Kant argued that only those objects formed in a synthesis of sense perception can be objects that are in principle causally related to other objects. Only "substances" so formed can be causally-connected. Accordingly, if there are no substances, there can be no causality. An important result of Kant's work is the separation of the notion of 'cause' from that of 'reason'. One substance can cause the modification of another, but one substance cannot serve as a rational ground for the other. Conversely, one idea can serve as a rational ground for the other without the first causing the second.
Kant thus concluded that since there are no sense particulars falling under the concept of God, the divine cannot be a substance causally connected to another substance. Instead God is placed within the Ideas of Pure Reason. Human beings have, according to Kant, a natural metaphysical drive that can only find its resting place in the idea of the Unconditioned, the idea which contains "a therefore for every wherefore" (A585/B613). The demands of systemtatic unity and completeness find completeness in the Ideal of God: "A concept of an individual object which is completely determined through the mere idea" (A574/B602). As an Ideal of Reason, this being is not real: "This unconditioned is not, indeed, given as being in itself real, nor as having a reality that follows from its mere concept; it is, however, what alone can complete the series of conditions when we proceed to trace these conditions to their grounds. This is the course which our human reason, by its very nature, leads all of us" (A584/B612).
By expressly denying any causal relation to God - - and by making God a denizen of of the ideal realm - - Kant denies theophysical causation. Accordingly, predicating terms like 'create', 'redeem', and 'sustain' of 'God' must proceed in a different fashion than it had the antecedent tradition. After Kant, the theological tradition had to find ways to interpret their theological language in ways that did not suppose that God was a substance sustaining causal relations with His universe.
The effects upon religious practice were enormous. If God is causally-isolated from the universe, then God cannot answer prayer. Moreover, God cannot work miracles in the traditional sense of bringing about a state of affairs which would not customarily had come about. God really cannot do anything; He is an ideal to be contemplated. Accordingly, prayer becomes - - if people reflect profoundly enough upon the practice - - a self-centering activity, more like meditation.
Clearly, theology in a Lutheran key is possible on the supposition of denying theophysical causation. One can still preach law and gospel, and refer to the grace of Christ and the freedom Christ grants. However, one must subtly change the rules. It is not that God demands and through Christ's promise saves, it is rather that the idea or phenomenon of God is correlated with the fundamental phenomenon of demand, and the notion of Christ creates in the one experiencing it a sense of bonds being broken and the freedom of the future donated. This move is now in question, I believe, because in a pluralistic culture, why is it that one should insist upon the specificity of the notion or phenomenon of the Christ? And if there is no specificity, then Jesus cannot be the exclusive "Way and the Truth and the Life," a pretty basic assumption within traditional Lutheran theology.
Dennis,You always told me I should read Kant. Now, 18 years later, I finally see why.
ReplyDeleteYou assert that "theology in a Lutheran key is possible on the supposition of denying theophysical causation." Can you clarify or say a bit more about that?
While my understanding of theology is far less sophisticated than yours, it seems to me that if theophysical causation is removed from the equation then we can't even get to the Doctrine of the Incarnation (since God could not enter into history) much less to the Doctrine fo Salvation. Given that, how is an understanding of the relationship of law and gospel or, for that matter, justification by faith through grace attainable?
Dear Dr. Bielfeldt,
ReplyDeleteI agree that Kant has abstracted the knowledge of God from any concrete perception of him. This contradicts Romans 1's natural theology as well as everything the Scriptures says in general about God. It makes me want to quote Nietzsche at such sacrosanct arrogance.
But I wouldn't quote Nietzsche because I believe the Scriptures. And I think that this is actually the question and the problem. While there may be many Bible-believing Lutherans in the ELCA, the leading theologians who deny that the Scriptures speak clearly about Jesus being the Way, the Truth and the Life do not believe that the Scriptures are clear in the first place.
They have cut themselves off from the source by saying that it is not a source. Perhaps this is related to Kant's blasphemous rationalism, which effectively denies any possibility of metaphysical revelation apart from some a priori principles of pure reason - I'm not as well versed in Kantian philosophy as I'd like to be; but I do know that when a church body denies that the Scriptures are infallible this means that you will be dealing with people who believe the Scriptures deceive them. This means that eventually they are looked upon as untrustworthy even with regard to any empirical certitude.
The Scriptures must then be viewed as something other than the clear and pure fountain of Israel. They must become guidelines or principles or meta-somethings (I can't stand this new trend of avoiding the real meaning of things by attaching "meta" to everything). As such the Scriptures have are not speaking and are not doing what God gave them to men to do.
My wife wants me to stop typing on the computer, because it's Friday night and the kids are bugging her and you know...so I'll leave with that thought. I really appreciate your blog and hope that we might all take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.
Sincerely,
Mark Preus
In response to the post from KAJN:
ReplyDeleteAfter the Kantian paradigm shift, all talk of God had to refer not to some extralinguistic, extrasubjective reality, but rather to some type of human experience. Schleiermacher, for instance, claimed that the term 'God' clarified the whence of the feeling of absolute dependence.
Clearly, one can speak of the experience of demand and the experience of promise. One can do what Otto did, and give a phenomenological interpretation of the wrath and grace of God. Accordingly, just as we both fear and love God, so too the God that both both produces fear and love in us is given fear and love producing properties.
The most important move is to regard the persons of the Trinity as symbols which operate to mediate power such that humans are phenomenologically granted life in spite of the reality of death, phenomenologically granted forgiveness in spite of the reality of guilt, and phenomenologically granted meaning in spite of the reality of meaninglessness.
One merely regards the incarnation symbolically. Symbols, of course, cannot in so far as they are symbols have any causal powers whatsoever. The cause here would be the neuro-realizers of the symbols.
I know that this gets a bit complicated, but we have to join the fight where the battle is.
Thanks!
Mark,
ReplyDeleteYour instincts are pretty good here, I think. The problem for most theologically-interested people in the ELCA is that Scripture has ceased to be a text in principle different than any other text. This clearly raises the issue as to the warrant for believing this text reliable.
The move made most often in sophisticated (and often confessional) ELCA circles is to claim that Scripture is Scripture because it witnesses to the Lord of Scripture. Just as the greyhound on the old RCA record label strains to hear the music through the old phonograph, so too do we hearers of the Word strain to hear the word through the old and very historically-conditioned Biblical record. While it is difficult to find Jesus in Scripture, because He is Lord, it is nonetheless legitimate to find Him everywhere in Scripture.
The problem is that the new scriptural orthodoxy cannot answer the question as to why this text rather than another, except by saying that this one says 'Jesus is Lord' and the other doesn't. But when one comes to question why 'Jesus is Lord' is true, then one would expect some warrant besides it merely saying so in Scripture. In truth, if Scripture has no special status as being an artifact of the divine, then 'Jesus is Lord' must become a presuppositionless properly basic assertion that cannot be justified in anyway. (It is not like Thomas or Mary saw Jesus, but more like they would have had to intuit him.) In the absence of justification we are left with mere wish, and Feuerbach, Nietzsche, and Freud win. Thanks!
I've never quite understood the sophistication of neo-orthodox Lutherans. The Lord of Scripture says in Scripture that Scripture cannot be broken. It doesn't seem so hard to find Jesus there. If God can't testify clearly to man about Himself then we are left with nothing but a theologia speculativa, in which case everything we say about God is not drawn from anything God reveals, but what the imagination of men's hearts ,which is only evil continually.
ReplyDeletePerhaps they're afraid of the stigma that is attached by the world to those who argue the infallibility of the Scriptures.
I just read an article by Wittgenstein on the Anaximander fragment (about the beginning and destruction of things that are) where he concluded (well, nothing was really conclusive) that Being conceals itself when beings realize themselves. An oblivion, to be sure, but rather brilliant I think. God hides Himself from man's wisdom. "The world through wisdom did not know God" is demonstrated in that very wisdom which sets aside the Scriptures which make wise the simple. This recognition of Being by Wittgenstein also denies any historical grasp at Being, which the neo-orthodox in their wisdom wants to hold on to as they interpret what part of the Scriptures they desire be God's revelation.
Philosophy aside, "The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple." Here all reason must bow down and pay homage to the faith of infants, because it is they who silence the accuser with the wisdom which God's written Word gives.
In any case, my point is that if the source is taken away then how do conservative Lutherans in the ELCA portend that they will succeed against the devil's onslaughts? The only resolution I see is that they confess what the Scriptures teach about themselves. Then they won't be bound in the oblivion that Wittgenstein seemed to have enjoyed entering.
Thank you for responding. I see you're in Brookings. I thought I might have done my vicarage there, but it didn't happen.
Mark
Sorry, I meant Heidegger! Confusing Germans!
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