The posts for the inaugural Adelaide Anglican Blog Conference are complete. (Comments are still welcome.) Many people have said that the pre-Easter timing was a bit difficult. So to make it easier to read a post here or there, here is a hyperlink index of all posts and responses:
Warren Huffa, What is the Lens Through Which You Read Scripture?
Response: Stephen Bloor
Barbara Messner, Penned, Pinned or Patronized - The Word of God and Human Presumption
Response: Phillip Tolliday
Phillip Tolliday, How Plain is the Plain Sense of Scripture?
Response: Warren Huffa
Lucy Larkin, The Wisdom of Ants and the Storehouses of Snow: Fresh Readings of the Bible For a Planet in Peril
Response: Tony Nicholls
David Willsher, Prisoners of Belief: On Epistemic Privilege and Episcopal Fiat
Response: Barbara Messner
Stephen Pickard, Inspiration, Inerrancy and Biblical Authority: Some Thoughts For Those Navigating Treacherous Waters
Response: Phillip Tolliday
Showing posts with label Adelaide Anglican Blog Conference. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Adelaide Anglican Blog Conference. Show all posts
Monday, 6 April 2009
Friday, 3 April 2009
Response to Stephen Pickard
By the Revd Dr Phillip Tolliday
Stephen, thanks for these thoughts on Inspiration and Inerrancy. I think it’s helpful to point to the connection between post-Reformation Protestantism and the emerging scientific culture. I think it is also important to show that the Scriptures have their authority within the community and that outside of the community the attempt to defend scriptural authority can lead to minimalist conclusions (as I sought to show in my post).
I’m certainly going to agree with you about inerrancy, but I want to raise one question in passing. Quoting from Ted Peters you say that what makes the Bible canon for Christians ‘is the church’s firm belief that it is trustworthy. The people of the church, gathered together under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, are confident that it will convey to us the gospel of Jesus Christ.’ Now I’m considering this proposal in light of what you write previously when you refer to the Belgic Confession. If I have understood you correctly, you are suggesting that Calvin’s reference to the inner witness of the Holy Spirit sends us along the road toward biblical inerrancy. Am I correct in thinking Calvin to the modern originator of double inspiration? In any event, I wonder where you see a difference—for presumably you do see a difference—between Calvin’s inner witness of the Spirit to readers of the text and the work of the Spirit convoking the community who are thereby ‘confident that it will convey to us the gospel of Jesus Christ.’
A second point is indebted to Bruggemann, The Book That Breathes New Life: Scriptural Authority and Biblical Theology, who prefers to speak of Inherency rather than Inerrancy. Migliore’s ‘liberating and reconciling’ function of Scripture seems to be given its proper space in Bruggemann’s notion of ‘inherency.’ He means by this that Scripture is the ‘live Word of God that addresses us concerning the character and will of the gospel-giving God, empowering us to an alternative life in the world.’ However this inherent Word of God in the biblical text ‘is, of course, refracted through many authors who were not disembodied voices of revealed truth. They were, rather, circumstance-situated men and women of faith…who said what their circumstance permitted and required them to speak, as they were able, of that which is truly inherent.’ When we read the text we bring to it a sense that some of these authors may have been more successful than others in their attempt to speak. So, for Bruggemann, these two factors: that the Bible is inherently the Word of God and also that the inherent Word of God in the text is refracted through authors who were all-too-human, indicate that the Scriptures are rightly called ‘strange and new’ as Barth once famously described them.
Bruggemann suggests that these two factors, inherency and refraction entail that the Bible is not a fixed text with a firm and final meaning, frozen and only requiring explication, but rather a script which is ‘always reread, through which the Spirit makes new.’ Accordingly no-one’s reading can be final or inerrant ‘precisely because the Key Character in the book who creates, redeems and consummates is always beyond us in holy hiddenness.’ Inherency, as opposed to inerrancy, is a reading which is inescapably provisional, thereby reminding us of Rowan Williams’ eschatological reading of the literal sense. Our attempts to turn inherency into inerrancy make the Scriptures ‘a playground for idolatry’ whereas they should be read as iconic.
Inspiration, Inerrancy and Biblical Authority: Some Thoughts for Those Navigating Treacherous Waters
By the Right Revd Dr Stephen Pickard.
‘Scripture is the unique and irreplaceable witness to the liberating and reconciling activity of God in the history of Israel and supremely in Jesus Christ’ (Migliore 1991:40). This proposal of Daniel Migliore provides a useful point of departure for this brief paper. A number of elements in his definition stand out. The key words ‘unique’ and ‘irreplaceable’ are worthy of note – nothing quite like it and nothing that can substitute for it. However beyond this Migliore invites us to consider scripture as a text that bears witness not to itself but to God’s activity in Israel and ‘supremely’ in Jesus Christ. Migliore thus gives a decidedly Christological focus for Scripture. As his discussion unfolds that particular focus is shown to be absolutely critical in the way the sacred text is heard and interpreted.
This has echoes of Karl Barth’s discussion of the threefold word of God: the incarnate living Word of God, Jesus Christ; scripture as the written word of God; and proclamation as the preached word on the basis of the written word pointing to the living word. Barth’s recognition of the dynamic and layered Word of God meant that scripture was dynamically related both to the God and Father of Jesus Christ and the community of faith that bore witness in word and deed to the gospel of God. Authority, and inspiration of the bible could not be abstracted from the web of relations in which it was received and functioned. There was no simple, pure and detached mode of authority; nor room for a doctrine of inspiration that could be secured apart from faith.
However Migliore’s definition refers to a ‘liberating and reconciling’ function of Scripture. This has a more contemporary ring about it. For Migliore scripture generates new freedom, overcomes estrangement and reconnects people and the world to each other and God. The liberative function of scripture is related to Jesus Christ and picks up an ancient biblical theme from the Exodus. It is one I shall return to at the end of this paper.
It is clear from the above that the authority of the bible is related to its place within the community of faith; it’s character as inspired and its liberative capacity for God’s world. Biblical authority cannot be abstracted from this web without fracturing the delicate and fragile ecology of its witness to Jesus Christ. Impatience with this reality and a desire to create a protected space for the bible within the disintegrating framework of modernity has led to the development of a variety of less adequate conceptions of biblical authority.
In this respect Migliore identifies the dead letter of biblicism. On this account the bible is authoritative by virtue of its supernatural origin. This approach developed in post reformation Protestantism. It was associated with the emerging scientific culture of seventeenth century Europe with its emphasis upon experimentation, observation, empirical evidence and the quest for certainty. In such an environment traditional theological claims for the veracity and authority of Scripture appeared tenuous if not fragile. Could Scripture deliver a certainty commensurate or better than that achievable in the sciences? In this context the doctrine of inspiration ‘became a theory of the supernatural origins of Scripture’ (Migliore p. 43). On this basis the bible was considered to be our canon. Thus the Westminster Confession of 1643 refered to the Old Testament written in Hebrew and the New Testament written in Greek as ‘immediately inspired by God’ and the Apocrypha ‘not being of divine inspiration, are not parts of the canon of Scripture (Peters 2000: 61). Yet such an approach begged the question; how do we know that these writings are inspired and thus authoritative? Calvin, following a long tradition including Origen, referred to the inner witness of the Holy Spirit. Thus the Belgic Confession 1561 and the Westminster Divines acknowledged the inward illumination of the Spirit of God ‘that leads to our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority’ of the bible (Ibid).
The supernatural origin of the scripture required a doctrine of double inspiration. This secured the longed for certainty within an emerging enlightenment culture. It also led to the concept of the bible’s inerrancy ‘as a whole and in all its parts’: ’every book, every chapter, every verse, every word was directly inspired by God’ (Migliore, p. 43). The softer form of this refers to the bible being inerrant in its original form. Either way a claim is made for its infallibility and authority founded upon a theory of double inspiration. This doctrine of the plenary inspiration of scripture accords to all scripture equal authority.
Not surprisingly the only sensible option within such a context is to adopt a practical or working ‘canon within a canon’ and privilege certain parts (e.g. Pauline texts; Gospels). However to the extent that this move is neither recognised nor defended but simply operates as a practical default the deeper hermeneutical reasons for such an approach remain masked and accordingly underdeveloped. What it also means is that theory and practice operate in a disjunctive manner. What it also points to is the difficulty of sustaining the notion that the normative status and authority of the bible is dependent upon its inspiration divorced from the community of faith and its witness to Jesus Christ. No longer is the bible taken as authoritative ‘because of what it says, or because of the transforming effect it has on human life, but simply because its words are identified without qualification with God’s words’ (Migliore p. 44). As a result scripture is prevented from operating in a liberating way.
Peters argues that the above account of inspiration changed how the doctrine of inspiration was held in the church. For example the early church fathers could affirm with 2 Timothy 3:16 that ‘all scripture is given by inspiration [literally ‘God-breathed]from God’ but could also use the term inspiration to describe an exposition on scripture. But Gregory of Nyssa could also describe Basil’s commentary on Genesis as an “exposition given by inspiration of God” (Peters p. 60). Following the result of an exhaustive survey of the early church fathers of the first four centuries Everett Kalin ‘failed to turn up a single instance in which any of these writers referred to an orthodox writing outside the New Testament as non-inspired’ (Ibid).
In more recent times the Anglican philosophical theologian, Austin Farrer, recognised the same multi layered approach to inspiration in his discussion of the relationship between sacred text of scripture and poetic writing and the role of the imagination (Farrer 1976: 37-53). Peter’s argues that inspiration alone was not the basis for the bible as canon. He states, ‘We think of the bible as canon or measure not because of some contrived doctrine of its inerrancy “as a whole and in all its parts”. What does in fact make it canon for Christians [and thus authoritative] is the church’s firm belief that it is trustworthy. The people of the church, gathered together under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, are confident that it will convey to us the gospel of Jesus Christ’ (Peters p. 60). This is a broader and richer approach to the authority of the bible than a narrow doctrine of inspiration.
Besides the ‘dead letter of biblicism’ Migliore identifies other less than satisfactory approaches to the authority of scripture. At the other end of the spectrum from biblicism is what he refers to as ‘the uncritical assumptions of historicism’. In this scenario the rationalism of the enlightenment and an emerging historical consciousness reduces the bible to an ‘historical source’. As Migliore notes this has brought many gains. But to the extent that it became preoccupied with ‘what really happened’ and what could be verified as ‘factual’ according to the canons of historical inquiry it displaced the received text as authoritative and in its place erected the ‘facts’ behind the text as reconstructed by the historian as authoritative. Biblical narrative as such disappears from view; ‘the meaning of the bible is separated from its literary form’ (Migliore p. 45). The biblical scholar becomes the arbiter of truth.
Gerard Loughlin discusses this development in terms of the transposition of scripture into history (Loughlin 1997: 45). Scripture is ‘no longer understood as mutually constituted by the story it narrates and the community to whom it is narrated …rather, the scripture is seen as unreliable, and that which it distorts only really available through the labours of historical science, which looks behind the scriptural narratives to the historical events they partially and quaintly disclose’ (Ibid). A variant of this approach treats the bible as a religious classic; a great literature worthy of study and meditation. On this account the tradition of disciplined pious reading and liturgical enactment are rendered superfluous.
Unsurprisingly a reaction to the above biblicist and historical approaches to the bible’s authority can be observed in the modern use of the scripture as a private devotional text ‘whose authority is located in the saving meaning it has for the individual’ (Migliore p. 45). Who can deny the importance of such an emphasis? The saving reality of Jesus Christ as unfolded in the sacred text is the clue for living in the world. The pious reading of scripture is a necessary component in the life of faith. The real danger with this approach can be observed when Christians seem preoccupied with their own salvation to the neglect of the bible’s significance for the community and for the world. The scripture illuminates more than the inner life of faith for the individual pilgrim. In this scenario scripture becomes authoritative for personal and private life but mute towards the world and the public realm.
As Migiore notes, beyond these reductivist approaches to biblical authority ‘lies the real authority of Scripture in the life of the community of faith’ (Migliore p. 46). This same note is struck by Ted Peters and Gerald Loughlin. Scripture read within the community of Jesus Christ; relating believers by the power of the Holy Spirit to the living God Jesus Christ in the world loved of God; this is the cauldron in which the inspiration and authority of the bible is to be located. For Christians the hermeneutical key is Jesus Christ read backward and forward through the great narratives of holy scripture. This occurs within the domain of the believing and worshipping community where the story of faith is held, lived and shared in the world. In this context scholars have their proper place but not pride of place. Much more could be said at this point but time and space preclude this.
I want to end by taking up an intriguing suggestion by the Roman Catholic scholar William Thompson. He proposes the cloud as a symbol for scripture to highlight how scripture functions in an authoritative way for Christian community. His starting point is the reference in Hebrews 12:1 to the cloud of witnesses which surround the church and the importance of this for the onward pilgrimage in faith. He sees the cloud as an archetypal symbol to express the witnessing role of scripture in Christian existence. From this he identifies the cloud in Exodus 13:21 – the pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way. Thomson states ‘Holy Writ is like that. The cloud of witnesses that constitutes it is the norming guide that leads as well as accompanies us. Its authority is derivative but real’ (Thomson 1996: 199) for the Lord speaks to them in the cloud (Psalm 99:7); so too at the transfiguration (Matt 17:5). ‘So too Scripture reflects the authority of Christ to whom it witnesses. From its cloud, the voice says…’ (Ibid).
Thomson also notes that the cloud not only leads but accompanies. Thus in Exodus 13:22: neither the pillar of cloud by day not the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people. In like manner Holy Writ accompanies, ‘again in a pale but adequate reflection of the Lord….Holy Writ has accompanied the Church on its long journey of sounding the depths of the Christological mysteries. It’s objective presence echoes and testifies to the objective presence of the Lord, the Emmanuel, the One Who Is With Us’ (Thomson p. 200).
However Thomson stresses that this accompanying is not at a distance but ‘profoundly interior’ and finds expression in the Transfiguration when the ‘cloud overshadowed the disciples as they entered it (Luke 9:34). Thus the Scripture are able to overshadow us ‘in such a way as we can enter them, as the disciples entered into the cloud of the Transfiguration’ (Thomson p. 201). There is also the darkness of the cloud (Exodus 14:20 – and so the cloud was there with darkness) which protects the Israel from the Egyptians. Thomson offers a fascinating reflection on the otherness of God manifest in the and through the cloud. This arises in a twofold sense: by virtue of our own limitations and sin we cannot see the cloud’s luminosity (we are all Egyptians; and from the side of God, God’s presence is ‘thick’ (Exodus 19:9, 16; 1 Kings 8:12). God’s transcendence is here symbolised and this generates an appropriate awe in the presence of the Holy God. ‘Now I began to wonder with myself, that God had a bigger mouth to speak with than I had heart to conceive with, “wrote John Bunyan (Thomson p. 202).
Another author speaks of the ‘bright mystery’ (Hardy 1997: 17-19) of faith which we might link to the way Scripture as cloud is both luminous yet resistant to being captured. Thomson calls this the opening ‘onto a larger mystery’ whereby God can be present through scripture as cloud like but cannot be captured by it e.g. Exodus 19:9 (Thomson p. 201). Finally Thomson points to the sense of movement in the cloud: Jeremiah 4:13 ‘He comes up like the clouds’; Psalm 68:4 ‘him who rides upon the clouds’. 'The cloud seems to symbolise the to-be-counted-on presence of God within history’s flow’ (Thomson p. 203). So too scripture and its witness belongs to the flow of history and point us towards an unfolding if unclear history. Thomson sharpens his reflections: ‘the Scriptures (as mediated and liturgically celebrated in the Church) can illuminate, tracing out the path for us into the future’ (Ibid).
Thomson’s insightful and provocative reflections are a good place to conclude this brief paper on scripture. His imaginative construal of scripture as cloud reminds us that above all else we are called to be a scripture formed people. This is at the heart of Anglican self-understanding and is most powerfully captured in the Anglican Collect:
Blessed Lord,
You have created all Holy Scriptures to be written
For our learning,
grant that we may so hear them,
Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them,
That by patience and comfort of your holy word,
We may embrace and ever hold fast
The blessed hope of everlasting life
Which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
Bibliography
Farrer, Austin. Interpretation and Belief, London: SPCK, 1976.
Hardy, Daniel. God’s Ways with the World, Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1997.
Loughlin Gerald, ‘The Basis and Authority of Doctrine’ in Colin Gunton, ed. The
Cambridge Companion to Christian Doctrine, CUP, 1997.
Migliore, Daniel. Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology,
Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1991, p. 40.
Peters, Ted. God The World’s Future: Systematic Theology for a New Era, Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 2000, p. 60
Thomson, William The Struggle for Theology’s Soul: Contesting Scripture in
Christology, New York: Crossroad Pub., 1996.
Thursday, 2 April 2009
Response to David Willsher
By The Revd Barbara Messner
This article offers a critique from a philosophical and a psychological perspective of the Jerusalem Declaration statement, and of the conjectured motivations of those who espouse it. Challenging claims are made about the privileged position of a belief framed in the form “We believe that…” acting as a core belief within a structure of beliefs, and the escalating consequences of the “epistemic load” that such a belief carries, including defensiveness and protective behaviours. The author points rightly to the feedback loop between believing and behaving, in this case the behaviour of issuing the JD statement. There is certainly some truth in the author’s claim that resistance to change is related to anxiety and reflects a perceived threat. I believe that analysing the vocabulary of those pages of the GAFCON Statement which present the context and justification for the Conference would provide evidence of such factors at work, however I still feel uncomfortable with the author’s characterisation of a large group of people using sweeping psychological generalisations, and terms like ‘rigidity’ and ‘dogmatism’ with strongly negative connotations. I suspect that the psychological factors at work in supporters of the Jerusalem Declaration are complex and varied, as they are in any passionate believing and behaving, but also that due consideration ought to be given to cultural and historical factors influencing those of the Global South. Those of us who are descendants of those who colonized and imperialized have fragile edifices over our heads when it comes to throwing stones.
So although I agree with many points in Willsher’s article, I am uneasy with its point-scoring modus operandi, particularly as represented by the April Fools’ Day motif. While claiming ironically to be prepared to play the fool by challenging the numbers of bishops and others supporting the Statement on the Global Anglican Future, the writer sets out to equate those he challenges with those for whom April Fools’ Day was named, people who resisted the change of calendar under Gregory XIII, and who went on celebrating New Year’s day on the ‘wrong’ day. The writer sums up the parallel with a statement of a theme of the article: “This is how people often respond to things that threaten their system of beliefs.” This may have some psychological currency, but I am wary of making sweeping diagnoses of the mental states of a large body of other Anglicans! As in many matters of Anglican belief and behaviour, I suggest that there is probably a complex history of cultural, social and psychological experiences behind beliefs and behaviours imbued with passion and sincerity. That doesn’t make those beliefs and behaviours right, but neither does it entitle us to judge them as wrong or misguided. My over-riding concern is that we treat each other as we would like to be treated, and that we remain open to hearing the stories that predispose people to certain belief structures.
This article offers a critique from a philosophical and a psychological perspective of the Jerusalem Declaration statement, and of the conjectured motivations of those who espouse it. Challenging claims are made about the privileged position of a belief framed in the form “We believe that…” acting as a core belief within a structure of beliefs, and the escalating consequences of the “epistemic load” that such a belief carries, including defensiveness and protective behaviours. The author points rightly to the feedback loop between believing and behaving, in this case the behaviour of issuing the JD statement. There is certainly some truth in the author’s claim that resistance to change is related to anxiety and reflects a perceived threat. I believe that analysing the vocabulary of those pages of the GAFCON Statement which present the context and justification for the Conference would provide evidence of such factors at work, however I still feel uncomfortable with the author’s characterisation of a large group of people using sweeping psychological generalisations, and terms like ‘rigidity’ and ‘dogmatism’ with strongly negative connotations. I suspect that the psychological factors at work in supporters of the Jerusalem Declaration are complex and varied, as they are in any passionate believing and behaving, but also that due consideration ought to be given to cultural and historical factors influencing those of the Global South. Those of us who are descendants of those who colonized and imperialized have fragile edifices over our heads when it comes to throwing stones.
So although I agree with many points in Willsher’s article, I am uneasy with its point-scoring modus operandi, particularly as represented by the April Fools’ Day motif. While claiming ironically to be prepared to play the fool by challenging the numbers of bishops and others supporting the Statement on the Global Anglican Future, the writer sets out to equate those he challenges with those for whom April Fools’ Day was named, people who resisted the change of calendar under Gregory XIII, and who went on celebrating New Year’s day on the ‘wrong’ day. The writer sums up the parallel with a statement of a theme of the article: “This is how people often respond to things that threaten their system of beliefs.” This may have some psychological currency, but I am wary of making sweeping diagnoses of the mental states of a large body of other Anglicans! As in many matters of Anglican belief and behaviour, I suggest that there is probably a complex history of cultural, social and psychological experiences behind beliefs and behaviours imbued with passion and sincerity. That doesn’t make those beliefs and behaviours right, but neither does it entitle us to judge them as wrong or misguided. My over-riding concern is that we treat each other as we would like to be treated, and that we remain open to hearing the stories that predispose people to certain belief structures.
Wednesday, 1 April 2009
Prisoners of Belief: On Epistemic Privilege and Episcopal Fiat
By Rev’d Dr David M Willsher
What kind of a fool would dare to challenge a document (aka a press release) with the grand title of STATEMENT ON THE GLOBAL ANGLICAN FUTURE, a document that claims the approval of 1148 Anglican clergy and lay people and has the imprimatur of 291 Anglican bishops?
If numbers of supporters count for anything this would seem to be a very important document indeed; a document it would be foolish to challenge. On this day of fools, April 1, let me be that fool. You see, these 291 bishops (et al.) claim to believe some very important sounding things about the Holy Scriptures and as a priest in the church of God (that is what they said when I was ordained) I tend to listen to bishops. I said listen: that doesn’t mean I always agree. In my experience bishops in the Anglican Church are just about as likely to get things wrong as right: and I have worked with twelve of them that I can remember! Some of them are still my friends.
It fascinates me that a group of bishops could think that numbers of supporters (and numbers of Episcopal supporters!) means anything in relation to the truth of their beliefs. It is also fascinating to me that they could imagine that sincerity has anything to do with truth. It appears from the introduction to the STATEMENT that they are a lot of very sincere people. However, it must be said of human beings that a whole lot of people can be (and often are) wrong about a whole lot of things; sincerely wrong. Attendance at Anglican synods as well as any kind of search of the internet provides ample support for these contentions. There is no necessary connection between numbers or sincerity and the truth.
So, and remember I am being the fool here, if numbers and sincerity tell us nothing about the truth of the STATEMENT or the DECLARATION (JD) it contains, what then can we say about the beliefs of these people and any relationship there might be (if any) between their beliefs and truth?
Here is the now oft quoted Clause 1 of the JD:
When I read this clause great big warning lights flash before me! The text begins with the words “We believe” and that is where the trouble starts.
Now let me explain what I am NOT saying: I am not saying that I take issue with the beliefs of those who propose and support the JD. In fact I do, but that is not my topic. Others in this conference have been tackling the problematic nature of numerous beliefs espoused or implied in this statement, especially beliefs about the nature of scripture and scriptural authority. Neither do I doubt that the proponents of the JD believe that what they are saying is something really important, even historically significant. It’s just that I have to be worried about the whole thing when they get the beginning of it so very wrong! Or, if I was to be more generous, so confused. They are making their doxastic claim in a way that does not say what they think it is saying!
Now, that last sentence sounds important, and it is. So, let me clarify.
To understand what I am saying let me rewrite the clause to give a plain reading of the text by including the implied wording, to see what epistemic claims are really being made (added words are included in bold):
My plain reading highlights a problematic feature of the text that I will discuss under the heading of Epistemic Privilege and Episcopal Fiat.
We grant epistemic privilege to particular ideas when we accord them the status of truth. This is a feature of all belief systems and in itself is unremarkable. However, when the granting of that privilege is done for questionable or dubious reasons we have a responsibility to challenge it. Revolutions down the ages have been about challenging received orthodoxies that are perceived as being in the service of other then honourable purposes. Liberation theology has much to say on this.
We would be mistaken if we thought that acts or statements of belief can be considered in epistemic isolation. There are no isolated beliefs: they exist within structures variously referred to as webs or systems. However, not all beliefs are created equal! Any belief granted epistemic privilege will be called upon to do more than the usual load of truth-bearing within a belief system. It doesn’t matter whether you are a foundationalist or a relativist; such privileged beliefs have a key role in the establishment and maintenance of systems of belief.
As well, beliefs are always embedded within larger structures of human intellection and activity; things bigger than belief systems. To use Martin Marty’s term, believers are also ‘behavers.’ There is a kind of feedback loop between believing and behaving. We tend to act on our beliefs and we also tend to believe in response to the actions we find ourselves caught up in.
This suggests we can examine people’s beliefs in two ways: by studying what they claim to believe and by watching how they behave. The JD itself is a statement of beliefs. The issuing of the JD is behaviour. There isn’t room here to explore both of these, so let me say a couple of things about the former.
The JD is a response to change in the church; change that the GAFCON bishops experience as a threat to their belief system. Resistance to change depends primarily on the presence of significant anxiety in a person or group. To precipitate a response the anxiety must be a product of an enduring state of threat. The bishops are anxious because there belief system has been under threat for quite a while. The behaviour of believers in resisting change to their belief system can take two forms. The two ways that people respond to such threat are termed ‘rigidity’ (resistance to change of single beliefs) and ‘dogmatism’ (resistance to change of whole systems of beliefs). There are two consequences arising from rigidity and dogmatism in a threatened belief system: increased rigidity diminishes our ability to analyse and increased dogmatism diminishes our ability to synthesise.
I could go on a lot about these two consequences but let me make just one observation here. When a belief has been especially privileged it becomes more central to the belief system and more resistant to change. The corollary of this is that the believer depends more for their epistemic security upon such privileged beliefs and so the beliefs become more and more privileged. Such a belief carries a greater epistemic load than other beliefs and so will be better protected and more often defended. In my own research, one of the most interesting things I have learned about belief systems is that while they help us make sense of the world, at the same time they are protecting us from the world. Although it is clear that privileged beliefs are crucial to both processes, it is the case that while we hold beliefs they also hold us. We are in a sense their prisoners!
The authors of this statement are prisoners with us of their beliefs. This too is unremarkable: believing is something human beings cannot help doing. However, these bishops also claim to be orthodox believers: indeed the defenders of orthodoxy. That is something bishops are especially qualified to be: it’s part of their job description. But how well are they doing their job? It is peculiar that of the “tenets of orthodoxy” that the JD solemnly declares “underpin our Anglican identity” only one begins with the words “We believe” and, as I indicated above it’s really, “We believe that.”
What is it about scripture (I ask) that makes it an object of belief in this clause, when everything else is subject to other declarative words: rejoice, uphold, proclaim, recognise, acknowledge, commit, celebrate, reject? Surely all of the clauses entail acts of believing? I don’t think this is mere poetic variation. It would seem that ‘believe that’ is being used here in some particular way: to signal something special (privileged) about the subject of the clause. I would say extremely privileged. Philosophers distinguish (quite properly) between ‘belief in’ and ‘belief that.’ In the field of doxastics these are two quite different but related activities. To introducing a statement of belief with “believe that” says something quite different from the introductions to the Apostles’ and Nicene creeds which begin with “believe in.”
I think the phrase ‘believe that’ signifies that while Christian theology grants epistemic privilege to scripture itself, the bishops of the JD grant unwarranted epistemic privilege to their beliefs about scripture. Notice I am not talking here about granting privilege to scripture. It is their beliefs about scripture to which I refer. If I was being unkind I would suggest that this is just an Episcopal fiat or whim. Perhaps it is just a matter of theological preference. I suspect it is much more serious than that. A particular set of very privileged beliefs about scripture (signified by the phrase “believe that”) are being both defended and used as ammunition in the dogmatic defence of a threatened belief system. Rigidity and dogmatism are both at work here but the thing I want to focus on is this: the use of ‘belief that’ to signify a claim for epistemic privilege for beliefs about a text, when faith (in its biblical sense) is more properly justified in terms of ‘belief in’. This is because ‘belief that’ is about trust in an idea while ‘belief in’ is essentially about trust in and loyalty to a person.
The JD claims to be expressing a set of “tenets of orthodoxy.” Using the terminology I have presented here we can say a tenet sounds a lot like a privileged belief. A tenet is a central principle of belief and the Latin tenere means to hold. In this case we see 291 bishops being held prisoner by a specific set of ‘beliefs that’ scripture is a particular kind of thing which may only rightly be approached in a very particular kind of way.
The ultimate test of the worthiness of a belief to be granted epistemic privilege (at least within a Christian theological framework of believing) is, to me, the test of faithfulness: how well does this belief conform to the person of Jesus. Is it a truth that sets us free or one that further imprisons us? All of my ‘beliefs that’ depend ultimately on my ‘beliefs in.’ Not that other way around!
P.S. The day of fools may have gotten its name from the people who foolishly resisted the change of calendar under Gregory XIII in 1582 so that they went on celebrating New Year’s Day on the wrong day. This is how people often respond to things that threaten their system of beliefs.
Happy day of fools.
Notes
1. This discussion is based on research currently in the process of being published.
What kind of a fool would dare to challenge a document (aka a press release) with the grand title of STATEMENT ON THE GLOBAL ANGLICAN FUTURE, a document that claims the approval of 1148 Anglican clergy and lay people and has the imprimatur of 291 Anglican bishops?
If numbers of supporters count for anything this would seem to be a very important document indeed; a document it would be foolish to challenge. On this day of fools, April 1, let me be that fool. You see, these 291 bishops (et al.) claim to believe some very important sounding things about the Holy Scriptures and as a priest in the church of God (that is what they said when I was ordained) I tend to listen to bishops. I said listen: that doesn’t mean I always agree. In my experience bishops in the Anglican Church are just about as likely to get things wrong as right: and I have worked with twelve of them that I can remember! Some of them are still my friends.
It fascinates me that a group of bishops could think that numbers of supporters (and numbers of Episcopal supporters!) means anything in relation to the truth of their beliefs. It is also fascinating to me that they could imagine that sincerity has anything to do with truth. It appears from the introduction to the STATEMENT that they are a lot of very sincere people. However, it must be said of human beings that a whole lot of people can be (and often are) wrong about a whole lot of things; sincerely wrong. Attendance at Anglican synods as well as any kind of search of the internet provides ample support for these contentions. There is no necessary connection between numbers or sincerity and the truth.
So, and remember I am being the fool here, if numbers and sincerity tell us nothing about the truth of the STATEMENT or the DECLARATION (JD) it contains, what then can we say about the beliefs of these people and any relationship there might be (if any) between their beliefs and truth?
Here is the now oft quoted Clause 1 of the JD:
We believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God written and to contain all things necessary for salvation. The Bible is to be translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading.
When I read this clause great big warning lights flash before me! The text begins with the words “We believe” and that is where the trouble starts.
Now let me explain what I am NOT saying: I am not saying that I take issue with the beliefs of those who propose and support the JD. In fact I do, but that is not my topic. Others in this conference have been tackling the problematic nature of numerous beliefs espoused or implied in this statement, especially beliefs about the nature of scripture and scriptural authority. Neither do I doubt that the proponents of the JD believe that what they are saying is something really important, even historically significant. It’s just that I have to be worried about the whole thing when they get the beginning of it so very wrong! Or, if I was to be more generous, so confused. They are making their doxastic claim in a way that does not say what they think it is saying!
Now, that last sentence sounds important, and it is. So, let me clarify.
To understand what I am saying let me rewrite the clause to give a plain reading of the text by including the implied wording, to see what epistemic claims are really being made (added words are included in bold):
We believe that the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God written and we believe that they contain all things necessary for salvation. We believe that the Bible is to be translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, provided that such translation, reading, preaching, and obeying is respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading.
My plain reading highlights a problematic feature of the text that I will discuss under the heading of Epistemic Privilege and Episcopal Fiat.
We grant epistemic privilege to particular ideas when we accord them the status of truth. This is a feature of all belief systems and in itself is unremarkable. However, when the granting of that privilege is done for questionable or dubious reasons we have a responsibility to challenge it. Revolutions down the ages have been about challenging received orthodoxies that are perceived as being in the service of other then honourable purposes. Liberation theology has much to say on this.
We would be mistaken if we thought that acts or statements of belief can be considered in epistemic isolation. There are no isolated beliefs: they exist within structures variously referred to as webs or systems. However, not all beliefs are created equal! Any belief granted epistemic privilege will be called upon to do more than the usual load of truth-bearing within a belief system. It doesn’t matter whether you are a foundationalist or a relativist; such privileged beliefs have a key role in the establishment and maintenance of systems of belief.
As well, beliefs are always embedded within larger structures of human intellection and activity; things bigger than belief systems. To use Martin Marty’s term, believers are also ‘behavers.’ There is a kind of feedback loop between believing and behaving. We tend to act on our beliefs and we also tend to believe in response to the actions we find ourselves caught up in.
This suggests we can examine people’s beliefs in two ways: by studying what they claim to believe and by watching how they behave. The JD itself is a statement of beliefs. The issuing of the JD is behaviour. There isn’t room here to explore both of these, so let me say a couple of things about the former.
The JD is a response to change in the church; change that the GAFCON bishops experience as a threat to their belief system. Resistance to change depends primarily on the presence of significant anxiety in a person or group. To precipitate a response the anxiety must be a product of an enduring state of threat. The bishops are anxious because there belief system has been under threat for quite a while. The behaviour of believers in resisting change to their belief system can take two forms. The two ways that people respond to such threat are termed ‘rigidity’ (resistance to change of single beliefs) and ‘dogmatism’ (resistance to change of whole systems of beliefs). There are two consequences arising from rigidity and dogmatism in a threatened belief system: increased rigidity diminishes our ability to analyse and increased dogmatism diminishes our ability to synthesise.
I could go on a lot about these two consequences but let me make just one observation here. When a belief has been especially privileged it becomes more central to the belief system and more resistant to change. The corollary of this is that the believer depends more for their epistemic security upon such privileged beliefs and so the beliefs become more and more privileged. Such a belief carries a greater epistemic load than other beliefs and so will be better protected and more often defended. In my own research, one of the most interesting things I have learned about belief systems is that while they help us make sense of the world, at the same time they are protecting us from the world. Although it is clear that privileged beliefs are crucial to both processes, it is the case that while we hold beliefs they also hold us. We are in a sense their prisoners!
The authors of this statement are prisoners with us of their beliefs. This too is unremarkable: believing is something human beings cannot help doing. However, these bishops also claim to be orthodox believers: indeed the defenders of orthodoxy. That is something bishops are especially qualified to be: it’s part of their job description. But how well are they doing their job? It is peculiar that of the “tenets of orthodoxy” that the JD solemnly declares “underpin our Anglican identity” only one begins with the words “We believe” and, as I indicated above it’s really, “We believe that.”
What is it about scripture (I ask) that makes it an object of belief in this clause, when everything else is subject to other declarative words: rejoice, uphold, proclaim, recognise, acknowledge, commit, celebrate, reject? Surely all of the clauses entail acts of believing? I don’t think this is mere poetic variation. It would seem that ‘believe that’ is being used here in some particular way: to signal something special (privileged) about the subject of the clause. I would say extremely privileged. Philosophers distinguish (quite properly) between ‘belief in’ and ‘belief that.’ In the field of doxastics these are two quite different but related activities. To introducing a statement of belief with “believe that” says something quite different from the introductions to the Apostles’ and Nicene creeds which begin with “believe in.”
I think the phrase ‘believe that’ signifies that while Christian theology grants epistemic privilege to scripture itself, the bishops of the JD grant unwarranted epistemic privilege to their beliefs about scripture. Notice I am not talking here about granting privilege to scripture. It is their beliefs about scripture to which I refer. If I was being unkind I would suggest that this is just an Episcopal fiat or whim. Perhaps it is just a matter of theological preference. I suspect it is much more serious than that. A particular set of very privileged beliefs about scripture (signified by the phrase “believe that”) are being both defended and used as ammunition in the dogmatic defence of a threatened belief system. Rigidity and dogmatism are both at work here but the thing I want to focus on is this: the use of ‘belief that’ to signify a claim for epistemic privilege for beliefs about a text, when faith (in its biblical sense) is more properly justified in terms of ‘belief in’. This is because ‘belief that’ is about trust in an idea while ‘belief in’ is essentially about trust in and loyalty to a person.
The JD claims to be expressing a set of “tenets of orthodoxy.” Using the terminology I have presented here we can say a tenet sounds a lot like a privileged belief. A tenet is a central principle of belief and the Latin tenere means to hold. In this case we see 291 bishops being held prisoner by a specific set of ‘beliefs that’ scripture is a particular kind of thing which may only rightly be approached in a very particular kind of way.
The ultimate test of the worthiness of a belief to be granted epistemic privilege (at least within a Christian theological framework of believing) is, to me, the test of faithfulness: how well does this belief conform to the person of Jesus. Is it a truth that sets us free or one that further imprisons us? All of my ‘beliefs that’ depend ultimately on my ‘beliefs in.’ Not that other way around!
P.S. The day of fools may have gotten its name from the people who foolishly resisted the change of calendar under Gregory XIII in 1582 so that they went on celebrating New Year’s Day on the wrong day. This is how people often respond to things that threaten their system of beliefs.
Happy day of fools.
Notes
1. This discussion is based on research currently in the process of being published.
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Response to Lucy Larkin
By the Rev Tony Nicholls
Thank you Lucy for your thought provoking and interesting engagement with our understanding of: the Bible; creation; and the connection between the two. While in many ways the introduction resonates with me, I find myself unable to “suspend my suspicions”. For what I am asked to do is to treat the Bible as a revered person, a wise elder, a mentor or a spiritual director. Now each of these people are excellent resources in life, but at the end of the day, they are each simply another person giving advice in one form or another. They only have as much authority as I give them. But when we come to the Bible, we come to listen to the almighty and powerful Lord of the universe. God’s speech through the Bible has an altogether different authority to that of other humans who give advice. When this Lord of the universe warns us about something, it carries infinitely more weight than when a created being warns us about something. However I did appreciate the encouragement given to come to the Bible in humility and patience, ready to be surprised and challenged. We must always be open to God speaking to us in fresh ways, and bringing a greater depth of understanding through the words of the Bible.
Although it is helpful to be reminded that Scripture is not equal to God, I think we need to be careful not to distance Scripture from God. For when we read the Bible, we are listening to God speak. The Bible is the primary means that God uses to communicate with us. It is true that God spoke through humans living in a very different time and culture to our own. But this does not make the Bible any less God’s communication to us. We may need to work hard to understand the culture and context of the Bible, and then work hard to understand how it applies to us today, but it is nevertheless God’s words to us today.
I must admit that whenever I hear the earth spoken of as a being, as something that has a relationship with God, I become very nervous. For although God created the earth and all the creatures on it, the earth itself is not a thinking being like humans. Earth is the place that all other things dwell: humans, animals, plants, etc. But it is not itself a thinking being. I think the danger is in raising the importance of earth to the level of humans, or even above the level of humans. However in the creation account, and throughout the Bible, God clearly lays out the primary importance of humans, of those creatures created in the image of God.
This is not to say that because humans are more important than the earth they dwell on, that they can do whatever they feel like doing to the earth. Instead, humankind is given the responsibility, as Lucy points out, to rule over and care for the earth.
Lucy has very helpfully drawn out in her paper the idea that the Bible is not a collection of books written in one particular style, to be read in one particular way. She has used the language of grammar to show that the authors of the books of the Bible write in the way one would expect human authors to write, that is in different moods. This is perhaps seen to be a corrective to clause 2 of the Jerusalem Declaration, which seems at first glance as though it implies the whole Bible is a rule book to be obeyed. However this is to misunderstand the intent of clause 2 of the Jerusalem Declaration. For in order to translate, read, preach, teach, and obey the Bible accurately, one must recognise and make sense of the: grammar, genre, and context. Thus the way that a Psalm is taught and obeyed will be quite different to the way a narrative or an epistle is taught and obeyed. Just as at the grammatical level an indicative will be taught and obeyed differently to the way an imperative or an optative is taught and obeyed.
Despite my somewhat negative approach to some of the arguments in this paper, I must say that I agree with much of the overall thrust of the paper. I do think it’s important for humans to care for the earth, to rule it wisely as God’s caretakers. Thanks Lucy for your challenge to us.
Monday, 30 March 2009
The Wisdom of Ants and the Storehouses of Snow: Fresh Readings of the Bible For a Planet in Peril
By Revd Dr. Lucy Larkin.Come with me into a theological thought experiment. Just for the purposes of this blog paper and just for a little while, suspend your suspicions. Hang them up because I’m on an intentional quest. I’m seeking wisdom and I’m coming to the Bible as I would to a revered person, a wise elder, a mentor or a spiritual director to find some answers.
I often seek the counsel of this person. Sometime it is enough to rest in their presence. When I’m weary or assailed by the noise and complexities of life it’s good to sit, drink in hand, and say nothing. At other times I come for a rigorous dialogue, an engaging debate, a good laugh. I know my deepest and truest questions will not be scorned. This person is deeply attractive, relentlessly realistic, wildly hopeful. I have an assurance that our deliberations will yield truth. Sometimes I come knowing that I will find a new understanding which surprises and challenges me. Sometimes I have a list of questions that need working through. It requires patient and open listening and humility on my part. Sometimes, as now, I come on behalf of another; for one who is in trouble. In this thought experiment, the friend I mean is the earth, our planet, who is, of late, in a bad way. For this friend I come almost in desperation. Behind it is a sense of needing to probe, to test, to arrive at a place of peace about the integrity and authenticity of the elder and their ability to answer my questions on behalf of my friend.
My reasons for suggesting that it is possible to approach Scripture in this way are threefold. Firstly, to highlight the ways in which it, like a person, is nuanced and complex. It has a history, a memory, a testimony, a status and a life of its own. It has, at times, deeply mysterious qualities. What are we to do with ‘difficult’ passages, discordant or dark ones even? How do we sit with its propensity to send us somewhere else entirely to the place we thought we were.
My second reason for personifying the Bible is to give weight to the relational aspects that are present in any reading of Scripture. If I can borrow a notion from the philosopher Martin Buber, I would say that true dialogue requires an openness to the real ‘meeting’ that is in ‘the between’. Only here in the encounter of a unique ‘one’ with ‘another’ does the new and the potentially delightful emerge. There is a sense in which, although I read the text, the text reads me too. Moreover my coming to it is not entirely blank. I bring my own identity, my gender, ethnicity, social location, my education, my life experiences and preoccupations which condition my ability to receive what is being said. Thus I come searching wisdom but I am searched out too. As Jeremiah 17:10 has it ‘I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind’.
Thirdly, there is an ongoing aspect to any relationship of depth. To access an authentic wisdom for each new generation and situation the Bible should be read and reread. Scripture itself records many breaks with, as well as renewals of, tradition. This is also to acknowledge the continual participation of God in the processes of creation through the Holy Spirit, and the sub-plot of God’s ongoing engagement with humanity. Part of my ‘non-blank’ coming to the scriptures is that I belong in the midst of a believing community in all its complexity. To read scripture as an Anglican is to read it ecclesially, as part of the church past, present but also not forgetting the future. My scriptural reading is thus informed by others and their encounters with God in worship, in meditation, in study and in conversation. There is another aspect to my belonging which is worth emphasising. Although I seek wisdom on behalf of the earth, I am part of the earth too, so this is not detached and dispassionate searching.
There is then, more than one dialectic going on whenever I read scripture and this is possibly where the analogy of scripture as a wise person breaks down. It is about me and God, but much more is going on than just that. Moreover, scripture is not equivalent to God. I can be confident in scripture’s revelatory and transformative abilities but it is the God behind scripture, not scripture itself, that I seek.
Scripture is not the same as God in another way. Feminist theology has alerted us to the silences of the texts and the marginal characters. Likewise certain of its words are embedded in cultural presuppositions that are no longer intelligible in or resonate with our own time. When it comes to an eco-theological approach to scripture I engage in what could be termed a hermeneutic of desire and retrieval. There are many desires I have in this regard but one is the desire to find the ‘hidden’ story of the earth and its relationship with God and to retrieve from that story wisdom that informs care for the earth. This is not exactly a hermeneutic of suspicion but it is to be aware of the anthropocentric blind spots in the interpretation of scripture through the ages. If there is no reading of scripture that is ‘a view from nowhere’ we can at least be upfront about our perspective and concerns.
David Ford has, in his book, Christian Wisdom: Desiring God and Learning in Love (
The indicative is about affirming and denying. Some examples from the gospels are when Jesus says, ‘blessed are you’, or ‘woe to you’, Luke 6:20ff. The imperative implies command and obedience. Jesus himself was obedient. Ford notes that arguably, the Christian faith has often been seen in terms of the indicative (‘this is the good news’), (‘do this and you will be saved’). The interrogative is about questioning and being questioned (‘are you the son of God?’, ‘why do you look for the living among the dead?’ etc). In Jesus’ life and death there is intricate questioning that goes on generating further questions. The subjunctive opens up possibilities and surprises, it is the realm of the ‘may be’ and the ‘might be’. This is the mood of the parables of Jesus; in which a different vision of God and society holds the potential for surprises and reversals. This is rooted in the possibility of interpreting Scripture, along with the Spirit, in new periods and situations. Finally the optative is about desire, desiring and being loved. It is in the longing for, the ‘might be’, the ‘if only’… it is about fulfilment and wholeness.
Ford argues that all these ‘moods’ are present in the scriptures and to read them together is the path of wisdom. He cautions against any of them dominating inappropriately, whether it be on the one hand a literalist dogmatism or a moral absolutism, or on the other, an indefinite questioning and openness which leads to confusion or an endlessly experimental exploration of attractive possibilities. For him it is part of discernment and wisdom to navigate between these.
If wisdom lies in hearing all the moods of the voice of God in Scripture then how do we listen to them in regard to the earth? A place to begin would be with the general demeanour, the broad brush strokes by which my mentor, the Scriptures, lives her life. Thus we could state that scripture mentions ‘the earth’ five times more often than it does ‘heaven’. There is no separate word for nature as we have it now. There is ‘erets’, which is the earth as a geographical place, the terrestrial globe. Then there is ‘adamah’ – literally, arable land, the soil, the growing medium. It is in this sense that Adam and Eve are ‘earthlings’. ‘Gan’ is also sometimes used to refer to a paradisical garden with trees. The New Testament adds ‘cosmos’ as in ‘God so loved the cosmos’. The Bible’s preferred phrase is ‘heavens and earth’ or ‘earth and all that is in it’.
In the Old Testament, themes of Creation, Jubilee and Sabbath imply a right ordering of relationship between God, humanity and the natural world, again broadly speaking: the Bible opens with the great statement of God as creator of all things. Creation is ‘good’, a gift and a blessing. But note, according to Proverbs wisdom was there from even before the beginning of the world. Proverbs 3:18 ‘Wisdom … Is a tree of life to those who embrace her: those who lay hold of her will be blessed. By Wisdom the Lord laid the earth’s foundations…’ The unpacking of the creation stories in Genesis involves much more than I could possibly do here. You will have to be content with my big tip, which is that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are meant to be read together. That tricky verse, Gen 1: 28 (“Be fruitful and increase in number: fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground”) is to sit alongside Gen 2:15 (‘The lord took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.)
In the New Testament, there are Christological themes of reconciliation, redemption and creation held together in Christ and a vision of a new heaven and earth. I shall say a little about these later. Suffice it to say ecotheologians have written whole books, have even devoted much of their life’s work to aspects that I can only touch upon here.
Now, lets look at those ‘moods’ in a bit more detail. The indicative in terms of affirmation and praise is certainly present in the psalms. I shall list a good many for cumulative effect, but these are certainly not the only passages with this theme, e.g. in Ps 104 …He stretches out the heavens like a tent…he makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind….he makes springs pour water into the ravines…the lions roar for their prey and seek their food from God….there is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number…when you send your spirit they are created, and you renew the face of the earth….I will sing to the Lord all my life…Praise the Lord O my soul. Ps 148:3 Praise him sun and moon, praise him all you shining stars…Ps 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Ps 50:11 I know every bird in the mountains, and the creatures of the field are mine…for the world is mine and all that is in it. Ps 65 Praise awaits you, O God, in
However there are also quite a few passages that starkly make a link between the beliefs and behaviour of humans and their effects on the earth. Here we have the ‘woe to you’, so for example in Hosea 4:1-3 ‘There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgement of God in the land. There is only cursing, lying and murder… and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Because of this the land mourns, and all who live in it waste away: the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the fish of the sea are dying’. Or Jeremiah 4:23 ‘I looked at the earth and it was formless and empty; and at the heavens and their light was gone. I looked at the mountains and they were quaking;….the earth will mourn and the heavens above grow dark.’ Or Isaiah 24:4 ‘the earth dries up and withers…the earth is defiled by its people…. A curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt.’
The cries of the earth in mourning and desolation as the result of the sin of humanity are ones that we are to take seriously in our time.
Likewise the imperative mood is expressed often in passages about the earth. e.g. Deuteronomy 20:19 ‘When you lay siege to a city…. do not destroy its trees…Are the trees of the field men that you should besiege them?’ Here are a couple of my personal favourites; Deuteronomy 22:6 If you come across a bird’s nest beside the road, either in a tree or on the ground, and the mother is sitting on the young or on the eggs, do not take the mother with the young. You may take the young, but be sure to let the mother go, so that it may go well with you and you may have a long life. And, Proverbs 6:6 Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise!’ (This is something my kids instinctively do).God commands us to watch ants in order to gain wisdom!
Interrogatives also abound, (Isaiah 40:21 ‘Do you not know? Have you not heard?.... He stretches the heavens like a canopy…Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: who created all these?’) but are perhaps most poetically expressed in the closing chapters of Job where God speaks out of the whirlwind. So, for instance Job 39:1 ‘Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?’ God responds to the suffering and despair of Job with cosmology, meteorology, ornithology and animal husbandry! Whereas Job has related everything to his own condition, God’s answer is to celebrate creation for its own sake. Creation has a dignity, freedom, beauty, mystery and intense life of its own and God is intimately related to it. So in Job 38:22 ‘Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail which I reserve for times of trouble?…’
Subjunctives are harder to find but are surely present in passages such as Romans 8 ‘The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed…. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth…’ There is complex theology here, which again is impossible to deliberate on at length here, but there is certainly the suggestion that the time has come for liberating what has come to be enslaved and that the liberation of nature is tied up somehow with the liberation of humanity.
The great Colossians hymn of 1:16 is worth hearing too. Here is the statement that the world is made not only by Christ and for Christ, but in him all things ‘hold together’, and it really does mean all things, thus Christ is the agent of redemption and creation. In a cosmic drama of reconciliation our redeemer is also our creator, our creator is also our redeemer. Redemption then is the restoration of creation too. Redemption does not mean the annihilation of creation but rather its renewal. This renewal of the old is a bringing of it to fulfilment. God does not make all new things, but all things new.
There is also much to ponder in the opening words of John’s gospel; that ‘the word became flesh and dwelt among us’. What implications are there of this from an ecological point of view? I leave you to draw your own conclusions.
Apart from one of those passages that surprises and challenges us (Revelation 11:18 The time has come for…. destroying those who destroy the earth) much of the visioning of the book of Revelation operates in the optative mood. In Rev 22 1-2 the river of the water of life flows from the throne of God and of the lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stand the tree of life… and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. This tree along with its counterpart in Genesis ‘frames’ the scriptures such that we could say that the whole Biblical witness stands between these trees of life.
Belonging to this mood is also the great vision of Isaiah 65:17 Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth…..The wolf and the lamb will feed together and the lion will eat straw like the ox’. Someone is bound to ask me about the vision of ‘a new heaven and a new earth’ (ouranon kainon kai gen kainen). ‘New’ here connotes new in quality, in contrast to what is old. Thus there is the sense of renewed, not disposed of in the Biblical passages. What seems to be in 2 Peter 3 a vision of great destruction (vs 10 ‘But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare’) is counteracted by vs 13 (‘but in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness’.)
The optative mood is also glimpsed in Leviticus 25 where there is a full working out of the command to rest, to restore and to equalise in the justice concepts of the Sabbath and Jubilee. (vs11 ‘ The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines. For it is a jubilee and to be holy for you…’) and note that in Genesis 9 God makes a covenant with all living things (vs12 God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you….I have set my rainbow in the clouds and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.” )
It must be possible to say from even this brief foray into the scriptures that God deeply values the earth. Indeed the Trinitarian God, as creator, redeemer and sustainer is inextricably bound up with its history and its fate, as are we humans. To hear the wisdom contained within Scripture it is necessary to be attuned to each of the moods and voices and not to let one have ascendancy. That is, those which affirm and arrest, those which summon, those that question, those that are open to possibilities and those that display God’s vision and desire for the future of the world. In practice this means that we are to be alert to the cries of the vulnerable ones, even the vulnerable of the earth such as coral reefs and for such attentiveness to inform our action. Scripture discloses to us that there is a kind of wisdom in the act of crying itself. I need not have worried then about arriving at a place of peace.
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