Category Archives: Analogy of Being

‘The Faith of Christ’ in Contradiction to the gods of the Metaphysicians

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What hath Jerusalem to do with Athens? A question from the days of Tertullian, and now down through the centuries. I would vociferously argue that Jerusalem must condition Athens in such a way that Athens becomes nothing more than a pretext to be used by the textuality of Godā€™s life Self-revealed for the church and world in Jesus Christ. This question of ā€œfaith and reasonā€ has been given many iterations and treatments throughout the halls of history, whether that be from someone as boisterous as Martin Luther, or someone as methodologically skeptical as Rene Descartes. Indeed, the reformational scholastics themselves, and their progeny, even into the repristinate of today, ostensibly maintain that the metaphysics of the classical Greek philosophers is in fact univocal towards thinking and speaking the Christian God.

I protest, and so does Eberhard JĆ¼ngel:

The faith which interposes such questions is a disturbance. But should not faith be seen as a disturber of the metaphysical thought of God, as even its greatest menace? Was it not necessary that a study of religion within the boundaries of pure reason would have to come to the aid of the metaphysical concept of God in order to reduce the all too human discourse about a God who reveals himself in history to a rational level? Did not faith have to be subordinated to that morality which was established without faith, if it were not to become irrational in and of itself and thus be dead?

But then faith will reply with the question whether it really is such a rational capacity that a theoretical or practical use of reason, separate from the event of faith, can prescribe reasonā€™s function. What becomes of God when an abstract ā€œI thinkā€ or an abstract ā€œthou shaltā€ sets the context from the outset within which one then may and must decide what merits being called God? Although the intention to maintain the strictest possible distinction between God and man cannot be supported too strongly by theology, does not this approach lead to a result which is totally opposed to that intention? And finally, if God has been established as the securing factor for man, has not then the decision been already made that from now on the securing must become the god of man? Is not ultimately the categorical imperative the grand attempt to establish the morally understood security of the human race as its highest good? If ā€œnothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good without qualification, except a good will,ā€ then does not the good will which secures the welfare of the human race become the god of man?[1]

Prior to the above passage Juengal has been discussing how certainty and non-certainty might work within a theological and philosophical frame vis-Ć -vis God. Without getting into the details, for our purposes, the questions Juengal puts to the God constructed from classical and modern metaphysical premises are sufficient. Sufficient, for drawing attention to the fact that faith itself, if indeed it has to do with a genuine knowledge of the genuine and triune God of the Christians, has its starting point insofar as God starts with us first; that is, rather than us starting with God first. Is Christian faith intended to provide a provision of self-security in a seemingly insecure world for its own sake (something like a ā€˜god-of-the-gapsā€™)? Or is Christian faith purely focused upon knowledge of God that is focused on God as God, as God is in Himself as the reality who indeed is to be worshipped simply because He is, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Well of course, the Christian should want to say the latter rather than the former. But methodologically so much of Christian theology, one way or the other, no matter how much piety and piousness is on display, has given way to thinking God only after God has first been thought by the profane mind. Indeed, the mind that is ultimately seeking a huge scratch for the itch of uncertainties, for the chaos that this world presents each and everyone of us with upon our respective arrivals on planet earth.

I think the moral here is that Godā€™s Self-revelation is categorically distinct, in a sui generis type of way, from the metaphysics. That is, knowledge of God for the Christian entails a vulnerability. But the vulnerability isnā€™t about assuaging our own anxieties about the ostensible disorder of the world, and our place in it. The vulnerability is that we donā€™t have the capacity to disentangle ourselves from the chaos of this world order; no matter what type of metaphysical structures we might build in that very attempt. The genuine vulnerability we have is that without being rightly positioned within the order that God has set about, we indeed will seek to create our own veritable towers of Babel; reaching up to a certainty of reality that ultimately has to do with ensuring a salvation for ourselves rather than being reliant upon the One who can actually provide us with a true and rightly ordered salvation, as that obtains in Godself for us in Jesus Christ. And it is this, this faith of Christ, that confronts the metaphysically construed gods, who seek a faith built upon its own internal premises, rather than the alien premises of faith provided for, truly, by the living God for us in Jesus Christ.

[1] Eberhard JĆ¼ngel,Ā God as the Mystery of the World,Ā trans. by Darrell L. Guder (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf&Stock [reprint], 1983), 195ā€“96.

Reading Romans 1 Against Natural Theology

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18Ā ForĀ the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men whoĀ suppress the truthĀ in unrighteousness,Ā 19Ā becauseĀ that which is known about God is evidentĀ within them; for God made it evident to them.Ā 20Ā ForĀ since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen,Ā being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.Ā 21Ā For even though they knew God, they did notĀ honor Him as God or give thanks, but they becameĀ futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.Ā 22Ā Professing to be wise, they became fools,Ā 23Ā andĀ exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals andĀ crawling creatures. ā€“Romans 1.18ā€“22

The above pericope has been used as the locus classicus for those who want to argue for a ā€˜natural theology,ā€™ in regard to a theological methodology. That is, for anyone interested in promoting the idea that the triune Christian God can be liminally known simply by reflecting on the effects of nature; indeed, as those are reasoned back to their first cause (in a chain-of-being knowledge and casual schemata), in the cause of all causes, who just is God. But New Testament exegete, Jason Staples, argues something much more biblical,

In contrast to the standard Jewish polemical argument that Israel has been set apart from the theologically ignorant pagans by the reception of the Torah, the account of Rom I: I8ā€“32 ā€œoffers a completely distinct explanation.ā€ In Paulā€™s account, Kathy Gaca explains, the idolaters are ā€œnot theologically blind outsiders but something far more reprehensible in biblical terms. They are knowledgeable about God . . . yet have become rebels.ā€ This is not a minor change. Right from the start, the alert reader familiar with traditional Jewish polemics will be startled by the assertion that ā€œwhat is knowable about God is revealed among them, for God has revealed it to themā€ (I:19). Since when has the knowledge of God been revealed among the pagans? Is not the knowledge of God granted through the Torah the very thing that has set Israel apart?

Unlike Wisdomā€™s ignorant idolaters who failed to realize the knowledge of God through extrapolating from creation to creator, Paul tells a narrative in which the explicit revelation from creator to creation is realized but rejected. As such, like Adam, the subjects of Romans are ā€œwithout excuseā€ or ā€œindefensibleā€ . . . precisely because they knew better and rebelled against the revelation of God. Not only did they have access to divine revelation, the ā€œunderstoodā€ . . . the ā€œunseen things.ā€ . . . Rom I:18ā€“32 does not speak ā€œof people who should have known Godā€™s attributes through the creation around themā€ but rather of people who did know Godā€™s attributes through the revelation God gave them. By implication, the knowledge of God and divine revelation is not in fact a safeguard against impiety and sin as Wisdom suggests (I5:2) but rather is the very reason the revels of Rom I stand without excuse for impiety and injustice. In Johnathan Linbaughā€™s words, ā€œWisdomā€™s polemics targets idiots; Paul aims at apostates.ā€[1]

Staplesā€™ argument is much more involved than the passage I just shared from him. But it serves our purposes precisely at the point that it signals an alternative, and more biblical way, to exegete Romans 1. It isnā€™t and thus shouldnā€™t be used as THE prooftext for giving natural theology the biblical ground it so desires; that it so needs, to be hip to the ā€œcatholicā€ groove. On this occasion Paul is making a particular argument vis-Ć -vis the relationship between the Jews and the Church (as given further development and climax in chptrs. 9ā€”11). The underlying point of Romans 1, in Staples exegesis, is that it isnā€™t a naked creation that holds the vestiges by which the Christian God can be known; even if only discursively. Instead, as Staples shows latterly, Romans 1, as apiece with the following context in chapters 2ā€”3, is written in order to reinforce the judgement that the Jew (which in itself is a complicated designation in the Pauline theology), and that the world, mediated by the ones who should have known through Godā€™s Self-revelation as attested to in Holy Scripture, in the Torah, in particular, should have come to know and submitted to.

Staplesā€™ argument resonates deeply with my own sense on this passage, relative to the notion that God has only ever really been known personally, and even generally (because how else would a personal God be known?), through Godā€™s intentional and personal revelation first presented to the Jews in the Torah. To the Jew first, then the Greek.

[1] Jason A. Staples, Paul and the Resurrection of Israel: Jews, Former Gentiles, Israelites (United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2024), 118ā€“19.

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 thingā€”theological knowledge acquisitionā€”often you build up in your mindā€™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 isnā€™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.

On the Thomistic Captivity of the Protestantisms: Knowledge of the triune God

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Human agency is lost in the fall (which remains an inexplicable thing). The only hope for human agency to be reestablished before God is for God to re-create it as He has for us in the human agency of the Second and Greater Adam, who is the Christ. This is one reason people of a certain ilk reject the notion of a natural theology, and its subset in the anologis entis (analogy of being). Hence, knowledge of God is a purely Graced reality, and not a natural one in any way. I am, in fact, of said ilk (shocking!) I will always find it shocking the self-professed Reformed orthodox and Lutheran orthodox folks affirm natural theology as the fundamentum of their theological projects. Donā€™t you see why? These forlorn Protestantisms claim to hold to a radical form of Total Depravity, wherein what it means to be human, in a fallen sense, is to be so polluted by and riddled with sin, that ostensibly the ontic capacity, along with its noetic counterpart, cannot and will not come to know the true and the living God.

And yet I would suggest these Protestantisms are held within a Thomistic Captivity. That is, for them, as with Aquinas, what it means to be God, and then as corollary, what it means to be human, is to constantly have a resident and active intellect at play. And for the creature, even postlapsarian, this entails that the intellect, at the very least, retains its spark of being. That is, in order for the integrity of Godā€™s being to be upheld, for those in the Thomist Captivity, human beingā€™s intellect must be upheld even post-fall. As Steven Ozment so eloquently describes this chain of being for Thomas and his children:

The assumption that real relations existed between God, man, and the world made possible Aquinasā€™s confidence inĀ a posterioriĀ proofs of Godā€™s existence; finite effects led necessarily to their origin, because they were really connected with it. The same assumption underlay Aquinasā€™s distinctive views on the ā€œanalogicalā€ character of human knowledge and discourse about God. According to Aquinas, one could speak meaningfully of oneā€™s relationship to God by analogy with oneā€™s relationship with oneā€™s fellow man because a real relationship existed between the values of people shared and those God had prescribed.[1]

With Thomas, for me, it isnā€™t the idea ā€œthat real relations existed between God, man . . . ,ā€ I am a critical/theological realist after all. The problem in the Thomistic frame is that the ā€˜point of contactā€™ between God and man, the point of relation, is predicated by a chain-like continuity between Godā€™s intellect and humanityā€™s (intact, at whatever level postlapse). But the Bible teaches otherwise in regard to the effects of the fall, on both the world simpliciter, and humanity.

I submit, that in order for humanity to come to have a genuine knowledge of the triune God, that the triune God must become us that we might become Him by grace. Without this participatio Christi all the human can do, even in the name of Christ, is construct monuments of their own intellects and worship them as God. This is why I reject the premises of a natural theology; and this is why I would recommend that you do the same.

[1] Ā Steven Ozment,Ā The Age of Reform 1250ā€“1550: An Intellectual and Religious History of Late Medieval and Reformation EuropeĀ (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1980),Ā 49.

Disallowing Secular Unbelief to Dictate the Terms of God

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Secular, worldly unbelief. I think Christians often allow the bar to be set much too low. Much of Christian theology, for example, especially those that have taken shape in the natural theology forest, allow the skepticā€™s unbelief to dictate the types of questions the theologians seek to answer. Primary of which are observed in Thomas Aquinasā€™ Prima Pars (first part) of his Summa Theologiae. Here, Thomas seeks to answer the questions of Godā€™s existence, and whether or not it is coherent to believe that God exists (like a generic God; albeit, in Thomasā€™ context this would be applied to the Christian God simplicter, but that doesnā€™t necessarily have to be the case for him). Once Thomas felt that he had sufficiently answered the skepticā€™s arguments, about what God is; he then proceeded onto other mattersā€”which would entail the Trinity, the Church, Justification and all other theological matters. It isnā€™t really the order of theology, per se, that is problematic with Thomasā€™ method (although I would qualify and say: that the order is bereft because it starts with a Monadic conception of God; even so, it starts with God, just from the wrong place). But the fact that he feels compelled to first prove “a Godā€™s” existence, and then only after that apply this ā€œproven Godā€™sā€ existence to some of the more Dogmatic questions of the Church has a highly disordering effect after all.

So, the above is an example of how I believe, at a high level, theology can take its cues and categories from the wrong unbelieving people; and then, of course!, end up with the wrong theological and biblical conclusions. But I think this happens to each and everyone of us, as Christians (at least those attempting to walk as intentional Christians), as we are constantly bombarded with the wares of our Secular Age. As the Apostle Paul counters, even as he is referring to the false teachings and antagonisms of the Pseudo-Apostles in Corinth:

NowĀ I, Paul, myselfĀ urge you by theĀ meekness and gentleness of Christā€”I whoĀ amĀ meek when face to face with you, but bold toward you when absent!Ā 2Ā I ask thatĀ when I am present IĀ needĀ not be bold with the confidence with which I propose to be courageous againstĀ some, who regard us as if we walkedĀ according to the flesh.Ā 3Ā For though we walk in the flesh, we do not warĀ according to the flesh,Ā 4Ā for theĀ weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, butĀ divinely powerfulĀ for the destruction of fortresses.Ā 5Ā We areĀ destroying speculations and everyĀ lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, andĀ we areĀ taking every thought captive to theĀ obedience of Christ,Ā 6Ā and we are ready to punish all disobedience, wheneverĀ your obedience is complete.

I am looking at the principle embedded in the emboldened section in particular. Wherever these ā€œspeculationsā€ are coming from, whether it be from Joe Pagan at work, or if it be Plato in the heavens, we are to discern such things for what they are, and ā€œtake it captiveā€ unto Christ. The simple point I am drawing on is that it is a spiritual battle to ensure that the way we think God, as Christians, is only taken from, and in an immediate way, from God who has spoken to us (and speaks to us) in His Self-revelation in Jesus Christ. Even if there are hallowed traditions, some might call it the Great Tradition of the Church, without any further explication (i.e., it just is), these traditions themselves are always subservient to the reality of Holy Scripture, the theology of the Word, Jesus Christ. And this is the battle we face, on the daily, as Christians. This applies to all Christians, in one way or the other. We are faced with unbelief all around; thatā€™s what this evil age entails. But we are to be more vigilant than theologians of glory, who seek to synthesize the wisdom of the world with the wisdom of the cross. Indeed, we are to be theologians of the cross; and by the wisdom of God, which is the cross of Christ, we are to recognize these false speculative and flighty ideas about God, even if they have many solid layerings and accretions of traditions behind them, in the name of the Church, and test them, in the face of Christ and the triune God, to see if they be so.

This is a prayerful way though.

‘At any rate, it is not at all clear that He controls dogmatic thinking concerning Himself.’

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It is time to break my blogging fast. It is fitting, the topic of this post, because I am nearing the end of my Philosophy of Religion class at the University of Oxford (next week is the last). There is one unit left, it is on Faith, Prayer, and the Spiritual life. The class is largely populated by atheists and agnostics. The text we used for class (which was augmented by many other readings and lectures) was written by an Oxford philosopher named T. J. Mawson, Belief in God. He is a Christian theist, but a panentheist who holds to a Christian universalism. What became stoutly reinforced to me was that the god of the philosophers (or the no-god) has no correspondence with the God Self-revealed in Jesus Christ. Mawson is arguing for the existence of a philosophical Monad; a Pure Being; an Unmoved Mover; Pure Act (actus purus). Indeed, he is arguing from within an analytic philosophical key; but, nevertheless, this key is still funded by the Hellenic Monad of the classical philosophers.

Unfortunately, too much of that ā€œkeyā€ has been pressed into the development of Christian theologies; both antique and modern. This has always been at the basis of my critique of what I have called classical Calvinism (as a riff on classical Theism). Too much of the ā€˜beingā€™ that can be proven is synthesized with the God of Christian revelation, such that the God produced is something of a hybrid notion of God wherein God functions more like a philosophical monad rather than a personal and relational God of triune Self-given love, one-in-the-other as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The god of the philosophers has no place with the God who we have come to know in the face (prosopon) of Jesus Christ.

Karl Barth, observes the same thing as that has largely taken place in the ā€˜older orthodox theologyā€™ of the Protestant Reformed of the 16th and 17th centuries, respectively. Indeed, what is imbibed by the orthodox, it could be said, is simply just the re-gestation of a mediaeval theology as that developed on the ā€˜Western frontā€™ of the Latin church. Barth writes:

The weakness of the older orthodox theology was that in all its doctrine of the divine providence, and of the creation and man, and earlier of God and the election of grace, it believed that it could dispense with this relationship either entirely or almost entirely. It thought and spoke about the divine ruling as an idea. With all of its divergence from individual philosophical systems, its development of the concept was far too like the philosophical development of a concept. In spite of the testimonies from Scripture, it was content with what was basically a quite formal and abstract consideration of the subject. It did not make it at all clear to what it ought really to be looking at as a Christian theology, and more often than not it did not even look there, but somewhere else. This was the root of all its uncertainties and deviations, of all the dangers to which it more or less openly exposed itself as it proceeded, and above all of the insipidity or colourlessness of all its thinking to which we drew attention at the outset. The One who is described as King in Holy Scripture is acknowledged to be such, but He does not act as such. At any rate, it is not at all clear that He controls dogmatic thinking concerning Himself. At many points He seems in fact not to control it. What does control it, and what is passed off as the authority which controls the whole universe, seems rather to be the concept of a supreme being furnished with supreme power in relation to all other beings. And the credibility of what is ostensibly said about the rule of God seems to depend upon the existence of this being. With regard to this, we may say: 1 that the existence of such a supreme being is itself highly doubtful, and therefore the credibility of a doctrine of Godā€™s rule cannot be a Christian doctrine because the God of Christian teaching is certainly not identical with that supreme being. If we are still under the shadow thrown by this twofold difficulty, it is high time that we moved away from it.[1]

I clearly concur with Barthā€™s last clause (and the whole passage!): ā€œ. . . it is high time that we moved away from it.ā€

[1] Karl Barth,Ā Church Dogmatics III/3 Ā§49 [176] The Doctrine of Creation: Study EditionĀ (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 180.

Maimonides on Divine Simplicity: With Christian Relief

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More from the philosophy class. As I reread this just now I didn’t really answer the whole question. Although, I amended it since in the class forum.

What does it mean to say that the concept of God is simple? Can this claim be held together with the claim that God has attributes? If so, how? If not, is this a problem for theism?

The concept of God as simple simply entails that the God conceived of by folks like Aristotle, and Thomas Aquinas, Maimonides et al. is a Monad. I.e., a non-composite being who is not made up by its parts or properties in addition, but a singular substance who is also identified, within this complex as an actus purus (ā€˜pure actā€™), pure being, unmoved mover so on and so forth. It is this construct, as in this case, exemplified and articulated in the tongue of Maimonides, that all of the so-called Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Islam, Christianity) can have a shared starting point in their respective God-talk.

As noted by Maimonides, his knowledge of God, after Aristotle and the philosophers, is arrived at by a process known as the via negativa (negative way). This speculative process is undertaken, as Maimonides develops, within an apophatic frame for thinking the ineffable God. That is to say, that God is so necessarily hidden in this frame, that all the would-be knower of God is left with, at a basic or primordial level, is to engage in a process of negating the seen, the ā€œknown,ā€ like the negation of nature in general, or even human being in particular, and to think Godā€™s perfections or attributes, from these speculative means; as the philosopher works their ā€œway upā€ the supposed chain of being; whose first cause, is indeed the unmoved mover, the monad known as God.

Christian theism alternativelyā€”and I use that language in a particular way, noting a trinitarian way for thinking Godā€”I would argue is necessarily a kataphatic (versus apophatic, in a sense) religion. That is to say, Christian theism thinks God first, not from a negation of human being, or nature in general, but from Godā€™s Self-revelation in Jesus Christ. John 1:18 says: ā€œNo one has seen God at any time;Ā the only begotten God who isĀ in the bosom of the Father,Ā He has explainedĀ Him.ā€ The word translated as ā€˜explain,ā€™ in the koine Greek is exegesato, to exegete, to ā€œread-out.ā€ Indeed, even in this passage there is a sense of apophaticism in God, that is to say that He indeed is a hidden God. But to the point, on the Christian account, God freely chose to Self-reveal and explain Himself in the face of His Son, Jesus Christ. This is why Christians first think God not as a faraway pure monadic being, but as our Father (as Athanasius emphasizes: ā€œFather of the Son, Son of the Fatherā€). A genuine Christian theology works from a via positiva (ā€˜positive wayā€™) towards thinking God. That is, from revelation rather than speculation.

In the end, classical theism, and as that has been appropriated by certain traditions within Christianity, does take on the type of thinking that Maimonides articulates in regard to divine simplicity; and ā€œitsā€ methodology. And yet there are other traditions, like the one I affirm, within Christianity, who think God from within only positive, Self-revealed terms; indeed, as the base of a theological methodology itself. And yet all orthodox Christians, at some level, will affirm that God is simple (non-composite). Even so, there are other more relational ways to engage with that notion. My teacher, Karl Barth, evangelizes the concept and re-terms it as ā€˜Divine Constancy.ā€™ But that requires further development, and more space than available at the moment.

In the Rut of General Theism: Against Neutral Theology

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Christians donā€™t believe in an abstract ethereal god. Christians believe in the triune God who has Self-revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. Period. This should be an unremarkable assertion. There should be zero pushback to this. But in the so-called Great Tradition of the Church, and those who are ostensibly ā€œretrievingā€ it, this isnā€™t the case. Classical theism, so-called, as a contemporary way to identify certain expressions of the antique past, especially with reference to a theology proper, have so synthesized, say, the Aristotelian categories with an ecclesiastical doctrine of God, that it is nay impossible to make a distinction, in substance (pun intended), between the philosopherā€™s unmoved mover of pure act, and the God revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. In other words, there is such a conflation between the god of the philosophers, and the Christian God in this instance, that the god of the philosophers in fact becomes the Christian God in substance. Indeed, most of contemporary theology today, especially on the Latin side (i.e., Catholic and Protestant), traffics on the highway that the philosophers, and their theologians, respectively, have constructed for them. That is to say, contemporary theology, especially in certain iterations of Protestant theology, have so imbibed the cathedral of the Protestant development, that is primarily through the ā€˜schoolmen,ā€™ or the scholastics, that to do theology, for them, requires a straight repristination; an outright and absolute reception of whatever the Protestant fathers said; a total gleaning, a harvesting, if you will, of whatever golden apples the oldmen of Protestant yesteryear planted in their gardens of theological delight.

But what if they were simply squished by their sitz im leben (situation in life); what if they were just doing the best they could with what they had available to them, intellectually, at that time? What if what they did was rather imaginative and forward thinking for their times, respectively, but in the end wasnā€™t the last or final word? Iā€™m here to say it wasnā€™t; it wasnā€™t the last or final, or not even the best word. Karl Barth writes the following in his own analysis of those theological times. What you will find is that he agrees with me (or more correctly, that I agree with him).

Unfortunately the connexion between the belief in providence and belief in Christ had not been worked out and demonstrated theologically by the Reformers themselves. Only occasionally and from afar, if at all, had they seen the problem of natural theology and the necessity of a radical application to all theology of their recognition of the free grace of God in Christ. In their case, to be sure, we almost always feel and detect, even though it is so seldom palpable theologically, that when they speak of the world dominion of God they are in fact speaking with Christian content and on the basis of the Gospel, not abstractly in terms of a neutral God of Jews, Turks, pagans and Christians. And this is what gives warmth and force to the matter in P. Gerhardt. But if in him there is an unmistakable movement away from the Word of God to the experience of the Christian subject, this was to some extent a reaction against the dominant and self-evident abstraction with which the orthodoxy of his day followed another self-evident rut in these matters. This was the rut of a general theism which, apart from the mention of the Deus triunus [triune God], occasional quotations from the Bible and references to Church history, lacked any distinctive Christian content, being primarily concerned to distinguish itself from atheism, and limiting its consideration of the Gospel to the establishment and development of Christology and resultant doctrines. As if this were the real way to treat that primarium caput fidei et religionis [chief cornerstone of faith and religion].[1]

Surely, what Barth is explicating is the more sure word; relatively speaking. The Christian God is not neutral, He is not general, and He is not discoverable in some leftover vestiges of His presence in the fallen created order. That is to say, the fallen heart and mind of the fallen humanity has no access into the inner sanctum of Godā€™s eternal life; that is, not without God first becoming us that we might become Him in Christ (by grace not nature). Isnā€™t there an infinitely qualitative distance between God and humanity?, as Kierkegaard so rightly identified. Arenā€™t human beings, us, born dead in our trespasses and sins with an ugly ditch between us and the holy God of triune wonder? This is all Barth is getting at. This is all Iā€™m getting at, with reference to Barth. Selah

[1] Karl Barth,Ā Church Dogmatics III/3 Ā§48 [032] The Doctrine of Creation: Study EditionĀ (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 31.

The Vultures Have No Knowledge of God’s Kingdom: Living in the Theology of the Cross

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forĀ we walk by faith, not byĀ sight . . .[1]

It is certain that man must utterly despair of his own ability before he is prepared to receive the grace of Christ. That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the Ā»invisibleĀ« things of God as though they were clearly Ā»perceptible in those things which have actually happenedĀ« (Rom. 1:20; cf. 1 Cor 1:21-25), he deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross. A theology of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theology of the cross calls the thing what it actually is. That wisdom which sees the invisible things of God in works as perceived by man is completely puffed up, blinded, and hardened.[2]

Above we have both the Holy Spirit/Apostle Paul and Martin Luther underscoring the same thing. That is, the Christian, in the far country of this world, in this in-between time, doesnā€™t see, doesnā€™t endure, doesnā€™t know, lest it be by seeing the things that are unseen; the things re-created in the blood drenched soil of the cross of Jesus Christ. It is when the seed falls into the ground and dies that new life, a new creation comes into existence. The vision the Christian operates from comes from this new order of the apocalyptic and disruptive reality of God become man in Jesus Christ. The profane has no quarter here. This seems radical, foolish and weak even, but indeed, it is the via crucis. When daily life, even at its deepest possible reality, is understood as the measure and boundary of what and who can be known, all that we end up with is a superficial and immanentist knowledge of things. But the reality of the world, as Barth says, the reality of the external world (i.e., creation) is the inner life of the covenant bonded between God and humanity in the hypostatic union of God the Son with humanity in the visceral and concrete humanity of the man from Nazareth, Jesus Christ. The Christian reads reality from this type of unio mystica (ā€˜mystical unionā€™), which indeed is not of this world, even while being fully and freely for it.

If the Christian misses this most basic insight, then they will be well on their way to living a highly disillusioned life as a Christian. They will attempt to force things into place that are impossible to force, simply because the ultimate ground of reality is in fact a Miracle. And yet, this isnā€™t an abstract ethereal thing; i.e., as has already been noted, it is grounded in the concrete of Godā€™s life for the world in the flesh and blood humanity of Jesus Christ. This ought to lead the knower into the realization that they sit in a vulnerable place, as if a newborn babe thrown to the side of the road in its motherā€™s afterbirth, waiting either to be eaten alive by the circling vultures, or instead, to be picked up, dressed in swaddling cloths, put to rest in the manger, and finally ascended to the right hand of the Father. It is indeed this radical. The vultures have no quarter in the kingdom of God.

[1] Holy Spirit and the Apostle Paul, II Corinthians 5.7 (Macedonia: GNT, 55/56 AD).

[2] Martin Luther, Heidelberg Disputation 1518.

‘Epistemological Inversion’: God Knowing Us First So We Might Know Him

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I remember when I was in Bible College, studying apologetics vis-Ć -vis worldview class, an axiom of sorts was presented to us in regard to a God-world relation: 1) God is prior to us ontologically, 2) humanity is prior to God epistemologically. Does the reader spy a problem with this arrangement; maybe an inherent dualism wherein there is seemingly both an abstract God from humanity, and an abstract humanity from God? When I first heard this axiom it intrigued me, but didnā€™t sit all that easy with me either. It took me awhile, like years, including going through seminary, and then further study following. I finally saw the inherent theological error to this mode of theorizing a knowledge of God; i.e., that it is de jure entirely nonChristian to think about God and humanity in a competitive way. That is, it is antiChrist to presume that ā€˜we,ā€™ as a people, can ever come before God in any way. The very first verse of the Bible says so: e.g., ā€˜In the BEGINNING God . . ..ā€™ Further, ā€œIn the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.ā€ Even more, ā€œNo one has seen God at any time;Ā the only begotten God who isĀ in the bosom of the Father,Ā He has explained [į¼Ī¾Ī·Ī³Ī®ĻƒĪ±Ļ„Īæ exegasto exegeted]Ā Him.ā€ And the Apostle, ā€œForĀ I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me isĀ not according to man.Ā ForĀ I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, butĀ I received itĀ through aĀ revelation [ į¼€Ļ€ĪæĪŗĪ±Ī»ĻĻˆĪµĻ‰Ļ‚ apocalypsis apocalypse unveiling] of Jesus Christ.ā€ This small smattering of passages, from both the Old and New Testaments ought to suffice in making the point; for the Christian knowledge of God doesnā€™t come prior to God, from an inherent sparkle of knowledge in the human; knowledge of God, according to Scripture, comes from God Self-revealing, Self-exegeting Himself for us in the Theanthropos GodMan, Jesus Christ. Accordingly, it follows that in order to have an actual ā€˜theologicalā€™ knowledge of God, this must come first through an ā€˜evangelicalā€™ knowledge of God. That is to say, that in order for a fallen human being to have a genuine knowledge of the triune God, they must have union, participation with God, through the mediatorial and vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ: for He alone is the center of God for us (pro nobis).

Thomas F. Torrance agrees with the above, and identifies this type of knowledge theory as an ā€˜epistemological inversionā€™ (kataphysin). That is, contra the classical theistic way of knowing God, an epistemological inversion sees an order to knowing God as that is, as a prius, grounded in Godā€™s being in becoming for us in Jesus Christ. So, for Torrance, there is an order to being-order to knowing relationship between God and humanity that starts in God being for us; then moves in actualization in God becoming us; resulting in our becoming Him, by grace not nature, through union with Jesus Christ (unio cum Christo), by the faith of Christ. There is nothing abstract, but only concrete in this theory of Christian knowledge of God; it is grounded in ā€˜Godā€™s grace all the way down.ā€™ In this frame, there is no dangling creation running amok, thinking God or not thinking God on its own terms. For Torrance, and me, there can be only one way, one starting point, for knowing God, and that is in and from the triune and perichoretic interpenetrating life of God which is eternal Love. This ground, necessarily negates the possibility for an abstract humanity having an inherent ā€˜pureā€™ capacity to conjure the true and living God. This reality, necessarily defeats the notion that a naked humanity could speculate themselves into the heavenlies and come back with a more accurate knowledge of the true and the living God (indeed, isnā€™t a naked humanity what got us into this mess to begin with?).

So, TFT:

Inevitably we have already had to discuss some of the specific requirements of theology as a science in order to distinguish the way in which general scientific activity takes place in theology from ways appropriate to other sciences, but we have now to examine more closely the distinctive characteristics of theological activity. Some repetition is therefore inevitable. All of these requirements arise directly out of respect for and devotion to this unique Object, God in His Revelation, or rather all are required of us from the side of the Object, as adaptations of our rationality in modes of activity congruent with it.

The primary thing we have to note is the utter lordship of the Object, its absolute precedence, for that is the one all-determining presupposition of theology. Theological activity would not be scientific if it did not yield to it its rightful place. This prescribes for theology a unique form of inquiry in which we ourselves altogether and always stand in question before the Object. We know only as we are known, and we conduct our research only as we are searched through and through by God. The main point we have to single out here is that knowledge of God entails an epistemological inversion in the order of our knowing, corresponding to the order of the divine action in revealing Himself to us.

In all our knowing it is we who know, we observe, we examine, we inquire, but in the presence of God we are in a situation in which He knows, He observes, He examines, He inquires and in which He is ā€˜indissoluble Subjectā€™. He is the Lord of our knowing even when it is we who know, so that our knowing is taken under command of the lordship of the Object, the Creator Himself. We can only follow through the determination of our knowing by the Object known who yet remains pure Subject. This relation, in which the ultimate control passes from the knower, who yet remains free, to God who is known in His knowing of us, is an important aspect of what we call faith. Faith entails the opening up of our subjectivity to the Subjectivity of God through His Objectivity. Faith is the relation of our minds to the Object who through His unconditional claims upon us establishes the centre of our knowing in Himself and not in us, so that the whole epistemological relation is turned roundā€”we know in that we are known by Him. His Objectivity encounters our objectivity and our objectivity is subordinated to His and grounded in His. But it is precisely in knowing us, in making us the objects of His knowledge, that He constitutes us subjects over against Him, the lordly Subject, and therefore gives us freedom to know Him even while in our knowing we are unconditionally bound to Him as the Object of our knowledge. Here our effort to subdue everything to our knowledge is halted and obstructed by God, for He is the one Object we cannot subdue. We can know Him only as we are subdued by Him, that is, as we obediently rely upon His Grace.[1]

[1] Thomas F. Torrance, Theological Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 131ā€“32.