I think Tim Chester's latest book, A Meal with Jesus, looks amazing. You can get a taster from reading his article, Making a Meal of It and watching this trailer:
A Meal with Jesus is available here from amazon.com and amazon.co.uk and there is also a Kindle version available here from amazon.com and amazon.co.uk.
[the pun wasn't originally intended, but why look a gift horse in the mouth?]
A bit of reflection on food in scripture with a take-home message of: enjoy more meals. Seriously? How's it possible to get away with churning this sort of stuff out?
ReplyDeleteHi Steve,
ReplyDeleteI was getting increasingly worried that pouring out low-quality blog posts may have put you off reading my blog. So I am relieved to see you comment!
I think it is a lot deeper than you suggest. I appreciate it is a 2:55 video for popular audience but Tim Chester is a clever guy (Phd in Moltmann's eschatology!)
As a Catholic I am sure that you can appreciate that life is not just word-driven. Words are spoken in a context, and physical actions as well as sensory experiences all shape us. Meals are among the most ritualised and symbol laden activities we participate in, and have been for all human history (as indicated by their regular appearances in Scripture).
We all know that someone cooking for us says something powerful about what they think of. People spend extortionate amounts on beer they could get for 25% of the price at the supermarket because drinking with people is an important social activity. Helping serve people food also creates community with a certain orientation (recall international student lunches and the affect of that on the CU members). I could go on...
Of course we'd both have some issues with Chester's low view of the sacraments, but there we go.
Do you see what I mean?
Not at all, Dave. I'm still a loyal follower (you almost lured me in with your Cramner anthropology too (I think it's flawed)).
ReplyDeleteYou don't need to convince me that meals are wonderful and significant: you need to convince me that I should be prepared to part with a tenner to be told that. It's obvious! And why do we need a lengthy exposition of scripture to justify enjoying meals? I'd have accepted it without that!
Tell me more on Cramner, its important stuff.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that everyone is concious of quite how important meals other than for nutrition! By people's actions, including mine, you can also see that the true usefulness of meals in loving other people isn't really grasped by a lot of people. I think it is a good conciousness-raiser, even if it is not profoundly novel.
Of course evangelicals always want to back up everything with some proof-texts. Even if that is superflous to the work of convincing people I think it is valuable in helping people to make the connections between life and the Bible.
Smooth answers.
ReplyDeleteOn Cranmer: the intellect cannot simply be the slave of the heart/will else we couldn't be responsible for our sins.
I wasn't expecting that answer on Cramner. Interesting one.
ReplyDeleteWhy are we not responsible for what we love, but responsible for what we think?
A young lad sees a juicy red apple hanging from his neighbour's tree. Would he be wrong to take and to eat it?
ReplyDeleteWhich of the will, the heart and the mind will give him the right answer?
Just started reading Peter Brown's biography of Augustine. Funny you should bring up that example.
ReplyDeleteI don't think his will, heart or mind will give him the answer. However, he desires the apple in his heart so he wills to take it and his mind thinks up some justification for doing so. That's often the pattern of sin in my life at least. We are culpable for the movements of all parts of our being (none of which can be separated except conceptually), and we would be right to resist the outflowing of our sinful heart's desires for that apple. But that is just damming a river which will find another way to flow down-hill and the only solution is a new heart as I can see it. Isn't that your experience? It is mine?
His mind would give him the answer, unless he suppresses the truth in order to get what he desires.
ReplyDeleteI agree (and its my experience) that our mind can come up with post-hoc justifications. But I also think that our mind can guide us to the right action in advance of the event. Indeed, I would describe pangs of conscience as the battle between our mind (telling us this is the right thing to do) and our will (telling us this is what I want to do).
It is a happy state when mind, will and heart cohere in their aims. Perhaps this is new birth ...
I think your last point is great. I think at the moment we are alienated even from ourselves in the present, and teh new birth has to be holistic in its scope of salvation - mind, heart and will must be renewed.
ReplyDeleteI think I also agree that his mind could give him the answer in that sense, but then I think so could his heart. In some sense our hearts have longings for things that are good, but we suppress those too.
I basically want to regurgitate the whole of Luther's Heidelberg Disputation to question whether our actions can be good if they are simply willed but not desired.
Returning to your last sentence though the question is whether it is just our heart that is fallen, or every part of us - including our minds? I once heard TF Torrance say he criticised the American evangelical Carl Henry for not really accepting that our reason/mind is fallen as well as every other part of us. What do you think?
Sorry for asking lots of questions! I think its a good discussion to have.
I'm not sure about fallen/unfallen, but I think it is our will rather than our minds that is the problem. This is based on experience (and a bit of Thomistic theology). In addition, if we can't trust our reasoning, we could never have confidence in arriving at truth.
ReplyDeleteHmmm... I think I've thought evil things as well as willed them. As Jesus says on the Sermon on the Mount so powerfully about anger, adultery etc.
ReplyDeleteAlso, even if we can't trust our reasoning perfectly, doesn't mean that we cannot trust it at all; just as having imperfect knowledge about politics doesn't mean we cannot vote. Although we should be especially suspicious of it in relation to God because it is in our broken God-relatedness that the heart of the disease of sin is found.
Evil thoughts as described above are wrong desires (of the heart) not wrong reasoning (of the mind).
ReplyDeleteYour analogy doesn't work because reasoning is a capacity we have whereas knowledge is something we acquire.
Also, which part of your reasoning do you trust and which bit don't you trust? If you can't trust it in general, you can't trust it at all. Which isn't to say we should trust all our conclusions - but only further reasoning can correct our mistakes.
To repeat my original point, if we don't have the capacity to know right from wrong, we can't be culpable for our sins and are no different from brute animals (being pulled about by our desires).
Wouldn't you agree that it is our rationality that distinguishes us from other animals?
Perhaps that is a fair comment about wrong desires. How about self-justification, where we falsely and sinfully reason that we are not at fault?
ReplyDeleteThe knowledge/reasoning point was that they are similar not that one is an analogy of the other. Our bodies are a capacity we have but they are also broken and don't work properly. Everything about us (acquired or congenital) is broken post-fall.
"If you can't trust it in general, you can't trust it at all." I just don't see why it is all or nothing? I cannot always trust my ability to avoid tripping up when walking along the pavement without looking, but that doesn't stop me trusting my ability to do that day-by-day.
Do you believe in Original Sin? That rests on the presumption that we are culpable for sins we commit even if we don't 'know' any different. Besides our desires are no less part of us than our reasoning. So if our desires are pulling us about then they are our desires and we're responsible for them.
I think there are a number of things which distinguish us from the animals. Fundamentally though it is that we alone are made in the image of God, and that is primarily a statement about our role in creation and not our make-up.
I won’t get into your comment on bodies because I think it gets us away from your/Cranmer’s three-way distinction between mind, heart and will, which are all inner states. Ditto original sin (though I do believe it!).
ReplyDeleteI am not saying mental sin, such as self-justification, is not possible. Far from it! I am saying we are responsible for mental sin, and all sin, because it is possible for us to do otherwise: we have the capacity to reason, and thus to chose, correctly.
I don’t think we are can be held culpable for our wishes and desires. These are instinctual, and we need reason’s light to know how to respond appropriately to them (Jesus was tempted, but never sinned).
On the all or nothing point. Losing trust in reason leaves you open to all sorts of 1984-ish scenarios. If someone tells you you can’t trust your conclusions or your ability to reach correct conclusions, you risk becoming subject to someone else’s power (will/desire).
Finally, in tension with my previous point, here’s an authority to support my position:
‘For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members . . . So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.’
Romans 7:22-23, 29b
"I am saying we are responsible for mental sin, and all sin, because it is possible for us to do otherwise: we have the capacity to reason, and thus to chose, correctly."
ReplyDeleteI think we're now getting onto the question of the bound will (Luther always said it was important)! I would say that we do and do not have the capacity to do otherwise. Can a depressed person choose not to think depressive thoughts? Theoretically they can, but in reality they can't. I'm not saying depression=sin but it is an illustration of how our reasoning can be broken and beyond repair, and yet we can appear to have the option just to 'think differently'.
Interesting point on Jesus' temptation. I don't think Jesus desired anything that was inherently sinful (e.g. murder), although he may have desired things that would be sinful in the circumstances of his particular calling (e.g. avoiding death, sex). I don't think reasoning can even function without desires (kierkegaard explains that we have to have passions in order to make a decision - because of the inherent infinitude of reasoning - otherwise we'll just think and think and never conclude).
On the all or nothing point you still seem to suggest that to lose absolute confidence in reason is to lose all confidence. I don't understand that. Why can't reason by something like physics? Something we can rely on, and don't throw away just because someone says we should, but which we hold open to questioning and improvement.
On Romans 7 I think that is talking about the Christian. The mind is the new reasoning and even new desires borne of the Spirit breaking into my mortal body. Why do you associate reasoning entirely with the mind and desires solely with the body? Is that really a Biblical or Greek philosophical perspective?
On your last point, I am not advocating a mind/body distinction. Like you, I am not even entirely convinced by the mind/will/heart typology, but I think it is serviceable as a way of understanding our actions.
ReplyDeleteMy main point has been that a notion of responsibility (and thus sin) depends on our being able to contemplate and choose between alternatives. I say that this is a function of mind. If you don't, then our agreement maybe over terminology rather than substance . . . Are you saying that our deliberate choices are a combination of mind/will/heart? Or are you saying we don't have the ability to make choices at all?