by Sandra Brower.
At the recent Wesley Theological Society in Nashville, Tennessee, I had the privilege of sitting on a panel that reviewed the first volume of Professor Thomas A. Noble’s Christian Theology, entitled The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a weighty project – this volume alone is over 1000 pages in length. Noble offers a thorough survey of the Tradition which helps readers to place themselves by recognising the philosophical and cultural influences and key players that have shaped them. But more importantly, his work is a call to ground Christian practice – our living and doing – in God, rather than ourselves.
Noble defines theology as ‘the articulation of our personal, interactive knowledge of the Triune God…within the fellowship of the Church which God has called into being’ (Preface to Part 2, vii; see also p. 283). Personal is not individualistic. As he states, ‘dogmatics arises out of doxology’ (see pp. 287-88 and p. 544). Not only is worship a corporate practice, it is also the context in which we are gifted participation in the relationship that the Son has with the Father through the Spirit, and therefore the context in which we come to know God. Noble articulates the two tasks of theology as first, identifying distortions of the Gospel, and second, thinking creatively about how to articulate it ‘effectively and redemptively’ today (p. 472). His concern is that we know the Tradition well so that we can engage in these tasks, today, well informed.
Though Noble situates himself as Evangelical, Wesleyan, and Nazarene, what he offers is not sectarian. To the contrary, he is clear that a ‘Wesleyan’ dogmatics will only survive if its emphases are articulated in a way that is ‘integral to the Trinitarian, Christ-centred faith of the Church catholic’ (p. 42; see also p. 25). Noble’s Christocentric focus is evident in his theological method. He begins with ‘the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ’ rather than ‘the love of God’ because of his conviction that we can only know who God is through God’s revelation of Godself to us. In theological speak, we can only get to the immanent Trinity through the economy. And so he begins with the Gospel, articulated as a ‘two in one’ narrative; Jesus is the crucified and risen one, the one who is both truly human and truly divine, and the humiliated and exalted one. Each is linked to the parabolic shape of ascent and descent (clearly seen in the Christological hymn of Philippians 2), which represents the ‘wondrous exchange’ articulated by the early Fathers.
Through this lens, Noble discusses the person and work of Christ, arguing that we must hold them together. Another way of saying this is that the atonement cannot be separated from the incarnation. What is unassumed is unhealed, and healing is secured through a whole life of obedience and putting the old, sinful humanity to death. We need to account for both the moral and ontological aspects of the atonement. It is here that we find Noble offering a critique of his own tradition which has a tendency to focus on soteriology as separate from Christology. Linked to this is a tendency to focus on the individualistic and subjective as opposed to the corporate and objective elements of faith (see his introduction to Part 3). In response to a conversion-centric theology where ‘my’ faith becomes the key point of salvation, Noble asks us to put our focus back on Christ. This is rooted in his rejection of subjective articulations of the atonement (where atonement is completed when we respond to God) and his support of McLeod Campbell’s stress on the prospective aspect of the atonement, that is, what we are saved to. We are not just saved from the moral and ontological consequences of sin, we are saved to be children of God. This relationship is a gift that we partake of only as we are drawn up by the Spirit into the communion that the Son has with the Father; it can never be abstracted from this dynamic relationship.
It is here we see most clearly how it is that Noble’s theology helps us to ground our understanding of who we are and who we are called to be within the doctrine of God and to find the resources for Christian practice in God, and not ourselves. And this is good news, indeed. Instead of a life-draining theology that sends people back on themselves, Noble offers a life-giving articulation of the faith that rests in Christ, who was and is for us. Noble’s contribution to the academy has always been in service of the people of God, and this is no exception. We await eagerly volumes two and three of this definitive work.
Theology Everywhere 
‘Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
’tis Grace that brought me safe thus far,
and Grace will lead me home.’
(Amazing Grace, John Newton)
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Thank you, Sandra. It’s good to know that there are still people out there bold enough to fashion a systematic theology. I enjoyed Noble’s book on Christian perfection and trinitarianism, so this should be a good read, too. I’d be interested to look at how Noble might situate himself in relation to Lindbeck’s The Nature of Doctrine. Is he, I wonder, offering a variation on what Lindbeck’s calls ‘experiential expressivism’?
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Interesting article: I agree completely with Noble’s theological turn away from self-interest to loving and caring for others; a faith that rests in Christ; the icon of a life of love that prioritises the social rather than the personal or individualistic.
What I disagree with is the idea that there is such a thing as “the Christian tradition” and that the aim of theology is to defend that tradition at all cost. What tradition does he mean? The tradition of supporting the crusades, witch burning, slavery or, in our day, harmful Christianity; the judgmentalism inherent in the doctrine that asserts we are “sinners in need of redemption” who will be judged, punished and condemned by God unless we repent? As I see it salvation is not about being saved from the moral and ontological consequences of sin, the salvation Christ offers us is that we are saved to be children of God.
I also note that Noble, and Lindbeck for that matter, criticise experiential expressivism, which claims all people share a common experience that religious language seeks to articulate. For me this refusal of a common experience is a diminishment of the love of God, freely given to all people without conditions. I identify a common experience in the human kindliness within which we live, move and have our being and this expresses a universal ethical spirituality. Here is poem I wrote about an event that expresses this:-
Marks and Spencer
I bumped into God the other day
Though it was God that bumped into me!
I wanted a shirt – pink stripe would be nice,
But Marks had little to see.
An old lady fell at the queue by the tills
She was embarrassed and shaken, but actually alright.
The thing that struck me about this event
Was the concern of strangers at this ladies plight.
Were all of them Saints or off-duty Angels?
Or Christians, nurses or coppers?
Or did God’s demand that we love all we meet
Stir the hearts of all the shoppers?
So there was God among men, children, mothers,
God that appears, as we respond, to the needs – of others.
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