Thomas Merton expressed the doubt and uncertainty we all face in this familiar prayer:
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. [1]
Richard-Rohr: Remain in Love
Duns Scotus helped develop the doctrine of the univocity of being. Previous philosophers said God was a Being, which is what most people still think today.
Both the Dominican Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) and Duns Scotus said Deus est ens, God is being itself.
.. Yet Duns Scotus believed we can speak “with one voice” (univocity) of the being of waters, plants, animals, humans, angels, and God. We all participate in the same being. God is one (Deuteronomy 6:4), and thus reality is one, as well (Ephesians 4:3-5).
.. We are already connected to everything—inherently, objectively, metaphysically, ontologically, and theologically. We don’t create the connection by going to church or reading the Bible, although we hopefully enliven the connection.
Our DNA is already divine; that is why we naturally seek to know and love God. There has to be a little bit of something inside you for you to be attracted to it; like knows like. You are what you are looking for!
.. Their spiritual warfare is precisely the work of recognizing and then handing over all of their inner negativity and fear to God.
.. The great paradox here is that such a victory is a gift from God, and yet somehow you must want it very much (Philippians 2:12b-13). God does not come unless invited.
The One Word That Could Change Your View of the Atonement
When a child is kidnapped and a ransom is demanded, who is the one who demands a ransom?
In the Penal Substitution view of the atonement, the death of Jesus is a payment to God— but Jesus called it a ransom, and ransoms aren’t paid to the parents of the kidnapped!
Ransoms are paid by the parents of the kidnapped.
Ransoms are not demanded by those who are good, but by those who are evil.
.. The cross was a payment, a ransom– but not one demanded by God, it was a ransom paid by God.
.. In fact, in 1 John 3:8 he actually says that the ultimate reason Jesus came was to “defeat the works of the Devil.”
.. The cross, I believe, is the place where Jesus faced Satan’s wrath head-on. It is a moment of the ancient battle where Satan clings to those he has enslaved by sin
.. reconsider that the cross may have been more about Satan’s wrath against God, than God’s wrath against us.
God Can’t Be In The Presence of Sin? (And Other Crap About God We Mindlessly Repeat)
This notion that God cannot be in the presence of sin is a classic case of what I have come to call “generational theology.” Generational theology encompasses a host of things we believe and repeat without ever deeply questioning them. They get passed on to generation to generation not because they’re true, but because that’s what our well-meaning but uninformed Sunday School teacher, grandparents, or parents taught us. Reader’s digest version: Generational theology is crap we believe about God and mindlessly repeat without even thinking about whether or not it’s true.
.. One of the reasons Jesus was so unpopular with the religious elite was because of his preference to build his inner circle with those considered the worst, most unclean sinners of society. Jesus took this so far that the Bible tells us during his ministry he had the public reputation of being an alcoholic (Matthew 11:19, Luke 7:34). In fact, one of the nicknames Jesus eared was Friend of Sinners.
.. Does God like or approve of sin? Of course not. But is sin some magical kryptonite where God is blinded and has to run the other way?