"Ontological thirst": my new favourite phrase

While perusing the fascinating collection of essays contained in Resurrection: Theological and Scientific Assessments, I came across what has now become one of my favourite phrases: "ontological thirst." We all have it, though I wonder how many theories of "theological hermeneutics" are constructed in denial of that fact?

The context of the quote is the relation between science and theology, rather than theological hermeneutics, thought I do think that Welker's essay has hermeneutical implications (for the relationship between "history" and "ontology" go here and here).

Here's the context for the phrase:

Only knowledge of reality constitutes truth, and only truth can quench the thirst that leads to research. ... The point of departure [for scientists and theologians] is difficult. We recognize ... that we find ourselves in a worldwide cultural communication but with multiple rationalities. .. Within this pluralism of rationalities, however, science and theology share something in common. Both are driven by ontological thirst, by the thirst to know reality as it is. Both shun delusion. Both are pursued by truth-seeking communities." (Resurrection, p. xiii).

An Abstract of my doctoral thesis on Ps 24

The following is an abstract of my doctoral thesis on Ps 24 which Susan Gillingham has kindly offered to publish at the forthcoming Oxford Conference on the Psalms. It focusses on the exegetical dimension, leaving aside the hermeneutical and dogmatic parts of my doctorate. I'd appreciate feedback and questions (and bear in mind that the content of this blog is copyright):

My thesis is an attempt to read Ps 24 in the context of B.S. Childs' “canonical approach,” rightly understood. The first half outlines the coherence of his approach, which is not a method but a comprehensive construal of the particular nature of Israel's religious traditions that factors in the ontological reality its God. 


Turning to Ps 24, I argue that it is a poetically structured reworking of prior authoritative traditions with the goal of constraining future reception of those traditions, accomplished dialectically in the context of Israel's broader theological heritage, with the goal of witnessing to the true theological substance of that heritage. In particular, I argue that Ps 24 attempts to penetrate to the heart of God's ways in the world by drawing on Israel's core traditions of creation, Sinai/Zion, holy war, and the Davidic king and by subtly structuring their interrelations. 


The interpretive crux is the poetic juxtaposition of two portrayals of character: the obedient character of those who may access the fullness of creational life within the temple on Zion, accrued upon completion of the journey of pilgrimage, and the character of the author and guarantor of this life, the Lord, presented as a mighty warrior, about to enter into that very same location. The juxtaposition entails a subtle poetic movement of “actualization,” enacted within the protological/eschatological horizon of creation, whereby the Lord appears to accomplish what is only a possibility for Jacob. The significance of this juxtaposition, however, remains vague at the level of the Psalm alone. An account of Israel's cult along with a “theology of the Psalter” proves the paradigmatic centrality of Ps 24's themes to Biblical faith and strengthens the sense of their interconnectedness, yet it does not resolve the significance of their poetic presentation. 


A significant hermeneutical key is provided by the “canonical marker” לדוד, which asks us to read the Psalm in relation to the theological persona of David, a hermeneutical construct within the Psalter that takes its cue from the Book of Samuel. In Samuel we find that the context that constitutes David's identity mirrors the structure and content of Ps 24. On the one hand, David is an historically particular free agent who, out of love for God and Israel, acts on Israel's and his own behalf in obedience to torah in order to bring it and himself, through battle, to full creational blessing on Zion (2 Sam 6-8). On the other hand, David's story is embedded in a broader eschatological narrative in which David is a vehicle of the true agent of history, the Lord, who similarly acts in order to bring about his own purpose of divine communion with his righteous people in full creational blessing on Zion. As Ps 24 implies, God, through David, is the true subject of Israel's redemption in Zion, though not without its obedience. Given the persistent presence of disobedience, this fulfilment in time remains proleptic and the ancient cycle of Israel's struggle for life and divine judgement/redemption is perpetuated. This same dialectical pattern applies to the “David of the Psalter” whereby, on the one hand, “David” struggles for his own and Israel's life and witnesses to the Lord's intervention in judgement/salvation and, on the other hand, this cycle is situated within the ultimate context of divine reality. 


Ps 24's paradigmatic nature and hermeneutical function for Biblical faith becomes clearer when it is read as the frame and climax of the chiastically structured sub-collection of Pss 15-24. As part of the frame (Pss 15 and 19), it functions to set the remaining Psalms within the context of base realities: obedience to torah for the sake of creation. As the climax of the collection, understood as a series of intensifying parallelisms, it depicts the fulfilment of that reality with an arrival in Zion/new creation itself, albeit an arrival by the Lord with Jacob apparently in his train. 


A final clarification is provided by the Book of Isaiah, itself related to the Psalter, which deals with the persistent problem of Israel's disobedience by reconstituting it by means of the “Servant,” the “father” of 3^rd Isaiah's redeemed “servants.” Thus, similar to 2 Sam 7 and in line with the dialectic of Ps 24, the Lord's creation intentions come to fruition in Zion upon the entry of a newly constituted Jacob, created and led by the Lord. Like Ps 24, however, Isaiah closes with the Lord still poised before the gates, leaving the consummation of Israel's pilgrimage open to the future. 


Finally, in an attempt to clarify the Psalm's theological subject matter in its “economic” and “ontological” dimensions, this reading of Ps 24 is brought into dialogue with patristic and rabbinic exegesis, Jenson's Trinitarian metaphysic of heaven and Farrow's treatment of the Ascension

Thread summary: The dialectical nature of Biblical history

The following posts constitute the final leg of my "mega-thread" on theological interpretation.

1. The significance of history for the Bible

2. Childs on the "dialectical" nature of the Biblical view of history

3. Doing exegetical justice to Israel's view of history

Doing exegetical justice to Israel's view of history

Brevard Childs claims that the Biblical view of history is constituted by a dialectical tension between empirical history and God's unique action in history (see my post The dialectical nature of Biblical history for details). Once this is recognized, what are the implications for exegesis? In his Biblical Theology (pp. 100-101), Childs suggests the following four avenues:

1. Israel's history reflects both an inner and an outer dimension, i.e. there is both confessional witness and common public testimony. The contrast lies in viewing history from Israel's confessional stance, from within a community of faith, rather than from a neutral, phenomenological reconstruction. Nevertheless, the relation between the two is subtle, as neither perspective functions as a hermetically sealed system which functions in absolute independence from the other. The theological challenge is to exegete the passages in such a way as “to avoid rationalistic assumptions of a common reality behind all religious expression or the threat of super-naturalism which would deny in principle any relation between an outer and inner side of historical events.”

2. Israel's history involves both divine and human agency. The biblical witness to divine intervention in time and space is threatened if a historical methodology interprets such formulations as merely literary conventions which must be made to conform to the general laws of historical causality. However, the Bible reflects a great variety of relationships between the human and divine which spans a spectrum from closest interaction to harshest discontinuity. The exegetical challenge is "to do justice to the different dimensions of textual intensity (Dichtigkeitsgrad) without being trapped into rigid philosophical systems of historical causality."

3. Israel's history is construed within the Old Testament as oscillating between the past, present and future. The methodological challenge is to avoid a theological move “which would objectify Israel's history into a separate sphere of Heilsgeschichte which functions independently of all common experience. Conversely it is not helpful to flatten Israel's special historical experiences into general chronological patterns which have been reconstituted from extra biblical sources.”

4. Israel's history is depicted within the Old Testament in terms of foreground and background, i.e. there is conscious selection. One must learn to do justice to to Israel's peculiar assigning of significance to certain events and situations while denigrating others. The challenge is to avoid the arrogance of correcting Israel's judgement on the assumption of modern critical superiority while maintaining a sophisticated historical sensitivity which can "adjudicate the just claims arising from two sides of this genuine dialectical tension."

Childs on the "dialectical" nature of the Biblical view of history

In his overview of the Christian exegetical tradition, Brevard Childs notes that an intense interest in the nature of history has been an enduring characteristic of the Christian interpretation of the Bible from its inception (2004:317). This is hardly surprising when one considers the central role of historical events in both biblical testaments (see Childs' comments here). How, then, does the Bible itself present history?

Childs claims that a tension is expressed between ordinary and divine events, between an "inner" and "outer" dimension, or between a "confessional" and "secular" perception. According to Childs, within the Bible the relation between these two dimensions of history is “dialectical”, summarized as the tension between empirical history and God's unique action in history. The dialectic is such that the two dimensions cannot be fused, and yet they cannot be separated either. It is thus appropriate that throughout its exegetical history the Church has, on the one hand, committed itself to both dimensions of this reality, yet on the other hand, she has never reached a consensus on the relation of the two. The problem this tension posed for the Church was exacerbated with the advent of the Enlightenment, which fundamentally questioned the directness of the relation between textual account and historical event.

Childs is critical of both Conservative and Liberal reactions to this problem. For Childs, the Conservative position is historically untenable and blunts theological issues, whereas the Liberals are forced to adopt some form of a philosophical system, such as idealism, existentialism, or social functionalism, in order to escape radical religious relativism. In light of this quandary, Childs has attempted to provide a new approach which attempts

to do justice to the theological integrity of Israel's witness while at the same time freely acknowledging the complexities of human knowledge and the serious challenge of modernity to any claims of divine revelation (Biblical Theology, 99).

I will summarize his proposal in my next post.

Quote of the Day: The significance of history for the Bible

Today's post is a quote from my favourite Old Testament scholar, Brevard Childs, on the significance of "history" for the Biblical world view. It's purpose is to introduce a new thread looking at the nature of history from a Biblical perspective (Childs' calls it "dialectical," though note the scare-quotes) as well as the hermeneutical implications this view has for Biblical exegesis.

Before I post the quote I'd like to point out that I am aware of how problematic the phrase "Biblical world view" has become, what with the (post-)modern emphasis on particularity and multiplicity (I almost got sick of that word in my anthropological studies, almost ...) . I think this diversity is important, so if you are aware of places in the Bible which contradict Childs' general statement here, then please do point them out to me.

Here's the quote:

It seems to be an incontestable observation that the Hebrew scriptures bear testimony to God's redemption and preservation of historical Israel. The witnesses of Moses and the prophets, of the psalmists and sages, all arose within Israel's history and relate in various ways to it. Moreover, when these witnesses were collected into a scripture, Israel's story of faith was largely preserved in a historical sequence (Genesis through Ezra) along with a variety of 'commentary' (Psalms, Prophets, Wisdom) (Biblical Theology, 97).

The next post in the thread will touch on the nature of this history (i.e. it's "dialecticalness").

[P.S. This thread is the last in my rather large "über-thread" on theological exegesis]

'Historicity' at the core of the Gospel?

the Bible makes numerous claims - explicitly and implicitly - concerning the factuality of the events it records. At that most fundamental level, at the central core of Christian beliefs, is the fact that Christ did indeed die for the sins of humanity and then rose from the grave in a great victory over death. This forms the ground and basis of our faith. [*]

This quote is taken from a conservative Evangelical and I affirm it. In the realm of exegesis, however, it often leads to the need to interpret every Biblical story as having happened exactly as it is portrayed. As one Evangelical Introduction to the Old Testament asks: "If Jericho was not razed, is my faith in vain?"

I don't want to answer this question here, simply because I am, at present, unable to. However, I would like to ask whether the category of "history" is as self-evident as we assume, and whether it truly does justice to "the core of Christian beliefs," as Howard put it. As I read Douglas Farrow's fascinating book, Ascension and Ecclesia: On the Significance of the Doctrine of the Ascension for Ecclesiology and Christian Cosmology, I'm learning that historical events that constituted Jesus' life and mission did not just take place within history, they also transformed it. This is particularly the case with the ascension, which was "the act in which the link between our fallen world and the new creation was fully forged" (p. 39). This act has all kinds of metaphysical/cosmological consquences, consequences which lie at the heart of the Christian kerygma and thus should also be considered as being part of "the central core of Christian beliefs." In short, the Gospel does just redeem me, it redeems the very dimensions of time and space themselves. Paul Minear has made similar observations in relation to other events of the kerygma in his excellent book The Bible and the Historian (which I have posted on a number of times).

In short, though we need to say with St. Paul that "if Christ is not raised, we have believed in vain," we also need to bare in mind Paul's struggle with the ontological implications of this event. The whole of reality itself has been re-arranged around the human Christ, enthroned at the right hand of the Father. And in the light of these implications, we ought to re-evaluate once more just what it means for the Biblical narratives to be "historical," to have literally happened just as they are written. Ultimately, Scripture does not just witness to God's "mighty acts in history," (à la G. Ernest Wright) is also witnesses to his new reality, proleptically tasted in the present as the hors-d'oeuvre of the coming kingdom. Hermeneutically, that implies a vertical and not just a horizontal dimension to exegesis (see Childs' critique of the Tübingen school of Biblical Theology in Biblical Theology, 77. See also my post, The need for ontological categories in Biblical exegesis). The challenge lies in finding the correct balance between the two.

I think, by the way, that Hans Frei was touching on this too, in his response to criticism coming from Evangelicals that his narrative theology had no interest in "historical fact":

Even if I say that history if first of all the facts—and I do have a healthy respect for evidence—I come across something else. Is Jesus Christ (and here I come to the problem of miracle) a “fact” like other historical facts? Should I really say that the eternal Word made flesh, that is, made fact indeed, is a fact like any other? I can talk about “Jesus” that way, but can I talk about the eternal Word made flesh in him that way? I don't think so, just as I don't think that I can say “God created the world” and mean by that a factual referent like any other. ... Once again, yes, “Jesus” refers, as does any ordinary name, but “Jesus Christ” in scriptural witness does not refer ordinarily; or rather, it refers ordinarily only by the miracle of grace. And that means that I do not know the manner in which it refers, only that the ordinary language in which it is cast will miraculously suffice. It is historical reference (to use our cultural category) but it is not historical reference in the ordinary way: nor of course is it metaphor. [**]

[*] Howard, 1993: 35.
[**] Frei, "Response to 'Narrative Theology: An Evangelical Appraisal," in
Theology and Narrative (eds. G. Hunsinger; W. Placher; Oxford: Oxford Uni. Press, 1993), 211-212.

Update: I feel that Halden's two recent posts - Theology, Speech, and Silence and God's Incomprehensibility and Trinitarian Exploration - speak to this issue too, though in a thoroughly different manner.

Quote of the day: Revelation in law and history

[I]n the Old Testament God reveals himself neither in history nor in law in some general sense, but in his special covenantal history with Israel. In the act of creating a people for himself history and law are not antagonistic, but different sides of the one act of divine self-manifestation.

Childs, Exodus, 402.

Incarnation and Childs' subtle dialectic

The dialectic is in the relationship between historical-criticism of the Bible and the Bible as witness to God. Childs explains it this way:

The Bible in its human, fully time-conditioned form, functions theologically for the church as a witness to God's divine revelation in Jesus Christ. The church confesses that in this human form, the Holy Spirit unlocks its truthful message to its hearers in the mystery of faith. This theological reading cannot be simply fused with a historical reconstruction of the biblical text, nor conversely, neither can it be separated. This is to say, the Bible's witness to the creative and salvific activity of God in time and space cannot be encompassed with the categories of historical criticism whose approach filters out this very kerygmatic dimension of God's activity. In a word, the divine and human dimensions remain inseparably intertwined, but in a highly profound, theological manner. Its ontological relation finds its closest analogy in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, truly man and truly God.

Brevard Childs, "The Canon in Recent Biblical Studies: Reflections on an Era, " Pro Ecclesia 14 (2005): 44-45.

For the perfect compliment to these reflections, see my post on The transcendence of God and human historicity.

I should add that Hyperekperissou has made some related comments in relation to a forthcoming book review on Augustine and the Psalms.

[1] Historicity and the Bible: What Kinds of Proposals are Theologically Valid?

In a recent post, I illustrated what Brevard Childs means when he talks about the “integrity” of the final form of the text. The final form of the Bible has a certain kind of unity, but this unity does not lie in the narrative portrayed nor in the perspective it embodies. It lies, rather, in the God who called the texts into being and who is their ultimate referent. Diverse texts are united, not by attempting to reduce them to one perspective, but by seeing them as various witnesses to one God. The unity of the Bible is in its referent and not in the text itself.

What implications does this have for the historicity of the narratives in the Bible? On the one hand, the ideological function of the Bible as “Scripture” for a particular “community” means that various creative devices are used in order to instil a particular world view. Just as ideology/theology cannot be simply read off “raw” historical events, so the Bible-as-Scripture requires plenty of creativity in order to get its point across. On the other hand, the very logic of biblical faith is one in which God intervenes in history and does things in our dimension of reality.

Childs was reserved in pronouncing judgement on this issue (cf. his quote here). Yet it is clear that his particular approach places constraints on the range of possibilities of what actually happened. Certain factors need to have been present in history in order for a reading of the final form to be legitimate. For example, he stated in 1980:

a historical critical theory of Deuteronomy which would construe the book as a pious fraud created for propaganda reasons to support the political aspirations of the Jerusalem priesthood would, if true, raise serious questions about a canonical interpretation which claimed that the book was shaped by primarily religious concerns. Similarly, if the development of a sense of canon was only a late peripheral phenomenon of the Hellenistic period, my approach to the O.T. would be seriously damaged.

(go here for full quote and discussion).

This predilection for a particular construal of Israel's history manifests itself in the kinds of historical critics Childs likes. Tomorrow I will illustrate by looking at Martin Noth.

For the remaining posts in this thread, read the following in order:

M. Noth on the Laws of the Pentateuch
The Theological Problem with Noth's Approach
What is Good about Noth's Proposal?

Faithful and Critical Scholarship : Interpretation Within Boundaries

A Christian's relation to the world of time and space is not particularly straight forward. On the one had, the logic of his faith demands that he believe in a God who acts, and who acts in such a way that it impinges upon our reality. On the other hand, Christian faith affirms the existence of the empirical world of laws and causality which need to be respected. These two dimensions cannot be fused, yet they cannot be separated either.

The result of this tension impinges upon me as an (aspiring) academic scholar, committed to the truth of the real world and thus open to criticism from evidence and logic. Yet my faith can, by definition, not be left at the door of my office, to be picked up again when I go home. How do I relate the demands of my tradition to the rigours of scientific research and the challenges of contemporary thought to the validity of my beliefs?

I'm going to be exploring this question in relation to biblical exegesis over the next few weeks. The framework for my approach will be what B.S. Childs has called the six constitutive features of traditional exegesis over the past 2000 years (yes, he draws parallels between Justin Martyr and von Rad!). These “family resemblances” have been a consistent theological witness of the church through years of radical historical and cultural discontinuity, and have functioned as theological parameters preserving the church in its understanding of its scriptures toward a faithful witness to Jesus Christ. They are as follows:

1. The authority of Scripture


2. The literal and spiritual senses of Scripture


3. Scripture's two testaments


4. The divine and human authorship of Scripture


5. The Christological content of the Christian Bible


6. The dialectical nature of history

(taken from Childs, 2004). Is this a fair summary? Are there more that have been missed out? Is it possible to affirm and operate in terms of these beliefs in the modern, critical world?
I'd love to know your thoughts. The answers are tough so I'll need help along the way!

Update: The most of the contents of this thread were published in an online edition of the Princeton Theological Review dedicated to Brevard Childs. You can read it here. Many of these posts have generated valuable threads of dialogue and thus could be read as a kind of commentary on the article. I should add that my views have matured somewhat since the publishing of the article. I hope to publish another, more mature version, soon.

(One last note, John Hobbins has some great stuff to say here concerning Eastern Orthodox attitudes to the Bible, along with some comments by Edgecomb which are extremely relevant to our concerns!)

Religious Archaeology: A Theological Quandary

In a recent post Jim West commented on the religious rhetoric being used in the Christian Zionist magazine 'Israel Today' to protest against the destruction of important Jewish artefacts by Palestinians on the Temple Mount. The worry is that disinterested archaeology is being jeopardized by calls to 'Bible believing Christians' who should also have an ideological stake in the site. I would concur that perverting facts in the name of religion or any form of ideology is not a desideratum, and is best avoided (confusing the 'Waqf Authority' with 'Muslim' is particularly unhelpful).
On the website of One Jerusalem, a video has been produced with the same appellatory tone, though this time in reference to Orthodox Judaism (check out the vid). It seems as if both faiths, 'Bible believing Christianity' (which in the link means a certain strand of conservative evangelicalism) and 'Orthodox Judaism', feel that historical, political reality and religious belief cannot be separated.
That this is can be dangerous and perverted is exemplified in this shocking video documentation here (linked to and criticised by The Metaphysical Club: please, watch it! If you call yourself 'Christian' then surely it is your duty!).
Nevertheless, have they got it all wrong? How should a 'bible believing' Christian or Jew respond? What is the nature of the relationship between faith and the 'real world'? Is it the case that faithful Christianity is a matter of private spiritual issues that shouldn't touch on the political, social, material reality around us? Or have these so-called fundamentalists touched on something at the heart of our faith that cannot be denied - as difficult and uncomfortable as that may be?