The Fidelity of Betrayal: Towards a Church Beyond Belief

As I come to the end of chapter 6 of Peter Rollins' forthcoming book, "The Fidelity of Betrayal: Towards a Church Beyond Belief" (Paraclete Press, June 2008), I am left with much to consider. Rollins continues his march toward developing a conception of Christianity, contrary to western Christendom, whose tenability is not dependent on the conceptual viability of a particular set of truth claims regarding God's essence. Previously, Dr. Rollins has explained that while this type of epistemologically and metaphysically confident, propositional, and analytic approach to describing God's essence has roots in earlier times in the church, this view was crystallized by the work of Descartes, which tried to establish, with assurance, the truth of God's existence. This, Rollins went on to claim, has been the undergirding for both secular and religious thought ever since; despite the fact that it has been employed in differing ways, both have been aimed at the procurement of ultimate meaning. This, Rollins asserts, undermines a true, radical, life transforming faith.

In order to drive this point home both conceptually and historically, Dr. Rollins calls on the thought of Hobbes and Pascal. First, Rollins points out that even Descartes questioned his own conclusions, reflecting on the conceptual incoherency of the finite comprehending the infinite. While, as I said, Rollins cites the thought of both Hobbes and Pascal, I found one particular quote and reflection on the work of Hobbes to be particularly effective in making the point:

"Thomas Hobbes noted that,

God is conceived as infinite; that is, I cannot conceive or imagine limits to him, or uttermost parts beyond which I can image none further; but from this it follows that the term infinite gives rise to an idea not of God’s infinity but of my own bounds and limits . . . to say God is infinite is just to say that he belongs to the class of things whose bounds are not conceivable. This rules out any idea of God; what sort of idea can be without origin and without bounds?

Thus, for Hobbes, Descartes’ definition of God as an “infinite, independent, supremely intelligent, supremely powerful [being] and the creator of myself and anything else that may exist,” actually turned out to be a way of claiming that God was beyond definition. In short, the idea that God is infinite was, for Hobbes, a way of saying that God is beyond any ideas we can come up with: to say that God is infinite is to say that God is not finite and thus to make a merely negative claim. To make this claim is thus to really say nothing concrete at all about God but rather to offer up a veiled means of commenting upon the finitude of the one who speaks—it is a description of our own limits."

This, it must be admitted is a powerful argument. Before we render judgement on this issue, I think it is helpful to see how this establishes a platform for the next component of Rollins' argument. What Rollins is careful to avoid is to allow the criticism or assertion that his proposal suggests God is somehow distant and detached from this world. On the contrary, Rollins affirms God's intimate presence and interaction with his creation; the difference is that, contrary to traditional conceptions, Rollins suggests that God's presence does not allow us to reduce the nature of that presence to something objectifiable. This whole chapter, in one sense, is a louder and clearer echo of the message in chapter 3, since his idea of the "eschatological wHole" comes to the fore, at least implicitly. It is this idea that although many things are present to our experience, we cannot capture cognitively the inner coherency of what we experience in a way that is objectively describable. For example, we experience the reality of our own life, but we do not experience, or connot capture the interior details of that existence. It is both present and absent to our conciousness, at least as it pertains to some comprehensive and descriptive knowing. In the same way, God is present to us in events, not essence. In that way he is both close, while remaining beyond our finite conceptual capacities to describe and experience God's ultimate reality; "a presence beyond presence". Also consider the following quote, which helps to crystallize Rollins' idea,

"However, it is not simply the life of those around us that lies beyond the realm of our experience; at a much more radical level we cannot even experience our own life. Our own life is not something we can experience, for it is that which allows us to experience in the first place. Our life is not approached as an object in the world that can be experienced; rather it is an opening that allows us to experience objects in the world. Any deep reflection upon our own life leads to the dizzying conclusion that this life that we are, while present in the moment of reflection, is radically absent to the world of our experience."

Rollins ultimately calls God's action in this world, which is the way we encounter God through an event, the divine rupture in this world that both testifies to God, while also reminding us of our inability to capture his essential being. Consider the following illustrations, which are based first on Rollins' definition of revelation, and also draw from the gospels. First, Rollins defines revelation as "rupture",

"This idea of God as that which dwells beyond our ability to objectify, and the previous exploration of God’s Word as hinted at as an inaccessible wound within, but not of, Scripture are each exposed and expressed in the Christian idea of revelation. Within the Bible we encounter revelation as the felt concealment of God. Rather than God being rendered manifest in revelation, this term can be seen to define a tight web of three interrelated features. First, a revelation worthy of the name involves epistemological incomprehension. In other words, part of the evidence that a revelation has occurred lies in the fact that what we have encountered cannot be understood within our currently existing intellectual structures. Second, there is experiential bedazzlement. Here the incoming of revelation is evidenced in a type of oversaturation in which our experience is overcome. One is overwhelmed by the incoming and short-circuited by it. Third, there is an existential transformation. When a revelation occurs, the person who is receiving it is never the same again."

Then Rollins explains how, in one sense, Christianity is God's rupture in Judaism; by reflecting on the unusual circumstances of Jesus' ancestral lineage as portrayed in Matthew's gospel, Rollins claims,

"On the one hand Matthew understands the incoming of God through Jesus as directly related to the Jewish tradition, yet on the other hand he speaks of this event as one that ruptures the tradition, that cannot be contained within it. Jesus simultaneously is inscribed within, and tears apart the narrative. Here there is a respect for the ancient narrative and an affirmation of a new beginning within it, a beginning that ruptures the tradition that it respects and within which it is inscribed. Here Christianity is shown, not simply as the continuation of the Jewish tradition, but as an incoming that breaks the tradition wide open. Here we again witness the self-conscious parallactical structure of the text. The event of God is presented here as arising from, yet not contained within, the tabernacles of our traditions. This process by which Matthew relates Jesus to the very tradition that his presence ruptures helps to expose the sense in which Christianity is structured as an irreligious religion. We can see here how the revelation of Christ forms a fissure within Judaism itself. While this has since been taken as the beginning of a new religion (Christianity), there is a sense in which Jesus is actually introducing (or re-inscribing) a wound into the already existing religion. In this sense Christianity is not that which comes after the rupture of Jesus but rather is the name that one ought to give to the rupture itself.What we witness here is a beautiful example of the Judeo-Christian notion that when revelation takes place, with the full power of its overabundant luminosity, our religious ideas, important as they are, break open to new and vibrant possibilities."

It is from this overall conceptual vantage point that Rollins calls the reader to rise above the conceptual framework of our domestication of God's essence. It is from this place, Rollins claims, that we open ourselves up to the transforming work of God. It is through God's rupturing our present reality; the rupture where the finite encounters the infinite, that we are forever transformed according to God's radical call.

All of this is presented very enticingly, especially for those, I think, who may be disenchanted wtih the status quo. There are a couple thoughts I have at this point. First, I think there is much to be taken from Rollins' proposal, and I can't wait to see how he concludes it. One question I have is related to Rollins repeated appeal to the fact that athough critical issues are important and relevant, they must be placed to the side for the moment. I guess I wonder how they are relevant, according to Rollins' proposal; in other words, if we take Rollins' approach to the biblical text, which requires a "second naivete", then it also seems that we must begin with an approach that accepts the text at face value. This, in turn seems, in one respect, like the approach of dogmatic theoogians, such as John Webster, for example. What then is the actual value of critical issues, and if we are to take them seriously, how and why do we divorce them from our perceptual horizon? Secondly, I wonder if perhaps Rollins has oversimplified the landscape of modern theology. Clearly, his criticism that theology is confident about making assertions related to God's essence can be argued when speaking of dogmatic or systematic theology, but can this be so easily asserted with regard to other sub-disciplines within theology? For example, the work of biblical theologians, I would say, is more closely oriented toward the actions of God. At the same time, I do understand that much of their work is undergirded by the conceptual frameworks of dogmatic theology, but it still remains a question for me as to whether Rollins' proposal may be a simplistic on this point.

I look forward to his response and corrections....