Still listening to Tim Keller on applying Biblical texts. Keller draws out some helpful stuff from Vern Polythress on triperspectivalism in application:
Vern Poythress in [God-Centered Biblical Interpretation] takes John Frame's 3-perspectives of normative (prophetic). existential (priestly), and situational (kingly) and works this out for hermeneutics [...]
Each perspective is true in that it eventually comprises the whole, but each approach begins with a particular 'door' or aspect.
[1. 'Doctrinalist'] The 'normative' aspect I'll call "the gospel of Christ" - stresses objective, historic work of Christ that Jesus really came in time-space and history to accomplish all for us. It will talk much more about the real, historicity of Jesus life. death and resurrection...This view thinks that the problem addressed by Paul in Galatians was a doctrinal heresy.
[2. 'Pietist'] The 'existential' aspect I'll call "the gospel of sonship"- stresses our new identity in Christ as adopted children, liberated from the law. It will talk much of the power of the spirit to renew broken hearts and psyches...This view thinks that the problem addressed by Paul in Galatians was a pastoral one of Christians falling back into legalism.
[3. 'Cultural-transformationist'] The 'situational' aspect I'll call "the gospel of the kingdom" - stresses the reversal of values in the new creation. It will talk about healed community, cultural transformation, ministry of deed and justice... This view thinks that the problem addressed by Paul in Galatians was the lack of 'table fellowship' between Jew and Gentile.
We need all three perspectives, though each perspective is not simply a 'part' of the gospel. For example, the 'kingdom' perspective contains the other two. If God is king, then salvation must be by grace, for if we are saved by works, something else will be our Lord and Savior . Or, if we have a new identity in Christ by sheer grace. then we must not look down at anyone else, and self-justification is the basis of racism and injustice. If you go deep enough into any one perspective, you will find the other two.
Like it. But perspectives/aspects is very visual, and visual space tends to be exclusive space. The wall is either blue or green. We could paint it both but then it would be neither, but a mix.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if music is a better analogy: 3 themes, in harmony and discord but present together, in the same piece. Or perhaps 3 registers in a choir - bass, tenor, soprano...filling the same space, not destroying the other, all entirely there in their own rights, yet all the more rich together - far more than the sum of their parts. Unless you analyse it heavily (in which case you lose the music) you can only hear each in the present of the others.
Perspectivalism is all over Keller's stuff, even where he doesn't explicitly point it out he frequently works from three angles. I think it's cos he was at Westminster Philly with Frame and (I presume) Poythress.
ReplyDeleteI frequently find it helpful as either an organising principle or as a way of covering several bases or as a means of seeing things as not necessarily in conflict that at first might appear to be.
Good points all round. Thanks for the additional thoughts folks.
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