The King's English

The brilliant and unique Glen Scivener is spending 2011 celebrating the publication of the King James Bible in 1611 by starting another blog.

This is what he says about it:

This blog is just one attempt to raise awareness about the impact of this translation on the English speaking world. I will blog on a phrase per day that has passed into common parlance: popular phrases like “labour of love”, “beast of burden”, “wits’ end” and “scapegoat”; but also phrases that should be more popular, like “filthy lucre” and “gird up thy loins”.

This is a blog for people of all beliefs and I’ll try to keep things as jargon-free as possible. I hope that whether you are a Christian or not you will understand more about the English we speak, and about the King who has shaped it.

Most of my readers probably know about Glen's blogging already, but if you don't you're missing a treat. Unlike me Glen always has something to say and tends to say it well. But the best thing about Glen is that he is a man with just one king.

I'm looking forward to enjoying a constant flow of his grace-filled, provocative, passionate and fresh thoughts on all those phrases. Why not add his feed to your RSS reader and tell others about it as well?

• The King's English: The English we speak and the King Who's shaped it
• Christ the Truth (his usual blog)

The doctrine of the Trinity at the end!

Glen Scrivener recently posted a great post on why when doing theology we should start with the Trinity, not with any general teaching about God. I must admit I've been largely sold on this over the last few years, and found that while people may not practice it, nobody ever seems to disagree with the basic idea that the Trinity is where we should begin.... that was up until very recently, when I came across a confident broadside against it in the most surprising place.

Oswald Bayer notes that starting with the doctrine of the Trinity "is the pattern that is followed by an ever-increasing number of dogmatic theologians throughout the world" (p. 335, Martin Luther's Theology; A Contemporary Interpretation). But this is not something which he approves of. He describes as "one of the grandiose blunders of the more recent history of both philosophy and theology" (p. 339)!

He believes that the doctrine of the Trinity is "properly located neither as a bland addition nor in the middle as just one dogmatic theme among many, but correctly in the middle and correctly at the end" (p.334). The reason for this is that "the triune nature of God can only be comprehended only as an unfolding of the pure gospel" (p.335 - reminds me of the title to Tim Chester's Theology Network, "The good news of the Trinity"). He sees a number of problems if we start the doctrine of the Trinity. E.g:

• "if one proceeds in such a way, one will come dangerously close to... a brand of speculation that ignores time and the situation" (p.335)
• it "ignores or minimizes the problem of unfaith" (p.335)
• it has no place for the sufferer's experience of God as his seeming enemy, or take seriously the "reality of evil".

The basic problem though is that those who want to see the Trinity placed at the beginning see what is first in theology as the most fundamental. They are always concerned that we fit what follows to what comes before, and that much theology has fit the Trinity into the procrustean bed of a Unitarian view of God. However, a Lutheran who believes in law and then Gospel believes that what follows is the more fundamental. The Lutheran believes the good news is a surprise.

Bayer believes that we should begin with "'general' teaching about God", but not because he thinks that the Trinity is subsidiary. He has no love for the God who is not Trinity. "The God who comes to us apart from being the triune God, who is purely and completely love, 'looks on,' and has for us the grimace of the devil" (p.338). General teaching about God, even a monotheistic God, is something that belongs to the non-Christian and will be left behind in eternity.

The distinction between what is involved in the teaching about the Trinity and "general" teaching about God [...] is encountered in faith and in the hope that this distinction will be removed, along with the distinction between law and gospel, in the eschaton. The the triune God - he alone - will be all in all (1 Cor. 15:28). Then we also will no longer be assailed by the oppressive, incomprehensible hiddenness that weighs us down even to the point of our death. It will be consumed by open love which itself cannot be comprehended, which will free us from its power and which comes to us conclusively already now in the gospel.

The end that we believe in and hope for, because of the love that has come to us and has been promised to us - the consummation of the work of creation by the triune God - is misinterpreted with regard to its true character when it is claimed that it exists as a timeless principle of knowledge and existence. Its universality cannot be demonstrated in the abstract, not even with theoretical means linked to the Trinity; one cannot apply its truths to every circumstance one can postulate and treat it as an a priori. (pp.339-340)

Glen and others (hi Glen!) are driven by their conviction that we should start all our thinking about God with the Trinity to argue that the Trinity was fully understood by the OT saints. Hence the regular 'Angel of the Lord' etc debates. But while a Lutheran would admit that the Trinity was seen in the OT, just as the Gospel was preached in the OT, they would also want to retain a distinction because:

just as the chief teaching of the New Testament is really the proclamation of grace and peace through the forgiveness of sins in Christ, so the chief teaching of the Old Testament is really the teaching of the laws, the showing up of sin, and the demanding of good. (Martin Luther, Preface to the Old Testament)

For Oswald Bayer there is always a shape and a story to the Bible and to our lives. He sees those who start with the doctrine of the Trinity as flattening the contours of this story, and so missing out on the depths and the heights of the Bible's message about God.

... I must confess its shook up all my thinking. Who knows how it will all settle again.

[A few asides: (a) it is interesting to note that Karl Barth was led the way in both making the doctrine of the Trinity at the beginning of theology, and in arguing that we should deal with Gospel then law. (b) It is also interesting how those who start with the Trinity always seem (IMHO) to be struggling to not say that creation and redemption were necessary for God. (c) In The Cruciality of the Cross PT Forsyth argues that the Atonement (i.e. the Gospel) drives us to the Incarnation, not the other way round. But it could be equally said of the doctrine of the Trinity. The Gospel drives us to the Trinity from our point of view, even if the Trinity is what leads to the Gospel from God's point of view.]

Natural theology, law and Gospel

Glen has been interacting with some thoughts on truth and goodness in pagan philosophers. I agree with him entirely and he says things much better than I could. I just think he could do with a dash of law and Gospel!

I've talked about this more here and here, where you can see how much I'm relying on Oswald Bayer. I came across another Bayer gem that explains what I mean the other day:

"The effect that the law creates is not surprising. One has no trouble understanding what it means to rely on oneself and on one's own deeds; the action-consequences relationship has its own logic. But the gospel is absolutely, completely incomprehensible. That God rescues one from, and brings one safely through, the deserved judgment is a miracle. Law and gospel cannot be plausibly intertwined together; their existence is hard and fast in opposition to each other. The gospel is literally a paradox; it stands against that which the sinner can reasonably expect; it stands against damnation"

(p.228, Martin Luther's Theology: A Contemporary Interpretation)

I think that makes clear how there can be good and true things in what pagan philosophers say (which, Glen, I think you could be clearer on), while also proclaiming the foolishness of the Gospel. They teach the good and true law, but cannot teach the Gospel. They never completely teach the law (that actually can only be done by teaching the cross), but they cannot even partially teach the Gospel. To me that makes sense of Psalm 19, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, Job, Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 1-3 etc

It also makes sense of my experience. For example, I watch a fair number of films and attempt to do this from a Christian perspective. I tend to feel they are often great at showing our plight, but never offer anything but false solutions.

Now there is an interesting question which I haven't really addressed, and that is where does Christ fit into this? I have talked about law and Gospel and Glen has talked about Christ. Does Christ=the Gospel, which is what Luther and Mark 1:1 (granting my discussion with Chris about different meanings of 'gospel') seem to do? But isn't Christ the one shown to be the one who will judge the world (Acts 17:31), and isn't the cross the ultimate proclamation of the law (as PT Forsyth argues)? Can't Paul even say that 'according to [his] gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus' (Rom 2:16)?

Sorry but I don't have time to pick up those threads!... just thought I'd tease you!

BTW I'm sorry if all I do is talk about Oswald Bayer, Glen Scrivener and law and Gospel at the moment. As you can probably tell by the rushed off nature of this post I'm not getting much time at the moment.

The NT witness

From a great post from Glen Scrivener summing up the philosophy behind some of his recent posts on the parables

New Testament does not mean 'gospel'. It doesn’t mean 'gospel' any more than Old Testament means 'gospel'. Rather, both are witnesses to Christ.

You see it’s not the New Testament that fulfils the Old

No. Jesus fulfils the OT, not the NT. There’s a difference. It’s He that stands above both Scriptures.

[...]

The Old is in need of fulfilment in Christ yes. But so is the New. To understand Old or New demands that we read them as witness to Jesus.

It reminds me a little of The Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord:

the term Gospel is not always employed and understood in one and the same sense, but in two ways, in the Holy Scriptures, as also by ancient and modern church teachers. For sometimes it is employed so that there is understood by it the entire doctrine of Christ, our Lord, which He proclaimed in His ministry upon earth, and commanded to be proclaimed in the New Testament, and hence comprised in it the explanation of the Law and the proclamation of the favor and grace of God, His heavenly Father, as it is written, Mark 1, 1: The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And shortly afterwards the chief heads are stated: Repentance and forgiveness of sins [...] So Paul, too, calls his entire doctrine the Gospel, Acts 20, 21; but he embraces the sum of this doctrine under the two heads: Repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. [...] Furthermore the term Gospel is employed in another, namely, in its proper sense, by which it comprises not the preaching of repentance, but only the preaching of the grace of God, as follows directly afterwards, Mark 1, 15, where Christ says: Repent, and believe the Gospel. (source)

Although I'm also thankful to Glen for reminding me to make what I think the Gospel is fit Christ, and not Christ fit what I think the Gospel is (see his excellent post "Jesus, not some Christ-principle").

The sacraments as God's arrow down

Glen Scrivener comments that Mike Reeves says that "the sacraments are not our 'arrow up' to God and the world. They’re His 'arrow down'. His promise to us, not our promise to Him." I was reminded of that comment when reading Melanchthon today who writes in his Loci Communes (1543):

Profane people think that the sacraments are signs of profession which distinguish us from other people [...] or are symbols of certain functions regarding other people [...] But although many purposes have been ordained for the sacraments, yet far at the head of all of these must be placed this chief purpose, namely that they might be signs of God's will toward us, that is, added testimonies of the promise of grace [...] These rites are not human spectacles like the tragedies of the Greeks, which were set up so that some kind of commemoration of things done might be handed down to posterity; but they have far higher purposes. (p.139)

A marking post on my journey in Trinitarian Theology

[A comment of mine on Dan Hames' blog]

Hello everyone,

I thought I best account for my absence in case it appear rude especially as I am really thankful for this conversation.

Unfortunately I have had not more than 30min at a computer at any one time for the last week (except at work) and I have been given so much to think about that I can't possibly respond properly without a couple of hours! Nevertheless I have not stopped thinking about what has been discussed and I have been able to read things and listen to lectures on my commute, which has been amazing.

In case any of you cared where I am in my journey through Trinitarian Theology, I thought I would do a summary for myself more than anything. But seeing as it has been formed in conversation with you all (esp. Dan and Glen – not because Martin and Paul don’t have good things to say but because they were there first and there when I had the time to read properly) I thought I would post it in a comment here.

0. God is definitely revealed and Glen was right to pick me up on where my rash comments led, but that doesn't mean that he is fully revealed. However I still think that God is primarily (I think I was wrong to say 'only') revealed in relation to creation, and particularly in our redemption.

1. I’m still not convinced that the Trinity is revealed in the OT in the way in which Glen appears to think it is. So many other people have made the argument better than me that I won’t dwell here.

2. I do think the Trinity is revealed in the OT but not because there are plurals in the names of God, an Angel of YHWH, Wisdom of God etc but because the Trinity is revealed in the unity of God too, just as the Trinity is revealed in the one Son so it can be revealed in the one Elohim.

3. Augustine is getting a horribly rough deal. I think he took into account the three much more he has been given credit for in recent discussion. I also have noted that: (i) some seem to think that he was much less neo-platonic on the Trinity than he has Glen and Dan say (ii) he was combating genuine concerns that were as real as the concerns of Glen and Dan (iii) On his book on the Trinity he spends the first third of the book in the Scriptures before moving on to Philosophy (iv) 'substance' was not 'stuff' for him. In all these things I can't help thinking that Augustine is a hook to hang the faults of the worst of post-Enlightenment Protestantism, much as Tom Wright hangs many of the faults of the worst of Evangelicalism on Luther.

4. I have been reading quite a few creeds and catechisms recently and the Apostles/Nicene creed are remarkably focused on the three - as in fact they are remarkably focused on history and the church.

5. Dan and Glen's thoughts about what makes the Trinity one make remarkable sense logically.

6. They also make remarkable sense of the bible’s own discussion about unity in married couples and the church. - incidentally it would be interesting to read something about the connection between monks and celibacy and conceptions of the Trinity. It is striking that whereas Augustine does go to Gen 1:26-27 to learn of the Trinity in the Trinity's image (apparently he was one of the first to do so) he focuses on the individual that is in the image of God and not the couple ('in the image of God...he created them').

7. This MP3 by Mike Ovey on the inseparable operation of the members of the trinity is the highlight of my listening/reading so far (other than this blog of course). It would be worth listening to while bearing in mind Glen's helpful post.

8. In the light of Mike Ovey's talk I wonder what Dan and Glen would do with: "whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise." "Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works." "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father." Although something similar could be said of the perfect human relationship this is a quantum leap in magnitude.

9. Is "God is love" any more important than "God is true" "God is spirit" "God is faithful" etc or even "God is a consuming fire". In which case does Augustine have a thought when he says "For we are not going to say that God is called Love because love itself is a substance worthy of the name of God, but because it is a gift of God, as it is said to God" and goes on to identify the Holy Spirit as love because he is a gift. Again we have come round to God’s revelation in relation to his creation and not primarily in himself.

10. So I’m still wondering: How bound to the creation is the revelation of God? The Word of God is a title which begs the question 'Word to who?'. Similarly Father and Son all could be related firstly to God's relationship to his people before to intra-Trinitarian discussion. As Calvin says on John 17:24 which Glen brought up earlier:

"This also agrees better with the person of the Mediator than with Christ’s Divinity alone. It would be harsh to say that the Father loved his Wisdom; and though we were to admit it, the connection of the passage leads us to a different view. Christ, unquestionably, spoke as the Head of the Church, when he formerly prayed that the apostles might be united with him, and might behold the glory of his reign. He now says that the love of the Father is the cause of it; and, therefore, it follows that he was beloved, in so far as he was appointed to be the Redeemer of the world. With such a love did the Father love him before the creation of the world, that he might be the person in whom the Father would love his elect."

Reminds me of Ephesians: “he chose us in him before the foundation of the world”. After all ‘Son of God’ was a title for Israel and her king first in the bible. Father was a title for Israel’s God before it was Jesus’ name for the first person of the Trinity. Although this is a facile discussion in some sense as God is the creator of time. Nevertheless he identified with us, and we identify with him – which came first (1 John says the former)?

11. Praise God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit that all three in unity chose to bring me into that community to their own glory!