Daniel Kirk is working on an excellent series of posts on the structure of the universe. Part of the reasoning Daniel gives for working on this series is to attempt to figure out where he fits within the Reformed community. I think a lot of us are asking the same questions these days.
In a post explaining why he is writing this series, Daniel writes:
What if it’s as big a deal to God that his world is marred by systemic injustice as it is that people disobey God? What if it’s as big a deal to God that death and decay meet all the creatures created in God’s image and likeness as it is that people miss the mark? What if…
Then, I’d say, the work of Christ is equally about transformation of the cosmos and new life as it is about justification. Then, I’d say, the calling of God’s people is not only to celebrate their standing before the bar of judgment but to bring justice to bear on the earth.
I’m beginning to see more clearly that the structure of the cosmos, the problem with the cosmos, the work of Christ, and our own lives as Christians are inherently intertwined. And, that certain articulations of structure, problem and work leave folks with deeply impoverished lives that fail to put on display citizenship in the kingdom of God.
It’s a great series. You should definitely read all six parts that have been written thus far and keep checking back for more.
Part 1: The Universe
Part 2: Ethics
Part 3: Atonment
Part 4: WDJD?
Part 5: Cur Homo
Part 6: Why Isreal?
11 June 2009 at 8.07 pm
In reading a few of the posts, I think Kirk presents the Reformed tradition as more monolithic than it actually is. Not that it’s entirely his fault, because in reading some of the defenders of the tradition one often gets the feeling that said defenders are convinced that their own position is what has been held semper, ubique, et ab omnibus.
11 June 2009 at 9.33 pm
I don’t honestly know how well I fit within the Reformed community. My love for Eastern Orthodoxy (and Roman Catholicism!) grows by the day (maybe by the minute, or to put it in more Augustinian terms, “in the very present of the present”), but I have a very good pastor and a very good church, so for now that is where I reside.
The Holy Mysteries are something that I long to see returned to their proper place (of course if all of life is “sacramental” and “supernaturalized” then this is impossible to conceive anything other-wise), and the Reformed tradition has lost any sort of connection to these mysteries. Whatever the tradition once was, it has lost much of its luster, (other than Karl Barth, which is anathema in the OPC, of which I am a member in good standing).
Obviously, I can frequently overstate my case. For the infinite amount of things that infuriate me, there is still some good left. The Redemptive-Historical interpretation of scripture, while certainly not as pleasing to me as the Holy Fathers “allegory”, or more realistically, “typologizing”, is certainly better than any mere historical “flattening” of the text, which does inherit violence to the text (My friend, an Orthodox priest, and former Reformed Christian, compares Edmund Clowney’s preaching very favorably with that of the Holy Fathers. He called Clowney his “mentor” at Westminster West). As I have said to you ad infinitum, Peter Leithart is a serious theologian, and engages variegated disciplines and he is ignored by many currently at their own peril. Michael Horton, for all of his Klinean Lutheranism, engages Postmodernism substantively and charitably. Richard Muller’s work on the Reformed Scholastics shows its continuities and discontinuities with the Western tradition at large and the Reformed tradition in general, and gets past the reductionistic “Calvin against the Calvinists” so oft repeated (though an Eastern Theologian could legitmately say the Western tradition is itself the problem, but I digress). Robert Letham’s excellent work on the Trinity is one of the very best books on thesubject that I have read (and I look forward to reading Through Western Eyes, as he is incredibly sympathetic to Orthodoxy).
This is a question that merits no easy answers, and I can’t answer them right now, which is why I am engaging in a fairly thorough reading of the Patristics. Ultimately, however, I am a member of the OPC, and to that church I shall submit.
12 June 2009 at 7.45 am
triple,
Have you looked at Horton’s recent work on the church and sacraments, “People and Place”? Horton’s work marks a significant attempt to restore the holy mysteries to their rightful place within the Reformed tradition. He reappropriates Calvin’s thought on the church and the sacraments quite well, imo. Of course, Horton does retain his overall Klinean trajectory there, but it is not overbearing (at least it wasn’t for me), and the work overall is quite well done.
I was actually rather attracted to EO and RC (and to Anglo-Cath) myself for a time, but reading Calvin’s sacramental writings (as well as Vermigli, Bucer, Ursinus, and Zanchi, along with their later interpreters, Philip Schaff and John W. Nevin) helped me to see that a high sacramentology and ecclesiology is by no means antithetical to the Reformed tradition.
12 June 2009 at 8.54 am
triple, have you read any of Paul Nadim Tarazi (OT prof, St. Vladimir’s Seminary)? He demonstrates that allegory is not the only Eastern Orthodox approach, arguing that the hermeneutical approach of his Antiochian tradition is actually quite grammatical-historical.
12 June 2009 at 8.56 am
Here’s an article by Tarazi for your reading pleasure.
http://www.svots.edu/Faculty/Very_Rev_Paul_Nadim_Tarazi_Category/The_Antiochian_School_of_Biblical_Exegesis/
12 June 2009 at 10.50 am
Interesting point, Jonathan. When I reviewed WTS-Cal’s faculty essay collection Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry (?) a similar point struck me. The authors presented their specifically Meredith Kline understanding of Reformed theology as though it encapsulated “the” historic Reformed tradition.
Art, any chance you will end these threaded-reply type comments?
12 June 2009 at 11.32 am
I have not looked at that specific work, but I do appreciate what little of Horton’s work on the sacraments I have read. As far the Mercersberg group goes, I am familiar with them, though I haven’t read much, but I do appreciate what little of them I know.
The question for me, though, is even more fundamental than that. The True Church, if such a thing exist, should be something we should want to be apart of. Perhaps the very idea of a True Church is a mere Platonic abstraction, then again, some of my favorite thinkers are (Neo-)”Platonists”, Augustine, Aquinas (obviously that is debatable), and Pseudo-Dionysios.
Just so we are clear, I am not saying a high sacramentalology is foreign to the Reformed tradition. Wolfgang Musculus held to paedocommunion, and was following the Early Church (and the East), while he was the only one to do it of the Reformers and their immediate successors, thankfully many are reappropriating that postion today (in fact, if memory serves me correctly, Leithart compares denying children to the Table with Gnosticism in Against Christianity).
As I also said, though, I attend a great church with a great Pastor who loves the Fathers and is very Catholic, and am in submission to this church.
Thanks for the Horton recommendation.
12 June 2009 at 11.36 am
FTH,
Yeah, that’s a problem with a lot of conservative Reformed articulations of the tradition. I think Muller goes a long way in dispelling the myth of a monolithic tradition, though it should be added that he also goes a long way at dispelling the misunderstanding that anything is up-for-grabs in the Reformed communion. There is certainly a distinct Reformed tradition, but it is broad enough to include quite a variety of characters. Muller even numbers Moise Amyraut among the Reformed Orthodox. Calvin saw Melanchthon as belonging to the same basic theological stream as him, while being quite aware of the fact that they disagreed on some substantial points re. free will and predestination. Bullinger and other Zurichers also rejected Calvin’s articulation of predestination. Cranmer, Hooker, and the other English Reformers (who *were* Reformed, I don’t give a rip what anyone says to the contrary) were more conservative in their liturgical reforms, and obviously retained episcopacy (which Calvin and Bucer encouraged). There is also a very significant stream of Reformed irenicism and ecumenism, which is basically lost in our day. John T. McNeil (“Unitive Protestantism”) is worth reading on this, even though his historical work is a bit dated.
12 June 2009 at 11.37 am
Thanks for the article. I will read it, when I get a chance. I knew the Antiochian school was more “literal” than Alexandrian, but this should be a great read, as I love St Vlad’s (esp John Behr).
Just so I am clear, I do not denigrate grammatical-historical exegesis itself, but only when meaning is restricted to its historical nature, and not seen beyond the historical referent (i.e. Christ).
Sorry to hijack your post Art!
22 June 2009 at 9.11 pm
[...] on the structure of the universe shows why those concerns were and still are valid. (Thanks to Art Boulet for the tip about Kirk’s series.)Â Professor Kirk studied at WTS in the 1990s, went on to do [...]