Problematic translations of book titles

There is a world of difference between "A Christian view of science" and "The Christian view of science." The latter implies that there is only one possible view. However, publishers love The rather than A in book titles.

It turns out that translators do too. In Territories of Science and Religion, Peter Harrison discussed how the translated title of John Calvin's most influential work changed with time, reflecting underlying shifts in views about what Christianity was. 

unlike English, Latin has no article—no “a” or “the.” Accordingly, when rendering expressions such as “vera religion” or “christiana religio” into English, translators had to decide on the basis of context whether to add an article or not. As we have seen, such decisions can make a crucial difference, for the connotations of “true religion” and “christian religion” are rather different from those of “the true religion” and “the Christian religion.” The former can mean something like “genuine piety” and “Christlike piety” and are thus consistent with the idea of religion as an interior quality. Addition of the definite article, however, is suggestive of a system of belief.

 The translation history of Protestant Reformer John Calvin’s classic Institutio Christianae Religionis (1536) gives a good indication both of the importance of the definite article and of changing understandings of religion in the seventeenth century. Calvin’s work was intended as a manual for the inculcation of Christian piety, although this fact is disguised by the modern practice of rendering the title in English as The Institutes of the Christian Religion. The title page of the first English edition by Thomas Norton bears the more faithful “The Institution of Christian religion” (1561). The definite article is placed before “Christian” in the 1762 Glasgow edition: “The Institution of the Christian religion.” And the now familiar “Institutes” appears for the first time in John Allen’s 1813 edition: “The Institutes of the Christian religion.” 

The modern rendering is suggestive of an entity “the Christian religion” that is constituted by its propositional contents—“the institutes.” These connotations were completely absent from the original title. Calvin himself confirms this by declaring in the preface his intention “to furnish a kind of rudiments, by which those who feel some interest in religion might be trained to true godliness.”

Problematic translations of book titles continue today. Here are more examples.

"The Presence of the Kingdom'' is a wonderful book by Jacques Ellul. The title of the original French edition was Présence au monde moderne: Problèmes de la civilisation post-chrétienne. The literal translation is "Presence in the Modern World: Problems of Post-Christian Civilization''. I wonder if something is being lost in the English title.

A similar concern applies to Ellul's book, La Technique. The English edition has the title "The Technological Society.''
L.M. Sacasas states

Ellul defined Technique (la technique) as “the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity.” It was an expansive term meant to describe far more than what we ordinarily think of as technology, even when we use that term in the widest sense.

In the next two examples, the English titles are not problematic but have a different sense from the original German. The first took away something, and the second added something.

In 1955, Hans Urs von Balthasar  published Das Betrachtende Gebet, "Contemplative Prayer"). The English edition has the title Prayer.

The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, had the title Nachfolge, which translates literally as "succession" or "following".

A metaphor for traditions

Traditions are a reality. We are immersed in them. We cannot escape them. We need to be aware of them and see their strengths and weaknesses. Previously, I introduced tradition as a potential guide (along with experience, reason, and transcendence) to help make sense of science, God, and life. In this chapter, I explore in more detail different dimensions of traditions, including culture, worldview, narratives, institutions, and hermeneutics. Culture shapes the way we see things, how we do things, and what we think makes sense.

A good metaphor for traditions may be farms. Farms are a reality and won’t go away, as we need food, and they are a means to provide it. Each farm has an origin and history. But even with diligent historical investigation, there will be some level of uncertainty about that origin and history. For example, where does one begin? With the first owner of the land? Or indigenous people? Or the ecological history of the land? Farms are dynamic as they continually change due to both internal and external forces. Farms are diverse in scale, crops, animals, buildings, workers, institutional structure, types of engagement with the external world, sense of identity, and goals. They are multifaceted and can be described in terms of agriculture, ecology, biology, economics, politics, and culture. 

The value assigned to different types of farms, from a small family organic farm to a megafarm owned by a multinational corporation, is subjective and contested. Farms can be associated with idealism, romanticism, or a harsh struggle for survival. The value of farms is tied up with the knotty concept of efficiency. It is unrealistic for most of us to individually grow all our own food, and so we choose to benefit from the hard-won experience and expertise of farmers. We cannot start from scratch. Modernity in the form of science, technology, and capitalism threatens the existence and viability of many types of farms.

Over time, a farm might remain fruitful, or it may become barren and unproductive. Some farms produce wonderful and nutritious food. The produce of other farms may be toxic because of disease, pesticides or contaminated soil. Remember mad cow disease? Farms cannot be separated from their context: the climate, environment, adjacent farms, economics, culture, and politics. Interactions between a farm and its context may be positive or negative. To be productive and sustainable, farms need custodians who both preserve them and adapt to their context. Successful and productive farms may be taken over by people who see them as a means of personal gain and have little interest in preserving the history or what the custodians saw as valuable.

In the paragraphs above, the word “farm” could be replaced with “tradition.” Like models, all metaphors are wrong, but some are useful. Farms are simpler and less controversial than traditions. I like the metaphor because it provides insights into the multifaceted character of traditions and the issues they raise, while possibly protecting us from our strong feelings, either positive or negative, about specific traditions. 

Highlights from John's Gospel

The Gospel According to John is a rich narrative built around many stories, metaphors, themes, concepts, events, prayers, teachings, and allusions to the Old Testament. After reading and listening to it multiple times over the past month, it is hard to pick out what is most striking, meaningful, challenging, comforting, or confusing. My previous post provided some brilliant and helpful summaries made by others. To those, I add Eugene Peterson's brilliant discussion in Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places (pages 85-108).

Here are a few interrelated themes that stood out to me personally. They are so connected that it is hard to put them in a particular order.

Incarnation

The living Word of God became a living human in the form of Jesus. He was the embodiment of God's love, promises, character, power, mystery, grace, and truth.

Sin and salvation

Make no mistake. Humans are sinful. Sin is slavery, destructive, evil, dark, opposed to truth, and leads to spiritual death and judgement, both now and for eternity. Humans need to be saved and redeemed from these terrible consequences. Jesus offers salvation through his sacrificial death. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The whole second half of the Gospel centres around Jesus' death.

Belief, love, and obedience

These cannot be separated. Belief is not just intellectual assent to propositional truth. Belief/faith is trust and active participation. Belief, obedience, love, and personal revelation are synergistic and not sequential. "He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me... I will love him and manifest myself to him." (14:21, RSV). (This verse was very helpful to me early in my Christian journey when I memorised it more than forty years ago). See also 7:18 and 8:31-2.

A new creation

John 1 echoes the creation account in Genesis 1, "In the beginning God created..." all life, something good, with powerful words. This creation continues in Jesus, the living Word, who entered this creation to make a new creation, an abundant life and salvation.

Abundant life

Jesus said, "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." (10:10, NIV). John wrote his Gospel "that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." (20:31, NIV).

Jesus does not just offer eternal life but an abundant life now, even though that may involve suffering, sacrifice, sickness, and death. It is now but not yet. Time and eternity come together in the incarnation, his death, his resurrection, and even in our own lives.

The Spirit

Jesus promised his followers to not leave them alone but to send the Spirit: his living presence, a comforter and advocate. The Spirit convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgement. The Spirit guides us into the truth, reminding us of Jesus' teaching. The Spirit enables us to forgive others and can unite Christians. The Spirit empowers us for mission, enabling acts of service and bearing witness to the truth. (As the Father sent Jesus, so he sends us).

The characteristics above show that the Spirit is practical, concrete, and personal. This is far from some abstract, vague, and impersonal force. The spirit is not something special people tune into through some mystical process to provide some secret knowledge or an inner voice that will prompt them to take some action to enhance their affluent lifestyle.

False dichotomies and dialectic

The world [cosmos] is flawed, broken, evil, and opposed to Jesus and his followers. Yet this world is also created, beautiful, and redeemable. Jesus did not come to condemn the world but to save it.

Jesus' Kingdom is for this world, but its' values are not derived from this world. It is an upside-down kingdom.

The abstract and concrete, the spiritual and material, time and eternity, faith and works. Each half of these pairs is often brought into tension or said to contradict the other half of the pair. However, in the Gospel of John, and ultimately in Jesus, they are brought together in beautiful life-enhancing ways.

Reading the Gospel of John

This month in the theology reading group, we are doing something different. We are not reading a theology book, but a book of the Bible! We will be discussing the Gospel of John. In preparation, I am listening to large sections.

Below is some material that I have found helpful concerning the big picture.

Here is an introduction written by Eugene Peterson for The Message.

"In Genesis, the first book of the Bible, God is presented as speaking the creation into existence. God speaks the word and it happens: heaven and earth, ocean and stream, trees and grass, birds and fish, animals and humans. Everything, seen and unseen, called into being by God’s spoken word.

In deliberate parallel to the opening words of Genesis, John presents God as speaking salvation into existence. This time God’s word takes on human form and enters history in the person of Jesus. Jesus speaks the word and it happens: forgiveness and judgment, healing and illumination, mercy and grace, joy and love, freedom and resurrection. Everything broken and fallen, sinful and diseased, called into salvation by God’s spoken word.

For, somewhere along the line things went wrong (Genesis tells that story, too) and are in desperate need of fixing. The fixing is all accomplished by speaking—God speaking salvation into being in the person of Jesus. Jesus, in this account, not only speaks the word of God; he is the Word of God.

Keeping company with these words, we begin to realize that our words are more important than we ever supposed. Saying “I believe,” for instance, marks the difference between life and death. Our words accrue dignity and gravity in conversations with Jesus. For Jesus doesn’t impose salvation as a solution; he narrates salvation into being through leisurely conversation, intimate personal relationships, compassionate responses, passionate prayer, and—putting it all together—a sacrificial death. We don’t casually walk away from words like that."

Here is a word cloud for the book. 

Here are the poster and videos from The Bible Project

Part 1

Part 2

Participating in the Greatest Story ever told

What role should the Bible play in the life of Christians, individually and collectively? How is the Bible to be read, interpreted, applied, and lived out?

This month in the theology reading group, we are discussing Eugene Peterson's book, Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading.

It is the second book in a five-part series. Last year we discussed the first in the series, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places.

The title of the book is based on Revelation 10:9-10

...I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, ‘Take it and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but “in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey.”’ I took the little scroll from the angel’s hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour. 

Here are the main ideas from the book that stood out to me. They are interrelated. Some may seem basic or obvious, but they come alive through the power, creativity, and beauty of Peterson's prose.

1. The Bible must be central to the lives of Christians. It requires diligence for the Bible to not become peripheral due to the busyness of modern life and the seductive power of the self (the trinity of my Needs, my Wants, and my Feelings).

2. The Bible is to be lived. It is a great story that we are invited to participate in. This means obedience. Bible reading is not to be primarily about gathering information, but formation.

3. The Bible invites us into a "strange new world". [Here, Peterson is using Karl Barth's phrase.] It is counter-cultural to every culture of all time. To enter this strange world, we must read it as literature, having our imagination opened up by narrative, metaphor, and connectness.

4. The Bible is accessible to all regardless of their background (perspicuity). It can be and should be read by all. Just the plain old text! This accessibility does not preclude or diminish the value of careful and diligent scholarship.

5. Translation is necessary, subtle, and contentious. Translation is not just a technical exercise of precisely matching individual words in ancient Greek and Hebrew to words in modern English. Words are ambiguous. Phrases and sentences are even more ambiguous. "Context contaminates and interferes with precision" (p. 86) Translation matters because it makes the living Word of God accessible.

6. Lectio divina (reading spiritually) provides a model on "how to" read the Bible. But, it "is not a methodical technique... It is a cultivated, developed habit of living the text in Jesus' name." (page 116).  There are four elements, and they are not necessarily sequential. Lectio (read the text), meditatio (meditate on the text), oratio (pray the text), and contemplatio (live the text).

7. Bible reading is not just to be done alone. It is to be done in communities and out loud. The written word and the oral word are not the same. The original texts were largely read aloud and listened to by communities. Bible reading and liturgy should be inseparable.

Below are some choice quotes from the book.

“The Scriptures, read and prayed, are our primary and normative access to God as He reveals Himself to us. The Scriptures are our listening post for learning the language of the soul, the ways God speaks to us; they also provide the vocabulary and grammar that are appropriate for us as we in our turn speak to God.”

“The Bible is basically and overall a narrative - an immense, sprawling, capacious narrative.”

“All serious and good writing anticipates precisely this kind of reading-ruminative and leisurely, a dalliance with words in contrast to wolfing down information.”

“It is useful to reflect that the word 'liturgy' did not originate in church or worship settings. In the Greek world it referred to public service, what a citizen did for the community. As the church used the word in relation to worship, it kept this 'public service' quality - working for the community on behalf of or following orders from God. As we worship God, revealed personally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in our Holy Scriptures, we are not doing something apart form or away from the non-Scripture=reading world; we do it for the world - bringing all creation and all history before God, presenting our bodies and all the beauties and needs of humankind before God in praise and intercession, penetrating and serving the world for whom Christ died in the strong name of the Trinity.”

“The Holy Scriptures are story-shaped. Reality is story-shaped. The world is story-shaped. Our lives are story-shaped. 'I had always,' wrote G.K. Chesterton in accounting for his Christian belief, 'felt life first as a story, and if there is a story, there is a story-teller.' We enter this story, following the story-making, storytelling Jesus, and spend the rest of our lives exploring the amazing and exquisite details, the words and sentences that go into the making of the story of our creation, salvation, and life of blessing. It is a story chock full of invisibles and intricate with connections. Imagination is required.”

“We are fond of saying that the Bible has all the answers. And that is certainly correct. The text of the Bible sets us in a reality that is congruent with who we are as created beings in God's image and what we are destined for in the purposes of Christ. But the Bible also has all the questions, many of them that we would just as soon were never asked of us, and some of which we will spend the rest of our lives doing our best to dodge. The Bible is a most comforting book; it is also a most discomfiting book.”

“Obedience is the thing, living in active response to the living God. The most important question we ask of this text is not, 'What does this mean?' but 'What can I obey?' A simple act of obedience will open up our lives to this text far more quickly than any number of Bible studies and dictionaries and concordances.”

Genesis, science, and Jesus

In a recent podcast episode entitled, The Chemists, John Dickson discussed the worldview that the opening chapter of Genesis presents and how that relates to science and ultimately Jesus. Here is what he said:

"One of the key differences between the ancient Pagan way of thinking of, say, the Egyptians or Babylonians, and the Hebrew or biblical worldview is on this question of the orderliness of nature. Pagan creation narratives tended to stress the random, haphazard nature of the physical world. The classic is the Babylonian Enuma Elish, read out loud to the population every Babylonian New Year’s Day in Babylon. It says physical world is an after-thought, fashioned out of wreckage of a war of gods. Tiamat and Apsu—the mum and dad of the gods—go to war against their kids for making too much noise. But mum and dad ended up losing to the young warrior god, Marduk, who fashions the universe out of the bits and pieces of the carnage. The story embodies the common pagan idea that creation is ‘haphazard’ & ‘tainted’: matter is ‘alien’ stuff—accidental, unpredictable, possessed.

If that was your perspective, and you read Genesis 1, you’d be immediately struck by all ways Genesis stresses the beauty, orderliness, and goodness of physical creation. Pagans thought of creation as a kind of ‘war’; but Genesis sees it as a ballet: calm, patterned, graceful. Each creative scene in Gen 1 has 4-fold pattern:

(1) commences with a simple command,

(2) tells of the fulfillment of the command,

(3) includes an elaboration of the command, and

(4) concludes with the day formula, “there was evening, there was morning.” 

The first paragraph sets up the pattern for the rest of the show:

[1. Command] And God said, “Let there be light,” and

 [2. Fulfillment] there was light. 

[3. Elaboration] God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.”

[4. Day formula] And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. (Genesis 1:3–5)

And on it goes through the chapter like a carefully choreographed dance …

There’s a theological point being made here: the universe is not accidental; it’s the work of an orderly mind.  Then there’s the way the days correspond to each other like a canvas to a painting: days 1, 2, 3 are the canvas, days 4, 5, 6 are the painting. It’s hard to picture, so we’ll put an image in the show notes. But basically, day 1 is the canvas to day 4’s painting, Day 2 is the canvas to Day 5’s painting, and day 3 is the canvas to Day 6’s painting. So, On Day 1 ‘light’ itself is created; on Day 4 the actual ‘lights’ of the ‘sun’ and ‘moon’ are put in place. On Day 2 the ‘vault’ of the sky is created along with its counterpoint, the waters of the sea; and on Day 5 the sky is filled with birds and sea is filled with fish. On Day 3 the ‘land’ and ‘plants’ are created; on Day 6 animals and humans are created to walk on the land and enjoy the produce. This deliberately leaves Day 7 hanging, as a day of rest, to reflect on the newly filled canvas of creation.

Then there’s the very interesting comment repeated through the Genesis creation account that God made things “according to their kinds” and, what’s more, that God put certain creative powers in things so that they too could produce things according to their kinds. So, in Gen 1:11 we read:

“Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: [so the land becomes a co-creator with God] seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds …

The point begin made is that the genius of the Creator is imprinted into physical reality, into nature, so that acts with certain aims to produce certain outcomes that reflect God’s intention. There are tons of other ways Genesis makes this point, but the basic idea is that the creation isn’t accidental. It’s ordered and rational and is a functioning whole that acts according to certain rational principles.

It’s a remarkable departure from ancient pagan thinking. It’s true that the best Greek philosophers came to roughly the same conclusion centuries later. Aristotle, for example, (900 years after Moses) said the Forms of things exist within the things themselves. So he would say something like “the form of the oak tree is in the acorn. The form of the adult human is already in the foetus”. And so on. And so nature operates in orderly fashion, following the direction, we might say the equations, that are built into matter itself. All things act according to organising principle inherent in them, which Aristotle called the logos. Behind the logos, he insisted in Metaphysics Book 12 is the MIND, Unmoved Mover, the final cause of all motion and purpose. God!!

What the Jews had been saying for centuries … the Greeks declared by logical deduction. Nature operates according to the principles of rational genius, and the genius behind it all is the Mind of God. This is why John’s Gospel is so happy to employ the Greek philosophical word logos. I talked about this more in an Undeceptions single recently – can’t remember what it’s called – but the basic point is, John says:

“In the beginning was the logos and the logos was with God and the logos was God …”

And then he shocks us with:

“The logos became flesh and dwelt among us!”

In other words, the rational Genius of the creator – the same genius imprinted in creation – actually became a human being, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the logos. Jesus is the genius of creation. John wasn’t alone. Paul says something similar:

“In Jesus all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible … all things have been created through him and for him … and in him all things hold together.”

It’s right to think of Jesus as a first-century Galilean Jew, a historical figure we can investigate with the rules of historical enquiry. But from the beginning, from our earliest documents, Christians were saying much, much more about him. They were saying He is the genius by and through which creation came into being … and, what’s more, He is the ongoing principle that holds them all together in every moment. This is why the first modern scientists all saw their work as a kind of worship. Because when they understood the mathematics of planetary motion or the chemistry by which certain things happen, they are glimpsing the logos, who had a historical name, Jesus. "

Course on Church, Community, and Conversations

At our church, my wife Robin and I recently helped to facilitate a course entitled The Gift and Challenge of Church, Community, and Conversations.

Central to the course was having participants in small groups at tables. Several times each session they would have some discussion questions. Every week there was one Bible passage that they read together and discussed. After the formal end of each session most people stayed at their tables continuing their discussion. I don't know how long they stayed because we went home. After all, it was past my bedtime. 💤😁

The course ran for five weeks, for two hours, on a weeknight. Below I put copies of the handouts/worksheets and of the PowerPoint slides. But I stress that they only give a flavour of the course it does not capture the table discussions or what was explained about the content in the slides.

Week 1 - The gift of Church 

Handout,  Slides

Week 2 - The gift of diversity

Handout, Slides

Week 3 - The gift of welcoming

Handout, Slides

Week 4 - The gift of communities

Handout, Slides

Week 5 - The gift of conversations

Handout, Slides

The content and pedagogy of this course were enriched by what I have learnt from the IFES Logos and Cosmos Initiative about the global church, culture, context, working in diverse teams, listening, mental health and above all, relating God's Word and God's world. 

Personally, I was stimulated and challenged by the material we discussed together. Living in a community, unity in diversity, welcoming strangers, and listening to others seem appealing. However, actually doing them is a challenge! Engaging in meaningful conversations with those very different from me is not easy.

Relating Word (logos) and World (cosmos)

The last two posts reflected on the nature of the logos and the cosmos. I now consider how are the logos and cosmos to be related. 

What is the relationship between Word and World? More specifically what is the relationship between theology and the sciences? How are cosmos and logos in a university to be related? Going back to Plato there are rich and subtle philosophical issues concerning ontology [what is real] and epistemology [what is true] that are still being explored and debated in universities. Could a Christian perspective be even richer?

A place to begin is to acknowledge the central role of hermeneutics (how we read and interpret a text), not just the text of the Bible, but also how we “read” the world in which we live. To access the living Word requires engaging the text of the Bible in a manner that uses a “hermeneutical circle (or spiral)”, whereby a specific part of the text is related to its context (chapter, book, whole Bible) in an iterative manner that goes from the part to the whole and back to the whole. Any theology should also be constructed in an iterative interaction with the text. Similarly, a local context (cultural, social, political, economic, linguistic, religious) has to be “read”; this requires observation, recording, analysis, and interpretation. Too often this is done in an intuitive manner without reflection or a basis in evidence. However, this “reading” can be done in a more systematic and reflective manner, drawing from methods in the social sciences. The local context must also be related to the global context and one needs to discern the relationship between the particularity of the local context and universals that describe many contexts. 

When relating Word and world things become more complicated, challenging, and rich because these two hermeneutical practices are intertwined, perhaps more than we would like to admit. Again, perhaps the best approach is iterative, whereby both “readings” are done in parallel and allowed to influence one another in a constructive manner. Indeed, Peter Harrison has argued in detail that modern science arose in seventeenth-century Europe because the Protestant Reformation led to new ways of reading the Bible (in particular, a shift from the allegorical to the literal) that in turn led to new ways of “reading” the “book” of nature.

A key issue for the dialogue of logos and cosmos is the tension inherent in the Bible’s picture of the world. The cosmos is God’s creation, made through the logos (John 1:1). Christians need discernment as they live with a tension between the goodness of the creation and the fallen, rebellious nature of the world. What do we affirm and enjoy about the world? What do we deny or critique or resist or seek to redeem? Being made in the image of God, we have an incredible ability to read, analyse, and understand both the Word and the world. Yet, both these processes of observation and understanding are also corrupted by our sinful and rebellious nature. Sometimes we see what we want to see and don’t see what we don’t want to see. Pride, finitude, and self-deception diminish our understanding.

The good-bad tension is present in universities. Some of the logos about the cosmos that is presented to students and "discovered" by researchers reflect God’s truth about His amazing world and some of this knowledge reflects Kingdom values (truth, justice, human dignity, reconciliation, ...).  On the other hand, some of this so-called knowledge is false, hostile to God, or does violence to Kingdom values. Universities grew out of medieval monasteries and were centred around theology until the last century. In the monasteries, scholarship was integrated with worship, service, communal life, and virtue. Today universities aspire to be global corporations with multi-billion-dollar budgets. In the process of this transformation from God-centred institutions to powerful businesses, there is less of the good and more of the bad. 

For IFES some guidance comes from John Stott. In his book, The Contemporary Christian: An urgent plea for double listening, he discusses listening to the world and to the Word.

How can we develop a Christian mind, which is both shaped by the truths of historic, biblical Christianity, and acquainted with the realities of the contemporary world? How can we relate the Word to the world, understanding the world in the light of the Word, and even understanding the Word in the light of the world? We have to begin with a double refusal. We refuse to become either so absorbed in the Word, that we escape into it and fail to let it confront the world, or so absorbed in the world, that we conform to it and fail to subject it to the judgement of the Word. Escapism and conformity are opposite mistakes, but neither is a Christian option. 

In place of this double refusal we are called to double listening, listening both to the Word and to the world. ... We listen to the Word with humble reverence, anxious to understand it, and resolved to believe and obey what we come to understand. We listen to the world with critical alertness, anxious to understand it too, and resolved not necessarily to believe and obey it, but to sympathise with it and to seek grace to discover how the gospel relates to it. 

This is the origin of the title of the IFES journal, Word and World: Theological Conversations about the world students live in. How might we go about relating logos and cosmos? John Stott also says the framework of creation-fall-redemption-renewal is helpful for developing Christian thinking on a wide range of issues. 

Finally, I come back to the role of local context. There is not one world, but many worlds. The beauty and potential of God’s multi-faceted creation can be seen in the diversity of human cultures and local contexts. Tragically, this diversity also reflects the creativity of human rebellion and sin. 

Most discussions about science and theology are dominated by academics embedded in elite Western universities and seminaries. The discussions focus on issues associated with biological evolution, Big Bang cosmology, quantum physics, and human consciousness. Social sciences receive scant attention. It is contentious whether these Western discussions are helpful or relevant to other contexts, particularly in the Majority World.

One model for the logos-cosmos dialogue is provided by the Ph.D. program in Contextual Theology at Asian Theological Seminary in Manilla. Later I may discuss in more detail a few key elements of the philosophy of the program. These include a focus “on empowering local faith communities on empowering the faith community by giving it a language and praxis in its formation, growth, and service in the setting/s in which it finds itself”, bringing the local into dialogue with the global, and inter-disciplinarity.

Many facets of the cosmos (world)

In the previous post, I reflected on the richness of the concept of the logos, a word that is at the heart of what universities should be about and central to Christian theology. In this post, I consider the word cosmos which is used extensively in the New Testament. In the third post, I will discuss ways to relate the logos (Word) and the cosmos (world).

According to the Wikipedia entry on cosmos,

The philosopher Pythagoras first used the term cosmos (κόσμος) for the order of the universe. The term became part of modern language in the 19th century when geographer–polymath Alexander von Humboldt resurrected the use of the word from the ancient Greek, assigned it to his five-volume treatise, Kosmos, which influenced modern and somewhat holistic perception of the universe as one interacting entity. 

Humboldt University of Berlin is considered to be the model for modern research universities. It is named after Alexander Humboldt and his older brother, Wilhelm, who was its founder.

In the New Testament, the Greek word cosmos is widely used by the Apostle John and translated into English as “world”. Here are some examples.

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.  He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. (John 1:9-10)

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (3:16)

I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. (17:14-18)

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives for ever. (1 John 2:15-17)

Then the seventh angel sounded; and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, " The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever." (Revelation 11:15)

The New Bible Dictionary has an entry “WORLD” written by R.V.G. Tasker (1895-1976), Professor of New Testament Exegesis at the University of London, Here is some of the entry.

The Greek word kosmos means by derivation 'the ordered world'. It is used in the New Testament, but not in LXX [the Septuagint], sometimes for what we should call the 'universe', the created world, described in the Old Testament as 'all things' or 'heaven and earth' (Acts 17:2). The 'world' in this sense was made by the Word (John 1:10); …

But, because mankind is the most important part of the universe, the word kosmos is more often used in the limited sense of human beings, being a synonym for hē oikoumenē gė, 'the inhabited earth', also translated in the New Testament by 'world'. It is into this 'world' that men are born, and in it they live till they die (John 26: 21). It was all the kingdoms of this world that the devil offered to give to Christ if He would worship him (Matthew 4:8,9). It was this world, the world of men and women of flesh and blood, that God loved (John 3:16).

It is, however, an axiom of the Bible that this world of human beings, the climax of the divine creation, the world that God made especially to reflect His glory, is now in rebellion against Him…

 

And so, very frequently in the New Testament, and particularly in the Johannine writings, the word kosmos has a sinister significance. It is not the world as God intended it to be, but 'this world’ set over against God, following its own wisdom and living by the light of its own reason (1 Corinthians 1:21), not recognizing the Source of all true life and illumination (John 1:10).

Chris Wright has a helpful article, “The World in the Bible,” written in 2010 for the Lausanne Theology Working group. Wright notes that the Bible speaks of the world in five different ways. The world is the

• physical creation (the world in which we live);

• whole human race, (the world of nations);

• place of rebellion and opposition to God (the world of sin and judgment, the world of all the resulting suffering, poverty and pain);

• object of God’s love and mission of redemption in history;

• new creation (the world to come).

Wright states there is “a fundamental ambivalence in the biblical presentation of the world” and this is illustrated by contrasting how Psalms and John represent the world. The world

is simultaneously the wonderfully good creation of God and the horrendously wicked theatre of human and satanic rebellion against God. As we reflect on what it means to bring ‘the whole gospel to the whole world’, this is a duality that we must keep in mind. For it is this tension between the positive and negative conceptions of ‘the world’—both equally biblical—that drives so many dimensions of our missional engagement in and with the world.

The multi-faceted representation of the world in the Bible is underscored by the fact that besides kosmos there are five other Greek words in the New Testament that are translated as “world” in English: aion, ge, oikoumene, ktisis, and ta panta.

John starts positively… attributing the whole creation (panta) to the work of Christ ‘the Word’ (Jn.1:3). And we remain positive with the language of incarnation—the Word has come ‘into the world’ (kosmos; Jn. 1:9-10)—a note that is repeated to the end of the book, as Jesus brings light and life and truth into the world (Jn. 3:19; 6:33; 8:12; 9:5; 12:46-47; 18:37).

John uses the word kosmos 72 times, and more than 40 of those occur in chapters 13-17, describing Jesus’ final conversations with his disciples and prayer to his Father, and almost all… references to ‘the world’ are negative. … in 1 John, where kosmos occurs 22 times and all negative, except for the words of hope that Jesus died for the sins of the whole world (2:2).

Paul uses kosmos 47 times (and aion 31 times). As we have seen, Paul can certainly use kosmos to speak of the whole of God’s good creation (though he tends more often to use ta panta and/or ‘heaven and earth’ for that).

Nevertheless, the majority of Paul’s uses of kosmos speak of it as the place of sin, rebellion and the judgment of God (e.g., Rom. 3:6, 19; 5:12-13; 1 Cor. 11:32)

This tension between the positive and negative side of the cosmos must be kept in mind as we reflect on how to relate logos and cosmos, including how to relate theology and the sciences (academic disciplines). Considering the use of these two words in the New Testament suggests a rich and subtle relationship between theology and the sciences.

What is the logos (Word)?

The Greek words logos (λόγος) and cosmos (κόσμος) lie at the heart of both Christian theology and of universities. Both words have a long history of being associated with a diverse range of meanings, concepts, and entities.

I am particularly interested in these because I am involved in the Logos and Cosmos Initiative of IFES. In a series of three blog posts I will discuss separately what logos and cosmos each represent and then how they might interact with one another, and how this may be helpful in considering how theology and the sciences might interact with one another.

Logos can also be translated as “subject matter’’ and is related to the Latin word logia which is the basis of the English suffix -logy that is part of the names of many academic disciplines: sociology, anthropology, geology, ecology, biology, theology, and cosmology.

Logos in the New Testament

Logos is central to the Gospel of John, which clearly identifies Jesus Christ with it. In English logos is translated as "The Word”. 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (1:1)

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. (1:14)

Amongst other passages, logos also appears in the following verses.

Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. (17:17)

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. (1 John 1:1)

He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. (Revelation 19:13)

Translators of the Greek New Testament, from Jerome to Luther, have struggled to find a single appropriate word that captures the richness of the association between logos and Christ.

John’s choice to equate logos with Christ in John 1 was creative and profound as he achieved two things. First, he brought the Gospel into dialogue with Greek culture and intellectual life. Second, he made the point that the truth, wisdom, and meaning associated with the incarnation of God in Christ, was the ultimate knowledge and far surpassed the greatest human knowledge and wisdom of his time. To appreciate this it is helpful to survey how logos was used prior to John.

Logos in Greek and Jewish culture before Christ

The New Bible Dictionary has an entry LOGOS, written by J.N. Birdsall. He states that the Greek word, logos

carries a large number of different meanings: its basic translation is ‘word ', i.e., meaningful utterance, whence develop its many senses 'statement, declaration, discourse, subject-matter, doctrine, affair' and, by another development, 'reason, cause, sake, respect'. As a grammatical term it means a finite sentence, in logic a factual statement, definition, or judgment, in rhetoric a correctly constructed piece of oratory. 

Birdsall, says that the Greek Philosopher Heraclitus (c. 535 - c.475 B.C.) used logos

to signify the divine power or function by which the universe is given unity, coherence, and meaning (Logos Spermatikos, 'seminal Word', which , like seed , gives form to  unformed matter): man is made in accordance with the same principle, and is himself said to possess Logos, both inwardly (Logos Endiathetos, reason) and expressed in speech (Logos Prophorikos). 

These ideas were then used by Stoic philosophers. 

The Septuagint (LXX) was the first Greek translation of the complete Hebrew text of the Old Testament, completed in the second century B.C. Many Old Testament quotations used by the authors of the New Testament are directly taken from the Septuagint. According to Birdsall,

In the LXX Logos is used to translate the Hebrew word dabar ( דָּבָר‎). The root of this signifies 'that which lies behind ', and so when translated as 'word' it, too means meaningful sound; it may also mean thing '. In accordance with a common feature of Hebrew psychology a man's dābār is regarded as in some sense an extension of his personality and further as possessing a substantive existence of its own. The Word of God, then, is His self-revelation through Moses and the prophets; it may be used to designate both single visions and oracles and the whole content of the total revelation and thus especially the Pentateuch. The Word possesses a like power to the God who speaks it (cf. Isaiah 55:11) and effects His will without hindrance. Hence the term may refer to the creative word of God. In the Wisdom literature the creative power of God is referred to as His wisdom, …

Isaiah 55:11 states, 

so is my word that goes out from my mouth:

    It will not return to me empty,

but will accomplish what I desire

    and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

Philo (20 B.C.–50 A.D.) was a Hellenistic Jew who brought together Stoic philosophy and exegesis of the Old Testament. Birdsall states that

Philo made frequent use of the term Logos, to which he gave a highly developed significance and a central place in his theological scheme. He derived the term from Stoic sources and, in accordance with his discovery of Greek thought in the Hebrew Scriptures, made use of it on the basis of such passages as Psalm 33:6 to express the means whereby the transcendent God may be the Creator of the universe and the Revealer of Himself to Moses and the Patriarchs.

Psalm 33:6 states, “By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.” Birdsall comments:

On the Greek, side Philo equates the Logos with the Platonic concept of the World of Ideas so that it becomes both God's plan and God's power of creation. On the side of biblical exegesis the Logos is identified with the Angel of the Lord and the Name of God, and is described by a variety of terms as High Priest, Captain and Steersman, Advocate (Paraclete), and Son of God. It is termed a second God and, on the other hand, described as the Ideal Man, the Pattern of God's earthly creation of man. In spite of all this terminology of personification however, the term remains inevitably, in view of Philo's staunch Judaism (at least, in intention) a philosophical and theological term and tool.

That is, Philo does not go as far as the Apostle John who identifies the logos with a specific person in history, Jesus. Reflecting on the use of logos in John 1:1, Birdsall considers that identifications of logos with dabar or with Wisdom in the Old Testament are not adequate.

Only the Philonic Logos-teaching provides a clear theological scheme in which the Word possesses a like unity with God and a like distinction from Him, and in which both creative and sustaining activity in the universe and revelatory activity towards man is ascribed to it. Further, the necessarily unique concept of incarnation is nevertheless a proper development of the identification of Philo's Logos with the Ideal Man. Either a direct use of Philo or a similar background in intellectual circles of Hellenistic Jewry may lie behind this.

Reflecting also on 1 John 1:1 and Revelation 19:13, Birdsall concludes that the three texts

illustrate how the fulness of Christ consistently exhausts all preparatory imagery and thought; and how many places need an exegesis which draws on many sources for full exposition. Jesus gives fresh meaning to terminology which prior to Him was expressive of lesser mysteries.

In conclusion, John’s use of logos provides a significant example of doing theology in cultural and intellectual context. Jesus Christ is the logos, the Word, the embodiment of all knowledge and wisdom.

Next post will be about cosmos.

Redemption from words

My wife and I enjoyed watching the movie The Professor and The Madman. It is based on the fascinating story of the origins of the Oxford English Dictionary, focusing on the contributions of and the relationship between the editor James Murray and William Chester Minor. Minor is in a prison for the "criminally insane" as a result of a murder he committed.

I found it quite striking and beautiful is how the issue of forgiveness and redemption thread through the story. How can a murderer find redemption? Can his victim's family forgive him?

Is eclectic Christianity an oxymoron or a tautology?

I have recently participated in several Christian forums where the content and/or participants have been described by some as "eclectic"?

Generally this term has been used in an endearing and polite sense of "cuteness" that borders on "eccentric" because there were a wide range of topics and points of view presented by people from diverse church/denominational backgrounds.

A dictionary definition of eclectic is "deriving ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources".

On the one hand, some would say that true Christianity is narrowly and precisely defined by a set of very specific doctrinal statements. You are either in or out. If one is concerned with a general statement such as the Apostle's Creed this is reasonable. However, in reality some have much more narrow defining statements.

On the other hand, if you look at the life and teachings of Jesus you see he had a diverse set of followers, was very inclusive, and presented paradoxes that were hard to pin down in certain respects. Furthermore, historically church movements have been rather diverse.

I think this is one of the many dialectic tensions of Christianity: unity with diversity, truth with ambiguity, freedom through obedience, grace and law, ....

What you say and what people hear may not be the same thing

One needs to be careful when speaking about controversial and sensitive issues, particularly in public.
Don’t assume that the hearers will receive your intended message.

Why?
Sometimes we are lazy listeners. We hear and interpret the message with respect to our own background, prejudices, and experience.
Sometimes we struggle to separate the message from the messenger.

Choose your words carefully. They sometimes mean different things to different people.
Creation, multiculturalism, evolution, liberal, fundamentalist, submission, modernism, literal, dogma…
Furthermore, I am not just talking about some narrow technical meaning, but rather positive or negative associations, depending on the audience.

Consider your social identity. It may colour whether your message can be received or considered credible.
For example, a university president has a salary of $1 million, yet tells students that due to financial pressures the university will no longer open the library on saturdays.
A white American pastor of an upper middle class congregration argues that Christians should not be concerned with poverty alleviation.

Whites making pronouncements about racism.
Men making pronouncements about sexual discrimination and harassment.
I am not saying it should not be done.
Just considerable caution, sensitivity, and realistic expectations are necessary.

Publishers love The not A

In 1954 Bernard Ramm published "The Christian View of Science and Scripture". This became a highly influential book, both for good and ill. It liberated a generation of evangelicals who liked science. It also stimulated a significant pushback from ultra-conservative Americans, ultimately bolstering the growth of Young Earth Creationism. 

What about the title? It is interesting to hear what Ramm said in an interview in 1979:

The original [title] was 'The Evangelical Faith and Modern Science' but the publishers wanted a title similar to Professor Orr's book of a previous generation, The Christian View of God and the World. One day I walked through library stacks looking at titles and it's embarrassing how many books start out with the word The. Eventually I found out that many titles of books are determined by the publicity or sales department of a publishing house.

What is my point?
I think on many complex issues such as science, politics, and economics, it is hard to come up with a definitive and singular Christian view.

Three senses of the secular

What does it mean to be secular?
Secular means different things to different people.

In his book, How (not) to be secular, James K.A. Smith gives three distinct definitions of "secular".

secular_1 
"the earthly plane of domestic life"
This is the "classical" or "historical" definition, and distinguishes the secular from the sacred, i.e. the domain of priests. "butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers carry out "secular" work. To early reformers such as Luther this was positive. There was to be no distinction between the sacred and the secular.

secular_2
"the areligious - neutral, unbiased, objective"
This is a "modern" definition. It is particularly used in claims that the "public square", i.e. politics and public debate should be "free" from discussions about religion or religious values and perspectives.

secular_3
This is the notion of Charles Taylor, who in A Secular Age, says it
 “consists, among other things, of a move from a society where belief in God is unchallenged and indeed unproblematic to one in which it is understood to be one option among others, and frequently not the easiest to embrace”.

How selfish can we get?

I was very disappointed with the latest Australian budget. One of Australia's most prominent economists John Quiggin called it a "moral failure".

My first concern is that the Government deceptively claimed that funding cuts are necessary because economic disaster looms because of continuing budget deficits. Look at Greece! However, this is purely a scare tactic because it is not an appropriate comparison since Australia's deficits and debts are much smaller than European countries that are in trouble. Second, the cuts in areas unpopular with conservatives [welfare, health, education, foreign aid] were accompanied by spending increases in defence, "border protection",  and middle class welfare such as the paid parental leave scheme...
Maybe a coherent case can be made for making some of these cuts but it should be done with integrity and logical consistency.

My second disappointment was not just the cut in foreign aid, but the significant policy shift that foreign aid should not be about alleviating poverty but advancing Australia's commercial and strategic interests. How selfish can we get? This shift is similar to one made recently by the Canadian government and the problems are described here.

On a less serious scale, what was worse than the 3 per cent cut in funding for the Australian Research Council [from whom I get most of my research funding] was the declaration that it was an "efficiency levy"! Politicians don't seem to have the courage to call a spade a spade.

How are the New Atheists "fundamentalist"?

"Fundamentalist" is a loaded and mis-understood term. Several earlier posts considered the issue from several angles.
One caricature and criticism is that "fundamentalists" claim that no interpretation of scripture is necessary. There is only one correct reading of scripture, theirs. Anyone who disagrees is being ungodly.

This might be classified as the "no interpretation" interpretation.
In some ways this reminds me of the New Atheist [Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchins, Lawrence Krauss, ...] interpretation of science.

Science does not need interpretation. There is no need for a philosophy of science. It is "bleedingly obvious" that:

• science is true
• science is the only means to obtain truth
• the only meaninful and important questions are those which science can answer
• science provides a basis for ethics
• science shows the universe has no purpose
• science proves there is no god or creator

Anyone who denies these claims is just being irrational and unscientific and ignoring the evidence.

A vacuous legacy for theology

The notion of a vacuum (i.e. empty space) is an important concept in physics.

Today I learnt (from an article in the American Physical Society News) that the word vacuum first entered the English language in a theological treatise written by Thomas Cranmer in 1550.

Thus it is evident and plain, by the words of the Scripture, that after consecration remaineth bread and wine, and that the Papistical doctrine of Transubstantiation is directly contrary to God's word....
Natural reason abhorreth vacuum, that is to say, that there should be any empty place, wherein no substance should be. But if there remain no bread nor wine, the place where they were before, and where their accidents be, is filled with no substance, but remaineth vacuum, clean contrary to the order of nature.

"A Defence of the true and Catholick doctrine of the Sacrament of the body and blood of our Saviour Christ : with a confutation of Sundry errors concerning the same"

I think Cranmer's theology was correct. But, clearly his science was wrong. Physical vacuums can and do exist. Perhaps, another caution from history about the dangers of theologians and preachers pontificating about science (pun intended!).

Secularists oppose a truly secular state

Recent riots involving parts of the Muslim community in Australia have stimulated significant debate. I thought this Opinion piece by Paul Kelly, Editor at Large of The Australian newspaper was quite insightful and appropriate, reflecting on what it means for Australia to be a secular state. Here is an extract:

It is equally important, however, to acknowledge the secular state is under assault not just from religious crusaders but from secularists. In Australia today racist language is a taboo, yet attacks on religious belief are frequent and almost fashionable. 

The sanction extended to media displays of contempt for people with religious belief, notably Christianity, seems to reflect a new prejudice by people many of whom aspire to drive religion from the public square into the exclusively private realm. 

Perhaps they do not comprehend, but this is a direct assault upon the secular state and the terms of peaceful co-existence between the state and religion. In this concept, the state became neutral between believers and non-believers and neutral among different types of believers. 

Freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion.

It is important to acknowledge that even the term "secular" was coined by Christians and used in a positive light by Augustine and Luther. That was something I learnt recently in a fascinating history seminar.

Repentant theology

Maybe this should be a more appropriate title for Reformed Theology. Historically, reformation is usually thought of in terms of reforming the teaching and structures of the church. Today, some say a key component of Reformed Theology is a commitment to ongoing reformation of ourselves and the church: our lives, thoughts and believes. Although, to some it focuses on the historical teachings of Luther and/or Calvin.

Reading through the Gospel of Luke I have been struck how the word repent is repeated. [see here for the relevant verses]. Repentance is a stronger word than reformation. To me, it focuses more on reforming ourselves rather than others, and on reforming our lives rather than just teaching and structures.