I am leading a discussion class at our church using a Veritas Forum dialogue at the University of Cincinnati between N.T. Wright and Philosophy professor Heidi Maibom. It is an interesting conversation – far deeper than it seems at first glance or listen. After giving an introduction to their respective worldviews Wright and Maibom (previous post) dive into the first big question: How do we know what we know? You can find the whole Veritas Forum conversation here. The link should start at this question. The discussion of knowing runs from 22:45-35:38. An edited excerpt with Wright’s comments on knowing is also available. and embedded below.

Wright introduces his thoughts on this question using the concept of love. It seems a strange way to think about knowledge and knowing. It certainly struck me as a challenge to understand –  but it makes sense. As they go on Prof. Maibom doesn’t agree with the language of love, but does agree with the general sentiment.

Wright (around 22:45 in full video, or the beginning of the excerpt above):

We are missing an element here and it is the element of love. Because the danger with talking about knowledge is that it either tries to get to an unobtainable objectivity where I get out of the picture entirely and I’m simply telling you objectively what is out there which is actually unobtainable, or it collapses into subjectivity to which somebody can say you only think that because it suits your interests, that it may be true for you but it’s not true for anybody else, etc. etc. And I want to say that in many philosophical traditions, and certainly in mine, the notion of love transcends that subject object divide because when I genuinely love somebody or something I celebrate what it is or what that person is in themselves but at the same time this is not in my own interest, in the sense that if it is, then it isn’t love, it is simply manipulation of some sort. And I want to say that when you run an epistemology of love, through whether its scientific knowledge, whether it is artistic knowledge, whether its theological knowledge, it then sheds light in both directions, on the nature of the ideas we have which can then get tested out in ordinary every day reality or on the question how we know what we know, which is in front of us. So I would want to put love back into the picture and I observe that in western culture over the last two hundred years love has been systematically screened out.

Prof. Maibom questions the concept of love in knowledge. While taking an empirical point of view, she notes that critical testing is essential and brings up the need for critical engagement in community and the necessity of testing ideas.  “We stand, on the shoulders of, maybe not giants, but a lot of normal sized human beings all stacked up.” However, Maibom and Wright are really not all that far apart. Wright responds: (around 30:40 in the full video, or 3:19 in the excerpt)

What I mean by love is part of that engagement with other knowers who are trying to know things at the same time as we are, and who will say no you’ve got that wrong, or you’ve forgotten that bit of evidence or whatever. But it is also the kind of generosity of the relationship with the evidence itself whether it is the observation of planets, letting the planets be what they are, letting them surprise us. Unlike the kind of astronomers who’ve got their fixed theories and we are going to make sure the data conform to that. Then mutatis mutandis in all sorts of other fields as well, having the generosity of spirit to allow the data to as I say surprise us and perhaps to shock us, but at the same time, not imagining that this is objective in the sense of its just out there and I’m just a fly on the wall observing it but recognizing I am in a relationship with this data in some sense or other and that therefore I have to be self-critical about that and I have to allow myself to hear the critical voices saying are you sure you’re not just manipulating it. So that is part of what I mean by love in that context and as I say, I think we have got into a bit of a trap in the Western world certainly do in our generation know far more than has been known and half of its goodness is out there in distorted form on Wikipedia. But the question is what are we going to do with that.

The idea that love plays a role even in “scientific” knowing will come across as something of a stretch. Love and chemistry or quantum mechanics are not often thought of as intimately related. But Wright’s point is that we have to go where the data takes us – and this is one aspect of a relationship of love with God’s creation. An interesting idea to consider.

Heidi Maibom points out that while objectivity is unobtainable, we are still trying to move in a direction of greater objectivity. Rather than love, a better concept is the the idea of emptiness. “We should try to see things as they are in themselves as opposed to simply a foil for our projections.” In reality Wright and Maibom are not all that far apart here, either. Wright responds: (around 32:58 in the full video, or 4:42 in the excerpt)

For a Christian epistemology in so far as I would articulate it, I would say I shouldn’t be trying to say something which is not my point of view. There is no such thing as a point of view which is nobody’s point of view. And we can have different points of view of the same object and we can talk together about that. There’s a lovely line in an old English poem about painters in God’s new world who will paint the thing as they see it for the God of things as they are. In other words, there is a sort of epistemological humility which says that only God actually sees them as they really are. But God wants to paint the thing as we see it to bring our perspective to what we are looking at into the public world, into the public space, and perhaps in the form of beauty not least.

We need the humility to realize that we do not now, and never will have complete understanding. We need to be open to criticism, reconsideration and revision.  Only God sees the world as it actually is – but we can learn and grow in understanding. We love God’s creation as we strive to understand it better and better (standing on the shoulders of the normal-sized humans who came before).

Does an epistemology of love make sense?

What does this mean for us as Christians?

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Quite a number of years ago David Wilkerson published an excellent article in Christianity Today: Bigger Than We Think. The archived article is only available with a subscription, but we can consider the major points here. The Christian doctrine of creation goes far deeper that just explaining how the world began. It goes far deeper than explaining the origin of life or the origin of the diversity of life. David Wilkinson received a PhD in Theoretical Astrophysics from the University of Durham and a PhD in Systematic Theology from Cambridge University where he explored Christian eschatology.

From the CT article:

The Christian doctrine of Creation has often been hijacked by controversies over how old the universe is. It has been hollowed out by the theory that God simply ignites the universe and then goes off for a cup of coffee, never touching his masterwork again. It is interesting that attacks on belief in a Creator, whether from Hawking, Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion, or Lawrence M. Krauss’s recent A Universe from Nothing, tend to target this diminished deity. But the Bible has a much bigger understanding of God as Creator. Not only does the doctrine of Creation feature in Scripture beyond just Genesis 1, God’s creative activity permeates every moment of the history of the universe.

Scientific explanations can only go so far. To address the big questions we have to go deeper into the transcendent meaning of the facts. In this clip from Test of Faith (an excellent resource by the way) Wilkerson goes to George Lucas and Star Wars and to the scientific description of a kiss to explain what he means.

At 2:04 in the video:

What is the scientific definition of a kiss? Well a kiss is the approach of two pairs of lips, the reciprocal transmission of carbon dioxide and microbes, and the juxtaposition of two orbicular muscles in a state of contraction. That is a kiss in scientific terms. But if I go to my wife and say to her, “Allison, I’d love to get together with you for a mutual transmission of carbon dioxide and microbes” she would say “Get lost.”

In this next clip he takes this transcendent meaning back into the interpretation of Genesis.

In the Christianity Today article Wilkinson makes five points – good for a five point sermon on creation perhaps. I will summarize and add a few of my own comments.

First: the Christian doctrine of Creation is never an abstract, academic concept.

Genesis isn’t a scientific account of the origin of the world. It is an account of God shaping the world, in relationship, for his purpose. Wilkinson points to other creation narratives in scripture as well to make his point. Proverbs 8:22-36; Psalms. 8, 19, and 148; Job 38-42; Isa. 40:9-31.

Second: the Christian doctrine of Creation has Christ at the center.

Our doctrine of Creation must have a key place for Jesus. The incarnation is not plan B and “it will not suffice to look for gaps in the scientific account into which God can be squeezed.” A few key passages:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. … The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1-5,14)

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Col. 1:15-17)

Third: the Christian doctrine of Creation affirms that God is the sole creator of the universe.

He is also the sole sustainer of creation, and here we have Christ as well – for in him all things hold together. The Genesis narrative affirms God as sole creator and undermines the creative powers in all of the competing stories in ancient Near Eastern culture.

Fourth: the Christian doctrine of Creation needs to be seen in light of the reality of new creation.

Wilkinson emphasizes that the creator is also redeemer. Creation is good, or why would God redeem it? “And if creation has been redeemed, then we can look forward to a new creation, the “new heaven and new earth” described in Revelation 21.” I think we should go a little further than Wilkinson and flip our perspective. As Daniel Harrell points out in his excellent book Nature’s Witness, the whole biblical narrative, including the creation narrative, is best viewed from the perspective of Revelation. Being drawn toward the future rather than wandering along from the past, God’s plan takes shape.

Fifth: the Christian doctrine of Creation shows that humanity has the capacity for an intimate relationship with God.

Wilkinson suggests that “[b]earing God’s image is about relationship with God more than any specific human attribute or pattern of behavior.” The Trinitarian picture of God as love puts the focus on relationship.

And I will wrap up with Wilkinson’s summary:

In the Christian doctrine of Creation, we thus find a common theme. The meaning of the universe is not to be found in an impersonal cosmic force, or in a mathematical theory, or in a philosophical abstraction. Instead, it is found in a personal God who wants relationships with human beings. To be human is to receive the gift of relationship, to love and be loved by the God who created you.

The doctrine of Creation is far deeper than science, and far more important.

What do you think?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net

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This is a slightly edited re-post on an ever timely topic.

Today we continue with John Knapp’sHow the Church Fails Business People (and what can be done about it),. We turn now to Chapter 6, “A Moral Theology of Work.”

The business environment can often present significant ethical challenges. Where might we begin as we think about ethical behavior? Knapp suggests a good place to start is with Micah 6:8:

“He has told you, O mortal, what is good;

and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

and to walk humbly with your God?”

Is it possible to be competitive in business while loving justice and kindness, and walking humbly with God, while grounded in love and responsibility?

What would it take to create the five-fold moral community Knapp describes?

Is Micah and the Jesus Creed the place to ground our ethical reflection or would you frame things differently?

Grounded in Love

Knapp says this definition of what is good is grounded in the Jesus Creed: Love God, love neighbor. What would it mean to respond to others out of this ethic in business? Knapp writes:

“An ethic of love goes beyond both duty (keeping promises, telling the truth, doing a job well) and compliance (with civil law, contractual requirements, or employment policies), both of which are necessary in the workplace. Love recognizes that every person is unique and must be cared for individually, whether or not a rule mandates it. This requires us to take the time and effort to discover what actually meets the other’s need.” (101)

To Do Justice

Business people are to be advocates for justice within their sphere of influence. It goes beyond just upholding the law. It is about pursing more just structures and behaviors. Sadly, Knapp writes:

“Paul Camenisch, a theologian with expertise in business ethics, believes that the church has failed to convey to believers their personal responsibilities for doing justice at work. In a critique of Protestant policy statements on economic justice, he writes, “Seldom if ever are Christians addressed as influential actors responsible in their vocations for seeing that, within their power, justice is done. They are not seriously challenged to ask questions  about the human impact of their actions as workers, managers, consumers, and owners on their fellows …” As we have discussed, church pronouncements on economics tend to critique the macroeconomic system with little or no thought to the difficulties faced by individuals or organizations within the system.” (103)

To Love Kindness

We are not just to do kind things but to love kindness. We might easily see the natural application of this to our coworkers or customers. How about to our personal rivals or the competition?

To Walk Humbly

“It is easy fall prey to an illusion of becoming self-sufficient through the accumulation of material wealth.” (106) And with this sense of self-sufficiency can come a sense of entitlement. That entitlement can be evidenced in the form of smug condescension or even as envy of others for what should “rightfully” be one’s own. For Christians there is a danger of self-righteous as we strive to be more “Christ-like” than others. I’m inclined to think that walking humbly may be the slipperiest of all. Knapp sees it as the precondition for the first two.

Responsibility

Central to living out this ethic is an embrace of responsibility. Knapp writes:

“This [human] potential includes the capacity for genuine responsiveness in all relationships, for authentic discipleship is a process of learning to enact Christian love in every circumstance. H. Richard Niebuhr … proposes that responsibility is defined chiefly by how we respond to others including God. This concept of responsibility as response-ability may be a better way to think about ethics than adherence to abstract more principles, compliance with rules, or even achievement of good outcomes. The responsible Christian must be fully attentive to the “decisive present” and the possibilities of God’s activity through the lives of others.” (109)

With the response-ability we have, we are to make “fitting responses” based on God’s justice.

Referring back to the survey results mentioned in the first post in this series (where people from all walks of life considered an ethical dilemma they had once faced), Knapp writes:

“Few of the dilemmas reported by our research subjects could be reduced to neat choices of right over wrong, good over bad. Nor were they problems where rules could determine the best course of action. The inherent difficulty in most of the cases involved conflicting values and priorities.” (111)

In short, ethical decisions are frequently messy. Two legitimate ethical concerns may be in competition with each other. On top of this, we are frequently distracted by competing demands and time pressures. All this requires conscious effort to be truly present in the decisions we are making.

Questions to guide us

Knapp offers a list of questions we might ask ourselves when we face difficult questions with justice, kindness, and humility grounded in love and responsibility (His questions with my summary sentence):

• • What’s really going on here? – Apply careful thought and investigation.
• • What makes this decision difficult? – What is the crux of the ethical challenge?
• • Who has a legitimate stake in how this matter is resolved? – Especially keep in mind those with less power or influence.
• • Am I acting in humility, or are my own interests crowding out the interests of others? – Look at things from the position of others.
• • To whom and to what am I responsible? – Be clear about our responsibilities and particularly our primary vocation of serving God.
• • What options are available, and what outcomes may result from each? – Be sure to consider long-term and broader consequences.
• • Have I sought God’s will? – Prayer, Scripture, and the discernment of other believers are important means of seeking God’s will.

The Necessary Role of the Church

Knapp closes the chapter with an important section called “The Necessary Role of the Church.” He lists five facets of faith community that should be present to equip and support people in the workplace. (The short summaries of each listing are mine, not Knapp’s.)

A Community of Moral Discernment – Rarely are any of us capable of answering the above questions on our own. Including people who know us, love us, share our commitment to God, and/or may have special insight into how to process some of these questions, are essential to sound discipleship.

A Community of Moral Discourse – People within a faith community often don’t agree with each other on particular problems but it is often the civil debate about a problem that helps us individually to come to better conclusions. The church needs to be a place for honest questions.

A Community of Moral Influence – Individuals often find they are powerless alone to address injustices that emerge in the work world. Congregations and denominational bodies are needed to work in support of efforts to reduce injustice and be supportive of businesspeople needing to take difficult stands.

A Community of Moral Encouragement – The business world is frequently messy. Rather than casting businesspeople as tainted Christians, we need to pray for them and support them as they work to integrate their work and faith (even as we help build the expectation that they should do so. )

A Community of Moral Example – The church needs to engage in just employment and financial practices if it expects the broader world to give any heed.

Concluding thoughts

This concludes the summary of Chapter 6. I’m not sure I’ve done it justice. I hope folks will read the book. But this chapter raised two issues for me that I want to briefly mention … one economic and the other theological.

I love the use of the Micah passage grounded in love and responsibility as a starting point for ethical reflection. And Knapp is exactly right that love is not about having warm fuzzy sentiments but rather about knowing individuals and seeking their good. Knapp is calling us to look at the neglected realm of everyday micro-economic business decisions and giving us tools to live out our calling in that context. But as we move to the meso and macro levels of economics, to decisions that deal with large firms and interactions beyond the firm, I think it becomes impossible to meaningfully apply the “love” principle.

A signature feature of advanced market economies is the ability of firms to gather and coordinate large numbers of people. Markets create vast webs of interconnection among people (who will likely never meet each other), allowing us to benefit from specialization and exchange with countless strangers. It is not possible for a businessperson to “love” hundreds/thousands of others in a businessperson’s own firm, much less those outside the firm, in the sense we have described above. Theologian Economist Paul Heyne wrote in an essay (“Morality of Labor Unions.” Chapter 24 in Are Economists Basically Immoral?, 429.):

“What does justice mean in this world of completely impersonal transactions? If we take the most general definition of justice – giving to each their due – how do we decide what each is due? In such a world the Golden Rule is simply irrelevant. Social transactions in a market-coordinated economy cannot be governed by the principle “Do for others what you would like them to do for you.” The appropriate rule is what someone has called the Silver Rule: “Do not do to others anything that you would consider unfair if they did it to you.” (429)

I do not want to minimize the important framing that Knapp has offered here.  Rather, I want to emphasize that as we move much outside the sphere of face-to-face community, we encounter inescapable sociological realties that may require a different kind of ethical analysis. We can’t simply deal with larger institutions as a family (or face-to-face community) writ large. All the more reason why we need communities of disciples to help us work our way through ethical thickets.

The theological thought I had goes directly to Scot’s King Jesus Gospel. Scot rejects the Evangelical tendency to collapse “gospel” into “salvation.” The King Jesus Gospel is about Jesus’s completion of the story of Israel and that story is rooted in the creation story, including the first great commission of exercising dominion over creation and the redemption of that mission. But I don’t think it is just the Evangelical world in Protestantism that needs rethinking.

In my Mainline PCUSA world, gospel is typically about rectifying wrong, either via compassion or justice advocacy. If Evangelicals have a “salvation gospel ,” as Scot says, then my tribe has a bias toward a “justice gospel.” Just as the King Jesus Gospel includes salvation, it also includes justice, but “gospel” cannot be collapsed into salvation, justice, or their combination. The King Jesus Gospel includes (among many other things) redemption of the first great commission. Neither the salvation gospel nor the justice gospel will do. Without the King Jesus Gospel there is no reason to give focused attention to the issues Knapp is raising. Work is peripheral to the “real” issues of either salvation or justice. I think the real starting place for a moral theology of work likely must begin with our understanding of gospel.

Questions:

Is it possible to be competitive in business while loving justice and kindness, and walking humbly with God, while grounded in love and responsibility?

What would it take to create the five-fold moral community Knapp describes?

Is Micah and the Jesus Creed the place to ground our ethical reflection or would you frame things differently?

Real estate people say real estate is about three things: location, location, location. Well I suspect integrating business and faith is also about three things: vocation, vocation, vocation. “Vocation” comes from the Latin vocare meaning “to call.” “God calls each of us into the divine relationship, and we respond to this call through the living of our lives, including our work lives.” (89) You might say that vocation helps us understand our location within God’s mission.

Today we move to the second part of the John Knapp’sHow the Church Fails Business People (and what can be done about it),. The first four chapters have explored the nature of the divide between work and faith. The last four chapters invite us to think about how we might find coherence. Chapter 5 “Rethinking Christian Vocation” is the topic for today.

Does Knapp’s description of vocation match your understanding of the term? What impact does this understanding of vocation have for the sacred/secular, eternal/temporal, and public/private dualities we discussed last week? What do you think about the Naaman story and the idea that we can be whole working in a less than perfect business?

Knapp opens with a story about a man who told him that, “God called me out of AT&T” into a “business as mission” enterprise that would aid the poor in emerging nations. I’ve heard many similar stories myself. But Knapp wants to know, is it possible that God calls some people into AT&T and to remain there? Do we have a theology that would support this idea?

Knapp reminds us that:

“The Scriptures affirm even the most basic forms of work, not necessarily because they yield individual wealth or even happiness, but because they nourish life and prevent suffering (e.g., Gen 3:19; Prov. 14:23; Prov. 20:13; Eccles. 9:10; 2 Thess. 3:10-11).” (88) (more…)

This series on the church and business people is by Michael Kruse. I hope every pastor reads this.

Henri Nouwen once observed that when people came to him for counseling, most of them would open up and readily discuss the most intimate details of their sex lives. But when he began probing about personal finances, body postures became closed and people would want to know why he was getting so personal. Money is important to us.

Today we continue our discussion of John Knapp’s How the Church Fails Business People (and what can be done about it),. We are looking at Chapter Three, “Uneasy Bedfellows: Money and the Church.”

How do you reconcile the historic ambiguity about wealth and money? Going back to at least Calvin we have the realization that we are not in a zero-sum game but that wealth can be grown. Does this matter for how we see wealth? Why do you think we in the church find it so hard to wrestle theologically with money and wealth?

Dr. Knapp believes the divide between businesspeople and the church is rooted in a related issue: the Christian community’s longstanding ambivalence toward money. This is important because work and money are inextricably connected in our culture. Money and wealth are the means by which we “keep score” in our society, not just in terms of how we rate possessions but, unfortunately, too often it is how we value people. Money and wealth have been a central concern of Judeo-Christian ethical teaching from the start. In this chapter, Knapp gives us a brief survey of “Money and the Church” over the ages.

The Bible

Frankly, the Bible offers us a seemingly conflicted perspective. Wealth is presented as a blessing on some occasions while on other occasions we are warned not to desire wealth, even to renounce it. Knapp recounts several passages dealing with wealth in the Old Testament and sees three common themes: (more…)

God’s acts in creation but his action is mediated. He generally acts through some intermediary – even if it is just his word.

Robert Bishop in Ch. 2 of of Understanding Scientific Theories of Origins elaborates on a Christian understanding of God’s action, both in the creation of the universe and yet today.  “For God’s action in nature to be mediated means divine activity in creation is shaped by or takes place through something else. That God’s activity in the creation is mediated does not imply any deficiency in power or ability. Rather, this is the intentional pattern of divine action that we see in the Bible.” (p. 22)

Three forms of mediation can be identified in the Bible.

First God acts by divine command. Genesis 1:3 provides an example: “And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.” God speaks and his purpose is fulfilled. There is nothing accidental or unintentional here. “And God saw that the light was good.”

Second, God acts through the Son and the Spirit. Very early in Church history Irenaeus referred to the Son and the Spirit as God’s two hands. According to Bishop “the image is meant to emphasize the distinct roles of the three persons of the Trinity, who are always fully engaged in creation.” (p. 23) John 1:1-3 and Col. 1:16-17 provide good examples here. Speaking of Christ the Son , John writes “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”  Paul affirms the same and goes further: “For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”  The Spirit is hovering over the water in Genesis 1:2 and involved in the continuing creation of animals in Psalm 104:27,30  “All creatures look to you to give them their food at the proper time. … When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.“

Finally, God acts through the normal processes of his creation. This is seen throughout Scripture. It isn’t the processes are divided into natural and divine. This is a modern distinction. In Genesis 1 we read “Let the earth sprout vegetation” v. 11 and “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds.” (v.24) Bishop elaborates: “the message is that creation is called and empowered to bring forth and sustain varieties of living creatures, but this also is God’s activity-exactly the pattern Psalm 104 praises God for. The Son made the creation creative through the enablement of the Spirit.” (p. 27)

Bishop notes:

This is the pattern throughout the Bible: God’s activity in the creation is manifested through creation, whether animate or inanimate parts of nature. Genesis 1-2 and the creation psalms are filled with examples of divine action mediated ministerially through creation (e.g., reproduction, provision of food and shelter). (p. 29)

God’s action is also mediated through human beings – a “normal” process of creation. God works through Abraham, Israel, and even Babylonians. The spread of the message of Jesus was mediated through Paul and other followers and continues to be mediated through humans today.

It is noteworthy that “this form of mediated action is also crucial to the Christian community’s understanding of the inspiration and authority of Scripture. … God wrote the Scriptures through the agency of human beings enabled by the Spirit.” (p. 29)

These three methods of divine action act cooperatively rather than in competition “… the biblical picture is of all three working in concert. They are interconnected to one another because they all are forms of divine action.” (p. 30)

It is also significant that all of these forms of divine action are ongoing. The Psalmist and the author of Job speak of God’s ongoing action sustaining and providing for his creation. The Christ hymn in Colossians doesn’t stop with origins but continues “in him all things hold together.”

Where does this leave us?

Therefore, there is no biblical warrant for restricting God’s activity in nature to some kind of violation or suspension of creation’s functional integrity. The rich forms of mediated divine activity in the doctrine of creation allow us to see God’s miraculous ways with creation’s functional integrity fully involved in such instances as unexpected healings, timely gifts of money or food that avert the closure of an orphanage, or the avoidance of a near accident. However, mediated forms of divine activity also allow us to see that the Trinity is just as involved in the ongoing workings of gravity, plant growth, and nuclear fusion inside stars (compare Ps 104). It is actually a false choice to think that God is active in nature only when there are miraculous “violations” of the contingent rational order; otherwise, this order carries on without any divine involvement whatsoever (the either-or dilemma described above). The doctrine of creation implies that the Trinity is as intimately involved in the gravity keeping you glued to the Earth’s surface as in resurrecting Lazarus from the dead. (p. 37)

A few events, like the incarnation and resurrection, move beyond the functional integrity of creation – but represent part of God’s for creation and for the future. “There is nothing “unnatural” to God about such acts – they are fully consistent with divine plan and purpose.” (p. 38)

It is important to get this straight before moving into the science of origins. Science simply studies the regular processes through which God acts in creation.

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net.

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Everyday Glory: The Revelation of God in all of Reality

Gerald McDermott is Anglican Chair of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School. He is a well-respected scholar of Jonathan Edwards and the author of many books. On a personal note, I will add that Gerry’s book, The Great Theologians, was one of my favorite reads in 2018.

The following interview revolves around McDermott’s latest book, Everyday Glory: The Revelation of God in all of Reality.

The interview was conducted by David George Moore. Some of Dave’s teaching and interview videos can be accessed at www.mooreengaging.com.

Moore: You addressed this topic during your recent Griffith-Thomas lectures at Dallas Theological Seminary. In listening to those, I was amazed how much Jonathan Edwards (and others) commended typology, especially those observed in the natural world. Many of us are aware of types existing in Scripture, but we rarely think about types being displayed in nature. Why is that?

McDermott: One reason is Karl Barth, who denied the existence of natural revelation, which means the idea that God reveals himself through nature. Because Barth was the most influential theologian in the last century, many Christians, especially Protestants, have told themselves that they should not see revelation or types in nature. Barth has persuaded them that the Bible does not permit seeing such types there. I argue in an appendix at the back of Everyday Glory that Barth misinterpreted Scripture on this.

A second reason has been the influence of Darwin, Marx and Freud, who have been called the three secular prophets of modernity. For them the world was no longer a beautiful mystery full of signs pointing to God but an arena for the survival of the fittest (Darwin), the realm of exploitation of the proletariat (Marx), or the battleground for conflict between the superego and the id (Freud).

With those negative dynamics at play, how could the world be a place where God reveals himself?

Moore: In my first hermeneutics class I heard the professor warn us about finding too many types in Scripture. It does seem that some go too far in seeing types all over Scripture, almost as if they have some secret decoder ring. What are some ways we can responsibly see types in Scripture while not falling prey to speculation?

McDermott: First we must realize two things, and then we can follow three rules.

We must realize that there are many times in Scripture where we are told explicitly that something outside of Scripture is a type. For example, Jesus said we can learn from lilies and sparrows, and Paul said we should realize a lesson about resurrection from seeds dying and germinating (1 Cor 15).

The second thing to realize is that God does not typically explain his types in Scripture. Think of the two most prominent messianic types in the OT: Moses leading Israel out of slavery and the suffering servant in Isaiah. The OT never says they are messianic, but Jesus rebuked his disciples for not understanding them (Luke 24:25-26). Perhaps then we should be wary of insisting that we are to draw no typological lessons where the Scripture is not directly explicit.

The Bible is more than a beautiful drama, but certainly not less than that. It is full of types and symbols and images that appeal as much to the right brain as the left. Like all things of beauty, it often shows rather than tells its inner secrets. It is full of “spiritual things for those who are spiritual” ((1 Cor 2:13). To demand that it always explain its images is like refusing to appreciate Mozart’s music until we can find his philosophy of music.

But there are rules nonetheless. First, things or events must fall within a clear range of biblical meaning. For example, since Scripture compares our Lord’s anger to that of a she-bear mourning her cubs (Hosea 13:8; Isa. 59:11), the anger of any large animal would fall within that range of typical meaning.

Second, when something in nature or history does not have a clear biblical referent, it should nevertheless fall within the meaning of the whole story of redemption that the Bible tells. For example, there are only a few allusions to sports in the Bible, such as when Paul referred to a wrestler (2 Tim 2:5). But the motif of winning and losing is at the heart of biblical eschatology where there will be winners and losers in the end, those who are saved and lost.

Thus interpreting types is a matter of descending rather than ascending. It starts with the biblical vision of the God of Israel coming “down” to history in Jesus and seeing the world of nature and history through the lens of that God rather than starting with our own ideas of truth and goodness we find in the world and moving up, as it were, to create our own idea of God by finding in the Bible what agrees with what we have already decided is good and true and beautiful.

Third, we should measure all of our thinking about types against the wisdom of the Great Tradition of theology and exegesis. So if we thought we were finding types in nature or history that taught the virtue of same-sex marriage or that all would eventually be saved, the Great Tradition would inform us that we were interpreting wrongly.

Moore: Augustine, Edwards, and Balthasar stand out for their theological work on beauty with perhaps Edwards leading the way. Have other theologians simply been blind to thinking about aesthetics, or are there legitimate reasons for them to be leery of writing about beauty?

McDermott: There has always been the danger of thinking that salvation comes through aesthetic experience. We could call that “salvation by imagination.” Aesthetes of every era are tempted to think that way, particularly when they consider themselves better educated than simple Christians in the pews. So there are legitimate reasons to be leery of writing about beauty in theology.

On the other hand, there are good reasons to write about beauty once you realize the danger. In previous eras the Church has emphasized the good and the true, and of course we should always present the Trinitarian God as the source and embodiment of truth and goodness. But in this new century there is fresh resonance with the beautiful. New generations will listen to or watch us when we talk about beauty and God in ways that they have not followed us when we stressed truth and ethics. Seekers and other non-Christians are more attentive to “the beauty of holiness” than to “What must I do to be saved?” when few realize they are not saved and need to be.

Moore: In nearly two hundred interviews, the following is a first because I want to raise a question from one of the endorsements! One of the blurbs provocatively says that “We need to recover this unified vision of ‘everyday glory’ as a balm against the secular materialism of our modern age and its stepchild of biblical literalism.” I assume you agree with this counsel, so would you unpack how your book seeks to achieve that goal?

McDermott: The Reformers rightly said that every interpretation must start with the literal meaning of a biblical text, but they also insisted that our interpretation need not, and sometimes must not, end there. In other words, there is a difference between a literalistic reading of the Bible and a literal one. Not to mention other meanings such as typological ones. When the Bible says God is a rock (Ps 18:31; 2 Sam 22:32), it obviously begs us to seek the meaning of that image. We must get beyond the literalistic (which rock on earth contains God?) to the literal (the rock-like faithfulness of God to his promises) and then typological (Paul’s saying Christ was a “spiritual rock” in the wilderness, 1 Cor. 10:4).

The literal meaning of every text is critical to know, and proper hermeneutics is anchored to it. But often there are other layers of meaning as well.

Moore: I am hoping that your book will begin a more robust conversation about types both in Scripture and in nature. How are theologians responding to your work? As a DTS alum., I am curious how the faculty and students found the material.

McDermott: The book is still very recent, and so has not yet garnered a full-length review. But Sam Storms picked it as his favorite theological book of 2018.

Moore: What are a few things you hope your readers take from this book?

McDermott: I am hoping that believers will see 1) that they can have confidence that nature does indeed radiate with God’s glory, and that they are not taking real theological risk to say that; 2) that they will not be abashed to say that there are signs of God’s glory in the human conscience and the world’s cultures; 3) that they can see certain patterns in human history, 4) and signs of glory in the worlds of animals and sports and human sexuality.

I hope too that believers will see that they can talk about truth and beauty outside the Bible that unbelievers and other religionists can also affirm. And that they can reject the postmodern myth that there is no meta-narrative, no final truth. Christian orthodoxy, they can say, works not only inside the Bible, as it were, but in every part of life and the cosmos.

Seekers, I hope, will see from this that the atheisms and agnosticisms on offer are both vulnerable and risky. Why are there such profound symmetries in science that bedazzle some of the greatest scientists? Why are nature, science, law, history, love, and even sports so full of types—signs of glory—that befuddle skeptics?

This book will never prove God to seekers. But if they come to it with an open mind, it might help them question more deeply the absence-of-God alternatives they struggle with.