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Elliott Blowing Raspberries

Click on the image below to see Elliott trying to blow raspberries (right click to download). Kudos to my buddy Harris for the video.

Posted 29 June 2009 † Kyle § Life ‡ Comments (1) °

Book Index

The blogging abeyance for the past few weeks or so has been a result of working on a book that LeRon Shults, Nancey Murphy, and Bob Russell are editing. (See LeRon’s blog post about it here) It is tentatively titled: “Philosophy, Science, and Divine Action” in the Philosophical Studies in Science in Religion Brill series. My responsibility was to compile and edit the name index. This was a learning experience for me. I have had other responsibilities related to book projects but this is the first time I have had to work on an index. It was meticulous and gave me interminable REM from reading so quickly. I am still recovering. In fact, I’m gazing at Andrea and Elliott right now as they are moving at high velocities across the room. They assure me they are not.

Anyway, I don’t know when the book is due out but it looks expensive and impressive. Contributors include: LeRon Shults, Ian Barbour, Arthur Peacocke, John Polkinghorne, William Stoeger, Wesley Wildman, Philip Clayton, Thomas Tracy, Nancey Murphy, George Ellis, and Bob Russell. The appendix is notable. Bob Russell provides an overview of the Perspectives on Divine Action series. I have read it and the challenges he presents for future dialogue between theology and science are perceptive and warrant serious consideration.

Posted 28 June 2009 † Kyle § Books § PhD Studies § Science § Theology ‡ Comments (0) °

Thesis of Pannenberg Seminar Paper

I am nearly finished with my Pannenberg seminar paper. I am on my second round of editing and it is coming together fairly nicely. Here is the introduction for those of you who are interested.

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1.    Introduction
1.1.    Problem
There is problem in contemporary theology that needs to be redressed. Namely, theological anthropology is disconnected from ecclesiology. (Especially among Protestant theologians) What human beings are created to be is considered without reference to how they become such. Many theologians have connected theological anthropology with Christology evincing that Christ is the paragon of the imago Dei but most of them have failed to address how believers become like Christ. One prominent example of this is Jürgen Moltmann. In God in Creation Moltmann has a chapter on God’s image in creation in which he creatively delineates how human beings are implicated in an evolution of image that begins with the imago Dei moves to the imago Christi and concludes with the Gloria Dei at the eschaton.  The problem with Moltmann’s proposal however is he fails to address how this evolution of the image comes to fruition.  Specifically, he fails to address how the Spirit and the Church may play a part in this evolution.

Moltmann’s omission is indicative of contemporary dogmatics. Far and few have connected the Spirit with the Church with the realization of the imago Dei. Why is this the case? Why is the Spirit absent from discussions concerning the image of God? Why is the Church? Is it simply because of accidental negligence? Is it because they have failed to perceive and understand the role these two play in forming human nature? Or, is it because theologians are not convinced that they have a role? Whatever the answer may be this essay will argue that it needs to be redressed. There are two general intuitions that are foundational for theological claims that need to be incorporated more thoroughly into theological anthropology and ecclesiology. Hopefully, by so doing theologians will come to see how these two doctrines should inform and condition one another. The two intuitions are: the Spirit works in realizing God’s mission in the world and the Church is God’s people where God’s mission is received and realized. What it means to be created in the image of God has to be connected with how the Spirit transforms believers to participate in the life of Christ and how the Church becomes those who participate in the life of Christ and consequently become the image of God.

1.2.    Thesis
The thesis of this essay is that theological anthropology, specifically the imago Dei, has to be connected with ecclesiology, specifically the liturgical life of believers. Drawing upon latent and blatant concepts in the theological anthropology and ecclesiology of Wolfhart Pannenberg and engaging these concepts with two other contemporary theologians, Susan Wood and LeRon Shults, this essay will argue that the Church is the domain where the triune God’s dramatic salvation is experienced and where God communes with his people through the power of the Spirit. Consequently, it is where the imago Dei is shaped and (trans) formed. It is formed, and transformed, by the work of the Spirit through the liturgical life of the Church. Through the liturgy the Spirit conforms the Church according to the life of Jesus Christ and his participation in the eternal fellowship with the Father and the Spirit. As will be evident below while Pannenberg does offer copious conceptual resources in his theological anthropology and ecclesiology he fails to integrate the two adequately.

The manner in which this essay renders the imago Dei intelligible is through the conceptual framework of religious desire. Pannenberg has the concept of religious desire in his theological anthropology, and his notion of exocentricity, yet it is latent and not accentuated much by Pannenberg. Here is where Shults comes in. Shults, learning a lot from Pannenberg, has taken this latent concept in Pannenberg and made it blatant within his own theological project. The idea is, created in the image of God human beings are in principle desiring beings who are open to and orient themselves toward goods that they think bring them wholeness and peace. It is important to note that the concept of religious desire as imago Dei is in line with Pannenberg’s own understanding. The only difference is, Shults formulates and articulates it more explicitly than Pannenberg does. Furthermore, as it will become clear in the footnotes there is nothing novel about this conceptual framework. It has a long line of advocates from Augustine to Aquinas to Calvin and on.

1.3.    Plan of Study
This thesis will be accomplished in two sections. The first section will delineate Pannenberg’s understanding of the imago Dei. Through four couplets it will present his understanding of the image of God and his assertion that human beings are constituted by an openness, awareness, desire, worship, and trust but these are not themselves the image of God. These are instruments for the image of God, namely, the eschatological life in Jesus Christ human beings are destined for.  That being said, Pannenberg does not present these couplets as they are presented here but nevertheless they do encompass the conceptual highlights of his theological anthropology. Human beings are open to and aware of the world and God; desire and embrace the world or God; worship and trust what they are embracing in their search for wholeness and peace; and are destined to be open, aware, desire, worship, and trust like Jesus Christ did with the Father through the power of the Spirit.

The second section will briefly highlight how Pannenberg has failed to connect this robust theological anthropology with his ecclesiology. Pannenberg speaks of religious formation and that the openness, awareness, desire, worship, and trust of human beings needs to be shaped and formed into the image of Christ but he makes no mention of how this formation takes place. Then, the majority of the section will, primarily drawing upon Pannenberg’s theological anthropology and his general concept that the Church mediates faith and salvation, and examining the work of Susan Wood and LeRon Shults, explore how theological anthropology and ecclesiology can be connected. Specifically, attention will be given to how the imago Dei is mediated by the Spirit through the liturgical life of the Church. One could go on to explore how this itself is salvation but that is not the guiding concern of this essay. Wood and Shults will serve to challenge contemporary theologians to connect their theological anthropology and ecclesiology.

Posted 10 June 2009 † Kyle § PhD Studies § Theology ‡ Comments (2) °

Sacred Texts

I’ve been reading Gilles Deleuze and ruminating our disposition toward texts. Isn’t it ironic that theologians and biblical scholars claim that unbelievers cannot understand Scripture without their assistance while they presume they can read Plato, Aristotle, or Derrida without the philosopher’s assistance? Yet, it moves from ironic to amusing for me when their response is: “Scripture is a sacred text inspired and illuminated by the Spirit; Plato, Aristotle, and Derrida are not.” I don’t even know where to begin…

Posted 04 June 2009 † Kyle § Philosophy § Theology ‡ Comments (1) °

Discovering Your Roots After They Have Sprouted

When I studied philosophy in college my professor the late Byron Bitar never once said “reformational philosophy”. In fact, he hardly ever referred to figures or movements. In our Augustine, Aquinas, or Nietzsche courses one never knew when Byron was speaking or when Augustine, Aquinas, or Nietzsche was speaking. He possessed the unique faculty of being able to incarnate concepts and communicate them as if they were his own. In his own way he rendered Augustine’s notion of concupiscentia, Aquinas’ Aristotelianism, and Nietzsche’s Anti-Christ palatable. Before one knew it he had persuaded them and had them thinking like these figures. He was a true rhetorician. That being said, Byron didn’t speak much about his own influences. I remember him once stating that Nietzsche really challenged his faith but that was about it. Nothing about how reformed thought influenced his philosophy of friendship.

About three summers ago Jamie Smith, professor of philosophy at Calvin College, came out to Fuller to adjunct and taught a course on postmodern theologies. At the time I was a master’s student philosophically malnourished. Sure, I enjoyed my theological courses but deeply needed to satiate my philosophical appetite (Fuller does not have a strong philosophical orientation. That is a problem because every seminary should have a strong philosophical curriculum. Catholics are right about this.). In the course we examined a few continental philosophers: Levinas, Lyotard, Foucault, Derrida, Marion, Badiou, and Zizek. By far it was one of the top two courses I have enrolled here at Fuller. It was superb! Since that course I have followed Jamie carefully reading his material relatively voraciously. The more and more I read him the more and more I have discovered that something fundamental about his perspective and agenda resonate well with me.

This year I started reflecting on my philosophical training under Byron. I looked in my old college folders (what is left of them) and found pamphlets and philosophical papers from some of the courses I enrolled in. I looked to these texts because I was curious why I resonate with Jamie and was hopeful that I might find an answer here. I didn’t find much. But then something clicked. I remembered that Jamie is always talking about “reformational philosophy” in all of his works. Perhaps this is the link? A few weeks ago I emailed Jamie (we have maintained correspondence since the course) and inquired about his philosophical training. “Who have you read?” “Who has been most influential?” He told me that besides Augustine and Kuyper the “reformational philosophers” have influenced him and their more recent disciples like Al Wolters, Nicholas Wolterstorff, James Middleton and others. Jamie recommended a few books and I am looking forward to reading them this summer.

I am hopeful that in these pages I will discover the theories that gave rise to my training. From what I know of them thus far they resonate well with what I have been taught. Namely, the religiosity of all human beings, the Christian way of seeing and living in all spheres of life, and God’s sovereignty over all of creation. We shall see.

It’s a bit ironic for me: for as much as I think I know I barely know myself. My time here at Fuller as a master’s student and this year as a PhD student has predominately consisted of me trying to figure out who I am and where I come from. What have I been trained to be? What is behind my training? I have been trained to see things a particular way and now I am trying to ascertain who was behind the theories that gave rise to this training. Moreover, I am trying to learn the language so that I can understand them. I’m trying to learn what my roots are after they have already sprouted.

Posted 24 May 2009 † Kyle § Life § PhD Studies § Philosophy ‡ Comments (2) °