Preamble

There is a story told by Ralph Woods writing in First Things:

An evangelical reporter is said to have asked Karl Barth, when he was visiting the USA in 1962, whether he had ever been saved. “Yes,” Barth is rumoured to have replied. “Then tell us about your salvation experience,” the reporter eagerly requested. “It happened in a.d. 34, when Jesus was crucified, and God raised him from the dead.”

What do you think of his answer? Should it have been about the time he made a ‘decision for Christ’?  Or do you agree with his answer being about what Jesus has done?  The question exposes a very real debate and tension between the objective work of Christ, and our subjective existential response. 

One more question.  Do you think Paul knew he was a sinner in need of salvation before he encountered Christ on the road to Damascus?  Another way to frame this is, more generally, do you think Paul knew about the plight of humankind before he knew what the solution was?  Again, this is another tension framing the discussion to follow.

The paper attached below is ostensibly about Paul’s concept of participation and about how to respond to the challenges a biblical scholar (E. P. Sanders) makes on this topic.  On a personal level, the exercise helped me work through the relationship between the objective, unconditional, saving work of Christ, and our subjective, existential recognition of it.  These two things aren’t in competition with each other – instead one forms the other.  In this paper, I develop a model of this relationship based on the thought of Karl Barth, Douglas Campbell and Susan Eastman.

Abstract

E.P. Sanders, in his influential book Paul and Palestinian Judaism, said that ‘participation’ was the heart of Paul’s thought. He also said that, as moderns, we do not understand the concept of participation. Thus, Sanders posed a challenge that has been an ongoing debate in biblical and theological studies. In this paper I formulate a response to Sanders’ challenge. I argue that participation requires (a) an objective soteriology that calls forth an existential response, and (b) that this is done through the second-personal intersubjective fellowship of the Holy Spirit. I also attempt to explain why participation has been such an elusive concept in modern theology.

Paper Summary

Incorporation in the body of Christ is the heart of Paul’s theology. 

E. P. Sanders

We seem to lack a category of ‘reality’ – real participation in Christ.  … What Paul concretely thought [about participation] cannot be directly appropriated by Christians today. 

E. P. Sanders

Is Paul’s understanding of the concept of participation a mystery to modern people?  According to E. P. Sanders, it is.  This would not be too much of a problem except for one other assertion from Sanders: that participation is the heart of Paul’s thought.  String those two assertions together and one has the disturbing conclusion that the modern person, and therefore presumably today’s church, is unable to understand Paul.  No wonder that these assertions have ignited much biblical and theological debate.  And there may be a certain amount of truth to Sanders’ claims; Paul certainly is an enigma.  Nevertheless, I will attempt to formulate the beginning of an answer to Sanders. 

I intend sketch a model of participation that reinforces one insight of Sanders’ thinking; that Paul’s thought ran from solution to problem.  I have condensed the attached paper and outline the development of this model through the following steps: 

1. First, I will briefly outline some of Sanders’ key insights, questions, and assumptions.
2. Then I will show that Sanders has really adopted a problem-solution soteriology, and the implications of this.
3. Then I will develop a model consistent with a solution-problem schema that I believe answers Sanders’ challenges, and includes a dimension that is missing in the choices that Sanders presents.  This dimension, which bridges and transcends the objective and subjective, is the ingredient that starts to illustrate the concept of participation.
4. In concluding, I will offer some thoughts on why Sanders could not have constructed such a model based on his assumptions and methodology and why participation seems so elusive.

So, let me begin by quickly summarising some insights and challenges in Sanders’ interpretation of Paul.

Continue reading “#9 The problem of participation in Paul: a theological study”

As can be seen in this blog, human flourishing is a predominant theme and concern.  However, it has been a rare theme specifically addressed in theology, at least the theology that I have encountered. 

In a recent project in my studies, I chose to explore the work of Miroslav Volf as he specifically addresses a theology of human flourishing.  Although better known for the book “Exclusion and Embrace,”[1] Volf addresses themes related to human flourishing work in “A Public Faith”[2] (APF) and “For the Life of the World,”[3] (FtLotW), which were the subjects of analysis.

The immediate methodological[4] question is by what yardstick or criteria do I assess Volf?  Post-liberal theologians have wrestled with “how one position may be judged to be superior [to another]”[5] given their conviction that it is an “illusion to suppose that there is some neutral standing ground” for tradition independent enquiry.[6]

The way out of this logjam is to let Volf himself guide us.  In the very last paragraph of FtLotW, Volf gives the last word to his mentor Jurgen Moltmann.[7]  So I used Moltmann to guide the course of criteria for assessment.  The first two steps of my method, therefore were as follows:

Step 1: Using Moltmann’s book “Theology of Hope,” draw out a heuristic lens in which to make an assessment.

Step 2: Extend this heuristic lens by connecting it to human flourishing.  This step will be presuppositional and in a propositional summary form.[8] 

I then investigated Volf’s two books against the heuristic lens developed in steps 1 and 2. 

My criticism of Volf centred mainly around his resorting to a taxonomy of description (little lists that he uses to advance his argument) which are helpful to follow his line of thought but gives the illusion of root cause analysis.  Describing symptoms, such as the “malfunctions of faith”[9] lacks explanatory power in the fundamental cause of why faith malfunctions.  I would have liked to see a continuation of the work of Moltmann on how eschatology and hope relate to human flourishing:  Does our understanding of hope and eschatology affect our imagination, innovation, improvisation, and creativity?  Do these components and others lead to human flourishing?  What does Christianity bring that is distinctive?

Continue reading “#8 Moltmann: Hope and Human Flourishing”

I recently did an exercise for my coursework where I undertook a narrative reading of Ephesians. This was an enjoyable and illuminating experience, which also provided some cause for reflection. I took away the following lessons:

Continue reading “#7 Lessons from a narrative reading of Ephesians”

In his book, Seriously Dangerous Religion, Iain Provan makes a clear distinction between the Judeo-Christian view of the world and the classical world from which Christianity emerged.[1]  Furthermore, he contends that this view of the world was a key ingredient in the intentional drive to change the world for the better, that is, human agency.[2]  Other scholars such as Edwin Judge and Mark Strom also support the following hypothesis: that Judeo-Christian thought was an overhaul of the Graeco-Roman conceptual nature of reality (cosmos) resulting in a new way of formulating society and of being human in the world (anthropology).  Furthermore, this new way of thinking gave rise to greater human agency in the transformation of the world as well as the transformation of the self. 

Continue reading “#6 – Is the Judeo-Christian worldview the wellspring of human agency?”

The Plenary Council is a process being run by the Catholic church. It is a good opportunity to re-imagine what is possible and put together a blueprint of what this looks like in the local neighbourhood.

So … I have enrolled in a postgraduate research degree!  The college is very much aimed at forming the researcher – yes, content is important of course, but the process leaves one a different person.  It’s to form them in the research mindset and to participate in the academy.  As far as content is concerned, research itself seems to be quite a stringent process and so needs to be quite focused.  I have a mental picture of what this looks like:  Current research is a painted wall.  To add to painted wall, you need to find that bit of the wall not currently covered with paint – but to do so you need to tap into the vast amounts of scaffolding constructed by past painters, first of all making sure it is sound, adding your own scaffolding and finally painting the little bit that isn’t covered.  Scaffolding is the research, and painting is the writing.   To try and make the whole process manageable, researches need to focus their research question down to a very specific area.  Maybe a thesis a bit like this:  “The thickness of varnish on cuckoo clocks constructed in Bavaria between 1873 and 1897”.  (Apologies if someone has actually done that thesis.)  You know what I mean.   In all of that, a person could forget why they started painting in the first place – their purpose and the big picture.

Continue reading “#4 Research and Purpose, and Bridge-building?”

The biblical narrative in its historical context reaching back to bedrock.

I’ll begin with Tom Wright (or NT Wright for his academic works).  I was reading about Tom in a newsletter back in 2005/6 and how he upsets both the left and the right.  Then he was invited to Brisbane by the then Archbishop for a series of lectures.  The lectures are so rich that I need to keep listening to them over and over again.  His dulcet English tones defy the soaring ideas behind his words – ideas that send my imagination to form epic imagery (the movie 300 meets the television series AD?) on the impact of Christ on the late classical world and thereafter.  Tom’s genius comes from the fact that he is primarily a historian, not a theologian, and his task is to understand how the Greek scriptures were understood in the context of their day and in the light of the Hebrew scriptures.

Continue reading “#3 Blog roadmap, scope and research leads”

It’s been almost 12 months since I wrote that first post on the Mexican fisherman and the MBA graduate. It was very much written from intuition, and, as one can see, with a felt “longing of some distant echo that has been lost”.

I have been on quite a journey of discovery since then, just uncovering the landscape on the ideas behind that intuition and longing. The discovery is not over – it still feels like a beginning, but this is a journey to be shared. So in the next post (#3), I do a high-level flyover of this landscape to show the scope of the blog and to identify the start of research threads that others could pick up if I get hit by a bus. (Why is it always a bus?).

Continue reading “#2 Preamble to #3”

You may have heard the story of the story of the Mexican Fisherman and the MBA from Harvard. It goes like this:

An American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican replied, “only a little while. The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish? The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs. The American then asked, “but what do you do with the rest of your time?”

Continue reading “#1 Echoes of another way”