However, Hendrik Berkhof in his book Christ and the Powers wants us to consider the creational goodness of the Powers. To be sure, the Powers are hostile to Christ. But that doesn't mean the Powers are wholly evil and serve no good purpose. According to Berkhof the Powers give structure and order to creation. And while this order and structure might be satanic in nature, this order is preventing a slide into a greater chaos and disorder.
This is an argument that people like me need to wrestle with (which is why I'm blogging about it!).
Berkhof grounds his creation theology of the Powers in Colossians 1.15-17:
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.As Berkhof comments, "Usually the expositors of these words have laid all the accent on [the Powers] negative aspect." And yet, if we look for it Paul is saying something positive here about the Powers as well. As Berkhof observes the Powers were created by Christ and for Christ, the Powers were to be in Berkhof's words "instruments of God's love." Berkhof elaborates:
It strikes us as strange that Paul can speak thus positively of what he elsewhere calls "poor and weak powers of this world" or "precepts and doctrines of men." Yet it is not so strange. Divers human traditions, the course of earthly life as conditioned by the heavenly bodies, morality, fixed religious and ethical rules, the administration of justice and the ordering of the state--all these can be tyrants over our life, but in themselves they are not. These fixed points are not the devil's invention; they are the dikes with which God encircles His good creation, to keep it in His fellowship and protect it from chaos...Therefore the believer's combat is never to strive against [the Powers], but rather to battle for God's intention for them, against their corruption.William Stringfellow would say that the Powers are not evil, they are fallen and thus antagonistic toward God, creation, other Powers and humankind. Our struggle with the Powers is with them in their fallenness. Berkhof continues:
Paul speaks, once, of the Powers as related to the creative will of God. But we do not know them in this divinely appointed role. We know them only as bound up with the enigmatic fact of sin, whereby not only men have turned away from God, but the invisible side of the cosmos functions in diametric opposition to its divinely fixed purpose. When Paul writes that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, not even the Powers, he presupposes that the nature of the Powers would be to do just that, to separate us from love. The Powers are no longer instruments, linkages between God's love, as revealed in Christ, and the visible world of creation. In fact, they have become gods (Galatians 4:8), behaving as though they were the ultimate ground of being, and demanding from men an appropriate worship. This is the demonic reversal which has taken place on the invisible side of creation. No longer do the Powers bind man and God together; they separate them. They stand as a roadblock between the Creator and His creation.A couple of observations about this. The struggle against the Powers isn't for their eradication. Rather, the struggle is for their redemption, for the Powers to submit to the Lordship of Jesus and regain their proper place and function in human affairs. We'll always need rules, structures, codes of conduct and some semblance of government. We all have to agree, say, to drive on the left or right side of the road. Even anarchist communities have certain guidelines, traditions, mutual expectations, and protocols for handling disputes that if violated or ignored lead to communal dissolution.
The Powers continue to fulfill one half of their function. They still undergird human life and society and preserve them from chaos. But by holding the world together, they hold it away from God.
The Powers, in short, will always be with us.
The battle with the Powers, then, is really about idolatry. Less about the existence of the Powers than with their existential, moral, political and spiritual ultimacy in human affairs. Phrased other way, the struggle with the Powers is about bondage and slavery, submitting to them rather than confessing that Jesus is "Lord of all." This goes back to some of our observations from the last post. What concerns Paul in Colossians 2 was that the church was submitting to human--Jewish and pagan--moral codes of conduct, treating these cultural codes as the ultimate rule of life rather than confessing Jesus as Lord.
As to how we might resist idolizing and becoming enslaved to the Powers we'll turn to Berkhof's notion of "Christianizing" the Powers in the next and final post.
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Amen. I think this is exactly the right framework for thinking about these issues.
ReplyDeleteAnd while Berkhof and Yoder clearly aren't Dominion Theology folks, I think we should be troubled by the possibility that this theology leads us into theocratic thinking, or into the notion of an established church. Historically, it has lead there again and again. I think the American tradition of separation of church and state is rooted in profound insights into Christ's respect for freedom of conscience, and that any 'subjection of all things to Christ' can't look anything like an established church or dominion theology. In spite of this risk, I think the battle against these mistakes (or outgrown training wheels) should be fought primarily at the levels of ecclesiology and moral theology. To resist dominion/established church theology by insisting on the absolute and irredeemable corruption of the powers is, for me at least, not viable. For a host of reasons. Get it? A host of reasons. Sorry.
I find this post particularly thought provoking. After 20+ yrs attending conservative evangelical churches, I wonder from week to week whether more harm or good is being done to individuals and society as a whole by such "powers." Although they preach the "love of Christ," it always seems to come with conditions. There is a subtle (or not ?) message that one must "buy in" to the system that is represented--mainly "believing" particular doctrines, etc. I find that I can no longer swallow the whole lump that is presented and so am left wondering what exactly is the role of organized religion and how is it that as my love and knowledge of Christ seems to increase, my comfort within an organized church decreases? Looking back on your last paragraph, perhaps it is as you say, "..the struggle with the Powers is about bondage and slavery, submitting to them rather than confessing that Jesus is "Lord of all." I look forward to reading your next post which I hope will shed more light. Thank you, Dr. Beck-- I appreciate the time you take to share what you are learning and wrestling with!
ReplyDeleteI find this very helpful. At Duke I encountered a form of liberal or "postcolonial" theology that seemed to see all power as inherently destructive--all rules as doing more harm than good--all "wisdom" (in a discussion of Proverbs) as oppressive unless it was "deconstructive," i.e., undermining the guidelines/ protocols/ traditions/ expectations of a community.
ReplyDeleteI think the struggle is to treat these "powers"--especially when designed and implemented by well-meaning folk--with some sort of respect, without slipping into idolatry. And lots of things you say on this blog, especially about radical hospitality and a mercy-oriented interpretation of rules, help in this.
After yesterday's post I bought this small book and read it. So, thank you. Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised that in today's post you touched on the idolatry angle, as that was the exact thing running though my head as I read the Berkhof book.
ReplyDeleteIf you haven't read it already, I would recommend G.K. Beale's We Become What We Worship: A Biblical Theology of Idolatry. It covers much of the same territory, but in greater detail.
Thanks for this. One of the things I'm always thinking about is how we realize redemption in the midst of what faith and science tell us about matters of chaos. Whether it's Genesis' "formless and void" creation narratives or physicists' understanding of entropy, we know that the Powers around us are always pushing toward chaos and disorder. Being reminded that such forces are not all evil but simply the fallen reality is helpful in the process of finding creativity, humanity, and redemption in the midst of it all.
ReplyDeleteLiving in the mystery...the question...of what is the actual context (world) in which we live and the point of being alive...the so called existential nightmare and it's eventual resolve in Christ, or religion, or relationship, or creating the perfect world, or ending death, sickness, tears, etc.... Thanks Richard for keeping things interesting and thought provoking. But as to ending the questions of what, then, is it really about? Seems we all must make our best guesses.
ReplyDeleteMaybe its about ethereal powers or idolatry or love or the mystical oneness of all things. Perhaps the problem is death, or Satan, or isolation. Perhaps we need to rethink, over-think, under-think, deep-think, simple-think, not think our way out of the context we try to rethink, over-think, under-think, deep-think, simple-think, not think ourselves into the ultimate conclusion about the bio-psycho-social-spiritual meshing of a makeup for the human-mystery-being. :)
Jesus is Lord of All...or so I hope so (best guess effort).
Living in the mystery...the question...of what is the actual context (world) in which we live and the point of being alive...the so called existential nightmare and it's eventual resolve in Christ, or religion, or relationship, or creating the perfect world, or ending death, sickness, tears, etc.... Thanks Richard for keeping things interesting and thought provoking. But as to ending the questions of what, then, is it really about? Seems we all must make our best guesses.
ReplyDeleteMaybe its about ethereal powers or idolatry or love or the mystical oneness of all things. Perhaps the problem is death, or Satan, or isolation. Perhaps we need to rethink, over-think, under-think, deep-think, simple-think, not think our way out of the context we try to rethink, over-think, under-think, deep-think, simple-think, not think ourselves into the ultimate conclusion about the bio-psycho-social-spiritual meshing of a makeup for the human-mystery-being. :)
Jesus is Lord of All...or so I hope so (best guess effort).
I think when you label the powers' objective to be to displace God's place in our lives and not necessarily evil in themselves it describes spiritual warfare as it is unseen. Modern day idolatry is as ever present as it was in biblical times, it just takes forms that seem innocent, such as our modern day "gods" of today--the god of money, the god of sex, the god of success, god of accomplishment, god of family, god of romance, god of entertainment, and etc. None of these things are evil themselves, however when they take the place of God in our lives then they become destructive, bind, and enslave us. They promise fulfillment, offer security, and attempt to fill the void that a rich spiritual life is meant to fill, however they leave us empty and their unfulfilled promises lead to slavery as we pursue them expecting them to do something they were never intended to do.
ReplyDeleteHello, Interested to read your blog and comments. My take on Paul's treatment of the powers is that he does believe they have influence on human life and does believe they are personal. While terms like principalities, powers and stoichea may be amenable to abstraction, I don't see how others such as angels and demons can be, in any faithful exegesis. Nevertheless, it does seem clear that Paul deliberately does not emphasize the personal nature of these forces. Perhaps he's obeying his own injunction "to be simple concerning evil" (Rom.16:19).
ReplyDeleteMy interest in this issue is of a practical nature. I'm interested, Richard, to hear you're a psychologist because it's our emotional/psychological experience of these powers that I think is significant. I've been meditating on Colossians 2 lately and verses 20,21 are pertinent in this regard. "If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the universe, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations, "Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch"? The Colossians were alive to some inner force that was causing them to engage in ascetic practices. This sounds to me an awful lot like our "modern" experience of superstitious fear e.g. "touch wood," "cross yourself," "get the baby baptized," "go to church," "tithe" or something bad will happen. It appears we human beings are and always have been vulnerable to these vague forces which we fear at some gut level.
Paul has said in verse 15 that these principalities and powers have been disarmed through Christ's death and that they no longer have power over us. If we give heed to them through legalism, we are giving them an avenue into our lives. When we live a life of legalism and the condemnation that results, it certainly feels like we're experiencing dark powers. This is in line with what is said in Ephesians about angry behaviour and other sins giving a foothold to the devil i.e. there are different ways to let in different principalities. The bottom line is that most of us don't experience the kind of inner freedom that Paul proclaims. For me, objectifying these powers, if only vaguely, helps me see the serious consequences of paying attention to them and gives me incentive to reject them and to live more freely in Christ.
Awesome post!!! Thank you, Dr. Beck!
ReplyDelete