Complete SFM August2010

ST.
FRANCIS
M A G A Z I N E
By Arab Vision & Interserve Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010
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www.stfrancismagazine.info
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FROM THE EDITORS DESK

Dear friends You have arrived at the August 2010 issue of our magazine. We are glad with the diversity of articles. One of our writers is starting a new movement with the article he contributed: He calls it the Outsider Movement. Prof Dr J. Scott Horrell is a new writer in our midst; he treats us to a deep article on the question of the translation of the term Son of God in Bible translations for the Muslim World. Enjoy reading, and make sure that you make your friends aware of our magazine! In Christ John Stringer Editor@stfrancismagazine.info
BAPTISM AND THE MUSLIM CONVERT TO CHRISTIANITY

By Azar Ajaj1 Nader is called to pastor a small evangelical church which also has a school in a place under the Sharia2 (as in the West Bank). A Muslim man, Ali, comes seeking baptism. After a few conversations Nader is confident that Ali understands Christian faith and morals and is ready for baptism. Nader is also aware that if he baptizes this man and it becomes known then it is very probable that it would cause serious problems for the man, the church, Ali and the wider Christian community. How should Pastor Nader balance his responsibilities as a pastor to the man seeking baptism with the safety of the small, local Christian community? 1 Introduction To deal with this case I believe first of all one has to have a real understanding of the possible consequences of his decision. Although evangelism or baptizing people from a Muslim back ground is not strictly speaking illegal, and thus we are not discussing here the issue of submission to the authority, that does not prevent people motivated by Islamic beliefs to take the law to their hands. In doing that, I would see that the effect is on three levels:
The Rev. Azar Ajaj is the Dean of Students at Nazareth Evangelical Theological Seminary. He is married and has three children. He has also served as an elder at Local Baptist Church in Nazareth since 1997. He holds a BA in Biblical Studies and he is currently working towards an MTh through International Baptist Theological Seminary in Prague. 2 That is, the Islamic legal system.
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First, regarding the pastor himself. He might be attacked physically and even be killed.3 Second, regarding the pastors family, his church and school and the wider Christian community. The church and the school will be shut down, and Christian families in your city, though they had nothing to do with this decision, might be persecuted and their homes and shops vandalized and perhaps burned down.4 Third, regarding the person who is asking to be baptized, he could be be cut out from his family, or even his wife and children may leave him5. This would be the least that can happen to him, and of course being killed is something real that he has to take into consideration. As the Prophet said, Whosoever changes his religion, slay him. (Abu-Daud n.d., hudud). Apostasy, irtidad in Arabic, which is understood as leaving Islam and following another religion, has been from early Islam a great offence, and the punishment of this offence is death (Griffel 2008). Not all Islamic countries will apply this penalty, but certainly such a person will face serious persecution from the government, society and his family. To discuss this case I want to explore it from three different angles: Biblical, theological and practice. 2 The Bible is the guide For the abovementioned reasons, and to keep good relation with the governments, traditional Churches in the Middle East6 almost always refuse to baptize believers from a Muslim background; the challenge to do that or not, is left to the small evangelical churches, like Na-
Two years ago a Bible Society worker in Gaza was killed by Islamic radicals who suspected that he was sharing his Christian faith with Muslims. 4 A Molotov bottle was thrown at a church in Nazareth because one of the elders gave to a Muslim a Christian book that compared Mohamed and Jesus. 5 Under the Islamic sharia a mans wife is automatically divorced from him at the moment of his apostasy. Also, all his property is forfeited to the Islamic government. 6 Orthodox, Malachite and Roman Catholics. 596 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
ders Church. In order to answer this question I believe we should try to find if the Bible gives us any answers, guidance or help for our case. And I want to propose three sections from the New Testament. First, the Great Commission which we find in Matthew 28:18-20. Matthew is concluding his gospel with this commission, and this commission is based on the authority Jesus has received, God has given Jesus this comprehensive sovereignty over the whole of the created order. (Hanger 1995, p. 886) Jesus mentioned His authority earlier in Matthew 9:6, so this is not the first time we find this theme. However, here he connects His authority and the mission of the disciples to go to all the nations with a new level of authority connected and verified by His ressurection. (Nollad 2005, p. 1264 )7 This authority becomes the basis of the disciples mission to go to all the nations. The universal authority of Jesus is the basis of the universal misson of the church. (Hanger 1995, p. 887) Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing and teaching them. With these words Jesus is sending not only the disciples that heard Him, but all those who will believe in their message. This mission is threefold: first, to make disciples from all the nations, not only from the Jewish people but also from the gentiles. Apparantly it took the disciples some time to understand this, and the issue of the gentiles was not solved until the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15. (Nollad 2005, p. 1266-1267) Second, to baptize. We do not find in this verse or in other places in Matthew an explanation about baptism and what it means; only later did the apostles explain its meaning. But as Hanger says, The practice of the early church suggests its historicity. ( p. 887) This is what the apostles understood from Jesus words, and this is what they did. Third is to teach. The only place we find the words teach and disciple together in Matthew is in the Sermon on the Mount (5:1-2).
It is important to note the similriaty between the words of this verse and the versese from Daniel 7:13-14. There we find one like the Son of Man, who was given the authority over all the nations (Hauerwas 2006, p. 248) 597 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
Whether Jesus was suggesting that this sermon should be the disciples basis for teaching or not, by using the same words, we do not know. But his words in Matthew 5-7 are part of what He taught, and he entrusted the disciples to teach them. In this sermon Jesus taught about serving each other, forgiving and blessing each other (Hauerwas 2006, p. 249). Hardship is also mentioned: we as Christians are called to enter through the narrow gate; followers of Christ will face difficulties. challenges and persecution while they are fulfiling their mission, but they ought to remember that they are not alone. Jesus who was given all authory in Heaven and Earth, is with them. Second, Our Response to opposition - Obeying God more than men (Acts 5:29). How did the apostles and church leaders understand their duty in discipling, baptizing and teaching? What was their response, and the church response, to opposition and persecution? Was persecution a legitimate reason for them not to carry out their mission? While reading the first few chapters of the book of Acts, and without going into many details, we find the apostles obeying faithfully Jesus commandment from Matthew 28:19-20.8 The fruit of their ministry was great; a few thousand were baptized and joined the church, but opposition, especially from priests and Jewish leaders, was not long in coming. Peter and John were put in jail, and twice were asked later not to teach about Jesus (Acts 4:17-18; 5:28). The words the apostles answered with, we must obey God rather than men, represent in a sense not only their attitude, but also the attitude the men of God had through all history, especially during time of hostility Moses before Pharaoh, Elijah before Ahab, Paul before Festus, Ambrose before Theodosius (Pelikan 2005, p. 88).
At least to the Jews, it took the church some time to understand its mission to the gentiles too.
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Furthermore, these words, we must obey God rather than men, were used by the church through history to declare that its loyalty to God comes before its loyalty to a wordly king, government or ruler. We find them in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed; they are found also in the Batak Confession, and in the Barrmen Declaration of German Evangelical Churches standing against the Nazies in 1934 (Pelikan 2005, p. 88-89). This was not a call from the church to stand against goverments or authorities; on the contrary, Gods word tells us to submit to the rulers (Rom. 13) and to pray for them as they were appointed from God (1Tim. 3:1), in order to live a peaceful life. But when there is a conflict between the law of people and the word of God, between obeying our rulers or God, the latter should be obeyed (Calvain 1984, p. 214). Third, Estimate the cost. Reading the Gospels, it looks as if Jesus tries to make it hard for those who want to follow Him. For example, in Matthew 10:22-33, Jesus is making it very clear that his followers will face persecution, even death. He is not hiding the real issues they might face. Thus he does not tell them not to follow Him, but rather to estimate the cost before following Him. In the light of knowing this they can make their decision (Luke 14:25-33). It is all very well to want to be a disciple, but the demands identify the necessary resources, without which there could be no successful implementation of discipleship (Nolland 1993, p. 766). Those who wants to build a tower or go to war should estimate the cost ahead of time, otherwise they face not only embarrassment but other challenges too. Lacking adequate commitment then one should not follow. Rather if one is to follow Jesus, then total commitment is expected, a commitment arising out of careful thought consideration. (Evans 2002, p. 229) From one side, Jesus has laid down the possible cost the disciple might have to pay (this can be found in both passages, in Matthew 10 and Luke14), and has asked those who are willing to follow him to take this into consideration. But from the other side Jesus realized
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that disciples, those who agreed to pay the cost, are human, weak and subject to fear, which will hinder them in carrying out their mission. I like the way France relates to the request of Jesus asking and encouraging His disiples not to fear in Matthew 10:26-27:
The fear very naturally engendered by the sort of condtions described in vv. 17-25 could put a stop to the disciples mission. These verses therefore emphasize how essential, and indeed ultimately inescapable, is their duty to bear witness to what they have seen and heard, this duty must override their natural reluctance to incur mens hostility. (1985, p. 186)
In summary, Jesus is sending His disciples, and in the same way Christian leaders today too, to disciple, baptize and teach. Baptism is not a secondary issue for the followers of Christ or something we can ignore. Baptism is not an optional practice: it was and still is the fundamental sign of following Christ. Pastors are responsible to baptize those who have accepted Christ as Lord and Savior. Christian pastors and leaders in the early church and throughout history realized that there is a cost to following Jesus, especially for those who want to obey and serve Him. And when they were challenged by men not to carry out their mission, their position was, we must obey God rather than men. 3 Baptism is the challenge Before I continue and apply the above biblical conclusion to the case we are looking at, and since the baptism is the issue for this pastor, I want to explore the meaning of baptism a little more. What does baptism mean to us as Christians? Does it mean the same for a believer coming from a Muslim background? Answering these questions might help us to understand the extent of our commitment to this person, and estimate the possible cost that we might have to pay. The New Dictionary of Biblical Theology defines baptism as following:
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Baptism is a symbolic event representing the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In it the church confesses that the baptized person has died to sin and had received a new spiritual life by the grace of God. Through it believers of all races are welcomed into the one body of Christ. (Fape 2000, p. 397)
Being influenced by western ways of living, and thus placing more importance on the individual rather than the community, we tend to put more emphasis on the first part of the definition and ignore the last part. We sit with the person who is considering this next step, hear his testimony, and examine if he understands the meaning of baptism. But I believe we fail to examine our part of accepting him into our community, the body of Christ, the local church. This is the way they understood church life in Acts: They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship All the believers were together and had everything in common. (Acts 2:42, 44) It is a picture of community, fellowship and relation. Im bringing this point up here, since it is a crucial one that will determine the responsibility we should or should not carry towards this brother. Ill get to this point soon. I want to pause for a moment here, and try to explore the meaning of baptism for a person coming specifically from Islam. For many people in the west, Islam is seen only as a religion. But as a person who has lived among Muslims for more than forty years, I can say that Islam is much more than that; it is described as the best nation, or khayra ummah in Arabic (Quran 3:110). Muslims consider themselves as a nation, a family with similar traditions and points of view . Ummah is related to the word umm in Arabic, which simply means mother. For a person to leave Islam is to leave his mother, family, nation. Or maybe it is better to say (as they understand it) to betray them. How is this related to our case? Well, Islam is a religion that emphasizes the practice of rituals; what is in your heart is not as
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important as the way you express it. Leaving Islam9 does not happen when a person accepts Christ in his heart; baptism is considered the turning point - backsliding irrtidad. Ray Register, a missionary who spent 30 years in Israel and Palestine working with Muslims, writes: Baptism is the decisive turning point for an inquirer or seeker to become identified as a Muslim background believer. (Register 2009, p. 60) Marsh also makes a very similar statement which supports this, Baptism is generally regarded by Muslims as the decisive break with Islam because it constitutes an open profession of faith in Christ. (p. 87) It is the time when he confesses his faith in Christ and announces his commitment to follow Him, obey His words, and to serve Him. It is the moment he joins the Body of Christ, the church (Ayub10 2009, p. 30). When a Muslim women shared about her journy from Islam to Chrisianty she wrote:
I knew that the significance of baptism is not lost on the Muslim world. A person can read the Bible without arousing too much hostility. But the sacrament of baptism is a different matter. To the Muslim this is the one unmistakable sign that a convert has renounced his Islamic faith to become a Christian. To the Muslim, baptism is apostasy (Sheikh and R. Schneider 1987, p. 61).
Understanding all that, I believe it makes it clear that baptizing a person from a muslim background becomes a bigger question when he understands what baptism is, and he is ready to take this step. Pastors and Christian leaders should be aware that their responsbilities now excede the normal ones, such as teaching and preaching, and other basic pastoral duties. Here we have a special case, and a careful and delicate approach should be applied. Having said all this, what should this pastor do? Should he baptize or not?
I am not speaking here about the person who is accepting Christ, but his family and the wider community. 10 Edward Ayub is a pastor from a Muslim background himself, which make his insights all the more important for us. 602 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
4 Wisdom is the way ahead Recalling all that I have said so far, from one side it is clear that the task of Gods servants is to fulfil his commission and to go to the whole world to disciple all the nations, including Muslims. Baptism is part of this mission; it not optional. And from the other side, baptism for the Muslim believer is not a choice he can avoid, and Ali is doing the right thing by asking to be baptized. The question then is how to proceed with the baptism in a way that minimizes the danger, if that is possible at all. What is the role of the pastor and the local congregation in applying not only the physical dimension of baptism, but also the spiritual dimension, namely becoming his family. Wisdom of the Shrewd Manager: God, in both Old11 and New Testament, encourages his children to purchase wisdom. This wisdom begins from knowing God, fearing Him and obeying His law, but it does not end there: it continues with our observation of life and nature. Learning from these observations leads to a life of righteousness and effective obedience to God. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, asks His disciples to be as shrewd as snakes (Matt. 10:16), and in a very strange parable He gives compliments to an unfaithful steward (Luke 16:1-12). Why is Jesus praising this mans wisdom? The parable of the shrewd manager has always been puzzling, confusing and challenging for Christians. After a shallow look to this parable we might understand that Jesus is commending the shrewd manager for his indecent and sneaky way of dealing with his masters money. Indeed some did get this meaning from this parable, In the fourth century, Julian the apostate used this parable as a primary text claiming that the parable taught Jesus followers to be liars and thieves, and that noble Romans should reject all such corrupting influences. (Bailey 2008, p. 333)
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Mainly in the wisdom literature: the books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Job. St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
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This is not the issue at all in this parable, and it is clear that Jesus is not speaking about one of His disciples; he is calling the manager the son of the world/age. Jesus is making it clear that this steward is unjust and shrewd, but still there is something to learn from him, not from his corrupt and unclean way of dealing with money, but to learn from his wisdom in thinking about the future, especially when he knew that he might face serious problems in the near future. Evans argued that the discount that was offered by the steward to those who owe money to his master was from the profit he would make in a normal situation. In this case he was losing (investing) in the present in order to secure the future (p. 239). And Jesus is commending his wisdom and his way of thinking not only about the present, but also about the future. Baptizing a Muslim in the given place and circumstances is a challenge and a threat for the future of Christians, their churches and leaders, in the mentioned country. For this reason wisdom should be applied and used. We should think about the future of the church and its message. We might lose or suffer in the present, but this might be our investment for the church witness in the future. Before I suggest what this pastor should do, I want to have a quick look at some people from the Bible and see how they used their wisdom in such times with similar challenges, and how it would be possible to learn from them as we approach this complex situation. Wisdom practiced in the Bible: Peter in his first letter writes to the scattered Jews in the world calling them aliens and strangers (1 Pet 2:11). As Christians we are living in exile in a world that hostile and strange to us and to our faith, beliefs and practices. Daniel and his three friends lived literally in the exile, in a pagan country that had no sympathy to the faith of Israel. They were asked a few times to practice things which dishonored their faith and their God. Their reactions were remarkable; in the first incident where they were asked to eat non-kosher food (Chapter 1), they already had decided they were not going to defile themselves by doing that (v. 8).
Then they argued their case logically with the chief official and were able to convince him. But later on, when every citizen had to bow down to the golden image made by King Nebuchadnezzar when they heard the sound of the horn, flute, etc (chapter 3), or when King Darius issued his decree preventing anyone from praying to man or god for the next thirty days (Chapter 6), in both cases Daniel and his friends, refused to disobey God. They did not go around boasting, or making a big issue about their stance, but when they were challenged in relation to their faith, they were determined to obey God rather than men, willing to bear the consequences. The book of Acts provides us also with several examples from the time of hostility against the church and its leaders. Stephens story in chapters 7 and 8, followed later by the death of James (12), are examples of the courage of early believers in fullfiling their mission and obeying God. But when we continue reading Acts we can say that this was not always the pattern for facing persecution. Take the example of Paul. Although it is clear that he was ready to die for his faith and for the sake of the Gospel, nevertheless we find him sometimes escaping from people and running away from persecution (see 14:6, 17:14, 18:20). At his trial in front of Festus and Agrippa (chapter 25-26), he did not stand there passive and silent; rather he took an active role in defending himself; he also used his right as a Roman citizen and appealed to Ceaser. In Damascus he was lowered in a basket from a window to escape from the king (2 Cor 11:32-33). Even Jesus, with all of his teaching about facing suffering, does not encourage His disciples to run after it, rather to run away from it. When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. (Mathew 10:23) Looking at these stories from Old and New Testament, we can learn that we should neither pursue persecution nor avoid it by coprimising our faith and dishonoring God. The church in the first few centuries had a similar atitude: The law of martyrdom alike forbids us voluntarily to go to meet it (in consideration for the persecutors,
and for the weak) or to shrink from it if it comes upon us. (Gregory of Nazianzus n.d., paragraph 6). There is no problem, or I should better say it is wise to avoid persecution and suffering, but when this becomes our main goal then very soon we will be obeying men rather than God. Our motive should simply be to glorify God and be faithful to Him whether in the time of persecution and suffering or in the time of ease. Pastors and Christians should seek Gods will and act wisely. It is true that we are living in times when suffering and persecution are seen by some Christians as a lack of faith, especially by those who are lifting up the flag of the Prosperity Gospel. I actually wonder if these people have any words to say to the early church concerning this matter. And I wonder if it were not for the faith of those who endured suffering that we could stand where we are now. Having said all this let me come back to our case and answer the question whether Pastor Nader should baptize Ali or not. According to what I have discussed so far I would say the pastor has an ethical obligation and spiritual responsibility to do so, and my answer would be defiantly yes. But, as a pastor, he also has a responsibility towards his church members and their families (not to mention the wider Christian community), to protect them by trying to minimize the threat as much as possible. There might be no right path; nevertheless I believe that it can be done, first by wisely performing the act of baptism, and second, by wisely preparing the church to be a home for this brother. Wisdom is needed so much. 5 How should we do the Baptism? And who should do it? One option is to ask a foreign pastor who might be visiting the country to baptize Ali, without the pastor or the church taking any part, Of course, this should be done outside the church building. Since the baptism itself, and not the faith in the heart, is what is viewed as the turning point by the Islamic community, the pastor and
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the church in this case are innocents. They cannot be accused by Muslims of proselytizing. Although having the baptism done by a foreigner might prevent trouble, it has some negative points. First, if Alis baptism becomes known, he probably has to face the persecution alone, especially if the church prefers not to be seen as being involved. If they are questioned about his attendance at church, the answer would be that the church doors are open for everyone who wishes to come in. Second, the church will be seen by the wider Muslim community as a foreign institution, controlled be western people who have a political and religious agenda to fight Islam. This does not add much honor and respect to the local church, and removes it from its local roots. The other option would be that Pastor Nader and a few elected people from the church perform the baptism. Baptism can take place in the church, but if possible it is better to have it somewhere else. It might appear secretive, which I do not think is a shame in the given situation. The negative side would be if the issue becomes known to the family, then all who were involved will bear the consequences. The important issue in this is the picture of one body, together facing the good things and the bad also. As I already mentioned when I discussed the meaning of baptism, it includes not only the immersion part, but also grafting the baptized person into the Body of Christ. So, as much as the pastor should deal sensitivity with the first part, he should prepare his church and share with the members, in general, about their responsibility toward people from all backgrounds and religions. The issue of estimating the cost does not fall only on the pastor, the Muslim convert and the leaders of the church but, rather, every member should be aware of the cost and should make a decision if he wants to continue membership in a church that believe in a such mission. The church should realize her role and responsibility toward Muslims converts, and Gairdner puts that in challenging words:
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If any church desires to be a spiritual home for those who come to Christ from Islam, a brotherhood, a spiritual garden, then it must have a very definite and well thought-out plan for teaching and training them in the Christian faith; and it must also, having determined its responsibility with regard to their human needs, be ready to shoulder the same. (p. 241)
It is true that some Christians, and also some Muslims converts, believe that it is better if their relatives do not know that they have became Christians. They will not attend church services or any church activities; in fact they do not seek any relationship with Christians. Ayub argues that the main thing motivating these people is avoiding persecution:
To avoid persecution and fear of oppression, they continue to go to the mosque, and participate in the prayers, maybe they can say other words, and they continue to be members of the mosque community. (p. 28)
Holding such a view would solve the entire problem. In this case, neither do we have a challenge to baptize him, since he is not going to announce his faith, nor have him in the church because he is not going to come. But this is not what Im arguing for; I believe that Ali should be part of the church, and a member in the church family. The church should do her best to make that happen. It is especially important that converts from Islam, cut off as they probably will be from their families and their Islamic community, be received as beloved members of a Christian church. (Miller 1976, p. 141) It does not mean that we do not need to have a special way of teaching, supporting and bringing Ali to maturity. On one hand it is true that he has become a member like the rest, but on the other, even in our families we treat each one according to his situation and abilities. This is a great challenge for the pastor and the church, and I dare to say that this is a greater challenge than persecution. I find the following words very true:
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Whatever we may think of the Mohammedan religion, it has markedly stood for a Brotherhood, a universal brotherhood, of a sort. It may be that many of the manifestations of this brotherhood are imperfect, unspiritual, and injurious to those without. But from the point of view of those within, it does stand for something, for much; with some, for everything. If this is so, it is obvious that unless we can show them a brotherhood that is higher, better, more spiritual, warmer, tenderer - in one word, truer - they will marvel how we have the face to preach to them at all. Until we have a church in which converts can be at home we work almost in vain. (Gairdner 1924, p. 237)
6 Conclusion It is clear that the church is responsible for carrying the Great Commission that Jesus entrusted to her. Through its pastors and leaders it should go to all the nations, including the Muslim world, sharing with them the Good News of salvation and bringing them to Gods new society the church - where they can find love, support and growth. In certain situations, persecution might come, but persecution should not stop them from fulfilling Gods call. If pastors and Christians fail to stand firm for God and avoiding persecution becomes their main motivation, if the church, as leaders and members, fails to become a home and shelter for its members, then I believe it has lost its ground to share the good news. Nevertheless, acting with care and deliberation, seeking a wise and balanced path, Pastor Nader can fulfill his responsibility as a minister to Ali, while also taking steps to safeguard the integrity of the small Christian community in his city. It is important to teach the church about her responsibility to carry the message to everyone including their Muslims neighbours. I believe having done these things, pastor Nader should Baptize Ali.
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Bibliography Abu-Daud. Sunan. Ayub, Edward, Observations and reactions to Christians involved in a new approach to mission, in St Francis Magazine 5:5 (October 2009), pp. 21-40. Bailey, Kenneth E., Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 2008) Calvin, John, Acts of the Apostles Vol. 18, in Calvins Commentaries, by John Calvin, (Grand Rapids: Baker Bokk House, 1984), pp. 214-215. Evans, Craig A., Luke (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishing, 2002) Fape, M. O., Baptism, in The New Dictionary of Biblical Theology (Nottingham: InterVarsity Press, 2000), pp. 395-397. France, R. T., The Gospel According to Matthew (Leicester: InterVarsity Press, 1985) Gairdner, William, The Christian Church as a Home for Christs Converts from Islam, in Moslem World 14 (1924), pp. 235246. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43, New Advent, on www.newadvent.org/fathers/310243.htm (accessed 4 25, 2010) Griffel, F., Apostasy, in Kramer, Gudrun (ed), Encyclopaedia of Islam Vol 3 (2008) Hanger, Donald A., Mathew Vol. 33B (Colombia: Thomas Nelson, 1995) Hauerwas, Stanley, Matthew (Grand Rapids: Barazos Press, 2006) Marsh, Charles R., Share your Faith with a Muslim (Chicago: Moody Press, 1975) Miller, William, A Christian's Response to Islam (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1976)
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Nolland, John, Luke Vol. 35B (Colombia: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1993) Nolland, John, The Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2005) Pelikan, Jaroslav, Acts (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2005) Register, Ray G., Discipling Middle Eastern Believers (Dayton, Tennessee : Global Edvance Press, 2009) Sheikh, Bilquis and Schneider, R., I Dared to Call Him Father (Lincoln, Virginia: Chosen Books, 1987)
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MISSIOLOGICAL MUSINGS: PUTTING LAST THINGS FIRST PART 2 OF 2 OF THE CRITICAL KINGDOM QUESTIONS 1
By John Span2 1 Introduction In 1985 I had the privilege of accompanying a veteran Bible smuggler to Cuba. By Gods favor we were able to visit numerous churches with the Bibles and Sunday school materials that the officer at the airport had miraculously not seen in our luggage. One visit was particularly notable, especially after seeing the continual bombardment that the youth received about creating a new society, and having Che Guevara and Fidel as the models of the new man. In an area seemingly forgotten to the outside world, we visited a pastor who received our Sunday school materials with a joy unspeakable. It was the first of its kind they had had in their hands since the 1958 revolution. You should have seen his face. His story to us made a deeper impression, however. Our school children are obliged to attend government schools. There they are continually reminded of the blood of the martyrs of the revolution, and that they must live to overthrow the evil imperialistic empire, while creating the perfect society on earth. God is bigger than all of that. How so?, we wondered.
Part 1 was in the April issue of the St. Francis Magazine. I am indebted to two sources for my title. The first is an article by Tim Chester, Putting Last Things First: The importance of eschatology for Christian living and mission, From Athens to Jerusalem (Vol. 2/3 Spring 2001) and the second is a book by John V. Fesko, Last Things First: Unlocking Genesis 1-3 with the Christ of Eschatology. (Fearn, Rossshire, Great Britain: Mentor, 2007). Both texts show the vital link between victorious Christian living and a Biblical eschatology. 2 John Span is a missionary in West Africa with Christian Reformed World Missions.
Many of our young people are having visions, even while they are awake, of scenes from the book of Revelation. They see themselves bathing in the river that flows from Gods throne, and they see themselves dressed in radiant and bright clothing. They see that this perfect society that Fidel is trying to create is nothing. This story left an indelible impression on me. It demonstrates that a vision is powerful, and that it has the ability to influence present behavior. Whereas Fidel had one vision to influence Cuba, God had a greater one for his children. It enabled them to look beyond their present situation. The basis of this paper then is to argue that a future vision is a powerful determinant for present behaviour or strategy. It argues that starting at the end, and working backwards, in the case of the consummated kingdom, has some powerful antidotes for some current missiological thinking or perhaps tinkering, especially in the Muslim world. It addresses the question that we raised in part 1 of this paper, Can a person be identified with the Kingdom of God and Islam at the same time? 2 Why work backwards? The end justifies the means or the end controls the means. Present mission strategy seems to have many of its roots in the scientific method. It makes observations. It collects these observations into useful categories, and then draws some conclusions. Doubtless, much wisdom can be gathered in this fashion. It uses God-given logic, observational skills, and presupposes an ordered universe. This might be called the forward approach. For all of its strengths, there seem to be two subtle dangers with this approach. First of all, since the observer is so closely involved with the observation, might their approach be somewhat clouded? Might the assumptions they bring to making the observation even determine what they should or might be looking for? The second danger occurs when these observations, or descriptions, become pre613 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
scriptions. This is far too easy in a world enamored with results and in which the end justifies the means. In the business of missiology, things get even trickier when such prescriptions are justified by creating a theology to substantiate them. If this all sounds too theoretical, bear with me for a moment. A correspondent wrote to me and suggested that the use of the Muslim term Isa was justified in Bible translation due to the fact that more Bibles using this term were sold in a particular country than those not using this term. Case closed, nest ce pas? The sales volume observation was likely solid. But what of the conclusion? It is built on the premise that sales show that the word used in translation is necessarily justified, and even theologically so. Perhaps. Perhaps not. Other factors would have to be measured. What about a last things first approach? In this approach, we would start at the end and work towards the present.3 Some have called this end-visioning. It is common in missions literature to observe the end-vision of the multi-ethnic group of worshippers before the throne in Rev 7:9. This is an excellent start as it takes visioning beyond what we can dream up, to what has already been revealed. Often, however, vision focuses solely on the diversity of the group, and does not explore the qualities of the group. Taking this one step further, this paper will explore the vision of the New Jerusalem. Like the worshipper vision above, one gains a point of reference removed from ones present situation that hopefully will provide a measure of objectivity. The end becomes the standard by which present observations are measured. Even more so, it is the end that now controls the means. Thus, for instance, when we look at the picture of the New Jerusalem coming out of heaven, im-
This is the approach taken by Daniel Strange in his article entitled, The Theology of the end and the end of theology. Originally in From Athens to Jerusalem, Vol. 3, Issue 5, (Spring 2003) www.beginningwithmoses.org/bigger/ds_theologyend.htm (2007/9/24) 614 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
mediately we are struck with the fact that this is not a wise and wonderful plan hatched by an earthling or a group of them. Its origin is other-worldly. For good reason Jesus, in Rev 3:12, calls this the city that belongs to God and is coming down from my God. This might challenge us to examine the source of our strategies. Without falling into a dualistic trap, would our ways of doing things bear greater reflection on a heaven-sent source or from an earth-dwellers source? We would also observe that the New Jerusalem, or the consummated kingdom of God, finally fulfills the human cry for true community, true intimacy with God, and true security. Some forward approaches, however, appear to take short cuts in trying to achieve such. Consider the strategies that use methods to minimize the potential pain of the loss of biological/religious community on this earth as if that was all there is. A legitimate question relating to this last things first approach concerns the danger of falling into the common trap that theologians call an over-realized eschatology or in simple terms pie in the sky. 3 The text: Revelation 21 and 22:1-5 With all of the tools of apocalyptic and the Hebrew prophetic tradition at his disposal, John the inspired writer of the book of Revelation, helps us to see what must soon take place. From a mountain vantage point common to the apocalyptic genre, we are introduced to symbolism that defies imagination.4 Metaphors abound and get mixed and mashed as we see a city in perfect cube shape with sides each measuring 2400 kilometers, with a surface area of more than 5
George B. Caird noted, the measurements of the city show how much John cared for the symbolism and how little for mathematics, in A Commentary on the Revelation of St. John the Divine, Harper's New Testament commentaries (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), p. 273. 615 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
million square kilometers descending from heaven. Gigantic city foundation stones, normally not visible, dedicated to apostolic witness, are displayed and make a satirical statement about the gaudiness of the jewelry of the un-wife Babylon, the prostitute who now lies in a smoking heap. One must almost shield their eyes in the presence of the dazzling purity of the bride, dressed as it were, with fine linen and wearing a necklace of precious stones and pearls; and the intensity of the proximity of the presence of the wife of the Lamb and her celestial husband. The lavishness is almost throw-away: gold is paving material; diamond-like jewels are building material; crystal pure water which we bottle flows in rivers; fruit is perpetual and all the signs of our present pains are conspicuously absent. This is what Steven Baugh recognized as the consummated kingdom where all of Gods purposes have come to fulfillment. He describes this realm and rule as:
The kingdom of God proper is the fully consummated new heavens and new earth inhabited by the redeemed resurrected saints in glory and incorruptibility where the Triune God including the incarnate Son triumphantly rules supreme.5
Similarly J.I. Packer shows that salvation, re-creation, glorification and the kingdom of God all tie into each other. In his leaflet, The Plan of God he notes that the main theme of the Bible is not human salvation, but the work of God vindicating His purposes and glorifying Himself in a sinful and disordered cosmos by establishing His kingdom and exalting His Son, by creating a people to worship and serve Him, and ultimately by dismantling and re-assembling this order of things, so rooting sin out of His world entirely.6
Steve Baugh, The Kingdom of God in the New Testament, at Christ, Kingdom and Culture Seminar, Westminster California Seminary, 21 January 2010, see http://netfilehost.com/wscal/Conferences/2010/baughdl.mp4 (2010/2/1). 6 J.I. Packer, The Plan of God, on www.the-highway.com/plan_Packer.html (2010/6/21), Originally published in 1961 by Evangelical Press.
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Rather than a verse by verse exegesis of the passage, I would like to highlight a few items that could serve in an illustrative way for this last things first model. They will be arranged by a number of statements drawn from the text, namely I saw/was shown; there will no longer be; he/I will; but and new. 3.1 Two I saw/I was shown statements 3.1.1 ...the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride adorned for her husband (21:2) Old Jerusalem or Zion represented the place where God met with his people, where the nations came to worship him, where the king ruled.7 In short, it was as close to heaven as one could get. But it was a foreshadowing of something much better. In this vision John sees Jerusalem the renewed city as a renewed community, with heavenly origins coming down to earth. More than that, in true apocalyptic style John mixes his metaphors and the city becomes the bride of the Lamb, becomes an un-temple, becomes the new Zion with the dwelling place of God and the saints and becomes a lush, new Eden. God has taken the city motif which sprang up in the Babel desire to be independent of Him, and has completely transformed it. The corporate rebellion and hardness of heart against him have been morphed into resplendent life and communion. 3.1.2 I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb (21:9) As we noted, superlatives are piled on top of each other to communicate the breathtaking beauty of this bride unveiled. Precious and rare stones, gigantic pearls, other-worldly gold, radiant and shimmering light from its source in God, perfect symmetry and completeness in
Jerusalem has been called the Holy City (Isa 48:2), the City of God or the Lord (Ps 46:4; 87:3; 101:8), the City of the Lord Almighty (Ps 48:8), the Beautiful City (Ps 48:2), the City of the Great King (Ps 48:2; Matt 5:35), and Zion, the City, our Safe Place (Isa 33:20 LXX). All of these appear in the passage at hand. 617 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
every respect stand in sharp contrast to the un-wife, the prostitute Babylon (chapters 17-18). The poignancy of this image must have struck home to the church at Smyrna, known for undergoing and living in temporary poverty. It would also sound a warning to the Laodicean church that had grown rich and complacent by selling out to the economic system of Rome. Laodiceas wealth and status would look pitiful compared to this opulence. Observation: This almost utopian vision of how things will end was the impetus for the heroes of faith of the book of Hebrews and Revelation to set their sights on. It was this better and lasting city that pulled them forward and upward. Because its architect and builder was God, its enduring qualities were guaranteed. This raises a question. As it is in vogue to belittle the Bride, the wife of the Lamb in her present state, i.e. the church visible, what does that say about our vision for the end. Do we actually believe in this beauty that is to be revealed? Do we actually believe in having foretastes of the lush new Eden? 3.2 Four there will no longer be statements 3.2.1 the sea (22:1) The sign of primeval chaos (Gen 1:2), rebellion against God and an agent of his judgments will disappear. More than a geographical statement, it is a theological statement. It tells of the radical discontinuity with the old creation. The place where the beast came from (Rev 13:1) no longer exists. It is the beast who inspired the nations to war against the saints (12:18; 17:16). The elements which cause the saints to suffer, no longer exist and this would be a source of hope to the persecuted audience of the book of Revelation. Even punitive judgment itself will disappear.
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3.2.2 death, or grief, or crying, nor will there be pain anymore, because the first things passed away (22:4) Just as the sea, the place of the dead will no longer exist; all the painful effects of the punishment for the cosmic treason of Adam and Eve will no longer exist. This was especially poignant to the audience who had mourned over those temporary casualties due to the war on the saints (Rev. 13:7). They had witnessed the beheading of their colleagues for their faithful testimony (20:4) who had not loved their present lives, even to the point of being willing to die (12:11). 3.2.3 curse (22:3) When the Israelites were to take over the land of Canaan, God gave orders to devote to destruction certain cities and towns (Jos 6:17). These represented pagan culture and worship at their worst. God sent a message that judgment had come after numerous years of grace. Additionally it was a means of protecting Israel from the potential lure of foreign gods. They were to be entirely destroyed . In the Apocalypse, John observes that this practice (Gk. katathema) is no more. Zech 14:11 has been fulfilled: And it shall be inhabited, for there shall never again be a decree of utter destruction. Jerusalem shall dwell in security. The old creation has been completely purged of all pagan influences and the general influences of the Adamic curse. The slaughtered Lamb, who Himself was devoted to destruction by taking the curse of sin on Himself, now takes his royal place. Thus, the poignancy of the conjunction but. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it [i.e. the New Jerusalem], and his servants will worship him. 3.2.4 night (21:25; 22:5; c.f Gen 1:2, Col 1:13) For you have been rescued out of the kingdom of darkness. Anything to do with the kingdom of darkness has been erased. Observation: These four, out of seven in total, no longer raise a question as to the attitude of God towards those elements which rise
up in rebellion against him. This includes foreign religions. As much as he gave the adherents a limited time of grace in the OT, one cannot imply that he approved of their practices. Eventual elimination was the mandate. John observed the completion of this mandate. If the end shows the destiny of foreign religions, why are some claiming that they are more benign and more harmless then they actually are? Might this not influence our views in the present? 3.3 Four he/I will statements 3.3.1 dwell among them, and they will be his people (21:3) The Celestial husband will be with his bride at last. They will live together eternally. Gone are the days when Israel as the wife of YHWH had proved to be spiritually adulterous, and had prostituted herself with foreign gods. Gone are the days when the Bride of Christ, the church, looked sometimes flirtatiously at the world and at other times was beaten black and blue by jealous thugs due for her dedication to Husband. Here perfect marital bliss reigns. Not a sensual paradise, but shared presence. As Isbon Beckwith said concerning this beatific vision, The supreme felicity is reached, immediate presence with God and the Lamb.8 The cry for perfect community is finally realized. The twelve continually open gates in this city symbolize access to the presence of God, which is the ultimate inheritance of the saints. This is the ultimate Sabbath rest. 3.3.2 wipe away each and every tear from their eyes (21:4) As much as the bride had endured much pain prior to this time, her loving husband will remove all vestiges of this pain. Each and every tear is no hyperbole.
Isbon Thaddeus Beckwith, The Apocalypse of John: Studies in Introduction, with a Critical and Exegetical Commentary (New York: The Macmillan Co, 1922), p. 766. 620 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
3.3.3 give freely to drink (21:6) Just as the Hebrew husband would take his wife home and provide her with shelter, clothing and protection, here we see the same. This is no miserly God, meting out rewards reluctantly, but the Lamb, the bridegroom who lavishes good things on his own, the object of his love, out of sheer and abundant grace. 3.3.4 I will be a God to him and he will be a son to me (21:7) A promised heritage for the overcomer was the ultimate prize: God Himself. The Apocalypse in many ways is a handbook for the overcomer. In 14:12 we read, Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. Implied in this victor term is the potential for cowardice and defeat in battle. God promises that the overcomer would have the same title as the Ultimate overcomer, namely Jesus, the Son of God. Unlike the Emperor Augustus who had taken on the title, a savior who put an end to war and brought order to all things9, Jesus actually and finally fulfilled the right rulership that Adam, his offspring, Israel and its kings (all called the sons of God) had abdicated. The New Jerusalem shows that under the Lambs rulership, he is indeed the Savior, who put an end to war and brought order to all things. Observation: Promises and more promises, guaranteed by the one who literally says, They have become reality. He then reinforces this by calling Himself the beginning and the endthe Alpha and Omega (v. 6 ). To the still doubting He says, These words are trustworthy and true. (v. 5) To the still doubting, the origin of the voice is said to be from control room of heaven, the throne. Mounce comments: There is no uncertainty about the eternal felicity of those who hold fast in the trial of faith because from God's
Steven J. Friesen Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John (Oxford: OUP, 2001), p. 176. 621 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
vantage point the future is determined.10 This raises a question: Does our strategy of outreach to Muslims reflect confidence in these promises? Or might a subtle unbelief inform them? 3.4 Two but statements 3.4.1 as for the cowardly, the faithless Theologians call this the beginning of a standardized list of vices, or, for short, a vice catalog/list. A quick reading might suggest that these are pagans who have never graced a church, and so they get their rightful place in the lake of fire. No less than seven reputed commentators on the Apocalypse, however, point out the sober reality that this is a way by negation for John to encourage the overcomers.11 Simply put, the consequences of trying to play both sides of
10
Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation The New international commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), p. 374. 11 Mounce, p. 375 notes that Leading the retreat are the cowardly, who in the last resort choose personal safety over faithfulness to Christ; G. K. Beale states: They are those in the visible community of faith who have turned back in the holy war with the world and have not demonstrated courageous faith in the battle against the beast. The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids, Mich.; Carlisle, Cumbria: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 1999), p. 1059; Grant R. Osborne suggests that this first term probably describes those in the church who fail to persevere but give in to the pressures of the world. Revelation, Baker exegetical commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2002), p. 741; M.E. Boring goes a little bit farther and notes that this vice list starts with cowards and ends with liars. He suggests that this portrays the failures of Christians under the pressure of persecution and threat of it: lack of courage before the Roman courts, lack of truthfulness regardless of the consequences and the other vices as indicative of succumbing to emperor worship and capitulation to pagan society. M. Eugene Boring, Revelation Interpretation, a Bible commentary for teaching and preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1989), p. 217. Brian Blount echoes the same: Cowards are the ultimate accommodationists; for fear of losing social standing, economic wealth, physical well-being, and perhaps even life, they surrender their witness to God's lordship and testify to the Lordship of Caesar and Rome instead. in Revelation: A Commentary New Testament Library (Louisville, Ky. : Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), p. 383. See also Pilchan Lee, The New 622 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
the fence when the going gets tough, will be nasty, and eternal. John states that it is better to suffer martyrdom than to take the easy road of collusion with, or caving into the empire. These cowardly says Beasley-Murray, are those who fear the threats of the beast more than they trust the love of Christ.12 By a solemn warning, he is directing his audience back to the promises made to overcomers in the seven churches of Rev 2 and 3. 3.4.2 ... nothing unclean will enter it In keeping with the virgin-pure, spotless and without wrinkle (Eph 5:27) picture of bride of Christ, John draws some lines in the sand. This is not only sacred space due to the presence of the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb (22:3) but it is a sacred community, rightfully called The holy city. The ceremonial purity laws of the OT are in force, but with much greater vigor. Only those written in the Lambs book of life can enter (v. 27). With a great deal of comfort, this same Lamb who says he will blot away every single tear, said to the overcomers in 3:5 that he would dress them in the opposite of unclean-ness, namely a white garment, and that he would never blot them out of his book of life. Those battered saints of the Apocalypse have the complete security in the New Jerusalem. It is free from attacks from without by its angelic watchmen at the gates, perimeter walls, and free from attack from within by false teachers and false prophets of a Jezebel likenature (c.f. Rev 2.20). Gundry notes that this great and high wall
Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation: A Study of Revelation 21-22 in the Light of Its Background in Jewish Tradition (Tuebingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), p. 275 who sees victors and martyrdom set in opposition to cowards and liars. Similarly Robert L. Thomas, highlights the fact that this list has parallels to the I Cor 6:9-10 list of those who will not inherit the kingdom of God. Revelation 8-22: An Exegetical Commentary (Chicago: Moody Press, 1995), pp. 450-451. 12 Cited by Mounce, p. 314. 623 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
provided a total absence of anxiety over persecution such as loom on the old earth.13 Observation: The letters to the seven churches address the universal tendency to syncretism, to cowardice and to avoidance of suffering. The vision of the New Jerusalem gives ample promises for those who have rigorously avoided syncretism, have embraced suffering for the sake of Christ and have fled from a cowardice that measures temporary gain over eternal gain. One must ask if present strategies view cowardice and uncleanness with the same view as the Apocalypse. 3.5 Two new statements (see above for new Jerusalem and making all things new) 3.5.1 new heaven and a new earth (21:1). For the word new, John uses the word kainos which might be said to be qualitatively new or something new that has its origin in the old. Still theologians have wrangled over the differences between a replaced or renovated new heavens and new earth. Some appeal to the prophecy of Isaiah who said: For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind (Isa 65:17) which seems to imply replacement. Others like the church father Irenaeus said that the new reality corresponds to the New Man whose renovation has been completed by the resurrection.14 Thus Jesus had a new resurrection body which was still material and he could eat fish, but it had immaterial properties that allowed him to walk through walls. Here we see continuity and discontinuity with his old body.
13
R. H. Gundry, 'The New Jerusalem: People as Place not Place for People', Novum Testamentum, 29 (1987), p. 260. 14 Henry Barclay Swete, The Apocalypse of St. John (London: MacMillan, 1911), p. 275. 624 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
Paul said in second Corinthians 5:17, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 3.5.2 the new Eden with the New Adam Whereas the first Adam and his spouse took their mandate to be rulers in Gods stead and abused their privilege, those who have been engrafted into the Lamb, the New Adam, have the right to reign in the new Eden. Whereas Adam and Eve took their priestly role in the garden-temple and forfeited it, those engrafted into Christ the great High Priest, now have the right to reign as priests. (Rev 1:6; 5:10; 20:6)15 Therefore, along with the Lamb and the Lord God Almighty who sit as One on the throne (21:22; 22:3), they will reign forever and ever. (22:5) Theirs will be the new Edenic Zion which is a garden city. It has the fruitfulness and life of a lush garden, and the community of the ideal city. Observation: The new so overshadows the old that the old almost fades into oblivion. J. Sweet speaks of the 'glorious new city for which that slum-clearance made room.'16 Almost a century ago, Henry Swete described this newness as fresh life rising from the decay and wreck of the old world.17 It is for this reason that the contrast of light and the absence of darkness or night dominate the symbolism.
15
Commentators have observed that the duties of Adam to work and keep the garden (Genesis 2:15) are the same verbs used together to describe the duties of a Levitical priest (Numbers 3:7-8, 4:23-26, 8:26, 18:5-6). 16 John Philip Mcmurdo Sweet, Revelation (London: SCM, 1979), p. 301 cited by Gordon Campbell, Antithetical Feminine-Urban Imagery and a Tale of Two Women-Cities in the Book of Revelation, in Tyndale Bulletin 55 (2004), p. 98. 17 Swete, p. 275. 625 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
3.6 Synopsis In three words, the consummated kingdom is characterized by true community, true intimacy with God, and true security. Underlying these are qualities of exclusivity, purity, newness built on foundations of the old, life, lavish adornment, security, durability, provision, radiance, beauty, completeness, innocence, and perfection. The old Eden and the old Jerusalem are eclipsed. As much as there is a small level of conceptual continuity with the old Eden, the old Jerusalem and items like trees, water and precious stones from the old creation, discontinuity dominates the picture. In the same shape as the holy of holies the New Jerusalem demonstrates that the perfected saints will not only have a place of perfection, they will be a place of perfection. As Gundry says, they constitute the ultimate in-group who due to their decision to distance themselves from the sins of Babylon (18.4) are presently outsiders.18 This kingdom turns things inside out. Barr describes the book of Revelation as one in which lambs conquersuffering rulesvictims .. become the victors.19 4 Testing the model We recall the anecdote: A correspondent wrote to me and suggested that the use of the Muslim term Isa was justified in Bible translation due to the fact that more Bibles using this term were sold in a particular country than those not using this term. Using the last things first model we might ask the following sample questions, which could also be applied to other present missiological practices:
18 19
Gundry, p. 261. David L. Barr, The Apocalypse as a symbolic transformation of the world: a literary analysis, in Interpretation, 38 no 1(Ja 1984), p. 50. 626 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
a. Is the use of the Muslim name Isa [or an associated practice] an attempt at emphasizing continuity at the expense of discontinuity? b. Does the use of the name Isa [or an associated practice] have anything to do with a larger pluralistic trend to dulling down the exclusivity of the consummated kingdom of God? c. Does the name Isa [or an associated practice] do justice to the unique worship demanded by the heavenly bridegroom? The Lamb got to his position of exaltation by being the Lamb led to the slaughter (Isaiah 53). d. Might the use of this name [or associated practice] be an inadvertent tie in to cowardice or the rest of the vice list? Conversely, does it contribute to the formation of overcomers?20 These are described in Rev 1:9; 2:2, 3, 19; 3:10; 13:10; 14:12 as those who actively resist evil even when short-term success is not guaranteed. e. Might this name [or practices associated with it] have fallen under the curse? f. Might the use of this name [or associated practice] be a way to look for security and community that can only be realized in the consummated kingdom? g. The city is built on the foundation stones of the apostolic witness of the church. It is also the embodiment of the Bride of Christ, which is the universal church. Do these voices have a say as to the appropriateness of the term [or practice]? 21
20
Hypomon: [...] refers overwhelmingly and positively to independent, unyielding, defiant perseverance in the face of aggressive misfortune, and thus to a kind of courageousness; in the negative sense it refers also to the enduring of humiliation. W. Radl in Horst Robert Balz and Gerhard Schneider, Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, Translation of: Exegetisches Worterbuch Zum Neuen Testament. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1990-c1993), p. 3:405. 21 See, for example Felise Tavo, Women, Mother, and Bride: An Exegetical Investigation into the Ecclesial Notions of the Apocalypse (Leuven: Peeters, 2006). 627 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
h. The city has an out-of-heavenly origin as its builder and maker is God (Heb. 11:10). What is the origin of this term [or practice]? i. Does the use of the term [or an associated practice] acknowledge the old has past and the making of all things new dynamic? j. David Barr tells us that in a world dominated by symbols of Roman power, John [the Revelator] nourishes an alternative imagination and thus effects the disassociation of his auditors from the values and the culture of empire.22 In fact John encourages his readers to come out of/from her (Rev 18:4) i.e. that which is associated with the power and prestige of Rome. How might association of this name [and/or practice] re-enforce the values and culture of Islam and actually encourage people not to come out from her? k. The consummated kingdom is an upside-down kingdom. How does a term or practice derived from the right-side up kingdom of Islam with its emphasis on temporal power and territory, align or conflict with the New Jerusalem model? 5 Conclusion The vision of the New Jerusalem was designed to raise the sights of a marginalized group of early Christians in the Roman Empire struggling to follow in the steps of The Overcomer. Some had bought into the ways of the empire with its lust for power and promises of eternity and peace [the Pax Romana and Roma Aeterna] and others
22
David L. Barr, Tales of the End: A Narrative Commentary on the Book of Revelation (The Storytellers Bible 1; Santa Rosa, Calif.; Polebridge, 1998), p. 178 cited by Ryan S. Schellenberg, Seeing the World Whole: Intertextuality and the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21-22), in Perspectives in Religious Studies, 33 no 4 (Wint 2006), p. 467. 628 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
who had not bought in were fearful of the wrath of the Empire.23 By the use of apocalyptic imagery, John instills in them another view of the real world, that is he gives them a new worldview, a description of what home really looks like. He puts last things first. In the words of Ryan Schellenberg, he displays to them heaven on earth sexuality without impurity, holiness without exclusion, prosperity without oppression, and civilization without pollution. John provides a world of wholeness that stands over against the conflicted lives of his auditors.24 This raises an important question: How does missiological strategy X in the Muslim world do the same for its hearers?
23
For the social/religious/political background of the Apocalypse and the response of Christians, see David A. deSilva, The Social Setting of the Revelation to John: Conflicts Within, Fears Without, in Westminster Theological Journal 54:2 (Fall 1992); Steven J. Friesen Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 201-4; Thomas B. Slater, Context, Christology and civil disobedience in Johns Apocalypse, in Review & Expositor, 106 no 1 (Winter 2009), pp. 51-65. 24 Schellenberg, p. 476. 629 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
INTO THE LIGHT: THE LIBERATION THEOLOGY OF STEVEN MASOOD, A CHRISTIAN EX-MUSLIM
By Duane Alexander Miller1 1 Introduction I have proposed that the local or contextual theology of some Muslim Christians is one of liberation. It is a theology that does not tend towards systematization, but rather praxis and wisdom. Its forms of expression are apologetics, conversion narratives, and poetry. Theological knowledge is understood in this liberation theology not as certain knowledge, but rather insight into the difficulties of dealing with practical concerns in daily life that the MBB will probably face. As praxis, it is a demonstration of how to do certain things and a deep conviction that this theology (knowledge of God) expresses itself in doing at least as much, and probably more so, than in knowing. In the case of this liberation theology the fundamental practice that expresses the knowledge of God is nothing less than evangelizing Muslims (and encouraging others to do so). But evangelism is not the end goal in and of itself; what is hoped for is a transformed society, one where the dignity of each person is affirmed and religious choices are respected. This is far from the situation in the Muslim world today, and increasingly so in the West where the Christian ex-Muslim is almost always subject to ostracism and ridicule at least, and perhaps imprisonment, beatings, and execution as well. I propose that these themes resurface again and again in the literature written by the ex-Muslim Christians and I wish to apply these categoriesliberation, wisdom, praxis, etc.to a specific conversion narrative in a fairly detailed manner. The volume is Steven
Duane A. Miller teaches at Nazareth Evangelical Theological Seminary.
Masoods 1986 Into the Light (Kent: OM Publishing). I will give a short summary of the book and then explore how Masood employs these themes in it. Finally, I will try to identify some of the elements in Masoods book which are unique to it. 2 Life and views of Steven Masood Steven Masood was born Masood Ahmad Khan. He tells of his childhood in a strongly Ahmadiyya town in North Pakistan. His childhood was in general unhappy it seems. His father had other wives and was not able to provide very well for Masood and his sister and mother. Masoods insatiable thirst for knowledge and understanding undergirds much of the book and is the driving force behind much of what he does, including many things that get him into trouble. Thus he remembers even at age ten wondering why Muslims had to pray for the Prophet, if the Prophet was such a blessing to the whole world (18). He recounts his early experience of being Ahmadiyya and how Sunni Muslims would call them pagans and unbelievers. His questions as to why this was happening often went unanswered. It seems like Masood spent much of his time reading, and one day on a friends bookshelf he saw the Gospel of John which had been given to him by some local Christian sweepers. Masood was surprised to find this book in his language rather than Arabic: why is written in Urdu and not in Arabic, our holy language? he asks (31). He gets to know some of the local Christians in his town, including a pastor who gives him a New Testament. One of the recurring themes in this book is how religious figures and his family deal with his search for knowledge. By his teens Masood had been exposed to Ahmadiyya Islam, Sunni Islam, and Christianity, and he had formed a sort of research program that compared the teachings of those three communities. The most common reaction to Masoods questions was to be told to be quiet, obey, and believe. This was hardly satisfying to him: I felt a little exasperated
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with the elders of the mosque, for they saw all my questions as bad! (53). When Masood does not accept his fathers command to go and study at the Ahmadiyya missionary college (the Ahmadiyya Muslims have a strong devotion to da3wa) he is threatened with death by his father. His father relented on the murder, and took him to see an Ahmadiyya scholar (visits with scholars are a recurring theme in this book), who is still unable to answer his questions. After attending church again the pastor gave him a book about the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement, and this gave the young man fodder for his next encounter with the religious expert. For example, did not Mirza Ghulam Ahmad call himself God and say that he was greater than Muhammad? He had the references ready too. (Once it became known that this material had come from the Christian pastor he was beaten by local youth at the bus stop and told he could not enter that town again). After that meeting he felt that once again I had received no light, no help and no useful advice (60). As demonstrated by the title of the book and the names of the penultimate and antepenultimate chapters (which both reference light), it is clear that the author is intentionally stressing this Johannine theme relating light to truth and truth to salvation. After one confrontation with his father, Masood is nearly killed by him. His friend Ahmed (the source of the Gospel of John earlier on) encourages him to stop all his research because youre only making your life miserable (64). At this point the central theme of the book is clearly enunciated: Im not being stubborn, Ahmed. I must have answers. I dont want a cover-up of lies. I want the truth and I will not be satisfied until I get it. I want the elders to know that they are wrong! (ibid.) His situation came to a head in 1969 when he stood up at a function at the local mosque: It was just as though someone [] put his hands under my elbows and lifted me to my feet (70). And now we find something interesting. One might expect ex-Muslim conversion
narratives to be fairly hagiographical, but that is not the case in general, and certainly not here. He recounts how he expounded on the Prophet Jesus from John, but then, and he explains this quite clearly, he gave into pride and instead of stopping where he should have (he says), he continued on and mentioned some unflattering things about the founder of his sect. He was inflated with pride, and following that, he was beaten into unconsciousness. He then was taken to a hospital where he was told he would be poisoned by a nameless nurse. He escapes and flees to Lahore. He loses his money and the address of the family who was supposed to help him. He ends up working at a tea shop and sleeping on a park bench. But he makes a friend who is also estranged from his family. One day he decides to go home and takes Masood with him. Yet again he is separated from his friend (and host) and ends up sleeping in a water pipe until he is picked up by an extraordinarily generous and magnanimous Muslim man (who puts most Christians to shame in his hospitality, incidentally). Masood is given time to study and read, and he doesthe Quran, the ahadith, commentaries, and eventually the Bible and Christian literature. He gets a job, starts attending the Methodist church, and eventually decides he must compare the Bible and the Quran, Jesus and Muhammad. His decision is made. He decides to convert and is baptized. He tells his generous hosts and they ask him to leave, which he does. The book ends (157) with a quotation from Hebrews 4:7: Today, if you hear his voice, harden not your hearts. 3 Masoods Theology of Liberation As mentioned before, the primary trope employed by Masood is one of liberation from darkness to light, which is appropriate because his first exposure to Scripture was the Gospel of John which employs this metaphor several times. First he describes his encounter with the local church as light in a dark place (the title of chapter 11), and then he describes his conversion as moving into the light of the Son
(the title of chapter 12). Other Christians with a Muslim background employ other images (sleep to waking, slavery to freedom), and while Masood is not a stranger to these, the light-darkness dichotomy is a fundamental axis for his understanding of the liberation he has experienced in Christ. But liberation theology is not systematic, primarily at least, just as this book is not a systematic theology. He is concerned with the transformation of his society. This theme does not come across as strongly as in some Islamic Christian liberation literature (i.e., The Way of Fatima2, Once an Arafat Man3), but it is nevertheless there. Consider for example his frank disconcert with the state of women in Muslim Pakistan, in what is perhaps the most passionate passage in the entire book:
I felt like crying in the street: Oh, people of Islam, go and see the divorced women in our Muslim society. See the women who are now spending their days in their parents houses. See them in the streets, begging and prostituting themselves for they have no one to care for them. See the childrens anguish and need. See them, people of Islam: those kicked out of their homes by their husbands, unable to live decently and rightly because they are not accepted. Look at them and be ashamed of our Islamic society! See the women whose husbands have married many wives and who cannot support them properly. Is this not lawlessness in the name of the purity of Islam? (138)
And this is his response to the apologists who cry that Islam has freed women (ibid). The liberated society Masood was seeking was not only related to freedom of inquiry (which he rarely found in Pakistan), but also a society where women would not be treated like his mother, who was left alone for long periods of time with insufficient funds while his father visited his other wives and families (which he could not support well).
A collection of writings by and about the Saudi Arabian martyr. It can be downloaded from www.stfrancismagazine.info/ja/Fatima%20of%20Saudi%20Arabia.pdf 3 By Tass Saada with Dean Merrill (Carol Stream, Illinois: Tyndale House 2008). 634 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
Another theme that comes to the fore, especially later in the book, is related to wisdom: how does the MBB negotiate the straits of double-belonging? This is clearly exemplified when he comes back to his room and rolls up and puts away his prayer rug: Praise God, I was now on the straight path and I could come to God at any time, anywhere, under any circumstances. I felt free! (151). Equally significant though is that he did not do the same thing with his Quran: It was the Quran that had kept me searching for the truth (152). Masoods appreciation for the Quran sets his narrative apart from others, where it is either ignored or viewed ambivalently, or negatively. An element we find in his narrative also sets his theology of praxis apart from that of Western evangelicalism, and that is an appreciation for the centrality of ritual in life. Western evangelical Christianity, though it was very significant in the genesis of World Islamic Christianity, has a difficult time understanding what to do with ritual. But Masood had no doubt about the significance of baptism. As soon as he had firmly decided to convert he visited a Western friend and quoted to him from Acts, What doth hinder me to be baptized? The Methodist pastor suggests that he should be baptized in a small, private ceremony, but Masood insists on carrying out the rite during regular worship (149), and thus it happened so. But what of the question of praxis? What is Masood saying that MBBs and enquirers in a similar situation should or should not do as they live out their faith and seek the truth (liberation)? From what has been mentioned above we can deduce several significant indications, giving us both theology as practical knowledge (wisdom) and theology as action (praxis): First, dont give up. Masood has a message of encouragement for the enquirer or MBB, and this is a fairly universal theme in such narratives. You will face opposition from family, from employers, from the government, but dont give upkeep going.
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Second, ask questions. In so many cases Masoods problems came because he asked questions or, when he was asked questions, he gave answers. And, related to the first point, when he had questions he did not give up until he had answers. Third, dont get conceited. Masood was quite honest about the times when pride crept into his heart and he is clear that this is damaging to the person seeking liberation in Christ. Fourth, prepare yourself for liminality. Liminality is a complex theme, but in short it refers to an in-between stage where a person is neither here nor there, when an individual cannot clearly be classified by society at large. He is clear that even after years as a Christian he is still treated with suspicion (155). Muslims are suspicious of him because they dont comprehend why a person would leave Islam. Christians are suspicious of him because they dont understand why a person would do something so dangerous as to become a Christian (maybe hes a government agent?). Fifth, you have to make a decision sooner or later. He expresses near the end of his book how, I still had a small hope that I might continue in Islam, but as a true believer in Jesus Christ (143). He decides (against a large number of Western missiologists today who espouse Insider Movement approaches) that this is not possible: it was Jesus or Muhammad, the Bible or the Quran, salvation through the Cross or through your works. 4 Conclusion There is no need here to comment further or critique these points. If they seem rather pedestrian as theology, that is mainly due to the Western impulse towards systematization and understanding theology as knowledge. For the Muslim or MBB Masood has presented challenging and relevant material that can immediately be put into use, in terms of interpreting ones own experience, coping with difficulties, and living out the liberation of society which is revealed in Gods Messiah and his gospel.
Indeed, other points could be identified, but these seem, to me, to be the key insights and practices that Masood is urging for Muslims, enquirers and MBBs who read his book. To what extent his theology is successful must be answered by other MBBs who apply it in their lives, and not by academicians such as myself.
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CAUTIONS REGARDING SON OF GOD IN MUSLIM-IDIOM TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE: SEEKING SENSIBLE BALANCE
By J. Scott Horrell1 1 Introduction How should biblical descriptions of Jesus Christ as the Son of God be translated in contexts where the word-for-word phrase evokes unbiblical if not vulgar connotations? As is widely acknowledged, Muslims normatively assume that to declare God has a Son would mean God literally produced an offspring through sexual relations with a woman.2 Muslims deem such belief as ludicrous and blasphemous3as do Christians themselves, indeed, far more adamantly. In light of Islamic cultural and linguistic understanding of the phrase, Bible translators over the last several decades have favored sometimes rendering the Greek phrase huios tou theou (lit. Son of God) with alternative, less offensive terms.4 The intent has been to clarify the phrases meaning regarding Jesuss Sonship in the biblical setting within todays varying
J. Scott Horrell is professor of Theological Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary, adjunct professor at Jordan Evangelical Theological Seminary and Seminario Teolgico Centroamericano in Guatemala. He was coordinator of graduate studies at the Faculdade Teolgica Batista de So Paulo in Brazil. 2 The concept of divine offspring is sharply spoken against in the Quran (cf. 4:171; 5:17, 7276; 9:3031; 72:34; 112:1-4), often directly related to Jesus. 3 Carl Medearis, Muslims, Christians, and Jesus: Gaining Understanding and Building Relationships (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2008) 108; see Rick Brown, Why Muslims Are Repelled by the Term Son of God, Evangelical Missions Quarterly 43:4 (Oct 2007) 42229. 4 Greek phrases vary slightly as do the meanings; as referring to Jesus Christ, the phrase occurs about 44 times in the New Testament. More varied meanings derive from the Hebrew ben-elohim. St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
contexts into which the Bible is translated.5 Good reasons align with such efforts, as do good motives for more effectively communicating to those for whom Christ died. On the other hand, in such discussions, canonical exegesis together with historical and theological concerns are not always given adequate weight. All classical Christian faith embraces the invitation articulated by the Evangelist, these [things] are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name (John 20:31). The confession that Jesus is the Son of God continues explicit in earliest post-biblical history. Shepherd of Hermas, for example, repeatedly emphasizes the name the Son of God and declares no one will enter the kingdom of God unless he receives the name of his Son. 6 A primitive version of the Apostles Creed dating as early as 150 AD declares, I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord7 The cornerstone of all Christian orthodoxy, the Nicene Creed (325), affirms, We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Repeatedly and unanimously
See Rick Brown, John Penny, and Laith Gray, Muslim-Idiom Bible Translations: Claims and Facts, St. Francis Magazine 5:6 (Dec 2009) 87105; Brown, Muslim Worldviews and the Bible, International Journal of Frontier Missions, Part I: God and Mankind 23:1 (Spring 2006) 512; Part II: Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Age to Come 23:2 (Summer 2006) 4856; and Part III: Women, Purity, Worship and Ethics (23:3 Fall 2006) 93100; Brown, Translating the Biblical Term Son(s) of God in Muslim Contexts, International Journal of Frontier Missions, Part I, 22:3 (Fall 2005) 9196 and Part II, 22:4 (Winter 2005) 13545; Brown, The Son of GodUnderstanding the Messianic Title of Jesus, International Journal of Frontier Missions 17:1 (Spring 2000): 39-52. 6 Shepherd of Hermas, 89:2 (Similitudes 9:12.2, 4). Written in Rome in the first half of the second century, Hermas speaks of the Son as far older than all Gods creation. 7 Following Rufinus of Aquileia and Hippolytus in Paradosis (c. 215), in J. A. Buckley, Second Century Orthodoxy: The Trinity Doctrine in the Teaching of the Second Century Church Fathers (Cornwall: by author, 1978), i. 639 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
in all mainstream Christendom, the designation of Jesus as the Son of God is said to be essential to true doctrine and genuine faith. For most in Christian history, outside this confessionthat is, outside the fundamental meaning of this confessionthere is no salvation. The question, then, is how can fidelity to the New Testament and classical Christian confession of Jesus as the Son of God be held together with translations that communicate the meaning of the biblical terminology in Muslim idioms? Differences about how to speak of Jesus Christ as Gods Son are said to be as old as the Bible itself, to some extent evident even in the parallel passages of the Synoptic Gospels. In modern translation theory, Eugene Nida and Charles Kraft developed the concept of dynamic equivalence in the translation of the Christian message.8 That is, the translator chooses the cultural idioms that best communicate the impact of the biblical text within its original setting. In 1977 the United Bible Societys Arie de Kuiper and Barclay Newman directly addressed the question for Muslim contexts in the brief article Jesus, Son of Goda Translation Problem.9 Three decades of discussion follow with significant changes in translation methodology that are widely affirmed by Bible translators around the
E. A. Nida, Toward a Science of Translating: With Special Reference to Principles and Procedures Involved in Bible Translating (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1964); Charles H. Kraft, Christianity in Culture: A Study in Dynamic Biblical Theologizing in Cross-Cultural Perspective (Maryknoll NY: Orbis, 1979); Kraft, Dynamic Equivalence Churches in Muslim Society, in The Gospel and Islam: A 1978 Compendium, ed. Don M. McCurry (Monrovia CA: MARC, 1979) 114 22. 9 Arie de Kuiper and Barclay Newman, Jesus, Son of Goda Translation Problem, The Bible Translator 28:4 (1977) 43238. They comment It may well be that the phrase Son of God, as it applies to Jesus, is the most misunderstood term in the entire New Testament (432). Far too indebted to Willi Marxsen, they unwisely suggest that the phrase Servant of God replace Son of God. Lamin O. Sanneh responds in Jesus, Son of Goda Translation Problem Further Comments, The Bible Translator 30:2 (1979) 24144. 640 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
world. Two principles are embraced unanimously: 1) accuracy to the meaning of the text, rather than mere duplication of lexical equivalents, and 2) clarity of meaning or naturalness of expression within a given dialect (termed communicativeness).10 Rick Brown and Martin Parsons are well known for their work regarding the contextualized translation of Sonship passages in different Muslim idioms. Numerous other writers also address Christian and Islamic understandings of Jesus.11 Seeking to safeguard traditional testimony that the Son of God is God the Son, Roger Dixon, David Abernathy, and others have recently raised counter-arguments that call word-for-word translation of Son-of-

10
I am indebted to Rick Brown, personal correspondence, July 10-12, 2010. The theory of dynamic equivalence is no longer practiced. Today various levels of exchange occur between, on the one side, efforts to be faithful to a literal translation of text itself and, on the other side, the natural understanding of such terminology within the receptor context. 11 Brown, Penny, and Gray, Muslim-Idiom Bible Translations, 87105; Brown, Why Muslims Are Repelled by the Term Son of God, 42229; Brown, Translating the Biblical Term Son(s) of God in Muslim Contexts, Part I, 9196 and Part II, 13545; Brown, Muslim Worldviews and the Bible, esp. Part 1: 512, and Part II: 4856; Martin Parsons, Unveiling God: Contextualizing Christology for Islamic Culture (Pasadena CA: William Cary Library, 2005); also Kenneth Cragg, Jesus and the Muslim: An Exploration (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1985); Neal Robinson, Christ in Islam and Christianity (Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 1991); I. Mark Beaumont, Christology in Dialogue with Muslims: A Critical Analysis of Christian Presentations of Christ for Muslims from the Ninth and Twentieth Centuries (Milton Keyes UK: Paternoster, 2005); and Joseph L. Cumming, The Meaning of the Expression Son of God, Yale Center for Faith and Culture, n.d., http://www.yale.edu/faith/rc/rc-rp.htm. Veteran missiologist Phil Parshall has addressed the Muslim-idiom problem regarding Sonship language but deferred to professional linguists, Muslim Evangelism: Contemporary Approaches to Contexualization, 2d ed. (Waynesboro GA: Authentic, 2003) 7374; and Lifting the Fatwa, Envisioning Effective Ministry: Evangelism in a Muslim Context, eds. Laurie Fortunak Nichols and Gary R. Corwin (Wheaton IL: EMIS, 2010) 136-37. 641 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
God texts.12 Among published works, the academic weight is decidedly on the side of translation specialists and current translation theory. This article offers cautionary observations to those employing non-literal translations of the phrase huios tou theou in Christological texts. I am not a linguist or specialist in biblical languages. Nor is my focus the Muslim world.13 As a missionary theologian through most of my ministry-life, my sympathies are with the best possible communication of the gospel into any culture. But my sense is that translators are not always sensitive to the greater canonical significance of the designation Son of God and its centrality to the Christian message. Secondly, linguists may sometimes focus on the biblical text and the immediate target culture without adequate appreciation for the convictions of traditional Christian communities. Third, highly sympathetic Muslim-idiom translations raise theological concerns regarding whether Jesus Christ is adequately communicated as the eternal Son of God and whether believers will be able ultimately to perceive God as Holy Trinity.14 Some claiming to represent Christianity to Muslims do not at all affirm Christological orthodoxyJohn Hick, Paul Knitter, and Hans Kng, to name a few.15 But it is undenia-

12
Roger Dixon, Identity Theft: Retheologizing the Son of God, (Wheaton IL: EMIS, 2007) 220-26, cf. 223; David Abernathy, Jesus Is the Eternal Son of God, St. Francis Magazine 6:2 (April 2010) 327-94; and Reflections on the Trinity in Light of 1 John 4:8, St. Francis Magazine 6:3 (June 2010) 471-81. 13 I do approach this task humbly and I am grateful for responses from veteran linguists and Islamic missionaries who have interacted with earlier drafts of this article: Rick Brown, John Penny, Laith Gray, and others who cannot be named. 14 See concerns of Joseph Cumming, Muslim Followers of Jesus? Christianity Today (December 2009) 3235, esp. 35, regarding C-5 Christian-Muslim believers. 15 See Risto Jukko, Trinitarian Theology in Christian-Muslim Encounters: Theological Foundations of the Work of the French Roman Catholic Church Secretariat for Relations with Islam (Helsinki: Luther-Agricola-Society, 2001) 55-60; 642 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
ble that the vast majority of missionary translators are fully Nicene in Trinitarian confession and that a large percentage affirm not only verbal inspiration but also the inerrancy of Scripture. Accusations or innuendos otherwise are simply unfair. In the last section of my Cautions, I seek to further clarify what it means to confess that Jesus Christ is the second person of the Holy Trinity. Summarily, my contribution to the discussion comes from three perspectives: exegetical, historical, and theological. Specifically I address the following questions: (1) Exegetically, in the translation of the Bible, is non-literal rendering of Son of God when referring to Jesus omitting too much? (2) Historically, should the centrality of Son of God terminology in both Eastern and Western Christianity be set aside for non-Christian religiocultural concerns? (3) Finally, theologically, what does it mean to confess Jesus as the Son of God and how does this relate to translation? Observations from these realms of inquiry help give balance in approaching the translation of Jesus-Sonship terminology for Muslim readers. 2 Exegetically, is non-literal translation of Son of God ommiting too much? 2.1 Old Testament Meanings in the New Testament Witness It is well established that the phrase son(s) of God has multiple meanings in Scripture, whether supernatural as the divine council and angelic hosts, or human as an exalted king, Adam the son of God, or believers themselves in filial relationship to God the Father. The description son(s) of God does not necessarily evoke the meaning of innate deity. The predominant Jewish concept of son of God at the time of Jesus likely combined

and Beaumont, Christology in Dialogue with Muslims, 202-9, who evaluates Kenneth Craggs view of Christ as functional, not ontological and preexistent. 643 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
imagery of the son of David as eschatological heir with an exalted person especially anointed and privileged by God. As in many biblical commentaries, recent Muslim-idiom translations often focus on these pre-Easter understandings of son of God as original hearers might have understood them. This is particularly true in the rendering of introductory texts like Mark 1:1, The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (NIV) and Nathanaels early declaration Rabbi, you are the Son of God! (John 1:49). Alternative translations seek to avoid misimpressions to Muslim readers who would immediately interpret such texts to say that God begat literal offspring. Nevertheless, assumptions and alternative renderings of Son of God based on what Jews in time of Jesus did and did not comprehend about the Messiah may be overstated. Richard Bauckham comments, Because Jewish monotheism was not strict but flexible, and the boundary between the one God and all other reality relatively blurred by the interest in intermediary figures, the highest New Testament Christology can be understood as an intelligibly Jewish development.16 That is, to affirm that we know what the earliest witnesses could and could not fathom regarding the Messiah may be presumptuous. Old Testament and intertestamental Judaism reflect ambiguities regarding Yahwehs unity and diversity that allowed place for divine agents such as the Spirit, Wisdom, the divine Word, the Angel of the Lord, and the Messiah. A New Testament example that appropriates Old Testament messianic Sonship language and directly applies it to Jesus as the Son of God is found in Hebrews

16
Richard Bauckham, God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 1999) 3. Also, N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003) 71931; and Larry Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 2003) 2753. 644 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
1:513.17 In replacing the word-for-word translation of Son of God with parallel messianic terms, the phrases layered and deeper canonical meanings are often obscured. 2.2 Gospel Use of Son of God The Gospel of Matthew uses Son of God sparingly but tellingly. First is the heavenly voice declaring Jesus to be my Son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased (3:17). This is followed by Satans temptation which twice asks, If you are the Son of God (4:3, 6). Third, demons cry out, What do you want with us, Son of God? (8:29). Notice that each use is a supernatural declaration, and this pattern is nearly identical in the other Synoptic Gospels. Fourth, in Matthew when Jesus walks on water and calms the tempestuous sea, the disciples in the boat worshipped him, saying, Truly you are the Son of God (14:32 NIV). Again, as Jesus dies on the cross, with the sky black and nature itself trembling, the Roman centurion declares, Surely, he was the Son of God! (Matt 27:54). The pattern and use of Son of God is similar in Mark and Luke. Whereas certain New Testament contexts might allow alternative phrases for Son of God, in other passages one struggles to discern just what can substitute the word-forword Son of God terminology without losing too much? The title appears theologically intentional on the part of the Gospel writers in part to lead the reader to trust this Son of God who is himself God. This is not all. Matthew includes the angelic explanation to Mary for her virgin birth, that Jesus will be called God with us (Matt 1:23)Luke includes the descriptions the Son of the Most High (Luke 1:32) and the Son of God (1:35). Jesus claims that he commands angels, myriads of angels, who will someday come

17
A leading translator who cannot be named observes that Muslim-idiom translations with which he is familiar are literal in their rendition of Heb 1:8, Your throne, Oh Allah, is forever and ever. Personal correspondence, June 2010. 645 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
with him from heaven in glory (Matt 13:41; 16:27; 25:31). At the Transfiguration a second time Gods voice declares, This is my Son, whom I love (17:5). Another time, Jesus states no one knows the Son except the Father and no one knows the Father except the Son (11:27). So we ask again, what alternative expressions can replace Son and Son of God that do not diminish the weighty implications of Christs deity? The immensely important point is this. On the one hand, we should not expect pre-Easter understanding to equal postresurrection/Pentecost comprehension of Jesus as the Son of God. On the other, we should recognize that the Gospels were largely written after certain high Christological statements were already in place and recorded in the Epistles (e.g., Phil 2:6-11, Rom 9:5).18 This is to say that post-Easter Christological belief is packed into the pre-Easter accounts of the Gospels. Indeed, that is much of their purpose. Mark traveled with Paul and Barnabas, and Luke with Paul. When Mark begins his gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God, more is intended than Jesuss messianic assignment or great merit before God. Matthew and Luke all the more are writing Christologies as they recount the life of Jesus. Most notably, the Gospel of John begins with the eternal deity of the Logos and describes that this Word became flesh as God the One and Only, who is at the Fathers side (1:18). So when John the Baptist declares that God testified to him that the one on whom the Spirit comes is the Son of God (1:34), the meaning of Son of God is already implied from the Prologue (even if the Baptist at the historical event could not have known). When Nathanael declares that Jesus is the Son of Godthe King of Israel

18
Larry W. Hurtado, How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God? Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 2005) 134-35; and http://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2010/07/22/review-essay: Review Essay: [J. D. G. Dunns] Did the First Christians Worship Jesus, July 22, 2010, forthcoming in Journal of Theological Studies. 646 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
(1:49), while he surely at the time had limited understanding of who Jesus is as Messiah, the writer John is infusing into Nathanaels words the theology of the entire book: Jesus is the Christ the Son of Godand by that John ultimately intends God the Son.19 Efforts to substitute word-for-word translation of Son-of-God passages can easily become reductionistic and forfeit the rich and layered meanings canonically implied and theologically intended. 2.3 Jesuss Own Interpretation of Son of God: A Pericope When Jesus in the Gospels most directly alludes to his deity, it is in the teeth of those who angrily reject himand they did understand (John 8:58; 10:30). At his trial when the High Priest adjures, Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God, Jesus responds Yes, it is as you say (Matt 26:64; or I am, Mark 14:62). Then Jesus further avows, In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven (Matt 26:64; cf. Luke 22:6970). Jesus steps beyond the High Priests limited understanding of Son of God and in the strongest terms declares that he is the heavenly Son of Mana far more divine claim than the Sanhedrin anticipated. Jesus interprets Son of God with his favorite self-designation Son of Man now defined in terms of the preexistent heavenly figure who will be worshiped by all people and rule over the world (Dan 7:14; Ps 110:1).20 The Sanhedrin exploded in accusations of blasphemy and began to brutalize the Savior. Hours later at the crucifixion, the religious leaders taunted Jesus that he clai-

19
On this point see Richard Bauckham, The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple: Narrative, History, and Theology in the Gospel of John (Grand Rapids MI: Baker, 2007) 229-30. 20 Son of Man is Jesuss primary self-designation 81 times of 82 total in the Gospels. One respondent on an earlier draft observed that Son of Man is equally problematic in certain Muslim-idiom settings meaning illegitimate son or bastard; he asks, if Son of Man need not be literally translated, then why the insistence regarding Son of God? 647 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
med to be the Son of God (Matt 27:40, 43). Again, the question isand this is the translators challengewhat non-literal titles will capture the lavish implications of Son and Son of God in these and the other Gospel passages? 2.4 Other New Testament Affirmations of Jesuss Deity As noted earlier, nearly all translators agree that Christs deity is attested in various ways in the New Testament. Notably in Johns Gospel, Jesus repeatedly claims to be from above (John 3:31; 6:33ff, 62; 8:23) and that he will ascend to where he been before (John 3:13; 6:62), to receive the glory he had with the Father from before the creation of the world (17:5). Pauls letter to the Philippians includes what traditionally is known as the Hymn to Christ or Carmen Christi, attesting that Jesus was in the form of God prior to the kenosis of the Incarnation (Phil 2:6). Other high Christological passages also establish the deity of Christ as Logos and Son: Johns prologue (1:118), Colossians 1:1519 and 2:9, and Hebrews 1:114. From a textual-critical vantage, at least eight passages in the Greek testament explicitly state that Jesus is theos, four beyond any textual doubt and four more with a high degree of probability.21 All scholars agree that the earliest Christians grew in their understanding of their confession that Jesus is Lord and Son of God, but let us be clear that no one in those early years could articulate Jesus as the second person of the Holy Trinity. While the early churchs experience of God was abundantly Trinitarian, firstcentury believers simply did not have the conceptual language that would later be articulated at Nicaea and Constantinople. Most

21
Brian J. Wright, Jesus as Theos: A Textual Examination, in Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament: Manuscript, Patristic and Apocryphal Evidence, ed. Daniel B. Wallace (Grand Rapids MI: Kregel, forthcoming 2010). Indisputable, John 1:1, 20:28; Titus 2:13; 2 Pet 1:1; high probability, John 1:18; Rom 9:5; Heb 1:8; 1 John 5:20. 648 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
of us are prone to read back into biblical texts more than early believers would have understood. We may be theologically correct, yet care must be shown not to assume too much in terms of Bible translation. Nevertheless, the New Testament is freighted with significant revelation regarding who Jesus is as the God-man and all that is needed for Nicene confession. Translators face the task of negotiating this delicate balance. My concern is that substitution of the word-for-word Son of God can obfuscate the textual evidence for full historical orthodoxy. 2.5 Son-Father Relationship as Divine Self-Revelation In the New Testament about 117 passages bring together all three persons of the Holy Trinity.22 Terminology and order for the members of the Godhead vary among biblical authors (e.g., God, Christ, Counselor), yet Johns Gospel is widely perceived as the apex of Christological and Trinitarian revelation. The New Testament designates God as Father (pater, patros) some 254 times, and nearly half of those uses (120) are in the Gospel of John. It is not too forced to say that our pattern of speaking of God as Father derives especially from John. The ascription of Son for Jesus occurs about 40 times in Johns Gospel (and 22 times in the Johannine Epistles). The full literal phrase Son of God occurs nine times Johns Gospel.23 Important to note is that much of the Son language is ascribed to Jesus himself speaking of his relationship with the Father.

22
Horrell, The Abundant Trinitarian Passages of the New Testament, Theological Method, and Nicene Implications, Paper delivered at the Evangelical Theological Society, New Orleans, Nov 2009; this is a conservative listing to be published in my forthcoming The Center of Everything: The Trinity in Scripture, History, and Practical Living (Grand Rapids MI: Kregel, 2011). 23 Darrell L. Bock, Jesus According to Scripture: Restoring the Portrait from the Gospels (Grand Rapids MI: Baker, 2002) 6001. While Son is often Jesuss self-designation, he does not call himself Son of God although this is often assumed as he speaks of his intimacy with the Father. 649 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
What is the bottom line? Both terms Father and Son for God are repugnant to the Muslim. Yet in the Bible and Christian faith these words take on more meaning than mere metaphors or titles, rather they become the divine names that most disclose the divine relations. Without the Son there is no Father, and without the Father there is no Son. In the developing theology of the New Testament, the names Father and Son assume the force of being not merely external (or economic) descriptions but intrinsic to Gods own deepest reality. Again it must be asked, if natural terms replace Son, Son of God, and even Father in Muslimsensitive translations, then what other language allows us access into this intimate reality? If such designations were rejected by the Quran in explicit opposition to Christian faitheven if Muhammed misperceived these termswhat might serve as licit alternatives? 2.6 Rejoinders Having argued my case, in fairness to Muslim-idiom Bible translators, several responses should be aired. First, again, virtually no translator has the intention of hiding the deity of Christ or our Lords eternal place as the Son of God. To the contrary, virtually all translators affirm Trinitarian doctrine and most of the largest translation organizations affirm the inerrancy of Scripture.24 At the same time, several argue, Nicene theology must not be the matrix by which all translation efforts are determined. That is, it is illicit to impose the theology of the fourth century and beyond on the actual meaning of the original text or its translation.

24
Parsons, Unveiling God, includes multiple arguments for Christs deity to Islamic listeners, 185249; also Brown, Translating the Biblical Term Son(s) of God in Muslim Contexts, I, 9196 and esp. II, 13545; Brown, The Son of GodUnderstanding the Messianic Title of Jesus, 39-52; Brown, Why Muslims Are Repelled by the Term Son of God, 42229. 650 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
Second, because centuries of indoctrination have shaped language and thought, when Muslims read the phrase Son of God it miscommunicates the actual meaning of Scripture. This is not the Muslims fault, so to speak. Rather the biblical meaning of such language is outside their conceptual grasp. One regional leader of translation writes, The consistent feedback we hear from Muslim readers is that the reason they reject word-for-word traditional renderings is not because they communicate Jesus eternal deity, but rather because they communicate biological reproduction.25 Various languages have no figurative sense of father and son, hence non-word-for-word translations are in fact unavoidable. If words are not comprehended by readers as the Bible intends, then wooden word-for-word textual rendering fails as accurate translation. Third, various parallel renderings of son(s) of God are widely recognized among both conservative biblical scholars and linguists. That is, as any dictionary makes clear, most words have multiple meanings.26 Lets be honest and admit that lexically complex titles like Son of God are not easily translated into cultures entirely alien to Judeo-Christian thought. Biblical commen-

25 26
Laith Gray, personal response to an earlier draft, July 2010. Brown observes that the Hebrew ben, like the Aramaic bar and the Greek huios, carries multiple meanings, such as young man, subordinate, deputy, viceregent, disciple, citizen, descendant, etc., and male offspring is only one meaning. The term father has a similar range. Translators cannot be faithful to the meaning if they translate every sense of ben with a word that has only one of those senses, namely offspring, so they must translate it with more than one target-language word. Although the King James translation is fairly literal, a look at Strongs [Concordance] shows [it translates] ben over a hundred different ways, depending on the context. Personal correspondence, July 10-12, 2010. See Adela Yarbro Collins and John J. Collins, King and Messiah as Son of God: Divine, Human, and Angelic Messianic Figures in Biblical and Related Literature (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 2008). 651 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
taries often explore in depth the various meanings of Sonship terminology. Fourth, for the above reasons, recent pioneer Bible translation endeavors to clarify both the text (translation) and the paratext (biblical background and meaning). Increasingly translations today include introductions, explanatory notes, and footnotes to clarify Scriptures meaning. For example, in various Muslim-idioms, the Holy Spirit is understood to be the angel Gabriel. When Mary is told (by Gabriel!) that she will become pregnant when the Holy Spirit comes upon her (Luke 1:35), the Muslim understands that Gabriel will have sexual relations with Mary. In such cases, parallel biblical phrases render Holy Spirit (perceived as Gabriel) with the Spirit of God or Gods Spirit. Rick Brown explains that translation must be as faithful as possible to the literal rendering of the text, but that this is not always possible when seeking to be faithful to the meaning of the text within a given linguistic context. Consequently in current translation efforts, both the biblical text and the elucidation of its meaning (paratext) are deemed essential.27 In the end, translation of the Bible into another language and culture is not an easy task. Both sides of the Son of God debate must show great care to be faithful to the inspired Word of God while minimizing misunderstanding. The Word of God is the sword of the Spirit. All recognize that it is the Spirit who empowers and illumines the Scripture in the life of the reader. Not everything can be explained. My contention is that the largely pre-Easter gospel accounts are dense with post-Easter Christological meaning, thus the literal translation of Son of God protects theological meanings that otherwise may be obscured. So we ask, in light of the exegetical cautions earlier set forth, is non-literal translation of Son of God in Muslim idioms omitting too much?

27
Rick Brown, personal correspondence, July 10-12, 2010. St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
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Depending on the cultural-linguistic context, often Yes. But with paratext explanation, it may sometimes be justified. 3 Historically, should the literal rendering Son of God, so central in Church history, be set aside for religio-cultural concerns? The early churchs trajectory toward understanding the full implications of Jesus Christ as the eternal Son of God is well documentedalbeit mingled with controversy.28 Those sensitive to Islamic readers of the Bible argue that, similar to the Jews in the time of Jesus, Muslims must be given opportunity to hear and to understand the man Jesus in his historical setting. It will not do (as intimated in the first rejoinder above), to press later Christian theological categories upon curious Muslim readers. If clarity regarding the magnitude of the Incarnation took decades and centuries to develop, why unnecessarily force Nicene Christology on those who know little if anything of the actual New Testament? Although there is wisdom in such an approach, from a historical vantage, problematic issues remain. 3.1 A Literal HermeneuticPatristic Style Early Christians believed that Jesus Christ as Son of God was revealed throughout the Bible.29 Christopher Seitz argues that the earliest church fathers had no trouble reading multiple meanings

28
Primary works include Aloys Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition, trans. John Bowden, 2 vols., 2d ed. (Atlanta: John Knox, 1975); Basil Studer, Trinity and Incarnation: The Faith of the Early Church, ed. Andrew Louth, trans. Matthias Westerhoff (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1993); N. T. Wright, Christian Origins and the Question of God, 3 vols. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 19922003); Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ; and, contrarian, Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew (Oxford University Press, 2003). 29 Note Luke 24:2527, 4447; Acts 3:18; 1 Pet 1:10-12. 653 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
in the Old Testament textmeanings not always understood by the human authors but intended by the divine author (Pss 2:112; 45:67; 110:1; Isa 9:6).30 Larry Hurtado notes that the secondcentury proto-orthodox Christians demonstrate three main approaches to the Old Testament: (1) OT proof texts that demonstrate the fulfillment of prophecy in Jesus; (2) the typological reading of the OT that saw figures and events foreshadowing Jesus; and (3) interpretation of OT theophanies as manifestations of the pre-incarnate Son of God.31 Important to recognize is that the early church interpreted certain Sonship sayings in the Old Testament as reflecting the highest of New Testament Christological meanings (cf. Heb 1:2-3, 5-13). Literal translation of Christological Sonship passages keeps the bridge strong between the two Testaments as interpreted in early Christianity. 3.2 Early Patristic Evidence that Sonship Terminology Is Primary Likewise, the Christian church very early on sought to unfold ontological implications of Jesus Christ being the Son of God. Ignatius speaks of Jesus as God at least eleven times, closing his letter to Polycarp, I bid you farewell always in our God Jesus Christ.32 Exemplifying one of many prayers to Jesus in the

30
Christopher R. Seitz, The Trinity in the Old Testament: A Canonical Approach, Lecture, Dallas Theological Seminary, Apr 30, 2010; also Seitz, Word Without End: The Old Testament as Abiding Theological Witness (Waco TX: Baylor University Press, 2004). See Daniel J. Treier, Introducing Theological Interpretation of Scripture: Recovering a Christian Practice (Grand Rapids MI: Baker, 2008), esp. 199-205: Texts of Scripture do not have a single meaning limited to the intent of the original author [Rather] Scripture has multiple complex senses, given by God, the author of the whole drama. (200) 31 Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, 56566. 32 Epistle to Polycarp 8:3, in B. Wright, Jesus as Qeov~, 2. Wright finds 14 times Ignatius speaks of Jesus as God and Weinandy 11 times, Thomas Weinan654 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
second century, Carpus as he is nailed to a cross and set ablaze cries, Blessed are you, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, because, though I am a sinner, you deemed me worthy of having this share with you.33 The first part of the Epistle of Barnabas, as Aloys Grillmeier observes, is concentrated on Christ, the Son of the Father, to prove his Godhead and his absolute transcendence. The incarnate one is the Son of God who is not just Son of God through the incarnation but is already Son of God before his advent in the flesh, indeed, before the creation of the world (6:12).34 The earliest Christian apologist Aristides writes to Emperor Hadrian (ca. 125), The Christians trace the beginning of their religion to Jesus the Messiah. He is called the Son of the Most High God. It is said that God came down from heaven. He assumed flesh and clothed Himself with it from a Hebrew virgin. And the Son of God lived in a daughter of man.35 Justin Martyr, in his Letter to Trypho the Jew (ca. 160) writes, If you had understood what has been written by the prophets, you would not have denied that He was God, Son of the Only, unbegotten, Unutterable God.36 Patristic testimony grows through the

dy, The Apostolic Christology of Ignatius of Antioch: The Road to Chalcedon, in Trajectories Through the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers, ed. Andrew Gregory and Christopher Tuckett (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005) 76. 33 Martyrdom of Saints Carpus, Papylus, and Agathonice 41, in Herbert Musurillo, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs: Introduction, Texts, and Translations (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972) 26. 34 Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition, I:57; Barnabas speaks repeatedly of the Son of God (5.9, 11; 6.12; 7.2, 9; 12.8, 10; 15.5). 35 Apology, cited in David W. Bercot, ed., A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs (Peabody MA: Hendrickson, 1998) 9394 [Ante-Nicene Fathers 9.265]; also Aristides, Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, ed. Everett Ferguson (New York: Garland, 1990) 90. 36 Letter to Trypho the Jew, in Bercot,, A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs, 94 [Ante-Nicene Fathers 1.263]. 655 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
following decades that Jesus Christ is the pre-existent Son of God, the Logos, God. 3.3 The Unanimous Confession of Christian Faith The Nicene Creed declares, We believein one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten from the Father, only-begotten, that is, from the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten and not made, of one substance with the Father, through whom all things came into being37 The First Ecumenical Councils confession that the Son of God is God the Son is reiterated and refined through all major Christian traditions in these seventeen centuries. Christians today stand in a stream of faith. We are part of a body, a church. Traditions may vary on other issues but the foundation is Jesus Christ as the incarnate Son of God. We cannot return to a pre-Easter understanding of Jesus as the Jewish audience before the cross and then call such a message Christian. Of course, on the one hand, in anyones life there is a growing understanding of Jesus before saving faith (fiducia). And people do place their faith in the Savior before comprehending him with any sort of Nicene precision. We all agree here. On the other hand, we do not call people to faith in merely a miracle-working prophet or Spirit-filled messiah (although Jesus is surely all this). While there may be initial attraction to Jesus through the pre-Easter Synoptic narratives, such a message is not yet adequately Christian in any canonical sense.38 The gospel invitation is to trust personally in Jesus Christ

37
J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 5th ed., rev. (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1977) 21516. 38 I am not adverse to Hieberts centered-set understanding of conversion, as in Paul G. Hiebert, The Gospel in Human Contexts: Anthropological Explorations for Contemporary Missions (Grand Rapids MI: Baker, 2009) 31-32, and earlier 656 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
as the Son of God who through his death on the cross and resurrection from the dead reconciles us to God.39 Whatever the religious context of translation and proclamation, the centrality of faith in Jesus as Gods One and Only Son united together with the Father as the one God is the position of all Christian orthodoxy. We may not want to identify with Christendom. But all who believe in Jesus are made part of the church under his headship. A translation that detours from the central profession that Jesus is the Son of God through whom all believers are united to that extent compromises both the gospel and the unity of the church. 3.4 Classical Translations in Eastern Church History As the New Testament writings spread into non-Greek speaking cultures, ancient translations explicitly rendered huios tou theou as Son of God. The phrase was conservatively translated into various languages, in spite of cultural misunderstandings that might have interpreted Jesus as a god or a semi-divine emperor. Syriac was the Aramaic dialect of Edessa and commonly used throughout Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia from the first century through the Middle Ages and later. The Syriac edition of Tatians Diatessaron (a harmony of the four Gospels) dates from around 170 A.D. and became widely distributed in the East.40 The Syriac-

works. Faith and regeneration may occur in contexts where the actual content of belief regarding Jesus Christ is sub-Christian but not anti-Christian. 39 Euangelion denotes (1) good news, (2) the good news of the kingdom of God, and (3) the message that we preach for personal salvation. Drawn from John 20:31, Rom 10:915, 1 Cor 15:15, and others texts, the Christian gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died in sinful mans place to make us right with God; and of Gods kingdom in which Christ will rule over all things. 40 Robert J. Owens, Peshitta, in Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, 71819; and Diatesseron, Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone, 3d ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press and Peabody MA: Hendrickson, 1997) 47778. The Peshitta translation appears dependent on both the 657 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
Aramaic Bible, the Peshitta, dates from the fourth century and parallels in influence and longevity the Latin Vulgate in the West. The Syriac wording for the phrase the Son of God (bareh d'alaha) in both the Diatessaron and the Peshitta directly translates the Greek huios tou theou.41 This carefulness in translation marks other early Bibles as well. Indeed, we would hardly expect otherwise, especially after the fourth-century Ecumenical Councils doctrinal confessions of Christs eternal deity.42 As the Peshitta retained its literal translation, so fidelity in word-for-word rendering of Jesus as the Son of God has continued for over 1300 years not only in Syriac but also in Arabic, Farsi, and a multitude of other biblical translations. The literal translation of Son of God in referring to Jesus (over 40 times in the NT) continues in the majority of traditional Bibles honored and memorized by believers in Islam-influenced cultures today. 3.5 In the Midst of Islam With the rise of Islam and the repudiation of God having a Son, Christian confession in the Muslim world has been tested. While several theories have been suggested concerning the rejection of Christs deity, the Quran conceivably addresses not an orthodox but a heterodox understanding of Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity. The case is not clear. Mohammad had contact with Christians. Yet he appears to have thought that Christians espouse a trinity of

Diatessaron and Hebrew and Greek texts but appears to have been revised at various times based on original language manuscripts. 41 Here I am indebted to my colleague, Syriac scholar Richard Taylor. 42 The Diatessaron demonstrates the early authenticity of the four Gospels against the so- called lost Christianities. The deep conservativism of these churches, so far removed from papal or imperial control, makes nonsense of claims that the church bureaucracy allied with the empire to suppress unpleasant truths about Christian origins. Philip Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asiaand How It Died (New York: HarperOne, 2008) 88. 658 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
God, Mary, and their child Jesusa probable teaching of heretical sects on the Arabian peninsula.43 In any case, certain statements in the Quran, as we have seen, aggressively reject Sonship language: Say: He is God, the One and Only; God, the Eternal, Absolute; He begetteth not, nor is He begotten; And there is none like unto Him (Sura 112:1-4).44 While the Quran strongly affirms Marys virgin birth and certain stories from Jesuss childhood, any form of Christs deity appears flatly rejected. Joseph Cumming has demonstrated various historical variations within Islam regarding Jesuss death, including on the cross.45 Nevertheless, Islam unanimously rejects Christs incarnation, atonement, and resurrection.46 As Tarif Khalidi puts it, the Quran tilts backward to his miraculous birth rather than forward to his Passion.47 At least twenty-nine passages speak of Jesus, most frequently as son of Mary (33 times), but also that he is no more than an apostle (4 times), not the son of God (Suras 4:171; 9:30-31; 72:3), and not God (5:17, 72-75).48 Khalidi adds, In sum, the

43
Robinson, Christ in Islam and Christianity, 22. Although not directly relevant regarding Mohammads perception of Christianity, helpful background material (as from the Sira) is found in Joseph E. Brockopp, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Muhammad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 44 The Holy Quran: Text, Translation and Commentary, by Abdulla Yusuf Ali (Elmhurst NY: Tahrike Tarsile Quran, 2005). 45 Joseph L. Cumming, Did Jesus Die on the Cross? The History of Reflection on the End of His Earthly Life in Sunni Tafsir Literature, Yale Center for Faith and Culture, 2001, http://www.yale.edu/faith/rc/rc-rp.htm, 1-35. 46 A. H. Mathias Zahniser, The Mission and Death of Jesus in Islam and Christianity (Maryknoll NY: Orbis, 2008), esp. 15-78. 47 Tarif Khalid, ed. and trans., The Muslim Jesus: Sayings and Stories in Islamic Literature (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2001) 14. 48 This is my own count from The Holy Quran, Abdulla Yusuf Ali, EnglishArabic concordance; Sura versification varies. See Oddbjrn Leirvik, Images of Jesus Christ in Islam: Introduction, Survey of Research, Issues of Dialogue (Uppsala: Swedish Institute of Missionary Research, 1999) 22-41, chronicles the various references to Jesus in the Quran, 33 times as son of Mary, 11 as al659 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
Quranic Jesus, unlike any other prophet is embroiled in polemic.49 Here, then, is the true Jesus, cleansed of the perversions of his followers, a prophet totally obedient to his Maker and offered us as the true alternative to the Jesus of the Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Redemption.50 John Stringer surely is correct in declaring We have a concrete problem here: it is not unfair to say that Christianity and Islam are defined by their opposing views of Jesus51and this is true whether Mohammad understood correctly Christological and Trinitarian orthodoxy or not. As a consequence of Islams deliberately non-Christian view of Jesus Christ, millions of believers have suffered discrimination if not martyrdom for their determined confession rooted in part in the biblical wording that Jesus is the Son of God.52

masih, 3 as messenger, and various other times as servant, prophet, word, spirit. Also Chawkat Moucarry, The Prophet and the Messiah: An Arab Christians Perspective on Islam and Christianity (Downers Grove IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001) 175-83. 49 Khalid, The Muslim Jesus, 12. 50 Ibid., 1920: How much of the Bible was accurately known to early Islam? And in what form? If one begins with the Quran, one finds that apart from its general conceptual and revelatory affinities with Jewish and Christian scriptures, traditions, and lore, verbatim quotations from the Old and New Testaments are very infrequent. 51 John Stringer, Of Straw Men and Stereotypes: Reacting to Rick Wood of Mission Frontiers, St. Francis Magazine 6:3 (June 2010) 587. 52 Jenkins account of the eradication of Christianity in North Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia is bold and disturbing. It begins in the mid-seventh century and continues to the present with Islamic pressures against Christian presence in Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Turkey, Armenia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, and Palestine. Jenkins major point is that the church has ceased to exist because of persecution in various formerly Christianized regions of the world: For all the reasons we can suggest for long-term decline, for all the temptations to assimilate, the largest single factor for Christian decline was organized violence, whether in the form of massacre, expulsion, or forced migration. Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity, 141. 660 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
Not surprisingly, then, traditional Christians are taken back and offended when discovering that the term Son of God in their older translations is replaced with natural equivalents in recent translations. They feel that to omit the literal Son of God from the text betrays the very faith for which the church has suffered and whole communities of Christians have died. Muslims insist that the Quran never changes and Islamic polemicists accuse Christians of changing the Bible (to appease them!). National believers caught in this tension find it difficult to respond. Some Christian workers suggest that, because much evangelism occurs through contacts between believers and Muslims, rather than alter the wording of the traditional Bible it would be best that Christian witnesses themselves clarify the meaning of the Son of God and other divine kinship passages. To change the New Testament to placate those hostile to its central truth appears to many traditional Christians as an act of betrayal. They assume that the translation of the Bible cannot be independent of the surviving Christian church and its basic Christian confession. 3.6 Perceived Translator Arrogance In light of recent tensions, fairly or unfairly, some translation efforts are today perceived as enlightened Western Christian imposition on national situations. Not always of course, for many nationals are profoundly grateful for both translators and the fruit of the labor, the Scripture in their own language. On the one side, hundreds of translators have Ph.D.s and nearly all of the many thousands are highly trained in both linguistics and biblical exegesis. Few Christian workers endure as do translators the hardships and sacrifice of living in primitive or dangerous settings. As well, the Bible translation process involves multiple levels of national interface and intense cooperation with both Christian and non-Christian advisors, critics, and helpers.
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On the other side, perhaps given the sophistication of modern linguistics, translators sometimes accused of being dismissive toward national Christian concerns. Longstanding Christian traditions with 3.7 Rejoinders First, open testimony of Christian believers in Muslim societies is rarely occasion to explain the intricacies of Christology and Trinitarianism. While not at all discouraging Christian witness, it is argued that newer natural equivalence Bibles with their careful explanations and annotations regarding terms such as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit allow the Muslim reader quiet opportunity to ponder the true Word of God. Second, Sonship language was not the only way the early church spoke of Jesus Christ, and perhaps not the predominant way. Second and third-century fathers focused significantly on Logos terminology (hence Logos Christology). Some argue that only with the Council of Nicaea (325), as it addressed Ariuss view that the Son was the firstborn of creation, did the confession that Jesus Christ is the Son of God become primary and the explicit mark of Christological orthodoxy. Third, the Quranic term used in passages that reject Jesus as son of Allah is waled, which only denotes biological offspring; the single exception of ibn was likely intended in the same physical sense.53 Whereas word-for-word translation of Son of God may be plain enough for those within the Christian community, the Muslim reader reacts against not so much the Christian meaning of Son of God as the blasphemous concept that God has wives and offspring. Both religious traditions agree that God does not take a wife nor sire children and, in that sense, God does not

53
Here I am again indebted to an unnamed leader in Muslim-idiom language translation, personal correspondence. 662 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
beget offspring nor has he been begotten.54 Scholars disagree, then, as to whether or not the Quran explicitly rejects an orthodox Nicene understanding of Christs eternal Sonship and Trinity. A communicative translation of Son of God within Muslim dialects must clarify its Christian and not pagan meaning concerning Jesus Christ. Fourth, although most traditional Bible translations in Islamic contexts continue to use the phrase Son of God, it is surprising to find historically that many esteemed Eastern Christian leaders knowledgeable of Islam chose other titles of Christ as primary. In the eighth and early ninth centuries, the Orthodox father John of Damascus (ca. 655-750) and the Nestorian Patriarch Timothy in Seleucia (ca. 728-823) could not directly challenge the Islamic regimes under which they labored, although Timothys discourse with caliphs was extensive. Sensitive to Muslim beliefs, when they publically defended the Incarnation and the Holy Trinity, they avoided the phrase Son of God preferring the title Word of God or Christ is Word and Spirit of God.55 Moreover, some Bible translations did employ equivalent terms of kinship language alongside traditional texts, such as the ninth-century Elegant Gospels and the Lectionary of Bishop Abdyeshua of Nisibis (ca. 1399).56 The thirteenth-century Coptic theologian Bulus al-Bushi, Bishop of Old Cairo, wrote a systematic theology that was orien-

54
Cumming, What Is the Meaning of the Expression Son of God, 1. Different from waled, the Arabic ibn, son, carries either the literal (offspring) or figurative sense, as son of a nation or son of the Nile; in this latter sense, ibn denotes a deep connection of a persons identity with another entity. Arabic terms for father, brother, and daughter also may be used figuratively, as daughter of the lips for a persons words. Ibid., 2. 55 Beaumont, Christology in Dialogue with Muslims, 12-20, 200-3. See Suras 3:45; 4:171; 5:110. John of Damascus provides the earliest extant written defense of Christian belief to Muslims, suggesting first the line of biblical prophecy, then the Quranic analogy that Word is in God. 56 Laith Gray, personal observation on earlier draft, July 2010. 663 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
ted to the Muslim context. Written as a dialogue with a Muslim interlocutor, On the Incarnation consistently speaks of Christ as God the Word.57 Bulus does so with no compromise of the Coptic Orthodoxy he vanguards, openly declaring that God became man. This pattern of Muslim sensitivity continues today. In Coptic and Eastern churches, when addressing fellow Christians, there seems to be little hesitancy in speaking of Jesus Christ as the Son of God. However, considerable more caution occurs in settings of Muslim-Christian interaction. And so, it is asserted, if a Muslim reader does not comprehend the Christian meaning of Son of God, should not Bible translations interpret such a phrase with explanatory (spiritual Son of God) or parallel terms (the Word of God)? One unnamed translator writes, Our experience has been that when the Bible is translated in a cultural-religiously sensitive manner it opens a massive population up to understanding and accepting the biblical concept. Apart from this, these people are locked away from freedom in Christ.58 Another leading translator asks those who are opposed to efforts regarding natural or communicative translation of the Bible into such cultures, Do you love Muslims? a question that cuts deeply, especially to those who have suffered injustice.

57
Stephen J. Davis, Coptic Christology in Practice: Incarnation and Divine Participation in Late Antique and Medieval Egypt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008) 240-45. Bulus (ca. 1170-ca. 1250) develops Cyril of Alexandrias analogy of the burning bush, now seen as God the Son incarnate in the womb of Mary. Interestingly, Bulus appropriates the same al-kalam tradition of argument as the famous Jewish philosopher Maimonides (1135-1204), who moved from Spain to become the leader of the Jewish community in Old Cairo. The Jewish and Christian sectors continue together today. 58 Unnamed leader in Muslim-idiom language translation, personal correspondence. 664 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
We return to the question, then, should the sacred name Son of God, so central in church history, be set aside for religiocultural concerns because another religion misunderstands and appears to reject what it denotes? From a historical vantage several cautions arise. First, for early Christians as for those in Eastern churches today, The Bible was a seamless whole in which all pre-figures Christ.59 Canonically sensitive translations of son(s) of God keeps the bridge strong between the two Testaments. Second, immediate post-New Testament writings already affirm the importance of the phrase Son of God as central to true Christian faith. Third, the Nicene affirmations of the deity of Christ and the Holy Trinity were declared the cornerstones of the Christian truth defended unanimously by mainstream traditions in both East and West. Hence, fourth, all Christians are called to stand in that literary and theological tradition and to identify with others in Christs church. Worldwide, nearly all classical (and most recent) translations of the Bible have maintained Son-of-God literalism; believers have stood their ground around Sonship language and the meaning it represents. Fifth, millions of believers have suffered for their belief that Jesus is the Son of God. Innovative translations of Scripture that appear to compromise Christological confession appear highly offensive to many. These cautions are potent and need to be more adequately addressed by contemporary translators. On the other hand, these reasons alone should not prohibit fresh Muslim-idiom translations designed to better communicate Gods word to those who have never heard or understood the gospel.

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Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity, 90. St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
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4 Theologically, what does ot mean to confess Jesus as the Son of God? And how does this relate to translation? Having considered exegetical and historical reasons for carefulness in using alternative translations of huios tou theou in Muslim-idiom translations, it helps to consider the issue from a doctrinal vantage. Theologically, what does it mean to say that Jesus is the Son of God? And what is the role of translation? 4.1 Analogous Language of Father and Son In one sense, all language about God, even biblical language, is analogy. The infinite God graciously reveals himself in categories that humankind can comprehend: Rock, Shepherd, Righteous Judge, Reconciler. God is our fortress, not in a physical sense, rather Scripture as a whole teaches that his personal presence is our protection and strength before adverse powers. We speak of God as masculine he because this is the language of revelation, even though with the church fathers we know that infinite God transcends gender. John the Baptist announces Jesus as the Lamb of God, an analogy drawn from the rich teaching about sacrifices in the Pentateuch and Prophets. Yet in the Book of Revelation, the heavenly Jesus is now named the Lamb (27 times), the one slain from the creation of the world and the one who will reign forever from the throne of God and the Lamb. We can say that the Spirit-inspired words of Scripture are true to who God is but not all that God is. What God-language signifies, analogically, is made clearer within progressive revelation and the broader canon of Scripture, yet always our infinite Lord stands beyond us. God comes to us in finite categories of acts and words, and finally in incarnation so that we might know him deep within human reality. In so doing, this divine him is further revealed as theyFather, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is not tri-theism. Trinity is a theological term that unifies the biblical witness. God exists eternally as three persons Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
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Each is fully God, each enjoys particular roles, and this God is one. The Christian God is big enough to be God precisely because he is tripersonal, each person indwelling the other, infinitely dynamic, communicative, holy, loving, all-glorious. Christian apologetics to the Islamic world rarely appropriates the commanding arguments from divine triunity.60 If all terminology describing the divine Being is analogy, then when the New Testament speaks of God as Father and Son what is intended and what is not? First, what is not communicated is that God the Father gave birth to or created the Son. The Arian insistence that the Son is a created beingthus neither eternal nor fully divineis rejected by all orthodox Christianity. Muslims unwittingly argue against not a Christian but an Arian view of the Son as a created offspring, a theology categorically rejected as heretical by the Council of Nicaea three hundred years before Mohammed. Second, the language of Father and Son in its biblicaltheological development denotes full equality of nature, just as my own daughters are every bit as human as I. But different from my daughters and me, God as Father and Son exist in a filial relationship that transcends time, that is, there is no beginning or end. In the famed words of Athanasius, There was never a time when Christ was not. Moreover, each person of the Trinity indwells the other without diminishing the distinctness of each (called perichoresis). Jesus declares, I am in the Father and the Father is in me, yet in the same text he continues to speak of the personal relationship between him and the Father (cf. John 14:811). Each is equally God by nature. Yet because each person of the Trinity

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The question of God is primary, that is, who or what is God before and outside of all created existence. Can God be truly personal as a single-personned being? Does God need creation to be fully and personally God (the 99 names)? Beyond immediate Quranic anathema (5:73), a Trinitarian apologetic can be remarkably persuasive. 666b St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
has revealed himself authentically in creation, many affirm that there must be certain roles (Greek taxis) in the eternal relations between the Father, Son, and Spiritthis by personal disposition and choice.61 Surely there are mysteries in the divine relations, yet always the theological language of Father and Son communicates essential equality and filial relationship. Third, although all descriptions of infinite God are analogies, the words Father and Son (and Spirit) draw us closest to the personal, intimate reality of God. Other terms tend to highlight the economic working of the Godhead within creation (e.g. as Creator, Christ/Messiah, Comforter).62 Yet in Jesuss own revelation of his relationship to God, it is the language of Son and Father that most transcends creation to speak of a pre-creation glory and reciprocal love (John 17:5, 24). For this reason, as we have seen in the early church, Father and Son (hence Son of God) were perceived not only as descriptions but proper names within the Godhead. Each name mutually depends on the other: there is no Father without the Son or Son without the Father. Therefore, to speak of God as Father and Son draws us as close to the eternal divine relations as possible. And even these names are finally analogous to something greater in the infinite God. Nevertheless, Father, Son, and Spirit genuinely reveal each person, that is, the names are true to who each person is as

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The relation of immanent and economic Trinities is a longstanding tension. To insist on an eternal hierarchy suggests that each member of the Godhead is not equal. Conversely, to take away all functional or role-distinctions seems to undermine the Father, Son, and Holy Spirits self-revelation in creation. See Horrell, Toward a Biblical Model of the Social Trinity: Avoiding Equivocation of Nature and Order, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 47: 3 (Sept 2004) 399421; and The Eternal Son of God in the Social Trinity, Jesus in Trinitarian Perspective: An Introductory Christology, eds. Fred Sanders and Klaus Issler (Nashville TN: Broadman & Holman, 2007), 44-79. 62 Occasionally, even these descriptions are proleptic in their use, e.g., Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Heb 13:8)although the God-man Jesus was properly conceived only in the Incarnation. 666c St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
person, that is, the names are true to who each person is as understood from the entirety of the biblical canon. The patristic fathers concluded that there is no biblical terminology greater.63 To confess that Jesus is the Son of God is to affirm that Christ is ultimately as fully divine as is the Father and that he stands in eternal, loving, Sonlike, perichoretic relationship with the Father, yet constitutes together with the Father and the Spirit the one true God. The translation of the most sacred divine names, therefore, assumes immense importance. 4.2 Translation as Interpretation The task of faithfully translating Gods Word within the understanding of another religious culture is arduous and imperfect. In spite of occasional disclaimers, translation always involves interpretation and adaptation to another worldview that includes both idiom and religion.64 In Unveiling God: Contextualizing Christology for Islamic Culture, Martin Parsons sets forth multiple evidences for presenting to Muslims the supremacy and deity of Christ from the Bible. At the same time, in biblical translation he supports replacing phrases like Son of God, Word of God, and image of the invisible God with correspondent language.65 More carefully, Rick Brown, John Penny and Laith Gray suggest that such phrases might best translate as spiritual Son of God or

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See Thomas C. Oden, gen. ed., Ancient Christian Doctrine, 5 vols. (Downers Grove IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009-10), oriented around the Nicene Creed. 64 Brown, Penny, and Gray, Muslim-Idiom Translations: Claims and Facts, 9193, deny such efforts are Muslim compliant translations, or that they try to hide the sonship-terminology. But the reality is that adaptation between the original text and non-Christian (if not anti-Christian) religious understanding is necessarily occurring. Philosophically such interplay is inescapable and not necessarily wrong. Note Paul G. Hiebert, Transforming Worldviews: An Anthropological Understanding of How People Change (Grand Rapids MI: Baker, 2008) esp. 71104 65 Parsons, Unveiling God, 198203; and more comprehensively, 183226. 666d St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
exalted Son from God to diffuse Islamic perceptions of God having a physical son by sexual union.66 In that the phrase son(s) of God carries multiple meanings in the New Testament (as all conservative scholars agree), Brown himself favors a mixture of biblical synonyms and the sense approach within a given passage, thus sometimes substituting the word-for-word Son of God with terms like Christ, the Word of God, the Beloved of God, etc.67 As translators choose what they deem the better of multiple meanings, far more than dictionary comparisons are at work. The use of natural equivalents and biblical synonyms requires substantial exegesis, interpretation, and adaptation to communicate the original meaning to the receiving idiom and culture. This is a universal translation reality. And it is never a purely scientific or personally neutral endeavor. 4.3 Missiology and the Spiritual Discipline of Translation As Bible translation attempts to communicate the meaning of the original text into another cultural milieu, it also inevitably associates at least in part with a Christian theological traditionRoman Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, etc. In that sense a translation of the Bible represents a basic form of Christian faith to the receiving community. The translation task, therefore, bridges not only from Scripture to a target-culture, but in some sense it represents a form of Christian belief (even if unintentionally).68 Theological as well as exegetical choices are inevitable. Roman Catholic and

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Brown, Penny, and Gray, Muslim-Idiom Bible Translations, 90. Brown, Translating the Biblical Term Son(s) of God in Muslim Contexts, II: 13940. 68 Gray, personal commentary on an earlier draft, July 2010, remarks: there is a difference between translators inescapably being tied to their environment and faith background on the one hand, and insisting that the text must be seen and interpreted through such lenses, on the other. This is why ideally open-minded Muslims would work collaboratively with generous Christians to faithfully and appropriately translate the text of Scripture. 666e St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
Coptic Orthodox Bibles are not identical to Prostestant and evangelical Bibles today. Rick Brown is arguably the most articulate evangelical advocate for Muslim-sensitive Bible translation.69 After discussing six translation options for translating the phrase son(s) of God within Islamic cultural contexts, he summarizes his own policy of complementing text (translation) with paratext (explanatory annotations):
1. If the meaning of a divine sonship term has been put in the text, then a literal representation of the phrase should be put in the footnote if possible. In addition, the introduction or an introductory mini-article should explain the various senses of the term and how each one has been translated. Ideally the phrases used in translation will be unique, so that the audience, whenever they read or hear this phrase, will know that this is the phrase that is translated as son(s) of God in some other versions. This provides transparency to the translation and gives the readers confidence in it, especially if it differs from other translations which they read or hear. If a literal representation of the term [e.g., Son of God] has been put in the text, then the meaning should be explained in a footnote everywhere the term occurs. The introduction should explain the term as well, so that the readers will not be too shocked when they come across the term in the translated text, before they have read the footnote.70
2.

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Brown, Translating the Biblical Term Son(s) of God in Muslim Contexts, II, 13839. Browns six common approaches to translating son(s) of God are by: calque (literal translation); block (e.g., spiritual Son of God, etc.); simile (like a son); foreign word, such as the original text (e.g., ben elohim); sense, that is, the meaning within the original context (e.g., Ps 2:68 son of God as Gods Vice-Regent); and biblical synonym (e.g., the Christ of God). 70 Brown, Translating the Biblical Term Son(s) of God in Muslim Contexts, II, 138. 666f St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
I find Browns position regarding the translation of the Son of God passages helpful. The order of his policy should be very carefully considered within each Islamic, folk-Islamic, and semiIslamic setting. In my opinion, from the perspective of global and traditional Christian faith, the replacement of the word-for-word phrase should be the exception, not the rule, with footnotes explaining the meanings in either case.71 Yet Browns formula is sensitive both to Muslim readers and to traditional Christians accustomed to older versions of the Bible. The translation policy seeks to be honest rather than deceptive about the meanings of the phrase son(s) of God and Son of God. I am further impressed by the apparent success of Muslim sensitive translations among various people groups.72 Different translations, insofar as they are faithful to the original text, are justified in that, like the four Gospels themselves, they address varying audiences and purposes. Of course, new translations are imperative for unreached people groups. Likewise fresh, accurate translations can serve to enrich and strengthen traditional Christian communities with long-

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Khalid, The Muslim Jesus, 21, denies that Jewish and Christian scriptures had a direct role in the forming of the Quran. On the other hand, by one popular account, the Quran mentions Jesus 97 times, as well as Zechariah, John the Baptist, Mary, and Jesuss disciples. The Law, Psalms and Gospel are referred to in 131 passages. As observed earlier, sometimes deliberate contradiction of the Christian message seems obvious regardless of the understanding of Sonship terminology. Sir Lionel Luckhoo, Christianity or Islam, Decision, June 2010, 26-29. Stephen Prothero, God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions that Run the Worldand Why Their Differences Matter (New York: HarperOne, 2010, 36-37, observes that the calligraphy in the Islamic Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem includes every Quranic passage that speaks of Jesus, asserting tawhid and denouncing Jesus as Son of God. 72 Ibid., II, 140; also accounts in Lamin Sanneh, Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture, 2d ed (Maryknoll NY: Orbis, 2008); and Philip Jenkins, The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) 18-41. 666g St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
established translations that may no longer well communicate to the non-believing cultures around them. Nevertheless this article has raised various red flags of caution where I suspect some translators run ahead. Many a pluralist and intra-religious ecumenist would gladly reinterpret the phrase Son of God as it applies to Jesus with entirely non-theistic meaning.73 This is emphatically not true of the vast majority of translators. Yet the word-for-word phrase Son of God is so laden with canonical, theological, and global Christian meanings that great caution should be shown in its translation. Non-Sonship translation of Son of God can itself be misleading to readers if it obscures the testimony of Christs deity. In the end, The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, writes Paul, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles, but Christ [is] the power of God and the wisdom of God (1Cor 1:18, 23-25). 5 Conclusion We began with the question of how fidelity to Scripture and classical Christian confession of Jesus as the Son of God can be held together with Muslim-sensitive translations? Ingrained in Islamic cultures, the words Son of God elicit the image that Jesus is Gods offspring through physical relations with a woman.

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Khalid, The Muslim Jesus, 21, denies that Jewish and Christian scriptures had a direct role in the forming of the Quran. On the other hand, by one popular account, the Quran mentions Jesus 97 times, as well as Zechariah, John the Baptist, Mary, and Jesuss disciples. The Law, Psalms and Gospel are referred to in 131 passages. Sometimes deliberate contradiction of the Christian message is obvious. Sir Lionel Luckhoo, Christianity or Islam, Decision, June 2010, 2629. Stephen Prothero, God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions that Run the Worldand Why Their Differences Matter (New York: HarperOne, 2010, 3637, observes that the calligraphy in the Islamic Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem includes every Quranic passage that speaks of Jesus, asserting tawhid and denouncing Jesus as Son of God. 666h St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
Conversely, central to Christian faith is the invitation to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name (John 20:31). I have addressed the following questions: First, exegetically, are non-word-for-word renditions of Jesus as the Son of God omitting too much? My response is that the multi-layered meanings of Son of God, as in the Gospels, often point beyond the limited concepts of those in Jesuss immediate world. Replacing Sonship languageas uttered from heaven at the baptism and the Transfiguration, by Satan in the temptations, and by demons as early testimonies to Jesuss supernatural origincan detract from the canonical texts post-Easter implications. Jesuss own Father-Son language reaches the deepest levels of divine self-disclosure. Second, should the traditional centrality of Son of God terminology in both Eastern and Western Christianity be set aside for non-Christian religious and cultural concerns? I reviewed early second-century witnesses such as Ignatius, Shepherd of Hermas, Barnabas, Aristides, and Justin who give strong place to describing Jesus as the Son of Godthis in the midst of Jewish and pagan misinterpretations. The Nicene Creed (325) later codified the meaning of the Son of God as from the substance of the Fathertrue God from true God. The full deity of Christ as Gods Son is the fundamental doctrine of all major Christian traditions. In that name millions have faced discrimination and martyrdom. For that reason, Muslim-idiom translations that replace literal Son of God terminology are often perceived by long-standing national Christians in such cultures not only as accommodating another religion but also as betraying the church that has endured under oppressive regimes. Third, from a theological perspective, what does it mean to confess Jesus as the Son of God? And how does this relate to biblical translation? We first observed the analogous nature of
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God-language, yet how the names Father and Son (more than any others) transcend merely this-world significance to allow us into the heart of Trinitarian relations. To confess Jesus as the Son of God is finally to recognize both his essential equality with the Father and his eternal filial relationship. As for translation of the Son of God, all translation is unavoidably interpretation. Biblical translation carries the special responsibility of bridging not just from the text to the receiving culture. It further functions as an invitation to enter the Christian faiththe faith of the church. Therefore, especially in regard to the phrase Son of God when related to Jesus, extreme care should be exercised lest the rich meanings of the deity of Christ and his eternal relationship with the Father be subverted. I offer these thoughts as cautions to Muslim-idiom translators who are sometimes zealous to circumvent barriers to communicating the gospel of Jesus Christ. Such a motive is wholly commendable, with over one-fifth of the world population in the balance. Both national and expatriot translators suffer hardship, opposition, and long hours of tedious linguistic analysis. Nonetheless, no Christian worker is autonomous from the greater body of Christ. No translator can ignore (and most do not) the basic precepts of Christian theology or the long history of the church. Fresh translations of the Bible are vital and consequential, whether in contexts of an existing church or where the word of God has never been heard. My exploration of the questions are intended to contribute to greater balance in approaching the translation of Sonship terminology for Muslim readers. To replace the grammatically accurate and traditional translations of Son of Goda phrase central to Christian confessionshould be done with the full corpus of exegetical and historical factors in view, and then only with reverence and reserve.
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GOD AS TRIUNE, CREATOR, INCARNATE, ATONER
A REPLY TO MUSLIM OBJECTIONS 1 AND AN ESSAY IN PHILOSOPHIC APOLOGY

By W. H. T. Gairdner 1 God as Triune 1.1 Five philosophic objections stated and answered. It would of course be possible to prepare this chapter with a presentation of the scriptural proof for the doctrine of the Triunity, and of the historical proof that this doctrine was always held by the Christian community. But this has already been done frequently enough; and moreover it is as irrational that this doctrine is attacked by Islam as unscriptural. No, the very Scriptures themselves are rejected on the ground of the 'irrationality' of this doctrine and of the Incarnation and Atonement which are bound up with it. What we want to do now, therefore, is to try to show that this belief in the irrationality of the Christian position is an error; and that these doctrines, first, are philosophical in themselves; and secondly, that they make belief in GodOne, Holy, and Lovingmore and not less easy. Let us start by applying this twofold axiom then, to the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity. Let us seek to show: first, that it is rational, by replying to the main philosophic objections that are urged against it; and second, that it facilitates, not complicates, a true theistic faith.
Published originally by The Christians Literature Society for India (Madras, 1916). The only things we have adapted for this issue on St Francis Magazine is the numbering of the chapters and subheaders.
1.2 That the words 'Father' and 'Son' are unworthy of Godhead This objection may be divided into two heads: (1) That these words involve the physical idea of generation; (2) that they involve the temporal idea of sequence: both of which are obviously repugnant to monotheism. But we say that more careful thought shows the emptiness of these objections. (1) You have to distinguish very carefully between the idea of procreation and that of fatherhood. A parent and a father are by no means the same thing. Every earthly father is a parent; but not every parent is a father! Parenthood, or procreation, is a physical act which man shares with the lower animals, nay, with the lowest, nay, with the vegetable kingdom also, with all that reproduces its kind. You see at once now the absurdity of saying that such and such a jelly-fish was the father of such and such another jellyfish, or that this plant was the father of that! When you sow a seed in a garden, who even thinks of the precise individual plant which produced that particular seed and, in consequence, the particular plant that springs from it? This shows, with a sudden clearness, that when we talk even of earthly father and son, the idea of physical procreation is secondary in our minds. What we are really thinking of is a set of purely moral considerations - the spiritual relationship between two moral and spiritual beings. We may mention a few of these: love, first of all and most important of all; tenderness; intimate and mutual communion; perfect and blissful reciprocity; oneness of nature; oneness of image and character and will; oneness in work together with correlation of function. I speak, of course, of ideal fatherhood and sonship; and yet have actually seen not seldom such a relationship fulfilled on earth. Is there anything in such qualities, we ask then, that is unworthy of Godhead as such? Certainly not from the moral viewpoint. As to the metaphysical difficulty of plurality, that is another matter which may be discussed thoroughly later on. But, mo668 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
rally speaking, these things eminently befit a holy God, and this is precisely why He deigned to use these terms, and no other, to bring home to our minds the sort of relationship between Him and His Eternal Word. Apart from some such terms, that relationship would have inevitably been construed in a purely metaphysical way (as it was indeed by the Jewish philosopher Philo), and it would have been completely destitute of spiritual value to the soul of man. But as it is, this doctrine of Father and Son, united by the mutual Spirit of Father and of Son, has given a new impetus to holiness in family life, a new meaning to love and communion wherever it has been received into the heart and not the intellect alone. (2) We already have gone more than half way in resolving the second objection, that these terms involve sequence, which, of course, would mean that the Son was not eternal, and that God became Father. But our elimination of the idea of procreation, as totally inapplicable to a purely Spiritual Being, eliminates the notion of sequence also. When attention is concentrated on the moral ideas bound up with the words Father and Son, it at once is evident that the two terms are entirely reciprocal and eternally involve each other. Even on earth a man does not becomeis nota father until his son is in being; when a son is born, a father also, so to speak, is born into the world; then and not till then! How much more, then, are Father and Son non-sequent in God, in whose eternal nature there can be no question of becoming! In other words, so far from 'Father' preceding 'Son', the two are necessarily contemporaneous, and in the case of God, co-eternal. Once you grant the possibility of eternal relations of any sort in the Godhead, there is in fact no further difficulty whatsoever in calling them by the purely moral terms Father, Son, and Spiritthe mutual Spirit of Fatherhood and Sonhood.
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We pause here to remark: Granting that the foregoing sets the matter in a slightly clearer light than it was before, still undoubtedly this doctrine of Fatherhood and Sonship is an enormous stumblingblock to Muslims. Their repugnance is so instinctive, so engrained in their very constitution, that it may be really questioned whether Christians do well to give such prominence to terms which are so capable of being misunderstood, and which, were perhaps only used at the first to shadow forth the ineffable substance of eternal truth. If they only succeed in doing the exact reverse of thisnamely, suggest errorwhy not drop terms of so dubious utility and seek fresh ones to shadow forth in a more fruitful way the truth (if so be) which lies beyond? If the whole point of terminology is to facilitate explanation, what is the use of terminology which itself needs so much explanation? Why not drop it? The answer to this is: Because we have no right to play fast and loose with expressions that God has sanctioned with such tremendous emphasis; because their continued existence in Holy Writ and use by His Church are like the preservation and employment of a standard which we cannot afford to lose. Depend upon it, if this terminology were banished from religious usage today, a great deal more would go too. Sooner or later the reality, to which these expressions are a continual witness, would be utterly lost sight of. And, if the idea of the Fatherhood of God were lost to us, many of us would lose interest in all religion. May it then be used in the purely figurative sense that God loves men and supplies their needs as a father does those of his children? In regard to this, it is curious to observe how the average Muslim dislikes even this figurative useshowing how really different his conception of Allah is from our concepttion of the Father in heaven. This comes out curiously in a tradition preserved in the Musnad of Ahmad Ibn Hanbal (vi. 21) where the version of the Lord's Prayer which the prophet sanctioned is gi670 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
ven.2 How significant that the great opening invocation, 'Our Father', which has cheered thousands and changed their whole minds towards God, is sternly suppressed! This supports our contention that if you take away the doctrine of the eternal Fatherhood of God, and play fast and loose with the terms 'Father' and 'Son', you will lose the sense that God is in any case fatherly. Similarly, if you reject the eternal Sonship of Christ, you will sooner or later lose the power and the right of being, in any sense, sonlike. History and sound sense, no less than dogma, teach us this. The pity is that the Prophet of Islam should have been led to use such unmeasured language as is found in the Qur'an about matters he clearly never understood, for nothing can be more clear from the Qur'an than that he confounded the Christian doctrine of Fatherhood and the timeless relations of Divine Father, Son, and Spirit, with the gross ideas of the heathen Mekkans, about Allah having female deities as his daughters, and so forth! Indeed it is more than probable that the words, 'He begetteth not, neither is He begotten,' are a rebuke addressed against these Mekkans and have no Christian reference in them at all. Muhammad, in his attitude to Christianity, may be said either to have totally misunderstood the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, or to have been striking at ignorant forms of misbelief that we also repudiate.3
In a tradition quoted by Abdullah and traced to Ibn Ubaid El-Ansari the latter says: 'The Prophet (peace be upon him) taught me a charm and allowed me to use it for whomsoever I pleased. He said, Say 'Our Lord which art in heaven! Holy (is) Thy name. As in heaven, so (is) Thy word, Allah! in heaven and on earth. Grant us mercy on earth. Allah! Lord of the good, forgive us our sins and trespasses. And send down, of Thy mercy, mercy, and of Thy healing, healing, upon (so and so) in his complaint that he may be healed." And he (the Prophet) said, "Repeat this thrice, and likewise the two Charms from the Koran".' 3 The Qur'an makes it clear that the Trinity, in his mind, was the Father, the Son and the Virgin Mary!
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The state of the Jews of the times of the Apostles and that of the Muslims of that dayand every other dayare not completely parallel in the matter before us; for the Jews, monotheists as they were, and deists as they were becoming, had had their ears prepared for the sound of the words 'God the Father', 'The Son of God', as the study of the Taurat shows; for there these expressions are used to denote any peculiarly intense and loving relationship between God and a nation; it might be, a class, or an anointed king, or (finally) The Anointed King, the expected Christ. It was, therefore, easy for the monotheist disciples of Jesus Christ, men like the Twelve, or the learned Saul, to apply these terms in a spiritual transcendent way to the eternal relation between God and His Incarnate Word, a relation with which, from a metaphysical view-point, Philo had already familiarized thinkers. Yet Muslims also have had a sort of metaphysical propaedeutic in the conception of the eternity and uncreatedness of the Qur'an, the 'Word of Allah'. And this is a hint which Christians may well take for their study and preaching. We may now sum up the answer to the first objection. When you have eliminated the idea of procreation as inapplicable to a spiritual being, nothing remains in the ideas 'Father' and 'Son', save purely moral ideas that are perfectly worthy of Godhead; and, that the same consideration solves the difficulty of sequence in time, for 'Father' and 'Son' are now shown to be co-relatives and therefore co-eternals. There is now the prior difficulty of plurality within the Godhead still remaining. This therefore we treat of next. 1.3 That unity and plurality are incompatible ideas It may be said: Does not the very idea of distinction contradict identity? And does not the very idea of plurality contradict unity? We boldly reply: On the contrary! There is no such thing as identity without distinction in the world of realities; no unity without
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plurality. There is nothing a priori inconceivable in a Unity in Trinity. On the contrary, all the best philosophic thought of ancient and modern times distinctly facilitates and points to some such conception if we desire to believe in a real God. In modern philosophic thought, particularly, it has become more and more clear that relations, relatedness, are the very soul of being. And what are relations save distinctions, a plurality within a unity? The more highly related a thing is, the more reality it has; I mean, the higher is its type of unity. On the other hand, if we try to conceive of unity without difference we find ourselves reduced to mere abstractions of the mindlike the mathematical points without parts or magnitude, which have no real existence except as an abstraction of the mind, or in other words are really equal to zero. And so Being of this abstract sort (as Hegel, one of the greatest of the moderns, saw) is literally equivalent to Notbeing. Are we then going to apply to God the poorest, barest, and most abstract of the categories, unrelated Being, undifferentiated Unity, as if it were the sole possible and the highest one? Or also the richest, fullest and most significant? Surely the latter! Then, somehow or other there must be relatedness ascribed to God essentiallynot with the finite created universe, or anything beyond His own being, for that would raise that created being to the rank of a second god. This essential relatedness must, then, be within, within the circle of the Unity of the living God. The Godhead must Itself be the centre and home of some extraordinarily varied distinctions and relations if It is to be living and real, and not fulfil merely some abstract demand of thought, as for example the demand for an unconditioned First Causewhich seems the only thing that Islamic scholastic theologizing amounts to. But we go much further than this and point out how, in all things known to us, the higher the differentiation, the greater and more valuable the unity. If we can prove this, it will increase the
force of our presumption that the highest Being of allGodwill display, in virtue of His transcendent unity, transcendent differentiation as well! When we consider nature, wherein whoso reads may often see the shadow of God, we see that the things which possess a very low degree of differentiation can hardly be said to possess unity at all. Take a stone, for example. It has unity, it is true; it is one stone. But how valueless is that unity! Split it into two and you have not destroyed the thing itself, neither (except in the mathematical sense) have you destroyed its unity, for you have now two stonestwo ones, each of which is now as much one as was the former thing. So much for the unity of a thing which is as nearly destitute of differentiation as an object can be. But come up now to the kingdom of living things, to the organic world, the kingdom of life. We see a very different state of things; though here, too, we shall see a regular advancean increase of the quality and value of the unity with the increase of differentiation. Beginning low down in the scale, we find, in the vegetable kingdom, things where the differ-entiation is very low, and where, in consequence, the unity, the individuality, is nearly as low as that of a stone. Take moss, for example. You can cut it about without marring its essential character. One piece of moss does not differ in any important respect from another; there is no uniqueness about it. But the higher you go in the vegetable kingdom you find that the more the internal differences increase the more essentially one the thing is: that is (1) you cannot divide it without destroying its life, in fact the 'it' itself; (2) each one differs more decidedly from every other, that is, is more unique. For these are the two marks of a real unity, indivisibility and uniqueness: these together making up individuality.
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It is the same when you come to the higher stages of life, where consciousness has now entered in - I mean the animal kingdom. At first the differentiation is extraordinarily low, and so, therefore, is the unity. Some animals can be severed, and the severed parts live and move for some time independentlytheir unity is low because their differentiation is low. And, again, the less differentiated the animal is internally, the less significant is the individuality of each individual, the less unique, the less does its destruction signify. But the higher up you come, the more consciousness develops and (afterwards) intelligence, the more you find, on the one hand, the internal differentiation enormously increased, and the essential unity enormously increased with it - a unity expressed (as we have said) by the twofold mark of indivisibility and uniqueness. Lovers of animals tell us that each individual differs from its fellow nearly as much as a human individual from his fellow - is, in fact, nearly as unique. They will tell you that each is unique. In other words each presents, to a high degree, unity (as defined by us) and internal differentiation. And all this culminates in man, whose being is the most of all inconceivably differentiated, and yet presents the most perfect and significant unity. We sum up therefore: In the world of life and consciousness things increase directly in real unity as they increase in internal differences. A man is more of a unity than a turnip. He is also, by this law, more highly differentiated. If we here, in any sense, discern a principle, then I reverently claim that it throws light on our subject. For carry on the same line of thought to that Being in whom Life and Consciousness are made perfect, who is absolutely unique, and entirely indivisible, who alone in fact completely satisfies all our postulates for perfect unity and who is THE ONE, that is, God. Is it not now credible, nay, do we not expect to have it revealed to us that here also internal differentiation has also increased to a degree as inconceivable as His Unity is superior to any earthly one? We
vable as His Unity is superior to any earthly one? We say that that differentiation will be inconceivable, it will be only just dimly imaginable, but it will be most tremendously real! And this is just the character of the differentiation shadowed forth to us by the revelation of the Trinity! It is transcendent, it is real, it is in a line with legitimate earthly analogies. It is uniquely great; for what can be greater than the differentiation between persons' consciousness? We conclude, then, that the highest and richest Unity of all, the Divine, exists in the indivisible but real internal differentiation of three Consciousnesses, One God, Blessed for ever and ever, Amen! (1) The Muslim will at once say to this, that it is irrelevant and irreverent to compare the Creator to the created in any way whatsoever, the very distinguishing feature of Divinity being distinction, not similarity; total distinction from any and every earthly analogy whatsoever. But we have already gone over that ground sufficiently in a criticism of Muslim Deism4, where we showed how barren and useless is this purely negative doctrine of Mukhalafa (difference) which verily reduces Allah to a negation and disables us from saying anything about Him whatsoever. Moreover, Muslims are better than their philosophy, for they do not content themselves with saying that 'Allah is not this and that,' but all say, 'Allah is Living, Knowing, Willing,' etc., thereby asserting similarity, not mere naked difference. And it is idle to say that between Allah's knowing and ours there is no similarity, that it entirely transcends ours and is incomparable with it, for if there is really no similarity, how unphilosophical it is to give the two knowings one and the same name!5 May we not as well drop this
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The Muslim Idea of God (London and Madras: C.L.S.I.) The reductio ad absurdum of this mode of thought is to be seen in a passage in Averroes, where the limiting of the seven neither more nor less is an extraordinary example of arbitrariness. 676 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
indefensible position; cease futile juggling with words, and say that while God transcends us in every imaginable way, there are aspects in which He has graciously 'made man in His image' (Genesis 1:27), so that the same names may properly be applied to both Man and God, and denote a real relation and identity? The fear of attributing to Allah what is unworthy of Him is certainly an honourable one, but Christianity does not transgress the limits. In the matter before us, for example, we are simply asserting a mental need when we say that we cannot value or even imagine an abstract unity, and that the highest Unity must exhibit the highest differentiation. What is gross or material or unworthy of God in this? (2) It may be objected, that Islam itself asserts the plurality of the attributes, mercy, justice, and so forth, that are possessed by the Divine Unity. But Islam has always and utterly objected to the hypostatizing of those attributes, which is what Christians do. We have two remarks to make to this. (a) That the assertion of the plurality of the attributes in no respect meets the mental demand that has been spoken of, for, instead of asserting the highest and most transcendent form of differentiation, we have merely the assertion of the very feeblest possible form conceivable. For attributes are in themselves nothing; apart from the essence they are unreal abstractions. And mercy, justice, etc., are merely so many aspects of the divine action; they might be at will increased or reduced. And this again shows the arbitrary and unreal character of the multiplicity thus asserted. What we want is a multiplicity of differentiations that shall be as real and immutable as the unity itself. (b) Christianity does not 'simply hypostatize attributes' as Islam has misunderstood. This misunderstanding - that the Father personified Justice, the Son Mercy, and so forth - is a total mistake which dates from very far back. It has no foundation in the Bible or in our theology. Both Father and Son are equally to be characterized as 'just' and 'merciful'.
(3) It may be objected that this category of unity-in-difference is only applicable to material beings, not to spiritual beings. But on the contrary we found that the spirituality of those beings increased directly with the differentiation of each grade as we ascended upwards through the inanimate, animate, sensitive, and, finally, rational. What now hinders us, logically and rationally, from taking one further analogous step and saying that, when we come to the highest mode of being - the Divine - where the material gives entire place to the spiritual, we shall find that unity-indistinction is as applicable as it was to all the lower categories, only in a far higher mode as regards both the distinction and the unity? The degree to which the Divine Being surpasses and transcends the lower modes may be is indeed unimaginable, but we claim this transcendent superiority for the distinctions that must constitute His Unity just as much as for the Unity itself. And we say that the real, immutable distinctions of the Persons or Consciousnesses meet this postulate, while the purely abstract differences of the Attributes do not. (4) But it may be objected, lastly, that when we leave the material, all this category of organism on which we are relying ceases, and with its failure the reasoning fails also. But why, it may be replied, should this category be objected to any more than those of Being or Life, as applied to the Divine? 'Being' characterizes the very lowest types of things, and 'Life' characterizes low as well as high types. Yet we ascribe both to the Divine nature. Why then not 'organism' (unity-in-difference), which as we have seen increases as the types of living being ascend? This question really leads to a third main objection against the Christian doctrine:
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1.4 That the idea of a Trinity makes the Godhead compound and divisible Does Organism as such imply divisibility, since it implies composition? Does not the doctrine of Trinity involve the divisibility of the divine substance? We believe that the following considerations will totally remove this objection. Properly speaking, a divisible thing is that which can be divided without destroying the thing itself as a stone. A block of stone can be split into two parts without damaging the stone as stone. Or as a machine; the machine can be taken to pieces without destroying the machine, for the pieces can be put together again as before. In differing ways, then, stones and other shapeless metals, and machines, are divisible. But when we come on to substances which possess organic unity (see the last chapter) a very different state of things obtains. You cannot divide them, you can merely divide their material. What do we mean by this? The meaning is plain when you take a flower and shred it to bits. Can you replace that flower? Certainly not. You have not divided it; you have destroyed it. Those dead parts lying on the table are not the flower, nor do they even make up the flower. The flower, the it itself has been destroyed. You could not divide it, you could only destroy it, or keep it. A hand when severed from the body is really not a hand at all. It is only a lump of flesh shaped like a hand; for it is of the essence of a hand to be one with the whole body, to communicate through its nerves with the brain, to share the one life of the whole. It is only by an abstraction, which contains as much falsehood as truth, that you say that the hand is a part of the body at all, if by that you mean that it exists as a hand after being severed from the body. It is only by a very partial abstraction you can do this, namely, by arbitrarily selecting some features which inhere in 'hand' and arbitrarily overlooking other equally or more important ones.
We repeat, therefore, you can divide the material of an organism, but you cannot divide the organism, the unity-in-difference. You can but prematurely effect its dissolution and destruction. It, in fact, would be indivisible in all senses of the word were it immaterial; as it is, it is ideally indivisible; only, its material substance can be divided. But God has no material substance. Therefore He is, in every sense, both ideally and really indivisible. An earthly organism, then, can only exist in the fulness of its nature or be destroyed there is no third possibility such as division. God cannot be destroyed; therefore He exists only in the undivided and indivisible fulness of His nature that is, in His Unity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And just as we saw that, ideally speaking, a member is quite different from a part, since it can only be itself when abiding in the unity, so, both ideally, and really, Father, Son, and Spirit are in no sense whatever parts (God forbid!); but are eternally and truly interrelated, mutually-involving Members in an indestructible and indivisible Unity. And this does not say one word against the reality of the distinguishability of each. On the contrary that reality is absolutely involved in what I have said; and at the same time, instead of destroying, it constitutes the perfect Oneness of God; not a barren Monad, but a rich and perfect Unity. To whom glory for ever and ever. To sum up: the Godhead has no parts, though It has Members; it is, therefore, unable to be parted. It it indivisible. 1.5 That the idea of the Trinity is tritheism necessarily There is a fourth objection to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity one to which defenders of that doctrine sometimes expose themselves if they are not careful, namely, that the doctrine reduces the God-
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head to the category of a genus (or species)61 made up of three individuals, and is therefore naked Tritheism (God forbid!). But a clearer thought-analysis will reveal the fallaciousness of the objection. Let us see what the objection amounts to. A genus or a species is, of course, a universal that includes a large number of particulars that fall under it. Man is a species, and Amr, Zaid, and Ubaid, etc., are individual men falling under it. If then Godhead is to be considered a genus, then the Unity is reduced to the formal unity of a genus, and the three members included in it are no less three gods, than Amr, Zaid, and Ubaid are three men. Of course, if the case were so, we should not be Trinitarian Christians. But it is not so. There are two considerations which refute this objection. (1) A genus, thus understood, has no absolute, objective, and substantial existence at all. It is a generalization, an abstraction made by the mind from many individuals who or which are observed to have important common features. But God is not a generalization, an abstraction! He is the highest reality, a living entity. Therefore, whatever the mysterious Persons of the Holy Trinity may be, they are not individuals, ranged under an abstraction or generalization called God, and the charge of Tritheism quite falls to the ground. Philosophical controversies have doubtless raged round the question of what these universals really are. Are they the merest abstractions, expressions to denote common features roughly observed in particulars, mere names to labels given for convenience in classification? Such is the doctrine of the Nominalists. Others agreed with that doctrine as far as the objective existence of the universals is concerned, but tried to preserve to it more reality than was conceded by the Nominalists, by saying that a universal
The two expressions have, of course, only a relative difference, and it is difficult to say which should be used in stating the objection here. 681 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
was a real conception of the mind, more than a mere name and rough label. These thinkers were called Conceptualists. But Aristotle emphasized the importance of believing in the objective reality of the universal underlying these - the differences of the particulars - that is to say, that each universal though inseparable from the individuals it embraces, does really indicate an intrinsic similarity in the things embraced. To finite thought that similarity may be abstract; but to absolute thought it is real. To absolute thought, the forms, which inhere in all members of a species, are absolutely the realest things of all, being the subject of the contemplation of the thought of God. Hence the Aristotelians were called Realists. But still they totally denied that their doctrine involved attributing to these universal genera (man, animal, etc.) any substantial, or hypostatic, existence, that is, declaring that they are distinct entities. Only Plato found his way to this extreme position, and appeared sometimes to teach that universals, horse, man, etc., are distinct entities; that they inhabit an ideal, heavenly world, that they are as substantial and real as any individual things here on earth nay, far more so, for they are the sole reality; and in comparison with them horses, men, etc., are mere shadows, owing whatever reality they possess to their partaking in the likeness of their heavenly, ideal counterparts, which he named ideas. Hence his followers were called Idealists. These are philosophical matters which are rather remote from our thinking to-day, and we may feel the distinctions alluded to are more subtle than is necessary, and not worth much trouble. Nevertheless blood has been shed in the course of working out the controversy, but it would take too long to show why this was. For our present purpose, however, it is enough to say that God, the supreme, living reality is in no sense a mere Universalembracing-individuals, as conceived by any of these schools of thought.
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If, then, God is neither a mere Name, nor a mere Conception of the mind, nor a mere metaphysical Essence,7 but is a transcendent and perfect living Reality, then the Godhead is in no sense a mere Universal, and the Persons of the Sacred Trinity are not particular individuals (gods) in the unity of the class (god), and the charge of Tritheism falls to the ground. (2) The second consideration which reveals the fallacy of the objection is this: a genus (man for example) whatever be the degree of reality which it possesses, is not in the least affected by the destruction of one, or any number, of its constituent members. Annihilate Amr, Zaid and Ubaid, and as many others as you please, and the genus, as genus, still remains. It is not even, as genus, mutilated. This shows that genus is not really a living organic unity, which is bound up with the unimpaired existence of its members. But this is exactly what, with all reverence, we seem to see in God, who is highest and most perfect Life. He is a unity in and through the Persons, not one of whom has or can have any separated existence, but each lives for, in, and through each. Therefore the Father is the one Substance of God, the Son is the one Substance of God, the Holy Spirit is the one Substance of God; not three gods, but One God. To whom be glory for ever. 1.6 That the idea of the Trinity is, then, meaningless and barren The final objection is as follows: If, as concluded last time, Father, Son, and Spirit, is each the one substance of God, this simply means that there is no reality whatever in the distinctions Father, Son, and Spirit, owing to the utter impossibility of assigning to any one of the so-called Persons anything peculiar to that Person. In other words, you can never say that any One does what the
Nor an Ideal Substance, after the Platonic fashion; but it is not necessary to consider this possibility, for all subsequent thought has regarded the conception as inadmissible, and to Plato himself it was in all probability only a cast, one of many made by that versatile angler on the waters of truth. 683 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
Other does not; and this fact lands you into the most hopeless contradictions. This objection is strongly urged in a little book by a young Muslim doctor, a follower of the late Sheikh Muhammad Abdu, where he says:
Moreover, the idea of the Nazarenes that Allah is one in essence, three in persons, is impossible; for they believe that each Person is distinguished from the other by sundry properties: the first by His Fatherhood; the second by His Sonship, and by His Incarnation and indwelling; the third by Procession. These distinctions are conceived of as perfectly real, insomuch that what is ascribed to one must not be transferred to another. To this I reply: The property that constitutes the distinction inheres essentially in the Person to whom it belongs; that is, to His essence. Therefore, it inheres in the essence of Allah, for His essence is one and indivisible, as every Christian maintains; and the essence of each Person is the essence of Allah. But, on the other hand, that same property, since it is constitutive of the distinction does not inhere in another Person, therefore does not inhere in that other Person's essence, therefore does not inhere in the essence of Allah. Therefore the same thing does, and does not, inhere in the essence of Allah; which is absurd. [...] Thus you can prove that, Incarnation being a property of the Son, Allah did, and did not, become incarnate: a contradiction that is self-evidently false.
To this it may be replied: Both in physics and metaphysics, when you get down to ultimate problems, you find yourself involved in logical contradictions. Time and eternity, creation and self-sufficingness, extension and infinity, all involve contradictions and intellectual insolubilities, for which indeed philosophers have a technical name, Antinomies of Reason, so inevitable have they found these contradictions. It need not, therefore, disturb us overmuch, even if we were to find one slight antinomy still adhering to our ultimate doctrine, that of the Sacred Trinity in Unity.
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Now it is eminently to the point to notice that even our superlogical author himself is quite unable to escape such contradictions. In a former page, for example, we find him enlarging on another 'ultimate' question, namely, the ultimate constitution of matter. He has arrived at the atom, and is discussing whether it is divisible or not, and whether it has extension or not. After proving that you cannot conceive the dividing process going on ad infinitum,8 he concludes that there must be a point at which it ceases, and the atom becomes indivisible; and he proceeds:
This ultimate atom either has extension or it has not. If it has, then the mind can always conceive its divisibility, and so on ad infinitum, which, as we have shown, is impossible. The only possible conclusion, therefore, is that it has not extension, and we conclude that every body is composed of absolutely extensionless atoms, i.e., without length, breadth, or height, but having definite position; resembling the mathematical points, except that the former exist, while the latter are imaginary.
Such is the author's amazing conclusion; and we must remember it is the basis on which he erects his entire argument, for it comes at the very beginning of a book which is supposed to be a close logical argument for the refutation of materialism and the demonstration of Islamic belief, with as great certainty as that of the mathematical sciences! Surely the antinomy (if any) adhering in the doctrine of the Trinity is nothing compared with the hopeless contradictions in terms here involved! Matter, whose one distinguishing property is extension,9 is said to be composed of extensionless things, which,
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Arab philosophers never allow this possibility of an infinite series. It is worth while noting that Muslim philosophic thought is against this Muslim neologist on this very point. In El-Fudali's Matn, the extension of matter is selected as the best example of the self-evident! To which his commentator expressly notes, Matter whether the atom or a compound.
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together, make up an extended thing. But an extensionless thing is equivalent to zero. However often you add zero to zero you only get zero; but according to our author, who is so severe on Christian logic, you only have to add a sufficient number of zeros together (query, how many?) to get an integer. How many breadthless atoms, we wonder, when set in a row would make up a line an inch broad! It would be easy to elicit many other ridiculous conclusions from the same axiom, but we forbear, for the point is not to substitute a true doctrine of the ultimate atom for our author's absurd one, but rather to point out how the finite mind, when it gets down to ultimates, even in physics, does always come to antinomies. But the case is not so desperate with the doctrine of the Trinity. If we hold firmly and reverently to the conclusion we have reached with such a hard effort of thought, that a new and unique category, yet one not unintelligible to us, is applicable to the Godhead, namely, that of spiritual organism, we shall find that it solves also their serious-looking final difficulty. In any organism, the whole of the one essence acts in every action of every member, and yet the member has its appropriate work. If my eye sees, I see, but my ear does not see, yet we do not for this reason rush to the assertion that I do, and do not, see at the same moment. Rather we say that I see through my eye, not my ear. The whole, including the ear, profits from the performance of the eye. If one member does anything, the one essence does it, and all the members co-operate; yet this does not forbid that member to have its own inalienable function in the economy of the organism. If one member suffers, the whole organism suffers, and the members co-operate in that suffering; yet this does not prevent a proper suffering to each member. If you will have it so, in the category of organism you have come into a sphere where the paradox of our critic is literally true, that the same thing does, and does not, perform the same action at the same time!
Without saying that the category of spiritual organism is adequate to the Godhead, it may be held and maintained that it is the highest we can apply if we want to have a living personal God at all. The reality is no doubt higher than our highest concepttion, but this might only make our thesis more, not less, true, namely, that the Divine Persons should have each His proper function, the One God being in every case the sole and invariable worker. To take our critic's instance, God certainly can be incarnate in His Word the Son, without that incarnation being predicated of the Father or the Spirit, properly. In the Atonement for mankind that Incarnate One can take His peculiar part. The oneness, reciprocity, and mutuality of the Godhead must indeed be ineffable if even a physical organism is so true a unity, whose members live only in and through each other and the one undivided essence. How much more so, the immortal, eternal, infinite God! The Doctrine of the Trinity cannot then be criticized from this view-point. The last objection of the critics falls to the ground. 2 GodasCreator We pass from our purely defensive ground to show that, so far from the Trinity making a belief in a living God more difficult, it goes to make easier for us some difficulties besetting all monotheistic systems, and not least Islam; and especially the difficulty, Why should a self-sufficient God have created the world? And, after creating it, was not His self-sufficiency thereby imperiled? How real this difficulty is all students of Islam know. The Philosophers with their theories of emanation (sudur) and the eternity of the world (qidam al alam); the Sufis with their Tradition10 are
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Kunta kanzan makhfiyan lam u'raf, fa ahbabtu an u'raf, fa khalagtu khalgan wa to 'arraftu ilaihim, fa bi 'arafuni. 'I was a hidden treasure, being unknown. 687 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
enough to prove that this difficulty is a real one; and, as a matter of fact, most agnosticism is owed to the seriousness of this very difficulty to many minds. We say that the doctrine of a Trinity makes the position easier, not more difficult. Let us recapitulate the difficulties experienced by Islamic Deism in ascribing to God creation. 1. How could such a God pass over into actual creation and become a Creator? Have we not here an involving of the Absolute God in contingency? 2. Before creation His activities were entirely inactive, only finding activity in creation. They were latent, not potent; potential, not actual. Now potentiality is no substitute for action. It is, relatively to action, deficiency. And if we say that creation was required to release the Creator from His latency and set free the quality of Power, with other qualities denoting action, then we have ascribed to Him deficiency and dependence of the first order. 3. Creation in this case would mean for God the beginning of relations, for in creating He comes into relation with His world. But the beginning of relations would mean the beginning of a new kind of life for the Divine Being. This is against pure transcendence (tanzih). 4. Relation involves something in the way of reaction for both parties. What is this reaction but passivity? He who hears, for example, has an action done upon him. This is against tanzih. How could an absolute Being like such a God limit his absoluteness, and condescend from it?
Then I desired to be known. So I created creatures and made Myself known to them; and by Me they knew Me.'
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Now the idea of a Triune God, as revealed through Christ, greatly lessens, if it does not entirely annul, these great difficulties. Let us note the following important considerations: (a) The doctrine of the Triune God reveals to us a God with eternal activities, not latent, but potent in eternal action. Love is the essence of His being, and love was always active in Him. And there is no type of activity more active than love. In creating, therefore, God was not becoming actively active after being only potentially active. He was simply acting in accord with His own everactive nature. Creation itself was an outcome of love; it was love willing the existence and the happiness of other beings. It was an overflow of love more than an outcome of power; for love is concerned with the end, power with the means. Here is a very great difference between the Islamic and the Christian conceptions of God: Islam makes Will and Power the two sole qualities of God to which all His relations with man and the world can be reduced; Christianity says God is Love; it makes Will simply the articulate expression of Love, and power simply the handmaid of Love. Even the glory of God is simply the triumph of His nature of Love. To all of these ideas Islam is completely strange. It cannot advance beyond the conception of an irresponsible Ruler. Such a conception is for ever lost in the royal Fatherhood of God through Christ. (b) The doctrine of the Triune God shows that creation did not mean for God the beginning of relations; for God Himself is eternally related in the highest possible wayin a way that infinitely transcends the most highly organized and intro-related being on earth. The creation of a world of relations is simply the reflex of the essentially relational nature of God. (c) The conception of the Triune God removes the difficulty of ascribing reaction, limitation, passivity, and emotion to God, which is so fatal to pure transcendence, and which, nevertheless, is inevitable as soon as you have ascribed to Him creation. The
difficulty has for us lost its terror, for as we have seen that relatedness is the very soul of God, we see also that limitation is simply another way of expressing relatedness. All relations are limitations; they all involve action and reaction, activity and passivity. God who is Father, Son, and Spirit, is the home of all these things. Why should we be afraid of them then? True love and true freedom are not absence of all limitations. But freedom and love are expressed in self-limitation, and blessedness is seen in the free play of action and reaction. All these things were found eternally in the bosom of the one Godhead, who is love, being Father, Son, and Spirit. In the same way passivity is now shown not to be a thing that degraded God; in God is both activity and passivity. Blessedness needs both; love needs both. So also emotion. The conscience, heart, and moral needs of men cry out for a God who stands not coldly aloof, but for one with feeling; yet the intellect of man has feared to yield on this point, and attempts to figure God as totally unaffected by anything that man can do or suffer. But the doctrine of the Triune God who is Love shows that such fears are groundless; for love is the highest form of life; and so its emotion is part of the eternal ethical life of God. Thus we see that the dilemma which is fatal to Deism, namely, that in creation God lays Himself open to reaction, limitation, passivity, emotion, and so to weakness and deficiency, is solved for us. These were no new things to God: they did not appear to Him to detract from His glory; they existed quite apart from creation; they were of His being, and in them He expresses Himself. Consequently when He graciously created a world, into which He entered in relation, and so allowed all the consequences of relationself-limitation, reactions, passivities, emotions He was doing no new thing; He was simply expressing His nature in time as He expresses it eternally.
In regard to God's creating Nature, it might conceivably be maintained that He did not in any way limit Himself, because He was creating something wholly under His own hand, capable of being acted on, but not of acting nor even of reacting, whose smallest motion was really God's doing. And, being entirely mechanical, it would have no point of resemblance or similarity with its Maker. But what shall we say of man, God's conscious, knowing, willing, feeling creation? How can we escape the conclusion that here at any rate there is a point of similarity between God's will and man's; between God as mind and man as mind; between God as knower and man as knower. If not, how could God communicate with man? There cannot be intelligent communication unless the receiver is to some extent like the sender. To the oxen the hieroglyphics were, are, and will be, mere marks. But to us they are messages simply because there is a point of mental similarity between us and those who wrote them. So prophecy itself involves this similarity between God's mind and ours. But it is impossible for pure tanzih to admit any such correspondence or similarity. Yet it attempts to assert the possibility of communication. This is contradictory. If Islam replies that the world, including man, is in every respect a tool in the hand of God's power, we say that many of the former metaphysical difficulties still remain (see above); and moreover that this makes impossible the quality of love in God; no one loves a machine, though he have absolute power over it. And of course it is even more impossible for a machine to love its worker, even on the assumption that it is a conscious machine and one that can understand the communications made to it by its Maker. But even this assumption (that the machine is somehow rational) must be denied on pure tanzih principles. Why should tanzih deny reality to the will of man as a free thing, that is selfexercised, yet allow to man's intelligence that it is real and self691 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
exercised. So here there is a dilemma: either you allow that man's intelligence is real, self-exercised, that is, capable of give and take, in which case you must say that the knowledge of God not only gives, but also takes, not only communicates with but is communicated with, not only knows but is known, not only speaks but hears all of which is a species of passivity and contradicts tanzih. Or you must say that man's intelligence is as mechanical and as illusory as his will: he seems to hear, but it is only God hearing Himself; he seems to speak but it is only God speaking to Himself; he seems to know, but really he only dreams. His individual consciousness is an illusionhis very individuality and selfhood vanishes, and he becomes like a character in a novel, a thing that seems to act and think and speak, but really only exists in the mind of its writer. So that if tanzih is incapable of being harmonized with the creation of nature, it is doubly incapable of being harmonized with the creation of any spiritual being such as man. And in fact we often see, in the history of Islamic thought, men who have in their very insistence on absolute tanzih positively asserted this very thing, namely, that only Allah exists, and that all other existence is illusory, a semblance. This is the thought that underlies their name for God Al Haqq. They mean that no other being has reality or existence. These men, whether they know it or not, are pure pantheists, their belief resembling the Indian philosophic pantheism, whereby all that we see is Maya (illusion). Thus easily does pure tanzih fall to its extreme opposite. In the language of these men, tawhid did not merely mean calling God the One, but calling Him the Onlythat is, denying reality or even existence to all phenomena whatsoever. Such are the terrible difficulties, intellectual and moral, into which the Islamic doctrine of God falls, especially in relation to the creation of man.
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But the difficulties seem almost to vanish when we conceive of God by the aid of the mind of Christ, and know Him as Father, Son and Spirit. We have already seen how this trinitarian conception as Love facilitates the conception of Him as Creator of the world generally. How much more then of man, particularly man, who alone of all creation has, decisively, the power of memory and forethought, of self-consciousness and of otherconsciousness, of conscience, rational thought in one word, who alone of all created things (as far as we know) has spirit, and is capable of prayer, gratitude, and love; who is like unto God, 'in His image' in these respects. We note the following considerations: 1. If God created a being capable of love, while He Himself is incapable of real love, He created a being greater than Himself; for 'love is the greatest thing in the world.' But we have seen God has love is love; therefore the creation of a loving creature occasions no surprise but the reverse. 2. For creation, if it has any significance, must have for its end the manifestation of the glory of God by which we do not mean His power, for that were by itself and in itself a barren display but His love and His power in His love. Therefore would creation have been utterly incomplete had it stopped with the solar systemor with the minerally constituted earth or with the vegetable kingdom. Why? Not because these things were insufficiently marvellous, for who can positively assign degrees of marvel to the creation. Why then? Does not one feel the answer to be that these things were incapable of consciously knowing God, or loving Him, or glorifying Him, or being or becoming like Him? That is the answer. And it shows us, further, why creation did not stop at the animal world, from the amoeba up to the ape. The same answer holds good. Man is the crown of it all, and to man all points. In man creation suddenly awakes into full consciousness, as one wakes out of a dead sleep or a confused dream. In man
God has one to whom He can talk and who can talk with Him, in other words, like Himself. Now this point of likeness is abhorrent to the Muslim, for it conflicts with his abstract doctrine of uniqueness. But he only denies it at the heavy cost of denying also the possibility of communication and love between God and man. For, as we have seen, conscious communication absolutely implies some point of spiritual similarity between the two, and love implies the same, a fortiori. And thus we find in the forefront of the Bible, 'God created man in His likeness' (Genesis 1:26-27) a truly inspired word; just as we find in the New Testament, 'the inner man, which is renewed after the image of Him who created him' (Colossians 3:10). It is true that this word of Genesis has been adopted by Islam in the form of a tradition. This tradition has always fascinated Muslim theologians, but has perhaps equally embarrassed them. If any one wants to see how they sometimes do all they can to explain it away and evacuate it of meaning, let him read AlGhazali's Mishkat at Anwar, (pp. 34-35). We conclude, however, from the existence of this tradition that there is a yearning in Islam itself to establish a closer link between man and God. But the answer to that yearning, as we are seeing, is to be found in Christian, not Muslim, theology. For in the Holy Trinity we see that here also we have no absolutely new principle. God saw in His Son and Word the 'express image of His person' (Hebrews 1:2) from all eternity. So the creation of a world, in the highest rank of which He could see the image of His person, finitely, is seen to be no longer strange or new, but in accordance with His own essence.11
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The definition, or description, of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity given by Fr. L. Cheikho in his reply [Tafnid at Tazwir li Muhammad Tabir et Tannir (Refutation of the Falsification of Muhammad Tahir et Tannir)] to a virulent Muslim attack on Christianity [El 'Aqa'id el- Wathaniya fi'd-Diyanat an-Nasraniya] 694 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
3 God As Incarnate 3.1 Five objections to the incarnation We shall not consider the Incarnation from all of its aspects, but shall keep within the scope of these studies, namely, to show that it is not contrary to reason; to show that it facilitates faith in God, not makes it more difficult; while to deny it makes faith in God difficult, if not impossible. Let us examine, therefore, the following objections to the Incarnation: 1. Was the Incarnation proper to the Son; if so, how can you say that God was incarnate? 2. In asserting the Incarnation, you assert that God became, or was, transformed.
is so interesting that we quote it here in full: 'God, the One, the possessor of glory, perfection and an essential unity that admits of no division, is an intelligent Deity, having knowledge of the Reality (haqiqh) of His divine essence (dhat) from all eternity; and by this perfect knowledge of that Reality, which does not in any way take away from His substance (jawhar), He causes to overflow (yufi) on to that Image (surah) the totality of His perfections as though He were it and It were He; and this is His self-subsisting Word which was never subject to the creative fiat. And because it emanates (sadara) from Him and is begotten from Him in thought, not by motion, and not in space nor time, abiding in Him continually, we call It 'Word', and Him 'Father', just as we call the concept of our own thought, the production of our intelligence, 'the son of our thought', or its 'word', which our lips utter without severing it thereby from our intellect. Only, our word is an accidens, while in God there is no accidens, so that we are bound to assert that God's Word is God just as much as is Its Source. Further, since the Son resembles the Father, being His essential Image, there must be a connexion between the Father and His Word whereby the Father loves His Image and that Image is drawn to its Begetter. And this connexion also is not an accidens, but is likewise a substance (jawhar), the Holy Spirit, the mutual love betwixt Father and Son, proceeding from Them both.'
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3. In asserting the Incarnation you have brought God within the limits of space. 4. The same with regard to the limits of time. 5. Lastly, you have involved God in weakness and passivity and suffering. 3.2 Was God, or the Son of God, incarnate? We have already explained, in speaking of the Trinity, how it is possible to assign proper functions to one person as distinct from another in the Godhead without dividing the Godhead. The reason is that the Persons are one yet distinct. Every act is done by God, that is to say, all the One Divine essence does all and the Persons unite in willing every particular and inspiring it and ordering its accomplishment. But this does not make it impossible that the actual accomplishment be worked out by one Person specially. 'The Son doeth nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do' (John 5:19). That is to say, the Father designs each act and wills it and shares in the spiritual emotion consequent on it in a word, does it, while the actual execution is the Word's. There is no contradiction in terms here; the brain does an act, which a member executes for example. Apply this principle to the Incarnation. We find that the Son in the fulness of His Godhead was incarnated: the Word became flesh. This Incarnation was willed and planned by the Father, and carried out by the inspiration of the Spirit. We can, therefore, say that God was incarnate, without saying that the Father was, or that the Spirit was, in the same sense as the Son. My whole self is in the hand with which I write, yet my whole self is not bounded by my hand. So God Himself was in Jesus Christthe fulness of the Godhead; yet the Godhead was not limited by the Man Jesus. The one is a mystery, and the other is a mystery.
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If one denies that my whole self is in my hand, then I ask him, What part of myself is in my hand? Is my spirit divided? No; and, therefore, you can get no further than this, that the fulness of the Godhead was in Christ, yet was not bounded by the Man Jesus. Spirit is such a mysterious thing and its relation with matter yet more mysterious. How much more then is the nature of the presence of the Infinite Spirit God in relation to material things a mystery also? We, therefore, confess that in this matter we have a mystery which does indeed utterly transcend reason, though it does not conflict with it. It is only a special case of the general mystery that is, God's relation to this universe. 3.3 The Incarnation and becoming. The Word became flesh (John 1:14). It is objected to this cardinal text that it represents the conversion of the Godhead into flesh, and brings God into the category of becoming, that is, contingency. We need not reply to the first objection, for the text does not say 'the Word was converted into flesh'. From this point of view, the Church has rejected the theory of conversion: 'not by the conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking the manhood into God.' Nevertheless, the text does undoubtedly say became. Let us look at the matter closely. We assert that this matter entirely goes back to the previous initial difficulty of creation and relation. We assert that no new difficulty is added, but that this becoming is simply an aspect of the original difficulty. Now we have shown clearly that the original difficulty affects the Muslim even more than the Christian; it affects every believer in a one, conscious God Creator every monotheist, in fact. Therefore the Muslim cannot criticize this text in any special way. For whoever believes that God created has involved himself in
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attributing a sort of becoming to God. For He who had not as yet created, created. He became a creator, in other words. We are bound to use metaphors of time in order to make some difference between creator and created, and avoid attributing eternity to the world. If the objector falls back upon the idea that creation was always in the mind of God, and that the act of creation merely realized the thought, we reply that this does not in the least lessen the force of our contention; for we simply alter the wording of it and say: He who was a creator potentially became a creator actually. He who was a creator in thought became a creator in deed. It comes to this: if creation became, that is, passed from nonexistence to existence, then the Creator, in virtue of His mere relation to that creation, also became passed from non-creativeness to creativeness. Thus the Incarnation and the text 'the Word became flesh' only bring you back to the original mystery of God and creation; they add nothing to it, being strictly a development of it. 3.4 In asserting Incarnation you have brought God within the limits of space The relation of God to space, nay, the very nature of space in itself, is a matter absolutely impossible to determine or imagine. Philosophers have vexed themselves to define space or to conceive of it in itself. Some have said it is merely an abstraction; some that it is merely a necessary condition of our perception, and has its existence in human perception rather than independently, so that apart from that it has no real existence, being, in fact, a 'form' or constituent element of perception. However that may be, we see from this the folly of dogmatizing what God's relation to space is. Does He fill it or is He apart from it? Or would it not be truer to say that in some way He is superior to it? For all that, we are in space, and He is related to us; therefore He must be related
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to space in some way or other. And who shall define what that way is? And further, who shall define how God shall demonstrate His relation with space? How shall He use it? By what modes? (1) We see in the first place that the condescension of God in creation and relation and revelation has inevitably involved His attributing to Himself spatial metaphors. Our very language and thoughts, nay, the language and thoughts of revelation itself, bear witness to this. Is not this a self-limitation on the part of God to make it appear as though He were spatially connected and limited, even if in reality He is not? From this point of view, to be limited spatially and to appear to be limited amount to just the same thing. God has, as a matter of fact, limited Himself spatially in merely revealing words and ideas like 'throne', 'heaven', 'send', 'messenger', 'see', 'hear', etc., and attributing all to Himself. Every one of these notions is a purely spatial one and calls up spatial images. This is true just as much for the Muslim as the Christian; for he also uses all these words; and he talks of the throne on which God sits, borne by angels, surrounded by angels above, below, and around. What is this except the utmost of spatial limitations? And when he talks of the soul's entering the garden, being with God, seeing His face, standing by His throne, does he not necessarily imagine and picture in his mind a place, and forms and figures and spaces? Of course he does. Therefore we repeat from this point of view that God, quite apart from the Incarnation, has struck Himself into space, having in the minds and imaginations of all men limited Himself, and, if you please, incarnated Himself, using incarnation in the wider sense of entering within material bounds. (2) But, in the second place, if we admit the principle that God allows Himself to appear bounded by space, in thought, while really transcending it in a manner not to be imagined by us, and further admit that this appearance is at least a hint of some truth,
we can carry the argument a step further and say that it is equally possible for God to give some sensible manifestation of His presence in space that is, one affecting not only the imagination but the senses. That is to say, He can connect His presence more with one part of space than another, without thereby denying His omnipresence. Who shall say this is impossible? On the contrary, it is admitted. We say even in common parlance, at certain solemn times, we feel that God is with us. If in old times He made a wondrous light, or fiery cloud or smoke, and gave His people to understand that His presence was in some particular way connected with or manifested in that fire or light, who can deny it? And on the other hand, who is so foolish as to think that manifestation exhausted or monopolized the presence of God! When Moses saw the fire in the bush and heard the voice; when Israel saw the fiery cloud in the Holy of Holies, and they bowed down and worshipped as if in the immediate presence of God (and they were so from this point of view) were they so foolish as to think that the Heaven of Heavens was then empty of God's presence? No, they saw a mystery with two sides to itlike all mysteries in heaven and earth (and what thing created or uncreated is not a mystery?) and were thankful. And similarly the 'Angel of the Presence' (Isaiah 63:9), the Angel who said to Manoah that His name was WONDERFUL (pelaisee Judges 13:18), which is the peculiar epithet of God; in these cases also we have a mysterious self-relation of God to space and sense, real, yet not exhausting reality. Islam is conscious of these mysteries as much as Christianity. The prophet in one tradition talked of feeling the Fingers of God. Would he have said more if he had said he had seen them? And thus we arrive at the incarnation in Christ. It is only the same mystery carried to a higher and nobler plane. The Godhead in space, and yet not in it; His presence related particularly to a certain place, and yet not limited by it; appealing to sense, yet
transcending sense; revealed, yet veiled by the very medium of revelation. It is the old story of the two-faced mystery. We must accept both and worship. The disciples in looking on the body of Christ did not see God, for in this sense none sees God; but none the less they looked on One 'in whom was the fulness of the Godhead bodily' (Colossians 2:9). As to the mode in which this was effected, or how the matter looks from God's point of view, we know not. Who knows how anything looks from God's point of view? Finally; if the human spirit is not material, we get a precisely similar set of problems and paradoxes. My spirit seems to be limited by my body and housed in it, and yet who can say it is really under the category of space? Can you measure it? How many dimensions has it? Has it a shape? If it escaped from my body, would it go up or down? through window or door? East or West? Where does it go to?12 These questions in themselves show the absurdity of trying to fit spirit into the category of space. It seems wholly above it. And yet none the less my spirit is in some way undoubtedly limited by my spatial body. Who can solve this paradox? And if it is true, even though unintelligible, why should we say that a similar connexion between God (who is pure, transcendent Spirit) and matter in general, or man in particular, is impossible? It is only admitting one more mystery before which our boasted reason retires baffled and transcended.
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Al-Ghazali, in the Madnun Saghir, notes this mysterious property of the human spirit, and observes how difficult it is to avoid attributing to it, in consequence, properties which are strictly divine ones. The generality of men, he says, find it impossible to conceive of Allah as not being related to space (fi jiha). It is impossible to make them understand that the human ruh Spirit also transcends this relation! They would think that this would be to make man like God.
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3.5 In asserting Incarnation you have brought God within the limits of the category of time; and, as time and contingency imply each other absolutely, we have thus involved the Divine Nature in contingency The reply to this is very much what we replied in the case of space, namely, that the difficulty, if it is a difficulty, is already involved in the ideas of God's creation and governance of this world. Whether to the Muslim or to the Christian or to the Jew, the mere thought of God's creating the world as a definite act, and then governing it by definite acts, inevitably involves Him in the idea of time. His acts, words, and even thoughts are represented to us as intervening at definite successive moments in the stream of times; as constituting successive links in the chain of events. They have a past, a present, a future. The Qur'an from end to end holds God in the category of time, in His relation to this world. We hear Him telling Muhammad what He did in the past, what He is doing in the present, what He will do in the future. Now words are the index of thought, and so these words of God denoting tense carry us to the corresponding thought in the Divine mind. The Divine mind is represented as thinking in tenses. Now when thought is involved in a certain category, the thinker himself is thoroughly involved. If, therefore, time and contingency really imply each other, then God in relating Himself to a temporal system has already involved Himself, in some way, in contingency! We are perfectly willing to admit that this train of thought only conducts us to half the truth, and that the other half, could we only grasp it, would show us God transcending the category of time. But neither Muslim mind nor Christian mind can rise to this; and, therefore, what we object to is that the Muslim should urge a difficulty as a special one against the Incarnation of the Word of God, when it is really a common difficulty. We may say that, from this point of view, the special incarnation in Christ in no way differs from the general immanence involved in the guardi702 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
anship of the world. A Muslim may try to save himself by saying that events do indeed happen in time, including the manifestations of God's words and acts, but that this does not touch God Himself or His thoughts because these things were all written down beforehand in the Preserved Tablet, and, therefore, existed all together in the thought of God, without present, past or future; we reply that this is of no avail, for the Muslim is none the less bound to admit a distinction between the ideal existence of the world in the mind of God and its real existence in time. There must be an essential difference, or else the world were as eternal as God. Well then, if there is a difference, it remains true that God, after bringing the world from the sphere of thought into the sphere of being, involved Himself in some new way with the category of time, with the consequences before mentioned. Or if, going still deeper in philosophy, the Muslim contends that the self is one thing and the attributes another, that God's self is utterly transcendent of time, while His attributes may be 'attached to'131 created things in time, without infringing upon His transcendence, we reply that this philosophy may possibly be sound, but it applies to all mind as such. Philosophers have pointed out that even in man there must be an extra-temporal element; for otherwise, if not only the acts and thoughts of men were in the flux and stream of time but also the Self itself, there would be no consciousness of events. The very power to distinguish between past, present and future would vanish; the man himself would be rolled along the flood of time as consciousless of it as is the plant torn up by the river and washed down in its current. There must be a stable point to enable us to approach unstability, a resting-place outside time to enable us to know time. So then, if this is true for God, it is also true for the spirit of man.
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Muta'alliqa bi is the parlance of Muslim theologians. St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
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But this thought, though it is no help to the Muslim Deist (but the contrary), does greatly assist the idea of Incarnation. For it shows that man has an extra-temporal element at the core and base of his selfhood, which perhaps gave the point whereat the divine and human natures come together in the indissoluble union of the Incarnation. We, therefore, conclude by saying that the Incarnation is only a particular case of the general difficulty; a particular phase of the general mystery; a continuation of the initial act of condescension involved in the creation of the world of God and its governance by His hand. 3.6 The Incarnation involves attributing passivity and weakness to the Almighty Godhead We shall not spend very much time over this objection, partly because it has been several times noticed already, and partly because it must be more deeply examined in the next section, on the Atonement. It will be enough to remind ourselves that: (1) Passivity, as such, has already been shown to be a necessary correlative of activity, and a Living God must in Himself possess both the one and the other. And the Triune God of the Christian has been shown actually to possess both. Therefore the objection that the Incarnation involves passivity, as such, falls to the ground. (2) We have already seen also that relation implies passivity; that a Creator's relations to the created in general, and created intelligence in particular, was not, could not be wholly one-sided. Action implies reaction, activity passivity. Therefore the bare idea of Creation involves what is here objected to Incarnation as such. (3) As regards weakness, we have already shown that the moral sphere is not identical with the physical, and that what is weakness in the one may be strength in the other and vice versa. The Incarnation is an act primarily within the moral sphere, and, there-
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fore, it is to be expected that many aspects of its enormous moral power will, in the physical sphere and to the natural eye and to the natural or carnal heart, appear to spell weakness. But 'the weakness of God is stronger than men!' (1 Corinthians 1:25). Passivity weakness suffering (which means bearing); it is plain that we have now passed to another subject, an extension of that of the Incarnation, namely, the Atonement. And this we proceed in conclusion to examine, holding on fast to all our dearly-won gains in preceding discussions. 4 God As Atoner 4.1 General considerations We have frequently pointed out, and the remark cannot be too often made, for the point is absolutely cardinal, that the minute you leave the purely physical category and enter the moral one, that moment everything becomes changed. The centre of gravity being altered, the whole system shifts, and our thought must undergo a corresponding modification or be guilty of the most serious inconsistencies and errors. Now the physical category is concerned with the mutual relations of inanimate things, or the relation of thinking beings with inanimate things, such as the action of a player on the ball, or the action of a falling stone upon a person. It will be seen that such relations do not go beyond the sphere of the mechanical. They have, in themselves, nothing to do with the moral. But the minute you enter the moral sphere, that is, that which concerns the reciprocal relations of moral beings, animate, conscious, rational, you find that the simple judgement concerning, for example, strength and weakness, has to be tremendously modified. In the physical sphere, for example, the question of relative strength can be settled by a tug, by a display of muscular force, by a decisive impact. But how ridiculous it would be to assert that
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moral questions can be so settled; or that when you wish to assert your moral superiority over somebody else, or to win him morally, you can do so by a display of superior physical force! The idea is absurd. On the contrary, the means you employ may seem, in the physical sphere, to be sheer weakness. At all events, moral means are very numerous and very different and delicate and complicated, while physical means are always simple and the same in character, because they have no other criterion than physical force, which is always calculated according to purely mathematical laws. The cardinal mistake of Islam, as we have seen, and the cardinal point of difference between it and Christianity is that the former conceives the relations between God and man to fall wholly within the physical category (with the result, of course, that it makes men things, not persons); while Christianity insists that men are persons, and that the relation between them and their Creator must be fundamentally moral. The forces, therefore, that God exerts on man will not be purely physical in character, a contest of strength with strength; nor yet merely psychical, as though it were a contest between a strong intellect and a weak one; but moral. And from this the profoundest differences spring between what Islam regards as befitting to the Deity and what Christianity regards as such. Once mastered this fundamental difference and everything explains itself. In that which Muslim eyes regard as weakness, Christian eyes see power! What the Muslim admires as power seems to the Christian under certain circumstances as sheer weaknessthe weakness of the blundering giant who displays his force in a delicate moral case where it is utterly out of place. All these differences of view culminate in the Cross, which (rather than the Incarnation) is the real battle-ground between the two faiths. To the Muslim, as to the carnal Jew, the Cross is a blasphemy, the very embodiment of weakness and defeat; to the Christian it is the very symbol of moral strength and victory, and
through it he has learned to say 'the weakness of God is stronger than men.' The dealings of a despot with his people might conceivably be purely physical and non-moral. He might impose his will on them by force majeure, by the mechanical means of soldiers, guns and bayonets. But think how absurd would be such a method in the case of even a decent government, and how much more in the case of a father who wishes to impose his will on his children! To carry a pistol into the nursery when he gives his orders! No; he must often wait long, and abide and be patient and try every means. Now the Christian holds that the relation between God and man is nearer that between father and children than between a government and its subjects, much more a despot and his slaves. God is Sovereign, but He is a Father-Sovereign. We have noticed the word 'long-suffering'; in that word the word suffering is already introduced, and it carries with it the idea of 'bearing' and so of 'passivity'. Once given a moral relationship, you cannot escape from all these words and thoughts. And, in truth, the Bible is one long record of the long-suffering of God, and, therefore, of His patience, His bearing, yes, His suffering! Once grant, then, a sinful and rebellious mankind, and such a God, and everything becomes plain or as plain as is possible to our limited intellects. We see then that 'love' and 'holiness' (as we prefer to call 'mercy' and 'justice'141) are not two contradictory
14
Love and Holiness are the widest and most general terms to denote the antithetic aspects of God's attitude to man. They are, therefore, the safest, most full of meaning, and best. Mercy and Justice are metaphors drawn from the law courts, and, therefore, introduce us to a narrower sphere. God is Judge, but He is not only a Judge. The mistake comes from pressing the metaphor into becoming an expression of the entire truth. Grace and Wrath exhibit the two regarded separately, from the view point of their results in man. But even so, how different is the wrath of a father from that of a judge or a king! It really includes burning love.
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epithets, but two sides of one and the same thing. Love is that which will not leave the sinner till all has been done for him. Holiness is that which, for the sinner's own sake, and for righteousness sake, and for the sake of all that makes life worth living, will not receive the sinner without taking full account, and making him take full account, of his sin. Holiness, therefore, says what must be done, and love says what shall be done. Holiness is necessarily loving, to be truly holy; and love is holy, to be truly loving; else neither would be worth the having. The relations of God in Heaven to man are determined by this, and the relations of God in Christ to man were determined by this too, and led to Calvary's cross. With these general observations we may go to discuss the Atonement of God in Christ. 4.2 The Christian view of God and His relation to Atonement We have seen in our last section that the fundamental difference between the Christian and Muslim idea of God is that the latter shrinks from attributing to God distinctively moral qualities, and tends, therefore, to place His qualities in the physical category; and likewise makes His relation with the spirits of men external, mechanical, physical, non-moral. Whereas the former does not shrink from conceiving God as a completely moral Being, experiencing all the experiences proper to a moral Being, and manifesting all the manifestations proper to such. No such experience, no such manifestation will, according to the Christian view, degrade God or lessen His divine glory, but rather His divine glory will consist largely in such manifestations. We saw further, and with deepest awe, for we were there approaching terrible and holy ground, that, when sin affects the relation that exists between such a being and the spiritual beings He has created, then the former, just because He is what He is, cannot remain unaffected. But in what way is He affected? In regard to
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the prior question of His being affected in any way at all, we have long seen that that need not frighten us, for our studies have made it abundantly clear that Islam itself cannot help attributing a being-affected to the Creator. We have not, therefore, to defend ourselves on this score when we say that the Creator is affected by our sin (for the Qur'an itself makes Him affected by extreme displeasure); but the whole question turns upon the sort of way in which He is affected. We answer unhesitatingly, in every and any way proper to a Being who is moral in Himself and whose relations with those human creations are thoroughly moral, and mutually moral. In just such ways will He be affected. And when we look into the Bible for confirmation of our theory, we find it completely borne out. For we see it written there that God is affected by the sight of His rebellious children with wrath, love, pity, sorrow. All this is repugnant to the Muslim, though we might fairly ask him why he does not shrink from attributing the emotions of wrath to God, and to a lesser extent love and pity also; but will not allow sorrow to be attributed to Him. Perhaps, driven into a corner, he tries to escape from this assertion by giving his assent to the shocking words put by Al-Ghazali into the mouth of God, 'These to bliss and I care not; and these to the Fire, and I care not.'15 But, in all seriousness we ask, is this more likely to improve our theology, or turn us into atheists forthwith? In these fatal words Muslim theology finally showed its hand, and we may truly say that it is impossible for us to love such a God as this, or indeed to owe Him any allegiance, for we feel that a righteous man on earth is more richly and nobly endowed than such a God in heaven. To return then. Philosophy and revelation are at one in saying that God experiences and manifests what can only be described as
15
Ha'ula'i ila n na'im wa la 'ubali, wa ha'ula', ila n nar wa la 'ubali. St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
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wrath, pity, love, sorrow, in relation to sinful, rebellious man. And all these things are all aspects of the same thing. Wrath, for example, is not the wrath of an offended law-giver or exasperated law-administrator, but the wrath of a righteously indignant Father and the terrible offended purity of a perfectly holy Being. Illustrations on earth would be the righteous wrath of a father whose son brought disgrace on his name by an act of treachery towards himself; or the terrible indignation of a perfectly truthful man at some instance of ignoble deceit in his friend; or the withering anger of a perfectly pure woman at some evil suggestion made her by an impure mind. Is there not in such cases wrath, wrath that burns like a furnace, wrath that makes the offender feel blasted, and desire to sink beneath the ground and fly away into darkness? How much more then the wrath of God! But notice that in all such cases it is a purely moral emotion the experience and manifestation of a perfectly moral Being, not the merely external wrath of an incensed monarch, nor the irritation of a thwarted administrator, still less the merely physical, mechanical vengeance of an almighty machine of whose working man has run somehow foul; but the still more terrible and burning wrath of a Holy One. Love only adds an element to its intensity. And is not this the true interpretation of the wrath of God all the way through the Bible as interpreted through Christ, that the force exerted on the impure and untruthful in the awful Day of Judgement itself will be not essentially different from the purely moral force exercised here on earth in the examples we have already suggested? The same fire of love-holiness, which will make some glow on that day, will be to others the fires of hell. So much for wrath. It is only because our own psychological capability is so limited that we are forced to give separate names for what are really only aspects of the same thing in God, and talk of love, pity, sorrow, as though they were different and even conflicting emotions. We can perhaps only experience them successi710 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
vely, yet even in us they may be all essentially related. One can imagine a mother feeling wrath, pity, love and sorrow, if not all at once, still in essential relation to each other, if the object of them was a son who was false, treacherous and impure, and yet with the possibility of becoming a good man. In God they are all simultaneous, and the full conception can only be got by looking at them all. Love is the passionate desire to reclaim the work of His own hands. Pity the recognition of its weakness and misery. Sorrow is what is caused by treachery against love, the manifestation of wounded love. Wrath we have already described. If God does not experience these things, somehow, in His eternal heights, He is no god for us. But the study of Isaiah, Hosea, Jeremiah and Jonah (especially) shows us conclusively that this is in fact His attitude to me and to sinful man. And in Jesus Christ the fact is finally revealed. Apply then these thoughts, lastly, to the Atonement. We have already seen that the Incarnation is only the particular case of God's general condescension to relation and communion with, and indwelling in His world and especially man. Then the Atonement is only the particular manifestation, in that Incarnate Word, of the general attitude of God to sinful man. The Atonement is the Divine Sorrow, Pity, Wrath, and Love embodied in the Incarnate One. The Atonement is the expression of the eternal Patience of Godwhich is sin-bearingin relation to space and time, just as the Incarnation is the expression of the Eternal Essence in relation to space and time. The Passion of Christ is the temporal and spatial manifestation of the Passion of God. The wrath, love, pity, sorrow, patience of Christ are the manifestation in terms of space and time of the same things in the Heavenly God. The Incarnation says, 'God was in Christ'; the Atonement adds, 'reconciling man unto Himself' (2 Corinthians 5:19). The doings of Christ, therefore, in the flesh are, as it were, the doings of God when manifested on the stage of space and time,
being brought there into immediate contact with men. This conception shows us how far from the truth is anyone who construes the Christian idea as that of a severe, angry Father and a mild, loving Son. The Bible lends no such support to a division in the Godhead, however much it may appropriate functions to the persons of the Trinity. In the one work of Love and Redemption through Sufferingthat is Patiencethe Godhead is One Father, Son and Spirit. 'God so loved the world.' 'God was in Christ.' 'God commendeth His love towards us.' (John 3:16; 2 Corinthians 5:19; Romans 5:8) The Atonement is thus seen to be a work springing from the very nature of God, not an external action which had to take place before God could forgive. We rather say: None but a God who is so loving as to bear man's sin in eternity, and bear it, incarnate, in time, could forgive and save the sinner. This is absolutely true. The Atonement, in Christ, of the Incarnate Son, is indeed the means whereby we attain salvation. But it is not an external means, an external plan, to enable God to do what His own nature could not do. It is rather, so to speak, an internal means, a transcript of the internal work in the heart of the Godhead, without which we could not have been saved. A sentence like 'But for the Atonement we could not have been saved', really means, 'But for a God who is also an Atoner we could not have been saved.' God, being as He is, could not but bear, could not but yearn, could not but be incarnate in His Word, could not but come into conflict with sin on the earthly stage in this Incarnate One, who as man suffered to the last possibility the action of sin in Himselfa death of agony in body and darkness in soul. This last sentence brings us to consider whether we can get a little nearer to the heart of this great mystery. Christ came into this world armed only with moral weapons; determined to fight sin with the sword of righteousness and the spirit, not with the forces of physical or super-physical might. On
the Mount of Temptation He definitely renounced these latter, and thus definitely soared away from all Muslim ideas of the kingdom of this world or the way it should be brought about. He saw that moral results could only be brought about by moral means, and He, therefore, definitely renounced the right of physical resistance. For another, even a prophet, for all except the Saviour of the world, this might have been conceivably permissible, in certain circumstances. For the Saviour of the world it was never in any circumstance to be. To the Muslim this seems the very embodiment of weakness. To the man who knows what moral power is, it seems the very embodiment of strength. The battle between Him and sin was, therefore, a fair fight in the moral arena. No extraneous weapons were used. Had He summoned the angelic legions in the garden of Gethsemane, had He invoked His divine power on the Cross and descended, much more, had He invoked the civil arm successfully, the contest with sin would have been non-moral; for a non-moral element would have been introduced, and the moral salvation of man would have fallen through. Sin would have received no mortal wound, and no decisive defeat. And so He resisted not. He allowed the sin of man to do against Him its worst. He allowed it to manifest itself on His perfectly holy, righteous Person; to manifest on Him its true and essential nature for all time as a thing hating God, hating righteousness, loving the death of all that is holy. But this involved going the whole length to death. Had He stopped short of this, sin's nature would not have been fully exposed and its issue would not have been fully seen. To reveal its nature he had to bear its nature, namely, the desire to kill all that is good. And to reveal its inevitable doom he had to bear its doom, namely, to perish terribly.
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Then, and not till then, could He turn round and triumph. When sin had done its worst, not till then, could He show it that it had done nothing. Had He triumphed before, it might have been said that sin had not put forth all its strength. It is only when a man has put forth his last ounce of effort that it can be said he is beaten. The last strength of sin is death; it could not be beaten before it had accomplished that. Its final defeat could not be until it had exercised as great an activity as possible. Christ, in order to overcome utterly, had for one moment to yield to that supreme victory of sin and death.16 Thus was accomplished the salvation of the world. The sinner, when he realizes the Atonement, sees sin in its true lightan utter enemy; he, therefore, hates it as God does; and God in forgiving him does not do an immoral thing, but with forgiveness gives a new life unto holiness, and death unto sin. To forgive a sinner with his sins still on him and his sinful heart still unconverted within him is simply immorality. It would end in the tottering of the pillars of eternal Holiness on which the world, yea, eternity itself, is built. And indeed you might almost say that the Cross has created the sense (or the full realization) of what sin is. It has, therefore, created the true attitude of abhorrence to it. And it has, therefore, created the true salvation from it. At the Cross the mind of man in regard to sin becomes attuned to the mind of God. And this is the meaning of the word 'the Blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin' (1 John 1:7). It cleanseth, because it cleanses the conscience of man, telling him that because he now feels towards his own sin
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Did God die then? The question thus stated contains a fallacy and a lie. God as spirit cannot diei.e., be extinguished. Many have asserted that even our spirit, as spirit, cannot die either. But any being that has spirit and body can have the two separated and so die. It is not correct, therefore, to say that God died, or even that the Word of God died; but the Incarnate Word called Christ died i.e., the Spirit of the Incarnate One was separated from His flesh. 714 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
as God does, he is forgiven; nay, more, his sin is removed, he is justified, that is, he returns to the relation with God that preceded sin. He is at peace with God, because he can now be truly at peace with himself. He is at peace with himself because he has now the right to be at peace with God. Nothing but perfect Holiness could have involved such cost as the Passion of God in eternity and in Christ. Nothing but perfect Love could have borne it. Therefore in the Cross holiness and love, wrath and pity, justice and mercy, meet together and kiss one another.
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THE OUTSIDER MOVEMENT OF HEBREWS 13

By John Span1 1 Introduction Recent articles in the magazine like St Francis Magazine (Aug 2006; Aug, Oct 2009; April 2010); the International Journal of Frontier Missions/Missiology (Sept-Oct 2005; Jan-Feb 2006); Evangelical Missions Quarterly (Jan 2009), and on websites such as www.biblicalmissiology.org, along with conferences either promoting (Common Ground-January 2009), or questioning (i2 Ministries- October 2009) the Insider Movement suggest this might be a good time to propose an alternative. This paper will explore the concept of an Outsider Movement as advocated by the pastoral injunction in Hebrews 13:1214. It will demonstrate that the way of the cross is the only one for Heaven Foreground Believers (HFB); equally for those who have come out of Islam. For those proponents of insider strategies who critique missionaries for being too doctrinaire and for not identifying with their audience, this passage engages that charge. It will challenge, on scriptural grounds, those who would promote staying on the inside. 2 Current events Consider the effect of this passage for the lives of believers in the following situations: Farshoot, Egypt (AINA) November 21, 2009: After a number of days of having their homes and businesses looted and women abused, Rev. Elisha, Pastor of the St. Michaels Coptic church commented: We have never been so frightened and humiliated as
John Span is a missionary in West Africa with Christian Reformed World Missions.
Christians in all our lives. The mob made wooden crosses and burnt them in the street. According to one witness: Our religion and our Lord were openly insulted. Rabat, Morocco (CDN) June 17, 2010 headline reads: Moroccan Islamists Use Facebook to Target Christians. The article continues, Facebook user Gardes Maroc has posted 32 image collages featuring dozens of Christian converts, calling them "hyena evangelists" or "wolves in lamb's skins." These are some pics of Moroccan convert hyenas, reads one image. Algeria (Persecution Blog) January 19, 2010: Believers of the Tafath church in Tizi Ouzou, Algeria whose church had been burned were told, This land is the land of Islam! Go pray somewhere else Doubtless in each of the above situations, believers have experienced what the audience of the book of Hebrews had experienced, namely the elation of conversion and the heat of hostility, but who now must confront the formidable task of remaining faithful in a society that rejects their commitments.2 3 Hebrews 13:12-14
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And so Jesus also suffered death outside the city gate in order to consecrate the people though his own blood. 13 So then, let us go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore.14 For here we do not have a permanent city, but we are expecting intently the city which is to come.3
Craig R. Koester, Hebrews: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible v 36 (New York: Doubleday, 2001), Front flap. 3 William L. Lane, Word Biblical Commentary: Hebrews 9-13, Word Biblical Commentary v 47b (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 2002), p. 522. Translation by Lane. 717 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
3.1 The passage in context In his address to what is likely a house-church of HellenisticJewish-Christians who have experienced what Craig Koester describes as a cycle of conversion, persecution and malaise, and with the prospects of further persecution, the writer of Hebrews encourages them to keep on keeping on.4 Rather than looking for ways to fly under the radar to avoid any adverse interaction with the local culture, he seems to dare them to move in just the opposite direction. Verse 12 is used to describe the precedents that motivate the action of verse 13, and verse 14 tells the audience why they should act in such a way. A recent study by Norman H. Young entitled, Bearing his reproach (Heb 13:9 -14) suggests, as well, that these verses are addressed to an audience that are still defining themselves too much by their Levitical heritage by means of synagogue participation and religious meals. Youngs view is that the injunction to go outside the camp is a call to sever their ties with Jerusalem/Judaism, as their problem is that they have not broken sufficiently with their old religion.5 It might be objected that using three verses amounts to proof texting. However, as early as 1913, Edward Riggenbach considered this passage as the moment when the basic purpose (Grundtendenz) of the writing came once
Craig Koester, Hebrews, rhetoric and the future of humanity, in Catholic Biblical Quarterly (Q 64, 2002), pp. 111, 122-123. 5 Norman H. Young, Bearing his reproach (Heb 13.9-14), in New Testament Studies, 48 no 2 (Ap 2002), pp. 243-61 also cited by Peter Thomas O'Brien, The Letter to the Hebrews (Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co, 2010), p. 13, fn 48. The call to sever ties with Jerusalem had been noted by P. W. L. Walker in Jesus and the Holy City: New Testament Perspectives on Jerusalem (Grand Rapids, Mich: W.B. Eerdmans Pub, 1996), p. 220 and Young, pp. 257-258. 718 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
more to expression.6 In 1990, Susane Lehne noted that the verses including and immediately surrounding Heb 13:12 -14, namely 9-16 contain the gist of Hebrews in a nutshell.7 The passage is noteworthy among others that use the let us construction to motivate the audience.8 John Terveen demonstrates that this passage is the final one of 7 passages (2:3; 2:5-18; 4:14-16; 5:7-10; 7:14; 12:1-3; 13:12) that show the identification of Jesus with humanity, and the call for the listeners to identify with Jesus.9 Others have seen this passage in the Biblical context of the migrant or pilgrim people of God, and Annang Asumang and Bill Domeris have even suggested that the migration motif is the unifying theme of the book of Hebrews.10 3.2 Exposition of the passage 3.2.1 And so Jesus also suffered death Whenever the book of Hebrews focuses on Christs life on earth, the word Jesus is used. Terveen has shown that more than any other NT book, Hebrews portrays Jesus suffering in excruciating
Rhea Jones, A Superior Life: Hebrews 12:3-13:25, in Review & Expositor, 82 no 3 (Sum 1985), p. 402 citing Edward Riggenbach, Der Brief an die ebraer (Leipzig: A. Deichert, 1913), p. 431. 7 Susane Lehne, The New Covenant in Hebrews [JSNTSup 44] (Sheffield: JSOT, 1990), p. 157 n. 129. 8 cf 4:11, 16; 10:22, 23, 24; 12: 1-2 - also known as the hortatory subjunctive. 9 John Terveen , Jesus in Hebrews: An Exegetical Analysis of the References to Jesus Earthly Life in the Epistle to the Hebrews (PhD Dissertation, University of Edinburgh,1986). 10 Annang Asumang and Bill Domeris, The Migrant Camp of the People of God: A Uniting Theme for the Epistle to the Hebrews, in Conspectus 3:1 (Mar 2007), p. 5. David MacLeod sees both the superiority of Christ and the pilgrim motif as two complementary themes running through the book of Hebrews, in his article The Doctrinal Center of the Book of Hebrews, Bibliotheca Sacra 46:583 (Jul 1989), p. 300 . See W. G. Johnsson, The pilgrimage motif in the Book of Hebrews, in Journal of Biblical Literature (1978. 97), pp. 239251.
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ways. Prior to his physical death at the cross, he experienced prayer with loud cries (5:7), learning obedience through what he suffered (5:8), being made lower than angels (2:9), tempted (2:18; 4:15), enduring hostility from sinners (12:3), and being the object of reproach or disgrace (11:26). These images form a composite picture of a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53). Yet, for Jesus, as Delitzsch notes, temporal death was the gate of paradise and the cross of shame a ladder to heaven.11 To the original audience the words would strike a challenging, yet comforting chord. 3.2.2 Outside the city gate We are introduced to the unsettling fact that the archegos Pioneer-founder-victor-leader-ruler-hero (2:10) of the faith (12:12) was treated as a sin-offering whose unfit pieces were thrown outside of the holy Israelite camp according to Levitical law.12 Exodus 29.14 commands: But burn the bull's flesh and its hide and its offal outside the camp. It is a sin offering. In John 19:1720 we see Jesus, the root and offspring of David crucified outside of the gates of the Davidic city of Jerusalem. He fulfilled Roman law which told the convict to be crucified that he must trudge out beyond the gate [...] arms outspread, with your gibbet on your shoulders.13 A.T. Hanson comments, The essence of the Messiahs reproach was that he should be rejected by his own.14
11
Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews Vol. 1, (Edinburgh, T&T Clark, 1874), p. 249 . 12 Julius Scott Jr. Archegos in the Salvation History of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 29/1 (March 1986), pp. 47-54. 13 Plautus, Braggart Warrior 2.4.6-7 9 (359-60) cited by Koester, Hebrews, p. 570. 14 A. T. Hanson, The Reproach of the Messiah in the Epistle to the Hebrews, in Studio Evanglica VII, (1982), p. 239 cited by Young, p. 245. 720 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
For those who would suggest that the life of Jesus is one to be simply imitated, as the phrase Initiating Incarnational Insider Movements might suggest, a caveat emptor, or buyer beware sign might flash in neon lights. His was not just a life to be imitated; His was an incarnation for atonement. He both suffered like the people he came for, but more than that, for the people he came for. 3.2.3 In order to consecrate the people though his own blood. To an audience who had lost possessions (10:34), and who had experienced imprisonment (10:34; 13:3), the author uses the instrumentality of Jesus own life-blood to encourage them. They are to know that Christ had a purpose for them15 even though, in their state of liminality, they lived as migrants or refugees, belonging neither here nor there. Jesus own blood, not that of some animal as in the OT (9:12-14, 25-26), was the means of their consecration, or being set apart for service (10.10). John Owen, the master expositor of Hebrews, put it most aptly:
The Lord Jesus, out of his incomprehensible love for his people, would spare nothing, avoid nothing, deny nothing that was needful unto their sanctification, their reconciliation and dedication unto God. He did it with his own blood.16
The service, to which they were being set apart was completely counter-intuitive to the honor seeking culture in which they found themselves. They were being set apart for the service of being sharers with those subject to insults and afflictions (10:33). The school of life had taught them that the price of
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Liminality is defined the intermediary state of a person or group of persons who are in transition and comes from the word liminal derived the Latin limen, which means threshold. Asumang, p. 6. 16 John Owen, An exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews: with the preliminary exercitations Vol. 7 2nd ed (Glasgow, Ritchie, 1814), p. 469. 721 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
communal intimacy was shared suffering.17 Now they are being called to identify with Jesus in his sufferings as well. 3.2.4 So then, [therefore ESV] let us go to him outside the camp As a consequence, of what only Jesus could do, in a once and for all fashion, the audience is encouraged on with so then. A certain moral lethargy had started to infect the Hebrews, and it seems that they were ready to do anything to fly under the radar. To this group who might drift away(2:1), fall short (4:1), fall away (3:12, 6:6), shrink back (10:32), throw away (10:35), spurn the Son of God (10:29), be led astray (13:9) and are neglecting to meet together (10.25); those who are limping, rather than running the race as did their champion Jesus (12: 1-3), the preacher says, let us go to him. F.F. Bruce masterfully notes: Let us go forth, might be hard advice, but let us go forth to him should not be a hard thing for any true follower of his to do.18 The idea of movement is expressed by a verb literally meaning to go out of, or come from. The same word is used to describe the exodus (3:16), and of Abraham leaving Ur (11:8). Both of these examples imply a definite break with the past and the known, and a destination of an unforeseen and unknown land of promise.19 In the past, both Abraham and the Israelites also were to forsake the gods of their land of departure (Joshua 24:2, 14). The root of this verb links phrases translated as go to him (this verse), draw near (4:16; 7:25; 11:25), and go into/enter (3:11;
17 18
Lane, p. 544. F.F. Bruce, The Kerygma of Hebrews, in Interpretation 23 no 1 (Ja 1969), p. 17. 19 In Hebrews 11 Gareth Lee Cockerill identifies the theme of alienation and pilgrim existence that pervades the story of Abraham and alienation that becomes persecution in the early life of Moses. In The Better Resurrection (Heb 11:35): a Key to the Structure and Rhetorical Purpose of Hebrews 11, Tyndale Bulletin 51.2 (2000), p. 227. 722 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
4:1, 3) God's rest or presence.20 This poses some hard questions for those who would continue to walk between the two opinions of Islam and Christianity, and pragmatically attempt to straddle both. In a similar fashion Young suggests that the stress on movement throughout the epistle, encapsulated by going out/in (4:16; 6:1, 7, 25; 10:22; 11:8; 12:22; 13:13) and even into (3:11, 18, 19; 4.1, 3, 6, 10, 11; 6:19, 20; 9:12, 24, 25), serves to send a very clear and coherent message. Rather than following the very clear trajectory for the people of God, namely leaving X and going to Y, he suggests that the verses serve as a strong warning for the audiences failure to go forward and separate from Judaism completely in the first place. He sees this expressed in timidity in [boldly] expressing their Christian faith and a tendency to fraternise with the synagogue.21 Compare, as well, how the commentator Floyd Filison suggests that the passage:
urges the Christians addressed to break ties with whatever would prevent full loyalty to the Christ who offered himself as the once-forall sacrifice for sins. Those who believe in Jesus cannot continue to live in the old framework. They must go forth, and since that will bring them under criticism, they must willingly bear the reproach that will come to them as they live in this new situation.22
Other metaphors serve to reinforce the image of movement. Warnings not to drift away from what the audience has heard and to shrink back serve to put them on notice that they might not escape Gods punishment. They are to run the race with perseverance while leaving basic doctrines behind and going
20
David A. deSilva, A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on the Book of Hebrews (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2000), p. 502. 21 Young, p. 253. 22 Floyd, V. Filison, Yesterday: A Study of Hebrews in the light of chapter 13 (London, SCM Press, 1967), p. 61 cited by deSilva, Socio-Rhetorical, p. 502, fn 55. 723 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
on to perfection enroute to the better country/city, Mount Zion, to which they have already come in one sense, and to which they are going in another. In this verse, the suggested movement is away from the camp, which Owen described as the seat of all the political and religious converse of the church of the Jews [and to be in the camp gave a right] to all the privileges and advantages of the commonwealth of Israel.23 The attraction could not be stronger. Yet this is not a call to forsake earthly existence24 but much more strongly to identify with their Supreme example and benefactor. David deSilva suggests that this movement is the ultimate way that a client could show gratitude to his patron, by associating with Him and his household, even all the way to death, if necessary.25 He quotes Seneca who states: No man can be grateful unless he has learned to scorn the things which drive
the common herd to distraction. If you wish to make a return for a favour you must be willing to go into exile, or to pour forth your blood, or to undergo poverty, or even to let your very innocence be stained and exposed to shameful slanders (Ep.Mor. 81.27).26
Just as Jesus had suffered outside of the city gate with a purpose, now his followers are also called with a purpose to leave their campground of comfort, the place of privilege, the security of their old religion, which F.F. Bruce described as the established fellowship and ordinances of Judaism.27 Doubtless, leaving the
23 24
Owen , p. 470. Lane, p. 545 referring to James W. Thompson, Outside the camp: a study of Heb 13: 9-14, in Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 40 no 1 (Ja 1978), pp 53-63. 25 deSilva, p. 517. 26 David A. deSilva, Bearing Christ's Reproach: The Challenge of Hebrews in an Honor Culture (North Richland Hills, Tex: Bibal Press, 1999), p. 80. 27 F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1964), 724 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
comfort of the old implies embracing the potentially threatening unknown. Terveen minces no words about the intention of the author, with respect to their old religion. He suggests that:
.. many [Jewish] Christians maintained some ties with their former religion, as evidenced in the early chapters of the Acts. In a time of hardship and suffering for their Christian faith, their more familiar and established Jewish heritage could have appeared attractive. Such ties were now to be viewed as a compromise of their faith in Jesus [Hebrews] is therefore a plea to predominantly Jewish Christian readers to abandon once and for all their Jewish heritage, to establish a distinct Christian worship separate from Judaism.28
As Moses was willing, for the sake of his faith, to forsake the pleasures of Egypt (11:26) and embrace the reproaches of Christ, so the audience is called to do the same in their walk of faith.29 Just as Jesus disregarded /despised/thought nothing of enduring the shame of the cross (12:3), in similar fashion the audience is exhorted to do the same. What might this passage say to Heaven Foreground Believers (HFB) who came out of their former religion of Islam? 3.2.5 bearing the disgrace he bore. The community is exhorted to literally bear patiently, endure, put up with the honor-smashing association with Jesus. The
p. 403, and Harold Attridge describe it as the realm of security and traditional holiness, however that is grounded or understood in The Epistle to the Hebrews (Hermeneia, Philadelphia Fortress, 1989), p. 399. 28 Terveen, pp. 261-2. 29 Cockerill (p. 223) notes that Heb 11:37d-38 demonstrates climactic position and detailed nature of the description of total alienation from society and that this suggests that the writer may have feared his hearers would face such a situation.
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image of disgrace, which is literally his, is as Gerhard Forde suggested, one of the most offensive images in all of scripture.30 Outside the camp: the place of burning the flesh and offal of sacrificial animals (Exodus 29:14; c.f. Lev. 4:12); the place for lepers (Lev. 14:26); a place of dishonorable burial for Aarons sons killed for their dishonoring by offering strange fire(Lev. 10:4); the place of Achans stoning (Josh. 7:2426); the place for a blasphemer, ostracized from the covenant community (Lev. 24:14, 23; Num. 15:36); and the place to relieve oneself (Deut 23:10). Outside the camp was the place of uncleanness (c.f. Num. 5:3); yet ironically, the place where Moses pitched his tent of meeting where he spoke face to face with God (Exodus 33). Helmut Koester coined a phrase to summarize Jesus death by calling it an unholy sacrifice.31 Thus the New English Bible translates this part of the verse: bearing the stigma that he bore, and the NRSV and bear the abuse he endured. It is the voluntary nature of Jesus willingness to take on this disgrace (Gk oneidisms) that is the greatest challenge for the audience.32 Whereas the animals were passive victims, Jesus was an active victim, embracing the path of shame while being constantly tempted to forsake his mission.33 This is the ever-present danger that disciples and disciple-makers in a Muslim context face as well. Jesus not only showed the audience his obedience, but called them to Himself as their object of obedience and loyalty.
30
Edwin. A Schick, Priestly Pilgrims: Mission outside the Camp in Hebrews, in CurrThMiss 16 (1989), p. 375 quoting Gerhard O. Forde, Outside the Gate: Atonement as Actual Event, in Dialog 18 (autumn 1979), p. 250. 31 Helmut Koester, Outside the Camp: Hebrews 13:9-14, in Harvard Theological Review, 55 (1962), p. 315. 32 BAGDoneidisms = act of disparagement that results in disgrace, reproach, reviling, disgrace, insult. 33 See Terveen, p. 150 for a quote from Moffat to this regard. 726 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
William Lane summarizes the call to radical discipleship demonstrated in this verse:
The exhortation to leave the camp and to identify fully with Jesus introduces a distinctive understanding of discipleship. Jesus action in going outside the camp (v 12) set a precedent for others to follow. The task of the community is to emulate Jesus, leaving behind the security, congeniality, and respectability of the sacred enclosure, risking the reproach that fell upon him. Christian identity is a matter of going out now to him. It entails the costly commitment to follow him resolutely, despite suffering.34
With pastoral sensitivity, the author delineates the why of this radical discipleship. He was not unaware of their present sufferings and the sense of disjointedness experienced by a congregation who were feeling like they had great promises, and yet did not see their outcome. He directed them to the example of Jesus, who Himself was now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death (2:9a). Thus he places their uncomfortable state of living in an in-between state, or the liminality of a migrant existence, in perspective. 35 3.2.6 For here we do not have a permanent city... To bring conclusion to this part of his argument, the author uses a word-picture that his audience has already heard a few times. Ellingworth calls this verse a final, concise statement of a central theme of the epistle.36 Thus, the verse, like the two previous on-
34 35
Lane, p. 543. DeSilva, p. 503. Similarly Luke Timothy Johnson states: For now, they [the audience] must live light on the earth, willingly embracing their diaspora condition, the marginality and ostracism that come to them for the confession of a crucified Messiah. Luke Timothy Johnson, Hebrews: A Commentary, The New Testament library (Louisville, Ky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), p. 349. 36 Paul Ellingworth, the Epistle to the Hebrews: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids, Mich.; Carlisle [England: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 1993), p. 718. 727 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
es, is part of the larger argument of the word of exhortation. For here continues the theme of the contrast between what is here and what is there throughout the book. The here refers to the life context of the congregation that knows both discouragements and foretastes of the age to come, and like the heroes of faith, lives in the present on the capital of promises yet unseen the there. The there is a firm anchor (6:19), unshakable things (12:27), an unshakable kingdom (12:28), and an abiding possession. (10:34) Using what might have been an oblique reference to the impressive, man-made supposedly eternal city of Rome also known as Roma Aeterna, the author shows the transitory character of the city where power and prestige are concentrated. Even more likely, however he is referring to Jerusalem, the city which was the seat of Judaism and the source of Jewish identification. Note how John Calvin makes this connection between a return to the tabernacle/temple/sacrificial system all housed in Jerusalem and the new:
We must follow him [outside the camp], and not return again to the tabernacle in order to avoid reproach; and this reproach will not be long, for we are hastening to another world; and instead of presenting free-will- offerings and eating of them, what we are to offer now are the sacrifices of praise, of thanksgiving, and of good works.37
The writer of the epistle affirms that in spite of appearances to the contrary, due to having no fixed address the congregation belongs to the class of haves and not the class of have-nots. Some of their haves include: confidence, a high priest in hea-
37 John Calvin, Commentaries on the epistle of Paul the apostle to the Hebrews, tr. and edited by John Owen (Edinburgh, Calvin Translation Society, 1853), p. 411.
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ven over the house of God, a better possession and an abiding one, a clear conscience, strong encouragement, hope, an altar and a better resurrection.38 Then he goes on to tell them what they do not have, namely a permanent city. Again the pilgrim/migrant motif of strangers and aliens (11:13) is referred to and it goes without saying the audience would have recalled the reference to Abraham looking for a city that only God could build (11:10). Not content to be outside of the lives of the congregation the wise pastor uses the word we just as he used the collective phrase let us in the previous verse. He introduces a contrast with the words: 3.2.7 but we are expecting intently Encouragement of collective eager expectation for what is ahead is the device used by the author to moves the priestly pilgrims from their present self-focus, to a higher plane. 39 For good reason the author uses a present tense verb to convey the idea that with a continual habitual attitude of life, the audience would anticipate the future.40 This same tense is used of those who continually yearn for a better country (11:16). Earlier (9:28), this looking forward with eager expectation was associated with those who are eagerly waiting for the promise of Christ who will bring salvation for them. He holds out before them promises which are marked by permanence and guaranteed delivery. It is these promises that pull the audience forward and upward.
38
Ellingworth, p. 718: Hebrews often uses [the verb to have Gk ch] with Jesus (4:15; 8:1; 10:21) or other aspects of salvation (6:19; 10:19, 34f.; 12:1; 13:10, 14) as objects; also of Christian behaviour (5:14; 6:18; 10:19; 13:18). 39 Schick (p. 373) notes: They are pilgrims because they are outward bound; they are priestly because they are shaped by the great High Priest. 40 OBrien (p. 526) suggests that the imperfective aspect of the verb suggests a habitual disposition that is the driving force of their lives.
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3.2.8 the city which is to come. For an audience who finds itself on the fringes of society, the author is directing them to a new society, encapsulated in the wordpicture of a city. The city is a short form for heaven (12:23), an eternal inheritance (9:15), a final resting-place (3:11), a kingdom (12:28), and a fatherland (11:14), and its delivery is guaranteed by the living God who is the proprietor of that city (11:10, 16; 12:22). Throughout his word of exhortation the author of Hebrews has made conscious contrasts of temporary and inferior things to permanent and better eternal things. We see this with old and new high priests, old and new covenants, old and new sacrifices, old and new rituals, and old and new cities. He calls his audience to see what is coming with eyes of faith, what Marie Isaacs called, the only sacred space worth having, namely heaven.41 It is for good reason that he described faith as the reality of things hoped for and the proof of things not seen. (11:1)42 Asumang and Domeris aptly describe faith as an orienting telescope that makes the unseen but heard Promise visible to the migrant.43 Owen concludes his exposition by describing the Christians focus: The main business of believers in this world, is to diligently to seek after the city of God, or the attainment of eternal rest with him; and this is the character whereby they may be known.44
41
Marie Isaacs, Sacred Space: An Approach to the Theology of the Epistle to the Hebrews, JSNTSup (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992), p. 64 cited by George H. Guthrie, Hebrews in Its First-Century Contexts. Recent Research, in Scot McKnight & Grant R. Osborne, eds, The Face of New Testament Studies (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House / Leicester: Apollos, 2004), p. 441. 42 Translation by George W. MacRae Hebrews (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1983), p. 46. Also Attridge, Hebrews, p. 309. 43 Asumang, p. 26. 44 Owen, p. 474. 730 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
Samuel Rutherford, whose timeless words still might bring encouragement to the Arabic brothers and sisters cited earlier in this paper, wrote a letter to Lady Hallhill. From prison, which he dubbed my house of pilgrimage, dated Aberdeen, March 14, 1647, he affirmed:
Now I weep, but am not sad; I am chastened, but I die not; I have loss, but I want nothing; this water cannot drown me, this fire cannot burn me, because of the good-will of Him .The worst things of Christ, His reproaches, His cross, are better than Egypts treasures.45
The author of Hebrews said it even better: But as it is, they continually yearn for a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. (Heb 11:16) 4 Conclusion The outsider movement, as shown in Hebrews 13 is a counterintuitive concept. This paradigm is the message of the book of Hebrews and the entire scripture as well. The Upholder of the universe voluntarily leaves his camp of heaven to join the ignominies of human life, and physically identifies, to the point of death, with the race he came to set free. He thus invites his followers to identify with Him, and to set their eyes, not on their temporary, disgraceful condition but on a city to which He has already led the way in triumph.46 Just as they are not ashamed of Him, He is not ashamed of them. No stranger to the liminality of his followers, Jesus has lived through its attendant frustration of being held in tension between the already and the not yet, and the ever present temptation to fail in the school of obedience. As
45
Samuel Rutherford, and A.A. Bonar ed., Letters of Samuel Rutherford with a sketch of his life (New York: Robert Carter & Bros., 1863), p. 232. 46 Philip Edgecumbe Hughes, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977, reprinted 1987), p. 582. 731 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
we look for the city that is to come, let us not fear to go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. This is the walk of faith. For further reflection: 1 Norman Young states that the pastoral exhortation of the book of Hebrews directs his audience to a worship detached, distinct and independent from Judaism.47 He also quotes Wilson who observes that the author is trying to wean his readers from the hankering after Jewish thought and practice.48 Do these observations concerning a minority religion in the book of Hebrews have anything to do with a present day Christian minority among a Muslim majority? 2 The Message translates v. 13:
So lets go outside, where Jesus is, where the action is - not trying to be privileged insiders, but taking our share in the abuse of Jesus.
Does this translation reflect the spirit and intent of the passage?
47 48
Young, p. 248. S. G. Wilson, The Apostate Minority in, Mighty Minorities? Minorities in Early Christianity Positions and Strategies: Essays in Honour of Jacob Jervell on his 70th Birthday ed. D.Hellholm et al, (Oslo: Scandinavian University, 1995), p. 205, quoted by Young, p. 249. 732 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
DE RATIONIBUS FIDEI
REASONS FOR THE FAITH AGAINST MUSLIM OBJECTIONS (and one objection of the Greeks and Armenians) to the Cantor of Antioch1 By Saint Thomas Aquinas, O.P. Translated by Joseph Kenny, O.P.2 FOREWORD By Joseph Kenny, O.P. This short tract, De rationibus fidei contra Saracenos, Graecos et Armenos ad Cantorem Antiochenum, was written by St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1276) at Orvieto, Italy, in 1264. It follows right on the heels of his longer Summa contra gentiles, completed that same year. We do not know who the Cantor of Antioch was, except that he must have been in charge of music in the cathedral. Perhaps his bishop, the Dominican Christian Elias, referred him to Thomas Aquinas. The questions the Cantor asks must have been the subject of lively discussions in a city where Latin Christians mixed with Eastern Christians and Muslims. The latter work, written at the request of St. Raymond of Peafort to help Dominicans preaching to Muslims and Jews in Spain and North Africa, concentrated on how Christian doctrine could be presented to people who do not accept the authority of the Bi-
An earlier version of this published in Islamochristiana (Rome), vol. 22 (1996), pp. 31-52. 2 Fr. Kenny is a Dominican priest, of the Province of Nigeria, and a Nigerian citizen (having been there since 1964). He received his Ph.D. at Edinburgh University under Montgomery Watt. He is a retired professor of Islamics at the University of Ibadan (1979-2001). He is presently at the Dominican Institute, Ibadan which is soon to be Dominican University.
ble. It said little about Islam directly, since Thomas Aquinas admitted that he knew very little about it (Book I, ch. 2). He therefore concentrated on explaining the Catholic Faith. The present work takes up Muslim objections never mentioned in the Contra gentiles. Thomas' answers use material already discussed in greater detail in that work. The originality of the present work is its concise brevity and its focus on the essential points where the Catholic Faith differs from and transcends Islam. In this work Thomas shows a good grasp of what these differences are: first of all, the Trinity and how God shares his life with us in the Incarnation, then the crucifixion of Jesus and the whole question of human force and power in religion. The objection to the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is not a standard Muslim objection, but I have heard it. The final one, on determination, was much discussed in Muslim theology and philosophy; its theoretical and practical implications are greater than most Muslims or Christians realize, but it is very summarily treated here. This work is from the Middle Ages and does not reflect all the nuances of current Catholic teaching regarding Islam. An instance of this is the use of the term unbelievers which Thomas uses of Muslims. The Church today calls them believers, although they do not believe in all that Christians believe. In this translation, from the Marietti 1954 edition of the Opuscula theologica, I have given priority to clear plain English rather than literal fidelity. Yet I could not but retain some philosophical vocabulary, such as substance, accident, hypostasis and predication. Chapter 1: Introduction Blessed Peter the Apostle received a promise from the Lord that on his confession of faith the Church would be founded and that the gates of Hell would not prevail against it. That the faith of the Church entrusted to him would hold out inviolate against these
gates of Hell, he addresses the faithful of Christ (1 Pet 3:15): Proclaim the Lord Christ holy in your hearts, that is, by firmness of faith. With this foundation established in our hearts we can be safe against any attacks or ridicule of unbelievers against our Faith. Therefore Peter adds: Always have your answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope that you have. The Christian faith principally consists in acknowledging the holy Trinity, and it specially glories in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the message of the cross, says Paul (1 Cor 1:18), is folly for those who are on the way to ruin, but for those of us who are on the road to salvation it is the power of God. Our hope is directed to two things: (1) what we look forward to after death, and (2) the help of God which carries us through this life to future happiness merited by works done by free will. The following are the things you say the Muslims attack and ridicule: They ridicule the fact that we say Christ is the Son of God, when God has no wife (Qur'n 6:110; 72:3); and they think we are insane for professing three persons in God, even though we do not mean by this three gods. They also ridicule our saying that Christ the Son of God was crucified for the salvation of the human race (Qur'n 4:157-8), for if almighty God could save the human race without the Son's suffering he could also make man so that he could not sin. They also hold against Christians their claim to eat God on the altar, and that if the body of Christ were even as big as a mountain, by now it should have been eaten up. On the state of souls after death, you say that the Greeks and Armenians hold the error that souls after death are neither punished nor rewarded until the day of judgment, but are in some waiting room, since they can receive no punishment or reward without the body. To back up their error they quote the Lord in the Gospel (Jn 14:2): In my Father's house there are many places to live in.
Concerning merit, which depends on free will, you assert that the Muslims and other nations hold that God's fore-knowledge or decree imposes necessity on human actions; thus they say that man cannot die or even sin unless God decrees this, and that every person has his destiny written on his forehead. On these questions you ask for moral and philosophical reasons which the Muslims can accept. For it would be useless to quote passages of Scripture against those who do not accept this authority. I wish to satisfy your request, which seems to arise from pious desire, so that you may be prepared with apostolic doctrine to satisfy anyone who asks you for an explanation. On these questions I will make some explanations as easy as the subjects allow, since I have written more amply about them elsewhere [in the Summa contra gentiles]. Chapter 2: How to argue with unbelievers
5
First of all I wish to warn you that in disputations with unbelievers about articles of the Faith, you should not try to prove the Faith by necessary reasons. This would belittle the sublimity of the Faith, whose truth exceeds not only human minds but also those of angels; we believe in them only because they are revealed by God. Yet whatever comes from the Supreme Truth cannot be false, and what is not false cannot be repudiated by any necessary reason. Just as our Faith cannot be proved by necessary reasons, because it exceeds the human mind, so because of its truth it cannot be refuted by any necessary reason. So any Christian disputing about the articles of the Faith should not try to prove the Faith, but defend the Faith. Thus blessed Peter (1 Pet 3:15) did not say: Always have your proof, but your answer ready, so that reason can show that what the Catholic Faith holds is not false.
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Chapter 3: How generation applies to God First of all we must observe that Muslims are silly in ridiculing us for holding that Christ is the Son of the living God, as if God had a wife. Since they are carnal, they can think only of what is flesh and blood. For any wise man can observe that the mode of generation is not the same for everything, but generation applies to each thing according to the special manner of its nature. In animals it is by copulation of male and female; in plants it is by pollination or generation, and in other things in other ways. God, however, is not of a fleshly nature, requiring a woman to copulate with to generate offspring, but he is of a spiritual or intellectual nature, much higher than every intellectual nature. So generation should be understood of God as it applies to an intellectual nature. Even though our own intellect falls far short of the divine intellect, we still have to speak of the divine intellect by comparing it with what we find in our own intellect. Our intellect understands sometimes potentially, sometimes actually. Whenever it actually understands it forms something intelligible, a kind of offspring, which is called a concept, something conceived by the mind. This is signified by an audible voice, so that as the audible voice is called the exterior word, the interior concept of the mind signified by the exterior audible word is called the word of the intellect or mind. A concept of our mind is not the very essence of our mind, but something accidental to it, because even our act of understanding is not the very being of our intellect; otherwise our intellect would have to be always in act. So the word of our intellect can be likened to a concept or offspring, especially when the intellect understands itself and the concept is a likeness of the intellect coming from its intellectual power, just as a son has a likeness to his father, from whose generative power he comes forth. The word of our intellect is not properly an offspring or son, because it is not of the same nature as our intellect. Not every737 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
thing that comes forth from another, even if it is similar to its source, is called a son; otherwise a painted picture of someone would be a son. To be a son, it is required that the one coming forth from the other must not only resemble its source but also be of the same nature with it. But in God understanding is not different from his being. Consequently the word which is conceived in his intellect is not something accidental to him or alien from his nature but, by the very fact that it is a word, it must be coming forth from another and must be a likeness of its source. All this is true even of our own word. But besides this, the Word of God is not an accident or a part of God, who is simple, nor something extrinsic to the divine nature, but is something complete, subsisting in the divine nature and coming forth from another, as any word must be. In our human way of talking, this is called a son, because it comes forth from another in its likeness and subsists in the same nature with it. Therefore, as far as divine things can be represented by human words, we call the Word of the divine intellect the Son of God, while God, whose Word he is, we call the Father. We say that the coming forth of the Word is an immaterial generation of a son, not a carnal one, as carnal men surmise. There is another way that this generation of the Son of God surpasses every human generation, whether material, as when one man is born from another, or intelligible, as when a word is brought forth in the human mind. In either of these cases what is born is younger than its source. A father does not generate as soon as he begins to exist, but he must first mature. Even the act of generation takes time before a son is born, because carnal generation is a matter of stages. Likewise the human intellect is not ready to form intelligible concepts as soon as a man is born, but when he matures. So he does not always actually understand, but after potentially understanding he actually understands and again
stops actually understanding and remains understanding only in potency or with habitual knowledge. So a human word is younger than a man and sometimes stops existing before the man. But these two limitations cannot apply to God, who has no imperfection or change, or going from potency to act, since he is pure and first acts. The Word of God, therefore, is co-eternal with God. Another difference of our word from the divine is that our intellect does not simultaneously understand everything, or with one act, but by many different acts; therefore the words of our intellect are many. But God understands everything simultaneously by one single act, because his understanding must be one, since it is his very being. It follows therefore that in God there is only one word. There is yet another difference: The word of our intellect does not measure up to the power of our intellect, because when we mentally conceive one thing we can still conceive many other things; thus the word of our intellect is imperfect and can be composed, when several imperfect notions are put together to form a more perfect word, as happens in the process of formulating a definition. But the divine Word measures up to the power of God, because by his essence he understands himself and everything else. So the Word he conceives by his essence, when he understands himself and everything else, is as great as his essence. It is therefore perfect, simple and equal to God. We call this Word of God a Son, as said above, because he is of the same nature with the Father, and we profess that he is co-eternal with the Father, only-begotten and perfect. Chapter 4: How the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son We must also observe that every act of knowledge is followed by an act of the appetite. Of all appetitive acts love is the principle.
Without it there is no joy at gaining something one does not love, or sadness at missing something one does not love - that is, if love is taken away; likewise all other appetitive acts would go, since they are all somehow related to sadness and joy. Therefore, since God has perfect knowledge, he must also have perfect love, which arises as the expression of an appetitive act, as a word arises as the expression of an intellective act. But there is a difference between an intellectual and an appetitive act. For an intellectual act and any other act of knowledge takes place by the knowable thing somehow existing in the knowing power, namely, sensible things in the sense and intelligible things in the intellect. But an appetitive act takes place by an orientation and movement of the appetitive power to the things exposed to the appetite. Things that have a hidden source of their motion are called spirits. For instance, winds are called spirits because their origin is not apparent. Likewise breath, which is a motion from an intrinsic source, is called spirit. So, as divine things are expressed in human terms, the very love coming from God is called a spirit. But in us love comes from two different sources. Sometimes it comes from a bodily and material principle, which is impure love, since it disturbs the purity of the mind. Sometimes it comes from a pure spiritual principle, as when we love intelligible goods and what is in accord with reason; this is pure love. God cannot have a material love. Therefore we fittingly call his love not simply Spirit, but the Holy Spirit, since holiness refers to his purity. It is clear that we cannot love anything with an intelligible and holy love unless we conceive it through an act of the intellect. The conception of the intellect is a word; so love must arise from a word. We call the Word of God the Son; so it is clear that the Holy Spirit comes from the Son. Just as God's act of knowledge is his very being, so also is his act of loving. And just as God is always actually understanding, so also he is always actually loving
himself and everything else by loving his own goodness. Therefore, as the Son of God, who is the Word of God, subsists in the divine nature and is co-eternal with the Father and perfect and unique, likewise we must profess the same about the Holy Spirit. Since everything that subsists with an intelligent nature we call a person, which is equivalent to the Greek hypostasis, it is necessary to say that the Word of God, whom we call Son, is a hypostasis or person. No one doubts that God, from whom a word and a love come forth, is a subsistent reality, and can also be called a hypostasis or a person. Thus we fittingly posit three persons in God: the person of the Father, the person of the Son and the person of the Holy Spirit. We do not say that these three persons or hypostases are distinct by essence, since, just as God's act of knowing and loving is his very being, so also his Word and Love are the very essence of God. Whatever is absolutely asserted of God is nothing other than his essence, since God is not great or powerful or good accidentally, but by his essence. So we do not say the three persons or hypostases are distinct absolutely, but by mere relations which arise from the coming forth of the word and the love. Since we call the coming forth of the word generation, and from generation result the relationships of fatherhood and sonship, we say that the person of the Son is distinct from the person of the Father only by fatherhood and sonship, while all else belongs to both commonly and without distinction. Just as we call the Father true God, almighty, eternal and whatever else, so also the Son, and for the same reason the Holy Spirit. Therefore, since the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are not distinct in their divine nature, but only by relationship, we are right in saying that the three persons are not three gods, but one true and perfect God. Three human persons are three men and not one man, because the nature of humanity, which is common to them, belongs to
each separately because they are materially distinct, which does not apply to God. So in three men there are three numerically different human natures, while only the essence of humanity is common to them. But in the divine persons there are not three numerically different divine natures, but necessarily only one simple divine nature, since the essence of God's word and of his love is not different from the essence of God. So we profess not three gods, but one God, because of the one simple divine nature in three persons. Chapter 5: The reason for the incarnation of the Son of God A similar blindness makes Muslims ridicule the Christian Faith by which we profess that the Son of God died, since they do not understand the depth of such a great mystery. First of all, lest the death of the Son of God be misinterpreted, we must first say something about the incarnation of the Son of God. For we do not say that the Son of God underwent death according to his divine nature, in which he is equal to the Father who is the foundational life of everything, but according to our own nature which he adopted into the unity of his person. To say something about the mystery of the divine incarnation, we must observe that any intellectual agent operates through a conception of his intellect, which we call a word, as is clear in the case of a builder or any craftsman who operates outwardly according to the form that he conceives in his mind. Since the Son of God is the very Word of God, it follows that God made everything through the Son. It is a rule that the principles which make something are also the principles for repairing it. If a house falls down, it is restored according to the plan by which it was first made. Among the creatures created through God's Word, rational creatures hold the first rank, since all other creatures serve them and seem ordered to them. That is reasonable, because a rational creature has mastery
over his action through free will, while other creatures do not act from free judgment but by force of nature. Universally what is free is higher than what is in bondage; slaves serve the free and are governed by them. Therefore the fall of a rational creature is truly considered more serious than the defect of any irrational creature. Nor is there any doubt that God judges things according to their real value. So it was fitting for Divine Wisdom to repair the fall of human nature, much more than to step in if the heavens were to fall or any other catastrophe occur in bodily things. Rational or intellectual creatures are of two kinds: one separated from a body, which we call an angel, and the other joined to a body, which is the human soul. In either one there can be a fall because of freedom of the will. By a fall, I do not mean that they fall out of existence, but that they lapse from righteousness of the will. A fall or a defect refers specially to a principle of operation, as we say that a craftsman has gone wrong because he is deficient in the skill he needs to do his job, and we say that a natural thing is deficient or spoiled if the natural power by which it acts is corrupted, for example if a plant lacks the power of germinating or a piece of land lacks the power to be fruitful. A rational creature operates by its will, where it has freedom of choice. Therefore the fall of a rational creature is a defect of righteousness of the will, which takes place by sin. The defect of sin, which is nothing other than perversity of the will, is something especially for God to remove, and that by his Word by which he created all creatures. The sin of angels, however, could not be corrected, because the immutability of their nature makes them impenitent from any direction they once take. But men's will is changeable by nature, so that they are not only able to choose different things, good or evil, but also abandon one choice and turn to another. This changeableness of the will remains in man as long as he is united to his body which is subject to variation. When the soul is separated from the body it will have the same immutability as an angel na743 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
turally has; so that after death the soul is impenitent, and cannot turn from good to evil or from evil to good. Therefore it was fitting for God's goodness to restore fallen human nature through his Son. The way of restoring should correspond to the nature being restored and to its sickness. The nature to be restored was man's rational nature endowed with free will, which should not be subject to exterior power but be recalled to the state of righteousness according to his own will. His sickness, being a perversity of the will, demanded that the will should be called back to righteousness. Righteousness of the human will consists in the proper ordering of love, which is its principal act. Rightly ordered love is to love God above all things as our supreme good, and to refer to him everything that we love as our ultimate goal, and to observe the proper order in loving other things by preferring spiritual to bodily goods. To excite our love towards God, there was no more powerful way than that the Word of God, through whom all things were made, should assume our human nature in order to restore it, so that he would be both God and man. First of all, because the strongest way God could show how much he loves man was his willing to become man for his salvation; and nothing can provoke love more than to know that one is loved. Then also, man whose intellect and affections are weighed down towards bodily things cannot easily turn to things that are above himself. It is easy for any man to know and love another man, but to think of the divine highness and be carried to it by the proper affection of love is not for everyone, but only for those who, by God's help and with great effort and labour, are lifted up from bodily to spiritual things. Therefore, to open the way to God for everyone, God willed to become man, so that even children could know and love God as someone like themselves; and so by what they can grasp they can progress little by little to perfection.
Also, for God to become man gave man the hope of eventually participating in perfect happiness, which only God naturally has. If man, knowing his weakness, were promised the eventual happiness of which angels are hardly capable, since it consists in the vision and enjoyment of God, he could hardly hope to reach it unless the dignity of human nature was demonstrated in another way, namely, by God valuing it so highly that he became man for his salvation. So God's becoming man gave us hope that man can eventually be united to God in blessed enjoyment. Man's knowledge of his dignity, coming from God's assuming a human nature, helps to keep him from subjecting his affections to any creature, whether by worshipping demons or any creatures through idolatry or by subjecting himself to bodily creatures through disordered affection. For if man has such a great dignity by God's judgment and he is so close to him that God wanted to become man, it is unworthy of man to subject himself improperly to things inferior to God. Chapter 6: The meaning of God became man When we say that God became man, let no one take this to mean that God was converted into a man, as air becomes fire when it is turned into fire. For God's nature is unchangeable. Only bodily things can be changed from one thing into another. A spiritual nature cannot be changed into a bodily nature, but can be united to it somehow by the strength of its power, as a soul is united to a body. Although human nature consists of soul and body, the soul is not of a bodily but a spiritual nature. But the distance between any spiritual creature and God's simplicity is much more than the distance between a bodily creature and the simplicity of a spiritual nature. Therefore, as a spiritual nature can be united to a body by the strength of its power, so God can be united to a spiritual or a bodily nature. And in that way we say that God was united to a human nature.
We should observe that everything seems most properly identified with what is principal in it, while other aspects seem to adhere to what is principal and are taken up and used by it as it disposes. Thus in civil society the king seems to envelop the whole kingdom and he uses others as he disposes as if they were parts of his own body joined to him naturally. Although man is naturally both soul and body, he seems more principally a soul, since the body adheres to it and the soul uses the body to serve its own activity. Likewise, therefore, in the union of God with a creature, the divinity is not dragged down to human nature, but the human nature is assumed by God, not to be converted into God, but to adhere to God. The body and soul thus assumed are somehow the body and soul of God himself, just as the parts of a body assumed by a soul are somehow members of the soul itself. There is, however, a difference. Although the soul is more perfect than the body, it does not possess the total perfection of human nature. Thus it has a body so that the body and soul together form one human nature, of which the soul and body are parts. But God is perfect in his nature and nothing can be added to the fullness of his nature. So another nature cannot be united to the divine nature so as to make a common nature from them both. For it would be repugnant to the perfection of the divine nature to be a part of that common nature. The Word of God therefore assumed a human nature consisting of a soul and a body in such a way that neither becomes the other, nor are the two melted into one nature, but after being united the two natures remain distinct, each with their own properties. It should also be observed that, since a spiritual nature is united to a bodily one by spiritual power, the greater the power of the spiritual nature the more perfectly and firmly it assumes a lower nature. God's power is infinite, with every creature subject to him and he uses each as he wishes. He could not use them unless he were somehow united with them by the strength of his power.
The more he exercises his power on them, the more perfectly he is united with them. Among all creatures he exercises his power by giving them existence and moving them to their proper operations; in this way he is said to be in everything in a common way. But he exercises his power in a special way in holy minds, whom he not only conserves them in existence and moves them in their actions like other creatures, but also converts them to know and love him; thus he is said to dwell especially in holy minds, and holy minds are said to be full of God. Since God is said to be more or less united to a creature according to the amount of power he exercises in it, it is clear that, since the strength of divine power cannot be comprehended by the human intellect, God can be united to a creature in a higher way than the human intellect can grasp. Therefore we say that God is united to a human nature in Christ in an incomprehensible and ineffable way, not only by indwelling as is true of other saints, but in a singular way, so that a human nature belongs to the Son of God, and that the Son of God, who has from eternity a divine nature from the Father, from a point of time has wonderfully assumed a human nature of our race. Thus each and every part of the human nature of the Son of God can be called God, and whatever any part of his human nature does or suffers can be attributed to the only-begotten Word of God. Thus we fittingly say that not just his soul and body are the Son of God, but also his eyes and hands, and that the Son of God sees bodily with the sight of his eyes and hears by the hearing of his ears; the same applies to the activities proper to the other parts of his soul or body. There is no better comparison of this admirable union than the union of a body and a rational soul. It is also a suitable comparison because our word remains hidden in our heart and becomes sensible by being vocalized and written. But these comparisons fall short of representing the union of the divine and human natures, just as any other comparison of human things with divine.
For the Divinity is not united to a human nature so as to be a part of a nature, nor is it united to a human nature as an expression, as the word of the heart is signified by a voice or writing, but the Son of God truly has a human nature and can be called a man. It is clear therefore that we do not say God is united to a bodily nature as a force in the body after the manner of material and bodily forces, because not even the intellect of a soul united to a body is a bodily power. Much less therefore is the Word of God, who assumed for himself a human nature in an ineffable and more sublime way. It is also clear from the foregoing that the Son of God has both a divine and a human nature, the one from eternity, the other assumed from a point of time. Many things can be had by the same person in different ways, but the principal element is always said to have, while the less principal elements are had. Thus the whole has many parts, as a man has hands and feet; we do not say the inverse: that hands and feet have a man. Likewise one subject has many accidents, as an apple has colour and smell, but not the inverse. Man also has exterior things, like possessions and clothing, but not the inverse. Only in the case of essential parts is something said both to have and to be had, as the soul has the body and the body has the soul. And in marriage a man has a wife and a wife has a husband. The same in the case of things united by relationship: thus we say that a father has a son and a son has a father. Were God united to a human nature as a soul to a body so as to make one common nature, we could say that God has a human nature and a human nature has God, just as a soul has a body and the inverse. But because the divine and human natures cannot be made one nature because of the divine perfection, as said above, and because the principal factor in the union is on the side of God, it clearly follows that we must say that God has a human nature.
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Whatever is said to exist by a nature is called a subject or hypostasis of that nature, just as what has the nature of a horse is called a hypostasis or a subject with a horse-nature. In the case of an intellectual nature such a hypostasis is called a person; thus we call Peter a person because he has a human nature, which is intellectual. Since the Son of God, the only-begotten Word of God, has assumed a human nature, as said above, it follows that he is a hypostasis, subject or person with a human nature. And since he has a divine nature from eternity, not by way of composition but by simple identity, he is also called a hypostasis or person of divine nature, as far as divine things can be expressed by human words. Therefore the only-begotten Word of God is a hypostasis or person with two natures, divine and human, and he subsists in these two natures. But if anyone objects that human nature, even in Christ, is not accidental, but a substance, and not a universal substance but a particular one which is called a hypostasis, it would seem that Christ's human nature would be a hypostasis apart from the hypostasis of the Word of God, and that in Christ there would be two hypostases. The one who makes this objection should observe that not every particular substance is called a hypostasis, but only that which does not belong to something more principal. For instance, the hand of a man is a particular substance, but is not called a hypostasis or a person, because it belongs to a more principal substance which is man; otherwise in every man there would be as many hypostases or persons as there are members or parts. Therefore Christ's human nature is not accidental but a substance; it is not universal but particular; nevertheless it cannot be called a hypostasis, because it is assumed by something more principal, namely, the Word of God. Therefore Christ is one because of the unity of his person or hypostasis, and he cannot be called two; rather he is properly said
to have two natures. Although the divine nature can be predicated of the hypostasis of Christ, which is the hypostasis of the Word of God, which is his essence, nevertheless human nature cannot be predicated of him abstractly, just as it cannot in the case of anyone having a human nature: Just as we cannot say that Peter is human nature, but is a man having a human nature, so we cannot say the Word of God is a human nature, but that it has taken on a human nature and for this reason can be called a man. Therefore each nature is predicated of the Word of God, but the human nature only concretely, as when we say that the Son of God is a man. But the divine nature can be predicated both abstractly and concretely: thus the Word of God is the divine essence or nature and is God. But since God has a divine nature and man has a human nature, these two names signify the two natures that are had, but only one person has both of them. Since the one having the nature is a hypostasis, when we call Christ God we understand the hypostasis of the Word of God; likewise when we call him a man we understand the Word of God. So we call Christ God and man, but do not say that he is two, but one in two natures. Whatever belongs to a nature can be attributed to the hypostasis of that nature, while a hypostasis of both a human and a divine nature is supposed in a name signifying the divine nature as well as in a name signifying the human nature; this hypostasis is single having both natures. Consequently both human and divine things can be predicated by that hypostasis, whether it is referred to by a name signifying the divine nature or by a name signifying the human nature. Thus we can say that God, the Word of God, was conceived and born of the Virgin, suffered, died and was buried, attributing to the hypostasis of the Word human things because of the human nature. Inversely we can say that man is one with the Father, that he is from eternity and that he created the world, because of the divine nature.
In predicating such diverse things of Christ a distinction can be made according to which nature they are predicated. Some things are said according to his human nature and others according to his divine nature. But if we consider whom they are said about, they apply indistinctly, since it is the same hypostasis of which divine and human things are said. It is like saying that the same man sees and hears, but not according to the same power; he sees with his eyes and hears with his ears. Likewise the same apple is seen and smelt, in the first case by its colour, in the second by its smell. For this reason we can say that the seeing person hears and the hearing person sees, and that what is seen is smelt and what is smelt is seen. Similarly we can say that God is born of the Virgin, because of his human nature, and that man is eternal, because of the divine nature. Chapter 7: The meaning of The Word of God suffered The foregoing shows that there is no contradiction in our professing that the only-begotten Word of God suffered and died. We do not attribute this to him according to his divine nature but according to his human nature, which he assumed into the unity of his person for our salvation. But if someone objects that, since God is almighty, he could have saved the human race otherwise than by the death of his only-begotten Son, such a person ought to observe that in God's deeds we must consider what was the most fitting way of acting, even if he could have acted otherwise; otherwise we will be faced with this question in everything he made. Thus if it is asked why God made the heaven of a certain size and why he made the stars in such a number, a wise thinker will look for what was fitting for God to do, even if he could have done otherwise. I say this supposing our belief that the whole disposition of nature and all human acts are subject to Divine Providence. Take this belief away and all worship of the Divinity is excluded. Yet
we argue presently against those who say they are worshippers of God, whether Muslims or Christians or Jews. As for those who say that everything comes necessarily from God, we argued at length elsewhere [Contra gentiles, II, c. 23]. Therefore if someone considers with a pious intention the fittingness of the suffering and death of Christ, he will find such a depth of knowledge that any time he thinks about it he will find more and greater things, so that he can experience as true what the Apostle says (1 Cor 1:23-24): We are preaching a crucified Christ: to the Jews, an obstacle they cannot get over, to the gentiles foolishness, but to those who have been called, whether they are Jews or Greeks, a Christ who is both the power of God and the wisdom of God. He continues (v. 25): God's folly is wiser than human wisdom. First of all, we must observe that Christ assumed a human nature to repair the fall of man, as we have said. Therefore, according to his human nature, Christ should have suffered and done whatever would serve as a remedy for sin. The sin of man consists in cleaving to bodily things and neglecting spiritual goods. Therefore the Son of God in his human nature fittingly showed by what he did and suffered that men should consider temporal goods or evils as nothing, lest a disordered love for them impede them from being dedicated to spiritual things. Thus Christ chose poor parents, although perfect in virtue, lest anyone glory in mere nobility of flesh and in the wealth of his parents. He led a poor life to teach us to despise riches. He lived without titles or office so as to withdraw men from a disordered desire for these things. He underwent labour, thirst, hunger and bodily afflictions so that men would not be fixed on pleasure and delights and be drawn away from the good of virtue because of the hardships of this life. In the end he underwent death, so that no one would desert the truth because of fear of death. And lest anyone fear a shameful death for the sake of the truth, he chose the most horrible kind of death, that of the cross. Thus it was fitting that the Son of God
made man should suffer and by his example provoke men to virtue, so as to verify what Peter said (1 Pet 2:21): Christ suffered for you, and left an example for you to follow in his steps. Then, because not only good conduct and avoiding sins are necessary for salvation, but also the knowledge of truth so as to avoid error, it was necessary for the restoration of the human race that the only-begotten Word of God who assumed a human nature should ground people in truth by a sure knowledge of it. Truth taught by men is not so firmly believed, because man can deceive. Only by God can knowledge of the truth be confirmed without any doubt. So the Son of God made man had to propose the teaching of divine truth to men, showing them that it came from God and not from man. He did this by many miracles. Since he did things that only God can do, such as raising the dead, giving sight to the blind etc., people had to believe that he spoke with God's authority. Those who were present could see his miracles, but later generations might say they were made up. Therefore Divine Wisdom provided a remedy against this in Christ's state of weakness. For if he were rich, powerful and established in high dignity, it could be thought that his teaching and his miracles were received on account of his favour and human power. So to make the work of divine power apparent, he chose everything that was rejected and low in the world, a poor mother and a poor life, illiterate disciples and messengers, and allowed himself to be rebuked and condemned even to death by the magnates of this world. This made it apparent that his miracles and teaching were not received because of human power, but should be attributed to divine power. Thus in what he did or suffered, human weakness and divine power were joined together at the same time. Thus at his nativity he was wrapped in cloth and put in a manger, but praised by the angels and adored by the Magi led by a star. He was tempted by the de753 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
vil, but ministered to by angels. He lived without money as a beggar, but raised the dead and gave sight to the blind. He died fixed to the cross and numbered among thieves, but at his death the sun darkened, the earth trembled, stones split, graves opened and the bodies of the dead were raised. Therefore if anyone considers the great fruit of such beginnings, namely, the conversion of peoples over the world to Christ, 3 and wants further signs in order to believe, he must be considered harder than a stone, since at Christ's death even stones were shattered. Thus the Apostle says (1 Cor 1:18): The message of the cross is folly for those who are on the way to ruin, but for those of us who are on the road to salvation it is the power of God. There is a related point we should make here. The same reason of Providence which led the Son of God made man to suffer weakness in himself, let him to desire his disciples, whom he established as ministers of human salvation, to be abject in the world. Thus he did not choose the well educated and noble, but illiterate and ignoble men, that is, poor fishermen. Sending them to work for the salvation of men, he commanded them to observe poverty, to suffer persecutions and insults, and even to undergo death for the truth; this was so that their preaching might not seem fabricated for the sake of earthly comfort, and that the salvation of the world might not be attributed to human wisdom or power, but only to God's wisdom and power. Thus they did not lack divine power to work miracles as they appeared abject according to the world. For the restoration of man it was necessary for men to learn not to trust proudly in themselves, but in God. For the perfection of human justice requires that man should subject himself totally to God, from whom he also hopes to gain every good, and
Literally, "of nearly the whole world to Christ."
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should thank him for what he has received. In order to train his disciples to despise the present goods of this world and to sustain all sorts of adversity even to death, there was no better way than for Christ to suffer and die. Thus he himself told them (Jn 15:20): If they persecuted me, they will persecute you too. Then we must observe that in the order of justice sin should be punished by a penalty. We see how cases of injustice are handled in human courts, that the judge takes from the one who has too much through grabbing what belongs to another and gives it to the one who has less. Anyone who sins over-indulges his appetite, and in satisfying it transgresses the order of reason and of divine law. For that person to be brought back to the order of justice something must be taken from what he wants; that is done by punishing him or by taking the goods he wanted to have or by imposing the bad things he refused to suffer. This restoration of justice by penalty sometimes is done by the will of the one who is punished, when he imposes the penalty on himself so as to return to justice. Other times it is done against his will, and in that case he does not return to a state of justice, but justice is carried out in him. The whole human race was subject to sin. To be restored to the state of justice, there would have to be a penalty which man would take upon himself in order to fulfil the order of divine justice. But no mere man could satisfy God sufficiently by accepting some voluntary punishment, even for his own sin, to say nothing of the sin of the whole human race. For when man sins he transgresses the law of God and tries, were he able, to do injury to the God of infinite majesty. The greater the person offended, the greater the crime; we see, for instance, that someone who strikes a soldier is punished more than someone who strikes a farmer, and much more if he strikes a king or prince. Therefore a sin committed against the law of God is somehow an infinite offence.
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Again we must observe that the dignity of the person making reparation is also to be considered. For example, one word of a king asking for pardon of an offence is considered greater than if someone lower went on his knees and showed any other sign of humiliation to beg pardon from the one who suffered the injury. But no mere man has the infinite dignity required to satisfy justly an offence against God. Therefore there had to be a man of infinite dignity who would undergo the penalty for all so as to satisfy fully for the sins of the whole world. Therefore the only-begotten Word of God, true God and Son of God, assumed a human nature and willed to suffer death in it so as to purify the whole human race indebted by sin. Thus Peter says (1 Pet 3:18): Christ himself died once and for all for sins, the upright for the sake of the guilty. Therefore it was not fitting, as Muslims think, for God to wipe away human sins without satisfaction, or even to have never permitted man to fall into sin. That would first be contrary to the order of justice, and secondly to the order of human nature, by which man has free will and can choose good or evil. God's Providence does not destroy the nature and order of things, but preserves them. So God's wisdom was most evident in his preserving the order of justice and of nature, and at the same time mercifully providing man a saving remedy in the incarnation and death of his Son. Chapter 8: The meaning of The faithful receive the body of Christ Since people are cleansed of sin through the suffering and death of Christ, in order to preserve constantly in us the memory of such an immense gift, when the time of his suffering was drawing near, the Son of God left his faithful a memorial of his suffering and death that would be constantly recalled, giving his disciples his own body and blood under the forms of bread and wine. The
Church of Christ continues celebrating this memorial of his venerable suffering up to the present day all over the world. Anyone even slightly instructed in the Christian religion can see how unreasonably unbelievers ridicule this sacrament. For we do not say that the body of Christ is cut into parts and distributed for consumption by the faithful in the Sacrament, so that it would have to run out, even if his body were as big as a mountain, as they say. But we say that by the conversion of bread into the body of Christ the very body of Christ exists in this Sacrament of the Church and is eaten by the faithful. Because the body of Christ is not divided, but something is changed into it, there is no way that by eating it its quantity could be reduced. But if an unbeliever wants to say that this conversion is impossible, let him think of the omnipotence of God. He will agree that by the power of nature one thing can be converted into another by taking on another form. Thus air is converted into fire when the matter which previously was under the form of air later becomes subject to the form of fire. Much more, therefore, the power of almighty God, which brings the whole substance of a thing into existence, can not only change something by form, as nature does, but also convert the whole thing, so that bread is converted into the body of Christ and wine into his blood. If anyone objects to this conversion on the grounds of what appears to the senses, where there is no difference, let him observe that divine things are offered to us under the veil of visible things. That we may have the spiritual and divine refreshment of the body and blood of Christ, and not take it as ordinary food and drink, it is taken under the form of bread and wine; that avoids the horror of eating human flesh and drinking blood. Nevertheless, we do not say that the forms that appear in the Sacrament are just in the imagination of the viewer, as happens in magical tricks, because any deceit is unworthy of this Sacrament. But God, who is the creator of substance and accidents, can preserve sensible
accidents in existence even when the substance is changed into something else. For he can produce and preserve in existence the effects of secondary causes by his omnipotence without secondary causes. But if someone does not admit the omnipotence of God, we do not attempt to argue with him in this work. We are here arguing against Muslims and others who admit the omnipotence of God. There are further mysteries in this Sacrament which should not be discussed here, since the sacred things of faith should not be exposed to unbelievers. Chapter 9: How there is a special place where souls are purified before receiving beatitude We must now consider the opinion of those who say there is no purgatory after death. Some hold this opinion by over-reaction, as happens in many other questions. Trying to avoid one error they fall into the contrary. Thus Arius wanted to avoid the error of Sabellius who merged the persons of the Holy Trinity, but he wound up dividing the divine essence. Likewise Eutyches wanted to avoid the error of Nestorius who divided the person of God and man in Christ, but went over to the contrary error of saying that he had a single divine and human nature. So some, wishing to avoid the error of Origen who said that the pains of Hell would eventually purify all its occupants, assert that there is no purifying pain after death. The Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church treads carefully between contrary errors. It distinguishes the persons in the Trinity against Sabellius, without leaning towards the error of Arius, but professes only one essence of the persons. In the mystery of the incarnation it distinguishes the two natures against Eutyches, but does not join Nestorius in making two persons. Likewise, regarding the state of souls after death, it professes that those who leave this life without mortal sin and have the gift of love may
undergo some purifying pain, but it does not agree with Origen in saying that all pain after death is purifying; rather it professes that those who die with mortal sin are tortured with the devil and his angels with eternal punishment. As for the truth of the matter, we must first of all say that those who die in mortal sin are immediately carried away to hellish punishment. This is clear from the Gospel; thus Luke states the words of the Lord (16:22) that the rich man died and was buried; in hell he looked up... He describes his own torture (v. 24): for I am in agony in these flames. Job also says of the wicked (21:13): They enjoy life and then go down suddenly to Sheol. See also Job 22:17: They say to God, Go away from us. Not only are the wicked in hell for their own sins, but before the suffering of Christ even the just went down at death to the underworld for the sin of our first parent. Thus Jacob said (Gen 37:35): I will go down to Sheol in mourning. Thus Christ himself at death went down to the underworld, as the Creed says, and as the Prophet [David] foretold (Ps 16:10): You will not leave my soul in Sheol, which Peter, in Acts (2:25), applies to Christ. Christ however went to the underworld in a different way, not laden with sin but alone free among the dead [Latin for Ps 88:6]; he descended to disarm principalities and powers (1 Cor 15:24) and take captives (Ps 68:19), as Zechariah predicted (9:11): As for you, because of the blood of your covenant I have released your prisoners from the pit in which there is no water. But because God's acts of compassion are above all his works, we believe still more that those who die without stain receive immediately the reward due to them for eternity. This is proven by clear texts; with reference to the sufferings of the saints, the Apostle says (2 Cor 5:1): We are well aware that when the tent that houses us on earth is folded up, there is a house for us from God, not made by human hands but everlasting, in the heavens.
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These words appear at first sight to indicate that as soon as the mortal body is dissolved man is clothed with heavenly glory. But to make the meaning plainer, let us examine the following verses. Since he referred to two things: the dissolution of our earthly dwelling and the gaining of a heavenly dwelling, he shows how man's desire regards each, with an explanation of each. So, regarding the desire for a heavenly dwelling, he says (v. 2) that we groan because we are delayed from reaching our desire, and we yearn to be clothed over with our heavenly dwelling. These words indicate that the heavenly dwelling he is talking about is not something separated from man, but something attached to him. For we do not say that a man puts on a house, but a garment; rather we say that someone dwells in a house. So, when he combines the two concepts to be clothed over with our heavenly dwelling, he shows that what we first desire is something attached, because it is put on, and it is also containing and exceeding, since it is dwelt in. Exactly what this object of desire is the following verses make clear. Because he did not simply say clothed but clothed over, he explains this (v. 3): provided we are found clothed and not naked, as if to say: If the soul puts on an eternal dwelling without taking off its earthly dwelling, the acquisition of that dwelling is being clothed over. But because the earthly dwelling must be taken off in order to put on the heavenly one, we cannot speak simply of being clothed over. Therefore someone could ask the Apostle: Why did you say yearning to be clothed over? He answers that by saying (v. 4): While we are in our present tent, that is, clothed with our present transitory dwelling, not having a permanent dwelling, we groan, weighed down as by something happening against our desire, since by our natural desire we do not wish to be stripped naked from our earthly tent, but to be clothed over with a hea-
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venly tent, so that what is mortal may be absorbed by life, that is, that we may go into immortal life without tasting death. Someone could again ask the Apostle why, as it seems reasonable, should we want not to be stripped of our earthly dwelling which is natural to us in order to put on a heavenly dwelling? He answers (v. 5): God has designed us for this, that is, to desire heavenly things. How God does this, he adds: He has given us the Spirit as a pledge. For the Holy Spirit, whom we receive from God, makes us certain and eager to gain our heavenly dwelling, like claiming something owed to us because of the pledge we hold. Because of this certainty we are lifted up to desire a heavenly dwelling. So we have two kinds of desire: the first is natural, which is not to abandon our earthly dwelling, and the second is from grace, which is to gain a heavenly dwelling. But both desires cannot be fulfilled, since we cannot reach our heavenly dwelling without leaving our earthly one. So with a firm trust and boldness we prefer the desire that comes from grace to our natural desire, and wish to leave our earthly dwelling and go to our heavenly one. That is what he adds (vv. 6-8): Therefore we continue to be confident. We know that while we dwell in the body we are away from the Lord. We walk by faith, not by sight. I repeat, we are full of confidence and would much rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. It is now clear that the Apostle meant the corruptible body by the term the tent that houses us on earth; this body is like a garment to the soul. It is also clear that what he meant by a house not made by human hands, but everlasting in the heavens is God himself, whom men put on or dwell in, when they are present to him face to face, that is, seeing him as he is. But they are on the road, away from him, when they hold by faith what they do not yet see. Therefore the saints desire to travel away from the body, that their
souls may be separated from their bodies by death, so that, having left the body, they may be present to the Lord. It is therefore clear that the souls of the saints, separated from the body, have reached their heavenly dwelling. Therefore the glory of holy souls, which consists in the vision of God, is not deferred to the day of judgment when bodies are raised. This is also clear from what the Apostle says to the Philippians (1:23): I long to be freed from this life and to be with Christ. This desire would be frustrated if, after his body was dissolved, he was not with Christ, who is in heaven. The Lord also clearly said to the penitent thief on the cross (Lk 23:43): Today you will be with me in paradise, meaning by paradise the enjoyment of glory. So it is not to be believed that Christ defers the reward of his faithful, as far as the glory of their souls is concerned, until the resurrection of the body. The words of the Lord (Jn 14:2), In my Father's house there are many places to live in, refer to different degrees of rewards given to the saints in heavenly happiness, not outside the heavenly home but in it. From this it also follows that there is a place for purifying souls after death. Many passages of Scripture clearly say that no one can enter heavenly glory with any stain. Speaking about participation in Divine Wisdom, Wisdom 7:25 says: Nothing impure can find its way into her. But heavenly happiness consists in the perfect participation in Wisdom, by which we see God face to face. Therefore those who are brought into this must be completely without stain. This is also supposed in Isaiah, 35:8: It will be called the Sacred Way; the unclean will not be allowed to use it, and in Revelation 21:7: Nothing unclean may come into it. Some people, at the hour of death, happen to have some stains of sin which do not merit the eternal damnation of hell, such as venial sins, like idle words etc. Those who die with such stains cannot go straight to heavenly happiness, although they would if they did not have these stains, as we have seen. Therefore, after
death they at least suffer a delay in entering glory. There is no reason why our objectors should concede that souls after death suffer this penalty rather than any other, especially since the lack of the vision of God and separation from him is a greater pain, even for those in hell, than the punishment of fire which they suffer there. Therefore the souls of those who die with venial sins undergo a purifying fire. If someone says that these venial sins will wait to be purified by the fire that will burn up the world before the coming of the Judge, this cannot hold. It has been shown above that the souls of the saints which have no stain gain heavenly happiness as soon as they die, and at the same time souls with venial sins cannot enter glory. In that case their entrance into glory would be deferred because of venial sins until the day of judgement, which is most improbable, since this would be too great a penalty for light sins. Another reason for purgatory is that some people did not finish making due penance for the [mortal] sins they repented of before death, and it would not befit God's justice to let them off; otherwise those who die suddenly would be in a better position than those who spend a long time in this life doing penance. Therefore they suffer something after death. This cannot be in hell, where people are punished for mortal sins, since the mortal sins of these people have been forgiven by their repentance. Nor would it be fitting, as a penalty, to defer the glory due to them until the day of judgment. Therefore there should be some temporal purifying punishment after this life before the day of judgment. Church rites established by the Apostles agree with this. For the whole Church prays for the faithful departed. It is clear that it does not pray for those who are in hell, where there is no redemption, nor for those who have reached heavenly glory. It remains therefore that there are some temporal purifying pains after this life, for whose remission the Church prays. Thus even the Apostle says (1 Cor 3:13-15): Each person's handiwork will be shown
for what it is. The Day which dawns in fire will make it clear and the fire itself will test the quality of each person's work. The one whose work stands up to it will be given his wages; the one whose work is burnt down will suffer the loss of it, though he himself will be saved, but only as one fleeing through fire. This cannot be understood of the fire of hell, because those who suffer that fire are not saved. Therefore it must be understood of a purifying fire. It may be said that this should be understood of the fire that will precede the coming of the Judge, especially since the passage says, The Day will make it clear, while the day of the Lord is understood as the day of his last coming for the universal judgment of the whole world, as the Apostle says in 1 Thessalonians (5:2): The Day of the Lord is going to come like a thief in the night. In reply we must point out that as the day of judgment is called the day of the Lord, because it is the day of his coming for the universal judgment of the whole world, so the day of each person's death can also be called the day of the Lord, because then Christ comes to each person to reward or condemn him. With reference to rewarding the good, Christ said to his disciples (Jn 14:3): After I have gone and prepared you a place, I shall return to take you to myself. With reference to the damnation of the evil it is said in Revelation 2:5: Repent and behave as you did at first, or else, if you will not repent, I shall come to you and take your lamp-stand from its place. Therefore the day of the Lord on which the universal judgement takes place will be revealed in the fire which will precede the coming of the Judge, when the reprobate will be pulled to judgment, and the just who are left alive will be purified, but the day of the Lord on which he will judge each person at his death will be revealed by a fire that will purify the good and condemn the wicked. Therefore it is clear that there is a purgatory after death.
Chapter 10: That divine predestination does not impose necessity on human acts Last of all we come to the question whether, because of divine ordination or predestination, human acts become necessary. This question requires caution so as to defend the truth and avoid falsity or error. It is erroneous to say that human acts and events escape God's fore-knowledge and ordination. It is no less erroneous to say that God's fore-knowledge and ordination impose necessity on human acts; otherwise free will would be removed, as well as the value of taking counsel, the usefulness of laws, the care to do what is right and the justice of rewards and punishments. We must observe that God knows things differently from man. Man is subject to time and therefore knows things temporally, seeing some things as present, recalling others as past, and foreseeing others as future. But God is above the passage of time, and his existence is eternal. So his knowledge is not temporal, but eternal. Eternity is compared to time as something indivisible to what is continuous. Thus in time there is a difference of successive parts according to before and after, but eternity has no before and after, because eternal things are free from any change. Thus eternity is totally at once, just as a point lacks parts that are distinct in location. For a point can be compared to a line in two ways: first as included in the line, whether at the beginning, middle or end, secondly as existing outside a line. A point within a line cannot be present to all the parts of the line, but in different parts of the line different points must be designated. But a point outside the line can view all parts of the line equally, as in a circle, whose central point is indivisible and faces all the parts of the circumference and all of them are somehow present to it, although not to one another. An instant, which is a limit of time, is comparable to the point included in a line. It is not present to all parts of time, but in dif765 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
ferent parts of time different instances are designated. Eternity is something like the point outside a line, like the centre of a circle. Since it is simple and indivisible, it comprehends the whole passage of time and each part of time is equally present to it, although one part of time follows another. Thus God, who looks at everything from the high point of eternity, views as present the whole passage of time and everything that is done in time. Therefore, when I see Socrates sitting, my knowledge is infallible and certain, but no necessity is imposed on Socrates to be seated. Thus God, seeing everything that is past, future or present to us as present to himself, knows all this infallibly and certainly, yet without imposing on contingent things any necessity of existing. This comparison can be accepted, if we compare the passage of time to travel over a road. If someone is on a road over which many people pass, he sees those who are just ahead of him, but cannot certainly know those who come after him. But if someone stands in a high place where he can see the whole road, he sees at once all who are moving on the road. Thus man, who is in time, cannot see the whole course of time at once, but only thinks that just in front of him, namely the present, and a few things of the past, but he cannot know future things for certain. But God, from the high point of his eternity sees with certitude and as present all that is done through the whole course of time, without imposing necessity on contingent things. Just as God's knowledge does not impose necessity on contingent things, neither does his ordination, by which he providentially orders the universe. For he orders things the way he acts on things; his ordination does not violate but brings to effect by his power what he planned in his Wisdom. As for the action of God's power, we should observe that he acts in everything and moves each single thing to its actions according to the manner proper to each thing, so that some things,
by divine motion, act from necessity, as the motion of heavenly bodies [according to ancient cosmology], while others contingently, which sometimes fail in their proper action because of their corruptibility. A tree, for example, sometimes is impeded from producing fruit and an animal from generating offspring. Thus Divine Wisdom orders things so that they happen after the manner of their proper causes. In the case of man, it is natural for him to act freely, not forced, because rational powers can turn in opposite directions. Thus God orders human actions in a way that these actions are not subject to necessity, but come from free will. These, then are what I can write at present about the questions you sent to me. They are treated in greater detail elsewhere [in the Summa contra gentiles].
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40 YEARS OF MISSION IN ALGERIA A REVIEW OF MARSH'S 'THE CHALLENGE OF ISLAM' (LONDON: ARK, 1980)
By Duane Alexander Miller1 Marsh, who served as a Brethren missionary in Algeria for about four decades, has a lot of experience. The purpose of this book is clear: to encourage young, devout Christians to engage in mission to Muslims, whether it be in Algeria itself or among the burgeoning Muslim immigrant population in the West (which was already quite large in 1980 when he wrote this book). Strengths: He has an eye for anthropological details like gender relations, food handling and medical practices. Many of his descriptions of Berber life around the mid-20th Century are insightful and revealing. Near the end of his book he offers sensitive and sensible recommendations for how to engage in witness to Muslims living in the West. Finally, his willingness to stay in Algeria through thick and thin - a world war, a revolution - would be admirable to most anyone. Weaknesses: His repeated appeal to scripture as a proof text whether things go right or wrong is a little tiring to a scholar, granted that is not the audience he is writing for... but still... Also, while he seems to genuinely appreciate aspects of Berber culture (hospitality, hard work) one feels that he sometimes lapses into some fairly artificial categories. Of special interest to scholars and practitioners of mission today will be the issue of the Ramadan fast. In Marsh's day, for a Christian who used to be a Muslim to keep the fast was seen as a connection to 'works righteousness'. How things have changed in the passing decades!
1Duane
A. Miller teaches at Nazareth Evangelical Theological Seminary.
In conclusion, for anyone interested in learning about the prelude to the rennaisance of the Algerian church which occurred in the 90's and is continuing today, this book (which may not be easy to find) is a must read.
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FROM THE EDITORS DESK

BAPTISM AND THE MUSLIM CONVERT TO CHRISTIANITY

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

Duane A. Miller teaches at Nazareth Evangelical Theological Seminary.

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 4 | August 2010