On reading Bavinck's proof texts - an easy method for slackers

I don't know about you, but when it comes to reading books that include a large number of lists of proof text references, my instinct is to skip the list and not bother to look up the relevant Bible passages. Reaching for a Bible and flicking through hundreds of pages to pursue multiple references to texts in Genesis, Numbers, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Romans etc. is too much like hard work. However not looking up the relevant texts makes me feel guilty for being such a slacker. Besides, what we want from a theologian is theology that has been mined from the Bible, not simply a handy summary of Reformed doctrine that has little to do with the text of Scripture. John Frame rightly says,

after all has been said, theology really cannot do without proof-texts. Any theology that seeks accord with Scripture... has an obligation to show where it gets its scriptural warrant. It may not simply claim to be based on "general scriptural principles", it must show where Scripture teaches the doctrine in question. (The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, John Frame, P&R, 1987, p. 197)

Bavinck includes many lists of Bible references in his Reformed Dogmatics. Currently I'm about a third of the way through Volume 2, God and Creation. I've just started Chapter 6, on The Holy Trinity. The theologian gives consideration to 'Old Testament seeds' of the doctrine of the Trinity. He carefully sets out his view that while the Old Testament may lack the fullness of the New Testament's revelation of the triune God, we may find "components that are of the highest significance for the doctrine of the Trinity" in the Old Testament (p. 261). Dozens of texts are adduced with regard to God's name, his work in creation by Word and Spirit and the angel of of Lord. Bavinck is a competent guide to the Scriptures to which he refers his readers. It is evident that he has given careful thought to the meaning of the passages cited. He is aware of differing exegetical approaches to the texts in question. Failure to pursue his lists of Bible verses would have deprived me of the wonder of encountering afresh God as Trinity in the pages of the Old Testament.

Anyway, the post's title promises an easy method of looking up proof texts. This is my labour-saving suggestion. Rather than arduously flicking your way through a printed copy of Holy Scripture, use an online Bible, such as BibleGateway.com. With the Passage Lookup feature, tap in the reference in abbreviated form. For example Hab 2:5-6. If you want to see a verse in its context, you can even click a button to bring up the whole chapter. It's much quicker (at least for me) to type  abbreviated Bible references than leaf my way through a shiny black leather Bible with elegant gilt-edged pages.

If you have already figured out how to do this for yourself and were looking for an even more simple way of looking up proof texts, then sorry to disappoint you, but as far as I've discovered this is as easy as it gets. Indolence is the mother of invention, but it has its limits. 

Paul Helm on Athens and Jerusalem Revisited

Last Thursday I headed off to the Land of my Fathers for a Pastors' Forum meeting. The speaker was my good friend Paul Helm. The key theme that spanned all three of his talks was the relationship between nature and grace. Here are some notes on what he had to say.

Talk 1 - Athens and Jerusalem Revisited

A whistle stop tour of ancient Carthage, Jerusalem, Athens and Hippo.

Carthage

Carthage, 200AD. Tertullian posed the question, "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" He opposed a hybrid of Christianity and philosophy. Does this make him an irrationalist, fideist? No. He was not against reason, saying that Christianity is  believable because it is rationally impossible. He warned against the hybridisation of the faith, not the use of reason per se. He recognised that at some points there was concord between faith and philosophy. 

Jerusalem

Is is possible to translate the faith into other thought forms?

To answer this question, Helm took us to the heart of our faith, the cross of Jesus. Pilate had an inscription placed on the cross, reading, "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews", in Latin, Greek and Aramaic, John 19:19. The basic idea of Jesus  being the King of the Jews was accurately conveyed in all three languages.

 Language is at heart of the Christian faith, as is translation. Jesus' words as recorded in the Gospels were originally spoken in Aramaic, not Greek, but the New Testament gives us an accurate record of his speech. The gospel message, "This is the King of the Jews" is translatable because Christianity is an international faith. Abrahamic covenant, Genesis 12. Great Commission, Matthew 28. Pentecost, Acts 2.

Translation is problematic - John 19:19. Some meaning is lost as the words are translated into Latin, Greek and Aramaic. But NT Greek is adequate to give us access to Jesus' words, even though in translation nuances of meaning are lost and gained. Speakers of Latin, Greek and Aramaic may have had different ideas of kingship, but the basic the idea that Jesus was crucified as the King of the Jews was conveyed  to all three language groups by Pilate's inscription. Whatever fine nuances may have been lost in translation did not matter.

Cognitive meaning is conveyed in translation. Content test - "King of the Jews" means the same when translated into French and English. In translation the words are true in either language, because Jesus is the King of the Jews. The truth of gospel is true in other languages.

Postmodern obsession with context is a gross exaggeration. People of all all languages will cry, "Worthy is the Lamb". Is cultural context important? Yes and no. Cultural sensitivity is needed, 1 Corinthians 9:19-23, yet as in John 19:19, the truth is essentially the same in any language and culture.

What of a culture that has no word for king? Translate, "Jesus is the CEO of the Jews"? Retain "king" in translation and  explain what it means. Or appropriate a word that approximates "king" and extend its meaning. But this does not mean that Helm favours a "dynamic equivalence" approach to Bible translation. It is one thing for Christian apologists to attempt to translate the faith into the language and thought forms of a culture, but in Bible translation, the aim should always be an accurate as possible rendering of the original. This applies even if there is no equivalent concept in the language into which Scripture is being translated. If a people have no idea of snow (Isaiah 1:18), then it is the task of Christian teachers to explain that it is very white, cold stuff that falls from the sky.

From Jerusalem to Athens:  Acts 17

A case of "natural theology". At Mars Hill Paul quoted pagan authors. In the pagan poets, what is true of God was misapplied to false gods. Since we are God's offspring, how can God be an idol, Acts 17:28-29? Paul's address involves a conceptual translation of Genesis 1, using the language of pagan poets. "Let us make man in our image", Genesis 1:26. "We are also his offspring", Acts 17:28. But the gospel is not translated, as Jesus' resurrection (Acts 17:31) had no counterpart in pagan thought.

Hippo

In Book 7 of his Confessions,  Augustine describes how he was delivered from Manichaeism by reading "certain books of the Platonists". By their writings he was  freed from seeing God in physical, embodied terms. The Platonists, by which he  probably meant Plotinus, taught him that God is an immortal Spirit. Augustine begain to understand the creature-creator distinction more clearly and now saw sin a defect, rather than in the dualist terms of the Manichees. This did not make him a Christian, but he became convinced of the existence of the true God through the Platonists. Plotinus even helped Augustine in his reading of Scripture. The philosopher wrote of  the One producing a second hypostasis as the sun produces light. Augustine saw John 1:1-5 as the biblical counterpart of Plotinus' writings. In fact the philosopher was trying to defend Platonism against Christianity, but Augustine was willing to "spoil the Egyptians" by using the insights on the philosophers in the service of faith seeking understanding. However, the theologian was not carried away by all this. He knew of both convergences and divergences between Christianity and philosophy. Plotinus knew nothing of the Son being of the same essence of the Father who had begotten him, Word becoming flesh, or of Jesus saving sinners by his death on the cross. God has hidden these things from the wise and the prudent (Matthew 11:25), who, professing themselves to be wise, became fools, (Romans 1:22).  I suppose that in a similar way, a modern day sceptic might be delivered from his atheism by reading a scientific critique of Darwinism. He might then come to believe in the existence of a Creator, but he would still need to hear and respond in faith to the gospel in order to become a Christian believer.

Conclusion

The gospel can be communicated in different cultural contexts. It is permissible to translate faith into a culture when there are cognitive equivalents, but no further. Liberal theology eliminates the  historical singularities of the faith; the incarnation, atoning death and bodily resurrection of Christ, in an attempt to make Christianity culturally acceptable. This is not an option if we wish to be faithful to the biblical gospel. However, "natural theology" may provide common ground between the Christian and the non-believer and so give us a point of entry for the gospel.

Beginning with Moses reloaded

Luke 24:27 is just one of many NT axioms that underpin evangelical biblical theology and it provides part of the rationale for recognising that the whole Bible resonates with Christological significance and that all our preaching must aim to preach Christ in a way that reflects, and that is shaped by, the overarching biblical plotline.

Beginning with Moses, the biblical theology website has been relaunched with bags of new resources. Check it out.

Remythologizing Theology: An interview with Kevin Vanhoozer

GD: Hello Kevin Vanhoozer and welcome back to Exiled Preacher.

KV: Seems like I was just here. I like what you’ve done with the place.

GD: Thanks. Your new book is entitled Remythologizing Theology: Divine Action, Passion and Authorship (Cambridge University Press, 2010, 560pp, UK here, US here). In personal correspondence you described Remythologizing Theology as your first real work of theology. What does that say about your earlier writings?

KV: It says that I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time dealing with questions pertaining to theological method and hermeneutics. While it may have been necessary, that work was merely a warm-up: an overture to the real opera. I don’t want to exaggerate. I have written “real” theology here and there, though this is my first book to talk primarily about God rather than about talk of God.

GD: What is your main aim in this book?

KV: For years I’ve felt that the doctrine of God was a relatively weak spot in evangelical theology. Then open theism happened and my suspicions were confirmed. One major aim, then, is to provide a retooling of classical theism that takes into account the concerns of open theists – in particular, the integrity of God’s loving relationship to the world – while simultaneously maintaining what I take to be the correct Reformed emphasis on divine sovereignty. Another aim is to scrutinize the oft-heard claim in contemporary theology that God’s love entails divine suffering.

GD: What do you mean by "remythologizing theology"?’

KV: I don’t mean “mythologizing again”! “Remythologizing” pertains first and foremost not to myth but “mythos,” Aristotle’s term for dramatic plot. I’m using “remythologizing” as a contrast term to Bultmann’s demythologizing. Where Bultmann fails to take seriously either the Bible’s depictions of God’s acts or the Bible as the product of God’s authorship, remythologizing starts: with God as one who speaks and acts, the latter often by way of speaking.

Remythologizing is a proposal for “first theology,” a way of thinking God and Scripture together. Specifically, it views God’s being on the basis of God’s acts, especially his communicative acts. God is as God does, and God does as God says. Remythologizing theology is all about speaking well of God on the basis of God’s own speech. To remythologize theology is to set forth the ontology of the one who speaks in Scripture, the one whom Scripture is also about.

GD: What is the status of Holy Scripture in "remythologized" theology?

KV: My doctrine of Scripture remains much as it has been: the Bible is triune discourse, a product of divine authorship and hence a form of divine action. What sets remythologizing apart from some other approaches is that it seeks to take into account the significance of the Bible’s literary forms, each of which is a distinct form of God’s communicative action.

Think of remythologizing as a form of biblical reasoning, a way of thinking about the subject matter of Scripture along the grain of the various forms of biblical discourse that present it. This means attending not only to the content, but also to the way in which the divine author employs a number of different human voices and forms of discourse to communicate it.

GD: In some treatments of the doctrine of God, the doctrine of the Trinity is tagged onto the end after extensive discussion of the divine being and attributes. What place does the doctrine of the Trinity have in the present work?

KV: The central place, both literally and symbolically. Chapter five is right in the middle of the book and is entitled “God in three persons: the one who lights and lives in love.” I argue that God is everywhere and at all times fully himself. The triune life – communicative activity oriented to communion – is fully realized in the immanent Trinity before it is actualized in the economic Trinity. God in time corresponds to who God is in eternity. I’m not, of course, the first to argue this. However, what is new is the focus on the Father, Son, and Spirit as distinct communicative agents who nevertheless share a common communicative agency.

GD: Barth famously taught that God's being is in his act. Here you set out the elements of a new "theodramatic metaphysic" where God's being is in his communicative act. Please explain.

KV: Theodramatic metaphysics is the attempt to formulate a comprehensive set of categories (i.e., metaphysics) for understanding what God has said and done (i.e., theodrama) to create and renew all things in Christ through the Spirit. Because God is real and not merely a story, biblical interpreters who would speak well of God must go beyond exegesis to ontology. If we are to understand who, and what, we are talking about when we use the term “God,” we have to say something about God’s being. For God is a real being. What is real makes a difference in the world because it can act on its own. Only God can act on his own for only God has life in himself; everything else depends upon God’s sustaining word and breath to remain in existence.

Remythologizing speaks of God on the basis of God’s own speech and action, the stuff of theodrama. What we can, and must, say of God is that he is the one who creates, commands, consoles, etc. by speaking. God makes himself known and shares his life largely through speech acts like promising, instructing, forgiving, and exhorting, as well as through his corporeal discourse – the Word made flesh – Jesus Christ. If we let Scripture guide our thinking, then we must say that God’s triune being is in his communicative activity. We derive our understanding of the divine attributes not by analyzing the idea of infinite perfection but by describing and detailing the predicates and perfections of God’s communicative activity.

GD: Traditional theism has often described God's relationship to the world in terms of causality, with God as the First Cause or the Unmoved Mover. However, you propose that God's interaction with the world is best understood in terms of divine communicative action. Why the shift in emphasis?

KV: At this point in our time and culture, modern science has pretty much co-opted the language of causality. Consequently, even theologians who should know better sometimes speak of God’s causality as if it were on the same level as other creaturely causes. This is not how Thomas Aquinas, Calvin, or others in the tradition would have understood it. Nevertheless, open theists and panentheists have used this confusion to their advantage to attack classical theism. How, they wonder, can God be in a genuine loving relationship with creatures if he causes all things, including the motions of people’s hearts? Further, if God causes all things, must he not be responsible for evil as well as good?

I use the term “communicate” in a very broad sense, not merely in the sense “to transmit information,” but “to make common” or “share.” The most important thing that God communicates is himself: his light (truth), life (energy), and love (relationship). Whereas the end of causation is coercion, the end of communication is communion. The category of communicative action opens up new possibilities for theism and adheres more closely to the categories of Scripture itself.

GD: Where does your theodramatic approach leave the oft discussed relationship between divine sovereignty and human freedom?

KV: Von Balthasar depicts theodrama as the interaction of infinite and finite freedom. My contribution is to think through this interaction in communicative terms. God is not like other communicative agents, of course. For God is the “Author” of the world who retains his authorial rights even as he enters into the story as a character. God’s sovereign interventions are in fact often interjections – calls, for example – that are efficacious but nor coercive. Here the paradigm is Calvin’s notion of the effectual call: God does not manipulate but sovereignly – which is to say, authorially – consummates his characters without manipulating them. On the contrary, the divine Author works according to our natures, via word and Spirit.

God authors answerable agents. Divine authorship thus names an asymmetrical communicative relation: a dialogical (i.e., covenantal) unity within an even greater dialogical difference (i.e., creation ex nihilo). I devote an important section to reworking the doctrine of providence, and Austin Farrer’s idea of the “causal joint,” in properly communicative terms. God’s speech is efficacious and brings about change in the world precisely by non-coercively bringing about understandings in human hearts and minds. What happened to Lydia is paradigmatic: “The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul” (Acts 16:14).

GD: What do the words of the subtitle, Divine Action, Passion and Authorship, say about your attitude towards the impassibility of God? Isn't he a being "without body, parts or passions"?

KV: The sub-title alone does not make a statement but announces a theme. The question of God’s suffering – that is, his ability to be affected by human creatures – is a red thread that runs throughout the book. If Nicholas Wolterstorff is right in comparing classical theism to a seamless garment where one loose thread spells the unraveling of the whole, then divine impassibility makes for an excellent case study.

Remytholgizing Theology is a minority opposition report on the “new orthodoxy” of divine suffering. While I want to take the biblical depictions of God’s dialogical interaction with human beings seriously, I don’t want to pull God down to the creaturely level. The challenge, then, is to specify to what the biblical descriptions of God’s emotions actually refer. There is not much on the meaning of divine emotions in the history of theology. Classical theists tend to take this language as anthropomorphic; open theists tend to take it literally. I had to resist the temptation simply to choose one side rather than the other. The prior question is: what is a divine emotion? I do provide an answer, but the water in that pool is a bit too deep to dive into here.

GD: In The Drama of Doctrine, you suggest that the task of the theologian is to act as a "dramaturge" who will help pastors to faithfully interpret and teach the biblical script to the people of God. How might pastors benefit from Remythologizing Theology?

KV: The first responsibility of pastors and theologians is to speak well of God. This means, minimally, avoiding idolatry. It also means speaking in a way that corresponds to Scripture and yields understanding, including understanding about God’s being, identity, and reality. My book helps answer the all-important question question: what must God be if God speaks and acts as the Bible depicts him as doing?

To understand God as a triune communicative agent has implications for understanding oneself, the Christian life, and the church as well. God calls us into being and communicates his light, life, and love so that we can communicate them to others. The pastor is a minister of God’s word – which means the whole panoply of God’s communicative acts – thereby helping the church to become answerable to God, able to communicate in all that we say and do what the Father is saying and doing in the Son through the Spirit. Theology assists pastors to know God so that they in turn may communicate the light, life, and love of God poured out for the world in Jesus Christ.

GD: Remythologizing Theology is published by Cambridge University Press and is currently only available in hardback. When will a more affordable paperback edition be published?

KV: I’m very sorry a paperback edition was not printed simultaneously. I did ask (and complain)! If all goes well – by which I mean, if enough people save their pennies and purchase the hardback – a paperback should appear in eighteen months, sometime in the summer of 2011. If I have indeed spoken well of God, it should still be worth reading even then.

GD: Thanks for dropping by for this conversation. I'm still saving my pennies!

Richard Gaffin Study Day: Biblical and Systematic Theology

I was really looking forward to hearing Gaffin at the Pastors' Forum, having appreciated his writings, especially the seminal Resurrection and Redemption, (P&R). It was well worth the trip across the Severn Bridge to Maesycwmmer to listen to the veteran WTS theologian. Here are some sketchy notes together with some thoughs of my own on what he had to say in the first session.

Session 1: Biblical Theology and Systematic Theology

I. What is Biblical Theology?

All revelation is divine self-revelation. Revelation falls into two categories, general revelation in creation and providence and special revelation. Special revelation is a redemptive-historical process. It includes verbal and nonverbal or deed revelation. Scripture is God's word: the record of redemption history. The focus of the written word on is on God's mighty acts, narrating and explaining what the Lord has done. Now that the work of redemption has been accomplished, biblical revelation has ceased. That does not mean that God no longer reveals himself to us. He speaks through his living and active word, the Bible.

"Biblical Theology" gives careful, methodical attention to the actual history of redemptive revelation. Its focus is the history of special revelation.

While it is true that Geerhardus Vos is the father of Reformed Biblical Theology, the church throughout its history has been aware of the historical character of biblical revelation. Calvin was especially sensitive to redemptive-historical concerns.

II. What is Systematic Theology?

Systematic Theology is topical in its nature nature, paying attention to different subjects in the biblical account of the history of redemption such as the doctrine of God and salvation. It treats Scripture as a completed and unified whole, asking, "What does the whole Bible say about this topic?" It is systematic not because the biblical data in its raw state is disorganised and therefore needs to be set out in a more orderly fashion. (A slight dig at Charles Hodge). Systematic theology proceeds on the assumption that underlying the diverse voices of Scripture there is a redemptive-historical unity and systemic harmony of truth, a "pattern of sound words", 2 Timothy 2:13. Systematics is not about erecting abstract systems unrelated to the biblical text. It must proceed from sound biblical-theological exegesis.

There is the biblical warrant for systematic theology in Scriptures such as Hebrews 1 :1-2. This text tells us 1) Biblical revelation is historical, God spoke "at various times". 2) In biblical revelation there is diversity in unity. Diversity: God spoke "in various ways". Unity "God spoke". 3) Christ is the end point of redemptive history and the manifestation of God's eschatological purpose, "in these last days [God] has spoken to us by his Son".

III. The relationship between Biblical Theology and Systematic Theology

Biblical theology is the historical and systematic theology is topical. Thesis: "Biblical Theology the indispensable servant of Systematic Theology". This is the case because biblical theology enables systematics to treat the topics of Scriptural revelation with an appropriate feel for the redemptive-historical nature of the Bible. Texts should not be isolated from their biblical-theological context. Gaffin's emphasis is helpful because systematics often fails when it comes to biblical exegesis. In some forms systematic theology can seem little more than a dollop of Reformed doctrine followed by string of proof texts - see John Murray on this deplorable tendency here. Biblical theology follows the plot-line of God's self-revelation in Scripture. Systematic theology is about plot analysis, analysing the roles of the different actors and events in the great drama of redemption. With Gaffin speaking of theology in terms of and drama, I would have liked to have asked him what he makes of Kevin Vanhoozer's theodramatic proposals (see here), but didn't get the chance. Ah well.

Preachers need a good grasp of systematic theology that is informed by the fruits of biblical theology to given us a Scripturally enriched vision of the whole counsel of God. Biblical theology will give us a sense of Bible's redemptive-historical flow and make us sensitive to the distinctive contribution of diverse voices of Scripture. Systematic theology helps us to see how biblical truth hangs together to form a coherent and harmonious whole, a "form of sound words".

Reports on sessions 2 & 3 on 'Christ in the Old Testament' and 'The Resurrection in the Theology of Paul' to follow.

Richard Gaffin at the Pastors' Forum

The next Pastors' Forum Study Day is coming up this Thursday, 5th November. The speaker will be Rev. Prof. Richard B. Gaffin Jr. (Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia). I've long admired Gaffin's work, especially in the fields of union with Christ and the resurrection of the body, and the relationship between biblical and systematic theology.

Here's the programme for the day:

09.30 Registration & Refreshments
10.00 Welcome, Introductions and Devotions.
10.15 Richard Gaffin - "What is Biblical Theology & how is it related to Systematic Theology?"
11.00 Coffee
11.20 Richard Gaffin - "How to interpret and preach the OT in the light of the NT"
13.00 Lunch
14.00 Richard Gaffin - "The resurrection in Paul."
15.40 Close.