A Thinking Reed

Category: Theology & Faith

  • The Trinity as a model for human society?

    From Mark D. Chapman’s article, “The Social Doctrine of the Trinity: Some Problems“:

    In these various different discussions of the implications of the doctrine of the Trinity for life together in society, there is an implicit assumption that the picture of the relationships between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is able to function as something of a blueprint for human society: God is spoken of in terms of an idealised society which in turn is capable of being mirrored here on earth through the witness of the Church. Although this is undoubtedly appealing, it is precisely at this point that a problem begins to emerge. Whereas all the conceptions of the social God discussed understand the Trinity as a community of mutually interdependent persons who necessarily exist in relation, it does not necessarily follow that the sociality of human societies, even ideal ones, is rooted in such a notion of being-in-relationship. Factually, it is patently true that human beings do not always act together in conformity of will and action; and yet the claim is that the social Trinity and its concomitant ecclesiology should provide a vision as well as a practical model for humans in society. It is this step in the argument that does not seem to be self-evident. It is at the very least questionable that human beings express themselves most fully and perfectly in terms of the harmony and balance of mutual reciprocity.

    If it can be shown that tension, conflict and debate rest at the heart of human society, then the opposite might indeed prove to be the case. Indeed it may well be that far from an aberration or even sinful distortion, the normal and proper condition of society, and even of the Church, is one of dispute and conflict. And this leads on to a question: if we are to try to model the Trinity, then what place is there for the tensions and conflicts resulting from human diversity and difference? The harmonious understanding of God, which characterises so much of the social Trinitarianism discussed above, perhaps expresses a longing for concord and a conflict-free zone, but it seems quite divorced from the creative and constructive conflict that can plausibly be shown to be the foundation for democratic human societies.

    It’s fairly common in contemporary theology–popular and academic– to leap from some idea of the Trinity as a “perfect community” to using that as a blueprint for ecclesiastical and/or social reform. Chapman’s concern here strikes me as well founded: even assuming we can describe with any confindence the “inner” life of the Trinity (itself a dubious notion), it’s far from clear that this is an appropriate model for human communities. In the traditional Christian understanding, the persons of the Trinity enjoy a unity of will that is not only rarely found among human beings, but probably undesirable.

  • (How) does Jesus reveal moral truth?

    It occurred to me after the last post that there might be a subset or version of the first view (God is necessary for us to know the difference between right and wrong) which has a stronger claim than I gave it credit for. That is the idea that moral truth is revealed in the life of Jesus. Christians believe that, in Jesus, God has (among other things) revealed a what a human life completely suffused with love of God and neighbor looks like. Thus we might say that there is–on any Christian view–a kind of revealed moral knowledge.

    However, one shouldn’t conclude from this, I think, that Jesus is the only source of moral knowledge. For starters, Jesus himself disclaims this repeatedly, appealing in his teachings not only to his hearers knowledge of the Mosaic law, but also to their common moral sense. Moreover, the picture of Jesus that we have in the gospels, while evocative of a human life that is shaped in a specific way, doesn’t provide us with anything like an answer key to all of our moral questions. Asking that it should is probably to to put more weight on that portrait than it could bear.

    Another consideration: Jesus’ life and ministry are not, in general, a “transvaluation” of all previously held values, but something more like their consummation or the horizon point where they converge. Otherwise, it’s hard to see how people could’ve recognized him as good in the first place. That they could presupposes that people who encountered Jesus and responded positively to him had some prior understanding of good and evil, right and wrong, and recognized Jesus as the embodiment of virtues like compassion and self-giving love.

    This isn’t to say that Jesus doesn’t add to our previously existing moral knowledge. But maybe what he adds is a vivid concrete actualization of values or norms that would otherwise remain abstract and incomplete. I’m not saying that Jesus is only a moral exemplar, as some liberal theologians seem to say. Christians affirm that his life, death, and resurrection are also the very presence and activity of God with us and for us. But at the same time he is not less than a moral exemplar. We might add that Jesus also shows us the depths of our own sin in that the world’s hostility toward him exemplifies the reaction of sinful humanity to the embodiment of perfect virtue and complete faith.

  • Do we need God to be good?

    It’s often asserted, or assumed, that God is “necessary” for morality, not infrequently leading to furious argument about the relative virtues of believers and atheists. But there are several senses in which God might be related to morality, so it’s important to distinguish them:

    God is necessary for us to know the difference between right and wrong. This is the view that moral truth is a subspecies of revealed truth, i.e., we can only know the difference between right and wrong by consulting the Bible, the church, or some other religious authority. Even within Christianity, though, this is a minority position. The more common view is that we can know the difference between right and wrong using our natural reason and observing the world around us, particularly what actions are conducive to human well-being, etc. There has been a tendency in some self-consciously postmodern theology to see morality as tradition-constituted or embedded in the practices of a particular community, which does in some ways hark back to the morality-as-revealed-knowledge view.

    God is necessary for us to be motivated to do right. This may be more common than the previous view. In its crassest form it asserts that the threat of punishment and/or promise of reward by God (whether here or hereafter) is what provides the necessary incentive for us to behave morally. In a more sophisticated vein, one might argue that God’s valuation of the world and the creatures in it provides a motive–if we love God–to treat God’s creatures with respect and care. Yet it seems that atheists, agonostics, and other non-theists can be motivated to moral behavior by many other considerations that make no reference to God. Though one might wonder if positing a transcendent dimension to morality gives an extra incentive to, for instance, more self-sacrificial actions than some alternative views (e.g., naturalism).

    God is necessary to make sense of morality. This is the view that God is necessary to account for the deep, metaphysical basis or structure of morality. We might say that God is the “truth-maker” for moral statements. This doesn’t necessarily imply that we must believe in God’s existence to apprehend moral truth; it simply means that what ultimately “makes sense” of morality is God’s existence and/or nature. Most Christians probably hold some version of this view. On the other hand, we may doubt its practical import since it seems possible to have moral beliefs that guide one’s actions without enquiring very deeply into their metaphysical foundation (if any). Not to mention, there are several competing accounts of the metaphsyics of morality, none of which, it’s safe to say, commands anything close to universal assent. And yet it doesn’t seem as though having such a satisfying metaphysical account is necessary for moral discourse to funciton effectively.

    I think the second and third views are more plausible than the first, but both would be very difficult to prove. I think one could make a plausible argument that the existence of God makes better sense of moral values than at least some competing views and that belief in God may provide motives for moral virtue that aren’t available to other views, but that falls short of showing that God is necessary for morality in the strong sense sometimes claimed.

    ADDENDUM: I left out yet another sense in which it might be said that God is necessary for morality, which seems obvious now that I think of it: God as causally necessary for morally good actions. Most Christians have held that, in some way and to some degree or another, God’s grace empowers us to do good works. This goes beyond merely saying that our knowledge of God’s commands or love acts as a motive for doing good; it’s the claim that God somehow strengthens our wills so that we can do things that, left to our own devices, we would be unable to do. Without this empowering grace, it is sometimes held, we would be utterly incapable of doing good. This also seems to imply that non-believers, to the extent that they do good, are also beneficiaries of God’s grace. Clearly this opens up a whole can of worms concerning God’s providential action in the world, as well as the relationship between divine action and human free will.

  • One more (at least) on pluralism

    Another thought occurred to me about John Hick’s pluralism hypothesis: that it risks introducing a moralistic distortion into religion. Since, for Hick, religion is primarily a practical rather than a cognitive enterprise (because the Real in itself eludes our cognitive abilities), the criteria by which he judges religion are primarily moral ones. Religions are vehicles for moving from self-centeredness to Reality-centeredness, where that largely means being more compassionate, etc.

    But Christianity, at least, isn’t primarily about “being moral.” It’s primarily about a loving, personal God that longs to be in relationship with his creation. Because human sin disrupts that relationship, morality has a role, but it’s a subordinate one (and, in itself, insufficient for restoring the divine-human relationship). The primary story is that of God’s self-bestowal on creation–in creating all that is and calling it good, in the calling of the patriarchs, in the liberation of Israel, and in the conjoining of the divine and the creaturely in Jesus–not human efforts to be more moral.

    Because Hick has prescinded from the particulars of the Christian story, though, he is left with little choice but to make the subordinate theme of morality central to religion. He’s hardly alone in this, since many people seem to think that the purpose of religion is to make people “good.” But, from a Christian perspective at least, that is really to miss the point–which is the overflowing love and grace of God. Ironically, then, Hick’s position ends up being more human-centered than Reality-centered, since the focus is on our moral self-improvement instead of on God.

  • Further thoughts on pluralism

    Thinking a bit more about John Hick’s pluralism, spurred on by some of the excellent comments on the last post, it does seem that my original worry about Hick’s position could be stated in a stronger form.

    My question was whether it’s necessary to believe in a tradition in a non-pluralist way (i.e., to believe that my tradition gets it right about the divine, at least in essentials) in order for it to be “soteriologically efficacious.” For if I come to view my tradition as simply a culturally conditioned response to the divine, that may prevent me from fully immersing myself in it, or committing to it, in the way necessary to move from self-centeredness to Reality-centeredness (to use Hick’s terms).

    But an even stronger form of the objection, it seems to me, is that, on the Hickian hypothesis, it’s not clear what justification I have for believing that my tradition is soteriologically efficacious in the first place. Since the Real is, ex hypothesi, unknowable in itself, what reason do I have to believe that my tradition constitutes a reliable guide for relating to it?

    The more traditional Christian view is that, while God remains incomprehensible, we can know certain truths about God (both through the use of natural reason and because God has revealed Godself to us). Because of this, we believe certain ways of relating to God are appropriate and others not. If we didn’t believe that such knowledge was possible, what grounds would we have for affirming the appropriateness of our (or any) traditition as a way of relating to the divine?

    This doesn’t, however, commit us to a strong form of exclusivism. For it’s possible to hold that God is known/revealed in other tradtions and also to recognize that there is no tradition-independent (or subject-independent) way of establishing the truth of a single tradition. My reasons for being a Christian, for example, depend in part on my social and cultural context, personal experiences, and evaluative judgments–which means that there is an irreducible element of personal commitment in adhering to a particular tradition. This doesn’t make it irrational, but should humble us a bit in making overly strong claims for our own tradition. It also, however, doesn’t require us to give up its truth claims.

  • Religious pluralism revisited

    One common criticism of the pluralistic view of religions–and one that I have found persuasive–is that it presupposes a “god’s eye” vantage point that seems to be ruled out by the theory itself. That is, asserting that all religions provide a partial perspective on the divine, seems to imply that the pluralist can discern clearly the Reality that the various religious traditions perceive only dimly.

    John Hick, who probably has as large a claim as anyone to putting religious pluralism on the agenda of (Anglo-American) philosophy of religion, has a response to this objection. The pluralist hypothesis, he says, is an inductive hypothesis, founded in part on the assumption that religious experience is not illusory:

    The advocate of the pluralist understanding cannot pretend to any such cosmic vision. How then does he profess to know that the situation is indeed as he depicts it? The answer is that he does not profess to know this, if by knowledge we mean infallible cognition. Nor indeed can anyone else claim to have knowledge, in this sense, of either the exclusivist or inclusivist picture. All of them are, strictly speaking, hypotheses. The pluralist hypothesis is arrived at inductively. One starts from the fact that many human beings experience life in relation to a limitlessly greater transcendent Reality–whether the direction of transcendence be beyond our present existence or within its hidden depths. […] Treating one’s own form of religious experience, then, as veridical–as an experience (however dim, like “seeing through a glass darkly”) of transcendent divine Reality–one then has to take account of the fact that there are other great streams of religious experience which take different forms, are shaped by different conceptualities, and embodied in different institutions, art forms, and life-styles. In other words, besides one’s own religion, sustained by its distinctive form of religious experience, there are also other religions, through each of which flows the life blood of a different form of religious experience. What account is one to give of this plurality? (Problems of Religious Pluralism, pp. 37-38)

    Assuming that religious experience is to some extent veridical, Hick asks, is it more reasonable to think that one (and only one) tradition has discerned the truth about the divine, or that all the major traditions contain some truthful perception of that Reality? Hick’s argument is that the pluralistic hypothesis is the most reasonable.

    Most mainline Christians (Protestant and Catholic) no longer take the hard-line exclusivist stance that Christianity is true and other religions simply false. They also generally affirm that adherents of other religions can find salvation (though there’s a variety of accounts about how that’s supposed to work). But mainline theology has generally moved in the direction of “inclusivism.” What Hick contends, though, is that inclusivism is a logically unstable half-way house between exclusivism and a more thorough-going pluralism. His argument hinges on his understanding of the nature of salvation.

    For Hick, salvation is the process whereby we move from being self-centered to “Reality-centered.” That is, we become less preoccupied with our selves and move toward a universal compassion. Religion, then, is a vehicle for attaining salvation/liberation. And since, as seems evident, no one religion has a monopoly on this form of liberation, it seems reasonable to conclude that all religions with such spiritual and moral fruits are rooted in some kind of authentic experience of ultimate Reality. And it further seems to follow that no one religion can, on these grounds at any rate, claim to be the one unsurpassable truth.

    Religions–with their complex systems of symbol, myth, metaphysics, ritual, devotional practices, ethical principles, art, and social organization–are culturally conditioned responses to an encounter with “the Real”–an encounter often mediated through charismatic leaders and founders. What accounts the differences among religions is the diversity among human beings: their cultures, their histories, and other factors that shape their response to ultimate Reality. The Real as it appears in forms of religion must be distinguished from the Real as it is in itself. Different religions may reflect different aspects of the Real, but, as far as we can observe their effects, it would be presumptuous to assert that one is superior to the rest.

    Hick to some extent offers a pragmatic criterion of religious truth. Various culturally conditioned manifestations of the Real are true and good to the extent that they enable their adherents to move from self-centeredness to Reality-centeredness. “These many different perceptions of the Real, both theistic and non-theistic, can only establish themselves as authentic by their soteriological efficacy” (p. 44). This doesn’t mean that religions don’t make truth-claims, but that their ultimate claims–in this life at any rate–can only be evaluated by their efficacy in making salvation possible.

    I think this version of pluralism is stronger than it’s often given credit for, and Hick has responses to some of the most common objections. But one question that occurs to me is whether the “soteriological efficacy” of a particular religion depends, at least in part, on its being believed in a non-pluralistic fashion. In other words, many of the great saints of the Christian tradition seem to be those who believed most wholeheartedly in Christianity’s truth claims. By contrast, if I come to see Christianity as one among many culturally conditioned responses to the Real, might it not be harder for the Christian narrative, symbols, practices, etc. to form me in a way that makes salvation/liberation possible? Won’t I be tempted to hold them at arm’s length, having seen them as the product of human minds as much as the divine mind?

    Of course, Hick might well respond that this is simply the position that all moderately critical religious believers find themselves in. Anyone who has rejected the inerrancy of the Bible and the infallibility of church and tradition must reckon with the fact that, to some extent, their religion is man-made. It may be a response to a divine revelation, but that revelation is mediated through human language, symbols, and concepts. Wholehearted, uncritical belief just isn’t an option.

  • Addendum to previous post

    Something funky happened to that last post, and part of it got cut out. But in the version I originally wrote, I included on my list H. Richard Niebuhr’s Radical Monotheism and Western Culture. I posted a bit about it here.

  • Toward a non-anthropocentric theology

    Jeremy asked if I’d recommend any books on moving away from an anthropocentric theology. This is a question at the intersection of some perennial ATR themes, so I thought I’d post the answer here. The following list makes no pretense to be either authoritative or exhaustive, but these are some books (in no particular order) that I’ve found helpful:

    Bill McKibben, The Comforting Whirlwind: God, Job, and the Scale of Creation

    H. Paul Santmire, Nature Reborn

    Andrew Linzey, Animal Theology

    Denis Edwards, Ecology at the Heart of Faith

    Jay McDaniel, Of God and Pelicans

    James M. Gustafson, An Examined Faith

    Ian Bradley, God Is Green

    Christopher Southgate, The Groaning of Creation

    Of course, a lot depends here on what we mean by “moving away from anthropocentrism.” But, at a minimum, I think it’s any theology which recognizes that the rest of creation does not exist solely for the sake of human beings and that God’s purposes encompass more than human salvation. The books above range from fairly orthodox to fairly heterodox, and I wouldn’t endorse everything in all of them, but all provide stimulating food for thought. The list doesn’t include any classic sources, which isn’t to deny that there are resources in the tradition for a less anthropocentric theology (Augustine, Anselm, Luther, Calvin, Wesley and others contain material that might be richly mined, it seems to me); neither does the list include much in the way of biblical studies, but that also seems like an important area for thought on this topic.

    p.s. Other recommendations are welcome!

  • Creaturely theology

    Following on the heels of his Why Animal Suffering Matters, Andrew Linzey’s Creatures of the Same God addresses many of the same issues, but from a more explicitly theological point of view. In fact, Creatures is a collection of mostly previously published essays, expanding on and refining ideas first developed in Linzey’s other books, especially Animal Theology and Animal Gospel.

    The persistent theme of the book is religion’s–particularly Christianity’s–potential for being at the forefront of the movement for animal protection. Linzey is a cold-eyed realist when it comes to Christianity’s track record on the treatment of animals, but he’s just as firm in his insistence that the triune God loves each and every creature she has made and that human beings are called to be the “servant species,” caring for the well-being of all creation, particularly our fellow sentients.

    In the first three chapters, Linzey summarizes the theological case for animal rights. In “Religion and Sensitivity to Animal Suffering” he contends that religion provides spiritual vision and hope necessary for long-haul causes that often seem hopeless. “Theology as if Animals Mattered” highlights some of the challenges traditional theology faces if we take animals seriously as fellow creatures. And “Animal Rights and Animal Theology” traces some of the history of Christian concern for animals, which is surprisingly robust given the disregard the mainstream theological tradition has shown for the interests of animals.

    The next two chapters take a somewhat more polemical turn. In “The Conflict Between Ecotheology and Animal Theology” Linzey shows that the two movements aren’t necessarily in sync, particularly when it comes to their view of “nature.” Ecotheologians err, Linzey says, when they treat the natural world as “sacred” or as an unambiguous source of moral norms. Ecotheologians see little need for the redemption of nature. Animal theologians, with their concern for the suffering of particular individual creatures, are more willing to say that nature doesn’t reflect God’s ultimate will for creation. Thus nature, along with humanity, stands in need of redemption.

    In “Responding to the Debate about Animal Theology” Linzey engages with several critical readings of his work. Some of the points that stand out here are his frank confession that the Bible is not uniformly “pro-animal” (just as it isn’t uniformly “pro-woman”) and therefore a critical reading is necessary in order to draw out principles for expanding the circle of moral concern. This concern is rooted in the paradigm of Jesus’ self-giving love for others. He also defends his radicalization of Karl Barth’s doctrine of the Incarnation, arguing, in a lovely turn of phrase, that “the incarnation is God’s love affair with all flesh” (p. 51). In fact, he contends, this is a recovery of the patristic doctrine of the Incarnation and an affirmation of the “Cosmic Christ” in whom all things have their being and life.

    Two interesting essays in the second half of the book mine ancient Christian history for a pro-animal perspective. “Jesus and Animals” draws on certain non-canonical works to show that, at the very least, certain early Christians believed that the coming of Jesus had implications for relations with non-human animals. Some of these writings show Jesus healing animals, creating living sparrows out of clay, and restoring the edenic, non-violent, non-competitive relationship between humans and animals. Linzey suggests that some of these stories may have elements that can be traced back to the historical Jesus, and certainly depict a valuable strain of early Christian belief and spirituality that has gotten lost over the ages.

    “Vegetarianism in Early Chinese Christianity” draws on the “Jesus Sutras,” ancient manuscripts that indicate the existence of an early Chinese form of Christianity, dating back well before the arrival of Catholic missionaries. Possibly influenced by Taoism or Buddhism, these writings seem to depict a non-violent, vegetarian Christianity that flourished for some time before being wiped out. To Linzey, this suggests a path not taken, though one we might find our way back to.

    Finally, “On Being an Animal Liturgist” is a slightly more biographical piece, detailing the responses to the publication of Linzey’s Animal Rites, a book of prayers and liturgies for animals. Animals have been largely excluded from the worship of the Christian church; even ecologically sensitive worship tends to focus on the Earth or the environment in general. But animals–particularly companion animals–are very significant parts of many people’s lives. Though roundly mocked in official church quarters, Linzey stoutly defends this endeavor as both meeting a real pastoral need and striking a blow against the starkly anthropocentric focus of so much Christian worship.

    The book concludes with an agenda for a pro-animal Christianity. This includes animal-friendly biblical scholarship, theology, ministry, and rites. Linzey makes the somewhat surprising claim that animals are not just one issue among others that theology might engage with, but a test of any adequate theology. This is because theology ought to be truly theocentric:

    Ludwig Feuerbach famously argued that Christianity is nothing other than the self-aggrandizement, even the deification of the human species. To avoid this charge, theology needs to show how it can provide what it promises–namely a truly Godward (rather than a simply anthropocentric) view of the world. Its obsession with human beings to the exclusion of all else betokens a deeply unbalanced doctrine of God the Creator. Animal theology can help save Christians from the idolarty of self-worship. (p. 15)

    I don’t have much critical to say here, since I agree with most of what Linzey writes. I do think the relationship between animal theology and eco-theology merits more exploration. I agree that Linzey has put his finger on a weakness of at least some eco-theology, which takes too rosy a view of the natural world. And yet, I’m not entirely on board with Linzey’s apparent endorsement of a “cosmic fall” to explain the disorders or predation and suffering, signs of creation’s “groaning.”

    I think a middle way is possible that affirms both the inherent goodness of the created order and its need for redemption. Denis Edwards, whom Linzey mentions favorably, is one such theologian who has tried to give an account of natural evil in an evolutionary context, but also strongly emphasizes our kinship with other animals. He avoids an excessive “holism” and the attendant moral egalitariansim that would give equal moral rights to all life-forms. Like Linzey, Edwards ascribes to human beings a special role, but one of experiencing kinship with other creatures and of caring for the earth. This is very close to Linzey’s notion of human beings as the servant species, and provides a way of thinking about our role in the world that would support both animal protection and sound ecological awareness and practices.

  • Placher on atonement, one last time

    The Christian Century recently published a posthumous article by the late Presbyterian theologian William Placher: “How Does Jesus Save?” In it, Placher wrestles, as he had in the past (including in his wonderful book Jesus the Savior), with various theories of the atonement and their shortcomings. He sees “liberals” and “conservatives” increasingly at loggerheads over “moral influence” and “substitutionary” theories of the atonement. He also criticizes the recent vogue for atonement theories based on the work of Rene Girard as insufficient for acheiving the kind of salvation we need.

    Toward the end of the piece, Placher proposes a return to–or at least a re-examination of–the theories of church fathers like Irenaeus and Athanasius, which he refers to as “mystical” or “physical” theories of salvation (Irenaeus’ version is also sometimes referred to as the “recapitulation” theory). The basic idea is that Jesus saves us by identifying himself with human life in all its glory and misery, even unto death on a cross. The Son of God identifies himself with outcasts, the sick, and the sinful and, in the “whole course of his obedience” (borrowing a phrase from Calvin), restores human nature and offers it back to God the Father:

    Only when God incarnate has welcomed sinners into his table fellowship, cured those who suffered, died the death assigned the blaspheming and seditious, even gone into the realm of those who have rejected God and exist in a hell of utter isolation (I pick up at the end a theme most eloquently presented in our time by Hans Urs von Balthasar)–only when this God incarnate has been raised can we glimpse the expansiveness of God’s work of salvation. It is only the crucified One who can save us all.

    I think one possible (and salutary) implication of this view, not mentioned here by Placher, is that it places the atonement in the context of creation. Rather than simply a forensic balancing of accounts, the incarnation is the means by which God restores humanity to the path God intended for us, within God’s good creation.