Monthly Archives: May 2014

A Probing Tribute for My Cousin, Dana: The Reality of Salvation (Universalism & Particularism)

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If evil is to be permanent in any part of the universe, then God is there foiled and the Cross of Christ of none effect…. So long as evil lasts there will be Hell. If evil should cease Hell would be burned out. Now if Christ’s cross means anything it means the destruction of evil everywhere and for ever. The work of the cross is not done while there is a single soul unwon to the mastery of Christ and uninfected by his spirit…. If we believe in the cross then we believe there will come a time when evil shall everywhere cease and sin no longer be.[1] P.T. Forsyth

God loves you so utterly and completely that he has given himself for you in Jesus Christ his beloved Son, and has thereby pledged his very being as God for your salvation. In Jesus Christ God has actualised his unconditional love for you in your human nature in such a once for all way, that he cannot go back upon it without undoing the Incarnation and the Cross and thereby denying himself. Jesus Christ died for you precisely because you are sinful and utterly unworthy of him, and has thereby already made you his own before and apart from your ever believing in him. He has bound you to himself by his love in a way that he will never let you go, for even if you refuse him and damn yourself in hell his love will never cease. Therefore, repent and believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour.[2] T.F. Torrance

danaWe have, somewhat, two competing accounts from two different Scottish theologians; P.T. Forsyth and T.F. Torrance. Forsyth presents us with a picture and a belief that in the end all will be eternally ‘saved’ through faith in Jesus Christ; that the cross of Jesus has vanquished evil from existence, and established God’s lovely holiness the world over. On the other hand, Torrance focuses on the same reality, but by emphasizing God’s being for us as the ground of our life, independent, as it were from our positive or negative affirmation of him and his work and life for us at the cross. For Torrance what is important is that God has chosen to be for humanity, in and through the vicarious (or representative) humanity of Jesus Christ, in a way that whatever we choose to do with that reality, we will always be held in position by God’s life of love; and that we will never be able to escape his presence whether we choose life or death.

I wanted to open up this post in the way that I did as I begin this tribute for my cousin, Dana Rook– who took his life (just a few weeks ago, at the writing of this post) just recently as a result of brain trauma he suffered from his time in Afghanistan as an infantryman, he was only 23 years old–to identify a nagging concern that many Christians encounter as we grieve the loss of a loved one, or grieve the loss of any life. For some of us, we might comfort ourselves with the idea that our loved ones were ‘saved’ at an early age, and even though they may have had a troubled time after that decision, the decision still holds. Others of us will look at the lives of our loved ones, and we will be concerned about the state of their lives at the time of their passing; we will try to pry into the depth of their hearts by attempting to access their hearts by an empirical process of reconstructing their lifestyles, words, and posture towards others (so we will look at their personal morality, speech, and profession of belief or unbelief in Jesus Christ at the time of their passing, and attempt to discern their eternal standing and destiny from there). And still others of us will follow the theo-logic offered by P.T. Forsyth, and we will claim that the Christian Scripture, and implications of God’s revealed life at the cross necessitate Christian Universalism (the idea that all of humanity will ultimately be ‘saved’ and hell we be completely emptied of all of its inhabitants; so the idea is that all will be so overcome by the beauty and grandeur of God’s love, that each and every person will ultimately bow the knee to Jesus and confess that he is Lord in a salvific or ‘saving’ way). And yet others will find refuge in the fact of who God is for us (love) in Christ, and hold that God’s presence is inescapable, even in hell (so Torrance). We will hold that the ground of the human life, in general, is Jesus Christ’s humanity, and so in a mysterious way, we will recognize that even if someone chooses (in this life) to reject the love of God in Christ for themselves, that God will never reject his love for them even in damnation; because all of human life is covered (objectively) by God’s pledge of life for them in his Incarnate Son, Jesus Christ. This latter view (forwarded by Torrance) could be synthesized with Forsyth’s view of Christian universalism, but Torrance himself did not take this final step.

The reason I am proceeding this way, in thinking of my cousin, Dana, is because he struggled deeply with his relationship to God in Jesus Christ; so deeply that at the end of his life he claimed to be an atheist (but I know firsthand, that he was still battling all of this). And yet, early on in his life he made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ, and showed evidence of that throughout his (at least, as far as I know) early teenage years by reflecting on Scripture, memorizing Scripture, and thinking about God’s handiwork in creation and the great outdoors (he loved nature, especially reptiles, as I recently found out). So for some, especially if you are third party (and not family, or a friend), folks might look at the outward realities in Dana’s life at the end of his life, and conclude that he was not ‘saved’; some might try to build an empirical case from looking at his life and argue that based on how Dana was leading his life, that he is not with Jesus. But I think this is very premature!

My view is somewhere between what Forsyth had to say, and what Thomas F. Torrance has written. I hold that God is for all of humanity in his Son, Jesus Christ; and that human being is given its ongoing reality by the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ. It is this pledge of life where Dana’s life rests, independent (objectively construed) of Dana’s choice (or any of our choices) to be for God in Christ. Dana, nor anyone, can escape the fact that God in Christ (because he is love) did for us what we would (nor could) ever do for ourselves; God in Christ chose all of humanity (in and through Christ’s humanity) to be for him and not against him. Dana’s life is grounded in Christ’s life then for all eternity.

Torrance held to the idea that hell was an eternal reality (as does the traditional teaching of the Christian church).  Forsyth held to the idea that hell was a reality, but a temporary (vs. eternal) reality; and that the cross of Jesus Christ as a demonstration and establishment of God’s holiness in a sinful world ultimately rendered sin, and thus hell, eternally vanquished and annihilated. Torrance’s view leaves the door open for Forsyth’s view though; it is possible for Forsyth’s Christian universalism to dovetail with Torrance’s idea that God’s love is a reality that will never let anyone go. Forsyth sounds pretty dogmatic about his view (but in the end he is not); Torrance is dogmatic in his view, but he finally falls back on mystery a bit. My view, using some of the theological categories offered by Forsyth and Torrance is that God’s love is indeed inescapable, and the cross of Jesus Christ establishes the biblical reality that God’s glory, his holiness will cover the earth like the waters cover the seas. I believe that God’s human being in the Incarnate Christ grounds the human being of each and every person who has ever been conceived; which implies, again, that no human being will ever or could ever be out of the reach of God’s life of love and eternal hope. I believe that consistent with this, then, that even post-mortem (physical death), it is highly possible that God could surprise each and every one of us by bringing all of humanity finally and ultimately into his presence where there is fullness of joy (even if they leave this life without a ‘saving’ relationship with him then).

I believe that no matter what state, then, my cousin Dana was in when he passed from this life, that there is ultimate hope; because God is hope, and Dana’s life, as are all of our lives, is/are grounded in Jesus Christ’s life for us. Dana made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ early on in his life, he walked with Jesus (as Jesus walked with him), for many years following his profession of faith. Dana is in the hands of the God who is hope; even though Dana had fallen on hard times, even in his walk with Jesus, the grace of God continued to fund Dana’s life even into eternity. The point is, is that Dana’s life was not contingent upon himself, it was and is contingent upon God’s life for Dana, in Christ. No matter what way we look at it, Dana is in the hands of a God who is love and eternal hope; who is full of grace and mercy, and who is more present with the broken-hearted than he is with the self-righteous (and he is even present with them).

There is always hope with a God of hope. I personally believe that Dana entered into the presence of God in Jesus Christ at the point that he departed from this earth. He was a brokenhearted kid who Jesus promised never to leave or forsake. Beyond this, if you have a loved one who has passed, and who did not have any kind of relationship with Jesus Christ, I still hold out the possibility that there is ultimate hope along with P.T. Forsyth; and yet I hold this in a hopeful and not dogmatic posture. God is love, God is hope, full of grace and mercy; I have to believe at some level that this is the reality that will endure throughout eternity, and that it will shape God’s life towards his creation without end.

RIP, Dana.

 

[1] Peter Forsyth, “The Bible Doctrine of Hell and the Unseen,” 4 cited by Jason Goroncy, “The Final Sanity Is Complete Sanctity: Universal Holiness in the Soteriology of P. T. Forsyth (1848–1921),” in ed. Gregory MacDonald, “All Shall Be Well”: Explorations in Universalism and Christian Theology, from Origen to Moltmann (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011), 305.

[2] T. F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, 94.

What Did Jesus Teach About Hell? Is It Eternal Conscious Torment?

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“Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; . . . 46. And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Matthew 25.41, 46 (NRSV)

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 Craig S. Keener comments on this pericope in his New Testament Background Commentary in this way:

25:41-45. Some Jewish traditions (like Qumran War Scroll) report that Belial (Satan) was created for the pit; destruction was not God’s original purpose for people (4 Ezra 8:59-60). In many Jewish traditions, the demons were fallen angels (cf. comment on 2 Pet. 2:4). Jewish tradition was divided on the duration of hell; this passage’s description of it as “eternal” was certainly not merely a concession to a universal image in Judaism.

25:46. Eternal life was promised to the righteous after their resurrection at the end of the age (Dan. 12:2). Some Jewish teachers believed that hell was temporary and that at the end some people would be burned up and others released; other Jewish teachers spoke as if hell were eternal. Jesus here sides with the latter group.[1]

This begs the question;what did Jesus believe about what has been labeled the eternal conscious torment doctrine of hell (the Traditional teaching)? According to Keener, and in this particular dominical teaching of Jesus;Jesus held to the belief that hell (or the after-life separated from participation with God through Christ [my gloss]) does indeed articulate that there is a literal hell that involves eternal conscious torment. As the quote from Keener also illustrates, the Jewish context in which Jesus taught as a Rabbi was not monolithic on this doctrine; it is just that Jesus appropriated and taught the strand that articulated that hell fits with what today would be called the traditional view.

In concert with this assessment, none other than The Evangelical Universalist, Gregory MacDonald (aka Robin Parry) holds that the dominical (Jesus’) teaching is consistent with Keener’s perspective; that is that Jesus taught that hell was eternal conscious torment. Note MacDonald,

[G]ehenna was a place of punishment and fire but beyond that was generally left unexplained. When we find Jesus drawing on the idea of Gehenna, we must remember that it was not a clearly worked out concept. Beyond its being a place of fiery punishment for the wicked, the details, if anyone wanted to fill them in, were up for grabs. That said, I think that it is quite clear that Jesus’ contemporaries would not have thought the he was a universalist of any variety. To the traditionalist this settles the case, but I think that there is more to be said. I want to argue, first of all, that none of Jesus’ recorded teachings about Gehenna explicitly affirm the notion that it was everlasting; and nothing Jesus is recorded to have said rules out the possibility that some or all of its inhabitants may at some point come to salvation. I am not trying to show that Jesus taught universalism nor that he taught that those in Gehenna could or would be saved, for he did neither. My aim is the much more modest one of showing that what he did teach does not formally contradict universalist claims. This, of course, does not provide any reason to suppose that a universalist interpretation of Gehenna is biblical without substantive additional reasons for embracing such an interpretation. My second task is to show that we do have such reasons.[2]

MacDonald helps reinforce Keener’s commentary, that indeed Jesus taught the Jewish tradition (amongst the many available, just as there are many available today for Christians—but not viable for most Christians) that there is a literal place in the life after life (to borrow Wright’s quip) known as hell; and that this will be a place that is characterized by final eternal conscious torment.

So this represents the dominical teaching; the teaching that Jesus taught. But this does not serve as a death knell for ‘Evangelical Universalists’; as MacDonald notes. For Jesus, in his context, the teaching that hell was eternal could very well have been “just” for his particular context. In other words, as MacDonald later contends, Jesus’ pronouncement on this topic could have been  to reinforce the severity of God’s judgment; and yet at the same time, not intending to be the last word on it. MacDonald writes:

[W]e should not suppose that, because Jesus did not explicitly teach universal salvation or explicitly repudiate the idea that many people would never experience salvation, universalism is an un-Christian idea incompatible with Jesus’ ministry. If later revelation leads in universalist directions, as I have argued it does, then we need to understand the ministry of Christ in that light. It is the whole canonical story that we examined in Chapters Two to Four that forms the broader theological context within which we must understand Jesus’ teachings about Gehenna, and it is that very context that serves to modify some of the understandings of it common in Jesus’ own day.[3]

For MacDonald, for Jesus not to teach universalism does not mitigate the fact that the whole scope and sweep of the canonical teaching does in fact teach a Christian universalism. We will have to redress this at another time.

Conclusion

The question that I have been seeking to answer through this short piece has been “What did Jesus believe and teach about the view of hell that involves eternal conscious torment; did he teach this view or not?” The result of some cursory (yet I think substantial) musing has been to conclude that Jesus did indeed teach that there is a literal place that has become known as ‘Hell’, and that hell is unfortunately characterized by eternal conscious torment.

This is an important point to establish because it places the burden on those who disagree to disagree with Jesus. Are there ways to do that, and still honor Jesus’ own teaching, and even his person? MacDonald believes that there are, and in fact he thinks he has (found the way).

There are other prominent foci (or focal points) to consider towards helping us understand how to place Jesus’ teaching, in the book of Matthew for example. In other words, there is a strong theological case to be made for a Christian universalism that attends to who God is as Triune Love, full of grace. If God is Love (and he is), then we have to interpret Jesus’ views and teaching on hell through that lens (the lens of the cross, the penultimate expression of his love … the ultimate being his resurrection). MacDonald’s contention to annex Jesus’ teaching to a particular situation he was addressing might have teeth in light of the theological argument; it might leave the door open for a Christian theological reification or classification of hell in ways that might favor something like MacDonald’s Evangelical Universalism. There might be hope. Maybe Jesus didn’t intend his teaching to offer the last word after all; on hell that is.

No matter what, in the end, the conclusion must be that Jesus did teach what some would call the Traditional view of hell as ‘eternal conscious torment’. How one places that, in its ‘universal scope’ is what still needs to be contended with (MacDonald has, I’m still working on it).

My personal conclusion, at the moment, is that Jesus’ teaching on hell should serve as the standard; I see it with ‘universal force’ and thus am not willing, as of yet, to annex it, or particularize it to his specific audience in the 1st century (which would be what MacDonald does, amongst others). I continue to hold to the trad teaching, but I also am willing to hold out that once we are present with the LORD in the consummation that he could surprise us in keeping with his life of grace and love.

[1] Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary, New Testament, (Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 1993), 118-19.

[2] Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist, (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2006), 144-45.

[3] Ibid, 149-50.

 

*repost

Theology of the Cross Par Excellence: The Problem of Evil, The Ontological Theory of the Atonement, Knowledge of God; All Dealt With

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The theology of the Cross, the ontological theory of the atonement, the problem of evil, our capacity to know God in the face of evil, and to comprehend an intelligibility within a fallen world; where does all of this come from, where does it intersect in a concrete way in our daily lives? I bet all of these questions and locations of thought run around in your head all day long; if not, they should, among other theological things—we are Christians after all!

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Thomas Torrance offers such a rich account of how the Incarnation of God in his dearly beloved Son Jesus Christ engages with and implicates all of the aforementioned topics of consideration that for your benefit and mine I am going to transcribe his lengthy paragraph that engages with each of the points above in his own and unique Torrance way.

It is above all in the Cross of Christ that evil is unmasked for what it actually is, in its inconceivable wickedness and malevolence, in its sheer contradiction of the love of God incarnate in Jesus Christ, in its undiluted enmity to God himself—not to mention the way in which it operates under the cover of the right and the good and the lawful. That the infinite God should take the way of the Cross to save mankind from the pit of evil which has engulfed it and deceived it, is the measure of the evil of evil: its depth is revealed to be ‘absymal’ (literally, ‘without bottom’). However, it is only from the vantage point of God’s victory over evil in the resurrection of Christ, from the bridge which in him God has overthrown across the chasm of evil that has opened up in our violence and death and guilt, that we may look into the full horror of it all and not be destroyed in the withering of our souls through misanthropy, pessimism, and despair. What hope could there ever be for a humanity that crucifies the incarnate love of God and sets itself implacably against the order of divine love even at the point of its atoning and healing operation? But the resurrection tells us that evil, even this abysmal evil, does not and cannot have the last word, for that belongs to the love of God which has negated evil once and for all and which through the Cross and resurrection is able to make all things work together for good, so that nothing in the end will ever separate us from the love of God. It is from the heart of that love in the resurrected Son of God that we may reflect on the radical nature of evil without suffering morbid mesmerization or resurrection and crucifixion events, which belong inseparably together, has behind it the incarnation, the staggering fact that God himself has come directly into our creaturely being to become one of us, for our sakes. Thus the incarnation, passion, and resurrection conjointly tell us that far from evil having to do only with human hearts and minds, it has become entrenched in the ontological depths of created existence and that it is only from within those ontological depths that God could get at the heart of evil in order to destroy it, and set about rebuilding what he had made to be good. (We have to think of that as the only way that God ‘could’ take, for the fact that he has as a matter of fact taken this way in the freedom of his grace excludes any other possibility from our consideration.) It is surely in the light of this ontological salvation that we are to understand the so-called ‘nature of miracles’, as well as the resurrection of Jesus from death, for they represent not a suspension of the natural or created order but the very reverse, the recreation of the natural order wherever it suffers from decay or damage or corruption or disorder through evil. God does not give up his claim that the creation is ‘good’, but insists on upholding that claim by incarnating within the creation the personal presence of his own Logos, the creative and ordering source of the creation, thereby pledging his own eternal constancy and rationality as the ground for the redemption and final establishment of all created reality.[1]

There are so many scarlet threads waiting to be pulled upon in this rich tapestry of linguistic flare and theological acumen that Torrance (in his typical fashion) has offered. But let me just tug on one. You noticed as you read this that Torrance speaks of the ontological depth of the atonement, this gets us back into his view that God in Christ assumed a sinful humanity in the incarnation. That he didn’t just come to pay a penalty (even though he did this too) for our sins, but in fact came to radically save us from the inside out. That he came to give us a new heart, and take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh soft towards God (II Cor. 3). This is one reason why a strictly conceived penal, forensic, juridical view of the atonement simply will not do. A penal view might deal with the consequences of sin in our lives, but it does not engage with the depth reality and cause of sin; sinful hearts (cf. Jer. 17.9).

There is more to be said, of course, but I’ll just refer you to Torrance’s quote.

 

[1] Thomas F. Torrance, Divine And Contingent Order (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 115-16.

Starting Salvation With Jesus, and Ending Salvation With Jesus: From the Patristics to Barth and Torrance

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Donald Fairbairn, Patristics theologian par excellence, has written a rich and very accessible book entitled Life In The Trinity: An Introduction To Theology With The Help Of The Church Fathers. I would highly eleisonrecommend this book to you, and even recommend it as a devotional type of book if you are interested in doing your devotions with the Trinity.

I have just recently finished reading through a section of the book that is discussing Christian salvation, and in particular, God’s action and human action in the realm of salvation. After sketching the common dilemma that has obtained in the Western branch of the Protestant church (i.e. Calvinism V Arminianism, e.g. emphasis on God’s choice or humanity’s choice in salvation – to be a bit reductionistic) in regard to salvation, Fairbairn offers an alternative that he has gleaned from his years spent with the Church Fathers. Here is what he has written:

To spell this idea out a bit more, I suggest that in our discussion of election/predestination, we should not place such priority on God’s choosing particular people that we imply he has nothing to do with those he will not ultimately save. Conversely, I suggest that we not place such priority on God’s universal desire to save that we imply that he deals exactly equally with everyone and all differences between people are due to their own responses to God (responses that God foreknows). Rather, I suggest that we place the priority on God’s eternal decision to honor his own relationship with his beloved Son and his Spirit by bringing people into that relationship. God’s eternal will was, first and foremost, a will to accomplish human redemption through the person and work of his Son and his Spirit. That eternal will included within its determination all that God ordained to happen, all that he knew would happen, all that both he and we would do. This means that when a person begins to trust in Christ or a believer prays for the salvation of others or someone proclaims the gospel, these people are privileged to share in what God has from all eternity determined that he would do. We are not merely the means by which he achieves his purpose, we are somehow privileged to be a part of the determination of that purpose, the establishment of the will of God in connection with his Son Jesus Christ. Such a way of looking at the relation between election and human action may help to ease the logjam the Western discussions of this issue have created for a millennium and a half. But even if it does not succeed in doing that, such a way of looking at the issue does place the emphasis where Scripture indicates it should lie–not on a seemingly arbitrary decree or on allegedly independent, free human action but instead on Christ the beloved Son of the Father, the one in whom we are chosen to participate.[1]

This will be too vague of an alternative for the scholastically Reformed mind among us, or even the evangelical mind. We want all of our theological “i’s” dotted and “t’s” crossed a certain way. But if a person is willing to live with some revelational dialectical tension, then what Fairbairn suggests from his reflection on the writings of the Fathers, will be resonant.

Interestingly, Karl Barth and Thomas Torrance, both Western theologians (Barth is even considered ‘scholastic’ by many) would affirm Fairbairn’s suggestion; but with further nuance and development. George Hunsinger writes on Barth, this:

[…] To say that Jesus Christ is the “pioneer of faith” (Heb. 12:2), Barth suggests, is not to say that his faith is merely the exemplar of ours, but that it is the vicarious ground and source of our faith. “There is vicarious faith,” writes Barth, “… only in the form of the faith which Jesus Christ established for us all as the archegos tes pisteos (Heb. 12:2), who empowers us for our own faith, and summons us to it, even as he stands there in our stead with his faith. Through his faith, we are not only moved but liberated to believe for ourselves” (IV/4, 186). Our faith may be said to exist “as a predicate” of his in the sense that whatever is real and true “in this Subject” is the foundation for whatever is correspondingly real and true in us (cf. II/2, 539). In short, our subjective apprehension of God does not exist independently, but only insofar as its source, mediation, and ground are found in the humanity of Jesus Christ.[2]

Barth represents someone who works, as a theologian, within the domain offered by the Patristics and noticed by Fairbairn where he makes his ‘suggestions’ from. If the focal point of salvation starts with God’s Triune life, and his Revealed life in the Son, Jesus Christ, I conclude that it will sound something like Fairbairn’s suggestions and proceed something like Barth’s (as described by Hunsinger) locution.

Passion

Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life; no man comes to the Father except through him! This is where the heart of God is at for us, in the Son. Salvation constructs that don’t start and end here, in the Alpha & Omega of God, in my view, are not worth their salt in theological discussion. Salvation constructs that orbit around a psychologized self, or work from the bottom up (i.e. start in a frame that is concerned about ‘my salvation’ and how it relates to God’s salvation) are not commendable. Wherever we start the discussion, is where we will end up. If we start talking about salvation in Christ, then we will end in Christ; if we start the discussion with ourselves, we will end up with ourselves.

 

 

[1] Donald Fairbairn, Life in the Trinity: An Introduction to Theology with the Help of the Church Fathers (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 197-98.

[2] George Hunsinger, How To Read Karl Barth: The Shape of His Theology, 96, Nook.

The Vicarious Faith Ethic

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This post is intended to highlight something of a lacuna in my own research and personal development over the last many years; that is in the discipline of Christian ethics. I have somewhat been neglecting this area, as far as my readings go, and so I have been reliant upon my exposure to ethics (as a discipline) way back in seminary (I graduated in 2003), and back into undergrad (I graduated in 2001). When I left seminary I would have told you I followed what my mentor and now former prof Ron Frost called Faith Ethics which was based upon Frost’s constructive development of Affective Theology, and attendant anthropology. Faith ethics repudiates decision-based or cognitivist based constructs of ethics, it repudiates natural-law based ethics, and instead operates more contextually as it places its ethical activity in relation to Christ and the other, and before self. This verse from Romans 14 was pivotal for the foundation of ‘Faith Ethics’:

 23 But those who have doubts are condemned if they eat, because they do not act from faith; for whatever does not proceed from faithis sin. Romans 14:23

So the ground of this ethic sought to place itself within the relationship that inheres between the human agent and the divine agent; in contrast to naturalist or cognitivist based ethics. The ‘faith ethic’ was more concerned with the reception of the new heart of the New Covenant (see II Cor. 3), and as such operated out of a mode that emphasized union with Christ theology; a participationist relation between the human agent and God. And so moral values, in a faith ethic were not something intrinsically available to human agents by way of reflection upon nature (as if nature is imbued with the ‘moral goods’), or based upon decision-making actions determined by the virtual and moral self (so conceived); but for the faith ethic, ethics are something that are extrinsic to the human agent, and thus fully dependent upon what is revealed. It is within a community who as corollary finds its reality from what is revealed (the Christian church) wherein this kind of faith ethic can be cultivated within the drama of everyday life.

That said, I think a faith ethic, while commendable, and something that I would claim to adhere to needs some further qualification. I agree that an ethical construct ought to be understood as something that is extrinsic, revelationally-based, etc.; but I think the faith ethic needs a little more in terms of its theo-anthropology, and getting passed what Thomas Torrance has called the Latin Heresy. In other words, instead of positing a dualism between God and humanity, the faith ethic needs to be grounded in a theological anthropology that operates from the center of God’s revealed life in Jesus Christ. And so a properly construed ‘faith ethic’ would seek to find its ground and basis for conceiving of moral values in its lively connection, by the Holy Spirit, to Jesus Christ as Lord. So the church does not become the ground of determining moral value, but the church’s Lord does; the church only participates in and from the morality it gains by being in relationship with the only one who is good, who is God.

With the aforementioned noted, how would I describe my tentative ethical position (tentative, because like I said, this represents somewhat of a lacuna for me, which is in the process of being de-lacunaized)? I would integrate the faith ethic into my understanding, but with a desire to better and more theologically ground that in a Christ-concentration that emphasizes that the moral self can be found nowhere else but in union with the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ. What best proximates this for me, with the options before me, is what Donald Bloesch calls Evangelical Contextualism (which is based in Divine Command Theory, but more of a mixed deontological theory qualified by a proper eschatological provenance–which I would have to try and explain later). Here is how Bloesch describes this position, and who he identifies with this position:

[E]vangelical contexualism [is] associated in our time with such luminaries as Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Helmut Thielicke, and Jacques Ellul. It has an unmistakable continuity with the Reformation, Pietism, and Puritanism….

This position is evangelical because it is based on the gospel and the law illumined by the gospel. It is biblical because the gospel and the law comprise the central content of Holy Scripture, the primary source of our knowledge of divine revelation. It is contextual because the ethical decision is made in the context of the fellowship of faith (koinonia), and it is related to the context of personal and social need. Its method is from the gospel through the church to the cultural situation.

The indefeasible criterion in this type of ethics is not the divine ordering in nature (as in Gustafson), nor the law of love (as in Reinhold Niebuhr), nor simply the spirit of love (as in the older liberalism), nor love with reason (as in situationalism). Instead, it is the divine commandment, which unites love and truth. This commandment also signifies the union of law and gospel, the divine imperative and the divine promise.

Our ultimate appeal is not to general principles (as in natural law ethics) but to the personal address of God as we hear this in and through the gospel proclamation. Karl Barth put it well: “General moral truths … do not have … no matter what their derivation, the force of the true command, for in them the decisive choice between concrete possibilities is still according to what seems best to us.” Nevertheless, we acknowledge the normative role of the Decalogue and the Sermon on the Mount, which give us some indication of the will of God for our particular period in history.

Our norm is derived neither from the cultural and historical situation nor from common human experience but from the living Word of God, Jesus Christ. It is therefore an extrinsic norm, one that transcends human subjectivity as well as cultural relativity. It is an absolute norm, but it is made available to us through the historical witness that constitutes Holy Scripture.

Although it is absolute in origin, it is concrete and specific in its thrust. It is always related to the actual situation in which we find ourselves. Its focus is never on an abstract ideal but always on the concrete good.

For the evangelical contextualist, the way of the cross is most adequately represented by agape rather than by eros or philia (brotherly love). Agape involves the denial of the self for the good of the neighbor. It ipso facto excludes both self-aggrandizement (as in power ethics) and self-sanctification (as in mysticism). The emphasis is on sacrificial service rather than mutual support (as is fraternalism). The focus is on vicarious identification rather than paternalistic benevolence (as in humanitarianism). The religion of the cross is characterized not by securing of the self from harm but by the forgetting of the self in love.[1]

Bloesch captures, pretty well, where I would situate myself[2]; although I would like to nuance it from an even more direct perspective that grounds its reality as an ethical option within a theological specter. In other words, I think, as I already underscored, that a theology of union with Christ, and an anthropology governed by the vicarious humanity of Christ within a participationist frame are very important towards placing the sources of this ethical theory within the realm of God’s Triune life and relationship. And this then eludes the problems presented by both natural-law and cognivitist theories, respectively, as moral values are not understood to be things derivable from nature (simpliciter), nor a humanity in abstraction (cognivitist) from its ground in Jesus Christ’s vicarious humanity. Vicarious faith, then, is what shapes the moral values within an evangelical contexutalist model, and avers the temptation of immanentizing ethics in an absolute nature (creation), or absolute self; but instead finds its shape from the absolute life of God revealed and continuously exegeted for us (Jn. 1.18), by the Holy Spirit (Jn. 14–17). And we as moral agents in this scheme, are continuously and being transformed from glory to glory (II Cor. 3.18), as we fellowship (koinonia) with God, and with each other in holy communion.

In closing, what a qualified evangelical contextualist ethical construct will not do (because it is not cognivitist based) is reduce ethics to a cluster of culturally induced ethical dilemmas (i.e. abortion, homosexuality, death penalty, etc.); nor will it reduce ethics to a universally accessible set of ethical norms (because it is not naturalist). What it will do is recognize that there are no genuine ethics unless they are provided for by God’s holy life, given to us in the cruciform shape of God’s life in Christ, and known by us, by the Spirit, by the faith of God in Jesus Christ. From within this frame we will act as moral agents, moment by moment, as we live from God’s life given to us, moment by moment by the grace of God in Jesus Christ.[3]

 

 

[1]Donald G. Bloesch, “Evangelical Contextualism,” in Readings In Christian Ethics, Volume 1: Theory and Method, eds. David K. Clark and Robert V. Rakestraw (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1994), 157-58.

[2] I have read a forthcoming essay by Myk Habets that fits with my consideration very well; Myk places ethical thinking within the realm of theosis.

[3] I am obviously assuming a theological realist positionwhich then by mutual implication provides a morally realist trajectory for the ethical agents considered.

As far as sources for ethical consideration, Holy Scripture has been ear-marked, but only within a proper understanding of Scripture’s ontology within a properly construed Christian Dogmatic ordering of things which is given its best rendering, in my opinion, by John Webster in his book The Domain Of The Word: Scripture and Theological Reason (Great Britain: T&T Clark, A Continuum Imprint, 2012). Here is an example:

Countering the hegemony of pure nature in bibliology and heremeutics requires appeal to the Christian doctrine of God, and thus of God’s providential ordering of human speech and reason. Within the divine economy, the value of the natural properties of texts, and of the skills and operations of readers, does not consist in their self-sufficiency but in their appointment as creaturely auxiliaries through which God administers healing to wasted and ignorant sinners. What more may be said of this economy of revelation and redemption of which Scripture is a function? (p. 6)