The interpretation of scripture – and especially the interpretation of the creation narratives contained in scripture – comprises one of the most significant points of conflict in the discussion of the relationship of science and the Christian faith within the church. There is a gut reaction on the part of many Christians that faith is the underdog, forced always to accommodate itself to the high priest of science. The clear, traditional reading gives way to secular reason and naturalism.

This scenario is not entirely accurate however. It is true that discoveries of science, archaeology, and geography force us, at times, to reconsider our interpretation of parts of scripture. But it is not true that there was one universal accepted interpretation prior to the modern era. The history of biblical interpretation is far more complex.

Peter Bouteneff’s book Beginnings: Ancient Christian Readings of the Biblical Creation Narratives explores the use of the creation narratives in Second Temple Judaism (ca. 200 BCE to 100 CE), in the New Testament, and in the writings of the early church fathers through the first four centuries of the church. It is a fascinating book – a bit academic, but not too strenuous a read. It is one of the most interesting and useful books I’ve read while mulling over the questions of science and Christian faith. In the first chapter of Beginnings Bouteneff discusses the development of the text of the Old Testament – especially the Septuagint (LXX) used by almost all of the NT and early Christian authors. He also explores the way that the text was used by Second Temple era Jewish authors in non-canonical writings, apocrypha and pseudepigrapha.

First: The OT canon developed slowly over the centuries before ca. 200 BCE. The various authors and editors may or may not have been familiar with the text of Genesis and the creation stories therein. There are a few clear references (Exodus 20:11 and 31:17 for example), and a few potential references – but by and large the creation narrative was not integral to the development of Israelite faith and practice. There are, of course, many references to creation in general terms to establish the sovereignty of God, but these do not use details of the creation narrative of Gen 1-3. Adam, Eve, and original sin are simply not part of the picture.

Second: The story of Adam and Eve plays an important part in the narrative logic of the Pentateuch, but not as the origin of sin in a heretofore unsullied creation. Bouteneff suggests that the linear account of creation – fall – redemption so popular today is a reading of the Pentateuch and the whole Bible that is difficult to trace before the 1700’s. A larger sense of what the editor was doing in forming the text we have today from more ancient sources will “prevent us from reading the Pentateuch (or even the whole Bible) as a linear account of “creation-fall-redemption.” He goes on:

The Pentateuch was intended to show – and this is vital if by no means novel – creation and redemption as one contiguous act. As Israel continued to see it, creation shows that God has the power to save, that creation is salvation:

Yet God my King is from of old, working salvation in the earth. You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the dragons in the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness. (Ps 74:12-14)

Salvation is embedded by God in God’s act of creation, and the redemption of a particular people is universalized to encompass humankind (Gen. 12:3). (p. 8)

The creation narrative in Psalm 74 gives a picture of God conquering chaos in creation, a view at odds with the typical narrative of creation-fall-redemption. Rather than pit Psalm 74 against Genesis 1-3 they should be considered together. The logic of the narrative in Genesis, considered in the context of the Pentateuch and the OT as a whole, sees the story of Adam as a version of the story of Israel. God’s grace, salvation, and love runs through the entire narrative from Genesis through Malachi. The theme is continued in the Gospels and throughout the New Testament. Jesus came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets.

Third: The interpretation of Adam in some segments of second Temple Judaism and more significantly in the early Christian church, was influenced by the translation choices made in the LXX. As Bouteneff points out: But to translate is to interpret. Many of the choices made by the translators hinged on issues of sexuality and gender. In particular adam is a ambiguous term in the original Hebrew and the decision to translate “adam” as a generic term, humankind (άνθρωπος), or a proper name, or to use a phrase avoiding either, played a role in the later interpretations of the text. In addition word plays in the Hebrew which may modify the understanding of a particular passage, are lost in translation.

Fourth: Many Jewish texts of Second Temple Judaism reflect on the creation narrative and on Adam and Eve in particular. The way that these texts are used vary dramatically – there was no clearly agreed upon method of interpretation.

[T]he authors show themselves quite at liberty to take license with not only the purported “meaning of Genesis 1-3 but also the details of the text itself. We see especially in Jubilees, but also in other retellings of the narratives, that details are freely omitted and others added to help support the author’s agendas. This may indicate that the gradually emerging concept of “Scripture” and “canonicity” was not one that fixed a particular reading. Indeed, the authors here reviewed tacitly acknowledged multiple possibilities of meaning in the scriptural texts and dealt with them not only on the level of what might be called their “plain sense” but also on that of implied or derived meaning. (p. 25)

Philo (ca. 20 BCE – 50 CE) is a particularly interesting source. He reflects at length on the creation narratives and the 6-day creation (which he concludes is not a literal 6 days) :

Eden was not a garden that one could have walked through: “Far be it from man’s reasoning to be victim of so great impiety as to suppose that God tills the soil and plants pleasaunces” (Leg. 1.43). Likewise in Quaest. 1.8 he states that paradise was not a garden, but, rather, symbolizes “wisdom.” (p. 31)

The early interpretation of the biblical text was not a straightforward literalism, something undermined only by modern science. Nor does early interpretation uniformly describe a man Adam as the origin of sin and death. The story of the Genesis, and indeed all of the OT, was shaped and interpreted as a story of the mission of God in creation. Salvation plays a key role, but not as some “plan B” necessitated by the act of the first couple. The story of creation is the story of God’s power and purpose.

Are creation and salvation separable?

Should we think of the biblical story as a play in a series of acts (creation, fall, Israel, Jesus, Church) or as one continuous narrative of salvation?

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

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

(A lightly edited repost.)

INTERVIEW WITH FLEMING RUTLEDGE ON THE CRUCIFIXION: UNDERSTANDING THE DEATH OF JESUS CHRIST

The following interview centers around Fleming Rutledge

How can a female, Episcopal priest have the Gospel Coalition not just review, but gush over her magisterial book, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ?

Well, Fleming Rutledge is faithful to Holy Scripture, unwavering with the truth, and she writes beautiful prose.

David George Moore conducted the following interview. Dave’s work can be accessed at www.twocities.org and www.mooreengaging.com.

Moore: You describe yourself as a “nonacademic person.” That strikes me as a bit of self-deprecation, as you are among other things, a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Why did you use the “nonacademic” moniker?

Rutledge: I am not known for self-deprecation! I am not trying to devalue my work, only to locate it. I usually say, simply, “I am not an academic.” I am using the term “academic” in a very specific, defined way—the way it is used in “the academy.” An academic is a person who has a PhD, who is (as a general rule) on the faculty of an accredited school, who writes papers and books on a regular basis for peer review, who is a member of an academic guild, who goes to academic conferences and presents papers. I am most definitely not in any of those categories. I am very grateful that many genuine academics have been gracious enough to encourage me to write a book that has pretensions to scholarship and that many of them have enthusiastically endorsed it.

I am a strong believer in communication between the academy and the church, and I am thankful that God has apparently used me in that role.

Moore: Throughout your book there are pointed critiques of “liberal” or “mainline” denominations.

Rutledge: Yes, well, I am certainly not alone in that. Even some “liberal,” “progressive” mainliners (members of the historic Protestant denominations) are beginning to wonder if we haven’t to some degree lost our way. It has not been unnoticed that our attendance is precipitously declining. Like a significant number of others within the mainlines, I’d say that we have been so focused on social action that we have forgotten “the faith once delivered to the saints.” I believe strongly in social action, as should be obvious to anyone reading my work carefully, but I don’t believe in it as the organizing principle of all biblical interpretation. When the church focuses on social justice to the exclusion of a more comprehensive understanding of classical Christian doctrine, liturgy, and practice, we lose theology, we lose the Trinity, we lose liturgical breadth, we lose discipline, we lose Christology—and that means we lose the living Jesus Christ who alone, by his Spirit, builds the Church and moves masses of people to protest injustice.

Moore: On your Twitter account, you recently inquired, “Tweet if you are an ‘evangelical Reformed Episcopalian’ (as differentiated from Anglican)… I may be one of about 5 in the whole USA.” You’ve stayed in the Episcopal Church. How come?

Rutledge: I have fun answering this frequent question by giving two reasons:

• The Episcopal Hymnal, which I snootily think is the best among those of all of the churches (and I have seen most of them)
• The Advent season, which the Episcopal Church does better than any other denomination including the Orthodox and the Roman Catholics! (Full disclosure: my next book is Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ)

Well, obviously, that is not a fully serous answer, but it points to something important. I believe that the church is worthy of the best hymn texts and the best hymn tunes, and if we don’t treasure them, we become impoverished. I have attended a great many churches over forty years that feature praise bands and praise music, and I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that we are robbing the next generations of the deep memory of texts that are not only doctrinally and biblically rich, but also emotionally stirring and communally enriching. My observation is that—generally speaking—praise music trades on repetition, individualism, and theatrical emoting by solo singers. I don’t mean to sound overly critical, but I don’t think there is anything quite like the voices of choir and congregation joined together in the words of a hymn with a text that has a plot—praise and proclamation followed by destabilization and then a powerful, upbuilding resolution with a sense of struggle overcome in the triumph of God—all of it rich in biblical imagery.

The reason that I think the Advent season, together with Holy Week, is so crucial is that these are the times in the church year that take the darker side of life seriously. The traditional Protestant churches, with the exception of the Lutherans to some extent, do not have liturgical time set aside for this. I’ve noticed that many mainlines have begun to observe Advent and, especially, Holy Week, but without the liturgical depth that can only come from centuries of tradition. I think this is important because living according to the church year during the week as well as on Sundays trains the mind and heart to live according to divine rhythms instead of secular ones.

But to come closer to what I think your question may be about, I stay in the Episcopal Church, as part of the larger Anglican Communion, rather than the breakaway Anglican Church of North America, because for all of our divisions, we are still part of a worldwide communion that has—I believe—been able to preserve the essential best of Protestantism and Roman Catholicism in the Great Tradition more than any other Christian denomination. However, I think we are deeply in danger of losing our position because of our betrayal of the ancient creedal and conciliar affirmations, not to mention our considerable roots in the Reformation (now largely ignored) but I am still hopeful that we as Episcopalians can live through this and come out as a reinvigorated church, with its liturgical and aesthetic advantages intact but with a return to powerful gospel preaching and catechesis in a setting worthy of the Word of God. I know quite a few clergy who have committed themselves to bearing witness as members of the Episcopal Church even if it means being sidelined and even sometimes ostracized at church meetings. The gospel is more than worth it!

Moore: Give us an idea about the initial impetus for this book. Also, how does a self-described technophobe keep track of such a massive amount of research?

Rutledge: Those are two different questions. The easy one first: I am not a technophobe, at all. It’s just that I am essentially incompetent in using all the tools that come naturally to native-born citizens of the cyberworld. I barely know what an app is and don’t use any. I am very good at word processing but beyond that, my competence stops. I keep track of my research the old-fashioned way, by putting everything in manila folders. I know where everything is.

As for the initial impetus, I explain in the introduction to The Crucifixion that when I was a very young adult and active in the church, I began to notice that there was conflict, division, and even contempt surrounding some of the traditional interpretations of the death of Christ. This distressed me very much. I could see that there was some sort of agenda at work, pitting groups of Christians against one another. I still to this day do not fully understand how or why this happened, but it seemed pernicious to me, and still does. If we cannot unite around this unique feature of the gospel we proclaim, it seems to me that we have a serious, potentially death-dealing problem. I set about writing The Crucifixion in order to recommend to the church the manifold ways in which the New Testament itself—the apostolic witness—“proclaims the Lord’s death until he comes” (I Cor. 11:26). That is what St Paul places at the heart and center of his eucharistic teaching.

Moore: Debates over various theories of the atonement continue apace. What contribution does your book make to this debate?

Rutledge: I have tried in my book to argue against all “theories,” including theories of the atonement, in favor of the extraordinarily rich imagery of the New Testament test itself, drawing deeply from the Old Testament. If my book does anything at all, I hope it makes clear that we must not make any one “theory” into a litmus test of “soundness.” I have mounted a very strong defense of the substitution theme in Scripture, but I have also placed significant emphasis on the Christus Victor theme in at least four chapters, not to mention the other themes such as ransom and recapitulation. The wonderful thing is that we have this kaleidoscope of imagery to marvel at.

Moore: Your footnotes contain a goldmine of wonderful insights. One of them got me thinking further about whether worship is overwhelming doctrine in American churches. Is this a problem we should be concerned about?

Rutledge: I am not sure exactly what you mean by this. Common worship, after all, is the sine qua non of being a Christian. Any other way of honoring God is, in both Testaments, simply unthinkable. But if you mean that we are not teaching Christian doctrine, or biblical interpretation, or those crucial first three centuries of struggle to consolidate basic affirmations about who God is, and was, and is to come—then I think there is indeed nothing we should be more concerned about. We are pitifully lacking in basic catechesis. Worship needs to be strengthened by teaching and by small groups meeting to study the Bible and Christian doctrine. [Note from David Moore: Yes, this was the gist of my question.]

Moore: You argue that our understanding of the judgment of God has become untethered to His love. Kindly unpack that some for us.

Rutledge: Well, I guess it’s pretty obvious that our culture despises “judgment” above all things. There is hardly any room for discernment or connoisseurship any more. If you love Bach more than you love crossover thrash, you’re an elitist and not worthy of a hearing. When you hear that a person is “judgmental” you know that’s a crushing judgment on that person (yes, the irony is deliberate). It’s not easy in today’s culture to show how the judgment that crushes is the judgment that heals and restores—not only restores, but indeed “makes all things new.” So preachers and teachers of the Christian faith must be tireless in illustrating how the necessary judgment of God upon evil is a facet of his all-embracing love and his conquest of all that is harmful to human flourishing. It’s not all that hard to illustrate if we work at looking for examples of how this works. Everyone knows, deep down, that there has to be some sort of judgment if there is to be justice.

Moore: As we ponder the crucifixion of Jesus, what is one of the biggest errors we make about God’s forgiveness and forgiving others?

Rutledge: This is one of the most important points that I make in my book, at considerable length. Forgiveness is close to the heart of the Christian life, but forgiveness, considered by itself, is not enough. That’s what I’m getting at in my previous answer. The seeming impossibility of human forgiveness is made possible only by the action of God in justification—making right what is wrong. Here’s where Paul is so important. If it were not for Paul’s letters, we would not have a full picture of the eschatological nature of forgiveness. This can be illustrated by the often-told story of the woman who was in the Bible study group at the AME Zion church in Charleston, SC, when Dylann Roof walked in with his concealed gun. In the courtroom, she looked him in the face and said, “I forgive you.” And then she said, “May God have mercy on your soul.” The various reporters and interviewers who discussed this for months afterward simply did not understand this. “How can you forgive Dylann?” they kept asking. The answer is, by faith in the God who “is able,” as they say in the African-American church—able not only to have mercy but to rectify all wrongs, that is, to make all things righteous in the Last Day so that there will no longer be even a memory of unrighteousness.

Moore: Now that your book has been out for a few years, are there any significant changes you would make to it?

Rutledge: No, not really, except that I would have read and quoted a few more books! But there is one thing that remains undone. By 2013, the manuscript of The Crucifixion had grown to be more than 800 pages and, obviously, could not be feasibly published in that form. In order to get it published by 2015, or indeed at all, we had to lop off the third part. The book was originally designed to have three major sections. The third section was to be the most important part, “The Cruciform Life.” It was to be the ethical, individual and communal way of working out what it means to carry the cross of Jesus in this mortal life. I was very sorry to let it go, but grateful to have the first 600 pages in print. I have written about 200 pages of “The Cruciform Life,” but it is not in any shape to be published, and in some ways is dated. Whether, at my age, I will have time and energy to get it finished remains to be seen; I rather doubt it. But as Karl Barth said about his own unfinished work, it is a sign pointing to the end of human effort and the oncoming advent of the God who is the giver of all good and the final Victor over all the Powers of destruction and negation—the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the End, when Christ the Lord will take the Kingdom for his own.

Moore: Thank you for your faithful and courageous witness for Christ!

Rutledge: I am deeply grateful that the Lord has granted me the necessary strength and perseverance to do the work he has given me to do.

Just in case you think an interpretation of Scripture can’t go wrong and stay wrong, think about Romans 16:7 and the story of Junia. She was a woman whose name was changed to Junias because, so it was believed, the person was an apostle and an apostle can’t be a woman. So some males changed the woman into a man and, presto, we got a man named Junias. The problem is that there is no evidence for a male name “Junias” in the 1^st Century. The deed was done, and that’s not our point: Junia remained Junias until, truth be told, the last quarter of the 20^th Century when scholars realized the truth, admitted the mistaken history of interpretation, and acted on their convictions to restore the woman.

Knocking off non-existent males is no moral problem, and raising a woman from the dead is a good thing. Junia is now inscribed in the best translations.

Sometimes our readings of the Bible are both mistaken and harmless: though many preachers during Advent can get worked up about whether or not Jesus was not given room in an “inn” or “guest room,” the second translation will not affect many of us (Luke 2:7). Sometimes our readings may be mistaken and an improved, refined reading will convey deeper and more accurate truths.

Studies now show that the word used by Paul in Romans 3:25, often translated “propitiation” (KJV), means “sacrifice of atonement” (NIV), and this improvement shifts the evocations of theology and atonement in the passage. One of the gifts of living in the 21^st Century is the accumulation of insights and improvements in our understanding of the Bible.

I’m persuaded that Lucy Peppiatt, in this new and very accessible and brief book, Unveiling Paul’s Women, is pushing us to significant improvement when it comes to 1 Corinthians 11. The history of interpretation has had one angle: the women were the problem. But were they? What happens when we ask instead, as Lucy does with aplomb, if the men were the problem? Lots, that’s what happens.

Every pastor, especially complementarian pastors who are prone to use 1 Cor 11 through the lens of women being the problem, needs to read this book and have it accessible on the shelf for quick reference. One view has been existent for too long and it just doesn’t work. Read any commentary on 1 Corinthians 11 and you will see that confusion abounds. Read a dozen and you may say that no one understands this passage. I kid you not. Try it.

Here’s why we need to rethink how we read 1 Corinthians 11: that text says things about women that (1) are not like anything else in the whole Bible, (2) that are at odds with Paul’s own theology, (3) that cut against the grain of Paul’s own practice as seen in the Book of Acts, and (4) that create unbearable tension in 1 Corinthians itself.

When I first discovered Lucy’s theory, and recalled seeing anything like it only one other time (and it impressed me but I didn’t have time to come to terms with the approach), what I most wanted was a printed version of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 with the bits from Paul distinguished from the bits by those who were in tension with Paul’s own teaching. I wanted to see it in a way that made the reading of it with his fresh approach compelling and simple. As with others, however, I also wanted a version of her argument for lay folks and non-specialists so more could see the beauty and simplicity and accuracy of her reading. We now have this in Unveiling Paul’s Women.

Look, folks, there’s been too much power of males used against women and when it is males, males, males making decisions on (1) what this passage means and (2) what women can do in churches, the early misreading of this text is simply multiplied and propagated and unchecked. It is time for us all to take a deep breath, take a step back, find a chair and a table for conversation, and rethink the traditional reading of this crucial and history-shaping passage in Paul. The irony of the traditional view is that, while there are hardly any agreements on what individual expressions and terms mean, there is one agreement: the women were the problem.

Not so.

In his book No Free Lunch William Dembski commented on gaps and science.

The “gaps” in the god-of-the-gaps objection are meant to denote gaps of ignorance about underlying physical mechanisms. But there is no reason to think that all gaps give way to ordinary physical explanations once we know enough about the underlying physical mechanisms. The mechanisms simply do not exist. Some gaps might constitute ontic discontinuities in the chain of physical causes and thus remain forever beyond the capacity of physical mechanisms. (p. 334-335)

Christian advocates of intelligent design will agree, I think, that God is present in all of nature and that his design is found throughout all of nature, including natural mechanisms. Both Jim Stump and Jeff Zweerink emphasized this in their contributions to Old-Earth or Evolutionary Creation? on the question of divine action. Still, there is an emphasis on these “ontic discontinuities,” an expectation that mechanisms do not exist to provide natural explanations for empirical observed phenomena, for the nature of the world. In the work of Dembski and Stephen Meyer the origin of life, and of the “specified information” of the cell, is proposed to represent one of these discontinuities. Old earth creationists suggest that these discontinuities are also seen in the diversity of life – natural mechanism is insufficient to account for the appearance of complex life from simpler forms. This leads to an interesting theological question.

Contrast this with Thomas Aquinas and his approach as reflected in Summa Theologica (written between 1265 and 1274), and particularly with Thomas’s fifth way. Thomas answers an objection (Quotes from this link to Summa Theologica article three):

Objection 2. Further, it is superfluous to suppose that what can be accounted for by a few principles has been produced by many. But it seems that everything we see in the world can be accounted for by other principles, supposing God did not exist. For all natural things can be reduced to one principle which is nature; and all voluntary things can be reduced to one principle which is human reason, or will. Therefore there is no need to suppose God’s existence.

This is an objection at play in much of the discussion of science and faith – if there is a natural explanation there is no need consider the possibility that God exists. It is a card played often by those who wish to claim that science disproves the existence of God. But it misses the point After giving four other ways to demonstrate the existence of God, Thomas concludes with:

The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.

The presence of God is seen not in the empirical phenomena of nature, but in the purpose behind those phenomena. Thus Thomas answers objection 2:

Reply to Objection 2. Since nature works for a determinate end under the direction of a higher agent, whatever is done by nature must needs be traced back to God, as to its first cause. So also whatever is done voluntarily must also be traced back to some higher cause other than human reason or will, since these can change or fail; for all things that are changeable and capable of defect must be traced back to an immovable and self-necessary first principle, as was shown in the body of the Article.

This is an interesting thought. The suggestion is that the evidence for design – and a designer – is not “ontic discontinuities” or the absence of adequate physical mechanism to describe phenomena, including the origin of life. Rather following Thomas the evidence for a designer is found in the purpose of the design.

Philosophical naturalism, ontological naturalism, secular naturalism, what ever term you use, is a real force in our world, and especially in the academy. This view is counter to the heart and soul of Christian belief and a Christian should have an argument and an answer for this challenge. But we don’t refute this view by denying science. When a Christian approaches science – from evolutionary biology to cosmology – the goal is not to look for evidence against philosophical naturalism, but to understand the “natural” means used to achieve God’s purpose.

The argument against philosophical naturalism comes from a different direction. The atheist or agnostic denies the existence of God and the purpose inherent in his creation. This purpose is revealed, not in “ontic discontinuities,” but through relationship and interaction. Scripture is a record of God’s interaction with his creation. Perhaps the purpose is also written into our consciousness in the moral law and search for meaning – something worth thinking about anyway. This purpose is witnessed through the missional life lived walking in the Spirit – through a life lived with love of God and love of others as central focus.

What do you think? Where should we expect to see evidence of design – and how will we recognize it?

How should we answer the challenge posed by philosophical naturalism and the denial of purpose?

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

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

(Slightly edited repost as I’m traveling this week. I was originally pointed to Aquinas and his views from a piece by Francis Beckwith.)

Jesus died for our sins, so the earliest Christian creed has it (1 Cor 15:1-8). It is one thing to dip that language into the OT sacrificial system and the temple’s language, but how did the “pagans” understand someone like Paul announcing that Jesus died “for our sins”?

Good question. Simon Gathercole, in his tidy little book Defending Substitution examines that question. It would require a long post to summarize unfamiliar names and texts so instead I’ll zoom in on three major ideas in Simon’s third chapter.

First, read Romans 5:7-8 carefully:

Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

Big observation: Paul is trading on a commonplace of someone dying for a good person. When the NRSV translates “for a good person” some want to back off that and say “for the good” (it be more abstract), but Simon’s argument is that this is for “a good person“.

The context, however, is the classical world: “Rather, in talking of one person dying for another good or righteous person, the most natural link in Romans 5 is with examples of vicarious death in classical texts (broadly understood). There are a number of such classical works, as we shall see, where this same substitutionary language is used” (90).

Second, here is the big picture of vicarious deaths in the classical world:

In sum, we can see a consistency of language used to describe vicarious deaths, and we have a number of different examples. The earliest example we have looked at goes back to the glory days of classical Athens in the fifth century BCE, in Euripides’s Alcestis. A great deal changes in the five hundred years between Euripides and Paul, but interestingly the tale of Alcestis endures, and she continues to be described as a heroine up to the time of Paul in the first century. We can see this in Musonius Rufus (an exact contemporary of Paul) and the Pomptilla inscriptions. The ideal of death for a friend is held across a wide spectrum of philosophical schools; we have seen examples from Pythagoreans, Stoics, and Epicureans, and the cases we have looked at include Stoics and Epicureans from around the time of Paul. As we noted, the surviving copy of the life of the Epicurean Philonides comes from the first century BCE, and the Stoics Seneca and Epictetus make comments about substitutionary death for friends in the first century CE. So the historical links between Paul and the classical authors we have discussed are close. We do not know if Paul actually knew any of these works or whether the idea of death in someone’s place and some of the characters like Alcestis were just part of the atmosphere. In either case, such works and characters provide a fitting background to Paul’s language in Romans 5 (102-103).

[Thus, the language emerges out of conjugal, friendship, and family contexts.]

Third, for Paul Jesus’ substitutionary death is more unlike those of the classical world.

In sum, it is not simply that Jesus’s death differs from these heroic Greek and Roman deaths. Many of the same elements are there. The theme of vicarious death overall, however, is radically subverted by Paul. In the examples from classical literature, there is first the relationship, and this relationship provides the context that makes the vicarious death at least understandable, even if it is still heroic. In the case of the Christ, however, his death does not conform to any existing philosophical norm. In Romans 5, Christ’s death creates a friendship where there had been enmity.

By Mike Glenn

I spent most of my life in school. From kindergarten to graduate school, my life was measured by term paper due dates, reading assignments and of course, finals. I don’t know what else I learned, but I did learn how to take tests. I also learned the most important thing to learn is what’s on the final. Do whatever you had to do, but find out what’s on the final. You could ask the professor, but this rarely worked. You could talk to other students who had taken the same course under the same professor. You could even act as if you were interested in the course, but you did what you had to do to find out what was on that final test.

Growing up in church, I developed the same kind of thinking about the final judgement. Do whatever you had to do – come to church, read the Bible – but find out what’s on that final! In my small town, evangelical hellfire and brimstone church, we were frequently reminded of the coming day of judgement and how awful it would be if we were not ready on that great day. Could be today, could be tomorrow, but it was going to be soon. We’d all be brought up before the great white throne and there, Jesus would give us the final. Going to church wasn’t so much about worshipping Christ or learning about Christ but to find out what we needed know in order to pass the final.

Fortunately, we aren’t the only people to wonder about that question. Matthew tells us about a lawyer who asked Jesus which commandment was the greatest commandment of all. I love this question because, well honestly, this is the question I would ask Jesus. Of all of the commandments, is there one, Dear Jesus, that you’ll be paying attention to? Is there one question on the test that counts more than the others? What do I have to know or do to get a passing grade?

Most of us don’t care that we don’t make an “A” on Jesus’ final. We just don’t want to fail.

Do you remember how Jesus answered the lawyer? “Love God with everything you have. Love each other. Love yourself.” (Mike Glenn’s translation).

Like a lot of things Jesus says, His words sound wonderful when you hear them. You want to cross stitch them and put them on your refrigerator door. But when you try to live them out, these words will tear you in half.

If you’re paying attention, you’ll realize Jesus has set up a triangle. You can’t do one of these without doing all three. You can’t love God without loving each other, and you can’t love each other without loving yourself. You can’t love yourself without allowing God to love you. Take away one aspect of this commandment and the whole thing falls apart.

Think about it. What does it mean to love God with all of your mind? Your heart and soul? Your strength? What does it mean for our entire essence to be focused on loving God for the sake of who God is? How does it change what we think about? What we read? What we say? Loving God like this is all consuming…and that’s the point Jesus is trying to make. It’s either all or nothing. We pass or we don’t.

And when you love God enough to get close to His heart, He’ll tell you how much He loves your friends and neighbors. He’ll bring people into your life for you to love for His sake. And He’ll bring you some doozies. They’ll be broken and lost, confused and angry, totally unable to believe in God’s love for them until they can see someone to love them in real life. When you allow God to love others through you, indirectly, you will be loving God.

The hardest part of learning how to love each other is learning how to love yourself. Because most of us don’t love ourselves, we go to other people hoping they can fix what’s wrong with us. We have holes in our lives, so we look for someone to come and fill those holes. The problem, of course, is that no one besides Christ can bring this kind of healing to your life. This means most of our relationships with each other end up being dysfunctional and co-dependent. This leads to disaster.

So, how do you love yourself without getting into unhealthy patterns? You remember the gospel and you remember it every day. You remember that each of us is created in the image God. Think about it. Each of us bears something that reveals the reality of God Himself. It’s the signature of the artist that gives the work of art its value and it’s the signature of God on each of us that gives us our value.

Second, each one of us is someone Christ died for. My friends in real estate tell me that something is worth only what someone is willing to pay. On the day He was asked, Christ was willing to pay for us with His own life. This is where we find our value as people. We are loved by Christ with an unspeakable love.

Knowing this and living in this freedom allows us to love each other without needing or expecting anything in return. We can simply love our neighbors for who they are. We can seek the best for our neighbors without needing them to validate us in anyway. Our validation comes from Christ and His work of salvation on our behalf. We can love ourselves. We can love each other. We can love God.

So, there you have it. Love God. Love each other. Love yourself. You should do well on the final. There are only two questions on the test, and you know what both of them are.

What role should religion play in a University?

In her earlier book, Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think Elaine Ecklund asked 191 scientists at ‘elite’ universities “What place should religion occupy in a university like yours?” Of these scientists, ~42% mentioned some kind of positive role, ~36% saw no positive role for religious people, institutions, or ideas in the university, the remainder are mixed. Approximately 54% mentioned the dangers that religion can have for science.

Ecklund outlines three models or reasons for eliminating religion from the University and three models or reasons for including religion in the University distilled from the comments of these 191 professors across Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Psychology, Sociology, Economics, and Political Science. First, three reasons for eliminating religion.

The Model of Opposition: Religion ought to be viewed in opposition to scientific reasoning. Some of the scientists interviewed view the purpose of the university as “inherently focused on reason and rationality, and little else.” (p. 93) Religion should not be at the university as anything other than a subject for dissection. Because there is no truth in religion that is not also found apart from religion – religious “knowing” or thought simply does not belong. The only real questions are secular questions.

The Model of Secularism: Universities ought to be bastions of secularism. “Scientists who talk extensively about separation of church and state argue that there are enough places in the broader society where religion has taken hold and that universities should be places where knowledge is protected from its grip” (p. 97)

The Model of Pluralism: Universities ought to foster pluralism. There is a serious danger from bringing religion into the university because religion is inherently partisan and will privilege one group over another. Proselytizing has no place in the university. Some wonder if one can even hold an exclusive view and be a true scholar.

Of course, it is also possible to take a different view of the purpose of the University.  Perhaps the university has a responsibility to students and to society that runs counter to it image as a bastion of scientific secularism. This leads to three reasons for including religion in the University.

The Model of Nurture: Universities ought to nurture students – including spiritually – in their formative years. In general this is not considered part of the intellectual mission of the university, rather the university should provide resource for the development of the whole person, providing athletic facilities, social opportunities, and, for those who wish, the opportunity for spiritual nurture. This is supporting student choice and diversity, not establishing any belief as preferred.

The Model of Legitimacy: Universities ought to extend legitimacy to religion as a subject of study. This is a two-edged sword. While religion should be acknowledged as a subject for study and for the impact it has on some subjects, not just for dissection but from a variety of perspectives, it is separated and bounded and kept away from the other disciplines.

The Model of Connected Knowledge: Universities ought to support the connection of religious knowledge to other forms of knowledge. Ecklund comments on Marsden’s call for “Christian scholars to take bold initiative in connecting their beliefs to their specific disciplines while at the same time playing by the rules of their particular guilds.”  This is harder than it sounds. In Ecklund’s interviews social scientists struggled to see a way to connect faith with disciplines, natural scientists saw it as nearly impossible. No one saw faith as having any influence on the scientific method of their discipline.

What do you see as ways that religion can or should have a place within the university?

Is religion a form of knowledge or a subject for investigation?

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Chapter 4 of the new book, Religion vs. Science: What Religious People Really Think, by Elaine Howard Ecklund and Christopher P. Scheitle looks Christians active in the sciences. Elaine Ecklund’s earlier book Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think focused on scientists at elite universities. It is clear that this population is far less religious than the general US population. It is not clear that the primary reason for this is conflict between science and religion.  We can consider several different reasons:

Education removes the reason for God. If God is simply an explanation for gaps in understanding this is a plausible explanation and should influence scientists at all levels.

Education introduces a dissonance, a conflict, between the evidence and the faith. Young earth, evolution, and old testament studies are all places where this comes into play. Again, this will influence scientists in many walks of life, not only elite universities.

The University environment may be hostile to faith. There can be pressure, both overt and subtle leave the faith. To lose the respect of one’s peers is a severe and real possibility. Peer pressure at the university – this will vary across institutions and vocations. This leads to another reason.

The group may be self-selected. Perhaps pursuit of graduate education itself doesn’t cause loss of faith – rather people of faith tend to pursue other career paths.

The sometimes hostile environment may lead to other career choices. I have spoken with a number of Christian graduate students for whom this was true – while originally interested in academic careers, they didn’t want to step into this hornet’s nest. In Religion vs. Science Ecklund and Scheitle note that when it comes to religious belief the disparity between elite University professors and the general population isn’t confined to the sciences. It is true across disciplines.

In Science vs. Religion Ecklund reports that many of those who came from a religious tradition noted that religion was not very important in their families as children. Those from families where religion was important are much more likely to retain faith as adults. For one specific sample group of young scientists Eckland notes that it appears that ~85% retain faith. This is a substantial percentage. However, this is a small portion of the total sample surveyed. Perhaps those from strong religious backgrounds self-select out of careers at elite universities. Given the commitment of time and effort involved and the fact that religious people may devalue the workaholic approach to life, this is a real possibility.

Education doesn’t cause loss of faith – rather loss of faith precedes education. Ekclund relates stories by several scientists who comment on bad experiences growing up in the church. No place for honest, inquisitive, hard questions and a real or perceived hypocrisy led to loss of faith for all three here – science was involved only peripherally. It was not the facts, it was the attitude.

What about scientists in general? In the present book Ecklund and Scheitle look at a much broader range of scientists in careers outside of academia. Something like  3 to 4% of Christians are what they call rank-and-file scientists (see the book for their definitions and classifications). This is true of evangelicals, mainline protestants, and Catholics. A higher percentage of Jews, those from non-Western religions, and the unaffiliated are rank-and-file scientists. However, when adjusted for other factors such as region of residence, race, education, and income the differences vanish. “These differences are mostly a result of other social and demographic differences between the groups, especially discrepancies in education.” (p. 60)  Overall rank-and-file scientists look very much like the general population.

In their survey and interviews Ecklund and Scheitle found that like their colleagues at elite universities, religious rank-and-file scientists feel a squeeze between the expectation at work that scientists are not (supposed to be) religious and the perception at church that Christians in the sciences are dangerous and suspect. (No one can love two masters.)  They also find that “evangelical rank-and-file scientists are … significantly more likely than their evangelical peers to think that scientists are hostile to religion.” (p. 65) Ecklund and Scheitle suggest (and I agree) that this is because they are more likely to have heard informal negative comments.

Lessons for the church. The best approach to dispel the atmosphere of conflict is to bring scientists in the church to the conversation. The scientists in the pews, known to the congregation will generally have the biggest impact. It can be useful to bring in “big names” for special lectures or presentations, but engage the locals in the conversation as experts in their fields. In the process, however, it is important to have a well-defined approach for dealing with potentially divisive issues. Ecklund describes a Scientists in Congregations program at her church – where many scientists in the congregation were initially quite wary – but overall convinced by the end that the program was a success for them personally as well as for the congregation at large.  Although we have not had a formal program at our church, I have found the same to be true. To be engaged in open conversation is good for me and for my fellow Christians.

Do you know any Christians working and highly educated in scientific positions?

How do they think about the “conflict” between science and faith?

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James K. A. Smith explores the theological significance of the Fall and the intersection of the Fall with original sin and evolution in his essay in Evolution and the Fall (William T. Cavanaugh, James K. A. Smith editors). Smith is a professor of philosophy at Calvin College holding the Gary & Henrietta Byker Chair in Applied Reformed Theology & Worldview.  He comes at the question of the Fall from a perspective consistent with the Belgic Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism affirmed by the Christian Reformed Church. Now it is clear that both Smith and the CRC view the confession and catechism as grounded firmly in scripture. Nonetheless, it is significant that Smith refers to these statements repeatedly, but scripture only occasionally or tangentially.  Although the order is different in the book, I began with Middleton’s essay before considering Smith’s chapter because I am convinced that scripture and the interpretation of scripture should take precedence over our theological constructs. Having considered Middleton’s discussion of Genesis 3, we now turn to Smith’s analysis.

Smith argues that essential Christian doctrines stand on the Fall. “The grammar of Christian theology encapsulates the biblical narrative in a plot that begins with the goodness of creation, a fall into sin, redemption of all things in Christ, and the eschatological consummation of all things.” (p. 51)   This narrative demands that “the goodness of creation is prior to evil“(p. 52) and that “the teaching of the goodness of creation is intended to preserve the goodness of God.”(p. 53) The Fall as an event of some sort (to be explored in greater detail), introducing sin into creation, appears to be required by these two considerations.  This sets limits on faithful understandings of ‘natural’ history and of Genesis.

Smith looks at several different questions with the following conclusions or constraints:

First, faithfulness to the plot could include one original couple, but it does not require an original couple. This is a question that requires research by the community of believers. “The narrative constraint on such research is to account for scripture’s teaching about the goodness of creation, the uniqueness of humanity, and humanity’s original righteousness and rebellion into sinfulness.” (p. 56)

Second, humanity was not created perfect. We don’t need to consider evolution here at all. A perfect humanity would have been incapable of sin and the fall would have never happened. This is true whether we consider unique creation of a pair (Adam and Eve) or the evolutionary development of our species. We should consider a kind of moral immaturity that succumbed to temptation. Perfection comes only in the age to come.

Third, the Fall was some kind of temporal event. It was historical – a movement from humanity as “good” and “righteous” to humanity as “sinful, incapable of willing the good.” In many respects, Smith bases this on the Augustinian doctrine of the Fall, affirmed in the confession and catechism. Augustine resisted any view that “would minimize the unmerited grace of God by suggesting any “inherent” human ability with respect to salvation” and “contested any teaching that would denigrate the goodness of creation.”  (p. 58)

As a result, the Augustinian doctrine of the Fall and original sin has at least these two aspects:

(a) An affirmation that goodness precedes evil – and more specifically, that humanity was originally righteous before rebelling and falling into sin. The priority of this “goodness” is not only logical and theological, but also chronological: humanity is created “good” and then temporally “falls.” Let’s call this the “priority-of-the-good” thesis.

(b) A radical account of humanity as sinful, incapable of willing the good, and hence the necessity of an equally radical and unmerited grace as an action of divine initiative for redemption. Let’s call this the “necessity-of-grace” thesis. (p. 59)

Smith sees this Augustinian package (his phrase) as essential to Christian theology and his read of the biblical narrative.  He goes on to suggest a potential scenario, consistent with this package and with the current consensus on human evolution (albeit stripped of the metaphysical conclusions often included in secular or atheistic articulations).

Some thoughts.  I find Smith’s focus on Augustine, theology, confessions, and catechisms somewhat off-putting. We should start with the narrative plot of scripture and move to theology from there. Now I realize that the Christian theology emphasized by Smith comes from scripture, but it is shaped in its expression by specific questions that are rooted in time and place. Augustine formulated his views in light of challenges of his day, and sometimes went too far to ensure that he would prevail. I think this is also true of statements that were composed during the reformation and later. These represent human attempts to summarize and encapsulate the overall narrative of God’s story. We need to start with scripture. While I would willingly and happily attend a CRC (or other confessional) church, I would be unwilling to join such a church as a member. Perhaps this reflects my Baptist (BGC) heritage.

I also find the fixation on preserving God from creation of “a corrupt, wicked, and perverse humanity” to be a red herring. God created humans mortal and capable of temptation and sin. Creation was intended to involve process, with human kind growing and maturing before the final consummation in the age to come. I think the best approach to this is to realize that God created humanity with the freedom to obey or rebel knowing full well that only “unmerited grace” would achieve his intent in the end.  The fall, as individuals and as a species, was inevitable simply because we are not God.  Of course God didn’t create us fallen. But this is a truism because rebellion requires choice.

Having said this, I think that Smith’s overall discussion highlights the most important points. The biblical narrative, starting in Genesis 1-3 teaches the goodness of creation, the uniqueness of humanity, humanity’s original innocence and humanity’s rebellion into sinfulness.  When it comes to rebellion into sinfulness, Middleton’s highlighting of the progression from Genesis 3 to 6 is important here, as is a consideration of 9-11 (the flood do-over didn’t succeed), the story of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (12-50), and the entire history of Israel.

What do you think of Smith’s approach?

How important is the doctrine of the Fall? Why?

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After a few essays laying the foundation, the recent book Evolution and the Fall edited by William T. Cavanaugh and James K. A. Smith turns to biblical and theological studies. In the first essay in this section J. Richard Middleton, professor of biblical worldview and exegesis at Northeastern Seminary, looks at the theological and biblical themes found in the first few chapters of Genesis. Some of the material has already been covered in more detail in his earlier books The Liberating Image and to a lesser extent A New Heaven and a New Earth.

There are literary cues in the text of Genesis that should inform our reading of Genesis 1-3, and especially Genesis 3. The scientific challenge to certain popular readings doesn’t trump scripture, but it does draw us deeper into the text, contemplating the intended meaning of the text. The original ancient Near Eastern (ANE) audience didn’t come to the text with the same questions we have today. Among the literary cues are word play and puns. I will summarize many (but not all) of the points raised by Middleton.

1. Theʾādām-ʾădāmâ connection. In Genesis 2-3 “the word for the first human (ʾādām) functions as part of a Hebrew pun or wordplay.” (p. 73) An English equivalent might be human from humus. There is an aural and ontological connection between the first person and the ground from which this person is shaped. Dirt or dust comes up again as human toil of the ground becomes difficult and in the sense that death results in a return to dust. While it is wrong to read evolution into the text, the fact that humans and animals alike are shaped from the ground means that evolution and common descent don’t change any fundamental teaching of the text.

2. The Garden of Eden and the breath of life. “When YHWH God forms the human being from the dust of the ground and breathes into the earth creature the breath of life … the text narrates God’s consecration of humanity to bear the divine image, or – more forcefully put – to become the cult-image of God on earth, a distinctive site of divine presence.” (p. 75)  Genesis 1 describes creation as God’s temple culminating in the creation of humans as his divine image. Genesis 2 describes humans created with the breath of life and placed into a divine garden, “the locus of divine presence on earth.” (p. 74) The image of God refers to a calling or vocation, the humans are placed in the Garden to fulfill their vocation, perhaps to mature in their calling, – but the calling remains even after expulsion from the garden.

3. The garden as a localized cultivation project. The garden in Genesis 2-3 does not describe the entire earth and does not represent ‘nature’. Rather, it is a localized and cultivated area. One of the implications is that “the “curse” is not an ontological change in the ʾădāmâ, but rather a changed relationship between theʾādām and theʾădāmâ.” (p. 77)  Middleton goes on to comment:

Minimally, the call to “work” and “protect” the garden (Gen. 2:15) or “subdue” the earth (Gen. 1:28) suggests that though the world was made “very good,” it was never perfect, in the sense that it could not be improved. While the use of the forceful verb “subdue” (kābaš) suggests that there would be significant exertion in the agricultural task, might the verb “protect” or “guard” (šāmar) indicate there was something to guard against? The primeval world was not without danger. (p. 78)

 Human vocation as the image of God started in the garden (so Genesis 2 informs us) but was always intended to go beyond this (Genesis 1).

4. The tree of life and the warning about death. While there is sense of immortality attached to the tree of life, the tree in the garden is symbolic of more than just mortality and immortality. As the man and woman did not drop dead upon eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, death in this passage does not seem to refer simply to biological death. Middleton notes that the passage could refer to the introduction of mortality, but this is contradicted in Genesis and other places. Even Paul (1 Cor. 15:42-49)  appears to acknowledge Adam as created mortal – of dust. Death could indicate a reversion to mortality – the man and woman must now be kept away from the tree of life. Middleton suggests, however, that life here refers more completely to human flourishing  Death begins to encroach upon life when the humans turn from wisdom and obedience. Proverbs describes wisdom as “a tree of life to those who lay hold of her” (3:18) while the psalmist describes himself as “like those forsaken among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand“(88:5) because he experiences the absence of God. Death is biological and figurative at the same time. While human separation from God is a consequence of sin, the text need not imply that all death is a result of sin.

5. The tree of the knowledge (or knowing) of good and evil. Middleton again works through a number of thoughts, but concludes that the tree as off-limits was probably temporary. Genesis 2-3 suggests the creation of humans who need time to grow into all that God intended of them. While an understanding of good and evil is important, it actually starts with trust, obedience, and patience.

In accordance of what we know of moral development, children (and by analogy, the first humans) would initially need to trust their (divine) parent, obeying parental directions for what makes for flourishing, (and what to avoid), thus learning a pattern of virtue, being formed into the sort of persons who can then (at a later stage) be allowed to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (read: decide for themselves). (p. 82)

A process of maturation was and still is part of God’s plan. Disobedience makes this much harder.

6. The snake was in the garden. The text of Genesis does not describe the snake as intrinsically evil. However, the snake is in the garden and the snake tempts the man and the woman. The snake possesses “street smarts” and there is a word play or pun in 2:25-3:1 (remember that the chapter and verse division is a much later addition). The Hebrew words for “crafty” or “shrewd” and “naked” set this up. “Here we have the identical word (ʾārûm) used with radically different meanings; the words are formally homonyms, yet they are semantically (almost) antonyms. This jarring pun signals, on the semantic level, the deception the snake will perpetuate , and its instrumentality in mediating the first sin.” (p. 86)  Certainly the humans sin, but they are not the origin of sin.

7. The consequences of sin. The very first consequence is the vulnerability brought on by the transgression. Nakedness is now a problem and the man and woman hide. When questioned by God, the man blames the woman and the woman blames the snake.  The snake, originally the most cunning (ʾārûm) of the wild animals the Lord God had made is now cursed (ʾārûr) among all the animals. For humans God describes the consequences, but does not (necessarily) introduce new punishment. Increased pain in childbirth, hierarchy or dominion in relationship, and painful work among thorns and thistles are all consequences. The subsequent chapters (4-6) describe an increase in sin.It is important to note that this is not described as inevitable. God tells Cain “sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.” (4:7) Cain doesn’t master it, but the implication is that he could – it was not an impossibility.

The narrative of Genesis suggests a process by which humans become more and more under the sway of sin. After Cain’s murder, sin grows and snowballs, evident in Lamech’s revenge killing of a young man who injured him, a killing that he boasts about to his wives (Gen 4:23), until in Genesis 6 every “inclination of the  thoughts of [the human heart] was only evil continually” (Gen 6:5), and the earth was corrupted or ruined (šāḥat) by the violence with which humans had filled it (Gen 6:11).

There is no question but that the consequences of sin are severe. However, in all of this there is no indication that God changed the nature of the universe or the anatomy and diet of animals to punish humankind.

Middleton offers no nice clean solution to the questions raised when evolutionary biology, the development of humankind, and the theological (and historical) narrative of Genesis are considered together. However, it does seem clear that the so-called “plain” meaning of the text espoused by some from a 20th or 21st century Western perspective does not do justice to the subtlety and message of the original text.

How should we read Genesis 3?

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