Morning Prayer In My Study

One of the wonderful things about saying morning prayer in my study is the freedom and possibility of being diverted during one of the lectionary readings into a little bible study.

This morning, reading Ezekiel 18:21-32, I decided to see what Calvin had to say about the passage in his commentaries. What resulted was a fascinating exploration of Calvin's understanding of the relationship between what are commonly called 'Total depravity' and 'Prevenient grace'.

For Calvin, this passage, with its commands to 'rid yourselves of all the offences' and 'get a new heart and a new spirit' (TNIV), can be misinterpreted as suggesting that humans have some power within themselves to 'Repent and live' as the final words of the passage put it. In a slightly, for my money, convoluted way, Calvin instead argues that this is simply an example of God accommodating himself to human language, while actually communicating the impossibility of humans having any such strength to turn to God lest it be provided by the Holy Spirit. Calvin refers to other Scriptures in which it is clear that the 'new heart' is not 'made' (ASV) by humans, but rather given by God himself. (cf Ez.11 & 36 'new heart' passages and also Jeremiah 31). Calvin's lengthy commentary on two verses (31 & 32) ends up being his theological argument for the rejection of anything resembling Pelagianism or Arminianism.

For myself, I think the Scriptural exegesis is stretched a bit far by Calvin. I'm not sure that the pericope will really do what he wants it to do. But, I am persuaded by the theological argument that Calvin wants to make. The nagging question for me in relation to predestination, total depravity and prevenient grace is 'What does it do to our missiology?' and 'Does Calvin's argument lend itself to an abdication of evangelistic responsibility by believers?'. The Church of England is usually described as being basically Arminian - so these are questions that I should try to address at some point...

I then turned to another bookshelf, and grabbed Barth's Church Dogmatics to see what he made of the passage in Exekiel. The index directed me towards III:4 and the section entitled 'The Protection of Life'. It turns out that Barth looks at this passage in Ezekiel in relation to the commandment 'Thou shalt not murder'. Barth is exploring what is sometimes described as 'justifiable homicide', and querying whether such a practise is permissible under Biblical witness. His conclusion is to recognize that while the Bible recognises exceptional cases - they remain 'exceptional', and he suggest that we be wary as to whether what we might want to describe as 'justifiable homicide' might actually be prohibited 'murder'.

Who'd have thought I'd be exploring all this before 10am!! Now to turn the the second reading: 2 Corinthians 12...

Tom Smail: Two interesting quotes...

I'm thinking a great deal about Pneumatology at the moment, and trying to explore a potential methodology for Pneumatological reflection. (It occurs to me that many approaches of the past few decades to comment on Pentecostal / Charismatic movements have started from humanist sciences and empiricist academic methodologies - Anthropological / Sociological / Phenomenological / Pyschological and any number of combinations of them!)

Reading Tom Smail's 1975 book Reflected Glory, this quote jumped out at me:

'The answers to all your questions about the one that healed me I do not know: one thing I know that, though I was blind, now I see' (John 9:25). That is why the first literature of revivalist movements, and so of the charismatic renewal is testimony literature, which does not seek to authenticate itself in New Testament terms, but whose chief burden is to say: 'This is what the Holy Spirit has done in me. (p19)

Of course, our usual academic discourse throws us automatically into a hermeneutic of suspicion as we seek to read, evaluate and understand the subject of our interest. Perhaps (with Tom Wright, Kevin Vanhoozer et al) we need to adopt a post-critical hermeneutic of love as we seek to reflect on the person and work of the Spirit. That way, Pneumatology becomes not the subject of our interest, but the object(ive) reality upon whose action we report with words of testimony.

How this continues to work out I'm not quite sure... But testimony as a Pneumatological Methodology seems promising...

The second quote I thought I should remember for the next time of prayer ministry at church:

As Calvin once put it, faith is the empty hand that we hold out to Christ and that he fills with himself, and the impulse and strength to stretch out the hand comes from the Spirit, and it is the Spirit who through our faith fills us with Christ. (p30)

Lovely!