Election is … the free and joyful collaboration of the three persons to initiate a relationship with the human creature, to identity with the human creature, and to consummate the relationship with the human creature. The God of the Christian gospel is the Father, Son, and Spirit working in perfect communion for an even greater communion.
Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Remythologizing Theology: Divine Action, Passion, and Authorship. Cambridge Studies in Christian Doctrine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 259, emphasis original
Monday 19 March 2012
Kevin Vanhoozer on Divine Election
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The Hindu tradition also posits that the dynamics of conditional reality can be understood in terms of a Trinity. Namely Brahma the creator, Vishnu the sustainer, and Siva the transformer and/or destroyer.
ReplyDeleteIt could be said that Brahma is the equivalent of the Father, Vishnu combines both the Son and the Holy Ghost. But there is no equivalent to Siva or the recognition of the fact that death rules to here, or that everything that is created and sustained is always changing moment to moment, inevitably disintegrates and dies or disappears.
Death is thus hived off or made obscene (off-scene) in the form of the "devil" or "satan". But death stares everyone in the face moment to moment by the fact that anyone can drop dead in the next moment or somehow via an accident be randomly snuffed out.
Believing in Jesus does not in any sense take death into account.
Given that Jesus is the resurrected Lord of all, I'd say that believing in him actually does take death into account. It's just not the final word.
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