Theo-canvas(s)

Max Raabe - “You’re the Cream in My Coffee.”...

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 13:12:03 -0400

Max Raabe - “You’re the Cream in My Coffee.” Wonderbar white noise for an afternoon with German passives and reflexives.

"Idealism has no appreciation of movement. The movement of the dialectic of mind [in Idealism] was..."

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 13:18:45 -0400

““Idealism has no appreciation of movement. The movement of the dialectic of mind [in Idealism] was abstract and metaphysical, while that of ethics is concrete. Further, idealism has no understanding of the moment in which the person feels the threat of absolute demand. The idealist ethicist knows what he ought to do, and, what is more, he can always do it precisely because he ought. Where is there room, then, for distress of conscience, for infinite anxiety … in the face of decisions?””

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Sanctorum Communio: A Theological Study in the Sociology of the Church, DBW, vol. I, trans. R. Krauss and N. Lukens, ed. J. von Soosten, C. Green (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1998), 49.

Some Tuesday Afternoon Absurdity Here is a little piece of...

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 12:43:00 -0400

Some Tuesday Afternoon Absurdity

Here is a little piece of absurdity from the past, indicative not only of the shittiness of Metaxas’ book on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but also the raw deception and fear-mongering that America is missing out on now that the Fox Entertainment Group has ‘released’ Glenn Beck. Well, let me emend that, Fox still is dolling the deception, just without Glenn. He’s served his purpose, now its time for election hope not other-izing fear.

So Metaxas hops on the air and, in between dropping his connections to Yale University and plugging his previous books, he tries to talk about Bonhoeffer’s attempt to assassinate Hitler, which is the typical event of interest when it comes to Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Apparently, Glenn does not want to talk about this, a surprising fact given that he is so fond of equating the Democratic Left with the Reich, which is another pile of shit altogether. Perhaps that would have been too volatile an analogy, even for a Glenn Beck University classroom.

Directing Metaxas to a different point, Glenn says, “The Hilter part is not as important to me as the standing up to the churches and saying ‘no, no, no — Look what’s happening!’” This clearly sets up his attempt to utilize Bonhoeffer against the Christian Left’s interest in social justice, an interest that the every Bonhoeffer but Metaxas’ would share.

But before getting to this point, Glenn comments on the relationship of the institutional Church and the German state during the Wiemar and post-Wiemar period; he make particular mention of the co-opting of christian themes and religious grammar into the speeches of Hitler. Funny thing is, Beck makes this point sitting beneath a red, white, and blue graphic of Sam Adams, George Washington, and Ben Franklin, the words “Faith, Hope, and Charity” captioned beneath… . Just laugh, don’t even say anything.

Metaxas’ response to Glenn’s observation makes the irony of the conversation and the dramatic irony of the situation almost too much to bear. Hitler, Metaxas’ says, cloaked himself in the guise of Christian culture in order to mobilize a significant portion of the population. Making note of the caliber of Bonhoeffer’s educational formation during his childhood and adolescence, Metaxas implicitly suggests that a lack of educated in political and theological tradition led to the rise of support for Hitler. In effect, Hitler could bolster his national agenda by preying on the religious sentimentalities of German citizens through false corroboration. Metaxas then draws an analogy between the superficial and cultural faith in Germany in the late Wiemar period with contemporary American culture and religiosity. Along with that, he draws a parallel between American religiosity as a cultural currency and a power mechanism for the U.S. and the co-opting of religion by the Reich in the 30’s. Again, all of this goes down in a Fox studio. Its just too much.

Wolfhart Pannenberg on Barth's Revelatory Subjectivism

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 08:08:00 -0400

In the first volume of his Systematic Theology, Wolfhart Pannenberg accuses Barth of failing to relocate the most basic elements of his theology from the anthropocentric soil that nurtured the roots of Protestant Liberalism. What makes Pannenberg’s critique so mind-blowing is the doctrinal loci that he names as the source of Barth’s supposed failure: the doctrine of revelation through Romans and on into I.1-2 of the Dogmatics. Essentially, Pannenberg believes that Barth grounded the task of theology in the subjectivity of the individual, and thus failed to establish a source and norm for theology outside the human being’s self-awareness and individual apprehension. Astounding? I say yes! But wait; there’s more. In leveling this criticism against Barth on this point, Pannenberg also equates Barth’s “anthropocentrism” with the relation of the feeling of absolute dependence as legitimate grounding of the theological task in Schleiermacher’s Glaubenslehre. Pannenberg also aligns Barth’s supposed anthropocentric subjectivity with Ritschl and Hermann’s foundation for constructing doctrine in the faith of the individual subject in Jesus Christ. For Pannenberg, the difference in the content of faith of the four theologians is irrelevant at this point. What is relevant is the constitutive role of faith in the task of theological thinking in the their respective systems of doctrine (i.e., the relation of the thinking subject to the undertaking of the theological task by said subject). In short, according to Pannenberg, while the content of their positive theological statements on faith clearly differentiates the four theologians, they all share a common method for understanding the role of the subject in the process of theological construction. All four, Pannenberg believes, ground the theological task in individual subject. This basic methodological congruency, Pannenberg believes, reveals the underlining individualistic anthropocentrism typical of Liberal Protestantism, an anthropocentrism that Barth not only failed to upend, but failed to steer clear of in his own theology.

So Pannenberg on the four theologians:

Schleiermacher —

“By making subjective belief the basis for dogmatics Schleiermacher combined the religious subjectivism of Pietism, the reference to the church community and its doctrinal tradition, and the standpoint of individuality as the principle of critical appropriation of tradition.” (ST, I: 42).

Ritschl —
“We also find a grounding of theology, and especially dogmatics, in a prior certainty or experience of faith in 19th-century theologians who were not under the influence of revival piety, especially Albrecht Ritschl… . Ritschl developed the thesis that we can appreciate the full scope of the historical work of Jesus only in the light of the faith of the Christian community, and therefore we have to understand and evaluate every part of the Christian doctrine from the standpoint of the redeemed community of Christ.” (43).

Herrmann —
“Wilhelm Herrmann’s question (1892) regarding the historical Christa s the basis of faith could not be pressed radically because faith here was always the presupposition of the argument” (ibid.).

and Barth —
“Barth wanted to cling to the twofold assumption that the reality of God and his Word precedes faith and is a fixed given for dogmatics from the very first. But the second thesis could be introduced only by way of the concept of the act of faith. The inevitable result was that Barth could no longer present unambiguously, as he intended, the priority of God and his Word over the act of faith… . The starting point of this new approach, with the reflections on risk, courage, and petitio principii, remains imprisioned in the religious subjectivism from which Barth wished to free himself” (44-5).

Here is where I have to take issue with Pannenberg’s accusation of Barth and his correlation of these four theologians. First, what was “the religious subjectivism from which Barth wished to free himself?” From Romans to the early Dogmatics and beyond, it seems one would have a very difficult time arguing that the religious subjectivism haunting Barth was simply accepted and recapitulated despite his own criticism of Liberal Protestantism. For Barth, the subject who is met by revelation is recreated in the meeting and must come to terms with the event of revelation by witnessing to its singular (and recapitulating) reality. While serving as the ground for theological witness, the event does not garuantee the veracity of unadulterated facticity of a constructed theology. The task of theology is then included within this “coming to terms” with the event of revelation, but this event does not lead into or open up a space for static theological reflection free from future correction (a point Pannenberg himself would like to uphold but in a very different way). As such, the source of theological thinking is not grounded in the subject but comes from without, demanding theological thinking as a response of gratitude.

This is where we have to differentiate between the subjectivism that Barth reacted against and the form of subjectivism coincident with Barth’s understanding of the task of theology. Barth’s desire to overcome a certain form of subjectivism is best understood in light of the type of subjectivism he does espouse in Romans and beyond. For Barth, revelation is not generally accessible to all humankind on the basis of an inner subjective dispensation or essence. The dogmatic task cannot be universally “do-able” because of some natural capability inherent within the human subject. For Barth, just the opposite is the case. While it is true that a person might make “true” or coherent doctrinal statements irrespective of the eventuality of revelation, the person making such statements is not really “doing theology,” but something entirely different. Such a person is not following revelation with their heart and mind; he or she is not witnessing to the reality of revelation, at least not intentionally or purposefully. As such, the task of theology does not give itself to such a person in any decipherable way. To put it idiomatically, even a broken clock can be right twice a day, but the broken clock is still broken.

Over against such notions of inherent disposition toward or capability for the theological task as part of the essential make-up of the subject, as I have mentioned, Barth stressed the recreation of the subject. According to Barth, the revelation of God by its very nature is a subject forming event — dissolving the old and re-instating the new again and again and again. As McCormack has demonstrated in his fine work, this is true for Barth’s theology from Romans to the last volume of the Dogmatics, though the content of revelation and the meaning of the act clearly develop. So, as I read Barth, he never had a problem with understanding the faith of the subject as an indispensable aspect of really “doing theology.” And so, returning to and answering my own question, Barth’s indispensable “subject” we might say is a different subject than the one he was reacting against because it is a post eventual subject. It is a subject that is oriented to an event, WHO is the object of theology. As such, it makes little sense for Pannenberg to accuse Barth of failing to overcome the centrality of the subject with regard to the dogmatic task when Barth’s problem was not with the centrality of the subject per se.

But my critique of Pannenberg, can also be found within Pannenberg’s own ST. For this, we have to go ch.3. Here we find Pannenberg’s discussion of religion as an anthropological phenomenon. Tracing the shift of the authoritative center of the Protestant theological task from the Scripture Principle (whether emphasized as the subjective appropriation or objective truthfulness of the text) to phenomenological study of the religious individual and/or community, Pannenberg again blows the anthropocentrism whistle on Schleiermacher and his theological method. “Schleiermacher’s Speeches on Religion,” Pannenberg states, ” gave the independence of religion a new foundation. Religion no longer owed its freedom from metaphysics and moral philosophy to the authority of the truth of God. It now had a basis of independence in anthropology with its claim to be a separate province in the mind (Speeches, p.21). The concept of God was now a product of religion, and it did not necessarily belong to it (pp. 93ff., 97ff.). Later Schleiermacher would link religion (or piety) more closely with the concept. In The Christian Faith, the feeling of absolute dependence stands on its own. It is not an effect of faith in God.” (ST I:126)

Pannenberg goes on to explain his reading of Schleiermacher in more detail. But, he basically concludes with the final point given in the quote above: the God-consciousness of the individual is not a consequence of the knowledge of God gifted to the subject from without (by a faith invoking experience or event perhaps?); instead, it is an expression of religion or piety belonging to the make-up of the subject from within. It is basically an essential component of the subject’s being.

Now, I am not an expert on Schleiermacher. I only have a basic knowledge of the new scholarship on Schleiermacher’s theology and only a bit more knowledge of Barth’s reading of Schly via Troeltsch. But whether or not Pannenberg gets Schleiermacher right is irrelevant. What should be obvious is that Pannenberg betrays his earlier critique of Barth by unpacking his understanding of Schleiermacher’s notion of subjectivity, which is, quite obviously, antithetical to Barth’s notion of subjectivity. If Pannenberg would have explained the different forms of subjectivity and the subject’s relation to nature of revelation and the theological task in 19th and 20th century theology when he was lumping Barth into the Liberalism category, he might have seen that Barth’s understanding of the subject “doing theology” is nothing like Schleiermacher’s. As such, to suggest that Barth never overcame the theological anthropocentrism of Liberal Protestantism is really nothing more than a two-fold oversimplification. In Pannenberg’s accusation, both terms— “subjectivism” and “anthropocentism” — are so broad they virtually become meaningless; with that, Pannenberg’s critique becomes meaningless as well (at least from this angle).

Pannenberg would have done better to level a critique against Barth on the relation of the subject and the task of theology by first differentiating the various forms of subjectivity, faith, and the theological task of the faithful subject in modern theology. If we read Pannenberg’s argument against Barth in light of Pannenberg’s own theological goals, I think we get a better sesne of Pannenberg’s worry when it comes to subjectivity than we do from simply looking at his argument against Barth on its own terms. Furthermore, from what I’ve read of Pannenberg thus far, we might also realize that his own take on the issue could use a bit more of Barth’s post-eventual subjectivism.

2011 Karl Barth Conference Journal: Day 1

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 22:12:00 -0400

Tonight was the opening night for the 2011 Karl Barth Conference co-sponsored by Princeton Seminary’s Center for Barth Studies and the Thomistic Institute of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House Studies in Washington D.C. The conference title follows its unique subject matter and implicitly speaks to its direction and concerns, Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth: An Unofficial Protestant-Catholic Dialogue.

The night began with a banquet, which I, not so unfortunately, had to miss. Not so unfortunate because I was afforded the opportunity of picking up Father Guy Mansini, OSB, associate professor of systematic theology at Saint Meinard in Louisville, KY from the Newark airport.

Along with my friends who accompanied me, Father Mansini and I had our own Protestant-Catholic theological dialogue of sorts, mostly consisting of theological small talk regarding our interests and the likely coincidences and dissonances of our theological concerns. We did briefly discuss Barth’s take on the place of the ecumenical creeds (particularly the first four) as they are oriented to the theological task. We also spoke briefly on Barth’s understanding of submission to the creeds and in what way they are to be considered biding or guiding parameters in church theology.

We arrived in Princeton in time for the introductory remarks of Professor Bruce McCormack and Father Thomas Joseph White, O.P.

Both Professor McCormack and Father White indicated that the some of the churches are currently in a time of ecclesiastical transition, which for those interested, might open up new possibilities by way of ecumenical dialogue and theology across the Protestant-Catholic divide. The locus of and intent behind ecumenical discussion, they both suggested, seems to be shifting. Protestants and Catholics are now concerning themselves with points of doctrinal divergence that cannot so easily be overcome or obfuscated by swift linguistic maneuvering and or doctrinal-grammatical rearrangement. Rather, both speakers noted (and particularly Prof. McCormack on this point), many concerned theologians and laypersons already at the ecumenical table have come to an sincere admittance that Protestants and Catholics do have fundamental matters of disagreement in doctrine, disagreements that cut to the core of the common faith we confess. Some are coming to the table, because they feel welcome to voice the perceived discrepancies without fear of spoiling the atmosphere.

Such admittances does not have to, and most certainly should not require Protestants and Catholics to put their mutual respect and common aim aside. The admittance of serious differences should not lead to a rejection of humility. Nor, when properly perceived, should it birth the desire to be excused from the ecumenical table. On the contrary, the common profession of faith and Goal encourages Protestants and Catholics alike to press on. Though divergences can no longer be remedied by a form of mutual congeniality and consensus wiggled out through broad doctrinal statements, mutual congeniality and consensus might now arise freely and openly through clear, frank, and respectful discussion for the sake of mutual understanding and clarity.

With this approach, Protestants and Catholics might be best suited to treat each other with the kind of respect and integrity all deserve. As Father White put it, we respect one another and our shared belief in the Lordship of Christ in and through our common search for truth together, and this truth includes bringing our concrete disagreements to the fore.

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Marilynne Robinson's Princeton Lecture: American Liberalism

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 11:13:00 -0400

Marilynne Robinson’s Abraham Kuyper lecture at Princeton Theological Seminary is available for free download at the Seminary website. The lecture is entitled: Open Wide Thy Hand: Moses and the Origins of American Liberalism.

Marilynne Robinson is an American novelist and essayist. Her novel Gilead received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005, and her follow-up novel Home received the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2009. More recently, she delivered the Terry lectures at Yale University, resulting in the publication of Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of Self.

"I seem to always be missing the ‘creed’ that the fundamentalists mention. Can someone..."

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 20:39:41 -0400

“I seem to always be missing the ‘creed’ that the fundamentalists mention. Can someone fill me in on that because I’m pretty sure it can’t be the Nicene or the Apostle’s. And isn’t one of the first points of any introduction to Ideology that ideology universalizes historical particularities? Again, I’m always missing things, and this time it seems to be a historical epoch where christian belief was positively committed to a ubiquitous affirmation…”

- A good-hearted and wise friend.

The Princeton Theological Review posts the fall 2011 Call for...

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 10:12:26 -0400

The Princeton Theological Review posts the fall 2011 Call for Papers.

If you wish to participate, please visit the Princeton Theological Review website for further details.

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The Princeton Theological Review is a independent student-run publication body at Princeton Theological Seminary. The PTR is not an official publication of Princeton Theological Seminary, and the views expressed in the PTR do not necessarily represent those of the editors, the student body, or the Seminary.

Resurrection as the Real . . . (and you can get over it).

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 09:48:00 -0400

“If Paul—quite apart from his general opposition to the idea that faith has a ‘wage’—cannot subordinate hope to the imaginary of a retribution, it is because resurrection has no meaning independently of the universal character of its operation. As soon as it is a question of contingency and grace, all fixing of divisions or distributions is forbidden: ‘A single act of righteousness leads to the acquittal and life for all [people]’ (Rom. 5.18). The “all [people]” returns without exception. There is no place here for vengeance and resentment. Hell, the roasting spit of enemies, holds no interest for Paul.” — Alain Badiou, Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism, trans. Ray Brassier (Stanford, CA: Standford University Press, 2003), 96.

Whether or not Badiou gets Paul right in this quote, or in the book for that matter, is the least of my concerns. What is elemental is the stress on subjectivity. Post Liberal Protestant Christians need a dose of this in light of overreaction against buzz words like ‘experience’ and ‘consciousness.’ Juengel rightly shows us in his GMW, and reactions to GMW (e.g., Molnar) show us the battle rages on.

But about Badiou: he sees in Paul an utter conviction in the reality of the Event (here, the Resurrection) and its power to create the individual anew. According to Badiou, for Paul, only when a person is completely worked over with the conviction the Resurrection is the Real will law and its oppressive parameters be subverted. The the law can be a doctrinal form, a metaphysic, an identification of a political body with the Real, or any other type of deification of a particular cultural ideal/current.

Doctrinally speaking, this conviction includes the subversion of the law as it is projected into an eternal future or an afterlife. It also includes the subversion of the law that chooses to doubt the Resurrection as the Real, inevitably falling back identity mediated through the law resulting in yet another tribalism. Here we are not talking about historicality or some modern notion of factuality. The Real subverts such notions, dissolving them in the wake of its overarching Reality of another form. Cataloging the Resurrection event in the annals of history as a touchstone for faith and action is a bastardized way to go about relating to the Real. It is a movement of law.

Also and again according to Badiou’s reading of Paul, if any idea of hope and expectation for the triumph of love is to wholly ground action, then the projection of the Real into a future locale or event with a present idea of justice must be surrendered. Along with it, all attempts to hide it underneath or within a tribal law and grammar must also be left by the wayside. The projection of tribal law into the future (generally played out in some grand final law court culminating in a separation of brothers, mothers, and fathers according to the unknown-but-surprisingly-similar-to-my-rule Rule), is finally a rejection of Resurrection as the Real as well. Instead one, the subject, seized by the Resurrection Event, can only be obstinate here and now in post-eventual support of Resurrection’s Reality. The rejection of law becomes an issue only as it falls into its place among the ruins. In this respect, living by the Resurrection Event is primarily a progressive and not a reactionary way of existence.

Another way of looking at it: this means that idealistic notions of pure materialism or trancendentalism must both be rejected along with all forms that disguise the one within the other. The conviction must hold that Resurrection cannot be laughed out of material significance into the realm of the failed transcendent, nor can it be thrown up into the sky or into an afterlife in rejection of its reality here and now (often leading to an acceptance of the status quo). Both of these ways of dealing with the Resurrection make the same mistake. They fail to take it seriously as an ontologically constitutive reality for God, creation, and the subject. They believe in something else, not the Resurrection Event.

Of course, on this last point Badiou would not follow me. For him, Paul’s Resurrection Event is a “fabrication.” It is not the Event itself. Rather Paul’s universalism and emphasis on the subject is a parable of sorts, an opportunity for picking up the rubble of failed Transcendence and using it as artillery. So, the question: what to read to understand Badiou’s take on the EVENT? Any suggestions? And, please, don’t just say Being and Event, give me pg. #s.

Bon Iver Strawberry Jam Night: Morning After.

Sat, 04 Jun 2011 13:02:55 -0400

The Morning After.

Factory 107 Proprietors (in the fields).

Bam.

Farewell from the Porter.

Fin!

Bon Iver Strawberry Jam Night: Morning After.

Bon Iver Strawberry Jam Night.

Sat, 04 Jun 2011 12:34:00 -0400

Enter Jam Factory 107.

Jam Factory 107 Porter.

The Goods.

Smashed, Stirred, and Splattered.

And Leaked.

Pre-WaterBath Bath.

Jam Queen in the Spotlight.

Post-Pre-WaterBath Bath (i.e.WaterBath).

Post-Post-PreWaterBath Bath Mingling.

Late Night Product.

Bon Iver Strawberry Jam Night.

Ascension Art: Early sci-fi has nothing on this

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 12:05:19 -0400

In one of those massive tomes comprising the Church Dogmatics, Barth remarks that of all the grandeur and pathos Christian art has bequeathed to the world, one particularly fatal flaw was made. Despite countless efforts, Christian art has positively failed to produce an acceptable ascension scene. At least, he says, we all get a good laugh out of it. I would go a step further. Some depictions of the parousia might just be a bit more gut-wrenching. This is particularly the case when the terror-target is overshot, and the artifact lands squarely within the fence-line of Oscar Romero’s playground.

But Barth is right; we should let out a good laugh through the apocalyptic air we all seem to be breathing at the moment.

Now for the money question: Where does ascending Jesus of Nazareth “go” when he exits the Troposphere? Taking bets: Can he make it to the mesosphere if he holds his breath?

And as for the parousia — I present the Rapture in the key of J.N. Darby:

Video

Mon, 30 May 2011 21:59:34 -0400

Barth, 1924: The Resurrection of the Dead

Wed, 18 May 2011 14:01:00 -0400

Here’s Barth on resurrected life in 1924 from his commentary of 1 Corinthians entitled Resurrection of the Dead. In his reading of Paul, Barth grounds the resurrection of the human being in the central reality and revelation of meaningful existence — the resurrection of the man Jesus Christ (even here Barth has yet to speak of resurrection largely in terms of salvation history, though he does use the term some). In III/2 (1948), Barth is clear that the end of life for the human creature is concretely the creature’s ending time. Humans live in the resurrection of Christ and come to themselves and the reality of their resurrected existence as the Spirit comes to them ever-again and ever-a-new. There is not a continued time, post-temporal, or afterlife life for the human creature in III/2. But in 1924, prior to III/2’s release, Barth is not as clear. In his exposition of 1 Cor 15, Barth expounds a notion of “re-predicated” corporeality. He grounds this “re-predication” of human corporeality (as a post-death reality?) in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, though this is by no means his primary emphasis. So Barth:

The corruptibility, dishonour, and weakness of man is, in fact, that of his corporeality. Death is the death of the body. If death be not only the end—but also the turning point, then the new life must consist in the repredication of [Jesus’] corporeality. To be sown and to rise again must be then applied to the body. The body is man, body in relation to a non-bodily, determined, indeed, by this non-bodily, but body. The change in relationship of the body to this non-bodily is just the resurrection. Not, therefore, some transition of man to a merely non-bodily existence. Of such Paul knows nothing whatever. The persisting subject is rather just the body… . This re-predication is the “resurrection of the dead,” (191-2).

With this, Barth eschews all views related to the immortality of the soul, or even the immortality of a body. Both are highly speculative and concerned with an ideal, not the recreation for authentic existence in Jesus’ resurrection. Furthermore, the re-predication of corporeal reality in the resurrection of Jesus and our contingent resurrection living-ness is not distinct from worldly existence. This radical affirmation of resurrected corporeality is a rejection of both escapism and materialism. But does he really confirm an “afterlife” of any sort, meaning a time after the body ceases to function and begins the process of decay? I’m not sure he cares to answer:

Exactly as I am, shall I and will I be God’s. Not in passing: the immortality of the soul is placed in dispute by what Paul says here. Instead of the human soul, The Spirit of God appears in the resurrection. That which persists is not the soul (the latter is the predicate, which must give place to something else), but the body, even that, not as an immortal body, but in the transition from life in death to life. It is not that, however, which Paul wants to indicate here, but the positive aspect. Exactly in the place of that which makes me a man, the human soul, is set that which makes God, God, the Spirit of God, that is the complete sovereignty of God, this the Resurrection of the Dead. But exactly in this place! To wish to be to be God’s without the body is rebellion against God’s will, is secret denial of God, (201).

Barth’s time-eternity dialectic is not the only dialectic underscoring his reading of Paul. There is also his Adam-Christ dialectic, first majestically expounded in Romans and referenced here again (1 Cor 15.22). Barth is curtailing any illusions of grandeur we might have about ourselves in our present state affairs or projecting our human subjectivity of the now into the glory of a final “all and in all,” which necessarily excludes the dialectic that defines human existence now.

He who recognizes himself in Adam and Christ no longer, in fact, asks: With what body shall we come again? as if it were a marvellous fairy-tale which he must “believe.” He knows that what is in question is this, his body (but the resurrection of this body), and gives God the honour in fear and trembling, but also in hope, (203).

[T]his man — that is to say, this body as such — without this last hope is definitely and entirely outside the Kingdom of God. Within this life of the body as such there exists no possibility of inheriting the Kingdom, to do which one must be the Son coming from heaven, the Lord from heaven (verses 47 et seq.), or one of his own (in the future resurrection).

If within this life — the life of the Adam-Christ dialectic — there is no possibility of inheriting the Kingdom, but there is a change in relationship between the body [time] and the non-bodily [eternity], what does it mean to hold for a “last hope” or “future resurrection?” What is the Kindgom? What relevance does it have for us now, in Barth’s logic at this point in time?

Also, the problem of general bodily resurrection, of the “re-predication” of human corporeality as a post-death possibility remains. In a 2003 issue of the IJST, Katherine Grieb seems to suggest that Barth was at least indicating some kind of teleology — a general bodily resurrection of the dead. One article over, David Fergusson indicates just the opposite. In fact, Fergusson thinks Barth completely neglected the the issue of teleology and the general resurrection of the dead and was mistaken in doing so.

I’m not too sure what to make of it, however. It seems Barth’s comments on 1 Cor 15 could be read both ways, though, given the history, it would seem to me that Fergusson’s take is probably closer to the truth.

Bonhoeffer: The Christian Life for the World

Tue, 03 May 2011 07:21:00 -0400

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote the following in his Ethics while working with the resistance movement undercover in the Abwehr. I believe they should give us pause before ascribing the death of Osama bin Laden or any of our responses to it to Bonhoeffer’s legacy.

“Radicalism always arises from a conscious or unconscious hatred of what exists. Christian radicalism, whether it would flee the world or improve it, comes from the hatred of creation. The radical cannot forgive God for having created what is. It is Ivan Karamazov, the one who totally at odds with the created world, who creates the figure of a radical Jesus in the legend of the Grand Inquisitor. When evil becomes powerful in the world, it simultaneously injects the Christian with the poison of radicalism. Reconciliation with the world as it is, which is given to the Christian by Christ, is then called betrayal and denial of Christ. In its place come bitterness, suspicion, and contempt for human beings and the world. Love that believes all things, bears all things, and hopes all things, love that loves the world in its very wickedness with the love of God (John 3:16), becomes — by limiting love to the closed circle of the pious — a pharisaical refusal of love for the wicked. The open church of Jesus Christ, which serves the world to the end, becomes a kind of supposed ur-Christian ideal church-community that in turn mistakenly confuses the realization of a Christian idea with the reality of the living Jesus Christ. Thus a world that has become evil succeeds in making Christians evil also. The identical sickness dismisses the world and radicalizes Christians. In both cases it is hatred toward the world, whether it is the hate of the godless or the pious. On both sides it is refusal to believe in God’s creation. One cannot drive out any devils with Beelzebub.” — Bonhoeffer, DBW vol.6, Ethics, 155-6.

Barth, Election, and James Cone

Mon, 02 May 2011 21:34:00 -0400

Earlier this semester, I wrote a very short paper on the Barth’s doctrine of election as a possible resource for liberation theologies. In the past, liberation theologians (namely, James Cone) have spent the majority of their energies mining Barth’s 1921 Romans and early doctrine of revelation in CD I.1 for resources. While in A Black Liberation of Theology Cone does mention that the lived history of Jesus Christ is the revelation of God, he thinks of this primarily in a revelatory framework without any explicit reference to or implicit concern for the Barth’s doctrine of election. We could stretch out Cone’s chapter on christology (which looks somewhat like Barth’s, but makes only one reference to Barth) to meet up with his earlier and lengthier discussion of revelation (which is clearly Barthian), thereby constructing some sort of connection to Barth’s doctrine of election. However, this would be working the text over a little too much. Instead, it seems to me, Cone’s take on God as creator holds the most connection to Barth’s doctrine of election. Here’s what he says about God’s relating to the creature:

“Though white theologians have emphasized that God as creator is a statement about the divine-human relationship they have not pointed out the political implications of this theological truth for blacks. God as creator has not been related to the oppressed in society. If creation “involves bringing into existence of something that did not exist before” (Kaufmann), then to say God is creator means that my being finds its source in God. I am black because God is black! God as creator is the ground of my blackness (being), the point of reference meaning and purpose in the universe.

“If God, not whitneness, is the ground of my being, then God is the only source of reference regarding how I should behave in the world. Complete obedience is owed only to God, and every alien loyalty must be rejected. Therefore, as a black person living in a white world that defines human existence according to white inhumanity, I cannot relax and pretend that all is well with black humanity. Rather it is incumbent upon me by the freedom granted by the creator to deny whiteness and affirm blackness as the essence of God.” (BTL, 80).

Notice that God’s relating to human beings is what grounds and actually gives human beings existence. Any existence outside of God’s relating to humans in the way that God establishes is not freedom or authentic existence but death and movement toward non-being. For Cone, this means that existing as a being created by God in relation to God (blackness) is the grounds for rejecting all other forms of existence whether such forms are chosen, unintentionally accepted, or forced upon a human being (whiteness). Cone does recapitulate these theological sentiments in the Christology of A Black Theology of Liberation. However, Jesus Christ is not spoken of as the grounding reality of human being as the One who elects the existence of creation as is so in Barth’s doctrine of election. To be sure Jesus Christ is the manifestation of the blackness of God’s being (129), but the relationship between the manifestation of God’s being in Jesus Christ and the creation of humanity specifically in the blackness of Jesus Christ is not wholly apparent in Cone’s theological vision. Perhaps this might be a point of connection — a point of rapproachment between Barthian Reformed theologians and liberation theologians in the tradition of Cone. Perhaps it might also be a call to arms and repentance to Barthian theologians who often all too flippantly pass over or dismiss Cone’s criticisms of Barthian school theology.

Covenant as the Presupposition of Scripture

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 20:43:00 -0400

The notion that election is the ground and activity of God speaking is pretty intuitive. Because of this, it is often taken for granted in the Reformed theology. In taking it for granted, we are in danger of taking Scripture for granted or worse, neglecting its place as God’s word. As such, I think Heppe’s quote on the matter is worth sharing. Note: Though the overwhelming majority of Heppe’s Reformed Dogmatics is a compendium of quotations from the scholastics, this is his own thought on the matter.

“The attributes of ‘sufficiency’ and ‘perpetuity’ belong to H. Scripture, because the whole doctrine of it rests upon a foundation, from which all revealed truths are derived and in which all doctrines of salvation are already contained in essence. This basic truth of Scripture is the comfortable doctrine, that Christ is the way, the truth and the life and the believers inalienable possession. In the Son become man not only does the truth of the law appear afresh : in Him it is also the eternal, forgiving grace of the Father; that is, law and gospel offered to the world, and not just offered but given to believers, so that they can never lose it again. This then is the sum of all doctrines of Scripture, that Christ is not just the salvation of the world in general but is also “my” salvation, and that because “I” have become “the Lord’s property”, I shall likewise remain so for ever. The basic foundation of all revealed truths in Scripture is thus the covenant of God with believers in Christ.

“The distinction between a fundamentum Scripturae and the individual doctrines in it, and the conviction that the latter are essentially present in the former, is so essential not merely to the Federal theology but to the Reformed system in general, that the latter cannot be understood at all without recognition of the former. At the same time this proposition is the basis of the really scientific nature, the method in principle of Reformed dogmatics. German-Reformed theology described this fundamental concept of Revelation (HEPPE, Altprot. Dogm. p. 144ff.) from the very beginning by the expression foedus Dei (also regnum Christi, koinonia, cum Christo). Thereby it was asserted that Christ is salvation, not merely because He aquired salvation, but because He can never be conceived otherwise than in a definite relation to the individual believer, as Redeemer, Mediator and Bringer of bliss, and so the Redeemer of redeemed men who are implanted in Him. Hence the concept of the name of Christ exactly coincides at this point with the concept of the covenant of God.”

— Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, rev. and ed. Ernst Bizer, trans. G.T. Thomson (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2007), 42.

Rob Bell, "Functional Universalism," and the Reason for Mission

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 12:04:00 -0400

When Rob Bell’s Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person who Every Lived came out, the far right evangelicals directed all of their constructive attention to pouring Bell into a particular heretical mold and leaving him there to dry. In part, the move was political. If Bell could be declared guilty by association with Origen, “Liberal Protestants” (a category, according to Al Mohler, including everyone from Schleiermacher to Bultmann), and some other nasty figures from church history, then the challenge he posed to conservative evangelicals could be obfuscated by the smokescreen of a small inquisition.

Al Mohler represents this strain quite well. His response to the Bell situation? “We have seen this all before.” Basically, Mohler was just finishing what Justin Taylor (et al.) had started. First, Taylor gets everyone riled up, angry — perhaps even worried — about this supposedly heretical book, claiming that God loves everyone enough to save everyone. One week later, we have an entire blogosphere ready to storm the concert hall that is Mars Hill and defrock the mega church pastor. We have the always scrupulous John Piper bidding adieu to Rob Bell through twitter, and finally the far right, citing Jesus and Paul in a footnote, turned Rob Bell over to the devil as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” the ultimate mega-church pastor to mega-church pastor burn. So while Taylor is fear-mongering and rabble-rousing with scant evidence to support his cause, Mohler is putting on his game face, preparing play the voice of reason and enlightenment for the directionless masses. In all actuality, Taylor wielded the powers of misdirection to begin with.

In two weeks Bell went from being a dangerous wolf and false prophet, intent on subverting the entire ecclesiastical edifice that is the Gospel Coalition, to nothing more than a rendition, a boring old theological has-been from the past. Since, as Mohler says, “We have seen this all before,” there was no longer any sufficient reason for alarm. Before this, Taylor was bent on education! Everyone must tackle this monster from the lagoon that is Bell’s book for the sake of being informed, for the sake of preservation of the gospel, for the sake of God. But before anyone had the chance to educate themselves, before anyone could buy their copy for the book burning, Mohler quelled the fears of the evangelical hoi polloi, leaving every reason for education (however misguided or ignoble) by the wayside. The Gospel Coalition has said little since Mohler put out his response and the release of the book. In fact, the majority of people I know who are thoroughly considering Bell’s book are theo-bloggers who aren’t really invested in either Bell or Mohler.

In the end, Taylor basically played the Glenn Beck to Mohler’s Tea Party. In this situation, the Gospel Coalition was the Beck University, keeping the far right evangelical fat cats in their seats and about their business through pseudo-educational blather. Through the Taylor-Mohler tag-team, any aspirations for confrontation (honest or otherwise) with Bell’s book were systematically extricated. The book itself was lost to the process of fear and placation, and movement from bondage and salvation — before the public even had time to read the book. Talk about an efficient politic on the part of the evangelical far right. Everything was done in a few weeks work, everything but honest theological work. Everything but actually engaging the text itself.

This group poses a problem, of course. But the more interesting and less explicit problem is the mission minded evangelical right. To them, Rob Bell demonstrates the dissolution of mission, the radical rejection of their primary reason for witnessing to Jesus Christ. So while the Missional Right claims that “theological universalism” is bad enough, its practical results are even worse. This they call “functional universalism.” According to the Missional Right, functional universalism is the catalyst for sloth and a rejection of the primary impetus for mission, pragmatically speaking.

This charge usually begins with a leading question: “Do we really believe that all except those who have consciously and faithfully accept that Jesus atoned for God’s wrath for on the cross will go to hell?” The question is not about theological thinking but an implicit call to proselytize. If all who have never heard and responded to the “good news” about Jesus are on their way to hell, then we should take our mission all the more seriously, right? People are dying every day, headed into a godless eternity, and though their death might be no fault of our own, the fact that they have not heard is implicitly condemns our meaningless theological discussions as aloof from the real problems of the world. This is the call to witness. Nevermind the intriguing fact that the constituents of the Missional Right are often traditionally minded evangelical Calvinists. Nevermind all of the logical, political, and theoretical conundrums wrapped up in that truth. Where the Missional Right gets off condemning “functional universalism” comes down to a matter of God’s identity and motivation for proclamation.

By rejecting universalism because of its supposed causative relation to poor missional practice and lack of incentive, the Missional Right is revealing its own missional impulse and the rationale behind its missionary practices. Practically speaking, the Missional Right views mission as a race against time and (more importantly God!) to save people from damnation. Though they would not say as much in writing, the rejection of “universalism” on function grounds (however dubious the claims really are) betrays their true motivation and presents a caricatured universalism, one that evangelical universalists would hardly accept. When the Missional Right suggests that universalism means that we can all “sit back and do nothing,” not only have they failed to understand what evangelical universalism (a la some Barthians and others) is all about, they also open themselves up to severe criticism from the very evangelical universalists they misrepresent! While I can’t prove so here and now, theoretically speaking, evangelical universalists have just as much if not more motivation for missionary existence than the Missional Right. No doubt evangelical universalists (at least of the Barthian persuasion) have a demonstrable coherence in their doctrines of God, mission, and church primarily because of the centrality and particularity of Jesus Christ and his own mission. It is not so clear, however, that the same can be said of the Missional Right.

Talking about Death with Jesus: Some Off-the-Cuff Theological Thoughts

Sun, 10 Apr 2011 01:18:00 -0400

I. Christian talk about death must have Jesus Christ as its subject. It cannot stray to the right or left to form a concept or reflection independent of his person without ceasing to be Christian talk about death.

”[Jesus’] divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness” (2 Peter 1.3). This also includes within it everything the world needs for here and now to talk about death. This is not to say that the final word about death now is ours to make alive. It is to say that Jesus Christ has given to us what we need for life in speaking about death in a godly— that is, faithful — way .

II. The claim that Jesus (as the subject of Christian talk about death) holds everything the world needs now is not a recourse to a religious folk grammar. Religious grammar and linguistic turns cannot speak beyond the doors of a church or a theological seminar room. To say that Christian talk about death must have Jesus Christ as its subject is to say that Christian talk about death cannot speak of death as a void where God is not.

When Jesus proclaims to the souls in prison (1 Pet 3.19), he proclaims himself as life present and at hand without mediation. This is a proclamation that cannot be tied into a theological grammar, liturgical form, or the host of churchly goods. For Jesus to proclaim his solidarity with to the souls in prison is his own proclamation to all, whether he takes to form the place and language of a theological classroom or a redneck backyard barbecue. Jesus isn’t closer to those in need because Christians witness with right words, but because Jesus is right there as the eternally Crucified One already.

III. Christian talk about Jesus’ solidarity with all in death is, as Juengel notes, “a language which defies death.” This does not mean that death is only an illusion. Rather, the solidarity of Jesus with all in death defies the notion that death is a stand alone event or idea. No one stands alone in death. But Jesus stands will all who pass into it. That God in Jesus is ‘there’ for all in death is why there can be Christian talk about death.

Death is not the end of relationship with God. Death is not non-being. If it were, God would not have passed through there to something new. This, however, is not about infinite survival or kicking against the pricks of finitude, but about God’s being present wherever we find ourselves. For Jesus to “never leave us or forsake us” (Heb. 13.5) means that Jesus will go where we have to go, even to the places we think we will never find him.

IV. Jesus’ solidarity with all in death tears apart sin’s hold on death. In this way, it defies death by giving death a new meaning, particularly as part of the life lived in faithful following of Jesus.

When Jesus tells his disciples they will be persecuted to death for righteousness sake, he meant that it was part of their new life with him. John’s Jesus tells Peter, “Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go… After this he said to him, ‘Follow me’” (John 21.18-9).

V. With Christ, death is God’s limitation of his creation. It can no longer be perceived as the Great Equalizer wielded by sin against God and all that God loves.

God defies sin by coming to us in death and giving us a place with God in death apart from sin. If death is the Great Equalizer, it is because there is no Jew or Greek when we are with Jesus Christ in both life and death.

VI. The Resurrection of Jesus from the dead does not nullify our end in this life. Once again, our human end is coming just as sure is our beginning has come and gone. But just as Jesus was with us in our birth, so too he is in relation with us in our death. To follow him is to follow him in the here and now, regardless where he leads. In the Resurrection Jesus gives his life abundantly for us to be with him and follow now and again and again.

When all else turn away from Jesus, he turns to his disciples. “Do you also wish to go away?’ Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life’” (John 6.67-8). Peter heard these words of eternal life as the human he was, even in his little faith. They were words of eternal life for him then and there, and they were the words of eternal life that guided him in his life and death.

VII. Resurrection hope cannot be a holding out for immortality or any other concept of infinity. At most, Resurrection hope is a faith in the God that can sustain God’s covenant with creatures the way God sees fit as the one who actively sustains — not as the one who turns over an “infinity” to the finite. Heaven is not our infinite playground, but our call to follow God who is the Eternal One.

If it is true that in Jesus Christ “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17.28)., then Resurrection hope cannot be a hope for an infinity of just living and moving and being. If this is our goal, then our goal is not to know Christ. Resurrection hope might be a hope for being with Jesus and following Jesus as he sustains our being his way — just as he sustains our being by the word of his power now. As such, the Resurrection hope does not promise a mulligan behind our death, but directs us to follow now in faith, just as Jesus commanded Peter. And Peter followed, witnessing to Jesus, even to his death.

David Kelsey's Warfield Lectures: Lecture 6, "God's Power in Two Registers"

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 19:06:00 -0400

Dr. Kelsey concluded the 2011 Warfield lectures with the final register of God’s power—the power of God to reconcile estranged creatures to Godself and one another. It is the second of the explicitly christological registers, the other one being the God’s power faithfully expressing in eschatological consummation. Between God’s relating in creaturely blessing and eschatological consummation stands creaturely estrangement. Creaturely estrangement is the result of clinging to another creature or created thing as if it is God. By putting our hopes for well-being, flourishing and continued existence in what is not God, we distort reality for others and ourselves. What results is systemic and personal creaturely estrangement—the entropic movement of human creatures who resist God and thus one another. In light of God’s work in creaturely blessing and toward eschatological consummation, and in light of creaturely estrangement in relation to these two blessings, God works to reconcile all estranged creatures to Godself in Christ.

Drawing from the Synoptic Gospels, Acts, and the Pauline epistles, Dr. Kelsey noted that narratives of eschatological consummation and reconciliation in scripture are necessarily intertwined in the life of Jesus, but the narratives can be distinguished as separate even in their necessary interrelatedness. While (1) narratives of eschatological blessing entail God’s ongoing relationship with us (sanctification), (2) narratives of reconciliation catalogue God’s relating to us as the One who reconciles us from estrangement is a singular, episodic event of the lived history, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth (justification).

God reconciles estranged creatures to Godself as the Crucified God, incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth. And, as the Crucified human, Jesus lived the life of eschatological consummation with God. In light of Jesus lived history, we know that he identified himself with the One he called Father in a way that affirmed their radical closeness and radical distinctness. Jesus’ lived history begins with a special identification of Jesus with God (Matt and Luke: the Virgin Birth; Mark: the baptism narrative), and continues as Jesus identifies himself with God in a number of decisive and unusual ways. For instance, Jesus relates to God as Father in a way that angers the Jewish religious leaders. He is the One who reinterprets the law with personal authority, raises others from the dead, and forgives sins. He was rejected because of his claim of radical closeness between God and himself, yet another indication that this man could only be God.

Another component of his radical closeness to God was Jesus’ rejection of the entropic estrangement and disorder characteristic of the life of sin and idolatry. According to the gospel narratives, Jesus rejected sin in a way that respected the creaturely finitude and limitation of those he came into contact with. He did so by resisting creaturely resistance to God non-violently and in complete solidarity with the estranged, climaxing in his death on the cross. On the cross, Jesus was cut off from his people and died the death of a slave in bondage. But he was not, Kelsey suggests, cut off from God. Jesus’ Cry of Dereliction was not a cry of complete God abandonment or indicative of a stasis between the Father and the Son. Rather, Kelsey suggests, the Cry of Dereliction should be read as a Job-like lament. The Son at once argues with God in representing estranged creatures and dies as God committing himself in total solidarity with the estranged.

What does this tell us of the power of God in reconciling estranged creatures?

First, in reconciling estranged creatures, God respects the integrity of God’s creatures by relating to them on their own terms as one estranged. As one estranged, God in Christ enacts the promise of forgiveness and liberation from the bondage of sin and estrangement by going to the very depths of human estrangement. There God in Christ resists creaturely resistance to God. Without compromising their God ordained creaturely limitations.

Second, the power of God is a liberative power, seen through the patterns of exchange and reversal in synoptic narratives and NT epistles. When creatures try to resist God’s creative or eschatological blessing, God resists their resistance. This is seen most completely in the power of the Cross. The Cross is not an event of power or weakness in some absolute sense of the word. Neither does it tell us that, for God, weakness itself is power. Following the logic of the cross narratives, God’s power is hidden in weakness. For, it is as God in Christ goes to the place of human estrangement and weakness that God draws estranged creatures into relation with Godself. It is not pure powerlessness in weakness. If it were, the cross would accomplish nothing but the death of God in Christ and a pattern of death for those in Christ. Rather, reconciliation to eschatological life is established in an objective way in Jesus Christ. Creatures themselves have to be awakened to the objectivity of reconciliation as God draws them evermore into the flourishing life of the inaugurated yet not fully realized eschatological consummation. In this way God liberates human creatures to be for God, for themselves, and for their enemies.

Third, God’s power is holy. In the pattern of exchange in the canonical narratives of Jesus’ life, we see that God simply does not give up. To be holy is to resist human resistance to well-being and flourishing. This is God’s power in holiness and in judgment.

God’s power is not a “value-neutral potency.” It does not violate God-ordained creaturely integrity. Rather, God faithfully manifests God’s power through solidarity with estranged creatures—not simply for solidarity-in-weakness’ sake or even for reconciliation’s sake, but for reconciliation to eschatological consummation. God’s power works toward the good of creaturely flourishing in eschatological consummation without suspension. It is unfailing. It is for the sake of the new yet final goal, the second eschatological blessing, that God works in Christ with grace for all that is not God.

So ends the blog summaries David Kelsey’s 2011 Warfield Lectures. Thanks for following along!