The Little Book of Providence by Richard L. Barker - HTML preview

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CHAPTER FIVE

Progressive Revelation

 

Holy Scripture does not set out the totality of God’s plan for His creation but concerns His stratagem for the reconciliation of the world to Himself and the key structures and players within that plan. The fuller picture is alluded to in Scripture but only matters directly relating to the key human agencies involved within the reconciliation (Israel and the Church) have been illuminated. Yet for many that sub-plot has been mistaken for the whole salvation story. That has distorted an understanding of the fuller picture (divine providence) whilst not preventing the salvific recruitment and enlightenment operation within it proceeding according to plan. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but that through Him the world might be saved{634}.  The whole matter has been in accordance with God’s stratagem for the Church and the world, being progressive revelation.

Natural law – the dark matter of Scripture

Given the divine intention that all true humanity was ultimately to be restored and come to understand the truth{635}, it was necessary, especially following the breakdown in relationship between man and his Maker depicted in the Eden incident that mankind be given some awareness of the Creator, how people should relate to their fellows and manage the creative order set under them. This was to be by means of natural law, a concept referred to indirectly by Paul and accepted to a degree by today’s Catholic Church, having earlier been influenced by thirteenth century Thomas Aquinas and his formulations on its primary and secondary precepts, and more recently by John Henry Newman’s reflections on universal revelation and the role of conscience, the latter having a substantial impact on the Second Vatican Council’s articulation of broader benign providence in the 1960s. Many Evangelicals on the other hand will be uncomfortable with the concept of natural law playing any positive role in human salvation. Yet that description is something of a misnomer for it pertains to eternal laws and divinely provided precepts within man that enable him, even in his fallen state, to discern good from evil and endeavour to choose the former for his own well-being and everyone else’s. Moreover, it pertains to what is spiritual, even the essence of Christ Himself, and is directly associated with His atoning death. For the fruits of the Passion avail at the forensic level for all who respond positively or “faithfully” to such precepts, for as we shall see in the next chapter, not all do. It provides an object of faith, independent of special revelation, for God foreknew that the Christian message would become confused and distorted, indeed entirely obscured for many as a result of historical cultural and religious developments. Natural law is associated with Christ himself since it pertains to an underlying faith in Logos by which little children can do no other than “believe” in the Saviour{636}. This should not be so surprising given that “natural law” is really Christ’s law, for all things, nature herself and the precious human soul were created by the pre-incarnate Christ as Logos, through Him and for Him{637}. Amongst the earliest Church Fathers such as Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria, this principle was articulated in terms of the divine Logos (Word) whom they recognized had provided every age, race and each individual with seeds of divine truth – the “Logos spermatikos”, leading everyone to some knowledge of God and His law, however fragmentary. Origen specifically regarded the seed of reason provided to all men equipping them with a measure of wisdom and justice as the essence of Christ Himself, as did Justin Martyr{638}. From such a perspective Christianity does not supersede natural law but rather builds on it. Even pagan literature, philosophy and mythology contain wisdom that could be regarded as a preparation for the gospel, and that is how the apostle Paul utilized it. He drew upon a Greek poet Epimenides and a Greek philosopher Aratus in his sermon in Athens (below), but firstly in addressing a pagan audience in Lycaonia, the apostle states:

We have come with Good News to make you turn from these empty idols to the living God who made sky and the earth and the sea and all that they hold. In the past He allowed all the nations to go their own way; but even then He did not leave you without evidence of Himself in the good things He does for you: He sends rain from heaven and seasons of fruitfulness; He fills you with food and your hearts with merriment{639}

So unlike His chosen people of the Old Testament whose inexcusable idolatry was not tolerated and was punished severely, God permitted primitive people to go their own way in terms of their search for God, hoping as Paul said that they would recognize the goodness of His nature through the natural provisions made for them. According to this apostle’s natural theology, God expected primitive man to grope after Him and find Him to an extent:

And He has made from one blood, every nation of men to dwell upon the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwelling so that they should seek the Lord in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us, for in Him we move and have our being; as also some of your poets have said, “For we are also His offspring”{640}  

This was in response to the Athenian pagans setting up an altar inscribed “To the unknown God”. Paul concluded his message:

Truly, these times of this ignorance God overlooked but now commands all men everywhere to repent{641}

Paul affirms that God had been willing to tolerate past sins; He was not as it were bound to Himself to punish them, and that was in part due to His Son’s atonement for the totality of human sin in the middle of history{642}. This is in marked contrast to how the Lord dealt with His own people Israel:

You alone have I intimately known of the families of the earth. That is why I shall punish you for all your wrongdoing{643}

When it comes to judgement, God has no favourites; on the contrary He has always made generous allowance for the unenlightened  but expects a higher standard from those who have been privileged to be acquainted with His decrees, still more have a personal knowledge of His Son; for such have been given inestimable privileges, resources and opportunities for a glorious inheritance. How shall we possibly escape if we neglect so great a salvation?{644} How much worse a punishment will those deserve who have trodden underfoot the Son of God and have counted the blood of the covenant by which one is sanctified as a common thing and so outraged the Spirit of grace?{645}. For the Lord shall judge His people. As for the rest, He has not left them entirely in the dark so the irreligious are neither entirely without excuse nor hope.

The Bible is distinctly cryptic concerning God’s wider providence as a result of which the Catholic Church, having been set back centuries in this regard by the theology of Augustine in particular, has only very recently come to apprehend and articulate the true scope of divine magnanimity, whilst many other Bible believing Christians do not perceive the matter at all, strident in their assertion that those not elected to Christian salvation are to be damned. The really good news has been saved for last{646}. Such is the procession of progressive revelation regarding providence, but it has also applied to an understanding of the nature of the inheritance of the elect which has been obscured and overly spiritualized through the influence of Neoplatonism:

(May God) give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him; the eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may know the nature of the hope of His calling and the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints{647}

God and the arts

As well as the light of reason and conscience, the loving Creator also works through His Holy Spirit in the gifts and talents He provides to mankind, for “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights{648}. These gifts are by no means all religious in nature. The Father of lights{649} can reveal something of Himself and His all- embracing providence in music, art, poetry and many aspects of human endeavour. An artistic creation or composition that inspires or elevates is likely to have been the result of its human creator being themselves inspired. Anyone who genuinely admires and appreciates such work is honouring and welcoming something of God into their heart; for everything that is truly worthy, every good and perfect gift has derived from Him. Within the literary arts, any play, book, drama or comedy that challenges people’s prejudices and encourages a more considered, open-minded or compassionate way of life is a preparation for the gospel. And it was God, not the devil who provided wine to gladden the hearts of men{650} for as Paul himself affirmed, our loving Creator wishes His human creation to be happy as well as holy{651}. An artistic outpouring that creates a sense of longing and wonder that people would not otherwise experience creates the void which ultimately can only be filled by God Himself. Science and learning are also gifts from the God who would not only have all men to be healed and restored but come to know the truth{652}.

At the natural level of revelation, something of God’s providence and power are seen in the magnificence of creation and in the more wholesome aspects of human talent and industry described above, to which much could be added. The Christian is assuredly not to “despise everything pertaining to the senses” as Augustine had asserted{653} for not all that is sensed in the mind merely excites the flesh but can also uplift the spirit. These are gifts to be appreciated and cultivated; albeit not to be embraced as if they themselves were the culmination of beauty or joy, for the Christian should discern that their apotheosis is to be perceived through them not in them.

Special revelation

The Catholic Church rightly affirms that natural law and human reason play a positive and preparatory role in man’s search for God. Human reason is not antithetical to divine revelation, indeed is a part of it; yet these faculties are insufficient of themselves to bring individuals to the kind of intimate relationship God ultimately wishes to have with the creatures made in His own image:

By natural reason man can know God with certainty on the basis of His works. But there is another order of knowledge, which man cannot possibly arrive at by his own powers: the order of divine revelation. Through an utterly free decision, God has revealed Himself and given Himself to man. This He does by revealing the mystery, his plan of loving goodness, formed from all eternity in Christ, for the benefit of all men{654}

And God having chosen to work from within, used a people (Israel succeeded by the Church) to enlighten and reconcile the people (the world) to Himself. That process was initiated when God revealed Himself to Abram and made him Abraham – the father of many nations, by whom all peoples of the earth should ultimately be blessed. From his seed would spring the nation of Israel, intended to become the priestly people of God. For them, divine revelation would no longer be restricted to what could be determined innately or by observing creation. God would reveal Himself and His requirements more precisely by means of the Law and Prophets. He would even reveal His name: JHWE – “I AM who I am”, and something of His awesome power and purity through His presence in the Holy of Holies.  Later and more overtly, God’s personality and loving purposes for humanity were witnessed, albeit briefly and to a privileged few, through the incarnate Word Himself:

The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth…And of His fullness we have all received and grace for grace{655}.

Now, through the New Covenant initiated by Christ’s blood, God’s saving truth is known more fully through the Church and her Scriptures. For this holy, universal and apostolic Church is the mystical Body of Christ on earth; His flesh and bones{656}, the instrument of His saving and redemptive mission. The Spirit guides her and progressively leads her into all truth{657}. A further progression of understanding continues in the Church through the centuries, but there can be no entirely new revelation which surpasses or in any way seeks to correct the initial revelation itself, merely its interpretation. For the foundation has once and for all been laid by Christ and His apostles and forms the scriptural and oral deposit of faith which the Church must guard and teach; the faith having once-for-all been entrusted to God’s holy people{658}:

Yet even if revelation is already complete, it has not been made completely explicit; it remains for the Christian faith gradually to grasp its full significance over the course of the centuries{659}

The revelation that has been completed will have incorporated clear instruction essential for the functioning and mission of the Church, much of it provided in verbal form, but also a less vital package of mysteries for the Church to unpack during the course of its long journey of discovery. No contributor to the canon of Scripture utilizes the word “musterion” more than the apostle Paul. A mystery from the human perspective is necessarily a secret or veiling from God’s perspective, the Greek word encompassing both aspects. There is the mystery of godliness{660}, the mystery of the Kingdom{661}, the mystery of the Church{662}, the mystery of the gospel{663}, the mystery of the faith{664}  together with the four especially relevant to this disclosure: the mystery of lawlessness{665}, the fellowship of the mystery, being the unforetold nature of Gentile inheritance and its implications to wider providence{666}, the mystery of Babylon{667} and the final Mystery of God, being His providential intentions towards the whole creation{668}, an apprehension of which would bring sweetness to the mouth but bitterness to the gut regarding what had earlier been assimilated{669}.  For the Spirit’s progressive enlightenment both within the Catholic and Protestant churches has invariably resulted in a keener awareness of God’s gracious magnanimity towards humanity, challenging the harsh and narrow perspectives of the fearsome Augustine as well as that of the Reformers who regarded that colossus as “Paul’s most trustworthy interpreter”{670}. In the context of ecclesiological re-integration, any new perspectives must be underpinned from Scripture, and that has involved deconstructing the biblical theology that was foundational to the earlier understanding.

The boundaries of new revelation

The progressive revelation principle is evinced by an indisputable and authentic development of doctrinal understanding and devotional practices through the centuries. The Holy Scriptures like the Kingdom can be likened to a storehouse of treasure from which may be brought out new things as well as old{671}. But Martin Luther went quite beyond authentic development and still further beyond the bounds of reason when he made the following remarks about the Fathers of the Church:

“OF THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH”

Behold what great darkness is in the books of the Fathers concerning faith; yet if the article of justification be darkened it is impossible to smother the grossest error of mankind… Augustine wrote nothing to the purpose concerning faith for he was first roused up and made a man by the Pelagians, in striving against them. I can find no exposition upon the Epistles to the Romans or Galatians where anything is taught pure and aright. Oh, what a happy time have we now in regard to the purity of the doctrine, but alas we little esteem it.{672} 

In all good conscience, how could God deny the world, the Church or any known assembly separated from her any effectual instruction on the means of salvation for over a millennium? For none of the known Christian sects that had separated from the Catholic Church understood saving faith in the counter-intuitive way Luther conceived it, yet if he were right, they could not have escaped perdition unless they had. For, said he: “It is certain that a man must utterly despair of his own ability before he is prepared to receive the grace of Christ”. This and the other 27 paradoxical theses articulated at the Heidelberg Disputation are effectively the foundation upon which Protestant Evangelicalism has been built, so they need to be reviewed in a little more detail.

 28 THEOLOGICAL THESES{673} - presented by Martin Luther and Leonhard Beyer to a meeting of the Augustinian order at Heidelberg on 26th April 1518:

Introductory Statement: “Distrusting completely our own wisdom, according to that counsel of the Holy Spirit, “Do not rely on your own insight” (Prov. 3:5), we humbly present to the judgment of all those who wish to be here these theological paradoxes, so that it may become clear whether they have been deduced well or poorly from St. Paul, the especially chosen vessel and instrument of Christ, and also from St. Augustine, his most trustworthy interpreter”.

1 The law of God, the most salutary doctrine of life, cannot advance man on his way to righteousness, but rather hinders him.

2 Much less can human works, which are done over and over again with the aid of natural precepts, so to speak, lead to that end.

3 Although the works of man always seem attractive and good, they are nevertheless likely to be mortal sins.

4 Although the works of God are always unattractive and appear evil, they are nevertheless really eternal merits.

5 The works of men are thus not mortal sins (we speak of works which are apparently good), as though they were crimes.

6 The works of God (we speak of those which he does through man) are thus not merits, as though they were sinless.

7 The works of the righteous would be mortal sins if they would not be feared as mortal sins by the righteous themselves out of pious fear of God.

8 By so much more are the works of man mortal sins when they are done without fear and in unadulterated, evil self-security.

9 To say that works without Christ are dead, but not mortal, appears to constitute a perilous surrender of the fear of God.

10 Indeed, it is very difficult to see how a work can be dead and at the same time not a harmful and mortal sin.

11 Arrogance cannot be avoided or true hope be present unless the judgment of condemnation is feared in every work.

12 In the sight of God sins are then truly venial when they are feared by men to be mortal.

13 Free will, after the fall, exists in name only, and as long as it does what it is able to do, it commits a mortal sin.

14 Free will, after the fall, has power to do good only in a passive capacity, but it can always do evil in an active capacity.

15 Nor could free will remain in a state of innocence, much less do good, in an active capacity, but only in its passive capacity.

16 The person who believes that he can obtain grace by doing what is in him adds sin to sin so that he becomes doubly guilty.

17 Nor does speaking in this manner give cause for despair, but for arousing the desire to humble oneself and seek the grace of Christ.

18 It is certain that man must utterly despair of his own ability before he is prepared to receive the grace of Christ.

19 That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible in those things which have actually happened (Rom. 1:20; cf. 1 Cor 1:21-25),

20 He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross.

21 A theology of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theology of the cross calls the thing what it actually is.

22 That wisdom which sees the invisible things of God in works as perceived by man is completely puffed up, blinded, and hardened.

23 The law brings the wrath of God (Rom. 4:15), kills, reviles, accuses, judges, and condemns everything that is not in Christ.

24 Yet that wisdom is not of itself evil, nor is the law to be evaded; but without the theology of the cross man misuses the best in the worst manner.

25 He is not righteous who does much, but he who, without work, believes much in Christ.

26 The law says, do this, and it is never done. Grace says, believe in this, and everything is already done.

27 Actually one should call the work of Christ an acting work (operans) and our work an accomplished work (operatum), and thus an accomplished work pleasing to God by the grace of the acting work.

28 The love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it. The love of man comes into being through that which is pleasing to it.

Truly, the above would have been an anathema to those who received the Good News from the apostles or their immediate appointees. Such cannot possibly have been “the faith once for all delivered to the saints”{674} or indeed anything like it, for none of the writings of the late first and second century Church witnesses most notably Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Ignatius and Polycarp, the latter two known to be fellow-disciples under the apostle John understood the gospel in the way the Reformers or for that matter 4th-5th century Augustine came to interpret it. Luther himself affirms the matter - none of these Apostolic Fathers had understood the gospel in terms of “faith alone”, “resting in the mercy of Christ” from the starting point of a condemned humanity incapable by nature of willing and doing anything pleasing to God. That is why this Augustinian monk came to regard them as being in “great darkness”. From any rational and  experiential perspective it is absurd to assert that everything that God does appears evil from a human perspective (#4); that acts of kindness and compassion towards those in need are effectively mortal sins (#2); that the response of a good conscience is “evil self-security” rather than the reciprocation of an innately provided  faculty (#8); that doing what one believes to be right and just could ever be a mortal sin (#7); more generally that the vast majority who have failed to interpret the “Good News” in such a way are condemned to hell. For as just illustrated, few if any Christians in the first millennium interpreted the Gospel in such a way, let alone the rest of humanity to whom God has also wished to impart His saving truth. Given that these issues pertained to the essentials of human salvation and the historical mission of the Church they could never have been truths that were progressively to be revealed but are heretical teachings, resulting in the severing of the Body of Christ, hatred between sincere Christian believers and centuries of warfare. 

It is therefore important to ascertain how the teaching of the apostles actually was disseminated through their successors to the churches being established throughout the world. Third century Origen aptly commented that the apostles when handing on the faith to the early Church expressed themselves “with utmost clarity concerning the essentials” whilst on other subjects “they merely stated the fact that things were so, keeping silence as to the manner or origin of their existence, clearly in order that their successors who should be lovers of wisdom might have a subject of exercise on which to display the fruit of their talents{675}. Examining the Ante-Nicene writings it will be discerned that all were in agreement concerning certain essentials that have subsequently been the cause of schism, whilst other issues including those being dealt with in this document such as God’s dealings with those outside the Church and the nature of the age to come were not agreed amongst the Fathers for they contained mysteries the solution for which did not form a part of the “faith once and for all delivered to the Church” but were data to be subjected to progressive revelation.

Apostacy foretold

A partial darkening and some internal corruption was foretold for the Church (initially for the Temple) in prophecy and occurred at its appointed time, resulting in apostasy and the fragmentation of the Western Church along with the development of some fatally flawed theology. But then “there must be sects among you, that those who are approved might be recognized among you”{676}. But in these last days there needs to be unity amongst the churches so that the Good News of the Kingdom can be preached coherently as a witness to the un-churched before the end of the current arrangements on earth. The Catholic and Orthodox churches must be open to the Spirit of Truth, and therefore to new enlightenment regarding issues not directly challenging the Creed or Deposit, relating rather to scriptural interpretation. That is something in which Protestant scholars often excel; and unlike the controversies of the middle-ages these do not necessarily challenge ecclesiological integrity, although they may well challenge some established doctrines. For as the Catholic Church acknowledges:

There is a hierarchy of truths since not all truths of the Catholic doctrine are equally connected with the foundation of the Christian faith{677}