In my last post , I referred to a passage from Philippians. Here it is in full:
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death
- even death on a cross. (NRSV, Phil 2:5-8)
The Greek verb, translated as 'emptied' in the third line, kenosis is usually understood as self emptying. We can see in this very early hymn the clarity with which people saw the incarnation. It is an emptying of all power, and at each stage, more power is lost.
The question Christians should be posing to atheists is not whether they should believe God exists, but whether they are serious about the non-existence of God.
Christian mystics know that to find God, we have to lose God. To rigorously discard every idol, every illusion we have about God, is extremely difficult. Atheists seem to have an image of God based upon certain fundamentalist traditions. This parallels very much the unnoticed assent we all make to consumerism by our supposed unbelief in Father Christmas. Our denials count for nothing but self-deception unless we change the way we live to one not controlled by the ideology of consumerism. So, if you have an idolatrous image of God, it matters little whether you believe in it or not.
This false image of God, colours atheists' statements, so their attacks on liberal Christians sound very similar to fundamentalist attacks on liberal Christians. Indeed, the first target of fundamentalists is always their co-religionists. Their false God dominates their perceptions as much as it dominates the perceptions of atheists. The issue is not about belief in God, it is about false images of God.
I do not count myself as a liberal theologian. The problem is any Christian who is not fundamentalist is counted as liberal by both fundamentalists and atheists. Neither will listen, both are convinced they are right and there is nothing further to be said on the matter.
It is not about picking a new image of God to not believe in. It is about rejecting all images of God. But to do this requires the path of the mystics. Real atheism is a Christian activity. It is not a matter for arrogance, it is hard work to genuinely not know God. I will explain this further in my next post.
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