On Knowing God: Interdisciplinary Theological Perspectives 1463244622, 9781463244620

Table of contents :
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction. On Knowing God: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Chapter One. The Knowability of God from the Perspective of Philosophical Epistemology
Chapter Two. The Incomprehensibility and Knowability of God in Protestant Prolegomena
Chapter Three. Knowing God with the Senses? A Biblical, Historical and Systematic Exploration of What the Body Can Tell Us about God
Chapter Four. The Knowability of God: A Preliminary OT Survey
Chapter Five. Different Currents in Israel and Beyond: Knowing God in the Intertestamental Period
Chapter Six. Knowing God: A Johannine Perspective
Chapter Seven. Practices of Knowing God in Embodiment and Encounter: A Practical Theological Reflection
Chapter Eight. Images of God in a Social Cultural Context: The Casus of a Painting by Pieter Bruegel

Citation preview

On Knowing God

Gorgias Studies in Early Christianity and Patristics 80

Series Editorial Board Carly Daniel-Hughes Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Lauren Adam Serfass Ilaria Ramelli Helen Rhee

Gorgias Studies in Early Christianity and Patristics is designed to advance our understanding of various aspects of early Christianity. The scope of the series is broad, with volumes addressing the historical, cultural, literary, theological and philosophical contexts of the early Church. The series, reflecting the most current scholarship, is essential to advanced students and scholars of early Christianity. Gorgias welcomes proposals from senior scholars as well as younger scholars whose dissertations have made an important contribution to the field of early Christianity.

On Knowing God

Interdisciplinary Theological Perspectives

Edited by

Jacobus Kok Martin Webber Jeremy Otten

gp 2022

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com 2022 Copyright © by Gorgias Press LLC

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. ‫ܝܐ‬

1

2022

ISBN 978-1-4632-4462-0

ISSN 1935-6870

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A Cataloging-in-Publication Record is available at the Library of Congress. Printed in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface.................................................................................... vii Introduction. On Knowing God: Interdisciplinary Perspectives Dr. Philip Fisk.................................................................... xi Chapter One. The Knowability of God from the Perspective of Philosophical Epistemology Dr. Ralf-Thomas Klein......................................................... 1 Chapter Two. The Incomprehensibility and Knowability of God in Protestant Prolegomena Dr. Philip Fisk................................................................... 27 Chapter Three. Knowing God with the Senses? A Biblical, Historical and Systematic Exploration of What the Body Can Tell Us about God Prof. Dr. Nico den Bok ...................................................... 69 Chapter Four. The Knowability of God: A Preliminary OT Survey Dr. W. Creighton Marlowe ................................................. 91 Chapter Five. Different Currents in Israel and Beyond: Knowing God in the Intertestamental Period Prof. Dr. Geert Lorein...................................................... 123 Chapter Six. Knowing God: A Johannine Perspective Prof. Dr. Jacobus Kok ..................................................... 181 Chapter Seven. Practices of Knowing God in Embodiment and Encounter: A Practical Theological Reflection Prof. Dr. Jack Barentsen.................................................. 203

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Chapter Eight. Images of God in a Social Cultural Context: The Casus of a Painting by Pieter Bruegel Prof. Dr. Pieter Boersema ................................................ 237

PREFACE In South Africa, I (J. Kok) once heard the narrative of the ants who wanted to describe to each other the elephant that time and again destroyed their home each time he went down to get some water at the river. They decided to approach the problem head on, investigate the beast and report back to the colony. Some ants did so from the perspective of the tail and some from the perspective of the trunk. The point of the story was of course that we all see with our own eyes, and from our own perspective. This book is an interdisciplinary study on the topic “Knowing God”, against the backdrop of celebrating 500 years of Reformation. The project team approached scholars from different disciplines in theology, affiliated with the Evangelische Theologische Faculteit Leuven in Belgium, to reflect on the topic. This provided the faculty with the opportunity for fruitful interdisciplinary collaboration and reflection as we attempted to look at the same topic from the vantage point of our own subject and expertise. Wisdom is found in the manner in which we manage to look at the elephant from the perspective of all viewpoints. Knowing God is such an elephant—it is too vast for us to comprehend, but in our collaborative efforts, we learn how to look at the question or topic in an ever more sophisticated fashion from the perspective of others. Sometimes these perspectives contradict our own viewpoint, even though all authors might come from the same institution. But such a reality also needs to be accounted for, and we use metaphors to express the manner in which we make room for each other. Another such metaphor is that of a large castle with many flats and rooms. In Belgium one often sees small flats for sale within large castles situated in luscious green pastures

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next to the woods. Each flat has several rooms for members of the family. Each family stays in their own section, but they share the building, the large garden and the woods. In a way a project like this book is done from the perspective of the faculty as a whole, and each discipline represents a flat within the caste. But even within such a flat, one has different rooms and therefore each discipline also has different spaces that they inhabit. This might entail both small differences, like those between preferred methodologies, as well as more significant differences in ontology and epistemology. It is the latter which can often be strongly felt; so strong at times that views could be said to be diametrically opposed, and one might well ask whether we still inhabit the same castle at all. Our experience as reflected in this volume is that we indeed do inhabit the same castle. And we believe that paradox is even something to be treasured since it leads to innovation and growth. Hubert Hermans, who developed Dialogical Self Theory, argues that most (if not all) people have a dialogicality of different selves that occupy the polyphonic self. We often hold contradictory self-positions within ourselves as entity. I as academic might be at odds with myself as believer, or myself as father. There is an inherent tension in Fides Quaerens Intellectum. Within my own dialogical self, I might inhabit different discourses that circulate within my subdiscipline or within theology. If we were to take the time to deeply undergo a critical analysis of our own dialogicality, we will encounter this dialogical self that is extended over time and space, and which as an ongoing socio-constructive reality, is growing and developing all the time. The self from the present might have a distanced view on the self from the past, viewing the latter at times even as “another.” We grow and develop and inhabit dialogical paradox. Perhaps we should also think of theology, and an interdisciplinary project such as this, as such an extended dialogical self. From a metaphorical theoretical perspective, drawing on Lakoff and Johnson, one can blend the metaphors of the elephant and the castle into a coherent organic entity by using the dialogical self as a framework projected unto a system like our faculty (Evangelische Theologische Faculteit Leuven in Belgium). The reader is called to see this dialogical tension within the book, but

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also appreciate the manner in which this book was written by colleagues who have chosen to inhabit the same castle. But we will be the first to say that we feel like the ants on the elephant. Reading and studying each other’s chapters, we realize that we view the question from our own discipline and viewpoint. We are appreciative of the viewpoint of the other, and we are motivated to continue our journey into the future with the help of the tools we have acquired from each other. Although we all come from the same institution, and are bounded by our common motto Fides Quaerens Intellectum, we have allowed ourselves to roam freely within the flats of the castle and have enjoyed meeting each other in the courtyard and beautiful gardens on the occasion of our interdisciplinary seminars each year. We do not promise to provide in this book a coherently designed interdisciplinary approach. We promise to show you the beauty of each of our rooms within the castle. We also show you our own dialogicality, even paradox, as well as our own dialogical harmony. Jacobus Kok Leuven, July 2022

INTRODUCTION. ON KNOWING GOD: INTERDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES DR. PHILIP FISK This introductory essay proposes an academic context in which to read the essays in this volume. It begins with a survey by John E. Toews on shifting understandings of historiography and literary analysis since the 1980s (§ 1), raising the question of which “interdisciplinary liaisons” are appropriate in treating its principal theme. It then provides a selective overview of methodological perspectives on the topic, highlighting tension between historical approaches and close literary reading of the concerned literature (§ 2), which closes with suggested questions to pose of each contributor regarding truth claims. A third section uses an essay by Jan Muis to identify the issues at stake in metaphorical and literal God-talk (§ 3). This essay concludes with a brief overview of the perspectives of the other essays in the book (§ 4).

§1

In a landmark review article published in 1987, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn: The Autonomy of Meaning and the Irreducibility of Experience,” John E. Toews assessed a dozen books from the 1980s that indicated new directions in intellectual history, directions whose methodologies have implications not only for interdisciplinary but also intradisciplinary approaches to

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the topic, “on knowing God.”1 He began his review with an essay from 1981 by William J. Bouwsma who pessimistically observed an “‘irreversible’” decline of the ‘“history of ideas’” and a rise of “a more broadly conceived ‘history of meaning.’”2 First, such an assessment was based on the premise that the hegemony of rational thought as “species-defining” and the highest criteria for discerning truth, “both fact and value,” would be replaced by the broader category of culturally situated and constructed meaning.3 In short, the intellect itself would become an historicized and contextualized product. Second, Bouwsma hoped that integrating intellectual history into the history of meaning would not now privilege experience over rational thought, “but would avoid reductionist procedures altogether.” That is, “‘meaning and experience’” were not supposed to take on the role of “thought and reality” or “consciousness and being.” The new integrated idea was that “historical reality” was to be seen as “meaningful experience.” In short, the search for creative interpretive strategies implied that “‘some sense of meaning is both a condition and a product of experience.’”4 The implied hope was that this methodology would bring to an end inter and intradisciplinary tensions. Toews noted the hope for fewer “unilateral” strategies and more “dialogical” interdisciplinary relationships, with disciplines such as cultural anthropology and its world of meaningful experience, including religious experience. This interdisciplinary strategy would invite the intellectual historian to make a “linguistic turn.”5 In his review, Toews proceeded to test the general assumption in pursuit of this strategy, namely, the focus on “the

John E. Toews, “Review: Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn: The Autonomy of Meaning and the Irreducibility of Experience,” American Historical Review 92, no. 4 (October 1987): 879–907. 2 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 879. See William J. Bouwsma, “Intellectual History in the 1980s: From History of Ideas to History of Meaning,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 12 (Autumn 1981): 279–91. 3 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 879. 4 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 880. 5 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 881. 1

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ways meaning is constituted in and through language.”6 But even if intellectual historians were to take a linguistic turn, preliminarily, the question would be, which linguistic turn? Toews’s survey included an essay by Martin Jay who raised these kinds of questions and pointed to various overlapping linguistic strategies when considering social, cultural, economic, and political historians, not to mention their own culturally situated formulations.7 Nevertheless, a consensus has been building that language is not so transparent a medium of communication as previously thought with which to represent an extralinguistic reality. For this reason, semiotics, or the theory of language and signs, has ruptured the open system of signs and their transcendental signifiers and proposed in its place what is conceived of as “a selfcontained system of ‘signs.’” Toews asked whether a commitment to semiological theory implied that “language not only shapes experienced reality but constitutes it?” Does religious language, for instance, both constitute and shape one’s contextually and historically situated reality? In such a case, Toews asked whether predetermined rules governed signs and their internal relations in such a way that “the creation of meaning is impersonal, operating ‘behind the backs’ of language users whose linguistic actions can merely exemplify the rules and procedures of languages they inhabit but do not control.”8 For, these rules would apply to specialized language about objects of concern, whether “scientific, poetic, philosophical,” or “historical.” With this perspective one wonders whether historical investigation would be reduced to “a subsystem of linguistic signs constituting its object,” in this case, ‘“the past.’”9 As a result, Toews spoke of what others like Gabrielle Spiegel (b. 1943) expressed as, “the fashionable Nietzschean phrase” of “a prison house of language.”10 Toews noted how Keith Baker warned that these Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 881. Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 881. 8 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 882. 9 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 882. 10 Gabrielle Spiegel, “History, Historicism and the Social Logic of the Text in the Middle Ages,” in The Postmodern History Reader, ed. Keith Jenkins 6 7

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structuralist linguistic strategies appeared to propose a universal realm of meaning, “‘but at the cost of our historical souls.’”11 But Toews, as his essay’s title suggested, called to account these models of linguistic turns and maintained the irreducibility of experience to the discourse of these linguistic models. Likewise, the French historian, Roger Chartier (b. 1945), counted himself among those who ought not “reduce the practices that constitute the social world to the principles that command discourse.” That is, “experience is not reducible to discourse.”12 Toews saw the need to adapt traditional models of an open system of signs and their extralinguistic signifiers to “the semiological challenge.” He found the so-called “autonomy of cultural meaning” to be a relative matter since even though human beings may be thought of as worldmakers of meaning, in their situated world that is, “these worlds are not creations ex nihilo but responses to, and shapings of, changing worlds of experience ultimately irreducible to the linguistic forms in which they appear.”13 In sum, the books Toews reviewed all participated in a common discourse that addressed “the promises and problems of sustaining the dialectical unity of and difference between meaning and experience (as all historians must) in the wake of the linguistic turn.”14 This book is an interdisciplinary study on the theme of knowing God set against the backdrop of 500 years of Reformation. Toews perceptively observed that if such an historical study were to be seen as a “contextually situated production” and the “transmission of meaning,” then perhaps “intradisciplinary turf battles between social and intellectual historians

(London: Routledge, 1997), 180–203, page 184. See Fredric Jameson, The Prison-House of Language: A Critical Account of Structuralism and Russian Formalism, Princeton Essays in Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972). 11 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 882. 12 Roger Chartier, On the Edge of the Cliff: History, Language, and Practices, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane, Re-Visions of Culture and Society (London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 19–20. 13 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 882. 14 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 882.

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would appear to lose their point.”15 But can such a consensus be achieved? A consensus would require agreement that “the plowing of a field,” a Pieter Breugel painting, and “the storming of a fortress,” were as much “contextually situated, meaningful social actions” as the marshaling of “philosophical argument.”16 To answer that question, Toews pointed to essays by Chartier and Dominick LaCapra (b. 1939) in support of the idea that intradisciplinary tensions could not be so easily relieved, given the “hegemonial claims of ‘sociocultural history’ or the ‘social history of ideas’ within the history of meaning.”17 What Chartier and LaCapra found objectionable in sociocultural history was the objectification of meaning. Methodologically, when cultural history objectifies meaning, it applies socioeconomic organizing principles. How does this look? First, according to Toews, Chartier and LaCapra argued that an objectified world was characterized by a reconstructed, reified, anonymous, “collective mentalité of a period or culture.”18 A meaningful act was but a product bound by time and culture. Epistemologically, there was skepticism about any historical truth claims to the totality of grand narratives, and determinative patterns of cause and effect. Second, meaning was seen as objectified by way of “defining individual meanings as selfidentical ideas or ‘essences.’”19 These meanings were “extracted from their textual contexts” and treated as traded “commodities” and “consumed in statistically measurable patterns.” The distinction between text and context, fact and fiction, collapsed. Any recognition of supposed well-trodden historical paths as opposed to less-traveled paths was erased. The history of meaning became “a complex process of linguistic creativity” and activity, whether verbal, literary, or other, that was “irreducible to socioeconomic models.” Indeed, historians and literary theorists

Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 882. Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 882–83. 17 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 883. 18 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 883. 19 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 883. 15 16

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had developed specialized skills to conduct a “critical reading of the artifacts of ‘high’ culture.”20 What did Chartier and LaCapra propose instead? First, they asked who determines the categorical features of elite versus popular culture. Was it not a “gross oversimplification” to decide that popular culture was broader and more inclusive, without recognition of the heterogeneity and complexity of a given culture? Indeed, among the so-called elite class there also would be distinctions among the productions of philosophers, theologians, poets, and artists, not to mention the hegemony of the political elite. Chartier would agree that there was a multilayered cultural complexity and therefore various worlds of meaning; nevertheless, they were not autonomous worlds, each in need of its own objectified analysis. Toews therefore found support in Chartier for his objections to the autonomy of meaning and for his underscoring the irreducibility of meaning to experience, and experience to the meaning that shapes it, when developing interpretive and reconstructive strategies.21 Second, Toews noted Chartier and LaCapra’s opposition to the traditional distinction between representation and reality. Meaning was no longer to be ultimately determined by an extralinguistic reality. Rather, “meanings actually constitute or create the reality experienced by human beings.”22 As a consequence, Spiegel warned, “This dissolution of the materiality of the sign, its ruptured relation to extralinguistic reality, is necessarily also the dissolution of history, since it denies the ability of language to ‘relate’ to (or account for) any reality other than itself.” After all, as Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) claimed, following his precursor Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), speakers do not use language to express something, “language uses its speakers.”23 Exhibiting intercultural sensitivities, Frank Lentricchia (b. 1940) observed, the “unnerving remark” by Heidegger that “it is language, not man, who speaks, has never

Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 883. Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 883–84. 22 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 885. 23 Spiegel, “History, Historicism,” 184. 20 21

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been troublesome for structuralists and other critics familiar with Continental perspectives.”24 Toews noted two implications of this new orientation. First, a distinction between literary texts and documentary evidence collapses and becomes meaningless. All forms of historical evidence become documentary.25 Thus, as Spiegel noted, “If we cannot reach ‘life’ through literature, we cannot reach ‘the past’ through document.”26 Documents have a passive, given dimension of meaning and an active dimension that produces meaning. “This duality is present in parish registers and trial reports, philosophical treatises and musical compositions,” noted Toews.27 Second, the deconstructed dualism of representation and reality implied the need to “reconceptualize the issue of text and context.” The context itself of a text must be conceived as “a compound world of constituted meanings, as a text requiring interpretation.” The context could no longer help explain the text, nor its “essence,” nor any “cause of its effect or the reality of its representation.”28 Toews said that LaCapra systematically critiqued “tendencies toward the reductive contextual interpretation of textual events.”29 Along these lines, Spiegel posed the question, “What, then, is the ‘real?’” She said, “Chartier provisionally answers: that which the text itself poses as real in constituting it as a referent situated beyond itself.” But not merely the reality the text aims at, but “‘the very manner in which the text aims at it [reality] in the historicity of its production and the strategy of its writing.’” That is, what is real is the “semiotic codes that govern the representation.”30 Given all the pitfalls of representation theory, Toews wondered whether the “linguistic density” and “complexity of texts, contexts, and their apparent

Frank Lentricchia, After the New Criticism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 10. 25 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 885. 26 Spiegel, “History, Historicism,” 185. 27 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 885. 28 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 886. 29 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 886. 30 Spiegel, “History, Historicism,” 189. 24

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circular relationships” had exhausted any possible utility for historiography.31 An obvious consequence of the linguistic turn for intellectual history, said Toews, was the use of and focus on the term “discourse” as a central organizing principle for history, language, and practice.32 A Foucauldian perspective insisted that “discourse” demanded a radical break from the rationally oriented Western metaphysical tradition. Discourses were impersonal, anonymous “‘systems of statements” operating under strict governing rules. They were “self-defining worlds” and either excluded, resisted, or dominated other worlds to which they related. For Foucault, discourses referred to broad social-politicalhistorical systems of power, that is, discursive structures that determined what to exclude, resist, or dominate.33 Another perspective on “discourse” was developed in AngloAmerican political theory in the writings of Quentin Skinner (b. 1940), whom people associate with the Cambridge School of Intellectual History, and J. G. A. Pocock (b. 1924). As an object of historical inquiry, discourse had a performance or “speechacts” dimension. Language constituted the medium through which to conduct political discourse. A speech-act performed a role, as if on a stage, and then exited. Skinner would want the historian to establish an author’s intention with a document, treatise, or speech and analyze how an author used an argument rather than what an author said. A question to ask would be, What response was the politician wishing to elicit? What countermove did he or she anticipate? “It is this process of constant interaction between speech and language, action and structure, that constitutes a ‘discourse,’” wrote Toews.34 Skinner wanted to pay attention to the author’s intent, words, sentences, and how function and performance determined their meaning. Ideas did not have a stable meaning or continuous history, but an act to perform. The assumed community of discursive actors drew on an “inherited inventory” of language and experience. Discursive Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 886. Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 889. 33 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 890. 34 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 892. 31 32

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actors could both respond to and transform knowledge mediated to them via texts and experience mediated by language. Toews noted that Pocock’s intent was to recover the European classical “republican discourse of civic humanism,” which enjoyed great reception among American historians and scholars.35 For the purposes of this interdisciplinary collection of essays, Toews’s review of new directions in historiography and analysis of literature has attempted to show the benefit of “interdisciplinary liaisons.” Rather than one disciplinary approach dominating another there is more borrowing from one another, more reciprocity. The question is whether a shift in paradigms occurs concerning “the production, reproduction, and transmission of cultural meanings that impinges on all of the disciplines” and opens up “genuine interdisciplinary dialogue.”36 If so, surely voices from intellectual history have something to say. Regarding any noticeable shift in perspectives, Toews suggested looking in three areas: in interdisciplinary reciprocity and borrowing, in “grand” theory appraisals of the humanities, and in transformations within critical literary theories and philosophy.37 The challenge for intellectual historians is to learn from and borrow from developments in critical literary theory and philosophy. Specifically and perhaps ironically, practitioners of intellectual history could learn much from the art of close and sympathetic readings of texts practiced by both Derrida and Cleanth Brooks (1906–94). Brooks fully identified with the methods of the new critics and was best known as a practitioner who gave close and sympathetic readings of poems. Writing in the 1940s, Brooks believed that the authors whose poems he read evidently thought that they were able “to transcend the

Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 892. Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 898. 37 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 899. By “grand” theory appraisals, Toews was referring to his review of Skinner’s book, The Return of Grand Theory in the Human Sciences (New York: Cambridge, 1985). 35 36

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limitations of their own generation.”38 New Criticism arose in opposition to the “temper” of their times which was “strongly relativistic.” The “positivists” had reduced texts to not much more than the ink on the page.39 The pressure Brooks felt in his day was to pay attention to the historical context of the poems he read. The rule was not to ask more of the poem than “what its own age asked.” Stay within the “canons of its age.” But once referred to its “cultural matrix,” what residue would be left? Brooks chose rather to give a close and sympathetic reading of a poem to let the poem speak for itself. A close reading of a poem just may uncover a transcendent meaning, making the poem more than a mere relic of cultural anthropology. What seemingly unlikely interdisciplinary liaisons could possibly be made and what have the art of New Criticism and Derrida to borrow from one another? Although new critics espoused an objective and ontological view of poems, they looked to their internal structure rather than authorial intent. The structure was not to be separated from the texture. Brooks thus strongly opposed what he called the “heresy of paraphrase,” as if a scholar could extract a “paraphrasable core,” rending the union of structure and texture. By “structure,” Brooks meant “a structure of meanings, evaluations, and interpretations.” The principle of structure was not one of homogeneous groupings, but of heterogeneous pairing. Unity was not to be achieved by reduction, but by positive harmony. For this reason, Brooks’s close readings frequently noted the skillful use of “ambiguity,” “paradox,” and mostly “irony,” as inadequate as these terms might be.40 Showing intradisciplinary tension, but interdisciplinary borrowing, Brooks asserted, “the language of poetry is the language of paradox.” And, “the prosaic” can be the “poetic.”41 Consider John Owen’s seventeenth-century treatise, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ. Brooks’s theory of the language of paradox challenged common perceptions. Similarly, Cleanth Brooks, The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry (London: Methuen, 1968), vii. 39 Brooks, The Well Wrought Urn, vi–vii. 40 Brooks, The Well Wrought Urn, 159–60. 41 Brooks, The Well Wrought Urn, 1, 4. 38

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Derrida engaged in what he called a “double reading.” First he advocated a “close reading” with a provisional outcome. Second, he gave a deconstructive or “critical reading.” His theory of deconstruction claimed that in the second stage of critical reading language dispersed itself into an unresolvable paradox of aporia or waylessness. The slipperiness of language left the reader in an endless, meaningless aporia.42 Though certainly not a deconstructionist, the poet John Keats (1795–1821) coined the term “negative capability,” used in a letter in December 1817, with which he described the paradox of the poet. The poet who possessed negative capability could enter in the lives of others, see things their way, yet find rest amidst unresolved mystery and paradox. Indeed, he or she need not find answers, neither for philosophic nor aesthetic reasons. Intellectual historians, according to Toews’s review of LaCapra’s Rethinking Intellectual History, could learn “the art of close and critical textual reading” from Derrida.43 According to LaCapra, they would learn a perspective that perceives historical texts to have the properties of opposing fields of forces, “acts of linguistic domination,” hegemony and privilege. LaCapra saw five significant implications for practitioners of intellectual history. First, this perspective resurrected the idea of classic texts having living, internal, intratextual conversations and disputes whose resolution was artificial or political. Second, in exegeting culture, the historian gave an “immanent critique” of those artificial or political resolutions noting acts characterized by dominance, hegemony, privilege, and even “self-deception.” Notably, hierarchical binaries and oppositions such as male/female, truth/error, speech (Logos)/writing, nature/culture, insider/outsider, expressed the privilege of the first term and as such were to be broken down.44 M. H. Abrams and Geoffrey Galt Harpham, A Glossary of Literary Terms, 10th ed. (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012), 79–80. 43 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 899. See Dominick LaCapra, Rethinking Intellectual History (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983). 44 Abrams and Harpham, A Glossary of Literary Terms, 79. Also, Jacques Derrida, “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences,” in Critical Theory since Plato, ed. Hazard Adams, rev. ed. (New 42

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Third, to practice a deconstructive reading involved the interpreter in “dialogic” criticism of the text.”45 Since no closure with the text was possible after the second critical reading, the reader was left to wrestle with an active, present “other” voice, rather than with an objectified text, as if it were a mirror or representation. Fourth, the practitioner and critic would become aware of his or her active engagement with this other voice or voices from the past and would thereby undergo a transformative experience. In this way, the interpreter would appropriate, receive, and recover the text. According to Toews, LaCapra insisted that “a critical, deconstructive reading of historical texts reopens and ‘problematizes’ the relationship of text and context.”46 Toews concluded that the perspective LaCapra had learned from Derrida was not so much an interdisciplinary wholesale borrowing of method and models, but rather a broader perspective and “liberating stance” on “the production and reproduction of cultural meanings.” As a result, LaCapra wanted to rethink and demystify traditional conventions of privileged order, “‘closure’” with texts, “‘coherent structure,’” and “‘determinate meaning.’” Derrida served as “the liberator from the literal claims of aestheticism.” As a movement in France, aestheticism said, “l’art pour l’art,” that is, “art for art’s sake.” Historically, for Kant it meant the disinterested contemplation of an object. For Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714–62), who coined the usage of the term aesthetica in 1735, “The aesthetic end is the perfection of sensuous cognition.” In 1750, he coined the term, “aestheticological truth,” by which he meant the art of beautiful thinking, that is, “the transcendental perfection of an object in sensual cognition and representation.”47 York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992), 1116–26. Note that logos is variously understood as “speech, presence, truth, reason,” in “Jacques Derrida 1930–2004,” in Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, Vincent B. Leitch, gen. ed., 2nd ed. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010), 1684. 45 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 899. 46 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 899. 47 Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Ästhetik: Zwei Bände. Band 1: §§ 1– 613 / Band 2: §§ 614–904, Einführung, Glossar, Philosophische Bibliothek

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In interdisciplinary studies, what do historical scholars contribute that philosophers and literary critics lack? Toews said that LaCapra envisioned “the intellectual historian’s role qua historian to be more than ancillary in the interdisciplinary temple of cultural criticism.”48 They have vocational skills for conducting contextual analysis. Unlike deconstructionists like Derrida, intellectual historians work with specific guidelines in order to understand historical contexts and see things from their perspective. They offer “historical specificity” when reconstructing the meaning of past discourse and social practice. Chartier, for instance, noted the scientific techniques historians have used to verify past realities, to analyze and uncover forgeries, such as “the Moulin-Quignon jaw or the Piltdown skull.” Chartier’s goal was to give “new foundations to the critical realism of historical knowledge that historians will be able to resist the possible perversion of their own discipline.” Historians, he said, produce “discrete knowledge” that is “confirmable, verifiable knowledge.” History “has weapons to resist what Carlo Ginzburg has called ‘the skeptical war machine’ that denies it any chance of speaking about past reality.” History can distinguish between truth and falsehood and resist the “mythical reconstructions” of real or imagined “needs of communities” that invent narratives to fit their needs. Historians, however, are not naive but alert to the gap between the past and its representation, between “the vanished realities and the discursive form that aims at representing and understanding them.”49 The writing of history produced “scientific” statements, if by scientific was understood, in the words of Michel de Certeau, “‘the possibility of conceiving

572, trans. Dagmar Mirbach (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2009), Bd 1:lviii-lix. On Baumgarten and the art of beautiful thinking, see Fisk, “Jonathan Edwards and Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten: Aesthetic Theology and The Art of Beautiful Thinking,” in Edwards, Germany, and Transatlantic Contexts, ed. Rhys S. Bezzant, New Directions in Jonathan Edwards Studies 3 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2022), 113– 133. 48 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 900. 49 Chartier, On the Edge of the Cliff, 26–27.

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an ensemble of rules allowing control of operations adapted to the production of specific objects or ends.’”50 The contribution of Continental critics like Derrida, Gadamer, Foucault, even Habermas, and their “Anglo-American sympathizers,” was, according to Toews’s review of Skinner, suggestive guidelines they proposed for understanding much contemporary culturally oriented theory and practice of intellectual history. Significantly, in “contemporary theorizing,” Derrida and other postmodernists had delivered an apparently devastating blow to the Western philosophical and metaphysical tradition since Plato.51 Toews noted, however, that Derrida was “reveling in what Nietzsche called the fröhliche Wissenschaft of deconstructive criticism, unveiling the proliferation of meanings without end in the repetitive, constantly displaced struggle to impose univocal meaning or cultural closure.”52 Among contemporaries, it was Derrida who struck at the very Western foundations of claims to knowledge, by reading this metaphysical history as an endless search for a logos, an originary presence, a transcendental signified. For him, there was no access to “a transhistorical or transcendent subjectivity that might ground our interpretation of meaning.” Historians could not recover or discover knowledge, but only construct it since it was only present to them as “culturally constructed.” For this reason, Gertrude Himmelfarb warned that postmodernism denied the stability of any text “in literature,” (or any privileged canon of great books), the stability of language “in philosophy,” the stability of the U.S. constitution “in law,” and the stability or “fixity” of the past as a “past reality” in history, quite apart from

As cited by Chartier, in On the Edge of the Cliff, 27. Toews, “Intellectual History After the Linguistic Turn,” 901. While Skinner named the following critics of any totalizing theory of human nature and the Western philosophical foundations: Althusser, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Derrida, Foucault, Gadamer, Habermas, Kuhn, Rawls, and Fernand Braudel, Toews would have added Heidegger and Sartre. In his review of Skinner, Toews noted, “It is difficult to see why Gadamer or Derrida should somehow be seen as engaged in a grander form of theorizing than should Heidegger or Sartre,” 901. 52 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 902. 50 51

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the historian telling it as he or she wants, rather than as it was.53 Toews noted some significant implications of this perspective. For one, it was “radically historicist,” by which he meant that “all knowledge and meaning,” whether of a literary work or work of art, was to be understood as a culturally time-bound product. Whether a poet or a poem, whether an author, historian, or “text,” they are stripped of any apolitical, agendaless vantage point from which to view reality, from which to objectively reconstruct the “relationship between past, present, and future.”54 Another implication of the denial of access to any true and orderly coherent past was the belief that knowledge was an aesthetic creation of the historian. Indeed, he or she acted as a communicator, creator, and worldmaker. Another implication is that any distinction among ordered levels of knowledge of the past is “problematized” such that even the line between history and fiction is erased. Finally, Toews noted that the abovementioned thinkers (Derrida, Foucault, Gadamer, and Habermas) tended to merge the vocation of scholarly interpretation of texts, discourse, and other productions with that of cultural critic and intellectual. Indeed, the transformation of their society justified their work and practice “as a way of life,” rather than an academic enterprise. But if their own work also was subjected to removal of any appeal to a “transcendental ground” for their vocation as “truth tellers” and “reconstructors of meaning,” then they likely would be malcontent.55 The last thinker whom Toews reviewed was Charles Taylor, whom he considered to be a “moderate historicist.” Against the “‘non-realism’” and “relativity and incommensurability of all constructions of meaning” of someone like Richard Rorty, Taylor advocated terms for judging “the meanings constructed by philosophers.” What, for instance, was their “relationship to the historical reality of social practices?” How did they justify those practices? According to Toews, Taylor offered critique of the Gertrude Himmelfarb, “Telling It as You Like It: Postmodernist History and the Flight from Fact,” in The Postmodern History Reader, ed. Keith Jenkins (London: Routledge, 1997), 158. 54 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 902. 55 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 902–903. 53

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“epistemological model” that he believed was a “universalizing, and thus self-justifying” depiction of those who actively influenced social practices. Those who criticized this model had encountered practices that the model itself could not justify and which were unintelligible, practices such as the erasure of any distinctive line between literature and historical documents. Ultimately, to criticize the epistemological model was to ask whether the philosopher or historian could engage in his task from a historically disinterested, “culturally ‘homeless’ stance.”56 Toews’s review essay resulted in the observation that there was “a new form of reductionism,” namely, the “reduction of experience to the meanings that shape it.” He also noted “a new form of intellectual hubris,” namely, “the hubris of wordmakers who claim to be makers of reality.” He thought that “modern European intellectual historians” were especially aware of these trends and the angst they might produce. He encouraged the next generation of intellectual historians critically to reexamine “the relationship between experience and meaning” with the same tenacity as those who investigated how “meaning is constituted in language.”57 Nevertheless, any renewed focus that merely seeks to reestablish a lost balance between polarized reductionisms will not do. In order to (re)connect “memory with hope,” interpreters must acknowledge what Toews in his day saw as the “recent turn away from experience,” including religious experience, a turn which itself was shaped by an “inherited world of meanings.”58

§2

Any approach to a study On Knowing God and the breadth of the literary deposit needs first to sort through various methodological perspectives concerning God-language. The authors of the collected essays navigate the fallacies, on the one hand, of the Scylla of contextualist reductionism and, on the other, of the Charybdis of parthenogenesis, that is, of perennial ideas that take on a life of their own. Concerning the former, reductionism, the Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 905–906. Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 906. 58 Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 907. 56 57

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question arises whether religious experience and its related texts are nothing more than the cultural matrix of meaning and use one makes of them, in answer to the issues of a particular time and place. As for the latter, dialectical perennialism, the question is whether the literature on knowing God, knowing oneself, and all things sub specie aeternitatis transcends boundaries and time, by appealing to first principles, but without context or any real basis in reality.59 To the former, a more nuanced approach would say that when historical concerns guide us, we exegete and interpret in order to establish whether an author considered something to be the case, such as whether God is knowable, and whether that author was consistent in what he said. We would want to know what the author actually thought and believed at a certain time and place, at least, but not limited to, in answering prevailing questions of the day. To the latter, a more nuanced approach would have interpreters present a close and sympathetic reading of the literary deposit. N. T. Wright has advocated a middle way, a nuanced “critical realism” as the most coherent theory “to do justice to the complex nature of texts in general, of history in general, and of the gospels in particular.” The critical realist acknowledges an extralinguistic and extramental reality in “literature, story and worldviews.”60 But how does the critical realist justify the way he or she goes The approach taken by Adler and the Institute for Philosophical Research is characterized by a “non-historical study of ideas.” They recognize that the literary record has, of course, dates and places, but the Institutes’s aim is to “deliberately abstract materials from their historical context and pattern.” Even so, Adler recognized that historical documentary evidence on a topic, for instance, the idea of freedom, “differs in type according to the context in which it is found. It also differs with respect to the character of the authors from whom it is drawn and in the general intellectual background of the periods in which they made their contributions to the literature of freedom,” in Mortimer J. Adler, The Idea of Freedom: A Dialectical Examination of the Conceptions of Freedom, The Institute for Philosophical Research (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1958), xix, 441. 60 N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, vol. 1 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 64. 59

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about reading texts? Wright suggested “a critical-realist account of the phenomenon of reading, in all its parts” (italics original).61 With his theory, he wanted to take into account and do justice both to the individually situated reader who is herself or himself a storyteller and to the text itself as its own entity. Wright would have preferred to call the theory “an epistemology or hermeneutic of love.”62 In this model of agape informed by the New Testament, Wright proposed that “the lover affirms the reality and the otherness of the beloved. Love does not seek to collapse the beloved into terms of itself.” Paradoxically, “one becomes fully oneself when losing oneself to another.”63 His point was to affirm both reader and text, each on its own terms. Wright saw the need to avoid the pitfalls of the “positivist” or the “naïve realist,” on the one hand, and the “phenomenalist,” on the other.64 The former seeks to situate the meaning of a parable, for instance, in its historical context. But the question remains, which historical context? The latter finds herself immediately and presently spoken to and involved in the phenomenon of reading. The critical realist, however, as a storyteller herself, allows her worldview to be challenged, changed, nuanced, overturned, affirmed, or otherwise modified. For this reason, Wright called a critical realist reading “lectio catholica semper reformanda.”65 In historical investigation, when one revisits the past literary record, he or she is not merely proposing a Masterclass in the formalization of texts. Rather, the critical realist intends to test the coherency and consistency of the texts. Furthermore, revisiting any historical literary deposit has value in and of itself. As Umberto Eco (1932–2016) concluded, it is not as if “it is always necessary to justify historical studies in terms of some immediate utility.”66 For instance, one ought to know and love Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, 61. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, 64. 63 Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, 64. 64 Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, 66. 65 Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, 67. 66 Umberto Eco, The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas, trans. Hugh Bredin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 222. 61 62

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God for his own sake (frui), rather than for personal utility (uti), according to the Augustinian distinction. To do justice to reading texts, Wright called out “deconstructing them beyond recognition,” advocating instead a reading open to speaking of an “extra-linguistic world,” if the “linguistic world” called for it, in order not “to lapse into incoherence.”67 Indeed, it is arguably the case that the interpreter ought to acknowledge that the literary deposit on knowing God may express and incarnate transcendent truths. Along this line, the methodological perspectives employed by the authors in this volume may broadly be described as presenting a close and sympathetic reading of the literary deposit within a framework of critical realism. Quite apart from the opinion of those who would argue that the methodology of The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, edited by Colin Brown (1978), is outdated, it contains a lengthy essay on the concept of truth (alētheia) wherein Thiselton gives a helpful sketch of discussions in modern philosophy on the various ways that “truth” may correspond with reality in religious talk and experience. Crucially for this collection of essays, he thinks that R. Schnackenburg correctly observed that John, in the prologue of his Gospel, used alētheia to mean “‘divine reality’ in a more strongly ontological sense (John 1:17).’”68 Indeed, the use of alētheia was to point to an extramental reality. “True worship” and true talk about God corresponded to and took place “‘on the plane of reality,’” citing C. H. Dodd.69 However, against the background of the so-called “epistemological crisis,” which among other things has called into question the stability of language since Plato, as discussed above, Thiselton gives an account of various analyses of the ways in which one uses the word “truth.” Truth is “multiform” in the sense that one can speak of “historical truth,” “factual truth,”

Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, 68. A. C. Thiselton, “Truth,” in The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, ed. C. Brown, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979), 3:890. 69 Thiselton, “Truth,” 3:890–91. 67 68

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“personal truth,” and “poetic truth.”70 John Keats ended his poem, “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” with the proposition, “‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty, –that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’”71 Some critics, like T. S. Eliot, saw the motto as a meaningless “blemish.” Others, like Cleanth Brooks, saw it “as an appropriate dramatization of the urn’s view of things.”72 Brooks explained the proposition in his last two lines as an appeal to “dramatic metaphor” in order to “free literary texts from declarative statement.” Brooks explained that “‘any proposition asserted in a poem is not to be taken in abstraction.” How then did he justify it? It is “justified, in terms of the poem, if it is justified at all, not by virtue of its scientific or historical or philosophical truth, but is justified in terms of a principle analogous to that of dramatic propriety.” The meaning and significance of the proposition is derived from its “relation to the total context of the poem.”73 Still others thought that Keats had inappropriately crossed into another genre. Although on the one hand truth is multiform, on the other Thiselton argues that there is, nevertheless, something like a comprehensive, univocal core of truth. This universal dimension “holds together particular expressions and experiences of truth in thought and life.”74 As we have seen, philosophers have questioned the “validity” of the “correspondence theory of truth,” from Plato to Heidegger, J. L. Austin, and others. Thiselton notes that in the Sophist, for instance, Plato makes the point about correspondence when the Stranger, while conversing with Theaetetus, states, “Theaetetus sits.” The Stranger then asks him, “To whom does the statement belong?” Theaetetus answers, “Clearly about me. It belongs to me.” Then the Stranger asks him, “Theaetetus, whom I am talking to at this moment, flies.” He replies, “That too can only be described as belonging to me and about me.” Then the Stranger makes the point that “any statement must have a certain Thiselton, “Truth,” 3:894. John Keats, John Keats: The Complete Poems, ed. John Bernard (1973, repr., London: Penguin, 2006), 346 (lines 49–50). 72 Keats, Poems, 677. 73 Lentricchia, After the New Criticism, 312. 74 Thiselton, “Truth,” 3:894. 70 71

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character,” namely, as Theaetetus said, “One is false, the other true.” Indeed, says the Stranger, “And the true one states about you the things that are [or the facts] as they are.”75 Aquinas defined truth as the “adequacy between the mind and the thing itself (veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus).” He referred to Aristotle, who stated, “‘To say of what is that it is not . . . is false, while to say of what is that it is . . . is true.’”76 But when it comes to talk about God, the “adequacy” of human language to speak about God—the transcendental signified—and the correspondence theory of truth have been called into question. The linguistic presuppositions of Aquinas’s and Scotus’s theories of how we can talk about God, whether metaphorically, analogously, univocally, or a combination of these will be examined below. The earlier Wittgenstein, rather arbitrarily according to Thiselton, held that “moral, religious, or poetic truth might be ‘shown’ but it could not be ‘said.’” The later Wittgenstein questioned his earlier picture-correspondence theory and asked whether the earlier theory of how truth related to language held up in all cases? The later Wittgenstein saw that language did not merely do one or the other of two things, namely, “portray facts” or state logical propositions. Rather, he asked, What happens if we broaden our view of language? What if we question the very “framework” or “linguistic habit” underlying the reference theory of words as signs whose meaning is the thing to which they refer?77 Thiselton then notes the “weakened version” of the correspondence theory of truth of J. L. Austin. Austin dismissed the Enlightenment “one-to-one correspondence between facts and language.”78 He proposed the well-known theory of speech-acts Thiselton, “Truth,” 3:894. The reference to Plato is from “Sophist”, trans. F. M. Crawford in The Collected Dialogues of Plato Including the Letters, ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, Bollingen Series 71 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), 1010 (263a–b). 76 Thiselton, “Truth,” 3:894. Thiselton’s reference to Aquinas is Summa Theologica 1 Q.16,1. 77 Thiselton, “Truth,” 3:895. 78 Thiselton, “Truth,” 3:895. 75

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that purported to give a fuller account of the various conventions of language. In this proposed discourse, it is as if words played a role on a stage. They enter, perform (the speech-act), and exit. The performance acted according to the then established conventions of language and thereby transformed the words in the act of communication. This interaction between speech and language constituted “discourse,” which became a kind of organizing principle or central dogma.79 Thiselton points out that “this gives rise to a view of truth which in practice tends towards relativism.”80 Let us take another look at the idea of language as speech-act from another methodological perspective, that of a literary critic. Lentricchia wrote a chapter titled, “Paul de Man: The Rhetoric of Authority.”81 De Man had studied several of Nietzsche’s essays, including two passages and two points from The Will to Power that I wish to bring into the discussion here. First, according to Lentricchia, de Man noted how Nietzsche dismantled the Enlightenment grand principle of common sense, namely, the law of contradiction or identity. Leibniz called it “the great foundation of mathematics,” namely, “that a proposition cannot be true and false at the same time.”82 De Man confronted Nietzsche’s assertion that the law of contradiction “cannot be claimed to be adequate to the truth of things.”83 The problem Nietzsche saw was that such a claim demanded prior knowledge of entities that were somehow comprehended without or outside of language. What then was the law of contradiction? Nietzsche saw it as “a way of creating reality.” Lentrichhia said that Nietzsche thought that the fundamental law about reality likely “springs from the nature of

On “speech-acts” and “discourse,” see Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 889–92. 80 Thiselton, “Truth,” 3: 895. 81 Lentricchia, After the New Criticism, 315–16. 82 G. W. Leibniz and Samuel Clarke, The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence Together with Extracts from Newton’s Principia and Opticks, ed. and comp. H. G. Alexander (1956; repr., Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998), 15. 83 Lentricchia, After the New Criticism, 315. 79

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sense experience.”84 That is, people do not simultaneously experience two opposite sensory qualitative experiences. People make “an unwarranted leap” about the “truth of entities in themselves.” For Nietzsche, “all being is linguistically posited.” De Man saw the compelling power of the law of contradiction and identity as coming from an “‘analogical, metaphorical substitution of the sensation of things for the knowledge of entities.’” De Man thought that Nietzsche had shaken anyone’s confidence in traditional ontology by “denying affirmation of anything.” The deconstruction of logic brought about “the nonaffirming, intratextual world of tropology.”85 Second, according to Lentricchia, de Man observed that after the deconstruction of logic, “the idea of language as speech-act, so prized by J. L. Austin, John Searle, and Stanley Fish,” was nothing more than a metaphysical illusion.86 As a result, if there were no true knowledge of anything, if there were only “feigned truths,” then are we not fooling ourselves by merely replacing “knowledge” with “performance?” Is not a speech-act itself “a metaphoric movement, a type of synecdoche?”87 In sum, “there is no ontological authority for speech-act theory.”88 De Man concluded from his study of these two passage from Nietzsche that “‘The possibility for language to perform is just as fictional as the possibility for language to assert.’” In other words, the Nietzschean critique of metaphysics had resulted in the deconstruction “‘of the illusion that the language of truth (epistémè) could be replaced by a language of persuasion (doxa).’”89 The conclusion that de Man drew from his study was, according to Lentricchia, that speech-act theory depended upon a metaphysics where the subject was the “coherent center from which acts are directed.” But, he concluded, if the subject or actor was not fully aware of what exactly her speech-act was Lentricchia, After the New Criticism, 315. Lentricchia, After the New Criticism, 316. 86 Lentricchia, After the New Criticism, 316. 87 Recall that a “synecdoche” is a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole, or vice versa. 88 Lentricchia, After the New Criticism, 316. 89 Lentricchia, After the New Criticism, 316–17. 84 85

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accomplishing, then there were grounds for suspicion. For his part, Lentricchia drew back from the edge of the cliff, as it were, from peering into the abyss, where avant-garde critics like de Man pushed. For, if one were to follow them, all literature, including Christian Scripture, all talk about God, would be “emptied of all linguistic force except the force of its own duplicitous selfconsciousness.”90 To the Lutheran theologian George Lindbeck (1923–2018), together with Hans Frei (1922–88), is ascribed the founding of the so-called “Yale School,”91 a way of doing theology, also called narrative theology. Both Lindbeck and Frei advocated a return to an older, normative way of reading the whole of Scripture as a grand narrative.92 People were to enter into this master narrative that in turn was to inform and shape their way of life. In his influential work, The Nature of Doctrine, Lindbeck proposed a postcritical, “cultural-linguistic” approach to doing theology.93 By this term, he meant for people to enter, cross-culturally, as it were, the grand narrative of the Scripture universe of symbols. This cross-cultural entrance is necessary since the symbolic universe of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament is foreign to people today. His approach recognized that Christianity had a unique cultural-linguistic system given its superior and “unsurpassible” truth claims, for instance, that “Jesus is Lord.”94

Lentricchia, After the New Criticism, 317. The “Yale School” is not to be confused with the “Yale New Critics” (Harold Bloom, Jacques Derrida, Geoffrey Hartman, Paul de Man, and J. Hillis Miller). 92 For a helpful survey of “literary approaches” and “cultural hermeneutics,” see Carol A. Newsom, “Contemporary Methods in Biblical Study,” in The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version With the Apocrypha, ed. Michael D. Coogan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 2281–88. 93 George Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age, 25th Anniversary ed. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), xxx, xxxi, 130–34. 94 Lindbeck borrowed the underlying theory from Clifford Geertz. He said that the thinkers behind the “cultural” side of his “cultural-linguistic” theory were: Marx, Weber, and Durkheim. Behind the “linguistic” side 90 91

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In an excursus on religion and truth claims, Lindbeck noted that in order to do justice to the God-talk and practice of religious people, one had to allow not only for “categorically true” and genuine religious expression within a universe full of symbolic meaning, but also allow for the possibility of “propositional truth.”95 For instance, the act of a Christian who confessed that “Jesus is Lord” was more than a categorical truth claim about Jesus the Messiah. Lindbeck called this the superiority or “unsurpassibility” of the Christian story. The grounds for allowing such a truth claim were the strength of the “cognitivepropositional theory of religion” as opposed to the “experientialexpressive theory.” Lindbeck saw this as a “crucial theological challenge” to his own “cultural-linguistic approach.”96 In order to address this challenge, Lindbeck proposed two iterations of truth: “intrasystematic truth” and “ontological truth.” The first iteration of truth had to do with “the truth of coherence,” a necessary condition for justified belief.97 According to cultural-linguistic theory, “intrasystematically” true religious expressions and practices implied a coherent totality of the “relevant context.” By “true” was meant believing, confessing, and teaching the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and that “Jesus is Lord.” These acts were considered as coherent practices within the pattern of the total symbolic universe. Moreover, these acts would be false if used in a performance that was inconsistent with the pattern of belief as a whole. For instance, Lindbeck gave the example of the crusaders’ battle cry. “Coherence,” therefore, was deemed “necessary for truth in nonreligious as well as religious domains.”98 Lindbeck noted that inner coherence was also necessary for Euclidean geometry. Thus, from his “culturallinguistic perspective,” the problem with the “cognitivepropositional theory” was failure to distinguish between the coherence of axiomatic truths, on the one hand, and the was Wittgenstein. Among others behind the cultural side was Peter Berger, see Lindbeck, Nature of Doctrine, 6. 95 Lindbeck, Nature of Doctrine, 49. 96 Lindbeck, Nature of Doctrine, 49–50. 97 Lindbeck, Nature of Doctrine, 50, 139n10. 98 Lindbeck, Nature of Doctrine, 50.

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coherence of the culturally situated story of Christian faith and practice, on the other.99 The second iteration, ontological truth, had to do with “the truth of correspondence to reality.” This correspondence was, “according to epistemological realists, attributable to first-order propositions.”100 Ontologically true statements had also to be intrasystematically true. But intrasystematically true statements could stand alone, without being ontologically true. Ontological truth corresponded to a system that was categorically true. It corresponded to the “medieval scholastics” who “spoke of truth as an adequation of the mind to the thing (adaequatio mentis ad rem).” Lindbeck explained that the function of religious discourse was to organize and constitute a way of life, “a way of being in the world,” to make sense of the world around them. This was what corresponded to “the Most Important, the Ultimately Real.”101 But it was not as if religious talk in and of itself corresponded to reality, as if it possessed some kind of extralinguistic attribute. In the domain of religious talk about God, this “mental isomorphism” was like a picture of a broader “conformity of the self to God.” He thought that Austin’s theory of performative language could make the same point. “A religious utterance, one might say, acquires the propositional truth of ontological correspondence only insofar as it is a performance, an act or deed, which helps create that correspondence.”102 To demonstrate how “meaning, truth, and falsity” were unusually bound together in religious talk, Lindbeck pointed to the declaration of faith that Paul insisted upon, namely, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:3). Likewise with Luther, one cannot say, Christ is “the Lord,” until he or she has said, he is “my Lord.” In this sense, the propositional truth was bound up with the person saying it. Nevertheless, as Lindbeck pointed out, Paul and Luther believed that the statement, “Jesus is Lord,” was objectively true, regardless of

Lindbeck, Nature of Doctrine, 50. Lindbeck, Nature of Doctrine, 50. 101 Lindbeck, Nature of Doctrine, 51. 102 Lindbeck, Nature of Doctrine, 51. 99

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whether one confessed it or not. The point was that by acting upon this speech-act, through performance, it attained “propositional force.”103 An “epistemologically realistic” utterance implied a correspondence of the actor’s mind with “divine reality.” For this reason, Lindbeck held that his cultural-linguistic theory could include a “modest cognitivism or propositionalism represented at least by some classical theists, of whom Aquinas is a good example.”104 Though Aquinas did not apply the modus significandi to the significatum of the claim that Jesus was objectively raised from the dead, Lindbeck did. In addition to Aquinas’s theory of analogical knowledge, he saw the claim as “warrant” for Christians to live according to the way of life told by the resurrection stories, even though it was impossible to specify exactly what the significate was.105 Lindbeck saw this kind of “performative-propositional” theory as compatible with his cultural-linguistic theory.106 In sum, Lindbeck saw no reason to exclude “epistemological realism” and the “correspondence theory of truth” from his proposed cultural-linguistic approach.107 There are two methodological perspectives that I wish to identify in Udo Schnelle’s Theology of the New Testament. First, in his section on “language and reality,” Schnelle wrote, “For human beings, there is no path from language to an independent, extralinguistic reality, for reality is present to us only in and through language.” And language itself is “culturally conditioned.”108 If language is incapable of paving the way to extralinguistic reality, the question arises whether the locus of Lindbeck, Nature of Doctrine, 51–52. Lindbeck, Nature of Doctrine, 52. 105 Lindbeck, Nature of Doctrine, 53. 106 Lindbeck, Nature of Doctrine, 53. 107 For a fuller account of conditions under which propositions can be uttered, see Lindbeck, Nature of Doctrine, 54–55. In a footnote, Lindbeck added a third iteration of truth, “categorical truth,” which consisted of “adequate words and grammar,” that is, “adequate concepts and appropriate patterns for deploying them,” 139n10. 108 Udo Schnelle, Theology of the New Testament, trans. M. Eugene Boring (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), 31–32. Schnelle is a Lutheran Professor at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. 103 104

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divine revelation is to be found in the biblical language of the text or in the events described therein. For Schnelle, the locus of revelation is in “revelatory events,” not the biblical text itself. He affirmed Hahn’s proposal that “making revelation the guiding concept means starting with the revelatory acts of God in the Old Testament, then following the revelatory event in the person of Jesus Christ.”109 Theologically, “the righteousness of God” in Romans 3:21 “is to be read as a revelatory concept, meaning that in the Christ event God has made himself known as the one who makes others righteous.”110 Structurally, in the Fourth Gospel, Schnelle said that the incarnation is a “revelatory event.”111 Under the subsection, “methodological approach,” he said, “The resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead was a revelatory event that opened up the meaning of his life. Such an event called for acts of meaning-formation from those who believed it!”112 Again, he “understood the resurrection as a transcendent event.”113 The resurrection meant that the apostles and Paul underwent a “transcendent” experience.114 “In the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, God has made death the locus of his love for human beings.”115 By making the revelatory event the locus of revelation, not the text, the question arises whether the interpreter needs to get behind the text in order to understand the universe that the Bible narrated. Did the biblical text serve as a window, witness, and door that gave access and pointed the interpreter to revelatory events, that is, the acts of God? In understanding the resurrection as “transcendent event,” Schnelle recognized the modern-day “historicization” of the event that opened a temporal gap between the interpreter today and the original context. He proposed methodological perspectives and strategies for overcoming this gap, which included constructing history, and the unique Schnelle, Theology of the Schnelle, Theology of the 111 Schnelle, Theology of the 112 Schnelle, Theology of the 113 Schnelle, Theology of the 114 Schnelle, Theology of the 115 Schnelle, Theology of the 109 110

New Testament, 51. New Testament, 265. New Testament, 684. New Testament, 54. New Testament, 235–36, 238. New Testament, 238–39. New Testament, 239.

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transcendent event of the resurrection, according to the disposition of the religious historian. History, thus, was therefore “a constructed model.”116 Furthermore, one prevailing contemporary worldview was not to be privileged over another. Nomologically ruling out the historicity of the transcendent event of the resurrection a priori was unacceptable since it ignored the changing horizons of the “constitutive element of history in temporal experiences.”117 For Schnelle, such experiences were characterized by contingency and therefore shared in an open view of reality, not a closed or self-contained universe. Before moving on to the second point, it is instructive to point out that Schnelle’s focus on revelatory events as the locus of revelation represented a departure from the classical, precritical worldview, as explained by John Sailhamer in Introduction to Old Testament Theology and The Meaning of the Pentateuch.118 Sailhamer explained that the locus of revelation was in the text or verba of Scripture itself, neither in the event, nor in the history behind the text. The upshot of the focus on revelatory events was that one could not say that God had revealed himself to humankind in inscripturated text. Nor could one say that Scripture was the authoritative written word of God (verbum Dei). Sailhamer attempted to show, by way of biblical theologians such as Andreas Rivetus (1572–1651) at the University of Leiden, Salomon Glassius (1593–1656) at the University of Jena, Johann Jacob Rambach (1693–1735) at Halle and Gießen, and Johann August Ernesti (1707–81) at Leipzig, that the classical-confessional approach to hermeneutics was the “grammatical,” also rightly called the “historic sense.” In other words, “the ‘historical’ was the ‘grammatical’ method.”119 But a later embellishment in an English translation of Ernesti’s Institutio interpretis Novi Testamenti (1761) decisively moved the task of Schnelle, Theology of the New Testament, 236–37. Schnelle, Theology of the New Testament, 237. 118 John H. Sailhamer, Introduction to Old Testament Theology: A Canonical Approach (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995); Idem, The Meaning of the Pentateuch: Revelation, Composition, and Interpretation (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009). 119 Sailhamer, Meaning of the Pentateuch, 107. 116 117

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interpretation in another direction.120 The task became focussing on both “grammatical” as well as “historical considerations.” The historical method became interested in “the realia that lay behind the biblical narratives.”121 The significance of this brief excursus is to show the classical referential character of the verbum Dei, the capacity for transcendence in the biblical universe of symbols, that is, of the signs and the things they signified.122 Second, both Schnelle and Richard Hays have expressed their methodological perspectives in terms of “symbolic universes.” For instance, under the section, “History as meaningformation,” Schnelle wrote, “Symbols play a decisive role” in the process of “identity-formation.” Furthermore, “Universes of meaning must be articulable in the world of secular reality.” Thus, community “identity” is “achieved through universes of meaning or symbolic universes.” In “identity-formation” theory, “Symbolic universes are objectified as signs and symbols,” making reality communicable.123 Schnelle identified the cross and the resurrection as symbols. He said, “The theology of the cross appears as a fundamental interpretation of God, the world, and life; it is the midpoint of the Pauline symbolic universe.” That is, the cross “interprets reality” and “orients one’s thinking.”124

Sailhamer, Meaning of the Pentateuch, 105–107. Ernesti’s Institutio was translated into English by Moses Stuart, Elements of Interpretation: Translated from the Latin Text of J. A. Ernesti and Accompanied by Notes, with an Appendix Containing Extracts from Morus, Beck, and Keil (Andover, MA: Flagg & Gould, 1822), 14, 15. 121 Sailhamer, Meaning of the Pentateuch, 107. 122 For discussion on the fundamental shift in the meaning of “biblical history” in the eighteenth century, and his use of the term “historylikeness,” see Hans Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1980), 10. Sailhamer was critical of Frei’s calling the biblical narratives “history-like” (by which Frei meant the historical events were not “real” themselves) and therefore Sailhamer thought Frei’s notion also amounted to “an eclipse of the biblical author,” in Sailhamer, Meaning of the Pentateuch, 128–29. 123 Schnelle, Theology of the New Testament, 35. 124 Schnelle, Theology of the New Testament, 245. 120

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Furthermore, “The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the central content of Paul’s symbolic universe.”125 Likewise, Richard Hays said, “Matthew is both creating an ordered, symbolic world, in which Jesus possesses all authority in heaven and on earth, and defending it against rival worldviews.”126 Under “modes of appeal to Scripture,” Hays spoke of “rules, principles, paradigms,” and a “symbolic world that creates the perceptual categories through which we interpret reality.”127 If there is indeed a “metaphorical hermeneutic” at play in New Testament ethics, then Hays located Scripture authority in “the mode of symbolic world construction.”128 For instance, for Hays, on the issue of abortion, Psalm 139:13–16 “portrays a symbolic world in which God is active in the formation of unborn life in the womb.” The passage was not meant to be a scientific statement, but was a “poetic affirmation of God’s loving omniscience and foreknowledge.” Furthermore, the christologically charged text in Luke 1:44 “might indirectly shape a symbolic world,” but was not a statement of fact in defense of “prenatal personhood.”129 What is the methodological perspective and worldview behind the use of the term “symbolic universe”? In The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945) proposed that human beings surrounded themselves with “forms” of symbols. Humans created and constructed their “cultural realities.” Religion, history, science, and art were each an independently constructed “universe” of symbols.130 Similarly, in Anatomy of Criticism, Northrop Frye wrote an essay on the theory of symbols.131 An archetype was “a symbol” that connected one Schnelle, Theology of the New Testament, 226. Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 94. 127 Hays, Moral Vision of the New Testament, 209. 128 Hays, Moral Vision of the New Testament, 303. 129 Hays, Moral Vision of the New Testament, 448. 130 Hazard Adams, ed., Critical Theory since Plato, rev. ed. (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992), 925. 131 Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), 71–128. 125 126

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poem with another. “If archetypes are communicable symbols, and there is a center of archetypes, we should expect to find, at that center, a group of universal symbols.”132 Thus he proposed that all great poems belonged to a “self-contained literary universe.”133 The Bible itself gives an “unobstructed view of archetypes.”134 He built upon St. Paul’s use of typology, Dante’s use of Pauline typology, and archetypal theories. He spoke of universal symbols that had referential character, light, darkness, tree, bread, cup, a sacramental meal, lamb, wind, fire, city, garden, marriage, and “the quest.” These symbols were not manmade, but rather “forms of nature” itself. “Nature” was now inside the mind of what could be imagined as an “infinite man who builds his cities out of the Milky Way.”135 The center of the literary universe of symbols was the transcendental signified, a center, a presence, to which these symbols as signifiers referred. It was the touchstone of beauty and truth. “From Aristotle to Kant to Coleridge,” one can trace the paradoxical term, “concrete universal.” In “the poem as a microcosm of all literature,” for instance, “a universal idea has been fully realized in a concrete form.” Conceived in literary terms, anagogically, the God-man is “a single infinite and eternal verbal symbol which is dianoia, the Logos, and as mythos, total creative act.”136 In Christianity, the God-man is the “concrete universal.” As Louis Markos has noted, “this notion is, of course, profoundly incarnational and logocentric.”137 The God-man unites the aboveFrye, Anatomy of Criticism, 118. Frye, Anatomy of Criticism, 118. Also, “The universe of poetry is a literary universe,” 125. 134 Frye, Anatomy of Criticism, 116. 135 Frye, Anatomy of Criticism, 119. By “Quest-myth,” Frye meant, “First, agon or conflict,” second, pathos or death, third, disappearance of the hero (sparagmos or tearing to pieces), dividing the hero’s body among the followers, fourth, reappearance and recognition of the hero,” 192. 136 Frye, Anatomy of Criticism, 121. For Frye, Dianoia meant “idea, poetic thought, theme, meaning.” And mythos meant “plot, narrative,” 52. 137 S.v. “concrete universal,” in Louis Markos, From Plato to PostModernism: Understanding the Essence of Literature and the Role of the Author: Course Guidebook (Chantilly, VA: The Teaching Company, 1999), 142. On “Deus-homo: esse perfectum et perfectum hominem,” see 132 133

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mentioned archetypal metaphors, lamb, city, garden, sacramental meal, etc. “Christ is both the one God and the one Man, the Lamb of God, the tree of life,” and so forth. “In Christianity the concrete universal is applied to the divine world in the form of the Trinity.”138 In the incarnation, Christ as Logos, true God, true man, as a profound concrete-universal, “asserts an aesthetic and metaphysical reality that has been problematized by modernists and rejected by postmodernists.”139 In the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel, the incarnation speaks to the ontological, epistemological, and linguistic questions of whether the Logos exists, who the Logos is, how God has revealed himself to humankind, and how he has communicated with humankind. For the purposes of the essays in this book On Knowing God, questions arise concerning each author’s perspective. Is there an originary presence, a transcendental signified? Are these universes of symbols self-contained or open and contingent? Has God revealed himself in the God-man, and in the Verbum Dei? Do human beings have access to an extralinguistic and extramental reality? Frye noted that Chalcedonian language about the Trinity and the God-man was “metaphorical” and ruled against the language of simile or likeness.140 Indeed, can Christians talk about God literally or only metaphorically?

§3

In an essay entitled, “Can Christian Talk about God Be Literal?” Jan Muis explored the many Christian statements about God that were “metaphorical.”141 He made a distinction between metaphorical and literal language. He examined and found unAnselme de Cantorbéry, Pourquoi Dieu s’est fait homme: Texte latin, introduction, bibliographie, traduction et notes, trans. René Roques, SC 91 (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2005), 365–67. 138 Frye, Anatomy of Criticism, 141–42. 139 S.v. “Concrete universal,” in Markos, From Plato to Post-Modernism, 142. On “Deus-homo: esse perfectum et perfectum hominem,” see Anselme de Cantorbéry, Pourquoi Dieu s’est fait homme, 365–67. 140 Frye, Anatomy of Criticism, 142–43. 141 Jan Muis, “Can Christian Talk about God Be Literal?” Modern Theology 27, no. 4 (October 2011): 1.

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convincing three arguments in favor of exclusively metaphorical talk about God. What were the three arguments? First, to use earth-bound words to talk about the transcendent God is to transfer those words to another domain. But to do so is to speak metaphorically. Therefore, to use metaphor is the only way to talk about God. Second, since transcendent God-talk differs from earth-bound talk, one can only talk indirectly about God by using models. To speak indirectly is to speak metaphorically. Third, since language speaks about created entities, and the Creator is other than created reality, one cannot speak literally about God because there is no one-to-one correspondence between one’s words and divine reality.142 What then is the difference between literal and metaphorical talk about God? In order to answer this question, Muis first recognized a distinction between the meaning, reference, and use of a word. His account concluded that “meaning did not presuppose or imply that meanings of words immediately and fully represent the essence of the entities and properties they refer to.” Nor were meanings totally stable.143 Literally, a knife is sharp. By repeated extension to a new domain, analogically, it also may be said that a person is sharp. Nevertheless, Muis proposed three reasons to maintain a distinction between the literal and metaphorical use of words.144 First, any instability in the use of a metaphor as metaphor is temporary until the new meaning is commonly used and understood. Second, many conventional metaphors remain metaphors. For instance, “O my love is a red, red rose.”145 Third, to use words metaphorically is a phenomenon quite distinct from analogically applying a word to another domain.146 In sum, (1) in a metaphor, at least one word or proper noun is applied to a different kind of thing or name-bearer than in standard usage; (2) “The metaphorically used word provides a model.”147 Muis, “Can Christian Talk about God Be Literal?” 583–84. Muis, “Can Christian Talk about God Be Literal?” 588. 144 Muis, “Can Christian Talk about God Be Literal?” 589. 145 Abrams and Harpham, A Glossary of Literary Terms, 130. 146 Muis, “Can Christian Talk about God Be Literal?” 590. 147 Muis, “Can Christian Talk about God Be Literal?” 591. 142 143

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The question arises whether proper names for God could be found in talk about God, names where God alone is the namebearer.148 In other words, are there proper names for God literally used only for God and not for created beings? In the Hebrew Bible, and in Christian talk, there are indeed proper names that identify God and God alone. In Genesis 4:26, the text says, “At that time people began to invoke the name of the Lord.” The divine name is “YHWH.” In Exodus 3:14,15, in reply to the question, “What is his name?” (v.13), there are two variations of his proper name, “‘I am who I am’” and “‘The Lord.’” God thus identifies himself as ‘ehyeh (v.14) and “YHWH” (v.15). In Deuteronomy 6:4, the famous Shema reads, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone.” Again the proper name of God is “YHWH.” Significantly, as Muis pointed out, the divine name is not “a descriptive term or a concept.”149 In all of the above instances, the designated name, “YHWH” is not an abstract concept about the nature of God, but a relational term. The divine name indicates God’s involvement in the world he created, that is, his immanence. The question thus arises whether one can say that the LORD literally brought Israel out of Egypt. Or must one only speak in metaphors? The Jewish Passover liturgy (Haggadah) has children asking questions about the meaning of the decrees that “the Lord our God has commanded.” Parents are to reply, “‘We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, but the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand’” (Deut 6:20, 21). Regardless of one’s view of the historicity of the exodus, the question is, Is it possible that God literally brought Israel out of Egypt? The Hebrew text uses the metaphor, “with a mighty hand.” But the Haggadah tells of the LORD’s literal intervention in the life of Israel and rescue out of Egypt in history. Only if it were impossible for the LORD working through secondary causes to liberate Israel would one have to conclude that metaphorical language cannot describe literal actions by God. To deny God the use of secondary causes to bring about the exodus would be to beg the question. But is it not possible that 148 149

Muis, “Can Christian Talk about God Be Literal?” 591–92. Muis, “Can Christian Talk about God Be Literal?” 592.

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God is both immanent to creation and transcendent? If so, even metaphorical language can be used to talk literally about the acts of God. The question arises, does not the meaning of “good” change according to what or who bears the property? Does not the meaning of a “good” person differ from a “good” book, and a “good” divine being? Is not the property attached to the bearer of the property? According to Muis, this was Aquinas’s view. Aquinas held that since human beings are created beings they can both participate in the being of God, in some way, and therefore say something true about God as Creator. By analogy, perfections predicated about human beings can eminently be predicated about God.150 That is, God is eminently self-existent, omniscient, omnipotent, true, wise, good, just, and benevolent. Scotus’s view was that a property could be conceived apart from its bearer.151 Scotus also argued that even analogous language had a univocal core meaning. Muis then asked, “Is Scotus right in claiming that the meaning of ‘good’ is univocal when it is predicated of different kinds of entities?”152 Linguistically, Muis thought that there were “some central semantic features in common” when talking about someone or something that is “good” such that one can claim a univocal core meaning. Muis then raised the question whether terms such as “to be,” and “the good,” and “the true” could be used literally and thus univocally about both God and human beings?153 Ontologically, this is possible if, for instance, “goodness, “justice,” and “love” are at least similar, if not the same, on earth as in heaven. Epistemologically, this is possible if these three properties can be known to be true of God. Linguistically, this is possible if the language used to express these three properties shares a common meaning.154 Muis then set out to test whether these three conditions could be met in talk about God. Ontologically, one must understand what is meant by the “transcendence” of God, as Muis, “Can Christian Muis, “Can Christian 152 Muis, “Can Christian 153 Muis, “Can Christian 154 Muis, “Can Christian 150 151

Talk about God Be Literal?” 582. Talk about God Be Literal?” 596. Talk about God Be Literal?” 597. Talk about God Be Literal?” 597. Talk about God Be Literal?” 597.

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Creator, in relation to creation. Transcendence does not imply that God as Creator has nothing in common with creation. If it did, one could only speak metaphorically about God. Rather, God as Creator shares at least some things in common with human beings. Transcendence does mean that human beings cannot fully grasp who God is in his essence. But Muis queried, “Why would it be impossible for a transcendent God to be good, just, and loving in his own divine way and in a human way at the same time?”155 Muis proposed, first, that transcendence does not preclude any involvement of God as Creator with created beings. Think of the exodus. Second, God is not a disinterested first cause, but, rather, the “fons omnium bonorum who himself is good in an eminent way, indeed, goodness itself.”156 Epistemologically, can one know God’s properties? Can the human mind know God? As mentioned above, since God revealed himself and his name to Moses and Israel, and delivered them from Egyptian bondage, then, yes, human beings can know something about God. Indeed, the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah declare things about who God is. Hereby some of God’s essential properties were made known and put on display.157 Linguistically, the condition for using literal language about God is met in Christian talk about God being loving. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16). In a Christian community, God himself is the source of the new meaning of “God is love.” The community to which John wrote had a common understanding of what John meant when he wrote, “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:7, 8). Muis concluded, provisionally at least, that when Christians described love in this way, and lived it out, unbelievers could see and learn what this new meaning of love was all about. The language, therefore, to describe “God is love” is used literally, not Muis, “Can Christian Talk about God Be Literal?” 598. Muis, “Can Christian Talk about God Be Literal?” 598. 157 Muis, “Can Christian Talk about God Be Literal?” 600. 155 156

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metaphorically. However, mystery about God’s love remains, since human beings cannot fully grasp all there is to know about God’s love.158 The Prologue to John’s Gospel offers compelling reasons to conclude that all three conditions are met in the incarnation. Ontologically, “In the beginning was the Word . . . All things came into being through him” (John 1:1–3). Epistemologically, “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. . . . And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory” (John 1:9, 14). Linguistically, “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known” (John 1:18). In conclusion, Muis countered the three arguments excluding literal discourse about God as follows: (1) The use of metaphor demands that a distinction be made between “meaning, reference, and the use of words.” The use of metaphor is “not the only way to transfer a word to another domain.” Therefore, to apply words to God “does not imply that they are used metaphorically.” (2) The fact that people talk about God differently than the way they talk about objects in the world does not mean “that we can only talk about him metaphorically.” God has revealed his proper name, “YHWH,” to his people. His people can literally talk about God by name. And God has addressed human beings in the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. His people can literally talk about the acts and properties of God. (3) According to Christian doctrine, God is not only Creator but Sustainer of his creation. Creation is inseparable from the doctrine of God’s conservation of his creation and providence. God therefore maintains a relationship with his people and remains related to his creation. As the “fons omnium bonorum,” God is both good and eminently goodness itself.159

§4

Following presentation of an overview of methodological perspectives used in the quest to know what can intelligibly be 158 159

Muis, “Can Christian Talk about God Be Literal?” 600–602. Muis, “Can Christian Talk about God Be Literal?” 602–603.

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said about truth, reality, and God, there remains the question of the sympathies of each author in this book. I now turn to a brief overview of the essays themselves. In chapter one, Ralf-Thomas Klein addresses the theistic claim that Christians have made, namely, that they know God personally. Klein first lays the groundwork for assessing this claim before turning to the contemporary Christian philosopher, Alvin Plantinga, to assess how Reformed epistemology addresses it. First, he notes Plantinga’s rejection of evidentialism, which is the warrant for religious belief conditioned on sound arguments. But evidence from prior propositions is required for these beliefs. There is no natural basis for belief. However, Plantinga noted how Calvin spoke of a naturally implanted sensus divinitatis. This was a faith-producing power in human beings. Plantinga held that specific Christian beliefs could be properly basic to humankind. He called this the “Aquinas/Calvin model.” Plantinga also spoke to the reliability of the human faculties. Klein then discusses Swinburne’s disappointment in Plantinga’s model. But Klein concludes that the difference between the two is not so great as one might imagine. Plantinga emphasizes grounds for proper basic beliefs, while Swinburne stresses sound argumentation. Klein concludes that the “modern dogma” that God is unknowable is unwarranted. He advocates the reasonableness of Plantinga’s Reformed epistemology for sustaining Christian beliefs. In chapter two, Philip Fisk takes an historical approach that attempts to reconstruct the thought of Reformers by way of a close reading and analysis of primary documents. Select secondary sources and seminal essays provide a robust analysis. Part One proceeds with a look at medieval thinkers, like Augustine, Anselm, Maimonides, and Scotus. Part Two turns to early modern Protestant prolegomena and basic formulations of belief in God by Luther, Melanchthon, and Calvin, ending with several extracts from lectures on knowing God by Samuel Willard, a seventeenth-century pastor-theologian. Part Three turns to neocalvinist thinkers like Abraham Kuyper and Geerhardus Vos to examine their formulations of the role of the Logos asarkos in making God known. As entrée into Part One, he begins in medias res with Willard, who began one of his church lectures on

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knowing God with a reference to the pre-Socratic sophist, Gorgias of Leontini. Gorgias was famous for the trilemma: 1) Nothing exists, 2) even if it did, no human could understand it, 3) and even if he or she could, it is incapable of being communicated to another. The early reference to Gorgias’s trilemma plays into Fisk’s Part Three and the conclusion that the Prologue to the Gospel of John provides an illuminating response to Gorgias and neo-sophist challenges to knowing God in the fields of ontology, epistemology, and linguistics. In chapter three, Nico Den Bok explores biblical texts and the first-hand sensory experience they reflect of encounters with God. He asks the question whether one can know God by the senses. He sees the Bible as an important source for theological inquiry since it gives us a series of personal testimonies of encounters with God. He also looks at post-biblical testimonies, from Augustine to his later reception in medieval theology, such as by Grosseteste. The twelfth-century Victorines’ program, which sought to develop a new appreciation for empirical sensitivity, or the idea that all knowledge comes through the senses, also comes into view. He ends with a brief appraisal of the Evangelical movement and a call to find forgiveness and fullness of life in Christ, who has come not only to save from sin, but also to fulfill creation. In chapter four, W. Creighton Marlowe exegetes select passages from the Old Testament to ascertain their meaning and significance for informing an Old Testament theology about the nature of knowing God. The notion of knowing God falls under either personal knowledge gained in an encounter with God or knowledge as information. He examines God’s revelation of ̔ followed by himself, then the Hebrew word, “to know” (yāda ), asking the question: How did the OT people “know” God? He notes that in Genesis and in the Psalms God has revealed himself through verbal and natural means. Hermeneutically, he sees the need to discern the difference between God speaking about himself, and people, who are culturally and socially situated, speaking about God. He warns of anachronistic readings of ancient people’s thought. He ends by encouraging exegetes to pay

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attention to the historical context. He reminds the reader that how God conducts himself reveals a lot about his character. In chapter five, Geert Lorein gives an overview of how different Jewish communities of believers in the intertestamental period (fourth century BC until the end of the first century AD) could claim to know God. These communities include the Hasidim, Essenes, Qumran, Sadducees, Pharisees, and Targum. He considers the importance of the Jewish writings from this period since they give us the earliest interpretations of the Old Testament. As to theology proper, the picture that emerges from a study of selected texts is that God is unique, omnipotent, omniscient, trustworthy, righteous, merciful, and holy. Significantly, these communities both acknowledge and practice a holy, transcendent distance between God and humankind. Of the several ways to knowing God the first is by the knowledge of God implanted in humankind (Cognitio Dei insita), then by study of Scripture (Cognitio Dei acquisita), by knowledge attained within the community itself, by personal qualities of the community, and by prayer. He then asks whether his findings about knowing God apply to non-Jewish communities. In sum, Lorein finds various expressions of what he calls a “classic theology,” a theology that shares a profound reverence, even avoidance, of using God’s proper name, given the holiness of God. This practice is most strictly observed by the Sadducees and Qumran community. In chapter six, Jacobus Kok introduces the reader to knowing God by way of a Johannine perspective that pictures the interrelatedness of John’s many images and themes. To understand John’s picture, one must step back and take in his entire narrative framework. This includes characters and their stories in one grand unfolding plot and narrative drama. The story begins with human beings finding themselves in the dire straits of an unbelieving world. A world of blindness, sin, and spiritual death. Kok then examines the solution to the crisis, Jesus the Son who reveals God the Father. The Son embodies the Father’s love. Likewise, believers love one another. Next, he shows the dominance of the word “to know,” illustrating the central place of the notion of knowing God in John’s Gospel. He also shows the prominence of binaries in John’s worldview: above and below,

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light and darkness, life and death, truth and deceit, sight and blindness, etc. Indeed, it is the Son, Jesus, who exegetes God the Father for humankind (John 1:18). God’s love is the key to knowing God. And believers loving one another is the key for the world to know God. In chapter seven, Jack Barentsen explores the recent contribution of embodied realism at the intersection of the nature of religious experience and communal creation of a symbolic universe. He catalogues several prominent biblical figures, many of whom Christians hold up as exemplary models of people who knew God. He also briefly examines various earlier discussions about ways to knowing God, such as through Scripture, nature, apophatic theology, and mystical traditions. Barentsen sees the topic of knowing God as a fundamentally practical matter. That is, people’s claim to know God arises as they practice their faith. He asks how practical theology dares to speak about knowing God. After clearing away the reductionist view of the occasional scientist, he acknowledges mainstream scholars’ methodological agnosticism. He then tells three stories of those who speak of knowing God, about which he offers some crucial observations. The reader is now set up to receive an insightful contribution from social identity theory which helps explain the interrelatedness of one’s practice and claims to know God. He turns to numerous scholars who offer tools to explore this question further. The study by Lakoff and Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought (1999) proposes not to speak of realism, or critical realism, but embodied realism. It is through our bodies, our minds, and sense perception that we interact with the world around us and begin to know it. He finds “a turn to the body” to be a welcome trend in many scholarly works. Finally, he draws attention to the need for cultural awareness when discussing this topic. Different cultures, in different times, are culturally constructed and situated, which is reflected in how they talk about God. In chapter eight, Pieter Boersema exegetes, as it were, the Pieter Breugel painting De Kruisdraging (1564) as a contextually situated image. His starting point is the cultural and religious experience of people of sixteenth-century Flanders. He connects

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experiencing God with the socio-religious and political context. The background of the painting is the friction between the Spanish-Habsburg empire and local urban citizens. The painting contextualizes the carrying of the cross by Jesus to Calvary by placing the event against the background of a Flemish landscape. First, he applies a religious studies research methodology that he has developed called a Cultural Religious Values Model (CRVS model), which he uses for the purposes of comparison and analysis. Here he constructs, observes, interprets, and analyzes, as objectively as possible. If society has the freedom to change, it may be possible to bridge the gap between opposing sides and worldviews. Second, he concludes by theologically translating this image about God into religious dialogue for today by way of missiological analysis.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abrams, M. H., and Geoffrey Galt Harpham. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 10th ed. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012. Adams, Hazard, ed. Critical Theory since Plato. Rev. ed. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992. Adler, Mortimer J. The Idea of Freedom: A Dialectical Examination of the Conceptions of Freedom. The Institute for Philosophical Research. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1958. Anselme de Cantorbéry. Pourquoi Dieu s’est fait homme: texte latin, introduction, bibliographie, traduction et notes. Translated by René Roques. SC 91. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2005. Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb. Ästhetik: Zwei Bände. Band 1: §§ 1–613 / Band 2: §§ 614–904, Einführung, Glossar. Philosophische Bibliothek 572. Translated by Dagmar Mirbach. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2009. Bouwsma, William J. “Intellectual History in the 1980s: From History of Ideas to History of Meaning.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 12 (Autumn 1981): 279–91. Brooks, Cleanth. The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry. London: Methuen, 1968. Chartier, Roger. On The Edge of the Cliff: History, Language, and Practices. Translated by Lydia G. Cochrane. Re-Visions of

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Culture and Society. London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Derrida, Jacques. “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences.” In Critical Theory since Plato, edited by Hazard Adams, 1116–26. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992. Eco, Umberto. The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas. Translated by Hugh Bredin. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988. Fisk, Philip John. “Jonathan Edwards and Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten: Aesthetic Theology and The Art of Beautiful Thinking.” In Edwards, Germany, and Transatlantic Contexts, edited by Rhys S. Bezzant, 113–34. New Directions in Jonathan Edwards Studies 3. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2022. Frei, Hans. The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1980. Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957. Hamilton, Edith, and Huntington Cairns, eds. The Collected Dialogues of Plato Including the Letters. Bollingen Series 71. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961. Hays, Richard B. The Moral Vision of the New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996. Himmelfarb, Gertrude. “Telling It as You Like It: Postmodernist History and the Flight from Fact.” In The Postmodern History Reader, edited by Keith Jenkins, 158–74. London: Routledge, 1997. Jameson, Fredric. The Prison-House of Language: A Critical Account of Structuralism and Russian Formalism. Princeton Essays in Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972. Keats, John. John Keats: The Complete Poems. Edited by John Bernard, 1973. Repr. London: Penguin Books, 2006. LaCapra, Dominick. Rethinking Intellectual History. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983. Leibniz, G. W., and Samuel Clarke. The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence Together with Extracts from Newton’s Principia and

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Opticks. Edited and compiled by H. G. Alexander. 1956. Reprint, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998. Leitch, Vincent B., gen. ed. Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010. Lentricchia, Frank. After the New Criticism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980. Lindbeck, George. The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age. 25th Anniversary ed. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009. Markos, Louis. From Plato to Post-Modernism: Understanding the Essence of Literature and the Role of the Author: Course Guidebook. Chantilly, VA: The Teaching Company, 1999. Muis, Jan. “Can Christian Talk about God Be Literal?” Modern Theology 27, no. 4 (October 2011): 582–607. Newsom, Carol A. “Contemporary Methods in Biblical Study.” In The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha, edited by Michael D. Coogan, 2281–88. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Owen, John. The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, 1648. Reprint, Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1959. Plato. “Sophist.” Translated by F. M. Crawford. In ed. Hamilton and Cairns, 957-1017. Sailhamer, John H. Introduction to Old Testament Theology: A Canonical Approach. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995. ———. The Meaning of the Pentateuch: Revelation, Composition, and Interpretation. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009. Schnelle, Udo. Theology of the New Testament. Translated by M. Eugene Boring. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009. Skinner, Quentin, ed. The Return of the Grand Theory in the Human Sciences. New York: Cambridge, 1985. Spiegel, Gabrielle. “History, Historicism and the Social Logic of the Text in the Middle Ages.” In The Postmodern History Reader, edited by Keith Jenkins, 180–203. London: Routledge, 1997. Stuart, Moses. Elements of Interpretation: Translated from the Latin Text of J. A. Ernesti and Accompanied by Notes, with an

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Appendix Containing Extracts from Morus, Beck, and Keil. Andover, MA: Flagg & Gould, 1822. Thiselton, A. C. “Truth.” In The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Colin Brown, gen. ed., 3: 874–902. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1979. Toews, John E. “Review: Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn: The Autonomy of Meaning and the Irreducibility of Experience.” American Historical Review 92, no. 4 (October 1987): 879–907. Wright, N. T. The New Testament and the People of God. Vol. 1 of Christian Origins and the Question of God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992.

CHAPTER ONE. THE KNOWABILITY OF GOD FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF PHILOSOPHICAL EPISTEMOLOGY DR. RALF-THOMAS KLEIN DEPARTMENT OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY 1. CAN WE K NOW A NYTHING ABOUT GOD? THE MODERN DOGMA THAT GOD IS U NKNOWABLE

Many Christians claim that they know God personally, and they believe that they know something about God. For centuries this was a common view also in the academic world. During the Middle Ages and the early modern era, most theologians and philosophers in the western world were convinced that we as human beings can know something about God—even without special illumination by the Holy Spirit. That God’s existence and some of his attributes can be demonstrated was a widespread view. The churches of the Reformation furthermore believed that we can know that Scripture is the word of God, and Calvin defined faith as “a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise of

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Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit.”1 There have been objections to this claim, but it was the majority view until the 18th century. A kind of turning point was Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1781/87). It was he who showed, so at least many believed, that it is impossible to prove that there is a God. God is completely outside the field of human knowledge. To be sure, according to Kant it is likewise impossible to prove that there is no God (B 858). So there is room for faith. But this faith seems to be outside the scope of reason, something irrational. The German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher therefore thought it necessary to re-invent theology: the subject of theology for him is no longer God—because we can know nothing about God—but human religion. Many theologians have followed him and, sometimes it seems that it is a kind of “modern dogma that God is unknowable.”2 According to this dogma, Christian faith may be a good thing—as long as it makes no truth claims about God. If it makes such truth claims, it leaves its legitimate place and is faced with the so-called de jure objection, which may be formulated as follows: “Well, I don’t know whether Christian belief is true (after all, who could know a thing like that?), but I do know that it is irrational (or intellectually unjustified or unreasonable or intellectually questionable).”3 But is the dogma that God is unknowable justified? Is it really impossible to know anything about God? Alvin Plantinga, one of the most influential contemporary Christian philosophers, claims that not only theistic beliefs in general but also Christian beliefs in particular can be knowledge. If he is right, the “dogma of the unknowability of God” is unjustified and knowledge of God John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox, 1960), 551. 2 Hermann Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 25. The quoted phrase is not from Bavinck, but from Bolt’s summary of the first chapter of Bavinck’s dogmatics. 3 Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), xii. 1

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is possible. To evaluate his “Reformed epistemology,” I will first ask the question of general epistemology: “What can we as human beings know? And how can we know it?” (section 2). This will furnish necessary groundwork for assessing Plantinga’s general epistemology (section 3) and his epistemology of Christian belief (section 4). I will conclude with a brief discussion of some objections Richard Swinburne has brought forward (section 5).

2.

GENERAL E PISTEMOLOGY (1): THE SEARCH FOR THE FUNDAMENTALS OF K NOWLEDGE

Christians are used to being asked: “How do you know that there is a God?”, or “How do you know that the gospel is true?” But very rarely in everyday life does someone ask questions like: “How do you know that there is a tree in front of the house?” (The answer may be: “I just see it.”), or “How do you know that your brother is in town?” (The answer may be: “I spoke to him ten minutes ago.”) If someone would continue “How do you know that you see a tree in front of the house?” or “How do you know that you spoke to your brother ten minutes ago?” this would be kind of strange. In ordinary life no one asks such questions. But philosophers do, at least modern philosophers. It was Rene Descartes, asking exactly such questions, who started the project of modern philosophy. Or, as it has been somewhat pretentiously stated: “The modern world, our world of triumphant rationality, began on November 10, 1619, with a revelation and a nightmare.”4 According to his biographer Adrien Baillet, Descartes had three dreams during this night which led him to an attempt that is described later in his meditations.5 He wanted to doubt everything that can be doubted in order to find some basic belief that is absolutely certain and that cannot be doubted. This kind of belief would be the fundamentum inconcussum, the unshakable foundation of all other beliefs. First it seemed that beliefs from sense perception or logical reasoning Phillip J. Davis and Reuben Hirsh, Descartes’ Dream: The World according to Mathematics (Minneola, NY: Dover, 2005), 3. 5 Adrien Baillet, La Vie de Monsieur Des-Cartes, vol 1 (Paris: Daniel Horthemels, 1691), 81. 4

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are absolutely certain. Beliefs like “I am here, seated by the fire, attired in a dressing gown, having this paper in my hands”6 or “two and three together always form five, and the square can never have more than four sides.”7 It would seem to be an absurdity to doubt beliefs like these. But then he designed a skeptical scenario: It may be that the all-powerful God deceives me. “How do I know that He has not brought it to pass that there is no earth, no heaven, no extended body, no magnitude, no place, and that nevertheless [I possess the perceptions of all these things and that] they seem to me to exist just exactly as I now see them?... How do I know that I am not deceived every time that I add two and three, or count the sides of a square, or judge of things yet simpler, if anything simpler can be imagined?”8 But, Descartes reasoned, on the other hand, if God is good, why should he deceive us? So let us imagine that there is an evil demon which does deceive me. If this were the case, everything would seem to me like it seems to me now, but nevertheless not one single belief of mine would be true. So how can I know that I am not in a situation in which I am deceived? This scenario may seem a bit far-fetched to modern minds, so let me give you a modernized scenario designed by the contemporary American philosopher Hilary Putnam: Imagine that neither you nor, perhaps, any other human being possesses a body, only the brain exists. The brain is swimming in a nutrient solution and “the nerve endings have been connected to a superscientific computer which causes the person whose brain it is to have the illusion that everything is perfectly normal. There seem to be people, objects, the sky, etc; but really all the person is experiencing is the result of electronic impulses travelling from the computer to the nerve endings.”9 The problem is: if you were Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy in Focus, ed. Stanley Tweyman, trans. Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane and George Robert Thomson Ross (New York: Routledge, 1993), 46. 7 Descartes, Meditations, 48. 8 Descartes, Meditations, 48. 9 Hilary Putnam, Reason, Truth and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 6. Putnam goes on to argue that the “brains in a vat” scenario is logically incoherent, but this is another matter. 6

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in such a situation, it would be impossible for you to detect that you were being deceived. Nevertheless, all your beliefs would be false. The movie The Matrix has adopted a similar scenario, presenting an easily imaginable world in which everything appears exactly the way it does now, but nothing is “real.” There are no trees or cars or buildings outside, although you “perceive” trees and cars. Let us return to Descartes. In the second meditation, Descartes comes to the conclusion that it is possible that every belief may be deceptive—with one exception: Even if there were an evil demon that deceives me, I can still know that I exist. “We must come to the definite conclusion that this proposition: ‘I am, I exist’, is necessarily true each time that I pronounce it, or that I mentally conceive it.”10 So, according to Descartes, at least one belief is indubitable: I do exist. But even this belief was doubted by the Scottish empiricist David Hume (1711-1776). His starting point is the assumption that there is nothing in our minds but perceptions. And since our perceptions change every moment, he concludes that there can be nothing like a Self that has as an enduring identity: “There are some philosophers who imagine we are every moment intimately conscious of what we call our SELF; that we feel its existence and its continuance in existence; and are certain, beyond the evidence of a demonstration, both of its perfect identity and simplicity…. But setting aside some metaphysicians of this kind, I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.”11 Thus, although it may seem absurd to doubt the very existence of what we call our Self or Ego, there are philosophers who deny just this. So, what is the result of our brief look at Descartes and Hume? It seems that not only do we not know beyond doubt that there is a God, we do not even know anything indubitably.

Descartes, Meditations, 51. David Hume, A Treatise on Human Nature, vol. 1, ed. Lewis Amherst Selby-Bigge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888), 251–252. 10 11

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But it may be a bit hasty to conclude that we don’t know anything. Thomas Reid (1710-1796), another Scottish philosopher, met the challenge of Hume’s skepticism. In his Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense he shows that when we perceive a tree, not only do we have “a conception of its form”, but also “a belief of its present existence.”12 When I am looking at a tree, there is not only a “treelike” picture in my mind but also the firm conviction: “There is a tree.” And in everyday life nobody would call that into question. But Reid gives us an imagined dialogue with a skeptic. The skeptic asks: “Why do you believe the existence of the external object which you perceive?” Reid’s answer: This belief, Sir, is none of my manufacture; it came from the mint of nature; it bears her image and superscription; and, if it is not right, the fault is not mine: I even took it upon trust, and without suspicion. Reason, says the sceptic, is the only judge of truth, and you ought to throw off every opinion and every belief that is not grounded on reason. ‘Why, Sir, should I believe the faculty of reason more than that of perception; they came both out of the same shop, and were made by the same artist; and if he puts one piece of false ware into my hands, what should hinder him from putting another?’13

Reid here makes a very important point: Reason and sense perception are epistemically in the same boat. They have the same origin, and if one of them is fallacious I have no reason to trust the other one. If, on the other hand, I trust one of them, I have no reason to distrust the other. And that is true for the rest of our cognitive faculties (e.g. memory or introspection) as well. Reid therefore formulates what I want to call Reid’s axiom of all knowledge: “The natural faculties, by which we distinguish truth from error, are not fallacious.”14 He further states that it is impossible to give a proof of this axiom, because even if I gave a

Thomas Reid, An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense (Edinburgh: A. Kincaid and J. Bell, 1765), 290. 13 Reid, Inquiry, 291. 14 Thomas Reid, Essays in the Intellectual Powers of Man (Edinburgh: John Bell, 1785), 591. 12

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logically compelling proof, I would have to presuppose the reliability of my faculties of logical reasoning. But it is exactly the reliability of my cognitive faculties I want to prove. Therefore, it would be a petitio principii to presuppose the very thing I want to prove.15 So as a matter of principle it is not possible to prove this axiom, we have to presuppose it. But what if we don’t presuppose the axiom? In that case, we can know absolutely nothing. To treat a belief as knowledge presupposes that our cognitive faculties that produced the belief are trustworthy. It is not enough that the belief by chance is true. Let me give an example: Imagine I have taken some mind-altering drugs. Now it seems to me that I am flying on a pink cloud, holding a lightsaber in my hands, that I am seeing a red elephant, a white dove and some yellow flowers in front of me. It happens that indeed there is a white dove in front of me. Do I know “There is a white dove in front of me”? Of course not. Admittedly, it seems perfectly clear to me that there is a white dove, but it seems also perfectly clear to me that there are yellow flowers in front of me and that I have a lightsaber. It would be impossible for me to discern truth from falsehood. I could never know whether anything in my mind gives me a true picture of the world outside my mind. If our cognitive faculties were not reliable, we would epistemically be in the same situation as a person on drugs. In our mind, there would be a mixup of perceptions, ideas, and what seem to be memories, but we would not be able to discern reliable memories from fantasies. Therefore, if we don’t presuppose the axiom, we can know absolutely nothing. Since we cannot prove the axiom, a radical skeptic may reject it. But he cannot reject it with reasons, because to give reasons implies that he relies on his rational faculties, i.e., to presuppose the axiom. Therefore, a skeptic can only reject the

“If any man should demand a proof of this, it is impossible to satisfy him. For, suppose it should be mathematically demonstrated, this would signify nothing in this case; because, to judge of a demonstration, a man must trust his faculties, and take for granted the very thing in question.” Reid, Essays, 591. 15

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axiom without any reason. But if there is no reason to do so, why should he reject it? Let me add one more remark: Psychologically for nearly any person to reject the axiom is not possible. You may say, e.g., that your sense perception is not reliable and that there are no material objects outside your mind, but under normal circumstances (you are not on drugs, etc.) you will not be able to believe it.16 We can formulate the result of Reid’s argumentation as follows: Without faith there is no knowledge. That may be a surprise for some, because at this point we are not speaking about the knowability of God, but about the knowability of anything. If we don’t trust our cognitive faculties, we can know absolutely nothing. In this respect, belief in God is in the same boat as belief in material objects, the Self, the past, etc. For all of them, we have to presuppose the reliability of our cognitive faculties. We have to keep this in mind when we ask the question: “How can we know anything about God?” There is a second result. Since we have to trust our cognitive faculties, there is no reason to trust reason but to distrust sense perception or memory (or vice versa). This may seem obvious, but if you take a closer look at different epistemologies, you will detect that some of them are incoherent in this respect. They favor one faculty (usually reason or logic, sometimes sense perception) above others without giving reasons for that arbitrary step. One example of such an epistemology is the so-called Classical Reid, Essays, 45: “Although some writers on this subject have disputed the authority of the senses, of memory, and of every human faculty; yet we find, that such persons, in the conduct of life, in pursuing their ends, or in avoiding dangers, pay the same regard to the authority of their senses, and other faculties, as the rest of mankind. By this they give us just ground to doubt of their candour in their professions of scepticism. “This, indeed, has always been the fate of the few that have professed scepticism, that, when they have done what they can to discredit their senses, they find themselves, after all, under a necessity of trusting to them. Mr Hume has been so candid as to acknowledge this; and it is no less true of those who have not shown the same candour: For I never heard that any sceptic run his head against a post, or stept into a kennel, because he did not believe his eyes.” 16

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Foundationalism (CF), an approach that follows the lead of Descartes. Both approaches—Reid and CF—are versions of so-called foundationalism. According to foundationalism, our noetic structure, i.e., the whole structure of our beliefs, has to be built like a pyramid. At its foundation are basic beliefs for which we cannot and need not give any further justification. Other beliefs must be inferred from these basic beliefs. The difference between Reid and CF lies in the answer to the question: What kind of beliefs are properly basic? According to CF, there are only two kinds of properly basic beliefs: Beliefs that are 1. self-evident (propositions of a kind that a properly functioning human being can simply see that they are true, such as “2+2=4”), or 2. incorrigible (propositions about the contents of your own mind, such as, “I feel pain”).17 Every belief that is not properly basic, or cannot be inferred from basic beliefs, is, according to CF, not rationally justified and must be given up. The problem with CF is that many obviously justified beliefs (e.g., beliefs about material objects, the existence of a past, the existence of other persons, etc.) cannot be justified according to CF.18 And, even more devastating, CF itself cannot be justified according to its own standards: CF is neither self-evident, nor incorrigible, nor can it be inferred from beliefs that are selfevident or incorrigible. If CF is wrong, should we give up foundationalism altogether? During the 20th century a minority of philosophers brought forth an alternative to foundationalism: coherentism. According to coherentism, there are no basic beliefs. Every belief must be justified through other beliefs. The whole belief system is more like a web than like a pyramid. But how is the web itself Plantinga adds in Warranted Christian Belief, 76 and 84 that Locke sometimes seems to include a third kind: (iii) beliefs that are evident to the senses. 18 Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 82–97. 17

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justified? It is justified through its coherence. Foundationalists will agree that the coherence of a belief system is a necessary requirement, but coherence alone is not enough. At least two objections to coherentism are fatal in my view. First, you must presuppose the reliability of logical reasoning in order to detect coherence or incoherence. If we don’t presuppose, for example, that it is impossible that a proposition p is true and that –p is true as well, then every belief system is coherent. Therefore, even Laurence BonJour, probably the most prominent advocate of coherentism in the 1970s and 1980s, was a foundationalist in respect to fundamental truths of logic (or a priori knowledge).19 A second objection: There is an infinite number of belief systems that are coherent in themselves but contradict each other. Coherentism is unable to decide which system is true. Coherentism can be improved by postulating that there are some beliefs that give us a kind of contact with reality. These beliefs are at least to some degree justified through themselves. But then we have a model that is no longer coherentist, but may be called weak foundationalism. It is no surprise that coherentism has been a minority position and that most proponents of this approach are not pure coherentists. After all, foundationalism is the preferable epistemological account. I want to mention a second debate that has played a major role in epistemological discussion during the second half of the 20th century: the controversy between internalism and externalism. Strong Internalism20 is the view that rational justifyLaurence BonJour, “The Coherence Theory of Empirical Knowledge,” Philosophical Studies 30 (1976): 281–312; The Structure of Empirical Knowledge (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985). 20 Michael Bergmann, “Internalism, Externalism and the No-Defeater Condition,” Synthese 110 (1997): 399–417 has proposed a helpful distinction between strong and weak internalism and externalism with respect to justification: Internalism is the view that each of the conditions which are severally necessary and jointly sufficient for justification is an internal condition. Internalism is the view that at least one of the conditions which are severally necessary and jointly sufficient for justification is an internal condition. 19

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cation of beliefs is something completely available to the knowing subject. If someone has evidence for a belief, if it seems perfectly reasonable to him, then the belief is justified. But strong internalism faces a similar objection as coherentism: The belief system of a brain in a vat, for example, may be perfectly reasonable from the inside. It is justified in the sense that you cannot blame the person for violating her epistemic duties, but nevertheless such a person does not know anything, since her beliefs are in fact false. Therefore, an internalist account of knowledge must be complemented by some externalist elements, and then we end up with weak externalism. Strong externalism is the view that rational justification of beliefs depends completely on external factors, i.e. the reliability of the cognitive processes that are involved in the formation of the belief – the knowing subject may be aware of this reliability or not. But if, to follow a thought experiment of BonJour,21 a completely reliable clairvoyant named Norman had no internal evidence that he possesses the cognitive faculty of clairvoyance, would he be justified in holding his clairvoyant beliefs? The external conditions are satisfied: the cognitive processes are reliable. But it seems there also has to be an internalist element. The knowing subject must have reasons or some internal marker that enables it to discern true beliefs from false ones. We conclude this survey by observing that a really satisfying epistemology has to integrate elements of all four approaches. Alvin Plantinga has elaborated an epistemology that meets this demand.

3. GENERAL E PISTEMOLOGY (2): PLANTINGA’S PROPER FUNCTIONALISM

To give a short but, as I hope, somewhat adequate, overview on Plantinga’s general epistemology, I will focus on three topics: proper function, doxastic evidence, and the role of defeaters.

21

BonJour, The Structure of Empirical Knowledge, 41–45.

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3.1 Proper Function

Since coherentism is at least incomplete, we need an epistemology that has a foundationalist element. Foundationalism must answer the question: what kind of beliefs are properly basic? Even if CF is wrong, we need another version of foundationalism and therefore we still have to answer this question. Plantinga’s answer is: A belief is properly basic, if it is warranted. What does “warranted” mean? Put in a nutshell, a belief has warrant for a person S only i)

ii) iii)

if that belief is produced in S by cognitive faculties functioning properly (subject to no dysfunction), in a cognitive environment appropriate for S’s kind of cognitive faculties, according to a design plan successfully aimed at truth.22

According to Plantinga’s model, properly basic beliefs are the outcome of cognitive faculties designed to produce true beliefs functioning properly. Faculties of this kind are • • • •

•

•

sense perception, a priori knowledge (logic or reason), knowledge of Myself (what we can call introspection), induction (the faculty of using past experiences to make predictions about future events (e.g. from the experience that I burnt my hand touching a hot oven I make the prediction that I will burn my hand a second time if I touch the hot oven again), knowledge about other persons (the knowledge that there are other minds, and the knowledge that a person is in a certain mental state, e.g., that a person is angry), testimony (what I know because others have told me).23

Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 156. Testimony is a special case of a cognitive faculty. On the one hand, it is a kind of default setting of the human mind to take for granted the truth of what we are told by others. And “nearly all of what we know of the history of humanity or the structure of the universe we know by virtue of testimony” (Alvin Plantinga, Warrant and Proper Function [New York: Oxford University Press, 1993], 77). Therefore, it is an important 22 23

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3.2 Doxastic Evidence

It would seem, then, that if a belief (i) is produced by these faculties, (ii) if these faculties are functioning properly, and (iii) if the environment is not misleading, then the belief is knowledge. But according to Plantinga, a fourth condition must be met: the belief must have a high degree of doxastic evidence. What is doxastic evidence? Let me give an example: You meet an old school friend, and you know you should remember his name, but you are not sure. Was his name John? That seems to be wrong. James? You are not sure. Jonathan! His name was Jonathan! Why do you know that Jonathan is the right name and John is wrong? Because it feels right, when you present the name Jonathan to your mind, and you miss this feeling considering the name John. You have no more evidence than this feeling of rightness and you don’t need more evidence. This feeling Plantinga calls doxastic evidence, and it is present in every cognitive process that produces knowledge.24 The doxastic evidence is an internal marker that—if it is functioning properly—indicates whether a belief is right or wrong. For Plantinga, my doxastic evidence for a proposition p is equivalent to my inclination to believe p.25 If my eyesight is good and I see a tree 50 metres ahead of me in clear daylight, the belief “there is a tree in front of me” will have a high degree of warrant for me and my inclination to believe—my doxastic evidence—will be accordingly strong. If, on the other hand, my eyesight is not good—I have forgotten my glasses—and I see a tree 50 metres in front of me on a foggy day, my inclination to believe “there is a tree in front of me” will be weaker than in the first case and that

cognitive process, and beliefs we acquire by testimony are typically held in a basic way. On the other hand, testimony is “a second-class citizen of the epistemic republic” because ordinarily it is parasitic on other sources. “In the typical case, therefore, if I know something by testimony, then someone else must have known that proposition in some other way”, Plantinga, Warrant and Proper Function, 87. 24 Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 110–111, 203–204, 264, etc. 25 Plantinga, Warrant and Proper Function, 190–193; Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 203–204, 264, 492.

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will correspond to the fact that this belief has less warrant for me under these circumstances. If a belief p meets these four conditions, namely that (i) it is produced by reliable cognitive faculties (ii) that are functioning properly (iii) in an environment that is not misleading, and (iv) the belief has a high degree of doxastic evidence, then p is knowledge. 3.3 Defeaters

To presuppose the reliability of our cognitive equipment is, of course, not to claim infallibility. It is part of the conditio humana that we are not free from error. The fallibility of our cognitive faculties implies that there can be so-called “defeaters” for our beliefs. There can be two kinds of defeaters: (i) if you hold a belief A, but then you acquire another belief B that is inconsistent with A, you have a rebutting defeater for A. I see (at a hundred yards) what I take to be a sheep in a field and form the belief that there is a sheep in the field; I know that you are the owner of the field; the next day you tell me that there are no sheep in that field, although you own a dog who looks like a sheep at a hundred yards and who frequents the field. Then (in the absence of special circumstances) I have a defeater for the belief that there was a sheep in that field and will, if rational, no longer hold that belief.26

While a rebutting defeater produces an inconsistency in your belief system that causes you to give up the defeated belief, an undercutting defeater undercuts the evidence for your belief. You enter a factory and see an assembly line on which there are a number of widgets, all of which look red. You form the belief that indeed they are red. Then along comes the shop superintendent, who informs you that the widgets are being irradiated by red and infrared light, a process that makes it possible to detect otherwise undetectable hairline cracks. You then have a defeater for your belief that the widget you are looking at is red. In this case, what you learn is not something 26

Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 359.

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incompatible with the defeated belief (you aren’t told that this widget isn’t red); what you learn, rather, is something that undercuts your grounds or reasons for thinking it red.27

But not every potential defeater is a successful defeater. I have the clear memory belief B: “Yesterday I spent the whole day in Rome.” But then my friend Steve tells me D: “I saw you in Beijing yesterday.” Steve normally is a reliable person. If his testimony D implies that B is false, in other circumstances this would be evidence that B is false. In this case, however, the potential defeater D will have no force at all in the face of B because B has much more doxastic evidence for me than D. I still will believe that I was in Rome yesterday with the same degree of firmness. The doxastic evidence of this belief will not be diminished. Defeaters may be successful or unsuccessful, as in the examples above, and in still other cases numerous beliefs of different kinds may be involved. Some of them may be potential defeaters, others may confirm my belief. In any case, the rational thing to do would be to proportion the firmness of my belief to the total doxastic evidence the belief has after considering all the defeaters and confirmers related to the belief in question. As we now have seen, a belief is knowledge if it meets five conditions: (i) It is produced by reliable cognitive faculties (ii) that are functioning properly (iii) in an environment that is not misleading, (iv) the belief has a high degree of doxastic evidence, (v) and there are no successful defeaters. One last remark: There is, of course, a kind of epistemic duty to consider possible defeaters of a belief with a certain degree of carefulness. But that does not imply that I have first to demonstrate that the belief is true and that there are no defeaters. This is, as we have seen, not possible. We have to adopt an “innocent-untilproven-guilty principle,”28 according to which a belief must be given up when I have adequate reasons to do so, but until I have

Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 359. The phrase originates from Nicholas Wolterstorff’s essay “Can Belief in God Be Rational?” in Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God, ed. Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), 135–186. 27 28

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such reasons it is rational to maintain the belief. The opposed principle “guilty-until-proven-innocent” would leave us with no beliefs at all. After having done the preparatory work, we can address the question: Can we know that there is a God, or even specific Christian beliefs like “Jesus is risen from the dead”? There are two main approaches to answering this question: evidentialism and Reformed epistemology.

4. E PISTEMOLOGY OF CHRISTIAN BELIEFS: A LVIN PLANTINGA’S REFORMED E PISTEMOLOGY There are at least two ways of justifying Christian beliefs: evidentialism and Reformed epistemology. “Evidentialism is the claim that religious belief is rationally acceptable only if there are good arguments for it.”29 According to evidentialism, religious beliefs are not properly basic. They have to be inferred from other propositions we know; that is, we need propositional evidence for these beliefs. Plantinga rejects evidentialism and refers to John Calvin’s idea that God has given human beings a sensus divinitatis: “There is within the human mind, and indeed by natural instinct, an awareness of divinity. This we take to be beyond controversy. To prevent anyone from taking refuge in the pretense of ignorance, God himself has implanted in all men a certain understanding of his divine majesty. . . . Therefore, since from the beginning of the world there has been no region, no city, in short, no household, that could do without religion, there lies in this a tacit confession of a sense of deity inscribed in the hearts of all.”30 According to Plantinga’s proper-function model, “the sensus divinitatis is a belief-producing faculty (or power, or mechanism) that under the right conditions produces belief that isn’t evidentially based on other beliefs. . . . The purpose of the sensus Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 82. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 44. Plantinga cites this passage in “Reason and Belief in God” in Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God, ed. Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), 65. 29 30

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divinitatis is to enable us to have true beliefs about God; when it functions properly, it ordinarily does produce true beliefs about God. These beliefs therefore meet the conditions for warrant; if the beliefs produced are strong enough, then they constitute knowledge.”31 Certain circumstances may trigger this innate disposition to believe in God: You look at the starry heavens and find yourself with the belief: “God has created all that.” You have done what is wrong and you have something like an awareness of divine disapproval.32 You don’t argue, you just form these beliefs in a basic way, and in a properly basic way. Plantinga even goes one step further. Not only can theistic beliefs be properly basic, but specific Christian beliefs can be as well. He calls his epistemology of Christian beliefs the “Aquinas/Calvin model”, appealing to similar views found in John Calvin and Thomas Aquinas. The relevant belief-producing process is induced by the Holy Spirit: We read Scripture, or something presenting scriptural teaching, or hear the gospel preached, or are told of it by parents, or encounter a scriptural teaching as the conclusion of an argument (or conceivably even as an object of ridicule), or in some other way encounter a proclamation of the Word. What is said simply seems right; it seems compelling; one finds oneself saying, ‘Yes, that’s right, that’s the truth of the matter; this is indeed the word of the Lord.’ I read, ‘God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself’; I come to think: ‘Right; that’s true; God really was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself!’33

As a matter of fact, a belief of that kind can have a maximum of doxastic evidence for the believer who holds it. Plantinga himself as a student at Harvard had an experience of God that was very intense and gave his belief in God such a degree of certainty that arguments about the existence of God often seemed to him “merely academic, of little existential concern, as if one were to Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 179. Plantinga, “Reason and Belief in God,” 80. 33 Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 250. 31 32

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argue about whether there has really been a past, for example, or whether there really were other people, as opposed to cleverly constructed robots.”34 Plantinga is by far not the only one whose belief had a maximum of doxastic evidence for himself. Martin Luther claimed that the word that God teaches him is for him as certain as “2+3=5” or “one ell is more than a half ell,”35 and Zinzendorf was as certain that Jesus is his Lord as he knew that his hand had five fingers.36 William James cites similar reports of ordinary believers, and he assumes that “probably thousands of unpretending Christians would write an almost identical account.”37 Let me give you a few examples: “God is more real to me than any thought or thing or person. . . . I talk to him as to a companion in prayer and praise, and our communion is delightful. He answers me again and again, often in words so clearly spoken that it seems my outer ear must have carried the tone, but generally in strong mental impressions.”38 “I could not any more have doubted that He was there than that I was. Indeed, I felt myself to be, if possible, the less real of the two.”39 We have established that beliefs that have such a high degree of doxastic evidence are knowledge—unless there are successful defeaters. But are there defeaters for Christian belief? Plantinga

Alvin Plantinga, “A Christian Life Partly Lived,” in Philosophers Who Believe, ed. Kelly James Clark (Downer’s Grove: InverVarsity, 1993), 52. 35 „Darumb das wort das mich got lert, da laß ich mich nit von dringen, als wenn man spricht: drei und zwey machen fuenffe, das ist gewiß und offentlich, Wenn alle Concilia anders beschluessen, so weiß ich dennocht das sie liegen. Ein eele ist lenger denn eine halbe, ob schon alle Welt dawider were, so weiß ich dennocht das sie liegen. Ein eele ist lenger denn eine halbe, ob schon alle Welt darwider were, so weyß ich dennocht das unrecht ist. Wer beschleußt mir das? Kein mensch, sondern die wahrheyt, die gantz und gar gewiß ist” (D. Martin Luther, Werke: Kritische Gesammtausgabe, vol. 10 III (Weimar: Böhlaus, 1905), 260, 22ff. 36 Cited in Erich Beyreuther, Die große Zinzendorf—Trilogie, vol. 2 [Marburg: Francke–Buchhandlung 1988], 173). 37 Willam James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature, New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1908), 70. 38 James, Varieties, 70. 39 James, Varieties, 66–67. 34

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considers a number of potential defeaters: Historical biblical criticism, postmodernism, religious pluralism, and the argument from evil.40 The result of his discussion is: none of them is successful—and I agree. There are no compelling objections to the truth of Christian faith. In my assessment, Plantinga’s Reformed epistemology flows logically and coherently from the implications of his general epistemology. We have to presuppose the reliability of our cognitive faculties. The modules of our epistemic equipment give us an internal marker of the degree of reliability of any individual belief: the so-called doxastic evidence. If a belief has a high degree of doxastic evidence and there are no successful defeaters, the rational thing is to count that belief as knowledge. The result of Plantinga’s investigation is therefore that Christian beliefs can be knowledge if they have a high degree of doxastic evidence and if the person who holds that belief has no successful defeater. This is, of course, a provocative statement, although Plantinga does not claim to have demonstrated that Christian faith is true or that his model is true. His claim is a more modest one: He contends that his model is epistemically possible, i.e. it is consistent with what we know, and there are no cogent objections to it. And: If Christian belief is true, then it is very probable that his model (or a similar one) is true.41 Or the other way around: If the Aquinas/Calvin (A/C) model is true, then Christian belief is true. This may seem to be a rather weak statement. But the achievement of the A/C model is that it has overcome the de jure objection against Christian belief. This objection is refuted, because the A/C model shows that Christian belief has warrant, if it is true. And I agree with Plantinga that there are many— Christians as well as non-Christians—who may have an inclination to Christian belief, but due to de jure objections feel that they violate some epistemic duty in accepting this belief.42 Therefore, regardless of the conditional clause of his claim, the A/C model is an important step forward. Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 374–499. Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 168–170. 42 Cf. Alvin Plantinga, “Rationality and Public Evidence: A Reply to Richard Swinburne,” Religious Studies 37, no. 2 (2001): 215–222. 40 41

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But I think we can go a step further and make Plantinga’s claim stronger. We have to remember that we cannot demonstrate the reliability of our cognitive faculties. We must presuppose what I called ‘Reid’s axiom’: “The natural faculties, by which we distinguish truth from error, are not fallacious.”43 We cannot prove the reliability of any of our cognitive faculties without presupposing the reliability of the very faculty in question. We can in a similar way only claim that if there are material objects, then our faculty of sense perception is very probably reliable. Or the other way around: If our faculty of sense perception is reliable, then there are material objects. From this perspective Christian belief and belief in material objects are in the same boat. And the fact that Plantinga has given a plausible model has shifted the burden of proof: It is not necessary for the Christian to demonstrate that Christian belief is true or that his cognitive processes are reliable. As long as the belief has a high degree of doxastic evidence and there are no successful defeaters it should be counted as knowledge. Of course, there have been a host of objections raised against Plantinga’s Reformed epistemology, and it is not possible here to discuss even the most important ones (as I have done elsewhere).44 But I will at least mention the critical remarks of Richard Swinburne, who is perhaps, alongside Plantinga, the most prominent contemporary Christian philosopher.

5. SWINBURNE AND PLANTINGA: E VIDENTIALISM VS. REFORMED EPISTEMOLOGY?

When in 2000 Plantinga published his magnum opus, Warranted Christian Belief (WCB), Swinburne was disappointed by Plantinga’s work. “There is a monumental issue which Plantinga does not discuss, and which a lot of people will consider needs discussing. This is whether Christian beliefs do have warrant (in Reid, Essays in the Intellectual Powers of Man, 591. Ralf-Thomas Klein, Können christliche Glaubensüberzeugungen Wissen sein? Der Beitrag Alvin Plantingas zur Bestimmung des epistemischen Status von christlichen Glaubensüberzeugungen, Forschungen zur systematischen und ökumenischen Theologie 117 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012), 177–219. 43 44

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Plantinga’s sense). He has shown that they do, if they are true; so we might hope for discussion of whether they are true. . . .”45 But that is exactly what he misses in WCB. Swinburne is convinced that there is a lot of evidence in favor of Christian belief, but that Plantinga seems to ignore this. “Whether various sets of evidence (some public, some private) make it probable that Christian beliefs are true is the question that Plantinga does not discuss.”46 Therefore “there is no doubt that it [WCB] will give a lot of comfort to those with strong Christian beliefs who hold them as basic beliefs,”47 but for others the book seems to be rather useless. “It is a consequence of this that Plantinga seems not to have much to say to those Christian believers whose beliefs are not of Plantinga’s kind, and nothing to say to the adherents of other religions and of none.”48 Swinburne stresses the importance of good arguments in favor of theism and Christian faith, and he has devoted much of his academic work to the construction and discussion of such arguments—most notably, he has argued for the existence of God and for the truth of the resurrection.49 Swinburne calculates the strength of his cumulative argument for the existence of God and comes to the rather modest conclusion: “On our total evidence theism is more probable than not.”50 Plantinga, however, finds this insufficient: “But if my only ground for Christian teaching [about the existence of God] is its probability with respect to K,51 and all I know about that probability is that it is greater than .5, then I can’t rationally believe that teaching.”52 Plantinga thinks Richard Swinburne, “Plantinga on Warrant,” Religious Studies 37, no. 2 (2001): 206. 46 Swinburne, “Warrant,” 208. 47 Swinburne, “Warrant,”, 206. 48 Swinburne, “Warrant,” 207. 49 Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God (Oxford: Clarendon, 1979); idem, The Resurrection of God Incarnate (Oxford: Clarendon, 2003). 50 Swinburne, Existence of God, 291. 51 K is here the background knowledge, “what we all or nearly all know or take for granted or firmly believe, or what at any rate those conducting the inquiry know or take for granted or believe” (Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 272). 52 Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 274. 45

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that to argue in that way will not lead to Christian faith. According to him, the prospects of arguments for specific Christian beliefs are even worse: the probability of the conjunction of the central Christian claims (including the incarnation, the atonement, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ), he asserts, will be about .35, but, he adds, “of course it is ludicrous to assign real numbers to these probabilities: there is vagueness of many kinds here.”53 At first glance, there seems to be a deep conflict between the two philosophers. Swinburne may be seen as a proponent of evidentialism, the view that theistic and Christian beliefs have to be supported by arguments. If there are no convincing arguments, it will not be rationally justified to hold these beliefs. But this is the very presupposition that Plantinga explicitly rejected when he developed his Reformed epistemology. A closer look shows that the difference between Plantinga and Swinburne is merely a difference in emphasis. Swinburne is a proponent of “weak evidentialism.” He does not claim that every Christian belief has to be justified by arguments, he concedes that there are basic Christian beliefs that don’t need justification by way of arguments: “To start with, there is no doubt that some people have a basic proposition that there is a God, produced by an awareness of his presence.”54 But, contrary to Plantinga, he thinks that these basic beliefs rarely have a high degree of what Plantinga calls “doxastic evidence”: “I do not think that very many people, either today or in earlier times, have been in the fortunate position of having ‘There is a God’ as a very strong properly basic belief resulting from overwhelming apparent awareness of God’s presence.” 55 It may be in reaction to criticism like Swinburne’s that Plantinga refined his statements about properly basic Christian beliefs—without compromising his model. In his Knowledge and Christian Belief, which is a kind of summary of WCB, he admits: “In typical cases, as opposed to paradigmatic cases, degree of Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 279. Richard Swinburne, Faith and Reason, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 2005), 88. 55 Swinburne, Faith and Reason, 89. 53 54

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belief will certainly be less than maximal. . . . So what can be said is that under certain circumstances what is believed by faith has enough warrant to constitute knowledge; these circumstances, I should guess, are probably not typical, although they are sometimes approached by some Christians part of the time.”56 Both philosophers agree that there are cases of properly basic Christian beliefs, but that these beliefs are in the typical cases not strong enough to count as knowledge. There may still remain a disagreement about the number of Christians who hold these kinds of beliefs, but this disagreement is only a minor one. On the other hand, Plantinga—despite his stress on basic Christian beliefs—in no way dismisses arguments in favor of Christian faith. He believes that “there are a large number (at least a couple dozen) good arguments for the existence of God,”57 and he presents “Two Dozen (or so) Theistic Arguments.”58 There remains a disagreement about the strength of arguments for theistic or Christian beliefs,59 but, in my opinion this disagreement is, as in the case of basic beliefs, only a minor one. In my view, Plantinga and Swinburne may complement each other. Reformed epistemology has argued convincingly that Christian beliefs can be properly basic. Their degree of warrant may in some cases be high enough to count as knowledge. In other cases, they may have only a moderate degree of warrant. These beliefs may be strengthened by way of argument, possibly to the point where they may become knowledge. Plantinga explicitly considers this possibility:

Alvin Plantinga, Knowledge and Christian Belief (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015), 67. 57 Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 170. 58 Alvin Plantinga, “Appendix: Two Dozen (or so) Theistic Arguments,” in Alvin Plantinga, ed. Deane-Peter Baker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 203–228. 59 Swinburne, e.g., presented a probability calculus for the proposition “God became incarnate in Jesus Christ who rose from the dead” and calculated the probability of the sentence at .97 (The Resurrection of God Incarnate, 214), a result that differs considerably from Plantinga’s evaluation. 56

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RALF-THOMAS KLEIN For me as for most, belief in God, while accepted in the basic way, isn’t maximally firm and unwavering; perhaps it isn’t nearly as firm as my belief in other minds. Then perhaps good theistic arguments can play the role of confirming and strengthening my belief in God, and in that way they might increase the degree of warrant belief in God has for me. Indeed, such arguments might increase the degree of warrant of that belief in such a way as to nudge it over the boundary separating knowledge from mere true belief; they might in some cases therefore serve something like that Thomistic function of transforming belief into knowledge.60

6. CONCLUSION

From the perspective of philosophical epistemology, the “modern dogma that God is unknowable” turns out to be unwarranted. Plantinga’s Reformed epistemology gives us a reasonable model for how belief in God (and even specific Christian beliefs) can be properly basic and in some cases knowledge. There may be other cases where basic theistic (or Christian) beliefs have only a moderate degree of warrant, but that can be strengthened through arguments in such a way that they may count as knowledge. Plantinga and Swinburne concur in this respect and differ only in so far as the former stresses the possibility of properly basic beliefs while the latter emphasizes the importance of arguments.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Baillet, Adrien. La vie de Monsieur Des-Cartes, vol. 1. Paris: Daniel Horthemels, 1691. Bavinck, Hermann. Reformed Dogmatics. Edited by John Bolt. Translated by John Vriend. Vol 1. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003. Bergmann, Michael. “Internalism, Externalism and the NoDefeater Condition.” Synthese 110 (1997): 399-417.

Alvin Plantinga, “The Prospects for Natural Theology,” in Philosophy of Religion, ed. James E. Tomberlin, Philosophical Perspectives 5 (Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview, 1991), 311–12. 60

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Beyreuther, Erich. Die große Zinzendorf-Trilogie. Vol. 2. Marburg: Francke-Buchhandlung, 1988. BonJour, Laurence. “The Coherence Theory of Empirical Knowledge.” Philosophical Studies 30 (1976): 281-312. ———. The Structure of Empirical Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985. Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Edited by John T. McNeill. Translated by Ford Lewis Battles. Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox, 1960. Davis, Phillip J. and Reuben Hirsh. Descartes’ Dream: The World according to Mathematics. Minneola, NY: Dover, 2005. Descartes, Rene. Meditations on First Philosophy in Focus. Edited by Stanley Tweyman. Translated by Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane and George Robert Thomson Ross. New York: Routledge, 1993. Hume, David. A Treatise on Human Nature. Edited by Lewis Amherst Selby-Bigge. Vol. 1. Oxford: Clarendon, 1888. James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1908. Klein, Ralf-Thomas. Können christliche Glaubensüberzeugungen Wissen sein? Der Beitrag Alvin Plantingas zur Bestimmung des epistemischen Status von christlichen Glaubensüberzeugungen. Forschungen zur systematischen und ökumenischen Theologie 117. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012. Luther, D. Martin. Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe. Vol. 10. III. Weimar: Böhlaus, 1905. Plantinga, Alvin. “Appendix: Two Dozen (or so) Theistic Arguments.” In Alvin Plantinga, edited by Deane-Peter Baker, 203–228. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. ———. “A Christian Life Partly Lived.” In Philosophers Who Believe, edited by Kelly James Clark, 45–82. Downer’s Grove: InverVarsity, 1993. ———. Knowledge and Christian Belief. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015. ———. “The Prospects for Natural Theology.” In Philosophy of Religion, edited by James E. Tomberlin, 287–315. Philosophical Perspectives 5. Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview, 1991.

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———. “Rationality and Public Evidence: A Reply to Richard Swinburne.” Religious Studies 37, no. 2 (2001): 215–222. ———. “Reason and Belief in God.” In ed. Plantinga and Wolterstorff, 16–93. ———. Warrant and Proper Function. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. ———. Warranted Christian Belief. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Plantinga, Alvin and Nicholas Wolterstorff, eds. Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983. Putnam, Hilary. Reason, Truth and History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Reid, Thomas. Essays in the Intellectual Powers of Man. Edinburgh: John Bell, 1785. ———. An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense. Edinburgh: A. Kincaid and J. Bell, 1765. Swinburne, Richard. The Existence of God. Oxford: Clarendon, 1979. ———. Faith and Reason. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon, 2005. ———. “Plantinga on Warrant.” Religious Studies 37, no. 2 (2001): 203–214. ———. The Resurrection of God Incarnate. Oxford: Clarendon, 2003. Wolterstorff, Nicholas. “Can Belief in God Be Rational?” In Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God, edited by Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff, 135–186. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983.

CHAPTER TWO. THE INCOMPREHENSIBILITY AND KNOWABILITY OF GOD IN PROTESTANT PROLEGOMENA DR. PHILIP FISK DEPARTMENT OF HISTORICAL THEOLOGY PART 1. HISTORICAL PROLOGUE 1. Introduction

The historical approach taken in this essay is primarily to understand the primary sources, and to let them inform our thinking on the topic of the incomprehensibility and knowability of God in classic-Protestant prolegomena. Select secondary sources, and seminal essays, are called upon to help us understand the meaning and significance of the primary sources consulted. Furthermore, any approach to medieval, Reformation, and early modern sources will inevitably need to take into account Latin idiom in its historical context. For instance, the term “physical,” as used by early modern theologians in the concept, “physical influx or premotion,” expresses God’s effective providential working, and communicating of himself, in the reality of this world. After a brief introduction, this essay proceeds in part one by establishing the approach of the medieval tradition to our topic, on the basis of select thinkers, namely, Augustine, Anselm,

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Maimonides and Duns Scotus. The section on Scotus attempts to understand a key issue in how we, as human beings, can talk about God, that is, how univocal predication can correlate with analogical predication. In part two, we turn to Early Modern Protestant Prolegomena, explaining the formulations of Luther, Melanchthon, and Calvin on the incomprehensibility and knowability of God. We examine the parallel developments in Lutheran and Reformed prolegomena with respect to God’s understanding of himself (archetypal theology in se), and the expression and communication of this understanding by God in Christ, and through, as it were, a certain refraction in created things, especially in human beings (ectypal theology quoad nos). In part three, we turn to two so-called neo-Calvinist thinkers, Abraham Kuyper and Gerhaardus Vos, examining their understanding of the role of Christ the Son, the Logos asarkos, as the giver of both life and light to every human being since the beginning of the world, as understood from the prologue to John’s Gospel. Finally, we draw some conclusions about the significance of these assertions about the incomprehensibility and knowability of God for other disciplines in general. By way of introduction to our topic, we begin in medias res with an early modern Reformed theologian, Samuel Willard (1640–1707), vice-president of Harvard College from 1701–1707, and pastor of the Old South Church in Boston. He gave a nineteenyear series of lectures, “monthly on Tuesdays in his public congregation,” some of which were on the topic of “The Incomprehensibility and Knowability of God.”1 These lectures were published in 1726 as A Compleat Body of Divinity in Two Hundred and Fifty Expository Lectures on the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism. Church historian E. Brooks Holifield writes of the publishing of Samuel Willard’s catechetical lectures, that “after its posthumous publication in 1726, the Compleat Body became an authoritative text in American Reformed theology for the next

Samuel Willard, Compleat Body of Divinity in Two Hundred and Fifty Expository Lectures on the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism (Boston: Green and Kneeland, 1726), i. 1

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half century.”2 We will return below at the end of part two to Willard’s exposition on the topic of the incomprehensibility and knowability of God. It will suffice for now to see how he introduced the topic in his late-seventeenth century lectures to his church congregation. Willard introduces the topic of the incomprehensibility of God with Cicero’s reflections on the Greek poet, Simonides of Ceos (c. 556 BCE - c. 486 BCE). “The longer Simonides studied on the question,” writes Willard, “the harder he found the resolution.”3 For himself, Cicero said, If you should ask me what God is, or what his character and nature are, I should follow the example of Simonides, who, when Hiero the tyrant [of Syracuse] proposed the same question to him, desired a day to consider of it. When he required his answer the next day, Simonides begged two days more; and as he kept constantly desiring double the number which he had required before instead of giving his answer, Hiero, with surprise, asked him his meaning in doing so: ‘Because, says he, ‘the longer I meditate on it, the more obscure it appears to me.’4

Similarly, Gorgias of Leontini (ca. 483–376 B.C.), born in Sicily, lived and taught in Athens. In On The Non-Existent or On Nature, Gorgias made his now famous statement on ontological and epistemological instability, a trilemma: (1) “First and foremost, that nothing exists; (2) that even if it exists it is inapprehensible to man; (3) that even if it is apprehensible, still it is without a doubt incapable of being expressed or explained to the next man.”5 The instability of language and reference introduced into E. Brooks Holifield, Theology in America: Christian Thought from the Age of the Puritans to the Civil War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 62. 3 Willard, Body of Divinity, 40. 4 Cicero, Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations, trans. C. D. Yonge (Boston: Wyatt North Publishing, LLC, 2020), I. 22. 5 Rosamond Kent Sprague, The Older Sophists (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1972), 42. In his landmark book, Gorgias and the New Sophistic Rhetoric, Rhetorical Philosophy and Theory (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2002), Bruce McComiskey places 2

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Western thought by Gorgias the sophist finds its counterpart thousands of years later in neosophist rhetoric. It is arguably the case, however, that the Western tradition has enjoyed a more stable language theory since Plato, and the hermeneutical principle of Augustine’s signum and res significata. The poets are counted among the theologians in antiquity. Poets often say things about the difficulty of knowing God. In his Preface to Theologoumena verae theologiae, 1661, John Owen (1616–1683) weighs the relative importance of poets and Greek philosophers, giving them their due place in the development of theology, but in the end, he contrasts pagan theologians, who are steeped in the false mysteries of religion, with the divine wisdom of those theologians who are versed in the true spiritual mysteries of the gospel. Owen acknowledges, with reference to Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Clement of Alexandria’s Stromata, and Idodore, that the ancient Greek writers, both philosophers and poets, were together considered to be the theologians.6 Indeed, the classicReformed tradition contrasted vera theologia with falsa theologia, but not without redeeming principles and truths, as incomplete as they were, from the latter.7 William Ames reminds us, amicus Plato, amicus Aristoteles, at magis amica veritas (Let Plato be a friend, let Aristotle be a friend, but even more let truth be a friend), a commonly held maxim.8 Gorgias’s antifoundationalism—there is no a priori, preexisting truth or extralinguistic reality—in its fifth- and fourth-century political context. Moreover, Socrates and Plato’s binary juxtaposition of knowledge versus opinion was unacceptable for the sophist Gorgias. 6 John Owen, Biblical Theology, The History of Theology From Adam to Christ or The Nature, Origin, Development, and Study of Theological Truth, in Six Books, trans. Stephen P. Westcott (Grand Rapids: Soli Deo Gloria, 1994), 4. 7 On vera theologia and falsa theologia, cf. § part 2.4 below. 8 William Ames, Technometry, trans. and ed. Lee W. Gibbs (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1979), 107 (thesis 77).; Originally published as Technometria, Omnium et Singularum Artium fines adaequatè circumscribens, London: Excudit Milo Flesher, 1633). On Ames, cf. § 2.4 below. Cf. Peter J. Leithart, Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 1999); Robert Lamberton, Homer the Theologian: Neoplatonist Allegorical Reading and the

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The relative stability of language in the Western tradition since Plato has meant that both poets and Christian theologians supposed that there is an extralinguistic and extramental reality. Critical theory and theology have come to share a common core of first principles—though widely divergent in their appropriation and use—first principles such as archetypes and ectypes, ideas in the mind of God, God as the transcendental signified, representation and reality, logocentrism, aesthetics and beauty.9 The Protestant tradition of early modern Christianity in Western thought since Plato, with the exception of nominalist strains, assumes that the inherent meaning of the words of a proposition makes a truth claim about the actual world, and refers to a transcendent reality beyond language itself, and beyond the human mind. For Christian theists, God himself is the final transcendental signified. The premises of the representation of an extramental world of ideas were challenged in the nominalism of William of Ockham, and in the seventeenth century, with John Locke, who arguably inaugurated the Enlightenment version of the linguistic turn.10 2. The Medieval Tradition

The classic-Reformed tradition holds that we know that there is a God. The theologian approaches the locus with the supposition that “God exists,” and does not ask “Whether God exists,” just as Growth of the Epic Tradition (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 1986). 9 Elizabeth A. Clark, History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004); John P. O’Callaghan, Thomas Realism and the Linguistic Turn: Toward a More Perfect Form of Existence (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003); Perez Zagorin, “History, the Referent, and Narrative: Reflections on Postmodernism Now,” History and Theory 38, no. 1 (1999): 1–24; John E. Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn: The Autonomy of Meaning and the Irreducibility of Experience,” American Historical Review 92, no. 4 (October 1987): 879–907. 10 See Hugo Keiper, Christoph Bode, and Richard J. Utz, eds., Nominalism and Literary Discourse: New Perspectives, Critical Studies 10 (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1997), 283–99.

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in the case of any other science and its object of study.11 This approach reflects the tradition of both Augustine and Anselm. Augustine says, “What we believe we owe to authority; what we understand we owe to reason.”12 And, “Fides quaerit, intellectus invenit” (Faith seeks, understanding finds). He finds biblical support with the prophet Isaiah, “Unless you believe you shall not understand” (Isa 7:9).13 In the Preamble of Anselm’s Proslogion, he tells of his meditation on the reason for faith, and his prayer of “fides quaerens intellectum” (Faith seeking understanding). In Proslogion 1:18 we read, “Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam. Nam et hoc credo: quia ‘nisi credidero, non intelligam.” (Neither do I search to understand that I may believe, but I believe that I may understand). In Proslogion 2:5 we read Anselm’s now famous expression in prayer, “Et quidem credimus te esse aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari possit.” (We believe you to be that which nothing greater can be thought or conceived).14 Maimonides: Knowing and Talking about God

The medieval Rabbi Moses Maimonides (1135–1204) wrote Moreh Nebuchim (1190), translated into Latin by the Reformed Hebraist, Johann Buxtorf, Jr. (1599–1664), with as title Doctor Perplexorum (Basel, 1629), known to us as The Guide for the Perplexed.15 There is an earlier Latin version dating to 1520. Maimonides was well known and often cited by seventeenthR. T. te Velde, ed., Synopsis Purioris Theologiae / Synopsis of a Purer Theology: Volume 1, Disputations 1–23. Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions 187 (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 151. [henceforth SPT] 12 Augustine, Augustine in His Own Words, ed. William Harmless (Wachington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2010), 214. According to Harmless, it is from On The Advantage of Believing, II.25. 13 Augustine, The Trinity (De Trinitate), ed. John E. Rotelle, trans. Edmund Hill, The Works of Saint Augustine (New York: New City Press, 1991), 396 (§15.2). 14 Anselme de Cantorbéry, Monologion, Proslogion, trans. Michel Corbin, s.j., Œuvres d’Anselme de Cantorbéry 1 (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1986). 15 Moses Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed, trans. M. Friedländer (1904, repr., New York: Barnes & Noble, 2004) [henceforth, The Guide]. 11

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century Reformed theologians and therefore finds a deserved place in this coverage of the medieval background. For instance, in the Synopsis Purioris Theologiae (1625), the authors consult Maimonides on terms expressing the idea that God exists. The authors of the Synopsis conclude that although we might attempt to describe God, we cannot define God, since “He surpasses every essence and is incomprehensible.”16 Maimonides represents the medieval scholastic tradition, which states that, as human beings, we cannot know God as we know other things since we cannot perceive God with our senses. How then can we predicate things of God? That is, do we predicate attributes of God on the basis of univocal, analogical, or equivocal/homonymous knowledge? As Maimonides pointed out, we cannot speak of God being “good” in the same way as we are “good.” For God is not just “good” but “goodness” itself. All that describes God, is God. Essence applies to God in an absolute sense of the term. The Reformed tradition, for instance, would later make a logical distinction in relations between God’s essence and attributes. But it is not a real distinction.17 When talking about God, there is a “Similarity that is based on a certain relation between two things,” writes Maimonides. Two things of the same kind, which share “essential properties,” are said to be “necessarily similar.” Spheres, a mustard seed or a star, may differ only by degree of magnitude, but are similar. But such is not the case between God and humans. “Those who believe in the presence of essential attributes of God, viz., Existence, Life, Power, Wisdom, and Will, should know that these attributes, when applied to God, have not the same meaning as when applied to us.” It is not just a difference of magnitude.18 “It is not proper to believe . . . that there is in God something additional to his essence, in the same way as attributes are joined to our essence.”19 God is “one,” he does not possess the attribute of “unity.” The “attributists” added properties to God’s essence, as if there were a real distinction. As already mentioned, the SPT 1: 161 (D6). SPT 1: 161-3 (D6). 18 Maimonides, The Guide, 144-5 (c. 56). 19 Maimonides, The Guide, 145. 16 17

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Reformed, like Maimonides, only maintained a relational, not a real distinction. Unlike the attributists, God’s essence is not due to any cause. “God exists, without possessing the attribute of existence, similarly, he lives, without possessing the attribute of life; knows without possessing the attribute of knowledge; is omnipotent, is wise, and so forth.” “There is no plurality in him.”20 Based on Isaiah 55:8, 9, Maimonides reasons that our knowledge differs from God’s. There is an analogical relation. The basic nature of the term knowledge is the same, thus we can talk about knowledge of God, but the meaning differs, thus the terms used are homonyms. The term “existence” is only applied to both God and humans as a homonym.21 The attributes of life, existence, power, wisdom, and will cannot be ascribed to both God and humans in the same way. The terms are homonyms.22 The difference between God and humans is not only “quantitative, but absolute.” The two do not even belong to the same class of beings. “Anything predicated of God is totally different from our attributes; no definition can comprehend both; therefore his existence and that of any other being totally differ from each another, and the term existence is applied to both homonymously.”23 Furthermore, God’s existence and ours differ.24 The terms God’s “knowledge,” “providence,” and “intention” are homonyms when applied to God and humans.25 Later, the teachers of the so-called “high scholastic era, from Alexander of Hales to Henry of Ghent and Duns Scotus, identified the central problem of predicating attributes of a transcendent being as central to the discussion of the doctrine of God.”26 How is language about God possible if we cannot assume the same Maimonides, The Guide, 146 c. 57. Maimonides, The Guide, 130. 22 Maimonides, The Guide 89, 144. 23 Maimonides, The Guide, 89 c. 35: 24 Maimonides, The Guide, 321–22. 25 Maimonides, The Guide, 492, 505. 26 Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 - ca. 1725, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 3:49 [henceforth: Muller, PRRD]. 20 21

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relation of terms to God as to humans in our predication? Alexander of Hales recognized that we must first assume “divine simplicity.” In contrast to Jewish philosophy, medieval Christian theologians “were pressed to argue that the doctrine of the Trinity did not render God composite and that the distinctions between persons were not divisions of the divine essence.”27 It is the exegesis of Scripture passages, such as Exodus 3:14, “I am who I am,” which drives the tradition of the church to discuss and formulate her doctrine. Muller gives a lengthy quote from Maimonides’s The Guide,28 the same passage from Maimonides mentioned earlier as referenced in the Synopsis of Purer Theology. Thus, Jewish and Christian philosophical ideas were not just driven by Greek thought, leading, as some claim, to “unfruitful abstractions” with terms such as “substance” and “essence,” but rather by biblical exegesis, the early church fathers, Anselm (before the rediscovery of many works by Aristotle), Maimonides—God is absolute existence—and Christian reflection on the (in)comprehensibility of God. It is an issue of faith and reason together, not the two pitted against each other. Thus, when Maimonides or Aquinas speaks of being and existence, they are saying no more or less than Exodus 3:14 is saying. “Essence, simple defined, is the quiddity or ‘whatness,’ the nature of a being. Quiddity, as an exact synonym of essence, simply indicates ‘that which answers the question “Quid sit— ”What is it?”‘”29 John Duns Scotus and Transcendental Terms

In discussions about univocal versus analogical predication about God and humans, the one approach is often set against the other. In a recent article, for instance, Sutanto explains the logic of two different models, “theistic conceptual realism” versus “a reformed archetype-ectype model.”30 The essay claims that univocal preMuller, PRRD 3:50-1. Maimonides, The Guide, Part I, c. 63, p. 167. 29 Muller, PRRD 3:52. 30 Nathaniel Gray Sutanto, “Two Theological Accounts of Logic: Theistic Conceptual Realism and a Reformed Archetype-Ectype Model,” International Journal of Philosophy of Religion 79, no. 3 (2015): 239–60. 27 28

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dication is denied to the latter, whose metaphysical distance needs analogical predication, and denied to theistic conceptual realism as well. Furthermore, some characteristics of each model arguably need more nuancing before one is able to attribute those characteristics to either model. First, we turn to Wolter’s explanation of how univocal predication can correlate with analogical predication, and how univocal predication, according to Scotus, is a necessary condition for the principle of identity, contradiction, and the excluded middle. Second, we will explain why it simply will not do to attribute ‘necessity’ to archetypal ideas and the laws of logic, for instance, without paying attention to logical and syntactical distinctions. First, in The Transcendentals, Wolter explains that, according to Scotus, univocal knowledge serves as the ground of the laws of logic, namely, the principles of identity (there cannot exist two indistinguishable things), contradiction, and the excluded middle. If one removes univocal knowledge as the grounding principle, then “sheer scepticism will result.”31 Univocal predication is based on a univocal core of common attributes, such as being, unity, truth, and goodness, and transcendental notions like beauty, wisdom, intelligence, and free will.32 Scotus explains the univocal core of elements by distinguishing between a transcendental term and a transcendental concept. Whereas a concept has but one meaning, a term can have many meanings. Moreover, there are two uses of terms. Terms can speak of attributes common to many beings. In this sense we have a common univocal concept. Or, terms can speak of a subject, or subjects, each one of which possesses an attribute in a similar, yet unique sense. In this sense, there is no common concept. As a result, the common term in the latter is predicated equivocally by logicians, and analogically by metaphysicians.33 Thus, a univocal core of conception underlies analogical predication.

Allan B. Wolter, The Transcendentals and Their Function in the Metaphysics of Duns Scotus, Franciscan Institute Publications 3 (St. Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 1946), 50. 32 Wolter, Transcendentals, 55. 33 Wolter, Transcendentals, 56 (cf. the article above by Sutanto). 31

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Second, the theistic conceptual realist model holds that divine thoughts, as propositions, are necessary, not contingent. The argument is that they are necessary since they hold true in every possible world, and are not contingent, in which case there would need be only one possible world in which they are not true. But this model, as explained, rules out contingency. The theistic conceptual realist position they hold to, claims that the laws of logic are necessary, not contingent. But in what sense are these laws necessary? The notion of necessity lacks any nuance. They hold this view since they claim that it is impossible to conceive of a world wherein the laws of logic do not hold true. But in what sense is it impossible? The problem is that the authors confuse the archetypal idea of the laws of logic with the factual existence of these laws in every possible world. The authors need to distinguish the idea from the mental act of producing the laws of logic, or the laws of nature. The idea is contingent while the act of producing the laws, as they are, is necessary. The laws of logic as well as the laws of nature are contingent upon being actualized by God’s will. They belong to an ontology of contingency. In other words, there is nothing in the laws themselves that make them necessary for God to bring them into actual existence. To use another example, the syntax of the proposition, “If a human being runs, a mind-gifted being runs necessarily,” states that running is a necessary feature of human beings. But that is not so. A human is still a human being although he or she never runs. This sense of necessity is called the necessity of the consequent. However, the syntax of the proposition, “Necessarily, if a human being runs, a mind-gifted being runs,” merely states the implicative necessity of the consequence of a human being who happens to be running. If someone is running, then he or she is running. But it is possible that he or she is not running. This sense is called the necessity of the consequence. The significance of neglecting to recognize and apply this distinction to one’s model or paradigm is that all propositions, then, are necessary. This leaves one with an ontology of necessity, that is, a necessitarian framework which results in a closed, fixed reality, instead of an open, contingent reality.

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Sutanto’s presentation leads one to conclude that the archetype-ectype paradigm strongly needs analogical predication due to the metaphysical distance between the archetype and the ectype. However, the historical roots of archetype-ectype theology are found in the Scotistic tradition of theologia in se and theologia nostra.34 The Scotist line of thought holds to a univocal core of predication that serves as the basis for any analogical predication. The post-Reformation archetype-ectype line of thinking is a Scotist line, including such theologians as Junius, Polanus, Ames, and Owen. We will turn to the significance of the archetype-ectype model for the topic of the knowability of God below as part of the discussion of early modern Protestant prolegomena.

PART 2. E ARLY M ODERN PROTESTANT PROLEGOMENA 1. Luther and the Knowability of God

Luther, according to Muller, radically “altered” the theologia viatorum and “produced the epochal contrast between theologia gloriae and theologia crucis,” in his Heidelberg Disputation, 1518. This formula appropriates the distinction between theologia in se and theologia in subjecto, writes Muller, and adds to it a reevaluation of how we talk about God. We talk not of “God as such,” but of God as revealed to us in Scripture. In this, Luther was radically stating what medieval doctors already taught.35 This distinction of Luther’s between God in himself and God for us implies that God wants to be found, but in Christ and him crucified. “For as in his own nature God is immense, incomprehensible, and infinite, so to man’s nature he is intolerable,” as cited by Paulson.36 W. J. van Asselt, “The Fundamental Meaning of Theology: Archetypal and Ectypal Theology in Seventeenth-Century Reformed Thought,” Westminster Theological Journal 64, no. 2 (Fall 2002): 321–24. 35 Muller, PRRD, 1:99. 36 Steven Paulson, “Luther’s Doctrine of God,” in The Oxford Handbook of Martin Luther’s Theology, ed. Robert Kolb, Irene Dingel, and L’Ubomír Batka (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 194; Cf. Luther’s use of the terms, s.v. Deus absconditus/Deus revelatus, in Richard A. Muller, 34

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Writing on “Luther’s Doctrine of God,” with implications for Luther’s ontological understanding of God’s knowability, Paulson states, “Luther was not interested in seeking potential in the person for ‘knowing’ God, but was interested in God deeply present in all creation.”37 There is a significant distinction for Luther between what can be known about God naturally, and knowing God spiritually. In other words, Luther rejects the human capacity to know God as he is in himself, as if this kind of knowledge were available to humans “through nature.”38 Luther did of course accept a Pauline legal kind of knowledge, as in Romans 1:19–20. But, writes Paulson, Luther says that “‘God is present spiritually only where he is spiritually known.’” For God to be known spiritually means whereever his “‘Word, faith, Spirit and worship are.’”39 In sum, “Luther believed that human reason is a profound instrument,” a “bright light.” By nature, we know that God can deliver us from evil. This knowledge is better than knowledge that God exists. But our nature, our reason, has two defects that concern faith. First, we know God can help us, but will he help us? Yes, God is gracious, but the law condemns us. Thus, the preacher must preach God’s Gospel. Second, we know that there is a God, and that by his law he judges us, but our reason wrongly “equates God with that law” and condemns us. Our problem is that we “misidentify God.” God must be “grasped” in the “preached word, apart from the law.”40

Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2017) [henceforth: DLGTT]. 37 Paulson, “Luther’s Doctrine of God,” 191. 38 Paulson, “Luther’s Doctrine of God,” 192; Cf. “Non ille digne theologicus dicitur, qui invisibilia Dei per ea, quae facta sunt, intellecta conspicit; sed qui visibilia et posteriora Dei per passiones et crucem conspecta intelligit,” in “Martin Luther, “Heidelberg Disputation,” vol. 1 in Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimer: H. Böhlau, 1883– 2009) (WA) 1: 353–74; English: Martin Luther, “Heidelberg Disputation,” ed. Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 31 in Luther’s Works (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press), here (Thesis 19) 52. 39 Paulson, “Luther’s Doctrine of God,” 192. 40 Paulson, “Luther’s Doctrine of God,” 193.

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2. Melanchthon

Melanchthon’s relation to medieval scholastic method evolves through the course of his own development and the successive editions of the Loci Communes (1st edition 1521). The first edition includes a preface on the nature of theology. Prior to the Loci, Melanchthon wrote a first part of a study on dialectics and method, Erotemata dialectica, 1520.41 Dialectics is the art of teaching well, in an orderly way. It has four parts: First, to define, second, to distinguish, third, to connect arguments properly, and fourth, to refute poorly and falsely connected arguments, making the reason plain, to lead the student away from error to the standards of certainty.42

This formulation reflects the classical definitions found in Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Peter Ramus (1515–1572), the latter of which started his Dialectics with this definition: Dialectica est ars bene differendi. Dialectic, which Ramus equated with logic, is valuable in that it serves all the arts and sciences, including learning theology. Melanchthon speaks of faith as a habitus intellectus and as a habitus voluntatis (the Christian notion of faith). It is giving assent to the doctrine “God has vouchsafed to his church.”43 Melanchthon also speaks of these two kinds of faith in his Loci Communes, 1539 edition. There is assensus and there is fiducia For the editions of the Loci communes theologici (1st 1521–25; 2nd 1535– 41; 3rd 1542–59), see Karl Gottlieb Bretschneider and Henricus Ernestus Bindseil, eds., Philippi Melanchthonis Opera quae supersunt omnia, Corpus Reformatorum 21 (Brunswick: C. A. Schwetschke et Filium, 1854); Philipp Melanchthon, Erotemata dialectices, in Philippi Melanchthonis Opera quae supersunt omnia, ed. Karl Gottlieb Bretschneider, Corpus Reformatorum 13 (Halis Saxonum: C. A. Schwetschke et Filium, 1846), 507–752; see Muller, PRRD, 1:49; Andreas J. Beck, ed., Melanchthon und die Reformierte Tradition, Refo500 Academic Studies 6 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016); Frank Günter, Herman J. Selderhuis, and Sebastian Lalla, eds., Melanchthon und der Calvinismus, Melanchthon-Schriften der Stadt Bretten 9 (Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 2005). 42 Robert D. Preus, The Theology of Post-Reformation Lutheranism: A Study of Theological Prolegomena. 2 Vols. (Saint Louis: Concordia, 1970), 1:78. 43 Preus, Theology, 1:78. 41

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misericordiae, which amounts to “trust in the mercy promised in Christ.”44 Preus makes the point that philosophical method is brought to bear on dogmatic discussions. Although Melanchthon is hard on Aristotle, or past abuse of Aristotle, he adapts Aristotle to the purposes of his curriculum on many points, unless following Aristotle brings one in conflict with Scripture. Successive editions of the Loci include more and more positive statements on philosophical presuppositions. Nevertheless, in Melanchthon’s Disputatio de discrimine Evangelii et philosophiae, written after Luther’s death, he says that “The Gospel is not a philosophy or a law, but it is the remission of sins and the promise of reconciliation and eternal life for Christ’s sake.”45 In his Loci praecipui theologici, 1559, on the locus about God, Melanchthon, as cited by Muller, argues that True knowledge of God has been preserved since the fall in the revelation of the promise—while at the same time human sinfulness has created distortions of divine truth. At best, nature provides knowledge of the existence and attributes of God and a sense of the moral commands of God, but this knowledge is legal and not saving.46

For Melanchthon, the certainty of what we know in theological matters “rests on revelation.” Such certainty cannot be attained immediately or intuitively. Human reason must accept “revealed truth.” Muller concludes that “This distinction between mathematical and theological certainty was crucial for orthodox dogmatics.”47 Preus, Theology, 1:79. Preus, Theology, 1:80. 46 Muller, PRRD, 1:101. 47 Muller, PRRD, 1:102. Jonathan Edwards would go on to echo Melanchthon on this point, when he wrote in Freedom of Will (1754) that there is a “foundation for the knowledge of the being of God” in nature. Likewise, humans clearly see that “twice two is four” and that “a circle has no angles,” but even so, “we have not that strength and extent of mind, to know this certainly in this intuitive independent manner.” Rather, we come to the knowledge of the being of God as Paul says we do in Romans 1:20. Thus, we gain certainty of the being of God first in an a posteriori move, then a priori. 44 45

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We can attribute to Melanchthon a positive use of reason in early Protestant prolegomena and natural theology. Even after the fall, the imago Dei remains intact in the sense that it retains “fundamental ideas, implanted in the mind by God, that render logic and rhetoric, moral decisions, and the understanding of principia in the various sciences possible.”48 Muller reports that it was Melanchthon, at Wittenberg University, who developed the theological and philosophical curriculum to include Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Melanchthon supplemented the curriculum with the use of Aristotle and his categories, just as Thomists like Vermigli and Zanchi would do.49 According to Benjamin Warfield (Princeton University Professor, 1887–1921), who presents some late-nineteenth and early twentieth-century interpretations of the Reformers Melanchthon, Zwingli and Calvin, it is Melanchthon, not Calvin, who is the reformer who gives a “formal enumeration of the proofs for the divine existence.”50 In the earliest Loci Communes (1521), there was no locus de Deo. But in the second form (1535-41), there was. But that is not where Melanchthon appended his arguments (demonstrationes) for God’s existence. Rather, he added them to the locus de Creatione. Warfield cites Melanchthon, who writes, After the mind has been confirmed in the true and right opinion of God and of creation by the Word of God itself, it is then both useful and pleasant to seek out also the vestiges of

“We first ascend, and prove a posteriori, or from effects, that there must be an eternal cause; and then secondly, prove by argumentation, not intuition, that this being must be necessarily existent, and then thirdly, from the proved necessity of his existence, we may descend, and prove many of his perfections a priori,” in Freedom of the Will, ed. Paul Ramsey Works of Jonathan Edwards 1 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957), 182 [henceforth: WJE 1]. 48 Muller, PRRD, 1:102. 49 Muller, PRRD, 1:102. 50 Benjamin B. Warfield, Calvin and Calvinism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1931), 149.

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God in nature and to collect the arguments (rationes) which testify that there is a God.51

In the classical line of thought, it is only after one’s mind is convinced about the truth that God is—the basis of which is innate, having been planted in the mind—that one seeks to understand and further confirm what he knows. Melanchthon’s formulation is by way of nine demonstrations. (1) Drawn from the order of nature, from effects to a Creator. (2) From the nature of the human mind. The human mind has a cause other than itself. A human being begins to be and thus does not have its being in or by itself. (3) From the distinction between good and evil and the sense of order and number. It is impossible that the capacity of the human mind arise and develop from matter. It is necessary therefore that there be a Designer of the human mind. The human mind and the light implanted in the mind are the chief witnesses about God in nature. (4) From the notion that natural ideas are true: that there is a God all people confess naturally. Therefore this idea is confirmed to be true. (5) From the “terrors of conscience,” taken from Xenophanes, of those who have committed great murderous crimes. (6) From political society, that is, political associations, affinity for community. The fact that humans punish violent crimes shows divine inspiration. There is an eternal mind who has given to humans an intellect of order. Humans are made to form, serve, and defend political societies/communities. (7) Drawn from the series of efficient causes. There cannot be an infinite recession of efficient causes.” Therefore the series must stop at the first single cause, namely, God. Warfield, Calvin, 149n41. Melanchthon’s final expanded formulation appears in the 1542–59 edition. 51

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“These arguments not only testify that God is,” writes Melanchthon, “but are also indicia (evidence, proofs, marks) of providence . . . they are perspicuous and always affect good minds.” These nine demonstrations, which occur in this order when given by Melanchthon, begin by seeking out “vestiges of God in nature” and “arguments” (rationes), designed to “testify that there is a God.”53 According to Jacobus Doedes’s Inleiding tot de Leer van God (1870), these demonstrations “show that ethical considerations especially attract Melanchthon.”54 Melanchthon’s argument assumes an infused notitia insita in the human mind and strengthens with teleological conviction, according to Herrlinger’s Die Theologie Melanchthons in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung (1879). There are elements of a natural theology in Melanchthon’s demonstrations which rest on “an innate idea” and are “awakened” by “teleological contemplation of the world.” English: Warfield, Calvin, 149n41; Latin: Philip Melanchthon, Philippi Melanchthonis Opera quae supersunt omnia, Corpus Reformatorum vols. 1– 28, ed. Karl Gottlieb Bretschneider and Heinrich Ernst Bindseil. (Brunswick: Schwetschke, 1834–60), 21:641–43. (1) Prima, ab ipso naturae ordine sumitur, id est ab effectibus monstrantibus opificem; (2) Secunda, à natura mentis humanae; (3) Tertia, à discrimine honestorum & turpium, et aliis noticiis naturalibus, ordinis & numerorum . . . Ergo necesse est, aliquam mentem architectatricem esse . . . quod humana mens, & illa lux menti insita, praecipuum de Deo testimonium est in natura; (4) Quarta, Noticiae naturales sunt verae: esse Deum naturaliter omnes fatentur: ergo haec noticia vera est.; (5) Quinta, apud Xenophontem sumitur à terroribus conscientiae; (6) Sexta, à politica societate . . . Ergo est aliqua mens aeterna, quae dedit hominibus intellectum ordinis, ut politicam societatem colant: item quae sua ope servat & defendit; (7) Septima est erudita, sumpta à serie causarum efficientium. Non est processus in infinitum in causis efficientibus: ergo necesse est resistere in una prima causa; (8) Octava, à causis finalibus. Omnes res in natura destinatae sunt ad certas utilitates; (9) Nona, à futurorum eventuum significationibus. 53 Warfield, Calvin, 149n41. 54 Warfield, Calvin, 149n41. J. I. Doedes, Inleiding tot de leer van God (Utrecht: Kemink en Zoon, 1870). 52

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Even a cursory reading of these demonstrations suggests, as Herrlinger notes, that the “principle” of arrangement begins in nature and human beings, proceeds through human being’s affinity for community, ending with the telos of all things in nature.55 3. Calvin

In what Richard Muller calls “the now-classic essay of Warfield,” we learn of Calvin’s “controlling religious purpose” in expounding Scripture texts on the knowability and incomprehensibility of God, as opposed to a more formal, philosophical, a priori approach, such as one finds in Zwingli.56 For Calvin, we ought not busy ourselves with what God is (quid sit Deus), but rather with who God is, what kind of person he is (qualis sit). These terms stem from medieval scholastic writers as well as classical rhetoric.57 Warfield notes that this is a classic scholastic distinction between knowledge of the quid versus knowledge of the qualis of God. He cites Aquinas, who says that “there is no knowledge of God per essentiam, no knowledge of His nature, of His quidditas per speciem propriam, but we know only habitudinem ipsius ad creaturas.”58

Warfield, Calvin, 150n41. These observations come from Warfield’s reading of Doede and Herrlinger, but I also have consulted the original sources. Zwingli’s approach to the so-called “theistic proofs,” is not to “establish the existence of God,” but rather “to increase our knowledge of God,” according to P. J. Muller, De Godsleer van Zwingli en Calvijn: een vergelijkende studie (Sneek: J. Campen, 1883), 148n40. 56 Richard A. Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin: Studies in the Foundation of a Theological Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 118; Warfield, Calvin, 142. 57 Calvin added the discussion of these terms in the 1559 edition of the Institutes, in I.2.2. Cf. Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, Quintillian, and Aquinas in his ST I. q.2 a.1: and ST I q. 12, a.12. 58 Warfield, Calvin, 152; Except for Warfield’s English translation in his essay, all English translations of the Institutes are taken from John Calvin, Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion, vols. 20–21 of The Library of Christian Classics, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960) [hereafter cited as Calvin, Institutes]. 55

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Calvin holds that the notion of a “sensus divinitatis” is engraved on our hearts and minds. We are self-taught from birth that God is. He says even “idolatry is ample proof of this conception” we have of divinity. Warfield says that our knowledge of God is more than mere or bare perception, it has an object, it has “content.” This knowledge produces an effect in us. “Our native endowment is not merely a sensus deitatis, but also a semen religionis.” All peoples have a propensity towards religion and God, which is “consonant with their conceptions of God.”59 The well-known opening lines of Calvin’s Institutes say, “Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and ourselves.” There are two things “innate” in all of us, says Calvin, (1) the knowledge of God and (2) pride. To know ourselves is to know our dependence upon God. Calvin, like Augustine and Anselm before him, and many authors after Calvin, is full of the truth of Acts 17:28, that in God we live and move, and have our being, underscoring our dependence upon God. Calvin embeds this Scripture text in the opening lines of the Institutes. Calvin writes, “Again, it is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God’s face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself.”60 For Calvin, we truly “aspire” to know God when we become “displeased” with ourselves. Warfield describes this notion as human beings having an “instinctive” knowledge of God.61 But sin “dulls” our “instinctive apprehension” of God.62 This leads Warfield to speak of the “noëtic effects of sin” (i.e., pertaining to the mind-nous).63 Sin also affects our apprehension Warfield, Calvin, 37; Calvin, Institutes, I.3.1, 2; I.4.1. (Semen religionis was added to the 1559 edition of the Institutes, in I.4.1). Cf. Muller, PRRD 3: 273ff; Muller, DLGTT, s.v. semen religionis and sensus divinitatis. 60 Calvin, Institutes, I.1.2; (Cf. Calvin’s Romans Comm. 1:19). Jonathan Edwards writes the same line of thought in the Preface to his Freedom of Will (1754), WJE 1:133, “Of all kinds of knowledge that we can ever obtain, the knowledge of God, and the knowledge of ourselves, are the most important.” 61 Warfield, Calvin, 33, 36. 62 Warfield, Calvin, 32. 63 Warfield, Calvin, 151. 59

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and knowledge of God in nature and history. Scripture alone, then, gives humans an adequate objective revelation of God. Warfield explains that Calvin’s doctrine, however, is “not of the unknowableness of God, but rather of the incapacitating effects of sin.”64 To say our knowledge is “inadequate” is different than to say that God is unknowable. The Spirit has a “recreative power” such that even sinners know not only that God is, but what kind of being God is.65 Nevertheless, God’s essence remains to all people “incomprehensible.” God’s “divinity (numen) wholly escapes all human senses. God’s works “admonish men of God’s incomprehensible essence, yet being men we are not capax Dei.”66 Calvin affirms that we can know God’s attributes (virtutes) and to know his attributes is to know true determinations of God’s nature and essence. Calvin is only wanting to avoid speculating about what God is apart from his revealed attributes. Calvin thus “is refusing all a priori methods of determining the nature of God.”67 Rather, we must form our knowledge of God a posteriori, from effects, from revelation. Only experiential knowledge of God is useful. But this knowledge of God by way of his attributes is not complete; it doesn’t tell us all of what God is; nor anything that God is in himself. The attributes tell us who and what God is in relation to us (erga nos). Calvin thus eschews all speculative knowledge of God’s intrinsic nature. The attributes of God revealed to us, his works and acts in creation, reveal nothing to us of his “metaphysical being, nothing of what he is apud se, only quoad nos.68 Thus, Calvin does not give us a doctrine of the nature of God. Rather he teaches us modesty in this locus.69 We are to adore God and contemplate him in his works and indicia (proofs and marks of providence).

Warfield, Calvin, 150. Warfield, Calvin 151 (Calvin, Institutes, I.1.1; I.2.1; I.5.1). 66 Warfield, Calvin, 151–2 (Calvin, Institutes, I.5.1; I.11.3). Cf. Muller, DLGTT, s.v. Finitum non capax infiniti. 67 Warfield, Calvin, 153. 68 Warfield, Calvin, 154. 69 Warfield, Calvin, 154n45. Warfield references Muller, De Godsleer van Zwingli en Calvijn. 64 65

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On the knowledge and incomprehensibility of God, Richard Muller writes, “God is and must remain incomprehensible to us: we cannot know God ‘in himself’, but we see only as in a mirror or in a mystery.”70 There is a difference between “apprehension” and “comprehension.” We cannot fully comprehend God. For this reason, we say God is incomprehensible or infinite. Our ways are not his ways. Thus, the Reformers take up three previous ways of talking about God: (1) via causationis/causalitatis: we ascend from secondary causes to the first; (2) via negationis: we remove our imperfections when speaking of what is true or not of God; (3) via eminentiae: we move from what is true of ourselves to say it is most eminently true and perfect of God. God is one, true, good, and holy.71 Post-Reformation Protestant theologians also developed a fundamental paradigm that underscored a theology of both the incomprehensibility of God, and our understanding of God as communicated to us in Christ and in a revealed theology. They made this initial point in the distinction between archetypal and ectypal theology, to which subject we now turn. 4. Archetypal and Ectypal Theology in Protestant Prolegomena

In this section, we show parallel developments in Lutheran and Reformed prolegomena with respect to God’s understanding of himself (archetypal theology in se), and the expression and communication of this understanding by God in Christ, a communication through, as it were, a certain refraction in created things, especially in human beings (ectypal theology quoad nos). One parallel is the use by John Gerhard (1582-1637) of Franciscus Junius’s (1545-1602) division of Theologia vera (1594) into archetypal and ectypal theology. In his essay on archetypal and ectypal theology in seventeenth-century Reformed thought, Van Asselt draws out a more fundamental paradigm in Reformed prolegomena than has recently been articulated, namely, Theologia vera, divided into archetypal and ectypal theology. The 70 71

Muller, PRRD, 3:164. Muller, PRRD, 3:166.

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issue of concern at the time, which is relevant to our topic, is whether the relation of divine knowledge to human knowledge is univocal, equivocal, or analogical. Although there was no unanimous support for this paradigm’s use of the term ‘theology’ being applied to both God and humans unequivocally, Junius, writes van Asselt, “shows no hesitancy in using the term ‘theology’ univocally for the knowledge of God himself and human knowledge of God.”72 Junius’s division of theology into God’s knowledge known only to himself, archetypal theology (in se), and God’s knowledge communicated to us, ectypal theology (quoad nos) is explained as follows in De vera theologia (1594): Thesis 7. Archetypal theology is the divine wisdom of divine matters. Indeed, we stand in awe before this and do not seek to trace it out. Thesis 8. Ectypal theology, whether taken in itself, as they say, or relatively in relation to something else, is the wisdom of divine matters, fashioned by God from the archetype of himself, through the communication of grace for his own glory. Thesis 11: The theology, which we call that of union, is the whole wisdom of divine matters, communicated to Christ as God-man, that is, as the Word made flesh, according to His humanity. Thesis 13. The theology of revelation is that which is communicated here with the human race. This is the kind you also might not unhelpfully label our theology.73

As mentioned above, there is a parallel development in Lutheran prolegomena. The Lutheran scholar Robert Preus gives the following explanation of John Gerhard’s theses: Archetypal or original theology is in God the Creator. It is the theology according to which God knows himself in himself and also knows everything that is outside him by an

Van Asselt, “The Fundamental Meaning of Theology,” 328. On archetypal and ectypal theology, Muller, PRRD, 1:225–238. 73 Franciscus Junius, A Treatise on True Theology: With the Life of Franciscus Junius, trans. David C. Noe (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2014). 72

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PHILIP FISK indivisible and immutable act of knowing. This theology in the Creator is . . . uncreated and essential, infinite and original, and differs entirely from ectypal theology, which is . . . accidental and finite, and is a sort of outflow and efflux . . . of the former. Ectypal theology expressions and utterances derived from the former through a gracious communication, and by reason of its subject is either in Christ the Head or in his members. In the man Christ this ectypal theology is an inherent wisdom embracing an absolutely perfect knowledge of God and of divine things. This is called the theologia unionis. Theologia viatorum consists in the knowledge of divine things that God by means of his revelation has extended to us in this life. Such theology is given us in nature (theologia naturalis) but especially by the light of grace in the revealed Word. Natural theology is both innate, in that certain common notions are inborn in man (e.g. that there is a God, that he is good and should be worshiped), and acquired by contemplating God’s creatures and works in nature.74

Gerhard posed the question, “If God can’t be defined, can we know him?”75 Preus says that Gerhard’s discussion of God’s incomprehensibility and knowability owes much to the discussion by John of Damascus (676–749) in his De Fide Orthodoxa I,4. Like him, Lutherans wanted to preserve God’s transcendence. It is impossible to say what God is according to his substance. . . . God then is infinite and incomprehensible, and all that is comprehensible about him is his infinity and incomprehensibility. Now when you speak affirmatively of certain things being in God, you are not talking of his nature, but of those things which pertain to his nature. For if you say that God is good, righteous, wise, or speak of any other power

Preus, Theology, 1:113. Preus notes that Calov went so far as to claim that “Christ, by virtue of the hypostatic union, possessed also the original or archetypal theology.” 75 Preus, Theology, 2:45. Cf. “Can God’s essence be defined?” by Aquinas, ST I.Q3, a.5. 74

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in God, you are not talking about God’s nature but of those things which pertain to his nature.76

In the Technometry, 1633, William Ames (1576–1633) set out to develop a complete philosophical framework for the arts curriculum. Notably absent from Ames’s archetype-ectype paradigm in the Technometry (theses 44-49) is any place for a christological interpretation of a theology of union, as in his predecessor Junius. The archetype-ectype paradigm is found in these theses: Thesis 44. In God this ‘understanding’ (intelligentia) is archetypal, in man it is ectypal. Thesis 45. Since this understanding is in God immediately from eternity, by no means being conveyed to him or impressed upon him, it is truly in him arche tou typou . . . the principle both of every type and of the first type. But this understanding expresses itself as if it were through a certain refraction in created and governed things that are our understanding’s type, from which human understanding is gathered. Thesis 46. This is why this understanding is called ‘theology,’ but taken as a whole it must be called ‘art’; insofar as it exists in God, it must be called ‘archetypal,’ because it is nothing other than God’s eternal wisdom, the creator and governor of things. Thesis 47. Man’s art also has to do with certain things, and thus it is the cause and principle of some type by imitation. Nevertheless. since it is not the principle either of the first type or of every type, as is God’s understanding or art (for any human art has taken some other type for a principle), man’s art is called ectypal rather than archetypal. Thesis 111. Theology alone homogeneously transmits [according to the law of justice (lex justitia) - kata to auto] (1) the universal teaching about God, not as he is in himself (for Preus, Theology, 2:46–47n32. Aquinas, in ST I.q.2.a.1 refers to John of Damascus as saying that “The knowledge of God is naturally implanted in all” (De Fide Orthodoxae 1.1,3). Therefore, God’s existence is selfevident. 76

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PHILIP FISK he is not known in this manner by anyone except himself) but as he has revealed himself to us more clearly in the book of Scripture (in libro Scripturae) and more obscurely in the book of nature (in libro naturae) so that we might live well (ad bene vivendum).

In thesis 45, we learn that Ames uses the meaning of the Latin word typus as a “stamp” or “impression,” to indicate that God’s understanding, or theology (th. 46), which he has of himself, is not impressed upon him (th. 45). Ames then uses a Neoplatonic image of light to explain that ectypal theology is refracted in created things; thus ectypal theology is derivative and imitative; it is this “type in which all art shines” (th. 48).77 In thesis 111, Ames “christianizes” an interpretation of three universal laws, a kind of lexical key, which he adapts for his purposes from Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics: (1) kata pantos (De omni), (2) kath’ auto (per se), (3) to kath’ olou (universale). Ames calls these lex veritatis, lex justitia, lex sapientiae.78 In thesis 111, we find lex justitia, which in his explanation picks up the paradigm of archetypal and ectypal theology. The paradigm of Reformed ectypal theology is further filled out with revealed theology in Scripture and in nature. But again, there is no mention of a theology of union in Christ. In his commentary on this thesis in Ames’s Technometry, Lee Gibbs writes, “Ames, along with Calvin, holds that man cannot see God directly without being blinded and consumed. God has therefore accommodated himself to human reasoning by manifesting his wisdom, will, and glory to his creatures (that is, by revealing himself in ‘the book of nature’ . . . but even more clearly ‘in the book of Scripture.’”79

Ames, Technometry, 100–101, 112; 146-147. Philip J. Fisk, Jonathan Edwards’s Turn from the Classic-Reformed Tradition of Freedom of the Will, New Directions in Jonathan Edwards Studies 2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016), 52–54. Peter Ramus and William Ames derive this three-fold lexical key from Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon (New York: Random House, 1941), 115 (73a25–27). 79 Ames, Technometry, 180. 77 78

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5. Samuel Willard Lecture 13: On “The Incomprehensibility of God,” January 2, 1688.80

As mentioned in the introduction, we now return to two early modern lectures by the Reformed theologian Samuel Willard. In what follows we reproduce the key points of Willard’s lectures on God’s incomprehensibility and knowability. It will become immediately evident that Willard’s approach echoes many of the points of the Reformed tradition sketched above. Notably absent, however, are the terms “archetype” and “ectype,” nevertheless, the distinctions of the paradigm are well expressed in lecture thirteen. Willard begins by stating that we cannot comprehend God as he is in himself. To know a thing as it is, is to know it in its essence. It is to comprehend its full definition. Comprehension is the exact and adequate knowledge of the thing to be known. Knowledge, comprehension, and apprehension of God are not really distinct from one other. Thus, if we could apprehend God, we would know his full essence. For there is nothing in God that is not God himself. But our reason cannot grasp the quidditative conception of God. When we ask, Quid est? (What is it?), the “whatness” is incomprehensible.81 Nevertheless, even though now we see in a mirror dimly, and God’s ways are beyond tracing out, and he dwells in unapproachable light, we know that there is a God. We do not ask if God exists. We assume his existence as any other science does its object of study. Question Four of the Westminster Catechism, “What is God?” supposes that there is a God. This is the first article of the classic-Reformed line of faith seeking understanding. The mind’s eye sees God as it were. We conceive an idea of God in our mind. We do not see God’s real essence, but the known object is in our mind as a rational being. We understand God in similitude. What we know is accommodated to our understanding. Quicquid recipitur, recipitur ad modum recipientis

80 81

Willard, Body of Divinity, 40–43. Willard, Body of Divinity, 41.

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(Whatever is received is received according to the mode of the receiver). “The thing known is in the knower,” writes Willard.82 The created understanding is finite. It has its Ultimum conamen, “the bounds beyond which it cannot go” (Prov 30:3-4).83 To know a thing as it is, is to know it in its essence. It is to comprehend its full definition. To comprehend is to contain one thing such that nothing is beyond his or her knowledge. But God is not knowable by us as he is in himself. There is no proportion between the infinite and the infinite, God and individual creatures. Our faculty of reason has limits, boundaries, but God, as object of our mind, is boundless, limitless, infinite. If we could comprehend God, then our knowledge of him would be equal to his knowledge of himself. We tend to look for the cause of things. But God has no cause to be found. God is beyond tracing out.84 Willard says no creature can trace out the nature of God’s essence. In fact, no nature or essence can be attributed to God because nature and essence have to do with a thing arising from a prior principle, which is not the case with God. “There is no principle of God.”85 There is nothing before him.86 God’s nature is simple, uncompounded. But we cannot form a judgment about God. Human knowledge is a judgment of a necessary axiom. But we cannot form an axiom about God. For every sentence has a subject and a predicate, something going before, and after. But in God there is no such thing as before and after, priority and posteriority. Whatever is in the divine essence is most properly the divine essence. God is most glorious and by analogy, we need

Willard, Body of Divinity, 41. Cf. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 1a, q. 75, a. 5; 3a, q. 5; Summa Theologica, 1a, q. 12, a. 4. 83 Willard, Body of Divinity, 41. 84 Willard, Body of Divinity, 41. 85 Willard, Body of Divinity, 42. 86 Cf. Aquinas, Summa Theologica I. q.3 a.4 Isaiah 44:6. Cf. Charnock who says, “There is no principle of being to anything but by his essence,” in Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (First published 1853 by Robert Carter & Brothers; reprint, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1996), 1: 452. Cf. Musculus who asks if God has a nature, in Muller, PRRD, 3:208ff. 82

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light to see things, but too much light blinds us.: God dwells in unapproachable light (1 Tim 6:16).87 Human speech cannot utter his name or being. Names are only signs of things. We cannot name God to describe him as he is in himself. God is ineffable. Proverbs 30:4 asks ironically, “What is his name?” Names are a representation of God, but no human can frame in his mind a proper conception of who God is. God cannot reveal his innate perfection to humans such that we perfectly understand who he is. It is not that God is imperfect, but rather that no created being can comprehend all the perfections of God, for if he could, he would be God. But it would be a contradiction for God to create another God.88 If God should reveal himself fully to the creature, it must be either in one word and moment, or in a speech and space of time. But not in a word or moment, because there can be no one word formed, which can draw forth and comprehend the whole sum of the perfection of the first being (God); not in a speech, or many words and space of time; because if God should speak concerning himself throughout all eternity, there would not be enough time, it would not explain to us all the perfection that is in him. Eternity would not complete the discourse, but there would be something yet behind.89

Willard concludes lecture thirteen with these warnings: (1) Beware of prying into the nature of God. (2) Be much in meditating upon God. (3) Be sober and modest in your conception of who God is. (4) Admire and adore this incomprehensible being—God. We contemplate, but we don’t resolve the matter; we wonder, but we don’t reason our way to knowing God; “where our reason is nonplussed, let it be our work to gaze ourselves into astonishment.”90

Willard, Body of Divinity, 42. Willard, Body of Divinity, 42. 89 Willard, Body of Divinity, 42, 43. 90 Willard, Body of Divinity, 43. 87 88

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Lecture 16: “God reveals his all-sufficiency to us in his divine essence, and in his subsistences,” March 26, 1689.91

“The divine essence is God, the most absolute first being.” Think on the “unity” of his essence. “Because being is better than not being, we hence ascribe being to God” (Exod 3:14; Heb 11:6). “That in the order of beings, God is the first.” “All other beings are secondary, derived, originated” (Isa 44:6).92 There is a first being because infinite regress is impossible. There is no other (Isa 43:10). All other beings are derived from him “by participation” (Acts 17:25, 28). God is a most absolute being. He is first and thus not a being by participation. “God is pleased to reveal his essence to his people by diverse attributes, which he assumes to himself.” “The attributes of God are his essence, which is in itself a pure act, diversely apprehended by us. It is a necessary confectary [result] from God’s being the most absolute first being that he is a mere act; that his nature is simple, altogether void of any composition . . . no division.” In human language, we use subject and predicate: “God is great, wise, and so forth.”93 Now attributes are the arguments of a thing, distinct from it. But these attributes are God’s essence, technically speaking. We must be careful since in our way of thinking we separate subject from predicate, between wisdom, holiness, etc. God’s essence is “represented to us, as through so many glasses.” To guide our conceptions of God’s attributes, here are some rules: (1) These attributes in God are but “one most pure and simple act.”94 (2) “All the divine attributes are to be conceived in God in the abstract, as well as in the concrete.” Thus, we say abstract: “God is wisdom” and concrete: “God is wise.” This is because “whatever is in God, is God himself.” (3) “The divine attributes are altogether in God, in the same eternity, though they appear not so to us.” “In eternity there is no distinction of priority.” “Wisdom, power and goodness appeared in creation, revenging justice after the fall, special grace afterwards.” But all Willard, Body of Divinity, 9–52. Willard, Body of Divinity, 49. 93 Willard, Body of Divinity, 50. 94 Willard, Body of Divinity, 50. 91 92

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these attributes were in God before. (4) “The divine attributes are always in him to the highest degree.” But to us they appear in time and over time. (5) “The divine attributes in God are not contrary one to another.” (6) “The attributes as they are in God, are not distinct from the essence, nor one from another.” (7) In our thinking, there is some foundation of a distinction of these attributes in God, in regard to our understanding and to the things themselves.”95 “In reason reasoning, or in our understanding, we conceive of God, and of his holiness, and of his justice, etc. by a compound act, which first conceives of God, and then of his holiness, as of an adjunct to the subject.” Our reason puts these two together in a separate act. And so we say, “God is holy.” This is how God created us to think. (But this is not the case with God himself). “In reason reasoned, or in the things themselves, from whence our understanding draws arguments extrinsically, God’s attributes do shine forth after a distinct manner.”96 God’s communicable attributes—wisdom, justice, pity—are in us by way of analogy or similitude. There is a likeness, but also a disproportion. They are attributed to us “only in the concrete, not in the abstract.” In us they are adjuncts. In God his essence. Thus, in us, in the concrete, we say: “John is wise.” But God is wisdom itself!97 In many ways, the next section on a modern neo-Calvinist approach to our topic does not belong to this essay on classicProtestant prolegomena in early modern Christianity. However, since Abraham Kuyper calls the Johannine Prologue a locus classicus of natural theology, on revelation and common grace, and since both Kuyper and especially Geerhardus Vos conclude, Willard, Body of Divinity, 51. Willard, Body of Divinity, 52. Cf. s.v. “distinctio” and “ratio ratiocinans”/“ratio ratiocinata.” Willard makes the classic scholastic distinction between reason reasoning (ratio ratiocinans) and reason reasoned (ratio ratiocinata). On the latter, s.v. “distinctio,” Muller makes a point that we underscored in the introduction to our topic about the assumption of extramental reality (cf. § Part 1.1) in the classic-Reformed tradition, namely, that reason reasoned “is argued as a distinction expressive of extramental reality since it is grounded on the thing and therefore preserved from being merely a product of the mind,” in Muller, DLGTT. 97 Willard, Body of Divinity, 51. 95 96

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from their exposition of John’s Prologue that the range of the Logos function of enlightening every human being goes beyond the sphere of soteriology in the incarnation, and extends from creation through God’s providential operations in the historical reality of this world, the inclusion of this next section is deemed fitting. Moreover, the section will serve as a bridge to other disciplines represented in this book, by raising certain issues concerning the topic of this essay in the areas of ontology, epistemology, and language.

PART 3. THE NEOCALVINIST-I NTERPRETATION OF THE K NOWABILITY OF GOD

In this final part, we turn to two neo-Calvinist thinkers, Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920) and Geerhardus Vos (1862–1949), examining their understanding of the role of Christ the Son of God, the Logos asarkos, as the giver of both life and light to every human being, since the beginning of the world, and in God’s providence, as understood from the exegesis of the Prologue to John’s Gospel. Geerhardus Vos

In his study, “The Range of the Logos Title in the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel,” the Reformed theologian Geerhardus Vos argues that the range of the Logos-function in the Prologue of the Gospel of John is not limited to the sphere of soteriology in the incarnation of the God-man. The Logos title belongs both to “creation” and “providence,” and thus, to the sphere of natural theology as well. The divine Logos has been supplying life and light to all people since the beginning of the world.98 Vos’s exegesis of the Logos title in John’s Gospel points to verses 4, 5, 9, and 10 of the Prologue, which when taken together are “preeminently the sedes for the church doctrine of natural revelation in its relation to God’s redemptive disclosure in Christ.” Geerhardus Vos, “The Range of the Logos Title in the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel,” in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos, ed. Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1980), 59–90. 98

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“Subjectively,” Vos writes, humans fail to appropriate this revelation, but “objectively” it remains valid. Vos notes the relevancy of natural theology to his day and context as found in the Prologue: There is an inner harmony and mutual interdependence of the two realms of truth in which the one Logos rules. Especially in our days, when a potent current of thought seeks to banish all natural theology from religion and to void the Christian mind of all antecedent rational knowledge of God, the principle just formulated assumes more than ordinary importance, and the old exegesis of the Prologue, in which it finds classical expression, becomes invested with a new apologetic interest.99

Abraham Kuyper

In the College-Dictaten-Dogmatiek, Abraham Kuyper identifies the Prologue of John as a locus classicus for gratia communis. “In him was life, and the life was the light of men,” (John 1:4). He remarks that, “In him” refers to the Logos asarkos (pre-incarnate Word), and “of men” refers to all people in general, not Israel. And v. 9, “The true light that enlightens every man” again refers to all people. But in v. 11 the true light also worked upon “his own people,” Israel, but to no avail. Kuyper concluded that the life and light of the Logos was also at work in the heathen, not just Israel, and is the life not only of the elect, but all people in general.100 In select meditations of To Be Near Unto God, Kuyper gives exposition of John’s Prologue on the role of the Eternal Word, in creation, providence, and the creation of human nature.101 There is broad agreement between Kuyper and Vos on the role of natural

Vos, “Logos-Title in the Fourth Gospel,” 90. Abraham Kuyper, Locus de Magistratu: College-Dictaat van een der studenten,(Amsterdam: A. Fernhout, 1893), 50–51. Accessed on June 14, 2022 at: https://sources.neocalvinism.org/.full_pdfs/kuyper/dictatendogmatie06 kuyp_1893.10.pdf. 101 Abraham Kuyper, To Be Near Unto God (Grand Rapids, MI: EerdmansSevensma, 1918), trans. of Kuyper’s Nabij God te Zijn (Kampen: Kok, 1908), for instance, in Meditations 43, 56, 99). 99

100

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theology, and in particular, the idea of the universal life and lightgiving Eternal Word, the Logos, in the creation of the human race. There are four themes that can be indentified in Kuyper’s To Be Near Unto God: (1) the role of the Eternal Word and natural theology, (2) the Eternal Word creates and speaks through nature, (3) the Eternal Word creates human nature and endows it with language, (4) the Eternal Word creates the human conscience and speaks to it. We will cite representative examples of Kuyper’s thought from Meditations 56, 99, 43, and 45 that pertain to our topic, and give some commentary. Meditation 56

“Every man can know God in all sorts of ways. This was not only so in Paradise, but still continues so in this fallen world, even in those parts that are under the curse of heathendom.”102 Kuyper refers to the “speech of God in nature and in the conscience.” These he calls “the seed of religion of which Calvin bore witness, the increated knowledge of God and the given knowledge of God, which was ever confessed by our fathers.”103 When Christ says that no one knows the Father, save the Son, and he to whom the Son reveals him, “it does not say, that no one can have any knowledge of God save through the Son, but that no one knoweth the Father, except he to whom the Son has revealed him.” 104 Kuyper distinguishes between a universally available knowledge of God, in creation, nature, and conscience, on the one hand, and knowing God personally, on the other. “But again, Christ does not come to us for the first time in the work of redemption. He is the Eternal Word, which was before all things with God and was God,” a reference to John’s Prologue. “And not only has nature been created by the Eternal Word, and endowed with a language of its own, but we ourselves, in the midst of nature, would not have come into this world, but for Christ.”105

Kuyper, Near unto God, 300. Kuyper, Near unto God, 301. 104 Kuyper, Near unto God, 301. 105 Kuyper, Near unto God, 304. 102 103

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“Hence it can not be said either that we know God apart from Christ, or that only in and by Christ this known God is revealed to us as our Father. For the broad foundation of the knowledge of God, on which the knowledge of the Father is built, comes to us from the Eternal Word.”106 “The Knowledge of the Father has been engrafted upon the knowledge of God that comes to us through nature, and through the conscience, by virtue of our creation from the Eternal Word.”107 “Hence, these are not two kinds of knowledge, without an inner relation, standing externally side by side and joined together. But it is one knowledge of God, which comes to us from the Eternal Word, which arises in us through the instrumentality of nature and of the conscience, and which in and through the redemptive work of the Messiah is elevated and carried up to the knowledge of the Father.”108 Kuyper points out that in John’s Prologue we have knowledge of God not only in seeing the glory of Christ in the work of individual redemption, but also in the revelation of God in nature, in human nature, and in the human conscience. Both nature and human nature have their “origin in Christ.” Kuyper points to the Prologue: “St. John begins his Gospel by pointing to the creation of the world, to the creation of our own nature, and the creation of our own person.”109 Meditation 99

There are two beauties, nature and the Gospel, that is, the proclamation of the Word, which is a “spiritual beauty which far outshines the beauty of nature. But shall we be onesided on this account and allow the half to be lost?” 110 Kuyper then points out that “our confession” (The Confessio Belgica) speaks of two books, the book of creation and the book of Scripture. The former is not to be neglected because of the preeminence of the latter. Kuyper values his Reformed tradition’s emphasis on the book of nature,

Kuyper, Near unto God, 304–5. Kuyper, Near unto God, 305. 108 Kuyper, Near unto God, 305. 109 Kuyper, Near unto God, 305–6. 110 Kuyper, Near unto God, 544. 106 107

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which he will not let be put aside, ignored, and replaced by the book of Scripture. Meditations 43, 45, and 46

These meditations concern the image of God renewed in us. Kuyper gives three progressive stages, like a pyramid, beginning with the base: 1) The book of nature; 2) Man created in the image of God, “the imprint of his life in the personal existence of man, creating him after his image”; 3) The incarnation of Christ: “the restoration in full of this ruined and broken image, and by showing it to us, in Christ.”111 “In the unregenerate, sin has made the image of God unrecognizable.” But “in Christ God gives his image in all its fullness and perfect clearness.”112 Kuyper says God “chisels in us” Christ, who is the image of the invisible God. Christ’s image “is imprinted upon the saints of God. The highest knowledge of God that we can obtain in the earth is, when the image of God in Christ renews the image of God in us.”113 In Meditation 46, Kuyper echoes the teaching of Calvin, a heroic “father” of the faith. When heroic sacrifice was called for, these fathers insisted “that God had implanted the sense of himself in man (sensus divinitatis), and that this was the seed of all religion (semen religionis).” Kuyper laments the situation that led to his own day, that when persecution ended, and heroic efforts were no longer needed, “the real spiritual background of all true knowledge of God was wantonly forsaken, and far too much place was given to intellectual abstractions. Abstract knowledge of the true God superceded the knowledge which is eternal life.”114 Kuyper sums up his interpretation of the theological developments following the Reformation: “The healthful Reformation in the ecclesiastical world was followed first by the barren period of dogmatics in the seventeenth century, and after that by the period of emotional religion in the eighteenth century.”115

Kuyper, Near unto God, 227. Kuyper, Near unto God, 236 113 Kuyper, Near unto God, 240 114 Kuyper, Near unto God, 240–41. 115 Kuyper, Near unto God, 150. 111 112

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Whatever we may make of Kuyper’s analysis of the developments of the seventeenth century, which had to develop sophisticated theological responses to the advances of the Socinians, Jesuits, Remonstrants, and Arminians, we must keep in view Kuyper’s experience and context. Kuyper wrote on the Logos theme in John’s Prologue, in Pro Rege, in response to what he saw as the decline of christendom.116 In Pro Rege, Kuyper makes the following assessment of the situation in his day: The Christian churches in Europe and America will have to examine themselves, and return to Christ as their Godanointed King, that the church herself, whose mission is to foreign people groups, not again be flooded and overcome in her own bosom by pagan ideas, losing her influence upon her own people, and being ashamed when Buddhists and Muslims come from afar to observe Christ’s Church in the heart of a Christian nation.117

CONCLUSION

We have seen that medieval and post-Reformation authors of early modern Christianity addressed some significant issues concerning the incomprehensibility and knowability of God. There appear to be rich resources for other disciplines in an historical understanding of and approach to the historical documents, in the areas of univocal, equivocal, and analogical language with reference to God and humans. The discussions about the modes of communication between God and humans, as expressed in the archetype-ectype theological paradigm, attempt to guard and even underscore God’s transcendence, while at the same time explain that archetypal theology serves as a base for a unified field of true theology, even if communicated to finite humans in a refracted sense of similitude. Finally, in the introduction, we raised the long-standing issues of ontology, epistemology, and the stability of language in the Western tradition since Plato, after the instability of language Abraham Kuyper, Pro Rege of Het koningschap van Christus, 3 vols. (Kampen: Kok, 1911-1912), I: 337-8; II: 369; III: 281-2; III: 534-45. (All translation is mine). 117 Kuyper, Pro Rege, 1:257. 116

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in Gorgias’s trilemma. In our last section, we saw an interpretation of the locus classicus of the Johannine Prologue that offers a trilemma, as it were, with reference to the topic of the knowability of this transcendent God. (1) John’s Prologue (vv. 1– 4, 9) presents the true (reality) of Jesus Christ and his presence as the Logos, which is an issue of concern on the level of ontology. (2) John’s Prologue presents the incarnation of the Eternal Word, the Logos, Jesus Christ (v. 14), who tarried among us, which is an issue of concern on the level of epistemology. (3) John’s Prologue presents the Eternal Word as communication of God the Father to us (v. 18), which is an issue of concern on the level of linguistics.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ames, William. Technometria, Omnium et Singularum Artium Fines adaequatè circumscribens. London: Excudit Milo Flesher, 1633. ———. Technometry. Translated and edited by Lee W. Gibbs. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1979. Anselme de Cantobéry. Monologion, Proslogion. Translated by Michel Corbin, s.j. Œuvres d’Anselme de Cantorbéry 1. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1986. Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica: Complete English Edition in Five Volumes. Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. New York: Benziger Brothers, 1948. Aristotle. The Basic Works of Aristotle. Edited by Richard McKeon. New York: Random House, 1941. Augustine. Augustine in His Own Words. Edited by William Harmless. Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2010. ———. The Trinity. Edited by John E. Rotelle. Translated by Edmund Hill. The Works of Saint Augustine. New York: New City Press, 1991. Beck, Andreas J., ed. Melanchthon und die Reformierte Tradition. Refo500 Academic Studies 6. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016. ———. “Zur Rezeption Melanchthons bei Gisbertus Voetius (1589– 1676), namentlich in Seiner Gotteslehr.” In Melanchthon und der Calvinismus, edited by Frank Günter, Herman J.

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Selderhuis, and Sebastian Lalla, 319–44. MelanchthonSchriften der Stadt Bretten 9. Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 2005. Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Edited by John T. McNeill. Translated by Ford Lewis Battles. Library of Christian Classics 20-21. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960. Charnock, Stephen. The Existence and Attributes of God, 1853. Reprint, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1996. Cicero. Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations. Translated by C. D. Yonge. Boston: Wyatt North Publishing, LLC, 2020. Clark, Elizabeth A. History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. Doedes, J. I. Inleiding tot de leer van God. Utrecht: Kemink en Zoon, 1870. Edwards, Jonathan. Freedom of the Will. Edited by Paul Ramsey. Works of Jonathan Edwards 1. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957. Fisk, Philip J. Jonathan Edwards’s Turn from the Classic-Reformed Tradition of Freedom of the Will. New Directions in Jonathan Edwards Studies 2. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016. Gaffin, Richard B., Jr., ed. Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1980. Günter, Frank, Herman J. Selderhuis, and Sebastian Lalla, eds. Melanchthon und der Calvinismus. Melanchthon-Schriften der Stadt Bretten 9. Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 2005. Herrlinger, A. Die Theologie Melanchthons in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung und im Zusammenhange mit der Lehrgeschichte und Culturbewegung der Reformation. Gotha: Friedrich Andreas Perthes, 1879. Holifield, E. Brooks. Theology in America: Christian Thought from the Age of the Puritans to the Civil War. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.

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Junius, Franciscus. A Treatise on True Theology: With the Life of Franciscus Junius. Translated by David C. Noe. Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2014. Keiper, Hugo, Christoph Bode, and Richard J. Utz, eds. Nominalism and Literary Discourse, New Perspectives. Critical Studies 10. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1997. Kuyper, Abraham. Het Koningschap van Christus in Zijn Hoogheid. Vol. 1 of Pro Rege of Het koningschap van Christus. Kampen: Kok, 1911–12. ———. Locus de Magistratu: College-Dictaat van een der Studenten. Amsterdam: A. Fernhout, 1893. https://sources.neocalvinism.org/.full_pdfs/kuyper/dictaten dogmatie06kuyp_1893.10.pdf. ———. Nabij God te Zijn. 2 vols. Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1908. ———. Pro Rege: Living Under Christ The King. Collected Works in Public Theology. The Exalted Nature of Christ’s Kingship, vol. 1. Edited by John Kok and Nelson D. Kloostermann. Translated by Albert Gootjes. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016. ———. To Be Near Unto God. Translated by John Hendrik De Vries. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans-Sevensma, 1918. Lamberton, Robert. Homer the Theologian: Neoplatonist Allegorical Reading and the Growth of the Epic Tradition. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 1986. Leithart, Peter J. Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature. Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 1999. Luther, Martin. “Heidelberg Disputation,” vol. 31 in Luther’s Works (LW), 55 vols, edited by Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann, 39-58. Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1957– 1986. ———. “Heidelberg Disputation,” vol. 1 in Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, 127 vols [Weimarer Ausgabe], 353–74. Weimer: H. Böhlau, 1883–2009. Maimonides, Moses. The Guide for the Perplexed. Translated by M. Friedländer, 1190. Reprint, New York: Barnes & Noble, 2004.

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McComiskey, Bruce. Gorgias and the New Sophistic Rhetoric. Rhetorical Philosophy and Theory. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2002. Melanchthon, Philipp. Erotemata Dialectices. In Philippi Melanchthonis Opera quae supersunt omnia. Edited by Karl Gottlieb Bretschneider. Corpus Reformatorum 13. Halis Saxonum: C. A. Schwetschke et Filium, 1846. ———. Loci Communes Theologici. In Philippi Melanchthonis Opera quae supersunt omnia. Edited by Karl Gottlieb Bretschneider and Heinrich Ernst Bindseil. Corpus Reformatorum 21. Brunswick: Schwetschke, 1854. Muller, Richard A. Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017. ———. Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 - ca. 1725. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003. ———. The Unaccommodated Calvin: Studies in the Foundation of a Theological Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. O’Callaghan, John P. Thomas Realism and the Linguistic Turn: Toward a More Perfect Form of Existence. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003. Owen, John. Biblical Theology. The History of Theology from Adam to Christ or the Nature, Origin, Development, and Study of Theological Truth, in Six Books. Translated by Stephen P. Westcott. Grand Rapids, MI: Soli Deo Gloria, 1994. Paulson, Steven. “Luther’s Doctrine of God.” In The Oxford Handbook of Martin Luther’s Theology, edited by Robert Kolb, Irene Dingel, and L’Ubomír Batka, ch 13 ad loc. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Preus, Robert D. The Theology of Post-Reformation Lutheranism: A Study of Theological Prolegomena. 2 Vols. Saint Louis: Concordia, 1970. Sprague, Rosamond Kent. The Older Sophists. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1972. Sutanto, Nathaniel Gray. “Two Theological Accounts of Logic: Theistic Conceptual Realism and a Reformed Archetype-

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Ectype Model.” International Journal of Philosophy of Religion 79 (2016): 239–60. te Velde, R. T., ed. Synopsis Purioris Theologiae / Synopsis of a Purer Theology. Vol. 1, Disputations 1–23. Gen eds. Willem Van Asselt, William Den Boer, and Riemer A. Faber. Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions 187. Leiden: Brill, 2015. Toews, John E. “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn: The Autonomy of Meaning and the Irreducibility of Experience.” American Historical Review 92, no. 4 (October 1987): 879– 907. van Asselt, W. J. “The Fundamental Meaning of Theology: Archetypal and Ectypal Theology in Seventeenth-Century Reformed Thought.” Westminster Theological Journal 64, no. 2 (Fall 2002): 319–35. Vos, Geerhardus. “The Range of the Logos Title in the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel.” In Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos, edited by Richard B. Gaffin Jr., 59–90. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1980. Warfield, Benjamin B. Calvin and Calvinism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1931. Willard, Samuel. Compleat Body of Divinity in Two Hundred and Fifty Expository Lectures on the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism. Boston: Green and Kneeland, 1726. Wolter, Allan B. The Transcendentals and Their Function in the Metaphysics of Duns Scotus. Franciscan Institute Publications 3. St. Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 1946. Zagorin, Perez. “History, the Referent, and Narrative: Reflections on Postmodernism Now.” History and Theory 38, no. 1 (1999): 1–24.

CHAPTER THREE. KNOWING GOD WITH THE SENSES? A BIBLICAL, HISTORICAL AND SYSTEMATIC EXPLORATION OF WHAT THE BODY CAN TELL US ABOUT GOD1 PROF. DR. NICO DEN BOK DEPARTMENT OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY Jesus bleibet meine Freude (..), meiner Augen Lust und Sonne, meiner Seele Schatz und Wonne; darum laß’ ich Jesum nicht aus dem Herzen und Gesicht.2

This contribution is in substance the class given during the ETF Interdisciplinary Course Knowing God on 16 May 2016. The section on Grosseteste (see below, p. 83) has been elaborated and separately published as “‘Yet in my flesh I will see God’: Robert Grosseteste on the Body’s Claim for Ultimate Happiness,” NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion 74, no. 4 (2020): 337–52. 2 Written by Martin Jahn in 1661, orchestrated by J. S. Bach in 1723 (BWV 147, chorale movement nr. 7), well-known under the title Jesus Joy of Man’s Desiring, trans. Robert Seymour Bridges (1899). 1

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REHABILITATING THE BODY

In an academic setting, the question ‘Can we know God?’ is usually and almost automatically focused on the mind and on reasoning. Can we properly think about God? The business of systematic theology in particular is often defined in terms of logic and its alleged or real limitations.3 In daily life, however, and also in another academic domain (in our times, interestingly, simply called science), knowing is closely related to another human faculty, not of the mind, but of the body. I know someone to be there when I see him. I know a bird to be there when I hear it. I cannot know they are there only by thinking. My senses must tell me. So can we know God with the senses? Is God in any way visible, or audible, or touchable?4 It seems not, for mainstream Christianity has maintained that God has no body.5 “God is spirit and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth” (John 4:24).6 Still, this is not all that needs to be said. In a way the Bible itself is major proof to the contrary, since this most important source for theological inquiry, at least in protestant and evangelical eyes, is in much of its written form a long series of testimonies of what people have seen and heard. So indirectly, but decisively, the Bible relies on eye-witness in a wider sense. An example is the ontological proof of God’s existence, initiated by Anselm, refined by Duns Scotus, criticized by Kant and others, rehabilitated by Plantinga (see The Nature of Necessity [Oxford: Clarendon, 1974], ch. X). In the present contribution, elements of an esthetic argument for God’s existence are offered. 4 In theological discussions of the last decades, the body has reclaimed its vital role in knowing God. See e.g., William P. Alston, Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991); Eugene F. Rogers, Jr. Sexuality and the Christian Body (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999); Eduardo J. Echeverria, “In the Beginning...” A Theology of the Body (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2011). 5 Just as in mainstream Judaism and Islam. In more pantheistic views, like those endorsed by some feminist theologians, the world is considered to be God’s body. In Eastern Orthodoxy, there is a tendency to claim that the world (creation, cosmos) can become God’s body by way of an extension of the incarnation. See further n. 53. 6 For Bible quotations, I use the New International Version. 3

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In this contribution I will not address the nature of the Bible itself7, but turn to some biblical texts expressing a more direct, so to speak first-hand sensory experience of God. After that, I offer some reflections from a church father and a few medieval theologians who meditated on these texts. By way of conclusion, I will follow their most important lead for answering my question: Can God be known by the senses? 8

OLD TESTAMENT

Most famous from the Old Testament is the idea that no one can see God and live (Exod 33:20). So, seeing God is either humanly impossible, or sacredly prohibited, or simply not an option in this life. Yet some Old Testament texts seem to contradict this apodictic claim. Let me mention just two of them.9 At some moment in his physical and mental distress Job cries out (Job 19:25): I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him For this topic, see e.g., Robert MacSwain, Scripture, Metaphysics and Poetry: Austin Farrer’s The Glass of Vision, with Critical Commentary, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2016). For various hermeneutic positions, see J. Merrick and Stephen M. Garrett, eds., Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013. In relation to classical Christian hermeneutics, see my “Richard of St. Victor and the Hermeneutics of Love,” in, Exegesis of Holy Scripture from Origen to Lorenzo Valla, ed. Gilbert Dahan (Turnhout: Brepols, forthcoming). 8 For a modest but fundamental introduction to the topic, see Romano Guardini, Die Sinne und die religiöse Erkenntnis (Würzburg: Werkbund, 1975). Also see some articles of Hans Urs von Balthasar: “Offenbarung und Schönheit,” in Verbum Caro. Skizzen zur Theologie I (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1960), 100–134, “Schauen, Glauben, Essen,” in Sponsa Verbi, Skizzen zur Theologie II, Johannes Verlag Einsiedeln, 1961, 502– 513, “Vom Schauvermögen des Christen” and “Die Augen Pascals,” in Homo creatus est. Skizzen zur Theologie V (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1986), 52–77. 9 Both examples have received a beautiful musical version in the oratorio Messiah of G. F. Handel (Messiah. An Oratorio, text by Charles Jensen, 1741). 7

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Job in his tormented, afflicted body claims that he will see God “in his flesh.” He may mean that he is certain that his body will be cured and that in that future, restored condition he will “see” God, very much like he did when he was prosperous and healthy. In this way, this “seeing” may not refer to the Lord himself, but to signs of him, to gifts showing his goodness.10 But Job seems to imply more, something extremely daring: I will see God, he says, “after my skin has been destroyed.” Evidently, for this faith and hope to become reality, not only must God show himself, but the body must rise from its destruction. A second example is from one of the most beautiful texts in the Bible (Isa 40:5): And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

In this text “flesh” can simply mean “people,” but even so it means “people in their corporeal, fragile and corruptible existence” (“like grass”). This certainly gives an earthy ring to the “good tiding to Jerusalem” saying “Here is your God!” (vs 9). Here must be in Judah and must be a presence that can be seen and heard. So, in a number of Old Testament texts, although seeing God seems impossible, there is this desire, this aspiration and yearning to see him nevertheless. This seeing is meant in a wide sense, but not so wide that it could exclude the senses. And the desire to see does not diminish when the body is damaged, ill, or even dead. On the contrary, it wants to be restored and see. And is confident that it will see.

Ps 27:13 can be read in the same way: “I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord, Israel!” For the visual dimension in biblical testimonies see Hans Urs von Balthasar, Herrlichkeit. Eine theologische Ästhetik, vol. III, 2: Theologie, sect. 1 Alter Bund, sect. 2 Neuer Bund (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1967, 1969). 10

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NEW TESTAMENT

This takes us to the threshold of the New Testament. Again, its starting point is the conviction that “no man has ever seen God” (John 1:18). Yet something wonderful has happened (1 John 1:14): That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.

In his Gospel, John formulates the same testimony as in his letter: The Word of God, who “was God,” has become flesh and “made his dwelling among us” (John 1:1, 14). For John, this event, the appearance of Jesus is proclaimed to the whole world as good tidings. He draws some impressive consequences from this Gospel. In his letters, for instance, he says that by this event spiritual discernment, the ability to read reality, has received a decisive criterion: Every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has really come in the flesh, is from God, and every spirit who denies this is not from God (1 John 4:2-3). Flesh can be seen and touched by flesh. In Paul, we find very much the same idea: “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” (Col 2:9).11 We who believe this, he adds, “have this treasure in jars of clay” (2 Cor 4:7). Just as Jesus himself was Godhead in a jar of clay. It may seem that the senses are ruled out after all by Jesus’ ascension. God, who has no body, took on a bodily existence in Jesus, but after ascending to heaven he cannot be seen and heard anymore, not as the disciples had seen and heard him. In this way, Christ shares another aspect of the human condition, Paul says. What we see is passing, only invisible things last (2 Cor 4:18). We live in the body, “away from the Lord…we live by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor 5:6-7). For seeing him, for being in his presence we Apollinaris, 4th century, took this literally: Christ is the Logos in a human body, ‘taking the place of’ the human soul/mind. But that was in fact a Hellenistic reading of Paul; for Paul both sarx and soma refer to (mortal, vulnerable or even damaged) human existence, body and soul. 11

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need to wait until “the earthly tent we live in is destroyed” (2 Cor 5:1). In the present time, the Lord, Jesus, is Spirit (2 Cor 3:17) and should be followed in spirit, more than in his earthly existence.12 Another Old Testament feature recurs in the New Testament. It is present, for instance, in the well-known Beatitude: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Mt 5:8). It takes a holy one to see the Holy One. Only Moses was allowed on Sinai, and even he could see God only from behind.13 Was it because God is strictly invisible to human beings, or because he did not yet want to reveal himself fully, or was it because even Moses had an impurity that prevented him from seeing God?14 If sin affects our sight this severely, is there a remedy? The Old Testament sensitivity recurs in New Testament form. There is no seeing God without sanctification, a sanctification that will not be complete until after death. When we ask what kind of seeing God after death is meant, New Testament texts tend to envisage a mental seeing, which seems obvious because by dying our bodies decompose so that, if there is any sight left, it must be a seeing with our soul only. Thus finally, seeing God face to Face (as in 1 Cor 12:13) must mean: mind to Mind. Ultimately, seeing God is knowing him. The senses are no longer involved. Except in one respect, for surely, no one will deny a major difference between knowing God in this life and knowing him in the life to come. Now we can know him but only in a certain absence; then we will be able to be in his presence. For this presence, we need to have a sense.

Though John’s polemics have a different target, he would concur. Jesus says to Mary Magdalene: ‘Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father’ (John 20:17). The disciples who had touched the Word of life now hear: Noli me tangere. Ascension and Pentecost come in between. Jesus sends the Spirit in his place (John 14:16; 20:22). 13 See 2 Cor 5:16. Cf. Exod 33:11. Compare Paul in 2 Cor 3:18. To us all is granted to see the glory of the Lord unveiled. 14 See Deut 32:48–52: Moses’ sin prevents him from going into Canaan, he is only allowed to see it from a distance. Seeing God and entering the promised land are intimately related; both point to eschatological fulfilment. 12

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Still, this sense does not involve the senses. 15 There is another tenet in New Testament theology, however, that shows that the separation of body and soul after death is not the ultimate destiny of human life. Christ ascended to heaven with his resurrected body, after showing it to his disciples. So even in heaven seeing God in Christ would require the senses in some way—the physical senses, transformed.16 Besides, when Jesus is not only present in heaven, but also in “the new heaven” and on “the new earth,”17 seeing God face to face will be seeing him, once more, in the face of Jesus. So, the physical senses must certainly be re-engaged somehow. They must be transformed, not disposed of. The final word, then, is to the purified soul and the resurrected body.

AUGUSTINE

Let us see how the biblical testimony concerning seeing God was administered in post-biblical times by highlighting one church father and his reception in medieval theology. When a lady, Paulina, asked Augustine whether we can see God, he responded with a long letter packed with insight and suggestions.18 We cannot see him, Augustine answers, with our physical eyes, by which we see a tree before the window or a table in the room. Nor can we see him with our mental eyes, by which

Cf. Duns Scotus who claimed that the existence of things, as distinct from their mere possibility or conceptuality, is not established by the senses only but primarily by the mind, by mental intuitio. 16 Paul uses the metaphor of being “re-clothed,” 1 Cor 15:53f. 17 Both are strongly suggested by Revelation, for the visions of heaven and of the new Jerusalem show the throne of “God and the Lamb” (Rev 4:1ff, 22:1f). Mainstream Christianity has rejected the idea, already advanced by Marcellus of Ancyra in the 4th century, that the incarnation will be ended at the end of history, when Christ “hands over the kingdom to God the Father” (1 Cor 15:24). 18 Epistola 147. This letter, probably written in 413, is often referred to as a small treatise entitled De videndo Deo. For text and commentary, see e.g. Augustinus, Über Schau und Gegenwart des unsichtbaren Gottes, trans. Erich Naab, Mystik in Geschichte und Gegenwart I: Christliche Mystik 14, Stuttgart: Frommann, 1998. 15

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we see what we have decided or what we remember.19 When the Bible reports people seeing God on various occasions, Augustine explains (following Ambrose), they were seeing a form or shape that God has chosen for his self-manifestation. They did not see himself, his “substance.” Yet, the desire to see God is in fact a desire to see himself—like Moses expressed by saying: “Show me Yourself.” 20 “For many have seen; but they saw what the will chose, not what the nature has shaped.”21 Apparently, for Augustine, seeing God in the forms he has chosen (like the burning bush) is really seeing him, though not seeing him as he is. However inadequate, these manifestations do show him. However, if no more distinctions are made than the one mentioned by Augustine here, namely, between seeing God in a shape he chose and seeing him in his own nature, seeing “the man Jesus Christ”22 will not be seeing God himself, for this human appearance has been chosen by God as well. Augustine’s distinction, though necessary and illuminating in itself, does not suffice to articulate God’s personal manifestation in Christ, his incarnation, as distinct from other manifestations. It is clear that the Augustinian desire for seeing God does not simply motivate a movement from the physical to the nonphysical. It is a movement from the body to the soul and then above the soul23 because it is a movement to the Creator while realizing that both body and soul are created. In these dynamics, all physical reality becomes charged with hints. God is like a Lover who leaves all kinds of indications for his beloved everywhere. Looking back on his life in his Confessions, Augustine

Augustine points out that there is a seeing with the mind’s eye as distinct from thinking or understanding; it is really an observing of mental content like thoughts, feelings, memories. Like regular sight this seeing can be trained. 20 Epistola 147, ch. 20. See Exod 33:18f. 21 Epistola 147, ch. 20. For God’s manifestations in relation to his being, see also De Trinitate II 16ff. 22 An expression of Paul, see 1 Tim 2:5. 23 Cf. the very lively expression of this movement in Confessiones X 7-11. 19

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sees the crumbs dropped by God in his love to lead him, a sinner, out of the woods:24 Too late I loved You, O You Beauty of ancient days, yet ever new! too late I loved You! And behold, You were within, and I abroad, and there I searched for You; deformed I, plunging amid those fair forms which You have made. You were with me, but I was not with You. Things held me far from You, which, unless they were in You, were not at all. You called, and shouted, and burst my deafness. You flashed, shone, and scattered my blindness. Thou breathed odors, and I drew in breath and panted for You. I tasted, and hungered, and thirsted. You touched me, and I burned for Your peace.

So, for Augustine, although created things cannot show God as he is in himself, they can show him somehow, and that gives them their ultimate beauty. This showing God, however, can go unnoticed because the human mind, which is always looking out through the eyes, has lost contact with God by turning away from him. At this point, Augustine resumes the biblical insight that for seeing God in the things he made our soul needs to be cleansed, that is, we need to become good and virtuous, which means above all that we need to believe and hope and love. In the letter to Paulina, Augustine says that the fulfilment of the human desire to see God “is promised to the saints in another life.”25 Augustine’s main desire is seeing God in his own nature; seeing him in his human nature, in Christ, is a means to that end. For church fathers and medieval theologians, seeing God himself is usually considered the more eminent part of the eschatological vision promised in the Bible,26 simply because God’s nature is more eminent than human nature.

VICTORINES

With Anselm of Canterbury and Bernard of Clairvaux—the last church fathers, according to the later twelfth century—the great systematization of Augustine’s legacy began, including his view Confessiones X 27 (my trans.). Epistola 147. See further De Civitate Dei XXII 29. 26 Cf. e.g. 1 John 3:2-3. 24 25

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on God’s (in)visibility. In St. Victor, a monastery founded near Paris in the early twelfth century and following the rule of Augustine, this was elaborated into a full-blown program summarized as “From visible reality to invisible reality,” appealing to Paul who says: “For the invisible things of God are clearly seen from the creation of the world, even his eternal power and divinity are understood by the things that are made” (Rom 1:20).27 The Victorine program included extensive training in restoring the mental capacities of man deformed by sin. This program was partly driven by a new empirical sensitivity, by stating for instance, that all human knowledge starts with sense perception. Since God created us soul and body, he too wants us to start with bodily impressions and “climb” from there to an understanding of his spiritual reality.28 In this ascent, imagination plays a major role: that mental power that can improvise on sense impressions by deconstructing and reconstructing them into mental or artistic pictures of things not seen before.29 Since imagination is an important link between the soul and its perceptions, distortions in the soul’s uprightness easily affect the imagination and man’s reading of physical reality. Since, according to the Victorines, God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—is creator of the world and Lord of its history, traces of the Trinitarian God (vestigia Trinitatis) can be tracked in nature and history. It is because of sin and the effects of the Fall that we cannot see them anymore, or only in a distorted way. By purifying our mental eyes, these traces can be detected, and the information gained from them can be organized. Both cathedral and university are original creations of the twelfth century, showing an architectural sense in studying the whole range of reality, from physical things to God, in their dissimilarities and similarities. In For this program, see e.g. Dale M. Coulter, Per visibilia ad invisibilia: Theological Method in Richard of St. Victor (d. 1173), Bibliotheca Victorina 19 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006). 28 In spiritual works, this is often visualized by climbing a ladder (scala) or a mountain. 29 For imagination in Victorine treatises, see several studies of Ritva Palmen and Ineke van’t Spijker. 27

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the new monasteries emerging in this century, this revival also took the form of a new interest in history, especially the history described in the Bible, in which God has revealed himself, in different figures and in various stages. In this entire quest, the senses are engaged, too, if only due to the fact that for finding similarities or indications of God in nature and history—for spotting signs and sacraments—one needs to have a close look at the empirical shape of things.30 Following biblical faith that in human beings not just a vestigium but the imago of God is found, the search for similarities was intensified in the study of man. The image of God in man was primarily located in man’s soul or mind, for God is spirit. Yet the human body reclaimed its rights. For Victorine anthropology, another Augustinian idea became formative. Its most vivid formulation is the famous expression from the Confessions: “For You have made us to You, and our heart will not find rest until it rests in You.”31 This insight implies that whatever form God has created, from vestigium to imago, and whatever form He has chosen for revealing himself, from burning bush to Christ’s humanity, all these forms will not be able to satisfy our heart. In our quest for fulfilment they all point beyond themselves. They all look pale in comparison to God himself. If man is made to God, human nature can only unfold itself properly in a living relationship with God who transcends our nature. 32 This implies that human nature, including its faculties, cannot be fulfilled by natural things only. Since the desire to know is part of our nature, we desire to know God above all, whether This includes the measure of things. See further my Communicating the Most High. Person and Trinity in the Theology of Richard of St. Victor (†1173), Bibliotheca Victorina 7 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996), ch. III. 31 Confessiones I 1 (my transl.). 32 For the desiderium naturale see Lawrence Feingold, The Natural Desire to See God according to St. Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters (Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia Press, 2010), and Walter Hoerres, Die Sehnsucht nach der Anschauung Gottes. Thomas von Aquin und Duns Scotus im Gespräch über Natur und Gnade, Patrimonium Philosophicum (Aachen: Patrimonium Verlag, 2015). Remarkably, in these and similar studies, though studying the desire to see God, the senses are usually not even mentioned. 30

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we recognize it or not. All other knowledge can be interesting or useful, but not fulfilling. There is always the heart looking out through the mind. But then the heart is also looking out through the senses. So, the desire of the senses cannot be fulfilled by seeing beautiful physical things only. By them we desire to see more, ultimately to see God. But how is that possible? The body seems bound to physical reality. And God is spirit.33

TWELFTH CENTURY

At this point some twelfth century theologians drew a conclusion that Victorines do not seem to have discussed.34 If the senses are bound to physical reality and the heart can only rest in God, the only thing that will truly fulfill human beings in their entire twofold nature is God himself in the flesh. Not just a physical work of God, or a physical form revealing an aspect of God, but only God himself—God himself visible, tangible not just in any material form, but a physical form most apt to express a spiritual nature: a body. Here is a passage from the twelfth century treatise On the Spirit and the Soul that was considered a work of Augustine:35 That the body is not bound to physical reality is suggested (cf. n. 48) by the fact that in physical things we can see not only physical features, like sizes and shapes, but also non-physical features, like sadness in a face or intentions in a gesture. When our body is clearly capable of expressing our soul and mind, why would visible reality be incapable of expressing the invisible God? Conversely, is reading physical reality as a mechanism of “things” only, not like reading human beings as bodies without souls? 34 In his opus magnum, De sacramentis (VIII 7), Hugh of St. Victor poses the Anselmian question cur deus homo and answers within the parameters given by Anselm: if man is created and has sinned, does God have to become man? So factually Hugh’s Christology is ‘infralapsarian’ (cf. 50). The same applies to Richard. This is probably due to the fact that the entire Victorine program for training is framed as restoratio, as remedy for the Fall, though quite some notions appear to exceed this framework, like the value of the mechanical arts, the appreciation of the body, or the distinction between reformatio and formatio. 35 De spiritus et animae 9 (Patrologia Latina 40, 785) quoted by Robert Grosseteste, see below n. 43; the trans. is from this edition. The translation of this passage in On the Spirit and the Soul, in: Three Treatises on Man. A Cistercian Anthropology, intr. and transl. Bernard McGinn (Kamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1977), 191, is quite different 33

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For there are two senses in man, one interior and one exterior, and certainly each sense has its good in that in which it is perfected. The interior sense is perfected by the contemplation of divinity; the exterior sense in the contemplation of humanity. For God was made man in order to beatify in himself the whole man, to convert man wholly to him, and to be man’s whole delight, because he was seen by the senses of the flesh through flesh, and by the sense of the mind through contemplation of God. This was the whole good of man, so that whether he turns inward or outward he finds pasture in his Maker (John 10:9), pasture outside in the flesh of the Savior, pasture inside in the divinity of the Creator.

The author of this treatise realizes that when man is made to God, not only the soul but also the body is engaged in the dynamics of man in his relation with God. More biblically speaking, man is made in the image of God, but God’s most perfect image is Jesus Christ. 36 If not only the human mind, but also the human body is to be fulfilled, God must become incarnate. Living with Christ, not only our mental capabilities and spiritual senses, but also our physical senses start to sing—like in the opening lines of John’s first letter. The most formidable song-killer is, of course, the fact that, while the soul is considered immortal, the body is clearly subject to suffering, sickness and death, making lasting life an apparent impossibility—unless the body can receive a life that is incorruptible. But that is what the church celebrates at Easter. In St. Victor, an important stimulus to ponder the connection between anthropology and Christology was, no doubt, the Athanasianum which was sung daily in the monastery.37 In this creed, the relation between body and soul is offered as an analogy of the relation between the human and divine natures in Christ.38 from the Latin original: the last sentence is missing and the first sentences have a different wording. 36 Gen 1:26-27; 5:1b-3, 9:6, cf. Ps 8:6. Paul resumes this idea and connects it with Christ: 1 Cor 11:7, Col 3:10, cf. Eph 4:24. 37 As testified by Richard of St. Victor in his De Trinitate I 5. 38 See Christopher P. Evans, “Victorine Christology: A Theology of the Homo assumptus,” in A Companion to the Abbey of Saint, Victor in Paris, ed. Hugh Feiss and Juliet Mousseau, Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition 79 (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 298–327, 311.

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It cannot be coincidental that in Victorine Christology the unity of God and man in Christ was understood in analogy with the unity of soul and body in man.39 It may not be superfluous to add that the new keenness for physical and corporeal reality does not, among Victorines and Cistercians, diminish two other Augustinian convictions, namely, that the soul or mind is considered of greater dignity than the body, and that the effects of sin do result in an overvaluation of the body and material goods. In fact, compared to Augustine, Victorines were slightly more radical and detailed in these two respects. This can be illustrated by their Christology. Hugh of St. Victor stipulated that the soul makes a human being a person (persona), one person with two natures, a visible and an invisible nature. But if then the soul is compared to the Word who makes Christ a person, one person with two natures, while it is maintained that Christ has a human soul as well,40 it is hard to see how in this Christological view Nestorianism can be avoided. Christ seems to be two persons, one human, one divine. 41 With respect to the human body, twelfth century monastic theologians made explicit what is implicit in the church fathers. For the fathers, Christ’s bodily existence was more or less a concession to sin, a pedagogical move necessitated by man’s fall. God became man in order to redirect man to God, to release the soul from its self-induced bondage. The fathers realized, however, that the body is made by God, too, and that the body wants to join in the final perspective of human life.42 In the twelfth See further, Christopher P. Evans, “General Introduction,” in Victorine Christology, ed. Christopher P. Evans, Victorine Texts in Translation 7 (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 47ff. 40 The Victorines rejected Apollinarism (cf. n. 11), see e.g. Robert of Melun (Christopher P. Evans, ed. and trans., “Robert of Melun: Sentences II.2.42–67, 93–204,” in Victorine Christology, ed. Christopher P. Evans, Victorine Texts in Translation 7 [Turnhout: Brepols, 2018]), 285ff. 41 In the 13th century, Alexander of Hales renewed the Victorine Christology (which had been generally discarded by the end of the 12th century) and made it a pièce de résistance in Franciscan theology. 42 In the Augustinian-Victorine tradition, the eschatological goal widened not only from seeing God mentally (visio dei) to seeing God corporeally as well, but also from living with God individually to living with God 39

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century, a conclusion not yet fully realized was drawn: that God “as he is” is actually not sufficient for assuring the best possible happiness of man being created with a twofold nature. God incarnate is needed, God’s free arrival in bodily form, a form free from the effects of sin. At the beginning of the thirteenth century, this conclusion is drawn out in full by Robert Grosseteste.

GROSSETESTE

In his most influential work On the Cessation of the Laws, Grosseteste asks why God became man, more specifically: did God become man because of something independent from sin? 43 Grosseteste enumerates a dozen arguments for the positive answer. One of them starts with the passage from On the Spirit and the Soul quoted above. 44

socially as well. As loving God (caritas), more than seeing God, was considered a better characterization of this goal, there was a tendency to include both the body and the community in man’s final end. More Greek-minded church fathers and medievals envisaged the final perspective primarily spiritually and individually. 43 De cessatione legalium, written around 1235, see Robert Grosseteste, On the Cessation of the Laws, trans. Stephen Hildebrand, The Fathers of the Church: Mediaeval Continuation (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2012), part 3, 155–193. In many manuscripts, this part is headed as Cur deus homo, with courtesy to Anselm no doubt, but the leading question is not Anselmian; it became standard in the 12th and 13th centuries. Remarkably, almost simultaneously with Grosseteste yet seemingly independent from him, Alexander of Hales offers a very similar Christological argument using the same text from On the Spirit and the Soul. See especially Lydia Schumacher and Oleg Bychkov, eds. and trans., A Reader in Early Franciscan Theology: The Summa Halensis (New York: Fordham University Press, 2022), 36f and 200ff. Grosseteste became the tutor of the young Franciscan order in Oxford. Hales entered the Franciscan order in Paris and became its first master. 44 Grosseteste mistakenly refers to it as a quote from Augustine’s De differentia animae et spiritus. Augustine did not write a work with that title, nor is there a Pseudo-Augustinian work with that title (there is a famous treatise with that title written by Costa bin Luca, a Melkite Christian in the 9th century writing in Arabic and translated by John of Seville in the 12th century). Grosseteste in fact appears to be quoting

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In this passage, referring to the good shepherd from the Gospel of John which refers in turn to Psalm 23, God is described as leading us to green pastures by leading us to himself—leading us to pastures of the mind and of the body. God is doing this “to be man’s whole delight.” He is doing this by becoming man himself, “in order to beatify in himself the whole man, to convert man wholly to him,” for in this way “he was seen by the senses of the flesh through flesh, and by the sense of the mind through contemplation of God.”45 Grosseteste concludes: “From these words of Augustine it seems it can be argued that God would become man even if man had not sinned. For the whole man would not be beatified (. . .) unless God became man. Therefore, man’s full happiness demands that God become man.’”46 Grosseteste adds two more reflections in support of this idea. First, man naturally desires the perfection of all his senses; how then can we be perfect if the corporeal senses are not perfected as well? Or will the mind be perfected by seeing (contemplating) God, whereas the body’s perfection is confined to seeing (observing) physical forms only? But then there would be a dualism in the soul. Looking at physical creation through the senses and at God through the mind’s eye, the soul would be divided. Perfect joy requires a person’s entire attention converted to her highest good’.47 Second, when we see God with the senses, our sense of beauty is at stake, too. If the body is a creation of God and Jesus is the embodiment of God, the sense of beauty is extraordinarily deepened. Basically, it is as wide as reality and ranges from the physical to God. As already indicated, Victorines wonder and ponder the physical forms and shapes in creation and history. They admire the unique and rare beauty of Jesus’ humanity. Grosseteste is heir to this admiration and inserts their insight in

from On the Spirit and the Soul, which from the 13th to the 19th centuries was attributed to Augustine (see n. 35). 45 Contemplatio Dei refers to a special kind of mental seeing as distinct from e.g. reasoning, see n.19. 46 Cessation of the Laws, ch. 22 (164). 47 Cessation of the Laws, ch. 23 (165).

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the unity of the human person requiring the involvement of the senses in the best-possible enjoyment:48 For this reason, the flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ will be manifested after the resurrection as more splendid and beautiful than the sun and every bodily creature, because in comparison with the splendor of the flesh of Christ, the sun will seem not to shine. When it will be glorified, the eye of our flesh will be able to see the splendor and beauty of the flesh of Christ.

This consideration is another argument for the incarnation of God independent of sin and the need for salvation, for if God had not become man, the greater beauty and hence greater delight would have been lacking in creation and withheld from man. No corporeal creature can have the radiance and beauty of God in the flesh. Without Christ, man would be the most beautiful being in creation, a visible being expressing an invisible soul; but compared to God incarnate, to a human being expressing the supreme spirit, a normal human being looks like mere wood compared to charcoal aflame. 49 Here Christological reflection issues in a sublime rehabilitation of the body. Maybe the effect of sin is a fixation on the body and on physical reality, but in themselves they are not sinful, in themselves they have legitimate needs, a God-created desire for delight. Thus, a traditional tie between body and sin— a Hellenistic legacy—is irreversibly severed. The greatest respect paid to the body is paid by God becoming man. Because of our Cessation of the Laws, ch. 24 (165). This fragment reflects the medieval sense of beauty, which is as multi-layered as its sense of reality. Cf. n. 33; by way of example: the face of a living person, when “the soul shines through,” is more beautiful than the face of a dead person; the face of a good and loving person is more beautiful than the face of a bad or indifferent person; a face is most beautiful when the most perfect and most loving spirit, God shines through. For the sense of beauty among Victorines, see e.g. Boyd Taylor Coolman, “‘Transgressing [Its] Measure’: Sin and Beauty of the Soul in Hugh of St. Victor,” in From Knowledge to Beatitude: St. Victor, Twelfth Century Scholars, and Beyond: Essays in Honor of Grover A. Zinn, Jr, ed. E. Ann Matter and Lesley Smith (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 2013), 186–203. 49 Cessation of the Laws, ch. 24 (165). 48

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mental and bodily constitution, Christ would have come anyway, regardless of sin. Thus, the incarnation itself offers an argument for a supralapsarian Christology.50 At the end of his survey of arguments for a supralapsarian Christology, Grosseteste does not decide whether he thinks they are conclusive.51 However, in one of Grosseteste’s greatest pupils at the end of the century, John Duns Scotus, the balance is clearly tipped, especially due to the introduction of still another strong argument for Christ’s coming anyway, an argument borrowed and adapted from Richard of St. Victor: divine love (caritas) in search of its best possible beloved.52

E VANGELICAL

Twelfth- and thirteenth-century Augustinians formulated an idea also at the heart of the Evangelical movement. For in my esti“Supralapsarian” means “independent of the Fall.” For the history and systematics of a supralapsarian Christology, see especially Juniper B. Carol OFM, Why Jesus Christ? Thomistic, Scotistic, and Conciliatory Perspectives (Manassas: Trinity Communications, 1986). For some modern positions see Edwin Chr Van Driel, Incarnation Anyway, Arguments for Supralapsarian Christology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). In the Netherlands, the 19th century “Ethical theology” endorsed a supralapsarian Christology, though J. H. Gunning Jr. revoked it after the publication of Abraham Kuyper, De Vleeschwording des Woords (Amsterdam: J. A. Wormser, 1887), one of the few monographs on this topic. An Eastern Orthodox example is Vladimir Solovyov, see especially his Lectures of Divine Humanity, trans. Peter Zouboff, ed. Boris Jakim, Library of Russian Philosophy (Hudson, NY: Lindisfarne Press, 1995), Lecture 11 and 12. 51 Cessation of the Laws, (172): “But no matter what is true about the Incarnation of the Word in the event of man not falling, we are now absolutely certain, after man’s fall, that God has become man. Not only has authority shown this, but also necessary reason, which can be quickly and easily found, as was said, in Augustine and Anselm.” Pace Grosseteste, Augustine, unlike Anselm, did not think that after sin incarnation was necessary. 52 See my “One Thing Is Necessary. Scotus and the Principle of Plenitude,” in Fides quaerens intellectum: Studies in John Duns Scotus and His Importance for European Thought, ed. Michael Bauwens, Andreas Beck, Nico den Bok (Brill: Leiden, 2023 forthcoming), section 2.1. Scotus does not mention the perfectibility of the body or the senses as an argument for supralapsarism in Christology. 50

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mation, that heart is not the infallibility of the Bible, not even the necessity of conversion, but the conviction that a personal relation with Christ is needed, not only for being saved, but also for being fulfilled. Augustinians reflecting on the whole range of biblical texts were led to a multi-layered comprehension of the heart of their message: Christ has come! Christ came not only to save from sin, but also to fulfil creation.53 Seeking to understand this belief, they realized that a vital part not only of creation, but also of the “head of creation,” is physical. So how can man not only in his inner life, but also in his bodily and sensory existence be fulfilled— if only God himself can fulfill him? Only if God becomes man. In this way, the Augustinian notion that man is made to God has shifted to the notion that man is in fact made to God-made-man, to Christ.54 This shift reflects a general and legitimate development in medieval theology that results in a less dualistic, more modest and yet more honorable view on man in his constitution and destination. Not only our fallen nature, our nature itself yearns for Christ; and

If supralapsarian reasons for incarnation, such as the one based on the desire for bodily fulfilment, are necessary and not ‘just’ fitting, the strongest connection between Christ and creation would have been established and thus the point of my contribution even more convincingly made. Tradition usually has tried to avoid a Scylla: ‘not pondering sin enough’ (Anselm), giving too much credit to creation. It focused on the infralapsarian reasons for the incarnation showing that they are necessary. When Christological supralapsarism is accepted, however, there is a Charybdis to be avoided too. The case of necessary supralapsarian reasons for incarnation has especially been made in the wake of modern ontologies resuming ancient ones considering physical reality the necessary materialization or externalization of the supreme spirit (Spinoza, Hegel). Here the principle of plenitude returns, with a Christological bias. Cf. Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea, The William James Lectures 1933 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936), 99ff (Spinoza: 144ff, Hegel: 242ff); compare my essay in n. 52. The (synchronic) contingency of the world and all God’s actions, including incarnation, is a primary safeguard against these ontological contractions. 54 In Pauline wording: the call for God-conformity is in fact a call for Christ-conformity (Rom 8:29, Phil 3:21). Every conclusion raises new questions. If Christ is the end of creation, who comes first in God’s plan: the second or the first Adam (cf. 1 Cor 15:45)? As is well-known, Scotus decides in favor of the former. 53

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not only our spiritual nature, but also our bodily nature yearns for Christ.55 The Gospel provides for our deepest needs, which are not only needs of mind and soul but also of the body and they are not only needs because we are in serious trouble, but also because we want to be truly and ultimately happy.56

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alston, William P. Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991. Augustinus. Über Schau und Gegenwart des unsichtbaren Gottes. Edited and translated by Erich Naab Mystik in Geschichte und Gegenwart 14. Stuttgart: Frommann, 1998. Carol, Juniper B., OFM. Why Jesus Christ? Thomistic, Scotistic, and Conciliatory Perspectives. Manassas: Trinity Communications, 1986. Coolman, Boyd Taylor. “‘Transgressing [Its] Measure’: Sin and Beauty of the Soul in Hugh of St. Victor.” In From Knowledge to Beatitude: St. Victor, Twelfth Century Scholars, and Beyond: Essays in Honor of Grover A. Zinn, Jr, edited by E. Ann Matter and Lesley Smith, 186–203. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 2013. Coulter, Dale M. Per visibilia ad invisibilium: Theological Method in Richard of St. Victor (d. 1173). Bibliotheca Victorina 19. Turnhout: Brepols, 2006. den Bok, Nico. Communicating the Most High: Person and Trinity in the Theology of Richard of St.Victor (†1173). Bibliotheca Victorina 7. Turnhout: Brepols, 1996. ———. “One Thing Is Necessary: Scotus and the Principle of Plenitude.” In Fides quaerens intellectum: Studies in John Duns Scotus and His Importance for European Thought, edited by Andreas Beck and Nico den Bok. Brill: Leiden, 2022, forthcoming. The sacraments, too, point to the involvement of the body in sensing God. Not only hearing and thinking, but also seeing, touching and even tasting are invited to savor the Lord between his first and second coming. 56 In the tradition from Augustine to Grosseteste, this distinction has been characterized as that between satisfaction and sanctification. As human beings, we cannot become truly happy, or beautiful, unless we become truly good persons. 55

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———. “Richard of St. Victor and the Hermeneutics of Love.” In Exegesis of Holy Scripture from Origen to Lorenzo Valla, edited by Gilbert Dahan. Turnhout: Brepols, Forthcoming. ———. “‘Yet in my flesh I will see God’: Robert Grosseteste on the Body’s Claim for Ultimate Happiness.” NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion 74, no. 4 (2020): 337–52. Eduardo J. Echeverria, “In the Beginning...” A Theology of the Body. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2011. Evans, Christopher P. “General Introduction.” In Victorine Christology, edited by Christopher P. Evans, 21–82. Victorine Texts in Translation 7. Leiden: Brill 2018. ———. “Victorine Christology: A Theology of the Homo assumptus.” In A Companion to the Abbey of Saint, Victor in Paris, edited by Hugh Feiss and Juliet Mousseau, 298–327. Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition 79. Brill: Leiden, 2018. Evans, Christopher P., ed. and trans. “Robert of Melun: Sentences II.2.42–67, 93–204.” In Victorine Christology, edited by Christopher P. Evans, 227–444. Victorine Texts in Translation 7. Turnhout: Brepols, 2018. Feingold, Lawrence. The Natural Desire to See God according to St. Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters. Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia Press, 2010. Grosseteste, Robert. On the Cessation of the Laws. Translated by Stephen Hildebrand. The Fathers of the Church: Mediaeval Continuation. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2012. Guardini, Romano. Die Sinne und die religiöse Erkenntnis. Würzburg: Werkbund, 1975. Handel, G. F. Messiah. An Oratorio. Text by Charles Jensen, 1741. Hoerres, Walter. Die Sehnsucht nach der Anschauung Gottes: Thomas von Aquin und Duns Scotus im Gespräch über Natur und Gnade. Aachen: Patrimonium, 2015. Kuyper, Abraham. De Vleeschwording des Woords. Amsterdam: J. A. Wormser, 1887. Lovejoy, Arthur O. The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea. The William James Lectures 1933. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936.

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MacSwain, Robert. Scripture, Metaphysics and Poetry: Austin Farrer’s The Glass of Vision, with Critical Commentary. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2016. McGinn, Bernard, ed. “On the Spirit and the Soul.” In Three Treatises on Man: A Cistercian Anthropology, 181–288. Kamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1977. Merrick, J. and Stephen M. Garrett, eds. Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013. Plantinga, Alvin. The Nature of Necessity. Oxford: Clarendon, 1974. Rogers, Eugene F., Jr. Sexuality and the Christian Body. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999. Schumacher, Lydia and Oleg Bychkov, eds. and trans. A Reader in Early Franciscan Theology: The Summa Halensis. New York: Fordham University Press, 2022. Solovyov, Vladimir. Lectures of Divine Humanity. Edited by Boris Jakim. Translated by Peter Zouboff. Library of Russian Philosophy. Hudson, NY: Lindisfarne Press, 1995. van Driel, Edwin Chr. Incarnation Anyway, Arguments for Supralapsarian Christology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. von Balthasar, Hans Urs. “Die Augen Pascals.” In Homo creatus est. Skizzen zur Theologie V, 52–77. Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1986. ———. Herrlichkeit: Eine theologische Ästhetik, vol. III, 2: Theologie. Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1967, 1969. ———. “Offenbarung und Schönheit.” In Verbum Caro. Skizzen zur Theologie I, 100-134. Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1960. ———. “Schauen, Glauben, Essen.” In Sponsa Verbi. Skizzen zur Theologie II, 502–513. Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1961. ———. “Vom Schauvermögen des Christen.” In Homo creatus est. Skizzen zur Theologie V, 52–69. Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1986.

CHAPTER FOUR. THE KNOWABILITY OF GOD: A PRELIMINARY OT SURVEY DR. W. CREIGHTON MARLOWE DEPARTMENT OF OLD TESTAMENT “The destiny of the soul is to see as God sees, to know as God knows, to feel as God feels, to be as God is” – Meister Eckhart (1260-1328)1

I NTRODUCTION

A popular statement in the past about the purpose of Evangelical Christianity was “to know God and make Him known.” One of the major apologetic arguments against so-called dead orthodoxy is that it lacks a personal relationship with God. One of the most influential Evangelical and theological but practical books has been J. I. Packer’s Knowing God.2 Yet in Stephen B. McSwain, The Enoch Factor: The Sacred Art of Knowing God (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 1955), 35. 2 J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973; paperback). Although pastoral in tone, Packer’s work is more academically informed than typical laypersons’ publications such as Knowing and Understanding God by Godsword Godswill Onu (Okigwa, Nigeria: Godsword Christian Publications, 2014). Unfortunately, chapter titles but not the content are directly relevant to the subject of God’s knowability (e.g. “Jesus’ Knowledge of God,” “Moses’ Knowledge of 1

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practice, the experience of knowing God remains subjective, not uniform, and somewhat elusive for many Evangelicals. We know about God, based on the Bible, but knowing Him personally, like we know our spouses or best friends, remains an individualistic, diverse, and curious matter. This presentation is not concerned, however, with investigating current experience and related existential issues. Rather it will look at selected OT passages exegetically to examine their meaning for an OT theology about the nature of knowing God. Actually, the expression “know God” is not found in the OT. The challenge, then, is to discover how the OT deals with the idea of humans knowing or understanding or relating to God.3

God,” and “Paul’s Knowledge of God” on p. 3). A desideratum of this present study is a call for more academic treatments of knowing God and how He can be known. Another example is Knowing God: Using the Scriptures to Know God by Maureen Schaffer (2016), a purely devotional approach. The OT presents people having subjective experiential knowledge of God and expressing objective ideas about God’s nature and needs and intentions. “Knowability of God,” therefore, suggests the former rather than the latter. Yet it does not explain how the reader is supposed to gain intimacy with God other than implying that He is reachable through prayer. Most of the ways (supernatural) we see OT people interacting with God beg the question of why such close encounters stopped historically (or only continue in rare instances). The norm now is God’s relative distance from believers (by comparison), apparently, but even in the OT we find only certain people who merit such intimacy (e.g. only Moses met with God “face to face”). The present irony is that the few who claim such unique contact with and communication from God are usually and generally considered not to be credible. And what we think we learn about God objectively in the pages of the Bible is open to the question of whether a given statement is God’s truth or human belief about God. Both are accurate in terms of reflecting reliable information, but the latter is not necessarily a basis for doctrine. 3 A recent book entitled Scripture’s Knowing deals with Christian epistemology investigating how biblical texts provide knowledge. This knowledge is about a number of subjects, God being only one of them. The focus is on how different biblical genres create knowledge, so the book is philosophical not theological per se. “Knowing God” (sensus divinitatis) is mentioned in the context of general revelation in creation (Rom 1) with the lesson being that natural revelation is only a tool of the

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“Knowing God” can be thought of as either (1) personal knowledge, or (2) informational knowledge. This presentation will survey the OT generally and selectively in light of both these definitions, beginning with a lexical analysis of the verb ‫ ידע‬.4 A key concept, found mainly in Ezekiel, “then they/you will know that I am YHWH,” will be examined in its contexts. The statements “know God” and “know YHWH” will be investigated. The Patriarchal Period will be surveyed to gain an understanding of how God was known, conceptually or intimately. This is followed by a survey of knowledge of God in the Psalms and then in certain exceptional texts in the Prophetic Books. Interpersonal knowledge wanes in the OT as Israelite devotion dissolves, ending with prophetic appeals to return to God and the necessity of exile to cure idolatry. The OT ends with expectation and hope of a renewal of relationship on a new level between God and humanity.5

THE CONTEMPORARY CONTEXT

God can be known because he made himself known (e.g., 1 Chron 17:19). YHWH was unknowable apart from Self-revelation. That revelation in the OT came through dreams, visions, angelic Holy Spirit. See Dru Johnson, Scripture’s Knowing, Cascade Companions (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2015), 108. 4 The OT speaks of knowledge per se in relation to God with this root; however, other sematic fields related to intimate knowledge of God (such as “fearing God/YHWH” or “walking with [obeying] God/YHWH”) could be mentioned, but these are not as directly connected to the notion of “knowability” (a more philosophical question asking if God can be known). Clearly the OT assumes he can be known and wants to be known (which may mean recognized as the true or greatest God). How God was known in OT is expressed only generally, and ideas like being feared and walked with seem to boil down to obedience to God’s revealed will. Personal knowledge is implied but not delineated. See Markus P. Zehnder, Wegmetaphorik im Alten Testament, BZAW 268 (Berlin: De Gruyter 1999). 5 Other notable related books are Daniel W. Hardy and David F. Ford, Praising and Knowing God (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985); Walter Brueggemann, The Psalms and the Life of Faith (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1995); Spirituality of the Psalms (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2002); and Tom Wright, Finding God in the Psalms (London: SPCK, 2014).

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messengers,6 and sometimes direct, divine verbal communication, at times through an animal (Balaam’s donkey) or a human prophet or prophetess or a priest/prophet. God is also “known about” through nature (e.g., Psalm 19). Only with Moses did YHWH speak face to face (Exod 33:11; Num 12:7-8). But there is a difference between “knowing God” in a personal manner and “knowing about God” (e.g., that He exists or was responsible for a certain outcome, good or bad). The “knowability of God” is concerned with the former. This, however, as seen, is a distant concept in the OT. The OT actually gives no clear statements regarding how people thought about (what in our modern Christian world is phrased as) “a personal relationship with God.” What we see is people having very direct contact with God but not explaining this phenomenon theologically. At the same time, we mainly see only prominent figures having actual conversations with God. But is this “knowing” God? People then and now “know about” God, but “knowability” implies a kind of friendship or partnership. A few in the OT could claim this, but it seems most Israelites saw this as a special privilege of a chosen spiritual leader. If it were accessible by all, then one of the leader’s unique qualities would be compromised. Even when taken at face value, such direct encounters with God do not lay a foundation for a practical theology indicating that all believers could or should have equal access. But that is preferable to the conclusion that NT believers are being encouraged to accept that only certain “anointed” pastors or evangelists have God’s ear and hear from Him. Knowing God in NT terms is democratic. The OT walks around the knowledge of God concept in the NT, especially as developed interpretively in the Church over the ages.7 The issue of God’s

“Angel” in the Bible is confusing because the English term is just a transliteration of the Greek ἄγγελος, which translates the Hebrew ‫מלאך‬ (messenger) in the OT. In the NT, ἄγγελος is the word for “messenger.” These beings may be human or heavenly. They are supernatural only when the context describes them that way. 7 Brueggemann admits that when the OT deals with humans it has the “tendency . . . to think first of the Israelite human person, from which all 6

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“knowability” in the OT is found rarely in first-rate academic literature. It is more of a popular theme. J. I. Packer’s Knowing God includes a chapter entitled “Knowing and Being Known.” His key OT text is Jeremiah 9:2324, where the prophet quotes YHWH as saying people should boast only about understanding (‫ )שׂכל‬and knowing (‫ )ידע‬Him. Here, “understand” is not the usual ‫ בין‬but ‫ שׂכל‬meaning (in its Hiphil use) comprehension or insight, or becoming wise or successful.8 Knowing God seems to entail arriving at some level of appropriate insight. This extends mere personal experience into the realm of intellectual discernment. God is pleased with this accomplishment much more than sacrifice (Hos 6:6).9 Packer continues his discussion of this knowledge for three more pages, but without any further grounding in any other biblical texts. He then turns to the topic “Knowing Jesus” (which directs us away from the OT), but he does mention Exodus 33:17, where YHWH says He knows Moses by name (see pages 99-100 below), by which Packer wants to illustrate God’s initiative and purpose to know humans.10 Packer clearly believes God is knowable and that He wants to know us. The book succeeds on a devotional but not an exegetically interpretive level. Yet “knowability” is hard to locate in academic sources. Most of the research revolves around the OT and ANE usages of words for “knowing” or “knowledge (see ‫ ידע‬below). Brueggmann’s 750-page Theology of the Old Testament contains a section entitled “The Human Person as Yahweh’s Partner.” Yet, even here, as elsewhere in the book, “knowing God” is not a topic. He does write about human listening to, and discernment about, God’s revelation.11 In these pages, not others are extrapolated” (Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament [Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1997], 451). 8 See HALOT, s.v. ‫ שׂכל‬. 9 Packer, Knowing God, 29. 10 Packer, Knowing God, 36. 11 Historical-critical scholarship to date has treated the OT as not revelation per se but as a witness to the author’s perception of a verbal, revelatory experience. More recently neo-liberal approaches even question the OT God’s reality. Conservatives overreacted by treating

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“knowledge” but “acknowledgment” is emphasized.12 Discernment is defined as much more than mere “technical knowledge.”13 Humanity’s “full knowledge of Yahweh” is a future reality.14 The book The Psalms and the Life of Faith by the same author and OT scholar comes much closer to dealing directly with the issue of God’s knowability. There he cites Calvin’s observation that, True and substantial wisdom principally consists of two parts, the knowledge of God, and the knowledge of ourselves. But while these two branches are so intimately connected, which of them precedes and produces the other, is not easy to discover . . . But though the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves be intimately connected, the proper order of instruction requires us first to treat of the former, and then proceed to the discussion of the latter.15

every text as propositional. The Reformed and evangelical view still has to see the OT as Scripture and revealing God’s will for Israel but valid for NT application (as indicated by the NT use of the OT and Jesus’ affirmation of the enduring value of the OT (Matt 5:18; Luke 16:17). Along these conflicting lines of thought, see inter alia H. G. L. Peels, “Het Oude Testament als document van openbaring,” Theologia Reformata 46, no. 4 (2003), 356-378; K. van Bekkum, “The Divine Revelation of the Name: Warranted and Unwarranted Confidence in the Literary-Critical Analysis of Exodus 3 and 6,” in Paradigm Change in Pentateuchal Research, ed. Matthias Armgardt, Benjamin Kilchör, Markus Zehnder, BZABR 22 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2019), 59-76; idem, “Het Oude Testament als historisch document,” Theologia Reformata 46, no. 4 (2003), 328-55; R. Knierim, “Offenbarung im Alten Testament,” 206-35, in Probleme biblischer Theologie, Festschrift G. von Rad, ed. H. W. Wolff (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1971); Thomas Römer, The Invention of God, trans. Raymond Guess (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015); and Mark S. Smith, Where the Gods Are (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016). 12 Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament, 461. 13 Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament, 465. 14 Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament, 484. 15 Brueggemann, The Psalms and the Life of Faith, 152-53, n. 9, citing John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Christian Education, 1936), I:47, 50.

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Brueggemann opines that “praise is a knowing act.”16 It emerges from times of trouble and from knowing that God is reliable.17

THE HEBREW WORD “TO K NOW” (‫)י ד ע‬ In the OT ‫ ידע‬is used for “notice,” “learn about (by being notified),”

“to take care of someone,” or “to take care of in terms of concluding or completing something” (cf. HALOT, s.v. ‫)ידע‬. In relation to “knowing,” in the Qal stem it signifies knowing someone personally, something historically, by experience; as being familiar with; as being informed; knowing someone sexually; or as understanding something. For the Niphal stem it signifies making oneself known; revealing something; being seen; becoming known; being discovered; or coming to realize or understand something. In the Piel/Pual stem it has usages meaning “to cause to know,” “an acquaintance or confidant,” or “what is known.” The Hiphil/Hophal stem creates usages like “let someone know something,” “make known,” “inform,” “be made known,” or “make oneself known.” God makes himself known through historical acts, and verbally to chosen leaders, yet knowledge of God is generally available.18 A Brueggemenn, The Psalms and the Life of Faith, 115. Here Brueggemann draws on Westermann’s now well-worn observation that praise comes from lamentation (Brueggemenn, The Psalms and the Life of Faith, 115). Hurt leads to a hallelujah. Israel’s courage to complain led to divine intervention and rescue from pain and persecution. See Claus Westermann, Praise and Lament in the Psalms, trans. Keith R. Crim and Richard N. Soulen (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1981), 272-80. 18 Terence E. Fretheim, “ ‫( ָי ַדע‬yādaʿ I),” in New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology & Exegesis, ed. Willem A. Van Gemeren (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1997), 2:404 (see e.g. Exod 25:22; 1 Sam 16:3; Num 12:6; Ps 19:2; 77:14(15); Fretheim identifies “be(come) acquainted with” as a Qal usage and a general usage of “close relationship.” A subcategory of this is knowledge through experience, especially seeing and hearing. Seeing often precedes ‫ ידע‬in relation to God as well as people. Realizing (seeing and hearing) what God has done leads to knowing God (Deut 4:35; Isa 48:7–8), 2:402. See also E. Baumann, “yadaʿ und seine Derivate,” ZAW 28, no. 2 (1908): 25-41, 110-41; Robert C. Dentan, The Knowledge of God in Ancient Israel (New York: Seabury Press, 1968); John L. McKenzie, “Knowledge of God in Hosea,” JBL 74, no. 1 (1955) : 2227; O. A. Piper, “Knowledge,” in IDB, 2 vols, ed. G. A. Buttrick, 42-44 16 17

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personal relationship grows out of a “living encounter with God.”19 For Murphy, the immediate experience of God’s wisdom as creator, is also as redeemer, i.e. as a Patriarchal personal God.20 In the ANE a person could only communicate with a deity if His or Her name were known. The Semitic cognate term in Ugaritic displays personal knowledge, for example Keret’s concern for the safety of his daughter Thitmanet, and El’s insight into the nature of ‘Anat as a murderer, who plans to kill El as well.21 The expressions “My god knows me” and “My god cares for me” are found in in Akkadian documents.22 As for “knowing God,” Fretheim defines it as a “right relationship with him” (see Hos 4:1; 6:6),23 but this sounds a bit colored by modern evangelical-speak. Botterweck speaks of “a personal relationship growing out of a living encounter with God.”24

(Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1962); D. Winton Thomas, “Additional Notes on the Root ‫ ָי ַדע‬in Hebrew,” JTS 15, no. 1 (1964): 54–57; G. Johannes Botterweck, “‫ָי ַדע‬,” TDOT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1986), 5:448-81; and Jack P. Lewis, “‫( ָי ַדע‬yādaʿ) know,” TWOT, ed. R. Laird Harris, et al. (Chicago: Moody, 1980), 1:366-69. Electronic text hypertexted and prepared by OakTree Software, Inc. Version 2.4. 19 TDOT 5:478. The man/wife metaphor is often used for the God/Israel relationship. Not knowing God is equated with being an adulteress or going to a prostitute (Hos 4:1; 5:4; 82). The parent/child metaphor is also used Isa 1:1-2 (see NIDOTTE II:405). 20 Roland E. Murphy, “Wisdom in the OT,” in ABD (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 6:920-31. Electronic text hypertexted and prepared by OakTree Software, Inc. Version 4.0. 21 See sources in n. 19 above and Edward L. Greenstein, “Kirta,” in Ugaritic Narrative Poetry, ed. S. B. Parker, Writings from the Ancient World 9 (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1997), 9-48; N. Wyatt, Religious Texts from Ugarit: The Words of Ilimilku and his Colleagues, The Biblical Seminar 53 (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 176-243; Cyrus H. Gordon, Ugaritic Textbook: Texts in Transliteration (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1965), 250-52; and Baruch Margalit, ”The Legend of Keret,” in Handbook of Ugaritic Studies, ed. Wilfred G. E. Watson, and Nicolas Wyatt (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 203-33. 22 Botterweck, “‫ָי ַדע‬,” TODT 5:457-61. 23 NIDOTTE II :406. 24 TDOT 5:478.

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THE MAIN U SE OF ‫ י דע‬IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

In the OT, in relation to knowledge and God, the main use of ‫ידע‬ is in the expression “then you [ or ‘they’] will know that I [am] YHWH,” mostly in Ezekiel.25 Ezekiel 28:26 amplifies this with “and they will know that I [am] YHWH their God.” The point seems to be that Israel would come to accept YHWH as its one, true God and perhaps the only God. YHWH may be understood to mean “the Eternal One.”26 But the expression “may know that I am YHWH” sounds like knowing a fact. As a result of certain events, people will be convinced that the Hebrew God was responsible. However, these events involve aspects of his attitudes and actions, and so may suggest increased understanding of this God, i.e. knowing more about him, which is experiential as well as informational and leads to a deeper understanding of the nature of that, that is, of who he actually is (see Ezek 6:7-14; 7:27).27 The idea seems to be that the Hebrew God uses death

Exod 6:7; 7:5, 17; 10:2; 14:4, 18; 16:12; 29:46; 31:13; Deut 29:6; 1 Kgs 20:13, 28; Isa 45:3; 49:23; Ezek 6:7, 10, 13–14; 7:4, 27; 11:10, 12; 12:15– 16, 20; 13:14, 21, 23; 14:8; 15:7; 16:62; 20:20, 26, 38, 42, 44; 22:16; 24:27; 25:5, 7, 11, 17; 26:6; 28:22–23, 26; 29:6, 9, 21; 30:8, 19, 25–26; 32:15; 33:29; 34:27; 35:4, 9, 15; 36:11, 23, 38; 37:6, 13; 38:23; 39:6, 22, 28. 26 Ever since the Jewish community decided to stop pronouncing God’s name (and later when writing it to make the vowels impossible to pronounce by the rules of syllabification), the exact sound and sense of this name was and still is lost. God’s command to Moses to explain to those to whom he took God’s revelations, if asked who sent him, to reply his sender is “I Am,” suggests that the name was based on the verb to be, ‫ היה‬, which is interchangeable with ‫ הוה‬in the root’s history. However, this so-called Tetragrammaton begins with a yod, which, if taken as a pronominal preposition for a Yiqtol verb, would mean “he will be” not “I will be.” Regardless, it still makes sense to understand God’s essential nature as Being or Existence, since a true God and creator would be most impressive if he or she was and is separate or “holy” in the sense of being distinct from and in no way limited by the creation (as is true when a god is identified with nature, such as a Sun god). This would make YHWH unique among Ancient Near East (ANE) gods. 27 Unless otherwise noted compare the NIV (with slight adjustments at times) for all Scripture quotations. 25

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through war to get people’s attention when all else fails. The Hebrew God judges his people no worse than they judge others. Ezekiel 11:10 11:12 12:15-16; 13:21-23 14:7-8 15:7-8 16:62 20:11-12 20:26 20:38 20:42 20:44

The Hebrew God: views Canaanite conformity as worthy of military judgment judges based on behavior saves some so they can admit to outsiders that their suffering was self-inflicted is against those who deceive his people with false spiritual powers will excommunicate or execute an idolater will severely punish Israel’s unfaithfulness makes promises28 is known through his laws, which give life and produce holiness29 allows his people to suffer even the horrible consequences of their choices can remove and restrict his chastisements carries out his promises in line with any conditions applied

Furthermore, YHWH is more concerned with his reputation and its witness than punishment as deserved.

Cf. 20:20. And hallow My sabbaths, that they may be a sign between Me and you, that you may know that I the LORD am your God (JPS). 29 Or, does it mean they escape death? Cf. vv. 21-25, 21But the children rebelled against Me: they did not follow My laws and did not faithfully observe My rules, by the pursuit of which man shall live; they profaned My sabbaths. Then I resolved to pour out My fury upon them, to vent all My anger upon them, in the wilderness. 22But I held back My hand and acted for the sake of My name, that it might not be profaned in the sight of the nations before whose eyes I had led them out. 23However, I swore to them in the wilderness that I would scatter them among the nations and disperse them through the lands, 24because they did not obey My rules, but rejected My laws, profaned My sabbaths, and looked with longing to the fetishes of their fathers. 25Moreover, I gave them laws that were not good and rules by which they could not live: (JPS). 28

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W HAT’S THE POINT?

Without looking at all the other passages in Ezekiel about “knowing that I am YHWH,” we can see that knowing God’s nature is revealed by the prophet (however he “heard” God)—i.e. by announcement—and was expected to be understood by directly experiencing God’s actions towards his people.30

HOW DID THE OT PEOPLE “K NOW” GOD ?

“Know God” is not found in the OT. “Know YHWH” is found 3 times (Exod 5:2; 1 Sam. 3:7; Jer 31:34). “Know me [i.e. God]” is found 6 times (5 times in Jeremiah [2:8; 4:22; 22:16; 24:7; 31:34] plus Ezek 38:16). “Know him” is found 1 time (Job 24:1). Knowing YHWH

In Exodus 5:2, Pharaoh said, “Who is YHWH, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know YHWH [‫] ֤ל ֹא ָי ַ֙דְﬠִתּ֙י ֶאת־ְיה ָ֔וה‬ and I will not let Israel go.” The implication is that he could know (or follow) this God but has not had the opportunity or desire. In 1 Samuel 3:7, we read, “Now Samuel did not yet know YHWH: The word of YHWH had not yet been revealed to him.” The implication is that knowing about God depends on direct divine revelation. “Knowing God” here seems to mean understanding his will (cf. 1 Sam 3:1-4a).31 In 1 Samuel 3:1-4a we see that Samuel “knew” God after he spoke to him and revealed what he would do (cf. 1 Sam 3:11-14).32 Jeremiah 31:33-34 seems to say that at See Walther Zimmerli, I Am Yahweh, trans. Douglas W. Stott (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1982). 31 Young Samuel was in the service of the LORD under Eli. In those days the word of the LORD was rare; prophecy was not widespread. 2One day, Eli was asleep in his usual place; his eyes had begun to fail and he could barely see. 3The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was sleeping in the temple of the LORD where the Ark of God was. 4The LORD called out to Samuel, . . . (JPS). 32 The LORD said to Samuel: “I am going to do in Israel such a thing that both ears of anyone who hears about it will tingle. 12In that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I spoke concerning his house, from beginning to end. 13And I declare to him that I sentence his house to endless punishment for the iniquity he knew about—how his sons committed 30

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some future point, every forgiven Israelite will know God, meaning his laws will be known and followed willingly. Such uses of YHWH beg the question if it always is a personal name or in some contexts is used for the meaning behind the Name. The problem is, of course, that this meaning has been lost since the Jews decided to obscure its spelling. But whatever it communicates, a translation like “then you will realize that I am [e.g.] eternal” or “that I truly exist” (taking the conventional approach to the Name being based on ‫“ היה‬to be”) seems a better fit for such situations (see “I Am” in Exod 3:14). The people presumably already knew this Name, and there seems to have been no debate as to which god was YHWH. When YHWH said “then the Egyptians will know [‫ ]ידע‬that I [am] YHWH” (Exod 14:4), the wording is not the same as when He told Moses how to answer those who ask under whose authority he was speaking: God said to Moses, “I am [or ‘will be’; ‫ ]ֶֽאְה ֶי֖ה‬what I am [or ‘will be’]. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am [or ‘will be’; ‫ ]ֶֽאְה ֶי֖ה‬has sent me to you” (Exod 3:14). In such texts, the LXX has Ἐγώ εἰµι ὁ ὤν (“I am the one existing”) or simply “I am” or just “the existing one” (but future tense is not used, since LXX interprets the Name in a hellenistic setting).33 Knowing Me

This expression is found in Jeremiah 2:8; 4:22; 22:16; 24:7; 31:34; and Ezekiel 38:16. Jeremiah 2:8 says “The priests did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord?’ Those who deal with the law did not know me; the leaders rebelled against me. The prophets prophesied by Baal, following worthless idols.” Someone can know the law and not know God. Rebellion is not knowing. Jeremiah 4:22 reads, “My people are fools; they do not know me. They are senseless children; they have no understanding. They are skilled in being bad; they know not how to do good.” Here, knowing is obeying. Jeremiah 22:16 says “. . . ‘He defended the cause of the poor and

sacrilege at will—and he did not rebuke them. 14Assuredly, I swear concerning the house of Eli that the iniquity of the house of Eli will never be expiated by sacrifice or offering.” (JPS) 33 See van Bekkum, “The Divine Revelation of the Name,” 68-69.

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needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?’ declares YHWH.” Here, knowing is serving those in need as commanded. Jeremiah 24:7 quotes God as saying, “I will give them a heart to know me, that I am YHWH. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.” In this case, knowing requires desire, willingness, spiritual hunger and repentance. Jeremiah 31:34 reports God’s words that “No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know YHWH,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. . . . For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” Knowing is based on being forgiven. Ezekiel reports God proclaiming “You will advance against my people Israel like a cloud that covers the land. In days to come, O Gog, I will bring you against my land, so that the nations may know me when I show myself holy through you before their eyes” (38:16). God can be shown and known even through his enemies. Knowing Him

This is seen in Job 24:1, “Why does the Almighty not set times for judgment? Why must those who know him look in vain for such days?” Knowing does not require God to tell us everything we want to know.

K NOWING GOD IN GENESIS

The first humans are informed as to what is prohibited (wrong) behavior. They are informed about the consequences of disobedience. They seem permanently to lose an innocence and intimacy with God. The First Humans and Knowledge of God

The first communicative interaction between God and a human was when God warned the man against eating the fruit of the Right and Wrong Knowledge Tree (Gen 2:16-17). Eating the fruit of this tree, ostensibly, would lead to the experiential knowledge of disobedience in contrast to obedience. God knew that if they did then their “eyes would be opened” (that is, they would be enlightened), and gain the divine ability of “knowing right and

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wrong” or “right from wrong” (Gen 3:1-5). If we translate “good and evil” we have the problem that God knows “evil,” which works if it means only intellectual and not experiential knowledge. Also, the normal opposite of “good” is “bad.” Hebrew ‫רע‬, basically, means “bad,” and what kind of bad or degree of bad is a function of the context. “Evil,” as we use the word currently in English, indicates an act that is excessively depraved and usually devilish or demonic. Therefore, it does not succeed as a proper translation for Hebrew ‫ רע‬in most if not all OT usages. This intellectual knowing would suggest that when the humans would eat the fruit the danger was obtaining a conceptual knowledge to distinguish something right from wrong; but then why would that be a problem; did they not need to understand right from wrong to make moral choices? Perhaps the tempter’s explanation about becoming like God should be understood as theologically incorrect—that is, he was falsely accusing God of not just conceptualizing good and bad but of performing good and bad deeds. When the first couple eats this fruit, the text says they gained understanding, knowing or realizing that they were naked (3:7a). So, they covered themselves with leaves (3:7b). But clearly, they knew something was wrong. They knew they had disobeyed and probably remembered the penalty was death. They had mentally, emotionally, and experientially tasted right and wrong, obedience and disobedience. A connection is made between knowledge or belief and behavior. Cain and Knowledge of God

Cain apparently knew to give God his best but failed to do so and was viewed with disfavor by God. The children of Adam and Eve appear to have a knowledge of God based on sacrifices to display their commitment to divine service. God speaks directly to Cain, asking about his anger and advising him how to overcome it and avoid a sinful reaction and the ensuing punishment (Gen 4:6-7). Why did Adam’s eating a forbidden fruit carry the death penalty but Cain’s murder only fruitless farming? Cain is banished further “east” to suffer and be cut off from God’s presence.

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Seth and Knowledge of God

Seth and/or his son Enosh “began to call upon the name YHWH” (4:26b; [‫שׁם‬ ֥ ֵ ‫)]ְיה ָֽוה ָ ֣אז הוַּ֔חל ִלְק ֖ר ֹא ְבּ‬. The Sethites are contrasted to the Cainites in that the former genealogy includes people like Enoch who “walked with God” (cf. Adam and Eve). Cain’s nation involves those who were pugilists, polygamists, and polytheists. This seems to culminate in the “sons of the gods” or followers of many gods in Genesis 6, leading YHWH to decide to destroy all human life, except for one family.34 Noah and Knowledge of God

Noah is the next person after Cain to whom God speaks directly. Noah is saved because he is righteous, blameless, and blindly obedient to God, unlike others at that time (Gen 6:9; 7:1, 5).35 So far after Adam, only Enoch and Noah “walk with God.” God confides in Noah, revealing his plans. But in the text, Noah never speaks to God. Reference or contrast Abraham, who was told to “walk before me and be blameless” (Gen 17:1) and who also experienced God sharing with him his plans for destruction, as well as entertaining Abraham’s advice (Gen 18). Abraham and Knowledge of God

God speaks directly to Abram/Abraham. Abram called on the name YHWH (13:3-4). By contrast the Sodomites were rebels. How did they know God’s laws in order to be called sinners? How are you guilty apart from revelation of God’s will unless such laws are intuitive? Did the Sodomites know God’s laws from ancestors like Ham and his descendants, who had eventually turned to other gods? Abram speaks to God (the first to do so since people before

Cf. R. W. L. Moberly, The Old Testament of the Old Testament (1992; repr., Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2001). 35 This is the line of Noah.—Noah was a righteous man; he was blameless in his age; Noah walked with God (6:9; JPS); Then the LORD said to Noah, “Go into the ark, with all your household, for you alone have I found righteous before Me in this generation (7:1; JPS); And Noah did just as the LORD commanded him (7:5; JPS). 34

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the flood). Abraham has visions of God. He entertains messengers from God. He did right by trusting in God’s promise (15:6).36 Genesis 18:16 begins a remarkable story. God wonders if he should share his plans with Abraham in 18:17. In 18:19 the NIV statement quoting God “I have chosen him” is more literally “I have known [‫ ]ידע‬him” (meaning Abraham). This is rendered as “know,” presumably because the rest of the verse explains why God “knew” or “chose” him: to do right and teach his family to do right so that God could do for Abraham what was said or promised. Does this mean that God foreknew that Abraham would be righteous so he could chose him with confidence to promote godliness and, thereby, guarantee that God would fulfill his promise as planned?—since the implication is that if Abraham was not obedient the promises could not be fulfilled. Abraham could argue with God (Gen 18). Abraham could be tested by God to see if he truly “feared” God (Gen 22). Abraham also “walked before God” (22:40) like Enoch and Noah. Some matters in the Bible are based on right behavior as well as right belief. Genesis 6:7-14 is clear that Noah was the most righteous person of his time, so God favored him above all other humans, who were very wicked, and saved Noah from death by the Flood. Also, the words most often translated “promise” in the OT are ‫“( דבר‬to speak”) and ‫“( אמר‬to say).” The Classical Hebrew word closest to “promise” as we use it today is ‫ שׁבע‬, “to swear.” It appears usually when an oath is pronounced. But whatever is being pledged and whatever word is used, the presence of conditions means that the promise is certain only in line with the qualifications. Abimelech and Knowledge of God

A surprise emerges in Genesis 20:3, when God speaks in a dream to the King of Gerar, warning him of imminent and mortal judgment because he had taken Abraham’s wife. Amazingly this Gentile king reacts calmly to God’s announcement, as if communicating with the Hebrew God was not something new. And because he put his trust in the LORD, He reckoned it to his merit (JPS). 36

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Similar to Abraham’s debate with God over Sodom, Abimelech argues his case against God’s plan, which the king thinks to be unreasonable. This unbeliever, so to speak, is presented as having an experiential knowledge of God similar to that of Abraham. In other OT passages, God speaks to Hebrew leaders in dreams. God even tells Abimelech that he knows he is innocent because he stopped the king from touching Sarah and from, thereby, disobeying God’s laws. Abraham’s relationship with God is further magnified by God’s explanation that the king will be forgiven the death penalty if he returns Sarah and Abraham the prophet prays for him (20:7). The narrative suggests that the king is already declared innocent, but somehow Abraham’s intercession is efficacious (cf. 20:17, where Abraham’s prayer healed the king’s household). Abraham’s opinion that there is no fear of God in Gerar, and therefore little conscience about murder (20:11), seems inaccurate. Abimelech, however, condemns Abraham for his dishonesty, which Abraham defends as true on a technicality and justified by his own fears (20:9-12). Abimelech appears to know God but not as YHWH. God is only YHWH at the end of this story, when it tells that He had closed the wombs of Abimelech’s women (20:18). By contrast YHWH opens Sarah’s womb in the following episode (21:1). Even though God knew the king was innocent, he still punished his family by making the women barren (20:18), until Abraham prayed for them (20:17). Abimelech was a polytheist so able to receive a message from a God as not strange and talk to him. This king and Abraham shared many moral, ethical, and civil laws. But Abraham has a knowledge of God that extends to a prophetic and priestly level. Hagar/Ishmael and Knowledge of God

Hagar flees to the desert but is visited by a messenger from YHWH (16:7). She is told to return to serve Sarah, that she would have many descendants and that her son, Ishmael, would always live in conflict with Isaac. In response she called YHWH “the God who sees me.” Later Abraham asks God to bless Ishmael (17:18). God promises he would father 12 rulers (17:20). Ishmael is circumcised with all others in Abraham’s house (17:23). His descendants settle in the area from Havilah to Shur, near the

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border of Egypt, as you go toward Asshur or Assyria. And they live in hostility toward all their brothers (25:18). Later Esau marries Ishmael’s daughter to spite his parents (28:8-9). Isaac and Knowledge of God

God speaks to Isaac through a dream (28:12). Jacob vows to return and build a house for God at Bethel if God would protect him (28:20-22). YHWH promises to “be with” Jacob (31:3). Because God is “with him” he is able to get the best of Laban, who tried to cheat him (31:12, 42). God would judge whoever broke a treaty (31:48-53). Jacob could “remind” God of his oath (32:12). Jacob wrestles with a divine being and is then renamed Israel (“he who struggles with god”). God tells Israel his people would possess Canaan (35:11-13). Jacob (Israel) and Knowledge of God

When Jacob left Beersheba on his way to visit Laban in Haran to get a non-Canaanite wife, he stopped along the way for the night (27:46-28:5, 10-11). The place was named Luz but he renamed it Bethel (“God’s house”), and he anointed the stone he had used for a “pillow” (28:18-19). As was the custom, he arranged stones as a support on which he laid his bedding. Then he used them to build an altar or pillar, where he worshiped and sacrificed. Jacob (later named Israel) then vowed that if YHWH kept him safe, when he returned he would maintain YHWH as his God and would use these stones to build a “house” for God and sacrifice to him 1/10 of his goods (28:20-22). Eventually YHWH told Jacob to return to Canaan and reminded him “I will be with you” (31:3). “I will be” in Hebrew (‫ )ֶֽאְה ֶי֖ה‬is very similar to the name YHWH. Jacob reflected that this God had been with him all through the times of his growing conflict with Rachel’s father Laban (31:5). Although Jacob had been cheated, God had not allowed Laban to hurt him physically (31:7). He later told Laban that apart from God “being with me” you would have sent me away with nothing, but God had rebuked him for Jacob’s hardship (31:42). When Jacob and Laban made a peace treaty, they vowed that God would be watching and judge whomever transgressed the covenant (31:48-53).

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On his return journey to Canaan, Jacob asked God to keep his brother Esau from harming him although he admitted to being unworthy of God’s grace (32:9a, 10-11); and he reminded God of the promises He had made in case God forgot (32:12; cf. 32:9b). Jacob’s name was changed to “Israel” (“he who struggled with God”) after he fought with a man whom Jacob identified as God; and although Jacob was injured he never gave up in defeat (32:22-30). This wrestling partner blessed Jacob (in a way not explained) but refused to reveal his name (32:29). God later revealed Himself as El Shadai (35:10b-11a). The text says that God talked to Jacob (35:13). After he wrestled with this heavenly messenger at the Jabbok River, Jacob’s relationship with (faith/trust in) God seems to have deepened. Joseph and Knowledge of God

Although Joseph had been sold to an Egyptian, YHWH was “with Joseph” so that he was highly competent (39:1-2). The same expression used of Noah is here used of Joseph (39:4): “he found favor in his eyes” (‫) ַו ִיְּמָצא יוֵֹסף ֵחן ְבֵּﬠיָניו‬, the “eyes” or opinion of God for Noah, and Potiphar for Joseph. Again, although accused of rape and thrown into prison, YHWH was “with him” such that he found favor in the eyes of the prison warden and everything he did was successful (39:17-23). He even could interpret dreams with God’s help (40:8; 41:15-16). When Joseph revealed his identity as a long, lost brother, he reviewed what had happened, and claimed that God had used their crime of selling him for the purpose of sending him to Egypt to save their lives so that a remnant of the Israelites might be preserved (45:1-7). Later he repeated this, saying that while they intended harm, God intended good (50:20). Actually, Joseph said they did not send him to Egypt but God did (45:8). And God made him a ruler in Egypt (45:9). Moses and the Knowledge of God

In his dealings with the Egyptian Pharaoh, Moses reveals the God of Israel’s demand to release the Hebrews from Egyptian servitude (e.g. Exod. 5:1). Pharaoh would reply, as in 5:2, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know

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[‫ ]ָי ַ֙דְﬠִתּ֙י‬the LORD and I will not let Israel go” (NIV). YHWH was a God foreign to this king. It is remarkable that Moses would expect him to respect the demands of the Hebrew God. This suggests that some kind of knowledge of or about a particular G/god was normal. In Pharaoh’s mind, this knowledge would require obedience. But since YHWH is unknown to him, he feels no obligation to heed his demands. Conversely, the Hebrews were expected to trust and obey YHWH. Yet, YHWH does punish the Egyptian king and his country and people because they are stubborn and refuse to do what YHWH has commanded through Moses. It took the tragic experience of the plagues before this king acknowledged that Moses was truly speaking on behalf of a powerful God. Still, on what basis did YHWH think it was reasonable for this king to listen to Moses, who claimed to speak for a God about whom the king never heard? Or, if he had heard of him, had no objective basis to believe in him or behave according to laws he never received? Whatever the answer, knowledge of a G/god in this ANE setting seems to carry with it the obligation of obedience and the assumption this God has revealed his will. Later YHWH tells Moses that he is the God who appeared to the Hebrew Patriarchs, but he did not make himself known to them by the name YHWH (Exod. 6:2-3). Because of his covenant with them, however, he swears to rescue the Israelites from Egyptian bondage. Their rescue is again tied to obedience: those who did not put blood from the sacrificial lamb on both doorframes of their houses, and did not remain inside, were not protected from the death of their first-born child; that is, the messenger bringing this death would not pass over them (Exod 12:21-23). Obedience was the means for life. Knowing this God involved much more than knowledge about Him. It involved a mutual relationship of covenant loyalty. Knowing that YHWH is Elohim

The OT stories related to the Exodus from Egypt and the Israelite journey to Canaan provide some illustrations of what “knowing that YHWH is God” implied. When Moses told his father-in-law Jethro about how YHWH had worked wonders to deliver the Hebrews from Egyptian bondage and rescued them from the army

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at the Reed Sea, Jethro exclaimed, “Now I have come to know [Qatal of ‫ ]ידע‬that YHWH is greater than all the gods [ha’elohiym]” (Exod 18:11a).37 YHWH pledged to dwell among the Israelites and be for them as the greatest God of gods (‫( )לאלהים‬Exod 29:45). Then they will know (inverted Qatal verb with waw consecutive) that I YHWH (am) their God (plural) (v. 46a). They will then understand that YHWH is God for them because He delivered them miraculously from Egypt in order to (purpose use of lamedh preposition) live with them (v. 46b). I YHWH (am) their God of gods (plural) (v. 46c). Is it possible that when God told Moses to say “I Am” sent him to Pharaoh, that it implied “I am the God of all gods”? Pharaoh’s gods could not save him, so for all intents and purposes they were worthless with no viable existence. When Balaam gave his oracle (Num 24) he described himself as one “knowing [part.] knowledge [‫ ”]ידע דעת‬about ‘elyon (“what/who is high[est]”) (24:16). He was said (24:2) to have been influenced by a ruach (“spirit, wind, breath”) from (source/separative genitive) ‘elohiym, so this can be understood as a divine spiritual

Often it is conjectured that Elohiym a plural form is used for “God” in line with an ancient idiom (sometimes called plural of majesty) in which an ANE king could refer to himself in the plural as the “king of kings” (i.e. the greatest of all kings). YHWH is Elohim as “the greatest of all gods.” He is ‘el [‫ ]אל‬as “a god.” This is not exactly the affirmation “the only true God” but it points to YHWH as the only God worthy of human trust. Such OT texts are more henotheistic than monotheistic in their ANE setting. The progress of biblical revelation, however, leads to the Hebrew God as the only God. Even in the OT the gods of the people are referred to as “idols” and “nothing” (e.g. see Ps 31:6, where the word for “idol” is hebel, “a vapor, mist, vanity”; and Ps 96:5, where the “gods [‘elohim] of the nations are ‘eliliym [“insignificant; nonentities”; see HALOT, s.v. ‫ ;]אליל‬cf. 97:7). For the psalmist, these gods are a waste of time. There was also the practical reality that the people truly did serve these gods, so they did exist existentially. The Hebrews functioned in a polytheistic world, so the focus was on the the practical need for people to turn from false gods more than the philosophical need to argue syllogistically about their existence. When OT texts recognize the gods, they do not interpretively or hermeneutically affirm other gods as formally but only functionally real. 37

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power (from the gods not necessarily God).38 According to Joshua 13:22, he practiced divination. Knowledge in this passage is information from God or about God (or the gods), so is not experiential or personal knowledge of God in terms of relationship. In keeping with the word-count limit of this study and the principal nature of ‫ ידע‬for knowledge of/about God in the OT, the survey of the OT books that follows stays within the previous contours of divine knowledge in the OT. The Psalms and the Prophets more distinctly, however, presuppose a personal relationship with YHWH, but the former seek more direct answers to prayer and the experience of victory by supernatural intervention, while the latter ask God to make himself known universally and encourage the Hebrews specifically as Israel and individuals to embrace YHWH’s uniqueness and serve him fully. One question that has been posed concerns the possible observance of some development in the remaining periods of OT history which demonstrate a movement from corporate Israel to more selective Israelites, i.e. a growing recognition of a distinction between a faithful remnant and others before the Exile and the elect and others after the Exile. Psalm 105:6 has been mentioned in this regard, where the psalmist appeals to his Hebrew audience as “chosen” (‫ )בחיר‬descendants of Jacob/Israel.

NIV’s “Spirit of God” is gratuitous and anachronistically places (through the use of upper case, not in the Hebrew language) a Trinitarian thought in the OT. It fails to contextually and syntactically translate the phrase ruach ‘elohiym. “Of” is not in the Hebrew text but represents the construct or genitive relationship between these two words. The expression needs to be translated in terms of its syntax and historical setting. The point may be that as a diviner Balaam consulted the gods. When he says he hears “God’s words” (see NIV), the word he uses is not ‘elohiym but ‘el (a more common Canaanite expression and the name of the chief Canaanite god, El) along with ‘elyon (another typical Canaanite term). He does acknowledge his debt to speak for YHWH in 24:13 in response to Balak’s request, but this could be in deference to Balak’s and Israel’s beliefs. “Spirit [of] holy[ness]” may better be “desire for holiness” in Psalm 51:11b (13b Hebrew text). See W. Creighton Marlowe, “‘Spirit of Your Holiness’ in Psalm 51:13,” Trinity Journal 19, no. 1 (Spring 1998): 29-49. 38

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But to tie this theologically (especially exegetically) to election (with its Calvinist overtones) is a stretch, since this statement is a parallel with what immediately precedes it: a call to “descendants of [God’s] servant Abraham.” The confirmed covenant still applies, according to this psalmist, to historic not just current faithful Israel (105:8-45). Still, there is a growing emphasis throughout the remained of the OT on a remnant that will return and experience a renewed covenant and community in the context of forgiveness, faith, and spiritual fruitfulness. Such postexilic developments would seem to fulfill God’s earlier pronouncements that “then they will know that I am YHWH.” A Judean remnant does return and start rebuilding the city, but by the end of the OT no unprecedented knowledge of God is discernable. Something is still anticipated that will greatly enhance divine knowledge among Jews and Gentiles.

K NOWING GOD IN THE PSALMS

What follows is not based on any previous publications but represents the author’s fresh interpretive ideas (except where a source is referenced). Davidic Psalms (So-Called) and Knowing God

According to the superscriptions, the psalms claimed editorially to be “about David,” which include statements about knowing God, are Psalms 9, 20, 36, 41, 56, 78, 103, 109, 139, 140, and 145. They cover the themes of God’s reputation: (1) for commitment to his people who do what is right; (2) for justice in punishing wickedness and for the poor; (3) for siding with and saving his anointed kings, who trust in him through prayer, from enemies; (4) which is known by his deeds; and (5) which must be made known. God’s Reputation for Loyalty

Knowing God for David, in Psalm 9:10, is knowing his name or reputation, that is, having experienced the reality that YHWH never abandons those who seek him, which in turn creates trust in God. So, in Psalm 36:10 he prays that God will maintain his

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loyal love and do what is right for those who know him, defined as those who desire to be righteous. God’s Reputation for Justice

In Psalm 9:16, YHWH is known to be just because wicked people fall victim to their own schemes. Again, from experience, David knows that God enacts justice for those who are disadvantaged (Ps 140:12). God’s Reputation for Salvation

In Psalm 20:6-7 the psalmist knows from recent experience that YHWH reaches down with a powerful hand to rescue his anointed king from his enemies, when the king trusts in YHWH’s name or resources and not in military weapons. He knows God is on his side and satisfied with him because when he calls for help in prayer his enemy is defeated (Pss 41:11; 56:9). God’s Reputation Based on His Deeds

God is known by his deeds, which have been revealed by the forefathers like Moses (Pss 78:3; 103:7). God’s Reputation to Be Rehearsed

So (in light of the previous point) David entreats God to make known what he has done (Ps 109:27); and encourages his audience of godly worshipers to speak about YHWH’s significance so others can know about his might and kingdom (Ps 145:10-12). Because David knows or realizes the marvelous wonder of the human body, which God made, he vows to give a public testimony (Ps 139:14). Asaph Psalms and Knowing God

Three psalms by Asaph relate to knowing God: 76, 79, and 83. God is known, that is his name or fame is widespread in Israel and Judah (Ps 76:1). It should be heralded that the God named YHWH alone is high over all the land (Ps 83:18), which appears to be a way to discourage idolatry. Asaph prays and pleads that God will avenge the death of his servants so Israel’s enemies will no longer wonder if Israel’s God is attentive to his people’s needs (Ps 79:10).

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Orphan Psalms and Knowing God

These psalms are 67, 100, 105, 106, 119, 135. All except one of these deal with making God known to others. In Psalm 119:76, YHWH is known for correct judgments; therefore, the psalmist accepts his oppression as appropriate.

W HAT I S K NOWN TO BE M ADE K NOWN

In Psalm 135:5 the psalmist knows that YHWH is the greatest god. This does not necessarily make the psalmist a polytheist or henotheist, because belief in many gods, or a false god, was a practical reality even among some Hebrews. This reality implies the need to report that YHWH is unique. Psalm 100:3 begins with an imperative often translated as, “Know that YHWH is God!” (100:3a). But in context this follows imperatives to shout “about” (not “to”) YHWH and to serve him with joyful shouts. The emphasis seems to be on proclaiming God’s attributes. So “Know!” is perhaps better interpreted as “Make known!” In Psalm 105:1 we read “Confess about YHWH and cry out regarding his reputation! // Make his deeds known [Hiphil of ‫ ]ידע‬among the nations!” Admittedly the verb in Psalm 100:3a is not Hiphil, but the context suggests a causative sense. As an aside, a word used for “testify” (mistakenly translated as “give thanks” [more about this later]), being ‫ ידה‬has a similar spelling and sound to the word “know,” ‫ידע‬. We might wonder if these two were ever confused by copyists. We might wonder if the verb here in Psalm 100 was originally ‫“ ידה‬testify, confess.” Psalm 100:3bi

NIV has “It is he who made us, and we are his” while KJV reads “it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves.” What is to be made known about God? The versions differ because ‫“ ולא‬and not” in light of the Qere should be “and to him” (‫)ולו‬. Also, the philosophical and origins issue of human creation by natural vs. supernatural means was not an ANE debate. Most of all the following parallel spells out the author’s intention of ownership by God: “we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture” (100:3bii). Also, a command to realize or understand that YHWH is God is meaningless for the worshiping audience, unless the point is to

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believe that YHWH is the only God. But then different words would be expected and, again, the more consistent and contextual sense would be, “Make known that YHWH is the only God!” (100:3a) because he is our Creator, Owner, and Shepherd (100:3b). The LXX did not take this approach, but its rendering is likely explained by a mechanically literal rather than interpretive translation of this verse. That Psalm 105:1 should begin with “Confess!” rather than “Give thanks!” is supported by the LXX rendering of ‫ הוֹדוּ‬as Εξοµολογεῖσθε “Confess!” (cf. Latin Vulgate’s Confitemini with the same meaning). Psalm 106:8 explains that God saved the Hebrews from Egyptian enslavement for the sake of his reputation (i.e., “name”), so that people would come to know (another Hiphil of ‫ )ידע‬or learn about his might/strength. In Psalm 67:1-2 the author asks that the Hebrews experience God’s favor, blessing, and acceptance (67:1) so that his saving ways may be known among all the nations in the land (67:2). MT (cf. LXX) reads “your ways” and “your salvation” but some other Hebrew manuscripts have “his ways” and “his salvation.” The target group is the various nationalities in Israel not around the world. ‫ ארץ‬is more likely the Hebrew lands, not all countries of the earth.

PSALMS ABOUT NOT K NOWING GOD

Finally, a number of passages from the Psalms expose those who cannot or do not know about YHWH: 88, 90, 92, 95, and 147. Psalm 92

In Psalm 92:6, stupid or foolish people do not know or understand that wicked people always will be destroyed. In such a wisdom context, a foolish person is not intellectually but morally deficient. Psalm 88

In Psalm 88:10-12, a psalm by the descendants of Korah, the psalmist offers a justification for divine intervention or a motivation clause for YHWH to act on his behalf. In verses 1-9 he had complained about being near death due to God’s wrath and rejection and the opposition of former friends. So, in verses 1012 he tries to persuade God to save him with the argument that

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if he goes to the grave he will no longer be able to witness about God. In verse 10b he asks rhetorically, “Can departed spirits rise up and testify about you?” Here the word “testify” or “confess” is ‫ ידה‬, often mistranslated as “give thanks” (see comments on Ps 100 above). As in other places, “known” in verse 12 is probably meant as “made known” since in verse 11 he asks “Can your love be declared in the grave?”—in this case ‫ ֶקֶבר‬not ‫ְשׁאוֹל‬. This is repeated in verse 12: “Are your wonders known in darkness, or your justice in the land of forgetfulness?”—where darkness and land of forgetting are synonyms for the grave. God’s wonders can neither be known nor made known by dead people. Psalm 90

In Psalm 90, the psalmist reflects on God’s power over life and death (90:1-6), his anger over Israel’s iniquities (90:7-9), and the brevity of life (90:10). Then in verse 11 he asks rhetorically, “Who can know [‫ ]ידע‬the power of God’s anger? His fear as well as his wrath?” People cannot fully grasp the nature of God’s anger over sin and how that plays out in the number of years each person lives. 90:12 is often translated at the beginning “Teach us!” but this Hiphil verb is not ‫למד‬ but ‫“ ידע‬to know” or “cause us to know.” This is significant because it makes connection back to knowing in the previous verse. Psalm 95

In Psalm 95:10, YHWH speaks in anger about a generation whose sentiments for God went astray, about whom he says, “they have not known my ways.” On the surface this sounds odd because, surely, they were already well informed about God’s will through Mosaic revelation. That being the case, their lack of knowledge must refer to their lack of experiential knowledge or care about God’s ways, demonstrated by their idolatry. Psalm 147

In relation to foreign nations, the psalmist in Psalm 147:20 says they do not know God’s laws, here suggesting they are not informed as was Israel, which is explained in the previous verse: “He has revealed his word to Jacob, his laws and decrees to Israel”; so, verse 20 starts by saying, “He has done this for no

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other nation.” This verse also ends with the command to praise YHWH, as if the psalmist is glad that outsiders have been cut off from God’s revelation. Micah 4:12 and not knowing God A B But they do not know B’ they do not understand D he who gathers them like sheaves

C the thoughts of YHWH // C’ his plan, E F to the threshing floor.

Other Texts in Isaiah Isaiah 1:3a, reverse parallelism39 A It has known B’ Also a donkey

B an ox [A] [has known]

[C’] [trough of] C the manger of

D his owner, // D’ his master.

Isaiah 1:3b [but] A Israel A’ My people

B not B not

C has known // C’ have understood.

Some English versions interpret this verse by saying “have not known me,” meaning God. But the context makes it clear that what Israel does not know is what the dumb farm animals do know: who feeds them and where. Isaiah was contrasting the Israelites with these animals, who always return to their owner’s feeding trough. These Hebrews are being accused as having less sense because they run off to foreign, idolatrous gods for their spiritual food (see Isa 19:18-22, where Egypt is a symbol of the Gentiles; Isa 37:20; 43:10 Cf. David Noel Freedman, “What the Ox and the Ass Know—But Biblical Scholars Don’t,” BRev 1, no. 1 (1985): 42-43. 39

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[Do not these actions precede being a witness? Does this signify the tasks of spreading knowledge, belief and understanding?]; and 52:6). God’s name or nature involves foreknowledge.

SUMMARY OF OT K NOWLEDGE OF YHWH

Early in the Genesis narratives the actors are portrayed as walking and talking with God in a visible and audible manner. After humans disobeyed, they were disconnected from God’s direct presence, but not his interventions. God communicated with selected individuals audibly and visibly. These prophets revealed God’s will orally and in writing. God was knowable through this divine revelation (Law, Prophecy). But God also was accessible in prayer (Psalms). In addition, wise men guided by God crafted experiential truths for training in wise living (Proverbs; Wisdom). Another applicable text is Daniel 11:31-32. Knowledge is faith that enables courage. J. I. Packer said, “those who know God have great energy for God.”40 See also Daniel 2:22-23. Knowing what God has revealed is knowledge of or about God. J. I. Packer said, “those who know God have great thoughts of God.”41 Another related text is Jeremiah 9:23–24. Knowing God is expected and prioritized. In Exodus 33:17-18, God knows our value and his value is what we need to know. The OT mainly speaks of knowing or learning about God. God has revealed things about his nature through verbal and natural means. A hermeneutical challenge is how the reader knows when a text is intended to describe God as God thinks about himself or as the contemporary, ancient audience or believers thought about God culturally. The former is to be read as doctrinally absolute, while the later has to be understood as reliable data yet relative to a social and time-bound perspective in the flow of progressive revelation. The reader of course must not insert modern understandings based on newer revelation anachronistically back into the thoughts of ancient people. God clearly has to accommodate how he communicates to realities of a given time period for his words to be understood in the present at each stage of revelation because each future stage of recipients is aware of 40 41

Packer, Knowing God, 23. Packer, Knowing God, 24.

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more revelation and general as well as special, scientific information than that of previous stages. Consequently, historical, contextual exegesis is essential for OT interpretation and theology as applied to successive generations of Bible readers and believers. In the OT, knowledge about God is gained through verbal and nonverbal means. Texts contain ostensibly direct quotes from God as well as prophetic commentary. In addition, God’s conduct also implies things about his character.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Baumann, E. “yadaʿ und seine Derivate.” ZAW 28, no. 2 (1908): 25–41, 110–41. Botterweck, G. Johannes. “‫ָי ַדע‬,”. In Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, edited by H. Botterweck and H. Ringren, 5:448–81. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1986. Brueggemann, Walter. The Psalms and the Life of Faith. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1995. ———. Spirituality of the Psalms. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2002. ———. Theology of the Old Testament. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1997. Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Translated by Henry Beveridge. Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Christian Education, 1936. Dentan, Robert C. The Knowledge of God in Ancient Israel. New York: Seabury Press, 1968. Freedman, David Noel. “What the Ox and the Ass Know—But Biblical Scholars Don’t.” BRev 1, no. 1 (1985): 42–43. Fretheim, Terence E. “‫( ָי ַדע‬yādaʿ I).” In New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology & Exegesis, edited by Willem A. Van Gemeren, 2:401–406. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1997. Electronic text hypertexted and prepared by OakTree Software, Inc. Version 2.5. Gordon, Cyrus H. Ugartiic Textbook: Texts in Transliteration. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1965. Greenstein, Edward L. “Kirta.” In Ugaritic Narrative Poetry, edited by S. B. Parker, 9-48. Writings from the Ancient World 9. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1997.

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Hardy, Daniel W. and David F. Ford, Praising and Knowing God. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985. Johnson, Dur. Scripture’s Knowing. Cascade Companions. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2015. Knierim, R. “Offenbarung im Alten Testament.” In Probleme biblischer Theologie. Festschrift G. von Rad, edited by H. W. Wolff, 206–235. Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1971. Koehler, Ludwig and Walter Baumgartner, eds. The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Translated and edited under the supervision of M. E. J. Richardson. 3rd ed. Leiden: Brill, 2000. Electronic text hypertexted and prepared by OakTree Software, Inc. Version 3.5. (HALOT) Lewis, Jack P. “‫( ָי ַדע‬yādaʿ) know.” In Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, edited by R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer and Bruce K. Waltke, 1:366–369. Chicago: Moody, 1980. Electronic text hypertexted and prepared by OakTree Software, Inc. Version 2.4. Margalit, Baruch. “The Legend of Keret.” In Handbook of Ugaritic Studies, edited by Wilfred G. E. Watson and Nicolas Wyatt, 203–233. Leiden: Brill, 1999. Marlowe, W. Creighton. “‘Spirit of Your Holiness’ in Psalm 51:13.” Trinity Journal 19, no.1 (Spring 1998): 29-49. McKenzie, John L. “Knowledge of God in Hosea.” JBL 74, no. 1 (1955): 22–27. McSwain, Stephen B. The Enoch Factor: The Sacred Art of Knowing God. Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 1955. Moberly, R. W. L. The Old Testament of the Old Testament. 1992. Reprint, Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2001. Murphy, Roland E. “Wisdom in the OT.” In Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, edited by David Noel Freedman, 6:920–31. New York: Doubleday, 1992. Electronic text hypertexted and prepared by OakTree Software, Inc. Version 4.0. Onu, G. G. Knowing and Understanding God. Okigwa, Nigeria: Godsword Christian Publications, 2014. Packer, J. I. Knowing God. Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973. Peels, H. G. L. “Het Oude Testament als document van openbaring.” Theologia Reformata 46, no. 4 (2003): 356–78.

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Piper, O. A. “Knowledge.” In Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, edited by G. A. Buttrick, 1:42–44 Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1962. Römer, Thomas. The Invention of God. Translated by Raymond Geuss. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. Schaffer, Maureen. Knowing God: Using the Scriptures to Know God. Scotts Valley, CA: Create Space Independent Publishing Platform, 2016. Schottroff, W. “‫( ָי ַדע‬yādaʿ).” In Theologisches Handbuch zum Alten Testament, edited by E. Jenni and C. Westermann 1:682–701. Kaiser: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2001. Smith, Mark. S. Where the Gods Are. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016. Thomas, D. Winton. “Additional Notes on the Root ‫ ָיַדע‬in Hebrew.” JTS 15, no. 1 (1964): 54–57. van Bekkum, Koert. “The Divine Revelation of the Name: Warranted and Unwarranted Confidence in the LiteraryCritical Analysis of Exodus 3 and 6.” In Paradigm Change in Pentateuchal Research, edited by Matthias Armgardt, Benjamin Kilchör, and Markus Zehnder, 59-76. BZABR 22. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2019. ———. “Het Oude Testament als historisch document.” Theologia Reformata 46, no. 4 (2003): 328–355. Westermann, Claus. Praise and Lament in the Psalms. Translated by Keith R. Crim and Richard N. Soulen. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1981. Wright, Tom. Finding God in the Psalms. London: SPCK, 2014. Wyatt, N. Religious Texts from Ugarit: The Words of Ilimilku and his Colleagues. The Biblical Seminar 53. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998. Zehnder, Markus P. Wegmetaphorik im Alten Testament. BZAW 268. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1999. Zimmerli, Walther. I Am Yahweh. Translated by Douglas W. Stott. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1982.

CHAPTER FIVE. DIFFERENT CURRENTS IN ISRAEL AND BEYOND: KNOWING GOD IN THE INTERTESTAMENTAL PERIOD PROF. DR. GEERT LOREIN DEPARTMENT OF OLD TESTAMENT This essay aims to study, within the different currents of the intertestamental period (Part I), what the believers’ community thought to know about God (Part II) and how they could draw nearer to Him (or could not, as He is holy and elevated – Part III), in other words how they could arrive at knowing God (Part IV). The next question is whether this applies also to non-Jews (non-Israelites) and how this will be in the eschaton (Part V). If possible, every current of the intertestamental period will receive a voice for every item in Parts II to V—mostly not more than one—and the reader must trust the author that the voice is representative. This is an essay, not a monograph. Finally we will observe the extent of difference among intertestamental voices on this subject and comment on a possible parallel with the current ETF situation (Part VI).

I. THE I NTERTESTAMENTAL PERIOD

Before speaking about knowledge of God and the way to attain it, let us start with a short introduction to the Intertestamental Period as such.

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A. Delineation

For our purposes, the Intertestamental Period begins after the redaction of the last book of the Old Testament and continues until the redaction of the books of the New Testament, in practice from the fourth century BC until the end of the first century AD (including the classical Targums).1 B. Importance

Jewish writings from this period show us the earliest interpretations of the Old Testament2 and make up the most important background to the New Testament, theologically (for demonology, anthropology, eschatology) as well as historically. According to Blocher, deuterocanonical writings3 belong to the praeparatio evangelica and for that reason to Heilsgeschichte. This does not imply that they are inspired, but that they are covered by Providence. Just as Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, so the New Testament has arrived in a literary context; by one’s knowing that context, the message of the New Testament appears all the more clearly.4 In order to understand the New Testament, we cannot go straight to the Old Testament without taking into account how ancient Judaism has read the Bible.5 None of the writings which we read and cite in this essay were accepted as canonical by Jerome, although he translated some upon request. Most of those translated by Jerome were accepted as canonical by the Council of Trent, after a long For the difficulty of Roman Catholics with the term, see Émile Puech, “Dieu le Père dans les écrits péritestamentaires et les manuscrits de la mer Morte,” RevQ 20, no. 2 (2001): 287–288. 2 At least outside the Old Testament. 3 Henri Blocher, “Utiles ou nocifs? Les ‘Apocryphes’ et la théologie évangélique,” Théologie Évangélique 3 (2004): 267, is right when he assesses the deuterocanonical writings as follows: “en moyenne, on a estimé leur qualité supérieure à celle des autres textes comparables.” 4 Blocher, “Utiles ou nocifs?,” 269. 5 As Josep Ribera-Florit, “El perdó i la reconciliació en el període intertestamentari i en el Targum dels Profetes,” in Perdó i reconciliació en la tradició jueva, ed. Armand Puig i Tàrrech, ScriBib 4 (Barcelona: Associació Bíblica de Catalunya – Abadia de Montserrat, 2002), 206, put it: “la relectura que el judaisme antic ha fet de la Bíblia.” 1

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discussion, in which the result was clear only at the very end of the discussion.6 C. Classification

In this essay, we will mention for every aspect a representative text from the following backgrounds: Essenes, the Qumran community, Sadducees, Pharisees, Targums.7 Of course, many more texts could have been treated.

For details, see Geert W. Lorein, “The Latin Versions of the Old Testament from Jerome to the Editio Clementina,” in A Jewish Targum in a Christian World, ed. Alberdina Houtman et al., Jewish and Christian Perspectives Series 27 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 135–136. 7 Using the following texts, with adaptation in capitals and punctuation. For apocrypha and pseudepigrapha: Alfred Rahlfs, Septuaginta. Id est Vetus Testamentum Graece iuxta LXX interpretes (Stuttgart: Privilegierte Württembergische Bibelanstalt, 1935); M. de Jonge, Testamenta XII Patriarcharum Edited according to Cambridge University Library Ms Ff 1.24 fol. 203a-261b, 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1970); K. Penner and M. S. Heiser, Old Testament Greek Pseudepigrapha with Morphology (Bellingham: Lexham, 2008); D. J. Harrington, Pseudo-Philon. Les antiquités bibliques I: Introduction et texte critiques, SC 229 (Paris: Cerf, 1976); James C. Vanderkam, The Book of Jubilees: A Critical Text 1 (Leuven: Peeters, 1989). For texts of the Qumran community: Florentino García Martínez and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, eds., The Dead Sea Scrolls: Study Edition, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1997-1998); Elisha Qimron, “The Text of CDC,” in The Damascus Document Reconsidered, ed. Magen Broshi (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1992), 9–49; G. W. Lorein and E. van StaalduineSulman, “A Song of David for Each Day: The Provenance of the Songs of David,” RevQ 22, no. 1 (2005): 33–59, and “CšD II,4 – IV,9: A Song of David for Each Day,” Henoch 31 (2009): 387–410; Annette Steudel, ed., Die Texte aus Qumran 2 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2001). For the Targums: Alexander Sperber, ed., The Bible in Aramaic I-III (Leiden: Brill, 1959-1962); E. van Staalduine-Sulman, The Targum of Samuel, Studies in the Aramaic Interpretation of Scripture (Leiden: Brill, 2002); Stephen A. Kaufman, ed., Targum Neofiti from the Files of the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, 2005). 6

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1. Hasidim – Essenes – Pharisees

The movement of the Hasidim started in 251 BC, consisting of those who wanted to take God’s Word very earnestly. This movement had an apocalyptic fringe group which produced a number of writings.8 About 171,9 the former high priest Onias III was killed. Within the group of the Hasidim, this caused a division between strict nationalistic priestly10 tendencies with a 364-day calendar (Essenes) and clement universalistic tendencies with a lunar calendar (Pharisees11). The Pharisees are the most important

See further Geert W. Lorein, “Entwicklungen zwischen dem Alten und dem Neuen Testament,” in Theologie des Alten Testaments: Die bleibende Botschaft der hebräischen Bibel, ed. Hendrik J. Koorevaar and Mart-Jan Paul (Giessen: Brunnen, 2016), 304–305. 9 The year of the murder is most often based on a contestable interpretation of Dan 9:26-27, for which see J. T. Nelis, “Daniël,” in Ezechiël. Daniël, by A. van den Born, De Boeken van het Oude Testament 11 (Roermond: J. J. Romen & Zonen, 1954), 108; this is not the standard interpretation in confessional exegesis, see Geert W. Lorein, “Daniel,” in Geschriften over de Perzische tijd (Heerenveen: Groen, 2010), 75–76, 79. Nevertheless, R. T. Beckwith, “Daniel 9 and the Date of Messiah’s Coming in Essene, Hellenistic, Pharisaic, Zealot and Early Christian Computation,” RevQ 10, no. 4 (1981): 525, 528–529, sees reasons why it must have taken place anyhow quite shortly after the moment that Menelaus had become the new high priest in 172, by putting aside Jason (fl. 175-172), who had succeeded Onias. It is true that Onias III did not belong to the Hasidim, but not being really pro-Hellenistic and as a victim (deposed high priest) he passed automatically into the category of the brave ones (cf. R. T. Beckwith, “The Pre-History and Relationships of the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes. A Tentative Reconstruction,” RevQ 11, no. 1 (1982): 6, “an Essene sympathiser”; Patrick A. Tiller, A Commentary on the Animal Apocalypse of I Enoch, EJL 4 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1993), 354 (on I Enoch 90:8). 10 As such the Essenes are related to the Sadducees. 11 Beckwith, “Pre-History,” 7, 12–14, 27. The origin of the word “Pharisee” is based on ‫“( ָפּרוּשׁ‬separated”) or on ‫פּ ֵרשׁ‬ ֹ (“making distinctions”) in exegesis; A. Lemaire, “‫ פשר‬et ‫פרש‬, Esséniens et Pharisiens. Deux interprétations de l’Écriture,” in Manières de penser dans l’Antiquité méditerranéenne et orientale, ed. Christophe Batsch and Mǎdǎla Vâtejanu-Jaubert, Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 134 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 51–60. 8

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group and left the largest number of writings, especially if we extend these to include the Targums. 2. Qumran Community

About 150 BC, the Teacher of Righteousness12 arose, a priest who, in the Essene community (and in the larger movement of the Hasidim), insisted on following a rigid line.13 Finally he concluded that it was necessary to be completely isolated, because he did not feel able to cooperate with people who did not totally agree with him (this we call “sociological fundamentalism”). As a consequence, a group retired to the Judean desert shortly after 140 to Qumran.14 The desert climate meant that the library was preserved rather intact up to the moment of its discovery halfway through the last century. The technical name of a writing from this library consists of the number of the cave where it was found (in order of discovery), the letter Q (for Qumran) and a number roughly based on a grouping of contents by the first investigators. Often a specific name exists also. While the technical name is free of confusion, it does not provide any insight about the kind of text.

The translation “True Teacher” is certainly possible (gen. qualitatis), but in light of Joel 2:23 and the wordplay with “the one who rains / spreads righteousness” the traditional translation (gen. objectivus) seems most appropriate. For an overview, see Loren T. Stuckenbruck, “The Legacy of the Teacher of Righteousness in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in New Perspectives on Old Texts, ed. Esther G. Chazon, Betsy Halpern-Amaru, and Ruth Clements, STDJ 88 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 23–49. 13 Groningen hypothesis: F. García Martínez and A. S. van der Woude, “A ‘Groningen’ Hypothesis of Qumran Origins and Early History,” RevQ 14, no. 4 (1990): 536–541; cf. “The Groningen Hypothesis Revisited” and “The Enochic-Essene Hypothesis Revisited” in Enoch and Qumran Origins: New Light on a Forgotten Connection, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 247–435. 14 In other words: Qumran was not the centre of the Essenes, besides which the Essenes in the country had to be considered as some “third (but a second – women’s – order did not exist!) order” (thus Devorah Dimant, “Qumran Sectarian Literature,” in Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period, ed. Michael E. Stone, CRINT, Section Two [Assen: Van Gorcum, 1984], 485–87). 12

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3. Sadducees

The Sadducees did not belong to the large group of the Hasidim, but politically speaking they were important. Their theology was rather reductionist. Very few of their writings have survived (with 1 Baruch and 1 Maccabees as possible exceptions). Because we will not be able to quote many texts written by Sadducees, we quote here a text about them. Targum Neofiti - Genesis 4:8 ‫ענה קין ואמר להבל מסתכל אנה דלא ברחמין איתברי עלמא ולא על‬ ‫ ומיסב אפין אית בדינא מן בגלל מה‬15‫פירי עובדין טבין הוה מדבר‬ ‫איתקבל קרבנך ברעוא וקרבני מני לא אתקבל ברעוא‬ ‫ענה הבל ואמר לקין מסתכל אנא די ברחמין איתברי עלמא ועל פירי‬ ‫ אתקביל קרבני מני ברעוא קרבנך מינך לא‬16‫עובדיי טבין מן דידך‬ ‫אתקביל ברעוא‬ ‫ אגר‬17‫ענה קין ואמר להבל לית דין ולית דיין ולית עולם חורן לית מתן‬ ‫טב לצדיקיא ולית מתפרעה מן רשיעיא‬ ‫עני הבל ואמר לקין אית דין ואית דיין ואית עלם אוחרן ואית מתן אגר‬ 18 ‫טב לצדיקיא ואית מתפרעה מן רשעיא לעלמא דאתי‬ Cain reacted and said to Abel: “I understand that the world has not been created by compassions and that it is not being conducted depending on the fruits of good deeds; there is acceptance of faces in the judgement, by which your sacrifice is accepted by His pleasure and my sacrifice is not accepted by His pleasure.” Abel reacted and said to Cain: “I understand that by compassions the world was created and that depending on the fruits of my deeds, which are better than yours, my sacrifice of mine is accepted by His pleasure; your sacrifice of yours is not accepted by His pleasure.”

Pael ptc. pass. (cf. D. M. Golomb, A Grammar of Targum Neofiti [Chico: Scholars, 1985], 131). 16 This “independent possessive pronoun” is typical for Tg. Neof. (see Golomb, Grammar of Targum Neofiti, 24, for morphology). 17 Peal inf., ‫( נתן‬Golomb, Grammar of Targum Neofiti, 144). 18 Nota relationis + Peal ptc., ‫אתא‬. 15

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Cain reacted and said to Abel: “There is no judgement and there is no judge and there is no later world, no giving of recompense for the just ones and no retribution for the wicked ones.” Abel reacted and said to Cain: “There is judgement and there is a judge and there is a later world and there is giving of recompense for the just ones and there is retribution for the wicked ones for the coming world.”

This whole dialogue is the “translation” of the Masoretic text (and is followed by the murder itself). It presents an interesting summary of Targum theology (even though Tg. Neof.19 is not one of the major Targums): a combination of grace and recompense for good works,20 of creation and salvation,21 and, last but not least, “Good works are to be done, but the glory is to be given to God.”22 Cain presents the Sadducean position by denying a coming judgement (cf. Acts 23:8). This makes sense only if this verse has its origin at a time when Sadducees were still active: pre-70 AD.23 4. Targum

The Targum is the Aramaic translation of the Old Testament. For the Pentateuch different versions exist. Targum Onqelos and Targum Neofiti (both Pentateuch) are written “aus einem Guß”; Targum Jonathan (Prophets) shows differences for different prophets, but nevertheless can be considered as a unity; the origins of the Targums of the Writings are more differentiated.

Which can be dated in the first century AD (Etan Levine, The Aramaic Version of the Bible. Contents and Context, BZAW 174 [Berlin: De Gruyter, 1988], 88–91: before AD 79), although it is generally not dated so early. 20 Martin McNamara, “Some Targum Themes,” in Justification and Variegated Nomism I: The Complexities of Second Temple Judaism, ed. D. A. Carson et al., WUNT 2/140 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), 333. 21 Giovanni Odasso, “Le Scritture nei Targumim,” in L’Uso delle Scritture nel I e II sec. d.C., ed. Antonio Pitta (Bologna: Dehoniane, 2007), 93. 22 McNamara, “Some Targum Themes,” 336. 23 Josep Ribera-Florit, “Le Targum,” in L’enfance de la Bible hébraïque: L’histoire du texte de l’Ancien Testament à la lumière des recherches récentes, ed. Adrian Schenker and Philippe Hugo, Le Monde de la Bible (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2005), 231. 19

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The traditions contained in Targum Onqelos,24 Targum Neofiti25 and Targum Jonathan26 can be situated in the first centuries BC and AD. Although Targums clearly reached their final phase in the rabbinic period, its theology is not rabbinic.27 In other words, the theology of the Targum can be studied as a witness to doing theology during the Intertestamental Period. 5. Rabbinic Judaism

Rabbinic Judaism is based on Pharisaic theology, but not without some important developments in the status of the Torah: its central function was indeed already long-standing, but belief that the Torah is pre-existent and that the Oral Torah was given on Sinai too (and is thus of the same value as the written Torah) is typically rabbinic.28 These texts are clearly dated after the Intertestamental Period. M. Z. Kaddari, “Research in Onqelos Today,” in Bible and Jewish History: Studies in Bible and Jewish History Dedicated to the Memory of Jacob Liver, ed. Benjamin Uffenheimer (Tel Aviv: UP, 1971), XXXII: in the days of the Second Temple; McNamara, “Some Targum Themes,” 304. 25 L. Díez Merino, “Philological Aspects in the Research of the Targum,” in Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies: Panel Sessions. Bible Studies and Ancient Near East, ed. M. Goshen-Gottstein (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1988), 92: before AD 135, Galilea; Levine, Aramaic Version, 88– 91: anti-Sadducean, therefore before AD 79. 26 R. P. Gordon, “The Targumists as Eschatologists,” in Congress Volume Göttingen 1977, ed. John Emerton, VTSup 29 (Leiden: Brill, 1978), 113: late intertestamental period?; Uwe Glessmer, “Die ‘vier Reiche’ in der targumischen Literatur,” in The Book of Daniel: Composition and Reception, vol. 2, ed. John J. Collins and Peter W. Flint, VTSup 83.2 (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 475: “eine Vorgeschichte bis in die Anfangszeit römischer Fremdherrschaft auf”; Leivy Smolar and Moses Aberbach, Studies in Targum Jonathan to the Prophets, Library of Biblical Studies (New York: Ktav, 1983), 1; McNamara, “Some Targum Themes,” 306. 27 Tg. does not introduce Rabbinic theology in Ps 62:12; although it would be so easy to mention the Rabbinic two Torahs, according to Tg. Ps 62:12 there is only one Torah (Moshe J. Bernstein, “Torah and Its Study in the Targum of Psalms,” in Ḥazon Naḥum, ed. Yaakov Elman and Jeffrey S. Gurock [Hoboken: Yeshiva University Press, 1997], 50–51). 28 Gabriele Boccaccini, “Esiste una letteratura farisaica del secondo tempio?,” in Fariseismo e origini cristiane, ed. R. Penna (Bologna: Dehoniane, 1999), 24. 24

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6. Hellenists?

While the situation of Judaism in Egypt was different from that in Judea, we should not exaggerate the differences: Egyptian Jews regularly travelled to Jerusalem,29 Jews in Judea read Greek sufficiently to be able to follow developments in Egypt,30 translations into Greek existed31 and apocryphal literature has a mixed character.32 Without denying that literature from Egypt was influenced by the surrounding society,33 we should consider differences between the listed theological schools as more significant than apparent differences between Palestinian and Hellenistic Judaism.34 Explicitly philosophical texts (Philo of Alexandria) are not treated in this essay.35

R. T. Beckwith, Calendar and Chronology, Jewish and Christian: Biblical, Intertestamental and Patristic Studies, AJSU 33 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 168. 30 Cf. Martin Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in their Encounter in Palestine during the Early Hellenistic Period, trans. J. Bowden (London: SCM, 1974), 252: “even Palestinian Judaism must be regarded as Hellenistic Judaism” [italics original]; Beckwith, Calendar and Chronology, 13, 169. 31 Beckwith, Calendar and Chronology, 13. Moreover, Hebrew and Aramaic were also known in the Diaspora: M. Smith, “Pseudepigraphy in the Israelite Literary Tradition,” in Pseudepigrapha I: Pseudopythagorica – Lettres de Platon – Littérature pseudépigraphique juive, ed. K. von Fritz (Geneva: Fondation Hardt, 1972), 191. Cf. Béda Rigaux, L’Antéchrist et l’Opposition au Royaume Messianique dans l’Ancien et le Nouveau Testament (Gembloux: Duculot, 1932), 190: “les idées des Juifs de la terre sainte étaient partagées par leurs congénères de la Diaspora”; p. 192: “L’espérance messianique de la Diaspora ne diffère guère de celle des Palestiniens.” 32 Smith, “Pseudepigraphy,” 192; Beckwith, Calendar and Chronology, 13, 169. 33 This must of course be differentiated from Hellenistic tendencies in the times of Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the Hasmoneans. 34 James H. Charlesworth, “Jesus Research and Archaeology: A New Perspective,” in Jesus and Archaeology, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 18, would prefer the term Diasporic Judaism instead of Hellenistic Judaism. Within the schools we must reckon with chronological developments; genres are less important. 35 See David M. Hay, “Philo of Alexandria,” in Justification and Variegated Nomism, 364–366. 29

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II. THEOLOGY PROPER

After having sketched the Intertestamental Period and its theological currents, we shall now describe their respective doctrines of God. A. God Is Unique

Monotheism is absolute, without discussion or even treatment de existentia Dei. Sirach 36:4 Καὶ ἐπιγνώτωσάν σε, καθάπερ καὶ ἡµεῖς ἐπέγνωµεν ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν θεὸς πλὴν σοῦ, Κύριε. And that they may know36 You, just as we know that there is no God besides You.

Even though this pre-Pharisaic Hasid37 prayer from sometime between 200 and 18038 is directed against the Seleucids,39 it generally expresses in a quite classical way God’s uniqueness. Songs of David - CšD col. IV 12 ‫תתיחד מלכי מפי כל משרתך‬ You will be confessed as the Only One, O my King, from the mouth of all who serve You.

I opt for this general translation, which leaves more interpretations open than e.g. “acknowledge”. 37 Ellis Rivkin, “Who Were the Pharisees?,” in Judaism in Late Antiquity Judaism in Late Antiquity. Vol. 2. Part 3. Section 3, ed. Jacob Neusner, Alan J. Avery-Peck and Bruce Chilton (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 22–23; R. T. Beckwith, “Pre-History,” 4 n. 1. 38 F. V. Reiterer, “Risks and Opportunities of Wealth and Poverty in Ben Sira’s Wisdom,” BN 156 (2010): 56. 39 Patrick W. Skehan and Alexander A. Di Lella, The Wisdom of Ben Sira (New York: Doubleday, 1987), 421. 36

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This is the most explicit text (when translated correctly40). It is a very late text from Qumran (AD 6041). Can it be considered as antiTrinitarian or at least as against the idea that Jesus is God? Targum Jonathan - 2 Samuel 22:3242 ‫ֵלית ְאָלה ֵאָלא יוי ְא ֵרי ֵלית ָבר ִמ ָנך‬ “There is no god if not the Lord”, for there is no one besides You.

The Hebrew text has “For who is God, but the Lord?” The question has been turned into a statement (in order to avoid the wrong answer) and has been extended. The result reminds us of the basic Islamic confession, which is also monotheistic in an absolute sense,43 but this must not lead us to date the Targum after the start of Islam. We meet the same text in Tg. 1 Samuel 2:2 (but there not as the replacement of a question) and its parallel Tg. Psalm 18:32. The part ‫ לית בר מנך‬can also be found in Tg. Exodus 15:11 and Tg. Micah 7:18, also in replacement of a question in the Masoretic text.44

See M. Philonenko and A. Marx, “Quatre ‘chants’ pseudo-davidiques trouvés dans la gueniza du Caire et d’origine esséno-qoumrânienne,” RHPR 77, no. 4 (1997), 388; cf. Lorein and Van Staalduine-Sulman, “CšD II,4 – IV,9,” 402 n. 129. 41 Geert W. Lorein and E. van Staalduine-Sulman, “Songs of David: A New Translation and Introduction,” in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures I, ed. Richard Bauckham et al. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 259–262. 42 See also Geert W. Lorein, “The Relationship of Believers to Society: Different Approaches in the Earliest Interpretations of the Old Testament,” EuroJTh 30, no. 2 (2021): 263–264. 43 See further Van Staalduine-Sulman, Targum of Samuel, 122–123, 634– 639, and Thierry Legrand, “Le Dieu unique et sans limites dans les traditions targumiques,” in Le monothéisme biblique: Évolution, contexte et perspectives, ed. E. Bons and T. Legrand, LD 244 (Paris: Cerf, 2011), 333– 335. 44 The words occur also as a plain translation of MT (Tg. 1 Kgs 8:23; Tg. Jer 10:6-7). It is strange that the form of a question was maintained in Tg. Isa 44:8. 40

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B. God Is Almighty (Omnipotentia) Genesis Apocryphon - 1QapGen ar col. XX 12-13

This early text (175 BC45), kept in the library of the Qumran community, can be considered “Essene”. ‫ לכול ׀ עלמים די אנתה מרה ושליט על‬46‫בריך אנתה אל עליון מרי‬ 47 ‫כולא ובכול מלכי ארעא אנתה שליט‬ May You be praised,48 O God Most High, my Lord, for all | eternities, for You are Lord and Ruler over everything, and for all the kings of the earth You are Ruler.

2 Maccabees 8:18 Οἱ µὲν γὰρ ὅπλοις πεποίθασιν ἅµα καὶ τόλµαις, ἔφησεν, ἡµεῖς δὲ ἐπὶ τῷ παντοκράτορι θεῷ, δυναµένῳ καὶ τοὺς ἐρχοµένους ἐφ’ ἡµᾶς καὶ τὸν ὅλον κόσµον ἑνὶ νεύµατι καταβαλεῖν, πεποίθαµεν. Some trust in weapons together with audacious acts – he said –, but we trust in the all-reigning God, who is able to throw down those who come to us as well as the whole world with one nod.

2 Maccabees, a Pharisaic text, must be dated before 1 Maccabees, in 124 BC.49 In this verse, Judas Maccabaeus is speaking to the For an overview of the problem of the date (closely linked to the dating of Jub. and Dan), see Moshe J. Bernstein, “The Genesis Apocryphon: Compositional and Interpretive Perspectives,” in A Companion to Biblical Interpretation in Early Judaism, ed. Matthias Henze (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 165. 46 We find this form also as Qere in the Aramaic of Dan 4:16, 21 (Ursula Schattner-Rieser, L’araméen des manuscrits de la mer Morte I: Grammaire [Lausanne: Zèbre, 2004], 38). 47 T. Muraoka, A Grammar of Qumran Aramaic (Leuven: Peeters, 2011), 212 (§74ca), considers the words that follow (‫ )למעבד בכולהון דין‬as a necessary sequel and translates: “you are empowered to execute justice vis-à-vis all the kings of the earth, all of them”. On his pp. 224–225 (§74v) he is more in line with our translation, considering the last three words as epexegetical. 48 As the participle is placed in front, this sentence must be translated as a wish. 49 Jochen Gabriel Bunge, “Untersuchungen zum zweiten Makkabäerbuch: Quellenkritische, literarische, chronologische und historische Unter45

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Maccabeans about Nicanor and describes God with the term Pantocrator. The author states that God is sovereign and omnipotent, and not Antiochus IV Epiphanes (or Judas Maccabeus!).50 He can intervene in a miraculous way.51 1 Maccabees 3:58, 60 Καὶ εἶπεν Ιουδας· Περιζώσασθε καὶ γίνεσθε εἰς υἱοὺς δυνατοὺς καὶ γίνεσθε ἕτοιµοι εἰς πρωὶ τοῦ πολεµῆσαι ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν τούτοις τοῖς ἐπισυνηγµένοις ἐφ’ ἡµᾶς ἐξᾶραι ἡµᾶς καὶ τὰ ἅγια ἡµῶν. | ῾Ως δ’ ἂν ᾖ θέληµα ἐν οὐρανῷ, οὕτως ποιήσει. And Judas said: “Gird yourselves and be mighty sons and be ready to fight in the morning against these gentiles who are trooped together against us in order to take us away as well as our holy things. | As may be the will in heaven, so He will do.”

In the same situation, the Sadducean author of 1 Maccabees52 knows that God’s will will be done (even though He is not mentioned53), but man must do his utmost, and the author stresses the group’s valiance. Miracles are not mentioned.54 This puts a specific accent on God’s omnipotence in this Sadducean text.

suchungen zum zweiten Makkabäerbuch als Quelle syrisch-palästinensischer Geschichte im 2. Jh. v. Chr.” (PhD diss., University of Bonn, 1971), 615–16. 50 Barbara Schmitz, “Antiochus Epiphanes und der epiphane Gott: Gefühle, Emotionen und Affekte im Zweiten Makkabäerbuch,” in Visions of Peace and Tales of War, ed. Jan Liesen and Pancratius C. Beentjes, Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2010 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012), 270–274. She refers to the Persian royal titles. 51 David A. deSilva, Introducing the Apocrypha: Message, Context, and Significance, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018), 299. 52 Roland Deines, “The Pharisees between ‘Judaisms’ and ‘Common Judaism’,” in Justification and Variegated Nomism, 479; Jean Le Moyne, Les Sadducéens, EBib (Paris: Gabalda, 1972), 73–75. 53 See at 1 Maccabees 3:18. 54 J. T. Nelis, I Makkabeeën, De Boeken van het Oude Testament 6:1a (Roermond: J. J. Romen & Zonen, 1972), 33; Le Moyne, Sadducéens, 75. See also 1 Macc 4:10, 18, 31–33; 9:10, 46.

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Targum Onqelos - Exodus 15:18 ‫ ְלָﬠְלָמא וּלָﬠְלֵמי ָﬠְלַמָיא׃‬55‫יוי ַמלכוֵּתיה ָקֵאים‬ The Lord’s reign is standing for eternity and for the eternities of eternities.

The Targum avoids the interpretation of the imperfect verb of the Hebrew as only regarding the future, although its never ending character, already underlined in the Masoretic Text, is more heavily emphasized.56 C. God is Omniscient (Omniscientia) 1 Enoch 9:11 (Watchers) καὶ σὺ πάντα οἶδας πρὸ τοῦ αὐτὰ γενέσθαι And You know all things before they happen.

This verse has been conserved in Greek. As the Greek version is much older than the Ethiopic one, we can safely use it of course on the condition that it exists – it is only in Ethiopic that 1 Enoch is complete.57 It is difficult to call this early text (third century 58 BC ) “Essene,” but it clearly fits in that school. Sirach 15:18-19 Ὅτι πολλὴ ἡ σοφία τοῦ Κυρίου· ἰσχυρὸς ἐν δυναστείᾳ καὶ βλέπων τὰ πάντα, | καὶ οἱ ὀφθαλµοὶ αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τοὺς φοβουµένους αὐτόν, καὶ αὐτὸς ἐπιγνώσεται πᾶν ἔργον ἀνθρώπου.

According to the Rabbinic Bibles; v. app.crit. Sperber, Bible in Aramaic, ad loc. 56 Cf. Obad 21, where it is taught that only the revelation of God’s kingship is scheduled for the future, because His kingship as such is permanent. See Geert W. Lorein, “‫ מלכותא‬in the Targum of the Prophets,” Aramaic Studies 3, no. 1 (2005): 20. 57 See Albert-Marie Denis, Introduction aux pseudépigraphes grecs d’Ancien Testament, SVTP 1 (Leiden: Brill, 1970), 15-27. It must be said also that there are few people whose Ethiopic is better than their Greek. 58 T. C. Vriezen and A. S. van der Woude, Oudisraëlitische en vroegjoodse literatuur, 10th ed. (Kampen: Kok, 2000), 467. 55

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For great is the wisdom of the Lord; (He is) strong in domination and seeing all things, | and his eyes are on those who fear Him, and He will discover every action of a human being.

The Lord (in Greek, it is clear that the adjective and the participle are not describing his wisdom—and even then, it would amount to the same) sees and knows everything, and all this with a positive connotation, at least for those who fear Him. Joshua Apocryphon - 4QapJoshb (4Q379) fr. 22 col. i 6 ‫אלדעות‬ Knowledgegod

In this text from the first half of the second century BC,59 God and knowing are put together in one single word, completely exceptional in Hebrew. 1 Baruch 3:32a ᾽Αλλὰ ὁ εἰδὼς τὰ πάντα γινώσκει αὐτήν, ἐξεῦρεν αὐτὴν τῇ συνέσει αὐτοῦ. But He who knows everything knows her, He displayed her with his understanding.

The exact relationship between God and wisdom is not clear for this Sadducean author from the year 163 BC.60 The problem is not new: see already Job 28:27,61 even though that text would not

F. García Martínez and A. S. van der Woude, eds., De Rollen van de Dode Zee ingeleid en in het Nederlands vertaald II: Liturgische teksten, Eschatologische teksten, Exegetische literatuur, Parabijbelse literatuur en overige geschriften (Kampen: Kok, 1995), 420; cf. Hanan Eshel, “The Historical Background of the Pesher Interpreting Joshua’s Curse on the Rebuilder of Jericho,” RevQ 15, no. 3 (1991), 411: 4Q379 is not an autograph. 60 Boccaccini, “Esiste,” 28; Vriezen and Van der Woude, Oudisraëlitische en vroegjoodse literatuur, 424. 61 Jules-Marcel Nicole, Le livre de Job 2, Commentaire évangélique de la Bible 7 (Vaux-sur-Seine: Edifac, 1987), 99, translates ‫ ַוְיַסְפּ ָרהּ‬by “Il la manifesta”. 59

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have had much authority for a Sadducee. Regardless, his view as stated here is that God knows everything. Targum Neofiti - Genesis 3:9 ‫הא כל עלמא דברית גלי קדמי חשוכה ונהורה גלי קדמי ואת חשב‬ ‫דלא גלי קדמי אתר דאת בגויה‬ Ha, the whole world that I have created is revealed before Me, the darkness and the light is revealed before Me, and you are thinking that the place where you are is not revealed before Me?!

The question “Where art thou” of the Masoretic text has been avoided: God does not need to ask, He is omniscient.62 Targum Jonathan - Hosea 8:4 ‫ַרִביאוּ ְוָלא ֵמי ְרעוִּתי‬ They have made great, but not from My pleasure.

The Targum felt the need to avoid the risk that God’s omniscience would be doubted by a literal translating of the Hebrew ‫ֵהִשׂירוּ ְול ֹא‬ ‫“( ָי ָדְﬠִתי‬They set up princes, but I did not know it”). It has also been retouched by the NIV as “they choose princes without my approval.” D. God is Trustworthy Psalms of Solomon 17:10 Πιστὸς ὁ Κύριος ἐν πᾶσι τοῖς κρίµασιν αὐτοῦ, οἷς63 ποιεῖ ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν. The Lord is trustworthy in all his judgements which He makes on the earth.

See further Legrand, “Dieu unique et sans limites,” 326–327, and Odasso, “Scritture nei Targumim,” 94–95. 63 Indicating the object; in the dative due to attraction by the antecedent (Friedrich Blass and Albert Debrunner, Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, 16th ed. [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984], §294). 62

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This Psalm of Solomon can be dated around the year 61 BC, as an expression of a down-to-earth Pharisaism.64 This verse is plainly expressing the theme of God’s trustworthiness. Songs of David - CD col. IV 23 ‫כול פועלך תמים יחד ועול בל ימצא במעשך‬ All Your work has only one purpose and evil is not found in what You do.

This ἁπλότης (“simplicity”, in the sense of “not being double hearted”) is also found in other schools of Judaism, but that does not preclude its importance for the Qumran community. Targum Neofiti - Numbers 23:19b ‫בני אנשא אמרין ולא עבדין גזרין ולא מקיימין וחזרין וכפרין במיליהון‬ ‫ברם אלהה אמר ועבד גזר ומקיים ופתגמי נבואתה קיימין לעלם׃‬ Children of men are saying and not doing, are promising and not fulfilling, they are renouncing and denying; but God is saying and doing, is promising and fulfilling, and the words of the prophecy are standing for eternity.

The question of the second half of the verse is restructured into a comparison between men and God, in order to remove any doubt. Odasso calls this verse a splendid summary of biblical faith in God.65 Targum Jonathan - 2 Samuel 7:28 ‫ְוִפָת ָגָמך ִאנוּן ְקשוֹט‬ Thy words are true.

We see only minimal change from the MT’s ‫ִיְהיוּ‬, which could be considered as regarding the future, into a personal pronoun, which only can be read as present (and permanent). Nevertheless,

Geert W. Lorein, The Antichrist Theme in the Intertestamental Period, JSPSup 44 (London: T & T Clark, 2003), 89–90. 65 Odasso, “Scritture nei Targumim,” 103 (“una sintesi stupenda della fede in YHWH testimoniata dalla Scrittura”). 64

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this change serves to highlight the trustworthy nature of God’s Word).66 E. God Is Righteous Words of the Luminaries - 4QdibHamme’orot (4Q504) col. XVII (olim frr. 1-2 col. VI) 367 ‫לכה אתה אדוני הצדקה‬ Yours, O Lord, is the righteousness.

We know the Words of the Luminaries, a pre-Essene text from around 175 BC68 from the Qumran library. While semantically this text clearly makes the point in question in this paragraph on God’s righteousness, its grammar is a little more complicated. It is not necessary to repeat the pronoun in translation,69 because it is normal use to have here a personal pronoun between the suffix and the apposition.70 1 Baruch 2:6 Τῷ Κυρίῳ θεῷ ἡµῶν ἡ δικαιοσύνη, ἡµῖν δὲ καὶ τοῖς πατράσιν ἡµῶν ἡ αἰσχύνη τῶν προσώπων ὡς ἠ ἠµέρα αὕτη. To the Lord our God belongs righteousness, but to us and our fathers open shame, as it is today.

Van Staalduine-Sulman, Targum of Samuel, 533. In prayers we find regularly the acknowledgement of God’s righteousness: Eileen Schuller, “Petitionary Prayer and the Religion of Qumran,” Religion in the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. John J. Collins and Robert A. Kugler, Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 38. 68 Geert W. Lorein, “The Holy Spirit at Qumran,” in Presence, Power and Promise: The Role of the Spirit of God in the Old Testament, ed. David G. Firth and Paul D. Wegner (Nottingham: Apollos, 2011), 373 n. 10. 69 As with García Martínez and Tigchelaar, Dead Sea Scrolls, ad loc.: “To You, to You, Lord, belongs the justice”. 70 Paul Joüon, Grammaire de l’hébreu biblique (Rome: Institut Biblique Pontifical, 1923), §146d7, pace T. Muraoka, Emphatic Words and Structures in Biblical Hebrew (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1985), 62. 66 67

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The community in exile acknowledges that God is righteous by bringing exile to Israel.71 This verse is parallel to Daniel 9:7. Psalms of Solomon 2:18 Ὁ θεὸς κριτὴς δίκαιος καὶ οὐ θαυµάσει πρόσωπον. God is a righteous judge and He will not regard the person.

This Psalm can be dated to 47 BC.72 The expression “He will not regard the person” refers to the expression found in Deuteronomy 10:17.73 The imperfect of the Hebrew original (‫;ִיָשּׂא ָפִנים‬ indicating general attitude) might have influenced the Greek future; 74 on the other hand, the combination of θαυµάζειν and πρόσωπον points to direct contact with the Septuagint. Anyhow, the expression means “to be impartial.” Targum Onqelos - Genesis 18:25b ‫קוּשָטא ִאינוּן ִדי ָנך ַדָיין כֹל ארעא ְב ַרם ַיְﬠֵביד ִדי ָנא‬ Truth are Your judgements, the Judge of the whole earth will surely do justice.

The Targum avoids the rebuke (“Far be that from You”) and questioning (“Will the Judge of the whole earth not do what is just?”) of the Masoretic text and just confirms God’s righteousness. Muñoz León wonders whether the Targum’s attention for this topic has its origin in a reaction to Marcion.75 If we take the DeSilva, Introducing the Apocrypha, 212, 222, 246. J. Viteau, Les Psaumes de Salomon: Introduction, texte grec et traduction (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1911), 38–39. 73 This relation makes the translation “will not stare at a false mask” (thus Robert B. Wright, Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Edition of the Greek Text [London: T & T Clark, 2007], 65) idiosyncratic. 74 G. Buchanan Gray, “The Psalms of Solomon,” in The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English 2: Pseudepigrapha, ed. R. H. Charles (Oxford: Clarendon, 1913), 633. 75 Domingo Muñoz León, Derás. Los caminos y sentidos de la palabra divina en la Escritura I: Derás targúmico y Derás neotestamentario, Bibliotheca Hispana Biblica 12 (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1987), 147. 71 72

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literature of the Qumran community into account, this hypothesis is not necessary. F. God Is Merciful Sirach 18:13 Ἔλεος ἀνθρώπου ἐπὶ τὸν πλησίον αὐτοῦ, ἔλεος δὲ Κυρίου ἐπὶ πᾶσαν σάρκα, ἐλέγχων καὶ παιδεύων καὶ διδάσκων καὶ ἐπιστρέφων ὡς ποιµὴν τὸ ποίµνιον αὐτοῦ. Human mercy goes to one’s neighbour, but the Lord’s mercy goes to all beings, correcting and training and teaching and bringing back as a shepherd his flock.

God’s mercy is much larger than human mercy. His universal and unlimited mercy takes the form of disciplining, which makes it possible to remove the distance between God’s greatness and the human condition.76 Rule of the Community - 1QS col. II 1 ‫ורחמי חסדו גמל עלינו מעולם ועד עולם‬ His merciful compassions He has bestowed on us from eternity and until eternity.

In this text from 105 BC,77 the first plural refers exclusively to those who have sinned, but have been enlightened in order to join the ‫יחד‬, recognising the typical Qumran interpretation of the Bible together with its ritual laws.78 The expression ‫מעולם ועד עולם‬ might be considered as a reaction against the Sadducees, avoiding the idea that only ‫ ַהעוָֹלם ַה ֶזּח‬would matter. Van der Woude refers Nuria Calduch-Benages, “‘A Human Being Has Pity on His Neighbor, the Lord on Every Living Being’ (Sir 18:13ab): Mercy in the Book of Ben Sira,” in Theology and Anthropology in the Book of Sirach, ed. Bonifatia Gesche et al., SCS 73 (Atlanta: SBL, 2020), 93. 77 F. García Martínez and A. S. van der Woude, eds. De Rollen van de Dode Zee ingeleid en in het Nederlands vertaald I: Wetsliteratuur en Orderegels, Poëtische teksten (Kampen: Kok, 1994), 120. 78 Mark Adam Elliott, The Survivors of Israel: A Reconsideration of the Theology of Pre-Christian Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 182– 183. 76

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to Isaiah 63:7,79 where we find indeed the same vocabulary; nevertheless, it is not a direct quotation. Targum Neofiti - Genesis 1:2 ‫רוח דרחמין מן קדם ייי הוה מנשבא על אפי מיא׃‬ The spirit of compassions from before the Lord began80 to blow over the surface of the water.

It is important not only to realise that God is merciful, but Targum Neofiti stresses that this mercy existed from the beginning as God’s s/Spirit was active (‫)רוּ ַח ֱאֹלִהים ְמ ַרֶחֶפת ַﬠל־ְפֵּני ַהָמִּים‬.81 Targum Jonathan - Isaiah 63:16 ‫ְא ֵרי ַאת הוּא ְד ַרחָמך ְﬠַל ָנא ַס ִגיִאין ֵמָאב ַﬠל ְב ִנין‬ for You are the one Whose compassions over us are more numerous than from a father over his children

Although God’s fatherhood occurs often in the Targum,82 the expression “for You are our Father” is explained here with reference to His compassions.

III. DISTANCE BETWEEN GOD AND MAN

After our overview of the doctrine of God, we shall study a specific aspect, i.e. the distance felt between God and man. García Martínez and Van der Woude, Rollen van de Dode Zee 1, 189. Golomb, Grammar of Targum Neofiti, 190: “‘began to blow’ […] ingressive, durative […] the ‘spirit of love’ had indeed begun its motion and was continuing to move”. 81 See Levine, Aramaic Version, 87. 82 See below Tg. Neof. Num 20:21. For God’s fatherhood in Tg., see Martin McNamara, Targum and Testament. Aramaic Paraphrases of the Hebrew Bible: A Light on the New Testament (Shannon: Irish UP, 1972), 115–119; Alberdina Houtman, “The Role of Abraham in Targum Isaiah,” Aramaic Studies 3, no. 1 (2005), 13; Robert Hayward, “God as Father in The Pentateuchal Targumim,” in The Divine Father: Religious and Philosophical Concepts of Divine Parenthood in Antiquity, ed. Felix Albrecht and Reinhard Feldmeier, TBN 18 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 137–164. Of course, Tg. has this idea where the MT has it (Deut 32:6), but introduces it also where this is not the case. 79 80

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A. Distance Acknowledged Rule of the Community - 1QS col. XI 9-10 ‫ואני לאדם רשעה ולסוד בשר עול עוונותי פשעי חטאתי … עם נעוות‬ ‫לבבי ׀ לסוד רמה והולכי חושך‬ And I belong to wicked mankind and to the assembly of evil flesh; my iniquities, my transgressions, my sins … with the depravities of my heart | belong to the assembly of worms and of those who walk in darkness.

Through the comparison with worms, the distance has been visualised and so God’s grace is pointed out.83 B. Distance Created

When distance is felt, it must also be expressed: “le sentiment profond de la transcendance divine … et la sainteté appelle la séparation.”84 Different devices are used to reach this goal. Deep awareness of God’s holiness is indeed the bottom line of much presented in this essay. Especially avoidance of the use of God’s Name, an elaboration of the commandment not to take it in vain (Exod 20:7), is also “marquant … la distance.”85 1. Tetragrammaton

God’s Name is not used as if it were a common word. At Qumran, the Tetragrammaton is written in paleo-Hebrew script (e.g. 1QpHab col. VI 14) or represented by four dots (1QS col. VIII 14);86 the Targum replaces it.

Cf. Gerhard Maier, Mensch und freier Wille, WUNT 12 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1971), 171–172. 84 C. Perrot, “La pensée juive au temps de Jésus,” in Au seuil de l’ère chrétienne, ed. A. George and P. Grelot (Paris: Desclée, 1976), 190. 85 Legrand, “Dieu unique et sans limites,” 317; see also Levine, Aramaic Version, 57. 86 When we find the Tetragrammaton in a text, this is an argument to situate this text before the start of the Qumran community (e.g. PseudoEzekiel, 4Q385-386). 83

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2. Anthropomorphisms

Avoidance of anthropomorphisms is typical for the Targum; at some places, however, they are introduced where the Old Testament does not present one. Probably in such cases they form a sort of buffer.87 While the distance is underlined, it is not said that contact between God and man is impossible: “nor do they in any way imply that the God of the targumists was a God out of reach. They are designed to protect the invisibility, the incorporeality and the spirituality of God.”88 The same device occurs already at Qumran, in earlier as well as in later texts. Temple Scroll - 11QT (11Q19) col. LIII 14-15 (olim 7-8) ‫ועשיתה הישר והטוב ׀ לפני אני יהוה אלוהיכה‬ And you shall do the right and the good | before the face of Me, the Lord your God. 89

In this text, written in 140 BC,90 the “eyes” of Deuteronomy 12:28 (‫ )ְבֵﬠיֵני יהוה ֱאֹלֶהיָך‬have disappeared;91 the face has been introduced instead. This is a good example of the Targum’s inconsistency with anthropomorphisms. E.g. in Tg. Reuchlin Zech 14:4 (“The LORD will take the large trumpet in His hand”). This implies that it is not as easy as suggested by McNamara, “Some Targum Themes,” 349 (“accepted by all”). 88 McNamara, “Some Targum Themes,” 350. See further Levine, Aramaic Version, 48 (not avoiding systematically), 55–58 (p. 55: “not a philosophical commitment to an incorporeal God … a concern for reverence whenever the name of deity or anything associated with the divine is involved”; p. 57: elimination of anthropomorphisms not a main goal of Tg). See Legrand, “Dieu unique et sans limites,” 328–332, for examples. 89 ‫ ועשיתה‬interpreted as perf.cons. after ‫( ייטב‬l. 14). 90 The palaeographical dating of 4Q524 (4QT; 150-125 BC; DJD XXV 86– 88) has confirmed the redactional dating of Geza Vermes, “Jewish Literature Composed in Hebrew or Aramaic,” in The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C.–A.D. 135) III, by Emil Schürer, ed. Geza Vermes et al., 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1986–1987), 406–407, 416–417, and A. S. van der Woude, “Fünfzehn Jahre Qumranforschung (1974–1988),” TRu 54, no. 3 (1989), 232–233, 244, 246; this implies that 4Q524 might be the autograph. 91 Moreover, “the right” and “the good” are inverted. 87

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3. Passive voice 1 Maccabees 5:62 Αὐτοὶ δὲ οὐκ ἦσαν ἐκ τοῦ σπέρµατος τῶν ἀνδρῶν ἐκείνων, οἷς ἐδόθη σωτηρία Ισραηλ διὰ χειρὸς αὐτῶν. They were not from the seed of those men, to whom the deliverance through their hand of Israel had been given.

This verse comments on the action of some men who tried to lead an expedition without the consent of the Maccabees and were consequently defeated, as an example of the pro-Hasmonean bias of 1 Maccabees.92 The reader understands that God had (not) given this grace, but the author avoids God’s name by using a passive construction without an acting subject. Targum Jonathan - Micah 4:6 ‫וּדִאתְבָאש ְלהוֹן ִמן ֳק ָדם חוֵֹבי ַﬠִמי‬ Those towards whom was acted badly on account of the debts of My people

In two ways the idea that God would act unrighteously is avoided: in the first place, the active ‫עִתי‬ ֹ ‫ ֲה ֵר‬has been replaced by a passive form; in the second place, the reason that God acted this way has been added: because of their sins. 4. Addition and Substitution

Two other forms must be mentioned: addition and substitution. We must not speak here of hypostasis,93 but of “reverent circumlocutions for the Lord.”94 Benedikt Eckhardt, “The Hasmoneans and their Rivals in Seleucid and Post-Seleucid Judea,” JSJ 47, no. 1 (2016), 56. 93 A property or activity of God to which a personal identity has been accorded; more than a poetical circumlocution. 94 Levine, Aramaic Version, 58. The phenomenon occurs often: cf. LXX Exod 24:10: “it is no longer possible to see God, but only the place where God stood” (cf. Martin Rösel, “Translators as Interpreters: Scriptural Interpretation in the Septuagint,” in A Companion to Biblical Interpretation, 87). 92

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a. ‫ָשׁ ַמ ִי ם‬ 2 Maccabees 7:11 ᾽Εξ οὐρανοῦ ταῦτα κέκτηµαι καὶ διὰ τοὺς αὐτοῦ νόµους ὑπερορῶ ταῦτα. I received them [my hands] from Heaven and because of his laws I despise them.

One of the Maccabean martyrs confesses that he has received his body from God, but “God” is not mentioned: “Heaven” is used instead.95 It must be clear that this text is not simply speaking about God’s dwelling place, as the text goes on to refer to God’s laws.96 1 Maccabees 3:18 Οὐκ ἔστιν διαφορὰ ἐναντίον τοῦ οὐρανοῦ σῴζειν ἐν πολλοῖς ἢ ἐν ὀλίγοις. There is no difference for Heaven to deliver through many people or through few.

Judas Maccabaeus encourages his troops with an allusion to 1 Samuel 14:6. The divine name, evoked explicitly in that passage, is avoided through the circumlocution “heaven.” What happens regularly in 2 Maccabees is standard in 1 Maccabees: God’s name is not mentioned in this writing.97 Targum Neofiti - Numbers 20:21 ‫מן אבוהון דבשמיא דלא לסדרה לקבליהון סדרי‬

98

‫דהוון מפקדין‬ ‫קרבה׃‬

They had been commanded by their Father who is in heaven not to arrange in front of them arrangements of battle.

Cf. in Matt the expression “Kingdom of Heaven” instead of “Kingdom of God.” 96 Daniel R. Schwartz, 2 Maccabees (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008), 305. 97 Nelis, I Makkabeeën, 33. 98 Pael ptc. pass. 95

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The whole text quoted here is not a translation of the Hebrew text, but an explanation. Thus we do not have here a substitution, but the Targum nevertheless uses ‫ שמיא‬where the Masoretic text does not. b. ‫ְי ָק ר‬

This term is used in the context of theophanies.99 Indeed, it is used in contexts where God would be “seen”, but no one can “see” God and live.100 For the New Testament, we can refer to 2 Peter 1:17. 1 Enoch 14:20 (Watchers) καὶ ἡ δόξα ἡ µεγάλη ἐκάθητο ἐπ’ αὐτῷ· And the Great Glory sat on it.

This verse has also been conserved in Greek. In this description of God’s dwelling place, the “Great Glory” (God) is said to be sitting on the throne. Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs – T. Levi 3:4 Ὅτι ἐν τῷ ἀνωτέρῳ πάντων καταλύει ἡ µεγάλη δόξα ἐν ἁγίῳ ἁγίων, ὑπεράνω πάσης ἁγιότητος. For in the highest of all lodges the Great Glory in the holy of holies, far above all holiness.

The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs might easily be seen as a Christian text, but since we know that in Qumran such messianic expectations did exist, we can place the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs in the middle of the first century BC.101 This text speaks about God in the heavenly temple.

Muñoz León, Derás, 151. Levine, Aramaic Version, 59. 101 A. S. van der Woude, “Die messianischen Vorstellungen der Gemeinde von Qumrân” (PhD diss., University of Groningen, 1957), 190–216 (who, however, on p. 197, considers this verse as partly a Christian interpolation); Lorein, The Antichrist Theme, 107–110. 99

100

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Targum Onqelos - Genesis 28:13 ‫ ִﬠָלווִֹהי‬102‫ְוָהא ְיָק ָרא ַדיוי ְמַﬠַתד‬ And behold, the Glory of the Lord was placed at the top.

In this way the text avoids stating that God Himself is at the top of Jacob’s ladder. c. ‫ֵמ י ְמ ָר א‬

According to Dalman, the memra (Aramaic for “word”) represents “Gott (als in der Welt redend oder handelnd)”;103 this term is important for the interpretation of John 1:14. Smolar and Aberbach consider the image as “a sort of lightning conductor drawing away unseemly expressions from God.”104 Although the term is typical for the Targum, it occurs elsewhere too (e.g. Wisdom of Solomon 18:14–16). Targum Neofiti - Numbers 23:19a105 ‫לא כמימר בני אנשא מימריה דייי‬ Not as the word of children of man is the word of the Lord.

The term ‫ ֵמיְמ ָרא‬is completely parallel with a human property, which makes it clear that no personal identity has been accorded to it; in other words, that it is not a hypostasis. d. ‫ַה ֵשּׁ ם‬ Targum Jonathan - 2 Kings 5:17 ‫ָלא ַיְﬠֵביד עוֹד ַﬠב ָדך ְﬠָלא וּ ְדַבח ְלָטְﬠ ָות ַﬠְמַמָיא ְאָלֵהין ִלשָמא ַדיוי‬ Your servant will not anymore make a burnt offering or a sacrifice to the idols of the nations, but only to the Name of the Lord.

Pael ptc. pass. Gustaf H. Dalman, Aramäisch-neuhebräisches Handwörterbuch zu Targum, Talmud und Midrasch (Göttingen: Pfeiffer, 1938), s.v. 104 Smolar and Aberbach, Studies in Targum Jonathan, 131. 105 For another part of this verse, vide supra, D. God is Trustworthy. 102 103

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The Targum does not speak of “other gods” (thus MT), but explicitly of the “idols of the nations.” One might expect that after this substitution the Name of the true God can be used without further introduction, but this does not happen: “the Name” is inserted. e. ‫ְשׁ ִכ י ָנה‬

Another option for substitution is the use of ‫ְשִׁכיָנה‬. According to Dalman the Shekinah indicates “die irdische Gegenwart (das Wohnen) Gottes.”106 This idea is important to understand John 1:14. For McNamara, it indicates “[God’s] dwelling with his people on earth, his omnipresence.”107 This implies that, although God is transcendent, His will can really be known on earth. Targum Jonathan - Joshua 3:10 ‫ְאָלה ַקָיים ִאת ְרִﬠי ְלַאש ַָרָאה ְשִכי ְנֵתיה ֵבי ֵניכוֹן‬ The living God has chosen to make dwell His Shekinah in your midst.

Compared with the Masoretic text (“The living God is in your midst”) distance has been created and God’s sovereignty emphasized.108 f. ‫רוּ ַח‬ Liber antiquitatum biblicarum 9:10 Et spiritus Dei incidit in Mariam nocte, et vidit somnium. And in the night God’s spirit fell on Myriam and she saw a dream.

Dalman, Aramäisch-Neuhebräisches Handwörterbuch, s.v. McNamara, “Some Targum Themes,” 350. 108 D. J. Harrington and Anthony J. Saldarini, Targum Jonathan of the Former Prophets (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1987), 9. 106 107

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The Liber antiquitatum biblicarum (also known as Pseudo-Philo) was written shortly before AD 70, with a Pharisaic theology.109 It retells the history from Adam until Saul’s death, here the birth of Moses, with the non-biblical detail of a dream110 and introduces in this verse God’s spirit, in order to avoid the image of God falling on Myriam or in relation to the spirit of prophecy.111

IV. MEANS OF K NOWING GOD

After our introduction to the Intertestamental Period and the description of how God was conceived in intertestamental theology, we now consider the ways to arrive at knowing God. As my study about this specific subject has been published very recently,112 only a short summary follows here. A. Cognitio Dei insita

A first source for knowing God is the Cognitio Dei insita, the immediate awareness of God, without any reasoning. B. Scripture

A second source of knowledge is the Cognitio Dei acquisita, in practice the study of Scripture. A clear example can be found with the Qumran community, for whom reading and interpreting Scripture were central to its service. Most attention is given to the

C. Perrot, “La pensée théologique,” in Pseudo-Philon. Les antiquités bibliques II: Introduction littéraire, commentaire et index, SC 230 (Paris: Cerf, 1976), 39–64; P.-M. Bogaert, “La datation,” in o.c., 72. 110 A device oftener used in LAB (Howard Jacobson, “Biblical Interpretation in Pseudo-Philo’s Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum,” in Companion to Biblical Interpretation, 194. D. J. Harrington, “PseudoPhilo,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. James H. Charlesworth (New York: Doubleday, 1985), 316, signals the parallels with the birth of Jesus in Matt 1–2. 111 Perrot, “La pensée théologique,” 63–64. For the “spirit of prophecy,” see also Van Staalduine-Sulman, Targum of Samuel, 169–70, 179, 716. 112 Geert W. Lorein, “Knowing God in the Intertestamental Period,” in The Vitality of Evangelical Theology, ed. Andreas J. Beck, Jos de Kock, and Steven C. van den Heuvel (Leuven: Peeters, 2022), 25–39. 109

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Pentateuch (Moses) and the Prophets (including David113 and Daniel114); almost no interest exists for Chronicles and EzraNehemiah; Solomon and the Megilloth are better served, but not grouped as such.115 Rule of the Community - 1QS col. VI 6-7 116

‫ואל ימש במקום אשר יהיו שם העשרה איש דורש בתורה יומם‬ ‫ איש לרעהו‬117‫ולילה ׀ תמיד חליפות‬ And let not be lacking at the place where the ten are, a man searching in the Law day and night | continuously, in alternations of a man for his companion.

Van der Woude refers to Joshua 1:8 and Psalm 1:2.118 So the idea is not completely new, but it is more strictly organised here, with also shifts during the night.119 C. Knowledge within the Group

A third source of knowledge of God has—in their opinion—been revealed to a specific group. The leaders of the Qumran community, for example, “did claim, in all their comments about “knowledge,” to have reached, through God’s grace, a level of

The existence of 1/4QpPs implies that David was regarded as a prophet: Shani Berrin, “Qumran Pesharim,” in Biblical Interpretation at Qumran, ed. Matthias Henze, Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 121; George J. Brooke, “Thematic Commentaries on Prophetic Scriptures,” in Biblical Interpretation at Qumran, 135; Peter W. Flint, “The Prophet David at Qumran,” in Biblical Interpretation at Qumran, 159–160. 114 4QFlor fr. 1 ii 3; cf. Flavius Josephus, A. J. X 266-267; cf. X 276, 280; XII 322. 115 See David L. Washburn, A Catalog of Biblical Passages in the Dead Sea Scrolls, TCSt 2 (Atlanta: SBL, 2002). 116 Qal juss. 3 sg.m. (‫)ָימֹשׁ‬. 117 The MS reads ‫על יפות‬. According to Eric D. Reymond, Qumran Hebrew: An Overview of Orthography, Phonology, and Morphology, RBS 76 (Atlanta: SBL, 2014), 95, this is due to the quiescence of ‫ע‬. 118 García Martínez and Van der Woude, Rollen van de Dode Zee 1, 196. 119 David Instone Brewer, Techniques and Assumptions in Jewish Exegesis before 70 CE, TSAJ 30 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1992), 198. 113

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enlightenment not attained by other groups.”120 Most groups followed the doctrine that they were only explaining what was already enveloped in the Torah.121 In practice, they all added, but along different lines. Sirach 24:23, 33 Ταῦτα πάντα βίβλος διαθήκης θεοῦ ὑψίστου, νόµον ὃν ἐνετείλατο ἡµῖν Μωυσῆς κληρονοµίαν συναγωγαῖς Ιακωβ.... Ἔτι διδασκαλίαν ὡς προφητείαν ἐκχεῶ καὶ καταλείψω αὐτὴν εἰς γενεὰς αἰώνων. All these things are the book of covenant of God the highest, the law which Moses commanded us as a heritage for the congregations of Jacob.… Again shall I pour out teaching as prophecy and leave it for eternal generations.

Ben Sira shows this double emphasis: all wisdom and everything is in the Torah and he gives—also from a kind of inspiration122— his own prophetic teaching.123 Damascus Document - CD col. III 12-16 ‫ובמחזיקים במצות אל ׀ אשר נותרו מהם הקים אל את בריתו לישראל‬ ‫עד עולם לגלות ׀ להם נסתרות אשר תעו בם כל ישראל שבתות קדשו‬ ‫ומועדי ׀ כבודו עידות צדקו ודרכי אמתו וחפצי רצונו אשר יעשה ׀‬ ‫האדם וחיה בהם פתח לפניהם ויחפרו באר למים רבים‬

Edward M. Cook, “What Did the Jews of Qumran Know about God and How Did They Know It? Revelation and God in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Judaism in Late Antiquity. Vol. 3. Part 5: The Judaism of Qumran: A Systemic Reading of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Section 2: World View, Comparing Judaism, ed. Alan J. Avery-Peck, Jacob Neusner, and Bruce Chilton (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 9. For the very specific role of the Teacher of Righteousness, see Lorein, “Knowing God,” 31. It is not clear whether Flavius Josephus, B. J. II 159 (about prophecy among the Essenes), refers to the same. 121 The Sadducees had the same theory too, but stayed closer to it. The Qumran community was specific with its attention for the prophets (prophetae posteriores). 122 Skehan and Di Lella, Wisdom of Ben Sira, 338. 123 Frederic Raurell, “Ben Sira, lettore di testi biblici,” Laurentianum 49, nos. 2/3 (2008): 311–13. 120

154

GEERT LOREIN With those who adhered to God’s commandments, | who were left from among them, God established His covenant with Israel for eternity, in order to reveal | to them hidden things in which all Israel had erred: His holy Sabbaths and His glorious appointed times, | His righteous testimonies and His truthful ways and the desires of His pleasure—the man who does so | will live by them—. He opened (this) before them and they dug a well for much water.

This text speaks about the Qumran community (“those who adhered to God’s commandments”), the remnant of the too-liberal movement of the Essenes (“them”), in order to restore verus Israel (first occurrence of “Israel”)124 and to be different from the larger historical community (second occurrence of “Israel”—it is strange that these two meanings of “Israel” occur in such close proximity). This text shows the importance of the calendar for the start of the Qumran community.125 The words translated between dashes are an allusion to Leviticus 18:5. The well was important and the digger also: Scripture and interpretation are both necessary for faith.126 Habakkuk Pesher - 1QpHab col. VII 4-5 ‫פשרו על מורה הצדק אשר הודיעו אל את ׀ כול רזי דברי עבדיו‬ ‫הנבאים‬ Its interpretation (‫ )פשׁר‬concerns the Teacher of Righteousness, to whom God made known | all the mysteries (‫ )רזי‬of the words of His servants, the prophets.

This Qumran pesher (a kind of topicalising exegesis) must be dated shortly before 60 BC.127 The Teacher of Righteousness

Cf. Elliott, Survivors of Israel, 266: “the covenant now belongs to the remnant (Qumran) community alone.” 125 Elliott, Survivors of Israel, 117. 126 Kelli S. O’Brien, “Runner, Staff, and Star: Interpreting the Teacher of Righteousness through Scripture,” in A Teacher for All Generations, ed. Eric F. Mason, Journal for the Study of Judaism Supplements 153 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 447. 127 A. S. van der Woude, “Fünfzehn Jahre Qumranforschung (19741988),” TRu 57 (1992), 26. 124

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himself might not have been willing to make such bold claims about himself. It is a two-step interpretation: the cryptic text in the Bible and the clear explanation of the Teacher of Righteousness, which said that the end of times were near128 and that the Qumran community is the true Israel and that all others are lost. For the Qumran community, the Holy Spirit takes care of the transfer of revealed wisdom in se and makes individuals ready to accept it.129 Notice similarities and differences with what Paul says in Colossians 1:26-27: “the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been revealed to his saints. | To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”130 LaSor warns against modern-day use of this kind of exegesis, led by one single person, without historical perspective or attention for context.131 D. Personal Qualities

It must be noted that in addition to generally present evidence of God, Scripture, and knowledge specifically given to the group, certain personal qualities also have a role as means of coming to know God. These include intelligence, commitment, and a certain

F. F. Bruce, Biblical Exegesis in the Qumran Texts, Exegetica 3/1 (Den Haag: van Keulen, 1959), 9; James H. Charlesworth in Helmer Ringgren, The Faith of Qumran: Theology of the Dead Sea Scrolls, trans. Emilie T. Sander, expanded ed. (New York: Crossroad, 1995), xxi. 129 Alex P. Jassen, Mediating the Divine: Prophecy and Revelation in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Second Temple Judaism, STDJ 68 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 374–375 (we find the same idea with Grant Macaskill, Revealed Wisdom and Inaugurated Eschatology in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 115 [Leiden: Brill, 2007], 113, but without mentioning the Holy Spirit). See in general Lorein, “Holy Spirit at Qumran”. 130 C. Marvin Pate, Communities of the Last Days: The Dead Sea Scrolls, the New Testament & the Story of Israel (Downers Grove: IVP, 2000), 189. 131 William S. LaSor, “Interpretation and Infallibility: Lessons from the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Early Jewish and Christian Exegesis, ed. Craig A. Evans and William F. Stinespring, Scholars Press Homage 10 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1987), 129–132, 135–136. 128

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form of ambition organised among the members of the Qumran community. E. Prayer

As a last “resource,” prayer must be mentioned.

V. CAN GOD BE K NOWN OUTSIDE I SRAEL?

Before coming to conclusions, we shall examine another aspect of the question related to knowing God in the Intertestamental Period, namely whether all this also applies to non-Jews. A. “Israel”

Historically speaking, the term “Israel” started with Jacob and all his descendants, then it became used as the designation of the Northern Kingdom, and then originated the idea of verus Israel, which we find already in e.g., Ezra 3:1; at Qumran we find this last sense (for the Community itself; e.g. in 1QM X 9), and a negative sense of “Israel” as the public at large (e.g. the Psalm Pesher [4Q171] III 12). Dunn suggests that in the period studied in this essay, “Israel” represents the “universalist” strand, while “Judaism” represents the “particularist” strand.132 The term “Judaism,” for its part, has its origin in the days of opposition against a form of Hellenism that wanted to devour everything.133 B. Universalism

Here we use the term “universalism” not in the sense that everyone will be saved, but in the sense that people outside Israel James D. G. Dunn, “Was Judaism Particularist or Universalist?,” in Judaism in Late Antiquity. Vol. 2. Part 3. Section 2., ed. Alan J. Avery-Peck, Jacob Neusner, and Bruce Chilton (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 71. According to Hay, “Philo,” 369–70, Philo made the distinction between on the one hand “Israel” as “the community of all who ‘see God,’ and Philo does not claim that all Jews are inside that circle or that all Gentiles are outside” and on the other hand “the Jews” as “a special object of God’s providential protection.” In that sense, Dunn’s distinction might be accepted, but it must be admitted that the coming of Jesus Christ and Pentecost are a watershed. 133 First occurrence in 2 Macc 2:21 (and 8:1; 14:38); cf. Gal 1:13. 132

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can also start to serve the God of Israel. Of course, this existed already in the days of the Old Testament,134 but in those days you needed to become a Jew (and that is not needed anymore in the days of the New Testament!135). Intertestamental literature describes the Old Testament situation, although not every Jew was equally enthusiastic about accepting proselytes; the most open were the Pharisees.136 Damascus Document - CD col. XIV 4 ‫והגר רביע‬ And the proselyte in the fourth place

It is strange to meet the ‫ ֵגּר‬at Qumran. His presence, however, seems to be confirmed elsewhere in the Damascus Document, e.g. in CD col. XIV 10, where it is mentioned that the bishop (‫)מבקר‬ should know his languages, which at first sight is only useful when people from various origins are present,137 but probably this must not be taken too literally. Liber antiquitatum biblicarum 51:3-4 Venite in voce mea138 omnes gentes, et intendite allocutioni mee omnia regna, … gentibus ostendet terminos et exaltabitur cornu eius valde. | omnes homines invenient veritatem. Come to my voice, all ye nations, be attentive to what I say, all ye kingdoms, … [my child] will show the limits139 to the

See e.g. W. H. Rose, “Zacharia,” in Geschriften over de Perzische tijd, 250–251, 266–267, 269, 294, 298. 135 We cannot deny that in this sense Christianity has a more open universalism than Judaism. 136 See Lorein, “Relationship of Believers to Society,” 257, 266–267. 137 Gudrun Holtz, “Inclusivism at Qumran,” DSD 16, no. 1 (2009): 49. See p. 46 n. 90 for an interpretation of ‫ גר‬as “a Jew joining the Qumran Community.” J. Murphy-O’Connor, “La genèse littéraire de la Règle de la Communauté,” RB 76, no. 4, (1969): 548–49. See also CD VI 21. 138 Accusative without final –m: see Veikko Väänänen, Introduction au Latin vulgaire, 3rd ed. (Paris: Klincksieck, 1981), §127. 139 In the ethical sense; cf. ὅρος. 134

158

GEERT LOREIN nations and his power140 will be extremely high. | … all men will find the truth.

Hannah’s Song (see 1 Sam 2:1-10) is also developed in the Targum,141 but not in the same way, albeit with some common elements. It is important to see that in this relatively late text openness to the nations exists. Joseph and Aseneth 8:10-11 Κύριε ὁ θεὸς τοῦ πατρός µου Ἰσραήλ, ὁ ὕψιστος, ὁ δυνατός, ὁ ζωοποιήσας τὰ πάντα καὶ καλέσας ἀπὸ τοῦ σκότους εἰς τὸ φῶς καὶ ἀπὸ τῆς πλάνης εἰς τὴν ἀλήθειαν καὶ ἀπὸ θανάτου εἰς τὴν ζωήν, σὺ αὐτὸς Κύριε ζωοποίησον καὶ εὐλόγησον τὴν παρθένον ταύτην. | Καὶ ἀνακαίνισον τῷ πνεύµατί σου καὶ ἀνάπλασον αὐτὴν τῇ χειρί σου καὶ ἀναζωοποίησον τῇ ζωῇ σου καὶ φαγέτω ἄρτον ζωῆς σου καὶ πιέτω ποτήριον εὐλογίας σου, ἣν ἐξελέξω πρὶν γεννηθῆναι, καὶ εἰσελθάτω εἰς τὴν κατάπαυσίν σου, ἣν ἑτοίµασας τοῖς ἐκλεκτοῖς σου. Lord, God of my father Israel,142 the Most High, the Mighty One, Who makes alive everything and Who calls from the darkness to the light and from the error to the truth, and from death to the life, Thou, O Lord, make alive and bless this virgin. | And renew her by Thy spirit, reform her by Thy hand and bring her back to life by Thy life, that she may eat Thy bread of life, that she may drink Thy cup of benediction, she whom Thou hast chosen before she was born, and that she may enter into Thy rest, which Thou hast prepared for Thy chosen ones.

Here we have another text from the first century AD.143 A few verses earlier (Jos. Asen. 8:5-7), Joseph makes clear to Aseneth that he cannot accept the love of a heathen woman (religious arguments are mentioned, not nationalistic ones) but then prays for her conversion and so makes clear that he is open to accept a

Lit. “horn.” Van Staalduine-Sulman, Targum of Samuel, 197–219. 142 Joseph is speaking. 143 Vriezen and Van der Woude, Oudisraëlitische en vroegjoodse literatuur, 501. 140 141

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non-Israelite woman (he might have been influenced by being in love). C. Particularism In these lines, we use the term “particularism” not in the sense that a well-defined faith is necessary to be saved, but in the sense that this would only be possible for Jews and that non-Jews can never become Jews, neither in the genetic nor in the religious sense of the term. Particularism is most severe in Jubilees: sharp boundaries exist between Israel and the gentiles; only those who are circumcised on the eighth day belong to Israel, which is of course impossible for a “new” outsider.144 In the retelling of the story about Dinah (Gen 34:1–31), v. 14 has been incorporated into Jubilees 30:13 (i.e., it is impossible to marry an uncircumcised man), but v. 15 (the option of circumcision for foreigners) has not. Jubilees 15:12, 25 ወለወልድ ፡ አመ ፡ ሳምንት ፡ ዕለት ፡ ትከስብዎ ፡ ኵሎ ፡ ሮሰ ፡ በትዝምድክሙ ፡ ወልደ ፡ ቤት ። ወዘበወርቅ ፡ ተሣየጥክሙ ፡ እምኵሉ ፡ ውሉደ ፡ ነኪር ፡ ዘአጥረይክሙ ፡ ዘኢኮነ ፡ እምዘርእከ ፡ Wa-la-wald ‘ama sāment ‘elat tekassebewwo145 kwello rosa batezmedkemu walda bēt; wa-za-ba-warq tašāyaṭkemu146 ‘emkwellu weluda nakir za-’aṭraykemu147 za-’ikkona148 ‘emzar’eka.

Jacques T. A. G. M. van Ruiten, “Abraham and the Nations in the Book of Jubilees,” in Abraham, the Nations, and the Hagarites: Jewish, Christian and Islamic Perspectives on Kinship with Abraham, ed. Martin Goodman et al, TBN 13 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 106; Jacques T. A. G. M. van Ruiten, Abraham in the Book of Jubilees: The Rewriting of Genesis 11:26–25:10 in the Book of Jubilees 11:14–23:8, Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 161 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 137, 167. 145 G imperf. 2 pl. m. + suff. 3 sg. m., kasaba. 146 Glt perf. 2 pl. m., šēṭa, “to sell.” 147 CG perf. 2 pl. m. 148 Contamination of the negations ‘i and ‘akko? 144

160

GEERT LOREIN Haec lex in omnibus generationibus saeculi et non est praeterire diem unum ex diebus. And a child, at the time of the eighth day you shall circumcise him, every male in your race, the child of the house, and him whom you have bought with money149 from any foreigner150, whom you have acquired, who is not from your seed. | This law (is) for all the generations of eternity and there is no passing over one day out of the days.

Unfortunately, verse 12 exists only in Ethiopic, although it was written by an early Essene, in Hebrew, around 160 BC.151 We have to keep in mind that it is almost a literal quotation of Genesis 17:12, so we cannot consider it typical for the Essenes.152 Nevertheless, some changes vis-à-vis the canonical text have been introduced and are meaningful: it is stressed that circumcision must happen on the eighth day (MT was less clear with “a child of eight days”, which could be a minimum age) and that it is important for the “race” (instead of MT “throughout your generations”). The phrase “whom you have acquired” is a kind of doubling, but without specific meaning.153 Although the Latin text found for verse 25 probably suffers from haplography (leaping from one et non est to another),154 it represents the Essene theology sufficiently (and is original material, unlike the previous text, not just a translation of Genesis). For rabbinic theology (successors of the Pharisees!155) it was possible to circumcise on other days if a Sabbath or festival day was interfering;156 for the Essenes, the Law cannot be

Litt. “gold.” Litt. “child(ren) of a foreigner.” 151 Vermes, “Jewish Literature,” 314. 152 This is a situation that is also sometimes lost out of sight in Tg. studies. 153 Van Ruiten, Abraham, 142. 154 James C. Vanderkam, The Book of Jubilees: A Critical Text 2 (Leuven: Peeters, 1989), 91. 155 Boccaccini, “Esiste,” 24. 156 R. H. Charles, “The Book of Jubilees,” in Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament 2, 36. 149 150

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changed.157 This text is a witness to this difference from the Pharisees. Eschatological Midrash - 4QmidrEschat (4Q174) col. III 3-4) ‫הואה הבית אשר לוא יבוא שמה ׀ ערל לב וערל בשר עד עולם ועמוני‬ ‫ומואבי וממזר ובן נכר וגר עד עולם כיא קדושי שם‬ This is the house into which will not enter | an uncircumcised of heart or an uncircumcised in the flesh for eternity: either an Ammonite, or a Moabite, or a bastard, or the son of a foreigner, or a proselyte, for eternity, yea, (only) the saints of name.

Until the category of the bastards, reference can be made to Deuteronomy 23:2-3.158 The categories mentioned further on in this text, written about 69 BC,159 are specific doctrine of the Qumran community. Targum

We know that the Targum is nuanced in these matters: “the meturgeman is not enthusiastic about the nations surrounding him, but he is not too negative either.”160 D. Eschatology

It is clear that the nations will play a role in eschatological times—a period in which God’s reign will be made manifest to all.161 Nevertheless, there remains “the question whether the

Van Ruiten, Abraham, 154. García Martínez and Van der Woude, De Rollen van de Dode Zee 2, 249. 159 Annette Steudel, Der Midrasch zur Eschatologie aus der Qumrangemeinde (4QMidrEschata,b). Materielle Rekonstruktion, Textbestand, Gattung und traditionsgeschichtliche Einordnung des durch 4Q174 (‘Florilegium’) und 4Q177 (‘Catena A’) repräsentierten Werkes aus den Qumranfunden, STDJ 13 (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 208. 160 Lorein, “Relationship of Believers to Society,” 266. 161 Of course, God’s reign is of all times, but then it will be revealed: Lorein, “‫מלכותא‬,” 20. 157 158

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eschatological pilgrimage of the gentiles is to serve Israel or to share with Israel.”162 1. Triumphantly

The first option is the triumphant one: sinners will disappear. We mostly find this idea in Essene texts, but we shall start with the Psalm of Solomon already mentioned. Psalms of Solomon 17:30a, 34b Καὶ ἕξει λαοὺς ἐθνῶν δουλεύειν αὐτῷ ὑπὸ τὸν ζυγὸν αὐτοῦ ... καὶ ἐλεήσει πάντα τὰ ἔθνη ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ ἐν φόβῳ. And he will have gentile nations serving him under his yoke … and he will show mercy to all the nations (who will be) in reverence before him.

The Davidic Messiah will see the nations as slaves (at least in the land of Israel) but will be kind to them.163 War Scroll - 1QM col. XII 13-14 ‫ כול ערי יהודה פתחי ׀ שעריך תמיד להביא אליך חיל גואים‬164‫והגלנה‬ ‫ לך כול מעניך‬165‫ומלכיהם ישרתוך והשתחוו‬

Dunn, “Was Judaism Particularist or Universalist?,” 69; see also there biblical references that are going in both directions! See Martin Vahrenhorst, “Die Völker der Welt am Ende der Zeiten,” in Worte der Weissagung: Studien zur Septuaginta und Johannesoffenbarung, eds. Julian Elschenbroich and Johannes de Vries (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2014), 296–318, for discussion of a large amount of texts. 163 Cf. Terence L. Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles: Jewish Patterns of Universalism (to 135 CE) (Waco: Baylor UP, 2007), 140, who—as often— is quite optimistic. 164 Hiphil imp. 2 pl. m., ‫ גיל‬same meaning as Qal in Biblical Hebrew, see Elisha Qimron, The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Atlanta: Scholars, 1986), 49. 165 Perf. cons. 3 pl. m.; for the root, Waltke and O’Connor (An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax [Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990]), §21.2.3d, mention two possibilities: 1) cf. Akkadian (El Amarna): Hitpa(l)el, ‫( שׁחה‬cf. J. A. Emerton, “The Etymology of hištaḥawāh,” in Instruction and Interpretation, ed. A. S. van der Woude, Oudtestamentische Studiën 20 [Leiden: Brill, 1977], 41–55); 162

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Rejoice, O all the cities of Judah! Open166 | your gates continuously, to bring to you wealth of nations. And their kings will serve you, and bow down for you will all those who have humiliated you.

This text, written probably after 63 BC, but not much later (for paleographic reasons167), may partly be a reaction to the prophecy of Isaiah 60:5 (“the wealth of the nations will come (‫ )ָיבֹאוּ‬to you”). 2. Generously

In the generous option, the gentiles will be converted. We find this option mainly in Pharisaic texts. Tobit 14:6 Καὶ πάντα τὰ ἔθνη τὰ ἐν ὅλῃ τῇ γῇ, πάντες ἐπιστρέψουσιν καὶ φοβηθήσονται τὸν Θεὸν ἀληθινῶς, καὶ ἀφήσουσιν πάντες τὰ εἴδωλα αὐτῶν, τοὺς168 πλανῶντας ψευδῆ τὴν πλάνησιν αὐτῶν, καὶ εὐλογήσουσιν τὸν Θεὸν τοῦ αἰῶνος ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ. And all the nations on the whole earth, all will turn and fear God truly, and all will get rid of their idols, who with falsehoods are active in their leading astray, and they will praise the eternal God in righteousness.

Although some fragments of the Aramaic original were conserved at Qumran,169 we need to use the Greek translation (to be precise:

2) cf. Ugaritic: Hitšaphel; ‫( חוה‬cf. Jan P. Lettinga and Heinrich von Siebenthal, Grammatik des biblischen Hebräisch, 2nd ed. (Gießen: Brunnen, 2016), 174; Edward Lipiński, Semitic Languages: Outline of a Comparative Grammar, 2nd ed. (Leuven: Peeters, 2001), §41.29. 166 Qal imp. 2 sg. fem.: Judah is addressed. 167 García Martínez and Van der Woude, Rollen van de Dode Zee 2, 99, 103; Géza G. Xeravits and Peter Porzig, Einführung in die Qumranliteratur (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015), 277. 168 Constructio ad sensum (D. C. Simpson, “Tobit,” in The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English 1: Apocrypha, ed. R. H. Charles (Oxford: Clarendon, 1913), 240. 169 Among these fragments also some words of this verse in 4Q198 fr. 1 13: ]‫וירמון כל אליל‬.

164

GEERT LOREIN

in its long version) of this work,170 written in the early second century BC.171 On his deathbed, Tobit tells his children that there will be a genuine conversion of the nations and then all the problems of this world full of injustice will be solved. They will be actual participants, not simply observers, but apparently restricted: abandonment of idolatry and worship of God seem to suffice, circumcision or specific commandments are not mentioned.172 Of course, this idea is also found in the Old Testament itself (e.g., Isa 2:3; Jer 16:19; Zech 8:20-23173). This reminds us of the risk of ascribing as a later development ideas that can be found already within the OT canon. Regardless, even if the idea was borrowed, its mention indicates that it did belong to the writer’s theology. Sibylline Oracles III 716-723 Δεῦτε, πεσόντες ἅπαντες ἐπὶ χθονὶ λισσώµεσθα174 ἀθάνατον Bασιλῆα, Θεὸν µέγαν ἀέναόν τε. Πέµπωµεν πρὸς ναόν, ἐπεὶ µόνος ἐστὶ δυνάστης· καὶ νόµον ὑψίστοιο Θεοῦ φραζώµεθα πάντες, ὅστε δικαιότατος πέλεται πάντων κατὰ γαῖαν. Ἡµεῖς δ’ ἀθανάτοιο τρίβου πεπλανηµένοι ἦµεν, ἔργα δὲ χειροποίητα σεβάσµεθα ἄφρονι θυµῷ εἴδωλα ξόανά τε καταφθιµένων ἀνθρώπων. Hither, let us all, falling on the ground, supplicate the immortal King, the great and everlasting God. Let us send (gifts) to the Temple, since Ηe alone is Ruler and let us all ponder the law of the highest God who is most righteous of all over the earth. We however were erring away from the immortal track we revered handmade works with mindless spirit and carved idols of deceased humans.

Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Tobit, CEJL (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2003), 5, 18–28. Tobias Nicklas, “‘Und die Tore Jerusalems werden Jubellieder sprechen …’ (Tob 13, 18): Hoffnung auf Heil in der frühjüdischen Diaspora,” BK 69, no. 4 (2014) 235. 172 Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles, 43–45. 173 Fitzmyer, Tobit, 330. 174 Homeric med.-pass. 1 pl. 170 171

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Isles and towns are speaking (v. 710) for themselves, so it is clear that they will serve not as subjugates, but willingly, motivated by the testimony of the people of God.175 This text comes from that part of the Sibylline Oracles written just before the middle of the second century BC, in Leontopolis, shortly before the temple at that place was built (the Temple mentioned in v. 718 is the one at Jerusalem, for which a glorious future was expected)176. Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs – T. Simeon 7:2 Ἀναστήσει γὰρ Κύριος ἐκ τοῦ Λευὶ ὡς ἀρχιερέα, καὶ ἐκ τοῦ Ἰούδα ὡς βασιλέα, Θεὸν καὶ ἄνθρωπον. Οὕτως σώσει πάντα τὰ ἔθνη καὶ τὸ γένος τοῦ Ἰσραήλ. For the Lord will raise up out of Levi someone as a high priest and out of Judah someone as a king, God and man. So he will save all the nations and the race of Israel.

This text explains why its readers should be respectful towards Levi and Juda. Without considering the exact point in time when these things will happen, it is clear that a messianic figure coming from Judah will save all nations (and Israel too). This is not the only passage in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: we find the same universalism in T. Levi 18:9 and in T. Benjamin 10:5.177 Songs of David - CšD col. II 14-15 ‫ילמדו ממני כל יושבי תבל וישובו אל דרכך ויעבדוך באימונה ׀ ויקדמו‬ ‫פניך בתודה בזמירות ובשירות והודאות‬ All the inhabitants of the world will be trained by me and they will return to Your way and they will serve You in faithfulness

Vahrenhorst, “Völker der Welt,” 302. John J. Collins, “The Sibyl and the Potter. Political Propaganda in Ptolemaic Egypt,” in Religious Propaganda and Missionary Competition in the New Testament World, ed. L. Bormann et al., NovTSup 74 (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 64, 68. 177 Marc Philonenko, “Testaments des douze patriarches,” in La Bible: Écrits intertestamentaires, ed. André Dupont-Sommer and Marc Philonenko, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade 337 (Paris: Gallimard, 1987), 832. Cf. Vahrenhorst, “Völker der Welt,” 301. 175 176

166

GEERT LOREIN | and they will come before Your face with thanksgiving, with psalms and with songs and hymns.

This text is quite late (AD 60), which can explain why this text from the Qumran community is not really in line with what we would expect there. Targum Jonathan - Zechariah 14:9 ‫ְוִתת ְגֵלי ַמלכוָּתא ַדיוי ַﬠל ָכל ָיְתֵבי ַארָﬠא ְבִﬠי ָד ָנא ַההוּא ִיפְלחוּן ֳק ָדם יוי‬ ‫ְכַתף ַחד ְא ֵרי ְשֵמיה ְיִציב ְבָﬠְלָמא ֵלית ַבר ִמ ֵניה‬ And the reign of the Lord will be revealed178 over all the inhabitants of the earth.179 At that time they will serve before the Lord, one shoulder, for His name is established in eternity, there is no-one apart from Him.

This description of eschatological times is more favourable to the nations than the Masoretic text. The expression “one shoulder” does not come from the Hebrew of Zechariah 14:9, but does occur in Zephaniah 3:9 (‫)ְשֶׁכם ֶאָחד‬.180 Although the shoulder is normally181 used to carry weight, i.e. to work hard, it is not necessarily negative and reference to Zephaniah 3:9 leads us to a positive, generous conclusion.

VI. CONCLUSION

We have found a classic theology, generally without much contrast, as the authors do not wish (or do not feel compelled) to dialogue with outsiders. All agree that God is unique, almighty, omniscient, trustworthy, righteous, merciful, and holy. This Vide supra n. 161. Should we translate “land” or “earth”? Most MT commentators opt for “world”: e.g. Rose, “Zacharia,” 327. This would be strengthened if we translate ‫ בעלמא‬as “in the world”, as is done by Kevin J. Cathcart and R. P. Gordon, The Targum of the Minor Prophets (Collegeville: Liturgical, 1989), ad loc. 180 Cathcart and Gordon, Targum of the Minor Prophets, ad loc. For larger parallels, see A. S. van der Woude, Habakuk – Zefanja, De Prediking van het Oude Testament (Nijkerk: Callenbach, 1985), 132. 181 See Gen 21:14; 24:15,45; 49:15; Exod 12:34; Josh 4:5; Judg 9:48; Isa 22:22 (J. Vlaardingerbroek, Sefanja, COut [Kampen: Kok, 1993], 193). 178 179

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holiness is at the origin of an attitude as well as of editorial choices, such as avoiding God’s Name and anthropomorphisms, and using additions and substitutions. In order to learn to know this God, all agree first on the existence of God, as well as that Scripture, interpretation, personal qualities, and prayer are necessary to deepen this knowledge. While there is agreement that at the eschaton God will be known by the nations, disagreement exists about what is possible already now and how it will be eschatologically. This large agreement does not exclude differences in accent. God is almighty, but what does this mean for human attitudes (think of the Qumran worm) and the part of human action (which is greater, e.g., for the Sadducees)? Scripture is important, and within it Torah is fundamental, even though this does not have the same consequences for every group. How much time do they give to its study (the most at Qumran)? How important is one’s own interpretation (quite important for most groups, but not always recognized as such)? And how careful should one be in defending its meaning (think of the Targum, avoiding every possible wrong interpretation)? If there is no other god for the nations, opinions differ about believers’ relationship to them. Pharisees were more open to new situations and new people, while Essenes were more strictly focused on the Bible and their own group. The use of God’s Name is most restricted with Sadducees and the Qumran community, albeit for different reasons. The substitutions of the Name are not always the same. For the Maccabean period, “heaven” is best known, while memra makes us think of Targum. And so we end with a community of believers with many different accents, but nevertheless with common main threads. Perhaps they could even have worked together (but apparently, they did not), just as at the Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven.

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Johannesoffenbarung, edited by Julian Elschenbroich and Johannes de Vries, 296-318. Arbeiten zur Bibel und ihrer Geschichte 47. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2014. van der Woude, A. S. “Die messianischen Vorstellungen der Gemeinde von Qumrân.” PhD diss., University of Groningen, 1957. ———. “Fünfzehn Jahre Qumranforschung (1974–1988).” TRu 54, no. 3 (1989): 221-61. ———. “Fünfzehn Jahre Qumranforschung (1974–1988).” TRu 57 (1992): 1-57. ———. Habakuk – Zefanja. De Prediking van het Oude Testament. Nijkerk: Callenbach, 1985. van Ruiten, Jacques T. A. G. M. “Abraham and the Nations in the Book of Jubilees.” In Abraham, the Nations, and the Hagarites: Jewish, Christian and Islamic Perspectives on Kinship with Abraham, edited by Martin Goodman, George H. van Kooten, and J. T. A. G. M. van Ruiten, 105-16. TBN 13. Leiden: Brill, 2010. ———. Abraham in the Book of Jubilees: The Rewriting of Genesis 11:26–25:10 in the Book of Jubilees 11:14–23:8, Supplements for the Journal for the Study of Judaism 161. Leiden: Brill, 2012. van Staalduine-Sulman, E. The Targum of Samuel. Studies in the Aramaic Interpretation of Scripture 1. Leiden: Brill, 2002. Vanderkam, James C. The Book of Jubilees: A Critical Text. 2 vols. Leuven: Peeters, 1989. Vermes, Geza. “Jewish Literature Composed in Hebrew or Aramaic.” In The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C.- A.D. 135), vol. 3, by Emil Schürer, revised and edited by Geza Vermes, Fergus Millar and Martin Goodman, 177-469. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1986-1987. Viteau, J. Les Psaumes de Salomon: Introduction, texte grec et traduction. Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1911. Vlaardingerbroek, J. Sefanja. COut. Kampen: Kok, 1993. Vriezen, T. C. and A. S. van der Woude, Oudisraëlitische en vroegjoodse literatuur. 10th ed. Kampen: Kok, 2000. Waltke, Bruce K. and M. O’Connor. An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990.

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Washburn, David L. A Catalog of Biblical Passages in the Dead Sea Scrolls. TCSt 2. Atlanta: SBL, 2002. Wright, Robert B. Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Edition of the Greek Text. London: T & T Clark, 2007. Xeravits, Géza G. and Peter Porzig. Einführung in die Qumranliteratur. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015.

CHAPTER SIX. KNOWING GOD: A JOHANNINE PERSPECTIVE PROF. DR. JACOBUS KOK DEPARTMENT OF NEW TESTAMENT1 I NTRODUCTION

Those who wish to understand what John has to say about knowing God need to approach John from a pictorial perspective.2 Jan van der Watt, a leading scholar on John, uses

J. Kok is Professor and Head of the Department of New Testament Studies at the Evangelische Theologische Faculteit Leuven and research associate in the Faculty of Theology at the University of the Free State in South Africa. 2 Previously, Bennema wrote a very good paper on the topic, which is essential for anyone wanting to study the topic in more depth. See Bennema, Cornelis. “Christ, the Spirit, and the Knowledge of God: A Study in Johannine Epistemology.” In The Bible and Epistemology: Biblical Soundings on the Knowledge of God, edited by Mary Healy and Robin Parry, 107-133. Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2007. Bennema aims in his paper to engage with the Johannine “epistemology”, and makes the statement that Platinga’s approach (also in our current book) comes the closest to John’s epistemic views. It is my contention that Bennema’s paper does not say much more than what others have already said in their attempts, and one could argue that “epistemic” is used a bit forcefully in Bennema’s paper because he blends to his purpose different 1

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the example of a picture to express the pictorial interrelatedness of the images and themes in John.3 Imagine the painting of Pieter Bruegel, on the cover of this book, and also discussed in detail in the chapter by Pieter Boersema within this volume.4 There are different elements in the scene. Let’s say one wants to describe the hill with the windmill on top of it. If you really want to explain it well, you must also relate it to all the other characters and objects within the painting. One also must describe the relation of the other objects and characters with each other to get a full picture of the whole unfolding of the story within the whole picture. Note that I deliberately speak of story or narrative. Bruegel gives us a vivid picture that unfolds like a narrative. To understand the picture, one must be able to describe the larger narrative frame, and the role of the characters within the unfolding drama. And it is only within such a narrative frame that the picture makes sense, and individual stories within the picture could come to life in relation to the rest of the elements in the larger picture. Similarly, we need to see John’s Gospel as a large picture. When describing one element, like knowing God, one must be able to tell the larger story or drama which plays out in the story. And similarly, if one is asked to focus on one character, for instance, the blind man in John 9, one cannot really tell his story without relating it to the rest of the story. One has to sketch the whole picture, or tell the whole story. For that reason, van der Watt convincingly argues, our approach to John should be one which is pictoral in nature.

socio-cognitive “epistemic” domains. This current paper adds perspectives on the debate from another angle. 3 J. G. van der Watt, Family of the King: Dynamics of Metaphor in the Gospel according to John, BibInt 47 (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 91–92. See in this regard also Ruben Zimmermann, Christologie der Bilder im Johannesevangelium: Die Christopoetik des vierten Evangelium unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Joh 10, WUNT 171 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 61–74; Udo Schnelle, Theology of the New Testament, trans. M. Eugene Boring (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 687. 4 See pp. 237–263 in this volume for the chapter of Boersema.

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I N DIRE STRAITS: THE REALITY OF AN U NBELIEVING WORLD

John’s Gospel paints for us a picture of a dramatic story. As with all good narratives, tension is built up around a crisis. Already in the prologue of John, we see how the author paints the picture of the crisis in which humanity is caught up. In John 1:1-5, John says that in the beginning already, was the Word, and that he was in God’s presence and involved with the creation. John uses the metaphors of light and life to express that Jesus is the one who is associated deeply with the life-giving creator God. God is presented as standing in direct opposition to darkness and being in a constant battle. With the word κατέλαβεν (v. 5), John wants to express from the very beginning of the Gospel that there is a tension in this cosmos, a constant struggle between light and darkness. But here, he wants to express that darkness was not able to overcome the light. Darkness was never able to master the light. It is rather the other way around. But then we read the ironic truth that even though the true light, which entered the world expressly for the purpose of enlightening everyone (John 1:9), came physically to the world, and although the world owed its whole existence to him, it did not recognize him. They did not know him! He came to his own, those he created, but they did not accept him (John 1:10–11). In the Greek, two important words seen here are introduced with the negative particle: οὐκ ἔγνωοὐ (v. 10) and οὐ παρέλαβον (v. 11). John 1:9-11 is a kind of a summary of the whole plot of John’s Gospel. It expresses the main problem, namely that God as creator is rejected by those he created. That forms one of the main motivations why God decided to send his Son back to his own, so that they could come to the place of realizing their true identity as children of God (v. 12). The purpose of the sending of the Son is to close the massive gap between God and his creation. His purpose is to restore the inherent brokenness and the alienation that occurred. From that perspective, one could then argue that Jesus came to form the bridge between ignorant, alienated humanity and its creator. But now the world is caught up in sin and exists in a fundamental state of spiritual death (John 5:24). Jesus is then presented as the answer to the dilemma. And right from the

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beginning the reader is led to see that Jesus is fundamentally associated with life and light (v. 4). But more on this solution below. Let us now turn to the text and try to understand how John explains the situation in which unbelieving people who do not know God find themselves.

BLINDNESS, SIN, IGNORANCE AND SPIRITUAL DEATH

For John, people who do not know God or recognize Jesus whom he sent are caught up in an existential spiritual death. We see this clearly in John 5:24 and could depict the argumentative structure as follows (Greek NA 28):

The causal relationship between the ideas in the process could also be shown as follows:

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Clear from this argumentative structure is that those who do not hear and do not believe in the one who sent Jesus, do not have spiritual life. They are judged by God. They have not been transferred from a spiritual state of death to a spiritual state of life. They are caught up in spiritual death, characterized by unbelief, ignorance and spiritual deafness and spiritual blindness (John 9). Picking up from the prologue, John means to say that those who do not believe are not only spiritually dead, but they are also caught up in sin and darkness. In the following verses we find reference to the idea that those who do not know God are caught up in darkness: Verse John 1:5

John 3:19

John 8:12

John 12:35

John 12:46

Greek (NA 28) καὶ τὸ φῶς ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ φαίνει, καὶ ἡ σκοτία αὐτὸ οὐ κατέλαβεν. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it [NIV] αὕτη δέ ἐστιν ἡ κρίσις ὅτι τὸ φῶς ἐλήλυθεν εἰς τὸν κόσµον καὶ ἠγάπησαν οἱ ἄνθρωποι µᾶλλον τὸ σκότος ἢ τὸ φῶς· ἦν γὰρ αὐτῶν πονηρὰ τὰ ἔργα. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. [NIV] Πάλιν οὖν αὐτοῖς ἐλάλησεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς λέγων· ἐγώ εἰµι τὸ φῶς τοῦ κόσµου· ὁ ἀκολουθῶν ἐµοὶ οὐ µὴ περιπατήσῃ ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ, ἀλλ’ ἕξει τὸ φῶς τῆς ζωῆς. When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”[NIV] εἶπεν οὖν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς· ἔτι µικρὸν χρόνον τὸ φῶς ἐν ὑµῖν ἐστιν. περιπατεῖτε ὡς τὸ φῶς ἔχετε, ἵνα µὴ σκοτία ὑµᾶς καταλάβῃ· καὶ ὁ περιπατῶν ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ οὐκ οἶδεν ποῦ ὑπάγει. Then Jesus told them, “You are going to have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you. Whoever walks in the dark does not know where they are going.[NIV] ἐγὼ φῶς εἰς τὸν κόσµον ἐλήλυθα, ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εἰς ἐµὲ ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ µὴ µείνῃ. I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.[NIV]

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John’s Gospel sees sin as a form of blindness and for that reason it is also associated in the dualistic frame of John’s thought with the sphere of darkness and death (John 9). This logically goes together with the notions of unbelief and ignorance. Darkness is associated with blindness because, as we all know, one cannot see when there is darkness. In that sense, one is ignorant of what goes on in one’s environment. That leads them to stumble, not seeing what is right there in front of them. With these clusters of metaphors and images, John expresses the notion that those who do not know God are caught up in darkness and that they are spiritually blind and oblivious in their spiritual ignorance. From this perspective of darkness, one can understand how John, in verses like John 5:24, explains that such an unbelieving person is caught up in spiritual death. Their blindness influences literally everything and that is why we can express that as a state of death or of blindness. Such a person cannot see. Such a person, therefore, from a spiritual perspective, cannot see who Jesus is, nor can they accept him or confess that he is the Son of God who was sent to this world to free them. Such people are therefore on a journey to hell, John’s logic argues. The end destination is simply a continuation of their earthly trajectory and will end in spiritual death which in John stands in direct opposition to spiritual life. John develops these notions further by linking them to the concept of knowledge. We see this most clearly in John 17:3, which expresses the following notions: αὕτη δέ ἐστιν ἡ αἰώνιος ζωὴ ἵνα γινώσκωσιν σὲ τὸν µόνον ἀληθινὸν θεὸν καὶ ὃν ἀπέστειλας Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν.5 By means of the conjunction ἵνα (used with appositional force6), the author of John expresses that eternal life is equated Greek taken from NA 28. Translation of John 17:3: “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”[NIV]. 6 Typical, even idiomatic in John. The word ἵνα occurs by far most often in John’s Gospel (42 times) compared to all other New Testament books (e.g. 18 times in Matt, 31 times in Mark and 18 times in Luke). It also 5

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to knowing God. The idea of τὸν θεὸν γινώσκειν, or to know God, is much more than mere cognitive knowledge. Specifically in John it denotes knowing that is a result of living fellowship and living community with the creator God and his Son.7 John further defines, by means of a nominal phrase (σὲ τὸν µόνον ἀληθινὸν θεὸν), or more specifically the adjectival modifiers µόνον and ἀληθινὸν, that the Johannine God is the “only true God.” This is of course an idea that echoes what is already expressed in Deuteronomy 6:4. Yet by immediately following with “and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent,” John expresses ideas like those found in 1 Corinthians 8:6 and other contexts of earliest Christianity where confessional material is found in which God and Jesus are honored. Köstenberger is correct when he points out that John’s Gospel paints the picture of an exclusive God, and that Jesus is considered to be the exclusive agent and the chosen one sent by God as promised Messiah. Logically flowing from this notion is that there is in fact just one way to be saved, one way to the Father, and that is in and through Jesus (John 14:6).8 Those who know Jesus, know the Father.

SOLUTION TO THE CALAMITY

In John, as I will explain in more detail below, there is a solution to the crisis. But the solution does not come from the initiative of men who are ignorant and caught up in an existential situation of spiritual death. For that reason, God the Father, motivated by love, sent his son to this world, with a particular purpose. That purpose is that those who believe in Jesus, the Son of God, will be saved and will be restored spiritually to life. We see this especially clearly in John 3:16 and also in the purpose statement occurs 9 times in 1 John which heavily outweighs the rest of the later NT letters (in 1 Tim and Titus it only occurs 2 times). 7 Andreas J. Köstenberger, John, BECNT (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 488–489; Charles K. Barrett, The Gospel according to St. John, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978), 503. 8 Köstenberger, John, 488-489. See also see also D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John, PNTC (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1991), 556; Leon Morris, The Gospel according to John, rev. ed., NICNT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995), 638.

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of the Gospel in 20:30–31. In the latter, John says very explicitly what he has written in his Gospel and why he has told the story of God, Jesus and the world the way that he did. His reason is very clearly articulated: Πολλὰ µὲν οὖν καὶ ἄλλα σηµεῖα ἐποίησεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἐνώπιον τῶν µαθητῶν αὐτοῦ, ἃ οὐκ ἔστιν γεγραµµένα ἐν τῷ βιβλίῳ τούτῳ· ταῦτα δὲ γέγραπται ἵνα πιστεύσητε ὅτι Ἰησοῦς ἐστιν ὁ χριστὸς ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, καὶ ἵνα πιστεύοντες ζωὴν ἔχητε ἐν τῷ ὀνόµατι αὐτοῦ. [NA 28] Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name (John 20:30–31, NIV).

These verses are important from different perspectives. On the one hand, we clearly see that the author of John was aware that there were many other signs that Jesus performed. He explicitly says that he did not record all that he was aware of in the tradition. Adele Reinhartz, who would later become a leading international Johannine scholar, argues persuasively in her 1983 dissertation under E. P. Sanders that this text not only expresses the purpose of John’s Gospel, but that the overall structure and content of John reflect this specific purpose. 9 The purpose and ultimate intention of John is that those who read the Gospel, and the signs that he decided to present in his book, would at the end come to faith and knowledge of Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, and that they might receive life in the Johannine sense of the word. Even those who come long after the life of Christ and have not physically witnessed the signs Jesus performed will find salvation and be agents in service of this life-giving message by believing these signs and the message it conveys and becoming themselves witnesses of these signs. That is the ultimate purpose of the Gospel, to bring people to faith, and to facilitate people in becoming agents of this message, which has as its purpose to restore the broken relationship between people and God. Adele Reinhartz, “John 20:30–31 and the Purpose of the Fourth Gospel” (Ph.D. diss., McMaster University, 1983). See https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/bitstream/11375/13759/1/fulltext.pdf. 9

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Expressed differently, and in terms of the project of this book, the purpose of the Gospel is that people can come to know God and his Son Jesus, and by doing so become part of God’s new family. We will expand more on the way the family metaphor is used, but first we need to investigate the notion of ‘knowing’ in John, which is largely different to what we encounter in the other Gospels.

J ESUS THE SON REVEALS GOD, THE FATHER

In John’s Gospel, Jesus is presented as being close to God, his Father. In this way John uses a striking metaphor: An image of a Son who is close to the bosom of his Father, and has been, from the very beginning. This we read in John 1:1 and in 1:18: Θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακεν πώποτε· µονογενὴς θεὸς ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς ἐκεῖνος ἐξηγήσατο. [“No one has seen God at any time; God the only Son, who is in the arms of the Father, He has explained Him,” (John 1:18, NASB)]. The nominal phrase τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς is translated by the NASB as “arms of the Father,” but elsewhere one sees translations mentioning the “bosom” of the Father (e.g. King James). In his homilies on John 1:18, Chrysostom also develops the idea that, though no human has even seen God, Jesus Christ is Lord and King, and the King’s Son who was with his Father the King forever. Drawing inter alia from Isaiah 6:1 and John 12:41, Chrysostom says that Jesus brought us great things from his Father from the throne room, so to speak, because he has seen the essence and glory of the Father-King.10 Therefore, Jesus is in the ideal position to reveal and to exegete the Father so that people can come to know who God is. Udo Schnelle correctly observes that one of the striking elements of John is the manner in which he speaks of God as

See Chrysostom, Homily on John 1. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/240115.htm and especially http://www.clerus.org/bibliaclerusonline/en/dio.htm [accessed 01 Jul 2022] where it is stated: “And all this will this man tell us exactly, as being a friend of the King Himself, or rather, as having Him speaking within himself, and from Him hearing all things which He heareth from the Father. ‘I have called you friends,’ He saith, ‘for all things that I have heard of My Father, I have made known unto you’.” 10

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Father.11 In fact, it is the most frequent manner in which John gives expression to who God is. The word πατὴρ is found no less than 112 times in the Gospel of John, statistically outweighing any other book of the New Testament. Those who want to know the God of John must first of all get to know him as the Father. Schnelle further argues that one must see in the term Father, used for God, the fact that he is in the first place to be known in relational terms. 12 He stands in a close relationship with his Son (John 3:16), and they form a close-knit family (John 1:12).13 God’s family consists of his Son and of believers, who are explicitly called τέκνα (children [e.g. 1:12]).14 Also typical of what would be expected within the metaphorical frame of a family is that children are born into the family (John 1:12; 3:3-6; 1 John 2:29; 3:9; 4:7).15 The fact that they are born into the family of God entails that they are not “from below”, but “from above” (John 3:31; 8:23). Thus, they are in the world, but no longer from this world (John 17:16 - ἐκ τοῦ κόσµου οὐκ εἰσὶν καθὼς ἐγὼ οὐκ εἰµὶ ἐκ τοῦ κόσµου) just as Jesus is not from this world, but from the sphere of God above. God’s children now belong to God the Father and to his Son, Jesus. Schnelle is correct in observing that “The new creation of human beings takes place in faith through the power of the Spirit in baptism (John 3:3, 5).”16 Believers receive a new status and are called brothers (John 20:17;

Schnelle, Theology, 660. Schnelle, Theology, 661. 13 Jan van der Watt, Family of the King, 187, also points out that in John there is a fundamental relationship between God as source of life, and as creator God, the source of light, which is associated with life. For that reason, we also see in John 8:12 that light and life are connected (φῶς τῆς ζωῆς). This new life is expressed within the framework of a family metaphor, in which new spiritual birth is the manner in which one becomes part of this new life-giving family of God. Subsequently, this creates a duality of two families, that of God and that of the Devil. Jesus, as the way to God (John 14:6), becomes the pivotal point in which ingroup and outgroup loyalty and belonging is determined. 14 See also Dietrich Rusam, Die Gemeinschaft der Kinder Gottes: Das Motiv der Gotteskindschaft und die Gemeinde der johanneischen Briefe, BWANT 133 (Stuttgart: Kolhammer, 1993). 15 Schnelle, Theology, 661. 16 Schnelle, Theology, 661. 11 12

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cf. 3 John 3;) and friends (John 11:11; 15:14-15; cf. 3 John 15;). Köstenberger argues convincingly that Jesus’s whole mission is motivated by love and that he lays down his own life for those he loves, illustrating the “intensity” and also the “quality” of the love that the Son has for God’s children, the friends and brothers.17 Köstenberger points out here also that “Friendship was very important in the Greco-Roman world. It was commonly recognized that the supreme duty of friendship may involve self-sacrifice for one’s friend even to the point of death.” How do we become friends of God? The answer John gives in John 15:14–15 is that ὑµεῖς φίλοι µού ἐστε ἐὰν ποιῆτε ἃ ἐγὼ ἐντέλλοµαι ὑµῖν. οὐκέτι λέγω ὑµᾶς δούλους, ὅτι ὁ δοῦλος οὐκ οἶδεν τί ποιεῖ αὐτοῦ ὁ κύριος· ὑµᾶς δὲ εἴρηκα φίλους, ὅτι πάντα ἃ ἤκουσα παρὰ τοῦ πατρός µου ἐγνώρισα ὑµῖν. NIV: 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.] John here contrasts the position of a slave or servant, who does not know what the master is doing, with that of a friend. A friend is one who is shown the inner workings and consequently has intimate knowledge.18

Jesus says that he treats believers as his friends. He has made known to them everything that the Father has taught him. To know God is to know him in relationship with his Son, who revealed the heart of God, and to do the commandments of Jesus (John 15:14). By doing Jesus’s commandments, one illustrates that one’s identity is rooted in one’s newly created state of existence as a child of God. By following Jesus, one comes to know Jesus more. And those who know Jesus, know God and, John argues, truth and knowlegde are revealed to them, argues John. They will also be the ones who are called and appointed to bear fruit (John 15:8). According to Köstenberger, this “most naturally refers to the making of new converts.”19 Köstenberger, John, 458. Köstenberger, John, 458-458; Carson, The Gospel according to John, 523. 19 Köstenberger, John, 460. 17 18

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God Loves the Son, Who Embodies that Love

Within the framework of what would be expected within a typical family, we find that God loves his Son (3:35; 14:21, 23; 15:9) and that he asks him to perform certain acts on his behalf (3:16; 5:37; 6:29). As was expected of good sons in the ancient world, Jesus imitates his Father and does his will (5:17). Those who see the Son, see the Father (14:9 - ὁ ἑωρακὼς ἐµὲ ἑώρακεν τὸν πατέρα· πῶς σὺ λέγεις· δεῖξον ἡµῖν τὸν πατέρα). Since the Father is God, the source of Life, he is the only one who is able to give life. But he has given the ability to give life over to his Son, whom he has empowered (5:25). The Father God who is the ultimate judge of history has also given the function of judgement over to his Son (5:22). As would be expected also in an ancient Father and Son relationship, the Son shows honor towards the Father (8:54; 12:28; 17:1) in a reciprocal manner. Those who believe in Jesus know him and, according to John 14:7, those who know Jesus will know the Father (εἰ ἐγνώκατέ µε, καὶ τὸν πατέρα µου γνώσεσθε. καὶ ἀπ’ ἄρτι γινώσκετε αὐτὸν καὶ ἑωράκατε αὐτόν). Schnelle correctly points out that there is a clear relationship between the concepts of faith, knowing, and spiritual sight/seeing in John.20 Those who believe in Jesus know him and recognize and acknowledge that he was sent from God the Father. They abide (John 8:31) and follow him (John 10:27) and they do the will of God by obeying his commandments (1 John 2:3). One of the most important characteristics or marks, if you will, is that believers love each other (1 John 3:16 - ἐν τούτῳ ἐγνώκαµεν τὴν ἀγάπην, ὅτι ἐκεῖνος ὑπὲρ ἡµῶν τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ἔθηκεν, καὶ ἡµεῖς ὀφείλοµεν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἀδελφῶν τὰς ψυχὰς θεῖναι).

K NOWING GOD

A simple investigation of the word “to know” in John’s Gospel already reveals the centrality of the concept. The lemma γινώσκω occurs 56 times in 54 verse, and even if we commit the disputed passages in John 8 and 21, the occurrence of the term is proportionally higher than other NT literature. Similarly, 1 John, with 25 occurrences of γινώσκω towers over the other NT epistles. 20

Schnelle, Theology, 719.

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In his vocabulary choices alone, John shows the centrality of the concept in his thought.21 Also, when compared to the rest of the New Testament, we see a very clear picture depicting the integral role it plays in John’s Gospel as well as in 1 John. Compared to the rest of the New Testament letters, 1 John towers over the rest (25x) when it comes to the occurrence of the term, which undoubtably shows the centrality of the term for John.

Graph generated by Logos search functions Occurrence of the lemma for “to know” in John’s Gospel: 1:10, 48; 2:2425; 3:10; 4:1, 53; 5:6, 42; 6:15, 69; 7:17, 26, 27; 49; 51; 8:27, 28, 32, 43, 52, 55; 10:6, 14, 15, 27, 28, 11:57; 12:9, 16, 13:7, 12, 28, 35; 14:7, 9, 17, 20, 31; 15;15, 18; 16:3, 19; 17:3, 7, 8, 23, 25, 26; 18:15, 16; 19:4, 20; 21:17.

21

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As I have argued above, ignorance is the opposite of knowledge in John, and is associated with darkness and death. But those who have believed are those who know the true identity of Jesus and, by implication, of God. Those who believe are transferred from death to life, as we have argued referring to John 5:24. But they are also those who have become part of God’s new family, as we see clearly expressed in John 1:12: ὅσοι δὲ ἔλαβον αὐτόν, ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς ἐξουσίαν τέκνα θεοῦ γενέσθαι, τοῖς πιστεύουσιν εἰς τὸ ὄνοµα αὐτοῦ [NIV: 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God]. Ancient Mediterranean people were group-oriented in nature. One could only become part of a group by being born within the group, or by being adopted. Whereas Paul uses the language and metaphors of adoption, John uses the metaphor of birth to explain how one could become part of God’s new family. In John 3:3, for instance, Jesus expresses to Nicodemus the idea that one can only become part of God the Father’s kingdom family if one is born again [from ‘above’ - ἄνωθεν] by the spirit (ἀµὴν ἀµὴν λέγω σοι, ἐὰν µή τις γεννηθῇ ἄνωθεν, οὐ δύναται ἰδεῖν τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ [NIV: Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again]). Continuing in v. 6, John expresses the idea of new birth in terms of birth from the spirit, contrasting this with earthly or fleshly birth. He does so within a clearly dualistic frame in which there is a qualitative difference between that which is from below and that which is from above. God’s reality is from above and qualitatively superior to the fleshly reality from below. John 3:6 reads as follows: τὸ γεγεννηµένον ἐκ τῆς σαρκὸς σάρξ ἐστιν, καὶ τὸ γεγεννηµένον ἐκ τοῦ πνεύµατος πνεῦµά ἐστιν [NIV: “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit”]. Only those who believe in Jesus as the Son sent by the Father will access the way to truth and life (John 14:6). Already in the prologue, John sketches Jesus as being in a very privileged position at the bosom of his Father. As mentioned above, we read in John 1:18 that Θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακεν πώποτε· µονογενὴς θεὸς ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς ἐκεῖνος ἐξηγήσατο” [NIV: No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known]. By believing, people become part of a new group, which determines

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their identity. Those who do not believe do not know God, and they stay blind and ignorant, and are caught up in an existential spiritual position of death. They also act according to their identity, which, according to John, is fundamentally determined by their paterfamilias, the Devil (John 8:44). In ancient times, identity determined one’s behavior. Or said differently, you could make inferences about someone’s identity by looking at the way they behaved. For John, children of the Devil are clearly visible by the fact that they do not know God the Father and his Son, Jesus. Their identity is revealed by their lack of understanding and lack of faith and ultimately their lack of true knowledge, which reflects their lack of relationship to God. People who do this remain in a state of spiritual death, and they remain essentially blind and will be judged (John 9:39: Καὶ εἶπεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς· εἰς κρίµα ἐγὼ εἰς τὸν κόσµον τοῦτον ἦλθον, ἵνα οἱ µὴ βλέποντες βλέπωσιν καὶ οἱ βλέποντες τυφλοὶ γένωνται).22 The children of the Devil are recognized clearly by the following: They are full of darkness, death, deceit, and killing, not by light, life, and truth (John 5:24; 8:44; 10:7; 10:10; 16:2; 16:3; 17:14). They do not love God, but love darkness, and for that reason their deeds are essentially evil (3:19–21; 12:35; 12:46). They are caught up by the power of Satan, who is below, in contrast to believers, who are from above (3:6, 31; 5:43–44; 8:15, 23; 12:43). They are characterized by hate and not by love (6:71; 7:7; 13:11; 15:18). Children of the Devil are slaves, and children of God are free (8:34). Children of the Devil live in deceit, and children of God in truth (8:44). They will die in their sinful state (8:21, 24). Children of the Devil reveal their spiritual blindness, and children of God are those who truly see spiritually (9:39–41; 12:40). They do not know God, and do not know or acknowledge the children of God.

22

Schnelle, Theology, 688.

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Because John works with a strong dualism, the behavior of the children of the Devil is just the opposite of what the children of the Father do. In that sense, what is written in the above paragraph could simply be turned around to argue that believers do the opposite. They know God, and they live from their new identity. They are children of the light in opposition to the children of darkness. Faith is the manner in which one moves over from the domain of death into the domain of life (John 5:24), from child of the Devil living in darkness (John 8:34, 44) to receiving from God the authority to be truly called a child of God (1:12) and receiving light and life (John 1:4). For John, in other words, it is not in the first place about the law and doing the right things, but about faith in the right One, and living from one’s identity. That identity is not found in the law, but in Jesus Christ, the Son of God (John 5:39-40). An important notion in John is that in the new dispensation, the law is not an end in itself but rather points towards Christ. God gave Jesus certain commandments to fulfill and then Jesus in turn gives his followers certain commandments (10:18; 12:3940; and also 13:34; 14:15, 21; 15:10, 12). Those commandments are essentially derivative from their restored identity and characterized by love (13:34-35: Ἐντολὴν καινὴν δίδωµι ὑµῖν, ἵνα ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους, καθὼς ἠγάπησα ὑµᾶς ἵνα καὶ ὑµεῖς ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους). Knowing God Only in and through Jesus

In his theology of the New Testament, Udo Schnelle writes a section explicitly on knowing God. He also makes use of a pictoral approach as we have done in this paper, and has a very specific argument in this section under the heading “Knowing God.”23 He bases his argument on the idea of reciprocal “immanence” [Reziproke Immanenz].24 The argument is that no one has ever

Schnelle, Theology, 665–667. See also Jan van der Watt, “Aspects of Johannine Spirituality as It Is Reflected in 1 John,” Studies in Spirituality 22 (2012): 89–108. doi: 10.2143/SIS.22.0.2182848, here specifically on pp. 99. 23 24

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seen God (e.g. John 1:18; 3:13; 5:37–38; 6:46; 8:19). Logically flowing from this point John then clearly makes the point that God reveals himself in and through his Son. It is therefore only in and through Jesus that one gets to come to and know the Father (John 14:6). Consequently, anyone who knows Jesus the Son, knows God the Father (John 8:19; 14:7), and also those who observe Jesus’s works and words also see or observe God the Father (e.g. 8:19; 14:8). What is important to see is that God is not presented by John as Deus absconditus, i.e., the ipso facto unknown and unknowable God. John’s God takes the initiative to send his Son to duplicate his works, with the purpose that when people see the works of His Son and get to know Him and believe in Him, they would essentially see and know Him. Schnelle correctly observes that John is asking and answering some of the most fundamentally important questions about God, namely how we as humans can get to know and experience him. The answer that John provides is that God can only be known in and through Jesus. It is very clear for John that Jesus is the only way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). In the aforementioned verse, the channel of communication and revelation is very clear:

Schnelle says: “Jesus is not the Father himself, and nevertheless it is only in Jesus that God appears and is present among human beings in time and history (8:24, 29, 58; 14:9; cf. 6:20). [K]nowing God (cf., e.g., 1 John 2:3-5, 13-14; 3:1, 6; 4:6-8; John 1:10; 8:55; 14:7; 16:3) is for John identical with believing in Jesus Christ as God’s Son . . . for the one who has seen him and believes in him knows God.”25

25

Schnelle, Theology, 666.

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Immanenz in Johannine thought involves an intimate relationship not only between the Father and the Son, and between believers, expressed in love, but also between them and the Spirit (1 John 3:24; 4:1, 2, 3, 6, 13; 5:6, 8). In 1 John 3:24, the author clearly expresses the idea of “abiding” in the Spirit who has been given to believers and serves as a sign of the close relationship between believers and God. John also wants to answer the question how it is possible to see that someone has the Spirit. His answer is simple in 1 John 4:13-15: “καὶ ἡµεῖς τεθεάµεθα καὶ µαρτυροῦµεν ὅτι ὁ πατὴρ ἀπέσταλκεν τὸν υἱὸν σωτῆρα τοῦ κόσµου. ὃς ἐὰν ὁµολογήσῃ ὅτι Ἰησοῦς ἐστιν ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, ὁ θεὸς ἐν αὐτῷ µένει καὶ αὐτὸς ἐν τῷ θεῷ [NIV: “This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.”]. Michael Gorman argues that one of the key ways in which the relationship between the Father and the Son is seen is by looking at the implicit motivation of love that God has for his lost world, so as to give them life and restoration and sending his Son in love. 26 This love is expressed in the Son’s self-sacrificial love. To know God is to know God in and through the self-sacrificial love of his Son who did not hesitate to give his life to those he loved (John 15:13), even those who were his enemies. Gorman quotes Augustine to this effect: “So there you are. In Christ we do find greater love, seeing that he gave up his life not for his friends but for his enemies. How great must be God’s love for humanity and what extraordinary affection, so to love even sinners that he would die for love of them.”27 Furthermore remarkable is that Jesus breaks the cycle of retribution by showing love to his enemies. He even shows love to one like Peter, who turns against him and denies him. Gorman notes that Jesus “loved and died for Peter in spite of Peter’s betrayal; he loved and died for the friend-turned-enemy so that the enemy could once again become a friend.”28 Knowing God Michael Gorman, Abide and Go: Missional Theosis in the Gospel of John (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2018), 172–173. 27 Gorman, Abide and Go, 173, quoting Augustine, Sermon 215.5. 28 Gorman, Abide and Go, 173. 26

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entails that we live from our identity, rooted in Christ, in the context of the Immanenz characterized by boundary transcending and spiral breaking love. Gorman also quotes Gregory the Great (Forty Gospel Homilies 27) who confirms this notion: “The Lord had come to die even for his enemies, and yet he said he would lay down his life for his friends to show us that when we are able to win over our enemies by loving them, even our persecutors are our friends.”29 The purpose of John’s Gospel was to tell the story of God’s love for the world, expressed in and through Jesus as the primary protagonist. For John, God is in action in and through Jesus, so those who see Jesus, see God (John 5:17ff). The reader is motivated to read the Gospel and get to know Jesus and the way he revealed God in and through love, light and life. To become like God (theosis), means to follow the way of Jesus’s love. Imitating Jesus, who imitates God, means to know God in His love.30

CONCLUSION

In this chapter, it was argued that in order to approach a topic like Knowing God in John, one has to approach John’s pictorial theology. Drawing an analogy from the act of appreciating the picture of Pieter Bruegel, we argued that one needs to look at all the elements within the picture when one wants to make an effort to describe one character or object, because all these elements are interrelated and co-determine the meaning of the individual parts. Also, it was argued that Bruegel’s painting has a narrative frame, and one has to understand the unfolding plot and drama within the context of this frame. Similarly, in order to discuss how John speaks of knowing God, one has to make an effort to describe the different elements with John has a pictoral character and that John essentially has a story and plot to tell. We learned that John has a dualistic worldview in which he strongly differentiates between that which is from below and that Gregory the Great, Forty Gospel Homilies 27, quoted in Gorman, Abide and Go, 173. 30 See a similar argument in Gorman, Abide and Go, 172. 29

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which is from above. That which is from above is characterized by light, truth, life, and that which is from below is characterized by darkness, deceit and death. That which is from below is caught up in the grip of the Devil, whom John describes as the king or ruler of this world and also as the father of the children of the Devil (John 8:44). As father of the children of the Devil, he is the source of their blindness and keeps them from knowing God. Motivated by his love (John 3:16; 20:30-31), God the Father sent his Son Jesus to this world to save them from their blindness and grant them eternal life. The Gospel of John, more than any other document in the Bible, refers to God as Father. This implies already the relationality John wants to express for those who want to know God. Jesus was sent to create a family with God the Father and his Son Jesus at the head of the family. Jesus the Son was in a special relationship with God from the very beginning of time, and is able to “exegete” or make known God the Father due to the special position he occupies at the bosom of the Father (John 1:18). God is the source of life and judgement, but he gave the ability to grant life to his Son. Those who see the Son, also see the Father (John 5:19), who essentially reveals the glory and will of God and teaches it to God’s children. Those who believe in Jesus (John 1:12) receive the right to be called children of God, and they are born anew into a new family of God the Father in which they are fully treated not as slaves, but as friends who are revealed the will of God in and through Jesus (John 15:14-15).31 Those who do the will of God are those who follow the commandments of Jesus. They are truly called friends of God. They will know God and will be known by God. Their fruits will reveal to whom they belong. Just as their Father was motivated by love, those who know Him in and through His Son will know that they will be known by the love they show (John 13:34-35 says: Ἐντολὴν καινὴν δίδωµι ὑµῖν, ἵνα ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους, καθὼς ἠγάπησα ὑµᾶς ἵνα καὶ ὑµεῖς ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους. ἐν τούτῳ γνώσονται πάντες ὅτι ἐµοὶ µαθηταί ἐστε, ἐὰν ἀγάπην ἔχητε ἐν ἀλλήλοις. [NIV: “A

See Brian S. Rosner, Known by God: A Biblical Theology of Personal Identity, Biblical Theology for Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), 124–137. 31

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new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”). In conclusion we could say that believers will get to know God through his love (John 3:16), and the world will know they are believers because they will be characterized by their love for one another.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barrett, Charles K. The Gospel according to St. John. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978. Bennema, Cornelis. “Christ, the Spirit, and the Knowledge of God: A Study in Johannine Epistemology.” In The Bible and Epistemology: Biblical Soundings on the Knowledge of God, edited by Mary Healy and Robin Parry, 107-133. Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2007. Carson, D. A. The Gospel according to John. PNTC. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1991. Gorman, Michael. Abide and Go: Missional Theosis in the Gospel of John. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2018. Köstenberger, Andreas J. John. BECNT. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004. Morris, Leon. The Gospel according to John. Rev. ed. NICNT. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995. Reinhartz, Adele. “John 20:30–31 and the Purpose of the Fourth Gospel.” Ph.D. diss., McMaster University, 1983. https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/bitstream/11375/13759/1 /fulltext.pdf. Rosner, Brian S. Known by God: A Biblical Theology of Personal Identity. Biblical Theology for Life. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017. Rusam, Dietrich. Die Gemeinschaft der Kinder Gottes: Das Motiv der Gotteskindschaft und die Gemeinde der johanneischen Briefe. BWANT 133. Stuttgart: Kolhammer, 1993. Schnelle, Udo. Theology of the New Testament. Translated by M. Eugene Boring. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009.

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van der Watt, J. G. “Aspects of Johannine Spirituality as It Is Reflected in 1 John.” Studies in Spirituality 22 (2012): 89– 108. doi: 10.2143/SIS.22.0.2182848. van der Watt, J. G. Family of the King: Dynamics of Metaphor in the Gospel according to John. BibInt 47. Leiden: Brill, 2000. Zimmermann, Ruben. Christologie der Bilder im Johannesevangelium: Die Christopoetik des vierten Evangelium unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Joh 10. WUNT 171. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004.

CHAPTER SEVEN. PRACTICES OF KNOWING GOD IN EMBODIMENT AND ENCOUNTER: A PRACTICAL THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION PROF. DR. JACK BARENTSEN1 DEPARTMENT OF PRACTICAL THEOLOGY THE KNOWABILITY OF GOD: A PRACTICAL M ATTER?

Christians speak about God, they speak with God, and sometimes they even speak for God. At least, this is what most Christians claim, and they share these kinds of claims with adherents of various other religions. Thus, the question about “the knowability of God” seems a moot point. Christians everywhere say they know God and they speak with Him, so we can assume for our purpose that it is possible to know God. How else can Christians make such bold and daring claims? In biblical and historical studies, such claims occur quite regularly, as this book has abundantly documented. Christians tend to elevate people with very unusual

Jack Barentsen is Professor of Practical Theology at Evangelische Theologische Faculteit Leuven and Research Associate in the Faculty of Theology, North-West University (Potchefstroom, South Africa). 1

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or bold claims about knowing God to the status of “saints,” or at least they become exemplars: Moses, the friend of God who spoke with Him face to face, an enduring model of spiritual leadership; Deborah, prophetess and leader spoke for God to a fragmented nation under threat; David, a man after God’s heart who sang his fears and victories in songs we still sing; Jeremiah, called by God from the womb onwards to speak God’s words to a nation that would not listen; Jesus, conceived and anointed by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the kingdom and to perform miracles as his Father directed him; Paul, encountering the living Christ on a city trip, which turned him from enemy into one of the foremost advocates of the new Way of Christ. The list could be extended with dozens more names from biblical times, as well as from church history, sometimes with each region and tradition venerating its own list of saints. None of these appear to have been worried about the question of whether God might be known. They simply knew God, they acknowledged that this knowledge changed them, and they went about God’s business. Knowing God was not problematic in the philosophical sense, although it often posed formidable challenges in practice. And yet, long traditions debate the possibility of knowing God intensely or even deny it in principle. Discussions about the extent to which God can be known draw on creation or natural theology, reflecting on what creatures might understand about their creator from observing nature. Discussions may draw on indepth investigation of divine revelation in Scripture, wondering what finite and limited beings may know about an infinite and all-wise God. These discussions may also reflect awe at the incomprehensibility and absolute perfection of God, emphasizing that we can at best know God by saying what we cannot know about him (apophatic theology). The first and second approaches lead Christians to claim specific knowledge of God, whether through reflection on natural phenomena and the natural sciences or through the study of Scripture as revealed text, always aware

CHAPTER SEVEN. A PRACTICAL THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION 205 that this knowledge remains limited by our creaturely limitations and human sinfulness. The third approach is often found in mystical traditions, where divine presence is sought and experienced without attempting to give it positive definition. Thus, more speculative responses to the knowability of God are linked with specific forms of practice and what Christians believe they can or cannot claim about knowing God. This chapter argues that discussions about the knowability of God arise from particular forms of religious practice in which faith is lived and expressed. There would be no debate about the knowability of God if Christians did not in some way experience God’s presence and claim to know God. This means that the knowability of God is fundamentally a practical matter, but not merely in the sense that theological and philosophical questions about whether God can be known (and to what extent) have practical consequences in daily Christian living. Rather, this paper argues that the knowability of God is a matter of practice because it is only in practicing one’s faith that claims arise that one knows God. It is when those claims are examined, tested, and contested, that Christians reflect on the extent to which they can know God. This chapter contributes to this discussion by examining how faith practice gives rise to claims that one knows God, that one experiences divine presence or has an encounter with the divine. The primary question that I will seek to answer is “How does the practice of one’s faith give rise to claims about knowing God?” Additional questions will help provide direction: What is involved in the Christian claim to know God experientially? Which events, practices or experiences might attend such claims to know God? What places, locations or settings are conducive to divine encounters and knowing God?

DOES PRACTICAL THEOLOGY DARE TO SPEAK OF KNOWING GOD ?

For many today, the question about the knowability of God is a moot point as well, but for a different reason from that described above. Western philosophies of science focus on the material and the observable by way of experiment and experience. Within this

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scientific environment, it is generally held that no experiential detection of divine presence or action is possible. Even if one should believe in God’s existence and experience a divine encounter, at the most the scientist can document physical, chemical, sociological or psychological processes. Thus, scientists generally say little about God, holding to a methodological agnosticism or atheism. An occasional scientist takes his or her own discipline to the extreme, reducing religious beliefs and thoughts about God to merely a phenomenon of psychology,2 neuroscience3 or physics.4 These scholars essentially claim to have fully explored the breadth and depth of ultimate reality within the language of their disciplines; nothing else is to be found except what they can describe from within their field. However, material, human, and spiritual realities are far too complex and diverse to be able to be described with the language of just one discipline. In effect, then, these scholars have mounted their own claim to know God, or to know ultimate reality, precisely by positing that they know there is no God (outside their realm). Moreover, they implicitly assume the role of high priest as the scientist who is in touch with this ultimate reality, able to reveal its contents to other “worshippers.” Aside from such reductionist views of reality, methodological agnosticism represents mainstream scholarly work, even in theology. Some practical theologians have begun to question this. In their fascinating study Talking about God in Practice, Cameron e.a. address the awkwardness and even embarrassment that theologians face in a secularized world in speaking of God. What could one mean by talking about God, or even claiming to know God while doing action research with the

J. Mills, Inventing God: Psychology of Belief and the Rise of Secular Spirituality (London: Routledge, 2016); M. Power, Adieu to God: Why Psychology Leads to Atheism (Chicester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012). 3 D. Swaab, Wij zijn ons brein: Van baarmoeder tot Alzheimer (Amsterdam: Atlas Contact, 2010). 4 S. Hawking and L. Mlodinow, The Grand Design (New York: Bantam Books, 2010). 2

CHAPTER SEVEN. A PRACTICAL THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION 207 assistance of sociological or psychological models?5 They aim to develop a practical theological model of thinking that makes speech about God and divine presence meaningful both in practice and research contexts. Andrew Root takes issue with the reluctance of practical theology to deal with divine encounters as one of the primary phenomena for practical theological research and reflection.6 According to him, the field of practical theology has focused too exclusively on analyzing practice as a human phenomenon, with the help of the human sciences. He opens his major study on practical theology with two stories of divine encounters, one of which focuses on his own meeting of Christ as a boy. He subsequently creates an intricate model for moving divine presence to the center stage of practical theology, going beyond the verifiable experiential reality of faith practice.

K NOWING GOD IN PRACTICE: THREE STORIES

We shall return to these and other practical theologians, but we will first have a close look at some of the claims that Christians make about knowing God. Following the lead of Root, I will draw on three stories in my own ministry experience. These are not better or more paradigmatic stories than those that can be found elsewhere. On the contrary, these stories can be found many times over in various faith communities, in the popular press and in social media, in public testimonies and in formal research interviews. These three narratives with their claims to know something of God do not so much cover the field as they provide a window for reflection on the practice of knowing God.7

H. Cameron, D. Bhatti, C. Duce, J. Sweeney and C. Watkins, Talking about God in Practice: Theological Action Research and Practical Theology (London: SCM Press, 2010). 6 A. Root, Christopraxis: A Practical Theology of the Cross (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2014). 7 I present these narratives of knowing God at face value, without an attempt to evaluate their claims. That is, I offer a phenomenological description of these experiences in a way that is, as much as possible, “neutral as to whether they do experience God or not” (K. E. Yandell, The Epistemology of Religious Experience [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994], 16). 5

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Knowing God through the Word

As a college student in the early 1980’s, I was welcomed and then taught the basics of Christian living by an on-campus ministry called the “Princeton Christian Fellowship” (PCF), with a philosophy similar to the discipleship model of the Navigators.8 Although raised as a Christian in the Netherlands, I was exposed for the first time to systematic Bible teaching, both in the worship services of a nearby Evangelical church and in the Friday evening fellowships of the PCF. In so-called “personal hours,” I did personal Bible study with a staff member, getting myself grounded in knowing the Word, and of course in knowing God. I memorized dozens of Scripture passages, which led me in later years to memorize entire chapters from the Gospels and the letters of Paul. Moreover, I eagerly shared these experiences with other students and witnessed to them of my faith. Within this ministry, there was great respect for the Bible as the Word of God, while their apologetics involved a defense of the Bible against various scientific claims. I found a spiritual home there, and was impressed that dozens of other students were as eager as I was to study God’s Word and to know him more intimately. It was evident to me that the best way to know God was to know his Scriptures intimately. How else would God speak to me if I didn’t study Scripture, which he had inspired by the Holy Spirit to become our guide in every aspect of life! We all greatly respected Bible teachers and theologians who were invited to Bible conferences to expound the meaning and theology of the Scriptures, and to apply them to daily Christian living. God Speaking in Images

About two decades later, when I was fully involved in a church planting ministry and moving slowly towards theological education, my wife and I observed a respected Christian woman develop her sensitivity to knowing God in a different way. After some years’ absence, she returned to our church and was asked to lead one of our small groups. She accepted and then, during See https://www.navigators.org/. The ministry recently changed its name to Princeton Christian Fellowship; see http://pcfprinceton.org/. 8

CHAPTER SEVEN. A PRACTICAL THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION 209 the meeting, she invited us to close our eyes and sit silently, in the expectation that God would give us a picture or image to share with the group. She introduced this as a good way to hear from God, without much further explanation. Although she might have presented one or two Bible references, the experience would speak for itself. As I sat there for ten long minutes, all kinds of pictures raced through my mind, not all of which I found very edifying. I debated with myself whether this was really the way God would speak to people, quite apart from careful study of his Word. When the silence ended, everyone in the group shared an image and told what it made them recall, myself included. It was evident that some were better practiced in this than others. For my part, I felt very awkward, and expressed this. Whereupon one of the more practiced believers assured me with a friendly pat on the shoulder that in due time I could also learn this. Clearly, he and the young woman believed that they had experienced God’s presence speaking to them through images. On another occasion, this same Christian woman shared in a group around a lunch table how she had heard God’s voice directing her towards marriage. Quite some discussion arose about what it meant to hear God’s voice. When asked about a Bible reference, she quoted (to my surprise) the story of Jesus as the good Shepherd. “You see, it says that “My sheep hear my voice” (John 10:27) so the sheep had learned to recognize the voice of the true Shepherd.”9 This text represented to her the process that believers can or should undergo in learning how to recognize the voice of Christ speaking to them directly in their daily Christian living.

As I write this, I can hardly resist the temptation to explain that in this text, it is not the sheep that know or recognize the voice. They only “hear” the voice, while it is Jesus who knows his sheep. This impulse testifies to how much the study of the Scriptures remains associated in my experience with truthfully knowing God. Evidently, this text played a different role in the experience of this Christian woman than in mine. 9

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Christ’s Presence in the Eucharist

Fast forward another decade or so. I was then fully involved in teaching practical theology. As an elder of our local Baptist church, I became acquainted with an aged Roman Catholic priest from the order Opus Dei who lived in our city. He had been befriended by our former pastor and occasionally attended our Baptist services. Once a year or so, he and I would visit together over lunch. He was tirelessly enthusiastic about Jozef Maria Escrivà, the founder of Opus Dei (1928), who emphasized that all believers—that is, all the laity and not just the clergy—are called to live holy lives. Members of the order would serve Christ within their own profession. Thus, we shared a passion about living for Christ in our daily lives and we agreed that Christ must be the center of our lives. However, he often remarked that he really had difficulty seeing that Jesus is indeed central to our life and faith. “You [as Baptists] only celebrate the Eucharist once a month!” How could Jesus take center place if the Eucharist was not celebrated in every service, or even observed daily? Certainly, he appreciated our Baptist sermons in ordinary language about real Christian living. And he found our baptismal service with its testimonies very inspiring, wishing that others might attend to observe the value of Christ in daily life. But he could not see how we would be content with sermons and songs as the most significant way to experience Christ’s presence. Without the Eucharist, could Christ really be that near? For him, the Eucharist was a primary means of experience and living in Christ’s presence.

PRACTICAL THEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS FROM THESE STORIES

These three stories can easily be recognized respectively as evangelical, charismatic, and Roman Catholic ways of knowing God. I will now draw some observations from them. The observations deal not only with various ways of knowing God, but also with various ways in which adherents of one tradition might respond to those of another tradition. I can do this in greater depth because these three stories are connected to my person and my ministry, so my own responses reveal something

CHAPTER SEVEN. A PRACTICAL THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION 211 of the social interaction that takes place among traditions. There is of course the danger that I am blinded by my own tradition, or at least that I privilege it over others. I will aim to make my observations without privileging my own tradition, but undoubtedly will only partially succeed in this—a fact especially noticeable by those from traditions other than mine.10 Specific and Normative Claims about Knowing God

Each story revolves around a specific way of knowing God. Some people are convinced that God can be known through the Scriptures. Others are convinced of the value of direct contact with God through word and image as these are impressed upon their experience and intuition. Still others are convinced that a particular ritual remains core in knowing God. More specific ways of knowing God could easily be added to this list, such as knowing God in prayer, in diaconal or justice ministries, experiencing God in nature or in the quiet retreat of a monastery, etc. Indeed, the scientists cited above who reduce all of reality to what can be described only by the language of their own discipline also claim to know God or ultimate reality in a particular way, even if they deny the existence of God. Notice that each specific claim entails a norm. The first group is likely to believe that the Bible is a primary way to know God, and they are likely suspicious of any claims to know God without a basis in the study of Scripture, such as claims that root knowledge of God in spiritual experience or ritual. The second group feels so touched by the overwhelming presence of God through image and word, that they can hardly imagine believers content to know God without this sense of divine presence. They are often very “evangelistic” to convert other believers to their way of experiencing divine presence. The third group is committed to weekly or even daily observance of the Eucharist, For more abstract and wider ranging descriptions of religious experience, see Keith Yandell, who phenomenologically describes and compares such experiences within Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism: K. E. Yandell, “The Diversity of Religious Experience,” in The Oxford Handbook of Religious Diversity, ed. C. V. Meister (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 89–100. 10

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and can hardly accept that many Christians live without this moment of experiencing Christ present. Moreover, it is evident that the “reductionist” scientist is strongly normative in denying that God or ultimate reality can be known in any other way than their own. Thus, each group tends to elevate its own specific claim about knowing God to the norm for their particular faith (or scientific) community, often seeking to convert others to this specific way. Sometimes, this norm plays a significant part in the identity of the group, which may lead to conflict with those who try to introduce a different way of knowing God within that community. At other times, this norm is recognized as a strong spiritual preference, treasured within one’s own group, while other ways of knowing God are respected with a degree of openness, even if one does not have much affinity with or appreciation for these other ways as a matter of personal spirituality. The first two tendencies are evident in the aftermath of the small group session where we were to receive divine images. During the session, this “new way of knowing God” was actively promoted, and those not yet familiar with it were strongly encouraged to pursue it further. While not all were convinced and some even developed resistance to it, this event became a small factor in what eventually led to a church split, precisely over different ways of knowing God as they define Christian identity. The last tendency, towards respect without much affinity, remained evident in my contact with the Roman Catholic priest. Mediated in Specific Practices

Each of these specific claims about knowing God arises out of and is supported by specific practices. For many Christians, the Eucharist remains the center of worship. The Eucharist table or altar is therefore located at center stage from which the Mass is conducted. The entire worship service moves towards participation in the Eucharist as the climax of God’s presence. Regular attendance at Mass is therefore necessary to maintain a sense of God’s presence in one’s life. The practice of regular processions extends this practice, for during a procession the Eucharist is

CHAPTER SEVEN. A PRACTICAL THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION 213 celebrated literally on many street corners, thus advancing Christ’s presence beyond the confines of the church building. Many Christians, however, find such a view of the presence of God too ritualistic. It is through song and music, through images and inspiring sermons, that they want to open themselves up to God’s touch. Indeed, for them to be “touched by God” becomes a primary descriptor for a service in which God’s presence was sensed. God may make himself known through ritual or through text, but his presence is experienced most immediately in the impression of emotions, images and words. Not surprisingly, the worship band is usually featured center stage, while the speaker stands as close to the congregation as possible, to facilitate worship services that focus on this immediate and close touch. For many other Christians, however, it is the centrality of the biblical text that really matters in experiencing and knowing God. Scripture, understood as divine, verbal revelation, is to be diligently analyzed, studied and applied to do justice to God’s work of inspiration. Sermons are to be expositional, explaining the meaning of the text then and now. Bible studies focus on working through Bible books or passages, with suitable applications during the course of the study. And hymns, songs and prayers are shaped by using Bible texts. Centrality of the Word is physically demonstrated in the centrality of the pulpit on stage in these traditions.11 The point here is not so much to portray differences in worship and Christian living among various Christian traditions, but to link these practices with particular claims about knowing God. Each claim is intimately familiar to its proponents, not primarily because of theological or philosophical arguments, but because it is a strong focus of the regular faith practice for that particular community. It is a particular practice, which sustains

Cf. A. L. van Ommen, and J. Barentsen, “Sola Scriptura as Social Construction: A Practical Theological Approach,” in Sola Scriptura: Biblical and Theological Perspectives on Scripture, Authority, and Hermeneutics, ed. H. Burger, A. Huijgen, and E. Peels, Studies in Reformed Theology 32 (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 279-93. 11

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its accompanying specific claim to know God, which in turn legitimates and directs a particular form of faith practice.12 Shaping Identities and Relationships

Specific claims about knowing God thus shape norms, practices, and boundaries of particular faith communities. Much of this happens implicitly. Of course, pastoral leaders may and should be able to make these commitments explicit, and they will usually encourage and exhort the faithful to participate in their particular practices of knowing God. However, for many of the faithful, these norms and practices are caught more than taught. Newcomers in a faith community usually find themselves welcomed and invited to participate. Gradually, newcomers learn the modes of knowing God that this particular community values, and will often adopt them as their own—as I did in the university ministry that I was involved in as a college student.13 However, if newcomers experience internal resistance, perhaps because of previous experiences in other faith communities, they would not identify very strongly with this new community and probably remain somewhat marginal in relation to its activities, celebrations and relationships. Still, growing relationships and higher levels of participation will almost automatically translate into more thorough adoption of the ways of knowing God that this community fosters as central—as I have observed many times in my church planting ministry. This is also the case in scientific communities, as described above with the ‘reductionist scientist.’ Such scientists advocate a particular way of practicing science, which is expressed in various journals and conferences, which in turn legitimize and stimulate the same particular way of doing science. For a more detailed description of this kind of process, see T. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: 50th Anniversary Edition, 4th ed. (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2012) and H. M. Collins and T. Pinch, The Golem: What You Should Know about Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). 13 See, for instance, the way in which newcomers are not only welcomed but initiated and enfolded within the community as proposed by R. Warren, The Purpose Driven Church: Growth without Compromising Your Message and Mission (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007), especially chapter 7. 12

CHAPTER SEVEN. A PRACTICAL THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION 215 Thus, even if newcomers come from another type of faith community, they will usually gradually adapt to and identify with the new community, so that the proposed claims for knowing God become meaningful to themselves experientially and theologically. Their personal religious identities are adapted to and connected with the religious identity of their new community, along with valued and relevant beliefs and practices. Such a web of relationships and practices builds people’s personal and corporate sense of identity.14 Alternatively, if newcomers sense their continued marginal status, their own identity is at stake and a resolution is necessary. Often, such newcomers leave this new faith community. But some, convinced of their different ways of knowing God, may seek to mobilize others for their perspective. If the newcomers are successful in building relationships and winning credibility and allegiance among others in the community, they may succeed in gradually adapting the Christian identity of the community to include their own ways of knowing God. This is, however, a conflictual process, in which the identity of the community is at stake. Unfortunately, this often ends up in division rather than adaptation or a more inclusive perspective on knowing God. Socialization and Plausibility

Clearly, the religious identity of a group and its members develops gradually along a process of socialization. Members learn from one another what it means to know God and how this is practiced. They learn this through personal conversations, formal preaching and teaching, personal testimonies, etc. Some members, especially community leaders, are perceived as more central and more relevant, so that these members exercise disproportionally more influence than ‘regular participants’ and certainly more than those who are marginal. This is not only a matter of being in the ingroup or the outgroup, but of moving This explanation follows patterns of social identification as studied with the field of social identity theory. See S. A. Haslam, Psychology in Organizations: The Social Identity Approach, 2nd ed. (London: Sage, 2004), 67-73. 14

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towards the center of the group or moving away from it—even as the group itself slowly changes its beliefs and values in response to changes in membership and environment over the course of years or decades.15 Although faith communities do not necessarily deny the value of other claims to knowing God, they tend to favor one or a few claims over others. In fact, community members often recognize their own experience in the experiences of other members, which is an important factor in binding the group together, both socially and religiously. This implies that particular ways of knowing God gain in plausibility within a particular group, while others lose their plausibility (or are never plausible to begin with). For instance, the Roman Catholic priest might find some respectful listeners but few sympathizers in a Baptist fellowship when he proposes that the Eucharist should be made central to worship. It is not that Baptists never have a significant religious experience during Communion (although only rarely during a Roman Catholic Eucharist). However, it would most likely be atypical, so that even if people experience something of this, they might not feel free to share or offer a testimony about it, because in Baptist communities, Eucharistic rituals are not considered a very plausible way to experience divine presence. However, if a Baptist attends Mass and has a significant spiritual experience, it could be highly relevant and very plausible when this story is shared with the officiating priest and perhaps with other faithful participants. Thus, plausibility is constructed within a particular faith community, such that, what is plausible in one community might meet only blank stares or even censure in another. This description of mediation, identity formation, socialization, and plausibility in practices for knowing God is not meant to deny the role of the Holy Spirit, of Scripture and of spiritual leadership in transforming individuals and building the Church. Rather, it may be taken as a description of some processes that the Spirit uses in transforming lives and forging community and identity within a group of individuals usually quite diverse. 15

Haslam, Psychology in Organisations, 45-49.

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EXPLORING SOCIAL SCIENTIFIC DIMENSIONS OF KNOWING GOD IN PRACTICE

The above narratives along with these preliminary observations provide an initial answer to the question: “How does the practice of one’s faith give rise to claims about knowing God?” These stories describe the relationships between particular faith practices in these communities, how these practices form identity, and how they relate to claims to know God. As case studies, they provide what Court calls “naturalistic generalizations,” in that they describe phenomenologically how various aspects of these practices are interrelated.16 However, they do not yet offer an explanation for these interrelationships or why this should be the case. We need to explore further the anthropological, psychological, and social dynamics of this phenomenon of “knowing God in practice.” To do so, I first turn towards a number of scholars in these disciplines whose thinking offers tools for further exploration. Next, I consider how practical theologians might incorporate these findings in constructing a practical theological model of knowing God in practice. Knowing as Embodied Beings

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson are well known for their work on metaphor theory.17 However, as cognitive psychologists, they were interested in more than just a particular linguistic phenomenon. They were interested in understanding how human beings come to know anything, and how they develop language and thinking to communicate about these things. In their magnum opus Philosophy in the Flesh, they review a vast number of empirical studies in cognitive science, and trace how from perception to communication to philosophy, our thinking about the world represents our embodied engagement with the world.18 D. Court, Qualitative Research and Intercultural Understanding: Conducting Qualitative Research in Multicultural Settings (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017), 32. 17 G. Lakoff and M. Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (1980; repr., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008). 18 G. Lakoff and M. Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought (New York: Basic Books, 1999). 16

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Humans are not merely rational agents who communicate about abstract universals, and who happen to need bodies for observation (eyes) and communication (mouth). Instead, concepts reflect neural brain structures that depend on the sensorimotor systems of our bodies to make any sense. Conceptual inference, they argue, is actually sensorimotor inference. Our concepts are shaped by the potential and the limitations of our senses, so that essentially all human knowledge is somehow sensory knowledge. This does not mean that we can only think about concrete things that we can feel, hear or touch. Rather, we think about life (abstract) as a series of obstacles (sensory), about love (abstract) as a journey (sensory),19 or about cause and effect (abstract) as a force applied to an object (sensory).20 They propose, therefore, to speak not of “realism” or “critical realism” but about “embodied realism”, since we have no way to engage with or participate in reality other than with and through our bodies.21 This is reminiscent of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological analysis of perception.22 He argued that our bodies cannot be considered as subject, as co-extensive with us as observers, for we use our bodies to interact with the world and can observe them functioning in the world. But neither are our bodies simply objects that we observe in the world, because they are intimately connected with us as observing and sensing subjects. Thus, our bodies are an in-between kind of entity, neither completely subject nor completely object. Through our bodies, we participate in this world and can begin to know it. This “turn to the body” is part of a wider trend in a number of disciplines,23 and is finding a sympathetic ear among some

Lakoff and Johnson, Philosophy, 60–65. Lakoff and Johnson, Philosophy, 184–87. 21 Lakoff and Johnson, Philosophy, 74–93. 22 M. Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la perception (1945; repr., Paris: TEL Gallimard, 1978). 23 G. Ignatow, “Theories of Embodied Knowledge: New Directions for Cultural and Cognitive Sociology?” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 37, no. 2 (2007):115–135. 19 20

CHAPTER SEVEN. A PRACTICAL THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION 219 practical theologians.24 When applied to our topic of “knowing God in practice,” this implies that “knowing God” cannot simply be a rational, emotional or spiritual experience apart from our bodies. Our very concepts of God as a person, of personal interaction and care, of love and justice, are shaped by our embodied experiences throughout our lives, and in the communities within which we are raised and move about. This doesn’t imply that knowing God only comes through bodily sensations, but it does help to understand that knowing God does not come apart from a variety of forms of human practices, embodied modes of participation in what counts as knowing God. This embodied participation can be clearly recognized in the posture and physical effort required to study Scripture or to proclaim it, in the invitation to sit still and allow visual, concrete representations to arise in our minds, and in participation in the Eucharist by going forward, eating and drinking. Knowing God is an important spiritual discipline, or rather, a set of disciplines that comes, at least in part, through embodied participation in certain practices that count as “knowing God.” Knowing in Interaction

The embodied nature of our knowing is, on the one hand, individual, since I can only participate with my body which engages my own cognitive processes. On the other hand, it is also communal since my engagement receives significance only in the context of shared practice. As individuals engage their world, they form mental representations of it and communicate about them. These mental representations are consequently adjusted in various manners, so that knowledge is generated. This knowledge is not simply the acquisition of correct mental representations from “static positions,” stable objects, or definitive vantageD. C. Bass, K. A. Cahalan, B. J. Miller-McLemore, J. R. Nieman and C. B. Scharen, Christian Practical Wisdom: What It Is, Why It Matters (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016); W. S. Brown and B. D. Strawn, The Physical Nature of Christian Life: Neuroscience, Psychology, and the Church (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); B. J. Miller-McLemore, “Embodied Knowing, Embodied Theology: What Happened to the Body?” Pastoral Psychology 62, no. 5 (2013): 743-758. 24

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points, or “an articulation of fixed things already known.” Rather, it is a “knowing in progress” constantly being checked, corrected, updated and expanded.25 Thus, knowledge is socially constructed in interaction as we engage with the world. This knowledge is also significantly constrained in its construction, since our embodied engagement with the world does not allow us to propose just anything about this world; it has to be recognizably related to the particular engagement of the moment. Moreover, knowledge is also constrained by our social interaction with other participants, since we inhabit a context, culture and communication system with many but not unlimited manners of expression.26 Knowing in Community This is aptly captured in theories about communities of practice, such as the one proposed by Etienne Wenger.27 He presents a case study on a particular community of practice, namely workers of a large administrative department of an insurance firm. Although knowledge (about forms and claims) might be considered to be clear, determined by legal considerations of insurance policies and by management, it turns out that the administrative process generates additional knowledge about these forms and claims that is continually developing as well as contested as new situations arise and new workers arrive. Wenger presents his findings as a social learning theory with four assumptions:28 1. 2.

We are social beings; Knowledge is a matter of competence with respect to valued enterprises;

T. H. J. Marchand, “Making Knowledge: Explorations of the Indissoluble Relation between Minds, Bodies, and Environment,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 16 (2010): S12, 16. 26 This is one of the key points of J. K. A. Smith’s argument: J. K. A. Smith, Who’s Afraid of Relativism? Community, Contingency, and Creaturehood (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2014). 27 E. Wenger, Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 28 Wenger, Communities, 4. 25

CHAPTER SEVEN. A PRACTICAL THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION 221 3. 4.

Knowing is participating in the pursuit of such enterprises; Meaning is the product of learning.

Primary social dynamics in such a community are identification and negotiation. Identification relates to how we conform to and participate in the practices of the community, which provides a sense of social belonging that is mediated through this identification—which “is at the very core of the social nature of our identities.”29 Negotiation is an important process within communities of practice, since they can be perceived as “economies of meaning” in which shared values and appropriate practice are continually affirmed, contested or challenged. This requires participants continually to negotiate their level and form of participation.30 Again, knowledge is more than mere description of objective properties or objects. It relates to participation in valued practices and is vital for determining levels of competence, which in turn indicates how well one really knows. Does knowing God in practice also manifest such a social process of generating knowledge? Based on the three case studies, we must answer in the affirmative. As a newcomer in a discipleship ministry in which studying Scripture was the primary way of knowing God, I participated in Bible studies and learned their methods. Although at first these seemed strange and I objected, various apologetic events underlined the complete reliability of Scripture. As a result, I gradually came to use these methods not only as techniques for textual analysis, but as guides Wenger, Communities, 212. Further reflections on knowing and identity, reference to social identity theory would be helpful. However, that would take this chapter too far afield, so the interested reader is encouraged to consult the following references: R. Jenkins, Social Identity (London: Routledge, 1996); Haslam, Psychology in Organizations; M. A. Hogg, D. van Knippenberg and D. E. Rast, “The Social Identity Theory of Leadership: Theoretical Origins, Research Findings, and Conceptual Developments,” European Review of Social Psychology 23, no. 1 (2012): 258-304; and S. A. Haslam, S. Reicher and M. J. Platow, The New Psychology of Leadership: Identity, Influence and Power, 2nd ed. (New York: Psychology Press, 2020). 30 Wenger, Communities, 212-213. 29

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for knowing God. In turn, I encouraged and then discipled others in the same way. When I chose a seminary for further study, I picked one that excelled in the exegesis and exposition of Scripture, rather than in mission studies or social justice and emancipation. When I later encountered other ways of knowing God, such as those described in the second and third case studies, I felt and observed the challenge this brought to the community. The second case led to numbers of community members experimenting with and adopting new experiential approaches to knowing God, while others (including myself) resisted and “remained true to Scripture.” Contestations about what counted as the true or best way of knowing God became ever more dominant in the community but were never truly negotiated. Instead, what one side found legitimate was found deviant by the other side and vice versa. This lack of resolution eventually led to a church split, because neither side could acknowledge the legitimacy of knowing God in the practice of “the others.” This is quite different from the third case, since the Roman Catholic priest never was nor wished to become a member of my Baptist church. He knew only a few people, and in these one-onone relationships, it was easier to maintain respect for very different ways of knowing God, since there was no contest within the community about his particular practice. Of course, none of those involved imagined that their adoption of certain practices of knowing God and of resisting others was—at least in part—socially determined. Each “party” had its own motivations, including its own mix of authoritative sources (Scripture, tradition, experience) to legitimate its practice. Nevertheless, one must observe that how Scripture, tradition and experiences related to actual practice was not merely a matter of spiritual or theological discernment but contained significant elements of social construction. Moreover, if not only the variation between the “parties” but also within each party could be observed, it would become clear that this was no contest between clearly distinguishable, “reified” practices of knowing God, but that each type of practice also evolved as

CHAPTER SEVEN. A PRACTICAL THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION 223 identification and negotiation confronted internal and external challenges to the practice. Knowing when God Speaks

This brings us to the fascinating work of Tanya Luhrmann, a psychological anthropologist at Stanford University, with a special interest in the phenomenology of religious experience. Much of her work focuses on the simple question, “How does God become real for people?”, which is not as simple as it sounds, especially in postmodern society driven by experience, for God is invisible and immaterial.31 In this study, she focused on American evangelical Christianity through an investigation of people within the Vineyard “signs and wonders” movement. But her work carries more widely: she interviewed numerous religious people (Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, New Age, Witchcraft, etc.) and conducted ethnographic research, participating for months at a time in various groups. She traced personal stories about how people were introduced to the movement, how they were surprised initially that people claimed to experience God or to have a spiritual experience, and she documented how they gradually also learned certain practices that brought them—as they claimed—close to God. She observed that, as people are introduced to the Vineyard movement, they are taught practices to encourage their relationship to God. Prayer is foremost among these practices, for which people are taught to focus attention inwardly and to ignore external stimuli.32 Psychologically, she labels this practice of entering into an “internal imaginative world” as “absorption.” She found that people with the capacity for and sufficient exercise in absorption report an increase in frequency and sharpness of mental

T. M. Luhrmann, When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God (New York: Doubleday, 2012), 11. 32 T. M. Luhrmann, “The Art of Hearing God: Absorption, Dissociation, and Contemporary American Spirituality,” Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality 5, no. 2 (2006): 146-147. 31

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imagery.33 Furthermore, as people enhance their capacity for absorption and inhabit their internal worlds, they become more perceptive of “moments of discontinuity that are natural to the flow of our everyday awareness, and actually to interpret them as discontinuous.” They are encouraged to explore these discontinuous moments to discover a spiritual or divine presence.34 In psychoanalysis, this is defined as a process of dissociation, where part of one’s own mental process is experienced as not originating from the self. This is manifest in a number of psychiatric disorders but is not necessarily indicative of disorder. Indeed, Luhrmann proposes that these practices of absorption and dissociation may also be part of normal religious phenomena, since significant historical and ethnographic evidence exists that absorption and dissociation have been broadly taught throughout history and in various cultures to foster intense spiritual experiences.35 Her research thus demonstrates “the role of skilled learning in the experience of God.”36 As a psychological anthropologist, Luhrmann makes no attempt to evaluate the truthfulness of claims to know God or have an intense spiritual experience. She documents the psychological, pedagogical, and social processes involved. Moreover, her research focuses on current forms of religiosity that prioritize inward experience as legitimation of a claim to know God, and it may well produce different findings in modes of religiosity more focused on text, ritual or social action. Nevertheless, her findings enlighten our own exploration in this chapter on what it means to know God. They point to the embodied nature of knowing God, since God is invisible and immaterial, and yet people claim to “hear” and “see” God. She explains the interactive character as people engage in certain T. M. Luhrmann and R. Morgain, “Prayer as Inner Sense Cultivation: An Attentional Learning Theory of Spiritual Experience,” Ethos 40, no. 4 (2012): 359-389. 34 Luhrmann, “The Art,” 141. 35 Luhrmann, “The Art,” 143. 36 T. M. Luhrmann, H. Nusbaum and R. Thisted, “The Absorption Hypothesis: Learning to Hear God in Evangelical Christianity,” American Anthropologist 112, no. 1 (2010): 66. 33

CHAPTER SEVEN. A PRACTICAL THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION 225 practices and discuss their experiences to explore and learn new ways of understanding these personal experiences. Her research also shows that certain ways of knowing God are practiced in particular groups and are not everywhere perceived in the same way.

TOWARDS A PRACTICAL THEOLOGY OF KNOWING GOD

The theories above drawn from cognitive psychology and embodied realism, which treat social and communal creation of knowledge and psychological and social mechanisms that contribute to spiritual experiences, can be used meaningfully to explore social and human dimensions of various practices of knowing God. This brings us back to various proposals by practical theologians to move beyond social scientific description and to provide a more theologically grounded approach that allows us to develop what we might call, “a practical theology of knowing God in practice.” We pick up the argument again with the three case studies presented above. At the core of them is the awareness, or at least the claim that God can be known in specific ways. There is no embarrassment in practice about this claim, nor hesitancy to speak about it, even though various claims might be disputed or contested. Moreover, people making such claims would be indignant and feel seriously misunderstood if a practical theologian, for the purposes of academic work, did not openly engage with questions about God’s presence and a human-divine encounter, but only engaged with the visible forms of religious practice and how they functioned within the community. Thus, practical theologians are called to investigate and address such human-divine encounters and to be able to speak about the knowledge of God in practice. Yet, widely used approaches to practical theological reflection do not seem to address this directly. Generally, practical theological methods use a version of the hermeneutical

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cycle37 or the pastoral action cycle38 to shape their reflection. These cycles involve a descriptive empirical task to observe a particular phenomenon, a hermeneutical task to understand its dynamics, a normative task to evaluate the appropriateness and faithfulness of the practice, and a pragmatic task to bring about the change that norms require.39 Although these tasks and reflections are embedded within one’s spirituality—Osmer connects every task with a mode of spirituality—reflection on God’s presence or action in the practice is not systematically in view. The focus is on human practice in its various dimensions and definitions,40 and the goal is a constructive and not merely a descriptive practical theology. Yet, whether this construction is concerned with divine presence and action is left out of systematic consideration.41 At the most, Osmer concedes that some practical theologians, depending on their underlying theological rationale, might be inclined to accept and theorize about divine action.42 Indeed, the preoccupation of this chapter with divine presence and knowing God is informed by my own theological rationale about how I know God and interpret divine presence. Yet my argument is that a conception of knowing God is not simply a matter of personal preference in the margins of doing practical theology, but that this belongs to the core of practical theological concerns with faith praxis. What is at stake here is a perspective on divine and human actions that does justice to both. Mark Bowald has portrayed how R. R. Osmer, “Practical Theology: A Current International Perspective,” HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 67, no. 2 (2011): 1–7. 38 P. H. Ballard and J. Pritchard, Practical Theology in Action: Christian Thinking in the Service of Church and Society (London: SPCK, 1996). 39 R. R. Osmer, Practical Theology: An Introduction (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008); G. Heitink, Practical Theology: History, Theory, Action Domains, Manual for Practical Theology, trans. R. Bruinsma (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999). 40 R. R. Osmer, “Toward a New Story of Practical Theology,” International Journal of Practical Theology 16, no. 1 (2012): 68-69. 41 Osmer discusses theories of divine and human action, but without coming to a clear focus on divine presence in praxis (Osmer, Practial Theology, 145-147). 42 Osmer, Practical Theology, 3. 37

CHAPTER SEVEN. A PRACTICAL THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION 227 biblical scholarship wrestles with the Enlightenment heritage that eclipses and usurps God’s agency. He seeks to recover the role of divine agency in the reading and interpretation of Scripture, which is often dominated by historical and critical approaches that deliberately set aside or, as he puts it, usurp divine agency in and through the text:43 To continue to see antecedent judgments about God’s action as something to set aside is effectively to remove something that constitutes our very lives; dislocating this key activity that constitutes and sustains our spiritual life from the active milieu of the transformative power of the Holy Spirit in the administration of Christ’s Heavenly Session. The attempt to remove ourselves from the divine agency in, with and under this text as an instrument of God’s gracious judgment, salvation, guidance and comfort is, from this perspective, an act of denial or resistance; even defiance.

In a similar way, practical theological reflection wrestles with acknowledging the work of the Spirit or the presence of Christ in the practices observed. Does not our scholarly work presuppose that we bracket our commitments to follow a particular faith tradition, to participate in particular communities and to submit to particular ways of knowing God? Moreover, who would dare to speak authoritatively as a scholar about the veracity of particular claims to know God? Surely, if anything, that would be a usurpation of divine agency! Yet, recognizing that divine agency “sustains our spiritual life,” as Bowald writes so well, we must search for a mode of practical theological reflection that does justice to divine agency. Kees de Ruijter, emeritus practical theologian from the Theological University in Kampen (the Netherlands) proposes that every practice has a double sense. On the one hand, it is the Church that practices in celebrating the liturgy, proclaiming the Word and offering care to the world. On the other hand, the Church does not act on her own initiative but serves the living God who Himself is the main Celebrant, Speaker and Caregiver in M. A. Bowald, Rendering the Word in Theological Hermeneutics: Mapping Divine and Human Agency (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 19-20. 43

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those very same practices. So as the Church acts, God acts through these human actions. There is only one reality, one practice, and in this practice divine and human actions flow together. In order to do justice to this undivided reality with its double sense or perspective, practical theology is called to reflect upon the way in which human and divine actions intermingle in various faith practices.44 In the end, de Ruijter proposes a bipolar model, where theology and the human sciences complement one another to highlight both divine and human actions; both have equal rights to address their concerns in the practices under investigation.45 This is not unlike Osmer’s proposal for the four tasks of practical theology, notably in the second task of social scientific interpretation and the third task of prophetical and theological evaluation, but it has the advantage, at least theoretically, of moving the intermingling of and tension between human and divine action into the center of practical theological reflection. Cameron e.a. add a further element to this discussion. They observe how within a secular environment, it is quite a challenge for believers to “to function effectively within the worldview of faith.”46 They engage in action research, using the familiar cycle of reflection (experience, reflection, learning, action), and contend that it is theological all the way through; it is “faith seeking understanding.”47 They document that theology is present at various levels of discourse within a faith community, which leads them to their model of the four voices of theology discernible in faith practices. Theological reflection is not (only) a task done by researchers evaluating a situation but is already present within the case being investigated. Their research documents this theological reflection and refracts it into various voices. The researchers aim to use their specific findings to develop the theological fluency of believers in the situation under investigation so that they can function more “effectively within

K. de Ruijter, Meewerken met God. Ontwerp van een gereformeerde praktische theologie (Kampen: Kok, 2005), 21-22. 45 de Ruijter, Meewerken, 76-77. 46 Cameron et al., Talking about God, 14. 47 Cameron et al., Talking about God, 51. 44

CHAPTER SEVEN. A PRACTICAL THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION 229 the world view of faith.”48 Cameron e.a. here propose a way to bridge the gap often perceived between the social sciences and theology, because they demonstrate that the theological is no less an empirical reality in any faith practice than the social and psychological, and that this theological reality can be discerned using normal processes of empirical research. The observation that action research is “theological all the way through” allows for a more thorough theological grounding of empirical research. Thus, Andrew Root proposes the term “Christopraxis” to indicate that the practice of ministry is a participation in the ministry of Christ himself. In ministry, God is at work in Christ through the Spirit. The practical theologian is called to attend to the action of Christ, not primarily as a doctrine or an ethical example or but as “encountered presence.”49 Practical theology focuses on concrete and lived practice, not because it is empirical, but because of its concern for divine action.50 Mart Cartledge, a Pentecostal theologian, argues that “in Scripture we have a model for understanding the relationship between religious experience and pneumatology, and that it is inextricably connected to ecclesiology.”51 Scripture itself leads us to expect that the work of the Spirit will be recognizable in certain religious experiences as they are nurtured and celebrated within the community of faith. Thus, it makes sense to devote time to investigating concrete forms of faith practice by empirical research, because they surface how the Spirit is mediated in concrete faith practices.52 Pete Ward, an evangelical practical theologian from the UK, contends that the gospel is not primarily a set of propositions or doctrines about Christ, but is Christ himself. That is, the gospel is an account of the presence of God in human form, the body of Christ, and the church is the embodiment of this gospel on earth. “The affective and social animation of the gospel in individuals and in the Church is not Cameron et al., Talking about God, 14. Root, Christopraxis, 92. 50 Root, Christopraxis, 99-100. 51 M. J. Cartledge, The Mediation of the Spirit: Interventions in Practical Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015), 89. 52 Cartledge, Mediation of the Spirit, 113. 48 49

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incidental to the gospel. It is the gospel.”53 This gospel is necessarily expressed in various cultures and contexts, so even if a church confesses the gospel as true, its particular expression of the gospel is always open to debate and correction.54 It is therefore impossible to come to a thorough understanding of the gospel by only attending to the Scriptures or to doctrinal ecclesiology; instead, empirical research that attends to the concrete expression of the gospel through the church is a vital and necessary component of what Ward calls “liquid ecclesiology.” Root, Cartledge, and Ward argue that practical theology doesn’t merely study faith practice because “practice” is the domain and object of practical theology. Rather, they insist that faith practice is an inherent part of knowing God, and that therefore empirical research into faith practice is essential in understanding what it means to know God. Practical theology, therefore, is vitally interested, even focused on knowing God, which is its reason for engaging in empirical research.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

This chapter has argued that discussions about knowability of God arise from particular forms of religious practice in which Christians experience God’s presence in some way. Hence, they claim to know God, however partially and provisionally. Hence, the knowability of God is fundamentally a practical matter. After describing three contexts that manifested different ways of knowing God, this chapter offered some initial observations about this phenomenon. Each context involved certain normative claims about how to know God. These claims were rooted in different practices (Bible study, seeing images, Eucharist), which shaped the identities of believers and their communities. New members were socialized into particular ways of knowing God. To the extent that members identified with the community, these practices created a sense of credibility and plausibility for how God was to be known. P. Ward, Liquid Ecclesiology: The Gospel and The Church (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 60. 54 Ward, Liquid Ecclesiology, 65. 53

CHAPTER SEVEN. A PRACTICAL THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION 231 Recent development in cognitive psychology and philosophy enabled us to see human beings as necessarily embodied in their engagement with the world. Human bodies are not incidental carriers of human souls but form an essential link in human perception and ways of knowing. On multiple levels, we cannot know anything without our bodies. This perspective of embodied realism informs our reflection on our faith practices. Human bodies, their rituals and practices, are necessary for encountering the divine, for perceiving divine and human action as flowing together. The traditional subdisciplines of practical theology (pastoral care, liturgy, homiletics, catechesis, evangelism, church development, and pastoral leadership) are not simply distinct action sciences with their own spheres of theological and social scientific investigation and modeling; rather, they represent distinct and complementary practices for knowing God, experiencing Christ’s presence and living in the power of the Spirit. Thus, we can discern multiple practices and rituals as embodied ways of knowing God. Furthermore, in each of the subdisciplines, empirical research is not simply a complement to an otherwise already systematic theological reflection. Rather, empirical research is a necessary and indispensable ingredient, alongside the more traditional analyses of the Scriptures and historical texts and contexts, to achieving a balanced understanding of the practice and its way of knowing God. Yet, these understandings are always open to debate and correction, since human knowing is always finite, and is always tainted by sinful distortions. Finally, such a practical theology of knowing God is in need of cultural awareness.55 Culture is manifested at various local and global levels, and it affects the religious shifts in spirituality and its attendant practices for sensing the divine. Different time periods and different locations have different modes for the social construction of religious knowledge, including how one knows God, with its own requirements for credibility and plausibility. Yet, any local expression must always take into account its own P. Ward, Introducing Practical Theology: Mission, Ministry, and the Life of the Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2017), 133-152. 55

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tradition of reading the Scriptures and its deposit of faith in its confessions. Such a practical theology of knowing God may be expected to nurture the ability to evaluate and reshape faith practices such that they respond truly to the human quest for knowing God, or rather, to the divine quest for knowing man. It should enable us to reform and adapt our socioreligious identities, with the aim to foster multiple practices for knowing God in each faith community.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ballard, P. H., and J. Pritchard. Practical Theology in Action: Christian Thinking in the Service of Church and Society. London: SPCK, 1996. Bass, D. C., K. A. Cahalan, B. J. Miller-McLemore, J. R. Nieman & C. B. Scharen. Christian Practical Wisdom: What It Is, Why It Matters. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016. Bowald, M. A. Rendering the Word in Theological Hermeneutics: Mapping Divine and Human Agency. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007. Brown, W. S., and B. D. Strawn, The Physical Nature of Christian Life: Neuroscience, Psychology, and the Church. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Cameron, H., D. Bhatti, C. Duce, J. Sweeney and C. Watkins. Talking about God in Practice: Theological Action Research and Practical Theology. London: SCM Press, 2010. Cartledge, M. J. The Mediation of the Spirit: Interventions in Practical Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015. Collins, H. M., and T. Pinch. The Golem: What You Should Know about Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Court, D. Qualitative Research and Intercultural Understanding: Conducting Qualitative Research in Multicultural Settings. Abingdon: Routledge, 2017. de Ruijter, K. Meewerken met God. Ontwerp van een gereformeerde praktische theologie. Kampen: Kok, 2005. Haslam, S. A. Psychology in Organizations: The Social Identity Approach. 2nd ed. London: Sage, 2004.

CHAPTER SEVEN. A PRACTICAL THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION 233 Haslam, S. A., S. Reicher and M. J. Platow. The New Psychology of Leadership: Identity, Influence and Power. 2nd ed. New York: Psychology Press, 2020 Hawking, S. and L. Mlodinow. The Grand Design. New York: Bantam Books, 2010. Heitink, G. Practical Theology: History, Theory, Action Domains, Manual for Practical Theology. Translated by R. Bruinsma. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999. Hogg, M. A., D. van Knippenberg, and D. E. Rast. “The Social Identity Theory of Leadership: Theoretical Origins, Research Findings, and Conceptual Developments.” European Review of Social Psychology 23, no. 1 (2012): 258–304. Ignatow, G. “Theories of Embodied Knowledge: New Directions for Cultural and Cognitive Sociology?” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 37, no. 2 (2007):115–135. Jenkins, R. Social Identity. London: Routledge, 1996. Kuhn, T. S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: 50th Anniversary Edition. 4th ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2012 Lakoff, G. and M. Johnson. Metaphors We Live By, 1980. Reprint, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. ———. Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books, 1999. Luhrmann, T. M. “The Art of Hearing God: Absorption, Dissociation, and Contemporary American Spirituality.” Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality 5, no. 2 (2006): 133–157. ———. When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. New York: Doubleday, 2012. Luhrmann, T. M. and R. Morgain. “Prayer as Inner Sense Cultivation: An Attentional Learning Theory of Spiritual Experience.” Ethos 40, no. 4 (2012): 359–389. Luhrmann, T. M., H. Nusbaum & R. Thisted. “The Absorption Hypothesis: Learning to Hear God in Evangelical Christianity.” American Anthropologist 112, no. 1 (2010): 66–78. Marchand, T. H. J. “Making Knowledge: Explorations of the Indissoluble Relation between Minds, Bodies, and En-

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vironment.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 16 (2010): S1–S21. Merleau-Ponty, M. Phénoménologie de la perception, 1945. Reprint, Paris: TEL Gallimard, 1978. Miller-McLemore, B. J. “Embodied Knowing, Embodied Theology: What Happened to the Body?” Pastoral Psychology 62, no. 5 (2013): 743–758. Mills, J. Inventing God: Psychology of Belief and the Rise of Secular Spirituality. London: Routledge, 2016. Osmer, R. R. Practical Theology: An Introduction. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008. ———. “Practical Theology: A Current International Perspective.” HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 67, no. 2 (2011): 1–7. ———. “Toward a New Story of Practical Theology.” International Journal of Practical Theology 16, no. 1 (2012):66–78. Power, M. Adieu to God: Why Psychology Leads to Atheism. Chicester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. Root, A. Christopraxis: A Practical Theology of the Cross. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2014. Smith, J. K. A. Who’s Afraid of Relativism? Community, Contingency, and Creaturehood. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2014. Swaab, D. Wij zijn ons brein: Van baarmoeder tot Alzheimer. Amsterdam: Atlas Contact, 2010. van Ommen, A. L., and J. Barentsen. “Sola Scriptura as Social Construction: A Practical Theological Approach.” In Sola Scriptura: Biblical and Theological Perspectives on Scripture, Authority, and Hermeneutics, edited by Hans Burger, Arnold Huijgen, and Eric Peels, 279–93. Studies in Reformed Theology 32. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Ward, P. Introducing Practical Theology: Mission, Ministry, and the Life of the Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2017. ———. Liquid Ecclesiology: The Gospel and The Church. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Warren, R. The Purpose Driven Church: Growth without Compromising Your Message and Mission. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007.

CHAPTER SEVEN. A PRACTICAL THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION 235 Wenger, E. Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Yandell, K. E. “The Diversity of Religious Experience. In The Oxford Handbook of Religious Diversity, edited by C. V. Meister, 89-100. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. ———. The Epistemology of Religious Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

CHAPTER EIGHT. IMAGES OF GOD IN A SOCIAL CULTURAL CONTEXT: THE CASUS OF A PAINTING BY PIETER BRUEGEL PROF. DR. PIETER BOERSEMA DEPARTMENT OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES AND MISSIOLOGY 1. I NTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES

In the context of the implementation of an interdisciplinary lecture at ETF Leuven, the heads of departments were given the assignment to create a series of lectures that would be implemented within all departments with the joint theme of “knowing God.” If possible, there should also be a connection with the Reformation of the 16th century that receives much attention today in the context of 500 years of commemoration, a challenging assignment because our department represents two disciplines that are methodically different, namely Religious Studies and Missiology. They are methodically different, so we have to connect at least four dissimilar aspects. On the other hand, this gives us the advantage that we do not have to be complete in one aspect, so we choose a specific case study which could be connected to the four mentioned aspects.

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The starting point of this specific approach was not to focus on the Reformation in the Low Countries during the 16th century based on literature written from theological and church-historical sources, but to take the social cultural experience of the people in Flanders that we can see and read in a religious painting from that era. Therefore, we have chosen the famous painting of Pieter Bruegel de Oude, entitled De Kruisdraging, painted in Antwerp in 1564. We thus connect the experience of God that emerges in this painting with the social, religious, and political context of the sixties in the 16th century in the vicinity of Antwerp. This painting is an impression of the painter who painted the friction in the conflict between the Spanish-Habsburg empire in Flanders and the freedom of the urban citizens in a very impressive way. The painter took the necessary risks because it was not only an economic battle between Spain and the Low Countries, but also very much a political and religious combat. The Habsburg Philip II, king of Spain (including also prosperous Flanders), was religiously inspired forcefully to restore the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. His goal to suppress any opposition to the Church brought him into confrontation with Anabaptists, Lutherans and Calvinists. In addition to this religious motive, there was also a financial need to use the rich Flemish cities such as Antwerp, Ghent and Bruges as an important source of income to finance his wars. This, in turn, increased pressure on the freedom of citizens and peasants, for example, by imposing heavy taxes. These conflicts between the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Reformation and Humanism, symbolized by the heavy pressure of the Inquisition, brought the entire population into a difficult time, an atmosphere captured by Pieter Bruegel in his paintings in a special way. Several of his paintings deal with this theme, including Volkstelling te Bethlehem (1566), but we limit ourselves to the painting De Kruisdraging [The Procession to Calvary], where we see the contextualization of Jesus carrying the cross in a Flemish landscape in the 16th century torn apart by a civil war with a foreign, unwanted king. Not only the imagination of this experienced misery is depicted. We also see that Bruegel provides a deeper layer of conceptualization showing

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a God image (Godsbeeld) that gives hope in this difficult time. Through an analysis of this painting and other sources that inform us about this period, we can get a social cultural perspective in relation to various images of God during that time. The aim of this interdisciplinary course is to place the question “How can we know God?” within in a perception of the 16th century that might be closer to us than we would think at first glance. By applying a research methodology from Religious Studies, we want to describe both parties in the conflict, as visible in the painting, socially, culturally, and religiously. We see that in comparing the feudal, Habsburg-Spanish court with the free citizens of Antwerp that such a comparison can shed light on the social-cultural framework of the context of the Reformation in the Low Countries. By connecting the political cultural context with accompanying images of God, we also see how important images of God can be in the development of social life. In addition to this more Religious Studies methodology of research from the discipline of Religious Cultural Anthropology, we also want to make a link with the Missiological part of the assignment, which is also part of our department. Thus, after investigating the different perceptions of God that surfaced from the 16th century, we will perform a critical correlation in order to examine contemporary ways of talking about God and the images used. Naturally this cannot be a one-to-one comparison. There are so many differences and variables that a complete comparison will always go wrong. But that does not alter the fact that from observation and analysis of the paradigmatic differences between the feudal Habsburg court and its serfs in a strictly Roman Catholic context with the citizens of the free cities of Flanders who were open to another image of God, we can make the link to universal concepts related to coherent God images. Most notably, the universal concept at play in this discussion is the portrayal of Christ crucified. This image is universal for the 16th and 21st centuries, but we will see that in his painting Bruegel portrays two different images of God, both of which reflect the reality of the context in Bruegel’s day. In the course of this article we will discuss how Bruegel portrays these two realities. The question also arises how political society influences

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the function of a Godsbeeld, in both an individual and a collective sense. One of the hallmarks of missiology is the quest to try and understand the connection of images of God to different socially religious contexts. This does not imply translation of the situation during the Reformation of the 16th century into the context of churches present in Europe today. For this, the institution of church is too different and consists of more than one image of God. We can discuss preconditions of a religious dialogue in which the knowledge of the situation of the 16th century can also teach us important conditions. In today’s Western religiously pluralistic society, the choice of whether or not a dialogue is possible is perhaps just as evident as it was with Pieter Bruegel de Oude in his time when he painted daily life in the context of Flanders.

2. METHODOLOGY E MPLOYED

We already mentioned in the introduction that the subject “images of God in the socio-cultural context of the Reformation in the 16th century” has its starting position in the case study of a painting by Pieter Bruegel called De Kruisdraging. The choice of this painting, partly explained above, is also influenced by the existence of a lot of information about the painting, not from Bruegel and his contemporaries, but more in later times by art experts. This information is beautifully incorporated in a film about the canvas of De Kruisdraging. The film Młyn I krzyz [The Mill and the Cross] (2011) directed by Lech Majewski,1 gives a lot of (visual) information about the social, cultural, and religious context of the painting. This image and text story are again commented on by Michael Francis Gibson in his book The Mill and the Cross: Peter Bruegel’s Way to Calvary.2 With this background information, we see that a specific case can serve as a starting point for a broader investigation, but then

Młyn i krzyz [The Mill and the Cross]. Directed by Lech Majewski, 2011. 1 hr., 32 min. https://vod.tvp.pl/video/mlyn-i-krzyz,mlyn-i-krzyz,42468240. 2 Michael Francis Gibson, The Mill and the Cross: Peter Bruegel’s Way to Calvary, rev. ed. (Paris: University of Levana Press, 2012). 1

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we have to know in concrete terms what we want and where the limitations lay. For this, we would like to formulate the following research question: “How do you relate the knowledge of God to Religious Studies and Missiology and associate it with commemorating the Reformation of 500 years ago?” Key words used in this research of limited scope are ‘Reformation’, ‘Protestantism’, ‘Antwerp’, ‘Phenomenological observations’, ‘Feudalism’, ‘Renaissance’, ‘Religious politics’, ‘Paradigm change’, ‘Contextualisation’, ‘Dialogue’ and ‘Religious Pluralism’. From the research question, we must come to an analysis and an application. This is a sequential process in which we divide the research into two parts, first a religious studies part and then a missiological part. The religious studies part consists of an observation followed by an analysis. This is followed by a missiological analysis of God images translated into the contemporary dialogue. We start from the painting as a case, but of course other sources are also necessary to be able to have an overview of the context of the story. Here too, a choice has to be made because this part of history has been extensively treated from historical, religious, political and economic perspectives, to name just a few disciplines. Even today, several books on this subject appear that want to approach new interpretations again, for example, biographies on Prince William of Orange, who played an important role with the high Roman Catholic nobility of King Philip II, but after his choice for Lutheran faith became “bird-free” and later as a Calvinist he was memorialised as the founder of the Dutch Seven Provinces and also called the “Father of the Fatherland” (Vader des Vaderlands). In this context, we have opted for a limited number of sources. These are mentioned in the bibliography at the end.3 On the basis of this information, a general picture can be sketched that is necessary to interpret Bruegel’s painting with There are many commentaries on the position of Prince William of Orange, which are discussed in different ways by historians up till today. In the short biography accompanying this article we would like to specifically mention Louis Paul Boon in his very extensive commentary on the position of the peasants in Bruegel’s time in his book Het Geuzenboek (Amsterdam: Querido, 1996). 3

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regard to the situation in Flanders in 1564. The same applies to the religious aspect that deals with how we can interpret images of God. We have opted for a religious studies method to translate the religious theological God image into an empirical observation that can be abstracted from the broader information on this subject. We use the division into religious dimensions as explained by Ninian Smart.4 In the analysis, we see that the focus on different religions is also about the differences in world views. This is reinforced by a comparison between a feudal court and the free cities that on the one hand are part of the same location seen in place and time, but on the other show paradigmatic differences at the level of the social religious context. For this, we use the CRVS model5 as a method for comparison. Diversity of norms and values is perhaps reinforced by the methodology used that shows more than just religious differences in images of God. We also see that Bruegel not only paints a conflict but also gives a picture of a broader context in which both parties should be able to find themselves. However, this is not what happened because four years after this painting, the Eighty-years’ War in the Low Countries began, and the North became independent after many years. Although the war started in the South of the Netherlands, after the fall of Antwerp at its end, the South remained connected to Spain.

3. RELIGIOUS DIMENSIONS AS EMPIRIC OBSERVATIONS

The theologies of the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) and the Protestant Reformation (PR) are important in the search for images of God as symbolic representation in the subject of knowing God. There are the necessary cross connections between the five Latin solas of the PR (sola scriptura, sola gratia, sola fide, solus Christus and soli Deo gloria) and learning practices of the RCC. These dogmatic differences are not discussed in this study, but are still fundamental. At the level of the theological image of Ninian Smart, The World’s Religions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 5 Pieter Boersema, Culturele normen en religieuze waarden. Een sociaal culturele analyse en onderzoeksmodel naar cultuurverschillen (Antwerp: Garant, 2018). 4

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God, related subjects can be studied, such as the tension between the sola scriptura and the solus Christus. A strong emphasis on the first is mentioned by Luther and Calvin and the second is strongly emphasized by Anabaptism. These differences are important in a religious studies observation when these two groups encounter each other, as are related differences such as the socio-economic background, but we limit ourselves to the image of God that Bruegel sketches. From a missiological perspective, David Bosch sees the knowledge of God in the Reformation as a subjective dimension of salvation and not as a result of scientific argumentation as with Thomas Aquinas.6 In this context, we would briefly give an outline in this paragraph of a subjective picture concerning religious differences between the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) and the Protestant Reformation (PR) using Ninian Smart’s model as explained in his book.7 With the method of Smart, we handle more or less phenomenological descriptions of the observations of a particular religion, viewing religion from specific places and times. Smart divides his observations on religions by contextual definitions which are placed into seven different dimensions. These together form a religion as it emerges before scholarly observers (i.e., those who come in contact with religions but are not a part of that particular religion). This broad description without normative judgment does more justice to the total image and prevents a subjective discussion about religious content when we start with descriptions given by faithful adherents of a specific religion. This method of observation is too limited in terms of the faith experience of people but gives more information for a better understanding of a certain religion or religious movement like the PR. We discuss the seven different religious dimensions in terms of the differences between the RCC and the PR and choose one aspect per dimension that is linked to this research. This remains incomplete due to the limitations of the research, but can give an overall perspective that can be used in specific comparisons about

David Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1996), 240–241. 7 Smart, The World’s Religions. 6

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more general items related to the seven religious dimensions. The information given comes from the literature on the Reformation mentioned at the end of this article. Hereby we summarise some main aspects of comparison items between the RCC and the PR related to our subject of research. (1) The first religious dimension Smart proposes is the practical ritual dimension. In the attention to the Word of God, the difference we see is that within the RCC the centrality of the Eucharist is seen by the PR as a sacramental ritual and for the PR the sermon (preacher) occupies the central place in church. This centrality of preaching within the PR lead to the use of the local vernacular as the language of the church, rather than the Latin language, as in the RCC. (2) The emotional dimension can be very subjective, but we limit ourselves here to the known difference that the PR shifts attention from the priestly class to the believers themselves, the so-called “priesthood of all believers.” This also omits the mediating function of the priest between God and man in the PR. This means redemption only through the agency of Christ with no other person involved. The emotions can be enhanced through experiencing worship in the language of everyday life (i.e., the secular vernacular). (3) The narrative dimension can take many forms. A familiar story in the PR was the aversion towards the Pope who was seen as the Antichrist, mentioned in the Bible book of Revelation as “the harlot of Babel.” (4) The doctrinal dimension is often the most important part of a religion in many Western theological comparisons. For Smart, it is one of the seven dimensions and that brings daily religious experience of society more to a proportional balance. A subject in this area often discussed in the vluchtschriften (booklets) was the PR objection to the doctrine of transubstantiation, the doctrine whereby the host during Mass is said to become the body of Christ. The PR reacted in various ways that

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could perhaps be summarized as “the Mass [literally, ‘evening meal’] as a memorial meal in the church, a symbol of Christ as a reminder of his sacrificial death at the cross.” (5) The moral dimension has many aspects. In this list, we opt for the “disappearance” in the PR of the distinction between clergy and laity. This has a direct influence on formulation of the religious value system. If there is no hierarchy at the level of statements on the religious value system, it is difficult to give a homonymous judgment, with the result that the PR also gives much more freedom. (6) The social or institutional dimension of the PR gives a more democratic interpretation of ecclesiastical institutions, which in turn can lead to schisms and splits. (7) The material dimension can manifest itself in various aspects, such as the structure of the church building. Within the RCC in the 16th century, the imposing Gothic churches and their rich decor stood for the greatness of God, while the PR churches were simple with more space accorded to the place of the pulpit. Religious paintings and sculptures were also often an irritation during the PR, which in 1566 led to the destroying of sculptures which can be seen as a form of iconoclasm. When interpreting the seven religious dimensions articulated by Ninian Smart, we see that, from a religious studies perspective, differences between the RCC and the PR were great in the 16th century. This was also the result of significant intellectual development that began in the Renaissance and Humanism and continued with the discovery of the possibilities of the printing press. In the 16th century, this led to a drastically increased dissemination of ideas. The above examples of differences between the RCC and the PR are so broad that they go far beyond religious differences. In the aforementioned religious dimensions, we also see elements that gave a broad social support, such as the terms “freedom,” “individual accountability,” “free availability of knowledge and information,” “equality of people” and “personal choices.” We could also speak about social developments from

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Humanism that stood for the freedom of ideas, which meant freedom of religion for the individual person. From this fertile soil, the Reformation could take root and give a spiritual explanation for these innovations. In other words, a major reason for the difference between the traditional RCC images of God and those of the PR is the latter’s practice of contextual reading, in which the Bible was more directly applied to everyday life. This summary could then easily lead to the conclusion that only the feudal Spanish-Habsburg regime maintaining its rigorous practice of persecuting the dissenters prevented further development. This is too quick a conclusion that requires more substantiation. We also need more information than just a theological interpretation for naming prevalent images of God at this time.

4. THE CHANGE IN THE SOCIO-CULTURAL AND POLITICAL CONTEXT OF THE FLEMISH REFORMATION

For a good understanding of the conflict that is the subject of our case, we name a few things that can be helpful in interpreting Bruegel’s painting and the translation into the socio-cultural context, topics about differences between the Spanish-Habsburg court in Mechelen and the lower nobility with their connection to the free cities. These differences parallel other major conflicts such as those between the Roman Catholic Church and supporters of the Reformation. The place of action in this part of Europe deserves a bit more explanation to see how these two parties confronted each other and eventually resulted in a war that ended differently than had been initially expected. Before we discuss the more general context of Flanders, we first want to make some general remarks to explain why suppression of the desire for freedom and persecution of the supporters of the Reformation were so unprecedented in the mid16th century. The Habsburg Charles V was born in Ghent in the year 1500 and by 1555 was lord of all the provinces of the Netherlands, king of Spain (including their American possessions) and emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. In his reign, he had to act against Martin Luther and considered it as his imperial duty to fight against the Reformation, which he saw as a danger to the Roman Catholic Church. Pressure began to increase with the

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writing in 1550 of the bloedplakkaat [blood edict] against apostates, which allowed them to be persecuted and killed by the sword, buried alive or burnt at the stake. In 1555, he was succeeded by his son Philip II, who became king of Spain and the Netherlands. Philip left Flanders for Spain in 1559 and his halfsister Margaret of Parma became governor. Because of his stay in the highly Catholic and feudal Spain, he had little understanding for the innovations in the Low Countries. The privileges that the Flemish cities had received from their predecessors strongly stimulated the independence and citizenship and the guild system that brought freedom and wealth from commerce. Philip II did not like this indulgence, and decided with firm hand to shape his very tight vision of the Holy Roman Church and hostility towards the Reformation by putting up placards about spiritual freedom and demanding heavier taxes from both rich citizens and poor peasants alike. He had little regard for the method of negotiations because as king of Spain he also represented the only European empire that had defeated Islam, expelling it from Spain, and thus had control over the strongest army in Europe. This “black and white scheme” was also maintained by only communicating with the high nobility and the leaders of the church. The serfs held no position but one of utter subjugation to his power. This line is shown briefly in chronological order in the overview at the end of this article. As Gustaaf Asaert writes in his book De val van Antwerpen en de uittocht van Vlamingen en Brabanders, the Inquisition was a vital tool within the religious policy of the Habsburgs for an uncompromising maintenance of Catholicism. This began in the time of Charles V where in 1521 book burnings of Lutheran writings took place in Leuven, Antwerp and Ghent.8 Asaert quotes the statement that “Al mach men de boucken verbernen, men mach daer omme niet te nieu ten doen dat men in ‘t herte heeft” [EN: Even though books can be burned, one cannot erase what lives in the heart].9 The various institutions of the Inquisition—

Gustaaf Asaert, De val van Antwerpen en de uittocht van Vlamingen en Brabanders (Tielt: Lannoo, 2010), 29. 9 Asaert, De val, 29–30. 8

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papal, episcopal, and the royal inquisition instituted by Charles V (there was no distinction between church and state)—were persecuting the Anabaptists, who were strongly represented in the “Western corner” of Flanders. This strong growth of the Anabaptists was caused by the economic crisis in the cloth industry in Ypres, Hodschote, Belle and Armentiers, due to a new form of producing factory-made cheap fabrics. This development can be seen as the first form of industrialization set up by merchant capitalism but without social network or protection from the guilds as was the case in larger cities like Antwerp, Ghent and Bruge. This was accompanied by a socio-economic upheaval resulting in great poverty where the “new doctrine of the Reformation” could give a spiritual answer. These Anabaptists were heavily persecuted, and many died by torture. In their religious zeal, they wanted to proclaim their faith in a revolutionary way all the way to Amsterdam and Münster. In these two places, their campaign led to wild excesses, and they lost the battle for their independence. After 1536, they lost their revolutionary character and were drawn to peaceful interpretations of piety, becoming the followers of Menno Simons, the Mennonites.10 Up to the middle of the 16th century, the Anabaptists were the most important Protestant movement in the Northern and Southern Netherlands. After 1550, Calvinism became the main movement in the Netherlands where other aspects of the Protestant identity emerged that coincide with the enumeration that we have mentioned in the seven religious dimensions of Ninian Smart and also fit more closely with the context of Bruegel’s painting. Asaert mentions three different migratory flows from Flanders and Brabant to the Northern Netherlands, England and Protestant areas in Germany. The first major wave of migration was from 1544 to 1550, the second wave from 1566 to 1576 and a third wave from 1583 to 1589.11 The latter migration occurred as result of the victories of the Spanish army commander Alexander Farnesse, Duke of Parma but increased after the fall of 10 11

Asaert, De val, 321. Asaert, De val, 33-39.

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Antwerp in 1585. The second migration wave started two years after Bruegel’s painting, but is important to mention here as a sequel to the events painted by Bruegel. This second wave also came from the crisis in the textile sector and the war in the Baltic Sea area. In late summer of 1565 there was a Beeldenstorm—a movement against icons and images—from South to North. This also called up opposition among supporters of the Roman Catholic Church against this form of iconoclasm.

5. A NTWERP AS A CITY OF DEVELOPMENT AND FREEDOM

But let us go back to the period on the eve of the second wave, during which time the Bruegel painting was produced. For big cities such as Antwerp, the situation was very different from that in rural areas of Flanders and Brabant. Antwerp was the largest metropolis north of Paris and in 1566 had about 100,000 inhabitants. As a comparison, London then had 40,000 inhabitants. Antwerp was an important trading city, but also a place of innovation and technical developments. As early as 1520, the works of Martin Luther were printed in Antwerp. The abbey of the Augustinians in Antwerp supported Luther who himself had initially belonged to the Augustinian order. Also from Antwerp came the first martyrs of the Reformation. Henry Vaes and John van Essen came from Antwerp and were burned under torture in the big market in Brussels in 1523. From 1547 onwards, oppression of the writers and poets was no longer incidental, and many followers of the new faith were executed or “enlightened punished” by sending them to the galleys. Antwerp was known as the place of tolerance supported by economic self-interest. The purpose of the Inquisition was at odds with the interests of the merchants. Also mayors and guilds were important institutions that resisted the pressure of the court and the church. To give an idea of Antwerp in the context of this conflict, we briefly discuss the Landjuweel [Land jewel contest]. In 1561, Antwerp was chosen to host the Landjuweel, a competition between Flemish rederijkerskamers [chambers of rhetoric] in which Flanders and Brabant were involved. These rederijkerskamers were important cultural phenomena in Flanders whose members were mostly humanists with liberal sympathies

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and who were mainly occupied with conversations about lifestyles and education in their city. In addition, dialogue about the search for truth was a recurring theme that brought broad debates. The event in 1561 was organized by the four rhetorical chambers of Antwerp and assisted by the Lucas Guild, an artists’ guild to which Pieter Bruegel also belonged. It was a big party with very impressive processions that ran through the streets of Antwerp. The party lasted a month, during which speakers, poets, singers, and actors were given every chance to show their skills. This time, however, the court did not appreciate certain pamphlets that raised rhetorical questions about the political situation and the pressure of the Inquisition as well as open discussion of the developments of the Reformation, and several leaders, including a mayor, were temporarily detained in prison.12 Tolerance was over and those who continued the “free course” were tracked down and persecuted. This is the context for the painting De Kruisdraging by Pieter Bruegel three years later.

6. OBSERVATIONS ON THE PAINTING DE KRUISDRAGING

When dealing with a painting we could easily ignore the place that it occupies in the temporal context of the artist. Like many painters, Bruegel visited the patchwork of kingdoms and other forms of government that we now know as Italy to get acquainted with the famous medieval paintings. Bruegel, however, did not spend much time on the imposing architecture and artefacts of Roman heritage. His sketches are much more about normal daily images of the countryside, houses, and people he met on his journey through the Alps and his stay in Italy. After his return to Flanders, he became greatly influenced by the famous painter Hieronymus Bosch, but soon he started to apply his own style. His special talent to paint people in such a way that they are recognizable in their different social roles is evident in his famous paintings about peasant life and the many people who appear in them as if they were going about everyday life: working, hunting, or simply enjoying a wedding supper. His religious paintings therefore resemble his depictions of daily life as if biblical stories 12

Gibson, The Mill and the Cross, 29-34.

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could be translated into the 16th century. Yet this represented a strong deviation from most common religious paintings in those days, when it was generally expected that biblical persons were easily recognizable, often elaborately represented as church officials or higher nobility, so as to draw attention to a crucified Christ for the purpose of meditation. Biblical figures are usually prominent in a painting and can sometimes assume greater proportions than the other figures. With Bruegel, it is just the other way around. Biblical figures are sometimes hard to find and often occur in the midst of the scene, surrounded by anonymous extras. We could already call this a specific characteristic of Pieter Bruegel, where Jesus in a certain sense incarnates himself in the lives of the people. The multitude of people painted separately gives a broad perspective that draws the viewer inside the painting. Another striking fact is that most people are painted very realistically, which was not really customary at that time. On the other hand, we see specific accents again because the biblical themes take place in a Flemish landscape, but at the same time we sometimes see elements in that landscape that do not belong there. We welcome the reader and viewer to the painting De Kruisdraging, also known as De Calvarietocht van Christus, painted by Bruegel in Antwerp in 1564, with more than 500 individual figures on the canvas and a Jesus who is almost invisible, even though according to the title the painting was eventually given, it is all about Him. An image of the painting in question can be seen on the front cover of this book, but the painting and the many details are also easy to find on the Internet, as well as the film about it, entitled Młyn i krzyz [The Mill and the Cross].13 The original is on display at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. When reading various books about this painting, as well as information on the Internet, and after repeatedly viewing the painting, we can discern at least five different levels in it. We could place the first two levels, in line with the previously explained research method, as a phenomenological observation. Młyn i krzyz [The Mill and the Cross]. Directed by Lech Majewski, 2011. 1 hr., 32 min. https://vod.tvp.pl/video/mlyn-i-krzyz,mlyn-i-krzyz,42468240. 13

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We can see the next two levels as interpretation and the last level as more of an analysis of the painting and the painter as an individual. Of course, this outline is not from the painter himself, who does not make a statement about his work. He just wants the viewers to look at the painting as a whole and take time to look for details with their own interpretations. The first level is a general observation of the painting. We see a Flemish landscape with many figures and strange rock formations. An immense number of people are present who are busy with all manner of tasks. Figures in a group of people in the front right are larger than the other persons and, according to the ecclesiastical symbolism of that time, represent the disciple John, Mary the mother of Jesus and the two other Marys. Their place of prominence and their grouping together serves to identify them in the Bible story as those who stood at the cross and wept over Jesus. But here the cross as “normally” painted is missing. The first thing that stands out is the stake on the right, a dead tree, with a wheel on which bodies of condemned heretics were placed to serve as food for the birds. It is a crowded painting and certainly not a static event. One senses a movement from left to right, accentuated by clouds drawn in the sky blowing with the wind to the right. Both the birds and riders in red jackets repeat this same movement. If we look closely, we see a circle of people in the upper right corner where there are two crosses and men are digging in between the two crosses to place the missing third cross. So, the movement from left to right represents the road to Calvary, which is followed by many people. Looking further, we see that the red horsemen have the task of escorting a cart in which two people sit, the two criminals who will be crucified together with Jesus. Looking more closely, we see Jesus almost collapsing under the cross in the middle of the painting. The summary of this perception is that everyone is busy with everyday things or going to the attraction of a crucifixion, but that Jesus is hardly noticeable at all. We identify this as a vision of God as seen by the painter Bruegel, in which he wants to make clear that Jesus is in our midst even though we can barely see him. The second level of observation is a more detailed study of some aspects clearly intended to make connections. At the far left

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of the horizon, we see beautiful green trees that could evoke paradise. Slightly more at the edge of the painting we see a golden city that manifests itself as a circle. In that city, we see an octagonal oriental-looking building with a dome in the middle. It seems obvious that this should stand for the city of Jerusalem, the city of peace. This circle corresponds in terms of location to another circle on the right which we recognized above as Calvary. The connection between these two circles is formed by the red horsemen, clearly identified as Spanish militia members. These elements, placed together in a Flemish landscape, show clearly that Bruegel wants to say that the line from life to death is filled by the Spanish domination in Flanders. The same form of contextualization is also seen in other paintings by him, such as the Volkstelling te Bethlehem (1566), where the inn of the census is clearly connected with Spanish domination. By this depiction, Bruegel equates the SpanishHabsburg court with the Romans at the time of Jesus’ birth.

7. W HAT IS BRUEGEL’S IMAGE OF GOD ?

We now come closer to interpreting Bruegel’s painting, where once again no explicit statements by the painter himself are known, but a painter can be read in his painting, certainly if we compare it with his other paintings. At this third level, we want to extend the observation of the first level more deeply. A line from the green tree on the left extends to the dead tree on the right which is symbolically portrayed with the skeleton of a horse’s head. But at the pole with the wheel for convicted people who go to their death, as at nearby Calvary with its crosses, we see a young tree at the far right of the pole with hopeful green leaves on its trunk. If we then see that Jesus is bent beneath the wood of the cross in the middle of this line, we can interpret it in therms of three important trees from the Bible. First of all, the “tree of life” in paradise, mentioned at the beginning of the Bible. Then the cross which is also seen as a tree of life because Jesus gave his life on the cross. And then at the very end of the journey the tree of life as it is in the last chapter of the Bible, the story about the new Jerusalem. This shows a confidence in God that even under the rule of oppression there is hope for a good future.

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Here the self-sacrificing Christ signifies salvation in a spiritual sense and not directly through a “war for the good cause.” The fourth level examines a special image of God in one of the “strange” aspects of Bruegel’s painting. It is about a strange large rock on which stands a mill. This type of rock does not occur in the vicinity of Antwerp and not at all with a mill that does not even have a staircase down, only a small staircase on top above the miller’s house. The mill and the rock together give an idea that it is part of a much larger whole. From the mill looking to the underlying earth, we see it rotated, as it were, in accordance with the observation at the second level, only now with a more profound meaning. On top of the mill’s handling stands the miller who oversees the whole event. From the biblical symbolism, one must think of the basic element of bread as it stands for life. The grain first has to die in the ground, but from there comes new grain that will be milled after the harvest, after which bread is baked and becomes food for mankind. Then the miller can be seen as a symbol of God who holds the world in his hand, also in the violence of the grindstones underwhich his Son symbolically comes to lay down. This brings us to the extension of the miller’s line to the other greatly enlarged position of Mary the mother of Jesus, John, Mary of Magdalene and Mary the wife of Klopas. In the Roman Catholic Church this symbolizes the first two persons who stand for the church in the New Testament, an echo of the words of Jesus from the cross (see John 19:26-27): “When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, ‘Woman, here is your son, and to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.” (NIV) We see Bruegel’s intention that God sees hope for the world in the presence of the church through the death of Jesus. We now come to the interpretation of the painting in which we also want to use a final analysis. But first a comment about the person Bruegel. By some people he is called Boerenbruegel because he paints so many scenes of farm life with all the small details and sometimes whole sets of games and proverbs, feasts related to marriages, and other pictures where the paintings can

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also be laughable.14 One might not expect from the painter of such rustic paintings to find such depth involving multiple layers of meaning. Pieter Bruegel de Oude (to distinguish him from his son) was a painter with great knowledge of things. He lived for a large part of his life in Antwerp and was associated with the Lukas Guild as we saw earlier. He had friends like the cartographer Abraham Ortelius, the famous printer Christoffel Plantijn and the writer Dirck Coornhert. In these circles, there was a strong Christian Humanism with a view of people that was not romantic but had an eye for hard daily life and how people dealt with it and then also had fun. As Gibson states, “the peasants [on the painting] are locked in their culture.”15 It is important to understand that, even among the liberal humanists, such a view of the peasantry did not arise without religious awareness. Probably Bruegel did not transfer to the Reformation but remained a member of the Roman Catholic Church. That does not mean that he did not sympathize with the Reformation, but to leave the church is still a step further. We could explain this position of staying within the Roman Catholic Church while holding sympathies with the Reformation from comments at the fourth level, where we see how Bruegel draws the line from the miller to Mary and John, standing in front of the old church. If Jesus makes the connection between them under the cross, we can interpret this to mean that for the church there is forgiveness, just like one of the two criminals in the cart. One person has a cross in his hand and is addressed by a monk. The other person does not pay attention to the monk but looks up at the sky. Bruegel certainly has his criticism of the “old church” as we also see in his painting Volkstelling te Bethlehem, where on the horizon people are building a new church. But in the painting De Kruisdraging, these two aspects are involved. The path of the circle of paradise and the golden city, which stands for life, runs to the circle of Calvary, which stands for death. The people run from the light to the dark, but the painting is also about curiosity of the attraction of Calvary. Many people in the painting For example, Karel van Mander, see Vlaamsekunstcollectie, “Pieter Bruegel de Oude: Boerenbruegel”, consulted 04/05/2022. https://bruegel. vlaamsekunstcollectie.be/nl/collectiepresentatie/boerenbruegel. 15 Gibson, The Mill and the Cross, 74. 14

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do not see Jesus but are busy with their daily worries and then return home for dinner. The fifth level that we are trying to discover is that not only we observe the painting, but the painting itself also depicts men who are observers. We find them in two places on the edges of the painting. The first person is the peddler who sits at the front on a stone and has a big backpack. The peddler looks over the whole, but it is as if we as viewers are watching over his shoulder. What does this peddler represent? In the time of Bruegel, it was mainly peddlers who brought the pamphlets, booklets, and books of enlightened thinkers and reformers among their sales items. This could turn out to be a connection to the books and pamphlets which, as we mentioned earlier, were at the center of controversy, even being burned by the Inquisition. Looking at the overall image of the painting, it seems as if the peddler is at the feet of a large rock in balance with the Marys and John, and then in between the rock with the mill and the miller. The rock of the peddler could be linked with the disciple Simon who was given the name of Peter by Jesus, which means rock. We then see that the peddler could stand for the Protestants, which word is also connected with protesting and then in the sense of confirmation or profession of faith. Other spectators are the two men and one woman standing on the right of the painting, at the pole with the wheel on it. The man leaning against the stake looks sadly at the scene, as does the woman on the other side of the pole. The man could be a sympathizer of Calvinism in view of his clothing and hairstyle. He could be Niclaes Jonghelink, the man who commissioned the painting. The man next to him could be Bruegel himself and the woman might be his wife Mayken Coecke. This little scene gives a somber mood. Is Bruegel contemplating the paradigm shift between the RCC and the PR that he is overlooking? Finally, we can summarize the painting to mean that if God and Jesus are present in our daily life but we do not see them, then we speak of a ‘hidden Christ’ that can be seen if we focus on society of which he is an essential part. The church is present but also the new line of the Reformation. Bruegel has not broken with the Roman Catholic Church and wants to keep the Church and the Reformation together as a connection with the mill and the miller, the God image of Bruegel who oversees it all.

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As we wrote during the explanation of the chosen methodology, we make a distinction between a religious-studies analysis, and a missiological analysis. A religious studies analysis constructs observation, interpretation and analysis in which we try to work as objectively as possible without normative prejudices. In principle, this is not possible because everyone starts from their own worldview, for example, where detailed analysis about a certain subject is also derived from a Western thinking of dualism. But by recognizing this and being open about our own view, we can keep the discussion broad and be alert to possibile subjectivity. This means that we cannot interpret and analyse everything because there is always a subjective basis on spiritual matters that is essential for the believer. This will then be discussed next when we apply a missiological analysis. This explanation is important because in everyday life these two methods are mixed together. For example, a current representative of Calvinism will not easily connect the ideas of the Renaissance and Enlightenment with the Reformation in a positive way, while all three movements were searching for the truth in their own way. Here we see that the subjectivity of a normative judgment is clearly linked to time and place. For example, in the twentieth century we can also consider Erasmus as a pioneer for the Reformation while he did not leave the Roman Catholic Church. When it comes to persecutions of other believers, there are two sides to the story. Perhaps we do not notice our perspectives about the conflict between the Spanish-Habsburg court with the free cities, our own support to the opening for the Reformation party as a stepstone to democracy. But seen from a religious studies perspective we could also understand the established church’s fear of those who believe differently, and why they would be branded “heretics” (a name that no believer would choose to identify himself.) We see this in church history in the persecution of the Cathars and the Waldensians, but also in so-called sectarian movements throughout the ages. A religious studies analysis must recognize the emotional colour and do as much justice as possible to both parties. We do this in the next exercise by placing observations and interpretations next to each other. We do this in a table to create a

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certain distance from the subject due to a certain abstraction in tabular form. We use universal value systems to make the whole more transparent. These are values with a continuum between a strong, weak, or middle position. The values are then universal, but their interpretation is different. As a specific addition, we mention some representations of images of God that play a role in this. This interpretation is a simplified application of the CRVS model (Cultural Religious Values model) that we use as a research model. For more information, see the monograph Culturele normen en religieuze waarden.16 The universal values are each divided into two contents. Universal values Collectivistic

Hierarchy

Diversity

Transfer Past / Future

16

Examples of observations and interpretations The Spanish-Habsburg court and the church seen as a unity Free cities will give room to plurality The work of the Inquisition is necessary for continuation of the church and the king The church has no control over the individual The division of church into nobility and people is given by God The right of heritage is not decisive Sticking to tradition The future lies in the hands of scientific and mercantile structures

Images of God God is synonymous with the church God can be known in several ways God stands above all. The king and the church are the executors of his will. God has a direct relation with the believer The church as mediator between God and people Personal responsibility towards God The church as keeper of the revelation of God God is the Creator and man must examine the creation

Pieter Boersema, Culturele normen en religieuze waarden.

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The above layout and examples present a “black and white” drawing of the complexity at the time of the Reformation in the Low Countries. It should be made, clear, however, that, for example, the so-called free cities were not at all free because this freedom depended on the power of others. This is evident from the historical continuation of the De Kruisdraging, in which the power of the Spanish-Habsburg court was used very differently by the Duke of Alba from the later strategy of the Duke of Parma, where the outcome of the position of the Reformation in the Netherlands was strongly disadvantageous for the southern Netherlands. It helps to see that there may be major differences between the images of God, but when we look at the interpretation of the universal values, we see a scale of possible variations in smaller connections, the so-called shift on the continuum between the opposite poles of a universal value, for instance from “strong” to “weak.” This means that if society has the freedom to change, contradictions can also be bridged, which then goes hand in hand with shifting attention and importance between the abovementioned images of God. These are processes that occur in all cultures. However, concerning worldview differences, we see that they cannot be placed on a continuum because a worldview is more connected to a wider variety of values also known as the identity-determining values. In the interpretation of values that can be summarized in a worldview, we get the following propositions when we compare the free cities and the multiformity of religion with older worldviews. Aspect worldview Cognitive domain Affective domain Domain of ideas

Statements related to a certain worldview The king writes for what is confirmed by the church (or vice versa) The ratio is the new line of argumentation in public affairs Serfs are a natural fact of birth Personal freedom lies in the hands of the individual Knowledge gathering must be done under the authority of the ecclesiastical authorities Religious freedom is a necessity for further growth at the level of science and economics

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These statements are more difficult to change gradually and usually cause a paradigm shift if one worldview can no longer give answers to the new questions raised.

9. MISSIOLOGY AS AN I NSPIRATION FOR THE DIALOGUE

A missiological analysis of the above story takes a different road from the previous religious studies analysis. In the case of missiology, differences get a more theological translation, in which there is a normative judgment. In religious history, religious differences between the old church and the Reformation are translated into developments in society. This is empirically visible but does not do justice to religious differences in the area of faith. Yet it is important for the missiologist to be aware of these forms of contextualization from theology to society. These connect with the reception of the people even though the missiologist calls this the work of God. But the missiologist also has to take into account the reality of the social context, because this is also the linguistic domain in which people speak. Then it might also be illuminating for a Reformation missiologist to see that Bruegel’s image of God does not lead to a separation of the parties. The strength of the Reformation in the so-called free cities was in line with the wish to apply the old privileges of the cities, which used to be celebrated with the Blijde inkomst [joyous entry] of the monarch, to the freedom of action on both economic and religious grounds. This coincided with the opening for humanistic forms of religious experience. The values mentioned in the tables in the previous paragraph were in line with the experience of the people, only with the Anabaptists this led to heavy persecution and manslaughter and with the Calvinists in later decades this gave first prosperity, then persecution. Only later following migration to the Northern Netherlands were they the co-builders of the Dutch Golden Age. Missiologically speaking, application of the new possibilities of a printed text was a medium that fit perfectly with the content of Reformation faith. Read the Bible yourself and receive new information yourself through leaflets and debates to make choices. Religious themes played a role in the aspects of life that can be summarized in the possibility of adjusting prevailing

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religions. Bruegel’s painting lent itself perfectly to this exercise. But this new opening of the experience of God could easily fall back into forms of biblicism that the missiologist David Bosch called a danger to Protestant theology.17 In the missiological translation to the present time, the story of Bruegel fits well in religious dialogue. Bruegel gives opportunities to be critical of different points of view in Christian ecumenism, while remaining true to one’s own vision. This becomes more difficult when it comes to interreligious dialogue, especially when it takes place between Christians and Muslims. In a number of ways, you could compare Islam in some non-Western countries with the situation in Bruegel’s time as we see that many Muslims in the Middle East lived in a pre-industrial society until the middle of the last century. In that context, Islam had not had a confrontation with the European form of Enlightenment, like Protestantism.18 In such an interreligious dialogue, we see other differences in worldviews such as an exclusivist image of God that not only involves religious aspects but also the totality of societal life because in a worldview of a religion as a way of life, there is sometimes no room for other God images. In a context where politically no room for other insights exists, such as experienced by the Inquisition in the days of Philip II and the Duke of Alba, dialogue in the public domain is not possible. In a dialogue with Muslim believers in Europe, there should be opportunities to talk about the difference between how people experience an image of God in their daily life or about a doctrinal statement with consequences in the social-religious encounter. This is the reality in religiously pluralistic Europe with a democratic political context. Perhaps there is an opportunity to compare the Christianlyexperienced Trinity as a socially formulated image of God with a dogmatic, abstract authoritarian monotheism. In a proposed dialogue, a Christian participant may also have a strong image of God that yields little room for real dialogue. Yet perhaps a

Bosch, Transforming Mission, 243. Per Lønning, Is Christ a Christian? On Inter-Religious Dialogue and IntraReligious Horizon, Forschungen zur systematischen und ökumenischen Theologie 100 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2002), 159. 17 18

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discussion like the one we have just had can use such things as paintings to open doors to discussions about images of God.

10. A SHORT CHRONOLOGY FROM THE BLOEDPLAKKAAT TO THE FALL OF ANTWERP.

1550 Charles V promulgates his bloedplakkaat [blood edict] against heretics. Followers of the new doctrine are put to death by the sword, buried alive or burnt at the stake. 1555 Abdication of Emperor Charles V. Ascension of Philip II, the new king of Spain, the Netherlands, etc. 1559 Margaret of Parma, half-sister of King Philip II, appointed as regent of the Netherlands. Bloedplakkaat enforced again. 1561 The Landjuweel, gathering of the chambers of Rhetoric, present in Antwerp. Speakers spoke out openly in their poems. The mayor of Antwerp was arrested. 1564 Pieter Bruegel de Oude painted his canvas De Kruisdraging. 1566 Submission of a petition to Margaret of Parma by 400 young confederates. It was not accepted, and they were evaluated as a group of gueux [beggers]. 1566 Iconoclast in 400 churches in the ‘Nederlandt’. 1567 Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Grand Duke of Alba, governor of the Netherlands until 1573. Known in the Netherlands as the ijzeren hertog [iron duke]. 1567 Revolt in Antwerp repressed by the Spanish army. 1568 Execution of Lamoraal, Count of Egmont, Prince of Gavere, and the Grand-Admiral Philip of Montmorency, Count of Hoorn. 1576 Pacification of Ghent. The Staten Generaal accepted the changes. Not in favour of Anabaptists. 1579 Union of Utrecht. Alexander Farnese, the Duke of Parma, was successful in his war. 1580 King Philip II declared Prince William of Orange an outlaw. He was assassinated in 1584. 1585 The fall of Antwerp. The end of ‘Nederlandt’ as the Seventeen Provinces. Differences between North and South became greater.

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