Book Review: The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth

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	The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth Paperback published by Cambridge University Press (2000) 0521585600 • 9780521585606 Paperback, 332 pages Published October 5th 2000 by Cambridge University Press

 

To me, this book is quite an achievement and enjoyable to read.

But beginners (and non-professionals) may need some professional guidance to grapple with its advanced content.

For, on the one hand, it assumes basic acquaintanceship with Barth’s work per se and some formal training in the field of systematic theology.
And on the other, the contributors, though all sympathetic to Barth, hold some different perspectives in their approaches.

Painting with a broad stroke, there are four major voices in this book: postliberal, radical orthodox, neo-reformed, and the German tradition.

Personally, I am happy to see that Webster (the most influential Barth scholar in UK) drawing together these Barth interpreters from diverging school of thoughts. But you probably won’t be able to tell and slide through their differences and synthesize their views.)

I recommend ch.1, 10, 14, 15, 18 of this book for beginners that have not completed any single volume of CD themselves. They are accessible and written in good styles.

As for ch.2-9, 11-3, which each takes an aspect of Barth doctrine of theological prolegomena, revelation, Scripture, Trinity, Election, Creation, Christology, Soteriology, Pneumatology, liturgy, and ethics, you will need to be able to contrast Barth against the backdrop of the traditional (evangelical) and liberal understanding of these topics in order to appreciate what Barth is doing. The contributors here do not necessarily help you do this. This is not a problem to me, and some chapters really helped me to set Barth’s CD in order.
But it should be said that the section in this companion is not for any novice who wants to read Barth as their first and primary tutor about how to talk about God systematically.

Apparently, the most seminal and controversial piece in this companion is ch.6 ‘Grace and Being’ by Bruce McCormack, which sparkled a fierce debate over a decade since its publication (on the theological ontology of God’s immanence, aseity, and election).
His chapter is not only important but also very inspirational to read, especially for what is now known as ‘actualistic ontology’ in not just theological but philosophical circles as well.

Personally, I found ch.17 ‘Barth, modernity, postmodernity’ by Graham Ward a very wise inclusion in this companion. For up until now, the solution and inspiration Barth offers for overcoming the epistemological and ethical plight in the secular world are underappreciated by theologians unfamiliar with the larger picture of contemporary critical thinking.
And this is one of the reasons why conservative theology has lost its mic to speak publicly while liberal theology has lost its vowels to speak loudly.

Graham Ward is one among those (along with Stanley Hauerwas, Joseph Magina, Paul Dafydd Jones, Steven Long, Nicholas Adams) who are insightful and capable of bringing out the bearings of Barth’s theology unto this world which has never thought they want or need to think about theology.

In my opinion, these two chapters are for the more ‘advanced’, and they are also the most rewarding chapters to read.
All in all, this book is highly recommended.

[書摘] Karl Barth on the Atonement as penal substitution

Although Barth insists (against Albrecht Ritschl and his followers) that God shows anger against sin and that God’s wrath is something very real and must be reckoned with, Barth denies that this wrath of God is turned away by the reconciliation of Christ . You must wonder why. The reason is that this binds God into an abstract law of necessity and reduces the act of God into a drama between the divine Persons.

Even though Jesus Christ is our Substitute who stands in our place and bears the full penalty of our sin, Barth is hesitant to call this a real punishment (with reference to Isa 53). He states:

But we must not make this [the concept of punishment] a main concept as in some of the older presentations of the doctrine of the atonement (especially those which follow Anselm of Canterbury), either in the sense that by His [Christ's] suffering our punishment we are spared from suffering it ourselves, or that in so doing He “satisfied” or offered satisfaction to the wrath of God. The latter thought is quite foreign to the New Testament.(CD IV/1:253)

For Barth the concept of satisfaction is "quite foreign” to the New Testament. Though the concept needs not be completely rejected, for him "satisfaction" can only mean that

which suffices for the reconciliation of the world with God has been made (satis fecit) and can be grasped only as something which has in fact happened, and not as something which had to happen by reason of some upper half of the event; not, then, in any theory of satisfaction, but only as we see and grasp the satis-facere which has, in fact, been achieved. (CD IV/1:276)

Barth is adamant that we cannot force what has divinely taken place into a preconceived abstract concept (whether it means ‘legal justice’, ‘emotional satisfaction’, or whatever); rather, we can only begin to understand the meaning of God’s act by grappling with the Christ event itself.

For Barth "substitution" has already taken place in the man Jesus Christ before the creation of humanity (supralapsarianism). In his view God’s wrath never precedes man’s confrontation with the gospel, and Christ’s death has not been made necessary by historical sin.

Then if this concept of punishment was to be retained (as it should), it must be bestowed an ‘idealistic sense’ according to which the God-man Jesus took humanity’s place from eternity as an “eternal reprobate from God”.

However, to avoid the feminist’s charge against substitutionary atonement as a ‘monstrous child abuse’, our theological construction must be deep down Trinitarian lest we ‘individualize’ the Father and the Son as if the superior one was abusing the inferior person’s will.

In response to this, Bruce McCormack has Barth’s Trinitarian view on the atonement excellently put:

The problem is that death, however it is conceived, it a human experience. How then could the death of Jesus Christ be an event between God and God, between, that is, an eternal father and an eternal Son who is understood along the lines of a Logos simpliciter [that is, the Divine Logos apart from his identity as the human-incarnated Jesus - Ed.]? So the logic of penal substitution is not that the Father does something to his "eternal Son" (as the charge of "cosmic" child abuse would suggest). An action of the eternal Father upon the eternal Son (seen in abstraction from the assumed humanity) would require a degree of individuation between the two such that the "separation" needed for an action of the one upon the other becomes unthinkable.

…This is a human experience of the Logos. Therefore, it is an event between the eternal Father and the Logos as human. The "object" of the action is, therefore, the Logos as human. What happens in the outpouring of the wrath of God by the Father upon Jesus Christ is that the human experience of the "penalty of death" that humans have merited through their sinfulness is taken into the very life of God himself.

But then we still have to consider the logic of the "subject." The subject who delivers Jesus Christ up to death is not the Father alone. For the Trinitarian axiom opera trinitas ad extra sunt indivisa means that if one does it, they all do it. So it is the triune God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) who gives himself over to this experience. And that also means, then, that the Father is not doing something to someone other than himself. The triune God pours his wrath out upon himself in and through the human nature that he has made his own in his second mode of his being — that is the ontological significance of penal substitution. The triune God takes this human experience into his own life; he "drinks it to the dregs." And in doing so, he vanquishes its power over us. That, I would submit, is the meaning of penal substitution when seen against the background of a well-ordered Christology and a well-ordered doctrine of the Trinity.

—Bruce L. McCormack, ‘The Ontological Presuppositions of Barth’s Doctrine of the Atonement’ in The Glory of the Atonement: Biblical, Theological & Practical Perspectives, Charles E. Hill and Frank A. James III eds. (Intervarsity: MI, 2004)

[書摘] Eberhard Jüngel’s theological ontology

The fact that in the incarnation God became man without ceasing to be God, tells us that his nature is characterized by both repose and movement, and that his eternal Being is also a divine Becoming. This does not mean that God ever becomes other than he eternally is or that he passes over from becoming into being something else, but rather that he continues unceasingly to be what he always is and ever will be in the living movement of its eternal Being. His becoming is not a becoming on the way toward being or toward a fullness of being, but is the eternal fullness and the overflowing of his eternal unlimited Being. Becoming expresses the dynamic nature of his Being. His becoming is, as it were, the other side of his Being, and his being is the other side of his Becoming. His Becoming is his Being movement and his Being in movement is his becoming. –T.F. Torrance, The Christian doctrine of God (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996).

Based on John Webster’s translation and introduction of Eberhard Jüngel’s God’s Being Is in Becoming (Eerdmans, 2001):

Jüngel (along with Moltmann though with much more philosophical sophistication) is the early exemplar of what 35 years on has become an established tendency to deploy the doctrine of the Trinity in order to differentiate [Christian] theology from philosophical theism. Jüngel insisted that ontology is properly theological, and ‘becoming’ is a function of God and not vice versa. (On this point, Milbank’s demand has already been fulfilled by Jüngel’s exposition of Barth.)

Jüngel’s study has been widely criticized as Hegelian (McCormack with his postliberal actualistic ontology also suffers from this misconception) by conservative Barthians (typically neo-reformed theologians; e.g., G. O’Collins) who distrust both languages. The experience of being a pupil of Bultmann leads Jüngel to be much more sensitive to the existential reality of God: only when God is perceived in the movement of procession, we can talk about a genuine encounter between God and humanity.

Such a talk about God raises hermeneutical questions— questions concerning God as the quantification of human subjectivity. As such, Jüngel actually offers a dogmatic justification (i.e., his theological ontology) with the hermeneutical problem dealt with under the notion of the divine possession. This should distinguish him (as well as other expositors of later Barth) from other neo-orthodox correlationists (expositors of Bultmann and Tillich), though the latter want to claim Jüngel (and Barth) as their own.

What further distinguishes Jüngel and Barth himself is that Barth is very reluctant to make any concession to existentialism due to his “anti-liberal constraints”. What in Jüngel’s system proceeds hermeneutically tends to be undertaken doctrinally in Barth’s theology (specifically, Christ’s resurrection and prophetic ministry).

For Jüngel though, his Christology has such a narrow focus on Jesus’ speech-acts and his death, as a result of which the presence and agency of the resurrected Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit are not often fully operative. In other words, Barth’s pneumatology left underdeveloped in Jüngel’s system.

Furthermore, he also too often separates God’s [intercepted word of] revelation to human historical process from his practical theology (ethics, ecclesiology, and sacramental theology). Moltmann (and other social Trinitarians after him) might say against him that he still typifies a type of western theism that fails to take the relational (economic) aspects of the Trinity seriously, so as to risk closing all the divine life from human participation and leaving human history as a realm of mere secularity (it makes some sense but not too fair a judgment against Jüngel though IMO).

Concerning these two perceived lacunas (pneumatology and theological ethics) in Jüngel’s Barthian scholarship, the name Paul Nimmo just came to my mind, whose journal paper “Barth and the Election- Trinity debate: a Pneumatological View” ( included in Trinity and Election in Contemporary Theology, Michael T. Dempsey ed., Eerdmans, 2011) and Being in Action: The Theological Shape of Barth’s Ethical Vision (T&T Clark, 2007) may supply timely fuel to the ongoing postliberal project of developing Barth.

啟示錄中「千禧年觀」和「大災難／被提」的時間對應關係

本週稍早在學校，Grant Osborn 教授與大家研討在華人教會中教導《啟示錄》的合宜框架和原則。其中一個要點是「不要太快就放棄照字面閱讀」，因為我們永遠不能小看神有照樣把事情在末世成就的能力。

而啟示錄如果按照字面閱讀，那麼其中一個要面對的議題就是神學界爭議已久的時間觀。關於千禧年觀，分為前千禧年、後千禧年、無千禧年。

關於被提，則有：災前被提、災中被提、災後被提。

容易讓我們搞混的，是「被提」與「千禧年」在各種不同末世預言的詮釋觀點中交錯的時序關係。我們一般以為 3 x 3，應該有九種對應關係。但其實沒有那麼複雜，我找了以下兩張圖來說明：

如圖

• 十架代表的是主的釘死、復活、升天。
• 前千、後先，都以基督二次再來的時間為基準。千禧年結束之後緊接著的是白色大寶座的審判與撒旦的永久受刑（沒有爭議）。
• 爭議在於，主基督會先再次降臨，作王帶領我們一千年（前千）？或是其實聖靈已經與我們同在，我們將憑藉聖靈的帶領，使教會進入這象徵神國在世上的這一千年（後千）？甚至，我們現在已經不知不覺在過這千禧年了（無千）？
• 「災前被提」或「災後被提」的觀念只和前先禧年觀相容。下圖代表的三種災難被提（災前、災中、災後），都是發生在千禧年之前。也就是把所謂的大災難看做是人子再來的確切記號。

神的想法就是神的行動就是神的本質=自由？

possible worlds ontology

在三一神學院Kantzer Lectures in Revealed Theology的最後一場，Bruce McCormack 提到Karl Barth 教義學革命的核心觀念：上帝的自由。

他認為，上帝的自由不在於「從各種可行方案中做出決定」的權力，而在於「祂的選擇就是祂自己、祂自己就是祂的選擇」。從這個觀念推演下去的下一個重要拼圖是基督論。

如果基督是具有神、人二性的上帝之子。那麼我們將能從祂身上得知上帝的選擇是什麼、也就是上帝祂自己是什麼（Heb 1:3; Col 1:15-16）：一個向人類開放、捨己、受苦、與人類同在，卻又榮耀無比的三一上帝。

這樣，如果上帝的選擇如此、上帝自由之中所彰顯的意志是如此，我們將面對一個問題：上帝有沒有別的選擇－不論是創造或救贖這世界的方式？

客西馬尼的禱告中，當耶穌這樣問時，從上而來的聲音是一陣靜默。

不像提出神義論（Theodicy）的 Leibniz 過去說：上帝已經在所有可能世界中選擇執行了一個最佳化的世界， McCormack 認為上帝根本沒有別的選擇。「祂的選擇就是祂自己、祂自己就是祂的選擇！」重申一遍。若有任何其他的選擇可以做，上帝都將不再是 [這個] 上帝。

這就是實行的本體論（actualistic ontology）的威力：它把上帝的選擇／行動與祂自己的本體綁死。又藉著基督論把上帝的選擇和整個時間維度中的宇宙歷史綁死（儘管是用基督化的歷史觀而非用 Hegel 的唯心史觀看待）。

接下來的邏輯是，如果宇宙就是上帝永恆抉擇的彰顯，那麼就等於說上帝預定了一切。這點連通到 John Calvin 的預定論（predestination）以及傳統的墮前救贖論（supralapsarianism）。

由於我不同意 Calvin 的預定論，這裡我出現第一個疑惑。（但我支持墮前救贖論。這點聖經中說得太清楚了。）

我的考量在於「預知」在「上帝自由選擇」之中所能扮演的地位。McCormack 認為上帝所想（will）的事，就是上帝所知道（know）的事，兩者沒有差別、也不能分開。換句話說，所有上帝知道的事，都是祂想要的、選擇的、以及將會被執行的。上帝完全不會去思考、也不知道、不用知道那些祂所不想、不會做、以及不會在人類歷史中發生的事。

這裡我產生第二個問題。

我在談 上帝的預定、可能世界（possible worlds）與中介知識（middle knowledge） 的聊天記錄中表明，我相信中介知識和可能世界的存在。這是建立在上帝如同一部精密大腦的圖像上。中介知識是由約莫改教時期的天主教神學家 Luis de Molina 所提出，他認為上帝的全知除了 Thomas Aquinas 所提出的「自然知識」（不涉及意志的邏輯知識： "5" 比 "4"大、牛角是尖的）和「自由知識」（即上帝既知道、又去執行的知識。如：哪些人會得救、明天會不會下雨等等）之外 ，還有一種中介知識，就是那些只存在於可能世界中、而上帝既沒有動念去積極執行（所以獨立於上帝的自由知識），又在現實生活中與事實相反的事。

撒上廿三：11-13提到，身在基伊拉城的大衛求問神，若掃羅以滅城來逼基伊拉人交大衛出來，基伊拉人會否交大衛出來，神藉著祂的中介知識說「必交出來」。這種對虛構處境的肯定性知識，是神於受造物自由意志將如何運行、及將產生如何相映結局的預知。

我認為中介知識的神學預設，能夠發散出對「恩典」與「自由」更積極的理解。也就是說，人類每一步的選擇和行動，都像地圖捲軸被打開一般。整份地圖的製圖師上帝，雖然已經知道所有路徑以及人類會去選擇的方式（中介知識／弱預定），但人還是有完全的參與性。

再者，聖經除了在中介知識之外（另一處的例證是耶穌論及當今的世代邪惡背逆，不聽福音。而若早有這福音傳給所多瑪、蛾摩拉的話連他們都會悔改），更肯定了 人的選擇權（如保羅勸勉人不要濫用在基督裡的真自由、如耶穌的生命成為我們的表率是因為他的甘心順服彰顯人神意志的連結，而非僅是三一神自我決議後位格間 的融洽交流而已）。

反觀 McCormack ，他把「可能性」刪除盡淨，比起傳統的改革宗還要激進。如此操作方式產生的問題顯而易見：這讓「納粹屠殺」、「南亞海嘯」、「變態虐嬰殺嬰」等所有的一切爛事，都不可避免將被歸算為上帝在完全自由底下所決定開敞的積極行動。這樣的想法簡單說，叫人難以下嚥；技術點地說，我們的智慧和神學欠缺對從上帝眼光深描這些殘酷和苦難事件的能力。如果我們能肯定一事是神的積極作為，缺無法同時明白道出神藉此作為所顯明的積極意志為何，這是不平衡及不負責的神學。

換句話說，「表面違反神良善慈愛公義本性的天災人禍」只能被適當地理解為神的消極作為，亦即「神允許」或「神未曾插手」，以及「神有當下我們所不能明白的計畫」。

Hans Urs von Balthasar 的天主教巴特詮釋路線，是成熟的後自由神學必須取道經過的。Von Balthasar 肯定「類比」（analogy）在論述上帝各種存有模態（mode of being）時的作用。全本聖經都是用位格、關係、擬人的語言來描述這位上帝，這些都是人類存有的模態，在某些層面對應到上帝的本像。那麼關於自由這部 分，我可以同意「上帝的選擇就是祂自己、祂自己就是祂的選擇」的確是一個比在存在主義困局中、只擁有有限選擇的人類還要更完美的自由；但我不太能看到我們 得把上帝的意願和上帝的全知綁在一起的必要。因為人類並不這麼做：我們知道的事，不一定是我們想做的事。我們也有推知和抽象建構與現實相反的境況的能力 （例如：「若昨天下雪，我室友就不會出門了」）。

我們的神論要是能肯定上帝是在永恆中從無限可能中彰顯其意志並執行選擇，成為這樣一位上帝。

這樣相容的預定論（compatiblist predestination）仍在成立，也讓「隱而未現、屬於上帝自己的事」被保留在地圖捲軸中那些上帝和人類的共同歷史中沒有選擇去涉足實行的象限座標中（如「一個二戰不曾發生的世界」、「一個物體可以自由在二、三、四度空間中變異穿梭的世界」），讓科幻小說家繼續幻想，揣度那迷人的上帝意志和這製圖師精妙的製圖工程。是的，上帝不但是那位「以馬內利」的旅者，還是那位製圖師。

比起 Calvin系統的實行本體論、改革宗路線的後自由神學，Arminian與 天主教系統的 實行本體論、以及衛理宗路線的後自由神學更好地貫通了聖經神學和人類的實存經驗。

雖然後自由神學的關鍵是基督論與教會論、口號之一是「禁止無斷猜想」。但在 McCormack 從基督身上的神人位格交流來逐步建構「自由」與「上帝自存」等觀念時，仍然是依靠了猜想而非更仔細的經文詮釋。事實上，聖經直接回答這個問題的地方幾乎沒有。也可以說，我們在福音書的耶穌身上，並沒有看到一個在根本屬性上與人類不同的自由意志。他這個人之所是神的地方，在於他身份上是神差愛子、實行上又是一個被聖靈充滿、全然遵行天父意志的人。

從這裡開始，我們將進入下一個戰場： 對 Phi 2:6-11 的虛己基督論（kenoticism）的詮釋。

Related articles

• [書摘] God is His Decision: The Jüngel-Gollwitzer "Debate" Revisited (breath35.wordpress.com)

[書摘] A Mirror for God and for Us: Christology and Exegesis in Calvin’s Doctrine of Election

Electing

Source:  DAVID GIBSON, "A Mirror for God and for Us: Christology and Exegesis in Calvin’s Doctrine of Election", International Journal of Systematic Theology Volume 11 Number 4 October 2009, pp.448-465

【Excerpt and Summary】

Calvin’s exegesis yields a view of Christ’s role in election which may be traced across a spectrum: reaching back into eternity there is the pre-existent Son who is the author of election, the active subject who participates in the decree of election, and there is also Christ the object of the decree, the Elect One, both as the pre-existent Mediator and as the Mediator in time. In his role as the pre-existent Mediator, Christ is the ‘Head’ of the elect, the one in whom certain humans are elected.

Christ the subject of election: The electing God

Concerning the election of Judas, in Jn 6:70 he is one of the chosen; in Jn 13:18 he is not (‘I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen’). For Calvin the sense in which Judas is both chosen and not chosen is because two very different kinds of choosing are on display:

1. First a temporal election is meant by which God appoints us to any particular work – just like Saul who was elected king.
2. Then Christ speaks of the eternal election by which we are made God’s children, and by which God predestined us to life before the creation of the world.

For Calvin, the eternally reprobate can actually be adorned with God’s gifts which enable them to carry out their office (like Saul or Judas), but this is entirely different from the sanctification of the Spirit. Christ/God in history plays an active role not just in the temporal choosing of the twelve to the apostolic office (and Israel to be His law-keeper and so on), but also according to his divine nature in the eternal choosing of individuals in a salvific sense.

When it comes to Jn 15:16, 19 (‘You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit’), however, Calvin equivocates between assigning a temporal or an eternal referent to it. He first admits that this passage does not ‘treat of the common election of believers’, by which they are adopted to be God’s children, but of that special election by which he appointed his disciples to the office of preaching the gospel’. But he still wants to affirm the clear parallel between this temporal election and eternal election: both the beginning of salvation (eternal election), and all the parts which flow from it (in this case appointment to the office of preaching), issue from Christ’s free mercy. Christ is the author of both forms of election.

Christ the object of election:

The mediating God-man and preexistent Son; Christ is the object of election in an eternal sense by being the one in whom the elect from the human race are chosen (John 15, 17). Calvin’s description of this love is sharply focused on the economy – it is a love of the Son, but it is a love that must be referred to us. The title of beloved belongs to Christ alone. God loves none but in Christ. For Calvin, it is not that we are chosen by God and, on the basis of that choice, engrafted into Christ’s body; we are too lowly, even in an unfallen state, to merit God’s favor. Rather, God looked upon our head, and predestined the chosen to life only as they were members of Christ. Christ is a mirror in which God looks to see us.

It is vital to note that eternal election is not an end in itself for Calvin, but is merely the structural ground of the temporal work of salvation. For Calvin the title ‘the beloved Son’, at least in election contexts, appears to work not at the level of describing immanent Trinitarian relations, but rather the economic relations of the Father, the Son, and the people who belong to the Son. Christ confirm what the Father has decreed on our salvation by actually effecting it.

Christ the object of our faith, the elected Man and the head/ representative of the Elect.

• Calvin is most interested in describing Christ as the object of faith. Depictions such as “author of the great blessing” (Jn 6:26) and “author of life (Jn 6:33) are less claims about Christ’s divine essence than they are claims about his office of Mediator in time (Notice in Jn 6:32 . Jesus says that ‘his Father, rather than he himself, is the author of this gift.). 創始成終 is understood as a historical category.
• There is the closest possible correlation between the work of the Father and the work of the Son. The Father wills salvation in the Son, and this is what the Son has come to achieve. By entering the world to execute the Father’s eternal decree, Christ stands as faith’s object in salvation. Our faith is a response to this Father-Son relation.
• Faith is the neotic basis for a sufficient knowledge of election. The election of God in itself is hidden and secret. The Lord manifests it by the calling in time.
• Whoever is not satisfied with Christ but inquires/speculate elsewhere about eternal predestination desires to be saved contrary to God’s purpose. The nuance is that their election is not the only thing that God has decreed for them; he has also decreed their faith [in Christ]. Christ mediates the salvation that flows from eternal election by being the object of the elect person’s faith.
• To be sure, Christ’s eternal mediation is vitally important, but it is so less because of the knowledge it gives about the trinitarian ground of election and more because of the knowledge it gives of free and certain salvation.

Here Calvin speaks of his second distinction of Eternal and Temporal election: The former may be described as election itself; the latter as the salvation that flows from election.

• Temporal election: for redemptive purpose in time and sanctification. Election is known in Christ.
• Eternal election: timeless; sealed by the Holy Spirit and inscribed in the Book of Life. Election is in Christ.

As one inseparable (where time connects with eternity) reality, election and faith are executed separately –election in eternity, calling to faith in time.*

Calvin’s logical timeline of election:

In sum, Calvin begins in eternity with election in Christ. While election is properly described as decreed by the Father, Calvin is clear that Christ also participates in the choosing [of specific individuals that will belong to Him]. As we move along the line and enter the world of created reality, we encounter a universal calling of the gospel which is made effective in the hearts of the elect. Here they come to faith in Christ, and experience regeneration and adoption into God’s family.

【Further Reflection and Critique】

(1)

First, the problem in Calvin’s "faith in time" is that it is a depiction of the cognitive aspects of faith only and falls short of a concrete ecclesial narrative form. Too much weight is given to propositional and forensic account of salvation and too little room is left for collective imagination and praxis.

(2)

The dynamic relationship between the "temporal election for divine office" (e.g., King: Saul; Apostle: Judas; Covenant People: Israel; Judge: Samson) and the "temporal election into salvific faith" is underdeveloped.

Calvin only gives us a positive example where the "apostleship as a divine office" corresponds with the temporal coming to faith, which must be correctly understood as the actualization of the eternal decree. But he does not spell out how temporal election for divine office can aslo correspond to the eternal decree in a non-salvific sense: the forever damnation of Judas and forever loss of Saul.

(3)

Paul Helm thinks that Calvin understands the incarnate Christ as a ‘fit, consistent, or appropriate expression’ of the character of the Logos asarkos (eternal Son in Calvin’s conception) not merely of his omnipotence but also of his moral character. This move is to maintain the continuity between the incarnate Son and the eternal Son. But in this way Eutychism looms in (i.e., the incarnated Jesus only has one nature and it’s all about His divinity). How we maintain the distinction between Jesus two nature while keeping the ontological continuity the incarnated and the eternal One  is the challenge!

On the other hand, Karl Barth and Bruce McCormack’s concern that Calvin’s eternal Son has an ‘identity shrouded in darkness’, though seems to be not completely on target (given Calvin’s commentary on Jn 13:18),  must nonetheless be registered as legitimate. For Calvin’s immanent Trinity gives us a weak Son in terms of dramatic personality. He is the electing God, but beyond this affirmation we could only speculate other things about Him.This is because for Calvin the incarnated Son is a mere temporal expression of who He eternally is and not the other way around.

While the economic Son’s role as object of faith is underscored, how this Logos ensarkos would illumine us about the Logos asarkos is not theologically undergirded in Calvinism.

The doctrine that is traditionally called extra Calvinisticum (Lat. "The Calvinistic beyond/outside") exposes further issue. It claims that Logos was also outside or beyond the physical body of Christ. This was meant to protect the immanent Trinity from being reduced to immanent “Duality” when the economic Trinity is at work with the creation during Jesus’ 33 years earthly sojourn.

To explain the function of the extra Calvinisticum in Calvin, E.D. Willis puts it in this way: While Logos asarkos mediated the divine ordering of the universe from its beginning, Logos ensarkos performed the reconciling work without the cessation or diminution of his mediation of this divine ordering.

‘[T]he Son of God left heaven only in such a way that he continued to exercise his dominion over it; the Incarnation was the extension of his empire, not the momentary abdication of it’.

But for Willis, Calvin jeopardizes his own stance on Christocentric revelation by prioritizing election as God’s eternal will, which is discoverable by us outside the Christ event itself. If this is true, then incarnation is relegated as extension that is only complementary (rather than integral or comprehensive) to a bigger revelation. Then this “bigger revelation”, while still will commit in prioritizing the Bible over human reason, really could not defend itself from degenerating into Biblicism, dominion theology, and/or natural theology.

Thus, it is on the one hand vital to see Barth’s criticism [though ill-informed] against Calvin’s failure to assign the active subjective role to Christ in election in good terms—both Calvin and Barth want to affirm Christ as the electing God who mediates salvation in His free grace and unconditional love. On the other hand it is also crucial to understand the excruciating problem with Logos asarkos and extra Calvinisticum posited in old metaphysical framework. Nowhere in the Bible do the apostles claim to have knowledge about the preexistent (asarkos or extra) Logos apart from what we may know in Jesus’s own being and revealed words.

By consequence, it makes much better sense to speak of the Logos incarnandus (the Logos ‘to be incarnate) regarding to the passages on the preexistent Son, and this requires us to adopt an actualistic ontology that grounds our Christology in history: the historical Jesus Christ.

 

[文摘] Book Review: Allah: a Christian Response

Name of Allah

Source Link: Do We Worship the Same God? A Review by Mark Durie of Miroslav Volf’s "Allah".

By Mark Durie

“Do we worship the same God?”  This has become a hotly contested and divisive question, posed in these troubled days by many Christians about Muslims and Islam.  Influential theologian Miroslav Volf, who is Henry B. Wright professor of Systematic Theology at Yale, offers an answer in his latest book, Allah: a Christian response (HarperOne 2010).  Volf’s influence is considerable, and this book deserves careful consideration.

全文中文翻譯（Chinese Translation）：我們崇拜同一位神嗎？ （馬克・狄利評點米洛斯拉夫·沃爾夫的《安拉》一書）

本篇文章摘要重點如下：

Volf 的 Allah 一書認為，基督徒和穆斯林敬拜的是同一位上帝。單純是教義、倫理教導、和傳統方面的分歧，導致了雙方成為兩種衝突的宗教系統。要化解這種衝突，Volf 強調求同存易的觀點（p.91）。

Volf 從以下六點來展開基督教與伊斯蘭教的共通點：

（1）只有唯一真神。（2）神創造了一切非神的萬事萬物。（3）神與一切非神的萬物有根本的區別。（4）神是良善的。（5）神要求我們愛神。（6）神要求我們愛我們的鄰舍如同愛我們自己。

然而，Durie 認為 Volf 對伊斯蘭教的觀點太過友善而欠缺批判性，以致於產生不少盲點。

例如：

1. Volf 論證，一個篤信古蘭經的一般穆斯林不會贊同自殺式恐怖主義。然而當代許多具有影響力的伊斯蘭宗教領袖卻是許可並讚揚這類殉教行動（Fedaii）的。他們只是使用語言轉化的方式，不把聖戰中的殉教行動（martyrdom）看做是自殺（suicide），並稱這些人是舍希德（Shahid，殉教者）。這些人包含Shaikh Ali Jumu’ah，埃及的大穆夫提（Grand Mufti－伊斯蘭教法敘述官）、al-Buti教授、Shaykh Ahmad Al-Khalili，安曼的大穆夫提等。
2. Volf 斷言使用軍事力量擴張伊斯蘭是「今天所有領導性的穆斯林學者們所拒絕的」（p.210），但是事實顯示，伊斯蘭教的政治神學仍然是充滿侵略性的。他們反對使用武力強迫皈依，卻贊成使用軍事手段達成對非穆斯林的統治。擴張伊斯蘭這個軍事聖戰的目的得到正統學者派的一致認同和支持，包括沙菲儀學派（Shafi’i）法學家 al-Ghazali，一位Volf 也承認是代表性穆斯林神學家（p.169頁）。此外還有Shaykh Muhammad al-Munajid、M. Taqi Uthmani、以及著名的埃及學者、教士Muhammad Salim Al-Awwa。
3. 甚至，按照 Sharia（伊斯蘭教法）的經典觀點，不生活在吉瑪（dhimma）契約之下的非信徒，他們的血是哈拉勒（halal，可合法殺的，意即允許殺害他們）。雖然法律禁止殺害婦女和兒童－這些人應該被奴役而不是被殺戮，以及那些那些生活在伊斯蘭法律之下的人，但為了統治和攻擊成年男性異教徒，將婦女和兒童的犧牲視作附帶傷亡（collateral damage）也是允許的。
4. 上述的問題，凸顯 Volf 對「愛鄰舍如同愛自己」有很深的誤解。基督信仰中的鄰舍可以指異族、異教者，但是伊斯蘭信仰中這純粹是指自己人而言的（見Abdul Hamid Siddiqui 共同語公開信第 18章、古蘭經 9:123 ）。伊斯蘭神學中有很深的排外主義。Volf 應該花上篇幅來探討伊斯蘭不相互平等對待吉瑪人（dhimmis，即生活在伊斯蘭社會下的非穆斯林）所基於的原因和基礎是甚麼。但他在這本書中並沒有做到。

因此總結來說，雖然Volf 想將這本書呈現給西方的基督徒看，以化解西方人的恐回情節（Islamophobia），但該書對身為穆斯林的人是沒有說服力的、對生活在伊斯蘭教國家壓迫統治下的吉瑪人(如印尼的基督徒)是不公平的。如此一來，欠缺學術公正性的 Allah 一書，只剩下一種空泛的、甚而是對正統基督信仰有損害的政治神學議程。

個人觀點：

希望能看到 Volf 教授更進一步的回應。 Durie 雖然指證歷歷，但我感覺這可能類似非基督徒和無神論者引用舊約和十字軍東征的例子來攻擊基督教，稱耶和華是一位暴君、濫殺無辜一般，是未能設身處地的門戶之見。我們如果不進入伊斯蘭神學的詮釋體系來作神學化的宗教比較，恐怕還是難有真正帶建設性的結論。

Related articles

• Allah by Mirolsav Volf — A Review (pastorbobcornwall.blogspot.com)
• Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God? (pjcockrell.wordpress.com)