The Acids of Modernity and Christian Theology, Part 1

Modernity has been an age of revolutions—political, scientific, industrial and the philosophical. Consequently, it has also been an age of revolutions in theology, as Christians attempt to make sense of their faith in light of the cultural upheavals around them, what Walter Lippman once called the "acids of modernity." Modern theology is the result of this struggle to think responsibly about God within the modern cultural ethos.

In this major revision and expansion of the classic 20th Century Theology(1992), co-authored with Stanley J. Grenz, Roger Olson widens the scope of the story to include a fuller account of modernity, more material on the nineteenth century, and an engagement with postmodernity. More importantly, the entire narrative is now recast in terms of how theologians have accommodated or rejected the Enlightenment and scientific revolutions.

With that question in mind, Olson guides us on the epic journey of modern theology, from the liberal "reconstruction" of theology that originated with Friedrich Schleiermacher, to the post-liberal and postmodern "deconstruction" of modern theology that continues today. The Journey of Modern Theology is vintage Olson: eminently readable, panoramic in scope, at once original and balanced, and marked throughout by a passionate concern for the church's faithfulness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. This will no doubt become another standard text in historical theology.

Baylor Historical Theologican Roger Olson

The Acids of Modernity and Christian Theology

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2014/08/22/the-acids-of-modernity-and-christian-theology/

by Scot McKnight

Aug 22, 2014

Comments

Modern theology is theology done in the context of modernity, which means, in the context of what happened to thinking and culture as a result of the Enlightenment. Modern theology is often a code expression for “liberal” theology, and many ways that might be right. But Roger Olson, in his big book The Journey of Modern Theology: From Reconstruction to Deconstruction, [has] massively updated [a] book he co-wrote with Stanley Grenz (called Twentieth Century Theology, 1992), spends less time thinking about “liberal” and far more about “modern.”

To get what he’s doing we have to understand what “modernity” is, what one famous American thinker called the “acids” of modernity?

The "acids of modernity..."

- Walter Lippmann' 1929 essay "A Preface to Morals"

"Corrosion is an apt metaphor for the effects of overblown

certainty, legalism, inerrancy, and the insistence on

surely knowing everything. It can eat you alive."

- anon

Olson highlights seven features of modernity, each of which has stronger and weaker forms, so that one must have nuances all over the place if one wishes to be intelligent about this kind of subject. I have spent some of the last year reading about liberal theology, and I see Roger’s book as the best sketch of the big picture we have available today.

So, what is modernity?

1. Rationalism: the omnicompetence of autonomous human reason.

2. Skepticism: an anti-posture toward tradition, especially Christian religious traditions, as beliefs not based on reason.

3. Scientism/naturalism: a belief in the scientific method, on the indubitable realities of the empirical world in contrast to beliefs, and in a worldview that is shaped by naturalism.

4. Secularism: life can be lived best without God and religion. Religion belongs in the private, personal sphere of life.

5. Historicism: everything in history is causally related to other historical events.

6. Optimism: modernity, when lived well, leads to inevitable progress in overcoming misery.

7. Anthropocentrism: humans are at the center of knowing and the center of the universe.

(8.) These elements, when pursued, enable us to pursue progress in society and culture.

Many major modernistic voices — e.g., Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson — have contended that modernity’s march would trod religion, especially Christianity, under foot and it will disappear but Christianity, paradoxically, has flourished in a worldview of modernity.

Modern theology traces how various theologians have accommodated to modernity’s central features. Some have capitulated; many have reacted under the control of modernity. So there is a spectrum from capitulation and subversion all the way to robust reframings of the tradition in more modernistic categories (many would say that is what American Protestant fundamentalism was/is).

Where do you place “progressive Christianity” in this discussion?

Join me in purchasing this book and reading it over the next few weeks.

continue to ~

The Acids of Modernity and Christian Theology, Part 1

The Acids of Modernity and Christian Theology, Part 2

The Acids of Modernity and Christian Theology, Part 3

The Acids of Modernity and Christian Theology, Part 4

The Acids of Modernity and Christian Theology, Part 5

Baylor Historical Theologian Roger Olson

Scot McKnight's Review of "Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy," Part 6 - Scot McKnight

There is little doubt that the inerrancy of the Bible is a current and often contentious topic among evangelicals. Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy represents a timely contribution by showcasing the spectrum of evangelical positions on inerrancy, facilitating understanding of these perspectives, particularly where and why they diverge.

Each essay in Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy considers:

• the present context and the viability and relevance for the contemporary evangelical Christian witness;
• whether and to what extent Scripture teaches its own inerrancy;
• the position’s assumed/implied understandings of the nature of Scripture, God, and truth; and
• three difficult biblical texts, one that concerns intra-canonical contradictions, one that raises questions of theological plurality, and one that concerns historicity.

Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy serves not only as a single-volume resource for surveying the current debate, but also as a catalyst both for understanding and advancing the conversation further. Contributors include Al Mohler, Kevin Vanhoozer, Michael Bird, Peter Enns, and John Franke.

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Scott McKnight begins a discussion of Inerrancy to which I will add

occasional emendation, notes, links, and resources. - R.E. Slater, August 4, 2014

The Emperor and Inerrancy
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2014/08/20/the-emperor-and-inerrancy/

by Scot McKnight
August 20, 2014
Comments

On the inerrancy posts I’ve had a number ask me to explain what I think. When I was a professor at TEDS inerrancy came up often; when I was at North Park, among many evangelical students and a seminary attached to the school and as I got to know Covenant pastors, inerrancy almost never came up; since I’ve been at Northern Seminary it has almost never come up other than in a powerful reconceptualizing and critique of the idea in a chapter by my colleague, David Fitch, in his book The End of Evangelicalism. At Northern I’ve not had a class session where I thought my students thought the Bible was wrong or its truth claims needed to be challenged. Yet the term inerrancy is not how our students — at least in class sessions with me — seem to think about the Bible.

So back to the question above: What do I think? Four thoughts, and I want you to know that these thoughts come after decades of listening to debates and discussions and defenses and ripostes, and after writing about the Bible for going on thirty years. I have for years said the first and leading word for Scripture needs to be truth. I stand by it and it puts the entire inerrancy discussion into a larger context.

Here’s the first: The term itself, not a big idea behind it, has become a distraction as the chps in Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy themselves clearly show: instead of pointing the church toward how to sit before the Bible and listen to the Bible, the term itself generates a debate about how best to define the term and about how to read Joshua 6 and Genesis 1-2; and many things besides. This is what inerrancy term does every time it enters the room, and in so doing deserves a good thrashing. Read the chapters and then ask yourself this question: Will this book generate light for Sunday School classes on how to read the Bible or a fight on how to assess who stands where? Does it bring light or a fight? The latter is [often] what happens.

The term, so it seems from a book like this, may have lost its value for church life. The word we ought to be fastening onto is the word truth. The Bible is true and God calls us to listen and to learn and to live what God speaks to us from the true Word of God. This posture of listen-to-the-truth before the Bible does not determine a hermeneutic but invites us to listen until we discern the hermeneutic needed for the various texts.

My second point might be controversial for some, but I believe it. There is only one real view of inerrancy because this term has been captured by Mohler and those who stand with Mohler. It is the historical hermeneutic agenda. The test cases prove this point: each of the texts chosen concerns a historical hermeneutic agenda and asks Is the Bible accurate? No one asked anyone to assess simply the violence of God in warfare in Deuteronomy. No one asked about cutting off hands in Exodus. No one asked about women taken as booty. No one asked about slavery in the Bible. No one was asked about truth but about accuracy. The only inerrancy I have ever known about is historical hermeneutic accuracy inerrancy. Any text that appears to be history-referring must be history-referring because the alternative conclusion, that it might not be accurate as we want it to be accurate, threatens the system. What Mohler, Bird and Vanhoozer won’t admit is a view that contends that since the historians and archaeologists don’t think what the text says is how things happened the interpretations have to be adjusted, out of respect for historical realities, in order to meet the evidence.

Mohler’s view, or this history-referring inerrancy, is at work in a Bible scholar, Bird, and a sophisticated hermeneutician, Vanhoozer. (Bird’s sophisticated too, at least as much as that red-headed Ozzie can be.) Read how they treat Joshua 6 — in the end, inerrancy is itself a hermeneutic that takes the face value of a text automatically to mean historicity, has an interpretive tradition along that line, and if that historicity can’t be demonstrated, cast aspersions on the scholarship of the archaeologists or hold out until the historical interpretation can be proven (even if there is no end in sight). So, Bird and Vanhoozer can finesse their hermeneutics all they want but when it comes to a historically problematic text they have already chosen on the basis of their view of inerrancy what the text has to have meant. What I saw in all three attempts was a persistent, stubborn refusal even to countenance the view of the archaeologists. The only archaeological theories permitted on the table were the ones that confirmed what they already knew from their inerrancy theory — as history-referring if the plain reading seems so – had to be the case.

Before I get to a third point I want to offer an example of my own on how I think inerrancy operates as captured by the historical hermeneutical approach.

Open your Bible to Matthew 8:5-13. Here are the two verses (5-6) that matter:

When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help.

6“Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering”

Matt 8:7 Jesus said to him,

“I will go and heal him.”

A plain reading of the text says that an actual centurion approached Jesus physically and asked him for help and Jesus told that same centurion that he would go to that man’s house and heal his servant. Every inerrantist would make these details important if you denied it.

Now look at Luke 7:1-10. Here is what we suddenly realize: the centurion himself did not in fact speak with Jesus. His elders did:

2 There a centurion’s servant, whom his master valued highly, was sick and about to

die. 3 The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to

come and heal his servant. 4 When they came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with him,

“This man deserves to have you do this, 5 because he loves our nation and has built

our synagogue.” 6 So Jesus went with them.

The point is this: a history-referring inerrantist hermeneutic, if we didn’t know of Luke 7:2-6, would know that it was a centurion who came to Jesus and spoke with him. If all a church knew was Matthew, an inerrantist would be up in arms if anyone suggested that No, in fact, it was some elders — not the centurion himself.

But once we have Luke 7:2-6 we realize our perception of a history-referring reading is flat-out wrong. The centurion actually sent some elders. A second text, Luke, clarified the first text, Matthew, and proved our original instincts wrong. We adjust our readings of Matt 8 to Luke 7.

So we, admirably I believe, find a convention that permits explanation: when an ambassador was sent he was the one who sent him. So, the elders are the centurion. I agree, that is what is going on here. We were only led to the convention by the interference of another text, not by the original text (Matthew 8). We let another text reshape our readings of the Matthew text.

Why can’t we let the historian’s and archaeologist’s evidence do the same for us for Joshua 6? Why can’t we at least look for a convention that explains why the archaeology says one thing and the text says another? (And Joshua 6 is but one example.) Because we have a plain-reading, history-referring inerrantist hermeneutic at work that won’t permit such adjusted reading (unless, of course, we are forced — as we are in the Matt-Luke parallel — by the Bible itself to think otherwise). Too many inerrantist hear of such things and utter out, in effect if not in these terms, “Damn the archaeologists, this is the inspired Bible and it’s right and they’re wrong.” Most inerrantists try to wiggle out of the archaeology on Joshua by tossing dust in the archaeologists’ eyes and then announce their vision is blurry. While the blurred vision settles down the inerrantists change the discussion. It’s not good scholarship.

My contention is fairly simple and straightforward: we ought to let all the evidence determine what a text is actually saying and doing and not our assumptive readings. Which means no term other than “true” ought to shape our hermeneutic. The word “true” is bigger than the word “inerrant.” In fact, “true” is the emperor of all biblical hermeneutics. The term “inerrancy” too often usurps the word “true” and the Bible loses.

Third, maybe you think it is unfair to restrict inerrancy to the history-referring, plain-meaning view of someone like Mohler. Maybe there is a second view, one that emphasizes what the Bible is affirming at the level of divine or human intention. So, we ask what was Matthew affirming, what was Matthew’s purpose in Matt 8:5-6? Was he affirming only a centurion? Or was he affirming that a centurion made contact with Jesus, however that contact was made?

I see this emphasis on intention and purpose in the essays of Enns, Bird, Vanhoozer and Franke. I believe an emphasis on intentionality or purpose in Scripture, or on the pragmatics of the text, can reshape the meaning of inerrancy. It can, but it will mean far more emphasis on hermeneutics and theology at work in the purpose of the author/God/text than is often acknowledged. A ringer: John Piper’s view of inerrancy is very much along this line, and such a view would permit Robert Gundry’s theory of midrash in Matthew, Michael Licona’s view of the resurrection of the saints, as well as some mythical and exaggerations in Old Testament stories, including Joshua 6. Here is Piper’s own statement followed by Bethlehem Baptist’s statement:

I thus gladly align myself with the long-proved tradition: perfectio respectu finis

(perfection with respect to purpose). 

We believe that God’s intentions, revealed in the Bible, are the supreme and final

authority in testing all claims about what is true and what is right. In matters not

addressed by the Bible, what is true and right is assessed by criteria consistent with

the teachings of Scripture.

I very respect this emphasis on purpose and intention; it admits into the door the messy world of hermeneutics; it permits at the table some voices that today are simply now welcome by many; it means hermeneutics decides genre. The strident strong voices of inerrancy, however, do not permit the purpose/intention dimension unless it already conforms to the history-referring theory already at work. I have on good word that some of the historic major framers of how inerrancy was understood among evangelicals saw the purpose theory of inerrancy as totally inadequate.

Fourth, inerrancy without an ecclesiology or an ecclesial confession/creed leads inevitably to pervasive interpretive pluralism and therefore it diminishes the authority of the Bible to the strongest or most compelling voice on the platform. I am referring here to the important study of Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible.

I can open up the floodgates here by suggesting that there is a notable absence of Spirit in the chapters: and I don’t mean just inspiration, but the Spirit as at work, the Spirit at work in people and in the people of God, guiding, leading, inspiring so that Scripture is the effect of God’s communicative action to the people of God through the Spirit in Christ with the result of Scripture. Instead of asking “What” is authoritative?, maybe we need to ask “Who” is authoritative? Scripture is authoritative in that it mediates the authority of God in Christ through the Spirit. Our authority then is God.

Maybe the history-referring, accuracy-oriented inerrancy has to focus on the original autographs while the purpose-oriented framing of the issues might have an opportunity to focus on the Spirit — the Spirit at work through Scripture — instead of the original autographs, which we don’t have and God didn’t seem to think we needed. Why? The Spirit and the church and the gifts.

Having now shown my cards of the church in the plan of God’s communicative action, I can cite an ecclesial statement to which I subscribe:

Here is the Anglican Church of North America’s wise statement on its view of Scripture:

We confess the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments to be the

inspired Word of God, containing all things necessary for salvation, and to

be the final authority and unchangeable standard for Christian faith and life.

I think Mike Bird would see this as part of the infallibilist tradition, and I would see it that way too. But notice the positive terms. Inerrancy means “not in error.” At any rate, I affirm the ACNA’s orientation and it can guide Bible reading for me.

At the core of Bible reading is knowing what the Bible is doing, and the essays had something like this going on. Vanhoozer was the most explicit though Franke was close. What ought to be going on is a gospel hermeneutic that will render meaning for us as we encounter texts through the truth about Jesus, the gospel. Pete Enns calls this a christotelic reading and this sort of approach governed the earliest Christians (Jesus and the apostles) when they read (what we call) the Old Testament. Perfect example from Jesus in Luke 24

Luke 24:44 He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything

must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”

Luke 24:45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He

told them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the

third day, 47 and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all

nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 I am going to

send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed

with power from on high.”

Open to Matthew 1-2; to Paul in most any of his letters, to the Book of Hebrews or to Revelation. Over and over they are reading the Bible through the lens of the gospel, the truth, which as you may know I take to be the story of Israel fulfilled in the story of Jesus so that christology (not soteriology) gets the first word. If Jesus was raised from the dead your hermeneutic is transformed into a gospel hermeneutic.

Vanhoozer’s essay wanted to back off for the big theme: God’s promise to give the Land to the children of Israel is what this text is about. He’s right. Now guide us from there to Jesus and the gospel and we’ll be reading the Bible the way Jesus and the apostles did, we will be reading the Bible in a way that brings the sun’s true light of life to the church, and in a way that avoids the wrangling that inerrancy inevitably creates. I could say this of the others.

Inerrancy is a disruptive child in the theological classroom. He or she gets all the attention of teacher and students. A biblical view of inerrancy demotes it under the word true, all as part of God’s choice to communicate efficiently and sufficiently. When the word “true” governs the game it’s a brand new, healthy game. Good teachers know how to handle disruptive children.

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Addendum by R.E. Slater

Scot brings a practical mindedness to the discussion of biblical interpretation by leveling out the field stating that the Bible is, in principle, true - fully, infallibly, and with the inspiration from God's Holy Spirit. So that generally, when reading the Bible, it is us who must discern God's word and as such, it is us that must continually seek after discovering what in the Bible is true of God and of this life we live. More particularly, whenever the Bible speaks of salvation, of God, of the church, and so forth, it is true in these areas.

For myself, this is good general guidance and a fundamental rule to observe, but nevertheless I cannot help but ask in what sense is Scripture true if its very verse(s) seems to speak against its own veracity.When it conflicts with science or archaeology. Or when it conflicts with basic human ethics and morality that we know defeat civil rights and responsibility (homosexuality, gender equality, violence, oppression, etc). And so, to say the Word of God is true is a statement I wish to believe but I also wish to know in what sense the Word of God is true when it conflicts with Jesus' statements to love one another when His servants like Joshua or David created violence and injustice upon civilizations different from themselves. It is a fair question to ask.

And so, yes, the Bible is true. It is a good approach, but it brings us back to the very folds of inerrancy whose wooden - or literalistic - interpretations of the Bible has done so much harm within the many arms and branches of Evangelical and Catholic thinking in the church. Can there be another word to use alongside the word "true" or should we abandon description altogether and simply move forward in biblical studies reduced to ourselves as the only measure to God's Word?

I think not.

To use ourselves as a measure to God's holy Word is to no longer allow God to superintend over His revelation to us but to allow ourselves to superintend over its pages. We do not wish this. But nor do we wish to unquestioningly study its scripts without asking profound questions of God and His Word. In essence I think we must do both in a tightrope balancing act of probing its pages while also probing our own hearts for its violence and sin, evils and wickedness. To unbalance God's Word with our own preferred readings may imbalance the revelation it seeks to bring.

Hence, somewhere on its pages is the heart of a biblical author seeking to reveal God against all that he or she is as a sinner saved by grace. Who is filled with the Holy Spirit to move and speak God's Word to his or her's community using their intellect, emotions, personality, and developing beliefs. Beliefs that are not mature but searching. That are not the final light of God's speech when inquiring of God of His speech into their own predicaments of life and its hardships, joys, blessings, and agonies.

That we, too, are not unlike that biblical author who are filled with the Spirit of God to speak His Word as truly and accurately as we can without getting in the way of God, His will, and plans for the generations about us. That we too are maturing from the violence in our hearts, the sin in our minds and heart, the injustices that we carry with us as we attempt to discern God's word and speak its heart.

The task of the theologian is difficult. S/he must at all times be aware of many things while speaking, ministering, or serving with the heart and mind of Jesus. In essence, all Christians are imperfect, fraught with sin, and must humble themselves before the Lord when speaking His Word powerfully, with authority, and directly into the heart of human events that require a wisdom not of this earth. To form as rightful a judgment of Scripture as is possible and yet, within that judgment always be open to a further Word from the Spirit of God who lives, and moves, and has His holy being within our lives, thoughts, judgments, and services.

It is we who now are the open Book of God and no longer those ancient dusty pages we can no longer perceive or understand as they are now composed without doing a herculean amount of work to sort out its truths and wonts. We are the people of God who give allegiance to a Savior who shows to us God Himself in His weakness, His humility, His service to others both weak and strong.

That we are a people to be moved by the Spirit as the stylus of God through our communities, businesses, church, families and friends. We are the iron tip that strikes. The gliding tip that shows mercy, peace, and forgiveness. The graphite tip that is blurred and in need or an occasional erasure. The artist's brush that paints the colors that are not exact but a blurry picture of the very Christ to whom we represent as ambassadors to His Holy Kingdom. Whose reign is forever and forever. And ever, and forthwith, proceeding from the pens of men and women's lives as we write God's living Word throughout our journey in this short life we are given.

So go out then and be the pen, the pencil, the artist's brush, the font and script of God's Holy Word which speaks revelation into the hearts of those men, women, and children about us hungry for the Spirit's guidance, the Savior's redemption, the Father's healing hands of mercy and grace. Amen.

R.E. Slater
August 23, 2014

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continue to -

Scot McKnight's Review of "Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy," Part 1 - Albert Mohler

Scot McKnight's Review of "Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy," Part 2a - Peter Enns

Peter Enns - "Five Views of Inerrancy," Part 2b - Peter Enns Responds

Scot McKnight's Review of "Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy," Part 3 - Mike Bird

Scot McKnight's Review of "Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy," Part 4 - Kevin Vanhoozer

Scot McKnight's Review of "Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy," Part 5 - John Franke

RJS - Inspiration? Yes! – Inerrancy? No.

An Analysis of the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy by Peter Enns

Scot McKnight's Review of "Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy," Part 6 - Scot McKnight

Roger Wolsey - 16 Ways Progressive Christians Interpret the Bible

What Brand of Philosophical Theism Do You Carry In Your Bible?

Greek Philosopher Socrates

The other day Roger Olson mentioned "philosophical theism" in his article "Can God Make Himself Dependent Upon Us?" which I thought was both a good descriptive phrase as well as a most curious one. Curious in that any classic Christian position of theism is in itself embedded within its own vested "philosophical theism" of which there are many kinds and flavors: Greek Hellenism, Medieval Scholasticism, Rational Enlightenment, Secular Modernism, and so forth. Hence, to describe any theology (or theologian) one must necessarily look at their philosophical orientation embedded within their own education and schooling, the culture they write from, their predisposition towards the contemporary and vernacular, and so forth. To simply lob the title of philosophical theism upon someone is both too general and too non-specific to be of any help. The better question to ask is what kind of philosophical theism or faith tradition is the theologian in question espousing through his or her's theology, preaching, pulpiteering, and publishing?

Which gets to the greater problem of evangelicalism that tends to defend itself through mis-directive phrases and hot button idioms. For example, by saying that "THAT theologian is a philosophical theist!" "Oh my!" the naive respondent replies, "That's bad!" Not realizing that EVERY theologian is a philosophical theist, and the more responsible ones make a great personal effort in identifying their brand of philosophical theism, its limitations and any necessary qualifications within their own system of writing and thinking rather than simply declaring it as "orthodox," or what they think passes for "orthodoxy". Those less bothered by such prejudicial sentiments (or accuracy) will regard their own Christian faith traditions and heritage as the most appropriate to be written, published, and communicated to others. Nonetheless, it behooves the reader (and listener) to "critique" their favorite "bedrock" theologians for disposition, veracity, breadth, and wisdom. Without which there is only statement versus anti-statement as two or more philosophical traditions clash together in withering fire and lament (realizing, of course, that "traditions" are layered upon one another, and not so logically clean as first supposed).

Consequently, today's article written by Roger Olson follows up on his previous statement by his own words. Words that I think should be reconsidered and evaluated because the subject matter is so large and wide and deep. A subject that requires a pervasity of spirit and a mindedness of theological control, if not restraint and patience.

R.E. Slater

August 22, 2014

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Intuitive Evangelical Theology versus Scholastic Evangelical Theology: “Classical Christian Theism” as Case Study

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2014/08/intuitive-evangelical-theology-versus-scholastic-evangelical-theology-classical-christian-theism-as-case-study/

by Roger Olson

August 15, 2014

Comments

I have long been impressed by how foreign scholastic evangelical theology is to even the most devout, biblically literate evangelical lay people. What do I mean by “scholastic evangelical theology?” I don’t know a better term for the “official” theology taken for granted and promoted as “orthodoxy” by many conservative evangelical systematic theologians. When I was in seminary we were required to read Calvinist Baptist Augustus Hopkins Strong’s Systematic Theology and the book of the same title by Reformed theologian Louis Berkhof (not to be confused with revisionist Reformed theologian Hendrikus Berkhof). They are stellar examples of what I mean by “scholastic evangelical theology,” but there are Arminian-Wesleyan examples as well (though not as many, I would dare to say).

While Strong and Berkhof are long dead, their influences live on. Many of the standard, best-selling evangelical systematic theologies are little more than updatings of Strong and Berkhof (or Hodge and Warfield who influenced Berkhof). Backing up in time…what I am calling “scholastic evangelical theology” derives from and is strongly influenced by Protestant Scholastic Orthodoxy—a technical term for theologians and theologies almost nobody but historical theologians ever read or even know about. Perhaps the best example is Francis Turretin (d. 1687). His Institutio Theologiae Elencticae was required reading for students at Princeton Theological Seminary until Charles Hodge’s Systematic Theology replaced it in the late nineteenth century. Turretin’s Institutions was one of the most influential examples of Protestant (especially Reformed) scholasticism.

When I read Hodge, Strong, Berkhof and their contemporary successors among conservative evangelical theologians I am always impressed with how, in my opinion, nobody just reading the Bible would ever even guess at some of what they promote as “orthodoxy”—especially in the doctrine of God. Of course there are differences of nuance among them, but, for the most part, they all articulate, defend and promote as “biblical orthodoxy” what is, in my opinion, a barely Christianized version of Greek philosophical theology. The story of that begins, of course, with the second Christian Apologists Justin Martyr and Athenagoras and the Alexandrian church fathers Clement of Alexandria and Origen. Even Athanasius and the Cappadocians were steeped in it—although they struggled to Christianize Greek philosophical theology. I don’t think they were entirely successful.

Here’s what I mean—to be specific. What ordinary lay Christian, just reading his or her Bible, without the help of any of the standard conservative evangelical systematic theologies, would ever arrive at the doctrines of divine simplicity, immutability, or impassibility as articulated by those systematic theologians (e.g., “without body, parts or passions” as the Westminster Confession has it)? Without body, okay. But without parts or passions? The average reader of Hosea, for example, gets the image of God as passionate. While “parts” isn’t exactly the best term for the persons of the Trinity, a biblical reader will probably think of God as complex and dynamic being rather than as “simple substance.”

Take the doctrine of God’s “aseity”—absolute self-sufficiency. According to Protestant (and Catholic) scholasticism, including much conservative evangelical theology, God cannot be affected by anything outside himself. He is “pure actuality without potentiality.” Who would guess that from just reading the Bible? I wouldn’t. And yet it is touted by many conservative evangelicals as orthodox doctrine not to be questioned. To question it is to dishonor God and detract from his glory!

I much prefer “biblical personalism”—a term I borrow from Emil Brunner. I don’t agree with Brunner about everything, but he was right to take the doctrine of God back to the Bible and strip it of philosophical theism—especially attributes derived from the Greek idea of perfection. The God of the Bible is intensely personal, relational, interactive, emotional, even reactive. Or shall we throw Hosea out of the Bible? Oh, I remember—from seminary: it’s all “anthropomorphism.” There is anthropomorphism in the Bible (God does not literally have hands or eyes as we do except in the incarnation), but to attempt to explain the passions of God in Hosea (and other parts of the Bible) as all anthropomorphism is to start down the road of de-personalizing God. The end point is [Paul] Tillich’s Ground of Being or Being Itself. (Of course, conservative evangelicals never arrive there, but sometimes what they say about God’s attributes leaves one cold as ice with God seeming to be unfeeling and anything but relational.)

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[One of the problems of theology, especially systematic theology, is the use of language itself. It is never pure syntax or syllogistic logicism but narrative and personalization, poetry and metaphor, if not very ambiguity itself in the very language it uses to tell us of God and ourselves. Perhaps the better question to ask is which philosophies best allow the many traditions of the biblical text to breath its greatest airs? I suspect we must always start with the tradition of the text itself in the ancient lost lands of the middle east, its bygone kingdoms, mindsets, and idioms if possible. At which point we must also use today's most current philosophies to critique those of their past heirs and precedents. Hence, "to strip theology of its philosophies" is to foist yet another "philosophy" upon the Bible. It cannot be done and would be naive to think to do so.  - R.E. Slater]

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I’ve taught Christian doctrine and systematic theology for thirty-two years now and I have one recurring experience when introducing students who grew up in evangelical Christian homes and churches and are themselves biblically literate to standard conservative evangelical teaching about God’s attributes. They usually say something like “I’ve never heard anything like that.” And often “where’s that in the Bible?” I have to agree with them that much of it is foreign to the Bible, alien to Christian experience, and spiritually deadening. How does one relate to a God “without passions?”

No doubt many conservative evangelical theologians (and others) think they are honoring God by paying him metaphysical compliments derived from Greek-inspired philosophical theology, but what they are really doing is making God very much unlike Jesus who wept, was provoked to anger, rejoiced, etc. Scholastic theology tends to say those were only possible for the Son of God in and through his humanity—as if emotions are ungodly. Interestingly, virtually all theologians who portray God as unemotional are men and men are often inclined to view emotions as feminine and therefore unworthy of God. Could it be that traditional scholastic theology is infected with a tendency to justify male aversion to emotions, especially those associated with tenderness, by denying that the God of the Bible has such emotions?

This is where narrative theology (about which I have posted here before) can be helpful. Our doctrine of God should not be derived from philosophical presuppositions about what is appropriate for the divine but should be derived primarily from the biblical story of God—beginning with Jesus Christ as the fullest revelation of God’s person and character and spreading out from there to embrace the passionate God of the Bible who dared to open himself up to pain and peace, sorrow and joy in relation to the world and who could do that because feelings and emotions are part of being personal and God is eternally personal. Having appropriate emotional feelings is part of being in the image of God whereas scholastic theology tends to portray the image of God as reason ruling over emotion, being apathetic.

Estrangement: Living Alone Without Family

Shaheen Hasmat hasn't spoken to her family for six years Photo: KATE PETERS

It's rarely discussed, but 27 per cent of people will be estranged from family at some point.

Here, Shaheen Hashmat, 31, who's cut off all contact with her parents, tells her story -

and says the stigma of estrangement is one of society's last major taboos.

Estrangement: 'I haven't spoken to my family for 6 years'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11046600/Estranged-from-my-family-I-havent-spoken-to-my-parents-in-six-years.html

By Shaheen Hashmat
7:00AM BST 22 Aug 2014
Comments

Our families are supposed to be the ones who love us the most, who will take care of us and support us through difficult times. But what happens when they treat you so badly that you have to walk away?

Estrangement is not a subject that’s spoken about often, but it affects 27 per cent of people - who cut contact with at least one member of their family at some point in their lives. More than 8,000 adults in the UK are estranged from their loved ones at this very moment. The word ‘estrangement’ actually originated from the French 'estranger' and then Latin 'extraneare', meaning ‘to treat as a stranger’, or ‘not belonging to the family’.

For me, this is the perfect description of a situation that can leave those affected in a profound state of isolation and has a deeply negative impact on mental health and wellbeing.

When I was twelve years old, I was helped to escape the threat of forced marriage and honour abuse. I'd seen it happen to other members of my family and suffered various abuses myself, although I was made to feel like the 'attitude problem' was mine. The local police force and social services helped me get away, but that wasn't the end of my ordeal.

For thirteen years afterwards I struggled to overcome great confusion and emotional turmoil in an effort to maintain some semblance of a relationship with my parents. In this I was unsuccessful: the abuse continued, in less extreme forms that prolonged the psychological damage that had already been wrought.

I had a huge panic attack

When I was twenty-five years old, I finally realised that things were never going to change. I simply could not have a relationship with people who so consistently trampled on my boundaries. Since then, my mother has attempted to contact me only once. When I recognised the number she was calling from, I had a huge panic attack, from which it took me two days to recover. It’s been six years since I exchanged a word with either of my parents. The impact of legal and local authority involvement in my escape tore the family apart, and over the years I stopped speaking to all my relatives, except for one sibling with who I exchange a rare text, or phone call.

Shaheen Hashmat

Of all the psychological issues associated with escaping from honour abuse, I believe that estrangement poses the most serious challenge to recovery. Since there is usually more than one perpetrator, it’s not just the devastating loss of close family ties that victims have to deal with - they often become estranged from their entire community as well. It’s also likely that they have been raised in an isolated, highly restricted environment at home.

So they often have to learn how to socialise in a culture that feels completely unfamiliar to them, in order to form new friendships with other people. Without the close-knit support network that so many take for granted, it’s impossible to survive. It can be hard enough to lose just one family member. To lose so many made me feel like a ghost.

Estranged people tend to withdraw

Stand Alone is a UK-based charity, founded in 2012 by CEO Becca Bland, who has herself been affected by estrangement. Bland agrees that the experience can often leave people very vulnerable.

"Because of the stigma surrounding estrangement, people tend to withdraw. They feel scared about properly interacting with others and revealing their situation. Abuse survivors and others who have been rejected may have problems trusting others. For students who are estranged there is the added problem of needing to find somewhere to live when the end of term comes. Many spend the summer months sofa surfing, but there are others who run a real risk of homelessness.”

Compounding the pain of estrangement itself is the strong stigma associated with it. There is deep judgement towards those who, for any number of valid reasons, have chosen to cut contact with family. I’ve lived in London for ten years now, but my Scottish accent is still strong. It’s natural for new people I meet to ask questions.

My heart often sinks when, upon hearing that I’m not in contact with my parents, they say, ‘but they’re your parents! How can you just not talk to them?’ Or, ‘you’ll regret it before long – they won’t be around forever you know’.

We need to accept estrangement

Stand Alone

There is no consideration of what those parents are sometimes capable of doing to their children. And the stigma doesn’t stop with well-meaning strangers. An old boyfriend of mine was told by his father that he could do better than being with someone from a “broken home”. When new partners, or their families, discover that they can’t meet my family, there is a definite sense of mistrust - as though estrangement indicates ungratefulness, or an inability on my part to do the work it takes to commit to a relationship. Bland says: “There is a strong pressure to reconcile, when in fact what’s needed is acceptance of the reality of estrangement and provision of support to help people deal with the impact of this on their wellbeing.”

Stand Alone provides a range of services for those who are affected by estrangement, from regular therapeutic meetings in a group setting, adult foster care for those aged between 18 and 30 years, and practical support for students experiencing issues with finance and accommodation (as detailed in a 2008 NUS report).

Their work is unique. What's more, I’m glad to finally hear it said, publicly, that “there are always times when it’s right to walk away”.

I’ve come to realise that, despite the pain of estrangement, I have greater freedom than most to explore and create my own identity, and to enjoy the autonomy previously denied to me. The friends I have now are the family I wish I had. Even through the worst of times, they have loved and supported me unconditionally. I’m also able to offer support to others who have been through similar experiences. Although I still encounter stigma on occasion, I can be confident that my partner will love and respect me for the person I am, rather than judging me by the absence of family I left behind.

Stand Alone

Faith v. Logic: "Holding Creative Tensions Against A Binary Way of Thinking"

faith is messy–which is where God is found

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2014/08/faith-is-messy-which-is-where-god-is-found/

by Peter Enns

August 17, 2014

Comments

"As long as you can deal with life in universal abstractions, you can pretend that the usual binary way of thinking is true, but once you deal with a specific or concrete reality, it is always, without exception a mixture of darkness and light, death and life, good and bad, attractive and unattractive.

"We who are trained in philosophy and theology have all kinds of trouble with that, because our preferred position is to deal with life in terms of abstractions and universals. We want it to be true “on paper” whether it is totally true in concrete situations is less important or even denied.

"This is what the dualistic mind does because it does not know how to hold creative tensions. It actually confuses rigid thinking or black and white thinking with faith itself. In my opinion, faith is exactly the opposite—which is precisely why we call it “faith” and not logic.

"The universal divine incarnation must always show itself in the specific, the concrete, the particular (as in Jesus), and it always refuses to be a mere abstraction. No one says this better than Christian Wiman:

“If nature abhors a vacuum, Christ abhors a vagueness. If God is love, Christ is love

for this one person, this one place, this one time-bound and time ravaged self.”

"When we start with big universal ideas, at the level of concepts and –isms, we too often stay there—and forever argue about theory, and making more “crucial distinctions.” At that level, the mind is totally in charge. It is then easy to think that “I love people” (but not any individual people). We defend universal principles of justice but would not actually live fully just lives ourselves. The universal usually just gives us a way out. The concrete gives us a way in!"

Richard Rohr (from his Daily Meditations)

Adapted from A New Way of Seeing, a New Way of Being: Jesus and Paul (CD, MP3 download);

and Holding the Tension: The Power of Paradox, discs 1 and 3 (CD, MP3 download);

and Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi , pp. 71-72

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CHRISTIAN WIMAN:

Eight years ago, Christian Wiman, a well-known poet and the editor of Poetry magazine, wrote a now-famous essay about having faith in the face of death. My Bright Abyss, composed in the difficult years since and completed in the wake of a bone marrow transplant, is a moving meditation on what a viable contemporary faith—responsive not only to modern thought and science but also to religious tradition—might look like.

Joyful, sorrowful, and beautifully written, My Bright Abyss is destined to become a spiritual classic, useful not only to believers but to anyone whose experience of life and art seems at times to overbrim its boundaries. How do we answer this “burn of being”? Wiman asks. What might it mean for our lives—and for our deaths—if we acknowledge the “insistent, persistent ghost” that some of us call God?

One of Publishers Weekly's Best Religion Books of 2013

An Analysis of the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy by Peter Enns

Several years ago in June of 2011 Peter Enns gave an analysis of the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy which may be helpful to those wishing to read through its vernaculars. As you do remember that the editorial language and phraseology used by Dr. Enns may be a bit dated and require some nuancing in light of more recent discussion.

R.E. Slater
August 22, 2014

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Science, Faith, and Inerrancy
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/science-faith-and-inerrancy/

by Peter Enns
August 22, 2014

Below is a link to a PDF of a 14-part blog series I did for BioLogos between June and August  2011: Science, Faith, and the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (Enns) – Edited. (For a non-watermarked version, click Science, Faith, and the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (Enns) – Edited (no watermark).) The series is no longer on BioLogos’s website. The PDF was created by Mike Beidler, who got permission from BioLogos to do so.

BioLogos asked me to write this series in an effort to diagnose those elements of CBSI that impede evangelicals from entering into a fruitful dialogue with evolution. I am not sure if I would write this series today (in 2014) exactly as I did back then, especially after collecting my thoughts in an essay in inerrancy last year. Still, I think some may find it useful.

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continue to -

Scot McKnight's Review of "Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy," Part 1 - Albert Mohler

Scot McKnight's Review of "Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy," Part 2a - Peter Enns

Peter Enns - "Five Views of Inerrancy," Part 2b - Peter Enns Responds

Scot McKnight's Review of "Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy," Part 3 - Mike Bird

Scot McKnight's Review of "Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy," Part 4 - Kevin Vanhoozer

Scot McKnight's Review of "Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy," Part 5 - John Franke

RJS - Inspiration? Yes! – Inerrancy? No.

An Analysis of the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy by Peter Enns

Scot McKnight's Review of "Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy," Part 6 - Scot McKnight

Roger Wolsey - 16 Ways Progressive Christians Interpret the Bible