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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The “Wolf of Wall Street” and the Orders of Creation: Part I

Part 1 of a throwback post from February 8, 2014

image courtesy of Wikipedia

A few weeks ago, my wife and I went to see The Wolf of Wall Street about the corrupt stockbroker, Jordan Belfort.  Very good, I thought, although not my favorite movie of the year (David O. Russell’s American Hustle wins that honor).  It was a bit long, and I think that certain more lurid scenes could probably have been cut.  That being said, it was an interesting study in personal ambition and the power of human beings to engage in almost limitless self-corruption (Incidentally, although some may doubt the truth of some of Belfort’s stories, the FBI agent who followed him stated in an interview that, to the extent he could verify things, the stories were not exaggerations).  In many respects though, I think director Martin Scorsese got fundamentally wrong why Belfort became corrupt and the nature of his corruption.  The film was never really preachy (something Hollywood often cannot help), but the subtext was quite obviously an indictment of capitalism.  There was even a reference to the 1%, that is, a nod in the direction of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

I would of course make a couple of points about this.  First, of course, any economic system is corruptible, because humans are by nature corrupt.  This is obvious and I need not elaborate on this by pointing to historical examples.  Secondly, there is nevertheless a possibility for capitalism with virtue (one might say).  Certainly the Puritans had a vibrant capitalist culture while maintaining a relatively high level of morality (at least in human terms).  The Dutch did as well.  Historian Simon Schama has documented this in his book The Embarassment of Riches about the Dutch in the 17th century. In my own city, Grand Rapids, this culture of virtuous capitalism has continued, with the old and wealthy Dutch families using their resources to build up the civic life of the city in some very remarkable ways.  One the heirs to the DeVos fortune spoke at Aquinas College’s graduation back in 2010 and gave a talk on business life and Christian vocation that would have warmed Martin Luther’s heart.  So, I think what Belfort’s problem and the problem of current economic system is not really capitalism per se, but capitalism without virtue.

So if it’s not capitalism, but capitalism without virtue that’s the problem, why did The Wolf of Wall Street become the way he did and not like a more virtuous capitalist?  I would argue that part of the problem with Scorsese’s critique is that it doubles down on the problem that created Belfort in the first place.  Scorsese somehow thinks there needs to be more state-control.  Indeed, over the previous 100 years or so, we have developed the notion that the state is really the center of human life.  This is a mistake made not only by the Left of the political spectrum, but also by the Right.  That being the case, in our current political discourse the state is meant to bear weight that it wasn’t established by God to bear as an Order of Creation.  In other words, the assumption is that human flourishing happens if we get politics right.  In fact, not just human flourishing happens, but maybe even the Kingdom of God happens – witness the strange messianic projects that both liberal and conservative Presidents have conjured up in recent decades.  It’s just the matter of invading one more country and converting it to democracy, or it’s a just matter of inventing one more social program- and “Bam!” the kingdom has come!

To be continued…

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Pornography and Idolatry

Throwback post from March 1, 2014

When my wife and I are too brain dead for the epic political machinations of Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, or House of Cards, we watch the various TLC or Discovery channel “streaming” series on Netflix.  My wife refers to these series as “Trashy TV,” largely because they exploit their audience’s interest in people’s seemingly freakish behavior.  One show we recently watched was called “My Strange Addiction.”  Lost among the episodes in which people ate Comet or drywall 10 times a day for the last 30 years (these were an actual cases!), was one truly bizarre episode involving a young man named “Davecat.”  You can read Davecat’s story here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2439522/Davecat-40-shunned-organic-women-marry-synthetic-doll.html 

Davecat (a name he received via online gaming), is currently in a “relationship” with a life-sized doll.  When “My Strange Addiction” was being filmed, he was merely living with the life-sized doll in question.  Since then he has taken it to the next level.  He is now an activist for the right of people to marry life-sized dolls.  Moreover, he has also purchased other life-sized dolls, and is presumably building a life-sized doll harem.

Admittedly, even by the standards of our deeply confused sexual culture this is extremely weird.  That being said, I think what Davecat is doing is simply a more extreme version of the principle at work in pornography; and, as we know the use of porn is not out of the ordinary in our culture.  At its heart, I believe Davecat’s situation and pornography reveal something deeper about the human soul in our fallen state.  Ultimately, pornography and idolatry come from the same dark place.

First of all, as I point out to my world religion students, just as ancient people lived in a world full of idols, so too do we live in a world full of pornography.  And both reveal something about human nature on a fundamental level.  Pornography is a form of sexual idolatry.  Just as idols are lifeless, distorted, images of God, so too pornographic images are lifeless and distorted images of human sexuality.  Davecat simply takes things to the next level and has purchased a lifeless woman for himself.  It is not unlike a lifeless statue of a god in ancient Greece or modern India.

Moreover, just as we know that there is a real, God-given human sexuality out there because the Internet is full of pornography (why create it, if it isn’t a substitute for something real?), one of the reasons that we know that the true God exists is because the world has historically been full of idols.  When atheists say that there is no God, because the world is full of distorted images for God, it is as illogical as a person finding the Internet full of pornography and then claiming that the human need for sexual intimacy is a pure illusion (or a merely sublimation for something else!) and that there is no real sex out there.

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Lutheran Theology and the Metaphysical Question

Throwback post from April 3, 2014

The entire discussion of sanctification brought up a number of issues.  Chief among them is my use of speech-act theory, as well as my use of categories of thought taken from relational and ecstatic metaphysics to explicate my views of sanctification.  When I pointed out the advantage of these ways of speaking to give an account of and to conceptually preserve biblical and confessional commitments (as well as their precedent in Luther’s own ways of speaking and conceptualizing theology), it was charged that I rejected the substance ontology of the early Lutheran dogmaticians, and that I was therefore out of accordance with the historic tradition.  As much as I tried to explain in a few short sentences to point out that my position was being distorted, such a response was generally speaking ignored.  Below, I would like to clarify my position on the metaphysical question in light of my biblical and confessional commitments to God’s truth.  Regarding Lutheran theology and the need to speak in terms of philosophical ontology, I would make the following observations:

1. One cannot canonize any one ontological scheme.  There are a couple reasons for this.  First of all, the great weakness of Catholic and Reformed theology is that they have more or less canonized a particular metaphysical scheme and allowed it to determine their theology.  This can be seen in the Catholic commitment to things like Transubstantiation and the doctrine of created grace.  In the case of the Reformed, they enter into their discussion of the two natures in Christ and the sacraments with philosophical presuppositions about what divinity and humanity are (non capax, etc.), and what God would do and what he would not do .  And so, ultimately they ignore or obfuscate what Scripture says about these things.  Secondly, Lutheranism (or perhaps more accurately, people who define themselves as Lutheran!) has functioned with a number of different philosophical traditions: Nominalism, Scotism, Aristotelianism, Leibnizianism, Kantianism, Hegalianism, and Existentialism.  Many of these philosophical schemes have had unfortunately distorting effects on the teaching of biblical truth.  My opponents tend to think the Aristotelian one was pretty good.  In some respects, this was true.  Nevertheless, this too also created any number of problems.  One example might be the false teaching of “receptionism,” that is largely a function of the Melanchthonian appropriation of Aristotle’s casual scheme.  All causes must be in place (including reception) to actualize a reality.  This distorts the gospel-promise of the Supper by effectively claiming that my action of reception is a contributing cause of the body and blood of Christ being present, rather than the sole cause lying in the promissory and consecratory word.  The third reason that we cannot canonize any one metaphysical scheme is that as Oswald Bayer has pointed out, this would be the theology of glory.  To know a universal scheme within which we can relate the ontic reality of God to all beings in an absolutely consistent way would in fact to suggest that we could know God’s being in itself, and how all of God’s works (which, often seems contrary) are coordinated with one another.  This is a problem because we know that the theology of glory always leads to conceit and self-justification.  Such a knowledge of God is not proper to this life, but the next life.  In this life, an attempt at such a knowledge leads to creatures believing in God as a transparent ideal, rather than a savior.  From this, theology and ethics becomes structured around trying to be conformed to that ideal.  Such knowledge will only be possible and helpful to us in the next life when God purifies us and conforms us to his ideal reality.

2.  If metaphysical and ontological terminology and schemes have historically distorted aspects of biblical teaching, then why bother with them at all?  One has heard this argument from Lutherans  often enough, and indeed to some extent in the history of Protestant theology.  The young Luther was contemptuous of philosophical terminology borrowed from Aristotle.  Of course, he never completely rejected philosophical learning (he has very nice things to say about Plato in the Heidelberg Disputation, as he trashes Aristotle).  Moreover, many of the presuppositions he used to attack philosophical reason were in fact borrowed from Nominalist philosophy (this is particularly the case in his arguments against Zwingli).  Finally, he ultimately did acquiesced to Melanchthon’s revival of a purified Aristotelianism in the curriculum of Wittenberg by the 1530s.  Moreover, we find of course a similar rejection of philosophical metaphysics in the considerably less orthodox theology of 19th century Liberal Protestantism.  Schleiermacher and Ritschl in particular rejected philosophical tradition as a basis or in some case, even a tool, for theological discourse.  Adolf Harnack built an entire theory of the fall of the Church around it in his History of Dogma by positing that Christian theology had gradually been corrupted by Greek philosophy (his famous “Hellenization Thesis”).  Unfortunately for the coherent of their argument, they attacked philosophical reason on the basis of Kantian presuppositions, thereby revealing that they were unable to escape philosophical schemes themselves!  

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