In November of 2022, biblical scholar J. Richard Middleton posted a reflection that soon became the most viewed post on his blog. Entitled, “God’s Relationality and Eternity in the Bible: Why I Am Not a Classical Theist,” the post occasioned a lengthy set of debates on social media.

One of the central concerns of the discussion that emerged was the relationship between the language(s) of scripture, the ecumenical creeds, and philosophy. Middleton suggested that biblical language is first-order discourse, and the confessional language of the creeds and the more speculative language of philosophy were second- and third-order discourse, respectively. The language of the Bible was therefore where theology began, and the critical norm for creedal and philosophical language. Middleton conceded that credal language could aid in keeping the interpretation of biblical language on a faithful path. But philosophical language was unhelpful and perhaps even incapable of speaking of the God of scripture. The error of “classical theism” (CT) was to begin with a speculative view of God foreign to that of the biblical text and to impose that view of God onto the biblical text. Thus the language of God’s “eternity” was understood not in terms of long duration in the past or future but of “timelessness,” and the language of God’s “unchangeableness” was understood not in terms of covenant fidelity but of metaphysical “impassibility.” Such language, Middleton concluded, made the God of CT “an idolatrous, philosophical ‘god,’” rather than the God of Israel who became incarnate in Jesus.

Is “the God of classical theism” an idol? Part of the question, of course, is defining “classical theism.” But there is also a question of how “biblical language” is defined, and whether it is adequate to understand the biblical authors, editors, and canonists (i.e. those who assembled the disparate writings into what we call “holy scripture”) as “pure” in relation to their intellectual context. This is not a new debate, but it has taken on new life in, for example, the heated conversation between biblical scholar N. T. Wright and philosopher David Bentley Hart over their respective new translations of the New Testament. It is also newly present in the recent systematic theology of Katherine Sondereggar which has boldly claimed that “out fundamental conviction is \[that]… the impassible God of tradition _is_ the passionate God of scripture” and that “the Passionate One of Holy Scripture will guide and give rise to the Impassionate One of tradition.” While she appreciates biblical scholarship, Sondereggar makes this claim as one loyal to “the teaching office of the church,” refusing the idea that the Bible can be conceived as an autonomous source for theology apart from the metaphysics of tradition (and the practice of prayer… though that takes us in a new direction).

My proposal is for a “Reckoning and Reimagining” of this debate about God in scripture, creed, and philosophical discourse in the form of a panel …