No real conflict

That means, however, that there are points of conflict between Christian faith, understood as a worldview, a metaphysical vision of reality, and certain theories proposed and even claimed as knowledge by scientists and philosophers. None of those, however, are necessary, provable, or certain. And Christian scholars, working within Christian organizations dedicated to Christian faith as a worldview, ought to avoid teaching them as truth insofar as they actually do conflict with and undermine it. What it does not mean is that every interpretation of the Bible or traditional belief held by Christians is sacrosanct and impervious to criticism and need for revision in light of the material facts of science and logic. Faith-learning integration depends on Christians holding lightly to traditional beliefs and interpretations that are not crucial to the metaphysical vision of reality required by the biblical story.—The Essentials of Christian Thought, 248 (emphasis original)

<idle musing>
And therein lies the rub, doesn't it? Far too many people hang onto their interpretation of the Bible as what the Bible must say, little realizing how culturally conditioned it is. And that's where a liberal arts education is so important—as is the willingness to be instructed. And, most importantly, to listen to the Holy Spirit in a humble, teachable way.
</idle musing>

Oops!

I forgot about the appendix. There are two good snippets there. Here's the first; the second will appear tomorrow. Enjoy!

There is no necessary conflict between faith in revelation and proper use of reason; conflicts between faith and philosophy arise when philosophy claims to answer life’s ultimate questions relying on reason alone. Brunner’s whole point was that there is nothing essentially, necessarily wrong with secular reasoning in science and philosophy in and of themselves; where they go wrong and create conflicts with Christian truth is in their hubris, their tendency to place sole faith in reason alone and forget that, for example, reason alone, including both science and philosophy, cannot answer life’s ultimate questions (including about evil).

What it all comes down to, then, is that the integration of faith and learning does not preclude genuine scientific (wissenschaftlich) research or real philosophical analysis and even speculation—so long as these do not claim absoluteness, overstep their boundaries, or make metaphysical claims that cannot be proven and conflict with essential elements of the Christian view of life and reality rooted in revelation.—The Essentials of Christian Thought, 248

Free!

In the biblical story, then, humans are damaged goods. Their nature is good because it was created by God in his own image and likeness with a supernatural destiny, but they are damaged by their own infidelity to God’s calling and purpose for them. They are responsible for their damaged condition, not because they violate reason with rebellion, but because they devise rebellion in their hearts and their minds, and actions follow the disposition their hearts have created. Tresmontant, Cherbonnier, Brunner, and others intent on going back to the source—the biblical story—for Christian metaphysics and anthropology agree that responsibility requires freedom. Cherbonnier spoke for all of them (and numerous other Christian thinkers) when he wrote that

The Bible consistently acknowledges human freedom. It is presupposed by all its key words, such as sin, repentance, forgiveness, love, and covenant. Consequently, though not intentionally philosophical, it contains by inference what is probably the most thorough understanding ever written of what it means to be a free agent.

According to Brunner, freedom and responsibility together comprise the “formal image of God” not destroyed by or lost in the fall of humanity into sin. He distinguished this from the “material image,” which he defined as “right relationship with God.” Sin, beginning freely in the heart, alienates the human person (and all of humanity in general) from God against reason. Therefore, the material image is forfeited responsibly. But the formal image can never be destroyed; it is why the human person is able to hear and believe the Word of God and it is what makes him or her full of dignity and value above the rest of creation.—The Essentials of Christian Thought, 212–13 (emphasis original)

<idle musing>
That's the final snippet from this book. I hope you enjoyed it. As I said back at the beginning, the book is a very good introduction in that it assumes very little knowledge of theology. Consequently, if you do know something, it can feel redundant at times. And there were times I wish he had gone a bit deeper—but that's not the book he set out to write! He wrote an introduction to Christian thinking. And using that as the standard, he did a very good job.

I highly recommend it to anyone desiring to understand what it means to "think Christianly" about life. If you haven't also read The Universe Next Door, by James Sire (now in its 6th edition!), then I recommend you read that and this book in order to get a better view of what a Christian worldview looks like.

Of course, once you've read both those books, then you should jump into Brunner : ) But that's just an
</idle musing>

Both and

Most thoughtful Christians, reflecting on the biblical story, would say that God’s purpose for creation is both to display his glory and to display his love. However, inquiring minds tend to move in one direction or the other—as the controlling or main purpose. Those in the Augustinian-Calvinist tradition tend to read Scripture as emphasizing God’s glory and power and the world as the place for displaying them. The result can be an interpretation of everything in the world, even evil, as purposed by God for his glory. Those in the Arminian-Wesleyan tradition (and also going back to the Greek church fathers before Augustine!) tend to read Scripture as emphasizing God’s love and desire for relationship and the world as the place for experiencing them. The result can be a softening of God’s lordship and a sentimentalizing of God as needing the world for his own fulfillment. The solution, of course, is to hold the two purposes of God in creation together in tension.The Essentials of Christian Thought, 192 (emphasis original)

<idle musing>
I tend (who am I kidding—I do!) read scripture through the Wesleyan-Arminian lens. But, I don't soften God's lordship! God created the world because he wanted to, not because of any need on his part!

And, the fact that prior to Augustine's arguments w/Pelagius, no church father (or mother) read it through a predestinarian lens just confirms in my mind that it is the correct one. But that's just an
</idle musing>

Stop it!

And God intends to liberate the world from this “bondage to decay,” which is evidence of God’s continuing care for creation. In the meantime, humans live out their likeness to God by having dominion over the world, which means nurturing it, not dominating and exploiting it. The ecological crisis, insofar as it is humankind’s doing, which science indicates it is, is a violation of the ethical implications of the biblical narrative even if caused partly by Christians. Christianity itself, understood as what the Bible reveals about God and the world, forbids rape of the environment.—The Essentials of Christian Thought, 189

But don't worship it!

Ethically, then, the point of the creation story of Genesis and the entire Bible’s witness is the call to care for God is good creation while avoiding worshiping it. Idolatry is a major theme of the biblical narrative; it is the very root of sin and evil—setting creation or some part of creation up as God and worshiping it is wrong because God alone is Lord and creation belongs to him. At the same time, denigrating nature or any part of it as evil and/or exploiting it is wrong because it belongs to God and caring for it is part of what it means to be human.—The Essentials of Christian Thought 188 (emphasis original)

<idle musing>
And this is the flipside of Friday's post. We don't exploit, but we don't worship creation either. We are stewards, called to care for it.
</idle musing>

Stop the exploitation!

God’s assignment of the human to have dominion never hints at permission to exploit, let alone ruin, nature; it remains part of the “image and likeness of God” and there is a call to care for creation and be God’s created cocreator in restoring it to its original intention.—The Essentials of Christian Thought, 188

<idle musing>
Indeed. I have never understood the mindset that thinks that because it is all going to go up in smoke anyway, let's assist in the destruction. From the time I was young, I was taught to conserve nature, to treat it with respect, to leave things better than I found them.
</idle musing>

And the greatest of these is…

All of this presupposes something that sets biblical-Christian metaphysics radically apart from other belief systems about ultimate reality. Tresmontant stated it most concisely: “Christianity is a metaphysic of love." This is something speculative reason alone cannot know about ultimate reality—that its very being is love. And this is the reason behind and Within God’s self-limitations, self-determinations, and self—actualizations: God’s being as being-for-others. Does that mean, then, that God must create to have “others” to love? Not at all. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity, itself rooted in biblical narrative, even necessitated by it, means that God’s creative activity, including his self-limitations in relation to creatures, is a free expression of the fullness of the love between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in eternity. If God were not triune, however, then creation would be necessary for God insofar as God is conceived as love.—The Essentials of Christian Thought 169 (emphasis original)

So, can God really change his mind?

Classical Christian theism, born in the cauldron of philosophized Christianity in the second and third centuries in the Roman Empire, reached its zenith in Anselm and Aquinas. Aquinas agreed that God, being absolute and ultimate in terms of reality, cannot change in any way and therefore cannot suffer—including feeling emotions such as compassion and sympathy. But classical Christian theism is not limited to early or medieval Christian thought; it still has its defenders in the twenty—first century in spite of being embattled. Very few Christian theologians except out-and-out liberal Protestants (e.g., process theologians) reject classical Christian theism entirely. Rather, following Dorner—a pioneer in attempting to return the Christian doctrine of God to biblical thought, separating it from Greek metaphysics that conflicts with that——many simply want to adjust Christian metaphysics “back to the Bible.” Most, this writer included, gladly affirm broad areas of agreement between the best of Greek philosophical theology and biblical revelation of God. At the same time, however, together with Dorner, Brunner, Cherbonnier, and other Christian critics of classical theism, I believe it important to base Christian metaphysics on the biblical narrative and not allow Greek or any other metaphysical thought to draw it away into extrabiblical speculation.—The Essentials of Christian Thought, 132

About that unmoved mover of yours…

A most interesting narrative in Isaiah is about God’s responsiveness to a king’s plea to extend his life (chapter 38). God sends the prophet to inform King Hezekiah of his impending death. The king begs God for more years of life and God listens and relents, changing what he decreed would happen, giving Hezekiah fifteen more years to live (38:5). Again, this is often chalked up to anthropomorphic speech by philosophically minded interpreters who bring to the text baggage borrowed from extrabiblical philosophies. According to most extrabiblical metaphysical schemes, ultimate reality cannot be affected by finite beings. Plato’s “Form of the Good,” Aristot1e’s “Unmoved Mover” and “Thought thinking itself,” Hegel’s “Absolute Spirit”—a1l are incapable of changing his (or its) mind in response to events in time, space, and history. But God, the ultimate being, the absolute person of biblical revelation, is intensely personal, self-limiting, and self-determining, and can voluntarily change his mind in response to his covenant partners’ pleas.—The Essentials of Christian Thought, 60

<idle musing>
The key here is "self-limiting." God is omnipotent and omniscient (and the other omni-s!), but he willingly self-limits himself to allow his creatures genuine self-determination. Truly amazing!
</idle musing>

It's personal!

The Bible presents a different picture of ultimate reality than extrabiblical, rational, speculative metaphysics. It elevates personhood (as described earlier) to ultimacy: the source of all finite reality, of nature and all it contains, is revealed as irreducibly personal and not just an impersonal (or even suprapersonal) force, power, or principle. Can reason alone establish this? Perhaps not. But one deleterious effect of depicting ultimate reality as impersonal is the demeaning of personal reality, of relationship and community, and a tendency to elevate as “like the ultimate” the isolated, static, unchangeable individual.—The Essentials of Christian Thought, 56

How do you describe ultimate reality?

I've been reading through Roger Olson's The Essentials of Christian Thought recently. As I said to a friend, it's a good book, but at times a bit redundant, as he wants to make sure his reader understands what he is trying to say. It would make a good introductory text paired with something like The Universe Next Door, a book he references. He also, to his credit, frequently cites Emil Brunner, probably the best twentieth century theologian (as you know if you have been reading this blog for very long, I prefer Brunner and Bonhoeffer to Barth).

I'll be excerpting from the book for the next two to three weeks. Here's the first one:

Nothing could be clearer to the unbiased Bible reader than that it depicts ultimate reality as not a thing or object or mere force or power but as someone who thinks, deliberates, acts, enters into relationships with others, and has freedom to determine himself. And it depicts ultimate reality—that which is beyond appearance, upon which all else depends, the source of all that is—as more than nature, not part of nature, even the author of nature who is free to intervene in it. What words are better suited to describe such an ultimate reality than personal and supernatural—even if they are inadequate and problematic?—The Essentials of Christian Thought, 54 (emphasis original)