It wasn’t long before John [Chrysostom was condemning the extravagances he witnessed among the upper class of [Constantinople]. He preached that the earth was common property and that inequalities in wealth were tantamount to theft from God, who intended all to have access to the resources of creation.
The range of those in the city whom John offended was quite wide.
Irvin & Sundquist, History of the World Christian Movement, p. 190-91.
This is something I had to write for my church history class at Biblical Seminary.
1. Summary
“Of the Correction of the Donatists” is a letter from Augustine to Boniface, a government official in Africa. Augustine explains in this letter why the Donatists are in error, why the secular state is justified in using force against the Donatists, and why the Catholic Church is correct in admitting reformed Donatists back into fellowship.
Augustine first explains that the Donatists’ error consists in breaking from the authority of the Catholic Church. The Donatists, he notes, do not espouse any of the extant Christological or Trinitarian heresies. In fact, the Donatists’ error is particularly foolish, Augustine asserts, because they purport to esteem the scriptures highly. They recognize that the scriptures clearly teach the truth about Christ, but they ignore scripture’s teaching on the Church. The Donatists are happy to learn of Christ from the scriptures, but they build their understanding of the Church “from the vanity of human falsehood. . . .” In contrast, “the evidence of all the several scriptures with one accord proclaims the Church spread abroad throughout the world, with which the faction of Donatus does not hold communion.”
Augustine then responds to the Donatists’ argument that the civil authorities should not interfere with an internecine Church dispute about the legitimacy of disputed Bishoprics. He argues that the civil law, under the authority of Christian magistrates, operates as a form of divine discipline. When a Christian magistrate punishes schismatics, no less than when a physician administers a bitter medicine, the pain inflicted is an act of love. The sermons of Catholic preachers, the laws of Catholic princes, and the example of those who heed both kinds of warnings, all work together to reform society towards the goal of unity and salvation in Christ.
In the midst of this discussion, Augustine offers an excursus on civil disobedience and persecution. It is true, Augustine notes, that a righteous person ought to obey civil laws that are contrary to God’s truth. It is equally true, however, that those who disobey civil laws that are consistent with God’s truth are thereby condemned. It follows that those who are punished for failing to obey true laws gain no reward. “True martyrs” are those who suffer for the sake of righteousness. Augustine illustrates this point with reference to the Biblical figures of Hagar and Saul, who suffered just punishment, and therefore could not be considered “martyrs.” Thus, secular rulers need not fear that they are acting impiously by “persecuting” wayward people such as the Donatists. In persecuting the Donatists, secular princes are doing God’s work.
Augustine follows his discussion of the proper role of persecution with a critique of the Donatists’ excesses in seeking martyrdom. He notes that “vast crowds” of Donatists gathered at pagan festivals with the hope of being martyred, while others committed suicide. If a Christian prince acts harshly towards such people, he is doing so in order to save them from the worse fate of false martyrdom.
According to Augustine, the Donatists were not content to seek their own destruction. In addition, they acted violently against Catholics, seizing property, burning homes, and extracting extortionate protection payments. When some of the schismatics in Carthage began to return to the Catholic party after further schism among the Donatists, the Donatist leaders became even more fierce in their persecution of the Catholics, bringing general civil disorder to the region. This further demonstrates that is was appropriate for the civil authorities to step in and suppress the Donatists.
After this discussion of the need for civil order, Augustine offers another excursus on the theology of governmental force. Here he draws on two strains from scripture: the notion that kings should serve the Lord with “fear” and “trembling”; and the eschatological vision that all kings and nations will serve God. These theological principles, Augustine asserts, show that it is proper for secular princes to use force to compel schismatics to return to the true Church. This is confirmed by many examples of such uses of power in scripture, including Hezekiah’s destruction of high places, the Ninevite King’s decree that the people of his city turn to God, and Nebuchadnezzar’s law outlawing blasphemy against God.
Augustine then addresses the argument advanced by Donatist leaders that true faith cannot be compelled by force. Quite curiously, he quotes aphorisms of Roman playwright Publius Terentius concerning the discipline of children. He ties this to scriptures, mostly from Proverbs, about the discipline of servants. In addition, he offers the example of Paul, whom he says was compelled by the force of the Damascus Road experience to convert to Christianity. Finally, he offers the picture of Jesus as a shepherd, who must tame his sheep by the pain of the whip if they will not answer to more tender encouragements. Likewise, he suggests, the Church, and by extension kings who acknowledge the Church, are empowered to compel heretics and schismatics to return to the fold.
In Chapter Seven, Augustine discusses what sort of force is appropriate for a Christian prince to employ. He notes that he at first was convinced that only defensive force should be used. However, the savagery of the Donatists changed his mind. He learned, for example, of the assault on the Bishop of Bagai, who was beaten, stabbed, and dragged through the dust. This convinced Augustine that defensive force was not sufficient. Active, offensive force was required to root out the violent offenders and to deter others from joining their ranks.
Augustine then responds to the charge that the Catholic Church seeks to employ the law against the Donatists out of a desire for wealth and plunder. He argues that the Catholic Church is the true “society of the just,” tasked by God with the care of the poor and the proclamation of the gospel. It is the Donatists, then, who are acting selfishly by withholding from the Catholic Church the property and offerings that the Church could properly employ in its true mission.
Finally, in Chapter Eleven, Augustine briefly explains why such strong measures should be taken to encourage the Donatists to return to the true Church if, by defecting from the Church, members of the Donatist party have committed an unpardonable sin. Augustine argues that the “sin against the Holy Spirit” cannot truly be unpardonable while a person still lives, or else no one could ever be saved. The unpardonable sin must refer to a persistent refusal to acknowledge the truth through the end of a person’s mortal life. While a person is still living, he may repent and return to the true Church. If a person dies unrepentant of schism, however, he is lost forever.
2. Analysis
This document is significant because it establishes a framework for the relationship between the Church and the secular state that has persisted through the present day. Augustine and other orthodox thinkers believed that the temporal success and unity of the Church was a sign of the truth of the gospel (per, e.g., Athanasius in “On the Incarnation of the Word”). Moreover, they held to a strong ecclesiology in which the Church, through its Bishops, was the true successor to the Apostles. In that context, it was a forceful argument to suggest that God uses leaders of civil government as instruments of the Church’s triumph over evil. This line of thought provided theological heft to the transition from the pacifism of some of the early Patriarchs to the forcefulness of Constantinian Christianity.
Augustine’s notion that the civil state can encourage authentic faith through the coercive power of the law survives today in some versions of Christian political / legal theory. Indeed, it is employed in a modified fashion by many evangelicals in North America. For example, some of the arguments of those who support Constitutional amendments banning “gay marriage” hearken back to Augustine’s notion that civil law can serve as a loving moral corrective to bring sinners to God. Contemporary evangelicals tend to refract this idea through the lens of neo-Calvinism, particularly through the political theory of Abraham Kuyper and John Calvin. Nevertheless, the underlying tie between “common grace” and the role of the civil magistrate is essentially Augustinian.
I personally think this Augustinian heritage is both good and bad. The law indeed can be a moral teacher, civil magistrates are Biblically commissioned to promote justice and restrain evil, and common grace does operate in the sphere of civil government such that civil law can reflect to some extent the divine moral law (see, e.g., various Proverbs, Micah 6:8, Romans 13). However, the particularly Augustinian tie between the Church and the civil State is in my view troubling. I think many contemporary evangelicals fail to appreciate the ways in which such ties always implicate the Church in quite un-Christ-like coercion and violence – symbolic political “violence” if not actual physical violence.
Following is the start of my conversation with Daniel Harrell, author of Nature’s Witness (things in italics are my questions).
1. What motivated you to take on this project?
Theological integrity demands that whatever we think about faith and life correspond to the way things actually are as opposed to how we want or wish things to be. God is the God of reality. If evolution is real, then to reject it presents difficulties for Christian faith and theology. A proposed alternative is to assume that ultimate truth resides in the heart and mind of God and to assume evolution to be part of that truth (“all truth is God’s truth”). Based upon confirmed scientific data, a flourishing, robust Christianity stays faithful to the Biblical narrative as its source for theological reflection, while at the same time heralding scientific discovery as an accurate description of the universe on which theology reflects.
2. What sort of responses / reactions did you encounter from other Christians as you were exploring your approach? To the extent there were positive responses, how did they encourage you? To the extent there were negative responses, how have you manged them?
Overall, I have a received very positive responses. This may be a result of living and working in Boston with so many universities where people of faith are motivated to find areas of convergence between their beliefs and their academic interests. The most encouraging responses are those form people who are excited about being able to think theologically about evolution. The most negative from those for whom evolution=godlessness. Inasmuch as those folks are open to discuss, the conversations have been excellent.
This post introduces a series in conversation with Daniel Harrell, author of “Nature’s Witness: How Evolution Can Inspire Faith.” Daniel is a long-time Pastor at Park Street Church in Boston, MA. Park Street is an historic evangelical church.
Some readers of this blog, or other friends, colleagues or fellow church members who might stumble across it, might wonder why I’ve been diving into this topic.
First, let me say that I hope I can discuss the relationship between Christian faith and the natural sciences without being divisive. Obviously, many people within the evangelical tradition, which I claim as my own, including some friends and family members, hold strong views that differ from mine. I don’t write to dismiss those people, whose fellowship I greatly value.
At the same time, I understand my calling, training, and life’s work to be about exploring Christian faith and culture. This involves dialoguing with people oppose or are indifferent about the Christian faith concerning the truth and relevance of the gospel, as well as contributing to the spiritual and intellectual vitality of the Church, as God enables me. If the Church is failing to live up to some of the cultural challenges presented to it, or is not engaging questions of truth with integrity, I believe it’s part of my calling to offer whatever small contribution I can, relating to areas God has prompted and enabled me to study, towards reforming how we as the Church contextualize the gospel and represent Truth.
I hope it doesn’t appear that I have some delusion of grandeur about my own role in this process. It’s easy to come across as condescending when one has developed strong opinions after a period of careful study. There is a great array of Christian scholars and writers who are far more diligent and capable than I on any faith-and-culture issue you might name, some with perspectives different than mine, from whom I hope to continue learning.
Yet — I do believe that the evangelical tradition I love so much is facing something of a crisis of legitimacy because of the natural sciences. Our posture towards truth discovered in the natural sciences has too often been defensive, disingenuous, and dishonest. These are obviously strong words, and I use them, as we lawyers like to say, “advisedly.” But I think we need to be clear-headed about what is at stake.
As Christians we believe in Truth, with a capital-“T”. We should, of course, be appropriately chastened in our epistemic claims about what we think we know of ultimate Truth. Indeed, I think the “strong foundationalism” of some kinds of evangelical theology is part of our problem. Nevertheless, we are not after mere existential fantasies or illusory emotional states. We believe and proclaim that Jesus Christ is the center of a reality created by God, not of our own making. If we tie that proclamation to untruths about the nature of the material creation, we at best dilute our message and at worst make ourselves into hypocrites and liars.
Moreover, particularly in the global North / West, we live in an age that craves authenticity. Anyone under age fifty today in North America can smell dissembling a mile away. I believe our failure to accept truth from the natural sciences, and our apparent inability to reflect in a theologically robust and mature fashion on such truth, is a significant reason why Christianity has become more and more marginalized in North America. Is it any surprise that people suspect us of pulling a fast one when they realize that, in exchange for the warm comforts of faith, they have to check their brains and education at the church door, deny the reality of natural history, and buy into an incoherent alternative pseudo-science?
Finally, I think the 800-pound gorilla that is faith-and-science is unsettling to many faithful evangelical Christians in ways that represent a significant failure of pastoral care within our tradition. A reasonably smart and informed person who digs in to the stock “answers” he or she is likely to receive regarding these questions in an evangelical context will find them lame. For many — and I can testify that this was true for me and for many other people I’ve met — this can prompt significant spiritual and emotional turmoil. This gorilla cannot be ignored or it eventually will squash many fine Christian people.
The good news is that, in the best tradition of evangelicalism, increasing numbers of evangelical scientists, pastors and theologians are beginning to discuss evolutionary science openly and clearly. Daniel Harrell, I think, is one such person. These conversations actually have a significant history in evangelicalism, going back to some contemporaries of Darwin who did not think his theory an inherent threat to faith. Even so, church history demonstrates that it can take hundreds of years to develop a robust, widely accepted consensus on challenging questions. There are some significant theological challenges inherent in biological evolution, and there is not yet a clear or simple solution to every challenge. These challenges shouldn’t be feared, because retreating from Truth is not an option. Rather, we need to try to meet them humbly with every grace God provides.
Next post: starting my conversation with Daniel Harrell.
A new theological dictionary from John Frye. This seems promising.
“The path to theological maturity leads necessarily through the study of the Christian past, and this requires a kind of spiritual and intellectual apprenticeship. Before we become masters we must become disciples. From the great thinkers of Christian history, we learn how to use the language of faith, to understand the inner logic of theological ideas, to discern the relation between seemingly disparate concepts, to discover what is central and what peripheral, and to love God above all things. Before we learn to speak on our own we must allow others to form our words and guide our thoughts. Historical theology is an exercise in humility, for we discover that theology is as much a matter of receiving as it is of constructing, that it has to do with the heart as well as with the intellect, with character as well as with doctrines, with love as well as with understanding.”
— Robert Louis Wilken
“Wisdom is, I suppose, the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom.” — Charles Haddon Spurgeon
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.
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
[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.”
Here it is.
This is a heads-up for Craig Detweiler’s blog on faith and film. Detweiler runs the Reel Spirituality Institute at Fuller Seminary. Pretty cool.