Tony's on Main

I last ate at Tony's about eight years ago and had their “White Chicken Nachos” (chicken, white cheese sauce and nachos). I met a friend there today after he found a coupon for Tony's lunch buffet in the paper. I didn't recall them having a buffet before — perhaps they did, but I think they've expanded quite a bit since I was last there — but it sounded interesting to me.

What a pleasant surprise! They had toasted ravioli, numerous St. Louis-style pizzas, a beautiful salad bar, white chicken nachos, some kind of chicken, burgers, two soups and cake on the buffet. I had the majority of those things and probably far more of them than I should have, at that. The pizza was quite good and I love toasted ravioli, so that was a treat. The cake was good too. Normally, the buffet is $6.99, but with the coupon it was a dollar or two cheaper than that.

All I can say is, if you happen to be on Main Street in St. Charles on a weekday, give Tony's a visit. I was pleasantly surprised and I think you would be too.

Late Night Haiku XXIII

LXIV. Shadows dance across walls,
A soft, playful twirl, gentle — gentle,
Oh, unreal yet real!

LXV. A cricket sings softly,
What tales does he sing aloud
Amidst the evening?

LXVI. In the cave's soft light,
What fantastic things can be,
That show not above?

Friday Feast on Sunday

Michael did this today, so I thought I would too.

Appetizer
List 3 emotions you experienced this week.
Joy, melancholy and loneliness.

Soup
Name a car you’d love to have.
Hmm, that's tough. I'm really very happy with my Volkswagen Bug. But, if I were going to select something different and more expensive than what I can afford, maybe a VW Eos — I love the combination of the hard top convertible with a moon roof, plus it has V-Dub's absolutely lovely 2.0T (turbocharged, that is) engine… as a rule, I don't speed, but I love how the 2.0T purrs along and begs for speed even more than my Bug's quite peppy 2.5L 5 cylinder. If I were to go for something with a different marquee, I'd probably go for an Audi A4 Quattro (ok, yes, I'm still in the Volkswagen family) or maybe a BMW 3-Series. The big thing would be that it would be a German car.

(More than likely, I'd go with another Volkswagen — they all have their charm. I wouldn't mind a New Beetle Cabriolet, Jetta 2.0T, Passat, Toureg, or — hey, if someone wanted to give such a beautiful and expensive car away — a Phaeton. I have sat in a Phaeton and it is, well, impressive. A nice VW TDI engine in any of those, so that I could enjoy the great fuel milage and lower average per gallon cost of a diesel, wouldn't be bad either.)

Salad
Describe your typical morning routine.
I don't have a completely typical routine because my schedule changes from day to day. I usually will try to get up early enough to read the paper for awhile before I head off. I am methodical about the paper: I start with the lightest section (e.g. I get my daily dose of Pearls Before Swine) , read through the business, then the front page, and then the op-ed's as the cherry on the sundae. Then I get ready, pray (I probably should do that earlier, but I find my concentration is better if I wake up first) and off I go.

Main Course
Have you ever emailed someone famous? If so, who, and what did you say to them? Did they reply?
Depends how you define famous. I have e-mailed editors of magazines and received replies. Nack in the heyday of the old OFB, I conversed fairly frequently with key figures of the Free/Open Source Software movement.

Dessert
Do you listen to podcasts? If so, which ones?

Nope, I sure don't. Call me old fashioned, call me an literature guy, but I prefer my RSS feeds to point to text. If I want radio, the legendary 50,000 watts of KMOX 1120 beckon. Although most of their programming is now podcasted for those interested…

Are We Asking the Wrong Questions?

My friend Ed raised some good points last week (while I was immersed in finals) in a response to my last post on Barth.

Ed notes that in his opinion, Barth is asking the wrong question when he delves into the inerrancy of the Bible, and likewise, I am really going no where useful in attempting to create a deconstructionist framework around the same basic principles as Barth. So, are we asking the wrong question?

Perhaps, but I think it is an important wrong question at least. I was reading some assigned sections of Paul Tillich's Systematic Theology the other day (don't worry Ed, I'm not going to defend Tillich), and he was busy making the distinction between kerygmatic and apologetic theology. Barth, he correctly notes, is in the kerygmatic camp: Barth's intention (which I think he is fairly good at sticking to) is to let the Bible ask the questions and provide the answers. Tillich on the other hand wants to pose modern questions to the Bible, the apologetic approach. I think in as much as Barth is sticking to questions from the Bible, Ed wouldn't complain about Barth's approach.

But, Barth does worry about inerrancy and a bunch of other things, and I would say that is rightly so. My posts have essentially formed the prolegomena of my “theology,” and the sections of Barth we are dealing with are likewise from his prolegomena. When Barth rejects the inerrancy of the Bible and shifts the focus to the self-Revelation of Christ which is witnessed to in the Bible, he is setting the base assumption from which he will proceed. I would argue that the question is not perhaps the most relevant — we spend way too much time arguing about inerrancy — but at the same time, Barth does his readers a favor by explaining his methodology up front. He really must deal with the question, because people want to deal with that question.

It all comes down to admitting we all use a methodology. We cannot escape operating within frameworks. No matter how much we try to get to the core of the text (not only with the Bible, but with any text), we are still stuck interpreting it from within layers of frameworks — frameworks of experience, frameworks of knowledge of other texts, frameworks of personality and so on. We can skip over the question of interpretation, because it is primarily abstract and has little to do with doing, but I would assert that does not bring us closer to the meaning of the Bible, because we are still going to be reading it within the frameworks that we are stuck in. Admitting that does not suddenly fix the problem, but it brings us closer to the source of the problem. Ed writes,

If the audience is culturally, geographically and historically far away from Jesus' fresh footprints in the sand, then it's yours to also bring them to that understanding, place and time. As some put it, we are to incarnate the Word, bring it/Him to life. Absolutes were never possible from the moment of the Fall, so don't fret. God expects obedience. Surely that assumes what He expects of you He will put within your reach? What other purpose is there for calling you into His Kingdom? Theology from a Spiritual viewpoint embraces your best understanding of what Old and New Testaments testified.

I think he is right that we need to try to read the Bible from the perspective of its authors, but I would argue that in doing so, we are trying to establish a particular critical framework, we are not abolishing the work of the prolegomena altogether. The traditional views of Higher Criticism, from which Barth is working, actually argues that we should ground the text historically.

Ed's contention is that we must quit just focusing on using our reasoning abilities and actually live the Gospel. I agree. However assuming we want to understand what we are living, I think a good first step is to analyze our mode of interpreting what it is we are to live. We will live differently if we proceed under Schleiermacher's assumptions than if we proceed under Barth's. But not only that, but consider if we read the Bible under Pentecostal assumptions? Clearly living the Gospel takes on a very different light in that context. Barth's observation that we must focus on the living Word of God (Christ) as revelation is critical to that, because Christ's self-revelation to us gives us the confidence to then live what we believe.

To some extent, it is absurd to live out any text, because we cannot ever completely understand the text. Here we have our paradoxical absurdity for our inner Kierkegaardians to delight in. But the Christian is not living a text, but living in the eternal revelation of God in Christ.

Semester est Perfectus

Well, I turned in my last project of the semester today, and I am now off for a whole three weeks! More Greek starts in June, but I have at least a few weeks to catch up on things outside of Covenant, which is good. It has been a joy to be there this last semester, but I'm happy I can take care of the things I've let lapse.

Like reading the blogs of my fine blogosphere friends. And publishing articles. And… well, lots of things. I'm also reading Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling at the moment, which is nice (as odd as it sounds to say fear and trembling is nice). It feels good to read something of substance that is not for an assignment. I have a ton of books I want to read this summer, though I probably won't get them all, top on my list of projects would be: Christ and Culture (H. Richard Niebuhr), the Brothers Karazmov (Fydor Dostoyevsky), the Four Quartets (T.S. Eliot), and Purgatorio (Dante). What are y'all reading at the moment?

But, for now, I think a good thing to do would be to enjoy getting some sleep, so good night.

War Requiem

I saw Benjamin Britten's War Requiem tonight. I wasn't feeling so well, so I didn't enjoy at as much as I should have, but it was quite good. And I am feeling much better now, so I can think back on it with happily enough. I'd never heard it before, but it was a real feast for the ears, with the Latin for the Mass for the Dead interspersed with Wilfred Owen's English poetry reflecting on World War I. Owen is best known for his graphic poem Dulce et Decorum Est, which you can read here.

Uplifting? Mostly depressing, but in a way uplifting with the return to “Kyrie, Kyrie, Elison.” Beautiful. And it sounded like paradise at the end though when the choirs were singing and (in as much as I could tell), I believe the soldier had arrived in heaven.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine:
et lux perpetua luceat eis.

It is a blessing to have a symphony of the caliber of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in this town.

To Someone I Have Written

Sometimes I should just speak plainly, but I am too fearful to do so. Such a case happened this week; instead of saying what I wanted to say directly, I did so subtly. It might surprise some of you who see me in polemic mode on my blog, but I am often told I'm too subtle (I can be extremely, extremely subtle at times). Sometimes it does not matter, other times I regret terribly not saying something directly when I had a chance. Like I said, this was the case with someone this week (who may or may not see this, and who may or may not realize who I am referring to). I regret my lack of boldness, but even now am merely using this post as a less subtle, but still subtle message. I think the thing that makes me so regretful today is that it reminds me of another time I was too subtle almost precisely two years ago, and what I said too subtly then, I never had a chance to really say again.

So, I was kicking myself all day today contemplating this occurrence from the other day. “What if, what if, what if.” Between that and some other troublesome events, it seemed a melancholy day in many ways. I suppose it is the poet's curse (not that I claim to be worthy to wear the mantle of poet); one who dabbles in that type of magic known as words is like the prophetess Cassandra of Greek mythology, speaking things in ways that do reveal the intended meaning in one way or another but nevertheless are often doomed not to be picked up on. In some ways, I wish I didn't have the ability to be subtle, so I would have to just say what I should say when I should say it. Instead, I am like Fyodor Dostoevsky's Underground Man or T.S. Eliot's J. Alfred Prufrock, unable to quit making revisions so as to actually just say the thing. To make matters worse, I do not always pick up on subtlety returned to me, so sometimes, maybe the message gets through but I do not realize it. That is even worse. Maybe that is what happened this week. Maybe it did get through and it was politely ignored. Who knows. I don't.

Perhaps this is good; I overanalyze things, yes, but sometimes I analyze them correctly. Maybe there is good reason for favoring the subtle approach, and instead I'd be regretting not having used subtlety here now had I been direct. Sometimes, though, I wish life was a “Choose Your Own Adventure” where you could look and see how both choices turned out and pick the best one. But, of course it is not.

Well, even those this post is about a cryptic as any I have posted and really doesn't resolve my dilemma, I feel a bit better writing it out. No wonder I like Kierkegaard and, really, Barth; both were skilled at indirection, vagueness and subtlety as a method of writing. If only I could put it to such good use as they did! If you've talked to me this week, you can go back and read through the stuff to look for “the Da Butler Code,” I suppose. No promises it is worthwhile though.

Barth, Scripture and Inerrancy

Though of the three points, I am least familiar with Barth's view on Scripture, I think I am justified in saying that while Barth rejects inerrancy, he would certainly approve of the idea that the Bible is authoritative in matters of faith and morals. Barth was a huge advocate of returning to Biblically-based theology, which is obvious to anyone who opens up his massive 13 book, 7,000+ page Church Dogmatics and looks at all of the footnotes. But, Barth followed the line of thought of Higher Criticism, which frequently rejects the inerrancy of Scripture, citing internal contradictions, the varying views of authors and the like. A contention of mine is that this is not the fault of Higher Criticism so much as it is of Evangelicals, who generally have avoided using critical methods out of fear and hence forfeited the field to liberal theologians while the discipline was still in its infancy. As a religious studies student, I spent a decent amount of time in the realm of higher criticism, and do not think that higher criticism necessitates a liberal view of Scripture, and even accepting hypotheses such as the Wellhausen (JEDP) source view of the development of the Torah need not necessitate a rejection of infallibility (in point to fact, Deut. 34:5 calls into question the view that Moses was sole author of the Torah).

That said, whatever I may think of JEDP, Second and Third Isaiah, the Q community and other good higher critical concepts, Barth felt that higher criticism's insights required him to reject Scriptural infallibility, while still being one of the most Biblically focused theologians in ages. I can hear your question now: “How can he believe the stuff in the Bible, how can he take it for more than a grain of salt, if he says there are errors? If you pull into question part of the Bible, the whole thing collapses.” Such a response is not a straw man I am creating, but my own genuine view of the issue from not too many years ago.

Imagine you open up a book entitled the History of Western Civilization and start reading it. It describes the rise and fall of the Greek and Roman empires, the spread of Christianity, the Renaissance and all kinds of other things you know to be true. As you read along, you pick up some facts you did not know, but because they come from an authority that seems reasonable, you accept them from that authority. You may stumble on a point or two you disagree with or know to be of dubious quality, but that does not mean you will throw the book out — you will still probably accept most of it. For Barth and others (such as C.S. Lewis), this is precisely the view they take to the Bible. They may feel there are errors, but they are confident the vast majority is truthful. We've set the bar too high. We tell people they must either accept the Bible as infallible or reject it entirely, and in doing so, we add a difficult requirement for faith for many people, which goes entirely against the principle of union with Christ as the one and only point of what it means to be a Christian (anyone in Dr. Douglass's Spiritual and Ministry Formation class will hopefully appreciate that point). I'm not saying I agree with Barth, but I think to attack him too seriously for it is missing the bigger picture.

But, you say, “The Bible is different from a history text! It is the sole authority of our faith — sola Scriptura.” I've said that too. Let's start with the easy critique: sola Scriptura does not come out of the Bible, so you have invoked an external authority (no matter how worthy) already. But let's ignore that bone of contention. Does one really believe the Bible because it says one should believe it? Does one believe the Bible is without error because of its claims to being useful? If so, it has become an idol for that person, because one is essentially turning the Bible into a god that can be listened to. Moreover, this is not helpful for the non-believer, because you are still appealing to an authority, one must always appeal to an authority at some point. Most Protestants appeal to the Bible as authority. Catholics will appeal to the Pope and the Magisterium of the Church. Neo-Orthodox Christians appeal to Christ as the incarnate Revelation of God.

An appeal to Christ. This is the beauty, in my opinion, of Barth's theology. We are told by John that “the Word was made flesh,” and the Neo-Orthodox believer will say, “absolutely, that's our point.” In appealing to the Word, Barth advocates not attempting to read Scripture in isolation, instead appealing to the Scripture enlived and made true as it can be only through the indwelling of God's Spirit. Neo-Orthodoxy, sharing something in common with the unrelated, but similar sounding, Orthodox branch of Christianity, is Christocentric rather than Bibliocentric. Hence, the authority of Scripture is rooted not in its accuracy alone, but in the fact that God reveals Himself personally and actively to us in the reading of the Word. This does not mean the Bible cannot be infallible in the Neo-Orthodox system: on the contrary, it makes perfect sense to affirm the infallibility of Scripture and still argue that God's self-Revelation is not Scripture but rather Christ to whom Scripture is the best and chosen witness. Note that the rooting of Biblical authority in the self-Revelation of God is not really all that different from John Calvin's own view on Biblical authority, which appeals to self-authentication by the Holy Spirit. Basically, Barth is making the same point with more “twenty dollar words.”

Let me relay a realization that hit me one day. I was talking to one of my mentors about coming to Christ a few weeks ago, and something dawned on me. He mentioned he guessed the church of his childhood never really preached the Gospel because he did not hear it until much later. I felt the same way about my past, but that did not make sense for me, because I grew up in the same church I am in now, and I think it is unreasonable to suggest my pastors suddenly changed their tune. Instead, it dawned on me, that despite reading the Bible and despite hearing the preaching, I was unable to go from hearing and seeing to comprehending because God had not yet chosen to reveal His saving grace to me. Mark 4.11-12 strikes me in this context:

And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that

“they may indeed see but not perceive,
and may indeed hear but not understand,
lest they should turn and be forgiven.” (ESV)

This is not proto-Gnosticism, rather it is a recognition that God's truth is something that can be understood only by the power of His Spirit and His revelation in the Word made Flesh. Plenty of people far smarter than I have rejected the message of the Bible and this truth is a sobering reminder that it is not by my wisdom that I avoided following them down that path. That, to me, is what Barth reminds us of, and it is something we as Evangelicals ought to heed.

The value of Barth's view of Scripture is not his view on infallibility precisely, but rather the fact that he shakes us out of our comfort zone that often idolizes the Bible. In doing so, he reminds us that we need not waste our time constantly sweating every fire that critics may lodge against the Bible's errorlessness (all of which is really a mind game anyway, since we do not have the original manuscripts that are all that can be defended as infallible anyway). One can defend the Bible's integrity until one turns blue in the face, and without God's spirit no one will be convinced. Instead we must rest on Christ alone, the full and complete self-Revelation of God who lived and died to bring us into union with Him; it is only through Him and by Him that we have any hope of understanding the Bible.

Toward a New Theology, Part I

I'm tired, so I'm afraid I'm probably not going to write this as clearly as I should, but for what it is worth, here is a little stream of consciousness on my thoughts about theology.

I've been contemplating what I would include in the prolegomena of my systematic theology dogmatics (I'm going to be good Barthian and not call it systematic), if I were to write such a thing right now. I certainly hope to write a set of dogmatics someday. But what interpretive framework would I use?

I'd probably look to my two patron theologians, which incidentally are the two great systematizers: Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth. From Aquinas, I'd be tempted to include a set of proofs for God in my framework. But, acknowledging Kant, Hume, et. al., I'd probably need to deconstruct my own arguments. This might be a good thing, since that would lead me to the point of crisis where I could argue for the Kierkegaardian-Barthian leap of faith. So far so good.

Now, if I followed the assumptions of Barth, I shouldn't create an external framework at all. The Bible should provide its own framework. However, even reading the Bible requires a linguistic/socio-cultural framework so that's not entirely possible. So, in this skeptical age, maybe a good starting point would be to pick out my Biblical interpretation framework right at the beginning.

This brings me back to my basic school of literary criticism. I may have said on here before that I work primarily from the assumptions of Old Historicism, New Criticism (Formalism) and Mimeticism (Jungian/Archetypal). Given that I was a religious studies major in college, it should come as no surprise that I have been primarily trained in applying historicism as an interpretive framework to the Bible — Old Historicism looks at the history of the author and his culture to discern what the author intended to say. My critical technique is dialectical, because New Criticism rejects the notion that we can know the author or what he or she intended to say. Mimetic Criticism looks at how the text represents the external reality; I juxtapose that with Jungian psychoanalysis. Traditionally Jungian interpretation is placed inside Reader Response criticism, but my basic argument is that I am interested in looking at the objective archetypes the author is aware of (consciously or not) and representing them, as opposed to looking at how the reader is alerted to their own archetypal awareness.

But, there is a plot twist at this point. This dialectical approach seems to be hurdling me toward an eventual meeting with Deconstructionism or New Historicism. Lately, I'm thinking I'm assuming the New Historicist position of the majority of my English professors, a position I previously had rejected. However, while many New Historicists are looking for a meta-narrative of dialectical materialism (e.g. they are doing Marxist criticism), I would propose a meta-narrative of covenant and election (which circularly could be supported by the Bible).

Because New Historicism assumes many of the techniques of my traditional three school approach, I could retain the formal (generic) analysis, the analysis of the cultural background and — as part of the meta-narrative — Jungian analysis. New Historicism is fairly honest in that it takes a cue from deconstructionism and admits meaning is endlessly deferred, essentially. We will use a meta-narrative interpretive framework with the goal of understanding the original cultures, rather than claiming we can actually ever completely understand the original cultures.

Ultimately, this does not matter because theology is merely a witness to the divine revelation of God: the Word of God, Jesus Christ. It is only through His self-revelation to us that the endless deferment may be set aside.

More later.

TQ: So whatya doing??

Mark provides the following interesting TQ meme with eight interesting questions:

1. So, what are you currently reading?
Well, so far today, I've read some good excerpts from Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics for Church History class (go Barth!) and another set of excerpts from A. A. Hodge and John Murray for another class. I'm about to resume Getting the Bugs Out, an interesting history of Volkswagen by David Kiley. It focuses on the Volkswagen of America, it's marketing strategy and how it made a comeback after almost becoming irrelevant in the early 90's. It has a lot of nice insights into the New Beetle and a good history of the origins of the Beetle and Volkswagen from Porche's dream.

2. So, what are you currently listening too?
I just opened Jeremy Camp's Restored a few days ago. I've also been listening to Evanescence's the Open Door and Plumb's Beautiful Lumps of Coal.

3. So, what are you currently watching?
Nothing.

4. So, what are you doing for exercise?
Enjoying the nice weather by walking.

5. So, what are you surfing?
My usual blogs, news web sites, Facebook and Wikipedia (which I used to refresh myself on meta-narrative tonight).

6. So, what are you doing to relax?
This meme.

7. So, what are you writing?
In my head, I'm working on my book, which I'm not quite ready to reveal the subject of… yet. Otherwise, I just finished some book reviews for a class, and I'm currently working on a paper for a class. I'm writing it in the form of a dialogue (in the style of David Hume's dialogues).

8. So, what are you praying for?
Lots, but here's one that I should post here: my uncle and a family friend, both of whom have cancer. Your prayers are coveted for them. Some other prayers I think I'll leave off my blog, but I can explain by e-mail if anyone really wants to know.

Note: The questions on this page written by Mark are governed by the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.5 license. I believe my responses are allowed under fair use and therefore are not licensed under the Creative Commons license (I don't want people messing with adapting my personal opinions, thank you very much).