Soren Kierkegaard, The Mirror of the Word, Part Two

24 Tuesday Apr 2018

Posted by memoirandremains in Exegeting the Heart, Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard, Uncategorized

Tags

Executing the Heart, heart, James 1, Kierkegaard, Mirror, Obedience, Reading, The Mirror of the Word

“What is Required in Order to Derive True Benediction From Beholding Oneself in the Mirror of the Word?

“First of all, what is required is that thou must not look at the mirror, not behold the mirror, but must see thyself in the mirror.”

At this point, Kierkegaard is getting to what the Word is supposed to do to one when it is read: specifically, what does this passage in James say the Word is supposed to do when it is read. He explains this by referring to “reading and reading”:

Thus the lover [who had received a letter] had made a distinction between reading and reading, between reading the dictionary and reading the letter from the lady love.

This means that when we read the Word, we must not treat the Word as the object and we the subject in control: rather, the Word is the subject and we are the object being examined. — This is not bare subjectivity of meaning — this does not mean that there are thousand “meanings” in the text and thus all ‘readings’ are equally valid. It would be easy to understand Kierkegaard as advocating some sort of hyper-reader-response theory:

So the lover made a distinction, as regards this letter from his beloved, between reading and reading; moreover, he understood how to read in such a way that, if there was a desire contained in the letter, one ought to begin at once to fulfill it, without wasting a second.

Think now of God’s Word. When thou readest God’s Word eruditely — we do not disparage erudition, far from it — but remember that when thou does read God’s Word eruditely, with a dictionary & c., thou are not reading God’s Word …

There are words on the page, that is true. But the reading does not stop at understanding the words: the words are there to do something to the reader. The one who reads the lover’s letter is not merely engaged in an intellectual exercise; the reading is undergone to change the reader.

There is a “point” to reading the Word:

And if there is a desire, a commandment, an order, then (remember the lover!), then be off at once to do accordingly.

To which one may object, but what of all the obscure and difficult passages. Kierkegaard answers brilliantly: well there are many things you do understand. Tell you what: do all the things which you in fact can understand, and after you have done all that let us consider the obscure passages.

This gets to a matter of Hebrews 5:14. There is a correlation between our ability to uderstand the Word and our obedience to the Word. Our correspondence in life to the Word, our correspondence in affection transforms our ability to understand:

14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

Cognition

Behavior Affection

Each of these three affect the other. Kierkegaard is explaining that if we read merely for cognition, we have not read the Word. It is not inert knowledge which one seeks, but transformation. And James 1:22 explains that one transformation which must take place is that the Word must illuminate and expose the reader: the reader is being examined and seen when the Word is rightly read.

How then is this done? What does it look like in practice?

Books John Newton Wouldn’t Read

03 Friday Feb 2017

Posted by memoirandremains in John Newton, Reading, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

John Newton, Reading

Old John Newton once said that there were some books which he could not read, they were good and sound enough; but, said he, “they are books of halfpence; — you have to take so much in quantity before you have any value; there are other books of silver, and others of gold, but I have one book that is a book of bank notes; and every leaf is a bank note of immense value.”

-Charles Spurgeon, Sermons vol. 1, no. 4, “The Personality of the Holy Ghost”

Thomas Watson: 24 Helps to Read the Scripture.10

04 Saturday Jun 2016

Posted by memoirandremains in Bibliology, Faith, Reading, Thomas Watson, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

24 Helps to Read the Scripture, Faith, Reading, Thomas Watson

In this section, Watson makes one argument: To read the Scripture profitably, we must believe that the Scripture comes from God.

He supports that direction with the contention that the assertion of divine origin is not a bare assertion, but one grounded in reason. Thus, it is an interesting mix of presuppositional and evidentiary apologetic.

First, the basic direction

Give credence to the word written; believe it to be of God; see the name of God in every line. The Romans, that they might gain credit to their laws, reported that they were inspired by the gods at Rome. Believe the Scriptures to be divinely inspired. 2 Tim. 3:16: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.”

Before going further with this argument, we must realize the importance of this direction. If we do not believe the Scripture to be sacred, we cannot read it with any profit. All good which we receive from God comes through the conduit of faith, of trust and belief. If we do not trust or believe the words of Scripture, the words can never do us good. It did the disciples no good to be told that Jesus had risen from the dead, when they did not believe the story related by the woman. Luke 24:11.

Watson then turns to his evidence: He sets up his argument by testing the presuppositions against evidence. His basic argument runs as follows:

If the Scripture is divine, then it will have quality X.
It has quality X.
Therefore, the Scripture is divine.

Who but God could reveal the great doctrines of the Trinity, the atonement of Jesus Christ for sinners, the resurrection? Whence should the Scriptures come, if not from God?

He then makes a second argument which supports and develops the first. The structure of the argument is:

If the Scripture were from someone beside it God, it would lack quality X.
It does not lack quality X.
Therefore, it is from God.

However, to make it more rhetorically emphatic, he phrases the argument, It is not from someone beside God, because it has quality X.

Sinners could not be the authors of Scripture; would they indite such holy lines, or inveigh so fiercely against the sins which they love?

Saints could not be the authors of Scripture; how could it stand with their sanctity to counterfeit God’s name, and put “thus saith the Lord,” to a book of their own devising?

Angels could not be the authors of Scripture. What angel in heaven durst personate God, and say, “I am the Lord?”

Then re-asserts his primary contention and adds additional divine qualities: antiquity, profundity, purity, harmony, efficacy.

Believe the pedigree of Scripture to be sacred, and to come from the Father of light. The antiquity of Scripture speaks its divinity. No human history extant reaches farther than Noah’s flood; but the Scripture treats of things before time. Beside, the majesty, profundity, purity and harmony of Scripture, show it could be breathed from none but God himself.

Add to this the efficacy the written word hath upon men’s consciences; by reading Scripture they have been turned into other men, as may be instanced in Austin, Junius, and others. If you should set a seal upon a piece of marble, and it should leave a print behind, you would say there was a strange virtue in that seal; so that, when the written word leaves a heavenly print of grace upon the heart, it argues it to be of divine authority. If you would profit by the word, you must believe it to be of God. Some skeptics question the verity of Scripture; though they have the articles of religion in their creed, yet not in their belief.

He ends with the restatement

Unbelief enervates the virtue of the word and makes it abortive; who will obey truths he does not believe? Heb. 4:2: “The word did not profit them, not being mixed with faith.”

Thomas Watson, “How We May Read the Scriptures with Most Spiritual Profit,” in The Bible and the Closet: Or How We May Read the Scriptures with the Most Spiritual Profit; and Secret Prayer Successfully Managed, ed. John Overton Choules (Boston: Gould, Kendall and Lincoln, 1842), 25–27.

Is not want of time

25 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by memoirandremains in Reading, Scripture, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

R.C. Chapman, Reading, Scripture

The Book of God is a store of manna for God’s pilgrim children; and we ought to see to it that the soul get not sick and loathe the manna. The great cause or our neglecting the Scriptures is not want of time, but want of heart, some idol taking the place of Christ. Satan has been marvellously wise to entice away God’s people from the Scriptures. A child of God who neglects the Scriptures cannot make it his business to please the Lord of glory: cannot make Him Lord of the conscience; ruler of the heart; the joy, portion, and treasure of the soul.

Robert C. Chapman, Choice Sayings: Being Notes of Expositions of Scripture

Thomas Watson: 24 Helps to Read Scripture.9

19 Thursday May 2016

Posted by memoirandremains in Isaiah, J.I. Packer, John Owen, Reading, Scripture, Thomas Brooks, Thomas Watson, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

humility, Illumination, Isaiah 66:2, J.I. Packer, Reading, Thomas Brooks, Thomas Watson

IX. Come to the reading of Scripture with humble hearts; acknowledge how unworthy you are that God should reveal himself in his word to you.

There are two elements here. First, at the most basic level humility is required for any learning. Learning is the movement from ignorance to knowledge. That movement can only begin with the acknowledge of ignorance — which requires humility. It if the fool who will not learn: “fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Prov. 1:7). “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice” (Prov. 12:15).

Second, there is the revelation of God through the Word of God.

Isaiah 66:2 (ESV)

But this is the one to whom I will look:

he who is humble and contrite in spirit

and trembles at my word.

Thomas Brooks explains, “Humility is both a grace, and a vessel to receive more grace.”

The reception of the Scripture in humility is how God reveals himself to us. J.I. Packer summarizes Owen’s doctrine of the Spirit’s illumination of the Scripture as follows:

How does the Spirit bring about this effect? By a threefold activity. First, he imparts to the Scriptures the permanent quality of light. Owen appeals to biblical references to Scripture as ‘light in a dark place’ (2 Pet 1:19), a ‘light’ to men’s feet and a lamp to their path (Ps 119:105), a word whose entrance gives ‘light’ (130), and other similar passages. By light, Owen means that which dispels darkness and illuminates people and situations. Light, by its very nature, is self-evidencing. ‘Let a light be ever so mean and contemptible; yet if it shines, it casts out beams and rays in a dark place, it will evidence itself.’19 Scripture, through the covenanted action of the Holy Spirit, constantly ‘shines’, in the sense of giving spiritual illumination and insight as to who and what one is in the sight of God, and who and what Jesus Christ is, both in himself and in relation to one’s own self and finally, in the broadest and most inclusive sense, how one ought to live. Thus it makes evident its divine origin.

Second, the Spirit makes the Scriptures powerful to produce spiritual effects. They evidence their divine origin by their disruptive and recreative impact on human lives. Owen quotes in this connection the biblical descriptions of the word of God as ‘quick and powerful’, ‘able to build you up’, and ‘the power of God’ (Heb 4:12; Acts 20:31; 1 Cor 1:18).

Third, the Holy Spirit makes Scripture impinge on the individual consciousness as a word addressed personally to each man by God himself, evoking awe, and a sense of being in God’s presence and under his eye. This is what Owen means when he speaks of the ‘majesty’ of the Scriptures. So he writes: ‘the Holy Ghost speaking in and by the word imparting to it virtue, power, efficacy, majesty, and authority, affords us the witness, that our faith is resolved into’.

J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1990), 90–91.

Watson concludes:

God’s secrets are with the humble. Pride is an enemy to profiting. It has been said that the ground on which the peacock sits is barren; that heart where pride sits is really barren. An arrogant person disdains the counsels of the word, and hates the reproofs: is he likely to profit? James 4:6: “God giveth grace to the humble.” The most eminent saints have been of low stature in their own eyes; like the sun at the zenith, they showed least when they were at the highest. David had “more understanding than all his teachers.” Psalm 119:99: but how humble he was. Psalm 22:6: “I am a worm and no man.”

Thomas Brooks, The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 4 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1867), 353.

Thomas Watson, 24 Helps to Read Scripture.8

13 Friday May 2016

Posted by memoirandremains in Meditation, Reading, Thomas Manton, Thomas Watson, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

24 Helps to Read Scripture, Francis Bacon, Meditation, On Studies, Reading, Thomas Manton, Thomas Watson

The previous post in this series may be found here

VIII. Meditate upon what you read. Psalm 119:15: “I will meditate in thy precepts.” The Hebrew word to meditate, signifies to be intense in the mind. In meditation there must be a fixing of the thoughts upon the object.

Meditation means serious consideration. Rather than emptying the mind, it means to fill it. Thomas Manton has a useful expansion on the concept of meditating upon what one reads: give it entertainment, treat it like a guest:

Receive the word, give it a kind entertainment. There is an act of consideration; meditate upon it seriously, that truth may not float in the understanding, but sink into the heart: Luke 9:44, ‘Let these sayings sink down into your hearts.’ Believe it: the truth is a sovereign remedy; but there wanteth one ingredient to make it work, and that is faith: Heb. 4:2, ‘The word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.’ There is an act of the will and affections, which is called, ‘a receiving the truth in love,’ 2 Thes. 2:10. Make room for it, that carnal affections may not vomit and throw it up again. Christ complaineth that ‘his word had no place in them,’ John 8:37, οὐ χωρεῖ ἐν ὑμῖν, like a queasy stomach possessed with choler, that casts up all that is taken into it: 1 Cor. 2:14, ‘A natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.’ Let it lodge, and quietly exercise a sovereign command over the soul.

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 10, Sermons on the 17th Chapter of John, Sermon XI, (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1872), 237. We must to know the words if they are to have any effect upon us. Francis Bacon in his essay, On Studies, speaks of “digesting” a book:

Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books, else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know, that he doth not.

Watson concludes:

Luke 2:19: “Mary pondered those things.” Meditation is the concoction of Scripture; reading brings a truth into our head, meditation brings it into our heart; reading and meditation, like Castor and Pollux, must appear together. Meditation without reading is erroneous; reading without meditation is barren. The bee sucks the flower, and then works it into the hive, and so turns it into honey; by reading we suck the flower of the word, by meditation we work it into the hive of our mind, and so it turns to profit. Meditation is the bellows of the affection. Psalm 39:3: “While I was musing the fire burned.” The reason we come away so cold from reading the word, is because we do not warm ourselves at the fire of meditation.

Dogmatically Undogmatic

09 Monday May 2016

Posted by memoirandremains in Reading, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Imperious Ignorance, Reading, Themelios

Yet most attractive of all is that the claim of lack of clarity or ignorance allows one to pursue one’s own position quite dogmatically while appearing to be very undogmatic. After all, the claim of ignorance looks as though it advances no position, but vitally it tacitly asserts that one’s opponent’s position cannot be decisively asserted—it is forever only a possibility, not a certainty on which one could base action or decision. There is something very rewarding in being a closet dogmatist while appearing to be the reverse.

This in turn raises two questions, one more philosophical, the other more theological. Philosophically, how do I move from my observation about my own understanding that I find something unclear (fundamentally subjective) to the proposition that something is unclear for everyone else too (something universal)? After all, I frequently have the experience that a text from my children is subjectively unclear to me, but laughably clear to others versed in the texting argot of today’s youth. Of course it can be a mark of genuine epistemic humility to recognise one does not know something or that something is unclear to one. But it can be an important mark of epistemic humility too to concede that others may have understood something that I have not, rather than insist that if I do not see something no-one else has or even could either.

“The Art of Imperious Ignorance” by Michael J. Ovey in Themelios, read it all

Thomas Watson, 24 Helps to Read the Scripture.7

07 Saturday May 2016

Posted by memoirandremains in Reading, Thomas Watson, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

24 Helps to Read the Scripture, Reading, Thomas Watson

VII. Labor to remember what you read. Satan would steal the word out of our mind; not that he intends to make use of it himself, but lest we should make use of it. The memory should be like the chest in the ark, where the ark was put. Psalm 119:52: “I remembered thy judgments of old.” Jerome speaks of that religious lady, Paula, that she had most of the Scriptures by heart; we are bid to have “the word dwell in us.” Col. 3:16. The word is a jewel; it adorns the hidden man, and shall we not remember it? If the word stays not in the memory, it cannot profit. Some can better remember a piece of news than a line of Scripture; their memories are like those ponds where the frogs live, but the fish die.

If we have no memory, we cannot mediate:

Get a love to spiritual things. We usually meditate on those things which we love.—The voluptuous man can muse on his pleasures: the covetuous man on his bags of gold. Did we love heavenly things, we should meditate more on them. Many say they cannot meditate, because they want memory; but is it not rather because they want affection? Did they love the things of God, they would make them their continual study and meditation.

Thomas Watson, The Christian Soldier, or Heaven Taken by Storm, ed. Armstrong, Second American Edition. (New York: Robert Moore, 1816), 54–55.

Failing to remember what we read is like chewing food but never swallowing: we gain a taste but get little profit.

Thomas Watson, 24 Helps to Read the Scripture

02 Monday May 2016

Posted by memoirandremains in Reading, Scripture, Thomas Watson, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

24 Helps to Read the Scripture, Judgment Day, Reading, salvation, Spiritual Disciplines, Thomas Watson

In this section, Watson gives a general proposition, three motivations and a rebuke.

First, the general proposition: Read the Scripture with seriousness:

VI. Read the word with seriousness. I one go over the Scripture cursorily, says Erasmus, there is little good to be got by it; but if he be serious in reading it, it is the savor of life; and well may we be serious if we consider the importance of those truths which are bound up in this sacred volume. Deut. 32:47: “It is not a vain thing for you; it is your life.” If a letter were to be broken open and read, wherein a man’s whole estate were concerned, how serious would he be in reading it.

Watson does not give further explanation of what he means by seriousness; however, some consideration will make the point clear. First, seriousness at the least requires undivided attention. Go into a room where someone else is intently watching a movie or a sporting event at a critical juncture. Their entire attention is focused upon that one thing and any distraction is likely to upset them. If the Scripture is as serious as fictional characters in a petty conflict, then certainly reading the Scripture must require focused attention.

Second, seriousness must entail an earnest consideration. Children plummeted into a game will give themselves heart and soul to some task. They will not merely give undivided attention but they will consider each aspect earnestly: it matters how this matter concludes.

Third, seriousness a willingness to respond as a result of the information received. Your friend watching a movie may give undivided attention and earnest consideration to the movie — but once it is over, your friend is not likely to move to Manhattan to be of assistance to the character whose life has been upended by a surprise revelation. When the movie is over, your friend quickly forgets what has taken place.

Yet, when we read the Scripture, we must read it with a seriousness that we are transformed by what we have read.

Watson now gives three examples why Scripture requires such seriousness. First, Scripture is serious because it concerns Christ, the Lord and King of Creation:

In the Scripture our salvation is concerned; it treats of the love of Christ, a serious subject. Christ hath loved mankind more than the angels that fell. Heb. 2:7. The loadstone, indifferent to gold and pearl, draws the iron to it; thus Christ passed by the angels, who were of more noble extraction, and drew mankind to him. Christ loved us more than his own life; nay, though we had a hand in his death, yet that he should not leave us out of his will. This is a love that passeth knowledge; who can read this without seriousness?

Second, Scripture concerns our eternal end; nothing could of greater concern to a human being than the unending end of his soul:

The Scripture speaks of the mystery of faith, the eternal recompenses, and the paucity of them that shall be saved. Matt. 20:16: “Few chosen.” One saith the names of all the good emperors of Rome might be engraved in a little ring; there are but (comparatively) few names in the Book of Life.

Third, Scripture explains with what deadly concern we must treat our destiny:

The Scripture speaks of striving for heaven as in an agony. Luke 13:24. It cautions us of falling short of the promised rest. Heb. 4:1. It describes the horrors of the infernal torments, the worm, and the fire. Mark 9:44. Who can read this and not be serious?

The lightness with which we treat Scripture must in part be because we do not actually think that much hangs in the balance. We belong to an age which does not consider Judgment Day to be a concern. Just today, a friend wrote to me and said many people treat Judgment Day as “Acceptance Day” because there God will be such an accepting Judge. Watson writes of this sort:

Some have light, feathery, spirits; they run over the most weighty truths in haste, (like Israel who eat the Passover in haste,) and they are not benefited by the word. Read with a solemn, composed spirit. Seriousness is the Christian’s ballast, which keeps him from being overturned with vanity.

Thomas Watson, 24 Helps to Read the Scripture.5

28 Thursday Apr 2016

Posted by memoirandremains in Hebrews, Reading, Thomas Watson, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

24 Helps to Read the Scripture, Reading, Study, Thomas Watons

V. Get a right understanding of Scripture. Psalm 119:73: “Give me understanding, that I may learn thy commandments.” Though there are some knots in Scripture which are not easily untied, yet things essential to salvation the Holy Ghost hath plainly pointed out to us.

Not everything in the Scripture is easy to understand. There are many reason for this. First, there are thousands of years between us and the events described. A reference to a custom or place may simply be unavailable to us.

Second, some concepts are difficult: the difficulty may not lie in the explanation but in the difficulty of the thing itself. The Scripture calls to an understanding and life which is not “normal” in the world as it currently stands. The Scripture speaks of something fundamentally different than what we would normally experience: thus there are difficulties in the thing itself: It would be like explaining to a stone what it feels like to fly.

Third, some difficulty lies with us. Sometimes the difficulty is of a more intellectual nature. Certain ideas or phrases may be harder for some to follow than others. Not all people are born with the same abilities. (Commentaries and sermons help here.)

Fourth, some difficulties are moral. Hebrews 5:14. It was common for ancient theologians to think that piety was the most important element in theological study. One cannot understand another human being well without a certain affinity. Communion with God and a heart which longs for holiness will not be separated.

Fifth, some-things are difficult for our good. We profit by needing to struggle with the text, just like an athlete profits from a strong opponent.

Watson concludes:

The knowledge of the sense of the Scriptures is the first step to profit. In the Law, Aaron was first to light the lamps, and then to burn the incense; the lamp of the understanding must be first lighted before the affections can be inflamed. Get what knowledge you can by comparing scriptures, by conferring with others, by using the best annotators. Without knowledge the Scripture is a sealed book; every line is too high for us; and if the word shoot above our head, it can never hit our heart.