Salus extra ecclesiam non est

When Augustine was contemplating becoming a Christian Simplicianus, Ambrose's tudor and assistant, told him a story about Victorinus.  Victorinus was a Roman rhetorician and translator of neo-Platonic philosophical works. He had begun to read the Scriptures and study the Christian faith, encouraged by Simplicianus.  Simplicianus told Augustine that Victorinus once came to him in private saying, "I should like you to know that I am now a Christian."  Simplicianus replied, "That I will not believe, and I shall not count you as a Christian until I see you in the church of Christ."  That was wise advice from Simplicianus to Augustine, the young man for whom contemplation was everything.

The Latin in the title to this post means "There is no salvation outside of the church."  Typically, we add "ordinarily" to that slogan just to be sure that everyone understands that there are extraordinary situations where people do trust Jesus but are not able to join with a local congregation. The point is, however, that becoming a Christian is not simply something that happens in one's head.

The Gardener & his Beloved - An Easter Meditation

The Da Vinci Code Be Damned: A Typological Reading of Mary Magdalene

or The Gardener & His Beloved

Song of Solomon 3:1-5, 5:1-6:3 & John 20:1-18

A famous painting depicting this dramatic scene with Mary and Jesus outside of the garden tomb can be seen on a fresco in a chapel in Padua, Italy. It was painted by Giotto di Bondone in the early 14th century. Jesus is striding from the tomb with a victor’s flag in his left hand. But with his right hand is held out, keeping Mary from coming close. This part of the fresco has been called Noli me tangere (“Do not hold me”).

But there are problems with Giotto di Bondone’s interpretation of this biblical story. He depicts the resurrected Christ as aloof, cold, as one who is onward and upward, leaving for higher concerns, one who cannot be held back by this woman. “Do not hold me” seems to mean “I’ve got more important things to do.” And Mary drops to her knees in tears longing for her beloved.

Read the entire meditation here.

Breaking Free, Part II

This is Part IV in my series analyzing Luther's Catechetical Doctrine of the Trinity. It's really a continuation of Part III.

Part I. Part II. Part III.

We ended last time promising more on Luther's break with medieval trinitarian speculative theology.

Over time, after the brilliant work of Augustine, the Trinity was marginalized in Western Theological thought. The Trinity lost its constitutive role in the presentation of the Christian faith. The existence and attributes of God de deo uno edged out discussions of God de deo trino.

Post-Augustinian Trinitarian theology tended to be more interested in developing a rational justification for belief in the Trinity independently of the revealed work of the Godhead in the economy of salvation. The threeness of God becomes a complicating factor, a puzzle that must be reasoned through. [BTW, I'm not taking sides in the debate about whether Augustine's doctrine of the Trinity caused this state of affairs in medieval theology. I have some concerns with, for example, Gunton's account of the genesis of the problem. My only point here is that there was indeed a problem with the church's theological formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity.]

Luther brilliantly recovers the constitutive place of the Trinity for the understanding the Christian faith. If Augustine’s ontological speculation set in motion a trend in Western theology to elevate the divine substance as the presupposition of divinity, the highest ontological principle, then, Luther emphatically breaks with that tradition.

The Trinity is for simple Christians who trust in the Persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, not primarily for philosophers and scholastics who are interested in logically penetrating problems arising from meditation on the substance of God. The Trinity is the gateway through which one encounters God in the Person of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Otherwise stated, the Trinity simply is not a problem for Luther. God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have no need of metaphysician-theologians to justify their existence philosophically. They have revealed themselves in their works. Luther has no interest in what had become a preoccupation in late Medieval Trinitarian theology in the West—logical method, systematic cohesion, terminological precision, and so on. Medieval theologians tended to downplay the existential and soteriological import of the doctrine of the Trinity. They were concerned with unpacking the logical and metaphysical implications of God’s threeness and oneness. These philosophical interests left the nature of the Triune God’s relationship pro homine underdeveloped (at best). The Patristic origin of trinitarian theology as a soteriological development was lost. In the Creed, however, according to Luther, we learn “to know God perfectly,” which means that we learn “what we must expect and receive from him.”

Breaking Free: Luther and Medieval Theology on the Trinity

This is Part III in my series analyzing Luther's Catechetical Doctrine of the Trinity. Part I. Part II.

It is time to examine Luther's way of teaching the Trinity.

The first thing we notice about Luther’s Trinitarian language is that something is missing. Luther consistently avoids any use of or reference to philosophical/metaphysical terms, problems, and distinctions traditionally associated with Trinitarian dogma.

Luther’s discussion of God the Father, for example, faithfully explains the text of the Apostle’s Creed using the biblical language of Father and Creator without introducing extraneous philosophical discussions about the divine essence. God is not defined in terms of his metaphysical properties, but according to what he does, specifically what he does pro homine ("for humanity"). “What is God for man? What does he do? How can man praise or portray or describe him so that man might know him?” (LC II, 10).

In answering these questions Luther makes what is for him a paradigmatic claim. He says that the answers are found in the Creed. “Therefore the Creed is nothing other than an answer and confession of the Christian. . .” The questions “what do you have for your God?” and “what do you know about him?” are both answered with reference to God’s relationship to the one asking the question. He is my Father by virtue of the fact that he created me and sustains me. As the Small Catechism puts it: “I believe that God has created me and all things; that he has given me my body and soul. . .”

The Father is the Father because he created me and sustains me. In other words, I know that he is the Father because I know what he has done for me. The Son is my Lord because I know what he has done for me. The Spirit is the Holy Spirit because of what he does for me: he sanctifies me. This kind of approach has very little continuity with the Medieval method of explaining God’s nature and existence.

What is absent from Luther’s exposition speaks volumes. For example, he shows no concern for demonstrating the intelligibility of the doctrine of the Trinity by searching for vestigia trinitatis (vestiges of the Trinity) within creation and the human soul. He provides no discussion of the “attributes” of God, no explanation of God de deo uno apart from Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, no elucidation of the problem of the one and many, no definition of the words “person” or “substance” or “relation,” no proofs of divinity of the Son or the Spirit, no extended explanation of the inter-Trinitarian relationships between Father and Son and Spirit, no treatment of the way in which each Person partakes of the divine essence (circumincessio), no argument for the monarchy of the Father, no explication of the meaning of “begetting” and “procession,” no discussion of the two natures of Christ, and, finally, he studiously avoids inquiries into and definitions of classic Trinitarian terminology (substantia, ousia, persona, hypostasis, coessentialitas, homoousios, etc.).

Unlike conventional Medieval treatments, then, Luther’s Trinitarian theology is not couched in the objective, analytic language of the academy, but the personal language of the Bible. No attempt is made to dialectically penetrate the ontological mystery of the Godhead. The threeness of God is not a complicating factor, but inexorably related to how God works in creation, redemption, and sanctification. Luther refuses to engage in speculative reflection on the Trinity cast in the language of metaphysics, that is, in terms of the philosophical issues of class and number, substance and individual, unity and plurality, etc. Nor does Luther introduce epistemological questions concerning the creaturely conceptuality of God’s essence or being.

By dumping all of this, Luther breaks radically with the medieval tradition of Trinitarian theological reflection. Schwöbel writes: “It would not be a gross exaggeration to see the mainstream of the history of Trinitarian reflection as a series of footnotes on Augustine’s conception of the Trinity in De Trinitate. Augustine’s emphasis on the unity of the divine essence of God’s triune being, his stress on the undivided mode of God’s relating to what is not God and his attempt to trace the intelligibility of the doctrine of the Trinity through the vestigia trinitatis in the human consciousness, mediating unity and differentiation, defined the parameters for the mainstream of Western Trinitarian reflection” (Trinitarian Theology Today [T&T Clark, 1995], p. 5). If Schwöbel’s observations are correct (and I believe, for the most part, they are), then Luther’s catechetical doctrine of the Trinity was something fresh and exciting, a new way of theologizing about the Trinity. By breaking with the medieval methodology and terminology, Luther opens up productive new possibilities for the church’s doctrine of the Trinity.

More on that next time.

It's for the simple, stupid!

Continued from Part 2

Before we begin our analysis of his Trinitarian theology, it will be helpful for us to consider Luther’s own explanation of the “simplicity” of his exposition of the Apostles' Creed. This should serve to channel our own study, insuring that we do not misuse Luther’s words.

First, Luther writes for children and those who would teach children. Introducing the three articles of the Creed Luther says, “But in order that it might be easily and simply grasped, as it is to be taught to children, we shall briefly sum up the entire Creed in three articles, according to the three persons of the Godhead. . .” (Large Catechsim II, 6). The goal is to teach “young pupils . . . the most necessary points. ” (LC II, 12). When Luther mentions his very cursory treatment of the substance of the Second Article, he explains, “But the proper place to explain all these different points is not in the short children’s sermon, but in the longer sermons over the whole year. . .” (LC II, 32). The substance of the teaching in this article is “so rich and expansive” that we can never learn it fully (LC II, 33).

This is no doubt a note to pastors, reminding them to adjust the content of their sermons appropriately according to the situation and audience. Nevertheless, it also serves as a challenge to Luther scholars not to push Luther’s own catechetical formulations too far. His exposition of the catechism was not designed to answer the kind of questions that Trinitarian theologians ask today—or even the kinds of questions asked in his own day!—it was designed for the instruction of children and young students.

Second, Luther’s exposition of the Creed is not only aimed at children and young students, but it also attempts to provide instruction for ordinary people. Luther often uses the adjective einfältig (“simple,” “plain,” “naïve,” even “artless”) as well as the noun Einfältig to describe his intended audience. Care should be taken to ascertain the level of the student so that one can teach them appropriately.

At the beginning of his comments on the First Article, Luther admits that “for the learned and the somewhat more advanced, however, all three articles can be treated more fully and divided into as many parts as there are words” (LC II, 12). Concluding his very brief discussion of the meaning of the first article, Luther comments, “It is as much as the simple [den Einfältigen] need to learn at first. . .” (LC II, 24). Luther concludes his exposition of the Creed with the following caveat: “For the present this is enough concerning the Creed to lay a foundation for simple people [einen Grund zu legen für die Einfältigen], so that one does not overburden them. When they understand the essentials of it, they may pursue it themselves, relating what they learn in the Scriptures to these teachings, growing and increasing forever more into a richer understanding. For concerning these things we have to learn and preach daily, as long as we live” (LC II, 70).

These two target audiences (children and common people) constrain Luther’s theological exposition. This knowledge ought to serve to restrain our own theological speculation. The student of Luther must remember that the simplicity of his catechetical exposition is pedagogically constrained. He is writing a primer for children (SC) and a manual for pastors (and fathers) who teach this primer to children and common folk (LC). I think we can pretty well safely assume that Luther never dreamed of the day when academic theologians would pour over his “simple” exposition of the Creed looking for deep theological and philosophical structures. After all, Luther describes his own elucidation of the Creed as “briefly running over the words” (LC II, 8). That does not mean, of course, that a scholarly examination of Luther’s writings is inappropriate; it means that scholars who do the examining would do well not to push to find evidence of something more cryptic and sophisticated than Luther himself would probably have intended.

Furthermore, the simplicity of Luther’s treatment of the Trinitarian nature of God follows from the obvious fact that Luther is not setting forth a theology of the Trinity per se; rather, he is expounding the Trinitarian content of the Christian faith as it is articulated in the Apostles’ Creed. Surely Luther himself did not intend to incorporate into his catechetical writings anything like a comprehensive theology of the Trinity, or even everything important he might have said about the Trinity were he to address the topic specifically. He is not only writing with a specific audience in mind, he is also working with a particular text and his Trinitarian theology will be bound, in some sense, by the limitations of the text of the Apostles’ Creed.

Moreover, Luther does appear to allow for a more sophisticated theology of the Trinity. When he sums up the importance and usefulness of the Creed for our knowledge of the “whole divine essence, will, and work,” he notes that such an exalted topic is nevertheless described in “altogether brief and yet regal words” (LC II, 63). There are later sermons where Luther’s purpose is to set forth the doctrine of the Trinity itself, but that is not the purpose of his catechetical explanation of the Creed. All of which serves to remind the modern student of Luther that Luther’s entire doctrine of the Trinity must not be thought to be contained here in his catechetical exposition of the Creed. We need not necessarily fault Luther for leaving out of his exposition points that we might think important. And we must not attempt to discover points that Luther never intended to make. Care must be exercised so as not to artificially build up a Trinitarian theology from the catechisms alone without consulting his later writings. It is our purpose now to examine these kurtzen und doch reichen Worten (“short and yet regal words”) in order to outline Luther’s rich and majestically simple doctrine of the Trinity.

Go to Part III.

Denominational Police States

I spent the last few days at A Conversation on Denominational Renewal, which thankfully met in St. Louis. The conference was well attended, about 300 or more people. The audience was mostly PCA ministers and elders, but because it was held in St. Louis there were a good many Covenant Seminary Students and a few professors.

I'm not going to summarize the conference. All I will say is that it was quite stimulating and helpful. When they post the mp3s of the lectures on their website, you need to listen to them. I'll try to alert everyone when they are posted.

I'd like for us to discuss on part of Jeremy Jones's lecture on Wednesday morning. The title was "On Renewing Theology." I think it was one of the most challenging lectures of the lot.

Jeremy addressed problems with the way we tend to conceive of and do theology in the Reformed world, especially the PCA. Early on he talked about "The Ecclesial Culture of Reformed Sectarianism." He lamented that fact that so many Reformed ecclesial cultures end up as little more than "denominational police states." How does this happen?

Read the rest of the story

Luther's Two Kingdoms - Kinda

There is a fascinating article in the most recent edition of Concordia Theological Quarterly 71.1 (Jan. 2007): 3-28. Cameron MacKenzie analyses Luther's "two kingdoms" theology and discovers that it's not exactly like what is being taught today.

I don't want to repeat all of his arguments. You can read it for yourself. But I will quote a few of MacKenzie's juicy conclusions:

For Luther, "mixing" the kingdoms did not occur when rulers promoted and protected preachers of the gospel nor when preachers rebuked temporal rulers for transgressing the legitimate bounds of their authority. As far as Luther was concerned, "two kingdoms" theology was no reason for silence in the face of wickedness in high places (p. 25).

Here's another fascinating assertion based on Luther's letter to Duke Henry (1539):

Clearly, Luther still did not see a ruler's promoting true religion in his territory as a violation of the "two kingdoms" theology that he had described in his sermon the year before (p. 26)

Commenting on the fact that although the "two kingdoms" theology of the first version (1530) of the Augsburg Confession (in Articles 16 and 28) was not altered by Melanchthon in 1540, he nevertheless did add to Article 26 statements about the responsibility of rulers toward the church, MacKenzie says:

Clearly, such a statement constitutes just one more piece of evidence that, throughout the Reformation period, no one understood the two kingdoms theology as requiring a Christian ruler to refrain from establishing Christianity in his state. Indeed, quite the opposite, temporal rulers were supposed to support and maintain the Church.

Well, it's not so clear these days. It seems that everyone understands "two kingdom" theology to forbid just such establishments. MacKenzie's final paragraph:

Obviously, then, the first Lutherans drew the line between the two kingdoms in a far different way from what we know today as the separation of church and state in the United States. For Luther, temporal rulers who promoted true religion even to the point of punishing heretics were not mixing the kingdoms but those who took measures that inhibited the gospel were. In our times, therefore, we cannot really use this instance of historical theology very effectively as a model for structuring our relationships between church and state. Luther and the Confessions help us to identify the essential functions of each but do not permit us to draw conclusions that we must rigorously separate them. While clergy must preach the gospel and administer the sacraments, they may also exercise temporal power by human arrangement. While rulers must use their power to punish evildoers and to protect the lives and property of their people, as Christians they should also use their authority to establish and care for the church in their lands. If then we wish to use the two kingdoms theology as the first Lutherans conceived it, we must do so very modestly. We can be clear about what both Church and state must do. Depending upon circumstances and institutional arrangements, however, each may do a great deal more" (pp. 27-28).

Yeah. It's called Christendom. Let's restore it.