tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8874293.post4905991404298227167..comments2023-10-21T12:02:06.956-04:00Comments on Qere Ketiv: The Atonement and IconicityRVWarrenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02119355195028123284noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8874293.post-88470247192872666652015-11-08T15:39:46.025-05:002015-11-08T15:39:46.025-05:00Shalom, Adon!
Thank you for your response. I’d l...Shalom, Adon!<br /><br />Thank you for your response. I’d love to have coffee some time. I do have an in with the owners, I think, so I’ll buy. I am indeed pondering and am grateful for the points you raise here. Some background on why I wrote what I wrote might be helpful: I am indeed slowly working, again and again, through Romans, based on some reservations I’ve developed about my own understanding of predestination. Particularly, I’ve been working through Muller’s Christ and the Decree to examine its overall place in Reformed theology. Also, I’ve been steadily digesting Doug Campbell’s The Deliverance of God, in which he puts forward a powerful (but not altogether convincing) argument against what he calls “Justification theory” (basically the theology articulated in the Reformed tradition). Musing on both of these, plus my own reading in (particularly Eastern) Fathers has helped spur me in the direction. Other reasons will have to wait until we have a chance to sit down.<br /><br />Also, to explain the title a little bit, I’m working on a larger project of reading the Old Testament as an icon (I’ve published on it on my blog and on another), seeking to get past some of the quagmires I’ve found in either a grammatical-historical or a historical-critical reading. The attempt is to resource a Patristic hermeneutic. It is still in its infancy. As I said, I find the reading to be “extremely revelatory, but also almost impossible to describe in this medium.”<br /><br />I agree that my reading of the Reformers on atonement theology is truncated. I do need to do more there. Something that, maybe, we can discuss is why Calvin is able to “weave the three into a seamless garment,” but contemporary preachers usually seem to focus on PSA (I’m thinking not only of local examples, but also Piper and Driscoll, for example).<br /><br />I’m working further on a way to understand St Paul’s metaphors as adding fullness to each other, so I do realize that one metaphor does not disallow others. I’m less and less convinced, though, that PSA is a major metaphor. It might be how it has been presented to me in preaching. I’ve been told that God the Father sundered the Trinity because of His horror at the Son on the Cross! I do understand that God bears wrath towards sin (one of the major points of Romans is that God condemns sin/death as the oppressor, especially as it has co-opted the Torah) and towards sinners, but I’m not comfortable in saying what PSA traditionally says, that God pours out His wrath on the Son to “satisfy” it (or His justice) because He is unable to forgive without said satisfaction. God does bear wrath (hallelujah!), but I don’t find it in the Scriptures or in Church Tradition to say that He is controlled by it, such that forgiveness and salvation cannot occur without it being “satisfied.” I’d love to hear your thoughts on that.<br /><br />Your point 5 has got me thinking, especially about the end of the 11th chapter: “He consigned all to disobedience that He might have mercy on all.” I’m going to ponder that more. I am certainly still struggling through those first three chapters, which is one of the effects of meditation on Campbell’s work (his suggestion that 1:18-the end of that chapter being St Paul derisively quoting a Judaizing opponent just doesn’t seem to work, in my estimation). You would be interested, though, I think, in his detailed examination of 3:21-26: very compelling and illuminating.<br /><br />Thanks, again, for responding. I look forward to talking soon.<br /><br />Rashi<br />RVWarrenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02119355195028123284noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8874293.post-53203857252390684752015-11-03T20:23:53.275-05:002015-11-03T20:23:53.275-05:00Shalom, Rashi.
(Hello, Russ)
I'd say about 60...Shalom, Rashi.<br />(Hello, Russ)<br /><br />I'd say about 60% of your post is true, another 25% is unclear, and another 15% is unhelpful, or even dead wrong. <br /><br />1. First, your characterization of Reformed Theology on the question of the atonement is truncated. Reformed theology, following Calvin, Book II of the Institutes, asserts all three classic models of the Atonement. Namely, Christus Victor, associated with many of the Patristics; Penal Substitution, associated with Anselm; and what Gustav Aulen called the "Exemplarist" view, associated with Abelard. <br /><br />Calvin weaves the three into a seamless garment. <br /><br />2. Second, your suggestion that rooting the atonement in the Exodus trumps penal substitution overlooks the fact that the exegesis of these crucial texts by Reformed interpreters has long made use of the Exodus motif, just as the patristic writers did. The use of one set of images or metaphors does not disallow the use of other, different images and metaphors, or even the same metaphor in very different ways. Witness the weird variety of the Bible's uses of "yeast" metaphors. The fact that "redemption" is one of St. Paul's terms for the effect of the atonement points every responsible interpreter to the OT prototype of redemption, the Exodus, as does Luke in his Transfiguration account (9:31—"departure" in the English versions translates "exodus" in Luke's Greek). True. Crucial even (pardon the Latin pun). But also . . .<br /><br />3. In the NT, the effect of the Atonement is manifestly manifold: "Ransom, Redemption, Reconciliation, Propitiation, Liberation, Transfer, Justification, Sonship/Adoption, (definitive) sanctity," and more. Each of these bears its own background metaphor, rooted in the Old Testament. <br /><br />4. In the Exodus/Liberation motif, the wrath is indeed against the oppressor, whether Pharaoh, defeated by Yahweh's agent, Moses, and the miraculous signs given him; or diabolical powers defeated by Christ in his cross and resurrection (Colossians 2:15!). But the biblical witness about a rightly terrifying divine wrath against sin and against sinners is abundant. Do I really need to cite the texts?<br /><br />5. Your suggestion about the argument of the epistle to the Romans, it seems to me, seriously misses the point of the first three chapters: "That every mouth may be silenced [so far, oddly, the effect of the Torah], and the whole world held accountable to God." Jews and Gentiles alike, Torah-taught, or bereft of all Torah. That's Romans 3:19. That sentence sums up the argument of the epistle up to that very point: that "all alike are under the power of sin," (3:9) Gentiles (1:18ff) and Jews (2:17ff) alike, sinners one and sinners all. <br /><br />6. Romans 1:18-3:8 thus provides the basis for the gospel cure, a cure desperately needed by the entirety of the race, as announced in 3:21-31—a text about "propitiation through Christ's blood," received "by faith," and resulting in "justification," that is, the gift from the righteous God of right status with the Father, granted to all believers (so, NT Wright), which liberates them from sin's slavery and lethal power (yes, that old chestnut we find along the "Roman Road to Salvation," Romans 6:23). <br /><br />I think, in all this, you're pondering more than asserting. So, I'll invite you to ponder some more (I know you will), perhaps even in light of the points I've briefly made here.<br /><br />Maybe a fine conversation over some BFCaT coffee? <br />I like "Conquest of Canaan" and "Promised Land."<br />I'm buyin'.<br /><br />Warm regards, friend,<br /><br />ByronByron G. Curtishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06358205818264389649noreply@blogger.com