Dr. Gary Deddo
 

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Fourth Interview with Dr. Gary Deddo

JMF: Welcome to another edition of “You’re Included.” I’m Mike Feazell. We’re pleased to have Dr. Gary Deddo with us again. Dr. Deddo is Senior Editor at InterVarsity Press. He is also founding President of the Thomas F. Torrance Theological Fellowship, and author of the book Karl Barth’s Theology of Relations. We really appreciate you coming back for another program, spending time with us again.

GD: Sure.

JMF: You are a scholar of Karl Barth’s writings. What is important about Karl Barth for American Christianity?

GD: The most important thing about Karl Barth is that he points us to the gospel and to the God of the gospel, that’s why he’s important. He has no importance in and of himself. And of course, he’s not interested in being a Barthian himself, or having anybody call themselves that. And so, I don’t call myself a Barthian. But his importance is he points us to the gospel and the God of the gospel, and the center of that is ... what he saw was so important, especially in his day and I would say still in our day, is to realize is that when God showed himself in person in Jesus Christ, he was revealing to all humanity the rock-bottom total truth of who he is, that was true to himself in his own being, not just towards us, in his own being, God had figured it out a way for human beings to truly know who he is, and that way was through Jesus Christ in the power of the Spirit, and now, according to Scripture, so that’s who he is. You would think it would be simple but I find it takes a lot of concentration, discipline and even repentance to recall again, and again, and again, is that there is no other God except the God revealed in Jesus Christ.

To be colloquial, in Jesus Christ, you have the whole enchilada – that’s who God is all the way down – there is no other God, there is no God behind God, what you see in Jesus Christ is what you get. Another way to say it is, in Jesus Christ you get the Son of God, we find the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, all God in the character of God, the attitudes of God, the purposes of God and therefore any theology of God has to be founded, centered, directed, disciplined, and oriented to the only place where there is this self-revelation of God in Jesus Christ. And so we can’t go looking around Christ or to other sources as a norm and a status for that. God is who he is, actually, really in himself and towards us who he is in Jesus Christ. So any knowledge of God and any faith in God has to be controlled, ordered, arranged and filled out in terms of Jesus Christ – as he is God with us. And what I find in my own life and in other theologies, it’s actually much more difficult to stay centered on that center, as we’re somehow tempted to develop knowledge of God on other foundations with other sources and they end up competing with what we find out about God in Jesus Christ.

JMF: So this focus that Barth brings is different from other prevailing theologies, is that ah...

GD: I would say so, that Barth was so grasped by this and saw its importance that he corrected himself and regulated himself and asked himself the question, “is... am I speaking of and speaking about the one and the same God in Jesus Christ?” So for every word he used... so if you’re gonna talk about the kind of ubiquity of God, you have to see how that relates to God revealed in Jesus Christ. If you’re gonna talk about the eternality of God, if you’re gonna talk about the mercy of God, if you’re gonna talk about the wrath of God, or the election of God, or the atonement of God, or our future glorification, or our union with Christ – all these things is... they all had to line up with the truth and the realities we find it in Jesus Christ. And he was so rigorous in that because he thought that’s the essence of theology. He was so rigorous, what I find is other theologies kind of wobble and waver – sometimes they get that in focus, and sometimes...

JMF: What are some examples of “other theologies?”

GD: Well, for instance, a theology that in essence ends up starting with a theology of the Fall, let’s say. What I find is, certain theologies we are so concerned about sin – and indeed, it’s a big... it’s the problem of our human existence – it’s the problem of it. But if you make sin and the Fall kind of the defining moment as if that shaped all of reality and that you can then set up all your theologies, it becomes more or less a theology of sin. So in this case, let’s say, ok sin is the problem. All right? Now if we bring in Jesus Christ second after that, and Jesus Christ is defined in terms of the problem, ok? – because we’ve got a big problem to solve, all right? In essence what you’re gonna say and how your theology will develop will be – Jesus will essentially be understood as a problem-solver, the solver of sin.

JMF: The focal point of your theological perspective is sin.

GD: The sin problem, and then Jesus comes down into the sin problem and does what he’s gonna do in that circle. Now, that’s a very truncated view of actually the Bible’s view of who Jesus is. So for instance, it leaves out the fact that we find out, that through the Son of God who then became incarnate, everything was created, for him, through him, and to him. So that this incarnate one Jesus, is not just the fixer-upper of the problem. Actually everything belongs to Jesus Christ – came into being through the Word of God, incarnate in Jesus, all creation belongs to Christ himself and is for him. It’s destined to be for him – as the Creator. So, it’s the Creator God who is redeeming us. And so God, who Jesus is, is much larger than the fixer-upper of the sin problem. He is the one that everything came into being, he is the one who has the future in mind for this creation, now fallen. So it’s one and the same God. So when Jesus, as it were, completes his work on earth, he doesn’t just like disappear off the scene because he’s got the job done, he doesn’t have anything more to do with it. He is the one for whom everything was destined – in him. And so in the Bible, Jesus has not... he’s finished with the atoning work, but his ministry as the Son of God continues.

JMF: So this theology with sin as its focus is where a lot of people are... when they think of how they think about the Bible and God, the whole Christianity, religious thing – their focus is sin. They don’t start with who is Jesus, they start with how do we deal with sin, and solve this sin problem... what is another theology that...

GD: Well, another theology would be that God is essentially interested in moral order. And again, this pretty much comes out with what went wrong, in this view if you start with that view – God is interested in moral order, and sometimes we'll think the holiness is restricted to moral order.

JMF: So, kind of a holiness focus.

GD: Right. And if you start with that, then... and often that’s locked in to the Fall because the Fall is disobedience. As if God was merely interested in moral obedience, and not something more – not less than that – but something more than that. So then Jesus has just... or just gets us back on track so that we can obey a moral order and do the stuff that God wants us to do.

JMF: Again, he’s a fixer of a problem that occur.

GD: Right, of a moral order.

JMF: So he’s not at the heart and foundation of the theology. (GD: Right.) He’s the... a factor...

GD: Right. An instrument, we say (JMF: Ok.) theologically, he’s an instrument and of course yes, once you’re done with the instrument and you’ve fixed whatever you’re fixing, once you used the screwdriver to drive in the screw then once the screw’s in place you don’t need it anymore. You dismiss it and say, you know, he’s done. But that just isn’t the God of the Bible. That’s not the Lord Jesus Christ of the Bible. But if you only think God is interested in moral order, you’ll think of God as most interested in a legal relationship with us rather than an alternative would be a filial, personal relationship.

So we... if moral order... and so you have a God that’s primarily first law, well then if you started to think about grace, even the grace of Jesus Christ, then if law is the larger category, it’s all set up, then what God is interested to do is often then justice, and justice in this framework is often understood as having two sides. The justice of God is understood in this sense as being equally satisfied by two things. The justice of God in this frame is understood as rewarding the good – so God is just because he rewards the good, and the other thing that makes God perfectly just is punishing the evil. And that’s it. God is essentially the God who rewards the good and punishes evil. And on that basis, that’s why we call God just or right or holy.

JMF: So if that’s the focus of your theology then, you read Scriptures with that in mind, you order your life with that in mind, that’s the kind of preaching you gravitate to – that’s kind of books you read, you’re focused on this vanquishing of the enemies of God. Of course, you see yourself as the ... on the good side of that. And so wouldn’t that make you kind of ... the type of person who is judgmental of your neighbor who does not behave as well as you wish he would and so on?

GD: And yourself.

JMF: And there’s a lot of self-condemnation and self-doubt, frustration and anxiety about your relationship with God but also that’s what a lot of Christians are criticized for ...surveys show people don’t want to live next to evangelical Christians because they’re so judgmental.

GD: It certainly can lead to that, because judgment and being judgmental go together. A legal God, and then of course as Christians maybe we be tempted to want primarily legal relationships with others where there’s... the legal here is like a contract which really makes it conditional: if you do “X” then I’ll do “Y,” and we’ll agree to that. But if you don’t do “X” then I won’t have to do “Y.” So we make... a legal relationship with God is contractual really. Now we have lots of contracts around us. That’s how we operate in society. But the question is, yes, we may act legally, by contract with others, but is that really the kind of relationship that God wanted us from all eternity, before creation? And is that the kind of relationship God wants with us after the Fall, and after his redemption, is where there is a contractual, legal relationship with God – if you do good, then I’d reward you.

JMF: Well, it’s that the kind of thinking that... and approach to the Bible that a person has when the child doesn’t measure up and so they cut them out of the will or they cut them out of their relationship and they’ll never see them again because they did something ...

GD: Yes. Often we either, on purpose as a society, create contracts and live by them and we think that’s a good thing – that’s justice. And often in our personal relationships, you know, they can... I would say, reduce [JMF: unwritten contracts] to the legal where we contractually relate to each other so I think we see the tragedy when a marriage – which is not supposed to be, in a Christian frame anyway, merely legal contract, but is... promises to one another that are unconditional to one another. When marriage is turned into a legal tit for tat, if you, then I.... If not you... then not I... that, that actually represents the collapse of the marriage, the dissolution of a marriage – it is a distortion of a marriage. But yet, you know, pre-nuptial agreements and things like this is, our society is pushing everything into a contractual relationship. So even then, the personal and the ... some would call it, filial – which means a notion of sonship, or family, we’re losing that dimension of our ability to relate to one another and entering more and more in having more areas of our human lives all being contractually run.

JMF: So self-sacrificial love doesn’t really have a place...

GD: No, that wouldn’t be... it’s all conditional that if you fulfill this conditions, then I will do something. But if you don’t, I’m not gonna follow through on anything...

JMF: But that’s how we think of God then that ... if we think God is saying to us, “If you change your behavior, say the sinner’s prayer, then, I will act to save you.” But up until you do that....

GD: That’s right. And so, we do – we often, as Athanasius said, we think out of a center  in ourselves – but that, he said, is not theology. That is mythology. And if... furthermore it’s idolatry, because we’re thinking God is like us. Whereas, no, God is not like us. God is not a creature. We have to stop thinking out of a center in ourselves and making ourselves and our experience the norm and standard for understanding God. Well, that’s what God in Christ came to do – he is the great iconoclast to break our false understandings of thinking about God as if he’s something like us, but, you know, somewhat better. That still is idolatry to do that. God came to say is, no, I’m here to interpret myself as I really am... cause I am God and not man. Even the wrath of God is not like human wrath. The wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God, James tells us – does not work the righteousness of man. So God’s wrath works differently than ours. We can’t think of God’s love, God’s wrath, even God’s existence as just, you know, something like ours.

And God was trying to get through to us and Jesus Christ is saying, is, here is who I really am. I am not just somewhat like you just a little bit better. I’m totally different. I’m God and not man. And so the grace of God, and the love of God is of a different kind. Now, back to the law ... see, what is God’s original purpose? Just to reward the good and punish the evil? Is that all God’s justice can accomplish? So that God would say, is, “Well, you know what, I’ve rewarded the good and I’ve punished the evil. I’m happy! That was my purpose. That’s all I want to do. I’m just, I’m holy, I’ve rewarded the good, I’ve punished the evil, I’m perfectly happy.” Is that really the notion of the justice, the righteousness, and even the holiness of God in Scripture? Or, is the justice of God and the righteousness of God really that God is the one who makes things right, who returns things to their right, and even perfects things to their full rightness. That is – is God’s justice a restorative justice, a corrective justice – making things right, so that the only thing that satisfies God’s justice, is that things being made right.

So that if you bring creation as the first, and the purposes of God first, and don’t make sin and the law the central, controlling thing, is that you have to ask yourselves the question, “why did God create me in the first place?” Just to reward the good and punish the evil? Is that what God had in mind? Or that God have in mind is, I want to love creation into perfection so that the love that the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit – that we have been enjoying for all eternity, might be extended to creation and loved into perfection. And that is what makes God just – because he puts things right. And so when it’s broken, what does he do? He is the God who puts things right – so that the only thing that satisfies the righteousness of God and the justice of God is to bring about righteousness and justice. Now, if that’s the purpose is, then you sin is resisting God’s good purposes and then Christ, then, is bringing about those original created purposes to make things right - in the New Testament, to bring about a new heavens and a new earth. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. So then the justice of God is not, cannot be restricted to rewarding the good and punishing the evil – as saying, I’m equally satisfied. That maybe all that we can do as human beings. But we cannot project our limitations of justice or righteousness or any other thing on God.

Is God really incapable of doing nothing more but rewarding the good and punishing the evil? Or can he actually reconcile, transform and perfect his creation? Can he do that? Is that actually the heart of God? Is that actually what God is doing in Jesus Christ – to bring things to his perfection – to put and make things right in the end? See, that’s a very different view of the justice and righteousness of God which is not legal, because there in the end, righteousness is right relationship where there is the perfect exchange of love – a fullness of life and fruitfulness in loving communion. So... of course, Jesus says, “I do not call you slaves any longer.” Paul tells us not to fall back into the spirit of slavery, to do that. We are created to be the children of God – the children. That’s his glory – to bring many sons to glory in Hebrews 2. That’s God’s purpose is, because that’s God’s heart. Because God in himself is Father and Son in that holy love in the Holy Spirit. And he loves us with the same love with which he has loved his own Son and wants us to be a part of that. So the biblical picture to me is that God does not have legal purposes for us but filial purposes – loving purposes, and even the Fall and sin does not stop God from pursuing that end and he’s done that in Jesus Christ that we might actually share in his – Jesus’ own sonship with the Father. And to me, that’s a very different... that’s what makes God righteous and holy. The filial purposes fulfilled in Christ that we might participate in.

JMF: So Barth’s focus on this, in drawing theology back to a focus on Christ as all in all for all the creation, is a reflection – you mentioned Athanasius, back from the 300s – it’s a reflection of the earliest theology of the church from the beginning, not some innovation that some neo... is called – neo-orthodox and there’s a... there’s some history there with views of God coming out of the war and so on. But we have accusations against Barth a lot, saying that he is too liberal – he makes it too easy to be loved by God. Or he minimizes Scripture. What about the accusations?

GD: Well, Barth was attempting to be... not create any kind of theological tradition nor be enslaved to anyone. He wanted to be faithful to the God revealed in Jesus Christ according to Scripture. And that’s ... and... to receive help from anyone throughout the whole history of the Christian church that would help him faithfully think and formulate theologically on that. And so he would use anybody that he could to find... he found helpful. And so he found that in, yes, the general Reformed tradition, certain strands in that, helpful in this way and he went back to Luther and Calvin – but he also went back because Luther and Calvin themselves did, went back to the early church and of course, the early church – Athanasius, Irenaeus, Hilary and others – they pointed back to Scriptures itself of course and the writings of the apostles, and all.

So, Barth was doing, attempting to do nothing but build on that foundation. And of course, along the way, what he discovered is, his entire own training as a student, had to be thrown away, which was in the liberal tradition. Barth’s theology was an absolute reaction and repudiation of liberalism – because he found it, they did not build on that foundation. So Barth had to re-train himself. In order to do that, how he put it is, and this is after he’d finished his training and he went to be a preacher and a pastor, he said I had nothing to preach. So what I was forced to do is to go back to the whole new world of the Bible. That’s his words, quote. And when he did is, he discovered a different God and a different Christian life, and even a different Christian ethic. But he found the key to this all was Jesus Christ because he showed us who God really was. And he discovered so many in his own church, so many theologies had other norms and standard and sources of knowledge of God independent and apart from the true revelation of God himself in Jesus Christ. So they had several sources that were intentional...

JMF: What sort of sources?

GD: Well, a lot of it was human experience – human experience or human ideals and notions. So for instance the idea of the one absolute God – this type of idea which is the absolute Spirit of God, they view this as the highest thing. And then they started trying to fit the biblical revelation into that and conforming it and shaping it, slicing off certain things. So they were into ideals, like the ideal of resurrection as a general idea. The resurrection isn’t an idea, it is an occurrence – what happened, Jesus Christ bodily raised from the dead. It’s not an idea or a general idea: "Everything has resurrection life about it." “No,” Barth said. So, everything... human beings are imbued with the Spirit of God. We’re all filled with the Spirit of God in general and that shows itself up in our culture, and in our architecture and in our technology. See, this is building up to Nazi Germany. And so Barth saw that really what was happening is, human beings were taking themselves, magnifying them, calling them god and then squeezing the Bible and its revelation into that. And that led to Nazi Germany.

And when he saw it, when he saw that development both in World War I and World War II, he saw that his whole theological education had been built on a false foundation and had to start over completely and this is what led to his writings and even re-writings – things from earlier times, to reconfigure this. And then as he looked back to the history of Christian theology, he saw he had to sort through certain things. That certain things were actually going off-track, other things were more on-track, so he had to sort through this track that said is, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. He who has seen me has seen the Father, and to stay strictly onto that. Now his view of Scripture what he found is that – the view of Scripture around him was very low because Scripture was crammed into human categories and human names and labels and the norms became human experience. And what he said, the Scripture doesn’t allow us to do that. But even Scripture itself he saw, was not tightly connected.

His main question was, “what’s the connection between the written word and the living word.” Because scholars of his day were reading the Bible, studying the Bible but they were doing that as if the Bible itself were disconnected from the living word – from the living Lordship of Christ. And that the object of Scripture, the object of study was Scripture itself so that in essence, studying Scripture meant in the end you came to know Scripture, but you did not know God – because God... there had been a distance, a disconnection between the living word and the written word. And so what Barth was attempting to do was try to tell us, is that you cannot deal with Scripture apart from its real connection with the living word. And so that, in that connection meant is that to hear the word of God as the Word of God – to let the Bible be what it is. We couldn’t have a deistic view of the Bible, that to hear the word of God meant God himself by the Holy Spirit would actually speak again in and through Scripture.

JMF: So it’s God revealing himself in Scripture, not Scripture being kind of another god...

GD: Right, it didn’t have... Scripture would not be what it is and wouldn’t serve its purpose unless God, actively, daily, and moment by moment actually himself, by the Holy Spirit, spoke in and through that Scripture. If God, as it were, were mute, decide I’m not gonna say anything anymore – and we just have the Bible, but God himself was mute – Barth would say is, in a practical sense, then God is dead, isn’t he? – to us. And he says, no – but God is the living God, that’s what the Bible says. God is the word, he is speaking. God is the one who communicates. And so God hasn’t decided, to... I’ll put it all in a book and never say anything more because the human heart would not hear the Bible without the working of the Holy Spirit. So Barth had a high view of the Holy Spirit, not apart from Scripture but recognizes that the Bible as a book would not be what it is and would not serve in the way it could, mainly enable us to know God, unless God actually was doing something while we’re reading the Bible.

JMF: And conversely his point was that God was doing something when we’re reading the Bible. It’s actually a much higher view of the Bible...

GD: It’s actually a higher view of Scripture because what the Bible is, is what it is because there’s a living, continuing, actual connection between the real God and our reading Scripture. So when we’re reading the Bible, it’s not like the only thing that’s happening is we’re reading. God himself, actually, personally, by the Holy Spirit, is speaking, speaking actually, His Spirit knows the deep things in God, speaks in the depths of our own spirit, Paul tells us. How? In and through Scripture! So what Barth wants to know is not what... in the end what Paul said, he’s listening to what Paul says because he wants to hear what God is saying – not apart from the Bible, but in and through the Bible – because God is the living God, God is the articulate God, God is the Word, and he’s not mute. God never became silent.

So that we... and part of this means when you study Scripture, when you listen to the preaching of the word, you study it and listen to it by faith in the living God. That is you say, as you are reading you would say, God you need to speak to my heart – you, yourself. I need to hear a word from you. And so as I’m reading the Bible, as I’m studying it, is, Lord, God be gracious unto me a sinner, that I might really hear you and what you are saying in and through this your word, here and now. You see, otherwise what we end up depending upon is the words on the page, or our method. So my sincerity plus my methods enable me to hear the word of God – notice there the grace of God is not even needed really. So studying the Bible in this sense is, is an act of radical trust in the living God – Lord get through to me, and get rid of all my false ideas and unworthy ideas of who you are and what you are – let me hear you again in and through this word because if you don’t speak into my very heart and being is like, I cannot hear you myself because I am a sinner. Get through to me.

So, all of our obedience, including studying Scripture, reading Scripture, listening to the Scripture preached, then, is done by faith in the actual living God as if this God was present and real and active today, because what Barth saw is, when the German church separated Scripture from the living God, they manipulated that Bible to serve the needs and the desires and even the ideals of Nazi Germany. So they became lords over the Bible and used their methods, you see, to move it around to fit their needs and ideals and the only way, Barth saw is, we have to bring back in the sovereignty of God which is the active living grace of God present in our lives to overcome our resistance and our... to the grace of God that we might really hear his word again to do that. So yes, God’s view of Scripture is Scripture is connected to the living word and that’s what makes the Bible the Bible and if you separate them, the Bible becomes nothing – we become lords over it. So yes, I don’t think that’s a low view of Scripture. It’s a high view of God and his word.

JMF: I wish we could continue, but we’re out of time again.

GD: Ok.

JMF: Thanks so much, appreciate you being here. We’ve been talking with Dr. Gary Deddo, I’m Mike Feazell for “You’re Included.”

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