For me the tragedy is that Protestant Scholasticism created a
theological paradigm that had little room for spiritual duality and tension.
Because of historical abuses, the twisted absolute
dualism of the Gnostics, Cathars and others there's been a strong monistic
push since the 17th century to resolve all tensions under the
umbrella of Divine Sovereignty. This is pushed to an extreme in the theology
embraced by many if not most contemporary Calvinists.
The door was further closed by the rise of the Charismatic
movement, its bad theology and its excesses. For many to speak of the spirit
realm conjures up visions of Charismatics engaged in 'cleansing' processions
around the neighbourhood or the views posited by authors such as Frank Peretti.
Those of us who are old enough remember very well when his books were all the
rage in Evangelical circles. That's not what I'm talking about and I resent
their silly antics and often juvenile approach to these questions.
Unfortunately the Charismatic movement's abuses and sensationalism have seemingly
discredited many otherwise valid ideas.
I have experienced a few watershed moments in my Christian
life, paradigm shifts that meant that the next time I read the Bible, it was
like reading it again for the first time. Discovering Redemptive-History and
applying its lessons meant a break with Scholasticism and the quest for
systemic coherence. It changed my life. It allowed me to read the Scriptures
anew and focus on its doctrines as they're presented both in situ and in light of eschatology. Rather than approaching the
Scriptures as a systematic theologian I found it liberating to take the text at
face value and not worry about all the theological ramifications. This isn't
easy and while it sounds simple it's not but it allowed me to continue to
broaden the spectrum of doctrine and come to a fuller if supra-logical means of
binding it all together. For me the key was to understand the Person of the
Incarnate Christ as the model for all hermeneutical pursuits. I began to
understand that while God is Sovereign, He uses forms and administrations (or
means) and indeed the spiritual conflict is real and the dangers are real. We
needn't experience fear (in the sense of terror) but the dangers presented by
spiritual evil represent a viable threat to both the Church and to individuals.
These threats are not empty or mere rhetorical hyperbolic warnings but rather
present existential threats even to Christians.
Additionally the supernatural worldview of Scripture and of
early Christianity seemed foreign to the academic approach of secular
culture-focused Evangelicalism. It seemed to me that the only folks who might
be taking some of these things seriously in our day were the Fundamentalists
and yet their understanding has sadly been shaped and clouded by the grievous
error that is Dispensational Theology.
That said, in terms of the practical, their willingness to
stick to the Scriptures and be laughed at as fools remains refreshing. To
embrace the Scriptural teaching regarding Genesis 6 is to invite laughter. To
genuinely believe there are spiritual forces at work that guide thrones and
move the minds and hearts of everyone from pop figures to academics to
politicians is to invite the label of conspiracy theorist. And yet what do the
Scriptures teach? We are in fact to understand the world in this way and to
expect these sorts of things. This does not mean that every conspiracy theory
is reality. Not at all, but at the same time to understand history in purely
materialistic or mechanistic terms (even if dressed up with the language of
Providence) is not compatible with Christianity.
But for those who have a dog in the fight, those in the
trenches of the political and cultural war, such thinking is a waste of time
and perhaps even detrimental. The idea that the conflict is spiritual in many
ways defeats the political calculations and connivances, the stratagems and
tactics used by today's Evangelical culture warriors.
Additionally the Fundamentalist school remains tainted with a
Baconian epistemology. Born of British Empiricism and the Scottish Realism
which continued to dominate much of the 19th century American
intellectual milieu, the Fundamentalists remain largely committed to a 'scientific'
approach to the Scriptures and their hyper-literalism has led them to rigid
positions on points of doctrine that range far beyond what the Scriptures
actually teach. One thinks of Ken Ham for example or other Creationists who
insist the Leviathan is some kind of dinosaur or whale as opposed to being a
celestial being of dark design. They would accuse me of spiritualising and yet
I would argue I'm actually taking the Bible more seriously and that their
minimalist hyper-literalism has led them to bend both the Scriptures and
science... leaving them in an unsustainable position that will not stand the
test of time. We don't need to embrace the Evolutionary narrative regarding the
dinosaurs, nor do we need to find a Biblical 'counter' to it in Leviathan, Behemoth
or Rahab.
The imagery as is often the case is a blend of both physical
(and in this case maritime) characteristics combined with celestial (and in
this case underworldly) concepts. The sea proves a fascinating study and I am
thankful to men like Meredith Kline for really opening my eyes to this all
those years ago. My own study has been enriched as has been my fascination with
the deep and its meaning in terms of natural revelation.
The older Fundamentalist writers seemed more apt to explore
these subjects but again their Dispensationalism knocks everything out of
focus... as all non-Christocentric schemas are wont to do.
There's a paranormal world out there that all but proclaims a
metaphysical reality. As Christians we know this to be the case but our
theologies and our cultural posture lead us to live and think like deists.
I often think of Meredith Kline's words in the opening two
pages of God, Heaven and Har-Magedon:
The Bible tells us of
the existence of a realm our mortal eyes cannot see. In the biblical vocabulary
(as in our own) this invisible celestial realm is called by the same name as
the visible region of the star-studded sky (viz. "heaven")...
Living in an age when
intensive astronomical probing has been rewarded with astonishing discoveries
concerning the cosmos, we are bound to wonder how the biblical heaven is to be
correlated with all this. How are we to fit into our scientific cosmology this
mysterious realm beyond human perception? Until we can comprehend the heavenly
reality presently inaccessible to scientific investigation and incorporate it
into our analysis, the quest for a unified field explication of the totality of
creation must prove elusive. But meanwhile in biblical revelation we may catch
a glimpse of something of the nature of heaven and how heaven relates to our
visible world, something that brightens our religious contemplations, whatever
its limitations for our scientific constructions.
In theological
reflections heaven is sometimes considered to be a place outside the cosmos,
out beyond our universe. Or if it is regarded as within our
space-time-matter-energy continuum, it is thought of as a separate part of the
cosmos, at some distance from the environs of planet earth. There are biblical
indications, however, that suggest otherwise. For instance, in Isaiah 6 the
heaven-temple (vv. 1,4) is identified with the whole earth (v.3). And there are
those episodes reported in Scripture when the eyes of earthlings have been
supernaturally opened to perceive heavenly phenomena and they discover that the
very spot where they are is the gate of heaven (Gen 28:16,17) or that it is
filled with heavenly beings (2 Kgs 6:17). Heaven it would seem, it not remote
from us but present right here, even though unseen. Also, there does not appear
to be anything in Scripture that would contradict the assumption that the
invisible heaven is coextensive with the visible cosmos in its entirety.
Most Bible believing Christians would at least outwardly
affirm Kline's words. But do they? Are they willing to follow through in terms
of their thinking and how they see and understand the world? Just what am I
suggesting? Am I embracing the Charismatic view that there are ghosts and
spirits haunting the woods, that some psychics are genuine, that there are such
things as sorcery and magic, that phenomena like UFO's and cryptids are real
and demonic at that... that there's something to all the ancient creature and
faerie lore? The Scriptures themselves have forced me to reckon with some of
these questions minus the aberrant
theology of the Charismatic movement. Some of these issues are directly
dealt with in the Scriptures, while others are not but their pervasiveness and
historical undeniability all but force the serious and honest assessor back to
the Scriptures. And the Scriptures don't disappoint. Rather than feel the need
to explain away the spiritual and paranormal under the theological constraints
of Divine Sovereignty, I found the Scriptures reveal that while Divine Sovereignty
is true enough, the holy writings also say and present a great deal more.
At this point many will scoff at the very notions I have just
suggested. And yet do you agree with Kline's statements or not? I didn't know
the man and I have no idea how far he was willing to pursue such questions. But
is it a great leap to suggest that such realities and phenomena can also be
related to the activities of the prince of the power of the air, the god of
this world? Aren't we told that we wrestle not with flesh and blood but with
principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world,
against spiritual wickedness in high places?
Just what does that mean? Are all struggles merely
internalised? Are they reduced to culture war and politics? I'm not suggesting
any radical change of course in Christian practice or piety but rather an
awareness of a fuller, richer and even more ominous sense of the Divine,
heavenly and supernatural in our thinking and in our lives.
As for those who dismiss all such phenomena as sensationalism
or rank fraud, I can only say they have not seriously or genuinely looked into
it. And even if 95-99% of the phenomena fall under categories of
misunderstanding, deception or prevarication, that still doesn't account for a
multitude of testimonies, recorded events and persistent and recurring stories
that permeate both our own day and the annals of history. If the truth be told
the evidence for paranormal realities is pretty overwhelming and while there
are some questionable sources and accounts, the number of credible witnesses
also proves impressive.
I had hoped Heiser would provide some Old Testament fuel to
these issues as indeed the Scriptures and the Old Testament in particular are
replete with supernatural phenomena that doesn't easily fit into your typical
Evangelical or Calvinist cosmology. Again to repeat an earlier point, I'm left
wondering if he (Heiser) actually believes in any of it. He is confident that's
what ancient people believed, what the authors of the Old Testament believed
but I am dubious as to whether or not he thinks these things are real.... let
alone do they have any import on how we as followers of Christ are to
understand and interact with the world. In fact it seems to me that he's
determined to close doors and to always resort to so-called scientific
explanations. For a theologian of the unseen realm, he seems determined to
subject all paranormal discussion to the academy and to scientific inquiry. If
he really understood these things and believed in them, he ought to know
better.
He writes in a very animated manner about the importance of
the Flood, giants, the Table of Nations and the Exodus but given that he
readily dismisses such spiritual and revealed truths in the face of science, I
wonder. He has no time for arguments concerning prophecy, or what the Old
Testament actually teaches about the dating of the Exodus or any of those sorts
of questions. He dismisses them and is disdainful toward anyone who doesn't
share his academic credentials and pedigree. And yet, if science tells us these
things aren't real or that they're falsely represented, cast in the symbols and
language of mythology... if Heiser puts such stock in the wisdom of lost and
unbelieving academics... if Christianity's essence is to be captured through
learning the tools of the scholarly textual critic... why does he still believe
in the supernatural, his so-called unseen realm? On certain questions Heiser is
noticeably evasive. This probably comes out more in his lectures and podcasts.
Again I'm left wondering what he's not telling us about what he really thinks
and believes.
Some have erroneously ascribed such tendencies to Meredith
Kline and his theological progeny. While I still reject Kline's Framework
Hypothesis and found some of his Genesis commentary in the otherwise excellent God, Heaven and Har-Magedon to be
troubling, I am confident that he was approaching the issues with a high view
of Scripture. His views on certain points are problematic but I would never
question his reverence for the text and clearly his views are saturated with a
high concept of supernaturalism and Divine inspiration. I cannot say the same
about Heiser.
Kline was trying to enrich our understanding of the Old
Testament through investigating some of the ancient texts. He believed that the
covenant framework and much of the language would have been familiar to that
audience in a way that is foreign to us today. This does not mean that the
Biblical authors appropriated pagan categories. Far from it. It means that God
spoke to His people in terms appropriate to their context. The Mosaic Law also
reflects this. Much of the language is geared toward pastoral and agrarian
people living in the Ancient Near East. Liberals can snicker at this and the
notion that we think that such writings would have any applicability (let alone
authority) with regard to people living in modern times. Kline didn't share
their views. To him, Genesis was the Bible in miniature and the Mosaic Law
played an essential role in his understanding of redemptive-history and the Gospel
itself. Heiser finds applicability in the motifs, theology and symbols of the
Old Testament age, but it would seem his interest is limited to scholarly
inquiry. His application is wanting as the whole of his theology is (by my
estimation) crippled by a strong rationalist tendency and a deep commitment to
coherentism. As mentioned previously a Christocentric framework of redemptive
history is not a central part of his thinking. He's not alone in this but this
combined with his rather low view of the Scriptures is a cause for alarm. Are
the ancient sources to be trusted? Heiser seems to suggest they're not. He
stands with the academy on this point and yet still insists their apparently
stolen, truncated, corrupted and fabricated message is to have relevance for us
today.
While the academy has some value when it comes to Biblical
studies and questions of abnormal phenomena, I believe their epistemological
foundations to be utterly compromised. When it comes to ancient history I'm
probably more likely to trust Herodotus than I am a modern scholar. In fact as
time passes I find an increasing reliability in the oldest and most ancient
sources. While moderns may find this absurd I will go further and suggest
there's more truth to be found even in the myths and legends of old than in the
most scholarly reflections of contemporary anthropologists or the myopic
assessments of modern archaeology.
Continue Reading Part 3 (Final)
Continue Reading Part 3 (Final)