tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post116598384963403667..comments2024-03-25T13:40:30.747-04:00Comments on Faith and Theology: Theology for beginners (22): GlorificationBen Myershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03800127501735910966noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-1166101483207953812006-12-14T08:04:00.000-05:002006-12-14T08:04:00.000-05:00Hi Shane.Your remarks - and the distinctions you d...Hi Shane.<BR/><BR/>Your remarks - and the distinctions you draw - are <I>very</I> helpful and well put (I love the scholastic maxim). Thanks.<BR/><BR/>Theology is, of course, <I>rational</I> reflection on, <I>thinking</I> in the wake of, revelation. Gregory of Nyssa said that "Concepts create idols. Only wonder understands" - but he never suggested that mystery is a muddle!<BR/><BR/>It seems to me that when God encounters reason, reason comes away from the tryst humbled, chastened, corrected, marked "could do better", but also empowered and encouraged to continue its ministry of articulation, saying something sensible - and saying it better.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-1166082762634106682006-12-14T02:52:00.000-05:002006-12-14T02:52:00.000-05:00@Ben,Thank you for the clarification, that was wha...@Ben,<BR/><BR/>Thank you for the clarification, that was what I was looking for. <BR/><BR/>@Kim,<BR/><BR/>Please don't take too gloomy a view of me. I am not a philosopher-spoilsport trying to argue that theology is meaningless. But, I am convinced that the current idiom of academic theology is strongly slanted towards being bullshit and that it needs a corrective quite badly.<BR/><BR/>You are quite right to say that reveling in paradox is a sleigh-of-hand that has no place in theological thinking. The trick is to distinguish mystery, paradox and contradiction.<BR/><BR/>A mystery is something you don't understand because of it's subject matter. The trinity is a mystery for us because we have no really satisfying creaturely analogues to compare it to.<BR/><BR/>A paradox is a logic puzzle. "This sentence is false."<BR/><BR/>A contradiction occurs when the same predicate is affirmed and denied of the same subject in the same way at the same time. A is non-A. All contradictions are false. No one is ever justified in believing a contradiction--which means Christianity ought not to imply any.<BR/><BR/>The goal of theology is not to produce any contradictions, to eliminate the paradoxes insofar as possible and to find ever better expressions for the content of the mysteries. (it is the province of the Christian philosophers to show that the doctrine of the trinity is not a contradiction, for example . . . but that's a different issue).<BR/><BR/>Re Luther: I don't think the simul iustus et peccator is a paradox or a contradiction for Luther. (Remember the scholastic maxim: When you encounter a contradiction, make a distinction.) Luther himself distinguishes the homo coram mundi from the homo coram deo. As I understand Luther, it is the homo coram mundi which is the sinner and the homo coram deo which is iustus. Now whether that distinction works or is true or has sufficient exegetical support is a different issue, but I don't think it's a bald contradiction. <BR/><BR/>Hope these remarks are helpful,<BR/><BR/>swAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-1166079602576415762006-12-14T02:00:00.000-05:002006-12-14T02:00:00.000-05:00Byron and Halden.I too find the idea of "transposi...Byron and Halden.<BR/><BR/>I too find the idea of "transposition" a helpful metaphor. And of course metaphor is not merely ornamental, it carries epistemological freight. The deployment of metaphor in theology is not only a <I>reasonable</I> thing to do, it is <I>essential</I>. So too the deployment of a dialectical method. Barth was adept at both. <BR/><BR/>I say this lest what I said above to Shane sound obscurantist. Having heard the patristics scholar Frances Young lecture last week, I returned to her little gem (now an SCM "classic"!) <I>The Making of the Creeds</I>. Discussing Chalcedon she says that "the basic question was how can one thing be two things at once. Whatever terms that question is expressed in, it remains a natural question, and a persistent challenge to the rational expression of Christian claims"; and that while "No simple and satisfactory definition within human terms will ever be adequate to the mystery, ... that does not absolve us from the necessity of struggliing with it, if only to ensure that simplistic and inadequate accounts are seen to be as inappropriate as they are. And that means that Chalcedon is more than paradox and more than parameters. It points us in positive directions while standing against the mistaken notion that the problem is like chemistry." As with Chalcedon, so too with the Last Things.<BR/><BR/>I suspect that Frances Young would agree with Tennyson's verse:<BR/><BR/>Our little systems have their day;<BR/>They have their day and cease to be:<BR/>They are but broken lights of Thee,<BR/>and Thou, O Lord, art more than they.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-1166069522223330822006-12-13T23:12:00.000-05:002006-12-13T23:12:00.000-05:00Hans Urs von Balthasar also has a very helpful dis...Hans Urs von Balthasar also has a very helpful discussion of the idea of transposition in the Theo-Drama, vol. III, pp. 122-142.Haldenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03936185959033443640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-1166064485987989802006-12-13T21:48:00.000-05:002006-12-13T21:48:00.000-05:00Many thanks for this metaphor, Byron, which is bri...Many thanks for this metaphor, Byron, which is brilliant -- that really captures it beautifully.<BR/><BR/>I'm currently in the midst of expanding and rewriting the whole series as a book, so I'll definitely incorporate this metaphor -- it sums up exactly what I was trying to get at.Ben Myershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03800127501735910966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-1166054806992906942006-12-13T19:06:00.000-05:002006-12-13T19:06:00.000-05:00I wonder whether (to again switch metaphors) Lewis...I wonder whether (to again switch metaphors) Lewis' discussion of 'transposition' mightn't be relevant here. Our lives presently make the (non)sense that they do, but once 'transposed' by resurrection, it is like a piano piece rescored for full orchestra. The 'same' notes are struck, but with colour and tone not possible on a piano alone. It is the 'same' tune, but fuller and more glorious. For those who have only heard the piano piece (as beautiful as it might be), the piece now makes a new and fuller sense.byron smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17938334606675769903noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-1166046707475729212006-12-13T16:51:00.000-05:002006-12-13T16:51:00.000-05:00Hi Shane.I don't want to be a knave, let alone a f...Hi Shane.<BR/><BR/>I don't want to be a knave, let alone a fool, and play the "paradox" card too quickly (as, admittedly, it, along with the "mystery" card, can be sheer theological sleight of hand, the last refuge of a lazy thinker), and I certainly respect the rigour of your own intellectual powers, but am I right that you have a fundamental problem over (for want of a better expression) the conjunction of opposites - e.g. in my case, that humans can be both physical and spiritual, in Ben's that they they can be "deified" and yet remain human? Or take Chalcedon: I take it to be a legitimate point of departure for theologians doing Christology, not something that they feel they must first demonstrate, or about which they must first offer an explanation before they get on with the job, rather it is something that they can assume and then exegete, along the lines of Anselm's <I>fides quaerens intellectum</I>. Indeed theological methodology itself is a <I>dogmatic</I> issue. Or (another example) Luther's <I>homo simul peccator et justus</I> -is that, for you, not so much wrong as simply meaningless? These are genuine questions; I am trying to <I>understand</I> you and what you are driving at.<BR/><BR/>As for Nietzsche, at least I can completely agree with you about the wrong-headedness of the approach to "converting" folk that you describe. Analagously, Bonhoeffer (who was a great expositor of Nietzsche and considered him something of a prophet) decried the kind of evangelism that feels that it first has to expose humans in their weakness, or go sniffing around their sins (as he memorably put it). But then as Nietzsche himself said, "the most serious Christians have always been well disposed towards me."<BR/><BR/>Nevertheless, Bonhoeffer - as well as Ben - would deny that the meaning of human life is <I>in se</I>; on the contrary, it is <I>extra se</I>, because <I>en Christo</I>. But not pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die, because -another paradox, I'm afraid - Christian eschatology is both futuristic <I>and</I> realised: the God to whom we go in the eschaton of the eschaton is the God who came in the eschaton of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. With you, I would be prepared to say that "life is its own value" and "has its own integrity", but only because (and would you be prepared to say?) the Word became flesh and because Christ will come again in glory.<BR/><BR/>As for faith being a bolthole where "it all makes sense here and now", only an idiot would say such a thing - and Ben is not an idiot. Me? I may well be. You certainly would not be alone in thinking so!<BR/><BR/>Cheers,<BR/>KimAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-1166046056182316302006-12-13T16:40:00.000-05:002006-12-13T16:40:00.000-05:00This is a truly excellent post, Ben. A fitting co...This is a truly excellent post, Ben. A fitting conclusion to a fine series.Haldenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03936185959033443640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-1166045269142641522006-12-13T16:27:00.000-05:002006-12-13T16:27:00.000-05:00Hi Shane: thanks for your helpful and incisive com...Hi Shane: thanks for your helpful and incisive comment. I agree with the point you're making here (and with Nietzsche's critique of Christian nihilism) -- and I think my statement that "our stories are without meaning" was definitely overdrawn. <BR/><BR/>What I really had in mind was our stories' lack of narrative closure -- their lack of a fitting end which provides a semantic context in light of which the whole story receives its proper meaning. So it was unnecessary and misleading of me to say in an unqualified way that "our stories are without meaning".<BR/><BR/>Anyway, perhaps I could have expressed this better if I had placed more emphasis on the <I>contingent</I> nature of the eschatological consummation -- it is not a "necessary" conclusion to our stories, but it is a surprising and unexpected (yet perfect and fitting) conclusion. <BR/><BR/>To borrow Eberhard Jüngel's phrase, then: the eschatological consummation is not "necessary" for human meaning -- but it is "more than necessary"!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-1166017836020345472006-12-13T08:50:00.000-05:002006-12-13T08:50:00.000-05:00Ben,There are quite a lot of other substantive rem...Ben,<BR/><BR/>There are quite a lot of other substantive remarks I would like to make about the content of your presentation, but I'll limit myself to just one little side issue. I won't ask how two things can be one and distinct in the sense that we are one with God and that the 'infinite qualitative distinction' between ourselves and God is not erased. I won't ask how something can be 'radically transformed' to the extent that the process can be called 'deification', and yet remain self-identical. I'll leave those kinds of questions to other theologians who would doubtless know how to press those questions more thoroughly than I would. What I will object to is the nihilism implicit in this picture. I'll even use Nietzsche to fight your postmodern-cum-Plotinian universalism.<BR/><BR/>You say, "Our stories are without meaning . . ." until they are reabsorbed into God's story. This is the point where Nietzsche will point his finger and tell you that you are a nihilist. Christians are nihilists insofar as there think there is no value to life and so they look to something beyond life to give it meaning. It is because of claims like these that Nietzsche understands Christianity as a religion of decadence, because it is based on the hatred of life. <BR/><BR/>There is nothing that gives life meaning. Life is its own value and it doesn't need justification from outside itself.<BR/><BR/>While there are lots of parts of Nietzsche's treatment of Christianity which are severely lacking, on this issue he has a point. Christianity ought not to try to convert people by saying something like, "Listen to me sinner, right now your life is meaningless, but accept Jesus as your savior, and then it will have meaning."<BR/><BR/>This is pure decadence. Say a prayer and everything is resolved. As if conversion makes one's life make sense. As if faith gives one certainty about God and all the rest of our existential concerns. It does not. <BR/><BR/>Life has it's own integrity, and for the enjoyment of life faith is not necessary. Life also has its own perplexities which faith is insufficient to resolve. Perhaps in the resurrection everything will make sense, but it is vacuous to claim that it all makes sense here and now.<BR/><BR/>Life is a miracle and a debacle at the same time but it isn't an empty sign waiting to be filled with meaning by God. It has a meaning and value of its own already, although perhaps this meaning will receive a new interpretation at the resurrection.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-1165994458963444372006-12-13T02:20:00.000-05:002006-12-13T02:20:00.000-05:00Ditto Christian (and Byron) on the "new narrative"...Ditto Christian (and Byron) on the "new narrative". Not long before he died, a Cardiff theologian named Michael Walker ended a book entitled <I>The God of Our Journey</I> (1989): "At last we shall have arrived at our home. Yet, who knows what other journeys may await us within the limitless possibilities of God's eternity?" (a line I often use at funerals). Perhaps your last line shoud not-end . . . (!)<BR/><BR/>I am certainly sorry to see the series end. It is truly a magnificent achievement, and has given bloggers a treasure of insights and a heartful of joys.<BR/><BR/>Perhaps one day I shall do a "Ten Propositions on Ben Myers"!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-1165991669010171632006-12-13T01:34:00.000-05:002006-12-13T01:34:00.000-05:00Congratulations on finishing the series. I'm reall...Congratulations on finishing the series. I'm really glad you made it. I'm sure many others will say the same, but it has been excellent - I'm sure I'll continue to use as a resource.byron smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17938334606675769903noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-1165991463016743952006-12-13T01:31:00.000-05:002006-12-13T01:31:00.000-05:00Christian asks a good question: is the end also a ...Christian asks a good question: is the end <A HREF="http://nothing-new-under-the-sun.blogspot.com/2006/06/in-end-beginning.html" REL="nofollow">also a beginning</A>?<BR/><BR/>And I also really loved the idea of a narrative understanding of deification. Yet is this simply the unveiling of what is already the case (that we are all and each part of God's story), or a making new?<BR/><BR/><I>Beauty</I> seems to be a key idea in this final post: from narrative, to vision, to music.<BR/><BR/>And thanks for the reference - though I doubt my rants belong in that company!byron smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17938334606675769903noreply@blogger.com