I can't stop saying "ontological"

I posted this comment on Facebook and a friend asked me what "ontological" means. My answer turned into a short essay  outlining not only what it means for me but also why I can't stop saying it. Here's my answer:

It literally means "the study of being,” but I’m using it in a particular way. When I say something "is" something, and emphasise that by saying that something "is ontologically" something, it means that I am making a fundamental statement about its "nature." 

It's a vague concept, I know. I'm not actually interested in proposing a general theory of the nature of reality - I don't think human language and concepts can even do this as we are part of what we're trying to describe and we can't stand outside "it" in order to analyse it. Rather, I'm interested in the question of how we should read the Bible. This entails asking what it "is." The answer to this involves saying things like: it's a composite product of an ancient Israelite culture produced over a long time span. 

There is also another element, however, of what the Bible "is," for one finds all over the Bible statements that its purpose - regardless of its human particularity - consists in communicating the will and the identity of God to those who want to know it. It says that this purpose is something that God himself wills, that it is in fact the primary reason for the Bible's existence in the first place, and that God himself makes sure that this purpose is fulfilled within the lives of those who read it. So, if you take this self-depiction seriously, then according to the Bible the answer to the question of what it "is" is that it is a vehicle of divine revelation and salvation. In other words, the Bible sees itself as part of a broader context, a context even broader than the human one, namely the context of a history of salvation in which the eternal God is constantly revealing himself to humanity through this book. 

Yet, there is one further step: the Bible also says that what God himself decides to do in our created space and time is ultimately an expression of something that he himself eternally "is." God himself has a "being" but this being is dynamic, not static. The church calls this the "ontological Trinity," because it believes that God "is" an eternally loving relationship of three distinct persons, who we call the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (this, by the way, is what Christians mean when they say God "is" love; this is an ontological statement; God's being "is" the love of the Father and the Son in the Spirit). It therefore follows that the answer to the question of what the Bible "is" is ultimately related to the question of who God "is." Eternally, the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father and the bond that unites them is the Spirit. Temporally, i.e. in our created time, this eternal relationship "unfolds" to allow us to participate in the relationship. The Son became flesh and through his work of salvation for mankind by conquering the power of death on the cross he "brings" us into the eternal relationship that exists between him and his father. 

This process of "bringing in", however is, from our perspective not yet complete. In other words, those who now in our time put their faith in the Son receive a "foretaste" of a fuller relationship that is to come. This is why Christians are people who are "waiting" for the fulfilment of time, the "kingdom of God" on earth in which humanity can finally enter into the eternal relationship that God is. In the "meantime," that moment between the Son's historical redemption of humankind (around 33 A.D) and his return, humankind itself is to grow in that relationship that has been started but not consummated. And it does this by reading the Bible. The Bible "is" the place where this relationship grows. God already knows us. The Bible "is" the place where he makes himself known to us “in the meantime”, so that we can respond to him in worship and adoration in anticipation of the day when we can finally “come home,” which is into his arms as a son into the arms of his father. 

This has consequences for question for how I should read the Bible, which I won’t go into now as I’ve already written a ridiculously long comment! My point is just this: when most people ask themselves what the Bible “is,” and therefor how they should read it, they often just stop at the human bit and so end up reading it partially. Their decision to do this, however, is not only inadequate to the nature of the Bible, it is based on a prior assumption about what “ultimate reality” really is. Whatever that reality is, it doesn’t look like the one I just described above. They are commited to a different "ontology" than the one the Bible witnesses to. This is why the category of “ontology” is so important for reading the Bible. It helps us think about what the Bible “is” in a way that does justice to what it claims for itself.

Rosenzweig on the essence of Judaism/Christianity

The context of the following statements is Rosenzweig's critique (yet round-about affirmation) of Mendelssohn's translation of the tetragrammaton as "Das ewige Wesen." As a Christian, I appreciate the way in which he draws the Trinity into the orbit of the Biblical understanding of God, critiquing Maimonides' "Aristotelianism" in the process. I think he is right to say that the essence of Christianity - in its better moments - is at one with both Judaism and Scripture. At the same time, I'm not sure how it is that he can still (implicitly, at least, if I read him right) maintain the validity of the idea that God is יָחִיד, which is more than saying that he is אֶחַד. How is the "pagan/Aristotelian" concept of unitarianism (as Rosenzweig calls it!) still a necessary pre-condition - albeit a limited one - for affirming that the Creator is also the historical Redeemer? Rosenzweig actually says that this formulation was against the impulse do Jewish tradition. What other ways does Judaism provide of conceiving God's transcendence and immanence? In a course with Rabbi Dan Cohen-Sherbok I learnt that Jewish mysticism always stood in tension - even outright conflict - with the philosophical strand in Judaism. Does the doctrine of the sephirot, do a better job of conceiving this? Can it be reconciled with Maimonides' unitariansism? And, as far as questions of "Jewishness" are concerned, when does one cross the boundary thus find oneself outside the fold? 

Mendelssohn hat also die Entscheidung falsch getroffen, beeinflußt durch den Vorgang Calvins und einflußempfänglich geworden durch den rationalistisch-klassizistischen Geist des von Jugend auf verehrten, doch eben hier wie so oft aristotelisch beeinflußten Maimonides gegen den sicheren Instinkt der jüdischen Tradition verbündete. ... Der biblische "Monotheismus" besteht ja nicht in der Erkenntnis einer Einheit des göttlichen Wesens; wäre er das, so ermangelte er jeder Besonderheit: es gibt kein "Heidentum", das nicht ... seinen "Polytheismus" ... in der Einheit eines "Religiösen" überhaupt ... zusammenfaßte. Sondern das Eigetümliche des biblischen Gottesglaubes besteht darin, daß er diese "heidnische" Einheit - mit dem Kusari zu reden: den Gott des Aristoteles - zwar voraussetzt, aber diesen Gott in seinem Einssein mit dem persönlichst und unmittelbarst erfahren - wieder mit dem Kusari gesprochen: dem Gott Abrahams - erkennt. Die "heidnische Einheit" ist dabei nicht etwa nebensächlich; ein teilgebliebener Gott (etwa ein Gruppengott), der beanspruchte, "der Ganze" zu sein, wäre ein Götze und unfähig, in die Ineinssetzung mit dem "Gott Abrahams" einzugehen ... ; aber ihre, sozusagen, monotheistische Pointe erhält jene heidnische Einheit erst durch diese jüdische Ineinssetzung des fernen mit dem nahen, des "ganzen" mit dem "eigenen" Gott. Diese Ineinssetzung erst ist das "Wesen des Judentums" und durch das trinitarische Dogma, wie sehr auch gebrochen und in Gefahr des Rückfalls in die vor- und außerjüdische Spaltung, auch das Wesen des Christentums (den Ernst und die Aktualität deser Gefahr zeigen in der Gegenwart wieder Barth und Gogarten). Und diese Ineinssetzung ist der Offenbarungskern der Bibel und das, was sie zur jüdischen Bibel macht; der Unterscheid der jüdischen Bibel vom "Alten Testament" liegt darin, daß vom Neuen Testament aus allzu leicht der Gtt des "Alten" dem "Vater Jesu Christi" gegenüber weider gewissermaßen auf den "Gott des Aristoteles" reduziert wird. Und eben diese Ineinssetzung ist es, die mit ihrer aus dem ICH BIN DA-Ruf vom brennenden Dorn hervorschlagenden Glut in den Gottesnamen die ganze Bibel in eins schmiedet, indem sie überall die Gleichung des Gottes der Schöpfung mit dem mir, dir, jedem Gegenwärtigen vollzieht, - diese Gleichung, deren Feuer am heißesten brennt an den Stellen, wo der Gottesname und das Wort für Gott aufeinander prallen, wie in den Paradieskapiteln der Genesis oder in dem Einheitsruf des "Hör, Jisrael", überhaupt den Stellen, wo Mendelssohn "der Ewige" nicht genügt und er duch "das ewige Wesen" das Bezogenwerden auf die Namensoffenbarung des Exodus in seiner Weise ganz sicherzustellen sucht."

F. Rosenzweig, "'Der Ewige.' Mendelssohn und der Gottesnahme," in Reinhold and Annemarie Mayer, eds. Zweistromland: Kleinere Schriften zu Glauben und Denken (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publischers, 1984), 109-110.

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

A Trinity bibliography

Nick Norelli of Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth has published a manificent bibliography of journal articles, seminar papers, dissertations/thesis, and books related to the important issue of the Trinity. It really is worth bookmarking, especially as it is in pdf and so is searchable.

The need for ontological categories in Biblical exegesis

In response to my post on the exegesis of Karl Barth, the question has been raised concerning the most adequate controls on interpretation. What is the right context to save our exegesis from turning into dogmatic eisegesis? Or is dogmatic eisegesis so bad after all? The classic answer of the academy has been that the only control is the historical context of the text. Recent literary approaches emphasise the literary - often "narrative" - context as a restraint on interpretative possibilities. The recent influence of N.T. Wright has led to many to emphasise the broader "salvation narrative" that first century Judaism formulated in response to its Scripture. As such, we have a new theological context which privileges the temporal categories of development and direction, climax and resolution, for undestanding the message of individual texts.

I'm not against any of these, and in particular I think the Heilsgeschichtle dimension that Wright has emphasised is a great bonus for the academy (I think the church has always been saying it). But is that enough when reading the Bible? Does "narrative theology" provide us with the ultimate key for unlocking God's word?

I think it would, if the Gospel really did only consist of a narrative with a plot. But it doesn't. As my blog name indicates, that Gospel has not only a narrative, temporal dimension, but also an ontological one. The Trinity, for example, structures the creed and is held by systematic theologians such as Jenson to be the foundation for thought about God. Not only the Trinity, but the eternal nature of Christ as pre-existent Son and the vehicle for creation is a reality that cannot be best described in “narrative categories” lie at the heart of the New Testament's kerygma. This was the problem with narrative which I was trying to get at in my post on the NT being seen as a chapter in a story. At best, Heilsgeschichte is a theological construct which gives us one way for understanding the Gospel, but not the only way.

Applying this larger dogmatic reality now to the text means that we must do more than fit its particularity within an unfolding narrative which enfolds us. It also means that we must think hard about the nature of the reality that the text is talking about, understood from our perspective now in the “latter days.” It means that we can understand the Psalmists' Christology better than he could, or the significance of the creative power of σοφία (Wisdom) better than the sages. Theological exegesis—exegesis which aims to get to the reality to which the Biblical witnesses (μάρτυρες ) are trying to point us at in all their fragmentary form—means thinking about the content of their particular message in the context of the content of all the messages contained in the Bible. Childs tries to put this across with the following example:

The Old Testament witness to creation does not ever sound the name of Jesus. At the same time, it is equally true that the Old Testament does not conceive of the creator God as a monad or monolithic block. In Genesis, in the prophets, and especially in the wisdom books, there is a dynamic activity within the Godhead and an eschatological relation between the old and the new, between creation once-for-all and creatio continua, between divine transcendence and immanent entrance into the world. It is crucial for any serious Christian theology to reflect on how this variety of witness to the God of Israel is to be understood in the light of the New Testament's witness (John, Colossians, Hebrews) to the creative role of Jesus Christ in relation to the Father.” (Biblical Theology, 83)

Childs concludes: “It is my thesis that such reflection demands a continuing wrestling with the central issue of the reality constitutive of these biblical witnesses.” (Ibid.)

I hope to give an example of this in a post on Ps 8 in the context of the canon.

Childs on Jesus and Isaiah 53

Childs' Isaiah commentary can be a dense work. It's a distillate of everything he's written over his career, packed into the restricted dimensions of a single volume Isaiah commentary. Today I read his thoughts on "The Suffering Servant and Christian Theology" (422, 3) and was again challenged to rethink some of the basic assumption I bring to both the Old and New Testaments. Here are his thoughts, what do you think?

The theological category used for [the] interpretation [of Isaiah 53 in the NT] was not primarily that of prophecy and fulfillment. Rather, an analogy was drawn between the redemptive activity of the Isaianic servant and the passion and death of Jesus Christ. The relation was understood "ontologically," that is to say, in terms of its substance, its theological reality. To use classic Christian theological terminology, the distinction is between the "economic" Trinity, God's revelation in the continuum of Israel's history, and the "immanent" Trinity, the ontological manifestation of the triune deity in its eternality. Thus, for example, the epistles of Ephesians and Colossians argue that the creation of the universe cannot be understood apart from the active participation of jesus Christ (C0l. 1:15ff). Or again, the book of Revelation speaks of "the lamb slain before the foundation of the world" (13:8). In a word, in the suffering and death of the servant of Second Isaiah, the self-same divine reality of Jesus Christ was made manifest. The meaning of the Old Testament servant was thus understood theologically in terms of the one divine reality disclosed in Jesus Christ. The morphological fit between Isaiah 53 and the passion of Jesus continues to bear testimony to the common subject matter within the one divine economy. Of course, in a broad sense, isaiah 53 does continue to function as prophecy since the chapter is bracketed within the eschatological framework of an unfolding divine economy.

To summarize, the servant of Isaiah is linked dogmatically to Jesus Christ primarily in terms of its ontology, that is, its substance, and is not simply a future promise of the Old Testament awaiting its New Testament fulfillment. It is significant to observe that in Acts 8, when the eunuch asked about the identity of the Isaianic servant, Philip did not simply identify him with Jesus of Nazareth. Rather, beginning with the scriptures, "he preached to him the good news of Jesus." The suffering servant retains its theological significance within the Christian canon because it is inextricably linked in substance with the gospel of Jesus Christ, who is and always has been the ground of God's salvation of Israel and the world (423).

The Crucifixion of Ministry

This is a book review I originally wrote for Chrisendom of Andrew Purves' The Crucifixion of Ministry: Surrendering Our Ambitions to the Service of Christ (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP), 2007

Andrew Purve's little book is a call to return to the heart of what being Christian is all about—discipleship to God, in Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit. It may sound pithy, but there's a concrete reality at work in this world which functions independently of our theologies, strategies and cherished agendas. This reality is what it's all about and so the most significant question you can ask is “what is this reality” and “how do I connect to it”?

This brings us to the interface of praxis and doctrine. The peculiarity of the Church is that it doesn't have a mission statement to fulfil in any strategic sense of the word. It has an identity as adopted son, and everything it does is dependent on its realizing its identity. This is because whatever ministry the Church may have in its various contexts is utterly derivative of the true ministry of the Church's Father. It's His ministry, and so if the Church is to do anything of lasting value, it must do it as a participant in the true ministry of the One who is the creator and perfecter of all things. The consequences of doing it alone, of attempting to be your own “ministerial messiah,” is the burnout that many in the clergy are experiencing today.

For this reason, Purves opens his book with a call on church ministers—though by extension this applies to any Christian—to give up the claim that their ministries are theirs, rather than God's. Rather, we should embrace with joy the “crucifixion” of our ministries in order to make space for God to use us in His unfolding ministry. In other words, true Christian ministry is a profoundly theological act. The primary question we need to be asking is not “What strategies will work best in my ministry?” but rather “What is God doing and how do I join in?” The heart of Purve's book is dedicated to unpacking this doctrinal question.

For Purves, the foundation for our ministry is the Trinitarian claim that God is working in the world through his Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit. It is within this Trinitarian movement that the church is to find its true identity and the substance of its witness. God acts to save us in Jesus, who as a human offers back to God the service and worship he desires. The Holy Spirit is Christ's chosen form of presence among us and his function is to join us to Christ so that we can share in the love that takes place between Father and Son. This redemption results in a life of thankful response, and it is the task of pastoral work to call people to share in this “alien love.” In short, “The centre of Christian faith and life is our sharing in the love or communion within the Holy Trinity and in the ministry that flows from it” (71).

Within this Trinitarian movement Purves highlights two truths that are of especial importance for ministry: the Doctrine of the Vicarious Humanity of Christ and the Doctrine of our Unity with Christ. Following Athanasius, Purves holds that “Jesus Christ ministers the things of God to us and the things of humankind to God.” This involves the paradox that Jesus is both the Word of God to us as well as the the one who receives God's Word for us. In other words, our response to the covenant is already fulfilled by one more capable of doing it. This has implications for how we worship, preach and teach, as the primary function of the minister is not to be Christ within the church but to witness to him. Ministry is inherently kerygmatic, pointing beyond itself to what God has done, is doing, and will do in Christ.

This reality is actualized for us by the Spirit's uniting us to Christ. Union with the person of Christ means union with his ministry and thus provides the ground of the Church's ministry. In short, the being of the Church involves sharing the mission of Jesus from the Father for the sake of the world.

But what does all this mean practically? “Our task is to locate the identity and practice of ministry in the pattern and event of Trinitarian activity as the Word/Act of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit” (125). Purves refers to his “three-fold mantra” to help guide the minister in his or her work amongst parishioners. First, we must look for the “declarative moment” when we can bear witness to a particular aspect of Christ's ministry relevant to the life situation of the parishioner. This involves the hermeneutical move of locating his or her life within the Gospel. This should be accompanied by some liturgical, symbolical action, in order to communicate the depth of what Christ is doing. The book ends with three helpful case studies, illustrating the challenge and potential of deriving one's ministry from Christ's.

This review may give the impression that Purves has written a book of abstract theology. However, the argument summarized above is spread over 149 pages, which gives him ample opportunity to fill in the gaps with case studies, anecdotes and exegesis. The message is unfolded very slowly, perhaps a bit too slowly, so that by the end of the book you are panting for it to come to a resolution. He manages to fit in the practical dimension into the last few pages. Though this was not as much as I would have liked, he does well to include three helpful case studies to fill out the picture.

All in all, the significance of the subject matter and its general readability make this book an important read for those wishing to locate their practical ministry on the horizon of the doctrinal tradition of the Church.