Politics, society, and institutions: a theological outline

OK, polemics aside for a moment, the outline below is an attempt to state my point of view as clearly and concisely as I can, organised around some key doctrinal themes:

Creation: The human person is created in the image and likeness of God after the pattern of Christ, the human prototype. By nature the human being stretches beyond itself in love towards God and the neighbour. Human nature was created not yet in perfection but with the capacity to attain the eschatological perfection of a society ordered wholly by love.

Fall: Only the height of our createdness can measure of the depth of our fall. Created with a capacity to love God, the fallen human being projects transcendent longing on to worldly objects. When this is done individually it leads to spiritual enslavement. When it is done collectively – when a whole social order projects transcendent longing on to some common object – then the monsters of idolatry appear on the stage of world history, and uncontrollable enslaving powers are unleashed.

Sin: The essential form of sin, therefore, is idolatry; and the fruit of idolatry is slavery. The first is a perversion of our capacity to love God; the second is a perversion of our capacity to love the neighbour.

Society: In every social order, one can glimpse something of the majestic createdness and abysmal fallenness of human nature. The problem of any given social order lies not in specific structural and institutional arrangements. The problem lies in the inscrutable depths of the disordered human heart. That is why the noblest revolutionary turns overnight into the bloodiest tyrant. It is why the most equitable social and economic arrangements are so quickly exploited by a mysterious and insatiable greed. It is why social orders prove mysteriously insusceptible to rational planning and management.

Politics: The sole rationale for politics is original sin. The principal aim of political order is not to produce justice but to restrain injustice; not to cultivate the spirit of the law but to enforce the rule of law; not to create love but to set limits to self-interest; not to bring peace but to constrain the inevitable tendencies of the human heart towards violence and war. Politics cannot bring Christ to earth. It is enough if it succeeds in holding Antichrist at bay. But while the rationale for politics is original sin, the measure of politics is eschatology. The perfect eschatological society stands as a criterion and criticism of every social order, stripping it of its pretensions to transcendence and thereby freeing it to be simply what it is: a tragic necessity for a fallen world. 

Institutions: The ordering of society through institutions reflects a real though limited good. Judged by the measure of the perfect eschatological society, institutions can be relieved of their pretensions to transcendence and can aspire to better (though always limited) approximations of truth, goodness, beauty, love, and peace – though these subtle approximations are ordinarily possible only where a society has first been adequately restrained by political authority and the rule of law.

Church: The church is not one social institution alongside others, even though the church inevitably expresses its spiritual life through institutional structures. The church is the society of Christ's followers dispersed throughout the world, permeating every institution and every stratum of social order. Christ's followers participate fully in the social and institutional life of a society, but they do so in the mode of repentance and hope. They repent as representatives of the whole social order; and their hope is likewise a representative act on behalf of the whole society. In this way the church functions not as one of the world's institutions but as a leavening of all institutions within a given social order. By pursuing the imitation of Christ through the twofold discipline of love of God and love of neighbour, Christ's followers give persistent witness not to any alternative or improved political order but to something before and beyond all political order: human sociality ordered by love. The existence of such a witness leads in some circumstances to martyrdom, in other circumstances to reforms or modest improvements within a social order. The consequences differ but the witness is the same.

Eschatology: Christian hope is directed not towards a catastrophic end of social life, but towards the revelation of a perfect sociality ordered by love. The infinite beauty of God allows for unceasing growth in love. In the life of the world to come, our growth in love will continue unceasingly, and human society will flourish under the order of love. On that day – but not till then! – the necessity of social ordering through politics, law, and institutions will be lifted.

God: The secret of human history is the patience of God. All God's dealings with humankind are marked by a patient love of growth and life and time. Not coercively but with supreme courtesy, God draws the human partner out beyond itself into loving union with God. This is an eschatological relationship, since the depths of divine love are without limit; but it is eschatology adapted to the capacities of human nature. Our nature is not violently altered from the outside but is, in Christ, creatively healed, renewed, and glorified from within. Strictly speaking, it is our love that is reordered, not our nature. The glorified human being – the human being lovingly united to God and to the neighbour – gives rise to a glorified (because fully human) sociality. A fully human society is the glory of God.

Notes on a manuscript discovery: Karl Barth's rough outlines for Church Dogmatics, Volume V

If you move in Barthian circles, you've probably heard by now about the rumored discovery a few weeks ago at the Barth-Archiv in Basel. While examining some of Barth's handwritten lecture notes from the 1960s, a Hungarian doctoral researcher claimed to have discovered a series of handwritten outlines for the fifth volume of Barth's Church Dogmatics – the unwritten final volume on eschatology (die Lehre von der Erlösung) that had formed part of Barth's original plan, though he died before completing even the fourth volume. Towards the end of his life Barth was often asked about the last volume of his Dogmatics, but he refused to speculate about it. It has always been believed that he never committed any thoughts to paper about this projected volume. But the Hungarian researcher identified a sequence of notes that look like a series of alternative plans for Volume V. The notes are interspersed haphazardly through an exercise book containing jottings for two public lectures that Barth delivered in 1968, the last year of his life.

When I heard about this manuscript discovery a couple of weeks ago, I was sceptical. Since then, I've exchanged a long string emails with the director of the Barth-Archiv, who has been busily studying the sequence of notes, trying to decipher Barth's (notoriously illegible) handwriting and to piece together the various fragments of notes. In the latest communication from him (which I received about an hour ago), he confirmed that he believes these are indeed a series of short sketches for a final volume of Church Dogmatics. It is hoped that a simple transcription of Barth's notes will be published later this year in the Basel journal, Theologische Zeitschrift, so that scholars can have access to the material as soon as possible.

In the mean time, I have been given permission to say a few things here about these handwritten notes. Please understand that what I will supply here are only provisional summaries; I have received these details by email from the director of the Barth-Archiv as he has been working through the material. I haven't seen this material at first hand, and I've been asked to emphasise the difficulty and ambiguity of some of Barth's notes, not only on account of Barth's handwriting and the damage to some parts of the manuscript (see below), but also because of the way these notes are freely interspersed throughout the exercise book, more or less seamlessly interwoven with other notes that Barth was preparing for the two public lectures. (Luckily we have the full text of these two lectures, which has made it possible to distinguish the notes associated with the lectures from this other layer of material.)

Keeping all that in mind, here are some of the general details as I have received them. Barth appears to have sketched out several different possible approaches to the doctrine of redemption, as follows:

(1) In one approach, he proposes revisiting each previous doctrine from the Dogmatics in reverse order, showing how the conceptual architecture of each doctrine is broken open – and ultimately reorganised – when it is reinterpreted as part of a theology of the Holy Spirit. After working back through reconciliation (volume IV), creation (volume III), election (volume II), and revelation (volume I), the Dogmatics would end where it began: in the doctrine of the Trinity – not, this time, as a doctrine of revelation, but as a doctrine of final redemption.

(2) In another approach, Barth loosely structures the doctrine around the Old Testament canon, with doctrinal sections corresponding to Law, Prophets, and Writings. Most of his notes concentrate on the second category; what he seems to have in mind is a schema in which the whole Bible (and the whole of dogmatics) is permeated by a prophetic dimension. In what looks like a programmatic statement, he writes: "Dogmatics in whole, and not just in part, is prophecy. The Spirit of which it partakes is always and everywhere a Spirit of prophecy."

(3) In another approach, Barth sketches out three eschatological temptations, modelled on the three temptations of Jesus in Luke's Gospel: his headings are "Turning Stones to Bread"; "Power and Glory"; and "The Pinnacle of the Temple". He notes how in each instance Jesus resists and disarms the temptation of eschatological triumph. This is followed by notes on what might be called an eschatology of the cross (my phrase, not Barth's).

(4) In yet another approach, Barth has some brief (still undeciphered) notes under six paired categories: God and the angels; the angels and man; man and the demons; the demons and nothingness; nothingness and creation; creation and God. On the page he has drawn a circle, tracing a line of thought that begins and ends at the same place (i.e., God). Barth notes that the doctrine of redemption has to be understood as a doctrine of God the Redeemer, not of redemption viewed in abstract terms. Beneath this, he has added a curious gnomic comment: "Apokatastasis: untie the knot!"

(5) In one part of the book, Barth seems to have been making notes on several of Mozart's operas. It appears that he was trying (seriously? or in jest?) to derive a principle of doctrinal categorisation from the operas. These notes have covered two sides of a page in the exercise book; however, the page is badly water damaged, and only the first two lines, together with a few words and phrases here and there, remain visible.

(6) Elsewhere, Barth  considers organising his doctrine around four main sections, each corresponding to one of the letters of the Hebrew tetragrammaton, the unpronounceable name of God. There are some comments here that seem to relate to Kabbalah. There is a passage that looks like an experiment in automatic writing. Barth's notes here seem confused, and he does not develop this plan in any clear direction. But what he seems to have in mind is eschatology as an utterance of God's name in which ("nevertheless – or precisely thereby!") God remains hidden, veiled in the very act of God's final unveiling. There is a cryptic comment in this connection too: "Rapprochement with v. Balthasar. Mysticism!"

It must be emphasised again that these approaches to the doctrine of redemption are not always clearly delineated. The notes for one approach sometimes blend imperceptibly into the next. Barth drops a line of thought and then picks it up again later in the exercise book. Most importantly, it is not clear whether these notes were envisaged as distinct possibilities, or – as I have begun to hypothesise – the various dimensions of a wider picture.

But what is that wider picture? Under what imaginable circumstances could these wildly different theological arrangements all fit together? And what does it mean for our reading of the Church Dogmatics – that majestic bastion of theological rationality – if its author was, in his last days, looking for a way to transform the whole elaborate edifice into a gesture of mysticism?


Update: I hope you enjoyed the rest of your April Fools' Day too!

Theology FAIL: Heaven, the videogame

Are you tired of waiting around for the rapture? God knows I am. That's why I was so relieved to discover Heaven: The Game. "Walk the streets of Gold, open the pearly gate, see the creatures of revelation, explore the new Jerusalem" – you can even meet Jesus and "enter the Throne of God himself".

Best of all, on these adventures you'll be accompanied every step of the way by your very own guardian angel, Axis (pictured). And damn, does she look fine in those skin-tight robes of white and that celestially sexy lace-up girdle. The life of the world to come has never been more enticing.

You can see a video preview here. It looks, as we young folks used to say, totally wicked.

Somehow all this reminds me of something my young daughter once said. A Sunday school teacher asked the children what they have to do in order to get to heaven, and my little girl raised her hand and replied meekly: "Die?"

FAIL submitted by Paul Anderson.

Giveaway: Butterflyfish, Great and Small

I've posted before on the wonderful children's band, Butterflyfish, headed up by Harvard theologian and all-around-nice-guy, Matthew Myer Boulton. The band now has a new album, Great and Small – and they've kindly offered a giveaway copy, so leave a comment to enter the draw.

I can't recommend this album highly enough, especially if you (a) have children in your house, (b) get migraines from the usual clatter of kids' music, (c) enjoy a bit of gospel-jazz-country music, and (d) think that children are actually smart enough to understand the Christian faith, not just pious banalities.


The new Butterflyfish songs (also blogged about here and here) are a jubilant celebration of music, life, forgiveness and grace. My favourite song, "You Be You", is a gorgeous, musically luxuriant duet about the joys of singing and making music – I dare you to try listening to it without grinning from ear to ear. 

The title track, "Great and Small", is based on the Hasidic saying that each of us should carry around two pieces of paper, one in each pocket. One piece of paper says "I am but dust and ashes": I read this when I'm feeling proud and self-important. But when I'm feeling worthless or ashamed, I read the other piece of paper, which says: "For me the world was created." The song reflects this humble-yet-proud duality of our relationship to God:

Deep down here inside my pocket there’s a little piece of paper

I take it out and read it when I’m feeling out of shaper

To keep my fears at bay,

It says you are great

Deep down in my other pocket there’s another piece of paper

I take it out and read it when I’m getting into shaper

When I’m walking tall, 
It says you are small

Dust to dust we shall return

The whole wide world was made for us to learn

That we are great and small

We are tiny and tall

Remember through it all

We are great and small

Another song, "The Gospel Story", serves up some serious theological reflection on the relation between our world and the coming kingdom of God:

I ain't goin' up to heaven in the sky
I ain't flyin' with the angels when I die
I ain't gonna rise up in the clear
Cause I do believe my dear
Heaven's comin' down here

That's the gospel story
That's the gospel plan
Kingdom of glory's right here at hand
So don't you worry, woman and man
That's the gospel story
That's the gospel plan

This is a fun and colourful song, but the theology is potent. Honestly folks, is there anything more disturbing than the way Christian books and music for kids cultivate a life-denying obsession with the afterlife? A few months ago, I was having a conversation with a young church-going kid. I asked what she wants to do when she grows up, and she replied right away: I want to die and go to heaven to be with Jesus. If the gospel teaches our children to be in love with death, is that really better than not hearing the gospel at all? Of course I'm not suggesting that the eschatological hope should be erased: but the point of eschatology is that it floods this world and this life with the light of hope. 

The other day my six-year-old daughter (who loves to draw) asked me about heaven. I gave her my own theories on the subject, and then she said: "I think heaven is where I won't make any mistakes in my drawing." I told her that I couldn't possibly improve on that definition.
Anyways, leave a comment if you'd like to be in the running for a free copy of this terrific new album, Great and Small.

Oh and in other musical news, last night I enjoyed a long and lively conversation – about ghosts, haunted houses, Karl Barth, Abraham Kuyper, fireplaces, pickled eggs, and special revelation – with Eric of the indie band Fielding. They have a new album, The Voice of Us, which I've been listening to lately. My favourite song is "Asher" – you can hear on their Myspace page. The album is available from iTunes, Rhapsody, or eMusic.

Dostoevsky and a theology of writing

“In writing fiction in which no formula is allowed unchallengeable victory, Dostoevsky has implicitly developed what might be called a theology of writing, specifically of narrative writing. Every fiction is at its most fictional in its endings, those pretences of closure and settlement. Every morally and religiously serious fiction has to project something beyond that ending or otherwise signal a level of incompletion…. The gratuity of fiction arises from the conviction that no kind of truth can be told if we speak or act as if history is over, as if the description of what contingently is becomes the sole possible account of language…. The novel ought to be a stout defender of the independence of eschatology in its most robust sense – that is, a defender of the apparently obvious but actually quite vulnerable conviction that the present does not possess the future.”

—From Rowan Williams’ extraordinary new book, Dostoevsky: Language, Faith, and Fiction (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2008), pp. 46, 60.

Homosexuality and the church: a meditation on the tragic (Part Two)

A guest-series by Ray S. Anderson

The Tragic and Human Sexuality

If love is intrinsically tragic because it offers possibilities of fulfillment to human desire, hopes and needs that can never be met in even the most perfect human relationship, then sexuality itself is intrinsically tragic. The sexual nature of humanity perhaps lies nearest to the core of the self in terms of human intimacy. This is why sexuality is such a profound and yet complicated – and yes, tragic – component of the structure of humanity.

Sexuality itself is tragic because it is a component of the very structure of humanity that is woven through with the tragic. We do not understand what it is to be a human person until we understand that. And we cannot understand the struggle to integrate unfulfilled, sometimes chaotic, and often self-defeating sexual experience into authentic human personhood until we understand that.

When a man in his late 40s tells me, “I always wanted to have children, but after getting married when I was 25 I discovered that my wife could not and would never be able to conceive a child. Yes, adoption was one possibility, but my dream of having a child of my own well never be realized.” I respond: “Yes, I understand that, it is tragic.”

When a single woman in her late 50s tells me, “When I was in my 20s I thought for sure that I would be married. All of my friends found someone, I never did. I have lived all these years hoping for someone to love me in a special way. It never happened.” I respond: “Yes, I understand that, it is tragic.”

When a homosexual person tells me, “I knew that I was homosexual from the time I was a teenager. I tried to deny it, but finally accepted it, and though it is against what the Bible teaches, I have someone to love me and to live in a relationship that I could never have otherwise.” I respond: “Yes, I understand that, it is tragic.”

What each person in these situations has in common is an experience of the tragic as a component of their human experience. We must first understand that before considering the moral implications of their behavior. When Jesus confronted the woman at the well (John 4) he drew forth the truth that she had lived a life of promiscuity. “You have had several husbands and the man you are living with is not your husband.” Jesus perceived the tragic component of a woman’s life lived under these circumstances. The moral issue with regard to living with a man not her husband was never brought up. Jesus did not label her a sinner, but empowered her to confess that he was truly the Messiah sent from God. My point is that to label the sexual orientation and practice of a person as “sinful” fails to understand the tragic construct of that person’s life.

The Tragic and the Kingdom of God

Sin is not a condition that precedes grace. For until one is welcomed into the Kingdom of God through grace, the tragic only is a condition to be overcome, sometimes by religion, rather than by a relationship in which the tragic is brought under the promise of redemption. Until we each have discovered our own sin, always through grace, to be called a sinner by others is not only graceless, it is tragic. It breaks the common bond that makes us human. Saul of Tarsus would never have accepted the accusation that he was a sinner until he experienced the grace of God through his encounter with the risen Christ. Until the tragic nature of sin is revealed though grace, it lies untouched and unredeemed, hidden like a deadly virus that thrives on self-affirmation only to emerge in self-condemnation.

Jesus did not label persons whom he encountered as sinners, but rather offered them the power of his own person and inclusion in the Kingdom of God as an eschatological promise of redemption of the tragic. Looking over the crowd who followed him, he had compassion on them because “they were like sheep without a shepherd” (Mark 6:7). Later that day he instructed his disciples to feed them and, as a result, more than 5,000 were fed. This “miraculous meal” was an eschatological sign and promise of redemption from the tragic. For a meal only lasts one day and holds back the tragic for a time; then hunger again rises up to remind humans that their existence is fragile and weak.

Redemption from sin begins with understanding, not with condemnation. Does this mean that sin is disregarded? Not at all. But then we should understand that we are bound to each other not only by virtue of the tragic, but also by sin. When Paul wrote to the Corinthian church with regard to sexual sin, he placed that particular sin in the same category as greed, worship of idols, and being abusive, a drunkard or a cheat (1 Cor 5:11). Paul only discovered that he was a sinner following his experience of grace through Jesus Christ. It is of no benefit to the Kingdom of God to call someone a sinner; instead, offer the grace of God so that they discover this for themselves.

The Kingdom and the Church

Jesus proclaimed the coming and the actual presence of the Kingdom of God in his own life and ministry. “But if I am casting out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has arrived among you” (Matt 12:28 NLT). But the Kingdom, while bringing redemption within the tragic, did not promise redemption from the tragic until the end of this temporal order and the coming of the Kingdom of God in glory. At the same time, Jesus said that his Kingdom was not of this world (John 18:36). Paul taught that the Kingdom of God is not a matter of living by religious rules and regulations, but of “living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom 14:17 NLT).

The Kingdom of God confronts the world with the reality of what God intended for humanity and the way it is supposed to be, calling what is into a redemptive relation with God as Creator and Redeemer. The church is a sign of the Kingdom and acquires its identity and role in relation to the Kingdom. As such, the church is not the Kingdom of God, but an eschatological extension of the Kingdom into the present world order. In the end, it is not the church but the Kingdom of God that is presented to the Father by the Son in its fullness and completeness (1 Cor 15:17).

The church in its teaching and life, under biblical authority, is not only a place where we can come “just as we are,” but a place where we can experience the redemptive grace of God to become and live as God intended. This is the tragic aspect of the Kingdom of God and the form of the church in the world. It embraces what is tragic in the form of the failure of humanity to be and live in accordance with what God intended. At the same time in its teaching and practice it brings the tragic under the redemptive promise of healing, hope and ultimate overcoming of the tragic. For the church to exclude its neighbor, the homosexual person, is to forsake its own relation to the Kingdom of God and its authentic mission on earth.

Pannenberg's eschatological ontology

The new issue of the Neue Zeitschrift für systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie includes my article on Pannenberg, entitled: “The Difference Totality Makes: Reconsidering Pannenberg’s Eschatological Ontology” NZSTh 49:2 (2007), 141-55. (If you’d like a copy, just email me.)

In the essay, I try to bring Pannenberg’s eschatological thought into conversation with the work of David Bentley Hart and Robert W. Jenson. Here’s the abstract:

“Wolfhart Pannenberg’s eschatological ontology has been criticised for undermining the goodness and reality of finite creaturely differentiation. Drawing on David Bentley Hart’s recent ontological proposal, this article explores the critique of Pannenberg’s ontology, and offers a defence of Pannenberg’s depiction of the relation between difference and totality, especially as it is presented in his 1988 work, Metaphysics and the Idea of God. In this work, Pannenberg articulates a structured relation between difference and totality in which individual finite particularities are preserved and affirmed within a coherent semantic whole. Creaturely differences are not sublated or eliminated in the eschatological totality, but are integrated into a harmonious totality of meaning. This view of the semantic function of totality can be further clarified by connecting Pannenberg’s ontological vision with Robert W. Jenson’s model of the eschatological consummation as a narrative conclusion to the drama of finite reality.”

The same issue of NZSTh also includes Paul Molnar’s critical response to Bruce McCormack: “Can the Electing God Be God without Us? Some Implications of Bruce McCormack’s Understanding of Barth’s Doctrine of Election for the Doctrine of the Trinity” (pp. 199-222).

Benedict XVI: spe salvi

Benedict XVI’s new encyclical on Christian hope is now available online: Spe Salvi (30 November 2007). You gotta like a pope who can quote Kant, Dostoevsky, Adorno, de Lubac, and an obscure Vietnamese martyr – all in a single encyclical! The writer of a recent Telegraph article related this anecdote: “A colleague, staring at the Pope’s latest encyclical, remarked, ‘There’s no news here. It’s all about God’.” One can scarcely imagine a higher compliment for this theologian-pope.

Here are a couple of excerpts on the relation between faith and the future:

“[T]he Christian message was not only ‘informative’ but ‘performative’. That means: the Gospel is not merely a communication of things that can be known – it is one that makes things happen and is life-changing. The dark door of time, of the future, has been thrown open [Obscura porta temporis, venturi temporis, aperta est].” (2)

“Faith is not merely a personal reaching out towards things to come that are still totally absent: it gives us something. It gives us even now something of the reality we are waiting for…. Faith draws the future into the present, so that it is no longer simply a ‘not yet’. The fact that this future exists changes the present; the present is touched by the future reality, and thus the things of the future spill over into those of the present and those of the present into those of the future.” (7)

And I especially appreciate what Benedict has to say about hell and purgation:

“Christ descended into ‘Hell’ and is therefore close to those cast into it, transforming their darkness into light.” (37)

“Some recent theologians are of the opinion that the fire which both burns and saves is Christ himself, the Judge and Saviour. The encounter with him is the decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation. His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation ‘as through fire’. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God.” (47)

Resurrection and the Parousia

We’ve been talking a lot lately about the resurrection. So here’s a related quote from the best book ever written on the meaning of resurrection – Karl Barth’s commentary on Romans. In this passage, Barth is talking about the relation between resurrection and the Parousia:

“Will there never be an end of all our ceaseless talk about the delay of the Parousia? How can the coming of that which does not enter in ever be delayed? The End of which the New Testament speaks is no temporal event, no legendary ‘destruction’ of the world; it has nothing to do with any historical, or ‘telluric’, or cosmic catastrophe. The end of which the New Testament speaks is really the End; so utterly the End, that in the measuring of nearness or distance our nineteen hundred years are not merely of little, but of no importance; so utterly the End that Abraham already saw the Day – and was glad…. Who shall persuade us to transform our expectation of the End – the ‘Moment’ when the living shall be changed and the dead shall be raised, and both shall stand together before God (1 Cor. 15:51-52) – into the expectation of a coarse and brutal spectacle? Who, when this spectacle is quite rightly delayed, shall be able to lull us comfortably to sleep by adding at the conclusion of Christian Dogmatics a short and perfectly harmless chapter entitled – ‘Eschatology’?”

—Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans (London: Oxford University Press, 1933), p. 500.

Gerhard Sauter: Protestant Theology at the Crossroads

Gerhard Sauter, Protestant Theology at the Crossroads: How to Face the Crucial Tasks for Theology in the Twenty-First Century (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), xxiv + 188 pp. (review copy courtesy of Eerdmans)

Back in the 1960s, Gerhard Sauter emerged as one of Germany’s leading proponents of the “theology of hope,” and he has been a major figure in German dogmatics throughout the ensuing decades. In this book – an expanded version of the author’s Warfield Lectures at Princeton Theological Seminary – Sauter reflects on the challenges facing contemporary Protestant theology. Although the arrangement of the book is anecdotal and impressionistic, the diverse chapters are held together by a central theme: if theology is to remain authentically Christian, it must be informed by robust dogmatic thinking.

Eschatological concerns have always been at the core of Sauter’s work, and in some of these chapters he clarifies his basic eschatological convictions. He observes that God’s promises cannot be interpreted as straightforward predictions of the future – rather, “fulfilment often shatters expectation based on God’s promises”; the sheer newness of the fulfilment reshapes the promise itself (p. 12). Indeed, the entire New Testament could be read “as a document of dramatic endeavours to articulate the newness of God’s acting” (p. 14). Further, God’s promises are never simply “fulfilled” in such a way that they can then recede into the past; on the contrary, these promises continue to open the future and to create expectation that the crucified Christ is also the Coming One. For Sauter, there is thus a dialectical unity between promise and fulfilment. The two moments are related theologically, not historically (p. 53).

The purpose of dogmatics itself, then, is to serve God’s promises. Dogmatics helps us to remain watchful and expectant, “open to surprises, amazed” – its purpose is to “protect us against spiritual stiffness and a pious know-all manner,” and it does this by helping us to discover the right questions (p. 64). In this way, dogmatics does not close off Christian discourse, but rather opens it to God’s surprising newness.

Such dogmatic thinking, Sauter argues, is crucial for Bible reading, and thus for the church itself. There is no one-way relationship between dogmatics and scripture – biblical texts cannot prove the statements of dogmatics, nor can dogmatic statements anticipate in advance what is to be perceived by reading the Bible. Instead, there is a “dialectical interrelation” between dogmatics and Bible reading, “a merry-go-round of questions and answers” (p. 62). In all this, our aim is simply to remain open to God’s own speaking. And if we read the Bible in this way, we discover that we ourselves are being read in the story: “The text reads the reader” (p. 39).

Sauter’s understanding of the dogmatic task also informs his critique of contemporary contextual theologies. He argues that such theologies fail to attend to the individual’s theological context as someone who has been baptised into the divine economy. For Sauter, it is participation in this context which remains decisive for theological reflection – self-reflection on the circumstances of one’s life and culture can never yield genuinely theological insights. Indeed, in a provocative passage (pp. 98-99), Sauter compares our contemporary contextual theologies with the cultural theology of the German Christians in the 1930s – and he argues that the Barmen Declaration embodies a properly “contextual” theology, i.e., a theology whose fundamental “context” is God’s living self-address in Jesus Christ. Sauter’s argument, then, is that not that theology should be unaffected by its political and cultural circumstances, but rather that, “lacking dogmatics, theology runs the risk of becoming a mere reflection of its context” (p. 114).

So although Sauter believes that theology must “interfere in public discourse” (p. 149), he insists that we can do this only to the extent that we listen to the external voice of God’s promise. Indeed, a democratic society needs the voice of church – the clear voice of a church which is committed to being the church, not just “one interest group among others” (p. 152). Thus Sauter also criticises contemporary work in “public theology” (e.g. Thiemann), and he suggests that John Howard Yoder’s work represents a much more theological form of public theology. Instead of being preoccupied with the publicity of religious values or with the particular role of Mennonites in American society, Yoder advances the public character of the church precisely by indicating the way in which the church can simply be the people of God (p. 160). Here, again, Sauter’s central point is clear: the church’s engagement with society requires dogmatic thinking – otherwise, the church will find itself with nothing distinctive to say.

Although this is not Sauter’s best book – certainly not as important as Gateways to Dogmatics – it is nevertheless interesting to follow Sauter here as he reflects on some of his own defining “experiences in thinking.” Whether or not one agrees with each of his specific interventions in contemporary theology, I think his articulation of the critical function of dogmatics is of great importance.

Sauter’s best and most memorable statement is that “theology is always a preparation for emergency” (p. 59). And it precisely the task of dogmatics to help equip the church for such emergency – or, perhaps, to tell the church that it is already in a state of emergency, that the crucified Christ is already coming “like a thief in the night.”

Eschatology with a five-year-old

A recent theological conversation with my five-year-old daughter:

—When will God bring all the dead people back to life?
—God will bring everyone back to life at the end of the world. And we’ll all live again with him.
—Here, or in heaven?
—Here in this world. But he’ll make the whole world brand new.
—And the lion won’t eat the lamb anymore?
—That’s right. In God’s new world, no one will be hurting anyone else. We’ll all be at peace. Do you know what ‘peace’ means?
—It means it’s quiet.
—Yes, it could mean it will be quiet. But it also means that no one will fight anymore, no one will ever get angry or hurt – and there’ll be no more wars. Everyone will be friends. And because of that, there’ll be no more tears in God’s new world.
—No tears ever?
—Nope.
—Not even tears of happiness?
—Oh yeah…. Well, I’m sure we’ll still have tears of happiness. Have you ever had tears of happiness?
—Yes, of course I have.
—When?
—Umm…. When you come home from another country.
—Oh, I see. Actually, that makes me think of God’s new world as well. In God’s new world, all of us will be coming home from another country – coming home for the first time. So I guess we’ll have tears of happiness forever.
—But are they real lions?

Pannenberg's eschatological ontology

One of Wolfhart Pannenberg’s most fascinating and controversial ideas is his eschatological ontology. For Pannenberg, the being or essence of a thing is determined by its future. The future exercises a “retroactive” (rückwirkend) causality on the present – and so a thing can possess its essence here and now only by anticipating what it will be in the future.

This is admittedly a very complex cluster of ideas. But in his important book on Metaphysics and the Idea of God, Pannenberg explains all this with a very helpful illustration taken from his home garden (apparently he is quite an avid gardener). His illustration focuses on the pretty zinnia:

“A zinnia is already a zinnia as a cutting and remains one during the entire process of its growth up to blossoming, even though the flower bears its name on account of its blossom. If there were only a single such flower, we could not determine its nature in advance; and yet over the period of its growth it would still be what it revealed itself to be at the end. It would possess its essence through anticipation, though only at the end of the developmental process would one be able to know that this was its essence.” (p. 105)

In a similar way, Pannenberg says that all being is determined retroactively from the future of God’s eternal kingdom.

The justification of theology

“The justification for a faculty of theology in the university lies in its willingness to bear witness to an eschatological disclosure of the ultimate foundation of all the disciplines and, in so doing, to the meaningfulness of all disciplines in spite of their inability to demonstrate their foundations…. [T]heology serves the other sciences best when it acts as a disruptive influence; when it reminds the other sciences of their inability to demonstrate their ultimate presuppositions…. If faculties of theology could learn once again to perform this function, they will truly deserve their place at the table. If they do not, if they continue to allow theology to be transformed into metaphysics or reduced to anthropology, well, we ought not to be surprised if theology loses its place altogether.”

—Bruce L. McCormack, “Theology and Science: Karl Barth’s Contribution to an Ongoing Debate,” Zeitschrift für dialektische Theologie 22 (2006), p. 59.

Robert W. Jenson on the priority of the future

“The order of a good story is an ordering by the outcome of the narrated events; its animating spirit ... is the power of a self-determinate future to liberate each specious present from mere predictabilities, from being the mere consequence of what has gone before.... The great metaphysical question on the border between the gospel and our culture’s antecedent theology is whether this ordering may be regarded as its own kind of causality” – i.e., a causality that moves backwards from the future!

—Robert W. Jenson, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 159.

The best book on Wolfhart Pannenberg

I love Wolfhart Pannenberg’s theology. Depending on which of his books I’m reading at the time, I find him either baffling, irritating or breathtaking – or occasionally all three at once. In my view, Pannenberg’s finest work is his great book on christology, Jesus – God and Man (1964). And I also think his Systematic Theology is without question the best Protestant dogmatics since Karl Barth.

It always amazes me that there isn’t more secondary literature on Pannenberg (and although I respect Moltmann, I find it incomprehensible that far more is written about him than about Pannenberg!). Still, if you’re looking for an exceptionally good study – yes, the best study – of Pannenberg’s theology, then here it is:

Christiaan Mostert, God and the Future: Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Eschatological Doctrine of God (London: T&T Clark, 2002).

I bought a copy of this only recently, and I realised at once that it far surpasses most of the other secondary literature on Pannenberg – it’s a brilliant exposition of some of the most profound and most significant aspects of Pannenberg’s thought (and of course I’m also happy to report that the author is a fellow Aussie). Anyway, if you want to read just one book about Pannenberg’s theology, then God and the Future is definitely the one to get your hands on.

Psalm 75: creation and consummation

“It is useless to ask here whether the Psalmist [in Psalm 75] thought of a ‘historical’ or ‘eschatological’ event. Here, as elsewhere in the Psalms, the perspectives are commingled. Every historical victory of Yahweh over the adversary is on the one hand a confirmation of his act of creation, and on the other hand a pledge of his coming, final blessing. History is the road by which the king strives ‘conquering and to conquer’ (Rev. 6:2) from creation to consummation.”

—Hendrikus Berkhof, Christ the Meaning of History (London: SCM, 1966), p. 43.

Believing in the resurrection

In a very lively post, Mike Bird critiques N. T. Wright’s view that one does not need to believe in bodily resurrection in order to be a Christian. Wright says: “I have friends who I am quite sure are Christians who do not believe in the bodily resurrection. But the view I take of them—and they know this—is that they are very, very muddled.... I do think, however, ... that for healthy Christian life individually and corporately, belief in the bodily resurrection is foundational.”

To all this, Mike replies: “No!” He points out that according to early Christian belief, it is confession of Jesus as the “Risen Lord” that marks a person out as a Christian. He also notes that “the belief that Jesus ‘died and rose’ was the most basic and primitive Christian confession,” and that the resurrection is bound up with the gospel (as Paul argues in 1 Cor. 15).

On this occasion, I will have to side with N. T. Wright against Mike. I think Mike is exactly right about the centrality of resurrection in the primitive Christian kerygma. But the crucial question is whether any particular theological interpretation of resurrection belongs to the heart of the gospel. And it seems to me that the New Testament itself resists such a view. In fact, the New Testament witnesses don’t offer any precise theological interpretation of the resurrection. None of the Gospels tries to describe or explain the event of resurrection at all—rather, the resurrection is precisely the mystery at the centre of the story of Jesus.

The closest thing to a definition of “resurrection” in the New Testament is of course Paul’s discussion in 1 Cor. 15. But even here, Paul focuses sharply on the discontinuity between the physical body and the resurrected body, so that the precise meaning of “resurrection” is made all the more mysterious. Paul elucidates the concept only with the aid of various metaphors—and that is just the point! The precise meaning of “resurrection” remains unknown; it remains an event of the world to come, whose meaning lies beyond the horizon of our current understanding.

Resurrection is not a this-worldly reality; it is eschatological reality. We can grope toward its meaning through metaphors like resuscitation or awakening from sleep. We can grope toward its meaning through narratives like Mark’s story of the transfiguration (Mk. 9) and Matthew’s story of the opening of graves (Matt. 27). But we cannot define the concept of resurrection itself. When we speak of the resurrection, we are speaking of a mystery.

So to make any specific theological interpretation of “resurrection” an essential component of Christian faith seems to be at odds with the New Testament witnesses, and with the eschatological character of resurrection.

I myself believe in “bodily resurrection,” and I think this concept is the most faithful way of following the New Testament witnesses—but I could never tell you exactly what “bodily resurrection” means, and I would never want the term to become anything more than a metaphor. Other Christians interpret the resurrection using different terms and different metaphors; in different ways, they are still trying to affirm the resurrection of Jesus.

Needless to say, some interpretations of the resurrection are mistaken, and some are closer to the truth than others. But the one thing that matters ultimately is faith in the “Risen Lord”—not one’s ability to define this faith in correct conceptual terms.

Dale Allison on eschatology

“[T]he eschatological Jesus is theologically troubling; and if the practice of preferring those explanations farthest removed from traditional Christian belief is a failing of some within our profession [of NT scholarship], an equal or greater number within the guild are probably guilty of just the opposite practice, so that the theological wish has all too often become the parent of the alleged historical fact. The truth, however, is like God: we can run from it, but it is always there.”

—Dale C. Allison, “A Plea for Thoroughgoing Eschatology,” Journal of Biblical Literature 113 (1994), p. 668.

Creation from the future

“Creation is not to be understood as an act that happened one time, ages ago, the results of which involve us in the present. Rather, the creation of all things, even including things that belong to the past, takes place out of the ultimate future, from the eschaton, insofar as only from the perspective of the end are all things what they truly are.”

—Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus—God and Man (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1968), p. 230.

Reformation eschatology

“[I]t is easy to understand how eschatology could play such a comparatively insignificant role in the theology of the Reformers. They knew how to make so much of forgiveness of sins in particular that to them and their contemporaries anything of decisive importance that is to be said about the resurrection of the flesh and eternal life could be taken as said under that head.”

—Karl Barth, Credo: A Presentation of the Chief Problems of Dogmatics with Reference to the Apostles’ Creed (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1936), pp. 162-63.