Survivor's Guide to Seminary, Post #7 (Having the “Talk” – What Are You Going to Do With This Degree?)

Previous entries in this series can be referenced here.

It’s probably the case that you’ve done some serious thinking about why you are going to train in seminary. Perhaps it’s because you have a goal of one day being a pastor. Maybe you want to be a bible translator? Or perhaps you are thinking about retirement from a secular job and you’re interested in a second “career” in ministry and the Church. Seminary is the gateway for your future goals.

We all have lots of reasons for pursuing ministry and theological education in seminary. When I began to experience a strong sense that God was calling me to the ministry in 2007, I had a number of mixed feelings. What was I going to do? Why was God calling me to this now? At the time, I was working in a university lab, deeply intent upon pursuing my doctorate in ecology so I might one day teach and do research at a university. I worked for a promising mentor who I was confident could mold and shape my path so I could accomplish all my career and educational goals. So the idea of changing course “mid-stream” and re-tooling for a “career” in ministry was problematic and stressful. What was I going to do?

Through a process of prayer and discernment, it became clear to me that God was calling me to the pastorate, particularly to teach and preach. Not only that, I became aware that I would not need to set aside my intentions to pursue higher education, even the doctorate, because God was not closing off that path now that I was going to go to seminary. It just seemed clear that I would shift the emphasis of my studies from ecology and the sciences, to the “Queen of Sciences” – theology. God, seemingly, was going to use me in a different way.

I went through a period of important and significant discernment. It was a process of important spiritual growth and testing. Would I trust God even when I didn’t see clearly my path in the future? In the end, I persevered and God was faithful. In a way, I had a “talk” with God – one involving much prayer and listening – and slowly but perceptibly began to understand what I was going to do with my seminary degree.

So, we need to have a talk. 

And it’s a conversation that begins with a question for you: What are you going to do with your degree?

Have you thought about it before? Have you considered, in other words, what the path ahead looks like and where it is taking you?

Don’t worry if you don’t have it all figured out right now. No one expects you to know exactly what comes next. But I want to invite you to begin thinking about what purpose this degree will serve in your life and what goal it will serve in the end when you graduate.

Here are some questions to get you started:

• What is my ultimate goal as I approach seminary?
• Is it a call to the Church?
• Is it a call to the ministry?
• In what ways might my seminary education be used non-traditionally?
• Would I like to work here where I live or is God calling me to something else farther away? 
• Is God calling me to the academy – to teaching, researching, etc. at a seminary or university? 
• Who could I talk to that would help guide me in thinking about my vocation? My pastor? A professor? My parents or family? A trusted mentor? 
• What are my spiritual gifts and how might they shape how I will use my seminary degree?

As you can see, there are many questions one can ask themselves to get started thinking about the use of our degrees. Take a few moments with a legal pad or an open text file and write some responses to the preceding questions. Additionally, consider talking with a loved one or friend about your responses to the questions. Start brainstorming and make a plan of what you think God is calling you to and how you will use your degree.

Remember what I said previously: I recommend doing some deep thinking—strategic thinking—about what you’re getting yourself into and where you want to go with the opportunity afforded by seminary. Seminary works best, in my opinion, when you approach it with a plan and with intentionality. 

Let me tell you how this played out in my own life.

I had the “Talk” with one of my professors right at the end of my second semester of classes. It was late one evening after my last class of the day and I had followed him back to his office for a quick chat. And as it turned out, it was one of the most important conversations about my future – one that helped me think through where I was going with my degree and answer many of the questions I just listed.

“So, I think I’m interested in academics – perhaps even the chance to pursue the PhD later” I remarked. I told him how I had been interested in pursuing my doctorate in the sciences and I felt like that desire was still in my heart, despite the “career change” to ministry. As a newly minted PhD himself, a “hot shot” (as I thought of him), who had gone to a great school and had lots of energy and passion for the academic world, I just knew he was the person to which I should be talking. 

“Great” he said. “I think you show a lot of promise, and if that’s the way you want to go, I’d encourage you to really dig in and make it happen.” He reminded me that it wouldn’t be easy, but that the road was worth it for those who could persevere. I appreciated his encouragement.

Then he dropped something on me that I have come back to time and time again. He said, “Just remember that each path – the one that takes you towards a career in academic ministry or the one which takes you towards full time church-based ministry – is distinctive and unique in its own way.” He continued, “If you are going to think about an academic career which serves the Kingdom, you’ll want to be clear about that identity early on, because it will require your full commitment, time, and energy.” He went on to explain that just because I was considering dedicating my life to an academic career didn’t mean I couldn’t serve in the Church. He reminded me that before he was hired as a professor, he was preaching and working his way through his doctorate. 

But then he gave me the nugget which has informed so much of the way I think about what my degree is being used for: “Just remember,” he said, “you’re either an academic who serves in the Church, or a churchman who dabbles in academics.”

It was a statement that brought clarity to the way I thought about myself. Was I, even as a student, an academic who would work in the Church, until such time that I could potentially assume the teaching responsibilities of the university or seminary, or was I a dedicated Churchman, who might “dabble” in the academic sphere, but never pursue it with the vigor that I would my pastorate?

I considered the two paths and I considered my life. 

I am an introverted person who likes to think deeply. I spend little money on myself except to buy books, which has allowed me to amass a library of over 7000 volumes. The way I recharge my energy is to retire to a dusty study in my basement where I like to read and listen to lectures on iTunesU. By the end of my first year of school, I had been honored by the Stone-Campbell Journal as a “Promising Scholar,” an award bestowed by the chair of the graduate bible faculty. In seminary, I have worked hard on my writing and have been able to publish several academic book reviews, a peer-reviewed journal article, and have even give a talk at an academic conference. 

Even the night of the “talk,” I knew what I was: I was an academic (in training) that would serve the Church through academic ministry. I hope one day to teach and do research in a seminary or university. As time has unfolded, I have relished this pursuit, even while serving as an education minister and a preaching pastor at a church. But I still know what I knew then – I am an academic who currently happens to serve in the Church. My path has been clear.

What about your own path? Where are you heading? For me, the way I unpacked this question was to think about if I wanted to serve in the Church full time, or the academy. I just revealed my path and my answer.

For you, the questions might be different. What’s important is that you are doing some intentional thinking about your future and the ways that seminary will serve that future. Even though I think of myself as an academic, I knew that if I was going to serve faithfully in the seminary, and more importantly, train future ministers, it was imperative that I get Church experience. During my time in seminary, I have taught and preached, served as an intern under a pastor of a large church, and have (as of the writing of this book) taken a preaching minister’s position at a church in New Jersey. I have been better for it and my work in the Church has served my academic pursuit. Nonetheless, I still think of myself as an academic that (right now) serves within the Church.

Whatever your end goal – I encourage you to think about the steps that it will take to get you there. If you are interested on Church-based ministry you will want to tailor your degree, and even pursue the right kind of degree, so that you can accomplish that goal. You might even want to pursue an internship in a Church while working in seminary so you will get the experience you need to later serve a Church.

Or perhaps you want to be a bible translator. Knowing that, you will want to think about the kinds of work and outside “extracurricular” activities it will take to get to that goal. I had a friend in seminary who had that interest, and he and his wife tailored their lives accordingly. In the summers, he took extra coursework in languages, and during seminary they fostered relationships with an agency that, when he graduated, helped him get overseas to the area of the world they wanted to work. He had a plan.

In the end, it’s really all about being intentional. 

So, what are you going to do with your degree?

Survivor's Guide to Seminary, Post #6 (The Cognitive and Contemplative Pathway)

Previous entries in this series can be referenced here.

Late in my training for the MDIV degree (Master of Divinity), I was asked to speak to a group of incoming students at my seminary. They looked excited and bright-eyed – just as I had been several years before. The truth is, I am still excited and bright-eyed as things wrap up for me. I have loved my seminary experience. That night, the chair of the department had challenged me and other senior students to say a few things that might help orient the new students to the educational path ahead. I knew immediately what I wanted to talk about: traveling on the cognitive and contemplative pathways.

Let me explain what I mean by that.

The seminary experience is powerful because it intends to develop you (ideally) on two broad fronts – the intellectual (cognitive) pathway and the spiritual (contemplative) pathway. What I’m suggesting is that you might think of your seminary life as being composed of a spiritual-contemplative component and an intellectual-cognitive component.

The spiritual contemplative component seeks to help us better participate in loving allegiance with Christ’s works of love as the Holy Spirit seeks to transform our hearts and produce in us the fruits of the Spirit. The farther we are along this path the more spiritually mature we are as believer. As you might imagine, this process takes time – a lifetime in fact! Ideally, the seminary should cooperate in this process and work of the Spirit by fostering spiritual growth.

The intellectual cognitive component is the educational process by which, during the time you are in seminary, you will grow in knowledge. You will grow intellectually in a variety of ways. You will grow in your ability to engage the bible more knowledgably, to understand the Christian Tradition in a more informed way, etc. In my opinion, the seminary is particularly effective for developing the intellectual-cognitive component. With all those lectures, books, and papers you’ll engage, you will grow in knowledge in the pursuit of your degree. And that’s a good thing.

But there’s a problem. Notice I said the seminary would ideally develop you on both these broad fronts – the cognitive and the contemplative. But the reality is, the way seminary is structured, there is a risk that seminary will be much more effective at developing you cognitively that contemplatively. Meaning that, it’s likely that your intellectual growth will outpace your spiritual growth. Or to say it another way, your academic development (the cognitive pathway) will potentially (and very likely will) outpace your spiritual development.

The reasons? 1) Time and 2) Seminary is not the Church. 

Reason #1 (Time) might seem counterintuitive given that you will spend as much if not more time with your seminary cadre (professors, students, etc.) than you will with your church family. For that reason, you might be excused for feeling like when you attend seminary you are attending church. But the way you spend your time in seminary – devoting yourself to the academic study of the scriptures and the Christian faith – is not sacramental in the way that you will be spending your time with your church family in worship, service, and fellowship.

Hence, it’s not the amount of time that you spend in seminary that shapes how you will develop, but the way that you spend your time. You will spend most of your time being developed academically in the seminary classroom. For that reason, not surprisingly, you will develop more ‘cognitively’ than ‘contemplatively’ while in school.

Reason #2 then becomes obvious from the previous point I just made: seminary is not Church. What I mean by that is this: you are not gathering in seminary with your academic cadre in order to be the worshiping community of God. At least, that’s not your primary reason for attending. Your primary reason for attending school is the academic study of the scriptures and the Christian faith. Of course, this then begs the question: What is the Church? And why isn’t seminary the Church? Those are good questions and you will tease them apart in seminary (and hopefully “in” Church too). For now, just realize that seminary is not the Church. If you want to get a jump start on this topic, do a word study on the Greek term ekklesia…

So, “Time” and “Seminary is not Church.” These things need to be taken into account as you begin your journey in seminary because it can lead to problems.

What kind of problems? Good question.

Problem #1 – PRIDE

One of the first problems it can lead to is pride. Simply put, folks who have a lot of knowledge and yet are still spiritually immature tend to have problems with what to do with their knowledge. They have pride issues. Because knowledge is power in many ways, immature people might be tempted to wield their power (knowledge) in ways that are not edifying for other people but are instead mostly just edifying and glorifying for themselves. These folks also have a tendency to allow their knowledge to become a source of inherent value in and of itself. Meaning, they say “I’m proud of my knowledge and it is a very important part of my inherent value” rather than admitting that our value is rooted in the fact that we bear the imago dei – the image of God by virtue of God’s creative power.

Helmut Thielicke’s book A Little Exercise for Young Theologians (which should be required reading for all seminary students) speaks of the theological student who returns to their home congregation after a semester away at seminary. The student, full of facts and data from their new learning, horrifies his brothers and sisters with “questionable by-products of his scientific study…” His pride runs other people down. He has not yet developed the requisite spiritual maturity to make his knowledge humble and edifying for others. Thielicke, in fantastic imagery, likens him to a teenager who cannot yet fit into his father’s pants, and yet tries them on anyways. Yikes!

Don’t be that guy. Don’t be that gal. If your intellectual development rapidly outpaces your spiritual development in such a way that your spiritual development cannot keep a check on your intellectual pitfalls (e.g. pride) then you have a problem. Be aware of this risk and counter it with knowledge of your potential spiritual immaturity.

Problem #2 – SPEAKING INDEPENDENTLY, SPEAKING WITHOUT HUMILITY

The second problem when your intellectual growth outpaces your spiritual growth is that you will not realize how dependent you are upon God’s revelation and his redemption so that we can say anything about God at all. The imbalance of our cognitive and the contemplative components risk producing in us a tendency to speak without humility.

We risk speaking without empathy.

We risk speaking without wisdom.

We risk speaking as if we are people who haven’t been first spoken to by God.

We risk much when there is an imbalance between the cognitive and contemplative.

So, what do we do about these risks and the imbalance which seminary can unwittingly create? Well, good news: there is something you can do about it. In fact, the solution is strikingly simple. So simple I’m embarrassed to not have something more complicated to offer.

Are you ready for it? OK, here we go…

Go to seminary AND be a participating member of the body of Christ. In other words: Get thee to Church as well as seminary!

You might be tempted to not be a part of a faith community, a local church, while in seminary. It does happen, perhaps more commonly than most of us know.

I am familiar with the story of one student in seminary who was working on their Master of Divinity. The degree takes about four years to complete, and the entire time this student was in seminary, they never participated as a member of a local church community. When nearing the end of their degree, the student started seeking internship opportunities at a local church so they could get some ministry experience to bolster their later intention to serve as a minister. When the churches the person interviewed for internships with found out they had not attended or participated in a church for four years, none were interested in the student serving as an intern. I often wonder whether the student was able to join a church and fulfill their intention of being a minister once they left the school. I hope they renewed their commitment to the local church, and if God is willing, that person is now being used powerfully in ministry

How is the phenomenon of being in seminary without belonging to a local church possible? I think it is possible because when you are in seminary, either part-time or full-time, it feels like you are doing “churchy” stuff lots of the time and you can fool yourself into thinking that “you’re good” – that you’re participating in a community of faith.

But you’re not good. You need to be a part of a church community. A regular part of that community. Kapeesh?

Yes, it is true that seminary can feed you spiritually and you will grow spiritually. You might even attend chapel when you are on campus and participate in the worshiping community of the seminary. But it cannot replace the Church, and I want to emphasize the importance of belonging to a local church. The Church is that body to which you have been called to in the “new birth” of Jesus Christ. It is in the local church that you will gather and be upbuilt by the Holy Spirit so you can be sent into the world as witnesses of Jesus Christ. The local church is the place where you will receive communion (Eucharist, Lord’s Supper), where baptism occurs, and God’s word is preached. The local church is the place where our spiritual gifts can be exercised to build up others in the body of Christ. The local church is the place we will be disciple and disciplined as needed.

It is the place where we learn patience with others, how to control our tongues, to be tender-hearted and kind, and to live at peace with others. We practice these things (and the Spirit forms them in us) in the “sandbox” of the local church. We practice them there so we can be sent out into the world and practice them faithfully in the world, too. This, and much, much more will take place in the local church.

So, if you take seriously the development of both the contemplative AND cognitive pathways in your life, and you should, then you will participate both in seminary and a local church. The combination of the two will increase the chance that you will graduate from seminary as a balanced person, ready to enter the world of ministry in a healthy way, in a way that has developed you both intellectually and spiritually.

Blogging with Barth: CD 2.1 §30.3 "The Patience and Wisdom of God" pp. 406-440

Check here for previous posts in the "Blogging with Barth" series or check here for a detailed reading schedule for the Church Dogmatics with links to the respective posts I've written to accompany each day's reading.

The Leitsatz (thesis statement) for §30 states: "The divinity of the love of God consists and confirms itself in the fact that in Himself and in all His works God is gracious, merciful and patient, and at the same time holy, righteous and wise."

In paragraph §30 ("The Perfections of the Divine Loving") and subsection §30.3 ("The Patience and Wisdom of God"), Barth explores the next two divine perfections: patience and wisdom.

We now emphasise two further biblical attributes of God, both individually and in their interconnexion. We must try to understand them as expressions of the perfection of His love. As we do so, we are again reminded of the fact that all further consideration of the divine attributes can but move in a circle around the one but infinitely rich being of God whose simplicity is abundance itself and whose abundance is simplicity itself. We are not speaking of a new object but allowing the one object, God, to speak further of Himself. We are continuing to contemplate the love of God and therefore God Himself as the One who loves in freedom. What end can there be to this development? We are drawing upon the ocean. We are therefore faced by a task to which there is no end. But a third affirmation must now be added to the first two if we are to gain at least the authorised and commanded view of this inexhaustible ocean. We first said that God is gracious and holy. We then continued that God is merciful and righteous. Now that we have developed these two affirmations along the lines indicated by the biblical revelation, a third affirmation necessarily follows which expresses the same truth again, but again differently, that God is patient and wise (406).

Barth begins with God's patience, citing a number of OT passages in which God's grace, mercy, and then patience are extolled (407). He reminds us (as he did with grace and mercy) that we are not inferring God's patience from a general idea or sense of God's love. He means, as previously, the perfection which is revealed in Jesus Christ. Grace, mercy, and the patience of God are revealed in Jesus Christ. God's patience exists in space and time.

Patience exists where space and time are given with a definite intention, where freedom is allowed in expectation of a response. God acts in this way. He makes this purposeful concession of space and time. He allows this freedom of expectancy. That He does so lies in His very being. Indeed, it is His being. Everything that God is, is implied and included in the statement that He is patient (408).

We define God’s patience as His will, deep-rooted in His essence and constituting His divine being and action, to allow to another—for the sake of His own grace and mercy and in the affirmation of His holiness and justice—space and time for the development of its own existence, thus conceding to this existence a reality side by side with His own, and fulfilling His will towards this other in such a way that He does not suspend and destroy it as this other but accompanies and sustains it and allows it to develop in freedom (409-410).

And God deals with us patiently - He is fundamentally for us, so that we are not consumed, but rather, God suffers and bears with us - God deals with His creature in such a way that he shares his wretchedness (411). Barth considers that "patience is the divine being in power and not in weakness" as he considers the OT stories about Cain, Noah, and Jonah (411-414). The consideration of the biblical figures and God's patience provokes several questions. First, what is the real aim and intention of God when He exercises patience? (415)? Do people really repent? Where is the patience of God located? Is it really possible for God to be patient? Is He actually so? The answer gives to these many questions is that is all depends on the way in which God is patient. And how is God patient? He upholds all things by His Word, Jesus Christ:

The decisive moment of the biblical testimony to God’s patience is that according to Heb. 1:3 God upholds all things by the Word of His power. By His Word! which means in any event that they are not occasioned by, and dependent on, what becomes manifest and actual from our side as penitence and conversion. What is manifest and actual here is in point of fact the alternation of penitence and impenitence which is sufficiently clear in Israel’s example and the final outcome of which will be Israel’s impenitence. To this outcome in our experience there could correspond on God’s part only the judgment of wrath, and this is actually the case. God cannot sustain all things or the sinful creature in his wretchedness by means of our final word. This word is definitely not effective to uphold all things. But God upholds them by His Word. And this Word as such is powerful. According to Heb. 1:2 it is the Word of the Son by whom He has spoken to us in these last days, i.e., at the end of the days of the fathers and the prophets, whom He has appointed heir of all things, by whom also He created the worlds, who is the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person. By this His Word in His Son Jesus Christ, He upholds all things and upholds them with power (416-417). 

Furthermore, God does not sit inactively in His patience, He acts in Jesus Christ to bring about our penitence and obedience - in light of the One, there is patience for the many:

The position is now clear that God’s patience does not leave man to his own devices. His jealous zeal in and for the creature cannot be more powerfully manifested than in the incarnation of His Word. He has espoused the cause of the creature to the final depths. From this point of view the divine patience certainly cannot consist in an indifferent self-withdrawal of God in relation to its being, action and destiny. If He allows the many to go their own ways, if He leaves them their freedom, if He gives continual time (and food for it), if through it all He constantly waits for them, He does so for the simple reason that He has already overtaken them in the One, His only Son, that in Him He has already walked with them in His own way and at His own time, and to the very end. He does so because, in the One in whom He has given Himself utterly to all, they have already fallen into His hand. He does so because this One stands in place of them all and for them all has accomplished the genuine penitence which was expected from all. For the sake of this One, God has patience with the many (418).

We must accept the fact that God can be patient because He is patient in His Word. While we can still hear it, He keeps time and space for us who have forfeited our existence in His sight and are unable to justify ourselves. We must also learn that God is patient from the fact that He can be patient in His Word which is Himself, that is to say, He can have time and space for us, i.e., for faith. If we believe in His Word, we can no longer doubt either the reality or the possibility of His patience (421).

Barth now turns to a reflection on the wisdom of God. God's wisdom is related to God's patience, and like the other perfections, express and translate the love of God. And Barth makes a quick note:

All these ideas express and translate the love of God. But the second set of ideas—holiness, righteousness and wisdom—express with greater distinctness than the first (grace, mercy and patience) the fact that it is His free and therefore distinctively divine love. That God in Himself and in all His works is gracious and therefore holy, merciful and therefore righteous, patient and therefore wise, is the proof and essence of the divinity of His love according to the main theme of the section and the explanations already adduced (422).

God's patience (through the Word) reveals God's wisdom:

God is not guilty of impulsiveness or irrationality when He is gracious and merciful, any more than He is of a surrender of His holiness and righteousness. He is not, then, overcome by a whim or a chance inspiration. He is not capricious. But in this as in every other respect He is the God of order. And His order, the order of His wisdom, is that in Himself and in all His works He is gracious and merciful. He would not be gracious, but ungracious; He would not be merciful, but unmerciful ; or He would be gracious and merciful only weakly and ineffectively, like a creature, if He were not wise. But He is gracious and merciful just because and as He is wise (425).

...God is wise in so far as His whole activity, as willed by Him, is also thought out by Him, and thought out by Him from the very outset with correctness and completeness, so that it is an intelligent and to that extent a reliable and liberating activity. We have to say of His activity in His works and also of His inner activity, of the essential actuality of His divine being, that God is wise, that in Him is wisdom. God Himself is wisdom (425-426).

Barth further defines and describes God's wisdom - it is inner truth and clarity:

The wisdom of God is the inner truth and clarity with which the divine life in its self-fulfilment and its works justifies and confirms itself and in which it is the source and sum and criterion of all that is clear and true. It is in this inner truth and clarity that God loves, and this is the source of the dignity with which He is free in His love. In it He also demonstrates the legitimacy, necessity and the sufficiency of His divine existence and action. God is glorious in His wisdom. He attests Himself as God by attesting His wisdom (426).

And God, because of His wisdom, is not a slave to His patience (432).

The new truth imparted by the concept of wisdom as compared with those of grace and holiness, mercy and righteousness, or rather its special contribution to the clarifying of these other ideas, is that God is not the slave of His patience when in the dealings of which these other ideas speak He gives Himself time, and also gives us time, and therefore allows space and ground as the Creator, Sustainer and Lord of the world. What moves Him to exercise patience is His holy and righteous, gracious and merciful meaning, His will to unfold to us this meaning, to lead us to penitence, and therefore to make our own lives meaningful. This meaning behind His patience is His wisdom. It is the wisdom of His being and His works. And as the wisdom of His works it is world-wisdom properly understood. It is the philosophy of the created universe and the philosophy of human life. This “philosophy” is certainly not to be derived from reflection upon the universe or upon the being of man. It can be appreciated only by the bearing of God’s own Word which as such gives us the right philosophy of the universe and of our own human life. In this connexion it should be clear at once that the testimony to God’s wisdom in the Old and New Testaments is not a divided but a united testimony (432). 

Survivor's Guide to Seminary, Post #5 (This Isn't Sunday School, Pt. 2)

Previous entries in this series can be referenced here.

Part of what makes seminary unique and challenging is that it is unlike any other religious educational environment you’ve encountered. That can be both exciting and nerve-wracking once you get into your studies. Hence the title of this chapter – this isn’t Sunday school. Seminary is different from bible classes at church for a number of reasons, which I think are important to review (for differences 1 and 2, click here).

Difference #3 – Much more will be required of you as a student

Again, perhaps your bible class experience at church has been more robust than my own, but rarely have I been assigned reading outside of bible class.

Well, seminary will be a bit different. OK, a lot different.

You’ll be required to read a lot of assigned material and then (egads!) write a lot about it. In fact, I think of seminary as one continuing stream of reading, thinking, writing, and speaking ad infinitum. If, like me, you enjoy these kinds of activities then welcome home, baby. You’ve found your happy place. If however you find these activities to be a bit grinding (or boring, painful, hateful, hellacious, dreadful, etc.) then you’ll want to start preparing yourself mentally for what’s coming up in your education. And just remember, perseverance is the rule of the day. And remember too - an old dog can learn to love new tricks, despite what the proverbial wisdom says. Don’t fret – activities like reading, writing, and speaking are disciplines that can be developed. In other words, work at them and practice and you will get better at them.

Though it probably doesn’t need to be said – let’s go ahead anyways and articulate the kinds of things that will be required of you as a student, just so we’re clear and you will better understand your role as a seminary student:

• Come to class prepared. 
• Do the reading. 
• Try to sleep. Yes, I know the professors are assigning so much work it appears they’re out to steal your REM cycles, but fight the power grasshopper. Rest! 
• Get some exercise. Yes, I know the professors are assigning so much work it appears they’re out to get your exercise cycles too, but fight the power grasshopper. Pump iron (or some such heart rate elevating thing)! 
• Write good papers (more on this in a bit). Turn them in on time (more on this in a bit, too). 
• Ask good questions. Of course, we’ve all been told for a long time that there aren’t any bad questions (except that there are…and people who say there aren’t are lying). But try to ask more good questions than bad questions. Your professors will help you figure which are the good questions. 
• Spend time thinking. No, Netflix binge viewing does not constitute ‘thinking.’ 
• Get thee to the library. Yes, Starbucks is a great place to chat with friends and drink coffee…and perhaps even read the latest copy of The New York Times. No, it is not the greatest place to work through anhypostasis-enhypostasis Christology. I’ll probably get mail on this one, but use the library. It has lots of books, and theological librarians, and the latest copy of the International Journal of Systematic Theology…well, you get the idea. And it has the quiet kind of spaces which let you think (see previous point).
• Use office hours (see above).
• Pray
• Participate in your local church. Every week. These last two things should probably go at the top of the list.

Difference #4 – You’ll be studying the bible academically

One of the most obvious distinctions between the Sunday school and the seminary experience is in the area of biblical study. Whereas I teach bible at church primarily to edify, encourage, and challenge congregants to grow in their faith, I know the academic study of the bible will proceed along different lines and have different aims, though edification and encouragement often still occur. Granted, the experience of academic study of the bible will vary depending on your institution, but its contours are roughly similar from one school to the next.

An academic approach to the bible will focus primarily on the text and significant classroom time will not be devoted to our own lives. Though this might sound obvious, you’d be surprised at how often we focus on ourselves in the context of Sunday School (e.g. “…let’s skip the exegetical detail Ms. Teacher and just get to how this applies to my life…”).

Application and integration are not necessarily high priorities in the seminary classroom when things like Greek parsing and exegesis, rhetorical analysis, cultural background study, or pericope analysis, etc. need to be done. Because these kinds of analyses of the text will command so much time in the classroom, you won’t often be guided to the process of integrating how this relates to your life. That’s not to say that you won’t ever have discussions along this line, but the aim of academic study of the bible is better understanding the text and generating good interpretations. This will of course have an impact on your life! But any subsequent understanding and impact on our faith is a bonus, and in the end, a secondary priority. The integration portion of biblical study will happen indirectly in the classroom, and can certainly happen in subsequent conversations with fellow students, your pastor, even your professor (perhaps in office hours!), etc. but that won’t be the highest priority in the academic classroom.

By definition, the academic study of any subject will proceed along the lines of detailed analyses and questioning. That is certainly true of the academic study of the bible, too. But let’s face it: we don’t do a lot of deep questioning of the bible very often in Sunday school. You will do it a lot in seminary. So you need to spend some time soul-searching and meditating on how you will process this way of studying the bible emotionally. Depending on the church tradition you are from, this might feel comfortable or uncomfortable. For those folks who feel uncomfortable, there’s often a feeling that they are somehow being unfaithful and disrespectful to the bible. That’s not necessarily true though (in fact, the process can be very faithful, as you’ll learn) and your professors and your program will likely help you grapple with the spiritual (and even psychological) aspects of the process. That being said, you need to begin preparing yourself and be ready to deal with this aspect of your training.

When I arrived at seminary, I had spent the previous ten years as a student in the sciences. Questioning things was such an integral part of the process of science that it felt natural for me to do academic work on the bible and immediately begin asking critical and probing questions. But along the way I learned to appreciate how this process can make people (initially) uncomfortable. As a scientist, no one rebelled against me if I proposed the idea of changing the species identification of an insect previously identified in another category. But in the world of the seminary, if you challenge the Pauline authorship of a text, it might be time to step outside and have a duel with one of your fellow students who are not quite ready to give up Brother Paul’s authorship of Second Thessalonians!

OK, perhaps it won’t be as dramatic as that – but you can imagine how challenging people’s biblical paradigms can carry a lot of emotional weight. There are a lot of sacred cows in biblical study, my friend (pun intended). Everybody has them. Know yours and be prepared to have them challenged. That’s what academic study is all about.

Difference #5 – People in seminary will have deeper and better-informed agendas

Sure, people in your bible classes can have agendas. Perhaps your Sunday school teacher is a closet charismatic that thinks your stodgy, non-charismatic denomination could use a good dose of Spirit-filled infusion and his every lesson somehow ends with an exposition of the Spirit’s gifts to the church. But the agendas in the seminary will be more deeply rooted and generally better informed (N.B ‘agenda’ here is neutral and not meant negatively). Realize that everyone has a perspective (somewhat akin to an agenda, right?) and will analyze things through their perspectives. This happens in seminary too, especially when it comes to biblical studies. Perhaps you're a Calvinist who reads Romans chapters 9-11 a certain way. Or your professor is a Barthian who can’t stand your very non-Barthian understanding of election. Whatever the agenda, know that they exist and will sometimes be more deeply entrenched and better-informed in seminary than in other environments.

This means people in seminary – professors and advanced graduate students –will advocate and sometimes passionately argue for what they think is important. In the academic environment, we all strive to be as objective as possible and not create straw men of our opponents. But we are educated, passionate folks devoted to the life of the mind and its work in the scriptures. The very intentional nature of analyzing arguments (whether our own or others) and the lenses we use when pursuing such a task is vastly different and advanced beyond the average church bible class. It’s one of the things that makes seminary such a rich experience.

Survivor's Guide to Seminary, Post #4 (This Isn't Sunday School, Pt. 1)

Previous entries in this series can be referenced here.

Part of what makes seminary unique and challenging is that it is unlike any other religious educational environment you’ve encountered. That can be both exciting and nerve-wracking once you get into your studies. Hence the title of this chapter – this isn’t Sunday school. Seminary is different from bible classes at church for a number of reasons, which I think are important to review.

Difference #1 – The curriculum and content is more expansive

Depending on the degree you will be pursuing, you will encounter a variety of subjects that you would not normally study in church-based religious education, bible classes, or “Sunday School.” Of course, the specific content of your program will be determined by the degree you’re pursuing and the institution at which you study. But in any case, you’ll be going farther and deeper into topics than ever before.

You will be exposed to the biblical languages. Usually this involves studies in biblical Hebrew and Koine Greek  – two of the predominant original languages in which the scriptures were originally communicated. My understanding is that not all seminaries require original language study these days, but most do, and the benefit of language study is immense. Your professors will introduce you to these language (and thought) worlds and in the process help the Bible come alive for you in ways that will indelibly mark your biblical study.

You will study courses in biblical studies – classes in the Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible) and the New Testament. It’s likely the case that you have studied these topics in bible classes at church. But in your biblical studies courses, you will expand your inquiry into areas like biblical exegesis and hermeneutics (the process of careful, analytical study of a biblical passage in order to produce an interpretation). You’ll take courses in the theology of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, cultural backgrounds of the biblical texts, and classes on how to preach certain types of scripture (e.g. Preaching the Book of Revelation). Your knowledge of the scriptures will deepen and broaden your ability to teach and preach.

Studies in theology will give you ordered and systematic ways of thinking about the Christian faith as it has been revealed by God, especially in Jesus Christ. You’ll encounter systematic theology and the church’s theological reflection of the past two thousand years. Many seminaries offer courses in medieval, modern, and contemporary theology, which encompasses theological reflection of those respective periods. Additionally, if you are fortunate to be a part of a large institution, you might have opportunities to study particular theologies, for example, the theology of Karl Barth, or feminist or liberation theology. And you might pursue courses in what I think of as the “theology of…” catalog. For example, I studied the theology of ministry (a.k.a. pastoral theology). Don’t even get me started on the awesomeness that is philosophical theology! My theology courses were some of the favorite classes in my seminary degree.

You’ll likely pursue a number of ministry or pastoral theology courses. These might be courses in preaching, leadership, in teaching adolescents, youth ministry, spiritual formation, evangelism, etc. These are the classes that prepared me for the work-a-day world of the church. In them I rehearsed and became proficient in techniques like conflict management and church leadership and administration. Depending on the degree you pursue, for example a Master of Arts in Ministry or a Master of Divinity, these courses will compromise the majority of courses you will take (e.g the M.A.) or some smaller portion (e.g. the M.Div.). Oftentimes, many seminaries will require their students to take a ministry course which will give them field experience in a local church. Hard work in these classes will pay off later when you undertake ministry in your own church. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t use the information I learned in these classes in my role as a preaching minister and pastor.

You’ll of course be exposed to church history too. This might be in the form of historical theology, the study of the development of doctrine in the history of the Christian church, or it might come in particular courses in your own denominational history, for example, Presbyterian Church history. You might also study the church in certain periods of time, for example, the Early or Ancient Church, or the Medieval Church. If you’re a history buff like me, these will be a high point and you’ll walk away with a better understanding and appreciation for how the Holy Spirit has worked in the history of the Church over time.

Many schools offer a number of elective courses. How many they offer will be dictated by the richness of the faculty and the way your school structures its degree plans. You can work with your advisor to determine how many elective courses you can take for credit and which classes are advisable based on your field of study. Because of my interest in systematic theology and philosophy, I took elective courses in theology and (you guessed it) – philosophy! You’ll want to lean on your advisor’s experience to help guide you with class selection.

Difference #2 – These teachers have PhDs!

Unless you were blessed to have some kind of extraordinary teaching cadre in your local church, you’ll find that your professors at seminary will be much better trained, having many years of study and preparation in their chosen fields, all of which will make your classroom experience rich and deep and different in many ways from Sunday school and church bible classes.

So strategize a bit about how to take advantage of the tremendous learning opportunity this presents to you. What I mean to say is – you should take advantage of their expertise as often as is reasonable. One of the best ways to think and engage with your professors is to come to class prepared. Get your readings done ahead of time, review journal articles, etc. which have been assigned by the prof and then come to class ready to engage, to ask questions, and to offer insights and opinions. It sounds funny to be reminded of such simple things in grad school, but if you’re taking several courses which all assign heavy reading loads, it’s easy to get a bit behind and come to class unprepared. We’ll talk more about time management later. In the mean time, come to class prepared and get your readings, etc. done! By coming to class prepared you can take full advantage of a good lecture from your professor.

Another great way to take advantage of your professor’s knowledge is to go see them during their office hours. Of course, you don’t want to be a pest, but office hours are offered to be a help to you and you’ll want to use them. Before I went to seminary, I worked several semesters as a teaching assistant at my undergraduate institution. I rarely saw students avail themselves of office hours. So, what to do? Well, bring your questions and needs to these special office times when professors are available outside of class. But more than that, use these times as ways of going beyond the classroom. Perhaps you had some questions from the material in Monday’s class. Why not stop by office hours and work through it a bit with the professor? If you’re in a class that requires large research papers, use office hours as a time to discuss your research with your professor. Some of them might not offer guidance but others will appreciate your diligence and might even give you a helping hand from time to time in terms of guidance and research suggestions. At the very least, I like to run my working bibliography for a paper by the professor that assigned it. They were always quick to let me know if I have gathered (or omitted) the most important bibliographical works on a topic. Had I not taken these things to them in their office hours, I would realize too late and my papers would have suffered. You get the gist – so get to office hours!

Next time, differences #3-5...

Blogging with Barth: CD 2.1 §30.2 "The Mercy and Righteousness of God" pp. 368-406

Check here for previous posts in the "Blogging with Barth" series or check here for a detailed reading schedule for the Church Dogmatics with links to the respective posts I've written to accompany each day's reading.

The Leitsatz (thesis statement) for §30 states: "The divinity of the love of God consists and confirms itself in the fact that in Himself and in all His works God is gracious, merciful and patient, and at the same time holy, righteous and wise."

In paragraph §30 ("The Perfections of the Divine Loving") and subsection §30.2 ("The Mercy and Righteousness of God"), Barth reminds us that just because we're going to reflect now on the divine perfections of mercy and righteousness, does not mean we've really moved away from grace and holiness:

The fact that among the biblical attributes of God we select two further divine perfections, both individually and in their interconnexion, does not mean that we are leaving behind what we have already said of the divine being, i.e., the perfections of His grace and holiness, in order to turn our attention as it were to another aspect of deity. In this whole enquiry and exposition we must never forget that there exists “another” in God only in so far as it is still one and the same thing. But in God Himself, and therefore also for us, there is a fulness of the divine perfections, not in poverty, but in richness, and therefore continually different, and to be viewed and conceived in its development (368).

Barth now turns to his discussion of God's mercy:

The free inclination of God to His creature, denoted in the biblical witness by grace, takes place under the presupposition that the creature is in distress and that God’s intention is to espouse his cause and to grant him assistance in his extremity. Because grace, the gracious love of God, consists in this inclination, it is, and therefore God Himself is, merciful; God’s very being is mercy (369).

Understood in quite general terms, as the free condescension of a superior to an inferior, it does not necessarily include the superior’s participation in, and determination speedily to relieve, the distress of the inferior. Grace in itself and in general might equally well mean an unsympathetic and ineffectual inclination on the part of the superior. But we are speaking of the grace of God and therefore of the concrete relationship in which it becomes actual, of His grace towards the one to whom He is gracious. In this relation mercy is included in grace; grace itself is mercy. And by this mark and this alone we recognise the divinity of the love and grace of God: by the fact that it is merciful (369-370).

And God in His mercy is moved and rooted in a powerful compassion (370). And God's mercy, just as grace in Jesus Christ, expresses God's opposition to humanity's opposition to God (371).

Arrogance is seen as pitiable folly, the usurpation of freedom as rigorous bondage, evil lust as bitter torment. It is again true that man by his own fault has plunged himself and is continually plunging himself into these ills, and in view of this we shall have to speak later of the righteousness of God. But it is also true that this resistance of the creature, this sinfulness of man, has in itself and as such the simple meaning of folly, bondage and torment. And as such it is the object of God’s compassion. In concrete the mercy of God means therefore His compassion at the sight of the suffering which man brings upon himself, His concern to remove it, His will to console man in this pain and to help him to overcome it (371-372). 

And God takes pity on the sinner, and looks compassionately upon us. God's mercy is not something we deduce or demonstrate logically, all we can do is acknowledge the reality of God's mercy as we recognize the reality of the mercy of Jesus Christ (373). The merciful God has taken action on our behalf in freedom and in power (375).

In freedom: for our sin and guilt were not His and did not have to become so. Because this is so, faith believes in God’s grace and election in virtue of which we receive what we have not deserved. But also in power: for He has really taken to Himself and removed from us our sin and guilt. Therefore faith is joy and gratitude, an assurance which can no longer look back, only forwards (374).

And faith looks to God's mercy in joy and gratitude. This then is how God loves. His love is merciful love (375). Barth now turns to a discussion of the righteousness of God. Righteousness must be seen as a determination of the love God.

The loving of God is a divine action and being distinct from every other loving in the fact that it is righteous. Our point of departure must be that the righteousness of God is a determination of the love, and therefore of the grace and mercy, of God. And the love and grace and mercy of God have the determination of righteousness necessarily, as they have that of holiness. Necessarily, because if this love were not holy and righteous it would not be the love of God. The characterisation and determination of this love as righteousness and therefore divine springs from the fact that when God wills and creates the possibility of fellowship with man He does that which is worthy of Himself, and therefore in this fellowship He asserts His worth in spite of all contradiction and resistance, and therefore in this fellowship He causes only His own worth to prevail and rule. It is only in this characterisation and determination that the love of God is truly His divine love (376-377).

There is thus no disunity in God, His mercy and His righteousness go together. In a small print excursus, Barth shows how the failure to bring out God's unity on this point has marked many theologians (377-380). Barth offers, in contrast to these theologians, the examples of Luther and Anselm, who teach us that "there is no righteousness in God which is not also merciful and no mercy which is not also righteous" (380). Furthermore, God, in the OT and the NT, is the Judge and revelation is law (381). God's activity is wholly and utterly the execution of this Law, and yet even this is done in mercy and grace.

God cannot affirm Himself more strongly as the righteous God, He cannot more effectively attest and implement the Law as the most proper and characteristic revelation of Himself, He cannot bind the impious more closely to Himself as righteous and to His Law, than by His grace which pardons the sinner. For this grace is through and through the proof of the existence of the righteous God. It is so from every point of view: its foundation in the will of God, its execution in the death of Jesus Christ, and its application to believers. God does not need to yield His righteousness a single inch when He is merciful. As He is merciful, He is righteous. He is merciful as He really makes demands and correspondingly punishes and rewards (383).

More than anything else, the love and grace of Jesus Christ demonstrates the righteousness of God:

For according to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments what constitutes the demonstration and exercise of God’s righteousness, what makes penitence and obedience necessary on man’s side, is precisely the fact that God enters into a covenant with him and promises that his sins are to be forgiven and eternal life assured. According to the witness of the Old and New Testaments, the love and grace and mercy of God, Jesus Christ, are the demonstration and exercise of the righteousness of God. And it is only in this way that the divine love and grace and mercy can be truly recognised and felt and appropriated. It is only in this way that Jesus Christ can be believed. He is the righteousness of God. Any other kind of faith, any faith which does not refer consistently to God’s righteousness and rest upon it, any kind of piety which is not for its part the righteousness of man, according to what is in this respect the quite unequivocal witness of both Old and New Testaments, necessarily lacks in seriousness, assurance and joy because it obviously has as its object another god than the God whose self-revelation is unfolded to us in Scripture as the being and basis and substance of the Church. For in the very fact that God founds and maintains this covenant with man He distinguishes His action from all caprice and contingency, from all confusion and unrighteousness. He does what is in the highest sense the right: that in which He Himself is righteous; that which befits Him and is worthy of Him as God. In this covenant He reveals Himself as the One He is, the One who is bound to His own nature, the One who is true to Himself (384).

Faith in Him means the decision for God's righteousness and not our own (385ff).

Faith in God’s righteousness means necessarily and essentially a choice and decision in favour of His righteousness as opposed to our own; in other words, the choice and decision by which instead of our own righteousness we accept as our own the righteousness of God, or, according to the shorter New Testament definition, of Christ. To this extent the revelation of God’s righteousness means in fact judgment upon us, implying our condemnation and the death of the old man. To this extent faith means that we accept this condemnation, the death of the old man, and that as condemned sinners, divested of our own righteousness, we flee from ourselves and take refuge in God who wills alone to be both our righteousness and our life, who, making us righteous by Himself, wills that there should be no division between Himself and us (386).

God's righteousness is mercy, but it is also justice too, and judgement on sin (390ff.) But the reason we can still talk about God's mercy as we speak of justice and judgments because in Jesus Christ love and grace and mercy meet us "as the divine act of wrath, judgment, and punishment: (394).

The question which we have still to answer, or rather the answer which we have here to ponder as already given in God’s revelation and being, the answer to every question about the depth and power and might of His mercy, is as follows. How far is the mercy of God, which is to be apprehended in faith, at the same time the righteousness of His judgment? And how far is it recognisable in that fact as His, the divine and therefore the eternal and actual, saving and victorious mercy? God’s revelation in Jesus Christ supplies to this question the answer that the condemning and punishing righteousness of God is in itself and as such the depth and power and might of His mercy. Where Holy Scripture speaks of God’s threats and judgments, we do not in point of fact find ourselves on a periphery from which we have finally to look to a very different centre of its message. On the contrary, we find ourselves at the very heart of this message. We can only be overlooking or misunderstanding the biblical message if for one reason or another we try to be spared having to take quite seriously the fact that God is the God who for the sake of His righteousness is wrathful and condemns and punishes. He is not only this, but He is also this. If He were not also this He would not be for us the living God to whom we are summoned to listen when we are invited to have faith. If we are earnestly to cleave to Him, if we are to accept the salvation accomplished in Himself and offered to us through Him, if we are really to look forward in faith rather than backward, we cannot try to overlook or evade by reservations the essential realisation that God also is angry, condemns and punishes. If we truly love Him, we must love Him also in His anger, condemnation and punishments, or rather we must see, feel and appreciate His love to us even in His anger, condemnation and punishment. For we cannot avoid the conclusion that it is where the divine love and therefore the divine grace and mercy are attested with the supreme clarity in which they are necessarily known as the meaning and intention of Scripture as a whole, where that love and grace and mercy are embodied in a unique event, i.e., in Jesus Christ, that according to the unmistakable witness of the New Testament itself they encounter us as a divine act of wrath, judgment and punishment (393-394).

The meaning of the death of Jesus Christ is that there God’s condemning and punishing righteousness broke out, really smiting and piercing human sin, man as sinner, and sinful Israel. It did really fall on the sin of Israel, our sin and us sinners. It did so in such a way that in what happened there (not to Israel, or to us, but to Jesus Christ) the righteousness of God which we have offended was really revealed and satisfied. Yet it did so in such a way that it did not happen to Israel or to us, but for Israel, for us. What was suffered there on Israel’s account and ours, was suffered for Israel and for us. The wrath of God which we had merited, by which we must have been annihilated and would long since have been annihilated, was now in our place borne and suffered as though it had smitten us and yet in such a way that it did not smite us and can no more smite us. The reason why the No spoken on Good Friday is so terrible, but why there is already concealed in it the Eastertide Yes of God’s righteousness, is that He who on the cross took upon Himself and suffered the wrath of God was no other than God’s own Son, and therefore the eternal God Himself in the unity with human nature which He freely accepted in His transcendent mercy (396-397).

Anticipating Barth's later work on reconciliation, Barth concludes and gives us four thoughts inspired by this idea of God's mercy manifest in Jesus Christ.

1. The fact that it was God’s Son, that it was God Himself, who took our place on Golgotha and thereby freed us from the divine anger and judgment, reveals first the full implication of the wrath of God, of His condemning and punishing justice. It shows us what a consuming fire burns against sin. It thus discloses too the full implication of sin, what it means to resist God, to be God’s enemy, which is the guilty determination of our human existence (398).

2. Because it was the Son of God, i.e., God Himself, who took our place on Good Friday, what had necessarily to happen—because God is righteous—could happen there. There could happen there—the “could” being understood primarily in a physical sense—that which could not have happened to us without causing our annihilation. That is to say, the righteousness of God in condemnation and punishment could take its course in relation to human sin (399-400).

3. Because it was the Son of God, because it was God Himself who on Good Friday suffered for us, the destruction which took place there of the suffering and death which resulted from human disobedience to God could justly satisfy and indeed fulfil the righteousness of God. As a fulfilment of the righteousness of God it necessarily meant that in the conflict between God’s faithfulness and man’s unfaithfulness, the faithfulness of God Himself was maintained, and therefore His honour was not violated. It was only in this way that it could also be exercised as His faithfulness to man, for how could man be really helped by a God who actually surrendered His own honour? On the other hand, the faithfulness of God Himself could not and must not exclude and suspend His faithfulness to man, nor must His honour be safeguarded by the visitation upon man of that which he has properly deserved: eternal death and destruction. In the death of Jesus Christ God remained true both to Himself and to man (400).

4. Because it was the Son of God, i.e., God Himself who took our place on Good Friday, the substitution could be effectual and procure our reconciliation with the righteous God, and therefore the victory of God’s righteousness, and therefore our own righteousness in His sight. Only God, our Lord and Creator, could stand surety for us, could take our place, could suffer eternal death in our stead as the consequence of our sin in such a way that it was finally suffered and overcome and therefore did not need to be suffered any more by us. No creature, no other man could do that. But God’s own Son could do it (403).

Soli Deo Gloria.

Blogging with Barth: CD 2.1 §30.1 "The Grace and Holiness of God" pp. 351-368

Check here for previous posts in the "Blogging with Barth" series or check here for a detailed reading schedule for the Church Dogmatics with links to the respective posts I've written to accompany each day's reading.

The Leitsatz (thesis statement) for §30 states: "The divinity of the love of God consists and confirms itself in the fact that in Himself and in all His works God is gracious, merciful and patient, and at the same time holy, righteous and wise."

In paragraph §30 ("The Perfections of the Divine Loving") and subsection §30.1 ("The Grace and Holiness of God"), Barth turns to perfections of divine loving (remember the categorization of loving and freedom? See last post). Barth begins this way:

God is He who in His Son Jesus Christ loves all His children, in His children all men, and in men His whole creation. God’s being is His loving. He is all that He is as the One who loves. All His perfections are the perfections of His love. Since our knowledge of God is grounded in His revelation in Jesus Christ and remains bound up with it, we cannot begin elsewhere—if we are now to consider and state in detail and in order who and what God is—than with the consideration of His love (351).

Barth suggests that we will wonder why we don't begin with perfections in the category of God's freedom. But he suggests that answer: loves precedes freedom but is included within it as well.

Therefore we begin with the perfections of the divine love: with the intention and in the confidence that in this way, even if indirectly, we are beginning also with the divine freedom. God is gracious, merciful and patient both in Himself and in all His works. This is His loving. But He is gracious, merciful and patient in such a way—because He loves in His freedom—that He is also holy, righteous and wise—again both in Himself and in all His works. For this is the freedom in which He loves. Thus the divinity of His love consists and confirms itself in the fact that it is grace, mercy and patience and in that way and for that reason it is also holiness, righteousness and wisdom. These are the perfections of His love. In this its divinity consists and is confirmed (352).

So Barth will explore God's love as grace, mercy, and patience, and God's freedom as holiness, righteousness, and wisdom. In this section he will pair grace and holiness. He begins with grace.

We begin our consideration of divine love with a study of the concept of divine grace as it stands directly confronted with and controlled and purified by the concept of divine holiness. When God loves, revealing His inmost being in the fact that He loves and therefore seeks and creates fellowship, this being and doing is divine and distinct from all other loving to the extent that the love of God is grace. Grace is the distinctive mode of God’s being in so far as it seeks and creates fellowship by its own free inclination and favour, unconditioned by any merit or claim in the beloved, but also unhindered by any unworthiness or opposition in the latter—able, on the contrary, to overcome all unworthiness and opposition. It is in this distinctive characteristic that we recognise the divinity of God’s love (353).

Grace is an inner mode of being in God Himself (353). Grace is also the distinctive mode of God's being wherein he seeks unmerited fellowship with others (353). Furthermore, God's grace means that he condescends in this fellowship:

But grace means a turning, not in equality, but in condescension. The fact that God is gracious means that He condescends, He, the only One who is really in a position to condescend, because He alone is truly transcendent, and stands on an equality with nothing outside Himself (354). 

His condescension means that we who receive His grace as unmerited fellowship realize that we are unworthy sinners, and God is gracious to us in His fellowship.

The biblical conception of grace involves further that the counterpart which receives it from God is not only not worthy of it but utterly unworthy, that God is gracious to sinners, that His being gracious is an inclination, goodwill and favour which remains unimpeded even by sin, by the resistance with which the creature faces Him. Again, the positive element to be discussed here will fall for special consideration under the heading of God’s mercy. Grace in itself means primarily that the sin of the creature, the resistance which it opposes to God, cannot check, weaken or render impossible the operation of divine grace. On the contrary, grace shows its power over and against sin. Grace, in fact, presupposes the existence of this opposition. It reckons with it, but does not fear it. It is not limited by it. It overcomes it, triumphing in this opposition and the overcoming of it (355).

Barth reminds us of the importance that grace is the very essence of the being of God (356) not merely a gift from God.

Where grace is revealed and operative, God Himself is always revealed and operative. It is not necessary for us to strive after a higher, better, more helpful revelation. God’s promise and also His command, God’s truth and also His power, God’s judgment and also His restoration cannot fail where God is gracious (356). 

This is how God loves. This is how He seeks and creates fellowship between Himself and us. By this distinctive mark we recognise the divinity of His love. For it is in this way, graciously, that God not only acts outwardly towards His creature, but is in Himself from eternity to eternity (357).

Barth now turns to God's holiness (grace and loving):

We now place this concept of the grace of God alongside that of His holiness. This cannot mean that we imply a need either to qualify or to expand what is denoted by the concept of grace. In grace we have characterised God Himself, the one God in all His fulness. We are not wrong, we do not overlook or neglect anything, if we affirm that His love and therefore His whole being, in all the heights and depths of the Godhead, is simply grace. But in our heart and on our lips, in our mode of knowledge, this thing grace is in no sense so fully and unambiguously clear, or above all so rich and deep, as it is in the truth of God which by this concept we apprehend—yet apprehend as we men apprehend God by faith, i.e., in such a way that our knowledge must needs expand and grow and increase (358).  

God’s loving is a divine being and action distinct from every other loving in the fact that it is holy. As holy, it is characterised by the fact that God, as He seeks and creates fellowship, is always the Lord. He therefore distinguishes and maintains His own will as against every other will. He condemns, excludes and annihilates all contradiction and resistance to it. He gives it validity and actuality in this fellowship as His own and therefore as good. In this distinctiveness alone is the love of God truly His own divine love (359).

God's freedom is what constitutes the common factor between the grace and holiness of God (360).

The common factor linking the biblical concepts of the grace and the holiness of God is seen in the fact that they both in characteristic though differing fashion point to the transcendence of God over all that is not Himself. When we speak of grace, we think of the freedom in which God turns His inclination, good will and favour towards another. When we speak of holiness, we think of this same freedom which God proves by the fact that in this turning towards the other He remains true to Himself and makes His own will prevail (360). 

In His grace, God affirms His victorious good will (361). But he does not surrender to the creature in His graciousness (361). The revelation of God's love is a revelation of God's opposition to human opposition to God, and the holiness of God consists in the unity of God's judgment with His grace:

That God is gracious does not mean that He surrenders Himself to the one to whom He is gracious. He neither compromises with his resistance, nor ignores it, still less calls it good. But as the gracious God He affirms Himself over against the one to whom He is gracious by opposing and breaking down his resistance, and in some way causing His own good will to exert its effect upon him. Therefore the one to whom He is gracious comes to experience God’s opposition to him (361).

Only in this opposition is God known in His being as love and grace. For only in this relationship of opposition does He actually create and maintain fellowship between Himself and us, and turn towards us. Only in this tension, as we experience and recognise it as such, and subject ourselves to it, do we truly believe in Him and yield to Him the right which He has against us and over us: the right in which we can then place our confidence. If He is not present to us in this tension, He is not present to us at all. If we refuse to recognise and, as is right, to suffer this His opposition to us, we are also repudiating His grace. To believe in God means that we bow to this His opposition to us, accepting, and—despairing of ourselves but not of Him—allowing His good will towards us to be our ground of confidence and hope (362).

The holiness of God consists in the unity of His judgment with His grace. God is holy because His grace judges and His judgment is gracious (363).

Barth concludes with a reflection on God's holy love:

We may now say again, with richer insight, that in this way God loves. By this mark, that it is holy love, we recognise the divinity of His action and being. For again we must add that God not only acts as the Holy One, but that as He acts He is, from everlasting to everlasting. In Him, of course, there is no sin which He has first to resist. But in Him there is more. There is the purity, indeed He is Himself the purity, which as such contradicts and will resist everything which is unlike itself, yet which does not evade this opposing factor, but, because it is the purity of the life of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, eternally reacts against it, resisting and judging it in its encounter with it, but in so doing receiving and adopting it, and thus entering into the fellowship with it which redeems it (368).

Survivor's Guide to Seminary, Post #3 (Tips 5-6 on Preparing the Mind for Seminary)

Previous entries in this series can be referenced here.

TIP #5 – Read hard books, not so many easy books

Embracing this tip begins with a switch in your mind being flipped. And here’s why. If you are anything like me, I used to enjoy perusing the local Christian bookstore and purchasing Christian books. In many ways, this has not changed. But what I reach for on the shelves these days has changed greatly – and it’s time for it to change for you as well. What I mean is that it’s time to switch from reading easy stuff to more challenging stuff.

Let me level with you – it's time to start reading hard books. It’s time to start reading academic books with nice, meaty content. It’s time to embrace the fact that hard books are for seminary students and seminary students are for hard books. Reading them, even before school begins, will start preparing your mind for what’s ahead. 

Sure, that latest book from Chuck Swindoll, Brian McLaren, Francis Chan, or Beth Moore is nice. But you are not really the target audience for these authors. They are targeting folks who are not pursuing master’s level work in biblical or theological studies. Also, you won’t be supporting the papers you write with lots of bibliography from these kinds of authors. Read them in your free time if you so choose, but accept that to enter the world of seminary thought and intellectual expansion, you’ll be reaching for academic stuff.

Are you done with the easy stuff altogether? Nope. This week I’m reading a bit of easy stuff for my role as a pastor. In fact, I just read James Killen’s Pastoral Care in the Small Membership Church. It was a nice, easy read and was fantastically inspiring. It has made me more conscious of pastoral care and it’s importance for my role as a pastor. But alongside Killen’s book I’m currently reading N.T. Wright’s 1600-page Paul and the Faithfulness of God and Bruce McCormack’s intellectual biography of Karl Barth, titled Karl Barth's Critically Realistic Dialectically Theology: Its Genesis and Development 1909-1936. Both of these latter books are meaty, intellectually demanding, and helping me grow as a thinker. I’m balancing easy and difficult stuff – and note – both kinds of books are helping me. You’re not done with easy stuff, but like sugar and sweets, in seminary you’ll want to digest them sparingly.

So, to prepare your mind properly, you need to embrace the hard stuff. It’s time – you’ve arrived grasshopper. Of course, conveniently, your professors will begin assigning nice, dense textbooks full of hard stuff very soon (if they haven’t already). So this tip might be a moot point. 

Something else is relevant to this tip: read the primary literature too. You know, you can now choose to read St. Augustine. I mean, not just a digest or a second hand account of Augustine, you can read the man himself, his actual words. The same goes for Luther or Calvin. You can read what they wrote, not just what someone else wrote about them. Don’t forget to read the primary stuff! 

Reading older stuff from another age is a GREAT way to prepare your mind too. While you’re at it, read some classic literature. Years ago, I purchased a set of Encyclopedia Britannica’s Great Books of the Western World edited by Robert M. Hutchins and friends. I’ve been reading these books for years, some of the greatest literature ever produced, and I am convinced it has helped me be a better thinker and reader. Classic literature will help you develop and possess a more prepared mind. You’ll soon be on your way to being a great thinker.

TIP #6 – Learn to start making arguments

Remember back in high school and college when you had to make persuasive arguments in written papers or in oral defenses? Perhaps you did this a lot or not very much. Well, you’re going to do it a lot in seminary. Nearly every paper you will write will possess a thesis statement, which is a proposition to be argued. Note that I said argued. Sure, arguing is something we all understand. But I’m talking about a more formal process than the often brainless disagreement we all engage in on a daily basis. I’m talking about ‘argument’ in the sense of logical and evidentiary-supported defenses of clear propositions you will make in writing and public speech. I’m talking about argument in the context of academic essays and academic talks.

It’s what we do in seminary!

So start learning and thinking about making academic arguments. Dust off those old debate textbooks you had in high school. Look up ‘thesis statement’ in your favorite dictionary. Perhaps it would be better to go to the library or your favorite bookstore and purchase some books to help you in this area.

Because most of your argumentation will take place in written form, I recommend getting two books in particular that will help you write and make effective arguments in your seminary papers:

• Brown, Scott G. A Guide to Writing Academic Essays in Religious Studies. New York: Continuum Pub. 2008.
• Heidt, Mari Rapela. A Guide for Writing About Theology and Religion. Winona, MN: Anselm Academic Pub. 2012.

These books will serve you well and can help you begin to think about argumentation in your papers. But what about thinking about argumentation – that is, making arguments and supporting your statements with facts – in general? Well, there are lots of ways that you can hone this skill. One way is by reading a good daily newspaper. Perhaps The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal. The analysis and argumentation in the articles or editorials in a good daily newspaper will help train you to think better, to make arguments and support them. When reading them, you could even practice disagreeing with an editorial, or the slant or bias of an article, in order to practice your debate and argumentation skills.

Another way to think well is to view a news analysis show like Meet the Press or Face the Nation on Sundays. I enjoy watching the Charlie Rose show and the PBS NewsHour. On these programs, debates and analysis on some of the most pressing concerns of our day are routinely unpacked and debated. Watching these programs can get your noodle going and will help you analyze arguments and construct your own arguments better. It will also allow you access to people who routinely make good and bad arguments. You’ll learn to recognize sloppy thinking and argumentation – especially on the political shows!

Perhaps the best way to learn how to think like a debater and make better arguments is to read philosophy materials. You can consume philosophical arguments in a variety of ways – through books, specialist journals, podcasts, or blogs. Perhaps you might want to approach a professor at your seminary who teaches subjects like ‘philosophy of religion’ or ‘philosophical theology’ and ask them what they would recommend. Go to your local library and search on books with terms like “How to think.” Even a cursory search on amazon.com with the search term “how to think” revealed lots of books that purport to help you think well and make arguments in a more principled way. There’s lots of help out there for making this tip happen. By the way, if you have nothing to do the summer before entering seminary, and you’d like to get some nice exposure to philosophy, consider chewing your way through Frederick Copleston’s eleven-volume A History of Philosophy. I know it might sound a little crazy, but the volumes in that series are very readable and Copleston wrote expressly for seminary students who not been adequately exposed to philosophy in their previous studies. And besides, all that reading would be a great warm-up for seminary, too.

So there you are – six tips for helping prepare your mind for seminary (see tips 1-4 here). Let’s move on now. Next time, let's think about what academic study of the bible is and isn’t.