Presentation - Justin Martyr and Tertullian

The two readings assigned for today, the Dialogue with Trypho (I-IX) by Justin Martyr (100-65) and The Prescription Against Heretics (I-XII) by Tertullian (155-230) come from a troubled time in the history of the Early Church. In the face of mounting, though sporadic, persecution and diminutive accusations of being the irrational, demonstratably self-contradictory, doctrine of an “uncultured” rabble, Christians schooled in the methods and arguments of “pagan” literatures mounted a reasoned defense. These readings also belong to a rhetorical tradition in the history of Western philosophy characterized by a protreptic move that aims at showing “this” is actually “that”. Two analytically distinguished entities are synthesized in such a way that, though they appear to be mutually exclusive ~(x, ~x), they are in fact not so: (x, ~x). This move flies in the face of the logical principle of non-contradiction as it negates the negation sign, short-circuiting sound logical method--perhaps this is done in protest of its principled (dogmatic?) point of departure? No doubt Aristotle shudders in his grave at the very thought of someone entertaining such illogic. But as we have seen in a previous class, he himself utilizes this same protrepic strategy (in the Protrepticus): body and soul are analytically distinguished to show that the supposed “goods” of the body are not the “good” of the soul ~(x, ~x), but in actual fact the former are the latter (x, ~x) so long as the soul's absolute government over the body (the synthesis) is perfected.

As my assignment is to treat these two readings in detail by drawing on recent and contemporary literature, I must call on some aid from Thomas Kuhn. In his study The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), famous for establishing the term “paradigm” in common academic parlance, Kuhn contends that in a paradigm shift the assumptions about the nature of things change along with the methodological approach to the study of those same things. For reasons I have outlined in the footnote, I think a scientific paradigm is better understood as a “paradigm of truth;” namely that, to different paradigms belong differing criteria and methodological assumptions for getting at the truth about things which are informed by the things themselves.

1. Justin Martyr

A survey of the three works scholars agree were authored by Justin shows that he was familiar with at least five paradigms of truth, only one of which he was willing to own fully as his own. These were: 1) the fated existence of gods and men described by Homer in the Illiad, 2) the reasoned order of the Greek philosophers, a critique of the popular polytheism of the Greek rabble, 3) the fated rational polytheism of the Roman civitas, 4) the prophetic Jewish belief in a Creator God, and 5) the prophetic Christian belief in an Incarnate Redeemer God. By characterizing Justin's intellectual background like this, it is unavoidable that I treat the history informing these characterizations as a sort of modern barbarian-scholar, the type that goes to a library, not with spectacles and notebook in hand, but with a machete and torch. There are too many connections between--if Justin is to be believed, they all owe their inspiration to Moses--and exceptions to these paradigmatic summaries for which to account. For the sake of simplicity, however, I will swing my machete once more and apply my torch to the excess of historical detail by disregarding the first paradigm, joining the second and third under the term “philosophy,” the fourth and fifth under the term “prophecy,” and in the fifth paradigm (Justin's own) find the unity of the philosophic and the prophetic.

Justin's work continues to attract scholarly attention because of the relation he draws between the present in the human mind and the Logos-Christ. Most scholars take the slightest mention of “logos' as an indication of an effort to translate the content of biblical revelation out of a Jewish paradigm another. How this attempt at translation is understood varies. Older scholarship appears to have concluded that Justin's intentions conformed to orthodoxy, though his arguments were eclectic. (Barnard 1967) For one of these authors this meant that it was no longer necessary to take his self-identification as a philosopher at face value. (Shotwell 1965, 116) Another argues that Justin (like Calvin) adopted the term and drew the relation between the human mind and God's self-revelation in Christ as an apologetic tool to point to a universal human accountability before the Creator God. (Helleman 2002, 146) Another scholar argues that because the idea of innate universal knowledge is, in world-historical terms, unique to Greek philosophy, Justin (and Philo, the Apostle John, and all the Church Fathers) transforms a particularist Jewish perspective into a universal message on the intellectual coat-tails of the Greeks. (Thysen 2006, 133)The last example I have to offer is of a scholar who reacts against a body literature, saying, “The search for pagan elements in his concept of the Logos has all but blinded us to…[his] important contribution to the problem of Christian thought” (Edwards 1995, 262)--the problem of communication between different truth paradigms. It should be added that the second last example was quite hostile to this problem of Christian thought. The question of translation and how one understands the universality presupposed to make possible translation, then, is a contentious one, attracting attention for any number of reasons.

On my reading, Justin is a remarkably consistent thinker, despite whatever conceptual deficiency might be found in his work. His consistency finds its arche in the Apostle John's declaration, “And the Word [logos] became flesh [sarx] and lived [tabernacled] among us…” (Jn. 1:14) This allowed him to profess a philosophic atheism with Socrates at the same time as confessing faith in Christ. A reasoned criticism of the popular polytheism of the Greek rabble and the Old Testament, prophetic critique of idolatry share at least this much in common: the source of truth was singular, not plural. The Dialogue with Trypho, however, is not a dialogue with either a Greek or Roman philosopher, but rather with a Jew. Justin dialogues with Trypho as someone who knows the truth of God's creation; but who does not yet know the truth of God's self-revelation. But, having escaped from the failed revolt of the messiah-figure Simon Bar Kochba 132-5 A.D.), Trypho cannot be expected to be receptive to claims about another messiah. That philosophy addresses questions of God's “unity and providence” (I) is bound to have been attractive to a Jew, who could believe “I AM WHO I AM” had rescued his ancestors from Egypt and would find comfort in the call of the Shema, when many of the Jews had been taken in by the spurious claims of an impostor.

A representative of the prophetic paradigm, Trypho comes to Justin looking for a philosophic dialogue concerning God's unity and providence. Justin's first discourse throws into doubt the ability of a philosophic paradigm to give him what he desires. (I-II) He affirms that philosophy is “the greatest possession, and most honourable before God, to whom it leads us”, but “[w]hat philosophy is…and why it has been sent down to men [has] escaped the observation of most.” (II) The philosophic paradigm(s) had become “many-headed,” failing to reflect the unity of the One who gave it to humanity. Under the tutelage of a “Platonist,” in a manner similar to other Fathers of the Church, Justin made much progress in matters immaterial, making “the greatest improvements daily.” (II) With the advantage of hindsight, however, he confesses “such was my stupidity, I expected forthwith to look upon God.” (II)

One scholar argues, with good reason I think, that the old man in the conversion narrative fits the model of Christ looking for his one lost sheep or of Christ instructing the two unknowing disciples on the road to Emmaus after his resurrection (Lk. 24:13-35) (Hofer 2003). Unlike the biblical record which has Christ demonstrating how he fulfilled prophecies, this “Christ” uses philosophic argumentation to demonstrate its own need for fulfilment. (III) How can the mind expect to look on the Deity, if the soul remains in this body? How does the mind remember the sight of God when the soul has returned to its bodily “grave”? If the souls of animals are weighed down by the nature of their bodies, how can the human body be any different when the nature of the soul is common to all? (IV) Being in a body, can you know what a soul truly is apart from the body?

Knowing no way to maintain the analytic distinction between soul and body, Justin concedes to the old man that the soul is not immortal or unbegotten and that all souls die. (V) The soul is not the source of life itself; but rather partakes of life--or, is willed by God to live. (VI) When the soul dies, “the spirit of life is removed…it goes back to the place from whence it came.” (VI)

The conclusion of the discussion is that life is not found in the soul itself; and if the soul does have life in itself, nor can it have truth in itself. (VII) The conversation reaches an impasse as it appears to Justin then there is no hope for life to be found among mere mortals. The old man tells him of prophecy given to “certain men more ancient than all those who are esteemed philosophers… who spoke by the Divine Spirit.” (VII) The old man exhorts Justin to pray, “for these things cannot be perceived or understood by all, but only by the man to whom God and His Christ have imparted wisdom.” (VII) Immediately after the old man leaves, Justin finds his soul kindled for love of the prophets and the friends of Christ, and says, “while revolving his words in my mind, I found this philosophy alone to be safe and profitable.” (VIII)

Trypho laughs at Justin, saying that he was better off with the philosophy of Plato than to repose confidence in a man. If I may attempt to read between the lines, Trypho's experience with Bar Kochba no doubt informs his suggestion: as he would have understood it, the Platonists were still interested in the God's unity and providence. But the messianic claims of Christ, the perceived division of a person's religious convictions, were bound to provoke no small amount of skepticism. Justin excuses him and proposes to engage him, not in philosophic dialogue, but in the interpretation of biblical prophecy to demonstrate that Christ is the messiah. (IX) This marks the completion of the protreptic move made in the introduction to the Dialogue with Trypho: philosophy is not prophecy, but insofar as both their end in Christ, they are the same.

A further question, I think, should be asked: how are they the same? The opposition of a unity of the prophetic paradigm over against the many-headedness of the philosophic paradigm misses something. Two hundred years ago, Hegel asserted a dialectical unity of the movement of the Spirit through history which overshadowed any claim to a unity found in prophetic revelation, whereas today any claim that historical revelation is true because there is a unified core of meaning is bound to reap accusations of being oppressively dogmatic. On my reading, however, the contrast drawn between the unity of prophecy and the disunity of philosophy is not assessed on philosophical (metaphysical) terms. Rather, Justin assesses unity and disunity on prophetic (historical) terms. The form of his argument is similar to one put forward by Giambattista Vico in his The New Science:

1) all the histories of barbarous peoples begin with Jupiters and Herculeses, i.e. many heads,
2) the Bible has no such beginnings,
3) therefore, biblical history is true.

The reason for the comparison will not yet be entirely clear; its anthropological premises remain hidden. Vico's argumentation is taken up by G.K. Chesterton in his The Everlasting Man: “In other words, every sane sort of history must begin with man as man, a thing standing absolute and alone…This creature was truly different from all other creatures; because he was a creator as well as a creature. Nothing in that sense could be made in any other image but the image of man.” The oldest text presently available that has the human person cut such a distinctive figure against the receding, past horizon of human history is found in Genesis 1:27--the creation of humankind in the image of God. On my reading, Justin asks, Why did philosophy become many-headed? His answer is simply this: they did not know they were created in the image of God, creatures who were also creators.

There is ample evidence in the text for this sort of reading. 1) Justin agrees with the old man that the Neo-platonic understanding of traces of a divine existence living on in the soul as memories after a fall into the material body is untenable (IV)--he does not agree with Porphyry, whom we read last week. What, then, for Justin is the human mind? Where does it come from if it does not fall from divinity? 2) The place Justin accords the mind in his anthropology is that of being able to perceive the source from where the life of the soul comes. The old man convinces him that when a person dies, “the spirit of life is removed from it, and there is no more soul, but it [spirit] goes back to the place from whence it was taken.” (VI) The use of “spirit” here is comparable to Qoheleth's use of “breath”: “the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it.” (Ecc. 12:7) Qoheleth draws from the second creation narrative: “then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” (Gen. 2:7) In step with this, the old man says, “Now the soul partakes of life, since God wills it to live.” (VI) The mind [equivalent of spirit/breath], then, does not fall; rather Justin understands it to be the given image of God that distinguishes humanity from the rest of God's creatures--creatures who are also creators. 3) Justin states, “they [the philosophers] moreover attempt to persuade us that God takes care of the universe with its genera and species, but not of me and you, and each individually, since otherwise we would surely not need to pray to Him night and day.” The philosophers know there is a Creator (logos); but they know nothing of his intentions for the human person. To come to that knowledge, to know that humanity was created in the image of God, that it has the spirit of life given by God, redemptive revelation was required. 4) At the very beginning of the dialogue, Justin asks Trypho, “And in what…would you be profited by philosophy so much as by your own lawgiver and the prophets?” (I) Given the tone of the dialogue--questions about happiness and the source of the life of the soul--he may as well have asked, What “good” is philosophy to a Jew? If you recall my introduction, the question about how the “goods” of the body and the “good” of the soul relate was one that Aristotle could not answer without violating his own principle of non-contradiction. Trypho, a Jew, already knows where the life of the soul comes from--what does he have to gain from philosophers who do not know? However, Justin, the Christian, believes both philosophy and prophecy have same end in Christ: “Christ, who appeared for our sakes, became the whole rational being, both body, and reason [equivalent to breath, spirit, or mind], and soul” It follows that philosophy is useless for Trypho, unless he believes in Christ. Finally, 5) the old man asks Justin, “what do those suffer who are judged to be unworthy of this spectacle?” i.e. the rabble who are incapable of the Platonic vision of God? Justin answers, “They are imprisoned in the bodies of certain wild beasts” before conceding that the Platonists are wrong. The unity of philosophy and prophecy in Christ, however, provides a rational whose access is not restricted to a philosophic elite, but is for all humanity, i.e. all who are created in the image of God. Hence Justin concludes, “I found this philosophy alone to be safe and profitable.” What can be more reasonable than to admit than that all human beings, even the rabble, are rational beings--soul, reason, body--beings who think for themselves? As the Dialogue concludes,

I can wish no better thing for you, sirs [Trypho and his Jewish friends], than this, that, recognizing in this way that intelligence is given to every man, you may be of the same opinion as ourselves, and believe that Jesus is the Christ of God. (CXLII)

2. Tertullian

With the advantage of hindsight, it is ironic to note that The Prescription Against Heretics was written by someone who is regarded by Christian orthodoxy, conceived of in very broad and generous terms, to have joined himself to a heretical movement. The irony only grows larger: after parting with the established Church to join the Montanist movement--and possibly after he broke with the Montanists to start his own Tertullianist movement--he would coin the hallmark formula of Christian orthodoxy, that God was “one substance and three persons.”

All the necessary ingredients for the protreptic move made by Tertullian are already found in chapter I: heresies are not faithful belief, but insofar as “their final cause, is, by affording a trial of faith, to give it also the opportunity of being 'approved,'” (I) the former is the latter because heresy finds its raison d'etre alone in faithful belief. “What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the Academy and the Church?” (VII) The usual answer put in Tertullian's mouth is a resounding nothing. These are posed as rhetorical questions, however, and left unanswered. A more careful reading of the text, I think, will yield a double-answer: insofar as Athens finds its end in Jerusalem, everything and nothing. To search for the Truth found in Jerusalem by way of Athens is not problematic in itself, but one risks loosing one's eternal inheritance if one tarries too long in the Academy. In Tertullian's usage, the Academy may as well stand for the Empty Grave: the rationality (logos) you seek is not here, He is risen. When what is being sought is found, Tertullian prescribes to his readers the remedy of seizing hold by believing in that which has been found. (IX) Tertullian will say, “No one is wise, no one is faithful, no one excels in dignity, but the Christian; and no one is a Christian but he who perseveres to the end.” (III)

The discussion surrounding Tertullian in the secondary sources hinges on the basic question I introduced with Justin: how does Tertullian relate the philosophic and prophetic truth paradigms? (E.g. Sider 1971, Ayers 1979) One scholar examines a unity of the universal mind of divinity and the particularity of the natural will in the doctrine of the Incarnation, as it formulated by Tertullian. This he argues serves as a theological foundation for his understanding of the soul as having a problematic unmediated knowledge of God. (House 1988, 36) Another scholar protests against misquotations of Tertullian for the purpose of anathematizing Christianity, pointing out that the statement “it is…to be believed, because it is absurd” cannot be accused of being a reductio ad absurdum since Tertullian makes no attempt to derive the category belief from any a set of given premises; rather, belief is his non-rational point of departure. (Siemens 2003, 564) Responding the charge of Tertullian's so-called “fideism,” another scholar argues that this is highly improbable given the vigor of his mode of argumentation: he made fun of the dialectical method, but made ample use of it himself--the difference with his appropriation of dialectic being that “[t]he final perfection of Christ solves each confrontation which Tertullian presents.” (Osborn 1997, 46) There is, then, what appears to be a shift in recent scholarship towards a reassessment of the supposed absolute divide Tertullian draws between philosophy and prophecy, though some parties remain unconvinced.

With Tertullian, I want to pose the same question I posed with Justin: how does he arrive at the conclusion that philosophy and prophecy are the same thing? At the end of my discussion of Justin, I posed the question, What can be more reasonable than to admit that all human beings, even the rabble, are rational beings--beings who think for themselves? There is at once a sort of sheer obviousness and a seeming conceptual relativism implied that prompts us to answer: So? So what? How does this help us understand the world? Tertullian, I want to argue, provides a Late Antique counter-position: Justin had found a safe and profitable philosophy--and he rests in it comfortably--but Tertullian explores the already-present implication that in itself this philosophy does not give life--rather, the One who gives this philosophy is also the One who gives life. This belief had to be fought for.

Tertullian does not address himself to philosophers, nor primarily to those he labels heretics, but to believers in the faith: the work is called, after all, The Prescription Against Heretics. “Unhappy Aristotle!” he says, “who invented for these men dialectics, the art of building up and pulling down; an art so evasive in its propositions, so far-fetched in its conjectures, so harsh, in its arguments, so productive of contentions--”. Recall from my introduction that Aristotle was unable to relate the goods of the body to the good of the soul without violating the principle of non-contradiction. On Tertullian's terms, Aristotle was unhappy; the analytic distinction he drew between soul and body did account for the good of the whole rational person--body, reason, soul. (A Treatise On the Soul) Aristotle, a rational person, did not think to include an account of the rational person in his natural philosophy. But Tertullian is not concerned with Aristotle; rather with heretics who use Aristotle's dialectical method to delve the mysteries of true belief. (VII) Heresy involves a conscious choice on the part of the rational person, the exercise of a free will. “For this reason it is that he [Paul] calls the heretic self-condemned, because he has himself chosen that for which he is condemned.” (VI) Thus on my reading, Tertullian's charge against those he labels heretics is that they distort the message of Christ's redemption of the whole rational person; and he points out that they condemn themselves in the process because they remain whole rational persons in need of Christ's redemption.

Tertullian's explication of the meaning of the text, “Seek, and ye shall find,” is made in a prophetic (historical) mode of argument; his presentation of the subject matter in terms of historical dispensations of God's revelation. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob knew the promise of God's redemption of the entire rational person--but “the Gentiles know nothing either of Him or of any of His promises” (VIII). Now the situation has been reversed: the Jews still cling to the old covenant which has been fulfilled in Christ, who opens it up to the Gentiles. Tertullian finds himself the inheritor of a long history of God's redemptive activities. He lets it be granted that “Seek, and ye shall find” is addressed universally to humanity. What the Jews had for so long sought, as an example to all humanity, could now be found in God's self-revelation in Christ:

There is some one, and therefore definite, thing taught by Christ, which the Gentiles are by all means bound to believe, and for that purpose to “seek,” in order that they may be able, when they have “found it, to believe. However, there can be no indefinite seeking for that which has been taught as one only definite thing. You must “seek” until you “find,” and believe when you have found…(IX)

Tertullian defends this formula as being in accord with “the rule of reason.” (IX) When seeking the good of the whole rational person, if one finds what is sought, one must stop seeking and believe: there is nothing beyond. If that good is found, why seek to go beyond what is found? (XI) If God has revealed himself in Christ, why try to go beyond that revelation by applying to the unity of divinity and humanity in person of Christ the method of dialectic? Thus the category of a belief in a source of the good functions as a limiting concept for Tertullian. (X) And for him, there is only one source of the good: the Word (logos) become flesh sarx). Hence these strong words: “If I thus desert my faith, I am found to be a denier thereof.” (XI)

The structure of a person's belief leads Tertullian into what appears to be a vicious cyclical argument: if a person seeks and finds belief in Christ, but then abandons that belief, he concludes they never actually sought it in the first place. (XI) Tertullian does provide, I think, a good reason for his determination to remain within this vicious circle rather than follow the indefinite seeking of those he labels heretics:

You, as a man, know any other man from the outside appearance. You think as you see. And you see as far only as you have eyes. But says (the Scripture), 'the eyes of the Lord are lofty.' 'Man looketh at the outward appearance, but God looketh at the heart. (III)

What is more “reasonable” than to maintain that you do not know with any rational certainty the most basic motivations of the human heart, how another person lives and moves and has their being, that they are as you are, creatures who are also creators?

Knowledge and Civilization (2004) by Barry Allen

Chapter 7; "Civilizing Knowledge"


Richard Greydanus

My Papers



Allen’s project seems to encompass both a critique of knowledge and a critique of culture/civilization; but I find it difficult to discern the direction of his critique. Is he coming or is he going—to cities, that is? Where Allen wants to end up—the what ought to be—is not always clear.



A. Quotations.



The way things were:



1. “The original urbanity, of which every urban tradition is a variation, is defined by tolerance not only of other religions or races but of idiosyncrasy and individuality as well.” (236)



2. “[The hopes of the pre-urban farmer] are not the cheerfulness, the hopefulness, that a future quite different from the present is largely up to your effort, which first appears in human culture with cities.” (240)



The way things are:



3. “Cities are big parasites, major ecological strains on their environment.” (235)



4. “In the city people can indulge in belief; it is one of the pleasures of the city. Against an unsettling, urban-induced consciousness of vulnerability and ignorance, belief displaces mystery with conviction in the absence of knowledge.” (255)



5. “We have never felt so much at home since we started living in cities, and this feeling, an optimism both secular and realistic, is the quality that has always made cities preferable.” (241)



The way things ought to be:



6. “To make cities not only livable but preferable and at the same time not viciously parasitic is the great unacknowledged challenge to civilization, to human existence, in our time.” (257)



B. A Question of Normativity.



It seems that Allen objects to a normative definition of civilization, one which would see a particular form of civilization as normative for the rest of humanity. Such a normative assumption made by Auguste Comte et al enshrined a teleological understanding of that particular civilization’s unyielding progress through history towards its final Hegelian realization—which is, he believes, to understand civilization as “ethically indifferent.” (218) In protest, he distinguishes between culture and civilization, associating cities with the later; and, as he understands it, the later need not follow the former out of any immanent necessity. (218-9, 221, 7) Allen retains a curtailed notion of progress in his notion of “superlative artifactual performance.” He divests progress of its teleological inevitability, recasting in terms of the exception to the general rule, a product of free human action.[1] Truly this redefinition shows ethical concern, no?

Now I stand with Allen insofar as he critiques Comte et al. for according a normative status to a particular form of civilization; and I do so insofar as he differentiates between culture and civilization.[2] Nevertheless, Allen too quickly jumps from a critique of belief plus into the flow of history. The line of criticism I follow here draws on a distinction made by Ernst Cassirer between a critique of knowledge and a critique of culture/civilization as it develops through history. Cassirer’s basic point is that the two aren’t the same thing. Allen fails to make this distinction when he discusses “the urbanization of knowledge” (246), i.e. the embodiment of knowledge by culture/civilization. By his own admittance, he critiques a particular way of human “knowing” about the world, an epistemological position, not a way human “being” in the world. But the latter, not the former, encompasses what it is to be “cultured” or “civilized”. Let me illustrate what I believe the implications for his failing to do so are via an engagement with Allen’s treatment of history.



C. The Genesis of Civilization.



How is it possible for Allen to maintain that cities are both parasitic and a source of hope for the future? (See quote 3 & 5) If I have followed his reasoning correctly, Allen believes cities built on knowledge plus beliefs, or cities in which a formally articulated set of beliefs have been enshrined in some social institution like a temple, church, or government, are necessarily parasitic. (See quote 4.) Presumably, because cities are so much a part of who we are now, he would opt for cities built exclusively on knowledge. These will be overflowing with secular plurality—the milk—and an unarticulated feeling of hope—the honey—as he believes was Jerico (the biblical Jericho). (230, 238-9; see quotes 1 & 2.) Allen’s use of the term “secular” as the near equivalent of “unarticulated belief,” I argue, betrays a misunderstanding of his subject matter. Understood as pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps, or doing it on our own without the aid of some (g/G)od (see quote #2), “secular” is an meaningless term prior to 18th century modern Europe. Living on the margins of ancient Mesopotamian society does not imply living a secular existence—at least not by the standards Allen would want to invoke. Positing a plurality of religious beliefs in Ancient Mesopotamia is also a misunderstanding (see quote 1); here Allen appears unaware that polytheism bears little in common to modern secularism. Was there idiosyncrasy? Certainly. But individuality? Most historians, however, will place the genesis of a modern consciousness of the individual self—i.e., the one Allen is working with—in a monotheistic context: belief in an absolutely transcendent Creator God, who is also a personal God, reflects and reinforces a human sense of the self, and vice versa.



D. The Center of Community.



Twice Allen refers to medieval monasteries and abbey as withdrawals from civilization, but nonetheless urban artifacts. (218, 227) Monasteries may be viewed as counter- or supra-civilizational; but one is left to explain why, where there had been monasteries scattered through the European wilderness at the beginning of the medieval period, there were monasteries or churches surrounded by cities at the end. The very same mechanical and technical knowledge Allen accuses the monks of despising was first cultivated in monasteries. (242-3) Modern European urbanism has its roots in and grows up around the medieval monastic enterprise. Prior to modern European civilization, the cultivation of practical knowledge for life in this world is undertaken by a humanity that acknowledges some form of dependence on, subordination to, or cooperation with a divine world order. It is the same for medieval Paris as it is for Ur of the Chaldees: temples, monasteries, and churches were an integral part of pre-modern culture. (This goes a long way towards explaining why buildings dedicated to the worship of the divine find themselves at the center of pre-modern cities.) Allen’s critique of knowledge plus belief lends him toward making a one-sided critique of the role of religious institutions in human life as instruments of oppression. (234, 54-6) In his words, urban culture is tolerant (235); urban civilization, however, is the home of authority, hierarchy, and temple-based religion. (234) But this is to misunderstand the central role played by religion prior to modern Europe in creating amongst people “a collective capacity to live in the shelter cities weave of artifacts and socially complementary action.” (256) Underneath this capacity, which Allen mistakenly assigned to cities, hides a very modern penchant to divide human life into sacred and secular realms. But this too is meaningless prior to 18th century modern Europe.



E. Hope in a Future Better than the Past?



Allen locates the genesis of a “secular and realistic” (see quote #6, also 239) hope in the future better than the past with the genesis of civilization (see quote #2); or, more to the point, with the genesis of cities. “Hope in the future,” however, denotes some consciousness of historical distance, destination and the germs, at least, of a linear as opposed to an exclusively cyclical conception of the historical process. No doubt “[t]he first cities offered a new matrix for knowledge.” (229) But Ancient Mesopotamia, the birthplace of the urban civilization, was dominated by cyclical understandings of history. Allen’s notion of “hope in the future” is funded by the quickly dwindling supply of spiritual capital of some potentially linear understanding of a divine rescue from or a divine intrusion into the course of human history, or both. Unfortunately, Allen has rejected nsotion of divinity entirely. I would prefer to locate the seeds of the hope in the future, which is not as Allen says a farmer’s hope for rain or a hope for the recovery of a sick child (240), not in cities but in a movement away from cities—in the historical origins of the Judeo-Christian tradition. In Genesis 12:1, we read, “The LORD had said to Abram, ‘Leave your country [Ur of the Chaldees], your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.’” So Abraham became a nomadic herdsman; and the third generation of his descendents would settle as farmers in Egypt.



F. Immanent Historiographical Criticism: Sustainable Urbanism.



To this point it may seem that I have missed the purpose of Allen critique. He says, “Sustainable urbanism is not in our genes.” (257) Why? Because we are given to adding belief to knowledge, the origins of which he traces to the dawn of urban settlement in the ancient world. There is an incongruity in his narrative, however, between the origins of this epistemological problem and the origins of the contemporary urban problems he wants to address. These problems are: 1) a 19th century growth of anti-urban capital-intensive industries (243); 2) modern urban planning (244); 3) the creation of an urban countryside—or suburbia (244); 4) rapid urbanization driven by globalization (245); and 5) a loss of a connection to the soil due to the automobile. (241) These contemporary problems that Allen wants to address find their roots in the modern world, in the last two centuries, not in the pre-modern world. By critiquing what he sees as the pre-modern origins of knowledge plus belief, Allen is a typical (post)modernist shirking responsibility for what is a (post)modern problem. We are still told to create a future better than the present “largely by our own effort.” Allen might better locate the problem of contemporary urbanity, not in a failure to differentiate between knowledge and belief, but rather in his own modernist presuppositions of human autonomy and godlessness.

Within Allen’s evolutionary historical narrative, that these urban problems have only shown themselves in the last two centuries presents no real difficulty. He argues that humanity at some point in its early history chose to articulate sets of beliefs; and that humanity can choose to abandon them. It only seems natural that it would have taken awhile (at least 5000 years) for the deleterious effects to show themselves. His argument, however, does run into difficulties when one considers that on Allen’s own terms it is virtually impossible to distinguish between the rise of articulated belief systems and the rise of cities. The historical evidence his case for a return to pristine urbanity constructed solely on knowledge is based on an extremely narrow window of possibility presented by the “cities” of Jerico and Çatal Hüyük. (234, 38-9) But even he appears aware of the tentative nature of the idealistic light which he shines on them.

The father of sociology, Auguste Comte, thought his application of the tenets of the natural sciences to the study of society would replace theology. Contra Allen’s claim, Comte was motivated by an ethical concern, namely, he thought his new science would bring an end to religious warfare and usher in an era of peace. Comte held an early variant of historical materialism, which reduces humanity to complex of natural processes. The study of pre-history (pre-urban history) presently is one of the last major holdouts of that general historical materialist bent. In part, this is due to the materials with which historians have to work: no textual evidence survives, only material artifacts. Allen’s historical narrative places a high value on the fact that pre-urban cultures possessed no written articulations of their beliefs. (254) But this, I argue, leads him to misunderstand the nature of human belief; and this leads him to buy into Comte’s historical materialism.[3] Thus if Comte’s understanding of civilization is ethically indifferent (on Allen’s terms), then so must be Allen’s (on his own terms): for neither can he see the human person, that “superlative artifactual performer,” as an agent ethically responsible for their own actions. It is worth musing, I think, about whether Allen might be better situated in civilization rather than among its discontents.

For failing to distinguish between a critique of knowledge and a critique of culture/civilization, I suspect Cassirer would accuse Allen of dehumanizing his subjects and promoting a vision of a “culture of death.” Allen wants us to take an ethical responsibility for bettering our urban civilization; but the sole basis of his perspective rests on a theoretical understanding of human nature which is intrinsically non-ethical. Can he fault me if I do not perform superlatively on the terms he sets out? If I am what I am, a non-ethical being, then I need not act ethically—indeed, by definition, I cannot.

The good and the bad of urban civilization cannot simply be equated with some epistemological position. This I would contend is Allen’s shortcoming; this is also why his treatment of world history is extremely anachronistic. The theoretical problems attending his most basic assumptions would distort any solution Allen might offer to address the contemporary urban crisis. Perhaps it is to his credit, then, that he understands himself as merely posing some hard questions and not offering anything remotely like a solution—nor, in my estimation, hope in a better future.



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[1] But even doesn’t conform exactly to what Allen says. Note on page 245, where he says, “the existential conditions under which [knowledge is produced] have irreversibly changed.”

[2] Such a differentiation is not as novel as Allen would like to think; the Roman Catholic historian and sociologist Christopher Dawson proposed the same in his book The Age of the Gods (1938)

[3] Allen is not a historian. Nevertheless, he thinks himself able to theorize about the nature of pre-urban religion. The author of The Rise of the West (1963), William H. McNiell, shares Allen’s evolutionary narrative and also draws Allen’s distinction between culture and civilization. McNiell, however, is much more reticent to speak about pre-urban religion: “Nor does the fact that almost no traces of Mesolithic [c. 8000-4500 B.C.] religious life survive imply that religion ceased to occupy men’s minds, or ever that older religious traditions had been forgotten. We must simply rest in ignorance.” (10)

Response to Show Them No Mercy (2003)

Richard Greydanus


My Papers

Why is all this attention given to the obscure origins, in a military consolidation of a rather small tract of land, of an equally obscure Semitic tribal people? Nothing cosmopolitan that would suggest relevance for our contemporary world is immediately suggested by the establishment of the Hebrew people in Canaan. At the other foundation of the Western canon, by comparison, Homer’s Iliad, with its indiscriminate divine sanction of glorying in conflict for the sake of conflict, would seem at first a better candidate for such a discussion of the ethical as universally applicable. Is it not generally claimed that Classical Greek culture possessed an indiscriminately cosmopolitan impulse from its initial formation? That which motivates the conversation in Show Them No Mercy (2003) is the Hebrew claim to possess a discriminating divine sanction (and the perhaps notion of divine sanction, as such) to engage in genocide—and how one reconciles that divinely sanctioned violence with a contemporary Christian ethic. Each of the authors is forced to navigate the tension between an insular Hebrew outlook versus an universal Christian outlook that manifests itself within the Judeo-Christian tradition.

In his case for radical discontinuity between the Old and New Testaments, C.S. Cowles, more than any of the other authors, attempts to address this tension directly with a reflection on the person of Jesus Christ. He asks, “How can we harmonize the warrior God of Israel with the God of love incarnate in Jesus?” (14) The solution Cowles proposes begins by throwing into question the “inerrancy and infallibility of all Scripture.” (15) Important for him is the distinction the Apostle Paul draws between the old and new covenants. (19) God’s revelation of himself as Love in Christ, further, allows him to “dim” the lights on the will of God for human life. (19) This earns him the inglorious accusation of relegating “the Old Testament to a Marcion-like obsolescence” (51) from Eugene H. Merill. Cowles’ inversion of John Calvin’s understanding of progressive revelation into a “progressive understanding of God’s self-disclosure” (38) provides a key to understanding his radical anthropocentrism/Christocentrism. He has resolved to know only Christ as the God of Love, and him crucified; the divine content of any offending biblical passages is thus thrown into question.

Eugene H. Merrill’s case for moderate discontinuity between the Old and New Testaments proposes to understand the divinely sanctioned violence against the Canaanites as falling under the rubric “the Yahweh war,” which is limited in its scope to Old Testament times. (84) Its institution served a particular end: “Yahweh war was necessary to Israel’s escape from Egypt, and it will be necessary to her conquest and settlement of Canaan.” (77) Drawing on the work of Gerhard von Rad, he identifies particular characteristics belonging to the “Yahweh war-ideology.” (69) Numerous concrete instances of the ideology’s exercise may be found in the Old Testament; however, Merrill considers it “significant that Jesus makes no reference…to anything resembling Old Testament Yahweh war”. (89) Similarly, he points out that whenever Christians are said to be engaged in battle, it occurs on a spiritual plane. (90) In conclusion, Merill explores two possible Christian responses, pacifism and “just war.” The later, he concludes, cannot be justified with an appeal to the text of the Old Testament. (92)

Daniel L. Gard builds his case for eschatological continuity between the Old and New Testaments around the displacement of Yahweh warfare to the eschatological conclusion of history with the coming of Christ. (136) He begins, however, by pointing out that a claim to divine sanction was not unique to Israel, but in fact was made by other nations like Moab as well. (116-7) Moving back and forth biblical scholarship and historical scholarship, Gard highlights the uniqueness of the Hebrew convenantal relation to their God. Examples are drawn to show that God, on occasion, fought against the Hebrews. “[T]here remained for Judah a hope for the future; Akkad, by contrast, was destroyed without such hope.” (122) “For Israel, the warfare of Yahweh against his own people was never to destroy utterly, but to chasten and restore.” (123) Further, he identifies to unifying motifs interwoven into biblical warfare narratives: “of Yahweh fighting alone and Yahweh fighting in conjunction with the people.” (126) His presentation of the biblical and historical material serves to underscore the centrality of the particular purposes of God for understanding the Canaanite genocide. The constitution of Israel as the people of God and the Church as the people of God are differentiated. The later had no geographical or political boundaries (138); divinely sanctioned violence, therefore, has no place in the history of God’s people after the coming of Christ. In conclusion, he affirms with Saint Augustine the place for just war in a Christian society. (138)

The final case, one for a spiritual continuity between the Old and New Testament, is made by Trevor Longman III, who traces a progressive transformation of the meaning of divinely sanctioned violence through five different phases. The Canaanite genocide belongs to the first; important here, as it will be through the other four phases, is the presence of the Lord and the sacred character of the conflict. (164) The second phase addresses Israel’s disobedience, thus the Lord’s absence, and the consequential defeat of Israel in battle. (178) The third phase anticipates the future coming of Christ as a warrior in the prophetic biblical books. (179) The fourth phase describes Christ’s transformation of the meaning of divine warfare: “No longer is the battle a physical battle against flesh-and-blood enemies, but rather it is directed towards the spiritual powers and authorities.” (180). Phase five, the final phase, anticipates final completion of Christ’s victory over sin and death on the cross and end of any and all forms of warfare. (182) “The war against the Canaanites was simply an earlier phase of the battle that comes to its climax on the cross and its completion at the final judgement.” (185) In the biblical narrative, this movement through phases Longman describes as a movement from Canaan to Satan, (183) which may be characterized as a deepening spiritual meaning and an expansion concrete historical meaning.

Where the merits to each of these approaches can be found is quickly summarized: Cowles’ radical anthropocentrism/Christocentrism; Merrill’s careful examination of Yahweh war; Gard’s explication of the eschatological character of the Israelite identity; and Longman’s progressive unfolding of meaning of the spiritual meaning of divinely sanctioned warfare. I find Merrill’s approach particularly challenging; for he is able to answer questions the other three contributors are not. Merrill and Gard both appeal to the Christian tradition of just way theory; but they distinguish between just war and God’s sanctioning of the Canaanite genocide. Longman leaves the question of a faithful Christian response alone completely. But whose justice does just war theory ground itself in? Is it not God’s justice? That is to say, Christ’s justice—from a Christian perspective? And if it is God’s justice to whom just war theory appeals, do we not today implicitly, at least, claim the same divine sanction the Hebrew people did (even if we do not envision ourselves using just war theory to sanction genocide)? The character of the conflict is not at issue here. Rather, what is at issue is the presence of a divine sanction—the same divine sanction claimed by terrorists on September 11, 2001. My own approach to the problematic of divine sanction is to attempt a radically anthropocentric/Christocentric reflection on what it means for God to enter concretely into the course of human history at specific places and times that demonstrates the spiritual continuity between the testaments. Reflecting on such unique exercises of redemptive “grace” in “nature,” here defined as the creation distorted by human sinfulness that is the stage on which human history is set, appears justified given, for example, God’s choosing of Israel out from among the nations and his manifestation of himself in Jesus Christ, both exceptions from the historical norm.

Christian ethics with its attendant questions of justice and mercy, paradoxical though it may seem, grounds itself in one way or another in the Old Testament experience of the Hebrews, as Christianity is itself grounded. Careful thought must be given to how Christians today should distance themselves from the more difficult passages of the Old Testament. The Hebrew claim of divine sanction for the Canaanite genocide can be understood as a manifestation of the same divinely sanctioned justice—the same God—that just war theory appeals to if one considers that with Christ’s coming God’s people are given a new constitution by which to direct their lives. No longer called out from among the nations to preserve a sanctuary of hope as were the Hebrews, the Church is called out from among the nations only to return bearing the Gospel of hope in Jesus Christ. The promise of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Acts 1:8 signals the transition between two epochs. If we distance ourselves from the Canaanite genocide, but want to preserve that spiritual continuity, it should be maintained that with Christ the mission of God’s people in a fallen world changes.

But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.

Gal. 4:4-5

Response to Karl Rahner’s “Interpretation of Vatican II”

Richard Greydanus


My Papers

Traditionally Reformed (Calvinist) students have been taught that the principle divergence between Protestant and Roman Catholic understandings of the Christian faith has been over the conception of spiritual authority. On the side of the former, the Scriptures stand alone; while on the side of the later, the Scriptures are joined by Holy Tradition and the Magestrium. The comparison serves to underline a basic point of Protestant polemic: that by augmenting the spiritual authority of the Scriptures with other sources, Roman Catholics have diluted the Scriptures’ essential meaning, that is, their spiritual authority. Such is anathema. Words drawn from the concluding paragraph of John’s Revelation, in such an understanding, apply to the whole biblical canon: “I warn everyone who hears the words of prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.” (Rev. 22:18-9) The 20th century, however, has seen a marked softening of the Protestant tradition of protest against the Roman Catholic Church. So much so, in fact, that a leading North American Evangelical historian, Mark Noll, in a recent book asked, Is the Reformation Over? (2005) This softening of attitudes, I would argue has a great deal to do with the Protestant rediscovery of tradition and its importance, particularly in shaping the interpretation of the Scriptures. In the context of this brief reflection, I would pose this question: Has Karl Rahner forgotten the importance of tradition?

Summarized briefly, Rahner proposes to discuss “a fundamental theological interpretation of the Second Vatican Council,” grounded in the conviction that “[t]he meaning and nature of events…have genuine existential significance” which transcends that which is merely given to the human consciousness. “[I]ts precise goal is to describe the history of the Church’s essence” (716) and it yields the conclusion that “the Second Vatican Council is, in a rudimentary form still groping for identity, the Church’s first official self-actualization as a world Church.” (717) To give a broad demonstration his thesis, parallels are drawn between that of Vatican II and the transition between Jewish and Gentile Christianity. (Note here especially Acts 11:1-18 which records the Apostle Paul’s justification his missionary activities among the Gentiles and Acts 15:1-30 which addresses the issue of whether Jewish circumcision, and more generally, the entire Mosiac law, would be observed among communities of Gentile Christians.) Further, Rahner’s argues that “today we are experiencing a break such as occurred only once before, that is, in the transition from Jewish to Gentile Christianity.” (723) In his telling, the Church finds itself on the cusp of a new era; and the Church must be ready, as it was in the days of the Apostles, to make the hard decisions required to make the necessary transition. My reading of Rahner would see him as wanting to do away with an inconvenient history enshrined in tradition. But if tradition goes, what happens to the Church, which is, of necessity, a tradition-ed thing?

An illustrative, though rhetorical, question will be asked to open my critical engagement with Rahner: Can an essence of have history? That is, if something is deemed essential, is it not, strictly speaking, beyond history? Rahner has an answer: “It is, of course, already open to misunderstanding, inasmuch as the Church was always a world Church ‘in potency’”. (717) And, inasmuch as Rahner anticipated the question, it is necessary to admit that I believe Rahner is onto something important, namely that it is necessary for the contemporary Church to redefine the nature of the mission it received from its immediate forbearers. Nevertheless, I wonder whether Kantian, rather than Aristotelian/Thomistic, categories might better serve to understand the contemporary situation: Is it that the essence of the Church has finally actualized itself as a world Church? or is it that the Church has entered into a new era in history in which that which the Church is in itself must be reappropriated, i.e. enculturated, for us? If Aristotle can be used by Christians to convey deep spiritual meaning, why not Kant?

In my limited capacity as an outsider, and as a Protestant, I should make my appreciation for Vatican II’s articulation of a stance of openness towards the religious “Other,” be they Reformed, Lutheran, Evangelical, or even Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, or other. I wonder, however, at that sort of “openness” Rahner is calling for. Two conceptual tensions, for instance, which may be discerned in the article reveal something of Rahner’s “guiding” intent for penning this article. Frequent mention is made of 1) the aforementioned Church as world Church in potency versus Church as world Church in actuality, albeit vague and undefined; and 2) the Church’s essence versus the its necessary historical-situatedness, or inculturation. In regards to the later, Rahner appears to want to honour the historically situated character of his own articulation of the meaningful content of that essence. He says towards the end of the article, “no one can correctly predict the secular future to which the Church must do justice in the new interpretation of her faith and of her essence as world Church.” (724) But he nevertheless seems to be more interested in speculating about historical discontinuities with the old Western epoch—and with tradition—than with continuities. The Western Church’s missionary endeavors are subjected to wholesale criticism for being vehicles merely for the export of Western culture; their lack of success among the other world religions blamed for their failure to be sensitive to local conditions—as if culture was the only barrier to Christianization. (726) (Might not Buddhism, Hinduism, or Islam stand on their own two feet precisely because they possess the same strengths as religions that Christianity does? In my mind, at least, the jury is still out on the purported failure of the Western missionary enterprise.) A vague reference to “Christ, the Risen One” is made. (724) But we look in vain for an appeal to a common Christian history or tradition: the few remote references to the Holy See all tend in a negative direction— no doubt Rahner was soured by his experience had heavy-handed popes. Pluralism of religious discourse, confession, and theology (as if such did not already exist both inside and outside the Western Church) is promoted. Rahner goes so far as to say they will be “incommensurable” with one another. As it is used in the contemporary academy, the term is very clumsy. This is made worse by Rahner’s use of the awkwardly drawn distinction between incommunicability and incommensurability. (725) If, by balancing the later off with the former, by claiming the later does not necessarily imply the former, Rahner wants to address some epistemic difficultly, he seems unaware that the former opens the door again for a discussion of historic continuity, i.e. a communicable tradition. His entire argument, however, appears directed against the notion of tradition. Given his predominantly Roman Catholic readership, the question whether Rome should remain the seat of the Holy See is wisely not addressed directly. Even so, what is Rome but the traditional center of Roman Catholicism?

Perhaps the Rahner’s article should merely be read as a provocation. Yet, even if this is the case, the overall tendency of his argument away from reception and preservation of tradition renders in my mind problematic the sort of openness for which he appeals. It could, in fact, be characterized as an argument for everything but tradition—and, if only implicitly, everything that is carried along by tradition. At this point, the question of rather the sort of tradition I am appealing to here is simply a variant of conservatism could be raised. No doubt, it is possible appeals to tradition could slide into conservatism; but I would argue that ignoring one’s tradition just opens up to the problem of rootlessness and the loss of a sense of self-identity. If the Church is to become a world Church, in Rahner’s terms, should it not be done through a reappropriation, indeed a reinterpretation, of her tradition in the plural context of a the new global culture.

The principle criteria Rahner employs to justify his claim that Vatican II marks the Church’s “first official self-actualization as a world Church” is the participation of a healthy contingent of non-European bishops in the council’s proceedings. It seems that Rahner is principally interested in everything but Europe. Is the traditional home of Roman Catholicism deadwood in his argument? Does Europe not belong within the world Church? The initial glimmers of the emergence of Rahner’s world Church, I prefer to locate with the release of Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891). Leo has been credited for bringing the Roman Catholic Church into the modern age for turning the Roman Catholic Church’s attention to the troubled social environment of Europe caught between the forces of capitalism and socialism. The encyclical was significant for conceptually overcoming the much criticized modern paradigm of missions, understood as a movement from the West to the Rest, by transforming a long-neglected Europe into a missionfield. Thus the Church’s missionfield was redefined as wherever the Church was and wherever the Church had yet to go; in effect, the world as God’s world is the missionfield, missio Dei. (This is a play on Bernard Lonergan’s definition of “being,” as such, and his proof of God from intelligibility.) I would argue that it is here the Roman Catholic Church began its difficult struggle to acclimatize itself to a modern, and indeed an increasingly plural, cultural context.

A traditional Jewish delineation between Jew and Gentile designated whoever was not Jewish, past, present, and future, to be Gentile. The transition between Jewish and Gentile Christianity, which Rahner identifies as the transition between the first and second epoch of Christianity history, is in my mind the best place to locate an actualization of the Roman Catholic Church as a world Church, or an actualization of the Roman Catholic Church as the Church for the world—or any church for that matter. Both historic continuity and discontinuity may be found here. The racially defined boundaries of the people of God were burst. At the same time, a line of historic continuity may be drawn through Christ’s command to “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation” (Mark 18:15) to Yahweh’s promise to Abraham, “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you…and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:2-3) Rahner’s claim that the Church first actualized itself as a world church at Vatican II, I would prefer to understand as the Church reclaiming its original mission.

Now, all the critique aside, much of what Rahner has to appeals to a base level Protestant common sense. His endorsement of a concilar model of church governance, a hope no doubt of rekindling of the failed 14th and 15th century Conciliar reform movement that appeared just prior to the Reformation, is a step in the direction towards a Protestant congregationist model. Without wanting to presume too much, it could also be argued here that Rahner’s (naïve) endorsement of a plurality of “incommensurable” religious discourses is an implicit endorsement of the Protestant congregationalist model. Would formally independent indigenous churches not stand a better chance of being successfully enculturated than ones affiliated with the Roman Curia? I do not propose to answer this question with the obvious Protestant affirmative. Better, I think, is the ambiguous yes and no: for the pros and cons must be weighed carefully. What does your tradition, your history, tell you?

The earlier distinction drawn between the Aristotelian/Thomistic categories essence and potency and the Kantian thing-in-itself and thing-for-us produces a false dilemma. That which is the potency of the Church Universal, the Body of Christ-for-us remains, as Rahner says, “a finally hidden instinct of the Spirit and of grace that remain mysterious—even though the element of reflection borne along with the action [of enculturation] should certainly not be disregarded or considered superfluous.” (723) The Church-in-itself, its essential identity as reestablished Kingdom of our Lord, awaits its final unveiling at Christ’s return. In the words of the Apostle Paul, “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” (I Cor. 13:12) In the words of the Apostle John, “He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.” (Rev. 22: 20-1)