The Contextualization of God

Abstract

Contextualization, with its consequent relativizing of thought-forms previously considered unabashedly universal, offers an interesting contemporary challenge to a Christian doctrine of God, but one not without some parallel in the Christian tradition. Theology has always worked within the tension of making quite direct statements about God, and also asserting that the knowledge of God is more than the human mind can adequately grasp. From Augustine’s concern with the ‘unfortunate’ necessity of anthropomorphic language, to Aquinas’ reliance on analogy, and to the entire mystical tradition’s via negativa, Christian theologians have done their work relying on philosophical categories, and yet relativizing these categories through the fundamental conviction that even the clearest arguments concerning the nature of God are but poor semblances of what the divine reality must be.