Theologians on the interweb are having a jolly ding-dong about the at-first-glance-somewhat-obscure doctrine of the eternal subordination of the Son of God. Andrew Wilson has an excellent summary, with links to the various articles from the various combatants. The presenting issue is that some theologians are using the idea that the Son is eternally subordinate to the Father in support of a compelementarian view of gender relations: basically, if the Son is ontologically equal to the Father in every way, and yet submits to him eternally, that provides a pattern for equality-with-submission in the marriage relationship (and possibly elsewhere). But leaving aside the issue of gender, the deeper question is whether eternal subordination is an orthodox way of describing the relationship between the first and second person of the Godhead - and this question matters, because God is real.
In times like these, I do what I always do - reach for the Church Dogmatics. In this particular case, specifically IV/1, and the beginning of the chapter on The Obedience of the Son of God. So, how does Uncle Karl approach the question (which in his day was not so freighted with acute ethical questions)?
He begins by focussing, habitually, on Christ, and making clear that we are talking about the atonement that takes place in him and which is witnessed in both the Old and New Testaments. God's self-revelation in Christ is the source, ground, and content of our speaking here. We recognise from this source that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, is indeed God himself, the deity. There is no element of the NT which does not rest on this, and there is no element of the OT which is not caught up into it. But what is the significance of this attribution of deity to Christ? "The meaning of His deity... cannot be gathered from any notion of supreme, absolute, non-worldly being. It can be learned only from what took place in Christ" (177). In other words, we are relentlessly pushed back on revelation: no pre-conceived ideas of God - who he is, what he is like - can be allowed to qualify God's revelation in Christ. What it means for Christ to be God must be read off from the evidence of his incarnational revelation: "to put it more pointedly, the mirror in which it can be known (and is known) that He is God, and of the divine nature, is His becoming flesh and His existence in the flesh" (177).
But how are we to understand the obedience of the Son of God? "We cannot conceal that it is a difficult and even an elusive thing to speak of obedience which takes place in God Himself" (195). Barth briefly rejects Subordinationism proper (which gets around the problem by making the Son less than God, or at least not equally divine with the Father), and Modalism (which gets around the problem by making the obedience only an appearance of submission, "a kind of forecourt of the divine being" [196]). These solutions, often offered naively and harmlessly in the first few centuries of the church, must be rejected once their implications are seen, as they were rejected in the move to Nicene orthodoxy.
So Barth lays out three presuppositions to help move forward, "to engage (the difficulty) in frontal assault" (197). In brief, they are:
1. When we talk about the Son of God, we are talking about the subject and author of our salvation. "Anyone other or less than the true God is not a legitimate subject competent to act in this matter" (198) - therefore Subordinationism is ruled out.
2. The atonement is a genuine worldly event, which not only happens in the world "but affects it from within to convert it to God" (198) - therefore the entering into the world, the submission, of the Son of God is real and not only apparent, and Modalism is ruled out.
3. The atonement is a matter of the action of God being "identical with the existence of the humiliated and lowly obedient man Jesus of Nazareth" (199). Without in any way compromising his deity, God is in this man. "Everything depends on our accepting this presupposition, on our seeing and understanding what the New Testament witnesses obviously saw and understood, the proper being of the one true God in Jesus Christ the crucified" (199).
And so the conclusion: "Is it a fact that in relation to Jesus Christ we can speak of an obedience of the one true God Himself in his proper being? From the three inalienable presuppositions just expounded it is plain that we not only can do so but have to do so... We have not only not to deny but actually to affirm and understand as essential to the being of God the offensive fact that there is in God himself an above and a below... a superiority and a subordination" (200-1).
And of course that leads to the glorious (and polemical!) assertions about the servanthood of God in IV/2...
I think the central point for Barth, rightly, is the question of whether God is really revealed in Jesus Christ. If the relation of authority and obedience which we see in Jesus does not reflect anything in the internal life of God, then the incarnation is not revelatory but misleading; how could we then say that we know anything about God? However, if God really is revealed in Jesus, we cannot and must not allow any preconceived notions of what God 'must be like' to prevent us from accepting that revelation.
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
Monday, June 13, 2016
Reader Response: Ethics (7)
The seventh manuscript in the Works edition of Bonhoeffer's Ethics is the first draft of a section entitled History and Good. The section begins by making explicit that everything said so far only makes sense if we discard the common ethical framework of "an isolated individual who has available an absolute criterion by which to choose continually and exclusively between a clearly recognised good and a clearly recognised evil" (219). This framework must be discarded because there is no such isolated individual, there is no such choice, and there is no such criterion.
The discarded framework is an abstraction, and fails to recognise "the historicity of human existence" (220). An individual cannot be isolated from their historical situation and community. Rather, "a human being necessarily lives in encounter with other human beings", which leads to the individual having responsibilities towards those others (220). Note that these responsibilities are largely given, not chosen, and they provide the shape of our ethical lives. The norm for moral action becomes "not a universal principle, but the concrete neighbour, as given to me by God" (221).
With this historicity, we also lose the abstract recognition of good and evil, and are forced to recognise that rather than consistently choosing between good and evil (which are both known), each ethical decision is "risked in faith while being aware that good and evil are hidden in the concrete historical situation" (221). In other words, there is no clear ethical theory or principle which we can apply in a straightforward manner; to attempt it is mere abstraction, and can lead to the neglect of the actual responsibilities which God has given us. Wanting to be clear-cut, to always be right, can lead to ignoring the real situations which surround us.
In place of this abstraction, Bonhoeffer calls us to live in "accordance with reality" (222), always remembering that "the most fundamental reality is the reality of the God who became human" (223). We are called to think through the individual situations in the light of the event of reconciliation in Christ, and then to make free, and therefore risky, choices. These choices are made in faith - they "completely surrender to God both the judgement on this action and its consequences" (225). This is not acting blindly; choice is made in recognition of the seriousness of taking responsibility, a seriousness which is grounded in the fact that God in Christ has taken responsibility for us. But it is a recognition that we are not confronted by a black and white choice between the evil and the good, but by relative evil and good in complex situations. Only God knows all ends, and he has already taken responsibility in an ultimate sense; we are therefore freed to take genuine responsibility in a penultimate sense.
In the end, "the commandments of God's righteousness are fulfilled in vicarious representative action, which means in concrete, responsible action of love for all human beings" (232). What this makes clear is that the commandments of God are ultimately fulfilled by Christ, and that we take our part in their fulfilment only by conformity to him. This may involve, as it did for him, taking on guilt - although obviously not in the same way.
This is an ethic of being in the world, of being confronted by messy situations and unclear choices. But more fundamentally it is an ethic of being in Christ and shaped by him.
The discarded framework is an abstraction, and fails to recognise "the historicity of human existence" (220). An individual cannot be isolated from their historical situation and community. Rather, "a human being necessarily lives in encounter with other human beings", which leads to the individual having responsibilities towards those others (220). Note that these responsibilities are largely given, not chosen, and they provide the shape of our ethical lives. The norm for moral action becomes "not a universal principle, but the concrete neighbour, as given to me by God" (221).
With this historicity, we also lose the abstract recognition of good and evil, and are forced to recognise that rather than consistently choosing between good and evil (which are both known), each ethical decision is "risked in faith while being aware that good and evil are hidden in the concrete historical situation" (221). In other words, there is no clear ethical theory or principle which we can apply in a straightforward manner; to attempt it is mere abstraction, and can lead to the neglect of the actual responsibilities which God has given us. Wanting to be clear-cut, to always be right, can lead to ignoring the real situations which surround us.
In place of this abstraction, Bonhoeffer calls us to live in "accordance with reality" (222), always remembering that "the most fundamental reality is the reality of the God who became human" (223). We are called to think through the individual situations in the light of the event of reconciliation in Christ, and then to make free, and therefore risky, choices. These choices are made in faith - they "completely surrender to God both the judgement on this action and its consequences" (225). This is not acting blindly; choice is made in recognition of the seriousness of taking responsibility, a seriousness which is grounded in the fact that God in Christ has taken responsibility for us. But it is a recognition that we are not confronted by a black and white choice between the evil and the good, but by relative evil and good in complex situations. Only God knows all ends, and he has already taken responsibility in an ultimate sense; we are therefore freed to take genuine responsibility in a penultimate sense.
In the end, "the commandments of God's righteousness are fulfilled in vicarious representative action, which means in concrete, responsible action of love for all human beings" (232). What this makes clear is that the commandments of God are ultimately fulfilled by Christ, and that we take our part in their fulfilment only by conformity to him. This may involve, as it did for him, taking on guilt - although obviously not in the same way.
This is an ethic of being in the world, of being confronted by messy situations and unclear choices. But more fundamentally it is an ethic of being in Christ and shaped by him.
Thursday, June 09, 2016
The Lord, the Giver of Life
A recent camping holiday provided an excellent opportunity for some reflection on some of the 'nature Psalms', and I've especially enjoyed and benefited from time in Psalm 104. Two verses are particularly striking:
1. The Spirit's sustaining work goes beyond the provision of the necessary means for life. That is there in the immediate context, but these verses add something else. God doesn't just provide the necessary secondary causes of continued existence; he actually provides, by sending his Spirit, existence itself.
2. The Spirit's sustaining work extends to both individual creatures, and the whole system of creation. The renewal of creation is of course driven by the ordinary processes of procreation, but underlying those processes is the sending of the Spirit. Life and the systems which sustain and renew life are equally upheld by the Breath of God.
3. This is not pantheism or even panentheism. Creation is not God, nor does it subsist within God - rather, the creature is distinct from God, and is distinctly maintained and sustained by him. Note the dynamic and interactive language used - you take away, you send forth... The Spirit is not some sort of impersonal substrate of creation, nor is he tied to creation, but he comes and goes at the will of God, sustaining the whole.
4. God's Spirit can be, and is, withdrawn at God's will. The ongoing existence of creation as a whole is dependent on God's faithfulness and nothing more. The ongoing existence of any particular creature within the whole is also dependent on God, and can be withdrawn at any point in his sovereignty. We, and all the things we see and experience, are dramatically contingent.
5. Creation is real. It is not a phantom, or a dream in God's mind. It's very fragility and dependence on God's Spirit testifies to its reality as a thing which exists but which is not God.
6. The same Holy Spirit who hovered over the waters of creation in the beginning sustains creation now. And he is the same Spirit who comes in the waters of baptism, creating and thereafter sustaining new life in Christ. His work in old creation and new are linked through the creation of the human nature of Christ - hovering over the waters of the womb?
When you hide your face, they are dismayed;The basic point is simple but profound: all created things are sustained by the Holy Spirit. As I've chewed this over, I've had a few other thoughts...
when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust.
When you send forth your Spirit, they are created,
and you renew the face of the ground.
1. The Spirit's sustaining work goes beyond the provision of the necessary means for life. That is there in the immediate context, but these verses add something else. God doesn't just provide the necessary secondary causes of continued existence; he actually provides, by sending his Spirit, existence itself.
2. The Spirit's sustaining work extends to both individual creatures, and the whole system of creation. The renewal of creation is of course driven by the ordinary processes of procreation, but underlying those processes is the sending of the Spirit. Life and the systems which sustain and renew life are equally upheld by the Breath of God.
3. This is not pantheism or even panentheism. Creation is not God, nor does it subsist within God - rather, the creature is distinct from God, and is distinctly maintained and sustained by him. Note the dynamic and interactive language used - you take away, you send forth... The Spirit is not some sort of impersonal substrate of creation, nor is he tied to creation, but he comes and goes at the will of God, sustaining the whole.
4. God's Spirit can be, and is, withdrawn at God's will. The ongoing existence of creation as a whole is dependent on God's faithfulness and nothing more. The ongoing existence of any particular creature within the whole is also dependent on God, and can be withdrawn at any point in his sovereignty. We, and all the things we see and experience, are dramatically contingent.
5. Creation is real. It is not a phantom, or a dream in God's mind. It's very fragility and dependence on God's Spirit testifies to its reality as a thing which exists but which is not God.
6. The same Holy Spirit who hovered over the waters of creation in the beginning sustains creation now. And he is the same Spirit who comes in the waters of baptism, creating and thereafter sustaining new life in Christ. His work in old creation and new are linked through the creation of the human nature of Christ - hovering over the waters of the womb?
Tuesday, June 07, 2016
Referendumb
I'd like to offer some intelligent analysis pertinent to the EU Referendum that is creeping up on us. Sadly, I'm not sure I'm able. I mean, I know how I'm going to vote, and I can tell you why - but I'm painfully aware that this mostly comes from the gut and not from any particular argument that I could advance. Let me explain my thought process, or lack thereof.
First off, it has to be acknowledged that I don't identify with the European Union at any level. Its institutions, goals, political culture, history - none of it really resonates with me. I'm sure there are reasons why this is the case, and the reasons would most likely have as much to do with me as they would with the EU. My guess is that this will be the case for many people beyond myself: I don't feel like I belong to the EU now, let alone the referendum result.
Secondly, I'm aware that I am an idealist rather than a pragmatist. That means that arguments about sovereignty, accountability, and governance all play much louder in my head than discussions about economics, immigration, and the like. Obviously, one could be an idealist about the EU project, but as mentioned above I'm not. And I tend to be fairly oblivious to risk when I think the principle is right. That also plays into a tendency to vote, as it were, leave.
Thirdly, I know that I have a tendency toward nostalgia, and would love to believe that Bagehot's constitution was still alive and well, or at least might be resurrected. There is a small part of me that thinks, maybe, outside the EU...
There are some of my prejudices - I frankly acknowledge them all. I suspect that everyone on all sides of the debate is driven more by this sort of stuff than we'd like to admit. My prejudices tend to make me a leaver, or as I believe we now have to call ourselves, a Brexiteer.
Recognising how non-rational this stuff mostly is (not irrational; there's a difference), I want to be a bit careful. I don't want to be swept away by this stuff without thinking. And there are three things that give me serious pause for thought.
For one thing, I know that one of the reasons I can afford to ignore practical arguments about the economy, jobs and the like and pursue my idealistic bent is that I'm relatively well-off. It's all very well for me to be willing to take a financial hit in order to regain national sovereignty (or whatever), but have I thought about what that might mean for other people? I hope I have, or at least I've started to. Suffice to say, I don't find the scare stories all that convincing, and I even wonder whether there might be the possibility to roll back some of the negative effects of globalisation here. Bottom line, I think we would take a hit, but it probably wouldn't be huge, and some of it - for example, reductions in house prices - could be of long-term benefit. Still, I freely confess my relative ignorance here; I've done my best with the resources I've got.
A second thing that raises questions is the implicit, and sometimes explicit, racism of parts of the Leave campaign. It's not that I subscribe to guilt by association in any way: people can support good causes for bad reasons, after all. But you have to ask questions about the culture that is driving the campaign, and whether it is the sort of culture you want. I think I'm right in saying that what we're suffering from here is just 'empty vessel' syndrome, as in 'empty vessels make the most noise'. We hear more from people making populist, and to me very unpleasant, arguments, but I hope they don't characterise the majority. I hope.
And the third thing that bothers me is the potential for 'Little England-ism', a desire for cultural isolation based usually on a firm and misplaced belief in the superiority of one's own culture. Here I think we would be wise to listen to Gildor Inglorion, despite his being both an elf and clearly fictional: "The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out." Maintaining an openness to the world is so crucial. Still, again, I'm not sure this bad attitude follows necessarily from a vote to leave the EU; you could even argue that membership of the EU has in some ways closed us off to the wider world.
Although this has caused me to really think about my motives, it hasn't changed my mind. For the record, here are a few reasons (other than my gut feelings) why I will vote Leave.
Firstly, there is political philosophy. How obscure is that? I am a convinced disciple of John Locke in most political matters, and I can't help seeing Msr. J.J. Rousseau as the enemy. It is no secret that Anglo-Saxon political development has largely followed Locke, in maintaining a liberal opposition to overbearing government; continental political philosophy tends to go along with Rousseau in seeking 'the will of the people' as the foundation of governmental sovereignty. I think that is a dangerous idea - there is no 'will of the people' at the end of the day, and of course Rousseau was open to the idea that people ought to be 'forced to be free' when they themselves didn't quite understand what their own will was (i.e. they disagreed with the majority or at least the government!) I think I see this political philosophy at play in the EU project at several levels, not least the cavalier disregard for the expressed will of various national electorates which put the project at risk.
Secondly, there is good governance, or the absence of it in the EU. I think it is just too difficult to hold people to account within the system, and I am convinced that it is wasteful and prone to massive over-reach. Indeed, even the proponents of the EU recognise that this is a problem. I am unconvinced that it can be fixed, unless we go in for full federalism, with powers reserved to what used to be national governments in a written constitution. That might work, but nobody is proposing it, and I can't say I'd vote for it if they were.
Thirdly, and this is what swung it for me in the end, I've watched the EU response to various crises, and especially the Greek debt crisis, and what I've seen has not been benevolent. A project and an elite committed to self-defence and the perpetuation of the system is what it looked like. I don't want to be part of a club that plays that way.
When all is said and done, I wouldn't necessarily encourage anyone to follow my lead in voting! I'd just say this:
First off, it has to be acknowledged that I don't identify with the European Union at any level. Its institutions, goals, political culture, history - none of it really resonates with me. I'm sure there are reasons why this is the case, and the reasons would most likely have as much to do with me as they would with the EU. My guess is that this will be the case for many people beyond myself: I don't feel like I belong to the EU now, let alone the referendum result.
Secondly, I'm aware that I am an idealist rather than a pragmatist. That means that arguments about sovereignty, accountability, and governance all play much louder in my head than discussions about economics, immigration, and the like. Obviously, one could be an idealist about the EU project, but as mentioned above I'm not. And I tend to be fairly oblivious to risk when I think the principle is right. That also plays into a tendency to vote, as it were, leave.
Thirdly, I know that I have a tendency toward nostalgia, and would love to believe that Bagehot's constitution was still alive and well, or at least might be resurrected. There is a small part of me that thinks, maybe, outside the EU...
There are some of my prejudices - I frankly acknowledge them all. I suspect that everyone on all sides of the debate is driven more by this sort of stuff than we'd like to admit. My prejudices tend to make me a leaver, or as I believe we now have to call ourselves, a Brexiteer.
Recognising how non-rational this stuff mostly is (not irrational; there's a difference), I want to be a bit careful. I don't want to be swept away by this stuff without thinking. And there are three things that give me serious pause for thought.
For one thing, I know that one of the reasons I can afford to ignore practical arguments about the economy, jobs and the like and pursue my idealistic bent is that I'm relatively well-off. It's all very well for me to be willing to take a financial hit in order to regain national sovereignty (or whatever), but have I thought about what that might mean for other people? I hope I have, or at least I've started to. Suffice to say, I don't find the scare stories all that convincing, and I even wonder whether there might be the possibility to roll back some of the negative effects of globalisation here. Bottom line, I think we would take a hit, but it probably wouldn't be huge, and some of it - for example, reductions in house prices - could be of long-term benefit. Still, I freely confess my relative ignorance here; I've done my best with the resources I've got.
A second thing that raises questions is the implicit, and sometimes explicit, racism of parts of the Leave campaign. It's not that I subscribe to guilt by association in any way: people can support good causes for bad reasons, after all. But you have to ask questions about the culture that is driving the campaign, and whether it is the sort of culture you want. I think I'm right in saying that what we're suffering from here is just 'empty vessel' syndrome, as in 'empty vessels make the most noise'. We hear more from people making populist, and to me very unpleasant, arguments, but I hope they don't characterise the majority. I hope.
And the third thing that bothers me is the potential for 'Little England-ism', a desire for cultural isolation based usually on a firm and misplaced belief in the superiority of one's own culture. Here I think we would be wise to listen to Gildor Inglorion, despite his being both an elf and clearly fictional: "The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out." Maintaining an openness to the world is so crucial. Still, again, I'm not sure this bad attitude follows necessarily from a vote to leave the EU; you could even argue that membership of the EU has in some ways closed us off to the wider world.
Although this has caused me to really think about my motives, it hasn't changed my mind. For the record, here are a few reasons (other than my gut feelings) why I will vote Leave.
Firstly, there is political philosophy. How obscure is that? I am a convinced disciple of John Locke in most political matters, and I can't help seeing Msr. J.J. Rousseau as the enemy. It is no secret that Anglo-Saxon political development has largely followed Locke, in maintaining a liberal opposition to overbearing government; continental political philosophy tends to go along with Rousseau in seeking 'the will of the people' as the foundation of governmental sovereignty. I think that is a dangerous idea - there is no 'will of the people' at the end of the day, and of course Rousseau was open to the idea that people ought to be 'forced to be free' when they themselves didn't quite understand what their own will was (i.e. they disagreed with the majority or at least the government!) I think I see this political philosophy at play in the EU project at several levels, not least the cavalier disregard for the expressed will of various national electorates which put the project at risk.
Secondly, there is good governance, or the absence of it in the EU. I think it is just too difficult to hold people to account within the system, and I am convinced that it is wasteful and prone to massive over-reach. Indeed, even the proponents of the EU recognise that this is a problem. I am unconvinced that it can be fixed, unless we go in for full federalism, with powers reserved to what used to be national governments in a written constitution. That might work, but nobody is proposing it, and I can't say I'd vote for it if they were.
Thirdly, and this is what swung it for me in the end, I've watched the EU response to various crises, and especially the Greek debt crisis, and what I've seen has not been benevolent. A project and an elite committed to self-defence and the perpetuation of the system is what it looked like. I don't want to be part of a club that plays that way.
When all is said and done, I wouldn't necessarily encourage anyone to follow my lead in voting! I'd just say this:
- Check your prejudices - we all have them, but it's helpful to be honest with ourselves and be sure it isn't only our prejudices that are motivating our decisions;
- Think about others - it's easy to think about what would be best for me, but more difficult to get into other people's shoes - but the effort is worth it;
- Be irenic - one of the problems with a referendum is that it whips people up into holding strong opinions about things they had previously barely thought about, and can lead to really bitter exchanges - we can avoid that if we remember to be kind;
- Consider your opponents' best arguments - and give more time to this especially if their best arguments aren't of a sort to immediately appeal to you - they probably have more force than you're able to recognise at first;
- Consider the weaknesses of your own side - are they inherent or incidental? Are you implicated in opinions and actions that are just wrong?;
- And finally, make up your mind and vote - knowing that you could be wrong. It helps to remember that the future of nations is not ultimately in our hands, but God's!
Monday, June 06, 2016
Reader Response: Ethics (6)
The sixth manuscript of Bonhoeffer's Ethics is entitled Natural Life. Bonhoeffer sees this as a neglected subject in Protestant theology (although it features prominently in Roman Catholic theology, where the relationship between nature and grace is understood in a way which is problematic for Protestant thought). Natural life is not the same as created life - rather, "through the fall, 'creation' became 'nature'. The unmediated relation to God of the true creation becomes the relative freedom of natural life" (173). In terms of the relationship between ultimate and penultimate things, natural life is penultimate, and indeed the concept of natural life helps us to distinguish between those things in life which are genuinely penultimate and those which are unnatural and therefore destructive of the penultimate. Bonhoeffer is here establishing a differentiation within the sphere of the world and the penultimate: against those who deride the concept of natural life because they have lumped everything that is not grace together as 'sin', he sees some things as genuinely natural and others as genuinely unnatural. But against the Roman concept which tends to make the natural an 'ultimate' in itself, Bonhoeffer is clear that the natural-ness or unnatural-ness of anything will only be revealed in the light of Christ - when things are seen to be either penultimate preparations of the way of the Lord, or obstructions to his path.
"How is the natural recognized? The natural is that form of life preserved by God for the fallen world that is directed toward justification, salvation, and renewal through Christ" (174). It can therefore only be known "by looking at Jesus Christ" (174). Nevertheless, it is reason which is the human instrument for discerning the natural. The natural, as universally human, is not something which can be defined by any human authority, which will only show itself as arbitrary in so far as it attempts this. Bonhoeffer, of course, has the Nazi state in view.
"The natural guards life against the unnatural" (176). Because the natural is the form of life preserved by God, it fights off the unnatural, which is in itself "the enemy of life" (176). The unnatural may triumph over the natural in limited ways, but the natural will always reassert itself at length. This is because "the unnatural is something that requires organization, while the natural cannot be organized but is simply there" (177). It takes fighting and campaigning and legislation to suppress the natural - I am reminded of various campaigns and organisations in the early twenty-first century. If Bonhoeffer is right, and I think he is, those campaigns are right to think that they need to keep on even after they have apparently achieved their objectives; the natural will in time fight back!
The natural life is a formed life, and its form takes shape in rights and duties, corresponding to the fact that for Christian ethics life is both an end in itself and a means to an end. Rights come first: "that means speaking first of what is given to life, and only then of what is demanded from it" (180). This is the only way in which God is honoured, and it is also logical: "duties spring from the rights themselves, as tasks from gifts" (180). Therefore for the remainder of the manuscript Bonhoeffer expounds particular rights of natural life, including 'to each his own', the inviolability of bodily life, and the rights of reproduction and developing life.
In this connection, and with relevance to contemporary debate, here is another snippet on abortion: "To kill the fruit in the mother's womb is to injure the right to life which God has bestowed on the developing life. Discussion of the question whether a human being is already present confuses the simple fact that, in any case, God wills to create a human being and that the life of this developing human being has been deliberately taken. And this is nothing but murder" (206, emphasis added). Of course there are circumstances (and "without doubt, all this decisively affects one's personal, pastoral attitude toward the person concerned" 181), but they can't change the facts.
I see this manuscript as pursuing one of the most essential insights of Bonhoeffer's work, which is that there are ethical distinctions in the non-Christian world. This might seem obvious, but the temptation of theologians to write off the whole structure as sinful is powerful. Of course, the structure is implicated in sin - we are talking about natural life, not the pristine life of the first creation. But there is nevertheless relative good and relative evil, and the church needs to engage with that if it is to prepare the way for Christ and his gospel in the world.
"How is the natural recognized? The natural is that form of life preserved by God for the fallen world that is directed toward justification, salvation, and renewal through Christ" (174). It can therefore only be known "by looking at Jesus Christ" (174). Nevertheless, it is reason which is the human instrument for discerning the natural. The natural, as universally human, is not something which can be defined by any human authority, which will only show itself as arbitrary in so far as it attempts this. Bonhoeffer, of course, has the Nazi state in view.
"The natural guards life against the unnatural" (176). Because the natural is the form of life preserved by God, it fights off the unnatural, which is in itself "the enemy of life" (176). The unnatural may triumph over the natural in limited ways, but the natural will always reassert itself at length. This is because "the unnatural is something that requires organization, while the natural cannot be organized but is simply there" (177). It takes fighting and campaigning and legislation to suppress the natural - I am reminded of various campaigns and organisations in the early twenty-first century. If Bonhoeffer is right, and I think he is, those campaigns are right to think that they need to keep on even after they have apparently achieved their objectives; the natural will in time fight back!
The natural life is a formed life, and its form takes shape in rights and duties, corresponding to the fact that for Christian ethics life is both an end in itself and a means to an end. Rights come first: "that means speaking first of what is given to life, and only then of what is demanded from it" (180). This is the only way in which God is honoured, and it is also logical: "duties spring from the rights themselves, as tasks from gifts" (180). Therefore for the remainder of the manuscript Bonhoeffer expounds particular rights of natural life, including 'to each his own', the inviolability of bodily life, and the rights of reproduction and developing life.
In this connection, and with relevance to contemporary debate, here is another snippet on abortion: "To kill the fruit in the mother's womb is to injure the right to life which God has bestowed on the developing life. Discussion of the question whether a human being is already present confuses the simple fact that, in any case, God wills to create a human being and that the life of this developing human being has been deliberately taken. And this is nothing but murder" (206, emphasis added). Of course there are circumstances (and "without doubt, all this decisively affects one's personal, pastoral attitude toward the person concerned" 181), but they can't change the facts.
I see this manuscript as pursuing one of the most essential insights of Bonhoeffer's work, which is that there are ethical distinctions in the non-Christian world. This might seem obvious, but the temptation of theologians to write off the whole structure as sinful is powerful. Of course, the structure is implicated in sin - we are talking about natural life, not the pristine life of the first creation. But there is nevertheless relative good and relative evil, and the church needs to engage with that if it is to prepare the way for Christ and his gospel in the world.
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
On being real
A couple of days ago, I argued that one thing we can take away from the doctrine of the Trinity is its concern for the God who is. That is to say, the doctrine treats God as having real existence, and therefore particular existence - he is in this way, and to fail to acknowledge that is simply not to know him. This is a property of real things: they occupy space, physically or conceptually, and we bump up against them, literally or metaphorically. Whilst they can be (must be) interpreted - which is to say, there must be some interaction between my understanding and the real existing thing - they cannot be simply reimagined without denying their reality.
I'm not sure I could trace this historically, but I'm confident that logically the lack of belief in a real existing God leads to a loss of belief in real existing humanity. Real existing humanity - both in the general sense and in the more acute sense in which I am myself an instance thereof - has a genuine shape, occupies genuine space. It cannot be reimagined without denying its reality. But we must reimagine humanity; we must claim for ourselves total sovereignty over our own humanity. Do we notice than in claiming this sovereignty at this level we destroy (in so far as it lies with us) the very thing we want to rule over? We become kings and queens of dreams, and more often than not of nightmares.
Of course we see this is in the arena of sexuality and gender, but the most extraordinary and terrible example I can think of relates to abortion. Behold the power of imagination! The joyfully expectant mother carries a baby; the unfortunate woman with an unwanted pregnancy has nothing but a collection of cells. The longed for baby is not a foetus but a person, already loved; the undesired ball of matter is nothing but an excrescence, to be removed. We have become sovereign over our own reality, and can decide what should live and what should die.
A big caveat: I have to put this starkly and horrifically, because that is the shape of the reality. But I know that this is not how it feels for people going through this sort of thing. I suspect that the decision to abort more often than not feels like helplessness and not sovereignty. I know that it is pain and anguish and not at all the simple choice painted here. I know that. But if we step back: what allowed these choices to become choices at all, however anguished?
But the bitter truth is that human beings are real. We are real. I am real. I cannot reimagine myself without denying myself. In reality, I cannot be absolutely sovereign over myself or anyone or anything else. I, and all other real things, are to some extent given; I am not a dream or a nightmare, but a created person. At some point, we will bump up against the reality of humanity - our own and that of others. And at some point, even if it is not until the Judgement, we will bump up against the reality of the God who is there and who gave us all of our reality. Then what will we say?
I'm not sure I could trace this historically, but I'm confident that logically the lack of belief in a real existing God leads to a loss of belief in real existing humanity. Real existing humanity - both in the general sense and in the more acute sense in which I am myself an instance thereof - has a genuine shape, occupies genuine space. It cannot be reimagined without denying its reality. But we must reimagine humanity; we must claim for ourselves total sovereignty over our own humanity. Do we notice than in claiming this sovereignty at this level we destroy (in so far as it lies with us) the very thing we want to rule over? We become kings and queens of dreams, and more often than not of nightmares.
Of course we see this is in the arena of sexuality and gender, but the most extraordinary and terrible example I can think of relates to abortion. Behold the power of imagination! The joyfully expectant mother carries a baby; the unfortunate woman with an unwanted pregnancy has nothing but a collection of cells. The longed for baby is not a foetus but a person, already loved; the undesired ball of matter is nothing but an excrescence, to be removed. We have become sovereign over our own reality, and can decide what should live and what should die.
A big caveat: I have to put this starkly and horrifically, because that is the shape of the reality. But I know that this is not how it feels for people going through this sort of thing. I suspect that the decision to abort more often than not feels like helplessness and not sovereignty. I know that it is pain and anguish and not at all the simple choice painted here. I know that. But if we step back: what allowed these choices to become choices at all, however anguished?
But the bitter truth is that human beings are real. We are real. I am real. I cannot reimagine myself without denying myself. In reality, I cannot be absolutely sovereign over myself or anyone or anything else. I, and all other real things, are to some extent given; I am not a dream or a nightmare, but a created person. At some point, we will bump up against the reality of humanity - our own and that of others. And at some point, even if it is not until the Judgement, we will bump up against the reality of the God who is there and who gave us all of our reality. Then what will we say?
Monday, May 23, 2016
Reader Response: Ethics (5)
The fifth manuscript in Bonhoeffer's Ethics (at least according to the arrangement in the Works) is entitled Ultimate and Penultimate Things. I found the argument difficult to follow in detail, although I think the broad brush strokes are clear and valuable.
The ultimate thing in a human life is justification by grace through faith. The event of justification is "qualitatively ultimate" - "there is nothing greater than a life that is justified before God" (149); it is also "temporally ultimate" - there is "quite literally a span of time at whose end it stands" (150). Whatever leads up to it (whether the righteous confidence of Paul or the legal fear of Luther [150]) finds its end in this ultimate word, and is therefore penultimate. This is not to say that the penultimate - whatever it is - leads naturally into the ultimate; the latter is always God's gracious word which judges and justifies freely. The penultimate is not penultimate in itself, nor can one judge it to be penultimate when looking forward from it; rather it is penultimate in reference to the ultimate, and can be seen to be such when looking back from the ultimate. The penultimate, then, is (if I understand it correctly) literally everything else that is not the justifying grace of God received through faith.
The relation between the ultimate and the penultimate is the subject of this manuscript. "Since God's justification by grace and by faith alone remains in every respect the ultimate word, now we must also speak of penultimate things not as if they had some value of their own, but so as to make clear their relation to the ultimate" (151). In other words, in sorting through what the ultimate (the gospel) has to do with everyday life (ethics), we must begin with the gospel and show how anything else relates to that. Two main ways have been trodden: the radical way and the way of compromise. "The radical solution sees only the ultimate, and in it sees only a complete break with the penultimate" (153). Christ and the world are at enmity; the Christian has responsibility only for faith. "The world must burn in any case" (153). I've met a few contemporary evangelicals who take the radical way! On the other hand, the way of compromise establishes a semi-independent sphere of everyday life in which "the penultimate maintains its inherent rights, but is not threatened or endangered by the ultimate" (154). Here the ultimate supports the penultimate, in the sense of providing justification for it, but does not in fact speak into the penultimate. Daily life goes on, just with the added reassurance of the gospel.
Bonhoeffer will not travel either path. "To advocates of the radical solution, it must be said that Christ is not radical in their sense; to followers of the compromise solution it must likewise be said that Christ does not make compromises" (154). Therefore, neither of these ways is open to Christian life. Christian life must take its lead from Christ. In his incarnation, his cross, and his resurrection, Jesus has brought judgement on the world, but has also brought the world into genuine encounter with God and has established its genuine future. Therefore "Christian life neither sanctions nor destroys the penultimate" (159), but participates with Christ in the genuine encounter of God with the world.
Because of his understanding of the relationship between the penultimate and ultimate, Bonhoeffer is clear that "the penultimate must be preserved for the sake of the ultimate" (160). He means this quite literally - he gives the example of slaves, who have no control over their own time, and are therefore unable to attend church and hear the word of God! In the area of the penultimate, the church and the Christian must be concerned to prepare the way for the word (citing Luke 3, which itself cites Isaiah 40). Preparing the way of the Lord means making the penultimate, as far as possible, suitable to the ultimate - not that we can make Christ come, or prevent him from coming ("Christ comes, to be sure, clearing his own way, whether one is ready for it or not" [162]), but that we can make it more or less difficult for ourselves and others to hear the word and believe. As concrete examples, "it is hard for those thrust into extreme disgrace, desolation, poverty, and helplessness to believe in God's justice and goodness" (162), therefore it is the duty of the Christian to relieve those conditions.
"What happens here is something penultimate. To give the hungry bread is not yet to proclaim to them the grace of God... But for the one who does something penultimate for the sake of the ultimate, the penultimate thing is related to the ultimate" (163). The two are joined together in so far as the link is seen, and therefore the way is truly prepared for the coming of Christ. "Only Christ brings us the ultimate, the justification of our lives before God; still, or rather therefore, we are not deprived of, or spared from, living in the penultimate" (167). Knowing the ultimate, the penultimate takes on its own (limited, but real) seriousness.
The ultimate thing in a human life is justification by grace through faith. The event of justification is "qualitatively ultimate" - "there is nothing greater than a life that is justified before God" (149); it is also "temporally ultimate" - there is "quite literally a span of time at whose end it stands" (150). Whatever leads up to it (whether the righteous confidence of Paul or the legal fear of Luther [150]) finds its end in this ultimate word, and is therefore penultimate. This is not to say that the penultimate - whatever it is - leads naturally into the ultimate; the latter is always God's gracious word which judges and justifies freely. The penultimate is not penultimate in itself, nor can one judge it to be penultimate when looking forward from it; rather it is penultimate in reference to the ultimate, and can be seen to be such when looking back from the ultimate. The penultimate, then, is (if I understand it correctly) literally everything else that is not the justifying grace of God received through faith.
The relation between the ultimate and the penultimate is the subject of this manuscript. "Since God's justification by grace and by faith alone remains in every respect the ultimate word, now we must also speak of penultimate things not as if they had some value of their own, but so as to make clear their relation to the ultimate" (151). In other words, in sorting through what the ultimate (the gospel) has to do with everyday life (ethics), we must begin with the gospel and show how anything else relates to that. Two main ways have been trodden: the radical way and the way of compromise. "The radical solution sees only the ultimate, and in it sees only a complete break with the penultimate" (153). Christ and the world are at enmity; the Christian has responsibility only for faith. "The world must burn in any case" (153). I've met a few contemporary evangelicals who take the radical way! On the other hand, the way of compromise establishes a semi-independent sphere of everyday life in which "the penultimate maintains its inherent rights, but is not threatened or endangered by the ultimate" (154). Here the ultimate supports the penultimate, in the sense of providing justification for it, but does not in fact speak into the penultimate. Daily life goes on, just with the added reassurance of the gospel.
Bonhoeffer will not travel either path. "To advocates of the radical solution, it must be said that Christ is not radical in their sense; to followers of the compromise solution it must likewise be said that Christ does not make compromises" (154). Therefore, neither of these ways is open to Christian life. Christian life must take its lead from Christ. In his incarnation, his cross, and his resurrection, Jesus has brought judgement on the world, but has also brought the world into genuine encounter with God and has established its genuine future. Therefore "Christian life neither sanctions nor destroys the penultimate" (159), but participates with Christ in the genuine encounter of God with the world.
Because of his understanding of the relationship between the penultimate and ultimate, Bonhoeffer is clear that "the penultimate must be preserved for the sake of the ultimate" (160). He means this quite literally - he gives the example of slaves, who have no control over their own time, and are therefore unable to attend church and hear the word of God! In the area of the penultimate, the church and the Christian must be concerned to prepare the way for the word (citing Luke 3, which itself cites Isaiah 40). Preparing the way of the Lord means making the penultimate, as far as possible, suitable to the ultimate - not that we can make Christ come, or prevent him from coming ("Christ comes, to be sure, clearing his own way, whether one is ready for it or not" [162]), but that we can make it more or less difficult for ourselves and others to hear the word and believe. As concrete examples, "it is hard for those thrust into extreme disgrace, desolation, poverty, and helplessness to believe in God's justice and goodness" (162), therefore it is the duty of the Christian to relieve those conditions.
"What happens here is something penultimate. To give the hungry bread is not yet to proclaim to them the grace of God... But for the one who does something penultimate for the sake of the ultimate, the penultimate thing is related to the ultimate" (163). The two are joined together in so far as the link is seen, and therefore the way is truly prepared for the coming of Christ. "Only Christ brings us the ultimate, the justification of our lives before God; still, or rather therefore, we are not deprived of, or spared from, living in the penultimate" (167). Knowing the ultimate, the penultimate takes on its own (limited, but real) seriousness.
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