Theological Scribbles

Puritan Thought for the Day

2012-01-25T11:57:00.004Z

"Is it thus, O my soul? hath the Lord Christ indeed discovered his will, to thee for his Spouse? What, he that is so holy, to marry such an impure wretch as thou art? O how should this but melt-thee into a flame of love?. . . O my soul, henceforth cling to thy Savior, go out of thy self, and creep to him, and affect not onely union, but very unity with him; bathe thy self hereafter again and again, many and many a time in those delicious intimacies of thy Spiritual marriage."

—Isaac Ambrose (1657)

Jesus v. Religion

2012-01-20T11:24:00.000Z

Here is the original video that got everyone talking:

Here is a response:

It all hangs on how we use the word "religion." For the first guy "religion" = mere concern with outward appearance and not about relationship with God or heart-motivated holy living.

Of course, if that is what "religion" means then obviously Jesus hates it. On that definition then the first guy is right.

And he does make a lot of good points about the importance of inward religion and how Jesus hates hypocrisy.

But I am worried.

The first guy turns Jesus' critique of hypocrisy and double-standard religion into a general critique of "religion."

Jesus was not against institutional religion any more than the prophets in ancient Israel were. Criticizing abuses from within is not the same as rejecting everything. Do remember that Jesus was a torah-obedient Jew (albeit at the liberal end of the interpretation of the torah)! He celebrated religious festivals, took part in religious rituals, and followed religious laws.

The problem is that guy 1 defines "religion" as "mere appearance" (making the word into a negative word) and then simply applies that negative definition to anything that has seen itself as "religion" (i.e., against the institutional church).

Jesus is against hypocritical religion; he is against mere outward religion; and he is against heart-less religion.

He is not, however, against religion nor even against outward behaviour and religious rituals. He is for godly religion.

The church will ever need its prophets to offer critique from within (so I value a lot of what guy 1 says) but this critique has moved beyond its limits as a reasonable and valid critique into a over-fast dismissal of institutional Christianity based on a caricature of it.

Nevertheless, rather than rejecting it as mere rhetoric I think we can filter it and reappropriate it as a helpful critique from a Christian of some problems within churches.

Driscoll on Hell and a Manly God

2012-01-16T22:11:00.000Z

Here is a part of Mark Driscoll's now infamous interview with Justin Brierly on Premier Radio. They were in the process of discussing women in church leadership.

The whole final section of the interview was not Mark Driscoll's finest hour. Most of the online discussion since has been on his macho view of men and women and his insight into modern British preachers (i.e., there are no courageous young preachers in Britain — they are all cowards: girly men not manly men). I won't comment on those issues (though I could!)

The following little comment did surprise me a little:

Driscoll: Do you believe in a conscious literal eternal torment of hell?

Brierley: What has that got to do with the issue of women in leadership, if you don’t mind me asking?

Driscoll: It does. It depends on your view of God. Is God like a mom who just embraces everyone? Or is he like a father who also protects, and defends, and disciplines? If you won’t answer the question, I think I know the answer.

Mark Driscoll has a manly God not a girly God. Apparently, if one thinks of God in "masculine" ways (as opposed to pink and girly ways) then you must believe in eternal, conscious torment.

I beg your pardon!

If tormenting people forever and ever is a "masculine" way to behave then I am very concerned for what Driscoll thinks it is for "men to be men." It sounds like being masculine is about being a violent brute!

But perhaps that's not fair. Driscoll goes on to explain that the reason why a manly God torments sinners forever is that he is a "father who also protects, and defends, and disciplines." Now I am much more sympathetic to "masculine" understood in these ways.

Oh . . . hold on . . . now I'm confused.

God torments sinners in hell because he is protecting them? eh?
Defending them? huh?
Disciplining them? urm? Disciplining them . . . forever . . . with no chance to improve? How is this discipline?

I think — I hope — that Mark Driscoll has not thought this through clearly and that it was simply an offhand remark; that he put the phone down and thought, "Man! Why did I say that dumb stuff!"

As a theological argument it is vacuous. If Mark would prefer that in more manly terms: it's utter bollocks!

Defending Constantine

2012-01-08T15:24:00.002Z

I love subversive, revisionist histories so I am very excited to read Peter Leithart's book Defending Constantine. I have always been inclined towards the view that Contantine's "conversion" was a bad move for Christianity. It seems to be pretty much standard that modern Christians have to reject Constantine and his effect on the church. The story is usually told as a Fall narrative — where everything went wrong. So, I followed the crowd because life is short and I don't have time to research the history myself.

However, I have also felt that I am very much working with caricatures of history and that the truth is a lot more murkey. So I was very excited to see a book coming out and taking the opposite view. I picked up a copy and am reading it at the moment.

I am also currently reading Leithart's book on Athanasias and that is excellent. The guy knows what he is talking about. So I am looking to have my caricatures about Constantine challenged and for a bit more grey and a bit less black and white. Not sure where I'll end up on this one but I'm looking forward to the adventure.

Naming the Trinity (Soulen's big idea)

2012-01-08T14:46:00.000Z

I am currently reading Kendall Soulen's new book The Divine Name(s) and the Holy Trinity. It is, in my view, a very important theological book that will be much discussed for some years to come.

The whole book focuses on a single issue and proposes an answer by means of a single, simple idea.

The issue is this: how should we name God, the Holy Trinity?

Soulen proposes that there is not one but three "most appropriate" patterns for naming the Trinity; and each of those patterns of naming correspond to one of the three persons of the Trinity.

Pattern 1: the theological pattern. This is associated with the first person of the Trinity. It focuses on the divine name of God — YHWH. Soulen does a magnificent job of putting the divine name YHWH back at the centre of Christian theology. He convincingly shows that it is not only the OT revelation of God but also the NT revelation that is dominated by this name.

The first person is the mysterious one whose name this is. He is also the one who bestows this "name above every name" upon the second person. The third person brings about the recognition of and glorification of this name.

Pattern 2: the christological pattern. This is the pattern of naming that most people are most familiar with. This pattern is primarily associated with the second person of the Trinity and the focus is on divine presence. The key pattern of naming is that of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Pattern 3: The pneumatological pattern: This pattern is most associated with the third person of the Trinity and is associated with the theme of divine blessing. Here a vast multiplicity of names flow, even those not found in Scripture. For instance, Augustine's famous "Lover, Beloved, Spirit of Love" pattern for naming the Trinity is, according to Soulen, legitimate following the third pattern of naming.

Soulen maintains that all three patterns of naming the persons are equally important and "most appropriate" — Christians need to keep all three in balance in their theology and spirituality.

There is a lot to say about this book — and I need to ponder it for a while before I draw firm conclusions — but I simply wanted to flag up its key point. I think that Soulen is one of the more interesting theologians working today and this book reinforces my regard for him.

I have to say that part 1 of the book, which offers a historical journey through naming the Trinity in Christian theology, is absolutely fascinating. His analysis is very thought provoking.

Vol. 2 will consider how this new paradigm allows some contemporary trinitarian debates to be navigated (e.g., debates on the use of masculine language for God) and also the issue of its relevance to discussions about the immanent Trinity (vol. 1 is focused on the economic Trinity). I can't wait for it!

Barth on prayer and theology

2011-12-23T13:32:00.003Z

“The first and basic act of theological work is prayer . . . But theological work does not merely begin with prayer and is not merely accompanied by it; in its totality it is peculiar and characteristic of theology that it can be performed only in the act of prayer.”

Karl Barth, Evangelical Theology, 160.

Second Edition of "The Evangelical Universalist" (2012)

2011-12-13T08:36:00.000Z

I have been asked to prepare a second edition of The Evangelical Universalist. It'll be out in late 2012.

For those of you interested in what I am thinking of adding, here you go:

1. A new (and quite long) preface explaining some of the stuff that I could not explain in the first edition because of my anonymity. Also talking about some of the developments in my thinking since I wrote the book.

2. A study guide (at the publisher's request)

3. An appendix with my take on Rob Bell's book (at the publisher's request)

4. An appendix (fairly long) with my responses to the best criticisms I have found to the first edition

5. A Scripture index

(6. Perhaps something on the Trinity and universalism)

I do have quite strict limits on how much I am allowed to add so I can't do everything.

If I have missed something obvious please do let me know.

A question for Jonathan Edwards

2011-12-12T16:11:00.000Z

I am currently reading Jonathan Edwards' sermons on the parable of the sower (currently unpublished but forthcoming from Cascade). They are mostly very good — very challenging!

However, there are aspects of the sermons that I am not comfortable with.

For instance,

Thorns are an useless growth of the earth; so are carnal affections and cares the useless produce of the heart. They bring forth no fruit, either to the glory of God or to their own benefit. Those that are under the power of a worldly spirit, are an useless kind of persons; they are barren trees in God’s vineyard, mere cumberers of the ground; they live to no purpose; they don’t answer the end of their creation. God can have his glory of such persons no other way but in their destruction. (Italics mine.)

Really? No other way? How about redemption?

Interesting that JE says that they "don't answer the end of their creation." In other words, they are not fulfilling the purpose for which God created human beings. So why not enable them to fulfill those purposes. God can do that, right? Answer: Yes.

New Getty Christmas CD

2011-11-30T17:04:00.001Z

It's really good. I've got it. Recommended.

Beautiful and Subtle Animation

2011-11-26T11:49:00.001Z

Reading the Bible Again . . . for the First Time

2011-11-25T11:00:00.001Z

Here is Matthew 25:14–30 put into a more modern setting by Brian Logan of The Church of the Servant King in Eugene. He adds that this is in a pretty rough state and he's happy to receive any suggestions for improvement. But I think it is very interesting. It certainly made me think.

A Transposition:

25:14 "For it is as if a mafia boss, going back to the old country,
summoned his henchmen and entrusted his crime syndicate to them;

25:15 to Joey, he gave the meth, heroin, and prostitution businesses,
to Anton the extortion & protection racket, to Pauli his loan shark
business, to each according to his ability. Then he went off to Italy.

25:16 Joey, the one who had received the meth, heroin, and
prostitution businesses sent off at once his dealers and pimps, and
made 1.5 million dollars.

25:17 In the same way, Anton, the one who had the extortion &
protection rackets made a half mil.

25:18 But Pauli, the one who had received the loan shark business was
afraid to break any legs and so, loaned out no money and holed up with
his brother, Louie.

25:19 After a nice, long vacation in Sicily, the mob boss came to
settle up with his henchmen.

25:20 Then Joey, the one who had received the meth, heroin, and
prostitution businesses came forward, bringing two suitcases full of
dough, saying, 'Tony, you handed over to me the meth, heroin, and
prostitution businesses; see, I have made you 1500 grand and some
change.'

25:21 The mob boss said to him, 'you've done well, good and
trustworthy paisan; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will
make you my right hand man; Come with me to Atlantic City for some
wine, women and song.'

25:22 And Anton, the one with the extortion and protection rackets
also came forward, saying, 'Boss, you handed over to me these two
businesses; see, I have made you 500 grand.'

25:23 The mob boss said to him, 'You've done good, as well. You have
been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of the
lower Eastside; And you, come with me to Atlantic City, as well

25:24 Then Pauli, the one who was given the loan shark business also
came forward, saying, 'Boss, I knew that you were a harsh man,
breaking legs and busting chops;

25:25 so I was afraid, and I went to my brother, Louie's, with the
cash and didn't spend a dime. Here's your 250 grand in full.'

25:26 But mob boss replied, 'You stupid idiot! You knew, did you, that
I bust chops and break legs?

25:27 Then you ought to have invested my money in an annuity with a
guaranteed return for these five years while I've been in Sicily, and
on my return I wouldn't only be holding these 250 g's, but 100 grand
in interest.

25:28 So take this loan shark business from him, and give it to Joey,
the one with the meth, heroin, and prostitution businesses.

25:29 For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will
have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they
have will be taken away.

25:30 As for this worthless idiot, he's not one of us; break his legs,
bust his chops and throw him into the river to drown.

Of course, you need to get the accent right. I can hear it in my head but I cannot get it to come out of my mouth.

Anyway, Brian's point is that first century readers would have seen the characters in Jesus' parable as unsavory types who exploit the vulnerable peasants rather than as positive characters. He is aiming to recapture that sense for us.

I have not looked into this parable myself so I am not committing myself to this take on it but it is certainly thought-provoking.

I wonder what you think.

Universalism in the USA

2011-11-24T12:12:00.001Z

I have just been in the USA (West Coast) for a couple of weeks. I was in the Wipf and Stock offices in Eugene and then at ETS and AAR/SBL in San Francisco. It was exhausting but brilliant.

A few people have asked about some universalism stuff wot I was doing in the USA so here are my quick thoughts:

What struck me on this visit was how open (or, at least, non-hostile) many theologians appear to be towards evangelical universalism. I was not expecting as much of that as I found. Indeed, my impression from various conversations was that there is a lot of sympathy with the view even if many do not feel that they can go there yet. Even some pretty conservative theologians expressed real interest and cautious openness. And those that were against it were not calling me a heretic but simply mistaken.

I did a couple of filmed interviews on universalism (one for a documentary called Hellbound, due out in Dec 2012, and one for an online mini-doc for Christian student types). I was also on a panel discussion on universalism at ETS for over three hours. The topic under discussion was evangelicals and universalism. Here is what struck me — not a single person was aggressive or hostile. The disucssion, though not well attended, was all very gracious and a genuine and open discussion. It was ETS that instigated the discussion and invited me to participate. I thought that was brave and generous of them. My fellow panelists were superb.

One of the great delights was to have Edward Fudge there. He is such a lovely man and though he defends a view quite different from my own (his book, The Fire that Consumes, is the best defence of annihilationism) we get on like brothers in arms. He is a longtime hero of mine.

And, inevitably in the countless conversations I had the topic was brought up regularly (not usually by me) — clearly many people are thinking about it.

Of course, there are many who would resist any kinds of universalism and I don't mind that. But my impression was that there are many more open to the possibility of Christian universalism than was the case even ten years back. And that is not because Christians have gone all liberal but because the case has clear Christian theological merits. The reason that it is hard to kill universalism for good is that it arises from theological reflection on the gospel itself and so even when it is killed off temporarily it so easily rises again.

Anyway, I was not in the USA to do universalist stuff so these are reflections on stuff that happened on the side while I was there. The vast bulk of the time I was discussing book proposals with potential authors and hanging out with my wonderful colleagues at Wipf and Stock.

Hermeneutics cartoon

2011-11-13T13:47:00.001Z

Yeah—My new Lamentations book is out!!!

2011-10-31T18:17:00.000Z

After years in the pipeline the Parry-Thomas collaboration has come to fruitition. It is a book about Jewish and Christian use of Lamentations as Sacred Scripture. Here is the table of contents:

Introduction—Robin A. Parry and Heath A. Thomas /

1. “Holy Scripture” and Hermeneutics: Lamentations in Critical and Theological Reflection—Heath A. Thomas /

2. Outrageous Demonstrations of Grace: The Theology of Lamentations—Paul R. House /

Soundings in Jewish Reception History
A. Lamentations in Isaiah 40–55—Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer /
B. The Character and Significance of LXX Lamentations—Kevin J. Youngblood /
C. Targum Lamentations—Christian M. M. Brady /
D. Lamentations Rabbati—Jacob Neusner /
E. Introduction to Rashi’s Commentary on Lamentations—Mayer I. Gruber /
F. Lamentations in Jewish Liturgy—Elsie R. Stern / 09
G. Lamentations in Modern Jewish Thought—Zachary Braiterman /

Soundings in Messianic Jewish Reception History
H. Holocaust Theology in the Light of Yeshua? Messianic Jewish Reception of Eikah—Richard Harvey /

Soundings in Christian Reception History
I. Lamentations in the Patristic Period—Heath A. Thomas /
J. Christian Interpretation of Lamentations in the Middle Ages—David S. Hogg /
K. John Calvin’s Interpretation of Lamentations—Pete Wilcox /
L. Lamentations for the Lord: Great and Holy Friday in the Greek Orthodox Church—Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou / 15
M. Lamentations and Christian Worship—Andrew Cameron-Mowat SJ /

Soundings in Artistic and Contemporary Reception
N. Musical Responses to Lamentations—F. Jane Schopf /
O. Lamentations in Rembrandt van Rijn: “Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem”—Heath A. Thomas /
P. Psychological Approaches to Lamentations—Paul M. Joyce /
Q. Feminist Interpretation(s) of Lamentations—Heath A. Thomas /

3. Wrestling with Lamentations in Christian Worship—Robin A. Parry /

4. Confession and Complaint: Christian Pastoral Reflections on Lamentations—Ian Stackhouse /

Appendix 1. A Translation of LXX Lamentations—Kevin J. Youngblood /
Appendix 2. A Translation of Targum Lamentations—Christian M. M. Brady /
Appendix 3. Lamentations Rabbati on Lamentations 3:1–21—Jacob Neusner /
Appendix 4. Rashi on Lamentations 3:1–21 /
Appendix 5. Calvin on Lamentations 3:1–23 /

“The question mark in this title points to the fact that sadness, loss, and grief are now the order of the day in Western culture. For that
reason the book of Lamentations now draws great attention and energy among us. This book, with its long historical sweep of interpretations
and its broad ecumenical reach in rereading Lamentations, is sure to become a point of reference for our continuing response to the question. The question of the title requires endless, continuing engagement among us. These pages provide guides and models for continuing answering.”
—Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary

“The essays in Great is Thy Faithfulness? focus upon one question: How is Lamentations a word of God? Responses are deep, rich, and
many. They draw from interpretations, contemporary and ancient, Jewish and Christian, and from the arts, pastoral care, and liturgical usage. They reveal how Lamentations has been and can be embraced by believers. For pastors and classrooms, this book promises to stir up conversation, questions, and faith.”
—Kathleen M. O’Connor, Columbia Theological Seminary

Guest post from St. Augustine

2011-10-14T08:35:00.003+01:00

At the moment I am reading through Augustine's book The Trinity. This morning I came across a sentence that made me smile:

So they [the three persons of the Godhead] are each in each and all in each, and each in all and all in all, and all are one
(Book VI, ch. 2.12)

Cool.

:-)

Eyes in their Stars: Ezekiel meets a Constellation

2011-10-13T14:06:00.000+01:00

I recently read an interesting book by John Pilch called Flights of the Soul: Visions, Heavenly Journeys, and Peak Expericnes in the Biblical World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011). Pilch is a biblical scholar who has for many years used the tools of social anthropology to make sense of texts. He has a lot of helful insights, even though Christian readers could not leave things where Pilch does (and in some cases they cannot go where he goes).

Anyway, one little thing that really caught my attention was a chapter on Ezekiel's inaugral vision. Pilch suggests that the four living creatures (each with the face of a lion, a human, an ox, and an eagle) are not simply weird angels but are, in fact, constellations (i.e., groups of stars).

He observes that Ezekiel has his vision while in Babylon and that in Babylonian astrology the four Babylonian seasonal constellations are:

Leo (the lion),
Scorpio (who had a human face),
Taurus (the bull),
and Pegasus (the thunderbird/eagle).

In Babylonian astrology these four constellations depict the four directions of the sky, being about 90 degrees from each other. Thus they represent the entire sky with God’s throne at the centre.

"Ezekiel has made immediate sense of his vision. He is looking into the night sky and interprets the constellations in line with Babylonian understanding. For this reason Ezekiel is called an astral prophet. He learns God’s will from the stars in the sky. The fact that the rim of the wheels (v. 18; see vv. 15–21) on which the living creatures moved are “full of eyes” confirms this. The ancients called stars “eyes,” and thought them to be living entities. Constellated stars, called “full of eyes,” were perceived as animate beings like persons or animals. Since Ezekiel sees all four constellations moving at once, his vantage point was high above the entire cosmos (vv. 4–11).

According to ancient star lore, the constellations support the firmament, that solid bowl-like object that covers the earth. That is precisely what Ezekiel saw (vv. 22–23) . . .”

Above these astral living creatures is the firmament (raqîa') and above the firmament is the throne of God.

This drew my attention to a commentary on Revelation by Pilch and Bruce Malina where they read the whole book in terms of astral stuff. That sounds fascinating.

This all fits with an article I have been working on about stars in the OT. It is often said by scholars that one of the revolutionary things about the OT is that ancient Israel, unlike the pagan nations around it, stripped the stars of their divine status and made them simply into . . . stars. I don't think that is correct. What Yahwism did was to forbid the worship of stars and to put stars in their proper pace. But stars were still very closely linked with "divine" beings — the "sons of God" (i.e., the divine council).

So this raises all sorts of fun theological questions for modern believers because we do not (indeed cannot) think of stars as divine beings. So what is God trying to say to us through this ancient set of texts? What a fun question that one is! Once I have something intelligent to say about it I'll let you know. But I am convinced that this ancient notion of stars has important things to teach us about the resignification of the cosmos — pointers to transcendance.

Phatfish, "And Can It Be"

2011-10-13T13:22:00.000+01:00

This is a wonderful version of the hymn, "And can it be" from Christian group Phatfish.

If you don't know Phatfish please do check them out. They write songs with theological depth and devotional heart. Nathan Fellingham, the drummer, is also the guy who writes a lot of that wondeful new material.

But this one we owe to a certain Charles Wesley. I may be wrong but I don't think that he was in Phatfish.

How Diferent Christian Denominations See Each Other

2011-10-05T11:52:00.001+01:00

From thomasthedoubter.com/

Hits the Nail on the Head

2011-10-05T08:24:00.001+01:00

Weinandy on Divine Immutability

2011-10-04T10:18:00.002+01:00

One should not be misled into thinking that God’s immutability is like the immutability of a rock only more so. What God and rocks appear to have in common is only the fact that they do not change. The reason for their unchangeableness is for polar-opposite reasons. The Rock of Gibraltar does not change or changes very little because it is hardly in act at all, and the change that it does undergo is mainly from outside causes—wind and rain. God is unchangeable not because he is inert or static like a rock, but for just the opposite reason. He is so dynamic, so active that no change can make him more active. He is act pure and simple . . .

What the critics consistently fail to grasp is that God’s immutability is not opposed to his vitality. Nor need one hold together in some dialectical fashion his immutability and his vibrancy, as if in spite of being immutable he is nonetheless dynamic. Rather, it is precisely God’s immutability as actus purus that guarantees and authenticates his pure vitality and absolute dynamism. Thus, when the critics assert that because Aquinas and the tradition believe God to be immutable they espouse a static and inert conception of God, they but demonstrate their own lack of understanding.

(Thomas Weinandy, Does God Suffer? 78–79, 124)

The Christmas Police. Love it!

2011-10-01T07:52:00.001+01:00

Another great cartoon from David Smart

Darth Vader in Love

2011-09-29T08:07:00.001+01:00

Article on Nussbaum's Narrative Ethics

2011-09-26T14:41:00.002+01:00

I think that this is the first article that I ever published (back in 2000). It is about Martha Nussbaum's narrative ethics and the Bible. It's not an amazing piece but it's quite interesting (if memory serves me right). Mark Elliott at St. Andrews still reminds me about it—I think he liked it.

Robin A. Parry. "Greeks Bearing Gifts? Appropriating Nussbaum (Appropriating Aristotle) for a Christian Approach to Old Testament Ethics"
European Journal of Theology 9.1 (2000) 61–73.

If anyone is interested it has just gone online.

Elhanan Winchester's most influential book on kindle

2011-09-20T20:23:00.002+01:00

Elhanan Winchester's most influential book was The Universal Restoration. It is a classic eighteenth-century defence of evangelical universalism. It is now available on Kindle here.

The Baptist Universalist (Elhanan Winchester)

2011-09-19T09:42:00.000+01:00

So I doing a talk in Oxford entitled

"The Baptist Universalist: Elhanan Winchester (1751–97)"

at the Third Centre for Baptist History and Heritage Saturday Day Conference,

Regent’s Park College, Oxford

from 10.30 a.m. to 3.30 p.m. (I am lecturing from 11:15am to 12:15pm with 30 mins questions from 12:15pm to 12:45pm)

on Saturday 29 October 2011.

There is also a talk from Rev. Dr. Timothy B. Welch entitled "‘'Dynamics vs Mechanics': Baptists and Revival during the EarlyTwentieth Century’"

It's free and anyone is welcome. Just contact Anthony Cross if you'd like to come

Rev. Dr Anthony R. Cross,
Director of the Centre for Baptist History and Heritage,
Regent’s Park College,
Pusey Street,
Oxford,
OX1 2LB.
College Main Office: 01865 – 288120

Anthony.cross@regents.ox.ac.uk

Great new website for post-supersessionist NT Studies

2011-09-12T09:25:00.000+01:00

David Rudolph, a Messianic Jewish New Testament scholar has just launched a new website aimed at fostering post-supersessionist New Testament scholarship. David did his PhD in Cambridge under Markus Bockmuehl (on 1 Corinthians) and he is an excellent scholar. His thesis has just been published by Mohr Siebeck (link here). It is an outstanding and fascinating piece of work.

The website, entitled MJ Studies, looks to be a fantastic resource for scholars moving beyond the classical supersessionist paradigm of NT interpretation. You can find it here.

Here is a little note from the site on post-supersessionism:

New Testament scholarship is revisiting its understanding of how the writers of the New Testament understood Jews and Judaism. Since the patristic period, supersessionist interpretation of the New Testament has been widely accepted. Layers of scholarship have been constructed around the premise that a "parting of the ways" between Judaism and Christianity took place during the apostolic era, and that the New Testament's authors viewed the Church as having replaced or superseded the Jewish people as the people of God.

Twentieth-century scholars began to question these historical and theological assumptions. Major studies appeared in the last quarter of the century that challenged supersessionism. Nodal points were pressed. Standard canonical narratives were called into question. The result: today we are seeing a new school of thought emerging within the field of New Testament studies which some refer to as post-supersessionist interpretation.

There are various kinds of post-supersessionist interpretation. Messianic Jewish (MJ) post-supersessionist interpretation maintains that the New Testament writers affirmed (1) God’s covenant fidelity to the Jewish people, (2) that Jesus was Israel’s Messiah and participated in the unique identity of the God of Israel, (3) that Jesus-believing Gentiles were full members of God’s people without becoming Jews, and (4) that Jesus-believing Jews should continue to live as Jews in keeping with Israel’s calling to be a distinct and enduring nation.

Rock on!

Video interview with Robin Parry about Universal Salvation

2011-09-08T13:38:00.001+01:00

Here is a video interview that I did a couple of years back on the issue of universalism. It may be of interest to some of you.

The Sacrifice of Jesus

2011-09-04T17:23:00.003+01:00

It is very common to hear people (including NT scholars) say that Jesus' death is sometimes presented using the image of sacrifice. Jesus' death was sacrificial. To us it seems so obvious that sacrifice is about death that we never even think to question the assumption.

I just read an interesting little book:

Christian A. Eberhart, The Sacrifice of Jesus: Understanding Atonement Biblically. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011.

Eberhart looks into the OT background to the NT images of Jesus as a sacrifice. He argues that OT sacrifice was not, contrary to common evangelical opinion, about death (the animal being punished instead of the human offering the sacrifice) and that NT images of Jesus as a sacrifice are also not about penal substitution. In fact, he argues, they are not even focused on Jesus' death.

Here are a few thoughts about OT sacrifice (according to Eberhart):

Sacrifice in the OT is about humans approaching a holy God in homage.

Not all sacrifices involve killing (the cereal offering)

Not all killing of animals was sacrifice (e.g., killing the passover lamb [NOTE: passover was not a sacrifice])

The killing of the animals was not the heart of sacrifice (the ritual element of slaughtering the animal was not central; rather, it was a necessary event to enable to sacrifice to happen).

The idea that the animal was killed instead of the person offering it is not found in the OT sacrificial cult. (The ritual act of the offerer leaning the hand upon the animals head is unlikely to indicate a transfer of sin from the offerer to the animal—a sin-infused animal would not be able to be offered to God).

The blood represented the life of the animal (Lev 17:11) and the application of the blood effected purification. This rite was important but not central to sacrifice per se (only one type of sacrifice emplyed this rite).

The central act present in all kinds of sacrifice (Lev 1–7) is the burning ritual in which the offering is transformed so it they can "ascend" to God.

Offering sacrifice is like preparing a meal to be offered to (and in some sacrifices, shared with) God. This is a means of honouring God and being in relationship with him.

Sacrifice is atoning—the blood can purify/cleanse (cultic objects) and thus expiate sin and the burning is a "pleasing odor" that can propitiate God.

In the NT Jesus is spoken of metaphorically in sacrificial terms but we miss much if we limit such references to his death. The idea of Jesus dying instead of us is indeed present in the NT but not in sacrificial images. (Eberhart points out that the NT does speak of Jesus' death in terms of Isaiah 53 and in terms of the passover lamb but that neither of these are about sacrifice so they fall outside of the discussion.)

E.g., Eph 5:1–2, which speaks of how Jesus "gave himself for us as an offering and sacrifice for God as a pleasing odor" is unlikely (for various reasons) to refer simply to Jesus' death. "It rather conveys that his entire mission and life were of a special quality and, as a genuine expression of worship, accepted by God" (p. 106).

E.g., the many NT refs to the "blood of Jesus" are sacrificial images and derive from the blood application rites (which are not identified with the act of slaughter itself but follow on from it). The point is the way in which Jesus is able to purify his people. The images points to the way in which Jesus can effect consecration (e.g., Exod 29; Lev 8) and expiation. But while some NT images speak of Christ's death as vicarious that idea is not at the heart of these specific metaphors.

The event in which believers are put in contact with the cleansing blood of Jesus is the Eucharist in which they drink the "blood of the covenant"—ingesting the life of Christ and being consecrated and forgiven (cf. Exod 24).

Interestingly Eberhart does think that Jesus' sacrifice in Hebrews does speak of his death. Here, however, I am reminded of an article I read a week or so back by David M. Moffitt (Campbell Divinity School), "Blood, Life, and Atonement: Reassessing Hebrews' Christological Appropriation of Yom Kippur" (forthcoming). Moffitt argues that

"Jesus' death on the cross is not the place or the primary means of atonement for the author of the Book of Hebrews. Rather, when the writer claims in 8:4 that Jesus can only serve as a high priest in heaven, he intends to say that the great redemptive moment of the Christ event occurred not when Jesus was crucified, but after he was resurrected and ascended into heaven. There he presented himself alive and incorruptable before God. Just as Yom Kippur does not focus on the slaughter of the victim, but the presentation of its blood—that is, its life—before God, so also the author of Hebrews thinks in terms of the presentation of Jesus' indestructable life before God as the central act that effects atonement" (pp. 211–12).

Interesting stuff!

None of this in any way undermines the importance of the cross of Christ for the NT has much to say about that. What it does mean (if Eberhart and Moffittt are right) is that we need to be careful about simply assuming that cultic metaphors in the NT, when applied to Jesus, are focused primarily on his death. It may well be that their focus is wider. If so then it is not the case that Jesus' death as such is spoken of as a sacrifice.

"Back to the Start"—good cover; great video

2011-08-31T10:45:00.002+01:00

Origen on the Salvation of the Devil

2011-08-24T09:16:00.000+01:00

Did Origen believe in the salvation of the devil? He clearly believed that all rational souls were able to be saved (Contra Celsum 4.99) and this would, on Origen's view of the nature of demonic forces, have included the devil and his demons. So the accusation was stirred up that he taught the salvation of demons. But, in a letter to his friends in Alexandria he explicitly denied that he thought the devil and his demons would be saved. So did he or didn't he? Tricky.

Perhaps the following passage explains how he could maintain both positions:

“For the destruction of the last enemy must be understood in this way, not that its substance which was made by God shall perish, but that the hostile purpose and will which proceeded, not from God but from itself, will come to an end. It will be destroyed, therefore, not in the sense of ceasing to exist, but of being no longer an enemy and no longer death. For to the Almighty nothing is impossible, nor is anything beyond the reach of cure by its maker.”
Peri Archon 3.6.5
(trans. Marguerite Harl, Gilles Dorival, and Alain Le Boulluec. Paris, 1976, p.67)

In this case, it might be that Origen denied that Satan would be saved for "Satan" is to Lucifer what "the sinful nature"/"the flesh"/"the old man" is to us. For God to save us "the old must pass away" and there must be new creation (2 Cor 5). So perhaps, for God to redeem fallen angels he must annihilate their demonic aspect. Thus it would be that Satan and his demons would be lost forever — damned — even as God saves Lucifer and his angelic followers.

Gregory of Nyssa was even more bold than Origen on this issue: He maintained that "the originator of evil himself will be healed” (Catechetical Orations 26. The Catechetical Oration of Gregory of Nyssa. Edited by James H. Srawley. Cambridge, 1903, p. 101).

Again, it partly depends on what you think of the ontology of "the demonic." If you do not think that Satan and evil spirits are individual persons, created good yet now fallen (and there are various ways in which one may try to make that move), then they are essentially evil forces and thus irredeemable. But if you do take the classical view that demons are rational souls — non-human persons — then there is something to be said for the approach of Origen and Gregory. Food for thought.

Scott McKnight on The Jesus Gospel

2011-08-22T18:08:00.000+01:00

Guest Post—James Danaher on "The Saint and the Celebrity"

2011-08-05T09:10:00.001+01:00

Here are the reflections of philosopher James Danaher on saints and celebrities in contemporary culture and church. They are from chapter 11 of his book Contemplative Prayer (Cascade, forthcoming). Thanks to James for permission to post his reflections here.

We are familiar in our culture with the idea of some people being different from the rest of us. In our contemporary American culture, the celebrity is such an individual. The reason for their being different is that mass media gives the celebrity a notoriety that goes way beyond that of the average person. Since the celebrity is identifiable by a great multitude of people, their identity appears to be more substantial than the rest of us who are only identifiable by a handful of people who make up our rather small world. Certainly, this idea that some people’s identity is greater than others because they are identifiable by more people is an illusion, but it is an illusion deeply entrenched in contemporary culture.

In fact, this illusion that the celebrity has a greater identity than the rest of us is so deeply entrenched in our social reality that it should not be surprising that we have replaced the idea of the saintly Christian with the idea of the celebrity Christian. Evidence of this is all around us. At a recent local prayer breakfast, the guest speaker was a movie star who had, two years previously, had a conversion experience. They chose him because many people would be interested in his testimony, not because of his saintliness, but because of his celebrity. Many churches that have extensive standards for a person to be a ministering member, ironically would invite a celebrity to their pulpit with little reservation. Some time ago, I voiced a disagreement to something a television preacher was saying. My mother-in-law’s response was that I was not on T.V., and he was. Obviously, his opinion was more authoritative, not because of what he said but because of his celebrity. Go to any bookstore and you will see that celebrities make up the vast majority of those who are authoring books that purport to instruct us in the Christian life. Publishers know that in order to sell great quantities of books, the author has to be identifiable by a great many people. Consequently, television preachers, sports stars, and every other imaginable celebrity are the ones from whom we take our spiritual direction. Sadly, their spiritual authority comes from their celebrity rather than their saintliness. Our culture has taught us that what we should revere about a person is the fact that they have an identity established by a great many people. Thus, baseball players tell us what coffee to drink and movie stars what credit card to use. How strange! It is, however, more than simply strange when celebrities are the ones we look to in order to understand how to follow Jesus.

It is especially strange that the celebrity has replaced the saint in our culture because the celebrity is the complete opposite of the saint. While the celebrity draws their identity from the notoriety that masses of people provide, the saint draws her identity from God alone. Unlike the celebrity, and all who desire to be celebrities and have their identities established by great numbers of people, the saint rejects such an identity and seeks only to be who God says they are, no more and no less. The saint repeatedly turns from the identity others attempt to impose upon her and only identifies herself as God’s beloved daughter. The saint sees the notoriety and prestige that the celebrity has and the rest of us seek as the illusion that it is. It is an illusion because the masses of people who serve to provide the celebrity with their identity have no real knowledge of who the celebrity actually is. Since our identity is largely the result of our relationship and interaction with others, an identity founded upon our relationship with people who really do not know us is the least substantial identity. The celebrity’s identity may have the illusion of being more substantial because a great multitude of people establishes that identity, but they are people without any personal knowledge of the celebrity.

By contrast, the saint’s identity appears to be the least substantial since it rests upon the saint’s relationship with one person alone. It is, however, our only true source of identity, since that one person is the only one who does truly know us. This is what makes the saint so different not only from the celebrity, but from the rest of us as well. While we form an identity out of our relationships with those people who make up our small worlds, and the celebrity out of their relationship with the masses, the saint’s identity is rooted in the only one whose notice really matters.

The Story of Everything

2011-08-03T13:44:00.001+01:00

The Catholic Church and Healthcare in Africa

2011-07-08T16:17:00.000+01:00

Here is an interesting set of data from Stan Chu Ilo's forthcoming book on Aid and Development in Africa (Pickwick).

The Catholic Church is very visible in healthcare services in Africa. She, of all religious groups and private agencies working in the healthcare industry in Africa, has the largest number of private hospitals and clinics providing Medicare and, in some cases, free medical treatment for HIV/AIDS, pregnant women, and people suffering from malaria. This happens even in those African countries where the Catholic Church is not a majority. In Ghana for instance, Catholics make up about 30 percent of the population but control more hospitals than any other private agency in the country. In Africa, the Church works in 16,178 health centers, including 1,074 hospitals, 5,373 out-patient clinics, 186 leper colonies, 753 homes for the elderly and physically and mentally less able brothers and sisters, 979 orphanages, 1,997 kindergartens, 1,590 marriage counseling centers, 2,947 social re-education centers and 1,279 other various centers. There are 12,496 nursery schools with 1,266,444 registered children; 33,263 primary schools with 14,061,000 pupils, and 9,838 high schools with 3,738,238 students. Some 54,362 students are enrolled in higher institutes, of which 11,011 are pursuing ecclesiastical studies. There are in Africa, fifty-three national chapters of Caritas, thirty-four national commissions of justice and peace and twelve institutes and centers promoting the Social Doctrine of the Church.

UK edition of "All Shall Be Well" has release date and RRP

2011-07-08T11:39:00.001+01:00

The UK edition of "All Shall Be Well" will be published on 25th August by James Clarke & Co. It will retail at £27.50. Here is the cover with the ISBN and logos, etc.

All very exciting!

Great is thy Faithfulness? (cover done)

2011-07-08T09:53:00.000+01:00

Here is the cover for my next book (co-edited with the talented Heath Thomas). It has been a book several years in the making and we're very pleased with it. More information to follow.

Thought for the Day from Karl Barth

2011-06-17T16:13:00.000+01:00

“The activity of the community is related to the gospel only in so far as it is no more than a crater formed by the explosion of a shell and seeks to be no more than a void in which the gospel reveals itself”

Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans (second edition), p. 36.

Exorcism book out now!

2011-06-15T21:17:00.000+01:00

Hooooorayyy!! The long wait is over! At last the new book on exorcism is available. Check it out on amazon. Here's a link if you are too lazy to hunt for yourself!

Introduction. Exorcism: Multidisciplinary Perspectives
Robin Parry

The Presence of Evil and Exorcism in the Old Testament
Wonsuk Ma

Deliverance and Exorcism in the New Testament
Graham Twelftree

Deliverance and Exorcism in the Early Church
Andrew Daunton-Fear

Deliverance and Exorcism in the Twentieth Century
James Collins

Deliverance and Exorcism in Majority World Pentecostalism
Allan Anderson

Deliverance and Exorcism in Anthropological Perspective
Peter Versteeg

Deliverance and Exorcism in Psychological Perspective
William K. Kay

Deliverance and Exorcism in Philosophical Perspective
Phillip H. Wiebe

Deliverance and Exorcism in Pop Culture
Lucy Huskinson

Deliverance and Exorcism in Theological Perspective
1: Is there any substance to evil?
Nigel G. Wright

Deliverance and Exorcism in Theological Perspective
2: Possession and Exorcism as New Testament Evidence for
a Theology of Christ’s Supremacy
Kabiro Wa Gatumu

Demonology and Deliverance: A Practical-Theological
Case Study
Mark Cartledge

Guest post from Søren Kierkegaard

2011-06-15T21:03:00.002+01:00

It is perfectly true, as philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards.

But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards.

Søren Kierkegaard
(Journal entry, 1843)

Kindle of "The Evangelical Universalist" now available

2011-06-14T09:11:00.002+01:00

If you were looking for the Kindle edition of TEU it is now available. The link is here.

Hooray

Puzzling over Lazarus

2011-05-29T22:31:00.000+01:00

I thought I ought to look again at the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. I said to myself, "Just look at what the text actually says and ask what it means to take this text seriously as a teaching of the Lord." So I have started to try doing that.

What is puzzling me (a little) is this:

the rich man suffers in Hades because he is rich. Not because he did bad things, but simply because he was rich in a world in which others were destitute. The poor man enjoys life at Abraham's side because he was poor. Not because he was good (or because he believed the gospel). Simply that his life was crap. God reverses the situations of the rich man and Lazarus.

Clearly the key point concerns the huge disparities in wealth and God's reversal of that.

But to send a man to Hades simply for being wealthy and another to Abraham's side simply because his life was crap seems odd. (Which presumably is why almost all commentators seem to suggest other reasons for the fates of the two men — e.g., the rich man was impious and Lazarus was pious. Perhaps so, but Jesus does not mention this — we have to read it into the text.)

But is Jesus really teaching that one's fate after death is determined by one's relative wealth? That is what this parable seems to suggest if we assume that Jesus is offering systematic teasching here. (But perhaps our error lies in assuming that Jesus is offering that kind of teaching here.)

So what is Jesus saying to us about disparities of wealth in this parable? How is it that many western Christians seem not to feel ill at ease with the great disparities of wealth in the world when we read this parable?

Robin discussing Lament

2011-05-27T23:32:00.000+01:00

Here is a video of an interview with me discussing lament in the Christian life (and, apparently, something about the place of Israel in salvation history). It was filmed some while back in St Andrews.

"All Shall Be Well" on Kindle

2011-05-27T08:31:00.001+01:00

"All Shall Be Well": Explorations in Universal Salvation and Christian Theology, from Origen to Moltmann is now available in Kindle format. So here is the link. It costs $34.49 (which is about £21). A bargain!

Pondering Piper: Should the Neo-Reformed Hope for People's Salvation?

2011-05-25T11:36:00.000+01:00

Here is a quote from John Piper that I have often thought about over the years (sometimes in admiration and sometimes in sadness and horror)

I have three sons. Every night after they are asleep I turn on the hall light, open their bedroom door, and walk from bed to bed, laying my hands on them and praying. Often I am moved to tears of joy and longing. I pray that Karsten Luke become a great physician of the soul, that Benjamin John become the beloved son of my right hand in the gospel, and that Abraham Christian give glory to God as he grows strong in his faith.

But I am not ignorant that God may not have chosen my sons for his sons. And-, though I think I would give my life for their salvation, if they should be lost to me, I would not rail against the Almighty. He is God. I am but a man. The potter has absolute rights over the clay. Mine is to bow before his unimpeachable character and believe that the Judge of all the earth has ever and always will do right.

Here is the link for the whole article.

This is just something I was wondering about, so I will just float my "wonderings" out there so those who are better informed will be able to help clarify things for me. Let's start with the question of whether it is right to hope/desire/wish that God will save all people (which, I am well aware, is not what Piper was doing in the above quotation).

I may be completely mistaken (so please tell me if I am) but I would imagine that a Calvinist of the neo-Reformed school (those Roger Olson rather sweetly calls "Piper cubs") should believe that hoping that all would be saved would actually be impious and morally bad. At best, it is a result of our distorted human misperceptions of the world.

Given that God has chosen not to save all then I would imagine that the wish/hope/desire that God had chosen something other than what God has in fact chosen (i.e., the wish/hope/desire that God save all) would be to wish that God had done things "our way" instead of "God's way" and this is a disordered desire.

So wishing that God had chosen to save all (even if you did not believe that he had) would be a sin. (Perhaps itself worthy of eternal punishment.) Right?

Perhaps we also have a dilemma regarding those who are not yet Christians and whose status as "elect" or "non-elect" is unknown to us — and here I am thinking of the kind of desire that John Piper had for his sons. Should we hope that they come to believe the gospel? If God has not elected them (and for all we know, he has not) then desiring that they believe the gospel and participate in salvation in Christ is to wish for something that God does not want. Is that a sinful desire? But if we do not desire it then, in cases where God has actually elected them, we fail to desire something that God desires. So that may also be a sin.

Or do we go with the working assumption that we should desire that they be saved because God may possibly have elected them. In other words, is our epistemic ignorance the key?

I may have the wrong end of the stick here entirely. This is not an accusation against neo-Calvinism because I have never heard any neo-Calvinists suggest this. Clearly Piper passionately longs to see people saved whose status as "elect" is unknown saved. I think that's good but I am not sure how consistent it is.

In short, I wonder whether the "godly" neo-Calvinist desire should be, "I desire that God save my child if he wants to" and not, "I desire that God saves my child." That seems to make sense to me as a recommended way in which neo-Calvinists should try to cultivate their desires (given their other beliefs). Obviously it is not what neo-Calvinists usually do (Thank God).

"The Evangelical Universalist" on Kindle

2011-05-25T09:17:00.003+01:00

The Evangelical Universalist is soon available in Kindle format on amazon.com. There were some problems with the version that went on sale for most of a day. Those have now been corrected. So soon the correct version will be live. Thanks for your patience.

On Christian Hypocrisy

2011-05-21T13:40:00.002+01:00

Thought provoking.

Chan on Hell

2011-05-20T11:19:00.000+01:00

I love this guy's heart and his style (and what a lovely voice). Of course, I know where he is going and I think that he is mistaken but I like his way of getting there. It is a wise way to travel, even if he is heading in a wrong direction.
I can live with that.
I can get on with a bloke like this.

Vegetarian Lion by DMcToons (David McNeill)

2011-05-20T09:01:00.002+01:00

"Lamentations and the Poetic Politics of Prayer"

2011-05-19T18:17:00.001+01:00

I have just had an article published on the book of Lamentations and politics.

The article, published in the Tyndale Bulletin, is available below if anyone wants to read it.

"Lamentations and the Poetic Politics of Prayer"

If that link is a problem then try this one.

Here is the abstract:

The first half of this paper seeks to make explicit the political dimensions of the text of Lamentations. The poetry vividly depicts the political use of violence in the destruction of a society. Judah is ruined politically, economically, socially, and religiously by the Babylonians for political ends. In the second half of the paper I argue that Lamentations contributes to our theo-political reflections not so much in its provision of new conceptual categories, nor even in its sharpening of categories already in place but rather in its power for shaping the emotional, ethical-political response of its audiences (human and divine). The readers are invited to bring political calamity into God’s presence and to seek salvation; they are encouraged to look with merciful eyes at victims of political violence even if those victims are not ‘innocent’; they are encouraged to see political evil for what it is and to speak its name; they are guided towards becoming honest-to-God lamenters and God-dependent pray-ers who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Die, Heretic Scum!

2011-05-13T20:52:00.001+01:00

Alvin Plantinga on ontological arguments

2011-05-01T23:10:00.000+01:00

Ontological arguments are widely considered to be among the least persuasive for God's existence. I must confess that, while I remain unconvinced by them, I have never been persuaded that the standard criticisms of them are as strong as people think. I have always had something of a soft spot for them. And Alvin Plantinga's version of the argument is one I have always found worthy of serious consideration. Here it is in a chatty form.

Alvin Plantinga on evil (pt. 2)

2011-05-01T22:51:00.002+01:00

Here Plantinga offers his own attempt at an actual theodicy. I am not persuaded (I am not persuaded by any theodicies) but it is worthy of reflection.

Alvin Plantinga on evil (pt. 1)

2011-05-01T22:40:00.003+01:00

Here Plantinga outlines the problems of evil and explains his critique of both deductive and inductive forms of the argument. I think he is correct on both counts.

Alvin Plantinga on the afterlife

2011-05-01T22:39:00.004+01:00

This one is most interesting to me because Plantinga expresses his openness to universalism. I was told many years ago that he was a hopeful universalist but I had not seen any documentary evidence of this (and when I asked him in an indirect way he avoided answering. To be honest, I was probably too indirect and he did not see what I was getting at). Well, here he is saying what I suspected he thought.

"How Shall I Sing That Majesty" by John Mason

2011-04-29T10:07:00.000+01:00

The words of this hymn are great:

How shall I sing that Majesty
which angels do admire?
Let dust in dust and silence lie;
sing, sing, ye heavenly choir.
thousands of thousands stand around
thy throne, O God most high;
ten thousand times ten thousand sound
thy praise; but who am I?

Thy brightness unto them appears,
whilst I thy footsteps trace;
a sound of God comes to my ears,
but they behold thy face.
They sing because thou art their Sun;
Lord, send a beam on me;
for where heaven is but once begun
there alleluias be.

Enlighten with faith's light my heart,
inflame it with love's fire;
then shall I sing and bear a part
with that celestial choir.
I shall, I fear, be dark and cold,
with all my fire and light;
yet when thou dost accept their gold,
Lord, treasure up my mite.

How great a being, Lord, is thine,
which doth all beings keep!
Thy knowledge is the only line
to sound so vast a deep.
thou art a sea without a shore,
a sun without a sphere;
thy time is now and evermore,
thy place is everywhere.

Existential Star Wars (in French with subtitles)

2011-04-28T09:04:00.002+01:00

Virtual Choir—Stunning!

2011-04-25T15:12:00.001+01:00

Flipping YES!

2011-04-24T21:07:00.002+01:00

Reconciliation in the Holy Land — conference in Coventry

2011-04-21T10:16:00.000+01:00

Musalaha is an amazing organization based it the Holy Land. It works in the area of reconciliation between Jewish and Palestinian people (in the first instance, reconciliation between Messianic Jews and Palestinian Christians). They have been at this for many years and have done wonderful work. I hold them in high esteem. Here is a flyer for a two day conference in Coventry for anyone in the UK interested in reconciliation in general or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular.

The Madness of Saint Paul

2011-04-21T09:41:00.002+01:00

Some years ago I read an excellent book manuscript by Richard Dormandy for a study of 2 Corinthians called The Madness of Saint Paul. It was an academic volume arguing that in 2 Corinthians Paul was in the process of recovering from a severe mental breakdown. I found the book to be full of fascinating ideas — exegetically stimulating and innovative, theologically constructive, and pastorally beneficial. Sadly that book has never been published. However, Richard Dormany has recently published an accessible, short version of that manuscript. I have not read it yet but I am sure that it will be very interesting. It very much sounds like the kind of book that church leaders and Christian counsellors ought to read. Here is a flyer for the book. And here is a link for a website for the book.

Guest post from C. H. Spurgeon. No pity for the damned. :-(

2011-04-20T11:17:00.000+01:00

The righteous in heaven will be quite satisfied
with the damnation of the lost.

I used to think that if I could see the lost in hell,
surely I must weep for them.

Could I hear their horrid wailings, and see the dreadful
contortions of their anguish, surely I must pity them.

But there is no such sentiment as that known in heaven.

The believer shall be there so satisfied with all of God's will,
that he will quite forget the lost, in the idea that God has done
it for the best, that even their loss has been their own fault,
and that God is infinitely just in it.

If my parents could see me in hell they would not have a tear to
shed for me, though they were in heaven, for they would say,
"It is only just, great God; and your justice must be magnified,
as well as your mercy;" and moreover, they would feel that God
was so much above his creatures that they would be satisfied to
see those creatures crushed if it might increase God's glory.

Oh! in heaven I believe we shall think rightly of "men".
Here "men" seem great things to us; but in heaven they will
seem no more than a few creeping insects that are swept
away in ploughing a field for harvest.

From heaven's viewpoint, "men" will appear no more than a
tiny handful of dust, or like some nest of wasps that ought
to be exterminated for the injury they have done.

"Men" will appear such little things when we sit on high with God,
and look down on the nations of the earth as "grasshoppers",
and "count the isles as very little things."

A thought on Palm Sunday and eschatology

2011-04-17T07:00:00.004+01:00

In Luke’s Gospel Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem takes place over ten chapters (9:51—19:44), climaxing in the story in which Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey (19:28–40) — a deliberate messianic action designed to make associations with Zechariah 9:9.

What struck me this year is that Luke seems to envisage this action as a prophetic foretaste of a final, eschatological triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

This struck me as I was reading Luke 13:35. Jesus, whilst on his final journey towards Jerusalem, says, “Behold, your house [i.e., the temple] is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”

Now it seems clear to me that Jesus is not speaking about his near-future entry into Jerusalem here. This seems apparent for two reasons:

First, in Luke’s Gospel it is not Jerusalem that welcomes Jesus with the words of the pilgrim psalm (Ps 118:26), it is Jesus’ disciples clearly presented as a subset of the crowd (19:36–40). But in chapter 13 Jesus is speaking of the welcome that Jerusalem and the Jewish people in general would give him (note who the “you” is in 13:35).

Second, there seems to be no point for Jesus to say, “Jerusalem will not see me . . . until . . . [drum roll] . . . I arrive there in a few days time.” Such a point would be utterly banal and contribute nothing to his words in chapter 13.

The point in Luke 13:35 seems to be that Jerusalem’s fate is now sealed — its temple is forsaken — and it will not see Jesus again (after his death, or possibly his ascension) until the eschatological time that God has appointed to “restore everything” (Acts 3:17–21, a text which has an end-time restoration of Israel in mind), including the kingdom to Israel (Acts 1:6–8).

So Jesus is not speaking of his forthcoming arrival in Jerusalem on a donkey. And yet . . . attentive readers, when they get to Luke 19:36–40, will not fail to make the connection between the two texts. Here, Jesus enters Jerusalem as Jerusalem’s messianic redeemer and, amongst the crowds, his disciples welcome him, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” (a messianic modification of Ps 118:26).

It seems to me that the welcome of the disciples here is being presented as, for want of a better phrase, a prophetic foretaste of the welcome that, one day (at some point after the now-inevitable coming destruction Jesus speaks of so often in Luke), all Jerusalem would welcome its Messiah.

This puts the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday (though Luke has no palms) in a new light. This is the first entry and, ironically, even though Jerusalem rejects him — failing to recognize “the things that make for peace” and “the time of [its] visitation” (Luke 19:41–44) — its very rejection of its Messiah, in the providence of God, become the very means by which it will be redeemed. The post-“crucifixion” “resurrection” of Jerusalem is writ small and guaranteed by the risen body of its Messiah. The risen Jesus embodies the future of Jerusalem and the Jewish people.

Hope in Darkness

2011-04-16T10:29:00.001+01:00

A thought on mercy (Reply to Crisp, pt 2)

2011-04-15T22:20:00.000+01:00

In his article Crisp makes a point, often made by Calvinists, as one of the building blocks of his main article. I here offer a simple reflection on it.
Regarding “grace” and “justice” Crisp writes,

“The two notions are distinct. God may act in a gracious manner towards his creatures, but he need not act in this way, and there can be no requirement for him to do so, because it is of the nature of an act of grace that it is free and not obligatory. By contrast, divine justice is inexorable and must be satisfied on an Augustinian way of thinking. It cannot be set aside, passed over, or abrogated . . . If salvation is a work of divine grace, then God could create a world where no one is saved and this would be consistent with his divine goodness.” (pp. 16–17)

To what extent is this so?

The grammar of “grace” (and “mercy”) and of “justice” does differ in the way that Crisp suggests. Take mercy. An act of mercy is not owed. God is under no obligation to the object of mercy to show mercy. He has not failed in any obligation to the sinner, say, if he does not show mercy. Quite so.

But it may still be the case that there remains a sense in which God does “need” to act mercifully towards the sinner. Not because he needs to show mercy in order to fulfil some obligation to the sinner (the sinner cannot be owed mercy—such a notion is absurd) but perhaps it is the case that it is God’s “nature always to have mercy.” Perhaps it is the case that God is the kind of God who, to be true to himself, “needs” to show mercy. So it is imaginable that mercy is also necessary for God in spite of the fact that its necessity is not identical to the necessity of justice.

Whether that is so would be to be considered more carefully. My point is that the distinction made by Crisp, though valid, does not by itself allow us to conclude that God could, even in theory, create a world in which he failed to save any/some/most/all. Perhaps such a world is indeed impossible given the perfection of the divine nature. God is a merciful God. If he did not show mercy to anyone, while he would not have failed in any obligations to sinners, such a scenario would make the claim that “God is merciful” false. My theological instincts react against that idea.

My second concern is whether a world in which God saved no one is compatible with his goodness. Here I suppose that it depends on what one means by “goodness.” If one holds that “God is good” means no more than “God carries out all his ‘obligations’” (or something like that) then not saving any is compatible with goodness. But this seems a somewhat minimalist understanding of “goodness.” In Scripture God’s goodness seems to be a more robust notion that this. If God does not save anyone then he may not have failed in any obligation to sinners (who cannot “claim” salvation as a right!) but has he actually shown goodness to sinners? And if he has not shown goodness to sinners is he really good in any robust sense?

I anticipate that this comment will elicit the response that God may have shown goodness to sinners in the form of common grace but not in the form of saving grace.

My first thought is that the logic of the Calvinist argument would lead one to say that God's failure to show even common grace to any sinners (for it too is not owed) is compatible with his goodness. So this response does not get to the heart of the problem (i.e., that God can be good without being good to anyone). But let's set that aside for now.

I suppose that in this scenario God has indeed been good to sinners — I have no intention of minimalizing common grace — even though he saves none of them. However, whilst he would have been good, he has not been GOOD. Saving them from eternal destruction is an act of greater goodness than making their lives here and now, on balance, good. So I guess that my point is that God’s goodness is a great, divine goodness and it is this robust goodness God must show to sinners to be true to himself.

Suppose that God has two sons dying of cancer (as a result of their own fault). God would be showing undeserved goodness to them to give them food and drink and friends, etc., but, of course, it is within God's power to heal them and to heal them is an act of even greater goodness. My point would then be this: if God showed common grace to all but saving grace to none then that may be consistent with his goodness but does not seem compatible with his GOODNESS. We may be inclined to say that God is good but not that he is GOOD.

This objection is compounded significantly if we move the discussion from divine goodness to divine love. (It is interesting that Crisp's article discusses the compatibility of hell with divine goodness but has no discussion of its compatibility with divine love. Yet surely love is a fundamental divine attribute as far as Christians are concerned.) Can we say that God is, in his very nature, love if, having chosen to create the world, he fails to love sinners? Here is my own view — no. But that is a discussion for another day.

A few thoughts on a new argument for particularism

2011-04-14T17:56:00.000+01:00

Oliver Crisp is a fabulous contemporary analytic theologian in the Reformed tradition. Recently he published an article in response to a universalist critique of non-universalist Augustinian (the Reformed tradition is a sub-set of Augustinianism).

Oliver Crisp, “Is Universalism a Problem for Particularists?” SJT 63.1 (2010) 1–23.

Now Crisp is very clear that traditional Augustinianism is logically compatible with universalism. God could, if he wanted, choose to save all people.

This, however, raises a problem of evil for traditional Augustinians who deny universalism (i.e., almost all of them) because “if God could, on the basis of Augustinian principles, have elected all humanity to salvation and did not, God does not appear to be good” (p. 2).

In the past, a fair few Augustinians have sought to handle this problem by claiming that both the glory of God’s justice and wrath and the glory of God’s mercy and grace need to be displayed in creation. So, the argument runs, to display the glory of justice and wrath God has to punish some in hell with the infinite punishment that their sins deserve.

But, the problem here is that the cross of Christ — on the penal substitutionary view of atonement defended by those Augustinians who deploy this argument — perfectly displays God’s justice and mercy. So, in fact, God can perfectly display the glory of his justice and wrath in creation (on the cross) without the need to send anyone to hell. So, as it stands, this argument seems to provide no requirement for God not to save everyone.

Crisp has suggested a response to this defeater. He calls it the “strict justice condition.” It runs as follows:

The Augustinian might argue, it is important that the display of divine justice has some connection to desert. Were Christ to be the only human person upon whom the divine justice was visited, as a vicarious substitute for sinners (as per Augustinian universalism), this would not have the right connection to desert because Christ does not deserve to be punished — he acts vicariously (and sinlessly) on behalf of sinful human beings deserving punishment. There has to be some connection between the display of divine justice and the idea that (at least some of) those upon whom divine justice is visited are deserving of punishment. (p. 22).

I offer a few reflections here upon this attempt to defeat the defeater.

First, if God has to display the glory of his wrath by punishing at least one deserving sinner in hell then this argument only shows that God has to punish one sinner in hell. That should be enough to display the required glory. So in terms of the original argument particularists would still be left with a problem of evil if any more than one person was sent to hell. I am assuming that most particularists imagine that there will be more than one. So, unless there is an argument as to why God has to punish some/many/most in hell to show his glorious justice, this argument will not do as much work as particularists may hope. (Crisp does have another argument which, if I have time, I’ll blog on in another post).

Second, and this may not worry Crisp, I simply do not accept the premise that God must display his wrath in creation. I think that it is, at best, pure speculation. Worse, to my intuitions it just seems implausible. The implication of such an idea is that God could not create any world that did not contain sin, because, to be true to himself, in all worlds he creates he must display the glory of his wrath and that requires that he create a world in which there is sin so that he can punish it. Perhaps that is the sober truth but it does seem less than obviously true. Is God only capable of creating worlds containing sin? Is it not enough that God be just and that he display his wrath if there is sin? But, perhaps the Calvinist will simply say that they have different intuitions here.

Third, the Crispian defence appears to me to potentially problematize the notion of penal substitution. The doctrine of penal substitution (should one wish to embrace it) has to be stated with great care because it can so easily fall into deep problems. One classic objection to the doctrine is this: the claim that God satisfies his justice by punishing Jesus for our sins instead of punishing us is absurd. To punish an innocent person instead of the guilty person does not satisfy justice. In fact, it is downright unjust.

Now, I may be mistaken but it seems to me that the only hope of making a doctrine of penal substitution plausible is to forget “legal fictions” and to seek to make a case for some kind of strong ontological union between Christ and human sinners. Christ is ontologically identified with sinners in some strongly realist sense (the details of which I will leave to others). So when Christ suffers in our place he is not innocent. He may have been sinless but, through union with sinners, he “became sin for us.”

So I would imagine that the suffering of Christ must have “the right kind of [ontological] connection to desert” or penal substitution would not work at all (and Calvinist Augustinianism would need to do some major systematic rethinking). So why is the cross not sufficient? Why is it not rightly connected to desert?

When Crisp speaks of Christ’s sufferings not having the right connection to desert I suppose that he refers to an epistemological connection. Maybe it is not clear to creation that the cross is about punishment on sin because no one will ever have seen Christ sin. So to make this clear God has to punish someone in hell to display the glory of his justice. In other words, maybe the cross “embodies” the glory of God’s justice and wrath but does not “display” it clearly enough. Interesting suggestion. But would not a prophetic explanation of the cross do the trick in terms of overcoming this epistemic gap? God could explain what sinners deserve and what Christ is suffered on their behalf. The Spirit could open our eyes to perceive the display of divine justice in the cross. If that is possible then the cross could do the job not simply of being the manifestation of divine wrath on sin par excellence but it could also be recognized as such. The glory would be displayed perfectly and none would have to be in hell.

William Blake, "The Reunion of the Soul and the Body at the resurrection" (1808)

2011-04-04T12:04:00.000+01:00

William Blake, The Reunion of the Soul and the Body at the resurrection (1808). Engraving after Blake by Louis Schiavonetti for Robert Blair’s poem, “The Grave”: “the Body springs from the grave, the Soul descends from an opening cloud; they rush together with inconceivable energy; they met, never again to part!”

"God has a very big body": Discuss

2011-04-02T19:25:00.002+01:00

I was thinking yesterday about Old Testament passages that picture God as a giant person. It was common in the ancient Near East to picture gods as having giant proportions. The OT did likewise:

1. There is Isaiah's vision in the temple in which the skirt of Yhwh's robe fills the temple (Isa 6:1). That is a big robe!

2. There is the fact that the throne of God in the temple is over 5.3m square (1 Kgs 6:23–28). That is a big seat!

3. There is the story of when God passed by Moses and hid him in the cleft of a rock. As he passed by he shielded Moses with his hand (Exod 33:21–23). This seems to be a very big hand.

4. There are passages like Psalm 24:7–10

Lift up your heads, you gates;
be lifted up, you ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
Who is this King of glory?
The LORD strong and mighty,
the LORD mighty in battle.
Lift up your heads, you gates;
lift them up, you ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
Who is he, this King of glory?
The LORD Almighty—
he is the King of glory.

Here the large temple gates need to have the tops removed because while they are big God is so big that he cannot fit through them.

All this is quite strange to me because I never think of God as having any size at all. God is spirit. So what to do with such images? I don't think that we can read them to suggest that God literally has a giant body—I am not aware of anyone in the Christian tradition that does this.

The Bible often speaks of God's "face", "eyes", "ears", "hands", "arm", "hand", "back", etc.

I suppose that we must take such images to be instances of divine "accommodation" to human understanding. They communicate that God can be related to. He is, in some ways, like us. We are in his image (Gen 1:26). Yet he is also very much not like us. His eyes see all, his ears hear all, his arm is not too short to save, when he stretches out his hand no one can resist him. He is giant.

But it is still a tad odd (though I am sure it was not odd to ancient minds).

What do we do with the idea that God has a body? Is there any sense in which this is more than metaphor? It is hard to think so but I would be interested to hear from anyone who thinks otherwise.

Porpoise Driven Life

2011-03-22T21:32:00.002Z

Getty: Hymns worth singing

2011-03-22T21:15:00.000Z

Mrs Moses

2011-03-22T18:35:00.002Z

Pigs: "I have a dream . . . "

2011-03-22T18:25:00.000Z

F****** You!

2011-03-22T10:20:00.000Z

Is Bell really a universalist?

2011-03-20T14:04:00.000Z

A few people have asked me this question.

It is a bit of a slippery question. Ch. 4 of the book seems to be going down that route right until the end and then there is a sudden switch, grounded in human freedom, away from the idea that we can know whether all will be saved or not. It is somewhat confusing in light of the rest of the chapter because earlier on he seems sympathetic to the idea that God's love can melt even the hardest heart.

So I guess his view is this:

1. universalism is a valid Christian view, not heresy
2. there are good theological reasons for universalism (he thinks that God desires to save all, sent Christ to die for all, and that there are good reasons to hope that God will achieve his purposes)
3. human freedom means that we cannot know for sure that God will achieve all his purposes.

So I think I'd call him a "hopeful universalist." That mode of universalism (if you consider it to be a kind of universalism) is not uncommon.

I ran out of words in my Baptist Times article and so did not get on to the issue of distinguishing "hopeful" from "confident" universalism. So I simply spoke of RB as a "universalist" which, without the above mentioned distinction, might be a tad misleading.

But this is just my take on the issue but I hope it offers a little more clarity.

Bell's Hells: Seven Myths about Universalism

2011-03-18T12:32:00.000Z

Here is a link to an article I wrote in the Baptist Times this week. It is simply an attempt to clear some ground for a more fruitful discussion.

Martin Bashir's Excellent Question

2011-03-16T18:14:00.000Z

Here is the latest video doing the rounds:

Martin Bashir interviews Rob Bell:

Martin Bashir asks the brilliant question,

"Are you a universalist who believes that everyone can go to heaven regardless of how they respond to Christ on earth? . . . Is it irrelevant and is it immaterial about how one responds to Christ in this life in terms of determining one's eternal destiny?"

That is perhaps the most interesting and cleverly phrased question I have seen raised so far in this discussion. Genius! Rob Bell struggled to answer it and I suspect most people would struggle to answer a question like that in the midst of a live interview.

Let me suggest some reflections on it (and I am not reflecting on how Bell should answer but on how I would).

Bell seemed to be pulled in two directions ("it is important" and "it is not important") but could not clarify how he could have his cake and eat it. I think that Bell's instincts were right and the genius of the question lies in the way it is hard to answer in a way that the audience would understand.

The universalist believes that the eternal destiny of everyone is determined by God's action in Christ. So how a person responds in this life does not determine that destiny. God determines that destiny in Christ. So the most straightforward reply to Bashir (for a universalist) is "Yes. Your decisions may delay your participation in salvation but, in the end, they will not thwart it. So everyone will be saved even if they do not respond to Christ in this life"

But, of course, to say "Yes" in answer to the question will give the misleading impression that the universalist thinks that
(a) whether one responds to Christ is unimportant
(b) whether one responds to Christ in this life is unimportant.

And neither (a) nor (b) are true (for reasons I have explained elsewhere). (Which is why Bell tried to say that responding to Christ was very important).

So the universalist would have to make clear that
1. Sure, your eternal destiny is not in your hands, it is in God's (thank the Lord!)
But
2. How you respond to Christ is still essential and
3. Responding to the gospel in this life is still important.
That is not an easy message to get across fast in a live interview, especially when you have to take into account that most of the audience will be hearing you through a grid of traditional preconceptions.

So top marks to Martin Bashir on a genius question.

Did ancient Judaism have the concept of a heavenly temple?

2011-03-14T12:39:00.000Z

OK—This post is more of a question.

1. I have often heard NT scholars speak of the idea of a "heavenly temple" in Second Temple Jewish texts. It is the "temple above", the true temple of which the Jerusalem temple is simply a pale counterpart.

2. It is often said by OT scholars that the Jerusalem temple is a microcosm of the cosmos. In this microcosm the "holy of holies" represents heaven, Yhwh's dwelling, while the other compartments represent the sky/heavens and the land and sea, etc..

Now, if 2 is the case I would expect heaven to be like the holy of holies (i.e., full of the presence of divine glory and heavenly beings and worship). But I would not expect there to be a whole temple in heaven.

However, theology is often messy and so if the evidence suggests that some Second Temple Jews did thing of a whole heavenly temple (with all the different courts and altars and priests, etc) then so be it.

But, it struck me that some of the texts I had heard used to support the notion of a heavenly temple did not speak of anything nearly so full-blown as a whole temple. This made me wonder whether we had misread the evidence.

However, Second Temple Jewish lit is not my speciality. So I was hoping that someone could just tell me where I can get the full evidence for a heavenly temple.

War is wrong

2011-03-11T20:42:00.001Z

Phobias Workshop

2011-03-11T09:21:00.002Z

Audio File of talk by Robin Parry on Christian Universalism

2011-03-10T17:33:00.000Z

A few months back I did a talk at a Pioneer church in Stourbridge (Chawn Hill Church) on the topic of Christian Universalism.

Anyway, I just discovered that the talks are available online so, if you wanted to listen, check it out.

Going Deeper: Universalism, Part 1 (talk thingy)
Going Deeper: Universalism, Part 2 (Questions and 'Answers')

As a rule I do not listen to recordings of my talks but I did listen to five or ten minutes of this one. There is a strange Somerset accent thingy going on in places. What is that about?

Robert Gordis on Job

2011-03-10T12:11:00.000Z

The poet’s ultimate message is clear: Not only Ignoramus, “we do not know,” but Ignorabimus, “we may never know.” But the poet goes further. He calls upon us Gaudeamus, “let us rejoice,” in the beauty of the world, though its pattern is only partially revealed to us. It is enough to know that the dark mystery encloses and in part discloses a bright and shining miracle

Robert Gordis, The Book of God and Man, 134

Refreshing: Penn Gillette on Proselytism

2011-03-07T16:31:00.000Z

Humble and honest words. I think Penn Gillette's reflections on prosyletism are "spot on."

The President's Speech (The Movie)

2011-03-04T09:23:00.003Z

Praise and Concerns about C4s "The Promise"

2011-03-03T14:03:00.001Z

I have now watched all four episodes of C4's drama "The Promise."

It is an exceptionally powerful and moving drama about the pain surrounding the birth and continuing existence of the State of Israel. I have much to say in praise of it . . .

. . . and yet I find myself with a real unease. Not so much with what was in the drama so much as what was not in the drama. Story-telling is inevitably selective and the things one selects to include and exclude shapes the effect of the story on its audience.

Over the episodes the drama increasingly takes sides (against Israel and for the Palestinians) and this climaxes in episode four.

To take one example, the presentation of the massacre at Deir Yassin, an Arab village, on April 9, 1948. This really did happen—over 100 Arabs were killed (exact numbers are controverted)—and it was outrageous. I have no qualms about it being presented in the drama and no interests in defending those who committed this act. But my qualms are that it was presented as simply an action of "the Jews" and that it was representative of the tactics of "the Jewish army" at this time.

But things are not so simple.

1. The massacre was carried out not by the Haganah or on the authority of the Jewish Agency in Tel Aviv (the official organs of what was to become the State of Israel) but by the Jewish paramilitaries, the Irgun.

2. The massacre was not typical of Jewish military action in Arab villages. That is why it stands out as such an iconic and horrible event. (And, we ought to remember that prior to this there had been decades over which Arab attacks on Jewish villages had delibaretely targeted civilians. This was only mentioned in passing in "The Promise" leaving the misleading impression that all the attrocities were originated by "the Jews")

3. The official Jewish organizations (the Jewish Agency and the Hagganah) immediately condemned the massacre and sent a formal apology to the King of Jordan. Indeed, Ben Gurion used it as leverage to disarm, by force, the Jewish paramilitary groups.

My point is simply that by presnting too one-sided a story viewers unaware of the wider picture will come away with a "clear" picture that is far too simplistic.

The more I read about the history of the conflict in the Holy Land (from both sides of the debate) the more I feel that it is deeply ambiguous and not at all straightforward.

The way in which stories are "heard" will vary depending on the prior assumtions and knowledge of the audiences. And story-tellers have a social responsibility. If "The Promise" had been made by Israelis for an Israeli audience I would have no problems. It could serve as a prophetic critique in such a context by providing a different perspective on things than may be mainstream. But such a drama shown in a context in which many are already quite anti-Israel (as in the UK) will only reinforce existing feelings.

I would have felt much happier if the drama had not become increasingly clear regarding who the goodies and who the baddies are. In my perspective (which is always on the move) there were few good guys and few bad guys in this tale. I see light and dark and all the shades in between on both sides of the divide.

Whilst this wonderfully-told drama was very well researched, did display some genuine nuance, and was full of powerful sequences, it was—in the current political climate—not nearly nuanced enough.

Lexie—debut album out soon

2011-03-03T12:13:00.001Z

Lexie is a local Worcester girl we've known since she were a wee bern. But for such a little person she has a very big voice (though, in this song, she is not doing the "big voice" thing).

Check it out then buy the album.

How to Discuss Rob Bell without Killing Each Other

2011-02-28T21:35:00.002Z

As most people probably know by now, Rob Bell has a new book out next month, Love Wins, about heaven and hell. Controversially the book will defend a view that is, more or less, universalist. Already the internet is white hot with comment, some of it helpful and some of it not.

My interest here in this post is simply with the rules of engagement—How can we discuss this book without killing each other? The comments that follow are aimed at both sides of the divide.

1. Truth does matter. It is not wrong, impolite, or ungracious to defend what we believe and to critique views that we think wrong. Not all views are equally true. The Bible calls us to speak the truth. The "whatever floats your boat" attitude may sound tolerant but it is no more than the pseudo-tolerance of indifference.

2. Those with whom we disagree on this matter are fellow Christians and not merely "Christians" (as some websites have said) nor "heretics" (as others have put it). As such we owe them a duty of love. The Bible calls us to speak the truth in love.

3. As such, we should approach this at least open to the idea (an idea that I am convinced is true) that this is an inner-Christian debate and not a debate between Christians and outsiders, nor between the orthodox and heretics, nor between Liberals and evangelicals, nor between gentle-hearted progressive and aggressive, old-fashioned conservatives. (In fact, I would go as far as to defend the claim that this is a debate, in some cases, between fellow evangelicals.)

4. Related to 3, it is not helpful to set the discussion up in loaded terms. For instance, as a debate between those who accept biblical teaching (i.e., those who agree with you) and those who do not (i.e., those with whom you disagree). Quite a few comments so far take this line. The reality is that this discussion is, for the most part, a discussion between Christians who all accept the authority of Scripture. The disagreement is over the interpretation of the Bible.

5. If we claim to accept the Bible as our guide and rule in theological reflection then the least that we can do is to take seriously the claims of those with who we disagree that the Bible supports their position. In other words, we need to listen to each other and to do so carefully and respectfully. The knee-jerk reaction of some against Rob Bell is that he obviously denies the clear teaching of the Bible. Let's not be too quick to reach that conclusion. The Bible is not nearly as "clear cut" on this issue as many people seem to think.

Of course, in the end we may feel that Bell or his opponents (or both) have indeed partly misunderstood the Bible. That is fine. But even then we need to ask, is the disagreement a matter to part ways over or a difference we can accept within fellowship? I think that it is the latter.

6. As such, we need to think very carefully about how central this debate is to Christian faith. Clearly important issues are under discussion and I am not calling for the tolerance of indifference, but is this a central matter for Christianity? Is the gospel itself under threat? Is the Bible being rejected? Are the creeds in question? Is anyone actually denying God's love or justice, say. Is mission really threatened? Is the centrality of Christ being denied? Are there any core Christian non-negotiables at stake here? I suspect that, as we look at both sides carefully and seek to understand each other better we shall find that not as much is in danger as we may imagine at first.

7. None of this is to say that we cannot robustly make our cases, rebut arguments, seek to expose the problems with our interlocutors' views, and so on. Nor is it to say that those arguments may not include some serious conclusions. To illustrate: I would argue that classical Calvinism is incompatible with the claim that "God is love." That is a serious claim! But, and this is critical, I am not claiming that any Calvinists deny that God is love. My claim is that one of their views is incompatible with another of their views but that they are "saved" by the 'fact' (if fact it be) that they have not appeciated this (claimed) inconsistency. Calvinists are then free to counter my arguments. But, and here is the point, we do so with grace, with an openness to learn and to change, and with a more measured grasp of what is and is not at risk in the debate than the knee-jerk responses so far have shown.

In my opinion, the best outcome of this discussion would be a better mutual understanding and an ongoing openness to continue learning from each other. I hope that both sides can come to view each other much as Arminians and Calvinists view each other—as mistaken but as mistaken Christ-loving, gospel-believing, disciples we are honoured to count as brothers and sisters.

If we conduct this debate in such a manner that we fail to recognize one another as beloved of God then shame on us, no matter how right we may be!

Presence in Absence: Hesitations about C4's "The Promise"

2011-02-26T18:23:00.003Z

I have been watching Channel 4's fabulous drama, "The Promise." It is some of the best drama on TV for a long time.

Basically the plot concerns a young British girl who accompanies her friend to Israel as the friend does her military service in the Israeli army. The story partly follows her experiences in Israel and the Occupied Teritories. Whilst she is there, she is reading her grandfather's diary about his time in the British army in Palestine in the final years of the British Mandate. The drama moves back and forth between the 1940s to the present day.

There are so many good things about this drama: An engaging and moving story (or stories), a brilliant script, believable characters, fabulous acting, an authentic feel (the whole show was shot on location in the Holy Land), an education (it is based on a lot of research), an attempt not to take sides, some real nuance (including having Israeli characters that actively oppose the actions of their government and Palestinian characters that are Christian as well as Muslim), and it does bring the last days of the British Mandate, in particular, to life.

But I do have a hesitation. It is not so much with what is in the drama as with what is not. Before saying more, let me offer some caveats.

I know that the issues raised are white hot and that however they were handled people would complain.

I know that every story has to leave things out. And I also appreciate that some of the ommissions that concern me are a side-effect of the chosen foci for the narrative.

I also appreciate that the show has tried to be relatively "neutral" on the conflict.

Nevertheless, the effect of the ommissions seems increasingly to present an overall message that simplifies the conflict and people's perceptions of it.

OK—so what makes me uneasy?

The 1940s plotline is effectively about the conflict between the British and the Irgun (a Zionist paramilitary group that existed prior to 1948). That is a legimitmate topic for a drama and it seems to me to have been well done.

But, inevitably, with such a focus the impression can be given that "the Jews" in Palestine were more or less equivalent to the Irgun and that "the Jews" were the initiators of the violence in the 1940s.

I have no interest in defending the Irgun (although the drama is very fair in helping to 'understand' their perspective and why they did what they did. It is also fair in showing some of the British actions against the Jewish imigrants as inhumane). But, of course, the Jews in Palestine in the 1940s were far more diverse than the illegal Irgun, and, whilst the TV show does not deny that and shows something of it, my worry is that viewers may wrongly imagine that "the Jews" as a whole supported violence against the British. Such was not the case.

In the present-day story there does seem to be an imbalance in what is shown. Israel is presented as using its military might to hold the Palestinians down. Now, again, all that is shown in the drama are indeed aspects of the situation and there is no reason not to present them in a drama in the way that they are presented. And I have no objection to constructive critique of Israel's actions (not least in the support of illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories).

But my concern is that the cause of the Israeli security concerns is underplayed (and when it is presented it may be presented as no more than a reaction to Israeli oppression). Now, that is an important dimension of it so I have no objection to it being presented as such. However, an important part of Israel's problem is that a significant root of opposition to Israel is the ideology of radical Islam. According to that ideology, the very existence of a Jewish state on land that was once ruled by Muslims is something that can never be accepted. As such, groups like Hamas are committed in principle never to accepting peace with Israel (except as a temporary, strategic move as a step towards destroying the Jewish state and most Jews from the land). In the past, when peace agreements seemed to make progress they would send suicide bombers to kill Israeli civilians with the goal of hardening Israeli public opinion and scuppering peace negotiations. This context complicates the situation significantly and renders Israel's attempts to secure its citizens much more understandable. The threat of violence (lethal violence included) is very real.

I am not offering a defence of all that the state of Israel does—I don't know anyone who would. But my worry is that the drama presents a picture that, for all its attempts at complexity and fairness, is too simplistic. "The Jews" in the 1940s and the present day are presented as the initiators of violence (whilst the considerable—albeit understandable [NOTE: by "understandable" I certainly do not mean "justifiable"]—Arab violence in the 1940s is completely absent and in the present day the threat of Palestinian violence is underplayed and oversimplified). So the big story emerging from the drama may be this:

The Jewish people suffered an unimaginable horror in ther holocaust. We completely understand why they wanted a land where they could be Jews without living in fear of persecution. But they soon turned to violence and never turned back from it, becoming oppressors in the process.

My concern is that, for all its many virtues, this drama presents a very, very complex situation in which both sides have a real share of any blame as more straight forward than it is.

Konstan and Ramelli 6: Aiônios and aïdios in Origen (Guest post, part 6)

2011-02-25T09:30:00.000Z

We conclude with a glance at Origen’s use of aiônios and aïdios (in our larger project we carry our investigation down to the time of Dionysius the Ps.-Areopagite). In Origen, there are many passages that refer to the aiônios life, in the formula characteristic of the New Testament: the emphasis seems to be not so much on eternity, that is, temporal infinity, as on the life in the next world or aiôn.

A particularly clear instance is (we believe) Philocalia, where the aiônios life is defined as that which will occur in the future aiôn. Origen affirms that God gave Scripture “body for those we existed before us [i.e., the Hebrews], soul for us, and spirit [pneuma] for those in the aiôn to come, who will obtain a life aiônios.” So too, in the Commentary on Matthew, the future life (aiônios) is contrasted with that in the present (proskairos). Again, Origen in a series of passages opposes the ephemeral sensible entities of the present time (proskaira) to the invisible and lasting objects of the world to come (aiônia).

Consistent with the usage of the Septuagint and the New Testament, Origen also applies the adjective aiônios to attributes of God. In one particularly illuminating passage, Origen speaks of the eternal God (tou aiôniou theou) and of the concealment of the mystery of Jesus over aiônios stretches of time (khronois aiôniois), where the sense is plainly “from time immemorial.” So too, Origen mentions the “days of the aiôn,” and “aiônia years” (etê aiônia), that is, very long periods of time, and the phrase eis tous aiônas here signifies, “for a very long time.”

In Origen, the adjective aïdios occurs much less frequently than aiônios, and when it is used, it is almost always in reference to God or His attributes; it presumably means “eternal” in the strict sense of limitless in time or beyond time.

In On Principles 3.3.5, Origen gives a clear sign that he understands aiôn in the sense of a succession of aiônes prior to the final apocatastasis, at which point one arrives at the true eternity, that is, aïdiotês. Eternity in the strict sense pertains, according to Origen, to the apocatastasis, not to the previous sequence of ages or aiônes. So too, Origen explains that Christ “reigned without flesh prior to the ages, and reigned in the flesh in the ages” (aiôniôs, adverb). Again, the “coming aiôn” indicates the next world (epi ton mellonta aiôna), where sinners will indeed be consigned to the pur aionion, that is, the fire that pertains to the future world; it may well last for a long time, but it is not, for Origen, eternal.

In this connection, it seems particularly significant that Origen calls the fire of damnation pur aiônion, but never pur aïdion. The explanation is that he does not consider this flame to be absolutely eternal: it is aiônion because it belongs to the next world, as opposed to the fire we experience in this present world, and it lasts as long as the aiônes do, in their succession. Similarly, Origen never speaks of thanatos aïdios, or of aïdia punishments and torments and the like, although he does speak of thanatos aiônios or death in the world to come (kolaseis aiônioi), i.e., punishment in the world to come.

Origen was deeply learned in both the Bible and the classical philosophical tradition; what is more, he maintained that damnation was not eternal, but served rather to purify the wicked, who would in the end be saved in the universal apocatastasis. His careful deployment of the adjectives aiônios and aïdios reflects, we have argued, both his sensitivity to the meaning of the latter among the Greek philosophers, and the distinction that is apparently observed in the use of these terms in the Bible. For Origen, this was further evidence in Scripture for the doctrine of universal salvation.

Konstan and Ramelli 5: Aiônios and aïdios in the New Testament (Guest post, part 5)

2011-02-24T09:30:00.000Z

In the New Testament, when the reference is to God, aiônios may be presumed to signify “eternal” in the sense of “perpetual.” Nevertheless, the precise sense of aiônios in the New Testament, as in the Hebrew Bible, cannot be resolved with the help of explicit definitions or statements equating it with terms such as “ungenerated” and “imperishable,” of the sort found in the philosophers and in Philo of Alexandria. Hence, the positions adopted by religious scholars in this controversy have embraced both extremes. On the one hand, William Russell Straw affirms of aiôn that, in the Septuagint, “it is never found with the meaning of ‘life,’ ‘lifetime’ . . . The majority of instances can bear only the meaning ‘eternal.’” As for aiônios, “It may be rendered ‘eternal’ or ‘everlasting’ in every occurrence.” Peder Margido Myhre, on the contrary, argues that the Platonic sense of the term as “metaphysical endlessness” is entirely absent in the New Testament. I quote: “Since, in all Greek literature, sacred and profane, aiônios is applied to finite things overwhelmingly more frequently than to things immortal, no fair critic can assert . . . that when it is qualifying the future punishment it has the stringent meaning of metaphysical endlessness . . . The idea of eternal torment introduced into these words of the Bible by a theological school that was entirely ignorant of the Greek language would make God to be a cruel tyrant.”

We turn now to the two uses of the more strictly philosophical term aïdios in the New Testament. The first (Rom 1:20) refers unproblematically to the power and divinity of God. In the second occurrence, however (Jude 6), aïdios is employed of eternal punishment—not that of human beings, however, but of evil angels, who are imprisoned in darkness “with eternal chains” (desmois aïdiois). But there is a qualification: “until the judgment of the great day.” The angels, then, will remain chained up until Judgment Day; we are not informed of what will become of them afterwards. Why aïdios of the chains, instead of aiônios, used in the next verse of the fire of which the punishments of the Sodomites is an example? Perhaps because they continue from the moment of the angels’ incarceration, at the beginning of the world, until the judgment that signals the entry into the new aiôn: thus, the term indicates the uninterrupted continuity throughout all time in this world—this could not apply to human beings, who do not live through the entire duration of the present universe; to them applies rather the sequence of aiônes or generations.

[tomorrow's post—the last in the series—will consider the use of aiônios and aïdios in Origen]

James K. A. Smith on Charismatic Epistemology

2011-02-23T15:37:00.000Z

SVS 2011 Plenary #3: James K. A. Smith from Society of Vineyard Scholars on Vimeo.

Konstan and Ramelli 4: Aiônios and aïdios in the Septuagint (Guest post, part 4)

2011-02-23T09:30:00.000Z

Given the prevalence of the term aïdios in Greek literature down through the Hellenistic period, it comes as something of a surprise that in the Septuagint, aïdios is all but absent, occurring in fact only twice, both times in late books written originally in Greek: 4 Maccabees and Wisdom. In addition, there is one instance of the abstract noun, aïdiotês, again in Wisdom.

On the other hand, aiônios occurs with impressive frequency, along with aiôn; behind both is the Hebrew 'olâm.

A few examples of its uses must suffice. In Genesis, the perpetual covenant with human beings after the flood, commemorated by the rainbow, is termed diathêkê aiônios, just as is that between God and Abraham and his descendants; in Exodus it is the compact between God and Israel sanctified by the observance of the Sabbath, which in turn is called “an eternal sign” of this covenant across the generations and ages (aiônes). Here we see the sense of aiônios relative to aiôn, understood as a time in the remote past or future.

In general, the sense of aiônios is that of something lasting over the centuries, or relating to remote antiquity, rather than absolute eternity.

Now, when the same term is employed in reference to God, e.g., theos aiônios, the question arises: does aiônios mean simply “long-lasting” in these contexts as well, or is a clear idea of God’s everlastingness present in at least some of these passages? Take, for example, Exod 3:15: “God also said to Moses, ‘Say this to the people of Israel, The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’: this is my name for ever [aiônion], and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations [geneôn geneais].” The emphasis on successive generations, past and future, suggests perhaps that aiônios here connotes repeated ages, rather than a strictly infinite period of time. Many of the other examples come from relatively late texts, but even in these it is difficult to decide which sense is intended, in the absence of the kind of precise language to be found in the philosophers but alien to the Hebrew Scriptures. In some cases, moreover, the reference may be to the next epoch or aiôn, rather than to an infinite time as such.

Of particular interest is the mention in Tobias (3:6) of the place of the afterlife as a topos aiônios, the first place in the Bible in which aiônios unequivocally refers to the world to come. In 2 Maccabees, the doctrine of resurrection is affirmed and aiônios is used with reference to life in the future world.

In sum, the Septuagint almost invariably employs aiônios, in association with the various senses of aiôn, in the sense of a remote or indefinite or very long period of time (like 'olâm), with the possible connotation of a more absolute sense of “eternal” when the term is used in reference to God—but this connotation derives from the idea of God. In certain late books, like those of Tobias and the Maccabees, there is a reference to life in the aiôn, understood in an eschatological sense as the world to come, in opposition to the present one (kosmos, kairos).

The adjective aïdios occurs only twice in the Septuagint. In Wisdom, which is saturated with the Greek philosophical lexicon, Wisdom is defined as “a reflection of the eternal [aidion] light” that is God. In 4 Maccabees, an impious tyrant is threatened with “fire aiônion” for the entire age or world to come (eis holon ton aiôna). But here we find the expression bios aïdios or “eternal life” as well, in reference to the afterlife of the martyrs; this blessed state, moreover, is opposed to the lasting destruction of their persecutor in the world to come. This contrast between the parallel but antithetical expressions olethros aiônios and bios aïdios is notable. Both adjectives refer to the afterlife, that is, a future aiôn, but whereas retribution is described with the more general and polysemous term aiônios, to life in the beyond is applied the more technical term aïdios, denoting a strictly endless condition.

[The post tomorrow shall consider aiônios and aïdios in the New Testament]

David Kettle on Tragic Spirituality

2011-02-22T10:44:00.001Z

A book to look out for in the next few months will be David Kettle's Western Culture in Gospel Context: Towards the Conversion of the West: Theological Bearings for Mission and Spirituality (Eugene: Cascade Books, forthcoming).

It is a very wide-ranging and thought-provoking analysis of Western culture in the light of the gospel and a call to "conversion".

David is the network coordinator for "The Gospel in our Culture" (http://gospel-culture.org.uk/) and this book is the culmination of a lifetime of theological reflection.

Here is a brief section on leaving flowers at the sites of road traffic accidents.

[T]he placing of memorials at the site of road traffic accidents is now not uncommon. Here, once again, elements of continuity with traditional Christian mourning are found in such things as flowers and candles but there are highly significant discontinuities in meaning. On the one hand, these gestures assert the worth of what has been lost. On the other hand, they defer to the tragic event as the brute setting of this assertion rather than any traditional religious memorial setting. Lying in sharp disjunction from their bleak public setting, roadside tributes at the scene of accidents speak of tragic violence done to a “private” life. Unlike the traditional grave clustered among others around the building where a faithful God is worshipped, such tokens tend to intimate—in a certain gesture of impossible defiance—that violation has had the last word. Where memorabilia are made into a permanent shrine, they linger as marks of a tragedy never to be forgotten, rather than of a life lived and now remembered as a gift from God. Gifts of teddy bears in memory of a lost child are enactments of futile giving, intimating unresolved feelings of powerlessness in face of tragedy. The gestures over the death of the Princess of Wales testified to a tragedy claiming the last word upon one already seen as a tragic victim.

Konstan and Ramelli 3: Aiônios and aïdios in Classical Greek Texts (Guest post, part 3)

2011-02-22T09:30:00.000Z

To begin with aiônios in the presocratics, Ps.-Plutarch ascribes to Anaximander the idea that corruption and genesis occur in cycles “from an infinite aiôn,” but these are surely not Anaximander’s own words. Similarly, Hippolytus Ref. explains that Heraclitus “calls the eternal fire ‘Thunderbolt.’” Similar usages are ascribed to the Pythagoreans, but these again are clearly later inventions.

In contrast to aiônios, the adjective aïdios is attested in the sense of “eternal” or “perpetual” as early as the Homeric Hymn to Hestia and the Hesiodic Shield of Heracles, but in neither case does the expression imply a technical sense of “eternal.”

With the Presocratics, however, the term aïdios in the sense of “eternal” seems to come into its own, in a series of testimonies beginning with Anaximander and continuing on down to Melissus and beyond, although here again one must be careful to distinguish between paraphrases and original terminology. For Anaximander, any of the attributed sentences would, taken alone, be of doubtful authority; taken together, the several passages perhaps suggest that Anaximander himself may have applied the adjective aïdios to motion. For Xenophanes we have attestations of his use of aïdios in the sense not only of “indestructible” or “immortal” but also that of agenêtos, “uncreated. Again, the convergence of the various accounts suggests that Xenophanes may in fact have employed the adjective aïdios in reference to god or the universe. Two testimonies concerning Heraclitus cite aïdios as referring to the perpetual movement of things that are eternal and to the cyclical fire, which is god. Heraclitus’ use of the term aïdios in connection with cyclical phenomena is particularly noteworthy, for in later texts recurring or periodic events tend to be described rather by the word aiônios.

With Empedocles, we have the use of the term aïdios in his Katharmoi, guaranteed by the meter: “there is a thing of Necessity, an ancient decree of the gods, eternal.” Among the Eleatics, Parmenides is said to have described the “all” as aïdios, in that it is ungenerated and imperishable. As for Melissus, Simplicius provides what appears to be a direct quotation affirming that “nothing that has a beginning and end is either eternal [aïdion] or infinite.” It is worth noting that nowhere is the term aiônios ever attributed to the Eleatics. Finally, Democritus too argued that time was aïdios, on the grounds that it was ungenerated, and that the whole of things too was eternal (aïdion to pan).

It would appear, in sum, that the term of art for eternal things—all that is ungenerated and imperishable—among cosmological thinkers in the period prior to Plato was aïdios, never aiônios. In addition, aïdios is the standard adjective meaning “eternal” in non-philosophical discourse of the fifth century as well.

When we come to Plato, we find uses of both adjectives, aiônios and aïdios, in the sense of “eternal.” It is in the Timaeus that Plato enters most fully into the question of eternity, and here we find aïdios six times, aiôn four times, and aiônios twice.

Plato introduces the concept in reference to the model that the demiurge followed in creating the sensible universe by looking “to the eternal” (pros to aïdion, bis). Then, in a crucial passage, Plato remarks that the created universe was seen to be moving and living, an image of the eternal gods (tôn aïdiôn theôn, 37C6), and adds that it was itself an “eternal living thing” (zoion aïdion). Plato goes on to say that it was the nature of the living thing to be aiônios but that this quality could not be attached to something that was begotten (gennêton). The creator therefore decided to make “a kind of moving image of eternity” (eikô d’epenoei kinêton tina aiônos), and so as he arranged the universe he made “an eternal image moving according to number of the eternity which remains in one” (menontos aiônos en heni kat’arithmon iousan aiônion eikona), and this he called “time.”

On the one hand, aïdios and aiônios appear to be virtually interchangeable: the model for the universe is “an eternal living thing” (zôion aïdion) and its nature is eternal (tou zôou phusis ousa aiônios). And yet, Plato seems to have found in the term aiôn a special designation for his notion of eternity as timeless; and with this new sense of aiôn, aiônios too seems to have come into its own as a signifier for what is beyond time.

It was Plato who first articulated this idea of eternity, and he would appear to have created a terminology to give it expression. Plato’s conception of a timeless eternity remained specific to Platonism and closely related schools in antiquity.
Aristotle, as we have said, seems never to use the term aiônios, though there are nearly 300 instances of aïdios, which is Aristotle’s preferred word to designate things eternal. It is clear that Aristotle was not moved to adopt Plato’s novel terminology, whether because he perceived some difference between his own concept of eternity and that of his teacher, or because he felt that aiônios was an unnecessary addition to the philosophical vocabulary, given the respectability of aïdios as the appropriate technical term.

In the Stoics, aïdios occurs over thirty times in the sense of that which endures forever. It is applied to bodies and matter, the onta or realities that truly exist according to Stoic materialism, and above all to god or Zeus. To the extent that the Stoics employed aiônios and aiôn, however, there is either a connection with their specific view of cosmic cycles, as opposed to strictly infinite duration, or else the noun occurs in phrases indicating a long period of time.

The Epicureans, in turn, regularly employ aïdios to designate the eternity of such imperishable constituents of the universe as atoms and void. Epicurus uses aiônios in reference to the future life that non-Epicureans expect, with its dreadful punishments: that is, to an afterlife in which Epicureans do not believe, and which does not deserve the name “eternal” (aïdios), properly reserved for truly perpetual elements.

[The post tomorrow shall consider the use of aiônios and aïdios in the LXX]

Discussing aiônios: From here to "eternity"

2011-02-21T09:27:00.000Z

If any readers of this blog would be interested in discussing the issues raised by the work of David Konstan and Iliria Ramelli then please allow me to redirect you "from here" to "eternity" (i.e., the "Evangelical Universalist" forum).

http://www.evangelicaluniversalist.com/forum/

They shall be posting the same article and opening it for general discussion. They may even have some input from Professor Konstan himself (though I cannot promise that).

Konstan and Ramelli 2: Preliminary Comments on "Eternity" (Guest post, part 2)

2011-02-21T09:20:00.000Z

The notion of “eternity” is not simple, in part because “eternity” has multiple senses, in part too because some of these significances involve a high level of philosophical abstraction.

On the one hand, terms for “eternal” may bear the loose sense of “a very long time,” as in the English “always,” without implying a rigorous notion of infinitely extended time. Even at this level, the Greek adverb aiei, like the English “always,” has at least two distinct connotations, referring both to an indefinitely prolonged stretch of time, equivalent to the English “forever” (“I will always love you”), and to an action that is regularly repeated (“he always comes late to class”). Again, there are intermediate uses, for example, “the house has always been on that street,” meaning that, as long as the house has existed, it has been in the same place, without any implication of unlimited duration.

On the other hand, “eternal” may signify a strictly boundless extent of time, that is, greater than any numerical measure one can assign. This latter description is itself imprecise, of course. It may mean nothing more than “countless,” that is, too large to grasp, or grasp easily. But eternal time is more commonly understood to be strictly endless, with no termination at all.

Even on this more rigorous conception, there are two senses in which time may be said to be eternal. It may have a beginning but no end; or it may have neither a beginning nor an end, but extend infinitely into the past and the future. What is more, in addition to all these varieties of “eternal,” the adjective has been appropriated also to denote something like “timelessness,” a changeless state that has no duration and hence is not subject to time at all.

[part 3 will consider the use of aiônios and aïdios in classical Greek literature]

Konstan and Ramelli 1: Introduction (Guest post, part 1)

2011-02-20T17:41:00.001Z

David Konstan has kindly given permission for me to post a short paper that he and Ilaria Ramelli offered at the SBL International in 2006. The paper (which I shall post in six parts) summarizes their conclusions on the Greek words aiônios and aïdios.

The full research is set out in their book Terms for Eternity: aiônios and aïdios in Classical and Christian Texts. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2007.

Terms for Eternity: Aiônios and aïdios in Classical and Christian Texts

In the brief time we have today, we offer a summary of the research we are undertaking into the uses of two ancient Greek terms that are commonly translated as “eternal.” The terms are aiônios and aïdios. Neither word is to be found in the Homeric epics or in the major poems of Hesiod, although the noun aiôn, from which aiônios derives, is very common, mainly in the sense of a “life” or “lifetime.” Aïdios enters into Greek sooner, whereas aiônios first occurs, surprisingly enough, in Plato. Plato’s introduction of the term is philosophically significant, as is the fact that Aristotle eschewed it completely in his own copious writings.

The subsequent history of these terms, and the dance in which they engage with each other throughout Greek literature and philosophy, is fascinating in itself, but the real pay-off is in the way they are employed in the Septuagint and the New Testament, and thereafter in Christian writers who are usually equally familiar with their connotations both in the pagan tradition and in Scripture. What is more, a great deal proves to be at stake in how these two terms are interpreted: in fact, nothing less than the prospect of the eternal damnation of sinners versus the universal salvation of all. Thus, what may seem to be a dry investigation of subtle terminological distinctions proves to be a key to understanding ancient philosophical and religious thought.

"Eternal Punishment"—the punishment of the age to come

2011-02-14T13:33:00.002Z

I have just had the following monograph pointed out to me:

Ilaria Ramelli, David Konstan, Terms for Eternity: aiônios and aïdios in Classical and Christian Texts. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2007.

Ilaria Ramelli is Assistant Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the Catholic University of Milan. David Konstan is the John Rowe Workman Distinguished Professor of Classics and the Humanistic Tradition, and Professor of Comparative Literature, at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

The book examines the use of two Greek terms in classical Greek literature, LXX, NT, and early Christian literature.

I have not yet read it but I have read a few online overviews and reviews. I was encouraged to see that they argue that:

"Apart from the Platonic philosophical vocabulary, which is specific to few authors, aiónios does not mean 'eternal'; it acquires this meaning only when it refers to God, and only because the notion of eternity was included in the conception of God: for the rest, it has a wide range of meanings and its possible renderings are multiple, but it does not mean 'eternal.' In particular when it is associated with life or punishment, in the Bible and in Christian authors who keep themselves close to the biblical usage, it denotes their belonging to the world to come” (p. 238).

That is exactly in line with what I argued (very briefly) in The Evangelical Universalist. There I proposed that "eternal" life and "eternal" punishment made no reference to the duration of the life or punishment but only that the life and punishment are the life and punishment that belong to (i.e., occur during and are appropriate to) the age to come. So I am encouraged to find such a thorough academic study coming to the same conclusion.

Joke (not remotely theological)

2011-02-11T11:17:00.001Z

President Barack Obama visits a Glasgow hospital …………..

He enters a ward full of patients with no obvious sign of injury or illness,

He greets one.

The patient replies:

Fair fa your honest sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin race,
Aboon them a ye take yer place,
Painch, tripe or thairm,
As langs my airm.

Obama is confused, so he just grins and moves on to the next patient.

The next patient responds:

Some hae meat an canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat an we can eat,
So let the Lord be thankit.

Even more confused, and his grin now rictus-like, the President moves onto the next patient, who immediately begins to chant:

Wee sleekit, cowerin, timorous beasty,
O the panic in thy breasty,
Thou needna start awa sae hastie,
Wi bickering brattle

Now seriously troubled, Obama turns to the accompanying doctor and asks, 'Is this a psychiatric ward?'
‘No’ replies the doctor, ‘this is the serious Burns unit ‘

Forthcoming book on "Exorcism and Deliverance" (Kay and Parry)

2011-02-10T12:42:00.001Z

William K. Kay and I have edited a collection of academic articles on exorcism (due out in June from Paternoster). It offers multi-disciplinary perspectives on exorcism. For those of you who may be interested, here is the contents:

Introduction. Exorcism: Multidisciplinary Perspectives
Robin Parry

1. The Presence of Evil and Exorcism in the Old Testament
Wonsuk Ma

2. Deliverance and Exorcism in the New Testament
Graham Twelftree

3. Deliverance and Exorcism in the Early Church
Andrew Daunton-Fear

4. Deliverance and Exorcism in the Twentieth Century
James Collins

5. Deliverance and Exorcism in Majority World Pentecostalism
Allan Anderson

6. Deliverance and Exorcism in Anthropological Perspective
Peter Versteeg

7. Deliverance and Exorcism in Psychological Perspective
William K. Kay

8. Deliverance and Exorcism in Philosophical Perspective
Phillip H. Wiebe

9. Deliverance and Exorcism in Pop Culture
Lucy Huskinson

10. Deliverance and Exorcism in Theological Perspective 1: Is there any substance to evil?
Nigel G. Wright

11. Deliverance and Exorcism in Theological Perspective 2: Possession and Exorcism as New Testament Evidence for a Theology of Christ’s Supremacy
Kabiro Wa Gatumu

12. Demonology and Deliverance: A Practical-Theological Case Study
Mark Cartledge

"With this volume, exorcism no longer remains the outcast beyond the margins of the theological academy. This multidisciplinary exploration will be challenging for theologians in terms of modeling how contemporary theology should be undertaken, even while also providing multiple correctives for ecclesial practices from the variety of models that are presented. The editors and authors are to be commended."
Amos Yong, J. Rodman Williams Professor of Theology,
Regent University School of Divinity, Virginia Beach

Greg Boyd on "Toppling the House of Cards"

2011-02-09T15:31:00.000Z

This sermon from Greg Boyd is spot on! Really helpful and a good antidote to fundamentalism. Thanks to Drew Smith for putting me on to it.