(no subject)

[highlyeccentric]

... As to literary strategies, it is the invention of character that is most telling, and in the Genesis narrative it is God himself who is the most complex and riveting character. He seems at times to be as troubled and conflicted, as moved by the range of human feelings, as the human beings He has created. The personality of God cannot be an entirely unwitting set of traits in a theological text that declares that we are made in His image, after His likeness. There is an unmistakable implication of codependance. And it is no doubt some of the incentive for the idea expressed by the late Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel that the immanence of God, His existence in us, is manifest in the goodness of human works, the mitzvot or good deeds that reflect His nature. 'Reverance', says the rabbi, 'is the discovery of the world as an allusion to God.' And so in reverence and ethical action do our troubled, conflicted mines find holiness, or bring it into being. Recognizing the glory of God is presumably our redememption, and out redemption is, presumably, His.
-E. L. Doctorow, introduction to Genesis, in Revelations: Personal Responses to the Books of the Bible, ed. Richard Holloway (Edinburgh: Cannongate Press, 2005), p. 23.

Interesting. And pretty. Neale Donald Walsch put forward something similar (or, if he is to be believed, God explained something similar to him) in Conversations with God. Something entirely complicated and unorthodox which I didn't quite comprehend, about God realising God's selfhood through humanity or some such.

It's worth asking, when it comes to the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation: must God be unchangeable? Can God learn? It certainly looks as if Jesus of Nazareth learnt things- in the infamous Caananite Dog episode, a woman beat him in a theological argument. He chucked a tanty in the Temple (maybe for good reason, but still. That's hardly the apathetic¹ God of the early patristic theologians.)

Anyway. These are some thoughts for the evening. I will leave you with another quote from Doctorow:

Overall, the women of Genesis may be subject to an exclusively biological destiny as childbearers- theirs is a nomadic society that to survive must be fruitful- and the moveable tent kingdoms in which they live may be unquestionably paternalistic, but the modern reader cannot help but notice with relief how much grumbling they do. (p. 3)

1. apathetic: Greek term, meaning immune to pathos, or emotion. (as opposed to disinterested, its modern meaning) An apathetic God is eternal, unchanging, everything humankind is not.
ed- and also EMOTIONLESS. To say "god is love" is to assert that God is not apathetic. But doesn't that statement rest on the assumption that God is changeless? I don't know. I am a confusible person.