Ch 1 The Individual & Their Faith

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything;

As we examine the individual, we must begin at the beginning. That is, we should not discuss the individual on the basis of assumptions predisposing our conception of the individual. This certainly deepens our focus not on who is the individual but distinctly on what is the individual. That requires us to define what is the identity of the individual.

My own story emerged with frequent wonderings about “What am I?” I was born in Chicago, Il. And grew up in a lower-class neighborhood populated mostly by a white majority. Few minorities went to my elementary school, and there was only one other minority besides me in my classes. My physical differences with my white classmates, friends, neighbors and surroundings became a comparison that usually made me feel different, thus often less in what I am, and sometimes that I didn’t belong here. This preoccupation of comparing appearances motivated me to establish what I am based on what I could do and not on what I looked like. As a result, academically and athletically I excelled at or near the top level throughout my school years. These results not only redefined what I am in comparison; but, increasingly they also gave me the confidence of having an identity that I was proud of for being more, not less. This new identity evolved even though I was different from whites and couldn’t change my basic appearance.

Thankfully, my identity eventually changed as an adult but only as the outcome of returning to the beginning—the beginning of the first individual human’s journey underlying all of ours. Therefore, we now begin at the beginning in order to get to the integral depth of what is the individual, as well as who this individual is, and how the individual is to be that who and what.

“In the beginning” begins the narrative of God’s creation. After the rest of creation was completed, God climaxed the beginning by creating the human being. As this constituting narrative unfolds, ‘what is the individual human’ signifies humanity in general. It is at this stage of the individual’s story that an inflection point creates a theological fog about what is this individual, and the significance of who was created and distinctly how.

Christians need to not only review the creation narrative but deeply examine the story of the individual’s beginning. Too many assumptions have been made about it, which have evolved to render the individual to only some facsimile of what, who and how God created. This evolution has certainly shaped faith to be constructed accordingly and thereby expanded the theological fog.

The identity of the individual human becomes ambiguous when the beginning is composed by biological evolution. Perhaps there could be reason to explain the individual’s physical characteristics on the basis of evolutionary biology. However, while this may give a reasonable basis for the individual’s physique, it does not and cannot be the basis for the individual human’s identity constituted integrally by what, who and how humans are. This integral depth emerged, not evolved, only and fully from the beginning as God’s creation to define the identity of humans and determine their function.

At this beginning, God unequivocally created the first generation of humans on this irreducible basis: “create humans in our image, according to our likeness…in the image and likeness of God he created them male and female” (Gen 1:26-27). The story of this human generation seems simple enough in the beginning. But their story should not be simply introduced or oversimplified, because their story unfolds in a complex process that compounds and confounds defining the individual’s human identity and determining their function. To overlook or mute this segment of their story has innumerable repercussions and consequences, all of which have evolved in future generations of humans since the beginning.

Christians believe that human are created in God’s image. What, who and how that image is depicted becomes the issue from the beginning that has diversely both defined the identity of human being and determined the function of being human. The creation image and likeness of God can only be attributed to the triune God, whose qualitative image and qualitative-relational likeness are intrinsically distinguished completely by the Trinity.[1] The identity of the Trinity is revealed throughout the Bible as the Father, the Son and the Spirit. Yet, this threefold who of the Trinity is only constituted by each of them as persons, not by their titles or roles. This means that the who of the Trinity is inseparable from the what of their individual persons; that does not mean there are three Gods (Dt 6:4; Mk 12:29). The who and what of the Trinity’s identity constituted by their whole persons is inseparable from the integral how of their relational function (both by each of their persons and united in relationship together as One), which completes the likeness of the Trinity integrated in wholeness with the image.

In the belief systems of Christian faith, to what extent is the identity of the individual human congruent with this qualitative image of the Trinity, as well as is the function of the individual human compatible with this relational likeness of the Trinity? In addition, how much of God’s image and likeness in Christian belief systems have composed faith practice with the subtle reverse thinking that who, what and how God is exists altogether shaped “just like humans” (the underlying issue of faith from Ps 50:21)?

The first humans created in the image and likeness of God emerged in the primordial garden as male and female individuals. Before the inauguration their gender, however, it is essential to understand what distinguished the individual human from and above the rest of biologically alive creation. First, without discussing the technical aspects,[2] the individual human was constituted by God’s qualitative being from inner out in order for the individual to be a qualitative human being from inner out (Gen 2:7). Inner out signifies that inner is distinguished by the primacy of the individual’s heart, which encompasses the secondary of out to constitute the whole person. For this human being to live distinguished invariably from inner out, that individual could not make primary any distinction from outer in (such as gender); otherwise the individual’s human identity and function would become quantified from outer in—signifying the person’s reduction and/or fragmentation. Outer in signifies that outer is distinguished by the primacy of the quantitative features and aspects of the individual, which go in only to the depth quantified by the individual’s mind.

Since God’s qualitative being is constituted by the trinitarian persons distinguished only from inner out, the Trinity’s wholeness cannot be distinguished whenever any trinitarian’s person is transposed from inner out to outer in. The outer in composes the person quantitatively in the secondary distinctions of what the person does and/or possesses (including gender). No matter how important what the person does or possesses is, in the image and likeness of the Trinity these quantitative distinctions are never primary over the person from inner out. Only the inner out qualitatively distinguishes the whole person, while the outer in at best only quantifies parts of the person or, worse, fragments the person—both of which are consequential for the person’s wholeness. Thus, the outer in results unavoidably in the reductionist sum of anything less and any substitutes for wholeness. This prevalent consequence has become the status quo for defining the individual human identity and determining their function incongruent with God’s image.

Secondly, integral with the whole person from inner out in the qualitative image of God, the likeness of the Trinity is created for being human. The ontology of God creating human being in the Trinity’s image further enacts the creation of being human in the function of the Trinity’s likeness. What is this Trinity’s likeness?

Jesus vulnerably embodied the ontology and function of the Trinity, which reveals to us the image and likeness of who, what and how we were created, need to be and must by nature function. In his person, Jesus declares the wholeness of God constituted by ontological Oneness (e.g. Jn 11:30,38; 16:15; 17:21). God’s wholeness is also constituted by the trinitarian persons’ intimate relational involvement and connection they have together inner out. This intimacy signifies the love their whole persons act on vulnerably to be involved with each other heart to heart in the primacy of relational connection together. The wholeness of the Trinity’s relationship together is the relational quality, not quantity, that integrates the Trinity’s qualitative image with the Trinity’s qualitative relational likeness. Therefore, on this integral basis the individual human is created in the Trinity’s qualitative image and relational likeness.

Given this image and likeness of God, the first individual human occupied the primordial garden incompletely. Thus, God declared, “It is not good that the individual should be alone” (Gen 2:18), which enacts God’s conscious relational involvement with human beings. “Good” (tob) can be situational, a moral condition, about happiness or even being righteous. When attached to “to be alone,” “not good” can easily be interpreted with all of the above, perhaps with the exclusion of being righteous. And human stories prevail with this interpretation, thereby constructing faith accordingly.

In the creative narrative, the Hebrew term (bad) for “to be alone” can also be rendered “to be apart.” This rendering needs to prevail for the human story because it composes the deeper sense of relationship and not being fully connected to someone else. This focus goes beyond an individual merely having someone to associate with in order not to be alone. The difference renders God’s likeness significant or insignificant. Thus, we need to pay attention to human stories with the focus on the distinction of “to be apart” because it takes our stories beyond situations and deeper than, for example, the heterosexual relations of marriage (the prevalent interpretation of God creating the female human in response to “to be alone”).

”To be apart” is not just a situational condition but most definitively a relational condition needing to be addressed in our human being and brought to light in our being human. In human stories, for example, a person may be alone in a situation but also feel lonely in the company of others, at church, even in a marriage or family because of relational distance creating the condition of “being apart.” This relational condition is compounded today on social media despite all the transactions individuals have but increasingly feeling lonely. And God simply defines such human being and being human as “not good.” Yet, how aware are Christians of their relational condition, and how accountable in their faith are they of this inescapable issue?

In God’s created design, meaning, and purpose for the human order, which are integrally distinguished by God’s image and likeness, the human narrative is composed conjointly:

1. For human being to be from inner out and thereby “to be part” (not “apart”) of the human order’s interrelated structural condition and contextual process with the Trinity.

2. For the inner-out function of being human “to be part” (never “apart”) of the heart-to-heart relationship together necessary to be whole (not partially or symbolically) just as constituted by and thus interconnected with the qualitative ontology and relational function of the Trinity’s wholeness.

Accordingly, “good” signifies the Trinity’s whole ontology and function, which integrally constitutes the righteousness of God defining the whole of who, what and how God is.

This wholeness distinguishes God beyond just the Creator to identify God’s ongoing presence and determine God’s relational involvement, whose righteousness can be counted on to be faithful in relationship together (cf. Ps 85:13). In other words, God’s righteousness is not a mere attribute, as many belief systems compose. Rather, God’s righteousness always constitutes the qualitative-relational function of the whole of God, whose presence and involvement are assured to be whole with those connected relationally by the faith they live (not just have).

The relational outcome is that human beings are constituted in whole ontology and function in likeness of the righteous whole of who, what and how God is. Nothing less and no substitutes for the individual’s identity and function can constitute their human being as “good” signifying God’s irreducible creation, and any diminishment can only be “not good.” Therefore, anything less and any substitutes for defining our faith and determining our faith practice are unequivocally “to be apart” from this uncommon wholeness distinguished irreducibly and nonnegotiably; and the qualitative-relational consequences from anything less and any substitutes unavoidably render human being reduced and being human fragmentary.

This consequence is inescapable no matter how much faith we may possess. How so?

The first generation of individual humans transposed the image of God from the qualitative inner out to the quantitative outer in, whereby what they did and possessed in their life became primary instead of just secondary. Pay attention to their story: Initially, “this male and female were both naked and they felt no shame” (Gen 2:25, NIV). What is the significance of this part of their story?

As whole persons created in God’s image and likeness, they saw each other as these persons from inner out, which included their secondary attributes as male and female from outer in. Being naked was the norm for all creatures, yet for these humans to be naked symbolized other issues. For them to be naked and feel no shame involved establishing the human narrative in its integral depth of created wholeness, in contrast to any fragmentary terms of the physical body and marital sex between husband and wife.

The Hebrew term for shame (bosh) involves feeling confusion, disappointment, embarrassment or even dismay when things don’t turn out as expected. Initially, what did they expect, and then what did they become conscious of?

Consider this male and female meeting naked for the first time, having the choice to examine each other either from inner out or outer in. At first, their perceptual lens was not constrained to the outer in, and thus their consciousness was not limited to gender. When they came together, their connection with each other emerged from the deep consciousness of their persons from inner out. Good, because the whole of their persons could not be grasped in physical terms or even be sufficiently understood on the spiritual level. They would only feel no shame when their consciousness centered on their whole persons, since all human persons are defined by and determined in the same image and

likeness of God. In their person consciousness of themselves and each other, the inner-out function of their whole persons then joined together on the newly created foundation (“not to be apart”) of intimate relationship heart to heart to constitute their relationship together in wholeness, and thus no shame. Furthermore, in this integral relational outcome, they not only felt no shame, but more importantly they personally experienced the deep satisfaction of living viably in the qualitative image and relational likeness of God. Thus, this relational outcome points to the viability of the faith they lived, not merely had.

Unfortunately, this part of their story was not sustained but evolved in a sad process. After being subjected to the counter influence of their surrounding context, these persons willfully shifted from inner out to outer in as they became self-conscious about their self-worth. This motivated them to pursue becoming wise, under the illusion that their self-esteem would be enhanced (Gen 3:6). The immediate effect their choice to shift had on them opened their eyes with a biased focus on the physical aspect of their nakedness as male and female. Consequently, with their consciousness as persons reduced to a self-consciousness about their outer-in distinctions, this male and female now had to cover-up their distinctions to make their self more presentable from outer in to avoid any shame (Gen 3:7).

Their reduced outer-in identity and function also had relational consequences for the faith they had in God. Contrary to initially trusting God not “to be apart” in their nakedness, their faith now composed from outer in became uncertain, insecure or anxious. So, along with making themselves presentable in their identity and favorable in their function—an illusion of self-worth and a simulation of self-esteem—they evolved in a subtle yet distinct relational distance with God (Gen 3:8-10). Such relational distance is the operating nature of faith possessed by those whose identity and function are composed from outer in.

How reliable is this faith for those who have it? When God addressed them with the question “Where are you” (Gen 3:9), it must be clear that it wasn’t about knowing their physical location. God was confronting them in order to hold them accountable for the faith they possessed directly constructed from their outer-in identity and function. The consequence of where these individuals were did not evolve just from their disobedience of God’s terms. What and who evolving from how they enacted their faith can only be explained and understood in two inseparably interrelated ways:

1. They reduced the persons created originally by God and thereby also transposed God’s image and likeness from the qualitative and relational down to the quantitative and secondary.

2. In their reduction, they then fragmented their whole persons into what they do and possess, and in the process they fragmented (intentionally or not) the wholeness of their intimate relationships together both with each other and with God, thus reducing its created primacy to, at best, the secondary, and worse to illusions and simulations.

Therefore, the sum of these ways is what completely defines and determines what sin truly is—the sin of reductionism introduced ingeniously by Satan in the primordial garden (Gen 3:1-5).

Given their complete story, how reliable then can their faith be that they possess? Based on the male’s response to God, the reliability of the faith he had exposed the need for his constructed faith to be deconstructed (Gen 3:10-12). His story (including hers) from inner out to outer in enacted in the above two ways has been reproduced in the faith of many ever since. But, since the story of the first generation individuals tends to be abbreviated or merely introduced in most Christian belief systems—for example, sin as their disobedience—the consequences on subsequent generations of individuals and the faith they have persist consistently in a theological fog. Moreover, the stories of current generations are mysteries as their reduction and fragmentation become even more obscured by the internet.

The inescapable issue before us to determine the reliability of faith centers on how reliable is the individual’s self-perception, which also includes their perception’s reliability of life with others and with God. Reliability is not only elusive but misconceived. In this vague or darkened condition, how viable is the life of the individual, much less the viability of their faith? To have faith is one issue and to live faith is a deeper issue. Therefore, we need to pay close attention to how this has evolved in the individual’s identity and function. In addition, we need to willfully and accountably confront the construction of faith shaped by our own image and likeness rather than God’s.

Let’s look further at the faith Christians have and understand how their variations construct faith in the individual, as well as the church and the academy.

Any claim by Christians to having a strong faith does not answer the questions before us. It only raises the distinction between having an overtly active identity marker (such as God’s people in the OT) and living with viable function (as in Ps 37:3-7; Gal 5:6). For many of those who assume to have an active faith, their mindset readily perceives their faith as available to exercise as desired, needed, or for whatever. This points to a faith based primarily on their situations and circumstances, which God’s people ongoingly had to account for as their identity markers fluctuated according to those situations and circumstances.

Most Christians have a faith that participates in faith-related activities describing who they are; and sometimes what is ascribed to them in the activity defines who they are or can assume to be. Some Christians extend their faith to acting out faith on the basis of who and what one is or claims to be; their acting of faith becomes performative and raises questions about the nature of who and what that individual is. The terms of both activity and acting subject faith essentially to the workings of the individual from outer in.

The third term for Christian faith penetrates to the heart of the person to enact faith on the basis of who, what and how the person can, must and truly lives to be in the qualitative image and relational likeness of God. The action of faith from this person is both irreducible and nonnegotiable to anything less and any substitutes, which the activity and acting of faith are ongoingly subject to. In other words, the action of faith cannot be variably enacted, notably shaped by human terms under the assumption that “God is altogether like we are” (Ps 50:21). Thus, the viability of faith emerges only from the action of faith, which is enacted just when constituted by the person living from inner out viably solely on the basis of God’s qualitative image and relational likeness, not human images and likenesses.

The stories in the faith narrative detail many faith activities and acting, while fewer faith actions are described. After I became a Christian at age twenty, I initially practiced my new faith with intimate connections with God (notably Jesus). My ongoing relational involvement with God visibly changed me, such that some of my colleagues inquired about the action of my faith. They wanted to experience more in their faith, so we met regularly for me to share the viability of my faith with them. Later in my life, unfortunately, as I finished college and began graduate studies in theology, my intimate faith action became increasingly the activity of faith preoccupied with my referential studies focused merely on information about God. Consequently, my satisfying faith action became increasingly first the activity of my faith in order to secure my self-worth; then secondly, became the acting of my faith so that my self-esteem was enhanced. I became outwardly very verbal about the Christian faith and related issues, as well as demonstrative in preaching about it. One comment, for example, from an impressed minister listening to me stated that he felt he was listening to Billy Graham.

Well, this portrait of my later so-called Christian development did not continue to be the identity I presented. Thankfully, the faith I constructed in those years increasingly was confronted by God to hold me accountable for its deconstruction. In a deliberate process of person consciousness, I dealt with my self-consciousness that kept relational distance from God and returned increasingly to the relational connection of my initial faith. That is, the relational outcome keeps restoring and growing the action of my faith living by my viably new person redeemed from the old me.

God has created the individual with the volitional integrity to make their own choices. This volition, however, came with limits. As witnessed in the creation narrative, human being does not have the freedom to choose any variation of being human without incurring consequences. The story of the inaugural individuals initially shared with us the dynamics distinguishing their whole persons from inner out. Then their story (not to mention my story) evolved from their decision to only present to us a portrait of their self from outer in. Consequently, ever since, the presentation of self-portrait has countered persons living their profile

The individual’s volition was and is notably accountable for the choices in their faith, namely whether it becomes the activity or acting of the faith they have, or is the action of the faith they live. And the reliability or viability of individual choices continue to call for “Where are you?” and inescapably necessitate ongoing accountability.

The faith we have can only transform viably into the faith we live when it is vulnerably involved from inner out in the primacy of relationship. Faith living is distinguished in the essential nature of relationship constituted in the relational terms of the Trinity. How so?

When you have faith in someone, you are stating some belief in them about what they can do or they have, perhaps in their character or credibility. When your belief also counts on them to do that or have that, then you start relating to them with some level of involvement. For your faith in them to become significant, some form of relationship is established.

The faith in God many Christians have is a statement of their belief, namely about what God can do and/or has, likely including God’s character. For them to go beyond merely a belief in God, there has to be the formation and involvement in a relationship with God. Who defines this relationship and on what terms determine how that relationship functions, whereby the viability of faith living can unfold as a relational reality.

This raises a critical question for Chrisitan faith: Is faith a noun or a verb? If faith involves a relationship with God, faith has to be a verb to describe action. It is the action of this verb that God made essential in two integral ways for faith in God to be viable.

The initial way the action of faith becomes viable is by the verb to trust. In biblical language, the faith verb is rendered to believe or to trust. For Jesus, he held his disciples accountable for not merely believing in him but to trust him from their heart. In the disciples’ fear during the storm while on the water, he confronted them with the question “Have you still no faith?” (Mk 4:40); but the issue wasn’t that the disciples stopped believing. The faith issue was deeply about them not trusting him. Later, when his crucifixion drew near, he challenged them in their troubled hearts to “trust in God, trust also in me” (Jn 14:1, NIV); it is misleading to render his challenge to “believe in…” as the NRSV does.

Only the relational action of trust constitutes the relational involvement necessary for faith to be viable and thereby live our faith in direct relational connection with God. From the basis of relational trust, the verb of faith goes deeper in the relational connection in order to further constitute the relational involvement in the viability of intimacy together—not only face to face but also heart to heart.

The viable faith of intimacy together was clearly distinguished by Paul in his declaration: “For in relationship with Christ Jesus, neither what we do or have has significance; the only significance to him is our faith being viable by love” (paraphrasing Gal 5:6). The relational depth of love (agape) illuminated by Paul directly countered the outer-in faith constructed by activity and acting. Most notably was Paul’s confrontation of Peter’s faith practice from outer in, which exposed the hypocrisy of his faith (Gal 2:14-16). Peter’s hypocrisy (hypokrites) signifies in Greek culture the performative function of acting as in a theatrical role. In other words, Peter was acting out the faith he had, in contrast and conflict with the faith he needed to live with relational trust and love.

The relational action of love constituting the verb of faith is distinguished in its depth by the invariable relational terms declared by Jesus: “Just as I have loved you with my intimate relational involvement, on this irreducible and nonnegotiable relational basis you must in my relational likeness love God and each other with your whole person from inner out” (paraphrasing Jn 13:34 and Mk 12:30 together). It was on the basis of these relational terms for love that Jesus confronted Peter with “Do you agape me?” (Jn 21:15-17). Peter answered with the variable of phileo. The love of phileo can have merit, but it cannot substitute for the intimate relational involvement of agape given us by Jesus.

The relational terms of love declared by Jesus in the primacy of agape are irreducible and nonnegotiable. Yet, as witnessed in Peter, Christian love has become so variable such that the significance of love is elusive. Love is often merely some emotion or affection expressed by Christians, or it exercises some good for others by what one does or gives, notably with sacrifice. This is to be expected because the view many Christians have of Jesus’ love for them revolves on his sacrifice. The cross, then, often becomes a barrier for experiencing directly the relational involvement Jesus has in his love for us, thus precluding the relational experience of “just as I have loved you” (Jn 13:34).

Jesus did not go straight to the cross after his earthly birth. His incarnation embodied the Son to be vulnerably present with his whole trinitarian person and relationally involved with his whole heart extended to us for the intimate relational connection of love. The relational intimacy of agape is intrinsic to the ontology of the Trinity and the trinitarian persons’ relationship together; and thereby, this is the only relationship viably constituting the action of faith in the relational likeness of the Trinity. Thus, on the basis solely by Jesus’ relational terms, love is enacted in, by and for the intimacy of hearts vulnerably opened and extended to each other for relationship together in the invariable likeness of the Trinity. This relational dynamic is the love that Jesus holds us accountable for in order that our faith lives viably from inner out (as Paul made definitive above).

Therefore, inseparably integrated together, the relational involvement of trust deepened by the relational involvement of love integrally constitute the viability of faith to be live by the action of this verb. The relational outcome for this individual challenges and confronts the variable construction of faith by anything less and any substitutes evolving from the inflection point in the beginning. When this outcome is the action of faith living in the individual, this person will love others (“just as I…”) for the deconstruction of faith those individuals have.

This completes the first phase of examining the faith that the individual has or lives. The next phase overlaps into and interacts with the church in order to expose further inflections points constructing Christian faith.

[1] For a full discussion on the Trinity, see my study The Face of the Trinity: The Trinitarian Essential for the Whole of God and Life (Trinity Study, 2016), online at https://www.4X12.org.

[2] For a deeper discussion on human being and being human, see my study The Person in Complete Context: The Whole of Theological Anthropology (TA Study, 2014), online at https://www.4X12.org.