Abstract
Rejecting conservative and liberal apologetics for Christian faith and biblical interpretation as reductionistic, Drew Collins draws on the work of Hans Frei and others who stress the provisional, “fallible” character of Christian theology and the need for a figural reading of Scripture that takes the texts very seriously in their narrative shape and approaches apologetics in an ad-hoc fashion. Collins is pushing for a way of reading Scripture and doing theology that transcends rationalist and experiential epistemologies.
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Notes
- 1.
Hans Frei, The Identity of Jesus Christ (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 1997) 58; cf. Hans Frei, “Remarks in Connection With a Theological Proposal,” Theology & Narrative (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993): 30. All subsequent citations to these two books will be abbreviated as Identity and T&N, respectively.
- 2.
Ben Quash, Found Theology (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013), 5ff.
- 3.
This appeal to certainty might be deemed a dated artifact of Enlightenment thinking, but it appears to apply also to the more recent trend of individualistic focus on the overriding influence of context and biography that undergirds the claims of irrefutability behind notions of “my truth.” Assertions of “my truth,” in other words, might be understood as reflecting the same underlying commitment to certitude, simply construed subjectively rather than objectively.
- 4.
Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Is it Possible and Desirable for Theologians to Recover from Kant?” Modern Theology, 14:1 (January 1998): 15.
- 5.
Hans Frei, “On Interpreting the Christian Story,” Reading Faithfully: vol. 1 (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2015) 74; Reading Faithfully will hereafter be cited as RF. See also Hans Frei, “David Friedrich Strauss,” Nineteenth Century Religious Thought in the West, vol. 1, ed. Ninian Smart (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985) 215–260.
- 6.
Hans Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974) 101; hereafter, Eclipse.
- 7.
Hans Frei, “Of the Resurrection of Christ,” RF, 187.
- 8.
William A. Dembski, “What Every Theologian Should Know About Creation, Evolution & Design,” in Unapologetic Apologetics: Meeting the Challenges of Theological Studies, eds. William A. Dembski and Jay Wesley Richards (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2001) 222f; hereafter, “Creation, Evolution & Design”.
- 9.
Hans Frei, “Historical Reference and the Gospels,” RF, 95.
- 10.
Frei, “Historical Reference and the Gospels,” RF, 95.
- 11.
Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Faith and Belief (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979): 96; cf. Philip C. Almond, “W.C. Smith as Theologian of Religions,” Harvard Theological Review, 76:3 (July 1983): 337f. It is important to note that even for an approach in which the beliefs of particular religious traditions are dismissed (where beliefs are viewed as attached to the idiosyncratic historical claims of miraculous events and divine interventions connected to religious traditions), an empirical component remains in Smith’s phenomenological method, construed as a survey of religious experience that purportedly shows the underlying unity of human faith amidst the deceptive cacophony of historically conditioned beliefs.
- 12.
Cf. Dembski, “Creation, Evolution & Design,” Unapologetic Apologetics, 221–238.
- 13.
William A. Dembski and Jay Wesley Richards, “Introduction,” Unapologetic Apologetics, 22.
- 14.
Frei, Identity, 132–144.
- 15.
Frei, Identity, 186.
- 16.
Cf. David Fergusson, “The Theology of Providence,” Theology Today, 67 (2010): 275; see also Rowan Williams, Christ the Heart of Creation (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2018) 81ff.
- 17.
Quash, Found Theology, 15.
- 18.
Frei, Identity, 182.
- 19.
Frei, “The Specificity of Reference,” RF, 105.
- 20.
Frei, Identity, 182.
- 21.
Hans Frei, “Of the Resurrection of Christ,” RF, 188. Fallibilism is not a term Frei used, or one that fits in well with his account of Christian theology. But to the extent that Frei provides an account of the “fallibilism” of Christian faith, it is perhaps best conceived as within the domain of archaeology and/or other physical historical research. Given the impossibility of theoretically confirming/disconfirming an event like the resurrection, its fallibility falls to physical evidence to the contrary, which beyond an un-resurrected corpse, could perhaps include verifiable letters between the disciples or apostles outlining a conscious attempt at misrepresenting Jesus’ resurrection. But for the same reasons that Frei’s implicit account of faith’s fallibility is so narrowly constrained, his account of the provisionality of faith is expansive.
- 22.
Frei, “History, Salvation-History and Typology,” RF, 153 (hereafter, “Salvation-History”).
- 23.
Thanks to Miroslav Volf for suggesting these analogous pairings.
- 24.
Erich Auerbach, “Figura,” in Scenes from the Drama of European Literature (Manchester: Manchester University, 1984), 28–60; Erich Auerbach, Mimesis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 7–23. For a very helpful account of figural interpretation and Frei’s take on it, see John David Dawson, Figural Reading and the Fashioning of Identity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001).
- 25.
Auerbach, “Figura,” 53; Cf. Auerbach, Mimesis, 73; Frei, Eclipse, 28f; Hans Frei, “Karl Barth: Theologian,” T&N, 168–169; Hans Frei, “Theological Reflections on the Accounts of Jesus’ Death and Resurrection,” T&N, 51, 91 n.1; Hans Frei, “Theology and the Interpretation of Narrative,” T&N, 111.
- 26.
Auerbach, “Figura,” 29.
- 27.
Auerbach, “Figura,” 43; cf. Frei, “Salvation-History,” RF, 159; Frei, Eclipse, 28; Frei, “Karl Barth,” T&N, 168–169; Hans Frei, “Is Religious Sensibility Accessible to Study?” RF, 147.
- 28.
Quash, Found Theology, 27; cf. Rowan Williams, On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 140–141.
- 29.
Hans Frei, “History, Salvation History, and Typology,” RF, 153.
- 30.
Quash, Found Theology, 1.
- 31.
Frei, “Salvation-History,” RF, 151.
- 32.
Frei, “Salvation-History,” RF, 153.
- 33.
Frei, Identity, 193. Cf. Hans Frei, “Saint, Sinner, and Pilgrim,” RF, 122–140.
- 34.
Cf. Mike Higton, Christ, Providence and History (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 86.
- 35.
Williams, Christ The Heart of Creation, 5.
- 36.
Frei, “Salvation-History,” RF, 159.
- 37.
Frei, “Salvation-History,” RF, 159.
- 38.
Cf. Higton, Christ, Providence and History, 59.
- 39.
Frei, Identity, 59; cf. Hans Frei, “Conflicts in Interpretation,” T&N, 162; Hans Frei, “The ‘Literal Reading’ of Biblical Narrative in the Christian Tradition,” T&N, 128f, 139f.
- 40.
Frei, Identity, 183.
- 41.
Frei, “Response to ‘Narrative Theology’,” T&N, 211.
- 42.
At the same time, this divide is hardly absolute. For instance, the history-likeness of the Gospels means that “historical evidence against the resurrection would be decisive” (Frei, Identity, 183). Again, should the un-resurrected body of Jesus be discovered by archaeologists, Christian faith would become untenable.
- 43.
Frei, Identity, 183, 188.
- 44.
David F. Ford and Daniel W. Hardy, Living in Praise (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 136f.
- 45.
Frei, “Salvation-History,” RF, 151f.
- 46.
Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 75; emphasis added.
- 47.
Williams, Christ The Heart of Creation, 3; cf. Robert MacSwain, ed., Scripture, Metaphysics and Poetry: Austin Farrer’s The Glass of Vision with Critical Commentary (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), 34.
- 48.
Quash, Found Theology, 6ff.
- 49.
Williams, Christ the Heart of Creation, xi.
Bibliography
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———. 2003. Mimesis. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Dawson, John David. 2001. Figural Reading and the Fashioning of Identity. Berkeley: University of California Press.
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———. 2001b. Creation, Evolution & Design. In Unapologetic Apologetics: Meeting the Challenges of Theological Studies, ed. William A. Dembski and Jay Wesley Richards, 221–238. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press.
Fergusson, David. 2010. The Theology of Providence. Theology Today 67.
Ford, David F., and Daniel W. Hardy. 2005. Living in Praise. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic.
Frei, Hans. 1974. The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative. New Haven: Yale University Press.
———. 1985. David Friedrich Strauss. In Nineteenth Century Religious Thought in the West, Vol. 1, ed. Ninian Smart, 215–260. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 1993. Remarks in Connection with a Theological Proposal. In Theology & Narrative. New York: Oxford University Press.
———. 1997. The Identity of Jesus Christ. Eugene: Wipf and Stock.
———. 2015. Reading Faithfully: Vol. 1. Eugene: Cascade Books.
Higton, Mike. 2004. Christ, Providence and History. London: T&T Clark.
MacSwain, Robert, ed. 2013. Scripture, Metaphysics and Poetry: Austin Farrer’s The Glass of Vision with Critical Commentary. Farnham: Ashgate.
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Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. 1979. Faith and Belief. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Volf, Miroslav. 1996. Exclusion and Embrace. Nashville: Abingdon.
Williams, Rowan. 2018. Christ The Heart of Creation. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark.
Wolterstorff, Nicholas. 1998. Is It Possible and Desirable for Theologians to Recover from Kant? Modern Theology 14 (1): 1–18.
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Collins, D. (2021). Apologetics and the Provisionality of the Living Jesus: Hans Frei’s Contribution. In: Hastings, T.J., Sæther, KW. (eds) The Grace of Being Fallible in Philosophy, Theology, and Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55916-8_6
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