Month: September 2016

The Son Will Be Subjected to the Father? Thomas and Calvin Weigh In

/ Luke Stamps / 1 Comment

Awhile back, during the heat of the summer, Matt posted some quotes from St. Basil and St. Augustine on the meaning of 1 Corinthians 15:28: “When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.”

In what sense will the Son be subjected to the Father? Does this verse teach a final submission of the Son of God as such to the Father ? Or are we to understand this subjection in terms of Christ’s humanity rather than his personal divine identity? As Matt pointed out, Basil and Augustine pick up on clues in the biblical text itself that point in the direction of the latter interpretation.

I was interested to hear from a couple of my favorite interpreters on this text as well. So I tracked down what Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin had to say. Here’s Thomas on 1 Corinthians 15:27-28 (emphasis added):

But on the other hand. If the Father subjected all things to the Son, the Son is less than the Father. The answer is that the Father subjected all to the Son as man, as has been stated, and so the Father is greater than the Son. For He is less according to his humanity, but equal according to His divinity. Or it might be said that even the Son Himself as God subjected all things to Himself, because as God He can do all that the Father does: “We await a Savior who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power which enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Phil 3:20)….Therefore, he says, when all things are subjected to him. As if to say: God has not yet subjected all things to Christ, but when all things shall have been subjected to Him, namely, to Christ, then the subject Himself according to His humanity will be subjected to Him, namely, to the Father: “The Father is greater than I” (Jn. 14:28), and even now Christ as man is subjected to the Father, but this will be more manifest then.

And Calvin (again, emphasis added):

But Christ will then restore the kingdom which he has received, that we may cleave wholly to God. Nor will he in this way resign the kingdom, but will transfer it in a manner from his humanity to his glorious divinity, because a way of approach will then be opened up, from which our infirmity now keeps us back. Thus then Christ will be subjected to the Father, because the vail being then removed, we shall openly behold God reigning in his majesty, and Christ’s humanity will then no longer be interposed to keep us back from a closer view of God.

So it’s clear that Thomas and Calvin agree with Basil and Augustine: the Son’s subjection to the Father in the eschaton is a function of his humanity. There are clues in 1 Corinthians 15 itself that point in this direction (e.g., as Basil points out, the subjection spoken of is somehow a future and not a present reality; so it can’t be describing some eternally fixed relation of Father and Son in their immanent relations). But, as Thomas and Calvin seem to be appealing to, there are also Christological commitments grounded in the text of Scripture that must guide our interpretation of this particular text. We know from John’s gospel that there is some sense in which the Father is greater than the Son (John 14:28). But we also know from other texts that the Son possesses the same “glorious divinity” as the Father and that he has the same power to subject all things to himself (Phil. 3:20). The doctrine of the Trinity teaches us that, along with the Father and Spirit, the Son is the very God to whom all things will be subjected and who will finally be all in all.

So Thomas and Calvin seem to be employing the classical “form of God/form of servant” hermeneutical rule. Is this text speaking of Christ in terms of his deity or in terms of his humanity? Answering that question with regard to any particular text demands appeal not only to the specifics of the text itself but also to broader Christological judgments that take into account the entire scope of Scripture. In short, Basil and Augustine, Thomas and Calvin provide us with commendable examples of the classic principle that Scripture interprets Scripture.

Biblical Studies and Systematic Theology: An Allegory

/ Matt Emerson / 3 Comments

This is anecdotal, and, for the purposes of this post, a bit hyperbolic, but in my experience there is still a divide within evangelical scholarship between biblical studies and systematic theology. To be sure, there are those who do these together and do it well, albeit from one or the other discipline, but, for many evangelical scholars, an academic version of Lessing’s ditch makes its disciplinary mark and it, like the original, cannot be crossed. Biblical studies is biblical studies, and theology is theology, and never the twain shall meet. Again, of course there are biblical scholars who believe all sorts of things about theology, and of course there are theologians who read the biblical text. But with respect to how these two disciplines mutually inform one another, the implied answer, at least from their praxis, seems to be that they don’t.

Here’s an example: I have witnessed, countless times, evangelicals trained in biblical studies exercise a hermeneutic of suspicion when it comes to systematic categories, concepts, and terms. To my biblical studies friends, theology is something that should be kept at arm’s length, at least until we’re done exegeting. Dogmatics is also something that, to many biblical scholars, isn’t rooted in the Bible but instead in tradition, philosophy, and so forth.

I have also witnessed, namely through reading but also through listening to papers and to conversations among peers, systematic theologians theologize without exegeting the biblical text. Constructing dogmatics appears to be, for many, a task we can do without exegesis. Theologians look to philosophy, the hard sciences, the social sciences, logic, and history to “do theology,” but the biblical text is a footnote at best.

To put it simply: my biblical studies friends are often suspicious of systematicians, and my systematician friends often find exegetical work boring and useless.

Or, to put it allegorically, biblical studies and systematic theology are, in this view, like Jacob and Esau: they are family, twins, even, but different in stature, interests, and outcome. While they greet each other warmly on the outside, they do so under a cloud of suspicion on the inside (Genesis 32-33).

Rather than these two roads diverging so widely in the wood of Christian scholarship, though, it would be better if we did not put asunder what God has joined together. Frankly, this mutual suspicion between tasks is born not out of the superiority of one discipline or the other, but is instead a hangover from modernism. In seeking to cast aside every authority but the self, modernism separated exegesis from theology, interpretation from the church, hermeneutics from confession. This ought not to be so.

Biblical studies and systematic theology, rather than suspicious but related brothers, are instead more like covenanted friends. They push one another, edify one another, love one another, encourage one another, protect one another. Instead of Jacob and Esau, brothers in paternity but rivals in spirit, these tasks should be seen more like Jonathan and David: covenanted friends who seek to serve the one God together. Each has its strengths, but each needs the other to edify its work in places where its tools are insufficient in and of themselves.

Suspicion is a product of the spirit of the Enlightenment; mutual love is a product of the Spirit of God.

Random Thoughts on Place and Time

/ Luke Stamps / Leave a comment

Being in one place doesn’t actually separate you from other places. It connects you to all places on the same good earth.

The only way to be separated from other places is to be dis-placed in abstraction from any concrete place (online worlds, commuter cities, back-patio neighborhoods, etc.).

Similarly, being in one time doesn’t actually separate you from other times. It connects you to all times in the same eschatological continuum.

The only way to be separated from other times is to be un-timed in abstraction from any determinate time (casting aside tradition, appealing to timeless principles, embracing a carpe diem hedonism).

Applying these thoughts to ecclesiology, the church is connected to the universal and the eternal precisely by being local and present.

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel (Hebrews 12:22-24).

On Scholarly Focus: Pursuing Dogmatic Biblical Theology

/ Matt Emerson / Leave a comment

I am currently reading A. G. Sertillanges’ The Intellectual Life – a feast for those pursuing an academic ministry – and last night I read the end of the chapter, “The Field of Work.” This section focuses on two poles: on the one hand, the scholar’s need to connect their discipline to other areas of knowledge, since, as God’s creation, all knowledge is connected; and, on the other hand, the scholar’s need to dig deeply in one specific area of focus. I cannot remember the exact quote, and I don’t have the book in front of me at the moment, but Sertillanges ends the chapter by cautioning the academic not to take that first principle too far because a jack of all trades is a master of none. Everything is interesting, everything could garner our attention, but the academic life is a disciplined one, and this is especially true with respect to the focus of one’s study.

I find this particularly difficult. My dissertation was an integration of canonical criticism (biblical studies), the history of interpretation (hermeneutics), theological method (dogmatics), and tracing a theme through the NT (biblical theology). That’s a lot to tackle in one monograph; too much, really. Looking back, I realize I should have narrowed considerably. In any case, I mention that because it is characteristic of how I operate: many areas of study catch my eye, and I tend to try and fit them all together. As Sertillanges says in his first principle, this is, on the face of it, not a bad thing: all areas of knowledge are connected and therefore can and should be integrated. My problem has been that I do not drill down deep enough in one area and only then, once I’ve done so, ask where the other wells of knowledge connect to mine.

This has been an issue I’ve been pondering for at least a year, and toward the end of last year and the beginning of this one I began to see with some clarity where I’d like to dig. I’ve given it the moniker dogmatic biblical theology. By “dogmatic” I mean the study of Christian doctrine in its historical and systematic formulations. By “biblical theology” I mean reading Scripture with its redemptive historical, intertextual, and contextual features at the forefront of the interpretive process. There are a couple of other terms floating at the edges that need mentioning, but I haven’t quite figured how to put these into a concise, summary phrase. “Ressourcement” would be the first; I want to retrieve the biblical-theological rationale, and the pre-critical methodologies from which that rationale arose, for traditional dogmatic categories. “Protestant” would be the second; my theological method is situated within a Protestant, evangelical, Baptist theological method. Combining these, and to state it succinctly, I want my focus to be recovering classic Christian doctrines from an evangelical perspective via pre-critical hermeneutical retrieval and biblical-theological reflection.Perhaps an even more succinct way of putting it is that I want to do biblical theology in service of hermeneutical and dogmatic retrieval. I think this gives me enough focus to dig deeply while at the same time scratching the itch of disciplinary integration.

Perhaps that last paragraph is a bit “meh” for you. Not your cup of tea, etc. That’s fine. Understanding Canaanite creation myths isn’t my favorite blend, but more power to you if that’s the well you want to dig. I’d still encourage you to a) pick up Sertillanges ASAP, if you’re pursuing an academic vocation and b) articulate your specific area of focus.