TF Torrance on Justification and Orthodoxy

By -
Thomas F. Torrance, Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ (Robert T. walker, ed.; Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic and Paternoster, 2009): 105.

“Justification is God’s word of truth and its revelation is truth. This word justification does not have to do simply with righteous living but with righteous understanding, for righteousness is God’s right or truth as well as his holiness and involves knowing as well as doing, and thus to do righteousness is the same as to do truth. (Compare Jesus’ statement, ‘you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.’) The revelation of righteousness is the word that puts us in the truth and as such tells us that we are in un-truth. Justification says “let God be true, but every man a liar’, as Paul puts it with reference to Psalm 51. This word of justification which puts us in the truth denies all self-justification and denominates it lying, or un-truth. If God’s justification of the ungodly means that no one can boast of their own righteousness, then it also means that no one dares to boast of their own orthodoxy, for to claim orthodoxy is to claim to be in the right, to be in the truth; it is a boasting of the right, whereas in point of fact justification by putting us in the truth, reveals that we are in the wrong, in un-truth.”
You have by now discovered that the title of this post was a bit tongue-in-cheek. So many discussions, and even arguments, have been going on lately in English-speaking and specifically North American theology that I think what Torrance has to say here is very timely.

Comments

Chris TerryNelson said…
I'm lookin' at you, Piper! :-)
February 17, 2010 7:16 AM
Bobby Grow said…
Very timely, I only wish the "Reformed Orthodox" would read and appreciate this; but then I guess they wouldn't be "RO" if they did.
February 18, 2010 2:45 PM
W. Travis McMaken said…
I'm taking a page out of Jesus' book: You said it, not me!
February 20, 2010 5:05 PM
Todd said…
reminds me of Jesus thanking his Father that he had "hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children...(MATT 11:27:) "All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."
Does orthodoxy mean "right glory?"
Truth is a Person--in companionship--specifically, the Son in communion with the Father in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
December 02, 2010 5:46 AM
Post a Comment

Popular Posts

So, You Want To Read Karl Barth?

By -
Image
Every now and then I am asked for advice about studying Karl Barth. So, I thought that I would share some of my standard advice here. But, before I do that, let me just say that I am by no means a Barth expert as compared to the people whose books I will mention below. I would be thrilled to find myself in their league one day, but as of yet that remains a distant dream. Still, I have been reading Barth for long enough, and under the supervision of a number of the scholars that I will mention below, that I think I can provide a decent orientation. I have never read Karl Barth before. Which of his books should I read first? Barth’s most famous work is the monumental 13-volume Church Dogmatics . Reading the CD with understanding is not an easy thing, so you definitely do NOT want to start here. Luckily, there are two smaller works by Barth that serve as helpful introductions to his work. Evangelical Theology: An Introduction - Based on the lectures that Barth delivered duri
Keep reading

So You Want to Read….Dietrich Bonhoeffer?

By -
Image
"I fear that Christians who stand with only one leg upon earth also stand with only one leg in heaven." "The exclusion of the weak and insignificant, the seemingly useless people, from everyday Christian life in community…may actually mean the exclusion of Christ; for in the poor sister or brother, Christ is knocking at the door." "Since ethical thinking in terms of realms is overcome by faith in the revelation of the ultimate reality in Jesus Christ . . . there is no real Christian existence outside the reality of the world." "People who reject their bodies reject their existence before God the Creator." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer Prelude Andreas Steinhoff [Attribution], via Wikimedia Commons I envisioned having a lot of time for blogging this summer, but that simply has not been the case - the last month has been a crazy one, to say the least. For two weeks, I was working at a theology summer camp of sorts, the Duke Youth Academy, and s
Keep reading

2010 KBBC: Week 1, Day 5

By -
“You Wonder Where the Spirit Went”: Jenson and Barth on the Hiddenness of God By Peter Kline I am entering into a conversation that Jenson has already begun with Barth. In a constructive essay on the hiddenness of God (Jenson 2000), Jenson considers Barth’s position on the matter only to find it lacking. I want to explore why Jenson has problems with Barth on this issue, as well think critically about his constructive alternative. I will suggest that Jenson is only partly right in his diagnosis of Barth; he in fact overlooks the heart of Barth’s teaching on divine hiddenness. The reason is that he looks in the wrong place for Barth’s pneumatology. Jenson can’t find the Spirit in Barth not because the Spirit isn’t there, but because the Spirit is hidden . These considerations will open out into a comparison of Barth and Jenson on the logic of revelation. By “logic” I mean: what is discourse about God’s revealedness and hiddenness supposed to accomplish? Part I Jenson focuses his a
Keep reading

2010 KBBC: Week 3, Day 1

By -
On the Monstrosity of Christ : Karl Barth in Conversation with Slavoj Žižek & John Milbank By Paul Dafydd Jones For a while, I hoped to frame this conversation in terms of a dramatic interchange – something along the lines of “A Slovenian philosopher, a British theologian, and a Swiss dogmatician walk into a bar…” Alongside an eye-wateringly hip assemblage of cinematic references, literary allusions, and comedic scenes – my early favorites being when Barth imagines a young adult novel, entitled Are you there God? It’s me, Žižek , and when Milbank waxes poetic about the Twilight movies – I wanted to engage some topics that would likely receive attention, were the authors to meet for drinks. Primarily, I envisioned an intense discussion of the logos asarkos and the logos ensarkos , with Milbank talking up the former category, Barth emphasizing the latter, and Žižek asking whether recent debates are but symptoms of secret puzzle, embedded in the Church Dogmatics – a puzzle that
Keep reading

Karl Barth on Hell, the Devil, Demons, and Universalism – A Florilegium

By -
Image
You know, all the most interesting topics. Although Barth often confessed that he didn’t find these questions particularly interesting. At best they might draw sideways glances, as it were, as one travels the theological road. But I found a number of places in the records of Barth’s later conversations that I thought folks might find interesting, so I’ve collected them here. And if you aren’t familiar with the term “florilegium,” here you go ! All these texts are from the first volume of Barth in Conversation , with pages numbers given in parentheses along the way. As usual, italics are in the text and bold is mine. Hell “Now we come to hell. You shouldn’t laugh! There is nothing to laugh at! What does hell mean? I think hell means to be in the place where you are once fore all damned and lost without ceasing to exist, without losing the image of God, being what you are but being damned and lost, separated from God, whose creature you are, separated also from your neighbor, from
Keep reading