Let's get the least difficult matter out of the way - cold, miserable January weather in Christchurch (and other parts of NZ) - not the summer we wanted but the farmers get needed rain ... and, segueing to much, much more difficult matters, we are not in a tragic situation such as Los Angeles is experiencing through these days ... nor are we at war. I am not aware that any conflicts on 31 December 2024 have ceased with the turn of the new year.
Then, thinking of a rocky start to the year, there is Trump wanting more American territory, seemingly oblivious to the ethical logic of his rhetoric: that Putin may as well seek Ukraine as Trump Greenland ... or Canada.
But I do like the joke on the internet: that Australia has announced that it has offered New Zealand to Trump as territory he might like to acquire :). It would be one way to get the longed for free trade agreement with the USA!
New Year reflections: by this I don't mean reflections on world events (though they form context for thinking about the perenniel question, What is the Good News in our day?). I do mean: thinking about the Good News, with Anglican hues, with reference to some reading I have managed to do during the holiday season.
So a bit of reading Barth's Church Dogmatics led to some enquiry into De Lubac's mid 20th century controversy with Dominican Thomists over nature/supernature (a controversy I do not fully understand, in part because it includes "This is what Aquinas meant" v "No, that is not what he meant" ping-pong!) which moved into some internet enquiries yielding some interesting articles/chapters, including the nugget of information that Garrigou-Lagrange (erstwhile chief Thomistic antagonist of De Lubac's) was a supporter of Vichy France (because it represented opposition to "modernism"). Naturally this got me thinking along the following lines ... (in no particular order of merit):
- What is it about conservative theology, whether in the early to mid 20th century in Europe or in the early 21st century in America/Europe, which leads to associated support for fascist or fascist-tending politicians?
- In different words, why are some theologians careful to question "modernism" in any given human era but seemingly careless about whom they unquestioningly welcome as allies against "modernism"?
- Can we ever be fully rational about how God works in the world? The nature/supernature controversy is (in my understanding) an issue about how God as God makes connection with creation (whether nature is "the whole of creation" or focused on nature as "humanity"), the supernatural with the natural, with the conjoined issue of whether natural desire for God exists "naturally" and if so, is God obligated to fulfil it (which impinges on God's sovereign freedom)?, or, desire for God is implanted by God through the creation of us ... briefly, there is a mystery about God's work in the world and, just may be, it cannot be explained by a combo of Aristotle's and Aquinas' propositions? Or, can it be? My own lean is towards De Lubac's suspicion of a wholly rational explanation for God's work in the world.
- Why, across a number of bits and bobs of writings about these matters was it hard if not impossible to find a fairly straightforward christological approach to the nature/supernature dilemms? That is, a Christian approach to bridging any assumed gap between nature and supernature should invoke the Incarnation (the Word became flesh) as the specific, concrete instance in which the gap is bridged and, further, recalling Pauline "in Christ" theology, is not our desire for God fulfilled by our being "in Christ" - within the very life of the One in whom all things in heaven and on earth are fulfilled?
- Conversely, just as anti-modernist politicians can be engaged in order to support a specific theological agenda, so can the Christian faith be invoked to support a certain line of political or socio-political thought (the current instance being the acknowledgement by various global pundits that Christianity has profound influence on our aspiration for "the good life" in the here and now). But, much as we Christians, feeling beleagured in secularised modern life, may relish such endorsement, is there not an ever constant need to focus on truth rather than utility? Does God exist? Is this existent God the God revealed in and through Jesus Christ? What does this God say to us and expect of us?
- De Lubac has a fascinating passage (as cited in something I read) which in his context was about (in my language) Catholic propositional theologians but which I reckon could apply to evangelical propositional theologians:
De Lubac "Disappearance of the Sense of the Sacred." pp. 233-4, (in Theology in History, trans. Anne Englund Nash (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1996), cited in Randall S. Rosenberg, The Givenness of Desire: Concrete Subjectivity and the Natural Desire to See God (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017), p. 28.
- Reflecting on such a critique of a "We've got it all sewn up theology", De Lubac was mindful, as other theologians have been, as I hope I am, that the God we adore and attempt to serve, the God in whom we believe ultimate blessing is to be found, is the God of Jesus Christ - the God who in great complexity, diversity and not always rationally reconcilable disclosures is revealed through the Old Testament, the four Gospels, the Pauline and other epistles - but whom may be understood simply (if profoundly and unable to be exhausted mystery) as Love.
- In 2025, whatever rockiness, tragedy and miserable-summerness befalls us, the Good News of Jesus Christ is that God is Love, we are loved by Love itself and the best life - the Augustinian rest for our restlessness, the Thomistic beatitude we seek - is yet to be but always present in Jesus Christ, risen from the dead.
7 comments:
Fabulous to find your first post here for 2025! Thank you. I'll be reading it bit by bit during the week but smiled when I came across "Good News, with Anglican hues". Love it :)
New Year's greetings to +Peter and fellow ADU readers
God bless ~Liz
It seems to me that systematic theology is a very human endeavour, human-centred at its core. I don't think we give enough attention to our nature in comparison to God's.
The whole caboodle is entirely understandable, reasonable, obvious even ... to a (the) God being. A miracle of the Scriptures is how much God enables us to understand of what is and how and why, despite our tiny capability (compared to God) and the gross limitations of language that come from our limitedness. I would like to see more exploration of our constraints and how that plays into our attempts to understand the reality Scripture is trying to convey.
For example we are bound in time and cannot really grasp all of what it means that God is not so bound. This lack in us needs to make us cautious when we explore aspects of theology where time is relevant, for example the old sovereignty of God vs free will discussions.
Just to illustrate what I mean, imagine trying to explain a cube to a two-dimensional being called, let's say, Square. Square understands right angles. You tell him that a cube is like six squares stuck together, but when you try to draw a cube for him it comes out with some angles not being right angles. There is no way to present a cube accurately with the faces related to each other correctly and the angles the correct size. I want to trust that cubes 'truths I cannot encompass' exist despite the evidence of my eyes 'limitations of the human state of being'.
I cringe when I perceive arrogance in some theological discussions, especially the rubbishing of other people's points of view. What human is so close to God in their understanding that they can turn around and disparage others? I prefer to think of the Scriptures like this: God, the universe, the extra-universe realities are. God loves us amazingly and so has communicated some subset of that to us in the Scriptures, as best can be done to such limited beings. Our role is to understand that the difficulties understanding the Scriptures are due to our limitations, not due to God not being trustworthy in communicating to us (nor that it is not even God communicating in the Scriptures).
Let's not try to nail everything down. The whole thing can be completely and rationally explained, just not by us.
One of the big errors, I think, in understanding human beings is to assume that there is a generic, singular "type" - that we are fundamentally rational, or fundamentally relational, or fundamentally emotion-based etc. While all of these are true, it is also obvious that beyond what we have common there is also a great diversity of ways of being. Religions who stress our unity and equality (especially strong with the monotheistic religions) often have the challenge of accounting for our great diversity too (polytheistic religions are perhaps better at allowing and even celebrating this, as they allow and celebrate it in their doctrine of God).
Too much diversity and we lose a sense of our (and God's) unity and wholeness; too much too much unity and we lose a an appreciation of the myriad forms in which human and divine being appears.
There are many models for understanding human diversity-in-unity. By this stage in my life I've tried many of them out on myself and clients! The one that keeps proving it's worth for me, as a basic foundation, is the Myers-Briggs typology based on the pioneering insights of Carl Jung.
Anyway, this is a long way to saying: our theologies reflect our various personality types as theologians and human beings. Rationally-oriented people produce rational theologies (tradition-oriented people conservative theologies, feeling-based people experiential theologies etc). Rational-type theologians have the gift of being extremely sensitive to the rationality of God...until they hit some great crisis of love or suffering in which God asks them to really stretch, not least in their sense of God's bigness.
Ah good, you're here with us Mark! Happy New Year. Your last sentence.. I've been struck by observing that very same thing in many personal stories - there's some personal experience, often within their own family or with a dear friend, that forces them to see or think about something in a new way. And suddenly there's not only a change-of-mind but a change-of-heart (I'm not sure which comes first!) Is it that we're suddenly confronted by the raw human reality (and fragility) of deep connection? And then, instead of a purely mind-driven process we're actually engaging our heart! Why can't we do that to begin with? [rhetorical Q] Having been raised in a conservative, evangelical context I understand one possible strand.. long-term conditioning to one POV being true - and anything else by definition being 'unsound' :(
Gosh + Peter just some light deliberating over Christmas then : )
I was pondering some aspects of WWII prior to Christmas, partly due to a number of books/TV programmes and partly I guess because of all that is happening in the world now. Interestingly, research was done into the common denominators in the lives of many of the Nazi’s who were particularly ruthless and what came out was the majority (not all) came from educated backgrounds, and were often proficient in music or literature. The ‘supposed’ motivation for their willingness to fully embrace Hitler’s manifesto was their crushed hopes of decent careers in pre-WWII Germany; the regime offered the temptation of status, power and success - Hitler offered them a way to get what they wanted.
With such I cringe at what you mentioned, the theology that supports political fascist tendencies, and theologians willing to claim allies of that persuasion in order to counter-act what they consider unscriptural. From my vantage point the former is when theology or theologians themselves specifically are taken in by a political agenda and find ways to justify that through scripture in order to appeal to others (they put their political loyalty ahead of their loyalty to God; Apartheid South Africa and Rwanda are classic examples). In respect to the later it seems as if people are willing to compromise their faithfulness to God in one area in order to achieve what they hold as being in-line with the christian teaching in another. How much of both of these are also to do with people seeking status, power, and success? If we take the US as an example, whilst I agree with the position taken by advocates say for pro-life, to pick one, if in my eagerness to see this cause realised I pledge my loyalty to a political candidate who personally speaks or acts in opposition to four other key positions I hold due to my faith, what am I really seeking? I may be disheartened because I can see the society I live in turning away from many of the ways of Jesus, and the popularity of Christianity and therefore my way of living life on the decline; so will I persuade myself that compromising on the ways of God is the only way of advancing His Kingdom or is it the only way I can see of keeping the status, supposed success and influence of Christianity?
Three things come to mind, Jesus sought neither success as the world measures it, earthly power, or status to bring in the Kingdom of God; the first two because he did not seek them and the last because He submitted to the authority of the Father. The power he held was spiritual or ‘from above’, and the success he sought was to do what what the Father had given Him to do, and in terms of status he trusted himself to the one who judges justly. So is there a growing tendency therefore in some countries, let’s say western countries, within Christian theology or culture to place some things above God or to look to cultural methods/means of achieving outcomes to see God’s Kingdom come instead of the example Jesus gave us?
Hi Jean! Thanks for sharing. It's great to hear from you.
~fascinating article I read yesterday about an extremely courageous Baptist pastor in Vienna named Arnold Köster (I don't recall reading about him before).
[quote] Describing the Nazis, Köster said: “They stormed past with a defiant spirit and incredible impudence while the mass of the people, drunk and hypnotised, hoped that ‘this day’ would bring salvation. Heil! Heil! — and still there is no Heil! Even the church — in still greater blindness — walks past the question of God while its representatives are dressed in holy and pious garb.”
He was forthright in his views, and public.
[quote] Widespread propaganda was deluding Christians into thinking Hitler was sent from God. He believed the party’s promise of “salvation” (Heil in German) was competing with the saving message of the gospel. He made clear that for the Christian, Christ alone was the “ultimate leader” (Führer).
Although he met several times with the Gestapo he was never jailed or sent to a camp.
The Baptist Bonhoeffer.
https://baptistnews.com/article/the-baptist-bonhoeffer/
Gosh Liz he was fortunate and brave… I didn’t realise that was what Heil meant. A good warning as to whom we look to for salvation!
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