Roman Catholic Theology and Biblical Theology?

I'm really excited for this book now, as Levering engages with Tom Wright and Richard Hays. Should be a nice back and forth. I will be very interested to hear a Catholic view of eschatology, as well as their view of the "descent into hell" as I lean that way anyway.

McKnight:

Matthew Levering, a Catholic theologian at Dayton University, examines Christian eschatology in the Catholic tradition but first asks if that theology is biblical (Jesus and the Demise of Death: Resurrection, Afterlife, and the Fate of the Christian, Baylor, 2012). What we also are treated to in this clear and versatile academic book is direct engagement with Tom Wright’s approach to eschatology, especially in his The Resurrection of the Son of God and Surprised by Hope.

In a sentence, the problem can be put this way: Catholic theology is too Platonic to be biblical or Jewish. This is what Levering will put to the test, but first he wants to know if major doctrines are biblical. Is Scripture, to use the words of the Pope, the “soul of theology” or not?

Questions today: Is Catholic eschatology too Platonic? (How so?) And does the pushback against Platonism in Christian eschatology lead too often to an eschatology that is too horizontal and not vertical enough? Or, is the recent trend in scholars like N.T. Wright not Platonic enough?

For the rest, click HERE.

--Nick

Jeff Cook, "C.S. Lewis, Rob Bell & 'Love Wins'"

Nick:

This is something I've been mulling over for a few weeks. I think I agree with most of what Cook says about Bell. I don't see much difference between Bell and Lewis, though there are nuances. Bell seems for more hopeful about God potentially saving all, whereas Lewis had a more pessimistic streak about such things.

McKnight:

This post is by a friend of the Jesus Creed blog; Jeff’s got a strong point to make about Rob Bell’s new book and the seeming culture war at work in the responses. He isn’t suggesting that such a battle is all that is in play, and I’m asking us to give his post a very careful hearing and reading. I’m not enough of a CS Lewis expert to give a definitive answer, though I always have thought the end of The Last Battle went in a universalistic direction. Perhaps we can have some CS Lewis experts speak up today.

 Cook:

Rob Bell, CS Lewis, and the Real Argument at Hand

After a couple of weeks of dialogue it is clear to me that the primary issue in the debate over Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived is not about what Bell is saying, but how he says it.

I suspect many felt poked in the eye by the way Harper and Rob decided to market Love Wins. I suspect Bell intimidates some because he is part of a culture they do not understand and cannot control (that culture is urban, postmodern, and discovers the truth more naturally through questions, sarcasm, and intuition than through the systematic presentations of the top Christian publishing house).

And let’s not kid ourselves, I suspect the fire behind the debate is often about envy and resentment of a very talented man, about our own inability to get a hearing in the public square, and about the fear that new ways of talking about Jesus might trump what some have preached for decades.

These issues are big, but they are not only about doctrine. The issues at hand are about culture and control, about how the theology of emerging Christians will be defined, and about the continuing fight between postmodern and modern expressions of Christianity. This seems clear to me now, for I would like to defend the following claim:

There’s not one controversial idea in Love Wins that is not clearly voiced as a real possibility by the most popular evangelical writer of the last century, CS Lewis. 



Lewis and Bell hint at a number of theological possibilities in their writings that cut against what we might call the majority opinion, including: the possibility that those in hell might journey toward the grace of God after death, the possibility that those who have not heard the name of Jesus might find salvation in and through the image of Christ in their own pagan stories and myths, the possibility that some will eventually receive God’s grace freely after death, the possibility that hell is about bigger things than God’s wrath, the insistence that the metaphors describing what Jesus’ cross accomplishes and how his work is applied to us are culturally subjective, and that some ancient pictures of the atonement may be too confusing to help us right here, right now. All of these lines of thought were in Lewis’s writings before they were in Love Wins.

Let’s look at one example. Though I [Jeff Cook] do not hold the following position (I’m an annihilationist regarding hell), consider how Lewis, like Bell, advances the possibility that those in hell might one day journey toward the grace of God after death. Lewis writes, “I would pay any price to be able to say ‘All will be saved’ but my reason retorts, ‘Without their will, or with it?’” Notice in this and other quotes like it, the salvation of a soul is not dependent on God’s will, but the will of the damned. In the same vein, he wrote, “I believe that if a million chances were likely to do good, they would be given” (The Problem of Pain, 110). This is a confession that God wants to save all and would provide such roads if God thought they’d work.

For the rest, click HERE.

--Nick

C.S. Lewis and "Mere Purgatory"

Anytime Jerry Walls, Scot McKnight and C.S. Lewis factor into a discussion is a good time waiting to happen.

That’s right, C.S. Lewis seemed to have embraced a view Jerry Walls can accurately call “mere purgatory.” (SeePurgatory: The Logic of Total Transformation) For many the logic looks like this: If C.S. Lewis believed it, and if C.S. Lewis is “mere” evangelicalism, then it is justifiable to believe in purgatory. Make no mistake about this logic: many evangelicals have courage to believe things unacceptable to their peers and congregations because they know Lewis believed something similar.

One more time: Do you believe in purgatory? Do you think transformation will be instantaneous or gradual? Is moral (total) transformation required to participate in God’s heaven?

Lewis, of course, was no saint. And neither was he a proper evangelical as we have come to know that term. Not long ago I was with a man who went to University with Lewis, and that man said to me, “We are all surprised that it is C.S. Lewis who has become the darling of evangelicals.” [By the way, those who have read Bonhoeffer's Ethics or his Letters and Papers from Prison often say the same of Bonhoeffer.]

C.S. Lewis, for instance, prayed for the dead (found in hisLetters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer). The standard view is that the dead are sealed — either glorified or damned. Praying for the dead at least implies something can happen to the dead that could change their status, and so his imagined questioner asks if he is bringing in the idea of Purgatory. Here are the words of C.S. Lewis (Walls has this quote; I am copying this from Letters to Malcolm, p. 108):

Well, I suppose I am. Though even in Heaven some perpetual increase of beatitude, reached by a continually more self-surrender, without the possibility of failure but not perhaps without its own ardours and exertions — for delight also has its severities and steep ascents, as loves know — might be supposed. But I won’t press, or guess, that side for the moment. I believe in Purgatory.

Straight from Lewis’ own mouth: he believed in Purgatory. I have no compulsion to say that because Lewis believed it, it is either OK or evangelical. But it is a bit of an instinct for many of us who think Lewis tapped into the core of the Christian faith in his Mere Christianity to give the man a cupped ear, if not at least a nod.

Walls then sketches how Lewis talked about his deceased wife, Joy, in A Grief Observed, and how he connected her to purgatorial sufferings and cleansings. The view was held by Tolkien, Charles Williams, and Dorothy Sayers. Walls makes a case for seeing Lewis’ purgatory flowing naturally from Lewis’ theology. That is, purgatory is not incidental or casual for Lewis.

Lewis, truth be told, was not evangelical in his atonement theory either. We are in a big hole because we are rebels, and to get out we have to lay down our arms — this is what he means by repentance. But we can’t perfectly repent so, in an Anselmian kind of logic, sees Christ as the perfect penitent (I argued this a bit in Jesus Creed in the chapter on John’s baptism). He substitutes for us in that he surrenders perfectly to God. (Walls observes that Lewis wasn’t into a justification worldview.)

Walls quotes from Lewis, the famous one about there being many people in the world who are slowly becoming non-Christians, and some of them are clergymen; there are also many who are slowly becoming Christians, though they don’t know it. In this Lewis is being a virtue ethicist where character is what makes us fit for heaven: that is, we will find ourselves at home in heaven or find ourselves unable to stomach the place. And a higher level of faith, for Lewis, was when the person, well down the road in his or her journey, comes to the disposition that we are unable and that the person trusts Christ to do it all for them. That is, the person becomes Christlike.

And Christ will finish the job. What complicates it is our freedom. We can push Christ away. But the job will not be — cannot be — completed in this life. Which means it is completed postmortem. Lewis does not teach imputation of Christ’s righteousness; but gracious transformation into Christlikeness. Salvation, for Lewis, was participation in the dance of the Trinity.

Purgatory then is natural to Lewis because salvation is about total transformation, and it requires human reception. It will be finished, that’s a given; but when is the issue. For Lewis, since it isn’t finished here, it will be finished there. Ergo, purgatory is an entailment of salvation as transformation.

For Lewis, purgatory is about sanctification/purification (not retribution); it entails the pain of growth into the deeper reality of joy; and Lewis never minimizes human freedom. But it is the work of God: hence, Walls insists this view of purgatory is very much a matter of grace.

OK, time for me to state where I am:

1. Method is of colossal significance here: there is no biblical warrant for purgatory.

2. Walls, in my view, has made a case for a view of purgatory that is compatible with genuine Protestant thinking, though I cannot imagine the monergist or Calvinist would believe in his view of purgatory. But Walls argues the satisfaction models of purgatory are contradictory to Protestant thinking but the sanctification models are not.

3. I believe those who are committed to virtue ethics ought to believe in purgatory.

4. Walls is right in pushing this discussion into human freedom: if perfection is required, and if perfection for the saint is a matter of growth into perfection because it requires freedom, then purgatory is a reasonable (even Protestant) entailment.  Which takes me back to #1 above. How do we frame these sorts of doctrines? What warrants do Scriptures provide?

McKnight/ Jesus Creed, Lewis & Walls

--Nick

Conditional Futurism: New Perspective of End-Times Prophecy, a (not so) brief review

Tackling anything remotely theological these days is no small task. From Mark Driscoll’s “Real Marriage” to Rob Bell’s “Love Wins,” there is always something currently charged in the air within Christendom. And the nature of prophecy as it applies to the future is no less controversial. It deals with the creation of a new interpretive lens and collapses in a culmination at the very gates of Revelation.

Simply put, “Conditional Futurism” is the lens of which prophecy is conditional. Or, rather, that while the word and purpose of the Lord never alters, the outcome of the word of the Lord can vary. Prophecy, according to author James Goetz, is often if not always conditional, and based upon cause and effect.

“If this, then this.”

He cites abundant Scriptures, and often it seems his case is simply to let Scripture stand on it’s own. At the very beginning of the book, Goetz simply quotes God’s words in Jeremiah 18:7-8 which state, “If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned.” See also the story of Jonah and Ninevah for another example.

James realizes that this theme of conditional prophecy is not limited to a few isolated texts. Rather, James begins with Genesis and the Mosaic Covenant and works through the Davidic Dynasty to the Gospels and finally ends up at the always open gates of Revelation. The work is consistently engaging and offers quite a bit of support, always deferring to Scripture and often allowing Scripture to speak on it’s own.

There are some elements that I do think James could’ve engaged with in a stronger fashion. There are several different types of prophecy used throughout Scripture, and for the layman who knows little of the finer points, it would’ve been helpful to include a chapter or section exploring the various methods. Very easily, this could lead to a flattening of typology in various prophetic methods. I am not certain James does indeed flatten said typology, but I do think this is an area that could’ve used greater explanation.

“If I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ but they then turn away from their sin and do what is just and right — if they give back what they took in pledge for a loan, returns what they have stolen, follows the decrees that give life, and do no evil — that person will surely life; they shall not die.” Ezekiel 33:14-15

The single strongest part of the entire book comes in two chapters near the end. The first chapter is an exegetical study on the letters of 1 and 2 Peter, with specific preference placed on the harrowing of hell, or Christ’s descent into hell. Here. James offers multiple interpretive methods, pulling from Aquinas, Gregory of Nyssa, Origen and Augustine. After showing several interpretations, James delves into his perspective on why these passages support postmortem salvation. Not only was postmortem salvation considered a valid option, it was indeed a dominant option within the early church fathers as the Apostles. Sees the Apostles Creed. James concludes this strong section with his belief that Jesus’s descent included the gospel being proclaimed and salvation being offered to all who dwelt in hell. This is the most controversial part of the entire book, and also the most interesting. Though I already had a fairly strong belief in the possibility of postmortem salvation based on my own research, James’ exegesis has swayed me even closer to embracing the view. For modern theologians who propose the harrowing of hell belief, see Jurgen Moltmann’s “Descent into Hell” and Hans Urs von Balthasar’s “Mysterium Paschale.”

Within this chapter includes several far more speculative elements. James touches on the nephilim in Genesis 6:1-8, and his findings are fascinating. James draws from the Book of Enoch and and Scripture, concluding that indeed some fallen angels who disregarded their charge to guard humans and instead married women. He makes this claim that these spirits within Peter were human angelophanies based on the following evidence:

It is consistent with modern and ancient understandings of mammalians reproduction. It is consistent with Numbers 13:31-33, which says that the sons of Anak descended from the nephilim. Their appearance, according to Numbers, was like grasshoppers. This also includes Genesis 6 and the judgments that befell the human race, which makes sense if these beings are indeed human of some sort. This includes the wickedness of both pure human and the offspring. All of the wickedness could include these “spirits.” You also have Hebrews 13:2 which says that some people showed kindness to angels while thinking those angels were human. This seems to be a possibility for the spirits imprisoned and that Christ’s appearance offers conditional salvation. Simply put, I’m not convinced by this, but I do find it compelling enough to do my own research. In fact, I would argue that I am indeed excited to further explore the idea.

“Therefore, your majesty, be pleased to accept my advice: renounce your sins by doing what is right, and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed. It may be that then your prosperity will continue.” Daniel 4:27.

The final chapter deals with judgment and the book of Revelation. This is by far the most complex chapter in the entire book. James begins with his research into the “kings of the earth,” showing the complexity of the phrase throughout. It is used 14 times in the book of Revelation, and it offers multiple perspectives on their meaning. Revelation 1:5 tells use that Christ rules the kings, while Revelation 17:8 tells use that the prostitute instead is their ruler. I’m not of the opinion that Scripture contradicts itself, so we have to be very careful how to interpret everything within this incredibly symbolic book. It is this research that leads James to conclude that the gates of Revelation never close and the kings of the earth are shown entering, and this is consistent with postmortem salvation for those who choose it. I’m not convinced that Revelation teaches the potential postmortem salvation of those outside the gates because of various factors (the second death being one), but it does not strike me as outlandish to believe what James proposes. And his conclusions is gracious enough to allow for future distinction.

Conditional Futurism doesn’t demand postmortem conversion, but it is consistent with it and I believe that James, whether or not he is ultimately successful in his writings, has indeed made it a priority to respect Scripture and maintain a biblically systematic consistency. For a wider case, I recommend Gregory MacDonald’s “The Evangelical Universalist.”

James has kept his personal life uninvolved from the scholarship shown, and for mostly good reason. It is very easy to write off an individual if they proclaim passionately a biblical view one disagrees with. Though this can make for a dry read given how much data is being presented, it does allow the reader to simply wrestle with the data itself and not the passion of the writer. This is entirely subjective, and I believe it worked in a positive manner.

However, in the final chapter after James has worked through objections to postmortem salvation and the kings of the earth, he delves into some brief personal revelations about his past resignation from his ministry due to his belief in postmortem conversions. He gives examples of Carlton Pearson who became an inclusive universalist, which James believes is incapable with conditional futurism as conditional futurism depends solely on Christ for salvation. James also touches on Rob Bell’s “Love Wins,” which he believes is feasible with conditional futurism. James is an exclusivist it seems, and everything from postmortem salvation to universalism must be filtered solely and exclusively through Jesus Christ. Opponents will and should appreciate this exclusive emphasis.

“Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the sovereign Lord. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?” Ezekiel 18:23.

Overall, this book was refreshing. It lacks emotional manipulation and offers countless Scriptures to wrestle with. It offers a unique perspective on the “spirits” in prison, and makes a compelling case for the nature of angelic beings. James’ case for postmortem salvation is strong and I am now confident in openly expressing my support of his conclusions on that topic. I’m not entirely convinced of “conditional futurism” as the lacking elements above show, but I do believe this is a reasonable approach to Scripture and I believe there is room for further dialogue on this topic.

To the conversation here, and to the conversation in the beyond.

4 stars out of 5.

--Nick

Site of review, The Christian Manifesto

--resource publications an imprint of Wipf and Stock publishing--

Easter and the Descent into Hell

My lady wrote this. I found it very interesting.

"In 1 Peter 4:1-6, Christians are called to live for God after Christ’s own model and not like those around them, their lives full of the hope and assurance that they will be vindicated when God judges the living and dead. For this post, some of the exegetical issues influencing the meaning of the text will be focused on in dealing with those already dead and The Universal Scope of Judgment in 4:5-6. . ."

In this last section Peter unfolds the reality of the situation described in vv.2-4. While still on earth, those whose practices were against God were surprised that the Christian renounced such customs and went further out of their way to slander. Jobes observes, “The universal claim to truth was as offensive to first-century Greco-Roman thought as it has become in today’s pluralistic culture.” Also, “The claim, so popular in today’s intellectual milieu, that truth is socially construed opposes ideas of universal truth. When applied to religious thought, it implies that a given religion is true only for those who believe it.” Under this kind of assumption, it is not surprising that those who claim there is objective truth or live at odds with the status quo would face hardship. In response to this setup, Peter tells us that “the living and the dead” will be judged. God’s judgment is universal and not only applicable to the Christian. “The apostle teaches here that no one escapes God’s judgment, which will either acquit or condemn based on response to Christ, the Living Stone or the stumbling stone (2:7-8).”[1] In sum, whatever the human verdict, God’s verdict stands.

To continue, Post-Mortem Conversion?

--Nick