Categories: uncategorized
Date: 11 January 2005 06:14:14
I had to take an hour off work just now, it's well over 30 deg today and the computer doesn't like it at all. After short break it seems to be going well, but if you end up not reading this then you'll know it's reset again, and, well, I won't have written this... however that works...
I spent the break reading The History of Christian Thought by Jonathon Hill, published by Lion. Incredibly interesting book. I always thought history at school was incredibly boring. That only lasted until I was at uni, when the way people thought and acted in the past suddenly seemed wonderfully interesting and important as a mirror and instructor to my own thought.
One of the things that has struck me reading this book is the large role mysticism played in the early and middle-aged church. It was very prominent, with basically every second theological writer being also a mystic or monk. The spiritual nature of God was seen as naturally leading the believer to a certain level of mysticism as a necessary part of understanding.
Here's a quote from ones of my favourites, Symeon the New Theologian:
Indeed the incomprehensible One cannot be reached by any use of reason. Nor can any words match the unspeakable Good, this One, this source of all unity, this Being beyond existence. Mind beyond mind, word beyond speech, it is encompassed by no speech, by no intuition, by no names.
I'm not a scholar in contemporary Christian theology, but I know from my own experience that even if we are taught God is infinite and beyond all things, having a personal relationship with him is stressed far more. God is more our friend and less our mystery. I think my goal for this year is going to be to search for the mystery of God (but we can still be friends too). Hill seems like a good place to start.