A Theology of Amazement
The Photo-Theology of Thomas Jay Oord
Vibrating over the Face of the Waters
Thomas Jay Oord is one of the most gifted Christian theologians in the United States today. He has written many books in the tradition of "open theology" or "process theology." We encourage you to learn from him: www.thomasjayoord.com.
In addition, as a hobby, Thomas Oord takes photographs. Sometimes he shares the photographs with friends on Facebook in a set of images he calls Landscapes and Travel. When we see his photographs, we often find ourselves filled with amazement and wonder. This is why JJB has an entire page devoted to his photography called Images of Thomas Jay Oord: GO.
Some of us in the JJB community think of his photography as theology. This includes those of us who are Christian and those of us who belong to other religions and no religion. All people can learn from theology.
Nevertheless we know that many people do not consider photography a form of theology. Perhaps this is because so many of us think of theology as something that is necessarily articulated in words. If it is not verbal, we say to ourselves, it is not theology. But it seems to us that Thomas Oord's photography is theology if we use the word theology to name the activity of knowing or seeking to know God.
It helps if, to begin with, we distinguish between three kinds of knowing: knowing about, knowing how, and knowing with. Philosophers speak of these as propositional knowing, practical knowing, and knowing by direct acquaintance or intuitive knowing.
Imagine that you are a parent of a three year old daughter. You know about your daughter if you hold beliefs about her which are true to who she is. You know how to interact with your daughter if you know what time to wake her up in the morning, given her own needs for sleep. And you know with your daughter if you have a sense of her own emotional states, of what it feels like to be inside her skin looking out at the world.
Academic theologians are often preoccupied with knowing about God, and they sometimes insist that genuine theology seeks only this kind of knowing. But in the twentieth century one of the most important Jewish thinkers -- Abraham Joshua Heschel -- proposed that the heart of prophetic biblical religion is to know with God. Heschel's emphasis was on sharing in the moral feelings of God: feelings about justice and concern for the poor. We agree completely. But we want to add that we might also share in the aesthetic feelings of God: feelings of awe and wonder. This takes us back to lanscape photography.
In addition, as a hobby, Thomas Oord takes photographs. Sometimes he shares the photographs with friends on Facebook in a set of images he calls Landscapes and Travel. When we see his photographs, we often find ourselves filled with amazement and wonder. This is why JJB has an entire page devoted to his photography called Images of Thomas Jay Oord: GO.
Some of us in the JJB community think of his photography as theology. This includes those of us who are Christian and those of us who belong to other religions and no religion. All people can learn from theology.
Nevertheless we know that many people do not consider photography a form of theology. Perhaps this is because so many of us think of theology as something that is necessarily articulated in words. If it is not verbal, we say to ourselves, it is not theology. But it seems to us that Thomas Oord's photography is theology if we use the word theology to name the activity of knowing or seeking to know God.
It helps if, to begin with, we distinguish between three kinds of knowing: knowing about, knowing how, and knowing with. Philosophers speak of these as propositional knowing, practical knowing, and knowing by direct acquaintance or intuitive knowing.
Imagine that you are a parent of a three year old daughter. You know about your daughter if you hold beliefs about her which are true to who she is. You know how to interact with your daughter if you know what time to wake her up in the morning, given her own needs for sleep. And you know with your daughter if you have a sense of her own emotional states, of what it feels like to be inside her skin looking out at the world.
Academic theologians are often preoccupied with knowing about God, and they sometimes insist that genuine theology seeks only this kind of knowing. But in the twentieth century one of the most important Jewish thinkers -- Abraham Joshua Heschel -- proposed that the heart of prophetic biblical religion is to know with God. Heschel's emphasis was on sharing in the moral feelings of God: feelings about justice and concern for the poor. We agree completely. But we want to add that we might also share in the aesthetic feelings of God: feelings of awe and wonder. This takes us back to lanscape photography.
Divine Delight in Beauty
Can landscape photography help us know with God? Can it help us see what God sees? Can it help us share in God's delight for beauty?
Let's say that God feels the presence of the entire universe as something deeply beautiful. This is one of the meanings of openness in open theism. It is that God is open to influences from the world, sensitive to the joy and beauty of the world, responsive to the world's pain and its beauty. Another meaning is that God is open to the indeterminate future, knowing what is possible in the future, but not what is actual until it is actual. Put differently, the future is open even for God. In JJB one of the most important open theists of our time -- John Sanders -- shows how both of these kinds of openness are consonant with biblical ways of thinking: GO.
Let's say that God is in fact open to the beauty of the world. This beauty includes all the colors and shapes of the universe as they flow through time. Indeed, as they flow through time, resulting in novel forms of matter in its various forms, they add to God's own life, God's own pleasure, God's own amazement.
It may seem odd to think of God as being amazed by the beauty of the world. After all, didn't God know exactly what to expect in creating it in the first place. Perhaps some people might look things this way, if they think of God as creating the world out of nothing and knowing exactly what to expect as the outcome of creativity. They might even imagine God as being bored by the world's beauty.
But for process theologians God did not create the world out of nothing. Rather God created the world -- and is always creating the world -- by working with the world's own co-existing and continuous creativity. Those of us influenced by Chinese traditions will speak of this creativity as the world's qi (气). Others among us, indebted to biblical traditions, might speak of it as the world's tehom. Tehom is the Hebrew word for "ocean, deep, abyss." We find it in Genesis 1:1-2, “When in the beginning Elohim created heaven and earth, the earth was tohu va bohu, darkness was upon the face of tehom, and the ruach elohim vibrating upon the face of the waters…" [1]
Let us quickly add that Elohim is still creating the world by moving over the face of the waters. This is God's continuous creativity, parallel to the world's continuous creativity. But if God is creating the world by vibrating upon the face of the waters, by luring it to create itself in tune with divinely donated possibilities, then God's creativity is not unlike that of our own creativity with our daughter. Yes, as she grows up we might create our daughter by availing her of possibilities; but she continuously delights us -- and sometimes amazes us -- in her creative responses to these possibilities. Our suggestion, then, is that God's relation to the world is akin to that of a mother's relation to a daughter. Just as the mother creates her daughter by helping the daughter create herself; God creates the world by helping the world create itself. And just as a mother is delighted by a daughter's creativity, so God is delighted by the world's creativity.
If God can feel delight, then we share in God's delight by being delighted ourselves. Here we do not know God as an object of the intellect, but rather as subject with feelings whose feelings we share. We know with God. Indeed, it is possible for a person to know God through beauty, without believing in God with the mind. A person can know with God without knowing about God.
Let's say that God feels the presence of the entire universe as something deeply beautiful. This is one of the meanings of openness in open theism. It is that God is open to influences from the world, sensitive to the joy and beauty of the world, responsive to the world's pain and its beauty. Another meaning is that God is open to the indeterminate future, knowing what is possible in the future, but not what is actual until it is actual. Put differently, the future is open even for God. In JJB one of the most important open theists of our time -- John Sanders -- shows how both of these kinds of openness are consonant with biblical ways of thinking: GO.
Let's say that God is in fact open to the beauty of the world. This beauty includes all the colors and shapes of the universe as they flow through time. Indeed, as they flow through time, resulting in novel forms of matter in its various forms, they add to God's own life, God's own pleasure, God's own amazement.
It may seem odd to think of God as being amazed by the beauty of the world. After all, didn't God know exactly what to expect in creating it in the first place. Perhaps some people might look things this way, if they think of God as creating the world out of nothing and knowing exactly what to expect as the outcome of creativity. They might even imagine God as being bored by the world's beauty.
But for process theologians God did not create the world out of nothing. Rather God created the world -- and is always creating the world -- by working with the world's own co-existing and continuous creativity. Those of us influenced by Chinese traditions will speak of this creativity as the world's qi (气). Others among us, indebted to biblical traditions, might speak of it as the world's tehom. Tehom is the Hebrew word for "ocean, deep, abyss." We find it in Genesis 1:1-2, “When in the beginning Elohim created heaven and earth, the earth was tohu va bohu, darkness was upon the face of tehom, and the ruach elohim vibrating upon the face of the waters…" [1]
Let us quickly add that Elohim is still creating the world by moving over the face of the waters. This is God's continuous creativity, parallel to the world's continuous creativity. But if God is creating the world by vibrating upon the face of the waters, by luring it to create itself in tune with divinely donated possibilities, then God's creativity is not unlike that of our own creativity with our daughter. Yes, as she grows up we might create our daughter by availing her of possibilities; but she continuously delights us -- and sometimes amazes us -- in her creative responses to these possibilities. Our suggestion, then, is that God's relation to the world is akin to that of a mother's relation to a daughter. Just as the mother creates her daughter by helping the daughter create herself; God creates the world by helping the world create itself. And just as a mother is delighted by a daughter's creativity, so God is delighted by the world's creativity.
If God can feel delight, then we share in God's delight by being delighted ourselves. Here we do not know God as an object of the intellect, but rather as subject with feelings whose feelings we share. We know with God. Indeed, it is possible for a person to know God through beauty, without believing in God with the mind. A person can know with God without knowing about God.
Wonder and Love
To know with God -- to share in God's amazement -- is the beginning of praise. Praise begins with wonder: wonder at the beauty of the world and the poignancy of life. When Christians hear the word praise, we often think of praising God. We see beauty in the world and we look up to the heavens, praising the creator for making it. But the process tradition offers another way of thinking about praise. It suggests that the beauty of the world and the one who creates the beauty are intertwined. God is the Soul of the universe: the concrescing Subject in whose life and heart the hills and rivers, trees and stars are gathered together moment by moment. God is, as it were, the togethering of the universe, understood as a single life who loves the whole and each part. When we are amazed at the beauty of the world, we are sharing in God's amazement, and we are also responding to the beauty to which God, too is responding. God is praising the world, too. Declaring it "good" and worthy of our love.
For a Christian like Thomas Oord, this love is very important. He sees this love as revealed uniquely, but not exclusively, in the healing ministry of Jesus. When we look at landscape photography, we feel amazed. When we look at a person in need and act on behalf of that person, we feel tenderness. For Thomas Oord the two go together: the amazement and the tenderness, the wonder and the compassion. Both are ways of sharing in God's life, of knowing with God.
Back, then, to theology. If theology includes knowing with God, then there are many forms of theology: musical, verbal, mathematical, kinesthetic, emotional, empathetic, and visual. Historically many Christians have found their theology in the liturgy of worship, in the icons on the walls of cathedrals, in the rhythms of music, and in the quietness of prayer. And often retreat centers are located in some setting in the natural world, where people feel God's presence in hills and rivers, trees and stars. They gain their theology from the stars. As do we when, with gratitude, we enjoy our favorite images from Thomas Oord. We share some below.
For a Christian like Thomas Oord, this love is very important. He sees this love as revealed uniquely, but not exclusively, in the healing ministry of Jesus. When we look at landscape photography, we feel amazed. When we look at a person in need and act on behalf of that person, we feel tenderness. For Thomas Oord the two go together: the amazement and the tenderness, the wonder and the compassion. Both are ways of sharing in God's life, of knowing with God.
Back, then, to theology. If theology includes knowing with God, then there are many forms of theology: musical, verbal, mathematical, kinesthetic, emotional, empathetic, and visual. Historically many Christians have found their theology in the liturgy of worship, in the icons on the walls of cathedrals, in the rhythms of music, and in the quietness of prayer. And often retreat centers are located in some setting in the natural world, where people feel God's presence in hills and rivers, trees and stars. They gain their theology from the stars. As do we when, with gratitude, we enjoy our favorite images from Thomas Oord. We share some below.
1. For an excellent discussion of tehom and its relation to a Christian understanding of creation, see Catherine Keller, The Face of the Deep: A Theology of Becoming, Routledge, 2003. Keller is an advisor to JJB.
