The Gap God Opens

M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 1 0 W W W. T I K K U N . O R G T I K K U N 41 G odasaHighestBeing—asteadyhandatthewheel of the universe, ordering all things to good purpose, the spanning providential eye o’erseeing all—has had a good run. But in our postmodern condition we acknowledgetheinstabilityoftraditionalfoundations, the ambiguities of the old absolutes, the complexity of endlessly linking systems without closure (the “Internet” is very postmodern). The world is neither a neat, divinely run cosmos nor pure chaos, but rather what James Joyce called so prophetically “chaosmos,” a dance of probabilities sometimes producing improbable results. That fits with biblical creation: in the beginning, at the time God was creating the world, the elements were already there, as old as God. The Bible begins with a “B” (bet, bereshit), not an A (aleph). The first is already invaded by the second (just as “deconstruction” would predict). The biblical elements were too feminine for the later ex nihilo theologians, who preferred a show of divine testosterone. The creator had to do the best he could with what he had to work with, then hope for the best, like the rest of us. Faith is not a safe harbor, but risky business. God is not a warranty for a well-run world, but the name of a promise, an unkept promise, where every promise is also a risk, a flicker of hope on a suffering planet. I do not believe in the existence of God, but in God’s insistence . I do not say God “exists,” but that God calls, God calls upon us, like an unwelcome interruption, a quiet but insistent solicitation , which may or may not come true. The work of theology is not to spell out the bells and whistles adorning a heavenly being, but to meditate upon everything we are here called to, everything we are trying to recall, in and under the name of God. In a postmodern world, this monotheistic name does not have a monopoly. God emerges here and there, often under other names, not in the bound volumes of theology but in loose papers that describe a more underlying and insecure faith, a more restlesshope ,amoredeep-setbutunfulfilledpromiseordesire,adesire beyond desire that is never satisfied. I do not know what I desire when I desire God, where that non-knowing is not a lack but the open-ended venture in the human adventure, the promise/risk,theverystructureofhopeandexpectation,notthis Messiah or that, but a messianic expectation not immune from secretly hoping the Messiah never shows up. God does not bring closure but a gap. A God of the gaps is not the gap God fills, but the gap God opens. The name of God makes the present a space troubled by an immemorial past and an unforeseeable future. “Good, good,” indeed very good. That is not a declaration of fact, but a promise on which we are expected to make good. And nobody is guaranteeing anything. I THEGAPGODOPENS by John D. Caputo John D. Caputo, the Watson Professor of Religion at Syracuse University, specializes in postmodern theology. His major work, The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event (2006), received an AAR book award in constructive theology. JOHN ARMSTRONG ...