Barth and Kant

We cannot deal evasively with Jesus Christ as one does with an idea.

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics II.ii.660

While Barth concedes that Kant 'has expressed the essential concern of Christian ethic by pointing out that of itself the concept of what is pleasing and useful and valuable does not give us the concept of what is obligatory', he also takes Kant to task for not acknowledging the reality that God's command may indeed result in what is pleasing and good:

The obligation revealed and grounded in the person and work and lordship of Jesus Christ fulfils the idea in all its strictness. It is a categorical imperative, not merely in name, but in fact. And as such - unlike the Kantian imperative - it reveals the fact that to obey it is not merely the highest duty but also the highest good.

Jesus Christ is our categorical imperative!

Introduction to the Bible: some notes IV:Big Love

We had a discussion about polygamy tonight...

There is an excellent article on the matter of polygamy here by Bishop Glenn Davies from Sydney - Is Polygamy a Sin? He makes this comment:

While it is true that legislation existed under Mosaic Law to regulate polygam(Exodus 21:10-11), such legislation did not thereby legitimise polygamy. Rather it is akin to the sufferance exercised by God, a divine permission, which best explains the accounts of polygamy in the Old Testament.

Serena's question however related rather to the felt imbalance: on the one hand, men were allowed this polygamous lifestyle; on the other, those accused of adultery were usually wives rather than husbands. I think the right responses is to say that, as Davies suggests, polygamy is conceded rather than endorsed; that it is a sign of wealth and power rather than a social norm, or seen as a sexual liberterianism of a kind; and that as such it still involved vows and contractual agreements that needed to be honoured...anything else?

To take it further: is the OT unacceptably patriachal? Does the whole approach to polygamy/adultery indicate that the status given to women was somehow offensive to our contemporary sensibilities? Is violence against women not condemned as it should be? Here are a few points in reply:

1. Women share co-humanity with men. Genesis 1 and 2, quite remarkably for their times, assert the full participation of women in the image of God and the flesh of Adam. She is not a lesser being, or a being of a different nature. She stands side by side with Adam.

2. Women are given a voice. One complaint from feminist interpreters is that women are largely silent in the Bible's narrative. But this would be to neglect the Songs of Miriam, Deborah and Hannah in which they are certainly given a voice. The Song of Songs seems to be largely narrated by a female voice - and gives startling (if we are expecting to see patriarchalism everywhere) expression to female sexual desire. God frequently uses women rather than men to show his subversion of men's determination to sort it out for themselves.

3. If women are significant in terms of their roles as wives, mothers, daughters and so on, it is worth saying that the individualism we now value so highly was not a part of the cultural context of the Bible. It is true of men as well that they were fathers, brothers and sons as much as individuals. Sins against individuals had ramifications for their families.

4. The law actually seeks to protect women as vulnerable to abuse by men. It also takes the actions of women just as seriously as men in that they are held responsible for their sin as well.

5. In Leviticus it is true that menstruation leads to a state of ritual uncleanness which needs purification. But it is also true that any male emission leads to the same uncleanness. Note that this does not mean 'sinfulness', by the way. It is a symbolic reminder of the human inability to remain holy.

It helps to remember that, in the OT, there are laws and customs given that are particular to the time and place: not everything should be held as a universal affirmation that this is the right course of action for all times and places. Remember that the OT points ahead to something greater - the need for something more definitive and lasting if the promises of God are to be fulfilled.

Barth and responsibility

This week: a chance to get a handle on Barth's 'divine command' ethics. Very refreshing after wallowing about in rather dry natural law thought. Of course the divine command is the gospel of Jesus Christ (Barth would say 'Jesus', but I am happy to offer him modest correction!) For Barth, ‘responsibility’ sums up the human situation before God who addresses us:

‘It is the idea of responsibility which gives us the most exact definition of the human situation in face of the absolute transcendence of the divine judgment. We live in responsibility, which means that our being and willing, what we do and what we do not do, is a continuous answer to the Word of God spoken to us as a command.’

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, ed. Geoffrey William Bromiley and Thomas Forsyth Torrance, trans. Geoffrey William Bromiley and Thomas Forsyth Torrance, 2d ed., 14 vols. (London ; New York: T. & T. Clark International, 2004), II.ii, p. 641.

Northrop Frye and literary criticism

Northrop Frye's 1964 article 'Criticism, Visible and Invisible' contains much wisdom that a couple of generations of postmodern theory has alas greatly erased. He starts with the Platonic distinction between nous, or knowlegde of things, and dianoia, knowledge about them. The problem for the teacher of literature and the critic is that they are limited to teaching about literature - if there is some principle that can link the knower and the known in an essential relation is indedmonstrable. It is only to be accepted as an act of faith, or something like it. There is also much wisdom for theology here: especially vis a vis the parlous state of biblical criticism...

A person who is absorbed whilly by knowledge about something is what ordinarily mean by a pedant. Beyond this is the experience of literature itself, and the goal of this is somthing that we call vaguely the cultivated man, the person for whom literature is a possession, a possession that cannot be directly transmitted, and yet not private, for it belongs in a community.

Criticims cannot make this act of possession for the student; what it can do is weaken those tendencies which within criticism that keep the literary work objective and separated. Criticism, in order to point beyond itself, must be more than merely aware of its limitations: it needs to be actively iconoclastic about itself.

The end of criticism and teaching...is not an aesthetic but an ethical and participating end: for it, ultimately, works of literation are not things to be contemplated but powers to be absorbed.

The piling up of commentary around the major writers of literature may in itself simply be another way of barricading those writers from us.

All poet or critic can do is to hope that somehow, somewhere, and for someone, the struggle to unify and to relate, because it is an honest struggle and not because of any success in what it does, may be touched with a radiance not its own.

Believer's XI?

I was a having a discusson with someone as to whether you could come up with an all-time believing Christian XI to take on the very powerful potential sides that Islam and Hinduism could put on the field. Here's a short list: can you add any?

Jack Hobbs (Eng)
Conrad Hunte (WI)
Brian Booth (Aust, Capt.)
Rt Rev David Shepphard (Eng)
Trevor Goddard (Sth Af)
Jonty Rhodes (Sth Af)
Hansie Cronje (Sth Af) - a controversial selection perhaps!
C.T. Studd (Eng)
Ian Craig (Aust)
Ian Bishop (WI)
Wes Hall (WI)
Neil Hawke (Aust)
Shaun Pollock (Sth Af)
Roger Binny (India)

and others?

Introduction to the Bible: some notes III: Deuteronomy

At the Space Centre in Leicester.

1. 1. In his Antiquities of the Jews written at the end of the first century, Josephus treated his enlightened Gentile audience to an apologetically motivated re-reading of Deuteronomy. In his opinion, the book preserved the politeia not just the nomos of Israel; in other words, torah had not merely a legal or moral sense in Deuteronomy but a constitutional, genuinely political sense.

Josephus intended to prove to his Hellenic audience that Jewish political thought preceded the thought of the Greeks, Plato and Aristotle. And he thought that in Deuteronomy he had found his proof: “a social charter of extraordinary literary coherence and political sophistication”, as McBride puts it. Arguably, Deuteronomy had a direct influence on the development of modern western constitutionalism, especially in the United States.

2. Like a modern novel, Deuteronomy is narrative: it has a character, setting and plot. However, the narrative really only acts as a frame in which the great speeches of Moses are embedded. The frame helps us to remember that we are listening in on Moses’ speech which is directed to a certain group of people in history. The readers of the written text read it over the shoulders of that first audience; clearly, these readers are to take to heart what they read but in the light of their different circumstances. Noticeably, Moses is able to collapse one generation of Israelites into another by addressing them as “you”. He narrates in the second person, so that the effect is immediate. It is not too much to suppose that the readers are meant to, in the same way, see themselves as the people of God likewise addressed by the text. Deuteronomy calls its readers for decision and action: to trust and obey.

3. Moses death also makes necessary the writing down of the law. We read here about the enscripturation of the words of Moses: the beginnings of the idea of Holy Scripture, which will ensure that the voice of Moses teaching and expounding the law of Yhwh himself will continue to ring out in Israel long after his death. Any doctrine of Scripture ought to begin here, with Scripture's emerging self-awareness of - and unembarassment about - the idea of the Word of God taking a written form...

Edwards on Holiness

Holiness is the nature of the Spirit of God, therefore He is called in Scripture the Holy Ghost. Holines, which is as it were the beauty and sweetness of the divine nature, is as much the proper nature of the Holy Spirit as heat is the nature of fire, or as sweetness was the nature of that holy anointing oil which the principal type of the Holy Ghost in the Mosaic dispensation... The Spirit of God so dwells in the heats of the saints that He there, as a seed or spring of life, exerts and communicates Himself, in this His sweet and divine nature, making the soul a partaker of God's beauty and Christ's joy, so that the saint has truly fellowship with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ, in this having the communion or participation of the Holy Ghost. The grace which is in the hearts of the saints is of the same nature with the divine holiness, as much as it is possible for that holiness to be which is infinitely less in degree; as the brigfhtness that is in a diamond which the sun shines upon is of the same nature with the brightness of the sun, but only that it is as nothing to it in
degree... The Religious Affections, p. 129

Wonderful stuff. I wonder what an Orthodox view of divinization might be like in comparison? Notice, however, that the holiness is beautiful and sweet - and not sweetness and beauty which is holy. He is not an aesthete. The holiness of the Christian is truly divine.

Bultmann and electric lights

Bultmann, in his programmatic essay of 1941 'New Testament and Mythology' declaims -

We cannot use electric lights and radios and, in the event of illness, avail ourselves of modern medical and clinical means and at the same time believe in the spirit and wonder world of the New Testament. And if we suppose that we can do so ourselves, we must be clear that we can represent this as the attitude of Christian faith only by making the Christian proclamation unitelligible and impossible for our contemporaries.

He puts a fair challenge forward, though it sounds quite ridiculous to see the electric light as the sign of the enlightenment of modern man vis a vis the mythologies of the New Testament. He would say to us 'at least fundamentalists are consistent'! But the challenge is this: how do we account for the disjunction between our daily existence, where we operate without expectation of the miraculous and on the basis of the scientific world view, and our belief in the New Testament? Don't we all do some demythologising somewhere (unless you live on a mountain in Virginia and handle snakes)?

Bultmann's confidence in his own mastery of the past never seems to waver. He seems unaware that he is in effect re-mythologising the New Testament by casting it in terms of human existence and authenticity... Like Spong, he is remorselessly sceptical, except of his own scepticism. It is interesting, too, how he shares Spong's concern for apologetics/evangelism: that the modern person, busily switching his electric light bulb on and off, and listening to the wireless, despises the gospel as it is couched in mythological language.

Lash lashes Dawkins

Theologian Nicholas Lash does an absolute number on Richard Dawkins right here. h/t Sam.

Death on the battlefield

In and after the 1914-18 War the language of martyrdom was applied to the sacrifice of the young men who died for England on the battlefield. Using this langauge no doubt brought great comfort to the bereaved - and in that sense I don't want to be to quick to judge it. In particular, the text that features again and again in memorials is John 15:13: ‘greater love hath no man than this’. A well-known hymn from the period, ‘O Valiant Hearts’ by Sir John Arkwright, makes the connection between patriotism and religion chillingly explicit:

Still stands his Cross from that dread hour to this,
like some bright star above the dark abyss;
still, through the veil, the Victor's pitying eyes
look down to bless our lesser Calvaries.

These were his servants, in his steps they trod,
following through death the martyred Son of God:
Victor, he rose; victorious too shall rise
they who have drunk his cup of sacrifice.

Humanae Vitae - Paul VI

I am reading Humanae Vitae for a seminar this afternoon on Natural Law. It is a stirring document, as many of the papal encyclicals are. But this is probably the most controversial one of them all. Some passages that caught my eye (in blue, with my comments in black):







This kind of question requires from the teaching authority of the Church a new and deeper reflection on the principles of the moral teaching on marriage—a teaching which is based on the natural law as illuminated and enriched by divine Revelation.

I think this is interesting: first we have to establish the teaching authority of the Church as the interpreter of the natural law. Secondly, the teaching of this encyclical BEGINS with natural law as illumined by Revelation, not the other way around.


No member of the faithful could possibly deny that the Church is competent in her magisterium to interpret the natural moral law. It is in fact indisputable, as Our predecessors have many times declared, (l) that Jesus Christ, when He communicated His divine power to Peter and the other Apostles and sent them to teach all nations His commandments, (2) constituted them as the authentic guardians and interpreters of the whole moral law, not only, that is, of the law of the Gospel but also of the natural law. For the natural law, too, declares the will of God, and its faithful observance is necessary for men's eternal salvation. (3)



Again the authority of the papacy as inheritors of the apostolate and thus the true interpreters of the moral law is asserted. This is a strategy to protect from arbitrariness. 'Necessary for men's eternal salvation'? Hmm...




With regard to man's innate drives and emotions, responsible parenthood means that man's reason and will must exert control over them.

A curious feature of Thomistic thought: the emphasis on 'reason' in anthropology, over and against the other drives and emotions. Maybe not so curious: it was interesting to see Kant saying exactly the same thing.

Responsible parenthood, as we use the term here, has one further essential aspect of paramount importance. It concerns the objective moral order which was established by God, and of which a right conscience is the true interpreter

Here 'right conscience' comes in. Interestingly Cardinal Pell of Sydney has talked about this 'conscience' idea in order to defend it from rampant individualism. He says conscience must be taught rightly and is not a somehow inward part of the human sealed off from church teaching. I think this reveals the problem with the conscience thing, though I am sympathetic to Pell's reasons.



The fact is, as experience shows, that new life is not the result of each and every act of sexual intercourse. God has wisely ordered laws of nature and the incidence of fertility in such a way that successive births are already naturally spaced through the inherent operation of these laws. The Church, nevertheless, in urging men to the observance of the precepts of the natural law, which it interprets by its constant doctrine, teaches that each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life.



Strangely Paul doesn't give us much about this 'intrinsic relationship' idea. It is unexplained really... is it to do with the intention to procreate? Well, no, because he will allow for natural birth control later on. You could complain to, that the 'wisely ordered laws of nature' is a problematic teaching: women die in childbirth; successive births aren't 'spaced', etc. That is, the curse has had an effect on the natural world, and it is now not as 'natural' as it once was.

...the fundamental nature of the marriage act, while uniting husband and wife in the closest intimacy, also renders them capable of generating new life—and this as a result of laws written into the actual nature of man and of woman.



I take it he means our bodily nature and desires for one another have the nature of laws. How do they become 'laws' from being our actual nature?

If therefore there are well-grounded reasons for spacing births, arising from the physical or psychological condition of husband or wife, or from external circumstances, the Church teaches that married people may then take advantage of the natural cycles immanent in the reproductive system and engage in marital intercourse only during those times that are infertile, thus controlling birth in a way which does not in the least offend the moral principles which We have just explained.

This is the get-out clause and I have never understood it. To me, this is like a vegetarian eating meat substitute. The rhythm method is still a matter of birth 'control', is it not?



No one can, without being grossly unfair, make divine Providence responsible for what clearly seems to be the result of misguided governmental policies, of an insufficient sense of social justice, of a selfish accumulation of material goods, and finally of a culpable failure to undertake those initiatives and responsibilities which would raise the standard of living of peoples and their children.

Well, fair enough. The whole population control thing has a very sinister side to it.

Tradition and the Individual Talent

In his exceptional essay 'Tradition and the Individual Talent', Eliot writes:

‘The emotion of art is impersonal. And the poet cannot reach this impersonality without surrendering himself wholly to the work to be done. And he is not likely to know what is to be done unless he lives in what is not merely the present, but the present moment of the past, unless he is conscious, not of what is dead, but of what is already living.’

Eliot's enemy is the Romantic view of poetry as self-expression: as the expression of a particular personality. Eliot the modernist say exactly the opposite: that truly great art is interested in dissolving personalities and immersion in the tradition. The poet must engage in an act of self-immolation before the tradition and the work - the tradition not just as the voice of the past in the past but tradition as the 'present moment of the past'. He must offer himself to the voice of the tradition and lose his own; but then, he will find he has his own back.

What is interesting is that this is a kind of a 'martyrdom of the poet'; or at least, a self-sacrifice of the poet to the greater voice of the tradition.

Violence, the OT and teaching children

In teaching the Old Testament to children in the 7-15 age range I have myself in the past emphasised the drama and action of the narratives. They are really well told stories and they make for good reading - and frankly, anything to get kids to read the Bible will do.

But I have noticed a tendency to glorify the gory aspects of it, or, to make them cartoonish so that kids will find them appealing in some way.
As an ad for one Bible for boys puts it:
Finally, a Bible just for boys! Discover gross and gory Bible stuff...

Shouldn't we be teaching our kids to be troubled by the destruction of Jericho and Ai? The terrible fate of household of Achan? The highly symbolic violence of the book of Judges? And so on? Not that these should be edited, or seen as in some way compromising the character of God, but it just troubles me that we teach these texts as if they are Itchy and Scratchy cartoons ...

Introduction to the Bible: some notes II

Some further thoughts on discussions we had last night.

1. If you want something really good to read, D. Clines' The Theme of the Pentateuch is pretty good, though a little pricey I notice.
His basic thesis is this:

The theme of the Pentateuch is the partial fulfilment—which implies also the partial non-fulfilment—of the promise to or blessing of the patriarchs. The promise or blessing is both the divine initiative in a world where human initiatives always lead to disaster, and a re-affirmation of the primal divine intentions for man.

This is a pretty good summary. Notice how, as we suggested last night, the first five books of the bible propel us forward into the future. They suggest that more is to come: though there is a partial fulfilment, there is still much of what God has promised left outstanding.

2. We talked a bit about 'covenants': Noah, Abraham, Moses/Israel, David, (Jeremiah). Could you also call the Garden of Eden a 'covenant' arrangement? Certainly, the structure of a covenant is there, with an act of sheer grace - creation - followed by a stipulation which is really a designation of the freedom of Adam and Eve to carry out their task within the parameters that God sets and under his protection. What do you think? An old teacher of mine, Bill Dumbrell, in his excellent book Covenant and Creation reckons that this is a covenant pure and simple. (You might also see his truly excellent book The Faith of Israel, which gives a great summary of every OT book. )

3. The question was raised: 'since the human situation appears to degenerate so quickly after Noah's time, what does the flood achieve?'

It's a fair enough question. First of all, I would say that the little story about the angelic love affairs with human women suggests an almost demonic condition of the pre-flood world. This infection of the lineage of humanity was broken by the flood. So, in that sense it could be argued that the flood provided a decisive break but also a continuity of God's plan. (NB - is this what is meant by the 'spirits in prison' in 1 Peter 3:8? Could be!)

Secondly, the NT sees the flood as a great demonstration of the pattern and scope of God's judgement on the earth AND his plan of salvation - see 2 Peter 2 for example:

5if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others ...9if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment.

Outline of 'you' project

Here is a complete linked list of the chapters for easy access:

What, anxious? Me?
It's like a great play
What you are not

Stuff
You and your stuff
To have and to hold
My precious
Naked I came

Dreams
Dreams
What do we dream about
Frustration
Being there
Dream of God
Dreaming with God

Body
Tattoo you
Tattoo you two
pinocchio perhaps
Not your own
Body piercing saved my life
Slim for him?

Life
Life in Kolding
Our love of life
Heavy breathing or, the kiss of life
Image problem
What's so good about it?

Child
Mother's day
honour
Please, don't mention the outside world
Dear Woman, here is you Son
Some Last Words

Dying
The Gift of Death
On the run
Alas poor yorrick
A hollow death
Real Dignity

Arise
Heavy Matter
Post human future
Waiting, Waiting
At the blast of the trumpet
Echoes in eternity

Twisted
The evil next door
Man hands on misery to man
Twisted
victims, perpertrators

Touched
Touch me
Touching story
Untouchable
The ooze
Dead woman walking
Go in peace

Man/Woman
The great disintegration
Help
Fit
Gentle ribbing
shameless
Of frogs and snails
this is my lover
here comes the bride

Speech, speech
you oughta talk
the broken sigh
wise words
lies lies lies
bragging flattery gossip

Freedom
cos I'm free
atomised
underpants on the outside
the tasks of freedom
declaration of independence
free man
living in freedom

Real Human
human-being: a guide for perplexed
risky business
into temptation
true humanism

Still reeling from reading Kant

I am still somewhat agape at the sheer scope of what Kant attempts in his Groundwork and the impressive rationality of it all. One thought that came to me was this: in debating against atheists, I have noticed Christian apologists still resort to the argument from morality. It is something like this (actually it isn't an argument so much as a challenge or observation): atheists have no grounds for a particular morality; yet human beings have a strong moral instinct. So: if you are an atheist, you can say something is morally wrong, but not consistently.

But Kant was attempting to find exactly these grounds. In other words, he claimed to have found a way in which moral truth was discoverable by reason alone, with or without divine help. By means if the categorical imperative, Kant was (he thought) able to put morality on a consistent footing that enables a moral discussion to ensue on the basis of rationality. The immoral would also be the irrational, on this basis.

Now, there are problems here of course, but I am just painfully aware that Christian apologists don't seem to address this claim to have found a universal basis for morality aside from divine revelation. Mind you, their opponents don't seem to be very good at putting the argument back to Christians either...

The other thing from Kant was this. Kant tries to sheer all manner of self-interest away from moral consideration. Intentions must be as pure as possible to bring about a truly moral act. As he says:

From love of humankind I am willing to admit that even most of our actuons are in confimrity with duty; but if we look more closely at the intentions and aspiratons in them we everywhere come upon the dear self, which is always turning up; and it is on this their purpose is based, not on the strict command of duty, which would often require self-denial.

My problem with his instance on the lack of self-interest in creation is that this actually dehumanises the moral agent. Why should self-interest always be corrupting in this way, so long as it is not the wrong kind of self-interest? This is what Augustine might say: one ought to love oneself IN GOD, just as one ought to love one's neighbour in God. The right kind of benefits accruing need not entirely sour a moral act. It is impossible to love, in a way, without some form of self-interest. Without self-interest of a kind, love itself disappears... it becomes merely formal, or dutiful, and not loving.

Habits

It seems to me that much of our ethical discussion focusses on moments of crisis and decision, when the bulk of our lives are lived in that curious half-light of the will - habit. We have habits because we have bodies: habits are patterns of behaviour which we repeat regularly without having to think about them consciously. Our bodies like them, and we just do them. I don't consciously choose to have toast and jam with strong coffee for breakfast each morning: and yet, there we go, I do it. Am I responsible for my choice? Yes of course. And yet, I am not conscious of choosing or deciding anything much. So, yes, I do will it; but, only out of a kind of dream-state of the will.

This is not a blog-as-confessional: but I do have one bad habit I will share. I chew paper. I have done it for a while now. White A4 is best. As I am sitting working and trying to concentrate I feel the urge to chew, and not having gum around, paper stands in its place. Actually, I prefer the texture and taste of paper. It is weird how this has become habitual, to the point that I am not even really aware of deciding to do it. And yet, breaking out of a habit even as stupid as this requires a huge amount of will power.

It is because habits involve a kind of shutting down of the will that they feature so little in ethical discussion I think. Somehow, an act perfomed habitually is not as morally upright as the one which involves a more conscious decsion to do the right thing....

A new YOU post

http://youbook.blogspot.com/2007/09/temptation.html


please visit!

Introduction to the Bible: some notes.

Last night at Introduction to the Bible at St Ebbe's we were speaking about the ten Northern Tribes of Israel. Usually they are described as 'lost' tribes: after the invasion by the Assyrians they seem to disappear from history. Certainly, there is almost no mention of them made in the Bible subsequent to their captivity and exile.

However, David raised an interesting anomoly for this theory: in Luke 2:36 the prophetess Anna is described as being of the tribe of Asher - one of the allegedly lost tribes. What gives?

Well, a litte help from NT Scholar Richard Bauckham's book 'Gospel Women' reveals that the traditional 'lost tribes' theory is not exactly true. It is thought now that certainly there were some remnants of the conquered Northern tribes remaining in the land after their conquest. Such fragmentary evidence as we have reveals that some small presence of these tribal identities continued in some way. It would have been unusual to read of a woman of the tribe of Asher being at the temple in Jerusalem, because in that region the Jews were primarily from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. But it would have been historically credible to find someone from the tribe of Asher in the story, because there were a small number of such people maintaining this identity, as far as we can tell.

Williams and hermeneutics

From his lecture on the Bible given in Toronto this year:

"It is not that we are given only a method of interpretation by the form of Scripture – a method that, by pointing us to the conflict and tension between texts simply leaves us with theologically unresolvable debate as a universal norm for Christian discourse (I make the point partly in order to correct what some have – pardonably – understood as the implication of what I have written elsewhere on this matter). There is a substantive and discernible form. The canon is presented to us as a whole, whose unity is real and coherent, even if not superficially smooth. To quote from Kevin Vanhoozer’s recent and magisterial work on The Drama of Doctrine. A Canonical Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology, p.137, ‘The canon both recounts the history of God’s covenantal dealings with humanity and regulates God’s ongoing covenantal relationship with his people…[I]t is the text that “documents” our covenantal privileges and responsibilities.’ We must acknowledge the tensions and internal debates in Scripture; we must also acknowledge the clear sense that the text is presented as a narrative of ‘fulfilment’ – as one that contains a vision claiming comprehensiveness of meaning. We are to locate ourselves within this set of connections and engagements, the history of Israel, called, exiled, restored, and of Jesus crucified and risen and alive in the Spirit within the community, not to regard Scripture as one element in a merely modern landscape of conflicts. "

Williams defends himself from the charge that he sees 'unresolveable debate' as the key to Christian hermeneutics. He admits that it is understandable that people have misheard him on this. I would have to say the emphasis of his theological writing falls very much on observing the dissonance. There seems to be very little on the fulfilment aspect.

Catholic Social teaching: a failure?

Gerard Henderson makes this claim in the Sydney Morning Herald:

'The unfashionable fact is that nations which have paid heed to Catholic social teaching have had poor economic outcomes. Ireland and Italy come to mind. Ireland recovered from high unemployment only after it embraced economic reform. '

Justifiable? The rest of the article is very interesting too, on the right of Church leaders to make public comment and the inconsistency of politicians and journalists in supporting them when they do so.

Kant's 'Groundwork'

I have put off reading Kant directly for too long, though of course I am familiar with his ideas.

But, I have been set to read his 'Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals'. Of course, one discovery was that by 'metaphysics' he means something like 'rational concepts not empirically derived at all'.

Anyhow, this from him:

Nor could one give worse advice to morality than by wanting to derive it from examples. For, exvery example of it represented to me must itself first be appraised in accordance with principles of morality, as to whether it is alos worthy to serve as an original example, that is, as a model; it can by no means authoritavitively provide the concept of morality. Even the Holy One of the Gospel must first be compared with our ideal of moral perfection before he is cognized as such; even he say of himself: why do you call me (whome you see) good?...But whence have we the concept of God as the highest good? Solely from the idea of moral perection that reason frames a priori and connects inseparabloy with the concept of a free will. Imitation has no place at all in matters of morality, and examples serve only for exnouragement, that is, they put beyond doubt the practicability of what the law commands and make intuitive what the pratcice rule expresses more generally, but they can never justify setting aside thier true original, which lies in reason, and guiding oneself by examples.

Wow, one thing you have to give him is his determination to be consistently rational at all times. But to assert that imitation has no place in morality? My goodness! Also, here we see the old Euthyphro debate about whether God is good or good is God. Is good subject to some concept or law of the good? Or, is he somehow more arbirtrarily sovereign over it, such that what is 'good' may be subject to change or alteration in some way?

New Radiohead album

You might have seen that Radiohead - the world's greatest band from Oxford - have released their new album by offering it for free in mp3 format. Or, at least, for whatever the purchaser wants to pay for it. They are saying: you choose what it is worth and pay us accordingly.

Probably a lot of people will take it for free - but do so with a clear conscience. Me - I paid them five pounds. I love their work and knowing that that money is going to them and not to a record company makes me happy. This signals possibly a complete reconfiguration of the musical world order. It is exciting to see companies which are basically parasitic on musical talent get undercut in this way.

The new album? Well so far it sounds pretty indistinguishable from Thom Yorke's solo album 'The Eraser'. Which means pretty much less rocky and more atmospheric than previous albums. And I am yet to decide which is the stand-out single or the anthemic heart of the album, or if there is one. It might take a few more listens.

Williams on Wiles IV

Re-reading Williams on Wiles after dipping into Bultmann is interesting of course: you get to see what is running in the background of both. Williams asks of Wiles:

...is the historically primary sense, the foundational experience, demonstrably one with the central insight afforded, in a modern theologian's eyes, by the life and death of Christ, the fundamental, distinctive contribution of the Christian vision? The New Testament falls some way short of saying that the life and death of Jesus provide a manifestation of the character of God's love in the sense of giving us a supremely full human analogue, in death as well as life, of that love: if they manifest God's love, it is because they are the action of God, moving towards the restoration and the universalising of God's people, or the adoption of human beings as children of the Father.

Yes, I think this is a helpful corrective. YOu can't just say, Jesus is merely illustrative of how God works with human beings. You have to say that in him something has already been begun between God and man - there is in fact in him a real act of God. The NT writers did not make deductions from Jesus and say 'hmm, this is what God is like'. They said rather 'in Jesus we have met God and God has acted!'.

The Elizabeth Settlement and after

MacCullough's new lecture series on the Elizabethan settlement and beyond has begun: and what a privilege!

The first lecture in the series underscored how Protestant the settlement of 1560 was: that Elizabeth was no crypto-Catholic minimalist. What was achieved was a genuinely Protestant Reformation - if not quite as radical as some wished.

But the interesting insight that DM offered towards the end was that the English experience of church under the new regime was enlivened by the vigorous singing of the Genevan metrical Psalms! He said this:

'the metrical Psalm WAS English Protestantism'.

A comment on Murder in the Cathedral

Interestingly, Murder in the Cathedral provoked quite a debate in post-War Germany. This was one response:

'Eliot’s starkly medieval, anti-psychological rendition of Becket’s passion treats his martyrdom as an event in human time, when God’s divine order makes itself known to human beings. A Christian martyrdom reveals the structure of the divine order, calling those who witness it to assume their designated place in that order, which is marked by humble recognition of one’s sinfulness and dependence on God’s grace.'

Martyrdom: a genre

mmm. Ice cream is cheap in the Czech Republic. You can eat it every day.

It seems to me that martyrdom is a genre, just as tragedy or comedy is.



That is, it is a description a sequence of events after a certain pattern.

Just a thought.

Bultmann on demythologisation

Our reading group has begun reading a collection of Bultmann's essays edited by Schubert Ogden: New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings. It seems to me Bultmann is a figure almost completely overlooked these days by NT scholars, but becoming more popular amongst theologians. When you read his John commentary for example you can see why this might be so: Bultmann was formidibly - even incredibly - learned as a philologist and historian, but his rearrangements of the NT text are often arbirtrary, even whimsical. However, his adaptation of the existentialism of Heidegger for interpretation of the NT is quite revelatory of the human and dramatic situations under scrutiny.

At the suggestion of the editor, we began with the last essay in the book, from 1961: 'On the Problem of Demythologizing'. Of course, as good postmoderns, our first observation was just how 'modernist' he is: the world-view of the natural sciences is the given as far as he is concerned, and means that we cannot except the 'myths' of the NT as anything but naive. The job of exegesis and theology is to decode the myths and express them in the idiom of contemporary thought: 'demythologization seeks to bring out myth's real intention to talk about out own authentic reality as human beings'. Of course, there is no hint from Bultmann that this might be a 'remythologization' in its turn! Bultmann's determination is to wrestle with the vary Kantian dilemma: since God is not a fact withing the world that can be objectively established but rather must be confessed, we can only talk about him if we at the same time talk about our own existence as affected by God's act. As he says:
The statement that God is Creator and Lord has its legitimate basis only in our existential self-understanding...
This on the face of it seems a curious claim: but the statement is a statement that is believed and confessed, after all, and preached, rather than one open to the inquiries of natural scientific methods.
The peculiar thing about Christain faith, however, is that it sees an utterly special act of God in a certain historiacl event, which as such can be objectively established. This is the appearance of Jesus Christ, who is seen to be the revelation of God that calls everyone to faith.
Not too much to complain about here.

Bonhoeffer watching

I discovered later and I'm still discovering right up to this moment, that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. One must completely abandon any attempt to make something of oneself, whether it be a saint, or a converted sinner, or a churchman (a so-called priestly type!), a righteous man or an unrighteous one, a sick man or a healthy one. By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing we throw oursleves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings but those of God in the world - watching with Christ in Gethsemane. That, I think, is faith; that is metanoia; and that is how one becomes a man and a Christian....[Letters and Papers, p. 370]

Quietism of a kind? Well yes, except quietism without the elitism of the Catholic strain of it - the expectation of the 'higher' spiritual life (we've had plenty of that nonsense in Protestantism too).

The collapse of the evangelical consensus?

One real sign that a movement is in trouble is when it starts to dissolve in self-analysis. Certainly, you would have to say that applies to evangelicalism, a movement which is in danger of disappearing into its own navel at an alarming rate. The sheer volume of books on the subject tells its own story; not to mention the twee 'river, canal, rapids' descriptions (I mean, who wants to be a 'canal' evangelical?) .

So, by way of contributing to the problem perhaps, I penned this thought about contemporary evangelicalism, which seems to me a house divided - at least in the UK.

The common diagnosis of the problem is that, in the 60s, there were three or four leaders of the evangelical movement around whom we all (or our spiritual parents) gathered - Stott, Lloyd-Jones, perhaps Packer. Since then diversity and infighting has been the rule - disputes over charismatic gifts, women in ministry, the new perspective, social action and so on have meant that the movement has no clear common ground anymore. There seems to me to be a significant erosion of what evangelicals used to hold as points of unity: the atonement, the bible, the priority of evangelism/conversion, justification by faith, the work of the Spirit in sanctification of the believer, and so on. Reasserting these, and shouting them more loudly has been the strategy of some, but it isn't working to unify

The various doctrinal bases no longer provide the rallying point that they used to, because it is the question of emphasis and additions to these that is at issue. If evangelicals are going to find a common ground again, it seems to me that they will have to be exclusive as well as inclusive at some point. Which is to say, saying what you are means at some point saying what you are not, too.

Now, I ran this by a UK evangelical leader, and he said I had it completely wrong, and that the movement was in good shape, relatively. Shows what I know...

Can you want to be a saint?

In a letter to Eberhard Bethge written in July 1944, Dietrich Bonhoeffer remembered a conversation with ‘a young French pastor’ (identified by the editor as Jean Lasserre):

He said he would like to become a saint (and I think it’s quite likely that he did become one). At the time I was very impressed, but I disagreed with him, and said, in effect, that I should like to learn to have faith. For a long time I didn’t realize the depth of the contrast.[1]

Bonhoeffer’s intuition is that intending ‘to become a saint’ is not the way to become one.[2] Even though desiring the honour of heaven appears to be a way to surmount the lust for earthly glory, is it not merely a displacement of the same desire? Eliot’s Thomas is not swayed by the promise of earthly honour, appealing though it is. Far dearer to his heart is the promise of heavenly glory. This temptation introduces a complex problem for Eliot and indeed for the whole theological tradition: what place does the heavenly prize have in the motivation of the holy to serve God? Does the offer of a heavenly reward or a martyr’s crown corrupt the pursuit of true sanctity? The question is most troublesome: the very idea of martyrdom threatens to collapse under its weight. Is the heavenly city merely the earthly city on a larger scale? Is the desire for a higher place in heaven, which Origen among others certainly believed would be bestowed on the martyrs,[3] any better than a desire for earthly glory? Thomas discovers himself in the untenable situation of wanting that for which the desiring makes the having apparently impossible.[4]

Is some form of what has been known as ‘Quietism’ the only way forward? The controversy over Quietism in late seventeenth century France brought just this dilemma to the fore. The impulse of the movement was certainly not new: Meister Eckhardt had been promulgating its main features over four hundred years earlier. Essentially, Quietism taught that any action motivated by self-interest to any degree was offensive to God. To achieve the purity of love characteristic of a saint, one must utterly divest oneself of self-interest – even to the extent of renouncing interest in salvation itself (and thus, like Bonhoeffer, renounce the desire to become a saint). As Madame Guyon wrote: ‘[W]e must suppress all desire…even the desire for the joys of Paradise’.[5] Her ecclesiastical advocate, François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon, defended this ideal in more academic terms in his Explication des Maximes des Saints, arguing that , for a few especially gifted saints, there was the possibility to achieve a pure or disinterested love of God. Pressed by his adversary and fellow-bishop Jean-Bénigne Bossuet, Fénelon conceded that the saint might continue to hope, but argued that this was simply because this is commanded by God. Rightly, Bossuet could see that his opponent was stretching: this was no hope worthy of the name, just as Fénelon’s ‘pure love’ was mechanistic and inert, and barely recognisable as a species of love at all.[6] Quite apart from the problem of the overwhelming Scriptural testimony to heavenly rewards which it is apparently right to desire, the Quietist alternative foundered on the rocks of its own logic, not least because, in making a nothing of the self, it made the value of self-sacrifice questionable.


[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, ed. Eberhard Bethge (London: SCM, 1999), p. 369.
[2] His bracketed comment is perhaps to be read as not wishing to appear malignant about Lasserre.
[3] Origen, Exhortation to Martyrdom L
[4] In his study on martyrdom, von Balthasar makes a comment that in one sense encapsulates Thomas’ predicament: ‘Man is capable of misusing and abusing everything for his own selfish ends, even the invitation to sacrifice his life for the sake of that love from which faith springs’ Balthasar, The Moment of Christian Witness, p. 36.. Could even the pursuit of martyrdom turn out to be perverse? Certainly, this is what the modern world (Salman Rushdie being our example) has suspected.
[5] Quoted in Kenneth E. Kirk, The Vision of God : The Christian Doctrine of the Summum Bonum, Bampton Lectures (London ; New York: Longmans, Green & Co, 1931), p. 454.
[6] Oliver O'Donovan, The Ways of Judgment : The Bampton Lectures, 2003, The Bampton Lectures (Grand Rapids, Mich. ; Cambridge: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2005), p. 300-1.

Asleep at the wheel? More reflections on staying awake

Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.

The echoes of the Lord’s Prayer in this passage are fascinating: Jesus prays “Abba, Father”, and that his will be done; and now, they are to pray not come to the time of testing. Of course, the time of testing is just round the corner. But here is a lesson in discipleship: stay awake, and pray. Be alert to the possibility of NOT doing what God wills, but what you will instead; of choosing the weakness of your flesh over the intentions of your spirit, so to speak. Jesus knows that the only way to meet this terrible trial is to keep awake and call on God.

“Could you not keep watch for one hour?” No he could not; and neither could the others. Again and again he was to find them sleeping: “because their eyes were heavy”; and from embarrassment and shame, caught like rabbits in the headlights of their own disobedience, they did not know what to say to him. Entering the garden with all the devotion to service of their Lord, they fall asleep at the very moment they ought to be most alert and calling on God to deliver them.

And so it is no surprise, with disciples such as these, that we find Jesus deserted, betrayed and denied. Remarkably, Peter denies him three times, pretending dishonestly that he has no first-hand knowledge of Jesus, for fear perhaps of sharing the same fate as Jesus. So much for taking up your cross and following Jesus.

And the disciples as group dishonoured themselves in the crucial moment by fleeing from the armed mob that had come to capture him. This included even the mysterious streaker of 14:51, who fled naked: perhaps, people have suggested, this is the author, too ashamed to add his own name to his disgrace. The disciples lose their nerve: they fall into an unruly mob. In contrast, Jesus faces his trial and death with calm composure, having expressed his fears to God in prayer. This desertion means that in this moment Jesus is utterly alone. It is not self-evident that he should be alone at this point. He had called his disciples to be his apostles, the foundation of his community in the world. He had made his cause theirs. He himself would be there in their midst, as he says in Matthew. It was perfectly possible that the disciples might have been crucified along with him. But, though the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak. The flight of disciples and the denial of Peter show just how weak it is. Though he asked them to watch and pray with him, they could not do it; and just at the crucial moment they dozed.

While the saviour wept, the Church slept!

Shh! It's the Quietists!

Is pure self-lessness really possible? Is anyone really 'pure in heart'? In commanding pure unselfishness, doesn't Christianity become the rankest of paradoxes, the absurdest of faiths?

Well, the Quietists of 17th Century Europe weren't happy to admit that complete disinterestedness was impossible. Rather, they claimed that disinterest was the essential condition which alone gives any action eternal worth. If heaven and hell are put forward as motives of right conduct, then selfishness has gained a toehold. Meister Eckhardt once said: 'He alone hath true spiritual poverty who wills nothing, knows nothing, desires nothing'. Madame Guyon in the 17th Century wrote: 'We must suppress all desire, even the desire for the joys of Paradise'. So, the Quietists even spoke of wishing for one's own damnation, because this would be the truly self-less path. This is to make, of course, Judas the hero of the gospels...after all, it was he who really sacrificed everything and received nothing in return, not even ultimately his thirty pieces of silver...

The debate, in the end, was between two bishops, Fenelon and Bosseut. Fenelon explained that the Quietists set out to acquire disinterestedness by the methods of formalism, 'training themselves not to think of themselves, trying even to desire the pains of hell that they might stifle all longings for the joys of heaven.' (KE Kirk). Fenelon didn't want to go this far - a self-conscious ACT of self-abnegation is surely not very far from extreme egoism. For Fenelon, disinterestedness can only happen as a gift of God: the human subject's responsibility is only to contemplate as best he can, and leave the rest to God. Worship alone will disinfect our service from egotism, but not worship as self-examination. As Kirk says 'only by discharging the immediate duties honestly and without presumption shall we become disinterested, not by close scrutiny of our spiritual attainments'.

Williams on parables II

Part of the power of the parables is, for Williams, in their ‘secularity’. As he says in one of his sermons: ‘Jesus, in his acts and parables, is a strikingly secular figure, unconcerned to ask question about the status or purity of those who come to him’.[1] Taking his lead from Bonhoeffer’s famous appeals for a non-religious language with which to proclaim the gospel, Williams describes Jesus’ own langauge as ‘non-religious’, and so a model of speaking the word of God to be followed. By ‘non-religious’ Williams means: ‘it is not primarily concerned with securing a space within the world for a particular specialist discourse…whether or not it uses the word ‘God’, it effects faith, conversion, hope.’[2] There is the characteristic Williams emphasis here on what the words do, as opposed to what they say. Their right function is not imperial, as certainly is the case with some religious talk. What seems to matter most is the right outcome - whether or not this speech results in the transformation of those who encounter it. 'Religious' language (at least in the terms that Williams uses) does not transform in this way, but rather dominates and makes subservient.

I sense here the tendency to some universalised conception of what ‘religious’ means. Jesus did not encounter in the religious rulers of his day merely ‘religious’ rulers but Jewish ones. His specific critique is not of them as religious qua religious, but as those who were entrusted with the covenant and its laws and ceremonies. It is not religiousity that is critiqued in and of itself. To posit Jesus as a critic of religion itself risks making him into a Marcionite – or, perhaps less alarmingly, makes him too much of a Lutheran, preaching faith to the exclusion of law. Yet Jesus seems very Jewish: he is radical in the very sense that he calls Israel back to its roots, as well as preparing her for an entirely new act of God. The parables themselves, we ought to remember, make use of profoundly Jewish symbolism: they do not appear as secular in the sense that vineyards, sowers, sheep and seeds were symbols already deeply embedded in the religious self-identity of Israel. They turn the religious life of Israel back to its central meaning and purpose.

[1] Rowan Williams, Open to Judgement : Sermons and Addresses (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1994), p. 54.
[2] Williams, "The Judgement of the World," p. 41.

Williams on Eliot

I have been reading 'The Four Quartets': breathtaking.

Rowan Williams says:

This is the pivot of the Quartets: God has borne all we bear and so has made the fabric of history his own garment. The world has no discernible meaning or pattern; but into it there has entered the compassion of God.

He continues:

Eliot was a great preacher of the gospel because he had the integrity not to close his eyes to any of the real horror of the world; preaching is cheap if it fails to meet human beings at their darkest points. The reconciliation he writes of is utterly costly, mortally hard: our sole nourishment in the task is the blood of God's costly love, the assurance that death, loss, disorder are none of them stronger than the compassion of God.

Open to Judgement, p. 218-9