Theologians in speaking of God can speak of his transcendence and his immanence. The idea that God is transcendent refers to his otherness, his removal from creation; it refers to ideas like a creator-creature distinction or God as outside the universe. God’s immanence on the other hand refers to his nearness, his participation in some sense of all things in creation. The Bible famously portrays God using both these sorts of paradigms, even at the very beginning. Creation as described in Genesis 1 has the tone of transcendence–God speaks and creation comes into being. Creation as described in Genesis 2 has the tone of immanence–God plants a garden and sculpts man from the dust. Many theological errors can spring from a lack of balance between these two ideas.
Recently in school I’ve read some of the work of Jewish theologian Richard Rubenstein in response to the Shoah (also known as the holocaust). Overall I enjoyed reading his work. Somewhat unfairly he gained a reputation as a “God is dead” theologian. Perhaps this is related to his saying things like “God is dead.” However, in context, I think this should be understood differently and in a way that helps understand errors that occur by losing the balance of God’s transcendence and immanence. At the risk of great oversimplification, let me try to explain Rubinstein’s concepts “The God of history” and “The God of nature.”
When Rubinstein said things like “God is dead,” he was usually specifically referring to a concept he called the “God of history.” Instead, Rubinstein promoted what he saw a retrieval for Israel in its return to the land in 1948 as a retrieval of the “God of nature.” On the one hand, the “God of history” referred to a conception of God as sovereign and omnipotent over historical events, but in some way almost to the exclusion of his personal involvement in the goings on of the world or in relationships with people. But this can skew toward an indifferent God, which presents a major problem in light of the death of likely over 10 million people in the Shoah. A God that is only transcendent to the extent of ignoring evil is not a good God. Declaring this God dead Rubinstein looked forward to a “God of nature,” an immanent God associated with national Israel in its land, stressing the agrarian and land elements of the Hebrew Bible’s festivals and feasts. The problem is, this sort of immanent God can quickly become the very sort of paganism condemned by many laws and prophets throughout the Hebrew Bible.
In fact, the concept of “the God of nature” has at its core the very element of paganism satirized by Isaiah and the Psalmists, perhaps most notably in Isaiah 44:9–19:
Those who make graven images, all of them are desolate,
and their delights will not profit.
To whomever forms a god or casts a graven image
There will come no profit.
Behold, all his friends will be ashamed,
And the engravers, they are human.
They are gathered and all of them stand up
That they might tremble and be ashamed together.The craftsman of iron forges and works among the coals,
And with tongs he forms it
And works it by the strength of his arm,
Who also hunters and lacks strength,
And when not drinking water becomes weary.The craftsman of wood extends the line,
He inscribes it with a stylus,
He prepares it with a knife and inscribes it with a compass,
And he makes it in the pattern of a man
Like the radiance of man to sit in the house.Cutting for himself cedars, he takes holm and oak,
And he grasps for himself the wood of the forest,
He plants a cedar and brings much rain to it.
So it will be for humanity for burning,
Then he will take some of it and warm himself,
And some he will kindle and bake bread and satiate himself,
And some he will even fashion into a god and worships!
He makes it an idol and bows down to it!
A portion he burns with fire, On another portion he eats meat, he roasts a roast,
Also he warms himself and says “Ah, I am warm, I see by the light.”
But the remainder becomes his god, he makes it his idol,
He bows down to it and worships it,
He prays to it and says, “Deliver me! For you are my god.”They do not know, they do not understand,
For their eyes are shut from seeing and their hearts from understanding.
He does not take knowledge or understanding to his heart, saying,
“A portion of it I have burned with fire,
And by another I have baked upon its coals bread,
I roasted flesh and ate,
And the rest I made an idol,
To a block of wood I bow down.”
Throughout these verses, the folly of idolatry is emphasized through the connection of the folly of worshipping idols with their association with created things. Many historians and scholars have rightly noted that idolatry in ancient times did not believe that the statue or idol itself was the god worshipped. For example, statues of calves or bulls would have likely represented visually where the invisible deity sat. In this paganism there was a metaphysical understanding of the distinction between spiritual and material in such a way that the essence of the deity would not be literally the material of the statue. And Isaiah would have known this.
So Isaiah’s choice to satirize these false pagan gods as mere blocks of material is intentional. In its intentionality it ridicules any conception of God as so immanent that he is contained with or by creation, any panentheistic or pantheistic view of the deity. In so doing the Hebrew Bible requires a balance against this immanence; its rejection of paganism calls for a creator-creature distinction that requires a balance of immanence with transcedence.
Ultimately, of course, how could the God of the Bible be the comforter and object of faith of Job, Habakkuk, or within Isaiah, of Isaiah and Hezekiah? The notion of the one God that emerges from the text of the Hebrew Bible requires this theological balance, and it has practical ramifications for dealing with theodicy and suffering. God must be immanent in order to be involved in a relationship with us in our suffering, yet he must be truly transcendent and distinct, or he can offer no meaningful solutions to our problems.
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