God Is as God Does

Miracles are the moments in which, by which God determines who God is.

“God,” writes Robert Jenson, “is what happens between Jesus and the one he called Father, as they are freed for each other by their Spirit.”

God is as God does.

Therefore:

• Miracles are not discrete intrusions of the divine into the world.

• Miracles are how God determines his very own triune identity.

I’m preaching on Matthew 14 this Sunday, in which Jesus walks on water as the disciples are battered all night long by a storm (of Christ’s own making). Such stories are not anomalies interrupting the natural order nor are they proof texts for Jesus’ identity— the “ghost” walking on the water terrifies the twelve all the more. In the scriptures, miracle stories are narrative enactments of God's self-identity. For Jens, miracles are not intrusions from “outside” history, they are constitutive of the story in which God reveals who God is. That is to say, miracles are narrative determinations of the triune God’s identity.