How Pacifism Provides an Answer to The Most Difficult Passage in the Bible (Psalm 137:9)

This afternoon, while reflecting on my still burgeoning and solidifying pacifistic beliefs, I suddenly realizied that here I had an asnwer to the most difficult and troubling passage in all of the Bible.

By common assent, the most problematic passages in the Bible are the Old Testament “inprecatory psalms” – the foremost of which is Psalm 137:9:

¹By the rivers of Babylon,
There we sat down and wept,
When we remembered Zion.
²Upon the willows in the midst of it
We hung our harps.
³For there our captors demanded of us songs,
And our tormentors mirth, saying,
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”
⁴How can we sing the LORD’S song
In a foreign land?
⁵If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
May my right hand forget her skill.
⁶May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
If I do not remember you,
If I do not exalt Jerusalem
Above my chief joy.

⁷Remember, O LORD, against the sons of Edom
The day of Jerusalem,
Who said, “Raze it, raze it
To its very foundation.”
⁸O daughter of Babylon, you devastated one,
How blessed will be the one who repays you
With the recompense with which you have repaid us.
⁹How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones
Against the rock.

Every Christian recognizes that the attitude expressed here is just wrong - and yet it is in the Bible. What do we do with that? Immanuel Kant leveraged this passage to prove his point that ultimately it is the human conscience which should be the judge of ethics, not the other way around. Two centuries of Liberals build a thoroughly man-centered theology on Kant’s foundation. More recently, I have heard this passage quoted by Rob Bell (Velvet Elvis) and Rich Mullins (see clip here) to say, in effect, “The Bible says a lot of confusing/contradictory things. You need to pick and choose what you take from it. It has no unified voice of its own: you must use your own rationality as the filter through which to determine what to take, and what to leave.” In seminary, I heard at least one chapel sermon in which this text was a major portion. The teacher admitted that it was a significant problem, then provided an answer which – either because of its complexity or my simplicity – I cannot recall.

In my experience, then, this passage is both the most embarassing to Evangelical/Fundamentalist Christians, and the most exciting to Liberals. It is their trump-card: the one-liner which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that God’s word, when taken on its own, is incoherent, incapable of organizing itself rationally, and in need of some external organizing principle in order to be rendered intelligible.

Recently, as I have said, I have finally begun to make more small, incremental steps towards relaxing my white-nucked grasp on Just-War theory, on Augustine, and on my own wisdom. I have finally stilled my heart to stop my fretting and running and thinking and worrying: to simply sit at the feet of the master and – like a babe – to let the clear, unflitered message of Jesus wash over me, and cleanse and remake every protion of my soul.

“You have heard it said, ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,’ but I say to you, ‘do not resist an evil man. whoever slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. Whoever sues you for your jacket, give to him your coat also. Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two. Serve your enemies. Bless those who mistreat you. Pray for those who persecute you.’”

But don’t you see? It is so obvious now – how could we have missed it before?!?

But we are so blinded by our thoroughly Augustinian tradition, I suspect I am being met with blank stares: allow me to indulge in an example which is more obvious.

There was no condemnation of vows in the Old Testament – indeed the pages of the Old Testament are fairly soaked in solemn pledges, covenants and vows. But in the new covenant, Jesus has done away with such things: for those who are filled with the Spirit of Truth, vows will be necessary. In the new dispensation, we are simply to “let our yes be yes.” “You have heard it said, but I say to you”: with these words, Jesus has made the old covenant obsolete (Heb. 8:13), in that his teachings are about to “fulfill” the law (Mat. 5:17), by engraving a deeper law – the law of love (Mat 22:39-40) – on the hearts (2 Cor. 3:3) of His brethren.

Psalm 137 was written in the previous dispensation – the dispensation of law. In this dispensation, Jesus’ ethic of enemy-love had not yet been introduced. God was here operating on a strict quid-pro-quo model. One example of this is when Saul was sent to slaughter the Amalekites for refusing to allow the Israelites passage through their land.

Had Saul been truly obedient, Samuel may have greeted him in the vein of Psalm 137: blessed are you, Saul, for being obedient to the Lord. Blessed are you for being an agent of vengeance on His behalf. Blessed are you for killing even the infants of that nation which has rejected the Lord.

Such an action of genocide most certainly is appalling to Modern ears – however, God has determined that whatsoever people sow, this they will also reap (Hos. 8:7). He is a just God – and this justice extends to the children of sinners (Ex. 20:5), and to whole nations, as is well-attested in the prophets. God made it perfectly clear to Israel (through Joshua) that God was not on their side, but rather that they were on his side (Josh. 5:14).Thus, when they were sent to annihilate a nation, they did so as agents of God – it was not their war but His that they were fighting.

This was not “just-war,” but holy war, slaughtering a nation doomed by God, in His perfect justice.

Is such justice revoked in the New Coveant? No, for “he who bears the sword does not bear it in vain. For it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.” (Romans 14:4) Only, this mantle of vengeance is lifted from God’s people to God himself in the new covenant: “Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, ” VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY,” says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19)

What, rather, is to be the Christian response? It has been said once, but our ears are so well trained in ignoring the words of our Savior, that there is need of repeating them again.

Only would you come – would you stop all your business and headiness and heaviness and just listen to what your Lord requires of you?

JESUS:

³⁸“You have heard that it was said, ‘AN EYE FOR AN EYE, AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH.’

³⁹“But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.

⁴⁰“If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also.

⁴¹“Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two.

⁴²“Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.

⁴³“You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’

⁴⁴“But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

⁴⁵so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

⁴⁶“For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

⁴⁷“If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?

⁴⁸“Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Do you not see that a simple reading of Jesus’ words – unhindered by the wisdom and folly of men – has made plain this great confusion of Psalm 137? Indeed – the solution is so simple that a child could understand it: God is always just. He will repay people who do bad things. The Babylonians had cruelly invaded Israel: therefore, God would ensure that they would be cruelly invaded. However, God has revealed through Jesus that all are sinners, in need of grace. God has shown us mercy, so we must pray for mercy even for those who harm us, as Jesus did on the cross. We are never to be violent against our enemies, since justice is God’s business now.

Thus it is that the one God has told His people to do two radically different things, in the two great dispensations of His dealings with His people. Both sets of commandments are contained in the same book – but there should be no confusion when we allow that section flowing directly from the author of the book to be our guide and key to the rest of the words of Scripture.

By way of contrast, those who attempt to mute or marginalize Jesus’ words on pacifism in Matthew 5 thus have no real mechanism for dealing with Psalm 137:9, or way of distancing themselves from those who have crusaded, burned and slaughtered in the name of Christ, or from modern-day murderers of abortion doctors.

My greatest encouragement in proceeding down the road of pacifism is that with every step, I am finding that more and more of the obscure/difficult/ avoided/overlooked passages of the Bible begin to explode with new life and vitality. Psalm 137:9 is but one small example of this.

“”I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants.” (Mat. 11:25) – oh, that you would grant us all that great poverty of spirit, that all your children may possess that kingdom of God (Mat. 5:13), and in your love, cast out our fear that we may cry out joyfully, “Abba! Father!” (Rom. 8:15)

 

What is Liberalism?

I have spent the last year or so really working on the question: What is (Christian) Liberalism?” This is a question which is exceedingly difficult to answer: and also very very important in today’s world. Here is what I have so far.

First of all, Liberalism in Christian theology is totally different from Liberalism in politics and education.

Liberalism in Christianity really began in the Enlightenment period, when the humanism of ancient Greece (present but suppressed in the Renaissance era) gave birth to a new humanism. This humanism eventually grew into deism, which contradicted Christianity on all of its fundamental points, including the trinity, original sin, the atonement, miracles, the authority of Scriptures, and the exclusivity of Christianity.

Deism teaches that: 1) there is a distant God in heaven, who is revealed in nature, 2) He has given us a conscience to live by, 3) we must live by this conscience, to be good people in order to pass a final judgment with this God.

From the start, Deism was explicitly anti-Christian – especially in the writings of Voltaire and Hume – but then something new happened. In “Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone,” Immanuel Kant attempted to fit Christianity within the limits of a deistic worldview – or, more accurately, he attempted to explain the deistic religion by using a modified Christian vocabulary.

The result was accepted in academic circles, but did not find wide acceptance in the church until Friedrich Shleiermacher took up Kant’s system, but modified it with concepts from Romanticism. Schleiermacher believed that the unifying aspect of religion was the “feeling of absolute dependence,” or the religious feeling which humans have. Albreicht Ritschl took up Kant’s system, but believed that religion was about morality. To this day, religious feelings and ethics remain the two purposes which Liberals hold for religion. A final important aspect of liberalism is the notion of evolution, and pantheism.

Hegel came up with a system of “Triadic Logic” (thesis, antithesis, synthesis), in which he attempted to explain all of the complexity and intelligence in the world by growth, experimentation and development rather than by divine design. This system was applied to history by Harnack, applied to politics by Karl Marx, and applied to biology by Charles Darwin. Today, the notion of evolution (in society and biology) is an assumed fact in academic circles – despite much evidence to the contrary. Within this evolutionary framework, “God” was increasingly seen by Liberals in a pantheistic way – that is, God is the sum-total of our highest ideals. Thus, He guides us as He himself grows, learns and discovers Himself through our efforts at human evolution.

Although every generation of Liberals contradicts the previous one, they all operate within a very similar framework. According to H. Richard Neibour, “Liberalism teaches that a god without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations (actions) of a Christ without a cross.”

J. Gresham Machen is right in saying that insofar as the above definition of Liberalism is correct, Liberalism is not really a new, or relaxed, or even a defective form of Christianity, but an entirely new sort of religion.

Martin Luther rightly said that there are many religions of works, and only ONE religion of grace. In emptying Christianity of original sin, the trinity, and a real atonement for the sins of the world, Liberalsim has emptied Christianity of grace, and thus preaches an entirely NEW gospel, for which they would have received Paul’s harshest anathemas!

The major author to read on this topic is J. Gresham Machen: his work “Christianity and Liberalism” is a classic on this topic. The books, “THE ORIGIN OF PAUL’S RELIGION: The Classic Defense of Supernatural Christianity,” “What Is Faith?” and “The Christian Faith in the Modern World” are also excellent. Richard Neihbour’s “Christ and Culture” (which has been critically engaged by D.A. Carson as “Christ and Culture Revisited) is also a must-read: see especially the chapter “the Christ of culture” to see a description of the formation of Liberalism.

You can also access my papers “Modernity and the Roots of Classical Liberalism,” and “The man who wrote ‘Christianity and Liberalism” and the sermon “What is the Gospel? A Response to Liberalism and the Emergent Church” if you want to read more on my take on this topic.

I hope this is helpful!

 

Modernity and the Roots of Classical Liberalism

This is a paper I wrote for my class on modern evangelicalism. I hope it is a blessing to others – it took me nearly a year to write! A paper parallel to this one is The Man Who Wrote Liberalism and Christianity. As I researched, I wrote two posts which fed into this paper: ”Deconstructing the Modern Man Part 1: The Enlightenment,” “Deconstructing the Modern Man Part 2: Immanuel Kant.” I would recommend these to you.

Also, this paper lays the intellectual foundation for the posts I have since done on Liberalism, postmodernity and the Emergent Church, and especially the post, “What is (Christian) Liberalism?,” “The Myth of ‘Post’ Modernity,” and the sermon “What is the Gospel? A response to Liberalism and the Emergent Church.”

You can download this in PDF here: LIBERALISM & MODERNITY

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this paper is to produce an answer to the question, “What is Liberalism.” A short answer to this question could be, “Liberalism is Christianity redacted to fit within the Modernistic worldview.” Obviously, this is one definition that begs another.

Crudely put, Modernity is a worldview which insists on applying the assumptions and rules necessary to the operation of the scientific method to all aspects of life, including theology, psychology, and the like. More precisely, Modernity is a worldview that holds the antonymous self as the beginning of knowledge and the final arbiter of truth. Modernity was born in the Enlightenment and bred in Romanticism,[1] and components from each era continue to exert competing and complementary influences within the movement to this day.

This paper will begin by providing a survey of the events which lead up the Enlightenment, then provide a brief topical sketch of the major theological tenets championed by the main Enlightenment thinkers. It will dwell extensively on the beliefs of the quintessential Enlightenment man and grand-father of Liberalism, Immanuel Kant. This paper will touch briefly on the Romantic era and will conclude with Friedrich Schleiermacher, who synthesized Enlightenment and Romantic elements with Kantian theology to provide the foundations of what is now known as “Liberal” or “Modern” Christianity.

PRECURSOR TO MODERNITY: THE AD FONTEZ REVOLUTION

The separate yet overlapping historical phenomenon of the Renaissance (1300-1600), the Reformation (1517-1648) and the beginnings of the Scientific Revolution (1500’s-present) could be collectively tied together under the heading of “the ad fontez revolution.” This is possible since the uniting factor in all of these great events was a rejection of the institutions and authorities of the recent past in preferment of the great works of the ancient past, specifically, the Classics of ancient Greece, and the Bible.

The decisive event of Modernity was the perceived failure of both the Reformation and Renaissance and the perceived need to recast both of them in light of the Scientific Revolution.

The Success and Limitations of the Renaissance

Carried on the successes of the past, the Renaissance was a time of many great accomplishments in art, science and technology. Built into the very success of the Renaissance, however, was a serious limiting factor. The case which became emblematic of this problem was the suppression of the heliocentric cosmology (now known as the “Copernican Revolution” in science) by the Roman Catholic Church – whose institutions and doctrines had become very much implicated in Greek thought by this time and thus found difficulty in parting with the Ptolemaic cosmology. Progress, it seemed, could no longer be made by looking backwards, or by trusting the great institutions of the past: it was time for new sources of authority.

The Perceived Failure of The Reformation

Growing out of the Renaissance, the Reformation cry of soli scripturi had promised a new birth of Christian liberty. The actual result however, was a renewed fusion of church and state controlled by a rapidly hardening theology (pejoratively termed “Protestant Scholasticism”), which splintered Europe along religious lines and led to more than a century of bloody conflict. Because the Reformers were unable to grasp the Christian concept of toleration,[2] a pagan concept was substituted. With the signing of the Peace of Westphalia (1648), the Western mind became convinced of: 1) the relative unimportance of theology to personal life, 2) the personal nature of religious convictions, 3) a preference for pragmatism, rather than absolute truth in religion.

The Scientific Revolution

The one great accomplishment of the ad fontez revolution that did not tarnish, but seemed to shine brighter with every passing decade, was the Scientific Revolution. In the very generation when the institutions of both the Reformation and Renaissance were faltering, the Scientific Revolution gave birth to one of her most luminous stars. Born in 1643, Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica[3] (1687) would prove to be arguably the most important book ever written in science. Explaining all of the world through a series of simple mathematical formulae, it seemed to lay the secrets of the cosmos bare to the scrutiny of the human mind.

THE ENLIGHTENMENT

Epistemology

In concert with the prevailing mood of his era, Rene Descartes felt that a new foundation was needed for philosophy. Descartes rejected the traditional Christian perspective that right knowledge begins with a right knowledge of self and of God, inseparably intertwined.[4] Because he wanted to keep epistemology free of Biblical and Church authority, Descartes developed his great maxim: cogito ergo sum (“I think/doubt,[5] therefore I am”). Descartes made himself (that is, the thinking person) the sole foundation for right knowledge. Although the details of Descartes’ system have been endlessly rejected, debated and recast, the core belief that the autonomous human mind is to form the new foundation for philosophy (“Cartesianism”) has been almost universally accepted and should be understood as the cornerstone of Modernity.

After Descartes, philosophy was split into two schools – rationalism and empiricism that, by the mid 1700’s, had each degraded into a reduction ad absurdum.[6] On the one hand, rationalists Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) and Gottfied Leibniz (1646-1716) pursued truth exclusively from logical deductions within the human mind, and thus had no clear rationale for studying the natural world in science. On the other hand, empiricists John Locke (1632-1704) George Berkeley (1685-1753) and David Hume (1711-1776) found that in pursuing truth only by studying the natural world, they were left with an endless collage of separate, disjointed observations of the natural world, with no organizing principle to bind them together.  Ironically, as the Enlightenment reached its zenith, science seemed imperiled by Cartesian philosophy.

God & Creation

One cannot understate the importance of Principalia Mathematica in the development of the Enlightenment mind. In contrast to the “superstitious” view, which held that the physical world was controlled by spiritual forces, the Newtonian vision of the world was a cosmos dominated by mathematical laws. The Enlightenment Rationalists, then, sought a vision of God that fit within this new cosmology.

In France, it became popular among the Philosophes to become atheistic: but Deism was to have a longer and broader influence. Not technically a Deist, John Locke (1632-1704) began the move in that direction by exalting human rationality over Scriptural authority. Locke’s “Rational Supernaturalism” was developed into what is today known as “Deism” by Lord Edward Herbert of Cherburn (1583-1648), who had almost no use for Scriptures. Likely the most famous of the Deists was Francois-Marie Arouet (1694-1778) – better known by the penname of “Voltaire.” He envisioned God as the “great watch-maker,” who set up the cosmos, wound it up, then removed himself far from it as it whirred and clicked on its way according to precise laws.

Within such a world, the intrusion of “miracles” (that is, the actions of a transcendent God breaking the very laws of nature which He had ordained) began to seen absurd, against the nature of God, and impossible by definition. David Hume’s work “On Miracles”[7] convinced the Modern mind that if God exists, He does not intrude into the material world.

Anthropology & Hamartiology

There is within Christianity a built-in resistance to humanism. This is the belief in original sin, or the belief that humans are born sinful and naturally defective in thought, action and soul. It is therefore not surprising that very early in the Enlightenment era – influenced in large part by John Locke’s 1690 “Essays Concerning Human Understanding”[8] – the doctrine of original sin was discarded. Humans were not, after all, sinful at birth but merely tabula rasa or “blank slates” upon which the influences and realities of the world impressed either positive or negative imprints. This concept was taken up by other Enlightenment thinkers who romanticized nature, and primitive man[9] and thus saw evil as coming from without, in the unnatural imposition of institutions such as the church and the monarchy onto nature.

Hermeneutics

As a book rife with miracles, as well as a book in possession of and (according to the Catholic view) produced by the Church, the Bible naturally came under attack with the onset of Enlightenment thinking. Desiderius Erasmus 1466-1536) may have laid the foundation for Modern Hermeneutics, but it was Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) and later Jean Astruc (1684-1766) who really began the discipline of higher criticism by approaching the Bible like any other human writing. Astruc’s controversial discovery that the Pentateuch was written by several authors seemed to substantiate his presupposition that the Bible was merely a human book.

With the introduction of human authorship into hermeneutics, the possibility of the miraculous nature of its authorship – already a concept unfavorable to the Modern mind – seemed untenable. The Bible’s antiquity also seemed to bode poorly for it. Gotthold Lessing (1729-1781) pounded the final nail into the coffin of traditional hermeneutics in what has become known as “Lessing’s Ugly Ditch.” Lessing explained that there are two categories of knowledge: the necessary objects of reason (e.g. 2+2=4) and the incidental objects of history (e.g. Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo). Between these two categories of knowledge there is an “ugly ditch.” Historic Christianity was in error by trying to found necessary objects of reason (e.g. man is sinful, salvation is in Christ alone, etc.) on historical events (e.g. the fall, the incarnation, etc.).[10]

Christology, Soteriology

With the rejection of miracles and the questioning of the bible, it is not surprising that the entrance of the Son of God into human history, to make atonement for sin also came under attack. The event was questioned by Enlightenement thinkers first because their high view of man made it seem uneccessary, and second because their strict sense of justice and personal responsibility made it seem illogical and unethical. Jesus was not rejected, however: only, it was His life and teaching which were emphasized, in order to give practical instruction to the Modern man on moral living. The virgin birth, miraculous resurrection and miracles were made secondary.

Probably the most famous example of this is Thomas Jefferson’s “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.” Here the miraculous is completely edited out of Jesus’ life, leaving only a collage of moral instructions.

The Rejection of Christianity as an Original Religion

Steadily, the Enlightenment Rationalists emptied the Western mind of the Trinity, original sin, miracles, the atonement and an inspired canon, and any other doctrines that offended their philosophical allegiances. A final doctrine – that is, the originality of Christianity – seemed thus untenable, since: 1) the vaguely ethical religion that now remained was not much different than other religions, and 2) it made no logical sense for God to reject those who had no chance to hear the gospel message. Thus, the belief that Jesus alone is the “way truth and life” for humanity (John 14:6) was also rejected by the Enlightenment Rationalists.[11]

IMMANUEL KANT

Just as the “untimely born” and “least” came to be the quintessential Apostle, so too the late-born (although certainly not self-effacing!) Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) came to epitomize, summarize and consummate the Enlightenment in his work. The great aphorism attributed to Immanuel Kant is that he “saved science and made room for religion.”

“The Critique of Pure Reason”: How Kant Saved Science

The “Copernican Revolution” of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was to synthesize rationalism and empiricism. Kant agreed with rationalism that certain truths are native within the human mind: his great innovation was to assert that these internal truths subconsciously organize and inform our sensory perception of the world. Thus, it was possible to understand the world, since our minds naturally conform the phenomenal world to our understanding. The great consequence of Kant’s philosophy was the belief that one could only be really sure of those truths that could be reasoned from within one’s mind or perceived in the natural world. Kant’s system thus established agnosticism towards the spiritual world as a maxim of the thinking person.

Critique of Practical Reason: How Kant Made Room for Religion

Upon writing his magnum opus, “Critique of Pure Reason,” Kant supposedly came home to find his manservant in tears. When queried as to the source of his grief, the servant answered, “They tell me you have taken away my God!” Disturbed by this statement, Kant supposedly set about writing Critique of Practical Reason to remedy this situation.[12]

Kant decided that although his previous work had provided a good summary of “what is,” it had said nothing about “what ought to be:” it was to this end that he turned in Critique of Practical Reason. In point of fact every human being has a consciousness of morality which Kant defines as the sort of behavior which one could wish would be a universal maxim. Morality is illogical, however, without, 1) a moral lawgiver, and 2) a post-death judge, who will provide eternal rewards/punishments for moral behavior in life. Thus, Kant carved out room for religion: however, this was no Christian religion, but a restatement of Enlightenment Deism.

Religion Within the Bounds of Bare Reason

Kant applauded himself on thus making room for religion, but found that traditional Christianity would not fit within the space he had allotted to her: thus, he wrote the aptly named “Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone” to redact Christianity to fit within his system.

Book One: The Radical Evil

The title of Kant’s first book was a great shock to Enlightenment thought: was Kant really going to overturn Locke’s tabula rasa for the older doctrine of “original sin?” Upon closer examination, however, Kant’s ideas here are a restatement of Enlightenment anthropology.

Kant set out to answer the fundamental question of, “Why is it that the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want?” (Rom. 7:19, paraphrased from NASB). First, he divided the human psyche into three compartments. The villa is the moral law or conscience. On this, Kant adopts the Christian view that humanity has such an internal witness of morality (Rom. 2:14-16), but rejects the notion that this witness can be tarnished (1 Tim. 4:2). For Kant, the conscience of every man points continually “true-north.” The second compartment of the psyche is the vilcre – that is, the will, or the choosing agent of the person – which (in rejection of Biblical teaching, e.g. Rom. 6, 2 Pet. 2:19) is always completely free to choose from all available options. It is in the final aspect of humanity – the gesinna, or “disposition” – that the real root of sin resides. The disposition of a person could be tarnished by a host of factors including sensual temptations, poor examples, past history and the like. This corruption, however, never overlaps into other areas of one’s psyche.

Kant looked to the story of original sin in Genesis 3 not as a historic event that transmitted sin to all humanity, but as a metaphor or myth that was universally true for all humanity. In the same way that Adam was tempted by his tarnished disposition (or gesinna), he also had a sense of what was right and wrong (using his villa), and could just as easily have chosen not to sin as to sin as to sin (using his vilcre). In the same way, we too, in every occasion of life, should choose right instead of wrong, in order to impress the great Lawgiver and Judge.

Book Two: Jesus As An Archetype

Because Jesus’ resurrection and ascension were only attended by a few witnesses, and also because the notion of an atoning sacrifice was offensive to the Enlightenment mind, Kant declared that these events were not to be the focus of Christology. Further, Kant cast doubt on the factuality of the entire life of Christ, believing that Jesus was more of a myth than a reality. As a myth, however, Kant felt that the Jesus narrative could be far more useful to humanity. As the sinless man, Jesus was able to teach humanity how to live morally in order to attain the status of favor with God that Jesus enjoyed. Thus, Jesus became the positive archetype, to be favored and followed over the negative archetype of Adam.

Book Three: The Church

Kant believed that church was important. If people were to live moral lives, they should meet together with other moral people and be encouraged and given practical tips on morality. Thus, church was an integral part of Kant’s new religion. It was man’s own moral consciousness, however, not the morality of the Bible that was to be followed. When the Bible seemed to be immoral (e.g. Psalm 137:9), the Bible should be modified to fit within man-made morality.

Book Four: Religions of Magic

Kant divided religion into two categories. On the one hand, there were religions of magic or “priestcraft” whereby humans attempted to manipulate God to do their bidding. On the other, there were religions of morality, whereby humans attempted to please God by means of their morality. In this book, Kant bitterly attacked all religions that did not fit within his moralistic/Deistic framework.

Book Five: Religion and Clericism

The practical upshot of Kant’s system is that much of what had been previously valued as a part of Christianity had to go: specifically, anything that was not directly related to reinforcing morality within people was superfluous. He called these aspects “pseudo-service” and noted especially singing or chanting worship to God, offering penance or incense, etc.: this was merely man trying to twist the arm of God. In “true religion,” man does not really need God’s help, but tries to make one’s self worthy of His favor through sustained moral effort.

Atonement

In conclusion, Kant makes mention of what one should do with the fact that they have sinned often and at times grievously against the moral law. Since the historic atonement for sin has been removed, Kant’s only suggestion is that one must pour one’s self that much more passionately into a moral life, in order to become one’s own atonement for sin. Because of the morality of one’s later life, it would be unethical for God to judge such a person for their earlier sins.

THE ROMANTIC ERA

Dr. Andrew W. Hoeffer says, “If the Enlightenment motto could be understood as ‘I think therefore I am,’ the Romantic motto could be understood as ‘I feel therefore I am.”[13] Occuring in history as two consecutive movements, Romanticism and Enlightenment are really two opposing sides of the same coin of humanism, or Modernity. Because Modernity is basically a worldview which worships the human self, it is natural that the distinctions which create conflict in the human person – that is, between head and heart, between language/art and math/logic, between the left and right-brained tendencies – should also characterize such conflicts and revolutions within the society built upon them. It is also natural that a worldview built upon humanism should be characterized by great waves optimism, then despair, from which new optimism arises.

Because the Romantic Era was really a continuation of the general mood of Modernity that was begun in the Enlightenment, it is not surprising that the Romantics adopted virtually all of the major tenets of Enlightenment Rationalism – only applying these principles in very different ways. The one great exception to this was pantheism. In contrast to the Deism of the Enlightenment (which pushed God far enough away that He didn’t interfere with humanity), the pantheism of Jean-Jacques Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and William Wordsworth (1770-1850) – among others – came pulled God so close that He actually participated in human actions, or even was created by them. This pantheistic notion was eventually taken up by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), who envisioned God as the sum and total of the upward quest of humanity to self-actualize in the evolutionary process of thesis-antithesis-synthesis.

FRIEDRICH SCHLIERMACHER AND CLASSICAL LIBERALISM

The genius of Friedrich Schliermacher (1768-1834) was his ability to achieve erudition in a wide variety of subjects – including New Testament interpretation/exegesis/hermeneutics, ethics, philosophy, history, politics, psychology, etc. – and to synthesize apparently contradictory positions under a perceived higher unity. Schleiermacher eventually completed an eleven-volume systematic theology in which he received and modified Enlightenment and Kantian theology under the distinctively Romantic notion that every doctrine of the Christian faith was to be redefined around the religious self-consciousness, or “the feeling of absolute dependence” one feels in the presence of God.

Schleiermacher’s system was to hold precedence for over a century. During this time, “Protestant Liberalism” was further developed especially in Germany in the Ninteenth century by such thinkers as: Albrecht Ritschl (1822-1889), who emphasized the ethical example of Jesus, the “brotherhood of man” and the “fatherhood of God”; Adalf von Harnack (1851-1930), who utilized Hegelianism to produce the evolutionary model for history still current today; Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918), who emphasized the “social-gospel,” and Rudolf Boltmann (1884-1976) who sought to “demythologize” the gospel accounts. Karl Barth (1886-1968) and Reinhold Niebuhr’s (1892-1971) attempt to critique and overturn Schliermacher’s system split Classical Liberalism into neo-Liberalism and neo-Orthodoxy – movements which are still active today. Brian MacLaren (1956-), Rob Bell (1970-) and others draw heavily on Liberal roots for the formation of “post-modern” or “Emergent” Christianity.

CONCLUSION

One explanation of Liberalism is that it is a contemporary manifestation of the ancient Christian faith; another is that it is a loosening or slackening of that faith. Both of these illustrations are misleading, however, since Liberalism is a set of beliefs which differs from and rejects Christian doctrine at the most fundamental level.

A helpful metaphor for Liberalism is to see Kant as the innkeeper who lays historic Christianity on the “Bed of Precrustes”[14] of Enlightenment Rationalism. This deceased, fragmented corpse he then passed on to Schleiermacher who – with the help of Romanticism – revivified into the movement now known as Liberalism. The result is not really Christianity, but a non-redemptive, naturalistic, post-Christian religion tailor-made to fit within Modernity.

Centuries earlier, Martin Luther had rightly said that there are only two types of religion in the world: religions of legalism, and the one religion of grace. In emptying Christianity of all things essential to the gospel, Liberalism has thus taken away the gospel core of grace from Christianity, and returned it to the pre-Christian state of vague spirituality and ethics which was already in the world (especially in ancient Greece) before Christianity came on the scene.[15]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Calhoun, Dr. David. Reformation and Modern Church History. Covenant Theological Seminary.

25 February 2010. http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Feed/

covenantseminary.edu.1726917598.01726917605. Internet. Accessed 15 April 2010.

Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers. 2008.

Fox, Richard Wightman. “The Culture of Liberal Protestant Progressivism, 1875-1925.” Journal

of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 10. No. 3. (Winter, 1993). 639-660.

Frank, A. James III. History of Christianity II. Reformed Theological Seminary Virtual Campus.

13 December 2007. http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Feed/

yale.edu.2414602410.02414602418. Internet. Accessed 15 April 2010.

Frame, John M. History of Philosophy and Christian Thought. Reformed Theological Seminary.

14 September 2009. [class lectures on-line]. Available from http://deimos3.apple.com/ WebObjects/Core.woa/Feed/rts-public.1379337550.02487261124. Internet. Accessed. 9 November 2009.

Geisler, Norman L. “Beware of Philosophy: A Warning to Biblical Scholars.” Presidential address presented to the Evangelial Theological Society. 19 November 1998. Published in Christian Apologetics Journal, Vol 2, no. 1, Matthews, NC: Southern Evangelical Seminary. 1999.

Hensley, Jeffrey. Liberal Protestantism. In The Encyclopedia of Protestantism. Edited by Hans J.

Hillerbrand. New York: Routledge Press. 2004.

Hoffecker, W. Andrew. The Church and the World. Reformed Theological Seminary. 10 October

2007. [class-lectures online]. Available from http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/

Core.woa/Feed/rts-public.1380058302.01380058304. Internet. Accessed 17 February

2010.

Hume, David. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, L. A. Selby Bigge, ed. Oxford:

Clarendon Press, 1902.

Johnston, R.K. Liberal Evangelicalism. In Evangelical Dictonary of Theology. 2^nd ed. Edited by

Walter A. Elwell. Grand Rapids, MI: Paternoster Press. 2001.

Knight, Kevin. Liberalism. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New Advent.org [encyclopedia online]. Available from www.newadvent.org. 7 January 2002. Internet. Accessed 12 April 2010.

Lessing, Gotthold. Lessing’s Theological Writings. trans. Henry Chadwick. London: A. & C.

Black Ltd. 1956.

Lewis, C.S. “De Descriptione Temporum.” in They Asked for a Paper. London: Godfrey Bless,

1962.

Locke, John. “Essay Concerning Human Understanding.” 1690. [document on-line]. Available

from http://books.google.ca/javascript:opengbs Accessed 26 May 2010.

Manning, David John. Liberalism. London, ON: Dent. 1971.

Machen, J. Gresham. Christianity and Liberalism. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans

Publishing. 1923.

McLaren, Brian. A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends. Hovel Audio. 2001.

Download: -bookonline

. Available from http://christianaudio.com/product_info.php?products_id=

319. Internet. Accessed 26 June 2010.

Merriman, John. European Civilization, 1648-1945. Yale University. 10 May 2009. [class

lectures online]. Available from http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/ Feed/yale.edu.2414602410.02414602418. Internet. Accessed 20 April 2010.

Newton, Isaac. The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, trans. John Machin             Oxford Press. 1729. [document online] available from http://books.google.com

/books?id= Tm0FAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA1 and http://books.google.com/books?id= 6EqxPav3vIsC&pg=PA1. Internet. Accessed 28 June 2010.

Open University. Analyzing European Romanticism. Open University. 18 September 2010. [class

lectures on-line]. Available from http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Feed/ itunes.open.ac.uk.2684291448.02681386373. Internet. Accessed. 11 May 2010.

Reardon, Bernard M. G. Christian Modernism. In Encyclopedia of Religion. Vol. 9, 2^nd ed. Edited

by Lindsay Jones. Detroit: Macmillan Reference. 2005.

Tindal, Matthew. Christianity as Old as Creation. 1730. New York, NY: Thoemmes

Continuum Publishers. 1999.

Van Til, Cornelius. Christ and Human Thought. Westminster Theological Seminary. 15 January

2010. [class lectures on-line]. Available from http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/

Core.woa/Feed/wts-public.3164695002.03164695004. Internet. Accessed. 11

---

[1] This illustration provided by Dr. David Calhoun, Reformation and Modern Church History, Covenant Theological Seminary. 25 February 2010. [lectures on-line]. Available from http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects /Core.woa/Feed/ covenantseminary.edu.1726917598.01726917605. Internet. Accessed 15 April 2010.

[2] According to Romans 14, the Christian answer for variations in opinion is that each person should be “fully convinced in their own mind,” (14:5) and to be diligent in their convictions, as unto God (14:6). Unity is then found in the fact that even very divergent Christian traditions are all expressions of worship to God, and are thus accepted (14:4). By cross-referencing Galatians 1:8 we may see that this does not apply to salvific, or gospel doctrine.

[3] Isaac Newton, The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, trans. John Machin (Oxford Press, 1729) [document online] available from http://books.google.com/books?id= Tm0FAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA1 and http://books.google.com/books?id=6EqxPav3vIsC&pg=PA1. Internet. Accessed 28 June 2010.

[4] See for example the first page of John Calvin’s, The Institutes of the Christian Religion (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008), 3.

[5] Descartes altered his formulation slightly in translation between Latin and his mother-tongue of French.

[6] This summary – which is far from a consensus among scholars – is presented by Cornelius Van Til in Christ and Human Thought. Westminster Theological Seminary. 15 January 2010. [class lectures on-line]. Available from http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Feed/ wts-public.3164695002.03164695004. Internet. Accessed. 11

[7] David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, L. A. Selby Bigge, ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1902), pp. 114-16.

[8] John Locke, “Essay Concerning Human Understanding,” Google  Books, [document on-line]. Available from http://books.google.ca/… Accessed 26 May 2010.

[9] This concept was popularized as the notion of the “noble savage,” or the idea that a primitive person, living close to nature and free from man-made institutions was more free, holy, etc., than a modern, urbanized individual.

[10] Gotthold Lessing, Lessing’s Theological Writings, trans. Henry Chadwick (London: A. & C. Black Ltd., 1956).

[11] Cf. Matthew Tindal, Christianity as Old as Creation, 1730, (New York, NY: Thoemmes Continuum Publishers, 1999).

[12] In all of the biographies of Kant which I have accessed, this story serves as a bridge between these two works: they all treat this story with some suspicion, however, as to its actual historicity. Factual or not, it provides a good logical bridge between the works.

[13] Andrew W. Hoffecker, The Church and the World. Reformed Theological Seminary, 10 October 2007. [class-lectures online]. Available from http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/

Core.woa/Feed/rts-public.1380058302.01380058304. Internet. Accessed 17 February 2010.

[14] In Greek mythology, the “Bed of Precrustes” was a inn’s bed which “magically” fit all travelers by stretching those who were too short, and cutting off those who were too long. This myth invoked by Van Til in Christ and Human Thought, 1902.

[15] This point raised by J. Gresham Machen in Christianity and Liberalism, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1923), 53.

 

Deconstructing the Modern Man, Part 1: The Enlightenment

Jarram Barrs begins his lecture on the Enlightenment by quoting an unnamed TV personality who said, “The Western man was born in the Enlightenment and bred in Romanticism.” As his lecture continues, Barrs provides an analogy of his own, “The Western man has an Enlightenment mind and a Romantic heart.” Whichever metaphor is preferred, it is beyond doubt that a clear understanding of the two distinct but interlocking movements of “The Enlightenment” and “Romanticism” are critical for understanding the Modern, Western mind.

PRECURSORS TO THE ENLIGHTENMENT ( -1648)

Europe reached the half-way point of the second millennium with a growing – although still suppressed – mistrust established systems of authority. As education and literacy increased, questions about the automatic validity of church doctrine increased accordingly – resulting ultimately in one of the most decisive moments in history, when one man stood against the entire Roman Church and declared, holding Scriptures and “plain reason and arguments,” and his own conscience above the authority of Church Tradition. Luther was by no means seeking to make man the autonomous center of his own world: however, his actions contributed to the enlightenment first by setting a president of “one-man-against-the-Church,” and second by exalting his intellect and his conscience above the doctrines of the church. Luther’s third contribution to the Enlightenment was less savory.

Since the introduction of “Just-War Theology” into the Church in the fourth century, the sword had never been far from the cross. Indeed – many times the two were seen as almost interchangeable. Until the Reformation, however, European wars were mostly localized to political wars internally, with the “warrior-cross” reserved for external wars against “the Turks” (Islam). Five years after nailing his theses to the door at Wittenburg, however, Luther darkly predicted that Germany “will be drenched with blood” [1] by the ideas he had set in motion. His prediction could not have been more horribly more accurate. As the Reformation fragmented Europe into Luteran, Reformed, Anglican, and Catholic nations – with other smaller factions as well – the “warrior-cross” which once was turned perpetually towards “the Turk” now turned inwards. As each fragment sought religious dominance through military conquest, Europe was rocked by over a hundred years of near-perpetual warfare (1520-1648) – bringing with it plague and famine, which, by some estimates, cut the population of Europe by one-third.

As these wars finally ended in the Peace of Westphalia (1648), the Western mind was becoming firmly convinced of one thing: religion is not worth fighting over. For perhaps the first time in history, religious toleration began to appear attractive. Furthermore, religion did not seem to have the answers to a Utopian society: people began looking elsewhere for answers.

THE ENLIGHTENMENT (1650′s-1800′s)

Into the vaccuume created by the removal of God – as mediated either by the Church or by Scriptures – as the ultimate authority for truth, the philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1650) sought to find a new foundation for reality. He found that although he could doubt virtually anything: however, to doubt his own existence would be to prove that he was doubting, and doubt required reason, and reason required existence. Therefore, the one thing which seemed sure in Descartes’ mind was his own existence. He coined the now famous phrase cognito ergo sum: “I think, therefore, I am” and presented it to the modern world as the new foundation for reason and thought. Descartes’ philosophy was popular on the continent, but the English were unimpressed by his introspective speculations. They preferred, rather, to build thought and logic on the firm foundation of sensory experience, mediated through finely-honed scientific instruments. As this philosophical battle raged on, the unspoken consensus between the fighting brothers is that they had both rejected God and any other external source of authority, and were looking for authority purely in what they could find within the human self.

As Luther was beginning his Reformation in religious matters, the discoveries of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) were gaining traction in the scientific world. The discovery of the heliocentric cosmology (aka. the discovery that the earth revolved around the sun, not vice-versa) was a monumental discovery which paved the way for Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), and eventually for Isaac Newton 1643-1727). In Newton’s book Principia Mathematica, the secrets of the universe seemed to have been unlocked by the powers of the human mind. Sometimes enemy of progress, sometimes indifferent to it, the Church seemed to contribute little to the Scientific Revolution which was sweeping across Europe. As the scientific revolution progressed and gained momentum, an unbridled sense of optimism began to rise about the opportunities of the future, and the abilities of the mind to create an exponentially better world in which to live.

Along with this general optimism about human ability came a sense of positivism about the human soul. As the Greek Classics were rediscovered and given prominence alongside the Bible, the dark Augustinian view of man which dominated the early Middle and Medieval eras began to take on a lighter shade in the Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), and a still lighter shade in the Humanists such as Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1539). Although Luther and Calvin succeeded in turning this tide for some, the general mood of Europe came to be very much influenced by the writings of John Locke (1632-1704), who wrote that  the human soul is, at birth, a tabula rasa - a blank slate – upon which the experiences of life could write good or evil. As in Pelagianism, original evil was seen as a bad example: thus, with effective education and guidance, humans could really be improved and perhaps even perfected.

“What is the enlightenment?” Queried Kant in his 1784 paper, with the same name, “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! [dare to know] ‘Have courage to use your own understanding!’ – that is the motto of enlightenment.” [2]

Drawing on all that came before, then, the Enlightenment was, above all, an anthropocentric worldview. Although the Scientific revolution was begun and advanced by people of profound religious conviction, increasingly the modern man began to see religion as outdated, a thing of the past, a constricting force, as superstition, as bringing war and division, as inhibiting of progress.

The modern man, therefore, believes that it is his own “enlightened” mind, in an “unbiased” quest for truth – that is, without the aid of the church or the Bible – which is the highest appeal to authority. Further, the modern man holds a great optimism about humanity in general, in the human self in particular, and in the wonderful new world which mankind is creating for itself.

This is the mind of modern man in a nutshell.

[1] Milner, Joseph & Isaac, History of the Church of Christ, vol. 5, (New York, NY: John P. Haven, 1822) from Martin Luther, Epist. lib. 2, 16

[2] Kant, Immanuel, An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? (Konigsberg in Prussia, 30 September 1784), [document on-line]; available from; http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/kant.html