Doubt, Ignorance, and Faith

"My friend Kant needs the observations and calculations of the latest astronomers to give himself an idea of the abyss of human ignorance. The proof for this ought not to be fetched from such a distance; it lies far nearer to us." -- Johann Hamann, Letter of 4 May 1788

The concept of doubt figures prominently in the rhetoric of scientific atheists like Dennett and Dawkins, who frequently assert that scientists are comfortable with doubt, even welcoming of it, whereas religious people seek to banish all doubt through crass fideism. In this simplistic story, scientists are portrayed as humble and open-minded seekers of truth, constantly doubting their conclusions and open to any piece of contradictory evidence, while the faithful cling to their superstitious dogmas. Needless to say, philosophers of science have long since discredited this naive picture by pointing out that scientists are not so open-minded, even when they're practicing science (not to mention when they're pontificating about philosophical or theological matters). Thomas Kuhn, for instance, showed that scientists under normal circumstances strive to make their data conform to agreed-upon paradigms. They cling to these paradigms quite tenaciously, even when evidence mounts against them, and the scientific community will only switch paradigms as a last resort. The notion of a completely neutral and objective perspective from which to discern all truth - so crucial to the Enlightenment project - has been shown to be something of a myth, even in the so-called "hard sciences".

Regardless, my point here is not to dispute the importance of doubt in the scientific method, but to probe the nature of this doubt in more detail. After all, religious faith has its own form of doubt. So what is the difference between these two types of doubt? Scientific atheists would claim that they are essentially the same, as least at the beginning; that is, both doubts concern the truth of specific propositions. The only difference, then, is that scientists go on to examine the validity of these "doubtful" propositions with experimental methods, while believers simply accept them on blind faith. Viewed this way, doubt can only be the enemy of faith. But Christian theology has often regarded doubt in a positive light, seeing it as precursor or element of faith itself. So clearly the atheist notion of doubt is oversimplified, but in what way?

Johann Hamann offers an answer to this question in his Socratic Memorabilia of 1759. This little essay was written after two of Hamann's friends, including a young Immanuel Kant, staged an intervention to bring him back to Enlightenment orthodoxy (Hamann had experienced a dramatic conversion to Christianity a few years earlier). In his response, Hamann invokes the character of Socrates, who was highly regarded by the rationalists of his day. The central issue in the Socratic Memorabilia is the famed ignorance of Socrates, that is, the philosopher's confession that "I know that I know nothing." In this Socratic ignorance, the rationalists thought they detected an early form of scientific doubt - a willingness to challenge all the received truths of tradition and religion. This is the ignorance that clears the way for Reason. But for Hamann, such ignorance is merely that of sophists and skeptics, not Socratic ignorance at all:

"The ignorance of Socrates was a feeling. But there is a greater difference between a feeling and a proposition, then between a living animal and its anatomical skeleton. The old and new skeptics betray themselves by their voice and ears, no matter how they may wrap themselves in the lion-skin of Socratic ignorance. If they know nothing, does the world need a learned demonstration of it? Their deception and hypocrisy are ridiculous and shameless. Anyone who needs so much sagacity and eloquence to convince himself of his own ignorance must harbor in his heart a strong repugnance for the truth of ignorance."

Here, Hamann is pointing out that the rationalist form of ignorance is merely a preliminary stage, something to be overcome by the scientific method. For a scientist to doubt something he must first be shown why he should doubt it; he demands hard proof of his ignorance (hence Kant's interest in the astronomical findings). But the standard for evaluating this doubt is that of human reason itself, which is never doubted in the least. Thus, the ignorance of the scientist is only skin-deep, masking a much deeper certainty. In contrast, the ignorance of Socrates was a feeling, a sensibility, an existential state that went to the core of his self-knowledge. He was not skeptical - doubting this or that - he was ignorant from beginning to end. Hamann draws a parallel between this profound Socratic ignorance and Pauline theology:

"For the testimony which Socrates gave of his ignorance, therefore, I know no more honorable seal and at the same time no better key than the oracle of the great teacher of the Gentiles: 'If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if one loves God, one is known by him' (1 Cor. 8) - just as Socrates was known by Apollo to be a wise man. But how the grain of all our natural wisdom must decay, must perish in ignorance, and how the life and being of a higher knowledge must spring newly created from this death, from this nothing - as far as this the nose of a Sophist does not reach."

Socratic doubt, as understood by Hamann, is the beginning of faith; it's a form of repentance and confession before the Almighty. And it's far more radical than any rationalist conception of doubt, which confines itself only to penultimate matters and never creeps into the depths of the soul. The scientist (as scientist) may be skeptical, he may be curious, but he can never really doubt. That is reserved for those who know only as they are known, in faith.

On Explaining Religion

D.W. Congdon has an excellent post at The Fire and the Rose concerning the recent New York Times feature, Darwin's God, which discussed scientific explanations for the origin of religion. According to the article, evolutionary biologists are currently divided on whether religion is "an evolutionary adaptation or neurological accident." Of course, the possibility that religion is a legitimate response to a preexistent reality - namely, God - is not seriously considered by Times Science section (nothing new here...).

These are matters that I've dealt with before (see here and here), but D.W. phrases the question in a very concise manner: "Is explaining religion the same thing as explaining it away?" Clearly the scientists behind this kind of research think so. They assume that if religion can be shown to arise from faulty brain chemistry or evolutionary selection, then it will lose it's strange grip on humanity. Religion will be brought into the nexus of determinative causality, and thus will have to surrender it claims to transcendence. As D.W. points out, this strategy of "explain and dismiss" has already been applied to the Bible and the church: "it is rather common nowadays to hear people speak of the political context in which, say, the Bible came into being or the institution of the Church arose—as if explaining the political climate is the same as explaining away the Bible and the church."

But explaining is not the same as understanding. Moreover, it seems to me that the "explain and dismiss" strategy is only effective if one shares the assumption - common among scientists - that historical and contingent events can never serve as the basis for absolute truth (Lessing's ditch, once again). Based on this assumpton, if the Bible (or religion itself) can be shown to have originated through a historical process, involving thousands of contingent events, then we cannot consider it a reliable source of truth. Only the "eternal truths of reason" are really true. Thus, scientists naturally think that theological truths about God, if they were to exist, would take the form of generalized theorems or equations - that is, of pure abstraction. The idea that God could reveal himself in concrete historical events and in human language is simply absurd to them, since the world and its history are considered mere objects in a closed system, incapable of carrying divine truth (interestingly, this is modern science's equivalent of the Calvinist motto: finitum non capax infiniti). By creating an artificial conflict between God's transcendence and his immanent actions, science only considers two theist positions legitimate: pantheism or deism.

But Christianity, which holds the Incarnation as its central truth, has never regarded God's immanence and transcendence as being incompatible, and thus asserts that God speaks to his creatures through his creation. David Bentley Hart makes this point in his devastating review of another attempt to explain religion in purely natural terms - Daniel Dennett's book, Breaking the Spell. Hart writes:

Of course religion is a natural phenomenon. Who would be so foolish as to deny that? Religion is ubiquitous in human culture and obviously constitutes an essential element in the evolution of society, and obviously has itself evolved. It is as natural to humanity as language or song or mating rituals. Dennett may imagine that such a suggestion is provocative and novel, and he may believe that there are legions of sincere souls out there desperately committed to the notion that religion itself is some sort of miraculous exception to the rule of nature, but, in either case, he is deceived.

For one thing, it does not logically follow that, simply because religion as such is a natural phenomenon, it cannot become the vehicle of divine truth, or that it is not in some sense oriented toward a transcendent reality. To imagine that it does so follow is to fall prey to a version of the genetic fallacy, the belief that one need only determine the causal sequence by which something comes into being in order to understand its nature, meaning, content, uses, or value....

Certainly the Christian should be undismayed by the notion that religion is natural "all the way down." Indeed, it should not matter whether religion is the result of evolutionary imperatives, or of an inclination toward belief inscribed in our genes and in the structure of our brains, or even (more fantastically) of memes that have impressed themselves on our minds and cultures and languages. All things are natural. But nature itself is created toward an end-its consummation in God-and is informed by a more eminent causality-the creative will of God-and is sustained in existence by its participation in the being that flows from God, who is the infinite wellspring of all actuality. And religion, as a part of nature, possesses an innate entelechy and is oriented like everything else toward the union of God and his creatures. Nor should the Christian expect to find any lacunae in the fabric of nature, needing to be repaired by the periodic interventions of a cosmic maintenance technician. God’s transcendence is absolute: He is cause of all things by giving existence to the whole, but nowhere need he act as a rival to any of the contingent, finite, secondary causes by which the universe lives, moves, and has its being in him.

In other words, the attempt to discredit religion by describing it as "only" a natural phenomenon rests on a dualism that is totally alien to Christianity. We need not choose between natural and revealed religion, as the Word of God is always clothed in the earthen vessels of flesh and blood, bread and wine, history and language. Truth is not to be found in a higher plane of purity and abstraction, divorced from nature and history. Instead, "truth comes before us coarse, as do the signs of nature - without actually being this way. Lies, on the contrary, are threshed and polished for the eye, as works of art." (Hamann)

The Lost Tomb and the St. Olaf Professor

The ridiculous coverage of the James Cameron's The Lost Tomb of Jesus documentary continues unabated. While some major news organizations (notably the Washington Post and Time) have expressed skepticism about the documentary's "findings", others in the mainstream media have clearly taken the bait. It appears that even the flimsiest of evidence gets a pass from reporters when the target is Christian doctrine.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, to their credit, turned to a local scholar to evaluate the case made by the Lost Tomb documentary. Unfortunately, they managed to find one of the few scholars who is even remotely supportive of Cameron's little foray into archaeological science. James Hanson, a professor of New Testament studies at St. Olaf College (a small Lutheran school in Northfield, MN), is genuninely intrigued by the Discovery Channel program, saying that it's worth a "cautious look." "You have to be a little skeptical", says Hanson, "But it's hard to completely ignore what these guys are saying." Indeed, even though most of his academic colleagues have derided the Lost Tomb as a crass publicity stunt with little merit, Hanson seems impressed by the quality of scholarship:

"I watched the news conference, and I was impressed by the caution with which their experts, some of whom are serious scholars I'm familiar with, spoke. These guys are making the most out of some intriguing scraps of evidence. But they have some strikings things here, and it's worth a look."

Strangely enough, Hanson offers this positive assessment despite the fact that he disputes many of the Lost Tomb claims: he calls the Mary Magdalene connection "a stretch", points out that previous tombs in the ossuary were found to be fraudulent, and has a hard time imagining "the circumstances in which Jesus' family would have had this kind of tomb." He's also disappointed that the results were not peer reviewed. Regardless, he says that "I don't see how we can ignore it... It's going to be fascinating one way or another."

What are we supposed to make of Hanson's contradictory comments? Clearly he's skeptical of most of the documentary's major claims, and he's unnerved by James Cameron's end-run around the scientific establishment, but he has only nice things to say about the people involved. Why didn't he give the Lost Tomb the smack-down it deserves? My theory, based on my interactions with several St. Olaf graduates, is that Hanson is simply too nice to say anything mean. Like most people affiliated with St. Olaf, he has an almost neurotic fear of offending others. Thus, he's willing to say "gee whiz, it sure will be interesting" about this shoddy piece of research, even though it threatens the integrity of his profession and his faith. A classic case of "Minnesota nice" (not to be confused with the equally common "Wisconsin drunk").

Which raises the question: does Hanson see the Lost Tomb as a threat his faith? No, he answers, but not because its findings are almost surely bogus. Instead, he isn't threatened because faith "is not based on the vicissitudes of historical discovery. If your faith rests on a literal interpretation of the Bible's description of what resurrection involves, a finding that counters that could be troublesome." Hanson fails to elaborate on what he thinks Jesus's resurrection and ascension "involved", but apparently it's consistent with him being buried in a tomb outside Jerusalem. He goes on to argue:

"What it comes down to is whether claims made by religious traditions are the same as historical claims. I'm all for learning as much as we can about the times. But faith is never going to hold up to pure historical analysis. That's not what it's about."

While there is certainly some truth to what Hanson is saying, I think it's wrong to assume that the claims made by the Jesus Tomb documentary, if true, would only be problematic for fundamentalists. Christianity, after all, is a religion rooted in the historical figure of Christ, who was not a mere phantom but flesh and bones. His resurrection and ascension are therefore not simply metaphors of spiritual truths, but events that took place in the world for its salvation. Hanson is right that historical research will never provide an adequate basis for faith, but he's misguided if he thinks that the historical claims of Christianity are only for literalists.

Thoughts on Open Communion

Recently, the practice of open communion has been a topic of discussion on several blogs (Kim Fabricius' hymn at Faith and Theology got the ball rolling, followed by posts at Connexions and Out the Door). Based on the posts and comments, it appears there's a general consensus in favor of giving communion to all who approach the altar, regardless of baptismal status, age, denomination/religion, or unrepentant sins. Richard's comments are typical:

My position on this is very clear. When I am celebrating communion, it is not my place to withhold the gifts from anyone who opens their hand to receive them. There is a place to exercise church discipline, but the Lord’s Table is not it. It should be a place of welcome and grace. No buts, ifs, howevers or maybes. All are welcome.

Similarly, Bob Cornwall (another pastor) writes:

When thinking about the “Lord’s” Table, maybe we should consider Jesus’ own dining habits — he didn’t put up barriers — so should we? I think not. If Jesus practiced an open table, then I as the one who issues the invitation must do the same.

Of course, there is much to be said for these arguments. We should never wield the sacraments like a club in order to enforce theological or moral discipline; after all, they are means of grace, not law. But I must confess that the concept of open communion, if it becomes too open, makes me a bit uncomfortable. For instance, one commentator said that he "would go a step further and welcome all people to the Eucharistic table...Christian, atheist, Buddhist...whatever." I found this rather shocking when I first read it, although I couldn't say exactly why at the time.

Upon further reflection, it occurred to me that such a wanton distribution of the sacraments violates the holiness of Holy Communion. As Rudolf Otto argues in his seminal book, The Idea of the Holy, all holy objects have both a fascinating and a terrifying quality (mysterium fascinans et tremendum). We are drawn to them become they possess the eternal, but we are also scared of them because we know that it's very dangerous to trifle with the eternal. To play with the holy is to play with fire - it could result in one's annihilation. For this reason, Paul includes the warning in 1 Cor. 11 that "if anyone eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily, that person is guilty of sinning against the body and the blood of the Lord... For if you eat the bread or drink the cup unworthily, not honoring the body of Christ, you are eating and drinking God's judgment upon yourself." Thus, in my opinion, there is a legitimate danger in encouraging people (like atheists, Buddhists, or even nominal Christians) to partake of a holy ceremony that they don't really understand. And a church that is so promiscuous with the sacraments has clearly lost sight of the fact that we should always approach the altar with both joy and "fear and trembling".

The question then becomes: where do you draw the line? It seems to me that the bare minimum requires that the communicant be a baptized Christian. But I'm tempted to set the bar higher. As Hermann Stasse points out, "church fellowship has been altar-fellowship and vice versa every since New Testament times." He goes on to say:

The idea that people could be admitted to Holy Communion with whom there is no perfect peace, no unity of faith and consequently no church-fellowship, is a modern idea that was absolutely foreign to the churches of the 16th century... Such open communion, according to the conviction of the Church of all ages up to the modern world, is no communion at all, no sacrament to be justified by New Testament practice and doctrine.

Sasse's position might be extreme, but I think it's reasonable to insist that people taking communion be "in fellowship" (that is, in basic agreement) with the church where they are receiving the sacrament. Thus, a person who rejects the rejects the "real presence" of Christ in the sacrament should abstain from taking communion in a Lutheran church. Similarly, I would not feel comfortable taking communion at a Catholic mass, and not only because the R.C. church expressly forbids it. As my act of communion would imply that I agree with the self-understanding of the R.C. church (which I do not), out of respect for both them and me I would exclude myself from the table even if there was no such rule. In this way, the communion aspect of the Lord's Supper is not compromised.

The Real Presence and Modernity

In This is My Body, Hermann Sasse notes that Lutherans, at nearly all points in their history, have been tempted to abandon their adherence to the Real Presence in the Sacrament of the Altar. Even Melanchthon succumbed to this temptation after Luther’s death, as he sought to harmonize the Lutheran position with Calvin’s theology of the sacrament. Although his compromises were eventually rejected by the Formula of Concord, which affirmed Luther’s belief that “in the Holy Supper the body and blood of Christ are truly and essentially present and are truly distributed and received with the bread and wine”, the controversy never went away. In the European situation, the debate over the Real Presence would arise whenever churchmen and politicians sought to merge the Reformed and Lutheran churches. Such ecumenical considerations have also played a role in America, as evidenced by full communion agreements negotiated by the ELCA. But part of the motivation for ditching the Real Presence has also come from rationalists who argue that “modern man” cannot tolerate this absurd doctrine, which is supposedly a stumbling block to faith. It is undoubtedly true that the Zwinglian approach, which regards the bread and wine as nothing more that signs of Christ’s body and blood, is more palatable to the modern scientific mind. But while reading This is My Body, it occurred to me that, in at least two respects, the Lutheran doctrine is actually more in tune with current theological and intellectual trends than the Reformed position.

First concerns the flesh/spirit dualism that was central to Zwingli’s understanding of the sacrament. In the Marburg Colloquy (which is reproduced in Sasse’s book), Zwingli and his ally Oecolampadius return time and time again to John 6:63: “It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing.” For them, it is axiomatic that “spirit can only be influenced by spirit.” Thus the tangible elements – the bread and wine – are essentially worthless, since they can only feed the body, not the soul. As Sasse writes, “of all the absurdities which Zwingli found in Luther’s doctrine on the sacrament there was none greater or more dangerous than the idea that a bodily eating can help the soul… Such an idea seemed to be a violation of the spiritual character of Christianity.” For Zwingli, Christianity is a spiritual affair in which our bodies are mere spectators. Thus, the Reformed churches teach that the Supper only involves the “spiritual eating of faith” (As Oecolampadius said at Marburg, “As we have the spiritual eating, why should there be any need for bodily eating?”).

Luther’s position is very different. In response to Zwingli’s persistent claims that the “flesh profiteth nothing”, Luther asserts that “I do not know of any God except Him who was made flesh. And there is no other God who could save us”. Luther is capable of distinguishing between spirit and flesh, but he never separates them for fear that the reality of the Incarnation will be compromised. Thus, “the idea that the sacrament is meant for the whole man, body and soul, is one of the fundamental elements of Luther’s doctrine of the Supper… Luther knew that according to Holy Scripture not only the human soul, but also the human body, is the object of God’s redemption.” (Sasse, 184, 186).

I would argue that Luther’s refusal to radically separate the soul from the body is more consistent with our current scientific understanding of the body, as well as modern theological approaches to our corporeality, then the Reformed dualism. It is also more Biblical. As Sasse points out, the separation of body and soul is really a Platonic concept that has no foundation in the Scriptures. This type of dualism has fallen out of favor today, not only among scientists, but among those who advocate a holistic approach to human body. Thus, I suspect that Luther’s position on the Real Presence would be appealing to many “moderns” who reject an other-worldly spirituality. It is the Lutheran contention that Christ incarnate comes to us in the lowly things of this world - bread, wine, and water.

As I mentioned above, there is another area where I think the Lutheran understanding of the Lord’s Supper is more congruent with our current ways of thinking. This involves the Reformed contention that Christ’s body is physically located in heaven, and thus cannot be present on the altars of the world. But since this post is already plenty long, I’ll save that discussion for another time…

The Confessional Question

In my previous post, I discussed the perpetual identity crisis of Lutherans in America, drawing on Mark Noll's article in First Things. Noll writes that:

Lutherans do have much to offer to the wider American community, but only if they can fulfill two conditions. First, to contribute as Lutherans in America, Lutherans must remain authentically Lutheran. Second, to contribute as Lutherans in America, Lutherans must also find out how to speak Lutheranism with an American accent. Falling short of either condition means that, though Lutherans as religious individuals may contribute much to Christianity in America, there will be no distinctly Lutheran contribution. The task is to steer between the Scylla of assimilation without tradition and the Charybdis of tradition without assimilation. If such skillful navigation could take place, the resources that Lutherans offer to Americans, especially to other Protestants, would be of incalculable benefit.

So what guides should Lutherans employ to help them "navigate" such dangerous waters? The logical answer is, of course, the Lutheran confessional documents contained in The Book of Concord. But this solution is not as straightforward as it seems, as there has never been agreement amount the precise role of the confessions in the church. To what extent are we "bound" to the confessions, and how should they be used in the church (as Law or Gospel)? Moreover, as our history demonstrates, the more "confessional" churches tend to be more sectarian and legalistic. Is this necessarily so?

Carl Braaten addresses these issues in his Principles of Lutheran Theology (1983), noting that:

As Lutherans we have no magisterium that can impose an answer from above. Lutherans have frequently reacted to this dilemma of self-definition by claiming to take the confessions more seriously than all the others, thus becoming the "scribes and Pharisees" of a Lutheran sect... Lutherans now separated do not trust the sincerity of each other's confessional subscription. For some people confessional subscription is not enough; it must be done "seriously." Some require as a condition of altar and pulpit fellowship a certain amount of confessional good works. It is ironic that a church can become absolutely legalistic about a set of documents that condemns all legalism and not see the point.

Braaten then goes on to label four misuses of the Confessions in the Lutheran churches:

1) Repristination: "The basic aim of this type of Lutheran confessionalism is to repristinate the theology of orthodox Lutheranism... Confessional statements are applied as rules and laws to govern what ministers and officers of the church say publicly."

2) Liberal Nonconfessional: "This position leaps backward over the period of 17th-century orthodoxy and The Book of Concord to the creative years of the young Reformer, Martin Luther... It is much easier to modernize Luther than to try to prove the relevance of 'The Formula of Concord' or Lutheran scholasticism."

3) Hypothetical Confessional: "According to this view, our modern situation has been so drastically modified by the revolutions in the natural and historical sciences that any confessional statements conceived in a prescientific age can no longer be ours in a direct way. Nevertheless, we can still accept these confessions as part of our heritage... Moreover, these confessions are still our in a hypothetical sense. Were we to confront the same issue as our Lutheran forefathers, we would adopt their identical positions... But, of course, times have changed; and so there are certain strings attatched to our confessional loyalty."

4) Anti-confessional Biblicism: "Contemporary Lutherans locked into American Protestant neo-evangelicalism have no use for the confessions, but prefer to go right back to the Bible."

Whereas the conservative Lutheran churches (LCMS and WELS) are primarily guilty of #1, the ELCA suffers from both #2 and #3 (with an emphasis on the latter). Meanwhile, many of those sitting "in the pews" probably opt for #4. Against all of these approaches, Braaten proposes an alternative that he calls "constructive confessional Lutheranism", which incorporates the principles of continuity and contemporaneity: "continuity with the substance of the catholic tradition" and the ability "to preach the gospel and actualize its reality within every new situation." To use Noll's words, Braaten's constructive confessionalism is trying "to steer between the Scylla of assimilation without tradition and the Charybdis of tradition without assimilation." It sure sounds nice, but it's tough to figure out how this approach would work in practice. Since it involves a balancing act, people will inevitably disagree about which side should be emphasized more. And where will we turn when the debates begin? After all, an argument about the role of the confessions cannot be decided by the confessions themselves.

In the end, my fundamental question is this: is it possible to take the confessions seriously without using them in a legalistic fashion? Or is it inevitable that these documents, which were originally written to promote the Gospel, will become Law in the hands of our church leaders? I would really like to hear what people have to say about this question, because it cuts to the heart of all issues concerning identity, mission, ecumenical relations, etc. Without the confessions we really aren't Lutherans, but if the confessions are more of a hindrance than a help (as many seem to think), then we shouldn't want to be Lutherans. If the confessions no longer advance the Gospel, but only serve as Law, then we should abandon them and move on. But if they still hold the Truth of the gospel message, then we can't afford to compromise a single word. So which is it?

Our Perpetual Identity Crisis

It is widely acknowledged that Lutherans in America are suffering from something like an identity crisis (see here, here, and here*). Indeed, for many, the question of our identity has become almost an obsession. What does it mean to be Lutheran today? Is our identity theological or cultural, or some intangible mixture of both? Does our identity even matter? I'm certainly not above engaging in such self-analysis; quite the contrary, this blog has often bewailed the decline of a distinctive Lutheran identity. But I've come to the conclusion that none of this is new. In fact, it would appear the Lutheranism, especially in its American form(s), has always suffered from an identity crisis and always will - it's simply built into its structure.

This point was driven home as I re-read Mark Noll's excellent First Things article on the history of American Lutheranism. Noll argues that, while Lutherans are quite ordinary as a group, Lutheranism itself has always been somewhat "out of place" in the landscape of American Christianity. Thus, from the very beginning, there has been consistent and enormous pressure for Lutherans to assimilate their churches into the American mainstream, whether that be conservative or liberal. This was evident even in the 19th century, when the influential Samuel Schmucker sought to amend the Augsburg Confession in order to bring Lutheranism in line with New World Protestantism. Schmucker's "reforms" were eventually rejected and Lutheranism retained its Old World distinctiveness well into the 20th century. It wasn't until after World War II that Lutherans began to reengage with the broader scene, bringing with it the same pressures to assimilate. This time, the forces of Americanization were more successful, resulting in our present situation. Noll writes:

The jaundiced critic, in other words, might think that American Lutherans escaped the peril of nineteenth-century Schmuckerism only to fall prey to a late-twentieth-century version of the same thing - for the ELCA, launching the ecclesiastical ship into a mainstream that had almost run dry; for Missouri, taking on the colors of a fundamentalism ever more clearly revealed as a Christianity merely of assorted rightist tendencies.

Some of this was simply inevitable. As German and Scandinavian immigrants assimilated into American culture, it was natural that they would lose elements of their Old World religion, just as they lost their language and customs. But, upon closer analysis, it appears that the plight of Lutheranism in America was never going to be easy. This is because Lutheran theology, in many respects, is fundamentally at odds with the American "creed" of progress and self-reliance. As Matthew Rose writes (in another great First Things article):

Perhaps no theology is so wonderfully unfitted as Lutheranism for the triumphant, but often disordering, American Century. The American Success Story requires a list of ingredients that reads something like a Lutheran anti-creed: an obsession for the new and untried; a condescension towards the old and tried; a mania for self-expressive accomplishment; a creative drive to overcome, define, and establish oneself over and above others. These distinguishing characteristics have been strung into a charming civic poesy. Yet American Lutherans have been little inspired by this, not being people of an epic state of mind. Fame, for Lutherans, seems best accomplished by accident, if at all. In this vein Falstaff is surely revealed as an “anonymous Lutheran” in his dictum, “The better part of valor is discretion.”

Yet it would be too easy to simply blame America for our current dilemma. Instead, we must admit that there is something internal to Lutheranism that lends itself to a perpetual identity crisis. By leading a very conservative Reformation (with one foot in the Catholic Church and the other outside), Luther guaranteed that future generations of Lutherans would find themselves in a precarious position with respect to other Christians. Are we a "confessional movement within the Church catholic" or are we full-blooded Protestants? Are we a conservative, traditionalist church, or does the spirit of semper Reformanda allow us to change and adapt with the times? Even in Europe, the Lutheran Church found it difficult to answer these questions, as it struggled to articulate and preserve its identity against both Catholic and Protestant influences (for an example, see my previous post on the Prussian church). How much more true is this must be in America, where the old fault-lines created during the Reformation no longer apply. We should therefore expect the wrangling over Lutheran identity to continue for some time.

* While I agree with Preus's statements in this article regarding the JDDJ and the Reformed full communion agreements, he's wrong to assume that only liberalism is a threat to Lutheran identity. Noll's article makes it clear that conservative forces, in the form of American evangelicalism, have already eroded the Lutheran identity of the so-called confessional churches (i.e., LCMS and WELS). These churches, of course, make a big show of their allegiance to the Lutheran confessions. But it doesn't matter if you're a biblical fundamentalist and a confessional fundamentalist - you're still a fundamentalist (this is not to say that the LCMS or its members are fundamentalists, only that there is a danger in them becoming so).

"Each Misunderstanding of the Sacrament is Bound to Lead to a Wrong Concept of the Gospel"

In the introduction to This is My Body, Hermann Sasse argues that the Lord's Supper is so central to Christian life and thought that "every disease of the Church becomes manifest at the Lord's Table." This was true even in the early church, as Paul's first letter to the Corinthians demonstrates. Sasses writes that:

"The schisms and heresies against which Paul had to fight in the Church of Corinth seem to have become noticeable first in the celebration of the Lord's Supper... Thus the controversies over the Lord's Supper, which have so often provoked the criticism of Christians and non-Christians - Holy Communion having become the cause of unholy disunion - go back to the time of the New Testament. The reason for such controversies may be found in a lack of love, as seems to have been the case at Corinth. But it may be found also in the fact that every dissension concerning the Gospel necessarily expresses itself in a dissension over the Lord's Supper. Just as the Church of Christ becomes conscious of its own nature as it gathers around the Lord's Table, so its weaknesses, errors, and sins also become manifest on that occasion. Each misunderstanding of the Gospel must lead to a misunderstanding of the Sacrament. Each misunderstanding of the Sacrament is bound to lead to a wrong concept of the Gospel."

In other words, the Lord's Supper is not simply one element of Christianity among many, unrelated to other matters like soteriology, Christology, ecclesiology, etc. Since it serves as the center of Christian piety and worship, a person's understanding of the Lord's Supper will inform their thinking on all other matters of faith, and visa verse. Thus, Sasse's words should serve as a warning to all those who would sweep aside differences regarding the Sacraments in the name of ecumenical progress. Disagreement with regards to the Lord's Supper is a sign of major disagreements elsewhere. In Here We Stand, Sasse illustrates this point by referring to the Lutheran/Reformed split that occurred in the 16th century:

In the 16th century it was the question of the Lord's Supper which first brought to light the great doctrinal differences between the two churches which claimed to be evangelical. It is not true, as was later contended.., that there had been agreement in all essential points of evangelical doctrine until Luther's stubborn insistence on his exposition of the words, "This is my body," wrecked the unity which had already been achieved. The Sacrament of the Altar was rather the point at which, despite every good intention, the utter impossibility of reconciling two fundamentally different conceptions of Revelation and Gospel were clearly demonstrated... What was really at stake was revealed during the Marburg Colloquy in 1529, when Oecolampadius exhorted Luther not to think so much about the humanity of Christ, but rather to lift up his thoughts to His divinity. Luther replied that he knew and honored no other God than the one who became man. And this God is present in the Sacrament just as substantially as He was born of the Virgin. Apart from Him there is no God who can save us. Consequently the humanity of the Lord dare not be underestimated or neglected... Consequently, Luther's insistence on the Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament is at the same time an insistence on the reality of the Incarnation."

Here we see how Luther could not abandon his belief in the Real Presence without destroying his whole understanding of the Gospel in the process.

Sadly, latter generations have failed to appreciate the intimate theological relationship between the Sacrament and other areas of doctrine. For example, the ELCA, since 1997, has been in "full communion" with several Reformed churches that do not share Luther's insistence on the Real Presence, meaning that Reformed ministers can now preside over Lutheran altars. That such an arrangement is considered generally acceptable is an indication that the Sacraments have a diminished standing in both churches, such that it's not considered important what we or other Christians believe about the Lord's Supper. Apparently, "it is enough" if we all agree to simply ignore our differences and treat our confessional heritage like trivia. Sasse's book is valuable corrective to this trend, because it reminds us how vitally important a correct understanding Lord's Supper was to the Reformers. There can be no unity where there is disunity about the Sacraments.

Too Hungry, For Dinner at Eight

Sadly, I haven't had much time to blog lately, as I was in Palo Alto for several days running experiments at the Stanford Synchrotron (trust me, it's not as cool as it sounds). The weather in the Bay Area was (to quote Sinatra) "cold and damp", with highs in the low 50's and periodic rain showers. But compared to our current weather in Minnesota, it was paradise.

Thankfully, the plane rides and the long hours spent collecting data gave me plenty of time to read. In particular, I read two works by the German Lutheran author Hermann Sasse - Here I Stand and This is My Body (I have just started reading the latter title). I hope to have something to say about these titles in the future.

In the meantime, please amuse yourself with the song Alando - a tribute to Wisconsin basketball star (and Player of the Year candidate) Alando Tucker. The lyrics, composed by a Madison DJ, are set to the ABBA song "Fernando". Beware - the song will get stuck in your head!!

Luther's Two Theodicies

Midway through Bondage of the Will (section V), Luther takes up the problem of theodicy, which is intimately connected to the matter of free will. After all, if there is no free will and all occurs by necessity, then God becomes the author of evil and suffering. Indeed, this constitutes one of Erasmus's main arguments in favor of free will: if God gives us freedom, then we can blame the presence of evil in the world on sinful humanity, thereby absolving God of any possible crimes. But Luther will have none of this. He deals with the question of theodicy in two separate ways, which I will label "existential" (for lack of a better term) and "speculative". In this post, I argue that these two approaches are somewhat at odds with each other, and that this may be an area where Luther's thinking is not entirely consistent.

The point of departure for this discussion in BotW is the following passage from Exodus: "The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh". Erasmus writes: "It seems absurd that God Who is not just but good, should be said to have hardened the heart of a man so that by means of his iniquity God should show his power." To resolve this absurdity, Erasmus argues that God did not actively harden the heart of Pharaoh, but merely permitted Pharaoh's heart to harden itself. That is, God did not correct Pharaoh's sin, thus allowing it to take its own evil course. But Luther rejects this interpretation for many reasons. Firstly, he thinks it goes against the plain meaning of Scripture. He also points out that it doesn't really absolve God in the matter, since presumably He could have corrected Pharaoh's behavior instead of allowing him to languish in sin. Finally, and most substantially, Luther argues that this whole business of trying to justify God is misguided to being with. It is not the job of human reason to justify God. Instead, reason must be silent before the holy mystery of God:

Reason will insist that these are not acts of a good and merciful God. They are too far beyond her grasp; and she cannot bring herself to believe that the God Who acts and judges thus is good; she wants to shut out faith, and to see, and feel, and understand, how it is that He is good and not cruel... It is along this line that reason storms and contends, in order to clear God of blame, and to vindicate His justice and goodness! But faith and the Spirit judge otherwise, believing the God is good even though he should destroy all men...

This must be said: if you want the words 'they were very good' to be understood of God's works after the fall, you will notice that the words were spoken with reference, not to us, but to God. It does not say: 'Man saw what God had made, and it was very good.' Many things seem, and are, very good to God which seem, and are, very bad to us. Thus, afflictions, sorrows, errors, hell, and all God's best works are in the world's eyes very bad, and damnable. What is better than Christ and the gospel? But what is there that the world abominates more? How things that are bad for us are good in the sight of God is known only to God and to those who see with God's eyes, that is, who have the Spirit.

Here, Luther rejects any speculative theodicy that presumes to reconcile the existence of evil with the goodness of God. In its place, he offers an existential theodicy based on faith, not understanding. For Luther, as for Kierkegaard*, the highest expression of faith is to believe that God is loving and good even in the deepest suffering. Indeed, a central insight of Luther's "theology of the cross" is that God's presence is to be found, not in glory and happiness, but in the dark night of suffering. As he says in the Heidelberg Disputation: "He deserves to be called a theologian who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross." Or as Kierkegaard wrote: "Faith sees best in the dark."

So far so good. The problem is that in the following sections (starting with V(iv)), Luther engages in the same type of speculative theodicy that he just condemned in Erasmus. Granted, he appears somewhat reluctant to do so, saying that he is only attempting to "humor reason". But, nevertheless, he pushes forward with his own apology for God. Luther says that God works on all humans "according to what they are, what He finds them to be: which means, since they are evil and perverted themselves, that when they are impelled to action by this movement of Divine omnipotence they do only that which is perverted and evil." Thus, God is the engine, so to speak, of all human action. But if the machines themselves are wicked and evil, then this divine power will result in evil acts.

Here you see that when God works in and by evil men, evil deeds result; yet God, though He does evil by means of evil men, cannot act evilly Himself, for He is good, and cannot do evil; but He uses evil instruments, which cannot escape the impulse and movement of His power. The fault which accounts for evil being done when God moves to action lies in these instruments, which God does not allow to be idle.

As with all speculative theodicies, this explanation raises more questions than it answers, and it in no way lets God "off the hook." After all, why doesn't God make the evil instruments good, as he certainly has the power to do so? More to the point, how is Luther's position different than the one offered by Erasmus, which he trashed just a few pages ago? In both cases, God allows evil to remain; the only difference is whether he tolerates evil actively or passively. And that doesn't amount to much of a difference from the perspective of a suffering humanity.

In the end, all speculative theodicies flounder upon the following paradox: that a God who is loving and omnipotent has created a world in which suffering and evil run rampant. No explanation that takes both God and evil seriously will ever be able to solve this contradiction. The advantage of Luther's existential approach is that it doesn't try to resolve the paradox, but instead incorporates it into faith itself. Of course, this won't satisfy the theologian of glory who craves an all-encompassing explanation, but it will suffice for those who "know God hidden in suffering."

* Not to beat a dead horse, but Kierkegaard and Luther are on the same "wavelength" here. In his Gospel of Sufferings, SK writes: "If God is love, then he is also love in everything, love in what you can understand and love in what you cannot understand, love in the dark riddle that lasts a day or in the riddle that lasts seventy years... Right here is faith's struggle: to believe without being able to understand."

Command as Promise

The nagging problem of free will, which I discussed in a recent post, has compelled me to read Luther's Bondage of the Will in its entirety (previously, I had only read excerpts). I'm approximately half way through the book and, frankly, I'm ashamed that I didn't read it sooner. It's truly Luther at his best - polemical, insightful, often quite funny.

Most of Luther's arguments in BotW are familiar ones, at least to those acquainted with his theology. But one theme was new to me. In section IV(ix), Luther challenges Erasmus' interpretation of three Old Testament passages: Zech 1.3, Jer 15.19, and Ezek. 18.23. The first two verses exhort the listener to "turn" (or return) to the Lord. Erasmus, of course, argues that these passages contain an implicit endorsement of free will, since they seem to suggest that the individual is capable of choosing whether or not to "turn" to the Lord. However, Luther understands these passage quite differently:

The word 'turn' is used in the Scriptures in two ways, one legal, the other evangelical. In its legal use, it is an utterance of exaction and command, requiring, not endeavor, but a change in the whole life. Jeremiah frequently uses it in this sense, saying: "Turn ye unto the Lord' (Jer. 25.5, 35.15, 4.1), where it is plain enough that he includes a requirement of all the commandments. In its evangelical sense, it is an utterance of divine consolation and promise, by which nothing is required of us, but the grace of God is offered to us. Such is this, in Ps. 15: 'When the Lord shall turn again the captivity of Zion'; and this in Ps. 22: 'Turn again unto thy rest, O my soul!'. Zechariah has therefore set out in the shortest compass the proclamation of both law and grace. It is the whole sum of the law when he says: 'Turn ye unto me'; and it is grace when he says: 'I will turn unto you'. -- Bondage of the Will (165-166)

Luther interprets the command as promise. God, in effect, says to the sinner: "You will return to me, not on the basis of your own power, but because my Spirit will work in you. Do not despair of fulfilling this command. Instead, hold on to my promise, that you will return to me because I will see to it." The command is both law and grace, which "raises up and comforts the sinner as he lies under [the] torment and despair" of his sin.

After thinking about Luther's remarkable words for a time, it occurred to me that I had heard a similar approach before. In Works of Love, Kierkegaard, while discussing the command that one "shall love his neighbor as himself", briefly mentions what a blessed comfort this shall is. In fact, like Luther, he asserts that the divine command cures the despair it creates:

"It is indeed most strange, almost like mockery, to say to the despairing person that he shall do that which was his sole desire but the impossibility of which brings him to despair... Who would have the courage [to say this] except eternity, which at the very moment love wants to despair over its unhappiness commands it to love... When eternity says, "You shall love", it is responsible for making sure that this can be done. What is all other comfort compared to that of eternity!" -- Works of Love (41-42) [Note: for Kierkegaard, eternity = God].

Viewed this way, the command to "love our neighbors as ourselves" acquires a whole new dimension. It loses its heaviness and becomes positively light. The command still stands, but we are no longer abandoned to our own resources. It is as if Christ says to us: "Trust in me and I will teach you to love. You shall love, I promise." What a merciful thought!

P.S. The similarity of Luther and Kierkegaard on this point is further proof of my proposition #4, which asserts that "Kierkegaard was a very good Lutheran". In my estimation, few theologians have so thoroughly internalized Luther's law/gospel dialectic as SK.

True Colors, Shining Through

As the Wisconsin men's basketball team is now ranked 2nd in the AP poll (and 3rd in the lousy ESPN/USA Today poll), it's high time for Without Authority to start sporting the Badger red-and-white. With Alando Tucker and Coach Bo Ryan, I have a feeling that this team (probably the best in Wisconsin history) will be playing long into March. On Wisconsin!!

Best Contemporary Theology Meme

I've been tagged by Patrik:

Name three (or more) theological works from the last 25 years (1981-2006) that you consider important and worthy to be included on a list of the most important works of theology of the last 25 years (in no particular order).

To make my decision a little easier, I've decided to confine myself to Lutheran authors. Also, I won't include the very deserving Systematics of Jenson or Pannenberg because: a) many others have already included these volumes, and b) these theologians are borderline Lutherans. So here are my picks:

1) Eberhard Jüngel: God as the Mystery of the World
2) Gerhard O. Forde: Theology is for Proclamation
3) Oswald Bayer: Living by Faith - Justification and Sanctification

P.S. I've decided to add a fourth: Eberhard Jüngel's Justification: The Heart of the Christian Faith

The Scientific Assault on Free Will

John Rose at First Things has some worthwhile comments regarding a NY Times article about science and free will. Apparently, there are a growing body of scientific evidence that suggests that free will is simply an illusion, a trick played on the mind by the mind. According to neurobiologist Mark Hallett, "Free will does exist, but it's a perception, not a power or a driving force. People experience free will. They have the sense they are free... The more you scrutinize it, the more you realize you don't have it."

Someone should remind these scientists (and the NY Times, as well) that the debate over free will is not one that can be resolved by science. Why? Because science itself does not have free will when it comes to this question; that is, science is forced by its own presuppositions to conclude that humans lack free will. This is nicely illustrated in the article by Dr. Silberstein, who notes that "every physical system that has been investigated has turned out to be either deterministic or random." But these are the only two possibilities that science allows itself to consider! Science regards all systems as machines whose behavior is determined by fixed laws of cause and effect, and any system whose behavior is not predicable in this fashion is labeled as "random". Thus, when approaching the brain, the neurobiologist is essentially forced by the scientific method to think of this organ as a machine, a fancy computer that (by definition) lacks free will in any meaningful sense. It's not surprising, then, that they have found some aspects of what they were looking for, but the overall conclusion was determined in advance (but then again, that shouldn't surprise the scientists, because they lack free will themselves).

Quoting Dr. Silberstein, the article goes on to say that "if human actions can't be caused and aren't random, 'it must be - what - some weird magical power?'... People who believe already that humans are magic will have no problem with that." So apparently anyone who believes that there is a qualitative difference between a human being and a machine is guilty of "magical" thinking. Of course, this is a not-so-veiled shot at those religious types who stubbornly cling to the notion that humans have an intrinsic dignity greater than birds, bacteria, and PCs. Indeed, as Rose points out, it seems that the urge to expose the "free will delusion" is largely motivated by the desire to debunk religion. After all, if there is no free will, then there can be no soul or spirit, or so the argument. But this is not a good strategy, as the lack of human free will is hardly incompatible with theism; in fact, there are various strands of Christian theology, in particular Calvinism, that have long advocated determinism. The findings of biologists that some of our actions and decisions are out of our control would come as no surprise to Calvin or Luther (the latter even wrote a book entitled "The Bondage of the Will").

What the scientists fail to realize is that the real casualty of their assault on free-will will be humanism, not theism. If there is no free will, then there really is no democracy, no ethics, no art or literature, no science, no love. If free will is an illusion, then all these other things are illusions too. Is this really what the scientists want? I somehow doubt it. But in their quest to destroy religion, they should take care lest they accidentally destroy humanity instead.

P.S. The article also contains some baffling comments from Daniel Dennett, in which he essentially claims that "free will and determinism can coexist". Anyone who understands what he's saying here, please help me out. He makes no sense to me.

Ten Propositions on Kierkegaard

Over at Faith and Theology, Kim Fabricius has written several "ten propositions" posts on topics ranging from the Trinity to Karl Barth to Hell (a nearly complete list can be found here). I have enjoyed these posts immensely and now it's time for me to rip-off the idea. So here, without further ado, are my ten propositions on Kierkegaard:

1. To fully understand and appreciate Kierkegaard, one must share his faith in the God-human [Gud-Menneske] Jesus Christ. This is because SK, in many of his works, is not writing for the general public; he is writing so that the “single individual” may develop a deeper commitment to New Testament Christianity. To approach these works in a detached manner is to miss the point entirely.

2. Kierkegaard's second (i.e., Christian) authorship should be given priority over his first authorship, and thus his early works should be read in the light of his latter works, and not vice versa. A SK novice should therefore begin with For Self-Examination/Judge for Yourself and work back to Either/Or (never, never start with Fear and Trembling).

3. It is a fatal mistake to assume that the various pseudonyms speak for Kierkegaard himself. To know what SK really thought, go to his Upbuilding/Christian Discourses or to his Journals.

4. Kierkegaard was a very good Lutheran - a "theologian of the cross" par excellence. He never wavered with respect to solas of the Reformation - sola scriptura, sola gratia, sola fide. And his Communion Discourses make it clear that he was a firm believer in the real presence. By stripping off the metaphysical baggage that had accumulated during Lutheran orthodoxy and Hegelian idealism, Kierkegaard liberated the essence of Luther's theology for the modern world.

5. Kierkegaard's theological brilliance was equalled by his literary genius. No other theologian in the entire history of the Church has been so skillful with the pen, so witty and imaginative. I dare you to name another theologian or philosopher that is as fun to read as SK (Thomas Oden has issued a similar challenge in this book).

6. While Kierkegaard was certainly the first existentialist (and perhaps the first postmodernist), his Christian faith makes his identification with these latter-day movements problematic. Bultmann and Barth are his true 20th-century heirs, not Heidegger, Sartre, or Derrida.

7. Anyone who claims to completely understand Fear and Trembling or Repetition is either a liar or an idiot (or both).

8. Kierkegaard's Attack on Christendom was a justified assault against the liberal, bourgeois Christianity of his day, and it is relevant wherever the Church transforms itself into the "established order". However, the shrill and bitter tone adopted in these final writings should not be emulated.

9. Kierkegaard's life and his writings are intimately intertwined - it is impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins. For this reason, virtually none of writings cannot be read apart from his Journals. If you don't know about his relationship with his father, his aborted engagement to Regine, or the Corsair affair, you will miss a great deal.

10. Anyone who thinks that Kierkegaard was an acosmic misanthrope should read Works of Love. And even if you don't think that about SK, you should still read Works of Love!!