In the past I’ve expressed some half baked opinions on the ways in which Evangelicals smuggle extra-biblical conceptions into the heart of the gospel. I’m becoming more and more convinced that this is done both immediately and indirectly when secondary matters are included in the sine qua non of the gospel- secondary issues that are infected with modern categories, to which the advocate seems blind.
A recent blog post at Theologica reinforces that growing conviction. This is so for two reasons: The argument is ostensibly about issues on which the two sides agree- so what must the real controversy be? This happens because there are blatant and apparently unconscious conflations of key Xian ideas with prevalent extra-biblical models. For example, the theories of realism, foundationalism and the correspondence theory of truth- along with the various dualisms they assume, are assumed, when in reality they are the point in question.
The popular Evangelical battle cry that the denial of something called ‘objective truth’ is a denial of truth, reminds me of those Roman Catholics who insist that a denial of Aristotelian Transubstantiation is a denial that Christ’s body and blood are truly received in communion. It’s not, but it is proof of a good deal of…confusion.
The post is a continuation of a controversy that I had a hand in creating there. It revolves around a rather complicated set of issues: anthropology, Christology, epistemology, metaphysics, hermeneutics, and biblical theology proper. Now each of these specialties is worthy of a lifetime of study. There are brilliant people who specialize in each. If they were mapped out, each would warn the intellectual traveler by having Mystery written in archaic script across great swaths of territory.
But the post seems to have identified a very particular synthesis of these varied areas of study as ‘The Truth.’ Hmmmm.
The author confidently refers to other posts for indubitable support. I’m not interested in attempting some sort of exhaustive critique. I’m out of my league and not really keen on making that apparent, but I would like to offer a few comments on each.
I guess I’ll ‘think at them’ chronologically, and so we begin with this very subjective, emotional and mocking argument for objective truth: Philosophy Friday-A Conversation on Interpretation
Take a moment, and read it.
Though it goes on for some length, the air can be instantly let out with the simple clarification that the whole presentation is entirely beside the point. It misunderstands the claims of the position it seeks to belittle. This is bizarre, though commonplace. The same misunderstanding gets regularly batted around- usually among conservative scholars, despite the fact that it has been clarified repeatedly. Repeatedly. I mean repeatedly.
Derrida did not advocate some sort of linguistic idealism. He just didn’t. He explicitly denied this. For example, he wrote that affirming that there is nothing outside of the text ‘does not mean that all referents are suspended, denied or enclosed in a book, as people have claimed, or have been naïve enough to believe and to have accused [me] of believing.”
Acknowledging the rather obvious point (most evident on a site devoted to theological discussion!) that ‘all our understandings are interpretations’ in no way denies that there are both good and piss poor interpretations of the reality that is being interpreted.
Calling good, bad is an interpretation- though a bad one. Calling good, good, is an interpretation- a good one. Interpreting poison as something that is life giving is a bad interpretation. It carries consequences, but it happens all the time. Ask any drug court.
Derrida never claimed that no thing is ‘really’ poisonous, but naming makes it so. What silliness.
Israel woke to find an odd prophetic type wandering through her villages, and there were various interpretations regarding what it all meant. ‘Who do you say that I am?’ Christ asked.
I’m not sure why someone would set up a ‘boogie man’ understanding of others so that the defenseless can be protected from it. The charitable guess would be that they truly believe in boogie men, but it could all be avoided by actually going to the trouble of understanding those you feel the need to label as ‘your enemy.’ Otherwise, the odds are that your misinterpretation of their message has lead or will lead to a misinterpretation of them.
I thought the ‘derided’ phrase was very clever; it made me smile, but the rest is just ridiculous.
To quote Gob Bluth, ‘Come on!’
The next post referenced for support is Philosophy Fridays- Is Erring Human.
A few random thoughts: First the author misinterprets the statement that to err is human. He confused the claim that ‘when a human being measures, judges, affirms or theorizes, she does so with varying degrees of inaccuracy’ with..
‘Only those beings who measure, etc are truly human beings.’
Second, doesn’t he assume that one must be exhaustively inerrant, if one is to be generally trustworthy? I don’t know why he assumes that. I assume that there are many people whom he trusts, but none of them are exhaustively inerrant.
Third, he confuses what I understand to be the technical distinctions between ‘inerrant’ and ‘infallible.’ To say that one is inerrant is to say that they have made no errors. To say that one is infallible is to say that one cannot make errors. We all are inerrant from time to time, and yet none of us are infallible. This has something to say to the second point above, too- trustworthy claims from fallible and erring men. Happens all the time.
Fourth, I suspect that lurking under all of this is a commitment to the view that all knowledge is rational, consciously evaluated or prepositional- that it can be syllogized and judged with a truth table. I don’t know why he would affirm that in light of both scripture’s affirmation that truth is personal and human experience.
Universal human experience is that knowledge is communal and fiduciary. Much of our knowledge is tacit, inexpressible; and underneath it all are trusted commitments that go largely unexamined. These are caught from the communities that raise us. Our life, continued existence, our basic understandings, the language in which they are structured, formulated and expressed are all given to us. We receive them from another. These others are finite, errant and situated in a particular context.
This is a basic given aspect of humanity, because men and women are made to image a god who exists in community. It is of relevance that the incarnate word was born of a woman and raised in a family within a community. It was so because he was truly human, and grew in wisdom as every human must through the human inheritance of those to whom he belonged.
This is the meaning of Augustine’s dictum that we believe in order to understand.
Anyway, infants know, regardless of what a modern baptistic anthropology might affirm.
Fifth, adequate and true knowledge is not identical nor dependent on exhaustive or exhaustively inerrant ‘knowledge. For the majority of history people had a working knowledge of the world around them, that was richer and in many respects truer than that of modern man; and yet they were wrong about the ‘mechanics’ of most things. It seems more than likely that we are, too. It doesn’t follow that we or they know nothing. Does it?
My experience is that we all are able to function because knowledge can be adequately true, without being exhaustively true.
Sixth, the temptation to know immediately (as God knows) was the original ploy of Satan. We wonder, guess, imagine, test, judge and discard. This has been God’s way for mankind since he brought the animals to Adam for a lesson on Adam’s condition. Adam watched and discovered something. Men and women were meant to grow in stature and wisdom and favor with God and men…
Seventh, …which makes me think that underneath all of this is a dissatisfaction with time and waiting. Another example of America’s vision of flourishing trumping the biblical story.
Eighth, why are mistaken notions equated with sin. For example, are a child’s misunderstandings of the world something that must be confessed or repented of? Really? How does that work itself out in your household? This seems to be the heart of the matter.
We know from the referring ‘Hebrews’ post that all of this is meant to establish that people with my suspicions have fallaciously conflated categories. Bad breath and miscalculations are on one side, while erroneous beliefs are on the other, but… I’m not at all clear on why a miscalculation is anything other than an example of an erroneous belief. One believed the wall was two feet away when it was really a foot and a half away. Seems like a distinction without a difference… except that the first appears undeniable to the author, while the second seems distasteful.
I’m just not sure that is a solid enough basis to go all whoop ass on one’s brothers and sisters, though.
Apparently it is the fear that ‘erroneous beliefs’ will open up the possibility that even morally wrong beliefs might end up being affirmed. I don’t think such a thing is possible in the mind of Christ, but that isn’t really the controversy at hand. This is really and explicitly a discussion about scripture- as the scriptural examples of possible moral compromise show: slavery, monarchy, patriarchalism.
All the speculation isn’t necessary, though. From my perspective the one example that wasn’t given is the one that removes the feared phenomena from the realm of ‘the possible’ to ‘its just the way it is’- at least for those who look to what scripture actually says, not what they know it can’t have said.
According to Jesus, somehow or other God ended up giving inspired instruction regarding divorce, despite the fact that it wasn’t exactly what God wished to say, morally speaking.
The next supportive post was written by another author. She writes of ‘Kenotic Arianism.’ When I first read the term I worried that I had definitely waded in too deep. It made no sense to me. It obviously made sense to her.
Seriously, this is a brilliant woman, but this seems so obviously problematic.
I’ve always thought that to affirm the Kenotic position is to affirm that Jesus is God. Otherwise kenosis makes no sense, but to affirm the Arian position is to deny that Jesus is God. Its an odd combination- the sort of thing that one would expect to immediately vanish in a huge explosion upon coming into existence- like an alloy of matter and antimatter; but that seems too obvious. Surely… though, it was admitted that the term seems to be without example in all previous theological discussion. Might this be because it is nonsensical….
What I do think I understand of the argument is its affirmation that a mistake is made when we don’t take into account that Christ was unlike us. He was ‘fully’ human, while we are not.
Now that confuses me. The Father’s do insist that Christ was both fully and perfectly human, but the point being affirmed by these men seems the exact opposite of the one made in this post. The fullness and perfection of his humanity consisted in his not lacking anything that is included in our humanity. He was one of us. He came in the form of sinful flesh. Otherwise, there is no redemption of sinful man.
If I understand the position of the ‘Kenotic Arianism’ post accurately, then it affirms that this fullness distinguishes us from him; while the church has affirmed that such fullness identifies him with us. One would imagine that this would be a huge problem for an admirer of Athanasius, but it’s a funny world.
Regardless of the innovation introduced by this interpretation of ‘fully’ man, scripture seems to affirm a different reality. Christ was glorified, but only at his resurrection. In the meantime (in regards to his understanding) we have it on good authority that he both grew and learned.
We get what he was given on Easter. Before Easter, he got what we had to offer.
So, I don’t know what to say about this argument other than to admit that it is pretty much unfathomable to think that God truly and fully met us where we were. The gospel is so hard to believe.
I have a few thoughts about the original post itself. Don’t have the heart for it tonight. Maybe tomorrow.
Dappled Thoughts 
November 1, 2010 at 11:35 pm
You’re right in your comment about Derrida’s view of textual meaning. He did not say that an individual text could not have a meaning derived from agreed upon semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic rules (What one philosopher calls “meta-linguistic rules” for interpreting texts). However, Derrida does claim that there is no ultimate ground for meaning. There is no, as he termed it, “transcendental signified,” no meaning beyond the text interpreted by agreed upon meta-linguistic rules for reading a certain text the way we read it.
For example, when a narrative is introduced with the expression, “Once upon a time …”, we immediately read or consider the narrative to be a fairy tale. But linguistically such an expression is really no different from “and it came to pass …,” or “it happened ….” But, one expression is governed by a certain meta-linguistic rule of usage and the other expressions are governed by different rules that people tend to agree on. But, Derrida would argue that if a person wanted to insist that any narrative beginning with “once upon a time” has to be read as a fairy tale, there would be no way to ground such a reading as a definitive way to read this expression. There is no ultimate logical ground for establishing meaning in Derrida’s view beyond the text and consensus rules for reading the text. To claim that there is such a ground, is to be a “logocentrist;” that is, to be someone who is seriously confused about the nature of linguistic meaning. Of course, the key metaphysical/philosophical question here is: “is there in fact h an ultimate ground for meaning?
For those of us who consider certain readings of Scripture to be authoritative, Derrida’s claim that there is no transcendental signified as a basis for authoritative meaning is one that has to be apologetically confronted (“apologetically” in the sense of philosophical argument).
November 2, 2010 at 1:45 am
Once again thank you for commenting!
I agree that Derrida teaches that context and metaphor go all the way down, but the conversation I was invovled in at Theologica involved the mistaken claim that this means ‘anything goes’ or that Derrida denies referentiality- something that he denied. Here for example:
“It is totally false to suggest that deconstruction is a suspension of reference. Deconstruction is always deeply conerned with the other of language. I never cease to be surprised by critics who see my work as a declaration that there is nothing beyond language; it is, in fact, saying the opposite…”
Derrida insisted that there are ‘bad readings.’
I appreciate the help Derrida gives in regards to exposing Modernity’s hidden idolatrous and unnoticed faith commitments; in some ways it seem to me very similar to criticisms offered by Van Til, but I am a Xian and he was not (Derrida that is). There is no denying that he has few answers and many dead ends.
I think his insistence that there are no uninterpreted facts is correct; it is right that those of us who ground our understanding of reality in a certain reading of scripture as authoritative be willing to lay those commitments on the table.
November 2, 2010 at 2:08 am
Here’s something Jamie Smith of Calvin wrote that summarizes much of what I appreciate:
‘Derrida’s claim that there is nothing outside the text means roughly that everything is interpretation; interpretation is governed by context and the role of the interpretive community.
First, if one of the crucial insights of postmodernism is that everyone comes to his or her experience of the world with an interpretive framework and a set of ultimate presuppositions, then Christians should not be afraid to lay their specifically Christian presuppositions on the table and allow their account to be tested in the marketplace of ideas. Second, and more constructively, this should push us to ask ourselves whether the biblical text is what truly governs our seeing of the world. If all the world is a text to be interpreted, then for the church the narrative of the Scriptures is what should govern our very perception of the world.
We should see the world through the Word. In this sense, then, Derrida’s claim could be resonant with the Reformers claim of sola scriptura, which simply emphasizes the priority of God’s special revelation for our understanding of the world and making our way in it. There is nothing outside the Text, we might say. And to say that there is nothing outside the Text, then, is to emphasize that there is not a single square inch of our experience of the world that should not be governed by the revelation of God in the Scriptures. To say that there is nothing outside the Text is to say that there is no aspect of creation to which God’s revelation does not speak. But do we really let the Text govern our seeing of the world? Or have we become more captivated by the stories and texts of a consumerist culture?”
Isn’t he speaking at Covenant next year?
November 2, 2010 at 3:38 am
hope this helps you. I had awful bad breath and tonsil stones. Thank god my only friend told me to check Oraltech Labs advice as it got rid of her bad breath and her post nasal drip. I’ve been following Oraltech Labs advice for about 4 months now and I feel much better, also at work people are not avoiding me anymore so it seems to have cured my bad breath as well, so good luck.
November 2, 2010 at 6:26 pm
I’d put my money on Athanasius way before Derrida. There’s staying power to consider.
But bypassing all the junk that has nothing to do with the original post, if indeed we get what he had then logic tells us it’s something different than what we are. If he was human and had something the rest of humanity didn’t have, then we are missing something. This Kenotic Arians deny by (unsuccessfully) forcing him to exist only in their frame of reference.
Anyway thanks for reinforcing the point of my post with that comment PJ. You’ve gotten more obliging as you’ve aged.
November 2, 2010 at 7:29 pm
Thanks for commenting Char.
Athanasius over Derrida would be an excellent bet. That is really extraneous to the post though.
On the other hand Athanasius over Char is at least as good a bet, and actually on point.
Pssst. There really are no ‘Kenotic Arians.’ 🙂
November 3, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Hi, Phil.
I confess I’m actually the one who found your post—you’re one of the top hits on the nascent Kenotic Arian discussion.
The comment space of a blog is a little difficult to articulate in, and I confess I’m not terribly interested in embroiling myself here—there are better ways to spend my time—but I did have a couple thoughts.
You offer a critique of the term “Kenotic Arian” as a confused, self-contradictory one. This is precisely the point, I think; the Kenotic Arian affirms the Divinity of Christ while simultaneously introducing some sort of neo-Arian ideas into the mix via kenosis. This is a confused anthropology, and a confused term fits it rather well.
I think it would be fair to argue that the Fathers would agree in principle that Jesus was in many ways more human than are we; sin makes us less human, not more human. The Kenotic Arian, on the other hand, makes the fullness of humanity a fallen thing and subjects Christ to it, affirming out of one side of his mouth the Deity of Christ and out of the other his non-Deity, as though the humanity of Jesus can be opposed to his divinity.
It makes less sense to me to say that Jesus was human like me, and more sense to say that I am human like Jesus.
November 3, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Mem, a sincere thank you for commenting. I promise to consider your comments further, but my initial first blush response is that…
… The entire discussion seems to assume that the actual anthropological issue is a settled one. Who settled it? When and where? When did holding erroneous beliefs become sinful. Wouldn’t this make the state of childhood sinful per se?
No one actually demonstrated that my question involves a confused anthropology. It seems a bit odd to me that the only demonstratively human way of knowing needs to be defended as human. The expectation of something other is bald assertion and based on…. what?
…Char faults me for using my humanity as the frame of reference, but then Christ was incarnate for my salvation. If Char is right, then to borrow St. Gregory’s question ‘how does that touch me?’ It seems orthodox to affirm with him also that, ‘what was not assumed was not healed.’
While it seems clear to me that Christ assumed our fallen nature, though without sin, and so sanctified and healed it, I don’t want to muddy the waters with a claim that the most prevalent form of Reformed Anthropology will see as a problematic. The real question is whether the possibility of erring when we think reflectively , is the result of the fall. That is the question at hand.
… Certainly the Fathers taught that Christ was our superior in many ways. I agree.
…that which is ours through union with Christ, was given to him on Easter morning. There was a downward movement of humiliation in the incarnation that culminated on the cross. In this, he got what was ours. This was followed by an upward movement that began when he was justified and glorified by God on Easter morning. It culminated in his being seated as a human being on the throne of creation. This glorified post-Easter humanity is what God has in store for us.
So it seems to me (again at first blush) that what you present as a choice ought to be understood as a complementary whole. It is necessary to affirm both that Jesus was human like me, and that I will be human like him. Isn’t this Athanasius’ glorious exposition? We look at ourselves to find how low Christ stooped. We look to the glorified Christ to find what our God always had in mind for us.
… Incidentally, I think the creation of a new pejorative label has little to do with aptness and much to do with something else.
If the fault is the affirmation of Kenosis (as you seem to indicate) then what is clarified by adding ‘Arian?’ I realize that as the great arch-heresy the charge of ‘Arian’ has significant heft in a discussion, but how is the affirmation that in the incarnation Christ descended to where we actually are an Arian conception? How is the affirmation that human knowledge (both tacit and reflective) is by nature finite and ‘situated’ an Arian conception? For that matter, how did any anthropological issue become primarily an Arian issue?
November 3, 2010 at 6:21 pm
Hi, Phil. Thanks for your response. In many respects it’s probably best for Char or others to respond, both because of my general theological illiteracy and time constraints.
Nonetheless, I have a question for you:
What does this mean?
November 3, 2010 at 7:03 pm
There are many ways and types of knowing- tacit, kinetic, etc. The modern account of things tends to limit true knowing to what might be called reflective knowing. By reflective knowing I mean the type of understanding that results from the rational contemplation of ‘something.’ I suspect most knowing isn’t of this variety at all.
Anyway, I specified reflective knowing because Rey limited knowing to that variety in his critique- He assumes that ‘Knowing’ isn’t available to infants.
Human beings observe, wonder, hypothesis, test (or not) and discard that which they come to see as inadequate and inaccurate. The results are often progressive- though incomplete. They can go from inaccurate or less accurate to more accurate. Regardless, for a finite mind there is always more.
My child asks me what a cloud is made of (because she doesn‘t know.) I tell her ‘water vapor.’ She asks me what that might be; I search through her experience and come upon the vapor above a steaming tea kettle. She goes away with a truer understanding of clouds, but perhaps mistakenly believes they are hot…or that matter is mostly solid or that light is either particle or wave or that the universe functions on account of Newton’s laws.
Is my daughters misunderstanding about water vapor a result of the fall and its resulting corruption or is it just part of being a child?
November 3, 2010 at 9:22 pm
By the way, thanks for asking. Though I know I’ve seen the term ‘reflective knowing’ used before, I have no real idea about its technical meaning.
November 3, 2010 at 11:52 pm
I was reading an introduction to Wittgenstein tonight and came across this passage from St. Augustine’s Confessions. It seems to me to be a good example of the grasping, straining and uncertain nature of human knowing.
In it Augustine describes how he learned his mother tongue:
One can imagine the young Augustine learning that the Latin equivalent of ‘Momma’ referred not to objects that supported, held or fed him (that perception lasted perhaps a week or so), or to all human beings, or to all women (this one lingered for a while, perhaps), this particular woman only when she was in a jovial mood, but to that dear woman at all times.
Is this process with its accompanying errors and gradual clarification a result of the fall? Does orthodoxy really require that the referent of any word be instantly grasped without misunderstanding by uncorrupted children?
November 4, 2010 at 1:53 pm
Hi, Phil.
I guess I’m still not sure what this has to do with anything. How does halitosis relate to holiness, or the orthogonality of Christ’s carpentry to the orthodoxy of his self-understanding?
November 4, 2010 at 3:42 pm
I’m not sure; I don’t think I’ve ever really considered either.
November 4, 2010 at 5:40 pm
In this case, then, can you concisely present the ramifications of using yourself as the frame of reference for understanding the humanity of Jesus?
November 4, 2010 at 6:45 pm
I’m not sure exactly what you are asking for, but I’ll try.
Most importantly as the liturgy says ‘He was conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary, a man like us in all things but sin…’ This matters because it was in his becoming one of us that we are reconciled and healed in him.
…or to emphasis more of the pastoral ramifiactions, I might put it another way-
‘Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.’Heb 2
November 4, 2010 at 8:31 pm
Hi, Phil. I confess that’s not quite what I’m looking for.
Obviously everyone agrees that Jesus was made like us—except that most of us presumably weren’t born of virgins (the tacit admission of the creed here). Then again, Adam was also human, yet specially created; so was Eve. So it seems as though the means of birth is not what really makes us human in and of itself, despite the regularity of our natural order.
Some—not saying you or anyone else involved here—would have us say, “I am human, and I can sin. Jesus was human. Therefore Jesus could sin.” On the more mundane level, we might say, “I am human, and I have bad breath. Jesus was human. Therefore Jesus had bad breath.” (Of course, my dog also had bad breath, so maybe that’s not such a good example.)
I guess I do not understand what you believe regarding the union of the divine and human natures of Christ—neither what you take to be specifically human traits nor how you think Jesus understood himself.
November 4, 2010 at 10:42 pm
The purpose of giving the two quotations was the point common to both: Christ was like us in every respect- excepting sin. I thought this was a rather direct answer to your question regarding using my humanity as a frame of reference for understanding Christ’s humanity. The quotes (two of many, many, many) establish that both the church and scripture insist that Christ’s humanity is my humanity in every respect- excepting sin.
I’m not sure how the virgin birth came to the fore after reading the comments. Since you bring it up, it might be relevant that our faith teaches that Christ was incarnate of the virgin- that his, humanity was her humanity. I guess it follows that your understanding of Mary’s humanity might be apropos. What kind of human (in the context of this discussion) do you affirm Mary to be? Immaculately conceived or within your frame of reference?
I believe Christ was like me in every respect- excepting sin. The question is whether or not (and I’ve said this a few times) holding erroneous beliefs is a result of the fall or part of being human.
I believe it is part of being human first and foremost because I can’t imagine why someone would think otherwise; nor can I imagine it being otherwise (in the case of an unfallen infant St. Augustine learning his mother tongue, for example. What do you think that would look like?).
Since it is indisputably a universal part of humanity as we know it, perhaps someone would explain why they know with such passion and certainty that sinless children would never hold inaccurately childlike conceptions of their world.
Since we are certain of what ‘human in all respects as we’ looks like, perhaps someone ought to explain how we ascertain that something came only with the fall. Apparently Adam went looking for a helpmeet among the animals after all. Sounds a bit confused.
Gotta run. I’ll do better later. perhaps
November 5, 2010 at 3:57 pm
Hi, Phil. Thanks for your clarification; the language is a bit more helpful.
In particular, my reference to the virgin birth was to point out that at least in this case, Jesus is not like you—you weren’t born of a virgin, and no natural birth ever proceeds this way. Therefore, I cannot take my experience of birth and paint it backwards onto Christ.
What this says to me is that the mode of birth is not what makes us distinctly human. So when the Scriptures say, and the creeds affirm, that Jesus was a very man, they clearly were not saying that he was born like every other man.
In another case, Jesus goes through the desert for forty days without eating (and perhaps without water). Clearly this is not the sort of thing I can do (some studies notwithstanding, this really is beyond the ability of ordinary men).
What I can’t really tell from your posts is if you perceive any differences in your humanity—save sin—from Christ’s. If it is this lack of sin that makes it possible for him to go 40 days without food, well and good—but it still seems to mean that my humanity is compromised, something less than what it really means to be human.
November 5, 2010 at 5:39 pm
I’m going to hop up to your previous comment and then circle back around to this most recent one.
You asked about my understanding of Christ’s self consciousness. The request reminded me how tangled this has become. The initial comments at Theologica (months ago) that resulted in Rey’s first post above, were in regards to the impossibility of ‘just reading’ a text. This lead to a discussion of the role of community in interpretations. Biblical inerrancy became caught up in it, someone confused a Christological error with an anthropological confusion, you wonder about Christ’s self understanding, etc. I suspect that people are reading different things based on which thread interests/bothers them the most.
For clarification: my point in the initial post above was that commitments to modern concepts get confused with the gospel itself. I believe that this discussion is an illustration of that. We don’t wonder whether having two legs is just part of being human or a result of the fall, but we seem to know that only certain and unadulterated opinions can be part of uncorrupted humanity.
On the basis of what- the gospel, orthodoxy, universal experience?
It seems to me that it can only come from a commitment to Descartes’ project. Some think that the indubitable certainty that he believed to be possible for men and women, ought obviously to have been available to uncorrupted men and women, too.
I believe Descartes and his successors were wrong. I believe human experience demonstrates that. I believe the account of scripture demonstrates that.
There were things Adam and Eve didn’t know, despite the fact that it was staring them in the face. That they were naked, for example. To quote someone else ‘…finitude implies not only that we do not know things, but that we do not know that we do not know. Consequently, it would be quite impossible for us to do what Descartes attempted to do, namely, to avoid holding any mistaken opinions and beliefs. The ancients did not choose to believe in a flat earth; this mistaken false idea was simply inferred from the obvious fact that, so far as they could see, the earth looked flat. In a similar way, our reservoir of cultural and personal knowledge is chock full of mistaken ideas and impressions that were tacitly formed in us through unconscious processes, process that are generally and adequately reliable, but never perfect. So finitude would seem to imply not only that our ideas and beliefs about the world are limited but also that they are in some respects distorted….”
So, I believe that the subduing of an unfallen world would’ve involved both physical and mental effort. As uncorrupted men and women explored the next valley, we might have overheared someone say ‘Wow, we were wrong. Who would’ve thought!’ before breaking out in praise of the Creator.
Anyway, you ask about Christ’s self awareness. Any answer I gave would be pure speculation. I’m not sure of your self awareness (I don’t have any idea who you are for that matter) What can be asserted is that any claims we make can’t deny either his humanity, nor his divinity.
I don’t know of a time he stumped his toe, but I suspect it happened. I don’t know of a time he spilled his milk, but I suspect it happened. I don’t know of a time in which he entertained an ultimately inaccurate opinion… well, there is that mustard seed thing, but I suspect he looked for the keys to the donkey and mismeasured a board or two. I believe that his experience of the world was fully human- that he was in all respects like you and me, excepting sin.
The church has affirmed that acknowledging his ignorance regarding certain things in no way denies his true divinity; in other words, one can accept scriptures description without being an Arian. Why in the world would insisting that his rational human mind be like every other finite mind be a case of Kenotic Arianism? I thought it was orthodoxy’s position against Apollinaris.
In regards to your latest post: There are many particulars of Christ’s life (or yours and mine for that matter) that differ. I’d wager that this extends even to our conceptions. That seems irrelevant. Conception is the beginning of the human story. My human story began at conception; as did yours; as did Christ’s.
There are many things that the man Jesus did that are beyond my experience, but since our faith insists that he was human in every respect, I understand these to be miraculous divine actions. For example, when we find Christ reading minds, I take this to be an ability that was his as an anointed prophet, not an indication that Adam and Eve were telepaths.
It was not the ‘lack of sin’ that made him able to push beyond normal human limitations. It was the Spirit of God, and with God all things are possible. The fact that this is so in no way erases the distinction between finite humanity and indwelling Spirit. Daniel and his three friends had a fireproof moment, but they probably still made use of hot pads when baking or boiling their bagels, if you see what I mean.
Again, none of this has much to say about whether its wise to elevate Descartes’ epistemology into the creed.
November 5, 2010 at 6:39 pm
Hi, Phil. Thanks again. I’m reading through things and hopefully will actually be able to wrap myself around them soon…but this caught my eye and I wanted some further clarification:
As may be. On the other hand, it seems as though Adam and Eve were immortal in their pre-fall state…so at least in some respects it seems as though Jesus surviving 40 days without food is the sort of characteristic our original parents may have shared with him. You and I obviously do not.
To this the Scriptures agree, of course, that death is the (merciful) end of sin. So it seems as though Jesus, made like us except without sin, could not have died of hunger, even though he obviously experienced it.
For my part, I’m not sitting at my desk wondering very much if you’ve lost the gospel. I do find the questions interesting. And, frankly, I think you’re looking at things in reverse. But to be honest, one of the reasons I feel this way is because you make lots of word salad that I don’t understand.
So at least part of this exchange is really quite selfish on my part. Perhaps ironically, the sort of assumptions I may make when reading the Scriptures seem to be the sort of assumptions you make when writing your blog posts. I don’t think the way you do, neither have I read the things you read. This means that when I approach your writing, I have to ask you what you mean.
How else will I learn?
(And yes, I realize that these preceding paragraphs apply exactly to the context of the discussion.)
I don’t have Internet access at home (or when I do, it’s spotty and stolen), so I’m afraid my interaction here will be touch and go. I wouldn’t mind a follow up post that summarizes things if you’re up for it.
December 28, 2010 at 11:48 pm
[…] A Defense of Kenotic Arians (They Don’t Exist) […]
January 20, 2011 at 9:22 pm
Sorry this response has taken so long, Mem. I apologize, too, for the ‘word salad.’ Its not on purpose. I envy the clarity of your writing.
There is too much to summarize. The ‘discussion’ has spread to many, many topics.
Ms. Moore’s Kenotic Arian critique seems to be the rallying point. This is unfortunate in that it has little to do with the actual question at hand and does nothing but distract from the fact that no one has actually demonstrated or suggested what the ‘humanity’ being affirmed by Rey and Char might look like as it grows- how that growing and learning might actually takes place without ‘affirming falsehood.’ I offered Augustine’s account of learning his native tongue, and I asked what the account might look like for an ‘uncorrupted’ human being. No one quite knows, and yet the affirmation that Christ is fully human is meant to be meaningful.
So I’ll comment on ‘Kenotic Arianism’- not as a summary, but as an attempt to clarify.
Char attributes the stumbling way that finite and ignorant human beings grow in wisdom, per se, to corruption. She then goes on to quote various people on the evils of corruption.
I attribute the stumbling way that finite and ignorant human beings grow in wisdom, per se, to being a finite and ignorant human being.
For all the bravado- she is begging the question. Her argument is beside the point. We agree that corruption is bad. We disagree about what constitutes corruption.
The church Fathers didn’t view ignorance as a result of the fall. It wasn’t due to the corruption of human nature; rather it belongs to human nature.
Mark 13:32 (and similar passages) provided the church ample opportunity to think on these things. Christ’s troubling and explicit declaration of ignorance has been handled in various ways. Athanasius (yes, Char’s Athanasius) and Gregory Nazianzus deal with it by claiming that Jesus’ ignorance is according to his human nature.
Athanasius wrote-
‘He made this, as well as those other declarations as man, by reason of the flesh. For this as little as the others is the Word’s deficiency, but of that human nature whose property it is to be ignorant. . . Moreover this is proper to the Savior’s love of man; for since He was made man, He is not ashamed, because of the flesh which is ignorant, to say “I know not,” that He may show that knowing as God, He is but ignorant according to the flesh.’
Notice that human nature’s property is to be ignorant. Notice that this ignorant nature belonged to Christ.
Others disagreed with the anthropological way of understanding the passage- Hilary and Ambrose for example. Later, Gregory the Great declared that people who held to what amounts to Athanasius’ position were guilty of Nestorianism:
(T)he Only-begotten, being incarnate and made for us a perfect man, knew indeed in the nature of His humanity the day and hour of the judgment, but still it was not from the nature of His humanity that He knew it. What then He knew in it He knew not from it, because God, made man, knew the day and hour of the judgment through the power of His Deity… The day, then, and the hour of the judgment He knows as God and man, but for this reason, that God is man. It is moreover a thing quite manifest, that whoso is not a Nestorian cannot in any wise be an Agnoite.
I appreciate Gregory the Great’s concerns. Others share it, and I am attracted to the cleanness of his argument, but the position of Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzus, Theodoret, etc actually affirms what scripture seems to say rather clearly- there were things that Christ didn’t know, and he learned new things throughout his life.
I quoted Gregory the Great for a couple of reasons.
First, the quote demonstrates that when the considered Christological position of Athansius, Gregory Nazianzus, Theodoret (not to mention Calvin, Warfield and Grudem, too) get labeled heretical, then we’ve got a difficult issue on our hands. Maybe oughn’t go all whoop ass.
Secondly, it seems to me that Gregory the Great is Ms. Moore’s patron- not Athanasius.
Thirdly, he seems to indicate that she has it exactly backwards (bass-awkards, I think she called it). Gregory explicitly indicates that the perfections she is looking for are NOT due to the fact that Jesus was fully human, but rather because he was divine.
So, even her closest Patristic ally disagrees with the whole corruption approach. Human beings are ignorant because they are human beings.
I understand scripture to be clear about the learning thing. I’m with Athanasius et al. on the finite human nature thing.
The real question is whether ignorance and human learning imply error. This is where the conversation began with Rey. We are pages away from that because Char introduced her innovations. The best I can see, she has only offered assumptions about the question at hand and whether all error is morally culpable. She has offered no arguments about either.
So to summarize the real disagreement. I believe that ignorance is part of being human. I believe the Church Fathers agree with me on that. I believe that human beings overcome that mundane ignorance by learning from other finite and limited people, reflecting on, experimenting with and being corrected by experience.
Immediate knowledge about all things is not part of human nature; therefore its privation is not evil. It is not an unnatural, corrupt or sinful things to think the person approaching is Jim, only to find upon closer inspection that it is Uncle Frank. It is not unnatural, corrupt or sinful to think that the moon follows you when you walk at night, only to learn later that it does not. It is not unnatural, corrupt or sinful to think the path is clear, when the darkness is actually hiding a chair.
The Jesus of the gospels was truly and fully human. There was much he didn’t know. He grew. Scripture says so. I believe its also orthodox to affirm that he wondered. He imagined. He conjectured. He had ‘Aha’ moments. He mistook ‘Uncle Frank’ for ‘Jim.’ He marveled at the stalking moon. He stumped his toe.