Human Nature

MODERN REFORMATION VOL.30 | NO.2 | MARCH-APRIL 2021 | $6.95

Human Nature

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JUS T IFIC AT ION

MODERN REFORMATION WEEKEND

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Join Michael Horton and the Modern Reformation team for a special weekend experience as we delve deeply into the topic of justification. Registered participants will receive materials to read and prepare in advance. Our guests will spend the weekend listening to stimulating lectures and engaging in lively conversation, challenging them to grow in their understanding of the doctrine of justification, and encouraging them to live in the light of what God has done for them in Christ.

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FEATURES 22

Whatever I Think, Therefore I Am: An Interview with Carl Trueman

BY TIMON CLINE

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More Alike Than Different

BY RACHEL GREEN MILLER

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Forever Young?

Understanding Transhumanism B Y S T E FA N L I N D H O L M

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Aggravated Sorrow: Some Theological and Pastoral Reflections on Acedia

BY PHILLIP HUSSEY

COVER ILLUSTRATION BY JACQUELINE TAM

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CORE CHRISTIANITY BIBLE STUDIES. A G R O W I N G L I B R A RY O F B I B L E S T U D I E S .

Are you looking for an easy-to-use study that will take you deep into the word of God? Our Bible studies are perfect for individual use, small groups, Sunday school, and community outreach. Both four-week and ten-week studies are available. Leader’s editions are available for all our studies, making it easier for you to start a group study. Go to the Core Christianity website to get a Bible study to answer the big questions about God, this world, and your life in it.

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DEPARTMENTS 5

14 R E F O R M AT I O N RESOURCES

“Christian Liberty”

by Franciscus Junius T R A N S L AT E D B Y R YA N M . H U R D

B I B L E S T U DY

Watch with Both Eyes

BY ALLEN C. GUELZO

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55 BOOK REVIEWS

History and Eschatology: Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology

by N. T. Wright

GLOBAL THEOLOGICAL FORUM

Chalcedon and Indian Christologies B Y S TAVA N N A R E N D R A J O H N

Dogma and Ecumenism: Vatican II and Karl Barth’s Ad Limina Apostolorum edited by Matthew Levering, Bruce L. McCormack, and Thomas Joseph White, OP REVIEWED BY J O S H UA S C H E N D E L

The Writings of Phillis Wheatley edited by Vincent Carretta REVIEWED BY S I M O N E T TA C A R R

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REVIEWED BY DAV I D VA N D R U N E N

Atonement and the Death of Christ: An Exegetical, Historical, and Philosophical Exploration

B A C K PA G E

by William Lane Craig

Pray for the City

REVIEWED BY

BY MICHAEL HORTON

CHAD MCINTOSH

MODERN REFORMATION Editor-in-Chief Michael S. Horton Editorial Director Eric Landry Executive Editor Joshua Schendel Managing Editor Patricia Anders Marketing Director Michele Tedrick

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LETTER from the EDITOR

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he adventures of the title char­ acter of Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder begin when she receives a small envelope in the mail one day.

Inside are written only three words, but three words that pose the profound question: Who are you? It is a question at once so existential and theoretical, so basic yet ornate, that it permeates the history of humanity. Inscribed on temples, debated in political assemblies, enacted in religious rituals, pondered by both philosopher and ploughman alike, this ques­ tion begets both wonder and crisis. In the Christian tradition, this question is always posed and pondered consequent to the yet more fundamental question of God. Who we are can be answered only by reference to the one who is and who, from the fullness of his love, gives so that creatures may be. Humans are creatures whose nature, existences, and histories are gifts.

This basic Christian confession does not so much answer the question—who am I?—but gives our search for the answer a particular Christian shape. Understanding our crea­ tureliness and our history as both fallen and redeemed invites us further to plumb the depths of this question. And so, we ask our more specific questions, and each new step fills out the contours of our creatureliness, our fall­ enness, our redemption. In this issue, we ask some of those further questions, prompted in

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large part by our culture’s ongoing (and pain­ ful) probing of human identity.

How did we get to this place—the place of the liquid self—where human nature is viewed as an old-fashioned, needlessly limited, and oppres­ sive concept? This is what Carl Trueman asks in his latest and highly acclaimed book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. For this issue, MR contributor Timon Cline interviews Dr. Trueman on his findings to this vital question.

In contrast to the plasticity of sexuality and gender championed in our culture, the biblical witness teaches us that God created humanity in his image, both male and female. There are, of course, many implications and much wisdom to be drawn from this instruction, which Rachel Green Miller explores in our second feature.

As contemporary debates about who we are reach a near-feverish pitch, transhumanist speculations about who we may become like­ wise strain the imagination toward its upward limits. In our third feature, Dr. Stefan Lindholm examines this movement, what it is, and how Christians should think about it.

Our final feature attends to the question of human nature as fallen. In it, Phillip Hussey offers an analysis of the sin of sloth. Though tra­ ditionally the sin of hubris takes pride of place as the root from which all other sins sprout, Hussey shows that sloth is the other side of the sin coin.

We pray that these exercises in faith seeking understanding will lead us from the question posed by the psalmist, “What is man?” to the answer given by the writer to the Hebrews, “But we do see Jesus.”

JOSHUA SCHENDEL exec utive editor

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PART TWO OF A FIVE-PART SERIES

Watch with Both Eyes

by Allen C. Guelzo

hatever else Jude was—and he was many things, as he tells us in the first four verses of his short Epistle: a servant of Jesus Christ, a brother of James (and by exten­ sion, a brother of Jesus himself)—he was a worried man. Worried, not in the sense of someone who has no idea of what is going to happen, but in the sense of seeing a profile in events others do not see that he knows will cork­ screw downward.

Just look at the opening verses. He was writing urgently. There is no elaborate introduction here, such as we often have in Paul’s letters,

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complimenting people on their love or their persistence or their generosity. Instead, Jude blows straightaway through the front door, as though there is not a moment to waste: Beloved, I am writing urgently to you about the salvation we share in common. I’ve found it necessary to ask you to contend for the faith which has been delivered to all of you as saints. (vv. 3–4) What is driving this urgency? The same thing that might drive us if we discovered a break-in at our house or a virus in our computer. Only this

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time, the vandalism or the virus is about “some people who have crept” into your fellowship (v.

4). He doesn’t name names. All he needs to do is to outline what such a spiritual virus looks like and the danger it has posed in the past, and everyone will be able to see the spiritual superspreaders for who and what they are.

A BREACH OF THE CHURCH’S FIREWALL Who are these people who pose such an urgent threat to the health of the church?

First of all, they’re people with a long history, a history you need to be afraid of: they are ones “who were written about of old and who were even then identified for judgment.”

Second, they are “impious.” They are godless in what they think, and what’s more, they live that way, too. (Jude will use this word again in v. 15 to describe their lifestyle.) In the early church, Jude was understood to be referring particularly to preachers and teachers who, like the false proph­ ets of the Old Testament, gave a free moral pass 1 to anyone who demanded it or paid for it.

Third, “they have taken the grace of God and used it as a pretext for licentiousness.” They don’t just stand weakly to one side while others do evil; they try to argue that evil itself is good.

Their idea of church is the biggest wild party you’ve ever seen.

Last, they have “denied Jesus Christ.” It is the same denied used to describe Peter’s denial

of Jesus in John 18:25; it is utter, complete, a refusal even to recognize someone. These are people who, no matter what their profession, never really knew Jesus, and their behavior is now a living demonstration of it.

What worries Jude is that these are people who are now running the show among these believers. If he could put this in modern tech terms, Jude would be saying: your fire-wall has been breached. These people have not just shown up with fake IDs or elbowed their way in. Jude’s word for “crept in” has the sense of someone slipping in from the side alley, smuggling them­ 2 selves through a back window. These are people you didn’t even notice at first. Then one day, they were simply there. For a while, since they didn’t cause any trouble, they seemed reason­ able, balanced, and polite. They were apparently harmless pieces of computer code, tagging along unnoticed on the back of an email—but actually designed to mess up other people’s lives.

The big question is why such people would want to slip into Christ’s fellowship in the first place. If they are, as Jude describes them, impious or ungodly at heart, then they might seem to be the last people who would have any interest in mixing with the pious or the godly. After all, the impious aren’t passive. Impious, for Jude, describes people who actually revel in falsehood and immorality.

But remember: what Jude calls impiety is their idea of fun, of liberation. It may seem strange that the impious want to be part of

All [Jude] needs to do is to outline what such a spiritual virus looks like and the danger it has posed in the past, and everyone will be able to see the spiritual super-spreaders for who and what they are.

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Christianity at all, but just reflect for a moment on all the time you’ve spent in organizations or clubs where just one person happily urges every­ one to disregard the rules (because rules are so old hat, you know, or so oppressive) and thus sends the whole business into a tailspin. Or the folks who volunteer so cheerfully to help your event and then quietly hijack it as a vehicle for their own self-promotion.

So, it really shouldn’t surprise us that the church has its share of these types, too. They don’t become part of a congregation so they can worship, support, or learn. In truth, they don’t give a wet slap for any of these things except how they can use the church for their own ends—and you don’t get more impious than that. (There is, believe it or not, an upside to this situation because maybe, in a backhanded sort of way, their eagerness to hijack the church is actually a testi­ mony to the church’s integrity. After all, no one ever sets out to imitate something that is fraud­ ulent or cheap. As much as we complain about fakery in religion, the truth is that no one could be bothered faking it in religion if there wasn’t something truthful at its core worth faking.)

CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH In Jude’s case, what these hackers have done is take the grace of God and use it as a pretext for licentiousness—and it’s not hard to imagine how this could be done. Doesn’t this reasoning seem to make sense?

• Mary Magdalene was a prostitute and Jesus forgave Mary Magdalene, ergo, it’s okay to be a prostitute, or at least to live like one.

• Jesus turned water into wine; that must mean Jesus loved wine, ergo, open the taps and let’s get sloshed.

• Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament, ergo, I don’t have to pay any attention to it.

• Jesus loves sinners, ergo, all you need is love.

What unites all these statements is their plau­ sibility. They sound substantive. But plausibility

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These words really are words without knowledge and the proof is in the results.

is also what draws God’s rebuke to Job’s false comforters—“Who is this that obscures knowl­ edge with words?” (Job 38:2)—because these words really are words without knowledge and the proof is in the results.

In so doing, Jude warns, they deny our only Lord and Master Jesus Christ. They do not merely make mistakes. . . . [T]hey do not merely hold a differing view. . . . [T]hey do not merely pose interesting questions, any more than a hacker is merely experiment­ ing with computer code. Their business is really much more stark: to deny our only Lord and Master Jesus Christ—and Jude is determined to call them on it. They had, in the words of one old Puritan, the uniform of Christ on their backs but the works of the 3 devil in their hands.

This is a hard message to hear in our day. We are supposed to celebrate diversity, to honor tolerance, and we are reluctant to exclude or stigmatize dissenters. These are not bad impulses. They are even Christian impulses, and God forbid that they should ever be absent among us. But impulses unguided by knowledge

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of the Scriptures are the path to gullibility, and gullibility rarely ends well. Jude brings forward three instances—the deliverance from Egypt, the angels, and “the cities of the plain”—to remind Christians that the firewall of genuine faith has been breached before and that the con­ sequences were dire.

In verses 5–7, Jude says, but I want to remind you, even though you were taught all this, that: 1. God brought his people up out of Egypt, through the Red Sea and with a pillar of cloud and of a fire, and with manna in the wilderness—and there were still people who didn’t believe and led others astray.

2. There were angels who dwelt in God’s presence, but who still decided to rebel and who are in prison even now until the Judgment Day. 3. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah couldn’t even stand the testimony of their own created nature, and they, too, ended up in judgment.

The common thread of these stories is you’re not immune. There have been infiltrators in the past, with malice aforethought, and there’s no reason why you should think there won’t be now.

Watch with both eyes.

It’s not a lovely thought. But it is a reality.

There are false teachers and pseudo-Christians who still sneak into churches today. Jude, how­ ever, is reminding us that you can’t run a chicken farm on the supposition that foxes don’t exist.

The instinct to thrash around the farm, nosing out heretics, is a powerful one and should be resisted, because it can do real harm to others and puff up the vanity of those who are eager to be feared. But the instinct to do nothing about the foxes is also a powerful one: it can do real harm, and it can also puff up the vanity of those who are eager to be admired. How then do we tell the difference? How do we separate out the spiritual hackers from the simply confused, the church hijackers from the stranger, the friend­ less, the eccentric?

Part of this discernment has to come from wisdom—wisdom based on an intense immersion in the Scriptures, on a mature understanding of human frailty, and on long experience in

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reading the words and body language of others.

There is what the French call a coup d’œil—a “coup of the eye”—a recognition system in some people that acts as a gift in accurately evaluat­ ing others. Paul calls it the gift of discernment.

We need to cultivate that gift in ourselves, and we need to find that gift in our church leaders.

Another part is time. Discernment is like a stress test, and we have no way of accurately measuring all the aspects of a person’s character and motivations until we have seen that person operate in a number of settings. In the same way, the stress test of true Christianity takes time to show its fruits. Christianity is a matter of a life, not a moment; it is the long-distance run, and real proof is not in what we say we believe, but in what we endure and persevere in.

One of the trademarks of evil is impatience.

The impious whom Jude describes never like to waste time, and sooner rather than later, they will unfurl their Jolly Roger flag and the real piracy will begin. Once confronted, though, they also pack up and move on with surprising speed.

Christians are in the Lord’s service for the long haul. That long haul will be the primary revela­ tion of who the hackers, the creepers, and the wild partiers really are.

Still, you complain, that’s good in the long run, but we don’t live in the long run. Who will assist us now? The answer is, as we shall see, the angels!

ALLEN C. GUELZO is senior research scholar in the Council of the Humanities and director of the Initiative on Politics and Statesmanship in the James Madison Program at Prince­ton University.

1. Gerald Bray, James, 1–2 Peter, 1–3 John, Jude, vol. XI of Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, ed. Thomas C. Oden (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 247.

2. W. F. Arndt and F. W. Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 630.

3. William Jenkyn, An Exposition of the Epistle of Jude (Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1853), 104.

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G lobal theological forum

Chalcedon and Indian Christologies

by Stavan Narendra John

ontemporary theological reflec­ tion on the ascended Jesus is 1 sparse. This is true of contempo­ rary Indian theological reflection 2 as well. Yet, the ascension is a very important element in Christology. There is a need to reflect on who Jesus is today; or in other words, there is a need to reflect on who Jesus is and what he is doing, after his ascen­ sion. In this article, I will reflect on these questions: f irst, by looking back to the Chalcedonian model and addressing criticisms of it along the way; and second, by applying this model to contemporary Indian theological reflection about Jesus today.

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THE CHALCEDONIAN MODEL Here is what Chalcedon says about Christ: Following, then, the holy Fathers, we all with one voice teach that it should be con­ fessed that our Lord Jesus Christ is one and the same Son, the Same perfect in Godhead, the Same perfect in manhood, truly God and truly man, the Same [consisting] of a rational soul and a body; homoousios with the Father as to his Godhead, and the Same homoousios with us as to his manhood; in all things like unto us, sin only excepted; begotten of the Father before ages as to his

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Godhead, and in the last days, the Same, for us and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin Theotokos as to his manhood; One and the Same Christ, Son, Lord, Only begotten, made known in two natures [which exist] without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the difference of the natures having been in no wise taken away by reason of the union, but rather the properties of each being preserved, and [both] concurring into one Person (prosopon) and one hypostasis—not parted or divided into two persons (prosopa), but one and the same Son and Only-begotten, the

divine Logos, the Lord Jesus Christ; even as the prophets from of old [have spoken] con­ cerning him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ himself has taught us, and as the Symbol of 3 the Fathers has delivered to us.

Defenders and critics (with some qualifica­ tion) alike acknowledge that this confession “has been the touchstone of orthodoxy for 4 fifteen centuries.” However, to be fair, one must acknowledge that this “Definition of 5 Faith,” as it is known, has been controversial from its inception. For the sake of brevity, I will not engage the various lines of criticism 6 here. Instead, I will advance an approach to Chalcedon that is positive yet self-critical.

Eric Mascall represents this approach when he points out that all too often Chalcedon is held in high regard, but it does not amount to any­ thing more: Like a sacred relic, it has been sealed off from contamination, placed in a shrine, and contemplated with deep veneration, but not very much has been done with it.

I think it is high time that it was brought 7 to use.

“[Chalcedon] constantly con­fronts, or rather englobes, us with a mystery of whose vastness and transcendence we become only the more conscious the more enlightenment we receive from it.”

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I agree with Mascall’s views on Chalcedon, especially when he contends that the genius of “Chalcedonian Christology lies precisely in its own incompleteness,” by which he means that the confession does not exhaust all the truth about Jesus, but rather provides a foun­ dation upon which one can build, especially in exploring hitherto unexplored realms, in the guide­ lines which it gives for the solution of problems which did not exist in the fifth century but have now become present and urgent, in the fact that it constantly con­ fronts, or rather englobes, us with a mystery of whose vastness and transcendence we become only the more conscious the more 8 enlightenment we receive from it.

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It is this insight from Mascall that provides a solid basis for using Chalcedon as a model for exploring who Jesus is today. Very briefly in what follows, such a model will be proposed for theological reflection on the ascended Jesus.

Sarah Coakley seems to be reticent to extend insights gleaned from Chalcedon to the resurrected Christ when she states that Chalcedon “does not tell us what happens to the physeis [nature] at Christ’s death and in 9 his resurrection.” However, Ronald Feenstra does not express any such reservations when he contends that “the Christian ecumenical statements of faith, such as the definition of Chalcedon, say that Christ is, not that he was, 10 truly human.” While it is important not to be too dogmatic about this issue (hence, one can understand Coakley’s reticence), one is justified in exuding the confidence of Feenstra when he makes the observation that Chalcedon affirms the humanity of Jesus even after the ascension.

This is an important insight and has sig­ nificant implications for contemporar y Christological studies, especially concerning who Jesus is today. The Chalcedonian model for the ascended Jesus makes one simple assertion, with a qualification: Jesus is still truly divine as well as truly human, with the qualifica­ tion that he is in a resurrected body in heaven today. The same rigor must be applied in deny­ ing Apollinarian, Eutychian, Nestorian, and Docetic heresies in the theological articulation of the ascended Jesus, the Jesus of today. T. F. Torrance states, The Chalcedonian formulation also asserted that “the distinction of the natures is in no way destroyed because of the union, but rather the peculiarity of each nature is preserved.” This statement has more impli­ cations than at first appear. It states very clearly that the divine and human natures remain in their distinctiveness, and that what is proper to each is preserved in the union. That is of special importance for the preservation of the humanity of Christ. It

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The Chalcedonian model for the ascended Jesus makes one simple assertion, with a qualification: Jesus is still truly divine as well as truly human, with the qualification that he is in a resurrected body in heaven today.

is precisely because the humanity of Christ in all its distinctiveness is joined hypo­ statically to the divine nature, that the humanity of Christ remains in permanent existence; it does not pass away with the death of Christ, or with his resurrection 11 and ascension.

Torrance is particularly helpful in clarifying the importance of Jesus’ ascended ontology to his function. We now turn to implications of Chalcedon for the Indian theological context.

CHALCEDON AND INDIAN CHRISTOLOGIES Chalcedon and its terminology have not been 12 popular in classical Indian theology. To be sure,

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classical Indian theologians would not say they affirm Chalcedon, but one can discern a posi­ 13 tion within them that is not contrary to it. It is important to discern that despite this distaste for the terminology and its association with the West, Indian theologians have been able to hold to both the divinity and humanity of Christ, even after the ascension. Vengal Chakkarai’s comments on this point are illustrative: Their Lord never ceased to the disciples to be the man Christ Jesus. What is called the humanity of Jesus was not sublimated into a kind of mystic divinity, and lost in the effulgence thereof. On the contrary, it was because of the consciousness that the Lord whom they had companied with still remained essentially the man Christ Jesus, one who could be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, that He became the Mediator between God and man. . . .

His humanity was essential, and remained as the abiding consciousness of the 14 Christian Church.

Contemporary Indian Christology raises, among other things, two main concerns: one that focuses on Jesus’ “function” and the other on his “person.” Matthew Thomas points out that in many Indian Christologies there is a pri­ oritization of liberative aspects of Christology grounded in the Jesus of history. While this is good, it is incomplete, according to Thomas, because it neglects an equal focus on how there is a much deeper liberation in the form of theosis (deification or divinization) that is grounded on 15 the “heavenly session” of Jesus. In this regard, Thomas’s words are illuminating: Jesus’ action among the Indian masses is not merely aimed at their liberation from injustice and oppression, but also to help them accomplish the ultimate des­ tiny of transfiguration. The High Priest Christology is therefore a corrective to 16 Indian liberation Christologies.

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Despite this distaste for the terminology and [Chalcedon’s] association with the West, Indian theologians have been able to hold to both the divinity and humanity of Christ, even after the ascension.

In relation to Jesus’ person, more practically speaking, there seems to be an overemphasis on Jesus’ work and a corresponding underem­ phasis on understanding who Jesus is. This is evidenced, for example, in a recent study by Abraham Shaibu, who concludes his study on “Ordinary Indian Pentecostal Christology” by stating, among other things: This Christology focuses more on the exis­ tential aspects of the work of Christ, such as healing, exorcism and provision, than on the person of Christ. The study showed that many of the respondents were not able to move beyond these functional catego­ ries to a deep-rooted understanding of the person of Christ. . . . Hence, it is more or 17 less a functional Christology.

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Therefore, Indian Christologies will not only have to address the shortcomings in terms of both the “function” and the “ontology” of Christ, but also more generally continue to maintain the distinctiveness of Jesus in a land where many 18 consider him only as an Avatar. This is where the Chalcedonian model proves so helpful.

Chalcedon does not exhaust all there is to say about Jesus, but it provides a model for orthodox thinking about Christ. I have argued in this arti­ cle for the Chalcedonian model to be extended and applied not only to the pre-resurrected and ascended Jesus. Jesus not only was fully human and divine but still is both fully human

and fully divine. The implications of this belief are not just theological but immensely practical and relevant to the Indian context, not least in affirming the uniqueness of Jesus, who remains human—unlike temporary Hindu Avatars—and thus is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God. STAVAN NARENDRA JOHN is faculty-in-training in the The-

ology Department at the South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies. Currently a PhD candidate at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, his thesis focuses on Thomas F. Torrance’s Theology of the Ascension. Stavan lives in Bangalore, India, with his wife, Christina.

1. See, e.g., Douglas F. Kelly, foreword to Jesus Ascended: The Meaning of Christ’s Continuing Incarnation, by Gerrit Scott Dawson (London: T&T Clark International, 2004), x; Oliver Davies, Theology of Transformation: Faith, Freedom, and the Christian Act (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 7–8; Anthony Kelly, “The Ascension: Recollecting the Experience,” Australian Journal of Theology 20 (2013): 81; Peter Orr, Christ Absent and Present: A Study in Pauline Christology (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 221–22.

2. Matthew Thomas, for instance, points out a neglect of Jesus’ ongoing ministry of intercession as a missing element in Indian theologies, which focus primarily on liberation. For more see Matthew Thomas, “The High Priestly Christology of Hebrews as a Paradigm for an Indian Christology,” in Bible Bhashyam: An Indian Biblical Quarterly 27 (2001): 279–80.

3. Aloys Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition: From the Apostolic Age to Chalcedon (451), vol. 1, 2nd ed., trans. John Bowden (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1975), 544.

4. Gerald E. Bray, “Can We Dispense with Chalcedon?” Themelios 3 (1978): 2. Critics might not word the orthodoxy of the creed in the same way, preferring instead to limit the scope of its popularity to the Western region of the Christian empire. For more, see Richard Norris, “Chalcedon Revisited: A Historical and Theological Reflection,” in New Perspectives on Historical Theology: Essays in Memory of John Meyendorff, ed.

Bradley Nassif (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 140.

5. A. N. S. Lane, “Christology beyond Chalcedon,” in Christ the Lord: Studies in Christology Presented to Donald Guthrie (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1982), 257.

6. One can get a sense of the different kinds of criticisms on offer by reading Norman L. Geisler, “Current Chalcedonian Christological Challenges,” Evangelical Review of Theology 12 (1988): 307-8; Lane, “Christology Beyond Chalcedon,” 262–73.

7. Eric Lionel Mascall, “The Relevance of Chalcedon Today,” in Parola e spirito: studi in onore di Settimio Ciprani (Brescia: Paideia Editrice, 1982), 1047.

8. Mascall, “The Relevance of Chalcedon Today,” 1047.

9. Sarah Coakley, “What Does Chalcedon Solve and What Does It Not? Some Reflections on the Status and Meaning of the Chalcedonian ‘Definition,’” in The Incarnation: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Incarnation of the Son of God, ed. Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald O’Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 162.

10. Ronald J. Feenstra, “Reconsidering Kenotic Christology,” in Trinity, Incarnation and Atonement: Philosophical & Theological Essays, ed. Ronald J. Feenstra and Cornelius Plantinga Jr. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 147.

11. Thomas F. Torrance, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ, ed. Robert. T. Walker (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2008), 209.

12. Cf. Robin Boyd, An Introduction to Indian Christian Theology (Delhi: ISPCK, 2014), 3, 120.

13. See, e.g., Boyd, Indian Christian Theology, 151, where, assessing Chenchiah’s understanding of Jesus’ humanity, he states: “While some of his phrases may seem Eutychian or Apollinarian, his constant stress on the humanity of Christ would seem to clear him from the charge of docetism and indeed the traditional categories of Christological controversy do not seem applicable to his view at all.” To be fair, it must also be pointed out what Boyd mentions on page 241: “The Nicene and Chalcedonian language of ousia and hypostasis may well be unsuitable for Indian apolo­ getic or even systematic theology, yet the truth behind the language, the satya to which the inadequate language points, is Biblical, and it can be expressed in Indian terms, using some of the ‘instruments’ which are now at our disposal.”

14. Chakkarai, quoted in Boyd, Indian Christian Theology, 171.

15. Matthew Thomas, “The High Priestly Christology of Hebrews as a Paradigm for an Indian Christology,” in Bible Bhashyam: An Indian Biblical Quarterly 27 (2001): 279.

16. Thomas, “The High Priestly Christology of Hebrews,” 280.

17. Shaibu Abraham, “Ordinary Indian Pentecostal Christology” (PhD diss., University of Birmingham, 2011), 261.

18. Indian theologians have often affirmed the humanity of Jesus, post-ascension, in a milieu steeped in Avatar theology, where deities take on flesh only temporarily. In contrast, notice how David Brown’s Kenotic Christology denies the ongoing humanity of Jesus and seems to endorse a view similar to that traditionally held to represent what characterizes Avatars: “All one need say is that divine attributes apply exclusively before the Incarnation, human attributes exclusively to the period of the Incarnation and divine attributes again exclusively to the post-Incarnation period.” David Brown, The Divine Trinity (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1985; repr., Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2011), 257.

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R eformation resources

“Christian Liberty”

by Franciscus Junius translated by Ryan M. Hurd

The following is a translation of Franciscus Junius’s De libertate christiana, “Christian Liberty.”

Franciscus Junius (1545–1602) was professor of theology at Heidelberg from 1584 to 1592, when he moved to Leiden and was professor of theology there until his death in 1602. Public disputations were common academic practice during this time. De libertate christiana is one of the many short disputations Junius held while he was professor. For further introduction to Junius’s life and writings, see 1 the recently translated A Treatise on True Theology. Regarding the translation below, I have made no effort to establish a critical text and have simply translated from the Kuyper volume.2 A footnote or two occur in situ for explanation, a couple reference what the disputation itself includes, and a silent minor correction or two (wrong references, etc.) have been made.

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hesis 1. Christian liberty is a gra­ tuitous, spiritual liberation of the truly faithful. Thanks to this lib­ eration, the faithful are set free

because of Christ from the law’s curse, the slav­ ery imposed by sin, and the yoke of legal ceremonies and of matters indifferent in 3 themselves, and they are bestowed the Holy

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Spirit. As a result, they begin serving God in holiness and righteousness on their own accord, for their own salvation, to edify the brethren, and for the glory of God. 2. We call this liberation not bodily, but “spiri­ tual” (which is just as different from bodily liberation as slavery is). The point is for us to know that it is different from political or civil liberty, as well as the spurious liberty of other 4 schools of thought. This is because spiritual lib­ erty has to do with bringing man’s conscience peace, as the conscience knows and feels that it has been brought into grace with God thanks to the merit of Christ. Notwithstanding, this spiri­ tual liberty can coincide with external liberty or slavery. The faithful, being given external liberty, can have internal liberty as well; and they can meet with and retain internal liberty, despite having been pressed into external slav­ ery (1 Cor. 7:21–22). Augustine has said it well: A good man, if he serves, is free; a bad, if he reigns, is a slave—not just to one man, but what is more 5 serious: to as many masters as his vices.

3. The remote efficient cause of Christian lib­ erty is God’s grace and exceeding benevolence, unmerited by foreseen works. The proximate efficient cause is Christ Jesus, in whom the elect enjoy this benefit as those whom he presented with true liberty, seeing they have been deliv­ ered from slavery by the merit and efficacy of his suffering (John 8:32, 36; 1 Cor. 7:23; Gal. 5:1; 1 Pet. 1:18–19). The subject—the “matter in which”—is all the truly pious and faithful, indi­ vidually and alone, who, having been endowed with true faith, and acknowledging themselves as slaves to sin, apply the fruit of the Lord’s death to themselves. For no one can be enjoy­ ing the benefit of liberty before it is embraced in saving faith. The object—the “matter about which”—is the law’s curse, the slavery imposed by sin, and the yoke of legal ceremonies and of 6 matters undecided in themselves.

7 4. The formal cause is the Holy Spirit’s sanc­ tification and testimony. By this, the Spirit seals within the hearts of the truly faithful a certain 8 persuasion and full assurance of their adoption

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Spiritual liberty has to do with bringing man’s conscience peace, as the conscience knows and feels that it has been brought into grace with God thanks to the merit of Christ.

unto sons of God from being sons of the devil, and thereby also their immunity from their former slavery (Rom. 8:13–15; 2 Cor. 1:22; Gal. 4:6–7; Eph. 4:30). The proximate end is that they begin to serve God in holiness and righ­ teousness on their own accord. For they are free with a servant liberty, who serve him with a free servitude. The intermediate end is the salvation of those using this liberty, and the edification of the weaker brethren (1 Cor. 9:19–23). The remote end is the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31).

5. Christian liberty has three parts: libera­ tion from the law’s curse, the slavery imposed by sin, and the yoke of legal ceremonies and of matters undecided in themselves. The first part—liberation from the law’s curse—consists in the reality that the consciences of the truly faithful are free from and also immune to the law’s severity and exactitude (Rom. 8; Gal. 3:10– 13; 5:1, 5). Under such, the law pronounces a curse on all those who have transgressed it even

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a single jot (James 2:10; Gal. 3:10, citing Deut.

27:26). It does not confer salvation to any unless he has kept all the commandments clearly and completely (Rom. 10:5; Ezek. 20:11). And as long as that rigor maintains its dominion and still has life, all men throughout the world have been shut up under condemnation and cut off from any hope of eternal inheritance. For there is no one who can satisfy the law’s requirements in any way by his own power. Now after this has been destroyed, the law itself is not useless to the faithful; it remains their teaching unmoved and unchangeable, and seeks to show the way and example whereby the faithful can conform their lives to God’s will, notwithstanding their conscience remains free and untroubled before his tribunal.

6. The second part of Christian liberty is immunity to the slavery imposed by reigning sin. The effect of this is that reigning sin exer­ cises its tyranny within the faithful no longer (John 8:34–36; Rom. 6:14, 17–18)—as the faith­ ful yield themselves to a subjugation under

[The law] remains their teaching unmoved and unchangeable, and seeks to show the way and example whereby the faithful can conform their lives to God’s will.

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righteousness, delight in God’s law, and con­ form to his will, not like they are forced by the control of the law, but by their free, untroubled heart, thanks to the Spirit of regeneration who dwells within them. Ambrose thus says: He is free for whom sin has been sent away, seeing 9 as he now carries no debt of sin. Due to this, the pious resolutely persuade themselves, for their own consolation, to have complete alle­ giance to God—indeed, even to be fully resolved to arrange a better life to please the wondrous God (Mal. 3:17). Thus, they prepare themselves with greater relish and speed for true worship of him (1 John 5:2–3).

7. The third part of Christian liberty is libera­ tion from the yoke of legal ceremonies, seeing that, because the ceremonies were abolished

by Christ’s coming and death, the truly faithful have been freed from the obligation of observ­ ing them (Eph. 2:15; Col. 2:14, 16), and so also their consciences cannot with any necessity be governed by external things undecided in themselves, broadly speaking. We say things are “undecided” when they are neither good nor bad in their very nature; and for that reason anybody can use such things either well or badly or simply not at all (Matt. 15:11; Rom. 14:14, 20, 22; 1 Cor. 6:12–13; 8:8; 10:23, 25, 27; Col. 2:16–17; Titus 1:15). On the adiaphora use of things, we do not permit such for those who are not yet certain about their liberty, and so hesitant in its use, in doubt, or travail from some overly scrupulous opinion; we do not permit this because what they are doing, they are not doing out of faith (Rom. 14:5, 14, 22–23).

8. This liberty about indifferent things, however, is not actualized always and in every situation; it can and should be restrained both in general and in particular. In general, it can and should be restrained through the law of love. Such a law is catholic and demands that concern is had for the weak brothers who are less developed in evangelical teaching and not sufficiently taught of the privileges brought by their liberty (Rom. 14:1, 13, 15, 19–21; 15:1–2; 1 Cor. 8:9, 13; 9:12, 22; 10:24, 28–29, 32–33;

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Gal. 5:13), lest something adiaphora in itself be done whereby they are destroyed, or does not take place whereby they are built up. Now, we are always to decide this out of the word of God, so that it is clear what should be done or not.

For what is good, charity decides thus; what is permitted, faith determines. However, one should know that even when we accommodate our neighbor, our liberty still remains unim­ paired; only its use is restricted (1 Cor. 9:4, 15, 19, 22). Our liberty is one thing; its use, another. This is because liberty is within the conscience and has respect to God, while its use concerns external things and has dealings not just with God, but with men, with whom not all things are expedient, even though all things are permitted, because we should not use liberty unless it edifies (1 Cor. 6:12; 10:23; Rom. 14:19; 1 Cor. 10:27–28).

9. Therefore, people who use their liberty improperly and unseasonably and so are a stumbling block to the brethren are sinning (Matt. 18:6–7; Luke 17:1–2; Rom. 14:15; 1 Cor. 8:11–12); likewise for those who thoughtlessly judge the consciences of others (Rom. 14:3, 10, 13), and those who make like they are using their liberty, but it is for their own advantage and refreshment, instead of seeking to build up their neighbor (Gal. 2:11–12, etc.). But if on the other hand one is dealing with Pharisees and corrupted men, then one should passionately assert and defend the liberty which has been gained in order to beat back their malice, and should not allow this liberty to become subject to their tyranny and abuse. This is all in light of the wisdom of Christ, who teaches us to consider the Pharisaical entrapment as of no consequence (Matt. 15:14), and in light of Paul’s example, who actually circumcised Timothy to gain the weak (Acts 16:3), but refused to circumcise Titus nor wanted him to be circumcised (Gal. 2:3–5), lest he submit himself to false brothers and seem to approve and encourage their error.

10. Now in particular, the use of indifferent 10 things is restrained by formal regulation, which is twofold: political and ecclesiastic. For

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For what is good, charity decides thus; what is permitted, faith determines.

However, . . . our liberty remains unimpaired.

even though properly speaking God alone binds people’s consciences, nevertheless the magis­ trate does in his own way when he commands or forbids us to do something which is adiaphora in 11 itself for the good of the civil society, and the church herself establishes our liberty with some laws about indifferent things, for the sake of 12 good order and edification. Nobody in pursuit of rebellion can resist without sin, and this is what Paul says (Rom. 13:5): We must be subject to overarching authorities for the sake of con­ science, which suffers damage via our rebellion.

Still, our liberty of conscience in such a situation is not shackled, on account of the fact that it is not our conscience itself but some external act which is bound.

11. We should understand all of this in such a way that we think of indifferent things not as becoming necessary absolutely speaking; rather, these things are necessary only for as long as they fall under certain circumstances, thanks to which necessity is enjoined. When

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R eformation resources

We must be subject to overarching authorities for the sake of conscience, which suffers damage via our rebellion.

these circumstances come to an end (not count­ ing a situation of scandal or intended rebellion, for the sake of the common good), one does not sin when he goes against such formal regula­ tions. Therefore, we should maintain in every case this method; laws of this sort are not to be changed rashly, nor doggedly retained.

However, all of this just applies to things unde­ cided and indifferent, nothing more. The reason is that what God commands or prohibits is never accordingly to be neglected or done for the sake of being a stumbling block or harmful.

Therefore, we must not offend God in deference to our neighbor (Matt. 5:29–30; 10:34–35; Luke 14:26; Rom. 3:8), nor submit to the magistrate when he establishes something against the word of God or wields power over our consciences (Acts 4:19–20; 5:29).

12. In light of all this, the following err extremely seriously. First, the Libertines. After suppressing every distinction, they reject the whole law under the guise of Christian lib­ erty by claiming that nothing is illicit for the Christian man, nothing is totally forbidden, and no further thought is to be had about law.

For things undecided or indifferent, they think we can say that such are agreeable without any exception, all the time, and everywhere; they can be taken up or left off without sin. Thus they abuse Christian liberty to fulfill their lust, even as a pretense of religion. Second, the Roman Catholics, who weigh down the pitiable con­ sciences of men with their traditions. Third,

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the Jews. They fantasize about the earthly reign of the Christ and so hope for earthly liberty through him, and understand nothing about the spiritual reign of the Christ in his church, and the liberty of the Spirit (John 18:36). And fourth, the Anabaptists. They make up even external liberty and so cast off every yoke of the political magistrate, and daydream about Christians reigning for a thousand years before the last day.

RYAN HURD teaches systematic theology, specifically the doctrine of God, as a teaching fellow at The Davenant Institute. He is also a Latin translator.

1. Francis Junius, A Treatise on True Theology with the Life of Franciscus Junius, trans. David C. Noe (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2014). This work can also be found online at The Junius Institute where it is nicely formatted side by side with the Latin text: http:// www.juniusinstitute.org/companion/junius_de_vera/index.php.

My thanks to Michael Lynch for providing translation feedback on this piece; whatever errors remain are my own.

2. Franciscus Junius, “De libertate christiana,” in Francisci Iunii Opuscula theologica selecta, ed. Abraham Kuyper (Amsterdam: Fred. Muller, 1882), 1:223–26. This is simply a reprint of Franciscus Junius, Opera theologica, duobus tomis, ordine commodissimo, nempe Exegetico primo, Elenctica altero, comprehensa…2 vols.

(Geneva: Societas Caldoriana, 1607).

3. Rerum per se indifferentium.

4. Ficta aliarum sectarum libertate.

5. Augustine, City of God, book 4, chap 3.

6. Rerum per se mediarum.

7. Forma.

8. Indubitatam persuasionem and πληροφοριαν.

9. Ambrose, Epistularum libri –VI, book 2, letter 7.

10. Per constitutionem.

11. Bono Rei Publicae.

12. Ευταξιαν. Junius dropping the Greek is likely intended to signal, e.g., 1 Cor. 14:40.

VOL.30 NO.2 MARCH/APRIL 2021

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FEATURES

ONLY WHEN HUMAN CREATURES BELIEVE GOD’S PRONOUNCEMENTS ABOUT THEIR EXISTENCE CAN HUMANS ENACT THEIR BEING RIGHTLY. IN BELIEVING GOD ABOUT WHO THEY ARE, HUMAN CREATURES THEN VIRTUOUSLY ENACT THEIR NATURE IN LOVING FREEDOM AS THOSE NATURES REST SECURE IN GOD.”

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WHATEVER I THINK, THEREFORE I AM: AN INTERVIEW WITH CARL TRUEMAN

MORE ALIKE THAN DIFFERENT

FOREVER YOUNG? UNDERSTANDING TRANSHUMANISM

AGGRAVATED SORROW: SOME THEOLOGICAL AND PASTORAL REFLECTIONS ON ACEDIA

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Whatever I Think, Therefore I Am: An Interview with C a r l Tr u e m a n

by TIMON CLINE / illustration by JACQUELINE TAM

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VOL.30 NO.2 MARCH/APRIL 2021

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IMON CLINE INTERVIEWED Professor Carl Trueman

on his latest book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Rev­­ olution (Crossway, 2020), which includes a foreword by Rod Dreher.

TC: Although there’s a lot packed into The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self—and it’s not short—could you provide a brief thesis or synopsis?

CT: It’s a study of how conditions have emerged in our society that allow people to regard the statement “I am a woman trapped in a man’s body” as coherent and to see its positive affirma­ tion as a political imperative. Having said that, I only really address transgenderism toward the end, because my basic argument is that such changes are deep, wide, and longstanding, and that we need to see the sexual revolution of which it is a part as one aspect of a much broader revolution of what it means to be a self and how human flourishing is understood.

TC: Your previous book, Histories and Fallacies,

endeavored to teach people how to do history well, and there is a similar lesson presented early on in Rise and Triumph. You say in the introduction that “no individual historical phenomenon is its own cause.” What do you mean to communicate to readers with that axiom? In many ways, it serves as the methodological guide for the book.

CT: We can all tend to be mesmerized by the present, especially when that present involves radical and unprecedented shifts in society’s thought, intuitions, or behavior. So, when we see something like gay marriage, or Trumpism, or transgenderism, or “wokeness” suddenly hit the headlines, we can tend to forget that each of these has a background. None emerged from a vacuum or caused itself. All are the result of a complex of historical factors and are thus, on one level, symptomatic of developments in our culture in more general terms.

It’s important we study these backgrounds for at least two reasons. First, such study allows us to understand the immediate phenomena with greater accuracy and thus respond more thoughtfully. For example, Christians tend to

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think the sexual revolution is about behavior and then respond by reasserting Christian sexual mores. In fact, the sexual revolution is about identity. That certainly includes behavior, but it sees that behavior as having a greater significance for who people actually are. Christians need to grasp that in order to understand why phrases such as “We hate the sin but love the sinner” seem so implausible in the secular world, since they rest on the dis­ tinction between, say, homosexual desire and personal identity—a distinction those outside of the church won’t immediately recognize. In other words, knowing the background helps to inform our public engagement.

Second, knowing the background helps us understand the depth of the problems we face.

If the problems are now deeply embedded within the way people imagine society to be, then we can’t solve them simply by an act of Congress or a Supreme Court appointment. I am afraid it’s much more difficult than that.

TC: In the subtitle of the book, two themes are

previewed: “cultural amnesia” and “expressive individualism.” Can you briefly define those for us, and perhaps “emotivism” as well?

CT: “Cultural amnesia” refers to the fact that our culture sees the past more and more as something to be repudiated and overcome.

This takes many forms: the general neglect of the past as a source for knowledge in society at large; the domination of humanities in higher education by theoretical approaches, predicated on the notion that history and the past are really tools of legitimating injustice in the present and therefore in need of demolition; and the com­ mitment of our cultural elites—educators, tech giants, politicians—to dismantling old patterns of thinking and acting.

“Expressive individualism” refers to the dominant way in which we all today intuit our selfhood. We believe that our humanity is real­ ized by us being able to express outwardly that which we feel inwardly. The initial impulse for such thinking comes from Rousseau and the Romantics, but it is now the default of our cul­ ture at large. In such a world, sexual identity, for

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example, becomes important because some of our most powerful inner feelings are those con­ nected to sexual desire, and being able openly to express that becomes important to our per­ sonal authenticity.

“Emotivism” is the term Alasdair MacIntyre used in After Virtue to describe the fact that, because there are no agreed metanarratives any more, our claims of right and wrong are really claims of emotional preference. To say, “Abortion is wrong,” for example, is really to say, “I personally disapprove of abortion.” In his later work, MacIntyre uses the language of expressive individualism to articulate the same idea, indicating how close the individualized notion of the self and our current incoherent ethical discussions are.

TC: What’s the relationship between induced cultural amnesia and what’s been referred to as the history wars?

CT: There is a close connection. Once one sees the past as not so much a source of wisdom but a tale of oppression, then the battle ensues to dethrone the old narratives (and their artifacts—statues, names on buildings and scholarships, etc.). The problem, of course, is that this is generally conceived as a zero-sum game where one narrative is presented as mutu­ ally exclusive of all others. For example: either America was founded on freedom or it was built on slavery. In reality, there is some truth to both.

Human agency is complex and not simply the zero-sum power game so many seem to think.

TC: One term not mentioned in the subtitle but

nevertheless integral to the narrative is that of “plasticity,” or rather, “plastic people.” This is how you, in part, characterize the enduring result of the influence of Nietzsche, Marx, and Darwin. You write, “Perhaps the most striking characteristic of today’s understanding of what it means to be human is not its sexual content but rather its fundamental plasticity.” Human nature has become “dynamic.” Can you flesh that out a bit more for us?

CT: By “plastic people,” I am trying to capture the idea of self-invention that lies at the heart of our modern rejection of human nature as having

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HUMAN IDENTITY, AGENCY, AND CULTURE ARE COMPLEX REALITIES THAT CAN’T BE UNDERSTOOD FROM A SINGLE PERSPECTIVE.

to analyze the modern notion of the self. And MacIntyre approaches the question of ethics in a world where society is marked by incom­ mensurable narratives. The three thus generate different but complementary perspectives that I try to combine in my work. Human identity, agency, and culture are complex realities that can’t be understood from a single perspective, and therefore a toolkit of compatible but differ­ ent analytical approaches is necessary.

TC: You have assembled a motley crew of influenc-

a given “essence,” which is the idea that lies at the heart of modern expressive individualism.

Take Nietzsche, for example. He argues (cor­ rectly, in my view) that if you take God out of the picture of reality, then human nature, beyond its biological structure, is something we can invent for ourselves. Life becomes a matter of perfor­ mance, of being whoever we want to be. Oscar Wilde might be the supreme and most sophis­ ticated example: the sexual rebel, the aesthete, the man who made his own life a work of art.

We are all wannabe Wildes today, impatient of having identities imposed on us by others.

TC: You draw on some seminal (notoriously nigh

unreadable) sources in this work to inform your own analysis. To point out a few: from Philip Rieff, you borrow the ideas of “the triumph of the therapeutic” and “psychological man”; from Charles Taylor, you derive the modern notion of “expressive individualism” (mentioned above); and you find Alasdair MacIntyre useful for his argument that ethical discourse has descended into competing moral truth-claims propped up by nothing other than emotional preference. Would you briefly comment on each of these?

C T : Each of these figures approaches the modern human condition from a different angle. Rieff, a creative and critical appropria­ tor of Freud, uses a psychological lens. Taylor, a philosopher, uses Hegel and the Romantics

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ers, to borrow a contemporary term, in this book.

Why did you select these figures? Some might be more obvious, like Marx, but what about someone like Wilhelm Reich? I doubt the average reader has ever heard of him.

C T : I chose the thinkers not so much on the basis of how many people will have read them or even how directly influential they have been, but rather as representing key intellectual moves or broader cultural pathologies that have shaped the present. So, a figure like Marx is obvious. Even those who are not Marxists tend to think in some ways he significantly shaped.

For example, the contemporary cultural ten­ dency to deny the existence of the pre-political, to see all human arrangements—from the Boy Scouts to the family to cake baking for wed­ dings—as politically charged, is an important part of how we now imagine the world. Marx is one of the key figures in the story of how that came to be. But the genealogy of modern cultural pathologies involves other, less wellknown figures. You mention Reich—well, he is one of the first to make a connection between Marx’s theory of political oppression and Freud’s notion of sexual repression. That paves the way for the all-important modern notion that political liberation and sexual liberation are inextricably connected.

T C : Maybe the most unexpected chapter in the

book is “Unacknowledged Legislators,” which covers Wordsworth, Blake, and Percy Bysshe Shelley—poets all. Can you whet the appetite of potential readers who might be curious about how nineteenth-century literary figures fit in with Rousseau, Nietzsche, and Marx?

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What are the influences and cultural functions (within your narrative) these writers enjoyed and performed?

CT: The Romantics are the key figures in the narrative. They both prioritize the importance of inner feelings—that inner voice of nature— in the establishment of what it means to be an authentic human person and, at least in the figures of Shelley and Blake, identify sexual codes—specifically lifelong monogamous mar­ riage—as oppressive and as connected to the power of the church. So, several aspects of our present age emerge at their hands: the priority of feelings, the notion of freedom as having a significant sexual component, and the oppres­ sive nature of institutional religion. And they also understood that it is artists who play a deci­ sive role in shaping people’s attitudes to the world. They are the “unacknowledged legisla­ tors,” to use Shelley’s memorable phrase.

TC: Returning to Marx and Nietzsche, I think it’s

striking that today most cultural observers would probably blame Michel Foucault for making power the central category for how we evaluate societal and cultural dynamics. That makes it a development of more recent vintage. You, however, locate the germ of this way of thinking over a hundred years prior. (Of course, Foucault relied a good bit on Marx and Nietzsche.) The same thing might be said about Judith Butler and the performativity of gender roles, etc., being predated by Wilhelm Reich’s belief that sexual codes are tools of the dominant class designed for suppression. Is it fair, then, to say that we have been conditioned to think (and speak) in the terms that dominate our public discourse today long before we noticed it? That now we, conceiving of ourselves as we do, would find it difficult to do otherwise?

CT: Yes. At the heart of expressive individualism is the (ridiculous) notion articulated by Rousseau: that man is born free and everywhere is in chains.

When we think of ourselves that way—as we intu­ itively do today—then all relationships tend to be conceived along contractual lines, involving power. Nietzsche and company made dramati­ cally explicit something toward which expressive individualism will tilt: a concern with power as the fundamental element in relationships.

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THE PROBLEM TODAY IS THAT WE NO LONGER AGREE ON THAT GREATER GOOD—OR TEND TO IDENTIFY IT WITH OUR OWN PSYCHOLOGICAL HAPPINESS.

TC: Often talked about today is the cult of authenticity, how it guides our political discourse (but also, it seems to me, our theological discourse).

Hyper-individualism is a related sentiment. Is there an appropriate place for authenticity?

CT: There’s a need for nuance here. Au­then­ ticity—the notion that people should be out­­wardly what they are inwardly—is not in itself a bad thing. We have pejorative words such as hypocrite and fake to describe the opposite. Yet, it’s not in itself good either: serial killers might be the most authentic people there are, acting out their inner desires, but clearly society does not regard them as virtuous. Such things as selfcontrol, reserve, and suppression of our desires in the service of the greater good are also valu­ able and important. The problem today is that we no longer agree on that greater good—or tend to identify it with our own psychological happi­ ness. As a result, we tend to prize the authentic (or even fake performances of “authenticity,” which tend to be crude or extreme) over all else.

TC: How does the idea of the psychological man

and expressive individualism connect to this new conception of authenticity?

CT: Both ideas root real identity in the inner, psychological realm. When this is assumed as basic, then any outward performance not con­ sistent with this inward identity is deemed fake or dishonest. Hence the language used by the

VOL.30 NO.2 MARCH/APRIL 2021

Jenner interview with Diane Sawyer about tran­ sitioning: the idea that Bruce was a living a lie and Caitlyn lives the truth.

TC: In Ethics of Authenticity, Charles Taylor suggests that the emergence of authenticity as the sole governing virtue is owing to (in addition to individualism) a deep-seated ahistorical attitude (or chronological snobbery, to invoke C. S. Lewis), and the disenchantment of the world. He says that when society loses its sacred structure based on a cosmic, hierarchical order, everything is up for grabs and decided on the basis of individual pleasure—the raw pursuit of happiness. And because the world is now unsacred, so too is man who is part of the world.

Do you think Taylor is right, and if so, how did the thinkers you cover contribute to this erosion of the sacred?

C T : Taylor is (as usual!) correct and echoes the similar approach of Philip Rieff here.

Of course, the erosion of the sacred is a long story, starting well before the nineteenth cen­ tury. But Darwin, Marx, and Nietzsche are key.

Darwin’s theory of natural selection means that human exceptionalism is no longer a necessary hypothesis: we’re just the latest form of ape, the result not of some grand design of which we are the culmination but simply the latest stage of an ongoing, aimless process. Marx and Nietzsche both wrestled with the notion of why religion persisted after the Enlightenment had rendered it implausible. Both offered psycho­ logical accounts: Marx, that religion was both the cry of pain of the poor and dispossessed and a means by which the bourgeoisie could recon­ cile them to their oppressed status; Nietzsche, that it was a means by which the weak could manipulate the strong by granting weakness the (fake) status of moral superiority. For both men, the “sacred” was thus not a reality but rather a means of mystifying life and disem­ powering people.

T C : Given recent conflicts in the Southern

Baptist Convention (and to a lesser extent, the Presbyterian Church of America), readers might perk up when they come to chapter 7, which charts

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out twentieth-century revisions to Marx by people like Antonio Gramsci, and the melding of Marx and Freud by members of the Frankfurt School (first, Erich Fromm and Max Horkheimer, and then Herbert Marcuse and Wilhelm Reich). This, as many know, marked the (proper) founding of critical social theories. Can you tell us a bit about how this way of thinking—this “shotgun marriage” between two of the biggest names of the nineteenth century—eventually spawned the (first) sexual revolution?

C T : It is a somewhat complicated story, but in essence the Frankfurt School used Freud’s ideas to understand why the proletariat in Europe in the 1920s and ʼ30s was not moving toward the revolutionary politics of the Left but the authoritarian parties of the Right—such as the Fascists in Italy, the Nazis in Germany, and the Iron Guard in Romania. They concluded that the bourgeois family was the microcosm of the authoritarian state and that its tools were the sexual codes in which it trained chil­ dren. In this, they borrowed from Freud, who had famously argued that sexual codes were the means of maintaining civilization, but they gave this a distinctly political twist. Thus the means to liberate the consciousness of the working class was to shatter the authority of the family and its sexual morality. In the imagination of the Left, political liberation became inseparable from sexual liberation.

TC: You write that in Gramsci and the Frankfurt Schoolers we find “the roots of the modern approach to political revolution via the transformation of cultural institutions such as schools and the media.” Obviously, the sexual revolution is the focus of your book and the most evident manifestation of Marcuse et al.’s influence; but in what other ways is the legacy of Frankfurt influencing our political situation?

CT: Queer theory and critical race theory are both highly influential at elite institutions and, in crude forms, increasingly among the popula­ tion in general where ideas such as the radical separation of biological sex and gender, “sys­ temic racism,” and “white privilege” now inform the intuitions of many people who have no idea

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of their origins or real significance. And both of these represent both the success of this revolu­ tion-by-cultural-transformation approach and, of course, reinforce it and advance it.

that mediated between the individual and soci­ ety as a whole—the family and the private space it occupies—becomes an area of public interest and political contestation.

TC: Douglas Murray, who himself is gay, has often said that sexuality, specifically being gay, moved from being something you did—one of many life activities and preferences—to something you are.

The same is obviously true of transgenderism.

How does this shift within the sexual revolution, from libertinism to fundamentalism, connect to the psychologization of human nature and human plasticity? Does this also speak to why people who identify as trans, nonbinary, queer, asexual, or what have you, are so hostile when challenged on the validity of their identity?

TC: To most people, the victories of the sexual

CT: It is the key move that comes out of Freud’s thinking, that locates our identity in our sexual desires. Of course, once identity is grounded in desire, it becomes highly malleable. And once this grips the imagination, the curtailing of those desires or the delegitimizing of any of them becomes an attack on the selfhood of those who define themselves in terms of such.

TC: In The Demon in Democracy, Ryszard Legutko

talks about how modern liberal democracies privatize everything, so religion is now totally relegated to private life. Legutko adds, however, that while everything is privatized, so too are traditionally private matters publicized (i.e., sex). What are your thoughts on this in relation to the modifications of the self that come from Freud and then Reich and Marcuse, whereby the self is increasingly defined by its sexual activity and sex is politicized?

C T : Once sex became central to identity, it was inevitably going to become central to pol­ itics, which is, after all, concerned with the way individuals connect as a society. And as the family is the place where sexual mores are transmitted to children, the family was inevi­ tably going to become a major focus of political interest. This was at the heart of Reich’s pro­ gram, and to an extent that of Marcuse too.

But it is now a general truth: once one side makes the family political, the other side has no choice but to do so as well. So, the base unit

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revolution seem to have progressed at warp speed. For example, by the time Obergefell went through, most state legislatures across the country were poised to legalize gay marriage anyway.

The time gap between Lawrence v. Texas (2003) and Obergefell was pretty small. But the Obergefell ruling was only a few years ago, and the debates surrounding it seem almost boring now. Gay marriage has been completely normalized, and transgenderism is increasingly leaning that way.

Pete Buttigieg garnered almost no social capital for being gay in the last Democratic primary. Your book examines how the modern mind was conditioned to accept the sexual revolution, from the 1960s to the present, with relative ease. Should we have been surprised, then, with the speed of all these fairly recent developments? Is there any going back? And what can we do to ensure we aren’t perpetually caught unawares?

C T : I would actually say that the conditions for the sexual revolution—basically, the psy­ chologizing of selfhood and the sexualizing of psychology—were in place long before the sixties.

Our lack of awareness of that left us vulnerable to the shock and awe of the last decade’s collapse of the institution of marriage and the separation of sex and gender. In hindsight (20/20 as usual), we should not have been surprised.

TC: Similar question: Is there any way that the

modern conception of the self, which infects all of us, can be reverse engineered? Should we even try, or just resign ourselves to our own time?

C T : That’s the big question. I’m inclined to think that the prospects on this front are cur­ rently rather bleak, precisely because the underlying cultural pathology—expressive indi­ vidualism—is something in which we simply cannot help but be complicit. Yet I do think we can mount some form of rebellion: the church as a vital, disciplined body should be a witness that a community that is more than another

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CONFLICT IS UNPLEASANT AND OFTEN EVIL, BUT IT CAN ALSO OCCASION GOOD THAT MIGHT OTHERWISE NEVER EXIST.

form of social contract can exist. The problem, of course, is that we still have to contract into joining such a community. As long as Christians treat church as a consumer choice and a week­ end hobby, we will see no progress.

TC: Although your book is decidedly nonpolemi-

cal, do you have any advice for Christians regarding how they might combat—in themselves, families, and churches—these elements of the modern self that have captured the Western imagination? Is a Benedict Option in order?

CT: Catechesis. Teach your kids well. Attend church where your family will sit under the word preached and receive the sacraments. Be a loving community as a church and focus your primary efforts locally. For me that means, for example, not wasting time on trivia like Twitter but focusing my time and effort on teaching students in my class. Too many people spend too much time using social media belliger­ ently, trying to influence people they can never really influence. That’s time that could be spent graciously influencing the people God has actu­ ally put in their lives—their family members, their neighbors, their workplaces. I suspect Rod [Dreher] would say that this is a big part of what he thinks the Benedict Option should look like.

TC: Since writing that last chapter, have you seen

anything that would sway you against your own conclusion at all? (I’m asking you to, if possible, discard your inborn pessimism for a moment.)

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CT: Ha! For me to do that would be . . . to make myself inauthentic! But I do see hope. Conflict is unpleasant and often evil, but it can also occa­ sion good that might otherwise never exist. For example, the man who dies on the battlefield to save his companions has done something great and heroic that would be difficult to achieve in peacetime. And so, in the times in which we find ourselves, I think there is good emerging that might never have come to the fore: a friend­ ship forged across old party divisions is one; and deep reflection on the difference between the church and the world, between Christian hope and earthly success, might be another. A growing appreciation for the community of the church, which will develop as a result of mar­ ginalization, is definitely something to look for and welcome.

TC: What are some book recommendations that

might help us think more critically and Christianly about human nature and our understanding of the self?

CT: I would say that Philip Rieff’s The Triumph of the Therapeutic, Charles Taylor’s The Ethics of Authenticity (or, for the more ambitious, his Sources of the Self), and O. Carter Snead’s What It Means to Be Human are all essential reading. I would also suggest regularly checking the Public Discourse and First Things websites; they pub­ lish useful articles and helpful commentary on cultural issues.

An excerpt of this interview was first published on November 27, 2020, at https://modernreformation.org/ resource-library/web-exclusive-articles/whatever-i-thinktherefore-i-am-an-interview-with-dr-carl-trueman-on-histhe-rise-and-triumph-of-the-modern-self/.

CARL R. TRUEMAN (PhD, University of Aberdeen) is profes-

sor of biblical and religious studies at the Alva J. Calderwood School of Arts and Letters, Grove City College.

TIMON CLINE (MA, Westminster Theological Seminary) is currently pursuing a JD at Rutgers Law School. His writing has appeared in Areo magazine, The American Spectator, and National Review, and he writes regularly on law, theology, and politics at Modern Reformation and Conciliar Post.

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More Alike T h a n D i ff e r e n t

by RACHEL GREEN MILLER / illustration by JACQUELINE TAM

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S, T H E R E F O R E , the wisdom of this world is fool­ ishness with God, it follows that we cannot be wise in the sight of God, unless we are fools in 1 the view of the world.

—John Calvin

What does it mean to be human? What sets us apart from the rest of creation? Philosophers and theologians have debated the answers to these questions for generations. When we study nature, we can point to clear differences between people and animals. We speak, reason, express emotions, and display creativity in distinctly human ways.

But it’s in Scripture that we learn what makes humanity unique. As Genesis 1:26–27 explains: Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He cre­ ated them.

Scripture tells us that God—who is eternal, without beginning or end—is the Creator of all things. We are his creation, and we were created to worship him. While God created everything, every plant and animal, we alone have been made in God’s image. As I wrote in Beyond Authority and Submission: In our very nature, men and women are equally made in the image of God. This is who we are. There is a profound unity in humanity. You and I, and everyone else, come from the first man, Adam. Even Eve was created from Adam. We have the same human nature, no matter what country we’re from or what our bodies look like on the out­ side. That unity is what Adam emphasized when he first saw Eve: “This is now bone of 2 my bones, and flesh of my flesh” (Gen. 2:23).

There is considerable diversity within human­ ity, but we are all made in his image. We are all human beings descended from Adam. Having

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the same human nature, though, doesn’t mean that all humans are exactly the same.

For example, we can see from the world around us that men and women are different, but how are we different? Our bodies have obvi­ ous differences, but what about our personalities and interests? Some suggest that women and men have different natures, that there is a female nature and a male nature. They say that men and women have gendered characteristics 3 and traits rooted in these distinct natures.

Anyone who has spent time with children can tell you that boys and girls tend to play and interact in particular ways. From comparing notes with friends, I can confirm that raising a household of boys is not the same as raising a household of girls. From our observations, we can make generalizations about men and women, boys and girls. Men tend to be physically bigger and stronger. Women tend to be smaller and physically vulnerable. Boys may prefer play­ ing with cars and tend to turn any household object into a weapon. Girls may like playing with baby dolls and pretending to be a mommy.

While we acknowledge such generalizations and even certain cultural expectations for men and women, we must be careful how we apply them to our beliefs about gender. For instance, cultural guidelines differ over time and from culture to culture. What was appropriate for a fifth-century Chinese woman is not nec­ essarily the same for a twenty-first-century American woman.

Size and strength also vary among men and women—so do our preferences, personali­ ties, and interests. These generalizations and expectations are not essential to our being or our nature as men and women. A muscular woman is still a woman. A man who is shorter than his wife is still a man. A girl who plays with cars and stick swords is still a girl. And a boy who plays with dolls pretending to be a daddy is still a boy.

It’s also important to recognize the limita­ tions of what we can learn from the world around us. We live in a fallen world that bears the scars of sin and death. The world is often harsh and cruel, where the strong dominate the weak and

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WE MUST ACKNOWLEDGE THAT ALL PEOPLE HAVE THE SAME HUMAN NATURE. ALL HUMANITY IS UNITED IN ADAM, AND ALL BELIEVERS . . .

IN CHRIST.

where self-preservation and self-advancement are the status quo. As Tennyson wrote, “Nature 4 red in tooth and claw.”

Throughout history, people have often sought to enslave and subjugate others based on a belief in inherent differences in their natures.

Greek philosopher Aristotle taught that some people were by nature slaves: “From the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjec­ 5 tion, others for rule.” By the end of the Age of Exploration, many Europeans viewed African peoples as “natural slaves” destined to servi­ tude. Even professing Christians defended slavery and later racial segregation, based on these beliefs about the supposed natural infe­ riority of certain people.

As we can see, we must be careful about attempts to interpret the natural world apart from Scripture. Our ability to understand and apply what the natural world teaches us is lim­ ited, even where it displays the glory of God and his creation. Not only is the world fallen, but so are we. Our bodies, our minds, our abil­ ity to reason all are affected by sin. As Paul writes in Romans 1:18–25, all humanity sees the evidence of God in the things that are made and the call to worship him, and yet all reject him and worship creation instead. Our fool­ ish hearts are darkened. And we would have

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remained in our darkness, if not for his merci­ ful intervention in our lives.

Thankfully, he has not left us in our sin and darkness. He has redeemed us by the blood of his Son and opened our eyes and hearts through the work of his Spirit. He has also given us his word in the Scriptures so we can understand who he is, who we are, how we are saved, and how we are to worship him and serve one another. All of our observations from the natural world have to be read through the lens of Scripture.

Because we are all descended from Adam, we have all inherited Adam’s fallen, sinful human nature. When Jesus was born, he took on our human nature in his incarnation. Jesus has both a human nature and a divine nature. As the confessions and catechisms teach, he had to be both God and man to be our Mediator 6 and Savior.

That’s why we must acknowledge that all people have the same human nature. All human­ ity is united in Adam, and all believers (male and female) are united in Christ (1 Cor. 15:22). There is great danger in believing that some people are naturally inferior to others. From generations of slavery in the United States to the Holocaust, we can see the devastating results of treating other humans as fundamentally unequal.

In the same way, there are serious conse­ quences of asserting that men and women have different natures. If men and women don’t have the same human nature, then did Christ die as a human or as a male? If he died only as a male, 7 then how are women saved? As Gregory of Nazianzus summarized, what is not assumed

by Christ in his incarnation (in this discussion, a female nature) can’t be redeemed by his life, 8 death, and resurrection.

Scripture makes a distinction between God and man, between divine and human nature.

It distinguishes between sinful human nature (according to the flesh) and redeemed human nature (according to the Spirit). But it does not divide human nature into a master nature and a slave nature or a male nature and a female nature.

The world around us may show us that we are different, but Scripture teaches us who and what

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we are: men and women made in the image of God and redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. We are the body of Christ, called to pursue Christian virtues: the fruit of the Spirit and the armor of God. We must serve God and one another—not as the world would have us do, but out of broth­ erly love: Do nothing from selfishness or empty con­ ceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own per­ sonal interests, but also for the interests of others. (Phil. 2:3–4) We, women and men, are more alike than we are different. While we celebrate the beauty of those differences, we should remember what unites us.

Part of this article was originally published on the Modern Reformation website on June 8, 2020, and may be found at https://modernreformation.org/resource-library/web-exclusive-articles/the-mod-more-alike-than-different/.

RACHEL GREEN MILLER is the author of Beyond Authority

and Submission (P&R, 2019). She is a member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and a popular blogger at https:// rachelgreenmiller.com/.

1. John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries, https://biblehub.com/com­ mentaries/calvin/1_corinthians/3.htm.

2. Rachel Green Miller, Beyond Authority and Submission: Women and Men in Marriage, Church, and Society (Phillipsburg: P&R, 2019), 37.

3. See Glenn Stanton, “Is There a Universal Male and Female Nature?,” https://www.focusonthefamily.com/manhood/is-therea-universal-male-and-female-nature/; Steven Wedgeworth, “Man and Woman: A Biblical Systematic Anthropology,” https:// calvinistinternational.com/2020/05/17/man-and-woman-biblicalsystematic-anthropology/; and Alastair Roberts, “Male and Female,” https://alastairadversaria.com/2005/11/27/male-and-female/.

4. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “In Memoriam A.H.H” (1850).

5. Aristotle, Politics I.5, 1254a21–22, trans. Benjamin Jowett, http:// classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.1.one.html.

6. See the Westminster Larger Catechism, questions 37-42, and the Westminster Confession of Faith, ch. 8.

7. This question is brought up forcibly by Rosemary Radford Reuther’s now-famous question, “Can a male savior save women?” in her To Change the World: Christology and Cultural Criticism (New York: Crossroad, 1981), ch. 4.

8. Gregory of Nazianzus, Letters, “To Cledonius the Priest against Apollinaris,” https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3103a.html.

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Fo r e v e r Yo u n g ?

Understanding Tr a n s h u m a n i s m

by STEFAN LINDHOLM / illustration by JACQUELINE TAM

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of 1984, the German synth-pop group Alphaville released the single “Forever Young.” The song’s video expressed the deep frustration of younger generations and their longing for a life lived to the fullest, threat­ ened at the time by two superpowers locked in a nuclear arms race. Technology became for this generation—sometimes branded as “lost”—a blessing and a curse, potent enough to eradi­ cate their future hopes but also giving them the postmodern comforts of synth music, all-night discos, Walkman, and MTV. Fast-forwarding to our new century after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Cold War, new tensions have arisen in the world. The points of contention have taken on new forms: ter­ rorism, “fake news,” and how (not) to defeat a global pandemic. However, a common denomi­ nator then and now is the place of technology in the making or breaking of our present and future lives together. It is still safe to say technology is a mixed blessing, but due to the impressive advancement in various emerging technologies—individually as well as taken collectively—there is renewed optimism about technology’s power to change our lives for the better.

Among these emerging technologies, artificial intelligence (AI) holds a key position. In 1984, the hope of creating intelligent machines had been rejected by most experts in the field and primarily continued as a dream in sci-fi movies and books. That was the age of the so-called AI winter. Since the late 1990s, impressive advances in this technology has made AI a serious field of study for academics, and per­ haps even more also for private companies like 1 Google and Tesla. Some take AI and other tech­ nological advances as promises of the dawn of a new era when technology will change everything around us and ourselves as well for the better.

N THE ORWELLIAN YEAR

WHAT IS TRANSHUMANISM? Since a few decades ago, this optimism about beneficial use of powerful technologies has been summed up in the term “transhumanism.” One

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of the founding fathers of transhumanism, Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom, describes transhumanists as a loosely defined movement . . . [that] rep­ resents an interdisciplinary approach to understanding and evaluating the ethical, social and strategic issues raised by pres­ 2 ent and anticipated future technologies.

That might not sound too controversial to modern people, at least as far as it seems to go.

After all, we would not have major qualms about the use of artificial implants to help common medical conditions such as heart failure, loss of hearing, or Parkinson’s. Technology can already, quite literally, appear to give life to the dead, healing to the sick, and sight to the blind.

But the transhumanists take these thoughts to the extreme. They are not content with merely using technology in curing common illnesses that plague our frail human constitution. They also want to make us immune to them; make us better, faster, and smarter in every (in)con­ ceivable way. Transhumanists will thus include in these “future technologies” technological enhancement of our cognitive, emotional, and 3 psychical faculties. Aubrey de Grey, a transhu­ manist medical researcher, has declared war on aging and death, arguing that we should work toward radically extended longevity and per­ 4 haps everlasting life. Behind such an optimism lies an anthropology that takes our biological body to be a kind of starter kit that can be fixed, modified, and one day perhaps replaced. An artificial heart is perhaps not so controversial to our sensibilities today. But why stop there, the transhumanist asks, gazing into the future.

Why not replace even more parts of our body with much more resilient cybernetic body parts?

Why not replace the whole of it? The biologi­ cal and mental base with which Mother Nature endowed us should not determine what form we might want to take on in the future. Bostrom’s colleague Anders Sandberg calls this freedom to change our bodies through technologies “morphological freedom,” which he argues is 5 something of a natural right.

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BEHIND SUCH AN OPTIMISM LIES AN ANTHROPOLOGY THAT TAKES OUR BIOLOGICAL BODY TO BE A KIND OF STARTER KIT THAT CAN BE FIXED, MODIFIED, AND ONE DAY PERHAPS REPLACED.

Clearly, such claims are highly controversial from a scientific and technological perspective.

But consider what science has made possible only in the last hundred years and project the exponential growth in technology and the claims are no longer as implausible. That does not mean society should adopt a sort of “anything-goes” attitude toward technological advances. Just because something is technologically possible does not make it right. Ethical issues concern­ ing emerging technologies are being researched and talked about in many places now, and churches and theologians have started to pitch in. However, it is hard to stand strong against a rising cultural tide with rational arguments. (We shall soon look at transhumanism as a shaper of culture.) Those who do question the goodness and rationality of transhumanist aspirations— be it on rational or emotional grounds—will be called “bioconservatists,” since they are said to slavishly hang on to an outdated idea of biologi­ cal supremacy.

Transhumanists are a kind of prophet; they attempt to see far into the future based on pres­ ent and past trajectories of scientific results and technological advances. It therefore makes

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sense to use the term “transhumanism” to refer to a secular homo viator, a human wayfarer on the way to a blessed state of perfection—or, in their own words, an “intermediary form” between the human past and present and the 6 post-human future. In a post-human future, there might still be some “humans” around as we know them today, but—the transhuman­ ist thinks—the evolution of our species will be dominated by future, highly developed relatives (on par with the difference between primitive single-cell life forms at the beginning of evolu­ tion and us today).

One of the key transhumanist assumptions is that intelligence is not limited to humans (as we know them). Due to breakthroughs in AI, the category of intelligent life must be expanded. A growing number of professionals in AI research think we are at the cusp of creating a general AI, a kind of machine intelligence that will match human-level intelligence. Moreover, since a general AI is not limited by a body and will have enormous processing power, it has the potential to self-direct its own improvements and grow far beyond human-level intelligence into the 7 status of an AI superintelligence. Our time in evolutionary history is therefore highly cru­ cial, they say, since it provides (what would be) transhumans with the possibility to join the intelligence revolution.

TRANSHUMANISM AS A SHAPER OF CULTURE I hope these remarks on transhumanism have alerted the reader to some of the core tenets of transhumanism. A critical question, then, is how as Christians we begin to understand these high claims. One way is to look at trans­ humanism as a shaper of culture. Although transhumanism is not a centralized or highly organized movement, it is indeed held together by a common pool of commitments about the use of present and future technologies, some of which have been mentioned so far. More than that, the impact of transhumanist ideas and values in society far exceeds the number of

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card-carrying transhumanists. Many of them hold strategic positions. Inventor and futur­ ist Ray Kutzweil, to pick one example, has for decades written about the radical trans­ formation of life in the universe through 8 technologies. He has famously predicted that a general AI will emerge in 2029 and a superin­ telligence in 2045. The prediction is based on conjectures about, for instance, the evolution­ ary history of intelligent life in the cosmos, the rise of new technologies like machine learning, and the exponential growth in the processing power of computer hardware (the so-called Moore’s Law). I mentioned that transhuman­ ists are placed in strategic places: Ray Kurzweil has been the chief engineer at Google since 2012.

Bostrom notes that transhumanism “is enter­ ing the mainstream culture today, as increasing numbers of scientists, scientifically literate phi­ losophers, and social thinkers are beginning to take seriously the range of possibilities that 9 transhumanism encompasses.” Theologian Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, a critic of transhuman­ ism, rightly considers transhumanism to be culturally signifi­ cant because today transhumanism is not a mere speculation on the fringe of main­ stream culture, but a presence that shapes contemporary culture as transhumanist themes, vocabulary, values, and style frame contemporary film, science fiction, horror genre, video games, performance art, new media art, literature, and cyberpunk. Today all aspects of being human—embodiment, sexuality, subjectivity, emotionality, and sociality—have been thoroughly trans­ formed by the hybridization of the organic and the mechanical, artificial intelligence, new digital and virtualizing media, cyber­ space, online gaming, digital collectivities, networked information, and new media arts. If we want to make sense of our con­ temporary culture, we cannot ignore the 10 transhumanist themes that pervade it.

These “transhumanist themes” make up what Charles Taylor calls our “cultural imaginaries,”

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common features of our collective “world making.” One might make the items on this list of transhumanist cultural imaginary a bit more concrete. Consider, for example, the common acceptance of IVF, birth control, LBGTQ+ rights and practices, Viagra, and pacemakers. Some of these are obviously considered controversial by some people in our societies, whereas others are acceptable. My point here is that whatever our moral judgment is on each of these phenomena, they belong to the same spectrum of a kind of low-level transhumanism. In this spectrum, we find explicitly technological phenomena that make up our world, like smart technologies in our homes and hands, Pokémon Go, and VR games. All these disparate phenomena tacitly support the transhumanist ideal of “morpholog­ ical freedom,” since they suggest that our bodies, minds, and identities are malleable, possible to transcend and enhance at will.

UNDERSTANDING THE SPIRITUAL ROOTS OF TRANSHUMANISM Transhumanism wants to transcend humanity as we know it. At the same time, it identifies with historic forms of “humanism” in its focus on the dignity and right to self-expression of the indi­ vidual. It is therefore rather unsurprising that transhumanists generally regard themselves as a nonreligious movement in the traditional senses of “religion.” However, although some transhumanists like to call themselves atheist, not all do. A majority want to think of them­ selves as spiritual and in an extended sense even religious. Just as the traditional way of being human must be updated, so must religion.

The religious trajectory is demonstrated in their battle against aging and death, which we have mentioned already. For Kurzweil, this is a spiritual quest. He advocates that humans should keep as healthy as possible, since the Singularity is so near a techno-apocalyptic event that will be able to solve the problem of aging and death. He speaks expectantly of a resurrec­ tion of the dead. Max More has taken the battle against death to another extreme that also has

38

a religious ring to it. More is the CEO of Alcor, a company that offers to preserve your body in cryonics (or only your head if you do not have enough money), so that when the technological chronos arrives, you are promised to literally be 11 resurrected from the dead.

We need to understand that ideas of a resur­ rection from or survival of biological death (in whatever form) is grounded in what we might call a radically mathematical worldview. The whole universe is conceived of as grand math­ ematical construct, not as a grid but as its ultimate reality. It follows from this view that the identity of things in this universe—an atom, a tree, DNA, or a human being—are basically informational patterns or algorithmic strings.

The “I” that is Stefan is therefore essentially a complex informational pattern in the web of our mathematical matrix. One of the attractive features of this mathematical worldview is that it supports the “survivalism” of More, Kurzweil, and other transhumanists. My deepest identity is not dependent on the particulars of place, matter, time, and history. Since I am an infor­ mation pattern, I can—with the assistance of some future sophisticated technology—transcend the contingent predicament of my frail biological body and continue to live in another more reliable substrate, say the available version of the Internet 12 in 2050 or a fully cybernetic body like Robocop.

Although this might sound futuristic, the basic idea is far from novel. The mathemati­ cal worldview bears a deep resemblance to the ancient Pythagoreans, a religious mysticophilosophical movement that predated and influ­ enced Socrates and Plato. To the Pythagoreans, all of reality was numerical or mathematical, and they had a religiously oriented devotion for mathematical harmony between things that res­ 13 onates deeply with transhumanist spirituality.

Another transhumanist idea brings out the religious dimension clearly and demonstrates further the parallelism with the Pythagoreans.

The transhumanists assume that if everything that exists is information patterns, then everything is also to some degree endowed with intelligence. And while we are at it, why not say that everything also has a level of consciousness

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TECHNOLOGY HAS REPLACED RELIGION. PUT IN A DIFFERENT WAY, THE HOLY HAS MIGRATED FROM GOD AND CREATION TO MAN AND TECHNOLOGY.

or subjective awareness? This is nothing less than a techno-mystical version panpsychism (everything is intelligent/conscious), a claim the transhumanists share with the Pythagoreans.

In good company with their ancient forbears— as well as later thinkers such as Spinoza and Hegel—the transhumanists can draw the ulti­ mate conclusion: The whole universe is, or is in the process of, waking up as an intelligent and conscious being, which yields a technological version of pan(en)theism (“everything-is-godism”). Kurzweil points out that as the universe is constantly in the business of self-transcen­ dence, it takes on the traditional attributes of divinity, or the “numinous.” In a spirit of religious “ecumenism,” he then identifies the spiritual quest of traditional religions (JHWH, Dao, Buddha, Allah, Logos, and so on) with the advent of the Singularity.

ENGAGING TRANSHUMANISM THEOLOGICALLY It seems, then, that transhumanism is not non­ religious. It has been characterized—and I think fairly—as a form of “secularist faith,” since it shares motives and practices with traditional religions. For instance, when transhuman­ ists talk about the use of technology, they are presenting us with a secular version of escha­ tological millennialism—the idea that we bring

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about the kingdom of God by our own hands. The new thing under the sun is not that we are trying to bring the kingdom of God about with our own hands; that is old and bad news. The new thing is the mode—the essence of the “modern” way— through technology. French sociologist Jacques Ellul captured the spiritual dynamics of the modern view of technology already in the 1960s: Techne in the antique was a way of work­ ing with the inherent order and reason, Logos, whereas the modern combination of the two, technology, is the exaltation of human intelligence as the order of things.

Ellul then draws out the spiritual consequences: The individual who lives in the technical milieu knows very well that there is noth­ ing spiritual anywhere. But man cannot live without the sacred. He therefore transfers his sense of the sacred to the very thing which has destroyed its former object: to technique itself. In the world in which we live, technique has become the essen­ 14 tial mystery.

Technology has replaced religion. Put in a dif­ ferent way, the holy has migrated from God and creation to man and technology.

A more explicitly theological register (which I think follows from Ellul’s analysis) would be to consider transhumanism as a technological version of Pelagianism. The fifth-century pastor of Rome, Pelagius, thought we had a free will in all matters, including our salvation. He was dis­ tressed by some of the rather hopeless things the bishop of Hippo, Augustine, had written 15 about free will and grace. In a sort of patristic, self-help fashion, Pelagius advised struggling Christians: You can do it! Just try a little harder!

First heard, this sounds great: I have salvation in my own control; I am the master of my fate.

But that is a slippery notion. Soon it will become clear that we are not in control, that salvation just is out of our hands, that we are led away to spiritual darkness, flight, doubt, or an outright rejection of God.

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Augustine had a much more nuanced view of the human heart. He knew that even when we intend to do good, there is a parasitical element of evil involved (evil, understood as the absence of goodness or wholeness). Trying a little harder for all its intents and purposes will not do to help us out of our predicament. What we need is the mysterious yet real intervention of God’s grace in our lives. In fact, what we in our current state call freedom—the freedom to choose what we want—will prove not to be freedom at all, for we often choose things “freely” that are not good for us and that bind us. It is at best freedom in the negative sense, of not being interfered with, a “freedom from.” But as miserable sinners, we have little to offer beyond that, a “freedom to.”

This is what Augustine sought and found in God. Or better, a grace that found him in that garden when he first heard the call of God, which he recounts in Confessions VIII. Transhumanists are like the Pelagians when they blame evolution for its limiting predica­ ment and trust technology to save us from its grips. We must only try a little harder to bring the kingdom about. In contrast, Christians think that sin is not evolutionary bad luck but a moral category (perhaps partly revealed in the mechanisms of evolution but not identical to it). They trust God’s grace to free them—not as an excuse for a moral status quo and an accep­ tance of evil and suffering, but a certain kind of waiting for God and acceptance of the messi­ ness in life.

We might make yet another connection with Augustine’s theological concerns. Before he became a Christian, he was part of a gnostic sect, the Manicheans, who supposed that mate­ rial creation is corrupt and that we should seek spiritual illumination through detachment from it. The gnostic religions were fundamen­ tally concerned with the liberation of the soul from the material, and therefore corrupt, uni­ verse. So is transhumanism. Although it takes its cue from the Darwinian story of evolution of the species, it also proposes that we are enter­ ing a new post-Darwinian phase. Darwinian evolution is considered as corrupt and waste­ ful because it was based on randomness, blind

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TRYING A LITTLE HARDER FOR ALL ITS INTENTS AND PURPOSES WILL NOT DO TO HELP US OUT OF OUR PREDICAMENT. WHAT WE NEED IS THE MYSTERIOUS YET REAL INTERVENTION OF GOD’S GRACE IN OUR LIVES.

chance, and has caused lots of suffering in the natural history of the world. Luckily, a spark of intelligence was lit in that blind evolution­ ary pit and rose above the tide of the incessant limitations of death and entropy. Through the use of technology, the transhumanists stand up as heralds—or Nietzschean lunatics!—of a new age beyond these “creational” limitations. Make no mistake about the seriousness of this vision.

Transcending the present world order is not an option among others. It is the spiritual destiny of the transhuman to be liberated from entropy and reach a state of extropy, their technological ver­ 16 sion of celestial, ever-expanding joy and glory.

Although Augustine struggled under similar constraints, in Christ he was able to see the value 17 of material creation and creational goods.

Indeed, material creation is precious, but it presents us with a certain kind of resistance and challenge. A Christian such as Augustine could not identify, as he had done when a Manichean, natural limitations with sin. Sin was, for Augustine, a parasite on the good, a destructive

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force. The Genesis creation narrative declares that the created order is good and that the cre­ ation of man and woman in God’s own image is very good. That does not, of course, mean that creation was created complete or without the potential to be corrupted. Christian versions of redemption have in various ways tried to discern how God is at work to liberate his creation from evil, but it is a perennial heresy to say that we will be delivered from creation. Corruption and evil are not inherent in creation but somehow extrinsic and parasitic upon the good that God creates and declares thus.

A Christian cannot agree with the Pelagianism and Gnosticism of transhumanism, but he may, if only to a limited extent, agree with lamenta­ tion over the human predicament and its cure.

There is indeed much to lament, and we must work hard to ease the suffering of the world.

But Christian work takes on a radically dif­ ferent mode. In the processes of redemption, God has invited humans to be his coworkers by extending grace to whomever we can, wherever

we are, to alleviate suffering, to prevent death, and to care for the earth. Coworking with God means imitating his wisdom—not merely some thin idea of “smartness” or “intelligence”!—and increasingly important in our age, a responsible use of technology.

What all this, perhaps, boils down to is that the major difference between transhumanist and Christian faith is not merely in the right use of technology, but between “a theology of glory” and “a theology of the cross.” The former, a sort of realized eschatology looking for divinity at the high places, beyond sin and suffering; the latter in the low places, in the suffering of creation and in caring for it.

STEFAN LINDHOLM is an ordained Lutheran minister and

lecturer in systematic theology and philosophy of religion at Johannelund School of Theology in Uppsala, Sweden. He and his wife, Lois (a doctoral student in theological ethics), worked for ten years at L’Abri Fellowship in England and in his native country, Sweden. His interests include Reformed Scholasticism, Christology, anthropology, and bioethics.

1. The benchmark advances often rehearsed are the 1997 Deep Blue win over Jerry Kasparov in chess, the 2011 Watson win in Jeopardy! and the 2016 win of DeepMind over Lo se Dal in Go. We could of course make the list much longer, including self-driving cars, natural language pro­ cessing, brain simulation, etc., all examples in which AI plays a crucial role.

2. Nick Bostrom, “Transhumanist Values,” Journal of Philosophical Research, supplement, 30 (2005): 5.

3. For an overview of different perspectives, see Steve Clarke et al., eds., The Ethics of Human Enhancement: Understanding the Debate (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016); Max More and Natasha Vita-More, eds., The Transhumanist Reader: Classical and Contemporary Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future (Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013).

4. Aubrey D. N. J. de Grey and Michael Rae, Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007).

5. Anders Sandberg, “Morphological Freedom: Why We Not Just Want It, but Need It,” in The Transhumanist Reader, 56–64.

6. Nick Bostrom, “Introduction—The Transhumanist FAQ: A General Introduction,” in Transhumanism and the Body, ed. Calvin Mercer and Derek F. Maher (New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2014), 3.

7. Nick Bostrom, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

8. Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (London: Penguin, 2010).

9. Bostrom, “Transhumanist FAQ,” 3.

10. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, “In Pursuit of Perfection: The Misguided Transhumanist Vision,” Theology and Science 16, no 2 (April 3, 2018): 202.

11. See www.https://www.alcor.org (accessed October 19, 2020).

12. Some call this view of identity “substrate independence.” It has similarities with a dominant view in the philosophy of mind called “functional­ ism” and in AI research, as well as in cognitive science, “Computationalism.” It was introduced in Nick Bostrom, ”Are We Living in a Computer Simulation?,” The Philosophical Quarterly 53, no. 211 (April 2003): 243–55. For an analysis of this view of humanity, see my ”So What Will Nick Be When He Grows up in 2050? Some Reflections on Transhumanism,” Theofilos 9, no. 1 (2016): 66–84.

13. In a fascinating paper, Polish philosopher Stanislaw Krajewski has argued that the modern scientific outlook in general has a distinct Pythagorean shape; the world is ultimately numerical: “Computers are unbelievably successful. This leads some philosophers to the vision of the world as a huge computation. Everything, literally everything, could be a computer, an automaton or a program. Stephen Wolfram, a leader in com­ puterization, has claimed that the entire world is a cellular automaton. It follows that we, humans, are such automatons as well. We would be, essentially, nothing more than computers.” See “Can a Robot Be Grateful? Beyond Logic, Towards Religion,” Eidos: A Journal for Philosophy of Culture, no. 6 (December 28, 2018): 4–13, quote at 5.

14. Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1973), 143.

15. An overview of some of Augustine’s ideas I discuss here can be found in Graham Tomlin, Bound to Be Free: The Paradox of Freedom (London: Bloomsbury, 2017).

16. See Tirosh-Samuelsson, “In Pursuit of Perfection.”

17. Material creation, it should be said, remained a struggle for him even as a Christian to accept fully.

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Aggravated Sorrow: Some Theological and Pastoral Reflections on Acedia

by PHILLIP HUS SEY / illustration by JACQUELINE TAM

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at some point or another, I gaze out at my students and tell them this: Sloth is the sin of your generation. Then, of course, I ask them what sloth means. The usual retort is “laziness.” But the sin of acedia—or, in its most common idiom, sloth—is not, as we commonly hear, merely laziness. I don’t believe the stu­ dents in my classroom are lazy. In fact, I believe their lives are marked by hyperactivity, a gruel­ ing pace that prohibits them from focusing on what’s most important. This sort of description gets closer to the truth of acedia than the notion of the proverbial couch potato. Josef Pieper rec­ ognized well this feature of society at large:

VERY SEME STER

Not only can acedia and ordinary diligence exist very well together; it is even true that the senselessly exaggerated workaholism of our age is directly traceable to acedia, which is a basic characteristic of the spir­ itual countenance of precisely this age in 1 which we live.

For Pieper, acedia stands in contrast to leisure—a mental and spiritual attitude, a con­ templative apprehension of reality, which finds proper expression in celebration and worship.

The vice of acedia indicates that “beneath the dynamic of his existence, [the human being] 2 is still not at one with himself.” Theologically, human creatures suffer cataclysmic disintegra­ tion as they reject the summons and reality of divine love. So Augustine: “I turned away from 3 Your unity to be dispersed into multiplicity.”

This is acedia’s true form.

“THE DEMON OF ACEDIA” Etymologically, acedia in English is derived from the Latin word of the same spelling, which in turn comes from the Greek, ακηδιa (a-kedia).

Most technically, the word means “lack of care.”

Before the Christian era, the word was used to describe the lack of care one exhibited in fail­ ing to bury the dead (i.e., in Cicero). To fail to dispose of the dead properly was an act of dehu­ manization in the ancient world. The term

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entered Christian discourse for the first time in the writing of the desert fathers, in particular Evagrius of Pontus (345–399). Evagrius loosely employed the term to express the lack of care for the soul, or a lack of spiritual energy. As a desert monk committed to a life of prayer and asceti­ cism in solitude, lack of care for the soul was a fairly serious malformation.

The demon of acedia, also known as the noonday demon, is the most oppressive of all the demons. He attacks the monk about the fourth hour [10:00 a.m.] and besieges 4 his soul until the eighth hour [2:00 p.m.].

The demon of acedia (as witnessed in Evagrius’s descriptions of the monk’s life) manifested itself in both temporal and spatial dimensions. Among other things, there was an interior instability, exaggerated concern for physical health, neglect in observing the monastic rule, and discouragement. Laziness or idleness, at least in terms of an aversion to work, was a manifestation of a deeper spiritual malady.

Over the next few centuries, the demon of acedia would prove to be a mainstay of monastic writings and became popularized (if that’s the right word) because of John Cassian, Gregory the Great, and Hugh of St. Victor. It was Hugh of St. Victor (d. 1141) who transformed the list of vices found in Gregory the Great and Cassian into seven peccata capitalia (the seven deadly sins). They are capital not because of their seri­ ousness (although they are serious) but because they stand as headwaters. These sins, according to Hugh, engender other sins as being their final cause, therein making them particularly deadly or formidable.

KNOWLEDGE OF SIN A dogmatic account of acedia begins with a dogmatic account of sin. Sin is known as God is known and as our created nature is known.

All true knowledge and wisdom begin, as Calvin noted, from this double derivation. Materially, the latter knowledge derives from the former,

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its depths plumbed only by careful attention to the Christian doctrine of God. Just so, the knowledge of sin is gained proximately from Holy Scripture, especially the path of God’s commandments (cf. Ps. 119:35). Because the law is God’s law, the holy precepts derive their instructive force from the moral character of the instructor. Sin is set in relief against the law because the law is “good, pleasing, and perfect . . .

5 not in itself but in relation to God.” In its stricter relation to God, knowledge of sin arises most magnificently from contempla­ tion of the full compass of the being and works of God. God possesses the fullness of life as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and from this life gives life.

THESE [SEVEN DEADLY] SINS, ACCORDING TO HUGH [OF ST. VICTOR], ENGENDER OTHER SINS AS BEING THEIR FINAL CAUSE, THEREIN MAKING THEM PARTICULARLY DEADLY OR FORMIDABLE. VOL.30 NO.2 MARCH/APRIL 2021

The loving willing of creation and the ordering of its nature and history therein originates entirely within the uncreated, inexhaustible, and per­ fect life of the Godhead. In bringing human creatures into existence as God’s express image bearers, God grants and orders their life such that its fulfillment consists entirely in God’s call­ ing humans to enact their nature in fellowship with God over time. Only in this way do human beings come to life. The end of this fellowship is the blessed joy springing from the visio dei, the vision of God, wherein our intellect, will, and desire find their ultimate rest in the unsearch­ able plentitude of the Triune God, who makes known to us the path of life, in whose presence there is fullness of joy, and at whose right hand are pleasures forevermore (cf. Ps. 16:11).

Knowledge of sin is derived secondarily from the knowledge of created human nature as it traces its origin from God. Sin, in this sense, is a corruption of our original nature, its derangement and disorder. Spurning life with God, human creatures pursue paths of destruc­ tion leading to death. In denying God, they deny themselves, shrinking from fullness of life and suffering from an incurvature. Human creatures set off to make their own lives in whatever capac­ ity they see fit. This entire self-making project is, of course, both mad and illusory, having the appearance of life but stinking of death.

Post fall, we do not and cannot recognize the proper order of life and goodness: that, in fact, we are “creatures.” Sin—precisely because we are dead in sin—remains opaque.

No man of himself and by himself can declare what sin is, precisely because he is in sin; all his talk about sin is basically a glossing over sin, an excuse, a sinful water­ ing down. . . . [M]an has to learn what sin is by a revelation from God; sin is not a matter of a person’s not having understood what is 6 right but of his unwilling to understand it.

In the condition of sin, the immediate transformation of our intelligence, will, and desire back to God is only possible by means of God’s revelation and regeneration; further

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re-formation occurs only as we sit patiently under the tutelage of the gospel of Jesus Christ, all the while gaining energy of motion from the inner workings of the Holy Spirit.

SIN AS UNBELIEF AND PRIDE Prescinding from the proper order of know­ ing, we may now attend to the realties that such knowledge affords for understanding the sin of acedia. In the history of Christian theological reflection—from Augustine to Thomas Aquinas to C. S. Lewis—the sin of pride has often been categorized as the primordial sin of Adam and every human creature. The theological instinct is easily recognizable: pride emphasizes how the human creature “wishes not to be subject to God” and, as a result, “desires inordinately 7 his own excellence in temporal things.” Karl Barth refers to pride as the “heroic” form of 8 sin. Despite the long history of such an inter­ pretation and the phenomenological pull of it, this judgment is hasty, quickly passing over the reality that enables humankind to exercise such contempt for God in the first place. Much better to pursue Calvin’s course and root the fall in unfaithfulness, which thereafter gives rise to pride, ambition, and ungratefulness. For Calvin, faithfulness is linked to God’s word: “For Adam would never have dared oppose God’s authority 9 unless he had disbelieved in God’s Word.”

Calvin directs us to the most penetrating definition of sin: unbelief. Sin, to be sure, is lawlessness (cf. 1 John 3:4), though never of a general sort. Lawlessness always occurs before God as the human creature refuses to believe that God is the source of all goodness, love, and wisdom. Such infidelity disorders the entire creaturely mode of being, with our intellect, will, and desires suffering permanent derangement apart from God’s life-giving grace.

One advantage of locating the root of the fall in unbelief and, by extension, defining sin most properly as unbelief, is that the reality of sin remains inextricably linked to the inherent ordering of human creatures to the Triune God as their greatest good and joy. To employ the

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language of creature—as I have throughout— is already to say something theological. To be a creature is to exist before God and to receive the gift of life only from God’s hand, such that one comes to be fully who one is only in graced fellowship with God. Tragically, this is what sinners will not believe; and even those in the regenerate state continue to resist this fact as they enact their natures over time.

Another advantage of defining sin primarily as unbelief is that such a definition resists facile reduction to ethical categories divorced from the order of being. In this way, sin’s antithesis, as Søren Kierkegaard astutely notes, is not virtue but faith (cf. Rom. 14:23). Faith remains the fun­ damental human activity in the pilgrim state.

Only when human creatures believe God’s pro­ nouncements about their existence can humans enact their being rightly. In believing God about who they are, human creatures then virtuously enact their nature in loving freedom as those 10 natures rest secure in God. Although his account is existentially lush, Kierkegaard’s reflection on sin as a form of despair before God continues to be instruc­ tive here. Applicable to both the regenerate and unregenerate state, sin is “before God, in despair not to will to be oneself, or in despair to will to be oneself.” Of course, in the unregenerate state, the “before God” is both severely deformed and denied, even as despair remains and intensifies. Perceptively, Kierkegaard speaks of “not willing to be one­ self” as “intensified weakness” and “willing to 11 be oneself” as “intensified defiance.” These are but other words for acedia and pride. Both movements are intensified mis-relations based on a prior moment of unbelief, a dis­ avowal of the reality that we become ourselves only by and with God.

SORROW AND DESPAIR INSTEAD OF JOY AND HOPE Thomas Aquinas tells us that acedia is sorrow 12 over the divine good. Post fall, God becomes the object of sorrow instead of the object of utter

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joy. Acedia “causes a sadness, a negative reac­ tion to what ought to be our greatest happiness, participation in the life of God.” 13 Acedia is an aversion to God; a rejection of the joy of God’s presence; a rejection of the movement and bliss of divine love; a refusal to trust in the One who demonstrates and maintains His faithfulness in this over­ whelming way, not claiming [the creatures’] obedience with the severity and coldness of an alien tyrant but as the source of his life, in the majesty and freedom of the love with 14 which He has loved him from all eternity.

The sin of acedia is “the childish destruction of the dignity of our human nature” as we exist 15 in a “graceless being for ourselves.”

Because the sin of acedia actively opposes joy of union with God, it also improperly mobilizes and denigrates our nature. For this reason, Thomas also defines acedia as taedium operandi: disgust with activity. Disgust is not the cessation of activity but disordered activ­ ity. This is why, for example, both laziness and workaholism follow naturally from acedia. The sin of acedia disorders and disintegrates human “working” from “being,” such that creaturely activity becomes a form of anguish, disgust, resentment, and listlessness. Acedia proves formidable precisely because this break and the ensuing paralysis occurs, not by an exterior obstacle (i.e., an exterior pain) but by an interior one. No longer content (joyful) in being made

by God in loving communion, creatures sink into the despair of “nothingness” as they seek to make themselves—to work, strive, and toil— apart from God. It is easy to recognize the dangerous allure of nihilism within acedia, the seductive force of a totalizing unbelief that seeks a return to the void of nothingness. And when the meaning of life disappears into nothingness—evacuated from the right order of creation as it corresponds to God’s ordering—then the most phenomenologi­ cally vivid emotion takes over: despair. Despair is both born of acedia and perpetuated by it.

For Thomas, despair sets in because either

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(1) one believes there are no arduous goods, or (2) one believes these goods are found impos­ 16 sible to obtain (for them). Stripped of both goodness and hope in the world, despair throws the human creature violently back onto itself in a project of self-making. Given such loss of all meaning and orientation, Nietzsche’s French epigones recognized (and embraced) the tragic conclusion: the only real question left is suicide.

Acedia drives this ennui, which is an all-toocommon outlook in our disenchanted age, an age stripped of hope, grace, and love. Ratzinger was quite right about the flirtation with death in our milieu: The deepest root of this sorrow is the lack of any great hope and the unattainability of any great love: everything one can hope for is known, and all love becomes the dis­ appointment of finiteness in a world whose monstrous surrogates are only a pitiful dis­ guise for profound despair. And in this way the truth becomes ever more tangible that the sorrow of the world leads to death: it is only flirting with death, the ghastly busi­ ness of playing with power and violence, that is still exciting enough to create an appearance of satisfaction. “If you eat, you must die”—for a long time this has no longer been just a saying from mythology 17 (Gen. 3:17).

STRIPPED OF BOTH GOODNESS AND HOPE IN THE WORLD, DESPAIR THROWS THE HUMAN CREATURE VIOLENTLY BACK ONTO ITSELF IN A PROJECT OF SELF-MAKING. MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

GODLY SORROW Sorrow, it must be said, is not itself wicked.

18 “Sorrow for evil is good.” For Thomas, sorrow is a passion of the soul, wherein humans respond with a manner of interior attraction (pleasure) or repulsion (sorrow) to an outside object pre­ cisely because human beings have their being in conjunction with other things. This, of course, betrays a fundamental theological point already mentioned: unlike God, human creatures do not exist a se; we become who we are only in relation to another—most fundamentally, God. Before the fall, human conjunction was with God and God’s good gifts; this incited pleasurable

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passions from the soul, the highest of which is joy (gaudium). Gaudium is the true joy arising from loving communion with God. After the fall, there is a need to recoil from that which endangers us (sin and evil) and to uncoil from ourselves (given our nature’s radical incurva­ ture). To enact ourselves in the post-fall world, therefore, entails sorrow on the road to the heal­ ing of all afflictions in beatitude.

After our Edenic expulsion, sorrow suf­ fers aggravation, as the proper object of sorrow (evil) is substituted for an improper one (a created good). Slothful sorrow entails extreme aggravation because the object of sorrow becomes not simply any created good but the divine good—God. But this need not be. Properly construed, sorrow should entail a “flight from present evil which harms or 19 threatens to harm us.” It is a movement away, an aversion to that which opposes our good. Sorrow should not resist the demands and order of divine love, but should follow it as God turns us away from death and destruction.

Sorrow “goes wrong when . . . it breaks free” from the order of God and the gospel, from “well-ordered love and governance by truth­ ful apprehension of our nature and calling and our regenerate condition.” Joyful consent to the divine order of things remains fragile as “sorrow gets caught up in the war between the 20 law of the mind and the law of sin.” Only in the light and domain of the gospel can human creatures gain insight into godly sorrow, for godly grief leads to repentance, worldly grief only to death (cf. 2 Cor. 7:10).

THE DANGER OF DISORDERED SORROW Thomas notes the difference between godly and ungodly despair, for not “everyone who despairs 21 is an unbeliever.” Unbelievers lack both hope and faith, while the despairing believer has faith, though perhaps little or waning hope.

Caught in the struggle between the old life and the new life in Christ, acedia proves to be perni­ cious and self-replicating, because at its heart it refuses the very thing that brings healing and

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hope; the slothful person suffers an aversion to God, resisting the summons, demands, and solace of divine love offered in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In such an aggravated state, acedia begets many so-called daughters along the road of disordered sorrow. Thomas categorized these daughters in terms of sins of flight and sins of compensation. Sins of flight entail either avoid­ ance or struggle, which express themselves as sluggishness with regard to God’s law, lack of courage in the face of divine calling (pusilla­ nimity of the soul), rancor, and malice. Sins of compensation involve uneasiness of mind, curiosity, instability in temporal and spatial dimensions as to distract from purpose, rest­ lessness of the body, and loquacity.

SORROW SHOULD NOT RESIST THE DEMANDS AND ORDER OF DIVINE LOVE, BUT SHOULD FOLLOW IT AS GOD TURNS US AWAY FROM DEATH AND DESTRUCTION. VOL.30 NO.2 MARCH/APRIL 2021

What bearing does this have on the Christian life in its concrete realities? Although each of these daughters present themselves at one point or another in the Christian life and are individu­ ally worthy of comment, one particular—sadly all too pervasive—compensatory sin deserves extended focus here: pornography. At first blush, pornography seems to fit in quite naturally with the vice of lust as an autonomous seeking of sexual pleasure outside of the confines of marital love in an ever-increasing onslaught of perversity and violence. This, to be sure, is true, especially as lust follows the sin of pride in its intensified defiance. But the allure of pornog­ raphy also follows from the rather unheroic and slothful form of sin. When the human creature turns away from the plentitude and demands of divine love—either from God directly or in our neighbor (spouse) indirectly—the mind and body flee to increasingly novel distractions and compensations in order to fill the void. In the age of the Internet and increased technological iso­ lation, easily accessible pornography promises temporary relief from our sorrows, an escape from the demands of the moment in an ecstasy of sexual release. But a surrogate it is and always will be. Pornography becomes a self-made and perpetuating prison of despair.

DISTRACTION THROUGH BUSYNESS Within the pastoral vocation, acedia easily cam­ ouflages itself among the demands of caring not only for one’s own soul but the souls of others.

The strain of this double demand easily leads to the proliferation of acedia’s daughters among Christ’s under-shepherds. This includes not only hidden and compensatory sins like por­ nography (an all-too-common occurrence among pastors) but also highly visible—and often lauded—compensations such as activism.

Activism stands in juxtaposition to contem­ plation. Pithily we hear it said that the pastor’s study has become an “office.” The truth inherent in this remark is that sustained contemplation has been evacuated from the pastor’s day-today life. When essential and contemplative

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acts like prayer or meditation are abandoned at first for practical pastoral “necessities” and “activities,” these acts soon become impossible and intolerable. It becomes easier and easier, for example, to answer and send emails than to pray. Eventually, God’s very presence becomes altogether loathsome.

The pastor then enters into ceaseless activity in order to fill the void with culturally appro­ priate forms of effectiveness, pouring “great physical effort and emotional energy into the difficult task of distracting themselves from the 22 unhappiness of their real condition.” No longer able to offer spiritual nourishment to the souls under their care, because they are no longer refreshed by the healing light of God’s presence, pastoring is reduced to professional profitabil­ ity. The sheep become a means for nourishing the shepherd’s deep disillusionment. Activism compensates and distracts for the true object of sorrow: God.

REST AND THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS Acedia is chiefly assuaged “by contemplating God and his goodness which embraces us and 23 gives us a share in his benefits.” Through con­ templation of God as given to us in Jesus Christ, despair is transformed into gospel consolation.

Contemplation is neither withdrawal nor pas­ sivity, but patient and affectionate attentiveness 24 to the mouth of Christ. Until Christ is sweet, sin will never become bitter.

But contemplation of gospel sweetness requires perseverance and discipline, because our sinful flesh resists the totality of resurrected life. In the wake of the fall, contemplative exer­ cises prove extremely laborious, especially under the strain of aggravated sorrow. We are tempted to believe they can be self-sustained and self-governed. This is incorrect. Contemplative labors rely on the awakening, continued illu­ mination, and guidance of the Holy Spirit, which chasten the intellect, will, and desire, in order to place them under the tutelage of divine instruction. Sustained contempla­ tion, as Saint Augustine tells us, “subjects the

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mind itself to God, that he may rule and aid it, and the passions . . . to the mind, to moderate and bridle them, and turn them to righteous 25 uses.” The slothful heart resists such subjec­ tion, because it either thinks itself unworthy of God’s love or finds it altogether repulsive.

Stability is required.

Love flourishes in a context of daily action and lasting commitment (spiritual stabilitas), and sloth flourishes in a context of conveniently easy escape. . . . Sloth prefers 26 the easy way out.

The easiest escape, of course, is always from the highest, simplest, and most privileged of contemplative activities: prayer.

Perseverance of this sort functions hand in hand with gospel memory. The call to remember radiates out from the biblical text, particularly in Deuteronomy. The Sabbath day is commanded

by God as the day of memory. Memory, in the strictest theological sense, is not primarily a turn inward but outward, to the God of all com­ fort in whom humans find their rest. Thomas recognized how acedia “is opposed to the precept about hallowing the Sabbath. For this precept . . . implicitly commands the mind to rest in 27 God.” To rest in God is the creature’s proper work, because the Sabbath entails the repose of worship. The Sabbath is time set apart where we flee to God, sorrow over our sin, and rejoice in the fount of grace that brings us healing.

The proper home for Sabbath observance is the ecclesial community. Acedia is not only a sin against memory, but it isolates by nature.

The worshipful communion of saints enables gospel perseverance, because fellow pilgrims help bear our burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ (cf. Gal. 6:2). Taken further, the “com­ panionship of believers assuages sorrow by love, and moves us to seek out and take pleasure in 28 the divine solace.”

For the pastor, such Sabbath companionship requires diligent effort. Always shepherding and rarely shepherded, the Lord’s Day might prove doubly disheartening for the pastor, both restless and isolating, leading to an increased

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ALWAYS SHEPHERDING AND RARELY SHEPHERDED, THE LORD’S DAY MIGHT PROVE DOUBLY DISHEARTENING FOR THE PASTOR, BOTH RESTLESS AND ISOLATING, LEADING TO AN INCREASED AGGRAVATION OF SORROW. VOL.30 NO.2 MARCH/APRIL 2021

aggravation of sorrow. Under the strain of acedia, the shepherd sinks into mediocrity, bit­ terness, spitefulness, and finally despondence.

In such a condition, pastors have a “chronic need for forgiveness and encouragement” in order 29 to care for their own soul. In straightforward terms, pastors also need pastors and consistent sabbaticals for friendly encouragement, godly rebuke, gospel consolation, and restorative wor­ ship in the fellowship of the saints.

Thomas Aquinas would persuade everyone not to forget the simple bodily remedies too: 30 get some sleep, take a hot bath, go for a walk.

Bodily training is, we should call to mind, of some value (cf. 1 Tim. 4:8).

And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowl­ edge of God; being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

(Col. 1:9–14 ESV)

CONCLUSION By way of conclusion, we will end with Paul’s encouragement:

PHILLIP HUSSEY (PhD candidate in historical theology, Saint Louis University) is visiting instructor in church history and systematic theology at Covenant Theological Seminary.

1. Josef Pieper, On Hope, trans. Sister Mary Frances McCarthy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), 55.

2. Josef Pieper, Leisure: The Basis of Culture, trans. Alexander Dru (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2009), 44.

3. Augustine, Confessions, II.1.(1): …dum ab uno te aversus in multa evanui.

4. Evagrius, Praktikos 12, in Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek and Ascetic Corpus, trans. with introduction and commentary by Robert E. Sinkewicz, Oxford Early Christian Studies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 99.

5. Christopher Holmes, The Lord Is Good: Seeking the God of the Psalter (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2018), 135.

6. Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death, ed. and trans. Howard and Edna Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 95.

7. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I–II, q. 84, a. 2, ad 2.

8. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.2, 403.

9. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, II.1.4.

10. Much more could be said, especially with regard to how the Protestant understanding of justification by faith alone resonates with the protological picture offered here. In particular, it is always the case theologically that operari sequitor esse, working follows being, soteriologically or otherwise.

11. Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death, 77.

12. Cf. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae., II–II, q. 35, a. 2.

13. Jean-Charles Nault, The Noonday Devil: Acedia, the Unnamed Evil of Our Times, trans. Michael Miller (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2015), 72.

14. Barth, CD IV.2, 405.

15. Barth, CD IV.2, 458.

16. Cf. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II–II, q. 20, a. 4, resp.

17. Joseph Ratzinger, To Look on Christ: Exercises in Faith, Hope, and Love, trans. Robert Nowell (New York: Crossroad, 1991), 69–70.

18. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I–II, q. 39, a. 1, sed contra.

19. John Webster, “Dolent gaudentque,” in God Without Measure, Volume II: Virtue and Intellect (New York: T&T Clark, 2016), 78.

20. Webster, “Dolent gaudentque,” 79.

21. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I–II, q. 20, a. 2, sed contra.

22. Rebecca DeYoung, Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2009), 90.

23. Webster, “Dolent gaudentque,” 83.

24. Cf. R. J. Snell, Acedia and Its Discontents: Metaphysical Boredom in an Empire of Desire (Kettering, OH: Angelica Press, 2015), 98.

25. Augustine, De civitate Dei IX.5, as quoted in Webster, “Dolent gaudentque,” 83.

26. DeYoung, Glittering Vices, 98.

27. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, q. 35, a. 3, ad 1.

28. Webster, “Dolent gaudentque,” 83.

29. Harold Senkbeil, The Care of Souls: Cultivating a Pastor’s Heart (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2019), 240.

30. Cf. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I–II, q. 38, a. 5.

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THE CROSS AND RESURRECTION IN HIS GOSPEL, the apostle John makes the startling claim that the Old Testament prophet Isaiah saw Jesus’ glory: “Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him” (John 12:41). Jesus himself said, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (John 12:23), but his conception of glory was very different from that of his countrymen, or even his own disciples. They hoped that the hour of Jesus’ glory would mean victory over the Roman occupiers and the corrupt religious officials, but they didn’t realize it would culminate in his death on a cross and resurrection from the dead.

In these twelve shows from White Horse Inn and four articles from Modern Reformation, we introduce you to the work of Jesus as seen through the eyes of Isaiah.

This prophet who lived some seven centuries before Christ saw Jesus’ glory and offers us remarkable insights into the person and work of the Savior.

For your donation of any amount, we’ll send you this special collection so that you can meditate on the glory of Christ in anticipation of the Easter season. Use these broadcasts and articles as supplements to your own devotional reading of Scripture.

Talk about them with family and friends. Use them as aids to prayer. Let Isaiah show you Christ in new and fresh ways.

GET OUR NEWEST COLLECTION FOR A DONATION OF ANY AMOUNT. WHI is more than a radio show. Your donation supports all of the work at White Horse, Inc.—home to WHI radio, MR magazine, Core radio, Core Bible studies, and the Global Theological Initiative.

“ I WAS PUT ONTO THIS PROGRAM A FEW MONTHS AGO AND LOVE IT. THIS IS REALLY NEEDED AND RARELY EVER DONE. I’VE LEARNED MORE FROM THIS PROGRAM THAN I HAVE SITTING IN THE PEWS THE LAST 20 YEARS BEING A CHRISTIAN. THANK YOU AND GOD ALMIGHTY BLESS YOU.” — CO RE LI STEN ER

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KNOW WHAT YOU BELIEVE. MEMBERSHIP IS FREE. Throughout 30 years of radio broadcasts, our mission has always been to help Christians “know what they believe and why they believe it.” Create a free account at whitehorseinn.org to access the latest twelve weeks of episodes for free!

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Book Reviews 56

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History and Eschatology: Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology

Atonement and the Death of Christ: An Exegetical, Historical, and Philosophical Exploration

Dogma and Ecumenism: Vatican II and Karl Barth’s Ad Limina Apostolorum

The Writings of Phillis Wheatley

by N. T. Wright

by William Lane Craig

edited by Vincent Carretta

edited by Matthew Levering, Bruce L. McCormack, and Thomas Joseph White, OP

REVIEWED BY

REVIEWED BY

REVIEWED BY

REVIEWED BY

David VanDrunen

Chad McIntosh

Joshua Schendel

Simonetta Carr

MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

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History and Eschatology: Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology

By N. T. Wright Baylor University Press, 2019 365 pages (hardcover), $34.95 istory and Eschatology presents N. T. Wright’s 2018 Gifford Lectures, a prestigious Scottish lecture series established in the late nineteenth century. The pur­ pose of the series is to promote the study of natural theology. “Natural theology” can be used in different ways, but it generally refers to the knowledge of God that human beings can acquire through the created order. To put it mildly, this is a controversial issue.

Most people think of natu­ ral theology and knowledge of Jesus as two separate inqui­ ries: nature may reveal truths about God, but only Scripture reveals Jesus’ incarnation, death, and exaltation. Wright challenges this separation.

He argues that Jesus, a fully human being who lived in the real world of the first century, was part of the natural world and is an important source for doing natural theology.

The book is divided into four parts. Part I describes the historical context for the study of natural theology in recent centuries. Wright argues that much of the Enlightenment revived the ancient philosophy of Epicureanism. For Epicureanism, it’s possible that a god exists, but if so, he’s far away from this world and doesn’t care about it. Thus the world is on its own and there’s no life after death. Accordingly, Enlightenment thinkers developed politics, science, economics, and history without God. But unlike ancient Epicureans, Enlightenment

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thinkers believed they were bringing in a new age and hence emphasized the idea of progress.

Wright argues that mainstream (especially German) scholarship about Jesus and the Gospels developed in this context. In particu­ lar, New Testament scholars imported their own ideas about inaugurating a new age back into the first century, arguing that Jews of Jesus’ day, as well as Jesus and his followers, believed the world was going to end imminently.

Part II sets out to correct this blunder on the part of New Testament scholarship. First, Wright calls for rigorous historical study of the Gospels in their original context, especially the first-century Jewish world. Such study shows that the New Testament writers didn’t think the world was going to end imminently. Rather, they thought that Jesus’ coming marked the return of the God of Israel, and that his kingdom ha d alrea dy become present, although it would reach its final goal in the future. This meant the renewal and transformation of this world, not its end.

In part III, Wright begins to bring “the question of Jesus and the question of ‘natural theology’ back together again” (155). First, he discusses the “worldview” of many Second Temple Jews, which shaped the thought of Jesus and his followers. They believed that heaven and earth were inte­ grated rather than absolutely separate, as in Epicureanism.

In the Old Testament, they saw hope for the redemptive transformation of this world.

This would result one day in a new creation, which was anticipated through the temple and the Sabbath. Yet only when Jesus died and rose did these Old Testament-rooted convictions truly come to make sense. Jesus’ work of new creation “recontextualises and reinterprets the old” (190).

VOL.30 NO.2 MARCH/APRIL 2021

Part IV argues that something similar is true with respect to natural theology. As Jesus’ fol­ lowers “read backwards” to make sense of the Old Testament in light of Jesus’ work, so we should also read backwards to make sense of the natural world. Wright speaks of “broken sign­ posts.” The natural world has always contained signposts pointing to God, including widespread notions of justice, beauty, freedom, truth, power, spirituality, and relationships. Yet these signposts are broken: we struggle to agree about such notions and to put them into practice in a satisfying way. But Jesus’ resurrection provides “retrospective validation of the signposts” (225).

We see that they’re meaningful and pointed in the right direction. Therefore, the church shouldn’t try to escape the world but should instead “embrace mission at every level” (253).

That is, from the beginning God intended to fill this world with his glory and to dwell within it, and he has willed to accomplish this through obedient human beings. So, the church now pur­ sues the healing, justice, and beauty that will be fully realized when this world attains complete restoration in the new creation.

This is a theologically rich book. Those with­ out an advanced theological degree or who don’t read much academic theology will likely find it challenging. But Wright is a clear and engaging writer, so even such people might find it accessible.

There are many things to appreciate. For one thing, Wright’s proposal about modern thought as Epicurean is interesting and thought provok­ ing. History is immensely complicated, and attempts to tell its story in a concise way inevi­ tably oversimplify things. But Wright’s account has considerable explanatory value and will at least stimulate readers’ thinking.

The book also provides a great deal of help­ ful biblical theology. “Biblical theology” refers to understanding and explaining God’s work as described in the Bible, as a developing, coher­ ent, and unified story that culminates with the coming of Christ, his redemptive work, and the dawn of new creation. Wright does a lot of

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Wright speaks of “broken signposts.”

The natural world has always contained signposts pointing to God, including widespread notions of justice, beauty, freedom, truth, power, spirituality, and relationships.

biblical theology, focusing on themes such as the image of God, the temple, and the Sabbath.

Even where one thinks Wright doesn’t get things quite right, there is much to learn and ponder.

Wright also deserves commendation for exploring natural theology and Jesus’ work in an integrated way. In recent years, Protestants have shown renewed interest in natural theology.

This is an excellent development, in my judg­ ment, but it’s important not only to affirm the reality of natural revelation but also to explain how natural revelation serves God’s larger redemptive plan. Again, while Wright may not have gotten things exactly correct, he reflects on crucial issues.

Alongside these notes of appreciation, I also wish to engage Wright critically on two matters.

The first relates to his theme of broken signposts.

In general, I believe he has his finger on some­ thing important. For good biblical reasons, classical Reformation theology has thought that biblical revelation is clearer than natural

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revelation, and also that the New Testament is clearer than the Old Testament. Thus when Wright says that New Testament witness about Christ illuminates both the Old Testament story and our knowledge derived from nature, he stands in good company. My question is whether Wright attributes enough integrity and power to nature and the Old Testament. Are the “sign­ posts” as broken as Wright suggests? According to Scripture, God often judged ancient Israel for failure to understand and live according to the Old Testament. And Romans 1–2 indicates that God holds all people accountable for not understanding and living according to natu­ ral revelation. Signposts? Yes. Broken? Not so broken that the signposts themselves are unable to leave people inexcusable before God. Wright discusses Karl Barth’s famous critique of natural theology both critically and sympathetically. I suspect he remains still too sympathetic.

I also wish to engage critically an obsession of Wright’s. Wright repeatedly rebukes a view he believes has taken over much of Protestant Christianity in recent centuries—namely, that

Scripture clearly indicates that there will be both continuity and discontinuity between this world and the new creation. Wright, I fear, underplays the discontinuity.

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Christians’ true hope and longing is to leave their bodies, escape this world, and “go to heaven” in their “souls.” Against this, Wright emphasizes the resurrection of the body and the new creation as renewal of the present world. Now, to be sure, Christians must hope for the resurrection of their bodies and for a new creation that brings this first creation to its ultimate destiny. But I wonder whether Wright has exaggerated the prominence of the view he rails against. I’m not sure about Wright’s Anglican context, but I don’t know many serious Christians who have given up on the resurrec­ tion or think it’s worthless to work for good things in this world. In fact, I perceive danger in exactly the opposite direction: many Christians are far too overwhelmed by the attractions and trials of this life and far too little comforted and encouraged by their “inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven” for them (1 Pet. 1:4). They easily forget that “here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Heb. 13:14). Scripture clearly indicates that there will be both conti­ nuity and discontinuity between this world and the new creation. Wright, I fear, underplays the discontinuity. He mentions important texts that speak of the radical change Christ’s second coming will bring, such as 1 Corinthians 7:29–31 and 2 Peter 3:5–13, but he waves them away without argument (65, 137). Perhaps this perspective explains why Wright emphasizes Christ’s resurrection but almost completely ignores his ascension.

Wright has made a place for natural theology and highlights God’s good gifts and purposes for the present world. This is good. But I believe his case would have been stronger if he had grappled more seriously with the fact that the world in its present form is passing away (1 Cor. 7:39) and that the “new creation” is radically new, even if not brand new.

DAVID VANDRUNEN is the Robert B. Strimple Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics at Westminster Seminary California in Escondido.

VOL.30 NO.2 MARCH/APRIL 2021

Atonement and the Death of Christ: An Exegetical, Historical, and Philosophical Exploration

By William Lane Craig Baylor University Press, 2020 328 pages (hardcover), $24.95 n Atonement and the Death of Christ, William Lane Craig sets out to defend a theory of the atone­ ment that is biblically grounded, historically informed, and philo­ sophically coherent. The book has three parts, one for each of the three areas mentioned.

In part I, Craig argues that although the Bible contains a plethora of atonement motifs, the central one is sacrifice. He therefore labors to understand the meaning of animal sacrifices in the Old Testament, the Servant of the Lord of Isaiah 53, and how these are in turn under­ stood by the New Testament authors. He concludes that “on the pattern of the Passover and Levitical sacrifices described in the OT, Christ’s death serves the twin pur­ poses of expiating our sin and propitiating God” (87), and that the NT authors identified Christ with Isaiah’s Servant, who endures the punishment (i.e., death) that is our just dessert for sin.

In part II, Craig briefly sur­ veys Patristic, Medieval, and Reformation and Post-Reformation theories of the atonement.

The survey is somewhat superficial (as Craig himself acknowledges [142]), but it does help­ fully correct many misrepresentations in the secondary literature. His chief findings are that it’s incorrect to think the fathers were singularly committed to a Christus Victor theory of the atonement; Anselm and Aquinas were correct

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to emphasis that the demands of God’s justice require either punishment or compensation (satisfactio), and the Reformers were correct in arguing for the former à la penal substitu­ tion. Socinus emerges as the staunchest critic of penal substitution, and his critique “remains today unsurpassed in terms of its depth and breadth” (128).

Craig announces at the beginning of part III that penal substitution cannot be a “merely tan­ gential, minor facet of an adequate atonement theory,” citing “Isaiah 53 and its NT employ­ ment in the NT” (147) as the reason. It is, rather, “foundational” to the other aspects of the atone­ ment, and so a biblically adequate theory must have penal substitution “at its center” (147). He thus launches a subtle and impressive defense of penal substitution—understood as “the doc­ trine that God inflicted upon Christ the suffering that we deserved as the punishment for our sins, as a result of which we no longer deserve punishment” (147)—against four main arguments. First, it is philosophically incoherent because punishment requires the punished be guilty, whereas Christ isn’t. Second, it is theo­ logically incoherent because it stipulates preconditions of God’s love and forgiveness, whereas God’s perfect love entails there can’t be. Third, it is unjust because an innocent person (Christ) is punished.

And fourth, it does not satisfy the demands of justice since the actual persons guilty of wrongdoing go unpunished.

Defenders of these arguments tend to view the atonement in terms of reconciliation in private relationships, rather than in terms of a legal rift between two parties. The latter, however, opens up a whole world of resources in well-established legal thought that can help us make sense of the atonement. This is, in fact, a more fitting way to

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view the relationship between us and a perfectly just judge and ruler of the world, whose moral law we have broken. God’s essential retributive justice requires every sin receive a proportional punishment. God—being at once the legislator, judge, and ruler of the world—can determine that the demands of justice are satisfied by Christ, God incarnate, being punished on our behalf. This is not unjust, given a doctrine of imputation where our sins are forensically imputed to Christ, who acts as both our substi­ tute and representative before God. So, while Christ remains personally virtuous and sinless, he was yet declared legally guilty before God and so legally liable to punishment. Something analogous occurs in real-world cases of vicarious liability. God thus displays his love and mercy toward us in that he foregoes punishing us “in our proper persons” (208), and extends to us an offer of forgiveness, which is akin to “a legal pardon by an executive authority” (172).

The strongest part of Atonement and the Death of Christ is doubtlessly the third, where, by appropriating legal concepts and actual judicial precedent, penal substitution is deftly explicated and arguments against it effectively countered. The reader does have to occasion­ ally remind himself, however, that Craig is not modeling theology on the pattern of our justice system, which he says would be a “silly project” (201). Rather, Craig appeals to examples in our

It seems to me that integrating penal substitution into a robust Christus Victor theory would be a promising endeavor

own justice system as defeaters to “the all-toooften repeated assertion that there is nothing in our experience analogous to” the moral nerve of penal substitution—that is, “the imputation of wrongdoing or guilt to an innocent person” (270).

The philosophical defensibility of penal sub­ stitution notwithstanding, I do not think Craig has demonstrated penal substitution to be the central biblical atonement motif. It is hard to avoid the impression that Craig came to this study already believing in the centrality of penal substitution, and so unduly focused his bibli­ cal exegesis on those passages and themes that support it. Craig repeatedly acknowledges that the Bible includes a rich variety of atonement motifs, but I take it that an adequate theory of the atonement will be one that integrates all of those motifs into a coherent whole; each motif will find its place within a logical struc­ ture that explains how atonement works. The problem is that Craig pays virtually no atten­ tion at all to Scripture’s spiritual warfare motif as it relates to the atonement (especially in the New Testament), which is robust enough to have inspired the first theories of the atonement among the fathers. It is telling that penal sub­ stitution, at least as it is put forward by Craig as a theory of the atonement, is wholly consistent with the nonexistence of Satan and demons. Is that really a biblically adequate theory of the atonement? It seems to me that integrating penal substitution into a robust Christus Victor theory would be a promising endeavor.

Regardless of whether Craig has himself succeeded in offering a biblically grounded, historically informed, and philosophically coherent theory of the atonement, he is surely correct that all other extant treatments lack such ambition. His book, therefore, is a land­ mark contribution to the literature on the atonement and an exemplary exercise in philo­ sophical theology.

CHAD MCINTOSH (BA, Calvin College; MA, PhD, Cornell

University) currently lives in central Ohio where he enjoys homesteading and writing when he can.

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Dogma and Ecumenism: Vatican II and Karl Barth’s Ad Limina Apostolorum Edited by Matthew Levering, Bruce L. McCormack, and Thomas Joseph White, OP The Catholic University of America Press, 2019 338 pages (paperback), $34.95 Th i s i s a b o o k t h a t t r e a t s Catholic-Protestant ecumenism as a subject of both fraternal encounter in Christ and rigorous doctrinal argument” (2). So Thoma s Jo seph Whi t e, OP, int r o duces the approach of Dogma and Ecumenism.

Approaches to ecumenical engagement have been varied over the last century and a half.

Categorizing very broadly, one observes two types of approach. The first, from a more liberal theological persuasion, seeks to emphasize shared, minimalist creedal agreements (at most) and common societal objectives.

Reinhard Hütter’s article in Dogma and Ecumenism accu­ rately captures the results of the various ecumenical endeavors of this type when he quips that though touting as a success what they called “rec­ onciled diversity,” the reality “might more precisely [be] characterize[d] as a compla­ cent state of ‘reconciled indifference’—the reality of a broad, amorphous, undiffer­ entiated mutual acceptance in an overall post-doctrinal ambience” (279).

Then there have been more conservative, traditionalist approaches. One thinks, for instance, of the gathering at Rose Hill College in the spring of 1995, which produced the book Reclaiming the Great Tradition: Evangelicals, Catholics & Orthodox in Dialogue. The aim of the conference was “to test whether an

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ecumenical orthodoxy, solidly based on the clas­ sic Christian faith as expressed in the Scriptures and ecumenical councils” could lead to a kind of “traditionalist ecumenism” that refused any compromise to the integrity, including the doc­ trinal integrity, of the Christian faith (8–9). If the results of the former approach have been something like reconciled indifference, the results of the latter seem only to have managed a clarified impasse. As Peter Kreeft, one of the participants of that conference, so plainly put it, The problem is simple and obvious: religions contradict each other. And contradictories cannot both be true. And unity between the true and the false is false unity. . . . What can we do to solve this problem? If we are honest, the answer is nothing. Nothing that we can see. (21–22) An improvement on indifference, it seems to me, but hardly one that beckons the light of hope.

It is in this dim ecumeni­ cal reality that Dogma and Ecumenism searches for a ray of light. As the above quotation makes evident, Dogma and Ecumenism finds itself in that traditionalist category. True ecumenism will not simply ask how we all may get along, but will ask the “central question”: “What is really true about divine revelation?” (4). In order to pursue that question, the Barth Center at Princeton Theological Seminary and the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies gathered together scholars and theologians from various Protestant and Catholic traditions for a theological sympo­ sium. The subordinate question posed—now quite commonplace—is whether Vatican II has opened up new avenues to explore ecumenism

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without compromise, and whether, on the Protestant side, Barth’s appraisal of Vatican II in his Ad Limina Apostolorum (1967) helps us to explore them.

There are many insightful and enjoyable arti­ cles that nevertheless don’t offer much by way of direct answers to that central question. Matthew Levering offers a keen analysis and Roman Catholic assessment of Barth’s understanding of divine revelation. Katherine Sonderegger offers a matching Protestant assessment of Vatican II’s Dei Verbum. Lewis Ayres’s exposition of Dei Verbum is quite in keeping with what one would expect from a Roman Catholic patristic scholar. Bruce McCormack, also as one would expect, writes on Barth’s doctrine of God. In par­ ticular, McCormack addresses Barth’s concerns with Vatican II’s ambiguous—or as McCormack charitably interprets it, “generous and humble” (152)—answer to the question of whether Muslims and Christians worship the same God. Each of these articles is very engaging. Each models cross-traditional dialogue, uncompro­ mising and yet—as the late John Webster would have put it—patient with one another in their theological debate. But as to the central question of the book, each seems to skirt around its edges.

With respect to the central question, the cream of the crop are the articles from Hans Boersma and Reinhard Hütter. Boersma puts Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio, under the spotlight. He notes the careful and

generous way it formulates the relation of Roman Catholicism to its “separated brethren.”

It may not go unmentioned that the council fathers speak both generously and truthfully when they maintain that for the separa­ tion of the church often “both sides were to blame,” so the council fathers “beg pardon of God and of our separated brethren.” (249) He notes the careful way the fathers talked about Catholic unity and the separated brethren, most famously in Lumen Gentium, where it is stated in paragraph 8 that “this Church [big “C” Church], constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in the Catholic Church,” and that councils intentionally used the Latin sustinere (to subsist) rather than esse (is), presumably to avoid an exact identity of the Church and the Roman Catholic Church.

He notes the use of a “hierarchy of truths” in Unitatis Redintegratio to indicate that “not all doctrines have equal weight,” which enables ecu­ menical dialogue to hone in on differences that concern the center versus differences that con­ cern issues more peripheral (254). All of these, Boersma says, have led many Protestants to believe their ecumenical dialogue with Rome is set for much progress in the near future. For Boersma, the matter is not so clear: “Still, for all these gains . . . I am less confident that an ecumenical breakthrough is just around the

Each of these articles . . . models cross-traditional dialogue, uncompromising and yet—as the late John Webster would have put it—patient with one another in their theological debate.

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corner” (260). The reason for this can be seen in the key question that Boersma, citing Charles Morerod, OP, raises: “Since all Christian com­ munities are divided, should we not say that the Catholic Church is also not blessed with ‘that unity which Jesus Christ wished to bestow’?”

Morerod follows Pope Paul VI and Pope John II with his answer: “Catholic theologians must deal with a paradox: All Christians are divided, and Catholics are in this situation of division, but the Catholic Church alone has never lost full unity” (264–65).

Why are Catholics, who are in a state of divi­ sion, also simultaneously considered by the council as unified Catholics, while Protestants, who are likewise in a state of division, are not simultaneously considered as unified Catholics but “separated brethren”? The reason, argues Boersma, is that the unity of the Catholic Church is inextricably bound with the Catholic magisterium and the “strictly irreformable char­ acter of Catholic teaching” (265). And thus, for Catholics, true unity still means unity in Roman Catholic teaching. This is “why the language of subsistere, the use of a set of concentric circles, and the notion of a hierarchy of truths all fail to bring us to the point of unity” (265–66).

This interpretation is further born out in the article by Reinhard Hütter. According to Hütter, From the Catholic point of view, it is quite obvious that Unitatis Redintegratio appeals to a principle since the days of the apostles . . . that the ecumenical commit­ ment of the Catholic church is irrevocable . . . but that the continual reform rather unfolds concretely under the guidance of the magisterium and in the framework of a developing tradition. (273) Hütter does think that documents such as the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification represent a “complementarity of theological formulation” between Roman Catholics and Protestants, and that this represents a move­ ment even on the side of Catholics (278). But

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So, to the question of whether Vatican II and Karl Barth have opened up and explored new avenues for ecumenism, beyond the impasse, the answer of Dogma and Ecumenism is not really, or not yet, anyhow.

this movement is not a movement away from Catholic teaching of the past but a movement toward the full realization precisely of that past teaching. It is a movement characterized as a developmental unfolding. Looking at Vatican II through the lens of Newman’s theory of doctri­ nal development, Hütter affirms that the council fathers “engaged in an authentic development of doctrine, as part of the journey toward the fullest possible expression and realization of the Church’s catholicity in unity, but not unifor­ mity” (299). For Hütter, “true ecumenism will be committed to one principle and one princi­ ple only, a principle in which genuine unity is already inchoately present,” by which he means present in the Roman communion (310). The Roman Catholic view, then, is that the escha­ tological unity of the church will be achieved not by compromise between Rome and the sep­ arated brethren, nor by achieving something

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including but external to the various Christian traditions. It will be achieved along a historical movement whereby the truth and unity already within the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church is unfolded, eventually enfolding all other tradi­ tions along the way.

So, to the question of whether Vatican II and Karl Barth have opened up and explored new avenues for ecumenism, beyond the impasse, the answer of Dogma and Ecumenism is not really, or not yet, anyhow. It certainly does seem that we are no longer in an ecumenical dead of night. But dawn still feels a great way off. And yet, perhaps it is this itself that beckons hope.

Or rather, the knowledge that gives hope to those who languish in the wee morning hours that the sun will rise is the same knowledge that gives hope to those who long for ecclesial wholeness amid a dispersed and divided people: The Lord God reigns. In Reclaiming the Great Tradition (38), Peter Kreeft admits that we seem to be able to do nothing to bring about unity. But he concludes, “Let him do it, and you will see.”

JOSHUA SCHENDEL is the executive editor of Modern Ref-

ormation.

The Writings of Phillis Wheatley Edited by Vincent Carretta Oxford University Press, 2019 288 pages (hardcover), $125.00 hat do we know about Phillis Wheatley? A small poll among my Facebook friends (the thirtyeight who replied) showed that about one-third has never heard of her, over one-third has heard of her but knows little, and less than one-third is well versed with her biography and writings—usually through anthologies that are introduced in schools.

I imagine this is a good representation of the general public.

W

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I suspect, however, that most of the people who know something about Wheatley are rely­ ing on the popular account that was written by a self-proclaimed descendant of the family that purchased her at a slave market or auc­ tion. This account, Vincent Carretta explains, is largely unsubstantiated and appears moti­ vated by a desire to show that Wheatley lived a good life as a slave and suffered greatly from her emancipation.

The Writings of Phillis Wheatley begins with a chronology and a general introduction to Wheatley’s life and writings. Though not exhaus­ tive, this helpfully sets the historical context of these writings. For those interested in learning more about Wheatley’s life, Carretta has also published the more thorough biography, Phillis Wheatley: Biography of a Genius in Bondage (University of Georgia, 2011), and a shorter compilation of her works, Phillis Wheatley, Complete Writings (Penguin Classics, 2001).

These are highly recommended as companions to this volume.

The introduction to this volume highlights the main points of Phillis’s life, debunks common notions of her as a passive voice for the Wheatley family’s desire for admiration, and outlines the progression of her work as a clear demon­ stration of her growth in maturity, skills, and political and social awareness. It also provides a chronological overview of the critical reception of her work and highlights the importance and remarkable effects of her writings during her life. Phillis Wheatley deserves a more serious study than critics and scholars have afforded her until now. This volume should serve to fill that lacuna.

The merits of The Writings of Phillis Wheatley lie largely in its thoroughness and organization.

It is the most complete collection of Wheatley’s surviving works, including the variations the poet produced, which contribute to our under­ standing of the development of her thoughts.

From the start, Wheatley’s writings have gen­ erated different responses. Some early readers were simply baffled, wondering how a girl so

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young, who had freshly arrived from a suppos­ edly “dark” continent, could write classical poetry that betrayed a level of education rare even among white women.

While some expressed their admiration, others chose the comfort of denial. Standing on Enlightenment notions of reason as the foremost mark of humanity, they insisted that Africans had never produced any literary, artis­ tic, or scientific work and consequently were subhuman. Most famously, Thomas Jefferson undervalued Wheatley’s work by saying, “Religion indeed has produced a Phyllis Whately [sic]; but it could not produce a poet.” Given this historical and philosophical context, it is no wonder that Wheatley could find a pub­ lisher only in England, where discussions on the abolition of slavery and the inherent value of all human beings were already underway.

But American slave owners and the immediate children of the Enlightenment were not the only ones to criticize Wheatley’s writings. In the 1960s, when Black activists scoured their past to bring new appreciation for African accomplishments, they either dismissed or outright accused Wheatley of being a traitor to her race, making her one of the first victims of an incipient “cancel culture.” Their negative judgment was largely based on Wheatley’s poem “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” which starts with these lines (56): ‘Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land, Taught my benighted soul to understand That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too: Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.

In some ways, their judgment paralleled Jefferson’s. In their view, she was a product of

MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

blind adherence to the religion promoted by her white slaveowners, not a worthy representative of her race.

In our century, there has been a renewed interest in Wheatley and in her writings, and she is now unanimously recognized as the founder of African-American literature. For anyone who wants to take this poet seriously and examine her poems in their proper context, Carretta’s The Writings of Phillis Wheatley is an invaluable and unparalleled tool.

The value of this book is not limited to lit­ erary critics and scholars of social studies.

Wheatley’s theology is of paramount importance in the understanding of both her message and her choices.

I believe that the inability to understand this foundational aspect of her life has crippled the judgment of many crit­ ics who, unacquainted with either church history or the Scriptures, have discounted Wheatley’s faith as a “white” imposition.

For example, her assertion in a letter to John Thornton that if the Wheatleys had not agreed to her manumission, she hoped she would “will­ ingly Submit to Servitude to be free in Christ” is puzzling to anyone who is not aware of its biblical context. So is her prayer, “Let me be a Servant of Christ and that is the most perfect freedom.” Christians will recognize these as a clear reference to 1 Corinthians 7:22: “For he who was called in the Lord as a bondservant is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise, he who was free when called is a bondservant of Christ.”

These are statements that have to be taken in the context of Paul’s larger discussion on the attitude Christians should maintain in their different social roles, and in the light of each believer’s inherent value as an individual “bought with a price.” In this context, Paul’s

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encouragement is balanced by the exhortation, “If you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity” (1 Cor. 7:21, 23).

Wheatley had a thorough understanding of Paul’s full message and of the overarching biblical teaching of God’s sovereignty and provi­ dence. It was this understanding that allowed her to see God’s hand in the events of her life, including her enslavement, and find reason for gratitude. This attitude is evident not only in her most-quoted poem about being brought to America, but also in her numerous poems of comfort for people who had lost their loved ones. This is seen in her letters to her best friend Obour Tanner and in many other writings.

Carretta understands how Wheatley is able to reconcile her faith in God’s sovereignty with human efforts to grant respect, dignity, and jus­ tice to all. He writes,

“Wheatley’s position is completely consistent with a belief in an omniscient and benevolent deity. But that belief does not necessarily imply that she either accepts or endorses slavery.”

Wheatley’s position is completely consis­ tent with a belief in an omniscient and benevolent deity. But that belief does not necessarily imply that she either accepts or endorses slavery. (186) The Writings of Phillis Wheatley helps us understand how a woman with a profound trust in God’s love and righteousness could deal with the contradictions of her time, encourage King George III and George Washington to rule justly, and openly denounce the hypocrisy of those who fought for freedom while keeping slaves in their homes. In our uncertain and volatile times, Wheatley’s analysis of the issues of her day and the biblical answers she presented can stimulate fruitful reflections.

The notes at the end of Carretta’s book are a delight to any note lover and include a wealth of information about people and places that will enrich the reader’s understanding of the context in which Wheatley wrote.

This volume should be made available in the library of every university, college, and semi­ nary. Professors would do well to include it in their curriculum of historical, theological, or

66

literary studies in order to equip a new genera­ tion of scholars to gain a better understanding of Black voices in eighteenth-century America and to avoid the prejudices and hurried conclusions of early critics.

The Writings of Phillis Wheatley, as already mentioned, doesn’t need to be limited to scholars. Carretta’s enthusiasm and engaging writing style make this a pleasurable read for anyone interested in history and poetry. The only obstacle is the price, but a wider distribu­ tion of this volume in public libraries should remedy this problem.

SIMONETTA CARR is the author of numerous books, includ-

ing the series Christian Biographies for Young Readers (Reformation Heritage Books) and Broken Pieces and the God Who Mends Them: Schizophrenia through a Mother’s Eyes (P&R, 2019).

VOL.30 NO.2 MARCH/APRIL 2021

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05

B AC K PAG E

Pray for the City

by Michael Horton

xiled from the land, the Jews were exhorted by the Lord to use their days wisely. God prosecuted his case against Judah by giving the prophet Jeremiah a letter to read to the exiles (Jer. 29). Babylon was not their home, to be sure, but they were not to spend these years wringing their hands, lamenting for “the good old days” as in fact they had been doing.

The “good old days”? According to Jeremiah’s letter, they had succumbed to a life of idolatry, sexual immorality, and oppression of the poor (especially alien residents), cheerfully embrac­ ing the “lying prophets” whose predictions of prosperity had gone against Jeremiah’s calls for repentance. The truth was that they had been carted off to Babylon in chains because they had completely violated the covenant. They had been in bondage long before God exiled them.

Yet the Lord was still with them, promis­ ing a new day when he would turn their sorrow into joy. Until then, while they remained in Babylon, the Lord exhorted them to: (1) go about their daily lives, plant vineyards, and share the common ups and downs with their pagan neighbors; (2) grow in numbers, both through covenant families and by witnessing to their neighbors about their hope in Yahweh’s prom­ ise; (3) ignore the false prophets; and (4) “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jer. 29:7).

When barbarians were sacking the “eternal city” of Rome, Augustine wrote The City of God.

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“What will become of the church,” Jerome then asked, “now that Rome has fallen?” But Augustine realized that the real question wasn’t whether the church could continue without Rome, but whether the church—wherever it was—would remain faithful to the word. Would it, like Judah, corrupt that word with false doctrine and worship? Would its witness be tar­ nished by its dependence on the temporal sword rather than on the word and Spirit? Would the lives of Christians be noticeably different from their preoccupations and loves driven by a nihil­ istic worldview?

That was the call God gave to Judah through Jeremiah and later to the apostles in their letters to Christ’s people as exiles and pilgrims in this present evil age. Then during a time of renewed paganism, Augustine also exhorted the church to be true to the word. It’s the same today for us.

As with the ancient Jews in Babylon, we dwell in a place that is only temporary. Like them, God calls us to settle, plant vineyards, raise families, and grow in depth and number as we proclaim the gospel to the ends of the earth. It’s a strat­ egy of thanksgiving to fuel our patience in hope as we await our coming king, and to encourage us in our responsibilities to love and serve our neighbors—even our enemies—as those, for all we know, who have also been chosen by God to inherit the everlasting city in Christ.

MICHAEL HORTON is the J. Gresham Machen Professor

of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California in Escondido.

VOL.30 NO.2 MARCH/APRIL 2021

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HE HAS . . . GIVEN US HIS WORD IN THE SCRIPTURES SO WE CAN UNDERSTAND WHO HE IS, WHO WE ARE, HOW WE ARE SAVED, AND HOW WE ARE TO WORSHIP HIM AND SERVE ONE ANOTHER. ALL OF OUR OBSERVATIONS FROM THE NATURAL WORLD HAVE TO BE READ THROUGH THE LENS OF SCRIPTURE. R AC H E L G R E E N M I L L E R