Wednesday, March 07, 2007

A Little Clarification Please?


Schleiermacher in his Hermeneutics & Criticism very importantly distinguishes between a philological reading of the text and a dogmatic reading of the text. The philological reading isolates every text of every writer while the dogmatic reading regards the New Testament as One work of One writer. Importantly, he places these in opposition.

"In the application to the N.T. the philological perspective, which isolates every text of every writer, and the dogmatic perspective, which regards the N.T. as One work of One writer, are opposed" (52, #22).

Now Schleiermacher will go on to posit that these are in a dialectical relationship (mutually dependent although in opposition). He does however say that the philological explanation must precede approaching the N.T. as a whole.

Translation (while running the risk of nuancing and oversimplifying): We cannot lose sight of the individual writers in the New Testament (with all their idiosyncrasies and different 'theologies' if you will) by saying that it is all written by the Holy Spirit in some way. In fact, we must first start with understanding what Paul meant (not just broader theologies, but also individual words) and take that seriously before we broaden out to understanding a general "NT theology".

This also seems to play into our understanding of the role of Systematic Theology. Most scholars would agree that if a Systematic Theology is even possible (which many in the non-conservative camp deny) it has to rest on a good grammtico-historical exegesis of the text. In the words of Richard Gaffin, "Systematics rests on good exegesis".

My problem is when these lines are blurred. When we talk of things like a "Two-Adam Christology" in Paul or a Kline-ian reading of the "theophanic glory-cloud" or possibly even an "abeyance of eschatological judgment" found in Genesis 3 (although this is a little different in my mind), how much can we call this reading "Pauline"? When Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 15 did he in fact have in mind a 2-Adam Christology that he was trying to get across to a new and morally immature church in Corinth? I am not in any way denying the validity of such a reading, I am only saying it falls under the realm of a dogmatic reading rather than a philological one and by calling such a system "Pauline" we might be blurring the distinction.

Monday, March 05, 2007

The Paradox of Death & Life In Christ

I thought may I had over-emphasized in my last post, but I randomly opened a book on the shelf by Rodney Clapp called Tortured Wonders: Christian Spirituality for People, not Angels. The page I happened upon said this:

As we learn to acknolwedge and admit the reality of death, rather than deny it, we can prepare for our own death by familiarizing ourselves with it while it remains (probably) at some distance...We should not downplay or suppress the reality of death in our worship. Every occasion of worship, after all, harks to the death of Christ on a cross. Every baptism is a death, a drowning, and we should not gloss this.

Where then is the paradox? That this death brings life. It brings life now, but only insofar as its hope is in the future, not in this life. To grasp your own death as a Christian is to truly "hide your life in Christ" (Colossians 3; II Corinthians 4:18; Hebrews 11:1). You are dead to what goes on in this world and alive only to the Kingdom of God. Everything we do in this world is worthless unless it translates into eternity, unless it impacts the Kingdom. And I am sorry to say, even most of what we do at church doesn't impact the Kingdom and will eventually waste away with the rest of us.

The Royal Consciousness


Walter Brueggemann rightly speaks of the "golden age" of Solomon as a time of spiritual decay. Times of satisfaction are never good for the Spiritual life. It is in the passion and the longing for something more just and right that we thrive as spiritual people. Those times where we are in no danger and have become "established", Brueggemann calls "the Royal Consciousness" (more or less, although I am summarizing and editing a bit).

He says:The royal consciousness leads people to numbness, especially to numbness about death. It is the task of prophetic ministry and imagination to bring people to engage their experience of suffering to death (Prophetic Imagination, 41)

How true this is! We, as Christians, HAVE to learn to take the advice in Ecclesiastes, "Meaningless (or better translated, Stupid!), Meaningless, all is meaningless!" The world does not work the way we think it should. We can't keep putting that fact under the rug and keep our happy faces on all the time. The quicker we can come to grips with the fact that we will all die and that the good people oftentimes get screwed in life while the swindlers and thieves get rich, the quicker we will give up this nonsense of security.

You will not be remembered. A sobering fact indeed. No one, I mean no one, will even know you ever existed except for some name on a list, in a hundred years. We have to face this fact. But we still try don't we. Why? Because we cannot face our own death. We cannot imagine truly a time when we will no longer be. But if we can do that, if we can move as Heidegger calls it, into Authenticity, then we are free. We are free to serve God because we truly understand, not just with our mouths like we like to do, but with our lives, we will understand that everything is futile in this life, everything.