Author: Jack Kilcrease

Jack Kilcrease is a Lutheran lay theologian and member of Our Savior Lutheran Church (LCMS). He is currently a member of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod’s Commission on Theology and Church Relations. Jack was born in Texas, but grew up in Oregon. He went on to receive a B.A. from Luther College and an M.A. from Luther Seminary. He earned his Ph.D. in Systematic Theology and Ethics from Marquette University in 2009. Jack’s theological work explores the gift of God’s self-donation in Jesus Christ. He is the author of several books including the most recent volume of the Confessional Lutheran Dogmatics series on Holy Scripture and the forthcoming Justification by the Word (Lexham Press). Jack is currently Associate Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at the Institute of Lutheran Theology’s Christ School of Theology. He is also an Assistant Adjunct Professor teaching philosophy at Aquinas College. Jack lives in beautiful West Michigan with his lovely wife, Bethany, and his two energetic daughters, Miriam and Ruth. When he’s not thinking about theology—and even when he is—Jack enjoys running, hiking, and hanging out with his family and cat. He’s passionate about BBQ, whiskey, jazz, movies, and theological discussion.
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Must Christians Reject Modernism and Postmodernism?

Modernism presented Christian theology with both opportunities and challenges.  At its best, Modernism consisted of the wreckage left over from the Christian Grand Narrative after much of it had been detonated by Enlightenment thinkers themselves.  Because of this, in many instances Modernism helped Christians become more consistent with the basic principles of their religion.  The secular concept of human rights is rooted in the inherent dignity of humanity based on the imago Dei (Gen. 9:6).  Politically, the idea of human rights curbed abuses of authority by the church and crown. It did away with practices like torture and slavery that even Christian societies had normalized for centuries.  Likewise, modern science grew out of Christian belief in a rational creator who had made a rational created order. Rational creatures made in God’s image could understand this order.  On the other hand, the creation of the concept of the secular also significantly distorted Christian theology by mutilating its ability to articulate its claims in the public sphere, thereby forcing Christian theology into the straitjacket of either Liberalism or Fundamentalism. 

            Postmodernism, like Modernism, is full of opportunities and dangers for Christian theology.  On the positive side, if appropriately understood, Postmodernism possesses the advantage of exposing secularity’s neutrality and right to arbitrate between what is real and unreal.  In other words, Modernism and secularity are simply culturally constructed frameworks that served the very specific purpose of solving the problems created by the European wars of religion.  Contrary to what is often believed, one does not simply strip away the religious window dressing of reality to find secular modernity lying underneath.  Hence, Christians do not have to abide by the rules of secular modernity in asserting truth claims.  They do not have to remove articles of the faith or assume a posture of methodological atheism/naturalism when dealing with the biblical texts as theological Liberals have done.  They do not have to validate their belief in the articles of the faith on the basis of modernist standards of truth or rationality the way that many Fundamentalists have done.  Neither do they have to invest secular politics with transcendent meaning and treat them as redemptive as both Liberals and Fundamentalists have done.

            On the other hand, Postmodernism also represents a challenge and a problem for Christian theology.  Postmodernism is not pure nihilism or subjectivism per se, as is often charged.  Rather, it is a form of what we might call “provisionalism.”  According to a provisionalist, there are no universal and eternal truths, only little and provisional truths.  Truth is therefore always socially embedded, impermanent, and revisable.  All Grand Narratives are suspect.  Reality is only knowable in a fragmentary, linguistically pragmatic, and at times anti-realistic, fashion.  As I will argue, this problematic for Christian theology because Christians insist on the eschatological finality of their message. Moreover, Christians must confess the truthfulness of Christianity’s Grand Narrative and insist on linguistic critical-realism. 

            In light of the aforementioned challenges and insights of the Postmodern project, the next chapter explores various proposals for Postmodern Christian theology in greater detail.  In doing this, I will develop a critically realistic view of doctrine.  The key to this approach is the Lutheran belief that the “finite is capable of the infinite” (finitum capax infiniti). If this is accurate – and Lutherans must confess that it is – then the seemingly embedded, historical, and provisional can serve as a medium for infinite, eternal, and universal truth. 

The Finite Contains the Infinite

From the draft manuscript for Lutheran Dogmatics: The Evangelical-Catholic Faith for an Age of Contested Truth (Lexham Press).

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Doing Theology: Part II

Read Part I Here

We should keep a number of relevant points in mind when examining how Luther construes the theological task.  First, the cycle of oratio, meditatio, and tentatio recapitulations the Incarnation and work of Christ.  Much as the Word was incarnate through the coming of the Spirit, so too divine truth becomes incarnate in the mind and proclamation of the theologian through the coming of the Word and the Spirit through oratio and meditatio. 

In Christ’s incarnation, the Holy Spirit enhypostically incorporated a human nature derived from Mary into the pre-existent Word, so that He might operate in the created world. So too (at least in Johann Gerhard’s account) the Spirit incorporates the pre-existent knowledge of the theologian in the theological task.  Finally, Christ’s communication of the Word was tested by his suffering and death, and validated by his resurrection. So too, the interpreter must undergo the testing of his interpretation and application of Scripture within the arena of the kingdom of the world.

The incarnational nature of the theological method of oratio, meditatio, and tentatio also shows how theology can be historically contextual and culturally responsive, while at the same time be faithfully ground in the unchanging Word of God.  The theologian’s act of faithfully translating the Word of God into the contemporary idiom is brought about only by the work of the Spirit. The Spirit himself incorporates the knowledge and thought-forms available to the interpreter in his context.  Since the Word of God as revelation is embedded in history and the created order, the theologian may seek to clarify the Word by drawing on multiple contextualized disciplines and sources of knowledge that will clarify its meaning. 

Continue reading “Doing Theology: Part II”
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Doing Theology: Part I

Through the apostolic ministry, Jesus translates his eternal reality and saving work into the preaching of the apostles, which is today condensed into the New Testament.  As true God and man, Christ is present to his Church. Within his Church, Christ continues to exchange sin and death for life and righteousness through the sacraments and the preaching office. 

Therefore, ultimately, the presence of the risen Jesus and the exchange of realities he affects through his continuing presence in the Word and sacrament ministry of the Church makes theology possible.  The theology of the Church depends on the real presence of incarnate Christ, which manifests as infinite and absolute. Yet, at the same time, Christ’s presence is contextual.  Through the teachers and pastors of the Church, the risen Christ translates himself into the theology of the Church in the way that he translated himself into his Incarnate life: through the work of the Word and the Spirit.

Luther’s engagement with Scripture offers us some important conceptual tools at this point.  In his commentary on Psalm 119, the Reformer argued that the language of the Psalm provided the Church with a model of how theologians ought to engage the truth of the biblical text.  For Luther, “prayer, meditation, and suffering/testing form a theologian” (oratio, meditatio, tentatio faciunt theologum). 

Continue reading “Doing Theology: Part I”
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Update on ATS Accreditation at the Institute of Lutheran Theology

Just wanted to give an exciting update on the Institute of Lutheran Theology (ILT), where I serve as a professor. ILT is currently accredited by the Association for Biblical Higher Education. However, ILT has also been pursuing program level accred-tation through the Association of Theological Schools (ATS). This is because, unlike the ABHE, the ATS accredits programs and not entire institutions. Feedback from ATS has been positive thus far and we looked forward to the full accreditation of “Christ School of Theology and Seminary” (CSTS) at ILT. So in the future, you’ll see a lot more of the CSTS branding. CSTS remains a part of ILT committed to “preserve, promote and propagate the classical Christian tradition from a Lutheran perspective.” This information comes from President Dennis Bielfeldt’s social media page, so be sure to follow him for up-to-date information.

Image from Faith Lutheran Church, https://www.faithlc.com/category/institute-of-lutheran-theology-2/.

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Inerrancy and Science Part 5: Rationality and Science as a Function of Creation

Only a doctrine of creation ex nihilo as taught by the Bible, where God’s rationality determines nature all the way down to its deepest level, could provide a stable and consistent basis for science.

Ultimately, science presupposes that humans have a capacity for rationality, and that their rationality in part mirrors divine reason (i.e., it is part of the imago Dei) as reflected in the created order (Psalm 19; Romans 1).1 This compatibility is what makes rational scientific investigation possible.2 As Alister McGrath observes (following Alasdair MacIntyre3), in order to remain credible, intellectual disciplines and traditions of thought must give an account of why they are true. The story of creation that the Bible provides gives a rationale for why science should work, thereby supporting science and giving an account of why it is a rational and credible enterprise, something science obviously cannot do on its own.4

If such a concept of nature and humans’ ability to investigate seems self-evident to the reader, we should note that such assumptions are not held by many cultures, religions, and philosophical schools (Epicureanism, Hinduism, Theravada Buddhism, etc.). Scientific revolutions did not arise in these cultures, because they could not account for why the external world and scientific data were both rational and knowable.

From this argument it also follows that if science is possible because of the existence of a creator God, then this same God who made all things out of nothing certainly can be relied on to have the power to suspend the laws of nature and perform miracles, as the Bible reports. Therefore, as odd as it may seem to many, to have a theoretical basis for science (i.e., an almighty creator God), one must allow for the possibility of miracles. If miracles are at the very least possible, one cannot discount the inerrancy of the Bible because it contains miracles that transcend normal scientific explanation.

The Logos creates the cosmos. God the Geometer — mid-13th century French frontispiece (image from Wikipedia).

Hence, the atheist and materialist argument against the inerrancy of the Bible is inherently contradictory. Indeed, as Alvin Plantinga observes,5 if atheists and materialists are correct and the Bible is wrong about the existence of a creator God, not only would belief in science lack justification, so would atheism and materialism themselves. That is to say, if humans are the random products of evolution and not of a rational creator God, then the human mind and its perception automatically must be called into question in a fundamental way. Although evolution may be relied upon to give humans mental pictures of the world that will help them reproduce and spread their DNA, there is no particular reason to think that such ideas will correspond to actual reality. One can imagine the human mind producing all sorts of false beliefs that would promote reproduction and survival but that would not necessarily be true in the sense of corresponding to reality. This uncertainty about whether a mind that has randomly evolved for the purpose of spreading DNA could generate true beliefs about reality would also call into question the validity of atheism and materialism. Hence, atheism and materialism self-destruct from the implications of their own premises. Ultimately, they cannot even give a coherent account of a reality in which human beings could genuinely know that atheism and materialism were true.

Part 1 available here; Part 2 available here; Part 3 available here; and Part 4 available here

[1] Luther: reason is “something divine.” Disputation Concerning Man, 1536 (AE 34:137; WA 39/1:175).

[2] Alister McGrath, A Scientific Theology, vol. 1: Nature (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2003), 197–203.

[3] See Alasdair MacInytre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988).

[4] Alister McGrath, A Scientific Theology, vol. 2: Reality (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2006), 55–121.

[5] Alvin Plantinga, “Is Naturalism Irrational?” in The Analytical Theist: An Alvin Plantinga Reader, ed. James Sennett (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1998), 72–96.

Adapted from Jack D. Kilcrease, Holy Scripture, Confessional Lutheran Dogmatics, Gifford A. Grobien, ed. (Fort Wayne, IN: The Luther Academy, 2020), 116-117.