Soon I shall be off on holiday for two weeks hence posts shall cease until the 23/07/2009. Hopefully it will not rain however just in case I shall be taking the following with me to read:
1. Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics I/1.
2. Douglas F. Kelly’s Systematic Theology: Grounded in Holy Scripture and Understood in Light of the Church, Vol. 1.
3. Rowan William’s Dostoevsky: Language, Faith and Fiction.
You can find Michael Tinker’s article “John Calvin’s Concept of Divine Accommodation: A Hermeneutical Corrective” online.
Conclusion
Using Calvin’s concept of divine accommodation as a focal point, this study has enabled us to see and understand a number of issues of how God, who in the biblical account is a personal being and wills to communicate with his creation, does so. There are obvious barriers to a straightforward communication between the divine and the mortal. Consequently, God has had to accommodate himself to his people, in language and action, in how he describes himself and how his actions are described. He accommodates himself to ideas and social conventions, but never in contradiction to his character, only to enhance communication with his people. Nor does he do this simply in order to inform, since the barrier of our rebellion and resulting blindness have made that futile. Rather, knowledge of God consists of knowing him relationally.
Through speech-act theory we have seen how language not only communicates information (informative), but also produces effects and brings about states of affairs (performative). In the case of the divine communication with man, supremely through the incarnation, and through the testimony and application of the Holy Spirit, God has enabled man to know him in personal relationship.
What was written in the past, in the Bible, not only informs us today, and performs in causing us to react emotionally as any book might, but it also enables and brings about true knowledge of God in relationship.
On this matter, Kevin Vanhoozer helpfully writes—
Does God speak in Scripture? Calvin refers both to the majesty of God’s Word and to the divine stammering. To say that God’s word is ‘majestic’ is to say that his illocutionary acts are mighty….On the other hand, God’s mighty speech-acts are clothed in the form of human speech genres. In order to communicate with humanity, God has accommodated himself to creaturely media, to human language and literature, to human flesh and blood. God’s Word, incarnate and inscripturate, is God in communicative action….The divine speech-acts, though humbly clothed, are nevertheless, powerful enough to liberate the captive, empower the weak, fill the empty and sustain the suffering.
Calvin’s concept of divine accommodation enables us to understand how God’s mighty speech-acts work; it explains why such communication is necessary in the first instance, and then how God’s communicative action is implemented. The role of the Holy Spirit in God’s accommodating mighty speech-acts enables us to understand more fully how the perlocutionary effect is brought to bear upon us today. Scripture is more than an informative record of how God acted in the past; it is an action of God in the present.
The idea of divine accommodation, within the context of speech-act theory, enables us to appreciate more fully the diversity of literary genres in Scripture, the culturally relative nature of those various writings, and the relevance of such texts today. It helps us better attempt to gain the ‘correct viewing distance’ in our hermeneutical studies. It is our belief that Calvin’s concept of divine accommodation, coupled with speech-act theory, provides a much needed hermeneutical corrective.
(HT: Chris Tilling)
John H. Walton’s new book The Lost World of Genesis One looks very interesting. I placed my order last week and shall review it soon.
Publisher’s Description:
In this astute mix of cultural critique and biblical studies, John H. Walton presents and defends twenty propositions supporting a literary and theological understanding of Genesis 1 within the context of the ancient Near Eastern world and unpacks its implications for our modern scientific understanding of origins.
Ideal for students, professors, pastors and lay readers with an interest in the intelligent design controversy and creation-evolution debates, Walton’s thoughtful analysis unpacks seldom appreciated aspects of the biblical text and sets Bible-believing scientists free to investigate the question of origins.
Here are some Sample Pages.
Do check out Kenton Spark’s lectures:
Session 1: “To Err is Human: A Biblical View of Epistemology” (Thursday 27 September 2007 – 11:30 am).
Evangelical Christians often believe that error is a bad thing, but the biblical view of things is otherwise. Scripture teaches that human error is an inevitable and natural part of normal, healthy living. This observation has profound implications for our epistemology and theology.
Sparks-Epistemology MP3 (7 MB)
Session 2: “God’s Word in Human Words: The Problem and Promise of Modern Biblical Criticism” (Thursday 27 September 2007 – 1:15 pm).
Modern biblical scholars have highlighted features in Scripture that seem incommensurate with the Bible’s divine origins. However, when we understand these features as an affirmation of our humanity and as an expression of theological orthodoxy, we shall find they are wholly suited to a high view of Scripture’s inspiration and authority.
Session 3: “God’s Astronomy: Accommodation, Inspiration,
and the Bible” (Thursday 27 September 2007 – 7:30 pm).Does the Bible get the science right? And if not, what does this mean for Scripture’s authority and inspiration? The Church has long had the theological resources to deal with the apparent difficulty created by conflicts between the Bible and science. Evangelicals have largely forgotten these resources, which we shall try to recover.
Session 4: “The Path of Wisdom: The Church and Biblical Criticism” (Friday 28 September 2007 – 11:10 am).
The biblical critics are right about many things, but this does not mean that we can carelessly bring their insights into church pulpits and Sunday School classrooms. “True facts,” when misunderstood, become false and potentially destructive facts. How can the Church wisely assimilate the insights of biblical criticism without being destroyed by them?
Do check out the following by Tyler Williams:
- Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible – An Introduction (TCHB 1)
- Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible Resources (TCHB 2)
- Hebrew Witnesses to the Text of the Old Testament (TCHB 3)
- Early Versions of the Hebrew Bible (TCHB 4)
- Codex Sinaiticus: A Profile (TCHB 5)
- The History of the Biblical Text (TCHB 6)
- The Goal(s) of Textual Criticism (TCHB 7)
- The Practice of Textual Criticism (TCHB 8 )
- Textual Criticism In Action (TCHB 9)
On pages 413-416 of volume 2 of his Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics Richard Muller discusses the Protestant orthodox method for identifying the “original and authentic” text of Scripture. He begins by noting that,
By “original and authentic” text, the Protestant orthodox do not mean the autographa which no one can possess but the apographa in the original tongue which are the source of all versions.
He then proceeds to note,
The case for Scripture as an infallible rule of faith and practice and the separate arguments for a received text free from major (i.e., non-scribal) errors rests upon an examination of apographs and does not seek the infinite regress of the lost autographs as a prop for textual infallibility.
This leads Muller to point out in a footnote that,
A rather sharp contrast must be drawn, therefore, between the Protestant orthodox arguments concerning the autographa and the views of Archibald Alexander Hodge and Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield. This issue must be raised because of the tendency in many recent essays to confuse the two views. Like virtually all exegetes and theologians before and after them, they recognised that the text of Scripture as we now have it contains contradictory and historically problematic statements. they also recognised the futility of harmonisations of the text – but they insisted that all such difficult or erroneous passages ought to be understood as the result of scribal errors. Those who claim an errant text, against the orthodox consensus to the contrary, must prove their case. To claim errors in the scribal copies, the apographa, is hardly proof: the claim must be proven true of the autographs. the point made by Hodge and Warfield is a logical trap, a rhetorical flourish, a conundrum designed to confound the critics – who can only prove their case for genuine errancy by recourse to a text they do not (and surely cannot) have.
What is interesting is his pointing out that
Turretin and other high and late orthodox writers argued that the authenticity and infallibility of Scripture must be identified in and of the apographs, not in and of lost autographa.
This leads Muller to conclude that whilst the orthodox assume that the text is free of substantive error
they mount their argument for authenticity and infallibility without recourse to a logical devise like that employed by Hodge and Warfield.
Do check out “The Shorter and Longer Texts of Ezekiel: The Implications of the Manuscript Finds from Masada and Qumran” by Hector Patmore.
Blurb
The second-century CE Papyrus 967 contains a Greek version of Ezekiel that is significantly shorter than the Masoretic text. It has been argued that this shorter text reflected an earlier version of the Hebrew that was later expanded to form the text now found in the Masoretic text. Although the manuscript finds of Ezekiel from Qumran and Masada are scant, enough data are available to demonstrate a broadly proto-Masoretic text, which contains sections absent in the pre-Hexaplaric Greek versions. As these finds predate the earliest Greek witness (Papyrus 967) by over 200 years, the conclusion that the shorter text had been expanded becomes seriously questionable. This article argues that the available data are better explained by the conclusion that two different texts of Ezekiel must have been in circulation concurrently for a prolonged period of time and that the historical precedence of either text cannot be established legitimately.
God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Savior. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.
The quote above comes from the opening paragraph of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I especially like the explanation that in the Church all divisions between humans are removed, that true human unity is found only in the Body of Christ.
Read it here.
Viewing the creation account in its theological-political motif of establishing the kingdom and justifying rightful ownership frees the interpreter from many long and fruitless debates. We need not worry about whether the length of the days and nights was 24 hours or long eons, for their point in situ is to mark divisions within kingdom-building, not temporally-discrete cosmogonic divisions. We need not debate gaps between vv. 1 and 2 so as to accord with the geological calendar or seek to comprehend chaotic conditions that need rectification. We need not worry about light existing without solar objects or plants without pollinators. As the celebrated Jewish commentator Rashi noted centuries ago in his commentary on Genesis, the purpose of Gen 1 was not to establish a chronology. Rather, that Gen 1:1-2:3 gives is an orderly account of kingdom establishment from a theological-political perspective.
