I’ve been reading Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief by Rowan Williams. It is an introduction, but he comes at the Christian faith from a different perspective than I normally do, and I’m finding it fascinating. I wanted to share this:
“We have to bend our minds around the admittedly tough notion that we exist because of an utterly unconditional generosity. The love that God shows in making the world, like the love he shows towards the world once it is created, has no shadow or shred of self-directed purpose in it; it is entirely and unreservedly given for our sake. It is not a concealed way for God to get something out of it for himself, because that would make nonsense of what we believe is God’s eternal nature. God is, in simple terms, sublimely and eternally happy to be God, and the fact that this sublime eternal happiness overflows into the act of creation is itself a way of telling us that God is to be trusted absolutely, that God has no private agenda. It may be a bit shocking and hard to absorb, but that’s what it seems we have to say. When – rather rarely – in our world we see someone acting without any thought for themselves, without reward or consolation, wholly focused on another, we see a faint reflection of what God is naturally like.” [1]
I don’t disagree with any of that, but I had never before put it all together that way.
[1] Rowan Williams, Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007), 12–13. Kindle edition.