The Barmen Declaration

By Fred Sanders
The Scriptorium

May 30 is the best day to commemorate the Theological Declaration of Barmen, the document in which the Confessing Church in Germany in 1934 drew the line against the steadily-advancing incursions of Nazi ideology into the life of the church. Karl Barth was the primary author of most of the text of the short confession of faith, which has been widely recognized as a classic statement on the limits of government interference in the church’s mission.

Each of the six theses of Barmen follow the format: Scripture passage, theological affirmation, theological denial. They move, therefore, toward more specific application to the charged situation of 1934. Sometimes quoting the Bible doesn’t get the point across; sometimes even saying what you take the Bible to mean by the words you are quoting doesn’t get the point across. Sometimes nobody can tell what point you’re trying to make until you follow the line of thought all the way out to being explicit about what you deny.

So in the sixth and final article, after quoting the Biblical statements that the church is to teach the nations what Christ has commanded, and that the word of God is not bound, Barmen affirms: “The Church’s commission, upon which its freedom is founded, consists in delivering the message of the free grace of God to all people in Christ’s stead, and therefore in the ministry of his own Word and work through sermon and sacrament.”

And then the declaration follows that with the necessary denial: “We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church in human arrogance could place the Word and work of the Lord in the service of any arbitrarily chosen desires, purposes, and plans.” In 1934, the Confessing Church was guarding itself against “arbitrarily chosen desires” having to do with a neo-pagan religion of German racial greatness. But what makes the statement classic is that it is so sharply phrased that it cuts to the heart of a myriad of church problems.

Once when my family had recently moved to a new town, we were in our “find a good church” phase of church visiting. We tried a nearby mainline church and could tell immediately that the people in charge had no idea why Christians are supposed to gather together on Sunday morning. They had a variety of good causes to support, and were generally very positive, uplifting people with an encouraging message. But it wasn’t the gospel, so we left after one visit and never looked back. In retrospect, I suppose I knew in advance what goes on in most mainline churches, but I get optimistic anytime I see the name of the denomination where I got saved.

For a few Sundays we attended an evangelical church that did a much better job at proclaiming the message of Christ, but one Sunday we were surprised to find the entire service structured around affirming the giftings of people in the congregation who had physical disabilities. I was moved by the stories I heard, and I could see the value of taking special time for this good cause. What I couldn’t see, though, was sacrificing the main weekly meeting to do so. When the people of God gather around the word of God, they are supposed to know what to do. They are not supposed to have free days on their calendar to devote to a variety of good causes that occur to them.

That’s when Barmen echoed in my ears: “as though the Church in human arrogance could place the Word and work of the Lord in the service of any arbitrarily chosen desires, purposes, and plans.” Affirming people with disabilities is a good thing to do. But compared to a clear, faithful, and consistent proclamation of what the Bible is about, it seems like such an arbitrarily chosen purpose. Aren’t there about 50 other good causes that we could devote other Sundays to? And if so, will we ever get around to the Word and work of the Lord for its own sake?

The Barmen Declaration’s great value is its powerful reminder that the Church already has a commission. It is not looking around the modern world to find out what it should do. We have been told what to do: Teach the nations what Christ has commanded us, because he is with us to the end of the world, and the word of God is not bound.

The Ascension: Christ’s Kind Absence

By Peter David Gross
The Scriptorium

Preached at Redeemer Church on May 17, 2012.
See a previous Ascension sermon here.

John 16:7 – Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.

We began the service by celebrating the glory of the Ascension, and that’s very, very good. But I want to take a step or two back from that celebration with one simple realization, and then, maybe, work our way to celebration again. This is what I want to remember:

Jesus left us. Notice: Jesus left us.

It’s not the whole story, no. He has promised to come back, and he resides with us by his Spirit. But his absence is a big part of the story: it’s 2000 years big–100 tides of dying generations. He left, and we don’t have him here to walk beside, to eat with, to see.

I want those things profoundly.
I want to see Christ and hear his voice.
I want him to come back.
It hurts here without him.
I love him.
I want him to come back.

Jesus, whose touch heals sickness,
Jesus, whose words heal souls,
Jesus, whose prayers satisfy needs,
Jesus, whose body bore my shame and guilt,
Jesus, who knows me,
Jesus left.

I ask -Why did he go? How can this be good?
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Stop. It is good. We must start by saying, “it is good.” When I believe that Christ is perfectly good, I must believe that what he does is worth trusting. If he left, then it’s good for him to have left, no matter how puzzling it may be.

But let’s hold that puzzle in our minds for a while: I ache for Jesus, and I trust that he should be gone. My ache, and his absence, must be worth the good we gain from his departure, whatever that good is.

Let me put it this way: Christ’s embodied presence is so surpassingly good, so manifestly desirable, and so suited to our needs, that there must be an absurdly good reason for us not to have it. Whatever that reason is, we know that it’s magnificent–more magnificent, even, than Christ’s present physical presence would be. Why else would he have gone?

That changes this discussion a little. It is still true that we’re a little bit like children left somewhere alone, or like separated lovers. That pain doesn’t leave. But it’s precisely that pain that persuades us that we’re following the tracks of something wonderful when we ask, “Why did Christ go?” Inasmuch as his absence hurts us, we know that there’s blessing in it. Because Christ is good, it must be a generous pain, and a kind absence.

So I’ll change my question. Instead of asking “How can this be good?”, I’ll ask, “What’s the secret wonder of Christ’s departure? What good is there to be found in it?”

That’s our project tonight. Let’s pray for guidance.
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I think there’s a lot of value to sitting down with this question (like most questions) and putting some good, hard work into prayerfully mulling over it, without scrambling for what someone else has said the answer is–without even opening the Bible, initially. God likes it when we think hard about him, and the Bible wouldn’t have gone and gotten itself written if it weren’t for people who sat around and mulled.

That kind of independent thinking isn’t good because I think that I’ll come up with better answers than the ones inside this book, however. That’s absurd. No, it’s mostly good because it might get me–or you–to the same place that the Bible gets to, but with some deeper understanding of it; or because it’ll teach us better questions to ask of the Bible when we get to it. After prayerfully thinking on your own for a bit, you might learn to ask, “Was the way that Jesus preached qualitatively different from the way the apostles preached? And did his departure allow the apostles to preach the way they did?” in addition to simply asking, “Why did Jesus leave us?” That’s very, very helpful. It can speed and deepen your Bible study, and it can add structure to your conversations with the Holy Spirit.

That’s what I did to prepare for this sermon, and it’s what this (and every) sermon should be for you: it should be preparation for deeper personal Bible reading.

And when you do go back to your Bibles with today’s big question bumping around in your heads, here’s a great place to begin: John, chapters 14-17. In every gospel account, Christ spends time warning his disciples that he’ll leave them, but here in John he fills pages and pages telling his disciples why he’s leaving them, and preparing them for his absence with teachings and prayer. We’ll start by zooming in on one audacious verse together, but take note: you should go read the whole passage quite soon.

By the time we get to chapter 16 verse 7, Jesus has been telling his disciples that he’s going to leave them for quite a while. They’re disoriented. They hate the idea of Jesus leaving them, and, in desperation, are scrambling for figurative interpretations of his words rather than literal ones. This misunderstanding is partly their fault and partly Christ’s plan, but in both cases, it’s remarkable that he turns to them and says, “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away.” To their advantage? I don’t think that word means what you think it means, Jesus.

His reason? “If I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” OK, so, according to Christ, it is better for his disciples to lose his presence and gain this Helper than to continue walking beside him without the Helper. He believes that it’s more important for his disciples to have the Holy Ghost than it is for them to be in his company.

That’s remarkable, and, for me, less than intuitive. But it does resonate with the way God has worked through his people. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but sometimes watching the life of Christ is like watching a replay reel of the greatest hits from Old Testament narratives. Matthew is particularly keen on these, taking pains to chart the ways in which Jesus’ story mirror’s Israels history, like when he is taken to Egypt to escape Herod’s infanticide, or when he picks twelve disciples (like the twelve tribes of Israel). Paul’s in on the project too. He points out that Christ is a new Adam, or compares his baptism to Noah’s Flood.

Now, when it comes to Christ’s ascension, there is really only one major Old Testament correlate: Elijah’s ascent to heaven in a whirlwind. Like with Jesus, Elijah’s ascension takes place with his primary disciple as witness and –here’s the rub– as beneficiary. When Elijah’s getting ready to leave, he tells Elisha to ask for something from him before he goes. Elisha asks for “a double portion of [Elijah's] spirit.” And, when he sees Elijah ascend, he’s granted it. He picks up the cloak that Elijah drops for him, and, mourning, goes out to minister to Israel with Elijah’s authority, raising the dead and feeding the hungry.

[As an aside, Elijah's ascension isn't the only time we see him pre-figuring Christ or Elisha pre-figuring the apostles. If you're interested, go check out the account of Elijah calling Elisha. It's startlingly close to many of Jesus' conversations with his disciples.]

Christ’s ascension, it turns out, works like Elijah’s did, too. In John 14:12, the beginning of Jesus’ teachings on his own ascension, Jesus tells his disciples, ” whoever believes in me will do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.” Just as Elijah’s departure empowered his disciple with his spirit, so Christ’s departure would empower his disciples with the Sprit of Christ.

So. In this way, we see that Christ’s ascension and his disciples’ receipt of the Holy Spirit are part of a beautiful pattern that God had been hinting at for a long, long time. It fits perfectly in God’s big story, and should become a narrative focal point for us as we seek to understand his world.

But it’s still hard for me to understand. Why is Christ’s departure (or Elijah’s for that matter) necessarily connected to the empowerment of his disciples, or the passing on of his ministry?

I’ll be blunt: Jesus doesn’t tell us crystal-clearly. But he does give us some pretty big clues–clues that, when followed, can lead to a magnificent picture of the Messiah’s ministry and of his plan for the redemption of the world.

Let’s start with what I think are the biggest clues in this passage. In John 16:4-15, Jesus describes the work that the Holy Spirit will do, and throughout the passage he suggests that the work he’s describing stands in contrast to the work that he, Christ, has done. He sees their jobs as different, and he sees his job making way for the Spirit’s. Let’s look.

In verses 8-10, he says that the Holy Spirit will “convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.”

Take a step back: This description depicts the Spirit as the world’s great, crotchety, firey evangelist, telling the old story of sin and holiness and salvation’s sharp edges. It’s lovely. But let’s consider it as a work that’s distinct from Christ’s. Apparently, Christ didn’t think of this work of evangelism as his work. He doesn’t see himself as the one to “go into all the world and make disciples.”

This shouldn’t be all that shocking. Think, for example, of Christ’s explaining to the Syrophonecian woman that he was sent “to the lost sheep of Israel.” His job was not the job of evangelism. Christ wasn’t a preacher of the good news.

Why? Christ didn’t preach the gospel like the Holy Spirit does, because Christ was the gospel. Jesus is the good news come into the world: the means of salvation, the goal of salvation; the object of salvation, and, through his death and resurrection, the subject of salvation. His job here was to act the gospel. To be the gospel. To complete the gospel. Then and only then, when the gospel was completed, when the good news was all put together, could it be properly, joyfully, convictingly preached.

This is the first major connecting point from Christ’s big clues to our big question. One of the reasons why Christ had to leave before the Holy Spirit could possibly be poured out on his disciples was that the gospel would have been incomplete without Jesus’ reunion with his Father in glory. Since Christ’s job was to effect and act out our salvation, to become the model who we all would follow, and to become the good news his Spirit would preach, he had to finish the story. He had to say, in effect, that salvation ends with “happily ever after.” Jesus’ present, human communion with the Father is the assurance, pre-figuration, and down-payment of our coming human communion with the Father. Jesus had to ascend so that we could see that our hope is in heaven at the right hand of God. Only then could our whole story be told. And since Christ ends up being our whole story, we need a new Guide to help us tell about it.

Alright. Let’s look at a second part of the passage from chapter 16, at a second big clue, and then we’ll move toward closing up. This is long, but trust me: with these two clues, we’re only scratching the surface.

In verses 12-15, Jesus continues his description of the unique and necessary work of the Holy Spirit. He says, almost wistfully, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

You can hear, in these words, Jesus’ deep, deep longing for his disciples to be filled with a knowledge of the truth, a truth that they “cannot bear” while they are still with him.

You see, Jesus is out to make siblings of us, not servants. He is King, and he will be King, but he wants to be a King of freemen, and the firstborn among brothers. This freedom, this fraternity, this growth into the knowledge of the glory of Christ and his Father is the characteristic not of disciples, or followers, but of apostles, of representatives. Christ has in mind for his followers to come to knowledge of his glory by becoming representatives–images–of his mission and nature. We’re supposed to learn by being like, by receiving within ourselves the glory of God. And that’s the sort of project that clearly requires the indwelling of God. That’s why the Holy Spirit’s uniquely necessary here. We need him to glorify Christ in us.

And here, again, is our connection to today’s big question: This learning by means of representation, learning by means of Spirit-empowered imaging, necessitates a removal from the thing we are representing. When Christ is around, there is no need for him to be represented, especially by his close disciples. (Think of the time when he returns from prayer to see them attempting to cast out a demon. He comes on the scene and they’re suddenly superfluous.) But if his disciples are only going to be able to learn the depths of his glory by representing him, and if that representation is only achievable by the work of his Spirit, then he must leave and pour his Spirit out on them. It’s the way to make all humans into the sorts of companions he longs for, the sort of people who can inhabit his kingdom, the sort of people whose desires are in perfect alignment with his, of whom it could be said, as in verse 22, “when I see you again, your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.” They will be capable of perfect, fraternal, free relationship with him, and through him, with Father God.

Alright. Now. To close, let’s put the two things we’ve learned together, and we’ll find a third great thing. 1. Christ had to ascend in order to complete the gospel. 2. Christ had to ascend in order to train us to be his brothers and sisters. The preaching of the gospel and the transformation of God’s people are the work of the Holy Spirit, and they are also the true substance of Christ’s holy Church. Christ’s Ascension is the necessary prerequisite to any sanctification, and the necessary preface to this beautiful new body that marches through time and space: Christ’s Church, bound together by the Spirit in pursuit of the knowledge and experience of the glory of Christ. The Ascension allows this thing we’re doing now: this sweet fellowship, this proclamation. It makes our bumbling attempts at corporate Christlikeness possible. It makes our ministry more meaningful. It’s the groundwork, friends, for the Church. It’s should be no surprise that Pentecost is just around the corner.

The Ascension: our happily ever after.

The Ascension: our opportunity to practice being Christ-like.

The Ascension: the act of God that made way for the fellowship of believers and the building up of the Bride of Christ.

This is why, friends, Christ truly said, “It is to your advantage that I go.” This moment we celebrate today is the initiation of the Church of God, and the beginning of our opportunity to know, to preach, and to be transformed by the gospel.

Let’s pray.

The Ascension: Christ Among Us, Christ Above Us

By Peter David Gross
The Scriptorium
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/scriptorium/2012/05/the-ascension-christ-among-us-christ-above-us/

My awesome little Baptist church follows the church calendar (Yes, that’s right.), and this Thursday is Ascension Day. After preaching at our midweek service last year, I became the church’s unofficial Ascension nut, and I’m getting ready to preach again. It’ll be our third sermon on the Ascension, each with a different approach, and between the three we’re well on our way to producing a pretty broad theological survey of the event.

Two years ago, Dom Vincent preached on how the Ascension establishes Christ’s sovereign kingship. Last year, I preached on what it teaches us about the body’s place in God’s salvation, and about how God uses physical symbols to speak to us. This Thursday, I’ll be preaching on what it teaches about the importance and wonder of the work of the Spirit in the church. In brief, we’re looking at the Ascension to learn about Christ as King, about Christ as Man, and about Christ and his Holy Spirit.

For all its wealth, the Ascension is a largely neglected place for pious Christian focus. This week, I hope to persuade you of its theological depth and of its devotional worth. I’ll start us off with my sermon from last year, “Christ Among Us, Christ Above Us.” The text is below, and at bottom there’s a recording.

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Christ Among Us, Christ Above Us

There are no floating angels in the Bible.  The whole hovering angel with billowing skirts thing: it isn’t there.  There are hardly any flying angels.  They stand and sit and walk.  They are often fairly easily mistaken for your good old everyday human being.  They can sometimes be wrestled or given food.  When they fly (if they fly) they fly with big, weird wings, often in clusters of six or covered with eyes.  Or they are (you know) giant, spinning wheels hurling lightning.  Monstrous beasts.

But mostly they just look like guys.  Shiny guys, sometimes, yes, but guys.  On the ground.  Solidly on the ground.

We only imagine them floating around or sedately flapping two dovish pinions because of a funny mental holdover from early Christian paintings.  See, those early paintings were more concerned with collections of symbols than with realism.  They put halos on people’s heads to indicate that, as Christians, they carried the presence of God with them.  They swathed Jesus in red and blue, colors symbolizing divinity and humanity, to show that he was both God and man.  They did all this not because it is ‘realistic,’ but because it meant something.  They were using symbols.  Similarly, when they wanted to say “This guy’s an angel,” they added wings, and often stuck him higher up in the painting.  This wasn’t because angels typically flap a pair of wings in the air above us.  It was because the painters needed some way to visually distinguish angels from humans in their system of symbols.  They needed an immediately comprehensible symbol for angels, like the abstracted shapes of men and women on bathroom doors.  They picked wings and airborne-ness.

Our imaginations got more confused, however, when paintings became progressively more ‘realistic,’ but then kept the old symbols in place.  Suddenly the painted angels looked ‘realistic,’ but they remained floating. Now we can hardly imagine the Nativity story without a bunch of flappy, floaty guys in the sky.  Whoops.

Yet in fact, there’s almost no flying in the Bible at all unless you’re a bird, have a bird’s body parts, or are one of those thunder wheels.  There’s no floating.  No one just floats up in the air.  Get that out of your head.  Stick to the ground.

Elijah does get swept up to God, but in a whirlwind.  The angel that announces Samson’s birth to his parents goes up to God, but in the fire of their burnt offering.  Jacob sees angels ascending and descending to God, but they’re on a ladder.  All those almost-floaters go up by means of something physical: wind, fire, ladder.

There is no Superman in the Bible, flying with his fist out front.  There’s no Neo.  And (thank God) there’s no billowing cloth-draped nudists like in the paintings.

There’s nothing else, in fact, quite like the Ascension.  The Ascension breaks the rules.

I want you to try and remember that we’re grounded people.  That stuff sticks to the ground.  That planes and hang-gliders are weird.  That skyscrapers are new.  That you walk by shoving the world with your feet.  That lovely scents are grown and ground and combined before they’re bought.  That food comes out of the dirt or by spilling some blood.  That photos are flat.  That your skin makes oil.  That her perfume makes you shiver.  That your butt’s designed to flatten to spread your weight along that pew.  That babies are made by… bodies.  That laughter feels a certain way as well as sounding a certain way.  I want you to try and remember bodies.

This groundy, jolly, bodied world is the world of the Bible.  The Bible wasn’t written for our sweet, rococo illustrations of it.  It’s talking about this, and even the angels are grounded.  No floating.

Let’s stop.  Remember your senses.  Smell.  Listen.  Look.  Touch.  Taste.   …Remember that time when you saw the morning light turn a hummingbird’s wings to yellow and its throat a flashy red?  Remember the feel of your fingers running along a walkside chain link fence?  Remember the smell of redwoods, sweat, and dirt while playing frisbee in the mountains?  Remember the taste of creme brulee?

This down-here, sensual world was the one that Christ walked in…thud, thud, thud… smelling, tasting, touching things.

And then he penetrated the air.  He broke the earthy barrier and went up into that place that we said was reserved for birds and weird visionary wheels.  The place that even the angels didn’t go except by flapping.  He rose up from the floor.  His body.  Up, up, up until a cloud covered him.  Have you watched a loosed red balloon go up until a cloud covers it?  It doesn’t happen quickly.  Up, up, up.

His body, Christ’s hiccuping, laughing, dancing, hugging, farting, tensing, bleeding, singing, speaking, “touch my hands and my side” body rose up into the air.

Early paintings of the Ascension can’t quite figure out what to make of this.  They exude a lovely human awkwardness.  They put Jesus on a mountain instead of in the air, they surround him with an almond of angel heads.  They show nothing but his feet, sticking out of the top of the frame.  And the painters are right.  This Ascension thing is physical, heavy, funny: weird.

So why’d he do it?  Well, there’s lots to be said about that.  Dom said a good bit about it at last year’s service.  He did it to establish his reign over all the earth.  He did it so that his disciples wouldn’t go looking for him anywhere, and so that they wouldn’t be fooled by anyone on earth who claimed to be him.  He did it because the Holy Spirit would not have been poured out on the Church if he had stayed behind.

He did it because it was time for him to return to his Father, time to minister to his creation through his Church.  He was returning to his Father to wait, intercede, and prepare.

And this is what we’re zooming in on: it would not have been enough for Jesus to go to his Father “spiritually” (whatever that means).  No, he went to drastic measures to show us that his communion with God is the same as humanity’s communion with Him: body and soul, together.  He, a human, a slap-thigh human, was ascending to be in perfect union with God the Father.  In this most unnatural of his physical actions, most defiant of physical laws, God was making a startling affirmation of the physical dimension of human existence and of the physical world as a whole.  He was saying, “It is very good.”

God wants to be in communion with you.  With all of you.  Body and soul.  He’s not an invisible floaty thing who only cares about your invisible floaty bits.  Your God is a God who has become enfleshed.  He became like you, and in doing so he set a new pattern for you to follow, one that you can follow.  We humans are meant to live like Jesus lived.  That’s why, when Christ returns, “we… will be caught up together… in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.”  We, body and soul, will follow the pattern that Christ set, and by ascending like he did, be ushered into the fullest, richest, embodied communion with God that anyone in our race has ever or will ever experience.  We, friends, “will meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.”  When we walk the New Jerusalem streets, breathing the new earth’s air, we will have been ushered into deep, bodily communion with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Alright, so that’s a little bit of why Jesus did what he did when he ascended.  Now let’s talk about why he did it the way he did it.  Here’s the question: “Why did he go up?  Why not go to be with the Father any other way?”

Let’s say the obvious thing:  He did not go up because the Father is actually at the end of that spatial trajectory.  He didn’t do it for efficiency of transportation.  He didn’t say, “Well, God the Father’s located at 1295 Alpha Centari Way.  It’ll take me 30,000 years to get there once I’ve made the jump to light speed and 30,000 years to get back with the New Jerusalem Mothership.”

No, God the Father isn’t sitting around outside the atmosphere somewhere, and Jesus probably didn’t keep on going past the moon.  He didn’t ascend to help himself or to help the Father.  He ascended to help us.  He gave us something by going up.

Here’s what I mean: Ever since the beginning of time, God has been revealing himself to us through his creation.  He’s been filling it with his glory.  That means that he’s made it beautiful and that we’re supposed to recognize his craftsmanship when we see its beauty, yes, but it means something richer, too.

Just like when friends begin to infuse things with new, special meanings–“that’s the park where we…” “Oh look!  A multi-colored paper journal!  Chad must have been here!”–God has been grabbing hold of the stuff of this world–oil and blood, snakes and lambs, jasper and bronze, water and bread and wine–and filling it with potent, meaningful connections to himself.  He doesn’t just communicate to us with words.  He’s poked his finger into everything around us and said, “When you look here, you can find me.”  He’s blanketed us with meaning.  The world is full of his glory.

The Ascension is one of the times when God was revealing himself through the world.  You see, space itself–direction–was meant to be filled with holy meaning.  God had always been encouraging his people to look up when they thought of him or worshipped him–just scan the Psalms for directional words–but Christ has solidified this physical tool for communion and communication with him.  “Up” can mean “Godwards” now, and that’s useful, beautiful, and good.  Now it’s impossible for us to be anywhere in space without being in direct contact with a reminder of God’s presence.  Now we can raise our hands in worship, and have it be a physical reference to Christ, and a physical supplication for his return.  We can always look toward the place from which Christ will come, and that’s pretty incredible.

But it’s just like God.  He’s always trying to reveal Himself to us in ways that are abundant, close to us, and lovely.  The world is charged with the grandeur of God, a grandeur that’s longing to flame out toward us… if only we could have the eyes to see it.

Embodied, earth-bound friends, let’s learn to search through the world with our senses and minds, waiting expectantly for the revelation of God to come pouring out at us.  Let’s learn to look up and think, “Christ.”  Let’s learn to eat bread and think, “Christ.”  Let’s learn to drink wine and think, “Christ.”  Let’s gather the brightly colored markings God has made in the earth, hold them close, and show them to each other.

This year, let the Ascension teach you two things: that your body is the Lord’s and that the earth is the Lord’s.  Learn that God is saving your body as well as your soul, and learn that he’s speaking to you always through a richly God-infused world.  Christ, our God, has gone up.

Listen

Do the New Atheists Own the Market on Reason?

By R. Scott Smith
Evangelical Portal
http://www.patheos.com/Evangelical/Atheists-Own-the-Market-on-Reason-Scott-Smith-05-04-2012.html

On the terms of the New Atheists, the very concept of rationality becomes nonsensical.

 

New Atheists often are noisy and triumphalistic. Just think of the "Reason Rally" in Washington, D.C. They want to be known as owning and uniquely standing in the place of reason.

However, they think religion is irrational and can only give us opinions and preferences. Who has the authority to make that judgment? New Atheists, of course! Why? Because they claim to have knowledge, since they have science on their side.

Yet for all their professed enlightenment, these "brights" fail to grasp a major blind-spot: their view of science actually cannot give us knowledge of reality. At best, it might give us only a beginningless series of interpretations, yet without a way to start. If so, why would someone want to build their worldview, and indeed their life, on a bottomless house of cards?

Let me explain. Today's orthodox science is naturalistic; only what is knowable by the five senses is real. God, souls, and things we thought were non-physical, such as thoughts, beliefs, and experiences (i.e., mental states), cannot be known to be real. Or, simplifying, they don't exist. Yet, we can test natural, physical stuff scientifically, so that's what is believed to be real. That view of reality undergirding atheistic evolution by natural selection (NS) is the philosophy called naturalism. There's only the physical universe, without anything non-physical.

Prior to Darwin, many believed there were non-physical, essential natures that separated living things into kinds. Afterward, biological classification is understood as one interconnected "tree of life"—all living things share a common ancestor.

Maybe we still should ask: How do we know what's true on scientific naturalism? Consider Daniel Dennett, a leading philosopher and New Atheist, who takes atheistic evolution by NS seriously. Dennett realizes NS is blind: bereft of goal planning, thinking about some desired outcome, believing something, or trying to do something. Since non-physical mental states aren't real, the qualities they'd have, e.g., their representing, or being of or about, something also wouldn't be real. There are only brain states, physical patterns, and behavior we take, or interpret, to be about something.

Dennett realizes that if there were real, intrinsic, essential natures, something could be so due to what kind of thing it is. So there could be a "deeper" fact, beyond just behavior, of what our mental states are really about. Just due to a mental state's essence, it really could be of its objects, and not something else.

But, since evolution by NS denies any such essences, Dennett says we only interpret peoples' behavior as being "about" their objects. But that's all we have to go on—our interpretations, which we attribute to a person. Based on someone's behaviors, we interpret them to mean the person is thinking "about" something (e.g., an errand to Lowe's), but that's just how we talk. In reality, there isn't any real "aboutness" to us or our thoughts.

But there could be other interpretations too. Maybe the thought is "of" something else (e.g., a movie on HBO), but there's no fact of the matter to which we can appeal in order to settle the issue. For that, Dennett admits there would have to be an essence to the thought's being of something, so that it really is about the errand, not the movie.

Without essences, we're left only with interpretations—but interpretations of what? Apparently, an interpretation of another interpretation. If we keep pressing that question, however, we're left just with interpretations of interpretations "all the way down," without any way to get started and experience something as it is, simply because no mental state is really about anything. And, if our mental states cannot really be about something, how would we ever know how things really are?

Fortunately, that's not how we experience life. Our mental states seem to have three essential features:

1. They're "particularized." My thought about tonight's dinner, or my experience of drinking a Starbuck's chocolate smoothie, is not generic or unspecified. Each is about something particular.
2. These mental states must be about something. Try having a thought that isn't about anything!
3. That "aboutness" seems to be intrinsic, or essential, to each mental state. My thought about last night's dinner couldn't be about anything else and still be the thought it is. I could observe a raven, but that experience could not have been of my dinner.

How do we best explain these three apparently essential features of mental states? Dennett realizes that if mental states had essential natures, they really could be of their intended objects, so we could know them.
If atheistic evolution by NS were true, we'd be in a beginningless series of interpretations, without any knowledge. Yet, we do know many things. So, naturalism & atheistic evolution by NS are false -- non-physical essences exist. But, what's their best explanation? Being non-physical, it can't be evolution by NS. Plus, we use our experiences, form concepts and beliefs, and even modify or reject them. Yet, if we're just physical beings, how could we interact with and use these non-physical things? Perhaps we have non-physical souls too. In all, it seems likely the best explanation for these non-physical things is that there exists a Creator after all.That seems more reasonable to believe than evolution by NS or naturalism.


R. Scott Smith is Associate Professor of Ethics and Christian Apologetics at Biola University. His Naturalism and Our Knowledge of Reality explores these matters in greater depth.

Imitating Jesus’ Dependence on the Father and the Spirit

By Fred Sanders
The Scriptorium
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/scriptorium/2012/05/imitating-jesus-dependence-on-the-father-and-the-spirit/

Klaus Issler‘s new book Living into the Life of Jesus: The Formation of Christian Character (IVP, 2012) is a  unique product. It looks like a spiritual formation book, and it is. From its green cover with a picture of a lone figure walking down a path into a gauzy landscape, you can tell it’s going to be in the genre of spiritual writing, with the soft touch and gentle approach that is customary for books in that field. A tender little vine winds its way up the top corner of the book. A Dallas Willard blurb floats hauntingly beside that: “A vital resource.”

And then when you flip through the book, you see key points bulleted, a big round PAUSE button that you should hit when you need to stop and reflect, discussion questions geared toward self-examination, quiet little poetic compositions by the author, and lists of practical suggestions for application. Some pages of the book look almost like a workbook, minus only the blank lines for writing out responses.

It’s axiomatic that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but if the publisher has designed the book well, surely you can tell something about it from all these visual clues. This is in fact a spiritual formation book, a resource, a tool to be used by disciples for their formation.

But here’s something unique about Issler’s book. Tucked away in its logical place in the fifth chapter, Issler makes a set of claims and recommendations that come straight from a robust and deeply considered trinitarian theology. Right there in a spiritual formation book!

No Christian should be surprised to find something about the Trinity in a book about the Christian life; after all, if we want to know God and to be transformed by that knowledge, we would expect to hear some truth about our God, who is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But Issler has brought in the Trinity not only as the truth of our spiritual life, but as the way to that life. And he has done so in a way that doesn’t distract us by changing the subject, but by focusing our attention more resolutely on Jesus Christ, who is of course the way, the truth, and the life.

Though he uses a light touch, Issler makes several related Trinitarian moves in chapter 5, and they really are foundational for the rest of the spiritual formation insights he gives in Living into the Life of Jesus.

The key move is that, in a book that is concerned to point us to Jesus Christ as the pattern for our sanctification, Issler argues vigorously for a deeper appreciation of the full humanity of Jesus, so that we can really view him as a role model, a hero, and someone who we can imitate. He keenly notices how often we resort to playing the God card to put Jesus out of reach as a pattern:

How could Jesus know the thoughts of others? Because he was God.
How could Jesus resist temptation and live without sin? Because he was God.
How could Jesus forgive his enemies while being tortured on the cross? Because he was God.

Et cetera. The problem Issler sees is that this is sort of a Superman version of Christology: We can’t really consider imitating Clark Kent if Clark Kent is really solving all his problems by being Superman.

Instead, Issler argues that “Jesus predominantly relied on the divine resources of the Father and the Holy Spirit to accomplish his messianic mission.” (p. 110) That is, Jesus’ life of obedience, righteousness, teaching, and even working miracles, was not primarily a matter of him flexing his deity muscles, but was predominantly a matter of him living a human life that was in obedience to his eternal Father, and empowered by the eternal Spirit.

Notice how well this is worded: predominantly. Issler spells out this balance in a way that is clearer than any other treatments I’ve seen. He sketches 5 options: (A) Jesus lived entirely in the power of his own divine nature, with no dependence on the Spirit. (B) Jesus lived mostly in the power of his divine nature, with a little dependence on the Spirit. (C) Half and half. (D) Jesus lived predominantly in the power of the Spirit, though sometimes he exercised divine power in a way that demonstrates his deity. (E) Jesus never used the power of his divine essence, but always only worked as a human empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Just laying out the options is helpful. But Issler argues through them, eliminating some and complicating others, until option D is the best one left.

And why?  ”Such dependence by Jesus would be then the norm of his life on earth.  This option permits sufficient human experience for Jesus qualify as a sympathetic high priest and a genuinely human sinless sacrifice.” The evidence that Issler sifts in making his case is not just an attempt to win a disputed point. Remember that this book is primarily a spiritual formation tool. Issler’s evidence requires him to do a rich study of the interaction of Jesus with the Father and the Holy Spirit. And that study is what puts the reader within reach of the great, triune work of grace that is the life of Jesus.

In this section, Issler takes the reader into an analysis of the network of divine relationships that is the life of God, the life that the Son lived with the Father and the Spirit for our salvation. It encourages us to be Christ centered without being Father-forgetful or Spirit- ignoring. And throughout, the whole movement is one of grace. Most books about imitating Jesus as a role model break down into some kind of performance-based legalism. In contrast, evangelical books about Jesus often so emphasize the grace of his death for us that they shun any notion of imitation. But Issler has some new tricks here, and for some people, I think this book will point them beyond the impasse. Evangelicals can confess Jesus as savior without having to neglect Jesus as pattern.

You remember those bracelets that asked WWJD, What Would Jesus Do? They were asking the right question. But even more important, as Issler’s project reminds us, is to answer with the right answer: Jesus would do the will of the Father, in the power of the Spirit, for us and our salvation.

How to Teach Salvation: Three Mysteries

By Fred Sanders
The Scriptorium
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/scriptorium/2012/05/how-to-teach-salvation-three-mysteries/

There are three great mysteries in Christian theology: the Trinity, the incarnation, and the atonement.

These three mysteries are all mysteries of unity: The mystery of the Trinity is how the three persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) are the one, only God. The mystery of the incarnation is how the divine nature is united to human nature in the person of our one Lord, Jesus Christ. And the mystery of the atonement is the mystery of how the holiness of God can be reconciled with the unholiness of sinners, so that we can be brought home to God.

And these three mysteries are mega-doctrines, large clusters of theological truth that draw together data from all over the Bible. They are big, too big to find all in one place, so they are represented by words that aren’t directly biblical.  The Bible says “the word became flesh,” but the noun incarnation is a conceptual tool for gathering in that statement (John 1:14) and combining it with all the other biblical testimony to who Jesus Christ is. The words Trinity is likewise an extra-biblical word for a biblical idea, an idea so expansive that you have to take a step back and see the Bible as a whole in order to take it all in. And atonement, though the word itself is biblical (most clearly in the Old Testament), has a special theological meaning when it is applied to the work of Christ on the cross as the center and focus of all God’s ways with fallen humanity.

There is an interesting old tradition of grouping these three mysteries together, especially when teaching about salvation. It’s a wise and wonderful tradition.  Before taking up the topic of salvation, this “three mysteries” approach reminds students that there is a larger horizon of Christian truth behind the experience of salvation. The order is perfect: God the Trinity, Christ the incarnate one, and then salvation. It leads the student’s mind away from a too-narrow consideration of salvation, and takes them on an itinerary into the depths of God. It can be a short trip, a mere gesture at the infinite horizon, a suggestion that something much greater is out there, communicating its own very determinate meaning and purposes. But it reminds us all that salvation is not a topic that can just be picked up and handled on its own terms. Soteriology (the Christian doctrine of salvation) takes all its orders from prior considerations about who does the saving (the triune God), and what resources must be mobilized in order to provide for the gospel (the presence of the God-man).

So: Trinity, incarnation, atonement. But there is also a variation on this triad. Sometimes the three mysteries are announced as Trinity, incarnation, and union with Christ. Here is the great Adolph Saphir (1831-1891) on the subject:

Let us ever with adoring hearts believe in the three unions which the Church of Christ has confessed in all ages. First, we behold Jesus, God and man, two natures in one Person; the Lord of Glory, Immanuel, God with us. Beholding Christ, God and man, we see the Father and receive the Spirit.

Thus we learn to adore, secondly, the eternal and essential union of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The Saviour reveals to us the eternal love of the Father; we know Christ as the Word by whom all things were made, as the Only-begotten, loved before the foundation of the world. We know Him also as the Heir, who shall inherit all things. Accepted in the Beloved, and seated with Him in the heavenly places, we adore the love of the Father who chose us in Christ, and look forward to the glory which the heirs of God and the joint-heirs with the Son shall possess. And we know and adore also the Holy Ghost, one with the Father and the Son in eternity, in creation, and in redemption, by whose power and gracious indwelling the Father’s love and the Saviour’s grace are revealed and communicated to our souls unto eternal life.

We believe also, thirdly, the union, which, according to the will of the Father, subsists between Christ and the Church. Of God are we in Christ: the Father is the Husbandman, the Son incarnate is the Vine, we who believe are the branches. The Father is supreme Lord and King, the Son incarnate is the Bridegroom, and we who trust in Him and love Him are the bride. We are members of the Body of which Christ is the Head; and the Head of Christ is God. By the Holy Ghost Christ and the Church are one; He is in them, and they are inseparable from Him in life and death, in time and eternity.

We believe these unions, though we cannot comprehend and fathom them. We have a knowledge and experience of these mysteries in our hearts and lives, an assurance and consolation continually flowing from these eternal depths, and we wait with calmness and hope for the bright and perfect knowledge which shall be ours when we see face to face. Eternity alone can unfold the blessedness of those who know “the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost  (Saphir, Christ and the Church: Thoughts on the Apostolic Commission, p. 87-88).

The order is a bit different: Saphir begins with Jesus, which is always a good idea for theology. Then he makes the transition to the doctrine of the Trinity very confidently, with the line “Beholding Christ, God and man, we see the Father and receive the Spirit.”  And when he moves to the doctrine of salvation, he lands on union with Christ rather than atonement. Why does he do this, and what does he gain from it?

Notice that Saphir’s approach is still a movement toward the doctrine of salvation. That is, whatever part of the doctrine of salvation a teacher draws attention to, if he does it using the “three mysteries” framework he is recognizably following the same pedagogical strategy of putting salvation into its trinitarian-christological context.

Now soteriology can be broadly divided into two phases: accomplished and applied. Salvation accomplished is centered on the cross, while salvation applied is centered on union with Christ. Saphir’s way of teaching the “three mysteries” approach to salvation jumps over salvation accomplished and goes straight to salvation applied.

In doing so, he runs the risk of de-emphasizing the cross, or of hurrying past it in an unseemly way. But if you read him charitably and in light of his other writings, you know he’s not ashamed of the death of Christ. And he presupposes the atonement as a cause when he sings the praises of union with Christ as an effect. J.I. Packer made a similar move when he said that New Testament theology can be summarized in the three words: adoption by propitiation.

By turning his attention to union with Christ rather than to the atonement, Saphir is going further into the heart of the whole doctrine of salvation. And he also gains the advantage of highlighting the unification brought about, the union or oneness between Christ and his church. Emphasizing atonement is a way of highlighting the great estrangement that had to be overcome to make this union possible, an estrangement that was not an issue in the unions of the Trinity or the incarnation.  Emphasizing union with Christ is a way of highlighting the depth of the unity achieved by salvation. That is Saphir’s goal, and the reason he calls the three mysteries “three unions.”

Either way, this “three mysteries” schema is an excellent method for teaching the doctrine of salvation. Try it.

A Prayer for a Lukewarm Heart

By Jon Bloom
Desiring God Blog
http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/a-prayer-for-a-lukewarm-heart

O Infinitely Passionate Father,

You have created me with the capacity for deep affections — to love, to loathe, to desire, to delight, to excite, to grieve, to laugh, to enjoy, to fear, to be depressed, to be thankful. And you made me this way that I may glorify you by finding you my Supreme Satisfaction and the Fountain of everything delightful.
But I confess that my affections for you are often grievously tepid while my selfish interests steam.

• I am bold to defend my own honor and reputation and often timid to defend yours.
• I am quick to satisfy my bodily appetites and often slow to feed my soul with the Bread of Life.
• I squander moments devoted to communing with you while carefully protecting moments devoted to banal entertainment.
• I am distracted from speaking with you by books that need straightening, email that needs answering, and a bald spot in the yard that needs seeding.

I am easily and foolishly concerned with worldly success and prosperity while languid and unmoved about the greater things of another world!

And I know that my errant affections are most offensive to you when I hear of the infinite height, depth, and length, and breadth of your love for me in Christ Jesus,

• Of your giving your infinitely dear Son to be offered up a sacrifice for my sins,
• Of the unparalleled love of the innocent, holy, and tender Lamb of God, manifested in his dying agonies, bloody sweat, loud and bitter cries, and bleeding heart,
• And all this to redeem an enemy like me from deserved, eternal burnings, and give to me unspeakable and everlasting joy and glory,
• And my response is cool, lethargic, and indifferent.

O gracious Father, thank you that your Son’s great sacrifice is so great and so sufficient that it pays even for such sins of erroneous affections!

But, my affectionate Father, I am humbled to the dust that I am not more affected at what affects you! I repent of being “slothful in zeal”! No more, Father! Make me boil in spirit as I serve you (Romans 12:11)! To be moved by your glorious gospel and precious promises (2 Peter 1:4) is why you gave me affections! Nothing in earth or heaven is greater or more important.

Today, I take to heart your Son’s warning: “Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm… I will spit you out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:15–16). Merciful Father, make me hot!
Whatever it takes, whatever it costs me, give me the Spirit-salve for my heart-eyes (Revelation 3:18) so that I may see what is Real, believe what is True, treasure what is Valuable, and forsake what is worthless.
In the name of Jesus, your glorious Son, the Pearl of Great Price, amen.

This prayer was inspired by and adapted from a portion of Jonathan Edwards’s book, Religious Affections (the last three paragraphs of Part 1).

Theology … The Queen of the Sciences?

Jesus Creed
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2012/04/19/theology-the-queen-of-the-sciences-rjs/

In today’s post I would like to put forth a few ideas for discussion, all related to the claim that theology is the queen of the sciences and how this could or should play out. This isn’t a polished argument, but a desire to start a conversation.

The modern university has its origin in the High Middle Ages (1000-1300) when many of the oldest institutions we know today were founded. In Europe this brought education out of the local monastery or cathedral and into a broader sphere. Theology, however, was “The Queen of the Sciences.” Most education was for the church, and the subjects of study culminated in theology. Other subjects were of value primarily as they served to enable theological thought.

Today it is relatively common to hear a statement about theology as the queen of the sciences made in discussions of science and faith. We are, some suggest, in the midst of a power play to relegate all other forms of knowledge, especially theology, to the tyranny of science and enlightenment rationalism. Theology must, they suggest, retain the privilege of having the last word, and the right to criticize and eliminate from the consideration some kinds of ideas.

Is theology the queen of the sciences?

If this is true, we then must step back and figure out what it means for theology to be the queen of the sciences.

How can we study theology? What tools do we use?

How do we learn about the nature of God?

One of the commenters on my post last week Evangelical Evolutionists … and an Opportunity put forth this kind of argument explicitly in the context of the natural sciences and evolutionary biology.

Is it possible or desirable for a theologian to criticize a scientific idea theologically? Is it possible or desirable for a scientists to criticize a theological idea scientifically? What about other fields as well? Sociology? Economics? Politics? Can a theological criticize a political idea theologically?

The issue that I see is that people tend to get upset when pastors and theologians criticize scientific ideas on theological grounds, but they are perfectly willing to do the reverse.

…

What I’m getting at (if it isn’t obvious already) is that this seems to be less about science, evidence, and theology, and much more about a power play to make sure that theologians are subservient to scientists, that they recognize their lower status in the modern world, and that the scientists are properly recognized as the real priesthood of the modern age.

And after a response of mine, the commenter came back a little more explicitly:

I agree almost completely with that! One thing to note, however, is that while all truth is God’s truth, the fact is that every discipline only has partial truths (or even untruths, or merely practical truths masquerading as truth), every discipline needs to be open in conversation to comments from other disciplines. While theology should be open to input from other disciplines, ultimately it is the queen of them all. (emphasis added)

This argument is used to diminish the significance of evolution in biology, relegating the idea of evolution to a human construct subject to theological critique and dismissal. 

This exchange led me to think about the issues involved in the claim that theology is “the queen of the sciences” a little more carefully. The situation becomes somewhat murkier if we look beyond the natural sciences, or even the social sciences. Theology should be open to input from other disciplines, but ultimately it is the queen of them all? It is not clear, to me at least, what is meant by such a phrase … or how it could or should be applied.  And here it is, perhaps most useful to change gears and move to a different topic.

The Nature of Justification. It appears that many of the same issues that come into play in the discussion of evolution, creation, science and faith, come into play in  the discussion of justification and the new perspective on Paul. The conversation on Scot’s post yesterday, (A) Reformed View of the New Perspective, was fascinating. One of the commenters noted:

I think the nature of the clash is the division of the disciplines of systematic and biblical theology. I read through Wright and Piper’s back and forth and it seemed like they were talking past each other. Wright argues like a historian; Piper like a theologian. Wright, Dunn, Sanders, and Hayes want to ground Paul’s thought in the religious milieu of his day, whereas the conservative Reformed critics of the NPP are looking for a system that harmonizes all of the biblical data even outside of Paul. It’s history versus proof texts.

… The Reformed can’t answer their arguments with proof texts, because the NPP argues that the verses don’t mean what they think they mean. The classic examples of this are the arguments around the phrases “works of the law” and “the faith[fulness] of Jesus Christ.”

In this discussion many want to place theology in the drivers seat. Theology is viewed as an appropriate tool to criticize biblical studies and historians. But it is unclear, for some at least, that historians, students of ancient languages and cultures, or even biblical scholars can be permitted to challenge theology.

Is this what is meant by the idea that theology is the queen of the sciences?

Is it appropriate for historical and textual considerations to challenge theological ideas?

Biblical Interpretation. And we can take one more example. If theology is the queen of the sciences, then theology controls biblical interpretation. That is, the bible is to be interpreted through the lens of theology. Consider the following verse from the story of Noah:

The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. Gen 6:6 (NIV)

John Calvin’s theology drives his commentary on this verse.

The repentance which is here ascribed to God does not properly belong to him, but has reference to our understanding of him. For since we cannot comprehend him as he is, it is necessary that, for our sakes he should, in a certain sense, transform himself. That repentance cannot take place in God, easily appears from this single considerations that nothing happens which is by him unexpected or unforeseen. The same reasoning, and remark, applies to what follows, that God was affected with grief. Certainly God is not sorrowful or sad; but remains forever like himself in his celestial and happy repose: yet, because it could not otherwise be known how great is God’s hatred and detestation of sin, therefore the Spirit accommodates himself to our capacity. (Commentary on Genesis – Volume 1 Translated by the Rev. John King)

According to John Calvin the verse is not to be read literally because a literal reading of the text would contradict firmly held notions about the nature of God. It is taken as given that God can not regret or repent and he cannot be deeply troubled, he cannot experience grief. 

Another example is found in the commentary on Genesis 3. Here John Calvin, reading the text through his theology, concludes that God willed that Adam would Fall. God had determined the future state of mankind. Any other conclusion would be contrary to the nature of God … according to Calvin’s theology. 

I don’t mean to claim that Calvin’s theology is necessarily unbiblical. Certainly his reading of the whole of scripture informed his theology. But in this commentary his theology informs his interpretation. There is no sense that Calvin approaches the text open to the idea that he may learn something from Genesis 3 or Genesis 6 about the nature of God.

Is the bible to be read through the lens of theology?

Is this what is meant by the preeminence of theology?

I think all of these examples serve to illustrate a point. Theology is the queen of the sciences only in the sense that it is the fundamental focus that brings coherence to our view of the world and our role in the world. All truth is God’s truth. Theology is not a lens through which we test all other ideas. Our theology, our understanding of the nature of God, has to be informed by the bible, by the things we learn about God’s creation, by the things we learn about history and culture. But it is a feedback loop. Our understanding of the nature of God also informs our appreciation for and interpretation of the wonder of his creation and the story of the past. 

If there is no feedback loop in play, theology as the queen of the sciences leads to the tyranny of a human construct, and it will usually be wrong in rather significant ways.

This isn’t a simple problem and there is, of course, much more to be said.

What does it mean to claim that theology is “the queen of the sciences”?

In what way could, or should, theology criticize new ideas or discoveries in science or history?

What does it mean to claim that all truth is God’s truth?

If you wish to contact me directly, you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net.
If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

It’s Been Said

By Peter David Gross
The Scriptorium

There was a sweet, confusing couple of years when the Inklings et al. suddenly spoke straight at me, with megaphones. All my bookish Christian friends felt it too, at one time or another. We felt like they were pointing out our intellectual thirsts by quenching them. We felt like they had looked at our little journals to inspire their seventy-year-old books. How does that happen?

Take Chesterton. A love and assessment of absolutely anything just rolls off his quick red tongue with really baffling clarity. I don’t know another author similarly capable of transforming the most convoluted machinations of scientists, philosophers, or maniacs into bits of dissipated laughing gas, while simultaneously praising a crumb of cheese to the point that one wants to, I don’t know, venerate it or something. It’s incredible.

And, frankly, it wasn’t very good for me as an aspiring writer. I remember one week in particular: Sunday, I had written a list of five things I could blog about. By Saturday, and without trying, I had read Chesterton or Lewis saying exactly the five things I had planned to, with a notable addition: brilliance.

When I wanted to say that the power of art comes from its limits, or that virtue yields horror as well as happiness, or that reasonings are foundationless without faith in reason, I found Chesterton had swooped in first. Or Lewis, or Williams, or, say, Hopkins. I didn’t blog.

It was a dampening realization: The things I want to say are hardly new, and I can barely hope to say them better than those old crusty saints did. Why re-say? It’s been said. The wheel, reinvention, etc.

It may or may not have been Samuel Johnson who declared it useless to write any heroic couplets, since Alexander Pope had perfected them.  In any case, someone did.  The idea is simple: the best things scorn more of their kind.  Once the sonnet is perfected, the sonnet is dead…or frozen, at least.  Greatness garrotes its imitations.

The problem with that idea, if you’ll pardon the pertness, Mr. Johnson (or whoever), is that it’s ridiculous. If greatness is sterile, then, I don’t know, sheep are smart and beauty is dull.  No. There are more poets because Homer sang, and more scientists because of Einstein. What if Chesterton has said everything already, and said it better than I ever will? Still (ahem) for God’s sake and his, it follows from the nature of things that I should sit down and say it again as best as I can. His awesomeness shouldn’t stop my writing; it should accompany it.

Let’s say that good ol’ corpulent Chesty and I are standing side-by-side, contemplating the mysteries of the universe, when Wham! we realize the same marvelous realization. I could a) crumple up and defer to him, or we could, you know, b) party together. Mutually enthuse. I could add my voice to his, or my photo to Callahan’s, or my painting to Giotto’s, or my movie to Malick’s. Not because I’m as good as they are (ha!), but because creativity’s a spectacularly fitting response to the joy of apprehension. And who knows? I hear that people improve at art by persistently producing.

For me and, I think, for many others, almost the only thing that gets in way of making devoted imitations of the best paintings or essays is a conviction that we, or our self-presentations, must be exclusively excellent. As if we were gods. For heaven’s sake, let’s present, present, and re-present the truth, and let the truth be full of games. Let’s play “Chesterton” like we used to play “House,” “Pet and Owner,” or soccer. Or let’s play “Art is Composed of Limits” with Chesterton and do it as exuberantly, boisterously, and beautifully as we can, with a good, old-fashioned American belly laugh thrown in to boot.

This isn’t a cheap shot at excellence. By all means, write and create as well as you know how. But it is, I hope, a true shot at a bad reason for not creating.

By the way, (of course) Chesterton said all this too. Odd, but he seemed to think that he was saying what had been said forever and saying it worse than the last guy. I think that may just be the way things are for any member of the religion that’s older than time, and who follows a God with whose glory the earth is filled.
When I can’t say something better than Chesty has, I think I have all the more reason to say it. I’ll say it exactly because he said it so well, and made me like it so much more. If I can’t be the best, first I’ll thank God that I’m not, and then I’ll simply say and do what the best have done, but worse! After all, I’m an image maker and an image, a smaller thing that follows the Greatest. My being less than He is doesn’t exempt me from acting like Him. On the contrary. Praise God for my limits. By His strength, may I work well, work hard, and work cheerfully to fill them.