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Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary MIDWESTERN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY UNCHANGING BEAUTY: FAITH AS THE APPREHENSION OF THE IMMUTABLE GOD’S GLORY REVEALED IN THE SON A PAPER SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE COURSE DR 01-37395 ADVANCED SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY BY SAMUEL G. PARKISON KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI AUGUST, 19 2018 Introduction Two topics that have generated considerable attention in the field of systematic theology as of late are aesthetics1 and classical theism.2 Though neither topic is new to the Church’s life, each have experienced relative neglect and resurgence. However, notwithstanding how much attention both these theological loci have received, they are not often discussed in relation to one another. This paper seeks to explore their convergence in Christology. To be specific, we seek to answer: is the doctrine of divine immutability compatible with an aesthetic-soteriology, in which Christological glory elicits faith? This paper will contend for the affirmative: indeed, not only is divine immutability compatible with such an aesthetic-soteriology, it is necessary for it to work. Christology will thus serve as the gravitational center for this study, pulling these two areas of interest together. The aesthetic interest of saving faith is Christ, the Word made flesh. Likewise, the central challenge to divine immutability is Christ, the Word made flesh. Structurally, this paper will move from an examination of the aesthetic dimension of saving faith, to Christ’s revelatory role of the immutable God in the incarnation, and will conclude with a brief consideration and response to divine immutability’s challenge in light of the incarnation. Thus, we will show that saving faith in Jesus—as a response to his irresistible beauty—results in mediated access to the unchanging, beautiful Triune God. 1 E.g., David Bently Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003); Jonathan King, The Beauty of the Lord: Theology as Aesthetics (Bellingham: Lexham Press, 2018); Patrick Sherry, Spirit and Beauty: An Introduction to Theological Aesthetics, 2nd Edition (Albans Place: SCM Press, 2002). 2 E.g., James E. Dolezal, God without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God’s Absoluteness (Eugene: Pickwick Publications, 2011), All That Is In God: Evangelical Theology and the Challenge of Classical Christian Theism (Grand Rapids: Reformed Heritage Books, 2017); Jordan P. Barrett, Divine Simplicity: A Biblical and Trinitarian Account (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2017). 1 Comprehending and Apprehending Christological Glory We begin our study where new life for a Christian begins: the apprehension of Christ in gratuitous faith. New life begins when those who live in the darkness “receive” the “true light,” and “believe in his name” (Jn. 1:9, 12).3 This apprehension, if it be legitimate (cf., Jn. 2:24), must be glad.4 To sell one’s positions to buy a field wherein lies a hidden treasure out of compulsion will not do; saving faith is the joyous reception of such a treasure (Matt. 13:44).5 The object of saving faith is Jesus Christ.6 Our present interest is the nature of the subjective experience of “believing” and “receiving” Jesus—his person and his message. What is the sinner feeling in his transformation into sainthood as he clings to Christ? Of the many responses that 3 Those who “receive” and “believe” are the very ones who become the children of God, who are “born again” and who experience “eternal life:” “The prologue thus introduces us to the ‘new birth’ theme of ch.3… Those who receive the Word are identical with those who believe in his name, and they are identical with those who are born of God.” D.A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 126. Cf., Andreas J. Köstenberger and Scott R. Swain, Father, Son and Spirit: The Trinity and John’s Gospel (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2008), 81. 4 “The ‘name’ is more than a label; it is the character of the person, or even the person himself… at its best, such faith yields allegiance to the Word, trust him completely, acknowledge his claims and confesses him with gratitude. That is what it means to ‘receive’ him.” Carson, John, 125-126. Emphasis added. 5 J.C. Ryle makes the point beautifully: “We see, in this simple picture, the conduct of a true Christian explained. He is what he is, and does what he does in his religion, because he is thoroughly persuaded that it is worthwhile… He sees in Christ an endless ‘treasure;’ he sees in Christ a precious ‘pearl:’ to win Christ he will make any sacrifice. This is true faith: this is the stamp of a genuine work of the Holy Ghost.” Expository Thoughts on Matthew (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1986), 122-123. Cf., David Platt, Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary: Exalting Jesus In Matthew (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2013), 183. 6 “Faith, after all, is not belief of propositions of truth respecting the Savior, however essential an ingredient of faith such belief is. Faith is trust in a person, the person of Christ, the Son of God and Savior of the lost. It is entrustment of ourselves to him. It is not simply believing him; it is believing in him and on him.” John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955), 117. 2 can be given, “affectious delight in Jesus” is the most relevant at present. The sinner considers Jesus, in the moment of saving faith, attractive, desirable, and worthy of devotion. In a word, the sinner considers him beautiful. One figure for whom this concept was of preeminent concern is Jonathan Edwards. Few theologians in the Church’s history feature beauty in their theological system as much as Edwards.7 For Edwards, salvation occurred on account of a dialogue between divine beauty and saving faith—the objective display of divine beauty and the subjective apprehension thereof.8 Roland Delattre, identifying these two dialogical elements as beauty (objective) and sensibility (subjective), explains that they are “essentially and internally related not only as sense of beauty and object of that sense but also together constituting the more objective and more subjective aspects of what Edwards calls the ‘inherent good.’”9 Edwards specifies the enjoyment of this good arises not initially from an apprehension of God in general, rather the “first foundation” of 7 See, Michael J. McClymond and Gerald R. McDermott, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 93. Cf., Kin Yip Louie, The Beauty of the Triune God: The Theological Aesthetics of Jonathan Edwards (Eugene: Pickwick Publications, 2013), 13. 8 “Edwards’s teaching on beauty and aesthetics moved back and forth from an objective to a subjective pole... For Edwards, beauty was both objective and subjective. Beauty had an effect, and the effect was an affect (i.e., feeling). Yet Edwards balanced the objective and subjective aspects of beauty so that neither eclipsed the other.” McCymond and McDermott, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards, 99. 9 Roland Andre Delattre Beauty and Sensibility in the Thought of Jonathan Edwards: An Essay in Aesthetics and Theological Ethics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), 3. Or, in Edwards’ own words, when God imparts a “divine and supernatural light” to elicit saving faith, there “is not only a rational belief that God is holy, and that holiness is a good thing; but there is a sense of the loveliness of God’s holiness. There is not only a speculatively judging that God is gracious, but a sense how amiable God is upon that account; or a sense of the beauty of this divine attribute.” Jonathan Edwards, “A Divine and Supernatural Light” in Works of Jonathan Edwards Online, vol. 17, Sermons and Discourses, 1730-1733 (Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University 2008). 3 this delight is in Christ and “is His own beauty.”10 Edwards is saying, in other words, seeing Christ in his beauty creates saving faith. Edwards is not alone here.11 In fact, Paul seems make the very point in 2 Corinthians 4:6: “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”12 Peter Balla, commenting on this verse, explains “God creates the Christian by showing a person God’s glory on Christ’s face.”13 This verse’s context in 2 Corinthians further demonstrates the experience is soteriologically normative; it is not idiosyncratic to Paul and his Corinthian audience. This creation occurs 10 Jonathan Edwards, Works of Jonathan Edwards Online, vol.2, Writings on the Trinity, Grace, and Faith, 1740, Ed. Paul Ramsey (Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University 2008), 250. 11 Space does not allow us to give a treatment of Owen on this subject, for example. However, it would be a shame to include at least one of his meditations: “And where God shines into the heart, by that faith which is of divine operation—there, with ‘open face, we behold the glory of God, as in a glass;’ or have the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. There is not the meanest believer, but—in the real exercise of faith in Christ—hath more glorious apprehensions of God, his wisdom, goodness, and grace, of all his glorious excellencies, than the most learned and wise in the world can attain unto, in the exercise of reason on the proper objects of it.” John Owen, The Works of John Owen: Volume 1, William H. Goold, Editor (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1967), 77. 12 George H. Guthrie writes, “This light, moreover, is ‘the personal comprehension of God’s glory.’ Here we read the genitive τῆς γνώσεως (tēs gnōseōs, the knowledge) as epexegetical, meaning ‘the light, which is the personal comprehension’; and the sense of ‘knowledge’ has relational overtones, rather than mere cognative assent to God’s existence… this ‘light, which is the personal comprehension of God’s glory,’ is found ‘in the face of Christ’ (ἐν προσώπῳ Χριστοῦ, en prosōpō Christou), whom Paul has proclaimed as ‘the image of God’ (4:4).” 2 Corinthians: Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015), 245-246.
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