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Church Doctrine & the Bible: A Review

David Instone-Brewer. Church Doctrine & the Bible. Scripture in Context. Lexham Press, 2020.

The latest entry in the Lexham Press “Scripture in Context” series focuses on the relationship between Christian doctrines and the Bible. Throughout the book, David Instone-Brewer, a research fellow at Tyndale House and specialist in Judaism in the first century, takes his knowledge of the Bible to explore the nuances of Christian doctrines, sometimes with surprising results.

There is a lot to like about this little book, but let me begin with some of the things I didn’t like. Here I’ll note three points. First, I found myself in disagreement with the very first sentence in the book: “Doctrines are the church’s conclusions about theology in the Bible.” (xiii) While the Bible is obviously central to the formation of Christian doctrine, it is reductionist to claim that doctrines just are conclusions about the theology in the Bible. Systematic theology is, in fact, a complex process of reflective equilibrium in which one reads the Bible in light of one’s theological tradition (e.g. Instone-Brewer’s baptistic tradition), cultural context, and informed by the best learning of every age including fields like philosophy and science. For example, my concept of the doctrine of God will be informed, to some degree, by a philosophical framework (e.g. perfect being theology) while my doctrine of creation will be informed by our current understanding of nature derived from natural science. Doctrines, such as we articulate them in every age, emerge from the complex interplay of all these factors.

Second, the organization of the 28 topics into three categories — Doctrines that Divide, Doctrines that Confuse, Doctrines that Matter — was arbitrary and, in my view, unhelpful. To begin with, many doctrines belong in more than one category. For example, Instone-Brewer categories the Trinity as a doctrine that matters but it surely also confuses. And it also divides, and I’m not just thinking of how unitarians and oneness Pentecostals are divided from orthodox trinitarians: one of the deepest fissures in Christendom — the filioque — is ultimately a debate over a Trinitarian question. What is more, some of the chapter titles don’t specifically reference doctrines at all: e.g. “The Role of Tradition” (chapter 2), “Church Divisions” (chapter 9), “Prooftexts” (chapter 10).

Third, I was at odds with some points of Instone-Brewer’s doctrinal articulation. For example, as regards the doctrine of the  Trinity he suggested that “our concept of three equal and separate persons is oversimplified” (153) but it wasn’t clear exactly what he was opposing or what he was proposing in its place. Neither was Instone-Brewer’s suggestion that we think of the Trinity analogously to an atom — God the Father is like the protons, the Son is like the neutrons, and the Spirit is like the electrons, (154) — particularly helpful. Ultimately, he is proposing a whole-part analogy (there is one God and each person is a part of that one God as there is one atom and each atomic particle is part of that atom) and it suffers the standard objections of logic and orthodoxy to all those analogies (e.g. egg; clover; river).

I was also dissatisfied with Instone-Brewer’s claim in the chapter “Acts of God” that rather than view God as acting punitively through nature, we could view God as foreknowing and appropriating natural disasters for punitive ends (85). First off, I think this claim does not conform with the description of many biblical texts: e.g. the flood of Genesis 6 was clearly purposed precisely for the end of punishing a wayward creation and starting over. Moreover, it seems to me that Instone-Brewer is proposing a distinction without a (moral) difference. In scenario 1, Yahweh punishes Sodom by destroying it with a volcanic explosion; in scenario 2, Yahweh foreknows a volcanic explosion will destroy Sodom and he allows that to happen for the purposes of punishing Sodom and destroying it with a volcanic explosion. How is the second view a significant amelioration of the moral problem presented by the first view?

While I found the analysis in the chapter on “Acts of God” to be unsatisfying, I was overall appreciative of the chapter for providing an honest and thoughtful engagement with a difficult topic. And the same can be said for the book overall. Setting aside the unhelpful three-part organization, the fact remains that the 28 chapters offer an engaging and eclectic range of topics. Those of a baptistic and Arminian bent will likely find the most to agree with. For example, I was very sympathetic with Instone-Brewer’s view of church governance (chapter 4), though predictably episcopal traditions will find very little they can agree with there.

That said, I believe that readers from all traditions will find much to challenge their assumptions (chapter 12 on “Remarriage” is a great example). The book would be a great conversation starter for a small group in church and could work very well as a textbook at a Bible college or undergraduate university introductory course to theology. Chapters on topics like “Hell,” “Sacrifice,” and “Justification and Good Works” strike a fine balance by providing a helpful overview to the topic while securing Instone-Brewer’s own conclusions with respect to his reading of the Bible and engagement with theology. As a bonus, the book includes many helpful illustrations and memorable anecdotes and is reasonably priced as well (a mere six bucks on Kindle!).

My thanks to Lexham Press for a review copy of the book.

You can support the author and reviewer by picking up your own copy of Church Doctrine & the Bible here.

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I need your help for my next book

I need your help! My next book consists of 25 short chapters and I made a survey in which I ask you to choose the top 5 choices to be included on the back cover of the book. Check it out here:


 


https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/NKVKN2N

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Is Rationality Over-Rated?

The other day, I watched the 2019 Clint Eastwood film Richard Jewell about the security guard who discovered a bomb at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and was subsequently accused of being the bomber. Jewell’s mother (played in the film by the always-excellent Kathy Bates) stood by her son, never doubting him for a minute. It isn’t hard to see why she did so as the evidence against her son was only ever circumstantial at best.

But imagine, for a moment, that the case against Mr. Jewell was very strong. Indeed, imagine that it was overwhelming: DNA evidence, motive, surveillance footage, and eye-witness testimony. In that case, a mother who never doubted her son’s innocence would understandably be considered to be irrational. However, let’s add to that scenario one final detail: Jewell is, in fact, innocent and later evidence definitively establishes his innocence while his apparent guilt was only ever due to the perfect storm of understandable error and extraordinary coincidence.

Where does that leave Mrs. Jewell? On the one hand, given the overwhelming evidence, one might retain one’s assessment that she was irrational to disregard all that evidence: the rational mother would have accepted the evidence of her son’s guilt and thus, the fact remains that Mrs. Jewell was indeed irrational never to doubt. But even in that case, it seems plausible that even if the never-doubting mother who is later vindicated may have lost rationality for a time she did so by exhibiting a relational virtue.

To see why this would be the case, just put yourself in the place of Richard Jewell. You’re innocent but in scenario 1 your mom rationally believes in your guilt whereas in scenario 2 she irrationally believed in your innocence. Should you, as the innocent party, prefer the rational mother who believed you were a bomber or the irrational mother who never doubted your innocence? The latter certainly seems like the most plausible view, and in that case, it is also plausible to see that Mrs. Jewell would have traded an epistemic virtue for a relational one. And if that is the case, then maybe rationality, while obviously important, is still only one value or virtue among others. It need not be the summum bonum, at least not obviously.

 

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Don’t Miss This Debate on Theological Method

Yesterday, Samuel Nesan of Explain Apologetics hosted a debate on apologetic method between James White, Richard Howe, Jonathan McLatchie, and myself. It was a vigorous and spirited exchange as well as being almost three hours (!). And wait for the part when James White goes at me in cross-examination.

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Debating Against God’s Existence: The Devil’s in the Details

A couple of months ago, Joe Schmid of the Majesty of Reason blog and YouTube channel invited me to participate in a devil’s advocate debate in which I defend atheism and Joe, an agnostic, defends theism. After some twists and turns, it ended up that the debate was hosted by Cameron Bertuzzi of “Capturing Christianity”. We just did it today and you can watch it below. Fun fact, at 19-years-old, Joe is a year older than my daughter. But goodness me, he knows his stuff as you’ll soon see.

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Is the Christian God an All-Good and Loving God? A Debate

This evening, I participated in a debate with atheist Floyd FP on the “Cognitive Distortion” YouTube channel on the topic Is the Christian God an All-Good and Loving God? It was a vigorous and wide-ranging discussion and of course, it comes highly recommended!

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Is Jesus Human and Not Divine? A Review

Dale Tuggy and Christopher M. Date, Is Jesus Human and Not Divine? A Debate. Essential Christian Debates. Apollo, PA: Areopagus, 2020.

As the old joke goes, after the Sunday school teacher asks, “Okay children, who left the cap off the glue?” the answer comes back in unison: “Jesus!” You get it, right? Jesus is always the right answer in Sunday school, so presumably, he must be the one who left the cap off the glue, too.

Jokes aside, the identity of Jesus Christ — “Who do you say I am? — is the heart of Christian faith: Is Jesus God’s human messiah or the incarnate Son of God? Many Christians will assume that basic question has been effectively settled, at least within the confines of orthodox Christianity. So it might seem a bit surprising to have it debated in a series titled “Essential Christian Debates”. However, not all professing Christians agree with the orthodox consensus. And whether or not denizens of that wider consensus view that minority report as genuine Christians, dangerous heretics, or something else, their carefully reasoned arguments deserve a hearing in the best sense of ironing sharpening iron.

Before proceeding further, I need to address the debate resolution which also serves as the book title: “Is Jesus human and not divine?” As one of our debaters acknowledges, the resolution is awkward (35). It’s even more so when functioning as the book title. Since both debaters accept the full humanity of Jesus, I would have thought a more concise resolution that avoids imposing double negatives on one debater would be more appropriate. For example, in my view, a better resolution (and book title) would have been “Is Jesus divine?” or “Is Jesus God?”

Now, let’s meet our debaters. Arguing the affirmative, Jesus is human but not divine, is Dale Tuggy, the tireless Unitarian philosopher, blogger, and podcaster of Trinities. Arguing the negative, Jesus is human and also divine, Chris Date, an equally tireless Trinitarian speaker, blogger, and YouTuber best known for his work with Rethinking Hell.

The book consists of two chapter-length opening statements, two chapter-length rebuttals, four chapters of alternating cross-examination, and two closing statements.

So you’re probably wondering: who won? I’ll just say this: I wouldn’t look forward to debating either of these gents. Each is very informed about a diverse field of subjects as the book ranges over carefully reasoned exegesis (each debater assiduously avoids proof-texting), thoughtful engagement with the Patristics, and additional philosophical and theological considerations.

What is more, they don’t mind taking the proverbial gloves off and chiding each other. Though, I did think that at times, the side-bar critiques detracted from the overall work. For example, Date says “If you, the reader, reject the deity of Christ, I plead with you to do so for better reasons than Tuggy’s.” (95) The irony is that by lampooning Tuggy’s reasoning as poorly argued (which it isn’t), Date by implication criticizes the book of which he is a co-author.

Tuggy is the analytic philosopher and that comes through clearly. For example, he deftly analyzes the logical coherence of Date’s apparent move between one-self and three-self conceptions of the Trinity (e.g. 68-9; 123).  While Date appeals to the formula of God as one being in which three persons subsist (while the second person also subsists in human being (61-2)), Tuggy challenges the meaning, coherence, and exegetical bona fides of this phraseology (e.g. 70; 161-62). For example, Tuggy asks, “He doesn’t think I am the ‘human nature’ in which I supposedly subsist, so why should, say, the Father be the divine nature/being in which he subsists?” (162) Date pushes back by insisting that Tuggy is attempting to put God in a “proverbial box and shrink him down to human size” (185). But that sounds like little more than rhetorical bluster. For his part, Tuggy helpfully notes that other Trinitarians move beyond the being/subsistence distinction by articulating more defensible attempts to articulate Trinitarian and incarnational logic (163, n. 18).

While Tuggy’s analytical acumen is generally a boon to the debate, it is not always so. At one point, Date makes an interesting appeal to the aesthetic beauty of the orthodox narrative in which God is the self-sacrificing Father and he contrasts it with Tuggy’s lesser account of God choosing a humble human servant, Jesus, to be his mediator. Date observes, “It is a more beautiful, more inspiring story than the one told by Tuggy, in which the creator-father instead creates an exclusively third party to die in the place of other human beings.” (58-9) In his rebuttal, Tuggy attempts to reduce Date’s observation to a seven-step syllogism (73). But it seems to me that Date’s point is better understood not as an enthymeme but rather as a direct appeal to an aesthetic intuition.

While Date seems out of his element when discussing logic (e.g. 60-3) he is at home in biblical exegesis and the views of the early church fathers. In his opening statement, he puts his eggs in a handful of exegetical baskets, specifically pertaining to Philippians 2:5-7, Hebrews 1:2-3, and, somewhat surprisingly, the maternal bird metaphor of Matthew 23:37-8 and Luke 13:34-35. Strategically, this was a wise approach, and I found Date’s treatment of Philippians 2 to be particularly persuasive. Meanwhile, I was unpersuaded by Tuggy’s claim that Jesus’ use of bird imagery was disconnected from divine implications. In my view, Date also scored points when it came to the citation of Ignatius of Antioch’s high christology while Tuggy’s suggestion that the text was corrupted with later interpolations sounds to me like special pleading. Date also pointed out that Tuggy never responded to his citation of Melito of Sardis who certainly has one of the most striking christologies of the Patristic era.

Date and Tuggy have a spirited exchange about several other patristic theologians as well: I found their wrangling over Tertullian to be particularly instructive as I thought each debater scored points with this Latin theologian. And that brings me to a central issue: it seems to me that Tertullian (like most other Patristics) has a theology that very much represents a transitional form. In short, while I agree with Tuggy that we need to be careful about reading this third-century theologian anachronistically in the terms of later Nicene and Chalcedonian orthodoxy, I believe he clearly represents a significant step toward that orthodoxy. The question is whether that step was toward a fuller orthodox revelation or a derivation from an original scriptural deposit.

And that brings me back to an underlying assumption that seems to be held by both Date and Tuggy according to which we should expect that fundamental doctrines like incarnation and Trinity, if true, would have been held by the original Christians and New Testament authors. However, this is not an assumption I am inclined to accept. I think one would be far better off recognizing the degree to which the Spirit led the church into a fuller understanding over time (John 16:13) as Christians wrestled with and reflected on the Christian deposit of revelation in light of the lived experience of Jesus in community until that revelation reached a definitive form of articulation at the councils and creeds of the fourth and fifth centuries. In short, whether or not Luke or Paul or John held fully fleshed doctrines of Trinity and incarnation does not settle the question of whether we should do so.

It is a matter of some irony that this book, written by two very Protestant thinkers, should have a foreword penned by respected Catholic philosopher Timothy Pawl. Pawl offers the following particularly interesting response to the whole debate:

“the general impression is one of disquiet. Here we have two men, each thoughtful, each trying hard to serve the God he loves, each approaching the available data with prayer and the best tools we have available.” (xiii) And yet, they reasonably disagree about a very important issue: “the fact that God is trying to communicate something vastly important to his church Holy Scripture, something upon which, even in trying our best with the best tools and intentions, we as a community fail to find consensus.” (xiii)

Pawl concludes by wryly suggesting that the answer may involve reconsidering “the authority structure that God has left in place for his church, and whether or not God saw fit to provide a testifier to break these exegetical impasses…” (xiv) I am reminded at this point of John Eck’s warning to Martin Luther who insisted on reading Scripture and articulating doctrine apart from the authoritative guidance of a Magisterium:

“For what purpose does it serve to raise a new dispute about matters condemned through so many centuries by church and council? Unless perhaps a reason must be given to just anyone about anything whatsoever. But if it were granted that whoever contradicts the councils and the common understanding of the church must be overcome by Scripture passages, we will have nothing in Christianity that is certain or decided.”

So could we break the impasse by deferring to the Magisterium, as Pawl seems to suggest? The problem here is that just as a reasonable biblical, theological, historical, and philosophical case can be made for and against the divinity of Jesus, so a reasonable case can be made for and against the Catholic Magisterium. And so, we merely push the problem back a step.

I understand that some may indeed find Is Jesus Human and Not Divine? to be disquieting. But I found it exhilarating. For many reasons, I think Date is correct, but I also think that Tuggy provides an invaluable service by pressing Christians back to the biblical texts, Christian traditions, reason and experience. This book would make an excellent textbook for an upper-level undergraduate or seminary course in Christology. Even more, it provides an excellent guide for any Christian interested in a serious reflection on that age-old question, “Who do you say I am?”

To support the authors and the reviewer, you can pick up your own copy of Is Jesus Human and Not Divine? in hardcopy or Kindle.

And thanks to Dale Tuggy for sending me a review copy of the book.

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Can You Preach it at the Gates of Auschwitz?

Many people think the adequacy of a theology of providence or a theodicy is dependent on whether it can be “preached at the gates of Auschwitz”. But is that a reasonable criterion? In this video, I suggest otherwise.

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What would it take for you to give up your faith? (And is that a good question?)

Atheists and skeptics often ask Christians under what conditions they would give up their faith. In this video, I point out what is right and what is wrong with that question.

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Religion After God: A Review of Progressive Atheism

J.L. Schellenberg. Progressive Atheism: How Moral Evolution Changes the God Debate. Bloomsbury, 2019. 

“Atheism, we’ll say, for all we know may come at the beginning of religion rather than the end.” (173)

That is not the kind of quote you’d expect to find in a typical book defending an atheistic perspective. But then again, J.L. Schellenberg did not write a typical atheistic book. Progressive Atheism is a manifesto of innovative and iconoclastic atheist thought in the manner of Ronald Dworkin’s Religion without God. 

Practically speaking, this means that Schellenberg is dissatisfied with many conventional atheistic positions. New atheism receives short shrift (and rightly so) as “an activist’s strategy” rather than “an intellectually serious option” (26). And naturalism, while a venerable and intellectually serious position, is nonetheless one which outruns the available evidence:

“Naturalism is an orthodoxy of intellectual culture today, and it is in the spirit of science to resist being constricted by it in our intellectual endeavors. Of course, it’s a huge compliment to science to insist that all of reality can be understood by means of scientific inquiry. But true science is humble, and will refuse the compliment.” (55-6)

Schellenberg’s atheism is, as the title suggests, “progressive”. But what is that supposed to mean, exactly? At the heart of the book lies a conviction that human beings have made enormous progress in scientific, moral, and prudential thinking over the centuries. And this should shape how we think about the God question. The first thing it helps us to see is that the common ways of framing the issue of metaphysical absolutes from within the categories of western monotheism is a historical accident and threatens “spiritual ethnocentrism” (54). We need to dare to think bigger.

But to get to those brighter pastures, we first need to hone the insights of our recent cultural evolution to drive home just how problematic is the traditional concept of God. Over three chapters, Schellenberg launches a series of arguments against the perfect God of western monotheism, i.e. a personal being that is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good. This God cannot be reconciled to the data of experience including the problem of divine hiddenness (chapter 6), the existence of moral horrors (chapter 7) and the ubiquity of violence (chapter 8). A God who is truly the perfect embodiment of the virtues we admire would allow none of these things in the quantity and quality that we find them in the universe. And so, we have a good reason to conclude that this God does not exist.

But then what does exist? The final (and tenth) chapter, “Atheism’s Brave New World” seeks to survey a range of options. We begin with ietsisme, a Dutch term that may be translated “somethingism” (159). In short, while western monotheism may face critical objections, there still must be some ultimate reality. The search for that something more begins by recognizing that this reality would transcend the mundane domain of every day human experience. Furthermore, this reality must be important for human flourishing. Schellenberg suggests calling it “vital transmundanity” (161), a term that I suspect is too unwieldy to ever go viral.

This pursuit of that which transcends the mundane brings us to the concept of “triple ultimacy,” a reality that is the ultimate in terms of its facticity, its inherent value, and its depth of goodness (169). And that brings us back to the quote with which I began this review. It is a mere historical accident that religiosity is linked to western monotheistic religions. In Schellenberg’s vision, a rejection of monotheism may be the first step toward a truer, deeper religiosity as one pursues a greater understanding of the ultimate (non-personal? impersonal?) nature of that which is real.

J.L. Schellenberg is one of the leading intellectuals of contemporary atheistic philosophy. That should hardly be surprising given the ambition and originality of his vision in Progressive Atheism. No surprise, as a Christian theologian there is much with which I disagree in this book. In particular, I find his three arguments for atheism (hiddenness, moral horrors, violence) to be far from persuasive. Nor am I particularly moved by his critique of contemporary theistic philosophy in chapter 9.

But in fairness, Progressive Atheism is not intended as a rigorous and in-depth presentation of argument. Rather, as I said above, I take it as a sort of manifesto, a terse and focused introduction to and defense of a new program, one brimming with ambition and alive with new ideas. When I was doing my doctorate twenty years ago, the analytic philosopher W.V. Quine still dominated conversations. His famous essay “On What There Is,” (The Review of Metaphysics, 2(1) (1948), 21–38) treated metaphysics as analogous to packing for a two-week hike in the Himalayas: only pack what you need. It would be wrong to say Schellenberg has abandoned the basic commitment: after all, ideas still need to pay rent. Nonetheless, the distressingly austere Quinean universe dissolves here into a refreshing openness for a world far more ontologically rich than we can imagine.

I am grateful for Schellenberg’s well-placed critiques of the new atheism, antitheism, and naturalism. And even if I remain unpersuaded by his critique of theism, he definitely lands some punches and provides a valuable catalyst for deeper thinking. But what excites me most about Progressive Atheism is the possibility of dialogue between philosophers — theistic, atheistic and otherwise — who are together committed to pursuing a greater understanding of a world-transcendent reality. It may be too soon to speak of building ecumenical bridges, but Schellenberg’s expansive vision offers far more space for meaningful dialogue with the Christian philosopher than the snarky condescension of new atheism and the Quinean austerity of contemporary naturalism. And for that, I’m grateful.

You can support this website and the author by picking up your own copy of Progressive Atheism at Amazon.com here.

My thanks to J.L. Schellenberg for sending me a review copy of the book.

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