by
Hans Boersma(1)
This book by Hans Boersma offers a number of very important insights that, if followed, will lead to a renewal of the church, both her theology and her practice. At the same time, however, certain features of Boersma's work can, in my view, be clarified and expressed more strongly. To that end I will sketch a few ideas and then relate them to the important ideas offered to us by Boersma.
In his battle with Arius, Athanasius makes a very critical distinction between what we can know of God in creation and what can be known by Incarnation. He makes the distinction by means of an analogy. What we know of God in creation is similar to knowing something of a builder by looking at the edifice he has constructed. In the case of God, we can know that he is infinitely powerful and wise by considering God as the creator of the of our vast and complex universe. For Athanasius, God made the universe through Jesus Christ, the Word or Logos where Logos is understood in the Platonic sense of structure and order.(2) This affirms Boersma’s recognition of the Platonic influence on early Christian theology. For Athanasius, it is the Logos who orders and structures the universe.
At the same time, however, Athanasius points out that one would have a much deeper and personal knowledge of the builder if he had a son who was like his father, and further, if one met the son and knew him intimately. Then one would have a personal knowledge of the builder by knowing his son.(3) Jesus Christ is the Son of God who gives us personal knowledge of the Father. This personal knowledge is saving knowledge in that Jesus died in our place on the cross and brought us to the Father by his resurrection and ascension. The saving knowledge of God given in Christ cannot be found in creation. This distinction between what is known about God in creation and what is known in Incarnation is found throughout the theology of the church. The distinction is also vital for understanding Athanasius’ battle against the heretic Arius. We can see this by investigating the Arian heresy a bit more fully.
Both Arius and Athanasius believed that some form of an Incarnation took place in Jesus. For Arius, however, God was essentially a monad who did one thing. He created and made things. His first great acts of creation as to create a powerful spiritual being (the Logos). Then he created the world through the Logos. Once the world, including the man Jesus was created, the created Logos became incarnate in the man Jesus. Athanasius, however, insisted that what was Incarnate in Christ was God himself and not a created being. It was God the Son, the eternal, divine Logos, sent by the Father, who became incarnate in Jesus. Since God the Son was God, God the Son existed eternally, and not only that, his coming forth from the Father happened eternally as well. He was, as the Nicene Creed states, “begotten from the Father before all ages, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, … “ If, however, Incarnation was a form of creation, then whatever became incarnate in Jesus would be created, and therefore, it was a created being, not God, who became incarnate in Christ. Since it was God who became incarnate, and not a created being, it follows that Incarnation is not another form of creation, but a distinct act of God in which the eternally begotten Son became incarnate in Christ. Though distinct, creation and Incarnation are related in that God redeems the created universe by his mighty Incarnation. We shall see the relevance of this for Boersma shortly.
Since creation and Incarnation are distinct, what we can know of God in creation is very different from how he can be known in Incarnation, just as one can know far more of a Father by knowing the Son than be seeing something the Father created. This was very, very important to Athanasius. He knew that the created world was held together by the God the Logos, but the world was recreated by the mighty words and deeds of the Logos incarnate who has reconciled us to the Father and brought us home to God. He knew this, not only by the biblical witness, but also by his own experience. This is so important that I will quote him at length:
But they who disbelieve in the resurrection afford a strong proof against themselves, if instead of all the spirits and the gods worshipped by them casting out Christ, who, they say, is dead, Christ on the contrary proves them all to be dead. [Here he is referring to exorcism.] For if it be true that one dead can exert no power, while the Saviour does daily so many works, drawing men to religion, persuading to virtue, teaching of immortality, leading on to a desire for heavenly things, revealing the knowledge of the Father, inspiring strength to meet death, showing himself to each one, and displacing the godlessness of idolatry, and the gods and spirits of the unbelievers can do none of these things, but rather show themselves dead at the presence of Christ, their pomp being reduced to impotence and vanity whereas by the sign of the cross all magic is stopped, and all witchcraft brought to nought, and all the idols are being deserted and left, and every unruly pleasure is checked, and everyone is looking up from earth to heaven whom is one to pronounce dead? Christ, that is doing so many works? but to work is not proper to one dead.(4)
Further, Athanasius also knew Saint Anthony personally and wrote a bibliography of him. Here is what he had to say about Anthony:
Through him the Lord healed the bodily ailments of many present, and cleansed others from evil spirits. And He gave grace to Anthony in speaking, so that he consoled many that were sorrowful, and set those at variance at one, exhorting all to prefer the love of Christ before all that is in the world.(5)
Therefore, when Athanasius speaks of knowing and experiencing God, he begins with the Incarnation of the Logos who has revealed the Father, and then, in that context, he will speak of creation made by the Father through the Son. In his words, “Therefore it seems more in accordance with religious feeling and truth to call God the Father from His relationship to the Son, than to name Him only from His works, and to call Him the "Unmade."(6)
Theologically, how does one experience God in an incarnational manner? Although Athanasius recognized that the encounter with God as known in Christ differs from what we know of God in creation, he did not fully develop a theology of that encounter. Only later, through the Christological controversies, was the peculiar form of this encounter with God developed theologically. The church reached the conclusion that the nature of God the Son and the human nature of Jesus were united as distinct natures in the one person of Jesus Christ. In a Trinitarian incarnational encounter with God, the Spirit takes the words and deeds of Jesus and enlivens them so that one can know the divine nature united to the human nature, and by means of the divine nature in union with the human, come to know the transcendent Father who cannot be truly known except by means of the Son. “No one has ever seen God; the only God [God the Son], who is at the Father's side, he has made him known. (John 1:18). In other words, the human nature, words and deeds comprehended by the mind and obeyed by the will are not left behind as one knows God.
Some of these ideas found in Athanasius can also be seen in the contrast between biblical religion and paganism. Using language from Boersma, the pagan religions that surrounded Israel possessed a sacramental ontology. By means of created images they encountered the spiritual powers of the universe. This religion was strictly forbidden in Israel. By contrast, Israel held there was only one, holy, transcendent God who did not manifest himself throughout the whole of nature. He was not, for example, known through sexual intercourse as was the case with the fertility religions. Nor could he, as prohibited in the second commandment, be worshipped through sacramental images taken from nature. Nor was it permissible to call God “Mother” although the feminine is just as prevalent in creation as is the masculine.
Since God was not personally known through nature, the Hebrews affirmed a very strong doctrine of God’s transcendence in regard to creation. He made the world or spoke it into being. It was not born of his body or renewed each spring in a cosmic battle as in pagan religions. If the world was made from God’s body, then it would be of a similar nature to the Creator. Following Athanasius, one could, as in Romans chapter one, know something of God’s “eternal power and divine nature” by considering creation just as one knows something of a builder by looking at his house. But his personal nature was not revealed in nature. Rather than nature, it was God’s personal revelatory acts, his words and deeds, that revealed his true nature. Above all, for Scripture, God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ, the Incarnation of God.
By contrast with pagan approaches taken from creation, the sacraments of the church reflect the miraculous and creative words and deeds of Jesus. Orders, for example, reflect that Christ sent out his disciples to witness, teach, heal, and cast out demons. Eucharist reflects his crucifixion and bodily resurrection. Unction reflects his healing the sick. These sacraments, as they reflect the works of Christ with words, deeds, sights, and sounds, create the works of Christ on earth now, and by these means, bring one into relation with the Lord Jesus, the holy transcendent Father, and the company of the redeemed. In actuality there can be as many sacraments as there are distinct classes of words and deeds of Jesus. Peter Lombard (twelfth century) listed thirty, but by the fifteenth century, they were reduced to seven by a papal council, and later, to two by the Anglican Reformers. Historically, these two, Baptism and Eucharist, were the most important, but others are possible.
Therefore, when speaking of Christian sacraments, or a sacramental view of reality, or of participation, one is, first and foremost, speaking of rites and human actions which convey the risen Jesus doing today what he did in the flesh as narrated by the biblical account. That is what it means to participate in the heavenly reality. It means power over death, forgiveness, knowing Jesus, coming before the throne, casting out evil spirits, inspired preaching and teaching, receiving the love of the transcendent Father, loving the brethren, healing the sick, radical sharing, foregoing attachment to wealth, and much, much more. In short, it means to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven as Jesus does today what he did in the days of his flesh.
With these ideas in mind, let us consider a few of the ideas found in Boersma.
Boersma makes the vital point that Christians must recognize the absolute importance of a sacramental view of reality. This, to my mind, is the chief point of the book and it is essential to living the Christian faith. At the same time, however, he does not always keep clearly in view the distinction between creation and Incarnation. This can be seen in his opening sections which define the trajectory of the book as a whole.
In the introduction he sets forth some of the ideas of Schmemann. In Schmermann's view, the natural and the supernatural form a tapestry, “a carefully woven unity and nature and the supernatural, according to which created objects are sacraments which participate in the mystery of the heavenly reality of Jesus Christ" (p. 9). He then quotes Schmemann on Baptism and Eucharist. According to Boersma, these two sacraments show that the purpose of matter, such as water, bread, and wine, is to “bring about communion with God, participation in the divine life.” From there he concludes that the “entire cosmos is meant to serve as a material gift from God in which we enter into the joy of his heavenly presence” (p. 9) I read this to mean that Boersma believes that matter in general brings us to God. This needs to be clarified.
Eucharist is, first and foremost, an action, something done. In the words of Jesus, “Do this in remembrance of me.” The Eucharist represents the work of Christ, his crucifixion and resurrection, the power of God for believers. In that context, the material aspects, the bread and wine, function in two ways. First and foremost, they do not represent that matter in general brings communion with God. In the context of the Eucharistic action, they represent the work of the Lord Jesus, his body and blood, shed on the cross, a personal decision on his part for our sake. Second, in that context and only in that context, the bread and wine, taken from creation, represent that all of creation is being transformed by the cross and resurrection into a new creation, and this in the context of the biblical narrative of good creation, fall, law and prophets, life of Christ, death, resurrection, and ascension, sending of the Spirit, sacraments and the church, and his coming again. The significance of matter depends upon its ritual context. In the context of Eucharist the material forms of bread and wine function to bring one to God. But bread and wine can also be used in satanic rites to blaspheme God. God does intend for the material cosmos “to serve as a material gift from God in which we enter into the joy of his heavenly presence,” but only when used in rites reflective of the Incarnation.
Continuing the trajectory, Boersma draws on C.S. Lewis (p. 23) to clarify his concept of participation. Lewis gives the example of a painting which shows light shining on flowers, while the painting itself is in the light. In other words, the painting represents something in which it participates, namely light. This is a form of participation common to created beings. Perhaps Lewis’ definition could be extended to Incarnation, but only with some qualifications as to the distinction between Incarnation and creation. Participation is not simply what happens when a painting of a flower in a window both depicts light and is in the light. Participation entails doing the deeds of Jesus, whether teaching, casting out demons, or celebrating Eucharist as a reflection of his death and resurrection.
Chapter two discusses how Irenaeus, Athanasius, and Gregory made use of Platonism to affirm Christian truth. Yes, Athanasius did make use of the Logos of Platonism, especially in regard to creation through the Logos. The conclusion of the chapter, that the eternal Logos “provides the foundation and stability of the created order and of human history” (p. 51), makes sense provided we understand that general human history and the created order are distinct from but redeemed by salvation history, a distinction missing in the chapter.
Chapters three and four describe the tearing of the tapestry that linked heaven to earth which occurred in the late Middle Ages. The chapter begins with a discussion of the analogia entis, the analogy of being, in which it is recognized that earthly beings have some relationship to the being of God. "Being" is a Greek philosophical concept appropriate to creation and Boersma uses it to affirm a relationship between creation and the Creator. The New Testament affirms a form of analogy – the works that Jesus did were those of the Father, and believers could do the works of Christ and in so doing were doing the works of God. In other words, there was an analogy between human words and deeds that reflect Christ and the words and deeds of God. This form of analogy begins with Incarnation rather than creation.
For Boerrsma the analogy of being served to link heaven to earth, but the link was severed because of two philosophical developments, that of nominalism and univocity. Both nominalism and univocity are philosophical concepts that describe how created beings do or do not relate to each other and to God. They refer to the created order and Boersma uses them in that context. With Athanasius, one could say that created beings do have a positive relation to the eternal Logos since the world was made through the Logos, and therefore, something of the glory of God can be seen in creation. It must be affirmed, however, that scripturally and historically, a sense of the glory of God in creation is, in the final analysis, anchored in the Incarnation. Or, as observed by Paul in Romans 1, the pagans should have seen God’s glory in creation, but they did not. God’s glory throughout the created world becomes visible as Christ cleanses the soul to see the living God, first and foremost in Christ and then in creation in general.
At the same time, however, I would want to say that there is at least one other factor leading to a breakdown of a sense of God’s presence in creation. First, in a very real way, God really is absent from his creation. Scripture often speaks, especially in the Psalms, of God no longer being present. For the Psalmists, this meant that God was no longer speaking and acting. God’s transcendence and his freedom not to speak in or act in his creation is one of the ways the faith of Israel differed from paganism. Athanasius recognized that in very real ways God really is absent from his creation although he sustains it. This absence is possible because he believed that created beings were “external and foreign to the divine nature.”
This distinction, then, Holy Scripture very plainly makes between begotten and made or created. It declares the Son of God to be the former, and that He has no beginning of existence, but is eternal. And, on the other hand, it asserts the creature to have had such a beginning, and that the being and substance of creatures are wholly external and foreign to the divine nature.(7)
Although certain of the ancient Greek philosophers believed in a completely natural universe, it is no accident that secularity emerged in Christian countries. God the Father, apart from the sending of the Son, is experienced as absent from the world and this is especially true in the face of tragedy. In other words, the absence of the Father from creation, or his remoteness, belongs to Christian theology and is not simply the result of conceptual developments such as nominalism and univocity.
Also, in chapter four, Boersma addresses the issue of pantheism, a real possibility if one believes that all of creation is sacramental. Christian theology, and Boersma follows this, does not affirm pantheism which holds that the world is God or a part of God. For Boersma, the analogia entis is the theological way to deny pantheism, stating that God is only remotely like the world and therefore the world is not God. In the Incarnation, however, it is appropriate to say that Jesus is Lord where “Lord” is a term for God. In other words, the man Jesus, a created being in union with God the Son, is God and not just remotely like God.(8) It is also appropriate to say that Mary is the mother of God (Theotokos) as claimed by the Creed of Chalcedon. In other words, a profound association between God and Jesus exists in Incarnation and this association is not the remoteness of the analogia entis. Analogia entis may have some relevance for understanding God in relation to creation, but it does not function well for understanding how God is related to the Lord Jesus. Something far stronger is required -- Trinitarian and Christological doctrine. In other words, Boersma's failure to distinguish between creation and Incarnation makes it difficult for him to do justice to the Christian sacraments since these are rooted in Incarnation not creation.
The Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, one of the great theologians of the centuries, considered the analogia entis a doctrine of the anti-Christ. These are strong words, but in his context, they make sense. He led the Confessing Church in her battle against the subversion of the church by Hitler. This subversion was carried out by the creation of a new church, the German Christian Church. Its primary argument affirming the new wave of national energy created in the church and nation by the Hitler movement was the belief that the created order was reflective of the divine, and therefore to be embraced.
Chapter 6 on Eucharist begins the second section of the book, connecting the threads to weave together again the torn tapestry. Boersma draws on de Lubac to steer a middle course between a complete separation of the sign and reality, the Protestant position, and a strict identification of the sign and the reality, the Roman position (p. 119). He does so by affirming that by Eucharist one participates in the body of Christ, and simultaneously, the Eucharistic rite points to and allows one to participate in the unity of the church (p. 115). Participation, more than a mere symbol, makes this possible. Yes, a strong doctrine of the Eucharist must be affirmed, something far stronger than the Protestant position, and Boersma goes in that direction.
At the same time, however, and Boersma is no exception, most theological discussions of sacraments use nouns -- words such as symbol, nature, supernatural, reality (res), sacrament, real presence (pp. 111-12). However one understands these concepts, the reality of the Eucharist is verbal, “Do this,” reflecting the action of God in Christ. Eucharist is about God’s words and his deeds conveyed by the Eucharistic action. To be specific, Eucharistic participation in Christ means that the risen Christ does in Eucharist what he did in the days of his flesh since his death and resurrection are the foundation of all his words and deeds. Or, to put the matter concretely, God in Eucharist does such things as convict of sin, heal the sick, bring the congregation before the throne, grant forgiveness, deliver from evil spirits, and give guidance.
To my mind, one of the great sections in this book was Boersma’s treatment of Scripture in chapter eight. Among many important points he notes that the context of Scriptural interpretation is the church. Further, he makes the claim that the goal of scriptural interpretation is to participate in Christ, to be drawn into the triune life. What a great statement and how true. From this perspective, Scripture cannot be properly interpreted unless the exegete meets the living God of Scripture. This means, as it was for Athanasius, God doing the works of Jesus today.
Further, with the Church Fathers, Boersma believes that all of Scripture should be read in reference to Christ. This is classic Christian teaching. It has its roots in Jesus who taught that the Old Testament referred to himself. Theologically, for Boersma, Scripture participates in the eternal Logos, and therefore, all Scriptural passages refer to Christ. In saying this, however, it is important to distinguish between creation and Incarnation. Scripture is God’s Word written, and therefore, it reflects, first and foremost, the Incarnation since Jesus Christ is the Word of God in human form.
It could also be said that only the Son is begotten by the Father (Nicene Creed), so that all God’s words, deeds, and appearances have reference to the Son. In other words, there are not two classes of words and deeds coming from the Father, with one class referring to the Lord Jesus and the other class referring to something else. All God’s words and deeds narrated in Scripture refer to the Lord Jesus.
In terms of biblical interpretation, Boersma observes that the Church Fathers often used an allegorical interpretation of Scripture. He draws on Origin at this point. The Church Fathers did use allegory where allegory meant knowing something by means of its correspondence to something that is already known. Primarily, however, the Church Fathers used typological exegesis. Typological interpretation is similar to allegorical interpretation, except that it draws correspondences between past, present, and future words and deeds. Of the two, allegorical or typological, the typological is closer to the creeds and the tradition of the early Church Fathers. It is also closer to Scripture whose central theme is the history of God’s words and deeds in which God’s past actions, narrated in Scripture, are the basis for his present words and deeds. The Anglican patristic scholar, J.N.D. Kelly, sums up the matter in these words:
In allegorical exegesis the sacred text is treated as a mere symbol, or allegory of spiritual truths. The literal historical sense, if it is regarded at all, plays a relatively minor role, and the aim of the exegete is to elicit the moral, theological or mystical meaning which each passage, indeed each verse and even each word, is presumed to contain.
Of these two methods of exegesis [allegory and typology] the characteristically Christian one was typology, which had its roots firmly planted in the Biblical view of history. In its struggle with the Marcionites the Church found it an invaluable weapon for countering their attempt to separate the two Testaments.
Typological exegesis worked along very different lines. Essentially it was a technique for bringing out the correspondence between the two Testaments, and it took as its guiding principle the idea that the events and personages of the old were "types" of, i.e. prefigured and anticipated the events and personages of the New. The typologist took history seriously; it was the scene of the progressive unfolding of God's consistent redemptive purpose. Hence he assumed that, from the creation to the judgment, the same unwavering plan could be discerned in the sacred story, the earlier stages being shadows or, to vary the metaphor, rough preliminary sketches of the later. Christ and His Church were the climax; and since in all his dealings with mankind God was leading up to the Christian revelation, it was reasonable to discover pointers to it in the great experiences of his chosen people.(9)
Boersma recognizes the weakness of the allegorical approach to Scripture in that he qualifies it by saying that allegory needs to be centered on Christ and to a real participation of the historical in the spiritual (p. 151). By this he means that history is sacramental. Just as, however, there is a distinction between creation and Incarnation, there is a distinction between general history given by creation and the biblical history of God’s words and deeds which culminate in the Incarnation. These biblical words and deeds, typologically understood, are types for receiving and doing Jesus’ words and deeds today as he acts by the Spirit. This history, past, present, and future is salvation history. In reference to history, the word sacrament is best used for salvation history and not for general human history as Boersma apparently uses the term (p. 151). By contrast with salvation history, general human history is a history of confusion, strife, and chaos. It only becomes sacramental to the degree that moments of general history are redeemed by the words and deeds of Jesus. For example, our personal histories can reveal redemption in Christ. Or, the history of the church can show Christ’s redemptive work. That Christ’s present acts redeem general history is not clearly stated in Boersma because the distinction between creation and Incarnation is not clearly delineated.
A typological approach lends itself naturally, with a certain modification (type rather than allegory), to the fourfold approach to Scripture noted by Boersma – the literal, the allegorical (typological), the moral, and the eschatological (p. 148). Since types reflect God’s constant purpose, past events narrated in Scripture are the foundation of God’s present acts with the result that a literal sense of Scripture leads to a typological understanding of the risen Christ acting today by the Spirit as described in the biblical narrative. These present words and deeds of grace lead at once to a renewed moral life which prefigures the life of the world to come (the eschatological). This four-fold sense of any particular biblical passage is rooted in the typology of the biblical narrative. Boersma affirms this great exegetical tradition and, in my view, Scripture needs to be interpreted along these lines. In this view, an understanding of a passage is not complete until God himself acts and speaks.
The statement (p. 154) that the Fathers were less interested in comprehending Truth than participating in it is a great statement. How then, did they participate in truth? According to Boersma, they held to an analogia veritatis, an analogy of truth similar to the analogia entis (p. 164) Yes, Christian truth participates in the eternal Logos, but following Athanasius, that truth is best experienced when one is surrounded by the living words and deeds of the risen Christ Jesus. Then one knows truth, Christ doing today what he did in the days of his flesh. This needs to be emphasized and it did not come clearly to the fore in the chapter on truth.
The final chapter affirms that theology is a sacramental discipline, a participation in the eternal Logos. This must emphatically be affirmed. Theology apart from participation in Christ is not living theology. Participation in the eternal Logos means experiencing the words and deeds of Jesus today. With that clearly enunciated, Boersma’s affirmation of the sacramental nature of theology is absolutely vital. If followed, it would be the renewal of theology.
Summing up, this book proclaimed the necessity of a sacramental world view and its relevance to sacraments, biblical interpretation, the beatific vision, theology, and the life of the church. At the same time, the book did not clearly enunciate the distinction between creation and Incarnation, and this led to the book not clearly setting forth the sacramental life as participating in the words and deeds of Jesus. It is this participation, and not a general participation in creation, that redeems the cosmos and gives a foretaste of the world to come.
Endnotes
