The Nicene Creed - some interpretations

In my book review of Brazos Presses' Nicene Christianity, I summarized those articles dealing with the nature of creeds as such and their role within the life of the Church. In this post, I outline the rest of the essays in the book, each of which deal with a different article of the Nicene Creed.

C. Seitz opens with the first article, focussing on the phrase maker of heaven and earth. His approach is strongly exegetical, attempting to show the Biblical roots of the phrase and the meaning the creed therefore assumes in its current elliptical form. The phrase “maker of heaven and earth” is often tied to the personal name of God, the LORD, which assumes a particular identity in Israel's unique history. Jesus is not related to “deity,” he is related to Yhwh. This holds for all the propositions in the first article: “Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, each in its own way bespeaks the divine and sacred name” (28). The implication is that it is not possible to talk of the Son without reference to the Father, who is the foundation for faith. In this light, attempts to recover a “historical” Jesus, measure his work according to an abstract standard of truth, or reduce the Father to the beneficia Chrisit are to be avoided.

C. Gunton struggles with the tension between exegesis and theology in his treatment of One Lord, ... Begotten, Not Made .... Both creedal and Biblical formulations of Jesus' “begottenness” are not clear enough to rebuke the threat of Arianism, which undermines Christ's salvific significance. The creedal formulation risks depersonalizing the Son and thus risks marring the image of God, who is “the one who is the love of Father and Son in the Spirit” (38; emphasis mine). An attempt to recapture Jesus' uniqueness by turning to Scripture, however, faces the challenge of his time-conditionality. How do we speak of one who is eternally begotten? The solution lies at a more abstract level of analysis. Though in terms of the economic Trinity the Son is subordinate to the Father, at the level of the immanent Trinity it is soteriologically necessary to hold that he is fully divine. The absolute distinction between Creator and creation requires us to believe that if someone is to restore a sinful creation back to its maker, he cannot partake of that creation's sinfulness. Gunton summarizes: “The paradox is twofold: first that by putting this man, and this man alone, on the side of the Creator we maintain the integrity of the creation; and we can do it while remaining true to a confession of his full humanity” (44). “Eternally begotten” maintains the necessary tension between the economic and immanent Trinities and enables us to maintain a sense of the monarchy of the Father without rendering the Son as less then fully divine.

A. Torrance deals with the question of Jesus' Being of one substance with the Father. This truth's affirmation is the ground and warrant of both our salvation and our ability to talk about God in the first place. Epistemologically, “Jesus mediates knowledge of God because he is Immanuel” (56). But epistemic access to the Godhead also has a Trinitarian structure: the transforming presence of the Holy Spirit, who is also “of one being with the Father,” creates the necessary subjective conditions for a recognition of the Incarnate Word. Soteriologically, only Jesus can save as sin is essentially against God, and thus only He Himself can deal with it. To this dimension belongs also his essential humanity: God Himself provides the requisite human response, and in doing so also makes it possible for us too to have the mind of Christ.

J. Augustine Di Noia, O.P., deals with the question of creation in terms of the science-theology relation. Whereas science and philosophy can analyse creation's physical and ontological structures, a theological account of the cosmos as the stage for a divine drama which seeks to share its life with humanity is required in order to “personalize” the universe. Creation is the decision of a free agent, and humanity as the imago dei is uniquely capable of entering into this relationship. God's presence amidst evolution is understood in terms of secondary causes, providentially guiding creation to its providential goal. The recently developed “anthropic principle,” which argues that creation itself is directed to the emergence of human life as such creates space for potential fruitful dialogue.

R. Jenson expands our categories to breaking point in his treatment of “He was made man” by attempting a form of “revisionary metaphysics.” How can Jesus' pre-existence be considered “incarnate,” a logical necessity if we do not wish to posit two separate identities for him? Jenson's answer has to do with the nature of the place he came from: heaven. Heaven is part of creation, yet not as another piece of space but as the future mode of the final kingdom. Jesus comes to us from this created eschatological future in the power of the Spirit, who is the agent and power of that future. The incarnation occurs in this agency, “in the absolute possibility that is the final reality of historical being” (82), so that the future comes from where Jesus is. “There is only one advent of the messiah.”

D. Yeago outlines the implications of the clause Crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. In short, the effect of the cross is to transform reality, as “divine love acts in a human way and human acts have divine force” (91). This global redemption took place as an episode in Israel's history in that Jesus accomplished the righteousness which was Israel's vocation: The cross was the “final test and unsurpassable realization of Jesus' distinctive way of being human” (97). The outcome is public: a renewed community with a divine calling and commandments. The “relational space” marred by sin is cleared by the cross, so that genuine communion with God is possible, as it takes place in Jesus alone, the new humanity and our hope.

C. Braaten reminds us the importance of physical Resurrection, which confirms Jesus' claims and continues his cause in history. Braaten outlines the various takes on the issue by key theologians (Pannenburg, Barth, Bultmann etc.) and concludes that it was an objective event, constituting a new mode of being in continuity with the old, applied by the Holy Spirit in preaching and the sacraments. The effect of such faith is motivation for mission, as the “resurrection is God's unique way of reclaiming the whole world for himself” (118).

D. Farrow confesses the significance of Christ's coming, which cannot be understood apart from Christ's ascension and heavenly session. Melchizedek provides the paradigm for understanding, as it combines the political dimension—Christ is the final authority as he currently rules through his church—and the priestly (Aaronic)--Christ's ascension to heaven completes the atonement, from where he now receives our sacramental thanksgiving. His return will be a public display in which he comes as judge. This return (parousia) will be the end of history as we know it, nevertheless it will break into our history. It will be an act of new creation, a fundamental act of reordering that impinges on creaturely reality.

T. Smail offers an overview of the Holy Spirit. His being is constituted by the Trinity, as he “furthers the purposes of the Father as revealed in the gospel of the incarnate Son” (151). In this movement he is a person, taking on a different role to Jesus as enabler of subjective response to Jesus and communicator of eschatological life. His relation to Father and Son has been a cause of division between East and West. After reviewing the pros and cons of each proposal, Smail offers his own suggestion: “from the Father there originate two converging movements of divine self-giving. On the one hand, the Son comes from the Father through the Spirit; on the other, the Spirit comes from the Father through the Son” (165).

K. Green-McCreight works out the implications of He spoke through the Prophets. Amongst other things, it testifies to the unity of Scripture as a whole. The Patristic term skopus signifies goal and boundary of Scripture, understood to be and objective reality, not entirely identifiable with the text but related to it and borne by it. Divine meaning, then, is not identifiable with pure lexical meaning, so that a rule of faith is necessary as part of our hermeneutic. By hearing the parts in relation to the whole, Scripture interprets itself. The rule also functions as a guide for evaluating different interpretations: they must account for the unity of the God of Israel and the new covenant.

W. J. Abraham talks of the siginficance of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. This clause is was not a definition but a witness to a living historical reality, a reality no longer fully evident. Given the tension between the fact that the most adequate referent of the creed is the Eastern church (they didn't introduce the filioque clause), yet the Holy Spirit, who is the true source of the church, as deigned to create multiple divided churches, we must pray for a new Pentecost and return to the church of the creed. This will involve 1) a return to the canonical heritage of the 1st millennium, 2) a relativising of our epistemological commitments, and 3) reckoning with the real possibility of divine judgement. Perhaps then the beautiful metaphors for the church in the New Testament will once again become more of a reality.

S.K. Wood negotiates the ecumenical challenge of one baptism for the forgiveness of sins from a catholic perspective. The prime distinction between believer's baptism and infant baptism is not the requirement of a mature profession of faith (both affirm that), but rather the location of that faith. For Catholics, there is a complex dynamic between the community, which proceeds the individual by nurturing him, and the individual himself, who must believe. Thus parents believe by proxy, until the child decides for itself in post-baptismal catechism. However it takes place, though, baptism is into the one Lord, who alone constitutes the unity of the churches. This raises the question of why baptised Protestants may not partake of the Eucharist. The answer is that Eucharist completes the unity the baptism only initiates, as it is here that “ecclesial and christological communion achieves repeatable sacramental visibility” (197). The Eucharist, however, separates the churches by identifying them in their particularity. This brings us to a bind: sacramental unity depends on ecclesial unity, yet the reverse is also true. However this is negotiated, the connection of baptism to Eucharist must be maintained as both constitute the church.

V. Guroian's contribution on the resurrection is unique in that it consists of an poetically evocative letter to his suffering mother, rather than abstract theology or biblical exegesis. It is theology in practice, as he weaves images from the Bible, nature, and poetry into a testimony to the need for faith in the resurrection of the flesh.

When do the fireworks begin?

Attention to canon is not the end but only the beginning of exegesis. It prepares the stage for the real performance by clearing away unnecessary distractions and directing the audience's attention to the main show which is about to be experienced.

B.S. Childs, "The Canonical Shape of the Prophetic Literature, " Interpretation 32 (1978), 46-55; here, 55.

The canonical approach - a quick response

The following questions, queries, and propositions are fairly typical of those encountering the canonical approach. They arose in the process of a dialogue on my last post, Is the canonical approach uncritical? I always appreciate this kind of intellegent interaction, so I've attached my own comments to each italicized statement.

I'm wondering how canonical criticism accounts for the fact that canonization follows composition

That "canonization" in the formal sense of deciding which books count of authoritative is a late phenomenon is clear to all. The issue as far as B.S. Childs is concerned turns on the nature of the relationship between the different stages of the development of the Bible. Childs claims that the final fixing of the canon was not an act external to the development of the text, or outside the history of revelation. Rather, throughout its history, Israel has related to its God in terms of a body of sacred tradition, the function of which was to guide this people in faith and practice. The function of sacred tradition was always dialectical: Israel did its “theology” in light of its tradition and it understood its tradition in the light of a growing understanding of God. There was thus a kind of “progressive revelation” which was constantly registered in the developmental history of the text so that later editorial layers (e.g. the Pentateuch) or collections (the Psalms) witnessed more fully and adequately to the reality of God only fragmentarily touched upon in earlier stages. The decision to make a five-book Torah or a 150 Psalm Psalter is part of this ongoing process. It stretches, indeed, to the establishment of the final scope of the Bible as a whole. That there is ambiguity at this level (which canon? Which text?) is not a problem for the canonical approach. This ambiguity belongs to the "canonical process."

It is important to point out that within Childs' conception there is diversity is this history, and this diversity ought to be registered in our exegesis. The juxtaposition of the minor prophets in a twelvefold book, for example, is an example of "canonical shaping" of a different order to the juxtaposition of the three major prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel). The juxtaposition of the Gospels is similar yet different to the juxtaposition of the two Testaments (on which see my post Two Testaments, four Gospels). Thus, we need the subtlety that the historical critical methods give us, but at the same time we also need to read the parts in light of this broader movement, i.e. as part of the final form of Scripture. Childs' cypher for this process is “canonical” (because the tradition function as a κανων; cf. my post: Redaction and the rule of faith). Thus, on his terms, the formal “canonization” you are talking about is part of a process that indeed involves composition, and is not a hermeneutically insignificant afterthought.

Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox all have slightly different canons.

In terms of the scenario painted above, this ambiguity belongs to the canonical process itself. It matters, because it can affect theology, but it does not undermine the canonical approach per se because a canon is essentially a communal reality anyway. Catholics give theological arguments for their position and Protestants likewise. The solution is to weigh the arguments and contine what Childs calls “the search for the Christian Bible.” I've covered this in a thread called Scripture's two testaments). Although the outer boundaries are not too sharp, this doesn't detract too much from what we share.

A Jewish canon isn't going to include the New Testament or deuterocanonical books in its conception of the canonical whole

Therefore a Jewish canonical approach will read the Tanakh differently to a Christian reading the Old Testament. As with Christian canon, there are theological differences between the two communities involving the nature of the function of Scripture and the relation between text and tradition. Though I've not read Childs saying this in so many words, he does think that the Christian approach is more in line with the intentionality of the redaction of the OT (cf. his distinction between “allegory” and “midrash”). The important point is that, in Childs' view, the NT is not an external appendix added to something which is actually totally foreign to it. The same divine reality that called the OT into life also evoked the NT. This is a confessional stance, but seeing that it involves propositions about reality I don't see how a Christian can consistently bracket it out. As such, for a Christian it is imperative that the New Testament is related to the Old Testament somehow.

Any exegesis that is beholden to a particular theological perspective seems to me less critical.

Most contemporary philosophy will tell you that being beholden to an ideology (whether theological or not) is unavoidable. See my post on the “reality” of the Bible. Of course, being self-critical is, as you say, important, but one can be self-critical from within a position of faith. Humility, repentance, patience and hope are the preconditions for genuine self-criticism, and these are very theological terms replete with networks of “ideological” assumptions. In other words, theology/ideology can help us become more self-critical. If you have the right ideology, that is ...

A canonical approach where you're reading in light of the full message of the canon (whichever one you choose) allows you to both include interpretations you wouldn't reach otherwise and exclude interpretations that don't fit the overall message.

I'm afraid I don't get this. Why does allowing the formal structure of the canon to operate as an interpretative boundary allow you to “exclude interpretations that don't fit the overall message”? It is the function of the canon to achieve just the opposite: what is within its boundaries must be taken into account, because that is the “rule” (canon) we live by. It is historical criticism which tends to leave out bits that don't fit a particular theory of history by assigning it to either a “gloss,” or a more “primitive” stage of evolution.

If you're trying to understand the text in its historical context and figure out what the message was to the earliest readers/hearers, then a canonical approach isn't going to help. Childs would probably say that biblical criticism doesn't go far enough because it usually stops there.

Your right about Childs, and I guess you may be right about the relevance of canonical hermeneutics as regards the task of reconstructing a putative Israelite religion. Though I'm not sure ... I remember N.T. Wright's methodology, in which he points out that later developments can be a pointer for what was implicit all along ... And I still have the lingering doubt about our ability to understand an ancient religion from our present context. The advantage of the canonical approach is that is offers us the opportunity to hear the one God who speaks throughout the ages. Is that not relevant for the “archaeological” task of digging back to one particular stage in that history?

I'm wondering why we can't just agree that there are different levels of exegesis that bring different methodological and philosophical rules to their readings of the same texts.

I'm certainly up for that! Yet, I wonder if some are more appropriate to the material than others ... ? I think it's healthy to at least leave this question open ...

Is this my blog's reading level?

I have to say, I was hoping for super-genius-incomprehensible-to-mortal-humans level. Does that exist? If they introduced it I would consider redoing the test. I'm sure I've slipped through a crack here!

The typologizing of prophetic oracles

I now come to the penultimate post on the different ways in which Israelite prophecy was rendered as Scripture for the community of faith. For the other six, go to my post Canonical shaping of the prophets. This is taken from Childs' article, "The Canonical Shape of the Prophetic Literature," 1995.

Oracles which originally functioned in a variety of historical settings have been arranged into set patterns which serve a new typological role in relation to the coming rule of God. The clearest examples of a patterning schema are the alternative blocks of oracles of judgment and salvation in the Books of Isaiah (compare 1:1-31; 2:6-22; 3:1-26, with 2:1-5; 4:2-6) and Micah (cf. chaps. 1, 2, 6 with 2:12f.; 4 and 5). The effect of this move is that a typological sequence subordinates the original historical one and refocuses the material on the dominant theological purposes undergirding all prophetic proclamation.

This is sickening

Watch the video - if you think you can stomach it.

When I was 18 I spent a year in Israel - travelling, working and generally having my life transformed. I come from a low-Anglican family with an odd mixture of traditional evangelicalism and charismatic elements. While in Israel I met people from all kinds of denominations who had an impact on me, in particular a travelling ex-gangster turned Pentecostal preacher and a conservative Brethren community in Haifa. One of my more negative experiences was visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the site of Jesus' death and resurrection. What I sensed then is summarised neatly in a recent article from Times Online: Warring monks threaten destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. I can hardly think of a greater tragedy. It's things like this that test my faith most of all.

Here are some key quotes:

Rival denominations often battle for access or space and the congregation at the annual Easter service sometimes resembles the terraces of a boisterous football match. The keys to the main entrance of the church have been held by a Muslim family since the 12th century because the Christians do not trust one another.

— In the 19th century a ladder was placed on a ledge above the main entrance to the church. A priest from another denomination accused the man of trespassing and a row began that has yet to be resolved. The ladder is still there

— In 1995 the church announced it had reached a decision on how to paint a part of the dome in the central part of the structure — but only after 17 years’ debate

— In 2004 during Greek Orthodox celebrations of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, a door to the Franciscan chapel was left open. This was taken as a sign of disrespect by the Greek Orthodox faction and a fight broke out. There were several arrests.

— Another fight broke out on Palm Sunday this year when a Greek monk was ejected from the building by a rival faction. Police were attacked by the feuding monks and several people were taken to hospital

Probably the worst of all is the story of the Coptic bishop turning to the Israeli authorities ... but I'll let you read that.

I'm speechless. I honestly think the church would serve a far better function if it was torn down and turned into a public urinal.

[Hat tip: Bible and Interpretation]

Update: Sister Macrina, of A Vow of Conversation, and shared some interesting thoughts on this. Here's an encouraging anecdote:

In thinking about this I was reminded of a conversation I once had with the Melkite Patriarch Gregory III, when he was still bishop of Jerusalem. I was left to make small talk with him when the abbess I was accompanying was unexpectedly called to the telephone. Not knowing what to say I commented on the divisions of the Churches in Jerusalem and, in typical western liberal Christian fashion, lamented how terrible it was. I was quite taken aback by his sharp response, which basically reprimanded me for commenting on things that I knew little about, although he was too gracious to put it quite so bluntly. He proceeded to tell me how the Churches in Jerusalem were working together and how their leaders met regularly to discuss matters of common concern, accounts of which I later heard from other sources as well.

We want more OT exegesis

Halden's poll has been narrowed down to just two options: theological exegesis and biblical theology and ... something else. It's not important as the aforementioned option is the only one worth voting for. So please go here and vote: what should Halden blog on next!

Here are the comments I posted on his blog:

I’m delighted that theological exegesis is the clear leader! A while back Ben Myers said in one of threads that the best biblical theologians were all in Old Testament. I think there are good reasons for that. Reading the OT as a Christian forces you to deal with issues that NT scholars do not always feel too constrained to deal with: the function of Scripture as witness, the nature of referentiality, the nature of the substance of the text, the relation between community and text, the canonical process as part of revelation, the relation between the literal and spiritual senses, the relation between narrative and ontology etc. etc. A Christian specialising in the NT faces the danger of thinking that the NT has got it figured out, that when we read it we’ve somehow already arrived, that its witness to Christ is sufficent as it stands and that the OT simply serves as a hermeneutical matrix for the NT’s interpretation rather than an independent witness in its own right with its own voice - perhaps even over against the NT.

So, in short, I hope you’ll be posting a lot on the OT!

Book Review: Nicene Christianity

Many thanks to Brazos Press for sending me a review copy of Nicene Christianity: The Future for a New Ecumenism, (ed. C. Seitz; Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2001).

On one level, Nicene Christianity is a collection of essays by some of the world's top theologians, each exploring one article of the Nicene Creed. The quality of their work, the diversity of their denominational backgrounds, and the significance of the Nicene Creed within the global church are reason enough to purchase and study this book. But what makes it truly special is the context out of which it grew: an ecumenical conference held with the goal of renewing the contemporary church by returning to its theological and pragmatic roots in the pre-schism church. As Philip Turner says in the “Introduction,” the authors are united by the conviction that “theology is a practice with a soteriological goal that is properly carried out within the life of the church” (9). As such, it must be carried out in deference to a complex of practices broader than just the “intellectual.” According to these authors, Nicene Christianity “anchors the church in those beliefs and practices without which the church can preserve neither its unity in Christ nor its identity as Christian” (10). It is this holistic vision, grounded in the historical reality of a common and commonly validated past, that enables this book to make its unique contribution to the church's ongoing vocation in the world.

For the sake of space, this review will be divided into two posts. In this post I summarize three essays that frame the collection, giving background to the the concept of Nicea and the creeds as such. In the following post, I will work systematically through each of the articles of the creed, highlighting in the barest form possible the main lines of contribution each author makes.

Philip Turner opens with an “Introduction,” in which he provides background information on the nature and function of creeds within the church of the first millennium. They were “tokens or badges of Christian identity,” adequate expressions of Christian belief, guides for reading Scripture, and standards of truth. He applauds the current volume for its exhaustive treatment of the whole creed, rather than a truncated form which highlights one aspect at the expense of the others. Yet, he claims, if one is to maintain the spirit of Nicea, one must also situate the creed in its appropriate context. A form of Christian practice is required, a certain way of life. The corollary is that the church, rather than the secular academy, becomes the most appropriate setting for theological practice. But again, in the spirit of Nicea, the church as it is now not a sufficient context. A particular kind of church is required, one characterized by discipline and order. Church governance is an area in which Nicea has a lesson to teach to the modern church, a lesson, Turner believes, which under-represented in this volume (though see Radner's contribution).

In the middle of the collection of essays, we come to John Webster's excellent article on the nature and function of creeds in the church. For Webster, the true context for their interpretation is theological, i.e. the triune economy of salvation. As such, they are a response to God's grace, representing an episode in the conflict between God and sin that is at the centre of the drama of salvation. Although public and binding, their purpose is not to codify the truth. They cannot do this because of the transcendence of their subject matter. Rather, their function is to herald or testify God, who as “free transcendent presence” is communicated most fully and authoritatively in Scripture—God's elected means of grace. The Creed, then, is subordinate to Scripture as norm. It also gathers the Church around this subject matter in fear, trembling, consolation, and joy. It binds because the Gospel binds, making the act of confession the place to encounter truth. Again, due to the nature of the subject matter, this encounter is never automatic. Truth occurs only to the degree that the gospel is present as a coercive reality, creating an echo of elective grace.

The collection closes with an innovative and powerful challenge from E. Radner to the authors to reorder their theological vision according to the spirit of the Nicene Creed, which is integrally tied up with the legal issue of church order. If truth and community are intimately connected (Lindbeck), what would it look like if the Church's “canon of truth” were seen as implicating Church “canon law”? Nicea's fundamental conviction is that truthful speech requires truthful discipleship, and in Nicea this manifested itself in a political form of “self-mortification” designed to limit moral pride amongst bishops and laity. In short, the divine truth of the Creed is mirrored in common discipline. The evangelical significance of this self-ordering is that it represents God's character in the world. Ecclesial self-mortification makes space for the divine assertion of Christ's own gracious form upon his body. Yet disunity is not only an obstacle to evangelism. Our yearning as theologians for truth has been “disordered into incompetence.” Disunity is “a fundamental obstacle to our grasp of the truth ... creedal Christianity is unable to hold the object of its desire” (227). The solution is to follow James 4:2-3 and learn to “desire rightly, for such right desire—the desire of personal and institutional mortifying order—is the opening of grace by which the way forward in unity can be discovered” (228).

These brief summaries can only be a hint of the richness of the content of each essay, which alone make the book worth buying. They “carry” the treatments of the individual articles of faith by giving them a broader context in the life of the church, challenging them to make sense of our current disordered context. Stay tuned for the rest of this review.

Vote now!

Forget Obama! I have just discovered that the most important poll this year has been set up by Halden of the marvelous blog inhabitatio dei concerning the most pressing issue of all, namely:

What should I blog about?

If you look at the options available, the answer is clear: theological exegesis and biblical theology. Seriously, if you want to read a blog which is intelligent and direct, inhabitatio dei is the place to be. And if Halden starts blogging on this topic ... I think I would cancel all my other RSS subscriptions in order savour each word and lodge my limited opinions (OK, maybe not all of my RSS subscriptions).

So, don't leave it to chance: vote now!

(but note Halden's disclaimer in the body of the post)