Cruciformity

I just wanted to run a quick question by you. What happens when we use the word ‘immutability’ to describe God? I’ve got a eight ideas, but I’d love to hear what you think.

1. People don’t know what it means. It’s a word that has been used for centuries a way of describing God as ‘unchanging’. If you didn’t know that much it’s a case in point, but if you did, what does ‘unchanging’ mean?

2. People that DO know what it means often have different ideas of what it means. For some people immutable will refer to God’s  commitment to his promises and true-ness to his character. Others will take a more philosophical take on it, that it means an unchanging essence or being.

3. It CAN and often DOES mean what the bible says about God. If we were to spend time understanding passages like Num 23:19 and Mal 3:6-7 in their contexts, we would deepen our appreciation of how different God is to us; he’s unchanging and constant in his love toward us and in keeping his promises.

4. It CAN and sometimes DOES locate our discussion of the idea in the history of Christian thought. This is a very important point since we need to make a priority of learning from our forefathers in the faith. We have much to learn. But it has to be conceded that this could only obscurify the meaning of a term. I don’t know the history of ‘immutability’ but it isn’t always clear how words are used by different authors at different periods of recorded history, and how meaning has shifted in time.

5. It’s a partial descriptor of God. While it can describe a truth about God,  it will never describe all of what God is like by itself and so it needs further explanation. I guess we can’t ask too much of words, they can only do what they can do.

The result of these four things is the following:

6. It’s seldom necessary. If someone asked you a question about God’s ‘immutability’ you can’t ignore the word. But if they don’t, you could quite easily use other words to say what you mean, and probably more directly. That is, …

7. There are clearer ways of saying the same thing. For example, Karl Barth proposes an alternative - ‘constancy’ (CD 2/1 , 492-3). God isn’t unpredictable or unreliable like we often are, his love and character towards us is faithful and trustworthy and so he’s ‘constant’. This language is pretty easy to understand, and it’s less technical. Finally, …

8. ‘Immutability’ can create the picture of an abstract or impersonal God. This is a big one for me, although I find it difficult to articulate. ’Immutability’ stirs in me a degree of resentment. It seems to deny proper theological method, which begins with humbly and prayerfully receiving Jesus, revealed in the Scriptures by faith and obedience. I keep feeling that it jumps straight to putting God into an ancient philosophical discussion, or at least into a theory to be pondered, poked and prodded. So it might also be that it sounds rude. Like talking about someone without admitting that they’re in the room with you. God is kept at the distance of a proposition and so removed from the history of salvation revealed in the Holy Scriptures. That’s my gut reaction anyway…

So, it does have meaning. But my question is, why use it when there are better ways of saying the same thing?

As a teenager I remember engaging with friends in long, long discussions about those questions. Could God produce a rock too heavy to lift? Could God microwave a burrito so hot that even he couldn’t eat it? More often than not, these were questions asked because they niggled. Occasionally, though, someone would suggest that it proved God couldn’t exist.

In any case, I’ve become accustomed to side-stepping these by highlighting the importance of understanding God as he is towards us. Often the philosophical questions result in discussions of an abstract god or a caricature of God. God’s identity is removed from his self-revelation in Scripture, and is reduced to a series of categories - omnipotency, omnipresence, impassibility, aseity, etc. I’ve found that a more meaningful discussion of God draws from God’s revelation of himself. I can still hear my doctrine lecturer, Robert Doyle repeating the phrase, “God is who he is towards us!”

Of course, Robert was channelling Karl Barth, who was channelling Soren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard, often called the Father of Existentialism, keenly opposed systems of thought and particularly those proposed by his predecessors Kant and Hegel. Barth continued this method in his theology, mostly ignoring categories of Systematic Theology and preferring to understand God by his (mostly) excellent exegesis of Scripture. It’s a result of such emphases that here at Moore College Biblical Studies rightly holds a place of priority among the subjects we study. God is as he is as he is towards us: He has revealed himself most clearly in his son Jesus, whose life and work reconciled humanity with himself, and issued in hope of new creation, which is brought into being by God’s Spirit. This is the triune God as revealed in Scripture, the one that Christians believe and worship.

I don’t mean to dismiss any value in discussing God’s attributes; this discussion could venture into a number of interesting areas from here. But the question that I’ve got going relates to the work of Oliver Crisp. I was introduced to Crisp at last year’s School of Theology on John Calvin. More recently, I’ve been reading Crisp’s 2007 work, Divinity and Humanity, a series of essays that relate to the Chalcedonian Definition, both challenging it and reinforcing it. To my surprise, Crisp has embraced these philosophical categories, used them to critique people like Barth and Gunton, and yet doesn’t even mention this key difference in methodology.

In one particular chapter, I’m left almost completely unconvinced by Crisp’s rebuttal of Edward Irving’s, Gunton’s and Barth’s view that Christ had a fallen nature. Granted, it was a short essay. But it really could have engaged more in the long and sustained arguments of any of these thinkers who work closer to the biblical texts and not philosophical categories like God’s omnipotence.

Oliver Crisp is a man much smarter than I am and I certainly don’t want to disrespect him. I also don’t want to say that there is NO value in using these philosophical categories, I guess I’m just confused. Haven’t we realised the limits of these categories?

I’ve just finished writing an essay outlining the shape of Karl Barth’s ethic, key to which is the concept of Divine Command. To prevent his account sounding like a divine tyrant or a voluntaristic thunderstrike like other Divine Command Theories, he provides the following great quote from CD II/2, p 587:

It is true, of course, that this command also says: Do this and do not do that. But in the mouth of God this means something different.  Do this—not because an outer or inner voice now requires this of you, not because it must be so in virtue of any necessity rooted in the nature and structure of the cosmos or of man, but: Do this, because in so doing you make it true that your rejection has been rejected in the death of Jesus on the cross, that for His sake your sin has been forgiven.  Do this, because in Jesus Christ you have been born anew in the image of God.  Do it in the freedom to which you have been chosen and called, because in this freedom you may do this, and can do only this.  For this, and not for any other reason, do this.  You may do it.  And: Do not do this—not because you hear an inner or outer voice which seeks to make it doubtful or dreadful for you, not because there is any power in heaven or on earth to prevent or spoil or for some reason forbid it.  No, but: Do not do this, because it would be a continuation of the fall of Adam, because it would not correspond to the grace addressed to you but contradict it, because you would have to do it as the captive which you certainly are not, because you, the free person, are exempted from the necessity of doing it—really exempted by the fact that you have been made righteous and glorious in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that you have actually been cut off by Him from this very possibility.  This is how the command of God speaks.

Service is ‘an act whose freedom is limited and determined by the other’s freedom, an act whose glory becomes increasingly greater to the extent that the doer is not concerned about his own glory but about the glory of the other.” This is particularly true for the theologian in his/her service of the ‘divine Word’.

The theologian must wait upon the high majesty of the divine Word, which is God himself as he speaks in his action.:

It starts to become clear that Barth has a relatively narrow view of what a theologian is, as he observes that ‘theologians’ have often been given a special place in a church’s heirarchy. Whether or not he has intended this understanding throughout the book, he here portrays a person of great influence in a Christian community.

He has two main points: Firstly, despite the theologian’s high position, theology is not self-serving. Although fascinating and exciting, it is not in the manner of ‘art for art’s sake’. Rather, “it must always keep sight of the fact that its object, the Word of God, demands more than simply being perceived, contemplated, and meditated in this or that particular aspect. What is demanded of theologial work is the service of this word and attendance upon it.”

In this point Barth makes an interesting claim that students of theology should avoid the danger of entering into questions of theological application too quickly. Time spent at a theological institution should be spent contemplating the theology and not yet applying it. Otherwise, he asserts, half-baked theological thinking leads to half-baked application. What do you think? This stands in contrast to the view that I have adopted (reading Thielicke) which was that theology is to be studied in the context of doing ministry so that the danger of ‘mere contemplation’ (which he alludes to) is avoided. I think I’ll disagree with him on this one, but take on board his warning.

Secondly, since the theological work involves service, it must serve but not rule. Theology requires modesty. There is simply no room for competitiveness, or ladder-climbing, attempting to outshine others or pretend that they know more than they do. However, such humility does not exclude a healthy confidence.

Importantly, the theologian cannot rule its object: the Word of God. Barth maintains a very high but elusive view of the Word of God and here he attempts to paint the picture in a little more detail. He asserts that the work of the Word of God is achieved by God himself.

Let us keep one thing clearly before our eyes just as God’s work is his free work of grace, so is his Word spoken in this work his free Word of grace. It is free as his own Word, resounding by its own power and making itself be heard. No man, not even God’s commuity or theology itself, can appropriate, imitate, or repeat this Word… the preaching of the word of God is the word of God.

The role of the theologian is to serve the work of the word of God by posing questions and clarifying the truth that the community needs to hear, to free it from its entanglements. There is a lot to think through here, but I’ll just say that there is something immensley satisfying in knowing God’s power in this process.

In turn the nature of the theologian’s service is to guide the Christian community in it’s collective theological responsibility: proclamation of the word of God to people throughout the world.
Finally, Barth questions the influence that the church has in the world, and points to the huge influence that the Christian community historically, particularly over the arts, politics and economics. A Christian world-view necessarily integrates each of these areas. From this point of influence, I think that Barth’s correct in saying that there’s value for secular universities in having a faculty of Theology. But, and this disagreement relates back to my previous one, this doesn’t seem to me as valuable for students of Theology, for it is surely most beneficial for them to learn theology in the context of Christian Community. That’s another big dscussion.

Sorry for the length of the post. Hopefully this is giving some idea of the range of issues that Barth addresses and also some of the profound insights he delivers.

I’m sorry that it’s taken so long to produce this second episode. Coincidentally, the subject of theological ’study’ has been a topic on my mind a lot recently. Not just because I’m a student but more specifically because of a subject I’m taking at College covering this very topic.

Barth outlines four overlapping areas of theological study: Exegetical Theology, Systematic Theology, Historical Theology, and Practical Theology. He then helpfully relates these to each other, pointing out among other things that Exegetical Theology is foundational (primary) to Historical Theology (secondary) and that Dogmatic or Systemic Theology necessarily derives from Exegetical Theology and not from other independant thought. He notes also that Practical Theology derives from Systematic theology and that while it can be treated as peripheral study, it’s object is central to theology.

‘Biblical Theology’ (BT) is a fifth category that Moore College understands to have been neglected in theological study. Technically, for Barth, it would fall under the category of Exegetical Theology (ET). The problem is that ET has commonly focussed on the text of the Bible at a low-level, considering the nuances of the words in the original languages, and, unfortunately, ‘losing the forest for the trees’. BT therefore aims to remedy this by first building upon the exegesis of many passages to form the broader biblical story. BT is therefore built upon ET and is then used to re-inform ET in an upward spiral of biblical truth.

In fact, BT only exists because of good exegesis on passages that have spoken about the nature of Scripture.  For example, after being raised from the dead,  walked along the Emmaus road with his disciples and “He told them, “These are My words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.” (Luke 24:44-45 HCSB). Firstly, Jesus himself understood the Scriptures to more broadly speak a unified message; and secondly, the message concerned himself.

BT doesn’t presuppose ‘a broader story of the bible’. Rather, it demonstrates this by taking the bible on its own terms, showing that the scriptures consistantly understand themselves collectively as the word of God (1 Thess 2:13). The bible can therefore be understood as a single voice amidst the diversity of genres, authors, cultures and nations that it represents. And from this starting point, we can understand various threads of biblical narrative which span across books and a diverse range of cultures and genres.

Ultimately, as Luke 24 shows, unity is found in the person of Jesus. Barth, who bears a very demands a very high Christology would, I’m sure, greatly appreciate this.

There are a few other important reminders that I’ve taken away from this chapter. Helpfully, Barth points out that study requires prayer (building on the previous chapter), for otherwise theological study is blind. It demands also diligence and not laziness. It also requires God given ability to hear (John 10:15-16) through his spirit (1 Cor 2:6-14). Barth admits that this last point leads to a difficult hermeneutical cycle, which he speaks about elsewhere. This isn’t a good time to start speaking about this… but just quickly, his view is that Scripture is not the word of God but rather a testimony to the Word of God (Jesus cf. John 1). This is attractive (and it raises lots of questions) but I think that Barth’s biblical theology isn’t placed on good exegetical theology at this point. Maybe I’ll expand on the discussion in a later post…

Though being a theological giant, Barth finishes with the warm words of a pastor:

“All those on the right or on the left, whose spirits are all too cheerful and naive, may and should repeatedly discover anew in the study of theology that everything theological is somewhat more complicated than they would like it to be. But those spirits who are all too melancholic and hypercritical should discover and rediscover that everything here is also much more simple than they, with deeply furrowed brow, thought necessary to suppose.”

Since I’m still such a young punk in Christian Ministry and Theology (and, to be honest, many other things), I’ve been reflecting on what it is that I’m embarking on. Here are four reflections on Theological Work, based on Barth’s final section of Evangelical Theology.

What characterises theological work? Firstly, Prayer.

“…theological work does not merely begin with prayer and is not merely accompanied by it; in its totality it is peculiar and characteristic of theology that it can be performed only in the act of prayer. In view of the danger to which theology is exposed and to the hope that is enclosed within its work, it is natural that without prayer there can be no theological work.”

Unlike all other areas of work or study where a person seeks to organise, to rationalise, to dominate their field, the student of theology is instead thoroughly dominated by his or her subject. God is not worked upon, organised, subdued or manipulated; he is not studied like a rat in a cage, poked and prodded. He illuminates us. Remembering where they stand before their subject, theologians turn to prayer for productivity and answers and outcomes.

Also, God is not an ‘it’ but a ‘he’. He hears our requests and addresses them through his word. He is the acting and speaking subject through whom everything depends. So the work or study of theology is not so much about God but towards Him. He is my Father in heaven that I address, not in the third person, but the second person, as ‘you‘.

There is no foundation for theologian to take for granted, there is no automation, and there are no shortcuts. Rather, God’s goodness is new every morning. “Every morning it is a fully undeserved goodness which must give rise to new gratitude and renewed desire for it.” Theological work can only exist actively and vigorously as an action of submission and disarmament - prayer.

Finally, the only time that theological work is ever successful is when God grants it success - it is a gift of grace worked out by the Spirit. This seems out of control, and somewhat precarious, but not when we know with certainty that God desires to hear our prayers. Let’s come before him in prayer.

So here’s my website… little theologians. I always thought that having a website was a bit showy. Hear, O World, and behold ME! But it seems to me that there are enough of these things around to safely assume some kind of anonymity. It’s almost like your making a point if you don’t have one.

As I set out doing this, though, I’m determined to clarify why I’m writing a blog and what things I’m writing about. In other words before I start a relationship with my people’s precious time, I want to make my intentions clear.

1. This is a great opportunity to concisely articulate my ideas. This is a selfish reason, but it’ll help me to get my ideas out of my head so that I can see them properly. Hopefully this will prove advantageous to me and everyone else that I’ve been trying to communicate with all my life.

2. This is an opportunity to let friends and family know about what’s been happening. Having recently moved cities, I’ve realised that I need to make more of an effort to stay in touch. I love the idea of writing letters, but I’m hopeless. This is a quick way of communicating to lots of people.

3. I’ve recently been reading through Karl Barth’s wonderful book, Evangelical Theology. It was Barth who coined the phrase that I’ve used to name my site. All of us are theologians in one way or another; it depends upon what you mean by ‘theos’ (god). On the other hand, a basic theology drawn from the bible about God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ shows that while theologians are concerned with God, God is concerned with theologians; with even the most intimate realms of the theologian’s humanity.

My concern on this website supercedes any kind of interest or admiration of God, but I am concerned with God in my entirety. I cannot escape his sustaining works, and I am thrilled at the warmth of his friendship and the sheer love that he has for me.

While people might gain a mastery over a topic like medicine or engineering, the object of study in theology cannot be mastered, but masters us instead. There are only little theologians - and I’m a tiny half-pint theologian. But as Barth says, “Having this God for its object, it can nothing else but the most thankful and happy science.”

My third and main hope is that I might promote him and share with others the joys of knowing him.