Theology

Bruce McCormack’s TF Torrance Lectures – Lecture 4

Steve Holmes has posted his fourth reflection of McCormack’s recent TF Torrance lectures at St Andrews. He writes of Bruce’s proposal:

Let me approach it like this: it is a standard thesis of classical theology that God’s being is His act; further, God’s act is single, and simple. This is, of course, already a problem, at least if one wants to continue to maintain that God’s existence is independent of the created order: St Thomas devotes considerable ingenuity to explaining how God’s act of creation can happen without any change in God (1a q.45 arts 2 &3). When Barth brings the doctrine of election into the doctrine of God (it is treated in the second part-volume of vol. II, not the first of vol. III), and links election closely to incarnation, the problem becomes acute. However, the gains of Barth’s novel doctrine of election are sufficiently obvious that almost every serious (Protestant) theological proposal of the second half of the twentieth century chose to face the problems, rather than lose the gains.

In general, and in one way or another, the problems were eliminated in the later twentieth century by the simple expedient of losing the axiom of impassibility, properly understood: if God’s life is allowed to be dependent on creation, there is no problem. The single greatest merit of Bruce’s proposal, it seems to me, is that he is not prepared to play this game. Instead, he develops a novel account of kenosis.

Read the full post here. I have linked to all of Steve’s notes here, and I hope to post my notes from these lectures sometime soon.

Also, around the traps …

Locke and Mill both believed in being open to the other side’s ideas. Read here.
Andy and Jim (part 1; part 2) have both posted reviews on Rob Warner’s, Re-inventing English Evangelicalism 1966-2001: A Theological and Sociological Study
Barry Smith of Birkbeck College London gives a lucid account of Wittgenstein’s conception of Philosophy in this MP3.
Stanley Fish asks, ‘Will the humanities save us?’. He concludes:

Teachers of literature and philosophy are competent in a subject, not in a ministry. It is not the business of the humanities to save us, no more than it is their business to bring revenue to a state or a university. What then do they do? They don’t do anything, if by “do” is meant bring about effects in the world. And if they don’t bring about effects in the world they cannot be justified except in relation to the pleasure they give to those who enjoy them.

To the question “of what use are the humanities?”, the only honest answer is none whatsoever. And it is an answer that brings honor to its subject. Justification, after all, confers value on an activity from a perspective outside its performance. An activity that cannot be justified is an activity that refuses to regard itself as instrumental to some larger good. The humanities are their own good. There is nothing more to say, and anything that is said … diminishes the object of its supposed praise.

Assuming a common grammar

Clearly, the same word can mean different things to different groups. Thanks to Google, I was reminded again of this today and of our need as theologians to be aware of the pitfalls of assuming a common grammar. According to the Church of Universal Eclectic Wicca, ‘Universalism is a religious belief that allows for the existence of truth in a multitude of places’.

[If you’re curious to know how I ended up on the Church of Universal Eclectic Wicca site, it was the result of trying to find out a little bit more about a meeting held in 1888 at Albert Hall, Nottingham, to discuss Congregationalism and the Irish Question. The ‘Church’ ‘not only upholds the ‘Five Points of Wiccan Belief‘ (sound familiar?), but also shares the same acronym as the Congregational Union of England and Wales. So, of course …]

Barth on being an American theologian

Having recently watched Lions for Lambs, I was again reminded of Barth’s words spoken in Chicago on 26 April 1962 (audio here):

If I myself were an American citizen and a Christian and a theologian, then I would try to elaborate a theology of freedom – a theology of freedom from, let us say, from any inferiority complex over against good old Europe from whence you all came, or your fathers. You do not need to have such an inferiority complex. That is what I have learned these weeks. You may also have freedom from a superiority complex, let us say, over against Asia and Africa. That’s a complex without reason. Then I may add – [your theology should also be marked by] freedom from fear of communism, Russia, inevitable nuclear warfare and generally speaking, from all the afore-mentioned principalities and powers. Freedom for which you would stand would be the freedom for – I like to say a single word – humanity. Being an American theologian, I would then look at the Statue of Liberty in the New York Harbor. I have not seen that lady, except in pictures. Next week I shall see her in person. That lady needs certainly a little or, perhaps, a good bit of demythologization. Nevertheless, maybe she may also be seen and interpreted and understood as a symbol of a true theology, not of liberty, but of freedom. Well, it would be necessarily, a theology of freedom. Of that freedom to which the Son frees us [cf. Jn 8.36], and which as His gift, is the one real human freedom. My last question for this evening is this: Will such a specific American theology one day arise? I hope so.’

Colin Gunton’s ‘The Barth Lectures’: A Review

Colin E. Gunton, The Barth Lectures (transcribed and edited by Paul H. Brazier; T&T Clark, London/New York, 2007). xxiv + 285 pages. ISBN: 9780567031402.

While he fruitfully enjoyed a life-long engagement with and formation by Karl Barth’s work, produced numerous articles on various aspects of such, and lectured on Barth most years he taught at King’s College London, Colin Gunton never fulfilled his ambition to pen a monograph devoted solely to this his favourite theologian. Had he done so, these lectures (recorded and transcribed almost verbatim by Paul Brazier, complete with charts, diagrams, live-questions and Gunton’s responses) would have served as the basis.

Chapters 1-3 attend to the intellectual, historical and theological background to Barth’s thinking. Beginning with a focus on Enlightenment philosophy as it finds voice in Kant, Schleiermacher and Hegel – all three of whom ‘identified Christianity too closely with modern culture’ (p. 17) – Gunton then turns to Barth’s early theological formation in the nineteenth-century liberalism of Harnack and Herrmann, as well as to some other voices and ideas that impinged on Barth’s theological development – Johann Christoph Blumhardt (who also influenced Moltmann), Albert Schweitzer and Franz Overbeck through whom eschatology was re-confirmed on the theological radar. Barth’s engagement with existentialism (Kierkegaardian and other) and theologies of ‘religion’, ‘crisis’ and ‘dialectics’ are introduced in the second and third lectures, and re-appear subsequently throughout. Certainly, for the Swiss theologian, ‘no road to the eternal world has ever existed except the road of negation’ (p. 33). Thus when Gunton later comes to unpack something of the charge concerning Barth’s ‘irrationality’ through the continuing influence of Der Römerbrief, empiricism, and Barth’s ‘assertive style’, the United Reformed Church minister notes:

The influence of empiricism, especially on the minds of English and American theologians, cannot be dismissed. The English, or to be more pertinent, the Anglican theological mind is shaped by a philosophical tradition that does not find Barth’s approach to theology easy to understand let alone agree with … Part of our intellectual tradition makes it hard for us to understand – particularly an Anglican tradition. Anglicans on the whole like things to be nice and middle way, the via media. And there is not much of the middle way in Karl Barth! … Barth’s assertive style does make it difficult for mild-mannered establishment Anglicans to cope with. (p. 66)

Whether critiquing Augustine, Calvin, Kant, the ‘Absolutely Pagan’ Hegel (p. 17), or the ‘great opponent’ Schleiermacher (p. 15), Gunton repeatedly identifies that the crucial question for the author of the groundbreaking Der Römerbrief remains ‘how much of your intellectual method hangs on something foreign to Christianity?’ (p. 42; cf. pp. 52-3). To this end, Gunton also devotes an entire lecture (pp. 53-63) to Barth’s 1931 work on Anselm, Fides quaerens intellectum, and to the Archbishop’s understanding of the relationship between ‘proof’, ‘reason’ and ‘faith’. He later writes: ‘Barth is a post-Reformation thinker with the rallying cry, by scripture alone and by faith alone! Barth found in the Reformation tradition a conception of theology based on a view of God that is linked with human salvation. The problem for Barth with the Scholastic tradition is that they begin with a rational view of God – a rational idea of God abstracted from human salvation. Barth begins with scripture because the God of scripture is about salvation not philosophical argument’ (p. 69). And on a comparison with Schleiermacher: ‘the problem with beginning with religion is that it is not theological, it can be, it can lead into theology, but in essence it is not: religion is an experiential concept, not a theological concept. Barth wants a theology that is theological right from the very outset. Barth considers that Roman Catholics and Protestants such as Schleiermacher are wrong in thinking that there can be a non-theological basis for theology. Barth is a theologian you see, to the fingernails’ (p. 69).

From Chapter Four onwards, Gunton turns to Barth’s Church Dogmatics, acutely aware that ‘there is nothing as boring as résumés of Barth’s Dogmatics‘ and that ‘the way to get into Barth is to select and to read – read him, there is no substitute!’ (p. 71). Over the next 190 pages, this is precisely what Gunton masterfully helps us do; whether on Barth’s theological prolegomena, his witness to the three-fold Word, trinity, the doctrine of God proper, election, christology, soteriology, ethics and creation, we are all along driven by the only thing of theological interest for Barth, the question ‘Who is the God who makes himself known in Scripture?’ (p. 77). ‘When Barth is at his best’, Gunton writes, ‘he looks at the biblical evidence in detail; when he is weak he tends to evade it’ (p. 119)

A few tastes from ‘5. Barth on the Trinity and the Personal God’:

Barth is anti-foundationalist … God’s revelation is self-grounded; it does not have to appeal to anything else beyond itself. Because it is revelation through itself, not in relation to something else, because it is self-contained, lordship means freedom. This is characteristically Barthian: a characteristically Barthian phrase. Lordship means freedom – freedom for God, absolutely central for Barth’s theology. (p. 78)

The basis of all theology lies in the fact that revelation does happen … This revelation is Christological: Jesus Christ is God’s self-unveiling. The Father cannot be unveiled, but the Father reveals through the Son. This is imparted through the Holy Spirit. A little artificial I actually think, but you can see what he is actually trying to do: he is trying to show that inherent in the structure of God’s presence in Jesus Christ is a Trinitarian view of God … The point here is that in Jesus Christ we see the limits, the possibilities of the knowability of God … So Barth in a way is still retaining this dialectical structure: veiling-unveiling, knowability -unknowability, revelation-hiddenness … In the end you have only got paradox … God preserves his privacy. (pp. 79-80)

The logic is that if God is like this in time then because he doesn’t con us, so to speak, he doesn’t pull the wool over our eyes, because he is a revealing God, then that is what God is. So don’t think that the God we meet in Jesus is one God and that the God of eternity is entirely different from Jesus. The God you meet in Jesus is no different from the God you might meet if you were able to have a direct view of eternity. (p. 83)

Barth is against all mathematics in theology – he is against theories and ideas propounded down the centuries by theologians whereby examples are given of the Trinity, where three things make one; Augustine was often doing this, it is pure analogy or an attempt at analogy, which generally fails to offer any theological elucidation … I don’t like Augustine. I think he is the fountainhead of our troubles. (pp. 84, 96)

[Barth] is often accused of modalism, and I think he is near it … I think he is on a bit of a knife-edge myself, but then all theology is on a knife-edge, it is such a difficult discipline. [Barth] wants to do what the Cappadocians did, and Barth thinks he has done it better with this term – ‘modes of being’. Well, I don’t agree with him, but that is the way he puts it. (pp. 88-9)

Theology is our interpretation of God’s self-interpretation. God interprets himself to us, that is what revelation is. Our response is to interpret this faithfully, or as Jüngel would put it, responsibly … We move from faith to understanding. We move from a grateful acceptance of revelation to an attempt to understand as best we may what that revelation means for God and ourselves. And the understanding consists in the fact that we can talk of God as Father, Son and Spirit. It is so obvious that we should, isn’t it! We might talk of God as a tyrannical monad, but the fact that we can talk of God as Father, Son and Spirit is, so to speak, a demonstration after the event that we are making sense, that God is making sense, our theology makes sense. (p. 91)

And from ‘8. Ethics: Church Dogmatics Chapter VIII:

I do think that there is a problem of abstractness because there isn’t really in Barth, I think (and I say this tentatively), I think that there isn’t really in Barth an account of how this relationship between God and the moral agent takes shape. There is not much of a principle of formation. How are people formed so as to take one ethical direction rather than another? Barth is relatively weak in ecclesiology; that is, some account of how ethics are shaped by the community of belief. He is so anxious not to tie God down; that is always his anxiety, not to tie God down. (p. 133)

Throughout, Gunton is rousing his 30-40 mostly MA and PhD students (although the lectures were intended for undergraduates and so leave considerable ground un-traversed and engage minimally with secondary literature) to ‘read as much of the man himself’ not least because ‘the people that write about him are much more boring than he is’ (p. 9; cf. p. 39). In a sense, this is one book to ‘listen to’ more than to ‘read’. At times, it’s a bit like the difference between a live album and a studio version. Not all the notes are spot on, but the energy – filled with a depth of theological and pastoral insight that betray years of wrestling with the things that matter – is all there.

Such wrestling means that whether expounding a key motif in Barth’s theology or fielding questions, Gunton reveals not only a deep indebtedness to Barth’s work, but also points of divergence. He is upfront in the first lecture: ‘Not everyone buys into Barth … I don’t, all the way along the line, as I get older I get more and more dissatisfied with the details of his working out of the faith … over the years I think I have developed a reasonable view of this great man who is thoroughly exciting and particularly, I can guarantee, if you do this course, that you will be a better theologian by the third year, whether or not you agree with him – he is a great man to learn to think theologically with’ (p. 10; see the prefaces to his Theology Through the Theologians and to the second edition of The Promise of Trinitarian Theology). Clearly, Gunton is no clone of Barth. Though mostly unnamed, he draws upon Coleridge, Owen, Zizioulas and Polanyi as allies in order to attain a measure of distance from Barth’s theology (and that of Barth’s student Moltmann), notably on creation, trinitarian personhood (Gunton prefers the Cappadocians), natural revelation, Jesus’ humanity, Christ’s priesthood, the Word’s action as mediator of creation, ecclesiology, and an over-realised eschatology, among other things (see pp. 52, 74, 82, 88-90, 96, 133, 142, 148, 170-1, 186, 200, 212, 227, 236, 250, 253-4, passim). Not alone here, Gunton reserves his strongest criticisms for what he contends is Barth’s weak pneumatology (for which he blames Augustine and the filioque): there is ‘not enough of the Spirit accompanying and empowering Jesus at different stages of his ministry’ (p. 200). Again: ‘the second person of the Trinity is made to do a bit more than he does in Scripture’ (p. 212). Gunton is always cautious and respectful however: Barth ‘never really forgets anything, he is too good a theologian for that. And when you are criticizing Barth it is only a question of where he puts a weight; he never forgets anything, he is too good a man for that’ (p. 171). Even on the Spirit, Gunton suggests that he can only be critical here because of what he has learnt from Barth already: ‘That’s the great thing about Barth: he enables you to do other things that aren’t just Barth but yet are empowered by him. Yes, that’s his greatness’ (p. 200).

While the reformed theologian is ‘too-multi-layered a thinker to have one leading idea’ if there is one, Gunton suggests it is that of covenant: ‘that from eternity God covenants to be the God who elects human beings into relation with himself’ (p. 149), that from eternity the triune God is oriented towards us. Gunton’s chapter on Barth’s revision of God’s election in CD II/2 is an astounding example of his adroitness and élan as a theological educator. Not many teachers could summarise so sufficiently and with such economy (just 12 pages!) what for Barth is the root of all things, ‘creation, atonement, all’ (p. 115), that is, election. Gunton concludes by (over?)-suggesting that Barth’s effort was ‘a huge improvement in the crude determinism of the Augustinian tradition, which did not represent a gracious God. The Augustinian doctrine replaces grace with gratuity: God gratuitously chooses group A and not group B – this is not the God who seeks out the lost [even Judas] and does not reject them’ (p. 121).

This volume is significantly more than merely a course on the theology of the twentieth century’s superlative theologian. It is also a reminder that to read Barth attentively is to be introduced to a broader dogmatic and philosophical tradition. Moreover, it is to be led to do so by one of Britain’s ablest pedagogues. A foreword by Christoph Schwöbel and a warm introduction by Steve Holmes prepare us for one of the freshest introductions to Barth available. Again, we are placed in Professor Gunton’s debt.

Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie

The latest edition of Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie is out and includes two articles of interest to me:

‘Can the Electing God be God without us? Some Implications of Bruce McCormack’s Understanding of Barth’s Doctrine of Election for the Doctrine of the Trinity’, by Paul D Molnar (pp. 199-222)

Abstract:

This article is the attempt at a dialogue with Bruce McCormack about the position he espoused in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth concerning the relation between God’s Election of grace and God’s Triunity. I had criticized McCormack’s position in my book, Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity (2002), but I did not elaborate on it in great detail. To develop the dialogue I will: 1) consider McCormack’s claim that in CD II/2 Barth made Jesus Christ “rather than” the Eternal Logos the subject of election; 2) consider what Barth means when he speaks of Jesus Christ “in the beginning”; 3) compare McCormack’s thesis that the Father never had regard for the Son, apart from the humanity to be assumed, with Barth’s belief that we must not dispute the eternal will of God which “precedes even predestination”; 4) analyze in detail McCormack’s rejection of Barth’s belief that the logos asarkos in distinction from the logos incarnandus is a necessary concept in trinitarian theology; 5) discuss Barth’s concept of the divine will in relation to the concept advanced by McCormack and suggest that McCormack has fallen into the error of Hermann Schell by thinking that God in some sense takes his origin from himself, so that God would only be triune if he elected us; 6) explain why it is a problem to hold, as McCormack does, that God’s self-determination to be triune and his election of us should be considered one and the same act; and finally 7) explain McCormack’s confusion of time and eternity in his latest article on the subject in the February, 2007 issue of the Scottish Journal of Theology, and his own espousal of a kind of indeterminacy on God’s part (which he theoretically rejects).

‘The Difference Totality Makes. Reconsidering Pannenberg’s Eschatological Ontology’, by Benjamin Myers (pp. 141-155)

Abstract:

Summary Wolfhart Pannenberg’s eschatological ontology has been criticised for undermining the goodness and reality of finite creaturely differentiation. Drawing on David Bentley Hart’s recent ontological proposal, this article explores the critique of Pannenberg’s ontology, and offers a defence of Pannenberg’s depiction of the relationship between difference and totality, especially as it is presented in his 1988 work, Metaphysics and the Idea of God. In this work, Pannenberg articulates a structured relationship between difference and totality in which individual finite particularities are preserved and affirmed within a coherent semantic whole. Creaturely differences are not sublated or eliminated in the eschatological totality, but they are integrated into a harmonious totality of meaning. This view of the semantic function of totality can be further clarified by drawing an analogy between Pannenberg’s ontological vision and Robert W. Jenson’s model of the eschatological consummation as a narrative conclusion to the drama of finite reality.

Biblia Clerus

The Vatican Congregation for the Clergy has launched Biblia Clerus which allows researchers to access Bible verses with exegesis from doctors of the Church or cross-reference liturgical texts with commentaries from some Church Fathers. The site promotes a program which ‘offers Sacred Scripture, its interpretation in light of Sacred Tradition and the teachings of the Magisterium, with appropriate theological commentary and exegesis’. It is available in French, Portuguese, Spanish, German, English and Italian.

On Being the Church of Jesus Christ in Tumultuous Times: A Review

Joe R. Jones, ON BEING THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST IN TUMULTUOUS TIMES (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2005). Pp. xxx + 239. $27.00, ISBN: 9781597522762. A review.

Joe R. Jones, author of the massive The Grammar of Christian Faith and Doctrine, and who Stanley Hauerwas names ‘the best unknown theologian in America’ (how would Hauerwas know?), is well aware of at least two important realities that inform good theology. First, that theology is a discipline not of the academy but of the believing community which is ever to be that ‘sort of community that sustains a vigorous and continuing conversation within itself as to who has called it into being, to whom it is responsible, and what it is called to be and to do’ (p. xiii). Second, that Christian theology has its ground and end in the redeeming economy of the Triune God. These two convictions inform this collection of essays, sermons, and prayers composed over four decades.

The volume is made up of three sections. In the first, he addresses what it means to be the Church, that ‘broken body [which] must strive, in the midst of its brokenness in tumultuous times, to remember its calling and mission as an alternative community living an alternative way of life under the Lordship of Jesus Christ‘ (p. xiv). He repeatedly posits (pp. xvi, 6, 21, 35-6, 51, passim) his working definition of the Church:

The church is that liberative and redemptive
community of persons
called into being
by the Gospel of Jesus Christ
through the Holy Spirit
to witness in word and deed
to the living triune God
for the benefit of the world
to the glory of God.

Jones, a confessing pacifist ‘with many questions about how to be a pacifist’ (p. xxiv), contends that wherever Jesus’ body lives in the world, there the Church is properly a political entity with a distinct theology and ethic, and whose political witness is never for itself but is for the benefit of the world. Thus with definition above before him, Jones, in the tradition of that prisoner on Patmos, pens ‘A letter to the Churches After 9/11′ in which he reminds the church that it is ‘not called into existence by the American way of life, not called into existence in order to punish evildoers, not called into existence to endorse any given political regime, and not called into existence to protect Christians and wreak vengeance on nonchristians. But it does exist for the “benefit of the world,” though not on the world’s own terms regarding what it finds beneficial as an endorsement of the way it prefers to live’. When the Church, either ecumenically or as a particular congregation, is unclear about how to answer the key questions of its own identity ‘then its life will be a miasma of disarray and confusion’ (p. 6). Jones consistently names nationalism for the destructive and deceitful idol that it is, calling the Church to allegiance to its Lord alone, rather than serve two masters.

Jones turns in the second, third and fourth essays to a reflection on the Church’s illiteracy wherein he argues that the Christian community whose ‘language of faith has too often become hallow and empty’ has become ‘illiterate’ and ‘uneducated’ (p. 11). The Church needs to recover its ‘distinctive language’ (p. xv), its own voice – or that of her Lord’s – lest it be repeatedly ‘overwhelmed and held hostage by the nation-state and its political discourses and practices’ (p. xxiv), and whose discourse and practice form a necessary purlieus for doing theology. The witnessing Church requires a literacy in the Gospel: ‘The Gospel is not willy-nilly whatever people choose it to be. It is not just any presumably good or comforting news. But to be able to hear well and to witness well, the church must incessantly cultivate an understanding of the Gospel and the light it throws on the world. Whenever the church has neglected this cultivation, this education, it has itself become a wandering nomad, bedeviled by the mirages of passing fancies and fads’ (p. 14). He calls for a recovery of the Church’s educational processes that accentuate learning the Gospel’s content and giving it intelligent expression for the world. This doing of theology is not a luxury (or responsibility) for a few but for all the people of God. That said, the Church also needs to recover, he argues, a sense of the pastor as teacher and theologian for the community, to equip the community of theologians for ek-static movement towards and in the world as witness to God’s loving life (see pp. 21-34).

In the second of the three sections, ‘Theological Baselines for Doing Church Theology’, Jones explores, among other themes, notions of faith, soteriology, trinity, and Jewish-Christian dialogue. The essay on salvation (chapter 7) outlines the basis upon which believers have good reason to hope in an apokastasis panton. He argues that ‘the logic of a radical incarnation/atonement view centred in Jesus Christ moves resolutely to the final conclusion that all we be ultimately saved by God’s sovereign grace’ (p. 119). It is of little surprise, therefore, to read that Jones lists among his most significant influences and conversation partners, Karl Barth, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne.

Also, not a few of the essays betray Jones’ indebtedness to Søren Kierkegaard and to that Dane’s insistence that ‘to be a Christian is to learn how to be a Christian’ (p. 51). This American nonconformist does not, however, share Kierkegaard’s despairing thoughts on the Church more generally, or the latter’s over-subjectivism. Instead, Jones persuasively posits that learning how to be a Christian ‘involves being a member of a community that has characteristic discourses and practices about the narrative of God’s grace’ (p. 67). Little doubt, if Kierkegaard had a different model of Church in mind when he made his bold criticisms, he would agree with Jones here. Jones’ collection includes two fine chapters on Kierkegaard: one on Kierkegaard’s thoughts on authority and revelation; the other on Kierkegaard as ‘Spy, Judge, and Friend’ in which he outlines the basic life, contributions and contours of Kierkegaard’s thought. He laments that while Kierkegaard ‘was one of the most influential intellectuals for the twentieth century’ today ‘I find few entering divinity students that can spell his name, fewer still who have read anything of his, fewer yet that have benefited from his friendship’. He describes Kierkegaard as ‘a Spy who will push you into inward places of hiddenness you are reluctant to explore, a Judge who will indict your vagaries of life with inescapable and relentless precision and vivacity, but finally a Friend who might spiritually edify you on the multifaceted journey of becoming a Christian‘ (p. 154). He proceeds:

‘With uncanny prescience, Kierkegaard knew he would someday be famous but feared and loathed the prospect that he would fall into the hands of the professors, who would analyze and reduce his life and writings to a thumbnail sketch or footnote, or even to a voluminous narrative, but would never realize that the whole of his literature was directed even to the professor as an existing person who still had to exist somehow. He criticized professors, philosophers, and theologians unmercifully for building grand mansions of theory and thought only to live their actual, existing lives in the barnyard, feeding daily out of the pig trough. The point here is this: intellectuals are given to the pursuit and development of thought, concepts, and ideas, and they can easily fool themselves into supposing that if they have thought the thought they have also lived the thought. No, says Kierkegaard; to live the thought means to have one’s living passions and decisions shaped by the thought. Intellectuals are inclined to forget the actual passions and concrete decisions that shape their daily living, and therefore are forgetful of their actual existing. Their theories cannot – of themselves – encompass and shape the theorist’s existential reality without decision and persistence in passions’ (p. 155).

The final section is made up largely of pastoral prayers and some moving sermons, including those preached by Jones at ordination and funeral services.

While few will be convinced of all Jones’ claims, this an engaging and at times provocative miscellany properly written with one eye on the Church (and not least his own Disciples of Christ denomination the focus on which, at times, gives the reader a sense that she is reading an in-house review) and one on God as both God and Church direct their engaging gaze to the world. The reader would have been better served with the inclusion of an index and a little more editing out of repetitious material. That said, this book will assist the Church to better understand, celebrate and practice the good and missional news of Jesus Christ in tumultuous times.

Bring back the verve!

In his On the Basis of Morality Schopenhauer is scathing on Hegel:

‘If I were to say that the so-called philosophy of this fellow Hegel is a colossal piece of mystification which will yet provide posterity with an inexhaustible theme for laughter at our times, that it is a pseudo-philosophy paralyzing all mental powers, stifling all real thinking, and, by the most outrageous misuse of language, putting in its place the hollowest, most senseless, thoughtless, and, as is confirmed by its success, most stupefying verbiage, I should be quite right. Further, if I were to say that this summus philosophus … scribbled nonsense quite unlike any mortal before him, so that whoever could read his most eulogized work, the so-called Phenomenology of the Mind, without feeling as if he were in a madhouse, would qualify as an inmate for Bedlam, I should be no less right.’ – Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Basis of Morality, 15-16.

I like thinkers who don’t mince words; it’s one of the many reasons why reading Luther is such a refreshing experience. Of course, one need not be as undisciplined and as bad-mannered as a Hauwerwas – or even a Luther at times – in doing so. Anyway, the point of all this is simply to say that just when I was feeling tempted to say that contemporary theology has lost its verve, I came across these fighting words by Hunsinger on Postliberalism:

‘If postliberal theology depends on the existence of something called the “Yale School,” then postliberal theology is in trouble. It is in trouble, because he so-called Yale School enjoys little basis in reality, being largely the invention of theological journalism. At best it represents a loose coalition of interests, united more by what it opposes or envisions than by any common theological program’. – George Hunsinger, ‘Postliberal theology’, in The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology (ed. Kevin J. Vanhoozer; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 42.

Now I’m just feeling tempted to say that most contemporary theology (and politics for that matter) has lost its verve. Is this because it has no verve-creating Gospel?

Conversations with Poppi about God: A Review

Robert W. Jenson & Solveig Lucia Gold, Conversations with Poppi about God: An Eight-Year-Old and Her Theologian Grandfather Trade Questions (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006). 158 pages. ISBN: 97815874321613. Review copy courtesy of Brazos Press.

When was the last time you had a conversation about baptism, temptation, purgatory, time, economics, the Nicene Creed, creation, the Trinity, Christmas, metaphysics, church calendars, evil, indulgences, the Holy Spirit, liturgy, Lucifer, hamsters, a ‘really stupid’ bishop, the disestablishment of the Roman Church, the imago Dei, and a host of other things, all with the same person? When was the last time you did so with a person who just happens to be a world-renowned Lutheran, and ecumenical, theologian? When was the last time you did so with an eight-year-old who knows more about Dante than not a few philosophy undergrads?

In this remarkable book, we are invited to eavesdrop on a spontaneous and unscripted conversation between elementary schoolgirl Solveig Lucia Gold and her septuagenarian grandfather affectionately called ‘Poppi’, more formally known as the Reverend Canon Professor Dr. D. Robert W. Jenson, B.A., B.D., M.A., D.Theol., D.H.L., DD.

The book comprises the verbatim transcripts – with minor editing of ‘Ums’, ‘Well, buts …’ and ‘You knows…’, etc – of conversations recorded on a Radio Shack cassette recorder over a series of weekends in which Solveig visited her grandparents (‘Poppi’ and ‘Mimi’) in Princeton. After each session, Mimi typed it up.

The authors invite us to read their book ‘as you would a Platonic dialogue, though in this one, the role of Socrates goes back and forth’ (p. 10). Their discussion is more wide-ranging than most systematic theologies, and is filled with wit, warmth and wisdom.

Time for an example:

Solveig: How can God pick who goes to heaven or hell?

Poppi: By looking at Jesus, who loves you, Solveig.

Solveig: Can you show me?

Poppi: One way of saying what happened with Jesus is that Jesus so attached himself to you that if God the Father wants his Son, Jesus, back, he is stuck with you too. Which is how he picks you. (p. 20)

The young Episcopalian and her ‘sort of half Anglican and half Lutheran’ (p. 70) Poppi return to some themes a number of times over the weekends. One such theme that offers some of the book’s richest insights concerns the Spirit, or ‘God’s liveliness’ (p. 38), as the good Professor Dr Poppi likes to remind his granddaughter. Solveig tries on more than one occasion to argue a case that the second and third articles in the Creed ought to be reversed not only because ‘all of us share in the Spirit’ (Father and Son included), but also because that’s how you cross yourself. Poppi agrees, ‘Father, Spirit, Son is probably a better arrangement’ (p. 146). The Spirit is also ‘God’s own future that he is looking forward to’ (p. 42). They compare God’s liveliness with Santa Claus who is ‘sort of like a messenger from the Holy Spirit – in a way’ (p. 100), before coming to discern the spirits to see if they are from God, for whom to have Spirit means that he ‘doesn’t stay shut up in himself … but that the goodness and mercy – and wrath, when it comes to that – that is in God blows out from him to hit you and me. And that means that just like your spirit is yours and not mine, even though your spirit effects me, so God’s Spirit is his and not a spirit like Santa Claus’ (p. 101).

In between laughs, they talk about what it is about Holy Communion – Solveig’s ‘favourite part of going to church’ because she gets to ‘stretch and walk around a little’ (p. 31) – that means that ‘the wine should be the very best’ (p. 33) and that dissolvable bread should be banned. The meal should be appetising, and not like those baptisms ‘when they just dribble a couple of drops on the baby’ (p. 34). They also talk about a confirmation service led by ‘this weird bishop guy’ who is ‘really stupid’ (p. 34).

While I’m trying to resist the temptation to share every gem in the book (and there are lots), allow me one more, this time on heaven, purgatory, and hell:

Solveig: Do you think of where you might go after you die as two places or three places? I think of it as three places.

Poppi: What three is that?

Solveig: Heaven, purgatory, and hell.

Poppi: So you hold to the doctrine of purgatory?

Solveig: Yes.

Poppi: You know that is very controversial.

Solveig: Why? It’s in Dante, isn’t it?

Poppi: Well, it’s in Dante, yes. But of course, Dante isn’t exactly in the Bible.

Solveig: No. But he’s still …

Poppi: The thing about purgatory is that it’s a very reasonable idea. It’s just that we don’t know if it is true.

Solveig: Except … Maybe God thinks that you should just go to two places. If you are bad, he has no patience with you at all, and he will just sort you to go to heaven or hell. I think that is reasonable enough.

Poppi: That God is impatient?

Solveig: Yes.

Poppi: That’s where I think the notion of purgatory is reasonable. I don’t think the Bible talks about God’s being impatient in quite that way.

Solveig: If he isn’t impatient, maybe he doesn’t want us to spend time thinking about where we should go.

Poppi: You know that plate that your mother and father gave us that hangs on the wall in the dining room?

Solveig: Yes.

Poppi: Remember what it says on it?

Solveig: I don’t remember what it says.

Poppi: It says, ‘I desire not the death of the wicked.’

Solveig: ‘As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.’

Poppi: Right. So the biblical God takes no pleasure in sending people to hell, and that’s why I think that purgatory is a reasonable idea. The problem is we don’t have any way of knowing whether the purgatory idea is true or not.

Solveig: It’s just Dante’s idea.

Poppi: Well, it was older than Dante.

Solveig: It was?

Poppi: Yes.

…

Solveig: Yes. Well, see, I think of Dante as a theologian, in a way.

Poppi: He was a very great theologian.

Solveig: Yeah, I know. I’m saying that he kind of liked to make up things he wasn’t quite sure about, if you know what I mean.

The delightful exchanges in this album offer us a model of how good theological dialogue can and should take place: with mutual respect and humility which delights in both the giving and the receiving; with an eye on the scripture, an eye on the tradition, and an eye on the world (for those who possess at least three eyes); and within an environment of safety in which no idea is too whacky and no avenue of enquiry cut off prematurely.

Carl Braaten’s words regarding this book are worth repeating,

Robert Jenson has created a new medium, with his granddaughter Solveig, to teach the basics of the Christian faith. Just as Martin Luther wrote his Small Catechism for children, this book of conversations covers the beliefs and practices of the Christian church – among them the commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the sacraments – in a way that parents, regardless of their denomination, can confidently read and discuss with their children. Robert Jenson has translated the core convictions of his two volumes of Systematic Theology into simple truths that his eight-year-old grandchild can understand in the course of their unrehearsed and lively conversations. If you want to know what a sophisticated theologian really believes, listen to him explain the mysteries of the Christian faith to a child in simple terms without being simplistic.

Theology is a Matter of the Church

‘Theology is not a private reserve for theologians. It is not a private affair for professors … Nor is it a private affair for pastors … Theology is a matter of the church … The term “the laity” is one of the worst in the vocabulary of religion and ought to be banished from Christian conversation’. – Karl Barth in Theologische Fragen and Antworten (1957), pp. 175, 183-184. [HT: Andrew]

Nineteenth-Century Theology Group

Those with an interest in PT Forsyth (as all should have!) might be keen to know about The Nineteenth-Century Theology Group which meets at AAR. The Group is concerned to explore religious thought and theology from the French Revolution to World War I. Attention is given to issues or themes, to major figures, and to the relation of religious thought to its historical and cultural context. The Group selects two or three topics for each year’s program and invites papers on those topics. Papers are printed and distributed in advance. More information here and here and here.

Dialog is out

The latest edition of Dialog: A Journal of Theology (Volume 46, Issue 3, Fall 2007) is out and focuses on the role of science within theology. It includes 3 articles by Ted Peters, as well as a host by others:

Theologians and Other Idiots, Ted Peters

Connie and Pastor Hochaltar, Ted Peters

Science: A Prescription for a Healthy Theology?, Ted Peters

Beyond Dialogue: The Role of Science Within Theology, Ernest L. Simmons

Five Key Topics on the Frontier of Theology and Science Today, Robert John Russell

Reforming Theology, Reframing Science, Ann Milliken Pederson & Philip Hefner

Theology’s Need for a New Interpretation of Nature: Correlate of the Doctrine of Grace, Lou Ann Trost

For a full listing visit here.

Across the Spectrum: A Review

Gregory A. Boyd & Paul R. Eddy, Across the Spectrum: Understanding Issues in Evangelical Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006). 287 pages. ISBN: 9780801022760. Review copy courtesy of Baker Academic.

‘What Christ has done for me’, announced PT Forsyth, ‘has become possible only by what He did even more powerfully for others whose faith and experience have been deeper and richer than mine, but who reflect my experience all the same, even while they diversify and enlarge it mightily. Standing over my experience is the experience of the whole evangelical succession’. What Forsyth reminds us of here is of the great breadth and depth within the Christian tradition, a breadth and depth to be appreciated, studied and celebrated.

The purpose of this book by Gregory A. Boyd and Paul R. Eddy is precisely to appreciate, study and celebrate this diversity within one dominant Christian tradition, and to introduce evangelical college students ‘to the positions evangelicals take on various disputed topics. Each position is argued from the perspective of one defending the position and is therefore presented as persuasively as possible’ (p. 6). The book assumes a distinctly liberal arts approach to theological study, presupposing that the teacher’s job is not indoctrination of one particular position, but rather to introduce students to a variety of perspectives while providing students with the tools to think critically for themselves.

Five presuppositions are identified by the authors: First, the goal of this book is not to present a balanced overview of Christian doctrine. Second, this book considers only options that are discussed and embraced within evangelicalism, defined by a commitment to the core beliefs of historic, orthodox Christianity as expressed in the ecumenical creeds and to the primacy of Scripture in all matters of faith and practice. The authors’ decisions concerning what constitutes ‘major’ and ‘minor’ issues are governed mostly by their own assessment of how lively a particular debate rages within the evangelical family. Third, the book promises only an introduction to the diverse positions within evangelicalism. Thus, along with space limitations, each chapter is intentionally non-technical and general in nature. This it does very well. Fourth, the theological criteria assumed is that proposed by John Wesley’s quadrilateral: Scripture, tradition, reason and experience. Fifth, each chapter follows the same basic outline: Firstly, a brief section introduces each topic. This is followed by an outline of common ground evangelicals share on the topic then a note of the different views evangelicals embrace concerning the topic. Next, major differing perspectives are presented and defended, utilising the quadrilateral when appropriate. Each chapter concludes by refuting objections to the position under discussion.

The various chapters are given to discussing the following questions:

The Inspiration Debate (Inerrantist, Infallibilist)
The Providence Debate (Calvinist, Armenian)
The Foreknowledge Debate (Classical, Open)
The Genesis Debate (Young Earth, Day-Age, Restoration, Literary Framework)
The Divine Image Debate (Substantival, Functional, Relational)
The Human Constitution Debate (Dichotomist, Trichotomist, Monistic)
The Christology Debate (Classic, Kenotic)
The Atonement Debate (Penal Substitution, Christus Victor, Moral Government)
The Salvation Debate (Calvinist, Armenian)
The Sanctification Debate (Lutheran, Calvinist, Keswick, Wesleyan)
The Eternal Security Debate (Eternal Security, Conditional Security)
The Destiny of the Unevangelized Debate (Restrictivist, Universal Opportunity, Post-Mortem Evangelism, Inclusivist)
The Lord’s Supper Debate (Spiritual Presence, Memorial)
The Baptism Debate (Believer’s Baptism, Infant Baptism)
The Charismatic Gifts Debate (Continuationist, Cessationist)
The Women in Ministry Debate (Complementarian, Egalitarian)
The Millennium Debate (Premillennial, Postmillennial, Amillennial)
The Hell Debate (Classical, Annihilationist)

The chapters I found most helpful were 3, 7, 10 and 12.

In addition, an online appendix is given to discuss the following topics:

How Should Evangelicals “Do” Theology? The Theological Method Debate
The Psychological and Social Models of the Trinity
Was Noah’s Flood Global or Local?
Must Wives Submit to their Husbands?
Christians and Politics: Three Views
What Happens to Babies Who Die?
The Debate of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit
Is Speaking in Tongues the Initial Evidence of Receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit?
Can a Christian be Demonized?
The Debate over the Book of Revelation
Has Jesus Already Returned? The Preterist Debate
When Will Jesus Return? The Rapture Debate.

Boyd and Eddy provide the entering year theology student or interested lay person with an accessible introduction to some of the burning points of debate amongst conservative evangelicals, introducing readers to major strands in the tradition of which they may be unaware or ignorantly dismissive of. While their selection (rather than their definition) of what constitutes the ‘hot spots’ of evangelical theology betrays something more North American than I am familiar with, Boyd and Eddy’s representations of the various positions are fair and respectful. The volume also includes a useful glossary and a good list of resources for further reading.

Any volume endeavouring to cover such a broad sweep of topics will inevitably fail to address the favourite topics of many of its readers, and this book is no different. The topics covered understandably betray a focus on North American evangelicalism (indeed, some of the non-American related facts are just plain wrong; for example, Keswick is not ‘a seaside English town’ (p. 156)), though there is enough here to inform the reader from anywhere, not least those with some discerning selectivity of chapter readings.

Two smallish reservations: First, the volume could have provided a little more engagement with how ideas develop and are shaped throughout history. Second, the chapter, ‘The Hell Debate, fails to offer as an alternative ‘evangelical’ view the notion of christological universalism, even though this position is increasingly gaining adherents among confessing evangelicals and the authors are content to include George McDonald as a ‘noteworthy evangelical’ (p. 187). Other omissions (even from the appendix) include evangelical convictions regarding war and pacifism, regarding divorce and remarriage, and regarding tithing.

That said, Across the Spectrum is a really useful introductory volume for the student, and a helpful model for the teacher, proving again that what we call ‘evangelical theology’ is kaleidoscopic, versatile and diversiform.

Developing a Reading List

Here is the series of posts from my series, Developing A Reading List. Please note that this list will be regularly updated as I come across suitable material.

Developing a Reading List – Theological Method and Prolegomena, Systematics/Dogmatics, Biblical Theology, Theology Proper

Developing a Reading List – Patriology, Christology, Pneumatology, Revelation

Developing a Reading List – Creation, Soteriology, Ecclesiology, Anthropology

Developing a Reading List – Prayer and Meditation, Missiology, Ethics, Doxology

Developing a Reading List – Pastoral Ministry, Preaching, Theology and the Arts, Eschatology

Or you can access each category here:

1. Theological Method and Prolegomena
2. Systematics/Dogmatics
3. Biblical Theology
4. Theology Proper
5. Patriology
6. Christology
7. Pneumatology
8. Revelation
9. Creation
10. Soteriology
11. Ecclesiology
12. Anthropology
13. Prayer and Meditation
14. Missiology
15. Ethics
16. Doxology
17. Pastoral Ministry
18. Preaching
19. Theology and the Arts
20. Eschatology

Developing a Reading List – 1

I thought it might be beneficial to try and develop some sort of a reading list for various areas of systematic and pastoral theology. My hope is that this list will have something of an organic life, being edited from time to time as I come across various texts (and suggestions by others) that warrant inclusion. While I hope that the list betrays theological discernment and acumen, I’m not interested in developing a list that pleases any one theological camp in particular … though my biases will be obvious enough. It is hoped that the list will reflect the best and most important texts of a tradition unashamedly ecumenical, catholic and apostolic. The kind of thing I have in mind is a reading list and resource for English-speaking undergraduate theology students. Of course, in good blogging style, I also welcome suggestions.

A few things to note:

– Many books allude easy wee categorisation. In such cases I have placed it where I think if belongs best and sometimes in multiple places. If you think it ought to be somewhere else, suggest somewhere. (NB. For the purposes of this exercise, Hell is not a place!)
– I haven’t read everything. That’s why I’m asking for your help.
– In due course, I may add further subcategories. But for now, I have decided on 20 categories:

Because twenty posts is a bit of a push, I will post these 4 at a time (i.e. over 5 posts). Did I say that I welcome suggestions?

Reading List: 1. Theological Method

Anthony C. Thiselton, New Horizons in Hermeneutics: The Theory and Practice of Transforming Biblical Reading

Arthur C. McGill, Suffering: A Test of Theological Method

Avery Dulles, The Craft of Theology

David Ford, Theology: A Very Short Introduction

Donald G. Bloesch, A Theology of Word and Spirit: Authority and Method in Theology

Donald MacKinnon, Borderlands of Theology

Eberhard Jüngel, God as the Mystery of the World

Ellen Charry, By the Renewing of Your Minds: the Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine

Helmut Thielicke, A Little Exercise for Young Theologians

Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Philosophical Theology

George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age

Gerhard O. Forde, On Being a Theologian of the Cross: Reflections on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation, 1518

Gerhard O. Forde, Theology is for Proclamation

John Howard Yoder, Preface to Theology: Christology and Theological Method

John Webster, Confessing God

Kevin J. Vanhoozer, The Drama Of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach To Christian Theology

Nicholas Wolterstorff, Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim that God Speaks

Paul McGlasson, Invitation to Dogmatic Theology: A Canonical Approach

Peter T. Forsyth, The Principle of Authority: In Relation to Certainty, Sanctity and Society

Trevor A. Hart, Faith Thinking: The Dynamics of Christian Theology

Vern Poythress, Symphonic Theology

Reading List: 2. Systematics/Dogmatics:

Alister E. McGrath (ed.), The Christian Theology Reader

Carl E. Braaten & Robert W. Jenson (Eds.), Christian Dogmatics (2 vols)

Catherine M. Lacugna, God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life

Clive S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Colin E. Gunton, The Christian Faith: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine

Daniel Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding

Donald G. Bloesch, Christian Foundations (7 vols)

Donald G. Bloesch, Essentials of Evangelical Theology (2 vols)

Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: the Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse

Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her

Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith

Geoffrey Wainwright, Doxology

Georg W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion

Gerrit C. Berkouwer, Studies in Dogmatics (14 vols)

Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics

Helmut Thielicke, The Evangelical Faith (3 vols)

Hendrikus Berkhof, The Christian Faith

James William McClendon, Doctrine

Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition (5 vols)

John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (13 vols)

Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline

Karl Barth, The Göttingen Dogmatics

Otto Weber, Foundations for Dogmatics (2 vols)

Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology (3 vols)

Robert W. Jenson, Systematic Theology (2 vols)

Rowan Williams, On Christian Theology

Stanley Grenz, Theology for the Community of God

Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica

Thomas C. Oden, Systematic Theology (3 vols)

Thomas Erskine, The Unconditional Freeness of the Gospel

Thomas F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith

Ted Peters, God – the World’s Future: Systematic Theology for a New Era

Tyron Inbody, The Faith of the Christian Church

Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology (3 vols)

Reading List: 3. Biblical Theology:

Adolf Schlatter, The History of the Christ: the Foundation for New Testament Theology

Adolf Schlatter, The Theology of the Apostles: The Development of New Testament Theology

Charles E. B. Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans (2 vols)

Donald A. Carson, The Gagging of God

Francis Watson, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith

Gordon J. Wenham, Story as Torah: Reading the Old Testament Narrative Ethically

Gordon McConville, Grace in the End: A Study in Deuteronomic Theology

I. Howard Marshall, New Testament Theology: Many Witnesses, One Gospel

Noel Due, Created for Worship: From Genesis to Revelation to You

N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology

N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God: Christian Origins and the Question of God

N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God: Christian Origins and the Question of God

N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God

Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation, A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics

Rudolph Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament (2 vols)

Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy

William J. Dumbrell, Covenant and Creation: A Theology of the Old Testament Covenants

William J. Dumbrell, Search for Order: Biblical Eschatology in Focus

Reading List: 4. Theology Proper:

Adrio König, Here Am I: A Believer’s Reflection on God

C. Norman Kraus, God our Savior

Colin E. Gunton, The Triune Creator

Donald G. Bloesch, God the Almighty: Power, Wisdom, Holiness, Love

Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse

John D. Zizioulas, Being As Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church

Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God.

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics II/1–2

Nicholas Lash, Holiness, Speech and Silence: Reflections on the Question of God

Peter T. Forsyth, The Justification of God

Robert Jenson, The Triune Identity: God According to the Gospel

Thomas F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith

Thomas F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God

Next on the list: Patriology, Christology, Pneumatology, and Revelation.

CS Lewis on reading theology

From Lewis’ introduction to Athanasius’ De Incarnatione Verbi Dei:

‘For my own part I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await many others. I believe that many who find that ‘nothing happens’ when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand’.

How true!

Princeton Theological Review – Theology and the Arts

The latest issue of The Princeton Theological Review – this edition put together by David Congdon, Chris TerryNelson, and others – is out. Commendably, it is dedicated to the discussion between theology and the arts. It can be read online here or download as a pdf here.

Articles include the following:

A Vacation for Grünewald: On Karl Barth’s Vexed Relationship with Visual Art
by Matthew Milliner

Call Forwarding: Improvising the Response to the Call of Beauty
by Bruce Benson

Theology and Church Music
by Gordon Graham

“A Pre-Appearance of the Truth”: Toward a Christological Aesthetics
by D.W. Congdon

The Beautiful as a Gateway to the Transcendent: The Contributions of the Decadent Movement in 19th Century Literature and the Theological Aesthetics of Hans Urs von Balthasar
by Walter Kedjierski

Fighting Troll-Demons in Vaults of the Mind and Heart – Art, Tragedy, and Sacramentality: Some Observations from Ibsen, Forsyth, and Dostoevsky
by Jason Goroncy

This Life and the Next – a review

L. Harold De Wolf reviews This Life and the Next, by Peter T. Forsyth.

Born and educated in Aberdeen, Scotland, Peter T. Forsyth later studied in England and Germany. After several pastorates in England he became principal of Hackney College, Hampstead (Divinity school of the University of London) where he served for twenty years prior to his death in 1921. He brought to his writing a clear, penetrating mind, a sensitive feeling for the finer values and a concise but graceful style.

This Life and the Next is the first of several works by its distinguished author scheduled for republication here and in England. Originally written during the First World War it has lost nothing of timeliness and is well worth reissuance. This book is not devoted to evidences for belief in immortality but to “the reaction of that belief upon this life” (p. 1). He concedes the bad effects wrought by unintelligent and unworthy belief. He is especially opposed to the superstition and the magnification of trivialities exploited by spiritualistic mediums. That, he says, is not Christianity. “It is another religion and a debased” (p. 35). But the Christian faith in an elevated and growing lie hereafter with God is here and now a comfort and dynamic inspiration.

A neglected and welcome note is sounded when Dr. Forsyth deplores the dwelling of religious thought upon the human person, with his fears and hopes, almost to the exclusion of thought about God and duty and the kingdom. At times the reader might think the author had heard the recent psychologizing in some American pulpits, in which Dale Carnegie has displaced the gospel. In thought about immortality, as in the interpretation of present experience, only a faith which is God-centered is either theoretically or morally sound.

This review first appeared in Journal of Bible and Religion, Vol. 17, No. 1. (Jan., 1949), 46.

The thing that most stands out to me about this review is that it contains one of too few acknowledgments of Forsyth’s clarity of writing style: ‘He brought to his writing a clear, penetrating mind, a sensitive feeling for the finer values and a concise but graceful style’. To be sure, Forsyth is not always ‘easy going’ (why should theology be?) but those who persist with him can not fail to hear what he is saying with almost frightening penetration, for in that hearing one is being addressed by the living God clothed in his gospel.

Two Reviews by Groetsema

Frederic Groetsema’s reviews of P. T. Forsyth, the Man and His Work by W. L. Bradley, and P. T. Forsyth, Prophet for Today by Robert McAfee Brown.

It is significant and heartening that these two books about Peter Taylor Forsyth should appear almost simultaneously. Long neglected or at least overlooked by American theology, Peter Taylor Forsyth not only deserves to be heard in our time, but must be heard because what he has to say so strangely fits our needs and contributes to the solution of our religious and theological problems. Both of these young authors intend, through their books, to give the reader a taste of Forsyth’s thought on a great range of theological topics, and in so far as possible, both let the man speak for himself. Through these quotations, we are brought face to face, or it is better said, heart to heart with the warm, vital, stimulating, if sometimes paradoxical, thought and language of this “prophet of today.”

Dr. Bradley gives the newcomer a very commendable introduction to Forsyth in the three opening chapters of his book. P. T. Forsyth had an interesting and vital life as preacher, lecturer, writer and seminary president. Never a man to seek out controversy, he often found himself the center of such storms. We must know this volume. He has attempted to set forth in very brief form Forsyth’s thought on four great and important theological matters:

The Holiness of God, The Atonement, The Doctrine of Christ, and The Church. Dr. Bradley has brought together in his concluding chapter representative opinions regarding Forsyth and, rather than decreasing the stature of the man, we come more and more to recognize that here is one to whom we should listen with strict attention. One cardinal weakness in Dr. Bradley’s volume is the lack of any index; perhaps this could be added in later and revised editions.

Dr. Brown’s style is more readable and I found his discussion of Forsyth’s interpretation of history and the necessity of the church particularly rewarding. The rather formidable list of the works of Forsyth included at the end of Dr. Brown’s book testify to the magnitude of the task undertaken by these young men. The excellent index at the conclusion of this second book will be of great help to the student or minister who is just beginning to get acquainted with the fertile and prolific mind of this “prophet of today.”

It is to be hoped that both of these men will continue their interest in, and interpretation of, Forsyth, for in so doing they do a real service to both American theology and Protestant churchmanship. Neither can very long continue to ignore the works of one who, though dead, “yet speaketh” to our needs and time with strange contemporaneousness.

This review first appeared in Journal of Bible and Religion, Vol. 21, No. 4. (Oct., 1953), 292.

Biblical critics and dogmaticians in dialogue 2

Dogmaticians and biblical critics ought to dialogue more readily, for they share the same task of edifying the Church. They do not do this by their own unaided powers, but in the power of the same Risen One for whose body they exists, and for whose Person they bear witness to. John Webster has reminded is that ‘the particular task of theology is to attest the truth of the gospel in the wake of Christ’s own self-attestation’ (John Webster, Holiness (London: SCM, 2003), 3). So much as the Church seeks to do this articulating work, it concentrates on two fundamental tasks, exegesis and dogmatics. Webster rightly asserts:

‘Exegesis is of supremely critical importance, because the chief instrument through which Christ publishes the gospel is Holy Scripture. Exegesis is the attempt to hear what the Spirit says to the Churches; without it, theology cannot even begin to discharge its office. Dogmatics is complimentary but strictly subordinate to the exegetical task. It is not an improvement upon Holy Scripture, replacing the informal, occasional, language of Scripture by conceptual forms which are better organized, more sophisticated or more firmly grounded. Rather, dogmatics seeks simply to produce a set of flexible accounts of the essential content of the gospel as it is found in Holy Scripture, with the aim of informing, guiding and correcting the Church’s reading. Dogmatics attempts a ‘reading’ of the gospel which in its turn assists the Church’s reading. Developing such a ‘reading’ of the gospel entails, of course, the development (or annexation) of conceptual vocabularies and forms of argument whose range and sophistication may seem distant from the more immediate, urgent idioms of Scripture. But though technical sophistication is not without its attendant perils, it is only vicious when allowed to drift free from the proper end of theology, which is the saints’ edification. When that end is kept in view and allowed to govern the work of theology, then dogmatics can be pursued as a modest work of holy reason, transparent to the gospel and doing its service in the Church as the school of Christ.’ (Webster, Holiness, 3-4)