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Faith lacking understandingTheology 'through a glass darkly'Creed for dodgy apostlesFAITH LACKING UNDERSTANDING Rauser claims that ‘doing theology’ is more exciting than winning a Formula 1 Grand Prix, and more dangerous than scaling an uncharted mountain range. This book looks at the Apostles’ Creed and worries that, through over-familiarity, we have come to assume an understanding which we do not truly have. His helpful test is an evaluation of our response to these soaring doctrines of the faith: as we speak the words, are we thrilled, encouraged, or even incredulous? Any of these are better than the simple apathy we normally experience. Rauser’s goal, then, is to shake the reader out of apathy, away from apparent understanding and into the journey of ‘unimaginable peril and inestimable reward’ (p.2) which is true theological engagement. Yet, that journey is a dangerous one. Dangerous, because — to our minds — Christian doctrines are illogical (well known paradoxes — such as the Trinity — are logically inconsistent), immoral (don’t the doctrines of Hell or Atonement imply a blood-thirsty God?) and implausible (frankly naive, in our Western, post-Enlightenment, scientific world). Of course, the point is not that Christian doctrine is illogical, immoral or implausible. Rather, that our thinking is limited and inconsistent. Indeed, we are finite beings studying the one thing which is infinite — so we will always fall short in our attempts at comprehension. Mysterious problemsEach chapter of the book, then, examines one clause of the Apostles’ Creed and our problems with the mysterious doctrines therein enshrined. So, the success of the book overall depends upon the quality of these chapters — but, for two reasons, they fail to satisfy. Firstly, in each chapter, after a very fast introduction to what we do know and an often quite thorough statement of the problem, Rauser outlines a variety of proposed solutions and then critiques them. This may be good methodology, but his treatment is so varied as to be ultimately confusing: e.g. we are treated (within the same chapter) to several pages on quantum indeterminacy (as one explanation of how God may be active in the world) but theological ideas with long heritage (e.g. Turretin on Compatibilism) are ‘dismissed’ with a single line. Secondly, while clearly fundamentally orthodox, Rauser appears to have a preference for incomprehension. We could all acknowledge, for example, that there is abiding mystery in Chalcedonian Christology; but rather than rest in the understanding which Chalcedon offers, gazing at the remaining mystery in wonder, his concern to shake us from our ‘intellectual apathy’ means he uses his chapter on the Incarnation to describe and then criticise two opposite arguments which play on isolated elements of that Christology and so can easily be demonstrated inadequate. All of which leaves me wondering what his real intent is. This is a great shame. The book is short, Rauser is very readable and tremendously able to explain extremely complex ideas. But, though he recognises that the proper order is to believe and then to seek understanding, his whole project rather suggests that not to understand is our basic condition — yet (and this, I suppose, is my fundamental concern) he offers no constructive way either to overcome or develop a spirituality that lives with that incomprehension. James Halstead, © Evangelicals Now - April 2009 |