Emil Brunner’s Simple Faith (7)

Theology, ,

Brunner’s Natural Theology

It is clear in this section that Brunner presupposes a universal knowledge of God, natural in the sense that every person has some ‘instinct’ (53) for it, that the gift of conscience has been given to every person by God, that “the law of God is as though it had been engraved in the human heart” (46). “Even the heathen know faintly that this life is a gift of God the Creator” (56). And they know also that they have violated God’s law and ordinances.

Everyone has a bad conscience whenever he thinks about God, for we know quite well what God wants of us, and our own failure to do what He demands. We know that we are disobedient. But because we know … we flee from God, we hide from Him like Adam and Eve after the Fall. The Law of God drives us away from God, or, more correctly, our bad conscience drives us away. We do not fear God, but we are afraid before God. … A bad conscience and the law of God belong together. We have a bad conscience because we know the law of God (55).

Evident in this citation is Brunner’s emphasis of human responsibility before God, of a final accounting before the Judge. “God requires an accounting. He holds us responsible. And that is what strikes terror in us, for how can we bribe the judge in this case?” (47)

The spring of life is really poisoned, things are bad with us. This is the testimony of conscience and even more sharply and clearly, the testimony of Holy Scripture. Behind God’s command stands the fearful word—Judgment! Lost! It is written more sharply in the New Testament than in the Old Testament. What then are we to do? (51, original emphasis)

A question we might ask is whether Brunner has correctly assessed the human condition or whether, in fact, his analysis is predicated on the loss of the cultural knowledge of God in Christendom. His exposition is not uncommon but follows a long tradition of biblical interpretation, especially passages such as Romans 1-2. His doctrine echoes that of Calvin and the Reformed tradition’s distinction between general and special revelation. Nonetheless, his rhetoric seems to presuppose the conditions of European Christendom.

Further evidence of this suggestion arises from Brunner’s discussion of the divine ordinances. He speaks specifically in terms of human marriage, the relationship between parents and children, and rulers and ruled. This language was widespread in nineteenth and early twentieth-century theology but was controversial in the period between the wars precisely because it was applied to such notions as nation, blood, and race. That is, the idea that there are ‘orders of creation’ was used in support of Nazi ideology, as God-ordained structures of existence that must be supported and maintained.

Although Brunner does not here engage these ideas, the structure of his argument suggests that he is aware of the danger that lurks here and that he repudiates it. Brunner explicitly grounds his doctrine of the ordinances in the divine love; they arise from God’s love for the creature and are given that humanity’s relationships might be ordered by the kind of love that God is and gives. True humanity is not defined by nation, blood, or race but by the image of the God who is love. These other realities divide humans from one another and so by definition fail Brunner’s test of what constitutes authentic human existence.

Finally, Brunner clearly notes that the Decalogue begins with God’s Word of grace but does not draw out the implication that the Decalogue is not so much a ‘republication’ of natural law but commandments for the covenant community. In particular, it is difficult to see how the first table of the law could arise as part of a natural law ethic; these commands are specific for the people of Israel.

There is, therefore, a tension in Brunner’s discussion. The traditional interpretation of Romans 1-2 especially, establishes human culpability before God: we are all sinners and therefore liable to divine wrath and judgement. Brunner maintains this interpretation and strengthens it with his assertion that “in his law God tells us nothing but the natural laws of true human life…” (46). But this diminishes the particularity of the revelation given to Israel and over-estimates the natural knowledge of the divine law that humanity supposedly possesses.

Jesus Christ Superstar

Culture,

Last Friday evening Monica and I saw Jesus Christ Superstar at Crown Theatre in Perth. The band was amazing, the staging effective, the music superb, the dancers spectacular, the soloists soaring, the light show a spectacle complementing it all. It was a great, high-sensory, night out.

I remember the controversy in the early 70s when the musical was first performed. I was just a boy then, in a Catholic environment, and can remember the tut-tutting and warnings about the musical. I can see why, especially in those more conservative and defensive times. Jesus is portrayed as very human – merely human? – and quite insecure about his identity and mission. The ending is ambiguous: he died but still lives … but where? How? In what kind of existence? He and Judas share the final scene. It is not, however, resurrection.

The whole notion of Jesus as a ‘Superstar’ was playing on the personality cults which emerged in popular culture in the 60s, and came not long after John Lennon’s infamous throw-away remark that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. It was seen by some as deliberately provocative and offensive, and perhaps it was. And Herod as gay? As far as I know, there is little historical evidence for this characterisation, but it would have been another provocation for those concerned about the production.

Superstar is very different from Godspell which appeared around the same time, a Stephen Schwarz musical based loosely on the Gospel of Matthew (and which I would love to see brought unapologetically to the big stage again, especially in a full theatre show like this one).

Mahalia Barnes played Mary Magdalene and performed beautifully the show’s breakout song I Don’t Know How to Love Him. It was a highlight. I also really enjoyed the vibrancy of the dance, and especially the work of Darcey Eagle, the ‘mob leader’ who brought very sinister atmospherics to her performance.

I don’t think Christians need get upset that Superstar isn’t a faithful representation of the gospel story. It is a secular representation of Jesus’ personality refracted through the lens of a popular cultural motif. It is entirely unsurprising that secular creatives would be attracted to the person of Jesus, and that they would interpret him in categories open to and familiar to them. (Christians do that all the time as well, unfortunately.) I am glad that they are attracted to the figure of Jesus! And I am glad that thousands will be attracted to see the show.

During the intermission I heard a young woman speaking to her friend as they walked by: “I didn’t know Judas betrayed Jesus.” It seems remarkable to me but there you go. We live in a very different cultural moment to the early 70s and the Jesus-story is not well known. Superstar won’t improve that. But perhaps—and this is my prayer—some of those who go to see the show might be prompted to explore the biblical story for themselves. Or to talk at work about the show and maybe hear others’ perspectives about Jesus. On that basis I would encourage Christians to go see it, so they can join in the discussion.

Jesus Christ Superstar plays until March 2nd in Perth before moving to seasons in Melbourne and Brisbane. I really enjoyed it and can recommend a good night out.

Photo Credits: Both photos were taken by Jeff Busby and found at the Jesus Christ Superstar gallery.

Scripture on Sunday – Mark 14:22-25

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Mark’s Passion Narrative (6)

“This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many” (Mark 14:24).

This covenant is the new covenant in Jesus’ blood, although Mark does not designate it as such. Luke 22:20 makes explicit that this is the new covenant. But what covenant could it be if it is a covenant in his blood? This is neither the Abrahamic nor the Mosaic covenant. Mark, however, does provide further clues. Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem just days earlier is an echo of Zechariah’s prophecy concerning Israel’s coming king:

Rejoice greatly O daughter of Zion, shout aloud O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold you king is coming to you, righteous is he, and having salvation, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey (Zechariah 9:9; cf.  Mark 11:1-10 and Matthew 21:1-5).

Zechariah continues in verse eleven:

As for you also, because of the blood of My covenant with you, I have set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.

The prophetic expectation of a new covenant will be realised in Jesus’ death ‘for the many’—that is, for all, gentile as well as Jew. (Cf. Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ezekiel 11:14-21; 36:25-27) Jesus’ death is a divine promise and pledge—for the many. His death is a ransom—for many (Mark 10:45). As the Passover Lamb he is deliverance and redemption, God taking his people as his own, giving them life and liberty. This covenant is in his blood: he makes the promise and the disciples drink “all of it.” They are the recipients. They are granted a participation in his death and in his victory over death. They are granted a participation in the covenant itself.

And he took the cup and … gave it to them, and they all drank of it (Mark 14:23).

Does the fact that the disciples all drink from the cup equate to an answering pledge on their part? Is their drinking an acceptance of the covenant with respect not only to the divine promise but also its claim? Are they also saying, “All that the Lord has spoken, we will do” (cf. Exodus 24: 3, 7-8)? The blood of the covenant is a covenant of grace. But this does not mean that the recipients of the covenant are not called to faithfulness and obedience.

The metaphor of the cup appears several times in the gospel. In Mark 10:38-39 Jesus says,

Are you able to drink of the cup that I drink? … The cup that I drink you will drink.

And a little later, in Gethsemane, Jesus uses the term again in his prayer:

Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will but what you will (Mark 14:36).

To participate in the cup, to receive it from Jesus and to drink from it is to receive his covenant promise. It is also to be called into participation with him in his mission—and in the manner of his mission: a life of self-giving for the welfare of others. The bread and the cup unite the participant to Jesus himself such that they are now participants in his promise and his destiny, his life and his mission. The signs and the sayings belong together. When we eat the bread, Jesus says, “This is my body,” and when we drink the wine, “This is my blood of the covenant.”

Truly I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God (Mark 14:25).

Jesus’ blood will be poured out, yet he will live and drink again in the kingdom of God. This is a defiant faith in the face of death. He will take the cup he is given, and drain it to its dregs. But the cup of death will become, in the kingdom of God, the cup of victory and the wine of everlasting life.

Emil Brunner’s Simple Faith (6)

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God’s Will for Humankind

In his reflection on the nature of human being, Emil Brunner suggests that the ‘image of God’ is a dynamic becoming:

He created man as a personal being, that is as a being that does not simply develop of itself into that for which God created it, but rather as a being who achieves his destiny only by saying his ‘yes’ to it (51).

Persons achieve or realise their ‘true’ humanity as they hear and receive the Word of God addressed to them. In chapters 10-13 of his little book Our Faith he explores the nature and contours of this Word, beginning with the Law.

Brunner begins with human experience of ‘law’ in general: our experience of cultural and social laws, of the laws of physics, of the human freedom and sense of autonomy that tempts us to think that we might be a ‘law unto oneself.’ Perhaps we can be even our own god! Yet, says Brunner, we find our autonomy limited and ultimately doomed. We find ourselves in environments we are unable to change or to bend to our will. We are confronted, finally, by the inevitability of death and with it all our God-pretensions. Brunner thus argues from a learned sense of law to establish an understanding of that which stands over against us and for which we are responsible: the Law of God.

The divine law is God’s will for humankind. “Every man, Jew or Christian, believer or atheist, cultured or uncultured, has some knowledge of this law. Every man has the consciousness of ‘responsibility’” via the faculty of conscience (46). This law is a reflection of the Creator’s good will for human life and it is just as inviolable as the laws of nature (47). Further, God has supplemented conscience by giving his people a written Law which is really a reiteration of “the natural laws of true human life” (46).

God’s law reveals that God wants something of us and that we are accountable for it. What is it that God desires? Brunner’s answer is threefold: something new every moment (!), only a few things—the Ten Commandments, and indeed, only one thing—the first commandment, for “he who keeps the first commandment keeps all the rest” (49). To have God alone as our God is to have a Master and thereby to forsake all alternatives, including especially the desire to be our own master. “God wants only that we should be that for which He created us. He created us ‘in His image’” (49). In binding us to himself God binds us also to others for the command to love God includes within itself the command to love our neighbour.

The Commandment of God is what God wants of us. But if we understand the words concerning the image of God, we also know what God wants for us. That God first loved us, before He demanded anything of us, and that He demands nothing more than that we should accept His love, that is, react to love with love, is simply what we call faith. … God’s incomprehensible, undeserved Love; and whosoever does that fulfils the will of God (49-50, original emphasis).

Of course, humanity has failed to keep God’s commandments and his law. We have supplanted God’s rule in the attempt to be our own master, seeking to live without and apart from God. We misuse our freedom of choice to do that which God does not will.

But God in His creative goodness, having given man freedom to choose for himself, gave him something more in that when he sinned he might not wholly corrupt his life and the life of others, might not wholly deviate from God’s way. This gift is the Ordinances of God (52).

The ordinances of God are those regularities of the natural ‘order’ in which human life is set. More particularly, they are limits and realities implanted in our very nature by God, which we can know intuitively, and which we can but ought not to transgress.

The most important of these ordinances is the fact that God has so organized human life that no man can live for himself. He cannot live without the other. Man needs woman, woman needs man. … Human life is so ordered by God because God has created man for love (53).

The ordinances of God can be endangered by human wilfulness, and, says Brunner, this has never been more apparent in world history than ‘today’ (53). The individual’s will for mastery, for autonomy, for independence tears at the very fabric of relationship and society.

The man who recognizes nothing higher than reason becomes ‘independent’—he no longer needs others, he is his own master—even his own God. And then human fellowship is dissipated like a string of pearls when the cord is cut. What binds us together is the Ordinances of God, behind which stands God’s love. He alone who is bound to God, and through God to his neighbour, can really become a man (54).

God’s address to humanity takes not only the form of law but also promise. Indeed, “God is not primarily the lawgiver, but the lifegiver” (55). The law functions to make us aware of our failure to do what God wills. But in itself it is a gift of divine love given to us for our good. Brunner acknowledges that the commandments do not begin with Thou shalt Not but with I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. All humanity have some inkling of the divine demand but the knowledge of the promise is strictly the message of the Bible.

That is the biblical message, not what God wants of us, but what He desires for us; no what we should do, but what God does and gives. The Law of God is everywhere, the Promise of God is only in the Bible—the promise, namely, that God comes to His sick, rebellious people, to heal them, the message of the ‘Saviour,’ the healing, saving, forgiving, and redeeming God. This promise is really the Word of God. … God desires nothing of us save that we allow Him to bestow life upon us (57, original emphasis).

Scripture on Sunday – Mark 14: 22-25

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Mark’s Passion Narrative (5)

Mark’s story of Jesus’ last supper with his disciples is very brief. There is no reference here to the Passover itself, but that it is a Passover meal is surely significant. This memorial feast of Israel’s deliverance, of God’s action and revelation, of a new beginning within the story of the covenant people, of the rich symbolism of the Lamb’s blood and its sacrificial import: all this and more is in the background. You can read Mark’s account of the Last Supper here.

In Mark’s telling, there is no instruction to ‘do this in remembrance of me.’ There is, however, Jesus’ own statement that he will not again drink of the fruit of the vine “until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” Jesus looks forward, beyond his death, to a new day in the coming kingdom. He—the one who will be betrayed and handed over, who will be executed—he will drink again. This foreshadows the resurrection. Albert Schweitzer speculated that Jesus thought that God would intervene to rescue him prior to his death. Within Mark’s story, however, Jesus clearly anticipates his death: “the Son of Man came . . . to give his life as a ransom for many” (10:45). In this text, too, his blood will be poured out for many. And yet, he will again drink it ‘new in the kingdom of God.’

Mark’s account includes both sign and saying. Jesus took the bread and having blessed (presumably, and in accordance with normal Jewish practice, he was blessing God rather than the bread), broke it and gave it to them, saying, “Take: this is my body.” The four verbs echo Jesus’ compassionate action in the feeding of the five thousand (Mark 6:41) and the four thousand (Mark 8:6). These miracles in the wilderness were kingdom signs, signs of his person and the universal nature of his mission (Senior, The Passion of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark, 56-58). Now he indicates that he himself is the bread, the gift of the kingdom. In giving them the bread he is giving them his own ‘body,’ his own self. Mark’s focus is not on the breaking of the bread but on its distribution: each is to take it. Mark does not say that they ate the bread but it is surely assumed. In their taking, they receive Jesus’ gift of himself, and in their eating they participate in Jesus’ life and fellowship, kingdom and mission.

Jesus takes the cup and gives thanks and gives it to them and “they all drank from it.” Now he interprets this action: “The is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.” This is my body. This is my blood. The signs and the sayings belong together. No doubt Jesus was speaking metaphorically of the bread and the wine, declared to ‘be’ his body and blood. That his blood will be poured out for many refers to his imminent death, and so the parallel saying about the bread now also be similarly understood.

The saying concerning the cup has an additional element: it is Jesus’ ‘blood of the covenant.’ The idea of blood as part of a covenant ceremony had ancient roots (cf. Genesis 15). In Exodus 12 the Israelites celebrated the first Passover by taking the blood of the Passover lamb and smearing it on the door posts and lintels of their homes. The blood thus smeared would be a sign for them: by it, divine judgement would ‘pass over’ their home and they would be spared (Exodus 12:12-13; cf. 21-23). The Levitical regulations and especially the Day of Atonement ritual (Leviticus 16), repeat and deepen the imagery, and the connection between sacrificial blood, God’s covenant promise, and the forgiveness of sins.

Further, this blood of the covenant is ‘poured out for many’: it is for others. Jesus’ death is sacrificial and substitutionary. The emphasis is on Jesus’ action in its intended outcome and purpose; that is, the provision and promise of the covenant rather than human response to the covenant as in Exodus 24:1-8 where the emphasis is on responsive obedience and covenant faithfulness.

This is beautifully portrayed in Lucas Cranach’s central altarpiece at St Mary’s (“City Church”) in Wittenberg. Although not nearly as famous as Leonardo da Vinci’s portrayal of the Last Supper, Cranach’s painting, as a piece of Reformation polemic, portrays Martin Luther as one of the twelve apostles seated around Jesus (being served the cup by a young knight – Lucas  Cranach Jnr!). Who is missing to make way for Luther? I don’t know. But the painting suggests a deeper point: we, too, who are followers of Christ are included at the table of the Last Supper, and included in its meaning and promise. More: even those who have not shown themselves the most devoted of followers might find some reason for hope. Cranach portrays Jesus feeding even Judas with the bread of his promise!

Emil Brunner’s Simple Faith (5)

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On the Mystery and Goodness of Humankind

What is man? Neither merely dust, nor merely animal, nor a god. As Brunner turns to the Bible to answer this question he finds that humanity is created being, so that whatever we are, we are because God has made us so. Brunner bats away the scientific question concerning the mechanism God used to create humanity: “it is not a critical question for faith” (38). Clearly God uses means as the instruments of his work—such as dust, or human parents—but the work done remains God’s work.

Humanity is created in God’s image which distinguishes the human from all other creatures and establishes a similarity of the human creature to God. “What distinguishes man from the rest of creation is the share he has in God’s thought, that is, reason as distinguished from perception, which the animal also possesses” (39). More fundamentally, humanity is not merely created,

by the Word of God but for and in his Word. That means, God created man in such a way that he can receive God’s Word. That is reason in its true sense. Man really becomes man when he perceives something of God. … Man has been so created by God that he can become man only by perceiving God, by receiving God’s Word and—like a soldier repeating a command—repeating God’s Word. … When he says that in his heart homo sapiens becomes humanus. … We are man to the extent that we let God’s Word echo in our hearts. We are not simply men as a fox is a fox. But we are men only when God’s Word finds an echo in us. To the degree that this fails to happen we are inhuman (39, original emphasis).

Two features of this exposition bear reflection. First, ‘reason,’ for Brunner, is true to the extent that it responds and corresponds to the Word of God. The instrumental use of reason which has so distinguished the human from the rest of creation must be supplemented or perhaps crowned with this additional use if humanity is to be truly human, to fulfil its destiny as the divine image.

This infers that, second, Brunner views human existence as a project of becoming. We are human but must become, as it were, what we truly are. What we truly are is what God has intended and created us to be rather than what we find ourselves as. Homo sapiens must ‘become’ humanus. The Latin term can simply mean ‘human’ but also carries the nuances of humane or cultured or refined. This ‘becoming’ is a matter of positive response to the Word of God addressed to us. The person must perceive God, receive God’s Word, and let it echo in their heart. “The freedom to say yes or no to God is the mystery of man” (40). We have this freedom only because we are addressed by God. In this way we become his image, corresponding to him in his Word.

Failure to answer God’s Word addressed to us leaves us ‘inhuman.’ I don’t think Brunner intends this pejoratively, though it is tempting, perhaps, to see here a reference to the developing political and social situation of Germany in the mid-1930s. Rather, we fail to realise our existence as ‘the image of God.’ We are still ‘human’ in terms of our species but now without God as it were, less than what God intends for his creation. We are still endowed with the remarkable capacities God has given us but they now function in ‘inhuman’ ways, warped perhaps by our selfishness. For Brunner as for Calvin, we can only truly see and know ourselves as we perceive God; we know ourselves in his light.

To know ourselves truly, however, is also to understand that we are sinners. From a human perspective there is no one who is wholly good or wholly bad for we are all a mixture of both, though some people tend more the one way and some the other. In a biblical perspective, however, ‘there is none that does good, no, not one…’ To be a sinner is to be “bad at heart, infected with evil at the core” (41).

Sin is a depravity which has laid hold on us all. It is a radical perversion from God, disloyalty to the Creator who has given us so much and remains so loyal, an insulting alienation from Him, in which all of us, without exception, have shared (42-43).

Brunner uses the image of two people on a train, one sensible and the other stupid. But the point is that they are both on the same train and both heading in the same direction—in this case, away from God. This perversity, this evil that has captured the human heart, is inexplicable. We cannot explain sin nor even perceive it until it is shown to us in the death of Christ:

It is not until we see how much it cost to remove the stone between us and Him, that we understand how great was the weight of sin’s guilt. Christ shows us how completely the whole movement of life is in the wrong direction (44).

Emil Brunner’s Simple Faith (4)

Theology, , ,

Evil & Election

Although God created, rules, and guides the world God is not the sole actor in it. The reality of evil and suffering in the world calls divine providence and goodness into question. “Who can deny that this is a bedevilled world?” (30). Although Brunner acknowledges the reality of a diabolical power inimical to God, the greater issue is the stubborn opposition to God’s will which arises in human willing and which results in that being done which God does not will. God allows this. The disorder in the world is not a sign that God’s rule has been overthrown or forfeited. Rather, God gives time and space for the human creature to learn of God, to hear his Word, and freely to turn to God.

Hence He gives us, situated as we are in this deranged world, His Word, namely, the Law and the Promises, that we, perceiving the insane folly of evil and the fixed nature of His love, may return to Him in freedom and gladness (31).

Further, God has given himself to the world in Jesus Christ, permitting the world to rage against him, and in and through the cross of Christ demonstrating that he is Lord even in the face of the greatest human evil. Indeed, “men even in rebellion against him still remain tools in His hand to be used as He wills” (32).

In the Cross of Jesus Christ we perceive that destruction is not God’s will, and that in spite of it God keeps His masterly grip upon the world, and accomplishes His counsels of love. He gives us time to decide for ourselves, to turn to him (32).

Brunner does not pretend to explain God’s purpose in the face of the horrendous evil in the world. He places the blame for this evil squarely on the misuse of human free will and the diabolical power at work in the world. God does not will this evil and suffering or the derangement of this bedevilled world. But in the darkness of this world God shows us his will, found in the commandments and the gospel of forgiveness and salvation (33). The task of the church is to not explain but to announce the triumph of God’s love as revealed in the cross of Christ. Or to put it in words that Brunner does not use: the gospel is our theodicy. God has not given us an explanation for evil and suffering but an answer and a hope, grounded in the cross and resurrection of Jesus.

God’s purposes are grounded in the eternal thought and will of God, in ‘the eternal counsels’ of the God who views us graciously: “Deep, deep are the roots of our life” (33). Divine election signifies both origin—we come from eternity—and destiny—we are destined for eternity. The ‘we’ in this sentence is the believer; the circle of election is the circle of faith.

The elect in themselves are only ‘them that believe.’ And believers are those who in their hearts ‘have become obedient to the Word of God.’ Election dawns upon no one except in the full, independent, obedient and trustworthy decision of faith. … Election and obedience, election and personal decision of faith belong inseparably together in the Bible. One cannot play election off against decision, nor personal decision against election, tempting though that be to reason. Reason must bow here, yet dare not abdicate. How the two can be reconciled, the free eternal election of God and the responsible decision of man is a problem we cannot understand (35, original emphasis).

Election thus involves first God’s free, eternal decision and then a person’s responsible decision, the latter grounded in the former: “When a man is permitted to perceive that God sees him from eternity … A man then knows…” (34). Brunner rejects the idea of ‘double predestination,’ the idea that God from all eternity has chosen some for salvation and others for damnation. Of this doctrine,

There is no word to be found in the Holy Scripture. One can scarcely avoid drawing this conclusion from the teachings of the Scripture. Logic always misleads in that direction. But the Scripture itself does not do it, nor should we (35).

Thus, Brunner holds an election to faith and a judgement of the unbelieving. He insists that underlying all this is the divine will and purpose but refuses to draw the logical conclusion that God is responsible for the fate of the unbelieving. The teaching of Scripture is ‘a-logical’ (36), a mystery beyond our ability but a mystery nonetheless that may be believed and in which we may rejoice. This election—and thus our salvation—is entirely by grace alone, the operation of God’s boundless love and mercy. This is the Christian’s ‘greatest joy,’ and the true source of the ‘peace that passes all understanding’ (34).

Emil Brunner’s Simple Faith (3)

Theology, ,

Creational Purpose

God is the Creator—and Lord—of all things. He is the Lord prior to, in, and over his creation. To know God as Creator is to know him as the Lord who claims us in the totality of our existence. The world is God’s world and it testifies to him who made it.

The world is the house of the Great King and the Great Artist. He does not permit Himself to be seen; for man cannot see God, only the world. But this world is His creation, and whether conscious of it or not, it speaks of Him who made it. Yet in spite of this testimony man does not know Him, or at least not rightly. … We behave ourselves in this God-created world (if one may use the clumsy simile) like dogs in a great art gallery. We see the pictures and yet fail to see them. … Our madness, haughtiness, irreverence—in short, our sin, is the reason for our failure to see the Creator in His creation (24-25).

Humanity in all ages has had ‘presentiments’ of God though not true or full knowledge. This natural awareness of God’s existence is the basis of human religion: “the gods of the heathen are partly constructions of human fantasy, partly surmise of the true God, a wild combination of both” (26). This is true also of the philosophers.

Brunner distinguishes between belief that a divine being created the world (which is merely a theory of origins) and faith in the creator. The latter is, as already mentioned, to know God as Lord and to obey him as such.

The world is not an arbitrary occurrence, rather God’s creation is purposeful. What appears to us as perhaps random chance or fate finds its place in God’s overarching plan.

There is One who knows the destiny of the world, He who first made the sketch, He who created and rules the world according to this plan. What is confusion for us is order for Him, what we call chance is designed by Him, thought out from eternity and executed with omnipotence (28).

This purpose, however, is not immediately evident to those who live in the world and its historical unfolding but is a matter of revelation, a matter of Jesus Christ. Here Brunner announces the divine purpose: “reconciliation, salvation, forgiveness of sins, promise of eternal life, fulfilment of all things in God’s own life. That is God’s plan for the world” (29). The world that originated in God is to find its fulfilment and destiny in God: to this we are called and invited, and to this we must respond. “To hear this call, and in this call to hear where God will lead us, to have insight into God’s plan for the world—that is faith” (30).

Scripture on Sunday – Mark 14:17-21

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Mark’s Passion Narrative (4)

Now that the evening has come, Jesus and his disciples gather for their meal, portrayed in Mark as a Passover meal. Already, we (the readers) have been warned that Jesus is to be betrayed, and already we know that the betrayer will be Judas; but none of the other disciples know this. And now Jesus himself announces his betrayal while they were eating—another prophetic insight.  You can read the passage here.

Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.

Why does Jesus raise the topic? If he knows what will happen, why not let it simply play out? By raising it, Jesus is forewarning his disciples what is soon to take place. Perhaps they won’t be so shocked, especially at the betrayal by one of their own company.

Might Jesus’ warning about the fate of the betrayer be an opportunity for Judas to reconsider his part? Did Judas have to go the way that he did? Was his freedom overridden by an imperious divine will? (Cf. John 17:12) Here we are confronted once more with the mystery of the interaction of divine sovereignty and human responsibility. God’s purpose will be realised, and yet it is Judas who chooses, who acts, who betrays. The chief priests had already decided to kill Jesus; might they have achieved their purpose via a different mechanism?

His announcement also gives each of them pause, an opportunity for self-reflection: “Surely, not I?” They are confronted with the possibility that they could be the one who betrays Jesus. Each in turn, the disciples question how it could be them, insisting that it is not. Yet they do not know what Jesus knows and are shocked and grieved by the idea.

It is all the more poignant that it is ‘one who is eating with me.’ To share table and to eat together was no casual affair but an act of fellowship, friendship, hospitality, and brotherhood. It is unthinkable that one should turn against one’s friends. Yet Jesus insists that it is one of the twelve, an intimate friend, “one who is dipping bread into the bowl with me.” We have echoes in this passage of David’s distress in the Psalms:

Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted up his heel against me (Psalm 41:9).

For it is not an enemy who reproaches me—I could bear that. … But it is you, a man my equal, my companion and my familiar friend; we who had sweet fellowship together; we walked in the house of God in the throng.

This deepens Jesus’ announcement: it is not merely a dispassionate notice, a piece of information. Jesus, too, is distressed, feeling the pain of the coming betrayal. He loved Judas, valued his friendship, appreciated the intimacy he shared with him: washed his feet (cf. John 13:1-11).

In verse 21 we have a further pronouncement:

For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born.

Jesus had spoken multiple times of his coming death—the ‘fate’ of the Son of Man. Afterwards, the disciples will recall that Jesus knew, that he was not taken by surprise but went willingly to his fate. Although he might have taken action to avoid this fate, he did not but rather bowed to it. This was something written, prophesied in Scripture, and so inevitable and assured. (Although precisely which biblical passages Jesus had in mind is not disclosed here.) The wheel has been set in motion, a divine necessity is underway, everything unfolding according to God’s plan. Thus, it is not ‘fate’ actually, not ‘blind fate,’ not an impersonal machinery operating arbitrarily. Rather, it is the purpose of the Most High to which the Son of Man goes.

Nor is all this without human accompaniment. “Woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is handed over!” The betrayer’s whole life will be summed up as it were, in this one act. This will provide the meaning of his existence. How different to the act of the unnamed woman. How sad!

Jesus loved his betrayer as he did all the disciples. And it would appear that they also loved him. And yet, one would betray him.

Surely not I, Lord? Surely not I?

Emil Brunner’s Simple Faith (2)

Theology, , , ,

The Knowledge of God

Brunner’s first three meditations concern the knowledge of God: Is there a God? Is the Bible the Word of God? and the Mystery of God. Brunner wants to turn the first question on its head. To even ask the question is to signify a fundamental disconnect between ‘ourselves’ and our heart, conscience, and awareness of the world, all of which testify to the reality of God. “Your heart knows something of God already; and it is that very knowledge which gives your question existence and power” (Brunner, Our Faith, 14). Further, “not only the heart within, but the world without also testifies of God” (14-15).

To ask the question, then, “Is there a God?” is to fail to be morally serious. For when one is morally serious one knows that good is not evil, that right and wrong are two different things, that one should seek the right and eschew the wrong. There is a divine order to which one must bow whether one likes to do so or not. Moral seriousness is respect for the voice of conscience. If there is no God, conscience is but a complex of residual habits and means nothing. If there is no God then it is absurd to trouble oneself about right—or wrong (15-16).

Like Calvin, Brunner presupposes an innate knowledge of God, supported by an external knowledge of God grounded in the created order. “That God exists is testified by reason, conscience, and nature with its wonders. But who God is—God Himself must tell us in His Revelation” (16, original emphasis). This ‘natural’ knowledge of God (shared by all humanity) is really an awareness of something more rather than personal knowing. One does not know God in a personal or relational sense but ‘knows’ of God or has an intuition of his reality. The reason for this is that God is not ‘a thing’ in this world, one more thing amongst other things, an object of knowledge which might be discovered and categorised and thereby mastered by the knower (13). God, rather, intends that we might know him and be mastered by him.

It is for this reason that God has given us the Bible: “God has made known the secret of His will through the Prophets and Apostles in the Holy Scriptures. He permitted them to say who He is” (18). Brunner holds an instrumental view of the Scripture. God speaks to humanity through the Bible. It is the Word of God because and as it points to Jesus Christ, and because in it we hear the voice of God. The Bible speaks in many ways of its one central theme—of the Good Shepherd God who comes to us. “The voices of the Prophets are the single voice of God, calling. Jesus Christ is God Himself coming. In Him, ‘the word became flesh.’ … He is the Word of God” (19, original emphasis). Brunner uses the analogy of a gramophone record and the record label “His Master’s Voice” to illustrate how the Scripture functions as the Word of God. (I remember as a child my father’s record collection included albums from this label!)

If you buy a gramophone record you are told that you will hear the Master Caruso. Is that true? Of course! But really his voice? Certainly! And yet—there are some noises made by the machine which are not the master’s voice, but the scratching of the steel needle upon the hard disk. But do not become impatient with the hard disk! For only by means of the record can you hear ‘the master’s voice.’ So, too, is it with the Bible. It makes the real Master’s voice audible—really His voice, His words, what He wants to say. But there are incidental noises accompanying, just because God speaks His word through the voice of man. … But through them God speaks His word. … The importance of the Bible is that God speaks to us through it (19-20).

What the Bible reveals is Jesus Christ—the mystery of who God is. All that humans can know in their own capacity is the world. God, however, is not the world but rather the mystery within which the world has its being (21). The mystery of God is threefold: his transcendent majesty over the world, his searing holiness which wills our obedience, and his unspeakable love and condescension. In his transcendent majesty, God is Lord. He is the Almighty whose holy will confronts us as an absolute to which we must either submit ourselves or against which we will shatter ourselves.

But the mastery of God is even greater. The will of this holy God—what He absolutely desires, is love. His feeling towards us is of infinite love. He wants to give Himself to us, to draw and bind us to Him. Fellowship is the one thing He wants absolutely. God created the world in order to share Himself. … God desires one thing absolutely: that we should know the greatness and seriousness of His will-to-love, and permit ourselves to be led by it. Our heart is like a fortress which God wants to capture (22-23).

Brunner’s portrayal of the divine mystery posits the sheer givenness of God’s transcendence: God simply is and is the almighty and holy God. This is the overarching reality within which our being and the being of the world has its being. The central category Brunner uses to discuss God’s relation to the world is the divine will. Brunner speaks first of the holiness and demand of God and only then of the tender lovingkindness of God. In each case it is a matter of the divine willing, and in each case the divine will is absolute. Yet although Brunner speaks of the divine holiness first, it seems that the divine loving has a deeper and perhaps more fundamental bearing: God created the world in order to share himself with it, and wills above all things that we should know his ‘will-to-love.’

Our heart is like a fortress which God wants to capture. He wants to capture it with His love. If, overcome by His love, we open the gate, it is well with our souls. If, however, we obstinately close our hearts to His love, His absolute will—then woe to us! If we refuse to surrender to the love of God, we must feel the absoluteness of His will as wrath (23-24).