This is the HEART of Protestant Theology (w/ Dr. Phillip Cary)

the christian tradition has catholics orthodox and protestants each one has something that the other one doesn't have because we have a divided christendom uh divided church and that's a sin it's our fault and only the holy spirit can fix it but meanwhile in the divided church every other tradition has something that my tradition needs and catholics protestants need catholic and orthodox they do but catholics and orthodox need [Music] protestants well hey everyone what is up welcome or welcome back to my channel my name is austin this is gospel simplicity a place where we're passionate about the beautiful simplicity and transformative power of the gospel and whether you're new or you've been watching maybe for some time and you just haven't yet if these videos seem like something you're enjoying or you think you'll enjoy i encourage you to maybe hit subscribe to become a part of this community here at gospel simplicity i love getting to do this and to everyone who has already subscribed thank you so much you're you subscribing helps push these videos out to more people and if you're feeling crazy you could even hit that notification bell which will alert you but also tell youtube that these videos are worth watching so they'll push them to people anyway i really appreciate when people do those things today you're about to see an interview with dr philip carey he is a philosopher and theologian who specializes in augustine and luther and what we're specifically talking about today is his book the meaning of protestant theology which is a bold title but we are essentially talking about the gospel what it is and how luther approached this in a way that is both you know in line with scripture but has his own unique way and i think you're really going to enjoy it i really enjoyed it it's a favorite topic of mine personally but before we get into it i want to let you know uh that there's a couple people i need to thank first and foremost to my patrons thank you 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them out you can go to kindred apostle.com and use the promo code gospel 10 for 10 off your order today so with all that being said here's the interview today i am joined by dr phillip carey dr philip carey is an american philosopher who serves as a professor at eastern university with a concentration on augustine of hippo he received his doctoral philosophy degree from yale university under nicholas wolterstarf and yeah whose name i kind of butchered and he has written a number of books including good news for anxious christians 10 practical things you don't have to do and a commentary on jonah in addition to the book we'll be discussing today the meaning of protestant theology additionally he has provided lectures on the history of christian theology as well as on major figures of history of the history of theology for the teaching company dr kerry thank you so much for being here today my pleasure thanks for having me it is absolutely uh my pleasure to have you and i would like to start with you write this book called the meaning of protestant theology and you start it by talking about ecumenical dialogue and what you think protestantism has to offer i'd love to know how did you get interested in participating in these conversations and why do you think they matter well right it started in graduate school because one of the people i studied with in addition to nicholas waltersdorf is george lindbeck who is a blessed memory a wonderful man a wonderful theologian and he's but he was involved in ecumenical dialogue between lutherans and catholics for for his whole adult life and he taught me something about how important it is to see the christian tradition whole um whole but also divided and the division isn't right right we should not stay divided we should be talking to each other and we should be learning from each other and appreciating the gift that other christian communions are to our communion protestants need to learn from catholics catholics need to learn from protestants um and that sort of became part of my dna as a scholar because of studying with george lindbeck that's wonderful and i think that kind of ethos will fit really well with my audience who which is very diverse and many people trying to make sense of the divisions that exist and also the unity and how all of that happens and i'm really excited to have you today talking about kind of a protestant view of the gospel which i think is something that you communicate so well in your book but you titled yeah you're welcome you titled the book the meaning of protestant theology which is a pretty grand title and you offer a bit of a interpretive subtitle and luther augustine and the gospel that gives us christ what is it that you think comes to mind for most people when they think about the meaning of protestant theology and in what ways does your proposal in this book kind of differ from that okay this is interesting yes um one thing to know about book titles is that they almost always nowadays are given by the publisher rather than by the author so this title was not my title i tried to live up to it um and it actually was good for me i think to try to live up to the title although i'm not sure it's the best description of the book the best description of the book is there in the subtitle um which is to say the gospel that gives us christ that's in my view is at the heart of protestant theology which of course isn't what most people think about when they think about protestant theology these days um i guess what most people think of is is you know not catholic not orthodox um ordinary you know like like this is america so you know in america everybody's a protestant including the catholics including the jews sometimes seem to be more protestant than jewish um and certainly a whole lot of american catholics uh want to be protestants and kind of resent their own church for not being protestant um but then lots of protestants end up turning catholic when they become theologically serious so one of the things that gets me interested and involved in ecumenical discussion is that so many of my own students and friends and colleagues have um well have grew up evangelical got bitten by the liturgy bug uh you probably know what what i'm talking about right you once you have encountered the christian the ancient christian liturgies you can't go back um you you have to be part of a liturgical church so so they become episcopalians and then they get fed up with the episcopal church and they become catholic orthodox it's it's a trajectory that colleagues friends and students have all taken and you know i have to think about that because i i'm one of the people who introduces them to the great tradition i introduce my students and my friends to augustine i'm reading aquinas with a protestant theologian who's going to convert to the catholic church next year um so so i have to think about that because so many people are on the move in this this this particular theological trajectory i'm not but i like reading augustine and i think protestants should read aquinas and i don't think it's a tragedy when protestants become catholic but it would be a tragedy if we didn't have protestants um we don't by the way we don't have to have protestants divided from catholics that's a sin right we don't have to have sin um the divisions in the church are a sin um but i think there's something that protestants bring to the table of of the life of the church that is needed and so it would be a tragedy if people didn't have the the theological gift that protestantism has to bring that's really well said something that really excited me about doing this interview particularly is i also come across lots of people who once they become more theologically inclined once they get bitten by that liturgy bug and i see it at moody where i go to school and many of the people who uh follow this channel are people who have converted to catholicism or orthodoxy who are formerly protestants and what i think sometimes unfortunate in those stories and i'm with you i i have no problem with that happening but what i think is unfortunate is when maybe like the worst of protestantism is compared to the best of catholicism and it becomes well there's just so much more depth here and there's not really much digging into and this certainly isn't true of all people but what is like the best of protestant theology and for me i happen to think that the best of protestant theology is really this idea of union with christ and that was something that it was a professor of mine that taught me that and i remember him pulling up your book one day in class saying you should read this and so here we are but yeah um one thing that i think is also interesting when we talk about what protestants are known for you didn't mention this but i imagine you would agree that at least historically something that is central to protestantism is this idea of justification like that's like the 10 theological word you first learn when you start getting into protestant theology is justification and we know we care about it we know it's important we might not have a great grasp of what exactly it means but we know we care about it but you write in the introduction to your book that making the gospel central actually decenters the doctrine of justification by faith alone precisely by locating its center in christ not in our faith or our justification i really liked this distinction you're making between the gospel and justification because i think for many presents that's going to be confusing like isn't justification the gospel and the gospel is justification why would you make that distinction could you speak a bit to that and maybe in so doing what do you mean by gospel right okay yeah so that's that gets into the heart of what the book is about right um interestingly most protestants that i know of no longer talk about justification it's it's what you learn as soon as you start doing a course in protestant theology because because it's what luther and calvin talk about but augustine talked about it too long before protestantism um but it wasn't nearly as central right it really is a very central doctrine for luther and calvin but the the word justification has practically dropped out of most ordinary protestant vocabulary um and if you were to now now imagine you're a seminary student or you know a student taking your first course in theology well what what's protestantism associated with it's justification by faith alone right now strikingly um less than half of the protestants i saw in a recent poll believe in justification by faith alone they don't actually it's not actually a protestant belief anymore even though it's it's historically of course absolutely central to protestantism it's it's one of the things that the protestants died for okay and yet i'm saying let's de-center it well in a relative way um justification is still important but i don't think justification is the center of christian faith christ is which is why the gospel is and justification is like a description of what the gospel does it's not just justification is not the heart of christian faith it's a description of what the heart of christian faith does because the heart of this christian faith is christ given to us through his word and christ through his word enters our hearts and changes everything and justification is the description at a rather abstract level of what that does so justification is important but um if you make it central then what you end up doing is trying to give people advice about how to be justified or even worse how to be saved and once you do that then you're not preaching the gospel anymore because the gospel is not telling you how to be saved the gospel is telling you how christ saves you and that gets to the heart of the book um the gospel is as luther defines it and i think he's i think he's just right about this the gospel is the story about who jesus is it's the story told by the prophets and apostles about who jesus is you can tell other stories that are that don't quite get it right but when you're telling the same story as the prophets and the apostles about who jesus is and what he does for our salvation then then that's the gospel um so notice it's a story about what jesus does or what god does in christ you can also tell the gospel by telling about the father and the holy spirit and the son right this is a trinitarian story but at the center of it is the incarnation of god in christ and um that's a story about what god does and the fundamental contrast that luther is so intent on more important to him than justification itself is this famous distinction between law and gospel and the law the law of god is god telling us what to do and the gospel is god telling us what god does in christ through the holy spirit for us and for our salvation so anyone telling you what to do is at best giving you the law but they can't be giving you the gospel right nothing that tells you what to do is the gospel because the gospel is not telling you what you do it's telling you what christ does and it's also um at the center of it it's a it's a story about christ and at the center of it is the promise of christ so there it's it's a story in which at the heart of it jesus is making promises to us that he is still in the process of keeping like lo i will be with you always even to the end of the age that's a promise that's still being kept and will be kept until the end of the age um or this is my body given for you right and that promise kept son keeps on being made and kept over and over and over again um so that promise is at the heart of the gospel which is uh how the gospel gives us christ and that's um well that that's i think part of what we'll be talking about as we as we move forward is how the gospel gives us christ but to begin with it it gives us christ by telling us who he is and what he does rather than by telling us what we have to do even what we have to do to be saved i don't know no no the lost sheep doesn't do anything to get found the good shepherd finds the lost sheep and the gospel is the story about the good shepherd finding his lost sheep really well said and that distinction of law and gospel though it was so important to luther and like central to him is something that really hasn't come down to many of his theological heirs if you will perhaps in the specifically lutheran tradition but across protestantism i don't see it being talked about a lot and i think you highlight it really well in your book and i love what you did there and for those that are interested it sounds like your book good news for anxious christians kind of gets into some of that with the things they don't have to do so if they want to check that out i'll put a link to that but you're right i do want to get more into how the gospel gives us christ and you met you mentioned first about it telling us and you have a big place in your theology for word and communication but can you delve a bit more into what does it mean for the gospel to give us christ like is that a transaction we're given how how do we receive christ and what does it mean to have christ in that way right yes so one of the nicest things about evangelical protestantism is that they do have this phrase accepting christ right which is what faith does right faith accepts christ by believing that the gospel is true uh and really all christian faith has to do is believe that the gospel is true um and why does that give us christ well because the way a person gives themselves to another person is i i think fundamentally through words by making promises and the key example for example the key example is a wedding vow right you make a promise and you exchange promises and that's what makes you married the fact that you love each other doesn't make you married you have to have the promises and and then you the way you receive the promise is simply by believing it um and this is a point that luther makes over and over again how do you receive the gospel simply by believing it's true and that's what he means by justification by faith alone right you don't receive the gospel by doing something about it you don't even receive the gospel by making a decision right luther does not believe in making decisions for christ um he hates the very notion of free will it turns out so he hates the notion that you're going to decide something that's going to save you um because you know you make decisions and then you unmake them the next day we do this all the time by the way we christians right we accept christ and then we turn around in sin which is a way of not accepting christ so so which are we really are we the person to accept christ or the persons who don't uh luther says we're both uh we're we're justified in sinners at the same time we're justified by faith we're sinners because of our unbelief so you know what can we do to save ourselves and luther's answer is nothing at all uh you're gonna have to believe that christ saves you you know you lost sheep you're gonna have to believe in the good shepherd um so the gospel gives you this person jesus the same way that persons ordinarily give themselves to each other is by promises by covenants uh the deepest way we give ourselves to each other uh i think is by the promises we make um it's how we make ourselves known to someone by saying something like um i'll always be there for you right now that's a promise and it's going to be hard to keep it you know we say that but but oftentimes you know people don't carry out that promise but imagine someone actually keeping that promise then you know something about who they are and what they will be for you and wedding vows are like that and um and so is well god's wedding vow uh you know theologians call it the covenant when god says in in the old testament at numerous points and and all the way to the book of revelation you will be my people i will be your god that's god saying who god is and when who israel is and who we are when we are you know engrafted into israel by faith so that's that's who we are and and the promise gives us who god is and and and makes us into god's people the way a wedding vow makes a man and a woman into husband and wife um so that's why the gospel i think gives us christ and is so central to christian faith what faith does is it it takes hold of this this word and says ah i am my beloveds and he is mine because he promised not because i love him enough i don't love my savior enough but because he loved me and he promised and he keeps his word and i can count on him keeping his word and that way i don't have to depend on the strength of my decision or whether i've really given my heart to christ which sometimes i have and sometimes i haven't right i can depend on god's promise which is a whole lot better and a whole more whole lot more reliable than any decision i make yes that that's good and that that's helpful i i'd like to maybe ask a clarifying question here um when we talk about words like you mentioned the vows make people married or the gospel being uh essentially not only god's word but it's there's that promise associated with it too so that's maybe what distinguishes his words in a bit from our words um it's not only revealing but it's a promise that it's going to stay that way and i'm i could be getting off here a bit but i'd be curious is there are the words doing something is there like a function of them because i think for a lot of people if they're thinking about wedding vows perhaps they have this notion of and maybe it's not the best use of this word either which is a conversation for another day but like kind of just a symbolic thing of um you know we say these words but the words they're not doing something it's kind of just like a declaration i know this is technical right right but could you speak a bit on that do what because i think if we're going to talk about the gospel in terms of words i think this might be an important distinction here hey we'll be right back to the interview but first i want to tell you about another sponsor for today and that is faithful counseling faithful counseling is a group of christian counselors that exist to help you get the help you need you know one of the first youtube videos i ever made was called you can have jesus and a therapist too and what i wanted to do in that video was draw out the fact that so many people are struggling with mental health and the last thing we want to do is make it more difficult for people to reach out to get the help they need by creating this stigma around it it's something that i'm really passionate about and think we need to end in christian circles and that's why i'm so excited to be partnering with faithful counseling their counselors all will be counseling 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you know you committed yourself through your words and weddings are wedding vows are an example um but there's lots of other examples like um when you name somebody right you name your child right um when you baptize somebody um when you when you give someone a name that's a verbal transaction um or one example that's that's often used by philosophers is when you um when you name a ship right you take a bottle of champagne crash it against the bow of the ship it slides into the ocean and you've named the ship you know whatever the the hms uh queen elizabeth ii right um and and that's the name of the thing and you say i hereby name this ship long right and that's that's the name of the thing so you've just done something you've given this ship a name by by what you've done with your words and um with with marriage you've done something you've made yourself a husband and a wife by your by your words um uh yes i remember once um when my son and i were were at odds with each other when he was a little guy and and um you know he was mad at me and i was not particularly happy with him but the resolution was when i said to him you are my beloved son right and that i think is is a promise when the deep way we say i i love you really means i am yours you are mine right uh we belong to each other and that's a promise um and that does something that changed our well in that case i hope it renewed and restored our relationship it didn't create it but god has words that create relationships and you know marriage i think is is a crucial example but friendships happen that way too people want to say i'll always be there for you i'm your i'm your best friend right when someone says i'm your best friend that's not just a description it's not just an expression of how they feel it's a promise so words do things all the time and then um the wonderful piece of background information um here is that um by the time you get to luther and the 16th century um the christian tradition in the west has been thinking of words as signs right the word that's used as signum in latin which is sign it's not exactly the same as symbol although interestingly john calvin i think uses sign and symbol interchangeably um but the crucial notion about these signs by the time you get to the 16th century everybody in the church agrees these signs do something they don't just signify uh something uh but the sacramental signs right in the eucharist and baptism uh they don't just signify something they give what they signify that's a that's catholic sacramental theology official catholic sacramental theology ever since about the 12th century um sacraments are outward invisible signs of an invisible um an inner grace is one definition but they're not just signs of this grace they give you that grace when properly received so luther when he when he works out the notion of the gospel early in his career as a theologian he thinks of it as a means of grace a sign because words are signs in this tradition that goes back to saint augustine words are one kind of sign and luther thinks that the gospel word is a sign that gives you what it signifies and what does this gospel word signify it signifies jesus christ so just like a sacrament uh luther firmly believes that the sacrament of the eucharist for instance gives us christ's body and blood you very firmly believe that and the gospel does something very similar it gives us christ in person so that we can be united with him by faith um and and when we're united with him by faith we're united with him body soul and divinity the whole christ belongs to us and is united to us and dwells in our hearts well yeah even the body in a certain way um and that's what the word does it signifies christ because it's all words all words are a kind of sign but some words can give what they signify some words have the power to do that and the gospel word emphatically has the same kind of power as a sacrament it's a sign that gives what it signifies to those who believe you know there's a part in your book where i think it's an appendix where you it's luther's i think it's a christmas day sermon he's talking about the gospel as a sacrament and it really brings that home and i'd never come across that writing from luther and really really enjoyed it but i think that's going to be really helpful for people because i think a lot of people that are listening to this too will have kind of that sacramental background and so being able to hear a word as not what we might talk of today as like a bear sign but as a a sign that uh well calvin's language would be like seals that which it signifies but gives uh what it what it signs i think it's going to be helpful for people now this is going to get this is going to get a little in the weeds here but i think my audience can handle it and i promise we'll zoom back out a little bit after this but i found this intriguing and i think people will as well in your book you contrast luther's vision of union with christ with augustine's more platonic view of the beatific vision i know like i said this this might be technical but bear with us i i think it's worthwhile to understand the philosophical underpinnings of these views which you devote a lot of time to in your book could you speak a bit to the way that this divide comes about and how platonism influences augustine and what kind of luther is reacting to here or rafting might make it sound negative but giving like a different view of right i think luther is is kind of supplementing something in augustine that augustine is missing uh luther loves augustine and you know nine tenths of the time luther wants to be on the same page as augustine but he thinks augustine's missing something uh and what he's missing is the power of the word um because the word is the the gospel word is an external word right it comes out of our mouths it's in the sound waves it gets into our ears and that's how christ gets into our heart is through an external oral word says luther and augustine doesn't quite think that way and that's because he has um imbibed so much of ancient platonism now ancient platonism of course is the philosophy that goes back to plato um who's living um you know 300 years before christ he's never heard of jesus um and platonism and christianity have been intertwined since the apostle paul started using some platonous language when he says the things that are seen are temporal the things that are unseen are eternal that that's almost a summary of part of plato uh but then paul goes to talk about jesus as if jesus is the eternal thing that we're not seeing right which you know that's not plato um so christianity and plato have been intertwined for for almost from the beginning right augustine is much more platinus than paul is um and why well two things there's one that's fairly obvious and one that's more in the weeds the obvious thing is that plato makes a big deal about the difference between soul and body right and if you want if you want to believe that your soul goes to heaven when you die you're not going to see that picture in the bible right it's it's not a picture you see in the new testament it's in plato plato believes in the immortality of the soul that phrase immortality of the soul is from plato it is not you won't find that that's that were that phrase in the bible it's not a biblical phrase the biblical phrase is resurrection of the dead or life everlasting but there's this notion of the soul that gets separated from the body when you die and then goes to heaven when you die you'll find that in plato not not in the bible now lots of christians like that picture and for good reason right what's what's happening to us before we before we're raised from the dead at the end of of time or the last day well plato's picture might help us with that right and then you have people like dante who have this whole elaborate picture of souls disembodied uh living in hell purgatory in heaven um you couldn't have that picture without plato right so plato's been important for christians for a long time but then there's something subtler and deeper and that's the notion of intellect plato has the notion that what makes us immortal in our souls is that uh unlike the souls of animals aha footnote of course animals have souls everybody in the ancient world believed animals had souls right the bible says animals have souls right only modern people are have this notion that animals don't have souls right what animals don't have is rational or intellectual souls right they can't do mathematics they can't balance a checkbook they can't write poetry they can't get involved in in disputes about elections right um that's that all requires intellect and at the heart of the rational soul of human beings is this intellect that is really a kind of vision right think of it as intellectual vision and you know what it's like you don't you may not know the label but but you've had this experience think about what happens in say a math class you're listening to a lecture and you're not quite getting it right you're trying to figure it out um now when you do that you're doing something that a dog and a cat never does trying to figure out mathematics the word for that in the ancient world is is ratio or reason or logos right biblical word um discursive reason it's called because you're discoursing you're talking to each to yourself you're trying to figure stuff out then imagine what happens or remember what happened when you got it instead of figuring it out suddenly you see it you say aha now i see it i get it i see it that's intellect that's intellect in action that that moment of division um imagine just say the pythagorean theorem that you're thinking about right so it's about a triangle and and the angles in a triangle but the triangle you're seeing when you say ah-ha now i see it is not a triangle that's drawn in chalk on a chalkboard or on a white board or on a screen it's it's well when did that triangle begin to exist when will it cease to exist when will the pythagorean theorem cease to be true when did it begin to be true you see in fact these mathematical truths are wow eternal without beginning without end right uh there's something what spiritual about them right um well the the view that developed in the platonus tradition after plato is that these truths uh not just mathematics but truths about um what is the true and the good and the beautiful truths about what is courage and justice and wisdom these truths um are eternal and our souls have this intellectual capacity to see them and that's what we want more than anything else we want to see the light of truth capital t right and if you think that's a name for god well yes so does augustine right um and there's the good capital g the supreme good the highest good the truth that well i mean okay i think this is what augustine's thinking here imagine that you have this aha moment and you're seeing the truth but not just one little mathematical truth like the pythagorean theorem imagine you're seeing the truth that contains every truth there is right the great it the eternal mind that contains all truths right imagine that's the aha moment right i think that's what augustine means by beatific vision aha and what you're seeing is the eternal truth of all things you're seeing the mind of god and that's the beatific vision that augustine talks about aquinas talks about it's really very central to the roman catholic tradition um it you can see it's a deep notion right and this may be true about us but the bible doesn't require us to believe this right and augustine did believe and so did aquinas and i think to be a good catholic you really have to believe something like that to be a protestant you don't actually have to believe that and luther didn't um and the reason why is that um this moment of vision this intellectual vision well it it's a great way of thinking about mathematics and the fundamental principles of being it's not a great way of thinking about persons right aha i see it is not exactly how you see persons right sometimes we have insights about persons that are a little bit like that but um what we do with persons i think and i've been instructed by luther in this way but i think i've been instructed by the bible this way what we do with persons is we hear them because a person has the authority to speak for themselves right you can't just look at a person and know who they are they have a say about who they are right so that's why i think words are essential to our knowledge of other persons other persons have a right to say so about who they are one of the forms of oppression that we should not indeed engage in is sort of uh looking at people and thinking we know who they are right they have a right to say so about who they are that's true about every person that exists um children are not so good at it but their parents will listen to them anyways right and by their listening to their children they teach their children how to become themselves there's a kind of listening that helps people become themselves but grown-ups they have an authority to speak for themselves uh and they can choose to lie and not and not give themselves to be known but when a faithful person makes a promise and keeps it they can give themselves to be known and you can't just sort of get around it and say oh i can see through what you're saying and get to your heart that's how you know someone is lying right i see what's behind your words with a faithful person the way you know them is let their word into your heart and receive their word and say ah so you're telling me who you are that's who you are you're you're the person who made that promise right or you know you're the lord god of israel who brought israel out of bondage out of the house of bondage and you want us to worship no god but you that's who you are oh now i get it right but you get it by hearing it um so here's a kind of thumbnail summary of the of the difference with this notion of vision you're seeing it for yourself right you no longer once you see it once you get it you don't need your math teacher anymore you've seen it yourself right you can leave the math teacher behind grateful maybe yes but you no longer need the teacher but when it comes to knowing another person you never get around their word right you can see that they're keeping their word but you you never sort of outgrow the word when it comes to other persons and it's it's kind of secondhand right instead of seeing for yourself you're dependent on what the other person says about who they are and that dependence on the other person seems to me to be essential to knowledge of the other person you know the other person precisely because you're dependent on their say-so right mathematics isn't like that but people are and knowing god is like that too right to know god we're dependent on what god has to say about himself um and that dependence is not a bad thing this is essential to to how people have an authority to to to speak for themselves and certainly god does so hearing is kind of secondhand seeing is kind of firsthand right seeing as like i see it for myself hearing is like i depend on the word of the other hearing is the way we know other persons because it makes us dependent on the people we know so in a way here what i'm yeah i think you said um or how did you say it well i'll just put it this way the beatific vision is giving a bit more of a vision vision of kind of like this direct access without kind of this intermediary of the god who is revealing himself but rather just full direct access whereas what luther's kind of maybe adding on or pushing back to with is saying hey we still need god revealing himself and we have that through word through hearing is that fair that's fair yes um one lane one bit of language that people might be familiar with is is the notion of beatific vision is is a notion of immediacy you called it direct right now immediate means no mediation right and mediation is the notion of something in the middle something in between the notion of be a division is there's nothing between me and what i'm seeing um and the truth that i'm saying it's kind of directly present well with people what's directly present is their bodies right and what makes them known is the mediation of the word right again because people have the authority to speak for themselves so the crucial notion here i think is not so much revelation as authority um and authority it is fascinatingly is in the the tradition that goes back to saint augustine is not authority is not a quality of rulers and and leaders authority is the quality of teachers right we talk about someone being an authority on her subject that's the kind of authority that is thinking about um even the word master originally meant school master teacher uh it comes from a latin word meaning teacher so teachers have authority why because they know something but suppose what we want to know is not mathematics uh upon which you know some math teachers are authorities but suppose we want to know person well the the authority of the uh uh on that person is themselves right they have the authority to say who they are and any form of knowledge that doesn't respect that authority is disrespecting the person right we have to respect the authority of the of the person to speak for themselves and i think that's that's absolutely the case with god uh you know not just because god is a person but because god is incomprehensibly beyond our capacity for knowledge but also god is kind enough to become a human person and give himself to be known in the in the the flesh of a human person and the word that's about that human person and and and thus to make himself known the way persons make themselves known and that's through a word that that is mediated that is heard that is secondhand rather than this immediacy of vision yeah that's fantastic thank you and if people are into philosophy and understanding kind of the philosophical underpinnings of different ideas there is a lot of that in this book and so they should definitely check that out if they want to see more of that than we can cover here but i want to zoom back out a little bit and get back to this idea of hearing and it's it's pinned all throughout the work which i think is really fascinating and shows just like a clarity of thought on this but you you emphasize this hearing of the word and i could imagine some people say wondering like is there a tangible difference between say hearing the gospel and thinking about the gospel studying the gospel are those are those things different or is there something why is it that hearing the gospel is so central right um part of it is is that the importance that it's second hand it's dependent on the word of the other so you know you can be a good christian and be deaf and and literally unable to hear right um but hearing is is sometimes it's a metaphor for the second hand things right i have to believe what i'm what i hear right even a deaf person can sometimes say it what i've heard is right you can imagine a deaf person speaking that way um but hearing is also uh important because there's a way in which it forms us that's distinctive to how hearing works um and this is why hearing music is different from just having an idea about the music so um let's switch from plato to aristotle aristotle and plato both talk about form but aristotle thinks that you find the form of things in the physical things themselves so think about the form of your favorite song right now we know what that looks like looks like we know what it's it's it's information that can be printed on a cd or on a hard drive it can be broadcast on on radio and it can be in sound waves all of those have the same form but different material right and that form is what gets into your ears and then in the bible there's this deep connection between ear and heart right um in the bible the heart is not just how you feel but also how you think right you think in your heart if you're hebrew or you know jesus knows the thoughts that are in the pharisees hearts right so heart is a word for mind in in the bible so the word gets into your ears into your heart but in the heart it's the same form as on the cd yeah in the hard drive and the radio waves and and what proves it is that you can sing it right if you have your favorite song in your heart you can sing it just like your your you know your stereo can can play the the the form of the music um and think about the difference between that and having an idea about the music right you can have an idea about beethoven's fifth symphony if you even if you've never heard it because you might have read something about it but hearing it is different right and having the form of it in your heart or learning it by heart if you're a musician right [Music] i have a little bit of the form of that symphony in my heart right i couldn't do the whole thing but um i do have you know twinkle twinkle little star or uh something that's kind of musical um our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name right that's in my heart uh and the same form is in my heart as in the words on a page in the bible or the sound waves when a whole congregation is is praying it or singing it um so that form is different from just an idea about the music right we learn this stuff by heart and it forms our hearts because our hearts are shaped differently because of the music right think of of a musician who's learned to to play in the orchestra and learn to play beethoven right they have a differently shaped heart than than someone who doesn't know as much music right that has changed who they are right they're they're a different kind of person they're a musician right well someone who has the gospel in their heart uh and believes it is a different kind of person we call them a christian right and that makes a difference in who they are how they live what they do just like being a musician makes a huge difference in how you live how you hear things uh how you understand things how you perceive things right musicians can hear better than we can right or let me switch right uh skills are something that form your heart so imagine you've got a skilled basketball player right and you know oh let me switch the metaphor again fencing my son is a fencing coach right i look at professional fencing and i can't tell what they're doing my son looks at it and he can see what they're doing he said well that's a post repos i think that's one of the things he says right he sees it because he knows and understands and his heart has been formed by by the skill of fencing so i think what happens with the gospel and what luther wants us to understand is that our hearts are formed by the gospel so that christ dwells in our hearts by faith we are we are formed in the image of christ and we perceive the world differently we move to the world differently we act in the world differently the same way a musician moves and perceives the world differently than someone who's tone deaf right and and that's how the word shapes us and makes us christians and uh brings us to christ that's wonderful i think there's a lot of implications to this view of hearing and of what the gospel is and this distinction of law and gospel obviously there's lots of implications to all of these things but i want to tease out a couple of them okay because i think they'll be of interest to people and i also think seeing the implications at times helps people solidify the concept so one of the areas you talk about and this might be more in the law gospel distinction um but it also has to do with hearing is at the end of your book you give a lot of steps of you know kind of next things um or kind of like conclusions and where protestants can go from here but you you say that a lot of protestants who are more dependent on preaching than liturgy which describes what i grew up and i grew up in kind of like a mega church style thing where you know you heard an inspiring talk each week and you had like a action step to do but it wasn't liturgical and at least the uh mainstream sense of that word uh you say that people in those types of contexts are at a disadvantage to hearing the gospel i think for a lot of people they'd be like how they give wonderful 30 speeches every time and it's about the gospel certainly i'm hearing the gospel how does this view that you've presented kind of show that though you may be hearing things about christ you're at a disadvantage to hear the gospel right um right um the disadvantage is that you're at the mercy of the preacher and the not every preacher gets it right um my experience with preachers and pastors is that some of them get it and some of them don't um let's go back to a point you made earlier that was really interesting um the the the talk about law and gospel is not very widespread among protestant churches outside of the lutheran churches lutherans talk about that difference all the time but most other protestants don't but that doesn't mean there's no difference between law and gospel or you can't detect the difference i think people can feel it in their gut um if you have a sermon of 30 minutes that's basically giving you a challenging sermon that's uh telling you what to do to make you into a great christian uh and not make the same mistake that peter made when he denied christ you can't do that we got to be better than the chief of the apostles right that's an object less than what not to do right and we can't be a lost sheep because you know we're supposed to be found so all this stuff that we're supposed to do right uh i still remember so many people talking about challenging sermons right well a challenging sermon doesn't isn't the same thing as a kind word from god that gives us jesus right a kind word from that gives us jesus from god is is is the gospel and i have sat through a whole lot of sermons that were very detailed and had lots of things to say and not a lot of good advice about how to give the christian life but that's not the gospel right the gospel is this kind word um boy i was just listening to a um a radio preacher uh earlier this afternoon there's nothing kind about what he was saying there are people who are hurting and needy and it's like i mean you know what it's like um if you're married or or have a have a a dear friend and you're you're having an awful day and you hate yourself and you hate the world and and and you know my wife comes to me and says you know i love you you know will you believe that for a second right um it's like oh right let me let me believe that that this person whom i love loves me and and that helps put me back together it's an image of the grace and mercy of god um and i think the liturgies the ancient liturgies are full of that word right you go to a greek orthodox church and and uh there's nothing but but but images of christ and from from genesis 1 to the rest of the bible the liturgy sort of takes all this imagery and says this is a way of talking about christ get it right and and then the liturgy does talk about christ by using this all this uh poetic imagery throughout the bible um so if you go to a grief orthodox service you're sure to get the gospel um if you go to any uh church that has a eucharistic liturgy right where they understand you have to use the words of institution then you're sure to get the gospel because at the very least you'll hear these words this is my body given for you and that's about as pure gospel as you can get but if you just have a a preaching service you might just get a pep talk about how to live the christian life and that's not the gospel and um you know i've been at churches like that for sometimes for years and um in the end i i would have to i hate to say this but i have to leave because it was like slow poison right um and i i would go home and take a nap because i was so depressed and then i would have to try to figure out what went wrong because i'm a theologian and i try to figure out what goes wrong and and figure out the theology of it but i think people can feel it in their guts it's the difference between being given a lot of advice and practical advice about how to live the christian life you know 10 practical things you don't really have to do but but you're still giving that advice is it different than that and um you know if you haven't lived in a liturgical church just think about um why it is that sometimes your heart just goes pitipat when you the first time you hear in december oh come all ye faithful joyful and triumphant you're going to bethlehem because there's a baby there and he's your savior isn't it wonderful it's december we're get we're ready for christmas yes right um it's just joyous good news um that's probably the most liturgical that some protestants ever get is christmas carols um the christmas carols are all about that baby in the manger yes yes i i come to bring you tidings glad tidings of great joy says the angel the angel knows how to preach the gospel right there look go to bethlehem that's where the baby is yes right um as opposed to um yeah sermons that are basically good advice um or the worst is sermons to tell you this is how to be a good christian and you know if you're not doing that well i have to wonder whether you're really a christian right um that can be um incredibly wounded so yeah um you're at the mercy of the preacher um in protestant churches uh if you don't have a good liturgy so um that's why getting bitten by the liturgy bug is such an important experience for so many people and why so many people just don't want to go back after they've been bitten by that bug yes saying you're at the mercy of the preacher is a great way of putting it because there's something in the well the liturgy has that reliability to it even though you may come across very bad sermons in a liturgical church that's in a occupational hazard but there's you know you're going to receive those gospel promises built in each week and you're going to hear the gospel in that way you've hit on this a bit and so i don't think it will take long but again another implication that i think is important for people is this uh so we talked about you know the liturgy generally but the the eucharist obviously this is huge and john williams and nevin he has this great quote of any theory of the eucharist will be found into accord closely with the view that is taken at the same time of the nature of the union generally between christ and his people to summarize you know what you believe about union with christ is going to determine what you believe about the eucharist if you believe that it's just well i have um i don't know make this like i have this abstract thing where christ stays over there and i ascent to a couple things then you know you're probably going to have a view of the eucharist where you there's retain this gap per se um or if you have this idea of more bodily union with christ that being salvation the eucharist is probably going to be a bit more bodily in that way what view of the eucharist is kind of entailed by what you've laid out in this book right um something like luther's views is probably entailed and you know but when luther looked at the roman catholic view he said well they've got all the essential stuff christ is there in in the in the bread they think there's no bread there but but they do an extra miracle and get rid of bread right but luther thinks that christ is there in the bread catholics think that christ is there under the appearance of bread yeah so what so long as christ is there right and he's there the way a body is there because bodies are there whether you believe it or not and that's absolutely crucial right um even in john calvin who has about the highest sacramental theology of any protestant other than luther you know your faith has to somehow cross that distance now it does it with the power of the holy spirit says calvin um but the problem is you know suppose you feel like you're you're weak in faith right your faith is necessary in order to bring to sort of create that union between you and christ um luther is tricky about this it's really fascinating um right christ is present whether you believe it or not christ was present for judas christ was present for pilate right so no matter what kind of sinner you are christ is present you should believe that he's present in grace right you have trouble believing that but i have good news for you he's present whether you believe it or not right that's really really nice bodily presence um it's like um believing that christ is among us that this is the haha right here's the parallel between god and his people in the eucharist the people of god are the body of christ right you walk into a congregation of christians and oftentimes they don't look like the body of christ right you have to just believe that it's true because god promised and that's in the gospel so you believe it well likewise why should you think that this you know wafer of bread and this this cup of of watered-down wine is is the body and blood of christ well because christ said so why do i believe that christ is present in my heart not because i experience him in my heart sometimes i do sometimes i don't right i believe he is president in my heart because he promised right so the church is the body of christ because he promised the eucharist is the body of christ because he promised christ dwells in my heart because he promised right and in all these cases my faith is not what makes it happen my faith receives what christ has already done and that's a a great great comfort for all of us who are weak in faith which i take it is everyone yeah and there is really luther is interesting on this topic but at times there's kind of a beautiful simplicity of what is this well he says this is my body like what more do you want this is my and i just yeah you said so right take words as they appear yes right i i do appreciate that about luther you know we started this conversation by talking about your interest in ecumenical dialogue and kind of the the outlook of the book of kind of giving a summary if you will of kind of this stronghold of protestant theology the meaning of protestant theology and that is that's the gospel that gives us christ and we've talked a lot about this we've talked about the philosophy that distinguishes it from more of a roman catholic augustinian view we've talked about hearing and words and how these things work and what do they do if you were to kind of you know wrap this in a bow for someone and an elevator pitch you you mentioned that you don't think people need to be protestant but we need protestants right what would you say to someone maybe to one of your students or maybe someone listening that's saying you know i'm kind of feeling like being catholic or orthodox because i i love the liturgy or i love the history or this or that what would you say of here's why i think you should perhaps consider staying protestant right i i i can see that coming a mile away i mean i see students on that trajectory and and i have i'm beginning to get a sense of when there's a point of no return on that trajectory um we need protestants because we need an active piety of the word protestants more than catholics and eastern orthodox have a piety of the external word or at least some of them do um they have practices like intensive bible studies right um protestants have pioneered the bible study as a form of devotion this is good for people now catholics can do it too and orthodox can do it too but they learned it from protestants right so we need we need protestants to be doing that um uh i do think that the focus on the gospel gets at what is really most central to the christian faith and always has been it's not some num some in you know innovation right christians have always been listening to the gospel and believing it and um it's a it's a means of grace and it's a means of grace that without which the other means of grace don't even make sense right there's no eucharist there's no baptism without the gospel there's no icons that mean anything in the eastern orthodoxy if you don't know the story of the gospel i can't mean anything so we need a piety of the word to understand what's at the very foundation of god giving us christ and it really helps having protestants to do that um yeah it really helps if ah elevator pitch here's the elevator pitch the christian tradition has catholics orthodox and protestants each one has something that the other one doesn't have because we have a divided christendom uh divided church and that's a sin it's our fault and only the holy spirit can fix it but meanwhile in the divided church every other tradition has something that my tradition needs and catholics protestants need catholic and orthodox they do but catholics and orthodox need protestants so if you can hang in there as a protestant um and develop that piety the word then do so because it's needed and and the body of christ needs it i think that's really well said i want you to give one final piece of advice to a very similar group of people but they're slightly different because i encounter a lot of these people as well they are protestants and they intend to stay protestant and because they love things like this they they love the you know protestant view of union with christ or the gospel or you know the piety of the word but they're just not finding these things or like a lot of the things we talked about today in their church that that hasn't been their experience they read luther they read calvin and they think yes they go to church on sunday and they think what advice would you give to those people oh yeah i i've been one of those people um yeah um the hard thing about this i think is that um you either get it or you don't my experience with uh especially pastors some pastors get it and some of them don't um and right and and you you don't it doesn't work to argue people into this um pardon me um you have to um you have to notice what's happening in your gut when a certain way of preaching cheers you up and and builds you up in the faith and other ways of preaching make you depressed um and i don't know how that works other than it does help to have the explicit language of law and gospel um so i now am part of a church where um they preach the gospel all the time but they're they're episcopalians so they don't they they haven't actually heard the law gospel distinction right but that but they they know that that their preaching should be about christ and should give christ to people right so you don't have to have the language of law and gospel in order to get the difference and and to convey the difference in how you preach and teach and sing um and so i think the the encouraging thing is is that difference is real people feel it and um do try to point it out to people um i think the people who get it will be the the people in the pews before the pastors unfortunately that's helpful thank you and i hope that's encouraging to some people who might be in that situation i'm so grateful for your time today i've really enjoyed this conversation it's a topic i really enjoy and really enjoyed getting to read your book and kind of as a privilege to get to have this conversation so thank you for that i would love to allow you to close by if there's any final words you want to share but also i would love for you to let people know if they've enjoyed this where can they find more of your work oh okay well yes um final word um the gospel is is good for us um and sometimes it's good for us in the simplest way it cheers you up and that's a good thing um don't don't be afraid to let you know this good word this kind word from god cheer you up um god wants to cheer you up because life is hard and and we need to be cheered up and it's glad tidings of great joy uh so that's what i've been trying to write about and so on for my whole life um in addition to the books we mentioned at the beginning um there's these courses that um that i taped um on um luther another one on augustine another one on history christian theology all with the great courses um i'll put in one more plug um next year a a book of mine on the nice and creed will be coming out and um the nice scene it's a it's a short book if you don't know the nicene creed or want some help with it uh it should be helpful and the nice and creed is is a summary of the gospel so um it it cheered me up i mean i'm writing another book about the gospel and ethics right now and and the more i think about the gospel i sit there writing um and i'm singing while i write uh it because it cheers me up so um i hope some of that cheers other people up um because um the gospel is meant to be go from mouth to ear from mouth to ear and circulate um so uh glad tidings of great joy uh may it be to you too that's a beautiful word and a wonderful place to end thank you so much and thanks to everyone who watches this video sometime in the future whenever that is don't take your time lightly and i really appreciate it until next time be on the lookout for more videos and as always go out and love god and love others because truly above all else that will change the world [Music] you

Channel: Gospel Simplicity

Views: 6,681

Keywords: luther, augustine, beatific vision, phillip cary, austin suggs, meaning of protestant theology, protestant theology, why be protestant, protestant vs catholic, gospel simplicity

Id: NLVnz5gg5YI

Length: 67min 10sec (4030 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 14 2021