Category: Theology

New Series: Reading the Text(s) of Scripture

Post author By David Opderbeck
Post date July 28, 2008
5 Comments on New Series: Reading the Text(s) of Scripture

Thomas of Everyday Liturgy and I have run out of steam on the “postmodern apologetics” series, so we’re starting a new one on “Reading the Text(s) of Scripture.” Thomas and I both were educated in (he: Philadelphia Biblical University; me: Gordon College), and worship and fellowship in, the evangelical world, so we’re both aware of the hornet’s nest any discussion of the doctrine of scripture can stir up. We’re hoping, though, that this will not be taken as another set of broadsides in the “battle for the Bible,” or as picking fights, but rather that it will represent the reflections of two textual scholars from outside the theological guild (he: literature and literary theory; me: case law, statutes and constitutions), with a missional sensibility, on the nature of the Biblical texts.

We’ll approach this as follows: we’ll first offer a quote from a systematic theology text / book / article on the doctrine of scripture and/or Biblical hermeneutics, or a passage directly from scripture about scripture, and then we’ll offer our personal reflections on the quote.

As a lawyer, I often feel compelled to append disclaimers to everything, so let me add one here: we are both very imperfect, but serious, Christians, and so we both take the Bible to be “scripture.” Whatever precise statements, definitions, qualifications, and such we each might feel comfortable with concerning the doctrine of scripture and hermeneutics, at the end of the day we both seek to submit to and be transformed by God as He speaks through scripture. If there are any elements of “deconstruction” of any of the definitions we discuss — and I’m not prejudging that there necessarily will be — that is only for the purpose, we hope, of understanding more fully, expressing more articulately, and representing more faithfully and truthfully the power and majesty of the scriptures.

Coming up next…. the first quote.

Theology

Pete Enns Moving On

Post author By David Opderbeck
Post date July 24, 2008

Peter Enns and Westminster Seminary issued a joint statement that Enns will leave WTS effective August 1. I’m glad the statement acknowledges that Enns’ “teaching and writings fall within the purview of Evangelical thought.” It will be interesting to see where he ends up. The detailed official WTS documents expose a deep rift in the WTS systematic and biblical studies faculty. I suspect that this reflects a set of fault lines in Evangelicalism as a whole:

between systematic theology, which offers a coherent system of doctrinal statements, and biblical theology, which has to wrestle with the diversity of sources that make up the canonical text;
between systematic theology and practical theology, which has to relate the theological system to the plurality of circumstances that confront us in the real world; and
between systematic theology, and pastoral / theological leadership, and the realities of professional life in a globalized, pluralistic world.

This isn’t meant as an indictment of systematic theology as a discipline. It’s important that the Church articulate propositional content about the Christian faith and maintain a sense of the tradition that runs back to the Apostles. But, I think we’re seeing a much better educated, much better traveled, much more socially aware generation of Evangelical Christians asking questions about things like how our understanding of ancient near eastern history, or the natural sciences, or the enormous diversity of cultures in the world, stretches our system in some places. In my view, that’s a good thing, but as the Enns situation illustrates, it can be difficult.

Science & Technology Theology

Groothuis on McGrath

Douglas Groothuis’ review essay on natural theology (Books & Culture, July/August 2008) is disappointing, particularly in its treatment of Alister McGrath’s work. Groothuis considers McGrath’s “In the Twilight of Atheism” to be “unphilosophical.” Twlight, however, is more of a historical than a philosophical argument, as Groothuis observes. For philosophical arguments, Groothuis should have turned to McGrath’s “Intellectuals Don’t Need God (and Other Myths)” as well as McGrath’s more pastoral work on these themes, “Doubting.” Concerning very specific historical, philosophical, and theological arguments against the “new atheists,” Groothuis could have read McGrath’s “Dawkins’ God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life” and “The Dawkins Delusion.”

Groothuis does refer in an off-handed footnote to McGrath’s “The Science of God,” but he apparently completely misunderstands McGrath’s Scientific Theology project, which is fleshed out more fully in three massive volumes that Groothuis fails to mention. Far from “remov[ing] the possibility that [natural theology] provides evidence for the existence of God apart from the Bible,” McGrath states explicity, in the very pages cited by Groothuis, that “[o]n the basis of a detailed survey of the biblical material, it seems that a knowledge of God [from nature], however limited, is indeed presupposed.” (Science of God, p. 79.) McGrath then carefully demonstrates, followingThomas Torrance, why Karl Barth’s wholesale rejection of natural theology was an overreaction to some of the intellectual currents of Barth’s day. (Science of God, pp. 82-91).

McGrath concludes the section on natural theology in The Science of God by affirming that “the human mind possesses the capacity to recognize [God’s] work of creation as such, and to draw at least some reliable conclusions concerning the nature and character of God from the created order.” (Science of God, p. 89.) Groothuis’ real beef with McGrath’s Scientific Theology seems to be McGrath’s careful conclusion that this affirmation is not a “‘necessary truth of reason,'” but rather rests on some presuppositions that can be known only through revelation. This is hardly a “redefinition” of natural theology, pace Groothuis, but rather is fully consistent with the Reformed tradition concerning human noetic limitations.

While it is inexcusable that Groothuis gives such short shrift to McGrath’s earlier work, it is inconceivable that Groothuis missed McGrath’s magesterial new book, “The Open Secret: A New Perspective on Natural Theology.” McGrath there lays out a detailed, balanced, nuanced, and thoroughly Reformed and Biblial natural theology, summarized as follows: “A Christian natural theology is about seeing nature in a specific manner, which allows the observer to discern in what is seen the truth, beauty, and goodness of a trinitarain God who is already known; and which allows nature to function as a pathway towards this same God for secular culture as a whole.” (The Open Secret, p. 148.)

One wonders whether Groothuis’ real problem with McGrath is that, unlike many American rationalistic apologists — including Groothuis — McGrath consistently refuses to buy into the false notion that analytic philosophy can provide logical proof of God or that “strong” intelligent design theory adds anything meaningful to reasoned apologetics. In fact, in his anti-Dawkins books, McGrath properly takes the strong intelligent design program to task as a warmed-over version of William Paley’s long-discredited “watchmaker” argument. It seems that, in some circles, any theologian who questions the strong intelligent design lobby gets “expelled” from the discussion. Yet, McGrath is warm to the Reformed and Patristic understanding that nature displays “intelligent design” in its beauty and regularity, and that the “fine tuning” of the universe for human life “corresponds to a Christian understanding of the nature of God.” (The Open Secret, p. 244). It is a shame that Groothuis’ own limited horizons blind him to McGrath’s signficant contribution to developing a natural theology for our times.

Epistemology Humor Theology

A Third Way Between Modernist Rationalism and Postmodern Relativism

Post author By David Opderbeck
Post date July 12, 2008

Here’s a lengthy quote from a recent book that touches on epistemological debates within evangelical Christianity. Who wrote it?

On the face of it, we seem set, at least in America, for an unyielding confrontation between foundationalism and postfoundationalism — a ‘take no prisoners’ war in which there can be only winners and losers.

But there is another way. A chastened modernism and a ‘soft’ postmodernism might actually discover that they are saying rather similar things. A chastened or modest modernism pursues the truth but recognizes how much we humans do not know, how often we change our minds, and some of the factors that go into our claims to knowledge. A chastened postmodernism heartily recognizes that we cannot avoid seeing things from a certain perspective (we are all perspectivalists, even if perspectivalists can be divided into those who admit it and those who don’t) but acknowledges that there is a reality out there that we human beings can know, even if we cannot know it exhaustively or perfectly, but only from our own perspective. We tend to slide up to the truth, to approach it asymptotically — but it remains self-refuting to claim to know truly that we cannot know the truth. To set such a modest modernism and such a chastened postmodernism side-by-side is to see how much alike they are. They merely put emphases in different places.

So who said it? D. A. Carson, in his interesting new book Christ and Culture Revisited. I think Carson says some very valuable things here. In fact, he seems to be reflecting the sort of “critical realism” that I think is the most fruitful contemporary approach to epistemology. I might not endorse all of Carson’s critiques of the emerging church, but the sort of perspective he offers here is most welcome, in my view.

Epistemology Theology

Humble Apologetics — Book Review

Post author By David Opderbeck
Post date July 12, 2008
4 Comments on Humble Apologetics — Book Review

John Stackhouse is fast becoming one of my favorite writers. His book Humble Apologetics is a winsome approach to offering our apologia — the reasons for the hope that is within us — in our pluralistic world.

A substantial strength of this book is Stackhouse’s admonishment that we engage in apologetics that are appropriate to our cultural time and place. The Church no longer dominates western society, and basic Christian truths are no longer assumed. for many who are engaged in the culture wars, these facts are cause for, well, war. But as Stackhouse notes,

[w]hat is not so clear to many Christians . . . is that multiculturalism and extensive religious plurality can offer an opportunity for Christians to shed the baggage of cultural dominance that has often impeded or distorted the spread of the gospel. It may be, indeed, that the decline of Christian hegemony can offer the Church the occasion to adopt a new and more effective stance of humble service toward societies it no longer controls.

This call to an apologetic based on service is much needed today.

Stackhouse also helpfully critiques apologetic efforts that require one person to answer every question and provoke a moment of crisis in order to close the deal. As Stackhouse notes,

“[w]hen it comes to anything important in life as a Christian, and particularly in apologetic conversation that aims to benefit the neighbor, we remember this cardinal principle: You can’t do it all no matter what you do, so don’t try! We are part of the Church, which itself is only one corporate player in God’s great mission of global peacemaking. We must do just what we each can do, and trust the ret of the Chruch and God himself to do their parts as well.”

A key point here is that apologetics, like every other endeavor in the Christian life, is about love, not about “winning” arguments.

Like all work on apologetics, Stackhouse’s broader project is epistemological — the question “how do we know and what can we know it” relates directly to the question “what reasons can we present to others for belief in Christ.” I’ll quote a key passage at length because it’s so important:

[g]iven historic Christian teachings regarding the finitude and fallenness of human beings and of our thinking in particular, we must be careful not to claim too much for what we believe. We Christians should not need postmodernists to tell us that we do not know it all. We should not need anyone to tell us that all human thought is partial, distorted, and usually deployed in the interest of this or that personal agenda. We can be grateful for those postmodern voices that have reminded us of these truths, but we believe them because our own theological tradition says so.

Thus we are as committed as we can be to what we believe is real, and especially to the One whome we love, worship and obey as the Way, the Truth and the Life. We gladly offer what, and whom, we believe we have found to be true to our neighbors in the hope that they also will recognize it, and him, as true. We recognize that there are good reasons for them not to believe, even as we recognize there can be good reasons for our own doubts. Indeed, we can recognize taht God may have given them some things to teach us, and we gratefully receive them in the mutual exchange of God’s great economy of shalom.

We recognize, ultimately, that to truly believe, to truly commit oneself to God, is itself a gift that God alone bestows. Conversion is a gift. Faith is a gift. God alone can change minds so that those minds can both see and embrace the great truths of the gospel, and the One who stands at their center.

Not surprisingly, some rationalist evangelicals have criticized this call to epistemic humility. In my view, however, Stackhouse hits the epistemic nail on the head. A holistic apologetic, that treats others as fellow human beings rather than targets, one way or another will recognize that we don’t know it all, and will point away from ourselves to Christ. This is the ultimate goal of all the arguments and evidence we can muster.

Theology

Frame on Enns; and the "Data" of Scripture

Post author By David Opderbeck
Post date July 12, 2008
3 Comments on Frame on Enns; and the "Data" of Scripture

Here is a good article by John Frame on Pete Enns’ Inspiration and Incarnation (HT: Conn-versation). Frame, who was at WTS for many years and is now at RTS, is critical of Enns’ project, but not harshly so. For example, Frame states that

“[o]n the question of bias in historical writing, I largely agree with Enns. I agree that“there really is no such thing as objective historiography. It is certainly true that often Scripture doesn’t present narratives in chronological order. The standards of “historical” writing in the ancient world were different from our own. Evangelicals have generally recognized this.”

In his conclusion, he writes

I commend Enns for writing a very stimulating book, packed with useful, digestible information about Scripture and the literature of the Ancient Near East. His motive is to help the church to move away from a sort of over-defensive treatment of Scripture rigidly defined by a grammatical-historical method that Scripture itself doesn’t endorse. I applaud that as well. I do nevertheless disagree with the book more than I agree with it.

So Enns is not here the Devil incarnate. Too bad the discussion hasn’t had this kind of tone all along.

On the disagreements, Frame reveals a key issue — I think, the key issue — dividing the factions: he says Enns

shows an unwillingness, curious for an evangelical, to say anything about the relation of inspiration to historical factuality. When he speaks about “evidence” for this or that event, the evidence is always inductive, never an appeal to divine inspiration as evidence. Perhaps Enns thinks that inspiration is such an event that we may never appeal to it as evidence. I think that position is inconsistent with Scripture’s own view of itself.

The really divisive issue is about the historicity of some of the events narrated in scripture, particularly in the Old Testament, whether the Bible itself counts as a historical datum, and if so, the extent to which this is the case. Frame is a presuppositionalist, and so for him, taking the Bible as God’s inspired word means that Biblical narratives that present themselves as factual must be taken as factual and that other evidences must be interpreted in light of those narratives. If there appears to be a conflict between the Biblical data and data from other sources, we might find that we’ve misunderstood the text, but outside data can never falsify the text.

The accomodationist position, in contrast, says data outside the text can help us understand the meaning of the text even to the point of showing that God may have used a human writer to convey theological truth in making reference to narratives that are historically inaccurate.

The presuppositional inerrantist says, “the Bible says there was a worldwide flood, therefore there was in fact a worldwide flood. If data from the natural sciences show that there was no worldwide flood, perhaps we’ve misunderstood what the ancient writers meant by ‘worldwide,’ or perhaps the scientific data starts from incorrect presuppositions.” The accomodationist says, “the Bible says there was a worldwide flood but this is clearly contradicted by data from the natural sciences. Perhaps we’ve misunderstood what the ancient writers meant by ‘worldwide,’ or perhaps the ancient writers are referring to a tradition that is more fictive than real, which God employs for a theological point in scripture. It’s possible the natural sciences are mistaken on this, but the data are so strong that this seems almost impossible.” (I should be clear that Enns doesn’t say exactly this in his book; other accomodationists, such a Kent Sparks, say this sort of thing explicitly). This question of what sort of “data” scripture comprises, I think, is the hinge not only of the Westminster faculty debate, but of all contemporary evangelical debates about the precise contours of inspiration, inerrancy, and/or infallibility.

Personally, I find this a very difficult question. On the one hand, I lean towards Frame’s view. If scripture is God’s word, and scripture tells us some event happened, it seems to me that we are bound to confess that it happened. It is helpful that Frame and others in his “camp” acknowledge that the human side of scripture means our interpretations of the events scripture portrays must be provisional, and that extra-Biblical data can indeed help us see more clearly the kind of history scripture gives us, without giving up all historical referents. And it is important to remember that our ultimate posture towards God’s word is reverence and faith.

At the same time, I find Enns and other accomodationists helpful in pointing out in detail some of the ways in which scripture really is quite obviously human. It’s immensely refreshing to be able to “relax” a bit in the effort to figure out and defend how every Biblical story that seems strange to modern ears fits together with our much more detail-oriented scientific worldview. What a blessing not to have to invent a new pseudo-science and not to have to engage textual criticism and archeology in the fear that the Bible and the Christian faith might be proven untrue by the fruits of “secular” scholarship! What grace not to have to compartmentalize the way one thinks about truth and knowledge!

I guess I’d like to chart a middle course here. The Bible narrates key events in redemption history that, it seems to me, need to have an historical referent for the narrative to hold together: the fall of man, the flood, the exodus, the conquest. From the text alone, however, it is clear that these events are often presented in a highly contextualized way, appropriate to the unique literary conventions and genres used by the human writers of scripture. Moreover, modern approaches to scientific and historical knowledge, which have their own integrity, also shed light on the situatedness of the Biblical text. So, we shouldn’t press for an unworkable synthesis between the Biblical narratives and modern scientific / historical scholarship, nor should we reject scientific or historical-critical conclusions out of hand; but at the same time we should affirm a historical referent for Biblical narratives that purport to be offering real event in redemption history. This is my best effort right now to be faithful and truthful as an informed layperson. Thoughts?

Books and Film Historical Theology Looking Glass Science & Technology Spirituality Theology

Narrative Statement of Faith

Post author By David Opderbeck
Post date June 23, 2008
19 Comments on Narrative Statement of Faith

I’ve been working on a narrative statement of faith — something that would tell the story of the historical Christian faith, which could be used in a church setting in lieu of the usual bullet-point summaries evangelical churches often favor. I wouldn’t say this is necessarily what I think of as the core of the core of the core of the faith, but it expresses for me the contours of what I think it would be good to express as the basic story in which a local church becomes embodied. It probably is still too “propositional” and not “narrative” enough, and I don’t claim to be an authoritative source, but here is what I’ve come up with:

There are many different kinds of “Christians,” but we all share at least one very important thing in common: “Christians” seek to follow Christ. As Jesus taught us, we are learning together how to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. This kind of love is the grand summary of everything we want to be about at [insert name] Church.

But the story starts much farther back. When we speak of “God” we speak, in many ways, of a mystery: the “triune” God, or “trinity,” of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three persons in one God. God always was, and he never needed anything. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit danced together and could have gone on dancing without us.

But in his goodness and love, God made room for – created – the heavens and the earth. Everything that exists is the result of God’s choice to create. Things continue to exist because God in his love desires it to be so.

Human beings are a very special part of God’s creation. He made each one of us to live in loving relationship with Himself, each other, and the created world. Yet from the very beginning, human beings have rebelled against God. Each of us continually turns away from the good things God has planned for us. We each try to go our own way, even though our ways lead to brokenness, injustice, and the separation of death. We all sin.

But God pursues us. In the person of the Son, Jesus, God became a person like us. He experienced hunger and pain, loneliness and temptation, separation and loss . . . yet, unlike us, he did so without rebelling against God. In fact, we proclaim a mystery: that Jesus became fully man and yet remained fully God.

As the God-man, Jesus died a terrible death on a Roman cross. His death is a paradox because, unlike any other death in history, Jesus’ death was a victory. In his death, Jesus took on himself all of the consequences of our sin. All of the hurt we have caused, and all of the hurt we deserve, he willingly suffered.

Jesus’ death was a victory because he did not remain in the grave. We shout, along with all the generations of Christians who have lived during the two thousand years from the time of Christ until today: “He is risen!”

Christ left the Earth but lives today and reigns with God the Father. Christians wait eagerly for the time when, as he promised, Christ will return to Earth to “make all things new,” to wipe every tear from our eyes, to complete the victory he won on the cross over sin and all the brokenness it causes. We live now in a time-in-between – a time of hoping, waiting, working, expecting, rejoicing-in-part, seeing-in-part, and sometimes suffering – while we wait for the time of restoration and peace Jesus called the “Kingdom of God.”

We are not alone in this twilight time. God the Holy Spirit dwells in each person who trusts in Christ, to empower, comfort, guide and correct. The community of all Christians through the ages forms a family called the Church. We meet together in local representations of this global community, in churches like [insert name] Church and in countless other varieties, to worship God, to support each other, and to learn how to love more like Jesus.

In addition to the community of His people and the presence of the Holy Spirit, God gave us his written word, the Bible, to teach and direct us. The Bible is the ultimate norm for Christian faith and practice. It is the standard for all our thinking and teaching about who God is, how He expects us to relate to each other, and how He expects us to love and worship Him.

When we meet together as the local Church, we practice certain customs that Christians have always found vital to the life of faith. These include singing songs of worship and praise to God, offering back to God a portion of the wealth with which He has blessed us, and receiving the proclamation of the word of God from the Bible. These also include special symbols or “sacraments” given by Christ to the Church, in particular baptism and the Lord’s Supper. In baptism, those who have trusted Christ publicly confess their faith and demonstrate how they have been brought up from the dark waters of sin into the fresh air of the new life of faith. In the Lord’s Supper, the bread and wine remind us of the body of Jesus, broken on the cross, and of his blood, spilled for our sins.

As we meet together, God the Holy Spirit acts in and through us to change us and to change the world. In this way, we “already” experience the Kingdom of God, even as we know the “not yet” completion of the Kingdom awaits Christ’s return. We do this soberly, knowing that the powers of selfishness and evil actively oppose it, and that God will honor the choices of those who reject the free gift of forgiveness and grace He extends through the cross of Christ. Yet we also do this eagerly and joyfully, knowing that it is the very work of God in bringing peace to the world.

Historical Theology Spirituality Theology

The Doors of the Sea — Eastern Orthodox Theodicy

Post author By David Opderbeck
Post date June 17, 2008
3 Comments on The Doors of the Sea — Eastern Orthodox Theodicy

Wonders for Oyarsa recommended to me David Bentley Hart’s wonderful little book The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami. Hart is an Eastern Orthodoxy tehologian with a Radical Orthodoxy sensibility. Unlike much turgid theological prose, his writing is lucid and gracious, sprinkled with just-right literary references. The terrible Indonesian tsunamis of 2004 prompted Hart’s reflection on theodicy. Much of his reflection in The Doors of the Sea plays off of Dostoyevksy’s The Brothers Karamazov, particularly The Grand Inquisitor’s devastating speech.

I loved this book, because it reminded me that things really are “not right” in this world. Having been immersed in the study of how Christian faith relates to the natural sciences, it’s easy to forget that the creation is “fallen.” There is no trace of a “fall” in the record of natural history. We can’t attribute the behavior of carnivorous animals, or the geological processes that inevitable give rise to earthquakes and tsunamis, to Adam’s sin — these things existed on earth for billions of years before man appeared.

Yet, we intuitively know that the apparently meaningless deaths of hundreds of thousands of people when the giant waves hit Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand is not “natural” or “right.” And, we know from scripture that “death” is an “enemy.” Developing a theology that accounts for God’s goodness, human sin, the long, deep record of natural history, and the “enemy” of death, is one of the great challenges every thinking Christian has to face.

Hart insists that Christian theology not fall into the trap of thinking that nature is all there is — that death must inevitably be part of human history. But he also insists that we must not give in to a literalistic fundamentalism that ignores or distorts billions of years of natural history. How does he pull this together? In typical Eastern fashion, he really doesn’t. He allows this paradox and mystery to simmer a bit, and invites us to contemplate a God who is not bound by the ontology of the present creation. An ontological “is” is not an ontological “must” for God.

I appreciated this approach. God knows, literally, that recovering fundamentalists like myself need to learn how to rejoice in mystery. But I confess that, categorizer that I am, I wasn’t fully satisfied. So I asked Prof. Hart how he draws these things together, and he referred me to the Patristic Father Origen.

Well, now I need to read more Origen than I have. Here’s what I understand of Origen’s conception of the fall, however: for Origen, the fall happened in the wills of pre-existing souls, outside of “natural” time. Embodied in “natural” time, these souls recapitulate their original fall. This underlying theology is why, in the book, Hart makes some effort to distance himself from gnosticism. The Greek and gnostic themes seem evident in this notion of a pristine disembodiment that goes bad and becomes embodied, with the hope of redemption from embodiment in the eschaton.

I’m pretty sure I don’t know enough about Eastern Orthodox thought or about Origen to be getting this exactly right. I’d love to hear from any readers about nuances I’m missing. At the end of the day, this seems like far too elaborate and speculative an ontology for me. But, I think there’s something very true about the fall as in some respect an event “outside” of normal time — like, in a way, the incarnation.