MAN BESOMING: RELEVANCE AT THE PRICE OP REDUCTIONV-- A Study of Gregory Baum by Peter Praamsma Submitted to The Department of Religious Studies in partial fulfilment for the M.A. Degree. The University of Ottawa October, 1973. ,^'W/O^ j LlBRAKitS q, (~y\ Peter Praamsma, Ottawa, 1974, UMI Number: EC55639 INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI UMI Microform EC55639 Copyright 2011 by ProQuest LLC All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It was Dr. James Schmeiser who in the context of a seminar on ecclesiology first introduced me to the work of Gregory Baum. Indeed, to a large extent my motivation for delving deeper into the subject is the result of his en­ couragement. Also, I gratefully acknowledge the advice and assist­ ance of Dr. Robert Choquette. Since in my circumstances his assistance came in the form of written critiques and explan­ atory letters, I wish to thank him for the extra effort which I am sure I caused. Further, I remain thankful to both the University of Waterloo and Sir Wilfred Laurier University for a policy which enabled me to use their libraries. Finally, I must express my sincere thanks to my wife, Margaret Elizabeth, for her patience, time, and effort in typing a hand-written manuscript which was not always very legible.' CURRICULUM STUDIORUM Peter Praamsma was born August 25, 1939, in Joure, The Netherlands. He received the Bachelor of Arts Degree in Philosophy from Hope College, Holland, Michigan, in 1964. He received the Bachelor of Divinity degree from McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, in 1937. The Title of his thesis was The Natural Theology of A. N. Whitehead—Its Solution to the Faith- Reason Problem and Its Significance for Christian Theology. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 Chapter I. SETTING THE STAGE 6 Baum's Theological Pilgrimage 6 The Wider Setting 9 II. TRUTH AS SALVATIONAL 1© III. BAUM'S UNETERSALISM 35 Revelation 36 The Concept "In Christ" 44 Faith 59 IV. BAUM'S TRANSCENDENTALISM 67 Baum's Phenomenology 72 Baum's Apologetic Theology 82 V. BAUM'S HERMENEUTICS 91 Basic Tenets . 91 Bracketing Off History 104 The Dominance Of A Concept Of Man 107 CONCLUSION 113 BIBLIOGRAPHY 115 INTRODUCTION Since the publication of Man Becoming Baum has written many articles on a variety of topics. Some of these articles are quite theological while others deal with contemporary social and political issues. In either case, however, I have not been able to detect a change from the position manifest in Man Becoming. True, sometimes there is an expansion in terminology. For example, in "The Bible as Norm" Baum typifies his hermeneutical position as that of a theology of the inner and outer Word: "The theology of the Inner and Outer Word encourages us to affirm that the ground of truth on which a man stands is his own deep experience of life (in which God's Word addresses him)." But here, as in "An Answer to Father Tavard," Baum underlines his conviction that "It is present Christian experience that serves as the starting point for asking questions and seeking the theological significance for Scripture and creed . ." The question as to how ". the normative action of the Bible is part of a critical and confirming interaction between the definitive witness of the past and the more tentative experience of the present . ", Baum deals with most ^•Gregory Baum, "The Bible as Norm," The Ecumenist, IX, No. 5 (1971), p. 77. o Gregory Baum, "An Answer to Father Tavard," Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Fall, 1970, p. 7 8 8. ^aum, "The Bible as Norm," p. 76. 2 explicitly in Faith and Doctrine, The Credibility of the Church Today, and, where he deals with most fundamental assumptions, Man Becoming. Hence, references to post Man Becoming writings are virtually non-existent in this study. Also, little use has been made of those who have drawn out the implications of Baum's thought for particular themes. Donald P. Gray, for instance, quite clearly sees the consequences of Baum's thought for christology: "The symbol of Incarnation when applied to Jesus should point to a very special instance of what is generally true about God's presence." But Gray also recognizes that Baum's approach ". does not begin to settle many other issues that might be raised 5 about why this human life is as open as it is." Nevertheless, Gray does not deal with the unsettled issues which, from the point of view of this study, are a critical matter. Quite definitely, the focus in my study is on Man Becoming. Apart from the introductory chapter, the theological position Baum espoused in Man Becoming is here subjected to questions raised by (a) Baum's soteriological emphasis (Chapter II), (b) Baum's universalism (Chapter III), and (c) Baum's epistemology (Chapter IV). What inspired these questions? Of what sort are they? Questions do not occur in a vacuum. Indeed, they are usually sparked by some particular position, and in my case it would be fair to say %)onald P. Gray, "The Place of Jesus in Man's Becoming," The Ecumenist, X, No. 3 (1972), p. 42. 5 that that position is one influenced by the work of Barth and Bonhoeffer. Particularly in Chapter IV Bonhoeffer's Act & Being plays an important role in my assessment of Baum. Hence, a brief ex­ planation for my appeal to Bonhoeffer is in order. In Act & Being Bonhoeffer showed that the theologies of his day were groupable into two major families, which he called theologies of act and theologies of being. Further, Bonhoeffer showed that the two types of theologies can in some way be correlated with a duality in philosophical orientation. However, as Franklin Sherman suggests ". the problem which Bonhoeffer isolated is still with us, whether represented by the same or different thinkers." Says Sherman: If we consider, for example, recent discussions concerning the nature of God, Bonhoeffer's very act and being recur in the terminology of the two chief positions, at least as articulated on the American scene. For the one, God is the God who acts; for the other, he is the ground of being. On the one hand, we have biblical theology; on the other hand, philosophical theology, .... No less a person than Tillich's long-time colleague Reinhold Niebuhr has criticized Tillich's ontological speculation, . , as inadequate to convey the biblical conception of life as a divine-human drama .... The question, thus, of how God's revelation is to be interpreted remains with us. But which direction should theology take? Should one theologize exclusively in terms of act, or exclusively in terms of being? According to Bonhoeffer's analysis both of the above 6Franklin Sherman, "Act and Being," The Place of Bonhoeffer, ed. by Martin E. Marty (New York: Association Press, 1962), p. 84. Ibid., pp. 84-85. 4 alternatives lead to abstract thought. For Bonhoeffer theology must begin with the givenness of the Church. Therefore, as Sherman points out: "Being in Adam" and "being in Christ"—these are the categories with which Bonhoeffer counters the attempted neutralism of Thomistic as well as other types of ontology (Husserl, Scheler, and Heidegger are also discussed). At the same time, these categories serve to counter the occasionalism of pure act- theology. 8 Bonhoeffer thus overcame the conflict between the subjectivism of act-theology and the false externalization of being-theology by a theosociological category: The being of revelation, as hovering between the objective and the non-objective, is "person"—the revealed person of God and the personal community of which that person is the foundation.® Generally speaking, therefore, Bonhoeffer also presents a challeng­ ing approach to overcome the conflict between what Baum refers to as "immanentism" and "extrinsicism." Fundamentally, however, the questioning that guided my study is the kind generated by the concern that theology, at least within the Christian community, is easily derailed when its decisive historical witness is jeopardized. As the title of this study indicates, there is always the danger of theological reduction which I would here loosely define as the tailoring of the Gospel to suit philosophical (metaphysical or existential-experiential) or even institutional demands. But how can one decide whether a 8Ibid., pp. 97-98. Q Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Act & Being, trans, by Bernard Noble (London: Collins, 1962), p. 133. 5 particular theology is guilty of reduction? No doubt, the concern which Baum's use of the Blondelian Shift in theological interpretation raises for me •will manifest itself most clearly in dealing with the hermeneutical question. And it is for this reason that the final chapter focuses on Baum's approach as a solution to the hermeneutical problem. Generally speaking, by the "Blondelian Shift" I mean Blondel's insistence that truth and, thus, also divine truth, must have an intrinsic relationship to life. Hence Blondel's proposal embraces the idea of an "insider-God" whose dynamic presence forbids (l) an apologetics that isolates revelation from the life situation in which it occurs, and (2) an approach to history which fails to recognize the interpretive character of a record of history by identifying the complexity of actual historical reality with such a record.