Via Media Podcast, Episode 16 A Typological Vision of the Cosmos Mark DeVine & Gerald McDermott July 25, 2019 https://www.beesondivinity.com/the-institute-of-anglican-studies/podcast/2019/a-typological-vision-of-the-cosmos Announcer: The Institute of Anglican Studies at Beeson Divinity School welcomes you to Via Media, a podcast exploring the religious and theological worlds from an Anglican perspective. Here is your host Gerald McDermott. McDermott: Before we begin today’s discussion, I want to remind all of our listeners that the Second Annual Anglican Theology Conference is coming in September to Beeson Divinity School here and Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. The focus of this year’s conference, and the title of this year’s conference, is The Jewish Roots of Christianity. Diverse scholars from three different countries will present cutting-edge research on questions such as, “Did Jesus start a new religion with Christianity?” “Did Paul follow the Jewish Law?” “How did the Church split from the synagogue?” There will also be a discussion of the largely untold story of Anglicans and modern Israel. And finally, I will suggest in my talk what difference the Jewish roots of Christianity make for Anglicans. The conference is going to be September 24th and 25th. Reserve your spot today so that it doesn’t get taken by someone else by registering at beesondivinity.com/events. Beesondivinity.com/events. DeVine: Welcome to Via Media, I’m Mark DeVine. I teach Theology and Doctrine at Beeson Divinity School at Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama. I’m your guest host today. We look forward to a special guest that I’m going to interview in just a moment, but let me first say a word about my latest book. The title is “Shalom Yesterday, Today, and Forever: Embracing All Three Dimensions of Creation and Redemption.” In that book I really became intrigued with thinking theologically beginning with creation rather than redemption. Now, I think you can do it both ways and there are advantages to doing it both ways, but really what I was trying to explore is the reality that creation is the object of redemption. And so there’s no need for redemption unless there’s a creation that needs redeeming. That kind of opened my eyes to the wide scope, the comprehensive scope, of redemption. Through that research I became interested in discussions with our guest today, Dr. Gerald McDermott, who’s written a book that addresses these issues as well. Dr. Gerald McDermott is the Anglican Chair of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School here where I teach at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. I have his latest book. He’s authored more than 20 books. His latest, hot off the press, I have it in my hand – it has a beautiful cover of a painting from Van Gogh – and the title is “Everyday Glory: The Revelation of God in All of Reality.” It’s an interesting book. It’s an intriguing book. So, Gerry, welcome to Via Media today. We’re so glad to have you. I want to start off by asking you, “Why did you write this book?” McDermott: Well, thank you, Mark. I want to thank you, first, for agreeing to guest host today. Why did I write this book? Well, you know, many years ago, perhaps before you were born, Mark, I happened upon a notebook that Jonathan Edwards had kept throughout his life. He titled the notebook, “Shadows and Images of Divine Things.” In this notebook, that’s now about 85 pages in the Yale edition, Volume 11 of the Works of Jonathan Edwards, titled “Typological Writings,” he jotted notes on the resemblances to the triune God and his ways that he saw in all the world around him. Now, by “world” he meant not only nature, what we would call nature, but also human relations. I was just struck to the quick when I read this notebook, which was about 35 years ago. This notebook, Mark, just opened a whole new world to me. I began to see beauty and riches in the stars above and the world beneath. And pointers to Gospel truths in multiple dimensions of reality. Then when I began to explore the history of Christian thought I discovered that this way of seeing the world that I was seeing here in Jonathan Edwards’ notebook was not uncommon in previous Christian theology. In fact, it was the norm. But, Mark, in the 20th century this way of seeing was lost in many sectors of the Christian church for reasons which I explain in the book. The reasons are now understandable, but the effect has been, I think, a terrible loss to the faith of millions. So, this book was my attempt to retrieve what I considered to be a profoundly Christian way of seeing the world. DeVine: Well, in your book you argue for a typological vision of reality and it’s intriguing. It’s interesting. Tell us a little bit about that. But I also want to ask you, is this really biblical? I mean, Beeson Divinity School is an evangelical divinity school, which partly what that means is a touchstone for us – authority and preaching, pastoral care, is the bible. So, this typological vision of reality that your encouraging is intriguing—it’s interesting. But is it biblical? McDermott: Well, Mark, I think it is profoundly biblical. When you look at Jesus, Jesus says, “Consider the lilies of the field and learn from them.” Job wrote, famously ... he said, “Ask the beasts and they will teach you. The birds of the heaven and they will tell you.” Paul rebukes the Corinthians. He says, “You foolish person, what you sow does not come to ...” Now, he was talking about the resurrection of the body, and he was rebuking the Corinthians Christians for not seeing from nature that there must be a resurrection of the body. Now, we say, “What? How would we see the resurrection in nature?” Paul says, “You foolish person. What you sow does not come to life again unless it dies. What you sow is not the body that is to be ...” Now, this is 1 Corinthians 15, “But a bare kernel. Perhaps of wheat or some other grain.” So, Paul was saying, “Look, nature has been teaching us all along that out of death comes new life that’s different from its first form.” You know, the gospels also say that Jesus taught nothing without a parable to the crowds. And most of those parables drew from the world of nature. He talked about sandy soil and rocky soil and thorns and birds and ravens and sparrows of all sorts. Throughout the Bible I would argue there are pointers to nature, Old Testament and New Testament, telling us that the wisdom of God is displayed out there in the world. Those are types pointing to the antitypes of Christ and his kingdom. Now of course within the bible we’ve known for millennia that the Old Testament is full of types that point to New Testament antitypes. But what we haven’t seen, particularly in the 20th century is that the world outside the bible, the bible itself says is full of types that point back to the kingdom that is displayed in the bible. DeVine: Well, that’s one thing for Jesus to do that. You know, he had an advantage over us, Gerry, being the second person of the Holy Trinity. I think in protestant theology there’s a real emphasis, and St. Augustine as well, on the devastating effects of the fall upon human beings, a noetic effect. So, are we really encouraged to do what Jesus did when we look at nature? When he looked at nature and talked about these types, then what came out of his mouth is authoritative teaching for the Church, but what are we involved in if we start trying to imitate Jesus at that point? McDermott: The reformed tradition, you’re right, does teach that noetic effects of the fall. That our mind has been poisoned by sin, so our mind does not connect the dots that are out there in nature. DeVine: Blind in sin. McDermott: Our minds are blinded by sin. So, we cannot connect the dots that are out there in nature in the right way. Now, I believe that Paul teaches, in Romans 1 and also in Romans 2, that there are things that we can see about God. In Romans 1, from nature out there, the beauty and design of the world, Paul says we can know A) that there is a God, B) that he is all powerful, C) that he is divine, and that’s an interesting statement by Paul in Romans 1. Then in Romans 2 nature here in the human heart in the conscious tells us something about God’s law. God’s law is written on every human heart. But that’s not the same thing as knowledge for salvation. As I read Paul in Romans 1 & 2 it’s the same thing in Psalm 19, “the heavens declare the glory of God. The firmament proclaims his handiwork.” Nature tells us that there is a God, but nature doesn’t tell us how to get to that God. Especially as sinners. That’s where we need the supplement to the book of nature and that’s the book of scripture. DeVine: Ah. Now, do these two sources of revelation ... is that what you’re saying? Do they operate independently? Or does it behoove a Christian theologian or a Christian pastor to consider nature in what might be learned there through the lens of holy scripture, or can these operate apart from one another? McDermott: Well, they should not ... they should never operate apart from one another for Christians or for that matter for seekers who are trying to find the true God. No. The bible is our guide to the types outside of the bible. So, we have to learn the language of God, as Edward’s put it, in scripture in order to interpret and understand and be able to speak the language of God outside of scripture that’s screaming at us from all over the world and saying, “Look at me. I am your God. I am not only the one who created you, but I’m also the one who redeemed you.” But we’re not going to be able to understand that language unless we dive headfirst into the ocean of God’s revelation in scripture. DeVine: Now, Karl Bart who is often called “the greatest theologian of the 20th century.” He spoke very strongly against natural revelation and natural theology. Is that what you’re advocating? McDermott: Well, he spoke very strongly against natural revelation. I am advocating natural revelation. I am saying that the whole Christian tradition until Bart taught natural revelation – that God does reveal himself through nature out there in the world and the nature in the human conscience. What Bart was arguing against ... So, I would say that on natural revelation that God reveals himself through nature, not savingly, but he reveals all sorts of things about himself, his existence and certain of his attributes. On that Bart is wrong, I argue in the appendix at the end of the book. But Bart was arguing against a deistic natural theology that would suggest that through nature we can come to the true God and we don’t need special revelation. I agree with Bart on that, that kind of natural theology is wrong. It’s unbiblical. It does indeed lead to idolatry. It does make the people who adopt it into idolaters. They worship a false god rather than the true God. But what I suggest in my appendix is that Bart threw the baby out with the bath water. I can understand why. I mean, he was reacting against Nazis, Nazism and it’s natural theology of blood and soil. But by reacting so strongly and boldly, as I’m grateful that he did, against the blood and soil natural theology of the Nazis he rejected all natural revelation and therefore went against the whole Christian tradition before him. DeVine: It sounds to me like you’re much closer to Calvin, who really did have a theology of nature and talked about apart from faith and the work of the Holy Spirit we’re a factory of idols, but with faith and the work of the Holy Spirit then now we can see better. Am I right about that? McDermott: I think you’re absolutely right about that. Calvin talked about this world as the theater of God’s glory through which when we look outside of ourselves, outside of the Church, and look at the world we can see a near infinite number of dimensions of the glory of God and ways in which the glory of God are expressed. DeVine: Well, I want to say that I think that this notion of the baby out with the bath water is intriguing and the way you’re saying that just because what is available to us of the truth of God in nature cannot bring us to saving faith in Jesus Christ doesn’t mean it can do nothing. And so it’s a very interesting, I think, encouragement for us to read the bible with a new alertness in that way. I want to shift now to another claim that you make in your very interesting book. You say that we can, today ... contemporaries, we can see more types, more of these typological reflections of the glory of God than the ancients did, because of modern science. What do you mean by that? McDermott: About a century ago, Mark, cosmologists started finding that the laws and the constants set up at the origins of this universe were so precise that if it had been even slightly different we would not be here. So, this discovery caused the agnostic physicist Sir Fred Hoyle, to quip, “It looks like a put-up job.” So, let me explain a little bit what he meant by that, by these laws and constants that were set up at the origins of the universe. This is what has been called “fine tuning.” What that means is the remarkable array of physical conditions in the cosmos that seem precisely calibrated for the emergence of conscious life; that if they were to have been different in the tiniest ways this universe would not exist. So, for example, water is absolutely essential for life, yet it is so rare in the cosmos as to be statistically nonexistent. Second constant that shows this fine tuning is carbon resonance. It’s required to make carbon, which is the all essential molecule for life. And what scientists have found in this last century, physicists, is that if the resonance ... that carbon resonance ... were a fraction of a percent lower or higher the process would not work and carbon would not be created and life would be impossible. Third example, gravity. Now we all know that gravity is essential for our lives, but it was also essential for the development of the present universe and the life it supports. If gravity had been just a tiny bit stronger than it is all the matter exploding out of the “Big Bang” would have been sucked back into a black hole, snuffing out any possibility of life. If it had been just a wee bit weaker, that initial matter created by the primal explosion of the “Big Bang,” would have dispersed so quickly that it never would have collected into stars, one of which eventually created our environment for life. So, these sorts of things caused the famous atheist biologist Richard Dawkins to acknowledge that it seems, “as if our universe were set up to favor our eventual evolution.” And you’ve got Frank Wilczek, the Nobel prize winning physicist who says he lost faith in traditional religion, yet believes that this astonishing set of fine tuning reveals a creator of stunning artistry. So, these are some of the things, Mark, that I didn’t know before I did the research for this book. Among other things the pervasive beauty in the universe, in the hidden structures of the universe. Now, I’ve seen beauty in nature, of course, a sort of beauty that caused the biblical authors to see the glory of God in the heavens and the earth, but what I didn’t know was the extent to which modern physicists and cosmologists talk about the elegance and the loveliness deep in the recesses of the physical cosmos that we non-scientists never see. DeVine: Well, hard study of the bible is about to drive you into a STEM field, I hope we don’t lose you to them. Let me shift to another matter that really relates to one of the words in your title, “Everyday Glory.” Read the book here and glory is very important, and you seem to suggest degrees of glory. What do you mean by “glory?” And do you believe there are degrees of glory? McDermott: Well, Paul talks about degrees of glory in 1 Corinthians 15. Let me try to explain it by talking about the glory of the tabernacle that we read about in the Old Testament. And that the Book of Hebrews talks about. Hebrews makes clear that the things of the law, such as the tabernacle were shadows of the heavenly counterpart. So, its plausible that the glory of the tabernacle ... now, when I talk about the glory of the tabernacle back in Exodus we read that it was so dazzling that Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud of glory settled on it – the glory of Yahweh filled it. Note the implication: that the tabernacle was only a shadow, we’re told in Hebrews, of heavenly realities. It was nevertheless filled with the divine glory. So, if it was only a shadow, if Moses was overwhelmed by it and it filled the tabernacle and yet it was only a shadow of the heavenly glory, then there must be at least two different degrees, two different levels. We Christians would say that the glory that exists in the gathering of Christians to worship the second person of the Trinity, well to worship the three persons of the Trinity, but particularly in the second person, Christ, that there’s a special glory there that’s perhaps even greater than the glory in the tabernacle. Yet we all would say it’s nothing like the heavenly glory that we read about that is still going on today in Revelation 4 & 5. So, those are three examples of why I talk about degrees of glory, and I think it’s an illustration of what Paul means in 1 Corinthians 15 when he talks about degrees of glory. DeVine: When I think about glory I think about three different things, depending on the context. One, sometimes glory is God’s reputation, it seems. Sometimes it’s his worthiness for praise. Sometimes it’s beauty. You’re emphasizing that, aren’t you, in your book? Glory as beauty in the way things are put together. Is that where you’re ... McDermott: That’s a central part of what I mean by glory, yes. You know, I’ve got chapters in this book on animals. I’ve got chapters on sex and sports. The rhythms of the day. And what I’m focusing on is the types and all aspects of reality that, yes, point to the glory of God, which is beauty and beauty is not just what we think of when we think of beauty, say, at the ocean or beauty in the heavens, or the beauty of what we see in a cell under a microscope, or the beauty of a human person. It includes all those things, but it’s even more. In the bible the beauty of holiness, which the bible mentions several times. Jonathan Edwards defines as finally “love.” So, these are all different ways of describing the love of God, which is the glory of God, which is the holiness of God. You know, we theologians talk about God’s simplicity – that all is finally one, there aren’t different parts in God. But all is finally God’s holiness. All is finally his glory and his beauty and his love. DeVine: How do you react to statements ... I hear this very ... I’ve heard it really all of my life in my spiritual formation ... “just give me Jesus.” That’s kind of a way of emphasizing a kind of oneness, a kind of narrowing of focus. And yet in my book “Shalom ...” And in your book it seems that we’re encouraging something different, but are we? “Just give me Jesus” or should I be looking all over the place? Not just at Jesus? McDermott: Well, you know, the Greek philosophers talked about the one and the many. If you don’t have Christian revelation of the Trinity it’s almost an insoluble problem – how to relate the one and the many. But the Trinity solves the problem. In the one are the three, the three are finally one divine being, but three separate persons. And so I remember a pastor once told me, Mark, “every sermon I preach is simple dimple so even the eight year olds can understand it.” My response to that was, “Well, that’s great for a lot of people, but life is not always simple dimple. Life is often exceedingly complex and frustratingly difficult.” And so God is simple in that he’s beautiful and he’s love and he reaches out to babies and five year olds, and yet he’s also an infinite mystery, and he’s communicated himself to us in rational words and concepts that we can understand; that often point to exceeding complexity. So, the Trinity shows us that God is simple, just Jesus, and yet God is also infinitely complex in the mysteries of the Trinity. DeVine: You mentioned earlier that you have chapters towards the end of your book on animals. You have a chapter on animals, a chapter on sex, a chapter on sports ... Sports? Really? I mean, aren’t sports mainly an escape from reality at best? And at worst just a frivolous kind of thing? And of course sex, you know, like money, it gets a lot of bad press in the bible. Animals ... I mean, animals are sacrificed. So, maybe give us ... tell us a little bit about where do animals, sex, and sports fit into everyday glory? McDermott: Well, I’ll start with sports ‘cause you started with sports. One thing that all sports involve is play. Now, where is play in the bible? Well, I argue in that chapter, in fact, there’s a long Christian tradition that says God plays. Proverbs 8 tells us that ... we would say one person in God, during the works of creation, was daily God’s delight – this is Proverbs 8:30, playing or sporting, that’s one translation, before him at all times. Now, there’s a 20th century theologian named Romano Gardini, who observed that in this Proverbs 8 passage the Son is playing before the father. And he says, you know, this is characteristic of the highest beings in the creation, angels and human beings. The most stunning examples of which are the flaming cherubim of Ezekiel 1. “They move this way and that for no human purpose, but simply ...” and no other purpose that we can detect but simply to follow the spirit for the glory of God. In this way they become, Gardini says, “a living song before him playing, sporting, before him.” Now, he says ... Now, Gardini says we can see this quality of play best in the creativity of an artist and the play of a child. Neither has a purpose for what he or she is doing except the sheer joy of doing it. They’re expressing what they were created by God to be and to do. And I think we saw this quality of play, the joy of play, in the Olympic runner in Chariots of Fire, the great movie made a few decades ago, now, and this runner was a Scotsman. His name was Eric Little. In the move he says, “When I run I feel God’s pleasure.” So the artist, the child, and Little all suggest that joy comes in the play and it has no social purpose outside the play. The play is the thing and nothing else matters. And I think ... so that tells us something about God, the second person, playing with joy before the Father and the Spirit. It also tells us something about worship. Outside of ... worship has no extrinsic purpose except its intrinsic purpose of playing, you might say, in the joy of worshipping the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So, that’s sports. DeVine: Yes. Yes. Okay. Sex. McDermott: Just imagine, Mark, a visitor from Mars. Now, here I’m trying to illustrate my thesis that runs throughout the book that there are types in all of reality and there’s types in sex that point to the triune God type. I probably should have defined this at the beginning. It’s a theological word – it comes from the Greek tupon that Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 10, which could be roughly translated “a God implanted symbol.” Not just some resemblances that we human beings notice, but that God has put there to point to something about him and his kingdom. So, imagine a visitor from Mars ... so types in sex. Think about this visitor from Mars who spent awhile on the green planet watching movies about those human beings over there on the other planet called Earth and studying textbooks about their anatomy, and he notices that the male and female sex organs fit together. Now he would also notice that when a man and woman come together in this way, sexual intercourse, a new degree of love is often expressed and created. Humans have this phrase, “make love,” as if the mere act makes or creates a new instance of love. And also children often come into being after this act, the Martian observes. Now this Martian, I think, might conclude from the way these human bodies are made and the way these human bodies work and this thing called “sex” that they must have been designed for love and fruitfulness. This is part of what is meant by the wonderful thing called “theology of the body.” So, that’s types and sex. DeVine: Now, you also mentioned animals and so ... this one, I’m wondering about that, too. A dog, you know, man’s best friend, okay. But mosquitoes, cats? Come on. Animals, everyday glory? Help us understand. McDermott: Mosquitoes and cats ... Now, cats, I don’t like either. It sounds like you don’t like cats. I’m allergic to cats after being raised with many cats and I took care of cats. But, you know, the bible actually has an awful lot to say about animals. Particularly in the Old Testament, the clean animals and the unclean animals. I have a discussion in that chapter about what might be the essential distinction between the clean and unclean animals and I propose following James Jordan, the local theologian here, that it really is talking about the clean and the unclean represent Jews and Gentiles. But I won’t speculate about mosquitoes. I think there are certainly types there that I didn’t go into. I particularly focus in this chapter on birds and dogs. Let me just give you ... since we have to close here ... something Martin Luther and a lot of our ... and I notice that you, Mark, on the cover of your book “Shalom,” have a bird. Yes. DeVine: Yes, I do. McDermott: So, here’s what Luther said about dogs. When his puppy happened to be at the dinner table with him and his students. The puppy was looking for a morsel from his master, Dr. Martin. And was watching with open mouth and motionless eyes, Dr. Martin said, “Oh, if I could only pray the way this dog watches the meat. All his thoughts are concentrated on the piece of meat. And otherwise he has no thought at all, no wish, no hope. So, if I could pray like him,” Luther said the dog is a lesson is single-minded prayer. A type to point us to the kingdom of God. DeVine: Wow. Well, it’s just an intriguing book. I think that it really does serve a new emphasis. We see it in the new interest in faith, work, and economics. We see it in our books, where we’re trying to really make good on the central place that creation has in God’s redemptive purpose. I just have to commend you for the work that you’ve put in, the investment, and I want to commend this book to our listeners. “Everyday Glory: The Revelation of God in All of Reality.” By Gerald R. McDermott. Thank you, Dr. McDermott, for joining us today at Via Media. Announcer: You've been listening to Via Media with host Gerald McDermott, the director of The Institute of Anglican Study Studies at Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. The Institute of Anglican Studies trains men and women for Anglican ministry, and seeks to educate the public in the riches of the Anglican tradition. Beeson Divinity School is an interdenominational evangelical divinity school training men and women in the service of Jesus Christ. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Via Media.