Continuing from last week ... BJ = Beyond Justification and CDP = its authors Douglas Campbell and Jon DePue and JT = Justification Theory:
In the end I think I have two big questions about BJ (aside from anything else I raised last week):
1. Is it plausible to read Romans and Galatians as a debate between Paul and one of more Jewish Christians distorting the gospel (rather than a debate between Paul and the Judaism or Judaisms of his day)?
2. Is there a difference between the God of retributive justice (wrongdoing deserves punishment) and the God of love?
1. There is an intriguing possibility that the answer to the first question is "Maybe for Galatians, but not for Romans." CDP answer affirmatively for both, however, and so I confine my remarks here to Romans, not being convinced that they have gotten Romans right, while accepting there is plausibility to their case re Galatians. In particular, Romans conjures up CDP's (as far as I know) novel proposal that when we get to Romans 1:18-32 we do NOT hear Paul speaking but the voice of "The Teacher" (i.e. the Jewish-Christian false teacher) coming through. I am not convinced as I am sure many others are not. There is no specific clue that between v. 17 and v. 18 we have a change of voice, that Paul is switching from what he believes to what another person believes.
Sure, later in Romans 2 and beyond there are some questions Paul raises and responds to (which could indeed be the questions of an opposing interlocutor so that Romans includes the kind of debate CDP propose is there). But if Romans 1:18-32 is the voice of Paul, do we not have to engage with this God of Paul who is wrathful against wrongdoing and with the impact this makes on his understanding of the gospel? This engagement being especially through Romans 3 and 4, no matter how difficult it is to make sense of it. And, even if we broadly agree with CDP that JT is the not-quite-wholly-plausible theory that flows out of Romans 3 and 4, does this question not remain? It is quite plausible that Paul writing to Christians in Rome, sets out in Romans 1:18-32 what is a fairly unexceptional Jewish critique of the excesses of Rome's licentious culture? (Look to Jude, for example, for another NT example of such unexecptional critique). If the gospel is the power of God to transform the lives of sinners (1:1-17), then it is the power of God to transform all sinners, Jew and Gentile, averagely/morally good citizen of Rome and exceptionally immoral citizens too.
For myself I continue to think, in a pretty much standard Protestantish manner, that Romans 3 and 4 set out an answer to the following question:
If, within the flow of Israel's theological understanding, from Mosaic law or Torah, through to first and then second Temple worship (the Judaic sacrificial system), we ask the question, relative to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, on what basis are our sins and their consequences before God removed from us and forgiveness and new life proceeds from an engagement with God's own revealed solution to the problem of wrongdoing? Then, according to Paul, writing in Romans 3-4, that basis is that Christ has fulfilled the law of Moses, and on the cross became both the ultimate and lasting sacrifice for our sins and thus also heralded the end of the application of Torah to human life.
And, consequentially, in response to the obvious supplementary question, how might we gain the benefits of that sacrifice, the answer given (in Romans, Galatians, 1 Peter, Hebrews etc) is that we are asked to put our faith in Jesus Christ: we are not asked to do good works, to make an offering of money or meat or other materials. This is so, whether (again in fairly recent debates) we posit that "good works" (i.e. "works of the Law") means works which establish identity, such as being circumcised, or works which respond to the Law as the covenant between God and ourselves in which our response is marked by strict obedience to all the laws within Torah.
Further, no matter how many times we translate "faith in Jesus Christ" into "the faith(fulness) of Jesus Christ" (noting a modern debate about the meaning of the frequent phrase pistou Christou in Paul's writings), we are left with instances when, clearly, our faith is invited by God as our response to the gospel of new life in Christ (as, in fact, I note CDP inter alia acknowledge also).
So, whether or not Paul has in mind a specific "teacher" - a member of Jewish Christian group imposing its distortion of the gospel on Christians in Rome as well as in Galatia - he offers us, in all its complexities within the text, with all the tragic risks that it would in centuries to come contribute to a theological/cultural anti-semitic outlook, a theology of salvation which is utterly Christian (i.e. focused on Jesus Christ and what he has done for us through death and resurrection and through release of the Holy Spirit). This soteriology stands its ground distinctively in the face of counter claims based on Judaism or Judaisms of his day, and proposes that in Christ, all who avail themselves of the salvation he offers, are entering into the true fullness of God's plan for the Jews, notably into the true fullness of God's promises to Abraham himself. Put a little differently, Paul in Romans takes on "all Judaism", whether the Judaism of Jews or the Judaism of a particular Christian Jewish teacher, and highlights the fulfilment of promises to Abraham and the goal of laws revealed to Moses being the son of David, Jesus Christ the Son of God.
2. Is there a difference between the God of retributive justice (wrongdoing deserves punishment) and the God of love?
Now this question could have mountains of words written in an attempt to answer it when that attempt is to provide a full and final theological coup de grace of an answer, drawing across the whole of Scripture. This is not that.
Here I simply observe that the Old Testament is full of God commanding just living with reference to punishment for failure to obey (law), wrathfully speaking against injustice (prophets) and reflections on the collective punishment (exile, destruction of Jerusalem) of Israel/Judah for its disobedience which permeate historical and prophetic books in the OT.
This is the theological background to Paul's engagement as a Jew (a Pharisee no less) transformed by Christ and now writing to Jewish and Gentile Christians about the gospel and its meaning and application in contexts where arguments between Jews and Christians, and between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians abounded.
It is quite reasonable to expect that what Paul writes will incorporate the "God of retributive justice" into his new understanding of the "God of love" - of the God who loved us so much that in Christ Jesus God's Son, he became sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21), made us alive when we should be dead "through our trespasses" (Ephesians 2:5; cf 2:1-10), and became "a sacrifice of atonement by his blood" (Romans 3:25) saving us "through him from the wrath of God" (Romans 5:9). Thus and so can Paul also boldly declare, concerning the God who is love, "God proves his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8) and that nothing can separate those in Christ from God's love in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:28-39).
In sum, I do not think, within Paul's theological writings, within Romans in particular, a neat cleavage can be made between the God of retributive justice and the God of love.
To conclude: BJ is not the final word of clarification on what Paul writes to Christians then and now about matters of salvation, justification, theology and, thus, also christology. If we have misunderstood Paul (and BJ totally nails the depth of the challenge for anyone past, present or future to make the claim of "finally, we may understand Paul completely"), then Campbell and DePue have not yet liberated Paul from misunderstanding. Their best point, IMHO, is that any "justification theory" (let alone the specific "Justification Theory" they oppose) must embrace the whole of Paul on God's transformative work in Christ - through his death, resurrection and unleashing of the Holy Spirit. And wherever we arrive within that embrace, it must be devoid of antisemitism of any shade, implicit or explicit.
41 comments:
I haven't read Douglas Campbell's books (nor am I likely to find the money or lifespan to do so), but I have read three or four first-order reviews and listened to a youtube interview of Campbell on 'Deliverance', so I think I have a reasonable grasp of his arguments.
A focused critique is given by Bruce Clark's review article in Tyndale Bulletin 64.1 (2013) 54-88, which can be freely downloaded. The heart of Clark's response is an exegetical study of Romans 1-4, which Campbell claims is a battle between Paul's gospel and the legalistic version propounded by the hypothetical 'Teacher' on his way to Rome. Clark concludes that there are not two voices here but one only. There are many other exegetical points which cannot be summarised here, especially on how Campbell understands 'dikaioo' and 'pistis', which Clark criticises as confused, over-subtle or selective. Clark calls this 'pre-Barr lexical-semantic scholarship [which] compromises his entire reading of Romans 1-4' (72). If Paul was jumping between different meanings of 'dikaioo' and 'pistis' (depending on wherher it was Paul speaking or 'the Teacher'), he was imposing an impossible strain on his auditors. Clark's theological conclusions are more devastating: if Campbell is correct, the non-Christian has no knowledge of God (no general revelation from nature).
Less exegetical but more wide-ranging is the review article by Barry Matlock, "Zeal for Paul but not according to knowledge: Douglas Campbell's War on 'Justification Theory'", JSNT 34 (2) 115-149. The first part of this article is a long summary of 'Justification Theory' in the opening chapters (466 pages!) of 'The Deliverance of God' and the enormous evils that Campbell thinks this 'theory' has visited on the world. Campbell tries to eliminate any kind of 'JT' from Paul's gospel. Matlock makes many observations on Campbell's procedures, of which I will mention only there:
1. JT is said to be 'Lutheranism' (perhaps Melanchthon, in Campbell's view) but 'nobody reads Paul like that' - certainly not Luther or Calvin (124). Matlock calls Campbell's argument 'circular and self-confirming' and a 'reification of his theoretical understanding' (124).
2. Campbell fails to practise 'the principle of charity' (or 'rationality') in describing traditional views (putting a wrong or captious interpretation). If Campbell is correct, the entire history of interpretation of Paul, historically and alphabetically from Augustine to Ziesler (and beyond), has been wrong. Hmm.
3. Campbell fundamentally misunderstands Luther's 'gospel and law' distinction along with its 'second use of the Law' principle.
4. In denying that dikaiosune has a forensic meaning but rather that is means 'deliverance' and that pistis refers primarily to the faith of the believer rather than the faithfulness of Christ, Campbell makes many passages very unclear.
5. The theory of two speakers - Paul versus 'The Teacher', whose 'JT' Paul supposedly mimics, parodies and takes to its absurd and incoherent conclusion - is nowhere indicated or marked in the text, and is purely hypothetical. Romans 1-4 is Paul speaking, not Paul and his presumed adversary.
6. Campbell tries to construe (forensic) 'justification' and 'participation' as separate (and hostile) doctrines of redemption and then to have the latter alone represent the 'real' Paul (147). But historic exegesis has avoided this and sought to read Romans integratively.
Have Paul's writings been used by the church and Christendom in a way that is harmful, even destructively, to the Jewish people? I don't doubt it: the terrible history is too obvious to deny. But neither would I blame the chemists who concocted a certain pesticide for how it was subsequently used.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
I don't see how a God of retributive justice and a God of love are easily included together. Attempts to do so make for some very confusing, even torturous, theology. Pastorally it's quite disastrous. I am also thinking of this in light of the recent Inquiry and now report into Abuse in (Faith-Based) Care.
In psychological terms it would be a deeply "ambivalent attachment" - a parent who insists on violent punishment to "satisfy" their "wrath", at the same time, expresses complete and ardent love for their children - or a parent who cooly believes that "the law" needs enforcing in a way that necessitates violence, as if, somehow, violence enacts justice (the bloody cycle that keeps turning in our own time, not least in Palestine). That makes for an extremely confusing psychological state characterized above all by fear and mistrust- they love me and rage at me simulatenously. What parent am I getting tonight? Now they say they will love me forever because they have taken their wrath/retributive justice/unshakeable commitment to justice-as-violence out on their son in one big event?
I'm not suggesting you are arguing this Peter, of course. But many others do and have, and it does seem an easy place to get to for those inside and outside faith when we affirm a theology of retributive justice. For me, Jesus' radical life and work does not support this and Christians are right to feel deeply troubled by theologies that fuse retributive justice and love together in God.
I can see how prophets/humans might angrily use such language in certain contexts, but wisdom and Christ surely command us to be very careful about turning such statements into descriptions of God's character and activity in the world.
Mark, in philosophical discourse, the principle of charity or rationality (expounded by the atheist W. V. Quine) requires us to put the best and most rational construction on another's words, especially those we feel little sympathy for: in other words, to steelman them rather than to strawman or caricature them. To depict God as a violent irrational father who blows hot and cold does no justice to the New Testament or to the words of our Lord - and to be honest, I have never met any sane person who thinks this way. Robert Mitchum's preacher in "The Night of the Hunter" was a memorable character but plainly a psychotic charlatan.
I've never been troubled by the thought that God righteously condemns sin and adopts as his children those who put their trust in Christ as the bearer of their terrible sins: this is exactly what Jesus taught and the two thoughts are found time and again together in Romans (cf. 5.9; 11.22). I would be deeply troubled by a "theology" that taught one but not the other. The Cross makes little sense until we consider Anselm's reproof, "Nondum considerasti quanti ponderis sit peccatum.'
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
Thank you Mark and William for comments.
Mark: I acknowledge that the word "retributive" conjures up thoughts of "violence" since, even prison as a "retribution" of a just society is a form of violence to the prisoner. So, perhaps I could come up with a different phrase, "accountable justice" - for instance!
But, in the Bible, God's retributive justice sometimes involves violence which is described in somewhat direct terms about God durectly visiting upon errant Israel terrible consequences for its sin (e.g. when another nation carries out divine justice by invading Israel; plagues against rebellious Israel wandering and grizzling in the wilderness), yet, retributive justice is also the working out of wrongdoing and consequential reaction whether it is nature taking its course or the foreign policy of another nation being implemented - as, still today, we see such retributive justice at work (global warming's disasters are nature's reaction to our exploitation of the gift of the earth, etc; over indulgence in liquor destroys my liver, etc). In short, and bearing William's point somewhat, I think we can talk about God's retributive justice in the same sentence as God's love ... but it is a significant theological challenge doing so, and neither the post above not this comment should be read as some kind of final word on the matter!
"Accountable" sounds way better than "retributive". Or even better: people experiencing the natural consequences of their actions (livers failing due to alcohol consumption, relationships ending because of disloyalty, the nation of Israel failing due to greed and immorality, extreme climate events occurring due to human induced climate change - and whatever the natural consequences of our wrong actions are in the spiritual world too). In this sense, sin and natural justice have affinities with *karma*.
But to ascribe divine anger and wrath and justice and satisfaction to such events seems another step to me, and a step too far if we truly worship a God who is Love.
Surely God takes no pleasure in liver disease, or feels that justice is "satisfied" in these instances, even though free will is upheld (and without allowing for free will we'd all be robots incapable of love).
When Jesus says it is harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, I don't hear it as God hating National voters but as a description of the simple laws of spiritual reality. We can't enter into the Mind of Christ, the kingdom of God, accumulating material wealth and fortifying our egos while others around us are in poverty and need.
But the fact is, as you say Peter, violence and vengeance has been attributed to God in the Christian tradition and seen as part of his justice, revelation, and being - there is a long, undeniable tradition of this. It's not just accountability, or experiencing the natural consequences of our free will, it's God flooding the world, exterminating Israel's foes, sending plagues, making a people homeless, satisfying his wrath by the blood of Christ, as well as annihilationist and eternal torture/punishment visions of life after death for the wicked. As I don't believe any of this is in the character of the God who is Love, I'm left struggling with it (sometimes every Sunday - thanks Lectionary), believing it to be distorted, limited human understandings in need of further discernment and correction (Christ), and interested in buying a copy of Beyond Justification!
For someone who couldn't connect to the concept of justification, I seem to be writing lots of words about it. I am discovering that justification is about justice, and this does go to the heart of who God is and how he/she acts in the world - and yes, I am aware of sounding like a babe.
"And do not fear those who can kill the body but not the soul. Rather fear him who can kill both body and soul in hell." (Matthew 10.28)
Did he really say this or was this Fake News? Must get out my Jesus Seminar Pamphlet, I mean, Bible.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
"And do not fear those who can kill the body but not the soul. Rather fear him who can kill (or "destroy" - NRSV) both body and soul in hell." (Matthew 10.28)
First off, this isn't Jesus carefully expounding a doctrine of the afterlife for future moderns, but Jesus firing up his disciples as he sends them out to preach an outrageous gospel to a hostile, often murderous world. In this context, he is likely to sound less Neville Chamberlain and more Winston Churchill.
Second, just because the Creator of the Universe has the power of creating and destroying both body and soul it doesn't then follow that this is the Creator's ultimate plan for humanity. God can destroy souls - and we can certainly destroy or greatly injure our own souls - but the great theme of the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection is that God is extremely committed to healing and saving them instead.
In the eternal torment vs annihilation vs ultimate restoration (universalism) debate, people much cleverer than I have noted that the NT word "destroy" doesn't mean something is not existing - that something... e.g. the lost sheep, the lost coin...can be in a state of "destruction" or lostness yet still held in existence (as it undergoes a process of purification and transformation, or waiting for God to complete God's redemptive work, for which the fires of hell is often a symbol).
Mark, I think you have fallen into a reverse version of the fallacy of the undistributed middle. The fact that Jesus was not "carefully expounding a doctrine of the afterlife for future moderns" here (where does Jesus EVER 'carefully expound' any doctrine'?) has no bearing on what he actually believed about the reality and danger of hell. The words of Christ in the Gospels are not 'careful expositions', they are the tips of icebergs that thoughtful exploration will uncover.
Second, whatever the original context of a logion, was he telling the truth - or a 'noble lie' ('pour encourager les autres')? And were his words only true for the Twelve sent out on mission in Matt 10.5f or also for all who read these words years later? Obviously for all.
Your third paragraph is a non sequitur (as you say, 'it doesn't follow'!) unless you are a universalist and believe that everyone is destined to be saved, whether they repent and believe or not in this life. I often feel the attraction of that idea, but it founders on the rock (or icebergs) of the words of Christ. Did you know that statistically speaking, the person who far and away speaks the most about the dangers of hell in the New Testament is ... our Lord? A quick check of a concordance will verify this sobering thought. The subject clearly mattered to him, even if it doesn't to many today.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
Hi William,
No, not denying that Christ spoke of hell, just choosing to read this in a universalist way - as another part of God's story of redemption (in 'the ages to come'), as a place where God's presence is a patient, other wordly, transforming fire (like the burning bush) - because the other options are so theologically catastrophic:
1. Eternal conscious torment - God as torturer: wicked souls being punished for an eternity, without limit. What monster has ever done that? What justice would ever demand that? What wicked act could anyone do to justify this terrifying scenario?
2. Annihilation - God as executioner: where God as Love admits defeat and kills off whole parts of fallen creation.
God as Torturer and God as Executioner are powerful images that get deep inside the minds of kids. Trust me.
If I remember aright, Jesus mostly talks about hell in terms of those who don’t live the way God wants us to live, not in terms of not believing. But maybe believing in a God who loves us, changes how we live?
A phrase from Isaiah 33:14-15 (KJV) has come into mind: ‘Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?’ (I googled it). The answer is one who lives a righteous life… Fire is often associated with God in the OT.
Years ago, a workmate had a dream of heaven with fire burning that didn’t hurt people and he asked me how to get there. I told him about a prayer of repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus, which I think he acted on. I left soon after and didn’t follow him up.
I have long thought to be in the presence of the fire of God without my sin being covered would be hell. Maybe Jesus was very aware of this, which is why the urgency of some of his teaching and his first message of repentance.
Thanks Moya. Your workmate's dream reminds me of the burning bush - totally consumed by fire but not destroyed in the sense of being turned to ashes.
Would the doctrine of hell as eternal conscious torment and retributive divine justice be so popular if we’d had more women in church leadership (as theologians, clergy etc)? It’s hard to see women being quite as enthusiastic of these interpretations as, say, Augustine or Thomas Aquinas or Calvin.
Are women – or Paul’s treatment of women – mentioned in Beyond Justification?
Mark
Is it not the case that, whether or not “all will be saved” (which is an implication of CDP’s case in BJ), nevertheless Paul is pretty clear that Christians will be judged (1 Cor 3; 2 Cor 5) - that in some way or another, whether “punishment” is or is not involved - we will be held to account for how we have lived our lives as disciples?
Thanks Peter: Being accountable to God/justice as accountability is a very helpful, irenic way to proceed. All Christians, all orthodox visions of the age to come, would agree on this surely.
Such a troublemaker, Jesus keeps announcing more radical visions of justice and accountability....
'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you? 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.' (Matthew 25: 44-46, but see from 31-46).
(Universalist note: "eternal" in the NT is a translation of the Greek word "aion" or "aionios", which means the "aeon" or "age to come" - thus, "eternal punishment" is "the punishment of the age to come").
1 Cor 3.11-15 teaches that while we are saved by faith (v. 15), there will be 'rewards' (vv. 11-14) and honours in the world to come for how faithfully we have lived our natural lives. This is how I have always understood the parables of the talents and the minas.
C. S. Lewis explored this idea in the portrayal of Sarah Smith in ch. 12 of 'The Great Divorce'.
Anyone who thinks that the doctrine of salvation by faith in Christ ('Justification theory'!) makes us arrogant and indolent about the way we live shows that he hasn't understood the personal and existential meaning of faith.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
Noting Moya's comment above ("...Jesus mostly talks about hell in terms of those who don’t live the way God wants us to live, not in terms of not believing")...
and Jesus's own comments in Matthew 25:31-46 (above) and emphatically in Matthew 7, especially verses 21-23
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven...."
this seems to make justification by faith alone looks rather shakey.
Yes, maybe it's as you say, William - faith is more existential and holistic than mere verbal assent. But then I don't think the Church has always done a good job of presenting that.
I clearly need to think this through more systematically (I do try and get so confused!), but personally the movement to feels like it has three stages to me (maybe this is all "faith" and "justification"??) ....(1) faith in Christ drawing me in, then (2) I begin to discover the radical nature of what and who Christ is and what following Christ entails (gulp, panic), then (3) I stumble on realizing that the only way of following Christ without burning out or failing miserably and giving up altogether is by "becoming Christ", "dwelling in Christ", allowing Christ to dwell in me, the Spirit to pray in me etc. - which the Orthodox speak of as *deification*, perhaps *sanctification* for Protestants, but concretely for me is the path of *contemplative prayer and transformation*.
Dear William,
Thank you for pointing us to the image in 1 Corinthians 3 of the building foundation and the layers built on top of it, of the 'revelation'/'testing' of this work "with fire" at some future time, and the "rewards" (but not loss of the Christ foundation) that will be awarded. I have found this very helpful to reflect on in the context of our discussion.
I also prefer "salvation in Christ" to "justification" in thinking about all of this.
Mark
I completely agree with your last sentence Mark. The amount of psychological damage that this concept of hell has caused throughout history is huge. Let alone telling children that they are born sick (through sin) and commanded to be well. Also foisted upon them is the idea that they are under 24/7 surveillance (he knows every hair on your head) and will one day not only be judged for their life transgressions, but also thought crimes. Just aweful, I relay this from personal experience.
Regards Thomas
In the Gospel of Mark there are at least two accounts (middle of chapter five, end of chapter six) of people being "saved" (by faith) just through the act of *touching* Jesus's body.
As Rowan Williams speaks about in this talk on "The Catholic Understanding of Mission" (see link below), there is a world of salvation beyond Words and Ideas where we don't need to understand everything clearly, in which a theological training is sometimes a hindrance rather than a boon. As Williams says, when we can't figure everything out (and don't have to), it is comforting and efficacious for people in church to be able to *do things with their bodies* (stand here, kneel there, make this cross-shaped gesture here, light s candle there)....not, in light of Mark, as attempt to do 'the right thing'/good works, much less an attempt to control the universe and win God's favour through ritual magic, but as an expression of receiving or having received Christ through faith.
https://youtu.be/MlNQ2-9D4Ok?si=sjn1v36xgWnIDMt9
This article in the latest edition of 'Touchstone' has some pertinent things to say on the verses discussed above and on Matt 25.46.
https://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=37-04-027-f&readcode=&readtherest=true#therest
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
Sorry folks for the long, babe-like posts. Peter's post this week has provoked me to finally get clearer on this thorny issue. It did cause a Reformation! Thanks for your help and patience :)
Can a legalistic approach to salvation - i.e. the language of "justification" and "the law" - ever fully account for, *and communicate to Christians and non-Christians* the full transforming process of salvation through faith in Christ?
William remarked here, maybe last week, that Jesus was always more concerned with the interiority of the Torah. Maybe my 'problem' is an inappropriate dry Western projection of law that doesn't do justice to the diversity and spiritual vitality of Jewish views, or ignores Jesus' own sensibility.
My interaction with the idea of justification over the years has suffered by trying to think it through as a technical problem of theology. I'm not sure if that represents the limits of my own mind at the time, or the general way this issue has been spoken about and pursued.
Rather than being rather distant from our lived experience, I now am inclined to think that 'problems' with 'justification' show up a great deal in our Christian journey, and show up more in my therapy room than I have hitherto realized.
I think I find the greatest cognitive coherence in a perhaps more catholic view: that justification isn't a one off event in which our sins are wiped off the ledger, so to speak, by God as the Chief Judge of the Divine Court, but that justification is a process through which our very being is changed, a process of interior purification that naturally manifests as being more loving with ourselves, God, and the world.
The key to this process (in which 'justification' and 'sanctification' flow seamlessly together) is that *Christ comes to dwell in us* (both a new event and a restoration of original being). If that doesn't happen or is blocked (for whatever various, complex reason) we are trying to do this all on our own, setting ourselves up for failure, self-condemnation, for performative religion and hypocrisy etc.
Now, I don't think that's very unorthodox, right? Christ dwelling within us. It's dripping through the Gospel of John as well as Paul. Nevertheless, this aspect hasn't been that explicit in my interactions with the church and theology. Of course it goes on happening - through the mystery of church membership, sacramental life, and the work of the Spirit. But until I started practicing contemplative prayer, and even when I practiced that assiduously, it seemed vaguely heretical, or perhaps just distastefulI don't know, to think, feel, and say that Christ dwells in me. Maybe I was still being purified - still am! - of my own personal, psychological and spiritual blocks to such a process and awareness.
For most of my adult life is has certainly felt heretical, though somewhat attractive, to think of this whole justification process as a *theosis* - God becoming human so we may become divine (to paraphrase Saint Athanius). Of course that sounds nigh impossible to some extent - like it would take aeons. Maybe it does. But when Christ dwells in us - and we make room for this dwelling - then it suddenly doesn't seem that far.
Me too Thomas. Even though my parents were loving, implicit universalists, a version of hell as eternal conscious torment somehow made it into my young mind. I actually wonder if this doctrine is a supreme example of Christian theology infected by sin. It wasn't the most popular early view, scholars say, but became dominant as Christianity became a religion of empire under Constantine.
Thanks for that reference to the Touchstone article, William.
I don't see anything there that convinces me against universalism. As we've said here, the theme of divine accountability for how we've lived our lives, images of God's presence as a purifying fire, and a notion of chastisement 'in the age to come' are certainly present in the Bible, but hardly make a convincing case for eternal conscious torment.
For anyone interested in exploring more:
See the internet documentary, Love Unrelenting, https://youtu.be/b-09mmIzgfA?si=Vv5GKPNIfz3jEqFb
David Bentley Hart's book, "All Shall Be Saved"
On the history of universalism in Christian theology, see Richard Bauckham's article:
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/universalism-a-historical-survey/
On universalism and the Bible, see:
https://campuspress.yale.edu/keithderose/1129-2/
"...for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ". (1 Corinthians 15:22).
Mark, have you grappled with what the writer says about Matthew 25.46, where 'kolasis aionios' is bracketed with 'zoe aionios'? If you think the 'punishment' is 'time-limited', the same must apply for the 'life', which would very odd.
Perhaps your problem is with eternal *conscious punishment and how this can be reconciled with the God of love? I feel the force of this as well, which is why I tend to agree with the late English Anglican John Stott, who was, I believe, an annihilationist: a punishment that is eternal in extent but not in conscious experience. But if I am wrong about this, that will be because I do not grasp properly the holiness of God.
No doubt part of the problem is that Bible necessarily uses pictures drawn from our world, but we time-bound mortals cannot really grasp what immortality means.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
Hi William,
Is aeon or 'age to come' time-limited? Can we be sure that the life to come with God will be deathless? I think there's more than enough reasons to hope for that.
Can we be sure that whatever process of judgment/accountability/justice/purification/transformation exists for others will be limitless, will cause them to suffer forever, will be bereft of hope of redemption and God's love still working towards transformation so that all may come to have life in Christ? It seems not only is there lack of clear scriptural evidence for this, but it goes against the mission of Christ, and the God who Christ reveals. This is attested by modern theology (see Bauckham's article, which is a very good summary of this doctrine over time, from Origen to the present day).
Against my better/worse instincts, I do want to pull back from being too reactive-dogmatic. It's rather ludicrous to say 'I'm a universalist' (as I have done) or so and so is 'an annihilationist', as if these isms and loyalties really matter and are ultimate. In the end we simply don't know. I think the grounds to be dogmatic on eternal conscious torment isn't anyway near as strong as it's been portrayed for hundreds of years. But those more inclined to universalist or annihilationist positions don't know for sure either. The mystery of God is always more than our best marshalled arguments.
Could that be a segue to the other topic I said I feel hazy on: Anglican understandings of eucharist...Peter, my vote for a future post sometime :)
William, I appreciate your point on time and eternity and how this should qualify our certainty around many of these questions.
David Bentley Hart, from an Eastern Orthodox perspective, speaks of three senses of time amongst early church fathers like Maximus and Gregory: (1) chronos/ordinary temporal existence, (2) the aeon, "the fullness of time in a spiritual dimension", and (3) "the eternity of God beyond all senses of time". The fall, for example, was regarded as taking place in the second sense of time such that there was no point in human history (chronos) where the fall hadn't already happened and had its effects. This creates more headspace, perhaps, to think through the problem of evil, and doctrines of creation, fallenness, redemption, heaven and hell, and eschatology in general.
Mark, putting it positively, if 'zoe aionios'in Matt 25.46 means 'eternal life', then 'kolasis aionios' in the same verse means 'eternal punishment'. I do not believe Jesus would warn about this unless the danger was real.
The "attraction" of annihilationism for me (punishment is never attractive to me!) is that I can't see what good purpose God would have in sustaining conscious suffering in some of His rational creatures, without any prospect of inducing reform and repentance. The intratrinitarian nature of God is love ("God is love"), not wrath against sin; in the eschaton sin is no more, and neither is wrath. I would dearly love to believe that every human will eventually be reconciled to God but I can't find support for this wish in Scripture.
Most NZers who have sloughed off religious belief already appear to believe that death is personal extinction anyway and there are no postmortem rewards or punishments but Matt 25 teaches there is a resurrection of all the dead and actual punishment of evil. Interestingly, Immanuel Kant, who was no orthodox Christian and believed that reason could never establish the existence of God, free will or life after death, nevertheless came to believe in the existence of all three on moral (not rational) grounds. Kant perceived that if the good person dies unjustly and the evil person dies peacefully in his bed, his whole belief in the objective moral law (the central claim of Kantian ethics) was fatally undermined in a morally nihilistic universe. Thus, Kant concluded, if the moral law is real and not imaginary, there must be an all-knowing Judge who rewards and punishes in the afterlife. Atheists who believe in objective morality but not in God are deluding themselves,
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
Yes, William, I certainly feel the immense contradiction of eternal conscious torment vs 'God is Love, in God there is no darkness'. I don't feel annihilationism (and there is some scriptural support for this) is the best answer - while respecting the free will of humans (and other spiritual beings) that choose to rebel against Love, to end their torment of Love's Presence by destroying their existence. As a therapist I've sat with many people who wish for suicide as a release from unbearable suffering. I've felt the seeming reasonableness and mercifulness of their wish at times: what a relief if they'd only be able to die. But that feels like a very sad, defeated, exhausted *human* place to end up. Forgive and comfort us, renew our hope.
'Zoe aionios' could also mean 'life in the ages to come' and 'kolasis aionios' 'punishment in the ages to come'. To become normative theological ground, individual textual moments would need to be considered against the wider revelation of the character of God. John Hick argues annihilationism represents a defeat of God's omnipotence (Christ's mission to save all is defeated), whereas eternal conscious torment clearly contradicts the revelation that God's being is Love. I suppose annihilationism is preferable if we had to choose (luckily we don't!).
Emil Brunner's non-dogmatic response to this question is very interesting (but I'm not sure you'll like it, William). As summarised by Bauckham:
"That universal salvation is an open question is also the conclusion that Brunner reaches by a different route. He stresses that we must take quite seriously the two categories of NT texts: those which speak of a final decisive division of humanity at the Last Judgment, and those that speak of God's single unqualified will for the salvation of all...The texts are logically incompatible because they are not intended to give theoretical information. To the question 'Is there such a thing as final loss or is there a universal salvation?' there is no answer, because the Word of God 'is a Word of challenge, not of doctrine'. It addresses us and involves us. It's truth is not the objective truth available to the neutral observer, but the subjective truth of existential encounter."
Swiss theology (and I include Barth as well as Brunner) is like Swiss cheese: it has a fine taste but is also full of holes. An existential encounter and challenge is like a haka on a rugby pitch: it is only meaningful if there is a force to back it up. I hope the All Blacks remember that in the next test.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
But it's the holes that make the cheese so light and memorable, that save it from being too stodgy!
Universalism might be best seen not as a doctrine or theoretical position but a theologically founded hope. This is Julian of Norwich struggling with the issue (chapter 32 of the long text) in the fourteenth century, in which her prayer-life and *holiness* comes into dialogue with the Church's teaching of the time:
"And I wondered a great deal about this revelation and reflected on our faith, wondering in this way: our faith is founded on God’s word, and it is part of our faith that we believe that God’s word will be kept in all things. And one article of our faith is that many will be damned… condemned eternally to hell, as Holy Church teaches me to believe. And considering all this, it seemed impossible to me that all manner of things should be well, as our Lord revealed at this time. And to this I received no other answer by way of revelation from our Lord God except this: ‘What is impossible to you is not impossible to me. I shall keep my word in all things, and I shall make all things well.’"
Heroically drawing this wildfire back to the initial post on Paul, maybe the sort of faith, hope, and love that we see in Mother Julian is a fruit of the transformation process (salvation in Christ) that begins in baptism? Is that what CDP mean by in terms of 'beyond justification: participation, resurrection, and tramsformation'?
Thank you for comments above - a fascinating thread of inight, argument and counter argument!
Two or three quick thoughts:
1. I think it right to not become either A Universalist or An Anti-Universalist. There is just enough in Scripture to give pause about what “all will be saved” means (and what the immeasurable grace of God is, etc). There is more than enough in Scripture about divine justice and judgement for us to pay attention to “how then shall we be saved” and “how then shall we live.”
2. In the end I am something of an annihilationist.
3. Jesus said something important when he said - I paraphrase - to those whom much is given, much is expected. Whatever may happen to (e.g.) the person who has never heard of Christ and the gospel; or to the person who has heard the gospel in the context of outrageous sectarianism and turned away from that “God of that sectarianism”, we who have heard the gospel of Christ in fair and reasonable terms, on multiple occasions and in contexts full of love, we have no excuse not to give our all to Christ and to open our hearts to all he has to give us. Surely (in keeping with, say, Hebrews) there is no excuse, no unviersalist get -out-of-hell card for those of us who “refuse to enter God’s rest”.
4. If I may demur from an observation of William’s above re the practical annihilationism of the ordinary Kiwi when contemplating death and the possibility of an afterlife: my experience of funerals (for non-believers) is that there is a strong belief that “Dad is now reunited with Mum” or “Fred is enjoying a beer with the boys.” !!!!
Peter, you may be right on the unreflective views that swirl around at funerals; after all, it is natural (and right) to love one's own parents since they are an extension of one's self (or the other way round) and hard to think that they are irrevocably gone or worse, enduring punishment. As for those we don't know or don't care for, well, that's another matter: "Universalism for me but not for thee."
The 2018 census figures on religion (and the far-reaching 2023 church survey in NZ) make fascinating if disturbing reading. In 2001 59% of NZers professed to be 'Christian', in 2018 that had fallen to 38%. The fall in nominal identity has been immense, especially among previously self-designated Anglicans, Presbyterians and Methodists, while evangelicals and sectarian semi-Christian groups (JWs, Mormons etc) seemed to hold their own.
I will be interested to see how far Covid and the enforced closure of churches has damaged church affiliation, along with the impact of massive non-Christian immigration from Asian countries on popular culture. It isn't a one-way street, of course: NZ Catholicism has benefited from an influx of Filipino immigration, and the Catholic priesthood (desperately short of numbers) from Vietnamese priests and ordinands.
NZ is following a somewhat different path from Europe. There, Christianity has largely been expunged from an aggressively secular public square, while immigration, the dominant political issue, is largely associated with Islam and its socio-political ambitions. This is one of the major factors in the political mess that France and Britain now find themselves in. Interesting times, as the Chinese proverb goes.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
Now we've sorted that all out (Universalism won on penalties in my view) I find I'm now in a position to actually read and engage with CDP's Beyond Justification. Babes like me will benefit from the very helpful "New Perspective on Paul" entry in Wikipedia which raises many interesting issues (pistis as faithfulness, grace as favour, mystical participation in Christ as Paul's central idea) which I will not pursue further here!
Thanks, Mark, that's a great help for the translation work I'm doing for the NIV (Newly Improved Vulgate). So far I've got to John 3.16: 'God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him (or doesn't) should not perish (because no one will) but have eternal life (or 'time-limited life of that aeon').' Verse 18 is proving a bit of a problem, though, also 3.36, 5.29, 5.45, 6.53, 8.21, 8.24, 10.26-28, and a few dozen other passages in the New Testament.
This is the consumer-driven principle of Zuckerberg's Meta: that just as we are exposed to the 'news' and ideas that we already agree with, we should have a Gospel that agrees with our existing beliefs. So far, the laws of physics and bank balances have not come round to this way of thinking.*
(*life imitating 'art': many years ago, I quoted the sardonic joke that 'not even committed post-modernists would choose to travel on a plane designed by a committee chosen for their cultural diversity', not realising that this is exactly what would happen to American airlines.)
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
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