tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post2304643520136102602..comments2024-03-25T13:40:30.747-04:00Comments on Faith and Theology: Matt Jenson: The Gravity of SinBen Myershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03800127501735910966noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-60260681926975071882007-05-26T22:39:00.000-04:002007-05-26T22:39:00.000-04:00Thanks for this info, Joshua -- it's good to hear ...Thanks for this info, Joshua -- it's good to hear that Joy McDougall's book is progressing, and Ian McFarland's work sounds very interesting as well. I'll look forward to seeing both books when they're published!Ben Myershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03800127501735910966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-54116235977010127842007-05-26T10:00:00.000-04:002007-05-26T10:00:00.000-04:00thanks for this very helpful review and reference....thanks for this very helpful review and reference. i found the combination of personal and relational elements that the inward turn offered quite illuminating.<BR/><BR/>i am actually Joy McDougall's research assistant and this book will be a valuable addition to her continued work toward a feminist theology of sin. thanks for helping me in my job.<BR/><BR/>she is actually positively appropriating Luther's bondage of the will for dogmatic and feminist purposes. also, ian mcfarland (also of emory) is working on a book on the sin and the concept of the fall. the bare bones will be available in the upcoming oxford handbook of systematic theology edited by Tanner, Webster, and Torrance. sin, as always, is on the upswing!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-86439516978012727782007-05-24T10:19:00.000-04:002007-05-24T10:19:00.000-04:00The (excellent) discussion up to this point has ta...The (excellent) discussion up to this point has taken for granted that "human personhood is constituted by relationships", as quoted from the book, and understood as relationships with other persons. <BR/><BR/>Maybe this is paranoid, but as both a physical scientist and an introvert this makes me somewhat nervous. <BR/><BR/>Are "relationships" here considered to include relation with the wider world: with things, animals, systems, culture, ideas, principles, and ideals? Or are these kinds of relation considered under another head?<BR/><BR/>This is connected to the first of Ben's questions, <EM>What is the connection between a relational model of sin and the broader social, political and economic structures of evil?</EM>, which has not been addressed so far.Bruce Yabsleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10091471695711534450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-62725329020450404082007-05-23T21:15:00.000-04:002007-05-23T21:15:00.000-04:00Jon - yep, it's me. I hope you're so well.Shane - ...Jon - yep, it's me. I hope you're so well.<BR/><BR/>Shane - I agree with Kim. A sharp question indeed. The importance of it became clear to me in writing the book and in conversation with a friend. Ben's quote indicates my answer: justification is an accidental change. However, it is the kind of accidental change that is, well, fairly essential. That is, without such a change, we would waste away, doing the ontological equivalent of a shrinky-dink. By rightly calling this 'accidental', we affirm the continuity of creation and redemption. But by reminding ourselves that this accidental change takes the form of crucifixion and resurrection, we affirm the cost of continuity and the radicality of redemption. [Instructive here is the theological cul-de-sac of Flacius' tough-on-sin comment that the sinner is in the 'imago diabolus' and the response it evoked in the Reformation.]Matt Jensonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03310693669051310020noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-90729295286974192882007-05-23T18:21:00.000-04:002007-05-23T18:21:00.000-04:00Yes, David: Eberhard Jüngel crops up from time to ...Yes, David: Eberhard Jüngel crops up from time to time, although he's not a major part of the study. (I can't tell you exactly how often he crops up since, alas, there's no index!)<BR/><BR/>Jenson actually frames his whole argument with an opening quote from Jüngel: sin, Jüngel says, is "the urge towards relationlessness and dissociation", and the sinner is "a person without relations". Jenson then returns to this quote on the last page, and he closes the book with an incisive Barthian qualification of Jüngel's remark: <BR/><BR/>"The sinner is a person who <I>tries to live</I> without relations, who <I>lives as though</I> she had no relations. That is, curved in on herself, the sinner is one who lives as if reality were other than it is. In doing so, she sits under judgment, but it is a judgment oriented towards hope, the hope (and trust) that reality is <I>not</I> as she thinks and hopes. In this sense, it is hope against hope, hope that the sinner's cause has been taken up (like it or not) by one who will not let her fall our of relationship with him" (p. 191).Ben Myershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03800127501735910966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-4576081238282453442007-05-23T11:35:00.000-04:002007-05-23T11:35:00.000-04:00Thank you Ben, that quote is right on the spot and...Thank you Ben, that quote is right on the spot and it expresses perfectly some of the reservations I have with some recent theologians doing away with the privative concept of sin.<BR/><BR/>I don't know much about the Barth/Brunner bit, but I'm ok with the idea of natural theology, although I would distinguish it from theology proper (Sacra Doctrina). The natural theologian attempts to prove the existence of a first mover, necessary existent, etc. Whether those arguments are successful or not, clearly they do not do away with the need for revelation.<BR/><BR/>cheers!<BR/><BR/>shaneShanehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14594090275917087869noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-22488710755367000812007-05-23T09:40:00.000-04:002007-05-23T09:40:00.000-04:00Ben,Thanks for the excellent review. Does Jenson ...Ben,<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the excellent review. Does Jenson interact with Juengel at any length? It seems that, among theologians after Barth, Juengel more than anyone else has taken up the theme of <I>homo incurvatus in se</I> as the defining characteristic of sin.David W. Congdonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03009330707703611224noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-7453899678451058982007-05-23T04:01:00.000-04:002007-05-23T04:01:00.000-04:00Yes, Shane -- that's an important question. In res...Yes, Shane -- that's an important question. In response, here's a passage that I think you'll appreciate (from the chapter on Luther):<BR/><BR/>"The danger in abandoning a privative account of sin and evil is that sin obtains an autonomy which allows it actually to transform the person into something other than God's good creature. As a result, salvation comes to be seen as a certain (perverse) kind of <I>creatio ex nihilo</I>, which amounts more to a wiping of the slate and starting over rather than the vindication of creation" (p. 56).Ben Myershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03800127501735910966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-49120762417547334042007-05-23T03:10:00.000-04:002007-05-23T03:10:00.000-04:00Morning Shane,Sharp question. I guess if one answ...Morning Shane,<BR/><BR/>Sharp question. I guess if one answers "essential", it means that sinners aren't even human. Good old Aristotelean logic!<BR/><BR/>You must know the great Barth vs. Brunner fight of the century on natutal theology. You'd definitely be in Brunner's corner, <I>Ja</I>?<BR/><BR/>On the wonderful inversion <I>homo excurvatus ex se</I>, I guess you could say that Christians are called to be convex, not concave!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-73422850017783207922007-05-23T02:49:00.000-04:002007-05-23T02:49:00.000-04:00Thanks for the recommendation, the book looks inte...Thanks for the recommendation, the book looks interesting.<BR/><BR/>Now what I want to know is this: Does our author believe that sinners are human beings or not? That is to say, does he make justification an essential change or an accidental one?Shanehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14594090275917087869noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-36520561510296321112007-05-23T01:59:00.000-04:002007-05-23T01:59:00.000-04:00"To be included in the church is to be among those..."To be included in the church is to be among those who live <I>excurvatus ex se</I>, finding … ourselves in Christ and in one another." Thanks - that's beautifully put!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-64406538568409579482007-05-22T21:12:00.000-04:002007-05-22T21:12:00.000-04:00Thanks for the review - I've just gotten a copy of...Thanks for the review - I've just gotten a copy of this, and it looks great.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-21122464320955424032007-05-22T18:16:00.000-04:002007-05-22T18:16:00.000-04:00Matt Jenson? Didn't he do his PhD at St Andrews un...Matt Jenson? Didn't he do his PhD at St Andrews university? I remember chatting to him about the subject next to one of the photocopiers in St Mary's College. What a small world it is!Jonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04051242488196178369noreply@blogger.com