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A confusing error by John Gray
Early in John Gray's Seven Types of Atheism, he writes the following:
"The[] Jewish and Greek views of the world are not just divergent but irreconcilably opposed. Yet from its beginnings Christianity has been an attempt to join Athens with Jerusalem. Augustine's Christian Platonism was only the first of many such attempts. Without knowing what they are doing, secular thinkers have continued this vain effort" (29).
From an otherwise admirably lucid and fair-minded thinker, I find this a bizarre claim in a number of ways.
First, Augustine was far from the first to "join" Platonist philosophy with Christian faith. His most prominent predecessor being (I can barely resist saying of course in all caps) Origen of Alexandria, whose influence spread far and wide, east and west.
Second, Gray's presentation suggests that Hellenization and Platonization commenced after Christianity's advent, after its creation as a post-Jewish phenomenon—indeed, apparently only after Constantine. But Ben Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon and Philo and the apostle Paul and the book of Hebrews all predate both Augustine and Origen; most of them predate the establishment of mainstream Christianity by the end of the first century. Judaism and therefore messianic Nazarene Judaism were thoroughly Hellenized and, at the very least, exposed to Platonist thinking for centuries prior to Augustine, indeed were such at the very source, in the age of Tiberius and Claudius and Nero.
Third, there is no such thing as "the" Jewish or "the" Greek "view of the world." Nor, even if there were, would either be a hermetically sealed whole, in relation to which ideas and practices extrinsic to itself must necessarily be alien intrusions. True, Israel's scriptures are not Platonist. So what? Who is to say what is and what is not complementary between them? Who is to say what modifications or amendments or additions would or would not count as corruption?—as if there ever were a stable essence to one or the other in the first place. It is not as if Origen or Augustine took on Platonism wholesale; they clearly and directly and explicitly reject certain philosophical ideas as inimical and contrary to the catholic faith. That's not syncretism or vain eclecticism. It's Christian theology, well and faithfully done. It might be untrue or imperfectly practiced, but it's not invalid or impossible on principle. How Gray could have come to such a conclusion I haven't the faintest clue.
"The[] Jewish and Greek views of the world are not just divergent but irreconcilably opposed. Yet from its beginnings Christianity has been an attempt to join Athens with Jerusalem. Augustine's Christian Platonism was only the first of many such attempts. Without knowing what they are doing, secular thinkers have continued this vain effort" (29).
From an otherwise admirably lucid and fair-minded thinker, I find this a bizarre claim in a number of ways.
First, Augustine was far from the first to "join" Platonist philosophy with Christian faith. His most prominent predecessor being (I can barely resist saying of course in all caps) Origen of Alexandria, whose influence spread far and wide, east and west.
Second, Gray's presentation suggests that Hellenization and Platonization commenced after Christianity's advent, after its creation as a post-Jewish phenomenon—indeed, apparently only after Constantine. But Ben Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon and Philo and the apostle Paul and the book of Hebrews all predate both Augustine and Origen; most of them predate the establishment of mainstream Christianity by the end of the first century. Judaism and therefore messianic Nazarene Judaism were thoroughly Hellenized and, at the very least, exposed to Platonist thinking for centuries prior to Augustine, indeed were such at the very source, in the age of Tiberius and Claudius and Nero.
Third, there is no such thing as "the" Jewish or "the" Greek "view of the world." Nor, even if there were, would either be a hermetically sealed whole, in relation to which ideas and practices extrinsic to itself must necessarily be alien intrusions. True, Israel's scriptures are not Platonist. So what? Who is to say what is and what is not complementary between them? Who is to say what modifications or amendments or additions would or would not count as corruption?—as if there ever were a stable essence to one or the other in the first place. It is not as if Origen or Augustine took on Platonism wholesale; they clearly and directly and explicitly reject certain philosophical ideas as inimical and contrary to the catholic faith. That's not syncretism or vain eclecticism. It's Christian theology, well and faithfully done. It might be untrue or imperfectly practiced, but it's not invalid or impossible on principle. How Gray could have come to such a conclusion I haven't the faintest clue.
On climate change and the church
Yesterday Freddie de Boer posted a brief reflection on climate change, which he opens in this way:
"This is one of those things where I feel like everybody quietly knows it but we have this sort of tacit agreement not to say it openly in order to preserve some sort of illusion about what our society is and who we are. But, I mean, come on – we’re not fixing climate change. Nobody thinks we are, not really. Everyone’s putting on a brave face, everyone’s maintaining the pretense on behalf of the kids of whatever. But come on. Let us be adults here. We are not, as a species, going to do the things necessary to arrest or meaningfully slow the heating of the planet and thus will be exposed to all of the ruinous consequences of failing to do so."
This is neither, for him, denialism nor despair, just the hard facts. Action is still called for:
"I’m not telling people to give up, and I’m not telling people to despair. Of course we have to fight this thing, just like you fight to save your life even when it’s impossible. This is not in any sense denialism; it’s real, it’s coming, and the changes are utterly devastating. And though I recognize it would be easy to think this, I say this without a shred of glee, smugness, or superiority. I just feel like everyone privately knows that this is a fight we’re going to lose. Turn off every emotional part of your brain and do the pure, brutal actuarial calculus and find out what you really believe."
Let me share a few brief thoughts and questions in response to this.
1. It seems to me that, bracketing sincere deniers and those who simply never think about the topic—and we should allow that, at least in the U.S., that covers a sizeable slice of the population—this analysis is basically correct. If, on the continuum of predictions, the worst is true, paired with what it would be necessary to do to prevent such a future from happening, who can plausibly believe a fractious and divided globe of 7 billion people will unite in order to change their own lives and the lives of everyone else, the very structure and habitus of civilization, in the blink of an eye, without dissent, peaceably, and voluntarily?
2. Is Freddie correct that this is not a counsel of despair? At least, for people who broadly share Freddie's moral and political convictions? People fight to save their lives out of the natural instinct of self-preservation. But would it, strictly speaking, be rational for, say, an atheist who knew she would die in 3 hours to fight—with all her might, with great suffering, and to no avail—with the certain knowledge that, at most, she would die in 6 hours instead? Why should people who lack faith in God (and the concomitant beliefs, commitments, and practices of faith in God) not despair for themselves and their progeny, assuming the prediction of doom is correct?
3. What do Christians have to say about this? What should Christian theology say about it? So much of the oxygen of this conversation has for so long been sucked up by dispute over the existence and severity of climate change, and even then, in the register of politics. But let's just stipulate the fact: not only of climate change but also of its most disastrous potential consequences. Does the church, do theologians, have something unique—something substantive, or prophetic, or evangelical, or apostolic, or penitential, or whatever—to say about such a matter? Has such commentary been offered, and I have missed it? Are there Europeans or Africans or other church authorities or theologians that have offered a richly Christian word on the topic? I don't mean, again, recognition of the problem and vague generalities about meeting the challenge of the day. I mean the possibility (here, the stipulated fact) of widespread ecological ruin, terror and suffering and destruction of human life and culture on a vast, perhaps unparalleled scale, social instability and generational loss, the near-total transformation of conditions of human existence on planet earth. Has serious theological attention been paid to that? Even as only a potential or stipulated future? What would the gospel speak into such a situation? What would the call of God be upon the church, both today and in such a future?
I'm left wondering.
"This is one of those things where I feel like everybody quietly knows it but we have this sort of tacit agreement not to say it openly in order to preserve some sort of illusion about what our society is and who we are. But, I mean, come on – we’re not fixing climate change. Nobody thinks we are, not really. Everyone’s putting on a brave face, everyone’s maintaining the pretense on behalf of the kids of whatever. But come on. Let us be adults here. We are not, as a species, going to do the things necessary to arrest or meaningfully slow the heating of the planet and thus will be exposed to all of the ruinous consequences of failing to do so."
This is neither, for him, denialism nor despair, just the hard facts. Action is still called for:
"I’m not telling people to give up, and I’m not telling people to despair. Of course we have to fight this thing, just like you fight to save your life even when it’s impossible. This is not in any sense denialism; it’s real, it’s coming, and the changes are utterly devastating. And though I recognize it would be easy to think this, I say this without a shred of glee, smugness, or superiority. I just feel like everyone privately knows that this is a fight we’re going to lose. Turn off every emotional part of your brain and do the pure, brutal actuarial calculus and find out what you really believe."
Let me share a few brief thoughts and questions in response to this.
1. It seems to me that, bracketing sincere deniers and those who simply never think about the topic—and we should allow that, at least in the U.S., that covers a sizeable slice of the population—this analysis is basically correct. If, on the continuum of predictions, the worst is true, paired with what it would be necessary to do to prevent such a future from happening, who can plausibly believe a fractious and divided globe of 7 billion people will unite in order to change their own lives and the lives of everyone else, the very structure and habitus of civilization, in the blink of an eye, without dissent, peaceably, and voluntarily?
2. Is Freddie correct that this is not a counsel of despair? At least, for people who broadly share Freddie's moral and political convictions? People fight to save their lives out of the natural instinct of self-preservation. But would it, strictly speaking, be rational for, say, an atheist who knew she would die in 3 hours to fight—with all her might, with great suffering, and to no avail—with the certain knowledge that, at most, she would die in 6 hours instead? Why should people who lack faith in God (and the concomitant beliefs, commitments, and practices of faith in God) not despair for themselves and their progeny, assuming the prediction of doom is correct?
3. What do Christians have to say about this? What should Christian theology say about it? So much of the oxygen of this conversation has for so long been sucked up by dispute over the existence and severity of climate change, and even then, in the register of politics. But let's just stipulate the fact: not only of climate change but also of its most disastrous potential consequences. Does the church, do theologians, have something unique—something substantive, or prophetic, or evangelical, or apostolic, or penitential, or whatever—to say about such a matter? Has such commentary been offered, and I have missed it? Are there Europeans or Africans or other church authorities or theologians that have offered a richly Christian word on the topic? I don't mean, again, recognition of the problem and vague generalities about meeting the challenge of the day. I mean the possibility (here, the stipulated fact) of widespread ecological ruin, terror and suffering and destruction of human life and culture on a vast, perhaps unparalleled scale, social instability and generational loss, the near-total transformation of conditions of human existence on planet earth. Has serious theological attention been paid to that? Even as only a potential or stipulated future? What would the gospel speak into such a situation? What would the call of God be upon the church, both today and in such a future?
I'm left wondering.
The most stimulating works of systematic theology from the last 20 years
On Twitter yesterday I made an observation followed by a question. I said that Paul Griffiths' Decreation is, in my view, the most thought-provoking,
stimulating, exhilarating work of systematic theology written since the
first volume of Robert Jenson's systematics was published in 1997.
Then I asked: What are other plausible candidates from, say, the last two decades?
I thought of half a dozen off the top of my head, then started adding others' replies to the list. See the (lightly curated) resulting list below.
A few preliminary comments, though. First, everything on the list was published (for the first time) in 1998 or later. That's arbitrary, but then, all lists are; that's what makes them fun.
Second, your mileage may vary, as mine does; I think some of these books are in a league of their own compared so some of the others. But I've tried to be broader than just my own preferences.
Third, candidates for this list are works of Christian systematic theology. As ever, the genre is loose enough that you know it when you see it. But I had to make some choices. So comparative theology is out, as is moral theology—excellent examples of the latter might be Cavanaugh's Torture and Eucharist and Herdt's Putting on Virtue. The same goes for historical theology: Ayres's Nicaea and Its Legacy, though laudably normative in many of its proposals, and arguably one of the handful of most important theological books in recent decades, is not itself an instance of systematic theology. I've similarly ruled out works of theology primarily interpreting a single theologian, past or present; so books with Augustine or Barth or whomever in the title are excluded. (I imagine this is the most contestable of the criteria. I'm only half persuaded myself, as evidenced by the exception I allowed.) Works of practical or popular or narrative theology are out too; whereas Cone's God of the Oppressed is certainly systematic theology at its most bracing, The Cross and the Lynching Tree belongs to a different genre (which, lest I be misunderstood, is not a judgment of value). Biblical scholarship is excluded from consideration as well; N. T. Wright and Richard Hays and John Barclay and Paula Fredriksen are brilliant and theologically stimulating writers, but their work is not systematic theology. Oh, and I suppose I should add: I'm limiting this to works originally written in English, if only to narrow the purview of the list (while lessening its potential hubris).
Fourth, this is not intended as a list of the "best books" from the last two decades. My words about Decreation were sharp and specific: it's a knock-your-socks-off kind of book, the sort of work you can't put down, that leads to compulsive reading, that changes your mind 10 times in as many pages, and makes you rethink, or refortify, what you always thought about this or that major topic. A book on this list should not be boring, in other words; and there are good works of scholarship that are undeniably boring. Such works are not included here.
Fifth, some might quibble with the choice of book for a given author. Should Tanner's book be Jesus, Humanity, and the Trinity or Christ the Key? Should Rowan Williams's be On Christian Theology or The Edge of Words? John Webster's Holy Scripture or God Without Measure? I've opted for my own idiosyncratic preference or gut sense for what made a bigger "splash" at the time of its publication. Again: your mileage may vary.
Without further ado (ordered alphabetically):
I thought of half a dozen off the top of my head, then started adding others' replies to the list. See the (lightly curated) resulting list below.
A few preliminary comments, though. First, everything on the list was published (for the first time) in 1998 or later. That's arbitrary, but then, all lists are; that's what makes them fun.
Second, your mileage may vary, as mine does; I think some of these books are in a league of their own compared so some of the others. But I've tried to be broader than just my own preferences.
Third, candidates for this list are works of Christian systematic theology. As ever, the genre is loose enough that you know it when you see it. But I had to make some choices. So comparative theology is out, as is moral theology—excellent examples of the latter might be Cavanaugh's Torture and Eucharist and Herdt's Putting on Virtue. The same goes for historical theology: Ayres's Nicaea and Its Legacy, though laudably normative in many of its proposals, and arguably one of the handful of most important theological books in recent decades, is not itself an instance of systematic theology. I've similarly ruled out works of theology primarily interpreting a single theologian, past or present; so books with Augustine or Barth or whomever in the title are excluded. (I imagine this is the most contestable of the criteria. I'm only half persuaded myself, as evidenced by the exception I allowed.) Works of practical or popular or narrative theology are out too; whereas Cone's God of the Oppressed is certainly systematic theology at its most bracing, The Cross and the Lynching Tree belongs to a different genre (which, lest I be misunderstood, is not a judgment of value). Biblical scholarship is excluded from consideration as well; N. T. Wright and Richard Hays and John Barclay and Paula Fredriksen are brilliant and theologically stimulating writers, but their work is not systematic theology. Oh, and I suppose I should add: I'm limiting this to works originally written in English, if only to narrow the purview of the list (while lessening its potential hubris).
Fourth, this is not intended as a list of the "best books" from the last two decades. My words about Decreation were sharp and specific: it's a knock-your-socks-off kind of book, the sort of work you can't put down, that leads to compulsive reading, that changes your mind 10 times in as many pages, and makes you rethink, or refortify, what you always thought about this or that major topic. A book on this list should not be boring, in other words; and there are good works of scholarship that are undeniably boring. Such works are not included here.
Fifth, some might quibble with the choice of book for a given author. Should Tanner's book be Jesus, Humanity, and the Trinity or Christ the Key? Should Rowan Williams's be On Christian Theology or The Edge of Words? John Webster's Holy Scripture or God Without Measure? I've opted for my own idiosyncratic preference or gut sense for what made a bigger "splash" at the time of its publication. Again: your mileage may vary.
Without further ado (ordered alphabetically):
- Marilyn McCord Adams, Christ and Horrors: The Coherence of Christology (2006)
- John Behr, The Mystery of Christ: Life in Death (2006)
- J. Kameron Carter, Race: A Theological Account (2008)
- Sarah Coakley, Powers and Submissions: Spirituality, Philosophy, and Gender (2002)
- Paul J. Griffiths, Decreation: The Last Things of All Creatures (2014)
- David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth (2003)
- Willie James Jennings, The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race (2010)
- David H. Kelsey, Eccentric Existence: A Theological Anthropology (2009)
- Matthew Levering, Scripture and Metaphysics: Aquinas and the Renewal of Trinitarian Theology (2004)
- Alan E. Lewis, Between Cross and Resurrection: A Theology of Holy Saturday (2003)
- Bruce D. Marshall, Trinity and Truth (1999)
- Eugene F. Rogers Jr., Sexuality and the Christian Body: Their Way Into the Triune God (1999)
- Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ (2015)
- Katherine Sonderegger, Systematic Theology: Volume 1, The Doctrine of God (2015)
- Kathryn Tanner, Jesus, Humanity, and the Trinity: A Brief Systematic Theology (2001)
- Linn Marie Tonstad, God and Difference: The Trinity, Sexuality, and the Transformation of Finitude (2016)
- Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Remythologizing Theology: Divine Action, Passion, and Authorship (2010)
- John Webster, Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch (2003)
- Rowan Williams, The Edge of Words: God and the Habits of Language (2014)
- Frances Young, God's Presence: A Contemporary Recapitulation of Early Christianity (2013)
New essay published at the LA Review of Books: "Public Theology in Retreat"
I've got a new essay available over at the Los Angeles Review of Books called "Public Theology in Retreat." It's ostensibly a review essay of three books published by David Bentley Hart in the last year, but I use that occasion to ask about the role of public theology in contemporary U.S. intellectual culture, using Hart as a sort of Trojan horse. Alan Jacobs's essay in Harper's last year serves as a framing device, and I look at Hart as an exception that proves the rule—even while portraying Hart's thought to a largely non-theological audience as a kind of specimen, to intrigue and possibly attract unfamiliar and potentially hostile minds. We live in perilous and fickle times, after all. Why not give theology a try? There have been stranger bedfellows.
My thanks to the editors at LARB for publishing a work of straightforward theological exposition like this; I know it's not their usual cup of tea. I confess that I have steeled myself for more than one failure to read the actual argument of the piece, but so it goes. Mostly I'm excited to see what charitable readers make of it, from whatever perspective. So check it out and let me know what you think.
My thanks to the editors at LARB for publishing a work of straightforward theological exposition like this; I know it's not their usual cup of tea. I confess that I have steeled myself for more than one failure to read the actual argument of the piece, but so it goes. Mostly I'm excited to see what charitable readers make of it, from whatever perspective. So check it out and let me know what you think.
Rest in peace: Robert W. Jenson (1930–2017)
I first read Robert Jenson in the summer of 2009, following the first year of my Master of Divinity studies at Emory University, on a sort of whim. I had been introduced to him through an essay by Stanley Hauerwas, originally published in a festschrift for Jenson but republished in the 2004 collection of Hauerwas's essays called A Better Hope. Oddly, I had the impression that Hauerwas didn't like Jenson, but at a second glance, I realized his great admiration for him, so I not only read through Jenson's whole two-volume systematics that summer, but I blogged through it, too—in extensive detail. In fact, it was the first systematic theology I ever read.
Eight years later, and I am a systematic theologian. Fancy that.
Jenson passed away yesterday, having been born 87 years earlier, one year after the great stock market crash of 1929. He lived through the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, Roe v. Wade, the rise and fall of the Religious Right, the fall of the Soviet Union, September 11, 2001, the election of the first African-American U.S. President, and much more. He also lived through, and in many ways embodied, a startling number of international, ecclesial, and academic theological trends: ecumenism; doctrinal criticism; analytic philosophy of language; Heidegerrian anti-metaphysics; French Deconstructionism; the initially negative then positive reception of Barth in the English-speaking world; the shift away from systematics to theological methodology (and back again!); post–Vatican II ecclesiology; "death of God" theology; process theology; liberation theologies (black, feminist, and Latin American); virtue ethics; theological interpretation of Scripture; and much more.
Jenson studied under Peter Brunner in Heidelberg and eventually spent time in Basel with Barth, on whose theology he wrote his dissertation, which generated two books in his early career. He was impossibly prolific, publishing hundreds of essays and articles as well as more than 25 books over more than 55 years.
Initially an activist, Jenson and his wife Blanche—to whom he was married for more than 60 years, and whom he credited as co-author of all his books, indeed, "genetrici theologiae meae omniae"—marched and protested and spoke in the 1960s against the Vietnam War and for civil rights for African-Americans. His politics was forever altered, however, in 1973 with Roe v. Wade. As he wrote later, he assumed that those who had marched alongside him and his fellow Christians would draw a logical connection from protection of the vulnerable in Vietnam and the oppressed in America to the defenseless in the womb; but that was not to be. Ever after, his politics was divided, and without representation in American governance: as he said in a recent interview, he found he could vote for neither Republicans nor Democrats, for one worshiped an idol called "the free market" and the other worshiped an idol called "autonomous choice," and both idols were inimical to a Christian vision of the common good.
In 1997 and 1999, ostensibly as the crown and conclusion to 70 years' work in the theological academy, Jenson published his two-volume Systematic Theology, arguably the most read, renowned, and perhaps even controversial systematic proposal in the last three decades. There his lifelong interests came together in concise, readable, propulsive form: the triune God, the incarnate Jesus, the theological tradition, the nihilism of modernity, the hope of the gospel, and the work of the Spirit in the unitary church of the creeds. Even if you find yourself disagreeing with every word of it, it is worth your time. As my brother once told me, he wasn't sure what he thought about the book when he finished the last page, but more important, he felt compelled to get on his knees and worship the Trinity. Surely that is the final goal of every theological system; surely nothing could make Jenson more pleased.
Happily, those of us who loved and benefited from Jenson's work were blessed with nearly two more decades of output from his mind and pen following the systematics. Some of this work was his most playful and provocative; it also included two biblical commentaries, on the Song of Songs and Ezekiel. There are treasures not to be overlooked in those lovely works.
If Hauerwas was my gateway to theology as a world, Jenson was my guide, my Virgil. I didn't know the names of Irenaeus and Origin and Cyril and Nyssa and Damascene and Radbertus and Anselm and Bonaventure before him; or at least, I had no idea what they had to say. And I certainly hadn't considered putting Luther and Edwards and Schleiermacher and Barth together in the way he did. Perhaps most of all, I didn't know what systematic theology could be, the intellectual heights that it could reach and that it necessarily demanded, or the way in which it could be conducted as an exercise in spiritual, moral, and mental delight: bold, wry, unflinching, assertive, open-handed, open-ended, argumentative, humble, urgent, sober, at peace. Jenson knew more than most that theology is simultaneously the most and the least serious of tasks. It is of the utmost importance because what it concerns is the deepest and most central of all realities: God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the creator, sustainer, and savior of all. But self-seriousness is a mistake precisely because of that all-encompassing subject matter: God is in charge, and we are not; God, not we, will keep the gates of hell from prevailing against the church; God alone will steward the truth of the gospel, which we do indeed have, but only as we have been given it, and which we understand only through a glass darkly. Jenson knew, in other words, that in his theology he got some things, even some big things, wrong. And he could rest easy, like his teacher Barth, because God's grace reaches even to theologians. Although it is true that the church's teachers will be judged more harshly than others, the judgment of God is grace, and it goes all the way down.
God's grace has now been consummated in this one individual, God's servant and theologian Robert. He is at rest with the saints in the infinite life of God—the God he called, with a wink in his eye, both "roomy" and "chatty." May his rest be as full of talk as his life was on this earth, as eloquent and various as the eternal conversation of Jesus with his Father in their Spirit. And, God be praised, may he be raised to new and imperishable life on the last day, as he so faithfully desired and bore witness to in his work in this world. May that work give glory to God, and may it remind the church militant of the God of the gospel and the life we have been promised in Jesus, the life we can taste even now, the life of the world to come.