We are truly a big tent, as our founders intended. There is great blessing in it, and nothing wrong with the occasional conversations inviting others in the tent to "See it my way."
The problem comes when we accuse others who are in the tent, and who have always been in the tent, of not being in the tent because "Well, that's not the way we have always done it, taught it, believed it."
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This only works if the bully actually loses interest from this. Speaking as one who was beaten up all the way through high school, it doesn't. But it's nice to think that it does.Originally Posted by Kami Tuenning
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Been there Todd, you are absolutely right!
-Jim
To know and to serve God, of course, is why we're here, a clear truth, that, like the nose on your face, is near at hand and easily discernible but can make you dizzy if you try to focus on it hard. But a little faith will see you through.
Garrison Keillor
I, myself, am pretty postmodern and yet I would consider myself a 4.5 pointer!
(1) Inspiration and Inerrancy of Scripture
(2) Deity of Christ
(3) Virgin Birth
(4) Substitionary, Atoning death of Christ
(5) Physical resurrection and bodily return of Christ
Some of the most important postmodern theologians fit this characterization: Jean-Luc Marion, Stanley Hauerwas, Emil Brunner, Karl Barth, and John Milbank with Søren Kierkegaard, while not being necessarily postmodern as an existentialist, is very post-modern, and set the foundation for much postmodern Christian thought.
I've posted this before and linked to it before, and I am always surprised it hasn't caught as many peoples' eyes.
Postmodernism functioned originally in Christianity as a way to recover orthodox Christian doctrines against modernism, without succumbing to Fundamentalism. That is, while fundamentalism attempted to do one of two things:
(1) Struggle with modernity by pointing to traditional theology
(2) Struggle with modernity by accepting the task to "prove" things, usually allowing the Bible to enter as evidence, uncritically, which is no "modern" at all.
Postmodern Christianity chose, instead of this route which they saw as outmoded and futile (for right or wrong), to challenge the very terms and philosophy of modern thought itself. Postmodernity deconstructed the metanarratives on which modernism had built up structures of "truth". Christians who fall into (2) usually see this task as one of saying there is no "absolute truth", when what postmodernity has really tried to do is to deconstruct the metanarratives of modernity whereby modernity had decided that through reason, logic, and enlightenment, humanity could and had come to know "truth" absolutely, which was both a product of our progress, and would lead to more progress - based, again, on metanarratives constructed around this idea of "truth."
This "truth" finds its most concrete expressions in the "true religion" of Schleiermacher, whereby all religions aim towards this, as does polite, enlightened, modern civil society, therefore, all of these attempts meet at the same place and all who are really pursuing this enlightened "true religion" are saved.... universalism.
Universalism began as the opposite of "relativism", it was not that "anything goes", it was that everything really points towards the "truth" we'd sought to uncover. However, most people will mistakenly refer to this as a postmodern idea, and talk about it as "relativism", which actually is pretty far from accurate.
So, all that is to say, modernism had its own tradition of theology which postmodernity deconstructed, judged, and condemned. From there, they began constructing their own theologies.
*** Now, I should say, there are plenty of postmodern thinkers now who represent that which some fear so much. The problem comes when we assume that postmodernity is unified, or any one thing other than a deconstruction of the metanarratives and "truth" that modernity had offered us. ***
So, I will offer 3 different case-studies for you which will illustrate how postmodern theology in Christianity seeks to combat the perils of "enlightened" modern theology, while creating a solid ground for orthodox Christian doctrines, particularly the latter 4 fundamentals. All three of these work from the presumption of Scripture’s inspired character, whereby the Triune God addresses humanity through the scriptures.
One exegetical, one philosophical, and one homiletical.
(1) My most recent paper on Chronicles.
This paper is a work in Postmodern Theological Hermeneutics. I challenge modernist, critical scholarship and their interpretations of Chronicles, in favor of the Church's interpretation of Chronicles. In order to do this, I use the Roman Rite Mass as a representative of the Church's hermeneutic, and I use the postmodern discipline and method of ethnography, whereby different cultural/people/environmental settings/constructs function to create meaning and offer a paradigm through which information gains meaning. I argue that the OT is a proclamation of the saving work of Christ, even Chronicles, and I use the Mass to set up a context for meaning, within which Chronicles can be interpreted and takes on a new meaning, one which is in line with orthodox Christian theology.
This work makes painfully evident, through its use of the Mass, that it takes as true all 4.5 fundamentals (it makes the "inerrancy" point irrelevant), while offering this as a genuinely postmodern hermeneutic.
(2) Jean-Luc Marion's, God Without Being.
Marion’s book has been extremely important in continental philosophy as a whole and has been a strong basis for the Radical Orthodoxy movement. The book is, at its core, a meticulous yet sweeping rejection of the entire Modern metaphysical tradition of theology, from Kant to Heidegger, where he ultimately agrees with Nietzche - this “God” is dead, for this “God” never existed.
Marion, in classical Catholic/Orthodox fashion, uses the concept of the Idol vs. the Icon to lay the groundwork for rejecting the entire western, Modern metaphysical tradition of theology.
To translate a little bit... the "idol" is the thought of God that humans create (philosophical theology), and it extends outwards as a gaze, looking for itself. It finds itself, traditionally, in the stone or metal "Idol" which captures, in form, an illustration of that which has already been thought and created. Thus, it is the western metaphysical tradition which is idolatry, as it is all our thoughts which we thought we knew were "absolutely true" projected out as "absolute truth", within which God now fit.In a discussion that centers around the idol and the icon, the Idol versus the Icon, Marion attempts to say how it is that we might speak of God. Should we even think to speak of God? To think of God? For Marion the idol is located not in the object which is traditionally called, “idol” but in the gaze that rests upon the idol. This is an incredibly important move which sets the foundation of much of Marion’s work in this book. For Marion, the gaze is the idol in its origin.
“The idol fascinates and captivates the gaze precisely because everything in it must expose itself to the gaze, attract, fill, and hold it. The domain where it reigns undividedely - the domain of the gaze, hence of the gazeable... - suffices as well for reception: it captivates the gaze only inasmuch as the gazeable comprises it. The idol depends on the gaze that it suffices, since if the gaze did not desire to satisfy itself in the idol, the idol would have no dignity for it.”The gaze is ultimately the starting point of the idol. It creates the thought, creates the idol, creates the god, the “God.” The actual “idol” then, that is the statue or picture, is an “invisible mirror.” It becomes a place for the gaze to finally rest. It not only rests but returns the gaze back upon itself - fulfilled. It is this “return” which becomes, in many ways, so important for Marion. In capturing the gaze the idol makes visible that which the gaze had imagined to be visable - that is to be possible as visible. “The idol produces (itself) in actuality (as) that at which vision intentionally aims. It freezes in a figure that at which vision aims at in a glance.” It is this thought, this gaze, which defines “God” and captures “him.” It is this thought and gaze which thinks the god(s) - which thinks “God.”
It is in this way that Marion can bring under judgment the metaphysical and even post- metaphysical tradition of speaking about “God.” Even the philosophical concepts and categories which have been used to think about “God” and define “God” ultimately function just the same as the idol does. “It gives itself to be seen, but thus all the better conceals itself as the mirror where thought, invisibly, has its forward point fixed.” As long as it is thought which gives rise to “God,” thinks “God,” and fixes “God” within its gaze as the fulfillment of that gaze, it is thought, “more than God,” that “judges itself.” The thinker - gazer - is not free to be judged by God but is instead free to judge “God.” It is this which is truly idolatry.
Over and against this, Marion works out a concept of the icon and therefore of how to begin to think of God. The icon has its starting point in the invisible, in God. The icon is not a mirror for the gaze, but is instead that through which the gaze is gazed upon and overcome, bringing it into the gaze of the invisible. It is here where our the problem of idolatry is inverted, where our gaze is subverted. “The gaze no longer belongs here to the man who aims as far as the first visible... such a gaze here belongs to the icon itself, where the invisible only becomes visible intentionally, hence by its aim.” It is the gaze of the icon here which thinks itself - or better yet is thought by the one to whom the icon points - and impresses itself upon the gaze, upon the one who might gaze. Here, in the icon, as opposed to the idol where “the divine indeed has a presence and... offers itself to an experience, but only starting from an aim and its limits,” the divine is no longer limited but is instead unlimited and freed within its own aim, within its own intention.
Marion proposes that the icon does not offer this "mirror" as a place for the gaze to find fulfillment, because it is given by God, and thus it offers its own gaze. For Marion, the Icon has come to us in Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God, for in this Word - this Icon - God has given Godself to be known, and judges all of humanity's idols as exactly that - idols.
Marion's book wipes away the entire western metaphysical tradition, even the idea that "being" is a suitable category for God. For Marion, even being is a human thought, and is not something to which God should ascribe, but is instead a category which should ascribe to God, as God gives being to be.
In the most postmodern move of the book, Marion sets up the following as a new ground from which God can even be thought of:
Marion's conclusion statement?This God of which Marion speaks is free even from Being, for even Being itself is only that which we receive by God’s gift. God gives Being to beings. God gives Being itself. God exceeds Being because God gives Being. What then can be spoken of as the category in which to speak of God which is not limited, which does not limit? For Marion, this is love, it is agape, for, after all, God is agape. Love is free from conditions and exists as a thought even on its unconditionality, on its givenness. Love is reinforced by “the absence of conditions.” To give a gift, it does not require for the one to whom it is given to receive it. It needs only to be given by the one who gives - who can give.
“If, on the contrary, God is not because he does not have to be, but loves, then by definition, no condition can continue to restrict his initiative, amplitude, and ecstasy. Love loves without condition, simply because it loves; he thus loves without limit or restriction. No refusal rebuffs or limits that which, in order to give itself, does not await the least welcome or require the least consideration. Which means, moreover, that as interlocutor of love, man does not first have to pretend to arrange a ‘divine abode’ for it.”If God is then love, because love is free, free from being thought, and free to give itself unconditionally and without limits or restrictions, how does one come upon a place to begin to say this without having thought it on one’s own? How is it that God as love can truly be given to us, not thought by us? The answer to this is, and must be, that God gives Godself in Jesus Christ. God loves in Christ. This is given to us to be thought, not thought by us.
Only love does not have to be, and God loves without being.
Yet, this presupposes that Jesus is the divine Word of God, and thus born of a virgin. Throughout the book he uses Scripture in a way that presupposes its inspiration. There's two and a half.... From there, he locates this "gift" of God in Jesus Christ today in the re-presenting of this gift, the re-giving of this gift in the Eucharist, which in itself presupposes both the atoning sacrifice of Christ as well as the physical resurrection of Christ. While this doesn't touch on the second coming, I would suggest it goes far enough that we can safely assume this is also accepted by this postmodern theology.
(3) Karl Barth's The Epistle to the Romans
Karl Barth, facing the culmination of Modern Theology which offered us a metanarrative whereby enlightened humanity would progress, as we had found the "Final Solution", and also facing the Church's incapacity to do anything about it due to its seduction with Modern Theology, wrote a groundbreaking work of postmodern thought whereby, much like Marion, modern theology, and humanity, was rejected in God's address whereby God says "NO!" to all of humanity in Christ's sacrificial death, only to say "YES" to humanity in Christ and his resurrection.
For Barth, Modern Theology was a captive of the metanarratives and the "absolute truth" of Modernity. No longer was there Human Depravity, but, instead, there was the need to become "enlightened" and this lack could be overcome with reason. The 2nd Great War and the "Final Solution" had proven that this were not true, and God addressed humanity from the divine address in the Word of God, whereby God rejects this human progress and condemns it, putting it to death on the cross. There was another way, wherbey God would save humanity, through the incarnate Word of God. Modern Theology was rejected in favor of the divine reprobation and election in the death of Jesus Christ, whereby humanity would be saved, while their "progress" and "enlightenment" would be judged for the barbarism it really was.
Again, this works from an inspired Scripture, and contains within itself the affirmation of the Deity of Christ (and thus the virgin birth), His atoning death, and His physical resurrection and return. Again... 4.5, making the need for an "inerrant" Scripture irrelevant. One does not need an "inerrant" Scripture when one has Scriptures through which the living God addresses humanity.
- Ben
Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death! And to those in the tombs, bestowing life!
Χριστὸς ἀνέστη ἐκ νεκρῶν, θανάτῳ θάνατον πατήσας! καὶ τοῖς ἐν τοῖς μνήμασι, ζωὴν χαρισάμενος!Post Thanks / Like - 5 Thanks, 0 Laughing
Ben:
Thank you for this helpful information. While I (and many other Nazarenes) are probably closer to embracing the "inerrancy" concept than you are (yet still recognizing some of its difficulties such as "original manuscripts"), I really appreciate the thinking you have presented here. It makes me see things in a different light than I had before. You really ought to be a teacher someday. I'm not sure how you would prosper here in the core of Nazarenedom (Lenexa, MNU, NTS), but you sure have started out right (Olivet and Point Loma)
BILL (a putative 4.75 Fundamentalist)
Post Thanks / Like - 1 Thanks, 0 LaughingTodd Erickson - "thanks" for this post
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