June 10, 2018 Robert T. Walker, "The Relation of Theology to Other Subjects" https://tftorrance.org/firbush/ The audio recording for this presentation is available on the Firbush Retreat section of the website for the Thomas F. Torrance Theological Fellowship. The following AI transcript is too rough to rely upon, but perhaps useful for word searches and time-stamps. It is unretouched; if anyone wishes to listen to it and clean it up we will be happy to post an improved version (contact the webmasters). We invite speakers to send us slides for their talks, which we will post alongside the audios and transcripts. If any speaker wishes to have their talk removed from the website, just let us know and we'll take down both the audio and the transcript. ------------ 00:00-00:12 The topic of the 10th of June 2018 is the relation of theology to other subjects. 00:12-00:22 We have read from Psalm 111, a few verses from Proverbs 8 and from Proverbs 9 and from 00:22-00:32 the end of Exodus 35 to the beginning of chapter 36. 00:32-00:37 Traditionally the Sunday before the retreat is a kind of potted version of the talk I 00:37-00:42 give at the retreat and the talk I'm giving at the retreat has to be a potted version 00:42-00:47 of eight pages of handout. 00:47-00:54 So this will be a very potted version but the relation of theology to other subjects 00:54-01:00 depends basically on the whole relation of creation to God. 01:00-01:06 That's the absolute key and then the second key is the nature of the creation, the nature 01:06-01:13 of God and the nature of creation because that dictates the nature of the relation of 01:13-01:16 theology to other subjects. 01:16-01:34 The absolutely key thing is that we have been brought into being out of nothing. 01:34-01:39 The implications of that can't be overestimated, they are absolutely fundamental. 01:39-01:42 It means we are not God in any form. 01:42-01:48 We are absolutely not God, we never will be God, nothing of us is divine, there is no 01:48-01:54 divine spark in us, we are not spirit the way God is spirit, we are physical beings, 01:54-01:57 physical creaturely beings. 01:57-02:04 All the language about God is also like that and that's rather striking and important. 02:04-02:13 But we'll come back to that, so because we were brought into being out of nothing as 02:13-02:21 a new creation God has given us our own inherent structure and intelligibility. 02:21-02:26 If we had come into being out of God then we would have shared something of the nature 02:26-02:32 of God and if we had known what God was like then we could have said something about what 02:32-02:38 we are like but we are entirely new creation and therefore we cannot look at God to see 02:38-02:41 what creation is like. 02:41-02:45 It's coming to being, it has a beginning, it's a new event and that's the whole basis 02:45-02:47 of science. 02:47-02:54 The empirical science is based on that fundamental thing, we have to look at creation to see 02:54-02:58 what it's like and not at God. 02:58-03:04 At the same time the very nature of creation is that we have been brought into being by 03:04-03:15 God and we continue to be held in being by God and we are not permanent. 03:15-03:22 So we are brought into being by God completely by His loving free will to be different from 03:22-03:30 Him, entirely different from Him with our own nature and yet we continue to be dependent 03:30-03:31 on God. 03:31-03:43 But it's a little bit more complicated than that, partly because God has made us to reflect 03:43-03:57 what He is so some of what He is we reflect and He is a God of profound intelligibility, 03:57-04:05 of rationality, of wisdom and so as the Psalms and as the Proverbs in particular emphasise 04:05-04:11 He has made the world in wisdom and everything that we do, every single little thing we do 04:11-04:21 in life demands a certain degree of wisdom and understanding, crossing the road, cooking, 04:21-04:23 knowing how to do this, that and the next thing. 04:23-04:30 Every skill hobby demands wisdom, a certain degree of intelligence and there are different 04:30-04:38 types of intelligence but everything is done in wisdom and that's because God in His very 04:38-04:44 nature is a God of utter profound depth and wisdom. 04:44-04:52 We can only have the faintest glimpse of that but when we examine creation more and more 04:52-04:59 in science we discover the unbelievable depth and wisdom of every single little part of 04:59-05:05 creation and we'll never get to the bottom of it. 05:05-05:13 There are various reasons for that but that's one of Einstein's famous sayings that God 05:13-05:20 doesn't wear His heart on a sleeve, that there's a depth to nature. 05:20-05:29 So the world has been made in wisdom and everything has its own logic, its own structure and we 05:29-05:37 have to discover it and learn to behave in terms of the nature of what it is that we're 05:37-05:41 investigating. 05:41-05:47 So that means, well there are two principles so far, one is that we're not God, we're different 05:47-05:53 and therefore we have to look at, well we can't look at God but we can only look at 05:53-06:00 God because He makes Himself known to us and so we can only know God if He makes Himself 06:00-06:05 known to us but in that sense we can only know God by looking at God as He makes Himself 06:05-06:07 known to us. 06:07-06:12 God Himself and only God Himself can make Himself known to us, only God can make God 06:12-06:19 known and to know the creature or anything creation we have to look at creation and not 06:19-06:21 mix it up with God. 06:21-06:31 That's the key because it's very easy to mix things up with God and a lot of sin is mixing 06:31-06:32 things up with God. 06:32-06:40 Take the power of sex for example, it's so fantastic, so brilliant, you get sex that 06:40-06:49 think this is divine so that when you have ecstatic sex then you're getting closer to 06:49-06:57 God, total utter nonsense, that's confusing God and the creature, the creature is different 06:57-07:02 from God. 07:02-07:10 But the second one is that everything is endowed with an intelligibility, a complexity, a rationality 07:10-07:15 which is unbelievably wonderful and exciting. 07:15-07:23 People get excited about all sorts of things, they spend years of research on minute aspects 07:23-07:34 of science, how fruit flies function, how animals find their way in the dark or millions 07:34-07:39 of miles across the Atlantic. 07:39-07:47 So the whole principle of rationality is that God has made the world in wisdom and it's 07:47-07:55 the intelligibility of the world, the inherent structure and order which is there to be understood 07:55-07:58 which is the basis of rationality. 07:58-08:04 If the world wasn't intelligible we would not be rational. 08:04-08:13 Our reason for that to a great part consists of knowing what nature is, how to understand 08:13-08:19 it, how it's going to behave and how to behave in relation to it. 08:19-08:25 So that reason is based on the principle of being able to respond in the appropriate way 08:25-08:31 to the nature of the object and that's absolutely fundamental. 08:31-08:37 So you can't take the type of reason that you've gained in one subject and apply it 08:37-08:44 automatically to another and therefore you can't apply the kind of proofs that we have 08:44-08:50 in science and demand the same kind of proofs for God. 08:50-08:57 Each subject has its own rationality. 08:57-09:03 Once we have our own wonderful rationality where physical beings and everything we do 09:03-09:09 as physical beings is meant to be done with all our might and enjoyed. 09:09-09:17 One of the reasons we could have had was several from the book of Ecclesiastes where one of 09:17-09:22 the themes is that everything is vanity because the end will die. 09:22-09:26 One of the other themes is that you're going to die and therefore enjoy your life to the 09:26-09:32 full while you have it. 09:32-09:44 We have to enjoy this creation so that we have to understand it, throw ourselves into 09:44-09:53 it, be faithful to it in terms of its own logic but at the same time it only is what 09:53-10:00 it is because it's been brought into being by God and held in being by God. 10:00-10:08 And it's only when we really know God that we can really appreciate the creation as it 10:08-10:14 is, as a real reality. 10:14-10:22 That may sound paradoxical because we think we all know we're real, we're not ghosts. 10:22-10:30 And yet when we know God, I think it's fair to say, I would argue strongly, that it's 10:30-10:40 only when we really know God that we can sense that we are real in an amazing way because 10:40-10:48 we are real alongside God, that God has brought us into being and He's made Himself known 10:48-10:49 to us. 10:49-10:57 Now normally we think on one level and when we don't know God we automatically think we 10:57-11:05 either want to become God as an Eastern philosophy or we think God is a threat to us. 11:05-11:11 Because we can explain the world by science we don't need God and people automatically 11:11-11:20 think that to talk about God is a threat to the integrity of creation and that's the opposite 11:20-11:21 is the case. 11:21-11:32 It's only when we really know God that He has brought us into being to exist alongside 11:32-11:33 Him. 11:33-11:44 It's two levels, obviously God is vastly on a different level than we are, but nevertheless 11:44-11:48 He's brought us into being to be real. 11:48-11:55 And when we know that He has brought us and made us stand on our feet before Him and loves 11:55-12:06 us then we discover that we are real in a much more real way than we were aware of before. 12:06-12:09 And that's pure grace. 12:09-12:19 It's only if it's by pure grace that we know it's a total gift. 12:19-12:27 That's the relation between the reality of God and the reality of the creation. 12:27-12:39 But that raises the whole question how exactly can we say more than that? 12:39-12:47 And here we go back to J.F. in his very earliest writings, it's very interesting, some of the 12:47-12:55 very earliest writings he very quickly saw that the pattern, the way that God has acted 12:55-13:06 to us in Jesus is the pattern for all His relations between God and man or God and creation. 13:06-13:12 So the pattern of the person of Christ is the key pattern to guide all our thinking 13:12-13:19 of the relation between God and creation and theology and other subjects. 13:19-13:28 So for example, the person of Christ, Christ is fully God, just as much God as God the 13:28-13:35 Father and God the Spirit is, and yet He's also man, He's become man. 13:35-13:44 But when we say become we don't mean He's turned into a man and so ceased to be God. 13:44-13:52 He remains fully God, but He's become fully man. 13:52-14:09 Does that mean He's a God and a man together like a God and a man in a kind of amalgam? 14:09-14:11 How does it work? 14:11-14:20 The early church wrestled with the whole question of the nature of Christ and in faithfulness 14:20-14:26 to the scripture they had to say no, there's only one person there, there's one Jesus, 14:26-14:33 there's not a God Jesus and a man Jesus or a God Jesus and a man Jesus and there's no 14:33-14:37 mixture between the two. 14:37-14:45 They came up with the famous so-called Chalcedonian adverbs, the great Council of Chalcedon in 14:45-14:53 4.5.1 where they defined the nature of Christ. 14:53-15:03 When we say defined they could point to what it was that Christ is one person, they can't 15:03-15:11 say how and that He's both God and man, He's got two natures and they can't possibly say 15:11-15:18 how He is both of these things at once, but what they could say and rightly say is that 15:18-15:21 they could rule out their own ways of understanding it. 15:21-15:31 This is a positive reality, an astonishing new reality, God and man, God who has become 15:31-15:39 one person, who is both God and man and yet not two people but one person. 15:39-15:45 God is real, man is real. 15:45-15:52 There's no change, God does not change from God being God into being man and when He became 15:52-15:58 man the humanity was not changed into God. 15:58-16:02 His divinity remained fully divine, His humanity remained fully human. 16:02-16:10 At the same time there's no confusion, no mixture. 16:10-16:16 When you're cooking you put things in and you mix them up and they're all one, they're 16:16-16:22 mixed, but with God there's no mixture of God and humanity. 16:22-16:32 So that the divinity of Jesus is there and the humanity is real, is also real, no change 16:32-16:33 or confusion. 16:33-16:42 At the same time there's no division or separation. 16:42-16:49 And so we can rule out the wrong ways of understanding it but we can't say how it happened. 16:49-16:56 We have to be faithful to the nature of the reality and everything that Christ did, this 16:56-17:03 is the only thing that fits what actually happened and what Christ did. 17:03-17:15 So the implications of that are that now theology, well all subjects have to be done in accordance 17:15-17:21 with the principle of rationality, being obedient to the nature of the subject and it's the 17:21-17:26 same with human, with knowledge of God. 17:26-17:33 Knowledge of God is human knowledge of God and yet it is real knowledge of God. 17:33-17:42 When we say real it means that our minds are actually standing on God, we are ontologically, 17:42-17:52 we know God not face to face in person because we don't see Him, but our minds, our hearts 17:52-18:00 have a real encounter with God and we stand on Him in a sense. 18:00-18:07 But that is only because God makes Himself known to us, it's not something we can do 18:07-18:14 and it's only because God comes down to our level and makes Himself known to us. 18:14-18:23 Even when He does that, He can only do so in creaturely language and creaturely terms. 18:23-18:29 Even when He has done that we can't understand the creaturely language He uses except through 18:29-18:32 the Spirit. 18:32-18:41 When we look at the language of the Bible it's very striking, very down to earth, there's 18:41-18:48 no spiritual language about God as we think of it in the West today. 18:48-18:57 God is Spirit and the word for Spirit is the word for wind which is a physical thing, you 18:57-19:02 can't see where it comes, where it goes, you can feel the effects. 19:02-19:25 You can't see wind in itself in a sense, just you can't see light. 19:25-19:34 The language of the Bible, we can only think of God in creaturely language, we have no 19:34-19:42 other language to speak about and so God makes Himself known to us in creaturely language. 19:42-19:47 The key thing is that it's only God who knows how to do that. 19:47-19:53 If we use our creaturely language as so many people do with God, use creaturely images 19:53-19:58 of God, then it ends up idolatry. 19:58-20:05 The Old Testament and the New Testament, especially the Old Testament, is God's patience moulding 20:05-20:14 the language and the institutions of Israel, selecting the words and the concepts which 20:14-20:19 He will use to make Himself known. 20:19-20:25 We have to be very faithful to that concrete down-to-earth nature of the biblical language. 20:25-20:32 God walks in the garden in the cool of the day, He is like a shepherd, He is a husband 20:32-20:44 to Israel, He wakes up from a drunken sleep and smites His enemies in one of the Psalms. 20:44-20:50 They are not scared of using down-to-earth language. 20:50-20:52 Why is that? 20:52-21:00 It's because they know He is not like that, but also they know that we cannot know God 21:00-21:07 except through His actually making Himself known in our physical creation. 21:07-21:19 They use the language that has been moulded and given by God to explain Himself, Father, 21:19-21:30 Son and Spirit. 21:30-21:35 It's because they know God is not these things that they are happy to use these images of 21:35-21:41 Him because they know He is not these things, and yet these images are a pointer. 21:41-21:51 Whereas we in the West suffer from a kind of distant God and He is up there, we are 21:51-21:53 here, and He is Spirit. 21:53-22:00 Our language about God tends to be spiritual and we tend to think about how we can't use 22:00-22:04 these down-to-earth languages about God. 22:04-22:14 We have to use abstract terms and we have to cultivate our spirituality, but it's the 22:14-22:15 opposite from the Bible. 22:15-22:18 The Bible never speaks about spirituality. 22:18-22:20 It would never ever talk about our spirituality. 22:20-22:29 It's a foreign concept to the Bible because all human thought is inherently sinful and 22:29-22:34 never more so when we think of it as spiritual because when we think it was spiritual then 22:34-22:37 we think it was good. 22:37-22:51 But even when we think we are being good then we are at our most dangerous in a sense. 22:51-22:58 We use language about God that is sort of airy-fairy and abstract and it's about God, 22:58-22:59 not God Himself. 22:59-23:00 I'll finish there. 23:00-23:11 I mean there's too much to go into it in one go but we've just scratched the surface. 23:11-23:14 Let's have a prayer. 23:14-23:22 We pray, O God, the light of Your Word and Your Spirit in our discussion to open up further 23:22-23:29 points and to lead us to clearer understanding. 23:29-23:31 We thank You in Jesus Christ. 23:31-23:32 Amen. 23:32-23:33 - Hello.