"Who is God? And what is God? These are the questions of an entire lifetime, Nothing reaches so deep into the purpose of human life, nor demands the full scope of the human intellect as do these two brief queries. They stand at the head of Thomas Aquinas' majestic Summa Theologica, and by right they belong to the capital and the footing of any systematic theology." And so begins Sonderegger's first volume of a trilogy on Christian Dogmatics.
With all the right and useful emphases on theology as practical, missional, contextual in the past few decades, Sonderegger is right to insist from the beginning that theology is about God, not us. "Almighty God just is, in length and breadth, height and depth, altogether who He is." So questions of relevance and application, of practicality and comprehensibility, of accessibility in prayer and thought and action, all reduce towards the living centre of faith, God.
I heard Sonderegger lecture in Aberdeen a few weeks ago. Her carefully articulated thought, framed in language that is doxologically formed as well as intellectually driven, her combination of rigorous scholarship and passionate piety (I use that word piety in the sense of thought laden with prayer), made that lecture itself an act of devotion in its delivery, and a means of grace in its reception. This is theology distilled to its essence, to the essentials which are always to be found in the perfections of God.
"Every property of Deity is most properly called a Perfection. In all this, and beyond all this, Deity is Mystery: hidden, invisible, transcendent Mystery. The Objectivity of God closes the intellect up in wonder. The richness of this Mystery is inexhaustible, and we study it only in prayer." (xiii)
There is a no-nonsense solemnity in Sonderegger's writing, a reverence proper to the activity of studying, thinking, praying, writing, talking and finally articulating what can be said of God, of who God is, and what we are about when we speak of God, let alone speak to God.
"The Subjectivity of God appears first in Holy Scripture: He speaks, commands, beholds and blesses. Always we stand before a Living God who gives Himself to be known and loved. All the Perfections of God are properly ethicized, yes. But even more they are personalized. God is Knowledge itself that knows; Humility and Dynamism that lowers itself; Presence and Love that invites, heals, exalts. (xiii)
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