PART THREE

Below is my interview with Tom Holland about, Dominion, The Making Of The Western Mind (listen via podcast).

Here are reflections 1-6, and here are reflections 7 and 8. In outline they are

1. Tom Holland gets the ethic of the cross.
2. Tom Holland gets the theology of the cross.
3. Dominion is a continuation of In The Shadow of the Sword
4. Dominion is the perfect contrast to In The Shadow of the Sword.
5. There is a huge gap in the book. And that’s deliberate.
6. The avoidance of the Gospels is still a bit of a dodge.
7. Having said this, Holland can help us immensely with the question of historicity.
8. Holland is very aware that history is crucial to the faith.

9. It’s either Christ or the abyss

Quite early in the interview Holland mentions Nietzsche as the supreme example of someone who has clearly seen the way of the cross and rejected it. Nietzsche therefore shows us how remarkable (and admirable) the ethics of the cross really are because the alternative seems to be nihilism. I put to Holland that he’s presented a stark binary for us: “It’s either the abyss [i.e. the abyss of nihilism] or it’s ‘Christ and him crucified.’” I ask whether there is a third way? Holland responds:

“That is the course that, by and large, the west has taken. It has [said] ‘We’ll take over Christian morals and ethics thank you very much, but we’re not actually going to bother with any of the mumbo jumbo that requires us to go to church.’ The question that is posed by that of course is whether or not you can continue to have the bloom if the roots have been pulled up. And we don’t know the answer to that as a society.”

Fascinatingly, Holland thinks Nietzsche was right that the bloom is from Christian roots. The morals and ethics we take for granted in the west are inextricably Christian. Their historical (and we might say theological) contingency is irreducible. If this is the case then it does seem to me that the “third way” experiment of the secular west is doomed to failure. It really is Christ or the abyss. Holland doesn’t say it in these terms. I’m sure he has more hope for the secular west, but I wonder how warranted that is. For me the binary that Holland suggests sounds remarkably like “the cross or the pit!”, “Jesus or the abyss!” Which, of course, is what Christians have been banging on about for quite some time.

Once again, Holland is not presenting the stark binary that I am. But it seems to me that following his train of thought has some some very Christian-sounding implications.

10. Tom Holland’s objection to personal faith is, itself, very Christian. 

Our time had already gone when I asked my final question about personal faith. I didn’t feel I had time to come back on his reason for not believing. He cited, as he often does, the dinosaurs.

Hindsight’s a wonderful thing, but it’s occurred to me since the interview that a good riposte would be the one which Tom uses for those who disbelieve his thesis. Essentially it’s to say: “That’s a crucial objection, well made. And it also betrays how Christian your assumptions are!” I really like that tactic. I think Tom’s excellent at it, so let me use it on the master himself. Here’s my imagined comeback:

“Dinosaurs, yes! I too have such questions. Species come and go. Extinction level events occur. And all of it seems an unacceptable violation of humanity’s supposedly unique dignity. But I sense that the outcry here is coming from a very Christian place. The Christian story — unique in so many ways — gives exceptional dignity to humans. And, yes, it seems contradicted by every other story, whether religious or scientific. If the Christian story of God’s solidarity with man is true then it will seem false when judged from the perspective of every other story. That’s the nature of the case.

But I wonder whether you’re drawn to this story because of how Christian your instincts are. You want to have a problem with suffering and catastrophe, with a mere survival of the fittest, and with the extinction, not only of glorious creatures, but of human exceptionalism too. You’re right to find a problem here. Christianity is the invitation to step inside the story and have the problem. Really have it. Because outside this story you can’t really object to ‘nature red in tooth and claw’, can you?

Of course you’ll counter — and rightly so — ‘These problems cast doubt on the story itself. How can the story be true when contradicted by untold suffering, death and degradation?’ But I think you know the answer to that question. You’ve written a whole book about it. The Christian story of God’s solidarity with man includes the most bewildering chaos and darkness. The God of the cross doesn’t merely coexist with baffling evil, hopes dashed, and excruciating pain, he includes these elements in his greater glory. We might ask, “If dinosaurs can go to the wall, why not humans?” But at the cross the stakes are raised even higher! We don’t just see man go to the wall, but God! And out of that folly, weakness and godforsakenness comes meaning and hope beyond all expectation. There’s nowhere else to truly have your question than inside the story. And there’s no-one else to trust your question to but to this God — the God of the cross.

And the thing is, Tom, the person who’s made me feel the wonder of this God most in the last fortnight has been you. So my prayer is not that you’ll ditch your question, but that you’ll come home to the place where such questions — and such questioners! — truly belong.”

PART TWO

Last week I interviewed Tom Holland about his new book, Dominion, The Making Of The Western Mind. If you haven’t seen it, do have a watch below (or listen via podcast).

You can read my first 6 reflections in full here. In outline they are

1. Tom Holland gets the ethic of the cross.
2. Tom Holland gets the theology of the cross.
3. Dominion is a continuation of In The Shadow of the Sword
4. Dominion is the perfect contrast to In The Shadow of the Sword.
5. There is a huge gap in the book. And that’s deliberate.
6. The avoidance of the Gospels is still a bit of a dodge.

Here are reflections 7 and 8:

 7. Having said this, Holland can help us immensely with the question of historicity. 

The gap which Holland leaves in his book is extremely suggestive. He takes us from BC to AD and, without looking directly at the nuclear blast, the camera instead focuses on the astonished witnesses — Paul and the recipients of his letters. Holland leaves us in no doubt that there’s been a rupture and it has caused the greatest revolution in history. This rupture needs explaining. From the expanding universe of Christianity we can infer an initial big bang. And while Holland won’t name the ‘bang’ definitively, he’s very happy to report on what Paul insists it is. Paul insists that the rupture is the historical death and resurrection of Christ. 

Around 17:00, I ask Holland whether he’s making Paul’s letters themselves into the rupture. Was it Paul’s philosophical fusion of internationalist Judaism and Stoicism that turned the world upside-down? I’d slightly feared that this was Holland’s thesis from one passage in Dominion but I was very glad to be put straight.

“I’m not hanging it all on the letters of Paul. Paul’s letters are, if you like, the first reader on the seismometer.”

Get that! The event that changed the world was prior. Paul was only a witness. And it’s not just Paul.

Holland makes the point that Paul is “an exceptionally argumentative writer but he never has to argue about” the happening of the gospel events. Whole communities scattered around the Mediterranean already know about the death and resurrection of Jesus. It’s taken for granted. That’s significant. Holland also acknowledges in our interview how “incredibly early” is the creed of 1 Corinthians 15 — something that insists on the death, burial, resurrection and appearances of Christ.

But for me there’s something even more persuasive. It’s not an argument that Holland himself makes, but it’s one that his writings have strongly suggested to my way of thinking. In reading Holland I’ve been minded to do a basic counterfactual. It goes like this: If Christ had not been raised, what would be required of Paul and the other New Testament authors to pull off the hoax? Many, many things, but let me mention one. They would have to forge convincing biographies of Jesus that fuse all the elements present in the epistles, all the expectations of Hebrew hopes, and they would need to put warm flesh on Paul’s bare bones. I say ‘warm’ flesh because the artistry required to pull off the hoax seems to be to be the most extraordinary thing. A Hebrew scholar might be able to synthesise some of the prophetic data, perhaps even to suggest some plausible 1st century fulfilments. But how do you make it believable? How do you make it compelling, attractive, glorious? How do you combine a false history with an exceptional literary genius, and pull it off in the lifetimes of those who lived through the supposed events?

Holland himself is a massive fan of the gospels as literature. As he tweeted in 2017:

Listening to David Suchet read Mark’s Gospel at @StPaulsLondon, I reflect that Jesus is the most remarkable figure in world literature.

What an incredible coincidence that the most influential figure in world history turns out to be the most remarkable figure in world literature. If the Gospels were concocted to fill in theological gaps (rather than to reflect historical events) consider the pitch to a room full of potential Evangelists:

“OK, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Galatians was a big hit. We need a prequel. I want you to write us an origins story narrating the life of the greatest character in human history — God but also man, sinless but fully alive, pure but with profound depths, the Judge of the world but with bottomless compassion, the fulfilment of all Jewish hopes but with a global appeal, a man in time but a man for all times. We need sublime ethical teaching to drip from his lips — the kind that builds civilisations. We need extraordinary miracles from him — the kind that would have been noticed (and could therefore be contradicted) by the generation to which you’re writing. We need a believable narrative arc whereby he remains impeccably righteous but is nonetheless condemned as a blasphemer. And we need it all to stand up to scrutiny — Scriptural, theological, geographic, linguistic and historical. It needs to be believable both near and far, now and later, for those who’ve lived through these times and for generations hence. Go to it!”

Who could pull this off?

There does come a point when you have to admit: “You couldn’t make it up.”

8. Holland is very aware that history is crucial to the faith. 

During Q&A after Thursday’s lecture, a preacher from Cambridge asked Holland: 

“I wonder how far you think the cross of Christ will have genuine potency without an historical resurrection? To put it conversely, belief in an historical resurrection is what gave the Christian message such extraordinary attractiveness and power, because it meant that they might kill you but you’d be raised again. Whereas without an historical resurrection that promise seems a bit thin.” 

Holland responded: 

“Yes and that’s what Paul says: Without it, there’s nothing. If Christ is not risen from the dead then it’s folly and all our hopes are vain. Absolutely! It’s the historical specificity of it that makes ideas that… it’s just a recalibration of Adonis or Osiris so ridiculous. It’s the fact that it’s rooted in historical specificity and without that there’s nothing.”

Strong stuff. He didn’t elaborate further on his views, but in those 5 sentences he’s given us more than enough to go on.

In my next post I’ll make my final two observations:

9. It’s either Christ or the abyss

10. Tom Holland’s objection to personal faith is, itself, very Christian.