and, conversely, of believing in a weak and confused God controlled by chance and the will of man. We finally concluded that one could not stand without the other, and both needed to be confessed furiously.

I have now lapsed into theology, and from theology into abstraction. But what I saw the other night was not abstract. It was the reality being lived out. I think I understand better now what Jesus meant when he said, “Until now the kingdom of God suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.”