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tree_and_leafWhile I was checking publication dates earlier on, and having temporarily mislaid my copy of... pretty much everything, come to think of it, I stumbled on this review of The Meaning in the Miracles (Jeffrey John) from Masterkey, a Baha'i blogger.
It was remarkably interesting reading. The Meaning in the Miracles is a book I very much admire, partly because I have great sympathy for anyone trying to bridge the gap between academic theology and popular religious writing*, but above all because of John's take on the miracles recorded in the New Testament; rather than getting bogged down in the historicity debate, he argues, we should be looking at their theological meaning. If God, as Christ, does these particular miracles, then what does this tell us about the nature and, for want of a better word, character of God; what do they tell us about the sort of world God's redemption and grace is working towards?
Put like that, it doesn't sound like rocket science;** it's the sort of project that would have made perfect sense to a mediaeval theologian, though they'd have done it in a different form (and, in some cases - though not all of them - drawn different conclusions), because they knew perfectly well that the meaning of Scripture is not confined to the historical level. Which is so obvious that it shouldn't need saying, but people seem to keep forgetting it.
Anyway: Masterkey's review is fascinating, because he obviously liked the book a lot too, but for rather different reasons to me. In fact, I'm tempted to say he over-estimates quite how compatible John's argument is with Baha'i thought:
One gets the sense that Reverend John wishes to convey in his book an understanding Jesus as a spiritual physician, rather than as a healer of physical ailments. This understanding corresponds with the Baha'i teaching that the Manifestation of God, when He appears, makes a diagnosis of the spiritual afflictions of humanity and then prescribes the remedy.
I suspect that John would repudiate this as a false distinction. Christ is a healer, full stop, and God brings life out of all kinds of death, whether spiritual, moral, or physical. To say that John does not uphold an inner meaning of the resurrection miracles... emphasizing that these stories ... portrayed true physical resurrections, were premonitions of the physical resurrection of Jesus, and ultimately portend the physical resurrection of all true believers is missing the point, because these miracles show that, in the Christian view, the distinction between inner and outer has only a limited validity. Bodies matter, God affirms his creation; he doesn't want us to transcend the world and be enlightened spiritual beings, he wants to redeem us, and the world, so that we can be real human beings, fully alive. Similarly, when Masterkey notes:
He hews to the notion that the Eucharist is the miraculous incorporation of the body of Jesus into literal bread, but he does not reconcile this point of view with the inner meaning he ascribes to the loaves and fishes as outward symbols for the Word. Apparently when the miracle forms the basis for a Church doctrine, then Reverend John cannot cross the line into an inner meaning, or perhaps he is willing to accept a different understanding than the interpretation of miracles he offers here as a general model
then my immediate response is to ask, well, how could he, and why would he want to, anyway? Of course the Blessed Sacrament has a spiritual significance (it's "God's presence and his very self", after all), but it's a spiritual significance which inheres in a literal, physical thing. That's what a sacrament is, and you can't separate the two. Christianity is an obstinately materialist religion, however embarrassing certain kinds of Christian find this, and if you try to wholly transcend the material, what you get may be beautiful, enlightened, tolerant and spiritual, but it isn't Christian... In fact, you can see the difference between the two viewpoints in the titles: John wrote The Meaning in the Miracles, but Masterkey titles his post The Inner Meaning of Jesus' Miracles. Actually, Masterkey's position seems to me to be not all that different from the rationalist RE teacher John describes, who could only approach the miracles in terms of a psychological healing of mental/ psychosomatic illness through the patient's belief and Jesus' confident air of authority (and, presumably, leet therapy technique)***, or teaching a moral lesson about how nice it is to share, except he's viewing the miracle stories as stories, rather than trying to get at the historical reality behind them. But, as a catholic Christian, I believe that the distinction he's making between inner and outer isn't valid - at least where Christ is concerned. Christ precisely cannot be understood as a manifestation of God among humanity - he is God and he is human, fully God and fully human; and not just on a part-time basis, either. Which means that any attempt to discard or cheapen the 'outer' - the human - means that we have gone wrong.
What Reverend John doesn't do in his book is suggest that there would ever come a time when the dispensation of Jesus would one day come to the same "6 jars" fate and have to be succeeded by another, at the time of the return and close of the age.
Of course he doesn't. That's because he's a Christian. (I mean, the Sacraments will one day be unnecessary, but it's only in Christ that everything coheres, and the Second Person of the Trinity is not going to stop being human at the end of time).
At any rate: it's fascinating to read an outside perspective on it, and it's amazing how it sharpens the appreciation of your own creed... I find it easy to fall into taking the Incarnation for granted, but when you stop and think about it, it's pretty mind-blowing. Not just that God is present among us through Christ, but that human nature, a human being has been drawn up into the life of the Trinity, is where God is because he is God... Words fail me, pretty literally (other than some sort of incoherent babble about love). But there: God is not our clever attempts at meaning; he's not our apprehensions of him, either. Thank God.
* If I were a Roman Catholic priest, I'd be a Dominican. (Should I be worried about the fact that I've had conversations with people where that was a subject of discussion?)
** Sop to any theologically-minded physicists who may be reading: to quote an Anglican priest of my acquaintance, rocket science "is not all that difficult, actually."
*** Given what I have seen of mental illness, I think insta-healing of that is, if anything, more miraculous than healing a physical complaint, but there you go...
It was remarkably interesting reading. The Meaning in the Miracles is a book I very much admire, partly because I have great sympathy for anyone trying to bridge the gap between academic theology and popular religious writing*, but above all because of John's take on the miracles recorded in the New Testament; rather than getting bogged down in the historicity debate, he argues, we should be looking at their theological meaning. If God, as Christ, does these particular miracles, then what does this tell us about the nature and, for want of a better word, character of God; what do they tell us about the sort of world God's redemption and grace is working towards?
Put like that, it doesn't sound like rocket science;** it's the sort of project that would have made perfect sense to a mediaeval theologian, though they'd have done it in a different form (and, in some cases - though not all of them - drawn different conclusions), because they knew perfectly well that the meaning of Scripture is not confined to the historical level. Which is so obvious that it shouldn't need saying, but people seem to keep forgetting it.
Anyway: Masterkey's review is fascinating, because he obviously liked the book a lot too, but for rather different reasons to me. In fact, I'm tempted to say he over-estimates quite how compatible John's argument is with Baha'i thought:
One gets the sense that Reverend John wishes to convey in his book an understanding Jesus as a spiritual physician, rather than as a healer of physical ailments. This understanding corresponds with the Baha'i teaching that the Manifestation of God, when He appears, makes a diagnosis of the spiritual afflictions of humanity and then prescribes the remedy.
I suspect that John would repudiate this as a false distinction. Christ is a healer, full stop, and God brings life out of all kinds of death, whether spiritual, moral, or physical. To say that John does not uphold an inner meaning of the resurrection miracles... emphasizing that these stories ... portrayed true physical resurrections, were premonitions of the physical resurrection of Jesus, and ultimately portend the physical resurrection of all true believers is missing the point, because these miracles show that, in the Christian view, the distinction between inner and outer has only a limited validity. Bodies matter, God affirms his creation; he doesn't want us to transcend the world and be enlightened spiritual beings, he wants to redeem us, and the world, so that we can be real human beings, fully alive. Similarly, when Masterkey notes:
He hews to the notion that the Eucharist is the miraculous incorporation of the body of Jesus into literal bread, but he does not reconcile this point of view with the inner meaning he ascribes to the loaves and fishes as outward symbols for the Word. Apparently when the miracle forms the basis for a Church doctrine, then Reverend John cannot cross the line into an inner meaning, or perhaps he is willing to accept a different understanding than the interpretation of miracles he offers here as a general model
then my immediate response is to ask, well, how could he, and why would he want to, anyway? Of course the Blessed Sacrament has a spiritual significance (it's "God's presence and his very self", after all), but it's a spiritual significance which inheres in a literal, physical thing. That's what a sacrament is, and you can't separate the two. Christianity is an obstinately materialist religion, however embarrassing certain kinds of Christian find this, and if you try to wholly transcend the material, what you get may be beautiful, enlightened, tolerant and spiritual, but it isn't Christian... In fact, you can see the difference between the two viewpoints in the titles: John wrote The Meaning in the Miracles, but Masterkey titles his post The Inner Meaning of Jesus' Miracles. Actually, Masterkey's position seems to me to be not all that different from the rationalist RE teacher John describes, who could only approach the miracles in terms of a psychological healing of mental/ psychosomatic illness through the patient's belief and Jesus' confident air of authority (and, presumably, leet therapy technique)***, or teaching a moral lesson about how nice it is to share, except he's viewing the miracle stories as stories, rather than trying to get at the historical reality behind them. But, as a catholic Christian, I believe that the distinction he's making between inner and outer isn't valid - at least where Christ is concerned. Christ precisely cannot be understood as a manifestation of God among humanity - he is God and he is human, fully God and fully human; and not just on a part-time basis, either. Which means that any attempt to discard or cheapen the 'outer' - the human - means that we have gone wrong.
What Reverend John doesn't do in his book is suggest that there would ever come a time when the dispensation of Jesus would one day come to the same "6 jars" fate and have to be succeeded by another, at the time of the return and close of the age.
Of course he doesn't. That's because he's a Christian. (I mean, the Sacraments will one day be unnecessary, but it's only in Christ that everything coheres, and the Second Person of the Trinity is not going to stop being human at the end of time).
At any rate: it's fascinating to read an outside perspective on it, and it's amazing how it sharpens the appreciation of your own creed... I find it easy to fall into taking the Incarnation for granted, but when you stop and think about it, it's pretty mind-blowing. Not just that God is present among us through Christ, but that human nature, a human being has been drawn up into the life of the Trinity, is where God is because he is God... Words fail me, pretty literally (other than some sort of incoherent babble about love). But there: God is not our clever attempts at meaning; he's not our apprehensions of him, either. Thank God.
* If I were a Roman Catholic priest, I'd be a Dominican. (Should I be worried about the fact that I've had conversations with people where that was a subject of discussion?)
** Sop to any theologically-minded physicists who may be reading: to quote an Anglican priest of my acquaintance, rocket science "is not all that difficult, actually."
*** Given what I have seen of mental illness, I think insta-healing of that is, if anything, more miraculous than healing a physical complaint, but there you go...