Fundamentalists and the “Stupid Sumbitch”

Alvin Plantinga on the pejorative use of the term “Fundamentalist”(via Michael Bird):

We must first look into the use of this term ‘fundamentalist’. On the most common contemporary academic use of the term, it is a term of abuse or disapprobation, rather like ‘son of a bitch’, more exactly ‘sonovabitch’, or perhaps still more exactly (at least according to those authorities who look to the Old West as normative on matters of pronunciation) ‘sumbitch’. When the term is used in this way, no definition of it is ordinarily given. (If you called someone a sumbitch, would you feel obliged first to define the term?) Still, there is a bit more to the meaning of ‘fundamentalist’ (in this widely current use): it isn’t simply a term of abuse. In addition to its emotive force, it does have some cognitive content, and ordinarily denotes relatively conservative theological views. That makes it more like ‘stupid sumbitch’ (or maybe ‘fascist sumbitch’?) than ‘sumbitch’ simpliciter. It isn’t exactly like that term either, however, because its cognitive content can expand and contract on demand; its content seems to depend on who is using it. In the mouths of certain liberal theologians, for example, it tends to denote any who accept traditional Christianity, including Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and Barth; in the mouths of devout secularists like Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett, it tends to denote anyone who believes there is such a person as God. The explanation is that the term has a certain indexical element: its cognitive content is given by the phrase ‘considerably to the right, theologically speaking, of me and my enlightened friends.’ The full meaning of the term, therefore (in this use), can be given by something like ‘stupid sumbitch whose theological opinions are considerably to the right of mine’.

Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (Oxford: 2000),  245.

Renew Your Life!

This book, written by Pastor Mark Kai Nilsen, is birthed out of a story that has become so familiar among churches. The Pastor feels tired, trained burned out. He winters around with his spirit diminished and his relationships drained. Even though he appears to have it all together, on the inside his energy has been completely drained. This was Kai Mark Nilsen’s story – and it’s the story of hundreds of pastors (and Christians!) all over America.

As Nilsen says himself:

This book chronicles my attempts to restore the energy I once had, the energy I desperately needed in order to revitalize my work and refresh my relationships. I write hoping that readers struggling with similar issues will not feel alone, will find helpful guidance and will be renewed in their ability to access life-giving energy. (16)

Nilsen takes us back to the creation story in order to discover the gracious energy that God has for his children. Through the creation story we see many sources of God’s energy that are available to us: 1)Grace, 2)Possibility, 3)Paradox, 3)Natural World, 4)Relationships, 5)Relationships, 6)Fruitful Work, and finally 7)Rest.

Each of these “creative renewable energies” receive attention in each of the respective chapters. These energies give us the power to live life to the fullest and to truly love others as God has called us to. They also are unending because God’s grace towards us is unending.

Throughout the book Nilsen stresses that there are no such thing as quick fixes. Often this renewal of energy takes time – its gradual – and its often difficult. He also stresses the fact that renewal can never happen on the basis of our own energy – in other words you can’t pick yourself up by your own bootstraps.

One aspect of the book that I really enjoyed – and I know will be super useful for small groups and for individuals going through the book is that there are a series of “essential life questions” for each chapter. These questions help the reader process what they are reading. They are questions that are very practical and if taken seriously could lead to major life change. Also, each chapter is tied to a specific spiritual discipline. Some of these disciplines are pretty traditional – like solitude or bible memorization or spending time in nature. Others are pretty unique. Either way – they are helpful in directing the reader to spend time with the Lord.

Overall I really appreciated this book – for me it came at such a good time. I have a million things on my plate right now – I’m full time at the CATS program at Fuller, doing full time ministry, taking the lead on planning two international mission trips within the next three months, and publishing tons of stuff. So right now – I’m swamped. And a few weeks ago it all just hit me like a brick wall – I realized I don’t have the energy to sustain this long term this book reminded me that maybe I don’t need to have the energy. I need to let God give me that energy because he is the infinite energy of grace.

You can order the book on Amazon.

Note: I received this book courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an impartial review.

What is the Most Important Work of Theology Written in the 21st Century?

What is the Most Important Work of Theology Written in the 21st Century? Only time will tell (we are only 15 years in!), but Oliver Crisp has given his opinion on what book it is:

“I tell my students that Warranted Christian Belief is the most important work of theology that has been written so far in the twenty-first century. Many of them think I am joking. In fact, I am perfectly serious. It is a long book (though Plantinga has recently written a shortened version, Knowledge and Christian Belief), but it is quite simply a work of scholarship that any serious Christian theologian or philosopher ought to have read. Why? Because it sets out a comprehensive account of the epistemology of religious belief, and because it covers so much that is so relevant for the contemporary theologian. This includes discussion of historical biblical criticism, the objections to religious belief found in the writings of Freud, Marx, and Kant, religious pluralism, the sense of the divine beloved of John Calvin, some Aquinas, Edwards on the sense of the heart, and a whole lot more.”

Now I’d love to hear what YOU think is the most important work of theology written in the 21st century. Is it a book? Is it an article? I’ll even let you say its a spoken lecture? So what do you think it is?

Calls for Contributions to the Jonathan Edwards Encyclopedia

See below:

We are pleased to inform you that the Jonathan Edwards Encyclopedia project is progressing well. Over the last 18 months we have edited hundreds of entries, which will be returned in the coming months to the contributor for review. However, there are still a number of entries to be written for which we invite you or your colleagues and students to submit a contribution. 

To volunteer, please make your topic selection of the list of available entries (http://edwards.yale.edu/publication/encyclopedia). If an entry is listed and you have send your contribution it might have been overlooked–please resend at your earliest convenience. Please make your selected entry known to edwards@yale.edu before October 30, 2015. Contributors’ entries are due December 15, 2015 as we are planning to publish the encyclopedia in 2016. 

Many thanks for your participation and best wishes

Adriaan & Ken
If you are interested in contributing to this project make sure to act quickly!

George Hunsinger’s Lecture on Barth & the Trinity

What’s George Doing on CSPAN!?!?!

Last week in our Trinity Seminar George Hunsinger led a discussion about Church Dogmatics 1.1 Sections 8-12. Here are some notes that you might find helpful/interesting:

Reading for the Outline

Barth has a very detailed outline by which he structures Church dogmatics. “Every paragraph is written around a central mainpoint” if you read each mainpoint you can reconstruct his outline. You can go paragraph by paragraph and find out the main point.

Pronoun Problem

Keep track of the antecedent of the pronoun. If you get lost start looking for the pronoun and trace it back to the antecedent.

Barth’s Modalism

Many people have come away from Barth with the impression that its modalistic.

How are ones and trinity related? Dialectically! Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity.

He wants oneness and trinity to both be basic, and not privilege one over the other.

Another reason for this dialectical organization is that the reality of God is ineffable for God.

Trinitarian Language

Language – oneness and threeness are not univocal nor equivocal, but we are driven to use these terms. So we always have to have a recognition that we are using these terms in a peculiar way.

The preposition “in” does a lot of work in Barth’s theology. Barth is sort of “mystical” – the three persons are “co-inherent’ in the divine ousia. The divine ousia is co-inherent in the divine hypostasis.

Koinonia

The indivisible divine being is a given – the three are mutually participating in one another…. The Holy Trinity for Barth is a communion. For Barth – Koinonia is ultimate reality. Its not “being” itself but “being” in relation and in communion. The telos is “koinonia.”

Economic/Immanent Relations and Epistemology is Asymmetrical

The unknowability of God is given in and with the knowability of the Holy Trinity. The unknowable part of God is still Trinitarian.

What he is in revelation He is antecedently in Himself. And what he is antecedently in Himself He is in revelation. (466) We don’t know about the immanent trinity directly. As far as knowledge of God is concerned we go from economy to immanent. God is not a different God than the one in all eternity. When we know God in Christ, we are taken up and participating in the truth of God’s self knowledge. This is the danger of Rahner’s rule… the immanent Trinity is a different form of the Economic Trinity. Its an asymmetrical relation.

The Divine Ousia

One thing we find in Barth, and not Moltmann and Jenson is that God’s ousia is invidisible. Barth upholds a strong version of divine simplicity. This has to do with the otherness of God. If you weaken simplicity you weaken your concept of eternity. You are in danger of making eternity someone = temporality and adding a dependent element into the Godhead. The divine ousia is one and indivisible and also living at the same time.

Barth on the Spirit

The Holy Spirit does three distinct things for Barth – 1)HS brings Christ to us and 2)us to Christ, and 3)The Spirit brings everything into unity with Christ. The Spirit does not add anything, he actualizes it. The Spirit “applies.” But Barth avoids the “application” language because it makes stuff impersonal.

Threefold Office of Christ

Prophet – Truth Bringer. It has correspondence to Spirit in Truth.

King – Messiah, Lord. It has correspondence to Spirit in his power of Love. Spirit also brings the Lordship of Christ to us. None can say Jesus is Lord except by the Spirit. Priest – intercession, worship, thanks, praise, brings us into union and communion with Christ. Access, blood, expiation, propitiation. Correspondence in Spirit by his teaching us to praise, bringing us into union with Christ. The person, work, and benefits of Christ are distinct but we cannot keep them apart.

On Rahner’s Rule

Key difference between Rahner’s rule and Barth’s doctrine of antecedence is that there is an asymmetry between the relation of economic/immanent in Barth whereas for Rahner, the economic and immanent is so strictly related that any sort of difference is collapsed. For Barth there is a difference in form but not in essence. Interesting question – is everything that is true of the economic trinity, but not vice versa?

On Functional Subordination

Revealer – Father

Revelation – Son

Revealedness – Spirit

God reveals himself as the Lord. It’s a participatory knowledge. Its God the Spirit moving in us that gets us in this revelation.

Sometimes Barth’s rhetoric does not fully match his substance/content. The rhetoric of revealer-revelation-reavealedness dominates his theology. Part of this is his historical context – which makes us lean to much on revelation as opposed to for example reconciliation.

Modalism Again

Rhetorically Barth has modalistic tendencies. In substance he is not modalistic. Nonetheless he uses a modalistic idiom.

Does he derive his doctrine of Trinity from concept of Revelation?

Barth is trying to test whether the doctrine of the Trinity is dispensable or not. So its not a project of deriving it. The Trinity can’t just be taken out and thrown away or else you lose everything else with it. It’s a “testing” exercise rather than a derivation exercise. Three reasons why we have the trinity (other than the Biblical witness): A-Revelation, B- Reconciliation, and C-Worship. Modern theology had abandoned it and Barth is trying to show why we need it. If we take the Trinity out we are losing these three things.

A Commentary on the Manuscripts and Text of the New Testament

Comfort’s A Commentary on the Manuscripts and Text of the New Testament is “an up-to-date commentary on all the significant manuscripts and textual variants of the New Testament.” It feels and looks very similar to Bruce Metzger’s A Textual Commentary on the New Testament. One key difference between these two texts is that Metzger only comments on the variants which appear in the UBS version of the Greek New Testament but Comfort doesn’t limit himself to commenting only on those variants.

What also makes this commentary stand out is that he takes into account the Nomina Sacra in the manuscripts. In many manuscripts scribes present the divine names “with specially calligraphy to disntinguish these names as being sacred.” (8)

In his first introductory chapter he addresses the Nomina Sacra, like “Lord,” “Father,” “Son,” and Spirit. Sometimes these names are written in full. At other times they are contracted with an overbar. He discusses the “why” of the Nomina Sacra, and the variants between manuscripts.

The second introductory chapter is an annotated list of manuscripts of the New Testament. Each entry includes the designation of the manuscript, original publication and current location.

The text itself works provides a passage then various things:

  1. What comfort takes to be the original wording of the verse
  2. Variant readings
  3. Manuscript information

For instance His commentary on Mark 1:11 looks like this:

You are my beloved Son.

“Son” is written as a nomen sacrum (sacred name) in one early MS (Codex Sinaiticus) as well as L. God hereby indicated that Jesus was the divine Son of God, not just a son of God.

His commentary on Acts 5:32 looks like this:

The Holy Spirit whom God has given.

The divine “Spirit” is written as a nomen sacrum (sacred name) in four early MSS (P45, Codex Sinaiticus, A, D) as well as P74 33.

Overall this will be a very helpful book to those engaged in textual criticism (most others won’t find this very useful). However, as someone who is more engaged in systematic theology (exegesis is in fact a part of that!) having comments on the nomen sacra in particular passage is actually very helpful. Also very helpful is that this book looks an awful lot like your Greek NT. I highly recommend it for those who have are engaged in biblical/theological scholarship.

You can purchase this book through Kregel Academic or through Amazon.

Note: I received this book courtesy of Kregel Academic in exchange for an impartial review.

George Hunsinger and Reading Barth with Charity

Today George Hunsinger will be presenting at our Trinity Seminar – and I’m assuming he is going to talk quite a bit about Reading Barth With Charity. In this book he lays out what it looks like to read another theologian in a charitable way. Austin Reed at Reformed Forum gives an excellent summary of what this looks like. He also gives a pretty good description of Torrance’s Evangelical Calvinism:

In his new work, Hunsinger sets forth a reading of Barth very different from his revisionist opponents; a Barth that is, well, strikingly less radical. Hunsinger arrives at this reading of Barth by using a “hermeneutic of charity,”[3] a methodological approach to ambiguous texts that seeks alternative interpretive options when faced with apparent contradictions. According to the hermeneutic of charity, the reader should only subject an argument or proposition to criticism after one has sought to resolve the difficulties themselves.[4] If one cannot resolve the apparent contradiction via a favorable interpretation (i.e. one that does not involve prima facie contradiction), then one is permitted to subject the argument or proposition to criticism. The principle of “charity” is more or less a hermeneutical application of the “Golden Rule.”[5] As one could probably guess, Hunsinger argues that the revisionists’ interpretation of Barth fails to read Barth charitably; that is, they’re guilty of pitting Barth against himself and through deductive reasoning setting a theological trajectory for his theology that Barth never intended.

Hunsinger cites T.F. Torrance’s[6] distinction between “evangelical” and “rationalistic” Calvinism as an example of the principle of charity in action.[7] It is a more or less classic “Calvin and the Calvinists” approach. The “evangelical” Calvinism is allegedly closer to the actual textual Calvin than the logical systemizing of the “rational” Calvinists following Beza. “It judged, according to Torrance, that the filial was prior to the legal, that the personal was prior to the propositional, that the inductive took precedence over the deductive, and that spiritual insight placed constraints on logical reasoning.”[8]

The rationalistic Calvinists’ approach to Calvin’s writings lead to the allegedly “extreme” doctrines of Limited atonement, supralapsarianism, infralapsarianism and worst of all (for Torrance at least), a “legalistic construal of ‘covenant’ that tended toward synergism.”[9] For Hunsinger the present debate is no more than an incarnation of the “Calvin and the Calvinists” debate, only this time, it is Barth and the revisionist Barthians.[10]

George Hunsinger’s Top 5 Theology Books of the Last 25 Years

Tomorrow morning George Hunsinger is presenting on Barth’s discussion on the Trinity in CD 1.1 in our Trinity seminar. Its exciting to kick off the seminar with such a distinguished Barth scholar. Over the semester we will have him, Veli Matti Karkkainen, and Fred Sanders presenting as well.

In honor of George Hunsinger here are his “Top 5 Theology Books of the Last 25 Years.” (At least as of 2010):

Thomas F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church. This book is an exposition of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed that draws heavily on patristic sources. If I could recommend only one book that explains the faith that unites the world’s more than 2 billion Christians—Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox—this would be it. Learned and profound, it is perhaps Torrance’s most readable work.

Alexander Schmemann, The Eucharist. This deeply spiritual meditation on the sacrament of unity that divides the churches does theology by way of reflection on liturgical practices. Westerners who read it will not only learn more about the treasures of Eastern Orthodoxy, they will also become better Christians.

Sarah Coakley, Powers and Submissions: Spirituality, Philosophy and Gender. This beautifully written collection of essays connects feminist theory with both philosophy and prayer. At once dialogical and tough-minded, it contains cutting-edge reflections on questions of gender that keep their moorings in the Nicene faith.

J. Kameron Carter, Race: A Theological Account. Vigorous, audacious and groundbreaking, Carter’s book, published in 2008, sets the agenda for theology and race for at least the next 25 years. The scope of its scholarship is amazing and endlessly provocative. Whoever would have thought of Maximus the Confessor as an anticolonialist intellectual?

Derek S. Jeffreys, Spirituality and the Ethics of Torture. This simply written book explains why torture is never justified. Jeffreys carefully considers contrary views and finds them wanting. A brilliant account of one of the most troubling moral issues of our time, grounded in a compelling reflection on what it means to be human and to act humanely.

(HT: Christian Century)

JETS Volume 58, No. 3

The latest volume of the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society is now out and in it you can find my first published article! (Yay for me!)

Here are the contents:

COUNTING STARS WITH ABRAHAM AND THE PROPHETS: NEW COVENANT ECCLESIOLOGY IN OT PERSPECTIVE . . . Jason S. Derouchie

DAVID V. GOLIATH (1 SAMUEL 17): WHAT IS THE AUTHOR DOING WITH WHAT HE IS SAYING? . . . Abraham Kuruvilla

A MESSIANIC READING OF PSALM 89: A CANONICAL AND INTERTEXTUAL STUDY . . . William C. Pohl IV

THE DESTRUCTION OF BABYLON IN ISAIAH 46–47 . . . Gary V. Smith

JESUS’ INTERVENTION IN THE TEMPLE: ONCE OR TWICE? . . . Allan Chapple

HAS THE CHURCH PUT ISRAEL ON THE SHELF? THE EVIDENCE FROM ROMANS 11:15 . . . Jim R. Sibley

THE SON IN THE HANDS OF A VIOLENT GOD? ASSESSING VIOLENCE IN JONATHAN EDWARDS’S COVENANT OF REDEMPTION . . . Christopher Woznicki

IS THERE A DEMON IN THIS STRUCTURE? LESSLIE NEWBIGIN AND ALBERT WOLTERS ON CREATION, “POWERS,” AND CULTURAL ENGAGEMENT . . . Christopher J.Pappalardo

BOOK REVIEWS

INDEX OF BOOK REVIEWS

OFFICERS OF THE EVANGELICAL THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY

If you are interested in reading this paper you can email me at christopherwoznicki@fuller.edu or…

Current members and subscribers can access current issues of JETS online.

Individual articles can be purchased, and copies of individual issues can be purchased while supplies last.