From Adams’s critique of Wright’s historiography to Barth’s critique of religion: A review essay of Sam Adams’s The Reality of God and Historical Method

Introduction

Samuel Adams has written an extremely valuable work for both systematic theologians and biblical scholars on the complex debates surrounding historiography, theological epistemology, and apocalyptic, all in dialogue with N.T. Wright’s expansive scholarship. In ways that address energetic debates particularly amongst Pauline experts, Adams sheds much light on these conversations with needed theological and analytic acumen. Following my own study of Wright’s various volumes in his justly famous series, Christian Origins and the Question of God, ¹ I found it necessary to seek greater clarity about the theological commitments implicit in Wright’s historiography. My reading led me back to Karl Barth, to Murray Rae’s excellent History and Hermeneutics, ² Matthew Levering’s Participatory Biblical Exegesis, ³ Alan Torrance’s important essay, “Can the Truth be Learned?” and various other works relating to historiography, causality, explanationism, and time. ⁴ But the most helpful work, for me at least, was penned by Douglas Campbell, whom Adams rightly describes as “a lightning rod in conversations with Wright on apocalyptic” (113). Campbell’s important monograph, The Deliverance of God, uniquely brought to the fore the importance of thinking theologically about exegetical matters. ⁵ But the need for further clarity on a number of methodological questions remained, particularly as they relate to the nature of and relation between theology and history. Adams has provided what I think is now the most helpful and lucid account of the set of issues involved, and the scholarly community is indebted to him for his ability to bring together disciplines as varied as theology, apocalyptic, historiography, and New Testament studies in ways that elegantly move the discussions forward.

Despite my wider reading, it has simply not been easy for a humble Neutestamentler like myself to know where to begin an analysis of historiography, ontology, and epistemology, especially as these intersect with Christian commitments relating to the actuality of divine revelation, as well as the relational dynamic inherent in this divine relationship with humanity in Christ, much less join the dots. So I am grateful for this work, for not only has Adams been my teacher on matters I had not considered, he has also given voice to some of my own inchoate intuitions. This is all to say that I am sympathetic with Adams’s project as well as his constructive case for a thoroughly revelational and apocalyptic articulation of the theology of historiography. This is to say that Adams rightly asks what the reality of God means for historical knowledge, and his proposal is largely compelling.

Rather than summarize Adams’s work, I will use the space for critical engagement. I begin by noting general points of agreement before turning to discuss Adams’s interaction with Tom Wright. Then, after highlighting some areas for further discussion, it will be necessary to press Adams on his understanding of the role of historical-critical methods.

General points of affirmation

Adams is surely right that New Testament historical method cannot be theologically neutral. It follows that Adams is fair to insist that methodological reflection on the task of history, for those concerned with the question of God, is a vital task. He is likewise correct to assert that, in pursuing this project, we begin not with abstractions, nor from any knowing of God apart from God, for that would undercut the theological project (74, 80). Hence, Adams is entirely justified to speak of “human sinful alienation and rebellion” as dynamics in play when historians explore the question of God (82; see also 97). Adams’s account of the an- and enhypostatic movements in this context were particularly creative and rich (143ff.), especially as they were tied to Christian baptism (149). Furthermore, he presents a wonderfully robust and christological account of Thomas Torrance’s work and Kierkegaard’s Climacus, which approached theological realism in terms of both the objective and subjective. There is much that biblical scholars can learn from all of this. And in case anyone suspects that this is just theology trumping history, Adams insists that his concern is with something “truly apocalyptic, and not something else (for instance, systematic theology)” (253). In other words, Adams is correctly pursuing the necessity to reflect on the reality of God for historical method that discusses God.

Engaging Tom Wright’s historical method

Note the title of Wright’s learned and impressive project “Christian Origins and the Question of God.” It is not an attempt just to think historically about the New Testament writings but, explicitly, to do theology. ⁶ It is entirely apt, therefore, that Adams asks to what extent Wright’s method is adequate to the question of God (see especially 206), to ask whether Wright can legitimately move from history to theology (17). In this light, it seems that Adams is correct to claim that Wright makes a methodological mistake when he effectively subsumes the reality of God into a general theory of epistemology. ⁷ To make this case, Adams builds on Wright’s own claims in clever and subversive ways, particularly Wright’s commitment to critical realism, as well as Wright’s affirmation that knowing is something that happens “through contact” (43). Wright should more consistently, Adams rightly presses, begin with a theological epistemology determined by this particular object of knowledge, namely the self-revealing God of Christian faith.

Helpful also was the description of the way certain metaphysical conceptions, such as the distinction between “now” and “then,” shape Wright’s historiography (181–82). Adams likewise insightfully shows the way Wright’s project seems underpinned, on occasion, by theological Thomism (grace perfecting nature) (66 n. 1, 218). He powerfully shows the extent to which certain construals of narrative continuity determine much of Wright’s exegetical work, particularly as it pertains to the resurrection.

Contra Wright’s attempt to fit the story of Christ into a Pauline narrative subplot, ⁸ Adams nicely corrects this with an intelligent move to speak of the hypostatic union in terms of the anhypostatic assumption of all human history, and its (re)location, in the one person of Christ—and his story—enhypostatically. This articulates precisely why it is problematic methodologically to bracket out the question of Jesus’ divinity, as Wright does at the beginning of Jesus and the Victory of God (211).

Adams’s emphasis on the subjectivity of knowledge, via engagement with Climacus, was likewise a clever move and highlights another problem in Wright’s narrative approach that underplays the story of Christ and the church. ⁹ As I see it, in Wright’s project the historian effectively becomes a priest, the one through whom one must go in order to hear a word of God in Scripture (21). This becomes particularly clear, I would argue, in Wright’s account of the hermeneutical significance of reading Scripture in terms of a five-act drama. ¹⁰ This “dramatic” model is nicely taken to task by Adams who emphasizes, instead, the freedom and grace of God in revelation (224–26).

Adams also helps shed light on why many of us think that Wright caricatures “apocalyptic” readings of the apostle Paul, when he suggests that they are “anti-Jewish,” ¹¹ or “sweeping everything else off the table,” ¹² by ignoring the “historical back story of Israel.” ¹³ Wright therefore attempts to discredit such readings by claiming that they are obviously wrong, and so remove them from consideration. But Adams shows why this is to confuse apocalyptic understood as an epistemology with mere description of apocalyptic literature. ¹⁴ Adams’s proposal that the apocalyptic event “comes to us distinct from our worldviews” was a helpful if difficult-to-grasp theological corrective (78 n. 40; see also 85, 255), certainly to any talk of “the” Christian worldview or such like.

Points for discussion

But of course, it remains intuitively plausible that an apocalyptic “worldview, even if it is transformed to some degree by a revelatory experience, nevertheless contextualizes that experience” (120). The point Adams makes is a theological one, but it is likely that not just a few will think that Adams allows theology to trump biblical studies. Indeed, it needs to be asked what positive role Adams sees in Wright’s constructive work. I for one have learnt much from Wright’s exegetical endeavors, and continue to do so. Further, I do wonder whether Wright will dismiss a number of Adams’s arguments because of their lack of sustained exegetical engagement with Paul’s letters in particular. So some may indeed suspect that theology is overwhelming the task of rubbing our noses up against these bumpy texts, which is precisely what biblical scholars do day by day. Before this issue is developed, it will be necessary to note a few other areas for discussion.

First, having stated areas of agreement with Adams’s general theological disposition, I was a little surprised that he offered no justification for his theological dialogue partners. At times he was rather selective in his use of these traditions, too, without being particularly transparent about this fact. For example, he draws on Webster at crucial points, but does not engage at all with him where Webster would differ significantly. I think here of Adams’s proposal that we move from soteriology to christology to creation. But Webster now prefers to speak not of the structural priority of soteriology, but of the Trinity and creation as “distributed doctrines.” ¹⁵ Some justification for the traditions underpinning his most important moves, over against other related theological positions, would have been apt.

Second, I noted at the beginning the scholars I have read as I have pondered questions relating to historiography and theology. Apart from Barth, it was a surprise to find none of those sources referenced by Adams. Few modern works on historiography were listed, and there was no mention of Levering’s work or Murray Rae’s important book. Likewise, when he engaged with the question of Paul’s epistemology, his dialogue partners included none of the major New Testament scholars who has written precisely on this subject. ¹⁶ His engagement with scholarship could therefore be described as eclectic or even, depending on the extent of one’s sympathy with his views, haphazard.

Third, and perhaps related to this, many of his arguments seem to have moved a little too quickly. Rather rapidly, for example, he moved from exegesis of John’s Gospel to claims about epistemology, Christian baptism, and the cross and resurrection (100–103). Or when defining “history” and “historiography,” Adams begins by drawing on the work of Collingwood (174). It should be noted, however, that this is not entirely the way contemporary philosophical scholarship defines the terms. ¹⁷ However, more importantly, in his conclusion he speaks of the relationship between historiography and history in ways that do not obviously build on these earlier definitions. He makes claims in the conclusion about what he apparently argued in ways that were—at least to me—not obvious. Further, how does this relate to Wright’s definition of history as a “meaningful narrative of events and intentions” (47)? This is simply a request for greater clarity and perspicuity of argumentation. I suggest, then, that the struggle to follow the pace of some of his arguments is not one of this work’s positive attributes.

Fourth, Adams is right to reject Hans Urs von Balthasar’s claim that historical continuity is to be grounded in the cross of Christ. However, the extent to which the resurrection of Christ says the same thing at this point can be debated. He approvingly cites Dietrich Bonhoeffer who claims there “is absolutely no transition, no continuum between the dead Christ and the resurrected Christ” (161). But I was a little uneasy at this point as John 20 tells us that Christ’s resurrection body still carried the scars from crucifixion, which suggests that there is a corporeal continuity. A little more theological work at this point, at the very least, would have been appreciated (perhaps with recourse to the identity of the Son of God as none other than the crucified one, as in Barth’s Church Dogmatics, II.2). Either way, Wright could indeed respond at this stage and suggest that his account of continuity in the resurrection is grounded also in 1 Corinthians 15. ¹⁸ Perhaps I misunderstand Adams, for he does want to suggest that continuity is preserved in the enhypostatic union (202), which certainly involves the resurrection. But the scars of Christ on his resurrection body raise a potential problem, or at least the need for more justification, when associating, as Adams does, God’s creating ex nihilo with the resurrection (for instance, 202–203).

Finally, I was a little confused how certain terms were being deployed. In the midst of an argument that was proceeding a little too fast for my taste, he notes that the discontinuity generated by the resurrection “does not mean that reality changes, all those things to which our words refer change, but rather that the human capacity to reason … is restructured, dead and raised, in Christ” (221, italics mine). But as Adams argues, the resurrection, according to Bonhoeffer and apocalyptic theology over against Wright and O’Donovan, means that there is rupture at the level of ontology (153–55; see also 245–46). So the resurrection is “an ontologically unique and novel event.” But reality doesn’t change? What is, then, the relationship between reality and ontology, for Adams? Elsewhere, we are told that history is not “ontological essence” (260), but then we are told that both the old history and the new history have their own ontological realities (see also 266 for the language of “ontological reality”).

This is to say that the meaning of some of Adams’s terms left me a little confused. Of course, it all very much depends how terms are defined. But that is precisely the point I am making. I am certainly not suggesting that any of this refutes what Adams has argued. I am simply giving him the opportunity to clarify some of his terms in ways that were—for me at least—not always obviously coherent.

What place historical criticism?

Now to the final point. What place is left, in Adams’s proposal, for biblical studies as practiced in the academy? This needs to be asked as I see a reactionary emphasis in Adams’s work. Inevitable, I’m sure, as push-back against Wrightian tendencies are legitimate, but Adams more often than not speaks of the historical task in negative terms, excluding the work of biblical scholars from the theological endeavor. Some examples:

“History is powerless to provide the context” (119).

Most of his points are agreeable because, as he insists, we are dealing with the reality of God. But given the frequency of these examples, when Adams does occasionally suggest that he does not want to promote a “retreat from history” (148, 259) it becomes a message rather difficult to hear over the force of all of his denials. Hence, when Adams suggests that his book is about history and theology in such a way that asks how “both [could] contribute to a new metaphysic” (88), I think it would be more honest to say that his book is about how (apocalyptic) theology corrects the pretensions of certain historiographical practices and claims.

Indeed, I wanted to hear more about the positive role of what is usually associated with biblical studies, as my colleagues would undertake it. Adams describes it as “key” for doing exegesis (211–12). But what does this mean and on what basis is this a legitimate judgment in relation to his wider argument? In his constructive case regarding Paul’s apocalyptic he pleads that he “in no way” intends to undermine the work done by (biblical) scholars (230). But I think most of these biblical scholars would disagree. How would he address this concern?

I finish with two points that speak into a positive relationship between the kind of biblical studies undertaken in most faculties and university departments around the world today and theology. First, I refer to Sean Winter’s paper, in which he argues that there is a danger, in some construals of theological exegesis (such as Webster’s)

… of suggesting that theological interpretation must of necessity involve a form of interpretation in which human interpretative agency is downplayed, contextuality is dismissed as irrelevant, the reality and promise of interpretative pluralism are denied, and the interpretative work of the church becomes increasingly sealed off from the challenges, questions, and insights of the academy. ¹⁹

Winter could have written this as a response to Adams. Actually, I do think Adams can answer such objections in ways faithful to his wider argumentation. But a little more work needs to be done, which was not forthcoming in his book.

Second, I suggest we can think more positively of academic biblical studies by thinking in terms of Barth’s critique of religion. Barth has often been caricatured as an intolerant exclusivist, at least in his insistence that “Religion ist Unglaube” (KD I.2 §17). Famously, this is based on a translation of the German into English, which lacked some of the Hegelian intertextual nuance behind the word Aufhebung. So when Barth wrote of “Gottes Offenbarung als Aufhebung der Religion” (KD I.2 §17), he meant not simply religion’s abolition, but also its “sublimation,” as Garrett Green most recently translates the word. ²⁰ It is key to note that Barth insists on the freedom of revelation over against religion without denying the religious nature of revelation. ²¹ To be religious is more or less a universal feature of humans, ²² he argues, and cannot simply be negated by God’s revelation. It is aufgehoben, sublimated, assumed, and saved in Christ’s light. This is to say that “the judgment of divine revelation does not sweep aside or destroy the world of religion. On the contrary, ‘In his revelation God is present in the world of human religion.’” ²³

So in analogous ways, both systematic theological reflection on the apocalypse of Christ and biblical studies stands under the same judgment of revelation, and both can only be “true” in the sense in which we speak of a “justified sinner,” as Barth speaks of the truth of religion (CD I.2, p. 325). ²⁴ This posture of humility implies an expectation that Christ can and will speak in unexpected spheres beyond the accepted ambit, in what Barth calls “parables of the kingdom” (see CD IV.3, pp. 117–18).

Likewise, biblical studies works with its best tools of historical-critical research to speak the truth of Scripture, and ultimately, in Wright’s historiography, a Word of God. But in revelation this religious exercise is confronted, at the end of its quest, with the truth of its beginning, namely the free self-presentation of God in Jesus Christ, which turns to judge and save these practices. And the point is that this gracious divine activity happens not by means of the correct parsing of the intricacies of a doctrinal historiography, but by God’s free grace. The grace that animated the truth of the non-Christian Climacus’s thought experiment is the same that assumes and lifts up religious biblical studies in a gracious and judging movement. ²⁵

God’s revelation so understood interrogates Adams’s confident criticism of certain construals of history and theology in the hands of biblical scholars. When he claims that the resurrection is “not Aufhebung, but is, indeed, a novum” (196) I must demur. ²⁶ God’s free act is both novum and Aufhebung. ²⁷ Wright’s historiography, as problematic as we both agree it can sometimes be, can still express “the one and total truth from a particular angle,” as Barth describes those “parables of the kingdom.” Precisely doing this it stands before the free grace of God as both judged and sublimated.

Methodological precision has its place. It, too, is part of the religious quest. But the extent to which it becomes self-justifying, legalistic, and “tight,” evacuated of confidence in the freedom of Christ to speak where and when he wills, by grace, it too is judged by Gottes Offenbarung. Adams rightly critiques Wright’s historiography in light of the determining reality of God. But what about his own argument placed in the same light, namely God’s reality? The result, I think, should be a posture which refuses to take methodology of any form too seriously. Reading “with” Paul, as Adams rightly urges we do (125), is a crucial task for both the biblical scholar and systematic theologian (to note only the division in labor and skill sets these designations imply). However, there remains a place for, well, just reading Paul. And all of these activities stand under the Aufhebung occasioned by the apocalypse of Jesus Christ.