R.O. Flyer has a great post up on Dan Barber and Nate Kerr’s recent exchange in Political Theology that gets at the way in which, for Yoder, apocalyptic theology functions as a different account, both of the “doctrine of creation” and offers a new perspective on transcendence and immanence. Definitely worth a read. I think this discussion is of the utmost importance in the future of Yoder scholarship and the direction of theology as a whole.
Why is “doctrine of creation” in scare-quotes? One of the main questions that both Barthians and Yoderians need to answer (although probably not Barth and Yoder themselves) is what to do with a doctrine of creation.
I suppose I didn’t need the jerk quotes. What I was trying to get at though, was how, for Yoder there is no such thing as a doctrine of creation that could be understood as something independent of the New Testament’s theology of Christ and the powers.
Ken:
I am working on this exact question right now. It will be the first essay in my next book.
Nate,
Your productivity puts us more snail-ish type scholars to shame.
If your piece doesn’t already have a name, may I suggest a working title that Scott Prather and I have been kicking around for some book that will probably never be written: “A Good Doctrine of Creation – Finally!”
Hey Nate, while you’re at it, could you write the last chapter of my thesis?
We’ll ask him to write it while we haunt the finer place of the Athens of the South he has shown us.
I don’t know Yoder half as well as most people here, but from conversations with some friends, putting the issue of a doctrine of creation solely in terms of a doctrine of Christ and the powers seems fairly restrictive, and might not fully represent the scope of Yoder’s position.
In one sense, I can agree with you. My worry would be that a doctrine of creation done in this way becomes a wholly reactive and negative undertaking (retrospective yes, and that aspect is fine with me), and will probably lack a full account of God’s creative intentions that were then and now being thwarted. It is the *positive* side of a doctrine of creation that interests me, and that is what I think is absent from a lot of works done in a more Barthian or Yoderian vein.
I’m sure we will both be eagerly awaiting Nate’s next book, for precisely these reasons.