Several Days ago I posted what I thought to be a rather eloquently packed statement of Christian faith by David Bentley Hart here. Kevin Edgecomb was not quite so fond of the same passage and Nick Norelli agrees. Read Kevin’s post on it for his points. Here is my take on each of his points:
- The reference to κυριος Ιησους is quite so a confession of a certain understanding of Jesus as Christ - an eschatological Lord. Quite in keeping with the Orthodox understanding of Jesus as Pantokrator.
- To say that the peace of Christ was an attribute that suffered on the cross would vanquish a kenotic soteriology and seems to ignore the cry of dereliction. Christ certainly was not at peace then as the Gospels clearly illustrate.
- I think Vladimir Lossky (1957) can answer this better: “In a certain sense all theology is mystical, inasmuch as it shows forth the divine mystery: the data of revelation. On the other hand, mysticism is frequently opposed to theology as a realm inaccessible to understanding, as an unutterable mystery, a hidden depth, to be lived rather than known; yielding itself to a specific experience which surpasses our faculties of understanding rather than to any perception of sense or of intelligence” (The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church). Clearly not “incomprehensible polysyllabic pseudo-postmodern piffle”. Hart’s “incomprehensibility” is a function of the Eastern focus on mystery through experience it seems.
- Another perspective: God’s judgment has finally befallen the world and the Cross is the decisive revelation of that judgment to us, but we have not experienced the final judgment “at the end of the age”. It is a future event with present effects. I tend to like Bultmann’s expression here and hart does not seem to be outside of that understanding in this passage. Pannenberg also has an interesting spin on this. It is a real eschaton that has occurred and “is being revealed” (Rom. 1:17-18) to us. Kevin might not be coming from this perspective, but I think the evolutionary paradigm for the eschatological event of Christ’s second coming has dome damage to the notion that the victory has been won in order to establish the eschatological Kingdom of God that “is being revealed” rather than one that will simply happen in the future.
- I understand the sentiment with #5, but to say that the man Jesus was not vindicated in the resurrection of the body seems to miss the point of what Hart is saying here. Two natures, one substance. Again, the event of the cross viewed eschatologically, as Hart is doing here, has different meaning than one event in time along a static timeline of history. History, after all, does not exist in the mind of God unless He wills it.
I think there is a lot going on here in one passage. If it sparks such a conversation, the rest of the book has quite a bit of potential for the patient of mind. I think what Hart and Zizoulas have done to bring Eastern Orthodoxy into the conversations following the postmodern debates from the 80’s and 90’s are important to reconstruct those ideas on different bases. And somehow I think it is a better place from which to work out those ideas to a place that is not utterly devoid of meaning or purpose.
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Lossky seems on target with the tradition as does Ware who I find to be very eloquent. I also like Schmemann who really does a nice job with the pastoral function of doctrine (like Ellen Charry's work on this with the patristics which is nothing short of fantastic) and Peter Gilquist for the Evangelical Orthodox view in the US.
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