The human mind
naturally tends to make (and remake) religion into familiar terms, while
resisting the wholly other as such. As David Hume explains, the human mind is
naturally drawn to what is familiar to itself; considerably more effort is
required to hold onto the notion of pure divine simplicity without adding
ornaments. Sociological phenomena such as father-son relationships and the role
of a son are more familiar than the Son as Logos and agape.[1] The
resurrection is typically thought of in supernatural physiological and
historical terms, rather than as whose meaning is distinctly religious and,
furthermore, is part of a religious narrative. The Trinity as existing in
reality metaphysically is easier to understand than the Trinity as transcending
reality, as it’s source rather than its substance. God as the first cause of
the Big Bang is easier to grasp than God as the source or condition of
Creation. These all-too-easy category mistakes are particularly problematic in
that they obscure religion as distinctly religious.
1. For
more on this point and that of David Hume, see ch. 12 of God’s
Gold: Beneath the Shifting Sands of Christian Thought on Profit-Seeking and
Wealth.
