Natural theology? (Daniel Kirk/Barth)

Daniel Kirk is reading Barth, and here is what he (Kirk) has to say about natural theology. (Click here for the entire post by Kirk).

And that’s at the heart of Barth’s point: God of Israel.

In order for God to be known, God must be known as God has bound himself to a particular people and a particular act of salvation. There is no idea of “God in general,” no abstracted knowledge of what a god is like that is simply true of our God because it’s true of some hypothetical being. God is known as God truly is, and that is tied to a particular revelation.

The God whom the Psalmists know is the God of Israel, the Lord of the Exodus and of the wandering in the wilderness, the Giver of the Law, the Hope of David, His wisdom , His power, His goodness, His righteousness, originally and conclusively this God alone. (Dogmatics §26.1, p. 109)

To me, the most interesting moments in this section were Barth’s wrestling matches with the apparent biblical counter-evidence.

Why does Acts 17 not establish the viability and significance of the “point of contact” for reaching new people? Because it is when he brings in the identity of the unknown God as the one who has raised Jesus and will judge the world–i.e., what is revealed of God in Christ–that Paul is mocked and rejected. Is this really an invitation to hold onto “in roads” for the gospel where people are ignorant in their so-called “knowledge”?

There are unanswered exegetical questions, but in this section we see the genius and consistency of Barth as he demands that the revelation of God always be a true disclosing of the true God–something unavailable to fallen human beings unless it come to us by grace.

Natural theology? No. Only theology of the revelation of God in Christ.

Do you agree with Daniel Kirk?

Something from C Kavin Rowe's World Upside Down

I am reading C Kavin Rowe's World Upside Down (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). There is a lot of good stuff. (But I have to admit that I am no expert on Acts, which is what the book focuses on.)

The title of chapter 2 is "Collision: Explicating Divine Identity". It examines the following:

Acts 14: Paul and Barnabas - Hermes and Zeus
Acts 16: Power at Philippi
Acts 17: Athens
Acts 19: Ephesus

I think it is a fascinating chapter. It talks about the collision between Christianity and Paul's audience in different cities. Here are some excerpts from the conclusion of the chapter (on pages 50, 51).

"This collision, however, is not due to the missionaries' lack of tact (though they were doubtless bold) or to a pagan propensity for rash violence...; rather, its deeper basis rests ultimately in the theological affirmation of the break between God and the cosmos. For to affirm that God has 'created heaven and earth' is, in Luke's narrative, simultaneously to name the entire complex of pagan religiousness as idolatry and, thus, to assign to such religiousness the character of ignorance."

"Ancient religion, that is to say, is a pattern of practices and beliefs inextricably interwoven with the fabric of ancient culture. Religion is not, however, just part of this fabric, ultimately passive and controlled by other more basic influences such as politics and economics, for economics. Rather, religion is also constitutive of culture; it helps to construct the cultural fabric itself."

"In short, religion and culture are inseparable, and the difference in the perception of divine identity amounts to nothing less than a different way of life."

To me, this last sentence says a lot. To be followers of Jesus is about a different way of life. We can't speak of "believing in Jesus" without following his way of life - a new culture and a new way of living that centres around Christ and the cross. I think the above from Rowe's book has several other implications to the church today.

• Do we engage in mission as if culture and religion are inseparable? If we do, then we can't be effective. Indeed we can make a lot of mistakes.
• What is the relationship between our faith and our own culture? Does our faith transform the culture in which we live? Or is our faith actually influenced by the culture of the world so much so that the world cannot see any difference between us and them? (For example, are we just as materialistic and the world in affluent West?)

More questions can be asked. But I will leave it there.

Kavin Rowe's book: World Upside Down

I really want to buy C. Kavin Rowe's book World Upside Down: Reading Acts in the Graeco-Roman Age.

I managed to find a few quotes from Daniel Kirk's blog post. (Click here for the post.) Here they are.

“To see the potential of the Christian mission for cultural demise is to read it rightly. Indeed, this is but the flip side of the reality that God’s identity receives new cultural explication in the formation of a community whose moral or metaphysical order requires and alternative way of life” (146).

"In Luke’s telling of the story, the formation of alternative communities, with alternative cultures, is inseparable from the reality of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead to be lord over all. Moreover, the existence of such communities, with their alternative forms of life, become the context within which the truth can be spoken and known. Thus, the Christian claims are “madness”–but only to those without eyes to see." (161-162)

“Acts narrates the life of the Christian mission as the embodied pattern of Jesus’s own life… Put succinctly, according to Acts, the missio Dei has a christological norm” (173).