Tag Archives: Theological Method

“As If Nothing Had Happened”: Karl Barth’s ‘Responsible’ Theology

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My latest essay has just been published at Religions, Vol. 13 No. 3 as part of a special issue concerning “Karl Barth’s Theology in a Time of Crisis” edited by Mark R. Lindsay. My essay examines how theology might proceed responsibly, in times of crisis. It explores Barth’s treatise Theological Existence Today, to understand Barth’s own response to the crisis confronting German Protestantism in the face of Hitler’s rise to power.

The abstract for the essay is:

Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in early 1933 precipitated an ecclesial and theological crisis in the life of the German churches. Karl Barth responded to the crisis in his treatise Theological Existence Today, calling the German church to steadfast faithfulness in the face of increasing pressure to compromise the central commitments of its faith. This essay provides an exposition of Barth’s treatise, exploring his understanding of theological existence, and evaluating his rather infamous assertion that he would “carry on theology, and only theology, now as previously, and as if nothing had happened”. It finds that Barth called his peers to ‘responsible’ theology, the practice of which required a particular ethos and specific methodological commitments. Such responsibility was critical if the church was to retain both its integrity as the people of God, and its ministry, during this crisis.

If you have trouble using the above link, go to:
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/13/3/266/htm#fn001-religions-13-00266

Reflections on Bultmann’s ‘Task of Theology’

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A couple of days ago I posted an exposition of Rudolf Bultmann’s ‘The task of Theology in the Present Situation’ from May 1933. I want to reflect a little further on this lecture and task.

First, Bultmann reflects on the contemporary political situation as a theologian, and more specifically, “on the meaning of our theological work in this situation” (158). That is, what does it mean to be a theologian and to undertake theological work in a situation of dramatic political change and inflamed nationalist sentiment? His intent is neither to affirm nor to criticise the events themselves: ‘Rather we must look at these events simply from the standpoint of their immense possibilities for the future and ask ourselves what our responsibility is as theologians in face of these possibilities” (158, original emphasis). He takes it as a given that the theologian works in the service of the church ‘to develop the basis and meaning of Christian faith for our generation’ (158). Again, toward the end of the address he states, ‘it is not my task to expound how we might wish things to be, but only how they actually are, according to the teaching of the church’ (163). And this he has done:

Ladies and gentlemen! There cannot be the slightest doubt that this is the meaning and the demand of the Christian faith, and that these are the thoughts that the theologian has to advocate. For what I have said is simply taken from the thoughts of the New Testament and the Reformers . . . We have attempted in face of the immense possibilities that are now open to us to understand our responsibility as it becomes clear to us through the critical power of the Christian faith (163-164).

Bultmann views theology as a work in service of the church in its task of nurturing the faith—and the life of faith—of the Christian community. He claims to be reiterating only the message of the New Testament and the Reformers—Scripture and tradition. From these sources he affirms the ideas of the ‘ordinances of creation,’ and their ambiguity due to human sinfulness, the love commandment and with it, one’s responsibility to one’s neighbour, and all within an overarching understanding of God as creator, judge, and redeemer. Together, these lines of thought provide the ‘critical perspective’ (163) he brings to his reflection on the situation.

My second reflection concerns the idea and role of faith. Prominent in Bultmann’s understanding of the task of theology is the responsibility to ‘develop the basis and meaning of Christian faith for our generation’ (158). Just what he means by this phrase requires more extensive grounding in his work than I presently have (this is my first direct engagement with his work). But it is suggestive. The focus of the theological task is constructive and creative for without it Christian faith would seem to have ‘in our [any] generation’ no basis or meaning. He must intend this in a relative rather than absolute sense for the faith he wishes to commend is faith in the biblical God. Yet his focus is on faith, the human response as it is directed toward God as Creator and Judge of the world, and its Redeemer in Jesus Christ. That the theologian’s task is to develop the basis and content of this faith suggests that these are not givens, that the basis for faith must be developed (created?), as must its content. This stands in contrast to Barth’s approach in which the task of theology follows the objectivity of revelation given us in Jesus Christ and in which God himself creates the possibility and reality of faith.

This faith is evident more in its demonstration than its content as such, realised ‘precisely in our experience and action as obedience’ to the Lord who encounters us in the concrete situation of the moment (159). Faith, then, is not merely, perhaps not even, a belief in God as the cause or source of the world, but an acknowledgement of God’s lordship that meets us in our existence in the world. Human life and action are not determined by a timeless plan of providence but by the concrete situation of the moment within which we have been placed and wherein we are confronted by the divine lordship. This suggests a divine immanence that Bultmann will quickly relativise: God is not to be identified with the ‘ordinances of creation’ although one’s action with respect to them may be characterised as responsible obedience or as sin (160).

Bultmann’s ‘faith’ refers ultimately to Christian faith: faith ‘knows God not only as the Judge, but also as the Redeemer, who through Jesus Christ restores his original creation’ (162, emphasis added).

Only he who knows the transcendent God who speaks his word of love to the world in Christ is able to extricate himself from this sinful world and to achieve a perspective from which the world’s ordinances can really be known as ordinances of creation—i.e., as ordinances for which he must gratefully rejoice and in which he must silently suffer and serve as one who loves. He alone has a critical perspective over against the loud demands of the day, in that he measure the good and evil in such demands by asking whether and to what extent they serve the command of love. And he alone also has a critical perspective with respect to himself, which enables him to ask whether his own action is really selfless service (163)

Faith, therefore, is a form of knowledge deriving from God’s redemptive action in Jesus Christ by which the believer knows God as Creator, Judge and Redeemer, and therefore knows him or herself and the world in which they live. Presumably, this knowledge of faith is that developed by the theologian as they serve the church.

Calvin, on the Theologian’s Pastoral Task

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I came across this note as I read a little of Calvin this evening. I was in the Institutes I:14:iv on the doctrine of creation where Calvin is beginning his discussion of the angels. He writes to head off the kind of teaching that indulges in endless curiosity and speculation not tethered to Scripture. His words are still apt today:

Let us remember here, as in all religious doctrine, that we ought to hold to one rule of modesty and sobriety: not to speak, or guess, or even to seek to know, concerning obscure matters anything except what has been imparted to us by God’s Word. Furthermore, in the reading of Scripture we ought ceaselessly to endeavor to seek out and meditate upon those things which make for edification. Let us not indulge in curiosity or in the investigation of unprofitable things. And because the Lord willed to instruct us, not in fruitless questions, but in sound godliness, in the fear of his name, in true trust, and in the duties of holiness, let us be satisfied with this knowledge . . . 

The theologian’s task is not to divert the ears with chatter, but to strengthen consciences by teaching things true, sure, and profitable.
(See: Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Library of Christian Classics. Editor: John T. McNeill; Trans. Ford L. Battles, volume 1:164.)

Calvin reminds us of the limits our knowledge and so counsels epistemological humility. It is evident that he views Scripture as an inspired and authoritative source of theological knowledge, and that what is given us in Scripture might be profitably taught, learned, and believed. But not everything we might want to know is given us in Scripture. Standing behind this admonition is Deuteronomy 29:29: “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”

Of course, not all questions are fruitless. Many questions are necessary if we are to understand Scripture in both its parts and as a whole. Many more are necessary if we are to understand its significance and relevance to our everyday lives. Calvin certainly understands this as his own work testifies. But he is against the kind of mystical or merely academic approaches to Scripture and theology that neglect what he considers basic: the pastoral purposes for which Scripture is given – something also found in Deuteronomy 29:29.

The pastoral orientation of Calvin’s theological work is clear. In this, he differs not at all from Luther–see my discussion of Luther’s pastoral theology. In the citation given above, Calvin provides a framework for discerning that which is pastorally useful: that which edifies and strengthens the conscience; that which nurtures godliness and the fear of the Lord, true trust, and holiness. We might want to add to the kinds of pastoral outcomes we seek to nurture in the lives of God’s people: engagement in community and mission, the pursuit of just relationships, concern for the poor, etc. Nevertheless, Calvin’s concern for trust, holiness and a good conscience before God is also warranted.

I found this a salutary reminder that theological enquiry is never an end in itself but a means of being drawn more deeply into a life of faithfulness before God, and a participation in his creational and redemptive purposes – as revealed in Scripture.

“Positive Christianity”

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On February 24, 1920, at a public meeting in Munich the German Workers’ Party proclaimed a 25-point programme, drawn up originally by Gottfried Feder (1882-1941),[1] with a variety of social, economic, and political aspirations appealing to everyone except the Jews and the communists. It was intended as an instrument to draw popular support, especially amongst the lower middle classes threatened both by big business and by leftist elements such as the labour movement. It sought also to appeal to Christians—the twenty-fourth article concerned the church:

We demand freedom of religion for all religious denominations in the state so long as they do not endanger it and do not oppose the moral feelings of the German race. The Party as such stands for positive Christianity, without binding itself confessionally to any one denomination. It combats the Jewish materialistic spirit within and around us, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our nation can only succeed from within on the principle: The general interest before self-interest (Stackelberg & Winkle, The Nazi Germany Sourcebook, 65).

Like the rest of the Party’s platform, this article is carefully worded to appeal to as broad a constituency as possible, here amongst the religious population. The Party ‘demands’—will allow—religious freedom without favouritism for each of the Christian denominations in Germany: Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, and United, covering most of the population across all geographical regions in the country. It will not bind itself to one or another of the Confessions, nor play them off against one another. Each will be free to maintain their own tradition and practice. The party stands for positive Christianity, speaking against ‘the materialistic spirit within and around us,’ and standing for an ‘inner’—spiritual—renewal of the nation, the common interest rather than ‘self-interest.’ Christianity will have a legitimate and respected place within the society.

Yet it is also the case that positive Christianity is a circumscribed entity, and that the promised freedom is freedom only within strictly defined limits. First, it is clear that freedom of religion does not include freedom for the Jewish faith—the anti-Semitism of the document as a whole is explicit even in this clause as it contrasts the inner spiritual dynamic of the Christian religions against the supposedly materialistic and self-interested character of the Jews.

More significantly, positive Christianity is a Christianity assimilated to the aims of the state and culture, ‘the moral feelings of the German race.’ It is a racialised and nationalist form of Christianity, legitimate ‘so long as’ they do not endanger the state or oppose these aims and feelings. The German Workers’ Party clearly intends to co-opt the church to serve its nationalist, racist, and political vision; anything that does not conform to Nazi ideology will be deemed ‘negative’ (Stroud, Preaching in Hitler’s Shadow, 7). The tragedy is that much of the Protestant church, especially, was complicit with this agenda.

The problem here is not primarily political but theological. The challenge is not so much that the church was being manipulated to serve a racist and nationalist agenda—which is bad enough, and a betrayal of its calling. Rather, the political problem and its devastating consequences were a symptom of a deeper and more subtle malaise. It was the church being placed within an overarching narrative alien to its true identity and being: the idea that the church’s primary service is to the state and culture rather than to the kingdom of God. It was the idea that the priorities of the kingdom of God could be identified with those of the culture. It was the idea that the church’s freedom derived from the permission of the state and that it was, therefore, a functionary or organ of the state and that, therefore, the state was its lord.

As it happened, freedom so long as, was not freedom at all, but servitude and betrayal. Hitler’s ‘so long as’ introduced an alien principle which determined the being and practice of the church. The church, accepting this circumscribed freedom, lost its true liberty in Christ. Where it gladly accepted the prohibition to oppose the ‘moral feelings of the German race’ it was unable to discern or affirm its distinctive calling as the people of God. Positive Christianity was, in fact, a misnomer: it was not Christianity at all, but an aberration. “It was, one might deduce, Christianity with no God, no Christ, and no content. It was the ‘politically correct’ version of an empty gospel” (Stroud, Preaching, 8). It was salt that had lost its flavour, fit only to be thrown out and trodden underfoot. 

To its great credit the Synod of the Confessing Church that met in Barmen in 1934 recognised this truth with great clarity:

Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in holy scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death.

We reject the false doctrine, as though the church could and would have to acknowledge as a source of its proclamation, apart from and besides this one Word of God, still other events and powers, figures and truths, as God’s revelation.     
(Barmen Declaration, Thesis 1).

[1] Roderick Stackelberg and Sally A. Winkle, ed., The Nazi Germany Sourcebook: An Anthology of Texts (London: Routledge, 2002), 63. Note, however, Mary Solberg’s contention that Hitler wrote the programme in Mary M. Solberg, ed., A Church Undone: Documents from the German Christian Faith Movement 1932-1940 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015). Hitler certainly approved the programme and refused to change it.

Meditation in a Toolshed: Doodling CS Lewis

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At some time in the past I have read this little meditation by CS Lewis, probably after reading Kevin Vanhoozer’s meditation on CS Lewis’ meditation (“Meditation in a Postmodern Toolshed”). But having happened upon this fascinating exercise in ‘doodling’ Lewis, I decided to read it again.

The short piece is an argument made almost seventy-five years ago, against the conceit of critical modes of thought as inherently superior to other forms of knowledge. Lewis does not reject criticism, but nor does he allow it to claim its self-appointed role as the arbiter of genuine knowledge. The argument is made using a simple and homely illustration:

I was standing today in a dark toolshed. The sun was shining outside and through the crack at the top of the door there came a sunbeam. From where I stood that beam of light, with the specks of dust floating in it, was the most striking thing in the place. Everything else was almost pitch-black. I was seeing the beam, not seeing things by it.

Then I moved, so that the beam fell on my eyes. Instantly the whole previous picture vanished. I saw no toolshed, and (above all) no beam. Instead I saw, framed in the irregular cranny at the top of the door, green leaves moving on the branches of a tree outside and beyond that, ninety-odd million miles away, the sun. Looking along the beam, and looking at the beam are very different experiences (607).

Lewis reflects on the nature of subjective experiential knowledge and objective observational knowledge. Both forms of knowledge may be legitimate; both have their place. “You get one experience of a thing when you look along it and another when you look at it. Which is the ‘true’ or ‘valid’ experience?” (608)

The answer to that question cannot be given in advance. Sometimes both the subjective and the objective are required to mutually inform each other. Some things, however, can only be properly assessed from the ‘inside,’ as a participant. “We must take each case on its merits. But we must start with no prejudice for or against either kind of looking” (610). Nonetheless, in Lewis’ estimation, the prejudice against subjectivity must end!

Things have changed markedly in the years since Lewis penned his little reflection for a local newspaper. On the one hand the ‘modern,’ objective critical mindset that Lewis was critiquing has developed into a range of postmodern forms of criticism that sometimes devolve into a kind of elitist ‘critiquiness.’ And the same postmodern ethos champions subjectivity to such a degree that were Lewis writing today, he may well switch his argument to affirm the need for some objective analysis!

Lewis raises important questions for the student studying scripture and theology. Does one gain a better or truer understanding of the ‘subject matter’ of Christian faith (i.e. Jesus Christ; God; etc.) as a participant on the inside, or as an observer on the outside? Or are both perspectives and both approaches necessary? Can one, however, gain a true understanding of the ‘subject matter’ of Christian faith merely from the outside as an objective observer? That is, is a purely critical orientation sufficient?

For much of the Christian tradition the answer has been No. Faith seeking understanding presupposes faith as the beginning point of theological enquiry. That is, theological enquiry is initially (and inherently?) an activity of those on the inside. To banish faith from the classroom in the name of scholarly objectivity is to misunderstand and to hamstring the nature of the inquiry. But once faith is allowed and acknowledged as primary in the epistemological and hermeneutical enterprise, it seeks understanding, engaging the critical faculties in the service of faith.

This holds also for biblical studies. An approach that looks merely at the beam will miss the most fundamental details of the passages being studied. Looking at the beam is useful and instructive, orienting the reader to context, history, and worldview. Looking along the beam engages one as a participant in a wider and broader movement, in which the person studying the text is not simply an objective reader, aloof and at an arm’s length from the world of the text, but, together with the biblical author, is caught up to become an inhabitant of that world—the ‘new world in the Bible’ (Barth). This is the world of God, of God’s work, God’s grace, God’s command, and God’s kingdom.

I hope you enjoy the video, and the talent of the doodler. And I hope that CS Lewis’ little meditation might spark a little meditation of your own.

“Meditation in a Toolshed.”
Originally published in The Coventry Evening Telegraph on July 17, 1945, Lewis’ short meditation has been reprinted a number of times including in my copy of
Lewis, Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces.
Lesley Walmsley ed. (London: HarperCollins, 2000), 607-610.

“Critiquiness”

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Volf & Croasmun have a bit of fun critiquing critique, and introduce a new term coined by Christopher Castiglia to describe the “unmistakable blend of suspicion, self-confidence, and indignation” sometimes found in those who love to critique others, especially traditional biblical interpretations and theological formulations.

Conservatives like jeremiads; progressives relish critique. They interrogate and unmask; they trouble and problematize; they expose and subvert; they demystify and destabilize. For theologians no less than for nontheologians who practice it, critique is often infinite; it applies to everything—to biblical texts and biblical figures, to the church today and throughout its history, to God and to all aspects of modern societies—and it never stops.

Some of the progressive critical impetus comes from the Christian tradition itself, not just from the prophetic castigation of misuse of political power or religious rituals, but from the conviction that sin is most powerful when it appears as goodness, and therefore it conspires to present itself as godliness. And yet there is a fundamental difference. Today’s critique, as a rule, offers no positive alternative; its normativity is antinormative. Unlike the prophets of old, many theologians today engage not just in criticism but in what some critics of critique have called “critiquiness.” They shy away from offering a positive vision in whose service they undertake their critique; for then this vision, too, would recursively become a target of the critique. In the absence of a positive vision, critiques easily devolve to mere griping, knocking things down. Unmasking gives the impression of intellectual profundity, and griping offers the cheap thrill of understated self-righteousness. Both get old quickly and accomplish little; in fact, as the biblical admonition regarding exorcism suggests, they often make things worse (Volf & Croasmun, For the Life of the World, 54-55).

I remember my first theology teacher (John Yates) telling me many years ago that I needed to develop skills of critical thinking. He was right, for such skills are crucial intellectual tools in any field of study. But any good thing taken too far becomes a fault. Critical thinking that devolves into “critiquiness”—an intellectual habit of endless deconstruction and criticism sometimes undertaken simply for the fun of undermining the position of another—is a sign of intellectual laziness and a sense of personal superiority. It becomes a means of closing down rather than opening dialogue and discovery on the quest for truth. It may give the impression of intellectual profundity, but it is merely that: an impression, a mask better discarded altogether, not least in theological studies where the truthfulness of the Christian claim is the object and criterion of our study.

Reading Karl Barth on Election (15)

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Selection: The Church Dogmatics II/2:134-138, Excursus on Supra- and Infralapsarianism (#2).

The strength of the supralapsarian position is that the divine decree of election stands at the head of all God’s works, in contrast to the infralapsarian doctrine in which the decree of election is subsumed as it were under the doctrine of providence, following the decree of creation and fall. This view has the effect of placing salvation behind or beneath creation, distinguishing two distinct orders in the divine work. Nevertheless, the infralapsarian position has two advantages. First, the harshness of the supralapsarian position is mitigated somewhat since God elects those who are already and actually fallen; God has not brought humanity into the world in order to fall and so to be damned. Second, this helps avoid the supralapsarian difficulty of making God responsible for the fall and for evil.

The Supralapsarians so exalted the sovereignty of God above everything else that they did not sufficiently appreciate the danger of trying to solve the problem of evil and to rationalise the irrational by making it a constituent element in the divine world-order and therefore a necessity, a part of nature (138).

Nevertheless, each side is also deficient in some way. As already hinted, the supralapsarian view presents a particularly harsh view of the electing God—“the Supralapsarian God threatens to take on the appearance of a demon” (140). Their error was not their desire to “know” more than could be known, but in seeking to know in the wrong place (135). Barth also finds another problem: by making self-glorification the centre and measure of all things, supralapsarianism could and did prepare for a corresponding movement in which human concerns became the centre and measure of all things (137). The direct link between the divine sovereignty and the individual exacerbated this tendency. There is, no doubt, some degree of irony here, that the emphasis on the absolute sovereignty of God should issue instead in an emphasis on the absolute centrality of the human. Barth sees this development occurring early in Reformed theology: “What vistas open up and what extremes meet at this point! Is it an accident that A. Heidanus, and even so pronounced a disciple of Coccejus as his son-in-law F. Burmann, were at one and the same time Supralapsarians—and also Cartesians?” (137).

But the weakness of infralapsarianism is even more concerning. First, although their arguments against supralapsarianism “sound well enough, … they are not the arguments of faith” (135). Their objections are “logico-empirical,” applying to God standards taken from the order of human reason (135-136).

But the history of Israel and of Jesus Christ and of the Church is not played out within the framework of a prior and already preceding history of nature and the universe. That is not the picture of the world and history as it is given us in the Bible. According to the Bible, the framework and basis of all temporal occurrence is the history of the covenant between God and man. … It is within this framework that the whole history of nature and the universe plays its specific role, and not the reverse, although logically and empirically the course of things ought to have been the reverse. At this point the Supralapsarians had the courage to draw from the biblical picture of the universe and history the logical deduction in respect of the eternal divine decree. The Infralapsarians did maintain the sequence of the biblical picture in respect of the realisation of salvation, but they shrank from the deduction. In respect of the eternal divine decree they maintained a supposedly more rational order, isolating the two dispensations and subordinating the order of predestination to that of providence. … It was inevitable, then, that the Infralapsarian construction could at least help towards the later cleavage between natural and revealed theology. It is that which (within the framework of the common presuppositions) makes it appear the less happy of the two (136).

This long citation reveals a crucial element of Barth’s hermeneutics and theological method. Although scripture begins with the story of creation and fall and then moves onto the story of redemption commencing with the account of Abraham and the covenant established with him, Barth insists that in fact, the proper understanding of the divine work is the reverse: the covenant of God with humanity precedes the creation as that covenant established in the person of Jesus Christ in the eternal divine self-determination in the decision of election. By prioritising creation and fall above redemption the Infralapsarians did manage, as already noted, to remove from God the responsibility of sin and evil. Nevertheless a danger lurked here as well:

According to the Supralapsarian opinion man was nothing more than the elect or reprobate in whose whole existence there was only the one prospect of the fulfilment of a course already mapped out either one way or the other. But the Infralapsarians knew of another secret of God side by side with the decree of predestination. Theoretically at least, then, they knew of another secret of man apart from the fact that he is either elect or reprobate. For them man was also (and indeed primarily) the creature of God, and as such responsible to God. This view involved a softening in the understanding of God which is both dangerous and doubtful (137).

Thus in his exposition of this theological dispute, Barth finds something to commend on both sides, as well as something to critique. The Supralapsarians rightly emphasise the divine sovereignty and grace but open the possibility of making God responsible for sin and evil, and indeed the whole order of creation being a monstrous economy intending the fall and damnation of multitudes. The Infralapsarians rightly retreat from this position by interposing the decrees of creation and fall in advance of the decree of election though this has the disadvantage of separating the orders of creation and redemption. Interestingly, Barth finds that both sides opened a theoretical possibility which later became actual, of an anthropocentric turn in theology in which humanity became the centre and concern of theology.

Theology as Discipleship 2

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In chapters two and three Johnson develops his understanding of the nature of Christian life as a participation in and partnership with Christ. The practice of theology takes place within the context of, and as an aspect of, one’s discipleship. Johnson narrates the biblical story of God’s saving work in history culminating in Jesus Christ as the true reality that frames our existence. As such, theology begins “from above,” from the narrative depiction of Jesus Christ as the revelation of God. All reality and history can be truly understood only with reference to Jesus Christ—and never the reverse. Theology cannot start from below as though to fit the idea of God into a preconceived understanding of reality. God’s eternal will and purpose was to create all things in and for Christ, and to reconcile them by him. In the Holy Spirit believers are united to Christ and so given a share of—a participation in—his eternal life and knowledge of the Father. This knowledge which although partial is true, is the ground of theology. Johnson adopts a clear image to indicate the true though partial nature of our knowledge of God:

Participating in Christ is not the same thing as being Christ. He knows God by nature because he is God by nature; we know God as finite and temporal creatures who have been given a share in Christ’s mind by grace. In this sense, we are much like a passenger who gets picked up by a train halfway through the train’s journey. On the one hand, the passenger truly participates in the train’s journey and has accurate knowledge of both the train and its movement toward its destination. On the other hand, the passenger’s knowledge is “only in part” because she has participated in only part of the journey: the train and its journey long preceded her participation in it, and she has not yet arrived at the destination and has no knowledge of it (58, original emphasis).

Our union with Christ is for the purpose of partnership with Christ in his work. The pattern of this partnership is God’s own being and work; God intends that we live in correspondence with him. Thus God gives commands that, as we obey them, help us to live in likeness to him. And God acts, empowering our own responsive action. Sin is the refusal to live in correspondence to God, choosing to become “like God” in our own way.

In union with Christ believers are made hidden participants in the eternal life of God, and by the Spirit Christ begins to live his life in and through us. Jesus has joined his life to ours, and has incorporated his people into his life, so that his history has become our history. His faithful obedience liberates us to be also faithful and obedient in him, corresponding in our own life to his life. The work of theology is one particular aspect of this overarching partnership. This work involves helping the church use human words to speak appropriately of God. This requires bringing human language about God into conformity with Christ, who is in himself the revelation of God and as such, the criterion of all speech about God. “Our thinking and speaking about God will be true if our words correspond to who Christ is, what he has done and what he continues to do within created history. This means that our primary task as theologians is to bring the meaning of the words we use for God into conformity to Christ” (81).

Theology as Discipleship 1

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Keith Johnson’s Theology as Discipleship arose from his work in the classroom in which students sometimes asked concerning the value and relevance of theological study. His response is to “argue that the discipline of theology and a life of discipleship to Jesus Christ are integrally related because the practice of theology is one of the ways we participate in the life of the triune God” (12). His argument unfolds over seven chapters, beginning in the first with a historical narrative to explain how Christian theology became separated from Christian faith and the life of the church and discipleship; that is, it became subject to canons of thought and presuppositions alien to its own confession. In the early centuries of Christianity the context of theology was the church, and its practice was related to pastoral and devotional concerns, and faithful life in the world. The presupposed connection between theology and discipleship began slowly to change, however, during the medieval period when the discipline of theology became part of the university curriculum. This change accelerated in the modern era as the role of the university and what counted as academic learning evolved.

Theologians felt pressure to justify their conclusions according to the academic criteria that governed the university. This meant that rather than starting with faith—which might distort their ability to assess evidence rationally—they had to begin with universally accepted premises and employ the methods of critical reason. No longer could they appeal to the authority of the Bible or the church’s tradition to defend their claims (29).

This pressure intensified as modernity progressed, and Johnson notes a further shift that occurred with Schleiermacher, who argued that theologians should “demonstrate that the church’s practices are a ‘necessary element for the development of the human spirit,’” and that they should employ a genuinely deliberative character in their work (30, citing Schleiermacher, Brief Outline of Theology as a Field of Study, 10-11, 97). Theologians must now be scholars in addition to saints, and their work was not simply for the church but for the welfare of the modern state, and so they were accountable not only to the church but also to the university. The best theologians had always engaged other disciplines, seeking to draw them into the intellectual framework of Christian faith. Now the direction of engagement shifted: “Theologians interacted with these same disciplines not in order to reframe them in light of their faith but to secure theology’s place in the academy alongside every other discipline” (31).

Formerly, theologians had pursued theological training in order to acquire knowledge, habits and skills that would shape them into the pattern of Jesus Christ for the sake of their service to the church. … Now, with the discipline of theology housed primarily in the university, the primary goal of theological education was to provide students with the technical skills they needed to perform responsible critical enquiry so that the church’s faith and practice could be brought in line with the standards of critical reason (31-32).

Thus Johnson proposes that theology begin with its own distinctive confession—the lordship of Jesus Christ according to Romans 10:9—and work itself out from there in accordance with its own rationality and in dialogue with other disciplines. In Johnson’s view theology must be both faithful and academic; to require a division between these is to misunderstand the nature and practice of theological inquiry. The remainder of the book is his attempt to view the discipline in this light.

The Word & Work of God

Theology, ,

As Barth considers the eternal will of God in the election of Jesus Christ, he notes in passing that,

The very best of the older theologians have taught us that in the word which calls and justifies and sanctifies us, the word which forms the content of the biblical witness, we must recognise in all seriousness the Word of God. Beside and above and behind this Word there is none other. To this Word then we have good cause to hold fast both for time and eternity. This Word binds us to itself both for time and eternity, and in it all our confidence must be placed. This Word does not allow us to go beyond it. It allows us no other view of God or man than that which it reveals itself. It focusses all our thoughts upon this view and keeps them focussed there. It warns us against any distraction. This Word alone must satisfy all our questioning because it alone can do so. The work of God is revealed in this Word in its totality, being there revealed in such a way that there can be no depth of the knowledge of the divine work except in God’s Word, and the knowledge of the divine work cannot lead us to any depth which is not that of God’s Word (Church Dogmatics II/2, 150).

Barth is here arguing against speculative doctrines of divine election that begin elsewhere than with the revelation of God given in Jesus Christ. How can we truly understand the divine work if we turn from the place where God has made himself known: Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in holy scripture. When Barth says, “Word of God” we do well to keep in mind that he refers to both the Living and the Written Word in their mutual relation.

Of interest to me was the last sentence in the above citation, which provides a hermeneutical and methodological principle: The work of God is revealed in this Word in its totality, being there revealed in such a way that there can be no depth of the knowledge of the divine work except in God’s Word, and the knowledge of the divine work cannot lead us to any depth which is not that of God’s Word.

It is not uncommon to speak with Christians who adhere, for example, to the word of Jesus but who do so in a way at odds with the life and work of Jesus. Nor is it uncommon to speak with Christians who seek to follow in some aspect of the way and ethos of Jesus but do so in a way at odds with his teaching. For Barth, Jesus Christ is the criterion of all knowledge of God, but Jesus Christ as both the word and the work of God. No separation is permissible here, nor any division on the one side or the other. It may be that the emphasis falls now at this point, and then at another. It is likely that theological reflection leading to faith and work will alternate back and forth between the two, allowing both the Word of God and the work of God to mutually inform one another, but always with a precedence given to the Word which binds us to itself, and to and by which we also are bound.