The Dignity of Man and the Awesomeness of God
I've become more adept at picking up differences between current theology and theology 50 and 100 years ago or more (already obvious to most I'm sure). Under pressure from a culture that devalues life, the Church has switched from emphasizing the great and unfathomable gulf between God and man to the inherent dignity of man and how he is loved by God and made in His image.
And for good reason: over the past fifty years there's been an astonishing disregard for the value of human life and dignity. In this culture humans are disposable and an instrument of use. It could be thought that God treats us similarly, as mere objects of use, but the teaching of the Church has moved to correct this even to the point of speaking of the gradual divinization of man, as in the phrase "God became man that man might become God".
I see the change in bible commentaries on a passage like Isaiah 45:10. In a commentary from the 1940s there is the straightforward "creatures are as clay in the hands of the potter and must submit to their creator's demands." By the 1970s with the New Jerome we have this nuance: "God's demand of absolute obedience is not based, however, on blind subservience to fate or on the passive acceptance of brutal power, but rather in his delicate concern implied in the image of a potter, on his paternal love expressed in the phrase 'my children' and on his personal attention, emphasized by the repetition of the first person."
This move from depicting God's love as contractual to familial is something Scott Hahn is famous for. Theological conservatives like Hahn and the Pope are preaching a kindler and gentler message. I've been listening to Hahn's tapes on faith and justification (I often like his tapes better than his books - I didn't think "Hail Holy Queen" was that good while his tapes on the Book of Revelation were excellent) and in them Hahn talks about the theological virtue of hope in regard to assurance of salvation and makes the point that God loves His children more than human parents love theirs and cares more about our salvation than we do. Hahn admits, surprisingly, to sometimes wondering if he is a child of God, and he said that the Holy Spirit turns the question around: "How do your kids know they are your children, Scott?". Hahn lists: they eat at my table, they celebrate birthdays and anniversaries, they do chores, they are sometimes chastized. He then relates those to the life of the Christian: i.e. the Eucharist, saints' feast days, the Sacrament of Reconciliation, etc...Hahn points out the need to understand that God takes us as we are and doesn't expect us to grow to full maturity over night. He says that if his two-year old wets the bed he isn't the least bit angry. If his twelve-year old does, that's a problem...
In my own journey, I've decided to turn a deaf ear to the voices of those who would tear down, those who are constantly critical, and to treasure the pure golden love God has for me.
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