Life with God

For instance, after entering the land of Canaan, Abram is forced to go down to Egypt to avoid a famine (Gen 12:10–20). His fear of the Egyptians prompts Abram to tell them that Sarai is not his wife but his sister, thus putting Sarai in jeopardy. We see a similar episode in Genesis 20:1–18.

Perhaps the more familiar challenge involves Abram’s quest for an heir. Initially, Abram laments that Eliezer, one of his servants, will be his heir because he is childless (15:3). God tells Abram that he will give him a son who will be his heir (15:4).

Though Abram believes God (15:6), he is faced with another obstacle: Sarai’s barrenness (16:1). In his quest for an heir, Abram listens to Sarai’s counsel and has a child with her servant Hagar (16:2–3). Hagar bears Abram a son named Ishmael whom Abram believes will be his heir (16:15).

However, after Ishmael’s birth, God changes Abram’s name to Abraham and Sarai’s name to Sarah, reflecting his intention to make them the parents of many nations (17:4, 16). Ishmael will not be Abraham’s heir, but a son who will come through Sarah.

None of these narratives condemn Abraham’s actions. Instead, they portray Abraham’s journey with God. Through all these experiences, Abraham begins to understand how the world works. He begins to develop a theological disposition, a sense that the governing dynamics of reality require obedience to the Lord (26:5; cf. Deut 30:18–20).

Abraham ultimately demonstrates this understanding in Genesis 22. Having sent Ishmael away, Abraham is left only with Isaac, whom God tells him to offer up as a sacrifice. The command makes no sense to someone who doesn’t have a theological disposition. Why would God tell Abraham that Isaac will be his heir and then take him away?

At this point in his experience with the Lord, Abraham has learned to trust God even when he doesn’t fully understand how doing so will work. As the author of Hebrews notes, “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back” (Heb 11:17–19).

The reasoning Abraham reached, that the Lord could raise Isaac from the dead, was not the conclusion of a logical argument. It was the conclusion that became available to him because his disposition had been trained to expect the Lord to be more present and more powerful in the situation than the situation itself could account for.

The angel’s commendation recognizes that Abraham has become one who fears the Lord (Gen 22:12). Abraham’s willingness to obey God’s command does not seem to require deep deliberation, but is reflexive and instinctual. He obeys because he recognizes that the governing dynamics of the world involve obeying God.

What Genesis 22 describes is what the Thinking Christian Framework calls a theological disposition. A theological disposition is the underlying sense of how the world works. It is not a body of conclusions held in mind, but a deep sense of how to live as members of God’s kingdom.

It is similar to the sort of pre-reflective, highly trained know-how often exhibited by a professional ballet dancer. The dancer doesn’t think about every single movement in sequence. Instead, he or she operates as a coordinated unit performing without having to walk through a set of steps. Good dancing looks fluid and effortless. This sort of know-how is what those who have a theological disposition exhibit. A theological disposition will not guarantee perfection, but it will allow us to continually develop the instincts necessary to live in God’s presence as a people who understand how the world works.