Given and Gift, Possible and Actual

Last updated on: November 27, 2018 at 2:28 am By Peter Leithart

In a wide-ranging essay on how theology alone saves metaphysics, John Milbank explores the parallels between notions of “given” and the primacy of possibility on the one hand, and notions of the “gift” and the primacy of actuality on the other.

He starts with Aristotle, for whom “the actual was primary in terms of definition, time and substance. We can define things because we encounter them; some things are possible only because other things are already actual; things that are actual are more real than things that are merely possible; ideas cannot of themselves give rise to things and finally the possible is defined by its tendency to the realisation of an actual telos.”

Aquinas takes up this perspective into Christian theology. Because the world depends for its existence on a Creator, even the necessities of the natural world are, more fundamentally, contingent: “the contingency of the created world in terms of the dependency of its partial actualisation (and so its partial perfection) upon the divine simple and infinite actuality. In this manner the relative ‘necessities’ of the created order are just as contingent as its apparently more accidental or aleatory features.”

The actuality of the Creator precedes any created possibilities, and all created actualities fulfill “a divinely intended good.” Milbank sees a different perspective in Scotus, for whom “the contingency of a finite actual moment is only guaranteed by the persistence in some sense of the real possibility that things might equally have been otherwise.”

For Thomas, created actuality is “a rising order of perfections, and the complete ‘nature’ of a thing is fully determined, not by the arriving ‘gift’ of the event of actuality, but by preceding possibility.” Scotus, making possibility primary, makes a fixed essence prior to any actual thing. Actualities aren’t “gifts” realized in the giving-and-receiving; they are instantiations of essences, “givens.”

Milbank thinks that Scotus is behind modern philosophy, which gives priority to logic, will, and choice, which all express possibilities as opposed to actualities. Kant is in this tradition, in placing giving priority to knowledge over being, since knowledge has access to possibilities.

Metaphysics thus operates with a “doubly arid mere givenness,” a “cold” given: Things are given “once as possibility, secondly as existentiality and not in warm terms as the receiving of a gift – such that only the arriving actuality of a thing fully defines it as what it is: actuality fully realising formal essence.”

Milbank contrasts the post-Scotist metaphysical analysis of a bicycle with the response that arises from a “religious mind.” In the first scheme, “within the bounds of existence, a bicycle in a shop-window might present to the spectator the possibility of a gift to be given, whereas its later handing over to a child (after purchase) is the actuality of donation. At first the potential gift is just a ‘given’ in the window, while it’s later becoming a gift is a second ‘given’ fact of actualisation.”

By contrast, “the religious mind tends to read existence as such as only definable in terms of gift – as if the bicycle had never first appeared in the window and never had to be bought, but was miraculously conjured up only in that instance when it first appeared to the child on the morning of his birthday. And as if we could only receive and ride bicycles which were presents.”

Possibilism, which underwrites the given over the gift, cannot be sustained. Milbank poses the crucial question: “with the possibilist we can ask (as he does not realise), but what is the actuality of your pre-given range of possibilities?” In reality, these can only be possibilities abstracted from the actual world. To sustain a consistent possibilism, “one would have to argue, in a nihilistic fashion, that the possibilities which we can glean are only the faintest degree of the actuality of this world, which itself only instantiates possibilities from a further range of hidden and to us radically counter-intuitive ones.”

Possibilists can retreat into describing possibilities as “fictions”: “fictions, especially novels, rather show us that thickly-imagined alternative possibilities possess some degree of actuality of their own, because one can only grasp, say, the ‘logic’ of Bleak House by treating its world as a complex actuality and not at all as a mixture of essential possibilities blended together in varying combinations with certain diverting but inessential variations.”

The appeal to “fiction” actually leads us back to Thomistic creationism, the “contingency” of created necessities. Chesterton hit on this point when he argued that “the ‘other realities’ of fictions, especially fairy-tales, revealed by indirection the ‘magical’ and unfathomable curious necessities (‘limitations’) of our own world, which are inseparable from its actuality, yet which can now, through this indirection, be seen as more than arbitrary, but rather strangely necessary for the achievement of a life that bears aesthetic weight and moral solemnity.”

Varieties of Theft

Last updated on: November 20, 2018 at 11:16 pm By Peter Leithart

The eighth word prohibits stealing, but in Scripture the word “steal” (Heb. ganaph) and the concept of “theft” covers more territory than we might assume.

1) There is a cluster of uses of ganaph in Genesis 31 (8x). Laban accuses Jacob of “stealing” away (vv. 20, 26-27), perhaps a reference to his furtive departure, like a thief in the night. Rachel steals her father’s teraphim (vv. 19, 30). In his defense, Jacob reminds Laban that he bore the cost of animals that were killed or stolen (v. 39).

As Claus Westerman notes, Jacob’s entire speech is a of a laborer against an abusive employer: “the accusation that Jacob makes against Laban is concerned with the unjust exploitation of the labor of a subordinate by one in power. This is so important to the narrator that he puts it into the center of the conflict and uses it to show God’s intervention on behalf of the weak [by multiplying Jacob’s flocks]. The link with two traditions is clear: on the one hand with the laments of the ‘poor’ in the Psalms, on the other with the social accusations of the prophets. It is surprising that already in the patriarchal stories the God of the fathers is the one who stands by the weak and the one to whom the weak can have recourse when oppressed by the powerful” (quoted in Miller, Ten Commandments, 333).

Jacob doesn’t accuse Laban of theft, but the context suggests a clash of competing accusations of stealing. But Laban’s stealing takes the form of changing wages, demanding restitution for lost property, squeezing all the labor he could from Jacob.

2) Joseph got to Egypt because he was “stolen” (Genesis 40:15). Man-stealing is mentioned a few times in the law (Exodus 21:16, the first use of ganaph after the eighth word; Deuteronomy 24:7).

That usage is worth a moment’s reflection. After all, in a case of kidnapping, it’s not clear who is the victim of the theft. From whom was Joseph “stolen”? He says he was taken “from the land of the Hebrews,” but we probably shouldn’t press the suggestion that Joseph belonged to the land. Certainly, he was taken from his father; man-stealing is theft from a family, perhaps a people, to whom a man “belongs,” to whom he is “proper.” Perhaps we should understand that what was stolen was Joseph’s freedom.

We might also ask, Who were the thieves who stole Joseph? Presumably his brothers. They took him, treated him as their property, sold him for money. But are the Ishmaelite traders also guilty of man-stealing?

The law requires restitution for most forms of theft, but demands the death penalty for man-stealing. That suggests that man-stealing is a kind of murder. But it might also point in another direction. Proverbs 30:9 suggests that stealing “profanes the name of my God,” thus linking theft with violations of the third word. Perhaps we should see man-stealing as a kind of sacrilege, an intrusion on and theft of Yahweh’s property. It’s a violation of holiness in the way blasphemy is, and so is punished severely. Man-stealing is Achan-like stealing, stealing from God.

That suggests, further, that Jim Jordan is correct to find parallels between the first five and last five of the ten words: The prohibition of idolatry matches the prohibition of murder, which assaults the image of God; the prohibition of images provokes Yahweh’s jealousy, and thus links the second commandment to the seventh; and the warning against taking Yahweh’s name lightly matches the eighth commandment (Jordan cites the parallel of theft and false oaths in Zechariah 5:4 as a supporting clue).

Persons, Property, Words

Last updated on: November 20, 2018 at 1:23 am By Peter Leithart

Samson Raphael Hirsch’s Horeb is worth reading on any topic – stimulating, eccentric, illuminating, infuriating. His treatment of the eighth commandment brings out several key themes.

First, he defines property as “an artificial extension of the body” (227), and since the body is a “tool” for the spirit, so property is a further embodiment of the human spirit. Crimes against property aren’t, therefore, simply crimes against property but sins “against the invisible human spirit” and “against God, Who demands of you respect for the human spirit and its property” (227).

In keeping with this, second, he describes the acquisition of property as an incorporation into one’s personality. This can happen by literal physical seizure of something as one’s own, or “by bringing it within the orbit and the sphere of influence of his artificially extended personality, such as his house, courtyard, etc.” However acquired, the property belongs to the personality of the owner, and that ownership must be respected by everyone (233). We can see in this a reflection of God’s own “taking up” of things into His extended personality – the consecration of holy vessels that are used in His house, for example.

This is the ground, he argues, for the responsibility that an owner has for his property: “Man, in taking possession of the unreasoning world, becomes guardian of unreasoning property and is responsible for the forces inherent in it, just as he is responsible for the forces of his own body; for property is nothing but the artificially extended body, and body and property together are the realm and sphere of action and of the soul – i.e., of the human personality, which rules them and becomes effective through them and in them. Thus is the person responsible for all the material things under his dominion and in his use” (243).

For Hirsch, third, word is essential to economic life, to ownership. Force rules in nature, but among men law must be sovereign, and language is “the principal means of establishing [legal] ownership” (235). Economic as much as social transactions depend on reliable words: “Do you not see that human society is founded on the word and on the confidence in and respect of the word; that the purest expression of man is his word, that with this word he completes his earthly task and that to discard reliance on the word is to discard one’s very humanity” (236).

Finally, each individual – and so, his property – should be a blessing to others. Hirsch says that not every Jew is a hasid, who renounces private ownership to devote himself and his property to others. But all should at least oversee property so that it doesn’t bring harm to a neighbor (248). Hirsch doesn’t expound further on the point, but he implies that our property exists not only to serve our own needs and wants, but also to bless others.

It’s from these premises that Hirsch delves into the duties of honesty in buying and selling, the obligations of renters and those who provide safe-keeping for another’s property, weights and measure (about which he says, strikingly, that a seller should “let the buyer control the correctness of your measuring,” 242).

The assumption Hirsch develops are essential to any biblical understanding of economic life. Economic activity isn’t detachable from the persons doing the activity; economic exchanges are dimensions of inter-personal exchanges; they are inter-personal exchanges through the medium of things, money, services.

On the other hand, “personal” relations are sometimes treated as if they could be carried out without such media, as if every inter-personal relation were as intimate, as body-to-body, as a sexual counter.

Neglecting Hirsch’s common sense is fatal both to an understanding of economics, and to an understanding of inter-personal relations.

Old-New Atheism

Last updated on: November 15, 2018 at 7:23 pm By Peter Leithart

John Gray (Seven Types of Atheism) says that “Contemporary atheism is a flight from a godless world. Life without any power that can secure order or some kind of ultimate justice is a frightening and for many an intolerable prospect. In the absence of such a power, human events could be finally chaotic, and no story could be told that satisfied the need for meaning. Struggling to escape this vision, atheists have looked for surrogates of the God they have cast aside.”

But that quest for surrogates is dependent on the very theism that atheists want to escape: “faith in humanity makes sense only if it continues ways of thinking that have been inherited from monotheism. The idea that the human species realizes common goals throughout history is a secular avatar of a religious idea of redemption.” The result is that atheism is a restricting anti-creed: “While atheists may call themselves freethinkers, for many today atheism is a closed system of thought. That may be its chief attraction. ”

This has not always been the case, Gray argues: “there have been some who stepped out of monotheism altogether and in doing so found freedom and fulfilment. Not looking for cosmic meaning, they were content with the world as they found it.”

Gray defines an atheist as “anyone with no use for the idea of a divine mind that has fashioned the world. ” By this definition, many very religious people are atheists – they may believe in one God or many, but if they don’t believe that a single God created the world, they’re atheists in Gray’s book.

As the title suggests, Gray identifies seven forms of atheism: “The first of them – the so-called ‘new atheism’ – contains little that is novel or interesting. . . . The second type is secular humanism, a hollowed-out version of the Christian belief in salvation in history. Third, there is the kind of atheism that makes a religion from science, a category that includes evolutionary humanism, Mesmerism, dialectical materialism and contemporary transhumanism. Fourth, there are modern political religions, from Jacobinism through communism and Nazism to contemporary evangelical liberalism. Fifth, there is the atheism of God-haters such as the Marquis de Sade, Dostoevsky’s fictional character Ivan Karamazov and William Empson himself. Sixth, I will consider the atheisms of George Santayana and Joseph Conrad, which reject the idea of a creator-god without having any piety towards ‘humanity’. Seventh and last, there are the mystical atheism of Arthur Schopenhauer and the negative theologies of Benedict Spinoza and the early twentieth-century Russian-Jewish fideist Leo Shestov, all of which in different ways point to a God that transcends any human conception.”

He doesn’t have much use for the so-called “new atheists” who “have directed their campaign against a narrow segment of religion while failing to understand even that small part. Seeing religion as a system of beliefs, they have attacked it as if it was no more than an obsolete scientific theory.”

They are heirs to Comte in their belief that “religion is a primitive sort of science.” This is, Gray says, “a primitive view, and a remark made by Wittgenstein about Frazer applies equally to Richard Dawkins and his followers: ‘Frazer is much more savage than most of his savages … His explanations of primitive practices are much cruder than the meaning of these practices themselves.'”

New Atheists revive a Victorian debate between religion and science. It was never much of a debate the first time round, and it’s not much of a debate now. Gray doesn’t think science can refute religion, certainly not by showing it’s an illusion: “The rationalist philosophy according to which religion is an intellectual error is fundamentally at odds with scientific inquiry into religion as a natural human activity. Religion may involve the creation of illusions. But there is nothing in science that says illusion may not be useful, even indispensable, in life. The human mind is programmed for survival, not truth. Rather than producing minds that see the world ever more clearly, evolution could have the effect of breeding any clear view of things out of the mind.”

New Atheists miss the real weak point of Christian faith: “The real conflict is not between religion and science but between Christianity and history.”

Suffering and Death in Hebrews

Last updated on: November 15, 2018 at 6:52 pm By Peter Leithart

Bryan Dyer deploys some sophisticated critical tools to establish the “context of situation” for the book of Hebrews in his Suffering in the Face of Death. He uses the “semantic domain theory” reflected in the Louw-Nida Lexicon to identify the variety of language the writer uses to describe suffering and death and to identify key passages where clusters of these terms appear.

This is backed up by the work of M.A.K. Halliday, whose “systemic functional linguistics” starts from the assumption that “language is a system of choices and meaning potential in which users convey meaning within a social context” (55). In Halliday’s words, “all language is language in use, in a context of situation, and all of it relates to the situation” (55). Dyer uses Halliday’s theory to establish the connection between the text of Hebrews and its social context, so that he can infer the historical situation from the language (61).

Finally, Dyer uses a modified, careful form of “mirror reading,” the effort to reconstruct a conversation from one side of the conversation (e.g., trying to reconstruct the debate at Galatians when we only have Paul’s side of the debate). He follows John Barclay and Nijay Gupta in setting out various criteria for establishing the plausibility of a mirror reading.

All this heavy artillery may seem to be targeted on an obvious point – suffering and death are important topics in the letter to the Hebrews. But Dyer’s methodological care pays off, as his approach yields some important results for understanding the letter.

For instance: Some have read Hebrews as a cross-centered letter, with scant attention to the resurrection (cf. David Moffitt, Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in the Epistle to the Hebrews). Dyer shows that “God’s power over death” is a recurring theme in the book (108). He also shows the recurring link between suffering and sonship. Jesus learned (mathein) obedience by suffering (pathein), and so do His “brothers,” who are themselves sons of God (109; the rhyming wordplay is a trope of ancient Greek [p. 170] – one of the most delightful discoveries in the book!). Readers of Hebrews will know that Jesus the Son suffered, and that the Father demonstrates our sonship by discipline; Dyer highlights the inner connection between those realities (obvious, once pointed out, but not obvious in reading the letter).

By attending to the mood of various verbs related to suffering and death, Dyer observes that “a third of all imperatives in Hebrews are connected to suffering and death,” which supports his claim that the audience was in “a context of affliction and in need of encouragement” (117).

One of Dyer’s tests is whether or not he can show how the topics of suffering and death cohere with the rest of the letter. Hebrews 11 is not simply a “hall of faith,” but a series of exempla of faithfulness in suffering and the face of death. He notes that 11:25 informs us that Moses chose to “suffer together” with Israel, a and links this to the vocation of the audience of the letter to be “partners” in suffering (10:33) and to share the suffering of those in prison (10:34); the readers are to remember their imprisoned brothers as if they were in prison with them (155). They are, in short, to mimic the faith of Moses, which foreshadows the faith of Jesus.

Jesus’ faithfulness in suffering is, of course, the main exemplum, and Dyer suggests that this is one reason the writer emphasizes Jesus’ humanity (173). Yes, but perhaps we can push this further: Jesus is the Son in whom the Father has spoken in these last days; He is the final self-revelation of God Himself, and so Jesus’ human suffering directs attention to the God of Israel, who is willing to enter the world of death for us.

Another example of coherence: Dyer suggests that the exhortations to honor and follow leaders (ch. 13) has a specific force: As the leaders have been faithful under duress, so the members of the church should be. Chapter 13 isn’t dangling off at the end of the letter, but is neatly integrated into it.

I’d suggest that we can be more specific about the setting. Hebrews is written during the “apostasy” that Jesus warned about in the Olivet Discourse, an apostasy driven by the threat of death and imprisonment. Hebrews itself is a sign of the impending end of the age.

Liberal Theology, Liberal Politics

Last updated on: November 14, 2018 at 4:34 pm By Peter Leithart

In her book on Benjamin Constant, Liberal Values, Helena Rosenblatt examines the intertwining of religious and political concerns in the work of Constant and his lover/collaborator, Madame de Stael.

Through his early study of liberal Protestant theologians in Germany, Constant “hit upon what would be a central principle of his mature liberal philosophy – that there should be complete freedom of opinion and belief, and that such freedom was conducive to both intellectual and moral progress.” Freedom of religion was foundational to his conception of political order.

But during the French Revolution, that conviction was confronted by the need of the regime to cultivate the virtues of its citizens. But this had to be done without returning to the repressive Catholicism that preceded the Revolution. Even after the Terror, the Revolutionary government wanted to form Frenchmen into virtuous citizens, virtuous liberals. Though the post-Thermidorian government renounced the tactics of the Terror, “they had not given up on the goal of turning Frenchmen into civic-minded citizens, which, in their minds, meant detaching them from their religion. It was the pace and the methods that changed, rather than the goal itself.”

Constant himself saw the post-Revolutionary crisis in stark terms: ‘‘It is a matter of choosing between the stupefication [abrutissement] of man and his rehabilitation, between superstition and enlightenment, between the eleventh century and the nineteenth.’’ There could be no turning back to Catholic “theocracy,” yet the French remained stubbornly religious.

The challenge was all the greater because of the strength of Catholic counter-reovlutionary voices. Despite suppression, there was something of a revival in the aftermath of the Revolution. The Catholic Church was in disarray, but it had an articulate spokesman in the Abbe Gregoire, who argued that a consistently liberal regime would permit the Catholic Church to operate. In his periodical, Annales de la religion, Gregoire argues that “by obstructing the people’s right to practice their religion freely, the new regime was overstepping the legitimate bounds of government. Freedom of religion was a ‘sacred’ right protected by the ‘social contract.’ Gregoire’s newspaper further maintained that the Catholic religion posed no danger to the Republic or its principles; they were entirely compatible as long as governments ‘knew how to remain within the bounds of their competence.'”

Ultimately, Constant’s vision was to replace Catholicism with a more Republic-friendly religion. Constant’s proposal was to encourage Protestantism: “He claimed that, historically, Protestantism had always been ‘conducive to ideas.’ . . . this was a fairly widespread belief during the Enlightenment, when many people held Protestantism to be more favorable to all the progressive and reforming ideas philosophes held dear. Constant further claimed that, contrary to Catholics, Protestants would contribute usefully to the political culture because they were naturally ‘favorable to liberty.’ He cited Montesquieu in support of the claim that Protestantism was inherently ‘conducive to republicanism.’ Constant also delved into history, reminding the authorities that long before the Revolution, French Protestants had been the first to propose that France be turned into a republic.”

Constant was attracted to the arguments of Louis Marie La Reveillre-Lepaux, who proposed that a liberal form of Protestantism was the best option for France. The replacement religion should be one of “extreme simplicity.” La Reveillre-Lepaux argued that “A profusion of ceremonies, such as existed in Roman Catholicism, only caused worshipers to neglect their real duties towards God and their obligations to ‘family, neighbors [and] country.’ Too many ceremonies also ‘‘shrank the mind’’ and made men ‘haughty’ and ‘disdainful.’ Moreover, excessive fuss about ‘the exterior practices of devotio’ allowed priests to pose as necessary intermediaries between man and God, thereby acquiring undue wealth and influence. . . . the ideal republican religion should have no priests, or at least ‘no sacerdotal body,’ claiming a special relationship with God, since this turned people into ‘stupid and credulous executors’ of the wishes of the priests. All that was needed to ensure a truly ‘useful cult’ was ‘a couple of dogmas’: the existence of a God who rewards virtue and punishes vice, and the immortality of the soul. When a constitution was republican and itself based on ‘simple and clear principles,’ so should be the religion that sustained it.”

Madame de Stael agreed, arguing that “Protestantism was becoming more enlightened by the day.” In her words, “Every day, the most enlightened ministers among the Protestants are removing all that remains of dogma in their belief. Many of them are socinians, that is they differ from theophilanthropists only in their specific adoption of the excellent morals developed in Scripture. It is a book that they prefer; it is no longer a god made man whose words they implicitly accept. With these changes growing stronger every day, Protestants and theophilanthropists, or to abbreviate, deists, are getting closer in their principles.”

Both Constant and de Stael “reasoned that Protestantism, due to the simplicity of its dogmas and ceremonies, its morality, and its lack of priestly authority or coercion, was the highest point of perfection religion had so far reached in the history of mankind. Notably, also, Protestantism contained within itself the ability to improve over time.”

The Revolution, and the liberal order it established, was best buttressed by liberal theology.

Kantian v. Kantian

Last updated on: November 13, 2018 at 2:00 pm By Peter Leithart

Gillian Rose (Hegel Contra Sociology, 21-24) examines how sociology attempts to overcome Kantian problematics, but remains within them all the same.

Neo-Kantianism, she argues, “founded two kinds of ‘sociology,’ two logics of the social: a logic of constitutive principles for the sociology based on the priority of validity, and a logic of regulative postulates for the sociology based on the priority of values. The former identifies social reality by a critique of consciousness; the latter locates social reality within the realm of consciousness and its oppositions.” The first is associated with Durkheim, the latter with Weber.

The Durkheimian logic, “which grants priority to validity” came under criticism for its positivism and “the transformation of the Kantian question of validity into methodologism. The critics of methodologism sought to provide a different kind of account of validity – one which was not motivated by the search for a general logic for the exact or historical sciences, but by an historical critique of that very endeavour.”

Those critics were among the leading Continental thinkers of the twentieth century: Dilthey, Heidegger, Benjamin, Gadamer. They all claim that “the neo-Kantian answers to the question of validity debase the question of being, reality, existence, life or history, by their prepositional or judgmental account of truth and by the correlation between general logic and objectification.”

Instead of returning to Kant’s own transcendentalism, “they developed the kind of metacritique of Kant already attempted by Durkheim: the argument that the Kantian a priori, the categories, itself has a social, historical or external presupposition. This is why they are important for sociological reason.”

This metacritics rejected Kant’s “examination of the limits of discursive reason and the psychoíogism implicit in the reference to processes or contents of consciousness,” but they also rejected Neo-Kantianism, dismissing it as internally contradictory: “the critical project to examine the limits of reason before employing reason itself, and the neo-Kantian project to establish an autonomous logic are contradictory. For how can reason be examined except rationally, and how can a general logic be established except logically? In short, both of these projects can only be accomplished by use of the very capacities whose right use is precisely to be justified.”

To resolve this contradiction, the metacritics started from an acknowledgement of “the unavoidable circularity of any examination of cognition and which derives the social and historical pre- conditions of cognition systematically suppressed by both the Kantian and neo-Kantian approaches. Metacritique turns the neo-Kantian critique of the philosophy of consciousness against neo-Kantianism itself: it exposes the formation and deformation of both transcendental and methodological reason.”

Thus, “Dilthey, Mannheim, Heidegger and Gadamer return to the Kantian question of validity, ‘What are the preconditions of experience?, but judge that the Kantian reference to the categories and their application itself has a precondition : ‘life’ (Dilthey), ‘social-situation’ (Mannheim), ‘Daseitï (Heidegger), ‘history’ (Gadamer).” These social and cultural preconditions form “the presupposition of the use of the categories or of meaning, the a priori of a new kind of ontology.”

Yet the metacritics “remain within a Kantian transcendental circle: the condition of the possibility of experience (meaning) is likewise the condition of the object of experience (meaning), whether the condition is ‘life.’ ‘social- situation,’ ‘Dasein,’ or ‘history.’ The analysis revolves within an hermeneutic or transcendental circle, that is, a circle without a result. A new identity is presupposed between the condition and the conditioned, albeit outside the discourse of consciousness and its oppositions, or of validity and its objectifications.”

This even results in a new quasi-transcendental framework: “The newly specified a priori, the precondition of validity, is transcendental. But the precondition is now external to the mind, and hence appears to acquire the status of a natural, contingent, empirical object. The conditioned, meaning, is isolated and defined in proper methodological fashion. Paradoxically, these approaches, which arose to combat neo-Kantian methodologism, lend themselves readily to methodological exploitation, since they can be read as sets of abstract procedural rules for cognition.”

Sociology formed in, and in reaction to, neo-Kantianism, ends up replicating the structure of neo-Kantianism.

Origins of Speech

Last updated on: November 7, 2018 at 3:30 am By Peter Leithart

Where does my speech come from? Klaus Hemmerle (Thesen zu einer trinitarischen Ontologie) argues that the answer is more complex that we might think.

On the one hand, the word originates from the speaker: “I speak the word, it’s up to me.” There’s no gap between me as speaker and the words i speak. I design the speech and direct it to the addressee. In short, “the whole of speech is rooted . . . in me.”

Yet even though I am the root of my speech, “my word is rooted as mine in other origins.” While I am the origin of my word, it’s also true “the language is the origin of my word.” The language I use has been prepared long before me, and my word enters as part of a stream of communication. Language speaks again in my personal speech.

Hemmerle uses the image of a grain of sand: What I say is “one grain of sand on the mountains of the language that is constantly growing, constantly shifting. Even if I speak originally, if I speak, so to speak, new language, my speech is a continuation, my performance only a grain of sand on the mountain of spoken language.”

But speech isn’t merely double-sourced. It has a third root,”you, to whom I speak, you, the addressee, are the origin of my word.” My speaking depends on your ability to hear and understand. Speech arises from the encounter that speakers have with one another.

Thus, “My word has at least the three origins: me, the language, you. . . . All three origins arise in different ways,” so that in each root, in each origin, the process is similar but different.

Hemmerle offers this as an example of a new, Trinitarian ontology, an ontology where the reality of multiple originality (Mehrursprünglichkeit) is acknowledged. The event of speech has a unity, but it’s not an undifferentiated unity; it has a unity from multiple places of origin, multiple poles.

Get Outta Here

Last updated on: November 6, 2018 at 7:37 pm By Peter Leithart

This is a selection from the forthcoming second volume of my commentary on Matthew.

Matthew 28 is a richly typological passage. Jesus’ appearance to the eleven culminates not only the story of Matthew’s gospel, but also shows Jesus as the fulfillment of a host of Old Testament hopes.

The Magi were the first to worship the king of the Jews (2:2, 11). Now that Jesus has been raised, the eleven remaining disciples join in (28:16). This is no ordinary bow; they prostrate themselves in total submission to Jesus, acknowledging that he is God. He was identified as “Immanuel” at the beginning of the gospel (1:23), and now He promises that His divine presence will remain with the disciples forever (28:20; cf. Deut 31:23).

Jesus is Yahweh on the mountain, a new Mount Sinai, instructing His disciples to keep and teach His commandments; a new Zion, where the disciples worship.

Jesus is the new Joseph. The only other place in the Bible where “eleven” people “worship” is in Genesis 37, when Joseph has a dream that the sun, moon, and eleven stars will fall to worship him. In the story of Joseph, the dream finally comes to fulfillment in Joseph’s “resurrection.” Joseph’s brothers reject him, plan to kill him, sell him into slavery to the Gentiles, but Joseph is raised up and given authority over all Egypt.

It’s a preview of Jesus’ story-line: The disciples have betrayed Jesus, fleeing from Him in the garden; Jesus’ Jewish brothers have killed Him, but now God has raised Jesus up and given Him all authority in heaven and on earth.

The Joseph story, I think, helps us capture the psychological tone of this moment. When Joseph’s brothers finally realized who Joseph was, realized that lost Joseph had been found and “dead” Joseph had risen again, they were afraid. They were the ones who turned Joseph over to the Egyptians. Maybe he’s going to get his revenge, they think. But Joseph assures them that the things they intended for evil, God meant for good, to bring salvation to many people. Jesus’ disciples also have reason to fear. The last time they saw Jesus was in the garden, and they could only see Him by looking over their shoulders as they fled from the guards arresting Jesus. Now Jesus is back, and He wants to see them in Galilee. What is He going to say? Are they going to hear Him say, “Depart from Me, I never knew you?”

No: Jesus says what Joseph said: “God intended it for good, to give life to the sons of Israel.”

Jesus is the Son of Man. In Daniel 7, the prophet sees a vision of one like the Son of Man inheriting all authority of all the nations. The Risen Jesus is that Son of Man. His death and resurrection have changed everything. Matthew hammers on the point with the repetition of the word “all.” Jesus has all authority, sends His disciples to make disciples of all nations, tells them to teach all His commandments, and promises His presence through all ages (vv. 18-20). These “alls” are linked: Because Jesus has all authority, He sends His disciples to all nations, and all His commandments are weighty.

Jesus is the new world emperor. As we have seen throughout our studies in Matthew, Matthew’s gospel recapitulates the history of Israel. Jesus has played the role of Moses, of Joshua, of Solomon, of Elisha, of Jeremiah. He has been through exodus and conquest and kingship and a divided kingdom and He has predicted the fall of the temple. In His death, He has been forsaken by His Father, sharing the exile of His people, but in His resurrection He has returned from the grave of exile.

In these last verses, Jesus is the great World Emperor, the new Cyrus, who commissions His disciples to “go” (cf. 2 Chr 36:22-23): “All the kingdoms of the earth the LORD God of heaven has given me. And He has commanded me to build Him a house at Jerusalem which is in Judah. Who is among you of all His people? May the LORD his God be with him, and let him go up!”

Cyrus claims to have authority from the God of heaven. He calls on Yahweh to be with his people. He gives a command to go. Jesus is the new Cyrus, but Jesus is greater than Cyrus. He has authority in heaven, and not merely authority from the God of heaven, or authority on earth. Jesus is the God who will be with His disciples. He gives a command to Go, but instead of sending the eleven back to their homeland, he sends them out to places they’ve never been.

Israel never existed for herself, but for the sake of the nations. Now that Jesus has risen and issues this command as a new Cyrus, that reality is even more pronounced. Even more than Israel, the church exists for the sake of the world. Jesus did not come to be served but to serve. He came to make disciples, and by His resurrection He gives us the privilege of sharing in making disciples of the nations.

No church exists for the sake of church. We are called together to be sent out, called together so that we can be commissioned to fill our town with disciples, and to participate in the making of disciples throughout the world. We can have the best worship imaginable, the best teaching, the deepest fellowship. All those are good things, but if we don’t “go” and “make disciples,” then we are failing to be the church God wants us to be. As folks in the Emerging/Emergent church say, the church doesn’t have a mission; it is a mission.

The eleven came to Jesus and worshiped Him. But Jesus didn’t want them to stay on the mountain to worship Him. He wanted them to go from the mountain, into the valley below, making disciples by baptizing and teaching. We want to stay on the mountain. It’s comfortable and safe. Jesus won’t let us. Jesus tells us to get outta here.

The Voice

Last updated on: November 5, 2018 at 2:08 pm By Peter Leithart

Brief reflections on a sermon on Genesis 3 given by Eric Venable at Trinity Presbyterian Church (TPC). The sermon will be available on TPC’s web site in a week or two.

1) Eric emphasized the competing voices of the narrative. God speaks the world into being, and gives commandments, positive (“be fruitful, multiply, subdue, rule”) and negative (“thou shalt not eat”). Adam speaks to Eve. Genesis 3 introduces a new character, the serpent, who also has a speaking part. After the fall, Adam and Eve hear the qol, the voice, of Yahweh in the spirit of the day, and the Lord rebukes Adam for listening to the voice of his wife.

2) The voices come from outside. God speaks to Adam, Adam to Eve, the serpent to Eve. Outside voices get into our heads and take on a life of their own, but they begin on the outside. We are guided, all of us, by authoritative words. Genesis 1-3 presents a radically anti-autonomous understanding of human existence. The issue isn’t, voice or no voice. It’s always, whose voice? To whom do we open our ears?

3) God speaks imperatives, the serpent in skeptical interrogatives. “Has God said?” Eric pointed out that after the fall, Yahweh also comes with questions: “Where are you? Who told you? Have you eaten?” He doesn’t start with condemnation and curses. The Lord’s response is chiastically arranged:

a. To man: vv. 9-12

b. To woman: v. 13

c. Curse of serpent, vv. 14-15

b’. Curse of woman, v. 16

a’. Curse of man, vv. 17-19

4) Yahweh’s voice comes first as a summons, calling Adam from his shameful hiding. Then He calls Adam to confession. This is a judicial interrogation, but it’s designed to bring Adam to self-knowledge and to elicit acknowledgement of guilt. Yahweh does curse, but He first interrogates, and the interrogation is a gracious call to Adam to come clean in Yahweh’s presence.

5) There’s a liturgical structure of sorts in the passage: Yahweh arrives in the Spirit of the day; He calls Adam to appear; He summons Adam and Eve to confession and repentance; the chapter climaxes with a sacrifice and covering (atonement), and then a dismissal from the garden.