Colin Gunton on God's omnipotence

It is easy to formulate [God's omnipotence] in terms of an abstract contrast between awareness of our finite power and a supposedly infinitely powerful deity who can, according to a famous definition, will everything except a contradiction. This approach, however, will not do, because if God is simply power magnified to an infinite degree, then God is little distinguishable from a tyrant or the devil. It is better that we remember two things, only apparently in tension with one another. The first is that Paul centres his notion of divine power on the salvation achieved by Christ on the cross and the power of the proclamation of the gospel to reconcile lost sinners to their loving creator. To call Christ 'the power of God and the wisdom of God' (1 Cor. 1.24) privileges a certain way of exercising power. This must not, however, be sentimentalized, as it often is in an era which has become too conscious of excesses committed in the name of divine power. There is much talk of non-coercive love and power, and indeed, the cross is a sign that in one respect God indeed does not coerce. But that is not the whole story, for the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is an act of power of another kind and, although in no way to be divorced from the divine action on the cross, is coercive of reality in a strong sense. As John Donne's great sonnet celebrates, death the coercer is coerced. These two central insights together entail that in some way or other we must hold together the power that is made real in the suffering of Jesus and that manifested, on the one hand, in his 'works of power' and, on the other, in his being raised from the dead.

(p. 16, Colin Gunton, The Christian Faith)

I think that massive quotation is massively helpful. Our doctrine of God's omnipotence needs to come out of the exercise of God's power in both Christ's cross and his resurrection.

The Bible in a sentence

Colin Gunton had a conversation with John Webster "about whether one can say that there is a single leading idea in scripture" and concluded that if there is then "life" has a claim to it (p.x, Colin Gunton, The Christian Faith).

On the flip-side to this, death could also make a claim. In our recent book discussion of Harry Potter we asked whether the real enemy of the series was Voldemort or Death. I thought it was Death! The prominence of life and death in fiction reflects its pervasive presence in reality, which is just what the Bible deals with.

The Bible certainly sees death as the "last enemy to be destroyed" (1 Cor 15:26), and it is there as a threat and then presence from Genesis 2:17 to Revelation 21:8. A novel begins a story in the midst of countless other stories, and ends when that story is over even though the overlapping stories continue. Similarly, other than a bit of scene setting the Bible starts with the appearance of death, and ends when death's story ends. This is despite the eternity of incredible stories on either end. But not only does it frame the narrative of the Bible it stands at the central turning point when the Son of God died our death to bring us life.

Neither death nor life are static realities, but life is creative and death brings things to an end. Both are rich in meaning if understood Biblicaly as deeply relational, in the first instance toward the Trinity (John 6:63; 17:3) but also the whole of Creation.

The Bible has a two-beat rhythm that is initially of life-to-death, but the increasingly dominant rhythm is of death-to-life.

Therefore, if I had to sum up the Bible in a sentence, as one glittering group of people were asked, I would be tempted by JI Packer's "adoption through propitiation" or James Hamilton's "salvation through judgment", but think I'd plump for life through death.

What do you think?

Unity and plurality

Colin Gunton notes that:

"Much recent thought has turned into a contest between exponents of the essential unity of things and those advocating a fundamental, even chaotic, plurality." (. 13, The Christian Faith)

In contrast to this war between the camps that emphasise unity (particularly Modernists) and those that emphasise plurality (particularly Postmodernists), Christianity sees no conflict. Gunton argues that the Bible has a doctrine of creation that emphasises both the "free and sovereign action", but also a pattern of mediation which gives "space" to creation to be itself.

Interestingly he then ties unity particularly to the work of the Son, and plurality to the work of the Spirit, both of whom the Father uses to create both old and new creations:

"while reference to Christ shows how we may hold the world together in unity, the Spiirit is the principle of reality's variety and multiplicity" (p. 14, ibid)

This makes sense to me particularly as I think of Paul and his teaching on the church. He appeals to the unity we as a body in Christ (cf. Col 1:17 which sees union in Christ in creation), but often sees the Spirit gives a diversity of gifts. Christ's saving work is seen supremely in his one action of incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension; but the Spirit works in countless individuals in a variety of times and places and ways. Of course each indwell the other, to the glory of the Father in Jesus Christ, so that there is harmony in the Trinity's work.