Friday, February 23, 2018

Inspiration, Authority and Revelation but does Theology Develop?

Longish but helpful post here on ETC on the inspiration of Scripture.

That raises questions about authority in relation to Scripture as God's revelation.

Then Michael Bird has posted a very thoughtful piece on the development (or not) of theology.

I will take comments which discuss these matters but NOT if a cross reference is made to discussion of That Topic. We have done that topic extensively, recently, and I am taking a rest from it.

67 comments:

Anonymous said...


"So the New Testament canon is comprised of the writings inspired by the Holy Ghost."

"Yes."

"But the early Church recognised many writings as inspired by the Holy Ghost, only some of which were canonised."

"Yes, except that the canon was inspired by the Holy Ghost in one way and the others were inspired by the Holy Ghost in another way."

"How were the canonical works inspired?"

"In a profoundly *canonical* way."

"Which is what exactly?"

"Well, they were inspired in such a way as to be suitable for canonisation."

"Can we say anything clear about that suitability?"

"Yes, it absolutely requires inspiration."

"I think I see what you mean."

BW

Anonymous said...

In studies of the canon, I have been much more exercised by two other books.

Timothy Lim's Formation of the Jewish Canon shows that whilst all Jews recognised some sacred scriptures, those of different tendencies had different canons of those scriptures, and the canon that rabbinical Jews and Protestant Christians adopted was the one formulated by the Pharisees.

This is important because it shows the Pharisees and the apostles, as later the rabbis and the fathers, holding adjacent rather than opposed positions in the wider world of Second Temple Judaism. Why did Jesus argue with Pharisees? Because they had so much in common with him; he did not bother to argue with the Sadducees. Why did the Pharisees bitterly protest the execution of St James?; because they respected the Torah-observance of the Jerusalem church. Why did the rabbis break with the bishops?; because belief in the divinity of the Holy Spirit seemed to them to go beyond Daniel 7:13. Rethinking of the relation between Christianity and Judaism will be a major project of C21 theology.

https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300164343/formation-jewish-canon

http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/another-reformation/307931

In The Church's Guide to Reading Paul, Brevard Childs, who retrieved *canon* as a tool for modern interpretation, accounts for the NT canon and its structure, not with an external criterion like *inspiration*, but rather as an internally coherent organism. Just as the OT comprises several groups of writings, each shaped by its own readers-in-community, so the NT is a carefully organised collection of the letters of St Paul with the gospels as an introduction, the pastoral epistles as a conclusion, and the Revelations as an epilogue. His approach not only presses beyond unconvincing searches for an ancient rationale for modern notions of biblical authority, but gives the reader leverage on several contemporary moves in NT scholarship.

https://www.eerdmans.com/Products/6278/the-church39s-guide-for-reading-paul.aspx

BW

Anonymous said...

This following article by an old classmate of mine has buried progressive theories of doctrinal development. Once one has an accurate knowledge of Second Temple Judaism, one no longer sees a huge gap from Galilee and Jerusalem to Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381) for development to bridge. And so one can no longer cite the Nicene fathers as a precedent for sweeping revisions today. And one no longer needs a theory of how that works.

But if doctrine does not progress, teaching and practice nevertheless adapt to time and place, sometimes well and sometimes not. What Mike Bird is rightly defending is the necessity of a critical theology that need not be making Progress to have a sacred vocation in the Church.

David S. Yeago, “The New Testament and the Nicene Dogma: A Contribution to the Recovery of Theological Exegesis,” Pro Ecclesia 3 (1994): 160-61.

https://zrhaydon1.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/childs-theo-ex.pdf

BW

Peter Carrell said...

In part, Bowman, your comments remind me of something Jacob Neusner said (the one and only time I heard him speak). I am sure he knew he was being provocative, but what he said was also profound because I have often thought about it since. Something like this:

Every Christian truth was revealed on the Day of the Resurrection.

Father Ron Smith said...

" McDonald concluded, “The Christian community believed that God continued to inspire individuals in their proclamation, just as God inspired the writers of the NT literature. They believed that the Spirit was the gift of God to the whole church, not just to writers of sacred literature. There never was any biblical, theological, or ecclesiastical argument in early Christianity that claimed that the Spirit ceased its activity in the church either at the completion of the biblical canon or at any point in its existence” (p. 346)."

I suppose the real question that requires to be answered - re the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church - is this: Does God, via the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, still carry out the consequences of what Jesus revealed to his disciples? - "When the Spirit comes, He will lead you into ALL the Truth"

This surely implies that 'All the Truth' up until that time, was not and could not be known.

Whether, as you, Peter (via Jacob Neusner) are suggesting; "Every Christian Truth was revealed on the Day of the Resurrection" - or not - can only be judged in the light of what Jesus was here saying.

Is there a possibility that, as long as human beings exist on earth - before the parousia - there is still truth to be revealed (as I, myself believe); that we are still NOT in full possession of the whole Truth of the Gospel.
This means that the Holy Spirit is still in the act of revealing the Truth. What God may require of us, in this circumstance, is to be OPEN to a new revelation of God's intentions towards us, that may just surprise us - in terms of the true extent of God's beneficence toward us despite our all-too-human capacity to sin? The priest-poet R.S.Thomas was part of one such scintilla of revelation in his inspiration for his epic poem "God bade me welcome".

Father Ron Smith said...

Thanks for this thread, Peter. I behoves all of us to realise that theology is not static. If it is not contemporary, it may have no relevance to life being lived in the 'now'. I like this statement contained in your second link:

".[1] At no point in the Christian tradition has theology ever been definitive, it has always developed and progressed. Theology is never frozen or finished, it is always “under construction” as the church struggles to know its own mind while it attends to Scripture, wrestles with tradition, observes nature, reflects on experience, and speaks within its local cultures.
Read more at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/euangelion/2018/02/problem-theological-development/#FOLArf1BMiwa8XWj.99"

Happy St.Matthias Day - the Gospel theme - 'The New Commandment of Love'

Anonymous said...

"When the gold in the indulgence box does ring,
The soul from Purgatory will spring."

-- theological Progress circa 1516

BW

Anonymous said...

"Every Christian truth was revealed on the Day of the Resurrection."

attr. Jacob Neusner

"The theology of the gospels, far from being a radical innovation within Israelite religious tradition, is a highly conservative return to the very most ancient moments within that tradition, moments that had been largely suppressed in the meantime—but not entirely. The identification of the rider on the clouds with the one like a son of man in Daniel provides that name and image of the Son of Man in the Gospels as well. It follows that the ideas about God that we identify as Christian are not innovations but may be deeply connected with some of the most ancient of Israelite ideas about God."

Daniel Boyarin. (2012) The Jewish Gospels. Kindle 777-781.

BW

Anonymous said...

"Jews, it seems, had no difficulty whatever with understanding a Messiah who would vicariously suffer to redeem the world. Once again, what has been allegedly ascribed to Jesus after the fact is, in fact, a piece of entrenched messianic speculation and expectation that was current before Jesus came into the world at all. That the Messiah would suffer and be humiliated was something Jews learned from close reading of the biblical texts, a close reading in precisely the style of classically rabbinic interpretation that has become known as midrash, the concordance of verses and passages from different places in Scripture to derive new narratives, images, and theological ideas.

Throughout this book, we have been observing how ideas that have been thought to be the most distinctive innovations of Jesus himself or his followers can be found in the religious literature of the Jews of the time of Jesus or before. This observation takes nothing away from the dignity or majesty of the Christian story, nor is it meant to. Rather than seeing Christianity as a new invention, seeing it as one of the paths that Judaism took—a path as ancient in its sources as the one that rabbinic Jews trod—has a majesty of its own...

Let me make clear I am not claiming that Jesus and his followers contributed nothing new to the story of a suffering and dying Messiah; I am not, of course, denying them their own religious creativity. I am claiming that even this innovation, if indeed they innovated, was entirely within the spirit and hermeneutical method of ancient Judaism, and not a scandalous departure from it."

Daniel Boyarin. (2012) The Jewish Gospels. Kindle 1866-1880.

BW

Anonymous said...

"If [theology] is not contemporary, it may have no relevance to life being lived in the 'now'."

Which, depending on the time and place, may be just fine. Christians live in a transhistorical reality-- the eternal Christ. Sometimes that puts them in the avant garde, sometimes in some mode of classicism, or even retrieval.

Believers per se care less and less about that the more they let God be God. Some of us always want to be leading parades; others must always be on a winning team; still others live in their armor eager to swing swords; a few take up residence in distant civilisations. Most of us will live long enough to try them all as we can. But the kaleidoscope of life, which knows no Progress in this aeon, requires or allows the changes, and the 'now' is only understood in retrospect. Temperamental stuckness in any one of these modes is usually a fault of judgment. The wisdom of consensus and tradition usually enables us to avoid it, and that is the Way.

BW

Anonymous said...

Thinking, Peter, of your reading in both Karl Barth and Henri de Lubac, I am struck by how much our space to live and flourish has been given light and air by scholars whose return to the sources has freed us from systems that were so fitting once upon an overzealous time that they became straitjackets to every later time. One can-- most of us do-- argue with something in the work of both of them, of course, but even their strongest critics do not propose to go back to the cramped space in which we lived before they peeped over the battlements at the worlds that were between the C1 and the C16. Today, the scholars who are appropriating the insights of ancient Israel and the Christian East are enabling a similarly free intelligence. Once we have it, we will see what we see.

BW

Bryden Black said...

You wisely point us, Bowman, to David Yeago's Pro Ecclesia article. Here's another which extends the analysis helpfully. Craig Blaising, “Creedal Formation as Hermeneutical Development: A Reexamination of Nicaea.” Pro Ecclesia 19/4 (2010), pages 371–88. The crux of it is as you say: Doctrine itself does not progress - Jesus is clearly worshipped in the NT as being on a par with Yahweh his Father, and notably via the Christianized Shema of 1 Cor 8 - but the time and the place of 2-4 C ancient Mediterranean world requires us to translate these doctrines (i.e. the task of hermeneutics) into Greek metaphysical terms that might win the day then and there.

Father Ron Smith said...

There is one word, Peter, that some conservative Christians are very afraid of, and that word is EVOLUTION. They refuse to accept that humanity may have descended from Neanderthals; they have problems with the earth being millions of years old; they do not understand that the Biblical Adam and Eve were not other than the wonderful myth of the Genesis understanding of Creation. What they perhaps do not understand is that Biblical 'myth' is not untruth but rather a way of explaining that which, humanly speaking, is unable to be understood in any other way.

Perhaps most importantly, they refuse to understand that all theology is, by its very nature, provisional human speculation on the great Mystery of God. It, too, is subject to evolution. The role of the Holy Spirit among humans (and in the Church) is that of continuing the revelation to and empowerment of successive generations to deal with the evolving nature of creation as it continues to evolve and which is still ongoing. God is NOT dead, nor is God's creation static.

Father Ron Smith said...

"Let me make clear I am not claiming that Jesus and his followers contributed nothing new to the story of a suffering and dying Messiah; I am not, of course, denying them their own religious creativity. I am claiming that even this innovation, if indeed they innovated, was entirely within the spirit and hermeneutical method of ancient Judaism, and not a scandalous departure from it." - Daniel Boyarin. (2012) The Jewish Gospels. Kindle 1866-1880. (per BW)

One wonders, then, why the Keepers of the Law at the time of Jesus (Scribes and Pharisees) thought that Jesus teaching was NOT within the Tradition? It seemed to them so subversive of The Tradition that they had Jesus killed!

apropos of The Tradition; both Jesus and Paul were careful to relegate the Tradition of The Law to the institution, through Jesus of the revolutionary "New Commandment" which replaced the exigencies of The Law with the provision of Grace through FAITH. The Law, by itself, could never save or redeem anyone. Wher Jesus was 'doing a new thing' was his substitution of the law by the revolutionary act of salvation through suffering - not the suffering of sinners but the suffering of God in Christ.

I was struck by the final words of Paul in today's Epistle (Rom.4:13-25) - which was all about the FAITH of Abraham. These words stood apart:

"No distrust made him (Abraham) waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what He had promised. Therefore, his FAITH was 'RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS'. Now the words 'IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM' - WERE WRITTEN - NOT FOR HIS SAKE ALONE, BUT FOR OURS ALSO. It will be reckoned to us who believe in Him Who raised our Lord Jesus from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and RAISED FOR OUR JUSTIFICATION."

This Justification comes not from the law but from faith in Christ.

Father Ron Smith said...

Dear Peter,

By coincidence (or God's incidence?) I found the following comment on the Gospel of John 13:34 on my daily retreat with the Jesuits:

Jesus lived according to the teaching found in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. Jesus calls us to reflect on God’s love by revealing a deeper meaning to the law of God found in the Old Testament. His life is an example of how to love others. By observing and listening to Jesus, we see the new commandment in action. Loving others is not always easy, but remembering how much we are loved by God gives us the strength to share that love with others."

This confirms Jesus' use of the Torah BUT with the new insight of Love over the Law. "They'll know you are my disciples by your love".



Peter Carrell said...

Thank you for recent, and very fine comments here!

Two quick observations:
(1) Boyarin draws attention to closeness of Second Temple Judaism and Christianity. That the differences between the two phenomenon may have been small in the time of Jesus does not mean they could not be much greater over time. Two rail tracks that start out a millimetre out of parallel will be a kilometre apart eventually!
(2) The closeness Boyarin draws attention is necessarily the case! If the worship of Jesus and the development of understanding of his deity were completely out of sorts with the Judaism of the apostles, Christianity would never have gotten going, being rejected instantly as crass polytheism. The subtlety of being free to worship Jesus and to talk of him as identified with God drew on Jewish concepts of (e.g.) the angel of the Lord, Wisdom as the personification of God.

Bryden Black said...

1. I think Peter there are more helpful ways of addressing how the early Christians viewed the 'deity' of Jesus. Not least, Soulen's work re Jesus as the Bearer of the Divine Name has proven most fruitful. This shows itself at both Phil 2 and notably in Jn 17, but as a whole in FG via the I am sayings.

2. On another tack altogether: I am struck by Fishbane's Intertextual analyses. For, following Hays now and his recent two books, that is what in effect the Evangelists are doing when they quote/echo/allude to the OT in so many and striking ways. At least, that's my hypothesis having read Hays and knowing a bit about intertextual insights from OT studies. What do reckon?!

Peter Carrell said...

Hi Bryden
Even the bearing of the Divine Name requires some sense of what kind of being may bear that name and whether that being may be a human being, hence my comment ... but it is about all these "bridges" being important, not pitting one against the other.

Glen Young said...


Ron,

I am a conservative Christian who is not the least bit scared of the word "evolution. If you are referring to Darwinism [Neo-Darwinism]; I suggest you read up on Mendel's Law to find out why you can't get inter-genus crossing.
Nigh on every mutation which occurs animal and human cells is destructive.If you are talking of the Hugh range of possible characteristics which can be bred in plants and animal through selective breeding;that's another story.Evolution is a good theory, just short of any facts to establish it.

I recognize that universe did not come into being yesterday; but also believe that the Scriptures tell me everything that is necessary for my SALVATION; but perhaps not every thing to satisfy my curiosity.So when God reveals through Moses about Adam and Eve and the "fall"; I have a coat hanger to hang my beliefs about life and how it should be lived; and the intrinsic value of Christ and the Holy Spirit in the process of me becoming the God wishes me to be.



Jean said...

In respect to why the particular scriptures were chose for Canons I have no idea : ), however, I associate strongly with the commentators that are of the opinion the Scriptures contain a higher degree of authority than other Holy Spirit inspired written work albeit it the past or present. Once upon a time, many many years ago, God gave me some words which spoke to me at that point in time. It wasn’t until two years later that I actually discovered they were in the Bible. This perhaps has shaped my viewpoint about Scripture being divinely inspired and the authoritative truth of God.

I see theology as a means of providing understand and meaning to scripture. However as theologian, clear throat, are human I would expect that at all times in history the ‘glasses’ of our context and culture can lead to some mis-interpretations or representations of the truth. Shall we pick women or slavery? Say if one lives in a patriarchal society the scriptures bearing reference to the women in positions of leadership in the old or New Testament may not be seen, or the women at the well the ‘first apostle’ but our glasses may clearly focus on the two verses by Paul in order to confirm in a way what we already believe. Or if one’s livelihood is dependent upon slavery and all your neighbours have slaves then one will see the fact that slavery was not overtly condemned in the bible and interpret it as condoned, one won’t recognise that slavery in biblical times was in fact of a different nature than what is being practiced currently and exercised differently to the extent of even sometimes being an act of mercy for someone without any other livelihood.

I think these ‘glasses’ can become less pronounced the closer our relationship and understanding of God and His ways becomes. So I agree Christianity is intricately linked with the OT and is a whole. The likes of Simeon and Anna who had ‘long prayed for the messiah’ knew who Jesus was even if it was lost on some. Just as God called Newton and Wilberforce to campaign against slavery, they saw the scriptures about slavery in their time through the lens God gave them rather than their society. Certainly the NT ushered in something quite profound and new and it must have been quite an affront in many cases to people but it was not something that was not hinted at or unrecognised by those who read well the Jewish scriptures. Didn’t Jesus say about the verses in Isaiah, this is now fulfilled in your hearing?

Does theology evolve? Well it definitely changes, as I believe does our individual and collective understanding of scripture, although sometimes it may come full circle. The challenge is discerning and testing that that as our perspective changes or develops it is due to God giving or furthering our insight rather than us wanting it to fit what we see through our glasses. However, even as theology changes I do not believe scripture does. Truth is ever present whether we see it or not.

Hmm well Father Ron fear of evolution? Can’t say I believe in evolution but I can’t say I was ever afraid of it either! Nor do I mind if other Christian’s I know do believe in it, to me it is not pivotal to faith. However, in saying that I have known two people for whom evolution was a barrier to becoming Christians and ‘letting it go’ as such as something they steadfastly held to happened at the moment they both became Christians. Some people are keen to see evolution as the means through which God created the world as this means those who hold fast to it won’t feel like they have to abandon what they believe to be true in order to be open to the gospel. And the truth is you don’t really have to abandon any belief to be open to the gospel, God starts wherever we are at. My reasoning on the matter is very simplistic on this topic, that if apes evolved then why did they stop, and why don’t we see half apes and men still roaming the earth? But I know that probably won’t satisfy many scientists.

Anonymous said...

Peter, Alan Segal, Daniel Boyarin, Peter Schaeffer, et al are agreed that the *two powers in heaven* of Daniel 7:13 legitimated a high christology in Judaic tradition before the birth of Jesus. The obvious question is: what in still earlier Judaic tradition had legitimated Daniel 7:13?

Boyarin sees the YHWH-El from Canaan both in Daniel 7:13 and in the NT relation between the Father and the Son. If that is true, then Jesus himself was re-presenting the earliest stratum of Judaic tradition, and could have been seen to be doing so in the C1. There are verbal echoes of other OT divine names throughout the NT (Word, Wisdom, Law, angel of the Lord, etc), as Kenneth Soulen has shown, but in the traditions about Jesus they are all integrated into the Father-Son relation. That may have been the real innovation.

What seems to have separated fathers from rabbis after the events of 70 was the differing reverence accorded the Holy Spirit. To the fathers, the divinity of the Holy Spirit was implicit in the *two powers* scheme by which the Son sat at the right hand of the Father; to the rabbis, this was an unrecognisable *third power*. Devotionally, the fathers had an apocalyptic view of the Creator and his creation, while the rabbis marginalised such understandings to what became Kaballah.

BW

Anonymous said...

Father Ron, Peter--

Are the blessed isles and the Anglican church thereof really full of opponents of contemporary evolutionary biology?

Personally, I do not see an enlightening analogy from mothwings matching cinders by natural selection to theologians interpreting Christ in diverse cultures. Long before HMS Beagle set sail, philosophers from Heraclitus to Aristotle knew that there is change in the sublunary sphere. What of it?

However, I am intriqued by John Walton's (no relation) reading of Genesis 1-3, Sarah Coakley's collaboration with Martin Nowak on altruism, and the movement petitioning Francis declare Teilhard de Chardin to be a Doctor of the Universal Church.

BW

Peter Carrell said...

Hi Bowman
There are plenty of opponents of evolutionary biology among Christians in the blessed isles, but, in my experience, not many are Anglicans.

There are plenty of Anglicans who are comfortable, broadly speaking with evolutionary biology who are not gung ho like Ron for (so to speak) "evolutionary theology."

The simple point about theology not evolving in substantial terms (as opposed to its adaptive expression in changing forms of language across variable contexts and diverse cultures) is that Christian theology is Christ centred and the only Christ we know is the Christ of the Scriptures.

And there are no new Christian Scriptures ...

Bryden Black said...

While I'll leave aside the discussion about the Two Powers for the moment - the literature I've seen is pretty large! - and while I follow your line of thinking @ February 25, 2018 at 9:56 PM, it's not exactly the sorts of things either Hays or Soulen are actually doing - as I read them. The paradigm is far more intertextual; and that is the more important in my view. And as many are now saying (using admittedly earlier categories), it demonstrates a very high Christology very early indeed.

Glen Young said...


"The difference between the legislative power of the Church in the case of rites and ceremonies and her judicial authority in matters of faith is well illustrated by the decrees of the Council of Nicaea as quoted by Athanasius.The Council had before them a question of church order,the date of keeping Easter,and also a doctrinal question,namely,the teachings of Arius.
'With reference to Easter,' he says,'such and such things were determined, for at that time it was determined that all should obey a certain rule;but with reference to the faith they wrote not 'such and such things were determined' but "this the Catholic Church believes",and they added immediately the statement of their faith,to show that their judgement was not new but apostolic, and that what they wrote was not a new discovery of theirs,but was what the Apostle taught.In other words,the Church is not the organ of a new and growing revelation but a witness and interpreter of a revelation once given." Dr. Bicknell.

Father Ron Smith said...

re Bryden's comment on 'high Christology. Perhasps ther earliest example in the N.T. is that of St.Peter: "You are ther Christ, the Son of God".

However; of that statement. Jesus did say that "Flesh and Blood (human intellingence?) did not reveal this to you (Peter) - but my Father in Heaven". This was direct revelation - via the Spirit of the Triune God, not theological speculation. Thius may be the ultimate sign of Chrsit's divinity - securely located in Scripture, not in later theological speculation.

The Scriptures have set the stage for the human understanding of Christ's divinity.
Theological speculation in the intellectual speculation of as reality which has already been revealefd in the Scriptures. This is what Scripture has done for us - revealing the reality of the Incarnation in God's plan for the world. It's meaning isd what ought be contemplated - perhaps better in prayer and worship rather than in the esoteric world of intellectual argument. (I think my Franciscan mentors knew something about this simple exercvuise of Faith.

Bryden Black said...

Actually Ron; the earliest example of the ‘highest’ Christology in the NT is not actually Matt 16. Both “Messiah” and “Son of God” are amenable depictions of human beings qua human beings. Whereas it is generally agreed in NT academia that the likes of Phil 2:9-11, clearly a depiction of a human being in vv.6-8, places this human being on a par with Yahweh as in Isa 45. Nor is it insignificant that this type of expression is found in a hymn. And it is this kind of exploration in recent decades by the likes of Hurtado, Bauckham, and Hill that makes present day NT studies far more exciting than when I was first exposed to the likes of Denis Nineham and Maurice Wiles!

Thanks Glen for your delightful piece on Nicaea!

Anonymous said...

Jean, you have said, and probably better, everything I wanted to say this morning on the basic question. Thank you. Amen.

I should point out that the salient scientific question is not about Darwin's account of the descent of man, etc but is rather (a) whether science at grand scale is necessarily ateleological, and (b) if so, how one preaches the apostolic (and hence apocalyptic) gospel of Jesus. There have been and are godly Christians on both sides of both questions, but with a fine irony, it really seems that the advance of the biological sciences has challenged (a) itself with questions about the social situation of research, the proper use of a technology of life, teleology in consciousness, and the sheer improbability of life as we know it.

Those who work with many kinds of ideas know that they will always have some wonderful colleagues drawn to strictly mechanistic models of things (eg Roger Penrose's delightful Mind's Road to Reality), which is fine, but most people no longer have the C20 sense that the reductivists are prophets of an ultimate map of reality. Millennials study sciences, read astrology, and find cranky arguments about evolution sort of weird.

Father Ron, Jean has described all that you have plausibly argued about inspiration, without fearing the apostolic deposit or despising the intellect. That is, given that our lives are situated in social worlds not very congruent with the New Jerusalem, we do indeed need-- and have been promised, and have seen given-- the Holy Spirit's help to see past local enmeshments of the sort that Jean is talking about to the gospel. All that I would add to what she says is that, as human nature is organically interpersonal, what she says about the social must also be true about the individual. So let the contemplative voices flourish in the Body, for no local church or individual soul can flourish without them, and let us test what they say to see whether the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are leading us to adapt what we do. The quincentennial of the Reformation-- now just several weeks away ;-) --is a timely occasion for asking whether we are as contemplative, receptive, and testing as the reformers were, or indeed as God wants us to be today. If not, then what should change?

Something that has needed to change-- and has been changing with the succession of generations-- is the use of the apostolic canon, not to strengthen the reliance of believers on the Holy Spirit's illumination in accord with the gospel, but to provide very institutional scholars and churches with a soulless machine for getting along without it. (The WG-synod routine is that machine, and God sent us charismatics to point out how silly it really is.) There are godly souls on both sides of this, and I understand why those with whom I disagree were more or less pushed by their pasts into the mistaken positions that they take. But as Bryden is explaining in other comments here, God is doing something new/old/eternal in our day, and parts of the Vine that do not pay attention to it will eventually wither. Verbum domini manet in aeternum.

Anonymous said...

Cont'd

Your Franciscan mentors, like some mentors of my own, were formed in an intellectual and cultural climate more militantly materialistic than that of today, and that coloured everything about what they taught us. Some responded by compartmentalising the life of the mind from that of the ethical will, as seems to have been the choice of your Franciscans. Others-- I am most thinking here of my scholarly old confessor, Reginald H. Fuller-- insisted that no solution without personal wholeness could be from God, and bravely tried to keep mind and heart together for the Church by working faithfully with the ideas current in his generation.

But these men all had spirit as well as mind-- or who would care what they said?-- and so we can be sure that your mentors and mine, were they faced with the ideas current in this time, would not have framed the situation quite as they did it for us decades ago. Fuller's criteria for the authenticity of Jesus-sayings laid the foundation for the Jesus Seminar, but just because he was so expert in the German scholarship that led the way in his youth, he would have been all the more alert to the implications of the evidence that has modified its assumptions, opening the way to the very different sorts of work that Peter, Bryden, and I discuss here. What still inspires me today is not so much his opinions-- even the ones that still make current or perennial sense-- as the spirit behind them all which had the openness to the unbidden to see the complementarity of opposing positions down centuries ruled by the creative love of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

BW

Glen Young said...


Ron,
"He will guide you into all truth".



Jesus was speaking to His disciples, who could not understand why He would go away; and He assured them that they would be led into a full understanding of their future ministry.This of course happened at Pentecost; when the fullness of the "power and authority" of their ministry became apparent to them. So, as the Holy Spirit led the Apostles, into "all truth" about Whom the Jesus they had followed for three years was; they were inspired to write it down for prosperity as the "REVELATION ONCE GIVEN".

I am sure that John 16/13 is not meant to imply that the Holy Spirit will guide 21st Cent.man into spiritual truths which the Apostles did not have.

Bryden Black said...

Another helpful implication of the very first blogs which initiated this thread is the way the ongoing Inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the Church, beyond the immediate inspiration of the Apostles themselves, as unique and specific and once off as it was, ties in with such criteria as Orthodoxy. I.e. to my mind, this dynamic of Kruger et al places the very matter of “development” front and centre - yet problematically so! Cf Glen above!

For, as far as I can make out, such notions as “progress” are novelties derived from the 19th C onwards. [I.e. one may fully subscribe to some form of theistic evolution in biology, and still reject the likes of Marxist or Aryan theories of history.] And even more intriguingly, social progress, while still valid enough in some people’s minds, has taken a real hit by and large in the last half of the 20th C. True; we do still aspire to “economic development”, with the resulting inevitable social changes this brings, and notably among the Majority World. Yet social progress is a concept well and truly on the back burner nowadays. Fascinatingly so ...

All in all therefore, what in fact does the Fourth Gospel mean when it entrusts to the Holy Spirit the task of leading the Church into “all the truth”, 16:13-15? Those criteria Kruger and McDonald list from the Church Fathers grant us some initial purchase upon an answer. Years ago I came up with an analogy, based firstly on the Church in Acts but then applied across the NT as a whole: it’s like an old fashioned telescope, which is made up of a series of barrels, all of which are initially concertinaed together when it’s collapsed; but to see clearly through the instrument, we need to pull out all the barrels (of differing diameters). Just so with what Jesus has effected in his entire mission, and which mission the Holy Spirit, poured out by Jesus upon the Church (Acts 2:33), now begins to realize (yes; that key word from God’s Address, derived from the two prayers in Ephesians, chs 1 & 3!) down through the ages, and of which Acts shows us an exemplary paradigm - Jews in Jerusalem, then Samaritans, and finally Gentiles (with a cute retrograde bunch of John’s disciples in Acts 19). This double mission of “God’s two hands”, the Son and the Spirit (Irenaeus), is first of all latent within volume 1, Luke, and then expanded or rolled out throughout Acts, climaxing as the last verses spell out, 28-31. Such a vision is how Matthew also ends; and Ephesians most fully displays. Cf. also Rev 7 for example: who may stand (6:17)? All these, ch.7 - Hallelujah!!!

What might others think/reckon?!

Bryden Black said...

Ah yes Bowman; RH Fuller: one I'd never put into the same 'bag' as DN above ... I really derived much from his Foundations of NT Christology (1965). Thanks for the reminder.

Bryden Black said...

Aha! Glen snuck in a comment "above" @ February 27, 2018 at 11:47 AM. Mine referring to him was earlier, @ February 26, 2018 at 6:45 PM, re Nicaea's subtle but vital distinctions.

Glen Young said...


Bicknell continues:"Are we then to say that there is no development in the Church's teaching and in the knowledge of divine truth? The answer to this question turns on what we mean by development.If by development we mean the addition of new doctrines implying a positive increase in in the content of divine revelation: if such development requires that the Church should be considered not simply as the keeper and witness to the faith once given, but as an organ of a fresh revelation from God, then we deny that there is any development in this sense, and we claim in support of our denial, both Scripture and the teachings of the Fathers.Nothing is clearer than that the Church in early days did not claim any power of adding to the faith: novelty was a sign of heresy."

Jean said...

Bryden I enjoy your metaphor; the progress is in the seeing of what is as opposed to the altering of what is. Don’t you find that so much on a personal basis with scripture, that a Scripture once read is read again and with the Holy Spirit’s influence another further depth of insight jumps out at you... The initial truth doesn’t change but the comprehension deepens.

Bowman you are too kind over my comments. Yes I agree what and how we see is also impacted by the personal as well as the social : )

Father Ron Smith said...

Okay, Glen; so Bicknell has become your guru of the moment. However, you still have a long way to to go catch up with ALL the many gurus of BB and BW. This thread seem to be a race as to who can find the most outstanding theologians on their reading lists to support their own speculations.

Bryden Black said...

My dear Ron; the gurus I cited last time are but St Paul and the author of the Hymn he uses, who himself dares to use the sacred text of Isa 45:23. But then not so much as these few lines alone, but the grand scope of Isa 40-66, which the NT Church squeezed with all their worth to fathom the glory of what the God of Israel had just wrought in their very midst. No vain speculation this, but the true reason for all worship, now and forever!

Bryden Black said...

Indeed Jean, Holy Writ is an ever deepening well from which springs those words of eternal life. Enjoy and behold the beauty of the Lord!

Anonymous said...

"This thread seem to be a race as to who can find the most outstanding theologians on their reading lists to support their own speculations."

No, I'm much too lazy for that. It's far easier to figure out who's right about reality as it is and agree, than it is to make up the reality one wants and then look for opinions to support it.

But if you mean to imply that Jean is an outstanding theologian, you may have a point. Here at ADU, her comments have been among the most reliably true.

BW

Anonymous said...

"For, as far as I can make out, such notions as *progress* are novelties derived from the 19th C onwards... Yet social progress is a concept well and truly on the back burner nowadays. Fascinatingly so ..."

Bryden, many up here would say that Christendom had, at least implicitly, a *postmillenial* eschatology, and that Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, and Methodists have been among the last to abandon it. In contrast, evangelicals of more purely Anabaptist, Reformed, or Charismatic persuasion have tended to have a *premillennial* eschatology. If so, eschatology, although mostly overlooked by institutional ecumenism, may divide Christians even more than the usual catholic credenda. And insofar as social meliorism will thrive in a climate that is postmill, or stagnate in one that is premill, this is a very consequential divide.

For timely example, it is the difference between Billy Graham (effectively postmill) and Franklin Graham (militantly premill) that explains the differing politics of father (stay above politics, remain open to both left and right) and son (defend Trump against his enemies because Trump defends the faith against God's enemies).

BW

Peter Carrell said...

So we are talking about at least two things which get mixed up together under the heading "teaching/doctrine."

That which is given once and for all, is unchangeable, that is it. Thus the ministry of the church is the ministry of Christ.

But - for good or for ill - variations have arisen. Some are tempted to call them "developments"; others try to find them bound to the once for all doctrine; a few of us bewail our inability to get along as "one mind." Thus the ministry of Christ has been expressed through bishops, presbyters, deacons; presbyters/deacons; "ministers"; "ministers" meaning every member of the body of Christ; with or without gender distinction. Variations or developments? On the matter of "development" into the threefold order, there are those who push hard that the bishops are the successors to the apostles (so, really, no development at all, it is as it was from the beginning). Of course, on gender distinction in ministry orders, some see women being ordained as a "development" and a counter argument has been that the ordained must be men because they are Christ to the congregation and Christ was a male (so, no development at the beginning and none possible now).

And on it goes ... ditto for eschatology: Christ will come again. The unchangeable doctrine. Then the variations ... or are they developments ... including those held within the Graham family :)

Glen Young said...


Ron,
Is your last post, an attempt to show love and encouragement to a "brother Christian"?.I think it is called "equipping the saints". "For where love is,God is"; and "they shall know you .....".
I must say that you have developed a wonderful knack of encouraging people to join in and learn about their faith from people such B.B. and B.W. It is certainly worth the time spent reading their blogs.I have noticed in life, that people who are truly erudite, carry their knowledge with grace and humility; encouraging others to be part of their world. As C.S.Lewis says:"They don't form inner circles and talk down to those in the outer circle".
Then there are the others.......!!!!!


Father Ron Smith said...

To all who may be interested in those whose total theological insight comes from selected verses in the Bible (most notably from the O.T.); I am just reading a most interesting book from the local library: 'Banished' (a memoir) "Surviving My Years in the Westboro Baptist Church' by Lauren Drain.

The author describes her family's intimate involvement with the famous Fred Phelps, his wife, and 13 children and their families - (11 of whom are qualified and practising lawyers) in Topeka. The family's mission is that of confronting the outside world with its profligacy and sin, by preaching and appearing at various rallies and public gathering where they feel the 'call of God' to testify to their exclusivist, sola-Scriptura, predestinationist and Calvinist (?) faith, by presenting placards with such messages as:"God Hates Fags"; "All priest are Pedophiles" and; "God Hates You". With Phelps, there is no such thing as the efficacy of repentance for sin - unless you belong to the fore-ordained "Redeemed of God'

One of their banners at the last Billy Graham Rally in the U.S. described the veteran campaigner as "False Prophet" - such is their venom against any preaching that does not accord precisely with the Scriptural understanding of Fred Phelps.

This is the sort of behaviour that lends nothing but calumny to the cause of God and the Church - all based on a mistaken understanding of God's Wrath as more important than God's all-sufficient redemptive love for the world - as shown in the Life, Ministry, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

What sort of Christian testimony is this - based on a negative view of the salvation of God in Scripture?

Father Ron Smith said...

The Golden Thread:

"I Know that My Redeemer Liveth" Thanks be to God!

Bryden Black said...

I appreciate the distinction you are making, Bowman; but I also note these two additional elements.

1. When a very young Christian both in age and in understanding, I purchased (second hand, for 60p!) Iain Murray’s The Puritan Hope: Revival and the Interpretation of Prophecy. To be sure, it was published through The Banner of Truth Trust (1971), which some disclaim! For all that, it does express solid Reformed Theology as exemplified by the Puritans historically. It also comes with an intriguing Introduction outlining his own ‘development’ of the Bible’s teaching on the Second Coming, and associated events, notably of course the “millennium”. The significant thing re your own comment is his claim, fully assessed in the book, that the Puritan Hope addressed “the advancement/progressive realization [the language is mixed] of Christ’s kingdom on earth” predicated upon “Christ’s present Lordship”. I.e., and especially as Murray canvasses New World Puritans as well as those from Scotland and England in this work, I’m intrigued you now say: “many up here would say that Christendom had, at least implicitly, a *postmillenial* eschatology, and that Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, and Methodists have been among the last to abandon it. In contrast, evangelicals of more purely Anabaptist, Reformed, or Charismatic persuasion have tended to have a *premillennial* eschatology.” Not least, one chapter begins with the plate of “The Seal of the New England Corporation” (c.1628)! (Being a good old fashioned book, it comes with a number of powerfully significant plates or pictures.)

2. While therefore I follow the logic of why Christendom types might be more predisposed towards a postmillennial view, it’s not quite as simple perhaps as you suggest. The situation is made more complex by considering an amillennial view also, the one I espouse as it happens, and which may be integrated quite happily with Murray’s own presentation - though perhaps you’d continue to view his thesis in postmillennial terms.

So Peter; yes, things are delightfully “varied”. For all that, as any geneticist will tell you, some mutations will benefit the species and most will not ...! Just so; I’d rather go back to my own “latent versus expanded/rolling out/pulling out” analogy. It may better incorporate a number of your examples and still retain the necessary anchor of “core doctrine” (sic!).

Anonymous said...

Peter, seven quick thoughts in reply--

(1) The catholic credenda came together in late antiquity as a coherent and resilient paradigm. As papa Ratzinger used to point out, it does not make sense to accept the inspiration of the canon but to reject the inspiration of the orders because these institutions crystalised together in the same churches at the same time.

(2) Even for other periods and movements, the unit of interest is probably the paradigm, not the doctrine. An attempted revival of *limited atonement* theology among Anglicans, which heaven forfend, would bring with it a whole complex of bad ideas in exegesis, sacramentology, notions of saving faith, etc.

(3) In actual churches, it is far more common to see regress than progress, retrieval than development. All movements of any importance meet some emergent need, of course, but they nearly always do so by reviving and adapting some older paradigm to that need. The creativity of the Body from Jesus himself to the present has been more hermeneutical than speculative.

(4) Which means that the criterion that we use to discern changes must be adequate, not only to the relatively rare presentist arguments, but also to claims that what was once allowed to lapse-- perhaps with good reason-- nevertheless may and should be revived.

(5) Not to put too fine a point on it, that criterion is necessarily the gospel. Whatever one thinks the gospel is, that will be one's criterion of paradigm change in both its precedented and novel aspects.

(6) Why then do we talk about development so much? (a) John Henry Newman's interesting but somewhat uninformed essay has made the topic respectable. (b) Synod-driven churches, being based on the ruling majority of a fixed membership of equals, are closed to the Body's main mode of creativity, and so try to manage change with another mode of creativity that posits development.

(7) In contrast, a gathered body could comprise those clergy and congregations who, at any given time, recognise gospel-practice in the same paradigmatic communities (cf William J Abraham's Canonical Theism). For example, a cathedral might discern a dynamic tradition of doctrine and practice that is emulated by many smaller congregations, chaplaincies, etc nearby. That cathedral, and each other cathedral like it, could by mutual inspection recognise the gospel-practice of other cathedrals around the world.

BW

Bryden Black said...

Lost in cyberspace and so repeated:

I appreciate the distinction you are making, Bowman; but I also note these two additional elements.

1. When a very young Christian both in age and in understanding, I purchased (second hand, for 60p!) Iain Murray’s The Puritan Hope: Revival and the Interpretation of Prophecy. To be sure, it was published through The Banner of Truth Trust (1971), which some disclaim! For all that, it does express solid Reformed Theology as exemplified by the Puritans historically. It also comes with an intriguing Introduction outlining his own ‘development’ of the Bible’s teaching on the Second Coming, and associated events, notably of course the “millennium”. The significant thing re your own comment is his claim, fully assessed in the book, that the Puritan Hope addressed “the advancement/progressive realization [the language is mixed] of Christ’s kingdom on earth” predicated upon “Christ’s present Lordship”. I.e., and especially as Murray canvasses New World Puritans as well as those from Scotland and England in this work, I’m intrigued you now say: “many up here would say that Christendom had, at least implicitly, a *postmillenial* eschatology, and that Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, and Methodists have been among the last to abandon it. In contrast, evangelicals of more purely Anabaptist, Reformed, or Charismatic persuasion have tended to have a *premillennial* eschatology.” Not least, one chapter begins with the plate of “The Seal of the New England Corporation” (c.1628)! (Being a good old fashioned book, it comes with a number of powerfully significant plates or pictures.)

2. While therefore I follow the logic of why Christendom types might be more predisposed towards a postmillennial view, it’s not quite as simple perhaps as you suggest. The situation is made more complex by considering an amillennial view also, the one I espouse as it happens, and which may be integrated quite happily with Murray’s own presentation - though perhaps you’d continue to view his thesis in postmillennial terms.

So Peter; yes, things are delightfully “varied”. For all that, as any geneticist will tell you, some mutations will benefit the species and most will not ...! Just so; I’d rather go back to my own “latent versus expanded/rolling out/pulling out” analogy. It may better incorporate a number of your examples and still retain the necessary anchor of “core doctrine” (sic!).

Bryden Black said...

Two quick replies Bowman:

To 6: Because we westerners have fallen prey to the 19th C myth of progress.
To 7: Preach it brother - along with Billy Abraham. Although curiously, it might just overlap to a degree with B16 and #1.

Then, guess how RW Jenson goes about his Theology in Outline? It is naturally driven by this observation: "All agree the Church is the community of a message." That is, not an ethic, or an ideal, or any some such. BUT a piece of NEWS which the Church is beholden to pass on ... Just so is theology born as that message passes from one setting to another ... And it is the message that ever remains the anchor (my language now). For it is this message about a Person which is a matter of life or death - literally!

Father Ron Smith said...

And the core of that 'message' is, Bryden: (@ 4.24pm)

"Come to me all you labour and are over-burdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, FOR I AM GENTLE AND HUMBLE IN HEART, and you will find rest for your souls! Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light"

(Interestingly, these few verse are headed in the J.B: 'The Good News revealed to the simple' a stark reminder of the simplicity of Jesus' own message - even to children.
Sometimes, the message of Jesus seem more welcoming than that of His Church!

Anonymous said...

Bryden,

For the sake of argument, my 28/9:11 cites conventional wisdom here up yonder.

Yes, the original Puritans were of at least the two minds described in Janice Knight's Orthodoxies in Massachusetts.

For the CoE, the causal arrow points from C19 belief in Progress to C19 revival of the long pro forma convocations of Canterbury and York. To that uncontroversial point, I add this one: traditional synods facilitated influence networks that did the real problem solving, but modern synods seem to have delegitimized those ancient networks without being as capable. The way backward is to recognise and strengthen the nodes of the networks we need.

BW

Anonymous said...

M. Duruflé. Choral varié sur le Veni Creator. Opus 4.

Performed by a choir.

https://youtu.be/pbo2q6Znk40

BW

Anonymous said...

Thank you, Glen, for kind words, but I suspect that Peter has several other readers besides Father Ron who also wonder why commentators like myself mention so many books and articles that they do not have the motivation, time, patience, or vocabulary to read. His query can be put in a more positive way-- why do we not comment more often from experience? Father Ron, for example, sometimes treats us with notes on services at SMAA that, if you have the motivation, time, patience, and vocabulary for rich liturgical fare, can be very encouraging. Why aren't the rest of us describing our own actual worship as he does?

After the Resurrection, it makes no sense to make any provision for things of the Flesh. St Paul, in pointing this out, is rejecting, not our bags of skin per se, but the whole desire-driven machine of the world. And the production of books which is without end and wearies the flesh is certainly part of that machine. How do we instead use our minds and seek things of the Spirit, taking every thought captive for Christ?

An answer that Bryden might like is that we are talking about experience in Christ as often as the OP allows, but indirectly. To do it at all, we need to do three tricky things for Peter's readers-- call up the experience in their minds, do it as an occurrence that is in persons, and situate it for them in the mind of Christ. An incident report about a blinding light on the Damascus road might have been no less interesting than the rumour of a barking cat, but without the story of Saul and Jesus it would not have been encouraging.

It happens that allusions to things written-- scriptures, articles, prayers, etc-- can work as a shorthand to do the first and third of these things. When, in the traditional use of Barcelona, a boy and a girl danced a pavane on the feast of the Annunciation, that did the same thing in a way that is, not literary but kinaesthetic. But choreographers have still not taken every movement captive for Christ (which is why liturgical dance still feels like a concert encroaching on the liturgy), in part because they have not yet learned how a dense body of ritual action works (eg Mt Athos the year that Pascha fell on the Annunciation!). Because not much of that shorthand is ready to be learned, there is just not much that we can say by posting videos of moving bodies to each other. ADU can get by without video for a bit longer.

But to comment on experience, any shorthand that we use also has to do that second thing-- exhibit an occurrence that is in persons. I probably more or less know what SMAA will do on the Annunciation, but what will encourage me is a comment that signals the meaning of the doing for that congregation of the Body, including Father Ron himself. When I was first learning liturgics in a parish that needed a hundred souls to do a Sunday service, Thomas Merton's journals of an analogous learning at his monastery in Kentucky helped to make sense of it all.

And anyway what are persons? Not just the bags of skin with whatever bones and thoughts they have. They seem to be myriad particular variants of the story of human life in Christ's life with the Father and the Holy Spirit. And so perhaps the complaint should be this-- we post too few stories that show readers why we care about what we say.

BW

Father Ron Smith said...

"An answer that Bryden might like is that we are talking about experience in Christ as often as the OP allows, but indirectly. To do it at all, we need to do three tricky things for Peter's readers-- call up the experience in their minds, do it as an occurrence that is in persons, and situate it for them in the mind of Christ. An incident report about a blinding light on the Damascus road might have been no less interesting than the rumour of a barking cat, but without the story of Saul and Jesus it would not have been encouraging. "

- B.W. -

Thank you, Bowman, for this!

Not unlike a description of the experience of the Liturgy - with Christ as the subject and object of our worship - a reality for those of us 'in the know', but maybe meaningless for onlookers. To be 'en Christo' is ALL.

Bryden Black said...

Dear Bowman, thanks for your latest and notably your threefold criteria: “call up the experience in their minds, do it as an occurrence that is in persons, and situate it for them in the mind of Christ” - which I will now reframe in a way that I trust is helpful as well as creative.

In a previous life when a minister in the Diocese of Melbourne, I helped compile a parish programme entitled “Sharing Your Faith: A Personal Introduction to the Evangelistic Task”. It was deliberately designed for Anglicans for whom anything “evangelistic” was either taboo or frightening, as it were! We created what we called The Evangelism Triangle (which I’ve more recently termed The Gospel Triangle). Imagine in your mind (or even draw) an equilateral triangle, with “God” marked at the apex, bottom right hand corner = “Self”, bottom left hand corner = “Neighbour”. And then underneath, the caption runs: “Each has a Story to tell, and each needs to relate to the others for evangelism to occur; that is, arrows go along each line in both directions.” In reality of course, the lines are not so much hard lines but dashes which solidify over time as the relationships expressed by each line solidify.

Then there were two other key features of the six part study: the Ev Triangle was underscored by a Bible study of Acts 8:26-40, the story of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch (which has extensive and insightful parallels with the story of Jesus and the two disciples on the Road to Emmaus); and two models of ‘conversion’, either an adult conversion model, or a developmental model, both divided into three segments (Before, How, After). All this was the topic of Study One.

Study Two began to get a handle on one’s own story of faith via firstly the model of preference and then some other aids. Study Three has now resurfaced somewhat in God’s Address Sessions 1 & 3, entitled God’s Story. Session Four was a group session revisiting each one’s personal story, their having had two weeks’ homework to do along suggested guidelines writing up said story. Session Five sought to establish the strong Link between one’s own personal story and God’s Story (i.e. that line from the top to RH corner) via an examination of Ephesians chs 1-2, now also revisited somewhat in God’s Address, but extended there. Finally Session Six tied it all together with The Neighbour, via a study of John 15:26-16:15, and of Paul and Ananias, Acts 9:10-19 & 22:12-16.

Why write all this up? Well, to reframe your threefold criteria so: One’s own experience only receives its authentication as Christian - is sifted for and unto Christian selfhood - as and when it becomes increasingly Linked unto/within God’s Story. Yet God’s Story too seeks its fulfillment as and when both lines to each bottom corner solidify - which seeks too the link between Self and Neighbour. Yet, as intimated in Sessions Five and Six of “Sharing Your Faith”, both (Christian) Self and Neighbour have their respective contextual depths: self in Church, and neighbour in World. Just so, the Ev Tri is but one face of a pyramid, with the square base of the pyramid’s four corners labeled as: self, neighbour, world, church; God's Story is still the apex point. Again, the ten lines among all these five points are idealistic, with the relational realities being more or less dashes, more or less solid.

This final pyramid (even if there’s a final twist to it, but not for now) is rather the key point(s) of what you yourself are seeking via your own criteria ... I suggest. For just so are Inspiration, Authority and Revelation [after all, PC’s title of this thread] all properly realized (yes; that key word again!), as genuine Bodily/bodily experience and true spiritual Encounter “meet and kiss each other” (Ps 85:10).

Herewith therefore Bowman my own actual answer!!

Anonymous said...

"Just so, the Ev Tri is but one face of a pyramid, with the square base of the pyramid’s four corners labeled as: self, neighbour, world, church; God's Story is still the apex point."

Thank you so much, Bryden, for a picture worth myriad words. Who knew that evangelical Anglicans in Melbourne had been meditating on a sacred pyramid mandala? ;-)

Your visual representation in 3-space of my flat, conceptual answer helpfully acknowledges individual/body relationships with God on all four sides-- self-neighbour, neighbour-world, world-church, church-self. Father Ron, who often comments on the sometimes neglected God-world-church and God-self-church sides of the pyramid (as St Maximus and Orthodoxy after him also do) must find this very intuitive.

"They are the Nazgûl, Ringwraiths, neither living nor dead." --Aragorn to Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry.

Thinking of Romans 5-8, does the base represent the *creation* as a whole, so that self, neighbour, world, and church are all *creatures*? Doing so seems to preempt misunderstanding of conversion as an unsituated choice made in-- even a leap farther into-- the alienated darkness of Nagel's *nowhere* or Tolkein's *Void*. With that, the pyramid would show the story of the creation to be a tale told from within God's story.

BW

Bryden Black said...

Well Bowman; fasten your seat belt laddie!

I bracketed this, “there’s a final twist to it”, for a reason: to see what you made of the initial idea. Here’s the final twist: twist the pyramid, make it fall sort-of-over, so that the base (as initially conceived) becomes vertical, with the apex of old to the left. Then alter the title of the initial apex, from “God” to “God the Father”; and now draw four more lines out from the old four base points (now vertical) out to the right, all coming together at a single point, as a mirror image of the new Left Hand Side, with the apex of this mirrored pyramid entitled “God the Holy Spirit”, on the RHS.

You’re on to it laddie: Robert W Jenson at work!

For two main things are being put to work here. Firstly, his doctrine of the Trinity as fully embracing temporality, with “time’s arrow” flowing from left to right, “from whence to whither”, from “Unoriginate Father” to “Unsurpassable Futurity”. Then secondly, following now his “Reflections”, On Thinking the Human (Eerdmans, 2003), these ‘twin mirrored pyramids’ with a common base, which overall is shaped like a carefully cut jewel—All of Creation is embraced within the Triune God - with of course this Incarnate Jesus embedded at the Centre of the square that was the initial pyramid’s base! Or, in the language of his “Resolutions” - “enveloped” ... permeated through and through also, so that the vision of Ephesians is utterly the case!

Enjoy dear Bowman! Of course Maximus et al are all at play: what else does theosis mean?!

[As for that aside re Ringwraiths or the Void or das Nichtige: well, that too might generate yet another twist ala Eberhard Jüngel or Balthasar ...! For another day. Let’s feast our hearts and minds on this wee jewel for the moment, shall we?]

Glen Young said...


Dear Bryden and Bowman,

This is sheer spiritual and creative genius; putting thousands of words into simple but illustrative pictures which both the spirit and mind can feast on. Thanks guys.

Bryden Black said...

Dear Glen; you are most welcome, since feasting is the joy - and right! - of all God's sons and daughters. Just stay clear of the Turkish delight -;)

Father Ron Smith said...

Fewer words mostly lead to less confusion and a broader enlightnmen for non-academics. I do hope tomorrow's Synod debate cobtains more creative and prayerful silence than great oratory. And may the great love of God as revealed in the Son reign over these proceedings. Prayers will be offered by me at the 9am SMAA Mass for a peaceful and loving outcome at. All Welcome!

Father Ron Smith said...

Fewer words mostly lead to less confusion and a broader enlightnment for non-academics. I do hope tomorrow's Synod debate contains more creative and prayerful silence than great oratory. And may the great love of God as revealed in the Son reign over these proceedings. Prayers will be offered by me at the 9am SMAA Mass for a peaceful and loving outcome at. All Welcome!

Glen Young said...


Dear Bryden,

Ah, but which is the poisoned challis????

Bryden Black said...

In answer to your question Glen: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - "choose wisely", says the Crusader watching all the cups and things ...

Father Ron Smith said...

What, on earth, is this when it's at home?

"challis????"

Is it some new form of receptacle for protestant petitions?

Glen Young said...


Dear Bryden,

Sounds very philosophical to me, to ascertain which cup is the "wise choice";and which contains the "sweet poison of the false infinite".But I reason, that to "choose wisely"; is to follow Bicknell's advise:"The Fathers never tired of referring men back to Scripture as the touchstone of genuine Christian teaching". I accept that much of what you and Bowman put forward on this site falls into what Bicknell would have accepted as genuine theological development; that is, no new truth is added, but the original truth is put in rather ingenious mind pictures which add a new dimension to our understanding. Thanks for your input.

Anonymous said...

Readers here may want to peruse Anglican evangelical Michael Bird's two recent comments on tradition--

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/euangelion/2018/02/necessity-tradition-theological-interpretation-part-1/

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/euangelion/2018/03/necessity-tradition-theological-interpretation-part-2/

BW

Father Ron Smith said...

Sorry, BW. When I tried to connect with you 'patheos' links, above-mentioned,
my screen showed the message:

"Fraudulent Web Page Blocked" - How come?

Anonymous said...

Alas, Father Ron, I am not surprised. Whenever I check ADU I offer the good Lord a short prayer of gratitude that Peter does not use Patheos.

After a barrage of popup ads from the Mormons, the links did finally work for me. And here is the third in the series--

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/euangelion/2018/03/necessity-tradition-theological-interpretation-part-3/

"Fraudulent Web Page Blocked" - How come?

Clearly, the web daemon does not want you (or anyone) to read Baptist --> Presbyterian --> Anglican Michael Bird! He is shocked that Bird's positions-- for someone classed as evangelical, even Reformed-- are so catholic. And now that Bird is seconding the Anglican --> Orthodox Edith Humphreys's critique of the way Protestants translate *paradosis* in the NT, the daemon is trembling before every OP.

Why does the daemon fear Michael Bird? Bird is too honest to be a reliable hack. When I reviewed his Evangelical Theology, I went straight to the well-known trouble spots looking for... trouble! (How, for example, is a Reformed theologian going to deal with Romans 5:12?) While I did not agree with Bird's solutions to these problems, I was impressed that he not only recognised that there were problems, but drew his reader's attention to them, walked her through them, and introduced her to other strong approaches. And that was a book for beginners, one with relaxed prose, personal anecdotes, and bad jokes. By the time she gets to the end of it, she is being urged to go to eucharist weekly and think well of bishops. The only thing that the daemon likes about that book is that, because the book is published by Zondervan and is not titled Anglican Theology, Anglicans do not read it.

BW