Why I Read the Bible

I suppose there are several ways I could put this, but one of the main reasons I read the Bible is captured well in Peter's response to Jesus in the end of John 6:

And He was saying, "For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father." As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore. So Jesus said to the twelve, "You do not want to go away also, do you?" Simon Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God." John 6:65-69 (emphasis added)

I read the Bible because it is life - the words of life from the One who is the true life, spoken to the creatures he made to receive that life from their Creator. Separated from that life that one has by believing in and knowing the Holy One of God, Jesus of Nazareth, a man is dead even though he lives. Once made alive by God, though, a man hungers for the words of the One who, being rich in mercy, made him alive together with Christ.

One reason I love theology

I'm listening through a debate right now on infant/covenantal baptism vs. believers' baptism, and was just struck by a thought. One of the things I love about Christian theology is that, if it's true, it is of eternal and utmost importance; if it's false, it is a colossal waste of time. There is no middle ground.

Okay, I'm a geek, but that's my idea of living on the edge :)

The Gaze of the Holy God

Though I am a big fan of RC Sproul and a joyful supporter of Ligonier Ministries, I had not yet gotten around to reading what some consider to be his most powerful book - The Holiness of God. Written over twenty years ago, it is considered a standard work and a masterpiece by almost every Christian reviewer I've read. Finally deciding to take it up, I read the first chapter last night, and would like to describe my experience.

I say experience rather than thoughts because I am beginning to understand why many people have called this a life-changing, send-you-to-your-knees kind of book. Most say they finished it in a single sitting, and it left them forever changed. Thankfully my wife is sick, and I didn't want to keep the light on, or I'm sure I would have stayed up all night (as I've often done in the past) to finish the thing.

Be that as it may, after I read the first chapter, entitled "The Holy Grail" (in which RC recounts the first time that he, as a young Christian, really caught a glimpse of God's holiness), I lay awake in bed staring blindly at the darkened ceiling. I could not sleep. I was laid bare to the core. I felt the great weight of the gaze of the Almighty, the Eye of Heaven, Creator of the universe, stripping my heart bare, and I knew that I was as nothing compared to Him who saw into my innermost parts. It was truly awful, in the literal sense of the word - a moment full of awe, my finitude glimpsing His infinitude; my hidden deceits exposed to His pure, terrible goodness. I think I understand a very small part of what Isaiah meant when he said, "I am undone."

And yet, that was not all. There was not just this terrible weight. There was something else. As I lay there in bed, my heart an open window to heaven, I knew that I was known. I was - and am - known far better that I will ever know myself. And if His presence was strong, his chiding was gentle. Have you ever seen the gentleness of great strength? Say, a man, whose hands could crush you, tenderly holding a newborn, a "gentle giant," as my mom says? With my walls down, there was no need to thunder at me. And this gentleness spoke to me of love (though a terrifyingly infinite love). It was not a force that gazed into my heart, that made it's immense weight felt in my soul; it was a Person.

I am no artist, but this experience left me with more of a mental image than words, so I thought I'd try to reproduce it here. I don't know if this is any more elucidating than my inadequate words, but I couldn't get the image out of my head. Go easy on me :)

I have no idea if any of this makes sense, or if I'm coming close to describing the impression God left on me last night. I do know that, though I've been a Christian for years, and have gained glimpses of God's holiness before, He opened my eyes to Him in a way that I sorely needed and which echoes RC's own experience. I get exactly what he's saying. I hope to offer a review of the whole book here once I'm done, but if the first chapter and my previous experience with Sproul's teaching are any indication, this one's going right to my top five list of most-recommended books.

"Logos" Understood In Context

I got into a conversation over at the Stand to Reason blog with, among others, an old sparring partner of mine, the Mormom Heideggerian Kevin Winters (I hope he won't mind me calling him that, but it's the most concise way of describing his position I am capable of - and if you don't know what a "Heideggerian" is, don't worry about it, or visit his blog and jump into continental philosophy to find out). The conversation centered on the translating of "logos" in John 1 as "logic" or "reason" in defense of the claim that logic comes from the very nature of God Himself. My response to Kevin ended up being so unexpectedly long and (hopefully) cogent that I decided to post it here as a blog entry. Who knows - maybe someone out there in this big great blogosphere will find my thoughts on this somewhat helpful. In any event, I put so much time into it that I thought it would be a waste not to put it up here.

Kevin's comment to which I was responding read:

The interpretation of Logos in John 1:1 as "logic" is highly anachronistic. Was John a closet Aristotelian philosopher? No, he was a common Jewish fisherman. F.F. Bruce said it best:

"No doubt the English term 'Word' is an inadequate rendering of the Greek logos, but it would be difficult to find one less inadequate... But if logos is not completely meaningless to an ordinary reader, it probably suggest something like 'reason', and that is more misleading than 'Word'. A 'word' is a means of communication, the expression of what is in one's mind...

"The term logos was familiar in some Greek philosophical schools, where it denoted the principle of reason or order immanent in the universe, the principle which imposes form on the material world and constitutes the rational soul in man. It is not in Greek philosophical usage, however, that the background of John's thought and language should be sought. Yet, because of that usage, logos constituted a bridge-word by which people brought up in Greek philosophy, like Justin Martyr in the second century, found their way into Johannine Christianity.

"The true background of John's thought and language is found not in Greek philosophy but in Hebrew revelation. The 'word of God' in the Old Testament denotes God in action, especially in creation, revelation and deliverance."The Gospel of John: Introduction, Exposition, and Notes, 29.

The use of John 1:1 as a proof text for the necessity of logic is silly.

Here is my response.

I agree that:

1) John was not a closet Aristotelian philosopher

2) "logos" as "reason" (as understood by some strands of Greek philosophical thought, and as modern readers here are understanding it) may not communicate exactly what the author of the fourth Gospel was trying to convey, and

3) Bruce is mostly correct when he says, "The true background of John's thought and language is found not in Greek philosophy but in Hebrew revelation. The 'word of God' in the Old Testament denotes God in action, especially in creation, revelation and deliverance."

However, it is my studied opinion that a closer look at both the cultural and textual context reveals a fuller understanding of John's use of "logos" in his gospel than you or Bruce (who I fully admit is a much more qualified scholar than myself to speak on this) seem to be suggesting. Don't take that humble admission too far, though - I do have other scholarship on my side here, and am not pitting myself alone against Bruce.

The gospel of John was written during the time that the early church was dealing with the rise of proto- and early Gnosticism. (As I'm sure you know, Gnosticism varied greatly, but the basic belief was one inherited from Platonism - that all matter is evil. Consequently, according to the Gnostics, Christ did not "come in the flesh," or have a real body - since bodies are matter, matter is evil, and a divine being could not be joined to such an evil thing - but instead his appearance as a man was an illusion.)

In any event, this notion was in play when John wrote his gospel. In fact, the epistles attributed to the apostle John, who is also traditionally credited as writing the fourth gospel, were direct attacks on Gnosticism in its early form as it began to sway the first century church (2 John 1:7 - "For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist.").

Within this context, then, it is important to perhaps look at the prologue as a whole to understand just how the author was using "logos". If one were a Gnostic reading it, one would be happily trucking right along and have no problem with the first thirteen verses. Suddenly, though, verse 14 hits:

"And the Word (logos) became flesh (sarx)"

What? says the Gnostic. The divine logos could NOT become flesh! (Bear in mind that sarx was the equivalent of dung, or an even stronger term perhaps, to the Gnostic mind. Furthermore, in the Greek these two terms are situated right next to each other, so the juxtaposition could not have been sharper.)

I think this textual and cultural context gives amazing insight into John's usage of "logos". He was certainly aware of the Gnostic claim, and also how they would understand in some fashion what he was talking about when he applied "logos", a term they were probably quite familiar with and to which they had tied certain associations. That he used this term, then stresses that the "logos" became flesh, became matter, argues powerfully that he had this sort of polemic in mind when writing his gospel. I see verse 14 as being the key to understanding John’s point of using logos – to incisively cut down the Gnostic view of Christ, something he would be keen to do, given that he had lived with the man for three years and was witness to both his divinity AND his humanity. I think we don’t give John, or the other apostles for that matter, enough credit when we call them merely common Jewish fishermen. These guys certainly encountered the philosophies hostile to Christianity that were circulating in the ancient world of the first century, and had adequate tools with which to combat them – not only that, but an empowerment by the Holy Spirit to do so. I see John 1 as evidence of that, though really the New Testament is full of more.

Now, I actually do think that later, more Greek-oriented thinkers (such as Justin Martyr) probably took the Logos doctrine farther that John intended. But I don’t think that an understanding of the Greek usage of the term was totally missing from the author’s mind or intent when he wrote his famous prologue. I actually think he was using the enemies own ideas against them – attempting to impale them on their own sword, so to speak.

UPDATE 10/4/07: Upon further reflection and reading, I decided I should probably have used the more specific term "docetism" rather than the much wider "gnosticism" to avoid confusion.

Bultmann's Fundamental Mistake

Alright, enough with the lightweight posts. Time to get back to dealing with things of substance in a substantive way. This one may take a little bit of foundation-laying, but bear with me - the point at the end, I think, is good - if you're a logic and theology geek like me and actually like this stuff, that is. My apologies if you aren't.

One of the things I have been studying lately are the various prominent theologians of the 20th century and their thought. The last century saw a strong reaction against the liberalism of the 1800's (which sought to discard or reinterpret the old doctrines of orthodoxy where they seemed problematic to the modern mind), mainly (or at least initially) in the form of the so-called neo-orthodoxy or dialectical theology of Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann. These two men were at odds with each other in some significant ways - so much so that Barth accused Bultmann of reverting to the old liberalism they were attempting to demolish and replace - but have been included together under the common umbrella term of "dialectical theology" by historical theologians because of a stress from both men, contra liberalism, of the differences between God and humanity. While much more could be said about both men (which I may do later on), it is on this last point in regards to Bultmann's theology on the nature and knowledge of God that I would like to offer some comments.

Bultmann (1884-1976) was not a systematic theologian, but during his life as a career scholar he enjoyed a high standing among academia as a major New Testament scholar. After an initial foray into the dialectical theology of the 1920s, he became deeply influenced by existentialism (particularly that of Martin Heidegger) and allied this somewhat paradoxically with his deep interest in historical explanations and biblical studies to produce a brand-new restatement of the message of the New Testament - a sort of Christian existentialism. He is best known for his program of demythologizing, the task of restating Christianity in language that made sense to people with a modern, "scientific" worldview by stripping it of the outdated, "mythological" worldview in which it had first appeared. In other words, there was a core of theological truth contained in Scripture, but you had to get rid of the mythology (such as supernatural occurrences, expectations, and the worldview that made these possible) to find it and understand it as a modern. (Though motivated differently, this view in many ways put him in the same bed as the old liberals.)

This idea rested on what Bultmann saw as the most important message[1] to be extracted from the New Testament: God. A great God far above and vastly different from the material world and the humans who inhabit it - so far beyond us, in fact, that there is no way we can know Him, or even speak sensibly of Him at all. God is not an object out in the universe at which we can point, an existing thing; He is the underpinning reality of every object and the whole universe, the basis of existence itself. This position was not new; theologically, it has roots in the Cappadocian Fathers of the East, Pseudo-Dionysius propounded it in the 6th century, and Thomas Aquinas produced probably the most highly developed and sophisticated version of this in church history. His view, from whence Bultmann takes his cue, is basically that God transcends everything, even our ways of thinking, to the point that no statement we make about Him can do Him justice - and because of this we can't really say anything about Him at all, at least not in the same way we could say something about a ball, or a chair, or my cousin Rob.

Bultmann recognized, as did Aquinas, that this view of God is problematic when one is attempting to do theology - that is, speaking of God. Aquinas found his way out by using analogy - in other words, when we say God is a certain thing (e.g., good, powerful, wise, etc.) we are just using analogical language, the best that we have, attempting, as accurately as possible, to describe the indescribable. Bultmann, however, took a different route:

If "speaking of God" is understood as "speaking about God," the such speaking has no meaning whatever, for its subject, God, is lost in the very moment it takes place. Whenever the idea, God, comes to mind, it connotes that God is the Almighty; in other words, God is the reality determining all else...Every "speaking about" presupposes a standpoint external to that which is being talked about. But there cannot be any standpoint which is external to God. Therefore it is not legitimate to speak about God in general statements, in universal truths which are valid without references to the concrete, existential position of the speaker.[2]

Historian Jonathan Hill sums it up this way:

In other words, instead of trying to make objective statements about God, we should speak about our own subjective experience. Because our existence is dependent on God, understanding ourselves will allow us to understand him.[3]

I certainly don't agree with Barth on everything, but I stand behind him in refutation of that point. We do not understand God by understanding ourselves. God has revealed himself to us through the person of Jesus and propositionally through His written Word. The Christianity of the apostles and martyrs is built not off of introspection, but upon revelation.

But even if Hill's isn't an accurate summation of Bultmann's point, a problem still remains. Do you see it? It is so fundamental that it shapes the rest of his errant theology. Every worldview begins with an ultimate reality, and out of that the rest flows. Every religion, every theology begins with a view of God, upon which the rest finds its logical base. It's sort of like using a level when beginning to build a house - mess it up there, and the whole thing will be off.

Let me break Bultmann's argument here down into a syllogism to aid in getting at the problem:

1) God is the reality determining all else.

2) Every "speaking about" presupposes a standpoint external to that which is being talked about.

3) But there cannot be any standpoint which is external to God.

4) Therefore it is not legitimate to speak about God in general statements, in universal truths which are valid without references to the concrete, existential position of the speaker.

The flaw in his reasoning can be seen in premise 2). It is patently and demonstrably false, and without this crucial premise, the thing won't fly. To show it is false, ask yourself these two questions: can you speak about yourself? If so, how could you be external to yourself?

The truth is, I can speak about myself. I can know objective things about myself, yet I am never once operating from a standpoint external to myself. Without this faulty premise, the conclusion is unwarranted. So for at least this consideration, the argument should be rejected. Moreover, one may be able to take issue with premise 3) by making the distinction between how one could be internal to God in one way (ground of existence) and external to him in another (personhood).

I call this (long) post "Bultmann's Fundamental Mistake" for this reason: his mistake here effectively drew the outline of the rest of his theology and seems to me to be the seed from whence his other errors sprung. This can serve as a healthy reminder to us to examine our fundamental worldview commitments - without an accurate level, the whole house becomes crooked and, in fact, dangerous.


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[1] This conclusion, that a Wholly Other God is the important message conveyed by Scripture behind the mythology, really is untenable and rather absurd, given his own view. If this is the core of the "mythological" worldview, how is it that one can be left with this utterly and foundationally mythological element (given his definition of such things) after one has stripped away the myth? (In other words, it makes no sense to say that latex is the most important element of the wall next to me if I say that I need to remove the latex paint to get to it.) And how can something fundamentally inconsistent with a "scientific" worldview be stated sensibly in that worldview at all? This is a dead giveaway that his whole system is flawed.

[2] What Does It Mean to Speak of God? I

[3] The History of Christian Thought, pp. 280.