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Never forget this: sometimes even very smart people make very bad arguments. Case in point is chapter five of Miroslav Volf’s new book Captive to the Word of God (Eerdmans 2010). In this chapter the well respected Croatian theologian who teaches at Yale Divinity School uses “God is love” as a starting point for “Biblical reflections on a Fundamental Christian Claim in Conversation with Islam” (133). In the background, of course, is the dialogue between Christians and Muslims about A Common Word.

There are several problems one could mention in conjunction with Volf’s chapter. For example, why should the statement “God is love” be given priority over John’s other “definitional” statements that God is light (1 John 1:5) or God is spirit (John 4:24)? And what about the “definition” in Hebrews 12:29 that “God is a consuming fire” or the repeated assertion that God is “holy, holy, holy”? One could (and should) also raise issue with Volf’s understanding that God’s love is “completely unconditional,” “universal,” and “indiscriminately forgiving of every person and for every deed” (142-43, emphasis in original). These descriptions simply don’t comport with the totality of biblical teaching about divine mercy and divine wrath.

There are other problems too, but I’d like to focus on one egregious example: Volf’s use of Augustine to support the notion that concrete acts of love toward neighbor are more important than thoughts about God–the old deeds over creeds argument.

Volf looks at 1 John 4:7–“Whoever does not love does not know God”–and argues “God is not known where neighbor is not loved” (146). So far so good. He then quotes Augustine’s Homily (The Epistle of St. John 7.2): “Whosoever therefore violates charity, let him say what he will with his tongue…this [person] is an antichrist” and “acts against God.” Volf comments, “Not to love neighbor is not just not to know God; it is actually to deny God” (147). Yes, I think that’s what Augustine is saying. Good summary of 1 John 4:7.

But then the argument gets real fuzzy real fast. “Clearly,” Volf maintains, “Augustine believed, it is worse for concrete deeds toward neighbor to be misaligned with the character of God than for thoughts about God to be misaligned with the character of God” (147). Actually, though, the line from Augustine never prioritized deeds over thoughts. In the quote he simply states that right thoughts, devoid of the right deeds, are not pleasing to God.

Volf goes on to use this bad argument to make an even worse argument: “If Augustine is correct in his assessment, the consequence for Christians’ relation to non-Christians are astounding: non-believers or adherents of another religion, if they love, can be closer to God than Christians notwithstanding Christians’ formally correct beliefs about God or even explicit, outward faith in Jesus Christ! The elevation of deeds above beliefs is the consequence of the claim that God is love” (147). The path from Augustine’s homily on 1 John 4:7 to Volf’s logic is far from obvious. Augustine said faith without works is dead; Volf concludes that works without faith is a sign of spiritual life. The one does not imply the other.

What’s more, the real Augustine clearly disagrees with Volf’s version of Augustine. In Homily 10 the Bishop of Hippo argues that works apart from belief, though “they seemed good, were nothing worth.” When the non-Christian does good deeds it is like running, but not in the right direction. “[B]y running aside from the way thou wentest astray instead of coming to the goal…He that runs aside from the way, runs to no purpose, or rather runs but to toil.” And “What is the way by which we run?” Augustine asks. “Christ hath told us, ‘I am the Way.'” In other words, the only deeds that please God are the ones done through faith in Christ. Deeds apart from creeds are nothing and worse than nothing. For, “He goes the more astray, the more he runs aside from the way [Christ].”

For Augustine, true faith works itself out in love. But this does not mean any priority for good behavior over good thoughts. Quite the contrary. Augustine writes: “With love, the faith of a Christian; without love, the faith of a devil: but those who believe not, are worse than devils, more stupid than devils. Some men will not believe in Christ: so far, he is not even upon a par with devils” (10.2). So according to Augustine faith without deeds makes you a devil, but if you don’t have faith you are worse than a devil.

A bit inelegant I admit, but closer to the Scriptural mark than Volf’s logic, not to mention a lot closer to Augustine’s actual theology.

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