Reading Quotes: Christianity Is Not Epistemology, by Jim Fowler

Writing to Timothy, Paul indicates that "if anyone does not agree with...the teaching conforming to godliness, he is conceited (puffed up) and understands (epistamenos) nothing" (I Tim. 6:3,4). Paul's argument seems to be that the teaching of the Christian life is based on the faith-derivative of God's character expressed in human behavior. To fail to understand and agree with this is to "stand upon" insubstantial understanding. Although such a person may have their epistemological belief-system all systematized and categorized, theologized and dogmatized, he takes his "stand upon" something other than the dynamic person of Jesus Christ.

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Epistemological understanding is inadequate to comprehend the divine reality that is the essence of Christianity. The objective of the Christian message is not to encourage people to receive and accumulate and assent to information, but rather to receive the very Being of God into themselves (John 1:12) and allow Jesus Christ to be their life (Col. 3:4).

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Jesus did not say, "I came that you might have orthodox beliefs and defend them apologetically." He said, "I came that you might have life (the very Being of God) and have such more abundantly (in the abundant expression of God's character in our behavior). (John 10:10)

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When the reason of man is thus deified, it spawns innumerable ideas, concepts, opinions, thoughts, doctrines, prejudices, etc. These mental constructs (such as the "idea of God" or the "idea of salvation") tend to become self-existent entities, autonomous tenets, which develop a history of their own, with a separate self-generative function. Thus they are evaluated, plotted, charted, analyzed, modified, altered and criticized.

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Natural theology develops an "idea about God" by logical deduction. "He must be, therefore He is." It is an attempt to know God apart from God.

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God does not reveal some "thing" about Himself in order to make available some "thing" (such as holiness, goodness, love, peace, etc.); rather He reveals Himself, His Being, for that which He desires to give is Himself, His Being in action.

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Our theology must always commence with who God is, not with His decrees, His will or His laws. God does what He does because He is who He is, not because He has decreed a plan, developed a principle, determined a precept, and set these in motion in deistic detachment.

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Any religious act or idea, viewed apart from what God is doing because He is who He is, operating by His grace, expressing Himself by His Son, Jesus Christ, is necessarily sterile, static and severed from reality, as well as idolatrous, abominable and anathema.

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The "good news" of the gospel is Jesus Christ! The gospel is not logical propositions, but the living Person of God in Christ. It is "good news" indeed that God has made available in His Son the restoration of the vital dynamic of His divine Being, that by the indwelling presence and activity of the risen and living Lord Jesus. Only in such an ontological connection is the divine intent of the gospel preserved. Gerhardt Friedrich explains that "the gospel and its content are one;" "the risen Lord is the auctor evangelii,"the origination and enactment of the gospel.

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Contemporary evangelical thought refers time and again to Jesus "bringing" and "delivering"17 salvation, as if salvation were the beneficial product which Jesus the "delivery-boy" came to provide.

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Grace is indivisible from God Himself. Grace is the self-giving of God in His Son, Jesus Christ. "Grace is realized through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17), and there is no grace apart from Christ. God does not act en dissecio or en partio. He does not act apart from who He is, apart from Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.