Matthew Lipscomb, Modern Christian Thought, 4/22/09

 

Reason & The Resurrection – Soteriological Intersections in the ‘Big Tent’ of Modern Christian Thought

 

 

 

Life in the “Big Tent-“ the Rings of Reason & The Resurrection

As is the case with many things of a like-in-kind nature – Christianity is a ‘big tent:’ full of the hustle and bustle of both similar and very different thoughts; ever agreeing and then disagreeing, connecting and disconnecting amid the stir of questions, convictions, knowns & unknowns.  In the central area of this veritable ideological circus, lays the issue of the resurrection. Centrally placed also in this ‘tent’ is the issue of reason. Some people come along and consider these issues to intrinsically lie together. Still others push them far aside and – as in the case of the Fideists[1] – they try to push reason out of the tent altogether and out onto the ontological scrapheap, citing the need for a radical faith that needs nothing at all, even reason, for its sustenance.  Most, however, agree that each are important – even as an increasing minority think that that neither are;[2] rather substituting the rings of personal experience[3] and mystery[4] into their respective positions. The only thing that everyone can agree on – is that no one agrees completely as to what to do with not just everything – but especially these two things.  The purpose of this paper is to make a precursory foray into this cacophony of belief – and, hopefully, find an order to what some see as a pun-intended, literally hell-bent madness. How and even if the issues of reason & the resurrection should interrelate – is and will forever be one of the foremost discussions & controversies that both now and likely will forever more inject both vibrancy and a great deal of contention into the life of the Church.

Amid this discussion, two distinctly like-minded theologians both argue something that is unique. They teach that the relationship between reason & the resurrection begins at an unassuming place: René Descarte. Helmut Thielicke[5] and Paul C. McClasson[6] both make a case that a traditionally accepted theological, macro-historical division in Judeo-Christian thought begins with him. These are the Modern vs. Classic schools, as proposed by J. Gresham Machen[7] in the 1920’s and various Evangelical authors such as Karl F. Henry[8] in the 1970’s. In more modern times, this division is referred to in terms of a Liberal vs. Conservative dichotomy or even Progressive vs. Traditionalist; depending on the perspective and/or agenda at hand. Thielicke makes the argument that regardless of whether you use the title “Conservative” or “Fundamentalist” to describe them – one side will be primarily concerned with salvation and holiness, and the other – the “Progressive” or “Liberal” faction – will be more interested in Justice, Peace and ‘how one’s faith makes one feel’ vs. ‘where one’s faith will posit one’s soul a thousand years from now.’ Each side generally ignores and potentially even denigrates the concerns of the other side – as alluded to in Henry’s introspective caution when he wrote:

The average Fundamentalist’s indifference to social implications of his religious message has been so marked, however, that non-evangelicals have sometimes classified him with the pessimist in his attitude toward world conditions.[9]

 

It is not fair to say that the ethical platform of all conservative churches has clustered about such platitudes as “abstain from intoxicating beverages, movies, dancing, card-playing, and smoking,” but there are multitudes of Fundamentalist congregations in which these are the main points of reference of ethical speculation. In one of the large Christian colleges, a chapel speaker recently expressed amazement that the campus newspaper could devote so much space to the all-important problem of whether it is right to play “rook,” while the nations of the world are playing with fire.

 

Dr. Carl F.H. Henry The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism [10]

 

This stands in sharp contrast to the ‘Social Gospel’ of Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918); who taught that man rarely sinned against God – but more so often against society and his fellow brother[11] or the theology of Friedrich Ernst Daniel Schleiermacher (1768-1834), who’s theology – as described by the great German theologian Karl Barth – concerned itself with how one’s faith made one feel; in his words – a “theology of feeling, of awareness.”[12]

 

Proposed Intersect Number One: Kairos vs. Chronos Ontological Intersects

Each of these theological figures has different agendas – argues Thielicke & McClasson – but each has a central starting point: how Christs’ resurrection/redemption is interpreted and related to reason.  “Liberals”/”progressives” tend to see the resurrection as a ‘Christ event’ which is Kairotic[13] in nature. It represents a change in the nature and opportunity of time & reality – whereas “conservatives”/”fundamentalists” see the resurrection as not just a kairotic event (that nature of such being generally, intrinsically assumed) but also a chronos/chronologic or actual time that has taken place within a space of quantitative time.  Great emphasis is usually placed on the factuality of the resurrection and a great deal of apologetical resources spent to prove the authenticity of the historical record. An example of chronos-oriented thought is Norman L. Geisler’s book, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist.  Geisler makes strong use of a chronologically-based ontological argument, in which he attempts to prove the factuality of both Christ and His divinity from a series of proposed, alleged to be logical proofs.[14]

Two examples of kairos-oriented thinking (from the modern/liberal tradition) are The Kairos Document & Paul Tillich’s own redemption dynamic. The Kairos Document is a theological position paper that came out of South Africa, which was written by a group of South African theologians. It is a mix of both contextual & liberation theology, and sought to affirm a statement that it was necessary to assert a concerted effort of awareness at a crucial moment of African history in light of the oppression, apartheid and struggle that was/is taking place. The contention was made by them that “the time had come” and a qualitatively decisive moment of action was at hand to potently act in regards to a previously ongoing situation.[15]

A second example can be found in Paul Tillich, from Ultimate Concern – Tillich in Dialogue by D. Mackenzie Brown,[16] where Tillich differentiates himself from the classical conservative chronos-focus on the historicity of Christ, and instead, asserts the necessity for a kairos-oriented salvation approach.

 

Student: Suppose, somehow or other, science could come and expose St. Paul, Christianity, and all these things as just a big hoax. My understanding of your theology would be that this would in no way invalidate Christianity as a religion.

Dr. Tillich: Now what do you mean by “a big hoax”?

Student: If they could prove that Christ, or Jesus, never existed.

Dr. Tillich: Oh, then he had some other name! That wouldn’t matter. I want to say that if we were able to read the original police registers of Nazareth, and found that there was neither a couple called Mary and Joseph nor a man called Jesus, we should then go to some other city. The personal reality behind the gospel story is convincing. It shines through. And without this personal reality Christianity would not have existed for more than a year, or would not have come into existence at all, no matter what stories were told. But this was the great event that produced the transformation of reality. And if you yourself are transformed by it, you witness to the reality of what happened. That is the proof.[17]

 

What Tillich is saying is that the chronological details regarding Christ are not intrinsically relevant to the salvation metanarrative of the Gospels. He even goes as far as to say that Christ’s name is not important either – but that there was a “transformation of reality” that took place – and that “if you yourself are transformed by it…that is the proof.” It is arguable that a balanced theological view has room for both chronos-oriented & kairos-oriented thinking – but, as we see here, the liberal & conservative traditions respectively tend to place almost exclusive emphasis on either one or the other, as the conservative, evangelical scholar & theologian Carl Henry passionately states:

Jesus’ resurrection was no bizarre contingency that defied human logic. It was not an utterly incoherent incursion into history. However unique and unparalleled as a historical event, the resurrection of Jesus Christ took place in a coherent framwork of meaning. Its context stretched back far beyond the events of Passion Week. (NSF, 68)[18]

 

 

In the introduction of Tillich’s own three part systematic theology, after a long discussion of the historicity of the resurrection – he does finally offer the honest conclusion:

It is obvious that these arguments do not prove the assertion of faith that in Jesus Christ the Logos has become flesh.  But they show that, if this assertion is accepted, Christian theology has a foundation, which infinitely transcends the foundations of everything in the history of religion which could be called “theology.”[19]

 

 

Proposed Intersect Number Two: Soteriological Applications

Perhaps the most marked intersect between liberal vs. conservative thought is how each group represents their assumptions in regards to a soteriological problem/solution dichotomy. For the conservatives, the problem is the human race is “guilty of sin and wrongdoing”[20] – and “Jesus’ death pays the full penalty for human sin.”[21] In contrast to this, liberal protestant belief is that “the human race suffers from ignorance of the teachings and ways of Christ,”[22] and the like-wise solution is to understand that “Jesus’ example and teachings inspire us to work compassionately for social justice.”[23] Emergent Church figure Brian D. McClaren makes these distinctions in his book, A Generous Or+hodoxy, and goes on to make additional problem/solution relations in Pentecostal, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anabaptist and liberation theology traditions. McClaren seems to do a good job of going through and picking the best aspects of a wide diversity of sometimes inherently conflicting theological traditions – and he is not without his own critics who accuse him of sloppy work,[24] pointing out that McClaren himself throws out important conservative doctrines such as substitutionary atonement because he agrees that such doctrines are akin to “divine child abuse.” [25]

The ideas of abuse and redemption/justice themselves factors into a growing number of theological streams and rivers – some of which seem to ever be dividing and expanding in their scope and affluence. As previously mentioned in reference to The Kairos Document, liberation theology has found both traction and diversity since it’s inception through the pen of Gustavo Gutiérrez and his book A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, Salvation. What contextually started off as an affirmation of justice for the repressed peoples of Latin America has been further expanded into the forums of feminism and so called “gay theology.”[26] Wherever there is alleged to be repression – voices have risen to seek justice and a framework of salvation and redemption for the respectively alleged bondage and repression stated to have been experience by those who would claim to seek freedom and deliverance through the message of Christ & the Gospel.

Conservatives counter that there is an inherent danger in approaching the fundamental issues and doctrines of Christianity such as the resurrection and redemption[27] with either subjective or existential lenses, citing the potential traps of reason by means of “subjective irrationalism or objective rationalism,”[28] as Clark H. Pinnock and Barry L. Callen point out in their book The Scripture Principle, Reclaiming the Full Authority of the Bible.

 

Proposed Intersect Number Three: Eschatological Despair/Gnostic Dualist vs. Redemptive views

There is no doubt that the kairos vs. chronos ontological intersects & the various soteriological problem/solution frameworks found across both liberal/conservative and other dichotomies serve as a fertile substrate for a great deal of controversy and conversation.  There is another, much more subtle intersect which can also be found – though it is more diverse and potentially much more hidden in its explicitness: how to apply the ‘profanity’ of life & culture to the Christian experience in relation to the resurrection and it’s attendant redemptive dynamic.

The Rev. Daniel Preston, a former administrator & teacher at the now closed Tomlinson College – which was affiliated with the Pentecostal denomination the Church of God of Prophecy – once remarked that he once had someone tell him that they knew a lady who could “pray down heaven,” but “could not read their own name if it were spelled out in box car letters.” It was spoken to him as a veiled insult, as he himself was one of the few leaders in his own denomination at the time that possessed a master’s degree in theology and was a foremost proponent of further education in his own denomination.  The individual who made the comment was essentially letting him know that education was not really as important as Preston was trying to make it out to be. This dialogue[29] captures, to some degree, the distrust of education that was stubbornly engrained in many conservative churches of various stripes and natures, Pentecostal being only one of many, for many years.

Whether this type of thinking found its base in the belief in a generalized feeling of futility, secondary in nature to an emphasis of an immense and pending eschatological end/rapture mentality[30] or just a general distrust of the World or ‘worldly’ things[31] – just as C.S. Lewis emphasized that outside of redemption any form of love becomes demonic[32] – many Christian sects have traditionally had difficulty applying this same redemptive dichotomy to education.

It is not just reason and education that have been at times seen as irreconcilable with any soteriologically-based redemptive dynamic – but also issues of food, such as alcohol[33] & culture, such a movies, dancing, and playing cards as in the game of rook.[34] This condescension of physical reality, with preferred emphasis on spiritual concern, is referred to as Gnostic Dualism, and has a long history in the Christian church.[35]  But as Jim West points out in his book, Drinking With Calvin and Luther! A History of Alcohol in the Church – there is a rich, historical tapestry regarding alcoholic beverages in the history of the church – even if some churches seem it have been stricken with acute amnesia in regards to the truth of it. Luther wrote love letters to his wife praising the quality of the beer she made[36], and John Calvin was paid for his preaching in wine casks.[37]  The venerable theological lion, J. Gresham Machen, famously apposed what he saw as the “Fundamentalist preoccupation with material evil,”[38] in his opposition to the prohibition movement – even as he saw mass support among his theological colleagues for the prohibition gather as a rising tide.

How some parts of the church apply or exclude the issue of redemption to education, alcohol, culture or a wide diversity of other issues, comes back to how much they are willing to cede to eschatological condescension and/or Gnostic Dualist condescension – and more importantly – if they are willing to even see these dynamics as being ‘in play’ in their theological formulations & World views. Are there gray areas where the issue of redemption does not apply? Does the resurrection necessitate a thorough analysis of each and every posit of human experience and understanding? Can society and it’s dynamics, traditions & cultural aspects be subject to a change in their nature and apprehension by the application of the dynamic of redemption made potential by the resurrection?  What do they look like if they can be – and then are – redeemed? If the preceding is possible – then what does a responsible cultural-redemptive process/dichotomy of engagement look like? Does redemption mean avoidance in light of historical abuses?[39]^, [40] Does what redemption looks like change as the culture around us changes – as it did with Calvin & Luther and the way that they understood alcohol in their own respective cultures and how we do now? Shortly before his death, the Flossenbürgmartyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in what eventually was published as his book Ethics, tried to envision what an incarnationally-redemptive Christology could potentially look like.[41] Amos Yong, an ordained Assemblies of God minister, has also continued a similar work, in exploring what he refers to as the “multidimensionality of salvation:” that there are actually seven different modes[42] of salvation, as apposed to the traditional 4[43] or 5[44] fold understandings.[45] Yong’s work has taken the idea of salvation & redemption beyond just a personal application, and has applied it to larger constructs & dichotomies such as culture, history, physicality, and even the entire World. Looking past just the idea of personal and family salvation – he asks what ecclesial, material, social, and even cosmic salvation looks like. Just as in times past when the Arminianism vs. Calvinism debate raged regarding whether or not God intended salvation for every man – the same debate in regards to culture moves along with equal intensity. Against this backdrop the words of C.S. Lewis seem to ring more and more relevant.

There is no neutral ground in the universe:

every square inch,

every split second,

is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan. [46]

– C. S. Lewis

 

 

An Proposed Example Solution: Thielecke-McClasson – Reassessing the Role of Reason; Scripture as Proposed Foundation

Against the previously discussed classical liberal/conservative dichotomy of classification and how they variously interpret and intersect the issues of reason & redemption, Thielicke & McClasson suggest a bold move. Having proposed that both theological movements, especially the “Modern,” are essentially rooted back into Descartes’ idea of the Ego, they are, in the words of Paul C. McClasson, thereby rooted back into the “cannons of rationality” to which the church “owes nothing whatsoever.”[47] But what then forms the basis for any theological thought? Both McClasson and Thielicke propose that the nature of both reason and the understanding of the resurrection must center – not upon man’s own thought of it – but rather an uncompromising view of Scripture. The argument does hence arise – is this purported view a merely a regurgitated fundamentalism? The argument that both McClasson and Thielicke make is that the soteriological urgency of fundamentalism and the societal concern of liberalism are merely “two sides of the same cartesian coin”[48] – in that they are both true and need not be so needlessly separated from one another. Reason – or our ability to think and digest and understand both scripture and doctrine and then the subsequent application of it – are to be firmly grounded in the foundation of the Scripture, not our own potentially fanciful logical outworking of it; no matter how thought-out and thorough they might be, to both the actual and the perceived shortcomings of scriptural admonitions.

Thielicke proposes two theological dynamics – each of which represent alternate potentialities of doctrinal formulation in relation to Christian scripture: Actualization & Accommodation. Actualization is “ a new interpretation of truth, in it’s readdressing, as it were. The truth remains intact. It means that the hearer is summoned and called ‘under the truth’ in his own name and his own situation.” Accommodation, on the other hand, represents truth “under me” and is essentially pragmatic in its nature.  Beginning with Descartes, truth is subjected and potentially countermanded by the “I” or the cogito of self. Rather then “Self” being under the “Truth” – Truth is interpreted and authorized by man’s own affirmation of it.  “Descartes paves the way for making the relevance of the knowing self the center of thought.”[49] Essentially – the dynamic in play becomes “‘reason’ or ‘self’ seeking understanding” contra the classic Augustinian/Anselm dictum of fides quaerens intellectum – faith seeking understanding. Descartes based every potentiality for understanding on his own self-awareness; whereas Augustine based a capability to reason on the motto credo ut intellegam – I believe (have faith) in order to understand.[50]

Neither Thielicke nor McClasson reject the value or the potential of reason or ‘self-awareness’ – rather they assert that there will always be a teleological foundation in any theological epistemology – and that for all it’s limitations – Scripture is the only suitable foundation, and reason should remain what it is essentially in relation to it: a tool.

As a nontheological foundational epistemological basis for dogmatics, any form of human philosophy, from Aristotle to Wittgenstein, is absolutely to be rejected. To any that would set the agenda or determine the parameters of Christian truth, our answer is simply no![51] However, as a set of tools that may bring some clarity to the process of faith seeking understanding, any form or human philosophy and culture may be legitimately brought to bear upon the questions at hand, provided the usage is in accordance with the inner logic of the subject matter as learned from the scriptures. The church theologian should be fully educated in the history of human culture and fully conversant with the issues of the day, but the theologian is absolutely free from the imperialistic claim of any human system.  [52]

 

The style and understanding of Christianity as advocated by Thielicke and McClasson is not the ‘check your brain at the door’ varietal – a precursory reading of any works penned by their own hands reveal both men to be astute and their own writings and their respective work far from the palladium offered by many self-proclaimed modern philosopher-kings. Rather, perhaps, their efforts mark a correction to the Enlightenment’s efforts to make one’s own self-awareness and Reason the ‘end-all’ & ‘be-all’ for theological formulation. Their contestations of an unchecked Cartesian self-centric and ego-authenticated epistemology perhaps echo the words of the Judeo-Christian cannon of Scripture itself, which warns that the Deity which it purports to reveal to the reader is in no way beholden to the logic or the common sense of anybody, anywhere – and if anything, He would rather use “foolishness” and “brokenness” to achieve the revelation of Himself to those who will find Him in it’s pages; confounding the wise and using weakness to outwit the strong.[53]

The thoughts and contentions of Thielicke & McClasson stand apart from many of the other arguments for or against reason and redemption working together, and their thoughts bear an honest examination in the light of it. Taking the analysis back to Descartes’ idea of the Ego and consequences of the Enlightenment and its proposed ongoing influence upon theology does seemingly move the conversation in a radically different direction. Thielicke & McClasson work to avoid accusations of fiedism, while yet remaining true a ‘scripture as foundation’ or Reformed sola scriptura principle, yet while also finding a place for reason’s use as tool – and thus also potentially breaking down many of the previously discussed intersects between reason and redemption.

 

A Conclusion Amid other Conclusions: The Ongoing Search for Solutions

Thielicke & McClasson are not alone is proposing solutions in regards to how we are to treat the intersections of the issues of reason & redemption. How culture and it’s thought and then its attendant dichotomies are related to the issues of resurrection and then redemption is a study in a search for foundations.   Where Thielicke & McClasson propose scripture as a final and authoritative foundation for interpretation & analysis, in the 5O’s, the German neo-orthodox theologian Rudolf Bultman popularized the notion of “demythologization” – through which he assumed that the stories of the bible were told as stories, and our job for today is to merely find their ‘meta-narratives’ and then correctly reinterpret them for today within the scope of modern epistemological frameworks and current cultural ideological references.[54] Another neo-orthodox theologian, from the same time period – Paul Tillich – used an Existentialist tool-set to interpret scripture, through which he described God as ‘The Ultimate Concern” and how that related to one’s own “Ground of Being.”[55] Another giant in the arena of theologians, Karl Barth – who wrote the incredibly long-winded, 14 volume series entitled Church Dogmatics; and was still writing/working on it the day he died – was once asked impromptu by an eager news reporter, in so many words, “Professor Barth, tell us something very deep and theologically profound about your work,” to which he responded, with the nursery rhyme – which arguably succinctly distilled all the endless pages that he had himself written: “Jesus Loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”[56] Can something be so complex that it cannot fit into 14 volumes; so much, that the entire productive life of a theologian is yet not enough to write it – and still yet can it really be so simple as to be capable of being conveyed in the silliness of a nursery rhyme? The ways that reason and resurrection intersect in however big a tent we like to think Christianity to be, may very well genuinely be just this simple to relate – but this difficult to describe. The search for adequate solutions also includes those who embrace an understanding of mystery and unknowing as integral to an accurate Christian epistemology.  Emergent Church leader Peter Rollins says that this itself is the only real way to understand God – that He is essentially un-understandable and that any attempt to ground doctrine on propositional truth is essentially missing the point.[57] Whereas Thielicke and McClasson point to the scripture for a basis of propositional truth, others would point to tradition as a source, as in the Roman Catholic tradition.[58] Still others, want to incorporate both a biblical foundation, but also a pneumatological base as well. Even among these schools there are those who are aggressively seeking points of syntheses and collaboration between themselves, such as the ongoing Roman Catholic & Pentecostal dialogues, [59] which Pentecostal scholar and theologian Frank Macchia[60] has participated in. Whether one agues for the fideist position of  ‘faith is a foundation unto itself’[61] or Anselm’s famous statement of fides quaerens intellectum, ‘faith seeking understanding’[62] this much is true: Karl Barth’s proposition that the life of the scripture is not in the ink and the paper of the bible but is rather manifest and made living in the space between the words and man’s understanding of them,[63] seems to at least ring true in the essence of the fact that there is great zest for continued discussion in regards to reason and the work of Christ. Tremendous energy is expended to breath life into these ongoing questions and every attempt made by both old and new theologians alike to keep the hustle and the bustle ‘in the big tent’ ongoing and full of productive activity. Perhaps Barth would agree that this is a sign of life itself; one being intrinsically crucial to the task of keeping the church full of vibrancy and health. If we cease to ask these questions, and if no one comes to see and watch, then both discuss and comment, and then postulate and refute – then a great deal of potency and exuberance will have left the church with the falling of that curtain. May we never tire from the zeal and the energy of what well may actually truly be the real ‘greatest show on earth:’ the work of Christ in our minds and the World at large. May this tent be one that truly never closes, for in the words of P. T. Barnum – “the show must go on.” [64]

 

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