Hi Ken,
Interesting stuff. I've a great interest in these questions and would appreciate your thoughts. As I've studied the various interpretations of the development of NT Christology one thing that should be obvious, but is sometimes obscured by the nitty-gritty arguments, is that our conception of what constitutes monotheism in the NT period will essentially determine what we do with the christological texts.
E.g., as we move from the OT to the NT to the post-NT period, we can historically trace the conceptual development within Judaism from henotheism to monotheism to monism. This monism is a later rabbinic development - in reaction to the post-70 experience, during which boundaries were drawn tighter and earlier diversity anathematized - certain streams of apocalyptic thought were perceived to threaten God's unity (e.g., such as what became known as the two-power heresy). My concern with the Dunn-type line of understanding is that it retrojects back this later form of monism as normative for the NT period (most often as presuppositions, e.g., see the import of Partings 2nd ed., xxvi-xxvii). Thus, Paul can't really be seen to be saying that Christ is somehow intrinsic to God's own identity (as Bauckham puts it). That would constitute ditheism, so it cannot, by Dunn's definition of monotheism, be correct.
The logic of this, within monism, is that incorporating Christ within the Shema does not make sense unless you are collapsing their identities into one another, for how can two be one monad? Thus, as Dunn says, the one Lord must be being distinguished from the one God. It’s not that this isn’t true (they’re not being collapsed into one another) but that it’s not the whole picture. I think Dunn’s position on monotheism/monism in the NT period leads him to misunderstand what Paul was doing here. Monotheism was a doctrine which distinguished the “one” (God of Israel) over against the “many” (pagan gods and lords); monotheism was not about analysing the inner-being of the one God as a monad. All the "God is one" texts even show this (e.g., Rom 3:20 - the “one” God of all people groups, it’s just not about God's internal being). The question of God’s inner-being just doesn’t seem to have been an issue until the Christian understanding of Christ and other apocalypticists started sayings things which brought the question into play.
When this is historically taken on board, then I think that what Bauckham is trying to say can be more readily understood. As Second Temple Jews were more concerned with who God is, with his identity - not about conferring ontic estimations such as that he was a monad - then it was possible for the early Christians to now say that their God should be identified with reference to Jesus (leaving the Spirit out of the discussion for now). Before Christ, it was as the God of Israel, the eternal Creator and Ruler of all; after Christ, it was as the Father who raised the Son from the dead. The identification of who their God is, has changed in the light of the Christ-event.
Thus, with respect to 1 Cor. 8, it is precisely by saying that Jesus is intrinsic (not an addition) to God’s identity that allows monotheism (not monism) to be retained. Hence the Shema can be glossed with both Father and Son. This is further reinforced by the addition of the prepositions, “from”, “for”, and “through” (Rom 11:36). Splitting them among Father and Son ensures that God’s oneness (there is only one God, not two) is preserved. This is especially evident from the use of dia, which asserts the creative action of the Son. So the Son is intrinsic to who God is, and always was. It is the historical revelation of the Son which casts new light on who their God always was. Thus, Father and Son are not collapsed into one another, but are distinguished, but within the mystery of the one God’s being, not as the one God having one Lord added. This is ditheism, as Bauckham rightly objects. Hence Paul’s usual use of theos for the Father and kurios for the Son thus allows him to distinguish between them without collapsing them into one another, yet also then allows him to avoid ditheism – as in the Christianized Shema, in which they are both held together. I’ll come to the other YHWH texts which reinforce this below.
Historically, what Bauckham argues is that Christ was raised from the dead and exalted to God’s right hand over all things. This is the historical experience. This role/status that Christ received was not something that any ordinary man or messiah figure could have. As such, the logic goes that if he is now participating in these exclusively divine prerogatives/status then he must always have done so, for the adoption/apotheosis option must be rejected within a Jewish monotheistic matrix. It is their understanding of who Christ is now by what he does that led to an epistemological shift in their perception of who he must always have been. I wonder if part of your problem with Bauckham is that he’s not always entirely clear about the difference in his thesis between the historical unfolding of events for the early Christians (temporal sequence) and their perception of what it means (logical sequence)? I.e., it looks like Jesus is being “added” historically (temporal sequence), but it is actually a recognition of who he is always was (i.e., logical sequence --> the incarnate one – the person that they knew, Jesus messiah, was actually eternally Son).
However, Bauckham’s entire line of interpretation seems patently false if we start from monism rather than from monotheism. Monism precludes this: thus, 1 Cor 8 either seems like an addition of one Lord (ditheism), or must entail a denial of Christ’s divinity to ensure God’s oneness (just a man with a derivative role in exercising God’s sovereignty). Bauckham’s argument is rather that the texts suggests a greater perception and further identification of who God is in the light of Christ. We know and identify God by his character and his acts in history, in the Christ-event he has identified himself fully. He is not a new or two Gods (by adding a second figure), but it is a new perception on our part of who he is (the God known and revealed in the face of Jesus and by his Spirit).
The fact that Paul uses YHWH texts and applies them to Jesus should reinforce all of this or else Paul’s attribution of them to Christ seems frankly blasphemous. The weakness of Dunn’s analysis of these texts is very apparent as it’s difficult to avoid their import; it doesn’t just ascribe a derivative lordship, but connotes that the one historically known and experienced as Jesus, the incarnate Son, is the one known in times past as YHWH of the OT. Bauckham’s thesis assumes the progressive revelation of who God is through time, which is partly why I pointed you to this monotheism essay. God in himself might not change, but our understanding/perception and knowledge of him do. So, especially with the Christ-event, as our beloved Hebrews says (1:1-4).
YHWH texts and messianic ‘lord’: I can’t help feeling that this is a bit of a non-issue, for the different uses of ‘Lord’ are held together in the one person of the incarnate Son as the helpful and convenient linguistic nexus of two different conceptual ideas. While connoting divinity, YHWH texts are very important, but Jesus is still also the messianic lord with a role in salvation-history to perform (e.g., 1 Cor. 15:23-28).
I can't help wondering if a Dunnian influence makes it more difficult to get to grips with Bauckham’s thesis. I’ll really look forward to hearing your thoughts on all this ;-) Sorry it’s so long!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
My one complaint about Bauckham's approach is that it seems to do insufficient justice to the way the divine "identity" expressed in the divine name could apparently be shared in the Judaism of this period (as in the case of Yahoel in the Apocalypse of Abraham, or the "little Yahweh" of 3 Enoch), as well as in Samaritanism in the texts we have from that tradition.
I wish my book The Only True God was already out, but alas, it will be out in Spring of 2009. It is precisely on this subject! :)
James--great that your thoughts on this matter are finally coming out in a package... look forward to it! If you're willing, I might send you a draft of something later in the summer to see if it would be appropriate to interact with your thoughts in the footnotes.
Jonathan, I think you have done a good job of clarifying what surely must be some of the dynamics behind Bauckham's logic--dynamics I don't find so clear in his own writing. I once emailed him to try to get some clarity on what he meant by "inclusion within the unique identity of God" and he referred me to a page in God Crucified that was one of the sources of my question in the first place.
I think you have identified what must be part of his logic--even if part of his logic he doesn't seem to bring out very clearly. He surely implies that Christ must have always been a part of God's identity even though, viewed from one standpoint, he is only being included at the point of his resurrection/exaltation.
I question, however, whether this makes any sense from a first century point of view. The early Christians certainly used language of change at the point of exaltation--"God has made him Lord and Christ" (Acts 2), "therefore God also super-exalted him and gave him the name above all names" (Phil. 2), "having become as much greater than the angels as the name he has inherited" (Heb. 1:4), etc...
It seems to me that a modern Christian theologian can argue very eruditely that this must mean that Christ had always been within the identity of God. You then turn to texts like 1 Cor. 8:6 and Phil. 2 that picture the pre-existent Christ to show that they affirmed this idea as well.
But what I don't find are the "transitional" texts, the ones that explain the connection between the one and the other (thus this whole debate). It seems to me that Bauckham, despite his claim to have found a third way, must ultimately be making ontological claims here.
So which jump would have been more likely to the early Christians: language of change to be most literal, with protological and divine language exalted metaphor or for the language of change to be more superficial, and the protological and divine language more literal. Of course by the Gospel of John this is a moot question.
This comes to method. The first seems to me more likely to me from an inductive standpoint. I think Bauckham's method, despite extensively going through historical-critical motions, is ultimately driven by theological hermeneutics (as N. T. Wright's).
Wasn't the christological debate done during the time of the development of Gnosticism? And since the Church condemned Gnosticism, isn't the debate really about individuals and their understanding, development, and commitment to values that are ultimately ethical, which is what religion is about anyway? Is religion, then, needful for the development of the individual?
My question about whether religion was/is needful for the development of the individual is really about how do we come to know truth? Epignosis is experienced knowledge. That type of knowledge is not acquired in textbooks alone, but is understood within contexts of community. And the epitome of understanding "truth is love".
Community does not necessarily have to be religious. Some "secular" (which is defined by the "religious") parents have done an excellent job in raising compassionate children.
The question then becomes on what basis is ethics done? And is there a need for a jusrification of doing "good"? And who defines what is "good"?
Habit formation is the ability of man to discipline himself for his and his neighbor's "good". But, what is the ultimate in understanding and implementing the habit (and what habit)? The community (group solidarity)? The individual's value? God's standard? Or is it really about determination of "place" as in biological systems theory, where the individual is determined by his "place" in the whole?
I believe that it is necessary to understand man apart from deterministic understandings. Yes, we are "determined" to a certain degree by our environment and individual gifting, but are we "victims" of the environment, then? Or do we take responsibility for ourselves in determining our "place" and call? Is our understanding innately given and that determines where we "fit"? Or is it a matter of education where the social structures determine for us, by "training us" for "proper usefulness"?
I've decided to solicit assistance on my blog in filling in the author's questionnaire for the book. I've asked some questions and posted an outline. Thanks in advance for your suggestions!
Post a Comment