Miracle and a Personal God

What is a person? There are certainty many answers, but for this article let us consider person under three aspects. First, other persons are distinct from us, their true selves hidden and mysterious. Secondly, they can chose to reveal themselves. They speak to us, they impact us through their actions. This impact makes them objective, seen, heard, felt. Then we begin to know them. Finally, we can respond to their disclosure. We also speak and act, and when the communication is at its highest we become persons. These three aspects define person: the self as hidden, the objective revealing, the person as a distinct yet relating self.

Is the revelation of God personal? A number of contemporary theologians would say no. The nub of their reasoning is that God is not objectively present in the give-and-take of a personal encounter. For them, the second aspect of personhood is missing. Rather than objectively affecting us, God is intuited, felt, mystically perceived as non-objective Being underlying the totality of all particular beings.

Consider the words of Jesus in Luke 11:20: "But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you." What is being said here? First, the God who is normally hidden and mysterious began to speak and act as indicated by the phrases "the finger of God," "the Kingdom of God," and "come to you." These terms indicate something definite about God, something palpable, tangible, objective. What was it? Jesus drove out demons. But it wasn't just Jesus. It was God who impacted persons, physically and emotionally. That is the meaning of the phrase "the finger of God." It means that God did something, not just Jesus alone. Further, the "I" in the phrase "if I drive out demons," means that God did not act alone. God acted as the man Jesus acted, and the two distinct actions were united in the one person of Jesus Christ. This distinction and unity was formulated in the Council of Chalcedon (BCP p. 864). Finally, as God incarnate spoke and acted, God entered into objective personal relations with those who responded to him. That ongoing relationship of personal give-and-take was the community of the Holy Spirit.

This understanding of God as personal implies that God does miracles, where miracle is a change in matters of fact due to God's action. This view is rejected by a number of contemporary theologians. They might believe that Jesus cast out demons, but the phrase the "finger of God" means only that God's mystical presence could be intuited in Jesus' exorcisms. In this view, God makes no difference in matters of fact. Only the human Jesus did that.

Schleiermacher (1768-1834) founded this school of thought, and he paints a pretty picture of how one intuits the divine ineffable. The moment is as fleeting as the dew which "gently caresses the waking flowers." It is as "modest and delicate as a maiden's kiss." At the most sublime point the self lies upon "the bosom of the infinite world" and becomes "its soul."

This has nothing to do with the great theophanies of Scripture. There God comes in awe and wonder. He speaks his objective incarnate Word. His hearers respond and he speaks again. This Word has effects, changing lives, healing, forgiving, making a profound difference in matters of fact. Without miracle, God is nothing but a cipher for a mystical feeling. With miracle, God is a living personal God. Anything less is death. (Plenteous Harvest, December, 1997)

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Miracle and a Personal God

Theology