theological method – Page 3

Remembering Karl Barth

GlenDecember 10, 2009Leave a comment

Karl Barth died 41 years ago today.

Here are a few of my favourite quotes from him:

On his own theology:

My whole theology, you see, is fundamentally a theology for parsons. It grew out of my own situation when I had to teach and preach and counsel a little. (From a radio broadcast made shortly before Barth’s death. Quoted from William Willimon, Conversations with Barth on Preaching, Abingdon Press, 2006.)

On the reason for theology:

The normal and central fact with which dogmatics has to do is, very simply, the Church’s Sunday sermon of yesterday and to-morrow, and so it will continue to be.” (Church Dogmatics I/1, p91)

On theological method

Jesus Christ, as he is attested to us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God whom we have to hear, and whom we have to trust and obey in life and in death. (Article 1 of the Barmen Declaration)

On the bible:

“The Bible says all sorts of things, certainly; but in all this multiplicity and variety, it says in truth only one thing – just this: the name of Jesus Christ… The Bible becomes clear when it is clear that is says this one thing… The Bible remains dark to us if we do not hear in it this sovereign name… Interpretation stands in the service of the clarity which the Bible as God’s Word makes for itself; and we can properly interpret the Bible, in whole or part, only when we perceive and show that what it says is said from the point of view of that… name of Jesus Christ.” (Church Dogmatics I/2, p720)

At bottom, the Church is in the world only with a book in its hands. We have no other possibility to bear witness except to explain this book.” (God in Action, p107-8)

On creation and covenant

Creation is the outward basis of the covenant and the covenant is the inward basis of creation. (Church Dogmatics III/1, ch41)

On church:

The essence of the Church is proclamation. (Homiletics, p40)

On the Christian life:

"Ye shall be witnesses unto me" (Acts 1:8) – this is enough for the one to whom Christ speaks and who has heard Him. Whether strong or weak, willing or unwilling, successful or unsuccessful, the Christian is a witness, irrespective of whether the miracle occurs, or whether it occurs visibly or invisibly. In all circumstances and with the whole of his existence he is a responsible witness of the Word of God. He is called to be this. As such he is set at the side of God in the world, and therefore set over against the world.’ (Church Dogmatics IV/3, p609)

On proofs for God:

Note well: in the whole Bible of the Old and New Testaments not the slightest attempt is ever made to prove God. This attempt has always been made only outside the biblical view of God, and only where it has been forgotten with whom we have to do, when we speak of God. What sort of attempts were they, after all, where the attempt was make to prove a perfect Being alongside imperfect ones? Or from the existence of the world to prove the ordering Power? Or the moral proof of God from the face of man’s conscience? I will not enter into these proofs of God. I don’t know whether you can at once see the humour and the fragility of these proofs. These proofs may avail for the alleged gods; if it were my task to make you acquainted with these allegedly supreme beings, I would occupy myself with the five famous proofs of God. In the Bible there is no such argumentation; the Bible simply speaks of God simply as of One who needs no proof. It speaks of a God who proves Himself on every hand: Here I am, and since I am and live and act it is superfluous that I should be proved. On the basis of this divine self-proof the prophets and apostles speak. In the Christian Church there can be no speaking about God in any other way. God has not the slightest need for our proofs. (Dogmatics in Outline, 38)

On apologetics:

The great danger of apologetics is “the domesticating of revelation… the process of making the Gospel respectable. When the Gospel is offered to man, and he stretches out his hand to receive it and takes it into his hand, an acute danger arises which is greater than the danger that he may not understand it and angrily reject it. The danger is that he may accept it and peacefully and at once make himself its lord and possessor, thus rendering it inoccuous, making that which chooses him something which he himself has chosen, which therefore comes to stand as such alongside all the other things that he can also choose, and therefore control.” (Church Dogmatics II/1, p141)

On assurance (this is perhaps my favourite Barth quote):

“We might imagine the conversation... The man to whom [the Word of grace is spoken] thinks and says that he is not this new, peaceful, joyful man living in fellowship. He asks leave honestly to admit that he does not know this man, or at least himself as this man.

The Word of grace replies: ‘All honour to your honesty, but my truth transcends it. Allow yourself, therefore, to be told in all truth and on the most solid grounds what you do not know, namely, that you are this man in spite of what you think.’

Man: ‘ You think that I can and should become this man in the course of time? But I do not have sufficient confidence in myself to believe this. Knowing myself, I shall never become this man.’

The Word of grace: ‘You do well not to have confidence in yourself. But the point is not that you can and should become this man. What I am telling you is that, as I know you, you already are.’

Man: ‘I understand that you mean this eschatologically. You are referring to the man I perhaps will be one day in some not very clearly known transfiguration in a distant eternity. If only I had attained to this! And if only I could be certain that even then I should be this new man!’

The Word of grace: ‘You need to understand both yourself and me better than you do. I am not inviting you to speculate about your being in eternity, but to receive and ponder the news that here and now you begin to be the new man, and are already that which you will be eternally.’

Man: ‘How can I accept this news? On what guarantee can I make bold to take is seriously?’

The Word of grace: ‘I, Jesus Christ, am the One who speaks to you. You are what you are in Me, as I will to be in you. Hold fast to Me. I am your guarantee. My boldness is yours. With this boldness dare to be what you are?’

Man: ‘I certainly hear the message, but…’

In this perplexed and startled ‘but’ we see the attack, and who it is that is attacked.” (Church Dogmatics, V/2, p250)

Do you have a favourite Barth quote? Why not leave it in comments.

“My whole theology, you see, is fundamentally a theology for parsons. It grew out of my own situation when I had to teach and preach and counsel a little.

The New Atheism and the Trinity

GlenNovember 26, 2009Leave a comment

Here's Mike Reeves speaking at a student evangelistic event this week. Sound quality is not great but it is well worth listening to!

It's called "How Atheists Are Right." Mike's arguing that the new atheism rightly rejects the solitary dictator in the sky. Christopher Hitchens regularly complains that theism is totalitarianism. The theist God is with you 24-7, cannot be escaped and can even convict you of thought crime - the very definition of a totalitarian regime.

But, as Mike says, traditional Christianity has always stood against the solitary dictator in the sky. Instead, when we say God we mean a fundamentally different being. We believe in a God who is other-centred love. And as John Lennox put to Christopher Hitchens in a recent debate - My wife is with me morning and evening but I don't call my marriage a totalitarian regime! (Or words to that effect.)

Anyway - for Thawed-out Thursday I thought I'd defrost (and slightly revise) an old post originally called 'So what?'. It discusses the way in which the atheism of the west is linked to the trinitarian theology of the west (or lack of it).

Wherever the inter-Personal nature of God is minimized the 'dictator in the sky' is enthroned. And in those circumstances atheism recommends itself very persuasively. But really the solution is to return to a robustly trinitarian theology. In his talk, Mike does this very winsomely.

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A friend of mine is at Bible college and has been set an essay on trinitarian theology and the difference between east and west. He asked me to clarify the difference between an eastern and a western approach to the trinity and then to answer the crucial question: So what!!

Now first of all I'll lay out some broad brush-strokes. Here's a crude but still useful way of discussing our theological method. As Theodore De Regnon has famously put it: In the west theologians begin with the One and work towards the Three. In the east, theologians begin with the Three and work towards the One.

Now that might be completely false historically. My point is not to defend this as a reading of the theological traditions. I'm just wanting to use these definitions of 'east' and 'west' as labels to help the discussion along. But let's make sure we understand the proposition first.

De Regnon is saying that typically, the west begins with the One God and then tries to figure where Three-ness fits in. The east begins with the Three Persons and then figures out how the Three are One.

Now... once again, this is a sweeping generalisation but when I use the labels 'western' or 'eastern' to describe the approach to trinitarian theology, that's what I'm talking about. And I grant that in what follows I am caricaturing positions. No theologian in the 'west' is as bad as I'm saying. But plenty, plenty, plenty, of your average western Church-goers are far worse. Far worse!

And I'm not wanting to get into an argument about whether 'Augustine was a lot more nuanced/ Cappodocian/ economy-driven, etc, etc'. For the sake of argument, let me grant every 'yes, but...' which an Augustine supporter may wish to raise about Augustine's own theology. But let's step back and examine a trend in western Christianity that bears the stamp of his influence. And let's admit that if Augustine doesn't fit the caricature, there are millions descended from him who do.

I should also say that there are basic things about eastern trinitarianism with which I disagree. But on the simple point of our theological method I believe we should begin with the Three and discuss God's Oneness in that light.

And here's why.

If you're eastern you say: "I've met this guy Jesus and He introduces me to His Father and sends His Spirit." And then, having met the Three Persons in the gospel, you ask, 'What kind of one-ness do these three Persons share?' And because you think in this way you can conclude: "These three Persons are one because they are united in love."

So you go to John 17 and you see Jesus saying He wants His followers to be one the same way He and the Father are one. And then you say "Aha! The one-ness of the church is loving unity, therefore it stands to reason that the one-ness of Father and Son is loving unity." And then you remember 1 John 4 and you say with joy: How is God one? God is love! God is a loving community of Three Persons.

And this means that the greatest thing in all reality is love (because God is love). And it means that reality is relational. And it means that loving community among disinct people is very important. One-ness for the east is a loving union of particular Persons who don't lose their individuality. Father, Son and Spirit are all different Persons - they are not one because they are identical.

So, using these rough labels, the eastern approach can say: God is three distinct but totally united Persons loving one another. Let me flesh out three implications of this:

1) It means that difference, distinction, community, relationship, mutuality, reciprocity and LOVE are all at the very very centre of who God is. God's identity is not primarily a collection of attributes but a community of love.

2) Because even the Father, Son and Spirit find their identity in relationships we see that relationship is at the heart of personal identity. God is who He is because He is love. God is who He is because of the relationships of Father, Son and Spirit. Therefore I am who I am because of the relationships I share in.

3) Community is hugely important. Even in God, different voices are not silenced by one dominant ruler. Instead different voices contribute to a one-ness that's all about distinct persons working together in love.

On the other hand (using these crude generalisations) the west begins by saying: "we know that God is one. We know that this one God has all sorts of attributes that go with the 'Creator' job description. So God is omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, impassible, immutable etc etc." Then the west says, "Ok we've got the one God, but now in the gospel we meet these three Persons. So how can the three Persons qualify as this one God?"

The west figures that since the one God is defined by these attributes then the way these Three are One is by sharing in all these same attributes. And so they map these attributes identically onto the three Persons. In this way the distinctions between Persons gets lost. Every difference is blurred into the one God who is defined not by relationships but by attributes (i.e. He's big and clever). Three implications of this:

1) God's identity is primarily a collection of attributes - attributes that are about His distance from creation, His difference to us.

2) If God is who He is because of His attributes - personal identity is essentially about attributes (about being big and clever). Therefore I am who I am because of how big and clever I am.

3) Community is not really that important - there's only one voice and will that counts. Distinctions and difference will get bull-dozed before the all-important one.

Ok, now that I've laid it out like this, hopefully you can see some of the 'so what' significance??

Let me tease it out by discussing the three implications:

Regarding 1): In the west, God has been defined as a collection of attributes that place Him at an infinite distance from us. Now if you go out on the streets and talk to people about whether they're religious, basically (keeping eastern influences out of this) people will say either they do or they don't believe in a distant, uni-personal God who is approximately the 'omni-being' of philosophy. Whether they believe in "God" or don't believe in "God", the "God" they're talking about is the collection of attributes which the western theologian began with before they examined the gospel!

The god that our western culture has either embraced or rejected is not the God of the gospel! Instead the "god" of the pub discussion is pretty much the "one God" that the western theologian began with. And if the bloke in the pub rejects that god - I don't blame him!! And if Christopher Hitchens rejects that god - we don't blame him, right? Because that's not a god who is obviously related to Jesus of Nazareth (or His Spirit or the Father He called 'Abba'). And therefore its not a god who appears to be particularly interested in us - its not a god revealed in gospel love but in philosophical speculation.

Now the cultures shaped by the western church have been shaped by this doctrine of God. When they accepted "God" it was this "God" they accepted. When they rejected him, it was this "God" they rejected.

Atheism has basically been the rejection of this god. People have decided they don't want a distant omni-being over against them and proclaimed his non-existence. And what people like Colin Gunton have asked is, "Would the west have rejected "God" so thoroughly if the "God" they were presented with by the western church was the community of committed love revealed in Jesus?" The answer still might be yes, but at least we'll be discussing the true God when we evangelise!

Regarding 2): The question of personal identity. Well if we go with the west (as I've been defining it), my identity is all about my attributes. I need to build up a CV of my big-ness and clever-ness. That will define me. But if I go with the east then my identity is about my relationships. I am who I am because fundamentally I'm in Christ (and what's more I'm a son, a brother, a husband, etc). When I take this seriously, my western status-anxiety can be relieved in a second. I find liberation from the western drive to prove myself and forge an identity for myself. I am given identity in the relationships I have (primarily my relationship with Christ).

Think also of the abortion debate. What is it that defines whether this foetus has personal identity? Ask a westerner and they'll instinctively answer you in terms of attributes: "This foetus can/can't do X, Y, and Z therefore the foetus can/can't be aborted." But what if the foetus is a person not because of its attributes but because it already stands in relationships of love?

Regarding 3): The point about community. Here's a quote from the website: (https://christthetruth.net/audio/threepersonsunited.htm)

"...what can we learn about relationships and community from The Relationship? In gender relations, in multi-ethnic society, in equal opportunities policies, in the church, in our families - we are constantly confronted by people who have real and important differences and yet people who ought to be treated with equal respect and dignity. How do we appreciate the differences and uphold the equality? If we treat all in exactly the same way, are we not ignoring the valuable distinctives? This ‘melting pot' approach falls foul of oppression-by-assimilation. The incumbent majority always wins out at the cost of the minorities - they either become like the majority or they die. Do we, therefore, treat specific parties differently in an attempt to give them a leg-up? When this happens stereo-types can be re-enforced by ‘special treatment' and work against the value of equality. Furthermore: who defines the appropriate yard-stick of "success" in a culture? Perhaps it is better to abandon the idea of community altogether and accept along with Margaret Thatcher that there is "no such thing as society."

"Well what can the Trinity teach us? At the heart of reality lies a Community of different but equal Persons who have their own identities constituted by their mutual interdependence. They work together as One. There definitely is such a thing as society. Person-hood can never be considered individualistically but is made up of relationships on which we depend. Within The Community, the Persons freely submit to one another in roles of subordination while never losing their equal status. They do submit to differences in treatment and in function - but they maintain a definite equality of being and uphold one another in bonds of unconditional love. Here is a Community on which to model our own."

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I think Mike's talk is the most brilliant example of how this approach pays off in evangelism. Do listen to it.

Jesus is God-sized – God is Jesus-shaped 10

GlenNovember 15, 200910 Comments

Preached on John 1:1-2 this morning (audio here).

My last two points were this:

Jesus is God-sized

and

God is Jesus-shaped

I wonder whether much of our evangelism is aimed at persuading people of point number one. And I wonder whether that emphasis, if divorced from the second point, is quite dangerous.

Here's what I mean - when we tell an unbeliever that Jesus is God, this is what they hear: "You know the god of the pub discussion - the distant, arm-chair deity, uninvolved and uncaring? That god is who Jesus is!"

"Oh" says the unbeliever. "Because Jesus looks quite different to that."

"Yeah, I know" we say. "But you need to look past all that stuff. Whatever you see in Jesus that doesn't look like 'the god you've always believed in' - that's just Jesus' human nature. No, that's dispensible. What you really need to know is that Jesus is God."

And what's the result? Well how many Christian testimonies run something like this...

"I have always believed in some kind of god. And then I met Jesus. And the preacher told me that Jesus is the god-I-always-believed-in."

Do you see what's happened here? Some supposed natural knowledge of God is determining a person's view of Christ and determining it from the outset.

It should be the other way around. Knowledge of Jesus should revolutionize our view of God. We should tell people not only that Jesus is God-sized, we should tell them that God is entirely Jesus-shaped.

As Archbishop Michael Ramsey once said (riffing on 1 John 1:5): "God is Christlike, and in Him there is no unchristlikeness at all."

Avoiding a fourth [Thawed out Thursday]

GlenNovember 13, 2009February 21, 2015Leave a comment

No (good) trinitarian theologian wants to have a fourth thing - a divine substance considered apart from the Three Persons. But it's important to be aware that this error (effectively having a quaternity) has two versions. There is a vulgar quaternity and a more insidious one.

The vulgar one looks like this:

Here is the "shamrock" trinity - three bits growing out of an underlying stuff. In practice this is, roughly, how many unthinkingly view the trinity. Such a vulgar quaternity is rightly rejected by theologians. It can be seen immediately that the 'Godness of God' is considered at a completely different level to the three Persons in their roles and relations. What makes God God is fundamentally impersonal attributes that may be expressed in the Persons but not constituted by their mutual inter-play. So we can safely reject this version of things.

But I find that many theologians, having rejected the vulgar quaternity, congratulate themselves prematurely. There is also the insidious quaternity to be dealt with. There is another way of having a fourth...

Fundamentally this error consists in conceiving of the one God separately to a consideration of the three Persons in communion. Recently I read a theologian say "God is both one and three - both a person and a community." This is an example of the insidious quaternity. One-ness and Three-ness are laid side by side to uphold a belief in the equal ultimacy of one and three. Yet the one-ness of God is conceived of as a uni-personal one-ness - that is, it is separately considered to the multi-personal three-ness. One and Three were not mutually interpreting truths but instead the 'one God' is thought of in non-communal (that is, non trinitarian) terms.

This is the approach taken by by so many doctrine of God text books where De Deo Uno (on the One God) is addressed prior to De Deo Trino (on the Trinity). Yet, unless the two section are integrated at the deepest levels then there is grave danger of a fourth thing - i.e. "God plus Trinity" or "God apart from Trinity."

When this theological method is followed, often (not always but most times) section one unfolds such that the Three Person'd interplay takes no meaningful part in the discussions of the attributes. Yet, typically, these attributes are asserted to be the virtue by which God is God. On this view it is still possible to discuss the 'Godness of God' without reference to the perichoretic life of the Three. Here One-ness and Three-ness are considered to be non-competing perspectives on the same God. This effectively means that it is possible to speak in non-triune terms about the living God. 'God', then, is not the same thing as 'the Three Persons united in love'.

This is also a quaternity. Just a more insidious one.

And the only way I can see to avoid this fourth thing is to side with the Cappodocians: God's being consists without remainder in the Three Person'd perichoresis .

The one-ness of God is not a simple divine essence but the very unity of the Three. The being of God is not an underlying substance (contra the vulgar quaternity). But nor is it a separately conceived essence (contra the insidious quaternity). Rather God's being is the very communion by which the Three are One.

Trinity is not a perspective on the one God. Rather the only God there is is trinity. And the only way to conceive of Him is in triune terms. 'God' is 'Trinity'. Unless this strict identity is maintained a fourth enters in.

Thus we must never conceive of the one God in any other terms than trinitarian ones. (Re-write the text-books!). God's being is in His communion (to use Zizioulas's phrase). His One-ness is in His communion. And (let's not forget) His Three-ness is in His communion - the Three are only who they are in this eternal perichoresis. To put it another way: God is love.

This is a re-working of an older post on One-ness and Three-ness.

Theo-centric? 10

GlenOctober 30, 2009August 17, 201710 Comments

What does it mean to be "theo-centric"? It's a fine aim - it's the only aim really for Christians. But here are some things to think about when someone urges us to be God-centred...

First we should ask: Which God are we talking about?

The person who cries 'God-centred' the loudest is not necessarily the most biblical. (Nor is the person who cries 'biblical', but that's another story). The absolutely key question is what kind of God is central to our thinking. And that question is not resolved in the slightest by saying He's central. In fact to say that 'God' is central to our theology is basically a tautology.

As Simone Weil says:

"No human being escapes the necessity of conceiving some good outside himself towards which his thought turns in a movement of desire, supplication, and hope. Consequently, the only choice is between worshipping the true God or an idol."

We're all God-centred. The question is, which God?

I have little patience for theologians or bloggers who claim a superiority because they are 'God-centred'. Often it's accompanied by the accusation that their opponent is 'Man-centred'. (And one of these days I'll write a post about how they're both wrong - we should be 'God-Man (i.e. Christ)-centred'). But really, in Simone Weil's sense, we're all 'God'-centred. What we really have to do is sort out who this God is who is central to our thinking.

But let's note well: the fact that our theology should be (and, in a sense, always is!) utterly consumed by and radically focussed upon God, in no sense tells you whether God Himself is consumed by and focussed upon Himself. Those are two entirely separate questions.

One is about our theological method, the other is about the 'theos' who, of necessity, stands at the centre of it.

Of course we should have our hearts and minds fixed on the living God, and of course if we fixed our ultimate affections elsewhere that would be idolatry. Ok, great. What bemuses me is the claim that God Himself must fix His affections on Himself lest He be an idolater too. Do you see how theo-centrism as a theological method gets confused with theo-centrism as a doctrine of God? And that gets confused with theo-centrism as God's doctrine of God!

More dangerously, do you see how such a method is in fact anthropocentric? It's an argument that says 'We would be idolaters to set our affections on lesser beings, so God must be an idolater if He did that.' It's a theology from below. And yet I find it on the lips of the very people who want to accuse all around them of man-centredness.

So let's be clear - everyone is already God-centred in their theology. The real issue is what kind of God we're talking about. And the question of theo-centric method does not at all settle the question of God's own being. While we must be theo-centric, we have to admit that God Himself is higher than the 'musts' that apply to us. The theologian who says God "must" love Himself higher than the creature has actually followed a logic that is less than God-centred.

We do not by nature know the kind of being that God is. And we cannot reason it out from the basis of how we find life as creatures. To tell a person that 'God' must be at the centre of their thinking will not tell them anything really. God cannot be assumed from the outset, He must be revealed.

The fact that all the gods of human religion are self-centred means nothing. The fact that we are called to be 'God-centred' means nothing for God's own life and being. It neither means that God should be centred on us, nor on Himself. The question of His own being is the key question and it can only be resolved as God reveals Himself.

What do you make of this?

GlenOctober 28, 2009Leave a comment

Here's a quote. A quote about foundations and starting points. What do you make of it?

And so the biblical mindset starts with the assumption that God is the center of reality. All thinking starts with the assumption that God has basic rights as the Creator of all things. He has goals that fit with his nature and perfect character. Then the biblical mindset moves out from this center and interprets the world, with God and his rights and goals as the measure of all things.

Christ Alone, Grace Alone, Revelation Alone

GlenSeptember 22, 2009Leave a comment

I'm halfway through Mike Reeves' excellent lectures on a theology of revelation. Go and listen now if you haven't done already.

Maybe I should put them somewhere prominently and permanently on the blog because they explain much better than I can the thinking behind 'Christ the Truth'.

To be an evangelical theologian is to have your method entirely shaped by God's coming to us in Jesus. Just as we are saved through God's grace alone by Christ alone, so we know God by God's grace alone and through Christ alone. This being the case, we need to be saved from our 'wisdom' every bit as much as we need to be saved from our 'works.'

Anyway, all these sorts of thoughts were circling through my head when I came across this quote posted on Tony Reinke's blog. It's all about how we should 'restore the bridge' from classical literature to Christ!

“What then shall we say if we would restore the medieval bridge from Homer, Plato and Virgil to Christ, the Bible and the church? Shall we say that Christianity is not the only truth? Certainly not! But let us also not say that Christianity is the only truth. Let us say instead that Christianity is the only complete truth. The distinction here is vital. By saying that Christianity is the only complete truth, we leave open the possibility that other philosophies, religions and cultures have hit on certain aspects of the truth. The Christian need not reject the poetry of Homer, the teachings of Plato, or the myths of the pagans as one hundred percent false, as an amalgamation of darkness and lies (as Luther strongly suggests), but may affirm those moments when Plato and Homer leap past their human limitations and catch a glimpse of the true glory of the triune God.

I reject the all-or-nothing, darkness-or-light dualism that Luther at times embraced. But I also reject the modern relativist position that truth is like a hill and there are many ways around it. Yes, truth is like a hill, but the truth that stands atop that hill is Christ and him crucified. To arrive at the truth of Christ, the people of the world have pursued many, many different routes. Some have only scaled the bottom rim of the hill; others have made it halfway. But many have reached the top and experienced the unspeakable joy that comes only when the truth they have sought all their lives is revealed to them. …

If we are to accept these verses [Romans 2:14-15] in a manner that is in any way literal, we must confess that unregenerate pagans have an inborn capacity for grasping light and truth that was not totally depraved by the Fall. Indeed, though the pagan poets and philosophers of Greece and Rome did not have all the answers (they couldn’t, as they lacked the special revelation found only in Jesus), they knew how to ask the right questions—questions that build within the readers of their works a desire to know the higher truths about themselves and their Creator.”

—Louis Markos, From Achilles to Christ: Why Christians Should Read the Pagan Classics (IVP Academic 2007), pp. 13-14

How do you think your mild-mannered correspondent reacted?

Well - go and see. Here's a selection of my many comments!

I enjoy the blog. I hate this quote.

Christ and Him crucified does not sit atop a hill as though waiting for natural man to ascend! The Truth steps down to meet us in ignorance, just as the Life steps down to meet us in death. And besides, which natural mind has ever drawn near to the crucified God? Such truth has only ever appeared as folly to the world, yet this *is* the power and wisdom of God.

This quote is epistemological Pelagianism. Salvation and knowledge go together. We must oppose synergism in the one as strongly as we oppose it in the other. No wonder Luther shows the way. We’d do well to heed his cautions...

It is incontestably and trivially true that pagans can write meaningful novels, develop life-saving medicine, pursue world-enlightening science, make correct philosophical and moral observations. And it’s equally true that pagans can work for peace, give blood and generally be very, very nice people. No-one’s saying unbelievers can’t say true stuff, just as no-one’s saying unbelievers can’t do good stuff. The trouble comes when someone tries to co-ordinate nature and grace in either knowledge or salvation. Whenever the natural is seen as a stepping stone into grace alarm bells must go off. Whenever co-ordination, stepping-stones, bridges, spectrums, pilgrimmages, ascents up hills are discussed flags have to go up...

Truth is relative – relative to Christ, the Truth (good name for a blog I reckon). His subjectivity is the one objectivity. There are therefore whole worlds of understanding that make some kind of sense within their own terms of reference and which make some kind of sense of the world but are falsely related to the true Logos. Therefore in toto and at root they are utterly false. And there can be no bridge between these worlds and the world in which Christ crucified is central. There can only be redemption from these worlds. Such a redemption will require wholesale rethinking (metanoia – change of mind)... 2 Cor 10:5!...

I’m happy to call any number of pagan statements ‘true’ – just as I’m happy to call any number of pagan actions ‘good’. (For me this parallel between knowledge and salvation is key.)

It allows me to say:

1) such ‘truth’ or ‘goodness’ is of great benefit to the world.

2) such ‘truth’ or ‘goodness’ can be truly seen by the regenerate as evidences of common grace.

but,

3) such ‘truth’ or ‘goodness’, viewed from the pagan themselves, does not lead towards but away from Christ and Him crucified.

A pagan’s goodness leads them away from the grace of Christ, a pagan’s wisdom leads them away from the revelation of Christ...

I could tell you all sorts of propositions that surrounded my saving faith in Christ, but I’d be reflecting back on a miracle. I wouldn’t be telling you the natural steps that secured salvation any more than the servants at Cana would be telling you how *they* drew wine out of those stone jars.

Just as there are no discrete human deeds that add up to divine righteousness, so there are no discrete human understandings that add up to divine knowledge. All must be of grace, all must be of revelation.

So there. I also discuss Acts 17 and Romans 2 a bit. And there's even some good points made by other bloggers! Common grace really is astounding ;-)

The Trinity and divine attributes 22

GlenAugust 28, 200922 Comments

Not... attributes to trinity

But...

trinity to attributes

Got it?

Trinity rant #37462 2

GlenAugust 26, 20092 Comments

Here's a beef of mine - when people almost completely reverse Gregory of Nazianzus's famous trinity quote while expressing admiration for it. You know the one...

"I cannot think on the one without quickly being encircled by the splendor of the three nor can I discern the three without being straightway carried back to the one.".

I too love the quote. But many times this is what the quotation is wheeled out to mean:

When I spend 600 pages of my systematic theology expounding a simple divine essence I then force myself to examine the Persons and when I've had enough of discussing the Persons I gleefully return to the omnibeing.

After I've thought of the god of monotheism for a bit I make sure I spend at least as long thinking about the gospel. And once I'm done thinking about the gospel, then I make sure I think about that other idea - you know, god's oneness.

Here's how I reckon the reversal happens. First people take Gregory to be saying something very basic - i.e. the One and the Three are 'equally ultimate' (or, if you're really posh, equiprimordial!). Then you run away with the 'equally ultimate' thought and think of it as some kind of 'equal air time' agreement between competing political parties.

But first of all, Gregory is saying something much more than that basic thought. Look again at the 'cannot', the 'being encircled' and the 'carried back.' Gregory is not forcing himself to give equal air time to One and Three. Gregory says that the Oneness of God actually gives him the Three. And the Three give Him the Oneness. It's not that he's ensuring equal treatment, he doesn't need to turn from a consideration of Oneness to a consideration of Threeness. It's a right contemplation of the Oneness of God itself that presents him with the Three. And the Three simply present to him as the One God.

This is how the One and the Three are related. The One God simply is the loving unity of those Three Persons. And those Three Persons simply are without remainder who this One God is.

Trinity simply means 'unity of three'. That's how the One and the Three are co-ordinated. They are not separate topics to be separately studied. You cannot talk about the One God if you're not talking about the Three Persons who are the One God. That's the radical importance of Gregory's insight.

Now go and re-write those 600 pages.

Rant over.