The Journey Home

March 20, 2006

Here is an account of a Lutheran minister (LCMS) who recently converted to Orthodoxy.

I (and my wife) were born into Lutheran homes, and we were baptized as infants in the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Both of our families were active in their Lutheran congregations, and both of us were raised in “traditional” Lutheran homes.

At the age of about 13, when I was confirmed, my pastor suggested that I consider becoming a Lutheran pastor. I’d never even though of this before. My education began in High School, continued through Junior College and Senior College, and culminated with four years at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. I left the seminary in April of 1972, and was ordained in that month. Karon and I were married in 1968, and our daughter Tracey was born in 1972, son David was born in 1976, both in Cedar Rapids Iowa.

As a Lutheran pastor, I served parishes in Mt. Vernon, Iowa, Troy, Michigan, and finally in Glen Carbon, Illinois. The first and last parishes were “traditional,” in that the Lutheran Liturgy was followed, and Christian growth and training was based the Small Catechism of Dr. Martin Luther and the Lutheran Confessions. The church in Troy, Michigan followed “church growth” techniques of various protestant groups and abandoned even the historic liturgy and teaching of the Lutheran Church.

In the last two decades of my ministry and life as a Lutheran, I was very much concerned that the “deposit of truth” be maintained. My parish in Glen Carbon was liturgical and celebrated Eucharist every Sunday and on feast days. I offered Confession and Absolution, although not many received this. I encouraged daily disciplined prayer, and as I grew in my understanding of the Fathers, encouraged reading and studying them.
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Posted by Perry Robinson

Stop and Think

March 11, 2006

“In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.” Matt 15:9

Here continues my fracas with Steve Hays. His comments to which I am responding can be found here http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/03/monadic-theology.html

Hays’ framing of the issue is dismissive. He doesn’t really know Orthodox theology, so he has to discuss it on his own terms. Because he doesn’t know it, he can’t perform a genuine internal critique of it. This is because Hays lives in the intellectual ghetto of American Calvinism, which doesn’t read outside its own circles except for polemical purposes and then only by snippets.

The way Hays frames the two methodologies is dismissive because it assumes that the Orthodox don’t read the Bible. As if the reason for the differences between the Orthodox and Protestants was just due to a lack of Bible reading on the part of the Orthodox theologians but this is just false. Orthodox theologians have been composing and writing commentaries on Scripture long before Protestants ever existed (and they continue to do so though most todday aren’t in English because most Orthodox theologians are not nature English speakers). And many of my own views are based on their exegesis. Hays may not agree with the exegesis of say John Chrysostom or Maximus the Confessor, but that is beside the point. The point is that the way that Hays frames the Orthodox position is just false.

Perhaps Hays thinks that I don’t engage in exegesis or don’t think that I can ground my beliefs by exegesis or at least make an attempt to do so. Perhaps he should actually read what I have written on my blog and elsewhere, where do I just that. http://www.energeticprocession.com/archives/2006/03/on_god_and_pot.html
http://www.energeticprocession.com/archives/2006/01/the_rest_of_god.html

In a lot of my own casual writing on the internet I don’t cite chapter and verse. This is because I don’t think that there is any theory neutral exegetical practice to engage in that is commensurable across theological paradigms. To toss passages back and forth is akin to a theist and an atheist tossing brute facts back and forth, where each interprets them according to his own philosophical commitments. What is sufficient to defeat a specific exegesis which is relative to core commitments is an internal critique and not some rival exegesis. Any model can admit any contrary fact, it just depends on how much one wishes to give up or modify the model. Consequently I am not a fan of the “See-Jesus-Run” hermeneutic that Hays seems to adhere to. I don’t think you have to have an explicit reference or a clear and necessary inference in the case of implicit passages. Many of the messianic prophecies for example won’t yield an Orthodox interpretation on the basis of grammatical considerations and logical inferences alone. This is why the singular emphasis on “exegesis” by Hays is wrongheaded. And when Hays uses “exegesis” he has in mind, or at least seems to, a specific tradition of exegesis. But so far, I haven’t seen a good reason from him as to why I am bound by his traditions.
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7 Comments | Biblical Exegesis, Calvinism, Free Will, Predestination | Permalink
Posted by Perry Robinson

The Bickersons

March 10, 2006

Continuing the spat with Steve Hays from,

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/03/esse-is-percipi.html

Even if Augustine adapts the notion of the divine ideas or logoi to suit his theological purposes, this is irrelevant to my point. The concept is still Platonic. Moreover, while it is true that say Plato synthesizes ideas from Heracleitus, Parmenides, and Pythagoras, it doesn’t follow from that, that it is not possible to state that his views are Platonic. The putting forth of the notion of the divine ideas is still a product of Platonism, even if it has a longer genealogy. Otherwise we would be left with the stupid idea that no attribution of source or origin could ever be made because there is always some further source behind that one.

I don’t recall any scriptural demonstration of the notion of the divine ideas. Perhaps you could post a link.

Granted that Augustine also has the Bible and his hermeneutics are by and large Platonic as well. Compare On Christian Doctrine with Republic, bks 2-3. His philosophical views guide and frame his exegesis of Scripture. The philosophical comes first for Augustine and Scripture after since it is by philosophical reflection that he arrives at the belief in the Good and then identifies the Good with God and then the God of Scripture. See the Confessions 6-8, De Trinitate 1-6.

Moreover, his collapsing of Nous into the One isn’t motivated by Scripture so your reference to Scripture in this instance is irrelevant. And your own view does at least appear to track Augustine’s because, as you have written else where you speak of God as being “mind.” Whether you diverge from Augustine on later points is irrelevant since your view would still count as a species of Neoplatonic philosophical theology.

I didn’t refer to “this or that” Reformed theologian. I referred to representative theologians of an entire tradition. The tradition as a whole subscribes to absolute divine simplicity and it usually cashes it out following either Aquinas or Scotus. Perhaps I made the mistake of thinking that since you identified yourself as “Reformed” that citing representative theologians as testifying to the position of the Reformed tradition would carry weight with your or that you subscribed to the position in question. I will make sure when we discuss the Trinity, the Hypostatic Union, or any of the Solas for example, so as not to presume on the basis of what the Reformed tradition teaches that you subscribe to it until such time as you proffer a individual doctrinal statement. (An individual doctrinal statement-imagine that for a Baptist!)
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Posted by Perry Robinson

Spit, Spat

March 8, 2006

Here is my part of an exchange with Calvinist Steve Hays. Hays’ comments can be found http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/03/tightening-nous.html

No, I am stating a historical fact, which is why I gave the historical reference. Augustine picks up his Christianized Platonism via Marius Victorinus largely. The earlier stage in reference to Augustine distinguishes the One, Nous and Life. Augustine collapses the first two hypostases (which is the fundamental basis for the Filioque). That is just a fact. Read Bonner, Testke, or any other major Augustinian scholar on the point. Nous and the One identified for Augustine which is why writes that God is “absolutely simple” and why God is identified with being. In middle and late Platonism, the One was beyond being or hyper-ousia, following Plato’s lead at Republic 509b, while Nous was at the level of being. (De Trinitate 5.2)

Plato admits of more than three domains, since Life or Soul is included, which is neither mind nor matter nor an abstract universal. And the Forms are not abstract objects. Plato is very clear, they are powers. Abstract entities do nothing, but the Forms are active-they produce things in the world. As for Matter, matter for Plato and middle and late Platonists has no existence properly speaking. To be is to be one and matter is not one in any sense. Therefore matter has no existence. Bodies come to be when the forms act on matter by imposing unity through their specific characteristic.

In any case, your appeal to the divine ideas is still a relic of middle and late Platonism. You can find it in Proclus, Porphyry, Plotinus, and a host of others. The divine ideas are the objects of non-discursive Intellect or Nous. This is why Nous is plural metaphysically because thought requires a plurality of objects, though not necessarily considered discurssively, which is what takes place at the level of Soul. This is why Nous is produced by the One.

Since Platonism came in lots of varieties, Augustine move isn’t especially unique since other Platonists made the same move before him and after him apart from any influence from him.

Plotinus thought of the Christians as Gnostics and he doesn’t spare any effort in arguing against them. To argue for cross pollination isn’t very plausible with Plotinus. Moreover, many of the same doctrines that Plotinus puts forward are made by earlier Platonists who weren’t or couldn’t be influenced by Christian theology. Cross pollination by and large comes latter when Damascius, aka Ps. Dionysius, converts to Christianity.

The problem is that you are thinking of Platonism as a static position, rather than a family of views that develop over time. Even if true that Augustine’s identification of Nous with the One furnishes him with metaphysical resources unavailable to Plato, it doesn’t follow that Augustines move is not Platonic or isn’t also made by middle and late Platonists before, during and after Augustine.

FYI, I am Perry. Duh.

I have already stated some of the problems with ADS, but you seem not to grasp them. The doctrine of ADS is not scholastic and the scholastics didn’t have one monolithic view of the matter. If you think so you need to read some Aquinas and Scotus. ADS is Augustinian, or more specifically Platonic, coming up through Origen to Augustine. The Reformed generally endorse either a Thomistic or Scotistic. Compare Turretin with Hodge for example. Turretin is Thomistic and Hodge Scotistic. Muller has a decent discussion of it in vol.3 of Post Reformation Reformed dogmatics. So just because you aren’t committed to one specific gloss on Augustine’s doctrine of ADS, doesn’t mean you aren’t committed to the view. Go back through your own archives-
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2005/07/why-im-not-cramptonian.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2005/08/van-tils-serious-trinitarian-theology.html

It’s pretty obvious that you’re committed to the Platonic doctrine of ADS.
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Posted by Perry Robinson

On God and Pot

March 5, 2006

“When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.” Genesis 15:17

No, not that kind of pot, but this is surely a strange text. Does God appear as a fire pot? Certainly nothing is beyond God’s power but the verse seems strange nonetheless. How are we to make sense of this passage?

It is not uncommon to attempt to exegete the passage by means of the following argument.

1. If we take the literal reading of X passage, we end up with absurdities and attributing improper things to God. (If P, then Q)
2. But we cannot believe absurdities and attribute improper things to God, (Not Q)
3. Therefore we cannot take the literal reading of X passage. (Not P)

The worry here is that taking the passage in a straightforward way commits us to believing all kinds of silly things, namely that God is a pot. But God can’t be literal fire and most certainly not a flaming pot. Consequently we have to re-interpret the passage along allegorical lines.

This move has a long history. One of its most explicit advocates can be found in Plato. In the Republic, Plato argues that since the gods are good, they can never give off a false appearance. If the goods could, this would mean that they were not fully good but a mixture of good and something else, namely its opposite, the bad. But since the gods are fully good, they cannot give off a false appearance. Therefore, any text that attributes something bad to the gods must be edited or interpreted as allegorical.

Such passages then are routinely interpreted as symbols or temporary created manifestations of God. When God appears in the burning bush to Moses or as a flaming pot to Abram, they are a divine “sound and light” show. The problem with this argument is not that it is an argument but that it isn’t a positive exegesis of the passage. It functions as a philosophical grid to guide exegesis but is itself not an exegesis of the passage.

I argue that while the above argument is valid, it is unsound and that therefore I deny that a literal reading of the passage implies an absurdity.
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Posted by Perry Robinson