The Magic Roundabout

F.F. Bruce:

"Let biblical inspiration or any other aspect of biblical authority be stated in the most emphatic and all-embracing fashion: any such statement is devoid of real content unless we discover, by critical and exegetical study, what the biblical text says and means. Our theology must depend on our exegesis, not vice versa. And if we allow our exegesis to be controlled by theologoumena, we shall quickly find ourselves involved in circular reasoning. I have friends who say, 'Well, yes; but all theological reasoning is circular; let us simply make sure that we get into the right circle'. I cannot accompany them on their magic roundabout."

["Primary Sense and Plenary Sense", Epworth Review, 4, 1977, pp.94-109]

The Dark Side of Theology

Yesterday, Michael Patton put up a post entitled: "The Dark Side of Theology". Here are the first two paragraphs:

"I have come to have a love-hate relationship with theology. I love it because it can deepen one's faith, helping people to rejoice more because they understand and know God better (Jer. 9:24). There is nothing more exciting than the look on peoples' faces when they are being theologically transformed. It is the 'wow, this is really true' look. I live for that both in myself and in others."

"However, there is a dark side to theology. I see it everyday. I pray that this does not infect my students, but inevitably, there are always one or two who take their theological knowledge and create a recipe of sin and shame. These are people I call 'theologically dangerous'."

Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011)

I have read a fair number of books and articles by the so-called Four Horsemen, i.e. the "new atheists" Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens. I am most familiar with Harris' writings and least familiar with those of Hitchens. All four writers have written well-known books arguing for atheism; of these books, I think the one by Hitchens (God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything) is the weakest.

Hitchens died of cancer on 15 December.

The Hitch was colorful, outrageous, and (to his everlasting credit) politically uncorrect. He was almost never at a loss for words. Here he is supporting the war against middle-eastern totalitarianism:

"For free expression, for women's rights, for self-determination of small peoples, for the right of Iraqis to federate and have their own show, for the right of the Lebanese not to be bullied by Hezbollah and to have a multicultural democracy, yes, I'll fight for this, and I think the 82nd Airborne Division is brave to be fighting for it too. And I think you should be ashamed, sneering at people who guard you while you sleep."

And here he is attacking George Galloway (who wins a prize as the most appalling, the most odious, and the most viciously opportunistic leftwing politician in the western world):

"Galloway looks so much like what he is: a thug and a demagogue, the type of working-class wideboy and proud of it who is too used to the expenses account, the cars and the hotels - all cigars and back-slapping. He is a very cheap character and a short-arse like a lot of them are, puffed up like a turkey. He has managed to fuse being a Baathist with being a Muslim sectarian and a carpet bagger in the East End. He's got the venomous riff-raff at one end and your one-God fanatics on the other. Wonderful. Just what we need..."

(Galloway has been on record as praising the following: (1) The Soviet Union, (2) Saddam Hussein, (3) Iraqi jihadis who killed civilians and aid workers, and (4) Iraqi Baathists who reportedly tortured trade unionists. He also said that Syria is lucky to have Bashar al-Assad as her President. For a while, Galloway supported and worked for the state-run Iranian satellite television channel, Press TV.)

Finally, Hitchens comments on Mother Teresa: "A lying, thieving Albanian dwarf... She was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty... She has gigantically increased the amount of poverty and misery in the world. The vast sums of money she raised were spent mainly on building convents in her own honour."

Christopher Hitchens should never be confused with his brother Peter Hitchens (though, amazingly, some journalists managed to do this after Christopher's death). Peter is a well-known political conservative (he is also a conservative Christian). His book The Abolition of Britain is a sustained lament for a world and a way of life that have vanished forever. He is also the author of The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me To Faith.

Arminius on Calvin's Commentaries

Jacob Arminius was full of praise for the exegetical gifts of his theological opponent, John Calvin: "After the reading of Scripture, which I strenuously inculcate, and more than any other... I recommend that the Commentaries of Calvin be read... For I affirm that in the interpretation of the Scriptures Calvin is incomparable, and that his Commentaries are more to be valued than anything that is handed down to us in the writings of the Fathers - so much so that I concede to him a certain spirit of prophecy in which he stands distinguished above others, above most, indeed, above all."

By contrast, Arminius says that when you read Calvin's Institutes, you must read them "with discrimination"...

[F.F. Bruce, "The History of New Testament Study", in New Testament Interpretation: Essays on Principles and Methods, edited by I. Howard Marshall, Carlisle: The Paternoster Press, 1977 (revised 1979), p.33]

Citizens of a Bygone Age

The historian Keith Thomas said that he tried "...to immerse myself in the past until I know it well enough for my judgment of what is or is not representative to seem acceptable without undue epistemological debate. Historians are like reliable local guides. Ideally, they will know the terrain like the backs of their hands. They recognise all the inhabitants and have a sharp eye for strangers and impostors."

This reminds me of C.S. Lewis. When people asked him how he knew that his detailed accounts of medieval religion and ideas were accurate, he said that he was a citizen of those bygone worlds. Lewis told his audience in his inaugural lecture as a professor at Cambridge that he was a dinosaur, one of the few remaining representatives of Old Western Man; mentally and culturally speaking, he belonged more to the medieval and Renaissance periods than to the twentieth century. Lewis said: "I read as a native texts that you must read as foreigners..."

A good scholar of New Testament studies will try his best to "inhabit" the late BC and early AD centuries until he gains a Lewisian familiarity with those ancient realms.