The statement on Christology could have been so much
more
Witherspoon Issues Analyst Gene TeSelle comments
[10-6-01]
On September 27 the Office of Theology and Worship
issued its response to a request from the 213th General Assembly (pp.
37-38 in the Journal) to
prepare and widely publicize a list of available
materials for study and worship that will help our congregations
better understand the theological richness of the Lordship of Jesus
Christ in The Book of Confessions, Book of Order,
and the Scriptures; the imperfections in our daily responses to God's
calling; and ways in which congregational and individual witness can
be strengthened.
The Assembly's action leads one to expect a document
rather different from the one that has been issued by the Office of
Theology and Worship (affectionately abbreviated TAW). Even the
statement that has been issued by TAW recognizes that
from time to time . . . questions arise in the
church that call for careful articulation of a particular aspect of
Christian faith.
TAW itself recently reprinted a document issued by the
Commission on Theology of the Reformed Church in America (The
Crucified One is Lord: Confessing the Uniqueness of Christ in a
Pluralistic Age, available from PDS as #70-420-00-014), which is
much richer in content. It analyzes Christian imperialism, calls for
Christian humility in asserting what we believe, deals with the
challenges of a post-Christian and "post-modern" world, and
quotes Calvin to the effect that we should not "prescribe a
law" about the extent of God's grace.
But TAW chose not to lead us in a process of
reflection about an important issue. It seems instead to have gone into
the mode of damage control, reasserting only the most obvious statements
of Scripture and the confessions. To be sure, the document does
acknowledge one of the key issues debated during and after the General
Assembly, saying,
Yet we do not presume to limit the sovereign freedom
of God our Savior . . . Thus we neither restrict the grace of God to
those who profess explicit faith in Jesus Christ nor assume that all
people are saved regardless of faith.
That is all. To some this may say too much, to others
too little.
In any case, the document leaves out of consideration
a number of issues raised by Scripture and the confessions themselves.
The 213th General Assembly, which asked for a study by TAW, and the
church at large, which has been aware of significant questions about the
scope of salvation, deserved something better. The TAW document does not
even list any materials other than those that any ordained person,
minister or elder, is presumed to know at the time of ordination. It
does not explore any kind of "richness"; it only draws
boundaries, and in fact narrows them. A proper discussion of these
issues might well be part of the work of the
theological task force that is now being appointed.
There is no question that the Bible has statements
that "there is no other name by which to be saved" (Acts 4:12)
and "no one comes to the Father except through me" (John
14:6). Paul argues that, just as all have died in Adam, so all can be
made alive in Christ (Rom. 5, I Cor. 15). The confessions make the same
kinds of statements, sometimes with the triple formula of election in
eternity, actualization in the cross, and application to believers by
the Holy Spirit (C-6.071, 7.169), sometimes emphasizing that election is
in Christ, by adoption and incorporation into Christ (C-3.08, 5.053,
5.059-60).
But matters are not that simple, either in Scripture
or in the confessions. Let me note some of the issues that are mentioned
and left unexplored in the document, or not mentioned at all.
1. The Church and Israel. TAW's
discussion begins with the opening of the Brief Statement, "the one
triune God, the Holy One of Israel." That in itself should raise
some questions, since there are many in Israel who do not want to speak
of a triune God. It goes on to cite another passage from the Confession
of 1967 which says that Jesus Christ "lived among us to fulfill the
work of reconciliation." Fulfill what work of
reconciliation?
Well, the Book of Confessions fills that out. In its
first few pages readers may be struck by the Scots Confession's mention
of "all the faithful" from Adam on (C-3.04) and the Kirk
"in all ages" starting with Adam (C-3.05). Despite Paul's
antithesis between Adam and Christ, the church from the second century
on was convinced that Adam and Eve were sorry for their sin and received
salvation through the grace and promise of God. The point is made even
more dramatically in the Second Helvetic Confession with the assertion
that our religion is really the oldest religion in the world (C-5.092).
The Confessions are very clear, furthermore, about the
link between Israel and the Church, the Old Testament and the New
Testament.
The Reformed, following Augustine, affirmed that these
constitute "one fellowship, one salvation in one Messiah"
(C-5.129), that there is one covenant in two dispensations (C-6.042).
What this means is that the ceremonial law of Israel, understood to be a
foreshadowing of Christ, functioned in the same way as the Christian
sacraments, as a means of grace for those who believed God's gracious
promises, without knowing the name of Jesus at all.
Could it be, then, that Jews continue to receive the
grace of God -- even the grace of Christ -- through those ceremonies?
The Confessions assume, of course, that the ceremonial law is abrogated
with Christ. But the question has been reopened after the many centuries
of Christian persecution, during which Jews have found it possible to
obey and glorify the God of the Torah and the prophets only by rejecting
the name of Christ that is pressed upon them against their will. Does
God -- today, here and now -- hear the prayers of Jews or not? Please
give more than a diplomatic answer! And whatever your answer is, what
are your reasons? Let's hope they are biblically based and theologically
consistent! You might start with the 1987 document, A Theological
Understanding of the Relationship Between Christians and Jews
(available from PDS as OGA-88-071, $1) and the accompanying study guide
(COK 578746, $7.95).
2. Natural Theology. The TAW document blandly
asserts that faith in God is "more than generalized belief in an
abstract deity" and then goes on to assert that "God is known
to us only through self-disclosure in words and acts of grace, love, and
communion." This looks like a canonization of Barthian theology.
While it is a permissible theological opinion, to assert it as the only
satisfactory Presbyterian position is to be sectarian in the extreme. It
ignores an important dimension of Scripture, the confessions, and
Reformed theology. It also scoffs at questions that are being raised in
our own time with new seriousness.
Paul's speech on the Areopagus makes use of themes
from Greek philosophy, including philosophy's critique of Gentile
religion; this passage emphasizes, more in the mode of "natural
theology" than of revelation, that God is present everywhere.
Romans 1:18-25 and 2:14 similarly suggest that God and God's moral law
can be apprehended by all. It is only fair to add that, in saying that
all are to be judged according to the light they have received, these
passages stress that humanity has not followed that light, with the
result that they are simply deprived of any excuse. In that respect the
light of nature is no different from the Law of Moses when it is treated
in terms of command rather than promise, works rather than grace. Still,
both are said to offer an awareness of God. And that is not the end of
the matter. The Psalms often praise God as manifested in nature. The
Belgic Confession says, almost lyrically, that the world is "before
our eyes like a beautiful book, whose creatures, great and small, serve
as letters helping us contemplate the invisible things of God." The
Confession of 1967, echoing Calvin's famous passage about Scripture as
"spectacles" with which to read the book of nature, affirms
that "the world reflects to the eye of faith the majesty
and mystery of its Creator" (C-9.16).
3. Revelation and Religion. The TAW statement
suggests that "human attempts to imagine the divine nature easily
become reflections of our own desires or fears." At this point the
authors might well have recalled the Confession of 1967, which has a
richly nuanced section on "Revelation and Religion" that owes
much to Karl Barth. It not only says, "The Christian finds
parallels between other religions and his own and must approach all
religions with openness and respect." It goes on to say,
"Repeatedly God has used the insight of non-Christians to challenge
the church to renewal." And then it makes a characteristically
Barthian point: "But the reconciling word of the gospel is God's
judgment upon all forms of religion, including the Christian"
(C-9.42). A bit more humility and self-examination along these lines
would have been salutary, given the importance of interfaith dialogue
and the many criticisms that have been leveled, quite legitimately,
against Christian triumphalism, which too often uses Christian religion
as a defense against God and the gospel.
4. The Means of Salvation. The issue of
salvation only through the name of Christ has had many pastoral
consequences throughout the Christian centuries. Catholics and Lutherans
assumed that the physical act of baptism is necessary for salvation,
while the Reformed condemned this harsh doctrine that sent unbaptized
infants to Hell. The Westminster Confession states that "elect
infants" (not all infants) and "all other elect persons
incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word"
(C-6.066) receive salvation. Notice what is being said here. While the
Catholic tradition assumed that the offer of salvation must be mediated
sensibly by Word and sacrament and be responded to in a personal way,
the Westminster Confession holds open the possibility that the offer
might be unmediated and the reception of saving grace might not involve
naming the name of Christ. This should raise further questions about how
it might happen.
The issue of persons living entirely outside the range
of contact with either Israel or the Church has always been with us, but
it has been unavoidable and increasingly intense ever since the age of
exploration and ongoing contact with previously unknown peoples.
Perhaps the most generous and far-reaching theological
formulation comes from Karl Rahner, who, in keeping with Catholic dogma,
affirms that salvation is always through the grace of Christ, but also
affirms that God's salvific will is universal; therefore he thinks
through the possibility that the grace of Christ is "unthematically"
present with all people, and when they respond to it they become
"anonymous Christians," Christians in fact though not in name,
just as they are saved not by the name of Christ but by the grace
of Christ. In considering how this might happen, Rahner reflects on I
John 2 and 4, where it is emphasized that one cannot love God whom one
has not seen if one does not love one's fellow human beings whom one has
seen. The response to grace may be mediated, then, by our co-humanity
with each other. Rahner suggests that it is possible for people to be
saved "in" other religions; perhaps even "through"
them, insofar as they are responding to the aspects of these religions
that are compatible with the grace of Christ.
The Presbyterian Church is not as far away from these
speculations as some apparently suppose. I have already noted the
Westminster Confession's affirmation that salvation can be offered and
received in a totally unmediated way -- for the elect alone, of course.
But that is not the end of the story. During the negotiations that led
to the reunion with the Cumberland Presbyterians, who rejected
predestination as "fatality," the PCUSA adopted the
Declaratory Statements of 1903. These say that grace is offered to all
human beings, with none of them prohibited from receiving it (C-6.192),
and that all who die in infancy are given salvation (C-6.193). In once
sense this is an extension of the Westminster Confession's confidence
that salvation can be offered even to those who are "incapable of
being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word" (C-6.066); but
it broadens this possibility beyond the elect to all persons and raises
many questions about the manner in which human beings might respond to
this offer of grace. Is their response totally unmediated, as the
Westminster seems to imply? Or is it mediated through our humanity and
co-humanity, as Rahner suggests? Are we to demand that everyone say
"Lord, Lord," in exactly the manner insisted upon by an
aggressive European culture and the arbiters of Presbyterian orthodoxy?
Or are there further insights that still await us?
5. Encounter among Religions. In recent decades
there have been various attempts to deal with the issue of religious
pluralism from a Christian point of view. This inevitably takes the form
of a Christian "theology of religions," trying to deal with
plurality and dialogue from a Christian point of view. Major challenges
have been made by Raimundo Panikkar, John Hick, Paul Knitter, Aloys
Pieris, and most recently Tord Fornberg. Here we are getting into issues
that have not been dealt with in the confessions, issues that
are highly controversial, ready-made for sound-bite theology from the
Presbyterian Right, but issues that have always been important for
missionaries and become increasingly important for all of us as we
encounter people of other religions in our daily life.
TAW could have listed a number of resources that have
already been issued through the Worldwide Ministries Division and the
Office of Ecumenical and Interfaith Relationships, which can be found at
<www.pcusa.org/pcusa/wmd/eir/biblioif.htm>.
Such a list is especially urgent after the events of September 11 and
the need for informed interfaith conversation.
Jesus himself points out that the widow of Zarephath
and Naaman the Syrian received God's favor when many in Israel did not
(Luke 4:25-27), and his own genealogy in Luke mentions Rahab and Ruth,
two non-Israelites. The history of interpretation has thought of others
who lived before and outside the sphere of Israel: Abel, Enoch, the
Queen of Sheba, and so on. The book of Jonah suggests that God's
compassion reaches farther than the prophet wishes, just as Romans 9
argues that God's freedom in election includes the freedom to enlarge
that election.
Jesus praised the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37); and
in his parable of the sheep and the goats the basis on which the nations
are judged is not knowing the judge's name but deeds of mercy. He
promised that many would come from east and west and eat at the same
table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In the Gospel according to John he
says that he has "other sheep who are not of this fold"
(10:16), that he came "to gather into one the dispersed children of
God" (11:52), that when lifted up he would "draw all people to
myself" (12:32). Passages like these suggest at the very least a
reaching beyond boundaries, and perhaps a reaching beyond all known
boundaries.
The Bible offers various explanations of how this is
possible. The "Wisdom literature" suggests that God's Wisdom
(yes, Sophia) is omnipresent, illuminating all people. One reading of
John 1:9 says that the Logos "enlightens everyone coming into the
world." Later in the same gospel it is said that "the Spirit
blows where it will" (John 3:8). Texts like these suggest
revelation or illumination outside the sphere of the Christian message.
In Colossians 1 and Ephesians 1, Christ and even the Church are said to
be the mystery hidden since creation, so that the whole cosmos will
somehow come to be reconciled in them. These passages have inspired a
number of theologians to put forward the "Christocentric"
thesis that all of creation and all human beings, since they exist in
and for Christ, somehow share in that reconciliation.
In recent centuries, however, we have discovered that
other religions do not quickly collapse in the face of the Christian
message, and this fact needs to be taken into account. Approaches to
interreligious dialogue can take various forms.
[You may want to look at a recent essay on the
question of interfaith dialogue
by the Rev. Dr. Aurelia Fule.]
Sometimes, of course, we find the "monistic"
view, associated most closely with some strands of Hinduism, that all
religions lead to the same goal, so that their differences of belief and
practice are not really important.
More frequently, however, we find the attitude that
different religions are in some sense "complementary." But of
course they may not be complementary. Perhaps they are
incompatible with each other, giving contrary answers to similar
questions. Perhaps they are even incommensurate, asking quite different
questions (a point often made about the differences between Christian
and Buddhist understandings of salvation).
Religions are most clearly "complementary"
when they stimulate each other to develop their own internal resources
more fully. A good example is non-violence, which Gandhi learned from
the Christian tradition and developed in Hindu terms, and which then
reentered the Christian world with King and others. The Confession of
1967 says, "Repeatedly God has used the insights of non-Christians
to challenge the church to renewal" (C-9.42). One would certainly
hope that the various religions would try to bring out the best, not the
worst, in each other, just as they want to be judged according to the
best statements and actions of their followers, not the worst. In our
day we often find Christians learning meditation from Hindus or
Buddhists, or Buddhists like Thich Nhat Hanh (who attended Princeton
Theological Seminary, I hear) learning ethical engagement with the world
from Christians.
In our day, some Christians in the non-Western world
think of Christianity as the God-given way of bringing to light what is
present in other religions, playing a sacramental or a servant role.
How, for example, are we to interpret Jesus' parables of light, salt,
mustard seed, and leaven? Perhaps they suggest the conversion of others
and the growth of Christianity. Perhaps they suggest that Christians
will have continued minority status, witnessing to those who remain
outside the Christian fold, testifying against idolatry and immorality
(this is the emphasis of many of the younger churches). Or perhaps they
suggest that even those who have incompatible notions of salvation can
and should work together for the good of the human city, and that one
aspect of the Christian message is to call forth and nourish this kind
of activity wherever we are in the world, since the world's peace, too,
belongs to the work of the city of God.
If, as TAW says, "from time to time . . .
questions arise in the church that call for careful articulation of a
particular aspect of Christian faith," then this is certainly one
area that deserves sustained and prayerful attention, calling for a
"theology of religions" that might be helpful not only
theoretically but practically in dealing with the real-time issues of
our own day.
