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Biblical Seminary Culture Justice Law and Policy

Gleanings Laws for Today

In Missional Theology I, we were required to write  contemporary paraphrase of the gleanings laws in Lev. 19:9-10 and Deut. 24: 19-22. Here is mine:

Now when you develop ever more sophisticated global communication networks that facilitate creativity and trade, when you discover new medicines, when your lands produces the abundance resulting from advanced farming and husbandry technologies and genetically modified stock and seeds, when your study of the human genome yields new insights about human health, when you create new cultural and technological goods from the traditional and biological resources of the South, you shall not seek all the rents available to an efficient monopolist under a strong intellectual property regime; you shall leave a portion of the rents to the poor, the orphan, the widow, and the stranger. You shall permit the poor, the orphan, the widow and the stranger to access your technologies and information on equitable terms that promote their welfare and development. You shall remember that you were once a developing country and the LORD brought you freedom and abundance; therefore I am commanding you to do this thing.

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Biblical Seminary Spirituality

Bono at the Prayer Breakfast

We were assigned to watch this for Missional Theology I.  Outstanding.

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Biblical Seminary Epistemology Theology

Faith Thinking

This is Part I of my review of Faith Thinking:  The Dynamics of Christian Theology by Trevor Hart.  This was the first book assigned in my Missional Theology I course at BTS

Trevor Hart’s Faith Thinking is a prolegomena to Christian theology in the tradition of “faith seeking understanding.”  In essence, Hart seeks to envision Christian theology as the extension of a MacIntyreian tradition, utilizing the epistemological resources of “critical realism.”

In his introduction, Hart outlines his project and discusses the contours of “faith” and “theology.” “Faith,” he notes, “will always seek to enter into a fuller and deeper knowledge and understanding of that which matters most to it.”   This means that, although faith is situated within a tradition, it is not merely a rote repetition of that tradition.  Faith is concerned both with the “internal coherence” of contemporary expressions of the tradition and the “external reference” of those expressions to other sources and facets of knowledge.   Faith is integrative.  It must “seek .  .  . to come to terms with the problems and the possibilities of integrating our faith in its various aspects into a wider picture of things entertained by society; thereby inhabiting a more or less integrated world, a universe rather than a multiverse.”

“Theology” is an attempt to understand the object and place of faith.   Theology, then, is an effort to understand reality – the universe – from a stance of faith.  Christian theology, in particular, tries to “sketch an intellectual contour of reality as it appears from within the stance of a living and active faith in Christ . . . .”   If all Christians are called to seek after God’s purposes, then all Christians to some degree or another are engaged in the theological task.

Although Hart does not say so directly, his project clearly is an effort to view Christian theology from the perspective of critical realism.  “Critical realism” is an epistemological position that is both realist and critical.   It is “realist” in that, as with Enlightenment empiricists and rationalists, it affirms that human beings are capable of true knowledge of a real world that is not merely constructed.  It is “critical” in that, as with contemporary postmodernists, it recognizes that all human knowledge is constrained, situated, incomplete, and provisional.   In contemporary theology, critical realism is represented in the thinking of Michael Polanyi, Alasdair MacIntyre, Leslie Newbiggin, N.T. Wright, Alister McGrath, and others, many of them referred to by Hart throughout the book.

Categories
Biblical Seminary Theological Hermeneutics Theology

Analogies for Scripture: Buildings or Neurobiology?

In my Missional Theology class at BTS, we’ve been discussing the nature and task of “theology.”  One aspect of the discussion is the role of scripture in theology.  Some folks think of theology as a house, with scripture as its foundation.  This is an interesting analogy, particularly when we consider the creativity of the architect and the need to remodel the house at times when the landscape or neighborhood changes. 

But, I wonder if the “foundationalist” metaphor for scripture is a good one.  If scripture always has to be received and interpreted, and if we require the Holy Spirit to “illuminate” scripture for scripture to function as God intends in the Church, does the analogy of scripture to the unchanging foundation of a house stretch things too far?  I wonder if the Apostle Paul’s frequent use of the analogy of a “body” in relation to the Church provides some different resources for thinking about the relationship of scripture to theology? 

I wonder if scripture is more like the physical structures of the brain.  Those structures regulate how we are capable of perceiving and thinking about the world.  They are adapted to give us useful data — though not perfectly complete God’s-eye data — of the world we live in so that we can function effectively as human beings.  Perhaps scripture is more like this than like the foundation of a building.  Scripture regulates how an organism, the body of Christ, perceives and thinks about God and about how to live in the world God created.

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Biblical Seminary

Missional Theology I — Online

I’m looking forward to this, starting in a couple of weeks:

 

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Biblical Seminary

Biblical Seminary: Missional Theology I Video

Here’s a video for the online Missional Theology I course at Biblical Seminary that (Lord willing) I’m taking starting next month.  I’m psyched for this one.

Categories
Biblical Seminary Historical Theology Theology

Athanasius: The Incarnation of the Word

Here is a brief analytical review I did for my Church History class at Biblical Seminary on Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word of God.

I. Summary

In “On the Incarnation of the Word,” Athanasius, Patriarch of Alexandria in the fourth century, offers a comprehensive apology for an orthodox understanding of the incarnation of Christ.  The apology is a masterful blending of narrative theology (to use an anachronistic term) and philosophical analysis.

Athanasius begins with an argument from creation.   He argues that there are different parts of creation that serve different functions, just as there are different parts of a human body.  One part cannot cause a part with a different function to exist.  For example, the Sun cannot cause the Moon to exist.  It follows, Athanasius argues, that every part of creation must have been brought into existence by a cause prior to any individual part.  Athanasius distinguishes this view of creation from the Platonic notion of eternally preexisting matter.  The Christian notion of the creator-God, unlike the Platonic ergon or the Gnostic demiurge, alone accounts for God as the cause of creation’s existence.

Athanasius then turns to the creation and rebellion of man.  Human beings were created by God “after His own image, giving them a portion even of the power of His own word.”[1]  Even though humans were “by nature mortal,” they were capable of immortality because the “likeness” of God would “stay [their] natural corruption.”[2]  But men turned away from God and thereby “became the cause of their own corruption in death. . . .”[3]  The effect of man’s rebellion was a sort of feedback loop of corruption:  “the race of man was perishing; the rational man made in God’s image was disappearing, and the handiwork of God was in process of dissolution.”[4]

God’s solution to the dissolution caused by human sin was the incarnation.  The incarnation had two purposes:  to end the law of sin and death, and to facilitate human knowledge of God.  Concerning the first purpose of the incarnation, God had mercy on humankind and “condescended to our corruption” by becoming a man, Jesus Christ.[5]  The death and resurrection of Christ ended the law of death for all humankind.[6]  Concerning the second purpose, God had provided evidence of Himself in the creation, the law and the prophets, but men ignored this evidence.[7]  Christ came to remind men of the nature and purpose for which they were created.  The life and works of Christ testify even more clearly than creation, the law, or the prophets to the glory for which man was originally created.[8] After describing the two purposes of the incarnation, Athanasius anticipates some objections to his Christology, in particular that an incarnate God must be part of the creation and therefore no longer God over creation.  He notes that Christ was not “bound to His body,” but was sustaining the universe at the same time as he was “wielding” his body.[9]  Yet, at the same time, his body was truly his own and was a real human body.[10]

The next chapters describe reasons for Christ’s death by crucifixion and for his resurrection on the third day.  Athanasius argues that the crucifixion demonstrated that Christ did not die of natural causes as an ordinary man.  Moreover, the public nature of crucifixion guaranteed that Christ truly died and forecloses any argument that the resurrection was faked.  Further, the crucifixion is a sign of God’s invitation to participate in the atonement:  “[f]or it is only on the cross that a man dies with his hands spread out.”[11]
  Finally, three days in the grave was a long enough period to demonstrate that Christ had truly died, but not so long as to raise suspicion that his body had been stolen.
           

After discussing these aspects of Christ’s death and resurrection, Athanasius argues that the changed lives of Christians and the power of the “sign of the Cross” prove the power of the crucifixion and resurrection.  The power of the sign of the Cross over demons and idols shows that Christ is “living and active” in the world.[12]  The Cross is thereby established as “a moment of victory over death and its corruption.”[13]

Having established the victory of Christ’s death and resurrection over the sinful trajectory set by man’s rebellion, Athanasius turns to the question why the Jews and the Greeks reject the claims of Christ.  With respect to the Jews, Athanasius argues that the Hebrew scriptures clearly prophecy the passion and death of Christ, including the particulars of the cross and Daniel’s supposed prediction of the date of Christ’s birth.  He further argues that the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem shows that Judaism has been judged by Christ.            

Concerning the Greeks, Athanasius argues for the propriety of the incarnation, a notion Greek philosophy thought scandalous.  God became incarnate in Christ so that he could offer true healing and restoration rather than mere correction by fiat.[14]  Moreover, human corruption was not ontologically separate from embodied humanity, and therefore could only be addressed by embodiment.[15]  Corruption and death had become intrinsic to human nature and would have remained so had Christ not become incarnate and been raised incorruptible.  Finally, the incarnate Christ is superior to pagan gods in the quality of his works, the continuing power of his presence (evidenced in the lives of his followers and the effects of the sign of the Cross), and Christianity’s capacity to pacify warring cultures.             

Athanasius sums up his argument by highlighting the triumphal progress of the gospel.  The telos of human history is realized in Christ:  “He was made man that we might be made God.”[16]  This process of theosis is progressively illuminating the entire world.[17]  All who search the Scriptures with pure intentions, Athanasius concludes, will clearly see and understand the glory of Christ.

II.  Discussion

The “Incarnation of the Son of God” is historically significant because it presents a rich account of the importance of the incarnation in Athanasius’ theology.  Athanasius was a key defender of orthodox Christology against Arius.  The “Incarnation” establishes that only one who is both the creator and a human being can remove the corruption of humanity that results from sin.

Athanasius’ anthropology, theory of atonement, and eschatology as reflected in the “Incarnation” also offer interesting resources for contemporary Christian theology as we wrestle to come to grips with the natural sciences after Darwin.  Athanasius’ anthropology  answers reductionist accounts of human nature without requiring an unsustainable reliance on prelapsarian humans with incorruptible physical bodies.  For Athanasius, the “likeness” of God  in prelapsarian humanity kept corruption at bay rather than anything inherent in the physical human body.

The “Christus Victor” emphasis of Athanasius’ theory of atonement and his eschatology of theosis likewise provide helpful resources to missional Christians living in a scientific age.  Evolutionary psychology suggests that humans are programmed by nature and history for selfishness.[18]  In our “natural” state, we are mere brutes.  Only the presence of Christ can defeat our brutish nature and enable us to live in consonance with the divine.  Moreover, the victorious presence of the divine in redeemed humanity establishes the conditions necessary for all of creation to realize its potential.  The presence of Christ in the Church is the means by which God ultimately will direct the entire creation to its proper telos.          



[1] Chapter 3, § 3.

[2] Chapter 4, § 5.

[3] Chapter 5, § 1.

[4] Chapter 6, § 1.

[5] Chapter 8, § 2.

[6] See Chapter 10, § 5:  “For by the sacrifice of his own body, He both put an end to the law which was against us, and made a new beginning of life for us, by the hope of resurrection over men, for this cause conversely, by the Word of God being made man has come about the destruction of death and the resurrection of life . . . .”

[7] See Chapter 12, § 3:  “So it was open to them, by looking into the height of heaven, and perceiving the harmony of creation, to know its Ruler, the Word of the Father, Who, by His own providence over all things makes known the Father to all, and to this end moves all things, that through Him all may know God.”

[8] This is stated memorably in Chapter 14, § 1:  “[f]or as, when the likeness painted on a panel has been effaced by stains from without, he whose likeness it is must needs come once more to enable the portrait to be renewed on the same wood:  for, for the sake of his picture, even the mere wood on which it is painted is not thrown away, but the outline is renewed upon it.”

[9] Chapter 17, §§ 3-5.  Athanasius states:  “And this was the wonderful thing that He was at once walking a man, and as the Word was quickening all things, and as the Son was dwelling with His Father.”

[10] Chapter 18, § 1:  “the actual body which ate, was born, and suffered, belonged to none other but to the Lord:  and because, having become man, it was proper for these things to be predicated of Him as man, to shew Him to have a body in truth, and not in seeming.”

[11] Chapter 25, § 1.

[12] By the sign of the Cross, Athanasius says, “all magic is stopped, and all witchcraft brought to nought, and all the idols are being deserted and left, and every unruly pleasure is checked, and everyone is looking up from earth to heaven. . . .”  Chapter 31, § 2.

[13] Chapter 32, § 4.

[14] “Let them know that the Lord came not to make a display, but to heal and teach those who were suffering.”  Chap. 43, § 1.

[15] Chapter 44, § 4 (“the corruption which had set in was not external to the body, but had become attached to it; and it was required that, engendered in the body, so life may be engendered in it also.”). 

[16] Chapter 54, § 3.

[17] Chapter 55, § 2 (“[f]or as, when the sun is come, darkness no longer prevails, but if any be still left anywhere it is driven away; so, now that the divine Appearing of the Word of God is come, the darkness of the idols prevails no more, and all parts of the world in every direction are illumined by His teaching.”

 [18] In evolutionary psychology, even instances of “altruism” are motivated by drives that ultimately are selfish.

Categories
Biblical Seminary Historical Theology Spirituality

Women and the Early Church

In our first World Christian History lecture, Prof. Thomas mentioned the importance of women in the early church.  No, this wasn’t revisionist neo-gnostic hooey — it was simply the role that widows and other women played in showing hospitality and spreading the gospel.  This made me think of my mom.  My mom is the paradigm of the “older woman” in Titus 2, who is able to teach younger people and set a good example.  She tirelessly teaches Bible study groups with other women, and many have come to Christ or been deepened in the faith by her mentoring.  She’ll stand with those first and second century women some day as true heroes of the faith.

Categories
Biblical Seminary Culture Historical Theology

Christian History — Contextualization

I’m starting my first class today as a student at Biblical Seminary.  I’ll be working ever so slowly on a Masters in Missional Theology.  Hopefully God will use this to enrich my work as a law professor and in the local church, as well as to deepen and broaden my own faith.  My first course is an online class in World Christian History.  We started with this great quote:

“. . . All historically visible Christianities are partial manifestations of an essence that is never seen in an unmixed form, and can never be seen in its wholeness and entirely on earth. The ‘God’s eye’ view of the eternal of the Christian Church is just that. Every manifestation of Christianity is partial because it is always a composite. The churches never escape their social context and the value of their host society. So the Christian message and the Christian life always combine elements drawn from the ethos and assumptions of the age (which, of course, Christianity, in turn) help to shape.” Evan Cameron, Interpreting Christian History, pg. 86.

Nice.