History

Getting to Know Friedrich Schleiermacher (3): Theology Proper, Sin, Redemption, and Christ

/ davidsschrock

Yesterday, we began to review the liberal theological approach of Friedrich Schleiermacher; today we will examine Schleiermacher’s view on theology proper, sin, redemption, and the person Christ.

Theology Proper

For Schleiermacher, God is unknowable.  Again, Kant’s influence is most evident in theology proper and cosmology.  He states that God is creator, and then defines creation as an ongoing preservation.  Because the world is absolutely dependent on God, he becomes the eternal, omnipotent cause of all things. These are the two greatest attributes of God, with omniscience and omnipresence working as corollaries (of omnipotence).   John Cooper has described Schleiermacher as a panentheist, and for good reason.  He does not make a clear distinction between Creator and creature: man is so dependent upon God, that the boundaries of God and human blur.  This is odd because of how Schleiermacher appropriates the phenomenal-noumenal divide.

Sin

Schleiermacher defines sin as a lack of God-consciousness.  He rejects a historic fall, and makes sin the product of every single individual.  Though a Reformed preacher, he does not address the issues of Covenant theology, and the imputation of Adam’s sin to all the human race because of his federal headship.  But he says enough to know that he denies the imputation of guilt to the human race.  Instead, he explains that in every man there is both animalisic and sensual desires and also a God-consciousness.  Both of these exist in humanity.  Sin is the employment of the former and the ignorance or disuse of the latter.  In the case of Jesus, he was ‘sinless’ because he was always conscious of God.

Based on his view of God, the cosmos, and sin, Schleiermacher has a hard time explaining the origin of sin.  Since God is causal in all ways, he will assert that God is responsible for sin; but then he takes that back to say that evil in the world is the result of sin, and that sin originates with men who do not absolutely depend on God.  In the end, he brings an unsatisfactory answer that God caused sin in the world in order to bring about grace, which for Schleiermacher is a large consideration.

Redemption

In time, redemption begins with the conviction of sin which is the experience of pain over a lack of God-conscience.  It is not caused by the Holy Spirit (John 16:8), as much as it is encounter with the perfect Christ.  Since Christ as a perfect man reveals what true God-consciouness is, the message about Christ reveals to men how men have failed to be God-dependent.

Key for the idea of redemption is regeneration.  Like nearly all technical terms in Schleiermacher, regeneration is the corporate idea of regenerating all of humanity.  Like a pebble thrown into a pond, Christ, as the first true man, has the effect of bringing regeneration to all the human race.  He asserts that regeneration happens one-by-one, but it is more a force that hits the whole world that individuals being converted by God.

Christ himself is a Redeemer, but not as the divine Son who dies on the cross to pay for the sins of the world.  Rather, he is an utterly unique man, one who is perfectly God-conscious, who functions much like a charismatic, political figure (or Joel Osteen) who inspires people to live a more God-dependent life.

As it concerns sin and redemption, it is interesting to see the way Schleiermacher selectively chooses to interact with church history.  Under this loci, he denies Manicheeaism because sin and evil are not simply perceived; they are a real things.  And he also rejects Pelagianism, because man cannot save himself.  He needs effectual grace, which is deposited in the soul of a man in his election—which is another convoluted doctrine to be mentioned below.

Christ

For Schleiermacher, the person of Christ is never considered metaphysically.  Again, there is nothing metaphysical in his work.  He is a functional savior, who is part man, part God.  The God-part is simply the God-consciousness that he perfectly exhibits.  In this way, his nature just like the rest of humanity.  Schleiermacher admits that Christ could have sinned-there is nothing naturally impeccable about him—but he did not sin because he perfectly embodied dependence on God.  Schleiermacher is concerned heretical views of Christ—namely Docetism and Ebionism but he does not see how his own views contradict Chalcedonian Christology.

The Cross of Christ

On the Atonement, Schleiermacher advocates a moral exemplar view.  His work is prophetic not priestly.  Jesus shows the world his great love for God and his willingness to die in order to show how far he was willing to show his love for men.  However, he rejected Catholicism’s “wounds-theology” which focused too much on the suffering of Christ.  He also denied vicarious substitution (penal substitution), because it made God look like the one who ordained the death of his Son (which he did, Isa 53:10; Acts 2:23), and because it required retributive justice—something that Schleiermacher opposed, as is evidenced again in his assertion of eventual, universal salvation.

Schleiermacher’s doctrine of salvation is also reworked.  While maintaining language like justification by faith and union with Christ, his understanding of faith is not belief in some objective work done by God in Christ. Rather, it is the subjective appropriation or (self-generated) feeling that one is a child of God.  Once again, Schleiermacher shows incredible consistency in wrapping every doctrine around the personal subject.  Likewise, sanctification for Schleiermacher is never positional.  It is only progressive.  In one section, he makes a Romans 7-like case for an interior struggle for Christians, but this struggle is not the flesh and the Spirit (aka Paul), but the wrestling between God-consciousness and sense-experience.

Tomorrow, we will look at Schleiermacher’s view on the church, eschatology, and the Trinity

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Getting to Know Friedrich Schleiermacher (2): Introduction to The Christian Faith

/ davidsschrock

Yesterday, we looked at the life of Friedrich Schleiermacher; today we will begin to explore his aberrant theology as articulated in his 760-page The Christian Faith.

The Christian Faith

The Christian Faith is the mature expression of Schleiermacher’s theology.  Published in 1831, it showcases his views on every major doctrine of orthodox Christianity, but what is apparent from start to finish is that Schleiermacher has created from the recesses of his own experience a version of Christianity that is different in every area of theology.  In this way, reading his theology is much like approaching the thought-world of J.R.R. Tolkien.  In Middle Earth, much of the language and experiences are similar to our world, but the place, the people, and the story is yet distinct;; likewise, in Schleiermacher, much of the language is the same but the whole project is something other than Christianity.  As J. Greshem Machen will say a century later, when Schleiermacher’s liberal theology had come into full blossom: Liberalism is not another kind of Christianity, it is another religion.

To get a handle on Schleiermacher’s doctrine, the rest of this essay will outline a number of his key doctrines and give commentary along the way.

Prolegomena

Like many systematic theologies today—which ironically take their shape from Schleiermacher’s work—Schleiermacher begins with a lengthy prolegomena.  In this section, he lays out his central organizing principle that religion is one of absolute dependence on God.  Against the likes of Descartes, he denies religion based on intellectual rationalism; and against the likes of Kant, he rejects religion as simply an ethical imperative.  Instead, following his pietistic roots and Romantic presuppositions, he calls for a religion that is based purely on feelings and experience.  He qualifies that this is not an individual experience, but a shared experience among those who have found absolute dependence and God-consciousness through the man Jesus Christ.

Schleiermacher explains the relationship of Christianity with the other world religions.   Prefiguring the history of religions school, he articulates a view of Christianity that arose from other previous religions that also experienced God-consciousness.  He contrasts Christianity with Islam and Judaism, which he likens to fetishism (or idolatry).  While recognizing the fact that Jesus was a Jew, he strongly divides Judaism and Christianity.  By the end of his work, he makes an exclusive claim for Christianity, but one that will engulf the whole world.  One wonders what today’s pluralistic culture would think of this liberal theologians exclusivity?  It is equally shaming that so many evangelicals today are gladly inclusivistic, when the father of liberalism is blatantly Christ-centered.

The Bible

For Schleiermacher, the Bible is not divinely inspired; rather is was written by inspired men—much like Bach, Beethoven, or Shakespeare were inspired composers/authors.  And it is not an authoritative source for theology.  The Bible is simply a recollection of the church’s experience with Christ.  This explains why the OT is unimportant.  Nothing of value is found in it that is not contained in the NT.  And since Judaism was a parochial religion, it is more akin to idolatry that a universal religion of Jesus Christ.  In Scripture, he delineates three types of speech: poetic, rhetorical, and descriptive didactic.  Only the last is good for theology; and the last is little used in Scripture.  Thus, Schleiermacher relegates all NT exegesis to biblical studies.  In his classroom, Schleiermacher taught through all the NT numerous times, but in The Christian Faith, biblical exegesis is absent.  This is comes about because of his views of how to do theology—doctrines are simply the articulate description of Christian experience, and thus they do not depend on Scriptural exposition or appeal.

In the end, Schleiermacher’s view of Scripture encapsulates the deistic views of his era.  Since God cannot speak across the phenomenal-noumenal divide, we do not have a verbally inspired Bible.  Experience becomes authoritative, but because experiences differ, the doctrines will shift over time.  In this way, Schleiermacher prefigures the postmodern mood of the contemporary church.  His theology is worked out today in all sorts of parochial theologies (e.g. black, liberation, feminist, etc).

Stop back tomorrow when we will look at Schleiermacher’s view on theology proper, sin, redemption, and the person Christ.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Getting to Know Friedrich Schleiermacher (1): The Making of Friedrich Schleiermacher

/ davidsschrock / 1 Comment

Between the Reformation and John Calvin and the modern period of theology and Karl Barth, it is arguable that Friedrich Schleiermacher was and is the most influential Protestant theologian.  Like Newton in physics, Darwin in biology, Freud in psychology, Schleiermacher’s approach to religion and theology served to introduce a whole new system—what would in time be called ‘liberal theology.’  Though, he did not found a school, his influence has been more far-reaching, as theologians ever since have imbibed his methods or reacted to this proposals.  In what follows, we will consider the historical context from which Schleiermacher arose and the contribution of his systematic work, The Christian Faith.

I will argue that in different ways the three previous centuries of Christian and philosophical thought—conservative and liberal—had an impact on Schleiermacher.  We will take these centuries in turn.

The Protestant Reformation’s Impact on Schleiermacher

The sixteenth century was one of tumult and revolution.  In an era that was dominated by the political and intellectual influence of the church, the Protestant Reformation was cataclysmic—not to church alone, but to Western civilization at large.  Thus, when Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli sought to bring about reform in the Catholic Church, it affected everything.

Though, more than two centuries removed, Schleiermacher was a child of the Reformation. While he would become the father of liberalism, he was a Reformed preacher and professor.  From 1809-34 he preached regularly at Trinity Church. He was the son of military chaplain and both grandfathers were Reformed ministers.  By association, therefore, he was an heir of the Protestant Reformation.  The emphasis on preaching, the ‘denomination’ of which he was apart, and the place of the Bible and theology that occupied his classroom teaching all demonstrate that he was working against the backdrop of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin.  In The Christian Faith he often used language borrowed directly from his more conservative forebears—speaking of union with Christ and justification by faith.  However, as it will be demonstrated below, any orthodox term that Schleiermacher might use is redefined by his subjective system.

In the seventeenth century, Protestant Scholastics sought to systematize the doctrines coming out of the Reformation.  These systems frequently appropriated the tools of philosophy to explain various doctrines, and while some have noted (wrongly) that theology hardened during this time, it is true that the proclamation of the sixteenth century became the analysis and systemization of the seventeenth century.  Carrying the DNA of protest in its blood, the seventeenth century church continued to think deeply about theology.  They set up many schools and sought to educate their clergy.  These ecclesial colleges would house many of the theologians and philosophers in the next century, when these churchmen began to turn away from Sola Scriptura towards more rationalistic approaches to the Bible.  Schleiermacher’s professorship and pastorate would benefit from these logistical realities.

The Enlightenment

While Schleiermacher was an offspring of the Reformation, and while he followed in the footsteps of those who aimed to systematize theology, his greatest influences come from the eighteenth century Enlightenment.  Often described as the “age of reason,” the Enlightenment saw a radical shift in Western thought.  While the Western tradition of philosophy had always been ‘rational’—in that it had always sought to think and explain the universe through the use of the mind—it had simultaneously (since the inception of the church) given authority to the Bible as the Word of God.  In the Enlightenment this all changed.

Philosophers began to question the assumptions of the Bible, and the authority given to Scripture and tradition was replaced with an authority given to man.  Man was now the standard by which to judge all things.  This was the inception of the modern era of philosophy and thought.  Whereas in the past, questions of metaphysics were primary, now questions of epistemology were of greatest import.  And in the eighteenth century, numerous voices arose to explain how we know anything.

In the United Kingdom, Berkeley, Locke, and Hume arose to argue that knowledge comes by way of empirical evidence.  Through observation of the universe, we learn what is and what is not.  Generally speaking, man cannot explain anything more than he can observe and conclusively prove.  So, Hume would deny miracles because what appears to be true is only appearance, we cannot conclusively prove that the miracles of the Bible were divine because there could be another naturalistic answer.  Likewise, by reason of analogy, since miracles do not occur today, it is untenable that they would be true in ancient days.

On the other side of the English Channel, continental rationalists (Spinoza, Leibnitz, and Descartes) argued that all knowledge is based on mental cogitation.  We cannot trust sense experience, because man’s senses have been known fail.  So for instance, Descartes sought to find an ultimately basic belief, something that could be ‘proven’ without a shadow of a doubt.  What he concluded was that he knew that he was thinking, therefore he existed: “I think therefore I am.”

These two streams of thought—the British Empiricism and Continental Rationalism—dominated the eighteenth century.  Even as Schleiermacher’s Romanticism stood against rationalism, he could not escape the a-theistic Sitz Em Leben of his day.  Thus, his methods of interpretation would be anti-supernaturalistic (a presupposition that became common place in the Enlightenment and among Deists) and regularly historical-critical (a method of studying Scripture, pioneered by Semler, which reduced the Bible to a document composed by men, whereby interpreters battered the text with questions such that the unity and theological message of the Bible was exchanged for philological studies on words and historical studies on minor sections of Scripture).  N. B. His critical interpretation of the Bible does not show itself in The Christian Faith because dogmatics is bifurcated from biblical studies.  As another effect of the Enlightenment, systematic theology was disjointed from exegetical theology.

Still, there is one other influence in the eighteenth century that stands above the rest: Immanuel Kant.  Kant sought to bridge the gap between Britain and the Continent, by espousing a view of knowledge that was essentially empirical (i. e. men learn by sense experience), but that incorporated a rational explanation for how men process, or categorize, the data they encounter.  He posited that inherent to the mind’s of men were a certain number of categories (such as time and space), which functioned as means of processing information.

One of the categories in Kant’s system is that of the noumenal realsm—a realm of existence that lay outside the bounds of human sense-perception.  As a kind of empiricist, Kant argued that men could only know or come to find out that which occurred in the world around them—that which they could experience with the senses.  He called this phenomena.  By contrast, the noumenal realm was undiscoverable.  Hence, if God existed, he existed in this spiritual-noumenal realm where men could not attain knowledge.  This divide would be the primary influence which shaped Schleiermacher.  His entire systematic theology sought to solve this problem—how does man who lives in the phenomenal world, experience God who dwells in the noumenal realm.   As we will see, Kant’s divide caused Schleiermacher to turn theology away from God towards the subject of man.

Romanticism and Pietism

Closer to home—domestically and chronologically—were two schools of thought, which directly impacted Schleiermacher.  The first was Pietism. Schleiermacher grew up the son of a Reformed military chaplain.  At the age of ten, Schleiermacher’s family experienced a great evangelistic revival when Moravian visited eastern Prussia.  Much like later Wesleyan’s, the Moravians called for a heartfelt piety that was rooted in experience.  This pietistic influence continued for the young Schleiermacher when he went to a pietistic school at the age of fourteen. In short, his home life was filled with experiential Christianity, which would shape his later theological writings.

In 1796, Schleiermacher moved to Berlin to serve as a hospital chaplain.  There in Berlin he fell in to a group of young artists, writers, and philosophers who were reacting against the cold rationalism of the eighteenth century.   This group, led by the likes of the Schlegel brothers would be the prominent voices for what became known as Romanticism.  Instead of seeking knowledge through the use of the mind, this group urged for feelings, emotions, and experience as the source of all knowledge.  This fit very neatly with Schleiermacher’s pietism, and gave philosophical credibility to his earlier ‘faith.’  Still, many of these cultured men and women were unbelievers.  Thus, through the prompting of others like Schlegel, Schleiermacher wrote On Religion: Speeches to Cultured Despisers in 1799 as an apologetic for the Christian Faith.  Of course, what for him was the Christian Faith was radically different from the doctrines of his father, or previous generations of the Reformed Faith.

With his literary work, Schleiermacher launched out into a world of explaining the Bible, theology, philosophy, ethics, and hermeneutics.  He taught New Testament exegesis, theology, and ethics for decades at the University of Berlin.  His output include commentaries on many books of the New Testament, a substantial work on hermeneutics, and a posthumous work on the life of Christ.  Schleiermacher was a theological giant, and though his Reformed theology is worlds apart from John Calvin or Michael Horton, whose work ironically carries the same title, The Christian Faith, it is without a doubt that he has had an impact on the church that continues to this day.

Tomorrow, we will begin to look at his theology.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

The Ways of Our God: God’s Order (1)

/ davidsschrock

In The Ways of Our God: An Approach to Biblical Theology, Charles Scobie subdivides his multithematic approach into main four categories: God’s Order; God’s Servant, God’s People, and God’s Way.  Under each banner, he writes five chapters, and today we will consider his first section in his “sketch of biblical theology.”  For sake of space, let me list the headings and provide a few reflections.

  1. The Living God.  Scobie begins with God and His revelation in creation and history.  According to the Scriptures, Scobie argues that God is King, and taking his cue from the Decalogue and the Shema, he outlines his chapter with three concepts that establish “the very core of the OT understanding of God” (107).  These are the self-revelation of God’s Name(s), the unitive oneness of God, and the personal nature of God.  He examines each of these as they are initially proclaimed in the OT and more fully developed in the latter prophets and in the NT.  One of the highlights from this chapter is the way that each section (i.e. Proclamation, Promise, Fulfillment, and Future Consummation–also the framework of every other chapter) concludes with an explanation and affirmation of the Scripture’s canonical development at each stage of revelation.  In a chapter focusing on Theology Proper, he argues for Scripture’s essential role in revealing the one, true, and living God.  Additionally, Scobie emphasizes God’s relationship to both the created order and the historical order–this is expanded in chapters 2-3.
  2. The Lord of Creation.  Scobie writes this chapter out of a concern that biblical theology and recent biblical studies have devalued God’s relationship to creation, and have focused only on God’s role in the historical order.  He illustrates this by referring to those who begin their BT with Exodus and not Genesis; however, as he points out, this misses the way in which the canon is itself telling the story of God as Creator and Redeemer.  Scobie shows convincingly that God loves creation and has made creation for our enjoyment and his glory (cf. John Piper, “The Pleasure of God in His Creation” in The Pleasures of God).  He shows where creation is emphasized in the OT (Gen. 1-11; Pss. 8, 95, 104, 148; Isaiah; and the wisdom literature–Job 38-39; Proverbs 8), and argues that the NT maintains the same view of creation as the OT, only adding Jesus’ instrumental role in its creation and maintenance (John 1:1-3; Col. 1:15-20; Heb. 1:1-3).  He introduces the distinction between apocalyptic eschatology which is alligned with God’s created order and prophetic eschatology which corresponds with redemptive history.  Just as the Bible begins with creation (Gen. 1-2), it ends with new creation (Rev. 20-22), and thus all the Bible is looking forward to the renewal of this fallen world. 

    His concluding application section would make the editors of the “Green Letter Bible” happy; it shows how the Bible does address many environmental concerns, but in a Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz, sort of way, Scobies goes too far concerning the ways in which consumerist evangelicals have neglected the environment and are in need of confessing our “guilt for the ecological crisis” (186-87).  The ‘guilt’ rests not with Western evangelicals, but with the whole Adamic race. In the end, this chapter is a helpful commentary on what the Bible says about creation and its place in biblical theology.

  3. The Lord of History.  Scobie begins with a cursory review of the books of the Bible, and then proceeds to walk through the stages of redemptive history, before highlighting six ways in which God has worked in history.  These six characteristics of salvation history are (1) divine intervention, (2) [appointing] divinely inspired leadership, (3) salvation & judgment, (4) providence, (5) blessing, (6) and suffering love (198-202).  Scobie does not retain God’s work in history to veiled acts of redemption, though, he also posits that God has worked in history through revealing himself by speaking to his people (202-04).  Thus, redemptive acts of God are only recognized and understood when God also inspires a biblical author to interpret the meaning of the event (i.e. the exodus, the Babylonian exile, or the crucifixion).  The chapter is a helpful summary of salvation history, though he is theologically imprecise when speaking of God’s “suffering love,” a term most often associated with Jurgen Moltmann, and more recently Richard Bauckham, that ascribes suffering to the divinity of the Godhead, instead of assigning suffering to Christ’s humanity.  (For more on this see my post, Can God Suffer?).
  4. The Adversary.  Scobie presents a very balanced survey from the biblical text that walks through the Scriptures highlighting the passages of Scripture that concern the enemies of God, reprobate angels, and Satan himself.  He avoids the two extremes of spiritual warfare fanaticism and the modern mindset that makes the devil a cartoonish fable.  He chastens those who like Greg Boyd attempt to say too much about Satan and are required to import ideas from other Ancient Near Eastern contemporaries.  However, he shows the reality of the demonic realm and of the antichrist.  Like all of his chapters I have read thus far, his biblical content presents a helpful catalog of all the applicable texts on the subject.
  5. The Spirit.  Scobie is open to the continuous presence of miraculous gifts today because there is no hermeneutical reason, he says, to deny their continuation (296).  However, in his explication of this subject, Scobie is unfortunately imprecise and inconsistent.  In one place he states that “Christian baptism confers the gift of the Spirit” (283), yet later as he makes his summary he says “all believers receive the gift of the Spirit when they become Christians” (296).  I guess you could ask, “What makes someone a Christian,” but it seems that he inconsistently attributes the giving of the Spirit to baptism, and blurs the transitional period of Acts with what is now normative in the church today.  Like in chapter 2, Scobie emphasizes the Spirit’s role in and with creation, appealing to the Eastern Ortohodox tradition which includes Psalm 104 in its daily liturgy (295).  He spends little time on the revelation of the Spirit and its inclusion in the Trinity, because as he believes, the Bible gives triadic data but not trinitarian doctrine (297).  On the whole, this chapter shows a developing continuity throughout the Bible for the doctrine of the Spirit, but its synthesis leaves a lot of questions unanswered because of such short statements on things like tongues, the gifts, and the relationship of baptism to the Spirit.

More than a quarter of the way through this massive volume, I am pleased to report that the reading has been edifying and that any serious student of the Bible would be rewarded by reading it.

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

Stephen Evans on Myth: An Impartial Arbitrator

/ davidsschrock / 1 Comment

Reading through C. Stephen Evans  The Historical Christ & The Jesus of Faith, I came across a well-detailed chapter on myth and historicity.  While Evan is addressing New Testament scholarship and the incarnation of Jesus Christ, not the Old Testament narratives, his principles of interpretation are universally applicable and serve as an third party to moderate the polemics of Peter Enns and G.K. Beale.  (Note: I am not endorsing Evans carte blanche, especially his abberant inclusivism; I am merely using his discussion about myth and history as a heuristic device to help mediate the Beale-Enns debate).

In his third chapter, Evans highlights dangers about seeing myth(s) in the Bible, but he also provides legitimate grounds for using the term.  He does not categorically deny their use.  Instead, this philosopher from Baylor University discusses the opposing positions of  Soren Kierkegaard (anti myth) and C.S. Lewis (pro myth) to present a modest caution if and when the term is used.  Here is Evans conclusion:

There are good reasons, as I have noted, for avoiding the designation of the incarnational narrative as myth.  Too many people will understand myth as ruling out history, and even those who do not  think history is ruled out may see the historicity of the events as inessential and unimportant in relation to the mythical significance.  In most contexts it would be better to stress the fact that God’s saving acts constitute a narrative which possesses universal power and significance [CS Lewis’ approximate definition], without actually designating the story a myth [cf. Hans Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative].

However, if one is speaking in a context where the terminology will not be misunderstood, it is legitimate to speak of the incarnational narrative [i.e. the virgin birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus] as a myth, following the example of CS Lewis, with the following proviso: the uniqueness of the narrative, its divine origin, and the essential significance of its historicity must be maintained (78). 

With that proviso in mind, consider Enns definition of myth, “an ancient, premodern, prescientific way of addressing questions of ultimate origins and meaning in the form of stories: Who are we? Where do we come from?” (Inspiration & Incarnation, 50)  Sadly, even against Evans’ more receptive rubric, Enns definition contains none Evan’s qualifications.  Furthermore, as he lays out his case in I & I, Enns undermines each of these– he diminishes the uniquenesss of the biblical stories, he questions divine modes of revelation in exchange for more ‘evolutionary’ models, and he is critical of the ‘essential historicity” of the biblical accounts (see Beale for a full-fledged critique).  In short, his use of the term ‘myth’ lacks any necessary caveat that would distinguish his proposal from that of higher-critical and modernistic scholars.

In fairness to Peter Enns, I think he is trying to use myth with qualifications.  As the quote above indicates, he is seeking to define with specificity what myth is and is not; but clearly, his qualifications do not go far enough.  His mythological reading of Scripture  fails to assert historicity, uniqueness, and divine origin, which leaves the reader with a careless proposal and a faith-eroding hermeneutic.  

Sadly, it seems that for the sake of critical scholarship, or perhaps just for academic curiousity, he has willing to questioned essential truths about the Bible that will lead many souls to doubt God’s word, just as they have  in the past.  As Ecclesiastes refrains, “There is nothing new under the sun,” and Enns proposal reinforces that truth.  For in terms of Old Testament criticism, his proposals sound very similar to eighteenth century Enlightened scholars, who sound similar to second-century Gnostics, who sound like another pre-modern voice with a serpentine lisp… “Did God really say?”    The problem is not new, and neither is the answer: Contend for the Faith!  Renounce false teaching!

May we continue, with boldness and perseverance, to assert that the faith once for all delivered to the saints is True, Historical, Unique, and Divinely Inspired.  This is not a trifling thing, it is a matter of life and death (Deut. 32:47).

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

Irenaeus’ Typology: History and Textual Warrant [5]

/ davidsschrock

irenaeus4[Thus far we have introduced Irenaeus, considered his view of Scripture, and his biblical theology; today and tomorrow we will look at how Irenaeus used typology. Enjoy].

An Evaluation of Irenaeus’ Typology

In reading Against Heresies, it becomes apparent that typology is a primary means by which he explains the OT and NT. Appealing to recapitulation, citing specific types, and demonstrating from the text recurring biblical patterns, Irenaeus intentionally and consciously employs typology. Some examples of his typology have already been cited, now in what remains, Irenaeus’ method will be examined in light of recent scholarship on the subject.[1]

In his 1981 dissertation on typology and the hermeneutical use of typos in the New Testament, Richard Davidson provides four objective criteria for a biblically-warranted typology. He says that for typology to be legitimate, it must be: 1) grounded in history; 2) an interpretation of Scriptural passages; 3) specifically parallel and not simply a general correspondence; and 4) prospective.[2] Admittedly, it is anachronistic to judge Irenaeus by Davidson’s modern rubric; nonetheless, employing his diagnostics will help determine the abiding faithfulness, and therefore usefulness, of Irenaeus’ typological method.  Today we will consider the first two criteria.

Typology and History

First, Irenaeus roots his typology in history. From start to finish, Irenaeus is crafting his arguments along a redemptive-historical grid.[3] More specifically, in Book 3, he contends that the same God who revealed himself in the OT, fulfilled his promises in the NT.[4] The outworking of this promise-fulfillment is a biblical hermeneutic that is very sensitive to progressive revelation and the historicity of the text.

For instance, Irenaeus understands all history to be divinely foreshadowed in the first six days of creation.[5] Though this is a spurious interpretation of Genesis 1, it does illumine how he understood history. For Irenaeus, all history is God’s history, and resultantly, history is a stage on which God is accomplishing his plan of salvation. As Frances Foulkes quips, “Typological interpretation…is the interpretation of history.”[6] In Against Heresies, Irenaeus is clearly expounding a historical typology, where “God is sovereign over history,” where “historical patterns…theologically foreshadow later recurrences of similar things,” and where “the final historical fulfillments eclipse their prior counterparts.”[7]

Typology and Textual Warrant

Second, Irenaeus derives his typological interpretations from Scripture; the majority of which have legitimate textual warrant, even if the interpretation is askance. Over against the Gnostics, who mangle the Bible for their own devious interpretations,[8] Irenaeus labors to exegete the text in its canonical context. For instance, he makes repeated reference to his “proofs drawn from the Scriptures,”[9] while at the same time, he argues that biblical interpretation must emerge for the harmonious testimony of Scripture.[10]

Consequently, Irenaeus’ consistently attempts to make legitimate type-antitype correspondences emerge from the text. This is evident in his Adam-Christ typology;[11] in his assertion that Jonah is a sign of the Christ;[12] in his comparison between Eve and Mary, where the latter virgin obediently recapitulates the failure of the mother of all living;[13] in his typological interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar and the Antichrist;[14] and in his assertion that the scarlet cord in Rahab’s window is prefiguring the admittance of prostitutes into the kingdom of God.[15]

From this list, it is evident that Irenaeus has varying levels of biblical support: Adam-Christ and Jonah-Christ are clearly recognized as legitimate typological structures (cf. Rom. 5:12ff; Matt. 12:41); Eve-Mary and Nebuchadnezzar-Antichrist are more speculative, but still may find textual support in both testaments with differing degrees of correspondence.[16] This is considerably true for the latter, where Revelation 17-18 depicts the fall of the Antichrist in Babylonian terminology. Finally, though maligned as fanciful allegory, Irenaeus’ scarlet cord typology is based on the antecedent theology of the Passover and a NT correspondent: “The publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of heaven before you” (Matt. 21:31).

For Irenaeus, the issue of textual warrant boils down to interpretive accuracy. His method is self-consciously biblical, contextual, and correspondent—that is seeking to find types and their antitypes from within the canon. The problem is that at times he fails to live up to his own standards, and at other points his biblical saturated mind may go to far in drawing speculative connections. This leads to a third point, which we will pick up tomorrow.

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

[1] In recent decades, the topic of typology has only increased in intensity and scrutiny. The scope of this paper disallows citing or referring to this ever-expanding body of literature. Instead, it will utilize the conclusions of one major work to analyze Irenaeus typology.

[2] Davidson, Typology in Scripture, 421-22.

[3] Though describing Irenaeus’ other work, The Proof of the Apostolic Preaching, Dockery writes affirming Irenaeus perception of Christian history, “It presented Christ and Christianity as the fulfillment of the Old Testament by means of a Christological-typological reading of the text. Salvation history was structured according to the various covenants of God with man” (Dockery, Biblical Interpretation Then and Now, 68). This kind of redemptive-historical framework is seen at work in Against Heresies.

[4] Irenaeus Adversus haereses 3.6-10.

[5] Ibid., 5.28.3.

[6] Frances Foulkes, “The Acts of God: A Study of the Basis of Typology in the Old Testament” in The Right Doctrine for the Wrong Texts?: Essays on the Use of the Old Testament in the New (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1994), 342.

[7] Jonathan Lunde in the “Introduction” to Three Views on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008), 19.

[8] Irenaeus Adversus haereses 1.8.1; 2.9.4.

[9] Ibid., 5.14.4; cf. 3:19.2; 4.33.15.

[10] Ibid., 2.28.3.

[11] Ibid., 5.23.1-2.

[12] Ibid., 3.20.1.

[13] Ibid., 5.19.1-2.

[14] Ibid., 5.29.1-2.

[15] Ibid., 4.20.12.

[16] Denying the woman who suffered from an issue of blood as a type of the Gnostic’s “suffering aeon,” Irenaeus did articulate a need for certifiable correspondence between type and antitype, when he said, “For a type and emblem is, no doubt, sometime diverse from the truth [signified] as to matter and substance; but it ought to the general form and features, to maintain a likeness [to what it typified], and in this way to shadow forth by means of things present those which are yet to come” (Irenaeus Adversus haereses 2.22.1).

Christianity goes back…back…back…back

/ davidsschrock

bockIn a pluralistic world and in a divided Christian church, how do you know that Christianity that is considered historic and called “orthodox” is indeed true?  It is because Darrell Bock answers, quoting the great theologian Chris Berman, “it goes back…back…back…back…”

This week, Dr. Darrell Bock, DTS Professor and author of Breaking the DaVinci Code, commentaries on Luke, and Jesus According to Scripture, has delivered a series of Gheens lectures as Southern Seminary.  In this lectures, Dr. Bock has argued for the authenticity of orthodox Christianity, over against alternative Christianity’s seen on the History Channel, in Barnes & Noble, and found in university settings.  Today, in his most stimulating lecture, Bock drew on the the historicity of 1st century Christianity and argued that “orthodoxy in an oral culture without a sacred and written text” is indeed possible, and after looking at the evidence is in fact warranted.  In short, he is arguing that even before a recognized canon, the message of Christianity was certain and singular.

To aid in his efforts, Bock adduced five alliterated ways in which the early church would taught a singular and unified doctrine.  These five ways contend against the notion, espoused by secular media and academia, that the earliest Christianity was pluriform.  These historically certifiable means of instruction serve to evidence that the message of the Bible was original to the earliest converts and not created after the fact–as has been maintained lately in books like The DaVinci Code. 

Here are five ways for early church instruction:

  1. Scriptures:  In the Hebrew Bible, God has revealed himself to the people of Israel and given promises and prefigurations that found telic fulfillment in Jesus Christ.  THe earliest Christian community read these regularly in corporate settings and would have depended heavily on them to understand Jesus the Messiah of Israel (see Matthew 1-2 for ways in which Jesus “fulfilled” OT Scripture; cf. 2 Cor. 1:20; John 5:39)
  2. Schooling:  In the early church, short, theologically-informing confessions and creeds helped retain, defend, and the instruct the church of God.  Written for the purpose of educating converts, these terse statements can be found today in the NT. Examples of these are in 1 Corinthians 15:1ff; 8:4-6; 1 Timothy 3:16.
  3. Singing:  Through hymns the church learned core doctrine and worshiped the triune God.  Two examples can be found in Philippians 2:5-11 and Colossians 1:15-20.  These ancient hymns, predate Paul’s letters and take us back to the first decade after Pentecost.
  4. Sacraments: Jesus left his church with two gospel-revealing ordinances–baptism and the Lord’s supper.  Both of these are to be regular parts of worship.  The first being recapitulated as often as a new convert professes faith; the latter being done on regular basis within the life of the church.  In the NT, these ‘sacraments,’ occur in places like Luke 22; 1 Corinthians 11 (Lord’s supper); and Romans 6; Colossians 2; and 1 Peter 3 (Baptism).  Every time these reenactments commenced they retold the story of a believer’s union with Christ–his death and resurrection and the hope of eternal life with Christ.
  5. Supervisors:  Finally, God gave apostles to the church to supervise the doctrine and the teaching (cf. Eph. 2:20-21; 4:11ff).  This is why the requirement in Acts 1 was that the 12th apostle replacing Judas be one who was a witness of Jesus’ life from the beginning.  They had to be eye witnesses of all Jesus did and taught to ground the earliest church in the truth of Christianity.

Listening to Dr. Bock’s lectures this week was not only informative, but entertaining.  Bock is a gifted speaker, and today’s lecture was superb.  It not only informed the mind, but warmed the affections for the glory and greatness of the resurrected Christ.  All of them are worth listening to, but today’s especially.  You can listen to them here.

Sola Deo Gloria, dss