To Think and to Speak of the Living God: Katherine Sonderegger's Systematic Theology,Volume 2

This review of the second volume of Katherine Sonderegger's Systematic Theology reflects upon its several extraordinary features before exploring in some detail the theological account of Scripture integrated into its argument. The possibility of unfolding a metaphysically robust account of God's immanent triune life on the basis of the biblical witness turns upon a highly distinctive view of the Bible and its relation to God's own being.     

The Authority of Scripture and the Triune God

Consideration of what is meant by authority is a vital task for theology, and especially for those involved in theologically engaging with Scripture. After some general reflections on the nature of authority this article turns specifically to examine biblical authority. The challenges facing those who would offer an account of biblical authority are presented. The generating question for the positive proposals advanced in this essay is: what difference does the doctrine of the Trinity make to the account we render of biblical authority? The action of the triune God is the appropriate context for locating Scripture's salvific ministry. Moreover, Scripture is space that God gives us without violating our creatureliness. Scripture is both part of the created order and a participant within God's saving history. The doctrine of the Trinity invites us to articulate an account of biblical authority that is historical and timeful.     

What is Theological Interpretation? The Example of Robert W. Jenson

Theological interpretation is an approach to reading generated by a theological understanding of the biblical text, of the community that reads it theologically, and of the practice of reading. This essay argues this point on the basis of the work of one representative theological interpreter, Robert W. Jenson. In addition, it entertains John Barton's objection that theological interpretation amounts to eisegesis. The article concludes that theological exegesis does not necessarily involve reading one's views into the text, but rather that it results in putting the text to a different end.     

In Between Sex and the Sacred: The Articulation of an Erotic Theology in Jeanette Winterson's The Passion

Abstract

This paper explores Jeanette Winterson's manipulation of biblical stories, tropes and language in The Passion. Winterson herself has commented upon the considerable influence that Scripture has upon her imagination and this novel bears up her claim in the profusion of allusions it makes to Christian texts and practices. While there has been a considerable amount of criticism written upon her use of intertextuality involving Scripture, this paper seeks to confront the issue from a theological standpoint and ascertain the theological implications of her writing. In viewing Winterson as a theologian, the possibility is raised of disseminating a more unorthodox, creative approach to hermeneutics, which encourages both a recognition of the paternalistic, heterosexual and patriarchal rhetoric within Scripture and traditional interpretation, and the supplanting of it with a polyphony of voices, which reach beyond the boundaries of the original texts. The conclusion of this paper is that, by inverting traditional categories of the sacred and the profane, Winterson articulates a challenge to contemporary theology in its practice of reading, and also advances a new theological hermeneutic, which reclaims an affirming spirituality of the body and desire.     

“Shining in the Light of Your Glory”: Finding the Simple Reading of Scripture

This essay argues that without allowing for a legitimate extra‐biblical reasoning for the appropriateness of God's “simplicity,” Christians will be compelled biblically to affirm that God, as such, has a body — or at least Christians will have to accept this as a theologically possible reading of Scripture that cannot be ruled out. Barnes first cites ancient philosophical sources that argue that God has no parts but is utterly simple. In Barnes's quick sketch, the main role is given to Plotinus and especially to the summation found in Alcuinus's Didaskalon X.7 (Alcuinus is known also as Albinus). Barnes then examines readings of Israel's Scriptures that indicate the bodiliness of God (YHWH). Most importantly, divine bodiliness comports with the “plain sense” of Scripture. Here he draws upon such works as Benjamin Sommer's The Bodies of God, Stephen Moore's “Gigantic God,” and Tryggve Mettinger's The Dethronement of Sabaoth; and he also makes reference to the work of the Jewish kabbalist scholar Gershom Scholem. Barnes carefully investigates such passages as Exodus 33, in which God is clearly presented as having bodily parts, including a “face.” As Barnes notes, the Fathers’ arguments for why God does not have a body are tied completely to their arguments for why God exists simply.     

Doctrine of Scripture in Lutheran Theology—Its Missional Thrust: A Response to Lamin Sanneh's Hein‐Fry Lecture 20081

Abstract : In this article, I argue that Lutheran doctrine of Scripture is rooted in a christological centre, a centre that is coherent with Lamin Sanneh's thesis that the missionary experience must encompass both the work of the missionary who comes from ‘outside’ and, more especially, the reflections of the ‘indigenous’ peoples on Scripture in its witness to God's coming in Jesus Christ. This essential mutuality of ‘receiving’ and ‘giving’ in reading Scripture christologically undercuts imperial biblical hermeneutical practices that privilege certain cultures, languages, ethnic, racial, and class groupings as bearers of the gospel of Jesus Christ.     

Coleridge and the 'master-key' of biblical interpretation

Claude Welch, the distinguished historian of nineteenth‐century religious thought, once declared that Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) ‘may be seen as the real turning point into the theology of the nineteenth century’ and that he ‘was as important for British and American thought as were Schleiermacher and Hegel’.² Still, Coleridge remains largely marginalized in the annals of church history and theology despite his unwavering prominence throughout much of the nineteenth century. Perhaps it should come as no surprise, then, that Coleridge's posthumously published Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit (1840), with its rejection of the verbal infallibility of Scripture and elevation of the importance of the individual in rightly discerning the truths of the Christian faith, has often been misread as an attestation of the primacy of the individual subject over the biblical text. It has been treated alternately as a document that signals the emergence of German higher criticism in England,³ a Romantic appeal to the fundamental importance of the subjective in religion,⁴ and an early form of reader‐oriented literary criticism.⁵ In this article I suggest that the attention devoted to Coleridge's denial of the verbal inspiration of Scripture, epitomized by the phrase that biblical inspiration is constituted by ‘whatever finds me’, has overshadowed his equally significant attention to the authority of church tradition in that same document. More specifically, rather than arguing for subjectivism in biblical interpretation, Coleridge equally emphasizes the objective sources of revelation expressed in Scripture and the church traditions handed over from the apostles. Rather than proposing a model of biblical inspiration that is wholly individualistic, Coleridge maintains a vision of Christianity that affirms the vitality of both the authority of the church and that of the believer. Thus, Coleridge's theological contribution to religious history is not that of an aberrant, absent‐minded poet, but rather that of a central participant engaged in an ongoing and pivotal debate in the history of England: the relationship between Scripture and church traditions. In order to draw out this important, though neglected, strand of thought in those ‘Letters on the Scriptures’, the name by which the Confessions is sometimes identified,⁶ I begin by briefly clarifying the nature of the idea of tradition both in relation to Coleridge and English theology in the nineteenth century. I then summarize the argument of the Confessions as a whole and turn more particularly to those sections of the Confessions that suggest the role Coleridge assigns to church tradition in relation to Scripture. Finally, after assessing the authority of the church in relationship to the divine Word, I turn to Coleridge's earlier works and his notes on the Works of William Chillingworth (1602–1644) in order to demonstrate that his views on the respective authority of both the individual and the church were consistently held since near the time of his conversion to Trinitarian Christianity. I conclude that Coleridge's conception of the relationship between Scripture and church traditions calls for a reevaluation of his place in the history of religious thought in England.     

Theology of Creation and the Use of Scripture Creation,David Fergusson,Eerdmans, 2014 (ISBN 978‐0‐8028‐7196‐1), viii + 149 pp., pb $18 From Nothing: A Theology of Creation,Ian A. McFarland,Westminster John Knox, 2014 (ISBN 978‐0‐664‐23819‐3), xvii + 212 pp., pb $35

David Fergusson's recent book, Creation, overviews differing aspects of creation for a theologically‐literate but non‐specialist readership, while Ian McFarland's From Nothing: A Theology of Creation offers a sophisticated account of the meaning and theological implications of the classic doctrine of creatio ex nihilo. Although both books make constructive appeal to Scripture, I suggest that their use of Scripture indicates that their creative theological thinking is not primarily done by working through the interpretative challenges that Scripture presents. There thus remains a distance between biblically and systematically oriented theological thinking.     

SOURCES AS CANONS: THE QUESTION OF CANONICAL COHERENCE

“Canonical coherence” is necessary for reading, hearing and interpreting any text. It is not only something for which a theological interpreter of Scripture should aim, but also something that every interpreter of Scripture assumes. Irenaeus recognized that sources function as canons authorizing diverse readings. This essay assumes the truth of his Source and reads it against other sources by which biblical scholars and theologians interpret Scripture. It uses Hebrews 4: 14‐16 to examine the “Source” found in Gnostic, anti‐Platonic and Apocalyptic orderings of the Bible.     

Hermeneutics and the Doctrine of Scripture: Why They Need Each Other

Current attempts to understand Scripture theologically typically appeal either to modern hermeneutics or to more traditional doctrines of Scripture – but not to both together. It is argued here that hermeneutics can help to identify and resolve certain problems bequeathed to posterity by the characteristic sixteenth‐century equation of Scripture with ‘Word of God’. The problems in question relate to the past and present modes of divine speech, the relation of text to community and the fundamental significance of the ‘Word of God’ concept itself.     

John Milbank and Biblical Hermeneutics: the End of the Historical‐Critical Method?

It is perhaps ironic that a methodology still convinced of its radical iconoclasm and progressive nature should at the same time be regarded as critically backward, a by‐product of a disappearing philosophy. Such a view of the historical‐critical method is held by John Milbank who argues that because of its dependence upon heretical philosophies that affirm the ontological autonomy of a world without reference to or participation in God, it should be confined to theological history. This essay will argue that Milbank's challenge ought to be taken seriously by Christian biblical interpreters and suggests that historical‐critical study, in the form criticised by Milbank, needs to be rejected. Milbank exposes the philosophical bankruptcy of the method from a Christian perspective; nevertheless, Milbank overstretches himself. His rejection of the historical‐critical method results in a hermeneutic that has no place for a biblical text's historical particularity and sense. 1 Because of this, he is left subsuming historic texts into the regula fidei of his philosophical meta‐narrative, whether they fit such a move or not. This is particularly the case with Milbank's treatment of biblical texts, which, it shall be argued, operates as a refusal of history and a refusal of the particularity and alterity of the text. This highlights the need for an historical hermeneutic for Christian biblical interpretation, based on theological presuppositions, which takes the theological value of both historical particularity and the text seriously.     

Emilie du Châtelet on the Existence and Nature of God: An Examination of Her Arguments in Light of Their Sources

Many commentators have suggested that the metaphysical portions of Emilie du Châtelet's Institutions de physique are a mere retelling of Leibniz's views. I argue that a close reading of the text shows that du Châtelet's cosmological argument and discussion of God's nature contains both Lockean and Leibnizian elements. I discuss where she follows Locke in her arguments, what Leibnizian elements she brings in, and how this enables her to avoid some of the mistakes commonly attributed to Locke's formulation of the cosmological argument. I show that while du Châtelet accepts the causal principle ex nihilo nihil fit, she does not utilize Locke's stronger causal principle. I also discuss her use of the principle of sufficient reason in both improving the Lockean cosmological argument and in proving the attributes of God.     

T.F. Torrance on Biblical Interpretation

T.F. Torrance's writing contains an account of theological interpretation of Scripture which is pregnant with insight but which has received little attention to date. Depth exegesis, as Torrance calls his program, takes its cue from a theological understanding of the Bible: the nature of the text determines the interpretive strategies readers should apply to it. Depth exegesis helpfully sketches out key aspects of the reader's situation, depicting the sense in which biblical interpretation is an encounter with God. Nevertheless, Torrance's view gives inadequate attention to the literary and historical side of interpretation and, relatedly, portrays the reader as altogether too passive. In spite of these weaknesses, reflecting on depth exegesis can be fruitful for future discussions of theological interpretation.     

METHODOLOGICAL CHOICES IN KELSEY'S ECCENTRIC EXISTENCE

This article explores the methodological choices that shape David Kelsey's magnum opus Eccentric Existence: A Theological Anthropology (2009). These choices are explicit, and elucidated by Kelsey primarily in the introductory sections of this work. Considered in turn are Kelsey's rejection of a modern, apologetical approach to the theological task, his recovery of a premodern commitment to explaining the logic of beliefs rather than the logic of coming to belief, his explication of theological anthropology through a God‐centered, Trinitarian, understanding of the biblical plot, and his decision to elucidate the human person theologically through an appreciation of the canonical Wisdom literature, which valorizes humanity's created goodness. It concludes by assessing Kelsey's project as an unsystematic systematic theology, a notion he develops as well in his earlier Imagining Redemption (2005).