giving up hope

i like paul ricoeur. heaps. i'm writing 15,000 words on him (well, trying to).

but sometimes i don't get him. but that's also when i should most try and get him.

he reflected on Jesus' words 'whoever would save his life must lose it', and figured this included losing even the hope of the resurrection. [Critique and Conviction, 155-8]

his point is simple - holding on to the hope of reward means that you haven't given everything up. so his question is, in effect, would you still follow Jesus even if there was no new creation to look forward to?

so after my initial recoil, i think i get his point, but then i ask, who is this Jesus that bids us give up our all? he is the one who makes promises he can keep: 'in my fathers house there are many rooms,' 'blessed is the one who is persecuted on my behalf, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,' and so on.

the life lost that it may be found is the life that builds up treasure in heaven and not on earth. faith is trust in the promise maker to keep his promises, despite appearances.

perhaps what Ricoeur is tapping in to is what it meant for Job to trust God chinnam (for naught)? but still, while this may represent one shade of meaning, it is not the final word, but qualifies what it is to trust in this life, without saying anything about the next.

Rowan Williams on Scripture

i stumbled across this as i stumbled across this old post from the blogging parson. and it's gold.

his argument is

1. christians are people who read scripture - or have scripture read to them.
2. hearing implies silence, we sit as listeners.
3. we imagine that the original audience are in some sense one with us.
he writes:

the ‘time’ in which we hear Scripture is not like ordinary time. We are contemporary with events remote in history; we are caught up in the time of recitation, when we are to reimagine ourselves. For this moment, we exist simply as listeners, suspending our questions while the question is put to us of how we are to speak afresh about ourselves. We stand at a point of origin, and, as listeners, our primary responsibility is to receive.

it sounds like he's already thought through what i want to say. and said it better.

but he's drawn out well for me the implications of being a Christian listener.

further down in his essay he fleshes out both what it looks like to read a text as a listener, as well as to receive said text.

anyway, it was good.

scripture sanctifies - stephen fowl

i'm still trying to work out what my project is about. it's still something to do with Paul Ricœur. and how we read the bible.

along the way i thought i'd share this gem from Stephen E. Fowl, who is obviously a fan of John Webster's 2003 Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch.

The Spirit's work in the operation of God's providential ordering of things sanctifies the means and processes that lead to the production of Scripture, turning them to God's holy purposes without diminishing their human, historical character. Thus, in calling Scripture "holy," Christians are not making a comprehensive claim about the purity of the motives of the writers and editors of Scripture. These may well have been decidedly unholy. Even in the face of such unholy motives and actions, Christians are committed to the belief that the triune God has revealed a passionate desire to have fellowship with them, even in the light of their manifest sin. Scripture is chief among God's providentially ordered gifts directed to bringing about reconciliation and fellowship with God despite human sin. Thus, Scripture is holy because of its divinely wiled role in making believers holy. [p12]

Stephen Fowl, Theological Interpretation of Scripture, Paternoster 2009.

i think i like the way the acknowledges potential historical-critical issues yet the importance of the Spirit. i'm not sure how far i'd agree with his 'decidedly unholy', but he could just be suggesting people didn't sit down with a view to writing 'Scripture'. which is surely true. but maybe (hopefully?) they did think they were writing true things about God?

temporality and baptism

reading Ricœur on temporality in narrative, who says with reference to Genesis 1 & 2-3 (and even the Abraham narrative) that we don't need to see there being a relative temporality. that is, the story of Abraham isn't necessarily a succession from Genesis 1-11; in a sense they could be co-terminus. they are stitched together in the narrative not to imply succession but so we might 'superpose' them on one another.

Colossians 2.12-14 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

i wonder if there is a sense in which, at baptism, when there is a sense that as you close your eyes to go into the water, you are to picture yourself as grasping on to Jesus as he descended to the place of the dead, and as you continue to grasp, you are raised with him in his resurrection, being recreated. so while it is true that Jesus' death and resurrection 2000 years ago brings about my salvation, is it not also true that he dies and is resurrected when you are baptised, that it is 'as if' that great salvation event were happening then and there.

i've been reading Ricœur's book 'Thinking Biblically' and the chapter 'Thinking Creation' and have obviously some thinking to go!

projected project

a couple of years ago i read a bit of Paul Ricœur at a reading group, from figuring the sacred. i didn't understand much, but over the next couple of years at college i kept trying to read him, using him for essays on the historical fall and historicity versus theological intent.

broadly speaking, he's been really stimulating for my thinking about hermeneutics - how we read the bible. Ricœur's big thing, best understood in contrast, is an hermeneutic of trust, not one of suspicion.

so what i hope to do is look at his work, and think about how some other guys in the hermeneutics field do it - people like Brevard Childs, John Goldingay, Walter Brueggemann, Francis Watson.

it doesn't mean i fully get him yet, nor do i expect to after this year. but i hope to be challenged about how to read the old and new testaments on their own and together, and to be able to keep pushing others to do their own thinking.

Ricoeur on Evil

i'm still reading through Paul Ricoeur's Figuring the Sacred (Augsburg Fortress, 1995), but i really liked this on evil in the introduction:

While the Bible does offer a theodicy of retribution in which the victims, because of their faithlessness, are held responsible for the violence inflicted upon them, Ricoeur argues instead for a wisdom theodicy of lamentation and anger where the perennial cries of Why me? and How long? are seen as the most adequate responses to unmitigated evil.
Mark I. Wallace, introduction, Figuring the Sacred, p32.

having read David Bentley Hart on evil (the doors of the sea) and Miroslav Volf on forgiveness (exclusion and embrace), this is close to where Hart ends up (for whom God is always opposed to evil) - and quite different to Volf (who emphasises the responsibility of both the perpetrator and victim in seeking reconciliation).

i like the way he's not systematising, but using the bible's language we see in the context of suffering in evil.

book reading tizzy

i've loved getting my head into some books of late.
first came Gulliver's Travels (via gutenburg.org), then i finished off Calvin's Institutes, then Ben Elton's Inconceivable, then the diary of Anne Frank, then a penguin excerpt from Herodotus, Xerxes Invades Greece.

Gulliver was great, particularly as i'd only ever read a dumbed-down version of the first part, the voyage to Lilliput (which the supposed abomination of a film is broadly based on). what was striking was the decline in humanity evidenced in each of the four parts. the God-fearer Swift was interested to show the absolute depravity of man, which is revealed bit-by-bit throughout. indeed, by the end of the book (SPOILER ALERT) Gulliver cannot stand the sight nor smell of others of his species, so disappointed is he with the race he was unfortunate enough to be born of.

Calvin was long. and often concerned with defending orthodox Christianity against people who are long-gone and arguments long-forgotten. i was struck with his thoughts on baptism, as well as confirmation, which i will write about soon. i'll probably have to read it all again when i finish college - the beginning, read two years ago on the bus, is a distant memory.

Elton is a great writer, whether for TV or his novels. he did a great job in this book of making the whole vibe associated with trying to conceive a heck of a lot lighter. this isn't why i was reading it - but the depths of despair i understand can be associated with this issue, when cut with Elton's humour, couldn't hurt. i think...

Anne Frank was great. seeing the war from a little teeny-bopper's perspective (i refuse to say tweenager) was very different. i've talked to people who were her age but in Australia (my nan) - a thoroughly different perspective - as well as someone her age in Germany (my Gast-Oma). it's funny to think that they probably all would've gotten along well. what i found hard reading it was as the dates got closer to (SPOILER ALERT) her being found and taken to a concentration camp was her ignorance. the last entry shows her to be a typical selfish child - like all 14 year old girls the world over since time immemorial - who just happens to be in hiding with seven others in Nazi-occupied Holland. so she whinges to her diary - and that's it. no warning. the hagiography in the beginning of the book was a bit odd, yet not unexpected. but a great example of the pointlessness of war, greed, xenophobia, that catches all and sundry up in its wake.

finally, Xerxes. this is where the inspiration for the movie the 300 came from. a couple of years ago i read Thucydides' the Peloponnesian War, which has a very similar style. frustratingly, there are 9 and a half blank pages, and the story isn't finished - (SPOILER ALERT) Athens is sacked - and the book stops! what happens to the ships that have sailed down south? does Xerxes make it across the isthmus? of all the relatively inane things that are included, why include them, and not finish this part of the story, AND leave blank pages? what are you doing with Penguin Epics mr/mrs Penguin? anyway, it was interesting to read Herodotus explain the origins of all the various tribes and nations - where they'd come from, who they moved on, their descent, origin of their name etc. it is bizarre to think of a time when you could emigrate somewhere where there was noone where you were going - hey, this looks like a good place to start a settlement that will still be here in a few thousand years!

but otherwise, onto some serious reading. Ricoeur, Figuring the Sacred. should keep me going a little while.

Ricoeur on the Sacred

I really enjoyed reading from this book of Ricoeur essays; there was heaps i didn't get, but there was still much gold within.

Interpretive Narrative:
he took a look at Mark's passion narrative, from a narratival point of view. as such, as we look at the characters, there are some really interesting points to pick up on.
Judas is the baddy, yeah? and Peter is the helper, right?
YET, Jesus needed Judas as his helper, and the once-goody becomes a baddy, the guy who you boo and hiss at. Ricoeur talks about this from a perspective of semiotic analysis, with this double subversion in the narrative. I think i normally read the narrative, and think, what do we learn about each character, what do they show us about Jesus, but looking at is this way, with this juxtaposition, along with that in the lead up, 14:18,

"Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me."

betraying the one who came to save them, EVEN one who is sharing the closeness of eating. there is a massive thing said, in eating/betraying, just as with Peter/Judas.

Philosophy and Religious Language:
the difference in discourse internally is also the key to understanding the discourse, as each discourse gives rise to it's own expression of faith.

both presenting & fulfilling prophecy

the chronicle & the oracle

consolidating & dislocating time

the stability of founding historical events & the instability of unfolding deadly menace.

anyway, just some thoughts.
i need to re-read his essay on evil. another day.