How to Blog

I wanted to alert my readers to a recent post regarding what makes for a good blog.  I have learned that i can often violate two of his “no-no’s,” # 1 and 4.  Need to work on those.  What would some of your pet peeves and favorite blog “practices” be? 

The History of Biblical Interpretation: Jewish Interpretation, Part 1

Hello faithful blog readers.  Due to my heavy class reading load over biblical interpretation, most of my posts will concern how to interpret the bible.  Although this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, i hope that the next few months of posts will be informative and stimulate questions for the readers.

I thought that it might be interesting to do a brief (in content, not in amount of posts) historical survey of approaches to interpretation.  At this point the only source will be the book above (click to link for more information), covering pages 23-62.  It goes without saying that the authors aren’t perfect, and they may be off, as well as myself in my interpretation and assessments of their arguments.  So by all means, disagree!  Without further ado, lets jump in. 

The first interpreters of biblical material weren’t Christians, rather they were Jews.  By the time of the NT, three distinct approaches were born, each rooted in a different geographical center.  In this post i will cover one, the interpretative method of Hellenistic Jews.

Due to Alexander the Great’s conquest and the subsequent imposition of Greek culture on the surounding areas, many Jews were affected.  In particular, Alexandria was the place where this form of Judaism flourished, whose goal it was to “integrate Greek philosophy, especially that of Plato, with Jewish religious beliefs.”  It was out of this culture that the Septuagint, the bible of the early church, was born. 

As the authors note, the distinctive focus of this ”school” was on its allegorical method, which was rooted in platonic philosophy.  The master of this approach was Philo (20 B.C.-54 A.D.), whose goal was integration of the Hebrew bible with Platonism.  For Philo, a passage of scripture was like a human being.  It had a body (eg literal meaning) and a soul (allegorical meaning).  For Philo it was this allegorical, or deeper meaning, that was sometimes the “real meaning.”  The allegorical meaning was the truer meaning when the text either (a) said anything unworthy of God, (b) contained some insoluble difficulty, and/or (c) involved an obvious allegorical expression.

Also, he believed that hidden meaning lay behind numbers and names, and he would often find meanings in this manner by regrouping words in a passage, or by playing with the different meaning s a word could have.  As an example, the authors cite his interpretation of Gen 2:10 ["A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches" NRSV], in which he determined that the river in Eden represented goodness, and the other 4 “represented the four great virtues of Greek philosophy–prudence, temperance, courage, and justice.”

Such an approach has obvious difficulties, like the seemingly arbitrary nature of his conclusions and how his philosophic views tended to have too much of a determinative effect on his interpretation of the Bible.  In fact, the authors suggest that for Philo, the differences between Platonic thought and the Bible were often ignored.  This is an ever present danger for Biblical scholars and theologians.

However, according to the authors Philo got a few things right.  (1) He recognized the limitations inherent in interpretation concerning the nature of God.  (2) He worked hard to make his interpretations have relevance, by integrating with the dominant philosophy of the day.  I’m in agreement with (1), but am still grappling with the validity of (2) as a praiseworthy goal.  Although from where i stand i see little that is directly usable today, understanding their methods helps me to understand subsequent developments in the Christian faith, even up to the present time.   More on some possible connections between this method and contemporary thought tomorrow.

My 1st Lecture!

 

I’m very excited to announce that i have been invited by my alma mater (click the pic above) to give a presentation for the Biblical/Theological conference they started two years ago.   [For more info regarding the conference. click here and explore the links.]

The theme for this year’s conference is “The Future of the Church and the Church of the Future.”  I have been invited by one of my professors to present on the topic of “The doctrine of God in the 21st century.” 

I’m very excited about this opportunity.  I’m a little concerned that this paper will hurt my classwork.  The class I’m getting ready to start on Monday night is over Biblical Interpretation.  While this isn’t my first class on the subject, my teacher is supposed to be pretty tough, so i have a bit of anxiety over whether or not i can handle the load.  Despite my reservations, i do not think that i can pass up this opportunity. 

Since these two tasks (my Interpretation class and lecture preparation) will devour probably all my time for the next two months, i am going to have to temporarily suspend my “contemporary views” series.  I will be posting over thinkers like Barth, Rahner, Moltmann, and Kung still, but they will be more generalized.  Also, be prepared for a lot of posts over my Interp class lecture, discussion, and materials.  It is going to be a fun, albeit challenging time.

Update: I have changed my topic to (roughly) the future of interpretation for the church.  I don’t want to spread myself too thin, and this gives me added motivation to work hard in class. 

Free Audio Apologetics Course

If anyone is interested in apologetics, then i recommend that you check here, where you can listen to nearly an entire apologetics course by Douglas Groothuis, with many lectures included study notes and references to other pertinent sources.  Enjoy!

[HT: SP]

Contemporary Views of God (2): Paul Tillich on God and Other Faiths

With this post we come to end of our exploration of Paul Tillich’s theology.  We have discussed his methodology, his overall view of God, his understanding of the proper use of language as it relates to “God-talk,” and his understanding of the relationship of immanence and transcendence.  This last post will touch on how Tillich’s view of other religions and his doctrine of God interact.

As Veli-Matte Karkkainen tells it, a few years before Tillich’s death, he visited Japan.  He had never interacted in such a real-life way with another faith (Buddhism) before, and it radically impacted him.  In fact, for Tillich he was so impacted by this experience that he quit believing that Christianity was the “absolute” religion (133). 

For Tillich, Buddhism and Christianity complemented each other.  They both complement each other in their most basic understanding of reality as something that has fallen from an earlier state of perfection and seek to be liberated from this state by the “Ground of Being (133).”  Even though Buddhist and Christian conceptions of how this state of affairs came to be and how it will be overcome are radically different, for Tillich, since the two systems share the same basic concerns, and both offer an answer to modern man regarding how to overcome the threat of “non-being,” then they are both valid faiths or belief systems. 

Let’s sum up Tillich.  We have seen that the strengths of Tillich’s approach is his intentionality of delivering an understanding of Christianity that is comprehendable to modern man.  This comes out of his sincere desire to understand the struggles that modern people face, which is a commendable goal.  His weaknesses have been at times letting that desire dominate his approach to Scripture.  This led to a lack of clarity regarding the relationship of immanence and transcendence in God, and a very limited scope of language to use regarding God.  In my view Tillich thwarted his main goal of trying to make Christianity palatable to modern sensibilities by allowing the concerns of the day overwhelm his understanding of God. 

Up Next: The Great Orthodox Theologian John Zizioulas!

New Videos to Check Out

Hello all, just wanted to let everyone know that if you haven’t heard of Erik Mongrain, then you need to check him out (If you click on the picture of him above, it will take you to his website). 

Music is a real passion of mine that doesn’t often come out here ATP, but i think that this guy’s guitar work is so exceptional that I’m going strongly push you to check him out.  I first heard him at this year’s leadership summit last weekend, and he blew me away.

If you are interested, you can hear him on his website, or if you check out my video player, you will find a few videos of him.  If nothing else, listen to his song entitled “airtap.”  If you don’t feel encouraged after hearing it, then i’m not sure what else i can do to help you!

Barth on Scripture

In a recent discussion on the yahoo group discussion board barthianmilieu, someone asked for responses to the charge that Barth took a “cavalier” attitude to Scripture.  Here is my response:

“I think that the use of the word “cavalier” is more of an ad hominem caricature of a legitimate difference between Barth and many
theologians.  What Barth does teach is called the threefold word of God.  For Barth Scripture is the “2nd tier” in the sense that it sheds light on the Word of God incarnate, Jesus, the full revelation of God (cf Jn 1).

So obviously for Barth, Scripture is vital. However, for Barth it is unacceptable to put even the Bible above the risen Christ. So in a
sense, Barth doesn’t hold Scripture as highly as many segments of the church. Rather, he is always looking for Christ to have the
supremacy. This leads to two ramifications that i can see initially:

1) Concerning ethics, the bible is informative, and is able to “thoroughly equip” the Christian (Tim 3:16), but since for Barth all of Scripture must be filtered through the revelation of God in Jesus Christ (who is risen and present to the believer/church in the Spirit), we must read the Bible with an ear tuned to Christ. In a ord, the bible “equips us preparatorily” us for what Christ will reveal.

2) This leads us, admittedly, into a realm of uncertainty or subjectivity. However, if we affirm the risen Christ and His presence among us now, it is hard to argue against the notion that He wants to speak into the concrete realities of our lives. This being the case, we are left to depend on the grace and faithfulness of God, seeking above all to be faithful to Him.

So while i agree with the sentiment that Barth handles scripture in a different way, to call him cavalier is unfair since for him he is
seeking above all to be faithful to and dependent on Christ. For Barth, even hermeneutical theory must bow to Him.”

Contemporary European Views of God (2): Paul Tillich and the Problem of Language

 

In my previous post, i dealt with one of Tillich’s most controversial statements, and how his methodology (which i dealt with in my first post regarding Tillich) led him to (in my estimation) greatly over-emphasize the transcendence of God.  In this post, based on this book, to explore the effects of Tillich’s radically transcendent picture of God.

Since, as Tillich so greatly stressed, God cannot in any way be part of finite existence, then what can be said of Tillich’s “God?”  Not surprisingly, Tillich struggled with the problem of how to speak meaningfully of God.  Tillich decided to view all language of God as symbolic rather than literal.  Even the term “god” is a symbol for God (132).  It is hard to know much about who this God is in Tillich’s view other than He is.

A similar problem arises when trying to understand Tillich’s view of transcendence and immanence.  It seems fairly certain that Tillich was a panentheist.  This view makes understanding his view of immanence fairly simple, in that everything that is “finite participates in ‘being itself (God)’, which is the structure of being in which everything is grounded (133).”  So for Tillich everything literally depends on the ground of being for its current, continued, and eternal existence.  So in a sense for Tillich, the world and God are intimately connected, united even.

That being the case, Tillich still struggled with how to understand how this panentheist view could be squared with the complete and unqualified difference between God and humanity.  Since according to Tillich being itself could not ever participate with non-being (death), then it therefore “infinitely transcends everything finite (133).”  This severely limited how he could speak meaningfully of God’s immanence, even in a panentheistic framework.  I would argue that it led into contradictions.

It seems to me that although Tillich makes a valiant effort, he is unable to clearly demonstrate how his panentheism relates to God’s transcendence.  The reason for this goes back to the fundamental problem that as i see it plagued his work from the outset, that being the problem of allowing man’s central concerns (as Tillich viewed) them set the agenda for his theology.  If in fact man’s central issue is the fear of death, then it is true that being a part of being-itself would calm that fear.  However, at what cost? 

This is an ever-present danger in doing theology.  We want to be culturally relevant, but the threat of distortion looms large when we do.  While we may dismiss the idea that we could fall into some of the problems that Tillich did, integration cannot help but be dangerous.  That does not mean that we should not attempt it necessarily, but that we must do so in a way different than Tillich did.  For some of my thoughts on how to do theology, click here, here, and here.

Any thoughts from anyone else?

Philosophy and Theology

 

In my most recent post on Tillich’s doctrine of God, one of my undergrad professors made a concise and insightful comment regarding the relationship between philosophy and theology.  I thought that it was so good it deserved a separate post.  Regarding using philosophy in theological work he writes:

As for alien philosophy: If we want to communicate with our contemporaries, we can’t help using the philosophical categories and presuppositions we share with them. The danger of Tillich’s method of correlation is compromise. The danger of rejecting the method of correlation is irrelevance.

I think that there are some serious things in this statement for prospective theologians (like myself) to think about.  One has to admit that in America at least, Tillich was a “popular” theologian in the mainstream culture.  However, i think the cost was too great in his work. 

So, does abandoning the method of correlation used by Tillich doom one to relevance only in academic ivory towers (or blogs)?  Must we engage philosophy, and how do we do so?

Contemporary European Views of God (2): Paul Tillich-Does God Exist?

Well, after about a month hiatus, i am finally getting to restart my doctrine of God overview again.  Usually i leave projects like this behind after some time off, so i’m pretty proud of myself to get going again.  So far i have looked at Karl Barth, and have commented on Paul’s Tillich’s methodology.  Without further ado, lets jump back into the text being used for this adventure by Veli-Matti Karkkainen (hereafter abbreviated VMK).

This section of viewing Tillich will start with one of his most famous (and controversial) quotes: “God does not exist.  He is being itself beyond essence and existence.  Threfore, to argue that God exists is to deny him (132).”

Obviously, if this quote means what it looks like on the surface, then this discussion doesn’t belong in this particular post.  However, as VMK points out “To unpack this compact sentence, we need to be aware of the fact that here–as often–Tillich uses terms in a technical sense, specifically, in the technical sense he himself defined (132).  With that in mind, lets define a couple key terms for Tillich:

1)   Essence is the potential, not-actualized perfection of things. 

2)   Existence, however, describes something that is actual, “fallen” from essence (132).

So with this understanding of Tillich’s terminology, it becomes evident that Tillich isn’t an atheist, but rather is saying that God existence is qualitatively, wholly different from any created being.  This leads Tillich to hold such a radically transcendemt view of God that he must conclude (according to VMK) that if God were part of existence (as Tillich defines it), there would be a need for another God a “God above God,” which Tillich wants to avoid (132).

One further note on this section before analysis.  We have to remember what Tillich’s goal is in his theology, which is to be apologetic, to answer the concerns of modern man.  This concern, Tillich believed, was found in the philosophical field of ontology. 

Tillich perceived that modern man’s central concern was over the threat of non-being, non-existence.  Essentially, modern men and women feared death constantly, and wanted to find a way to overcome the threat of “non-being” for good.

However, for Tillich, and to tie back into this post, assurance that “non-being” could be ultimately and permanently overcome required that God couldn’t be finite in any way.  He must be completely beyond any form of human existence, so that he could never cease to be.  If God did cease to be, he couldn’t save us from our non-being.  Hence, the famous Tillich descriptions of God were “the ground of being,” and “being itself.”

Since this post is extremely long, let me offer just a few reflections:

1) The security Tillich found in a radically transcendent view of God is interesting to me.  Given the times that Tillich lived in, could this not also serve as protection from the idea that God wasn’t ”heavily involved” in the events of Tillich’s time?

2) Along the same lines, many of Tillich’s underlying concepts and motivations find a kindred spirit (in my mind at least) in Reformed thought.  Both positions share:  A central concern for God’s transcendence, the problem of the “unknowability” of God or the “mystery” regarding knowing God, and the problem of meaningful speech about God (more on this in my next post).  What strange bedfellows these two (Calvin and Tillich) make!

3) The Platonic influence here is hard to miss if you are used to looking for it.  The existence-essence (false?) dichotomy of Tillich’s thought seems to be a direct descendent of the Platonic dualism between body and spirit.  This leads to me to my final question: is such a dichotomy inevitable when we purposely let an alien philosophical framework serve as a filter for understandg the Biblical, three-in-one God?  Tillich is very open about using ontology as the gateway to knowing what needs, but does letting man’s worries set the agenda eventually warp the Bible’s answers?  I have been ruminating on this for quite a while, and i’m starting to think so, thanks to this book.    

Any corrections, opinions, qualms, ideas on any of this?

Free Karl Barth Lectures!

 

I’ve got great news!  Thanks to Michael at Intellectus Fidei, you can get free downloads from this year’s Karl Barth Conference at Princeton.  Clink on the hyperlink above for more info. 

Happy Listening!

Update: I have also recently uploaded a short summary of Barth’s life theology (about 9 pages) into my sideblog.  It makes for a very succinct introduction to his thought.  it is a pdf, entitled “article-KarlBarth.”  Enjoy!

Update: Michael has informed me that due to the fact that Princeton has been overwhelmed with download requests, they have decided instead to post it on their media site, which will be up and running in a couple of weeks.  So click on this link from time to time to see if it is up and running.  Thanks again Princeton for this wonderful gesture!