‘Exclusivism and Embrace’
Torrance started by suggesting that one way we construct idols, or fit the gospel into a procrustean bed, is through language. He called this ‘semantic immanentism’, a failure to ‘re-schematise’ our language in the reality of the divine, a failure in the ‘direction of pressure of interpretation.’ He offered three examples of Hebrew terms that, through translation are totally transformed, leading to radically different conceptions of the divine and our relation to it.
1) berith (covenant) > diatheke in NT > foedus (contract) (Latin has no word for covenant). So rather than unilateral and unconditional acceptance and covenant, we end up with a contractual and conditional relation to God.
2) Tsedaqah (righteousness) > dikaiosune in NT > iustitia (justice). Latin/Western Christian tradition ends up with an impersonal and retributive sense of justice, rather than God’s righteousness as not breaking a bruised reed (Is 42).
3) Torah > nomosin NT > lex (law) – takes on Stoic connotations as legal demands to be met before we are accepted by God, rather than the demands put on us precisely through being accepted already by God.
Torrance was frequently critical of the Western ordo salutis for failing on each of these regards. Instead of a God of unconditional loving faithfulness to Israel we end up with a legalistic, contractual religion, with a God who must be cajoled into forgiving us. The legal replaces the filial. He suggests this is so common because a) the freeness of grace offends human pride and control; b) the continuing appeal of the desire for understanding of the divine to be universally and immanently available (not mediate through particular historical events); c) desire to see sinners as culpable; d) fear of antinomianism.
As to the latter, Torrance evidenced the Truth and Reconciliation Committee. Winnie Mandela refused, in the face of massive evidence to admit any wrongdoing. Tutu stood up, approached her with open arms and said, ‘I speak to you as one who loves you deeply. Can you not admit that mistakes have been made?’ She then admitted that things had gone horribly wrong.
He then moved on to talk about the political ramifications of forgiveness, citing Volf’s Exclusion and Embrace. He rejected the idea that retributive justice could ever make things right (Arendt’s ‘predicament of irreversability’: the wrong cannot ever be undone). He also rejected the idea of the scales of justice, that wrong done to the offender restores some sort of universal harmony. This was not true to the Judaeo-Christian tradition.
He addressed the problem of who could forgive, is it possible to forgive on behalf of others? He pointed out that this was a problem for atonement theory: can God only forgive sin that is done directly against God? His response was to suggest that the incarnation was on behalf of all and was of the one in whom all participate. So a wrong against a person is a wrong against God who is ‘one being with’ the victim; and it is the same wrong against both.. This means that human forgiveness can participate in God’s forgiveness of others, so that we can forgive on behalf of others.
It was an excellent, very moving lecture, full of personal and political examples to illustrate his argument. The book wherein he works all this out more fully than he had time for in his lectures should be great.
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