The Case for Protestant Mysticism
I was troubled by a recent article by Owen Anderson published over on American Reformer and after stewing about it for a week, thought I should write a response.
Owen Anderson’s recent piece, Don’t Hide the Bible Behind Plato, came to my attention in a Twitter group chat. It was written as a response to Calvin Golinger’s piece, In Defense of Allegory, which was in turn written as a response to an earlier piece of Anderson’s titled, Recovering Sola Scriptura in the Age of Hidden Bibles. I read through the whole chain plus another excellent piece published at American Reformer, A Beatific Vision for Protestants, written by Joseph Gilbert, which may or may not have been composed in response to the above pieces, but was curiously relevant to this whole topic. After that stunning opener, why did I find myself so bothered by Anderson’s piece? Ours is an age in which mass society — mass markets, mass democracy, mass media — combined with industrialization, technology, propaganda, have all worked together to alienate us from our labour, our communities, ourselves, and, most importantly, God. We are cut off, alone, isolated and enframed within the world of modernity. People hunger, whether they are willing to acknowledge it or not, for God. Among the young, church attendance and conversion to Christianity are on the rise, enough that it is statistically noticeable.1
It is the problem of alienation that made me wince when I read Anderson’s piece. He made a lot of arguments and assertions that don’t really hold up to greater scrutiny and are not particularly helpful in today’s context. It felt like he was relitigating an old battle from several hundred years ago, imposing it uncritically on today’s situation. I mean, what he says about the problems with trying to integrate Plato into the Christian faith are more or less correct. Although we will talk about that in a bit, it was other things in the piece and the assumptions they carry, and the downstream effects that they have that I want to address here because I believe they are vital for ministering in today’s context, giving an answer to the alienation in today’s society: the pursuit of God through ascesis, what might otherwise be called “mysticism.” I believe it is vital that Protestants recover this important aspect of the faith, in large part because you can’t do true discipleship without it.
I encourage you to read the piece as I will just be stopping at those points which I found to be problematic. Anderson is troubled by the idea of allegorical interpretation, that there is a deeper spiritual meaning beneath the plain meaning of the text. His argument is an old one, that such an allegorical meaning must always be eisegetical, the process of bringing meaning into the text and imposing it upon the text. This is in contrast to exegesis which means “to bring out of” the text. The goal in interpreting the Bible, we are told, is to bring meaning out of the Bible, and not to read meaning into the Bible or impose it upon the text. In making the argument, Anderson says this,
“The problem for allegory is not that it teaches spiritual truths but that it teaches incorrect spiritual truths that require additional content and context beyond the Bible to grasp.”
This a different way of saying something like, “scripture interprets scripture.” Or that the meaning of the text is plain and self-evident. But is this the case?
To begin with, the Bible uses words. The understanding of scripture at its most basic level requires that you use words and that you know the meaning of words. Right from the outset, we have a problem. You always, always, always, bring yourself to the text, even if this thing you bring is nothing more than your understanding of the meaning of the words that you read. The printed text of the Bible is nothing more than ink blots on the page unless you bring to the text certain assumptions, such that these ink blots are made as symbols of words spoken from God to man, or through man. You can argue that these are the words of God, the Word of God, but does my acknowledging this or not change the nature of these ink blots? But how do I know this? How do we know that the Bible is actually the Word of God?
“Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 65
Q. It is by faith alone that we share in Christ and all his blessings: where then does this faith come from?
A. The Holy Spirit produces it in our hearts by the preaching of the gospel, and confirms it through the use of the holy sacraments.”
The three “proof texts” listed are John 3:5, 1 Corinthians 2:10-14, and Ephesians 2:8 for the first phrase of the answer “The Holy Spirit produces it in our hearts,” indicate that without the work of the Spirit of God and his grace, that the good news, the gospel, cannot be understood. Even if the text of scripture declares itself to be the Word of God, it is the Spirit that produces this belief in our hearts. The two work together. Jesus himself goes farther in Matthew 13.
10 The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?”
11 He replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. 12 Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. 13 This is why I speak to them in parables:
“Though seeing, they do not see;
though hearing, they do not hear or understand.14 In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:
“‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
15 For this people’s heart has become calloused;
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them.’16 But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. 17 For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.
It may seem like a quibble, but when Anderson rejects the idea that the Bible requires no additional content beyond the Bible itself to understand it, he is unwittingly making the materialist argument that the Bible is a book like any other book. It can be understood by anyone who willing to decipher the ink blots on the page. But the Bible itself, together with Christian theology, makes the argument that the Word of God cannot be understood apart from faith in Christ produced by the Holy Spirit. This is why the mystery of predestination matters, because without it you cannot maintain a high view of scripture. Without the work of the Holy Spirit, reading the text of the Bible, as Jesus says, actually cuts you off from truths contained therein. You hear but you do not understand. The words themselves are not sufficient. The Holy Spirit must be at work within you for you to understand.
Let’s return for a moment back to this problem of language. Words and their meaning are separate. Let’s take a common example, the word, “dog.” What is a dog? What if I grew up with a loving relationship with a gentle dog? How would that colour my understanding of “dog?” What if you were bitten by an aggressive dog at a young age? How would this shape your understanding of “dog?” How can you access my understanding, and I yours? I have never been bit by a dog. My understanding is pure conjecture. I might be able to empathize, but I will never know your experience the way that you do, nor will you know my experience the way that I do. Do we need to have knowledge of every experience of “dog” in order to come to a proper knowledge of the meaning of “dog?”
When we see the word on the page, those blots of ink on paper, how much of our understanding of “dog” is what we bring to the text and how much is being brought out of the text? How do we know? People can talk about “objective reality,” and Anderson does, but what is an “objective” knowledge of “dog?” We get a sense of it and we assume know that we are talking about the same reality, but this understanding is largely intuitive where we all grasp that we are talking about the same thing. So what is eisegetical and what is exegetical in this context? Are the two concepts largely meaningless when it comes to the transference and understanding of meaning? Or do we just have an intuitive grasp when it is happening and when it is not, that there is kind of a resonance or dissonance that we sense when we are confronted with good or bad interpretations?
Even if we take something as basic as metaphor, how do we know that a metaphor is being used? Does the text itself say, “this is a metaphor, interpret accordingly.” No, it doesn’t. This is what separates a metaphor from a simile. The simile gives up the game, the metaphor does not, hence its power.
"The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like a crocus it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy." Isaiah 35:1-2
I could break this apart and tell you what it “means.” Or, I could just leave it as is. Where does the meaning come from? If I say to myself, “This is a metaphor,” from where did that knowledge come? It came from outside of scripture, from my knowledge of poetic forms and devices. Where did my knowledge of Greek and Hebrew come from? Where does my knowledge of historical and social context come from? To say that the Bible interprets itself or that we merely read the plain meaning of the text is to misunderstand not just the understanding of scripture, but of reality itself.
Let’s keep pushing this. There is a pair of verses in Proverbs that underscore the problem with this idea that the scriptures are sufficient for their own interpretation. Proverbs 26:4-5
“Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
or you yourself will be just like him.
Answer a fool according to his folly,
or he will be wise in his own eyes.”
If we look at the plain meaning of the text, what we have here is a contradiction. How can this be? How can we resolve this? If you understand the biblical wisdom tradition, they get resolved in the encounter with God. Proverbs 9:10 tells us,
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”
And further in Job 28:12-28
“But where can wisdom be found?
Where does understanding dwell?
No man comprehends its worth;
it cannot be found in the land of the living.
The deep says, “It is not in me”;
the sea says, “It is not with me.”
It cannot be bought with the finest gold,
nor can its price be weighed out in silver.
It cannot be bought with the gold of Ophir,
with precious onyx or lapis lazuli.
Neither gold nor crystal can compare with it,
nor can it be had for jewels of gold.
Coral and jasper are not worthy of mention;
the price of wisdom is beyond rubies.
The topaz of Cush cannot compare with it;
it cannot be bought with pure gold.Where then does wisdom come from?
Where does understanding dwell?
It is hidden from the eyes of every living thing,
concealed even from the birds in the sky.
Destruction and Death say,
“Only a rumor of it has reached our ears.”
God understands the way to it
and he alone knows where it dwells,
for he views the ends of the earth
and sees everything under the heavens.
When he established the force of the wind
and measured out the waters,
when he made a decree for the rain
and a path for the thunderstorm,
then he looked at wisdom and appraised it;
he confirmed it and tested it.
And he said to man,
“The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom,
and to shun evil is understanding.”
What is being said here in this long citation is that the resolution of those two sayings from Proverbs, seemingly contradictory, get resolved in God himself. You metaphorically go up the mountain like Abraham, or Moses, or Peter and John, and you meet God, you tremble before him knowing that understanding can only be found in God and God alone. Trusting the knowledge, you have in the encounter with God, when you then meet the fool, you trust that you will know what to do, that you will have gained wisdom. The text of scripture here merely gives you the problem that can then only be resolved in God. The scriptures do not have the answer to this question, whether to correct a fool or not. Only God himself knows that answer. Thus, for you to act wisely, the text of the Bible may be your starting point, but the answers you look for can only be found in God himself.
And this brings us to a distinction made by Augustine, between that of the “sign” and that of the “thing.” A “thing” is something that is sufficient unto itself and is not dependent upon anything else for its existence. God is a “thing.” A “sign,” on the other hand, is dependent upon something else for its existence. God is the Creator. Everything that is not God is dependent upon God for its existence and thus points to God. Anderson rightly affirms that creation points to God as the general revelation of God. We also must remember that the Bible is not a “thing” but rather is a “sign” that points beyond itself to God. This is important, especially in this era of managerialism. The Bible is not a policy manual. You are not supposed to conform your life to scripture. You are supposed to conform your life to God. To the degree that you conform yourself to the words of the Bible, you do so because they help you conform yourself, your thoughts and your ways, to God himself. Aren’t they the same thing? Yes and no. Yes, the Bible is the Word of God, but as we have seen, those words find their meaning in God himself. You are always supposed to be lifted beyond the scriptures to God. As Peter says in his second letter,
“His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”
The goal is to participate directly in the divine nature of God. Union with him. What does this mean, though? Does this mean that we are somehow absorbed into the essence of God? No, I don’t think so. And this is where one of the dangers that Anderson rightly identifies with Platonism creeps into the room. With Plato and especially with the Neo-Platonists, there is an understanding that all “being” is one. Creation is merely an emanation out from God. As being emanates farther out from God the problem is multiplicity. The “spiritual” journey is them to leave the multiplicity of the physical world of the emanations and return to the source, to the One, to true being. This way of thinking should be rejected.
But, in western theology, following Duns Scotus, the idea of “univocity” was asserted, that all being is one, that “being” as a concept, if it is to have any meaning at all, must be the same no matter when and where it is examined. Thus, if we as human beings have and participate in “being” and God has “being” then we are connected to God through a great chain of being. We share the fundamental nature of God. The implication of this is that to the degree that essences can be known, God can be known in his essence because God has being. If plants have “being,” then they reveal God who also has “being.” The problem with this is that it makes God essentially “knowable.” And as we saw just a moment ago, and reinforced in passages like Exodus 3, there remains something unknowable, something “other” about God. He is the Creator, and we are the created. There is divide there. We do not simply emanate from the being of God. Anderson is correct in arguing this.
So how should we think about this and why are these distinctions important? Unless we get this right, what we invariably end up doing is closing ourselves off from God, from even the possibility of the experience of God or we ultimately end up plunging ourselves into some form of Gnosticism or syncretism. Remember, it is important that we are able to meet and encounter God, because without this encounter, we cannot interpret the scriptures or gain the wisdom of God. So how should we think of this meeting, if it is not merely a rise up the great chain of being to escape the multiplicity of the material world or some sort of pantheist syncretism? For this, we call in some help from our Eastern brothers in Christ who have been wrestling with this question and the danger of Neo-Platonism for centuries by introducing ourselves to the distinction between the essence and energies of God.
God in his essence is unknowable. What we know of God we know through the outworking of his divine energy. His energies are not his essence. This much, I hope that Anderson would agree with when he says this,
“Calvin says: “As for those who proudly soar above the world to seek God in his unveiled essence, it is impossible but that at length they should entangle themselves in a multitude of absurd figments.” The chief end of man is not the pagan beatific vision. The chief end of man is to glorify God. How do we do this? By knowing God in all that by which He makes Himself known. That is the answer to Q101. We pray that men would know God in all that by which He makes Himself known. God is known by His works. He reveals himself to us, we don’t climb to him.”
I will, in the end, I think, disagree with Calvin on this issue. If we play out the implications of what Anderson is saying here, it is that there is no unmediated experience of God. God reveals himself to us, he says, but we cannot ourselves come to know God on our own initiative. We cannot ascend to God. God really is truly unknowable. You have no direct experience of God at all. It is all mediated through the creation or through the scriptures. One of the critiques often leveled against Protestantism is that it paved the way for the materialism of modernity. And when you listen to what Anderson is saying, in the end he argues that we should be making common cause with the materialists against the mystics using the bogeyman of Platonism as the vector of attack:
“And here is what is interesting about such a strategy: the materialists are now the enemy of our enemy. Materialists believe in an objective world and that we can know true things about that world. The current anti-biblical approach in our universities is idealist—even solipsistic. It denies objective reality and truth. Instead, it claims all truths are mind-dependent and perspectival. And so, in this way, the materialist has become our ally.”
And while he does acknowledge that materialists don’t believe in God, he seems to fail to see that his position leads to a materialist understanding of the faith and the created order. We can examine the words of the Bible and the created world and can anchor and ground reason in “objective” material reality and the “objective” words of the Bible. We need nothing more than this. But as we saw with our “dog” example above, this is not the sure footing for knowledge that Anderson thinks it is. It opens you up to attacks from both the modernists, that scripture cannot be scientifically verified, and from the postmodernists who argue that meaning is entirely subjective, and all interpretation is merely the result of subjective feeling, word games and power. And once you have subjected language to the acid of postmodernity, it turns out that the so-called “objective” world is a lot less objective than is first thought. Whose understanding of “dog” is correct? The one who can impose his interpretation on everyone else? What is it that grounds knowledge? Power? Or is it all just a simulacrum? As we have been arguing thus far, it is the essence of God that grounds knowledge, not just of the scriptures, but also of the created world. In this sense, all true knowledge is “mystical.” You cannot know anything without the intervention of God.
But can we reach out to the being of God? As we said to begin this section, God is unknowable in his essence but known through his energies. On the surface, this seems no different than what Anderson is saying. But when placed into a fuller understanding, we can see that this is not the case. To understand this, we turn to human anthropology. Man, Christians have always argued, is made up of two parts. One is his human nature that he shares with all other human beings. In the human nature are all the characteristics that other people have, including things like personality. It is a particular feature of modernity that we have tried to differentiate people by things that we share. We think, “I am an extrovert” and “She is an introvert.” “This makes us different,” you say. No, it doesn’t. You both share in something called “personality traits.”
What makes you different is that you have a unique human personhood. There is something essential about you that cannot be translated in any other way to someone else. There are no words that you can use to describe this part of yourself, for words are something that are part of our shared human nature. There is a sense, that in our unique human personhood, in this essential thing that makes us uniquely us, that we are “unknowable.” Yet we make connections with people all the time. Our spouses. Our dearest friends. When a woman asks her husband why he loves her, he is often at a loss for words. Why? Because he has seen the essence of the woman he loves and cannot communicate what he has experienced because it cannot be translated into words. Even if his wife cannot be “known” in her essential personhood, she can be met and experienced. He can, in meeting his wife, intuit who she is. What this is he cannot say. But when she looks back into his eyes, she knows that she has been seen and that he knows her and she looks back and he knows that she knows him. There is a spiritual, mystical bond between them. This bond can also be between parents and children. Friends. Communities. This is why the breakdown of community is such a tragedy.
What is important to see in this is that because we are made in the image of God, we can grasp what it means to “know” an unknowable God. There is this essential core to God, his being, his essence, that remains unknowable to us. Just as we can experience other people through the things they do and make, the artifacts they leave behind, so too we can experience God in the things he does and makes, the outworking of his energies. But these energies do not open up to us the essence of God. Just as the human person remains unknowable, so too God remains unknowable. But, like another person, God can be met. He remains always “other.” There is no great chain of being that leads up to the being of God. God is always the Creator, and we are the created. Out of nothing. We are a product of the word of God, spoken through the Word. Through these words, this outpouring of the energy of God, all things were created.
But just as we can meet other people, so too we can meet God. In meeting God, we are able to intuit something of who he is. But yet this knowledge is not something rational, not something that can be communicated. It remains beyond our ability to grasp it in a way that we can contain or harness it. A good way to think about this is to use Herman Dooyeweerd’s modal aspects. He argued that each person is made up of 15 distinct modes of being that cannot be reduced to any other aspect of being. All human beings participate in these modes. They do interconnect and influence each other, but there still remains something in each mode that cannot be understood via any other mode. The modes are the numerical, spatial, kinematic, physical, biotic, sensitive, analytical, formative/cultural, lingual, social, economic, aesthetic, juridical, ethical and finally the pistic. This last has to do with the spiritual, with the mystical, with faith, with intuitive seeing, the human aspiration to be close to God and so forth. There is an aspect to ourselves that is created by God to interact with him. But it is a thing unto itself and uses its own “language,” if language is even the right word. Even though the pistic can inspire words, music, art and more, ultimately there is part of the pistic that remains its own thing. It is via the pistic that we meet God in his essence and experience him and “know” him, if knowledge is the right word.
Just like all abilities, some of us have more or less of them. Just as some are more analytical, artistic, verbal or athletic, so too some of us are like Olympic level spirituals in our native, inborn ability to meet God. Like any ability, it must be honed and trained. And like all of our abilities, it is stained by sin. And just like inborn athletic ability might be inhibited by poor diet and a sedentary lifestyle, or an inborn analytical ability might be hindered by a lack of education, so too the context in which we live can make it harder for us to exercise our pistic ability. The rationalism and materialism of our day combined with the realities of the technological society, it might be argued, stunt our ability to meet God, to exercise our pistic aspect. And, it would only be natural, just as when people don’t understand proper Christian anthropology that they try to fashion a unique identity out of their shared human nature with things like personality differences, so too when our pistic aspect is stunted and neglected that we would then try to substitute other aspects like the analytical, juridical, sensitive/emotional or lingual for the pistic itself. In so doing, we try render what is unknowable in the more ordinary ways that knowledge is understood. We might devise a rational God. In a world dominated by reason, we are then driven to approach all things through this one aspect. While in his energy God does show himself in ways that allow us to employ our reason, we still have not met him in his essence.
In western Christianity we have tended to pursue God “positively,” that is “cataphatically,” living into the idea of univocity such that Platonism and Neo-Platonism become problems for us. But once you grasp the otherness and unknowability of God in his essence, we are freed from the dilemma. It opens the path of “apophatic” or “negative theology.” Anything that we can say about God from our encounter with his energies, that we could express in terms of words, art, music, mathematics and so forth, we can then also say that this is not God in his essence, that God is beyond what we can capture and express with these forms of knowledge. This is similar to how we encounter other fellow human beings. We know that there are things that we share, that we can express in the above ways, but then in meeting them fully we also know that there is something “other,” something unique that can be met and intuited, that is on the one hand known, but yet also unknowable in that it cannot be translated directly into other forms of knowledge. I would argue that this form of knowing another person is tied up not with our social aspect, but with the pistic, that knowing another human being at this level is a form of spiritual, even mystical knowing.
As powerful as the tools of science, mathematics and technology are — for scientific observation is dependent upon technology — in helping bring us the kinds of knowledge that enable us to harness and manipulate the world, they are utterly incapable of giving to us true knowledge of the essences of things. Scientific knowledge gains this power by being reductive. It sets all questions of meaning and morality aside to answer the question, “How does it work?” The knowledge that science gives us is like a map. It can help you get where you are going if you know how to use it, and this is a certain kind of truth, but it has limits in the wisdom it can impart. This type of knowing can carry you far and has enabled us to build a towering civilization. But it has also come at a tremendous cost to our emotional, spiritual and communal wellbeing.
Returning to our “dog” example, scientific inquiry can tell you a lot about dogs. You can classify their various types, look at their anatomy, how to breed them and train them and so forth, but to know what is a “dog” you must understand the “why?” of the dog. What is its purpose? What is its meaning? What is the essence of “dog?” And then there is every interaction that we as people have with dogs. Even if you were to grasp the fullness of every interaction of every person over time, you would then have to know every every possible way that a dog could be known. This is why the reductionism of science is so powerful. It cuts off knowing at the point of utility. The true knowledge of “dog” is an infinite knowledge. You really would have to be able to grasp all the things that could be known by all knowers at all times. And then, if we were to take it to the next level and add to this the divine knowledge, knowing the fullness of “dog” really is an infinite knowledge. Science can give you knowledge and grant you the power to manipulate and control the world around you, but it cannot give you truth.
With that in mind, let us now shift this from the discussion of “dog” to the meaning of scripture. Just as “dog” is a real object, it is one thing and not another, it is a “dog” and not “cat;” so too the Bible as a collection of written words is one text and not another. Its words, sentences, paragraphs and books are one thing and not another. The Bible is what it is. As Christians we make claims about these words, that they are uniquely given to us by God. It is a book unlike any other in that regard. It is God’s Word. To draw on our previous example, the Bible is a dog and not a cat. Its words have a meaning that we believe comes from God. As we said earlier, the words of the Bible also point themselves to God as a sign. We all hear and experience these words in different ways, yet within the confines of the words themselves. Even so, to grasp the fullness of these words you would have to be able to grasp all the nuances of meaning understood by every person who has ever read the text. And then what is God’s knowledge of the text? He is able to know it infinitely. The only way the meaning of scripture gets resolved is in God himself, in his being, in his essence, in his eternity. And yet, as soon as we say this “positively” we must then acknowledge “negatively” that God is beyond mere infinity and eternity. This does not seem very practical. And it is not. Functionally, we like our stripped down and simplified maps that help us get where we are going. This is the lure and appeal of science and technology. It is what draws us to the rational and scientific reading of the Bible. This is how most of us are taught to read and understand the scriptures, especially in the west. But as useful as it might be, it does not give us the truth.
When Jesus says in John 14:6, that he is “the way and the truth and the life,” he is saying something deep and essential about truth itself. He is saying that he as a person IS truth. And as we saw, how do we know people? We know them intuitively, mystically, as we perceive in them that part of them that is uniquely themselves and not something else. There is a “beyondness” to truth. It can be grasped, but what can be grasped ultimately cannot be spoken about directly, and yet we nonetheless use words to speak about that which cannot be spoken. In the multiplicity of meaning, in the interplay between author — even the divine author — the fixed text and the reader/hearer, there is something that passes. We can speak about it but know that our words are never sufficient to capture the fullness of what is being contained within God, the text and the reader. In this dynamic, the rigid categories of eisegesis and exegesis break down. Can we say for certainty in the multiplicity of meanings — even when speaking abut this text and not another and the limits this imposes upon meaning — that metaphor and allegory might not open up at least part of the truth of the text to us? Paul certainly assumed this in the story of Isaac and Ishmael. The author of Hebrews is steeped in the allegorical interpretation of scripture. You cannot truly understand scripture unless you come face to face with its author in the text. This is the purpose of the text. To point us to God so that in it we might meet him and in standing before God, see in him our reflection and thus both know him and ourselves in this moment of coming together, the infinite and the finite together.
Jesus himself says in John 14:9 that, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” And in Colossians 1:15 Paul tells us that, “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” The role of the Son, born in the flesh as Jesus Christ, is to reveal God the Father. It is the role of the Spirit of God to connect us to this revelatory purpose of Jesus, the Son of God. John 16:13 says it this way, “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.” Paul says it this way in 1 Corinthians 2,
6 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 However, as it is written:
“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived” —
the things God has prepared for those who love him—10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. 15 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, 16 for,
“Who has known the mind of the Lord
so as to instruct him?”But we have the mind of Christ.
Given everything that we have said thus far about knowing and knowledge and the pursuit of the truth and how it is held within the being of God himself, the very heart of his essence, that which lies beyond our ability to understand it through rational means, we are ready to grasp the implications of what we are hearing about the role of the Spirit of God here. Paul is saying it is the Spirit that allows us to grasp the spiritual realities of God himself in his heart, in his essence with “Spirit taught words.” Whatever this might mean, what Paul is saying here in this passage is that truth itself is grounded in the mind of God. Persons who are in the Spirit and “in Christ” can then grasp the being of God, his “beyondness,” and thus can have a sureness to their knowledge. They can render judgement. They can instruct. But they are not subject human judgements — such as those of science perhaps — because they have the mind of Christ. These really are bold claims about the fundamental nature of truth itself.
One of Anderson’s claims is that God descends to us, we do not ascend to him. This is both correct and incorrect at the same time. Part of what we believe is that “in Christ” we are made new, that a fundamental change of being has taken place with us. We see this change pistically, through the eyes of faith. For now, it is hidden in Christ. The spiritual life is in many ways like Michelangelo releasing a sculpture from the marble by chipping away the excess marble to reveal the beautiful statue within. But we are told explicitly to lift ourselves up to God in Colossians 3,
“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
We set our minds on things above not merely to see better with the eyes of faith our true selves now hidden “in Christ,” but because we are also engaged in battle over truth. Earlier in Colossians, chapter 2, Paul says this,
“8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.”
This is the only time in the New Testament that the word “philosophy” is used, but it is set in the context of a spiritual battle over your thoughts. You can either set your mind on things above where Christ is seated or you can set your mind on earthly things, that is, deceptive philosophy that depend on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of the world. Your thoughts can either be lifted up to God “in Christ” or you can be taught by the “elemental spiritual forces,” that is, the demonic forces that have challenged the sovereignty of God. These passages have nothing to do with the stupid phrase “so heavenly minded that you are no earthly good.” In fact, you can only reliably know the truth if you are “heavenly minded.”
I get why, coming from the narrow concern over Platonism and Neo-Platonism, Anderson says the things he does, but by anchoring himself here he does open himself and the churches up to an impoverished understanding of the truth, even scientific truth, and how it is grounded in the being of God and how we are called to lift ourselves up to see Christ seated at the right hand of God, perceiving both our true self in him, but then also the truth itself in him. Its all tied together in the three persons of the Trinity in their unique roles. On the one hand God descends to us to give us grace through his Son Jesus and the outpouring of the Spirit. And on the other we lift ourselves up to take hold of who we are “in Christ.” In this whole process the Spirit’s role is to reveal to us that which is beyond, that which can only be understood in “Spirit-taught words.”
I want to press this by drawing our attention to one of these mystical, allegorical texts. In Hebrews 12, the author of this book explains salvation and the spiritual life by allegorically unfolding the meaning of Moses’ journey up Mount Sinai.
18 You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; 19 to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, 20 because they could not bear what was commanded: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned to death.” 21 The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, “I am trembling with fear.”
22 But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, 23 to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
25 See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven? 26 At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” 27 The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.
28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, 29 for our “God is a consuming fire.”
There is a comparison being made here to the experience on Mount Sinai where God showed himself in his essence to Moses, transforming him like Jesus was transformed on the Mount of Transfiguration, such that afterward his face shone such that he had to cover it. But when Moses ascended, the people were kept off the mountain. They could not pass beyond a certain point under the threat of death. But now, in Christ we are told to come up the mountain, to not refuse the invitation of God. We are invited to climb the mountain, to enter the heavenly city of Zion where God dwells in his essence, where thousands upon thousands of angels praise him in joyful assembly. This is the heart of the new covenant of grace. That we can come to God, and he can show himself to us like he did to Moses. This is the whole point of salvation. That we can once again live fully and unashamedly, without fear, in the presence of God. He will still remain forever and always “other.” But in his Holy of Holies, we can participate in the glory of the divine nature.
With this in mind, when we bring together all the different threads here, all of us have the capacity, some more that others, to lift ourselves to the heavens and contemplate the true nature of things as all the questions of truth find their resolution in the being and essence of God himself. This is true whether we are talking about God’s special revelation in and through the words of scripture or his more general revelation in the creation as a whole. There is no method that can be given that can guarantee that we can reach understanding of the truth in the Word or in the creation. As potent as method can be in offering a certain utility, it cannot give us assurance of truth. That assurance can only be found in God and thus in the encounter with God. One of the questions that we must confront when dealing with the Bible is whether or not we believe that God actually revealed himself and spoke to Moses, or Samuel, or Elijah, or Isaiah, or Daniel, or that Jesus really appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus or that John really had a revelation from God. But if truth is found in and through the encounter with the being of God, then we can, and should, ask of those who would presume to counsel us in the wisdom of God whether they have ascended the mountain of God as the author of Hebrews urges us? Truth telling is, as it has always been, dependent upon those who would presume to tell us the truth. Do we trust that this person has encountered the living God? Do we trust that they have a living encounter with the truth?
The scientific, technological, and managerial world that we live in presumes to tell us that we can take the question of the person out of the equation. If the methodology is sound, the person is irrelevant. If we set up the study properly, it will deliver truth to us regardless of who the person managing the study might be. If we follow the correct steps, we can be assured of a true interpretation of scripture. We can find truth without God. We can find it without persons. In this materialistic world, where we have been discouraged from meeting God, when people began hungering for him, they instead turned to emotions. The whole head-heart split. They substituted the feeling of meeting God, of what they presumed it should feel like when they meet God — obviously, it must be an intense high, because, God! — but this left Protestantism vulnerable to the vagaries of emotional manipulation and to liberalism. If you are basing things on feelings, then naturally you do what feels right to you. You interpret scripture in a way that feels right to you. We centered truth in human emotion, in how people feel about things. It is only natural in reaction to this that people would want to return to greater rationalist rigor when it comes to scripture, theology and morality. But methodological rigor and a renewed focus on the text itself still cannot give us an adequate grounding. Materialist readings of scripture and the created world cannot give us the sure foundation of truth that we crave. The purported “objective” reality of the Bible and the “objective” reality of creation cannot ground the truth, not because they are not real, but they are insufficient on their own to ground the truth. Those in power do know this, because they emphasize their credentials, as if that is what grounds their truth pronouncements. In practice, though, the materialist, scientific, rational understanding of scripture and of creation in many ways actually cut us off from the truth by cutting us off from God. The truth can only come from God himself.
But because we understand this, it means that we know that we need to rely on people. Men who have ascended the Mountain of God, met him and now can see clearly when presented with situations like the conundrum of the fool, whether to correct him or not. This is true in the interpretation of scripture. It is also true in science as well. This is also why the pulpit is such a powerful symbol. The pastor is not giving a “talk.” If he has done his work properly, he will have met God in prayer — theology, theos and logos, words with God, that is prayer — and will be coming down the mountain to proclaim to you God’s Word. He will do so through the scriptures, but it will truly be God’s Word. His message will participate, we might say, to put it into more modern terms, in the “archetype of revelation.” He is revealing God’s Word to you. In the fullest sense of all that this might mean. It is a weighty responsibility.
So how do we ascend the Mountain of God? There is a mystery here, yet another one that finds its resolution in God himself. It is on the one hand a gift that God gives to us on his instigation and initiation. Even the desire to seek him is his gift of grace to us. And yet at the same time we are called upon to ask him. Luke 11 says it this way,
9 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
11 “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
God has promised to you that if you ask him, he will give you the gift of his Holy Spirit. As we have seen, one of the chief roles of the Spirit is to reveal the very heart of God, his being and essence, that which grounds all truth. But it must be remembered that faith, while personal, is never individualistic. We live in community, and the Spirit is given to all. As Paul writes to Timothy in the third chapter of his first letter,
15 if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.
In this sense, it is the worshiping community, drawing itself up into the presence of God, being the body of Christ who is the image of the living God and the temple of his Spirit, that becomes the context where truth is made manifest. Although it is not irrational, truth is also beyond reason. Even though it is inexpressible, God’s people are called to find the words to bear witness to this truth. We are a people called to go up the mountain like Moses to meet God face to face, to shine from within the light of the presence of God, like Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. Not only is this the proper grounding for truth, for understanding scripture and the creation more broadly, but in a society cut off and alienated from God by the materialism of the scientific and technological society, we become the place where all those who are lost, alienated and nihilistic can see and find God. We are the pillar and ground of the truth. For lack of better words that communicate the essence of what is meant, this process is inherently mystical. Much more can be said of the mystical journey that all Christians have been called to make, what is involved in its ups and downs, but hopefully the reader will see the importance for those of us in the Protestant west to once again engage vital part of our ancient faith heritage.
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How are we to resolve the issue of so much human fiddling with the actual blots of ink comprising the modern Bible? Asking for a friend.
Superb piece, and much, much more measured and erudite than my response would have been. I am very glad you took the time to write this, K.