Monthly Archives: July 2025

A Rejoinder to the Credo Alliance on Natural Theology

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I just listened to a Credo Podcast featuring Matthew Barrett, J. V. Fesko, Fred Sanders, and Scott Swain. The title of the podcast is: Is Natural Theology in Conflict with the Gospel: Credo Alliance. You can go and listen to it for yourself (only approx. 30 minutes), by clicking on the linked title.

They all affirm the value of a natural theology; in the history often identified as the Two Books of Revelation (i.e., general/natural and special/revealed). What somewhat surprised me as I listened to each of them present their thoughts on this particular locus was how they seemingly, and unwittingly, moved back and forth between wanting to affirm their natural theology, and at the same time mistaking a theology of nature for their natural theology. They conflated a Logoi theology with a natural theology. They respectively were attempting to have their theological cake and eat a natural one too. But in this pursuit, in an attempt to maintain the primacy of the Protestant Scripture Principle in tandem with a natural theology, they ended up referring to a theology of nature, as if this could serve as a methodological natural theology. The lack of nuancing here left me wondering if in fact any of them actually understands the entailments of a methodological natural theology (as we find in Thomas Aquinas, Erich Przywara et al.). The panel referred to Thomas, as if a theological homeboy, but then began to sound more like acolytes of St. Ephrem the Syrian; or even, TF Torrance.

It is a weird thing—theological knowledge acquisition—often you build up in your mind’s eye perceptions of people, guilds and so forth. You presume that there must be some deeper well that stands behind it all; something that is overwhelmingly elevated and interstellar even. But the fact of the matter is that the human being, no matter how learned, no matter how read, has a limit. We all have liminal-meters that keep us situated in our creaturely places, such that when we expose our apotheosis of the theological edifices and grand mastered superstructures, the reality hits once again: we are of all people most to be pitied if Christ be not risen. If the limit isn’t the Word of God, the Logos of the triune God in the prosopon of Jesus Christ, if the limit includes a reason abstract from the filial bondship that the Son has with the Father by the Holy Spirit, then we will always be exposed as the philosophers we are, rather than the theologians we are wont to be.

All of this to say, respectfully: what I heard from this panel was quite a bit of confusion about what in fact they understand a natural theology to entail. What is it? A methodological natural theology that sets the epistemic quest for the theologian to gain God-knowledge, or is it a theology of nature wherein the little logoi in the Christologically conditioned cosmos finds its gravitas solely in the Logos of God? Such that nature itself is suffused with the primacy of Jesus Christ as the true Alpha and Omega of God. The theologian cannot simply hand-waive to wanting a primacy of Holy Scripture in the theological endeavor, and then sublate that by a reference to a muddled notion of natural theology in the same breath. If you listen to the podcast let me know if you come away with the same impression I had, or something else.

A Catholic Ripping of the Protestant church / A Protestant Riposting to the Catholic churched

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The following is from an X/Twitter account that identifies herself as THE Based Trinity™. She is clearly a Roman Catholic, of the Latin Mass proclivity. And she was recently, or at some point, invited to a Protestant church service. Below I will provide her response to that experience, and then below that I will respectively present my response to her as I offered that on X.

I got invited to a Protestant “service.” Here’s how it all went down. The intro alone was 40 minutes of the “worship” band finding the resonant frequency of all my internal organs, making me queasy, with the zombies around me waving their hands in the air like they didn’t care (about actual scripture). This was followed by guilt tripping tithes and forced socialization, boomer women screaming commands at God to HEEEAAAHHHL IN JESUS NAME some specific congregants, a hot mess of a sermon with the theme of “don’t complain”, usurping parts of St. Paul’s epistles before boldly declaring “if you’re born again, ALL YOUR SINS ARE FORGIVEN!”, heaps of vain repetition (pastor making the congregation repeat every 6th or so line he calls out), and the good ole “altar call” where people go kneel before the worship band (prots like to call that idol worship when we do it). Not to mention the fact that I was repeatedly ambushed by everyone forcefully introducing theirselves – even when I was very obviously trying to maintain my sanity by quietly reading my Catholic Press prayer book. One lady tried shoving a visitor contact card in my face while I was doing so, and gave me this appalled dirty look when I politely declined. I’d gone to the 8am Mass beforehand, prayed my usual pre-Mass rosary, then prayed an extra rosary afterward.. but when I came out of that dentist’s office “church” I was ready to go to the noon Mass. I felt dirty and hollow and it broke my brain and my heart that while I was in there, everyone was lapping up the emotionally charged nonsense and waving their hands and muttering those “yes Jesus thank you Jesus Aaaaaymen” vain Protestant repetitions. Nothing has ever made me want to run back to my car and gun it to a TLM more than what I endured today. Of course, there was plenty of irony woven into the sermon. It pains me to see so many well meaning people who are so dangerously misled. Pray for them. We have to.

And my response:

As an evangelical I’d say this is an apt description of many evangelical church services in North America (although, “altar call?” if only most churches still did those). But yes, in my view, the evangelical churches have almost totally gone to seed; quite badly in fact. Even so, this does not necessarily entail that the Roman Catholics are the only or recommended alternative. It has its own problems—many in fact. What this does mean though, I think, is that evangelicalism shouldn’t be left on life support any longer by those of us who can feel this gal’s angst and emptiness, just the same. I don’t know what the way forward is for the evangelical churches (in name only). A return to simplicity and a Word focusedness is the only way I can really imagine. The Word for the Protestant, and the American evangelical as an ostensible subset, must shape the Protestant worship service; it must shape the body life of the church; it must be disentangled from this or that period of theological development and allow to stand on its own, within the history of its interpretation. Protestants, de jure, have a much surer way to offer than do the accretions found in Romanism. There is hope for the Protestant, a balm of Gilead available; and it must resound and find its ground in a theology of the Word of God alone as the esse of all that is real, and breathing and life giving. But I can resonate with this Catholic gal’s conclusion, in regard to the vanity of the evangelical churches. It’s just her antidote that is aloof.

On The Sober Christian Existence

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The economy of God is the only real drama out there. It is characterized by the sobriety of Jesus Christ. The Man of sorrows acquainted with grief. To be steadfast immovable in a world of the transient requires a life lived grounded in union with Jesus Christ (unio cum Christo) by the Holy Spirit.

Let Theology Be Theology: On a Doctrine of Angels (and Everything)

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Theological methodology is akin to a biblical hermeneutic. That is, the way we decide to interpret a theological reality, i.e., by what instrumental means, will dictate the way we receive and deploy our sources in an attempt to rightly divide the Word which is truth. Much, if not most, of the so-called Great Tradition of the Latin church, has engaged in the practice of speculation, as they couch that in the authority of the magisterial Catholic or Protestant churches. This is more understandable with the Catholic side of this equation, but less so with the Protestant. I.e., Given the fact that the Protestant side portends the so-called ‘Scripture-Principle’ as the formal means by which they ostensibly arrive at their biblical-theological conclusions. And yet in the Protestant history of interpretation what the student often finds is that they too, just as much as the Catholics, have imbibed various speculative means to fill in the “gaps” of the Scriptural communique. That is to note, that they, often like say, the Angelic Doctor, Thomas Aquinas, or Dionysius the Areopagite, have appealed to neo-Platonic categories of thought, of the chain-of-being logical-causal universe, to think various doctrines.

For our purposes, in the remainder of this writing, I want to focus our attention on the way that Karl Barth offers critique of the above speculative hermeneutic. In this instance, Barth is dealing with the development of a doctrine of angels. He has already surveyed, extensively, the history of interpretation on this matter, starting with Dionysius and moving all the way through to someone no less than Ernst Troelscht. In each case, as Barth demonstrates, while some offering more promising categories for thinking a doctrine of angels than the other, what is the same for all involved is that they each deploy said philosophical and speculative categories to fill in the gaps where Scripture is silent on the nature and order of the angels. In contrast, Barth is indeed, thoroughly committed to the Protestant Scripture-Principle; particularly when it comes to doctrines like the angels, where little can indeed be surmised by way of speculation or philosophical machination. Barth wants to simply stay within the parameters that Scripture alone attests to in regard to the angels. He writes:

5. We have only to add that if we keep to the rule stated and emphasised in 3 and 4 we need not be anxious concerning the knowledge required in 2, whether in respect of the possibility or the correctness and importance of a theological knowledge of the reality of angels. Theology only has to be theology at this point too. It has only to be on its guard against unwittingly becoming philosophy. It has only to accept the discipline of being wholly and exclusively theology. It has only to refrain from seeking rationes probabiles [probable arguments], from also trying to be a little philosophy, whether on hermeneutical or apologetic grounds. If it does this, it cannot be lacking in a concrete objectivity of theme. And in some degree, and in a way which is basically worthy, it will do justice to it. And the theme itself will be sufficiently important to claim it seriously and profitably. Holy Scripture gives us quite enough to think of regarding angels. And it is something positive. We have only to consider what it says in its distinctiveness, and to try to assess it without pre-judgment. Nor does it do so in such a way that we can quickly leave the problem on the pretext that it is merely peripheral. If we wholeheartedly accept angels in the position and role assigned to them in the Bible, in their own place and the way they make themselves so important that we can no longer ignore them when we consider the centre and substance of the biblical message. Again, the Bible is not so obscure in respect of angels that we cannot responsibly draw out certain notions and concepts which are quite adequate for a Christian understanding. All that is required is a firm resolve that the Bible should be allowed both to speak for itself in this matter, i.e., in the course of its message, as a witness of what it understands by the revelation and work of God, and also to be very impressively, and in its own way very eloquently, silent.[1]

The above is the desire of the Protestant thinker de jure. Often what happens though, because certain philosophical abstractions vis-à-vis doctrines, become so conflated and accreted over time, is that the people (the raza), even the pastors themselves, cannot critically disentangle the imposing philosophy from the Scriptural teaching itself. This happens most unironically to those who are ostensibly some of the most blunt and vociferous about “their biblicism.” Typically, when confronted with the fact that their doctrine of angels is based not actually on the biblical categories, but the Platonic (or some other) ones, they recoil in a reactionary emote and look at such an idea as the antichrist itself.

Stay genuinely biblical my friends.

[1] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III/3 §50–51 [393] The Doctrine of Creation: Study Edition (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 122–3.

Discoursing Our Way to an Angelology; Philosophy V the Bible; Thomas V Barth

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Barth attempts to offer a Biblical Angelology. In the process he surveys some of the most primary developments on an angelology, in the history, as those were offered by Dionysius and Thomas Aquinas. Just on that level his treatment is interesting and rewarding. But in the midst of that, since he is slavishly beholden to the Protestant ‘Scripture Principle,’ he also identifies what I also take to be primary to a truly Christian presentation on the angels. As is typical, especially with reference to my own interests, Barth rightly recognizes the role that a prolegomena/hermeneutic will end up having on how a respective thinker will arrive at their veritable conclusion on what in fact angels (and demons) are. This a priori commitment to whatever hermeneutic someone deploys in their attempt to understand the supraphysical verities in God’s world, will in the end determine whether or not said thinker actually has a point of contact with God’s world or not.

In the following passage the reader will observe how Barth believes a philosophical/speculative attempt at developing a doctrine of the angels, as is present in Aquinas’ guiding habit, ends up providing something highly interesting and imaginative to contemplate; but beyond that, for Barth, this speculation only generates a notion of ‘angelness’ that only can get as high as the virtuoso’s genius. That is, Barth believes, for example, in Thomas’ attempt to prove the existence of angels, that insofar that he stays correspondent within his self-referencing universe, that Thomas does indeed offer something on “the angels” that entails a coherence. But that’s what makes it something of interest to Barth, rather than something of substance (pun intended).

It cannot be contested that in a specific sphere and on a specific assumption proof is here given of the existence of a specific object interesting to the one who conducts the proof. It might be asked whether this sphere is real, and if so accessible, and if so able to be marked off in this way and approached with this assumption. It might be asked whether the proof furnished on this assumption and in this sphere is really conclusive and convincing either in detail or as a whole. But if we assume that everything is in order in this respect, and that Thomas has legitimately proved what he really could prove, there can be no doubt that with this assumption (or with the criticism or partial or total rejection of his demonstration) we are merely making philosophical and not theological decisions. Whether there are intellectual substances without bodies, and whether their existence can be proved in this or some other way, may be a question which is interesting and important in the sphere of philosophy. It may be one which can be discussed and even decided in this sphere. It may even be one which is decisive. But it is purely philosophical. On the basis of the Word of God attested in Holy Scripture we are not asked whether there are or are not substances of this kind, nor are we required to prove their existence in some way. If there are, and if their existence can be proved, this does not lead us to angels in the biblical sense of the term. And if there are not, and their existence cannot be proved, this is no argument against angels in the Christian sense. What are called angels in the Bible are not even envisaged in Thomas’ proof of the existence of these substantiae separatae [distinct substances], let alone is anything said for or against their existence, or anything meaningful states about them at all, with the eight proofs. And what Thomas later constructed upon the demonstrated existence of these substantiae separatae is very different from a doctrine of angels in the Christian sense of the term. In his demonstration Thomas has given us philosophy and not theology, and he has done so far more exclusively than Dionysius. He does so occasionally refer to Holy Scripture, and therefore it may be asked whether he does not incidentally and in some sense contrary to his own intention make some contribution to theological knowledge. But fundamentally and as a whole he simply offers us a classical example of how not to proceed in this matter.[1]

In nuce, if the Christian is going to attempt to offer a genuinely Christian doctrine of angels, they will, as Barth so rightly presses, be committed to the biblical categories rather than the philosophical ones. And of course, it is this methodology that funds the whole of Barth’s style of a confessional trinitarian-dialectical christologically conditioned way of doing theology from the reality of the Bible. The Christian philosophers among us would sneer at this; the classical theologians, the ‘Great Traditioners’ in our midst, would mock; how ironic.

Stay Biblical my friends.

[1] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III/3 §50–51 [393] The Doctrine of Creation: Study Edition (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 104.

Against the Augustinian-Lombardian Penitential Theology: From the Singular Person of Christ

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TF Torrance often refers to what he calls ‘The Latin Heresy,’ when discussing Western theology; especially with reference to its fountainhead, Augustine. The Latin Heresy for TFT entails the neo-Platonist dualism that funds Augustine’s theology, and all other theologies that follow Augustine’s categories. For TFT, this dualism involves a competitive relationship between God and humanity; such that, humanity is thought in abstraction relative to God’s life, rather than finding its concrete ground therein. This shows up most clearly in Augustine’s doctrine of election. JND Kelly masterfully describes this,

The problem of predestination has so far only been hinted at. Since grace takes the initiative and apart from it all men form a massa damnata, it is for God to determine which shall receive grace and which shall not. This He has done, Augustine believes on the basis of Scripture, from all eternity. The number of the elect is strictly limited, being neither more nor less than is required to replace the fallen angels. Hence he has to twist the text ‘God wills all men to be saved’ (1 Tim. 2, 4), making it mean that He wills the salvation of all the elect, among whom men of every race and type are represented. God’s choice of those to whom grace is to be given in no way depends on His foreknowledge of their future merits, for whatever good deeds they will do will themselves be the fruit of grace. In so far as His foreknowledge is involved, what He foreknows is what He Himself is going to do. Then how does God decide to justify this man rather than that? There can in the end be no answer to this agonizing question. God has mercy on those whom He wishes to save, and justifies them; He hardens those upon whom He does not wish to have mercy, not offering them grace in conditions in which they are likely to accept it. If this looks like favouritism, we should remember that all are in any case justly condemned, and that if God makes His decision in the light of ‘a secret and, to human calculation, inscrutable justice’. Augustine is therefore prepared to speak of certain people as being predestined to eternal death and damnation; they may include, apparently, decent Christians who have been called and baptized, but to whom the grace of perseverance has not been given. More often, however, he speaks of the predestination of the saints which consists in ‘God’s foreknowledge and preparation of the benefits by which those who are to be delivered are most assuredly delivered’. These alone have the grace of perseverance, and even before they are born they are sons of God and cannot perish.[1]

As Kelly describes Augustine’s doctrine of predestination, election-reprobation, what stands out is the way God stands over humanity, as if humanity has no correspondence to God by God’s grace. As if humanity must find a way to God, even as God finds His way to humanity. And for Augustine God only finds His way to humanity through an ad hoc arbitrary election of certain individuals, who he snares out of the ‘massa damnata’ (the ‘mass of damnation’ of humanity). But it is this that represents the inorganic notion of a God-human/God-world relation for Augustine; i.e., that humanity has no ground in God’s life organically, creatively; that it is only by God’s voluntary act that He brings ‘some’ into a contractive relationship with Him—as some would call it later, the absolutum decretum (the absolute decree of election/reprobation/predestination).

So, all of the aforementioned to bring up another application of this type of Augustinianism as it relates to soteriology. In Book 4 of Peter Lombard’s infamous Sentences, he writes the following:

Chapter 2 (110)

  1. CONCERNING THOSE WHO DO NOT COMPLETE THEIR PENANCE. But if it is asked whether those who do not complete their penance in this life will pass through the fire to complete there, as it were, what they have left unfinished here, we say that the same is to be supposed concerning these as of those who repent at the end.—For if their contrition of heart and their disapproval of crime were so great as to suffice for the punishment of sin, they will pass into [eternal] life free from other punishments, even if their penance was not completed, because they perfectly repented and groaned in their heart.—But as for those who are not so contrite in heart, or who do not so groan for sin, if they died before the completion of penance, they feel the purging fire, and are punished more gravely than if they had completed their penance here, for it is an awful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
  2. For since God is merciful and just, he forgives the penitent from mercy, not reserving the sin for eternal punishment; but from justice, he does not leave a crime unpunished. Either man punishes it, or God. Man punishes it by repenting. And penance is inward and outward. And so, if the inner sorrow is such as to suffice as retribution for sin, God, who knows this, does not exact any further punishment from someone who repents in such fashion. But if the inward sorrow does not suffice as retribution for sin, and the external penance is not fulfilled, God, who knows the ways and measures of sins and punishments, adds a sufficient punishment.
  3. “Let each one, then, see to it that he so corrects his crimes, that it will not be necessary to sustain a punishment after death. For some mortal sins become venial in penance, but are not immediately healed. Often a sick person would die, if he were not given medication; but he is not healed as soon as he receives medication: he who is going to live languishes, who before was about to die. But one who dies impenitent, dies wholly, and is tormented eternally. For if he were to live forever, he would sin forever.”[2]

The above longform to simply point out one simple, but profound reality: if humanity is not thought from God’s grace for us in His hypostasized life for us in the person of Jesus Christ; if humanity is not from God’s unilateral givenness for us in His election to be for all of humanity, indeed as He assumes all of humanity into His vicarious humanity pro nobis (for us) in Jesus Christ; then, humanity will always be left destitute, even ‘elect’ humanity, not to mention the mass of humanity who God does not elect, to pursue God and fill up the gap between God and humanity through the various means of grace God has given them. The dualism, if not obvious, is present in the penitential theology of Augustine, and the Latins, both on the Catholic and Protestant sides, insofar that the human being must constantly strive, and constantly reach out and hope that ‘they’ have done enough to be found worthy before God; even in the supplicant of His freely given grace. Grace in this frame becomes detached from God’s personal and triune life in Christ for the world, and instead it becomes a created grace, a quality, that the elect (they hope they are) must rightly habituate in and handle in the right ways if they ever hope of being in the Beatific Vision, and maybe, just maybe getting to avoid the ‘purging fires’ (Purgatory) along the way.

It ought to be clear though, in a soteriological frame, how Augustine’s “individualistic” understanding, as detailed by Kelly, and illustrated by Lombard in an Augustinian penitential theology, throws the would-be elect individual upon themselves, rather than upon Christ, in their pursuit of salvation and eternal life, coram Deo. God forbid this! God has singularly brought Godself and humanity together in His pre-destination, within His own life, in His elected elect humanity in the eternal Logos, the Son of God, as He hypostatically united His divine life with our human life, in His assumptio carnis (‘assumption of the flesh’), and made His human life our life, as we rose from the dead with His humanity, which is total humanity, by which all of humanity has been objectively saved (note: this does not entail a universalism, per se).

[1] J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, Revised Edition (New York: Harper Collins, 1978), 368-69.

[2] Peter Lombard, The Sentences: Book 4, On the Doctrine of the Signs, translated by Giulio Silano (Toronto-Ontario Canada: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2010), 122–3.

John MacArthur, Near Death and the Parousia of Christ

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Longtime pastor and seminary Dean, John MacArthur, is currently on his way to be with the Lord. It was announced at his church, Grace Community Church, in Sun Valley, CA, that JMac has come down with a pneumonia that he isn’t expected to survive (like only days left). This is sad news, but also points-up, once again, that this life truly is but a vapor. May we hold his family and close friends up in prayer at this time.

Relatedly, I have been a longtime critic of JMac’s, online in particular. I started out my blogging career in 2005 bantering back and forth with JMac’s editor, executive director of Grace to You radio ministry, Phil Johnson, at his personal and then team blog, Pyromaniacs. My critique of JMac’s theology, like many’s, has to do with what he famously identified as Lordship Salvation in his book The Gospel According to Jesus. In reduction, so-called ‘Lordship Salvation,’ really, is just a Baptistic form of 5 Point Calvinist soteriology. For MacArthur’s version though, he presented this schema with a pointed emphasis on perseverance of the saints (the “P”). In other words, JMac’s soteriology presses the notion of “good works” in salvation as the proof of salvation in very Puritanical types of ways. To the point, I have argued, that instead of causing the person to be assured of their salvation before God in Christ, they are constantly ‘thrown back upon themselves’ (to riff, TF Torrance’s phrase) as the source and ground of knowledge of their salvation. As far as a Christian spirituality goes, this is terrible doctrine, which causes the person, ironically, to ‘turn to the subject,’ to the point that ultimately, if sensitive to such introspection (many aren’t), a person can only despair and hope that they are indeed one of the elect for whom Christ died. But when the basis of the person’s assurance of salvation is their own good works (whatever those are, and however that is supposed to look), the person is really just thrown into the winds of a black abyss.

The aforementioned was the nub of what I have been critical of with reference to JMac’s soteriology. It is no small matter, and I have made many arguments and critiques against it; both directly, and more generally, as I have critiqued its more critical grounds as found in Federal (Covenantal) theology. Indeed, JMac is not a Covenantal theology proponent, but the mercantilist/transactional nature of the doctrine of salvation he propounds, finds its historic rootage within the broader framework provided for its themes, within Federal theology. In fact, I wrote a whole book chapter on these matters, which you can read via Google Books, here.

This has been part of my long connection with the ministry of John MacArthur. Beyond that, I grew up in Southern California (LA county), where JMac’s presence is rather ubiquitous in the evangelical environs therein. It has been a critical relationship for sure. Even so, JMac is representative of a nearly bygone era of evangelical church ministry and ministers that is grievously leaving us right now (just because of lifespan). I don’t like that aspect of this at all.

May John MacArthur repose in the bounties of God’s triune life in Christ, as he pierces the bonds of his body of death (Rm 7), and enters into the banqueting table of the LORD.

The Lombard, An Origenist Analogy On the Church Catholic the Church Protestant

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Peter Lombard (ca. 1095-1160), bishop of Paris. Lombard taught theology at the school of Notre Dame and his text Four Books of Sentences was the key theology text of the Middle Ages. (Photo by © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

I was just pondering how all of us Protestants (Reformed, Lutheran, evangelicals et al.) are still members of the Latin/Western church (normally understood to be the Catholic church). As Providence would have it, as I’m reading Book 4 of Lombard’s Sentences (in my quest to become a mediaeval doctor of the Church), I came across the following citation from Lombard on and from Origen:

ORIGEN, ON LEVITICUS. And so those whom the Church’s sentence strikes and wounds according to what they deserve are outside also before God. Whoever did not deserve it, is wounded by the Church’s sentence, unless he holds it in contempt. Hence Origen: “One has gone out from truth, from faith, from charity: on this account, he goes out of the encampments of the Church, even if he is not cast out by the bishop’s voice. Likewise, on the contrary, another is sent outside by a judgement which is not right, but if he did not do anything to deserve to go out, he suffers no wound. And so, at times, one who is sent outside is within; and one who is outside, appears to be kept within.” (Lombard, Sentences, 4.18.7 (103).3)

In context this is referring to the binding and loosing power that the Catholic church believes priests have, in regard to forgiveness and confession of sins. But on analogy, it could also be observed, in principle, that there remains this type of “outside/within” dynamic even within the broader catholic Western church (and beyond). Of course, how this outside/within dynamic is affirmed, perspectivally, will determine who the outside and within are. From a historical perspective it would be the Catholic church within which the Protestant church, while outside, is still within in certain important ways. Indeed, in the way Luther had originally intended: to be a reformer from within rather than outside the church. Hence, Exsurge Domine notwithstanding, I would argue, de jure, the Protestants are still within even while outside.

Evil, The ‘Ancient Menace’: Christ is Victor!

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My recent readings in Barth’s Church Dogmatics have me engaging with his development on a doctrine of nothingness (i.e., sin and evil). The particular section I am reading has been exceedingly edifying. The passage I am going to share from him is a summarizing type of statement of what he has been treating heretofore. As I was reading this section it gave me great hope to ponder the present and forthcoming realities, as those relate to Christ’s victory over nothingness-sin-evil, and all that entails eschatologically. It is hopeful to ruminate on the concrete victory of Christ vis-à-vis the despair and delirium the current (seen) world order suffers under. Without this blessed hope, and the soon to come, glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, this world surely has no ultimate meaning or purpose. Without the Logos ensarkos all the world can do is to make an attempt at self-generating some type of existential meaning in the face of the absurdum of the abyss of darkness that enshrouds this world system. But Christ! Barth writes,

What is nothingness? In the knowledge and confession of the Christian faith, i.e., looking retrospectively to the resurrection of Jesus Christ and prospectively to His coming again, there is only one possible answer. Nothingness is the past, the ancient menace, danger and destruction, the ancient non-being which obscured and defaced the divine creation of God but which is consigned to the past in Jesus Christ, in whose death it has received its deserts, being destroyed with the consummation of the positive will of God which is as such the end of His non-willing. Because Jesus is Victor, nothingness is routed and extirpated. It is that which in this One who was both very God and very man has been absolutely set behind, not only by God, but in unity with Him by man and therefore the creature. It is that from whose influence, dominion and power the relationship between Creator and creature was absolutely set free in Jesus Christ, so that it is no longer involved in their relationship as a third factor. This is what happened to nothingness once and for all in Jesus Christ. This is its status and appearance now that God has made His own and carried through the conflict with it in His Son. It is no longer to be feared. It can no longer “nihilate.” But obviously we may make these undoubtedly audacious statements only on the ground of one single presupposition. The aspect of creaturely activity both as a whole and in detail, our consciousness both of the world and of self, certainly do not bear them out. But what do we really know of it as taught by this consciousness? How can this teach us the truth that it is really past and done with? The only valid presupposition is a backward look to the resurrection of Jesus Christ and a forward look to His coming in glory, i.e., the look of Christian faith as rooted in and constantly nourished by the Word of God. The knowledge and confession of Christian faith, however, inevitably entails the affirmation that by the divine intervention nothingness has lost the perpetuity which it could and must and indeed did have apart from this intervention. It can no longer be validly regarded as possessing any claim or right power in relation to the creature, as though it were still before and above us, as though the world created by God were still subject to and dominated by it, as though Christians must hold it in awe, as though it were particularly Christian to hold it in the utmost awe and to summon the world to share in this awe. It is no longer legitimate to think of it as if real deliverance and release from it were still an event of the future. It is obvious that in point of fact we do constantly think of it in this way, with anxious, legalistic, tragic, hesitant, doleful, and basically pessimistic thoughts, and this inevitably where we are neither able nor prepared to think from the standpoint of Christian faith. But it is surely evident than when we think in this way it is not from a Christian standpoint, but in spite of it, in breach of the command imposed with our Christian faith. If our thought is conditioned by the obedience of Christian faith, we have only one freedom, namely, to regard nothingness as finally destroyed and to make a new beginning in remembrance of the One who has destroyed it. Only if our thought is thus conditioned by the obedience of Christian faith is it possible to proclaim the Gospel to the world as it really is, as the message of freedom for the One who has already come and acted as the Liberator, and therefore of the freedom which precludes the anxiety, legalism and pessimism so prevalent in the world. We need hardly describe how throughout the centuries the Christian Church has failed to shape its thought in the obedience of Christian faith, to proclaim it to the world in this obedience, to live in this freedom and to summon the world to it. For this reason and contrary to its true nature, so-called Christianity has become a sorry affair both within and without. It is shameful enough to have to admit that many of the interpretations of nothingness which we are forced to reject as non-Christian derive their power and cogency from the fact that for all their weakness and erroneousness they attest a Christian insight to the extent that they do at least offer a cheerful view and describe and treat nothingness as having no perpetuity. It ought to be the main characteristic of the Christian view that it can demonstrate this more surely because on surer ground, more boldly because in the exercise and proclamation of the freedom granted to do so, and more logically because not in a venture but in simple obedience. We must not imagine that we serve the seriousness of Christian knowledge, life and proclamation by retreating at this point and refusing to realise and admit that the apparently audacious is the norm, the only true possibility. The true seriousness of the matter, and we may emphasise this point in retrospect of the whole discussion, does not finally depend upon pessimistic but upon optimistic thought and speech. From a Christian standpoint “to be serious” can only mean to take seriously the fact that Jesus is Victor, the last word must always be secretly the first, namely, that nothingness has no perpetuity.[1]

Years ago, I read a book by Donald Bloesch called, Jesus is Victor!: Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Salvation. Bloesch was treating the very themes we have been reading about in Barth directly. Barth’s primary point (he has more than one) is that nothingness or sin or evil cannot be rightly known, but through the One who first stands against it for us. That God alone in Christ has the capacity to see what evil is, in light of His positive life of righteousness and holiness. For Barth, the world has no access to the concrete non-reality of nothingness. As such, they have no way of battling it. As an implication, this would be one reason, among many, that there is Victory alone in Christ alone. The world is ensnared by a trap that might seem like the Stoic fate of fatalism; but as Barth opines, in light of Christ, things are much worse than that. Which is why it takes all of God to be for all of us in the face of Jesus Christ. As Barth rightly emphasizes, there is no release from the anxiety, the dread, the tragic, the doom&gloom apart from the Light of Light of God piercing the darkness that we might come to more accurately understand what darkness, what nothingness actually entails. Not that we can grasp the inner-anatomy of nothingness, per se, but in Christ, we can finally, at the very least, recognize the depth dimensional reality that ensconces us within the binding of a dread-nothingness that God alone has the ability to know the depths of; indeed, as the Theanthropos, “. . . He does not will to be faithful to Himself except as He is faithful to His creature, adopting its cause and therefore constantly making the alien problem of nothingness His own.”[2]

Marantha!

[1] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III/3 §50–51 [364] The Doctrine of Creation: Study Edition (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 74–5.

[2] Ibid., 68.

Miscellanies On Barth Reception and the Homoousious as Hermeneutic

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I wrote these for other social media outlets of mine. I thought I’d share them here as miscellanies. 

People reject Barth out of hand simply because they’ve been told that Barth is ultimately a liberal (still). But these same people have never actually read Barth enough to know whether that be true or not. Coming from someone, an evangelical conservative Christian (me), who has both read Barth and Barth literature extensively, and published on Barth, these people are simply living in a willful land of ignorance. Granted, Barth’s 𝑜𝑒𝑢𝑣𝑟𝑒 is extensive. But there are ways into Barth that can introduce you to him without having to read all of him, or even a substantive amount of him. But most will never give him a fair hearing.

One reason Barth is pertinent to theology today is because he elides so much of the pop debates surrounding Reformed and non-Reformed theology; among many other important offerings. He truly offers an 𝑒𝑣𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑐ℎ 𝐞𝐯𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 way forward that is actually true and correspondent with the best of what even a North American evangelical theology has striven for.

There is a hermeneutical logic inherent to the ℎ𝑜𝑚𝑜𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑠 articulated and thought out at the Council of Nicaea (and post). It offers a ‘depth dimensional’ understanding of Holy Scripture that functions well within what can be called the 𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑢𝑠 𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑠. That is, it understands that the Bible has an ontology (a givenness by God), and thus an antecedent context wherein it comes to make meaningful sense in the 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑠𝑜𝑝𝑜𝑛 (face) of God in Christ. It realizes that Scripture is simply a 𝑠𝑖𝑔𝑛𝑢𝑚 (sign) to its 𝑟𝑒𝑠 (reality) in Christ in the triune life. The fact that so many would-be exegetes of Scripture gloss right past this in favor of a higher critical approach, ought to be a warning of what being a theologian of glory looks like rather than a theologian of the cross (seeing the unseen things as seen).