Culture's Effect on Theological Development

 In many ways, every generation has the task of reiterating or re-understanding the beliefs they have received for the world they live in. (Indeed, reiteration is not simple repetition.) However, it seems that certain eras may require a greater re-consideration of the expression of a faith than others. Thanks to inter-library loan, I have been reading the fascinating book by Sidney Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam. It's been really instructive, and surprisingly readable, regarding the early history of Christian-Muslim interaction. (It reminds me of Jenkins' Lost History of Christianity, with a different focus.)

 Anyways, Griffith describes Theodore bar Koni's 8th century theological-apologetic work Scholion on Christianity which interacted with Islam. In the chapter responding to Muslim challenges, bar Koni addressed "the Scriptures and Christ; Baptism; the Eucharistic mystery; the veneration of the Cross; sacramental practice in general; the Son of God; and, of course, interwoven with all of them, the all-embracing doctrine of the Trinity." (pg 43)

 Griffith continues, "These same issues are the ones that will appear in the topical outlines of almost all of the apologetic tracts written by Christians living among the Muslims for the next five hundred years." Not much has changed in my experience; these topics are mostly still central in Islam's questioning of Christian beliefs.

 But, the next part is what I actually wanted to post; it expressed the generational and contextual call for both thinking and practicing in both old and new ways. "What is evident in the list of them is the obvious intermingling of questions of faith and practice in such a way that it is also clear that the shape of theology itself is determined in this milieu by the apologetic imperative to justify the reasonableness of religious beliefs in virtue of the public practices they entail." (pgs 43-44)

 It seems to me that we also live in a time where new thought and expression is needed to publicly walk in a faith which may seem unreasonable or impious to the reigning worldview.

 ***

Bonus quotation: bar Koni says of his purpose that he is writing "against  those who while professing to accept the Old Testament, and acknowledging the coming of Christ our Lord, are nevertheless far removed from both of them, and now they demand from us an apology [written defense] for our faith, not from all of the scriptures, but only from those which they acknowledge." Griffith summarizes, "Clearly he had the Muslims in mind." (pg 43)

Jesus' 5 Evidences that God was/is His Father

  A month ago, I posted 8 Arguments for the Bible's Reliability; now I want to share something that is tangentially related, the reasons that Jesus is recorded to have given for being from the Heavenly Father. John 5:18 says, "This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God." (ESV, emphasis added) In the verses following that, Jesus lists several results of God being his father.  These deal with how his character and his actions reflect those of the Father.

 Then, in John 5:30-47, Jesus gives a series of arguments about why he should be accepted as whom he says he is. These are as follows:

1.  Jesus himself claims God is his father (Jn 5:31, cf vs 17-18).
2.  John the Baptist also attested to this truth (Jn 5:32-36; cf 1:29-35; 3:22ff).
3.  The "works" or actions - including the healing that spawned this discussion - attest to the origin of Jesus (Jn 5:36; cf 3:2; 5:1-17). 
4.  The Father who sent him has also attested to this truth (Jn 5:37-38; cf 12:27-30; Matthew 3:16-17; 17:5).
5.  The Scriptures bear witness to him (Jn 5:39-40; cf Jn 1:45; 2:17).
• Moses' writings, as a subset of Scripture, witness to the person of Jesus (Jn 5:45-47; cf Jn 3:14; 6:32; witnesses about the Christ from Moses' writings).  

  It is interesting that each of these points has support from within the Gospel of John, mostly prior to this account. These are evidences which the listeners could evaluate, events or sayings they were already apparently familiar with. (Mt 3:16-17 shows that God had already spoken from heaven publicly once, in addition to the second-hand recounting of that event that John given in John 1.)

 Now, the connection to the previous posts is a bit clearer. Presuming we accept the Gospel accounts as reliable, then the arguments given here are ones that must be given weight. Jesus did not call on people to embrace his claims in a vacuum or without due consideration. Nor did he simply overwhelm them with the miraculous in such a way that a series of illusions could be the basis of his claim(s). The evidences were varied and often independent. 

  So I ask, what would it take to convince you or I, reasonable people, that the apparently impossible was actually possible? What proofs should we require to believe that God became a man, that the Son of God walked this earth in human flesh? If this is not denied a priori, what would you look for as evidence and how would this relate to the proofs that were given?  

  One final point that should be mentioned is that these are not the only proofs that either the New Testament or Jesus himself is recorded as giving to support who he was and is. The anecdote in John 1:47-51 makes this clear. As well, here's another one I came across in my reading recently.

• Matthew 12:38-41 - Jesus foretold that there would be a parallel between his burial and resurrection and the life of the prophet Jonah. This is not a prophecy by Jonah, but rather Jesus himself prophesying about what will happen and using a familiar story as the pivot point. (cf Mt 17:22-23)

8 Perspectives on the Bible's Reliability

  For quite some time, I have been making a collection of different approaches to dealing with the reliability of the Bible. My recent post regarding undesigned coincidences in the New Testament is coincidental to this ongoing collection. The interesting thing about such a discussion is that it has to be held in different ways with different people. The reasons that my Muslim friends doubt the reliability of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures are different from those that my atheist, agnostic, or Christian-raised-but-still-wrestling-with-the-idea friends will have. Beyond that, when my kids want to know why I accept one collection of Scriptures as divinely-given and reliable but not another collection, the discussions are again upended. 

  What I propose to give below is not so much an argument for the reliability of Scripture as it is a collection of the different ways that I have seen and heard the Scriptures argued for. Personally, I find certain arguments more compelling than others, but that is not really the point here. My point is to collect them as group. Note that these are also not arguments for Scripture's inerrancy or inspiration directly; that is relevant, but not the focus here.  

1. Literary structures - This argument has particular force in relation to the idea that Scripture was redacted over generations. If this is so, the structural unity across individual works and swaths of works is staggering. On the other hand, if the writings are works by individual authors, this unity makes much more sense. This particularly came home to me as I researched what became my article on blessing in Genesis, a book that many believe is heavily redacted or pieced together.  

2. Internal claims - The Bible itself claims to be reliable and God-sent; it claims to be unchanging. One may immediately object that this is a circular argument; however, imagine if the Bible made no such claim! In other words, the Bible's claim to divine origin and unchanging character and content is significant for faith. 

  In line with this, the Bible also mentions many other sources that could have been included in the biblical canon; some of those were by the same authors whose other writings are included. So, alongside its claims to reliability and divine sanction, the Bible claims a certain selectivity or exclusivity. Not all of Paul's or the prophets' or the chroniclers' writings were equal or (regarded as) Scripture. 

3. Manuscript evidences - This argument for the reliability of the biblical texts is an overwhelming one when compared to any other ancient document (although the claims of Scripture are correspondingly extraordinary.) Still, there are over 5,800 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament besides about 20,000 manuscripts of ancient translations into other languages. Separately, the Old Testament Scriptures have thousands of manuscripts in Hebrew, plus translations. (A hard number of OT manuscripts is surprisingly hard to find given how common the 5,800 number is for NT manuscripts: this site has the most concrete number I could find.)

   Not only is there an argument based on the massive number of manuscripts that were preserved, but there is also the consistency of the text that has been seen. As the number of manuscripts available to scholars has exploded in the last couple centuries, Christian doctrine has not needed to change or be adjusted. There have been places where copying or spelling errors have become evident, but this does not undermine a claim to reliability. Christians do not claim that any single published copy is a perfect copy of the entire Scripture. Instead, Christian belief is that the original manuscripts were perfectly reliable, and we have received reliable copies of them.

4. Historical progression of acceptance - This argument rests on the fact that the Bible presents a 'telescoping' view of its revelation. In other words, each section builds on the preceding one; Moses is built on by Samuel; Samuel and Moses are built on by David and Solomon; the prophets built on those that preceded them; Jesus (as quoted, though he did not write any of the New Testament himself) built on the Old Testament, and the disciples and earliest Christian witnesses built on all that preceding revelation. Below are a few thoughts from the NT concerning the OT:  

- Jesus’ acceptance of OT (Mt 23:35; Lk 11:51; Lk 24:25, 27, 32, 44-48; Jn 5:45-47; his regular quotation & amplification, references to fulfillment and the prophets; Mt 21:42; Lk 4:16-21; 22:37; Jn 7:[38], 42; 10:34-36; 13:18; 17:12; 19:12)

- Jesus' disciples/apostles' acceptance (Jn 1:45; Lk 24:32; Acts 13:27; constant quotation and allusion)

- There is also acceptance of other NT writers even within the NT - Peter accepts Paul as a Scripture writer (2 Peter 3:15-16) where he references Paul's writings among 'the other Scriptures.' 

   One might ask why Moses' original readers accepted his writings. I would suggest that minimally these were the people who had been at Mount Sinai and had heard the words and been terrified at the presence of God. Thus, their acceptance was not simplistic; it was multi-faceted, through faith and experience. With a bit of thought, one can extrapolate further along these lines for Moses' and others' writings.

5. Consistency with the experience world - The subjectiveness of this argument does not necessarily blunt its impact. The world described in the Bible matches the one we experience. Among other things, in the Bible we are led to expect a world of great beauty and humans made 'in the image of a good God' while we are also told that an enemy has brought ruin and destruction upon all the creation. Thus, what is called 'natural revelation' matches both the glories and horrors that we see and hear.

6. Undesigned coincidences - With the recent post on this, I will not extrapolate much, but this is similar to the 'literary structures' argument. The biblical writings themselves often confirm and support each other in the sorts of ways that argue for their authenticity as eyewitness accounts.

 

7. Archaeology - The biblical accounts have shown time and again that they are accurate in historical details, at least to the extent that they care to draw attention to them and that we have found independent witness to the same events. This area is also where there are still many questions and constant developments. I would suggest that no single artifact could sufficiently prove or disprove such a book, not even Noah's Ark in full preservation in the Mountains of Ararat. However, some of the archaeological support of Scripture has offered stunning corroboration in its minute detail. 

8. Impact on art, history, and culture - The little book, "Christianity: Fundamental Teachings" that I mentioned being published by the Turkish Church says it this way, "The Holy Bible is the most influential and successful work ever witnessed" (pg 74). It goes on to list the Bible's influence in inspiring "world literature, fine art, architecture, music, paintings, and other branches of art" as well as influencing the development of science, human rights, gender equality, and democracy. 

Hidden in Plain View - a lapsed argument on the New Testament's reliability

I suggest that we have such ample evidence for the reliability of these documents that we should consider ourselves privileged rather than burdened when called upon to present it. We should welcome the opportunity to reclaim and maintain the forward position held by the older apologists, for their arguments have been not so much refuted as forgotten in the shifts of theological fashion. (McGrew, 192)

 Drawing heavily on Paley's "Evidences of Christianity" and Blunt's "Scriptural Coincidences" (both free online due to their age), in Hidden in Plain View, Lydia McGrew presented a fresh and compelling argument on the historical reliability and accuracy on Scripture. Apparently this argument of (humanly) "undesigned coincidences" within Scripture  traces back to the 18th and 19th centuries, but it mostly disappeared. Now, due to a cousin's recommendation and the fact that it was available on Kindle Unlimited, I have gotten to read and benefit from this really useful book and argument. Hidden in Plain View was helpful in four areas:

1.  Reliability of Scripture (apologetics)

2.  Dealing with Bible difficulties (apologetics and hermeneutics)

3.  The 'Synoptic problem' in the Gospels (apologetics and hermeneutics)

4.  Insight into New Testament Scripture (hermeneutics)

  For the frequent reader or long-term student of the New Testament, the material in this book will probably be both extremely familiar and regularly surprising. This is particularly true of the first half, which deals with the Gospels. The reason for this is that as we have imbibed the different portions of the Scripture, we have often synthesized them in our understanding. This is obviously a good thing! However, it comes with the downside of not necessarily distinguishing the sources of the pieces of knowledge from each other. Therefore, we may not be  fully aware of many of the cases of Scripture supporting Scripture in the nitty gritty details.

  Again, this unawareness of specific links between is especially true in the four Gospel accounts, where the genres and narratives are so often read in parallel. On the other hand, I found that I was more aware of the subtle links between the accounts in Acts and the Pauline letters. I suspect that this is because each of these is more likely to be studied independently. Conversely, the Gospels, particularly the Synoptics (Matthew, Mark, Luke), are frequently studied as a whole. 

 It is in this connection that McGrew sheds light on the so-called 'synoptic problem', which she names 'the synoptic puzzle.' In fascinating details, she shows the independence of the four Gospel witnesses from each other. Most interestingly, as she points out, the details of independence often emerge at exactly the places where the accounts seem most harmonized (dependent?) at a surface level. This perspective also gives a clear response to the common question, 'Why are there four gospels (not just one)? (The apparently similar question of the later, Gnostic gospels such as the Gospel of Barnabas or the Gospel of Thomas, is quite separate actually.)

The providential provision of four Gospels gives us a three-dimensional view of the events. (p. 193)

 It was also in the Gospel sections, that I felt like there were the most significant insights into passages allowing deeper understanding of the meaning of each passage. For example, the links between John 13 where Jesus washes his followers' feet and Luke 22 where he describes servant leadership and declares, "I am among you as one who serves" are particularly poignant. The strength of this connection will certainly inform my thinking going forward.

  Anyways, this book is definitely worth reading, if not in all the details, at least to get the main argument. It is approachable in tone and, because she usually quotes the passages she is dealing with in their entirety, the argument has greater force as you see the coincidences in the details of the texts. 

  A few additional quotes to stir your interest (bold emphasis mine, italics original): 

But it is particularly noticeable that the Gospel authors often seem to write with the lack of affectation that we find in a person whose primary purpose is getting important information out there, getting down what happened, making it available, rather than in one whose primary purpose is to fit together what he writes in a polished manner. The author of the Gospel of John is certainly theological, perhaps more so than any of the other Gospel writers. But again and again we find him including items in his Gospel without their full explanations, apparently just because he wanted his readers to know that they happened. (p. 44)

What one sees in undesigned coincidences, again and again, are points which “impressed themselves upon the eye” of the spectator and came thus into the accounts we now have. (p. 63)

It’s also worth noting that any intentional connection of this miracle with the earlier miracle could, if both occurred, be attributed to Jesus himself. [...] It’s important not to assume that, if there are resemblances between two events in the Gospels, this automatically implies a literary parallel created by the author. (p. 207) 

~ McGrew, Lydia. Hidden In Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts 

final tidbits from Yeaxlee on education & knowing Truth

  While it may not be the common purpose of a blog, I have found that as much as sharing ponderings and readings with others, a primary benefit of this blog is to be a repository for my thoughts and for what has affected my thinking. It allows me to collect my ideas, form them, and - vitally - to review them based on topics or themes that I may return to. In that spirit, I wanted to share some final thoughts from Basil Yeaxlee, especially pertaining to knowledge of truth, education, and a bit more on parenting.

Religion and the Growing Mind - Basil Yeaxlee

Knowledge of Faith & Truth

    "Dr. A. B. Macaulay, in discussing the nature of religious dogma and its relationship to science and philosophy, points out very aptly that if religious faith must be integrated with scientific knowledge, so also must scientific knowledge with religious faith. We must agree if we hold that both are natural functions of reasonable man living in a rational universe." 

(pg 113, citing The Death of Christ, pp. 31ff.)

"What we are emphasizing here is that the very nature of religion, as this is discoverable in the growing mind, is to make demands upon historical reality, and through it upon a Reality beyond space and time, yet personal." (pg 114).  

"...some truth cannot be told except in poetry." (pg 116)

"The Kingdom of God is not simply a gradual transformation of the kingdoms of this world but a mighty creative power which from beyond this world is ever breaking in through men and women who, in their day and degree, are creative and other-regarding as Jesus uniquely was in the days of His flesh." 

(pg 136, citing Rudolf Otto's The Kingdom of God and the Son of Man) 

Education

"...we must save ourselves from the risk of confusing education with instruction..." (pg 179)

About teachers... "In truth it may be doubted whether anybody in whom the parental instinct is not strong will ever make a first-class master or mistress." (pg 201)

"All good teaching is interesting teaching, but it is not thoroughly educative unless it stimulates children to discover fresh interests for themselves." (pg 213)

Parenting

"At the same time it is their [parents'] function to bring children gradually into contact with the larger world, so that the children can accept the good and throw off the evil for themselves." (pg 185)

The Puzzling or Repellent Aspects of Christianity

  Apparently I've never read C. S. Lewis's essay "The Weight of Glory" through from end to end before. I've read excerpts, but the complete argument that he makes in there doesn't seem to be in my memory anywhere.
  So today (and a bit of yesterday) I read it. It is really beautiful with many areas that I highlighted. One in particular that I wanted to mention has to do with an argument that has often bothered me: that I should expect to be able to understand mysteries before having faith in them. For sure, faith should be rational to some extent, but at some point, it will certainly be ultra-rational since we don't really need "faith" for what we can see and understand completely. Why would I expect to understand God, the Maker of the Universe, and all His works and wisdom fully? If I did wouldn't that mean my mind was equal to or superior to Him? Anyways, here is a bit of Lewis on a similar theme. The essay is worth exploring for yourself whether you believe in Christianity or not; Lewis is making a substantial argument for it, which one does not necessarily have to be Christian to appreciate.

 If Christianity could tell me no more of the far-off land than my own temperament led me to surmise already, then Christianity would be no higher than myself. If it has more to give me, I expect it to be less immediately attractive than "my own stuff." [...] If our religion is something objective, then we must never avert our eyes from those elements in it which seem puzzling or repellent; for it will be precisely the puzzling or the repellent which conceals what we do not know and need to know. 

~ "The Weight of Glory"

the Hypostatic Union (an extra-detailed, obfuscated theology term)

  There are a few common theological terms that sound impossibly complex. In my mind, 'the hypostatic union' is among the most difficult though it refers simply to the union of the divine and human natures in the person of Jesus Christ. In spite of studying theology in college, I graduated without being sure what this theological term referred to (not my teachers' fault.)  Eventually, I got it; more helpful though was some clear teaching on this doctrine (summarized here and here, though I heard it as a lecture). As a Christian, it is very useful to deeply understand what it means that Jesus was (and is) both truly God and truly man! But that's not exactly what this post is about...

 In the last month or so, twice I have been asked to explain and defend the Christian belief in the two natures of Christ (hypostatic union).  As with doctrines like the trinity, it is easier to to start explanations with basic illustrations/correlations; for instance, in discussing the Trinity, common illustrations are a triangle, water, an egg, etc. While these correlations are always partial, they have a definite value. But, I was not familiar with any illustrative shortcuts to express the basics of the hypostatic union to suggest the dual natures of Christ that are found in His singular personhood.  Here are a few that I found by internet research, discussion, and thought.

1.  Heat and Iron - Each has completely separate properties which can be found at times in the same space, yet without confusion. (Shedd says this was used by the early church fathers.)

2.  A human's body and soul - Separate and unmixed even if not always easily distinguishable

3.  Marriage - two parts, each different, but integral to a single whole

4.  Light - Light functions as both matter and energy; the traits of both are distinguishable, yet neither fully explains the essence of light independently of the other.  (e=mc2)

  I'm basically posting this because I haven't found a list of illustrations elsewhere.  Please comment below with any other illustrations!