Tübingen - Dissertation 12

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86. I believe I wrote the chapter of my dissertation on dualism in Hebrews while I was in Germany. It is not the best chapter. I had a sneaking suspicion that there was a deeper background understanding of the Greco-Roman world that I was missing and that I was being reductionistic.

On the other hand, I often had that feeling when I shouldn't have. In my first few years at IWU I had a chance conversation with Greg Sterling in the stacks of the Notre Dame Hesburgh library. I asked him whether he knew some great resources on this very question. I had read some of the ones he mentioned in my first year in England. I left the conversation feeling like I was more on top of things than I feared.

When I returned to Tübingen on sabbatical in 2004, I would extensively use the Theologicum, the fantastic theological library of the university. I don't remember using it quite as much my first time there. The library of Durham somehow did not seem to have as much, and often when I wanted a book there, it seemed to be checked out.

One of the big questions was whether Hebrews pictured the full removal of the created realm in Hebrews 12:27. I had read something in Thompson's Beginnings that gave me that inkling and it seemed to fit with the overall pattern of dualism I was observing. This was a dualism not so much between matter and non-matter but between that which is created and the heavenly realm that is not created.

However, these were the days before I had really explored the topic of creation ex nihilo. When I later worked on Philo and other projects, I would more fully realize that this idea did not really become solidified in Jewish and Christian thinking until around AD200. [1] I remember that, when I taught for Notre Dame in my early days at IWU, I was thinking that 2 Maccabees 7:28 was the first instance of ex nihilo belief.

But what I came to understand is that I was reading verses like Gen. 1:1-2, 2 Macc. 7:28, and Heb. 11:3 with later theological glasses. The underlying assumption of the ancient world was that existence was not conceived so much in the ontological way of my modern worldview but in the sense of order and functionality. In the ancient worldview, when God created, he took orderless chaos and made things to exist. It is currently the consensus that the Gnostic controversies are what solidified the ex nihilo perspective.

But if creation in Hebrews is the ordering of chaos, not creation ex nihilo, then it would make sense to say that the removal of the creation is not annihilation, but reformation.

I do therefore believe that I was wrong on one of the key ideas in Hebrews for which I am known--the annihilation of the cosmos. I presented a tentative paper to this end at Pepperdine a few years ago in honor of James Thompson. Sometime soon I need to publish the error of my way in a journal somewhere. I saw Thompson in November and he welcomed my submission.

87. My dissertation had two main sections after the introduction. There were two chapters on the setting of Hebrews' story in time and two on the settings of Hebrews in space. By the time I went to Germany, the two chapters on time were drafted. One addressed the overall division of time into old and new covenant. [2] The second looked more at the trajectory of time, the destiny of humanity. Originally I had thought to do the entire narrative substructure of Hebrews, but it was too much.

I'm quite sure I had also produced a draft of the introduction in my first year. The introduction of course either has to be modified after the whole book is written or perhaps even should be written entirely at the end. Almost all dissertations grow and evolve in the process of writing, so you don't entirely know what you are introducing until it is finished.

Of course one almost always writes material that doesn't get in the final piece. I think I wrote a chapter on the structure of Hebrews in my first year. I read through George Guthrie's The Structure of Hebrews, which had just come out.

However, I was also taken with Walter Überlacker's rhetorical approach (Der Hebräerbrief als Appell), which saw the first two chapters of Hebrews as a kind of narratio, with 2:17-18 as the propositio. When I was at the University of Kentucky, I had done a paper on George Kennedy's New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism and was fascinated with the application of insights from ancient rhetoric to the New Testament.

88. I had the opportunity to go to lectures but my German wasn't good enough to get much out of them. I think I did go with Christoph to one in the later part of my stay. It was on Karl Rahner and the idea of "anonymous Christians." Rahner is a Roman Catholic who has argued that there are individuals who have a heart of faith but their head does not know Christ. The lecturer was arguing against the idea.

One application of this concept would deal with individuals who have never heard about Jesus. Picture a Native American in the year 1200. Picture someone in a remote part of South America. If they must confess Christ with their head, they are doomed to hell. They have never heard of Christ. It is simply not possible.

Now some have testified to an appearance to them before they heard the name of Christ. I have found people to be very sympathetic to the idea that, if Jesus appears to someone and they don't know what to call him, they can still be saved by faith even though they do not know his name.

The harder suggestion of Rahner is with a person who, because of where they were born, might think that Christianity is evil. Is it possible for there to be a person who, with their head, thinks that Christianity is evil, and yet has a heart of faith toward God? [3] Can one actually have faith in their heart even though they do not with their head?

I think broader evangelicalism would tend to say no to this question. However, Wesleyans tend to be more pietistic than high Protestantism. I remember growing up with the concept of God judging us according to the light we have, a Quaker idea. I grew up with the idea that God "lightens everyone coming into the world" and that, as Romans 1 puts it, God's divine power is known by all so that they are without excuse (Rom. 1:20).

I thus consider it within the scope of Wesleyan thinking to entertain Rahner's thought as a possibility. Certainly it is in keeping with Wesleyan theology to believe that God does indeed give every human a chance to be saved. Although I am not certain if Wesley took this step, the very idea of prevenient grace is that the Spirit reaches out to everyone and gives them the opportunity to be saved.

By contrast, the idea that God only chooses some--and thus that those who have not heard are just some of those not predestined to be saved--is not in keeping with Wesleyan thought. I cannot answer the problem of suffering and evil if you must have knowledge to be saved. The idea does not cohere with the character of God if we believe that all will face eternity and judgment. [4]

I sit loosely to these ideas, knowing they are controversial. I also know that they could be used to undermine evangelism. My response to this charge developed when I self-published a little booklet, The True Wesleyan. My hypothesis is that there is a threshold of light God gives to all. But a person can have much more light. Is it possible that our prayers, a Christian home, and other opportunities make it even more likely that we will believe?

If so, then our opportunity for faith is not equal but it is fair. Evangelism, unless it is done counterproductively, thus only increases the likelihood of faith.

[1] I think a chapter by David Winston in the Studia Philonica Annual was instrumental here.

[2] When I was working on Understanding the Book of Hebrews (a more general overview of Hebrews from the perspective of story), Carey Newman suggested I look at the story of Hebrews from a more global perspective (he was my publisher at Westminster John Knox). Something like creation-fall-redemption-salvation-consummation. My response was that this was a broader theological perspective on time and that I was interested in the way Hebrews itself conceptualized time.

[3] I say Christianity rather than Jesus, since for example Muslims have a generally positive view of Jesus, although not as God.

[4] If one were an annihilationist rather than believing in eternal punishment, the idea would be more theologically coherent.