Justifying the Individual

Though I have never posted a sermon before, I decided to post this one. It was preached at the Institute of Lutheran Theology shortly after the election. The text was Hebrews 10:11-25. Readers might think it wrong-headed, but as always I enjoy feedback and discussion.

________________________________

We had an election here in America.   Some say that it was the most important election of our lifetimes.   There is in America a fundamental parting of ways for those who deeply embrace the ideology of their parties.   Does one want smaller government with an emphasis on individual responsibility and innovation, or does one want larger government with an emphasis on what the power of the State can build and do?  One side concentrates upon the horizon of the individual, the other on the fabric of the community.  

Pundits and preachers on both sides proclaim the virtues of what we might call social/cultural atomism over and against social/cultural holism.  The first claims that the basic reality is that of individuality and groups are collections of individuals.  The second argues that the fundamental reality is community, and that individuals are merely the ways that communities have their being in a particular location.  Red states tend to reduce the behavior of wholes to the collection of the behavior of parts; blue states tend to claim that the behavior of the part is, in some sense, an abstraction from the behavior of the whole.  

Thus, when one claims, “it takes a village,” one is espousing a particular ontology about the logical priority of wholes and parts.   Since the study of wholes and parts is called “mereology,” to claim, “it takes a village,” is to adopt a particular “mereological ontology.”  So, you see, one can say a great many complex-sounding things about something that is really quite simple. 

But why would one say complex-sounding things about what is quite simple?  And, more to the point, why would one talk about parts and whole, red states and blue states?

Well, think about it for a moment.   Think about the great Christian narrative of creation, fall and redemption.  God made the universe good; the universe fell into being not-good and thus into being not-itself; and the universe through Christ became again what it is - - though it still retained the flavor of what it is not.  The process of the universe becoming again what it once most profoundly was is called in the tradition, “justification.”   We are made right again; like a well-tempered clavier, we are justified, rightly tuned again through the blood of Jesus. 

Traditional Catholic theology disagreed on many things, but one thing it mostly agreed upon was that ‘justified’ and ‘not-justified’ are antonyms.  The more just one is, the less unjust he or she can be.  If we are justified by Christ’s action, then we are not the unjust beings we were through the Fall.   Redemption brings forth a return to Paradise, a Return to Forever, a return to the time before time, the primal time of all Beginning, the state prior to the disruption, decay, and, in some sense, existence itself.  

Look at the text from Hebrews.   Christ has “perfected for all time those who are sanctified.”   This is the time of the forgiveness of sins, a time of sprinkling clean the conscience and ritually purifying the body, a time of promise and faith, of provocation to love and goodness, a time of the approaching Day. 

But attention to the text shows something quite complex happening.   While the Day of paradise has dawned in one sense, the habits of the old age remain.  This is why this is an approaching Day, and not a Day already attained.   The Day is dawning; Paradise is returning; the Old is passing away and the New is taking its place.   There is in this time of approaching Paradise, a time of perfection in that which is still not perfect.   While most of Catholic theology in one way or the other claimed that the more just was the New Day the less unjust was the Old Day, Luther and his Circle read Scripture and tradition in a way that allowed them to say that the New Day was totally present while the Old Day remained completely.   Lutheran theology claims thus that we sinners are wholly justified while remaining completely sinful: simul iustus et peccator.  

So have we got all of that clear?    - - I would think that most listening to this sermon would say, “Tell us something we don’t know.  We know that the Council of Trent condemned Luther for saying that sin remained after justification.  We know that we are simul iustus et peccator.”

Please bear with me if you know this already, and if my saying it again does not make it a clearer or a more effective Word for you.   What I have said so far is just setting the table for making the fundamental point.  I must now relate what I just said to what I said earlier.  Teachers and preachers are supposed to do that, after all, and because I am both, I will attempt to do it now. 

Justification for Lutherans brings back the Before in the not-Before.   It brings back Paradise outside of Paradise.  But what is the being of that which is not-Before and is now Before, of that which is not-Paradise but is now Paradise?  Is this being a being of individuals comprising groups, or is it the groups from which individuals are abstracted? 

You might think this a deeply irrelevant and tangential question.  What difference could this possibly make?

The difference, I aver, is profound and has everything to do with why Lutherans have split up and misunderstood each other so profoundly.   You see, Lutheran theology has always privileged the individual as the locus of justification.   I remember my old teacher, Dr. George Forell, would say there are no Christian institutions, only institutions in which there are Christians.   The term ‘Christian’ can accordingly only properly apply to individuals and not groups.   Individuals are justified by grace through faith, not groups.   Justification is the process of the individual becoming right with God, while his or her living out of that rightness is the Christian community or Church.  

But times are a changing.   In the nineteenth century the idea of a social group with a Geist or “spirit” gained ascendency.   With eyes on this world rather than the next, thinkers downplayed the idea of personal immortality in favor of the notion of achieving lasting being within the context of the group.  New eyes on the Old Testament thematized the notion of the Chosen People as a community of the faithful.  Justification increasingly became associated with a transition from social disorder to a melioration of that order.   This is, of course, exactly what one would think if one were to hold that the primary bearer of being is the community and not the individual. 

Time does not permit me to trace the subtle ways that this changed ontology changed Lutheran preaching.  In the Institute of Lutheran Theology, we explore these matters quite deeply.   The take-away, however, is that if primary being rests with the community, then the hearing of the Word must be a doing of the Word, for only in this way are communities changed.   Whereas in earlier times one could talk meaningfully about an “inner transformation” of the person, this is what is precluded in an ontology that takes the “inner” to be a mere abstraction of the real being of social order and community.  

The ELCA, the denominational body to which many of us previously belonged, privileged in their working theology an ontology of community.  Very subtly and gradually, sin became social fragmentation and justification become social integration.   Notions of individual resurrection were replaced by the idea of a resurrected community.   But the people of the pews did not abandon their previous ontology.   The blue state church, filled with individuals having red state commitments, imploded.   And here is where we find ourselves today. 

It is time today to understand what has gone wrong and return to a deep presupposition of Christianity itself:  We stand alone before a God that knows our every thought and breath; we stand naked underneath His eternal and wrathful divine gaze. 

Yet in the midst of this reality of being forever shut out of Paradise, a Word comes from God that is Himself God.   This Word claims us upon the horizon of our own being; He claims us not primarily as a people, but as me.   Listen!  You, yes, you yourself, are grasped eternally by the God whose justice can only reject you.  You, eternally have been grabbed and are being drug back to paradise.   God has a preferential option for you, not the social orders and structures you inhabit.   This is good news, exceedingly good news.   You yourself are precious and you yourself is where Christ is present! 

Had we remembered this, we would never have lost our way so deeply.  

Certain Confusions Concerning Faith

To the question, "How do I know that my Redeemer lives?" some facilely respond "by faith." But what is this "by faith" whereby they know that there Redeemer lives? This is a question perhaps we have not explored deeply enough - - or at least not deeply enough in those areas which are by nature rather deep.

Lamentably, those responding to the question often make a fundamental kind of error, somehow believing that faith itself forms some perceptual-revelatory content whereby they are put in touch with the objectivity of the Word. The Word is imagined to be a content for thinking, willing, and doing, a content that faith somehow displays. Lutherans, of course, have always stressed the externality of the Word over and against its subjective appropriation. Because the Lutheran theological tradition has thematized externality, one would think it difficult were it to cast its eyes upon those having faith, were it to look upon the contour of faith rather than what faith is about. Clearly, for Lutherans, the reification of faith must be averted.

For this reason, believe, is perhaps helpful to think of faith adverbially. Like the adverbial theory of perception, an adverbial theory of faith would understand its subject as a way of being given, rather than as a content of givenness. In order to see this, let us review the distinction between the phenomenological experience of the subject's sense-data, and the way that the subject might know objects in the world.

Classically, sense-datum theorists claimed that there was something definite that was known perceptually, a phenomenological content that then could be judged as to how it related to the world. Accordingly, the world is conceived to have a definiteness to which the sense datum is related. Sometimes called an "act-object" theory of perception, the problem easily became how how to connect the givenness of the object of the act of givenness to the external world. It seems, in fact, that a type of perceptual dualism can easily arise, a dualism that holds between the sense-datum objects, and the putative mind-independent objects somehow causing them.

Adverbial theorists, however, take another avenue entirely. Instead of claiming that there are mind-dependent sense-datum objects interposed between the act of perception and the mind-independent external order, the adverbial theory declares that perception is of the external world, and that the thing putatively experienced, according to the sense-datum view, is merely a way in which the mind-independent world is experienced. It is not the experience of X that is present for an act of cognition or perception, but that the act of cognition or perception is a way of experiencing the world in a X-ly fashion.

An example might be helpful. According to a sense-datum theory, I can be given a red spot - - whether or not there is such a spot in the world. What appears to me is a red spot. The adverbial theory, alternatively, claims that I am experiencing the external world in a red-spottedly way, that is to say, I am being appeared to red-spottedly. While the theory successively opposes ontologizing perceptual content, it unfortunately does not adequately deal with the what exactly it is to be appeared to red-spottedly. While there is now no mystery how to get to the mind-independent world from an act of consciousness, there is great mystery in knowing precisely what the act of consciousness is by which one knows the world.

While neither the sense-datum and adverbial theories are cutting-edge these days in the philosophy of perception. their existence is useful for thinking through the nature of faith.

One might claim that faith provides a content in being "interposed" between the Word grasped and the subject grasping the Word. Accordingly, faith has a content that can be encountered, a content present to the subject that is in some way "caused" by the Word. Just as the mind-independent external object causes the putative sense-datum that is itself the object of the act of percepient's perceptual act, so too does the Word cause the content of faith, a content that is itself the object of the believer's act. Accordingly, there is an ontological priority to the Word over what the Word creates: the believer's faith. On this view, faith is made a substance, it is ontologized to become a thing existing between the believer and the Word.

But Lutherans would do best not to go down this track. Instead, it is far better to think of faith as a "way-of-being" the believer, as the way that Word is grasped by the believer. The Word is not available to us as a perceptual/conceptual content of the act of the believer's consciousness, but rather we are appeared to Word-ly. Faith is not an apprehension of the Word, but rather the Word's apprehension in us. Through faith we are appeared to Word-ly. Our experience of the Word is not a state in us that we can know, but rather is that by which the Word is itself known. Faith is not a theological reality, but the way in which theological reality is grasped. Accordingly, we are justified by grace not because of faith, but because our justification by grace happens faithfully. We are justified propter Christum, not propter fidem - - less anyone should grow confused.

Theological Doctrine as Grammar: The Meaning as Use Ruse

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to assert the great doctrines of the Church without having actually to violate one’s ontological scruples about there being states of affairs referred to by these doctrines? What if one were to claim that the Lutherans and the Catholics actually pretty much agree on justification, as the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification declared, without either party actually having to change its very different understanding of the notion, an understanding that has separated the two groups for almost five centuries? What if one were to claim that there is an identity in difference, an identity sufficient for ecumenical agreement even when the groups have understood themselves in the difference? What if one could claim a unity without a change in the interpretation either side gives to its language? Would this not be too good to be true for proponents of contemporary ecumenicity?

Take the following sentence: ‘We are justified by grace alone through faith.” As it stands, it has an everyday meaning due to inchoate interpretations used both by Catholics and Lutherans. For Lutherans, the sentence has been regarded as true; for Catholics, it is false. It is true for Lutherans because God is the agent by which grace is given to the believer in faith. The Christian who is justified in faith automatically acts out of that faith, for a good tree must bear good fruit. In the Catholic tradition, faith must be formed by love; one is justified by grace through faith issuing in works of love. Catholics and Lutherans could disagree about how ‘faith’ connects to love. Lutherans tend to regard love as analytically entailed by faith, while Catholics deny this. (I am being very general here.)

One could, I suppose, count agreement between Lutherans and Catholics if the same sentence were uttered by each in relevant contexts with suitable linguistic cues. In other words, one could understand the sentence behaviorally. The sentence has the same meaning for two users if and only if the proclivity to utter it is similar given suitably similar linguistic cues. One might even claim that because the sentence is used the same way by the two different communities, thus the two theological communities assign to it the same meaning.

But this is, of course, a deeply unsatisfactory way for two different linguistic communities to affirm the same statement. After all, it is not the use to which it is put that gives the sentence the same meaning, but it is rather that both have a common meaning, and thus the sentences are used in similar ways. Clearly, in order for Catholics and Lutherans to agree on the statement, something more than merely uttering the statement in similar linguistic contexts is necessary.

It is standard in logic and semantics that an interpretation be assigned individuals and predicates of the language (non-logical terms) so that it can be determined what models of a sentence or groups of sentences satisfy them. See how this clarifies statements like ‘S is justified by grace through faith’ and ‘S is justified by grace through faith issuing in acts of love’. The first could be rendered as follows ‘(some x)(some y)[(Gx & Fy) & Jsxy]’ read as ‘there is something which is grace, and something which is faith, such that s is justified by that which is grace through that which is faith’. However, given that love issues from faith, we might add, ‘(some x)(some y){(Gx & Fy) & (Ly & Jsxy)]’ read as ‘there is something that is grace, and something that is faith issuing in love, such that s is justified by that which is grace through that which is faith’. Now notice that the same string can be used to capture the Catholic view, that we are justified by grace, through faith issuing in love. Clearly, both have the same model, {(some x) is a member of {x : x has G}, (some y) is a member of [{y : y has faith} intersects {y : y issues in love}], (s, some x, some y) is a member of {(x, y, z) : x is justified by y through z}}. The two sentences are not only compatible by having a common model, they are equivalent because they are satisfied by exactly the same set of models. They have a common model-structure.

Ecumenical conversations would be greatly improved, in my opinion, if the dialogue partners were to pay profound attention to what is meant by the phrases they use. If both sides were disciplined in providing formal interpretations for their statements, it would become quite clear what, if anything, are the significant differences of meaning between the two.

Objective Guilt and Justification

It is difficult to understand guilt correctly these days. When guilt became "subjectivized" into pyschological states, the ontological contour of guilt simply faded away. In former times, of course, one could make good sense of guilt as a transgression of the laws of God. One was "guilty" for not doing what one ought to do, even if one did not know one was so guilty. People are guilty coram deo (before God) even when they do not know of their transgression of divine boundaries.

In an age that understands guilt objectively, the prophetic voice is crucial. The prophet is one that reminds people of their guilt; he or she tells them what is the case and, by doing so, drives them into subjective apprehension of their guilt. A consonance between subjective and objective guilt is necessary if a person is ever to repent. The necessary condition for an experience of repentance is subjective apprehension of one's objective guilt.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam all look to the future for a "day of the Lord." Such a day will be one when the "lion and lamb lie down together" and the "child plays with the adder." This day will be a day when the mountains are leved out and the valleys raised up (Luke 3). In the day of the Lord there shall be no unsatisfied guilt. Objective guilt demands objective satisfaction. Retributive justice requires paying back "likes for likes" (Cicero). The scales of justice must balance in a just society. In the day of the Lord, there shall be proper justice; there shall be no "extra guilt" in the universe. Just as the sum total of all charges in the universe is zero (at least, that is what many physicists say), so too the sum total of all guilt in the universe is zero. In the day of the Lord, all guilt is cancelled by its proper satisfaction.

It is truly wonderful to think of the justice in this "last day." Judaism, Christianity, and Islam long for the just day in which there will be no uncancelled guilt. However, while Judaism and Islam continue to look to the future for the justice of the day of the Lord, Christians claim that this justice has already dawned in the person and work of Jesus the Christ. Unlike the other great monotheisms, God's day of justice is already here! Right now guilt and satisfaction are in proper balance. Right now the mountains have been lowered and the valleys raised. Right now the lion lies peacefully with the lamb.

But how can this be? It should be apparent to everyone that this is clearly not so; there is no objective justice here and now. The "not yet" of the eschaton might bear justice, but surely in the "yet" of time, justice is lacking.

Precisely this, however, is the paradox. Just as we are objectively guilty, though seldom realize it, so are we now living in a state of objective justice, though we cannot see it. The Christian claim is that the justice of the eschatological "not yet" is now "yet" present in the injustice of the world. Simply put, eternal justice is present in the injustice of time.

But how ought one understand this? What is the relation between temporal injustice and eternal justice? How can it be that this world is already just and still not just at the same time? What is the ontology of the justice the prevails now?

There are a number of options. One could, I suppose, simply deny that any justice holds now. We might claim that the world is groaning in travail and waiting for some future rectification. While this seems true empirically, it is inconsistent with the profound Christian claim that the logos (proper order) actually entered history in Jesus the Christ.

One could claim that justice is really present, and no matter how bad things appear, the reality is that God has entered time and that justice has been established. The problem with this view is that it devalues the current situation. Things are good, no matter how they look.

The proper claim is to hold in tension the "yet" and "not yet" by understanding the reality of present justice theo-ontologically. From the standpoing of the divine, justice has been established through the Cross of Christ. However, this is simply not true ontologically, from the human standpoint. Earthly eyes see that the day of the Lord shall someday come; divine eyes know it is already here. How can this be reconciled?

The truth is that no synthesis of the human and divine standpoints are possible. What humans can hope for is a "trickle down" from the justice already theo-ontologically established into the injustice of a world ontologically comprehended by sinful man and woman. The world, like human beings, is both just and unjust at the same time. It is not partially just and partially unjust (partim/partim), but it is wholly both just and unjust (totus/totus). This is the place where the paradox lives, and this paradoxical presence ought not be mistaken for conceptual confusion.