tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37802950568924035632024-02-20T17:33:52.841-08:00theologia crucis"The Cross is Our Only Theology"- Martin Luther, Heidelberg DisputationDr. Jack Kilcreasehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11362736419613180038noreply@blogger.comBlogger430125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780295056892403563.post-26306063890192775772014-04-03T07:20:00.000-07:002014-04-03T07:20:00.518-07:00Lutheran Theology and the Metaphysical Question.The entire discussion of sanctification brought up a number of
issues. Chief among them is my use of speech-act theory, as well as my
use of categories of thought taken from relational and ecstatic
metaphysics to explicate my views of sanctification. When I pointed out
the advantage of these ways of speaking
to give an account of and to conceptually preserve biblical and
confessional commitments (as well as their precedent in Luther's own
ways of speaking and conceptualizing theology), it was charged that I
rejected the substance
ontology of the early Lutheran dogmaticians, and that I was therefore
out of accordance with the historic tradition. As much as I tried to
explain in a few short sentences to point out that my position was being distorted,
such a response was generally speaking ignored. Below, I would like to
clarify my position on the metaphysical question in light of my biblical
and confessional commitments to God's truth. Regarding Lutheran
theology and the need to speak in terms of philosophical ontology, I
would make the following observations:<br />
<br />
1. One cannot
canonize any one ontological scheme. There are a couple reasons for
this. First of all, the great weakness of Catholic and Reformed
theology is that they have more or less canonized a particular
metaphysical scheme and allowed it to determine their theology. This
can be seen in the Catholic commitment to things like Transubstantiation
and the doctrine of created grace. In the case of the Reformed, they
enter into their discussion of the two natures in Christ and the
sacraments with philosophical presuppositions about what divinity and
humanity are (<i>non capax</i>, etc.), and what God would do and what he
would not do
. And so, ultimately they ignore or obfuscate what Scripture says about
these things. Secondly, Lutheranism (or perhaps more accurately,
people who define themselves as Lutheran!) has functioned with a number
of different philosophical traditions: Nominalism, Scotism,
Aristotelianism, Leibnizianism, Kantianism, Hegalianism, and
Existentialism. Many of these philosophical schemes have had
unfortunately distorting effects on the teaching of biblical truth. My
opponents tend to think the Aristotelian one was pretty good. In some
respects, this was true. Nevertheless, this too also created any number
of problems. One example might be the false teaching of "receptionism,"
that is largely a
function of the Melanchthonian appropriation of Aristotle's casual
scheme. All causes must be in place (including reception) to actualize a
reality. This distorts the gospel-promise of the Supper by effectively
claiming that my action of reception is a contributing cause of the
body and blood of Christ being present, rather than the sole cause lying in the
promissory and consecratory word. The third reason that we cannot
canonize any one metaphysical scheme is that as Oswald Bayer has pointed
out, this would be the theology of glory. To know a universal scheme
within which we can relate the ontic reality of God to all beings in an
absolutely consistent way would in fact to suggest that we could know
God's being in itself, and how all of God's works (which, often seems
contrary) are coordinated with one another. This is a problem because
we know that the theology of glory always leads to conceit and
self-justification. Such a knowledge of God is not proper to this life,
but the next life. In this life, an attempt at such a knowledge leads
to creatures believing in God as a transparent ideal, rather than a
savior. From this, theology and ethics becomes structured around trying
to be conformed to that ideal. Such knowledge will only be possible
and helpful to us in the next life when God purifies us and conforms us
to his ideal reality.<br />
<br />
2. If metaphysical and
ontological terminology and schemes have historically distorted aspects
of biblical teaching, then why bother with them at all? One has heard this
argument from Lutherans often enough, and indeed to some extent in
the history of Protestant theology. The young Luther was contemptuous
of philosophical terminology borrowed from Aristotle. Of course, he
never completely rejected philosophical learning (he has very nice
things to say about Plato in the <i>Heidelberg Disputation</i>, as he
trashes Aristotle). Moreover, many of the presuppositions he used to
attack philosophical reason were in fact borrowed from Nominalist
philosophy (this is particularly the case in his arguments against
Zwingli). Finally, he ultimately did acquiesced to Melanchthon's revival
of a purified Aristotelianism in the curriculum of Wittenberg by the
1530s. Moreover, we find of course a similar rejection of philosophical
metaphysics in the considerably less orthodox theology of 19th century
Liberal Protestantism. Schleiermacher and Ritschl in particular
rejected philosophical tradition as a basis or in some case, even a
tool, for theological discourse. Adolf Harnack built an entire theory
of the fall of the Church around it in his <i>History of Dogma</i> by
positing that Christian theology had gradually been corrupted by Greek
philosophy (his famous "Hellenization Thesis"). Unfortunately for the coherent of their argument, they
attacked philosophical reason on the basis of Kantian presuppositions,
thereby revealing that they were unable to escape philosophical schemes
themselves! <br />
<br />
3. Ultimately, the problem with trying
to escape philosophy and metaphysical presuppositions is twofold.
First, since philosophy primarily deals with the question of what is
real and what is good, it is built into the unconscious presuppositions
of every culture. Since the theologian or ordinary believer are not
immune to their culture, all theologians and believers will have
unconscious commitments to a particular philosophy. For example, most
American Christian that I have met have an unconscious commitment to
aspects of the philosophy of John Locke, even though they've never heard
of him. Lockean empiricism, as well as his ideas about government tend
to be hardwired into our culture. So, instead of denying that
philosophical influences are there, it would be more fruitful to be
honest and self-conscious about our presuppositions and then try to
subordinate them to the Word of God as much as possible. We should do
this even though as sinners it is unlikely that we will ever be entirely
successful at this this side of eternity. Secondly, Christian theology
is about God's truth manifested in creation and redemption in Christ.
And since Christ is the truth, that should make Christian doctrine
relatable to all other forms of truth. When I say "relatable" I should
caution that I do not mean "synthesizable." That would more be the task
of theology within Thomism, which, as we have seen earlier, wants to
see past the differences in God's actions and the resulting truth
claims, and see the unity of God's actions within himself. That again is
the theology of glory, and, in practice (at least the case of Aquinas)
the canonization of Aristotle (a pagan philosopher). Rather, theology
should be relatable to other truth claims because all truth is God's
truth and part of God's creation. That relating may take the form of
correlation (wow, look this finding of history, philosophy, or science
matches with the Bible!), rejection (this truth claim obviously contradicts
Scripture, and so it must be rejected!), or even paradox (wow, what the
Bible says is true, and what this human science tells me seems true, but
I can't reconcile them. Better wait for God to explain it to me in
eternity). Either way, if one wants to think about their faith in a
meaningful and coherent way (something necessary, since faith claims the
whole person, intellect!), then one will have to engage the
metaphysical task and relate and translate Christian truth claims into
the language of the truth claims within one's own culture. At minimum,
one will have to show from Scripture why the unconscious epistemology
and metaphysics of one's own culture are wrong, and that will also call
for philosophical explication as well.<br />
<br />
4. This being
said, I therefore am not against the use of metaphysical schemes in
explicating theology. Neither am I against the use of substance
ontology as a means of talking about theology (as was charged). I
rather object to the usual of substance language and conceptualities in
certain contexts where it distorts what I consider to be biblical
truth. My two objections to the manner of conceptualizing sanctification in the manner of my opponents were that first, the language of substance had a
distorting effect on key biblical-Lutheran commitments to the claims of
law and gospel on the total person of faith and corollary of the <i>simul</i>
of Christian existence. In these things, I would argue that my
opponents were not using the language of substance/predicates as a means
of explicating biblical truth (which, would of course be totally
acceptable), but were rather dictating what the Bible could and could
not say based on their conceptual/philosophical presuppositions. Even
when I quoted Scripture (and Luther!) to them, they did not seem to want
to believe it because it contradicted the presuppositions rooted either consciously or unconsciously in substance ontology.<br />
<br />
5. That being said, I again, do not
want to deny the legitimacy of the use of substance concepts and
language
in certain settings. If I did, I would in effect be claiming that much
theology done prior to the 19th century was completely illegitimate-
not least the conceptual framework of the great ecumenical councils and
the later confessional documents of the Lutheran Church. What I will
say is that their usefulness is limited to reality from a very specific
perspective. What substance metaphysics say about reality is that
there are real entities within it, and that they possess an identity
internal to themselves that persists over time. This is true
irrespective of whether or not certain predicates of their reality are
altered (my hair will turn grey some day!). Moreover, God is a
certain something and humans are a certain something, and our language
portrays that
reality to us in a realistic fashion. So, the goal of
substance language and concepts is linguistic realism and the
recognition of the continuity of identity. Therefore, what we get from
substance language is fundamentally a law of identity and also a law of
propositional truth. <br />
<br />
6. From this, I would like to
suggest is that substance language is good for and what it portrays to us is reality from the
perspective of
the law. On the one hand, the law tells me about what God is and what
creatures are in a realistic fashion, and says to me "you must believe
that the language the Bible uses to portray these entities corresponds
to their reality." That is the law of belief and a law of linguistic correspondence. It is not a gospel truth
because it never says "such and such is true for you and for your
salvation." Even if the truths about redemption are established as
facts, they function as law if they are not given as a promise given"for me." This perspective of the law also carries
over into the question of identity. Insofar as I am an entity and I
possess an essence that
persists over time, I am identical with myself. And if I am identical
with myself, then I am a responsible being and therefore responsible for
all I have done. I am responsible and no one else is. This is the
implication and the ironclad law of identity that one finds in substance
ontology. As a
centered being, I am absolutely responsible for myself and I can never
escape my past. And if this is true, my reality is entirely defined by
the law and its judgment. It logically excludes redemption, in that
redemption, as we will see below, assumes a transcendence of the law of
identity. Moreover, if I am left with this particular account of my
being, I will remained centered. I will not find my identity in the
reality of the other, because I must conserve my reality. I am stuck with the law and my disobedience to the law. Moreover, insofar as I
move out from the center of my being and give myself to the other, I
will lose myself. Left alone with this account, I can exist as nothing
more than as one "curved in on themselves" (<i>in curvatus in se</i>) under the sway of the <i>opinio legis</i>.
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
</div>
7.
Nevertheless, the horizon of the the law of identity is transcended in
Christian understanding by that of the grace of God. This is the case
in both creation and redemption. In the case of creation, all
creatures have an identity that subsists in God's gracious address to
all his creatures. In speaking, God brings his creatures into existence
by an act of grace. Such a effective address means that creatures from
this perspective do not have their identity so much in a centered
substance that persists over time, but in God's address that narrates
them into existence. And for this reason, the fundamental ontic
structure of the creatures consists in something ecstatic, rather than
something centered, in the same way that the reality of the law is
contextualized and subordinated to the gospel. Such an ecstatic
existence is model on that which God is within himself. The Father
possesses all, and is therefore free to eternally begets the Son. And
the Son possesses all, and therefore, he is free to return himself full
to the Father in the form of the procession of the Holy Spirit. In
this, each person of the Trinity possesses an ecstatic identity. As
Athanasius points out in one of his later anti-Arian writings, the
Father is the Father because he has a Son. His identity as Father is
not based on himself, but on his ecstatic relationship to another.
Similarly, insofar as I am seen from the horizon wherein God narrates me
into existence with his gracious address, my identity is not based on a
centered essence that persists over time, but rather on that address
external to me. Lastly, in that God has created human beings in his own
image to be beings whom he responsibly addresses, he has mediated the
world to them and made it knowable through language. And reality is not
so much knowable as mere "representation" through language. Rather,
reality becomes present to humans in, under, and through
language. This could only be the case if the world was created by an
ecstatic and self-communicating God, who transcends the law of identity
and is capable of making one reality present in and through another. If
beings are seen from the perspective of a centered identity, it is
completely impossible to account for human knowledge and linguistic
realism, since epistemic and linguistic realism implies
the self-communication of one being in and through another, which the
substance account problematizes. See a similar argument to this here:
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Real-Presences-George-Steiner/dp/0226772349/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396465995&sr=1-2">http://www.amazon.com/Real-Presences-George-Steiner/dp/0226772349/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396465995&sr=1-2</a><br />
<br />
8.
This ecstatic account of the reality of our identity as it subsists in
the grace of God in creation, also sheds light on redemption as well.
In Christ, I am righteous, and indeed, this makes little sense if I am
understood as a centered-substance that persists over time. Seen from
the perspective of the law of identity, I am not Christ and Christ is
not me. So how could Christ be my righteousness, since he is not me?
Similarly, if Christ is not me, then how can he take on my sin? (Historically, Catholic accounts of atonement going back to Anselm have denied that Christ is imputed with our sin!) Nevertheless, if we understand that our being is something ecstatically
constituted, I can see that Christ is the new Adam and the same eternal
Word of God that ecstatically gives me my existence through creation.
And insofar as he speaks me forth anew in the address of the gospel, I
have a new identity and reality before God external to myself in him.
In this, I am restored to the image of God lost in the Fall. Instead of
living a centered existence under the exclusive definition of the law, I
now live ecstatically "in Christ through faith and in love through my neighbor" (Luther). Luther makes a similar observation in his
commentary on Genesis, when he says that Jacob's Ladder represents the manner in which
Christ descends to us in the means of grace, and we ecstatically ascend
to him through faith. This existence defined by ecstatic receiving and
self-giving, mirrors the life of the Trinity. Similarly, this new
existence also mirrors and is indeed based upon God's self-communication
in Christ, wherein the fullness of his divinity is communicated to his
humanity (<i>genus majestaticum</i>) and what belongs to humanity is taken into divinity. Finally,
without an ecstatic view of reality, God's gifts in Word and sacraments
make very little sense. If God's Word is something ontologically
centered, it would lose itself in ecstatic self-communication in and
through human words. Within substance conceptualities, moving out from
one's center means moving out from one's own reality and therefore a
loss of reality and identity. Instead, Luther's Reformation was
predicated on the assertion that God's Word of forgiveness was
sacramentally present in and through the word of absolution. The same
thing may be said about the sacraments as well. This the reason why the
Catholic and Reformed traditions have so much difficulty with the "in,
under, and with" of Lutheran sacramental theology. They remain beholden
to the Augustinian platonizing "<i>res</i> and <i>signum</i>" construct. Even though
Catholics do wish to preserve a sort of sacramental realism, they
ultimately still make a sharp distinction between the intelligible and
the physical aspects of the sacraments, whereas the Reformed simply
separate them completely.<br />
<br />
9. Just as the law without
the gospel turns people into either legalists or libertines, so goes all
epistemological and ontological projects based on the law of
identity apart from the relational and ecstatic foundation provided by
the creedal-evangelical metaphysical framework. On the legalist side of
the spectrum, we have the Ante-Nicene Fathers, who because they
uncritically used a centered concept of substance (borrowed from Middle
Platonism and Stoicism), could not comprehend how the divine being could
remain itself while fully communicating itself in the divine life, or
in redemption. And the result was a drift toward subordinationism or
modalism. And the same<span class="st"> tendency can be seen in the ancient Christological heresies that separate the humanity and divinity of Christ (Nestorianism) or make the divinity of Christ only possible insofar as it absorbs the humanity (Eutychianism</span>). In either case,
the assumption is that ecstatic self-communication is impossible if the
law of identity will be maintained. Likewise, Roman Catholics, being
beholden to Aristotle, could not comprehend how believers could live
through another ecstatically, and therefore they invented the whole
theology of created grace. In both cases, when God and his creatures
are subordinated to substance categories, redemption and indeed the very
identity of God are distorted under the logic of the law. God is
turned from a self-communicating and self-giving God, into a centered
being who in his fundamental identity is the law. He is a
distant monarch, who finds it impossible to see human beings as anything
other what they are according to the law of their identity. Hence, the
best account of grace possible within the conceptual framework is that
God has set about improving that identity by adding onto it (created
grace), otherwise it will not meet his standards.<br />
<br />
10.
Of course, on the other end of the spectrum would be the antinomian
option, which has been in vogue in post-modernism and before that in
late modernism. And in this scheme, there is an attempt to make my
identity non-existent, thereby obfuscating the demands of the law of
identity. And I am nothing more than the grey of <i>Différance, </i>or a
social construct. Indeed, as Satre points out, the autonomous person
must deny God, because if God existed there would be no real freedom
because God would determine my essence. And if this is true, positing
any self at all would be a law of self and I would be responsible to
that law. Hence, because there is no escaping the law of identity
through the gospel, then I must deny the law altogether- even when it is
actually nonsensical to do so. The implication of this is also that
there is no knowledge as well, because truth would impose the law of
truth which I must correspond to. This law becomes a burden when my
language and cognition must live up to that law. And so in the
linguistic turn, there is posited a great disjunction between word and
world, language and reality. Because I can no longer see behind
language to reality, how can I be responsible for my words corresponding
to reality?<br />
<br />
11. Against this ontic and epistemic
antinomianism, the ecstatic and self-giving God gives us ontic and
epistemological realism through the "art of marriage" (Hamann) and
stands in judgment over the "art of separation" (something Hamann
attributes to Kant's distinction between the noumenal, and phenomenal<b>).</b>
Because God is the gracious giver of every good, he has made me and all
creatures to subsist ecstatically through his gracious Word for
freedom. God's on primal gift makes freedom possible by granting life
and the ability to understand and engage with reality, it does not take
it away. And through this gracious gift there is a unity of heaven and
earth, and word and world. This is true because at the heart of reality
is the self-communicating and self-giving God, who corresponds to
himself in and through his own word within the life of the Trinity. And according
to the horizon of reality provided by the self-communicating and
self-giving God, we can encounter reality through our words, and we can
find the unity and coherence of our identity through his gracious
narration of our being in creation and redemption. Just as the gospel places
the law in its proper place, so too the ecstatic horizon of reality
allows us to use substance language and the law of identity in a proper
way. That is, not in such a way so as to define what God can do and
what he cannot do under the possibilities of the law (<i>opinio legis</i>), but to deal with God and his creatures in an epistemically realistic fashion for the sake of our love of the neighbor and service to creation.Dr. Jack Kilcreasehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11362736419613180038noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780295056892403563.post-43647305637012813012014-03-24T13:18:00.000-07:002014-03-25T02:39:52.231-07:00Notes and Clarifications on the so-called "Antinomian Crisis" in the LCMSOver the last year or so, there has been an unending debate about sanctification and good works in LCMS blog and FB lands. In fact, recently I have read certain individuals claiming that there is an "antinomian crisis" in the LCMS. Also, there seems to be a lot of confusion about what sanctification is, and how <i>per se</i> one maintains the <i>simul</i> of Christian existence while also talking about sanctification. Up to this point, I have stayed out of these discussion. This was both to maintain my own sanity, and my desire not to be sidetracked when I had other theological projects. Here, I hope to make a positive contribution to the debate and sum up where I stand on these important issues. <br />
<br />
1. Is there an antinomian crisis in the LCMS? My answer would be basically no and yes. When people who claim there is one, they generally mean that there isn't enough law-based preaching and this leads to people into being loosey-goosey about their moral efforts. Beyond the rather bizarre and un-Lutheran assumptions that go into this diagnosis, there's also the fact that I see absolutely no empirical evidence of it. I don't really think you could actually empirically measure any decline in morality among LCMS members in recent years. If people were actually honest about what they did in private, my guess (and just a guess mind you!) would be that there would be little difference between people's behavior at any time in the history of the synod until now. Moreover, I think that in terms of the quality of preaching, these proponent of the "antinomian crisis" have nothing to fear. Though I have been blessed with three very good parishes where the gospel is preached in its purity over the last half-decade, whenever I go to another LCMS congregation, I am pretty consistently treated to a moralizing and legalistic tirade- something those worried about antinomianism are concerned that there isn't enough of. This legalistic tirade may be a subtle one- nice law, to make nice people- or it may take less subtle forms- mean law to get people (particularly those having the wrong sorts of sex, which often appears to be the only sin people commit) to stop doing what they're doing. Nonetheless, in essence it's all the same. At the end of the sermon, often the gospel will be tacked on, since basically the preacher didn't really want to preach the gospel in the first place, but rather give an exhortation to "really get things done." But he does remember back in seminary that Walther said something about preaching law and gospel, so he's got to tack it on at the end. It's obligatory. Sigh!<br />
<br />
2. Basically, this sort of preaching or the worry that we're not being sufficiently legalistic reveals a fundamental misperception about what true antinominianism is, and what the relationship between antinomianism and legalism actually is. First, since the legalistic tirade at one's average LCMS parish is usually focused on some sort of hot-button cultural issue (sex! sex! sex!), it does little good to the congregation. They're on board with the preacher- after all, none of them are gay! So it doesn't affect them. But they hold the right opinions about homosexuality or sex outside of marriage, and so, they feel good about having those correct opinions. They're not like those terrible young people. And so, through their own legalism they become antinomians. They escape the office of the law and its condemning effects. Ironically then, by hitting people hard with the law, often times preachers are only reinforcing people's antinomian tendencies. Therefore, if there is an antinomian crisis in the LCMS, it's that. Not that we don't have enough tiraids about about sexual sins, or some such thing- but that when we preach in this manner we give congregations too many tools to self-justify. On one last side note, least I be misunderstood, I am by no means saying that the Church should not witness to all of God's truth, part of which is indeed proper sexual relationships. Neither am I saying that that at this particular moment in history when God's truth about proper sexual relationships is being ignored, that the Church does not have a special obligation to witness to the truth of God's law in these respects. Rather, what I am saying is that our preaching too often focuses exclusively on these topics and not on the actual sins that people in the congregation are committing. The unfortunate consequence of this is that it reinforces their smugness and does not drive them to Christ. <br />
<br />
3. Part of the reason that people think that legalistic tirades are a "way to get things done" is that there are many fundamental misunderstandings of what sanctification is, and what the purpose of the third use of the law is. The popular account in the LCMS of these things seems to be as follows: The gospel is the imputation of righteousness and the promise of eternal life (so far so good!). It is a sort of bare forensic word and people receive it by faith (still good!). Because it is just a word that says "not guilty," it does nothing. People left with this word will just sit around. Hence, for people to be "sanctified" the preacher must "preach sanctification" which means "preaching good works." Preaching good works makes up for the fact that as a bare forensic judgment, the gospel does nothing. Over time, because the preacher preaches good works to you, you get better and better at doing good works, and therefore become more and more sanctified.<br />
<br />
4. This account seems to be believed in many and various ways by people worried about the "antinomian crisis" in the LCMS. If this misrepresents their thinking, I apologize, but it's the definite impression that I get from what they say. To respond to this, I need to make a couple points of clarification. First of all, one of Luther's major targets in beginning the Reformation was the idea one finds in Aristotle that "doing is being." For Aristotle, one is a good person because they do good things. And more one does good things, the easier it becomes and the better a person you are. In adapting Aristotle, Catholic theology (broadly speaking) thought that people get righteous by doing good works. God in his grace gives a kind of potential for goodness and you build-up that goodness by repeatedly doing good works. Luther's idea was rather different. Jesus said that a "good tree bears good fruits." Through the gospel, God sanctifies the inner person and makes them a good tree that bears good fruit. Faith fulfills the law and therefore the gospel, and not the law, is the agent of sanctification. Melanchthon reflects this definition of how sanctification takes place in the Apology when he describes justification either meaning God's forensic judgment of salvation, or the renewing of the inner person through the Holy Spirit (what the Formula would later define as "sanctification"). All of this, of course, follows from Paul's use of the language of the new covenant, which he takes from Jeremiah. Prodding Israel to obey the Sinaitic covenant was something of a bust for the OT prophets. YHWH promises Jeremiah (in chapter 31) that he will give them a new covenant, wherein he will communicate to the people the forgiveness of sin and then sanctification, whereby he will write the law on their hearts. As Paul notes, this does not come by the preaching of the letter which "kills", but through the Spirit at work in the gospel (2 Cor. 3). Jesus also spoke in John 17 about being sanctified by himself and communicating sanctification through the preaching of the gospel. Through the gospel, the Holy Spirit creates faith and sanctifies the inner person. This inner person under the influence of the Spirit gives the impulse to do good works, which are only done out of faith. Hence, beating on people to do good works may actually change their empirical behavior. But because doing is not being, it doesn't do a lick to get them sanctified. Sanctification is a change of the heart that colors the works that people do. It is not the works themselves.<br />
<br />
5. This reveals of the confusion over the issue of "sanctification." One of my friends, working with the notion of sanctification as inner renewal through the gospel has been repeatedly accused of being against sanctification. Why? Because there is a tendency in popular LCMS teaching (though you will not find this in major theologians, such as David Scaer who says the very opposite!), of identifying sanctification as something we do (i.e., the uptick of good works) and not what God does through the Spirit and the Word. This is why the phrase "preaching sanctification" a way of saying "preaching good works" is so problematic. There is of course nothing wrong with preaching good works (I will address this issue below). Nevertheless, the phrase "preaching sanctification" seems to assume that good fruit make a good tree, rather than a good tree makes good fruit. Part of the problem as well is that we are all very much aware that people without the Spirit can improve their external behavior (go to an AA meeting and see!). And likewise, people prior to coming to have faith may have a goodly amount of civil righteousness. In fact, their civil righteousness may be so good that it may be difficult to detect any difference between their pre-conversion behavior and their post-conversion behavior. For example, does anyone seriously think that Cornelius in the book of Acts did anything much differently in his day-to-day life after receiving the Holy Spirit? In other cases, one of course can see real differences. Pimps and prostitutes who receive the gospel will no long pimp others or prostitute themselves. Regarding that which is below us, we are always free and so we are free to do good works in a merely human way. The problem is the heart and Jesus tells us that this is what needs to be changed by faith, because that which is within us makes us unclean. People can be like "white-washed tombs"- that is, good in their external behavior and rotten on the inside.<br />
<br />
6. So then, can one speak of progressive sanctification? The term in and of itself is not objectionable, indeed, many Lutheran theologians (including Luther himself!) do speak in this manner. The difficulty with the term is that it has taken on a sort of different meaning in other forms in Protestantism than it has in Lutheranism. Again, at the risk of caricature, I would say that the general impression I get in reading Reformed and Evangelical authors when the subject of "progressive sanctification" comes up is this basic account: One is converted by the Holy Spirit and then, overtime, sin gradually is removed from you as Luther puts it "like paint striped from a wall." And every day and every way you become less and less of a sinner until, after death, you are perfect. Moreover, this is how ones know that their faith is really real, because it produces fruits. Now what is correct about this account is, as we have seen earlier, is that becoming a Christian does mean rejecting evil that one has previous engaged in. Also, having faith does indeed mean producing fruits as well. <br />
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7. What is objectionable about this account though is that it misapprehends that Christ is the true reality of sanctification. In this account, the person is a sort of subject who has greater and greater predicates built up in him over time- like drug building up in your system as you take more of it. What this account lacks the consciousness of is that Christ is sanctified in himself and shares his sanctifying reality with us. Therefore, our unity with him in baptism is the the reality of sanctification. One does not progress beyond baptism as a sort of jumping off point (incidentally, this is why the description of baptism as the "Christian rite of initiation" is so incredibly annoying. It assumes baptism is stage 1., rather than the whole of the Christian life!). Because all our good works are rooted in faith and the work of the Holy Spirit enacted in baptism, we never move beyond it. In baptism, our new self "in Christ" is actualized. For this reason, any progress that we may indeed speak about is rather a sort of regress to that original reality. It is regress to what we already are in Christ. We are two selves, the self that persists under sin and death in the old age, and a new self, outside of us in Christ, which already stands within the kingdom of God. <br />
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8. This way of thinking about sanctification is rather difficult for people to understand because human beings in their fallen state usually conceptualize themselves as a centered subjects that persists over time. That subject may gain new predicates, but it remains centered in itself. Hence, the subject "sinner" adds the predicate "righteousness" onto it. When sanctification is thought of as "progressing" then it means more and more predicates are added onto the subject. Of course, from a Lutheran perspective this is problematic in at least two ways. First, it compromises the "simul" of Christian existence. It leaves us with a person who is "partially righteous" and "partially a sinner." And although Luther actually does speak this way sometimes, it tends to be from the perspective of one's actions in the kingdom of the world, where I do many good things based on my faith, and where I do many bad things because I am still corrupted flesh. Before God, things are different. I am a totality, that is, I am seen either from perspective of the totalizing judgment of the law or the totalizing righteousness that is to be found in Christ. From this perspective, any partial righteousness is non-compliance with the law, and therefore is sin. Any sin is also totally covered by the righteousness of Christ received by faith. Secondly, the other major problem with thinking in terms of a subject that builds up its predicates is that assumes that as the Christian life progresses, the less one needs Jesus. Jesus is for sinners, and if you have less sin in you, presumably you need Jesus less. But if sanctification is rooted in faith, and progress means a strengthening of faith, then quite the opposite will be the case. The flesh will rage more against the Spirit- Christ does after all give rise to Anti-Christ! We sin every day, and our regrets about our sin in our later life are greater than those in our younger life. So we need Jesus more, and not less. (Anyone who doubts any of this, sit down and talk with a pastor who has worked in the nursing home!). As sanctification grows, sin grows too!<br />
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9. How do we talk about progress then? Is our account of the Christian life that people get faith and then that makes them free to lie in their own vomit? That account doesn't much work with what Scripture or the Confessions say, and so we need to have a different paradigm for understanding the human self. Luther often speaks about how through faith we live outside of ourselves. Part of the problem of sin is the fact that, to use Augustine famous phrase, we are "curved in on ourselves." Human beings were created by God's creative Word and therefore were intended to live through faith in a state of receptivity to that gracious Word. They therefore were meant to live on the basis of something outside of themselves, not what was within themselves. In the Fall, humans removed themselves from a trusting and receptive relationship with God, thereby becoming centered on themselves. Paul tells us in the NT that a new creative Word has been manifested through Jesus. Our new life isn't inside of us, Paul says, but is outside of us "hidden in God in Christ" (Colossians 3:3). Paul says that he "no longer lives" but "Christ lives in " him, that is to say, he "lives by faith in the Son of God" (Galatians). Hence, faith and sanctification are not about the self getting other qualities added onto it, but rather it is about breaking the self's centered existence and taking on the new existence of faith, which one might call "ecstatic." We live ecstatically live "in Christ by faith, and in our neighbour by love" (Freedom of a Christian). This means then, that we are two selves. We remain something in ourselves, i.e., sinners. And we are another self "in Christ," outside of ourselves. Consciousness of what we are in ourselves (sinners) drives us every day more and more to recognize and rely upon what we are outside of ourselves (righteous in Christ). Therefore, if we speak of "progress" that is progress that we should be primarily talking about.<br />
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10. But how does this work? A good illustration (used by N.T. Wright, of all people), is a room with a view. A room with a view is an interesting thing, because it isn't defined by it's content. Rather, it's defined by something outside the room, namely, the view. The view itself makes the room, even though it is in no way a property of the room, or even something in the room. Let's go beyond Wright and give the analogy some more depth. We might say that a sinful person in a state of unbelief is rather like a hotel room that could have a view, but it perhaps has no windows. Christ has of course died and forgiven the sins of the whole world, much as there is a fantastic view behind the wall of the hotel room. But alas, bricks block the windows and therefore make this impossible. In baptism though, the walls are knocked down and the view can be seen. The room becomes something entirely new, but not because of anything inside of it, but because of the view of that which is outside of it. Indeed, the room over time may age, it's furniture may become more ugly. In fact, the hotel may use the room as a place to store ugly or old furniture. In the same manner, we sin every day and as the Spirit sanctifies the flesh, our flesh revolts all the more. Nevertheless, as time goes on, this ugliness of the room is only all the more reason for the guest to not pay any attention to how the room is furnished and to instead look out the windows to glories of the view. The more they do this, the more their life in the room will be defined by the view and not by the contents of the room.<br />
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11. Now for a couple of other thorny questions: Why do you keep on talking about Christ sanctifying us? Don't we cooperate in our sanctification? And then, also, what about the third use of the law? Don't we get sanctified by getting the third use of the law preached to us? These concerns I think are based on a couple of misunderstandings of what Lutherans have historically meant by "cooperate in sanctification" and "the third use of the law." First, this issue of cooperation in sanctification. Certainly this is a way of speaking that is adopted by both our Confessions (notably, the FC) and by many of our greatest theologians (Pieper). Luther talks also in <i>Bondage of the Will</i> of us "cooperating" with God after we are regenerated. What many people misunderstand at this point is how the term "cooperate" is being used. Most Americans, when they hear the words "cooperation" think in terms of what philosophers call "libertarian free will." In this view, the human will can in an undetermined way will whatever it so chooses. The difficulty with all this is that it assumes that the human will is something neutral. But if our will exists, as Luther points out in <i>Bondage of the Will</i>, it must have qualities and something with qualities is not neutral, but determined. A good will has good qualities and therefore does good things, just as a bad will does bad things because it has bad qualities. This is all based on a boilerplate Augustinian account of what Luther calls the "necessity of immutability." God or external forces do not somehow manhandle the human will into doing what it does (the "necessity of compulsion"). Nevertheless, the will can only do what it desires and humans are not the authors of their own desires. This clarifies what Luther (and indeed the FC and Pieper!) meant when they speak of human "cooperating with God." It does not mean, as I think many in the "antinomian crisis" group thinks that it does, that humans with their libertarian free will decide to be responsive to God or not once they have the Spirit. Rather, what it means, is that because the Spirit writes the law on the person's heart through faith, that they do what they want to do, namely, they desire to obey the law. In this, God's action does not somehow replace human agency, but rather supervenes on it by shaping and directing it. Human beings act, but because God has given them the impulse to act through the power of the Spirit. Luther describes this as being like a horse ridden by its rider (an image he took from Medieval theology). The horse really does go faster or slower. The horse himself really does change directions. But only because he is directed by the rider. The rider shapes the horse and its behavior. Nevertheless, it is the horse that runs, and not the rider. And so, in this sense, they cooperate together.<br />
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12. This places the third use of the law in a new perspective. The third use of the law is not a means of making people want to do good works. Only the gospel can do that. Rather, according to our Confessions, it is a negatively and positively tool for believers. First, as the FC states, the third use is primarily aimed at our old nature. And our old nature has all sort of impulses that that remain contrary to those of our renewed inner person. The third use gives the person of faith knowledge of what impulses are evil and need to be beaten back. It also gives the renewed mind a knowledge of what specific actions God wants, so as to be a curb on the sinful nature's tendency to invent self-chosen and "childish" (Augustana) works. Lastly, it positively serves as a "channel" (Luther, Large Catechism) for impulses of the renewed person of faith. As is evident and as the FC makes explicit and clear, the third use therefore is not aimed at sanctifying the person or giving them impulse to do the law. Rather, it is, as the FC puts it, primarily aimed at the old nature which frustrates the new nature. It is a recognition of the simul of Christian existence. Insofar as we remain under sin, law, and in midst of creation, we need the law in order to live out our Christian existence. Of course, it should be observed that the law serves multiple functions all at once. The preacher is not the agent of the uses of the law, but rather the Holy Spirit is. The Holy Spirit uses the law in multiple ways when it is preached. So, it is irrelevant that the preacher only intends to instruct believers in the vein of the third use of the law; he will also always condemn his hearers with the second as he does so (Melanchthon is quite clear about this in the Apology). I recently read a Luther pastor claim that because Luther and Paul obviously intend that their preaching of the law be used as instruction in certain cases, the law in those cases did not really condemn and so, in our preaching, we should think that the law does not always condemn as well. And the point that I would make (along with many modern literary theorists) is that we cannot even control how <i>Robinson Crusoe</i> is experienced and that is merely a human book. So, we how much more is it the case that we cannot control how our sermons and proclamation of the Scriptures (which are both instrumentals of the Holy Spirit) are heard? For this reason, the minister must always make certain that any moral instruction that he undertakes be make in the larger context of gospel proclamation. Any law a pastor proclaims will in one way or another condemn. That being said, the law also always contains ethical information. Hence, as I often point out to Fordeites, just as one cannot prevent the law from always accusing, one also cannot prevent it from instructing as well! Contrary to what many people seem to think, there's no reason it cannot do both at once! So, if proper preaching is taking place, insofar as the believer is condemned by the proclamation of the law, they will be driven to Christ and sanctified by the Spirit present in the gospel. And, insofar as they receive new impulses from the work of the Spirit in the gospel, they will use that same law that condemned them as a channel and a tool to suppress the old nature and live out their faith through specifically proscribed actions. Dr. Jack Kilcreasehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11362736419613180038noreply@blogger.com48tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780295056892403563.post-62994892718461353152014-03-14T03:13:00.003-07:002014-03-14T03:13:56.853-07:00New Article Published in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History.Finally! I've been waiting for this article to come out for two years! If you can get a copy of the journal, please check out my latest article on Luther and Bernard of Clairvaux in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History:<br /><br /><a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayIssue?jid=ECH&tab=currentissue">http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayIssue?jid=ECH&tab=currentissue</a>Dr. Jack Kilcreasehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11362736419613180038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780295056892403563.post-4612052706562609832014-03-08T08:34:00.000-08:002014-03-08T08:34:03.051-08:00Why Modern Americans Don't Think They Need Theologians (When They Actually Do!)<div class="mhs mbs pts fbChatConvItem _50dw clearfix" style="text-align: justify;">
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My friend over at Cornerstone Seminary, Mike Wittmer, shared this article over Facebook:<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/opinion/sunday/kristof-professors-we-need-you.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0">http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/opinion/sunday/kristof-professors-we-need-you.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0 </a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">The author talks about how we need professors in our public debates, but they don't seem to play much of a role. Of course, historically, I would note, this was not always the case. At the time of the Reformation and in the age of confessionalization, theologians and Humanists were public intellectual <i>par excellence</i>. Similarly, until relatively recent times, public intellectual (secular as they may be) have played a significant role in public policy debates. So, what happened?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Here's the problem as I see it. In pre-democratic and pre-consumerist
societies, there is always a problem of the distribution of
resources. Who gets power and wealth? There's not enough to go around, and besides, most societies have historically believed that not everyone really deserves the same amount. Within these circumstances, "thinkers", whether they be
theologians, political theorists, philosophers, etc., served a valuable
purpose of telling society what the rational basis is of our social
organization was and what we can identify as "good." From this, societies could make decisions about social and political organization. They could also make decisions about ultimate values, the truth about the world and what constitutes salvation, all of which of course has a direct relationship to the values exhibited in the social and political order (yes, the two things do have something to do with one another!). In performing these tasks, societies and intellectuals in general necessarily
had to refer to transcendental categories of value. Something is good because "God wills it" or at very least, "it's the rational
order of the universe" or some such thing. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">And now, in a consumerist, democratic society the problem has been
solved in the minds of many people. We don't need anyone to sit
around and think about what the "good" is, we just need to know how to
market things and know what's popular. How do power and goods get
distributed? By popular opinion in voting, or in what consumers buy in
the market place. Everything is just then a response to public
opinion, or a matter of marketing to shape public opinion. We don't need intellectuals to negotiate between desires and distribution anymore. We don't need to know God's will anymore. We just need to know what people want.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">As we can see, this has had many disastrous effects on public policy. For example, we are at the moment drowning in federal debt because the public desires 1. Lots of goodies from the federal government. 2. Low taxes. And whatever you think is better and more fair way to run the federal government (minimal taxes and minimal goodies vs. high taxes and lots of goodies), what the public wants and what politicians have given them are contradictory and actually quite bad for them in the long term.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">You can see this in
theology and ministry as well. In a wide variety of Christian denominations, theological education is becoming increasingly less important. Why is this the case? I think it's important to see how the modern American Church has fallen into the theory of the good proposed by the democratic/consumerist society.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Case-in-point: What was Rob Bell's argument in <i>Love Wins</i> again? Remember, it wasn't that he could for certain prove that Hell is not eternal (he denies he can in the book!). According to Bell, for a theology to
be true, it needs to be something that will get butts in seats. And
that's all you need to worry about. So just say whatever takes get them there. If that means telling them that there's no Hell (or that it isn't permanent at minimum), then by God let's do
it! And it never seems to occur to him that God is very real and that he may be deeply annoyed with him for saying things that are untrue. The mega church industry was always about marketing
and technique, as almost an end in itself. And therefore many within the Evangelical community are now rejecting the notion that one even need to bother with a theological education, because all one really needs to know is how to market your church. So much for theologians! Bring in the marketing consultants!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Bell's theology is the
nadir of mega-churchism and the Arminian theology that underlined it. It seeks to make true what appeals to the desires of the free will. But if the will is enslaved by sin (as Scripture and the Reformers taught), then what it wants is not good for it. From this perspective, what one finds appealing theologically will not be of God. Instead, we must study the Scriptures and find what God desires, not what the average American desires. And for that you need Bible scholars and theologians, and a healthy sense of the theological realism, all of which much of contemporary American Protestantism lacks (whether we speak of liberals or conservatives!). The effects of a program like Bell's are even more disastrous for the institutional Church as debt is for federal government. Here we are talking about eternal salvation, not just the question of budgetary solvency. </span></div>
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Dr. Jack Kilcreasehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11362736419613180038noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780295056892403563.post-19667369236415681792014-03-01T09:12:00.000-08:002014-03-01T09:12:14.069-08:00Pornography and Idolatry.When my wife and I are too mentally tired for the epic political machinations of Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, or House of Cards, we watch the various TLC or Discovery channel "streaming" series on Netflix. My wife refers to these series as "Trashy TV," largely because they exploit their audience's interest in people's freakish behavior. One show we recently watched was called "My Strange Addiction." Lost among the episodes where people have been eating Comet or drywall 10 times a day for the last 30 years (these were an actual cases!), was one truly bizarre episode involving a young man named "Davecat." You can read Davecat's story here: <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2439522/Davecat-40-shunned-organic-women-marry-synthetic-doll.html">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2439522/Davecat-40-shunned-organic-women-marry-synthetic-doll.html </a><br />
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Davecat (a name, he unsurprisingly received while engaging in online gaming), is currently engaged in a "relationship" with a life-sized doll. When the show (that I earlier mentioned) was being filmed, he was merely living with a life-sized doll. Since then he has taken it to the next level. He is now an activist for the right of people to marry life-sized dolls. He has also purchased other life-sized dolls, and is presumably building a life-sized doll-harem.<br />
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Admittedly, even by the standards of our deeply sexually confused culture this is extremely weird. That being said, I think what Davecat is doing is simply a more extreme version of the principle at work in pornography, the use of which is not out of the ordinary in our culture. At its heart, I believe that this reveals something deeper about the human soul in our fallen state. Ultimately, pornography and idolatry come from the same dark place. <br />
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First of all, as I point out to my world religions students, just as ancient people lived in a world full of idols, just as we live in a world full of pornography. And both reveal something about human nature on a fundamental level. Pornography is a form of sexual idolatry. Just as idols are lifeless, distorted, images of God, so too pornographic images are lifeless and distorted images of human sexuality. Davecat simply takes things to the next level and has purchased a lifeless woman for himself. It is not unlike a lifeless statue of a god in ancient Greece or modern India. <br />
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Moreover, just as we know that there is a real, God-given human sexuality out there because the Internet is full of pornography (why create it, if it isn't a substitute for something real?), one of the reasons that we know that the true God exists is because the world has historically been full of idols. When Atheists say that there is no God, when the world is full of distorted images for God, it is as illogical as a person finding the Internet full of pornography and then claiming that the human need for sexual intimacy is a pure illusion (or a merely sublimation for something else!) and that there is actually no real sex out there.<br />
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Secondly, the reason that Davecat and the rather large number of people in our society who look at pornography prefer the image to a real presence is fairly obvious. As my teacher Steven Paulson has pointed out in the first section of this book: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lutheran-Theology-Doing-Steven-Paulson/dp/0567550001/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1393681909&sr=1-">http://www.amazon.com/Lutheran-Theology-Doing-Steven-Paulson/dp/0567550001/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1393681909&sr=1-</a>, dead images can be manipulated, whereas real presences cannot. Hardwired into our fallen nature is a need to be our own gods. This is a function of fallen nature's need for self-justification. If God has condemned me through the law (which is ever present to me in his masks of the created order), then I must seek to control and manipulate him so as to stave off his threatening judgment. For that reason, a lifeless and manipulable image, rather than his real presence is preferable. If I make him an manipulable image, I can control him and place myself in a superior position. Within this scenario, I am now god. <br />
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The same thing goes for pornography. An image or a lifeless doll is preferable to real people, with emotions, and needs. Whereas images or dolls can be manipulated to fulfill the needs of the user, people cannot be- or perhaps, only with great trouble. Davecat never has to have a fight with, comfort, or worry about the emotional needs of his dolls. He never has to justify himself or his behavior to them. He is not accountable to them in any way. He can make them do whatever he wants because they are dead and lifeless things. So too with all false gods.<br />
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One last point on this issue, regarding how this relates to Reformed and Lutheran differences regarding idolatry. What I've written here shows that the actual issue of idolatry is only very superficially understood by the Reformed. Working from the Humanistic revival of Platonism during the Renaissance, Zwingli (and Calvin after him) assumed idolatry was the temporal image distracted from the uncreated atemporality of God. Within this view point (as David Bentley Hart puts it) God is an object that can presumably be lost among many objects. Therefore, Zwingli destroyed all the statues of Jesus and the Saints and whitewashed the churches.<br />
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Conversely, Luther teaches in the large Catechism that images when viewed on their own are largely irrelevant. The real issue is what the heart does with them. Whatever the heart trust in that is not the living God, is an idol. Therefore, images may remain in the churches as long as people are taught not to worship them or trust in them. Indeed, Luther pointed out that even in the Tabernacle and Temple there were many images, and so it is impossible to understand the First Commandment the way that Karlstadt and later Zwingli wanted to understood it, namely, as a total prohibition of religious art work. Following his typically Aristotelian concept of cognition, Luther observes that the very act of thinking about God or any of the doctrines of the Christian faith is to create intellectual image.<br />
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In this view then, the real issue is not temporality distracting from atemporality, but a manipulable image as an alternative to God's real presence. Our intellectual images of God, just as the images within the Temple are not bad as long as they did not serve as alternatives to God's real presence, but rather pointed to it. In other words, just as the images in the Temple point to the fact that God was present to share his holiness with Israel, so too our intellectual images of God (in the form of doctrine) and our church artwork, when used appropriately, point to the real presence of God in the Word and the sacraments. We know that God's real presence is in these physical objects because God has promised to be present there. In being present, God does not present himself as a manipulable object, rather, he is present as either condemning law, or redeeming gospel. Those who act irreverently in relationship to this real presence suffer the same fate as those who offered "strange fire" in the OT. In the end, God will not be manipulated.Dr. Jack Kilcreasehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11362736419613180038noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780295056892403563.post-35176867834457064482014-02-28T02:10:00.001-08:002014-02-28T19:25:42.170-08:00Church History Series: Lecture 4Here is the fourth and final installment of my Church history lecture series. In this lecture, I deal with the Council of Nicaea and the theology of St. Augustine.<br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO4NdFaO5S8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO4NdFaO5S8</a>Dr. Jack Kilcreasehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11362736419613180038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780295056892403563.post-20788025682234971812014-02-20T13:40:00.002-08:002014-02-20T13:40:58.488-08:00Church History Series: Lecture 3Here I discuss the early catholic response to Gnosticism and Roman misconceptions of Christianity. Then we move on to the development of theology in the 3rd century. We end on the eve of Nicaea<br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_UxR701Yww">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_UxR701Yww</a>Dr. Jack Kilcreasehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11362736419613180038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780295056892403563.post-45507774157935602014-02-17T08:50:00.002-08:002014-02-17T08:50:46.809-08:00Church History Series: Lecture 2Here's the second lecture in my Church history lecture series at Our Savior Lutheran Church. In this session, we move from the trial of Jesus to the second century heresies including Gnosticism.<br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqRNAMjL5uI&feature=share">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqRNAMjL5uI&feature=share</a>Dr. Jack Kilcreasehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11362736419613180038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780295056892403563.post-67576575073175945172014-02-09T03:26:00.001-08:002014-02-09T06:08:32.191-08:00Church History Series: Lecture 1I've been asked to do a series of lectures on the early Church at my church. Here's the link to the first lecture. There will be three more.<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/goog_1844211537"><br /></a>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rVUCQtCelI&feature=share">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rVUCQtCelI&feature=share</a>Dr. Jack Kilcreasehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11362736419613180038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780295056892403563.post-59894643467103039472014-02-08T06:24:00.001-08:002014-02-23T05:21:27.681-08:00The "Wolf of Wall Street" and the Orders of Creation.A few weeks ago, my wife and I went to see <i>The Wolf of Wall Street</i>. Very good, I thought, although not my favorite movie of the year (David O. Russell's <i>American Hustle</i> wins that honor). It was a bit long, and I think that certain more lurid scenes could probably have been cut. That being said, it was an interesting study in personal ambition and the power of human beings to engage in almost limitless self-corruption (Incidentally, although some may doubt the truth of some of Belfort's stories, the FBI agent who followed him stated in an interview that to the extent he could verify things, the stories were not exaggerations). In many respects though, I think Scorsese got fundamentally wrong why Jordan Belfort became corrupt and the nature of his corruption. The film was never really preachy (something Hollywood often cannot help itself from becoming!), but the subtext was quite obviously an indictment of Capitalism. There was even a reference to the 1%, that is, a nod in the direction of Occupy Wall Street.<br />
<br />
I would of course make a couple of points about this. First, of course, any economic system is corruptible, because humans are by nature corrupt. This is obvious and I need not historically elaborate this. Secondly, there is nevertheless a possibility for Capitalism with virtue (one might say). Certainly the Puritans had a vibrant Capitalist culture while maintaining a relatively high level of morality (at least in human terms). The Dutch did as well. Simon Schama has documented this in his book about the Dutch in the 17th century: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Embarrassment-Riches-Interpretation-Culture-Golden/dp/0006861369/ref=la_B000AQ8WPO_1_17?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1390136403&sr=1-17">http://www.amazon.com/Embarrassment-Riches-Interpretation-Culture-Golden/dp/0006861369/ref=la_B000AQ8WPO_1_17?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1390136403&sr=1-17. </a>In my own town, Grand Rapids, this culture of virtuous Capitalism has continued, with the old and wealthy Dutch families using their resources to build up the civic life of the city in some very remarkable ways. One the heirs to the DeVos fortune spoke at my college's graduation back in 2010 and gave a talk on business life and Christian vocation that would have warmed Martin Luther's heart. So, I think what Belfort's problem and the problem of current economic system is not really Capitalism, but Capitalism without virtue.<br />
<br />
So if it's not Captialism, but Capitalism without virtue that's the problem, why did the "Wolf of Wall Street" become the way he did and not like one of the Meijers, Princes or the DeVoses? I would argue that part of the problem with Scorsese's critique is that it doubles down on the problem that created Belfort in the first place. Scorsese somehow thinks there needs to be more State-control. Indeed, over the previous 100 years or so, we have developed the notion that the State is really the center of human life. This is a mistake made not only by the Left of the political spectrum, but also by the Right. That being the case, in our current political discourse the State is meant to bear weight that as an Order of Creation that it wasn't established by God to bear. In other words, the assumption is that human flourishing happens if we get politics right. In fact, not just human flourishing happens but maybe even the Kingdom of God happens- witness the strange messianic projects that both liberal and conservative Presidents have wanted to take up in recent decades. It's just the matter of invading one more country and converting it to democracy, or it's a matter of inventing just one more social program- and "Bam!" the kingdom has come!<br />
<br />
From the perspective of Luther's Genesis commentary, this is all wrong. In his commentary on the primal narrative of human life before the Fall, Luther shows that God established first the Family and then the Church as the original and most authentic setting of human existence. They were created before the Fall into sin and therefore are not necessarily a response to the condition of human sin. Rather, they are a natural setting for human life on earth. They only become unworkable on their own when sin comes in. Therefore after the Flood, in Genesis 9 God promulgates the new law of retribution, thereby implying the establishment of the Order of the State as Paul confirms in Romans 13. Hence, the State and its coercion are not meant as a means of the fulfillment of human life. It is, unlike the other Orders, something created in order to counteract human sin and therefore make up for the failures of the first two Orders. Nevertheless, it cannot replace these other Orders.<br />
<br />
This of course brings us back to the Wolf. Belfort, like many others in our society, did not belong to the Church and did not have much of a family life (the little he has, he systematically destroys). In terms of his behavior, he is able to do many, many thing which are illegal- but oddly enough the government doesn't care about most of them (when he is finally convicted, the prosecutors have no interest in his use of prostitutes or cocaine!). Hence, the normal and natural settings for human life are barren for him. They do not function as either a medium of vocation, or as a means of moral formation. He has no ultimate hope in his life, and so he feels that Epicurean excess is the only reasonable goal of human existence. He has no sense of the law of God as taught by the natural law summarized in the Decalogue. And hence, the only thing left over to direct and restrain him is the State. Since the State is not omniscient and omnipresent, it cannot actually regulate his moral and spiritual life (even if that was its role) in a manner to make him live a productive life. All it can do is come in and pick up the pieces. He is free to get away with whatever he can.<br />
<br />
Within such a situation then, the State must either remain impotent in the face of a corrupt culture where the Orders of the Church and Family are non-functional, or it must actually take over those functions and become more and more intrusive, totalizing, and, indeed, tyrannical. And this latter course more often than not happens. And so there comes about a kind of symbiotic effect. The more the Church and the Family deteriorate as Orders, so the Order of the State takes over their functions. And the State feeds children and supports families because there is no father. The State teaches "virtue" (after a fashion) in public schools. And the State becomes a kind of religion and now brings the kingdom. Nevertheless, it is likewise the case, that as the State takes over these functions and becomes more and more totalizing, it also accelerates the deterioration of the Orders of the Family and the Church as well.Dr. Jack Kilcreasehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11362736419613180038noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780295056892403563.post-62553831276110262392014-01-14T13:56:00.002-08:002014-01-14T13:57:09.931-08:00The irony of N.T. Wright's approach to PaulThanks to my parents, for Christmas this year I received N.T. Wright's <em>Paul and the Faithfulness of God:</em> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Faithfulness-God-N-Wright/dp/0800626834/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389728695&sr=1-1">http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Faithfulness-God-N-Wright/dp/0800626834/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389728695&sr=1-1</a><br />
<br />
Though I don't always agree with Wright (particularly on his interpretation of Paul, as we will see below), I do consistently find him to be an engaging author whom I learned a great deal from. At this point, I'm almost finished with the first volume (which is about 600 pages), and I have a few observations to make about a third of the way through.<br />
<br />
A lot of what Wright says is aimed at criticizing a certain trajectory of scholarship on Paul that begins with a Church historian and biblical scholar named Ferdinand Christian Baur. Baur taught in Tubingen, in southern Germany during the heyday of Hegelianism (1830s) about 20 years before the movement collapsed in the wake of the failures of the 1848 revolutions. As a result, his interpretation of the NT and early Church history tends to mirror the Hegelian dialectic. The "Thesis" of early Christianity was Jewish Christianity, as represented by Peter. It was legalistic and backward, and generally not that great. Then there was a Gentile Christianity, represented by Paul, that had a high Christology (as opposed to the low-Jewish Christology) and was generally open minded and tolerant- and it pretty much rejected everything Jewish. These two forms of Christianity duked it out over the first few generations, until the the second-century, when Luke wrote Acts in order to pretend that although the Apostles might have had some conflicts, they eventually got along (bear in mind, that Baur dated the NT documents mostly from the second century, something that even secular historical research would not accept at this point!). This created the beginning of a synthesis of the Jewish and Gentile Christianity, which found its fulfillment in John's Gospel of love (love being something that reconciles!) and then finally in what one might call "early Catholicism" which one finds in Irenaeus. This of course was a betrayal of Paul's theology and "early Catholicism" for Baur is a kind of Christianity that has lost its nerve. So, the Heglian dialectic goes Thesis (Jewish/Petrine Christianity), Antithesis (Gentile/Pauline Christianity), Synthesis (Johannine/Lukan/early Catholic Christianity). Bam!<br />
<br />
Though of course this clean Hegelian schematization was rejected by later generations of theologians and biblical scholars, the effects of this narrative persisted until the mid-20th century. Even reading Bultmann's <em>Theology of the New Testament</em>, one is treated to the facile antithesis between Judaism and Hellenism (especially odd, in light of the fact that the Jews had been dominated by Greeks for some 300 years!). Similarly, we are treated to a discussion of how the early Jerusalem Church was more or less a bunch of Ebionites with millenarian tendencies, whereas Paul taught a watered-down form of Gnosticism, which if you removed all the bells and whistles of supernatural revelation, Incarnation, and atonement, comes out sounding rather like a mixture of Neo-Kantianism and Heideggerianism. All of this is finally topped off with the degenerate "early Catholicism" (particularly of the Pastoral and the catholic Epistles), with its clericalism and sacramentalism, which ultimately losses the hard edge of radical Paulinism.<br />
<br />
Wright wants to reject this narrative, much like many have since WWII. And part of this is seeing Paul as a more thoroughly Jewish thinker standing in continuity with the OT- which I think is an extremely good thing! Nevertheless, the unfortunate result of this is that it has given rise to the "New Perspective on Paul" by revising the 19th century German Liberal Protestant assessment of Judaism, while keeping much of its same framework and categories. (For those unfamiliar, Wright has broadly been defined as being part of this NP movement, with James D.G. Dunn and E.P Sanders being a somewhat harder proponents.) <br />
<br />
In other words, in the old German Liberal Protestant/Hegalian scheme (with its underlining veiled or not so veiled anti-Semitism) "works of the law"="Judaism," with its self-righteousness and backwardness (i.e. read: not as cosmopolitan as the 19th century German middle classes would like!). Now, in light of the horrific crimes of the WWII and the new appreciation for the sinfulness of anti-Semitism, post-1945 NT scholarship cast Judaism in a new and better light. It must be something very good indeed, and Paul was good also, because he was a thoroughly Jewish thinker (so far, so good!). Now here comes the rub! But if the "works of the law"="Judaism," and Judaism is now good, what are all these problems with the law that Paul keeps on talking about? The NP answer is: It must be that the "works of the law" should only be read as the "ritual law" and that the ritual law used to be really good, but now it's really bad because it's holding Jewish and Gentile Christians apart. So, what Paul must really be saying is "ritual law divides, but faith in Jesus unites. So the badge of membership in the Church should be faith and not the rituals of the OT."<br />
<br />
This approach is wrong on a number of levels that we don't need to spell out in detail (perhaps, we could discuss them in another blog post!). Nevertheless, the short answer is that the problem that Paul is dealing with in Roman 1-3 isn't: "Jews and Gentiles are separated, and how do we get these crazy kids together?" It's: "Gentiles are cursed by the natural law, and Jews are cursed by the revealed law of Sinai. So how does anyone stand as righteous when the Day of the Lord comes?" Paul does of course mention the ritual law in both Romans and Galatians, but only to point out that achieving Jewish identity by obeying it doesn't do away with the fact that God will judge people who don't fulfill the moral law perfectly. <br />
<br />
Again: What I think seems to be the mistake made by Wright (and in a more extreme form in Dunn) is that they conflate the "Judaism" and the OT in general with "works of the law." Reformation Christians have always taught that law and gospel are equally present in both Testaments, and that the Church is not a doing away with Israel and the OT, but a fulfillment of them. By contrast, German Liberal Protestants like Baur, Harnack, and Schleiermacher (for various reasons) did make this identification between "Judaism" and "works of the law," and indeed did think of the Church as a replacement rather than a fulfillment of the OT people of God. Therefore, ironically, in attempt to reject this latter position, Dunn and Wright have unconsciously taken over such an identification. Since Paul has a fair amount of positive things to say about the continuity of the Testaments, they therefore claim that they cannot accept the Reformation antithesis between law and gospel. This is because they assume that these terms for the Reformers translate into "OT" and "NT", or "Israel" and the "Church." But of course, this is not what the Reformers were saying at all. They interpreted Paul as talking about two words of God (again, present in both Testaments!), and the existential relationships that they give rise to, and not about "Israel" and "the Church."<br />
<br />
The ironic part of all this is that although Wright wants to reject Baur, he has essentially reproduced a major part of Baur's thesis. (My old prof. Steven Paulson has made a similar point about Dunn and the NP in general.) Nevertheless, in Wright's story, it isn't Johannine Christianity (with its gospel of love) that reconciles Jewish and Gentile Christians, it's Pauline Christianity with its supposed insistence that a better cultural boundary marker for the Church is faith, rather than circumcision and not eating pork. Ultimately, Christianity proves not to be about solving the problem of sin, but about bringing humanity together. In other words, obeying the ritual law is out, and obeying the law of togetherness is in! The final irony is that although Reformation Christians see the OT and NT people of God sharing in a common salvation and medium of receiving that salvation (i.e. faith), Wright and the NP in general see one form of salvation (membership in Israel) being superseded by another (togetherness in the Church). Ultimately, this narrative is as supersessionist as that of Baur's!Dr. Jack Kilcreasehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11362736419613180038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780295056892403563.post-30861734030139121962013-12-31T03:45:00.000-08:002013-12-31T03:45:31.391-08:002013 Reading ListIt was a good year for books. Re-read Pieper and Elert, and also put Newman and Troeltsch under my belt. Beyond that, got a lot of research done for my book on Scripture and Tradition. As always, I invite you to add your own list. I'm always interested in learning what other people are reading.<br />
<br />
1. An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine- John Henry Newman<br />
2. An Essay on the Grammar of Ascent- John Henry Newman<br />
3. The Arians of the Fourth Century- John Henry Newman<br />
4. Apologia Pro Vita Sua- John Henry Newman<br />
5. The Case for Christ- Lee Strobel<br />
6. Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics- Ross Douthat<br />
7. The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society- Brad Gregory<br />
8. The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism is Not Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture- Christian Smith.<br />
9. Christian Dogmatics vol. 1- Francis Pieper<br />
10. Christian Dogmatics vol. 2- Francis Pieper<br />
11. Christian Dogmatics vol. 3- Francis Pieper <br />
12. The Structure of Lutheranism- Werner Elert<br />
13. Infidel- Ayaan Hirsi Ali<br />
14. Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years- Diarmaid Macculloch<br />
15. Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens- Christopher Hitchens<br />
16. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion- David Hume<br />
17. An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding- David Hume<br />
18. A Treatise on Human Nature- David Hume<br />
19 An Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals- David Hume<br />
20. The History of Calvinism- Daryl Hart<br />
21. Symbolism: Exposition of Doctrinal Differences Between Catholics and Protestants as Evidenced by Their Symbolic Writings- Johann Adam Mohler<br />
22. Creedo: Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition- Jaroslav Pelikan<br />
23. The Vindication of Tradition- Jaroslav Pelikan<br />
24. The Tyranny of Cliches: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas- Jonah Goldberg<br />
25. Engaging Luther: A (New) Theological Assessment- Olli-Pekka Vainio<br />
26. The Theology of Martin Luther: A Critical Assessment- Hans-Martin Barth<br />
27. Theological Common Places: On Ministry vol. 2- Johann Gerhard<br />
28. 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created- Charles Mann<br />
29. Commentary on Luther's Catechism: Baptism and the Lord's Supper- Albrecht Peters<br />
30. The Historical Commentary on the Augsburg Confession- Wilhelm Maurer<br />
31. Introduction to Lutheran Symbolics- J.L. Neve<br />
32. The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined- Steven Pinker<br />
33. The Origins of Papal Infallibility: 1150-1350- Brian Tierney<br />
34. Foundations of Conciliar Theory: The Contribution of the Medieval Canonists from Gratian to the Great Schism- Brian Tierney.<br />
35. Jesus: An Experiment in Christology- Edward Schillebeeckx<br />
36. The Eucharist- Edwad Schllebeeckx<br />
37. The Shape of Sola Scriptura- Keith Mathison<br />
38. Scripture Alone: Exploring the Bible's Accuracy, Authority, and Authenticity- James R. White<br />
39. Tradition in the Early Church- R.P.C. Hanson<br />
40. Tradition and Scripture in the Early Church- Ellen Flesseman-Van Leer<br />
41. The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches, vol. 1- Ernst Troeltsch<br />
42. The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches, vol. 2- Ernst Troeltsch<br />
43. The Absoluteness of Christianity and the History of Religions- Ernst Troeltsch<br />
44. The Christian Faith-Ernst Troeltsch<br />
45. Protestantism and Progress: The Significance of Protestantism for the Rise of the Modern World-Ernst Troeltsch<br />
46. Holy Scripture: The Ground and Pillar of Our Faith, vol. 1- David T. King<br />
47. Defending Faith: Lutheran Response to Osiander's Doctrine of Justification: 1551-1559- Timothy Wengert<br />
48. Was There a Lutheran Metaphysic?: The Interpretation of the <i>Communicatio Idiomatum</i> in Early Modern Lutheranism- Joar Haga <br />
49. The History of Protestant Theology: Particularly in Germany, vol. 1- Isaak Dorner<br />
50. The History of Protestant Theology: Particularly in Germany, vol. 2- Isaak Dorner<br />
51. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory- Alasdair MacIntyre<br />
52. Holy Writ or Holy Church?: The Crisis of the Protestant Reformation- George Tavard <br />
53. 100 People Who are Screwing Up America- Bernard Goldberg<br />
54. The Oxford Movement: Europe and the Wider World 1830-1930- Stewart Brown and Peter Nockles.<br />
55. The Meaning of Tradition- Yves Congar<br />
56. The History of Theology- Yves Congar<br />
57. The Gnostic Gospels: Elaine Pagels<br />
58. The Early Luther: Stages in a Reformation Reorientation- Berndt Hamm<br />
59. Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God vol. 4)- N.T. Wright<br />
60. Civilization: The West and the Rest- Niall Ferguson Dr. Jack Kilcreasehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11362736419613180038noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780295056892403563.post-36461805990714370942013-12-09T17:18:00.003-08:002013-12-10T08:53:21.620-08:00A Response to Dr. Kloha's Response.On the last post, I noted that Dr. Kloha responded to me and put up a larger response linked in the last post. I have a couple of points to make about Kloha's defense in general.<br />
<br />
1.
Claiming that these are merely "lecture notes" is not really accurate
in the least. This is a very fully developed essay with footnotes.
That he wanted to tinker with this piece, I accept. Nevertheless, I
think that if he distributed the piece at the conference or elsewhere, he is responsible for what he
wrote in it. Claiming that they are merely "notes" and therefore he
cannot be held responsible for what they say, does not make sense. The main problem seems to be that he only intended them for a certain audience and people he did not wish to read it got a hold of it.<br />
<br />
2.
The women's ordination discussion, according to Dr. Kloha, was not
something he actually decided to speak on in the conference itself. For that reason, I cannot
fault him in regard to speaking on these things in public.
Nevertheless, that being said, he, again, did distribute the piece and
can be held accountable for it. Again, I think it is very odd that the issue has become the procedure and people getting a hold of his ideas, when the real issue should be his ideas.<br />
<br />
3. <span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[57nlt].[1][3][1]{comment608448733:10152093650648734:63_30160116}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span class="UFICommentBody" data-reactid=".r[57nlt].[1][3][1]{comment608448733:10152093650648734:63_30160116}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[57nlt].[1][3][1]{comment608448733:10152093650648734:63_30160116}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[57nlt].[1][3][1]{comment608448733:10152093650648734:63_30160116}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0].[0]">As noted above, Kloha
keeps on describing them as mere "notes."</span></span></span></span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[57nlt].[1][3][1]{comment608448733:10152093650648734:63_30160116}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span class="UFICommentBody" data-reactid=".r[57nlt].[1][3][1]{comment608448733:10152093650648734:63_30160116}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[57nlt].[1][3][1]{comment608448733:10152093650648734:63_30160116}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[3]"><span data-reactid=".r[57nlt].[1][3][1]{comment608448733:10152093650648734:63_30160116}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[57nlt].[1][3][1]{comment608448733:10152093650648734:63_30160116}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[3].[0].[0]"> Nevertheless, he goes back-in-forth on the issue of whether or not they are notes. Sometimes he claims that they
are mere "notes" and so, he cannot be responsible for their content. Then at other times, he claims that they were in fact
a full- blown copyrighted essay and that Pr.
Wilken did not have the right to distribute it. So, my question would
be: Which is it? </span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[57nlt].[1][3][1]{comment608448733:10152093650648734:63_30160116}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span class="UFICommentBody" data-reactid=".r[57nlt].[1][3][1]{comment608448733:10152093650648734:63_30160116}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[57nlt].[1][3][1]{comment608448733:10152093650648734:63_30160116}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[3]"><span data-reactid=".r[57nlt].[1][3][1]{comment608448733:10152093650648734:63_30160116}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[57nlt].[1][3][1]{comment608448733:10152093650648734:63_30160116}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[3].[0].[0]">4.
Dr. Kloha claims that I do not understand the text-critical issue
present in the new edition of Nestle-Aland that he is dealing with. I
think I do. What Dr. Kloha's central concern is is that in light of the
Nestle-Aland new edition, it has become clear (at least to Dr. Kloha)
that we cannot even pretend that we have an approximate original
version of the NT. I made several points about this 1. We have no
reason to think that we cannot approximate the original NT based on our
current manuscript evidence, or, at minimum, the same doctrinal content. 2. We have textual evidence for all
necessary doctrines. 3. We have the testimony and continuity of the
historic Church within which the Word and the Spirit have been active testifying to said doctrines. 4. I developed a logical criterion by which we could identify what Lutheran scholasticism called a <em>Autographa</em>, in light of our current knowledge the historical context of Scripture and textual-criticism. 5. The main issue is that we have the correct doctrines, not that every single word is the same, something which is more than defensible. Hence, the text of the NT is not a magical book, with a magical configuration of certain words, which have never changed one iota. Rather, it is infallible, inerrant, and reliable prophetic and apostolic tradition that has been handed down to us by both the Holy Spirit and fallible human agents.</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[57nlt].[1][3][1]{comment608448733:10152093650648734:63_30160116}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span class="UFICommentBody" data-reactid=".r[57nlt].[1][3][1]{comment608448733:10152093650648734:63_30160116}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[57nlt].[1][3][1]{comment608448733:10152093650648734:63_30160116}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[3]"><span data-reactid=".r[57nlt].[1][3][1]{comment608448733:10152093650648734:63_30160116}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[57nlt].[1][3][1]{comment608448733:10152093650648734:63_30160116}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[3].[0].[0]">This
nevertheless bring us to the central issue though, which Kloha has not
really responded to and ultimately which places him in opposition the
historic Lutheran tradition. Namely, if we reject entirely the notion
that we can at the very minimum approximate the original kerygma of the
NT, then we fall into a sort of Enthusiasm. My deep concerns about Dr.
Kloha remain because he A. Rejects the idea of there being ultimate
criterion in an <i>Autographa</i>. In fact, he rejects the very notion of the <i>Autographa</i>, it would seem. B. Constantly appeals to the Spirit and its work in the consensus of the baptized. </span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[57nlt].[1][3][1]{comment608448733:10152093650648734:63_30160116}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span class="UFICommentBody" data-reactid=".r[57nlt].[1][3][1]{comment608448733:10152093650648734:63_30160116}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[57nlt].[1][3][1]{comment608448733:10152093650648734:63_30160116}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[3]"><span data-reactid=".r[57nlt].[1][3][1]{comment608448733:10152093650648734:63_30160116}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[57nlt].[1][3][1]{comment608448733:10152093650648734:63_30160116}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[3].[0].[0]">5. In all this, it has not really been my goal to ignore the issues present in modern textual criticism. My position as outlined in the previous post is a critically-realistic one. I recognize the limitations of our knowledge. Ultimately, though it may not be his intention, I feel that Dr. Kloha's position drifts towards an unfortunate theological anti-realism.</span></span></span></span></span> Dr. Jack Kilcreasehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11362736419613180038noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780295056892403563.post-55926508014494456632013-12-07T06:22:00.004-08:002013-12-09T16:47:07.412-08:00A Response and Critique to Dr. Jeff Kloha's Paper Regarding Textual-Criticism and the Inspiration of Scripture.A few days ago, Rev. Todd Wilken of Issues, etc. fame put up a paper that Jeff Kloha of CSL gave earlier this year in Germany: <a href="http://thebarebulb.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/text-and-authority.pdf">http://thebarebulb.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/text-and-authority.pdf</a> The topic was the question of how we relate the inspiration and authority of Scripture to the existence of textual variants in the NT texts. It seems that there is going to be a new edition of Nestle-Aland and that some great strides have been made in establishing the text of the NT. The approach of this new edition is apparently significant because it assumes that it's pretty much impossible to get back to the original text of the NT with absolute certainty. So, the question is raised, what does this do to our understanding of verbal inspiration? I have a few thoughts and some critiques of Kloha's position. I would invite Dr. Kloha to respond to my piece and also to correct me where I might have misinterpreted him at any point. Whereas I agree with Dr. Kloha that it is important to raise these question, I do not find myself in total agreement with him as to how he has resolved them.<br />
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<u>1. Why do we posit Inspiration and what is its Theological Significance?: </u> This is an issue not really addressed by Kloha at all. I think that we should clarify this a bit because there seems to be a lot of confusion on this. Below, I give my own take on the issue which I think is faithful to history, Scripture, and the Lutheran confessional tradition.<br />
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To begin with, it should be observed that as Fracis Pieper points out, Jesus is himself the Lord of the Scriptures. The Scriptures are Jesus' Word and the goal of Scripture is to witness to Jesus. This is true of both the Old and the New Testaments. In the OT, the pre-Incarnate Christ spoke with Moses and the other prophets. The pre-Incarnate Christ authorized prophesies about his coming. Belief inspiration in the OT is not something that people are supposed to be blindly follow. It is something to be proven based on whether or not the prophet inculcated faith in the true God and whether or not what they said came true (Deut. 17). In order to validate their prophesies concern the distant future, God fulfilled small prophesies that would come true relatively soon. If these prophesies came true, then it was likely the other one would as well. All the OT prophets were further validated by Jesus, who was the supreme fulfillment of all prophecy. Not only did he literally fulfill the OT Scriptures, but he further validated their authority by affirming their writings as the Word of God and then demonstrating that he was both Messiah and God by rising from the dead. Beyond this, he also authorized the Apostles to be infallible teachers of the Church ("those who hear you, hear me" "I will send you the advocate and he will lead you into all truth"). Their infallible testimony would serve as the basis of Church teaching until the end of time ("you will be my witnesses.. etc" "what if he remains until I come?"). Hence, the OT as accepted by the majority of Jews (the canon of the Pharisees) it in the time of Jesus was validated, and the teaching of the Apostles as they wrote them down or had their immediate followers write them down were invested by Jesus as being inspired and infallibly authoritative for the Church until the end of time.<br />
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For this reason, from the beginning, the Church held that the apostolic kerygma was in fact an infallible and inerrant authority. In the first century, what the Apostles taught in their oral teaching and their writings (or those writers whom they had authorized) was considered authoritative for the faith and life of the Church. By the second-century, we have the writings of the Apostles called "Scripture" by various Patristic authors. Finally, in around the 4th century, there were a number of local synods (Council of Hippo, etc.) which were called to reject a number of texts that had been used alongside those of the Apostles. According to these councils, in order for a text to be canonical it had to 1. be used by the Church in its public worship universally (i.e. the Spirit had commended it to the believing community) 2. It had to be from the Apostles, whom Jesus had authorized as infallible teachers of the Church. It should of course not really disturb us that many people in the early Church used other texts (1 Enoch, Shepherd of Hermas, etc.). When they did, they violated Jesus command and promise that infallible witness would only be found in the mouths of the Apostles and those they had authorized. <br />
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Moreover, as we can observe, in determining what is revelation and the written Word of God, we judge on the basis of both an objective principle and a subjective principle. On the one hand, we believe the Word of God by the work of the Spirit active in the proclamation of the Church. We also recognize that there are many spirits and that we may be tempted by them (or our own heart) into believing many things that are false. For that reason, we do not believe everything that is proclaimed and which finds a place in our hearts, but we test the proclamation of the Church and the works of the Spirit against what can be historically determined has come down from the Apostles ("test all things...etc.", "If an angel of light teaches you another gospel...etc."). Recognizing both the objective and subjective principle distinguishes the historic Lutheran understanding of the canon (as well as the Patristic) from that of the Roman Catholic Church and the Reformed traditions. Both of the latter groups rely on the Spirit inner testimony almost exclusively to establish the canon. In the case of the Catholics, through Spirit's work in the magisterium (heart of the Pope and Bishops), in the case of the Reformed, in the hearts of individual believers. By contrast, for the Church Fathers and for Orthodox Lutherans, the canon is both recognized by the work of the Spirit and historically testable.<br />
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For this reason, Eusebius and other Church Fathers made a distinction between what they referred to as the Homologoumena and Antilegomena. The Homologoumena refers to books that the have a uniform attestation from the Church that they have come down from the Apostles. The Antilegomena are texts that have mixed attestation- some said they were from the Apostles and others not. Such a distinction was revived during the Renaissance by the Humanists, and was taken over by the Lutheran and Reformed theologians of the 16th and 17th century. That being said, it was applied in different ways. For Luther and Chemnitz, for example, the Antilegomena was largely illegitimate. Whereas Luther kept it in his German NT as an appendix, Chemnitz advocated throwing it out entirely. Later Lutheran Scholastics generally view the Antilegomena as canonical, but not scriptural. Hence, the rule obtained that dogmas could only be established by a <i>sedes doctrinae</i> in the Homologomena. Nevertheless, it could still be witnessed to (secondarily) by <i>sedes</i> found in the Antilegomena. A similar use of the Apocrypha obtained (which the Lutheran Scholastics cite fairly regularly). This was the case, even though the Apocrypha was not merely uncertain (as was the Antilegomena), it was by all accounts absolutely not the Word of God, since Christ had only affirmed the canon of the Pharisees which of course did not include the Apocrypha. It was of course nonetheless recognized that there was much in the Apocrypha that agreed with and could witness to the truth of the Word of God and for this reason it was read and cited.<br />
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Again, these distinction show why historic Lutheranism (and the early Fathers) thought of Scripture as inspired. Scripture is reliable prophetic and apostolic tradition. The content of Scripture is authoritative because it has been authorized by Christ and recognized through historical investigation and by the inner testimony of the Spirit to be the inerrant witness which Christ authorized. This approach to Scripture as capital "T" tradition can be observed in the first volume of Martin Chemnitz's <i>Examination of the Council of Trent</i>, where among the seven forms of valid tradition, Scripture itself constitutes one category.<br />
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<u>2. Verbal Inspiration?</u>: The Reformers (and the later Protestant Scholastics) spoke of Scripture as being verbally inspired, meaning that God through his Holy Spirit and by his providence in human history, had worked things out so that he himself actually chose the very words used in Scripture. Despite 19th and 20th century attempts to make Luther into a gospel-reductionist, there are numerous passages where he refers to the words and grammar of the Bible as being the product of the Holy Spirit. Of course with the Reformers themselves, this approaches tends to be more assumed and only occasionally spoken about. It is generally not systematically developed. According to Otto Ritschl, the first person to systematically develop the conceptual basis of the doctrine was Matthias Flacius. See my writing on him and his ideas about Scripture here: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Understand-Sacred-Scriptures-Matthias-Flacius/dp/0982158629/ref=la_B00CQ2TDJY_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1386340781&sr=1-2">http://www.amazon.com/Understand-Sacred-Scriptures-Matthias-Flacius/dp/0982158629/ref=la_B00CQ2TDJY_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1386340781&sr=1-2</a><br />
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This description is how inspiration works is a little different than how inspiration was understood by the Medieval theologians. For example, Thomas Aquinas thought that God had imprinted the human minds of the authors of Scripture with the ideas that he wanted them to convey, but had allowed them to select their own words. Part of the point of this was to suggest that God's truth was primarily something intelligible, rather than sensible (a linger Platonism!) and so, in a sense, one could move up and past the letter and into the intelligible realm of the Spirit. Another part of this theory of inspiration was that it was attempting to take the Bible as a human document written by autonomous human beings seriously, while at the same time recognizing it as divine revelation. It should also be observed that this theory of Scripture did not mean that the Medieval theologians viewed the Bible as anything less than inerrant. Prior to the late 17th century, the Christian tradition was fairly unanimous that the Bible was inerrant, even if inspiration was conceptualized in a variety of ways.<br />
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By contrast, the Reformers held to verbal inspiration, not just an inspiration of ideas. In the case of Luther, one suspects that this is an outgrowth of his belief in the sacramentality of the Word. In other words, God was not to be encountered above his Word. Neither were the sacraments signs pointing above and beyond themselves to God's invisible workings. The Lutheran<i> est</i> and <i>capax</i> translated into a belief that in the concrete words and grammatical constructions of the Bible, one encountered the very Word of God. The Word of God was not a word above the word of the Bible, but in, under, and with its human language.<br />
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Moreover, in light of the Augustinian notions of human agency and causation which the Reformers generally shared with one another (both Lutheran and Reformed), this by no means eliminated the reality of the Bible as a human book. Human beings are both free in the sense that no force outside somehow manhandles them into doing what they do, and bound, in that they are shaped in their inner impulses by God's creative and sustaining acts (this would include both his general casual concurrence and his miraculous supernatural intervention). This is the very Augustinian distinction that Luther makes in the <i>Bondage of the Will</i> between the "necessity of immutability" and the "necessity of compulsion." God, in inspiring the authors of the Bible, did not manhandle them into saying what he wanted them to say. Rather, through his providence and the supernatural creative power of his Spirit, the authors of Scripture were shaped into the sorts of persons who would want to write what God wanted them to write, in the words that he would want them to write in. They did what they wanted to do, namely, choose the words that God wanted. God's supernatural action of inspiration therefore supervened on the very human action of composition.<br />
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As Richard Muller points out, recognizing this determinate freedom with which the inspired authors worked was important for the Reformers and the later Protestant Scholastics because they had inherited from both the later Patristic authors and the Medieval theologians an aversion to the notion that inspiration meant a loss of consciousness and the onset of a sort of mania that would be more characteristic of pagan prophets. In fact, early one many quarters of the early Church accepted this manic notion of prophecy, until the Montanist heresy of the 2nd and 3rd centuries discredited it. Many of the early Apologists even use the language of the Greek poets that speak of Prophets being inspired by the gods to speak as a harpist plucks the string on a musical instrument. Generally speaking (except for some extreme cases in the books of Judges and 1 Samuel) one does not find prophets in Scripture prophesying in this manner. <br />
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<u>3. Problems Raised by Kloha Regarding the Tradition Doctrine of Inspiration:</u> Kloha's difficulties with the traditional theory of inspiration are twofold. First, is the issue of textual criticism. There are a lot of manuscripts and a lot of variants. This tends to be more true of the NT, than the OT, in that the Jews had considerably tighter rules about copying manuscripts than early Christians did. Because this is the case, we apparently face a problem that did not come up during the 16th-18th centuries when people just assumed that the <i>Textus Receptus</i> was the original text (As a side note: I'm not certain this is entirely the case. As Richard Muller points out with regard to the Protestant Scholastics in general, they were aware of divergences in the textual tradition and did try to make arguments about the difficulties in certain texts-even if their knowledge was considerably more limited than our own regarding the scope of the problem! He concludes that it is a mistake to call them "pre-critical" in their exegesis. Similarly, if you sit down and read the Chemnitz-Leyser-Gerhard's <i>Harmony of the Four Gospels</i>, one will observe that they authors recognize the Greek, Syriac, and Latin texts as separate witnesses to the purity of the original text, and attempt to navigate the texts meaning through comparing them. But I digress). For this reason, it's hard to say that we absolutely have the original text in all its details. If we buy into the idea of verbal inspiration (which I think Scripture requires us to do!), then there is no absolutely certain verbally inspired text before us. It is no help to say that the textual variation don't change any doctrines. Perhaps we will find variation that will threaten our doctrinal position in the future! So how do we cope with this?<br />
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The second issue is the one of the original (<i>autographa</i>) vs. the copies (<i>apographa</i>). Historically, Lutheran theologians claimed that the original text was the directly inspired one, and then the copies were inspired derivatively insofar as they mirrored the original. This makes total sense. Similarly, people assumed that the authors of the Bible simply wrote a single copy (under the inspiration of the Spirit) and then people copied it and then it came down to us in more or less the shape of its original form. But, the simple fact is that this isn't how people wrote texts in the ancient world. People would dictate several copies of the text they were preparing. They would then often read the text out loud to a patron or to an audience that would suggest changes or revisions. Hence, Kloha claims, the "original" is something of a fiction, since there very well may have been multiple half-revised originals. Similarly, if after finishing all their revisions, Luke or Paul dictated the final text to several scribes and so there were several originals (not just a single one as our ancestors supposed) which was is the inspired one?<br />
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These are all good question to ask and I am happy that Dr. Kloha has raised them. That being said, I do not think he does a very good job resolving these problems and I believe I can offer some alternative solutions.<br />
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<u>4. The Issue of the Original Manuscripts:</u> When Kloha brought up the issue of the original manuscripts in his paper, I must confess that I was rather surprised by it. Though I knew the information that he spoke of regarding the nature of ancient composition, it hadn't occurred to me that anyone would consider this a problem. That being said, he does raise an interesting issue. If Luke revised his Gospel a number of times, did inspiration finally kick in the final draft or was it operative earlier? If there were four original copies of the Gospel of Luke, were all of them inspired? From this, Kloha seems to conclude that there is no original manuscript to judge subsequent manuscripts by- just a bunch of different texts that could be called "originals" (<i>autographa</i>). My question would be, would this not suggest that there was no there-there? That is, is there no original revelation that we can judge subsequent proclamation on the basis of? If there is no there-there, what should our standard for judging doctrine be? For this reason, we must make an argument about what we can identify "back there" as a criterion and not simply throw up our hands and speak of a "plastic text" as it appears that Kloha does. <br />
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First, I would suggest that Kloha hasn't really shown at all that an "original manuscript"(<i>autographa</i>) is a fiction. Rather, he has merely shown that we need to be more nuanced in our definition of what constitutes an "original." Obviously, even the 17th century Lutheran Scholastics knew that it was quite possible that Luke did not write his Gospel in one sitting and so, presumably, there was a half-Gospel of Luke at some point of the composition process. Nevertheless, even if there were multiple versions and drafts, there was indeed a point when Luke stop tinkering with it and it was finished. Also, when the Apostles wrote their letters, it may be that they had them written and rewritten, but there was a point when they were done and they actually did send them. In both cases, those multiple copies of the final draft which they completed were the <i>autographa</i>. Hence, even if there were four manuscripts of the original version, they were indeed the completed text and can be the criterion which subsequent versions can be judged (to the extent that we think we can get back there!).<br />
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But of course, the question still remains, were the other non-revised versions the Word of God and verbally inspired? If we follow our supposition that inspiration comes from Christ's promise to guarantee the infallibility of the Apostles and those whom they authorized, the answer has to be yes, absolutely! Why then would be prefer the final draft over the original drafts, if both were equally inspired? For a couple of reasons. First, although Luke may have said what he said differently in earlier drafts, it was still a statement of the same inerrant Apostolic truths, just said in different words or perhaps having few truths. In that God supernaturally acted through the authors of Scripture in a way that supervened on the natural process of composition, multiple drafts or the use of the suggestions from others who heard earlier drafts, by no means negates the inerrancy or inspiration of such a writing process. Since Luke (for example) says that he investigated sources to write his Gospel like any other historian of the era, we must assume that he went through the other normal stages of composition that were current in his culture. If we suggest otherwise, not only are we contradicting what Luke says about how he wrote, but we are coming quite close to re-introducing the Montanist manic concept of inspiration.<br />
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Hence, even if there were multiple drafts that were all inspired and inerrant, we should look to the final draft as the <i>autographa</i> not because it is more inspired than the earlier drafts (which are lost to us anyways), but because God has in the final draft told us through Luke everything he wants to tell us. The same analogy might obtain for the individual books of the Bible when compared with the whole Bible. Individual books of the Bible are no less the Word of God than the whole Bible. Nevertheless, God willed the writing of more books because he had more things to tell us. Hence, it we must base our doctrine on all the books of the Bible, not just Jonah or Romans. Similarly, half completed or half revised texts of the Biblical authors are simply half and incomplete versions of the fullness of what God wants to tell us through those works. In themselves, they are no less in inspired and inerrant texts.<br />
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Finally, should we be worried that there were three or four final drafts, and so, there might have been differences between them? I would say no. Since they were all inspired by God, they would all have the same content and we have no reason to think that they in fact did not all have the same wording. Moreover, even the most radical critics probably wouldn't say that among the final drafts of Paul's Letter to the Romans that there was a version where humans were actually justified by the works of the law and not faith. No one thinks that Luke had a final draft where there were four persons of the Trinity and homosexuality was OK. <br />
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<u>5. The Issue of Textual Variants</u>: The issue that Kloha brings up regarding the existence of a significant number of textual variants is largely a non-issue for a number of reasons. The first point that I would make is that these textual variant are for the most part largely meaningless. They are misspellings of words, or sentences that a written in various ways with the same propositional or historical content. Moreover, no variation threatens an article of the faith, although there are certain <i>sedes doctrinae</i> for given doctrines that have been called into question due to textual criticism (the Johannine comma, etc.). The examples that Kloha uses vindicate this point. For example, based on manuscript evidence from the Old Latin version, it might have been that in the original Magnificat was spoken by Elizabeth and not Mary. Well, so what? Again, none of this effects any of the articles of the faith. Nevertheless, Kloha asks "Well, what if we find manuscripts that do?" And it's a good question to raise. He doesn't really seem to address it in a meaningful way though. He does talk a lot about the work of the Spirit in preserving the Church, which is good, but this only happens in connection with concrete texts and propositional truth claims. Otherwise, the Church has nothing to proclaim and so too, the Spirit will not do its work. <br />
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There are several other points that should be made. First, asking if we found manuscripts that would destroy the faith as we know it is like asking "What if we found Jesus' body?" Many people consider one of weaknesses of orthodox Christianity that it's truth or falsehood is dependent on a series of historical facts. I would make the counter-argument that it is in fact one of its strengths. As we observed earlier, we believe the faith because of an objective and subjective principle. The Spirit within our subjectivity testifies to the truth and gives us the gift of faith so that we can see the truth insofar as it is presented to us objectively. The truth that the Spirit testifies to our inner being through concrete historical and physical realities (Word and sacrament). Since our faith is actually connected to (though not wholly dependent on) facts that are subject to proof or disproof, it checks the natural human impulse to make a God in our own image and to believe what makes us feel good is true.<br />
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Secondly, much like the resurrection has a massive amount of evidence in its favor, so too the manuscript evidence for our texts is extremely good. In fact, we quite literally have an insane number of manuscripts. For this reason, it is virtually impossible that we will find manuscripts that will discredit any of the articles of the faith. That every text that supports the articles of the faith was somehow fabricated is impossible. Similarly, because the Holy Spirit has always been working in the Church, we have evidence that the same truths have been taught in the Church from the beginning in (approximately!) the same form (read Ignatius of Antioch, or books four and five of Irenaeus' <i>Against the Heresies</i>!). When the Church Fathers did error, it was largely (though not exclusively) because they had weird interpretation of texts we know from our canonical Scriptures or they introduced non-apostolic traditions into Church teaching (Tertullian's love of 1 Enoch and the Shepherd of Hermas, etc.).<br />
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Throughout the history of the Church, the Holy Spirit has preserved the Word and the articles of the faith even in extremely dark times. Indeed, if one knows about their respective historical contexts, both Nicaea and Augsburg were theological miracles. If the Word and sacraments are present (as they have always been) there will always be a small group confessing the true faith (at least in its fundamental form). For this reason, the work of the Spirit through the Word is liken fittingly by Cyprian as a spring of water that moves throw an aqueduct. At its source, it is pure. But over time, as it moves through the aqueduct, it can become polluted and so we need to go back to the spring to find out what the pure water is really like. For hence, the proclamation of the Church when it bases itself on the Scriptures (the pure spring) is derivatively proclaiming the same Word of God (aqueduct water). Both are the Word of God, but the Word of God written and directly inspired (Scripture) serves as a check out the Word of God confessed and proclaimed (churchly tradition). All of this is the work of the presence of the Word in its content historical form and the Spirit's animating power.<br />
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For this reason, I do find that Francis Pieper's analogy (Kloha attributes this to another author whom I am certain used it, but it was originally Pieper's analogy) between the function of the original revelation of the Scriptures in the life of the Church and the laws of the state of Missouri being in effect even if no one can find the original bill passed by the state legislature, to be quite apt. The Word has always been around in the life of the Church and has sustained the life of the Church. It has also served the purpose of checking additions to the apostolic kerygma. Even if one cannot find the original copies, or even if someone copied down the laws using slightly different wording, the principles of legislation embodied in it would still be around and in effect. Kloha dislikes this analogy because he says that it makes the Bible into a "legal" and "propositional" document. Whereas I agree with Dr. Kloha that the Bible is centered in the gospel and not the law, I would also note that the whole Bible is not capable of being reduced to the living effectiveness of the gospel. It is also contains many propositions and laws that God wishes us to believe and obey. The only question is: do we read those laws and propositions as things that condemn us because we refused to believe and perform them, or, conversely, are they things that we are free to believe and do? Moreover, the living power of the gospel would be meaningless without its propositional content. Faith would have no object without propositions. <br />
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Beyond this point, the recognition that there is continuity of the Church due to the proclamation of Word and sacrament is one of the reasons why I find Kloha use of the distinction between the Homologoumena and Antilegomena problematic. Historically, Lutherans have gone different ways on this. As I noted earlier, Luther and Chemnitz largely wanted to reject there being much of any validity in the Antilegomena, whereas the later Lutheran Scholastics merely wished to place the weight of the canon in the Homologoumena. I find myself sympathetic with the later approach. I can find nothing in the Antilegomena which is not in the Homologoumena. This does not of course make the Antilegomena (with absolute certainty) the Word of God written and inspired. Rather, insofar as it has a mixed testimony from the early Church, it should generally be treated as the Word of God confessed and proclaimed. For this reason, it may only witness to dogmas established by the Homologoumena, it must not establish them by unique <i>sedes doctrinae</i>.<br />
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By contrast, Kloha takes an iconoclastic stance (something I have detected in the writings of other faculty members at CSL) and wishes to categorize Antilegomena as "stuff we throw out." In fact, he wishes to extend said principle to textual variants found in the Homologoumena that lack a scholarly consensus. They are not to be used as a basis for doctrine or to be proclaimed in the Church until there is a scholarly consensus as to their validity. <br />
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Whereas I agree that we should not establish doctrine using verses that textual criticism has demonstrated are not from the original text, or, for that matter, base an entire theological conclusion on a contested text, I would object to this overall approach for a number of reasons. First, truth by consensus is a very poor principle. Consensus is quite often wrong. Hence, Kloha's suggestion that we should follow both the consensus of the baptized and the scholarly communities in sorting out these difficulties is faulty, and, I would suggest, implies an authority of the visible Church to say what is and what is not the Word of God based on its own inner impulses rather than by theological principles or historical facts. I am quite certain that that is not what he intends to say, but such a stance implies this.<br />
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Secondly, I again, do not consider these textual variation to represent much of a real problem for establishing dogma within the Church. The <i>sedes doctrinae</i> which have been called into question are usually icing on the theological cake. The doctrines can be proven using other verses. Moreover, instead of tabling them until there is a "scholarly consensus", a more helpful approach (in fact, the one I use in my own book: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Self-Donation-God-Contemporary-Lutheran/dp/1620326051/ref=pd_rhf_gw_p_d_2">http://www.amazon.com/The-Self-Donation-God-Contemporary-Lutheran/dp/1620326051/ref=pd_rhf_gw_p_d_2</a>) would be for the theologian or exegete to simply make an argument in favor of their preferred textual variant and let others decide if their argument is sound. For example, I do this in my writings on Christology with John 3:13 (<i>Textus Receptus</i> version) as a proof-text for the absolute omnipresence of Christ's human nature. I of course don't need this text to prove Christ's absolute omnipresence (there are other <i>sedes</i>), but I believe there is a strong case to be made for the <i>Textus Receptus</i> version of the verse.<br />
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<u>6. Propositional Exposition and Unnecessary Provocation</u>: The last two issues I want to deal with in the piece are Kloha's aversion to propositional exposition of Scripture and the example of this that he cites from CRTC's report on women's role in the Church. In the report, the verses in 1 Corinthians regarding women's silence in the Church are used in order to set down ecclesiastical policy in the present. Kloha holds that because the CRTC wants to make the verses applicable to our current situation, they end up distorting them.<br />
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First, Kloha rightly observes that not every passage in the Bible is understandable or applicable to us in our current situation. Similarly, he decries the tendency of ripping Bible passages out of their original setting and making list of "inspirational" verses . I completely agree with him on this point. I can't tell you how tired I am of reading on someone's FB wall "I have plans for you says the Lord" (which has to do with God's covenant fidelity to Israel, and not God promising to make your love-life or career better!), or, hearing the passage about love from 1 Corinthians read at weddings!<br />
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Nevertheless, when it comes to the section on the silence of women, I (along with most LCMS theologians) think that Kloha is wrong in his exposition of the passage. Paul is quite clear in it that it is his intention to instruct the Corinthians on something that is more than merely contextual. That being said, I do not have the space to go through the passage and prove my point. What I think it is important to highlight is that Scripture does contain within itself general principles that are to be followed in how we conduct ourselves. Similarly, often times when Scripture is addressing specific situations, in most cases we can certainly abstract general principles for our current situation. If we could not do this, then we would be left with virtually no basis for conducting ourselves apart from our own caprice- since most everything in the Bible is addressing a specific and historically contextual problem. Kloha certainly decries this latter way of operating as characteristic of the ELCA, but he does not do an adequate job showing how his tendency to appeal to the amorphous work of the Spirit or a (somewhat) radical canonical criticism does not lead in a similar direction. Moreover, yet again, Kloha has a weird aversion to propositional truth that is highly reminiscent of mid-20th century continental Lutheranism (I am thinking of Ebeling and Bultmann here). Although God's Word has other dimension to it beyond the merely propositional, as we noted above, without propositional truth the "Word-event" (Ebeling) of proclamation is largely empty. <br />
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The last point I will make in this very long post is that the use of the 1 Corinthians verses as his example was unnecessarily provocative. Although I have been told by many people that Dr. Kloha agrees with the synod's understanding of Scripture on the issue of the role of women (and I have no reason to doubt them), it should not go unnoticed that Dr. Kloha has used an argument regarding these verses that is common to persons who advocate women's ordination. Certainly there are other passages that one can appeal to regarding synod's policy (even if you don't think this one works!). But my question would be: Considering the baggage that this passage has in our circles, why be unnecessarily provocative in using it? This is especially case considering Dr. Kloha's important position within the hierarchy of the seminary and the synod. Why give the impression that you buy in part into the arguments made by those who dissent from the synod's position? This is very puzzling indeed.<br />
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Update: Dr. Kloha has responded here: http://concordiatheology.org/2013/12/toward-fruitful-conversation-follow-up-from-listening-to-gods-word/Dr. Jack Kilcreasehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11362736419613180038noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780295056892403563.post-67398649598649759272013-11-08T08:20:00.003-08:002013-11-08T08:20:48.064-08:00Open Erollment: Apply to Take Courses with Christ School of Theology or the Institute of Lutheran Theology Today!As many of you are aware, I teach courses for the Institute of Lutheran Theology and Christ School of Theology. We have open enrollment, so check out our course offerings for next semester. I will be teaching the course on the history of Reformation theology. Hope to see you there!<br />
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<a href="http://ilt.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=129:spring-2014-courses&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=53">http://ilt.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=129:spring-2014-courses&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=53</a><br />
<br />Dr. Jack Kilcreasehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11362736419613180038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780295056892403563.post-75432575389318882302013-10-28T12:30:00.003-07:002013-10-28T12:30:52.061-07:00Profile Up on the Institute of Lutheran Theology Website.Looks like they have a profile picture and my CV up on the ILT website.<br />
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<a href="http://www.ilt.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=114%3Adr-jack-kilcrease&catid=37%3Aarticles&Itemid=53">http://www.ilt.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=114%3Adr-jack-kilcrease&catid=37%3Aarticles&Itemid=53</a>Dr. Jack Kilcreasehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11362736419613180038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780295056892403563.post-43638304691402641272013-10-25T09:43:00.000-07:002013-10-26T14:50:50.436-07:00A Critique of Cascione's Critique of RydeckiThis morning I awoke to see that a friend had forwarded a piece to me from Jack Cascione ("Rydecki and the Sacerdotalists attack Objective Justification" <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/reclaimnews/conversations/topics/317">http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/reclaimnews/conversations/topics/317</a>) in which he responds to Paul Rydecki's "Forensic Appeal to the Throne of Grace." I'm not certain where it came from (probably from his list-serve), but it looks like something that will probably make an appearance in the <i>Christian News</i> at some point. I think that there are many strengths to the piece, but I also think that Cascione has misread Rydecki on several levels and so it might undermine the credibility of his critique. Below I want to examine the strengths and weaknesses of his points.<br />
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<u>1. "Sacerdotalism":</u> Wrongly, I think, Cascione has read his own crusades against what he perceives to be a creeping "sacerdotalism" into Rydecki's position. This is something that he has oddly accused William Cwirla and myself of (among others in the LCMS). As I see it, there has been an increase in people emphasizing the importance of the office of ministry in the LCMS, particularly among the Gottesdienst group (including my old pastor, Karl Fabrizius). This is largely a reaction against low-Church American Protestantism, which tends to denigrate the office of ministry. I don't see this as an attempt at rejecting Walther, but restoring his original insights (at least in the case of the Gottesdienst group). That being said, I do see James Heiser as unfortunately going an extra step by seeing the entire Waltherian project as fundamentally flawed from the beginning. I would of course view certain interpretations of Walther to be problematic- not least the Otten/Cascione theory of hyper-congregationalism (something prevalevant in the LCMS in the mid-20th century). Nevertheless, in terms of the available options, Walther's position is probably the best in its fundamental principle that the Church is to be found in Word and sacrament ministry, which means that all churchly authority must be rooted in the individual congregation (i.e., those gathered around Word and Sacrament). I find Kurt Marquardt's treatment of Church and Ministry particularly helpful in this book: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Confessional-Lutheran-Dogmatics-Fellowship-Governance/dp/B004NTZJ50/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382702830&sr=1-1&keywords=Confessional+Lutheran+Dogmatics%2C+Church">http://www.amazon.com/Confessional-Lutheran-Dogmatics-Fellowship-Governance/dp/B004NTZJ50/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382702830&sr=1-1&keywords=Confessional+Lutheran+Dogmatics%2C+Church</a><br />
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In any case, then, what is going on, even in the ELDoNA, is not really a sacerdotalism, at least as Lutheranism would historically reject such a doctrinal stance. Historically, the sort of sacerdotalism that would be problematic for Lutherans would be one in which ordination gives a special character to the person (this is rooted in the Augustinian and Latin North African theory of the sacraments), so that person becomes a sacrament themselves. Though Lutherans in the 19th century certainly did flirt with something close to this (think Stephan, among the others referred to as belonging to the "German Puseyism"), but it would be hard to find many that went all the way. Stephan probably came the closest in his belief that the validity of the means of grace depended on him. Loehe came close to this, but didn't go all the way.<br />
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Whereas Cascione may think that this is what motivates Rydecki, I very seriously doubt it. People always read their own theological concerns into others. For example, when Cascione read my book, he tended to interpret it in terms of the interests and theological debates which the readership of the <i>Christian News</i> were engaged in. And frankly, in writing my work, I was little interested or engaged in any of these discussions. So, this tended to lead to something of a misinterpretation of my book on a number of points.<br />
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In Rydecki's case, there seems to be a number of thing going on. First, there is the unique weirdness of the WELS history, particularly with its relationship to the doctrine of Objective Justification- something unparalleled in the LCMS or ELS. As originally an outgrowth of a Pietist mission society, there is a stronger strain of Pietism leftover in that denomination than in the LCMS or the ELS. Moving towards an orthodox understanding of election and justification with the theology of Hoenecke, there were always periodic Pietistic revolts against Objective Justification. In reading the literature that was intended to crush these revolts, one notices that the more the Pietist side rejected the claims about OJ, the more the orthodox party would up the ante by hardening the language of objectivity and universality. Again, they did so in language unparalleled in LCMS or ELS literature, as far as I can tell. The nadir of this is probably the Kokomo statement, which was even rejected by Kurt Marquardt for its rather poor wording. In fact, the whole thing sounded like a kind of Barthian universalism- even if this was quite obviously never the intention. Hence, for the Pietist sorts who rejected OJ, it was very easy to use such poor language to confuse laypeople into believing that the WELS was teaching universalism (which is absurd). Such revolts against the WELS leadership and its supposed "universalism" serve as a kind of master explanation and symbol for everything going wrong with the synod. Despite Rydecki's association with the Gottesdienst crowd because of his advocacy of liturgical worship (among other things), I think one can hardly understand his motivation as having to do with an imaginary sacerdotalism. It probably has more to do with his anger with the WELS leadership over things like Church-growthism and his use of the the issue of OJ (with which they have been forced to so strongly identify themselves because of the weird history of the WELS) as a symbol of everything else he thinks is wrong with the denomination.<br />
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<u>2. "Limited Atonement":</u> Beyond wrongly accusing Rydecki of sacerdotalism, Cascione misfires a bit on the issue of limited vs. unlimited atonement. Cascione seems to suggest that Rydecki doesn't really believe in an unlimited atonement, since he does not believe that forgiveness is prior to and therefore creates faith: "<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Rydecki should have titled his paper, “Why Christ Did Not Die for the Sins of the World.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">There is some truth to this and much untruth. First, just to clear up a mistake that Cascione makes through the piece: Objective Atonement and Objective Justification are actually two separate things. Objective Atonement means that Jesus has died for all sins, Objective Justification means that God the Father has received this atonement and responded to it by pronouncing a universal word of forgiveness and thereby sending the Holy Spirit to channel this message through the resurrection of Christ and the means of grace. Cascione unfortunately misinterprets the doctrine at times (though not always) as mere universal atonement, which would not be correct. Moreover, as Cascione also notes, Rydecki repeatedly states that he believes in Objective Atonement- and I see no reason to doubt this.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The truth in what Cascione says would be that a rejection of an Objective Justification paired with the orthodox doctrine of election would logically imply a limited atonement. In other words, for Rydecki, much as in Calvinism, one has an atonement that is sufficient for the sins of the world. Nevertheless, since there is no universal declaration of forgiveness (which the elect subsequently respond to with faith), logically, the promise can only be good for the elect and not for everyone else as well. The negative effect of this is that since the universal promise isn't actually sincere except for the elect, one is driven back to the quality of one's faith to discern their election. The only difference between Calvin and Rydecki then would be that for Calvinism election happens logically prior to atonement in God's order of decrees, whereas for Rydecki it happens afterwards. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Part of the answer to this dilemma is that this rejection of Objective Justification wasn't meant to be coordinated with the doctrine of election. Those who rejected OJ in the Norwegian, Ohio, and Iowa Synods also rejected election. In their understanding, God gave a universal decree that he would absolve sin "if" people would believe. Therefore, those who chose "not-to-not" resist divine grace would gain the judgment of justification and election subsequent to their belief. Hence, as is easy to observe, without the pairing of election and Objective Justification, one is left either with a Calvinistic limited atonement or the <i>intuitu fidei</i> heresy. In both cases, one cannot speak the gospel as an unconditional promise, but must ultimately drive people back to the quality of their faith as either a condition of salvation, or as a sign of a secret election. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">To be perfectly clear: Rydecki intends neither position- but not because this isn't the logical implication. One of the difficulties with his particular style of doing theology is that he tends not to think very deeply through the implications of his own claims. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Case-in-point: As I have pointed out in the past, (and will touch on again below), his rhetoric of conditions placed on justification implies a belief in free will. Why complain (as he rather frequently does) </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">that people are not being forced to apply Christ's saving work to themselves, unless you actually think they can by their own free choice? In pointing this out though, Rydecki asserts that I have falsely attributed to him a position which he does not hold. Nevertheless, I never said that he held such a position. What I said is that his way of formulating the doctrine of justification implied such a position, even if he did not hold such a position explicitly. There is a difference. In writing on theology, Rydecki largely lists off Bible quotations and theologians from the period of High Orthodoxy with little sense that there is a kind of internal coherence to the articles of the faith, or that, perhaps, theological terminology is not always univocal, but changes over time. It never seems to occur to him that he must think through the implications of what he is teaching, rather than asserting such-and-such a doctrine because he can make a series of quotations say what he wants them to say.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Another example: At present the Intrepid Lutherans have an article up about how Huber sounds like statements made by certain Syncon theologians ( <a href="http://www.intrepidlutherans.com/2013/10/whose-line-is-it-anyway-concerning.html">http://www.intrepidlutherans.com/2013/10/whose-line-is-it-anyway-concerning.html</a>). Well, </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">so what? If they were using the words in exactly the same manner, that might be a meaningful criticism. But of course they aren't (and no serious theologian or historian thinks they are!), and, in fact, the Syncon theologians (Walther among them) taught a doctrine of election directly opposed to that of Huber. So what's the argument again?- they sound the same so that's sort of damning or something? Similarly, Walther discusses Huber's position in the <i>Baier Compendium</i> and rejects it in favor of Luther's in <i>Bondage of the Will</i>. All of this then falls apart and indeed reveals itself to be a deeply superficial way of dealing with not only the doctrine of justification, but a deeply weird and flawed theological and historical method. To put it very bluntly: If I wrote a journal article that used such logic, it would not be accepted for publication. If I had a written a graduate paper in my doctoral program that used such logic, it would have received a non-passing grade. But on the Internet, people can say whatever they want, I suppose.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><u>3. Justification as an Analytic or Synthetic Judgment:</u> For all his faults as a theologian, Albrecht Ritschl came up with an extremely useful way of grouping different doctrines of justification in his classic work <i>Die christliche Lehre von der Rechtfertigung und Versohnung</i>. He did so on the basis of the Kantian distinction between the analytical (a judgment that one gains by analyzing a thing "it is raining") or something that can be known <i>a priori </i>(categorically, it must either raining or not raining-one knows this prior to experience). Properly speaking, Rome holds a analytic view, because God declares people righteous insofar as they have appropriated infused grace. Pietism did as well, which is one of the reason that Karl Holl (a Swabian Pietist and student of Ritschl) wanted to make Luther's view into something analytical rather than synthetic. By contrast, the Reformation assumed that God declared people righteous before examining them. The declaration itself actually gave them the righteousness they needed (Christ's) and created the faith to appropriate it. </span><br />
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If we are to use Ritschl's terminology, Cascione quite clearly places Rydecki into the analytic category. In doing this, I think he's onto something here. One of the more odd aspects of how Rydecki conceptualizes justification is that he pictures the sinner somehow actively appealing in the heavenly courtroom to the "the throne of grace." Cascione writes (quoting Rydecki): <br />
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<span id="yui_3_10_3_1_1382476448151_882" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Here is another quote where Rydecki again has
justification dependent on the action of the sinner. “Second, that justification occurs in the
divine courtroom, not <span style="border: 1pt windowtext; padding: 0in;">without</span> the
accused fleeing in faith to the Throne of Grace, not <span style="border: 1pt windowtext; padding: 0in;">before </span>the
accused flees in faith to the Throne of Grace, but <span style="border: 1pt windowtext; padding: 0in;">simultaneously</span> with
this ‘fleeing’ or this ‘forensic appeal.’ This present-tense (that is,
concurrent with faith) absolution and justification is perfectly in keeping with
the language of the Augsburg Confession:”</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">As Cascione rightly observes, this reverses the proper relationship between the proclamation of grace and the action of the sinner. Grace comes and the sinner believes in the promise. If there's nothing to believe in already, then there can't be any faith. End of story. As Kurt Marquardt has pointed out, the language of Objective and Subjective Justification developed during the Silver Age of Orthodoxy precisely to deal with a kind of confusion that could arise from the doctrine of justification by faith (a confusion which Rydecki has unfortunately reproduced!). In other words, to be justified one must believe that they are justified. But if one is only justified by faith, then one would asking someone to believe something that wasn't already true. To solve the problem, Calov observes in his commentary on the Augustana that prior to our faith, God announces his unilateral forgiveness (Objective Justification), which we subsequently appropriate by faith (Subjective Justification). </span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Rydecki seems to have solved the problem in a different way than Calov, by creating an in-between state wherein the sinner believes in God's grace, but somehow doesn't have it yet. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Cascione also rightly points out that it is also a very bizarre way of thinking about faith in relationship to the knowledge of grace. That is to say, somehow the sinner knows of and therefore logically trusts that God's grace exists, but this doesn't count as faith until he makes some kind of "appeal." Beyond the logical problem of calling something that is faith not-faith, this theory also makes the mistake of conceptualizing the sinner as having an active part in his own justification. That is, the sinner actively chooses to appeal to the gospel ("the throne of grace") and then God subsequently makes his judgment about the sinner based on the sinner's action. This is utterly contrary to how Scripture, Luther, and the Lutheran Confessions think about faith. For Orthodox Lutheran theology, faith is not an <i>active choosing</i> of the <i>possibility</i> of divine grace, but a <i>passive receiving</i> of it as a <i>present reality</i>. This is why Luther refers to the life of faith as the <i>vita passiva</i>. I</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">t is also no good to claim (as Rydecki doubtless would) that one can only make this active appeal because the grace of God has worked this capacity in us. Even if this work is produced by God, it drives the sinner back to themselves in looking for assurance in an internal quality of faith in themselves- not in the unilateral word of grace proclaimed over them. In fact, this is really more like the Augustinian/Thomistic position that God crowns his own works within us. As a result, the distinction between law and gospel becomes the distinction between doing the Ten Commandments and doing the work of faith. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Therefore, Rydecki's "appeal to the throne of grace" theory fails because: A. It logically implies either limited atonement or <i>intuitu</i> <i>fidei</i>. B. Conceptualizes the sinner as active, rather than passive <i>coram Deo</i>. C. Places the sinner in a extremely odd position of somehow being in a state of believing the gospel, but not having appropriated divine grace. D. It turns justification from a synthetic judgment into an analytic judgment by insisting that God only justifies subsequent to the sinner's active appeal to the gospel, rather than conceptualizing God's forensic act as something which prompts the sinner to have faith. Again, we observe that Rydecki, unfortunately, may not have really thought through the implications of his own ideas.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><u>4. Failure to understand the sacramentality of the Word:</u> Again, one of the major difficulties with Rydecki's position is a failure to understand the effective nature of the means of grace, or to understand the Word as something sacramental. Cascione brings up a quotation from Luther (during his battle with Osiander over absolution) which deals with Objective Justification: </span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="border: 1pt windowtext; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; padding: 0in;"><b>“Even
he who does not believe that he is free and his sins forgiven shall also learn,
in due time, how assuredly his sins were forgiven, even though he did not
believe it. …A king gives you a castle. If you do not accept it, then it is not
the king’s fault, nor is he guilty of a lie. But you have deceived yourself and
the fault is yours. The king certainly gave it.”</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="border: 1pt windowtext; color: #333333; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; padding: 0in;">In his paper, Rydecki's answer to the use of this quotation is quite revealing. He states that this is about the Office of the Keys, and not about Objective Justification. Cascione states that it, of course, is about Objective Justification- and he's correct. Nevertheless, I think one can do better than Cascione's mere assertion that Rydecki is wrong. What Rydecki fails to see is that because the Word is sacramental, the Office of the Keys is identical with God's own eternal act of justifying the world "in Christ." Being in contact with the Word of absolution, means also being in contact with God's action of the justification of the world "in Christ." Of course, apart from Christ, God is still active in his Word of law and wrath- but being in contact with the Word of absolution is identical with being in contact with God as the justifer of the world. Failure to recognize or appreciate this is basically a failure to understand the coherence of Lutheran sacramental theory with the communication of attributes within the hypostatic union. Just as Christ's divinity is present in and through his humanity, so too are God's own eternal decrees present in and through the means of grace. Claiming that they are not is to repeat a mistake present in the Medieval tradition (after the manner of Peter Lombard) and in later Calvinism of distinguishing between the "will of the sign" and "will of good pleasure."</span></div>
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<span style="border: 1pt windowtext; color: #333333; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; padding: 0in;">Ironically then, Cascione does not see that the "sacerdotalism" which he so abhors is actually the key to defeating Rydecki's theory of justification. He tends to apply the term to those who hold that the word of the pastor is identical with the Word of God in absolution- or, at least, the in the case of William Cwirla and myself, that is how he has applied the term. Nonetheless, if there is an Objective Justification that does not degenerate into a hazy universalism (as it is in the imagaination of Rydecki and his followers), it must be channeled through the means of grace, administered by those called to ministry. Conversely, if ministers of the Word are authorized to proclaim the gospel as the very presence of God's salvation, then it must be grounded in the prior reality God's own universal and objective justification. Indeed, if this were not the case, how is it that Jesus could announce unilateral forgiveness to sinners? How could Paul indiscriminately tell the Romans whom he had never met that they were God's justified and elect? It is because God has justified the whole world and authorized a sacramental Word through which he channels this justification. Indeed, as Oswald Bayer has pointed out, the real "Reformation breakthrough" was not Luther's discovery of justification by faith alone, but rather the sacramentality of the Word. That is to say, the Reformer came to recognize that the words "I absolve you" by the minister were in fact identical with God's own judgment. Justification by faith was merely a consequence of this. </span><br />
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<span style="border: 1pt windowtext; color: #333333; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; padding: 0in;">In keeping with this, Luther makes this observation in his letter to the Nuremberg city council regarding the question of the general absolution. As he states, the proclamation of the gospel is the proclamation of a universal absolution:</span></div>
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<span style="border: 1pt windowtext; color: #333333; font-size: 12pt; padding: 0in;"><br /><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">"We cannot censure of reject general absolution for this reason: <b>the preaching of the holy gospel itself is a general absolution</b> in which the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to many people in the congregation publicly or to a single person alone, either publicly or privately. For this reason, although not all believe the absolution, it is not to be rejected. <b> </b>For every absolution, whether it takes place in a communal or individual setting must still be understood to demand faith and to help those who accept it..."</span></span>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">He goes on:</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">"....as the <b>gospel proclaims forgiveness to everyone in the whole world and excepts no one from the universal [proclamation]</b>." WA Br 6: 454, 5-17.</span></span></div>
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<span style="border: 1pt windowtext; color: #333333; font-size: 12pt; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Quoted from Wengert's new book on Osiander, </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Defending-Faith-Justification-Spatmittelalter-Reformation/dp/3161517989/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382708340&sr=1-1&keywords=Osiander"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">http://www.amazon.com/Defending-Faith-Justification-Spatmittelalter-Reformation/dp/3161517989/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382708340&sr=1-1&keywords=Osiander</span></a><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"> pg. 70:</span></span></div>
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Dr. Jack Kilcreasehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11362736419613180038noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780295056892403563.post-34570163307098201492013-09-06T11:35:00.000-07:002013-09-06T11:35:02.772-07:00First Review of my Book.September 4, 2013<br />
<b><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif"; font-size: 17pt;"> “</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif"; font-size: 17pt;">The Self-Donation of God: A Contemporary Lutheran approach to Christ and His Benefits” by Jack Kilcrease</span></b><span style="font-size: 22pt;"></span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">Reviewed by Jack Cascione</span></b><span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">“</span><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">The Self-Donation of God: A Contemporary Lutheran approach to Christ and His Benefits” by Jack Kilcrease, is a new publication by Wipf & Stock, 199 W. 8<sup>th</sup> Ave., Suite 3, Eugene OR 97401. Kilcrease, an LCMS layman, recently earned his Doctorate from Marquette and is an adjunct professor at Aquinas College and the Institute for Lutheran Theology.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">After he began reading Jack D. Kilcrease’s book Herman Otten decided he didn’t have the time to give it a thorough review. So he asked me to review it for him. With a wall of books on doctrine and exegesis I rarely pick up a book on doctrine for casual reading unless directed by the requirements of a sermon, debate, Bible study or research for writing. Most of my reading lies in exegetical interests.</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">With an average of five footnotes on each of his 10 by 7 inch, 310 pages in small print with notoriously small Pieperian quotes, I believe Kilcrease actually read the 1400 volumes in his 35 page Bibliography. He should also considered publishing two if not three different books rather than squeeze all this information into one edition.</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">After reading his book (and it took a while) would I buy it? The answer is absolutely yes. However, my answer is based on self-interest. Also, do not read Kilcrease’s book without a highlighter and a pencil. He does not include an index or list of Scripture verses. The book is so condensed careful reading, and at times re-reading, is required. More than a third of every page consists of quotes from other authors. I averaged about four highlights per page and wrote notes to myself about every third page.</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">As a reviewer, I count Chemnitz’s “Two Natures of Christ” one of the ten greatest books written by man; therefore Kilcrease’s approach to Christology was of particular interest. Based on my expectations his book had strengths, weakness, surprises, and question marks.</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">Let’s begin at the beginning. The first 130 pages were the most difficult. Suddenly on page 131 he becomes a different writer, but I had to finish reading the book to find out why.</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">He begins with an 8 page endorsement of the Doctrine of Inspiration similar to those found in the Concordia Commentaries, to which he and most of the Concordia writers do not refer again after the introduction. In other words, the Doctrine of Inspiration does not direct his theology. He certainly agrees with it, but his interests lie elsewhere.</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">Worship, redemption, atonement, and liturgy are his dominant themes, the current conservative Lutheran chic recoiling from the entropy of the Church Growth Movement.</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">Kilcrease begins with a review of Christology in the Old Testament followed by the New Testament and engages in 130 pages of the most extensive citations of parallels, allusions, analogies, symbolism, typologies, comparisons, and allegories I’ve ever read by a Lutheran writer and he does it very well. Page after page he enumerates parallels under the chapter titles, “Mediation in the Old Testament Part 1,” and “Part 2,” “Christology and Atonement in the New Testament Part 1,” and “Part 2,” and “The Mystery of the Person of Christ Part 1,” and “Part 2.” The following are just five of the hundreds of allusions in his book:</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">“In the tabernacle the seven planets appear to be represented by the seven lamp stands.” (Page 25)</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">“Revelation 4:3 places this rainbow behind Christ and therefore sees Jesus as the ultimate fulfillment of God’s promise of peace with creation.” (Page 30)</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">“In fact, one is careful to tell us that the place where Jesus was crucified also had a garden (i.e., in reminiscence of the garden-temple) nearby: ‘Now in the place where he was crucified there was garden.’” (Page 71-2)</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">“Christ lying dead on the cross is reminiscent of Adam asleep giving birth to Eve out of his side.” (Page 73)</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">“Just as they were driven east out of the garden (Gen 3), so Israel is driven east out of the garden land (Gen 11).” (Page 124)</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">Later, I realized that my difficulty in reading the first 130 pages was that I could not identify a narrative or storyline because Kilcrease is actually cataloguing parallels. I found the parallels a valuable resource to illustrate a sermon or discuss in a Bible class or include in a devotion or in an article. The first 130 pages could be published separately and expanded with more explanation under the title “Prophetic Parallels about Jesus from the Bible,” though I doubt this was the author’s intent.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">The collection of all these parallels into one volume is worth the price of the book. But, “Why so many? He couldn’t possibly record them all. For example He didn’t include parallels relating to Jacob’s marriage to an ugly woman, Jacob’s selection of speckled sheep, or Joseph’s explanation of the Butler’s and the Baker’s dreams. The answer must be that Kilcrease couldn’t resist quoting a good parallel when he saw one, and then another, and then another.</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">While he lists all these parallels Kilcrease offers a theological defense for the preincarnate Christ in the Old Testament (page 18), Moses as the mediator of the law (page 21,) and the preincarnate Christ as Mediator of the Gospel (Page 22). He then gives a remarkable discourse on the threefold office of the preincarnate Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King in the Old Testament (Pages 25-50).</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">Kilcrease’s source (Page 21) for Moses meaning “son” in Egyptian, (Dozeman, 2009) should be Cassuto’s Exodus (1951), who is not included in the bibliography. A Jewish exegete, Umberto Cassuto’s scholarship surpasses Whellhausen and Keil-Delitzsch. The point is that Kilcrease’s book would benefit from a more thorough exegetical development of his theology.</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">Kilcrease cites (Page 30) Daly (1978) for his source on relating circumcision to a bloody sacrifice. However, Cassuto writes, “<i>Surely a bloody-bride-groom are you to me</i>, meaning, I am delivering you from death—indeed, I am restoring you to life—by means of your son’s blood; and your return to life makes you, as it were, my bridegroom a second time, this time a blood-bridegroom, a bridegroom acquired through blood.” (Exodus Page 60-61) On page 135 Cassuto relates the blood of circumcision to the blood of the Passover. Cassuto also sees every manifestation of the Malach YHWH, the Angel of the Lord, (one of Kilcease’s major themes) as the presence of God in the Old Testament.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">Again, my point is that Kilcrease tries to cover too much territory without sufficient exegetical support. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">Cassuto, arguably the most significant Hebrew writer and scholar since the Masoretes, who labors endlessly to defend the veracity of the text against the Documentary Hypothesis, knows nothing of Christ, and refuses to explain who “He” is in Genesis <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_992061429" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ">3:15</span></span>. Here is perhaps my greatest disappointment with Kilcrease. He does not sufficiently expound the protoevangelian, the first Gospel, a term he cites on numerous occasions. In order to have validity, the fulfillment of all Old Testament prophecy must be anchored in Genesis <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_992061430" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ">3:15</span></span>. This was Kilcrease’s opportunity to break down the verse word by word, trace the words through the Old and New Testament, cite its historical usage in the church, explain who confessed it, who rejected it, relate it to other doctrines, and validate all of his parallels about Christ in the Old Testament.</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">Kilcrease’s attempts to construct a unified theology out of his outstanding array of parallels are less than convincing. Parallel’s make thin soup. Page after page he resorts to caveats instead of affirming absolutes such as: “have <i>suggested</i> (Page 73),” “<i>reminiscent</i> of Adam (Page 73),” “<i>if</i> Jesus (Page 73),” “Christ is <i>portrayed</i> (Page 82),” “the scene contains <i>overtones</i> (Page 84)” “John <i>evokes</i> several intertextual <i>echoes</i> (Page 85),” “this passage <i>echoes</i> the portrayal (Page 85),” “it may be <i>inferred</i> (Page 103),” etc. These are only a sampling of Kilcreases indefinite doctrinal propositions. Layered on top of these numerous allusions is a steady drum beat for liturgy and liturgical worship such as “Creation is therefore a liturgical narrative of divine glorification.” (Page 97) I confess; I am guilty; I have never worshipped God as I should.</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">The catalogue of parallels with Christ are worth the price of the book but the first 130 pages lack sufficient development and is layered with too many themes including atonement, redemption liturgy and worship.</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">For this writer, Kilcrease’s most significant offering in the first 130 pages, perhaps an innovation, was his theme of Jesus as Prophet Priest and King in the Old Testament. This whole section would be well suited as a separate book with broader attestation from the Early Church, the Reformers, various traditions, and Hebrew scholars.</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">Suddenly on page 131 another Kilcrease emerges. He is clearly more confident, at ease and exact about his subject. The caveats in the first part of the book fade away and Kilcrease starts writing with more and more certainty. In the second half of the book he quotes Luther, the Confessions, Chemnitz, Gerhard, Melanchthon, Pieper, and many other Lutheran Reformers. He argues against Calvin, Zwingli and others, why they are wrong, why the Lutherans were right, supplies abundant proof texts from Scripture and develops one theme at a time. He addresses the views of numerous 20<span>th</span> century theologians including Bultmann, Harnack, Pannenburg, Elert, Wingren and so many others I can’t name them all. There is continuity, theme, plot and pros and cons. Before I knew it, I had read 60 pages rather than struggle with10 pages a day in First Kilcrease.</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">In Second Kilcrease it becomes evident that he is skilled in analyzing, condensing, and explaining the theological positions of other theologians. His adroit summary of various Christological controversies was great reading. Here again his book is worth the purchase price, if for no other than his rare ability to give a concise and clear explanation of complicated issues. I wish I had his book before covering the second volume of Pieper at the seminary. At times I thought I was reading Pieper. He takes the reader with absolute confidence through the three genuses. One would have preferred that he had covered even more of the many issues in Christology than he did. You guessed it. He should write another book titled “A Review of Christology.”</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">He gives an informative examination of the Catholic position on the virgin birth. Otten will appreciate his defense of Isaiah <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_992061431" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ">7:14</span></span> (Page 134). One wishes for a similar treatment of Gen. <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_992061432" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ">3:15</span></span>.</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">Perhaps His review of Christ’s threefold office of Prophet, Priest, and King, in the New Testament in relation to the Trinity is his own contribution. I don’t have enough familiarity with the subject. While rejecting Gustaf Aulen’s views on Christus Victor, Kilcrease embraces Aulen’s motifs on Christ’s conquest, substitution, and revelation in the threefold office. Kilcrease writes,“…when properly understood each office of Christ correlates to an atonement motif.” (Page 200) This was new for me.</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">Kilcrease does a high wire act tracing the Doctrine of Atonement through the threefold office of Christ in relation to the Trinity. That’s what I said, and I understood him. For example he writes: “Because the threefold office and action of reconciliation expresses the unity of Triune agency in creation and redemption, each office and work of reconciliation corresponds to a person of the Trinity.” (Page 208) This was fascinating to say the least and deserves further attention.</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">As strong as Kilcrease is in Christology he is surprising short on the Doctrine of Justification. He argues against self-justification throughout the book. However, where he discusses redemption or redeemer on nearly every page, justification lacks attention. He brings up justification on pages 140-141, 248-49, and 255-58. There is a brief mention of imputation, reconciliation and baptism. When he does expound the Doctrine of Justification it lacks the depth and insight he gives to redemption and atonement.</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">On balance the New Testament (KJV) does not use the word “Redeemer.” “Redemption,” appears 11 times and “redeem,” and “redeemed,” appear 11 times and “atonement,” just one time. However, “justification,” “justify,” “justified,” appear 41 times. “Righteous” and “righteousness” appear 144 times. Kilcrease gives the same curtsy to objective and subjective justification at the end of the book that he gave to inspiration at the front of the book. To what do we owe this lack of balance?</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">Most likely, Kilcrease, who is highly influenced by the Fort Wayne faculty, is following Fort Wayne’s admiration for Greek Orthodoxy and the Early Church. David Scaer gives Kilcrease a glowing forward and Kilcrease quotes him at least 20 times in his book, including many quotes by Just, Gieschen, Richard Mueller, Marquart, also Gibbs from St. Louis. </span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">There are a few things I question about Kilcrease’s views. He states that theologians of glory seek righteousness “through knowing and doing.” (Page 106) That’s a broad statement. “Doing” yes, but how else can I gain righteousness except by knowing Scripture?</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">Forgiveness as an ability smacks of Sacerdotalism when he writes, “Not only are the disciples given the ability to forgive in Jesus name…” (Page 194) Isn’t the “ability” to forgive given through the word alone, and is not a spiritual gift in the individual?</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">He infers that John 6 is addressing the Lord’s Supper when he writes, “He does so by literally giving the sacrificed substance of his being on which they are to masticate. This flesh and blood is something living (John <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_992061433" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ">6:53</span></span>-58).” He then cites FC SD Article 8; CT 1035 “On the Person of Christ” while Article 7 is on the Lord’s Supper, not Article 8. (Page 194)</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">When he finally discusses Christ’s propitiation it is in terms of Evangelical excess rather than expounding the most important synonym for justification in the Apology. (Page 212)</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">I think it is speculation to suggest that Adam possessed what we understand to be “the divine righteousness of faith” before the fall. Kilcrease will need more evidence from Scripture to expound on the nature of Adam’s faith. (Page 147)</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">The Doctrine of Inspiration should be the primary source to which Lutherans look for relevance before they enlist the support of tradition, church history, and ritual.</span><span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT","serif";">This review is a cursory examination of an important book and subject to the limitations of this writer. Our advice is, “Buy this book and read it for yourself.” It will be an important addition to any pastor’s library and Lutheran discourse on the Two Natures Christ. Kilcrease is sure to be quoted in many future Lutheran works.</span><span></span><br />
<br />Dr. Jack Kilcreasehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11362736419613180038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780295056892403563.post-90725775686979613522013-08-06T10:52:00.001-07:002013-08-06T12:12:54.852-07:00Brad Gregory's "Unintended Reformation": Part 1Brad Gregory, professor of history at Notre Dame, has written a history of what he considers to be the unintended consequences of the Protestant Reformation: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674045637/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-4&pf_rd_r=0597AA3A2CBXCEE9QY93&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470939031&pf_rd_i=507846">http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674045637/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-4&pf_rd_r=0597AA3A2CBXCEE9QY93&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470939031&pf_rd_i=507846</a> I am at present writing a book on Scripture and tradition as a means of responding to his (and Christian Smith's) attacks on <em>Sola Scriptura</em>. After having read a number of chapters, I have some preliminary critiques of his position. I will share them in this blog post and in future ones.<br />
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1. Gregory's method has much to be desired. He claims that he is looking at the entire flow of the historical process, and not just motive of individual actors. For this reason, he believes he can largely ignore what individuals intended or said, and rather subsume them in the consequences of their behavior and teachings. Hence, the Magisterial Refomers' may have had some pretty good and reasonable intentions, but everything they did eventually degenerated into the Richard Dawkins and Walmart, and so, we can judge them by these fruits. This is a particularly odd argument coming from a person who is a Catholic apologist (as we will see, this book is largely a work of Catholic apologetics that tells us not much about the real Reformation, but the current mood of North American Catholic intellectuals!). One could certainly claim that the architects of the Papal monarchy had some good intentions, but that their ultimate result was the abuses of the Renaissance Papacy- which used ideological and theological resources of the earlier Papal theologians and Canon Lawyers to shore up their corruptions. If one group can be held responsible for the unintended consequences of their ideas, then certainly another can as well!<br />
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2. Gregory's book is an extremely sophisticated and learned work of Catholic apologetics (This is not Patrick Madrid!). In terms of its content, it isn't that original. It is a synthesis of several Catholic and Anglo-Catholic theologians and philosophers (Charles Taylor, John Milbank, and Alasdair Macintyre in particular) attacks on modernity and postmodernity. What's original about is treatment is that he is able to synthesize them into one big narrative that attacks the Reformation and then the modern world from a number of different angles. He also gives lots and lots of footnotes (140 pages worth!) creating the impression of extreme erudition- something which he certainly does possess. As we will see though, there are a couple of problems that this appearance of erudition conceals. First, is the fact that the narratives feed to us by Taylor, Milbank, and Macintyre have a fragment of truth in them, but are largely false, and in many cases are based on a misunderstanding of late Medieval theology, and a rank ignorance of Reformation theology. Secondly, although Gregory uses lots and lots of sources, he frequently makes major assertions without any citation to back them up. He also ignores the work of major scholars in the fields that he studies and massive amounts of data that contradict his thesis. In the end, the result is less than satisfactory.<br />
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3. In this present blog post I'd like focus on the issue of the univocity of being, present in Gregory's first chapter. According to Gregory, prior to Duns Scotus, Christian theologian were generally followers of the idea of the analogy of being, i.e., the idea that God is supremely and really being itself, whereas creatures are analogically or derivatively beings. As we've discussed in previous blog posts, this way of speaking about God grows out of Augustine's appropriation of the idea of divine simplicity, and although it was not shared by Eastern theologians (who distinguished between essence and energies as a means of accomplishing the same task) it basically did form for western theology a way of relating God and his creatures, and to account for the possibility of critically-realistic propositional statement about God.<br />
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According to Gregory, Duns Scotus wrecked everything with the doctrine of the univocity of being, whereby he claimed that "being" was a reality that encompassed both God and creatures and therefore statements about God and creatures ("God is good" "creatures are good") meant exactly the same thing. <br />
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This book seems to largely assume that De Lubac, Milbank, and (indirectly) Gilson's understanding of how the evolution Christian thought occurred in the later Middle Ages is historically accurate. In my humble opinion, this is not correct. As Heiko Oberman and Steven Ozment have pointed out, part of the difficulty with this narrative is that the claim of a fall from the purity of Thomistic analogy to Nominalist nihilism and univocity is largely fictional, and something of an outgrowth of the ideological concerns of the Neo-Thomistic revival. Since for the Manual Theologians and their compatriots Thomism was the cream of western Christian thought, anything that came after it (including the Nominalists and Reformers) was a falling away from its perfection. This of course one of the reasons that Oberman called his book <em>The Harvest of Medieval Theology</em> since he wanted to emphasize that the thought of the later Middle Ages was not a falling away from the primal glory of Thomism, but in many respects a fulfillment of the trajectory of earlier trends.<br />
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Moreover, Richard Cross (who is probably the foremost English speaking scholar of Scotus- and a colleague of Gregory's at Notre Dame!!!) has pointed out that Milbank and the Radical Orthodox (and Balthasar in the fourth volume of <em>The Glory of the Lord</em> before them) have essentially misread Scotus on the issue of univocity (See his very help article directed against Milbank here: <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=eFDtL8PpkHcC&pg=PA65&dq=Richard+Cross,+John+Milbank,+Duns+Scotus&hl=en&sa=X&ei=fg4BUuDGF47OyAHuu4GoDg&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Richard%20Cross%2C%20John%20Milbank%2C%20Duns%20Scotus&f=false">http://books.google.com/books?id=eFDtL8PpkHcC&pg=PA65&dq=Richard+Cross,+John+Milbank,+Duns+Scotus&hl=en&sa=X&ei=fg4BUuDGF47OyAHuu4GoDg&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Richard%20Cross%2C%20John%20Milbank%2C%20Duns%20Scotus&f=false</a>. Scotus' point was not that God and creatures were all in the same ontological category (he knew better!- he agreed with Aquinas that God was "Goodness" and "Wisdom" itself and creatures were only so derivatively). Though the whole reasoning process is complex, basically Scotus's point was about language. Scotus thought that analogy made language about God merely equivocal. If a word is "like" God, but also somehow infinitely distinct from God, then it isn't really saying much of anything other than a sort of "yes and no." Hence, for Scotus, univocity is about language and isn't really about ontology at all. Scotus wanted clear, unequivocal propositional language about God (incidentally this is also why Carl F. Henry favored univocity!)- he didn't believe that God and creatures were in the same ontological category. Milbank has tried to resist Cross on this point, but he's really not the expert that Cross is on Scotus. Occam also knew that there was an infinite distinction between divine reality and created reality. He said that there was "no proportion" between divinity and the created being.<br />
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The person many intellectual historians consider the real creator of the idea of the univocity of being in its proper sense of the term (that is, God and creatures being in the same general category of being) would be Francisco Suarez, who quite unashamedly states that there are two sorts of being, infinite and finite (interestingly enough, he did so under the guise of trying to interpret Thomas' analogy!). That being said, Suarez is not the only ontological game in town in the early modern period. Also, in spite of the assumption of Milbank, almost no one bought into the univocity of being. In the later Middle Ages and the early modern period, there were all sorts of different theological traditions (Thomism obvious still being a live option). Moreover, although the Reformers didn't really talk much about the analogy of being (Luther does actually use the idea in the <em>Heidelberg Disputation</em> and in the Genesis commentary as part of a natural theology argument for God's existence) the Protestant Scholastics overwhelming did accepted it. I was recently speaking with Richard Muller, and he has a article coming out in Renaissance Review where he surveys 20 different Reformed Protestant scholastic authors, 18 of which reject the univocity of being in favor of the analogy of being. The Lutheran scholastics (within my own tradition) are the same way. Quenstedt thoroughly rejects univocity, as does Hollaz, in favor of analogy. Gerhard rejects both univocity and analogy, and then in practice thinks in terms of analogy. The theological text book of my denomination (LCMS), Francis Pieper's <em>Christian Dogmatics</em>, endorses analogy, and (again!) rejects univocity.<br />
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Gregory accounts for none of this data, and pretty much just assumes that Milbank is right about the horrible effects of univocity, even though it's demonstrable that Scotus' univocity wasn't really an ontological claim (which is the only way that Milbank's argument could work) and in any case it was believed in by almost no one . In spite of these facts, Gregory claims that most of the new university created in the later Middle Ages taught univocity. This is an odd claim insofar as he simply asserts this and gives no data to support it (statistical or otherwise). It also incongruous with the fact that late Medieval thought was extremely diverse, with different university possessing several different faculties in many cases (Wittenberg had three different traditions represented!).<br />
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So, what does this have to do with the Reformation? According to Gregory, a couple of things. First, the Reformers accepted univocity and spread the poison. Of course this is utterly false, and in fact Gregory is hard pressed to quote any of the Reformers teaching univocity (which is why he never does!). The best he can come up with is a tortured argument about how Zwingli's rejection of the real presence was based on univocity (I find it hard to follow the argument, frankly). Of course, there is no real examination of Zwingli own arguments here. Moreover, if rejection of the real presence is based on univocity, why then did Ratramus, Gottschalk, and Berengar reject it (hundreds of years earlier!), when they lack Duns Scotus as an intellect resource? Mysterious indeed!<br />
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In any case, the Reformation created endless theological debates between Catholics and Protestants through the latter's doctrine of <em>Sola Scriptura</em>. This had two effects: First, since Protestants attacked Aristotle, the Catholic Church was forced to double down on his philosophy (actually, only the younger Luther really attacked Aristotle, along with Humanists and some other early Reformers. Melanchthon later made Aristotle the basis of teaching at Wittenberg and the Lutheran scholastics followed him. Also, the Reformed scholastics followed a similar trajectory). Because of this, the Catholic Church placed itself in the position where it would have to condemn Galileo (for deviating from Aristotle) and therefore look anti-Scientific to secular folk (hence, even the Galileo trial is Martin Luther's fault!). This drove away secular intellectuals. Secondly, since Catholics and Protestant were fighting with each other, intellectuals had to look for other means of finding knowledge apart from theology- that is, stuff that they could all agree on as either Protestant or Catholic (math works even when you don't believe in Transubstantiation). They therefore in the 17th century increasingly turned to math and science (all very true!). Since in the new scientific rationalism, thinkers assumed univocity, wherein God became a being among beings, and a cause among causes, they quickly either identified God with being in general and became either Atheists or Pantheists (Spinoza, as I have pointed out in the past could be read either way!), or Deists (God is the one, original cause- but still a cause among causes!). This explains the silliness of the contemporary "New Atheists" who merrily believe that they've destroyed God by making naturalistic explanation of phenomenon. If one assumes the classical Christian understanding of God's transcendence and active presence in and through his creation hidden under every cause, this makes little sense. It only makes sense if one has a crude univocal understanding of God as a cause like every other! Having delineated an explanation of every cause in the created order, one no longer finds a place for God. He therefore becomes unnecessary as a casual agent, and therefore Atheism is the only logical option (Dawkins frequently follows this silly line of reasoning, showing he knows nothing about classical Christian theism).<br />
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This latter critique is quite good and it's very similar to many of the arguments that I've made in the past on this blog. Gregory has other thoughts on science and religion which I generally agree with and have argued myself in the past (he makes very good points about miracles in particular!). Of course, this provokes the question: Why not just say that the rot started with the idea of univocity of being created by Suarez in the 17th century, and then appropriated by scientific rationalism? Why bring the Reformation or poor Duns Scotus into it, when the evidence for this so bad?<br />
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The answer is clear if one doesn't forget what sort of book they're reading. One is not actually reading a history book (perhaps in a very tendentious sense one is! But that's it). One is reading a Catholic apologetics book and so, this history needs to prove that the Catholic Church is the savior of a western civilization that has destroyed itself through rationalism and moral decadence. So, hence, the Reformation cannot be blameless because it would call back western civilization back to Christianity in general, and not specifically Roman Catholic-Thomistic Christianity. Hence, Suarez can't be to blame (as if one could even responsibly pin such blame in a mono-causal manner on any individual!!!). After all, he was a Catholic and a Thomist at that! It needs to be a located between Thomas (the Catholic ideal) and before the rise of scientific rationalism so as to implicate the Reformers. Since they don't conform the to the Thomistic ideal, they're part of the problem and not part of the solution. If they are not implicated, then they and their theology much serve as an equally good civilization ideal which could alongside Catholicism serve as a bulwark against the degeneracy of contemporary western culture. But that cannot be. The Catholic Church alone and Thomism as a theology can serve that purpose. And so Gregory gives us this fanciful narrative, built up by the Neo-Thomism in the late 19th century, and repeated robotically by the <em>Nouvelle Theologie</em> and Radical Orthodoxy, without verifying it, or making much of a believable argument for it. Insofar as he notes that modern thinkers work from a crude univocal notion of God and being (Heiddegger's onto-theology), he has a good point. But the stuff about late Medieval theology and the Reformation is wrong. It's not only wrong, it's simplistic, and very easy to disprove.Dr. Jack Kilcreasehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11362736419613180038noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780295056892403563.post-87854924606042178022013-07-15T06:16:00.000-07:002013-07-15T06:16:58.415-07:00Fleeing from God not Preached to God Preached: The Shape of the Christian Life.Before his death, Luther claimed that <i>The Bondage of the Will</i> and the Catechisms were the only things that he had written that were worth reading. I think I have already article in my mind about how one should read them in light of one another, but that would be a much larger post. What I'm interested in focusing on here is Luther's constant refrain in the discussion of the Ten Commandments "We should fear and love so that..." How should we take this? If we follow Luther's own words as a hermeneutical key (namely that the BOW and the Catechism are his best works and therefore a definitive representation of his thinking), "fearing and loving" should be understood in terms of Luther's own dialectic of the hidden and revealed God.<br />
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For those unfamiliar, in BOW Luther speaks of God preached and God not preached. If we look at creation as a whole as a sphere of God's activity, the logic of God's action will appears incomprehensible to us. Whereas God in his revelation in Word and sacrament states "I will not delight in the death of the sinner," God insofar as he works all things certainly does work death to sinners. He of course does this for good reason: All are born with original sin. The difficulty is that to some, through his electing will, God approaches through Word and sacrament, and converts, justifies, and sanctifies them. Others (who are of course no less sinful), he does not work faith and works their destruction. God therefore works within his creation through many divine masks (<i>larva Dei</i>)<i>, </i>through some he redeems, through others he destroys. There is no "thinking into" revelation (as in many Neo-Platonically inspired Christian theologies: Augustine, Barth, Aquinas, Calvin, etc.) to see why this is the case and not another situation. God is not just incomprehensible, but actively hides behind his mask and (to use Forde's phrase) "shuffles" them at will. This reality is a natural outgrowth of the dialectic of law and gospel: In some masks, God comes to us as law and in others as gospel. Since the law and the gospel are actually opposites, there is no "thinking into" them. Both are the will of God, but we actually can't see how they are internally coordinated in God's mind. The best we can do is to see from the perspective of faith how the law drove us to the gospel and how Christ has fulfilled the law on our behalf. Nevertheless, these are not realities latent in the law itself and so the mystery of the divine hiddeness remains.<br />
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Within this situation, what is the Christian to do? Luther tells us that the revealed God of the gospel, that is, the God of grace, is God's real self (despite what might be considered evidence to the contrary!). When we approach God hidden, or God under his masks of law, we can only find condemnation- something actually alien to God in his proper nature (<i>opus alienum</i>). Consequently, we should flee from the God of hiddenness and wrath, to the God of grace, that is, from God not preached to God preached. Nevertheless, if both are God, how do we know that God preached is the more authentic of the two? In the Galatians commentary, Luther talks about God in his hiddenness and wrath condemning and destroying Jesus who bears the sins of the world. The law (in a sense) tries to destroy the promise by condemning Jesus who has entered into solidarity with those under the God of hiddenness and wrath. In spite of this, Jesus atones for sin, undoes the power of the law, and reveal God's true heart. Since Jesus (the revealed God of grace) has gone up against the hidden God of wrath and law, and come out the other side victorious, those who are united with him by faith can also share in his victory and therefore have nothing to fear from God not preached. <br />
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Faith clings to the revealed God against the hidden God, and therefore the shape of the Christian life of trust is fleeing from one to the other. This can be observed throughout the history of salvation. With Adam and Eve, God establishes his relationship with them through two trees- the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God attaches his promise to all the trees of the garden as means of mediating the good to them ("you may eat..."). He gives them the tree of life as a sacrament of immortality. Nonetheless, he also establish the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as an alternative to the means of his grace. This was not a test (Wesley, John of Damascus), or a means of earning their glorification (Reformed Federal theology), but rather a manifestation of the irrationality of God not preached. In other words, the tree is in a sense inexplicable. Why put the possibility of becoming evil in the midst of the good creation? Such is a mystery, a manifestation of the hidden God. Nevertheless, it was also formative of the obedience of Adam and Eve, which ultimately constituted a sacrifice of praise to God (Luther). Finding God not preached through the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, structure of their believing existence was the fleeing from God not preached (that is, God of irrational, destructive condemnation) to God preached, i.e., his manifestation in the other trees of the garden and the tree of life. They only enter into sin and condemnation when they sought God not preached and ignore God as his was manifested in his Word to them.<br />
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We can of course name other examples of this: Jacob is attacked by the hidden God by the river, but seeks the name and therefore self-donating gift of the preached God who had already covenanted with him. Moses is attacked by God unpreached (for no apparent reason) on his return to Egypt, but his wife circumcises their son, and the attack is ended when God preached (that is, the God of the gospel manifested in the promise connected to circumcision) is sought. Lastly, God unpreached is encountered on Sinai (much to the terror of Israel), but he establishes himself later as God preached in the Tabernacle and later on Mt. Zion as the preached God who (as John Kleinig has shown) sacramentally channels his alien holiness to the people.<br />
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Turning to the Catechisms, I would argue that when Luther speaks of "fearing and loving" God he is talking precisely about this fleeing from one God to another. God not preached cannot be trusted, and does nothing but promote unbelief in his goodness by his irrational and terrifying presence. And so one must seek God where he has given his Word and promised to be gracious. Perfect faith means perfect obedience to God's Word because it means that we trust in what God is doing in his different masks that he has attached a word to. This is why Luther states in his discussion of the first commandment that it is both the gospel (we need no other gods than God, because he is supremely trustworthy) and a summary of the law. In trusting God as a gracious God, we trust what he says about all his creatures and the goods which he will give to us through them. We trust that God has put parents and other authorities above us for our good. We trust that God has channeled certain goods connected with our sexuality through marriage, and consequently we don't need to seek them elsewhere. Finally, we trust that God will ultimately take care of us and so we don't need to covet, lie, or steal. Hence, all the commandments demand faith in God, and each commandment is merely an illustration of what trusting in God looks like and what it does not look like. If one looks to God not preached and away from God's promises to channel the good through his creatures that he makes in Holy Scripture, one will of course become terrified and unbelieving. One will seek the good autonomously, apart from God's promises and consequently look for it in the wrong sources. One will grasp at it, because this will be the only means of securing it. One will in effect make themselves their own god through self-trust. Hence, we must flee from God not preached ("fear") found in the inappropriate means of gaining the good, and cling to God preached ("love") in order to believe God's commandments.Dr. Jack Kilcreasehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11362736419613180038noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780295056892403563.post-52416477202068071582013-06-24T10:11:00.001-07:002013-06-24T10:11:15.371-07:00Scripture and Tradition: Part 1.At present I've been working on a new book project (one of the reasons why I haven't been posting much lately). The subject is scripture and tradition. Part of my goal is to respond to the recent criticisms of <i>sola scriptura</i> waged by Brad Gregory and Christian Smith. Their main criticism is that Scripture alone cannot serve as a basis of doctrinal authority because everyone disagrees about what scripture means. For Gregory this takes on an indictment of the entire modern world: Medieval Catholicism provided civilizational unity, but Protestantism created disunity and thereby brought about the secular nation-state. Secularism now threats all Christians and so wouldn't it have been better had we just left the Pope in charge?<br />
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The problem Gregory and Smith's accounts are several fold. There's a lot of places where one could begin, so I'll make some of my initial criticism of their theological concept of authority. One major problem is that practically speaking the magisterial authority of the RCC doesn't accomplish much of anything. Catholics disagree with each other all of the time. Liberal and conservative Catholics dislike each other and have less in common than orthodox Lutherans and Calvinists. When the Pope speaks, people just ignore him if they don't like what he says. There's literally no enforcing it, since we now have freedom of religion, a principle validated by the RCC at the II Vatican council. In any case, most of what the Pope says (by the standards of Catholic theology itself!) lacks absolute theological authority anyways. It's part of the ordinary magisterium (which can be fallible, even if it's authoritative for the time being), and not the extraordinary (which is technically infallible). According to most Catholic theologians, the pope has only really infallible twice (1854 and 1950- when he declared the dogmas of the immaculate conception and assumption). Though technically authoritative, since the ordinary magisterium is capable of error, the message for most Catholic dissidents is clear: Just wait the ordinary magisterium out. Case-in-point, Henri De Lubac was silence for 20 years by Pius the XII for his views of grace and nature (primarily). John the XXIII then made him the leader of the II Vatican council, which based many of its decisions on his views of grace and nature which had been previously condemned. <br />
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Beyond this, there is the issue that the extraordinary magisterium has often contradicted itself. Lateran IV taught that heretics should be killed by secular governments, Vatican II said everyone had the right to freedom of religion. Trent states that virginity is superior to marriage. Vatican II says that they are equal. Vatican I says that the Church is irreformable, Vatican II says that it is always reforming. <br />
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Popular Catholic apologists often brag of the certainty that having a magisterium provides, but this is far from the truth. Most teachings are not infallibility and therefore can be changed over time. Ultimately, Catholics will have to wait-and-see if certain decision of the magisterium will hold and will ultimately prove essential part of the faith, or will give way to a "new understanding" (as it is often put). For this reason, on many issues their faith will not be infallible or final, but merely provisional- making the faith itself provision to a certain extent. Moreover, many decision of the Popes which were believed to be infallible (<em>Una Sanctum</em>, for example), are no longer regarded as such. In light of the theory of the development of doctrine (introduced by Moehler and Newman) it is easy to simply claim that the Spirit has now "evolved" a "new understanding" and to classify a once infallible teaching to the realm of fallibility. By contrast, orthodox Lutherans and Reformed hold to the same confessions as their ancestors and therefore the same faith as they did in the 16th and 17th centuries.<br />
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Beyond this, the same problems of interpretation holds for ordinary Catholics. Many would-be Catholic apologists have told me that I cannot have "supernatural" faith, because my faith rests not on infallible teaching (since I do not claim that anyone other than authors of Scripture were infallible), but on interpretative opinions of fallible humans (namely, Luther and Melanchthon). Nevertheless, even if one accepted their premise (my faith actually rests on the Word and the Spirit, which are infallible- that is an argument for a future post!) the problem remains that I myself am not infallible and I am the one who is ultimately interpreting when I read the decisions of the Popes and the councils. Following the Catholic apologists' premises, there is ultimately no difference between our epistemic standing. So, on the one hand, we have fallible people interpreting an infallible source (Protestants reading the Bible) and on the other hand, fallible people interpreting an infallible source (Catholics reading the teachings of the magisterium). In response, some Catholic have argued to me that "the Bible cannot clarify itself if it is misinterpreted, whereas a Prelate can!" This is false for three reasons though. 1. The Bible is the living Word of God, and God can use it to act on the believer to correct their false understanding of the Bible (again, more on this later!). 2. A Pope or Council who "clarifies" itself will do so by writing a new document, which will also be opened to interpretation- which may result in error. 3. A dead pope or other church authority can no longer clarify himself. His writings can be manipulated as much as anything written document to serve anyone's purpose. All the Catholic Church does in its magisterium is produce more written documents which are no less subject to the subjective interpretation than an infallible Bible is. This explains the strife and descensions that has always plagued the RCC. Protestantism has the same problem, but without a unified institutional hierarchy. So, everyone is in the same boat!<br />
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Lastly, the problem with the Catholic idea of the magistrium is that it rests on the premise that the Church is guided by the Spirit without any way to prove this. Most modern Catholic theologians rely on the theory of the development of doctrine, claiming that although their positions on a variety of subjects are not technically found in Scripture or any of the earlier Fathers, the Holy Spirit has prompted the Roman magisterium to develop certain dogmas over time. To outsiders, this reads like an admission of the Protestant claim that the RCC corrupted the faith over many centuries by producing new dogmas. Likewise, the difficulty is that there is no way of proving this and we are supposed to take their word for it that they weren't really corrupting the original revelation and that they were just following the prompting of the Spirit to develop new teachings. Similarly, there are several organizations which claim to have the Spirit, such as the Mormons, the JWs, Seventh Day Adventists, and the Branch Davidians. There's really no telling why one should believe the RCC claims of a Spirit-led organization over the others. Historically, Catholics have pointed to Matthew 16. Beyond the fact that people in the early Church generally interpreted the passage (which speaks of Jesus giving the keys to the kingdom to Peter) in the manner that the Reformers and EO Church later did, the argument is circular in the extreme:We know from Matthew 16 that scripture is unclear and need a magistrium to interpret it because the magistrium interprets the Matthew 16 to mean that Scripture is unclear and needs a magisterium to interpret it.<br />
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Next time I will hopefully give a positive account of an alternative view of teaching and scriptural authority.Dr. Jack Kilcreasehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11362736419613180038noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780295056892403563.post-89369710989747700232013-06-11T12:35:00.001-07:002013-06-11T12:35:22.572-07:00Excellent Review of my Book.Check out this very nice review of my book. Much thanks for Charles for having posted it!<br />
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<a href="http://networkedblogs.com/M5aYp">http://networkedblogs.com/M5aYp</a>Dr. Jack Kilcreasehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11362736419613180038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780295056892403563.post-28235065850564373292013-05-14T13:01:00.001-07:002013-05-14T13:01:20.012-07:00The Marriage Debate: Why Christians Lost the Argument Before it Began.Interesting article here by John Milbank of Radical Orthodoxy fame:<br />
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<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2013/04/23/3743531.htm">http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2013/04/23/3743531.htm</a><br />
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He makes the point regarding gay marriage that the redefinition of marriage by law ultimately redefines heterosexual relationships in terms of homosexual ones. He also notes that properly speaking, marriage doesn't fit all that well with gay relationships and that homosexuals themselves historically haven't really wanted to get married. Hence, there must be an ulterior motive. Ultimately, Milbank argues, the whole issue is about the divinity of the state. If the secular state can redefine an institution that exists prior to it (and was created by God, I might add), then it means that it possesses an absolute power over human life. Hence, Milbank see the issue has revolving around the deification of the state.<br />
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I think the question of the continuing deification of the state in modern life is a interesting one, and I've explored it here: <a href="http://jackkilcrease.blogspot.com/2012/07/thomas-hobbes-as-theologian-part-i.html">http://jackkilcrease.blogspot.com/2012/07/thomas-hobbes-as-theologian-part-i.html</a> and also here: <a href="http://jackkilcrease.blogspot.com/2012/07/law-gospel-and-liberal-tradition-of.html">http://jackkilcrease.blogspot.com/2012/07/law-gospel-and-liberal-tradition-of.html</a>. Ultimately, in terms of winning the argument about traditional marriage (by which I mean both the belief in heterosexual marriage, and also the indissoluble nature of marriage- i.e., no divorces without Jesus' single exception) it is a daunting task for modern Christians. It is a daunting task because even before the debate begins, Christians are faced with the fact that everyone (including Christians themselves) already have a distorted understanding of marriage.<br />
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<span style="background: #fafbfb; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Prior to the modern era, the basic conception of marriage in Judeo-Christian culture was an Order of Creation and an economic relationship. Since all property was tied up in land, and land was owned by families, marriage was a way of ensuring intelligent and rational means of wealth transference and (depending on the status of the family) political alliances. Theologically speaking as well, love was secondary in the definition of marriage. In Luther's commentary on Genesis and in the Catechisms, he understands marriage as an Order of Creation established by God, and definitional of the human self in this age. Here he echoed Jesus in Matthew. Similarly, the RCC understood marriage as both an something rooted in creation, and elevated by the order of grace. </span><br />
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<span style="background: #fafbfb; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Though I may disagree with this later definition theologically, the commonality between it and the Lutheran one is clear: Marriage is a reality rooted in a legal, creational, and economic relationships. It isn't about the subjective feeling or personal preference of the participants. People in the pre-modern world of course did experience romance and love (it being universally human phenomenon), but such realities only had an incidental relationship to marriage. For perspective on this, read some of the Medieval chivalric romances: The authors actually assume that love and romance are only incidental to marriage, or in very extreme versions, very nearly impossible within marriage. </span><br />
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<span style="background: #fafbfb; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Things changed in the 19th century. Since Capitalism made wealth transference and generation possible without people</span><span class="apple-converted-space"></span><span id=".reactRoot[24].[1][4][1]{comment10201118286949230_6003074}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[3]" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-spacing: 0px;"><span id=".reactRoot[24].[1][4][1]{comment10201118286949230_6003074}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[3].0"><span id=".reactRoot[24].[1][4][1]{comment10201118286949230_6003074}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[3].0.[0]"> </span>handing it down through kinship, western European and American society had to come up with a new rationale for marriage. This rationale was companionship and romance, and marriage therefore was redefined as a public ratification of one's subjective romantic feelings. After this, divorce became more common. Why? Because if one doesn't have the experience of proper companionship with one's spouse the whole relationship isn't serving its function. Hence, why not just move on? Of course there were still legal barriers to divorce, but after the 1960s and no-fault divorce kicked in, rates of divorce went off the charts. Moreover, the theory of companionship marriage also made homosexual marriage thinkable in ways that was never were before (even to homosexual themselves!). Because companionship and romance took over as the rationale for marriage and people of opposite genders can obviously have these experiences as easily as people of the same gender, why not gay marriage?</span></span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-spacing: 0px;"><span>This is why the gay marriage argument is so powerful in our context, even though at best it's an exercise in the logical fallacy of "begging the question." In other words, what advocates for gay marriage already assume is that homosexual relationships are equivalent to heterosexual relationships, and consequently, denying homosexuals the ability to marry is an act of discrimination. Gay marriage is a a matter of "marriage equality." Nevertheless the question remains: Why can the advocates of gay marriage assume that there is this equivalency and appeal to it? Because they assume that marriage is a public ratification of our subjective feelings about another person- i.e., companionship marriage. Since all heterosexuals in our society already assume this, such an appeal works. If one, for example, believes that marriage is an Order of Creation, and tied to specific heterosexual activities, then the argument doesn't work. Also, if one assumes that marriage ordains certain goods that are tied to the gender diversity of the persons involved and that these goods remain good irrespective of the subjective feeling of the partners, then the argument also falls apart. </span></span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-spacing: 0px;"><span>But almost no one does, and that's why the gay marriage debate is not winnable for Christians in this society: We've already abandoned the correct understanding of marriage a long time ago. We can't appeal to a model of marriage that even conservative Christians unconsciously don't ascribe to. </span></span>Dr. Jack Kilcreasehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11362736419613180038noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780295056892403563.post-12844443368909978652013-05-08T09:22:00.002-07:002013-05-08T09:22:08.549-07:00Radio Interview on KFUO Wednesday May 8th.In case you didn't know, I'll be on KFUO this afternnoon between 2:30 and 3:30 CST to discuss my book. Click on the link and there is a link to the live stream on the website. Also, if you miss it, there is an archive and you should be able (if you're interested) to listen to it later.<br />
<a href="http://www.kfuoam.org/programs/booktalk/">http://www.kfuoam.org/programs/booktalk/</a>Dr. Jack Kilcreasehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11362736419613180038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780295056892403563.post-35568169673137981362013-04-08T16:26:00.000-07:002013-04-09T08:37:21.945-07:00How Aristotelianism problematizes the Communicatio Idiomatum and JustificationIn the current issue of <i>Lutheran Quarterly</i> (<a href="http://www.lutheranquarterly.com/current-issue.html">http://www.lutheranquarterly.com/current-issue.html</a>), there are number of very good articles. One of the more interesting ones is a translation by my old classmate Scott Celsor of a piece written by the elderly Gerhard Ebeling on Luther's view of reality. Initially, I read the article with a great deal of skepticism. Ebeling (along with Wilfred Joest) is in some ways the nadir of existentializing Luther interpretation of the last century. His talk of "relational ontology" is not entirely wrong when applied to Luther's statement about righteousness or justification (there is much textual justification for his claims, no pun intended!). Nevertheless, as Oswald Bayer has pointed out, the mistake of much of Ebeling writings are to put all of eggs in the basket of relationalism. Bayer's piece in <i>The Devil's Whore </i>book, I thought was much more accurate. Bayer claims that Luther's ontology is "regional", namely, he utilizes different ontological schemes for the purposes of giving a coherent explanation of what he finds in the Bible. And for the most part though his default mode is an Ockhamist interpretation of Aristotle, which is basically what Graham White has found in his treatment of Luther's late Christological and Trinitarian disputation in <i>Luther as Nominalist</i>. But I digress.<br />
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Anyways, what I found insightful is on pages 67-69 where Ebeling talks about the issue of exchange and union within justification and the <i>communicatio idiomatum</i>. And to simplify things a bit, the point that Ebeling makes here is that when one operates with Aristotelian concept of substance as incommunicable form and matter, it really messes up your understanding of Christology and justification. In a word, there can be no real <i>communicatio idiomatum</i> (that is, only a rhetorical or notional one- not a real one) and no concept of the "happy exchange" or <i>iustitia aliena</i>. In what follows, I'd like to draw out the implication for this from my own thinking through the issue yesterday morning.<br />
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In Aristotle's philosophy (adopted in one version or another by western Latin theologians after the 12th or 13th century), all individually existing entities in the world (substances) are made up of form and matter. Form is the inner reality of a thing that makes it what it is. Forms are united with matter and give shape to that matter, moving it from a state of potentially being a particular reality (potency) to fully being that reality (act). The classic example of the unity of form and matter is a statue. The image which shapes the statue is its form. The metal or stone that makes up the statue is its matter. <br />
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Now for ordinary realities we find in the world, one could of course do much worse for an ontological scheme. When applied to things theological, a number of difficulties arise. The chief problem is that realities in the Aristotelian metaphysic are in a fundamental sense incommunicable. Allow me to explain further.<br />
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Since all entities in the world are made up of form and matter, there is an iron law of identity (found particularly in Aristotle's logic). No reality can communicate itself to another reality without becoming part of it in some sense. If I eat a banana, the banana is broken down and is assumed into my matter, and informed by my form. Moreover, a substance can take on new qualities (called "accidents"), but accidents adhere in a substance. For example, one has a bucket of red paint, which is a substance. Now the red paint is painted onto a wall. The redness and the paint are in a sense assumed into the substance of the wall, but they are no longer separate entities. Hence, as Aristotle states in his logic, no two substances can subsist together at the same time. One must replace another or be absorbed into it.<br />
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Although of course different realities in the world cannot communicate with one another in the sense of participation, they can nonetheless share qualities. The red paint shares its quality of redness with the wall that has been painted. Similarly, the act of knowing means that a copy of a particular object in the world is imprinted on the intellect. The passive intellect filters out the accidental qualities, while the active intellect identifies the form of the reality. In doing this, the form of the reality is pressed in and imprinted on the mind. The form itself is not in the intellect, but an impression of it is. The form has communicated itself to the mind by making the mind similar to the object observed. The same thing can be seen in the self-communication of form to matter. Matter is imprinted with the reality of the form, without being transmuted into form.<br />
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In summary: for Aristotelianism, the possibilities of ontological self-communication are extremely limited. They are limited to the following: 1. One entity composed of form and matter replaces or absorbs another entity composed of form and matter. 2. One entity imprints itself on another entity, and makes the qualities of that entity similar to itself. In both cases, there is no genuine self-communication, or participation of one reality in another. <br />
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Now this all seems very abstract, but let's apply these assumptions to the theology and see what we get. In the Middle Ages, the most obvious result of this ontological scheme is the doctrine of Transubstantiation. In other words, if there is a real presence, and two substances can't be present at the same time (bread and wine and body and blood), then logically one must replace the other. The innovation in this regard is quite easily documentable in the Middle Ages. The Patristic understandings of the Lord's Supper worked on the analogy of the Incarnation. This is one of the reasons why many of the Ante-Nicene Fathers adopted the view that consecration was effected by calling on the Holy Spirit (<i>epiclesis</i>). The Holy Spirit (in a sense) "incarnated" the body and blood of Christ in the bread and wine, just like it had worked the original Incarnation! Self-communication was possible for the older tradition (body and blood through bread and wine), whereas the adoption of some version of Aristotelianism made it more difficult to maintain made it more difficult to maintain in the Middle Ages.<br />
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When turning to the <i>communicatio idiomatum</i> and justification, the effects become even more obvious. The two natures can be united with one another in a single person, but they cannot communicate with one another in any meaningful sense. If the divine nature communicated its glory to the human nature, then according the scheme of form and matter, the form of the divine nature would inform the form and matter of the human nature. The result would be the absorption of the human nature into the divine (in some sense). Hence, the <i>communicatio idiomatum </i>for Aquinas and most of the rest of the medieval theologians is largely notional or rhetorical. Likewise, to make up for the deficit of the communicated divine glory (found in the formulation of the Greek Church Fathers), the medieval theologians (Aquinas in particular) argued that the human nature was replete with divinely created gifts that imprinted God's moral qualities on the human Jesus (this idea made its reappearance with the Reformed scholastic in the notion of "communicable and incommunicable divine attributes"). Since righteousness and goodness are qualities that inhere in a subject (God) they can only be transmitted through imprinting on, or creating a copy of themselves in the other (Christ's humanity)- not in a real self-communication or participation (i.e., like the <i>genus majestaticum</i> of later Lutheranism!).<br />
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As Schleiermacher rightly points out in his schematization of the four natural heresies, what a person says about the relationship between the two natures in Christ will usually (but not always) determine how you understand the saving relationship between God and humanity. And so, if entities are not really communicable to one another except by imprinting a copy or a similar quality to another substance, this utterly destroys any possible of a "happy exchange" between Christ and the believer, or any notion of <i>iustitia aliena</i>. Christ's righteousness could never be transmitted to the believer because righteousness as a quality adheres in him as a subject and cannot be transferred to another subject without becoming a part of that subject. Therefore, the only way that Christ's righteousness could be communicated would be for it to be imprinted or copied into another subject through the giving of a series of capacities or qualities. Hence, as can be observed, the understanding of the possibilities of communication between the divine nature and human natures in the form of created gifts of grace is reproduced in the Thomistic/Roman Catholic understanding of justification. The created gifts of grace or infused capacities imprinted into human nature through baptism are merited by Christ and are given to believers. Such righteousness is not alien righteousness, but represents real qualities and capacities that inhere in the believer as a subject. They make a person like Christ and therefore capable of pleasing God as Christ does.<br />
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By contrast, Luther abandons this whole schema for the biblical understanding of God. The God of the Bible is a self-communicating and relational God. God's righteousness is his right relationship with himself and with human beings (the actual meaning of the Hebrew word "<i>Tzedek</i>" is right relationship). Hence, it is intrinsically covenantal and relational. Righteousness is not a quality, but a relationship. God is righteous in that he fulfills his covenant promises both to enforce death on those who violate the law, and to give life and save through the gospel (i.e., the content of the Abrahamic and Sinaitic covenants!). And because righteousness is a relationship, and not a quality, it can be shared. A relationship can be shared, a quality can adhere in two subjects, but it cannot be shared. My wife and I both have brown hair, but it is not the same brown hair! By contrast, we share a common marriage, and live out of that common relationship which we possess with one another. And hence, when the Bible talks about Gods' covenant righteousness, it uses the image of God as the bridegroom and the people of God as his bride.<br />
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And so, as Luther puts it in <i>Freedom of a Christian</i>, in God's supreme act of loyalty to his promises, he shares his own righteousness with human beings (i.e., "the righteousness of/from God", Romans 1:17) and in exchange receives their real unrighteousness into himself (i.e., the "happy exchange"). Christ does this by taking on and sharing the wrong relationship that unbelieving and fallen human beings have with the Father, and giving them his own right relationship to him. And justification as the happy exchange is rooted in a real and not merely notional concept of the <i>communicatio idiomatum</i>. The divine person in becoming human incorporates within itself the death and suffering the human nature through the communication of actions. The human nature receives within itself the self-communication of all the divine glory, so that by the divine power present within it, it may by its redeeming and creative actions work salvation. Therefore, just as there can be a real exchange of realities in the Incarnation, there can be a real exchange of sin and righteousness in the happy exchange.Dr. Jack Kilcreasehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11362736419613180038noreply@blogger.com1