A brief emendation

I finished the last chapter of John Piper's Desiring God this morning. I still need to read the appendixes, but I need to retract my earlier criticism of his discussion of duty. In his concluding chapter Piper gives seven reasons why he wrote the book and addresses several remaining objections. One of the smaller reservations he addresses is what to do when our desire is not to do our duty with joy. He does not advocate refusing the duty, nor does he say that doing the duty in spite of contrary feelings is worthless, though he does admit that it is sin (to which I agree). He then gives a brief guideline for dealing with those instances when our feelings are thwarting our joy in doing our duty and one of the appendixes deals more fully with the question. So, I am recanting my earlier criticism of Piper's discussion of duty having been fully satisfied by his reply in the final chapter and probably abundantly satisfied by the time I finish the appendixes.

To finish off this brief emendation then, I'd like to share a verse from Ecclesiastes, which was expounded to me by John Ferguson during his sermons series on Ecclesiastes, and which I think fits well what Piper is getting at:

"There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from his who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God." Ecclesiastes 2:24-26

So to the one who finds joy in Christ shall more joy be given, but to the one who pursues joy apart from Christ that gain shall also be given to the one whose joy is in Christ. There is no enjoyment that is not given by God. All the pleasures of sin are far from joy, but are merely the fleeting sensations of the self before it is cast into destruction.

After Awhile

Recent events have prevented me from posting anything new for awhile, but I've still been reading. After awhile, it is now time for me to share a few thoughts on the books I've recently finished and have begun reading.

One of the books on my blog list is Historiography Secular and Sacred by Gordon Clark. Although it is not his most well-known book, nor perhaps his most beneficial I still found it to be exceptionally good. His criticisms of secular theories of history and his sharp criticism of unorthodox religious theories of history are still applicable today. Clark is not an historian, but rather a philosopher whose primary interest in this book is outlining an coherent and consistent philosophy of history. It took me awhile to get through all of the book during the busy period over the last few weeks, but of particular interest were the chapters on Marxism and Dialectical Theology's view of History. There is only one chapter in which Clark describes an orthodox Christian view of history and it is the chapter on Augustine's viewpoint described primarily in the major work, City of God. This work by Augustine is one I need to get my hands on to read. Serious historians will benefit from reading Clark's book whether or not they disagree with his conclusions, for his penetrating critiques force one to think carefully about the implications of one's premises and conclusions.

I also read a short biographical sketch on Augustine, Luther, and Calvin written by John Piper. The book is one of four in a series of books that were originally delivered as sermon lectures to pastors at a conference. The pastoral style is evident in Piper's writing, but that might be said of all of his books perhaps. I am almost through with Desiring God and have enjoyed Piper's insight and keen exegesis of Scripture. I don't really care for the "Christian Hedonist" label myself, and it does feel a bit redundant to me when Piper consistently claims this or that Scripture or this or that Biblical character is exemplary of Christian Hedonism. But this speaks more to my dislike for labels than it does for Piper's writing or indeed his purpose in using the label. My only serious gripe with the book was some of Piper's discussion of "duty" in the early chapters. I understand his use of the term and he tends to qualify it with affective adjectives, but I would have liked it better if he would have talked about duty from a positive standpoint rather than accepting the negative valence that sometimes persists in our culture. Duty can certainly be joyous and hedonistic in the sense that Piper is advocating, and I think Piper would admit as much and in fact does so implicitly in his book. And there is something to be said for doing our duty even when we don't feel like it initially, for it is sometimes in the doing, or in the taking up of the task, that we find the joy that we were missing in grudging the task before beginning. Although it is profitable to seek to have a right spirit and understanding before we begin anything, and especially when we have a bad attitude, I do believe that sometimes understanding is awaiting the step toward action in spite of the fleshly disdain. If I missed Piper's clear articulation of this very point then I recant, but it seemed that it was less clear than it was evident.

Another book that I read was the seventh installment of Harry Potter. The book was all that one could have hoped for it to be in my opinion. Although there were more deaths than I had expected and darker entanglements, these made the ending all the better. Most of my predictions about the book were realized, though very few came out exactly as I expected. My strongest opinions were concerning Snape and Dumbledore and I was glad to see that they were fulfilled. I do not know for certain if the book could have been as good otherwise, but I can't imagine how it could be if such had been the case. It was good to be at the end and it will be interesting to see what Rowling will write next and when. C.S. Lewis didn't write any popular fiction (though my favorite fiction book of his, Till We Have Faces, was written later) after Narnia, and J.R.R. Tolkien did not publish anything as successful as LOTR. But both of these writers had other great books and I think Rowling will as well if she chooses to write, regardless of whether or not they become as wildly popular as Harry Potter has. Her ability to weave the simplest details into the plot and her wonderful talent in creating charming and diverse characters with genuinely unique personalities and interaction is worth having in other stories.

Lastly, I just finished a recently purchased fiction book that came out this year. The Children of Húrin, written by J.R.R. Tolkien and edited by his son, Christopher, is an expansion of one the legends told in brief in the Silmarillion and the Lost Tales (though I have not read the latter). The book read like a combination between Greek tragedy and Medieval romance. It combined the Greek elements of fate and hubris with the Medieval emphasis on virtue and the somewhat vaunted language of nobility. The plot was good and the characters drew my sympathy for their human blindness to the wisdom that would have delivered them from their ill fate. Stories with such elements remind me of how blind my own eyes are to see the future and the consequences of my choices and actions--whether well thought out or rashly done. It is a great comfort to rest in the Providence of God and His infallibly good purposes for those who are His chosen and that by His own good pleasure.

Justified for Christ's sake

I recently read Chapter XI of Gordon Clark's commentary or exposition on the Westminster Confession of Faith. The title of the chapter is "Of Justification" and follows the WCF's sectional delineation. The book itself is title "What Do Presbyterians Believe?"

In recent days a controversial issue has arisen in the Presbyterian Church in American denomination under the general label of "Federal Vision." I am not well versed enough in the controversy to explicate it mains points here and the proponents of Federal Vision are diverse and sometimes contradictory of each other on certain points of importance. One of the major concerns that was dealt with through a special commission of elders and addressed in a report to the General Assembly was the question of whether Federal Vision was amenable or consistent with the WCF's statement on justification. The decision was, generally speaking, that it was not consistent. Despite some honorable aims of several of the proponents of Federal Vision, the burden remains upon them to formulate a consistent and specific explanation of their position.

The central issue is what does it mean for individuals who are within the Covenant to be united with Christ. The assessment I have heard, but have not corroborated with my own reading, is that the Reformers did little to explain the details of the unbeliever's relationship to Christ within the Covenant. They spoke about the elect's union with Christ and its qualities and benefits, but their discussion of Covenant breakers--that is, those who profess and enter the Covenant but who fall away in unbelief or are revealed in the end not to be elect because of their unbelief--is relatively silent. Some Evangelical Presbyterians in recent days have sought to recover the vitality of the Sacraments of Baptism and The Lord's Supper in the communion of the saints upon the Lord's Day and in obedience to the requirements of the Covenant. I believe these to be important considerations, especially when taken in light of the culture of the larger Church of the United States, which contemns tradition, liturgy, and the foundations of Christian faith and practice. Modernizing and popularizing movements aside, the question of the relationship of unbelievers who are within the Covenant is an important one.

But beyond these contemporary controversial matters, the WCF's chapter on justification is one that has been a supreme encouragement to me and a source of recurrent reflection upon the goodness of Christ and the supremacy of God's purposes in glorifying the name of Christ, and therefore also glorifying His own name.

Clark is a writer who enjoys what I call dialectical writing. That is, he prefers to couch his statements in arguments against contemporary misconceptions, heresies, and inadequacies. In this sense his writing is both apologetic and pastoral. He addresses those weaknesses that are creeping in (or already have too strong a foothold) in the modern Church and provides encouragement to those readers who desire a consistently Biblical knowledge to understand their God and to defend Him against their own foolishness and the fools whom they inevitably encounter.

I particularly like Clark's description of "evangelical." He defines its original use as referring to those "who believed in justification by faith." The importance of this distinction is easy to miss because many people today consider faith as something against reason and/or as something that is their own production rather than the gift of God. But faith cannot be reduced to an emotional experience or a mystical "apprehension" (apart from understanding) of Truth. In another of Clark's books (Thales to Dewey) Clark argues that faith is assent, which includes both intellectual understanding (I know what proposition X means) and willful acceptance (I believe that the meaning of proposition X is true). The Bible is clear that our darkened minds (the word "heart" in Scripture predominantly refers to the intellect and the will) cannot agree with the holiness of God, therefore God saw fit to regenerate the minds of some in order that His name would be glorified. Regeneration precedes faith and faith is granted to the regenerate person by the illumination of the Holy Spirit. Faith cannot be based upon intellectual acumen (for then humans could boast in themselves), nor of moral integrity (again, more reason to boast in oneself), nor of anything contained within the human soul. The WCF is clear on this point. And if we take seriously our "dead" condition absent of both righteousness and faith we must see that it is Christ alone in whom our surety of salvation resides.

In this realization comes another grand conclusion in the WCF--the righteousness which we possess by means of justification is a legal declaration, an acquittal, a statement of position rather than of essence. We are not made into righteous beings (this comes with our glorification upon Christ's return), but we are declared righteous being upon the substitution of Christ's righteousness for our own unrighteousness. This is the idea of imputation as opposed to infusion. Imputation recognizes that the believer is declared righteous, but has not yet been fully delivered from sin--the power of sin is broken because we can not deny our flesh and sinful desires, but the effects of sin in our bodies and upon our minds has not yet been removed. Infusion holds that the believer is either returned to a state of neutrality or of actual righteousness. The flaw in this view is that when one sins he is forced to either doubt the validity of saving faith (I sinned, thus I am not righteous, therefore I must not be truly saved) or doubt the perseverance of faith unto glory (I sinned, thus I am not righteous, therefore I have lost my salvation in Christ). Not only do these create psychological tension for the believer, but they make salvation contingent upon the believer's abilities (rather than Christ's sufficiency) and worst of all these contradict the statements of Scripture that indicate that those whom God has given to Christ shall be preserved by Christ until the end when they will be glorified fully (see John 17). The confession gives practical information about how the sins of the elect are dealt with according to God's holy Law--they too are forgiven and God has promised to sanctify His people and produce good works in them.

Brothers and sister, our hope is in Christ alone, of whom Scripture gives us all the knowledge we need to lead us to vibrant faith and godliness.

Language, Theology, and Aesthetics

This entry includes three separate items; two of which are books and on of which involves some thoughts I have been having as a result of a recent debate.

The two books are Language and Theology by Gordon Clark and Lessing's Laocoön by David Wellbery. The debate was about the appropriate content (in this case, nudity was the issue) for artistic expression, thus aesthetics.

Wellbery's book continues my research into the relationship between rhetoric and hermeneutics. It is, according to my professor, an important book to read because of Lessing's contribution to aesthetic theory. Wellbery's book is an attempt to demonstrate that Lessing's conclusions about aesthetics depend upon an implicit theory of semoitics. The book is interesting, though it risks anachronism, and it does seem to show that empiricist theories of language undergird discussions of aesthetics. Reading Wellbery's assessment of Lessing led me to purchase and read Clark's book on language since the obvious point of interest is whether or not an empiricist theory of language can adequately explain aesthetics, or if Wellbery's assessment provides the best explanation not only for Lessing's thought (on which point the book seems strong) but also for Lessing's shortcomings (on which point the book seems lacking).

Clark's book is broken into two sections, the first dealing with secular theories of language, in particular the school of logical positivism, which I believe Wellbery connects to Lessing's work via semoitics. The second section addresses Christian theories of language, in particular the irrationalist forms. The latter half of the book is exceptional, but has less bearing on the topic of discussion for this post, so I'll have to unfortunately relegate it to silence for now. But Clark's discussion and critique of empirical theories of language (and therefore knowledge) is remarkable for its lucidity and for its (in my assessment) devestating arguments against any empirical theories of knowledge.

In connecting Lessing's work on aesthetics to a semiotics of language, Wellbery notes in particular that Lessing (and others of his time) saw language as an evolutionary development. It began in the basic needs of human beings who were just coming into consciousness and grew every more advanced and precise into the present age (that is, the age of Lessing and his contemporaries) and would eventually advance human beings to a point at which language would be unecessary for the understanding of knowledge. This is the expectation because Lessing had a sensationalist epistemology--not that it was outragious (though in a way it is that too)--but by sensationalist, I mean that he understood knowledge to be achieved through the use of our senses. Aesthetics is that field of production and reception whereby images in both art (including sculpture) and poetry (including prose) direct our senses to apprehend the full knowledge of beauty. Lessing believed that language was more adequate than art for accomplishing this end, which demonstrates his semiotic foundations, or so argues Wellbery.

Clark demonstrates that sensational epistemologies are untenable because sensation is inescapably solipsistic and that ideas are logically prior and therefore determinate of language, signs, and the propositions that seem to be drawn from our sense experiences. Sensation is solipsistic because no one has the same sense exprience as anyone else. There may be similarities granted upon the similarities of our sense faculties, but he gives several examples to show that sense information cannot be generalized into a universal conclusion--thus it is logically invalid in every case and therefore cannot provide any certainty, which is necessary for knowledge to be knowledge of anything at all. Some may quibble with this so-called restrictive view of knowledge, but without certainty anything one wishes to call "knowledge" is really nothing more than opinion, however well-tested that opinion is, because probable conclusions always have exceptions, and where exceptions exist only opinions can be concluded. Clark illustrates this limitation of the senses with the example of color sensation. Take any two colors, say, red and green, and paint them over a strip of grey. The color over the grey portion will not be the same in appearance to the color not over the grey portion. Thus, the background makes a difference in what is perceived. Similarly, optical illusions create distortions in our apprehension, as do hallucinations, etc. Sensation is untenable as a resource for knowledge on this point alone.

But that is not the only point at which sensation (and thus empicism) falters. There is no justification for the claim that from or senses we extrapolate ideas. This critique is aimed directly at the evolutionary theory of language. Some argue that language determines meaning, that our knowledge is constituted by the language we use rather than being constituted by the ideas we possess. This critique also aims at the irrationalists (and more directly so), but it also applies to Lessing and any empiricist theory of language. Rather than summarize his argument here, I suggest to readers that they read Clark himself.

As it relates to aesthetics and the Christian, we ought to ask: how does Scripture define and mark out the boundaries for aesthetic representation and consumption? Is it simply a matter of personal taste or are there certain limitations? What is the proper understanding of aesthetics?

Volumes could no doubt be written on this subject, but I think a few positive statements can be taken as premises:

1. The ultimate purpose of any activity whether productive or preventative is to bring glory to God and enjoy Him forever.
___a. Therefore any aesthetic theory must consider this chief end of man as its telos, or final purpose.

2. If aesthetics experience is chiefly a matter of the senses then we ought to define it in terms of pleasure rather than responsibility--for it seems that Scripture does not dictate any positive commands for aesthetic production.
___a. As a sense experience and therefore inherently subjective, a measure of liberty is afforded to Christian aesthetic production and consumption.
___b. Reservations to this liberty include those matters of production and consumption explicitly or indirectly condemned by Scripture as regards the pursuit of pleasure.

Where goes from these premises will chiefly depend upon one's understanding of how to deduce principles from God's Word and thereby recognize what injunctions it places upon our pursuit of pleasure. For example, it seems that nude depictions for whatever purpose in visual art are questionable at best and more likely condemnable on the face of it. Why? The Bible's descriptions of nakedness are directly connected to shame--note here that shame is not predominantly related to or limited to sexuality, but to the loss of innocence as a result of sinfulness. As fallen beings our wills are now dragged into bondage to the flesh, that is, the passions of our senses. When babies are hungry they cry. When we expect pain we may flee in fear. When we look at our own bodies we desire a certain standard of appearance. Qohelet calls these things vanity and Paul refers to his body as a body of death. Creation, all of Creation, including our bodies, have been affected by the curse of the Fall. This does not mean that all positive goods have been irradicated, but it does means that all positive goods are mediated through our sinful condition. The redemption of our spirit in the Lord Jesus Christ has occurred at the Cross, but we still await the redemption of our bodies at His return and our hope in this redemption of our bodies is based upon Christ's own resurrection and appearance in the incorruptable body in which he appeared to the disciples prior to His ascension.

Not only in aesthetics then ought we to be mindful of our "natural" desires and "basic" needs, for we know as Christians that the natural is tainted by the Fall and will not be fully restored until Christ has finished placing all of His enemies in subjection to His righteous reign and returns to finish for good what God had decreed from eternity past.

In this light it seems that a theology of art must submit itself to the theology of sin and of man, in particular the noetic effects of sin upon humanity.

Heremeneutics

I going to submit a short essay I wrote today on hermeneutics as a brief departure from writing any book reviews. Although, truth be told, the essay was in part influenced by the recent reading in Reymond's systematic theology on the close of the canon, inspiration, and infallibility. Here is the essay:

I did some more reading today on the concept of sensus plenior, which is a hermeneutic principles that historical/grammatical-only interprets often employ upon those NT quotations of the OT that are obvious departures from their OT historical/grammatical context. The justification for sensus plenior is based upon the historical hermeneutic practices of rabbinic Judaism, which employed multiple forms of interpretation, including several that involve a significance beyond the original meaning of the text. This article here explains several of these interpretive principles that match up with sensus plenior. These are:

(1) p’shat (“simple”)—the plain, literal sense of the text, more or less what modern scholars mean by “grammatical-historical exegesis,” which looks to the grammar of the language and the historical setting as background for deciding what a passage means. Modern scholars often consider grammatical-historical exegesis the only valid way to deal with a text; pastors who use other approaches in their sermons usually feel defensive about it before academics. But the rabbis had three other modes of interpreting Scripture, and their validity should not be excluded in advance but related to the validity of their implied presuppositions.

(2) Remez (“hint”)—wherein a word, phrase or other element in the text hints at a truth not conveyed by the p’shat. The implied presupposition is that God can hint at things of which the Bible writers themselves were unaware.

(3) Drash or Midrash (“search”)—an allegorical or homiletical application of a text. This is a species of eisegesis—reading one’s own thoughts into the text—as opposed to exegesis, which is extracting from the text what it actually says. The implied presupposition is that the words of Scripture can legitimately become grist for the mill of human intellect, which God can guide to truths not directly related to the text at all.

(4) Sod (“secret”)—a mystical or hidden meaning arrived at by operating on the numerical values of the Hebrew letters, noting unusual spellings, transposing letters, and the like. For example, two words, the numerical equivalents of whose letters add up to the same amount, are good candidates for revealing a secret through what Arthur Koestler in his book on the inventive mind called “bisociation of ideas.” The implied presupposition is that God invests meaning in the minutest details of Scripture, even the individual letters.

The grammatical/historical-only proponent will often argue (although the author of that article does not) that sensus plenior is reserved for the inspired writers alone (thus denying the Catholic uses of the principle) and thus modern day interpretation must stick to the grammatical-historical approach.

These same folks reject the analogy of faith that seeks to interpret the OT and the NT as one text, with each informing the exegesis of the other. This is, they say, a "spiritualizing" of the text that goes beyond "normal" hermeneutics and is subsequently dangerous because there is no fixed way of determining what is or ought to be "spiritualized."

The rub for those who would reject the analogy of faith and yet accept sensus plenior as a valid method today is that sensus plenior is a "spiritualizing" method when it departs from p'shat. The rub for those who reject the analogy of faith and limit sensus plenior to the NT authors alone face the fact that there are two valid hermeneutics for the NT authors and only one for us. Upon what foundation do they base this distinction? One could infer that NT injunctions against "adding to or taking from" the original word of the apostle could be applied, but this does not seem to be the case, since a sensus plenior interpretation is unpacking the significance of a text and not altering its original meaning. Thus, it would not be a "different" word, although it would be a "fuller" one. There seems to be not indication from the NT that sensus plenior interpretation ceases with the passing of the canon. Indeed, those who accept sensus plenior as applicable for today note that the NT gives no indication that these hermeneutic principles have been annulled.

But is sensus plenior truly a valid form? Those who would argue that the analogy of faith is dangerous should and probably would argue the same for sensus plenior interpretations, since they also fall prey to possible overextension or misapplications of texts. The failsafe is an appeal to consistency with the plain doctrines set forth in Scripture: no interpretation is valid that alters doctrine or departs from it. Those who use sensus plenior under this control seem to have little difference in their hermeneutic from those who employ the analogy of faith, provided one condition: that their interpretations are limited to the redemptive-historical purpose of Scripture. Sensus plenior interpretation that would seek to use Scripture to comment on history since the close of the canon would be a departure from the intention of Scripture itself, which is to present God's revelation of Himself and His purposes in Creation for His own glory.

But what of those who reject both the analogy of faith and the sensus plenior principle for today's interpreters? They must rely upon an argument from silence insofar as they accept sensus plenior for the NT writers and yet reject it for modern exegetes. This seems a very weak position to hold. Secondly, their method of grammatical/historical-only interpretation seems to not only give precedence to history over logic--that is, the Bible must be read as history first, then as a logical whole (which proponents of the analogy of faith would accept as well, since the immediate context precedes the larger)--but they deny a fully logical exegesis and deny the full harmony of the Old and New Testaments (and this despite the fact that any division of Old and New is purely arbitrary). The OT is a book for Jews only except in those passages dealing directly or indirectly with salvation of the Gentiles, whereas the NT is a book for Gentile Christians and converted Jews. But this does not account for the logical unity of Scripture as one message of God.

It is a logical contradiction to assume one message for two people, since those two people, it is argued, have separate eschatological destinies--thus, two distinct messages contained in the same whole. Where does Scripture give warrant for this bifurcation? In the NT we are constantly and consistently told that God has made one people out of two, calling Gentiles into the promise of God having been given full access to all the blessing that are in Christ. The grammatical/historical-only exegete cannot argue that we must stick to this method because it is the method the Bible uses, unless they are also prepared to reject sensus plenior, for it stands as an alternative method employed by the Bible according to some of their proponents. But if the sensus plenior is rejected and the analogy of faith is rejected then what are we to make of those NT uses of the OT that are departures from the historical/grammatical method? What the grammatical/historical-only exegete faces is an insoluble contradiction upon either premise: either (1) they must reject sensus plenior, which leaves them with a list of NT interpretations that contradict their historical/grammatical method, or (2) they must accept sensus plenior for the NT writer only (an argument from silence) and explain the unwarranted assumption of two messages within the one message of God.

On a final note of inquiry, I am curious how those who would accept sensus plenior would explain those NT passages like the one that indicates that Jesus preached the Gospel to Abraham? It does not seem to fit into the rabbinic principles discussed in the article I linked, but it is easily explained by the analogy of faith.

To conclude with my own position, I think that sensus plenior is not only unecessary, but is an implicit denial of sola scriptura insofar as it seeks to attribute rabbinic hermeneutics to the Biblical writers, who expressly claim that their knowledge is from Jesus (who explained the Scriptures to them without formal training) or from the Holy Spirit. Plus it involves an assumption that all of the NT writers would have been familiar with Rabbinical methods of exegesis, which seems doubtful. They did not claim to possess an authoritative interpretation based upon a hermeneutic principle, but upon the revelation of Jesus Christ. Sensus plenior is an attempt to avoid the analogy of faith while accepting the historical/grammatical-only position.

The analogy of faith is adequate and sound because it employs a grammatical/historical approach and it allows the entirely of Scripture as one message of God to one people of God to be taken as a logical whole rather than as two separate logical wholes (which MUST be done if you have two audiences who are receiving different eschatological destinies). The analogy of faith can be misused or misapplied, but this is a specious argument against it, since any method of interpretation, including the grammatical/historical can be misused or misapplied based on numerous factors (a lack of historical/cultural information about the audience or author, an obscure or imprecise grammatical phrasing or idiom, etc.). Those who reject the analogy of faith are really rejecting the logic of Scripture as one message in favor of historizing approach that must have two messages, two peoples, and a self-conflicting hermeneutic.