The False Critique of Critical Theory on Faith

Below is a quote from Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment, translated by Gunzelin Schmid Noeri, Stanford University Press, 2002. If you are not familiar with the work, it is in some ways the beginning of Critical Theory in 1930’s Germany. It’s a fun, dense read if you enjoy the angry young men genre. And we should note they weren’t just angry; they were frightened and frustrated. They were frightened because Adolf Hitler was a progressive modern. They were frustrated because Enlightenment thought didn’t have an answer to Hitler. Hence, during the Nuremberg trials American eugenic laws were cited, and Americans had produced the computers that helped organize the death camps. Hitler was a modern, supported by progressive moderns throughout the world. Remember Charles Lindbergh and H. L. Mencken.

Given that Horkheimer and Adorno are frightened, we can forgive them for their writing style while recognizing their influence on contemporary thought. Allow me to summarize their critique and then you can read for yourself. Faith requires some knowledge but is not knowledge nor a part of the process of gaining knowledge. The more that one knows the less she believes, so that fuller knowledge is destructive to faith. Believers are aware of this and so they are disingenuous.

 Yet don’t take my word for it: below their quote with all their grinding, twitching neo-Marxist energy and solemnity:

The attempt made by faith under Protestantism to locate the principle of truth, which transcends faith and without which faith cannot exist, directly in the word itself, as in primeval times, and to restore the symbolic power of the word, was paid for by obedience to the word, but not in its sacred form. Because faith is unavoidably tied to knowledge as its friend or its foe, faith perpetuates the split in the struggle to overcome knowledge: its fanaticism is the mark of its untruth, the objective admission that anyone who only believes for that reason no longer believes. Bad conscience is second nature to it. The secret awareness of this necessary, inherent flaw, the immanent contradiction that lies in making a profession of reconciliation, is the reason why honesty in believers has always been a sensitive and dangerous affair (14).

There are two hidden assumptions in the passage: first, faith is at loggerheads with knowledge. There is a negative dialectic between faith, requiring ignorance, and knowledge, requiring knowing. Thus, faith is destroyed by knowledge and “why honesty in believers has always been a sensitive and dangerous affair.” Knowledge in this conception cancels faith.

Christians admit that a portion of faith is the knowledge gap. Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Faith allows us to leap over the ditch of history and of ignorance. But faith is not simply overcoming ignorance through a blind leap. Faith includes trusting an authority who is not ignorant. Belief includes trusting another’s knowledge and character. Faith does not exclude knowledge, but rather places trust in God’s knowledge. Thus, Hebrews 11:7 “By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household.”

A moment of thought reminds us that the process of faith whereby we trust in the knowledge and character of another knower is basic to all human experiences. How do you know who your parents are? And if you say by a genetic test, how did you know who to test as potential subjects among 7.5 billion people?  How do you know that the test is accurate? Almost all knowing comes down to trusting an authority outside of self. In fact if by knowing you mean there is a shared reality outside of your own mind that can be affirmed, you are trusting the authority of truth. You know that all truth is personal, unless you suspect rocks contemplate truth.

There are always at least two knowers, one might say fundamentally Three. But there are two knowers in faith—God and man. God does not have faith because he knows “the events as yet unseen.” Noah must have faith because he does not know the future, unless God reveals it to him. Faith and knowledge are self-destructive only when the believer has the same capacity of knowing as the revealer.

The second assumption of Horkheimer and Adorno’s critique is then clear:  there is no God, nor is there any knower greater than man. And so, they are frightened and frustrated by Enlightenment’s product in Hitler, but they have no answer. They want mystery and enchantment, but not the Enchanter or the mystery of God which is Christ. Like the ouroboros of, they are self consumed. 

Richard A. Muller, Prolegomena to Theology

in Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: the Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725, vol. 1, 2nd ed.

Baker Books, 2006, 463 pgs.

Summary: An analysis of the Protestant Scholastic prolegomena in Reformed dogmatics. Muller traces the interaction between the medieval sources (Lombard, Thomas, Duns Scotus, Henry of Ghent, etc.), the first generation of Reformers (i.e. Luther, Bullinger, Zwingli, Calvin) and the scholastics Protestants (Ames, Turretin, Owen, Heidegger, etc.).

His basic argument is that scholasticism is a method of developing and teaching a theological system appropriate for the schools. The Reformers, many of whom were scholasticly trained, were forced by polemical and practical necessity to develop theological systems and schools designed for creating and maintaining the Protestant movement. The next generation of the reformed then developed theological systems that were designed to maintain reformed churches through academic training and analysis. The second generation became the Protestant scholastics or the Reformed orthodox. Conceptually both the Reformers and the reformed scholastics were drawing on the theological tradition of the Middle Ages with its rich theological and biblical reflection.

Even as the Protestant orthodox entered into the academic lists, they did not compromise the fundamental epistemological ground of the Reformed insight of Scripture alone. They understood reason and philosophy as the handmaiden of theology and not the mistress. Scripture and scriptural presuppositions (the existence of God as the greatest possible being, creation of the world ex nilhio, the historical nature of the Fall, etc.) remained primary. At the same time the topics of theology were rationally ordered and systematized to maintain and defend the Reformed movement.

Historically the Reformed Scholastics were not bested on rational grounds, either by the Catholics or secularist; however, the rules of engagement among academics shifted as Enlightenment thought swept Western culture. Nature progressively became the exclusive epistemological foundation or interpretation of reality, thus excluding the possibility of Reformed academic participation on the grounds of a presupposition.

Benefits/Detriments: Absolutely brilliant. Not accessible without a background in theology and philosophy.

Muller’s reading of history is that the shift in epistemology was caused by a decline in general of the Aristotelian understanding of substance and accidents, but I am not yet convinced of this conclusion. My sense is that both Platonic and Aristotelian understanding of the “real” allows Christian appropriation, but that the materialistic or Epicurean systems deny this possibility.

Exemplar Quotes:

“The Reformation, in spite of its substantial contribution to the history of doctrine and the shock it delivered to theology and the church in the sixteenth century, was not an attack upon the whole of medieval theology or upon Christian tradition. The Reformation assaulted a limited spectrum of doctrinal and practical abuses with the intention of reaffirming the values of the historical church catholic. Thus, the mainstream Reformers reconstructed the doctrines of justification and the sacraments and then modified their ideas of the ordo salutis and of the church accordingly; but they did not alter the doctrine of God, creation, providence, and Christ, and they maintained the Augustinian tradition concerning predestination, human nature and sin. The reform of individual doctrines, like justification and the sacraments, occurred within the bounds of a traditional, orthodox, and catholic system which, on the grand scale, remained unaltered” (97).

“At the same time, the orthodox writers of the era tended to argue against the Epicurean and Stoic revival. In the trajectory of rationalism also diverges, give both the associate of Epicureanism with the early “deists,” and the strong relationship between much of the later rationalist philosophy with the Stoic and Epicurean revivals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries” (145).

“[Turretin] and the other Protestant scholastics recognize as correct the Aristotelian assumption that the reality is not the idea or universal known to the mind but universal in the thing. The establishment of theologia as an existent thing, moreover, represents the establishment both of true and of false theology—or more precisely, of the existence of the phenomenon claiming to be sapientia rerum divinarum and the possibility of attaining to a true theology, that is, a genuine wisdom of divine things. The presence of this problematic within the argument leads the Protestant scholastics to state their case in a somewhat interactive manner, the prolegomena both laying the ground for the system that follows and drawing upon the theological assumptions and conclusions present in that system. Theological prolegomena cannot be entirely vordogmatisch or predogmatic: they stand in dialogue with the system and in fact, are a system in miniature, stated at the level of presupposition” (161-162).

“[Y]et scholastic theology in the sense of revealed theology quatenus traditur modo scholis familiari (“to the extent that it is taught in the manner of the schools”), and as Alsted defined it, is useful in polemic against the scholasticism of the Roman Church, in debate with Gentiles and atheists, and in convincing rational souls of the truth of revelation” (187).

Archetypal and Ectypal Theology from Polanus’ Syntagma

True theology is either archetypal or ectypal.

Ectypal theology (theologia ectypa) is considered either in itself (in se) or as it is in rational creatures (in creaturis rationalibus).

The ends or goals (fines) of the theology communicated to rational creatures are two: the primary and highest is the glorification of God as the highest good (glorification Dei tanquam summi boni): the secondary and subordinate is the blessedness of rational creatures (beatitude creaturarum rationalium).

The parts of blessedness are two: (1) freedom from all evils and possession of all true goods that rational creatures can posses in God; (2) the vision of God (visio Dei), conformity to God, sufficiency in God and a certain knowledge of his eternal felicity.

The vision of God is either obscure or clear.

Ectypal theology considered as it is in rational creatures is either of Christ as he is head of the Church according to his humanity or of the members of Christ’s body (membrorum Christi).

This latter theology is either of the blessed (beatorum) or of earthly pilgrims (viatorum).

The theology of the blessed (theologia beatorum) is either of angels or of men.

The theology of pilgrims (theologia viatorum) has a two-fold pattern: for it is considered either absolutely (abosolute) or relatively (secundum quid).

The theology of pilgrims absolutely so-called and considered according to its nature, is essentially one, eternal and immutable: considered according to adjuncts it is either old (vetus) or new (nova).

Theology of pilgrims or our theology (theologia viatorum seu nostra) considered relatively or as it exists in individual pilgrims through the activity of efficient causes is partly infused (infusa) and partly acquired (acquisita). Polanus, Syntagma, Synopsis Libri I. (Muller, 226).

“The attempt to draw faith and philosophy together, whether in the more Aristotelian model of Albert and Thomas on in the more Augustinian approach of Bonaventure, had not resulted in any easy alliance of faith and reason, but in fact had yielded various cautionary approaches that recognized the diastasis between revelation and the truths known to reason. This diastasis, moreover, reflected the sense that God so radically transcended the grasp of human faculties that no easy analogy could be made between the divine and human” (227).

“If, on the other hand, Aristotelianism is defined as a view of the universe that affirms both primary and a secondary causality, that assumes the working of first and final causality through the means of instrumental, formal, and material causes, and that, using this paradigm, can explain various levels of necessary and contingent existence, then a large number of Aristotelians appear on the horizons. . . applied loosely, the term will define the thought of numerous thinkers, all of whom denied or radically modified tenets central to Aristotle’s own thought”  (372).

“The demise of the model [R. scholastic] can certainly be chronicled in the in the loss of the hylomorphic understanding of substance and in its corollary concern the relationship between the logical realm and the realm of real being” (380).

“Once it has been recognized that philosophy, like natural theology, has a legitimate though not doctrinally formative or fundamental use in the context of Christian faith, the actual function of reason and philosophy within the system of revealed theology can be outlined. Theological criteria must be understood as functioning as the criteria by which philosophical conclusions are assessed while, at the same time, the rational argumentation of philosophy must serve to prevent errors of logic or pure irrationality from entering the Christian theological system. Reason, therefore is understood as a critical instrument, limited in its use and always subordinate to the divinely given truths of Scripture—a tool that does assist in the drawing of conclusions and in the formulation and defense of Christian doctrine but that does not supply the ultimate content or the final criterion of truth in Christian doctrine. The proper use of philosophy in the service of theology is to remove confusion and present valid arguments against heresies” (398).

“Reason, then, does not introduce into the text of Scripture a meaning that is not present there, but rather serves faith by drawing out legitimate conclusions from the text, by making explicit those truths which are presented implicitly” (401).

“Reason, therefore, cannot be the cognitive foundation of theology inasmuch as it cannot know God in and of himself and inasmuch as it is not a divine self-revelation but only an instrument for understanding revelation. Since, moreover, the archetype infinitely transcends nature and since the ultimate end of theology is of grace and not nature, the natural order and its revelation cannot be the cognitive foundation of Christian theology. What remains is the divine self-revelation in and through the word as recorded in the biblical witness. Thus, the Word of God written is the principium cognoscendi theologiae.” (434).

Pelagius’s Commentary on St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, tran. Theodore De Bruyn

Oxford University Press, 236 pgs.

Summary: Pelagius’ verse by verse commentary on Romans.

Fundamentally, Pelagius reads the text as if there is no original sin or inherited sin from Adam. The Fall caused no internal change to humanity. Each person is born innocent and sins only as they gain the habit of sin from following the example others. When Paul speaks of a sin nature or the flesh as in Romans 8, Pelagius reads the habit of sin. Neither creation nor humanity has been fundamentally corrupted or changed by the Fall. The “creation groaning” in Romans 8 refers to the angels mourning the humans’ misuse of their will to do ill.

Each decision by a human being must be free in the sense of no prior proclivity to sin. Even the habit of sin can be broken by the free will alone. Pelagius is of two minds as to if all have sinned. He makes statements that allow if not require that some have not sinned or have overcome sin on their own, but he also speaks of the universal need for salvation. Sin creates a debt that must be paid, and Christ has paid that debt. Baptism washes away the debt that occurred through sins prior to baptism, but then the forgiven and baptized sinner must begin to merit his salvation and follow Christ’s example perfectly. Justification or salvation is a process that begins at baptism, but must be maintained by good works.

The systematic portion of his work is the constant presumption of libertarian free will and the lack of original sin. He can be understood to teach salvation without grace if the reader traces his arguments with care, but he will occasionally speak of salvation by faith and grace. Pelagius is an example of a person whose isolated statements are a mixture of orthodoxy, heterodoxy, and heresy, but whose overall system, or any possible system constructed maintaining his basic presumptions and interpretations, is wholly heretical.  It is possible that he lacked the cognitive skills necessary to grasp the logical and theological implications of his teaching. It is equally possible that he makes bold orthodox statements to distract and confusion the majority while expecting his discerning readers to understand his heterodox statements as his true position.

The judgment of the godly party of his day was that he was a vehement and dangerous heretic, and I see no reason to revise the opinion of the universal church from this commentary. To be somewhat ironic and anachronistic, he’s certainly Pelagian, though I see some room for hope that he believed better than he understood.

Exemplar Quotes:

• Libertas arbitrii (freedom of decision) for human beings.

Romans 1:21—“For the fact that they had been made in such a way that could recognize God if they wanted” (65).

1:24—“In the Scripture God is said ‘to give over’ when because of freedom of choice he does not restrain transgressors” (66).

6:13—“At the same it should be noted that it is through freedom of choice that a person offers his members for whatever side he wishes” (98).

8:3—“[Jesus] condemned sin, to show that the will was arraigned, not the nature, which God created in such a way that it was able not to sin, if it so wished” (107).

8:34—“He allowed him to be handed over, so that the freedom of choice of those who handed him over might be left intact. . .” (113).

Conclusion: “Humankind, it is true, is also called good, but we have the ability to be good or wise as a result of instruction. . .” (154).

• The libertarian free will means that human beings are capable of not sinning in the sense of doing good independent of God’s grace:

5:11—“Through whom we have now received reconciliation. Thus he means to show that Christ suffered so that we who had forsaken God by following Adam might be reconciled to God through Christ.  12  Therefore, just as through one person sin came into the world, and through sin death. By example or by pattern” (92).

• And in fact some are saved without Christ:

2:4—“Many even rail at him, ‘Why doesn’t he punish right away?, because they do not realize that, if had done so, almost no on would have survived, and the righteous would  never have come from the unrighteous” (70).

3:4—“Though everyone is a liar. Here he uses ‘all’ for the greatest part. . .” (77).

• The problem of nature: nature is sufficient for salvation and peace with God.

1:32—“Although they had known the righteousness of God from the fact that they themselves also find evil displeasing, they did not realize that it follows from this that such person will be punished, if not in the present nevertheless in the future; for if they realized this, they would have been especially afraid of doing such things” (69).

2:1—“For by means of natural judgement each person pronounces a sentence which fits the deed, and all know both that uprightness deserves reward and that wickedness meets with punishment” (69).

2:9—“Either: He means those who were by nature righteous in the period before the law. Or: Those who even now do some good” (73).

5:10—“We were enemies, then, in our actions, not by nature; we have been reunited in peace, because by nature we had been united in peace” (91-92).

• The problem of merit:

1:8—“God is God of all by nature, but God of few in merit and will, as in the case of ‘the God of Abraham” (61).

8:11—“If you are so pure that the Holy Spirit deigns to dwell in you, God will not allow the temple of his Spirit to perish” (108).

9:15—“This is correctly understood as follows: I will have mercy on him whom I have foreknown will be able to deserve compassion, so that already than I have had mercy on him” (117).

9:23—“They were worthy of mercy, because they had committed lesser sins and had been severely oppressed” (120).

• Saved by faith, but salvation sustained by works:

3:1—“The apostle has explained that the law is useless once it has been treated with contempt, and that the privilege of physical circumcision is worthless unless it is sustained with works.

3:8—“when sins have been forgiven in baptism, love for God is increased, which covers a multitude of sins and finally keeps them from being counted against one as long as daily good works surpass past misdeeds” (85).

3:26—“[Jesus] alone has been found righteous, and also the one whom he has justified, not by works, but by faith” (83).

5:1—“He has also explained why neither race nor circumcision but faith makes people children of Abraham, who was justified initially by faith alone” (89).

• Substitutionary Atonement:

3:24—“Having been freely justified by his grace. Without the works of the law, through baptism, whereby he has freely forgiven the sins of all, though they are undeserving. Through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. By which he has redeemed us with his blood from death. Through sin we had been sold to death--as Isaiah says: ‘You were sold  by your sin’--but Christ, who did not sin, conqoured death (Isa. 50:1). For we were all condemned to death, to which he handed himself over, though it is not his due, so that he might redeem us with his blood” (81-82).

Benefits/Detriments: A helpful introduction to Pelagius’ scheme of salvation. The notes ring true and provide cross references to Scripture, Augustine, Origen, and the like. This volume contains a reconstruction of Pelagius’ Latin text of the Epistle to the Romans.

Peter Martyr Vermigli, The Peter Martyr Library: Philosophical Works - On the Relation of Philosophy to Theology

1996, 342 pgs.

Summary: Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499-1562) was a former Augustinian monk and contemporary of John Calvin who joined the Reformed after careful study of the Bible. He taught at Oxford, Strasburg, and Zurich. He like Luther had received the scholastic training of the day.

This work is a compilation of his comments on locus classicus from his commentaries on the Bible and his lectures on “philosophical” topics—free will, natural religion, philosophy and the theology, revelation, and etc.

Exemplar Quotes:

“So it seems that philosophy should be defined as a capacity given by God to human minds, developed through effort and exercise, by which all existing things perceived as surely and logically as possible, to enable us to attain happiness” (7).

“A miracle is a difficult and unusual work of divine power, surpassing every capacity of created nature, made public in order to fill those who perceive it with wonder, and to confirm fain in the words of God. Therefore, the mater of miracles is works; the form is their being difficult and unusual; the efficient cause the power God, which surpasses created nature; and their end is both admiration and confirmation of faith” (199).

“Judgment belongs to the function of understanding, but desire belongs to the will. Reason or understanding has the place of an advisor, but the will desires, accepts, or rejects” (272).

“Augustine reminds us that under the praises of nature lie hidden the enemies of grace.” (298).

Benefits/Detriments: Martyr is at his best when he is defending Reformed doctrine from the Father’s (Augustine, Lombard, etc.). He lacks the wit of Luther and the theological insight of Calvin, but his clarity of thought and expression is a blessing.

The translators’ and editors’ notes—especially their theological and philosophical conclusions—need to be read with a great degree of skepticism. Works by Paul Helm and Richard Muller should be used to supplement and correct the notes.

Richard Muller, Christ and the Decree: Christology and Predestination in Reformed Theology from Calvin to Perkins

Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008, 235 pgs.

Summary: Muller argues that the Reformed scholastics were not rationalists and did not organize their doctrine around a central doctrine, such as predestination. Further, he shows the continuity and discontinuity between Calvin and the third and fourth generation Reformers.

The essential history of Reformed thought begins with the response of Luther to the sacramental system of the Roman Catholic Church via his interpretation of Paul. Paul placed Christ at the very center of salvation and history. Luther and the Reformers concluded that the “medieval system was christocentric only in a formal sense” (73). Christ merited the grace, but God as the first mover and the Church bestowed the grace through the sacraments ex opera operato. Christ as the current mediator and the meeting place of God and man was severely compromised by the Church’s view of itself as the mediator and dispenser of grace. The recipient of sacramental grace must not hinder the work of God and the Church, but faith in Christ was secondary. Christ’s merit was further eroded by the addition the saints’ merit to the process of salvation and sanctification.

The Reformers responded by attempting to return Christ to the center of salvation as the only mediator and meeting place of God and man through the five solas (grace, faith, scripture, Christ, glory of God). The solas also required that they return to a Paulian or Augustinian anthropology. Both theological moves required them to respond to the medieval scholastic system of thought defending the Roman Catholic system. The first generation of Reformers did so mainly through exegesis of Scripture, but the next several generations needed to work out a theological framework that organized and maintained that exegesis in a non-contradictory manner. All of the Reformers, including Luther and Calvin, appropriated theological and philosophical tools to develop the distinctions and structures in defense of Scripture. Their system was not rationalistic, but was reasonable assuming the inspired Bible as a controlling element of their theological developments.

Benefits/Detriments: An extremely helpful overview of the development of Reformed theology from Calvin to Perkins and the continuity and discontinuity between the Reformers, the patristic, and medieval scholastics. The book is narrowly focused in response to the poor historical analysis of the last 150 years.  It demolishes the “central dogma” tenant and the issue of “Calvin against the Calvinist.”

It was a delight to see the Baptist John Gill (1697-1771) mentioned as a Reformed scholastic.

Richard A. Muller, God, Creation, and Providence in the Thought of Jacob Arminius: Sources and Directions of Scholastic Protestantism in the Era of Early Orthodoxy

Baker Book House Company, 1991, 309 pgs.

Summary: A scholarly assessment of the development of Arminius’ theology. Muller’s basic argument is that Arminius is part of the third wave of Protestant theologians who attempted to systematize the earlier exegesis of Scripture by the first wave of the Reformers. In so doing, Arminius attempts to appropriate medieval scholastic and Jesuit tools in vocabulary and theological distinctions to help explain some of the inherent theological tension in theology. His greatest difference with his Reformed counterparts was not biblicism or scholasticism but how he understands God’s being and psychology and God’s relationship to creation.

Arminius adopts and modifies Thomas of Aquinas’ (1225-1274) understanding of the sovereignty of God in his relation to creation using his own modification of the doctrine of middle knowledge, which was developed and embraced by the Jesuits. Arminius’ hybrid theology teaches that God limits himself by his relationship to the order of creation so that God’s actions are contingent on the foreseen decisions of human beings. Thus God and creation are in a mutually reciprocal relationship and to a degree God’s actions are determined by human actions (cf. 135, 165). Arminius also defines the grace of salvation and the grace of creation in such a way as to require that the grace of salvation be universal in nature though limited by human freedom. Because Arminius’ theology allows for God and man to have a reciprocal relationship, Arminianism is more open to the materialistic rationalism of Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment philosophy (cf. 284-285).

Exemplar Quote:

The issue is not that the world has attained an equal ultimacy with God but rather that the conditions established by God in the act of creation become determinative of all subsequent discussion concerning God and world (75).

Thus, the intricacies of Arminius’ God language… are crucial to the whole Arminian system understood as a theological and philosophical construction of reality—a construction notably different from the Reformed thought of the day in its view not only of predestination but also of the entire relation of God to the world and, indeed, of the character of temporal reality (101).

What Arminius has done in this description of the self-communication of the divine goodness is to argue all the divine affections as manifestations of the two primitive or primary affections, goodness and love; benignity, kindness, and mercy as modifications of goodness in relation to its objects. This argument is crucial to his whole theological perspective inasmuch as it has the effect of binding the divine affections to the primary impulse of God ad extra, the self-communicative character of the divine goodness, and thereby relating the divine affections to the teleological presupposition of Arminius’ theology and, more immediately, to the gracious relationship of God to the created order (198).

Benefits/Detriments: The book cannot be read without a background in scholastic theology and half a dozen reference books. Muller persuasively explains how Arminius developed his system and the theological distinctions and the order necessary to maintain it. This book is not a discussion of soteriology, but of Arminius understanding of God, creation, and providence.

Karl Barth, The Theology of Schleiermacher

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1982, 287 pgs.

Summary: A careful consideration and critique of Schleiermacher’s canon and theological system by Karl Barth (1886-1968), delivered as lectures in 1924.

The lectures are divided into two chapters: the first discussing the theology of Schleiermacher as a preacher, working particularly with his early sermons, Easter and Christmas sermons, and household sermons. The second chapter considers the content of Schleiermacher’s Encyclopedia, Hermeneutics, The Christian Faith, and The Speeches on Religion (cf. my review).

Schleiermacher’s basic goal and failure are described in this way by Barth: “The task that he set himself . . . was to demonstrate that heresy and heterodoxy are not the same thing and to indicate how much friendly agreement is possible within the space inhabited in common by the orthodox and the heterodox” (204). (Heresy is essentially defined by Schleiermacher as rejecting the feeling of absolute dependence on the infinite as germinated by Christ.)

Schleiermacher believed that he had made the following contributions to theology: “For faith the consciousness of God arises out of Christian experience. For scholarship it is grounded in our universal nature. Orthodoxy finds the various heads of the church’s doctrine of God more or less complete and with the further guarantee—something that older Protestant dogmatics failed to give—that these doctrines could not be presented apart from Christ. Rationalism finds its beloved minimum of universal religion and it can also rejoice in the promise that precisely on the basis of this minimum it, too, can be a full-fledged member of the Christian church. The eternal compact which was the goal of the Reformation, though without meeting the needs of our time, has been sealed. Christianity need not accompany barbarism nor scholarship unbelief. Natural science and biblical criticism can come. Empiricism and speculation have become superfluous and can go. The little ship of the church in which we are all voyaging is protected against overturning. No war will be declared and no one will be shut out.” And then Barth concludes his description of Schleiermacher’s thought with: “There are only two mourners, the Bible and the Reformation, inasmuch as their goal was a different one from that assigned to them by Schleiermacher” (205).

Barth finds Schleiermacher’s theological conclusions untenable within Christianity and without. “His Christology is the incurable wound in his system. . .” (107).  “[I]f the Bible and classical Christian dogma are right to see in Christ this final word, then it must be said at least that in Schleiermacher’s Christology with its great quid pro quo, executed with so much intelligence and piety, we have a heresy of gigantic proportions. But then the 19th century which adopted this Christology wholesale—which is almost worse—without noting the consequences, must have displayed an almost incredible theological dilettantism” (104). “. . . I believe that the intolerable humanizing of Christ that triumphed under the aegis of Schleiermacher in the 19th Century was very closely related to pietism, especially in the form that it had been given by Zinzendorf” (106).

And Barth offers this theological summary: “there was for him no bondage of the will in the sense of the reformers, no sin that meant real and effective lostness, no word of truth that was more than one of many possible expressions of subjective experience, no justification that was not viewed as an infusion of righteousness after the manner of the Roman Catholics or Osiander, no repentance that meant a conversion in principle, no church that was not secretly identical with civilized society in general, no eschaton that was not already in the soul, that we have literally to wait for” (102).

Schleiermacher defines redemption “as an increasing fusion of the sensory self-consciousness with the God-consciousness.” The finite being recognizes his dependence on the infinite as an emotional response. All religions have “redemption” at the core, but Christianity’s uniqueness is found in that Christ did not need redemption prior to creating his fellowship (the primitive church), and therefore Christ becomes the focus of “redemption.”

Schleiermacher’s  definition of “God is ‘the source of the feeling of absolute dependent” (272). And his view of the Old Testament was to reject “the patristic principle that there is one revelation in the two testaments. There can only be a continuity of the history of religion within which Christianity and Judaism both have a place, but the same may logically be said of Christianity and paganism” (239).

Yet, Bart finds Schleiermacher a “clever” Christian desperately trying to bring in as many people into the church within the current cultural horizons while never “cutting the rope that binds him to Christ or venturing a balloon ride into the absolute” (105).

Benefits/Detriments:

Barth exhibits what is the only academically valuable and Christian method of doing historical theology: “But I will remain true to our previous method of not only letting Schleiermacher speak for himself but also letting him explain and criticize himself, for I believe that here, too, this is best suited to the material and best adapted to give us an understanding of the man. . .” (184).

As far as I am able to ascertain, Barth’s view of Schleiermacher’s system is correct.  And I agree strongly with Barth’s statement that, “we are appalled by the fact that Schleiermacher seems to not have seriously considered at all the meaning of the church’s dogma before replacing it with his own substitute” (240). It would be a great blessing if the reformers of the church would first begin by understanding what they are rejecting.

However, I find Barth’s response to Schleiermacher suspect, that we must now create a “positive counterachievement. . .what is needed is the ability to do it at least as well as he did his” (260).

The attitude in theology that “our generation” must save Christianity from the unprecedented crisis should always be approached with skepticism—even among those who cling to historical dogma. The crisis of disbelief is a historical constant and to be expected in every age. The Bible’s revelation of redemption is of a restoration of a relationship that is founded and culminates in Christ as presented in the Old and New Testament. The foundation is always Christ as preached by Paul and Moses, and Abraham and Noah, and Enoch and Abel. The framework must never be Adam’s speculation as to the character of God within the horizons of the evil one or some theological synergy between the first Adam and Christ. It must always be Christ.

This is only the second book by Barth I have read, and neither book addresses his positive theological teaching in anymore than an incidental way. And so I am not competent to critique Barth’s neo-orthodoxy or his relationship to this movement.

John Calvin and Sebastian Castellio, The Secret Providence of God, ed. Paul Helm, trans. Keith Goad

Crossway, 2010, 125 pgs.

Summary: John Calvin’s former friend Sebastian Castellio (1515-1563) wrote, privately published, and circulated among Protestants a letter attacking Calvin’s articulation of the decrees of God. (Calvin divides God’s will into the revealed will of God and the secret will of God or the published and secret decrees [cf. Deut. 29:29]). The letter is rhetorically sophisticated and claims to summarize Calvin’s teachings into 14 articles drawn from his writings. Castellio, or the calumniator, then makes a show of defending Calvin and his careful theological distinctions before collapsing into accusing Calvin of erecting Satan as the God of the Bible (53), because God is the ultimate cause of evil.

Castellio sets the attitude and the framework of the later developments of Arminianism egalitarian love and libertarian free will. There is also the use of a “normal” hermeneutic used to shield Castellio’s  first premises: “When Christ taught divine thing he followed common sense. If common sense is taken away, then all the parables of Christ will be nullified, for we interpret these parables by means of common sense” (43).

“Calvin’s response to such questions is threefold: to affirm the meaning of the truth of the scriptural data that call forth these distinctions, to resolutely refuse to apply analogies to God that are not themselves warranted by Scripture, and to affirm (also on scriptural precedent) that God’s ways are mysterious and unfathomable” (29, Helm).

Calvin affirms that “there are enough testimonies pointing toward God’s love for the entire human race to prove that all who will die in a state of ingratitude are guilty. Nor is this any different from his special love with which he draws a few whom he esteems enough to be chosen from the many” (66). He also defends his attacked distinctions from Scripture and supports God’s absolute sovereignty.

Benefits/Detriments:

In as much as Castellio represents the modern tendency toward indifference to careful distinctions and exegesis created by the biblical data (cf. John 3:19; Rom. 9:13-18) and the semi-Pelagian push for “free will” and egalitarian love without recognizing the theological contradictions Calvin’s response is applicable. Helpful introduction by Paul Helm.

Friedrich Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers

Harper Torch Book, 1958, 287 pgs.

Summary: Schleiermacher (1768-1834) attempts to preserve Protestant Christianity from the corrosive effects of materialism by mixing Lutheran pietism with Spinoza and Platonism. He is obviously influenced by dialectic thought but does not appear to be a strict Hegelian. He begins with the following presuppositions: human beings are evolving and maturing, God’s work with humanity must be universal, true piety is the positive emotional response of the finite to the Infinite. On the issue of universalism, there seems to be a synergy between Spinoza’s pantheism (all that is is God) and the egalitarian love of much medieval and Lutheran mysticism.

The book is divided up into five speeches to the cultured Germans of his day who are rejecting Christianity. Schleiermacher wrote the speeches as a rhetorical argument against despising Christianity. Because he was often more concerned about the rhetorical effect rather than clarity, there are about 60 pages of explanations required to explain to his readers exactly what he meant.  Many times he points his reader to his Glaubenslehre or systematic theology to clarify what his intentions were. Because he defines piety as an emotional response to the Infinite, truth is secondary to the emotional experience.

Since Schleiermacher concluded that Spinoza was mostly right, Christianity must now modify itself with the newly discovered insights of the modern age. Christianity remains the best religion; Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the redeemer and ultimate mediator between the finite and the Infinite. I can identify no rational grounds for Christ being a redeemer within On Religion, but perhaps this is explained in the Glaubenslehre.   He argues that doctrine and creeds are of little benefit in guiding the emotions, and the point of true religion is to experience the Infinite. Religions channel approaches to the Infinite around the insights of priests, but everyone should become Protestant Christian rather than a Catholic, Muslim, or Jew. Protestant Christianity is the purest approach to the Infinite because of the role of Christ as the ultimate mediator.

Benefits: The book is of historical value to exhibit what happens when Christians attempt to adopt the first principles of materialism or any other alien philosophy into their theological system. Schleiermacher’s insight that true religion is a finite man responding with love to an infinite God is accurate.

Detriments: To conclude that the Bible is wrong and that the church has always been wrong is to stand before man and say, “God is wrong, and some men tell the truth” (cf. Rom. 3:4). The system of Schleiermacher is not supported by the Bible, the Holy Spirit’s testimony within Christ’s Church, or by reason—reason submissive to revelation and reason ruling over revelation. The God of Schleiermacher is so indefinite and weak that it should be no surprise that Nietzsche (1844-1900) proclaimed him dead.

Gordon J. Wenham, Story as Torah: Reading Old Testament Narrative Ethically

Baker Academic Books, 2000, 180 pgs.

Summary: The basic argument of the book is that the “Old Testament narrative books do have a didactic purpose, that is, they are trying to instill both theological truths and ethical ideals into their readers” (3). The ethical ideal of the Old Testament is not merely found in bare conformity to the letter of the law, but is found in the characters imitating God. Since, the characters so often fail at meeting the requirements of the law or the ethical ideal, God must then be a gracious and forgiving God.

The ethics of the Old Testament narrative can be recovered by constructing the “implied author” and the “implied reader.” (Both of these concepts are literary terms that help scholars discuss the authors’ intended purpose.) Once the author and reader have been placed, then Wenham creates a three point criteria for recognizing whether or not the “actor’s behavior in a particular situation is regarded as virtuous” (88):  the behavior is “repeated in a number of contexts”; “it should be exhibited in a positive context”; “remarks in the legal codes, psalms and wisdom books often shed light on Old Testament attitudes” (89).

What we learn from Genesis 1 to 3 is that the intended goal of the law and personal behavior is to imitate God and to return the world to the pattern found in the Garden of Eden. Sin and death are unclean aspects of the world after the Fall of man, but life and holiness are gifts from God. Sin and death are to be avoided, minimized, and rejected as much as possible in the current era through obedience to the law.

Benefits: My hope is that this book was intended to reach academic researchers with an essentially secular argument that requires them to read the Bible in the ethical and textual manner intended by the original human authors.

Helpful in creating a systematic criterion for recovering the intended ethical teaching of Old Testament narrative texts. Also, the argument for a difference between the bare legal code and the ultimate ethic of imitating God is particularly valuable.

Detriments: Apparently, Dr. Wenham believes that Genesis was heavily edited during the Davidic monarchy (ftn. at 43). There is no discussion of the dual authorship of the Bible (God and man) and how this effects his conception of implied author and reader.

Further, he believes “Cain’s murder is more serious than Adam’s disobedience and his penalty, perpetual nomadism, is more severe than Adam’s exclusion from the garden” (23, cf. 33, 81-82). This statement is not defensible given the horizons of the human authors, let alone God’s perspective. Adam’s penalty, according to Genesis, was to be the cause of the regime of sin and death, the cause of all suffering that has fallen on humanity, and to participate in that suffering for some 900 years. Because Genesis teaches creation ex nihilo, Adam’s rebellion attempted to overthrow the Being on whom he was contingent physically and spiritually. In so doing he attempted to destroy God, the universe, himself and all his posterity in one act. And as the first image bearer of God, he had at least the capacity to murder humanity. Cain’s sin attacked an image bearer of God; it was not as direct nor can its penalty be considered “more severe.”

Finally, while there is a difference between the bare law and imitating God, the two great commandments are barely touched on as the ethical ideal. This is likely caused by the narrowness of his intended audience and his historical narrative scheme.