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293 pages

English

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How do human beings today receive divine revelation? Where and in what ways is it mediated so that all generations can hear the fullness of the gospel? In this volume, distinguished theologian Matthew Levering shows that divine revelation has been truthfully mediated through the church, the gospel, and Scripture so that we can receive it in its fullness today. Levering engages past and present approaches to revelation across a variety of traditions, offering a comprehensive, historical study of all the key figures and perspectives. His thorough analysis results in an alternative approach to prevailing views of the doctrine and points to its significance for the entire church.

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Philosophie et théologie

Christian theology

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	11 novembre 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781441219619
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	3 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,1152€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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© 2014 by Matthew Levering
Published by Baker Academic
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www . bakeracademic . com
Ebook edition created 2014
Ebook corrections 02.08.2023
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4412-1961-9
Scripture quotations are from the Catholic Edition of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1965, 1966 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Baker Publishing Group publications use paper produced from sustainable forestry practices and post-consumer waste whenever possible.
To Guy Mansini, OSB
Contents
Cover i
Title Page iii
Copyright Page iv
Dedication v
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1. Church 35
2. Liturgy 59
3. Priesthood 87
4. Gospel 113
5. Tradition 139
6. Development 175
7. Inspiration 217
8. Philosophy 251
Conclusion 285
Bibliography 301
Subject Index 347
Name Index 355
Notes 365
Back Cover 373
Acknowledgments
This book is dedicated to Guy Mansini, in gratitude for all the help he has given me over the years and for the help he gave me on this book. Driven by love for Jesus Christ and blessed with extraordinary intellectual gifts, Guy shares his theological wisdom with generosity and humility. Monk, parish priest, teacher, and forester, Guy is above all a theological master.
In writing this book I have incurred many debts. Peter Bellini of United Theological Seminary gave me the basic idea for chapter 1 during a lunch that we shared. At a conference on “Reading God’s Word: Ratzinger’s Erasmus Lecture a Generation Later” at Ave Maria University I gave a portion of chapter 2; many thanks to Gregory Vall, Michael Dauphinais, and Fr. Matthew Lamb for the invitation to speak. An earlier version of chapter 3 was delivered as “Priesthood and Revelation: Addressing the Problem of Priestly Rivalry,” the 2013 Thomas Lecture at Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology. Thanks to Denis Robinson, OSB, Keith Lemna, Guy Mansini, Kyle Rodden, and others for their hospitality and the fruitful discussion that helped to clarify my thoughts. Chapter 4 will appear in a Festschrift for John Webster, who has done me many kindnesses over the years. Part of this chapter was delivered as the Aquinas Lecture at Blackfriars, Oxford, in January 2013; thanks to Simon Gaine, OP, to his Dominican brethren, and to William Carroll for the invitation and hospitality.
Chapter 5 was prepared for the Tradition Conference in July 2013 at the University of Notre Dame Australia; many thanks to my Australian friends (new and old), including Bishop Anthony Fisher, OP, Hayden Ramsey, Paul Morrissey, Robert Tilley, Nigel Zimmermann, and Tracey Rowland. Bishop Fisher generously shared with me his keynote lecture, “Catholic Moral Tradition,” from which I benefited in chapters 5 and 6. William Portier helped me with sources for chapter 5. I delivered part of chapter 6 at the Christian Systematic Theology Section at the 2012 meeting of the American Academy of Religion. Thanks to James Ernest and David Stubbs for the invitation and to Khaled Anatolios, my teacher and a mentor since my graduate student days, for his helpful comments.
An earlier version of chapter 8 was presented as “God and Greek Philosophy in Contemporary Biblical Scholarship” to the Development of Early Trinitarian Theology Session convened by Mark Weedman at the Society of Biblical Literature’s 2009 meeting and later published under the same title in Journal of Theological Interpretation 4 (2010): 169–85; thanks to Joel B. Green, editor of the Journal of Theological Interpretation . I presented a different version of chapter 8 to a group of faculty and students at Keble College, Oxford, in January 2013, at the kind invitation of Markus Bockmuehl, and I benefited greatly from the vigorous discussion.
As the manuscript began to take shape, Peter Bellini offered valuable comments on chapter 1; Darren Sarisky provided keen insight into chapters 2 and 4; Andrew Meszaros corrected chapters 5 and 6; Aaron Pidel, SJ, offered suggestions for chapter 7; and Michael Allen and Scott Swain helped with chapter 8. The help from these friends and scholars made the end result much better. Guy Mansini and Stewart Clem read and critiqued the entire manuscript, and I owe them gratitude for their generous and helpful criticisms. Dave Nelson, in his editorial role at Baker Academic, expressed interest in the book at an early stage and was tremendously encouraging and helpful—including reading and commenting on a full draft—as the book moved toward publication.
Elizabeth Farnsworth, a talented doctoral student at the University of Dayton, did the bibliography and helped me acquire books and articles during the writing of this book. She also spearheaded the arrangements for the two conferences hosted by my Center for Scriptural Exegesis, Philosophy, and Doctrine at the University of Dayton, one of which, “ Dei Verbum at 50: Toward a Clarification of the Inspiration of Scripture,” was greatly helpful for chapter 7.
Let me specially thank Fr. Robert Barron, rector of Mundelein Seminary, for bringing me to Mundelein Seminary as the Perry Family Foundation Professor of Theology, through the wonderful generosity of Jim and Molly Perry. Mundelein Seminary is an extraordinary place to work and worship.
To my wife, Joy, how blessed I am to be your husband. Surely moving our whole family to Mundelein less than two weeks after we accepted the job was one of your greatest feats. God be praised for you, for our marriage, and for our children. To our Levering and Moretz extended families, deep gratitude. Sadly, my beloved mother-in-law, Ann Moretz, died on October 17, 2013. Dear God, we commend Ann to you, and we rejoice in her lifelong witness to Jesus Christ.
This book has its source in my urgent desire to know our Creator, infinite life and love, the one who sustains us and gives us eternal life with him, for which I am eager. “O God, thou art my God, I seek thee, my soul thirsts for thee; my flesh faints for thee, as in a dry and weary land where no water is. So I have looked upon thee in the sanctuary, beholding thy power and glory. Because thy steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise thee. So I will bless thee as long as I live; I will lift up my hands and call on thy name” (Ps. 63:1–4).
Introduction
The Letter to the Hebrews proclaims, “God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets,” and, “In these last days he has spoken to us by a Son” (Heb. 1:1–2). 1 How, then, do human beings today (“in these last days”) truly receive this merciful revelation? Since “God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets” and “has spoken to us by a Son,” God evidently intended for his revelatory words and deeds to be mediated by the people formed by his covenantal love. Where and in what ways does this mediation take place so that humans in all generations can receive the fullness of the gospel?
The evident answers are the Church and Scripture, or Scripture and the Church. The Letter to the Hebrews itself mediates to us God’s revelation, as does Scripture as a whole. But it is not possible to conceive of Scripture, at any stage of its composition and collection into a canonical unity, outside of the liturgical community of the people of God. The Lutheran theologian Carl Braaten rightly points out that “there is no gospel apart from the church and its sacramental life. . . . There is no such thing as churchless Christianity, for that would posit the possibility of relating personally to Christ without being a member of his body, the Church.” 2 Just as Israel’s Scriptures cannot be conceived outside of the worshiping community, so also the New Testament writings make sense only in light of Jesus’s eschatological reordering of Israel around himself (the messianic King and new Temple) by calling the Twelve and giving them the mission of making “disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19). It is in this community of believers that divine revelation has been received, enacted, and handed down.
Yet, is this mediation a faithful one, so that believers are now able to “worship the Father in spirit and truth” (John 4:23)? Indeed, James Dunn draws attention to the fact that the New Testament is already “tradition,” and he invites us to consider “what the tradition process has involved and still involves.” 3 He finds that “while the core and substance of the tradition remains stable through time and multiple retellings, the forms it takes are diverse and variable.” 4 In Dunn’s view the tradition process that we find in the New Testament continues throughout the history of the Church. Along similar lines, Francis Watson has identified a “precanonical phase” in which “gospels proliferate unchecked,” with each adding “its own distinctive material while selecting, interpreting, and reinterpreting material derived directly from its predecessors.” 5 Indeed, for Watson, cognizant of the early Church’s privileging of quite different texts in different local churches, “The fourfold gospel represents a decision about community order and organization rather than a historical, literary, or theological judgement about the nature of earlier gospel literature.” 6 But for my purposes Dunn’s insight suffices to frame the issue; namely, our ability to hear and participate in divine revelation (“the core and substance of the tradition”) is inseparable from the covenantal community’s “tradition process.” 7
The New Testament itself recognizes this. After Jesus’s ascensi