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Annunciation As Election1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 January 2009
Extract
In his review of the historical tradition, James McClendon concludes that ‘the doctrine of election or predestination in Scripture viewed as a whole seems fully to warrant none of the paths ecclesiastical doctrine has so far taken’. He finds some hopeful signs, particularly in his own Radical Reformation tradition. Yet his redrawn contours of the doctrine rarely appeal to the tradition so far. ‘The old associations of the doctrine die so hard that (in my judgment) this part of Christian teaching is of litde present service. We do well to emphasize the rule of God in every effective way, while exercising great reserve with regard to this Augustinian deposit’.
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- Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2001
References
2 McClendon 1994, 183–5, 278.
3 Newman, John Henry, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, in Conscience, Consensus, and the Development of Doctrine (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 67Google Scholar.
4 Horton, Michael Scott, Putting Amazing Back into Grace: Who Does What in Salvation? (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1994)Google Scholar.
5 McClendon, 1994, 182.
6 Rees, 15: ‘The very arguments for man's responsibility, exercised by use of his free will, which Augustine had deployed against the Manichees, were now being adapted by Pelagius to suit his own case that man had the power to save himself, always provided that he had accepted the saving grace of baptism of his own choice.’
7 The sixteen arguments Jerome attributes to Caelestius (De Perf. Iust., ii-vii, 1–16) richly illustrate this. See Ferguson, John, Pelagius: A Historical and Theological Study (Cambridge: Heffer, 1956), 62–64Google Scholar.
8 Brown, Peter, Augustine of Hippo (London: Faber & Faber, 1967), 346–347Google Scholar.
9 ‘For [Pelagius], a good action could mean one that fulfilled successfully certain conditions of behavior, for [Augustine], one that marked the culmination of an inner evolution’ (Brown, 371).
10 It is this unintentional but persistent failure that causes Rees to appreciate Pelagius as a ‘reluctant heretic’, more worthy of pity than Galatians l:8–9's anathemas (Rees, 131).
11 Rees, 127. Ferguson calls Augustine's interest ‘theological, Pelagius' anthropological’ (90).
12 Ferguson, 68.
13 Ferguson, 168. In his sympathetic review of Pelagius, Ferguson admits that Pelagius' theology may be justly criticized for its ‘absence of any clear doctrine of the atonement’ (183). Ferguson himself fails to appreciate the significance for election of Jesus' place in the history of salvation.
14 Is it fair to Pelagius to make him the scapegoat for all of Western Christianity? Pelagius is rightfully named as the instigator of the controversy (Ferguson, 159), in his objection to Augustine's prayer in Confessions 10.40. But the blame deserves to be shared, both by the Englishman who started it, the African who accepted his terms, and by the Europeans who appropriated Augustine's response without paying sufficient attention to its context or limits. Really, all are culpable who fail to appreciate the Jewish shape of election in Scripture.
15 With Augustine's appraisal of the logical consequences of Pelagius' teaching, Brown contends that ‘Pelagianism as we know it, that consistent body of ideas of momentous consequences, had come into existence; but in the mind of Augustine, not of Pelagius’ (345). But by then Pelagius' thought had already been systematized and radicalized by followers like Caelestius (Ferguson, 58ff.). For our purposes, Pelagianism is more important than the one after whom it is named.
16 While Arminius' Analysis of the Ninth Chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans does interpret Romans 9–11 collectively rather than individually, it draws on Galatians 3–4 in order to develop a typological reading of the characters of Romans 9 that generalizes them as types of ‘children of the promise’ and ‘children of the flesh’. Their narrative context in Israel's concrete history of salvation is lost. See The Works of James Arminius, trans. Nichols, James and Nichols, William (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1986), 3:485–519Google Scholar.
17 Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics II/2 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1957), 1–506Google Scholar.
18 Cf. McClendon's similar observation: ‘Jews and Christians must learn ever to construe divine election as election to service, service to others, so that Abraham's God (and now the risen Christ) is thereby disclosed, by serving all, to be the God of all the earth’ (Gen. 12:3), (278).
19 This is not to claim that the text does not support such a conclusion. It only claims that the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith is not Paul's immediate argument. Says Dunn, James D. G. in his Word Biblical Commentary: Romans 9–16 (Waco, TX: Word, 1988)Google Scholar: ‘The theme [of Rom. 9–11] is Israel's destiny, not the doctrine of justification illustrated by Israel [Schlier]’ (520). See also Dunn, , ‘The New Perspective on Paul: Paul and the Law’, in Donfried, Karl P., ed., The Romans Debate, rev. edn (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991), 299–308Google Scholar, as well as other essays in that volume.
20 ‘“Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you.” By this salutation, the archangel sets Mary apart from the very beginning. She is the Elect One of God’. Aslanoff, Catherine, ed. The Incarnate God: The Feasts of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1995), 1.55Google Scholar.
21 Despite the absence of textual indications and Mary's self-description as a handmaid, the passage is often read as an affirmation of Mary's sovereignty. Aslanoff mentions a nineteenth-century Russian bishop's sermon in which he claimed, ‘In the days when the world was being created, when God pronounced the life-giving and powerful words, “Let it be”, the word of the Creator made creatures appear out of nothing. But on this unique day, when the divine Myriam pronounced her brief and obedient “Let it be so”, I hardly dare to say what happened then—the word of the creature caused the Creator to come into the world’. See Aslanoff, 1.59, quoting Leonid Ouspensky and Vladimir Lossky, The Meaning of Icons (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1989), 172.
22 Williams', Stephen N. review of John Sanders' The God Who Risks: A Theology of Providence in ‘What God Doesn't Know’ in Books and Culture 3 (Nov./Dec. 1999), 16, offers a satirical angle on this insightGoogle Scholar.
23 Is God's choice of Mary conditioned upon foreknowledge of her response, as Arminians claim? Perhaps the answer is provided in Luke's account of God's appearance before Zechariah. The priest, whose life of virtue would satisfy even a Pelagian (Luke 1:6), nonetheless expresses disbelief at God's unexpected good news. Yet rather than taking away his promise of joy and gladness (1:14), Gabriel simply silences him–perhaps to keep him from praying for scorpions and serpents?–until the bundle arrives and his words give God the proper glory (1:64, 68–79).
24 St. Joseph Daily Missal and Hymnal (New York: Catholic Book Publishing Co., 1966), 825Google Scholar.
25 Lossky himself speaks of ‘mutual consent’ of God and woman—‘not a passive acceptance of the Annunciation, but an active surrender of Herself to God's will, a voluntary and independent participation of the Mother of God, and, in Her Person, of all creatures, in the work of Salvation’ (173).
26 John Howard Yoder calls Mary ‘a Maccabean’, resisting the spiritualizing of the Magnificat's themes over the centuries and locating her even more firmly in the salvation-history that had continued into the intertestamental era. See The Politics of Jesus, 2nd edn (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994), 21–22Google Scholar.
27 Erickson, Millard, Systematic Theology Volume 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1985), 757Google Scholar. He continues, ‘There were probably countless Jewish girls who could have served to give birth to the Son of God. Certainly Mary manifested qualities which God could use, such as faith and dedication (Luke 1:38, 46–55). But she really had nothing special to offer, not even a husband. That someone apparently incapable of having a child should be chosen to bear God's Son is a reminder that salvation is not a human accomplishment but a gift from God, and an undeserved one at that.’
28 The Virgin Birth is one of the ‘Five Fundamentals’. See Marsden, George, ed., The Fundamentals (New York: Garland Publishing, 1988)Google Scholar.
29 Quoted in Aslanoff, 1.63.
30 Aslanoff, 1.58.
31 After apportioning a week for each chapter in Rom. 5–7, the lectionary devotes four weeks to Rom. 8, then jumps from Rom. 9:1–5 (week between August 7 and 13, Year A) to Rom. 11:13–16 and 29–32 (week between August 14 and 20) and Rom. 11:33–36 (week between August 21 and 27). Rom. 10:8–b–13 does appear in Year C's First Sunday in Lent, but it conveniently avoids the general thrust of chapters 9–11.
32 Eph. 1:1–10 is read on the Sunday between July 10 and 16, Year B.