Overview
In this post I will concentrate on Packer's in-depth discussion of the New Testament claims on the significance of Jesus as pre-existent Lord of creation and its importance in the lives of those seek identification and profess allegience to Christ as so depicted. This includes what Packer identifies as four primary propositions which in their cumulative significance provide a compelling set of reasons to take the core NT claims with the utmost seriousness in the shaping of contemporary belief in the life of the church and in formal Christological studies.
With this foundation lain Packer adds five crucial claims and seeks to respond to three compelling problems in the perception of God that he identifies with classical Trinitiarian Christology. For these enduring problems, which on their face seem contradictory, he offers plausible expanations while honoring the mystery of the entire Christian revelation, which by its very nature is infinitely beyond exhaustive understanding in which we see but in part.
What folows is both a summary and commentary on Packer's claims, including his assessment on their importance for the integrity of a vital Christian faith for our time and place. It is only by grasping something of their significance to the integrity a thoroughly orthodox Trinitarian theology and religious culture that one can appreciate the motives underlying Packer's critique. For this work Packer offers largely a constructive theology that includes a contrast to a view of Christianity that he argues moves beyond the orbit of a classical Christianity that includes embrace of a pre-Incarnate Christ as reflected in John and in some of the New Testament letters (e.g. Ephesans, Colossians.
Primary Propositions
The first is the claim that Jesus is God's promised Christ
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
J.I. Packer's Jesus Christ the Lord Part One
I would encourage those who are interested in serious evangelical theology to obtain The J.I. Packer Collection, edited and introduced by one of Packer's biographer's and foremost champions, Alister McGrath http://www.amazon.com/J-I-Packer-Collection/dp/0830822879
The collection includes a selection of some of Packer's finest essays from 1954-1998 and demonstrates something of the combination of cogency and pietistic verve underlying Packer's rationalist theological reflections on a broad array of topics in Anglo-American Protestant religious culture over the second half of the 20th century. Uppermost among Packer's themes are the centrality of a deeply orthodox, firmly scriptural based Trinitarian theology, a fleshing out of a distinctively evangelical theology that Packer distinguishes from both fundamentalism, to which he is obviously closer, and Protestant liberalism. These essays also include an apologetic impetus in what he depicts as the various dimensions of contemporary idolatry both within and outside the church, and in-depth commentary on important Protestant writers as distinct as the largely unknown James Orr (1844-1913), J.I Robinson, author of the best-seller Honest to God, and the irrepressible C.S. Lewis. In this post I concentrate on Packer's 1977 essay, "Jesus Christ the Lord," originally published in John Stott's Obeying Christ in a Changing World. http://www.amazon.com/Obeying-Christ-Changing-World-Stott/dp/0006246397. As time allows I will comment on other essays in this fine collection of Packer's essays as I believe his work provides an important pathway to serious faithful evangelical renewal.
Jesus Christ the Lord Overview
"A generation ago Dietrich Bonhoeffer posed for query the theme, 'Who really is Christ for us today.' Since his time Christology has become a matter of new debate, and of fresh tension too. Tielhard de Chardin, in maximizing Christ's cosmic significance, has appeared to depersonalize him. And Protestant theologians, in stressing Jesus' humanness and historicality, have appeared to dissolve away the substance of the godhead. Should such Cristologies be taken as the last word, the faith-relationship with Jesus which we spoke [below] would not be 'on.' And merely by existing they make that relationship harder to hold on to, just as do current 'secular' pictures of Jesus as a troubles hysteric (e.g., Dennis Potter, Son of Man) and as a pleasant song-and-dance man (e.g. Godspell; Jesus Christ Superstar). Fresh clarification is called for, urgently! (p. 154).
The centerpiece of this article is the critical contrast Packer makes in juxtaposing a high Trinitarian vision of Christ as God fully embodied in human flesh against a more this wordly grounded humanitarian Christology focusing on Jesus' sterling character and his exemplification of God's spirit throughout his life. On this latter perspective, a follower can obtain a closer walk with God by imitating Christ's spirit and his example as the selfless man in service for others.
Packer acknowledges the value in the latter understanding, although he views it is egregiously incomplete, and thereby, in the most radical sense, heretical. Specifically, it falls far short of any claim of Christ as God including any appreciation of the Son in his pre-incarnate manifestation as the second person in the Trinity as commonly understood in traditional orthodox theology and embodied most fully in the new Testament in the Gospel of John. Neither does this humanistic perspective account in any profound sense for the clear NT vision of Christ as high priest whose sacrificial death was an apt substitute for the collective sins of humankind.
Packer focuses the brunt of his essay on his explanation of the core orthodox belief in an incaranational God "who is there," who has come into our world from his pre-incarnate presence, which is based, hr maintains, on a view of Jesus best aligned with Scripture in which any Jesus outside of the NT context is both unknowable in any meaningful way, which, in any event, would be some other religion than that characterized as orthodox Christianity in the full Trinitarian, incarnational, and canonically-based scriptural sense. "That the only real Jesus is the Christ of the New Testament history and theology, and that by parting company with the New Testament [in its comprehensive depiction of Christ] we do not find him, is a truth that cannot be too often emphasized today" (p. 155) When that is given up in quest of a more humanitarian interpretation in what is commonly viewed as Christ "from below," a great deal, indeed, is sacrificed, and not merely doctrine, but the very power of Christ in God as the means of reconciling the world to God, and all of the claims that are made, for example, in the first two chapters of Paul's letter to the Ephesians, the first chapter of Colossians, the prologue in the Gospel of John, and virtually the entire tenor of The Letter to the Hebrews.
Opening Argument
"The Christian consensus has been that as Scripture is the proper source from which theology should flow, so Christology is the true hub round which the wheel round theology revolves, and to which its central spokes must each be correctly anchored if the wheel is not to get bent" (p. 151).
Packer draws on Scripture in the full canonical sense through the hermeneutical principle in which that which is clear and central in the Bible becomes the basis for interpreting that within Scripture which is more opaque in which Deuteronomy 29:29 might serve as an underlying interpretive principle. In the words of Puritan theologian John Robinson, new light often does break through in God's word as reflective even in the formation, of both the OT and NT canon, in which whatever new insights that do emerge are congruent with the core plotline and doctrinal claims as reflective foremost throughout the entire NT text. It is the entire NT narrative in turn, that forms the basis for the full Trinitarian and Incarnational theology in which Jesus of Nazareth is both son of man and son of God and who existed before the foundation of the world.
Any equivocation on this, however vast the gap between our understanding and the claim driven by faith in search of increasing knowledge, a distance of which Packer knows quite well, is to put into jeopardy the entire foundation of what John Stott refers to as basic and C.S. Lewis as mere Christianity. What is central, Packer insists, is the core claim that Jesus was not merely a holy person whose entire life embodied the spirit of God, but that he was and is divine and became flesh when the pre-existing son of God was incarnated into the world. In this Packer ascribes to the key claim made by Jesus as written in the Gospel of John, Before Abraham was, I am” (Jn 8:58). It is this foundational statement that possesses unfathomable kergymatic and ontological power, however much the mystery of this revelation remains well beyond the human capacity to grasp in anything remotely resembling a complete sense. More than anything else, perhaps, the scandalous nature of this proclanmation is something, on Packer’s studied interpretation, that humanitarian Christology categorically rejects on its face.
Building on this core Trinitarian assumption, Packer insists on a God who is there, "actively and objectively" in the world, "in the place of power." It is the claim of faith that his existence is true irrespective of whether it "is acknowledged or not" This ontological statement is meant as a direct barb against any perception of the resurrected Christ as merely living in "his followers' memories and imagination" (p. 152) as a great deal of liberal or humanitarian Christology, as claimed in a great deal of liberal and humanitarian Christology and the consequent neglect of the divine Christ as the pre-existent Son, viewed as an antiquarian residue of an outdated historical mindset. The critique would equally apply to Rudolph Bultmann's existential interpretation of Christ in his quest to demythologize the text (Scripture) in order to remythologize its essence in a perspective not too different from the anti-theistic theology of Bishop John Spong.
This belief in an incarnational God "who is there," who has come into our world from his pre-incarnate presence, argues Packer, is based on a view of Jesus best aligned with Scripture in which any Jesus outside of the NT context is both unknowable in any meaning sense, some other religion than that characterized as orthodox Christianity, and in the most fundamental sense, heretical. In Packer’s words, “the only real Jesus is the Christ of the New Testament history and theology, and that by parting company with the New Testament we do not find him, is a truth that cannot be too often emphasized today" (p. 155). When that is given up in quest of a Christ "from below" perspective, a great deal, indeed, is sacrificed. It is not merely primary doctrine that is at risk, which is important in itself to preserve but belief in the very power of Christ in God as the primary and ultimately only means of reconciling the world to God, which is the basis for evoking the commitment to it. At risk also, are the entirety of the claims that are made, for example, in the first two chapters of the Letter to the Ephesians and Colossians, the prologue in the Gospel of John, and virtually the entire tenor of The Letter to the Hebrews in which the underlying message expressed in various ways is that in Christ “the whole fullness of God dwells bodily” (Colossians 2:9).
Final Points for Part One
In clearing the air for his broader argument, which I will review in succeeding posts, Packer makes three preliminary points on whether and the extent "we find the real Jesus in the New Testament" (p.155).
The first is Packer's argument that the NT in its varying books and genres exhibits an underlying unity much deeper than any differences. Thus, in their different ways, the synoptic gospel writers, Paul, and John have focused their central attention on the integrating fabric of Christ's life, teaching, core mission leading to Jerusalem, his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, all of which presupposes the core message of the NT of "God who through Christ reconciled us to himself" (2 Corinthians 5:19) through the efficacy of the Holy Spirit.
In this Packer is reacting against a 100+ year scholarly tradition which has pitted the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith with the corresponding claim popularized in the contention that Paul in emphasizing the risen Christ was the inventor of Christianity as a distinctive religion beyond Judaism. It is this sharp difference in the scholarly literature between the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith that was also echoed in a different way in the Gospel of John written toward the end of the 1st century. There is little doubt that Paul's work was instrumental in creating a more inclusive movement in the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise as well as the vision of Isaiah of bringing in the gentiles to the household of God's kingdom through the galvanizing presence of the spirit of Christ. In that sense new light broke through.
Nonetheless, Paul's core belief, which formed very early (in the late 30s or early 40s) on the power of the Holy Spirit to reveal the risen Christ speaks volumes against any radical polarization between the theology of Paul and the writers of the synoptic gospels. When one considers, too, that Mark and Luke were very much immersed in the mission of Paul in which their gospels were written later than Paul's letters, then, even though their narrative focus is on the life and crucifixion of Jesus, with Luke addressing the post-resurrection sightings, then it is not a stretch to view at least their gospels as post-Pauline texts. In this respect, the synoptics provided narrative structure to core Christological claims made initially by the earliest reported followers of the Christian way and exemplified more thoroughly in Paul’s various letters.
A hint may be found in the opening statement of Mark, commonly viewed as the first gospel and the one most congruent with the "historical Jesus." Thus, "in the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God" (Mk 1:1), in which the entirety of the text that follows is commentary. Keeping both Mark and Paul in mind, one might plausibly surmise that Paul was in touch with close to the earliest versions of the resurrection tradition, embraced its core tenets which shaped its entire ministry. Mark, in turn, who was influenced by Paul's teaching of the crucified and resurrected Christ, was also close to Peter of whom he obtained first hand testimony in which the writing of the gospel itself was likely sanctioned, if not commissioned by the early church, and obviously viewed congruent with its teachings.
With these points and others in mind, Packer seeks to deconstruct a pervasive liberal bias in contemporary biblical scholarship, with its exaggerated emphasis on the importance of the historical evolution of the Bible and the diversity of literary genres while ignoring countervailing evidence. One of the chief problems, posits Packer is in its tendency to allow different emphases within the text to override the NT's underlying unity in its central Trinitarian keygmatic claim beyond myth in any superficial sense, though not beyond mystery as well acknowledged in the NT itself (Ephesians 3:4-10, I Corinthians 2: 6-16).
In wrapping up this portion of the review of Packer’s essay, Packer makes a couple of additional related points. This includes the somewhat contestable claim that the bulk of the NT texts, certainly the most important of them, which ultimately formed the canon, were written before 70, which included significant testimony from primary witnesses. Packer’s point here is that the memory of primary witnesses would have been sharp enough to accurately recall the basic events, including states of mind of primary actors, though I wouldn’t want to dismiss some authorial innovation in constructing synoptic texts as well as Acts based on a looking back from the perspective of Jesus as the risen Christ. Given that, Packer’s main claim still holds that the core gospel story of the resurrected Christ bestowing his presence on his first followers through the power of the Holy Spirit emerged very early, logically sometime before Paul’s conversion. It is this historical rebuttal which is the primary evangelical response that Packer makes in response to the thesis of a great divide between the historical Jesus and the Christian faith as emerging only decades after the event through the cumulative influence say of Paul and John and the distinctive communities that both spawned and were influenced by their work.
With the gauntlet laid down, Packer then proceeds to his more substantive constructive arguments on the biblical nature of Christ as described in the New Testament and to more extensive pointed critiques against a pervasive liberal theological interpretation characteristic of the dominant seminaries in both the U.K. and the U.S. A discussion of these matters will follow in additional posts.
The collection includes a selection of some of Packer's finest essays from 1954-1998 and demonstrates something of the combination of cogency and pietistic verve underlying Packer's rationalist theological reflections on a broad array of topics in Anglo-American Protestant religious culture over the second half of the 20th century. Uppermost among Packer's themes are the centrality of a deeply orthodox, firmly scriptural based Trinitarian theology, a fleshing out of a distinctively evangelical theology that Packer distinguishes from both fundamentalism, to which he is obviously closer, and Protestant liberalism. These essays also include an apologetic impetus in what he depicts as the various dimensions of contemporary idolatry both within and outside the church, and in-depth commentary on important Protestant writers as distinct as the largely unknown James Orr (1844-1913), J.I Robinson, author of the best-seller Honest to God, and the irrepressible C.S. Lewis. In this post I concentrate on Packer's 1977 essay, "Jesus Christ the Lord," originally published in John Stott's Obeying Christ in a Changing World. http://www.amazon.com/Obeying-Christ-Changing-World-Stott/dp/0006246397. As time allows I will comment on other essays in this fine collection of Packer's essays as I believe his work provides an important pathway to serious faithful evangelical renewal.
Jesus Christ the Lord Overview
"A generation ago Dietrich Bonhoeffer posed for query the theme, 'Who really is Christ for us today.' Since his time Christology has become a matter of new debate, and of fresh tension too. Tielhard de Chardin, in maximizing Christ's cosmic significance, has appeared to depersonalize him. And Protestant theologians, in stressing Jesus' humanness and historicality, have appeared to dissolve away the substance of the godhead. Should such Cristologies be taken as the last word, the faith-relationship with Jesus which we spoke [below] would not be 'on.' And merely by existing they make that relationship harder to hold on to, just as do current 'secular' pictures of Jesus as a troubles hysteric (e.g., Dennis Potter, Son of Man) and as a pleasant song-and-dance man (e.g. Godspell; Jesus Christ Superstar). Fresh clarification is called for, urgently! (p. 154).
The centerpiece of this article is the critical contrast Packer makes in juxtaposing a high Trinitarian vision of Christ as God fully embodied in human flesh against a more this wordly grounded humanitarian Christology focusing on Jesus' sterling character and his exemplification of God's spirit throughout his life. On this latter perspective, a follower can obtain a closer walk with God by imitating Christ's spirit and his example as the selfless man in service for others.
Packer acknowledges the value in the latter understanding, although he views it is egregiously incomplete, and thereby, in the most radical sense, heretical. Specifically, it falls far short of any claim of Christ as God including any appreciation of the Son in his pre-incarnate manifestation as the second person in the Trinity as commonly understood in traditional orthodox theology and embodied most fully in the new Testament in the Gospel of John. Neither does this humanistic perspective account in any profound sense for the clear NT vision of Christ as high priest whose sacrificial death was an apt substitute for the collective sins of humankind.
Packer focuses the brunt of his essay on his explanation of the core orthodox belief in an incaranational God "who is there," who has come into our world from his pre-incarnate presence, which is based, hr maintains, on a view of Jesus best aligned with Scripture in which any Jesus outside of the NT context is both unknowable in any meaningful way, which, in any event, would be some other religion than that characterized as orthodox Christianity in the full Trinitarian, incarnational, and canonically-based scriptural sense. "That the only real Jesus is the Christ of the New Testament history and theology, and that by parting company with the New Testament [in its comprehensive depiction of Christ] we do not find him, is a truth that cannot be too often emphasized today" (p. 155) When that is given up in quest of a more humanitarian interpretation in what is commonly viewed as Christ "from below," a great deal, indeed, is sacrificed, and not merely doctrine, but the very power of Christ in God as the means of reconciling the world to God, and all of the claims that are made, for example, in the first two chapters of Paul's letter to the Ephesians, the first chapter of Colossians, the prologue in the Gospel of John, and virtually the entire tenor of The Letter to the Hebrews.
Opening Argument
"The Christian consensus has been that as Scripture is the proper source from which theology should flow, so Christology is the true hub round which the wheel round theology revolves, and to which its central spokes must each be correctly anchored if the wheel is not to get bent" (p. 151).
Packer draws on Scripture in the full canonical sense through the hermeneutical principle in which that which is clear and central in the Bible becomes the basis for interpreting that within Scripture which is more opaque in which Deuteronomy 29:29 might serve as an underlying interpretive principle. In the words of Puritan theologian John Robinson, new light often does break through in God's word as reflective even in the formation, of both the OT and NT canon, in which whatever new insights that do emerge are congruent with the core plotline and doctrinal claims as reflective foremost throughout the entire NT text. It is the entire NT narrative in turn, that forms the basis for the full Trinitarian and Incarnational theology in which Jesus of Nazareth is both son of man and son of God and who existed before the foundation of the world.
Any equivocation on this, however vast the gap between our understanding and the claim driven by faith in search of increasing knowledge, a distance of which Packer knows quite well, is to put into jeopardy the entire foundation of what John Stott refers to as basic and C.S. Lewis as mere Christianity. What is central, Packer insists, is the core claim that Jesus was not merely a holy person whose entire life embodied the spirit of God, but that he was and is divine and became flesh when the pre-existing son of God was incarnated into the world. In this Packer ascribes to the key claim made by Jesus as written in the Gospel of John, Before Abraham was, I am” (Jn 8:58). It is this foundational statement that possesses unfathomable kergymatic and ontological power, however much the mystery of this revelation remains well beyond the human capacity to grasp in anything remotely resembling a complete sense. More than anything else, perhaps, the scandalous nature of this proclanmation is something, on Packer’s studied interpretation, that humanitarian Christology categorically rejects on its face.
Building on this core Trinitarian assumption, Packer insists on a God who is there, "actively and objectively" in the world, "in the place of power." It is the claim of faith that his existence is true irrespective of whether it "is acknowledged or not" This ontological statement is meant as a direct barb against any perception of the resurrected Christ as merely living in "his followers' memories and imagination" (p. 152) as a great deal of liberal or humanitarian Christology, as claimed in a great deal of liberal and humanitarian Christology and the consequent neglect of the divine Christ as the pre-existent Son, viewed as an antiquarian residue of an outdated historical mindset. The critique would equally apply to Rudolph Bultmann's existential interpretation of Christ in his quest to demythologize the text (Scripture) in order to remythologize its essence in a perspective not too different from the anti-theistic theology of Bishop John Spong.
This belief in an incarnational God "who is there," who has come into our world from his pre-incarnate presence, argues Packer, is based on a view of Jesus best aligned with Scripture in which any Jesus outside of the NT context is both unknowable in any meaning sense, some other religion than that characterized as orthodox Christianity, and in the most fundamental sense, heretical. In Packer’s words, “the only real Jesus is the Christ of the New Testament history and theology, and that by parting company with the New Testament we do not find him, is a truth that cannot be too often emphasized today" (p. 155). When that is given up in quest of a Christ "from below" perspective, a great deal, indeed, is sacrificed. It is not merely primary doctrine that is at risk, which is important in itself to preserve but belief in the very power of Christ in God as the primary and ultimately only means of reconciling the world to God, which is the basis for evoking the commitment to it. At risk also, are the entirety of the claims that are made, for example, in the first two chapters of the Letter to the Ephesians and Colossians, the prologue in the Gospel of John, and virtually the entire tenor of The Letter to the Hebrews in which the underlying message expressed in various ways is that in Christ “the whole fullness of God dwells bodily” (Colossians 2:9).
Final Points for Part One
In clearing the air for his broader argument, which I will review in succeeding posts, Packer makes three preliminary points on whether and the extent "we find the real Jesus in the New Testament" (p.155).
The first is Packer's argument that the NT in its varying books and genres exhibits an underlying unity much deeper than any differences. Thus, in their different ways, the synoptic gospel writers, Paul, and John have focused their central attention on the integrating fabric of Christ's life, teaching, core mission leading to Jerusalem, his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, all of which presupposes the core message of the NT of "God who through Christ reconciled us to himself" (2 Corinthians 5:19) through the efficacy of the Holy Spirit.
In this Packer is reacting against a 100+ year scholarly tradition which has pitted the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith with the corresponding claim popularized in the contention that Paul in emphasizing the risen Christ was the inventor of Christianity as a distinctive religion beyond Judaism. It is this sharp difference in the scholarly literature between the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith that was also echoed in a different way in the Gospel of John written toward the end of the 1st century. There is little doubt that Paul's work was instrumental in creating a more inclusive movement in the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise as well as the vision of Isaiah of bringing in the gentiles to the household of God's kingdom through the galvanizing presence of the spirit of Christ. In that sense new light broke through.
Nonetheless, Paul's core belief, which formed very early (in the late 30s or early 40s) on the power of the Holy Spirit to reveal the risen Christ speaks volumes against any radical polarization between the theology of Paul and the writers of the synoptic gospels. When one considers, too, that Mark and Luke were very much immersed in the mission of Paul in which their gospels were written later than Paul's letters, then, even though their narrative focus is on the life and crucifixion of Jesus, with Luke addressing the post-resurrection sightings, then it is not a stretch to view at least their gospels as post-Pauline texts. In this respect, the synoptics provided narrative structure to core Christological claims made initially by the earliest reported followers of the Christian way and exemplified more thoroughly in Paul’s various letters.
A hint may be found in the opening statement of Mark, commonly viewed as the first gospel and the one most congruent with the "historical Jesus." Thus, "in the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God" (Mk 1:1), in which the entirety of the text that follows is commentary. Keeping both Mark and Paul in mind, one might plausibly surmise that Paul was in touch with close to the earliest versions of the resurrection tradition, embraced its core tenets which shaped its entire ministry. Mark, in turn, who was influenced by Paul's teaching of the crucified and resurrected Christ, was also close to Peter of whom he obtained first hand testimony in which the writing of the gospel itself was likely sanctioned, if not commissioned by the early church, and obviously viewed congruent with its teachings.
With these points and others in mind, Packer seeks to deconstruct a pervasive liberal bias in contemporary biblical scholarship, with its exaggerated emphasis on the importance of the historical evolution of the Bible and the diversity of literary genres while ignoring countervailing evidence. One of the chief problems, posits Packer is in its tendency to allow different emphases within the text to override the NT's underlying unity in its central Trinitarian keygmatic claim beyond myth in any superficial sense, though not beyond mystery as well acknowledged in the NT itself (Ephesians 3:4-10, I Corinthians 2: 6-16).
In wrapping up this portion of the review of Packer’s essay, Packer makes a couple of additional related points. This includes the somewhat contestable claim that the bulk of the NT texts, certainly the most important of them, which ultimately formed the canon, were written before 70, which included significant testimony from primary witnesses. Packer’s point here is that the memory of primary witnesses would have been sharp enough to accurately recall the basic events, including states of mind of primary actors, though I wouldn’t want to dismiss some authorial innovation in constructing synoptic texts as well as Acts based on a looking back from the perspective of Jesus as the risen Christ. Given that, Packer’s main claim still holds that the core gospel story of the resurrected Christ bestowing his presence on his first followers through the power of the Holy Spirit emerged very early, logically sometime before Paul’s conversion. It is this historical rebuttal which is the primary evangelical response that Packer makes in response to the thesis of a great divide between the historical Jesus and the Christian faith as emerging only decades after the event through the cumulative influence say of Paul and John and the distinctive communities that both spawned and were influenced by their work.
With the gauntlet laid down, Packer then proceeds to his more substantive constructive arguments on the biblical nature of Christ as described in the New Testament and to more extensive pointed critiques against a pervasive liberal theological interpretation characteristic of the dominant seminaries in both the U.K. and the U.S. A discussion of these matters will follow in additional posts.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
J.I.. Packer's Theology of Scripture
The Bible as the Decisive Word of God
In his various texts Packer lays out a strong case for the centrality of the Bible in its full canonical depth as the primary source for interpretating the role of the church as well as the relationship between Christ and culture in any given context. As a prelude he reviews both the concept of authority as reflective in Roman Catholic theology and the individual as authority as posited by cultural commentators in the secular as well as in the liberal theological realm. To these two, both of which he accepts as important, he offers the Bible as primary authority to which church and culture are subordinate. Thus, Packer is not suggesting that these three primary soureces of authority never coincide or that two of them have no authority at all. His point is not sola scriptura, but the placing of Scripture in the magisterial role in the determination of where ultimate authority lies. In practice there is often a great deal of blending among these three sources even as ther issue of where ultimate authoritativeness remains.
Packer is aware that the concept of authoritativeness is both inescapable and frought with danger. Properly grasped, however, biblical authoritativeness as he understands it, is synonymous with human freedom in the sense in that it best reveals humankind's primary vocation made in the image of God. In the following passage I by-pass Packer's discussion of church as authority and only briefly alludeto his discussion of self as authority in order to give primary attention to his central focus.
_______________________________________
The Bible as Authority
Packer identification of the Bible as the ultimate source of authority is based in the most fundamental sense on the grounds that Christianity is a revealed religion and that revelation is most fully encapsulated in the Bible. This revelation comes from “the inward voice of the Holy Spirit.” which illuminates the words of the Bible without which personal experience of God cannot be perceived. The Holy Spirit is not only the indispensable guide for the receptions of its truths. It is the vehicle that God used to convey his thoughts to the writers of the various books without denying one iota their humanity and autonomy. This personal perception is not only the basis for the timeless truths expounded in the Bible which, however time bound they were in their human expression, are “self-interpreting” within the hermeneutical framework of the Bible as the unified, and for human beings, sufficient Word of God.
This authoritative center is an essential basis for a vitally grounded belief, which, without some illumination by the Holy Spirit belief itself becomes suspect or at the least extremely wooden. In the most fundamental sense there is no getting beyond the circularity of these assumptions even as the possibility of exposition is potentially infinite-like in its richness and depth, the exploration of which is the continuing work of the called church and all individuals who seek to take the Bible with radical seriousness.
Thus, on Packer’s view the full flourishing of the immense riches latent within the Bible require a reception of its revelatory meaning and application via the Holy Spirit through grace. This in turn both stimulates and is stimulated by the activation of faith through, as humanly possible, the ultimate and continuous commitment of one’s time and resources to live out of the calling through which God addresses each individual. For Packer, the Bible is the primary source in illuminating the character of God and also in laying out the required human responses. In addition it provides many sources of help and direction that a close and regular prayerful and expectant reading of the text provides. Thus, on Packer’s reading, faith illuminated by grace, is based ultimately on persuasion that it is the Lord our God who speaks in and through this text in a uniquely disclosive manner. More fully, the Bible is
"…a record and explanation of divine revelation which is both complete (sufficient) and comprehensible (perspicacious); that is to say, it contains all that the Church needs to know in this world for guidance in the way of salvation and service, and it contains the principles for its own interpretation within itself. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit, who caused it to be written, has been given to the Church to cause believers to recognize it for the Word that it is, and to enable them to interpret it rightly and understand its meaning…Christians must therefore seek to be helped and taught by the Spirit when they study the Scripture, and must regard all their understanding of it, no less than the book itself, a the gift of God."
Any other reading, according to Packer, is a misreading and a denial of what the Bible was and is meant to convey. “We are to bow to…[its] authority at every point, confessing that here we have both truth and wisdom.” This… way of true discipleship” is based on a circular argument. The proof is less the logic of its apologetic, which may not ultimately convince even as it seeks to demonstrate the reasonableness of faith, than the power of its claims and its “harmonistic” integration as attested in the final analysis by the Holy Spirit as conveyed from believer to believer. In short the truth of Packer’s third option is based ultimately on nothing less than self-disclosive revelation that to accept or reject has consequences of the profoundest sort even as, on Packer’s account, exegetical and expositional problems persist in biblical interpretation and application since full disclosure remains perpetually beyond the human capacity to grasp. As Packer summarizes his biblical hermeneutics:
"Will any model do to give knowledge of the living God? Historically, Christians have not thought so. Their characteristic theological method, whether practiced clumsily or skillfully, consistently or inconsistently, has been to take biblical models as their God-given staring point, to base their belief-system on what biblical writers use these models to say, and to let these models operate as ‘controls’, both suggesting and delimiting what further, secondary models may be developed in order to explicate these which are primary. As models in physics are hypotheses formed under the suggestive control of empirical evidence to correlate and predict phenomenon, so Christian theological models are explanatory constructs formed to help us know, understand and deal with God, the ultimate reality. From this standpoint, the whole study of Christian theology, biblical, historical and systematic, is the exploring of a three-tier hierarchy of models: first, the ‘control’ models given in Scripture…; next, dogmatic models which the Church crystallized out to defend and define the faith,” first and foremost, the Trinity; finally, interpretive models lying between Scripture and defined dogma with particular theologians and theological schools developed for stating faith to contemporaries."
The critical factor is not only the starting point, but the layering order of Scripture, axiomatic doctrines, and only then historically grounded interpretation in service as much to apologetics as to dogmatic exfoliation. To confuse this order is to confuse a great deal and to misconstrue the nature of biblical interpretation.
It is this evangelical challenge to 20th century Protestant liberalism in the quest to re-capture the intellectual and pietistic vitality of the biblical revelation that Packer posits as “true Christianity.” On his account the hermeneutics that he lays out represents the surest approximation to it that he believes a rigorous and up-to-date Reformed-based evangelical scholarship linked to a corresponding pietism grounded on its own founding premises, forever subject to enhanced light, can provide. It is this that Packer argues as do I, that is needed as a counter-balance to the cultural captivity of so much of mainline Protestantism by the persuasive powers of contemporary secular thought and culture which has set the terms of academic based critical biblical research for well over 100 years. In short, there is much to be gained by a careful analysis of Packer’s theology of Scripture even if one takes issue with critical aspects of his interpretation.
In his various texts Packer lays out a strong case for the centrality of the Bible in its full canonical depth as the primary source for interpretating the role of the church as well as the relationship between Christ and culture in any given context. As a prelude he reviews both the concept of authority as reflective in Roman Catholic theology and the individual as authority as posited by cultural commentators in the secular as well as in the liberal theological realm. To these two, both of which he accepts as important, he offers the Bible as primary authority to which church and culture are subordinate. Thus, Packer is not suggesting that these three primary soureces of authority never coincide or that two of them have no authority at all. His point is not sola scriptura, but the placing of Scripture in the magisterial role in the determination of where ultimate authority lies. In practice there is often a great deal of blending among these three sources even as ther issue of where ultimate authoritativeness remains.
Packer is aware that the concept of authoritativeness is both inescapable and frought with danger. Properly grasped, however, biblical authoritativeness as he understands it, is synonymous with human freedom in the sense in that it best reveals humankind's primary vocation made in the image of God. In the following passage I by-pass Packer's discussion of church as authority and only briefly alludeto his discussion of self as authority in order to give primary attention to his central focus.
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The Bible as Authority
Packer identification of the Bible as the ultimate source of authority is based in the most fundamental sense on the grounds that Christianity is a revealed religion and that revelation is most fully encapsulated in the Bible. This revelation comes from “the inward voice of the Holy Spirit.” which illuminates the words of the Bible without which personal experience of God cannot be perceived. The Holy Spirit is not only the indispensable guide for the receptions of its truths. It is the vehicle that God used to convey his thoughts to the writers of the various books without denying one iota their humanity and autonomy. This personal perception is not only the basis for the timeless truths expounded in the Bible which, however time bound they were in their human expression, are “self-interpreting” within the hermeneutical framework of the Bible as the unified, and for human beings, sufficient Word of God.
This authoritative center is an essential basis for a vitally grounded belief, which, without some illumination by the Holy Spirit belief itself becomes suspect or at the least extremely wooden. In the most fundamental sense there is no getting beyond the circularity of these assumptions even as the possibility of exposition is potentially infinite-like in its richness and depth, the exploration of which is the continuing work of the called church and all individuals who seek to take the Bible with radical seriousness.
Thus, on Packer’s view the full flourishing of the immense riches latent within the Bible require a reception of its revelatory meaning and application via the Holy Spirit through grace. This in turn both stimulates and is stimulated by the activation of faith through, as humanly possible, the ultimate and continuous commitment of one’s time and resources to live out of the calling through which God addresses each individual. For Packer, the Bible is the primary source in illuminating the character of God and also in laying out the required human responses. In addition it provides many sources of help and direction that a close and regular prayerful and expectant reading of the text provides. Thus, on Packer’s reading, faith illuminated by grace, is based ultimately on persuasion that it is the Lord our God who speaks in and through this text in a uniquely disclosive manner. More fully, the Bible is
"…a record and explanation of divine revelation which is both complete (sufficient) and comprehensible (perspicacious); that is to say, it contains all that the Church needs to know in this world for guidance in the way of salvation and service, and it contains the principles for its own interpretation within itself. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit, who caused it to be written, has been given to the Church to cause believers to recognize it for the Word that it is, and to enable them to interpret it rightly and understand its meaning…Christians must therefore seek to be helped and taught by the Spirit when they study the Scripture, and must regard all their understanding of it, no less than the book itself, a the gift of God."
Any other reading, according to Packer, is a misreading and a denial of what the Bible was and is meant to convey. “We are to bow to…[its] authority at every point, confessing that here we have both truth and wisdom.” This… way of true discipleship” is based on a circular argument. The proof is less the logic of its apologetic, which may not ultimately convince even as it seeks to demonstrate the reasonableness of faith, than the power of its claims and its “harmonistic” integration as attested in the final analysis by the Holy Spirit as conveyed from believer to believer. In short the truth of Packer’s third option is based ultimately on nothing less than self-disclosive revelation that to accept or reject has consequences of the profoundest sort even as, on Packer’s account, exegetical and expositional problems persist in biblical interpretation and application since full disclosure remains perpetually beyond the human capacity to grasp. As Packer summarizes his biblical hermeneutics:
"Will any model do to give knowledge of the living God? Historically, Christians have not thought so. Their characteristic theological method, whether practiced clumsily or skillfully, consistently or inconsistently, has been to take biblical models as their God-given staring point, to base their belief-system on what biblical writers use these models to say, and to let these models operate as ‘controls’, both suggesting and delimiting what further, secondary models may be developed in order to explicate these which are primary. As models in physics are hypotheses formed under the suggestive control of empirical evidence to correlate and predict phenomenon, so Christian theological models are explanatory constructs formed to help us know, understand and deal with God, the ultimate reality. From this standpoint, the whole study of Christian theology, biblical, historical and systematic, is the exploring of a three-tier hierarchy of models: first, the ‘control’ models given in Scripture…; next, dogmatic models which the Church crystallized out to defend and define the faith,” first and foremost, the Trinity; finally, interpretive models lying between Scripture and defined dogma with particular theologians and theological schools developed for stating faith to contemporaries."
The critical factor is not only the starting point, but the layering order of Scripture, axiomatic doctrines, and only then historically grounded interpretation in service as much to apologetics as to dogmatic exfoliation. To confuse this order is to confuse a great deal and to misconstrue the nature of biblical interpretation.
It is this evangelical challenge to 20th century Protestant liberalism in the quest to re-capture the intellectual and pietistic vitality of the biblical revelation that Packer posits as “true Christianity.” On his account the hermeneutics that he lays out represents the surest approximation to it that he believes a rigorous and up-to-date Reformed-based evangelical scholarship linked to a corresponding pietism grounded on its own founding premises, forever subject to enhanced light, can provide. It is this that Packer argues as do I, that is needed as a counter-balance to the cultural captivity of so much of mainline Protestantism by the persuasive powers of contemporary secular thought and culture which has set the terms of academic based critical biblical research for well over 100 years. In short, there is much to be gained by a careful analysis of Packer’s theology of Scripture even if one takes issue with critical aspects of his interpretation.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Reading the Bible for Spiritual and Theological Intent
An issue that has come up in one of our Bible studies is that of interpreting the meaning and significance of the Old Testment
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Unpacking Packer's Theology Part Two
Biblical Centrality and Turning Modern Culural Paradigmatic Assumptions on their Head
Packer’s overarching claim is “that Scripture sets before us the factual and moral nature of things” about the human condition. “God’s law,” in the most complete sense corresponds to “created human nature, so that in fulfilling his requirements we fulfill ourselves.” There is, according to Packer, “not a touch of authoritarianism [that] enters into his exercise of authority over us.”
That is because in fulfilling our relationship with God we attain the very purpose of life, which to miss is to miss a great deal. There is no surer pathway to this realization, however failing our efforts may be, Packer argues, than through a full and comprehensive appreciation and application of the Bible as the place where God most thoroughly and unequivocally speaks. The precepts of faith as disclosed in and through the Bible “are not in themselves unreasonable, but they are above reason; they terminate in mysteries which the human mind can express only as paradoxes.” As he further explains:
"Reasoning may prepare the mind for faith in these truths [as revealed], by showing their meaning and biblical basis, their congruity with the total biblical outlook and the known facts of life, and the weaknesses of objectives made to them; but reasoning alone cannot produce faith, for faith goes further than reason could take it. Reasoning at best could only suggest probability, but the nature of faith is to be certain. Any measure of doubt or uncertainty [even in my unbelief] is not a degree of faith, but an assault upon it. Faith, therefore, must rest on something more sure than an inference of probability."
That something more is trust through faith, ultimately via the agency of grace that the truth of God is revealed in and through the Bible. The validity of such faith cannot “be demonstratively proved; for such proof is only possible in principle on the basis of an exhaustive understanding of its object.”
The negative corollary is that once:
"You give up the New Testament view of biblical inspiration—there is no limit on how far you will go in rejecting or relativizing biblical assertions. [That is because] there is no limit apart from your own arbitrary will. Protestantism’s current confusion is largely due to the way its teachers have fanned out at this point producing as many sub-biblical theologies as there have been thinkers to devise them."
Packer’s major concern is that once the Bible is surrendered as anything less than the disclosive word of God, every single tenet of faith, including God’s very being as a theocentric reality is open to radical revision, deconstruction, and re-mythologization. The Bible is far from exhaustive in its revelation of God. Nonetheless, Packer argues that it is the most substantial bulwark available in maintaining a foundational Christian stance based on its own revelatory cogency against the many intruding forces when “sound doctrine” (2 Tim 4:3) is replaced with other teachings.
The quest for complete knowledge, which, as God’s creatures we neither need nor can expect to have, would be to be like God, the fundamental sin of Adam and Eve. Packer’s point is that Scripture is absolutely reliable for that which it is relevant, in the final analysis, the salvation of our souls and the reconciliation of the world even while shedding only partial knowledge of God’s revelation. For:
Scripture tells us what we need to know for faith and godliness. But at no point do we dare imagine that the thoughts about God that Scripture teaches us takes the full measure of his reality. The fact that God condescends and accommodates himself to us in his revelation certainly makes possible clarity and sureness of understanding. Equally certain, however, it involves limitation in the revelation itself. If we fail to acknowledge God’s incomprehensibility beyond the limits of what he has revealed, we shrink him in thought down in our size….It is certainly proper to stress that scriptural revelation is rational [a point missed in many mainline congregations]. But the most thoroughgoing Bible believers are sometimes like Job, to go on adoring God when we do not specifically understand what he is doing and why he is doing it.
As it has always been with the Bible, faith precedes knowledge and that which God does provide is often viewed as foolishness to the world (1 Cor. 1:27). There is no getting around the circularity and even scandal of this claim as the depths of “sound doctrine” are ever unfathomable in the riches of “the mystery which has been hidden from the ages and from the generations, but now has been revealed to His [highly flawed] saints” (Col. 1:26). It is this gospel and this gospel only to which we are to “be ready in season and out of season” (2 Tim: 4:2) to preach. This is the core and substance of Packer’s highly nuanced and very much orthodox theology of Scripture. Among much else his theology of Scripture has the capacity of serving as one critical resource among others in helping to refashion both evangelical and mainline Protestantism along the critical axis of its Reformation-based roots as the hermeneutical basis for a viable reconstruction in the current setting.
Packer’s overarching claim is “that Scripture sets before us the factual and moral nature of things” about the human condition. “God’s law,” in the most complete sense corresponds to “created human nature, so that in fulfilling his requirements we fulfill ourselves.” There is, according to Packer, “not a touch of authoritarianism [that] enters into his exercise of authority over us.”
That is because in fulfilling our relationship with God we attain the very purpose of life, which to miss is to miss a great deal. There is no surer pathway to this realization, however failing our efforts may be, Packer argues, than through a full and comprehensive appreciation and application of the Bible as the place where God most thoroughly and unequivocally speaks. The precepts of faith as disclosed in and through the Bible “are not in themselves unreasonable, but they are above reason; they terminate in mysteries which the human mind can express only as paradoxes.” As he further explains:
"Reasoning may prepare the mind for faith in these truths [as revealed], by showing their meaning and biblical basis, their congruity with the total biblical outlook and the known facts of life, and the weaknesses of objectives made to them; but reasoning alone cannot produce faith, for faith goes further than reason could take it. Reasoning at best could only suggest probability, but the nature of faith is to be certain. Any measure of doubt or uncertainty [even in my unbelief] is not a degree of faith, but an assault upon it. Faith, therefore, must rest on something more sure than an inference of probability."
That something more is trust through faith, ultimately via the agency of grace that the truth of God is revealed in and through the Bible. The validity of such faith cannot “be demonstratively proved; for such proof is only possible in principle on the basis of an exhaustive understanding of its object.”
The negative corollary is that once:
"You give up the New Testament view of biblical inspiration—there is no limit on how far you will go in rejecting or relativizing biblical assertions. [That is because] there is no limit apart from your own arbitrary will. Protestantism’s current confusion is largely due to the way its teachers have fanned out at this point producing as many sub-biblical theologies as there have been thinkers to devise them."
Packer’s major concern is that once the Bible is surrendered as anything less than the disclosive word of God, every single tenet of faith, including God’s very being as a theocentric reality is open to radical revision, deconstruction, and re-mythologization. The Bible is far from exhaustive in its revelation of God. Nonetheless, Packer argues that it is the most substantial bulwark available in maintaining a foundational Christian stance based on its own revelatory cogency against the many intruding forces when “sound doctrine” (2 Tim 4:3) is replaced with other teachings.
The quest for complete knowledge, which, as God’s creatures we neither need nor can expect to have, would be to be like God, the fundamental sin of Adam and Eve. Packer’s point is that Scripture is absolutely reliable for that which it is relevant, in the final analysis, the salvation of our souls and the reconciliation of the world even while shedding only partial knowledge of God’s revelation. For:
Scripture tells us what we need to know for faith and godliness. But at no point do we dare imagine that the thoughts about God that Scripture teaches us takes the full measure of his reality. The fact that God condescends and accommodates himself to us in his revelation certainly makes possible clarity and sureness of understanding. Equally certain, however, it involves limitation in the revelation itself. If we fail to acknowledge God’s incomprehensibility beyond the limits of what he has revealed, we shrink him in thought down in our size….It is certainly proper to stress that scriptural revelation is rational [a point missed in many mainline congregations]. But the most thoroughgoing Bible believers are sometimes like Job, to go on adoring God when we do not specifically understand what he is doing and why he is doing it.
As it has always been with the Bible, faith precedes knowledge and that which God does provide is often viewed as foolishness to the world (1 Cor. 1:27). There is no getting around the circularity and even scandal of this claim as the depths of “sound doctrine” are ever unfathomable in the riches of “the mystery which has been hidden from the ages and from the generations, but now has been revealed to His [highly flawed] saints” (Col. 1:26). It is this gospel and this gospel only to which we are to “be ready in season and out of season” (2 Tim: 4:2) to preach. This is the core and substance of Packer’s highly nuanced and very much orthodox theology of Scripture. Among much else his theology of Scripture has the capacity of serving as one critical resource among others in helping to refashion both evangelical and mainline Protestantism along the critical axis of its Reformation-based roots as the hermeneutical basis for a viable reconstruction in the current setting.
Unpacking the Evangelical Theology of J.I. Packer Part One
Along with C.S. Lewis and John Stott,the Bristish born pietist theologian, J.I. Packer, has had a very strong influence in contemporary U.S. evenaglical circles. This prolific author has written some very popular books such as Knowing God (1973)as well as more specialized works on the 17th century English Puritans and other Protestant theologians throughout the centuries. Throughout his writings he has always sought to merge the pietistic longing for just a closer walk witn God with the many specialized issues of systematic and historical theology in which for Packer as well as his primary mentors, the great Puritan Divines, especially John Owen, there is no divide.
I discovered Packer some 5-6 years ago and have been enthralled by his work ever since. I encourage all those interested in bringing pietism and formal theological discourse into closer proximity to take a closer look at Packer, including those who would dismiss him as a narrow fundamehtalist, of which he is clearly not.
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Unpacking Packer’s Theology of Scripture Part One
Packer’s theology of Scripture represents a fundamental challenge to the precepts of modern intellectual life and culture, particularly against the Enlightenment interpretation of freedom which he seeks to turn on its head in what he refers to as “God’s Freedom Trail.” Freedom, liberty, and authority are the key topics Packer addresses in the first chapter of Truth and Power: The Place of Scripture in the Christian Life. His objective is to demonstrate that a substantial grounding in the biblical revelation through Word and Spirit is the surest basis available for the realization of these values in contrast to the Enlightenment’s pathway of secular humanism, ultimately “in dreams of the perfectability of man.” Such dreams, Packer maintains, were transformed in the 19th and early 20th centuries into an unrelenting pursuit of progress through the elusive quest for the gradual control and organization of nature, society, and the self, which Packer views as nothing short of a disaster for humankind.
The matter of authority is unavoidable, argues Packer, the only question is upon whom or upon what that is placed. For advocates of the precepts of the Enlightenment, ultimate authority is placed on human reason, which Packer accepts as a penultimate good bestowed by the Creator, and essential when governed by the direction of the Holy Spirit upon solid biblical precepts. One of Packer’s chief apologetic objectives is to illuminate both the biases and insufficiencies of modern secular thought and culture, particularly its influence on liberal theology which he discusses in some depth in Fundamentalism and the Word of God. His critique of liberalism is made in broad strokes, which would benefit from more refined analysis that took into more subtle account the many complex array of historical circumstances that have resulted in its unfolding. Packer’s primary strength remains deep biblical exposition and ability to communicate to a broad, predominantly evangelical audience. As stated, a key objective of this chapter is to expand the reach of Packer’s audience to a greater segment of the mainline clergy and laity.
According to Packer, in the Enlightenment perspective a great deal of authority is placed on the infinitely seeming capacity of human reason, particularly through science, to resolve the fundamental problems of the day in whatever spheres they may reside, both in terms of the academic disciplines and practical application. This overly optimistic view of gradual progress in which the deistic god takes on the passive role of clockmaker has been challenged in the 20th century through various postmodern scenarios of non-foundational deconstructionism and trends within philosophical pragmatism that focus on irony and the persistence of evil. What remains in modern/postmodern secular perception is the ineradicable belief both in human consciousness and the social construction of reality as the predominant philosophical precepts of contemporary western thought and culture. On this interpretation religious faith is viewed as a subset of a variety of humanly constructed forces, which at most provides for some under-defined remainder for the transcendent within culture.
20th century western liberal theology has largely accepted these major premises, and has sought to correlate “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude vs. 3b) within the overarching framework of contemporary thought and culture. Rudolph Bultmannm, Paul Tillich, Langdon Gilkey, and Rosemary Ruether could be considered representative theologians of this broad school of thought whose collective work has spawned much contemporary reflection which has been highly influential in the seminary and in mainline Protestant denominations. Along with the United Church of Christ theologians Donald Bloesch and Gabriel Fackre, who exhibit a powerful affinity with evangelical theology within a Barthian framework, Packer has labored diligently to counter this tendency through the development of a highly cogent Reformed-based evangelical biblical perspective. The objective of these theologians is that of providing an effective counter-response in the realm of formal theology at the seminary level and within the congregational setting among clergy and laity. This they do by referencing first the Bible as the interpretive grid for examining the culture and then that of theology and to an almost 2000 year church tradition as a primary resource for stabilizing and strengthening a distinctive Christian identity within the self and within the body of Christ.
For Christians, argues Packer, “[t]heology must function as the queen of the sciences showing us how to approach, interpret, and use all our knowledge in such a way that the secular order is sanctified to the glory of God.” This they must do in order to uphold the integrity of orthodox Christianity, even if the result is further distancing of Protestantism theology and practice within the context of mainstream western culture and the secular academy. This eroding tendency is a cumulative trajectory of at least the past 50 years, with roots extending back several centuries of sociological and cultural trends of an ever growing secularization combined with a highly influential fundamentalist resurgence, and ever increasing religious and cultural pluralism. The explosion of such centrifugal forces in contemporary western society and culture has rendered any claims of “no other name than Jesus” a most dubious proposition subject to much scorn and contempt when not utterly ignored as simply irrelevant.
In the given climate mainline Protestantism would do well to embrace its increasing marginality as a gift of God, and in the process articulate its message in a much more unequivocal, albeit thoughtful way than is evident in at least many quarters. Packer’s text, Fundamentalism and the Word of God is designed both to repudiate claims of “obscurantism” when historical evangelical theology becomes too uncritically associated with 20th century fundamentalism and to provide a cogent statement of basic evangelical principles, which, in theory, can be embraced in mainline congregations as well. Written 50 years ago the book remains timely in the current setting. It is the basis for all that Packer has since written. While their styles and sensibilities are clearly different, Packer’s concerns are very much analogous to those of Douglas J. Hall, as the latter presented them some 40 years later. As Hall writes:
(1) The Christian community must be occupied with the biblical and doctrinal substance of its faith because this is its window on the world, the intellectual-spiritual perspective from which it “discerns the signs of the times” (Luke 12:56). (2) This professional contemplation of the word when it is serious (and therefore not just “professional”) thrusts the discipline community into active engagement with the world; that is, far from providing a once-remove from history, the right profession of the faith already serves, on the contrary, to push the no doubt reluctant church ever more insistently into the actual life of the world. (3) In particular such contemplation creates in the discipline community a vigilance for whatever threatens its world’s life (italics in original).
In these critical points, Hall and Packer share a close affinity from their rather different theological sensibilities and historical theaters of influence.
I focus on Packer as highly representative of the American evangelical tradition notwithstanding his British roots, and one whose views are least likely to be closely studied (if at all) within mainline seminaries and congregations even as Packer, in his more expansive moments seeks critical dialogue with these two sectors of contemporary Protestantism. Any imaginative effort to exorcise the fundamentalist-modernist split within the psyche and cultural experience of 20th century American Protestantism needs to come to terms with the evangelical tradition in its full scholarly and pietistic force, particularly the centrality of the role of the Bible before turning to theologians like Bloesch and Fackre whose theological perspectives have been substantially influenced by the neo-orthodoxy of Barth, Brunner, and Reinhold Niebuhr. While the full scope of contemporary evangelical scholarship is far from tackled in this effort, a concentrated focus on Packer opens up some important passageways which perhaps complement Fackre’s important work on the evangelical scholar Carl Henry.
In shifting the focus from fundamentalism to historical evangelicalism Packer notes that “the inerrancy debate about whether we should treat all Bible teaching as true and right is really about how far we can regard Scripture as authoritative.” As Packer puts it, neither the concept of infallibility nor inerrancy are “essential for stating the evangelical view” even as the underlying intent of such language in honoring and preserving a robust sense of the triune God of the Christian mode is indispensable. What Packer means by biblical infallibility is the Bible’s “wholly trustworthy and reliable” quality. Packer defines inerrancy as that which is “wholly true” for that for which Scripture is designed to address, “all things necessary to salvation” in the broadest sense.
I discovered Packer some 5-6 years ago and have been enthralled by his work ever since. I encourage all those interested in bringing pietism and formal theological discourse into closer proximity to take a closer look at Packer, including those who would dismiss him as a narrow fundamehtalist, of which he is clearly not.
__________________________
Unpacking Packer’s Theology of Scripture Part One
Packer’s theology of Scripture represents a fundamental challenge to the precepts of modern intellectual life and culture, particularly against the Enlightenment interpretation of freedom which he seeks to turn on its head in what he refers to as “God’s Freedom Trail.” Freedom, liberty, and authority are the key topics Packer addresses in the first chapter of Truth and Power: The Place of Scripture in the Christian Life. His objective is to demonstrate that a substantial grounding in the biblical revelation through Word and Spirit is the surest basis available for the realization of these values in contrast to the Enlightenment’s pathway of secular humanism, ultimately “in dreams of the perfectability of man.” Such dreams, Packer maintains, were transformed in the 19th and early 20th centuries into an unrelenting pursuit of progress through the elusive quest for the gradual control and organization of nature, society, and the self, which Packer views as nothing short of a disaster for humankind.
The matter of authority is unavoidable, argues Packer, the only question is upon whom or upon what that is placed. For advocates of the precepts of the Enlightenment, ultimate authority is placed on human reason, which Packer accepts as a penultimate good bestowed by the Creator, and essential when governed by the direction of the Holy Spirit upon solid biblical precepts. One of Packer’s chief apologetic objectives is to illuminate both the biases and insufficiencies of modern secular thought and culture, particularly its influence on liberal theology which he discusses in some depth in Fundamentalism and the Word of God. His critique of liberalism is made in broad strokes, which would benefit from more refined analysis that took into more subtle account the many complex array of historical circumstances that have resulted in its unfolding. Packer’s primary strength remains deep biblical exposition and ability to communicate to a broad, predominantly evangelical audience. As stated, a key objective of this chapter is to expand the reach of Packer’s audience to a greater segment of the mainline clergy and laity.
According to Packer, in the Enlightenment perspective a great deal of authority is placed on the infinitely seeming capacity of human reason, particularly through science, to resolve the fundamental problems of the day in whatever spheres they may reside, both in terms of the academic disciplines and practical application. This overly optimistic view of gradual progress in which the deistic god takes on the passive role of clockmaker has been challenged in the 20th century through various postmodern scenarios of non-foundational deconstructionism and trends within philosophical pragmatism that focus on irony and the persistence of evil. What remains in modern/postmodern secular perception is the ineradicable belief both in human consciousness and the social construction of reality as the predominant philosophical precepts of contemporary western thought and culture. On this interpretation religious faith is viewed as a subset of a variety of humanly constructed forces, which at most provides for some under-defined remainder for the transcendent within culture.
20th century western liberal theology has largely accepted these major premises, and has sought to correlate “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude vs. 3b) within the overarching framework of contemporary thought and culture. Rudolph Bultmannm, Paul Tillich, Langdon Gilkey, and Rosemary Ruether could be considered representative theologians of this broad school of thought whose collective work has spawned much contemporary reflection which has been highly influential in the seminary and in mainline Protestant denominations. Along with the United Church of Christ theologians Donald Bloesch and Gabriel Fackre, who exhibit a powerful affinity with evangelical theology within a Barthian framework, Packer has labored diligently to counter this tendency through the development of a highly cogent Reformed-based evangelical biblical perspective. The objective of these theologians is that of providing an effective counter-response in the realm of formal theology at the seminary level and within the congregational setting among clergy and laity. This they do by referencing first the Bible as the interpretive grid for examining the culture and then that of theology and to an almost 2000 year church tradition as a primary resource for stabilizing and strengthening a distinctive Christian identity within the self and within the body of Christ.
For Christians, argues Packer, “[t]heology must function as the queen of the sciences showing us how to approach, interpret, and use all our knowledge in such a way that the secular order is sanctified to the glory of God.” This they must do in order to uphold the integrity of orthodox Christianity, even if the result is further distancing of Protestantism theology and practice within the context of mainstream western culture and the secular academy. This eroding tendency is a cumulative trajectory of at least the past 50 years, with roots extending back several centuries of sociological and cultural trends of an ever growing secularization combined with a highly influential fundamentalist resurgence, and ever increasing religious and cultural pluralism. The explosion of such centrifugal forces in contemporary western society and culture has rendered any claims of “no other name than Jesus” a most dubious proposition subject to much scorn and contempt when not utterly ignored as simply irrelevant.
In the given climate mainline Protestantism would do well to embrace its increasing marginality as a gift of God, and in the process articulate its message in a much more unequivocal, albeit thoughtful way than is evident in at least many quarters. Packer’s text, Fundamentalism and the Word of God is designed both to repudiate claims of “obscurantism” when historical evangelical theology becomes too uncritically associated with 20th century fundamentalism and to provide a cogent statement of basic evangelical principles, which, in theory, can be embraced in mainline congregations as well. Written 50 years ago the book remains timely in the current setting. It is the basis for all that Packer has since written. While their styles and sensibilities are clearly different, Packer’s concerns are very much analogous to those of Douglas J. Hall, as the latter presented them some 40 years later. As Hall writes:
(1) The Christian community must be occupied with the biblical and doctrinal substance of its faith because this is its window on the world, the intellectual-spiritual perspective from which it “discerns the signs of the times” (Luke 12:56). (2) This professional contemplation of the word when it is serious (and therefore not just “professional”) thrusts the discipline community into active engagement with the world; that is, far from providing a once-remove from history, the right profession of the faith already serves, on the contrary, to push the no doubt reluctant church ever more insistently into the actual life of the world. (3) In particular such contemplation creates in the discipline community a vigilance for whatever threatens its world’s life (italics in original).
In these critical points, Hall and Packer share a close affinity from their rather different theological sensibilities and historical theaters of influence.
I focus on Packer as highly representative of the American evangelical tradition notwithstanding his British roots, and one whose views are least likely to be closely studied (if at all) within mainline seminaries and congregations even as Packer, in his more expansive moments seeks critical dialogue with these two sectors of contemporary Protestantism. Any imaginative effort to exorcise the fundamentalist-modernist split within the psyche and cultural experience of 20th century American Protestantism needs to come to terms with the evangelical tradition in its full scholarly and pietistic force, particularly the centrality of the role of the Bible before turning to theologians like Bloesch and Fackre whose theological perspectives have been substantially influenced by the neo-orthodoxy of Barth, Brunner, and Reinhold Niebuhr. While the full scope of contemporary evangelical scholarship is far from tackled in this effort, a concentrated focus on Packer opens up some important passageways which perhaps complement Fackre’s important work on the evangelical scholar Carl Henry.
In shifting the focus from fundamentalism to historical evangelicalism Packer notes that “the inerrancy debate about whether we should treat all Bible teaching as true and right is really about how far we can regard Scripture as authoritative.” As Packer puts it, neither the concept of infallibility nor inerrancy are “essential for stating the evangelical view” even as the underlying intent of such language in honoring and preserving a robust sense of the triune God of the Christian mode is indispensable. What Packer means by biblical infallibility is the Bible’s “wholly trustworthy and reliable” quality. Packer defines inerrancy as that which is “wholly true” for that for which Scripture is designed to address, “all things necessary to salvation” in the broadest sense.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Jesus as Lord
Jesus is Lord: Can This Title be used with Integrity?
Matters of inclusion and exclusion are critically important within the Christian religion. There is much contention within the camp over where those lines are drawn as well as the more subtle issue as to who is doing the drawing. I would rather see this broader matter examined with much depth and care rather that to spend overly much time on symbolic issues such as the centrality of the single word, “Lord.” Broader issues, of course, are embedded in this highly evocative matter. Still, to get at the level of discourse that is perhaps needed, an effort to push beyond the immediacy of this specific issue to concerns of a more underlying nature may be instructive in helping to establish the kind of mediating center in a firmly grounded Christian theology which is the hallmark of the Confessing Christ (CC) vision. http://www.confessingchrist.net/Default.aspx?tabid=29
While linguistic subtleties abound, God and Lord would be along the same meaning, even as I acknowledge that connotation is everything. So would, to use the language of the psalms, in reference to the hymn, What a Friend We Have in Jesus, “Take it to my Rock in prayer.” I wouldn’t want to eliminate any of these references to God, or the many others provided in the Bible, while at the same time I’m not sure I would want to insist on any as a litmus test given the partiality and time bound nature of our own limited knowledge. Moreover, at least in western democratic societies, contemporary usages for the term “Lord,” are archaic, which does not mean the word should be eliminated. Far from it, as far as I’m concerned. However, much subtle hermeneutical work would be needed if this term is going to be fruitfully appropriated at least among more than a few congregations.
Consequently, I would want to issue caution on insisting upon the term, particularly where there is considerable resistance against it, as long, however, as the issue revolving around this word usage can be discussed and respectfully argued about. I am opposed to the unequivocal removal of “Lord” in much of the worship service in UCC congregations and the New Century Hymnal (NCH). At the same time, if other language is available that refers to the sovereignty of God, I’m not sure what the insistence of the word “Lord” is all about, especially if that terminology becomes the basis for a separation or a reason that people, who may be on the margins of faith stop coming to church. What perhaps is missing in many congregations is critical and respectful dialogue where these difficult issues can be examined in a manner where no one feels repressed to mask his or her perspective, questions, or doubts.
There are social, cultural, and theological pressures of many sorts in virtually all congregations, and, I suppose we can all provide examples of “bias” across the ideological and theological landscape. The question for me is how to move forward in creating a constructive religious culture where the critical issues of mediating the faith once delivered to the saints in the midst of the secular city can take place and be examined.
Matters of inclusion and exclusion are critically important within the Christian religion. There is much contention within the camp over where those lines are drawn as well as the more subtle issue as to who is doing the drawing. I would rather see this broader matter examined with much depth and care rather that to spend overly much time on symbolic issues such as the centrality of the single word, “Lord.” Broader issues, of course, are embedded in this highly evocative matter. Still, to get at the level of discourse that is perhaps needed, an effort to push beyond the immediacy of this specific issue to concerns of a more underlying nature may be instructive in helping to establish the kind of mediating center in a firmly grounded Christian theology which is the hallmark of the Confessing Christ (CC) vision. http://www.confessingchrist.net/Default.aspx?tabid=29
While linguistic subtleties abound, God and Lord would be along the same meaning, even as I acknowledge that connotation is everything. So would, to use the language of the psalms, in reference to the hymn, What a Friend We Have in Jesus, “Take it to my Rock in prayer.” I wouldn’t want to eliminate any of these references to God, or the many others provided in the Bible, while at the same time I’m not sure I would want to insist on any as a litmus test given the partiality and time bound nature of our own limited knowledge. Moreover, at least in western democratic societies, contemporary usages for the term “Lord,” are archaic, which does not mean the word should be eliminated. Far from it, as far as I’m concerned. However, much subtle hermeneutical work would be needed if this term is going to be fruitfully appropriated at least among more than a few congregations.
Consequently, I would want to issue caution on insisting upon the term, particularly where there is considerable resistance against it, as long, however, as the issue revolving around this word usage can be discussed and respectfully argued about. I am opposed to the unequivocal removal of “Lord” in much of the worship service in UCC congregations and the New Century Hymnal (NCH). At the same time, if other language is available that refers to the sovereignty of God, I’m not sure what the insistence of the word “Lord” is all about, especially if that terminology becomes the basis for a separation or a reason that people, who may be on the margins of faith stop coming to church. What perhaps is missing in many congregations is critical and respectful dialogue where these difficult issues can be examined in a manner where no one feels repressed to mask his or her perspective, questions, or doubts.
There are social, cultural, and theological pressures of many sorts in virtually all congregations, and, I suppose we can all provide examples of “bias” across the ideological and theological landscape. The question for me is how to move forward in creating a constructive religious culture where the critical issues of mediating the faith once delivered to the saints in the midst of the secular city can take place and be examined.
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