Final Reticent Theology: The Resurrection

In talking about “reticent theology” I don’t mean that I think Christians ought to be wavering or half-hearted in doctrine or worship; but that we need to embrace the fact that there are certain things that we must hold to (doctrine) and act upon (worship), without waiting for a fully resolved understanding of them.  Indeed there are some things that we will not be able to rightly hold to or act upon if we entertain the mindset that we must fully understand them.

I think that the future resurrection of the dead may fall into that category…

Paul chides those who want to presumptuously push beyond the dim mirror-like view we presently have – those who want to jump ahead to the glory of resurrection, rather than view it dimly from the vantage point of the cross: “Fool!  Don’t you know that what you sow will not come to life unless it first dies?”

Similarly, Mark refuses to even show his suffering community the resurrected Jesus, contenting them rather with the promise that the one who bore the cross will “go ahead” of those who follow him, in vindicated new life.

Just a thought

More Reticent Theology: On Suffering

Every now & then I “do lunch” with Stuart, who is doing a PhD on the topic of forgiveness.  Recently he’s been grappling with Simone Weil, and has had some interesting thoughts on her approach to suffering.  It seems that for Weil, suffering is not something that the Christian - indeed anyone – can too quickly explain or account for: If we try to make sense of it or see beyond it, we haven’t genuinely faced it…

Two thoughts lighten affliction a little.  Either that it will stop immediately or that it will never stop.  We can think of it as impossible or necessary, but we can never think that it simply is.  That is unendurable.

Stuart’s reading is that Simone Weil (knowingly) lives in a paradox, both wanting to deny that suffering is redemptive (and so facing it as genuinely evil) and embrace the possibility that suffering is redemptive.  Or to put it in a more nuanced way: To secretly expect that suffering is redemptive, and yet face it as though it is not.

This does remind me somewhat of the book of Job: It certainly ends with a (double) restoration of all that Job lost… but Job is denied any explanation that would satisfy a human desire for resolution.

On Reticent Theology: The Trinity

Yesterday I was at a talk by Dr. Karen Kilby, in which she suggested that von Balthasar exhibits too much of an “insider’s view” when it comes to the trinity.  It was a fascinating theme, and she has written a couple of other papers along similar lines which I plan to read soon – relating to “Thomas [Aquinas] and the Trinty” and her provocative advocation of an “Apophatic Trinitarianism”. 

I think there is something worthwhile here: Dr. Kilby identified a certain process that is all too common in Christian trinitarian ethical discussion at the moment (and I have certainly seen plenty of this):

1. Abstract a doctrine of the “immanent” trinity – generally emphasising social relations as being primary
2. Make this doctrine “useful” by applying it to human relationships/politics/etc

Kilby’s hesitancy, if I may attempt to summarise, is that this seems to pry too easily into the inner workings of God himself, irreverently rushing beyond Scripture’s witness to Father, Son and Spirit in their relationship with the world, and trying to make God “useful” for our own interests.

She is not opposed to the necessary formulations that went on in the opening centuries of the common era in response to heresies; but advocates what she calls a certain “intellectual asceticism” in this area, being content not to have an “inside” knowledge of the inner workings of God, and rather relating in worship to the Father, by the Son, in the Spirit.