God is supernatural

I read an essay by a Christian writer (who blogs) which stated what I've often thought: theology doesn't adequately reflect God, even though the word itself means the study of God. Maybe it's my own ignorance or background, but somehow I have thought of Bible schools as, well, straining without coming near the goal. For me, it's much more satisfying to serve God in ministry or spend time developing my personal relationship with Him.

In the below excerpt, the writer is talking with a Christian academic who has something very interesting to say about theological study:

“The thing that first attracted me to theology,” he said, “was this simple realization: God is supernatural. I was a Christian for years before Christian theology seemed like anything more to me than an inadequate attempt to provide alternative explanations for things like evolution and Freudian psychology. You know what the problem was?”

I shook my head.

“The people I was listening to were Christians, but their theology was based on what they felt was the biblical view of man. Man is free, man is fallen, man is whatever man happens to be. When I saw it was possible—no, necessary—to build my theology around the biblical view not of man but God, that was my Damascus road.”

“And what is God?” I asked rhetorically. “All-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving….”

He smiled. “God is supernatural.”

“….unchanging, Almighty….”

He lifted his hand to silence me again. “You can’t start with God’s characteristics. Start with His essential difference. God is supernatural.”

“OK,” I said. “But that only gets us so far.”

“If you really believe it, it gets you as far as it is possible to go.”

Now this I had to think about. As always, I sensed there was more to what he was saying that I could readily fathom.

“I’ll have to sleep on that,” I said.