Fallen Into Knowledge

Possibly the best book I have read this year, and certainly the...

Fri, 27 May 2011 19:59:10 -0700

Possibly the best book I have read this year, and certainly the best book I have read on the book of Revelation.

Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation. Cambridge UP, 1993.

A Question for Students and Scholars

Tue, 17 May 2011 17:52:17 -0700

I’ve started a master’s degree in church history, and immediately I’ve been confronted with a technical problem: a proliferation of pdfs. Journal articles, book chapters and papers all delivered to me as pdf’s. This is clearly much better than having stacks of papers littering my office, but still presents and organizational challenge. My question for you fellow students and scholars: How do you organize all of these pdfs, specifically on OSX?

"The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products used every day..."

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 13:37:39 -0700

“The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products used every day have an effect on people and their well-being.”

- Dieter Rams (via putthison)

Spring, you are most welcome!

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 16:21:00 -0700

Spring, you are most welcome!

"…Suddenly all of them standing around the gallows know it: he is gone. Immeasurable emptiness (not..."

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 14:07:00 -0700

“

…Suddenly all of them standing around the gallows know it: he is gone. Immeasurable emptiness (not solitude) streams forth from the hanging body. Nothing but this fantastic emptiness is any longer at work here. The world with its shape has perished; it tore like a curtain from top to bottom, without making a sound. It fainted away, turned to dust, burst like a bubble. There is nothing more but nothingness itself.

The world is dead.

Love is dead.

God is dead.

Everything that was, was a dream dreamt by no one. The present is all past. The future is nothing. The hand has disappeared from the clock’s face. No more struggle between love and hate, between life and death. Both have been equalized, and love’s emptying out has become the emptiness of hell. One has penetrated the other perfectly. The nadir has reached the zenith: nirvana.
Was that lightning?

Was the form of a Heart visible in the boundless void for a flash as the sky was rent, drifting in the whirlwind through the worldless chaos, driven like a leaf?

Or was it winged, propelled and directed by its own invisible wings, standing as lone survivor between the soulless heavens and the perished earth?

Chaos. Beyond heaven and hell. Shapeless nothingness behind the bounds of creation.

Is that God?

God died on the Cross.

Is that death?

No dead are to be seen.

Is it the end?

Nothing that ends is any longer there.

Is it the beginning?

The beginning of what? In the beginning was the Word. What kind of word? What incomprehensible, formless, meaningless word? But look: What is this light glimmer that wavers and begins to take form in the endless void? It has neither content nor contour.

A nameless thing, more solitary than God, it emerges out of pure emptiness. It is no one. It is anterior to everything. Is it the beginning? It is small and undefined as a drop. Perhaps it is water. But it does not flow. It is not water. It is thicker, more opaque, more viscous than water. It is also not blood, for blood is red, blood is alive, blood has a loud human speech. This is neither water nor blood. It is older than both, a chaotic drop.

Slowly, slowly, unbelievably slowly the drop begins to quicken. We do not know whether this movement is infinite fatigue at death’s extremity or the first beginning - of what?

Quiet, quiet! Hold the breath of your thoughts! It’s still much too early in the day to think of hope. The seed is still much too weak to start whispering about love. But look there: it is indeed moving, a weak, viscous flow. It’s still much too early to speak of a wellspring.

It trickles, lost in the chaos, directionless, without gravity. But more copiously now. A wellspring in the chaos. It leaps out of pure nothingness, it leaps out of itself.

It is not the beginning of God, who eternally and mightily brings himself into existence as Life and Love and triune Bliss.

It is not the beginning of creation, which gently and in slumber slips out of the Creator’s hands.

It is a beginning without parallel, as if Life were arising from Death, as if weariness (already such weariness as no amount of sleep could ever dispel) and the uttermost decay of power were melting at creation’s outer edge, were beginning to flow, because flowing is perhaps a sign and a likeness of weariness which can no longer contain itself, because everything that is strong and solid must in the end dissolve into water. But hadn’t it - in the beginning - also been born from water? And is this wellspring in the chaos, this trickling weariness, not the beginning of a new creation?

The magic of Holy Saturday.

The chaotic fountain remains directionless. Could this be the residue of the Son’s love which, poured out to the last when every vessel cracked and the old world perished, is now making a path for itself to the Father through the glooms of nought?

Or, in spite of it all, is this love trickling on in impotence, unconsciously, laboriously, towards a new creation that does not yet even exist, a creation which is still to be lifted up and given shape? Is it a protoplasm producing itself in the beginning, the first seed of the New Heaven and the New Earth?

The spring leaps up even more plenteously. To be sure, it flows out of a wound and is like the blossom and fruit of a wound; like a tree it sprouts up from this wound. But the wound no longer causes pain. The suffering has been left far behind as the past origin and previous source of today’s wellspring.

What is poured out here is no longer a present suffering, but a suffering that has been concluded–no longer now a sacrificing love, but a love sacrificed.

Only the wound is there: gaping, the great open gate, the chaos, the nothingness out of which the wellspring leaps forth. Never again will this gate be shut. Just as the first creation arose ever anew out of sheer nothingness, so, too, this second world - still unborn, still caught up in its first rising - will have its sole origin in this wound, which is never to close again.

In the future, all shape must arise out of this gaping void, all wholeness must draw its strength from the creating wound.

High-vaulted triumphal Gate of Life! Armored in gold, armies of graces stream out of you with fiery lances. Deep-dug Fountain of Life! Wave upon wave gushes out of you inexhaustible, ever-flowing, billows of water and blood baptizing the heathen hearts, comforting the yearning souls, rushing over the deserts of guilt, enriching over-abundantly, overflowing every heart that receives it, far surpassing every desire.

”

- Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988)

Reposted from TitusOneNine

A dusting of snow makes the city beautiful.

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 09:24:27 -0800

A dusting of snow makes the city beautiful.

"If authors and publishers could ever agree on a ‘Ten Commandments for Biblical..."

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 14:49:57 -0800

“If authors and publishers could ever agree on a ‘Ten Commandments for Biblical Commentaries,’ they should certainly include ‘In thy commentary thou shalt always include indices.’”

- “Book Reviews.” JBL 102 (1983): 4

"Faith, hope, and love are three aspects of our patience with God; they are three ways of coming to..."

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 13:40:55 -0800

“Faith, hope, and love are three aspects of our patience with God; they are three ways of coming to terms with the experience of God’s hiddenness. They therefore offer a distinctly different path from either atheism or ‘facile belief.’ In contrast with those two frequently proposed shortcuts, however, their path is a long one indeed. It is a path, like the Exodus of the Israelites, that traverses wastelands and darkness. And yes, occasionally he path is also lost; it is a pilgrimage that involves constant searching and losing one’s way from time to time. Sometimes we must descend into the deepest abyss and the vale of shadows in order to find the path once more. But if it did not lead there it would not be the path to God; god does not dwell on the surface.”

- Thomas Halik, Patience with God

Photo

Sun, 20 Feb 2011 16:53:56 -0800

Christianity Today - "Polling Evangelicals: Cut Aid to World's Poor, Unemployed."

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 15:35:51 -0800

Christianity Today - "Polling Evangelicals: Cut Aid to World's Poor, Unemployed.":

“The top choices among evangelicals for the chopping block are economic assistance to needy people around the world (56 percent), government assistance for the unemployed (40 percent), and environmental protection (38 percent).”

"If we wish to state who Jesus Christ is, in every separate statement we must also state, or at least..."

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 11:54:00 -0800

“If we wish to state who Jesus Christ is, in every separate statement we must also state, or at least make clear - and inexorably so - that we’re speaking of the Lord of heaven and earth, who neither has nor did have any need of heaven or earth or man, who created them out of free love and according to His very own good pleasure, who adopts man, not according to the latter’s merit, but according to his own miraculous power. He is the Lord who in all His action is always Himself entirely and unalterably, in a manner free of all complications or ties, who in His works in the world and on man never ceases in the very slightest to be God, who does not give his glory to another. In this, as Creator, Reconciler and Redeemer, He is a truly loving, serving God. He is the King of all kings just when He enters in to the profoundest hiddenness in “meekness of heart.” This has to be said in every statement we make about Jesus Christ.”

- Barth, CD I/2 p133

Wisdom vs. Revelation

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 15:11:36 -0800

I’ve been thinking of ways of knowing and how “christian reasoning” works on a practical level. Here are a couple rough categories that I am working on:

Revelation: knowledge from outside, divine knowledge

Revelation is a knowing that interrupts our knowing, it needs neither logical explanation or “good sense:” Take 300 men and go fight against Midian” Revelation is self-authenticating, the revealer guarantees the efficacy of the revelation: Thus saith the Lord

Wisdom: Knowledge from below, earthly knowledge

Wisdom is knowing from below, it is human knowing - logic, experience, these are the pools from which wisdom pull. Wisdom requires authentication, requires reference to some system that certifies the wisdom; reasoning has to be sound, experience is probabilistic knowing and has to be vindicated by new reality.

Christians appeal to both of these categories in the context of decision making. We say:

“It seems that X is right” (Wisdom)

“We know that X is right” (Wisdom)

“The Lord told me X” (Revelation)

“Scripture says that we should do X” (Wisdom)

“I’ve prayed about X and feel led” (Revelation)

One distinction between these ways of knowing, at least as it concerns “Christians reasoning,” is that wisdom is public knowing, revelation is (mostly) private knowing. Another distinction: Revelation is a higher order of knowing than wisdom for Christians: If God tells us to water the garden, it does not matter whether it is raining. I really don’t want to exclude either forms of knowing from “christian reasoning.”

I am wondering how revelation functions when Christians discuss together about a decision that needs to be made: in public decision making. Perhaps an illustration is in order: A church committee is tasked with deciding whether the church should buy a new building, since they have outgrown the current building. During one of the committee meetings John says, “our budget cannot sustain this move.” Steve says, “I think that, based on Matthew 28:19, God would want us to move to a bigger space.” Stacy says, “I was praying about this move and I am certain that God is telling us to move to the building on 4th street.”

John and Stacy make different kinds of claims, and their claims have different effects on the committee’s ability to make a decision: If I were to disagree with John’s claim, I have only to demonstrate how the budget can sustain a move: we appeal to a document available to the whole committee. Steve’s claim works much in the same way; if I disagree I can explain how his interpretation of Scripture is inadequate. How could I disagree with Stacy’s claim? It seems that I can only agree or disagree that Stacy has, in fact, heard from God. And, how can any other committee member know? When one person makes an appeal to revelation in the process of making a decision, that person seems to exclude their conversation partners from the reasoning process, we can only trust the veracity of the report of revelation (and its content). How can the conversation continue?

Here’s my question: Is it (and when is it) appropriate for christians to appeal to revelation in the course of group decision making?

Zizek; "Europe must move beyond mere tolerance"

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 11:35:21 -0800

Zizek; "Europe must move beyond mere tolerance":

Zizek understands the political significance of Paul’s comments in Galatians 3 and Colossians 3 better than most Christians, it seems. Unfortunately he hopes for a revolutionary community without Christ.

"When I really give anyone my time, I thereby give him the last and most personal thing that I have..."

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 17:13:18 -0800

“When I really give anyone my time, I thereby give him the last and most personal thing that I have to give at all, namely myself. If I do not give him my time, I certainly continue to be his debtor in everything, even though in other ways I give him ever so much. The difference at once to be noticed between out having time for others and God’s having time for us is twofold, that if God goes us time, He who deals with us is He who alone has a genuine, real time to give, and that He gives us this time not just partially, not with all sorts of reservations and qualifications, such as are habitual with us when giving to others, but entirely. The fulfillment of time that took place in Jesus is not just an alms from the divine riches; if, according to Gal. 4:4, Jesus Christ is the “pleroma [fulness] of the time,” we have to remember that, according to Col. 2:2, “in him dwelleth all the pleroma of the Godhead bodily.””

- Karl Barth, CD I/2 p.55

Section 14 provides explanation of this statement: “God’s revelation in the event of the presence of Jesus Christ is God’s time for us.” Or, more briefly: “God has time for us.”

So far, a fascinating section. I am looking forward to exploring the relationship between Barth’s “revelation time” and Benjamin’s “messianic time.”

This is pretty much what I imagine heaven will be like. Books...

Thu, 06 Jan 2011 16:26:20 -0800

This is pretty much what I imagine heaven will be like. Books and an Eames Lounge chair.

"God reveals Himself. He reveals Himself through Himself. He reveals Himself."

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 12:01:07 -0800

“God reveals Himself. He reveals Himself through Himself. He reveals Himself.”

- CD I/1 296 (Made it to chapter 2! On to the Trinity…) Interesting, in the following footnote, Barth tells us that he originally had followed this sentenceGod reveals Himself. He reveals Himself through Himself. He reveals Himself. CD I/1 296

Interesting, in the following footnote, Barth tells us that he originally had followed this sentence with “Logically they are quite simply question about the subject, predicate, and object of the following statement: God Exists. Deus dixit.” Unfortunately, some people seem to have thought Barth was making some sort of proof for the trinity, and so its been omitted from the main text of the version I am reading. Which is a bummer, because I prefer: God Speaks!

Do we care whether Theology is a Science?

Mon, 03 Jan 2011 17:50:00 -0800

I’m just finishing chapter 1 of the Barth’s Dogmatics, and the discussion has looped back to a topic that Barth brought up in the first section of the Introduction: Is Dogmatics a Science? Barth’s argument seems to be that dogmatic theology is indeed a science:

“When the Church puts to itself the question of truth in its threefold form in a way which is objective and not arbitrary, its self examination acquires the character of a scientific undertaking which has its own place alongside other human undertakings of the same or a similar kind.” (CD I/1 5)

At this point it seems that dogmatics qualifies as a science because of it’s objective, non-arbitrary nature. Objectivity seems to be meager qualification, at least to me. Barth recognizes that there are good reasons for not insisting that Dogmatics is a science, but says that we should nonetheless “quietly insist” that Dogmatics is a science for three reasons

Theology recognizes solidarity with other human concerns for truth
By insisting that Dogmatics is a science, Dogmatics reminds the other sciences that their own conclusions are quasi-religious
By refusing to cede the concept of science to the “heathens” by separating itself from them and taking a new name.

Barth comes back to the subject several hundred pages later:

“For [the Church] realises for one thing that in its question about dogma, i.e., about the agreement of church proclamation with the Word of God, it has to tread a defined path of knowledge, a path defined by this particular problem. And then it realises, too, that it has to submit to itself, i.e., everyone who has a share in it, an account regarding this path of knowledge. In this twofold inner obligation to itself consists the concrete significance of its claim to be a science, which it cannot prove externally before the forum of a general concept of science.” (CD I/1 275)

So, at this point I am confused as to why Barth wants Theology to be a science:

The reasons for quietly insisting that Theology is a science quoted above all imply that theology is a science in relation to other sciences. That is, Science is a category in which theology should fit along with other disciplines. Barth concedes, much like Radical Orthodoxy figures, that all other sciences should be subordinated under theology (CD I/1 7). Even though categorizing Theology as a science is puts it in a peer-relation with other sciences, Theology does not share with those other sciences a common pool of data or facts, rather Barth insists that Theology is about “the agreement of church proclamation with the Word of God.” The Word of God, Barth also insists, is not a fact in the world like other facts. In what way, then, is theology a science?

“These days, theology is the queen of the sciences in a rather less august sense of the word than in its medieval heyday.” - so remarked Terry Eagleton in his famous review of “The God Delusion.” He’s right, of course, when we’re looking at Theology’s relationship to the Sciences: That theology’s standing amongst the Sciences was slipping is perhaps what concerns Barth here at the beginning of his Dogmatics.

I’m not sure that this should concern us, however: If theology is, as Barth suggests, concerned with the relationship between church proclamation and the Word of God, then it is also an intramural affair - a discipline whose material arises within the church and whose audience is also the church. If this is the case, then it seems odd to insist that Theology is science in peer-relationship with, say, physics. So, Barth, why should theology be considered a science?

Money and Morality

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 12:00:07 -0800

Money and Morality:

Capitalism is not value neutral, and not in concert with Christian values.

Barth: Delving into the Footnotes

Fri, 31 Dec 2010 12:00:00 -0800

In my reading of Barth, I have skimmed or skipped many of the lengthy footnotes, which is sometimes a mistake, because his footnotes are sometimes the most interesting portion of his text. Far from being an academic in an ivory tower, Barth always has an eye on church practice, especially preaching, and he buries his cultural observations about the church in the footnotes. Like this one about American churches:

The American sermon is seldom Biblical and expository. Its reference o the Scripture is in the majority of cases casual or superficial. It deals generally with “religious” topics …. But perhaps even in America there is at least a dim recollection that the preaching of the Church might stand in some sort of special connexion with the bible. And even there it will surely happen some day that “religious” topics will become so stupid and stale that the dim recollection might become once again a clear recollection. (CD I/1 254)

Perhaps our preaching has gotten better in the 70 odd years since this was written, perhaps preaching, on the whole, is more exegetical. Certainly America’s evangelical seminaries have worked hard to emphasize the importance of exegetical preaching. But, perusing the bestseller’s list at CBD suggests that this exegetical urge hasn’t leavened the whole lump. Here are some titles:

“So Long, Insecurity: You’ve Been a Bad Friend to Us” ”What on Earth Am I Here For?” “Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear”

Each of these books are written by authors you would recognize as mainstays of the Christian book industry. Just from these titles it looks like Spirituality is pretty much the same as self-help, except with a little God thrown in. About my well being, about my feelings of security or my boundaries, about making my leadership skills or my business run like Jesus the CEO of the universe would run it - or is he the co-CEO? So much of our spirituality is about me and about what happens inside of me. The core of the spiritual life happens to be located about the same place as the seat of my desires. This point is hammered home by another title, or set of titles, on CBD’s bestseller list: “The Me I Want to Be,” available with four different color covers, to suit anyone’s taste.

This is a theme of Barth’s: that the church engage scripture, but not so that we can get something from it, not in such a way that our reading of the word becomes mostly about us. But most of the time, it seems, we are looking to get something from Scripture: We want to make our marriages better, have a closer relationship with God, feel at peace, Be better at Praying, or worse, looking for the biblical way to lose weight. We bring these needs to the Bible expecting answers and solutions. In his essay, “The Word of God and the Word of Man” he writes of the strange new world of the Bible:

The Bible tells us not how we should talk with God but what he says to us; not the right relation in which we must place ourselves to him, but the covenant which he has made with all who are Abraham’s spiritual children and which he has sealed once and for all in Jesus Christ. It is this which is written in the Bible. The word of God is within the Bible.

That is, we approach the Bible expecting to be confronted by the word of God, a word that is not controllable and that may want to address other things than our questions. We approach the Bible as a supplicant, waiting and expecting to hear God address us.

A new (old) blog

Fri, 31 Dec 2010 10:26:00 -0800

It’s a strange New Year’s resolution: to blog more. Come to think of it, even New Year’s resolutions are strange. Perhaps that’s grist for some future blogging. Why “to blog more?” Because writing is a discipline, and a worthwhile one. Writing well is kin to thinking well. Writing encourages thinking all the way through the matter. Writing is an appropriate response to one’s reading. Why “to blog more” and not just “to write more?” Blogging is public, or potentially public. By offing up my writing to you, I am offering and asking for conversation. Conversation is also a worthwhile discipline, of course. So I am starting afresh: to blog more.

Over the next year (or more) I will have a couple of reading projects that I will be reflecting on. First, I will be reading through the Bible. There are always new discoveries in this strange world we call the Bible. Second, I am working my way through Karl Barth’s “Church Dogmatics.” I won’t finish it this year, to be sure, but I am on the 10 page a day plan (or so, I’m slightly behind at the moment!), and am just a few hundred pages in. Third, I want to interact with the reading I do outside of the above titles, whether books or web-articles and other blogs. Finally, you can expect some miscellaneous posts: pictures, recipes, etc.

There is an old and well worn illustration about the stagnant pond that never receives new water: the moral of the illustration is that if we never receive anything new our intellectual life will become stagnant. It’s a very touching tale, and probably true; but its doesn’t describe the world most of us live in. We have a plethora of inputs: movies, news, the internets, church services. Our intellectual lives are characterized by input, but are often lacking output: we consume and consume but rarely create or respond carefully to what we consume. This is my resolution: to respond, in writing. to blog more. Thanks for reading.