Consensus theology<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Yoder is a sometimes bizarre combination of profound insight and infuriating oversimplification verging on ignorance. He claims, for instance, that\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2009\/05\/consensus-theology\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Consensus theology\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yoder is a sometimes bizarre combination of profound insight and infuriating oversimplification verging on ignorance. 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{"id":4743,"date":"2009-05-06T15:08:35","date_gmt":"2009-05-06T15:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=1743"},"modified":"2017-09-06T22:49:22","modified_gmt":"2017-09-06T16:49:22","slug":"consensus-theology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2009\/05\/consensus-theology\/","title":{"rendered":"Consensus theology"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<\/head>

<\/p>

He goes on: Augustine \u201cdoes not radically ask, do you get that from the Bible? Can you get that from revelation? It does not ask, can you get that from Plato? It just asks, does that make sense to all of us? Is it part of our cultural agreement?\u201d <\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t count as a fair summary of Augustine by any standards. But it gets worse: <\/p>\n

\u201cAugustine\u2019s thought merges New Testament reconciliation language with classical peace language and Roman order language, as if they were all the same thing. Rome, nature, and providence are all seen as essentially the same. Religion celebrates the unity of everything and the way things are.\u201d <\/p>\n

This is baffling. \u201cMerging\u201d the NT language of peace with \u201cRoman order\u201d is precisely what Augustine is not <\/em> doing. His whole point is to distinguish the tranquilitas ordinis <\/em> of the temporal city with the genuine shalom <\/em> of the kingdom. Yoder objects to Augustine\u2019s eschatology on other grounds, but that doesn\u2019t count as a \u201cmerger\u201d of Rome with Christian peace. <\/p>\n

To suggest that Augustine \u201ccelebrates\u201d the way things are is equally baffling. Augustine does have a word to say about the deep distortions of desire and order caused by sin. And he hardly thinks that Rome as such is something to be celebrated. Milbank is right to say that Augustine is involved in a profound deconstruction of Roman virtue. <\/p>\n

Yoder\u2019s unsustainable claims about Augustine turn positively contradictory later in the same essay (contained in the recently published Christian Attitudes to War, Peace, and Revolution <\/a> $\"\"$ ) when Yoder raises questions about natural theology and theological method. He points, helpfully, to 1 Corinthians 11, where Paul claims that long hair on women is according to nature, and on men is contrary to nature. He concludes, \u201cContra people who do natural theology, it is not all clear that nature is accessible, that we know it for sure or what it says these specific things.\u201d <\/p>\n

What does Paul mean by nature here? It\u2019s \u201cthe cultural consensus of that group of people.\u201d So, it seems, Paul <\/em> is engaged in a \u201cconsensus kind of moral thought,\u201d drawing ethical demands from \u201cwhat everybody things.\u201d Is the apostle, then, the first Constantinian? <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"