Description
"Patience: A Theological Exploration" is a constructive statement in the field of Christian theology, with forays into philosophy of religion, political theory, and critical theory. It considers how two terms--patience and impatience--might stimumlate reflection about divine and human action, the fluid nature of human life, sin and salvation, and social justice. Describing God's creative and providential activity as an exercise of divine patience balances an affirmation of divine sovereignty with an account of creaturely activity. God does not only generate and sustain the world; God "lets be" and "lets happen" in ways that empower creatures, especially human beings, to act meaningfully and consequentially. Human patience entails vulnerability to the tranformative actions of the Holy Spirit. Developed in conversation with Calvin's theology and new work in feminist and queer theory, this motif frames an anti-essentialist, open-ended account of human existence as "being-in-becoming." Talk of divine impatience enables a new perspective on the atonement. Insofar as Christ bears the full weight of sin on the cross, God is afforded the opportunity to "lose patience," decisively, with wickedness. God's exertion of impatience, notably, enables an affirmation of universal salvation, for God's rejection of sin is coextensive with God's remaking of humankind. Human impatience, rightly articulated, entails a refusal to wait for justice and sometimes-intemperate demands for sociopolitical change. Confronted with grace, we are driven towards a future that is always coming: a time and space which justice and peace define our lives with one another and our relationship with God.
