Our Accommodating God
Classical Trinitarianism and Disablity
The triune God of the universe is infinitely above all of creation. Trying to fathom the truth revealed about God in Scripture and creation is much like trying to store the ocean in a thimble. How do we grasp the being who was not created? How do we grasp a being outside of time? A great many theological errors arise from our inability to grasp the truth given.
In his chapter on the incomprehensibility of the Trinity in On Classical Trinitarianism, Ronni Kurtz argues that many theological errors arise when we fail to appreciate the distinction between Creator and creature. He writes:
God is not out of the intellectual and linguistic jurisdiction of the creature merely because the creature is sinful and God is great in size. Rather, God is out of the intellectual and linguistic jurisdiction of the creature because God is distinct from the creature.
God is infinitely above us as Creator, and we are finite creatures. Yet God has not left us in ignorance. Kurtz goes on to explain that God’s answer to this problem is accommodation:
To accommodate the creature, God has revealed himself in such a way that allows for meaningful knowledge and speech about God from the creature, but without relinquishing his incomprehensible essence.
Even in our unfallen state, we could not know him unless he stooped down to walk with us. Yet now, although image bearers, all of who we are is fallen. Our intellect, our will, and our hearts are born into weakness and rebellion. We resist the revelation given to us. God, in his love for us, gave us his Word. He not only gave it to us through the prophets and apostles, but also in the flesh in Jesus Christ. Jesus accommodated our lack of ability and ultimately to deliver us from our sinful state.
In his gifts to the people of God, he not only gave the Word of God, he accommodated his revelation into multiple styles, writing in narrative and poetry to enable oral storytelling and easy memorization and repetition for the non-literate.
God’s accommodation is not limited to a few isolated examples. It is woven throughout the entirety of Scripture. As Kurtz notes while drawing from Herman Bavinck:
Indeed, the Scriptures use anthropomorphism, anthropopathism, and anthropochronism to such an extent that nineteenth-century Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck was comfortable to say, “Scripture does not just contain a few scattered anthropomorphisms but is anthropomorphic through and through.” Bavinck ties this claim to God’s act of accommodation.
In Ronni Kurtz’s article he argues that God, in his attempt to relate to his creation, has made accommodations to and for us so we can know him.
He not only gave the Word but also gave sacraments and memorial practices for embodied learning. We have the embodied ordinances of Baptism as our entry into the faith and the Lord’s Supper as the continuing embodied reminder of Jesus’ spiritual presence.
Importantly, accommodation does not mean that God gives us false or lesser knowledge. Rather, accommodation makes genuine knowledge of God possible for finite creatures. Kurtz explains:
Rather, through accommodation, the creature is able to participate in divine wisdom—not through archetypal theology, but through ectypal theology. This should not be read as demeaning ectypal theology either. Ectypal theology is meaningful theology because the creature participates by means of analogical knowledge of God (though never through univocal knowledge of God).
Because God accommodates himself to creatures, accommodation is not merely an educational strategy or ministry technique. It is a theological reality rooted in God’s own self-revelation. If God has chosen to communicate truth in ways suited to finite creatures, then we should not be surprised that his people are called to do likewise.
In schools, workplaces, churches, and elsewhere, the term accommodation has been used to mean adaptations that can be made to enable anyone and everyone to participate. In acknowledging that God is an accommodating God, we as the church must be an accommodating people.
Paul understood this principle when he said that he became all things to all people. He did not change the gospel, but he adapted his presentation of it to those he served. To the Jews, he brought the gospel in light of their background and experience. To the Gentiles, he did the same. The message remained unchanged, but the method of communication was adapted to the audience.
Whoever you minister to, whether in your church, home, or community, you should accommodate the message to them. You do not change the message, but you bring it to where they are. We accommodate in our teaching styles but also in the practical ways as well. We accommodate through hearing devices for the hard of hearing. We accommodate by having a nursery. We accommodate by welcoming those with physical and intellectual disabilities.
My son uses an AAC device to help him communicate due in part to intellectual disability, physical damage during life-saving procedures, and strokes. He cannot currently vocalize sound. Yet he communicates. He can use coughs, hand movements, taps, and his AAC device to communicate. An AAC functions with visual, language, and audio supports to help nonverbal or minimally verbal individuals. This enables Knox and children like him to communicate, to be heard.
An AAC does not change the message Knox wants to communicate. Rather, it accommodates the way that message is communicated so that others can understand him. In many ways, it provides a helpful illustration of what accommodation seeks to do. Accommodation does not change truth. Accommodation brings truth within reach of those who receive it.
While these forms of accommodation are not identical, they share the same basic principle: truth is communicated according to the capacity of the recipient without changing the truth itself.
When we minister to anyone, specifically those with disabilities, we must take the truth of who God is, a God who accommodated himself to us, and accommodate it to our communities, our children, and every person made in the image of God.