Otros Factores:

The aim of Scripture and theology is to draw the people of God into a communicative act for the sake of communion with God and God’s creation (Vanhoozer 2005:35, 107-8). Vanhoozer (2010:24) argues that “Christian theology begins in the wake of God’s communicative activity or theodrama (drao = “I do”)137 in which God’s speaking is a doing and God’s doing is more often than not a matter of speaking.” Scripture as God’s communicative agent often leads to action because speaking is a form of doing. Conversely, doing can also be a form of speaking (cf. Vanhoozer 2005:44). This demonstrates that theology involves both what God has said and done in Jesus Christ for the world, and what we must say and do in grateful response to God’s action in Jesus (Vanhoozer 2005:37-38, 46-48). In other words, Jesus’ sayings and actions present an expression of God’s being in terms of ontology. In relation to this divine communication, Jesus’ sayings and actions also tell us who we are and what we ought to do in response to the divine conversation; that is to say, “action becomes the self-manifestation of a being, both of its presence (its act of existence) and its mode of presence (its essence)” (Clarke 1994:8). That a being’s action that does something (i.e., it acts) implies its reason for existing.

137 _{For Vanhoozer (2010:222), “A ‘theodramatic’ metaphysics provides a systematic account of the categories}

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For example, before describing the context of a specific self-designation of God in the encounter between God and Moses in the burning bush at the calling of Moses in Exodus 3:1- 15, we should distinguish between the “who” and the “what” in terms of being (“who am I?” and “what I am?”). This is because “Identity concerns who God is; nature concerns what God

is or what divinity is” (Bauckham 2008:7, my emphasis).138

In Exodus 3:6, 15,139 God identifies God’s self as the God of the patriarchs, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to Moses. This does not merely refer to the name or titles of God (as a form of propositional content), but rather to “who God is”. The statement expresses God’s identity in God’s illocutionary act, which at the same time contains what God has said and done in the history of Israel.140 In other words, we know “who God is” as we identify God’s illocutionary force in our lives.141 As the Exodus story shows, God is actively involved with divine force in the life of God’s people. God heard the voice of the suffering of the people of

138 _{I have used and developed Vanhoozer’s (2010:183-187) explanations of the divine identity to support my idea.}

The aim of the present section is to show a possible approach to showing the “who” and the “what” of the communicative agent by using one text as an illustration (Exodus 3:6, 15). The study is limited to considerations of the being of God in God-human conversation. Of course, there are several texts in the Bible (cf. Mt 8:27) that reveal God’s existence, but my interest is to explain God’s being and the agent of communication in the dialogue between God and humans. Thus, the scope of the study is limited to Exodus 3:6, 15, which is a specific text. I could not deal with the whole text or all other possible approaches. In addition, I try to explain the difference in the nuances of the words “who” and “what” in terms of ontology, not metaphysics. According to Vanhoozer (2010:183), “Metaphysics here designates the more systematic task of proving categories for understanding “what is” in general, while “ontology” refers to the more specific task of analysing the nature of particular types of being.” For more information about this, see Clarke, “The Discovery and Meaning of Being,” in The One and Many: A

Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001, 25-41); Vanhoozer,

“Remythologizing Theology” (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010, 183-187).

139 _{Many scholars agree that Exodus 3:6, 15 refers to the identity of God and the name of God respectively. Verse}

6 shows God’s divine self-identification to Moses, “I am the God of your fathers” (Dozeman 2009:121) which means that who the true God is, as well as the history of divine relationships with the descendants of Abraham (Stuart 2006:115). In verse 15, the special name of God, Yahweh, is revealed. “This God who is present, this God who is, this Yahweh, is one and the same as the God of the fathers” (Durham 1987:39).

140 _{The question of “who” is linked to personhood, Ricoeur (1992:16) says, “I shall give an interrogative form to}

this perspective, introducing by means of the question “who” all the assertions relating to the problematic of the self, and in this way giving the same scope to the question “who” and to the answer - the self. Four subcategories will therefore correspond to four manners of questioning: Who is speaking? Who is acting? Who is recounting about himself or herself? Who is the moral subject of imputation?”

141 _{Warfield (1979:157) affirms that the Bible is the Word of God and God’s self is in control of human history:}

“When we give due place in our thoughts to the universality of the providential government of God, to the minuteness and completeness of its sway, and to its invariable efficacy, we may be inclined to ask what is needed beyond this mere providential government to secure the production of sacred books which should be in every detail absolutely accordant with the Divine will.”

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Israel and initiated the exodus of the Israelites in order to redeem them physically and spiritually in order to save them. God also clothed and fed them in the wilderness for forty years. This demonstrates “who God is” or God’s identity through God’s speech and deeds, in that same manner as we may come to know or understand a person’s identity through their speech and deeds. God identifies God’s self through the narratives of the Scriptures. Thus it can be argued, that in most cases, one can tell a great deal about who a person is by observing what a person does in relation to the act of saying something. Thus, God’s identity is neither simply “p” nor simply “F” but “F(p)”, namely God’s illocutionary action.

In verse 12,142 God made a promise to Moses as a communicative agent, saying, “I will be with you.” The nature of this promise as the primary content of the divine discourse rests on God’s identity. That is, God has divine authority, power and the ability which underlie such illocutions as promises or commitments to ensure that they would definitely happen as a result of God’s utterance and the covenant relationship that exists between God and Moses. The promise is performative language that is not just saying something, but is also an action which refers to the speaker’s identity. Such promises claim special status as speech-acts in the context of covenant (Thiselton 2006c:146). The promise contains specific conditions through which a speaker takes on certain responsibilities that relate to their message in order for it to be true for the hearer (Searle 1969:62). Therefore, God’s promise in divine speech shows “who God is” through the illocution in the divine force which demonstrates that God is a communicative agent in a covenantal relationship taking responsibility for what God does with Words for the people of God.

In the context of divine covenant, as reflected in the relationship between God and Moses, the promise of God produces this particular identity which also tell Moses “who he is” as well as

142 _{Stuart (2006:118) insists that, “God’s reply (v.12) contains two key elements: a promise of help and guidance}

(“I will be with you”) and a fulfilment sign. For God to “be with” someone means that he provides that person direct, special help and guidance that, in turn, can cause people to recognize that person’s worth and/or authority in given situations. A fulfilment sign is a confirmation that a prophet or leader has completed a key part of a task assigned him by God.

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“what he ought to do” as one who is in covenant with God. God commanded Moses, who was an ordinary person, to bring the Israelites out of Egypt. Accordingly, Moses committed himself to future conduct according to his new status (as an ‘instructed’ person) and his responsibility as God’s prophet, and the leader of Israel. This came about by God’s illocutionary force which created a new reality (a new future) based on what God said to Moses. In other words, the illocutionary force creates the conditions for the perlocutionary act through the hearer’s response to the speaker’s promise which has the effect of persuading the hearer to act in response to the promise. That is to say, God’s illocutionary force created a perlocutionary effect on Moses, producing an appropriate response such as trust or obedience in the Word of God. This illustration enables us also to ask what it means to be human (ontologically) and to know that who we are precedes what we ought to do before God? Hence, we could argue that the Scriptures as communicating God’s Word requires that we submit to its authority for ethical living (Edwards & Stott 1988:104).

What, then, is the difference between “who” and “what”? We can find the key to this question in verses 11 and 13. God called Moses to bring the people of God, the Israelites, out of Egypt. However, Moses asked God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” (v.11). The answer to the question “who am I” points to Moses’ identity and could signify that the author is suggesting that Moses had no status, and no authority or power to bring the Israelites out of Egypt as expected in relation to the illocution in the divine communication. Thus, God promises Moses, “I will be with you” (v.12); but Moses again asks God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” (v.13). The crucial point here is that Moses wanted to introduce God (i.e., the God of the Israelites’ ancestors) to the Israelites. Yet they already knew God as the God of the patriarchs, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. However, Moses was concerned about God’s name and how to introduce God to the Israelites when they asked him, “what is his name?” The question, “what is his name?” is a question of identity, i.e., “what God is his name” namely what is God’s nature? The answer is, “God is one”, it points to a propositional notion, i.e., monotheism, rather than God’s illocutionary force which would show what God has already done through what God has said. The question, “What is his name?” means “Is it really the true God since we that there is only

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one God?”143 Perhaps, it is a matter of what God is, that is, the nature of God, since the Israelites believed in the oneness of God. Thus, God said to Moses, “I am who I am” (v.14) which underlines that God is, “The God of the patriarchs, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” (v.15) as God’s name forever in God’s illocutionary force. In other words, God spoke through God’s illocutionary action, that is, what God has said and done in the history of Israel. This is not a propositional statement, as in “God is one”, but rather a “language-event” in the form of “performative utterances” which focus on the force of language that is used to accomplish God’s intent and enact the covenant with the people of God. Therefore, the Scriptures can be seen as a communicative agent that displays God’s illocutionary action in order to communicate with the people of God and share God’s thoughts with them for the sake of achieving God’s will.