Responding to Kevin G Smith
Brief Synopsis on the Christocentric Principle
In Response to:
The Christocentric Principle (1st Section)
I will be quoting Keith’s work in this manner. And I’ll be responding without using this format. Keep in mind, I don’t wish to comment on all of the material but in particular, his view of the pitfalls of the Christocentric principle.
Kevin: Dr Christopher Peppler founded the South African Theological Seminary (SATS) on three pillars, summed in our by-line as Biblebased, Christ-centred, and Spirit-led. As an evangelical seminary offering Master’s and Doctoral degrees in theology, we have stressed the Bible-based aspect, partly to distinguish ourselves from the more liberal approaches that predominate in the theological departments of South African universities.
Kevin implicitly conflates the actual Christocentric principle (not the evangelical conception) with some Christian-liberal innovation, which is a biased argument derived from his sensibilities to his theological tradition. Some liberal Christians like Matthew Vines would affirm the doctrine of inerrancy. This kind of address demonstrates his ignorance on how the Gospels, Paul, Hebrews, and how the patristic tradition view Christ’s relationship with the Hebraic scriptures (cf. Matthew 17:1–8; John 12:34–36; Romans 10:4; 1st Corinthians 9:9–11 by Paul; Hebrews 8:7, 9:6–10, 10:1; Philadelphians 8.2–9.2 by Ignatius; Barnabas 10:2–3, 9; Contra Celsum V.60 by Origen).
The idea was simple. Since the words and works of the Lord Jesus Christ constituted the climax of God’s acts of self-revelation, providing the clearest picture of the nature, will, and purposes of God, we should begin a topical study by considering what Jesus said and did. We should then turn to the Old Testament, which enables us to contextualise Christ’s words and works within the unfolding plan and purposes of God. The Old Testament provides the rationale for Jesus’s words and works; it helps us to understand ‘the why’ behind his revelatory life and deeds.
Simply learning and studying the life of Jesus does not cause anyone to understand the context of the Old Testament, which is why many Christian denominations (including Judaized Christians) cannot agree on the topic of atonement, eschatology, anthropology, morality, soteriology, exegesis, etc. Israelite religion (not-to-mention its gradual evolution) is very distant and foreign to many Christians when Hebrew scholars or exegetical experts expound upon it. The Old Testament does not disclose on why Jesus abolished the kosher principle, why He died on the cross, and why He preached the gospel to the dead. The authorial reading has no room or conception of a crucified, divine, and resurrected messiah. The early Church employed spiritual allegory or allegoresis to express Christ through the old scriptures since they believed in transcendental inspiration being disclosed by allegoresis. The Lord taught this pneumatic mode of interpretation to the disciples (cf. Luke 24:27). Kevin doesn’t seem to understand that their understanding of the Hebrew scriptures was not a purely exegetical or authorial manner; it was a Hellenistic mode of surveying the old writings/scriptures.
2nd Edition: So-called Pitfalls
Kevin: The christocentric principle might leave us vulnerable to forming a canon within a canon. We might develop a two-tier approach to the scriptures in which we treat the gospels as superior revelation to the remainder of the scriptures. As evangelical interpreters, the whole canon of scripture, soundly interpreted, is our norm for belief and behaviour. The completed canon is the Word of God to the people of God. We are the people of the book, and the completed canon is our final and sufficient record of God’s revelation to us. Therefore, we have a canonical approach to theology. The completed canon is the locus of theology…In emphasising Christ as the full and final revelation of the God (which he is), the christocentric principle can lead to a theological praxis in which the gospels are treated as more inspired than the other scriptures. What Jesus said and did is ‘grade A’ revelation. What Moses or Paul wrote is ‘grade B’ — still inspired, but less important. This could lead to the glorification of the gospels, and theology based on a canon within the canon. Theologians who do not accept the full inspiration and authority of all scripture sometimes adopt a similar approach, viewing the gospel (the Christ-life or the Christ-event) as the true revelation that corrects the misrepresentation of God in earlier writings.
Firstly, Christians of the three mainstream branches (e.g. Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, & Eastern Orthodoxy) cannot even agree on what the Old Testament canon is, so this argument of “the completed canon is our final and sufficient record of God’s revelation to us” is problematic for Protestants if they cannot determine what the canon list should really be. This then renders their theology or record of God’s revelation limited or incomplete based on Kevin’s assumption. [And saying the Protestant canon is universally acceptable is an obvious fallacy; if some books are taken away from the larger canon in order to argue that one’s canon is universally acceptable predicates on sheer nonsense]. The whole grade or level of inspirations is a matter solved by Origen and the Fathers, because they believe that transcendental inspiration was imparted throughout the scriptures while being disclosed by spiritual allegory, which renders the authorial reading (if uninspired) as being irrelevant (cf. First Principles IV.15 by Origen; Confessions 6.4 by Augustine on Ambrose; Ad Constantium 9.2 by Hilary; The Responses to Thalassios 65.33 by Maximus). But I would argue that while the revelation of Christ should serve as a magisterial guide over the misrepresentation of God in the Old Testament, there are other means to discerning the nature of God like sapient philosophy, mysticism, and church tradition (cf. Ephesians 1:17–19; 1st Corinthians 2:13–16; 2nd Thessalonians 2:15, e.g. “hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth…”). I advocate the Quadrilateral approach, instead of a misguided scriptural approach in discovering truth, which is akin to a car missing three other tires.
Secondly, Kevin believes holding the Gospels superior to the Old Testament writings is problematic despite giving no valid premise for this conclusion. However, the revelation of Christ was understood by Ignatius of Antioch (disciple of the apostles) as being superior to the Hebraic writings: “For I heard some men saying, ‘If I find it not in the [magisterial/ἀρχείοις] records, I do not believe in the Gospel,’ and when I said to them that it is in the Scripture, they answered me, ‘That is exactly the question.’ But to me, Jesus Christ has become the [magisterial/ ἀρχεῖά] record: the inviolable charter is His cross, and death, and resurrection, and the faith which is through Him…” (To the Philadelphians 8.2). Ignatius disagrees with those who see Hebraic scriptures (presumably) as being magisterial, but he explains to them that full incarnation of Christ is the magisterial and inviolable record. “But the Gospel has its own preeminence: the appearance of the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, His passion, and the resurrection, because the beloved prophets proclaimed into Him, but the fulfillment of the Gospel has become incorruptible” (ibid. 9.2). The theme of Christ’s revelation being superior to the Hebraic writings is well established in his epistle to the Philadelphians. The true Christocentric principle was affirmed even by a disciple of the apostles, so Kevin’s disagreement with early Christianity is not only unorthodox, but an alien deviation from it.
Lastly, when Ignatius says Christ is in the scriptures, he means the pneumatic reading but not the authorial reading that modern Christians presuppose, which the fulfillment is also understood by Paul, Irenaeus, Origen, and Fortunatianus as being pneumatic. I say this in case readers misunderstand what Ignatius is saying. Here are some examples:
“Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the substance belongs to Christ” (Colossians 2:16–17). — Paul
“But Jeremiah also says, In the last days they shall understand these things. (Jeremiah 23:20) For every prophecy, before its fulfillment, is to men [full of] enigmas and ambiguities. But when the time has arrived, and the prediction has come to pass, then the prophecies have a clear and certain exposition. And for this reason, indeed, when at this present time the law is read to the Jews, it is like a fable; for they do not possess the explanation of all things pertaining to the advent of the Son of God, which took place in human nature; but when it is read by the Christians, it is a treasure, hid indeed in a field, but brought to light by the cross of Christ,…” (Against Heresies IV.26.1). — Irenaeus
“The Jews, in fine, owing to the hardness of their heart, and from a desire to appear wise in their own eyes, have not believed in our Lord and Saviour, judging that those statements which were uttered respecting Him ought to be understood literally…And seeing that, according to history, there was no accomplishment of any of those things predicted of Him, in which they believed the signs of Christ’s advent were especially to be observed, they refused to acknowledge the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ…And yet, indeed, the more simple among those who profess to belong to the Church have supposed that there is no deity greater than the Demiurge, being right in so thinking, while they imagine regarding Him such things as would not be believed of the most savage and unjust of mankind. Now the cause, in all the points previously enumerated, of the false opinions, and of the impious statements or ignorant assertions about God, appears to be nothing else than the not understanding the Scripture according to its spiritual meaning, but the interpretation of it agreeable to the mere letter” (De Prin. IV.8–9). — Origen
“[And] whatever the Old Testament contains figuratively, the New has fulfilled through the very reason of truth…” (Commentary on the Gospels, Lines 180–181). — Fortunatianus
The Old Testament as a whole finds its full explanation in Christ, and the whole New Testament interprets the significance of Christ. Christ is the key to understanding the full canon correctly, but the gospels are not the ‘real’ canon. The life of Christ is the supreme locus of revelation, but the canon must remain the locus of theology…According to the christocentric principle, any interpretation of Numbers 15:35 that does not harmonise with the clear teaching of Jesus must be deemed inadequate. The Numbers text cannot mean that God was a vindictive, pedantic legalist in 1400 BC, since the life and teaching of Jesus Christ clearly show that he is not.
The Old Testament does not find its full explanation in the life of Christ; this is not a grammatical argument, but a theological presupposition which is not compatible with the Old Testament narratives. The Fathers like Origen, Barnabas, and even Athanasius would agree that there must be a spiritual or transcendental meaning, but they would also agree like Maximus the Confessor that the authorial reading of the mosaic law contains superficial nonsense and various contradictions until Christ provides us the pneumatic mode of interpretation, while no longer heeding to what the text says (cf. Response to Thalassios 65.33 [again cited]).
According to the actual Christocentric principle, if any passage in the Old Testament misrepresents God like commanding the slaughter of children or the plundering of virgins, it must be rejected in favor of the revelation of Christ along with wisdom and mysticism (cf. Deut. 20:16–17, 21:10–14). And to render his argument even more ineffective, Christ contradicted the principle behind the dietary laws, violated the stoning of the adulterer, and even the Jews argued that the messiah is not supposed to die according to their scriptures, which Jesus did not counter or deny (cf. Mark 7:1–23; John 8:1–11, 12:34–36). Instead in verse 35 and 36, Jesus advises them to focus on His incarnation since He fulfills it typologically and not grammatically; thus, He confers more authority to His incarnation as a guide rather than the old scriptures. Even in the Gospel of Matthew, we see Peter equating Jesus with the law (Moses) and the prophets (Elijah), but God hides the two prophets and says, “This is My Son; listen to Him,” which demonstrates that Jesus has more authority than the law and the prophets (cf. Matt. 17).
Kevin’s Footnote: Theologians who do not hold a high view of scripture would say that the Numbers text is in error, and Jesus’s teaching is corrective. For those of us who believe that the Holy Spirit stands behind all scripture as its ultimate Author, such an explanation is unacceptable.
The author of Hebrews certainly did not consider the old covenant (i.e. Mosaic laws) to be infallible. He argues, “For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another” (Hebrews 8:7). Some will argue that he meant the covenant observance of the Jews, but this is only feasible in verse 8 and not verse 7, which means he blames both the covenant and the people (assuming the English translation for verse 8 is correct, but irrelevant either way). And to further prove verse 7 means what it says and not their extrapolation of the text, he writes: “Now these things having been thus prepared, the priests go in continually into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the services, 7 but into the second the high priest alone, once in the year, not without blood, which he offers for himself, and for the errors of the people. 8 The Holy Spirit is indicating this, that the way into the Holy Place wasn’t yet revealed while the first tabernacle was still standing. 9 This is a symbol of the present age, where gifts and sacrifices are offered that are incapable, concerning the conscience, of making the worshiper perfect, 10 being only (with meats and drinks and various washings) fleshly ordinances, imposed until a time of reformation” (ibid. 9:6–10). He reinterprets the old priesthood through spiritual allegory based on phrases like “the Holy Spirit is indicating” and “this is a symbol of the present age”. And then he says that the mosaic customs (or fleshly ordinances) were imposed until a time of reformation; in other words, God awaited the day that Christ would reform or rectify the Mosaic religion or Mosaic Judaism. It was indeed a correction of the old, Kevin. It was not a continual progression from the old, which somehow does not imply ineffective or inaccurate revelation.
Kevin ends his remarks with, “For the sake of argument, let us imagine that there were no texts in the gospels in which Christ taught about eternal judgement. Let us also imagine that an interpreter concludes from her study of the gospels that eternal judgement is incompatible with the love of God as embodied in the life of Christ. When the same interpreter then encounters Revelation 20:11–15, she may wrongly conclude that it cannot be teaching eternal judgement, since that would be incompatible with her view of Christ. This hypothetical example illustrates the potential pitfall — assuming that the natural meaning of a text of scripture cannot be the intended meaning because it does not seem to fit our view of Christ.” No Kevin, the apostolic Fathers like Mathetes, Origen, Gregory, Diodore, and even Maximus the Confessor did not believe in eschatological infernalism due to their innate understanding of the Koine Greek from the New Testament. Christian scholars like David Bentley Hart, Dr. Illaria Ramelli, Jordan Daniel Wood, and even Fr. John Behr understand aionios kolasis as being an indefinite duration of correction. Therefore, your hypothetical example perfectly supports the inadequacy of inerrant presuppositions, especially when potential English mis-translations are present in the text.
More Assumptions and Conclusion
Kevin writes that some argue against male headship by asserting Jesus as the domain of authority and interpreting the other verses as egalitarian, which classifies this as “a dubious assumption about Jesus abstracted from indirect evidence to nullify the plain meaning of other scriptures”. However, the plain reading of the scriptures (specifically the Old Testament) does denigrate the value of women despite exceptions like Genesis, which is why Kevin admits that “Jesus Christ affirmed the dignity and value of women and opposed all forms of abuse and exploitation,” and Christ’s opposition would include how the Torah treated women in the Ancient Near Eastern world (cf. Deut. 20:14; 21:10–14; 22:28–29). As for the New Testament, the plain reading is misleading towards women’s role in church, so we must be more textually critical of whether there’s possible interpolations, external context, and faulty translations at display. The Christocentric principle becomes an epistemic paradox if we are to affirm the Old Testament’s flawed ethics and philosophies.
Kevin writes, “If the Gospels read in isolation, they might believe that Jesus wants wives to convert their husbands aggressively,” which is nonsense and ironic; fundamentalist believers do this anyway, and this is why we need the Quadrilateral method. The canonical scriptures require patristic tradition, sapient philosophy, and useful mysticism to be utilized in conformity to the mind of Christ (cf. Philippians 2:5). Then he says, “As formulated, the principle advocates that we interpret all scripture in the light of what the words and works of Jesus Christ reveal about the nature, will, and purposes of God. Since the life of Christ is the climactic self-revelation of God to man, it rightly serves as a framework and a lens for understanding God’s other acts of self-disclosure.” If the Old Testament is to be understood in light of Christ, it must also be understood in primacy of Christ. Kevin believes God is immutable, so to believe in a god that commanded infanticide, polygamy, and violence, but not anymore, demonstrates a god that is not immutable; it’s a ‘dispensationalist’ fallacy (cf. Hebrews 13:8). If God is to be morally immutable, He cannot command actions that are in stark contradiction; for example: polygamy contra monogamy, communal violence contra exemplary peace, infanticide contra pro-life, and mosaic legalism contra anti-nomianism (cf. Deut. 20:16–18; Matt. 5:9; 1st Sam. 15:3; Didache 2; Deut. 30:16; Hebrews 8:13, 9:6–10). Then Kevin writes, “The first is the danger of allowing the gospels to become a canon within the canon, treating them as superior revelation to the rest of the Bible, even to the rest of the New Testament.” The actual Christocentric tradition isn’t suggesting that we should dismiss the Pauline or the Catholic epistles altogether, leaving the Gospels as the supreme canon of the whole canon. As I have said, the Quadrilateral method refines our theology more effectively than relying on a solo-scripture method. The god that Kevin submits to is not a Christocentric understanding; it is an evangelical notion that contradicts the actual principle yet it pretenses subtly.
