Episode 137: Dr. Paul Hinlicky on Christian Reception of Greek Philosophy
Dr. Paul Hinlicky is Professor Emeritus of Theology at Roanoke College in Virginia. Dr. Hinlicky talks with us about early Christian reception of the Greek philosophical tradition in a work entitled Divine Complexity (Fortress Press, 2010). We also delve into his work in Slovakia and his connection to Robert Jenson.
Timestamps:
12:30- The Nature of Theology
24:36- Rhetorical Paradoxes
37:31- The Role of Lutheranism
43:01- John and Canonization
Episode Transcription:
Charles Kim 0:01
Hello and welcome to history of Christian theology. With me this week will be Dr. Paul Hickey Dr. Henley key is the author of divine complexity, the rise of creedal Christianity. Dr. Hin Luckey, has had a long and illustrious career as a theologian in the Lutheran church. He is the book in question for today is important for our conversations that we've had on the podcast, because it considers the relationship between philosophy and theology. So we've had several proponents of sort of Platonic Christianity or classical theism. And Dr. Henley key reminds us of the importance of scripture in even critiquing some of those natural philosophical positions. So I felt I felt like this could add a different dynamic to some of the conversations that we've had. So I appreciated him taking the time out to talk with us. He is also on a podcast called The Queen of the sciences, a podcast that he does with his daughter. So I'd recommend that you check out that podcast. I think this episode may also air in their podcast stream. But but Yeah, appreciate it Dr. Hickey and his daughter Sarah, for reaching out and working out this collaboration. We will have some more podcasts coming out with in the stream. I've got some stuff lined up on a few different topics, including divine violence in the Old Testament, and some stuff on worship as well. So so do stay tuned. Sorry for the delay on getting podcasts out. It has been a busy season. Without further ado, here's my conversation with Dr. Paul Hinlicky. Today on the history of Christian theology, I have the pleasure of speaking with Paul Hinlicky, and Dr. Hinlicky is among the other positions is the tea's professor at Roanoke College, as well as a dose of Systematic Theology at Comenius University in Slovakia. And today, we're going to talk a little bit about a book I guess it was published a few years ago. But it overlapped with a lot of things that we have discussed over the last basically a year or so on the podcast, which is the title of the book is divine complexity, the rise of creedal Christianity. And part of the conversation within the book is over the the nature and relationship between what we might call broadly, either sort of classical metaphysics or a kind of a platonic metaphysics and how that interplays with revealed theology. And so Dr. Han Luckey has done a lot of work on on that. So I was very grateful and to have his daughter and he reached out to me about doing kind of an overlap episode because you also do a podcast called The Queen of the sciences. Is that right?
Paul Hinlicky 2:53
Yeah, that's right, Chad, we do a podcast. Now we're entering our fifth year, and we're doing pretty well with it. It's it's been a great project to work with my daughter who lives half a world away. So this is a chance for us to have regular theological conversations.
Charles Kim 3:09
Yeah, that's great to hear. And you guys are both Lutheran, is that correct?
Paul Hinlicky 3:14
Yes. I'm an ordained minister of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. And so she,
Charles Kim 3:20
yeah, okay. Excellent. Yeah. So I I don't know, I guess. Well, Dr. Kerry goes to an Anglican church, but he has kind of Lutheran influences. I was gonna say, I don't know, if we've had someone who identify like, who was a definitive Lutheran on the podcast.
Paul Hinlicky 3:39
Now I'm ready to rock and roll on that.
Charles Kim 3:42
Yeah, well, very good. Yeah. I'm excited. So yeah, I guess we could we could almost just start with the title itself. So it's called divine complexity, which is obviously a has some bear some relationship to divine simplicity. And so maybe, would you mind talking a little bit about why why that title, and how that plays into sort of the central argument of the book.
Paul Hinlicky 4:09
So Thanks, Chad. The title came about last. And in fact, I was dying, you know dialoguing with the editor at fortress press about what to call this book. Excuse me. And originally, the title was simply the theology of the Nicene Creed. But after I finished the book, I was looking for a more a title that would be more communicative. And the project of the book is to protest against the idea that the Church doctrine of the Divine Trinity, achieved in Constantinople in 381 was simply a superficially painted over Christianized version of the Neoplatonic trinity of absolute mind, replicating itself in the logos, which contains all implicit ideas, implicitly contains all possible ideas which then cascade down and a great chain of being to organize matter into a cosmos. And this is kind of a standard critique issuing from the criticism of dogma that originated in German Lutheranism in the 19th century. The famous statement, that the history of dogma is the critique of dogma. So that entire tradition that was trying to expose the doctrine of the Trinity as nothing but a thinly veiled, Neoplatonic cosmological Trinity. That was the target of my the final results of my study. And I wanted to show on the contrary, that there is to use anachronistic language, the economic trinity of the gospel narrative, namely, the God of Israel, whom Jesus addressed as the Father, and in turn perceived himself to be addressed as the beloved son. And the dramatic interaction between these two, in the course of the story of Jesus, from His birth, through his life, ministry, death, resurrection, etc, all of that mediated by a third, namely, the one named the Holy Spirit. So to use anachronistic language, the so called economic trinity, the trinity of Revelation, I wanted to show that it was from thinking through the trinity of Revelation, that we come to the dogma of the Council of Constantinople in 381. And that meant that you had to have a different starting point, than the Western tradition of assuming the metaphysics of divine simplicity, as a foundational platform on which to then you erect the revealed Trinity. Rather, you have to begin with the Jesus and the spirit, as economic agents, who lead to the knowledge of the one true God, as Basil the Great would say, in the time around 381, the way of knowledge goes from the Spirit through the son to the Father. And that is the divine complexity that I was trying to illustrate in the book.
Charles Kim 7:40
Yeah, there's a lot of richness in there. One of the things that I kind of heard you say, and maybe is a little bit in the background of the book, too, is the kind of I think, you know, I'm not going to get the quote exactly right. But Robert Jensen says something like God is whoever having raised Israel from the dead, or having rescued Israel from Egypt raised Jesus from the dead. And you kind of add in the sort of the Holy Spirit in that as well, sort of thinking through the fullness of the Trinity. But but I've always liked I use that actually, that line from Jensen whenever I teach intro to theology, just because I, you know, I like the way that it captures kind of this, like the necessity of understanding God through Revelation.
Paul Hinlicky 8:26
So that's, I'm glad you bring up Robert Jensen, because he's definitely a factor and influence in the writing of my book. But I have to give you a little background. I actually did the research and first drafting of this book in the 1990s, when I was teaching in post communist Slovakia. And I discovered there that my students preparing for ministry had a curriculum that basically took them from the New Testament to Martin Luther to Friedrich Schleiermacher, three big leaps, you know, and they knew nothing about next to nothing about what had transpired in between, except the cliches you know about early Catholicism, or medieval scholasticism. The typical Protestant, exacerbated by 19th century liberal Protestant cliches about the history of theology. And so I created a course trying to explain working through the Gospel of John, onto Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp, what I call the 92nd century theology of the martyrs on through erroneous, and their great battles crystal logically against Docetism. And theologically against Gnostic dualism, for the unity of the Genesis to Revelation canon, that has to be inwardly parsed. By the creedal actors, the Almighty Father who creates heaven and earth, His Son, Jesus Christ, and their Holy Spirit. And so that was the origins of this book. And it was only after I decided to publish it. years after I'd left Slovakia that I had read Jens Jensen systematic theology and realize the affinity of much of what I was saying with the some of his his insights, though, maybe you noticed in the collusion conclusion of the book, I'm a little bit cautious about some of Johnson's metaphysics.
Charles Kim 10:38
Yeah, well, I didn't I was just sort of perusing the the ending of the book this morning. And I didn't quite I actually didn't pick up on that. Maybe I, I missed it in my my hurriedness to try to get through the end. But would you mind saying a little bit more about that? What what is it that makes you so cautious?
Paul Hinlicky 11:00
Yeah, I think that I think that there's no question that the New Testament literature somehow pre supposes what is called awkwardly the pre existence of the sun. The chi Holga sark's Again, a toe, and the Word became flesh. So there's a divine becoming, that is appropriately predicated, of the logos, who was God, who takes on becomes, we have to unpack what that means. But But somehow, there's a becoming, which is in traditional theology called the assumption of the flesh, or the assumption of the body, soul, unity in Christ, and so forth. And Johnson kind of wants to, in his polemic against an unflushed, logos, a logo, Sarcos. He wants to remove the gap between the transcendent logos and the incarnate logos. Now, at least that's how he's often understood. I think he is a little bit more subtle than that. But I don't think he expresses himself very clearly there. Because I think it is important to affirm that there is, as Jensen also must one firm that there's something dramatic and decisive in the middle of creaturely history for the word to become flesh.
Charles Kim 12:30
Yeah, it reminds me of an interview I did with a kind of up and coming theologian, Jordan wood, who's also now located in St. Louis. And he's from Missouri, incidentally. But he wrote a book on Maximus, the confessor, and his the title of it is that creation is incarnation. And, you know, so he's trying to sort of think through maybe some of not so much the pre existent element, but but sort of the later element of, of sort of becoming and the unity of, of creation with the incarnation. Often I was thinking about his book, because it sort of takes up the kind of the challenge of Cal Seton, where a lot of what your work does, almost gets us up to Cal Seton or it gets us a little, you know, to Constantinople really. But the the kind of the bleeding edge of a lot of theology right now, I feel like it even with Bruce McCormick's book, is trying to figure out exactly how, how that kind of Christology works.
Paul Hinlicky 13:31
Yeah, I would simply comment about that, that, that the problem with Cal Seaton is that it only gives lip service to the unity of person, and that Hypostases has to be understood, with the same Trinitarian density it has had constant and OPL in order to make sense of any kind of to nature's doctrine, that that would then so the, the Christology that follows after 381 is predicated upon this fully, this Trinitarian personal hypostatic doctrine. And that has to be borne in mind so that we don't get bushwhacked by what Jensen calls unbaptised notions of divine or human nature, which then somehow we have to mash together into some kind of unity, rather than understanding that the personal reality of Jesus Christ is the second person of the Trinity. And that's where I'm very much with Jensen, that Jesus does not signify the logos Jesus is the logos, that that's the Christological payoff that I would like to cash in on.
Charles Kim 14:46
Yeah. Well, and even that notion of like the difficulty of baptizing some of the the natures, and part of the whole book is sort of how much Greek philosophy or how much philosophy is sort of acceptable, because you as sort of, as I understand it, you don't want to sort of get behind the God of the Bible, by by either by historical criticism, or by metaphysics. And so like one of the things that I notice, and that I thought you might, I might appreciate, you know, some elaboration or comment was I think's on page 18. But you talk about the division of labor in theology had critical philosophy or natural theology, telling us what the Divine is really. And then in parentheses, you say, really what it is not then revealed theology telling us rather what this knot is, and how it relates itself to us. So would you sort of mind unpacking a little bit like for you? What is the because it seems like what you're sort of elucidating is a similar conviction about the nature of how theology well use, there is me using that word nature, but sort of how theology is to proceed?
Paul Hinlicky 16:03
Yeah. Well, here again, the starting point, and the book, I think, argues this, from the first chapter, the the, and this is, inside of historical criticism, actually, that the primitive gospel as you just quoted, Johnson is that Jesus has risen, and therefore Jesus is our saving Lord. That's the good news that is, and when we try to parse that, theologically, that means that somehow in this event, the father recognize the Crucified dead and bury Jesus, as indeed his beloved son, and therefore vindicated his substituting himself for lost and dying humanity. And not only vindicated him exalted him and made him the judge of the living in the dead. That's the good news. You know, and if I said, these chat, if I said something to you like, like this little parable, that gents used to tell, I've got good news, someone's Listen, they're on the march, and they're bringing in their victory. And his name is Joseph Stalin. That would not be good news. Right? It would be terrible news, right? So it matters a whole lot, that the one who was crucified is this particular Israelite and Jesus, who fulfilled the the surprising expectations of Isaiah 53. And Psalm 22, in order to be the one promised air of David, the victor, who will bring in righteousness, life and peace. So that that's the that's the starting point of theological reflection, we've been that that is where theology is not philosophy, because philosophy has no such starting point. Now, that doesn't mean we can ignore philosophy, because philosophy, broadly speaking, is what Paul calls calls the natural man's attempt to make the best account of our experience. And anytime we proclaim the gospel, contextually, we have to be attuned to the mentality, the mindset, the Gestalt, the the worldview, of the contemporary audience, and that is what philosophy informs us. But that would also mean Chad, that philosophy is not perennial. There's no such thing as a perennial philosophy. As the world is moving as history is moving. I'm not saying it's progressing. I'm just saying it's in motion. Right? Yeah. As and we are. We are products of this, this motion ourselves as theologians. So we have to be attuned to philosophy. And the early Christians, when they were developing their articulation of the trinity of the gospel had to deal with the predominant worldview, which was broadly speaking middle Platonism.
Charles Kim 19:08
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's, it's sort of it was a real joy to read through your book in many ways. As I, we were talking briefly, before we were going and just a little bit about I was telling Dr. Hickey a little bit about my background. And so like, you know, I was raised, sort of southern herbal, Southern Baptist, and really, you know, the Bible was the most important thing. But then I did the philosophy as an undergrad, and I got sort of taken up and doing, you know, sort of more hardcore philosophy and thought that was so fascinating. And then it prints that I wasn't sure what to do with German, kind of the the vestiges of German liberal theology, and it really put me at kind of an impasse intellectually, so I had kind of the As the biblical prism of my background, that I had some interesting philosophy that I'd done in undergrad, and then I had kind of German liberal theology. And so, you know, so that put me into like, I was like, alright, well, let's try the Patristics. What can I learn from them? And so I had enjoyed the fact that they kind of blended philosophy and theology, but I feel like even in the last like, year or two, I had never read. Robert Jensen, I knew who he was in seminary, but I hadn't really read him. But this, you know, he has that emphasis, the similar and really, actually, it's definitely what I saw in your book. And what I enjoyed about reading your book was this return to the power of the Gospel itself as as the anchor and not wanting to have to have sort of another thing behind the gospel that you want to get to. And so I don't know, in a weird way, it felt like a lot of culmination of a lot of the different reading and thinking that I had done throughout my own kind of intellectual journey.
Paul Hinlicky 20:56
Well, God, I'm so happy to hear that. I hope this reading the book does that, for a lot of folks who are struggling, you know, with the breakdown, more or less the breakdown of Neo, the 20th century Neo orthodoxy, and the resurgence of 19th century German liberalism, in a lot of circles on the one side, and the resurgence of medieval metaphysics on the other side, you know, so I mean, this is an enormous development. It's like, it's like the Oedipal context the children have to slay the fathers. And so if the great theologians of the 20th end of the 20th century, stemming from Karl Barth, Wohlfahrt, pondered. Berg, Eberhard Yongle and Robert Jensen. Now the younger generation seems to be saying, away with them away with them back to Thomas back back to the the early Augustan or something like that. I don't know.
Charles Kim 21:53
Yeah, well, and that was, I mean, those are I would, I will say that that's sort of maybe where I found myself in the last few years, I actually find Aquinas really difficult to read. I hate to admit that sometimes, because I actually teach at a PART part of my job is part time at a Catholic seminary. And they have to read a ton of Thomas and, and I teach Latin to them to help them learn how to read the medievals. And then they asked me, Well, do you read a lot of Thomas and I said, I can't stand it. But I love Augustine, and they're like, Well, you love Augustine, you know, and he's an Augustinian and I was like, well, sort of. But But what I love about Augustine actually, and I think oftentimes, he might suffer some of the problems that you have noted in the book. But I liked that. He's a rhetorician. And so I like I like the like. So the charm of his words, has always been part of the affinity I find with him. But as I was reading your book, I was thinking, he has this section right at the beginning of confessions, where he tries to wrap his mind around God. And so I thought I would read it. And I was I was just sort of curious what your kind of response would be, because, you know, at places you use Augustine, and then in places you kind of critique him, which I think, you know, is all part of the theological project. But throughout the book, I was thinking of this passage in book one, chapter four, part four, he says, What are you then Oh, my God, what are you I asked, but the Lord God, and then he goes through and he does the kind of thing that Augustine does, which he loves, antithesis, or at least paradox. And so he goes through all of these things, well, your most high most excellent, most powerful, omnipotent, but then then he gets into the sort of a contrast the seasoned scripture, never knew never old renewing all things yet wearing down the proud that they know it not. And here's kind of the the contrast ever active ever at rest gathering, while knowing no need supporting, filling, guarding, creating, and nurturing and perfecting, seeking the lacking nothing you love without frenzy, you're jealous, yet secure, you regret without sadness, you know, sort of thinking about that idea of changing one's mind. You grow angry, yet you remain tranquil. you alter your works, but never your plan. And, you know, it just goes on and on. But that kind of contrast of, you know, he feels like to me, you could almost hear him saying like, I know all these things from the Platonic philosophy that I've read. And he's like, but you're also this God that I read about in the Scripture. How do I put that together?
Paul Hinlicky 24:39
Well, that of course, that's the great question that my book is dealing with, isn't it? Yeah, that is the great question. And here, I think that you have to make some logical or semantical decision decisions about the nature of these kinds of rhetorical paradoxes that Augustan has indulging in because a paradox can be taken. There are people like Tertullian credo quia absurdum asked, you know for whom a paradox is a revelation just because it makes no sense. Or Okay, so that's one position, I would like to exclude that there is a lot of 20th century existential theology that moves in that direction that I'm not interested in at all, because it makes talking about God, just simple nonsense. That can make no sense. And that's the point that somehow that points is to the mystery of God, I don't know. And then, you know, then there is the idea that these paradoxes are somehow analogies, they can be translated into analogies. I don't think that works. I think there's all sorts of logical problems with that. But basically, the paradoxes I take them to be what are called characteristic metaphors, characteristic metaphor. Now, a characteristic metaphor means that you assert what is rhetorically an apparent contradiction. That cannot be true. That's why it's tempting to think of it as nonsense. But it is actually meant to innovate in language to reflect a reality for which there was no pre existing vocabulary. And so such metaphors, the Great One is in first Corinthians chapter one, we proclaim Christ crucified. Now, that's gotten to be a religious cliche. But if you think about it, for Paul, it's a contradiction in terms. Christ is the victor, Christ is the Messiah who brings in God's victory and rescues his people, Christ crucified. That's like saying, Joshua put to the sword. That's like saying, David slain by Goliath. That's why believing Jews have such a difficult time believing the Christian proclamation, because to them, it is a stumbling block, a contradiction in terms, until that contrary, that rhetorical contradiction is penetrated by the insight that it's referring to a novelty, something that for which there is no pre existing vocabulary, so then it would be as the gospel of Mark explains, Christ crucified, that means the one who came not to be served but to serve and to lay his life down, or ransom for money, something along those lines. So I think that August in the rhetorician is expert at preaching the gospel paradoxes, it's when August in the religious philosopher, tries to make sense logically of these paradoxes that you see him reverting to the axiomatic doctrine of divine simplicity. And that's in Daytona Tatay, chapter seven, I think, or chapter eight, one of them there, where, you know, he, he talks about Christ being the wisdom and power of God. And objects, does that mean that God the Father has no wisdom and power that can't possibly, right, because of the equality of the three, each have to have, not only have the identical, not only do we each have to have wisdom and power, but it has to be the identical was in power. And if you go with that, and the implications of that metaphysical notion of simplicity, you defacto abolish any distinction between the Father and the Son other than the transcendental relations of origin. And then you get into medieval theology where you get to arguments while the father could have been incarnate, because they're all three equal, they're interchangeable. It doesn't have to be the son. You know, I mean, Thomas at least says it was fitting that it was the son rather than the father, you know, something like that. Okay, so I've gone off on a long tangent there in response to your comments about August and I love Augustan, the anthropologist, I think his doctrine of human nature and society is among the profoundest in the current Christian tradition. And I think it's a great add Vantage to Western theology, that it doesn't have the kinds of synthetic doctrines in the east that lead to the traditional problem of Cicero papers them. And we see how that's playing out today in Russia. You know, we have we have in the West, in principle, a con a tension between the institutions of the state and the church that hold each other in check. And that is due to Augustins doctrine of the two cities, and also his anthropology that we are moved by our loves our desires, that all our behavior is motivated. We are beings of love. The real issue in life is not whether we love but what we love, and so forth and the whole hierarchy of values that he develops around the double love commandment. All of that August and is my August. It's the metaphysical August and that gives me headaches.
Charles Kim 30:24
Yeah, when you when you started speaking there, a little bit about Augustine, I was reminded that a quote that I've I go back to from Rowan Williams, is Augustine is most philosophically interesting, when he's least trying to be philosophical.
Paul Hinlicky 30:42
That's usually when he's dealing with the Bible. Right?
Charles Kim 30:48
And that's an interesting point, too. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and yes, I think it is, it is one of the one of the fun things about studying and of course, if you, if you have 5 million words that you leave from antiquity or from the transition from antiquity, you know, there's a lot of stuff that you're going to say. And some of it, it's some of its going to be worth keeping, and preserving. And some of it is, you know, maybe worth critiquing.
Paul Hinlicky 31:17
We have the same problem in the Lutheran tradition that Luther wrote a library, and you can find any doggone thing in there that you want. And you can make a Lutheran theology out of the most stupid things Luther ever said.
Charles Kim 31:33
That it's pretty funny because I, the I talked with Phillip Kerry about one of them, which book was it? A book that he just did that has basically he moves from Augustine to Luthor. And what is the I can't now I've totally lost the title of it. But either way, the meaning of there it is the meaning of Protestant theology. And it's kind of funny that he takes two figures who, as you say, you could basically create a theology or philosophy out of all of they have written. And I know that I like I know that he has dealt, I know in the Augustinian circles, that he takes a lot of flack for how he reads Augustine. And it sounds like maybe the same could probably be said for how he reads Luther. But I don't, I can't come
Paul Hinlicky 32:25
fulfills a good friend of mine. And we're basically on the same wavelength. He reads Luther through August, and I read August in through Luther. So
Charles Kim 32:35
yeah, yeah. Well, that's very good. One thing that's has sort of come up, I think, I feel like there's been three different mentions of it. But I don't really know, I don't know so much about Slovakia. But you you spent many years teaching in Slovakia. And then there was a question, little comment there about maybe basically what's happening in Russia. But, you know, it sounds like there's you've had a lot of engagement with kind of, comp for previously communistic societies, or at least some of the the threat of some of that. Could you speak a little bit to how your theology may have been shaped? In your time in Slovenia? And what what does that kind of that kind of background of communism mean, for your theology?
Paul Hinlicky 33:23
You know, this is very interesting, Chad, for me personally, because I'm a child of the 1960s. And my did my graduate work in the 1970s at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. And I have studied Marxism quite intensively. And in my wasted youth, I've debated for decades, decade whether or not I was a Marxist. So let me just put my cards on the table there. Of course, for me, it was never a Marxist Leninist. It was the humanistic Marxist of Marx of the Frankfurt School, that kind of thing. And Cornel West was a big important figure for me was on my dissertation committee, and so forth. And I in the encyclopedia, Oxford Encyclopedia of Martin Luther, I have an article on Luther in marks, the remarkable fact that endoscopy tall, Luther shows up at important junctures in his treatises against usury, which Marx is more than happy to appropriate minus the religious illusions. But anyway, so that so I have this kind of interest in Marxism as a as a intellectual and historical phenomenon. But I'm not a Marxist. I mean, let me just make it clear that I'm not a Marxist. But I had this lifelong interest in it. And when I went to, my ancestors immigrated from my grandparents immigrated from Slovakia. At the turn of the last century, and when communism collapsed in 1989, this repressed churches suddenly weren't able to open up again. And a flood of youth came into the theological faculty wanting to study and they were overwhelmed. And as one thing led to another, I was called there to be a teacher of theology for those years. And there, you know, I saw the cultural devastation that the Marxist Leninist regime particularly brutal in Czechoslovakia, at that time, had been and I had many personal discussions with adults who had lived through this period, relatives who had grown up under the system, and my own observations of what Marxism Leninism had done culturally, religiously, economically, and politically, much of what you see in Russia and Ukraine, I saw in Slovakia, how, after the end of the collapse of the regimes, and the rapid decision to privatize all the industries, how these communist opera objects, bigwig, bureaucrats within the system in old boys network, snatched up all the property, and created became, you know, billionaires oligarchs that we talk about. And then, you know, so the game changed, but the people in power remain the same. And by the time I left, I told my frustrated students, you know, you're just gonna have to hang in there, you can't really change the society until this old guard dies out. That's the price of having a unbloody revolution. You can't settle things with violent, revolutionary and violent justice. That means you have to live with all these bad actors who survived the collapse of communism, and are perpetuating their power. So that has, you know, a guy returned to the United States with a much greater commitment to constitutional democracy, which I feel is very much in peril in these last couple of years.
Charles Kim 37:31
Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot there. It's a very, it's very powerful story. It's pretty, it's pretty fascinating to think about, you know, like you were speaking about your ancestor being Slovakian, but essentially being a child of the 60s and 70s. Or, you know, growing up in that kind of era. So having maybe more interest in Marxism, but but seeing both sides of that, yeah, I don't really have I don't really know how to respond other than to say, that's quite, that's quite a story, quite a testimony to have lived. Well, I'll
Paul Hinlicky 38:02
tell you what, Chad, let me plant a thought in your mind for a future podcast, I actually published a book between apocalyptic theology and philosophical humanism, the 20th century sojourn of Samuel, Stefan Oh, Sue ski, who was the Lutheran Bishop through a World War One through the Czechoslovak independence in the 20s and 30s. Then under the fascist regime, allied with Hitler, when he was ultimately imprisoned and tortured by the Gestapo, for defending the Jews. And then his rehabilitation after World War Two, until the Marxist revolution in 1948, when he was finally sent into internal exile several years later, and spent the last 20 years five years of his life, incognito in a village in the country, writing a great book. But I tell the whole story of the 20th century experience in Europe, under the figure of the sky.
Charles Kim 39:13
Hmm. Fascinating. Yeah, I think I mean, you know, there's probably and maybe some listeners would be surprised to even hear as I probably was less familiar with, like the role of Lutheranism in there was a book that was sent to me by lexham Press maybe about Lutheranism in Ukraine, I think it might have been, but yeah, I you know, I know less about the spread of even Lutheranism broadly, in some of these Eastern Bloc countries, but But yeah, being able to tell that whole story I'm sure is very profound.
Paul Hinlicky 39:47
Well, let me go back to my book, though, which is what the podcast Yeah, please. I wanted to mention which to me, one of the most important things I think I do in the book is situ. Write the Gospel of John, in the mainstream of early Christian tradition, there has been a tendency to think of John as some kind of weird side development that is not related at all to the Synoptic Gospels. And just it's some marginal Christian community, half Gnostic half dasa test or something like that. Boltzmann's famous theory of Mandaean Gnostic saying source at the root of the gospel, then undergoing successive ecclesiastical redactions in order to make it acceptable to the main line development. My teacher at Union was Jay Lewis Martin, an absolute gem of a human being and a wonderful scholar. And his first book was on the Gospel of John, in which he demonstrated the thoroughly Jewish nature of the Gospel of John. And also, he pointed out that the Gospel of John is a spiritual theological interpretation of, and that that's what I really worked on. That the chapter in the book that you read, argues from a number of different sources, not just Jay Lewis Martin, that John makes sense, as a late first century. theological, spiritual mining of the what's implicit in what we call the synoptic tradition, and that it is totally caught up in combating the outbreak of the early Christian Docetism, which said that Jesus only appears to be a flesh and blood human being. And that taking for granted that Jesus is a mysterious person somehow related to the Divine that the Gospel of John takes that as its truth from the first verses, nevertheless wants to maintain that he is among us truly as the son of the God of Israel, and truly as a flesh and blood human being. That's the witness of the Gospel of John, and that court that that segues right into, in the next decades, the conflict of Ignatius of Antioch with the dasa test movement, and that segues right into Justin Martyr, and urine as is in their battles with mature Gnosticism dualism and so forth. I think just establishing that trajectory. Over against a book like Walter Bauer's orthodoxy and heresy was a major accomplishment of my pocket.
Charles Kim 43:01
Yeah, yeah. Well, it's, it also reminds me a little bit of father, John bear just wrote a book called John the Theologian. And I think, you know, he's, he's trying to at least, maybe, he may have more of an affinity to a certain extent with the sort of, well, Eastern, Orthodox platonic kind of elements. But But similarly, trying to establish the the import of what it means to, you know, sort of the charisma of the church and how that is proclaimed in in John.
Paul Hinlicky 43:38
John, the theologian a good title for a book.
Charles Kim 43:43
Yeah. Well, that Yeah. And I did I found that that whole, yeah, it's interesting. I mean, it's interesting just to think about, like, what that means for canonization as well as you also deal with. So how it is that this is what sort of what we understand to be part of Revelation is helping us in a sense even to know how to read the synoptics. Well,
Paul Hinlicky 44:09
sure. And you know, there that goes back to the first chapter of the book arguing about the role of the baptismal creed, as a rule of faith. You can see you know, fragments of such rules of faith in the writings of Ignatius of Antioch, they're all over the place. And of course, then they blossom by the time you get to Justin and Uranus. The rule of faith basically reflects the practice of baptism into the triune name. And this then provided a way of identifying the God of the gospel into whose care and keeping one is committed in baptism. Right. And so then how do you test whether it is indeed the God of the gospel First John, for one do not believe all the spirit But test the spirits to see whether they are of God. And this is the test anyone who denies that Jesus has come in the flesh is of the Antichrist. And so that's the function, the function of identifying the God of the gospel. That's significant for the baptismal creed and as a rule of faith, then it works in the canonization process. Does this particular writing work as scripture because it accords with the rule of faith? And I think an approach like that gets us beyond the silly tradition versus scripture kinds of arguments that have polemics, not arguments that have ensued from the time of the Reformation onward.
Charles Kim 45:47
Yeah. Yeah, well, and of course, the the hard thing about a book like yours is that there's, there's so much and the one hand, it's very, like, you have a very clear thesis. But on the other hand, there's so much to unpack, because all the languages is very dense. I guess I had some questions like, I don't know, Wohlfahrt, very well. But you mentioned some backward causation, when you're talking about the power or retroactive causality. That's what that's the phrase, I think, when talking about the resurrection, but I thought maybe you could also just mention sort of, part of your emphasis that is so profound, is that the resurrection is an event sort of so singular, that it sort of maybe fits that the notion of, and I can't remember it, I can't remember how you called it, but but a, a metaphor that we don't have language for, or, you know, they helps us to define an event or a being or something. That that is, it seems like a paradox, but it actually has a kind of sub substance.
Paul Hinlicky 46:59
Yeah, all of these 20th century systematic theologians, Yongle Pong, and Bergen, Jensen, are all dealing with the import of the historical criticism of their day, that basically asserted that Jesus never thought of himself as the divine Son of God, or never thought of himself as the incarnate logos, that these notions are come about later on. Now, I don't know if I completely buy that conclusion of 20th century historical criticism. But I think we can bracket that problem and just acknowledge that they felt that they had to deal with the fact What if Jesus never claimed to be the Christ? What if Jesus never claimed to be the Son of God? Is it still possible to say Jesus is the Christ the Son of God? and on what basis would that be possible? And basically, then they work with a kind of modal logic, I guess you could say something like, If Jesus had been crucified, dead and buried and of the story, then he was not the Son of God. But since Jesus who was crucified, dead and buried, was raised from the dead, vindicated and exalted, therefore he had was from the beginning, the Son, the Son of God, you know, and that's basically an epistemic point. It's not an ontological point, it's an epistemic point. How do we come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, the Son of God? And the answer is, we can't get it by going back to the historical Jesus. I actually find that congruent with the first gospel, the gospel of Mark, no one none of the disciples succeed in the Gospel of Mark, in believing in Jesus Christ or following Him to death, even death on a cross, they all betray, deny and fleet, and their restitution comes on Easter morning, go until Peter and the disciples that I will go before them to Galilee, so epistemic ly, it's not like we could. They're saying, it's not like we can go back on a time machine, and follow Jesus around the dusty highways and byways of Galilee, and then draw the obvious conclusion from the evidence. This is the Son of God. No, Jesus was controversial. And he got himself crucified. And the implication that he was more than a human being was exactly the blasphemy according to the Gospel of Mark anyway, that got him crucified. So it's epistemologically it's a wash. So that's that's their argument about retroactive causality?
Charles Kim 49:50
Yeah, and some of that epistemology is all you know, just to keep going. I think we've gone back to the beginning of your book several times, but that's where you kind of start off is this Question of a question of epistemology. What are the things that? What does it mean for us to know these things? And you use Augustine on that point. So again, there's sort of a, you know, another thing that we've talked a little bit about, but Augustine is his own critique of, of epistemology as you as you identified it there.
Paul Hinlicky 50:20
Yeah. See, there's Augustine on the plane of anthropology. That's the Augustine I like.
Charles Kim 50:27
Well, very good. Well, we are approaching about an hour here, and I don't want to take too much of your time. And also, I think my son may be getting up from his nap soon. And we are on spring break. So I wish I had more time to talk with you and be curious of, you know, maybe getting a chance to look at that other book. But but really appreciate you taking the time out to talk with me. Dr. Hinlicky.
Paul Hinlicky 50:56
Thank you, Paul. It was it was a pleasure today.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
