Theology of the Human Being course 2010

This is a draft of a draft of a proposed Masters course on theological anthropology.... see what you think.
The rationale is that it is meant to engage both theological and non-theological voices and draw out a theological reading of scripture. The cases of torture at Abu Ghraib invites consideration of the human person in many contexts, since it was an attempt to strip certain human beings in terms of their gender, religion, culture, the image of their bodies, and their liberty. Not only that, but contemporary discourses about human rights circulate around this incident too. A theological analysis is not far away either - the cross of Christ is a similar incident, yet it is held to be a great human victory - or the inauguration of a new humanity...

What a Piece of Work is Man: A Theological Investigation into the Human Condition

1. Abu Ghraib and the Disappearance of Man
readings from M. Foucault Discipline & Punish

W. Cavanaugh Torture & Eucharist
Tertullian On the Spectacles
excerpts from Luther
Scripture text: 2 Corinthians 3-4

2. Born Free? Erasmus & Luther and Human Servitude
Luther & Erasmus texts
John Carroll The Wreck of Western Culture
Galatians

Philemon


3. Radiant Hair: Human Gender and the Glory of God
Luce Irigary This Sex That is Not One
Simone de Beauvoir The Second Sex

1 Corinthians 11

Genesis narratives

Song of Songs


4. Homo Laborans: The Human Task
Miroslav Volf A Theology of Work
Hannah Arendt The Human Condition
Ecclesiastes


5. After Humankind? White Teeth and the Human Future
Zadie Smith White Teeth
Michel Houllebecq Atomised
Donna Harroway FutureMouse
Moltmann The Coming of God
1 Corinthians 15

Revelation




6. The Gift of Speech
Habermas?
Alister McFadyen The Call to Personhood
Vanhoozer

Psalm 119


7. My Family and Other Animals
R. Gaita The Philosopher’s Dog

C. Darwin Origin of the Species
from Barth, CD. III
Gregory of Nyssa
Job; Genesis 6-9

8. Realising the Authentic Self with Charles Taylor and Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Charles Taylor Sources of the Self, The Ethics of Authenticity
Bonhoeffer Letter and Papers from Prison, Ethics

John 4


9. The Human Being on Trial: Temptation and Identity
Paul Ricoeur Oneself as Another
Bonhoeffer Temptation
Hebrews 4-5
Gethesamane, Wilderness narratives


10. Social Being, Human Rights and Violence
Cain & Abel; Revelation; Deuteronomy
Ellul The Meaning of the City
Volf Exclusion and Embrace
Rene Girard

11. Homo Adorans: The Religious Being
Hans urs von Balthasar Theological Anthropology

Proverbs; Acts 17


12. The Problem of Human Evil

Dostoyevksy, The Brothers Karamazov

McFadyen, Bound to Sin

Jenson, The Gravity of Sin

Romans

13. Memory, Imagination and the Inner Self
Augustine Confessions
Volf Memory

14. Martyrdom as a Type of Authentic Human Existence

Sin in the Life of the Believer - 3

But ... don’t forget that Paul is stern with the sinful believer, too. In 1 Corinthians 6 he reminds the Corinthians that the Kingdom of God does not belong to the rampant sinner. Ephesians 5:5 is equally strong: “For of this you can be sure; no immoral, impure or greedy person…has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.” The message for the sinful Christian is not, “well, we all sin sometimes, but “stop it and repent!”

Hebrews is even stronger. On the one hand, the author enthusiastically explains how the Christian has absolutely free access into the presence of God himself through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. There is every reason to be confident of our salvation. But, he is also uncompromising about sin. “If we deliberately go on sinning” writes the author, “no sacrifice for sins is left!” To the Christian who said “I sin all the time”, he would say “Don’t!” 1 John backs him up: “I am writing this so you will not sin” he says, “but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father.”

Not bad advice, actually. Christians (well, I, at least) do love to wallow in guilt. But maybe that’s not good enough. If I am to think more biblically I might instead remember who I am on account of Christ. And I might have courage to tackle my sin (with the Spirit’s help) and kill it off. It has no place in my life, after all.

However, I still live in a warzone, for the time being. I still live life in the weak flesh, I still live under the effects of sin, I still live (for now) on the wrong side of eternity. In Romans 8, Paul tackles exactly this state of affairs. (Before you read it, cross out “sinful nature” in the NIV and replace it with “flesh”.) The Christian continues to live in a sinful environment – even in a weak and sinful body – but is now controlled by the Spirit. The Christian experiences first hand the rot of the sinful era: but also yearns with the Spirit for the future redemption of the body. Most reassuringly of all for the overwhelmed believer, there is no condemnation for those in Christ. If God is for us, who can be against us? We are more than conquerors…

Sin in our lives is a contradiction of our very identity: an absurdity, given our destiny. It isn’t who we are any more.

Sin in the Life of the Believer - 2

So, what to do then?

One favourite strategy of Christians down the centuries has been to take a minimal definition of sin. “Lowering the bar” in other words. You define sin using a set of rules or behaviours, and then you design your life so to avoid transgressing. Live in a nice tree-lined suburb. Talk to nice people about nice things. Work hard, never offend anyone. Keep away from attractive members of the opposite sex. Go to church, pay your taxes, recycle. Do not count as sin the more alarming topography of your inner world. Thank God that you are not like other people. Neat, huh?

There are two problems with minimalism. Firstly, Jesus seems to have a maximal definition of sin. His Sermon on the Mount convicts me on the basis of my intentions as well as my deeds; and it also urges me to take radical action against sin. True righteousness is not a matter of merely avoiding sin. It is active.

Secondly, if I am to pursue the path of love commanded by Jesus, I will risk sin in my interactions with other people. Other people are so hard to love, but you can’t be loving without them! No wonder the monastics used isolation in their quest for purity.

But how does the Bible address sin in the life of the believer? It is good to remember the robust conscience of the New Testament writers on the one hand; and the severe warnings they give against sin on the other. Paul does not write to “the sinners in Corinth” but to the “church of God…to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy”. He calls the church the “temple of the Holy Spirit”, and “the body of Christ”. His strategy for handling sin in the life of the believer is to remind Christians of their radical change in status. “ Your life is hid with Christ”; “ You are dead to sin, alive to Christ”; “ you are all sons of God”; “now you are light in the Lord”; “you are not your own…you were brought at a price”; “you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified”; “we…have the firstfruits of the spirit”. The Christian is a home for the Holy Spirit and lives by that Spirit.

Do we doubt the power of God’s Spirit to change us?

Sin in the Life of the Believer - 1

Sin is a remarkably persistent feature of the Christian life.

At least, it is of mine.

Despite of all the thousands of sermons, the stirring songs, despite all the evenings spent in bible study groups, the private prayer and bible study, the encouraging words of other Christians, the evident work of God in and around me, the conventions and conferences – I still look into my heart and find there envy, lust, anger, pettiness, selfish ambition, meanness and greed. Quite a collection, isn’t it? And I have become used to seeing them there, and resigned to it. They do not shock me at all. “After all”, I tell myself, “we will always sin this side of Jesus’ return.”

But in the life of a Christian, sin is an absurdity. In the unbeliever, sin is a symptom of rebellion against God’s authority. But the Christian has submitted to God’s authority, and received new life and has a life hid with Christ in God, and faces no condemnation. The Christian is no longer a slave to sin. Yet, sin still rides on the Christian like a stowaway. We live within a world-wide-web of evil; and despite the call to be different to it, we still log on. We still suffer the effects of sin; and we still transmit them.

Even more than suffering, the absurdity of sin leads to spiritual despair. “ I know it’s wrong and I know Christianity is true” said the high school student in my office. “But I just can’t handle life as a hypocrite and I don’t think I can give up going to parties and drinking too much. Life with a conscience is too hard.” The presence of those creeps in my own heart causes me to despair ever of overcoming them and so I give way to their power. They make everything so complicated. I feel like a drowning man.

So, what to do then?

A thought about Christology

In the temptation/testing of Jesus we do not observe so much the victory of moral rectitude, or finally of one human being who has developed the strength to overcome; but rather we find an example of dependence on the Word of God and trust in his will. He overcomes not by being superhuman, but by being MORE PROPERLY HUMAN. He is victorious by following the human vocation as it was originally given...

Who is in the pew?

On the pulpit in Salisbury Cathedral: St Paul (I think...)

Some thoughts towards an article addressing the issue raised in this post, namely 'who is in the pew as the preacher preaches, theologically speaking? Here is my preliminary list:

1. a creature, addressed by God and called to respond.


2. a creature among other creatures, like and unlike.


3. a creature who is, here and now, here and now.


4. a creature of flesh and blood.


5. a creature of hand, heart and head


6. a creature of imagination and memory


7. a creature tempted and tested by the devil


8. a creature scarred by sin


9. a creature facing death


10. a creature whose flesh Christ took on, and for whom Christ died


11. a creature addressed by God, and called to respond
    

Somehow, I would like to get Jesus in there earlier. But I kinda like the way this ends, which means you can take the Jesus bit and read it all back in to the others. In fact, the incarnation, life of obedience, passion and resurrection give us most of these again in a second way. And, also, I make no distinction between believers and unbelievers here. Ought I?

Augustine and Preaching

At the Latimer Conference we were treated to a fine paper from Peter Sanlon, a student of Catherine Pickstock's from Cambridge University, on 'The Preaching of Augustine'. It was very stimulating. Sanlon's claim is that Augustine's sermons have been scandalously overlooked in academic study of his work.

One point he made I would like to share here. Augustine as a preacher shaped his preaching according to his theology of humanity. Which is to say, he was aware of what it took to persuade a person, to ask a person to look into their heart in response to the word of God. He quoted Michael Hanby:

It is no accident that charity assumes a paramount importance in the Augustinian tradition and discretion in teh pagan, nor that delight in the one case and assent or choice in the other are the corresponding terms in their respective philosophies of action. The terms denote divergent ontological contexts within which selfhood, action and virtue are construed.

Would that modern day preachers thought so comprehensively about those they were addressing!

An anthropology of temptation?

A couple of posts ago I buried in a piece of verbosity a suggestion that I thought might interest some people: namely, that temptation is part of being human in a very fundamental way. Jesus needed to undergo temptation in order to identify with us, to be like us in every regard. Which sends back to thinking about the garden...

There is but one restriction: the notorious tree. The restriction stands as a reminder to the creature of his creatureliness – for man of all creatures was most likely to forget this about himself and to believe in his own independence from God and his Word. And yet, as Bonhoeffer writes ‘innocence means clinging to the Word of God with pure undivided hearts’.[1] That is why the Tempter, when he comes, comes armed with the Word of God; and concealing his true nature.[2] The beauty of the lie he told the woman and the man was that it was not completely a lie. In fact, it was close to the truth. ‘Did God really say’ he whispered, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’? (Gen 3:1)

There had been a command, true, and it had been about trees and eating. But the woman is able to put aside this first suggestion: God in fact had said ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die’ (Gen 2:16-17); only one tree was off limits. Far greater was their freedom than their restriction. But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil’ (Gen 3:4-5). God really doesn't have your best interests at heart, but is only protecting himself; God doesn't want you to have a power that you deserve but that only he has; God has lied about what will happen if you disobey him; without God you can be your own moral arbiter: these were profoundly attractive – indeed, tempting – lies. They are an attack on the Word of God itself: on the very God-ness of God. Adam’s ingratitude at the extraordinary liberty in the task offered to him and his failure to imagine his task as sufficient for his needs are part of his deafness to the voice of God, his lack of response to his call.

The temptation has three aspects: first, one that relates to the flesh and its lusts – the allure of the fruit is matched by the hunger of the man and woman. Then, secondly, there is their sheer disbelief – their lack of faith in the Word of God about himself and about them. There is also, thirdly, a challenge to the power and authority of God involved: that his rule is not as absolute as it appears: the scent of revolution is in the air. Adam is tempted in his flesh, his faith and his allegiance to God.[3]

[1] Bonhoeffer, Temptation, p. 15
[2] ‘The voice of the tempter does not come out of an abyss only recognized as ‘Hell’. It completely conceals its origin. It is suddenly near me and speaks to me…Indeed there is no sign of the origin of the tempter in fire and brimstone. The denial of the origin belongs to the essence of the seducer.’ Ibid.
[3] Bonhoeffer applies this triad to Jesus, but doesn’t read it back into Adam’s (and Israel’s) temptation as I have here. Ibid., p. 18-21