Reviews for Theology for Skeptics: Reflections on God

The average rating for Theology for Skeptics: Reflections on God based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-03-20 00:00:00 Fred Crouch The first three chapters focus on the images and names of God. She begins by sharing her concerns with the androcentric conception of God, specifically the retaining of omnipotence and love in the "father image" of God after Auschwitz. She wants to relativize the symbols we use for God, ridding God of images of dominance so that theological language can "go back to the mystical tradition" (28). Thus, instead of completely overthrowing the father-language of God, Söelle wants to appropriate the language in anti-authoritarian, anti-patriarchal ways. However, one gets the sense that Söelle distrusts those who still adhere to this way of God-talk, and she suggests that "patriarchal Christianity," which is fixated on authority, be replaced. The God of patriarchal religion "can at most represent a kind of protection from catastrophes for true believers; he does not have liberating qualities" (48). Feminist theology is unconcerned with debates about the existence and/or attributes of the "wholly other" God; rather, feminist theology focuses on the question, "Does God occur also among us?" Questions about the "omni" attributes miss the point of God. Söelle believes we should abandon a model of divine transcendence that holds "God-above-us" for a "God-within-us" model, since this overcomes the false hierarchical, masculine construct of God and enables one to engage in liberating mysticism. In chapter four, Söelle focuses on some of the difficulties with prayer, and she offers personal reflection on the story of Jacob wrestling with God. She insists that praying and struggling belong together, since oftentimes our personal experience with God is similar to a struggle with one who is a "dark God," failing to remember those that are suffering. We struggle with God, according to Söelle, in order that God might become visible in our midst. Chapter five, titled "God's Pain and Ours," deals most directly with Söelle's perception of weaknesses in theodicy. Drawing on Elie Wiesel's account of the "Trial of Shamgorod," Söelle suggests that anyone prone to defend God is (as the character in Wiesel's account) wearing the mask of the devil. She says that the problem of theodicy is an evasion, "a denial of suffering" (63). She presents three views. First, if God is omnipotent and comprehensible, then the God who allows Auschwitz is purely wicked. Second, a God who is omnipotent and incomprehensible cannot withstand scrutiny, since belief in this God is a paradox and thus he becomes dead to us. Third, Söelle presents a God who is love and is not omnipotent. This God, "stands on the side of victims and is thought to be capable of suffering" (65). This position, which denies divine omnipotence, was a fairly common position among Christian and Jewish theologians after WWII, and Söelle lists those in her company (Abraham Heschel, Elie Wiesel, Hans Jonas, Harold Kushner, etc.). She lumps Bonhoeffer into this group, but I hesitate to agree with her that he affirmed Patripassianism. Nevertheless, Söelle takes her cues from liberation theology, specifically those suffering in El Salvador. The testimonies of Christians suffering in the Third World are, for Söelle, instructional for what it means to believe in God. She wonders what right those in the First World have to even ask the theodicy question. As one considers God suffering with us, one frees oneself from patriarchal, hierarchical thinking about God, according to Söelle; the God who suffers with us is inherently feminine and motherly. If God were truly transcendent, according to Söelle, then he could not connect with us in our pain. After reflecting on the pain of her contemporary El Salvadorian brethren, Söelle suggests that the "most important image which the Bible uses for God's pain in the world is an image from the experience of women, an image of giving birth" (76), and she shares the intimacy of joy and pain. Söelle thinks we should appropriate suffering, understanding it is part of one's life and freedom, recognizing it as a moment of solidarity with the Christ. Community and solidarity are the two key theological elements we see in suffering. In chapter six, Söelle recounts three phases of Christian life. First, "The Village" is where we are rooted in a religious tradition where the religious sensibilities of our ancestors inform our social and intellectual life. Some people never leave this phases of life; however, the majority of people migrate to the second phase, "The Big City." In the second phase, religion loses its influence over people, since most people prefer secularism in this phase over any kind of religious imposition. However, Söelle points out that many in the city find the secular disintegration of ritual and custom unsettling enough to send one back to the search for religion. This is where one lands in the third phase: the conscious formation of new forms of religion (86). This is a conscious, critical religious decision in which one critically accepts (selectively) that which is good. Here she says, "Must I believe and follow each word in the Bible? The answer to this is a clear no. Even the strictest Bible believers do not marry the wife of their brother when he dies! With the departure from the religious village, authority'of the pastor, scripture, or the official church'is gone; it cannot be reinstituted. Anyone who comes to a critical affirmation of faith after an intensive debate in the second phase is now struggling for the development of new forms of religious life" (87). In light of this, Söelle suggests that many today only identify Christianity with the village, and thus as a faith without hope. She seeks to construct a "Christology from below." She begins by affirming something of God is extant in every human person. She then offers some troubling (from the perspective of Christian orthodoxy) points on the "idolization" of Jesus, suggesting that Jesus is not the decisive occurrence for anyone in particular; rather, "Christ" becomes something of a collective placeholder for the ideal for which we should live. Finally, Christ is the Man for Others, and this model should shape our orientation towards others. It Is this service of fellow-man and not miracles, resurrection, victory over sin, etc. that allows us to see into God's heart, according to Söelle. Chapter seven, "Cross and Resurrection," lays out three religious positions regarding suffering: (1) The "Sado-masochistic Theo-ideology of God as a hangman;" (2) The "painfree dream of the soft deity;" and (3) "faith and hope that binds people to the poor man from Nazareth" (100). In the freedom of love, we learn to embrace suffering, not to belittle it. Growth into love is itself a form of vulnerability. On the question of the "literalness" of the resurrection, Söelle wonders what would change about Christianity if it was shown that it did or did not happen. She asserts that, in any case, it is unprovable. She assumes that the resurrection is an existential answer to a question that often diverts us from what we know objectively of "the poor wretch from Nazareth" (106). Thus, she avoids altogether the scientific questions pertaining to the resurrection, pointing instead to the existential significance of the event as it is bound up with the cross. She does, however, reserve chapter eight for her thoughts on technical rationality, technocracy, and the religion of science. I appreciate her thoughts on the limits of science and some of the moral indirection of scientific "progress," but she paints with too broad a brush and treats "science" as static. She's also not alone among theologians and philosophers in her context treating "science" in this way. For Söelle, religion cannot be compartmentalized like any other academic discipline or special interest; rather, religion is a universal phenomenon that provides wholeness to one's experience. "Religion does not pull me out of the whole but rather lets me be on the lookout directly for it and to miss it when it is absent" (111). She also uses the final chapter to offer some concretion as to what she believes about God, creation, responsibility, etc. From here, she explains the importance of being whole in a fractured world. She concludes by sharing three characteristics of dynamic holism (borrowing from New Age Spirituality) that enable one to live more holistically, and she adds the fourth element that is missing (an element of justice): 1. The unimportance of material values, an indifference'astonishing for the generation of scarcity'toward material incentives and rewards, a new form of incorruptibility, and an often vague search for spirituality. 2. Skepticism toward science and technology, which are understood as means for subjugating nature and controlling people. The productive side of this skepticism is not demonization of technology but affirmation of "soft" technologies. 3. An orientation toward nature which is different in principle, the readiness to protect it, even to enter into a covenant with it against the powers inimical to life. Chapter nine, the final chapter, is a reminder that the people of God are still experiencing an exile. The minority that has not given itself to the system of progress and power lives with a knowledge of "the death that governs us" (124). That God's people hold the memory of the Exodus (God making people free) simultaneously with the vision of the coming Messiah offers us comfort and hope in the midst of our ever-increasing knowledge of death. In light of this, Söelle calls readers to the work of liberation, basking in the beauty of God by making that beauty visible in comforting the weak, living courageously in the face of a dying world. As an orthodox Christian, this was a difficult book to walk through. Söelle is writing with a heavy heart for the church and her contemporary culture, a culture of war-making, social injustice, religious ambivalence, and existential despair. I appreciated her attention to weaknesses in many strains of contemporary Christian thought (especially with our zeal to offer inadequate theodicies). However, I found much of what she offered in its place to be wanting and lacking biblical, substantively Christian theology, especially as it pertains to Christology. Much of the book echoed vague New Age mysticism and pantheism instead of distinctly Christian ideas. If Christ is not the decisive individual in the story of God's work in creation, and "orthodoxy" is normatively pitched to be "too dogmatic and rigid," then it's hard to sell that this is a distinctively Christian work for me. This work was very much out of my experience/personal interest in theological sub-genre, but I am glad I read it. Söelle has had an impact on contemporary feminist liberation theology, and this little book offers a window into some major questions and themes in that tradition.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-12-05 00:00:00 Lisa Monil WOW!!! This was my introduction to reading Soelle and easily catapulted her to the top of my list of favorite theologians. I can honestly remember few reading experiences that felt so deeply resonant, as if she were articulating so beautifully the convictions of my mind and longings of my spirit. While her methodology is easy to critique within a more orthodox context, it's clear from the title forward that Soelle is primarily concerned with connecting to "skeptics" who've long since thrown out some of the rules of engagement many Christians hold to. In that sense, I actually found her evangelical fervor to be almost surprising; this does not read as a stuffy academic but rather someone with a real fire in their bones and fervent belief in what she's talking about. This makes more sense the deeper you read. For Soelle, it's the idolatry of science that's come to parallel "Christofacist" religiosity that have both borne the fruit of injustice and apathy in light of it. She expresses a deep sense that the world is in desperate need for transformation that won't be possible without the sort of conversion she described. Her talk of God as the eternal co-sufferer who draws us into sharing sacred sorrow with a promise to encircle us in the pain and transform it into the mobilizing anger and joy of solidarity is unspeakably compelling and profound and gorgeously written. Flipping through the pages, there are so many sections I underlined and scrawled excitement in the margins towards, it's just such a wonderful piece of theological work. I have no question that many, many would easily disregard it with disdain and even understand why, but for me, Soelle's written an amazing little book that I honestly credit with reigniting some of the spark in my own skeptic's spirituality.