gary@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (gary w buchholz) (07/10/85)
>In one message you presented us with a vision, not unlike that in >Ezekiel, where the shekinah departed from the Temple and ended up >resting with the SBL (who, you assure us, are the true inheritors of >the scholarly traditions of the Church). Let me reassure you that >there are plenty of us who still combine scholarship and faith. Our >willingness to allow scholarship to proceed according to its own >canons does not mean that we have given up our faith. It is a very interesting question to me as to who are the rightful hiers to Christianity. It is also a very interestesting question to me as to what constitutes faithful continuity. Consider this statement by Carl Braaten (Professor of Systematic Theology at Lutheran School of Theology) in the introduction to his book Principles of Lutheran Theology "This book deals with the specifically confessional criteria of Christian Theology operative in the Lutheran tradition. The setting of this kind of reflection is properly the church and the seminary, not the secular university and a department of religious studies in general. The decision whether this fact of location diminishes or augments its appeal as a piece of theology will depend on the expectations of the readers. One thing is clear: for good or bad this confessional mode of reflection is done today only in the context of the church and its theological schools. The university has opted for the scientific study of religious phenomena, surrendering the claim to truth in the normative sense...." Surrendering the claim to truth in the normative sense ???? Contrast this with an introduction written by Thomas J.J. Altizer to Deconstructing Theology written by Mark Taylor and published by Scholars Press in the AAR Studies in Religion series. "Thus the project of Deconstructing Theology is not one of actual or literal deconstruction, for that has long since occurred, but rather one of seeking the renewal or rebirth of theology by way of a passage through the end or death of the primal ground of the Western theoretical and theological tradition. This is just the point at which theological thinking is now being reborn, even if reborn in a non-theological form, which is to say a form of thinking that bears no manifest sign of the presence of theology..... ... We have long since learned that there is no hope of a modern Church theology... and the time has arrived for a renewed modern Protestant or post-ecclesiastical theology, a theology fully situated in the world or worlds of modernity..... wherein theology is free of the Church, and thereby free of the very power and ground which theological thinking itself negated in realizing its modern epiphany. ...it is no longer possible to return... decisively makes manifest the impossibility of returning to the Bible or to a 'biblical' revelation. Altizer cites Taylor as "... the first theologian free of the scars or perhaps even the memory of Church theology" In answer to the question as to who are the inheritors of the authentic Christian tradition my reply would be that we all are. The tradition has always been multiform and the history of theology (I think) is most adequately seen as continuous transformation. How is the canon of theological texts formed - it is the innovators in theology that make it into the canon and not the "orthodox". Todays orthodoxy is merely the heresy of past generations. Is that not how the Lutheran tradition out of which Braaten speaks came to be ? Has not Braaten "surrendered the claim to truth in the normative sense..." in the context of pre-reformation Catholicism ? Read 'appearance' as 'truth in the normative sense' in this quote from Hegel and one might find a paradigm for the construal of the history of Christian theology. "Appearance is the process of arising into being and the passing away again, a process that itself does not arise and and does not pass away, but is in itself, and constitutes reality and the life-movement of truth. The truth is thus the Bacchanalian revel, where not one member is sober; and because every member no sooner becomes detached than it eo ipso collapses straightway, the revel is just as much a state of transparent unbroken calm." -Hegel Obviously Hegels meta-history does not inform Braatens theology as he is unable to exchange continuity of substance with continuity of process. One might ask Braaten what continuity the Lutheran tradition has with the preceding (Christian) tradition that labeled Luther a heretic. One might ask Braaten what continuity the school at which he teaches (LSTC) has with Luther as it would deny many of the exegetical principles that make Luthers "insight" possible. Interpreting the history of the Christian theological tradition one might find that this "continuity of substance" and "truth in the normative sense" are illusionary concepts marshaled out in the service of the latest theological innovation by an author seeking for his work the sanction of some institutional orthodoxy. Let me say that the calm in which such an author rests is merely the eye of the hurricane of theological change. The eye moves also. It may be better to "reap the whirlwind" than deny it or keep safely away from its reach. Such persons are people like Taylor, Altizer, Derrida, the Yale school of Deconstruction and its theological counterpart. JAAR and JBL may be the organ of such 'harvesters' of the theological tradition. As for your figure of the shekinah departing the Temple and resting with SBL it may be better to say that as far as Taylor and Altizer are concerned both shekinah and temple have been caught in the path of de(con)struction and "taken up" to be reconstituted and reborn in new form as part of the epiphany of modern theology. Even if that theology is "free from the Church" , unable to "return to the Bible or a biblical revelation" and "non-theological" in the traditional sense, still it is Christian and in continuity with the tradition even when it negates Christianity and the traditional God. It is in continuity with the tradition because only by the tradition was the negation of the tradition possible. Protestantism would not have been possible if Luther did not deny the authority of the tradition that preceeded him. Chuck uses Augustines famous phrase "Faith seeking understanding". To me, faith will always burden the understanding by an ontological element that Christian faith will never comprehend. Ontology ought to be in the service of the understanding and not the other way 'round. Was it not the cognition of Paul that alchemized by exegesis that Christian worldview in which Christians now emplot themselves and thereby realize their faith ? Faith may give rise to a more adequate understanding but that better understanding ought to have a reciprocal effect and transform the faith. Is this not the story of the conversion of Saul the Pharisee to Paul the Christian. Paul is rightfuly the first theologian of the Christian era. A faith that "never lets go" and puts understanding always within its service will never be relevant to the modern situation. The only way such a faith can be relevant is if it always retains the situation in which it was born. Such examples would be those "mirage worlds" of the Evangelicals who consider themselves "just passing through". The "mirage world" is the now absent 1st century cosmology that makes their faith relevant - it can be relevant in no other. >I would be interested to know the reason you think there is no >difference between the accounts in the Bible and various mythologies. >You have made a number of statements that take this as a given, but >have not shown supporting evidence. I can imagine two very different >ways of coming to this conclusion (both of which I think are wrong, >but for different reasons). One is that you believe that the Bible >was not intended as history, and the other is that it was intended as >history, but has so much legendary material in it that in practice we >will never be able to separate the truth from the fiction. Lets ask the right questions. Does the NT presuppose the interpretive categories common to 1st century Hellenism and/or Hellenistic Judaism ? How is Reality understood by human beings ? Is it immediate or mediated ? What is the mediation ? How is the reality thus perceived affected by the system of symbols that informs the interpretation and provides the idiom for thought ? What is prior, experience or interpretation - or are they simultaneous ? Are realities detachable - what is it that makes the "world" Hindu to Hinduism, Christian to Christianity and Islamic to Moslems ? Is Reality as such really Hindu or Christian or Islamic. Or does it depend on which set of symbols construe the world ? Can new worlds be 'created' or 'alchemized' by deforming systems of symbols that define reality ? The Bible can never be false. The genre of the text does not admit to any question that could have this as an answer. The text does not participate in the true/false dichotomy. One best understands the text as ontology and ontological/existential statements can never be "false". It is useful to bifurcate Reality at this point. There is the world of things(objects) and there is the world of human beings. The problem lies in the fact that the liveable world(s) of human beings find expression and articulation in the language of objects (Gods, demons, spirits, heavens, hells, redeemers, saviours, angels). What is the referential order of religious language ? Is it "empirical reality" or is the reference of religious language religious language and the ontological/existential human being who uses it ? If it is the former then why are religions so often called 'non-empirical belief systems' ? Are they thereby disqualified as 'science' ? When Peter responds to Jesus "You are the Christ" is Peter telling us something about himself or is he telling us about the world that science would want to investigate ? The problem is self-created when one confuses metaphysics and ontology. To assert the authority of the NT is to admit to ones emplotment in the Christian salvation history. This history is the only history on which the Christian Bible is an authority. It is an authority on this only because, for believers, the Bible is reality defining. How can the Bible not be true when it carries with itself as supplement a "world" that contains the criteria of its own truth ? "Truth is relative to the perspective from which it is apprehended and is co-relative with implicated truths whose reciprocity it presupposes" - Taylor All defenses of the Bible as inerrant or "true" or "the way things are" are really grounded in a prior ontological commitment. "Faith seeking understanding". How any times is it the case that one proceeds on an exhaustive historical analysis and then concludes the Bible to be 'true' or 'inerrant'. How many times is it the case that just the opposite procedure is followed. That is, faith first asserts it to be inerrant or true and then adjusts the exegesis to fit the expectation. The former task is, in principle, impossible. The latter can be accomplished by any TV Evangelical with a good imagination. To answer your question more directly, what is crucial is not that the biblical texts are *different* than other mythologies but that they are mythological and rendered as such not by citing them in themselves but rather citing them as they participate in the 1st century cosmology and citing this 1st century consciousness as it participates in this history of Western thought. Locating this 1st century cosmology (interpretive categories) within the history of theology is not unlike locating figures such as Newton in the history of the physical sciences. We acknowledge their contribution, and know that without their contribution what we enjoy now within the discipline would not be possible. But, on the other hand, we do not appeal to Newton in this day and age to solve problems of high energy particle physics. So too with theology and with intellectual history in general - problems and solutions in the past can now serve as paradigms or models for the solution of contemporary problems but these solutions of the past can never be taken over "as is" and without modification as the situation which the solution was an answer can never be present again. At this point one may remark that Christianity is a solution to that set of problems that it comports with itself so that it may be a solution. History of Religions calls this the "Salvation Syndrome". Christianity convinces you that you are sinful and then offers you the solution to its own self-generated problem. It makes present the situation to which it is the answer. Poison and antidote in symbiotic relation. (To see how this works see those postings in these newsgroups on the "biblical view of Man" written by "believers") There are some that do not realize that theology has a history and for those people it would be rather difficult to locate the NT in the context that I suggested above. It is not something that you learn as one learns facts but it is something that one "sees" by reading texts from this history of theology. If one appropriates this "knowledge" in any other way then it is not your possession. It is not possible to assign "divinity" to any text without also "baptizing" the human thought world and interpretive categories that saw the genesis of the texts. Such assertions of "divinity" will not be tolerated by such persons as Taylor and the tradition out of which he speaks therefore, the NT texts take their rightful place among all such other texts of the 1st century and this set of texts take their rightful place in the history of Western thought. The question of any "authority" is unaskable and does not arise. The only authority that the biblical texts have is the authority believers grant it to define a world of meaning-full human habitation. And the condition for this possibility is usually some ontological failure suffered on the part of the would be believer. This is the situation to which the Bible is an answer. If this is not your question then the Bible has no answers. It is unfortunate that the ontological answer is effected through a sacrifice of the intellect. The recognition of this is the impetus for much theological work. As Altizer says, the task is to situate theology in the world or worlds of modernity. And this necessarily requires the denial of the mythological world of the NT and perhaps, most of if not all Church theology. The theological task is to count this all as gain and not loss. "Leopards break into the temple and drink the sacrificial chalices dry; this occurs repeatedly, again and again: finally it can be reckoned on beforehand and becomes part of the ceremony." "The leopards become part of the ritual... holy and profane intermingle; there is something sacred about writing, commentary, and texts, yet these notions are displaced into profane fields of literature, philosophy and psychoanalysis. At the same time, under the guise of revisionary interpretation, the Temple and Scripture are profaned. The lines become crossed: who knows now which is the holy, and which the profane: which the leopards and which the priests ?" -The Critic as Kabbalist in Slayers of Moses by Susan Handelman Gary