Scripture's "Different Theologies"
Stuart made this comment which I thought was worth starting a new thread for:"I wonder why we often try to match up scripture passages with one another. What I mean is, what about the notion that all of the different writers of scripture had their own theologies, just like we do?! So the Spirit inspired all sorts of different folk to write in the way they did because of the way they understand life in the Spirit. If this is true, then we have a web of theologies in scripture. This is cool because diversity is a huge strength for the church."
see Stuart's original post
posted by Jamie at Saturday, February 18, 2006
11 Comments:
Ok, interesting point Stuart. Can you clarify a couple of things?
Firstly, I agree that Scripture is not intended to be used as some kind of repository of theological fragments, from which we have to extract a system. And I am thrilled that it is so.
I'm sure most people would agree that the different perspectives and theological emphases of the writers of Scripture add richness and life to the Bible's 'theology'. But it seems that you are saying more than that.
Are you saying that we shouldn't try to reconcile these 'different theologies'? Taken to it's conclusion, doesn't that idea leave us with an ultra-postmodern problem? If there is no underlying truth to be gleaned (or at least suggested) from the different perspectives, are we not left with total relativism?
I believe Scripture reveals God to us without theological error: surely this has to be coherent in some way?
I'm not sure that this creates the 'ultra-postmodern' problem that you suggest Jamie - that the writers of scripture disagreed about the system through which one could most accurately make sense of God does not affect the authenticy of their partial revelation. With a handful of even carefully selected pages of a long novel we may become aware only of key dramatis personae. So it is with the extremely long story of God - we have only a few pages of it.
Which is perhaps why we're never called to embrace a system, but a person who is The Word, the embodiment of God's own inherent logic, the image of the invisible (and inscrutible) God.
I'm occasionally suspect of the narratives we've spun from scripture, for example of atonement. Did Paul, Peter, James, John really agree on a system for atonement? It seems unlikely - they simply agree it's through the person of the living, crucified and risen Christ.
Granted, Mark. And your story metaphor is a very apt one. But I wonder if Stuart is saying more than that. Having a few pages of a bigger story is one thing. But what if there is no bigger story out there - just lots of disconnected pages? That's the "ultra-postmodern problem" that worries me: the death of metanarrative.
Clarification Stuart?
Surely the thing is everyone see's a situation through different eyes and will have a slightly different view on what happened depending on their emotions. The truth of a situation is not changed just because different people who saw the same thing.
Surely a picture dosen't change its the viewers perception / emotion that changes.
The bible contains many picture of God (not to mention the 3 forms of God all of whom had different characteristics) some from the same writer dependent on their mood, all of which show God in a different light.
The fact that with their change of views will also changes their theologies, shows that them like us are all on a journey during which we will re-define our understanding of God and our views along the way.
Can we not say that unlike God who doesn't change our understanding of him and ergo our theologies are likely to change.
Therefore we don't necessarly have to try to reconcile the 'diffferent theologies'.
Again, I agree (although I would take issue with your comment that there are 3 different 'forms' of God, which sounds a lot like Modalism to me... but that's another issue!)
But my question is still the same - is there a REAL picture of God behind the different perceptions? Or do we only have the perceptions? There is a crucial difference here.
It's the difference between an embracing of different narratives (which I fully endorse) and the rejection of metanarrative (which concerns me).
Let me unpack my thinking a bit more. What happens when two stories seem to conflict? Or when the two pictures are radically different? I'll give two scenarios:
If there is a metanarrative or "big picture" OUT THERE somewhere, we must try to reconcile (or at least hold in tension) what we have before us - and this will in fact improve our understanding of the "big picture" (this is why I am pro ecumenism in a big way).
On the other hand, if there is no real metanarrative (no "big picture"), then there is no problem of reconciliation - any picture is fine and 'true' in itself - but we have the much bigger problem of total relativism, with all the ethical and theological confusion that comes with it!
My question for Stuart is whether he is going further than the first scenario - or even as far as the second. :)
Not blabbing at all Stuart!
I'm interested by your comment Jamie - it seems that none of the posters so far are suggesting that there is no metanarrative, but simply that even this elusive true story is not our primary concern because it holds only a semiotic relationship to The Truth, Christ. Whatever this narrative may be it is simply the outworking of the truth, a 'sign' of the truth. However, Jesus as the Truth is our concern as opposed to the system by which God does x,y or z through him.
On a practical level this is profoundly liberating. I no longer have to stretch the writings of biblical writers to demonstrate their mutual agreement. Rather the text holds its value as it applies differently the truth of Christ to the different lives of those, like us, who've not met him like the apostles did. Meanwhile, is it useful to pursue as an end the story of God's work when we have already been given and promised the person of God himself in Christ?
Relating to your comment then, it is not that the metanarrative is not there, simply that the texts - avoiding the presentation of a clear system - cut across it on their way to presenting Christ to diverse people.
I may be being simplistic trying to disassociate God's will and person from the narrative of their outworking. I suppose all I'm saying that the question 'how...' is superseded by the question 'who...' which seems to sit more neatly with our created purpose.
Now I'M blabbing.
Thanks for your comments Stuart & Mark.
Just to clarify - I realise that none of the posters so far was doubting the concept of the metanarrative. I originally just wanted to clear up whether Stuart was! His assertion that there is a "metanarrative of sorts" answers that initial query and is a useful assertion - except that now I need to read Bauckham's book!
Also, the assertion that truth is a person is something we desperately need to hear. Well said both.
Given what we have said, maybe a new epistemological category is needed to describe the process. As the active 'subjects' Paul, John, Moses (and Jamie, Stuart, Mark) engage with the revelation of Jesus Christ: Truth the ultimate active 'subject', does it then become something beyond 'objective' or 'subjective truth'? Maybe "inter-subjective" truth? "Communitarian truth"? "Dialogue truth"?
Buzzword bingo anyone?
Jamie
P.S. "Living and active truth?" I've heard that one somewhere before...
It's great to join a conversation at the end and realise that most of your questions and points have been raised, thanks chaps, nice listening to you.
I echo some of your points and start to question our notion of metanarrative.
Does the Bible claim to be a metanarrative?
Or is it presenting a revelation in a person, a relationship, a thoroughly Christocentric view of life that the stories, theologies and attempts at metanarrative will only ever be a reflection of or perspective on that reality?
This kind of thinking on a Saturday morning requires an afternoon of bacon sandwiches, a pint and the Six Nations.
thanks chaps
Pete
Jamie, to pick up briefly the point of conflicting texts. I think this perhaps is due to a certain way we tend to read and view Scripture in order to see two texts as necessarily competing with one another.
Samuel-Kings and Chronicles for example - many people struggle with the tension created by the material covered in each of the books. It's easy for us to default to seeing this tension as the texts competing to represent 'the true version of events'. All of a sudden we've convinced ourselves that we have two texts written by different authors trying to tell us the same thing and we're asking which one is 'correct'. Why write another history of Israel when Kings already exists? Why is so much omitted by the Chronicler in comparison with the Kings account?
I think it’s important we take care how we read Scripture in this case. A closer reading can produce a much more satisfactory resolution as opposed to seeing authors setting up competing accounts of the same thing, vying for our approval (I’ve heard people talk this way not infrequently – especially sceptics of the Christian faith). The key lies in the issue of historiography and our acknowledgement of it – the fact that the author selects and shapes the material available to tell a particular story. Chronicles, then, is really a theological work whose author, rather than setting up a competitive history (‘truth’), selects and shapes the material in order to convey a particular story geared towards his target audience (striving to pass on the Samuel-Kings tradition to his generation). Faithfulness to the tradition in this case allowed a good degree of flexibility in what was told without compromising the tradition (rigid word-for-word recounting of the tradition was not required).
Instead for a drive for harmonisation then, we have in fact accounts of the same period that achieve different ends. More than that, we actually have, not competing texts requiring harmonisation, but a richer understanding and view that we otherwise might have done. After all, that is all we can ever hope for. No-one can ever tell a complete objective detailed history of their own life (let alone anything else), but their story which will change each time it’s told depending on what the teller (consciously or subconsciously) is aiming for and trying to recover.
Okay, I’ll stop now because I’m already repeating myself and have no idea if you will feel this relevant or rabbit-warren like, or even if what I’ve said makes sense.
Thanks Peter for your pre-bacon roll and 6 nations comment. It is crucial that we keep in our minds the person at the heart of the narrative, not just the narrative for its own sake.
And thanks Richard too. I had one thought in relation to yours, and I will try to avoid rabbit-warrens too.
What you say about the author's intention being a necessary part of our understanding is a good point. I would add the reader to the mix - I think the reader will shape the story depending on what he/she "is aiming for". This isn't something we should try and eliminate (through scholarship or whatever) but is to be embraced.
What this gives us (to return to Stuart's original comment by a long route round) is a "web of theologies" as each different writer (with their aims) meets with each different reader (with theirs) resulting in a many-coloured experience of Scripture.
The challenge is boundary-setting. All readings can simply not be 'accurate': that will just give us chaos. My feelings are that the community of faith (in the power of the Holy Spirit) is the best guardian of orthodox readings. I'm not saying that the church decides on "THE Correct Reading" but that, in dialogue, we can help each other to find the limits of 'the web' as we interpret.
So, reading is not just something I do on my own, but is a community affair, and so is theology.
This post hasn't been visited in a while, since it dropped off the front page, but I thought I'd pop back with a relevant comment from Miroslav Volf. In Exclusion and Embrace, Volf talks about his theological method, and the interaction between narrative and metanarrative:
"This narrative [of the death and resurrection of Christ], in turn, is intelligible only as part of the larger narrative of God's dealings with humanity recorded in the whole of Christian Scripture. It is this overarching narrative that provides the proper context for the interpretation of the "unsystematic and polydox" contents of the biblical texts (Levenson 1987, 296). WIthout the overarching narrative (or some substitute for it) the texts would "fall apart", unable even to perform the "dance of clashing orientations" (Long 1996, 288) let alone to normatively guide Christian faith and life."
I like this (particularly the word 'polydox'). Any reactions?
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