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Imagining Theology: Encounters with God in Scripture, Interpretation, and Aesthetics
The imagination is where the Creator chooses to meet his creatures, says renowned theologian Garrett Green. The Word of God and the work of the Holy Spirit set the imagination free for genuine and creative knowledge of God, the world, others, and the self. Green explains that theology is best understood as human imagination faithfully conformed to the Bible as the paradigmatic key to the Christian gospel. He unpacks the implications of the imagination for a variety of theological issues, such as interpretation, aesthetics, eschatology, and the relationship between church and culture.
- GenresTheology
288 pages, Hardcover
Published March 17, 2020
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September 29, 2020
Reading Garrett Green’s book Imagining Theology: Encounters with God in Scripture, Interpretation, and Aesthetics is a dizzying experience. I found myself vacillating between excited agreement, baffled exasperation, and confusion. As I search for reasons for this disorientation, I cannot rule out the strong possibility that my own inadequacies are to blame: it is possible that the vexation of reading Imagining Theology is owing to the soaring heights of Green’s intellectual prowess and this reader’s intellectual limitations. The format of the book might also be to blame; the search for cohesion is frustrated by the fact that just about every chapter is a republication of Green’s previous work. Thinking of this book as a collection of essays loosely related, rather than as a single, unified work might benefit the reader.
Imagining Theology is fundamentally a proposal for how to do theology in a culture that is increasingly disenchanted. In the first chapter, Green sets the stage for the meditations that follow by situating theology in the context of a world that increasingly sees science and religion as opposites. “If Christian theology is to escape this intellectual and cultural deluge,” writes Green, “it will be necessary to deconstruct and demystify the mythical story of how ‘science’ has displaced ‘religion’ as the privileged key to understanding the world today” (pg. 2). The deconstruction Green proposes comes in the form of conceptualizing reality along the lines of “paradigms”—the borrowed concept of Wittgenstein and Kuhn. Rather than seeing science and theology as opposed to one another, Green insists that they are simply different paradigms for conceptualizing reality: “Looking for empirical evidence of God, [Christian evidentialist apologists] fail to see that they are treating God as an explanatory hypothesis, one of the contingent objects of the world (even if called the Supreme Being) that may or may not exist. If they were to be successful in their arguments, they would find that what they had proved was not God but an idol” (pg. 6).
Now, far be it for this reviewer to object to eviscerating the evidentialist apologetic method, but we must take care to consider how Green raises such a critique. Unfortunately, Green’s cure to the evidentialist apologetic method turns out to be more harmful than the sickness. It is difficult to imagine, for example, how Green’s proposal of reconciling “science” and “theology” by simply calling them different paradigms for conceiving the same world, can avoid spinning into utter relativism. While Green denies relativism repeatedly throughout the book (something perhaps suggestive in itself), he undermines his own defense when he combines his postmodernism with his Barthianism.
Like all Barthians, Green knows how to draw the reader in with Christocentric sentiments, like the insistence that “as Christians we define ourselves by our commitment of Jesus Christ.” Three cheers, says the evangelical. The problem is that such lovely Christocentrism is marshaled to explain statements like this one: “Relativism no longer threatens to undo our grasp on reality because we no longer imagine that we need universal principles to link all human knowledge systematically or to ground it in incorrigible truth” (pg. 38). The irony, of course, is that falsely dichotomizing commitment to “truth” versus commitment to “Christ” sounds like anything but Christ himself (Jn. 14:6).
There are some splendid portions of Imagining Theology. One example is his critique on the internal inconsistency of Feminist Theology’s appeal to “metaphorical language” in order to change divine pronouns from masculine to feminine. If we knew the incomprehensible, archetypal reality of God in a univocal way, of which the biblical use of masculine pronouns corresponds analogously, we would not need feminine metaphorical language any more than masculine metaphorical language. The whole argument, Green points out, assumes that feminist theologians have direct and univocal access to God, which makes the concept of metaphorical language superfluous (pg. 126-132). However, Green begins to falter as soon as he switches gears from critique to construction. After rightly critiquing Feminist Theology’s presumptuous use of the category of “theological metaphor,” Green emphasizes the non-negotiability of making use of Scripture’s use of metaphor, yet rather than rooting metaphor in the being of God, he roots it in story: “The meaning of the metaphor is accordingly to be sought in the story of the one whom Jesus calls Father.” And this leaves Green sounding dangerously similar to Sabellius:
As Father he ‘did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all’ (Rom. 8:32). As Son he did not claim the prerogatives of power and lord it over his subjects but ‘emptied himself’ … (Phil. 2:7-8). As Spirit he incorporates us into the mystical body of Christ, in whom ‘there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female’ (Gal. 3:28) (pg. 137-138 emphasis added).
Another great insight that Green brings to the table is the problematic notion of “religious studies,” which imagines a single genus of “religion” with various species underneath it, one of which is “Christianity.” This, Green points out, does great injustice to the self-expressed claims of just about any religion (all major religions would object to such a characterization). However, Green’s postmodernism knocks the wind out of this insight and keeps it from carrying the force it could have.
It is true that Green says he is not really sure what “postmodernism” is (pg. 26), but one gets the impression this confession of ignorance is rhetoric; Green playing coy. It would be quite the coincidence for one unaware of postmodernism to advocate for a biblical paradigm that “always remains open to novelty, eschewing every attempt at a metanarrative or systematic closure” (pg. 16). Indeed, it is hard to walk away from this book without getting a sense that Green feels “a deep incredulity for metanarratives.” The intrinsic limits of postmodernism, however, are well-represented by Green himself. The same author, after all, can unambiguously declare the error of “creationism,” pronouncing it a “heresy,” whilst also warning that “any attempt to guarantee [the bible’s] content or to set limits systematically—any attempt at closure—would constitute a betrayal of its mission” (pg. 18-19). It is difficult to square such a pronouncement of “heresy” (never argued for, but rather stated as if it were a self-evident axiom at best, or a sneer at worst), such a “systematic closure,” with his proposal to eschew systematic closures about the Bible.
It should not be a surprise that a classical Trinitarian, evangelical reviewer of a book that gushes enthusiastically after figures like Karl Barth, Hans Frei, and Jügen Moltmann will find its contents wanting. The feeling, we can be certain, is mutual. Take this gem, for example: “One sometimes hears, especially among conservative Christians, the claim that we ought simply to read the Bible without interpretation” (pg. 14). Either this argument is made of straw, or this conservative Christian reviewer—who has spent a good deal of time surrounded by, and interactive with the work of, other conservative Christians—has somehow avoided interacting with this supposed favorite conservative Christian claim. I suppose anything is possible.
The patient reader of this review may at this point question its existence at all. What could compel such a one to take the time to read it, let alone write a critical review? I confess, the answer is less than impressive. Like a child drawn to all things shiny, “aesthetics” and “imagination” are words that irresistibly woo this reviewer. And as difficult as it is, we will resist from raising a final charge of false advertisement (in light of the fact that of Imagining Theology’s sixteen chapters, one was actually about aesthetics). Rather than ending on a critique, I should like to point out that this single chapter on beauty was very good, and for his summary and analysis of Barth’s aesthetic, Green has my thanks.
Imagining Theology is fundamentally a proposal for how to do theology in a culture that is increasingly disenchanted. In the first chapter, Green sets the stage for the meditations that follow by situating theology in the context of a world that increasingly sees science and religion as opposites. “If Christian theology is to escape this intellectual and cultural deluge,” writes Green, “it will be necessary to deconstruct and demystify the mythical story of how ‘science’ has displaced ‘religion’ as the privileged key to understanding the world today” (pg. 2). The deconstruction Green proposes comes in the form of conceptualizing reality along the lines of “paradigms”—the borrowed concept of Wittgenstein and Kuhn. Rather than seeing science and theology as opposed to one another, Green insists that they are simply different paradigms for conceptualizing reality: “Looking for empirical evidence of God, [Christian evidentialist apologists] fail to see that they are treating God as an explanatory hypothesis, one of the contingent objects of the world (even if called the Supreme Being) that may or may not exist. If they were to be successful in their arguments, they would find that what they had proved was not God but an idol” (pg. 6).
Now, far be it for this reviewer to object to eviscerating the evidentialist apologetic method, but we must take care to consider how Green raises such a critique. Unfortunately, Green’s cure to the evidentialist apologetic method turns out to be more harmful than the sickness. It is difficult to imagine, for example, how Green’s proposal of reconciling “science” and “theology” by simply calling them different paradigms for conceiving the same world, can avoid spinning into utter relativism. While Green denies relativism repeatedly throughout the book (something perhaps suggestive in itself), he undermines his own defense when he combines his postmodernism with his Barthianism.
Like all Barthians, Green knows how to draw the reader in with Christocentric sentiments, like the insistence that “as Christians we define ourselves by our commitment of Jesus Christ.” Three cheers, says the evangelical. The problem is that such lovely Christocentrism is marshaled to explain statements like this one: “Relativism no longer threatens to undo our grasp on reality because we no longer imagine that we need universal principles to link all human knowledge systematically or to ground it in incorrigible truth” (pg. 38). The irony, of course, is that falsely dichotomizing commitment to “truth” versus commitment to “Christ” sounds like anything but Christ himself (Jn. 14:6).
There are some splendid portions of Imagining Theology. One example is his critique on the internal inconsistency of Feminist Theology’s appeal to “metaphorical language” in order to change divine pronouns from masculine to feminine. If we knew the incomprehensible, archetypal reality of God in a univocal way, of which the biblical use of masculine pronouns corresponds analogously, we would not need feminine metaphorical language any more than masculine metaphorical language. The whole argument, Green points out, assumes that feminist theologians have direct and univocal access to God, which makes the concept of metaphorical language superfluous (pg. 126-132). However, Green begins to falter as soon as he switches gears from critique to construction. After rightly critiquing Feminist Theology’s presumptuous use of the category of “theological metaphor,” Green emphasizes the non-negotiability of making use of Scripture’s use of metaphor, yet rather than rooting metaphor in the being of God, he roots it in story: “The meaning of the metaphor is accordingly to be sought in the story of the one whom Jesus calls Father.” And this leaves Green sounding dangerously similar to Sabellius:
As Father he ‘did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all’ (Rom. 8:32). As Son he did not claim the prerogatives of power and lord it over his subjects but ‘emptied himself’ … (Phil. 2:7-8). As Spirit he incorporates us into the mystical body of Christ, in whom ‘there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female’ (Gal. 3:28) (pg. 137-138 emphasis added).
Another great insight that Green brings to the table is the problematic notion of “religious studies,” which imagines a single genus of “religion” with various species underneath it, one of which is “Christianity.” This, Green points out, does great injustice to the self-expressed claims of just about any religion (all major religions would object to such a characterization). However, Green’s postmodernism knocks the wind out of this insight and keeps it from carrying the force it could have.
It is true that Green says he is not really sure what “postmodernism” is (pg. 26), but one gets the impression this confession of ignorance is rhetoric; Green playing coy. It would be quite the coincidence for one unaware of postmodernism to advocate for a biblical paradigm that “always remains open to novelty, eschewing every attempt at a metanarrative or systematic closure” (pg. 16). Indeed, it is hard to walk away from this book without getting a sense that Green feels “a deep incredulity for metanarratives.” The intrinsic limits of postmodernism, however, are well-represented by Green himself. The same author, after all, can unambiguously declare the error of “creationism,” pronouncing it a “heresy,” whilst also warning that “any attempt to guarantee [the bible’s] content or to set limits systematically—any attempt at closure—would constitute a betrayal of its mission” (pg. 18-19). It is difficult to square such a pronouncement of “heresy” (never argued for, but rather stated as if it were a self-evident axiom at best, or a sneer at worst), such a “systematic closure,” with his proposal to eschew systematic closures about the Bible.
It should not be a surprise that a classical Trinitarian, evangelical reviewer of a book that gushes enthusiastically after figures like Karl Barth, Hans Frei, and Jügen Moltmann will find its contents wanting. The feeling, we can be certain, is mutual. Take this gem, for example: “One sometimes hears, especially among conservative Christians, the claim that we ought simply to read the Bible without interpretation” (pg. 14). Either this argument is made of straw, or this conservative Christian reviewer—who has spent a good deal of time surrounded by, and interactive with the work of, other conservative Christians—has somehow avoided interacting with this supposed favorite conservative Christian claim. I suppose anything is possible.
The patient reader of this review may at this point question its existence at all. What could compel such a one to take the time to read it, let alone write a critical review? I confess, the answer is less than impressive. Like a child drawn to all things shiny, “aesthetics” and “imagination” are words that irresistibly woo this reviewer. And as difficult as it is, we will resist from raising a final charge of false advertisement (in light of the fact that of Imagining Theology’s sixteen chapters, one was actually about aesthetics). Rather than ending on a critique, I should like to point out that this single chapter on beauty was very good, and for his summary and analysis of Barth’s aesthetic, Green has my thanks.
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