Doxological Contrition in a New Ressourcement of Biblical Interpretation

The advocacy of Patristic theology on the part of the nouvelle théologie was motivated, to a large extent, by an admiration for Patristic ways of reading Scripture and of inscribing Scriptural language into theological exposition. The retrieval of these Patristic approaches to Scripture was championed as a remedy for both the increasing hegemony of narrowly historical-critical approaches and the dogmatic proof-texting of the Neo-Scholastic manuals. For the most part, the contribution of the ressourcement theologians to the retrieval of Patristic ways of reading Scripture consisted in either the translation of Patristic exegesis into modern languages, such as we find in the Sources Chrétiennes series, or in the analysis of the inner logic of Patristic exegesis, as in the magisterial Histoire et Esprit of Henri de Lubac.[1] What we do not find among the pioneers of the ressourcement movement are original imitations of the Patristic approach to reading Scripture, as distinct from translated reproductions and analyses of this approach. Such imitation, if it is to bear fruit similar to the Patristic prototype, would presuppose the foundational contributions of the original ressourcement but would also extend the retrieval of Patristic exegesis into the mode of a genuine renewal that is creative and not merely iterative or analytic. A creative imitation of Patristic exegesis should be a primary desideratum for the project of “a new ressourcement” of Christian biblical interpretation.

As the early church fathers themselves contended, such a spiritually fruitful way of reading Scripture depends in large part on the initiative of the Holy Spirit and on the exegete’s receptivity to that divine initiative. Theological argumentation as such can neither precipitate the Spirit’s initiative nor effect the receptivity of the exegete. But it can productively contend with two questions whose answers must be presupposed, whether explicitly or implicitly, in a creative imitation of Patristic spiritual exegesis. The first question, posited under a formal aspect, is that of the kind of meaning intended by the Scriptural text. The second question, posited under a material aspect, seeks a characterization of the Scriptural narrative as a whole in order to identify the unity of Scripture out of the concrete contents of Scripture itself. Patristic exegesis, notwithstanding its manifold variety, was unanimous in identifying the kind of meaning to be found in Scripture as pertaining to the realization of human union with God and equally unanimous in presupposing a Christological narrative unity to Scriptural revelation, culminating in what we now call “the Paschal mystery.” Any kind of creative imitation of the spiritual vitality of Patristic exegesis is impossible without extending this double unanimity to modern exegesis.

I propose that both the formal intentionality of Scripture and the material unity of the biblical narrative can be profitably rendered by the concept of “doxological contrition.” I borrow this phrase from my earlier work, Deification through the Cross: An Eastern Christian Theology of Salvation, in which I characterized the content of Christian salvation as the repentant return of sinful humanity to enfoldment in Trinitarian glory.[2] Here I will argue, first, that the notion of doxological contrition is helpful for characterizing the formal intentionality of Scriptural meaning—which is to say, the kind of meaning intended by Scripture as the salvific Word of God. Second, I will argue that the coherence of the material data of the biblical narrative can be appropriately designated within the rubric of “doxological contrition.” Third, and finally, I will compare the Koran’s account of Moses’intercession after the apostasy of the golden calf with that of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures in order to highlight the distinctiveness of the latter account, precisely as manifesting the logic of doxological contrition which is subtly but unmistakably repudiated by the Koran.

The Formal Intentionality of Scriptural Meaning as Doxological Contrition

By the “formal intentionality of Scriptural meaning,” I mean the kind of meaning intended by Scripture, as gleaned from within the hermeneutical circle by which the Scriptures produce a determinate effect on the reader or listener who accepts these writings as the salvific Word of God. My claim, therefore, is that the notion of doxological contrition appropriately designates the formal intentionality of Scripture as effecting a repentance that leads to the salvific worship of the divine glory. One biblical demonstration of this hermeneutical circle is the Scriptural narration of the finding of the book of Deuteronomy in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles. There we read that in the reign of the righteous king, Josiah, the priest HiLukeiah “found the book of the law in the house of the Lord” (2 Chr 34:15). When this book was read to the king by his secretary, Shaphan, the king “tore his clothes” in repentance and gathered all the people together to listen to its contents. We then read in 2 Chronicles that “Josiah took away all the abominations from all the territory that belonged to the people of Israel, and made all who were in Israel worship the LORD their God” (2 Chr 34:33).

This account from Second Chronicles purports to narrate the physical finding of a portion of Scripture that had been lost, which we believe to be some version of the present book of Deuteronomy. In our own time and context, we have to contend not with the physical loss of a portion of the scriptural canon but with a loss of the understanding of the formal character and final causality of Scripture meaning, what I am here calling “the formal intentionality of Scriptural meaning.” The disclosure of this form and final cause is given in this biblical narrative, in which the encounter with the Word of God leads to a repentance that is fulfilled in worship. This conclusion is consistent with the more global witness of Scripture that the Word of God contained within it is intrinsically ordered to the salvation of sinful humanity. It is not addressed merely to the human person as rational and in need of historical knowledge about antique cultures, but to the human person as sinful and in need of salvation. And as to the inner form of salvation itself, Scripture consistently defines that ultimately as worshipful enfoldment in divine glory. Israel was liberated from Egypt in order to worship the Divine Glory in the Temple. Jesus was revealed to Israel as “mighty Savior,” according to the Canticle of Zechariah, in order that “we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might worship him [Greek: latreuein auto] without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all our days” (Luke 1:73). Thus, doxological contrition is an appropriate global characterization that can be helpful in service of a new ressourcement of the formal intentionality of scriptural meaning.

Doxological Contrition and the unity of Biblical Narrative

In the face of the still-regnant proclivity to break up the unity of Scripture into a multiplicity of sources and to deny a coherent meaning to the final canonical text, a new ressourcement of Scripture as a foundational source of Christian life requires constant creative retrievals of the unity of the Scriptural story. I am now proposing that one such retrieval is the designation of that unity as the story of humanity’s saving doxological contrition in Christ. Applying this designation to the New Testament, to begin with, enables us to retrieve two essential elements of Jesus’ self-manifestation that are seriously under-represented in both modern scholarship and modern piety—namely, the call to repentance and the manifestation of God’s glory in Jesus’ humanity. Both these elements are intrinsically constitutive of Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God, which modern scholarship rightly asserts to be the heart of Jesus’ proclamation.

As for repentance, we cannot forget that at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, he announces the advent of the kingdom of God precisely as an invitation to repentance: “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.” Likewise, the Risen Lord expounds the Scriptures to his disciples as culminating in the proclamation of the divine forgiveness of sins that is intertwined with human repentance: “Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures and he said to them, ‘Thus, it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance unto forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Luke 25:45)

At the same time, an equally prominent and equally under-represented element in the New Testament proclamation is the presentation of Jesus as embodied theophany, as the fulfilled human manifestation of the divine glory. This is quite explicit in the Gospel of John, in which Jesus’ work is presented in a series of “signs” that manifest the divine glory. Thus, after the first miracle of the wedding at Cana, the evangelist explains: “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him” (John 2:11). But the same doxological characterization of Jesus is evident, albeit in a more subtle manner, in the Synoptic portrayal of Jesus as typically evoking astonishment and perplexity that brings with it the recognition that his presence and activity transcend all precedent categories: “They were all amazed and glorified God, saying, ‘We have never seen anything like this’” (Mark 2:12). Less subtle is the Synoptic framing of Jesus’ ministry in the doxological theophanies of his baptism, on the one side, and his Transfiguration, on the other, both of these unmistakably pointing to the manifestation of the divine glory on Mount Sinai. Thus, all the Gospels assert in narrative form the same claim made by St. Paul when he explains to the Corinthian Church that the proclamation of the Gospel is tantamount to a communication of “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4:6).

If we return from the New Testament to the Old, we find that the interplay of the same two elements of repentance and doxology is there also constitutive of God’s revelation and salvific work. As I have argued elsewhere, this motif is also structurally inscribed into the whole narrative arc of the Old Testament.[3] Inasmuch as the very existence of the people of Israel, beginning with the call of Abraham, was intended as a performative reversal of the sin of Adamic humanity, that existence is constitutively one of representative repentance. Humanity falls away from God through Adam and his progeny but then returns to God through Abraham and Israel. However, Israel itself not only failed to perform a positive demonstration of the return to God but also proved recalcitrant with respect to repentance for its own sins. The Deuteronomistic literature retroactively imputed Israel’s exile to its failure to repent and the exilic prophets grimly announced the judgment that Israel was altogether incapable of repentance. Yet, the prophets also proclaimed a new covenant in which God would extend forgiveness to Israel precisely through granting it a renewed capacity for repentance. Israel will be granted a new heart and a new spirit which will enable it to “loathe” its iniquity and return to the Lord (cf. Ez 36:31).

Crucially, in the Old Testament, Israel’s repentance is not merely a psychological condition. The Old Testament term for repentance is “shuv,” which literally means “return.” In the post-exilic literature, Israel’s repentance is understood as culminating in a physical return to the land, and more specifically to Zion, and most especially, to the worship of the Lord’s glory in the Temple. Israel’s repentance or shuv will be fully accomplished only when the Lord returns to his Temple and re-manifests his glory there, and when exiled Israel also returns from exile to worship the Lord in his Temple. An appreciation of how the Old Testament’s conception of repentance transcends a merely psychological signification and includes a material and ontological component that is ultimately doxological enables us to escape the danger of interpreting the New Testament conception of repentance in narrowly psychological and ethical terms. When Jesus says, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand,” he is not only counselling his listeners to experience feelings of remorse. Nor is he merely exhorting them to cease from evil actions and to perform good actions. Rather, he is evoking the climactic Old Testament understanding of repentance in terms of the double return of the Lord to his Temple and the return of the people to the unpolluted worship of the Lord’s glory in the Temple. But now the Temple that contains the fullness of the Lord’s glory is the human body of Christ and the return of the Lord to his Temple is fulfilled only in the Ascension of Christ, at which point his humanity returns fully to the heavenly throne of God’s glory. Human repentance, therefore, understood biblically as doxological return or ressourcement, finds its fulfillment only in humanity’s union with the Ascended and Glorified Christ, the one who has fully returned, in his humanity, to the heavenly throne of divine glory.

The Koran’s Repudiation of Doxological Contrition

A final testimony to the appropriateness of characterizing the arc of biblical narrative as doxological contrition or ressourcement comes from the counter-witness of the Koran. Recent scholarship has increasingly drawn attention to the intertextual links between the Koran, on the one hand, and the Jewish and Christian Scriptures on the other.[4] Nevertheless, there is still insufficient appreciation for how the Koran’s selectivity in dealing with the Christian Scriptures and its creative alteration, transposition, and refurbishing of these texts reveal a coherent interpretation of the Christian Bible that seeks to highlight both likeness and difference between the Koran and the Christian Scriptures. In the case of our characterization of the unity of biblical narrative in terms of doxological contrition, it is illuminating to note the discernment and perspicacity with which the Koran deals distinctly with the aspects of doxology and repentance that comprise this notion. The language of repentance is pervasive in the Koran and delineates a fundamental axis of humanity’s relation to God. But the Koran is much more circumspect and selective in its use of the language of divine glory. God is indeed glorious in the Koran and human beings are depicted as glorifying God, in the sense of acknowledging his glory. But God is never depicted as manifesting and communicating his glory to human beings, along the lines of the material-spiritual phenomenality of the divine kavod in the Old Testament, much less the humanization of that glory in Jesus Christ, in the New.

A telling example of the delicacy with which the Koran handles the negotiation of the interplay of repentance and doxology in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures is in its depiction of Moses’ intercession after the apostasy of the Golden Calf. I have argued elsewhere that this account in the book of Exodus is a paradigmatic example of the presentation of salvation as doxological contrition.[5] This presentation can be analyzed into three main components. In the first place, the essence of sin is presented as an interruption and an obstacle to the communication of divine glory. The building of the golden calf literally interrupts the LORD’s communication to Moses of instructions for building the Tabernacle in which the divine glory will dwell. In the second place, Moses’ intercession on behalf of the people, which is designated as “atonement (kefir),” takes the form of both a repentant confession of Israel’s sin as well as a plea for the manifestation of divine glory: “Show me your glory, I pray.” Finally, God’s response to Moses’ plea is affirmative, albeit also dialectical. God communicates his glory within a disclosure that also contains a hiddenness.

Now, when we come to the Koranic account of this incident, we find that all talk of communication or manifestation of divine glory to Moses is left behind. In the Koran, Moses does not speak of the divine glory when he asks to look at God. Moses says: “Lord, show me that I may look at you” (Surah 7:143). As to the Lord’s response to Moses’ request, the Judeo-Christian dialectic of disclosure and hiddenness is resolved into a blunt refutation of the possibility of seeing God, illustrated by a visual demonstration of that impossibility:

He said, “You will not see Me. But look at the mountain: if it remains in its place, then you will see Me.” So when his Lord was exalted unto the mountain, He rendered it dust and Moses fell down swooning. And when he awakened, he said, “Blessed are you, I have repented and I am the first of the believers” (Surah 7:143; my translation).

In this passage we have the strange verbal locution that “his Lord was exalted unto the mountain [tajallaa Rabbuhoo lijabali].” The word “tajallaa” can also be literally translated as “was transfigured,” thus suggesting a link with the transfiguration of Jesus at Mount Tabor, as narrated in the Gospels. But what does it mean to say that the Lord was exalted or transfigured unto the mountain? It is quite plausible that the Koran does not intend a determinate positive signification by that phrase so much as it is deliberately correcting the Judeo-Christian version of this story in which the Lord is exalted unto Moses and allowed himself to be seen by Moses. Instead of a manifestation of God’s glory to Moses, however dialectically construed, Moses is only allowed a visual demonstration of the impossibility of seeing God. God tells Moses that if the mountain abides in its place, he will see God. The mountain does not abide but is crushed into dust, thus demonstrating the impossibility of seeing God. When Moses awakens, he repents, saying, “I have repented and I am the first of the believers.” His repentance is thus a self-repudiation with respect specifically to his earlier request to look at God, and this is the repentance that is held up by the Koran as an exemplary act of faith; it makes Moses “the first of the believers.” What we see here is something very different than, and deliberately self-differentiating from, the doxological contrition of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. Instead of a repentance that is stimulated by a vision of divine glory and oriented to the renewed communication of that glory, we have a repentance whose essence is a faith that humbly accepts the impossibility and unfittingness of the vision of God’s glory.

Conclusion

In this essay, I have been advocating for a new ressourcement of Christian biblical interpretation in which the notion of doxological contrition functions as an appropriate designation of both the formal intentionality of Scripture and the material unity of biblical narrative. I have also argued that the centrality of this notion to a distinctly Christian reading of Scripture is substantiated by the Koran’s self-identifying refutation of the doxological qualification of human repentance. The understanding of Scripture as both intending and narrating doxological contrition can ultimately lead us to a theologically radicalized notion of ressourcement, in which the “source” in question is nothing less than the Trinitarian glory that is both the source and goal of Christian existence and to which sinful humanity returns through the life, death, resurrection, and glorification of Jesus Christ.

EDITORIAL NOTE: An earlier version of this paper was given at the “New Ressourcement” Conference sponsored by Bishop Robert Barron in Rochester, New York, on 6 November 2023.

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Tags: Biblical Contrition Doxological Interpretation Ressourcement