Tim. Thanks for your excellent comments. For some reason I cannot post on my site, so I am responding here.
The question I have relates to the distinction between the being of the Word, the knowing of the Word, and what the Word does. What exactly is this relationship? Does what the Word does determine the being of the Word, or simply our knowing of it?
Even if we know the answer to this, however, we are still faced with the question of the identity conditions of what the Word does. How exactly do we know that life is communicated by the Word, (in spite of the fact of death), when we cannot know what would count as the ontological contour of such life? What does it mean exactly for the Word to do?
Sometimes things are very obvious until we start to think about them really hard. If I cannot specify the precise conditions under which life and forgiveness are decidedly not communicated, how can I know for sure when they are? This is a general problem for all who want to think deeply about the hidden nature of faith and salvation.
Dennis
Thanks for your excellent post!
1 comment:
YOU ASK:
"Is it possible to account for the authority of Holy Scriptures in terms of the existential effect the texts have upon their readers?"
I RESPOND:
Luther spent a lot of ink on issues of the First Commandment. Perhaps that ink may be helpful here. The most basic claim the biblical text makes of itself is "Thus says the Lord!" The preacher--either in speaking the literal words of the text or in the subsequent proclamation (insofar as the preaching is in line with the text)--puts for the same claim: "So says the Lord." This claim for the text and by the text lays claim on the hearers as well. A claim that draws forth confession in such a way that they then say--(and here I use a phrase from "Battlestar Galactica")--"So say we all!" “Thus says the Lord” is functionally equivalent to the declaration: “This is the Word of God.”
Now… one might say “This is the Word of God” about any old text (the “p” to be some other text, as you said previously). And, as you also said previously, there is a cultural context for the hearing of this text’s claim to be “the Word of God” such that the meaning is a matter of life and death. Does not the question then arise: “Which God is speaking through this text? If that indeed is the question, then haven’t we moved from the authority of the text to issues of the First Commandment?
Have we not all experienced situations where in the false gods speak? The god of consumerism puts forth “Always the lowest prices,” this is the Word of Wal Mart. The god of patriotism declares: “My country right or wrong,” this is the Word of posse commitatus. Just as each of these “idols” is identified by the appropriate “word,” so too is the true God identified by His Word.
The connection between Lord—as in “Thus says the Lord”---and the people—as in “So say we all”—is the content of what is “said.” If the “So say we all” does not have the same content as “Thus says the Lord” (where “Lord” means the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ), the “we” are not confessing the true God.
Have not Lutherans used “external clarity” and “internal clarity” as their two ways of describing content?” External clarity would be the objective facts of words on a page: they say what they mean and mean what they say; this “content” is delivered through the simple rules of vocabulary and grammar. Internal clarity would be the content of the Word of God itself, that is, Jesus Christ; the “word” is the “person” delivered to the person hearing.
Since the external clarity is indeed a cultural context persistent through the generations and produced by those generations as they have confessed, “So say we all,” one cannot claim to possess the internal clarity of that Word (that is, to claim Jesus Christ as Lord) when that one does not confess the external clarity affirmed by the persistent cultural context of “So say we all.” By not confessing that external clarity which is the persistent Word of the True God, those ones do not have True God as their god.
The answer to your question at the top of this comment is intimately related to another of your previous questions: “Is it possible to have Christian Faith, (e.g. the faith of Luther) in the absence of explicit metaphysical commitments?” I say, “No.” One must be committed to a God who is at least causally involved enough with creation in order to deliver His Word to generation after generation in such a way that when they hear: “Thus says the Lord,” they confess: “So say we all.”
In this way your question—the one at the top—really has a two-fold answer: Yes, the authority of Scripture is evident in its existential effect upon its hearers—“Jesus is Lord.” This is the authority of the internal clarity. However, such confession will not be a confession of the word of the true God unless the external clarity of “Thus says the Lord” is indeed the “So say we all” of the persistent cultural context which anchors that Word in its ancient origins.
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