Ps 63, “A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah”: Part 1. Intro to T. F. Torrance’s “kataphysic inquiry” and the “epistemological inversion” required in any study of the Living Word

Jesus Christ Extreme Humility

[Reading Time: 18 minutes]

I. Introduction to the next set of word studies (with a Torrancian reason for our venture): A question and initial answer

The next phase of word studies will focus on Psalm 63 which is a critical text in forming a spiritual understanding of true prayer. Over the coming weeks, therefore, we will work through each verse, in turn, focusing on key words in the text that will, hopefully, enable us to better grasp the dimensions of its meaning.

And as has been asked of us in these word studies,

“Are we seeking to use the Greek and Hebrew to explain the truths of Scripture?”

Or

“Are we using the Scriptures to better explain the Greek and Hebrew?”

Our answer is a bit modified:

We are, rather, seeking rather to understand the Scriptures on their own terms.

That is to say, as imperfect, fallen, limited, finite persons, we know (if we’re really being honest with ourselves) that we cannot in our own capacity somehow come to grasp the Eternal. All we can do is humbly seek to approach unto God on the terms He has given Himself to be revealed.

And when we do this, we come to the divinely inspired, literally, “God-breathed” (theopneustos [From theos-’God’ + pneustos—’breathed’]) Scriptures (II Tim 3:16). And these point us, draw us into the presence of, more deeply reveal and make real to us, the One who is the Word made flesh.

In the words of Prof. Villalobos (as sometimes theological prose can be sharpened by poetic expression),

The word was made flesh

that the flesh

might reach unto the Word

And by the triune love

God the Son was made man

That men

Might become sons of God

Mystery

and hope greater

Since the Word

Made Himself flesh

Became cannon fodder

Of slaves

Of prisoners

Of the condemned

Of the miserable

Of beggars

Of the sick

Of sinners

For me

For you

For the other

As we who are “beggars” and the “sick” and “sinners” are brought into the presence of our Lord, we must learn to adapt our understanding in accord with His revealed reality. Our response, therefore, to God’s divine self-revelation, requires what Thomas F. Torrance speaks of in terms of “epistemological inversion.” That is to say, on a very basic level, whenever we are seeking to better understand (epistēmē) the nature of the Eternal God, there must be an ‘inversion’ on our part as knowers.

The pathway from knowing a living entity that is not “personally alive” to knowing a fellow person to knowing the Eternal God

In Torrance’s writing, he makes it clear that we must “let the nature of the field or the nature of the object, as it progressively becomes disclosed through interrogation, control how we know it, how we formulate our knowledge of it, and how we verify that knowledge.” 

He speak of this as something that he terms, “ketaphysic inquiry,” which is “a term that comes from the Greek expression katá phýsin, which means “according to nature.”  For if we desire to “think of something in accordance with its nature like that,” then we must “think of it in accordance with what it really is—so that here thinking katá phýsin, is to think katá alétheian (“according to the truth.” From the chapter,“Incarnation and Atonement in the Light of Modern Scientific Rejection of Dualism”, in Preaching Christ Today: The Gospel and Scientific Thinking, Eerdman’s, 1994, p. 45 where the remainder of the quotes will be found. Of note, these statements as well as his all-important 7 General and Particular Epistemological Principles can be found on our site here). 

Torrance’ explains, offering two examples of such kataphysic inquiry. First, there is the investigation of a living entity that is not “personally alive” (He mentions a “tree;” but we who are in medicine and the sciences can think of bacteria that we are investigating, as it were, under our microscope). In seeking to “develop a modality of the reason that is appropriate to the specific nature” of this bacteria and in order not treat it “as we would a rock or a human being,” we must adapt our study of it in accordance with what it actually is, using all the methods appropriate to that field (i.e. a microscope, bacterial cultures, sequencing technology, etc.).

When, however, we progress to the field of anthropology, interacting with a fellow person (which, again, is our field of activity in medicine, ministry, etc.), we are dealing with one who is “personally alive” and who, as such, is a “rational agent with a depth of intelligibility” far beyond bacteria or a cat or dog or cow. This, then, requires a “two-way relation, a personal interaction, between the knower and the one known.” Understanding only takes place as he or she reveals himself or herself to us. For it is simply the case that we cannot know the depths of his or her mind/soul/spirit/nous.

As Paul himself asks us,

For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? (I Cor 2:11a).

The pathway, then, to any greater understanding calls for an adaptation of our mode of inquiry in accordance with the person who is to be known. (And this, we might add, does not involve…more microscopes, more cultures, more labs, more imaging…). In Torrance’s words—and this may be the most important word for us who are working with real-life persons—

But when we turn our inquiry toward a human being, the modality of our reason changes yet again in accordance with the nature of the human being. Here a radical change is involved because unlike a cow, a human being can talk back to us and reveal something of himself or herself to us. Moreover, a human being is a rational agent with a depth of intelligibility that a cow does not have, and a human being is personal in nature, which calls for a two-way relation, a personal interaction, between the knower and the one known. We cannot get to know another human being if we stand aloof and say, now just you keep dumb, and let me try and understand you.  

We cannot really know another human being except in a two-way interaction with him or her. We have to open our heart and mind to him or her and listen to what he or she has to say about himself or herself. It is only in and through personal interaction that we get to know another human being. In fact, we probably really know others only as we reveal ourselves to them, rather than merely by trying to find out what they are in themselves by way of impersonal observation (p. 46-47). 

The radical change—the metanoia—of epistemological inversion that is required in knowing God

From here, to move up to our pathways in understanding the Word enfleshed, Torrance goes on to write that this ultimately requires an even more “radical change.”

Then let us switch the modality of our reason to God. Now here we have an even more radical change, because God is the Creator and Lord and we are creatures, who, while personal, are utterly different from him in the nature of our being. Hence with God we have to do with a kind of relation which is quite different from that which we have with other creatures. 

With trees or animals we have to do with objective realities over which we can exercise some control in varying degrees as we subject them to our inquiries, but when we turn attention to other human beings we are not in a position to exercise control over them. A human being is personally other than we are and is more profoundly objective than a tree or a cow, for he or she would object to our attempts to control them. Here, then, we have to do with a measure of objectivity that we do not have with other creatures. 

But when we turn our attention to God, we have to do with a relation of the profoundest objectivity which we can never master. He is the Lord God before whom our human knowing undergoes a radical change, which I sometimes speak of as an epistemological inversion of our ordinary knowing relation. We can know God only through his self-revelation and grace.

And how do we respond to this divine “self-revelation and grace”?

Our pathway of understanding occurs

only in the mode of worship, prayer, and adoration in which we respond personally, humbly, and obediently to his divine initiative in making himself known to us as our Creator and Lord. Here the modality of our reason undergoes radical adaptation in accordance with the compelling claims of God’s transcendent nature—that is precisely what authentic theology involves.  

Yet even more, such “authentic theology” necessitates personal change on our part as knowers so that we can respond to God’s self-revelation to us (rather than simply projecting ourselves and our limited, fallen knowledge onto Him...).

In short, this requires a metanoia.

This is very important because it calls for a real change in the whole structure of our soul and mind in our approach to God, and as often as not it is a painful change in which the self-centered structure of our minds is turned inside out and transformed. Apart form such a metanoia or deep-seated change in mind and heart, you cannot really be a theological student, far less a minister of the gospel.  

No wonder our Lord Jesus told his followers that they must renounce themselves and take up their cross daily if they were to be his disciples.  Does that not in its way also describe the kind of repentant thinking of all unwarranted presuppositions and the objective commitment to the truth which characterize rigorous scientific inquiry?

Back to the Word Studies: “I AM THAT I AM”

Applying these insights back to the mode of inquiry of our word studies, we are seeking to allow the “nature of the content” to “condition not only the form but the method of instruction.”  If we are approaching the Eternal God, He is the only One Who can reveal Himself to us in a way suited to our finite, fallen humanity. We move forward, then, on the grounds of His Word.

Then Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?”

And God said to Moses, “I AM THAT I AM.”

[As this is a massively important self-revelation, we refer to the NET notes:

The verb form used here is אֶהְיֶה (ʾehyeh), the Qal imperfect, first person common singular, of the verb הָיָה (hayah, “to be”). It forms an excellent paronomasia with the name. So when God used the verb to express his name, he used this form saying, “I am.” When his people refer to him as Yahweh, which is the third person masculine singular form of the same verb, they say “he is.”

Some commentators argue for a future tense translation, “I will be who I will be,” because the verb has an active quality about it, and the Israelites lived in the light of the promises for the future. They argue that “I am” would be of little help to the Israelites in bondage. But a translation of “I will be” does not effectively do much more except restrict it to the future. The idea of the verb would certainly indicate that God is not bound by time, and while he is present (“I am”) he will always be present, even in the future, and so “I am” would embrace that as well (see also Ruth 2:13; Ps 50:21; Hos 1:9). The Greek translation of the OT used a participle to capture the idea, and several times in the Gospels Jesus used the powerful “I am” with this significance (e.g., John 8:58). The point is that Yahweh is sovereignly independent of all creation and that his presence guarantees the fulfillment of the covenant (cf. Isa 41:4; 42:6, 8; 43:10-11; 44:6; 45:5-7).

Others argue for a causative Hiphil translation of “I will cause to be,” but nowhere in the Bible does this verb appear in Hiphil or Piel…]

Then, following God’s revelation of His name as JHWH, He ties their understanding of His Person to His relations not only to them in the present, but also to his relations with them far back to their ancestors:

“Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”

Moreover God said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: ‘The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.

This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations’ (Ex 3:13-15).

From '“I AM THAT I AM” to the “I AM” of Jesus

In the progressive disclosure of God’s Person to us in the Holy Scriptures, this name of JHWH is taken up in the Greek NT as kýrios (‘Lord’). And it is no wonder, then, that Jesus, the God-man, the Word incarnate, gives to us in John’s Gospels the seven “I AM” statements:

I am the bread of life (John 6:35)

I am the light of the world (John 8:12)

I am the gate (John 10:7)

I am the good shepherd (John 10:11, 14)

I am the resurrection and the life (John 11:25)

I am the way and the truth and the life (John 14:6)

I am the true vine (John 15:1)

This is to say, all that we are to understand about God, the great I AM, is revealed perfectly and fully in Jesus Christ our Lord. And we add together with Paul, that this is revealed in “Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (I Cor 2:2). As such, the shortest credal affirmation found in the New Testament is very simply, Kýrios Iēsoûs—Jesus is Lord. This is where we begin and where we end.

Bringing this to a close

Referring back one final time to to Thomas F. Torrance, we will bring this rather lengthy introduction to a close. In Torrance’s own words,

Behind everything lies the fact that the Word of God has become flesh, that the Son of God has become man, for it is this Word clothed with our humanity in the incarnate Son who is communicated to us. Communication takes place on the ground of a divine self-adaptation to our humanity which also lifts up our humanity into communion with God. 

Thus, behind all Christian communication or instruction lies the supreme fact that when the Word became flesh, God accommodated or adapted His revelation to human form in Jesus Christ, so that the closer instruction keeps to the humanity of Jesus Christ, the more relevant it is to the humanity of the receiver.

In light of the Incarnate Son’s own “divine self-adaptation” to the structures of our own language, therefore, we desire in our word studies not to project our 21st century (and we will add), Post-Enlightenment, Western dualistic framework backwards onto the text so as to force meaning out of it that we can somehow “understand” through a detached, encyclopedic, reductionary process. Rather, our goal is to allow the text to speak to us on its own terms with, as we must say, the Spirit Himself pressing into us by His Word that we respond with a true metanoia of thinking.

This means, then, that we have to come under the authority of the Word in every possible way to allow it to then open itself up to us, to mold us, to reshape us, to literally re-form our persons according to its Reality. And so, just as in any process of renaissance renewal, we go back to the original languages.

And here we may more generally look back to the Renaissance, where men and women returned to the original classical Greek and Latin texts. Or, from a theological perspective, we may cite the Reformers, who themselves sought to return to the original Hebrew and Latin languages of the Scripture, on the one hand, and the Church Fathers, on the other (see, for example, Luther’s three-day defense of his theological positions against Cardinal Cajetan at the Diet of Augsburg; or Calvin’s repeated citations of the Church Fathers in his Institutes [we would point you here to Ford Lewis Battle’s indexing of the Institutes, specifically index II (pp. 1592-1634) and index III (pp. 1713-1729) where he documents all of Calvin’s references to the Fathers].

Or, more recently, we could look beyond the confines of Reformed Protestantism to the early 20th century Catholic Ressourcement movement led by Henri de Lubac and Yves Congar, as well as the similar dimensions occurring in Eastern Orthodoxy with the movement of key Russian figures from Russia to Paris and St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in the buildup to the Bolshevik Revolution. In the writings of Sergei Bulgakov, Vladimir Lossky, Justin Popović, as well as Alexander Schmemann, John Meyendorff and Georges Florovsky (under whom Torrance himself studied), we find these theologians going back to the original languages and the writings of the Fathers.

And so we would say, in bringing this introduction finally to a close, the goal in these word studies, like the Reformers, be they Protestant, Catholic or Orthodox, is to adapt our understanding to the Living Word revealed in the Scriptures, lived in Jesus Christ—and Him crucified—and handed down to us by the Fathers.