I didn't always understand the hype of the photo above. I am embarrassed to admit that when I was initially introduced to this photo in my first theology class, I did not understand why my professor made such a fuss about it. He kept talking about how in this photo, God is most fully revealed yet at the same time God is profoundly hidden. He started preaching rather dramatically about those who observe Jesus Christ on a cross and exclaim "this is your God! He is dead! He has been conquered by the world, murdered by His accusers! What kind of God is this that you pledge allegiance to Him?" In my own sense of self-righteousness, I at once felt incredibly pleased with the fact that I knew that the true God was fully revealed here in the cross. Only the proud and ignorant can not see that this is God most glorified. This is where the Savior of the world defeated the power of Satan and bore the sins of the world as the lamb of God! I am a Christian! See me!It would take three years to realize that I barely understand this painting or the truth found therein.
Let me explain. As someone who loosely identifies with the Reformed tradition, I believe it is important to have a high view of God's transcendence and sovereignty. This became all the more apparent when I took the Karl Barth seminar at HDS. I remember presenting my paper on the doctrine of election during my week to speak before the class. I specifically discussed Barth's extensive coverage of the historical intricacies between supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism. To my relief, Barth ended up on the side of supralapsarianism but he took a lot of the sting out of the traditional formulation. There was another student in the class who objected to Barth's sympathies with a (revised) version of supralapsarianism. As he began to argue continually for the importance of infralapsarianism, I realized that the problem of evil was subtly lurking in his mind. And he came to a point where he expressed reservations that anything more (less?) than infralapsarianism leads into some type of monism. Therefore, there can not be any genuine speech about the life and choices of Jesus Christ. And even worse, there was never anything at stake with the cross. Holy Saturday does not serve as any type of anxiety or questioning since there was never any other possibility except for resurrection Sunday. I was immediately offended in some sense by his suggestions. With my compatibilist sympathies, I responded by asking "does this mean that we have to believe that Jesus had the power of contrary choice in order to make sense of his suffering, temptation, and prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane? Surely not! What would that mean? Jesus Christ has the power to choose that which is not according to God's will? How is that even a genuine possibility for Jesus Christ, as fully God, to chose anything but that which is according to the character of God? If He could, that means that the Son would be able to rebel against the Father and the Trinity itself would be in opposition and then God would contradict God and everything would cease to exist and fall into infinite nothingness! Is that really what we want to say?" To this day, I am unsure what he would have said as a response since my professor took over the conversation and added something else that was more pressing to the specific section of the reading. But it really bothered me that someone would suggest that God's sovereignty need be tempted in order to rescue some sort of authenticity.
I say all of this because I realized how much I have changed since that moment in seminar. Today, I came across Jeremy's post regarding the tension found within the Incarnation and the cross of Christ (by the way, Jeremy has been and continues to be one of the best theological bloggers on the web - read him often). While I might not agree with his overall inclinations to ultimately go beyond Barth, I appreciate his questions more than I can say. I looked up the passage in the CD which he quotes and was amused to find it underlined with question marks in the margins. Here Barth discusses the tension between the sovereignty and transcendence of God in Godself and the lowliness and weakness of God in Christ:
The incarnation of the Word, the human being of God, His condescension, His way into the far country, His existence in the forma servi, is something which we can understand - this is (or appears to be) the first alternative - by supposing that in it we have to do with a novum mysterium (in the strict and literal sense of the expression of Melito of Sardis), with what is noetically and logically and absolute paradox, with what is ontologically the fact of a cleft or rift or gulf in God Himself, between His being and essence in Himself and His activity and work as the Reconciler of the world created by Him. It therefore pleased Him in this latter, for the redemption of the world, not to alter Himself, but to deny the immutability of His being, His divine nature, to be in discontinuity with Himself, to be against Himself, to set Himself in self-contradiction. In Himself He was still the omnipresent, almighty, eternal and glorious One, the All-Holy and All-Righteous who could not be tempted. But at the same time among us and for us He was quite different, not omnipresent and eternal but limited in time and space, not almighty but impotent, not glorious but lowly, and open to radical and total attack in respect of His righteousness and holiness. His identity with Himself consisted strictly in His determination to be God, our God, the Reconciler of the world, in this inner and outer antithesis to Himself. The quo iure, the possibility of the incarnation, of His becoming man, consisted in this determination of God to be "God against God," in His free will to be this, in His fathomless mercy as the meaning and purpose of that will.- Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV.1, 184, emphasis added.
When I first read this passage, I was incredibly adverse to any sentiments that there was any type of tension concerning the Incarnation of Jesus Christ and the divinity of God. Any such genuine tension would mean that God is not the God who I believe He must be in order to be worshipped. He is the God that you behold and scoff at and think, "this is your God!?" In a very profound way, I realized when I reread this passage that the God revealed in the cross and in the painting above really is the God that does not accord with the deepest expectations of humanity. He is a God that offends us if we witness Him most fully revealed. And even in His revealedness, He remains hidden continually. I wonder if I could ever truly claim to believe that God is revealed in the cross beyond some emotional sentiment that I had when I thought about Him suffering for me. I continually refused to see the identity of God in the suffering and humility of Jesus. The experience of the crucifixion was sheerly a utilitarian means to accomplish the ends of my salvation.
But then I find that I also experience the opposite offense in HDS classes through the apophatic theology found through the Early Christian Fathers Eastern Tradition class last semester and Negative Theology class this semester. I wrote these hesitations before but I will explain again because the same assumptions were reinforced in class yesterday. In apophatic theology, there is the idea that God is so incredibly transcendent, and therefore He is epistemologically unknowable for the human person. The only way to truly have any sort of genuine communion with God is through a spiritual experience through the various theories of language or meditation. Obviously this is a gross oversimplification, but the fact remains that within apophatic theology the line between the infinite (God) and the finite (humanity) is strict and is never overcome. One of my professors in Negative Theology yesterday gave a lecture about the negative theology of Anselm found within his understanding and use of language. It was a rather obscure lecture but he drew a diagram on the board and drew a line between the Divine with the term Infinite next to it and then the object with the term finite next to it. The two realms never meet. A student promptly asked if such a divide is putting unwarranted limitations upon the Godhead and telling God what is possible for Godself. The professor responded by saying that he is simply holding to the traditional understanding that God can not do anything that is self-contradictory. Therefore, God can not in any way step into the finite so to speak since this would contradict His very being and he would argue that Anselm is operating from the same understanding. But I immediately was offended by these human-imposed standards since I immediately wanted to ask him how this particular position makes sense of the Incarnation. In Jesus Christ, God becomes objective revelation when He chooses to unite Himself to human flesh. Post council of Nicaea, I do not understand how the Christian tradition can genuinely believe that God is epistemologically transcendent since He has fully revealed Himself in the human person of Jesus Christ. Even though God is always in control of the knowing event as the Subject of revelation, He truly became an object of knowledge. It seems that under this mindset of apophaticism, God is not truly and fully present nor revealed in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
So I find myself in this constant state of tension between offense when some want to have a robust sense of God's weakness and lowliness in the Incarnation and death of Jesus Christ. But I also find myself offended by those who champion God's transcendence at the expense of recognizing that which has been radically accomplished in the person and work of Jesus Christ. God is so transcendent that He has the freedom to determine to be the God for us. I am surprised to say that at this point in my theological development, I am more troubled by apophatic theological assumptions than by any understanding that speaks of God's lowliness and tension within Godself. But unlike Jeremy, I am satisfied to some extent that Barth stops where he does. I realize that this is a very crude example but it will serve my purposes: if God were truly able to "die" as Jeremy says, then this would mean that God is changed by His creation. If I have a disease and go to see a doctor for treatment, I don't expect the doctor to transmit the disease himself in order to believe that such a doctor is worthy of claiming the title or earn the label of "compassionate." Rather, I want the doctor to act in compassion by remaining healthy and treating my disease. Unless he remains free from disease, my doctor is not free to treat me. In this very pathetic example, I see the same principle applies to God - how can he rescue humanity from the death that comes through evil and sin if He dies in Himself? If we go beyond the tension and say that God dies within Godself, are we sacrificing the hiddenness of God in the cross?
But one thing is for sure. The truth revealed in the painting above demands a theologia crucis that God is glorified in His lowliness and suffering, not compromised because of it.
24 comments:
Damn, I wrote a long post but it got lost in cyberspace.
Anyway a couple of things:
1) Thanks for not calling me a heretic
2) I appreciate the sincerity with which you hold your theological convictions.
3) Your doctor question makes me think of Feuerbach. I think if we learn anything from Bonhoeffer it's that if we take the incarnation seriously then we have to let go of a sovereign and omnipotent God. Sovereignty is a dangerous theological and political concept (Schmitt). Lord knows it has set the precedent for very violent views of God (and atonement theories) that encourage unhealthy abusive relationships (Darby Ray's Deceiving the Devil is great here). I think that ultimately God in Christ comes to overthrow Satan's violent oppression over humanity by nonviolently exposing and rendering impotent the powers and principalities of evil. I think the incarnation means we have to take seriously the kenosis of God which means that God refuses to inhabit the place of the Big Other in society (Lacan). Ultimately, if the kenosis of God means that God relates to us as a humble servant who trusts us, then we should follow suit by letting go of our own addiction to control and domination. Basically liberation theologians are right in emphasizing the ransom theory as useful political and theological way to help us make sense of a God who is on the side of the oppressed precisely by abdicating the position of power and joining the oppressed in the struggle for freedom.
You might respond by saying, well what good does that do for the oppressed? I can only respond by saying in God's weakness is God's strength. Or as James Cone would say God wins precisely by losing.
- Jeremy
Jeremy,
Thanks for your response. I think the tradition of the Church wanted to take the kenosis of God seriously (Cyril of Alexandria) while others wanted to maintain God's absolute transcendence and offer partitive exegesis for passages like Phil 2 (Nestorius). So I think that your instinct to take seriously the self-emptying of the Incarnation is essential. But I'm wondering if you are forfeiting the dialectic of the cross (in terms of the revealedness and hiddenness of God) when you ultimately go beyond Barth's tension in IV.1 by letting go of the transcendence of God "in himself." I'm just not convinced that in forfeiting the constant dialectic in this way will allow you to say anything legitimate to the suffering and oppressed that you mention. I'm not arguing with the goal, but with the means. Is that fair?
Out of sheer curiosity, why would you think I'd call you a heretic?
I'm just not convinced that in forfeiting the constant dialectic in this way will allow you to say anything legitimate to the suffering and oppressed that you mention.
Perhaps could you say more about this before I respond.
I am appreciative you didn't call me a heretic because death of God talk often gets labeled that way.
- Jeremy
Kaitlyn:
Neat thoughts.
I wonder if the notion of God’s dying in Himself is troubled by incoherence. It’s unclear what it means for one to die “in oneself,” and it strangely seems to imply that there’s another way to die. But if there isn’t another way to die, then the qualification “in Himself” or “in oneself” appears unnecessary. Yet if there is indeed another way to die, what might that be?
Maybe we could suggest that, on the one hand, dying entails a cessation of existence, and on the other, dying entails physical death. Since Christian tradition probably won’t be willing to embrace the first option, that leaves dying in terms of physical death, an affirmation which tradition does accept. But if Jesus isn’t human in Himself, then His dying a physical death doesn’t mean that He died in Himself.
Regarding your doctor example, what if the only (or the best) way to save you was by his deliberately contracting the disease himself? By doing this, his body would experience each stage of the disease and would subsequently begin producing antibodies—or some other disease-fighting biological organisms—which could be translated for and then introduced into your own system. Assuming that the disease is fatal, the doctor will have sacrificed his own health and life for you. Not only would your health be restored and life be preserved, the doctor would also have experiential knowledge of what it’s like to suffer from the otherwise incurable disease.
I fear, however, that I might be missing the purpose of the illustration. =)
Jeremy:
Hello.
You may not have been affirming the point, but why do you think that taking the incarnation seriously requires the abandonment of God’s sovereignty and omnipotence?
I'd encourage you to read my post to understand why I say the incarnation leads to the death of sovereignty and omnipotence. I think Bonhoeffer reached a similar conclusion in his Letters and Papers from Prison with his discussion that the way God is for us is by being weak in the world:
“So our coming of age leads us to a true recognition of our situation before God. God would have us know that we must live as men who manage our lives without him. The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us (Mark 15.34). The God who lets us live in the world without the working hypothesis of God is the God before whom we stand continually. Before God and with God we live without God. God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. Matt. 8.17 makes it quite clear that Christ helps us, not by virtue of his omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering” (Letters and Papers from Prison, 360-361).
Jeremy
Jeremy:
Thanks. I read your post—is “The Incarnation as God’s Leap of Faith” the right one?—and I guess I’m still not sure why the incarnation requires that we abandon God’s sovereignty and omnipotence. I’m inclined to think that God is essentially sovereign and essentially omnipotent, and since I don’t believe that the Son underwent an essential change at the incarnation, it seems to me that He retained these attributes even when He acquired a human nature. Even if He chose not avail Himself of these attributes, that doesn’t appear to imply that they weren’t in His possession. I think that Thomas Morris’s two-minds view of the incarnation offers a coherent (and perhaps plausible) account of how the Son might become fully human without essentially altering His divine nature.
Concerning the Bonhoeffer quotation, I worry that there aren’t any good reasons to accept his assertions, except for maybe what he says in the last sentence. , I don’t believe that the Father forsook Christ when He was on the cross, but even if we assume that the Father did forsake Him, it doesn’t follow that the Father will forsake us. Indeed, we appear to have explicit scriptural warrant for believing that forsaking us is something He promises not to do.
My argument was that for God to be in real relations with us qua Son, God had to abandon omnipotence, sovereignty, etc. In fact, the incarnation, in my opinion, is not a leap of faith or actual risk if God does not leave the "control station". I point out that God, unlike Satan, wanted to enter into interdependent relations with us which requires an abdication of that position of sovereignty (since relationships requires opening oneself up to being rejected and hurt). I think Christ clearly was abandoned, Moltmann argues that the cry from the cross is THE theological question every theologian must come to to terms with. However, if God never left the control station it seems like that that moment of vulnerability on the cross is something hard for those take seriously who do not hold onto an all-powerful God. Basically, following Hegel I believe God held nothing back in the incarnation and crucifixion.
I suspect you don't agree, but I'm not pretending what I'm saying is orthodox just something I've become personally convinced about. I'm trying to take the incarnation seriously as having ontological impact on God.
I haven't read Morris but my philosophical background is much more continental. I think it's sorta silly to argue that the incarnation is possibly logically coherent. Is the gospel not an offense to the Greeks?
Thanks for the engagement.
Jeremy
Jeremy:
Thank you as well. I’m enjoying the conversation.
>> “My argument was that for God to be in real relations with us qua Son, God had to abandon omnipotence, sovereignty, etc.”
I understand this to be the conclusion of the argument, but I’m having trouble discerning the argument you’re offering on behalf of that conclusion. Perhaps you intended for the argument (or part of it) to be found in what you suggested here:
>> “I point out that God, unlike Satan, wanted to enter into interdependent relations with us which requires an abdication of that position of sovereignty (since relationships requires opening oneself up to being rejected and hurt).”
Why suppose that God is rendered any less sovereign by allowing His creatures to freely rebel against and reject Him? To my mind, it’s possible for God to enjoy complete control over these situations—i.e., to exercise comprehensive sovereignty—without causally controlling them. (I’m a Molinist, so my Molinism is lingering in the background here.) And, with respect to Jesus, what reason is there to believe that He wasn’t sovereign over the events in which He was rejected, even hurt? For example, Jesus was aware of Judas’s betrayal, and He predicted (with impressive detail) Peter’s denial. Further, He claimed that He freely offered Himself to be executed, indicating that it wouldn’t have occurred unless He permitted it. It seems to me that, plausibly, these are expressions or suggestive of a sovereign God.
>> “In fact, the incarnation, in my opinion, is not a leap of faith or actual risk if God does not leave the ‘control station’.”
Why do you believe it needs to involve a leap of faith or an actual risk?
>> “I think Christ clearly was abandoned”
What do you think makes this clear?
>> “if God never left the control station it seems like that that moment of vulnerability on the cross is something hard for those take seriously who do not hold onto an all-powerful God.”
In Gethsemane, and even before that night, Scripture appears to teach that Jesus knew that He would be killed and subsequently raised from the dead. I doubt, however, that this knowledge significantly alleviated the stress which arose from the imminent physical, psychological, and spiritual agonies He was about to endure. On my view, Jesus willfully rendered Himself vulnerable to the fragilities of the human condition and to the unimaginable burden of human sinfulness, all without endangering the purposes He determined to fulfill.
>> “I think it's sorta silly to argue that the incarnation is possibly logically coherent. Is the gospel not an offense to the Greeks?”
Could you elaborate on why you think it’s silly to argue this? Regarding the Greek, why should we allow their response to the gospel (or to the incarnation) influence our perception of its (in)coherence?
Hi - My apologies for the lack of response on my part. I'm graduating in 4 weeks and things are a bit hectic on my end right now. I will do my best to write something by Monday since I have a lot to say by way of response to Jeremy.
For example, Jesus was aware of Judas’s betrayal, and He predicted (with impressive detail) Peter’s denial. Further, He claimed that He freely offered Himself to be executed, indicating that it wouldn’t have occurred unless He permitted it. It seems to me that, plausibly, these are expressions or suggestive of a sovereign God.
First off, I suspect we have different views of scripture. I suppose one of my guiding beliefs is that the Biblical authors attempted to re-narrate Jesus' life so it would conform to the prophesies in the Hebrew Bible. I also recently read St. Clair's Call and Consequences. She argues that the Mark 8 passage where Jesus says 'the Son of Man must suffer' ought to be interpreted as saying that suffering is an inevitable outcome given Jesus' ministry to the oppressed and downtrodden. God did not will Jesus' suffering and Jesus himself did not invite his suffering. But the way of the cross and its pursuit of justice invariably led to a deadly conflict with empire.
Why do you believe it needs to involve a leap of faith or an actual risk?
I was using Dorothee Solle's quote from Christ the Representative as a jumping off point. You might disagree but I affirm with Hegel that God held nothing back when God entered history.
What do you think makes this clear?
Mark and Matthew both include that cry. Clearly Jesus' experienced abandonment from friends, family, and God. I'm just taking it literally. It seems that something went wrong there. As Chesterton would say, it appears that at this point God, for a second, became an atheist. I suppose I'm not positive the Father abandoned the Son, but I'm trusting that the Son would know given his perfect fellowship with the Father.
In Gethsemane, and even before that night, Scripture appears to teach that Jesus knew that He would be killed and subsequently raised from the dead.
Or perhaps the Biblical writers wanted to make Jesus appear to be in control because the cross was a true shame for the early community. We even see the later Biblical authors (Luke and John) try and portray a loving, stoic Christ who does not seem to be bothered by the cross (Father forgive them, into your hands I commit my spirit). I'm having a hard time understanding this whole Jesus feels pain even though he knew what was going to happen. That's not human. It just seems like some big act if Christ all along was walking the line to fulfill every prophecy. I think you're unable to take the cry of dereliction seriously because you believe Christ knew all along what was going to happen. So why did he doubt and cry? I also don't accept the whole two-natures explanation: namely, well his human side doubted but his divine side knew the truth.
Jeremy
Marc,
I'm working from the viewpoint of a two-nature christology and trying to take seriously the points of the text which speak of Christ's suffering, doubt, lack of knowledge (second-coming), etc. Do we just simply assign this to His human nature? And if so, how do we do so without possessing an understanding of the communication of attributes that ends up being Nestorian? And in terms of my example, does this speak to Christ's human nature - is that where He gets inflicted by the disease - or does the Triune God in Himself inflict the disease? If God actually suffers and dies, what does this mean? But if we say that it is only within His humanity that God "impassibly suffers" (Cyril), can we really have any genuine speech about the suffering in Christ?
Also, did you graduate from TU? I heard Plantinga came to campus for the lectures that Dr. Spiegel had advertised on his blog. Did you attend the lectures? Anyhow, thanks per usual for your comments. I hope all is well in the midwest -- perhaps I'll see you at Xan's wedding this summer!
[Reposted so I could make grammatical corrections!]
Jeremy -
I try to limit the label of heretic to that which is in opposition to the christological and trinitarian conclusions of the ecumenical councils. There was never a council that directly deemed notions of "the death of God" heretical. Granted, some might argue that the negative affirmations of the councils necessary implicates death-of-God theology. But I'd rather just have an engaging conversation rather than fixate on who is in and who is out. Moreover, orthodoxy provides guidelines instead of actual content to a certain extent. And even though I think that the tradition of the Church has an authority over my life, I still believe that the Scriptures stand over and against inherited tradition. So we begin with orthodoxy and then go beyond it if necessary. I often become rather discouraged when there are no attempts to think creatively with and then beyond the tradition when doing theology. It is often historical and less constructive. In that vein, I deeply appreciate dialoguing with you about this because after reading your blog for a rather long period of time, I think you are asking questions that I wish more people would ask. And while we might have very different methodologies and assumptions about the nature of theology and God, I learn quite a bit from you. Gosh, that sounded so ... disingenuous, but I really mean it.
Anyhow, I have realized that we have some very basic assumptions about the doctrine of God. I am working from the understanding that there is an ontological Trinity (God in Himself) and an economic Trinity (God in His works revealed to His creatures). While I think that the one always leads you back to the other and there is a true identity between the two, I still believe that the former is essential for understanding the latter. So there is a sense in which God steps into time and space via the Incarnation. But rather than being conditioned by time and space, as the Lord in Himself who transcends both, He conditions both time and space. And as one who believes in the model of the hypostatic union, I think the whole point in a sense is the genuine miracle that occurs when the divine nature unites to human flesh in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Yes, that doesn't make much sense, but then again, I'm not beginning from a point of my own subjective reason but from the place of revelation (or attempting to do so methodologically). I realize many might radically disagree with that orientation, but that's my orientation. Therefore, within the Incarnation, there is continually this dialectic between transcendence and immanence. And I fear that without a robust understanding of the former, the focus upon the latter doesn't fully account for the fact that this is *God* who has revealed Himself fully in Jesus Christ.
I fear that I've just said everything that you already know, so forgive me if I didn't respond in a way that furthers this conversation.
And no worries about the anonymous label - thanks for taking the time to comment.
Marc,
Kait said what I basically wanted to say more pointedly. I think your christology is starting to smell Nestorian to me.
Hey Kait,
Thanks for responding and the kind words. I didn't think you were being disingenuous. I'm glad you've enjoyed reading my blog. I try to be honest. I come from an evangelical background and at some point (age 20, I'm 23 currently) I decided I needed to start asking the tough questions if I wanted to take Christianity seriously. I find so many evangelicals are dominated by fear. Fear of real theological thinking, thinking that might trouble some previously cherished beliefs.
I should say that although I may have these commitments, I find myself very much in awe of Barth and post-Barthians (hell, I read the Church Dogmatics and believe he is the best Protestant theologian that has ever lived). I understand the dialectic your talking about and appreciate your methodology.
The one outstanding question I have, is why do you think my position disallows me from saying anything legitimate to the poor and oppressed? I think, if anything, this is my greatest worry because of my deep appreciation for liberation theology.
Jeremy
Jeremy,
I assumed with this comment you wrote to Marc -- "I also don't accept the whole two-natures explanation: namely, well his human side doubted but his divine side knew the truth." -- that you weren't working from a Chalcedonian understanding of the person of Jesus Christ. So you are, in fact, working within that model but the divinity gets collapsed into the humanity? I thought you affirmed the fullness of God united to human flesh in the Incarnation via your blog post and speech about the "death of God." But then when I read that comment, I became a bit confused. Perhaps I am missing something.
I operate under the assumption (for better or worse - still deciding) that God must remain impassible in Himself in order to remain free and unchangeable. In my mind, I can't separate impassibility from immutability. Barthian scholars have argued that the former is not biblical and definitely not logically connected to the latter. But I remain uncertain. For God to remain the God who is all-powerful, I believe it is important to uphold the doctrine of immutability. Otherwise, there is the implication that He is not perfect in Himself and the power that we believe He possesses to save us from suffering diminishes. I think if you leave the tension behind that is found within the hypostatic union model - no matter how rationally unsatisfying it might be - you end up with a God who is impacted by His creation and jeopardizes His freedom and power. In some sense I don't think that we start from reason, but rather only by faith. But even though, in the footsteps of Barth, I believe that our faith seeks to understand (instead of seeking understanding in order to believe), I still don't think that your notion of God dying (losing) in Himself in order to live (winning) makes sense. I'm not sure that offers a lot of staying power.
P.S. I also respect Barth and think he is one of the greatest theologians in the history of the Church. To add to the current cliche, I'm heading to Princeton next year in hopes to study him more :) I understand your sentiments regarding the current state of evangelicalism more than I can possibly verbalize (look no further than the Rob Bell fiasco to find those who unfortunately believe that God's Yes and No are necessarily equal and eternal). As someone who lives quite literally inside evangelicalism at an evangelical seminary, I think that there is a lot of work to do. But in the broadest sense of the word, I think evangelicalism at its best is defined as "the science and doctrine of the commerce and communion between God and man, informed by the gospel of Jesus Christ as heard in Holy Scripture" (Karl Barth). If only evangelicalism in North America could forfeit its cultural and idolatrous baggage and comes to grips with the realities of the essentials aspects of the faith, it would be free to truly preach the Gospel to unbelief.
What I wrote to Marc was an attempt to anticipate a possible explanation he might offer that I would find unsatisfying. It's quite frankly a concept that I've never found convincing and seems to fracture the unity of the God-man. You were right when you said the fullness of the Godhead is united in the flesh of Jesus the Christ for me.
I suppose all of the immutability and impassibility conversations seem to me to be more beholden to a certain ontology than to scripture.
Regarding the comment but about my position not offering a lot of staying power, I can only say that I fall back on the idea that the death of the sovereign God points to the fact that we must take responsibility for one another. The incarnation for me indicates that God has left that position of power to come as one who serves us in Her weakness. I think Nietzsche is right when he calls the omnipotent God an oppressive nothingness (Piper comes to mind). Ultimately, I think you believe that a sovereign, gracious eternal God who is control offers us peace and comfort knowing that we can rely on Her in faith. I find it to be oppressive. This is exactly why I find the incarnation to be liberating good news.
Whatever Barth means by evangelical is far from what is represented in most American evangelical churches. These churches continue to be seduced by the idolatries of nationalism, patriarchy, heterosexism and militarism.
I'm a mainline Christian (PC USA). I've found that speaking with most evangelicals makes me want to give up hope in Christianity. What I found particularly troubling about evangelicals is their apparent lack of awareness of how damaging it is for American Christianity when they call Bell (and other perceived liberals) a heretic. I had an atheist friend in college who always pretended that only evangelicals were the true, consistent Christians. Anyone who deviated from that position was inconsistent. Of course, he (like most atheists) believes evangelicals are absolute morons. It's all politics and evangelicals don't seem to recognize that they do damage to their own cause when they pretend their the only REAL Christians and play into the secular left hands with such bold proclamations.
Jeremy
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Jeremy:
>> "I suspect we have different views of scripture. I suppose one of my guiding beliefs is that the Biblical authors attempted to re-narrate Jesus' life so it would conform to the prophesies in the Hebrew Bible."
Our views do differ in this regard, so I imagine that our differences here probably explain our disagreement elsewhere. Thanks for the clarification.
>> "I also recently read St. Clair's Call and Consequences. She argues that the Mark 8 passage where Jesus says 'the Son of Man must suffer' ought to be interpreted as saying that suffering is an inevitable outcome given Jesus' ministry to the oppressed and downtrodden."
Though I’m unfamiliar with St. Clair’s arguments, I’d suggest that the remainder of the passage in question appears to reduce the plausibility of her view. Mark 8:31 (in the ESV) reads, “And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.” Jesus added a degree of specificity to his statement which, in my judgment, indicated that He wasn’t simply making a general observation about the consequences His ministry would likely engender. There are further passages (such as Mark 9:30-31 and Matt. 20:17-19) which also seem to detract from the plausibility of St. Clair’s position.
>> “God did not will Jesus' suffering and Jesus himself did not invite his suffering.”
It seems to me that this is diametrically opposed to one of the central purposes of the Incarnation: God sent His Son into the world to save it, and the Son willingly offered His life for the world to be saved. I fear, though, that I may not be fully appreciating your point here.
>> “I was using Dorothee Solle's quote from Christ the Representative as a jumping off point. You might disagree but I affirm with Hegel that God held nothing back when God entered history.”
Why should we hold that God’s decision not to “hold anything back” means that the Incarnation involved a leap of faith and/or an actual risk?
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>> “Mark and Matthew both include that cry. Clearly Jesus' experienced abandonment from friends, family, and God. I'm just taking it literally. It seems that something went wrong there. As Chesterton would say, it appears that at this point God, for a second, became an atheist. I suppose I'm not positive the Father abandoned the Son, but I'm trusting that the Son would know given his perfect fellowship with the Father.”
I agree that it’s plausible that Jesus experienced abandonment to some significant extent, just as David, before Him, seemingly experienced abandonment when he wrote/spoke those same words to God in Psalm 22:1. (I also think it’s highly plausible that Jesus’s circumstances made the sensation of forsakenness profoundly more intense.) But I don’t think we’re entitled to infer, on the basis of what Jesus experienced, that the Father truly forsook Him. I also think the same applies to David’s situation: it may have felt like God forsaken Him, but it doesn’t seem that David would want us to infer that he truly believed God had forsaken him. (Surely there are times of hardship in which our pain makes it feel like God has abandoned us and left us to confront our troubles alone.) Similarly, to Jesus, it may have felt like the Father had forsaken Him—perhaps Jesus couldn’t sense the Father’s presence in the way He was accustomed to—but I doubt Jesus truly believed that the Father had actually forsaken Him.
I think that this approach to the matter allows us to affirm two things: (i) that although Jesus knew, by virtue of His intimate fellowship with the Father, the Father hadn’t forsaken Him, (ii) it nevertheless felt like He had been forsaken. As suggested above, this is a common experience for many Christians.
In any event, what would it mean for the Father to forsake Jesus, or, as is commonly said, for the Father to turn His back on Jesus?
>> “I'm having a hard time understanding this whole Jesus feels pain even though he knew what was going to happen. That's not human.”
Why would His knowledge (or His access to knowledge) of what was going to occur be expected to mitigate the pain? Why do you assume that this isn’t human? Here’s a simplistic analogy. Suppose I intend to punch a brick wall. Even though I know, beforehand, that I’ll eventually heal after experiencing the tremendous pain of punching the wall, my intuition is that this knowledge will do nothing to assuage the pain.
>> “I think you're unable to take the cry of dereliction seriously because you believe Christ knew all along what was going to happen. So why did he doubt and cry?”
Christ may not have known, prior to the crucifixion, that He would experience a profound sense of abandonment. Maybe that took Him by surprise. Or perhaps He anticipated that something along those lines might happen, but He either didn’t anticipate that it would be as intense as it was, or He correctly anticipated the intensity but the anticipation did nothing to mitigate the pain.
>> “I think your christology is starting to smell Nestorian to me.”
I don’t believe I need to maintain that two distinct persons somehow constituted Jesus in order to consistently defend the claims I’ve been making.
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Kaitlyn:
Yes! I do hope to see you there. I was visiting some family when Plantinga spoke at Taylor, so I unfortunately missed him. But I did catch his presentation in Atlanta at the EPS national meeting this past November. Seeing him and Craig in the same room was quite something. =)
>> “I'm working from the viewpoint of a two-nature christology and trying to take seriously the points of the text which speak of Christ's suffering, doubt, lack of knowledge (second-coming), etc. Do we just simply assign this to His human nature? And if so, how do we do so without possessing an understanding of the communication of attributes that ends up being Nestorian?”
To my mind, I think it’s sensible to attribute certain things to Christ’s human nature and certain things to His divine nature, for we’re still attributing these things to one person. I further think that this is just what we might expect from a being who contingently acquires a second nature. By virtue of His human nature, for example, He was able to experience hunger, fatigue, pain, and ignorance – and probably an assortment of other human sensations. And by virtue of His divine nature, for example, it was impossible for Him to sin, and He had access to the divine attributes (even if He rarely employed them, if ever).
As Thomas Morris would say, you and I are both fully human and merely human: we’re fully human in that we possess just those properties (whatever they are) which make something human, and we’re merely human in the sense that we don’t belong to any higher (or different) ontological categories. Christ, however, is indeed fully human, but He’s not merely human. He’s fully human in that He, like us, possesses just those properties which make something human, but He’s not merely human because He belongs to a higher (or different) ontological category – that of divinity. Consider how your body is fully physical, just as a stone is fully physical. But while the stone is fully and merely physical, you yourself are fully but not merely physical; you’re also animate, for you belong to a higher (or different) ontological category. To continue the illustration, your body and an alligator are both physical and animate. But while the alligator is fully physical and animate and also merely physical and animate, your body is fully physical and animate but not merely physical and animate; you’re also a rational, self-conscious agent. You have something in common with the stone and with the alligator—your body is fully physical and fully animate—but you also have properties by virtue of belonging to a higher (or different) ontological category—you’re not merely physical or merely animate. Morris extends the same style of explanation to Christ.
I'd ask you to read St. Clair before you pass a judgment. Obviously she takes into consideration these other passages you mention.
Your view of the incarnation is contingent on a certain atonement theory that I reject. I don't think it's obvious that God's willing of Jesus' death is the point of the incarnation. In fact, I think God is absolutely opposed to the death of Jesus and is in solidarity with the crucified Christ against his executors.
You keep asking me this point about the risk of faith, I don't know what else to say. You don't agree, clearly. I feel like we're going in circles.
"perhaps Jesus couldn’t sense the Father’s presence in the way He was accustomed to—but I doubt Jesus truly believed that the Father had actually forsaken Him."
This proves my point. You're assuming so much here. You have no reason to assume that Jesus actually believed that the Father 'still had his back'. I feel like you aren't taking that cry seriously. You're trying to explain it away in ways that I find very unconvincing. The way you interpret it makes it feel like an act. You should read Moltmann's the Crucified God if you want to know what that might mean for the Father to abandon the Son.
Also, I've heard all of these things before. I feel like there's still an attempt with your christology to protect the divine nature from being contaminated by the human nature (doubt, suffering, death, etc). I'd recommend Jungel if you want to hear more about God's ability to experience death and negate it (God's Being is in Becoming). It reaches a point where it feels like you have to explain away very simple passages because your theological assumptions will not permit the divine to experience suffering, death, etc. I'm simply questioning those assumptions.
Thanks for the conversation. I think I'm going to check out of this. I understand your position and remain unconvinced. I imagine the feeling is reciprocal.
Best,
Jeremy
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>> “And in terms of my example, does this speak to Christ's human nature - is that where He gets inflicted by the disease - or does the Triune God in Himself inflict the disease?”
I believe it speaks to the former: Christ’s human nature. To my mind, I think it’s safe to suggest that all of Christ’s activities are expressions of or assignable to the Economic Trinity, not the Ontological Trinity. None of the experiences of the incarnate Second Person of the Trinity was essential to Him; they were all, and continue to be, contingent. (We could frame the issue in terms of possible worlds by saying that there’s at least one possible world in which the Trinity alone exists, which means that the Incarnation-events are contingent therefore assignable to the Economic Trinity. This is because we characterize the Ontological Trinity in terms of what the Trinity is like in all possible worlds, not just in one or some.) That’s my own desperately fallible attempt, anyway… =)
>> “If God actually suffers and dies, what does this mean?”
With regard to the notion of God’s actually dying, I really have no idea what this means. In my first comment above, I gestured at the consideration that no real sense can be made of the idea of God’s dying (in Himself). With regard to the notion of God’s suffering, I believe that God is capable of experiencing something (at least) analogous to what we refer to as emotions. But I don’t believe we need to commit ourselves to divine impassibility in order to also hold that God doesn’t suffer in Himself. For God may well be essentially passible and yet not experience certain emotions in Himself, which is to say, as the Ontological Trinity. I think it’s plausible to hold that God experiences love in a possible worlds, but I don’t think it’s plausible to hold that God experiences suffering in all possible worlds.
There’s also Dr. Spiegel’s omnipathic view, which, if I remember correctly, roughly says something to the effect that God does or has the capacity to experience all emotions simultaneously. I hope that doesn’t misrepresent the view.
>> “But if we say that it is only within His humanity that God "impassibly suffers" (Cyril), can we really have any genuine speech about the suffering in Christ?”
I believe we can affirm that Christ genuinely, but contingently, suffered. And perhaps the same can be said of the other Persons as well. Perhaps God allows Himself to suffer when or because His children suffer. Maybe God is grieves when His creatures rebel against Him and refuse to embrace the greatest possible good in their lives. If so, then God isn’t essentially impassible.
Jeremy, I'm unsure if the last lines of your comment were directed exclusively to Marc. Just wanted to make sure before I spend some time over the next few days working through this a bit more by way of response. Let me know - kaitlyn.dugan@gmail.com - thanks.
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Jeremy:
Thank you for the conversation also. I hope you don’t mind if I interact with your last comment. If you happen to find yourself feeling inclined to respond—and no worries if you don’t—you’re welcome to have the last word. In any case, I hope to converse with you again sometime.
>> “Your view of the incarnation is contingent on a certain atonement theory that I reject. I don't think it's obvious that God's willing of Jesus' death is the point of the incarnation. In fact, I think God is absolutely opposed to the death of Jesus and is in solidarity with the crucified Christ against his executors.”
I suppose it seems to me that the prevailing winds of Scripture strongly suggest, if not explicitly endorse, the thesis that the Father sent the Son on our behalf, and that the Son willfully surrendered His life in accordance with the will of the Father and out of love to save the world. But perhaps your view of Scripture, and the various reconstructions you favor, motivate you to interpret the collection of relevant passages in a substantially different light. It appears that our disagreement in this regard is more fundamental than elsewhere.
>> “You keep asking me this point about the risk of faith, I don't know what else to say. You don't agree, clearly. I feel like we're going in circles.”
I guess I continued to ask because it seemed to me that certain claims (about the Incarnation’s involving a leap of faith and risk) were merely asserted, not supported. I wanted to explore the argument or rationale behind these two assertions.
>> “This proves my point. You're assuming so much here. You have no reason to assume that Jesus actually believed that the Father 'still had his back'. I feel like you aren't taking that cry seriously. You're trying to explain it away in ways that I find very unconvincing. The way you interpret it makes it feel like an act.”
To my mind, the conjunctive claim that (a) Jesus truly believed (and not merely felt) that the Father had forsaken Him, and that (b) the Father had actually forsaken Jesus, requires one to make more assumptions than the explanation I suggested – and, further, more assumptions than the text itself appears to warrant. The text provides, I think, a glimpse at Jesus’s psychological state, but it doesn’t provide—or even imply, I’d suggest—anything about what the Father did, or didn’t, do in fact. I’m arguing that claim that the Father had abandoned Jesus is an inference based upon insufficient information. And if there’s an explanation of Jesus’s statement which plausibly accounts for the event, and which makes the least amount of assumptions, it seems to me that such an explanation should be preferred for its apparent simplicity. Indeed, one could affirm part of the explanation I’m advocating—that the texts only presents a look at Jesus’s psychological state—and remain agnostic about whether the Father actually forsook Jesus. This appears to involve fewer assumptions still.
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>> “You have no reason to assume that Jesus actually believed that the Father 'still had his back'.”
Here are a few candidates for reasons which strike me as plausible.
(1) The Trinitarian thesis that each of the Persons, in some sense, participates or is involved in the work of the other Persons. Although we can ascribe specific activities to the work of specific Persons (respectively), this doesn’t detract from the collective participation of each Person in Their individual, economic efforts.
(2) My claim from above that the orientation of Scripture directs us to the Father’s sending the Son to save the world and the Son’s freely and lovingly offering Himself to save the world. This unifies the intentions and wills of the Father and Son.
(3) The assumption that (i) Jesus either always did the Father’s will or (ii) didn’t always do the Father’s will. The option that Jesus didn’t always do the Father’s will seems theologically unacceptable, as does the hypothesis that Jesus was ever mistaken regarding the Father’s will. So, if Jesus always did the Father’s will, and Jesus was never mistaken about the Father’s will, then if Jesus either allowed Himself to be crucified or deliberately offered His life to be taken, then it follows that one of those alternatives cohered with the Father’s will.
>> “I feel like you aren't taking that cry seriously. You're trying to explain it away in ways that I find very unconvincing. The way you interpret it makes it feel like an act.”
I guess I don’t quite see why. I’m not claiming that what Jesus experienced at the time of the cry was artificial or insincere. It appears that He genuinely felt abandoned, “just like” there are times of difficulty in a Christian’s life when she sure feels forsaken. If we were to ask Jesus whether He really believed, at the time, that the Father had actually forsaken Him, I think it’s likely that He would answer: “No, I didn’t truly believe that the proposition the Father has forsaken me was true at the time of the cry. It just no longer felt to me He was intimately near as He had been throughout my life. My experience was similar to, though more intense than, David’s when he cried out. David didn’t really believe, however, that God had abandoned him.”
>> “I feel like there's still an attempt with your christology to protect the divine nature from being contaminated by the human nature (doubt, suffering, death, etc).”
I suppose I don’t see why this is the case either. As I suggested to Kaitlyn, given that we’re trying to understand a Person with two natures—one of which is essential to Him, the other contingent—it seems that we’re going to need to make certain kinds of distinctions. That is, there are probably things which are true of one nature and untrue of the other nature, or explainable in terms of one nature but not explainable in terms of the other nature, and so I believe we ought to proceed accordingly with our Christology.
>> “It reaches a point where it feels like you have to explain away very simple passages because your theological assumptions will not permit the divine to experience suffering, death, etc.”
I’m certainly willing to reconsider my Christology if there are passages which my view is unable to plausibly account for. I just don’t know of any. =)
OK I feel I must respond because I have one more thing to add.
I think one of my main problems with the way you attempt to explicate the cross is that you have a Christology that seems to have docetic tendencies. Jesus Christ does not seem to actually be human in your schema. Sure, he might feel pain and doubt but we all know that his omniscience and perfect divinity would never permit him to harbor such unworthy thoughts. I think the way you’re doing theology is too ordered and structured (there seems to be no appreciation of paradox or tension, which is why you don’t seem to understand why arguing for the rationality of the incarnation is a profound betrayal of Christian faith. As Kierkegaard would say, the very ones who try to defend the faith are the ones who often destroy it). You don’t seem to appreciate the centrality of the cross, the trauma of the cross. I simply want to articulate a Christology that begins with the history of Jesus Christ and the cross of Christ. The same Jesus Christ who asked the Father to take this cup from him and died abandoned by his best friends, family, and God Herself. Your Christology seems to be grounded upon certain attributes of God that I find to be a simple abstraction. Bonhoeffer once said that when we want to call Jesus Christ God we start with the cradle and the cross not omnipotence, omniscience etc. I’m trying to do justice to the fact that he was a human being as simple like me or you. Why you can’t simply admit that Jesus Christ believed himself to be abandoned is beyond me? It’s simply absurd to think that we could go back to the cross and hear Jesus yell that haunting cry and ask: “OK Jesus, I know things might SEEM rough, but come on man, you know the Father hasn’t really abandoned you, right? This is part of the plan. Didn’t God give you the instructions before you left heaven? Don’t you remember?” In Barth’s doctrine of reconciliation one can always ask the question: who is damned? The answer is simple: Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was actually God-forsaken. It wasn’t simply a feeling but a reality. While I part ways with Barth on the atonement at some point, if you’re going to hold onto some sort of substitutionary view, Lord knows it’s quite convincing because he actually takes the ‘No’ of the cross seriously. The same ‘No’ I’m accusing you of not taking very seriously. Barth actually integrated that ‘No’ into the heart of the doctrine of God in his doctrine of election. The cross is not even a ‘No’ in your scheme. It’s just a temporary inconvenience. You might accuse me of taking that ‘No’ too seriously, and I imagine Kait has similar beliefs. But I would accuse you of completely bypassing that ‘No’, which makes me think your theology is one of glory.
I also think the Reformed tradition has always emphasized that Christ's descent into hell is best encapsulated by his cry from the cross. Perhaps you reject the descent into hell, but Calvinists have tended to view Christ as being ACTUALLY abandoned by God on the cross as symbolic of his descent into hell.
Jeremy
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