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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Ethics, etc. > Bonhoeffer Chapter THREE -- finally! | Forum Quick Jump
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Tom
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| Posted 8/8/2002 3:54 AM (GMT -6) |   | Thanks Doc. I'm totally trackin with ya. If that's the heart of chapter three (and I'm just getting into all the posts) then I got ya. Move on the ch. 4 anytime!
Peace,
Tom
"Every saint has a history and every sinner a future." Oscar Wilde | | Back to Top | | |
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BBBCanada
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| Posted 8/8/2002 5:39 AM (GMT -6) | | I think Tom brings up an excellent point when he asks,
quote:
Jesus said, “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.” I find this interesting. Might this suggest that law and morality exit to serve us, not visa versa. For example, I break the speed limit to get to a movie. I’m ticketed (and rightly so). But I break the speed limit rushing my wife to the hospital and am escorted there by the police.
but I would not answer it as Greg would when he says,
quote:
Two things need to be said about this, however. First, who says what is "higher" and what is "lower"? The answer, I believe, is GOD working in us. And how do we know when God is working in us? The answer, I believe, is intuition, or divine impulse, or something like that. I don't think its possible to ground a hierarchy of ethical principles outside of ourselves . Fortunately, morally healthy people generally agree on the basic contours of the hierarchy. Only a damaged or jaded person would object to speeding to save your spouse.
First, this, to me, is way to subjective and individualistic. The problem with this sort of understanding of "moral law" (which I have some reservations with, that is "natural law") is that they are aimed at a Kantian notion of moral law which turns law into an "ultimate rational principle." Greg's understanding, when speaking of divine impulse or intuition, etc, is more Barthian here. It would be unfortunate to throw out "boundaries" because of this Kantian notion as it would be for me to throw out the Barthian view of commands, that is, divine impulse, intuition, etc, on the grounds that it is a form of irrational existentialism.
Secondly, I would really like to know how he can determine who "morally healthy people" when he has no standard to measure them against?
Lastly, responding to Tom's question, in affirming that there are such things as "laws," Jesus demonstrated that their purpose was to point the way to a loving community. Christ taught that traditional rules "clustering around" divine commands were invalid if they kept people from the humanizing intent of the law, aka, Mark 2:27. The commandments, as they are called by those within moderately reformed circles, are signals of the life of constructive joy; they aim at our welfare.
Also, these commandments, however they are spelled out as I pointed out in the clarity thread, whether through a vision of our orgins, fallenness, future, or whether something more specific, (as I have stated, there are many styles and methods) are dependent on love. Love turn's negative, "Don't's" into positive "Do's." Love turns, "live and let live" into "love and help others live." Law without love tells us not to kill a stranger; law with love moves us to go out of our way to help a wounded enemy.
Do you see what I am saying here? Do you see what "laws" encompass? It isn't something so ridged and detailed as some would want to say. He who has ears...
quote:
And even if the "law" contained such a ranking, obeying it would not transform us. We might obey it as a way of getting life, or at leat avoiding death. But we wouldn't be transformed into moral beings by it.
Ugh...Greg, morality is woven into the fabric of our humanness. A basic component of any human sort of life. Morality emerges from what we are as human beings. To demoralize life is to dehumanize it. When we call people to a moral life, we are inviting them to the truly human life. These boundaries point to the life grace came to restore, Titus 2:11, 12. They are guides to the good life within the grace of God. They help us find our way to the humanity we almost lost. They don't provide the fuel. That comes from God's Spirit. But they do guide us.
Brandon
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Mephi2K
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| Posted 8/8/2002 7:38 AM (GMT -6) | | OK...
Brandon's right. This DOES tie into the other thread. Lemme get down...
First things first. Lemme post this...
What would happen if we really trusted ourselves to BE loving drivers, reality to help show us the way and, finally, the process of constantly becoming a more and more loving driver?
If we were to act as INDIVIDUALS-IN-COMMUNITY, then protected "laws" would emerge, but they would NOT be seen as ENDS in themselves. They would be seen more as a MEANS of serving higher goals (the highest being the law of love). When I wrote my analogy, that what I was concentrating on. Many people look at "speed limits, traffic signals, speeding tickets or benchmarks for people to see how fast they were going" as ENDS in themselves...what what they are friggin there for. I wasn't bothered with these things PER SE, but with the way people focus more on those means as "judgement" items rather than the notion of using these guidelines in the way of BEING A MORE LOVING DRIVER. Moreover, I assumed that being loving drivers meant largely doing what Icon suggested as far as:
quote:
A simple rule of traffic is that traffic flows more smoothly – more efficiently and with less error – when people are travelling at the same or similar speeds.
To not be able to predict the speeds of those around us increases the risk of error.
Even on the autobahn people have self-sorted a set of patterns (I think these are even policed to some extent) that aid in their ability to predict other’s speeds.
This would occur when perhaps everyone on a highway is going 80 rather than 70, but everyone's going generally the same speed, careful while changing lanes, having enough space between cars, etc. Icon took it farther in a great way by balancing it...reminding us about how speed limits and thangs come about. I can see how reading my analogy could give a very subjective and individualistic idea. But I think what happened is that I assumed that being a loving driver would inherently have an "individual-in-community" mindset. This probably should have been articulated better. 
How does that tie to THIS post? Like this. In the end analysis, I don't think that Doc or I are implying that the best thing to do is to say:
There should be NO laws or bounderies at all for any reason.
I think we are saying...
"Laws" that exist should be derived from REALITY (ie taking all things into account), understood to be GENERAL GUIDELINES, and followed as MEANS to higher ends...not ends of themselves.
This leads to the idea of a HIERARCHY of values, like what does is talking about. I think we understand that laws when taken as ends in themselves can ONLY at best give us some type of moral "lowest-common-denominator" for a workable society, but when we understand these things as, like you say, B, pointing the way to a loving community, then we may be able to BREAK the laws, when "love" may demand it, right?
Are we on the same page or what? 
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GregBoyd
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| Posted 8/9/2002 2:55 AM (GMT -6) | | BBB: I would really like to know how he can determine who "morally healthy people" when he has no standard to measure them against?
Doc: I have a standard, but its not an external law. If it WAS an external law, then by what standard would you judge IT to be the principle that is empowered to rank all other laws? Unless we are jaded, we know a morally healthy person when we see them. This moral health is expressed in our basic codes of conduct. Its rooted in a shared intuition about such things. Only morally unhealthy people need to treat the EXPRESSION as the REASON for doing what it EXPRESSES. E.g. If a person needs the law that they should not murder in order not to murder, something is seriously wrong with them. Still, there are such people, so I’m glad we have such a law.
BBB: Law without love tells us not to kill a stranger; law with love moves us to go out of our way to help a wounded enemy.
Doc: No problem here. Completely agree. But I think you’d agree that the law can’t make us loving. Only grace can do this. And when we become loving, the law functions as a guideline for what love looks like, but not BASIS of our doing what the law says we should do. This is why we can’t rely on the law to settle difficult ethical dilemmas.
BBB: To demoralize life is to dehumanize it. When we call people to a moral life, we are inviting them to the truly human life. These boundaries point to the life grace came to restore, Titus 2:11, 12. They are guides to the good life within the grace of God. They help us find our way to the humanity we almost lost. They don't provide the fuel. That comes from God's Spirit. But they do guide us.
Doc: Of course no one here is trying to "demoralize life." My only point is that there is no external law that can itself rank the "higher" and "lower" laws. The guidelines are only guidelines. The Spirit, working love in our heart, leads us to see how the law applies, or even if it applies, in particular situations.
Mephi: "Laws" that exist should be derived from REALITY (ie taking all things into account), understood to be GENERAL GUIDELINES, and followed as MEANS to higher ends...not ends of themselves.
Doc: That’s my point exactly. Now, in the kingdom of the world, they often DO act as ends in and of themselves, for some people are damaged and only do what they do because they fear the consequences of the law. (The "kingdom of the world" is not identical with "all outside the church," for many inside the church treat rules just this way). This is one function of the law. But it is not the healthiest function.
Mephi: I think we understand that laws when taken as ends in themselves can ONLY at best give us some type of moral "lowest-common-denominator" for a workable society, but when we understand these things as, like you say, B, pointing the way to a loving community, then we may be able to BREAK the laws, when "love" may demand it, right?
Doc: Bingo.
Peace
Doc
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Electra
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| Posted 8/9/2002 4:58 AM (GMT -6) | | Doc: Two things need to be said about this, however. First, who says what is "higher" and what is "lower"? The answer, I believe, is GOD working in us. And how do we know when God is working in us? The answer, I believe, is intuition, or divine impulse, or something like that. I don't think its possible to ground a hierarchy of ethical principles outside of ourselves. Fortunately, morally healthy people generally agree on the basic contours of the hierarchy. [italic emphasis is Doc’s; bold emphasis is mine]
Electra: How is this different than Kant?
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Electra
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| Posted 8/9/2002 5:09 AM (GMT -6) | | Mephi: I think we understand that laws when taken as ends in themselves can ONLY at best give us some type of moral "lowest-common-denominator" for a workable society, but when we understand these things as, like you say, B, pointing the way to a loving community, then we may be able to BREAK the laws, when "love" may demand it, right?
Doc: Bingo.
Electra: Of course, Jesus reminds us that all laws are fulfilled in the Greatest Commandment of all: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Even the Pharisees and scribes who wanted to test Jesus knew this (in Luke 10:25–28, the Greatest Commandment is quoted by a lawyer, not Jesus). As law, love is instrumentally valuable, but I don’t think you would want to say that as law, love is not intrinsically valuable?
Electra
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Electra
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| Posted 8/9/2002 12:09 PM (GMT -6) | | Doc: yes, our only confidence is faith in Christ. But, it seems to me, the issue at hand is how this faith translates into particular actions here-and-now. How does FAITH relate to the "impulse"?
Electra: The divine impulse creates the possibility for faith or offense.
Doc: And my worry is that models two AND three equate faith in Christ with a faith in the impulse.
Electra: My worry is that Model One (even when presupposing Christ-centeredness rather than self-centeredness) makes the divine impulse commensurable with what we assess to be the most loving thing to do based on feedback from the nexus.
Doc: My grounds are that acting without being attentive to feedback on the grounds that one is "lead by Christ" (= received a divine impulse) presupposes faith that ones impulse is very very reliable.
Electra: In order for faith or offense to be possible, the divine impulse must be communicated indirectly. Models Two and Three presuppose the ambiguity of the divine impulse, and can be characterized as polemics against direct recognizability. (E.g. Kierkegaard: “Spirit is the denial of direct immediacy….Direct recognizability is specifically characteristic of the idol”; Bonhoeffer: “However loving and sympathetic we try to be, however sound our psychology, however frank and open our behavior, we cannot penetrate the incognito of the other man, for there are no direct relationships…”)
Icon: I would say that Objective and Subjective are not distinct "things" except as hollow abstractions. Rather, they are the two end points of a spectrum. They are the boundaries of a continuum. To say that they have a "center" that unifies them in unbroken wholeness is not to deny their distinction but is rather to say that the very distinction exists in order to give meaning to the "center".
Doc responds: ditto. I would only add that I want the distinction between God and humanity is in a different category than the distinction between objective and subjective. The unity amidst distinction with the former is Jesus Christ, not "humanity in itself" or "the world in itself." By contrast, the dialectial relation between subjective and objective is natural, simply two poles of a spectrum. Yet, the "center" for both the God-human relation on the subjective-objective distinction is Jesus Christ.
Electra: I think you will agree with this, but just for the sake of clarity I prefer to retain Bonhoeffer’s (in Cost of Discipleship) description of Jesus Christ as “Mediator,” rather than conceptualizing Christ as the midpoint on any continuum. The qualitative distinction between a human person and God, and the distinctions between a human person and another person and even between a human person and the self are such that mediation is required in order for relationship to be possible. We can accomplish this mediation ourselves (autonomy) or look to other people or institutions or principles to mediate on our behalf (heteronomy), for better or for worse, but never perfectly. Or we can relinquish mediation to Christ (theonomy). I don’t think that the rubric of midpoint on a continuum is relationally adequate.
Doc: I’m beginning to suspect that most of the differences between Electra and I (I can only speak for myself here) is because in speaking about the "divine impulse" I am concerned with epistemological – even psychological – issues, whereas Electra is thinking of existential issues.
Electra: Yes, I agree that this is a helpful distinction. Your take on assessing and acting on the divine impulse is primarily epistemological/psychological, whereas my take on the divine impulse as the condition for authentic existence is more existential. It is interesting that although both Model 2 (as represented by Kierkegaard, esp. Practice in Christianity) and Model 3 (as represented by Bonhoeffer, esp. Cost of Discipleship) emphasize obedience to Christ’s call (as opposed to our assessment of the most loving thing to do based on feedback from the nexus of relations), neither of them discuss discernment. Rather than exploring strategies for interpreting Christ’s call, they explore the implications of how Christ’s call interprets us, by creating the possibility for faithful response.
Electra
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BBBCanada
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| Posted 8/9/2002 1:20 PM (GMT -6) | | This is going to be a quick response.
Meph Man,
Correct. I don’t see the law as an “End in themselves.” That is, if they are going to “make,” or “transform” people into more loving creatures. You know who does dat? GOD! G-O-D. GOD! The Spirit at work in our lives. Still, how would I know what to do or how to be more loving without some kind of boundary, standard, commandment, principle, law or what have you?
When Greg asks, “…by what standard would you judge IT to be the principle that is empowered to rank all other laws?” in response to my question above, I’m thinking he is speaking of the extremities of life here where some laws will come in conflict with other ones.
As one author puts it, “How can we take clear commands into the confusing dilemmas of contemporary life and hear what God wants us to do there, at the borderline of ignorance, where the wisest and best of persons dare not claim to know what they ought to do?”
But this does not mean that the “moral law” cannot speak even to these extreme situations. And it is in these extremities, where I believe we so urgently need to hear and know the voice of the Spirit. And still, even when we feel that we know the path and we walk in it, there is always room for uncertainty. Nobody I think can ever be that sure of every conceivable ethical dilemma that they find themselves in.
For example, back to abortion again. “Do not murder.” But say you have a Jewish lady who knows from amniocentesis that her child will have Tay Sachs disease. A disease that strikes Jewish children of Eastern European backgrounds and kills them painfully after a miserably brief life. She wants to abort. Three months after conception, she decides to abort. What do we say by way of moral response to her? Was escape from Tay Sachs worth losing fetal life for? Is it better not to exist at all than to die at age two from a horrendous disease? Should the commandment against murdering hold back the hand of the abortionist?
My intent is not to answer these questions, but to say that something of the law of “Do not murder” and all that that encompasses and the moving of the Spirit have vital roles to play in such situations.
quote:
Doc: No problem here. Completely agree. But I think you’d agree that the law can’t make us loving. Only grace can do this. And when we become loving, the law functions as a guideline for what love looks like, but not BASIS of our doing what the law says we should do. This is why we can’t rely on the law to settle difficult ethical dilemmas.
Yes, I agree with this to an extent. It won’t give us a detailed code of conduct, and it can’t make us love any more than a civil law of the land against fornication could make us better lovers to our spouses. But it will tell us to some extent what we should do. For example, I believe the Bible does speak against, homosexuality. More so than you guys let on here. There certainly isn’t any “legitimizing of adultery.” Besides, I don’t see why one should speak to the other (if adultery is legitimized then so should or can homosexuality) any more than David having many wives or concubines as polygamy makes “adultery legitimate.” Icon would say, “Polygamy was the most loving thing to do.” No. It was the most hypocritical thing to do…in a patriarchal society. Men can, women can’t. Go figure. I think your hermeneutic and method of interpretation is really flawed there. I plan on doing a major post on this subject again. HOMOSEXUALITY III. Coming soon to a thread near you.
Either way, the Bible speaks about (for/against, should’s and should not’s) a lot more things than we might think with some being clearer than others.
I swear, I think part of our problem here is not in saying there isn’t any “moral law” but in asking, “how far does it extend?” and what is the role of the Spirit in the application of these moral laws?
quote:
Mephi: I think we understand that laws when taken as ends in themselves can ONLY at best give us some type of moral "lowest-common-denominator" for a workable society, but when we understand these things as, like you say, B, pointing the way to a loving community, then we may be able to BREAK the laws, when "love" may demand it, right?
Doc: Bingo.
Peace
Doc
This I would like to see in an example.
Brandon
"Sharing a prison cell unites you much more powerfully than sharing a conference table."--Ecumenical Jihad: Ecumenism and the Culture War | | Back to Top | | |
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Iconoclast
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| Posted 8/9/2002 5:49 PM (GMT -6) | | Electra
It is interesting that although both Model 2 (as represented by Kierkegaard, esp. Practice in Christianity) and Model 3 (as represented by Bonhoeffer, esp. Cost of Discipleship) emphasize obedience to Christ’s call (as opposed to our assessment of the most loving thing to do based on feedback from the nexus of relations), neither of them discuss discernment. Rather than exploring strategies for interpreting Christ’s call, they explore the implications of how Christ’s call interprets us, by creating the possibility for faithful response.
Iconoclast
My understanding of Bonhoeffer is that Christ’s call is exceedingly concrete and straightforward. He has smacked us upside the head and directly told us in the plainest language possible to follow Him. He gave us a totally concrete command – love one another – and then He showed us what it looked like. This call creates the possibility for faithful response because it presupposes that we are already OK with Him, that we are indeed totally loved by Him, and it establishes the expectation that it is indeed possible to concretely love one another. Our faithful response then is to simply believe that He does indeed love us and to seek to fulfill His command by using our full apparatus to assess, take loving action, gain feedback, assess, take loving action and so on.
Two issues:
One) What is Christ’s call and how does it create the possibility for faithful response.
Christ’s call is that He loves us right here and right now. Even though we are sinners. He loves us as we really are – He loves the real person – us. Christ’s call is that we follow Him – that we love Him by obeying His command. His command is that we love one another.
Christ’s call is that we believe that we are loved and that we love one another. It creates the possibility for faithful response because it blows away every aspect of living out of our own knowledge of good and evil. It blows away our “objective” defense of our own knowledge of good and evil by blowing away every claim we think we have to be able to stand on the law or our own “rationality”. It blows away our “subjective” defense of our own knowledge of good and evil by establishing a command that can NOT be fulfilled by “intentionality” alone. The command forces us to look at an external reality to determine if we are indeed being loving. We can only now fulfill it by seeking feedback from others as to whether we really are being loving or not. There is an objective standard – it is the other person – are they being loved or are they not. This requires feedback which establishes relationships.
Ultimately Christ’s call creates the possibility for faithful response because the very hearing of it reengages us into His nexus of relationships. To hear it captures our heart (we are loved) and binds us to clear action (love one another). Can this be refused again … yes.
Two) What is that faithful response. What IS obedience.
Obedience is quite simply “true” belief which we call “faith”. True belief is simply acting on a belief. If we do not act on a belief then we do not truly believe. We do not have faith. Faith = true belief = a belief that we act on.
Thus obedience = act out of the belief that we are loved = love one another = actually do it = assess, act, feedback, assess, act and so on.
Bonhoeffer
Jesus summons men to follow him not as a teacher or a pattern of the good life, but as the Christ, the Son of God….there is no road to faith or discipleship, no other road—only obedience to the call of Jesus….To follow in his steps is something which is void of all content. It gives no intelligible programme for a way of life, no goal or ideal to strive after. It is not a cause which human calculation might deem worthy of our devotion…. (62)
Iconoclast
The call is “void of all content” in the sense of some “cause which human calculation might deem worthy of our devotion…” It is not void in the sense that we have a concrete command – love one another – and a role model for what that means. Jesus is the content and His command is the content. Notice that actually loving individual people can not be construed as a “cause”. The only way to construe it as a “cause” is to seek to love “humanity”. This leads us right back to our own knowledge of good and evil. Also notice seeking to love individuals gives us “no intelligible programme for a way of life, no goal or ideal to strive after.” Truly seeking to love individuals is a completely dynamic process which is why it requires feedback and adjusting based on this feedback – it is totally relational.
Bonhoeffer
The forces which tried to interpose themselves between the word of Jesus and the response of obedience were as formidable then as they are to-day. Reason and conscience, responsibility and piety all stood in the way, and even the law and “scriptural authority” itself were obstacles which pretended to defend them from going to the extremes of antinomianism and “enthusiasms.” But the call of Jesus made short work of all these barriers, and created obedience. That call was the Word of God himself, and all that it required was a single-minded obedience. (87)
Iconoclast
Here Bonhoeffer shows that our attempt stand on “objectivity” in the face of Christ’s call doesn’t stand a chance.
Bonhoeffer
‘Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the will of God’ (Rom. 12.2). ‘I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and discernment, that ye may prove the different situations (i.e. what is in each case right)’ (Phil. 1.9 and 10; cf. Rom. 2.18). ‘Walk as children of light…proving what is acceptable unto the Lord’ (Eph. 5.8ff). These sayings show the error of the view that the simple recognition of the will of God MUST take the form of an intuition which excludes any sort of reflexion and that it must be the naïve grasping of the first thought or feeling to force itself upon the mind, the error, in other words, of that psychologizing misrepresentation of the new life which has begun in Jesus. It is not said at all that the will of God forces its way into the human heart without further ado, charged with the accent of uniqueness, or that it is simply obvious, and identical with whatever the heart may think. The will of God may lie very deeply concealed beneath a great number of available possibilities.
Iconoclast
Here Bonhoeffer shows that our attempt to stand on “subjectivity” in the face of Christ’s call doesn’t stand a chance either.
Bonhoeffer shows that “single-minded obedience” does not mean subjective intentionality.
There are two issues:
One) A clear choice to follow Jesus.
This is “single-minded obedience”. We obey ONLY because we have chosen to follow Jesus.
Two) Actually following Jesus day to day. Obeying His command.
Out of “single-minded obedience” we seek to fulfill His command which requires us to use our full apparatus to assess, act, gain feedback, assess, act, and so on.
Electra
My worry is that Model One (even when presupposing Christ-centeredness rather than self-centeredness) makes the divine impulse commensurable with what we assess to be the most loving thing to do based on feedback from the nexus.
Iconoclast
When you say “presupposing Christ-centeredness” I assume you mean that we are living in “single-minded obedience” to the call of Christ. Doesn’t this mean that existentially the “divine impulse” has had its way with us?
And now that we are seeking to actually follow Jesus day to day by obeying His command to love one another what does “divine impulse” mean if it does not mean that God guides us through His nexus of relationships toward the most loving thing to do as we seek feedback? And if we closed ourselves off from feedback wouldn’t our guidance from God diminish?
thanks,
Iconoclast
"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson | | Back to Top | | |
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Electra
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Total Posts : 611
| Posted 8/10/2002 9:29 AM (GMT -6) | | Iconoclast: My understanding of Bonhoeffer is that Christ’s call is exceedingly concrete and straightforward. He has smacked us upside the head and directly told us in the plainest language possible to follow Him.
Electra: Agreed. The disciples’ and apostles’ experiences are good cases in point. Model 2 would say that what makes these calls indirect is that they are spoken by Christ in his abasement rather than his glory. Thus it is quite possible to take offense at being called so authoritatively by one who has no apparent authority. Obdedience to the call requires faith.
Iconoclast: He gave us a totally concrete command – love one another – and then He showed us what it looked like.
Electra: So, are you saying that Christ’s concrete command for us is always the same—e.g. “love one another”? I agree that Jesus commands us to love one another, but I also think that Jesus can call us to more specific actions whose connection to love is implicit given the source, but may otherwise be unclear to us.
Iconoclast: This call creates the possibility for faithful response because it presupposes that we are already OK with Him, that we are indeed totally loved by Him, and it establishes the expectation that it is indeed possible to concretely love one another. Our faithful response then is to simply believe that He does indeed love us and to seek to fulfill His command by using our full apparatus to assess, take loving action, gain feedback, assess, take loving action and so on.
Electra: I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying here. I’m going to state my understanding of the Greatest Commandment below (please forgive some of the redundancies). Maybe we are saying the same thing, but just in different terms and/or different emphases?
Jesus didn’t come up with the Greatest Commandment—it was common knowledge. It is a quote of ancient Old Testament passages (the Shema and the Levitical Holiness Code), and a summary of the ten commandments (Love God = 1–3; Love neighbor as yourself = 4–10). As a distillation of the law and the prophets, the Greatest Commandment is the most intense expression of the law. The Pharisees came up with all sorts of strategies to help themselves and others fulfill it. But such strategies can only lead to hypocrisy or despair. The Pharisees were so zealous for fulfiling the law—for successfully loving God and neighbor—that they didn’t recognize the fulfilment of the law when he showed up (this is also true for the Roman authorities as represented by Pilate). When Nicodemus approached Jesus because he considered the possibility that Jesus might actually hold the key to fulfilment, Jesus did not offer him a strategy. He offered him a new mode of existence—new birth into life in the Spirit. Nicodemus was confused by Jesus’ cryptic response. He had a choice to make: offense or faith. Nicodemus expected to learn a new strategy for fulfilling the law directly. But instead he learned that “deeds done in God” (John 3:21) can only be done through faith in Jesus Christ.
The law serves to expose our sin. The Greatest Commandment is no exception. We can do a good job at loving God and neighbor—especially if we devote all of our skills and intuitions and intelligence toward this end. But the law is not satisfied with goodness, it demands perfection. When Jesus intensified the law in the Sermon on the Mount and the Greatest Commandment, his intention was not to inspire more rigorous and vigilant strategies for fulfilling the law, but rather to expose our sin so we could be forgiven and reconciled with God and neighbor. Jesus wants us to resort to him, to take his burden and yoke, to receive his righteousness, instead of resorting even more zealously to our own efforts until we finally break under our unbearable burden.
Iconoclast: The command forces us to look at an external reality to determine if we are indeed being loving. We can only now fulfill it by seeking feedback from others as to whether we really are being loving or not. There is an objective standard – it is the other person – are they being loved or are they not. This requires feedback which establishes relationships.
Electra: Bonhoeffer seems to suggest that the only condition for fulfilling the law is Jesus Christ: “No particular sign of our own steadfastness and loyalty can answer the question which we ask when we prove ourselves, for we no longer have at our disposal any criterion by which to judge ourselves, or rather our only criterion is the living Jesus Christ Himself” (Ethics, 45). This does not mean that seeking feedback isn’t a good thing. It just means that doing so is not enough to ensure fulfilment of the law. The command forces us to look at Jesus and confess our failure to fulfill it. Jesus’ forgiveness sets us free to live in love with God and the world.
At times it seems like you are presupposing this. I think the reason I keep getting confused it that your emphasis on the objective standard for assessing our success seems to contradict, or at least qualify, this presupposition.
[skipping to the end]
Iconoclast: When you say “presupposing Christ-centeredness” I assume you mean that we are living in “single-minded obedience” to the call of Christ. Doesn’t this mean that existentially the “divine impulse” has had its way with us?
Electra: Yes.
Iconoclast: And now that we are seeking to actually follow Jesus day to day by obeying His command to love one another what does “divine impulse” mean if it does not mean that God guides us through His nexus of relationships toward the most loving thing to do as we seek feedback?
Electra: Given Christ-centeredness, here are some of the reasons I still would not limit the meaning of the divine impulse to my assessment of the most loving thing to do: 1) my knowledge of the nexus remains limited; 2) my interpretation of the nexus could still be mistaken; 3) my sources of feedback could be unreliable. Again, I believe that Christ-centeredness entails a new mode of existence, not just a new mode of knowing (Bonhoeffer says, “But just as we misunderstand the form of Christ if we take Him to be essentially the teacher of a pious and good life, so, too, we should misunderstand the formation of man if we were to regard it as instruction in the way in which a pious and good life is to be attained” [ Ethics 82]). Jesus doesn’t help us figure out how to fulfill the law, Jesus frees us from that burden by fulfilling it for us. The Greatest Commandment is no exception.
Iconoclast: And if we closed ourselves off from feedback wouldn’t our guidance from God diminish?
Electra: First of all, I’m not trying to suggest that feedback is irrelevant and that we should close ourselves off from it. But I do want emphasize that I would not limit God’s guidance to our interpretation of others’ feedback, and/or our assessment of the nexus. I think of God’s communication style as more along the lines of Malcolm X—e.g. “by any means necessary”—than Martin Luther King. If we stubbornly refuse to listen to people who speak God’s truth to us, or if people from whom we seek feedback stubbornly refuse to speak God’s truth to us, God will find other means within the nexus. Whether you believe stories about talking donkeys are historical or mythological, I think experiences like Balaam’s illustrate that God is a resourceful communicator. God writes on walls, God speaks out of the whirlwind, God gives people dreams, God tackles people, God shows up for dinner.
Thanks,
Electra
p.s. I think some of the best feedback ever given in the Bible was Eli’s advice to Samuel in 1 Sam. 3:1–9: Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the LORD under Eli. The word of the LORD was rare in those days; visions were not widespread. At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was. Then the LORD called, “Samuel! Samuel!” and he said, “Here I am!” and ran to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call; lie down again.” So he went and lay down. The LORD called again, “Samuel!” Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.” Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, and the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him. The LORD called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli perceived that the LORD was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’”
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Edited by - Electra on 08/10/2002 2:44:00 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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GregBoyd
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 8/10/2002 10:38 AM (GMT -6) | | I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that Iconoclast and Electra have successfully worked their way to an agreement, at least on essentials. Ah, the beauty of the "virtual community of inquirers" (Pierce).
I am yet puzzelled, however, by how Electra and (perhaps? to some extent, Brandon) saw any commonality between what I was saying and KANT. Goodness. Kant is the epitomy of the misguided Enlightenment project that thought it could root ethics in reason alone. I don't see any connection here at all. Could either of you spell out what you were getting at in making this connection.
Thanks
Doc
"In Christ...the ONLY THING that matters is faith energized by love." Galatians 5:6 | | Back to Top | | |
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Electra
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Date Joined Feb 2002
Total Posts : 611
| Posted 8/10/2002 11:30 AM (GMT -6) | | I respect the emphasis on love in this discussion. Although I support this effort, I must admit that I am skeptical about whether or not it will make a difference. It’s not as if the central importance of love has not occurred to men and women of God throughout the 2000-year history of the church. It has done some good, but not enough good to prevent people within the church from crusading against infidels, owning and using people like property, joining the Nazi party, or molesting the children of parishioners. The fact that these things go on in the midst of an institution that emphasizes the central importance of love only exacerbates their scandal. I guess you could say I’m disillusioned.
The aspect of Bonhoeffer that has given me the most hope is the way he closed Chapter 4 with the section on “Guilt, Justification and Renewal.” Rather than distancing himself from people within the church who participated in great evil, Bonhoeffer identified with them. In his context, I can’t imagine an act of greater courage and sacrifice. As a member of the body of Christ, he takes responsibility for the guilt of his fellow members as if it were his own, and leads the whole Church in confession of its sin against God and the world:
quote:
In this recognition of guilt there begins the process by which man is conformed with Christ. This recognition of guilt differs from any other such recognition which is self-effected and sterile. The place where this recognition of guilt becomes real is the Church. But this is not to be understood as meaning that the Church is the place of genuine recognition of guilt as something additional to the other things which she is and does. The Church is precisely that community of human beings which has been led by the grace of Christ to the recognition of guilt towards Christ. (Ethics 111)
Luther also describes this in “Freedom of the Christian”:
quote:
From Christ the good things have flowed and are flowing into us…From us they flow on to those who have need of them so that I should lay before God my faith and my righteousness that they may cover and intercede for the sins of my neighbor which I take upon myself and so labor and serve in them as if they were my very own. That is what Christ did for us. This is true love and the genuine rule of a Christian life. Love is true and genuine where there is true and genuine faith.
I think that responding to sin within the church via public confession and repentance is a necessary prerequisite to becoming the Body of Christ that performs true works of love in the world. Unfortunately, I don’t think the Church has taken this responsibility seriously. In the interest of proving ourselves to be loving, it is much easier to distance ourselves from (division), rather than identifying ourselves with (unity), members of the body throughout its long life and myriad expressions who have not exhibited loving behavior. But in doing so we miss an opportunity to confess and repent so healing can happen (including healing for our own hypocrisy as well as the world’s own wounds)—we reject the ministry of reconciliation that God has entrusted to us.
Thanks,
Electra
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Edited by - Electra on 08/10/2002 4:32:25 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Modes of Thought
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 817
| Posted 8/10/2002 12:40 PM (GMT -6) | | Kant located the criterion for action in the individual and it was always understood to be consistent with the autonomy of the human individual. Doc, you have stated these two central things with the same emphasis. The criterion lies within the individual for you. We know love when we see it. And it always serves the autonomy of the human will. These are very substantial points of agreement between you and Kant.
I will be back with a couple of other comments to make. This discussion has really taken off!
"Christianly understood, truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an infinite difference here..." SK | | Back to Top | | |
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Modes of Thought
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 817
| Posted 8/10/2002 2:15 PM (GMT -6) | | Sorry for the long absence. I am back and have just read and finally caught up on the conversation. I have a few thoughts to add, but Brandy and Electra voiced my concerns very well and I think everyone has worked hard at seeing the points of agreement and what still remains to be ironed out.
I want to say right up front that I think there is a bit of a rhetorical slant being offered when Model 1 is given the glorious qualifier "wholistic" and model two is merely "existential." My take is that all views presented here are equally existential and all seek to be wholistic. The question is which view is most adequate, and moreover, can we work out a way of thinking about these things that surpasses all of what has been articulated thus far. I don’t pretend to offer this alternative at this point.
I want to take a step back and suggest that there are systemic concerns at work that are confounding the conversation. I will not elaborate on all of them but I will simply point them out. Barth insisted that all theology is prolegomena. I think in at least one sense, he was correct. All theology is deeply method-dependant. Of course, we all want to say that our theology is reflective of reality, not simply the results of our methodology, but it remains to be seen which is actually most adequate.
There has long been a debate about where theology should be grounded, that is, where it should start. The two traditional starting points are either creation, or the Creator. The language used here has been: from below (creation) or from above (Creator/revelation). These words do not have moral value (higher is better, etc.) but rather indicate the sort of theological work being done. Pannenberg does theology from below. Barth from above. Barth was unusual in that he wanted to do theology EXCLUSIVELY from above. That is, theology is strictly what is revealed to us, and the ongoing proclamation of that revelation. The school of thought that does theology most strictly from below is called apologetics, or natural theology. Bear with me, I am going somewhere with all of this….
Most Christian thinkers have NOT been either strictly apologetic nor strictly theologians of revelation (ala Barth and some other Neo-orthodox folks). Rather they have tried to keep it all in the mix. That is what I see us doing here. And that I what I think needs to happen! However, most orthodox theologians have recognized the need to give priority to special revelation (theological data from above) over natural revelation.
Punch-line: it is by this distinction that I can best articulate my preference for attending to the revealed will of God over the assessed feedback when deciding how to move forward in godly action.
I have looked back over the posts in this thread and discovered that this bears out very consistently. Those for model one have consistently used the language game of general revelation which is appropriate to natural theology and those of models two and three have used the language of special revelation as trumping natural revelation. Although we have these different emphases, we agree that God is both immanent and transcendent. God does reveal Godself through creation to a certain degree, but we all agree that God is most fully revealed in Christ, who is by no means natural, but special revelation. This may not help others, but it has helped me sort through the differences here.
An intuition has been bumped up against several times and affirmed occasionally: all agree that we are commanded to love one another, and that that is relational and involves all the dynamics of relations. Feedback, assessment, good communication skills, etc. But some have been nervous when others attribute our doing this to obedience to the divine impulse. Now, this IS conceivable as obedience to the divine impulse if we are assessing the whole in terms of theology from below (natural theology) it is NOT conceivable as obedience to the will of God if we are focusing on divine revelation as understood through special revelation (theology from above). This is why we sometimes can agree on the same statements but are dumbfounded by the surrounding rhetoric.
Here’s the rub: I still maintain that the more adequate category for attribution of the terms "will of God" to a given event is special revelation. Why? Because we do this in every other area of theology. Revealed data trumps natural revelation. Why else? because "will of God" is used this way in Scripture more consistently. Why else? Because this is the only way to consistently retain the intuitions achieved on the threads regarding the "Glory variable." Meph, check me on this.
Isn’t it still the case that we do God an injustice if we take the term "love" and make it equal to the term "divine impulse"? This becomes especially problematic when we are determined to assess what is loving or not based on feedback and our own trust in our ability to "recognize love when we see it." All of this assumes that we OUGHT to do theology from below. I am suggesting that the terms "will of God" be reserved for those special cases where God actually speaks from above as understood in the typical theological distinction theology "from below" or "from above." The short way to say this is that natural theology, though it may reveal some sorts of truths, does not qualify as "word of God" or "will of God" properly speaking.
Another way to get at all of this is: What is revelation and how important is it on an ongoing basis?
Model one says love=divine impulse and this can be discerned through feedback so long as one intends to do so.
Model two says love=the command of God. This is different from identifying it with the divine impulse directly. This is important because it remembers the glory variable and knows that what God’s actual action in the world may be may not look at all like love to us. Isaac did not learn about the love of God through his experience on Mt. Moriah. If we wish to retain love as a meaningful word, we cannot say love=not love.
This raises the question of tests. Do we disagree only on the tests in life? I think this is a valid way to put it, but the obvious next question is what and when are the tests? Abraham passed the tests because he was willing to obey God regardless. His loyalty to God’s will was greater than his understanding of God’s love. But he trusted regardless that God was for the world overall and not against it. Whether special revelation is only present during tests or whether it is a ongoing part of the rhythm of life for believers is an issue to be addressed more clearly I think. Many people I know who have had to make a radical decision have only done so because they believe in the special revelation of God which directed such action. Yes, faith is dangerous, but that is no excuse for ignoring special revelation when it breaks in on you.
Is model two anti-openness? This makes no sense to me. For those who are coming at this "from below", it is particularly strange that they can assess that this view binds God or us metaphysically. A psychological-epistemological perspective on this discussion is out of its element in claiming that the model two view is anti-openness. It seemed like little more than rhetoric to suggest this. As many have suggested in many places, obeying the will of God need not limit an obedient response to one action and furthermore, it does not exclude the ability of the will to resist.
A couple of snipets with comment will illustrate my points above:
quote:
Brandi: (On my view that the main difference between Electra and myself is that she is concerned with existential issues while I am worried about epistemological issues) Doesn't it get down to who are we relying on -- ourselves or God? Wouldn't the one be actually operating out of our own knowledge base which is what Bonhoeffer is addressing? Perhaps I am way off and please forgive me for interfering in your dialogue.
Doc: …I’m not sure which model you think is relying on ourselves and which is relying on God. All models want to say they are "relying on God." The epistemological question, as I see it, is HOW do we know we are relying on God? How reliable is the "divine impulse"? What role, if any, should be given to assessing feedback as we live trying to discern the "divine impulse."
ME: faith assumes that the sheep hear the shepherd’s voice (BOTH from below AND from ABOVE). That’s not simply existential, it is biblical. It is equally existential to draw epistemological confidence from the individual assessment of an individual’s engagement within a given context. One is existentially engaged with God (or so they believe) and the other is existentially engaged with creation around them (or so they assume). The emphasis on "from above" here also serves to insure that God can use all the sheep regardless of IQ and communication skills.
Here is an example of "from above" (articulated by Brandi) being preferred (both in form and content) to "from below" (articulated by doc).
quote:
Doc
quote:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The epistemological question, as I see it, is HOW do we know we are relying on God? How reliable is the "divine impulse"? What role, if any, should be given to assessing feedback as we live trying to discern the "divine impulse."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Brandi:]
I would like to share with you a few bible verses (OUT OF THE BIBLE NOT TAOISM) Please note the bold part because I believe the bible makes it clear that this is the crux of where our assessing must be centered:
2 Corinthians 3:18"And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."
2 Corintians 4:6-7"6.For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. 7. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and NOT from us.
The Spirit is the one doing in us. We rely on God's Spirit to change us and make us more loving in our interactions... Of course we can look at feedback and impact but when push comes to shove we must rely on the internal not the external. "Faith is the evidence of things not seen..." Faith comes from God. Sometimes the obvious isn't always the real. Appearances are deceiving so we must rely on the internal.
Brandi’s quotes are formally "from above" in that they use Scripture and are also materially "from above" in that they emphasize the special/revealed character of the guidance as distinct from our ability to discern things naturally.
Iconoclast and myself had perhaps one of the clearest misunderstandings of this sort. I said:
quote:
Modes
In my mind "unity with God" ENTAILS "hearing God’s voice in an inspirational way."
By which, I meant "inspirational" to be special revelation "from above". And Iconoclast responded (emphasis mine):
quote:
Iconoclast
I totally agree with this statement.
To me this means that as we actually love one another more fully we become more aware of the nature of life. We become more aware of how God is acting all around us and through us. We become more aware of the myriad forces that God has created and we begin to see for ourselves what has more life and what has less life. We become more "attuned" to these forces and are thus able to access a "word of knowledge". We are able to "hear" more deeply the moving of the Spirit. And this is indeed inspiring.
I believe we accomplish this – or rather the Spirit accomplishes it in us by the renewing of our mind – through all of our faculties. In fact, I think this means that our faculties become more congruent with the life that now emanates from within us and reaches out to God – because it is God – within us.
This to me IS what Bonhoeffer is talking about when he says that we must use all of our faculties and NOT rely on "direct inspiration" alone. Indeed that "direct inspiration" that is not congruent with all of our faculties can lead us astray for it may actually be our own knowledge of good and evil and not God at all. For, our mind is being renewed so that we have the mind of Christ.
I agree that this is a process.
thanks,
Iconoclast
Now, it is perfectly okay to say what Iconoclast is saying, but it must be recognized as a form of natural theology! It makes all the sense in the world to say what he says as a "from below" theologian. BUT if intended as referring to special revelation and expecting to describe a transcendent interruption on God’s part, then this language fails altogether. In fact, it becomes deeply problematic when God and the nature of life become equivocal, or the individual and the Spirit are equated and so forth. Please note! There are phrases that both approaches want to use and can use legitimately, the real confusion comes when it is not acknowledged from whence one is speaking, "from above" or "from below"? God is present in both places, but it is not the same thing to feel God’s presence as you look across the waves of the ocean as it is to have God interrupt your life and tell you to move into a particular house. In fact, that term, "interruption" is particularly adept at pointing out for us that we are talking about a "from above" sort of revelation.
Doc was doing "from below" stuff and Brandi was thinking about "from above" stuff. At one point, Brandi responded particularly clearly for an illustration:
quote:
Doc
quote:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Still, I am not convinced we EVER outgrow the need for feedback. God didn't.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I agree with you! My whole objection to the "impact" and "feedback" idea has been on how much weight we give it. We are to be in the world but not a part of it. We are to live by faith and not by sight. Live by the Spirit with our eyes wide open. Take in the external but filter it through the internal. Ultimately, for me it gets down to who gets the final word. We cannot rely on our assessment since we are fallible so we must trust on something beyond our own selves to show us the way.
And again here:
quote:
Brandi: The whole reason I have been so passionate at resisting the idea of giving impact and feedback a lot of weight is not because I think we should be insensitive nor careless with our actions and speech. No, it's because impact is LESS important than submission to the Spirit's leading. If we allow impact to have the final authority then we are allowing ourselves to be judge of the events in our lives BUT if we submit to the Spirit of God within us we are allowing the internal to have the ultimate authority in assessing the event. The purpose for the bible and the Spirit is to show us the way (offer us light unto our path) As we allow this light to nurture and grow within us we too become lights for the world. "Let your light so shine before men (and women) that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." Our end purpose is to glorify the Lord. All praise and honor and blessing and glory belong unto the Lord forever and ever!
Here’s another example of what is clearly natural theology at work in doc’s posts:
quote:
TGB, we could formalize the principle as something like: "When a 'lower' law must be broken to obey a 'higher' law, the breaking of the 'lower' law isn't breaking the law."
And, conversely, "When a 'higher' law is disobeyed in order to obey a 'lower' law, the breaking of the 'higher' law IS breaking the law."
The 'lower' law in the Nazi analogy is lying.
The 'higher' law is protecting life.
Two things need to be said about this, however. First, who says what is "higher" and what is "lower"? The answer, I believe, is GOD working in us. And how do we know when God is working in us? The answer, I believe, is intuition, or divine impulse, or something like that. I don't think its possible to ground a hierarchy of ethical principles outside of ourselves . Fortunately, morally healthy people generally agree on the basic contours of the hierarchy. Only a damaged or jaded person would object to speeding to save your spouse.
Second, and related to this, a lot depends on what we mean by "law." If we mean by "law" a set of codes to be obeyed, then we again have no way of ranking "higher" and "lower" laws. And even if the "law" contained such a ranking, obeying it would not transform us. We might obey it as a way of getting life, or at least avoiding death. But we wouldn't be transformed into moral beings by it.
What other law can there be? It is "the royal law" (James), the law written in our heart. This is the law of love. Hence Scripture repeatedly teaches us that if we love like Christ loves, we fulfill all moral codes.
To ask about "higher" or "lower" laws in any particular context is simply to ask, "What does love look like here and now?" The answer can't be gotten at by searching for a system of abstract ethical principles. Indeed, the thrust of Bonhoeffer's thought is to say that in the attempt to live out of ethical principles in any given situation, we loose the capacity to live out of love in that situation.
BBBC responded well to this by pointing out the roots of this thinking and he gets the tension right (in my opinion) between Kant and Barth.
quote:
First, this, to me, is way to subjective and individualistic. The problem with this sort of understanding of "moral law" (which I have some reservations with, that is "natural law") is that they are aimed at a Kantian notion of moral law which turns law into an "ultimate rational principle." Greg's understanding, when speaking of divine impulse or intuition, etc, is more Barthian here. It would be unfortunate to throw out "boundaries" because of this Kantian notion as it would be for me to throw out the Barthian view of commands, that is, divine impulse, intuition, etc, on the grounds that it is a form of irrational existentialism.
Doc’s concern for confidence in action drives him to seek it in natural theology because revelational theology doesn’t provide for this sort of confidence, it requires faith regardless of and often in spite of the here and now….
quote:
Doc: yes, our only confidence is faith in Christ. But, it seems to me, the issue at hand is how this faith translates into particular actions here-and-now. How does FAITH relate to the "impulse"?
Electra: The divine impulse creates the possibility for faith or offense.
Doc: And my worry is that models two AND three equate faith in Christ with a faith in the impulse.
Electra: My worry is that Model One (even when presupposing Christ-centeredness rather than self-centeredness) makes the divine impulse commensurable with what we assess to be the most loving thing to do based on feedback from the nexus.
Doc: My grounds are that acting without being attentive to feedback on the grounds that one is "lead by Christ" (= received a divine impulse) presupposes faith that ones impulse is very very reliable.
Doc’s last articulation of this concern can only be responded to by an assertion of faith from model two. My take is that model two does not have scientific confidence but rather the boldness of faith as a basis for this response. The reliability/certainty question is not answerable. but neither is it truly answerable in model one, assuming both acknowledge the ambiguity of the situation.
The real danger here (if I take model one for the moment) is that what if God is calling me to do something incommensurable with my own understanding of love? How will I ever come to know this and obey God? Model one eliminates the possibility of a true hero of faith like Abraham because it subordinates the divine impulse (understood here as special revelation) to my human conception of love and its testability (thereby making it natural revelation, subject to my own judgment). By the way, I want to thank Electra for defending the reading of Abraham as not merely Kierkegaard’s but rather also Bonhoeffer’s and more importantly the New Testament’s reading of him as the hero of faith. This is not merely "an existentialist reading". That labeling seems to have served to dismiss some of the more important critiques I feel I have voiced.
Iconoclast does something very interesting in the next quote I offer below. He locates the ultimate criterion for recognizing obedience to the command of God. Emphasis mine:
quote:
Christ’s call is that we believe that we are loved and that we love one another. It creates the possibility for faithful response because it blows away every aspect of living out of our own knowledge of good and evil. It blows away our "objective" defense of our own knowledge of good and evil by blowing away every claim we think we have to be able to stand on the law or our own "rationality". It blows away our "subjective" defense of our own knowledge of good and evil by establishing a command that can NOT be fulfilled by "intentionality" alone. The command forces us to look at an external reality to determine if we are indeed being loving. We can only now fulfill it by seeking feedback from others as to whether we really are being loving or not. There is an objective standard – it is the other person – are they being loved or are they not. This requires feedback which establishes relationships.
Surely we can see that this sort of criterion eliminates the "glory variable" all together. There is no possible way that God could interrupt us in such a way--call us to--something that we could not have anticipated or at least assented to through our "from below" resources for understanding and behaving in love. We need to see that this is more than just for testing instances, it is for "glory variable" stuff that goes beyond our ability to measure degrees of love.
Iconoclast offers the formal version of this:
quote:
Two) What is that faithful response. What IS obedience.
Obedience is quite simply "true" belief which we call "faith". True belief is simply acting on a belief. If we do not act on a belief then we do not truly believe. We do not have faith. Faith = true belief = a belief that we act on.
Thus obedience = act out of the belief that we are loved = love one another = actually do it = assess, act, feedback, assess, act and so on.
This is fine "from below," so long as revelation and divine impulse are also being considered only "from below". But, if, along with this, we also deny the "from above" venue of special revelation, we have eliminated the ability of God to radically confront reality as it is through us. As in most theological systems, special revelation must reserve the right to trump natural revelation for the sake of the glory of God.
Here is an example where I think the natural revelation version is particularly thin in its ability to interpret the meaning of an articulation of special revelation:
quote:
Bonhoeffer
Jesus summons men to follow him not as a teacher or a pattern of the good life, but as the Christ, the Son of God….there is no road to faith or discipleship, no other road—only obedience to the call of Jesus….To follow in his steps is something which is void of all content. It gives no intelligible programme for a way of life, no goal or ideal to strive after. It is not a cause which human calculation might deem worthy of our devotion…. (62)
Iconoclast
The call is "void of all content" in the sense of some "cause which human calculation might deem worthy of our devotion…" It is not void in the sense that we have a concrete command – love one another – and a role model for what that means. Jesus is the content and His command is the content. Notice that actually loving individual people can not be construed as a "cause". The only way to construe it as a "cause" is to seek to love "humanity". This leads us right back to our own knowledge of good and evil. Also notice seeking to love individuals gives us "no intelligible programme for a way of life, no goal or ideal to strive after." Truly seeking to love individuals is a completely dynamic process which is why it requires feedback and adjusting based on this feedback – it is totally relational.
I think the "void of all content" here is much stronger than Iconoclast suggests. At least it can be in a "from above" reading. In fact, I think the meaning of the first phrase eliminates the possibility of an exclusively natural revelation reasoning from the start: "Jesus summons men to follow him not as teacher or pattern of the good life…" This is quite anti-WWJD as is the phrase "void of all content, " and "no intelligible programme for a way of life, no goal or ideal to strive after." The force of these words requires the inclusion of a "from above" reading.
And again:
quote:
Bonhoeffer
The forces which tried to interpose themselves between the word of Jesus and the response of obedience were as formidable then as they are to-day. Reason and conscience, responsibility and piety all stood in the way, and even the law and "scriptural authority" itself were obstacles which pretended to defend them from going to the extremes of antinomianism and "enthusiasms." But the call of Jesus made short work of all these barriers, and created obedience. That call was the Word of God himself, and all that it required was a single-minded obedience. (87)
Iconoclast
Here Bonhoeffer shows that our attempt stand on "objectivity" in the face of Christ’s call doesn’t stand a chance.
This response needs some elaboration to be effective for me. I don’t see how it serves to support model one. I don’t read this as a confrontation of objectivity per se, but seems to rather be a recognition that many natural capacities try to take the place of the need for the sheep to hear the shepherd’s voice and move straight away to obey it. In otherwords, there is a place for God to speak and for us to hear and obey in a way that transcends reason, conscience, responsibility, piety, etc.
Any way, I do think that we can see the distinction between theologizing being done "from above" or "from below". I also submit that we do BOTH. But finally, just as we inevitably must subordinate apologetics to the Bible precisely because WE HAVE FAITH and are believers of the word of God and obeyers of the will of God, we must also subordinate our ability to assess situations and respond well to feedback to the special revelation of God WHEN and IF it is present in the situation.
Please note the very important qualifiers present in the last paragraph above before you throw it in the bass-o-matic.
Thanks.
"Christianly understood, truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an infinite difference here..." SK
Edited by - ModesofThought on 08/11/2002 12:42:51 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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brandi
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| Posted 8/11/2002 8:36 AM (GMT -6) | | ModesofThought quote:
However, most orthodox theologians have recognized the need to give priority to special revelation (theological data from above) over natural revelation.
Punch-line: it is by this distinction that I can best articulate my preference for attending to the revealed will of God over the assessed feedback when deciding how to move forward in godly action.
ModesofThought, great summation of the difference between Model 1 and Model 2&3. The bible verse that I have been pondering since reading your post is found in Philippians 3:3-9 "3. For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put NO CONFIDENCE IN THE FLESH -- 4. for I myself have reasons for such confidence...
7. But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8. What is more, I consider EVERYTHING a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9. and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through FAITH in CHRIST the righteousness that comes FROM GOD AND IS BY FAITH."
When we put too much stock in the impact and feedback we are operating in the flesh. This bible passage makes it clear that we are to live by faith and not by our own flesh (sight). We are to see and understand with Spiritual eyes the things that the flesh knows not of. The Spirit and the flesh are in opposition. Relying on feedback is operating in the flesh. Walking and abiding in the Spirit takes a faith that passes understanding.
And I thought that I was done with Chapter 3 
~Brandi~
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Modes of Thought
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| Posted 8/11/2002 11:28 AM (GMT -6) | | Brandi, thanks for the affirmative response. I just want to be sure we are using language the same way. The way I understand the spirit/flesh distinction is that the flesh is the old way of life ("in Adam") with our loyalties being to the enemy. The Spirit of course, represents the new life and new loyalty to God through our identification with Christ who has identified with us. Now, this is quite different from the distinction of "above/below" that I have been discussing.
The confusion may lie in the word "flesh" itself. In our current use of language we associate flesh with physicality and spirit with non-physical. This is not the biblical sense of these words and moreover, is not the same as the difference between "from above" and "from below". In fact, the more intense the "from above" communication from God is, the more likely it is to be recognizable physically. Like raising Lazarus from the dead or parting seas, or turning water into wine. Of course, you wouldn't call these things fleshy actions, but rather Spirit-led ones.
My point is that when we seek feedback from the world around us, we are generally seeking confirmation from the immanent God (of course there is only one God who is both immanent and transcendent) in and through creation in continuity with what is godly in creation. But when we are interrupted by God "from above", this will be seen as a radical discontinuity with "the way things are." My concern is that what I have been hearing from model one has tended to only address the "from below", "general" sort of revelation. But this is still revelation, it is still "from God", though it is far more difficult to discern exactly what it is and where it is headed because it is in greater continuity with the trajectory of creation. This reminds me of Electra's reminder about the Spirit blowing as it will, which plays on the metaphor of wind and our natural ability to discern and interact with that, though quite precariously. I want to be sure we still talk about the extra-ordinary, intensified WORD of God which more abruptly interrupts (and can more clearly guide!) our lives. I haven't been convinced that model one has the resources to accomodate this ongoing interruptive role of the Word of God beyond the incarnation 2000 years ago. I see no reason why they couldn't acknowledge and affirm this, but there seems to be a nervousness about "transcendence" and its potential violation of what they perceive is the criteria for recognizing obedience, that being relational feedback that confirms that one is acting lovingly.
God's "from above" communication does sometimes involve feedback, like Moses and God arguing about the plagues and the leadership of God's people at that time, but sometimes God cuts the conversation short and you either obey or you do not, like the discussion between God and Abraham regarding Sodom and Gomorrah (and of course, Abraham and Isaac's incident). "From above" interruptions from God are not anti-relational, no one is suggesting an anti-relational paradigm. But sometimes God has something to say and it seems important enough to God to allow it to be quite disruptive. These sorts of incidents do not lend themselves to feedback in the same way as "from below" impulses, though, as has been stated, how we respond to them will need to every bit as much relationally responsible, probably MORE responsible and responsive if we expect others to participate in the vision God has given.
So Brandi, you and I agree that there is a time when feedback is not the criteria for obedience. I think we can probably agree that its not fair to assume that those who are constructing responses to God "from below" are actually encouraging living in the flesh. Do you agree? At least it is clear to me that the proponents of model one do not concieve of their view as operating in the flesh, but actually operating in the Spirit. My concern is that it is only one aspect of the Spirit to work in continuity with creation, the Spirit also bears the Word of God today which interrupts and breaks in on the flow of creation to offer new possibilities that are not available to creation without such an interruption and empowerment. Does that make sense to you? In the end, you and I are in agreement that there is a "spiritual sight" that God can grant that does not manifest itself through natural means and will not be confirmed through natural means either.
"Christianly understood, truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an infinite difference here..." SK
Edited by - ModesofThought on 08/11/2002 4:37:48 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Electra
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| Posted 8/11/2002 9:56 PM (GMT -6) | | Modes’ clarification that “from above” and “from below” approaches to theology do not correspond to the relationship between Spirit and flesh is important. “From above” and “from below” are both legitimate approaches, and most theologians agree that both are necessary. Bonhoeffer shared Barth’s critique of from-below-only 19th century theologies without sharing Barth’s extreme from-above-only reaction. Given the Holocaust—in which reasonable, educated, cultured, Christian people committed unspeakable evil against other people—it is understandable why Barth wanted to insist that there was no point of contact between God and human beings. But I think that Bonhoeffer is exactly correct in asserting that in the incarnation—in Christ—God creates a point of contact. I thought his section on “the despiser of men” (p. 73ff.) is an especially good example of balancing “from above” and “from below.”
Electra
~·• kyrie eleison ·~•~· christe eleison ·~•~· kyrie eleison •·~ | | Back to Top | | |
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brandi
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| Posted 8/11/2002 11:35 PM (GMT -6) | | ModesofThought quote:
I think we can probably agree that its not fair to assume that those who are constructing responses to God "from below" are actually encouraging living in the flesh. Do you agree?
Whew! Was my usage and choice of wording poor! I am sorry. I did NOT mean to insinuate that Model 1 constituents are living in the flesh and not in the Spirit. What I was trying to get at was that when one relies on feedback and impact as the criteria to define whether an act was loving, then I believe the matters and weights of the world (the flesh is the word I poorly used) will get more power than the surpassing knowledge that comes from God alone. I am concerned with allowing the immanent but not the transcendent God to direct us in our interactions because it seems to put too much weight on our own reasoning and too much weight on the feedback from this fallen world. In the bible there were many examples when the outer circumstances would not have appeared the "loving" way to act yet the individual obeyed the Spirit and put aside their own reasoning (such as the example that has been brought up with Abraham).
ModesofThought quote:
I haven't been convinced that model one has the resources to accomodate this ongoing interruptive role of the Word of God beyond the incarnation 2000 years ago. I see no reason why they couldn't acknowledge and affirm this, but there seems to be a nervousness about "transcendence" and its potential violation of what they perceive is the criteria for recognizing obedience, that being relational feedback that confirms that one is acting lovingly
This has been my concern. If one relies solely on the relational feedback to confirm that one is acting lovingly then it seems to me that the person is in bondage so to speak to their own reasoning and intellect. They have the burden on themselves, since they have to assess whether they have been walking in the Spirit, yet being obedient to the Spirit is not about doing but about interacting.
If we rely on feedback and impact alone without the interruptive role of the Word of God to define whether we are acting and being obedient to the Spirit, then it seems to follow that we will spend much of our time needing to reflect back on EVERY interaction to assess whether our impact was loving -- what a burden! But, if we give more weight to the Spirit moving in us and changing us from glory to glory; if we allow the Spirit to point out areas and times when we have not acted in love instead of relying on the feedback and impact as our sole criteria, then we will find true freedom. It will no longer be about us doing but about us being in relationship to the Spirit and to one another.
Electra quote:
“From above” and “from below” are both legitimate approaches, and most theologians agree that both are necessary.
Yes, I agree that both are legitimate and necessary. As I stated above, I used a poor choice in my usage of wording. I believe BOTH are needed. We were equipped with both a physical body to see and hear with, and the Spirit within us to see and hear with.
Thanks for allowing me to clarify myself.
~Brandi~
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might-be-don
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| Posted 8/12/2002 3:22 AM (GMT -6) | | Brandi says:quote:
This has been my concern. If one relies solely on the relational feedback to confirm that one is acting lovingly then it seems to me that the person is in bondage so to speak to their own reasoning and intellect.
Just a thought...
Keep in mind our "reasoning and intellect" is being renewed. We can begin to trust this more and more as we are conformed to the image of Christ. Let's not forget that we are leaving the old man behind and pressing on.
I like to believe ( maybe mistakenly in my case ) that my faith in Christ is making a difference in my life.
peace and love, don
"It's time to wipe the tears from our eyes time to stop questioning why, 'cos every clipped birds gonna fly the Healing has begun" T.S Taylor | | Back to Top | | |
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Modes of Thought
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| Posted 8/12/2002 6:39 AM (GMT -6) | | Electra,
Again, we need to keep the language clear. Yes, the incarnation of God in Christ is a point of contact between God and the world, but that is a "from above" communication/relation. God is also the sustainer and breather of life into all that has breath. Natural theology and apologetics uses this theological truth as a foundation for the "from below" construction of theology. Both are valid but neither is adequate without the other. So there is a "point of contact" in both approaches. "From above", that point of contact is Christ, "from below", it can be concieved of as Spirit (sustainer, life-giver, etc. immanence of God).
"Christianly understood, truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an infinite difference here..." SK | | Back to Top | | |
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Modes of Thought
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| Posted 8/12/2002 6:47 AM (GMT -6) | | might-be-don,
I agree that we are being transformed by the renewing of our minds. The question is two-fold how good are we are resisting that (I'd say we are are pros). And even if we didn't resist it at all, what difference does our finitude make?
We are still very finite creatures with very limited perspectives and resources. This means that God will still be needed to guide us in ways that we cannot come up with from our interactions with our surroundings. Particularly if God has any sort of concrete goals for the world at all and is committed to using us to carry them out. Finitude is not sin, but even without sin, finitude is sufficient to make us completely dependant upon God for following God's commands effectively. In my mind, this entails at least occasional strong "from above" type communications from God. Even perfect soldiers need clear commands from the captain. Of course, we are nothing like perfect soldiers, so this just intensifies our need for God's more intense interruptions.
"Christianly understood, truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an infinite difference here..." SK
Edited by - ModesofThought on 08/12/2002 4:39:15 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Modes of Thought
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| Posted 8/12/2002 11:47 AM (GMT -6) | | In case the distinction is still unclear:
"From Below" refers to that theological data (simply "data" being considered theologically) which can be discovered through "natural" means. We learn about God through God's creation.
"From Above" refers to that theological data which cannot be "discovered" but must be "revealed" by God to us. Please remember, no communication is ever direct. This is not a claim to unambiguous direct communication that boasts scientific certainty. All communication entails some faith. "From above" communications generally require more faith than "from below" becuase of the (typically) greater incommensurability between the message and the context.
"Christianly understood, truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an infinite difference here..." SK | | Back to Top | | |
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brandi
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| Posted 8/12/2002 12:18 PM (GMT -6) | | This might help show the distiction of "From Above" verses "From Below" If not, I hope you will enjoy this anyway because it's cute!
One day a 6 year old girl was sitting in a classroom. The teacher was going to explain evolution to the children. The teacher asked a little boy:
> >TEACHER: Tommy do you see the tree outside?
> >TOMMY: Yes.
> >TEACHER: Tommy, do you see the grass outside?
> >TOMMY: Yes.
> >TEACHER: Go outside and look up and see if you can see the sky.
> >TOMMY: Okay. (He returned a few minutes later) Yes, I saw the sky.
> >TEACHER: Did you see God?
> >TOMMY: No.
> >TEACHER: That's my point. We can't see God because he isn't there. He doesn't exist.
A little girl spoke up and wanted to ask the boy some
questions. The teacher agreed and the little girl asked the boy:
> >LITTLE GIRL: Tommy, do you see the tree outside?
> >TOMMY: Yes.
> >LITTLE GIRL: Tommy do you see the grass outside?
> >TOMMY: Yessssss (getting tired of the same questions by this time).
> >LITTLE GIRL: Did you see the sky?
> >TOMMY: Yessssss
> >LITTLE GIRL: Tommy, do you see the teacher?
> >TOMMY: Yes
> >LITTLE GIRL: Do you see her brain?
> >TOMMY: No
> >LITTLE GIRL: Then according to what we were taught today in school,
she must not have one!
"FOR WE WALK BY FAITH, NOT BY SIGHT" (2 Corinthians 5:7)
I thought of what ModesofThought was explaining to be the difference between "from above" verses "from below" so I thought I'd add it here. As I am typing this I can hear comments saying "Oh gee! She is bringing this thread down." Maybe it's just Satan's voice.
I just thought it helped me to see the difference and it may help someone else too. The truth is we need both "From Above" and "From Below" in our walk with the Lord.
Thanks,
~Brandi~
Edited by - brandi on 08/12/2002 5:20:03 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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BBBCanada
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| Posted 8/12/2002 2:29 PM (GMT -6) | | This is a quick response to some things. Couple of quotes first.
quote:
I respect the emphasis on love in this discussion. Although I support this effort, I must admit that I am skeptical about whether or not it will make a difference. It’s not as if the central importance of love has not occurred to men and women of God throughout the 2000-year history of the church. It has done some good, but not enough good to prevent people within the church from crusading against infidels, owning and using people like property, joining the Nazi party, or molesting the children of parishioners. The fact that these things go on in the midst of an institution that emphasizes the central importance of love only exacerbates their scandal. I guess you could say I’m disillusioned.
As Greg would say, “Bingo.” This is why I have a hard time with especially the second part of Meph’s statement like,
“quote:
Mephi: I think we understand that laws when taken as ends in themselves can ONLY at best give us some type of moral "lowest-common-denominator" for a workable society, but when we understand these things as, like you say, B, pointing the way to a loving community, then we may be able to BREAK the laws, when "love" may demand it, right?
Doc: Bingo.
Listen, is there not a struggle or a war of the Spirit against the flesh? Even the most sanctified “Spirit-filled" Christian do good deeds with tainted ungodly motives. Part of the reason for this is because we live on this side of heaven. We see through a class darkly. We know only in part. Therefore we should not be overly confident concerning decisions we make concerning the ethical life. The loving response that Greg speaks about must be found within the parameters of Scripture. It doesn’t BREAK the laws admonitions, etc. This is why, I would say something like, “scripture and all that that encompasses.” For example, whereas my approach which is more command, principle type, which I just recently discovered… has a label  known as “heteronomy.” Though it may speak of command, many heteronomists don’t abide by a rigid “letter of the law” command approach. Other genres also come into play. You would also have your “principlists” which tries to discern universal axioms revealed in scripture. Kind of a “Let’s look for the eternal word of God” in this law, admonition or whatever genre of literature may be expedient in one’s quest at the time. For i.e. the command against adultery speaks of more than just committing the sex act outside of marriage. When combining all the relevant scriptural data, with this command i.e. Ex. 20:14 and Matt 5:27-28 and Eph 5:25, one can come up with the parameters by which we are to live. It speaks to the kind of people we are and should be. Of course one will need common sense advice or “reason,” Spirit transformation, if you will, to work out application, etc, but overall, we have a parameter.
Of course the weakness of the heteronomous approach whether as command or principlist approach is that revelation is “out there” in some objectified form waiting to be discovered and appropriated. All one needs is a proper hermeneutical/ethical method to appropriate it to our lives. But there are several problems with which are endemic to this view such as a overblown understanding of revelation and what the true intentions of God’s self-disclosure are to us.
Greg would come from a more autonomous approach in which the Spirit is moved center stage. Endemic of this view is the elevation of the individual moral agent and the rejection of all claims to moral authority external to the self. While Greg and Co. do not argue for lawlessness, Greg would argue that the individual moral agent is able to attain direct access to moral truth apart from any sort of imposition of some external law, principle or what have you.
This is where Kant comes in. For Kant, ethics is rooted in the goodwill of the moral agent in that he can appeal to no external criteria in determining the rightness or wrongness of moral actions (hence my problem with “the knowledge of good and evil” thingy. And here is what I am talking about when I say that there is a Kantian influence. For Kant, it is the light of reason within that would lead the will to determine the universal law, that is, according to Kant, “the will of every rational being as a will which makes universal law.” That is, as Kant explicitly stated, “By this principle all maxims are repudiated which cannot accord with the will’s own enactment of universal law.” For Kant, we are not merely subject to the law, but we are in such a way that we make law. That is, that although we make law, we are subject to it as well as it’s author.
Mind you, there is a major difference between Kant and his autonomous ethic and that which Greg proposes, but there is no doubt that many Christians draw from this ethic, the biblical theme of the indwelling Spirit. Again, there are some problems that are endemic to the autonomous, (i.e. as noted above, it fails to take seriously the evil impulse that remains in the regenerate individual) just as there are for the heteronomous approach.
Having said that, that is, pointing out each approaches own weaknesses, both approaches suffer from a weakness that is common between them. And that is, that both approaches assume an ethic that is primarily an individual task embarked upon by individuals. We can see this more readily with the autonomous approach but it is not quite as apparent in the heteronomous view. However it is there because heteronomist simply assume that the Bible was written for individuals as opposed to communities.
Lastly, I want to say that I think Modes did a fantastic job of giving a diagnosis of where the problem may lie, but I found his post to come up short of a solution or a prescription if you will. I may be able to hit on this tmw. Good stuff guys.
Brandon
"Sharing a prison cell unites you much more powerfully than sharing a conference table."--Ecumenical Jihad: Ecumenism and the Culture War | | Back to Top | | |
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GregBoyd
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| Posted 8/13/2002 3:33 AM (GMT -6) | | To Electra: Thanks for highlighting the Bon. material on the church's need to confess sin. We represent both fallen and redeemed to humanity. We love to celebrate the latter, but when we do so without the former, we become hypocritical, self-deluded, judgers.
To Modes: Thanks for the clearly thought out, researched, articulate post. You made up for lost time! I will try to respond more in detail latter, as I have to leave in a moment. But for right now I will simply say:
a) given the agreement that we should do both theology from above and from below, which (so far as I can see) all models agree on, it seems the point of disagreement is "the teleological suspension of the ethical." Does God move us in ways that are radically in discontinuity with his work throughout creation -- but IN accordance with "the glory variable".? And if so, how do we know it?
b) I liked your stuff on "language games". I think part of the disagreements here can be gotten at not just by distinguishing between theology "from above" and "theology from below," but by distinguishing the three domains of theological investigation. There is i) the neurological; ii) the social (language games); iii) the ontological. We have consistently mixed all three.
I have been mainly concerned with "i". How do we "do" (internally, mentally, neurologically) "following hte divine impulse". And one central concern is to locate how a healthy godly person "does" the teleological suspension of the ethical as opposed to how a sick deranged person "does" this.
This is a different question than ii) how we live in community and talk about doing the will of God within the Christian language game and iii) how we investigage ontological questions about God's will, what it is, how it is revealed, how this relates to general intuitions etc... All three domains are legitimate and necessary. But failure to pinpoint which domain we are talking about confuses things.
3) I wasn't being "rhetorical" when I wondered if model 1 was more condusive to openness. If God alters his will through feedback, it seems reasonable to suppose that we must be open to God altering his will through us by feedback.
Got to run.
Greg
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