Pelagius was a man who took morality - and the moral responsibility of human beings - seriously. I have no doubt that he would have been witness to tremendous and brutal evils in his time, living as he did around the sack of Rome. His teaching was not that human beings are naturally good - that doctrine would have had no purchase at all amongst those who had seen limbs hacked off and heard the screams of the rape victims. Rather, he held that man and woman were free to choose the right or the wrong. There was no escape behind the veil of determinism, or pleading helplessness as if that was some resassurance. Each of us could and should and would be held fully accountable for our actions. We ought to hear the full impact of God's address to his people 'Be holy, as I am holy'. He would not have said it if was not a moral possibility. Moral pessimissim is insulting to the creator of human beings, who created not puppets or beasts, but persons. Life and death is set before human beings and we are bid by our maker to choose life, true (Dt 30:19)?
For Pelagius, there are three features in action - posse, velle and esse (power, will, realisation). Posse comes only from God, but the other two belong to us. When we choose to do the right, in order words, we can count on power from God to aid us. Not that Pelagius felt he was negating the sovereignty of God by such a teaching; far from it - man's free will occurs only within the sphere of God's permission and generosity, and ought to be used to the ends that God commands.
JND Kelly offers two futher points that Pelagius taught. First, the human will has no bias in favour of evil, not having inherited the spoiled will of Adam. After all, how can we be blamed for another's sin? That makes no moral sense. Adam set in train a custom or a habit of sin, but not a physical geneaology of sin.
Secondly, Pelagius also denies that man has a bias towards the good. Grace is provided as a grace of knowledge: through the law and the example of Christ, God provides us with all we need to know about what to do.
So, it is possible to say with the Rich Young Ruler, 'all these I have kept since childhood'. In fact, the Bible contains many examples of righteous lives. Now, this is not a trivial business for Pelagius: the merit on offer only comes through strenuous effort and application. He is well aware of the high destiny to which human beings have been called and to which they ought to aspire. No doubt he was also aware of Christians who saw grace as either a short-cut to righteousness or who felt that predestination as Augustine and others taught it was a counsel of despair. Here rather was a call to quit moaning and get on with living righteously. Here was a call to be as magnificent as human life can be. It was an attractive teaching then, and remains so...
Monday, March 26, 2007
Kosta Milkov
On Friday afternoon, my study-room mate and good friend Kosta Milkov (second from right in the photo - I am on the far left) was knocked off his bicycle by a car on the Banbury Rd in Oxford.He landed it seems on his face and sustained multiple fractures to the bones on his face and a broken wrist. He had a six-hour operation on Sunday to re-set his facial bones.
Kosta is an evangelical Christian from Macedonia. He and his wife Nada and their daughter Gabriella are here in Oxford while Kosta works on his DPhil on Maximus the Confessor. They hope to return to minister in the Balkans in the long term, perhaps amongst students in Macedonia.
Thanks to God that his injuries were not more serious in terms of a) his life and b) his brain; and prayers for a swift recovery so he can continue with his important work.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Christ - the FORM of the Christian life
Some Lutheran perspectives on the Christian life: martyrdom is properly a reflection of the form (or to use Luther's term the sacramentum) of the Christian life.
My own doktorvater, Bernd Wannenwetsch:
The whole of our Christian lives as agents is rooted in Christ’s action, which not only provides a model (exemplum) or an impulse (motivatio) or a mere “foundation”, but precisely the proper “form” (sacramentum) of the Christian life. Hence, for Luther, there is no prior “relationship with God” or a priori Glaubensbewusstsein (‘religious-consciousness’: Schleiermacher) that would “set free” the believing individual to engage then in social relationships of a political kind. Instead, there is only a political worship, which simultaneously relates the believers to God and their fellow citizens. (From his article on Luther's Ethics in the Cambridge Companion to Luther)
And in the same vein, Eberhard Jungel: Even those exemplary narratives of Jesus which are oriented toward action, which end with ‘go and do likewise’, only formulate with this imperative a newly discovered indicative, that is, something which the listener must say to himself. They make something self-understandable in a new way which ought always to have been self-understandable but was not. But in order for this to happen anew, man must apparently first be liberated from the pressure to concentrate on himself. It is for that reason that man first becomes a “hearer of the word,” who cannot do anything at all as long as he is listening, and then on the basis of his hearing he can act out of the newly gained freedom so that his action, precisely as activity, remains a doing of the word.
This is especially true with regard to the telling of the Christological story, which bursts apart everything which is obvious and matter of course, in that this story God identifies himself with a crucified person so that there is a story to be told about a crucified God and a man who has been awakened to a new life. The hearer must be drawn existentially into this story through the word, precisely because it is also his story, and this much happen before he can do what corresponds to the story. The story of Jesus Christ, through the word which emerges from it and tells it, becomes a ‘sacrament’ (to speak along the lines of Augustine and Luther) before it can function as an ‘example’ (sacramentum, exemplum). It is the sacramental function of the telling of the Christological story to let the hearer win freedom from himself. …before Jesus Christ comes to be considered an exemplum for our behaviour he must be affirmed as the sacramentum that changes our being…. from God as the Mystery of the World p. 308-9
My own doktorvater, Bernd Wannenwetsch:
The whole of our Christian lives as agents is rooted in Christ’s action, which not only provides a model (exemplum) or an impulse (motivatio) or a mere “foundation”, but precisely the proper “form” (sacramentum) of the Christian life. Hence, for Luther, there is no prior “relationship with God” or a priori Glaubensbewusstsein (‘religious-consciousness’: Schleiermacher) that would “set free” the believing individual to engage then in social relationships of a political kind. Instead, there is only a political worship, which simultaneously relates the believers to God and their fellow citizens. (From his article on Luther's Ethics in the Cambridge Companion to Luther)
And in the same vein, Eberhard Jungel: Even those exemplary narratives of Jesus which are oriented toward action, which end with ‘go and do likewise’, only formulate with this imperative a newly discovered indicative, that is, something which the listener must say to himself. They make something self-understandable in a new way which ought always to have been self-understandable but was not. But in order for this to happen anew, man must apparently first be liberated from the pressure to concentrate on himself. It is for that reason that man first becomes a “hearer of the word,” who cannot do anything at all as long as he is listening, and then on the basis of his hearing he can act out of the newly gained freedom so that his action, precisely as activity, remains a doing of the word.
This is especially true with regard to the telling of the Christological story, which bursts apart everything which is obvious and matter of course, in that this story God identifies himself with a crucified person so that there is a story to be told about a crucified God and a man who has been awakened to a new life. The hearer must be drawn existentially into this story through the word, precisely because it is also his story, and this much happen before he can do what corresponds to the story. The story of Jesus Christ, through the word which emerges from it and tells it, becomes a ‘sacrament’ (to speak along the lines of Augustine and Luther) before it can function as an ‘example’ (sacramentum, exemplum). It is the sacramental function of the telling of the Christological story to let the hearer win freedom from himself. …before Jesus Christ comes to be considered an exemplum for our behaviour he must be affirmed as the sacramentum that changes our being…. from God as the Mystery of the World p. 308-9
Friday, March 23, 2007
John Webster on philosophical theology
I breathe a sigh of relief when I read John Webster, because he is brave in defying the dominance of philosophical 'theology' with its mystifying speculations and its second-rate dabblings in fields far from the camp... as he puts it:
...the distinctiveness of a trinitarian dogmatics of the holiness of God will shown in its lack of interest in making use of religious phenomenology as a foundation for positive Christian teaching, or in correlating its findings with inquiries into the phenomena - cultural, anthropological and religious - of 'the holy'.
Trinitarian dogmatics will necessarily make ontotheological claims, though in its own particular way. When theology addresses the matter of God's attributes,
it is attempting a rich set of conceptual enlargements upon God's concrete simplicity, the rendition of his identity which God gives as the one who is.
Such a breath of fresh air to read in this city of dreary speculations!
Thursday, March 22, 2007
A Question of Origins
We are intrigued by genealogies. One of the features of Post-Enlightenment thinking that dies hardest is the belief that if you can explain how something came to be you have explained the thing itself. If you can trace the development or the evolution perhaps, of your object of study, you can claim to have understood it. This of course was famously exemplified by Darwinian science; but we can see the same "quest for origins" paradigm in the theology of the nineteenth century. The "Quest for the Historical Jesus" and the developments of source and tradition criticism are examples of massive intellectual endeavours which aimed to illuminate the text of the Bible by reconstructing the "real" world behind it. The documents were sifted, segmented and reconstructed. However, as in dissecting a lab rat, putting the parts back together somehow leaves you with something not quite a rat, or in this case, a text.
There were - and are - two assumptions behind the process, of course: that the earlier stream in the text is more authoritative, and that the church of the first two centuries distorted that authoritative picture. The depictions of Jesus in the gospels, for example, serve the purposes of the communities for which they were written, and tell us more about them than about the historical Jesus. Secondarily, then, the history of the early church becomes a significant matter, because if you can unpick their additions and distortions - and add back in some of which they suppressed or overlooked – then you have a chance of glimpsing the face of the authentic Jesus, the real carpenter of Galilee himself. In particular, Paul is blamed with making Christianity into something that Jesus never intended it to be. (See AN Wilson, for one author who follows this tired strategy).
But the first years of the church are a valid object for historical study in their own right. This is because they, too, represent a miracle. How was it possible that, in the short space of a three centuries, the Christian faith could go from being a tiny Jewish cult to becoming the dominant religion of the Empire? Augustine of Hippo used to use the miracle of the survival and expansion of the church as a pillar of his apologetic method. Nineteenth Century German historian Adolf von Harnack, in his monumental The History of Dogma, sounds rather at a loss to explain this success: Christianity grew with "inconceivable rapidity"; there was "astonishing expansion." He wrote "Christianity must have reproduced itself by means of miracles, for the greatest miracle of all would have been the extraordinary extension of the religion apart from any miracles." Answering this question, the question of the success of the church, is foundational for understanding the development of Christendom and thus the whole culture – ethics, law, politics and art – of the Western world, as well as crucial to understanding the historical Jesus.
There were - and are - two assumptions behind the process, of course: that the earlier stream in the text is more authoritative, and that the church of the first two centuries distorted that authoritative picture. The depictions of Jesus in the gospels, for example, serve the purposes of the communities for which they were written, and tell us more about them than about the historical Jesus. Secondarily, then, the history of the early church becomes a significant matter, because if you can unpick their additions and distortions - and add back in some of which they suppressed or overlooked – then you have a chance of glimpsing the face of the authentic Jesus, the real carpenter of Galilee himself. In particular, Paul is blamed with making Christianity into something that Jesus never intended it to be. (See AN Wilson, for one author who follows this tired strategy).
But the first years of the church are a valid object for historical study in their own right. This is because they, too, represent a miracle. How was it possible that, in the short space of a three centuries, the Christian faith could go from being a tiny Jewish cult to becoming the dominant religion of the Empire? Augustine of Hippo used to use the miracle of the survival and expansion of the church as a pillar of his apologetic method. Nineteenth Century German historian Adolf von Harnack, in his monumental The History of Dogma, sounds rather at a loss to explain this success: Christianity grew with "inconceivable rapidity"; there was "astonishing expansion." He wrote "Christianity must have reproduced itself by means of miracles, for the greatest miracle of all would have been the extraordinary extension of the religion apart from any miracles." Answering this question, the question of the success of the church, is foundational for understanding the development of Christendom and thus the whole culture – ethics, law, politics and art – of the Western world, as well as crucial to understanding the historical Jesus.
We need our Athanasiuses
The rejection of Arianism may have made Christian language more complex; but at least it has militated against an intellectual complacency in the face of the unsettling effects of the gospel…Theology continues to need its Ariuses. – Rowan Williams, 1983
Athanasius’s gift was that he could see exactly what was at stake: he recognised what was being lost in the Arian way of putting things. His passion was for human souls, and for their salvation, primarily. So this was not an abstract debate for him: he could see that salvation itself was what mattered.
Four things:
1) God is mystery, but God reveals himself, in Christ Jesus. The unknowability of God is no longer simply inaccessible. As Williams says, 'there is no overplus of 'unengaged' and inexpressible reality, nothing that is not realized in and as relationship, in God'. In Jesus we are given God, not merely a piece of him. If we are to hold God as mysterious and respond in awe and wonder and speechlessness, it is to be from our worship and thankfulnes: a kind of visceral negative theology, far from the rational negativity of Arius.
2) God reveals himself in Jesus to truly save. If you took the Arian seriously, what account could you give of the salvation of human people? (see quote)..Athanasius once said ‘God became man in order that we might become God’ – that is, that we might share in the life of God himself, God become one of us. (see 1 John 3:2 - ‘we shall be like him’). If Christ was not fully God, how could we ever be assured of God’s saving of us? How could we ever know God in a saving way?
3) God dies for us on the cross. Athanasius could also see that the cross itself does not work if you describe it Arian terms. If on the cross we have a lesser God then how we can not say that there we see nothing but divine child abuse, a torturing of the innocent Son by his commanding Father? Rather, if we understand the cross according to orthodox teaching, then we will understand that the victim was a willing participant in the salvation of the world in his own death. The Son submitted, but did so from a position of free equality with the Father.
4) The love of Christ is truly God’s love. This has huge pastoral ramifications of course, but also practical ones: because here in the submission of the Son to the Father without a loss of equality of being or dignity we see in essence the nature of Christian love. [See Allison quote] The love that Christ expressed on the cross was divine love: and it is the love we are called to echo in our relations too.
Athanasius was a curmudgeonly genius: perhaps we ought to say, that much as we ‘need’ our Ariuses, those who will ask the right questions, we also need our Athanasiuses: those who will remind us that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself; and that in Christ we truly and fully have the eternal God.
Athanasius’s gift was that he could see exactly what was at stake: he recognised what was being lost in the Arian way of putting things. His passion was for human souls, and for their salvation, primarily. So this was not an abstract debate for him: he could see that salvation itself was what mattered.
Four things:
1) God is mystery, but God reveals himself, in Christ Jesus. The unknowability of God is no longer simply inaccessible. As Williams says, 'there is no overplus of 'unengaged' and inexpressible reality, nothing that is not realized in and as relationship, in God'. In Jesus we are given God, not merely a piece of him. If we are to hold God as mysterious and respond in awe and wonder and speechlessness, it is to be from our worship and thankfulnes: a kind of visceral negative theology, far from the rational negativity of Arius.
2) God reveals himself in Jesus to truly save. If you took the Arian seriously, what account could you give of the salvation of human people? (see quote)..Athanasius once said ‘God became man in order that we might become God’ – that is, that we might share in the life of God himself, God become one of us. (see 1 John 3:2 - ‘we shall be like him’). If Christ was not fully God, how could we ever be assured of God’s saving of us? How could we ever know God in a saving way?
3) God dies for us on the cross. Athanasius could also see that the cross itself does not work if you describe it Arian terms. If on the cross we have a lesser God then how we can not say that there we see nothing but divine child abuse, a torturing of the innocent Son by his commanding Father? Rather, if we understand the cross according to orthodox teaching, then we will understand that the victim was a willing participant in the salvation of the world in his own death. The Son submitted, but did so from a position of free equality with the Father.
4) The love of Christ is truly God’s love. This has huge pastoral ramifications of course, but also practical ones: because here in the submission of the Son to the Father without a loss of equality of being or dignity we see in essence the nature of Christian love. [See Allison quote] The love that Christ expressed on the cross was divine love: and it is the love we are called to echo in our relations too.
Athanasius was a curmudgeonly genius: perhaps we ought to say, that much as we ‘need’ our Ariuses, those who will ask the right questions, we also need our Athanasiuses: those who will remind us that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself; and that in Christ we truly and fully have the eternal God.
The attractions of Arianism
What made Arianism so attractive, and might make it so in its modern versions?
Arianism can be exegetically convincing; and certainly, it was consistent to the form of rationality that pervaded in its own time.
But more than this: Arianism was and is a theology which is built up around one's own experience of the invisibilty and intangibility of God. We long indeed for God to be close and evident, to have him tangible in the way we would like to have him tangible; to be able to identify the hot breath of the Spirit on our faces, to feel, really feel the closeness of God in the instances in which we live.
The tangibility that God offers us - his entry into our world is rather disappointing in comparison to this. God the only begotten Son has made him known, walking among us for a short stretch some time ago now. However much the witnesses to him say they are passing on to us that which they have seen with their eyes and touched with their hands, it seems a long way removed from us. It is easy to stare at the flat page of the Bible, to sit through the dull sermon and the uninspired singing, to pray prayers into a remorseless ceiling, and fail to be convinced that God really is with us and active to save.
Arianism is a counsel of despair, then. It keeps the eternal God at an arms length, because he sure feels like he is at arms length. We even create dogmas that convince us that this is true: that because we feel it to be the case, it ought to be the case. Deity could not and would not live among us - it would be a travesty if it did so. We cannot be so arrogant as to claim to have true knowledge, of a personal kind, of the divinity himself. We can only gaze at this Christ, this bridge built - yes made - across the chasm between us and the true God, which we have to steel ourselves to somehow step onto, not ever assured than when we set out on the journey we have stepped into the heart of God himself.
It is despairing: but it is also, attractively, a way to remove the suggestion that God is uncomfortably near - that he is breathing down our necks. It is frightening to think that, if the true God is really among us in Jesus Christ, then the consequences of mistreating his manifestations will be extremely grave. It is frightening to think that the person next me in the pew, whom I have ignored these long years and even secretly despised, actually has life in God himself. It is worrisome to consider that that church that I helped to divide is not only the body of Christ, but that the body of Christ is itself included in God.
[thanks to Kosta Milkov!]
Arianism can be exegetically convincing; and certainly, it was consistent to the form of rationality that pervaded in its own time.
But more than this: Arianism was and is a theology which is built up around one's own experience of the invisibilty and intangibility of God. We long indeed for God to be close and evident, to have him tangible in the way we would like to have him tangible; to be able to identify the hot breath of the Spirit on our faces, to feel, really feel the closeness of God in the instances in which we live.
The tangibility that God offers us - his entry into our world is rather disappointing in comparison to this. God the only begotten Son has made him known, walking among us for a short stretch some time ago now. However much the witnesses to him say they are passing on to us that which they have seen with their eyes and touched with their hands, it seems a long way removed from us. It is easy to stare at the flat page of the Bible, to sit through the dull sermon and the uninspired singing, to pray prayers into a remorseless ceiling, and fail to be convinced that God really is with us and active to save.
Arianism is a counsel of despair, then. It keeps the eternal God at an arms length, because he sure feels like he is at arms length. We even create dogmas that convince us that this is true: that because we feel it to be the case, it ought to be the case. Deity could not and would not live among us - it would be a travesty if it did so. We cannot be so arrogant as to claim to have true knowledge, of a personal kind, of the divinity himself. We can only gaze at this Christ, this bridge built - yes made - across the chasm between us and the true God, which we have to steel ourselves to somehow step onto, not ever assured than when we set out on the journey we have stepped into the heart of God himself.
It is despairing: but it is also, attractively, a way to remove the suggestion that God is uncomfortably near - that he is breathing down our necks. It is frightening to think that, if the true God is really among us in Jesus Christ, then the consequences of mistreating his manifestations will be extremely grave. It is frightening to think that the person next me in the pew, whom I have ignored these long years and even secretly despised, actually has life in God himself. It is worrisome to consider that that church that I helped to divide is not only the body of Christ, but that the body of Christ is itself included in God.
[thanks to Kosta Milkov!]
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Rowan Williams on Arius
I have heard Arius labelled a 'biblicist' in the past, and his case as evidence that exegesis will never decide anything. I have also heard the opposite: that here was a rationalist par excellence, determined to squash biblical material into his Middle Platonist framework.
Rowan Williams writes:
One thing which should be noted immediately is that none of this exegetical material, as described or implicitly characterized by Arius' enemies, really supports the idea that Arius was a 'literalist'. It is not literalism to take the Psalms as spoken in persona Christi or to identify the 'Wisdom' of the OT with Christ...Athanasius' objection to Arius' exegesis is not that it is negligent of a 'spiritual sense', that it is 'Judaizing' in character, but that it is arbitrary...
As Williams goes on to explain, Arius was aiming to be both biblically based AND rationally consistent. That is why he and Athanasius went toe-to-toe on exegetical matters; and in the end, perhaps it was a hermeneutical method that seperated them...
Rowan Williams writes:
One thing which should be noted immediately is that none of this exegetical material, as described or implicitly characterized by Arius' enemies, really supports the idea that Arius was a 'literalist'. It is not literalism to take the Psalms as spoken in persona Christi or to identify the 'Wisdom' of the OT with Christ...Athanasius' objection to Arius' exegesis is not that it is negligent of a 'spiritual sense', that it is 'Judaizing' in character, but that it is arbitrary...
As Williams goes on to explain, Arius was aiming to be both biblically based AND rationally consistent. That is why he and Athanasius went toe-to-toe on exegetical matters; and in the end, perhaps it was a hermeneutical method that seperated them...
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Martyrdom in Islam is different
Cook (see last post) writes:
The classical Muslim framework of martyrology is different from that of other faiths. Although the initial Meccan phases involve some physical violence against Muslims for the sake of Islam, this became nothing more than a historical memory. Overwhelmingly, perhaps because of the very success of the faith, Islam had to seek other conceptions of martyrdom. These have been most obviously filled by those martyrs killed in battle - a category comparatively lacking in other faiths - and to some extent those killed in plagues...The Muslim ideal for a martyr became that person - usually a man - who through his active choice sought out a violent situation ... with pure intentions and was killed as a result of that choice. Ideally his actions expressed courage and defiance of the enemy, loyalty toward Islam and the pure intention to please God, since the acceptable manner of jihad was to 'lift the Word of Allah to the highest' (Qur'an 9:41). p. 30
Uniquely, Christians have Christ of course: a death which is a single and unsurpassable pattern for martyrdom and yet which is not merely a martyrdom.
The classical Muslim framework of martyrology is different from that of other faiths. Although the initial Meccan phases involve some physical violence against Muslims for the sake of Islam, this became nothing more than a historical memory. Overwhelmingly, perhaps because of the very success of the faith, Islam had to seek other conceptions of martyrdom. These have been most obviously filled by those martyrs killed in battle - a category comparatively lacking in other faiths - and to some extent those killed in plagues...The Muslim ideal for a martyr became that person - usually a man - who through his active choice sought out a violent situation ... with pure intentions and was killed as a result of that choice. Ideally his actions expressed courage and defiance of the enemy, loyalty toward Islam and the pure intention to please God, since the acceptable manner of jihad was to 'lift the Word of Allah to the highest' (Qur'an 9:41). p. 30
Uniquely, Christians have Christ of course: a death which is a single and unsurpassable pattern for martyrdom and yet which is not merely a martyrdom.
Martyrdom in Islam by David Cook
I received today my copy of a new book by David Cook entitled: Martyrdom in Islam I purchased this book because I figured that though I am giving a theological account of martyrdom from a confessional standpoint, the phenomenology of martyrdom is a growing field, and the interest in Islamic martyrdom is widespread. It is certainly worth asking the question from the religious studies point of veiw: 'is Christian martyrdom an entirely different entity to Islamic martyrdom?' Cook is a defender of Islam from reduction to its radical elements and argues the case that Islamic martyrdom is not at root about suicide and militancy to the extent that it has been portrayed in the West. His diagnosis of the fear and loathing with which the West regards the whole reverence for martyrs is very interesting, too.
He gives a brief sketch of the rise of Jewish martyrdom in the Seleucid period and beyond as recorded in the books of the Maccabees. Jesus for him is 'the best known Jewish martyr'. What he doesn't ask is whether there were pagan sources which are relevant for the study of Christian martyrdom (and are thus inherited by Islamic hagiographers): interestingly, the early Christian theologians like Origen and Tertullian do make comparisons with the great pagan noble heroes of yore in their descriptions of martyrdom. As with Christianity, the martyrs of Islam are a crucial reference point for the business of shaping the identity of the group.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Rowan Williams on 'Poetic and Religious Imagination'
In this 1976 essay Williams writes:
The return to language requires an act of faith; and an acceptance of the probability of failure. It is, as such, an exercise in radical humility and an expression of the hope of 'grace', communication surviving the perils of words.
Here is already a theme pervasive in Williams' thought: that so much is fraught about language, but that we are compelled to speak in any case, and so, have to do so in hope. Having surrendered our right to speak to God, we receive back the possibility that our words might actually bring about something new. Poets - even the agnostic ones - show us that this is the case. They of all people are masters of language, and yet they know better than anyone the limitations of language, having traipsed around its boundaries. He goes on:
Beyond silence lies, not childlike directness, but the irony of a recommitment to the world, a discovery of the cost of speech; beyond irony, the discovery of the promise of reconciliation with the present by means of some unimaginable future, and so, the assurance that the return to words is not simply a pointless and disastrous martyrdom, but is itself obscurely redemptive.
The more I read of Williams the more I think he is best seen as poet and mystic more than theologian (though he is that): but this explains why it is so hard to get a handle on his theology, which resists such 'handling' of its own subject...
The return to language requires an act of faith; and an acceptance of the probability of failure. It is, as such, an exercise in radical humility and an expression of the hope of 'grace', communication surviving the perils of words.
Here is already a theme pervasive in Williams' thought: that so much is fraught about language, but that we are compelled to speak in any case, and so, have to do so in hope. Having surrendered our right to speak to God, we receive back the possibility that our words might actually bring about something new. Poets - even the agnostic ones - show us that this is the case. They of all people are masters of language, and yet they know better than anyone the limitations of language, having traipsed around its boundaries. He goes on:
Beyond silence lies, not childlike directness, but the irony of a recommitment to the world, a discovery of the cost of speech; beyond irony, the discovery of the promise of reconciliation with the present by means of some unimaginable future, and so, the assurance that the return to words is not simply a pointless and disastrous martyrdom, but is itself obscurely redemptive.
The more I read of Williams the more I think he is best seen as poet and mystic more than theologian (though he is that): but this explains why it is so hard to get a handle on his theology, which resists such 'handling' of its own subject...
Necessary Heresy 2: Arius, or, do we really know God?
Arius is perhaps the most famous heretic of them all - not the least because of his formidible opponent, Athanasius! I belong to an Anglican diocese that has been accused of Arianism: of subordinating the Son to the Father. As always, a terminological difference is part of the problem, I think. I would be ready to drop the word 'subordinate' in exchange for 'ordered' so as to indicate to all that I believe the Son is vere Deus, vere homo... Of course one of the ugliest dynamics of being called a heretic, is that when you are called so by the vituperative and quote-twisting kind of person we were called it by, you start to believe that the heresy must be orthodox. It does your head in! (Of course, as Williams shows, it is doubtful if Arius himself was actual Arian, but never mind that...)
G.L.Prestige writes:
Christianity and monotheism alike were imperilled by the Arian attack on Athanasius and the doctrine of the Trinity; for if Christ were not truly God, salvation through His cross remained a purely human, subjective and imperfectly realised aspiration; and if He were in the strict sense a 'second God' - as certain even among those of substantial orthodoxy somewhat loosely called Him - then there was an end to all faith in one controlling ruler of the universe and one undivided object of worshipful devotion.' p. 76
The stakes are very high on this one.
Arius was incapable of uttering an apparent contradiction and revolted from the supposition that vast, intricate problems might present more than one aspect. His two-dimensional mind regarded the divine mystery of revelation in the flat, foreshortened, without depth or background, like a diagram in Euclid...
For heresy, rationalistic short-cuts are almost always the downfall. As Athanasius clarified it:
If you contemplate the Father, who is one distinct presentation of the deity, you obtain a mental view of the one true God. If you contemplate the Son or the Spirit, you obtain a view of the same God; though the presenation is different, the reality is identical. p. 89
But what was the peculiar attraction of Arianism?
G.L.Prestige writes:
Christianity and monotheism alike were imperilled by the Arian attack on Athanasius and the doctrine of the Trinity; for if Christ were not truly God, salvation through His cross remained a purely human, subjective and imperfectly realised aspiration; and if He were in the strict sense a 'second God' - as certain even among those of substantial orthodoxy somewhat loosely called Him - then there was an end to all faith in one controlling ruler of the universe and one undivided object of worshipful devotion.' p. 76
The stakes are very high on this one.
Arius was incapable of uttering an apparent contradiction and revolted from the supposition that vast, intricate problems might present more than one aspect. His two-dimensional mind regarded the divine mystery of revelation in the flat, foreshortened, without depth or background, like a diagram in Euclid...
For heresy, rationalistic short-cuts are almost always the downfall. As Athanasius clarified it:
If you contemplate the Father, who is one distinct presentation of the deity, you obtain a mental view of the one true God. If you contemplate the Son or the Spirit, you obtain a view of the same God; though the presenation is different, the reality is identical. p. 89
But what was the peculiar attraction of Arianism?
Saturday, March 17, 2007
The Holiness of Theology - or otherwise
In a recent discussion with friends, this passage from John Webster's Holiness book came under particular focus:
...talk of the sufficiency of Scripture is a warning against allowing theology's imagination to be enticed into giving attention to all manner of sources of fascination; for however enriching and fruitful they may present themsevles to , in the end they nearly always constitute a distraction. Theology cannot be and do and say everything; when theology does strive to relate itself to all kinds of other fields of intellectual and cultural activity, then - however much it may do so in good faith and with praiseworthy intentions - it risks losing its determincy, integrity and stability as the attempt to hear and repeat the one Word of God. (p. 21)
This comment was debated on the grounds that it allowed no room for prevenient or common grace (depending on whether you were a Wesleyan or a Calvinist!); and conceded far too much to secular disciplines such that it could not call them to account or be informed by them at all. We speculated as to what vices Webster was excoriating. What I think he has in mind is the Tillichian correlation of theology to culture, which of course within a decade becomes no more than a curiosity of history. Personally, I am stirred by Webster's vision here: I think theology's inattentivity to its own singular and decisive source - the Word of God - and its own task leaves it incapable of saying anything credible about these other disciplines in any case. At least I guess Milbank is trying: but I think he leaves far too much space for a philosophy which, like a cuckoo in the nest, soon ejects the true children and grows to become bigger than its 'parents' (see photo...)
Marva Dawn - Is it a lost cause?
Review of Is it a lost cause? - Having the Heart of God for the Church’s Children
Youth culture is a mighty powerful force, nourished by advances in communications technology and global industries. As Marva J. Dawn, Lutheran theologian and teacher, points out in her book Is it a lost cause? - Having the Heart of God for the Church’s Children there is a demonic aspect to youth culture that calls for an urgent response from Christians. Her book is a passionate and compassionate plea for Christians to pass on their faith unashamedly to the next generation. Rather than giving in to the culture of instant gratification and over-information, she urges Christian families to stand firm, to reach back into the Scriptures and the best of our Christian heritage to give our young people a sure footing.
Dawn is an idiosyncratic writer (in the best sense of that term) who writes in a personal and appealing way. Her Lutheran background gives her work a refreshingly different “spin” on the issues, and her strong commitment to the truth and authority of the Scriptures is a terrific model. As a person who works with young people, I was stirred by her writing not to give in to the worst excesses of contemporary youth culture – boredom, greed, a flippant attitude to sexuality, and a sense of despair. She encourages Christians not to make corporate worship shallow and trivial in order merely to attract large numbers.
There is plenty of wisdom here, gained through tough personal experience and prolonged Bible study. Perhaps Dawn is more negative towards television and modern entertainment technology than I would be. However, her warnings and encouragements contain a good deal of worthwhile insight.
Youth culture is a mighty powerful force, nourished by advances in communications technology and global industries. As Marva J. Dawn, Lutheran theologian and teacher, points out in her book Is it a lost cause? - Having the Heart of God for the Church’s Children there is a demonic aspect to youth culture that calls for an urgent response from Christians. Her book is a passionate and compassionate plea for Christians to pass on their faith unashamedly to the next generation. Rather than giving in to the culture of instant gratification and over-information, she urges Christian families to stand firm, to reach back into the Scriptures and the best of our Christian heritage to give our young people a sure footing.
Dawn is an idiosyncratic writer (in the best sense of that term) who writes in a personal and appealing way. Her Lutheran background gives her work a refreshingly different “spin” on the issues, and her strong commitment to the truth and authority of the Scriptures is a terrific model. As a person who works with young people, I was stirred by her writing not to give in to the worst excesses of contemporary youth culture – boredom, greed, a flippant attitude to sexuality, and a sense of despair. She encourages Christians not to make corporate worship shallow and trivial in order merely to attract large numbers.
There is plenty of wisdom here, gained through tough personal experience and prolonged Bible study. Perhaps Dawn is more negative towards television and modern entertainment technology than I would be. However, her warnings and encouragements contain a good deal of worthwhile insight.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Augustine on martyrdom
In particular it was the Donatist crisis that prompted Augustine’s reflection on martyrdom in the period 410-415 AD. For the Donatists, literal and bloody martyrdom was a measure of the authenticity and purity of their Christianity, in contrast to that of the tainted Church with its traditores. By contrast, Augustine emphasized the necessity of a true faith and the unity of the Church for authentic Christian martyrdom. Suffering itself is not enough – in fact, Augustine vigorously opposed the Donatist fixation on suffering as an end in itself. Without love, suffering is meaningless – therefore, the schismatics who attack the unity of the church cannot claim the title martyrs because they lack caritas. It was the cause, not the suffering, that made a martyr. The long Christian tradition of glorifying suffering had been a false trail – and pathologically so.
Need a martyr suffer then at all? When the persecutions had ended – what was to become of martyrdom, which had been such a feature of Christian self-identity in the first three centuries? Could there be a retention in some form of the martyrological impetus without the need for shedding of blood? One Christian answer, as Judith Perkins observes, was that the martyrological spirit was sublimated into ascetic practices as a way of replicating the test of the arena. But this was not quite Augustine’s teaching (though he wasn't opposed to asceticism). As he explained, Divine Providence had allowed persecutions in order that the ‘number of martyrs or witnesses for the truth might be completed or consecrated, and that by them proof might be given that we must endure all bodily sufferings in the cause of the holy faith and for the commendation of the truth’ (City of God X.32). In the new era, however, the war was to be waged inwardly. Trials and temptations were not found to be lacking now that the external threat had diminished. Now, temptations were persecutions. The lesson of the martyrs was there for the Christian to learn the virtues of self-sacrifice and patience.
Augustine and the atonement
This little passage from the City of God very helpfully clarifies something I was trying to say a week or so ago: that Jesus is not punished by God on the cross, though he pays the penalty for sin:
...the good and true Mediator has shown that it is sin which is evil, not the substance or nature of flesh, since that substance could be assumed, with a human soul, and preserved free from sin, and could be laid aside in death, and changed into something better by resurrection. He has shown that death itself, although it is the punishment for sin (a punishment which he paid for us, though being himself without sin), is not to be aovided by sinning but rather, if occasion offers, to be endured for the cause of right. For it is just because he died, and his death was not the penalty of sin, that he was able by dying to pay the price of our sins. X.24
And, to boot, a more positive role for the body than Augustine is often given credit for.
...the good and true Mediator has shown that it is sin which is evil, not the substance or nature of flesh, since that substance could be assumed, with a human soul, and preserved free from sin, and could be laid aside in death, and changed into something better by resurrection. He has shown that death itself, although it is the punishment for sin (a punishment which he paid for us, though being himself without sin), is not to be aovided by sinning but rather, if occasion offers, to be endured for the cause of right. For it is just because he died, and his death was not the penalty of sin, that he was able by dying to pay the price of our sins. X.24
And, to boot, a more positive role for the body than Augustine is often given credit for.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Bruce D Marshall - Martyrdom and Truth
A number of authors I have encountered - namely Cavanaugh, Vanhoozer and DB Hart - stress the importance of martyrdom as the form of Christian truth-telling. Martyrdom is of missiological and apologetic importance - of course. It is a witness of a particular kind. In the postmodern as in the premodern world it is the ultimate proof that anyone can offer.Bruce D Marshall in his book Trinity and Truth joins the ranks of the above. Is focus here is a epistemology. Here is fascinating excerpt in which he compares and contrasts two methods of establishing truth - scientific experiment and Christian practice:
The parallel between Christian practice and scientific experiment is, to be sure, inexact. As the martyr’s willingness to die for her faith in Christ most vividly shows, undertaking the life of obedience for which the gospel calls goes hand in hand with being convinced that the gospel is true, while scientists undertake experiments precisely in order to become convinced (or dissuaded) that an otherwise hypothetical set of beliefs is true. Failure of predicted results, moreover, tends to disconfimr the theory which underwrote the predictions, while Christians think they may and should believe the gospel precisely in the face of their own abject failures to live in a way congruent with it.
But the partial disanalogy apparently fails to bear on the relevant similarity of Christian beliefs to scientific hypotheses: the successful practice of the Christian community and its members might be explained otherwise than by the truth of the beliefs held by those who engage in the practice. An objector to the pragmatic thesis might agree to a significant extent with the Christian community's description of a practice...and might agree that the practice is good and right, but might propose a different, indeed incompatible, account of why the practice goes on and succeeds... (p. 186ff)
So, martyrdom is testimony, and as persuasive testimony perhaps as such there is: but it is not proof unless you already inhabit the world-view and practices of the martyr.
Marshall concludes:
Christians will inevitably encounter a kind of epistemic affliction, because they not only hold true, but insist on treating as epistemically primary across the board, beliefs which will be rationally contestable until the end of time…The affliction which goes with holding these beliefs may go beyond having to avoid giving them up. For the martyr’s willingness to die for her faith in Christ, a perseverance no less arduous for being whilly the Spirit’s gift, is rightly reserved the highest praise. p. 216
To summarise: the truth hurts. (Actually, is this a good title for my dissertation? Martyrdom - the Truth Hurts)
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Is Shakespeare an Australian Author?
I had a lovely and lively discussion about this with an English English student who wanted to defend his nation's proprietorial rights to the bard. Surely geographical location counts for something, he said; surely he is more English than anything else?
But as an Australian, my culture and language are unthinkable without Billy the Shake. My education was saturated with Shakespeare; his influence was tremendous on the politics and culture of my country. After all, nations are not places, but ideas. We have every right - even a duty - to study him as one of our own. Shakespeare, we might say, came out on the First Fleet.
I think Shakespeare is more Australian than French: though he knew the French and the Italians, and no doubt he has had enormous influence there and even in Russia. But something is carried in the language itself that means it is not even deliberate for us to own him. He is part of our cultural DNA.
Of course, putting the boot on the other foot, we might say that the England that was Shakespeare's - the 'sceptred isle' - is no more, and has not been for centuries. That notion has long gone. He was not English as we think of English now...
But as an Australian, my culture and language are unthinkable without Billy the Shake. My education was saturated with Shakespeare; his influence was tremendous on the politics and culture of my country. After all, nations are not places, but ideas. We have every right - even a duty - to study him as one of our own. Shakespeare, we might say, came out on the First Fleet.
I think Shakespeare is more Australian than French: though he knew the French and the Italians, and no doubt he has had enormous influence there and even in Russia. But something is carried in the language itself that means it is not even deliberate for us to own him. He is part of our cultural DNA.
Of course, putting the boot on the other foot, we might say that the England that was Shakespeare's - the 'sceptred isle' - is no more, and has not been for centuries. That notion has long gone. He was not English as we think of English now...
Lyotard on 'perfomativity'...
As Jean-Francois Lyotard describes it, the validity of narrative knowledge has been denied in the modern period and replaced by ‘science’, based on ‘facts’ and producing ‘truth’. However, science cannot point to a unitive function and so requires an external source of legitimation. And so, almost sneakily, science turns to ‘meta-narratives’ to legitimate itself. Despite the insistence of the scientist that narratives are childish and primitive and not subject to argumentation or proof, scientific knowledge itself appeals to narratives for its legitimation: for example, that humanity is a hero of liberty and has a right to science; and that progressive measures to liberate it from the oppressive hand of churches and tyrants will lead humanity to fulfilment; or that humanity is the hero of absolute knowledge, and will more and more depict accurately and efficiently master the world according to its actual nature. Scientific knowledge thus delegitimates itself by referring itself to what it already excludes as invalid: narrative.This self-refutation has led to a crisis enough; but in addition, the new technology of knowledge has shifted the character of knowledge further. Computerisation has meant acknowledging that human observation is limited; and a new, pragmatic emphasis not on the criterion of truth but on efficiency. The construal of science as a ‘true/false’ game has become an ‘efficient/inefficient’ game instead. This new postmodern discourse, however, does not require external legitimation in the same way that the modern scientific discourse did/does.
Lyotard labels this new basis for knowledge as ‘performativity’ (sounds like management jargon, no?) The goal of knowledge is no longer Truth, which necessitated reference to grand narratives, but now rather efficiency, which is self-legitimating.
Monday, March 12, 2007
To Die For? Martyrdom and The Christian Life
Notes for a talk to St Ebbe's students, at the Ledbury conference.
1. Martyrdom is the external representation of the inner reality of the Christian life. Every Christian is always already a martyr, because every Christian has already died. The life of the follower of Jesus is thus always already a life lived in preparation of the possibility of such a trial. The hatred of the world for Jesus is shared by his followers. They already lay down their lives, and take up their crosses and follow him. They die to the world... Baptism is a symbol of this offering of the old self over to death which is what every Christian does as a testimony to the truth of Jesus Christ. Every Christian, we might say, is already a martyr. That there are some who suffer to the point of pain and death is a glorious sign for us of the reality of this. If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. (John 15:18)
2. To be a martyr is to be a witness.
Martyrdom can be a powerful form of truth-disclosing action. Christian martyrs bear witness to the love of God and the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Those who stake theological truth claims, then, should not oppress but rather suffer oppression.
The witness to the truth is one whose life displays the rightness of the believing, and thus the rightness of the belief. The Christian martyr not only declares but displays what it means to say “Jesus is Lord” or “God is Love”. Indeed, one might go further and say that without martyrs we simply would no longer have the meaning of these propositions
3. Martyrdom is an imitation of Jesus in his passion and death.
4. Martyrdom is not a cult of death, for the Christian martyr loves life. The death of the martyr is not a resignation to fate, but truly has a tragic, mournful aspect: for it points to the value of life. You cannot consider laying down one’s life for your friends a sacrifice of any significance if you hold life cheap. There is a “powerful sense of loss” at the heart of Christian martyrdom, because life is hallowed by it in its fullness. Jesus came to give abundant life (John 10:10), after all – an intensification of life. This is important – the structure of resurrection belief is an affirmation of the goodness of the created order, pointing not its eradication by the coming new order but its transformation.
5. Martyrdom affirms life by renouncing it.
The disciple gives up her life and her pleasures and her security to let God do with them what he may... because she sees these things as they truly are...'giving up' something, even your own life, means renouncing your claim to be a master over it.
6. Martyrdom is a sgn for us of the onging power and effectiveness of the gospel of Jesus in the world.
For Luther it is a sign of the presence of the true church! That people are willing to die shows that the gospel really does work to change the lives of people.
7. As Augustine says: 'it is the not the punishment but the cause that makes a martyr'.
Dying for a heresy is not martyrdom: it is just stupid. And also, the call of a Christian is not to seek bloody martyrdom, but to witness to Christ whatever the risk. The rest is in God's hands...
And so:
8. Martyrdom is an act of God, not of human beings.
You can'T [correction following John's question see comments] self-designate as a martyr, or pursue martyrdom for its own sake. No persecution complexes please!
9. Martyrdom is a sign of the distinctively Christian way in which we (ought to) speak
Christians must offer a suffering witness, not a speech of power. We do not pursue a discourse of rights, unless it is on behalf of others.
10. Martyrdom is a sign of the impermance of earthly power: and it WORKS!
It is loyally resistant... because it says 'Nebuchadnezzar, you are validly at rule, but not permanently, and only because you have been established by a higher ruler.' It exposes the folly of human imperialism. It is a great comfort to the oppressed!
11. Martyrdom is not merely a stand of eternal dissidence; it is a witness to the rule of God in Christ. So, it CAN accept peace terms when they come. We don't need to return to the catecombs to be truly Christian, but we must always be at the ready for the time when the tide turns and martyrdom becomes a possibility again. A careful collaboration with the power of the state is possible, but the church must always remember what its particular task is and not betray its nature by getting involved in the business of government.
12. Martyrdom is a sign that the Christian way of being a self is completely at odds with secular way of being a self.
Life for the Christian is not about pleasure and security. We renounce both - by which I mean we hand them over to God. We order them according to his designations.
1. Martyrdom is the external representation of the inner reality of the Christian life. Every Christian is always already a martyr, because every Christian has already died. The life of the follower of Jesus is thus always already a life lived in preparation of the possibility of such a trial. The hatred of the world for Jesus is shared by his followers. They already lay down their lives, and take up their crosses and follow him. They die to the world... Baptism is a symbol of this offering of the old self over to death which is what every Christian does as a testimony to the truth of Jesus Christ. Every Christian, we might say, is already a martyr. That there are some who suffer to the point of pain and death is a glorious sign for us of the reality of this. If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. (John 15:18)
2. To be a martyr is to be a witness.
Martyrdom can be a powerful form of truth-disclosing action. Christian martyrs bear witness to the love of God and the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Those who stake theological truth claims, then, should not oppress but rather suffer oppression.
The witness to the truth is one whose life displays the rightness of the believing, and thus the rightness of the belief. The Christian martyr not only declares but displays what it means to say “Jesus is Lord” or “God is Love”. Indeed, one might go further and say that without martyrs we simply would no longer have the meaning of these propositions
3. Martyrdom is an imitation of Jesus in his passion and death.
4. Martyrdom is not a cult of death, for the Christian martyr loves life. The death of the martyr is not a resignation to fate, but truly has a tragic, mournful aspect: for it points to the value of life. You cannot consider laying down one’s life for your friends a sacrifice of any significance if you hold life cheap. There is a “powerful sense of loss” at the heart of Christian martyrdom, because life is hallowed by it in its fullness. Jesus came to give abundant life (John 10:10), after all – an intensification of life. This is important – the structure of resurrection belief is an affirmation of the goodness of the created order, pointing not its eradication by the coming new order but its transformation.
5. Martyrdom affirms life by renouncing it.
The disciple gives up her life and her pleasures and her security to let God do with them what he may... because she sees these things as they truly are...'giving up' something, even your own life, means renouncing your claim to be a master over it.
6. Martyrdom is a sgn for us of the onging power and effectiveness of the gospel of Jesus in the world.
For Luther it is a sign of the presence of the true church! That people are willing to die shows that the gospel really does work to change the lives of people.
7. As Augustine says: 'it is the not the punishment but the cause that makes a martyr'.
Dying for a heresy is not martyrdom: it is just stupid. And also, the call of a Christian is not to seek bloody martyrdom, but to witness to Christ whatever the risk. The rest is in God's hands...
And so:
8. Martyrdom is an act of God, not of human beings.
You can'T [correction following John's question see comments] self-designate as a martyr, or pursue martyrdom for its own sake. No persecution complexes please!
9. Martyrdom is a sign of the distinctively Christian way in which we (ought to) speak
Christians must offer a suffering witness, not a speech of power. We do not pursue a discourse of rights, unless it is on behalf of others.
10. Martyrdom is a sign of the impermance of earthly power: and it WORKS!
It is loyally resistant... because it says 'Nebuchadnezzar, you are validly at rule, but not permanently, and only because you have been established by a higher ruler.' It exposes the folly of human imperialism. It is a great comfort to the oppressed!
11. Martyrdom is not merely a stand of eternal dissidence; it is a witness to the rule of God in Christ. So, it CAN accept peace terms when they come. We don't need to return to the catecombs to be truly Christian, but we must always be at the ready for the time when the tide turns and martyrdom becomes a possibility again. A careful collaboration with the power of the state is possible, but the church must always remember what its particular task is and not betray its nature by getting involved in the business of government.
12. Martyrdom is a sign that the Christian way of being a self is completely at odds with secular way of being a self.
Life for the Christian is not about pleasure and security. We renounce both - by which I mean we hand them over to God. We order them according to his designations.
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