Kierkegaard on the Difference Between the Tragic Hero and Abraham

22 Sunday Mar 2020

Posted by memoirandremains in Faith, Faith, Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard, Uncategorized

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Abraham, Absurd, Agamemnon, Faith, Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard

In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard draws an interesting contrast between Abraham and Agamemnon: both men are called upon to sacrifice a child: but Agamemnon is a tragic hero and Abraham is an example of faith. What then is the true distinction between the two?

The tragic hero is compelled to his end by an ethical demand. To fulfill his oath, Agamemnon must lead the force into war. The demand to sacrifice is daughter is tragic and painful, but it is compelled by the demand of his oath. His act is meaningful and ethical to the community.

But it is not so with Abraham. There is no ethical duty which is recognizable to anyone who watched Abraham. The soldiers who saw Agamemnon move to give up his daughter, would have a basis to understand and even sympathize with Agamemnon. But if one were to watch Abraham: his actions would make no ethical sense. There is no apparent duty.

A second and related comparison comes with the matter of disclosing his conduct.

In this section Kierkegaard first makes an observation about concealment and revelation. In the older Greek tragedies, the concealment was brought about by fate. Oedipus kills his father, but it is concealed to him. It is revealed afterward.

In the modern age, the act of concealment is brought about the character’s decision. He compares two types here. There is the esthetic concealment, where two lovers conceal to bring about their desired end. And to have the happy ending we enjoy such action.

Esthetics permits these actions, even if unethical:

But esthetics is a civil and sentimental discipline that knows more ways out than any pawnshop manager. What it do then? It does everything possible for the lovers. (75)

But ethics requires revelation: The concealment is a deception, and even if pleasing aesthetically it is repugnant to ethics. Ethics requires an explanation, a justification for the conduct. There must be a public rationale.

Abraham differs, because he cannot explain. What is there to say? He is seeking something absurd. Abraham is not merely doing something which seems outside of all ethics; he is doing something he knows cannot be true. He will kill Isaac and Isaac is the child of promise and God will fulfill his promise. This is not merely improbable; it is paradoxical.

There is no public rationale, because the wisdom of God is greater than man.

We go wildly astray if we think Kierkegaard says that faith is believing things which are untrue or improbable. That is what is often miscredited to him. Faith is not believing stupid or false things. Faith is believing that God is above human categories:

1 Corinthians 1:20–29 (ESV)

²⁰Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. ²²For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, ²³but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, ²⁴but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

²⁶For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. ²⁷But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; ²⁸God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, ²⁹so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

Some brief observations on the Church and heavenly realities.

11 Wednesday Mar 2020

Posted by memoirandremains in Ecclesiology

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Eastern Church, Ecclesiology, Liturgy, Worship

One of the critical aspects of the Christian religion is the nature of the Church. There have been many ways this could be understood and explained.

In this short summary taken from an article “Some Classic Views of the Church”in the Ashland Theological Journal, Owen H. Alderfer provides the a summary of the self-understanding of the Eastern Church:

The church is a means whereby the ideas and experiences of the divine realms—the real world—are communicated to men. Indeed, as the future concerns of the Eastern church would show, there must be concerns for truth—orthodoxy, the law of God, and clerical orders, but these are of value only as they contribute to experiencing the relation to Christ and the attainment of immortality through Him.
Such a view of the church resulted in the development of an extensive liturgy as an aid to the attainment of spiritual reality. Congar in his work After Nine Hundred Years shows that the Eastern church across the years has placed great value on “a line of descent from celestial realities to the midst of the sensible world,” so that there developed “a rather sumptuous liturgy, imbued with Holy Mysteries and the idea of ‘Heaven on Earth.’ It was a church essentially sacramental, a church of prayer with less attention to the exigencies of its militant and its itinerant state.”

First there is something important in this understanding of the church; something which is routinely absent in any self-understanding of the average American evangelical congregation: the church is an outpost of another age. It partakes and points forward to the age to come. The church is an outpost of heaven and the worship of the Church resounds in heaven.

The contemporary Church is too mundane; too immanent in all its concerns. The head of Church is ascended in high; we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places; or we are blessed not at all.

If the Church does not express divine worship, it is not the Church of Christ:

1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Col3.1-4 (ESV)

But there is a danger in this self-understanding, particularly with an emphasis on sacrament and liturgy: while typical American worshipper can sing his contemporary songs which make him feel good; the practice of words and forms of precise character and order can become magic. The worship again becomes immanent: but here my behavior wrenches some sort response from heaven.

I believe it was Pelikan who wrote of worship being mystery but not magic.

We are such instantaneous and easy isolators that anything can be wrenched to bad end.

Another concern I have here is the apparent Platonism: where physical forms portray heavenly reality.

I see the physical form we have here being the Word of God, baptism and the Supper. But the ornate forms, the gold and incense were not prescribed for the worship of Christ. The temple forms pre-represented truths about Christ which became moot when Christ appeared.

The power of God is the Spirit of God working in the Word of God. The forms place too great a premium upon human ingenuity and cultural taste.

Some observations on the “absurdity” of faith from Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling

06 Friday Mar 2020

Posted by memoirandremains in Faith, Faith, Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard, Uncategorized

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Absurd, Faith, Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard, Leap of faith

Kierkegaard’s Fear and Loathing considers the fact of God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. A central concern of this work has to do with the obvious ethical problem of murder: how can Abraham be a great man of “faith” when his greatest act of “faith” is so obviously unethical?

Kierkegaard takes on this problem from multiple directions. Here, to merely get the ideas straight in my own mind, are certain elements of this text which I found most interesting and useful.

“The old saying that things do not happen in the world as the parson preaches.” (Cambridge University Press, trans. Sylvia Walsh.) Too often philosophy is too abstract, to pat; too often sermons are more platitude than help in patience.

When it comes to the question of Abraham, this book works to avoid neat theories of Abraham’s act: What could he do? God was making him do this thing. Or, well he knew that Isaac would live again in the resurrection; so what does it matter? Or Abraham knew it was some mere trial.

The work (written by a pseudonym; thus, there is some distance between Kierkegaard and the “author” of the work, does nothing to shy away from the fact this great act of faith hinges upon a murder; and thus, unethical in the fullest sense of the world. “What is left out of the Abraham’s story is the anxiety … to the son the father has highest and most sacred duty.”

The ethical makes a demand upon Abraham which runs counter to the command of God; thus, the ethical paradoxically becomes a temptation!

One aspect of the analysis lies with the common understanding of ethical as merely a culturally determined pattern for behavior. While faith may be consistent with such ethics, faith is not necessarily constrained by such ethics.

Abraham cannot kill Isaac and point to some greater ethical good. If it were, then Abraham’s killing could be justified on the ground of the greater good. But, there is no argument of the loss of the one for the community. And yet somehow, Abraham’s act is a matter of faith. He is not a “tragic hero” who ultimately has an ethical justification for an unethical act.

Kierkegaard aims to disentangle the matter of temptation (by the ethical) from the matter of paradox.

Next, faith is not merely resignation to the greater will of God and a willingness to lose Isaac. Kierkegaard writes at length of the Knight Infinite Resignation. This knight resigns himself to the loss because there is (again) a greater context in which the paradox of God’s command “makes sense”.

A common intellectual tactic is to resolve a present problem into an unknown future good in the world to come. There is something in the “infinite” which justifies this action in the “finite”. In such a circumstance, the present loss and conflict removes the difficulty of the command of God.

Again, the resolution of the matter is completed by resolving and dismissing the “paradox” of God’s command.

But this will not work, because Abraham does not proceed according to some platitude and hope for the vague future. Abraham expects to murder and receive Isaac in the same act: “By faith Abraham did not renounce Isaac, but by faith Abraham received Isaac.” (41)

In another place, Kierkegaard notes that Abraham was not hoping for some future but was hoping for something in this life: God had promised Abraham that Isaac was the son of promise.

How then does this work out? Abraham is tempted to the ethical; but how could God command the unethical. Abraham is tempted to merely resign himself to duty or overwhelming power, but instead expects to receive Isaac back.

Moreover, Kierkegaard rules out another escape hatch. Abraham is not believing in something merely improbable (which is another dodge undertaken in the name of faith). Kierkegaard expressly does not mean by faith, something highly unlikely.

Rather, solves his problem by grasping it squarely and stating that faith is a paradox; it actually does hinge upon something “absurd” which we too often which to domesticate.

Abraham believed. He did not believe that he would be blessed one day in the hereafter but that he would become blissfully happy here in the world. God could give him a new Isaac, call the sacrifice back to life. He believed by virtue of the absurd, for all human calculation had long since ceased. (30)

By absurd, he does not mean “the improbable, the unforeseen, the unexpected.” (39). Before Abraham can believe that he will receive Isaac in this life, he must first fully resolve himself to the fact that Isaac is lost. He knows that Isaac is lost, utterly lost. That is the “movement” of infinite resignation. Faith then takes an “absurd” step to believe that Isaac will be restored in this life – knowing full well that Isaac is lost. Faith then says, Yes, Isaac is lost and I will receive Isaac back though he is lost.

One could ask what this dense, often difficult discussion of faith and ethics has to do with the actual life of a Christian today? I do not necessarily find myself struggling with Hegelian categories of thought on the same grounds as that faced by Kierkegaard in the 19^th Century church of Europe.

The answer lies in our constant tendency tame faith in some manner.

Olivia Walsh, in her essay, “The Silencing of Philosophy” makes the observation

This idea of the absolute duty to God in faith can lead to some rather remarkable commands, such as the Gospel injunction to hate one’s “own faith and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life” (Luke 14:26 RSV) which exegetes tend to water down in typically ethical fashion.

I will testify to having heard this and similar texts being domesticated by turning the word “hate” into the phrase “love less”. But the language itself is shocking. We can say this means hyperbole; but if so, what is the toned-down understanding of “hate”.

Moreover, Jesus in nowise ever abrogates the duties to one’s family. Indeed, he commands love even of one’s enemies. Kierkegaard helps us here by seeing the paradox in the duty toward God and human beings. There is a resignation to loss and recovery back which refuse to be resolved by ethical games or linguistic tricks.

Indeed, the Christian religion itself hinges upon the most profound of paradoxes:

2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV)

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

God made Christ sin – the one who was sinless; so that we who are sinful might become righteous. There are no ethical tricks, no linguistic tropes, no logical move which resolves the utterly paradoxical movement in this passage. Faith takes hold of the paradox in joy.

The Right Way to Shake Off a Viper.3 (The Sovereignty of God)

18 Tuesday Feb 2020

Posted by memoirandremains in Cotton Mather, Sovereignty, Uncategorized

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Cotton Mather, Defamation, Slander, Sovereignty of God, The Right Way to Shake off a Viper

1 Acknowledge the Sovereignty of God, and not this only but the righteousness and faithfulness of the Sovereign God in the wrongs which are defamatory invectives of any man may offer you. If dirt be cast upon you, my first advice to you is what was once given to the prophet, Go down to the house of the potter.[1]

Adore the uncontrollable sovereignty of God which may make you a vessel of dishonor on a much worse account than that of being a little reproached by some in whose reproaches perhaps a man is really honored. With a most profound adoration of divine sovereignty, confess that if God single out you to be an object of numberless indignities and malignancies and satisfy himself in beholding what is done to you and by you and under them, there is nothing to be murmurred at[2].

Forever submit, yea, tho’ the dispensations of sovereignty be never so dark, mysterious, unsearchable[3]; and with all possible submission, say: Lord, I am willing to be whatever thou wilt have me to be; do what thou wilt with my name; if thou wilt have it vilified, let it be so. Only let thy Name be glorified.

I may tell you, this resignation will have admirable consequences. It had so when a servant of God oppressed with a world obloquies, thus resigned himself:

If the Lord say, I have no delight in thee, behold, there am I, let Him do to me as seemeth good unto Him!

1 Sam. 15.26[4]

[1] This is a reference to Jeremiah 18, where God instructs Jeremiah to go the house of the potter and see that a potter has complete sovereignty over the vessels he makes from clay:

Jeremiah 18:5–8 (ESV)

⁵Then the word of the Lord came to me: ⁶“O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the Lord. Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. ⁷If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, ⁸and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it.

Thus, the instruction is to realize that in everything which happens God is ultimately sovereign. While it goes beyond the scope of this footnote, when this writer refers to sovereignty it does not mean fatalism. The way in which human freedom and divine sovereignty relate is a matter with significant discussion within Christian theology.

[2] God is sovereign. God is content with this attack upon you; therefore, there is no logical basis for human complaint.

[3]

William Cowper

God moves in a mysterious way

His wonders to perform:

He plants His footsteps in the sea,

And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines

Of never-failing skill,

He treasures up His bright designs,

And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;

The clouds ye so much dread

Are big with mercy, and shall break

In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,

But trust Him for His grace;

Behind a frowning providence

He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,

Unfolding every hour:

The bud may have a bitter taste,

But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,

And scan His work in vain;

God is His own Interpreter,

And He will make it plain.

[4] The reference is to David resigning himself to God’s sovereignty at the time that David’s son Absalom had raised a rebellion against David and drove David from Jerusalem.

How the Spirit Gives Testimony to the Word

09 Sunday Feb 2020

Posted by memoirandremains in Herman Bavinck, Scripture, Uncategorized

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Calvin, Herman Bavinck, Scripture, Testimony of the Spirit, Word

But that must not be understood as if we blindly submit to a thing that is unknown to us. No; we are conscious that in Scripture we possess unassailable truth and feel that “the undoubted power of his divine majesty lives and breathes there,” a power by which we are drawn, knowingly and willingly, yet vitally and effectively, to obey him.⁶⁰ Calvin knew that in this doctrine of the testimony of the Holy Spirit he was not describing some private revelation but the experience of all believers.⁶¹ Nor was this testimony of the Holy Spirit isolated from the totality of the work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of believers but integrally united with it. By it alone the entire church originates and exists. The entire application of salvation is a work of the Holy Spirit; and the witness to Scripture is but one of many of his activities in the community of believers. The testimony of the Holy Spirit is not a source of new revelations but establishes believers in relation to the truth of God, which is completely contained in Scripture. It is he who makes faith a sure knowledge that excludes all doubt.

⁶⁰ J. Calvin, Institutes, I.vii; Commentary on 2 Tim. 3:16. Ed. note: Bavinck again refers to the literature he cites in par. 21 in Gereformeerde Dogmatiek, which is given above in n. 58.

⁶¹ Ibid., I.vii.5. Erasmus also affirms that it is especially the Spirit of Christ who, by his secret working, communicates unwavering certainty to the human mind.” Cf. Martin Schulze, Calvins Jenseitschristemtum in seinem Verhältnisse zu den religiösen Schriften des Erasmus (Görlitz: Rudolf Dulfer, 1902), 54.

Herman Bavinck, John Bolt, and John Vriend, Reformed Dogmatics: Prolegomena, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 583–584.

Faith and fear go hand in hand

28 Tuesday Jan 2020

Posted by memoirandremains in Faith, Faith, Fear, fear of God, Fear of the Lord, Thomas Watson, Uncategorized

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Faith, Fear, fear of God, fear of the Lord, Thomas Watson

The graces of the Spirit work for good. Grace is to the soul, as light to the eye, as health to the body. Grace does to the soul, as a virtuous wife to her husband, “She will do him good all the days of her life.” Prov. 31:12. How incomparably useful are the graces! Faith and fear go hand in hand; faith keeps the heart cheerful, fear keeps the heart serious; faith keeps the heart from sinking in despair, fear keeps it from floating in presumption; all the graces display themselves in their beauty: hope is the helmet, 1 Thess. 5:8. meekness “the ornament,” 1 Pet. 3:4. love “the bond of perfectness,” Col. 3:14. The saints’ graces are weapons to defend them, wings to elevate them, jewels to enrich them, spices to perfume them, stars to adorn them, cordials to refresh them: and does not all this work for good? The graces are our evidences for heaven; is it not good to have our evidences at the hour of death?

Thomas Watson, A Divine Cordial; The Saint’s Spiritual Delight; The Holy Eucharist; and Other Treatises, The Writings of the Doctrinal Puritans and Divines of the Seventeenth Century (The Religious Tract Society, 1846), 17–18.

“The Church of Christ is the greatest and finest product of human history”

07 Tuesday Jan 2020

Posted by memoirandremains in Ecclesiology, P. T. Forsyth, P.T. Forsyth, Uncategorized

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Church, Ecclesiology, P.T. Forsyth, The Work of Christ

We believe in the Holy Catholic Church. My contention would be that, apart from such a position as I desire to bring to your notice–some real apostolic belief in the real work of Jesus Christ–apart from that no Church can continue to exist. That is the point of view which I take at the outset. The Church is precious, not in itself, but because of God’s purpose with it. It is there because of what God has done for it. It is there, more particularly, because of what Christ has done, and done in history. It is there solely to serve the Gospel.

It is impossible not to observe at the present day that the Church is under a cloud. You cannot take any division of it, in any country of the world, without feeling that that
is so. Therefore I will begin by making quite a bold statement; and I should be quite prepared, given time and opportunity, to devote a whole week to making it good. The statement is that the Church of Christ is the greatest and finest product of human history. It is the greatest thing in the universe. That is in complete defiance of the general view and tendency of society at the present moment. I say the Church is the greatest and finest product of human history; because it is not really a product of human history, but the product of the Holy Spirit within history. It stands for the new creation, the New Humanity, and it has that in trust.

P.T. Forsyth, The Work of Christ

Chapter one

Richard Sibbes Sermon on Canticles 7.5 (Union With Christ)

24 Thursday Oct 2019

Posted by memoirandremains in Richard Sibbes, Union With Christ

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Richard Sibbes, Union with Christ

Sibbes now moves on to the paradox of the church in this age. How can we be both simultaneous a saint and a sinner? “My undefiled.’ Undefiled is a high word to be applied to the church of God here; for the church, groaning under infirmities, to be counted perfect and undefiled.”

First argument: we cannot judge correctly. Only God is in a position to judge our state

But Christ, who judgeth aright of his church, and knows best what she is, he yet thus judgeth of her.

Second, on way basis does God make that judgement?

But, how is that? The church is undefiled, especially in that it is the spouse of Christ, and clothed with the robes of his righteousness.

Sibbes takes this from the doctrine of penal substitution atonement, such as set forth in

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Cor. 5:21

For there is an exchange so soon as ever we are united to Christ. Our sins are upon him, and his righteousness is made ours; and therefore in Christ the church is undefiled.

Since the church bears Christ’s righteousness, the church is undefiled. The Christian’s righteousness is gifted. The beauty of the Son is the greatest worth:

Christ himself the second person is the first lovely thing next the Father; and in Christ all things as they have relation to him are loved, as they are in him. Christ’s human nature is next loved to the second person. It is united, and is first pure, holy, and beloved.

He then comes back to the basis of the church’s righteousness: the righteousness of Christ is possessed by the church on the basis of the union between Christ and the church. “Christ mystical” means not a shadowy idea; but rather the spiritual union between Christ and his people:

Then, because the church is Christ mystical, it is near to him; and, in a manner, as near as that sacred body of his, both making up one Christ mystical. And so is amiable and beloved even of God himself, who hath pure eyes; yet in this respect looks upon the church as undefiled.

Christ and his church are not to be considered as two when we speak of this undefiledness, but as one. And the church having Christ, with all that is Christ’s, they have the field, and the pearl* in the field together. And Christ giving himself to the church, he gives his righteousness, his perfection, and holiness; all is the church’s.

Philip Henry,Christ Is the Foundation, and Believers Are the Building, Philip Henry

21 Saturday Sep 2019

Posted by memoirandremains in Christology, Uncategorized

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1 Corinthians 3:11, Christ the Foundation, Phillip Henry, Puritan, Sermons

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This sermon by Phillip Henry (father of Matthew Henry) is an excellent example of a type of sermon construction which develops the structure around a central metaphor. The text of the sermon is

1 Corinthians 3:11 (ESV)

¹¹For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

From this he derives his doctrine:

Doctrine: That our Lord Jesus Christ is the foundation, and believers are the building reared upon that foundation.

After addressing certain potential objections (such as Peter is the foundation of the church), Henry begins to address the text.

Point One: Christ is the Foundation

He then considers what type of foundation is Christ? How is he explained as a foundation?

First, he was a foundation which put into place by another:

Isaiah 28:16 (ESV)

¹⁶ therefore thus says the Lord God,

“Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion,

a stone, a tested stone,

a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation:

‘Whoever believes will not be in haste.’

God appointed Christ to this service.

Second, he was a “low” foundation. He rested in humility:

Philippians 2:8 (ESV)

⁸And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

“Into poverty and persecution, contempt and contradiction, to be spurned and trampled on.” Without Christ’s humiliation even to the point of death, there would be no salvation, no reconciliation.

Third, Christ was a foundation stone; something enduring and solid. Isaiah 28:16

Fourth, he a foundation we cannot see – even though he is always present. He draws this proposition from two texts:

1 Peter 1:8 (ESV)

⁸Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory,

Matthew 28:20 (ESV)

²⁰teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Fifth, he is a precious foundation. Isaiah 28:16.

1 Peter 2:6 (ESV)

⁶For it stands in Scripture:

“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone,

a cornerstone chosen and precious,

and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

Sixth, he is a permanent foundation:

Isaiah 26:4 (ESV)

⁴ Trust in the Lordforever,

for the LordGodis an everlasting rock.

Seventh, he is an elect foundation. Isaiah 28:26

Eighth, he a foundation which has been tested and tried; he will not fail

Point Two: Our duty to this foundation

First, to believe that he is the foundation appointed by God. John 3:16

Second, to see our need of him. A building cannot exist without a foundation.

Third, to renounce all other foundations.

Fourth, to go to him: “repair to Him in the way of faithful and fervent prayer. Tell Him you are sensible of your need of Him, [and] you are undone without Him.”

Fifth, build upon this foundation.

Psalm 62:1–2 (ESV)

¹ For God alone my soul waits in silence;

from him comes my salvation.

² He alone is my rock and my salvation,

my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken.

Psalm 46:1 (ESV)

¹ God is our refuge and strength,

a very present help in trouble.

Sixth, place all upon this foundation or it will be worthless:

1 Corinthians 3:12–14 (ESV)

¹²Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— ¹³each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. ¹⁴If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.

Point Four: What Kind of Building is the Church

First, it is a spiritual building, in but not of this world

1 Peter 2:5 (ESV)

⁵you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 2:5 (ESV)

⁵you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Second, it is a spacious building

Revelation 7:9 (ESV)

⁹After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands,

Third, is a high building

Philippians 3:20 (ESV)

²⁰But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,

Fourth, it is a holy building

Ephesians 2:21 (ESV)

²¹in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.

Psalm 4:3 (ESV)

³ But know that the Lordhas set apart the godly for himself;

the Lordhears when I call to him.

Fifth, it is a lively building

Sixth, it is a light building

Ephesians 5:8 (ESV)

⁸for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light

Seventh, it is a secure building upon a secure foundation

Matthew 16:18 (ESV)

¹⁸And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Eight, it is a spreading, growing building

Ephesians 2:21 (ESV)

²¹in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.

Point Five: Our duty to this building

First, to see that we have a secure standing in the building. Ivy and moss may grow up and cling to the building, but are not of the building.

Second, to seek the good of the building (the entire church).

Is knowledge of God equally available to all, through the use of reason?

24 Saturday Aug 2019

Posted by memoirandremains in Theology, Uncategorized

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Douglas Kelly, Enlightenment, Knowing God, knowledge of God, reason

In his Systematic Theology, Douglas Kelley makes an interesting observation concerning our knowledge of God. In his explain of how knowledge of God is made particular, within the context of the Church, Kelley draws the contrast with the Enlightenment belief that all knowledge is available universally, ahistorically through principles of reason:

The philosophy of the Enlightenment has had an aversion to ‘particularlity’, preferring instead supposedly universal ideas drawn by rootless, individual thinkers from concepts that the human spirit extracts from self, from nature and from history (in varying combinations)….That God should be known by a particular revelation in a particular community of faith was abhorrent to the, and in many respects their hostility to the particularlity of the revelation of God’s truth has constituted the deep, underlying fault-line dividing Western Culture from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century.

Douglas Kelly, Systematic Theology: The God Who Is (Ross-shire: Christian Focus Publications Ltd, 2008), 1:435.

The idea that knowledge of God (or indeed any related questions) should be knowable beginning from any particular position makes inherent sense to us post-Enlightenment souls. My-self and my reason are sufficient to know and to draw conclusions about God and the “meaning of life”.

By the way, this is not the profound, learned observation we may think it to be. I recall my brother as a child positing this argument, Why does anybody else think they know more about God than me? My opinion is as good anyone else.

This is the reason that another’s conclusions about God can be so unsetting to us: If I meet a man who holds to a different religion, it causes me to question my own. Since both of us are equally positioned to draw proper conclusions, then I must then question the rationality of my position. The only tenable conclusions will ultimately be either no-one knows or everyone knows. There is either no knowledge (and those who think they possess such knowledge are deluded), or everyone knows: in which case the knowledge of very low value.

But such solutions are untenable to most people. They fail on two grounds. Most importantly, they fail because they are unsatisfying. No one knows what life is bothers most people too much. Fortunately, a drug and entertainment culture are sufficient to keep most people distracted, amused to death.

Such solutions also fail because they offend our vanity. We desire to be better situated than others: to be smarter, more in the know, et cetera.

These two problems lead to various “solutions” such agnosticism as a badge of intellectual honesty and virtue or esoteric knowledge. We each have our taste and hence our solution.

But consider against Kelly’s observation: this knee-jerk belief, this Enlightenment doctrine is nothing than a bald assertion. How could one, by reason, possibly know that sufficient knowledge of God must be universally accessible to anyone who takes the time to think? Simple observation does not lead to such a conclusion. There are no universal conclusions which are reached by all. Thus, one posits reason to one’s conclusions: and a lack of reason must inform those who disagree. The agnostic must think the believer of what-ever religion lacking in reason; a quality which the agnostic (and those of his sort) alone possess. And thus, reason becomes a sort of revelation which only a certain sort of person can possess. We are back to particularlity.

Kelly asserts the Christian position that God can only be known on the terms and in the way determined by God:

However, if one wants to meet with the real God, it has to be on his terms. He will be met with in the community of faith which He established, and which He maintains personally by His Word and Spirit; a community which, in turn, bases its life and teaching upon the divinely revealed, particular word in a community that lives by the Spirit.

One can rejects this proposition (and many do). But it is not less intellectually honest to contend that God can only be known in a particular way than to argue that God can be sufficiently known by a-historical reason independent of place or person. The Enlightenment doctrine is an article of bad, blind faith which cannot reasonably assert general warrant for itself; beyond the number of persons who accept the proposition. Reason is really a kind of revelation; and the agnostic, atheistic position, or universalist position (those are the essential options), are particular communities which lay claim to the truth unknown to others.

We are all arguing from a particular community.

The Christian position is that the Spirit of God uses the Word of God to make the people of God, and thus God is only known in that space. (To be clear here, Kelly – and I – are Protestant Christians. And thus, I am not contending that God can only be known in the context of churches in commune with the Bishop of Rome, for instance. There is a potential ambiguity here on the question of “church”.)

This creates a coherent understanding of the knowledge of God, in that the Word of God acts to make us known before God. Kelly draws this point out further. If God could be found outside of the believing community, this would contradict the nature of God. “Otherwise, God could be found impersonally [the church requires personal relationship to disclose the personal God] and generally, rather than personally and particularly.”

It not only permits us to know God, it causes us to be known to God:

Hebrews 4:12–13 (ESV)

¹²For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. ¹³And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

The Word of God makes God known to us; while it makes us known to God. It causes to be known.

Very often Christians use this passage in such a way that the knowing is really only subjective: the words of Scripture cause me to better understand my-self. The Word of God thus acts like a sort of flashlight to help me look around my own psyche.

But the text is claiming something different: I am not being exposed to myself; I am being exposed to God: “Even to come into a service where believers are worshipping the Triune God strips away pretense, causing one to be frightening unveiled before the Holy One.” 436.

This act of coming to know that I am exposed to God (because nothing is really hidden from God), is too much for many. “For such reasons, multitudes tragically prefer false gods who have been fabricated by other sinners, so as to keep themselves from being embarrassed by an honest exposure of who they really are, and potentially humbled and changed before the true God.” (436)

But to be humbled is to be freed; to be judged by this exposure is to be forgiven. For God is merciful and ready to dismiss all charges against us. He exposes like a surgeon cleaning a wound to end an infection. He kills that which kills us so that we be alive to God in Christ.