Theological Theology

Essays in Honour of John Webster

R. David Nelson, Darren Sarisky, Justin Stratis, R. David Nelson, Darren Sarisky, Justin Stratis

• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780567682116
• eBook ISBN: 9780567664969
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

The areas of discussion include the nature and method of theology, Scripture and its interpretation, Christology and the doctrine of the Trinity, moral theology, and the reading and use of theological dialogue partners. The essays are written by eminent systematic theologians, theological ethicists, and biblical scholars from a wide range of Christian traditions. The contributors to this volume appraise, extend and apply different aspects of the conception of "theological theology". That theology should in fact be thoroughly theological means that theological discourse gains little by conforming to the canons of inquiry that govern other disciplines; it should rather focus its attention on its own unique subject, God and all things in relation to God, and should follow procedures that allow it to access and bear witness to these realities.

Chapter 6

PROPORTION AND TOPOGRAPHY IN ECCLESIOLOGY: A WORKING PAPER ON THE DOGMATIC LOCATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH

Tom Greggs

I

One of the most significant contributions that Professor John Webster has made to the field of ecclesiology within contemporary theology is to remind systematicians of the primacy of dogmatic content in accounts of the church over ecclesiological descriptions focused on social scientific description, ecclesial human reality, church polity, function, governance and/or modelling.¹ Against prevailing trends in attending to the empirical in ecclesiological discussion, Webster’s voice has been something of a voice crying in the wilderness for a dogmatic account of the church. This is evident in his chapter in Pete Ward’s recent edited collection Perspectives on Ecclesiology and Ethnography,² in which Webster’s chapter stands as a challenge to the rest of the content of this volume – a prophetic warning against the conviction that the real is ‘socio-historical’ in theological discussion.³ Not unaware of the danger of falling into dogmatic idealism, Webster’s essay fiercely rejects the position in ecclesiological discussion that ‘the church is the people of God because certain events occur within a group of human beings – a causal order at which even the most frankly intrinsicist theology of grace might be dismayed’.⁴ More acutely, however, Webster locates this propensity not only external to the dogmatic enterprise which has led away from dogmatic theology and towards the empirical and historical, but also within certain decisions in dogmatic organisation through appeals to elements of the Christian faith such as the incarnation or grace in a way which is ‘often rather randomly chosen, abstractly conceived, and without much sense of their systematic linkages’.⁵ In this, he sees the underlying problem resting in assumptions concerning the res of Christian theology, which leads to the following mistaken principle: ‘since the object of Christian theology is the economy of God’s works as creator and reconciler of humankind, then theology should naturally direct its attention to the temporal and social as the sphere of God’s presence and activity’.⁶ Helpfully, against this, Webster reminds the ecclesiologist:

The temporal economy, including the social reality of the church in time, has its being not in se but by virtue of God who alone is in se. Time and society are derivative realities, and that derivation is not simply a matter of their origination; it is a permanent mark of their historical condition.⁷

This determines that ecclesiology must understand the church as a creaturely reality which stands under the metaphysics of grace. Thus, for Webster, to speak of a doctrine of the church means that one must first speak of the doctrine of God, on which for him ecclesiology hangs:⁸ to speak of the sort of social history that the church is is to speak of its origin in God’s goodness.

Thus, Webster sees the doctrine of the church as deriving from trinitarian deduction. Seeing credo in ecclesiam as succeeding credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem … et in Jesum Christum … credo in Spiritum Sanctum, he argues that ecclesiology has its place in the ‘flow of Christian doctrine from teaching about God to teaching about everything else in God’.⁹ In what follows, there is a masterful account, therefore, of the inner life of God who is ‘alive with self-moved life’¹⁰ before moving on to the (indeed any) discussion of divine operations in relation to the church per se. Here, Webster differentiates his position from that of social Trinitarians, about whom Webster is rightly nervous in that they use ‘relation’ to pass too quickly and easily between God and the church without adequately accounting for the gracious act of God in creating the church or the differentiation of the life of the church from God’s own life.¹¹ Only once this ground has been cleared does Webster go on to describe the ‘Trinitarian deduction of the church’ in any detail, tracing how particular works of God might be appropriated to particular Trinitarian persons. There are (inevitably) three moves: (1) ‘The church has being because of the eternal will of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who “destined us in love to be his children through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will” (Eph. 1:5).’¹² (2) ‘The church has its being because of the person and work of the eternal Son.’¹³ (3) ‘The church is and acts by virtue of the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life.’¹⁴ Each of these discussions emphasizes the inner divine life of a particular person of the Trinity before accounting for their role in the economy, and before moving to consider ecclesiology specifically.

Having established this, Webster subsequently addresses the socio-historical phenomena that characterize the church as the society which exists in God’s society. The first emphasis here is on the creatureliness of the church and its current condition as those in whom ‘the motion of God and the motion of creatures are not inversely but directly proportional’.¹⁵ In this, Webster seeks to draw attention in ecclesiology away from simple empirical study and towards the nature and economy of God; away from notions of human self-realization of the church towards understanding the church as signs of the triune being and working; and from concerns with the phenomenological to a recognition that the temporal forms of the church are ‘not unconditionally transparent’.¹⁶ Only now will Webster hazard statements about the church’s fundamental form (‘the primary structures of its creaturely, social-historical existence’).¹⁷ In this, Webster lists the three examples (from what would be a larger set) of: assembly (a ‘human act of assembly [which] follows, signifies, and mediates a divine act of gathering’);¹⁸ hearing the proclamation of the Word of God;¹⁹ and order (as a ‘ruled society, [of] common life under “law”’).²⁰

Webster sees all of this as essential for those who wish to engage in study of the church in whatever manner: without remembering this account of divine agency in the church, ‘an ethnography [one could add any other social science here] of the church does not attain its object, misperceiving the motion to which its attention is to be directed, and so inhibited in understanding the creaturely movements of the communion of saints’.²¹ Thus, there exists a hierarchy between modes of ecclesiological investigation: the first (and higher) mode is dogmatic, in offering a Trinitarian account of the church; the second relates to the phenomena of the church. This hierarchy has to be respected so as to resist treating the church as any other society – creating a ‘naturalized ecclesiology’ in which the true object of theology is in the background or covered over.²² Dogmatic ecclesiology’s purpose is in part, therefore, to ‘resist this by keeping alive the distinction between and due order of uncreated and created being; by indicating that the phenomena of the church are not irreducible but significative; and by introducing into each ecclesiological description and passag...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Image
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Contributors
• Theological Theology
• John
• The Word Answering The Word: Opening The Space Of Catholic Biblical Interpretation
• Divine Sufficiency: Theology In The Presence Of God
• The Last Judgement
• Proportion And Topography In Ecclesiology: A Working Paper On The Dogmatic Location Of The Doctrine Of The Church
• How To Be Caught By The Holy Spirit
• Some Riffs On Thomas Aquinas’s De Ente Et Essentia
• New – Old – New: Theological Aphorisms
• God’s Hiddenness And Belief In His Power
• What Is The Gospel?
• Barth’s Critique Of Schleiermacher Reconsidered
• Aristotle’s Saviour
• Webster And Ebeling On Christian Texts: A Placeholder For A Theological Theology Of Language
• What Is Truth? McLeod Campbell Revisited
• The Divine Perfections And The Economy: The Atonement
• A Prolegomenon To An Account Of Theological Interpretation Of Scripture
• The Sinlessness Of Christ
• Unconditional Love: Creatio Ex Nihilo And The Covenant Of Grace
• ‘Exegesis I Know, And Theology I Know, But Who Are You?’ Acts 19 And The Theological Interpretation Of Scripture
• Does Historical Criticism Exist? A Contribution To Debate On The Theological Interpretation Of Scripture
• The Transcendence Of Apophaticism
• The Fourfold Chord: Theology And The Plurality Of The Gospel Witness
• John Webster – Chronology Of Publications
• Index
• Copyright