Evangelical Calvinism: Essays Resourcing The Continuing Reformation Of The Church by Myk Habets and Bobby Grow

Below is an introduction to our book, the ordering details are hyper-linked below as well. If you do not want to purchase from the publisher (which I would, it's cheaper), then you can always place your order through amazon.com. I am continuing to blog, and continuing to discuss issues surrounding Evangelical Calvinism; but not here, I am blogging at my old wordpress 'EC' blog The Evangelical Calvinist (I am sorry about the confusion, but I vow to you all that I am done moving and that I will be forever tied to my wordpress 'EC' blog until the day I quit blogging, I give you my word ... here's the address for that blog http://growrag.wordpress.com sorry for the whip-lash you must be experiencing by now. 

 The book is finally here! This represents the collaboration of many contributors spanning from the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States; an international effort. Myk Habets originally conceived of this project, and graciously asked me to join him in the editing and authoring of this most awesome volume (if I must say so myself)! Our book presents a mood of Calvinism, that at least for Myk and I can be said to be an mood given birth After Torrance (and then After Calvin, After Barth, so an so forth); and a mood that we hope is catching. The hope is, at least/at most, that Jesus Christ the Son of the Father by the Holy Spirit will be magnified through the effort exerted through the process of birthing this book. He will be most magnified if the readers of our book are pointed beyond themselves to the eternal Word, Jesus Christ! Our book, is not primarily a polemical work against classic Calvinism; but it does implicitly (and at points explicitly) offer a critique of the usual mode of Calvinism, and it does so constructively, by simply reminding her cousin that she indeed has a cousin. Evangelical Calvinism is rooted, methodologically, in Trinitarian Theology through a so called 'Christ-conditioned' shape. And so, by definition, EC emphasizes God as Love in life, and Grace in action. Unlike its classic cousin, EC believes the logic of grace that undergirds her articulation require that ALL humanity is represented (universally) in Jesus Christ; thus we limit the atonement to Jesus' humanity for us (the us being all of humanity who have ever lived). It is this that we think makes 'our' Calvinism, Evangelical or 'Good News'. If you are interested in reading more about Evangelical Calvinism, and how it is fleshed out through the personalities of Myk, myself and our authors; then you need to pick our just released book up and read it ... you will not be disappointed. Here are the ordering details:

Evangelical Calvinism 
Essays  Resourcing the Continuing Reformation of the Church.
Edited by Myk Habets and Bobby Grow

(click on the above title to go to the publishers website to order)

I wanted to especially, and publically, thank Myk Habets for his leadership on this project; and for allowing me to be a part of it, what a blessing! I also wanted to publically thank each and everyone of our authors, and endorsers; you all made this book what it is.

[I also want to say thank you to all of you who have pressed me here at the blog, your challenges and encouragement have all made their way into the book ;-) ... so thank you all.]

Here is the blurb from the back jacket of the book, and then the table of contents:

Blurb: In this exciting volume new and emerging voices join senior Reformed scholars in presenting a coherent and impassioned articulation of Calvinism for today’s world. Evangelical Calvinism represents a mood within current Reformed theology. The various contributors are in different ways articulating that mood, of which their very diversity is a significant element. In attempting to outline features of an Evangelical Calvinism a number of the contributors compare and contrast this approach with that of the Federal Calvinism that is currently dominant in North American Reformed theology, challenging the assumption that Federal Calvinism is the only possible expression of orthodox Reformed theology. This book does not, however, represent the arrival of a “new-Calvinism” or even a “neo-Calvinism,” if by those terms are meant a novel reading of the Reformed faith. An Evangelical Calvinism highlights a Calvinistic tradition that has developed particularly within Scotland, but is not unique to the Scots. The editors have picked up the baton passed on by John Calvin, Karl Barth, Thomas Torrance, and others, in order to offer the family of Reformed theologies a reinvigorated theological and spiritual ethos. This volume promises to set the agenda for Reformed-Calvinist discussion for some time to come.

Table of Contents:

Prologue: Union in Christ: A Declaration for the Church. Andrew Purves and Mark Achtemeier

Introduction

1: Theologia Reformata et Semper Reformanda. Towards a Definition of Evangelical Calvinism. Myk Habets and Bobby Grow

Part 1: Prolegomena – Historical Theology

2: The Phylogeny of Calvin’s Progeny: A Prolusion. Charles Partee

3: The Depth Dimension of Scripture: A Prolegomenon to Evangelical Calvinism. Adam Nigh

4: Analogia Fidei or Analogia Entis: Either Through Christ or Through Nature. Bobby Grow

5: The Christology of Vicarious Agency in the Scots Confession According to Karl Barth. Andrew Purves

Part 2: Systematic Theology

6: Pietas, Religio, and the God Who Is. Gannon Murphy

7: “There is no God behind the back of Jesus Christ:” Christologically Conditioned Election. Myk Habets

8: A Way Forward on the Question of the Transmission of Original Sin. Marcus Johnson

9: “The Highest Degree of Importance”: Union with Christ and Soteriology. Marcus Johnson

10: “Tha mi a’ toirt fainear dur gearan:” J. McLeod Campbell and P.T. Forsyth on the Extent of Christ’s Vicarious Ministry. Jason Goroncy

11: “Suffer the little children to come to me, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Infant Salvation and the Destiny of the Severely Mentally Disabled. Myk Habets

Part 3: Applied Theology

12: Living as God’s Children: Calvin’s Institutes as Primer for Spiritual Formation. Julie Canlis

13: Idolaters at Providential Prayer: Calvin’s Praying Through the Divine Governance. John C McDowell

14: Worshiping like a Calvinist: Cruciform Existence. Scott Kirkland

Part 4

15: Theses on a Theme. Myk Habets and Bobby Grow

Epilogue: Post Reformation Lament. Myk Habets

Index

Bibliography

Solus Christus, Soli Deo Gloria!

I am done with blogging ...

I am done with blogging, for at least awhile. I am tired of it, for many reasons. So I just wanted to let any of my readers know about what is going on with my blog. I am not deleting the blog, but I am putting it into "private" mode, so it will effectively be gone. Blessings to all of you, and don't be surprised if you see me back blogging again some day; at the moment I am totally burnt out. I plan on shifting my writing from the blog, and towards putting together papers that I hope to submit to theological journals etc. And you never know, there could be another EC book some day; anything is possible. Peace, Bobby.

PS. But if you still would like to read some of my thoughts then you can do so HERE.

The Gospel Coalition, Resurgence, RE: Train: And The American Evangelical Captivity to Five Point Calvinist Theology

The Gospel Coalition is gaining an amazing reach into the Evangelical churches in North America (if not even internationally at some levels). Indeed, even my own local church has been and is being influenced by the reach of TGC (and the "denomination" our church is in [Calvary Chapel] is usually known to be more Arminian in orientation [if indeed Calvary Chapel's have a articulated theological orientation---which in fact they really don't!]). They offer and sponsor video series for church ministries (like on how to be missional or kingdom builders in urban settings), conferences for pastors (and lay folk alike), and now they are (at the least) associated with a "training" program offered to pastors that is said to be at the level of a 'Masters' level course load.

I understand that most pastors who associate themselves with TGC are certainly well intentioned guys who love Jesus, and want to be up on all of the cutting edge (what is perceived as such) ministry tools and trajectories that they can avail themselves of; I understand that! But from my perspective there is something more insidious going on here (from TGC's side); the fact is, is that what counts as the Gospel for The Gospel Coalition is this:

The Plan of God We believe that from all eternity God determined in grace to save a great multitude of guilty sinners from every tribe and language and people and nation, and to this end foreknew them and chose them. We believe that God justifies and sanctifies those who by grace have faith in Jesus, and that he will one day glorify them—all to the praise of his glorious grace. In love God commands and implores all people to repent and believe, having set his saving love on those he has chosen and having ordained Christ to be their Redeemer. [taken from The Gospel Coalition's 'Confessional Statement', point 5]

And this:

The Kingdom of God We believe that those who have been saved by the grace of God through union with Christ by faith and through regeneration by the Holy Spirit enter the kingdom of God and delight in the blessings of the new covenant: the forgiveness of sins, the inward transformation that awakens a desire to glorify, trust, and obey God, and the prospect of the glory yet to be revealed. Good works constitute indispensable evidence of saving grace.... [taken from The Gospel Coalition's 'Confessional Statement', point 10]

So what counts as the 'Gospel' for The Gospel Coalition is the same theology that funds the so called 5 points of Calvinism---indeed, it is The 5 POINTS of Calvinism, straight up. The reason that I said, earlier, that I think this is insidious (that is, TGC's mode of operation by framing themselves as simple purveyors of the Gospel, is that they speak and move, often, in cloaked ways; and intentionally so!), is because as I just noted, parenthetically, TGC knows that the theology of 5 point Calvinism in its naked, explicit form is offensive to many Evangelical Christians. So they have crafted a method, language, and a cultural posture that will make what they think counts as the 'Gospel' more acceptable to the masses of Evangelical leadership who finds their many resources (for pastors) appealing.

I just became aware of another movement that TGC is associated with (directly or indirectly, I am not sure), and it is actually another movement that is sponsoring a training program of which adopts TGC's 'Confessional Statement' as their own. The other movement that is directly associated with TGC is Mark Driscoll's Resurgence ministry which is seeking to instill his idiosyncratic mode of doing 'missional' ministry into the body lives of local churches all across America. I have just become aware of this, because one of the pastors from my own church (I just noticed on a social feed) is attending this training program put on by Driscoll's Mars Hill church in Seattle, WA; the training program is called RE: Train. Here is how RE: Train describes what they are about:

The Resurgence Training Center (Re:Train) is a one-year, intensive, cohort-based program designed to train leaders practically and theologically. The program is designed after popular “executive style” graduate programs to serve students currently serving in full-time ministry or for those who do not have time for semester-long courses. Students meet physically eight times per academic year; six weekend courses at regional hubs and two one-week courses at Mars Hill Church in Ballard. [taken from here]

And they say of their doctrinal commitments, this:

The administrators and teachers of Re:Train gladly embrace the Gospel Coalition Confessional Statement, and are members of Mars Hill Church or other like-minded congregations and institutions. All professors are chosen because of their exceptional knowledge in their respective field of study and their ability to teach in a useful and practical way. All professors will be world-class academicians in well-respected institutions or pastors who have the appropriate teaching credentials and ministry experience. [from here]

No matter how "good" the intentions of these folk are (and I mean at 'Resurgence' and The Gospel Coalition), they are covertly (in my estimation) conditioning an uncritical Evangelical church in America to believe that the theology that funds the 5 points of Calvinism is actually the Gospel! So all in all, this cultural Christian movement is dangerous; because they know exactly what they are doing, and they are doing so in an under-handed way. Although, I would imagine that many of the attendees at RE: Train know full well what is going on theologically behind RE: Train (and TGC), and they are fine with it.

All of the above said; I am more than concerned about how many pastors in the American Evangelical church are being taken captive, and in many instances, uncritically, by the theology of The Gospel Coalition and now RE: Train. It is not possible to attend an institution like this (which is explicitly and unabashedly committed to American 5 point Calvinist theology), weed out the bad, and end up with some sort of ecclesiastical (churchly) good. If the root is bad ... well, you know the rest. I am sincerely saddened by the fact that this movement is having such an impact on American Evangelicalism, they are making their move in an intentional fashion by grabbing hold of the pastors from all over America. They know that once they reorient the leadership in American Evangelical churches, then they will also reorient all of these pastor's local flocks.

In my next post (which will probably be later today), I will break down how those two statements that I shared above from TGC's 'Confessional Statement' are pure unadulterated statements of the TULIP.

PS. Here is a link that gives a fuller picture of the Vision of RE: Train.

5 Point Calvinism Isn't Really The Problem?

I recently read from someone who is not an advocate for the theology of 5 Point Calvinism, that they don't ultimately think that this is the real problem (at least for them personally); they seem to be happy to leave this movement (like The Gospel Coalition etc.) in America alone, as long as they keep to themselves and don't make pronouncements against other Christians. I found this sentiment to be intriguing, but also troubling. The troubling aspect with this is that the theology of 5 Point Calvinism is affecting millions of Christians in America, and having drastic consequences on their daily spirituality; and not good ones, I would surmise.

Or maybe at the end of the day nothing really matters, theology is imperfect (which it is), and thus it will all be sorted out in the end. Just as long as you love Jesus, that's all that really matters ... whatever that's supposed to mean. Forgive my cynicism!

Blame God and Sin, An 'Asymmetry'

If you are going to blame anyone, blame God; for eternal life and salvation, that is. As an 'Evangelical Calvinist' my understanding of God's choice, relative to the individual's appropriation of that in and through the vicarious humanity of Christ's choice for us, is this:

1. Is that a person can only recognize their salvation because they have been made new and chosen by God in Christ. God has chosen 'humanity' exemplified in the incarnation of Christ for us. And so people who are in bondage to their choices which are shaped by a heart that on its own is inward curved and self-loving, are enlivened through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They are given a capacity by the Spirit to say Yes to the Father only in and through what has already happened in the humanity of Christ for us. We will never choose God left to our own devices.
2. The reason that everyone does not choose God instead of themselves can only be attributed to the mystery of evil and sin (because God has chosen all of humanity in the humanity of Christ); NOT GOD (only salvation in Christ can be attributed to Him!). This is what James 1 says:

¹³ When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; ¹⁴ but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. ¹⁵ Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. ¹⁶ Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. ¹⁷ Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. ¹⁸ He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.

And John 3:

¹⁶ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. ¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. ¹⁹ This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰ Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. ²¹ But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

So, to speak crudely, we blame God for salvation and His life in Christ for us; and we blame the inexplicable and fleeting reality of evil and sin for unbelief (and this sin is really just an absence of God's 'being', an absence of his life of love ... which is to say, that sin ends up being no-thing, and thus it is irrational to try and understand it or explain it).

[So there is an obvious asymmetry between these two things]. But it should be clear how this is a 'Calvinist' way of understanding things as well---minus the kind of deterministic/logical-causal reasoning that usually attends both classic Calvinist and Arminian ways.

How Can You Say that Evangelical Calvinism is Different than Evangelical Arminianism?

This post is in response to Cal (a commenter here), who has emailed me, and asked how it is that Evangelical Calvinism differentiates itself from Arminianism? It seems that Cal's primary 'delimiter' is the issue of choice and free will, relative to the person's potential capacity to reject or accept the salvation that is theirs in the vicarious humanity of Christ. To begin with, let me attempt to answer Cal's question with a response that I gave to Roger Olson at his blog when he asked a similar thing (my discussion with Olson is in the context of him engaging Myk's and my book Evangelical Calvinism). Here is what I wrote:

I think the difference is the asymmetry that we would place between so called “election” and “reprobation.” Since we press a ‘positive theology’ we emphasize life, the eternal life of Christ as the lens and ground through which we conceive of humanity (his vicarious humanity). So it’s not that we don’t see a need for personal response & faith in order to appropriate the salvation that is the person’s in and through Christ’s Spirit Anointed humanity; instead, it is that we are emphasizing that ‘true humanity’ can only be defined in relation to Christ’s humanity as the ‘original image of God’ (cf. Col. 1:15)—which flows naturally from our ontological theory of the atonement, or, in fact, leads to. And so when we think and speak of humanity we only want to do that in what we have called in the book ‘Christ conditioned’ ways. The fact that some (and even many and most) reject their humanity (and salvation) in Christ, again, from our perspective can only be understood as a ‘surd’ or through the inexplicable nature of sin’s persistence in the ‘Now’. So we hold, as one of our Theses’ asserts, that all of humanity (in redemptive history terms), are ‘carnally’ united to Christ, but not all are united ‘spiritually’ (ultimately). But, again, when we speak of humanity and salvation, in particular, we stress the idea that both carnal and spiritual union between God and humanity has occurred in the vicarious humanity of Christ; and it is through a Spirit created “unioning” with ‘this’ (Jesus’) humanity that the elect say ‘Yes’. So the choice for salvation has already been made for all of humanity, in Christ (from God’s perspective, this is how we understand ‘Pre-destination’ and ‘election’ in Christ); the fact that some reject this, again, is a surd (or absurd) relative to what God has done in Christ (‘for us’).

So the issue has to do with how one conceives of Divine causation, and a certain metaphysics that attends that. We as Evangelical Calvinists (especially Myk and myself) follow Thomas Torrance's rejection of the mechanical, logico-causal and deductive schemata that funds the theology of 5 point Calvinism, for example. So we reframe the discussion in the way that we think the Self-revelation of God does, in Christ; in a Triune, dynamic, personalist, and relational way. We aren't trying to answer the same questions that classic theology does, because we think the questions that shape classic Calvinism and Arminianism are non-starters relative to the faulty starting point they begin from relative to their kind of substance metaphysics.

Cal's question also wonders about, apparently, the sovereignty of God in salvation. In other words, if God has chosen for all of humanity, per the theologic of the incarnation, and in this choosing he has liberated all of humanity to choose or reject salvation in Christ; then how is this any different than an Arminian conception of prevenient grace? This is the point that we must go back to what I just described as logical-causalism, because we (as Evangelical Calvinists) do hold that God in Christ has chosen for all of humanity; we do believe that when and if someone is 'justified/sanctified' (double grace), spiritually, in Christ, that God has brought about this salvation, subjectively, by the Spirit, in their lives. This gets us back to my response to Roger Olson; we think scripture and Christic faith move and breathe in the realm of emphasizing life, God's life in Christ. And thus we believe that the primary emphasis is LIFE not death, such that reprobation is not an viable aspect---only an accidental one---when we articulate our view of salvation. So we are not really far away, at all, from classic Calvinism, in this sense; in the sense that we believe that scripture and God's Self-revelation in Christ demands that the reason the elect are 'saved' is because of God's choice for them in Christ. We don't think that God's Self-revelation in Christ supplies any kind of ontology or theo-logic for discussing WHY anyone is reprobate [except for the intractable and inexplicable reality of sin cf. John 3:16ff] (and so the asymmetry I noted in my response to Roger). And then this, once again, gets us back to what I was noting in regard to our rejection of logico-causal metaphysics. I realize this will not satisfy folk who are committed to using scholastically informed modes of reasoning (which all of Western theology operates from, in general), and that some will assert that us Evangelical Calvinists aren't playing fair; but it is what it is.

Hope this helps, Cal.

Why Understanding Calvinism Matters

Some folk might wonder what the big to do is all about when it comes to the whole discussion this blog is dedicated to; that is, the discussion surrounding Calvinism and Armianism. In fact, I think many Evangelical Christians are so far removed from anything dogmatic or doctrinal, and instead given to 'real life', practical and pragmatic issues, that they simply scratch their heads when they come a cross a blog like mine. I have this experience, personally, quite often; in other words, nowadays when folk ask me about my book (when they find out I have one), and I start to explain it to them, most of the significance is lost on them because they don't have enough context, theologically, to grasp the significance of what we are trying to offer alternatively through the introduction of Evangelical Calvinism.

Nevertheless, to most Evangelical's chagrin, they are induced by the theological categories of Arminianism or Calvinism (in their classic forms) any time they listen to radio preachers, their preacher, and or fellowship with other Christians. The fact that they can't identify the theological categories they are being exposed to on a daily basis (if they indeed inhabit the Evangelical sub-culture) does not also mean that they aren't being exposed; it just means they are ignorant or naive to their exposure. So part of my goal, with a blog like this (and just in my own mode of daily life as a Christian) is to expose people and inform folk to what they are indeed being exposed to theologically. Some people might say, who cares; but the reality is, is that ideas have consequences (even ideas, and especially ideas that are held unconsciously), and so it behooves the Christian person to become aware of the ideas that shape their own theological identity, and then seek to make sure that what they explicitly or implicitly endorse, theologically, actually aligns with scripture and the God who is Self-Revealed in Jesus Christ.

Unfortunately, part of the 'Fall' (in the garden with Adam and Eve) entailed the fact that knowing God requires work (and I don't mean a works righteousness salvation, but that even in our salvation, we are called upon to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ; and this presupposes work and toil cf. II Tim. 2:15). Of course, our 'flesh' or sin nature does not like to toil and work, and our culture conditions us to just take it easy. But this is not the ethic and life that God has called us to in Christ Jesus. Our hearts beat from a different city, a city whose foundations are heavenly (not platonically understood of course); and thus we need to be busy about God's mission and work. Part of this busy-ness requires that we cultivate relationship with God in Christ. This cultivation process is commonly known as theology.

At the end of the day, this is why understanding something as nuanced as Arminianism and Calvinism matters. We don't live in a theological vacuum, we live in a Christian world that comes with its own categories of thought and cultural dispositions; we are all impacted by theological ideas, the responsible Christian will try to understand what those are, and then act on cultivating healthy Christian ideas relative to God's Word.

Check out my other blog: The Face Of Christ

Our Book is Available At Amazon.com

Our book is now available at Amazon.com, click the title below:

Evangelical Calvinism: Essays Resourcing the Continuing Reformation of the Church

Why I am Not a 5 Point Calvinist

I am not a so called Five Point Calvinist for various reasons, but one of those reasons, a primary reason, is that the theology behind the acronym TULIP was never intended to be the sum or end all of what Calvinism was to be known for, doctrinally. Myk Habets and I, in our recently released book, have commented on this reality in the introductory chapter of the book:

Numerous recent attempts at defining the Reformed or Calvinist tradition have been offered. A number of these treatments have tended to present in objective fashion what is, ultimately, only a subjective judgment. Earlier popular works at definition, still in vogue amongst seminary and university students on campuses today, look to the five points of Dort—the so-called “doctrines of grace”—as the essence of what it means to be Reformed.25 Dort, however, as with most if not all of the Reformed confessions, is a localized and contextual document. The Canons of Dort give a detailed and skilled reply to Arminianism; hence “TULIP” represents a response to the Arminian five-point Remonstrance. It was never intended as a sum of Reformed thought. The Canons of Dort are still to be consulted for a Reformed reply to Arminianism, but they should not be thought to represent the sum of our belief. As Muller has written:

In other words, it would be a major error—both historically and doctrinally—if the five points of Calvinism were understood either as the sole or even as the absolutely primary basis for identifying someone as holding the Calvinistic or Reformed faith. In fact, the Canons of Dort contain five points only because the Arminian articles, the Remonstrance of 1610, to which they responded, had five points. The number five, far from being sacrosanct, is the result of a particular historical circumstance and was determined negatively by the number of articles in the Arminian objection to confessional Calvinism. [Myk Habets and Bobby Grow, eds., Evangelical Calvinism: Essays Resourcing the Continuing Reformation of the Church, (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2012), 9-10.]

So even Richard Muller, Calvin and Calvinist scholar renowned, would agree with us, that the five points should not be seen as universally binding for the faithful; instead their regional and occasional nature should be understood as their primary context of meaning. Thus, when we say that we are 'Evangelical Calvinists' we are free to eschew the five points in favor of other emphases that have also developed within the history of the Reformed faith, in general, and Calvinism in particular.

PS. Make sure to check out my other blog: The Face Of Christ

Follow Me, If You Want ...

This blog has just become my official "Book Blog," if I have any particular updates about the book itself, or other pertinent things regarding Evangelical Calvinism in particular, then this will be the place to read about that. I will be continuing my blog life over at an older blog of mine renamed to 'The Face Of Christ'. Sorry about the inconvenience to the relatively small readership I have at this blog (which has dwindled to almost nothing, strangely) for making another move, but it is what it is.

My blog address is: http://recreatedinchrist.wordpress.com

Wright on Dispensationalism and the Nation of Israel in the Theology of the Apostle Paul

Jerusalem besieged, 70 A. D.

I thought this was an interesting point made by N. T. Wright in his book Paul: Fresh Perspectives, he is discussing the nation of Israel and how Israel functions in the theology of the Apostle Paul. The point I am lifting from Wright here is a point that illustrates his dismay over North American Dispensational readings of Paul's theology, in particular his conception of the second coming of Christ. Here is what Wright writes:

[...] For some, alas, the very phrase 'second coming', and even perhaps the word 'eschatology' itself, conjures up visions of the 'rapture' as understood within some branches of (mostly North American) fundamentalist or evangelical Christianity, and as set out, at a popular level, in the 'Left Behind' series of novels by Tim F. Lahaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, and the theology, if you can call it that, which those books embody. That scheme of thought, ironically considering its fanatical though bizarre support for the present state of Israel, is actually deeply un-Jewish, collapsing into a dualism in which the present wicked world is left to stew in its own juice while the saints are snatched up to heaven to watch Armageddon from a ringside seat. (p. 145, Nook edition)

And then he goes on in the next paragraph to develop the Apostle Paul's actual thinking, in contrast to dispensationalism, on such things; he continues to write:

This is massively different from anything we find in Paul [referring to the dispensationalist reading he just mentioned], for all that the central text for the 'rapture' theology is of course I Thessalonians 4.16-17. What we find in Paul at this point is four things, in each of which we see the still-future Jewish eschatology redrawn around the Messiah.... (p. 145, Nook edition)

He goes on to develop his 'four things', which I don't want to get into at this point. Instead, I simply want to draw attention to the way that N. T. Wright (unsurprisingly) thinks of dispensational theology. I have come to agree with Wright about my former dispensationalism (I am an American Evangelical after all). But what does Wright mean when he writes 'That scheme of thought, ironically considering its fanatical though bizarre support for the present state of Israel, is actually deeply un-Jewish, collapsing into a dualism in which the present wicked world is left to stew in its own juice while the saints are snatched up to heaven to watch Armageddon from a ringside seat'? It is something that I have harped on for quite some time, whenever I write about dispensationalism; that is, this neo-Platonic, hard and fast distinction between Israel and the Church (the Church=for Wright 'the saints snatched up'). It is this distinction that ironically, but not, makes the Church God's saints, and the nation of Israel his Covenant People; such that the latter are judged (even though Jesus already was ... he was the Jew, wasn't he) by God in the 'Great Tribulation' (Daniel's so called 70th Week, or Jacob's Trouble, cf. Jer. 30:7), and the former are the beneficiaries of Christ's death for them on the cross. So we end up with this strange dualism between God's "two people," with the result that one still has to go through a blood letting of unimaginable depth, and the other has been released from such blood letting (the Church) through their Savior, Jesus Christ. My depiction might seem crude, but this is the inevitable conclusion to consistent and honest classical dispensational theology.

Wright, in the end, is right that dispensational theology offers a bizarre picture of what it means to 'support' the nation of Israel. Their theological framework has abstracted the nation of Israel out from Christ (in this dispensation, anyway ... i.e. the so called "Church Age"), and essentially placed them into a situation that has them facing something akin to a medieval Roman Catholic conception of purgatory; but instead dispensationalists have named it, 'The Great Tribulation', riffing on Jesus' words in the Olivet Discourse.

What say you Dispensationalist?

PS. In the end, though, I think Wright unhelpfully ends up offering an ecclesiocentric view of God's people, instead of grounding God's people (the Pauline 'One New Man' cf. Eph. 2.11ff) in God's life in Christ as his new creation in his covenant life of grace. So I think Wright is still in need of some dogmatic reflection, and I am happy to see that he seems to be open to some correction by some of his more recent interaction with Kevin Vanhoozer (esp. in areas having to do with union with Christ theology).

You Can't Have Jesus Without Faith

You can't simply do historical analysis of the New Testament and expect to come to right conclusions about Jesus. And yet this is where so much of 'Evangelical' scholarship (and Christian scholarship in general) resides. You can't use analogies that start with yourself and work your way to Jesus from there, and expect to find the genuine Jesus; you'll just end up finding the Jesus who looks oh so much like yourself--the Jesus molded in your own image. So the irony of what I just asserted is that I am saying that you can't 'solely' rely on historical Jesus studies and expect to find the true Jesus, and at the same time I am asserting that we must avoid somehow importing our own historical culturally situadedness back onto the face of Jesus. So what's the answer to this dilemma? What get's us beyond this impasse of dualism between studying Jesus through historical empericism and isolated subjectivism? I mean isn't Christianity a religion based in history? Yes. But history by itself does not have the proper traction or orientation to provide humanity--embedded within history--with the proper epistemological antennae needed to penetrate the depths which gives history its right relation to the one who gave us history to begin with. Am I speaking too cryptically for you yet?

Here Thomas Torrance speaks somewhat less cryptically about how we ought to dogmatically consider the relation between history and revelation through the optic of Faith:

All this means that any christological approach that starts from the man Jesus, from the historical Jesus, and tries to pass over to God, and so to link human nature to God, is utterly impossible. In fact it is essentially a wrong act: for it runs directly counter to God's act of grace which has joined God to humanity in Christ. All Attempts to understand Jesus Christ by starting off with the historical Jesus utterly fail; they are unable to pass over from man to God and moreover to pass man to God in such a way as not to leave man behind all together, and in so doing they deny the humanity of Jesus. Thus though Ebionite christologies all seek to go from the historical Jesus to God, they can make that movement only by denying the humanity of Jesus, that is by cutting off their starting point, and so they reveal themselves as illusion, and the possibility of going from man to God is revealed as likewise illusory.

No, it is quite clear that unless we are to falsify the facts from the very start, we must face with utter and candid honesty the New Testament presentation of Christ to us, not as a purely historical figure, nor as a purely transcendental theophany, but as God and man. Only if we start from that duality in which God himself has already joined God and man, can we think God and humanity together, can we pass from man to God and from God to man, and all the time be strictly scientific in allowing ourselves to be determined by the nature of the object. [Thomas F. Torrance, Incarnation, edited by Robert Walker, 10]

So Torrance's premise is that what has happened in the incarnation is totally unique, and has only been made accessible through the purview of faith. Not blind faith, but faith that takes it shape as it is given to us through the revelation of God himself in and through the vicarious humanity of Christ for us; the humanity that grounds all of humanity as the image of God (Colossians 1:15)--so faith is the eyes to see and the ears to hear with that Jesus so often challenges his audiences to employ.

What does this tell us about historical Jesus studies that seek to tell us the truth about Jesus, but then fail to do so through the mode of faith? It tells me that these approaches are trying to find a public square, a common ground through which to substantiate and situate Jesus in such a way that he has respectability amongst the world. Once this respectability has been established, and Jesus rightly reconstructed, then we can attend to the issues of faith (so there is an implicit competition, then, in this scenario, between the Jesus of Faith and History). To be clear, none of this is to reject the usage of historical tools, but it is to call attention to the need that these tools have; the need is to provide for them a prior Christian dogmatic order that will allow those tools to not chisel a Jesus into something he is not (e.g. first a man, then God added on). He is God first, who becomes man; and this is such a unique event that it in itself can only be its own analogy.

There is more to say about the TF Torrance quote above; especially about the affirmation of creation and humanity that is provided for it through the incarnation of Christ. Maybe another time, or in the comments. 

The Jesus of History & Faith, Conjoined

I wanted to address something that dovetails with a recent mini-essay that Darren Sumner wrote on Karl Barth's understanding of history and revelation. What I want to do is provide a counter-part post that underscores and articulates Thomas F. Torrance's view on the same subject. If you read Darren's post alongside this post; what you'll notice is that both Torrance and Barth share a very similar understanding on the relationship between how revelation and history work together, and how the former ultimately must be said to condition the latter; and not vice versa. Here is TF Torrance, at length (I will highlight the significance of this relative to the normal ways that Evangelicals and some of the Reformed use history as the foundation for their view of revelation---which is really backwards from a genuinely Christian order of things):

The mystery of Christ is presented to us within history --- that historical involvement is not an accidental characteristic of the mystery but essential to it. That is the problem.

Let us first put it this way, recalling the bi-polarity of our theological knowledge. If God has become man in the historical Jesus, that is an historical event that comes under our historical examination so far as the humanity of Jesus is concerned, but the fact that God became man is an event that cannot be appreciated by ordinary historical science, for here we are concerned with more than simply an historical event, namely, with the act of the eternal God. So far as this event is a fact of nature it can be observed, and so far as it is historical in the sense that other natural events are historical, it can be appreciated as such; but the essential becoming behind it cannot be directly perceived except by an act of perception appropriate to the eternal event. That act of perception appropriate to an eternal act, or divine act, would surely be the pure vision of God, which we do not have in history. Here on earth and in time we do not see directly, face to face, but see only in part, as through a glass enigmatically, in a mystery. We see the eternal or divine act within history, within our fallen world where historical observation is essential. Faith would be better described then as the kind of perception appropriate to perceiving a divine act in history, an eternal act in time. So that faith is appropriate both to the true perception of historical facts, and also to the true perception of God's action in history. Nor is it the way we are given within history to perceive God's acts in history, and that means that faith is the obedience of our minds to the mystery of Christ, who is God and man in the historical Jesus. What is clearly of paramount importance here is the holding together of the historical and the theological in our relation to Christ.

If the two are not held together, we have broken up the given unity in Christ into the historical on the one hand, and the theological on the other, refracting it into elements which we can no longer put together again. We then find that we cannot start from the historical and move to the theological, or from the theological and move to the historical without distortion, and nor can we rediscover the original unity. We can only start from the given, where the historical and the theological are in indissoluble union in Christ. [Thomas F. Torrance, Incarnation, 6-7]

So there is no analogy for the incarnation. And for Torrance, the incarnation must be the definitive touchstone for how we start to conceive of a knowledge of God (the Old Testament then is seen as the pre-incarnation of God in Christ); and since there is not human analogy for this reality to be found in the history of history (i.e. God and humanity united in a single person), the only 'foundation' that can be used to justify our belief about God must be given its shape and reality through the given reality of the incarnate Christ---which means, faith.

This means that we cannot start with an abstracted history (like a naked evidentialism) and seek to attach this to the history of Jesus, but the history we have, in itself, of Christ's revelation is the given reality itself; there is nothing else that can be determinate of that, other than the truly and self-determinately free God himself.

*A repost for those who may have not read this, I once posted this not too long ago at my EC (Wordpress) blog.

Thomas Torrance on Justin Martyr and "Proving Jesus" as Hermeneutic

Justin Martyr

Thomas Torrance, in his Theological Science (his theological method, and a title of one of his books), follows what he calls an epistemological inversion; in short, epistemological inversion is the approach that holds out that an object or subject (or both as in the case of Christian Theology) acts upon us (the knowers and inquirers), such that it itself opens up to us its own reality and structures of thought—this process remains an open structured event. It is from within this context that we can better understand Thomas Torrance’s appropriation of someone like Justin Martyr, and his defense of Christian reality and the Christic event itself (one and the same). Let’s follow along as Torrance engages Martyr, this quote will end with Torrance quoting Justin (which is the piece I really want to get to with this post—viz. Martyr’s “argument”):

The distinctive feature of this Word is its relation through the Spirit to historical facts and events. It is when we allow the Scriptures to direct us to these facts and events that our minds fall under the power of their truth and we are compelled to believe for they carry in themselves their own demonstration. This is not, of course, any kind of logical proof, but the kind of demonstration that arises immediately out of the facts and events themselves through their self-evidence. This is particularly well expressed in a fragment of a lost work on the resurrection that has survived through John of Damascus and attributed to Justin.

[T]he Word of truth is free, and carries its own authority, disdaining to fall under any skilful argument, or to endure the logical scrutiny for its hearers. But it would be believed of its own sake, and for the confidence due to him who sends it. Now the Word of truth is sent from God, wherefore the freedom claimed by the truth is not arrogant. For being sent with authority, it were not fit that it should be required to produce proof of what is said, since neither is there any proof beyond itself, which is God. For every proof is more powerful and trustworthy than that which it proves, since what is disbelieved, until proof is produced, gets credit when such proof is produced, and is recognised as being what it was stated to be. But nothing is more powerful or more trustworthy than the truth; so that he who requires proof of this, is like one who wishes it demonstrated why the things that appear to the senses do appear. For the test of those things which are received through the reason, is sense; but of sense itself there is not test beyond itself. As then we bring those things which reason hunts after, to sense, and by it judge what kind of things they are, whether the things spoken be true or false, and then sit in judgment no longer, giving full credit to its decision; so also we refer all that is said regarding men and the world to the truth, and by it judge whether it be worthless or no. But the utterances of truth we judge by no separate test, giving full credit to itself. And God, the Father of the universe, who is the perfect intelligence, is the Truth. And the Word, being his Son, came to us, having put on flesh revealing  both himself and the Father, giving to us in himself resurrection from the dead and eternal life afterwards. And this is Jesus Christ our Saviour and Lord. He, therefore, is himself both the faith and the proof of himself and of all things. [Thomas F. Torrance, Divine Meaning, 95-6; the quote from Justin, De resurrectione, 1.1f, from the Sacra Parallela of John of Damascus. E.T. from Ante Nicene Christian Library, vol. 2, pp. 341ff. This is not generally accepted as Justin's

own work, but like the Cohortatio ad Graecos was at least written under his influence.]

For all those weary souls who have labored under the Evangelical mantle of ‘Fighting Fundamentalism’ and the Apologetic Faith (as Warfield called it); won’t you join me in commending yourself to a more Christian Way? A ‘Way’ that does not entangle itself in the realm of rationalist-historicism, that seeks to ‘prove’ Jesus to themselves and the world. I am sure that it is the other way around … we are in need of ‘proving’. And I think the “Martyr” quote helps us to think in this order, and not the order of the “world.”

Too Much Jesus in the Bible?

I would like to expose you all to Thomas Torrance's take on Irenaeus' understanding on what could be called a Christocentric Hermeneutic. As you read Torrance's account of Irenaeus, understand that you are reading Torrance too. Here is Torrance on Irenaeus:

It is, then, to the Incarnation that Irenaeus turns for the clue to the interpretation of the history of creation and redemption and therefore for the clue to the interpretation of the Scriptures. The essential order and connection of things is embodied in Jesus Christ and it is by reference to him that the economic ministrations of God in humanity and the historical covenants are to be understood aright, and therefore the interconnection between the scriptures of the prophets and the scriptures of the Apostles, 'the Gospel and the Apostles. Even the Scriptures of the old covenant have to be read in the light of Christ's advent in the flesh, for his coming connected the end with the beginning and made the beginning predictive of the end, thus showing that the faith of the patriarchs and prophets and ours is one and the same. They sowed the seed, the word about Christ (sermonem de Christo), but it is in us that the fruit is reaped and received, and only in the Church is the truth of the things prefigured realised. 'Certain facts had to be announced beforehand by the fathers in a paternal manner, (paternaliter), and others prefigured by the prophets in a legal manner (legaliter), but others delineated according to the pattern of Christ (deformari secundum formationem Christi) by those who perceived the adoption, for in one God are all things shown forth.' [Thomas F. Torrance, Divine Meaning, 122-23]

How does this strike you? Do you think this is too intense for a hermeneutic or mode for interpreting Scripture? Is your method of biblical interpretation this intensively Christ focused? I am really curious how you all think of this; I obviously highly appreciate this kind of 'Patristic' method of interpreting and reinterpreting (the OT) Scripture in light of  its fulfillment in Christ. This rubs against the method of interpretation I learned (by and large) in Bible College and Seminary; which is the Literal Grammatical Historical method (the kind that leads to and from Dispensationalism).

Knowledge of God for Thomas Torrance

Here is a video I did about 2 years ago (forgive my haircut, this is actually just after I finished my chemo treatments, so my hair is growing back :-). Anyway, I am interacting with Paul Molnar's book Thomas F. Torrance: The Trinitarian Theologian. I think the material covered in this video is apropos towards providing more insight into some of the issues that seem to be arising for Roger Olson as he interacts with our book. Furthermore, the material covered in this video is what I develop further in my personal chapter in our book.

So knowledge of God can only come through knowledge of God as it is Self-revealed and determined to be in Jesus Christ (cf. Jn. 1:18). Knowledge of God can only be regulated by his own Self-revelation, and thus other modes for providing grammar and content for knowledge of God cannot be entertained (such as using philosophical categories like appealing to Aristotle etc. appeal to).

Classical Determinism

Over at Roger Olson's blog, and in his most recent post where he is interacting with our recently released book, one of the issues that has come up  – or that is not being appreciated 'yet' – is the Evangelical Calvinist eschewing of logical-causal-deductive determinism. This is somewhat of a fundamental key toward appreciating the distinct offering that we are, under the 'Evangelical Calvinist' nomenclature. True, not all, even of the authors in our book, would necessarily go this far in offering critique of classic determinism (or they might, but just might to it differently); but the following (which is a repost of mine), will illustrate how I, at least, want to proceed in relation to the usual epistemological methods employed by the 'classical' tradition. So the following is in response to what I am perceiving, thus far, as somewhat of a lacuna in the reading of Olson and those commenting vis-à-vis an Evangelical Calvinist approach.

Here T. F. explains and undoes the usual understanding of how events in history and causation relate one to the other. He defeats the idea of causation, appropriated by Classical Theists, in general; and Classical Calvinists & Arminians, in particular, that there is a necessary relation between the event that happened, and the events that led to the happening. He makes a disjunction between Factual event and Necessary event; the former being that which we understand as an actual happen-stance of the past, and the latter having to do with the idea that because that happen-stance happened, that the events that led to its happening also were necessarily organised in a certain way in order for the the conditions of that event to be so — as if we, as historians (or scientists, theologians, etc), can absolutize causes based upon an idea of uniformitarian conception of Event. Obviously this is a little complicated, and not for the faint of heart, but I think it important to be grasped in order to understand what Evangelical Calvinists mean when we say that we eschew the logico-causal-determinism of ‘classic’ thought.

 Here’s T. F. Torrance (this whole discussion takes place in the context of TFT talking about resurrection):

(a) Interpreting ordinary historical events

(i) Freedom and necessity in historical events

Let us try to understand this from a merely natural point of view. Think of a historical happening: in taking place it appears as a free happening. Once it takes place, it cannot be undone. Throw a stone through that window and you are engaging in a free act, but once it has taken place, the act cannot be recalled — we cannot turn it backwards as we can a film of the event. Thus once an event has taken place, it becomes ‘necessary’ — in the sense that it cannot now be other than it is. At this point, however, we are liable to suffer from an illusion, for we tend to think that because it is now necessary fact, it had to happen. This is the kind of optical illusion we suffer from on the golf course when our opponent putts a ball from the other end of the green and it goes right down into the hole — immediately that happens we somehow think it had to happen from the start, but what we have done in a flash is to read the final result back all along the line of the ball’s course into the free act behind it. It is through this kind of illusion or indeed delusion that some historians think that historical events are to be interpreted in the same way in which they interpret the events of natural processes as concatenated or linked together through causal necessity.

The distinction between causal necessity and factual necessity

But it is important to distinguish in historical happening between causal necessity and factual necessity, between causal determination of events and the fact that once they happen they cannot be otherwise. An historical event, once it has taken place, is factually necessary for it cannot now be other than it is, but an historical event comes into being through a free happening, by means of spontaneous human agencies. Certainly all historical events are interactions between human agents and nature, as well as interactions between agents and other agents — so that there are elements of causal determination in historical happening that we have to take into account, physical factors relating to the kind of patterns of space and time in which we live and work. But historical events are not by any means merely natural physical processes, for as happenings initiated and bound up with purposeful agents they embody intention which often conflicts with and triumphs over the course of events that nature would take on its own.

(ii) History is the interweaving of natural processes with human intention

It is this interweaving of natural processes and human agencies, of nature and rational intention, that gives history its complicated patterns. The course of events has often quite unforeseen results, for human acts may fail to achieve what would have been expected or may achieve far more than would or could have been anticipated. But in our interpretation of history we must never forget that in the heart of historical events there is free happening which bears the intention in which the true significance of history is to be discerned. Thus while we must appreciate fully the physical factors involved, we must penetrate into the movement of time in the actual happening in order to understand the event in the light of the intentionality and spontaneity embedded in it. The handling of temporal relation has proved very difficult and elusive in the history of thought, for it has so often been assimilated to logical relation and so transposed into something very different. The confusion of temporal with logical connection corresponds here to that between spontaneity and causal determinism in natural science. We can see this error recurring, for example, in notions of predestination where the free prius of the divine grace is converted by the scholastic mind into logico-causal relation, while the kind of time-relation with which we operate between natural events is imported into the movements of divine love and activity. It is a form of the same mistake that people make in regard to the resurrection, when they think of its happening only within the logico-causal nexus with which they operate in classical physics. (Thomas F. Torrance, Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ, edited by Robert T. Walker (Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2009, 249-50)

In keeping with Torrance’s usual mode of thinking from the Incarnation & Atonement (here the resurrection being the focus), he seeks to excoriate any ideas of logico-causal determinism as the lens through which profane historians would attempt to interpret the ‘historicity’ and ‘facticity’ of the resurrection itself — Torrance’s discussion here, is all taking shape within his line of thought associated with Kata Physin (or according to the nature of the thing, or his more popular method Theological Science). As he deconstructs the post hoc ways of what might be called ‘natural theology’ (meaning all modes of intellectual inquiry which make inferences from supposed stable events, works, physical nature, etc. to their “necessary causes”), by implication, he also gets at theological constructs (like classic Calvinism-Arminianism, Neo-Orthodoxy like Brunner’s) that operate with this same modus operandi.

The moral: There are unseen, unknown contingencies built into the nature of things themselves that make it impossible to accurately infer a stable causal chain of events from the event back to the cause itself. The answer to this, in relation to knowledge of God, is to see the event and cause conjoined together in the person-act of Jesus himself. It is from this vantage point that we then are set up to know God, in Christ, but no longer as some sort of deterministic causal agent; but instead, as personal, triune Divine agent who apocalyptically breaks into the contingencies of history re-creating them towards their telos or created purpose in Christ (cf. Col. 1:13ff) — the resurrection, then, being the instantiation of this within time-space history.


I doubt this has cleared much up, but if nothing else it helped me to write this out for my own process. I also would surmise that it is because of the nuance of this kind of thought, evinced by TFT, that Evangelical Calvinism will continue to have problems with making headway with the typical American Christian. It is easy to understand causal-determinism, because that’s what “we see” in “nature” all the time (there is an “apparent” coordination between how things appear to the naked mind’s eye, and how we then assume things in themselves “must” be — so it is natural to operate with a docetic understanding of things — but this is not Christian (and when I write 'Christian', I mean by way of what we perceive as 'principled' Trinitarian theological methodology — I am not even coming close to questioning anyone's 'salvation'), nor Evangelical Calvinism — it is the mode of Classical Calvinism & Arminianism [and I realize this is hard teaching, who can hear it?]).

Roger Olson Interacts with our Book

Professor Roger Olson has been interacting with our book, recently. You can read his initial impressions here. I will be interested to see what he thinks once he gets to our last chapter, chapter 15; this chapter is the one that Myk and I cowrote and it offers up the most definitive statements of what it means for us (Myk and I in particular) to be so called Evangelical Calvinists. 

Roger Olson

My concern, thus far, as I read Olson's, and some of his commenter's, impressions, is that there still isn't a substantial recognition of the radicality that is involved in our methodology (which is why I think our chapter 15 will be instructive and informative for Olson). It still seems as if Olson & co. (his commenters) are trying to read what we are offering through what Torrance calls logical-causal and deterministic lenses. As if what we are trying to communicate is still working through a mechanical mode of inquiry V. a personal and Trinitarian one.

We shall have to see if this is finally caught once Olson makes it through the book, we'll see ... :-). Just glad Olson is giving our book a fair read! 

Was Karl Barth a 'neo-Orthodox' Theologian? The Third Time ...

For anyone who was interested in that question of mine a few posts ago – e.g. whether or not Barth was actually neo-Orthodox – well, another Princeton guy I know (a bit ;-), David Congdon has offered the lineaments of a really helpful argument for why Barth was not neo-Orthodox [and he also comments on where he sees T.F. Torrance on (or not) spectrum as well]. It gives me hope, relative to my own thinking, that what David iterates jives with my earlier hunch (i.e. that natural theology is definitive for whether or not something can count as neo-Orthodox, or not). Below are the two links to the previous posts on this, and then David's clarifying comment.

1st post & 2nd post

Bobby,

I see you've posted Travis's comment. It's mostly right, but I would like to specify matters somewhat further. What neoorthodoxy did was to marshal certain ideas from Barth (mainly, divine transcendence, revelation as encounter), abstracted as static, stand-alone propositions, and use them to buttress the project of Christian orthodoxy within the modern era (hence the "new"). Neoorthodoxy is fundamentally ideological, in that it presupposes the validity of something like a Christian orthodox tradition. Having presupposed this tradition as something to be preserved and maintained, it then finds in Barth certain concepts that are useful toward that end. The reason neoorthodoxy is not dialectical theology is that the latter makes no such presupposition; it is in fact the total abolition of ecclesiastical presuppositions. Dialectical theology is a thoroughly destabilizing understanding of the gospel. Neoorthodoxy is basically a species of natural theology, in that it takes for granted something stable and given in the world -- in this case, the church. It is therefore no wonder that Barth and Brunner would fall out over that issue.

For these reasons, I demur from Travis on two points. First, existentialism as such is not a constitutive element of neoorthodoxy. It is only existentialism as it is welded to a certain kind of natural theology, as it was in Brunner's case, but emphatically not in the case of Bultmann. Second, I cannot help but see Torrance as operating within the ambit of neoorthodoxy. He did not engage in natural theology (I agree fully with Travis there), but it seems to me that he takes for granted a kind of ecclesiological givenness in the form of the orthodox tradition. That was precisely the underlying presupposition for his ecumenical work. And, conversely, it is why Barth cared so little about such ecumenical agreements: not because he did not believe in the unity of the church, but because such unity only exists in the person of Christ -- and the person of Christ is a reality that does not give itself to ecclesiastical and theological traditions. The saving event of Christ must always be an offense to those theologies that seek to sustain and prop up the tradition of the church. Orthodoxy, as Barth insisted, is only ever an eschatological reality. As such, there is no orthodox faith in history. And therefore there can be no neoorthodox theology. [David Congdon's comment, here]

To be as radical and 'critically-dialectically-realistic' as Barth, the theologian must endeavor to rub out any inkling of human mastery when it comes to knowledge of God in Christ. This is why Barth is known as a post-metaphysical theologian who works from his actualistic mode of theological endeavor.


Thanks, David.

Happy Human Independence/Freedom Day, from Karl Barth

Since it is 'Independence Day' here in America, today, I thought I would repost a reflection and response on 'Human Freedom' that I posted at my older EC blog quite a few months ago now. As you will see, these reflections are in response to a brother (in Christ) of mine. Happy 'Freedom Day'!

³⁶ So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. ~John 8.36

Silhouette of Barth, Garbed in the 'Colors'

I am reposting the following because I am working the next couple of days, and so don’t have the time to develop some things I would like to in response to the discussion I have been having with Nathan in this thread. Some have asked what ‘grace all the way down’ might mean (in the thread and post I am referencing). Some of you are wondering how I might move differently than a classic Calvinist or Arminian in framing human action as grounded in a theological-christological anthropology—thus ultimately recasting, and somewhat avoiding the usual categories of working out of ‘the bondage of the will’ dialogue. So in lieu of me writing an actual post that would articulate how I might proceed; this post, and maybe one more tomorrow will have to suffice until I can do a proper (new) one. Somebody might think that some of the language from Barth sounds like what Billings is critiquing in the Arminian, but it’s not. Since Barth’s construct grounds what it means to be human, dogmatically, in the elect humanity of Christ for us. This is the piece that classic Arminianism (and Calvinism) is missing; i.e. ‘the classic way’ operates with a competitive view between Divine-human action vis-á-vis human action simpliciter. Meaning that the classic approach, does not ground humanity from the humanity of Christ in an objective gracious way. Instead, it sees humanity as abstracted from the humanity of Christ in need of union with his humanity which is only actualised through their cooperation with God in salvation by habituating in the ‘created grace’ (which becomes the impersonal intermediary that binds elect or foreknown humanity to Christ’s humanity). More to be said. Here’s Barth on the vicarious humanity of Christ as ‘God with us’, which becomes the recreated humanity through which our humanity elevated to what it means to be human; or free for God.

Here is a great statement from Barth on the vicarious humanity of Christ,

[T]he answer is that we ourselves are directly summoned, that we are lifted up, that we are awakened to our own truest being as life and act, that we are set in motion by the fact that in that one man God has made Himself our peacemaker and the giver and gift of our salvation. By it we are made free fro Him. By it we are put in the place which comes to us where our salvation (really ours) can come to us from Him (really from Him). This actualisation of His redemptive will by Himself opens up to us the one true possibility of our own being. Indeed, what remains to us of life and activity in the face of this actualisation of His redemptive will by Himself can only be one thing. This one thing does not mean the extinguishing of our humanity, but its establishment. It is not a small thing, but the greatest of all. It is not for us a passive presence as spectators, but our true and highest activation—the magnifying of His grace which has its highest and most profound greatness in the fact that God has made Himself man with us, to make our cause His own, and as His own to save it from disaster and to carry it through to success. The genuine being of man as life and activity, the “We with God,” is to affirm this, to admit that God is right, to be thankful for it, to accept the promise and the command which it contains, to exist as the community, and responsibly in the community, of those who know that this is all that remains to us, but that it does remain to us and that for all men everything depends upon its coming to pass. And it is this “We with God” that is meant by the Christian message in its central “God with us,” when it proclaims that God Himself has taken our place, that He Himself has made peace between Himself and us, that by Himself he has accomplished our salvation, I.e., our participation in His being. [Karl Barth CD IV/I, p. 12]

This is the kind of stuff I am looking for. A theological anthropology, that is Christological; that honors the integrity of created humanity by giving humanity its place in the recreated humanity of Jesus Christ for us. It is a participationist humanity that we are given as a gift, we don’t possess it in ourselves. The giveness of humanity is where humanity flourishes through its relation in the divine life (i.e. the proper order) in Christ. This early section in IV/I is entitled “God with Us.”

Blogging can be wearisome ...

I get tired of blogging some times. It's so virtual, so flat. And it often miscommunicates who the blogger is, because it creates a false persona (because blog posts tend to emphasize certain aspects of a person [and often not their best features] over against others). I bet if I met some of you folk in flesh and blood, you'd (and I'd) be surprised ;-). Anyway, I grow weary ...

Dispensationalists should "Re-interpret"

Addendum: See this dovetailing post I just read by Matthew Malcolm: Fundamentalist Hermeneutics Serves a Secularistic, Atheistic Agenda . Matthew's title is quite provocative, especially if you're still working from a dispensational hermeneutic; how would you counter Matthew's (and my) claim contra dispensational hermeneutics in particular? Matthew doesn't use the language of dispensational, but this is what he's referring to in the post (and then he broadens this out, as I have, to the issue that this revolves around; hermeneutical structure).

Rubin, Jerusalem circa. 1926

Must I? I guess I must. I must inform any of my newer readers that I grew up classic dispensational, moved to progressive dispensationalism (about 14 years ago), and finally (after much angst and study and deliberation ... seriously!) have arrived at all truth; viz. I am amillennial (so called). This is my little caveat prior to getting into the rest of this post. With that ground cleared before us, I simply wanted to highlight something that kept hitting me in the face as I was reading through Deuteronomy tonight. That is, that my dispensational brethren severely misread scripture (this is a strong statement ... who can hear it?) when they supposedly follow their literalist hermeneutic of interpretation instead of re-interpreting Scripture (like the New Testament authors did, as well as the early Church) in light of the Old Testament fulfillment, in Christ. Jesus was under no delusion that, indeed, Scripture was all about him; notice what he said to the religious leadership of his day (I think he would reiterate the same thing to Dispensationalists today):

³⁹ You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, ... John 5:39

Jesus understood the Old Testament Scriptures, and the promises therein, as finding their reality and fulfillment and purpose in him. He believed that the Scriptures, and the Old Testament promises to his covenant people were all about him; and that they were personally fulfilled in him. For example, as I was reading through Deuteronomy this evening, the concept of "land" and blessing and "Yahweh's people" kept popping up. Like the Jewish zealots of Jesus' day, dispensationalists collapse this promise of blessing in the land for Yahweh's people into a geo-political and "literal" promise that is yet (and is currently) to be fulfilled by the Jewish people in present day Israel (a sign of this fulfillment, for dispensationalists, is the re-establishment of the nation of Israel in 1948). But if we re-interpret these promises as if their fulfillment has come to reality in Jesus Christ, then the promise of blessing in the land for Yahweh's covenant people will be understood to have fulfillment in and through the obedient humanity of Christ as the new man; the new and obedient Israel (Eph. 2:11ff); and in the New Heavens and New Earth, the Heavenly Jerusalem, as described in Revelation 21--22. So there is a literal fulfillment after all, but it has already been fulfilled (the now and not yet aspect of the kingdom ... or the in-between time we inhabit currently) penultimately in Christ's first advent, and yet ultimately in Christ's second advent and the consummation of all things.

One of the problems for dispensationalists is that they understand "literal" through a neo-Platonic lens; so that there is a hard distinction between the spiritual heavenly realm and the physical earthly realm. What the dispensationalist fails to appreciate, properly, is that if we interpret all of reality and the purpose of creation through the analogy of the incarnation and the hypostatic union between the divine and human; that the hard distinction between heaven and earth is not a viable option. If you will, the dividing wall has been broken, and all things have become One in Christ. Thanks for letting me get this off my chest ...

*Repost

Some Perspective on Calvin

I just came across this quote from an acquaintance on Facebook---the quote intends to give a more round characterization of Calvin (or maybe demonize him):

John Calvin

Most Protestant Christians know John Calvin (1509 – 1564) as the French theologian of the Protestant Reformation who fathered Calvinism, the theological backbone of the Dutch Reformed and Presbyterian churches. However few know the unflattering, intollerant & self righteous side of Calvin, whom had 16th century Geneva (1540s & 1550s) under such control that he was known as the "the Protestant Pope" and the "Dictator of Geneva". Following is a brief synopsis of Calvin's life in Geneva, with URL linked references. A picture emerges of a well educated, polemic defender of the Reformed faith, who's vast theological contributions are marred by instances of religious intolerance, jealousy & mis-use of power/authority over those who disagreed w/ him, theologically or otherwise.

It is true that Calvin was a human being, or Luther's simul justus et peccator; ‎but what's the point of highlighting such things, if not (usually) to marginalize and poison the material that Calvin offered the church, theologically? This is not to say that I agree with Calvin just because he is Calvin; indeed, I disagree with some fundamental things relative to Calvin's theology (like his construal of election ... I advocate for our Evangelical Calvinist understanding instead). But, if I quit paying attention to theologians and Christians because of some sort of heinous sin or character flaw in their person; then, there would be no one to pay attention to in the Christian faith---not to mention, David (in the Old Testament). I am not excusing Calvin's flaws, I am only trying to provide some perspective; Calvin was a man. Usually the mood that often prompts the kind of sentiment communicated in the above quote comes with something related to Calvin's handling of the Servetus incident. I have an old post on that here.

Does Christian character matter? Yes! Was Calvin someone who sought Christ, and yet remained a sinner? Yes! It would be very scary, indeed, if we all were studied, scrutinized, and scoped the way Calvin is. I would imagine that we would all be disqualified from the faith. I don't think it is wrong to try and know who Calvin was, for historical reasons; but it is the way that this kind of historical reconstruction is used that causes me to be wary in such instances.