Thinking Like a Christian: Obedience Unto Death

Here is Alan Torrance (nephew of Thomas Torrance and son of James Torrance) developing Barth's understanding, basically, of what Thomas Torrance has called Theological Science (which is developed further by Torrance in his so called 'epistemological inversion'); which has to do with how we know things or persons (in brief). Here is Alan Torrance:

[T]his requires a reassessment of the question of truthfulness such that it is conceived neither in terms of successful, objective reference projecting across the gulf between the human and the divine (i.e. in terms of a 'correspondence theory of truth'), nor in terms of internal consistency within a system of propositions or ideas (i.e. in terms of a 'coherence theory of truth'), but in terms of what is customarily assumed to be a quite foreign category, one that is subjective and ethical, namely obedience --- the obedience of thought and of mind. Theological truthfulness is a form of intellectual obedience before the Reality of God. Here, Barth comes close to interpreting truth in 'performative' terms. However, the truth-performance connection here is not bound up with any autonomous human performance, but with the divine speech-act performed in and through the ambiguous event of God's Self-veiling/unveiling in the human context. Truthfulness is ultimately to be found, therefore, in and through the divine event of Self-communication in the Church, where the obedience of the human hearer is included within the divine speech-act and where God is 'heard', and therefore conceived, in a creative divine act of the reconciliation of the human mind to himself. [Alan Torrance, Persons In Communion: Trinitarian Description And Human Participation, 14]

Obedience Unto Death

Once again, as I have frequently noted here, the engagement of the reality of God (coram Deo) cannot be detached from God's own Self-givenness in his Self-revelation in Jesus Christ. This calls for a certain posture and attitude toward the reality of God that is participatory, personal, and present in and from the life of God mediated to and for us in the humanity of Christ (I Timothy 2:5,6). The reality of God is outside of us, and comes apocalyptically to us in the person of Christ (along with the Holy Spirit). We only hear from God, moment by moment, through his Word for us; and this then becomes the 'place' wherein dogmatic knowledge and formulation comes to the fore. That is, through a loving intimate relationship with God in Christ by the Spirit. We are not Lord, he is; and this must shape the way we speak and act theologically. Here is how A. Torrance follows his development of Barth here, by quoting from Barth's Church Dogmatics:

... what is under debate in dogmatics is the Church's fundamental relation of obedience to its Lord in respect of its proclamation ... A dogmatics which it (the Church) might  not pursue, in whose enquiry it did not wholly participate as in the enquiry about its whole existence, a dogmatics which might let itself be crowded into the corner of religious intellectuals or the intellectually religious, could only be a poor, useless and tedious dogmatics which it would be better not to pursue at all. We pursue dogmatics because, unconstrained by the fact of the Bible, we cannot shake off the question of the obedience of Church proclamation. The question of its obedience includes that of its truth. But the question of its truth can be put only as the question of its obedience. As the question of its obedience it is the question of its dogma. [Karl Barth, CD 1.1, 274-5 cited by Alan Torrance, Persons In Communion: Trinitarian Description And Human Participation, 15]

Thomas Torrance calls this approach 'repentant thinking'; the point is that unlike most of propositionally-philosophically-analytically derived approaches to 'knowing' (and knowing God), this paradigm believes that Christian truth, in particular, only comes as we are conditioned and put 'under' and brought into the environs of truth as it is opened up in Jesus Christ. We don't first construct a matrix and then try to fit God into that matrix; instead we are the ones placed into the matrix of God in Jesus Christ. This requires, at least, an analogy of faith (V. an analogy of being), or analogy of relation; or as A. Torrance will develop in this book an 'analogy of communion'. So we obey because God first loved us that we might love him.

There are many contemporary applications of this for the American (Western) Evangelical church, but I will have to put this off for another time.

Wimpy Christianity: "We Have Christian Individuals, But Do We Have a Christian Church?"

Thomas Torrance asks very perceptively (as usual) whether or not we actually have a Christian church? He makes the point that we indeed have Christian individuals, but what does this mean when we inhabit an un-Christian church culture? The following Torrance quote comes from his lectureship at the University of Edinburgh, New College in Scotland where he lectured for many years. Understand that as he gave his lectures this takes us back some 40 to 50 years; but his concern then is of course, and more so, just as much of a concern today---especially in the American Evangelical church of which I am a part. Here is what Torrance asked his students:

[W]hat does this have to say to us today about what we call 'evangelical Christianity'? We have been concerned with evangelising men, women, and children as individual human beings, calling for repentance and personal decision for Christ as Lord and saviour, and rightly so. But have we been concerned with the evangelising of the mind of the society in which these people live? If not, how can a Christian church put down roots in an unevangelical society and remain genuinely Christian? I believe this is where evangelical Christianity today has failed terribly. By and large, as far as I can see, even the mind of the church, let alone the mind of society, is still secular in that it shares the mind of the secular society within which it exists. We have Christian people, but do we really have a Christian church? We have people who profess to believe in Christ as Lord and saviour, but do we have a church that is so imbued with the mind of Christ that its members individually and as a community think instinctively in a Christian way? Thomas F. Torrance, "Atonement," 444-45.

Torrance's concern is something that I have been burdened with for quite awhile now. I think the mission field (as one of my other teachers, Ron Frost has said) has actually come to us right in the church. There is such a dearth of sound Christian teaching with an emphasis on lively doctrine (which should produce worship) that I think it can truly be said that the American (Western) Evangelical church, by and large, is lost. That seems to be a hard teaching and critical diagnosis, but if we don't make prescient diagnoses then we are bound to live in the captivity of our society and cultures and not bound by captivity to Christ!

So the goal for pastors and Christian teachers is to teach and model Christ crucified in a way that produces a tsunami and sea change such that there is a communitarian repentance of thought. We not only need to be evangelists to the individual, but we need to evangelize thought patterns and the systemic structures of our society through prophetic and witness oriented evangelism that penetrates down into the depths. Here is something Torrance said to his students in this regard:

[T]here often came a point in my classes when I felt that the students wanted to throw the books at me, as the inner struggle between the gospel and the frame of mind they brought to it became intense. Let us make no mistake about it: divine revelation conflicts sharply with the structure of natural reason, with the secular patterns of thought  that have already become established in our minds through the twist of our ingrained mental alienation from God. We cannot become true theologians without the agonising experience of profound change in the mental structure of our innermost being. Thomas F. Torrance, "Atonement," 443.

The way forward requires courage, and a resolve to disentangle oneself from secular thinking; this resolve must be present first and foremost in the leadership and teaching office of the church. This is a painful process that requires sacrifice, work, and time; or as Jesus said, it requires 'that we take up our crosses daily and follow him'. This isn't an option, by the way, it is a mandate from the one we call Lord! It's time to step up to the mic for a sound check; are you present and accounted for, or are you just going to be another wimpy who continues to feast at the secular table of "having it your way?"

§1. Matt Chandler's Calvinism Given Historical and Theological Background

Okay, here we go. I am going to get into this issue, this way; i.e. by having you all watch this video interview with Matt Chandler done by John Piper. My point in sharing this video is not to use it as a piece that I critique materially; instead, I want what Chandler says to take up residence in your heart and mind so that you will be able to recall this as a reference point for some of the things I will be getting at later. What I mean is this; Matt Chandler says something very explicitly and up front that I've known to be true for along time, but I am afraid that many who listen to, not just Matt Chandler, but many others in his tribe, are failing to realize that the informing theology behind what Chandler & co. communicate to the masses is plain old 5 point Calvinism. Now, some folk are totally fine with this, but other folk didn't realize this to be the case (until now); and so my motive is to expose where Chandler and The Gospel Coalition are coming from, and then offer an alternative way to approach scripture through a better Christian grammar and theological grid. Watch the video, please spend the time to do that, and then I will close this video with some brief reflections and set myself up for further posts. Click Here: John Piper Interviews Matt Chandler on Calvinism. One thing I don't want this to turn into is another slam-fest on 5 point Calvinism; I want to take us somewhat deeper than that. I want to take us into the Holy of holies, or into God's life; since this is where it all goes wrong for a 5 point Calvinist (which I will establish in posts to come). This is, as you heard Chandler mention in the interview, where a need for a God with two wills comes into the picture. Let me just assert right now, if you have a god with two wills you don't have the God of the Bible revealed in Jesus Christ! And if you don't have the God of the Bible Self-revealed in Jesus Christ; then you don't have the full bodied version of the Gospel. Just be prepared to have your thinking piqued, and maybe your beliefs challenged (which I hope is what happens if you appreciate or are a follower of Matt Chandler's teaching). Just pray that I communicate in a fair, firm, and then loving way.... thank you!