A Pastoral Proposal for an Evangelical Theology of Freedom

A Respectful Response to the Expressed Hope of Dr. Karl Barth

Walsh

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781621896630
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

In concluding the series of lectures given while he made his first and only visit to the U.S., Dr. Karl Barth expressed his hope to see a theology of freedom for humanity originating from the U.S. As a respectful response to the expressed hope of Karl Barth, Albert Walsh presents this essay as a pastoral proposal on the subject of freedom from the point of view of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Walsh presents both biblical and theological foundations for a theology of freedom, which he calls graced-freedom, contending that this is that transcendent freedom that God alone confers and sustains as a freedom for humanity.

1 / The Foundation and Fundamental Problem

“In the beginning . . .”

Any discussion of genuine evangelical freedom must begin at the beginning, at least in the biblical and theological sense of the term beginning (i.e., genesis). The reasoning behind this approach should be evident to anyone who holds strong conviction regarding the origin of the evangel (the good news) as having a direct and irrefutable relationship to select passages and narratives, and to the richly variegated theological reflections of the Old Testament. If, as is our position, graced freedom can only be rightly understood and appreciated as having its origin in the will of a loving, merciful, and righteous Lord God, as a revelation of the immanent Trinity, and in the purposes for which God created anthropos (as biblically represented by Adam and Eve) and the whole of the created order, then our attention must first be given to select texts in which we first receive word of this glorious and gracious event.

Our attention will be given to those portions of the Book of Genesis bearing directly on our proposal of a biblical witness to graced freedom. But we must first make clear that our task is not to write a commentary (in the traditional sense) on the Book of Genesis, as a commentary would take us into the intricacies of word study, textual variations, and so on, and would therefore distract us from the more immediate concern of our study. That is not to say that such commentary has been ignored in the process of preparing this and the following chapters, dealing as they do with particular paradigms or passages of Holy Scripture, necessitating conscientious attention (on the part of the author of this essay) to the field of exegesis and biblical commentary. We are tracing what we envision to be the contours of graced freedom at the heart of the evangelical witness to the saga of salvation history as recorded throughout the Old and New Testaments, from creation to consummation and in the central revelation of God in Christ. Our approach demands a certain attention to key pericopes, paradigmatic narratives, and passages that can be said to bear specific theological witness, thematically, to the creation, continuance, and consummation of graced freedom, which also requires us to approach Scripture more broadly than would be appropriate or responsible if these chapters were intended to constitute an exegetical commentary on Holy Scripture. We have avoided the use of footnoted references, which would be warranted in a more technical form; our concern is for a more creative, theological explication of each pericope or passage under discussion as each speaks directly (or indirectly) to the purpose at hand. The use of creative in the last sentence should not be misconceived as a theological explication cut adrift from appreciation for the rigors of exegetical engagement; however, since we hope to address a readership beyond that of the more academic audience, we determined it best to limit—if not to avoid altogether—the more academic apparatus associated with biblical commentary.

Creation and Graced Freedom

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be . . .’” (Gen. 1:3a). With these words we are introduced to the first act of God in creation of the heavens and the earth, which is also and at the same time the first disclosure of graced freedom conferred as an act of God; God had no need to create that which would be external (though eternally related) to God-self. This singular act of grace is a manifestation of the ground for the covenantal nature of the relationship between God and creation (we are not yet speaking of Adam/Eve); it is also a manifestation of the gift of freedom in the establishment of creation as separate from and yet eternally related to the triune God. Only a creation imbued with freedom, as an event of grace, could be actualized in the splendor God intended; a creation without such imbued freedom would remain confined in a manner associated with sin and its consequences (i.e., sin as the distortion, or better said, the contradiction, and thereby the abolition, of graced freedom). To speak of the earth as formless and empty is to imply the absence of freedom prior to the Word of God bringing all things into an ordered existence; the Word of God brings freedom as event and, whenever issued, is always fruitful in giving graced freedom new birth. Chaos itself is prior to and implies the absence of graced freedom; in bringing order in the singular event of creation, God demonstrates that aspect of his will that intends harmony, wholeness, and the integrity of the creation as disclosive of graced freedom as essential to the welfare and further enrichment of the created order.

When the author of Genesis testifies to the consecutive affirmation of God (i.e., And God saw that it was good), the reference to good implies that the intention of God, for any one aspect of the created order, was clearly manifest in the function of that specific order; there was no gap (if you will) between the purpose for which any one aspect of creation was spoken into existence and its function in fulfilling the purpose for which God intended its existence. There was an evident manifestation of the freedom with which God had graced the created order in the fact that each feature was said to be good. The Word of God is also that creative Word which alone confers graced freedom. The conferral of freedom was, therefore, endemic by virtue of the creative and spoken Word of God; the Word of God (understood here as the second person of the Trinity) granted as grace that freedom by which the creation would remain obedient and faithful to its divinely intended purpose; one of the more severe consequences of Adam’s fall would be the forfeiture of this graced freedom, together with the concomitant distortion of the created order at the material level of existence and the incapacity for obedience at the level of human response to God’s will.

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Gen. 1:26–28)

The creation of anthropos as male and female affirms the imago Dei as a relational category; male and female share a common bond of communal identification in that all nature of personal fulfillment is dependent upon the employment, acknowledgement, and faithful engagement of graced freedom in the establishment and continual nurturing of what it means to be “human” created imago Dei. Without this graced freedom the “male” and “female” would have been incapable of engaging in that form of relational existence that alone provides the environment for the fulfillment of self in, with, and through the welfare of the other; it would not be possible to “love”—as the basis of both covenantal and communal existence—if such “love” did not arise from that graced freedom conferred by God as an ontological reality. The desire to find completion in nurturing the fulfillment of the other would only be possible as the externalization of that graced freedom, which also and at the same time enables communal welfare; the “male” and “female” are not so much corresponding persons, as they are communal partners in the complementary enactment of graced freedom. In the enactment of graced freedom “male” and “female” discover the enrichment of life as affirmed by their Creator (i.e., be fruitful and multiply); it is only with such graced freedom that “male” and “female” can subdue and rule within the whole of created order without imposition of selfish or self-serving will-to-power. The graced freedom they have been given is the sole basis upon which they can oversee the welfare of the created order—as good stewards—caring for a multiplicity of creatures, animate subjects and inanimate objects, with a love, freedom, and devotion that can be said to impersonate that of their Creator.

What is being affirmed here is that anthropos—created “male” and “female”—was not given to subdue and rule the created order in such a fashion as to contradict the presence of graced freedom, as if they were given a divine mandate to rule the created order with a heavy hand and solely to the benefit of their own appetites! The office of obedience they received was a fundamental responsibility for maintenance of the welfare of the semblance of graced freedom within the created order, a genuine respect for the manner in which the Creator’s intent was to enlarge the shared beauty of the relational bond between all living things that would assure the enlargement and enrichment of graced freedom throughout the created order.

Regardless of the authorial intent of the divine command to anthropos that they—and all other creatures—restrict themselves to that form of food that was from seed-bearing plants and from every tree whose fruit contains seed, this divine command implies that the taking of any form of animate life would be the misuse of graced freedom. One cannot comprehend this word from the Lord as anything less than a direct command, and therefore calling for an expression of graced freedom in obedience to God’s command. To take the life of another animate being, for purposes of self-sustenance, would be a violation of the command, and therefore demonstrate the relinquishment of graced freedom in the desire to impose one’s own will on another being, since one cannot (in the context of the narrative as it stands) speak meaningfully of any sentient creature willingly offering its life for the well-being of another. As we will soon see, one of the first casualties of Adam’s fall from graced freedom is the Lord’s sacrifice of one of his beloved creatures to “cover” the shame of Adam and Eve; in this singular act of divine compassion, one can overhear the sorrowful voice of graced freedom’s demise! It can be stated that as broadly as graced freedom animated the whole of creation and every creature, so extensively did the effect of Adam’s fall from graced freedom adversely affect that same graced freedom, and at every level of existence.

Yet before taking up discussion of Adam’s fall from graced freedom, we must turn briefly to exposition of the second narrative of creation as found in the Book of Genesis (2:15–25):

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” . . . So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. Then the Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He has taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said: This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken from Man. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife; and they become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

Central to this version of the creation of Adam is the importance given to the necessity for companionship as an essential characteristic of what it means to be a creature given existence for the sole purpose of engaging in the covenantal relationship established by the Lord God as the foundation for the relational expression of graced freedom. God creates Adam in covenantal existence and for the purposes of faithfulness as a covenant creature; this covenantal characteristic defines Adam at both the individual (and as soon becomes apparent) and communal levels of existence. As has been affirmed by biblical scholars, the naming of the creatures is, perhaps, a demonstration of Adam’s lordship over creation as the divinely established steward of the created order; but it is also a prelude to the recognition of the painful void that remains in the life of Adam, evident in the limitations imposed on his communion with all other creatures, by virtue of the existing ontological contrast between Adam and them, a contrast that cannot be altered.

The phrase “it is not good for man to be alone” sounds at first blush like an observation made on some unspoken aspect of Adam’s behavior, when in fact it is more likely a theological affirmation of the need for Adam to be defined by the boundary of another’s existence—one who would serve as both complement and contrast to Adam, and in that same necessary duality establish the basis for communal harmony. Here the use of not good seems to suggest something of incompleteness to the being of Adam; not an imperfection in his being, so much as incapacity to be all God intends for Adam as a covenant partner.

The creation of the woman from the rib of Adam would imply an immediate and essential bond between them, even before Adam had awakened to acknowledge the same, evident in the exuberant words, on his first view of Eve, representing an impassioned exclamation: “This one, at last, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” Each of the two, Adam and Eve, have as their first object of faithfulness, covenantal obedience to the Lord God; and out of that covenantal existence arises the commitment to a similar obligation in the relationship they will then share. The expression of graced freedom, as obedience to the first covenantal relationship (i.e., with the Lord God), will be manifest in their capacity to enrich and enlarge both the complementary and contrasting characteristics of their divinely created covenant partner (i.e., they become one flesh).

When considered within the framework of human communal existence, harmony, in its essentials, is evident not so much as the absence of conflict as it is in the capacity to express graced freedom in obedience to God and in seeking the welfare and enlargement of life for the other; this is but a reflection—but a genuine reflection!—of that far more transcendent freedom with which the Lord God engages in the lives of both creature and creation. The covenant has established the parameters of conferred freedom for obedience as well as for the establishment and enrichment of communal existence; graced freedom finds its primary expression within the established boundaries of the covenantal relationship with the living God (what could be called the vertical dimensional dynamic) and only secondarily within communal realities (what could be called the horizontal dimensional dynamic). In this passage marriage becomes one of the more evident covenantal contexts in which graced freedom is expressed within the relationship between male and female, as one that promises enrichment and limited fulfillment of life.

The reference to the two becoming one flesh should not be understood solely in terms of sexual intimacy, nor as affirming a form of existence in which the uniqueness and contrasting characteristics of the individual are sacrificed to the bonding of communal realities; in either case, such an understanding would bring graced freedom into serious question and, perhaps, even present a confused if not distorted image of the gracious intent of God in creating anthropos as male and female. Just as anthropos has been created a covenantal-communal creature, whose very existence necessitates the expression of graced freedom in relation to the Other or other, so this affirmation of one flesh implies a commonality of focus and intent in covenantal regard for the welfare and enrichment of the other partner in every aspect that is essential to his or her well-being, and to nurture in him or her that form of free expression of “self” that brings honor to the Creator. Should the reference be to the marital covenant (as is likely the case), the implications extend far beyond the boundaries of any one marriage, pointing instead to “marriage” as that form of covenantal engagement intended by the Lord to exemplify the best employment of the graced freedom bestowed, as the context in which obedience—as respectful acknowledgment of shared accountability for the enrichment of the other before God—mirrors for the whole of creation the beauty of such graced freedom.

At this juncture it is necessary to recall the words of the apostle Paul to the Ephesians: “He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own flesh, but provides and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, since we are members of His body” (Eph. 5:28b–29). While Paul ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Foundation and Fundamental Problem
• Chapter 2: Israel: Dialectic of Obedience-Disobedience
• Chapter 3: The New Testament Witness to Graced Freedom
• Chapter 4: The Testimony of Paul to Graced Freedom
• Chapter 5: The Book of Revelation: Freedom for Humanity
• Chapter 6: The Ecumenical Characteristics of Graced Freedom
• Conclusion
• Bibliography