Friday, September 21, 2012

"Analytic" and "Continental" as Theological Categories

A note to begin: this has very little to do with the differences between Analytic and Continental Philosophy, their possible reconcilation, or anything of this sort. This is only about how theology takes concepts from each.

Quite a lot of modern Protestant theology has recourse to modern continental thought, at least insofar as modern Protestant theology is critically reflective and admits of its philosophical underpinnings. This is an interesting phenomenon in the English-speaking world, as most of the philosophy departments (even at the same universities!) belong to the analytic tradition. The use of analytic philosophy is, in my experience, more often done or conditioned by Roman Catholic theologians (this is admittedly excluding those individuals who are in the and/or category: for example, do Plantiga and Craig do philosophy or theology, and are they philosophers or theologians?).

So as a Protestant whose philosophical background lies primarily in the analytic tradition, I have had several experiences which shed light on the relationship between theology and the two traditions:

First, many theologians hear "analytic theology", think "analytic philosophy", and understand "logical positivism". I grant that at one point this might have been an acceptable inference, however, it is certainly no longer the case. There is a great deal of work to be done in theology so that we as Christians do not simply repeat the animosities of philosophy departments, and so that we can critically appropriate analytic methodology (as well as perhaps making our critical reflection on other philosophical traditions a bit more critical).

Second, still on the topic of analytic theology, if the former connection is not made, it seems that folks hear "analytic theology", think "English-speaking Roman Catholics", and understand "Neo-Thomism". Yeah, so, see above on methodology. Not only that, there are enough historical examples to be had of systematic Protestant thinkers, even those who operated on much the same (philosophical) foundation as Aquinas (for example, the Lutheran Johann Gerhard), that we don't need this sort of blanket category. The Neo-Thomists can remain so, but let's not lump everyone in there, shall we?

Third, in regard to the relationship between theology and philosophy period (I may take some heat for this): there was a time when one was expected to have a solid philosophical foundation (in the sense of a wide understanding of the broad strokes) before even doing theology - this was for a long time the case in European universities, and it is some of the root reason why in America today we have an MDiv which one can begin despite having a Bachelor's degree in something else. With the exception of between 5-10% (and excluding all of the "let's get philosophy out of theology" people, oy), I would not hestitate to claim that most theologians (and pastors) do not adequately understand the intellectual foundations upon which they base their theology. The fact of the matter is, that theology requires the thought-categories and critical reflection of philosophy even to be reasoned discourse - and the attempt to appropriate that which we do not understand is detrimental to the endeavour of theology. This is not something that can be remedied with two semesters of survey classes in a Master's program, either! One can become a good theologian without understanding philosophy, but not only is this very rare, one is also an extremely limited theologian. This is a matter of the intellectual responsibility of the Christian - one may say that this is too much, a prospective pastor can't learn good theology, and philosophy, and the ancient languages, and how to use modern languages, and how to engage with literature (the subject of a post yet to come); I say to that individual that the calling to serve God's people is not preparation to do a professional job, but a calling to this level of preparation for interaction with the Word and the world. Especially in today's society, a lower standard is simply inadequate preparation (to be sure, God uses the inadequate, for we are inadequate to His task even when held to a higher intellectual standard; let us not sin that Grace may abound!)

As Christians, of whom to some extent each is a theologian, let us keep clear the differences between methodology in theology and intellectual tradition in philosophy, let us heed the call to develop ourselves enough to be able to differentiate that which we appropriate, and let us above all learn that our commitment to God is not a snatch-time-around-the-edges or a go-home-at-5 obligation, but rather a 100% release of self to the One who reforms (and re-forms) our very being.

Friday, August 24, 2012

God in the Forst

I have been lucky enough that this week I have been able to start a couple of my days by taking a walk in the forest with my dog. I am fortunate in that I live about ten minutes' walk away from the "Perlacher Forst" (yes, the title of this post is not a typo), so it's pretty convenient, when I have an hour to an hour and a half, to walk over there and get out in nature. It's the type of forest that this American is still amazed by, the sort that a Floridian only sees in movies and reads about in books - little undergrowth, and in some places pretty old growth.

This morning, I was walking with the dog and just looking at the trees (and what animals stuck around long enough to be seen), and I was thinking about natural theology. Now, me thinking about natural theology is not an unusual fact, I've kind of been thinking about it pretty steadily for years now due to the research. This was not so much an theoretical consideration, though. My major project for a while has been defining what natural theology is, and how Christians can use it - in a nutshell, as part of the revelatory framework for thinking about God, but not as a method to get to knowledge of God in the first place. There have been some decent modern takes on this, though I note that, aside from a section of time following the Enlightenment, the modern views are more of a ressourcement than original ideas.

Anyway, the point is not the theoretical concept. The point is, that it hit me that in may cases there is still a lot of discussion about the possibility of finding God in nature, given that the Christian knows where to look - there's not been so much discussion about actually doing it. While there is a great deal of need for the theoretical underpinnings (otherwise, I wouldn't have a dissertation), I am also thinking a bit about what a practical application of these sorts of concepts actually looks like. I know I am a couple steps ahead of the game, here - as a movement, it's still on theoretical possibilty, and some of the next steps are things like the nature of the presence of God in the sublime and the beautiful, and interpreting general revelation in the context of particular revelation. Nonetheless, I think that doesn't mean that we can't, in a hands-on manner, begin to think about and act on the how of seeing God in nature, where He has given Himself to be known. A couple of churches here do "Waldgottesdienst", a worship service in the forest every now and then, but I'm not sure if transplanting the liturgy to a different setting is qualitatively the same as genuinely engaging with God's revelation in nature (not that I am arguing for a new liturgy, mind you!). And I am sure that we are not expected by God to go out as individuals and try to interpret our subjective experience. So what does it look like for the community of Christ to reflectively engage with Creation? How can we seek God where He may be found? Perhaps I'm trying to analyze the intuitive, but I think we need to at least ask the questions in our church communities and families. How are we the body of Christ in community, in society, and in Creation?

Friday, August 17, 2012

Making a Comback

So this is essentially the official announcement that I am attempting to start blogging again.

I made it through my comprehensive exams in philosophy (yay!), and am quite pleased with the result (also yay!). Additionally, I have sent the manuscript for the translation off to the publisher, and got all my footnotes in my dissertation, so in theory I have time again.

A piece of advice for anyone writing a dissertation: be very very sure that you have the format right at the beginning. No, asking your advisor is not enough, see it on paper. Moving around 1,000 quotes from inline citation to footnote citation is decidedly not fun.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

What Happened?

So what happened? Why the dearth of posts for such a long time?

Well, frankly, I'm swamped. I'm in the process of banging out another draft of this dissertation (add two full chapters, strike one, insert two background-transitional chapters), for starters. Added to that, my comprehensive exams for the philosophy doctorate are in progress, culminating by the end of July. And, I'm reworking an article for publication (there was not enough historical background for the German audience), I have three English articles in progress (one co-authored! I know you read this, I haven't forgotten!), and my monograph translation is supposed to be done by the 15th of June.

So no, I'm not actually dead, just internet-dead. Regular programming will resume when I have more time, or in the eschaton, whichever comes first.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Truth Claims and Doctrine

Something I have encountered recently is the radical hermeneutic reduction of each area of human knoweldge. This is the idea that a discipline, like, say, theology, need not take the sciences seriously, because the natural sciences are (individually and collectively) just another interpretive paradigm, with no privileged position. The careful reader will notice that not taking something seriously does not necessarily follow from denying something a privileged position...

In any case, I was thinking about this idea, and had the following conclusions:

Let's imagine for a moment that this is the case, and no method of knowing or interpreting reality need take serious the truth claims of any other. If this is so, then a radical reduction of this ends up in an individually relative truth standard, i.e. what is true for me is not true for you, and so forth. What content I give to the term "dog" need not correspond to the content you might give the term, and we use words so equivocally that communication is impossible.

This can be solved by positing communities of understanding, in which multiple persons agree on the content of terms and their methods for interpreting reality. Then communication becomes possible again, on an "interpersonal" standard (which is still not an objective one - but it is held to be subjectively universal, at least for members of that community). This looks like a solution, and may well be the case, if we concede the lack of ability to take a third-person perspective. The problem with this is that none of us belong exclusively to one community of understanding. As individuals in the communities, we must either have a way of communicating between the communities, or exist in permanent cognitive dissonance. The latter seems not to be the case, so we can, I think, safely posit that the communities of understanding (within which hermeneutics of reality are agreed upon) are not fully isolated.

Taking a page from hermeneutic thought, speech itself is the translation of concepts between interlocutors - so the "translatability" of the concepts, at least partially, between communities of understanding is kind of presupposed as discourse, either between individuals or between our (non-schizophrenic!) "parts" of ourselves. If this is the case, then while it is the case that no manner of understanding the world should have a privileged position, but each individual interpretation of reality should take the claims of all others seriously, and they should be at least partially communicable between one another. This doesn't give any sort of ground to say who is right and who is wrong, but it certainly means that, and here it comes, theology has to take the sciences seriously - not as reality defining, but as a part of modern western culture, and as a hermeneutic of reality that, let's face it, to which we belong at least partially.

Another thought is that we all seem to presuppose the rules of logic. While we might posit that a logic-less discourse is possible, I have yet to encounter any statement whatsoever that does not presuppose at least some basic logic (despite claims to the contrary - any sentence with propositional content presupposes logic, so I challenge anyone to present my with non-logical communication). I will close with Wolfhart Pannenberg: "...no argumentation is possible, even in theology, unless there is recognition of the basic principles of identity and contradiction. These principles have always been especially presupposed in efforts to present the systematic unity of Christian doctrine. The scientific nature of theological work rests on their thorough application, even if int he process their concrete form seems more like that of an argument of convenience than that of rational deduction." (ST I, pg. 21 in the English version, can be found on pg. 31 of the original) (My thanks to Gunter Wenz for making me aware of this passage in regard to this discussion)

Friday, April 6, 2012

God on a Cross

Someone once told me, "you Lutherans need to be careful, or you have God on the cross".

I've been thinking a bit about this lately, and, since it's Good Friday, I'd like to note that "God on a Cross" is exactly what we have. "God" is not a term that describes the set to which the members of the Godhead belong - it is perfectly predicated of the Son as well as of the Father and of the Spirit. God is on the cross, in the same manner that God is become flesh.

Present tense? Aren't we commemorating a historic event? Well, yes and no - we think on a historic event today, but it is a historic event that is present with us even now. The crucified Christ is the one who is with us today when we are in church, in our homes, or wherever we might be, as it is of His body that we are members. We are cautioned from thinking of the cross without the resurrection, but also we should take care to not think of the resurrection without the cross - it is the crucified one who is resurrected, and the resurrected one who is crucified (careful readers will notice I've been reading Moltmann again).

In the same way that His resurrection is proleptically present to us as believers, and as members of His body, His crucifixion and death is present to us, His pain and suffering. God's eternal decision was the giving of Himself, and that means that God's suffering and death on the cross is as much a part of who God is for us eternally as His overcoming of death is.

We don't have a God who cannot suffer - we have a God who does suffer, and who suffers with us, because (yes, because!) we have a God who snatches us from the jaws of sin and death and who takes us into His kingdom. And as real as the kingdom is for us now, we remember today, so real is the suffering of God for us and for our sakes.

For this reason, I am humbled by the filled cross and the empty tomb - let us not confuse the two, for all that they are inseparable.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Thoughts about Marriage

So, back from the Society for the Study of Theology meeting and (mostly) recovered from the cold that got shared around there, I give you: thoughts I had in the coffee shop in the airport on the way back.

So is it possible that marriage has something to do with (or is similar to) the sort of unity that we’ve got in the eschaton? I mean, here’s why: I don’t want to say that the marriage happens in the ceremony, like the Roman Catholics do, because I have trouble with that picture forcing God’s hand. A marriage happens whether God wants or not (or it’s annulled and was never a marriage) on that account. As a Lutheran, when I got married, our pastor mentioned at the beginning that this is asking God’s blessing on what we hope He has done. After all, God makes two one flesh, God does the putting together. Now, that didn’t happen in the signing of the civil document, either, because that would be really strangely sacramental about the act of signing papers at the courthouse. So it had to happen as some other point, and it has to be a little bit different than asking God to bless the civil document entering us into a contract or the civil union before the law, because if it were that, then I need a church wedding about as much as I need a church service asking God to bless the signing of the lease on my flat or on my getting a new business contract (plus, it takes away the agency of God in making two into one). 

Now, some people have suggested to me that a covenant is formed in the sex act, that we then present to God and ask God’s blessing on it. Two problems I have with this idea: one, that in cultures like the US it makes celibacy before marriage nonsensical, because we end up asking for a blessing on a covenant that isn’t supposed to exist yet. Two, it kind of presents God with a situation He has to deal with: Hey, look, God, at the covenant we made, bless it, yes/no? So what happens if He says no? He has to be free to say no, or we are back in the RC mode of thinking about it, just using a different act. And where is His agency in the matter? If it’s not a marriage until He confirms it, what happens if we never ask (casual sex and unconfirmed covenants?)? If it is a marriage because it’s a covenant and God can choose not to bless it, where does that land you on divorce (it seems like this can be the beginning of a story in which God wills a divorce, “I have something better for you”)? And if God is presented with things that He can’t make different, this is kind of the same challenge to His omnipotence that emanations in Neo-Platonism or chaos interdependence in process theology has, insofar as our temporal presentation of the situation to God is “present” to Him in eternity. 

This all looks really messy to me. So here’s a better picture, for me: God ordained “at some point” that there was an ontologically interpenetrating unity of two who “become” one – quotations, because it’s probably eternally ordained and we are subjectively realizing it in our lives (in both senses of “realize”, to become aware and to make real to us). Now, we don’t know for sure, as limited creatures, what God has eternally ordained, but we can have indications through God’s presence to us and guidance in our lives, and we can have a proleptic presence of this unity as well as a part of God’s eternal decree. So we hope (Pannenberg-style hope) that we are right about this other being the one who isn’t really other in God’s eternal decree for us, and ask God to bless us in the hope on what He has “already” done – so the marriage happened from eternity, we just make it subjectively real through legal contracts and blessing services (interestingly, this gets me soulmates, too, but that wasn’t the whole point, promise!). So if we are wrong, then we carry moral guilt for misinterpreting God and treating what wasn’t a marriage like a marriage, and if we are right, that was proper anticipation of the eschaton. It gets me a marriage that is as strong and indelible as RC marriage is supposed to be, without the human-action-sacramentality-means-of-grace-stuff. I still want to call it a quasi-sacrament, because we do have an experience of God in the decree and in the ontological unity of two-to-one, but not a sacrament in the sense that every member of the Body of Christ is experiencing it or needs it at all, and I’m doubtful that it is a means of grace. And there’s no reliance on any sort of human action to bring it about. 

So I know that’s a rather strange way to look at marriage, but I think there might be something here. It’s how I see it anyway, at the moment. I’m influenced by Pannenberg on this, a bit, but more by his account of Baptism than anything else. Actually, the whole nature of Baptism in Lutheran theology is what got me here, because the core of this thought happened when I was reading Bo Giertz’s novel (of all things!). I’m also really thankful for the discussion with Joe McGarry at the recent SST meeting in York regarding some of these ideas, where he really challenged me one evening about how I was using the word “quasi-sacramental” (and endured with me the strange assumptions of some eavesdroppers who only heard a few lines discussing the covenant-sex-act-picture and prostitutes…one can only imagine what they thought of us).

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Church Fathers Test

This is kind of cool, and (with qualification) pretty true:









You’re St. Justin Martyr!

You have a positive and hopeful attitude toward the world. You think that nature, history, and even the pagan philosophers were often guided by God in preparation for the Advent of the Christ. You find “seeds of the Word” in unexpected places. You’re patient and willing to explain the faith to unbelievers.



Sunday, March 11, 2012

God and Abstract Objects

So I have actually been thinking a lot about this lately, and even had a conversation last week about the existence of universals over lunch. Turns out what I'm used to calling "universals" are referred to as "Abstract Objects" in contemporary analytic Phil of Rel literature, which means that the symposium on "God and Abstract Objects" in the most recent issue of Philosophia Christi has a bunch of interesting information for me as someone who is trying to think through these things.

For those of you who also get this journal and are wondering why I am just now reading it, I have several reasons: Firstly, I'm in Germany, which means it came on the 17th of February. I know exactly when it came, because I was in the middle of participating in the Templeton Analytic Theology Masterclass, and I know it came that Friday because I had it that Saturday morning in the subway. That's my second reason: I was in the middle of said Masterclass, and while I read the article on natural theology in the subway, I had a bunch of other things going on (and still do!). Thirdly, I basically have a backlog of journals that I subscribe to where I haven't found time to read all the articles that even interest me, much less ones where I'm not clear on the topic or journals that I want to read a given article to which I don't subscribe. So they might be excuses, but I think they are acceptable ones.

So again, simply because something has "caught my eye", I'm reading into literature that has nothing to do with my current research project (though it is tangentially connected to part of another project I have on the back burner right now). I think there is some potential here, though, for me to do some future work, and here is why:

I really do not like the nominalist position. Not only does it fall prey in many forms to the argument from indispensability, nominalism brings with it a whole host of problems: As Paul Gould points out, Richard Weaver blamed it for the result of modern decadence; Hans Boersma has done a good job of showing how it contributed to a disassociation of the sacred with the "secular", something that I think ties into Milbank's criticism of social theory (let's play connect the dots!).

Besides this, I'm simply inclined to accept the existence of abstract objects in many cases. The argument brought forward against "Platonism" (let's not confuse "Platonists" about abstract objects with real Platonists or Neoplatonists, like Jens Halfwassen!) and Christianity seems to stick ok, and I think it is adequate to search for an alternative. I don't like Absolute Creation tout court, though, because I think the bootstrapping objection will get traction if every abstract object is a concept in the divine mind. I am not pleased either with the implications that come from Yandell's idea of propositions as independent abstract objects, because I don't share his presuppositions about the necessary necessity of God (or, for that matter, his definition of God). Davis' limited conceptualism seems to work, but I don't know if it is the best solution, and anyway, we need an explanation for the things that aren't concepts. Davis admits this much, so I think at the very least his theory of limited conceptualism could be a part of a larger working theory.

I'm in the process of piecing together how I would, at least intuitively, classify different sorts of abstract objects in the hope that at the end I have a decent account of how God relates to them. I have some ideas, but I don't know all of the implications, and I think I am (interestingly!) going to have to draw on Tillich and Meister Eckhart in order to make some of this work. This is certainly going to be a longer project; with luck maybe I can get this funded and really spend some time thinking about it. If not, it may be quite some time before I can get everything working, and it will be a piecemeal thing until I get it all organized.

So, gentle readers, where do you fall on this debate? Does the question even occur to you (if not, or if what I am talking about is not clear, write something in the comments!)? How do you think about abstract objects?

Friday, March 9, 2012

Prolepsis

What is prolepsis? Merriam-Webster gives us one definition: the representation or assumption of a future act or development as if presently existing or accomplished. It is a term which comes from rhetoric, but has gained theological significance in the work of folks such as Wolfhart Pannenberg and Jürgen Moltmann. Frankly, while I am familiar with the use of the term in both theologians work (as well as others), my familiarity with Pannenberg is a whole order of magnitude higher, so I'm gonna talk about this sort of stuff mostly by dialoguing with Pannenberg. 


Prolepsis is a way of talking about God, and the Kingdom of God, as really present with us. The Kingdom is an eschatological event, but it is present now to the believer and was present both in the person and message of Christ, as well as God's self-revelation throughout history. If Jesus only initiated the Kingdom, then it is still developing, and we have to hope it's gonna turn out right. If the Kingdom is developing, we also have to answer why it is that God is unchanging, but His Kingdom isn't all the way here yet. It gives us a way to talk about the Kingdom as "already, but not yet" and still make some sort of sense.


There's a lot that runs out from this idea, and I personally think that we can't have a lot of the things we might want to talk about as Christians without the idea of prolepsis; additionally I think that the idea of prolepsis restricts some of our options in our theology. I'm exploring this here on the blog and in an article in development, and I hope that anyone who has got some ideas will be chiming in.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

1 Philosopher, free to good home...

Regarding philosophical tradition, I was essentially so steeped in the "analytic" method, that I didn't really even know that there was anything else out there for a while. I remember a conversation at AAR/SBL about being an analytic practitioner that I had: I was introduced as someone who "had gone to Munich to do Analytic Theology." I responded to this saying, "No, I went to Munich, and I do Analytic Theology, but the two were not connected..." And I wasn't even able to finish my explanation; that phrase alone was taken as proof that I was "an Analytic guy".

Now, as far as methodology is concerned, this is largely true. I find a certain amount of clarity important, and the Analytic tradition is full of that; I certainly do both my philosophy and my theology in an "Analytic" manner. I do also, as do many many other "Analytic" philosophers, reject the logical positivism and primacy of language that characterized the early Analytic Movement (Think Russell, Frege, and Wittgenstein; though I find some value in the writings of both Russell and Wittgenstein). This evidently doesn't disqualify me from being an Analytic practitioner, but the move I'm about to make will, in the minds of some, do precisely that.

The "Analytic" movement of the early 20th century was, as I understand it, primarily a reaction to British Idealism, itself a Hegelian interpretation. That has nothing to do with method, but rather with philosophical commitments. Thus, if I reject the commitments of the 20th century movement but remain an "Analytic Philosopher" or "Analytic Theologian" by virtue of the method, then I see no reason not to turn to concepts contained within German Idealism, at least insofar as they seem to serve as explanatory tools.

The idea of personhood that I have been reading about lately in Hegel and Fichte, as well as the dialogical personhood of Buber, doesn't seem to me to be something that should be rejected out of hand as "too Continental" for use in "Analytic" projects, as THAT sort of divide was defining "Analytic Philosophy" in terms of the commitments of the early 20th century movement. This, in turn, allows me to continue to use theological insights gleaned from "Continental" philosophy, insofar as I can explicate and make sense of them in a manner clear to others.

In short, I have found two interesting concepts (one of which, as noted above, is "personhood") within the "Continental" tradition which I believe might have explanatory power within the "Analytic" tradition, when properly developed.

But I don't know if this will result in an unwillingness to hear the ideas (imagine: That's too "Continental"!) or even an unwillingness to accept that methodologically I am working in a certain manner (imagine: "You're a "Continental Philosopher"! [as if it were an insult, which in some departments it might well be]).

Can I have a new designation please?

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Freedom...?


One of the things I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is the nature of freedom. I am a compatibilist, which means that I neither want to deny freedom of a sort to human actions nor deny the nature of things such that God is in absolute control. I don’t think, however, that I want to define freedom in the standard compatibilist manner: a freedom from being compelled to do something.
Friedrich Hermanni notes that an idea of compatibilistic freedom could be one free from external compulsion, free from internal compulsion, and free from hidden compulsion – the compulsion from an external power, the compulsion from a habitual tendency toward or against, and the subconscious compulsion such as when one is hypnotized or brainwashed (Cf. Hermanni, Metaphysik, Mohr Siebeck 2011). He also notes that a sinner who can’t choose otherwise is at the mercy of this inner compulsion, in the same manner that a pilot is at the mercy of a terrorist with a gun to the pilot’s head. I’m not satisfied with the conclusion that he comes to, however.
I suspect that throughout Christian history, we have had various concepts of freedom in attempts to make Divine control, theological fatalism, or simply the fact that God instantiated the given set of circumstances, compatible with some concept of freedom, and one which is robust enough to guarantee moral responsibility for one’s actions. I know of some work being done on an analytical explication of Anselm’s concept of freedom, and I am rather curious not only how theological concepts of freedom prior to the Enlightenment differ from one another, but also how they interact with theological fatalism.
I’m not a causal determinist, but I’m attracted to the idea of theological fatalism – I think I might be able to find a way that there is a compatibilist notion of freedom which is combinable with fatalism, rather than determinism, but I’ve got a bit of reading to do on that (well, actually, I think this is going to become a research proposal for a postdoc…). After all, Luther managed a theory of man’s moral responsibility and to be a theological fatalist at the same time.
Anyone who can suggest some literature, please feel free to do so – I’m already compiling a list, but suggestions are most welcome.

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

David Fitch - The End of Evangelicalism?

So, I recently got my hands on a copy of Fitch's book, which makes me only a bit behind the game, as it was published in 2011. I had heard about the book already, on a podcast, and wanted to take a look at it, but to be honest, I wasn't searching too hard - and I was wrong!

 I was loaned this book on a Monday afternoon, and by Tuesday noon, I was through it. Fitch uses categories drawn from Žižek to critique evangelicalism as an ideology. After an introduction to Žižek’s thought, with the admission that Žižek would certainly not agree with Fitch’s own use of the ideas in some places, and certainly not with the constructive section, he gets going analyzing the ideology.

Over three chapters, Fitch looks at “The Inerrant Bible”, “The Decision for Christ” and “The Christian Nation”, examining how these have become empty master-signifiers within evangelical culture and how instead of contributing to faithfulness they help evangelicals define themselves by opposing themselves to what they are not, sometimes in an absurd manner. Fitch wishes to remain orthodox in belief, without the definition by the radical other or empty adherence to an ideology.

These chapters are spot on in describing what is going on in North America. I felt like I was reading an academic assessment of things that I either personally experienced or somehow knew were going on – and if for no other reason, if you identify at all with the term “evangelical”, you should pick up this book.
His final constructive chapter and epilogue walks a fine line – he is aiming at one of the bigger segments of evangelicalism, which necessarily leaves out some folks, and I feel that he (although he does give a few warnings) unnecessarily downplays what are true doctrinal differences between orthodox Christianity and movements that are in the gap created by the upheaval of evangelicalism. It is not the solution that I would advise, but then, I didn’t write the book. 

Overall, this book is a good view of what is going on in North American evangelicalism, and it is something I think everyone should be talking a look at – either to see yourself in a new light, to understand more about the folks you are not, or to figure out what is happening in general. The constructive part is, I’m afraid, the sort of advice that isn’t bad, but one knows when one reads it that it likely will be misinterpreted by those who made it far enough to read it – and I have my own doubts if Fitch’s vision is something to strive for, though in many cases he’s on the right track.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Knowledge of God and Knowledge of Sin


So here is something I’ve been thinking about. Ho w is it that we know our sin, i.e., that we know ourselves to be sinners? If we have some sort of connection between the knowledge of the law and the knowledge of God, as the Reformers seemed to have, we might get into trouble. Karl Barth tries to explain away this connection between knowledge of the law and knowledge of God in Calvin and Luther in KD IV/1 (§60.1), ultimately coming to the conclusion that we have an idea of our sin as sin only after the encounter with Christ which reveals God as God; prior to this our universal sense of sin is one which measures sin against other human actions in their imperfection. 

This sounds attractive at first, but I think it might be too strong. Barth’s main desire here is essentially to work out the idea that the function law as a curb inhibits the function of the law as a mirror, until God-side action is taken to give us a good look in the mirror. The problem is that the passages about the law being written in the heart are tied to the idea of a universal guilt – no one has an excuse. Now, I’m not at all holding the position that an unknowing transgression is somehow not a transgression, but I think that an account which preserved knowing transgression, even on a most rudimentary level, would be preferable.

I think this sort of account was present in the reformers. Calvin set up a logical situation in which knowledge of the law paralleled knowledge of God – This is even called, in certain areas of study of Reformed theology, the use of a rhetorical proof of God’s existence. Luther set the two as equal as well (WA 39 II, 323, 367), but made the specific comment that one doesn’t understand the entirety of one’s sin. This is because Luther wanted to run all knowledge of God through knowledge of Christ (a thought shared with Melanchthon and Calvin), such that even general revelation reveals Christ, when only partially. The Gospel and the Law are, in one sense, the same message. 

So it would seem, on this picture, that we recognize our sin as sin, and at the same time recognize our limits of recognition in recognizing our sin as sin. This preserves a lot more of the traditional ideas about natural knowledge of God and the law being written on the heart; what this account needs is a good story about why this partial knowledge is insufficient do to more than demonstrate our need in order not to fall prey to an accusation of inappropriate natural theology.
 (Side note: this position can also be read in a manner more palatable to Barth’s interpretation; one has to still assert a core “protoknoweldge” of God but can assert the factual result that human sinfulness results in a rationalizing of sin against human standards, so that awareness of sin as sin is only post-God-action.)

So we’ve moved the question: if we are willing to accept that one can have some sort of accurate knowledge about God without knowing God as God, then this is what the law gives us (as well as what many “apologetic” attempts might give us). The question is now twofold, firstly, “what good does it do us?” and secondly, “does it make sense to talk about knowledge of God in this manner?”
Each of those deserves at least one post of their own…

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Blogging and Auto-Publishing

So it turns out that I'm not smart enough to use Blogger's auto-publish feature, which means that when I hit that stressful time before and during the MasterClass and my Greek examinations, nothing got put up on here. From now on, I will do everything manually. Sorry, readers!

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Piper and Pannenberg

So John Piper has recently written on schism, and referred to Bonhoeffer and Pannenberg in order to support his position (here). Bonhoeffer scholars already have a problem with his use of Bonhoeffer; I have something to say about his use of Pannenberg.

Firstly, his quote ignores the fact that a paragraph and a half later, Pannenberg speaks of how the Church is to treat homosexuals (available here in German). Roughly translated high points: "the fact of homosexual attraction cannot be denied, and one may also not judge it...The Church must life with the fact, that a failure to keep the norm in this [ie the sexual, also heterosexual practice] area of life is, as in others, not seldom, but rather the rule [than the exception]. The Church must meet these people with tolerance understanding, but also call them to repentance."

That's a pretty different tone, huh?

A second point: this was Pannenberg in 1994; in 2005 he wrote a professional review of practice for the German Evangelical Church on the same topic (actually, the practice of homosexual pastors living together on church property). While Pannenberg still opposes homosexuality, his words on schism are striking (available here in German). Again he calls to tolerance and understanding, and again he calls for repentance; most important, however, he gives his greatest reason for worry: that "die homosexuelle Lebensform eines Pfarrers oder einer Pfarrerin in der Tat die Einheit der Gemeinde gefährdet", that is, "the homosexual lifestyle of a pastor [male or female] indeed endangers the unity of the congregation."

Schism? Pannenberg was worried about keeping the church together! He stayed, and stays, in a church body that makes to a rule a thing he opposes: but he opposes from within, the exact opposite of what Piper seems to be calling Christians to do.

Way to take people out of context...

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Talking with the Great Books

The "Great Books" posts are primarily going to be a reflection on my studies at HMU. I think it might not be bad to have an outlet as I'm forming some of my ideas, and since I'm working in a Great Books program, the name is apt. These sorts of posts will be examining ideas across authors, usually those who are in the "Western Canon" but also relating to those I'm simply familiar with. So anything labeled "Great Books" is going to be what some folks call "syntopical within the western canon".

Saturday, January 7, 2012

§1.1 (Die Aufgabe der Dogmatik, Kirche, Theologie, Wissenschaft KD I/1 1-10)

Barth begins with the assertion of dogmatics as a theological discipline, and theology as a function of the church. This is immediately followed by the confession of the church through the church's speaking of God.

These three sentences are fundamentally different from the manner in which most people think about theology. I say most people, because there are enough both outside and inside the church who think that we can't talk about God at all, or that it's an empty concept. Inside the church, (and, I suppose, outside as well) there are enough who see theology as a function of the academy.

Barth is not only disagreeing with those views, he's doing so in a place where he has to presuppose some of the things that are normally "proven" here - the existence of God, the ability to engage in God-speak, the scientific nature of theology. Barth wants to argue that theology is unique only in that it turns to the specific task which other sciences could have, but never actually have, done. Christian philosophy, he notes, could have done the job, but when it was Christian, it wasn't philosophy, and when it was philosophy, it wasn't Christian. The scientific theology turns to the critique and correction of God-speech by the measure of the Church's own principle. We need it because no other discipline does it, and we need it because it as a discipline, at the end of things, does only this.

Other sciences, other disciplines, could still do the job. The highest point of each discipline could be in this task - and we need neither to bemoan nor justify that it is not; it is not, and the vacuum that this creates cannot be endured. Theology is a discipline of need, because we can't do without this task, and the other disciplines have failed to carry it out. This is an interesting view of theology and the sciences - not quite the "queen of the sciences" in the way that some of us might secretly hope for, but certainly the queen in that the master of it has a connection to every other discipline; as someone recently said to me "you theologians have to know a little bit about everything to make anything in your discipline make sense to the real world."

This really seems to be the case. The ivory tower theologian can't be a real theologian, because we have to not only live in the world, but give an account to the Church. We can't disconnect our task from other disciplines, because our task is tied up in the human-ness of humanity. As Luther long before, vera theologia practia est. That's not to say it is "practical theology", the academic distinction, rather, that because it is a function of the Church, it has to have connection to our life and our life of faith. We remove ourselves from the common human experience if we don't keep this connection alive, and that removal prevents theology, and dogmatics, from carrying out the very task on which it lives.

Alberto Coffa said, "A fool-proof method to transform something obvious into something unbelievable is to ask a philosopher to explain it to you." We dare not do this as theologians, nor as Christians. It doesn't help a bit to get to point D if you can't get someone else from A there, through B and C. 

Barth also notes some good reasons to keep the idea of theology as a science, but cautions that even if theology calls itself a science, it is in no way obligated to hold to the standards that the other sciences have for themselves. Theology can relate to the other disciplines, but must understand herself as a science of necessity, something there to fill the gaps when we can't endure their presence. And yet, theology may be more a science than anything else which goes by that name, for it also must say what it is that is to be understood under the term "science", and when this is a matter of human knowledge, it becomes a matter of how humans rightly speak about the things that are objectively true. 

One of the reasons Barth gives for calling theology a science is to remind us that it's human effort, and to show solidarity with the other human efforts of knowledge. Thus, we aren't raising theology up to be the equal of other sciences, we are admitting that the human effort involved in it forces a condescension to the level of the other sciences. We must be reminded of the inescapable profanity (as in, non-sacredness) in trying to carry out the task of theology.

A last interesting point is that Barth notes that it can't hurt the university to have theology under the same roof as the other sciences, to remind everyone that traditions are traditions next to other traditions (and to remind the Church that Aristotle is not her originator!). This reminds me of some of the discussion on the role of theology in the public university, that was in JAAR last year. It's a fact of life in Germany, though some might like to change it. I think that it doesn't hurt to have it there, but I see how it would be really problematic to be 100% fair. Well, as long as I'm a part of the majority who gets the benefit, I can enjoy it, right?

The Introduction (KD I/1, VI-XII)

Barth's forward, written in August of 32, is informative for his whole project. It's clear that all the way to the last volume, we have to read it in light of what he says to us about it at the beginning of the first volume.

Important is his own admission of how much he had to learn. Even to rewrite the "first book", that is, to start this project as a suggested continuation of his draft, he notes that he wanted to say the same thing as before, but couldn't say it in the same manner. Reading the KD is reading the process of Barth growing as a theologian, just as it is the process of the reader growing as a theologian by interacting with Barth's thought.

Barth introduces dogmatics, even in the forward, as a science bound to the church; never a free science. In fact, for Barth, it is only possible here. He can't hold back from his project in describing and justifying his project, and the content of §1 begins to show already in the forward. But the forward itself is dogmatics, and not merely an introduction.

It is here that we see the famous sentence on his opinion of the analogia entis, and some surprising comments which already give us the characteristic Barthian tone about the accusations against him. Barth replies to the accusation that he's a scholastic, a cryptocatholic, and, satired from him, that church history appears not to have begun for him in 1517 with the assertion that he's just gonna say what he said already once more, and this time more clearly - he's sure of his position - after all, the connection between reformation and ancient church, between trinitiy, christology, and the Bible, and (implicit) Barth's theological connection to the theological history of all of christian history wasn't his "malicious invention".

Barth closes by laying out his plan for the entire project, in short sentences - which he notes was by the wish of the publisher. Would he have done it otherwise? We can't know.

Interesting also, is the request at the very end - Barth asks us as readers to just believe him, that he knows where he wants to go with this. We aren't to wait and see, and we aren't to assume he's running into the sand, but we can go ahead and look at each part as a part of a coherent whole. It may be first evident later, but this is the result of great amounts of thought, of study, and of prayerful, church, dogmatics.

New Ideas

I'm going to try to have some regular features on this blog, and to deal with my thoughts in a more systematic manner. Stay tuned for an introduction (throughout the next week) to the regular posts I will be making, as well as some of the categories I'm going to begin using.

I'll be doing at least two regular series on a weekly basis, as well as adding the categorical element to what I hope will become more regular blogging.