. . . In actual fact, there has never been a Biblicist who for all his grandiloquent appeal directly to Scripture against the fathers and tradition has proved himself so independent of the spirit and philosophy of his age and especially of his favourite religious ideas that in his teaching he has really allowed the Bible and the Bible alone to speak reliably by means or in spite of his anti-traditionalism. (CD, I.2 p 609)
Filed under: Church History, Creeds and Confessions, Karl Barth, Quotes, Reformed Theology , Biblicism, Karl Barth
I’ve recently begun reading Barth’s Church Dogmatics and it’s been interesting. I haven’t been posting as frequently just because either I’m not sure exactly what Barth is saying (or the implications of what he’s saying) or because I’m too busy just trying to get through the book (it’s taking me an hour to read about 10 pages!). There’s definitely a lot of things in CD that I appreciate so far. Barth seems to have immense respect for the Reformers even if he may disagree with them (quotes a whole bunch of them: Calvin, Melancthon, Turretin, Gerhard, Chenmitz, Polanus, Wollebius, and so on. . . Luther’s quoted almost every other page!) and he also quotes from Roman Catholic theologians, Eastern Orthodox, the early Church Fathers, and a handful of his own contemporaries (obviously he makes reference to Schleiermacher and von Harnack, but I was surprised and delighted to find him quoting Bavinck). Much of what I’ve read so far seems to resonate with Luther’s theologia crucis–if there’s anything Barth refuses to do, it is to go beyond what God has revealed to see him “in the nude” (as Luther would say).
Anyway, I probably will not be posting as often these next few months, but I’ll be posting quotations here and there of things that are interesting, helpful, odd, or all of the above.
For now, here’s Barth on the concept homoousia:
. . . The concept of homoousia is not an attempt at independent, arbitrary, so-called natural knowledge of God. It seeks to serve the knowledge of God by His revelation in faith. We have not concealed the historical and material ambiguity of this particular concept. Hence we neither can nor would hide the fact that considered in itself it serves the knowledge of God very badly. For philosophers and philosophical theologians it has always been easy game. But it may be that very little depends on its immanent soundness or unsoundness. It may be that even in its obvious frailty it was the necessary standard which necessarily had to be set up in the 4th century and which even to-day, as often before, has still to be kept aloft against the new Arians, not as the standard of a foolhardy speculative intuition of the Church, but as the standard of an unheard-of encounter which has overtaken the Church in Holy Scripture. If this is so, of what avail is anything that might be said against it? Do we not have to be aware of all these objections, and yet still acknowledge it as the dogma which the Church, having once recognized, can never let go again? For in all its folly it is more true than all the wisdom which has voiced its opposition to it. We have no reason to take any other view of it. We are under no illusion as to the fact that we do not know what we are saying when we take this term upon our lips. But still less can we be under any illusion as to the fact that all the lines of our deliberations on the deity of Christ converge at the point where we must assent to the dogma that Jesus Christ is ὁμοούσιον τῷ Πατρί, consubstantialis Patri. (CD, I.1 p 440-41)
For those who are interested in Barth a new collection of essays titled Engaging with Barth should be helpful (Michael Horton is one of the contributors). Also, van Genderen and Velema interact a lot with Barth in Concise Reformed Dogmatics from a more confessionally Reformed perspective.
Filed under: Church History, Creeds and Confessions, Karl Barth, Quotes, Reformed Theology , Church D, Church Dogmatics, Homoousia, Karl Barth, Nicene Creed, Theologia Crucis
Rev. Danny Hyde’s new book on images of Christ is out. Here’s a link to his blog. Click here to purchase his book from Amazon. And if you haven’t done so already, make sure you check out his commentary on the Belgic Confession here.
Some endorsements:
Danny Hyde has written an excellent piece on a very misunderstood subject. Through effective combination of biblical, theological, and confessional discussions, he has presented the Reformed view of the second commandment winsomely and attractively. He helpfully emphasizes not the negative prohibition of making images of God but the positive facts that God has revealed himself now so generously in Word and Sacrament and will one day reveal himself visibly in the most perfect and authentic way.
—David VanDrunen, Robert B. Strimple Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics, Westminster Seminary California
In these pages, Danny Hyde argues with great clarity against all images of Jesus as man-made media. He shows that all such images are abominated in Scripture and roundly rejected by the Reformed confessional heritage without exception. Hyde goes on to argue, however, that God does provide us with His “media”—the preaching of His Word and the administration of His sacraments.
—Joel R. Beeke, President, Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary
Filed under: Book Recommendations, Creeds and Confessions, Means of Grace, Reformed Theology, Word and Sacraments , Danny Hyde, Images of Christ, Reformed Theology
In a chapter entitled, “Our Help Is in the Name of the LORD,” Christopher Seitz explores the phrase “the maker of heaven and earth” in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. He explains that the “Creed is more than putting out theological brushfires. It is letting scripture come to its natural, two-testament expression.” (178) In light of this, Seitz considers the fact that the creed begins with a confession of God the Father. This demonstrates that “It is not possible to speak of Jesus as this savior without speaking of God who sent him” (186). He continues, “There is no Jesus Christ apart from the prior electing, creating ‘maker of the heavens and earth.’” In this sense, then, the Old Testament’s per se voice, which witnesses to the same subject matter as the New Testament (i.e., Christ), must be appreciated and understood in order to properly hear and understand the voice of the New Testament witness. What Seitz doesn’t want is a reading of the Old Testament that ignores the fact that the two testaments are distinct books–the New Testament is not a ’spiritualized’ Old Testament. On the other hand, however, Seitz also warns that “the insistence on the rootedness of the description of God in the Old Testament must guard against another tendency”:
. . . The God of the Old Testament has fully identified himself with Jesus Christ. He does not continue to exercise some separate, untameable, unpredictable rule prior to, and perduring after, what he has made clear in Jesus. The New Testament does ont introduce a great parenthesis outside which God retains an unruly and undomesticated authority. The mystery and sovereignty of God the maker of heaven and earth are guarded precisely as these attributes are true of Christ, who raises the dead and walks on water, and of the Holy Spirit, who blows as he will–not over against them. The creed does not seek to isolate the Father to ensure his majesty. It points us to the God of Israel and asks us to see in his life with the world as shown there, that which comes to expression in complete terms in his Son. To speak of the Old Testament as Christian scripture, and not as Hebrew Bible, is not an offense to Judaism, which takes this selfsame literature and hears it through the testimony of tradition, just as Christians hear it in conjunction with the testimony of a second testament. Stressing the Jewishness of God, by reinstating his name or enumerating his Israel-specific life untouched by his condescension in his Son, makes sense for neither Jew nor Christian.
- Christopher R. Seitz, Figured Out: Typology and Providence in Christian Scripture (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 188-89.
Filed under: Biblical Theology, Canonical Approach, Creeds and Confessions, Hermeneutics, Quotes , Biblical Theology, Christopher R. Seitz, Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed
The appeal to a rule of faith rests on a conviction shared by the tradents of the biblical tradition, both Jewish and Christian, that the shaping of the biblical material was not as a haphazard collection, but was the product of theological reflection that the tradents ascribed to divine inspiration. The effect of this canonical shaping was that a framework was given — later called a rule of faith — within which the material was interpreted. For example, the Torah of Moses preceded the prophetic books, with the books of Deuteronomy functioning as the Torah’s conclusion. Likewise, the four Gospels have been bound together, each with a designated evangelist, but these witnesses are linked as belonging to the one gospel of Jesus Christ. In other words, the biblical material in its larger structure has been rendered in a particular fashion. Often this redaction has been termed “canonical,” “kerygmatic,” or “confessional.” In contrast to an objective, history-of-religions perspective, it arises from a practiced and confessed stance of faith. In this sense, there is a semantic “given” designated by its role as sacred scripture.
- Brevard S. Childs, The Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 316.
Filed under: Biblical Theology, Church History, Creeds and Confessions, Hermeneutics, Quotes , Biblical Theology, Brevard S. Childs, Exegesis, Hermeneutics, Regula Fidei
March 18, 2009 • 10:52 pm
After an overview of Cyril’s exegesis, Childs makes a few points of observation:
First, Cyril never intends to explain the “original meaning” of the biblical text. Even this way of formulating the issue would have been incomprehensible to him. Nor is he concerned with the literal sense, since the object to which he is relating the imagery is not confined to sense perception, the hallmark of the literal.
Second, Cyril assumes the theological coherence of scripture in spite of the diversity of imagery. By seeking to explore the intertextual references to the one word, he gains different avenues into the theological substance, which is spiritual.
Third, to characterize Cyril’s approach as allegory, which in one sense it is, does not tell the whole story of what he is doing in this passage. Cyril comes to his exegesis with a knowledge of its substance gained from the whole of the Christian scriptures. He then returns to the Old Testament as if it were a set of musical notes from which he seeks to play a new and different tune in offering a fresh harmonization of Christian truth. This is the process he characterizes as the search for the higher, spiritual sense of scripture. The goal is not to impose upon the passage a theological system, as often claimed, but to move into a form of fresh proclamation to a living audience of hearers (readers) calling for a faithful life in the light of God’s great mercy.
Finally, it is crucial to note that Cyril’s exegesis is not an uncontrolled activity of creative human imagination. Cyril clearly recognizes a creative component, but he always sees it as a gift of the Holy Spirit. Cyril works materially within the theological norms of interpretation provided by the keyrgma and the paideusis and formally within the church’s received scriptures, constantly informed by a skopus which shapes both his questions and answers. The point is not to deny the element of spontaneity and fresh imagination in his commentary, but for Cyril this quality is not an independent force serving apart from the context of church tradition and the practice of worship.
- Brevard S. Childs, The Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 123.
Filed under: Biblical Theology, Church History, Creeds and Confessions, Hermeneutics, Quotes , Allegory, Brevard S. Childs, Cyril of Alexandria, Exegesis, Hermeneutics
Here is the question that Seitz raises and seeks to answer throughout his book:
To raise in very basic ways the question, whose book are we reading, is at a minimum to remind the modern reader that the Old and New Testaments emerged from religious communities with specific identities. These sacred texts were intended for communities striving to share or at least participate in those same religious convictions, hopes, and practices. The Bible is not a “bestseller” in search of interested readers or readers who wish to have their imaginations stretched or their worldviews broadened, even when this may occur.
. . . How are Moses and Abraham about those who stand outside the circle of Israel? How is the Old Testament a book for and about those who stand outside a circle it assumes as operative by very logic of its own discourse? One would be tempted in the modern climate of biblical study to say that the Old Testament is a book for anyone who wishes to read it, and as a practical reality that is incontrovertible. The book is accessible; it can be purchased and read, as one book among others to be recommended for purchase, in a staggering variety of translations, at the local bookstore. But does that fact itself confuse us about whose book this is . . . ?
- Christopher R. Seitz, World Without End: The Old Testament as Abiding Theological Witness (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 341-43.
Filed under: Biblical Theology, Church History, Creeds and Confessions, Hermeneutics, Quotes , Biblical Theology, Brevard S. Childs, Canonical Approach, Christopher R. Seitz
February 25, 2009 • 10:11 pm
Some have difficulty with the words of the Form: “Let every one examine his heart whether he also believes this sure promise of God that all his sins are forgiven him only for the sake of the passion and death of Jesus Christ.” The question is then whether someone who is not sure of this may celebrate the Lord’s Supper. We must pay close attention to how the word “sure” is used in this context. It is not asked whether we believe with certainty or whether we have a sure faith. The key is that we truly believe God’s promise to be sure and definite. The crux is not what we believe with respect to ourselves but what we believe with respect to God’s promise. The liturgical form itself points out that we must see it this way and not otherwise. After all, it is said further along “that we do not have a perfect faith and that we must daily strive with the weakness of our faith.” Nevertheless, “desirous to fight against our unbelief and to live according to all the commandments of God we rest assured that no sin or infirmity which still remains in us against our will can hinder us from being received of God in grace.”
This is completely in line with Calvin’s pastoral guidance. When we sense an imperfect faith within us and our conscience accuses us of many shortcomings, this should not hinder us from approaching the Lord’s Table. The sacrament is precisely intended for such people! “If to stay away from the Lord’s Supper we maintain that our faith is still weak and our life imperfect, we would resemble someone who excuses himself from taking medication because he is sick.”
- J. van Genderen, W. H. Velema, Concise Reformed Dogmatics trans. Gerrits Bilkes and Ed M. van der Maas (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2008), 812-13.
Filed under: Creeds and Confessions, Ecclesiology, Means of Grace, Quotes, Reformed Theology, Word and Sacraments, Worship , Concise Reformed Dogmatics, Lord's Supper, Means of Grace, Word and Sacraments
