Beeson Podcast, Episode 419 Dr. Han-luen Kantzer Komline November 20, 2018 Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Now, your host, Timothy George. Timothy George: Welcome to today's Beeson podcast. Well, today I have a very special guest with me here in the studio who's going to be giving a lecture for us on Finkenwalde today. That's an annual remembrance of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his community, how they studied theology and lived together. We remember it every year and we bring in a special guest and this year, it's Dr. Han-Luen Kantzer Komline. She is a theologian who teaches at Western Theological Seminary where her husband, David, also teaches. I met her a couple of years ago. We've been together to a few different conferences and I just want to introduce her to the Beeson community and to you, our podcast listeners. Welcome, Han-Luen, to the Beeson podcast. Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Thank you so much. I'm delighted to be here. Timothy George: Now, I wanna begin by asking you to tell us a little bit about yourself and your background and how you became a theologian. Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Sure. I'm very grateful to a number of teachers I had who encouraged me along in this path. My family was certainly always encouraging me, as well, and this was something that I gradually discerned over time, starting at Wheaton College. I had a professor, Mark Husbands, who encouraged me to think about further academic study of theology. Then I lived in China for a year. I'm half Chinese, so this was an opportunity to connect with my roots. Timothy George: Where were you in China? Han-luen Kantzer Komline: In a city called Yantai, near Qingdao, which is a little better known, on the coast of the Yellow Sea. Timothy George: From there, from Wheaton, you went on to do seminary work. Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Yes. Timothy George: Was that at Princeton? Han-luen Kantzer Komline: That's right, yep. Timothy George: I think that's where I first met you, maybe, many years ago when I was speaking there for something. Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Yes, I think that's right and I think you gave me a copy of one of your books at the time. Timothy George: Oh my goodness. Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Yes, and we discussed your friendship with my grandfather. Timothy George: Yeah. I'm glad you brought him up because I would love for you to say a little bit more about who your grandfather was and what he meant to you in your own formation. Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Well, my grandfather, I think, was forming me already starting from the cradle, basically. He sent two books a month to me, beginning from before I remember. Timothy George: Wow. Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Starting with children's books. But he very carefully selected what he was going to give to me and I read what he sent my way. Then he would call once a week and we'd talk on Sundays and often we'd talk about the books that he had sent and ideas in those, as well as what was going on in my life. Timothy George: His name was Kenneth Kantzer. That's your grandfather. Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Timothy George: For our podcast listeners who may not know, he was one of the great evangelical statesmen of our time, I think. I met him first when we were both senior editors at "Christianity Today." But he also served as the dean at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and many other offices and important- He was a visionary leader, your grandfather. But to think he loved you and cared for you and wanted to see you grow and develop and be nurtured in the things of God even from the time you were a little girl, that's a great story. If you knew Ken Kantzer, it's like him to be that way. I just think that's a wonderful story. Now, we got you to Princeton. Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Yes. Timothy George: Are you a Presbyterian? Han-luen Kantzer Komline: I'm actually part of the Reformed Church in America, theologically reformed, though not part of the PCUSA. Timothy George: Tell us what the Reformed Church in America is. Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Yeah, it is Dutch Reformed denomination. Its close cousin is the Christian Reformed Church. Yeah, I joined the denomination when I started at Western Theological Seminary, which is a school of the Reformed Church in American denomination. Timothy George: That's where you're teaching. From Princeton to Western, you took a little detour through Notre Dame. Han-luen Kantzer Komline: That's right. Timothy George: Say a little bit about that. Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Yeah, well, my husband, David, were both pursuing our callings together and we first after seminary spent a year in Tübingen studying there on fellowships. We were so grateful that it worked out for both of us to be able to pursue doctoral work at Notre Dame. We can still hardly believe that worked out and we're so grateful. He studied with Mark Nowell in the history department and I studied with Brian Daley in the theology department. Timothy George: We have a faculty member here at Beeson Divinity School who also studied with Brian Daley, Dr. Carl Beckwith, who like you is an Augustine Patristic Scholar. You come with a good pedigree, but you've taken that and developed it in your own unique way. Somebody told me you describe yourself as Elizabethan. What do you mean by that? Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Well, I think a good way of getting to the heart of what I mean by that is to think about the Isenheim Altarpiece, which was a favorite piece of artwork of Karl Barth. One panel of the Isenheim Altarpiece depicts John the Baptist pointing to Christ with a very long finger. When I think about what Christian ministry is, I think that that image is a great illustration. Christian ministers are about pointing people to Jesus Christ and the work that He has done on our behalf and His invitation to all of us to join in on God's redemptive work in the world. What we may not often think about is the role of John the Baptist's mother, Elizabeth, in encouraging his calling and helping to form him into the minister that he was. I think of my vocation as like Elizabeth's, that of preparing Christian ministers who, in turn, prepare the way for Jesus Christ and point to Him and His work. Timothy George: We didn't talk about it when we were introducing your family, David, but you all are the parents to children, right? Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Timothy George: What are their names? Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Well, my older son, Kenneth, is three years old and he's named after my grandfather. Timothy George: Ken Kantzer, yeah. Han-luen Kantzer Komline: That's right, yeah. My younger son is named Paul and he's a year and a half. Timothy George: That's wonderful. Well, let's get to what you really did in your dissertation research and in your scholarly work, particularly at Notre Dame working with Brian Daley. You began to focus on Augustine. Why Augustine? Han-luen Kantzer Komline: When I first started out writing my dissertation and would tell people that I was working on Augustine, they would often say, "Oh!" And look on me with great pity because I think Augustine is one of the more challenging figures to write on simply because he wrote so much and because so much has been written about him. But one of my theology professors had this saying that I like to repeat, as well, which is, "I'd rather be tired than bored." I have never bored of Augustine. I find him to be endlessly fascinating in terms of his importance for the whole Christian tradition and even western culture at large. I think that makes him existentially fascinating because of how he's shaped who we are and the things we assume. I think it's fascinating to study how his thinking developed and changed over time, something that he left us little breadcrumbs along the path to discover. He equipped us to trace how his mind changed over time and that's really interesting. I love his passion combined with his mind. Timothy George: You know, he lived in an interesting time, didn't he? The end of antiquity and the beginning of that we would call the Middle Ages, the medieval period. He opens up into a new era, in some ways recapitulates what had gone before him in a powerful way, especially for Christians in the west. I mean, the reception of Augustine in the east is a little different kind of story, though there are great Augustine followers there, too, but especially in the west, I think, for both Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions. He's kind of the fulcrum from which we start. Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Timothy George: I can see why he would be an attractive feature and he's a great person to read. Of course, we all think of the "Confessions." If I'm stranded on a desert island, I want the Bible, King James Version, please, and Augustine's "Confessions." There are many translations of that. But, of course, his works are so much vaster than just the "Confessions." You, in particular, were interested in his work on the will. One of your first books from Oxford University Press is "Augustine on the Will of Theological Account." Now, it's really interesting to me that you would choose that because the first thing I ever read by Augustine as an undergraduate was his early treatise, "De Libero Arbitrio," "On the Free Will" or "On Free Choice," as it's sometimes translated. The will was an issue for him personally. You can see that in the "Confessions." But also it's a matter that grew and developed in his own mind in significant ways. Why the will? Han-luen Kantzer Komline: It was very interesting to me to read some of the recent literature on the will in Augustine. That basically says that Augustine repeats in almost a watered down way what some philosophers had already said about the will, particularly the stoic philosopher Epictetus. But that just seemed to me to totally miss the point, but I also wasn't able to find an account of how his understanding of the will developed over time and how its character was distinctively theological. Mainly because an earlier research paper I had done had touched on this and I looked for literature about it, I stumbled into this topic. Timothy George: Well, this is an unfair question, I'll tell you that up front, but if you had to summarize what it is you discovered in pursuing Augustine on the will, what would it be? Han-luen Kantzer Komline: I would say that for Augustine, the will is irreducibly theological. That is, his account of what the human will is only makes sense in relation to God and the story of God's relationship with humankind. Timothy George: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative). I remember that early treatise on Augustine on the free will. It was a very positive, almost robust, interpretation of the will where human beings had a great deal of freedom to move upward toward God or downward toward the self. Somewhere along the way, something happens in Augustine's thinking that qualifies that interpretation of the will. Am I wrong? Han-luen Kantzer Komline: No, I think that's absolutely right. One of the things I do in my book is describe how there were many successive stages in Augustine's thinking about the will. But something I also show is that the previous stages aren't entirely left behind, that there's still a place for this understanding of the will that we see in "De Libero Arbitrio." But it's reframed or recontextualized because Augustine later comes to think that this highly positive account of the will as powerful and able to choose between good and evil is true in a certain context. That is, in a context of how the will was created to function. But that no longer describes the will in its fallen state. Timothy George: Something happened in what we call the Fall that gives us a different presentment of the will as it functions in our life today. I wonder what you would think about this idea. It really wasn't the will, maybe, that changed in Augustine's thoughts so much as a new deepened understanding of two things, sin and grace. Of course, that being related to the Fall and what that did to the structure of humanity before God and before one another, that that's really what brings about a new crisis in a way in Augustine. When he writes the "Confessions" and then moves later into the "Pelagian Controversies." Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Timothy George: What about that reading? Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Yeah, that's interesting. I would say that it's not an either/or. That's certainly yes, his understandings of sin and grace are changing. But it's interesting when we look at his terminology that he uses to describe the will. He actually starts to use different terms to name the will. In that earliest stage, he describes a will as a hinge, but then in later stages when describing the impact of the Fall bringing in sin and changes in his understanding of the impact of sin on the will, he describes it as a chain. In terms of the way he presents it himself changes in his understandings of sin and grace actually change how we can even understand what the will is. Timothy George: Another big term for Augustine is desire and love. You are what you love. Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Timothy George: He talks a lot about loving and desiring. Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Yes. Timothy George: How's that related to the will? Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Yeah. At one point, Augustine says that the will is a strong love. I think that's one interesting thing about his contribution is how he relates will and love and desire so closely. Timothy George: I remember that statement that he considers our love as a weight, a pondus, which is that Latin word, pondus, something that pulls us or drags us like a weight in one direction or another. We are dragged along by what we desire towards some end, whether it's for our good or not. Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Yeah, I think that image really helps to capture, too, how our will, like our loves, is not always something that is very easily controlled by us. Timothy George: Yeah, yeah, which brings up the whole question about what redemption is, what salvation is, how grace works in our life. Augustine spent, I think the last 20 years of his life working with this problem, didn't he, and the "Pelagian Controversies." I'm not sure he ever completed that whole problematic. He kept writing about it and controversies would arise. He would write again and that's closely related to another theme that's very prominent Augustine at this later period. It's picked up again in the Reformation. In your tradition, your Reformed tradition, that is the doctrine of predestination. That's related, also, to the will and often those terms are paired, predestination and free will, as though they were polar opposites. Say a little bit how you read Augustine on those very important biblical, but also problematic, theological issues, predestination, free will. Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, I think one of Augustine's amazing contributions, actually, is to show how free will is not something that is undermined by predestination, which is actually a biblical concept. I think Christians need to affirm some form of predestination. Timothy George: Yeah, it's in the Bible, right? If you're a biblical Christian, you gotta deal with that unless you wanna take your scissors and cut out all the words not just in Romans 9 to 11, but many other places. Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Ephesians, yeah. Right. I think one of the beautiful things that Augustine shows is how predestination can actually help us to be more free rather than less so. I mean, his eschatological vision of how the will works is that ultimately our will will be unable to choose evil. Now, to some people think that sounds restrictive or frightening, as if the will is negatively- It's constrained and that seems like it would constrict human freedom. But I think he has a really crucial insight that enabling the will to never waver in loving the good is actually an incredibly beautiful kind of freedom that God has for us. Timothy George: It's the greatest freedom, right? To be able to sin is to be putting yourself in bondage in a strange way. I think you're 100% right about that. You mentioned a while ago Karl Barth, who was of course a great Reform theologian in the early 20th century who was also a great reader of Augustine. You've written an essay about Bart and Augustine. What did you discover? Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Yeah, Bart has a very interesting and ambivalent relationship to Augustine. On the one hand, he clearly admires his creativity, his technical expertise as a theologian, and says that he's one of the greatest theological minds the church has ever known. He's up there with Aquinas, Athanasius. Bart has great respect for Augustine, but he's also a little suspicious of Augustine. He thinks that Augustine is a little bit too Catholic. Timothy George: Yeah, yeah. Catholics would like that, of course. They agree. Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Yeah, yeah. Timothy George: That's the interesting thing about Augustine, that he's championed by both Catholics and Protestants, maybe in equal fervor. I don't know. But it's hard to think of Luther without Augustine. He was an Augustinian monk and read Augustine avidly and creatively. Calvin, I mean, there's more quotations from Augustine in Calvin than anybody else except the Bible, and yet you're right. There is this Augustinian tradition in Catholicism. You see it in some ways very powerfully presented in Joseph Ratzinger. Pope Benedict XVI was an Augustinian scholar, wrote on Augustine. That makes Augustine, in a way, the father of us all, can you say? Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Yeah. Timothy George: You're here at Beeson to speak on Finkenwalde today. I introduced that briefly at the beginning of our conversation. It's a special day named after the community that Dietrich Bonhoeffer led during the Nazi period, an underground seminary where they would [stay 00:19:57] the Bible and also live their life together in community. We take one day a year, we don't have any classes that day, we eat lunch together, we pray together, we play games together. It's called Finkenwalde Day. You're our special guest this year and you have kindly agreed to give a lecture, a lecture I've never heard on this topic before. It must be brand new, "Augustine on Martyrdom, Death, and Asceticism." I'm so glad you chose that topic, partly because that fits with our theme this whole semester, The Noble Army of Martyrs. You're relating it especially to Augustine. Now, this podcast will be posted after this year's Finkenwalde Day, so maybe without spoiling anything that you're gonna say for our group here, you can tell us a little postscript or preview, however you wanna look at it, of "Augustine on Martyrdom, Death, and Asceticism." Han-luen Kantzer Komline: I had so much fun preparing this talk and it was prepared from scratch. It makes sense that the title seems new to you. I think it's so interesting that whereas in Augustine's day it was very common to see martyrs as a special class of super Christians, heroes of the faith who were very removed from the experience of the everyday Christian, that Augustine gives us a quite different kind of emphasis in his description of the martyrs. He gives us a more humanized vision of who the martyrs were. They were humble, they had to be patient, they were weak, they feared death, they grieved. Along with that, he also gives an account of how martyrdom is a calling not only to these superheroes of the faith who literally underwent martyrdom, but also to every Christian person. Timothy George: Yeah, yeah. What about the asceticism piece? Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Well, there's a new title to the paper that we set out. I did get to death, but I didn't get all the way to asceticism. Timothy George: Oh, okay. Well, asceticism, what we mean by that, I think, living a certain way of life. It was the way of the martyrs. They were exemplars of asceticism, but this is something that's very important to Augustine, isn't it, how to prepare yourself for the heavenly life here on earth. The ascetic way isn't just for the great heroes, as you were saying. It's something that the Lord has intended for all of His people- Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Mm-hmm (affirmative), that's right. Timothy George: -in different degrees and in different ways. What does the modern church have to learn from St. Augustine? Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Oh, I think it's so interesting to think about parallels between Augustine's context and our own today, particularly here in the US. In Augustine's day, the Roman Empire was beginning to crumble and he had to deal with that changing political reality. I think today the US is not quite as powerful, perhaps, as it used to be and we think about the Pax Americana perhaps yielding to a Peace of China where China's becoming a stronger and stronger world power. All of this creates a societal unease. How do we deal with that? I think it's very interesting to think about how Augustine responded to those changes in his own day and what we can learn from that. Timothy George: Yeah. His view of history, providence, what God was doing in the world with the kingdoms that rise and fall had in some way a shaping influence on, certainly, the millennium that followed his death in 430, and maybe even still continues to appeal to Christians who are seeking a place to stand in this kind of fragile world that you described. Not only the "Confessions," but "The City of God" has something to say to us, as well, I believe. One of the issues, and you deal with this in dealing with the will, is the question of, "What is a human being?" I sometimes think that may be the most pressing question of our time. Timothy George: There were lots of other things we've debated, of course, the Bible and the church and who God is and this kind of theology. But what is a human being? It touches all of our bioethical issues. It touches what we do with one another in society and how we live together or try to live together in a fractious world. Talk about Augustine just for a minute and his view of the human being made by God, intended for eternity. What would you say we can learn today from Augustine about his view of what a human being is? Han-luen Kantzer Komline: One interesting thing about Augustine's approach to that question is that he doesn't really approach it directly. On the other hand, it's really all over his corpus, but it's approached from the side, indirectly through other topics. I think that's of material significance, too, because he's not considering a human being as autonomous, independent unit, as a silo, but always in relation to God and in the context, really, of often a biblical interpretation. That really shapes how he understands what it means to be human. Timothy George: Yeah. I have one more question for you. It's about the church. Again, we were talking about how Augustine is championed by Catholics and Protestants alike and, of course, there was a very famous statement by B. B. Warfield of Princeton fame, a great theologian in his own right, an earlier generation, who said the Reformation was the triumph of Augustine's understanding of grace over his understanding of the church. Well, we could talk all day about what that means and what it meant to Warfield, but think about the church now. I'm thinking of Augustine's view of the church, but your view of the church. You are a minister, right, in the Reformed Church of America. You teach at a theological seminary. You are training men and women to serve in a life of the church. What is the church? Han-luen Kantzer Komline: I think in answering that question, it's very helpful to think of biblical metaphors for the church and the one I would probably go to first is the church as the body of Christ. While I would want to avoid seeing the church as a kind of prolongation of the incarnation, I think it's also at the same time true that the church always derives its life from Christ, the head of the church. Timothy George: The church is the body of Christ. My guest today on the Beeson podcast has been Dr. Han-Luen Kantzer Komline. She holds a PhD from the University of Notre Dame, an MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary, a BA from Wheaton College. She has studied in Tübingen, a number of places. She teaches now at Western Theological Seminary, which is a school affiliated with the Reformed Church of America. Wonderful scholar, a person of the church, and a delightful person to talk with. Thank you for this conversation. Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Thank you, Dr. George. Announcer: You've been listening to the Beeson podcast with host Timothy George. You can subscribe to the Beeson podcast at our website, BeesonDivinity.com. Beeson Divinity School is an interdenominational evangelical divinity school training men and women in the service of Jesus Christ. We pray that this podcast will aid and encourage your work and we hope you will listen to each upcoming addition of the Beeson podcast.