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Examples of Selected Proposals
Henry Luce III Fellows in Theology
Nicholas P. Wolterstorff, 1998-99
Yale Divinity School
Constructive Theology: A Different God

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I am hereby applying for a Henry Luce m Fellowship in Theology, under the category "Constructive Theology," in order to write a book tentatively titled A Different God. In the book I propose to show the structure of what might be called The Classical Concept of God," to offer theological and philosophical reasons in support of my conviction that, at crucial points, that classical concept is unsatisfactory, and to develop, in a fair amount of detail, an alternative concept.

By the time Aquinas wrote his late work, Summa Theologiae, the classical (Western) concept of God had been fully formed. It was fully formed in two respects. All the elements of that classical concept were in place: aseity, simplicity, eternity, immutability, impassibility, omniscience, omnipotence, and so forth. And the interconnections among these various attributes of God were lucidly displayed. First Aquinas argued for aseiq, from that, for simplicity, from that, for immutability, from that, for eternity, from that, for impassibility, etc. (Other conclusions come between some of these.) One finds a similar line of argumentation somewhat earlier in John of Damascus.

The classical concept of God emerged out of the attempt to fit together two inheritances: the biblical inheritance and the philosophical inheritance. In all fairness it should immediately be added that no medieval theologian/philosopher would have been content with my way of describing what they were doing. Two inheritances, Yes; but they were not, so they would have insisted, trying to fit together these two inheritances. The inheritances were in fact unified on fundamental points; they didn't have to be Fitted together." The philosophers argued that God is simple; the biblical writer wrote, "I, the Lord they God, am one God." Same point. Such difficulties as emerge are difficulties inherent in the project of trying to understand God.

To us, in retrospect, the situation looks different -- looks the way I put it above. The mentality of the theologian/philosophers was shaped at crucial points by the philosophical tradition. They then read and interpreted the scriptures with that mentality. But often, where they interpreted the scriptures as saying the same thing as the philosophers, or simply adding to what the philosophers said, they should in fact have discerned discrepancy; the shema is not God telling us that God is simple! So it was a case of trying to fit together two inheritances, by way of interpreting the texts of those inheritances so that they were compatible, and by way of developing the theological and philosophical implications of those inheritances so that they meshed. The difficulties that emerged were not simply difficulties inherent in trying to understand God. They were difficulties that emerged from this project of tiffing together these two inheritances.

I judge the relevant part of the philosophical inheritance to have had two main components. One of these was the thesis, coming out of classical antiquity, that perfect personal existence requires uninterrupted happiness. That, when coupled with the conviction that God enjoys perfect personal existence, led most importantly to the conclusion that God cannot suffer. Almost everyone in antiquity, in the middle ages, and in the Reformation, accepted this conclusion. Possibly Origin did not; apparently Lactantius, late in his career, did not; and sometimes Calvin appears not to have accepted it. But these are very much the exceptions.

The second main component of the philosophical inheritance was the thesis that God is the unconditioned condition of everything not identical with God. Of all the great ancient philosophers, it was Plotinus who developed this thesis and its implications most articulately. To the best of my knowledge everyone in antiquity, in the middle ages, and on through the Reformation, found his line of argumentation compelling. God, they all agreed, is the unconditioned condition. From this followed simplicity; for if God had components of any sort whatsoever, then God would be conditioned by something not identical with God, namely, those components. From this in turn followed immutability; for if God were to change, some entity would have to be such that before the change it was a component of God whereas, after the change, it was not. But simplicity has already ruled that out. Further, if God cannot change, and if God has no components, then one cannot distinguish within God any 'parts' which stand in the relation to each other of temporal succession; so God must be eternal. And so forth!

It was, as even this brief exposition should make clear, a powerful concept: powerfully ground, powerfully argued. One cannot merely pick and choose among the divine attributes composing the classical concept, taking those one likes, discarding the rest. It's more like a piece of knitting: cut the thread at one point, and the whole thing unravels.

I see no evidence that the medievals found any part of what one might call the 'ontological' component of their concept problematic. For them, the problems arose later in their line of argumentation, and were centered on three points. First, they found it by no means easy to explicate God's love and God's knowledge in such a way that it was compatible with simplicity. Their scriptural inheritance convinced them that God loves and knows singulars. Most of them, however, also found it plausible to suppose that what differentiates one act of love and knowledge from another is a difference in either the subject or the object of the act. So if God knows and loves you, and also knows and loves me, it appears that those are two, distinct, acts of knowledge and of love. But the doctrine of simplicity tells us that there can be no multiplicity in God. Secondly, the Christian theologians obviously found it challenging (to say the least) to develop a doctrine of the Trinity which was compatible with simplicity. And thirdly, everybody found it difficult to explain how our language about God works. Ordinarily, in true predications, we pick out some component of the entity and attribute that to the object. In predicating "is browns of this desk, for example, I pick out, with the predicate "is brown," a qualia of the desk and attribute it to the desk. But God has no components that we could pick out. The medieval philosopher/theologians adopt various strategies for coping with this difficulty, among them, their doctrine of analogy.

Over the course of the past thirty years I have taught seminars and published articles on various aspects of this classical concept -- in particular, on the doctrine of simplicity, on the doctrine of eternity, and on the doctrine of impassibility. These seminars and articles have always combined analysis of the tradition with critique. Especially in the seminars I have emphasized to students that one does not disagree lightly with the classical concept. In our own century, the doctrine of impassibility has come in for a good deal of critique. It is my judgment that a great deal of that critique consists of "cheap shots." Augustine and Aquinas would have no difficulty whatsoever answering the objections; they would, in fact, find them rather insulting. To my students I have insisted that they must earn the right to disagree. Nonetheless, I do think we must disagree. My disagreements are a blend of philosophically grounded disagreement and theologically grounded disagreement. By ethnologically grounded disagreement, I mean, principally, that the classical concept is not, in my judgment, faithful to the Christian scriptures. It is my judgment, for example, that fidelity to those scriptures requires that we understand God as suffering, in a certain way, and that we understand God as acting within time, in a certain way.

To say this requires, of course, that we above all face up to those two elements of the philosophical inheritance which had so powerful a grip on theologians for so long. If God suffers, and if God acts within time, then God cannot be the unconditioned condition, as that was traditionally understood, nor can God enjoy perfect personal existence, as that was traditionally understood, namely, as including uninterrupted bliss.

What I wish to do next year is write a book in which I pull together and expand these thoughts which I have been developing, in more or less piece meal fashion, for some thirty years. I propose first to articulate the classical concept of God: to show its components, its basis, its interior structure, and its power. I propose next to show why I think that that concept is, on various crucial points, unacceptable, offering a blend of theological and philosophical reasons for that judgment. And thirdly, I wish to articulate an alternative understanding of God -- an understanding of God according to which, for example, God is genuinely grieved and dismayed over what transpires in human history, according to which God responds to humanity, and thus changes, and according to which God genuinely speaks to us on our way (cf. my Divine Discourse). Obviously this reconstruction cannot be fully developed in this bunk; the book would be vastly too long. I do, though, intend to offer considerably more than a sketch, by concentrating on what I see to be the core issues; namely, on how to understand God's fundamental relation to the world if God is not unconditioned condition, and on how to understand the place of suffering in God's life. No doubt I will also have to give a bit of attention to the objection, coming especially from Kant, that of what lies beyond the boundary of space and time we can have no knowledge.

I should add that there has been a lively discussion on these matters in the philosophical and theological literature over the past couple of decades: articles and books on simplicity, on eternity, on impassibility, on God's knowledge, etc. By no means do I wish to give the impression of being a Lonely prophet. Naturally I win be taking account of the best of this discussion. However, what has not yet emerged from this ferment of discussion and critique of elements of the classical concept is a book in which, in the context of a firm grasp of the structure and power of the classical concept, a coherent picture of An alternative God" is assembled which is philosophically defensible and theologically faithful to the Christian scriptures. (The closest to this is the recent, more popular, book by Hasker et al., The Openness of God, published by Inter-Varsiq Press).

A question which some will raise is whether the process philosophers haven't already done all this. The answer is, No. For one thing, they have not carefully worked through the classical concept, so as to discover the points at which one can effectively lodge disagreement. Hartshorne says, for example, that if God loves, then God must have coin-passion with suffering humanity. Augustine's response would be that God's love takes the form of benevolence, not coin-passion. To this response, Hartshorne has no effective response in turn. Secondly, the argumentation of the process philosophers is entirely philosophical; being responsible to the Christian scriptures is not one of their concerns.

Though I intend to take full account of the contemporary philosophical discussion of these issues, and indeed, of the inherent philosophical dimension of the issues, my aim is not to address just the philosophical guild. Naturally I hope that philosophers will find what I have to say interesting, challenging, and so forth; but my aim is to write in such a way that the book will have a wider readership, including, in particular, theologians.

From the seminars I have taught I have accumulated a great deal of material on topics to be covered in the book -- especially on simplicity, eternity, and impassibility. Nonetheless, I doubt that I win be able to finish the book in one year. There are too many intricacies to be faced, too many additional topics have to be thought through (especially that of the nature of God's knowledge), and too many additional literature has to be read Further, the stakes are high. These are not merely issues for theologians and philosophers; they touch people's faith. So I want to do my best to get it right -- or if that sounds presumptuous, to do it responsibly. Accordingly, though I anticipate getting most of it written, and though I'll work hard to get all of it written, I fear that the latter won't happen.

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I propose first to articulate the classical concept of God: to show its components, its basis, its interior structure, and its power. I propose next to show why I think that that concept is, on various crucial points, unacceptable, offering a blend of theological and philosophical reasons for that judgment. And thirdly, I wish to articulate an alternative understanding of God -- an understanding of God according to which, for example, God is genuinely grieved and dismayed over what transpires in human history, according to which God responds to humanity, and thus changes, and according to which God genuinely speaks to us on our way (cf. my Divine Discourse). Obviously this reconstruction cannot be fully developed in this bunk; the book would be vastly too long. I do, though, intend to offer considerably more than a sketch, by concentrating on what I see to be the core issues; namely, on how to understand God's fundamental relation to the world if God is not unconditioned condition, and on how to understand the place of suffering in God's life. No doubt I will also have to give a bit of attention to the objection, coming especially from Kant, that of what lies beyond the boundary of space and time we can have no knowledge.

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A question which some will raise is whether the process philosophers haven't already done all this. The answer is, No. For one thing, they have not carefully worked through the classical concept, so as to discover the points at which one can effectively lodge disagreement. Hartshorne says, for example, that if God loves, then God must have coin-passion with suffering humanity. Augustine's response would be that God's love takes the form of benevolence, not coin-passion. To this response, Hartshorne has no effective response in turn. Secondly, the argumentation of the process philosophers is entirely philosophical; being responsible to the Christian scriptures is not one of their concerns.

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and the first thing I thought was "I wonder has he read Doc's Trinity And Process? If not, perhaps someone could suggest it to him. Simply cause Doc deals with Hartshorne AND with biblical Christian articles. Just a thought.

Say, Doc, how many people have READ that book of yours anyways?

@EYEBROW:Reformed Perspective
@SUBA:Article 1 of 4

@AUTHOR:by Nicholas Wolterstorff
Dr. Nicholas Wolterstorff is Noah Porter Professor of Philosophical Theology at Yale University, New Haven, Conn.


@TITLE:The God Who Speaks

@BODYTEXT:In his autobiography, which he called Confessions, the great church father Augustine describes the exact means and moment of his conversion from paganism to Christianity. In extreme spiritual distress he walks out of the villa in which he has been talking with some friends and into the garden. There he hears a child on the other side of the garden wall mysteriously chanting, ìTake and read, take and read.î

Augustine first wonders whether these are perhaps the words from some childís game, but quickly he concludes that they donít belong to any game he knows about. Then the conviction wells up within him that ìthis could only be a divine command to open my book of Scripture and read the first passage on which my eyes should fall.î

So Augustine goes back to where he has lain his copy of Paulís letters, opens it at random, and reads, ìNot in reveling and drunkenness, not in lust and wantonness, not in quarrels and rivalries. Rather, arm yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ; spend no more thought on nature and natureís appetites.î Immediately, he writes, it was ìas though the light of confidence flooded into my heart and all the darkness of doubt was dispelled.î He became a Christian.
Twice in that brief moment Augustine heard God speaking to him: first by way of the childís sing-song, then by way of being presented with a passage from Paulís letters.


From that time forward, Augustine became a devoted student of Scripture. And what he read there, many times over, were reports of Godís speaking to some human being. Let me, at random, pick just two examples: In Isaiah 7:10 we read, ìAgain the Lord spoke to Ahaz. . . .î And in Isaiah 8:1 we read, ìThen the Lord said to me [Isaiah]. . . .î

In short, the God of the Bible is very much a speaking God. Thereís much more that we learn about God from Scripture, but this is prominent: the God of Scripture is a God who speaks. If oneís God is a God who does not speak, or worse yet, a God who cannot speak, then oneís God is not the God of Scripture.


@SUBA:God Speaks

@BODYTEXT(-INDENT):When we put Scripture together with Augustineís story of his conversion, what we get is this: God spoke to men and women of antiquity as reported in Scripture; God spoke to Augustine by way of a childís sing-song; and third, God spoke to Augustine by way of Scripture itself. To this must of course be added that God spoke, above all, in and through Jesus Christ. The God of Scripture and the God of Christian experience is a God who speaks in diverse ways and on many occasions to human beings.

@BODYTEXT:In this article and three succeeding ones, I want to reflect on this claim that God is one who speaks--a claim which, so I would guess, has remained more alive in the Reformed tradition than in any of the other great traditions of Christianity.

It seems a matter of course to the Reformed person to speak of the Bible as ìthe Word of God.î In this present article I want to get us going by offering some preliminary considerations. In a second article, I will make some suggestions for understanding how it can be that God speaks. And then in a third, I will reflect on how to go about interpreting Scripture if one believes that God speaks by way of Scripture. [FOURTH?]

Some theologians will find controversial what I am going to say; nonetheless, I think itís true. That God speaksóreally speaks--has not been a prominent theme in the history of Christian theology, including Reformed theology, and this despite the fact that Scripture prominently presents God as speaking. The theme may appear to be prominent in theology, but I donít think it really is.

In the first place, thereís a long tradition in theology that argues that talk about God speaking has to be regarded as metaphorical. How could God literally speak? itís asked. Speaking requires vocal chords. Or if we include writing under speaking, speaking requires either vocal chords or a body with which one can manipulate some writing instrument. But God has no body, so how could God literally speak? It has to be a metaphor.

In my next article I will challenge the assumption that speaking requires having a body. Iím going to argue that, literally speaking, God speaksónot metaphorically but literally. So let me drop the point for now, to take it up in the next article.

My main reason for holding that in the history of Christian theology there is much less recognition than there might appear to be of God as one who speaks is that Godís speaking has been assimilated on the one side to inspiration and on the other side to revelation. In fact, so I contend, it is neither.
There has been a great deal of discussion of divine inspiration, especially inspiration of Scripture; likewise there has been a great deal of discussion of divine revelation. But neither inspiration nor revelation is the same as speaking. Let me try to show this.


@SUBA:Not Inspiration

@BODYTEXT(-INDENT):First, inspiration. Every now and then it happens in human affairs that one person says or writes something under the inspiration of another; in fact it happens rather often in the relationship of teachers and students. A professor, Matthew, let us call him, has profoundly influenced the thought of his student, Michael, on a certain topic, and now Michael, under that influence, gives a speech or writes an article on the topic. Hereís the question: Who, in that situation, is the speaker or the writer? Who is the one that makes whatever claims are made in the speech or the article?

@BODYTEXT:To me it seems obvious that itís Michael who makes the claims, not Matthew. Michael is the one who, in that sense, speaks. Granted, his professor might well be willing to make most of the same claims. Granted, his professor profoundly shaped his thought on the matteróìinspiredî him, we sometimes say. Nonetheless, Michael is the speaker.

So far as I can see, the same has to be said about the relation of God to, say, the biblical writers. Let us not question that God inspired them on certain occasions and topics to say and write what they did say and write. But if thatís all that happened, we donít yet have God speaking. What we have instead is God inspiring the biblical writers to speak and write as they did speak and write. What we have is God inspiring and them speaking. What we have is human speech inspired by God, not divine speech.

I should highlight an assumption I am making. I am assuming that often we can illuminate the relationship between God and human beings by reflecting on analogues in human affairs: by looking at the relation between inspiration and speech in human affairs, we can illuminate the relation between inspiration and speech in the case of God. The fact that we can indeed reflect along these linesówith all due cautionóseems to me an implication of the fact that we are made in the image of God.


@SUBA:Not Revelation

@BODYTEXT(-INDENT):That was my reason for holding that divine speech is not to be identified with divine inspiration. Now for my reason for holding that divine speech is also not to be identified with divine revelation.

@BODYTEXT:Let it be said that when we speak or write, we invariably reveal all sorts of things about ourselves. By writing this article, I reveal to you, my readers, that I know English grammar, that I care very much about properly understanding God, and so forth. But the point is that most of what I reveal I donít say. Until the sentence before last, I didnít say that I knew English grammar; I just revealed it. And I didnít say that I care very much about properly understanding God; I just revealed it.

OK, some will say, itís true that we reveal all sorts of things that we donít say. But isnít it nonetheless the case that among all the things we reveal are the things we say? Isnít saying something the same as revealing it?

Now and then, yes, but not in general. Suppose I ask you to close the door. Did I then reveal what I said? That makes no sense. What I asked is that you close the door. But I didnít reveal that you close the door.

Did I maybe reveal that I want you to close the door? Perhaps soóif I actually want you to close the door. Itís possible to ask you to close the door without really wanting you to do so; maybe Iím just putting you through an obedience test and wanting you to fail. But in any case, asking that you close the door is different from asserting that I want you to close the door. The latter is an assertion about my desires; the former is no assertion at all. Asking is not asserting, requesting is not declaring.

The point is especially important when it comes to God. If we interpret all claims about God speaking as claims to the effect that God reveals something about himself, we lose the note of God commanding us, enjoining us, asking us, replacing those with Godís telling us various things about himself. God does tell us about himself. But just as prominent in Scripture, if not more so, is Godís commanding, enjoining, asking, and so forth. Godís commanding us to do something is not the same as Godís telling us something about himself.

Of course, God can reveal that he has commanded something of us, but then the commanding has to have happened already, and independently, or it could not be revealed.


@SUBA:Speech Is Speech

@BODYTEXT(-INDENT):For these reasons I conclude that divine speech is no more to be identified with divine revelation than with divine inspiration. The two, speech and revelation, are intimately connected, as are speech and inspiration; let me be clear on that. But they are not to be identified.

@BODYTEXT:I said that the theme of God speaking has been much less prominent in Christian theology than it is in Scripture and in reports of Christian experienceóadding that a good many theologians will find that claim controversial. But I trust I have succeeded in explaining why I hold that view.
Theologians have said a lot about divine revelation and divine inspiration, assuming that in speaking of revelation and inspiration they were in fact speaking of divine speech. But when we think carefully about the matter, we can see that that assumption is not true.

God is one who speaks. God is also one who inspires and reveals, but those are different from being one who speaks. In the next article in this series of four, I want to discuss directly on the God who speaks. What we will especially want to try to understand is how it can be that God speaks, literally so, even though God has no body.

@EXCERPT:That God speaks--really speaks--has not been a prominent theme in the history of Christian theology


Divine speech is no more to be identified with divine revelation than with divine inspiration.

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@ID:Dr. Nicholas Wolterstorff is Noah Porter Professor of Philosophical Theology at Yale University, New Haven, Conn. [Church membership?]
@EYEBROW:Reformed Perspective
@SUBA:Article 2 of 4

@AUTHOR:by Nicholas Wolterstorff

@TITLE:How Can God Speak?

T/C LINE:If God has no body, how can we say that God literally speaks? And how can fallible biblical writers speak the infallible Word of God? A renowned Reformed thinker finds answers in ordinary human affairs. Part two of a four-part series.

@BODYTEXT(-INDENT):Deep in Christianity, as in Judaism, is the claim that God speaks. The Bible reports multiple examples of God speaking and says of Jesus Christ that he is the Word of God. The Bible itself is regularly said to be the Word of God. And many Christians have had the experience of God speaking to them personally.

@BODYTEXT:In my previous article I argued that, in spite of this prominence in Christian Scripture, liturgy, and experience of the theme of God speaking, Christian theologians across the centuries have not paid a great deal of attention to it. The reason, I suggested, is that theologians have assumed that in speaking about divine revelation and divine inspiration they were speaking about divine speech. But not so, I argued; speaking is different from revealing something and is likewise different from inspiring someone.

In this article I want to offer some suggestions as to how to understand the claim that God speaks. As I mentioned in my first article, Iíll assume that we can gain some degree of understanding by looking at analogues in human affairs.
Thereís a long tradition within both Jewish and Christian theology that says that talk about God speaking has to be understood metaphorically. It is said that since God has no body, God cannot literally speak. Speaking requires vocal chords with which one can make sounds--or, if we include writing under speaking, it requires that one be able to move parts of oneís body in such a way as to make marks of some kind on surfaces. I donít think this objection is correct. What I will try to show is that even though God has no body, God can nonetheless literally speak.


@SUBA:Locutionary vs. Illocutionary Acts

@BODYTEXT(-INDENT):Thereís been a development in philosophy over the past 50 years or so that I think helps enormously in understanding how God can speak. The development I have in mind is called ìspeech act theory.î It was begun by a philosopher at Oxford, J.L. Austin, and the philosopher who has perhaps more than anyone else developed it is John Searle, who teaches at the University of California at Berkeley.

@BODYTEXT:Those who developed speech act theory most certainly did not have their mind on Godís speech; but there is, in particular, one distinction they made that proves enormously helpful to those of us who are interested in the theology of the speaking God.

Letís work with a humble example. Suppose I ask you to close the door by saying, ìWould you close the door, please?î Speech act theorists would argue that I have then done two distinct things. Though this sounds, on first hearing, like philosophers inventing a distinction where thereís none to be found, I think they are right. One thing I have done is to utter the English sentence ìWould you close the door, please.î And the other thing I have done is ask you to close the door.

Why would anyone hold that those are two distinct things? Well, because itís possible for me to do one of them without doing the other: I can utter that sentence without asking you to close the door, and I can ask you to close the door without uttering that sentence. Thatís enough to establish that they really are two distinct actions on my part. If uttering those words and making that request were identical, then of course it would be impossible to perform the one without performing the other. There wouldnít be any other.

So consider: I can utter that sentence in the course of giving an English lesson to some foreigner who wants to learn the language, as an example of one way of expressing a request in English. I wouldnít then be making the request to close the door; I would just be uttering the sentence as an example. On the other hand, I could ask you to close the door by using, say, a Dutch sentence.
Of course the two actions, though distinct, are nonetheless closely connected. I made the request by uttering the sentence; my uttering the sentence counts as my making the request.

It will be helpful to have names for these two different sorts of actions. The names J.L. Austin gave are as good as any. He called the action of uttering a sentence a locutionary action. You can see why he called it that; itís the action of producing a locution. The action of making a request he called an illocutionary action; itís an action one performs by way of performing a locutionary action. Other examples of illocutionary actions would be making assertions, asking questions, and issuing commands.

Thereís a lot more to speech act theory than that, but for our purposes we need only the simple distinction between locutionary acts and illocutionary acts.


@SUBA:Ambassadors and Prophets

@BODYTEXT(-INDENT):I think the reader can already see that the old argument that God cannot literally speak because God has no body loses its persuasiveness when we think along the lines of speech act theory. When we say that God speaks, surely what we really want to say is that God asserts things, commands things, promises things--in short, that God performs illocutionary acts. And such acts are different from uttering sentences with oneís voice and writing them down with oneís appendages. The latter are locutionary acts.

@BODYTEXT:From this point on, let me narrow the focus a bit so that we donít get lost in all the varieties of divine speech. The Bible reports God as speaking to Israel by way of events in Israelís communal life: national calamities, national victories, marvelous deliverances, and so forth. Let me focus on God speaking by way of some human being speaking--God speaking by way of Paul speaking, God speaking by way of Amos speaking, and so forth.
Notice that what we have in such cases is two agents: Paul or Amos, on the one hand, and God on the other. When I ask you to open the door by uttering the English sentence, ìWould you open the door, please?î thereís just one agent--me. When God speaks by way of some human being, we have double agency.

Do we have examples in ordinary human affairs of double-agency discourse, or is it unique to Godís speech? Yes, we do have examples--a lot more of them than one might at first think.

Sometimes one person authorizes or deputizes another to speak on his or her behalf, in his or her name. This used to happen commonly in the relation of an ambassador to his or her head of state: the head of state would authorize the ambassador to say certain things in the name of the head of state to the leader of some other government. The ambassador did the talking, but it was the head of state who performed the illocutionary act of issuing the warning or the promise.

As I say, thatís how it use to be; nowadays, with telephones, e-mail, and faxes, the practice has almost entirely disappeared. Heads of state can now speak directly to each other without going through the intermediary of an ambassador.

I submit that the former practice is how the Bible understands the role of the prophet, namely, as one who is deputized to speak on behalf of God--in other words, as one who is commissioned to speak in the name of God. By way of the prophet speaking, God speaks. Let me quote from Deuteronomy 18, where Moses assures Israel that when he is gone, God will raise up new prophets from among them:

@BLOCK:And the Lord replied to me: ìThey are right in what they have said. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command. Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will hold accountable. But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speakóthat prophet shall die. (NRSV)


@BODYTEXT:The prophet speaks ìin the name ofî God just as an ambassador speaks in the name of the head of state, just as an attorney speaks in the name of a client, or just as a proxy speaks in the name of the person for whom he or she is the proxy. As I mentioned, there are many more examples of deputized speech in human affairs than one first thinks.


@SUBA:Beyond Prophetic Speech

@BODYTEXT(-INDENT):Thereís more to the Bible than a record of prophetic speech, however. Maybe itís OK to stretch the notion of prophet a bit so that it covers the New Testament apostle; then the Gospels and the New Testaments letters become prophetic speech.

@BODYTEXT:But itís implausible to think of the Psalms, addressed as they are to God, as prophetic speech--or, indeed, the Wisdom literature as a whole. This implies that if the Bible as a whole is Godís Word to us, we need an additional way of understanding how God can speak by way of a human being speaking. Is there an additional way? Do we have, in ordinary human affairs, a second example of double-agency discourse?

Yes, I think we do. Consider the case in which one person seconds the parliamentary motion made by another person. In that case, the person who seconds the motion appropriates for himself or herself what the first person said. The person who seconds the motion typically doesnít deputize, commission, or authorize the person who makes the motion to speak on his or her behalf; the person who makes the motion just says what he or she thinks. But the person who seconds the motion appropriates for his or her own speech what the first person said. Something similar happens when we quote somebody else approvingly: ìAs John Calvin so correctly remarked. . . .î In such a case, I say what Calvin said, and I do so by way of appropriating for myself what Calvin said.

Here then is a way to understand how even the parts of the Bible that are not plausibly viewed as prophetic speech are nonetheless part of the totality of Godís speech to us by way of the Bible: God appropriates for Godís own speech what the psalmist has said.

Let me close by calling attention to an important feature of both deputized speech and appropriated speech. The head of state may not agree with absolutely everything that the ambassador says when the ambassador delivers a warning or promise from the head of state, and the person who approvingly quotes something may not agree with absolutely everything in the passage quoted.

Of course the head of state will agree with the main point of what the ambassador says, and the person who quotes approvingly a passage from another writer will agree with the main point of the passage. But that leaves room for disagreement over some of the details.

Does this perhaps offer a way forward in understanding how the biblical writers can reflect their own, often fallible, understanding of various things, while nonetheless speaking the infallible Word of God?

@EXCERPT:Even though God has no body, God can nonetheless literally speak.


The prophet speaks ìin the name ofî God just as an ambassador speaks in the name of the head of state.

@SUBA:Article 3 of 4
@EYEBROW:Reformed Perspective

@AUTHOR:by Nicholas Wolterstorff

@TITLE:Interpreting Godís Speech

@BODYTEXT:Suppose you believe that Scripture in its totality is Godís book. How would you go about interpreting some passage of Scripture so as to find out what God said thereby? Thatís our present topic in this third article of our four-part series on God speaking.

Before we set out, letís remind ourselves of what was said in our two preceding articles. My main point in the first article was that though Godís speaking has often been identified with Godís inspiring and with Godís revealing, in fact itís distinct from both of those.

In the second article I considered how God could speak. I observed that itís often been said by theologians and philosophers that God cannot literally speak, since God has no body with which to make sounds or produce marks on pages. I find the argument unpersuasive; I think that God literally speaks.
To see how that can be, I suggested that we follow a recent development in philosophy called ìspeech act theory.î When someone speaks, that theory distinguishes between the personís action of uttering words and her actions of asserting, asking, commanding, and so forth, which she performs by way of uttering words. I proposed that we follow the philosophers and call the former locutionary actions and the latter illocutionary actions.

When we consider whether God speaks, surely our interest lies in whether God performs illocutionary actions. Does God assert things to us, issue commands to us, make promises to us?

After making the distinction between locutionary and illocutionary acts, I drew attention to the fact that rather often in human affairs one person speaks (performs some illocutionary act) by way of some other person saying something. I called this double agency discourse and noted two types of this communication: sometimes one person deputizes another to speak on her behalf (deputized discourse), and sometimes one person appropriates what another says for her own speech, as when a person seconds a parliamentary motion or quotes approvingly what someone else said (appropriated discourse).

I went on to suggest that these fairly common human phenomena of deputized and appropriated discourse provide us with illuminating models for understanding how God can speak (perform illocutionary actions) by way of human beings saying or writing things.

Letís concentrate on Scripture. The prophetic and apostolic components of Scripture are to be thought of as deputized discourse; God deputized the prophets and apostles to speak in Godís name. The rest of what we have in Scripture can be thought of as appropriated discourse. God appropriated what some human being said as a way of saying what he, God, wanted to say.


@SUBA:Two Steps Toward Understanding

@BODYTEXT(-INDENT):That brings us to our present topic: suppose we understand the Bible as a blend of human speech deputized by God and human speech appropriated by God. How then do we interpret what God said by way of what those human beings said? How do we interpret divine discourse?

@BODYTEXT:Details have to be left aside on this occasion. The core of my suggestion is that such interpretation, in its overarching pattern, will have two distinct phases. It will be what I have sometimes called a double hermeneutic. (Some readers might not have come across the word hermeneutic before. Itís less frightening than it sounds; it just means principle or theory of interpretation.)

The first phase of interpreting what God has said is this: we interpret what Scriptureís human writers have said.

Why is that? Well, suppose I am an ambassador deputized to speak on behalf of my head of state. To find out what my head of state is saying by way of my speech, you must first understand my speech. Or suppose I say something by way of approvingly quoting somebody else. To find out what I said, you first have to interpret the passage I quoted.

So too for scriptural interpretation: to find out what God said by way of deputizing or appropriating some passage of Scripture, we must first interpret what the human author of that passage said. We must do that as carefully and responsibly as we can, employing whatever scholarly aids prove helpful.

Some readers will be inclined to say at this point, ìAnd doesnít that automatically give us what God said?î If I approvingly quote somebody else, doesnít your interpretation of the passage I quoted automatically tell you what I was saying by quoting it? And if I speak on behalf of my head of state, doesnít your interpretation of what I said automatically give you what my head of state said by way of my speaking?

So isnít a single hermaneutic sufficient? Take, for example, the biblical Song of Songs. Doesnít God just say what the author said? If I know what the author said, donít I know what God said by way of appropriating that book?

What is true, I think, is that we are to take God as saying what the human author said unless we have good reason, in a given case, for concluding otherwise; if we couldnít assume that, we would really be adrift. But there are good reasons, in specific cases, for concluding otherwise; hence the need for a double hermeneutic in which we first interpret what the human author or editor said, and then the distinct thing God said thereby.


@SUBA:Three Reasons for Two Steps

@BODYTEXT(-INDENT):Let me give my reasons--some of them--for thinking that God doesnít always say, and doesnít always only say, what the human author or editor said.

@BODYTEXT:In the first place, when interpreting Scripture for what God said thereby, we have to treat the Bible as one single book, Godís book. That is, we must interpret it not as Godís collected works but as Godís one work. The whole in terms of which we interpret a part is not just the whole of that one of those 66 or so books within which that passage is found; rather, the whole consists of the totality of Scripture, the totality of the canon.

Why is that? Well, suppose somebody writes and asks me for my philosophy. (People do in fact sometimes do that!) One thing I could do, obviously, is send them a philosophical essay I have written. But another thing I could do is put together a number of things other people have written--a poem, perhaps, a short story, a biblical passage, or a fragment of philosophy--and send this totality to my inquirer with the instruction that to grasp my philosophy he or she must read all those items together and interpret each in the light of the others.

So too for the Bible. What we call ìthe booksî of the Bible were written by different authors and assembled by different editors. In the first hermeneutic we interpret them more or less separately. But God has appropriated this totality for his speech to us, by inspiring the church to select this totality as its canon, and that implies that when interpreting Scripture for Godís speech we must treat the totality as one book.

The church has long recognized that when we do this we will rather often conclude that what God says by way of some passage is different from, or goes beyond, what the human writer says. For example, when we interpret what God says in the Song of Songs as part of the totality of the Christian canon, we discern that what God says by way of some passages diverges from, or goes beyond, what the ancient writer said. When distinct writings are put together into a larger literary unit, new things happen!

Thatís one reason for holding that we need a double hermeneutic when interpreting Scripture for what God said. Hereís a second reason: When we interpret, say, a psalm for what the human writer said, we obviously interpret it as an address to God; thatís what the Psalms are. But when we interpret that psalm for what God says by way of appropriating it for inclusion in the canon, then we obviously must switch from asking what the human writer is saying in addressing God to asking what God is saying to us.

I have a third reason. The human writers of the biblical books reflect in various ways their own limited, fallible, and even sinful selves. Theologians in their discussions of biblical inspiration (remember our topic here is Godís speech, not Godís inspiration) have long recognized this by saying that inspiration is ìorganic.î

But when we interpret for what God says by way of some biblical passage, we obviously donít attribute to God the limited, fallible, and sinful things that we find in the human speech. Rather, as Augustine already observed, we allow our interpretation of Scripture for what God is saying to be guided by the principle that God never speaks unlovingly or falsely. It is, after all, divine infallibility that we confess, not human infallibility.

It may be helpful to have before us an example of what this comes to. Consider the opening verse of Psalm 93:


@BLOCK:The Lord is king, he is robed in majesty;
the Lord is robed, he is girded with strength.
He has established the world; it shall never be moved;
your throne is established from of old;
you are from everlasting.

@BODYTEXT:I think itís clear that the writer is here giving expression to that ancient cosmology which held that the earth is kept from moving about on the waters under the earth by pillars that hold it fast.

You and I now know that ancient cosmology was mistaken. Accordingly, when we interpret this passage for what God says, we donít conclude that God says what the ancient writer said--but neither, let me say emphatically, do we simply dismiss or ignore the passage. We ask what God was saying by way of what the writer said. Whatís needed is a double hermeneutic.

Iím well aware that some people think itís important to preserve that human being who was the psalmist from all error (while nonetheless speaking of ìorganicî inspiration!). To achieve this, they hold that the psalmist wasnít really expressing his belief in the ancient cosmology; he was just mining it for metaphors. If we adopt a double hermeneutic, and interpret for Godís speech by using the Augustinian principle that God does not speak unlovingly or falsely, then we donít have to resort to this implausible expedient.

But how is it possible for God to speak infallibly by way of human beings who speak fallibly? Recall our analogy. I may appropriate some other personís speech for my own without agreeing with absolutely everything that other person said; likewise an ambassador may speak on behalf of his head of state without the head of state agreeing with absolutely everything the ambassador says.

Itís for these reasons that we need a double hermeneutic when interpreting Scripture for what God said thereby.


@SUBA:Three Key Principles

@BODYTEXT(-INDENT):I have already mentioned two fundamental principles that we use in the second hermeneutic: we interpret God as saying what the human author said unless we have good reason in a given case to conclude otherwise; and in interpreting for what God said we operate with the principle that God speaks infallibly.

@BODYTEXT:Hereís a third fundamental principle: if we have good reason to think that God said something different from, or in addition to, what the human author said, we consider what it is that God is most likely to have wanted to say with these words. That, of course, presupposes knowledge of God; only he and she who have some knowledge of God can interpret for what God said.

Much could be said about these three principles; but I have run out of space. Just one last point: when we who are Christians interpret the biblical text for what God said by way of this text, we do so in the light of what we know of, and from, him who is no text but rather God himself dwelling among us and sharing our nature--namely, Jesus Christ. That is to say, we interpret Godís word to us by way of Scripture in the light of him who is himself Godís Word.
@EXCERPT:God doesnít always say, and doesnít always only say, what the Bibleís human authors said.


How is it possible for God to speak infallibly by way of human beings who speak fallibly?

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@SUBA:Article 4 of 4
@EYEBROW:Reformed Perspective

@AUTHOR:by Nicholas Wolterstorff

@TITLEA:Knowing God and Interpreting Godís Word

@BODYTEXT:In this fourth article of our series on God speaking, I want to say a bit more about a matter that I mentioned ever so briefly near the end of the last article.

Letís review where we are in our discussion. After explaining in my first article that my topic is neither inspiration nor revelation but God speaking, I suggested in my second article a way to understand how it can be that God says things by way of Scripture.

I observed that in human affairs it sometimes happens that one person claims, asks, promises, proposes, commands, and so forth, by way of a deputy of that person speaking on his or her behalf, such as an attorney for a client. And sometimes one person claims, asks, and so forth, by appropriating what someone else has said, such as in seconding a parliamentary motion or approvingly quoting the words of another.

In my third article I reflected on how we are to go about interpreting Scripture for what God said if we think of Scripture as either deputized or appropriated by God for Godís own speech. I said that such interpretation would require two stages. First we must interpret for what the human writer said, and second for what God said by way of what the human writer said.

There are lots of things to be said about how the transition is made from understanding what some human author of Scripture said to discerning what God said by way of what the human author said. In the course of saying a few things about that transition, I remarked that only those ìwho have some knowledge of God can interpret for what God said.î The transition, I said, ìpresupposes knowledge of God.î

Itís that comment that I want to develop a bit in this article.


@SUBA:Knowing Before Interpreting?

@BODYTEXT(-INDENT):My guess is that there will be some readers who, if they fully understand what I just said, will be somewhat alarmed by it. Hereís why: I suggested that we must already know something about God if we are to interpret Scripture for Godís Word.

@BODYTEXT:Obviously itís also true that in the course of interpreting for Godís Word, we learn new things about God; but my point is that if your head is completely empty of all convictions about God, you canít even get started on the project of interpreting for Godís speech.

Yet some people are of the view that Scripture is, or ought to be, our sole source of knowledge about God. They are of the view that we ought to approach Scripture with heads completely empty of any convictions about God, and that our views about God ought to be gotten exclusively from Scripture.

Let me explain why I donít think that view can be right. Once again, it will prove helpful to start with a few observations about ordinary human speech.
As we all know, many of our words have several distinct meanings; but even given a particular meaning of a word, we can use that word to speak not only strictly and literally but also loosely and figuratively. So when I hear you uttering a certain sentence, how do I figure out what meanings of the words you had in mind, and how do I figure out whether youíre using them strictly or loosely, literally or figuratively? In short, starting from the words you used, how do I figure out what you claimed, asked, commanded, and so forth?

As you would expect, there are disagreements among those who think and write about such matters. But I think that such interpretation always involves the knowledge we have about the speaker. In the light of what we know about the speaker, we figure out what he or she is likely to have wanted to say with those words in that situation.

For example, suppose two people both utter the sentence ìThe crows are after me,î when no crows are in sight. If you believe one of those persons to be sane, you will interpret her as speaking figuratively; perhaps she has just given a talk that stirred up a nest of controversy. By contrast, if you believe the other person to be psychotic, youíll most likely interpret her as speaking literally; claiming that actual crows are attacking her is one sign of her disturbance.

Itís the same way with Godís speech. To know when to interpret Godís speech by way of Scripture literally and when to interpret it figuratively, we must know something about God. Scripture, for example, sometimes presents God as having wings; itís because we know something of God that we donít interpret God as telling us by way of such passages that he has wings, literally speaking.

Those who are of the view that we should have empty heads about God when interpreting Scripture would probably reply that we interpret metaphorically the representation of God as having wings because God tells us that he is a Spirit--and a spirit doesnít have wings.

The respondent thus takes literally the statement that God is Spirit. But if all weíre going by is mere words, why not run the interpretation in the opposite direction: why not interpret literally the representation of God as having wings and metaphorically the statement that God is a Spirit? The mere words give us no guidance as to which way to go.

The point Iím making was made already by the great church father Augustine. In a section of his little book On Christian Doctrine, Augustine reflected on how to decide when to interpret a passage of Scripture literally and when to interpret it figuratively:


@BLOCK:ìWe must show the way to find out whether a phrase is literal or figurative. And the way is certainly as follows: Whatever there is in the word of God that cannot, when taken literally, be referred either to purity of life or soundness of doctrine, you may set down as figurative. Purity of life has reference to the love of God and oneís neighbor; soundness of doctrine to the knowledge of God and oneís neighborî (III,10,14).

@BODYTEXT:I agree with Augustine. I donít think thereís any way around the conclusion that, when interpreting Scripture for Godís Word, we interpret in the light of convictions we already have about God. In the course of our interpretation we then learn new things about God--and we find that some of the things we already believed donít work out in the process of interpretation.
With these new and corrected beliefs in mind, we then go on to interpret other, perhaps more difficult passages. Thereby we learn more things and again get some of the convictions we already had corrected. And so it goes. Itís more like a spiral than a straight line.


@SUBA:Acquiring Knowledge

@BODYTEXT(-INDENT):And now for the question thatís on the lips of all of us: from where do we get these beliefs about God in the light of which we interpret Scripture for Godís speech?

@BODYTEXT:Augustine's reference to doctrine is a clue. You and I have been taught things about God by the church, by our parents, by our teachers; itís in the light of the ìdoctrineî weíve learned from them that we interpret Scripture for Godís speech.

Every reader will respond with a Yes, but . . .. Yes itís true that we interpret Scripture for Godís speech in the light of what weíve been taught about God. But where in turn did that teaching come from? And in any case, that teaching might be mistaken.

So what Augustine says is no more than a beginning. Once again, how do we gain the knowledge of God thatís required for interpreting Scripture for Godís speech? And, when they are mistaken, how do we correct the convictions about God that we bring to our interpretation of Scripture? Let me make some suggestions.

Thereís a form of knowledge of God that one acquires by living faithfully with God in a life of piety and commitment; itís important that that sort of knowledge be brought to bear on interpreting Scripture for Godís Word.

Those who treat interpretation of Scripture as a mere exercise will toss up all sorts of ingenious interpretations, but the person who has the knowledge of God that comes from living faithfully with God will feel about many of those that ìThatís not the God I know.î

That implies, of course, that interpretation of Scripture for the Word of God must be conducted as part of a life of piety and commitment. Perhaps it implies even more. Perhaps it implies that such interpretation should be conducted only in overtly devotional contexts--contexts in which one prayerfully invokes the presence of the Spirit--not in purely academic contexts.

Second, thereís a knowledge of God thatís acquired by faithful theological and philosophical reflection. As Christian theologians and philosophers mull over the implications of each alternative way of interpreting some passage of Scripture, they bring the implications of an interpretation of one passage into play with the implications of interpretations of other passages. They also bring into the picture things that we know as human beings, including things that we have learned from science. In this way they slowly come to the conclusion that God is not like this but instead like that.

That was how the theologians and philosophers of the church slowly and painfully came to some understanding of how God is related to Jesus, how they came to the conclusion that God is triune.

The theologians and philosophers of the church make mistakes, as we all know, but their reflections are not all mistakes. I didnít mention it above, but we also make mistakes in what we understand ourselves to have learned about God from living faithfully with God.

My reference to the church in the paragraph above leads me to mention yet another way in which we come to a knowledge of God. I would contend that even those Christians who think they are interpreting Scripture with empty heads are in fact, without realizing it, employing in their interpretation things they have learned about God from the church.

Not only is that how it is; thatís how it should be. For if the church is Godís precious possession--as we confess it is--then we cannot just put out of mind those things that the church has taught with near unanimity over the ages.
Obviously here too we are not dealing with infallibility. But if we hold that the church, whatever its error and waywardness, nonetheless remains Christís body on earth, then we will begin our interpretation of Scripture for Godís Word from within the church, not from outside it.

And if we want to avail ourselves of the knowledge of God borne by the church and necessary for interpreting Scripture for Godís Word, I think it is important that we do our best to listen not only to our own little corner of the present-day church but to the church of all ages and of all places.
Nothing has been so effective in helping me discriminate between whatís true and important and mistaken and parochial in my late-20th-century Americanized Dutch-Reformed heritage--or in enabling me to enrich what that heritage has taught me--as reading what members of the church from other times have said about God, and reading what members who live today in other places and segments of society are saying.


@SUBA:A Continuing Process

@BODYTEXT(-INDENT):In summary we acquire convictions about God by living faithfully with God, by reflecting on the work of faithful theologians and philosophers, and by listening to the reflections of the church of all times and all places.

@BODYTEXT:Without trying to empty our head of those convictions, instead bearing them in mind, we read Scripture, seeking to discern Godís Word therein. In the course of doing so we find ourselves learning new things about God and having some of the things we already believed corrected. We then use these new and corrected beliefs in our further interpretation.

So it goes, in a sort of spiral motion. And all the while we conduct our interpretation and live our lives in the confidence that our salvation does not depend on getting everything right.

Moreover, we donít interpret Scripture all by ourselves. Rather, we interpret Scripture for Godís Word as members of that community which is the church.

@EXCERPT:We interpret Scripture in the light of convictions we already have about God.

Interpreting Scripture for the Word of God must be conducted as part of a life of piety and commitment.