I am chewing on Brad’s canons. He will forgive me if I try to start referring them as De Regno canons!
Here is a question and I am open to answers from all sides-
how do we set the boundaries for a “metaphysical, theological, and poetic” understanding of history? The Reformed Presbyterian Church used to confess what it referred to as a “Historical Testimony.” The Historical Testimony was an attempt to provide a metaphysical/theological interpretation of history, although I dare say that it could not be called poetic.
Rather, it was a dramatic representation of what Herbert Butterfield called the Whig Interpretation of History. Butterfield warns against the temptation to view history as anything but a lying old reprobate. Dawson certainly seems to disagree. Having swallowed down my fill of the Whig Interpretation, I am cautiously skeptical. At the same time, how can the historian not help to guide his students to grasp the mysterious hand of God at work… even when His works are inscrutable from our perspective.
Can Butterfield be reconciled with Dawson? Or is Dawson’s catholic interpretation the other side of the coin to Whig Interpretation of history?
Having read both Dawson and Butterfield, I tend to fall more within the Butterfield camp. After all, even through the1950’s the Reformed framework for history consisted of a pitched battle between Rome and Protestantism. It is how the Puritans and the Covenanters viewed history (except when the Anglican church filled the role in the off-Broadway production with the King of England playing the role of Pope.)
The Rome vs. Protestant model shifted to a freedom vs. tyranny story which carries on in some conservative circles to this day. (It also made for some very bad 19th century history books.) Of late, it is the tolerance vs. intolerance model that is used as the over-arching meta-story. Readings of history follows greater cultural trends. If you want to know how people think, read their histories. When we try to “read” history using any model, it tells us more about ourselves than it does about the actual history. The remembered past changes with the people remembering it, so it is very easy to twist history to our own purposes.
That said, I do think history is poetic. But it is a poem more in the modernist style: we have no clue what is going on in the individual parts, but the thing in total leaves a powerful impression.
I personally think the most poetic understanding of history is to be found in Job and Romans 9. It is not always the answer we want to hear, but it is the answer God gives. We know that God is sovereign, but we do not know what is going on in history except via revelation. We know the beginning, the middle and the end. That is it. We cannot read history the way the NT reads the OT. That is revelation.
Bill,
Isn’t one’s Christian view of history going to depend on his understanding of grace and nature?
If one understands man to have a higher and lower nature and needs a superadded gift through the instrumentation of the Church to overcome his lower nature and only as the Church inculcates a culture can a culture overcome it’s lower nature then most likely he will have a Romanist view of history.
If one understands grace and nature to be in opposition and only those regenerated will overcome nature and in a similar way culture must be regenerated then one will most likely have a Baptistic view of the world.
Finally, If one does not believe that nature has a higher or lower function or that it is in opposition to grace but is the law function that has been radically redirected by sin and realigned through grace, and in the case of culture, a common grace directed by providence as a means to an end then one will most likely have a Reformed view of history.
I don’t have my copy on hand but in “The Discarded Image” CS Lewis admits that while history is the unfolding of the Story of Redemption not every particular detail is therefore necessarily connected to the Main Story. This fits well with what I’ve read from Nisbet that history is plural. I will get back to you next week with a quote, God willing.
GAS,
I understand the theory of your argument but am not sure what it looks like on a practical level. I certainly fit into the category of Reformed but deeply appreciate, and have been influenced by, the historical work of Christopher Dawson.
Russell Kirk, a Roman Catholic, gave lecturers defending the Butterfield’s view of history.
I wrote a report for the RPCNA’s Understanding the Time’s Committee arguing against the very nature of the committee from a Butterfield-esq perspective. It was not warmly embraced by the Reformed Presbyterian Synod.
Who are the Reformed historians? Who claims legitimacy to the title? Darryl Hart? R.J. Rushdoony? Cotton Mather?
Or is it possible that there is something at work independent of theological categories?
For instance, is there continuity between the way Reformed Presbyterians use their “martyr stories” and the way the Roman Catholic Church uses the lives of the Saints?
Is their continuity here? Something the feeds the spiritual needs of their people in a way that the catechism does not?
Bill,
I’m sure you are correct that there are many variants but I guess I was trying to find a starting point at which it is possible to follow those strains.
To me both the radical neo-kuyperian’s and Hart’s strain of Calvinism look like the baptistic model with the radical neo-kuyperians trying to regenerate culture and Hart’s strain looks like the old ana-baptistic world denying view of nature.
Reaganism, otoh, looks more like “martyr stories” of the Pilgrims and Manifest Destiny with the Shining city on a hill.
Mr. Foggy Spectacles (you are aptly named),
Christ and the Apostles give inspired interpretations of the history they participated in and shaped. They also revealed hidden realities, and identified certain powers and spirits that were at work. Are you saying that no one has the gift to discern whether these powers and spirits are still operative in the world or what they may be doing?
Not to mention that Paul seems to think that prophecy is the greatest gift within the Church.