Aktionsart v.s. Aspect

This word is a German word that literally means “type of action.” There are various types of action. There are punctiliar actions, iterative actions, ingressive actions, and so on. The category of Aktionsart describes how an action took place. If it happened as a once-occurring, instantaneous event, it is called punctiliar. If the action was repeated over and over, it is called iterative. If the action focuses on the beginning, it is called ingressive. Early on in the academic discussion about such things, there was much confusion between Aktionsart and aspect. These days there is a general consensus as to the difference between the two terms, and it is vital that we properly understand the distinction.
 
Aktionsart refers to how an action actually takes place—what sort of action it is. Aspect refers to viewpoint—how the action is viewed. They are two different categories.
 
Let’s take Romans 5:14 as an example. In that verse we are told that Death reigned from the time of Adam to Moses. The verb “reigned” expresses perfective aspect. This is the view from the helicopter. We are presented with a summary of what happened; we are told simply that it happened. This is the external viewpoint. But when we ask what actually happened, we are able to say a range of other things. For starters, this action took a long time! There were many years between Adam and Moses. Death’s reign between Adam and Moses was an ongoing, expansive event. This was not a once-occurring, instantaneous type of action. With this example, we can appreciate that there is a clear difference between aspect and Aktionsart. Aspect refers to how the action is viewed: it is viewed externally as a whole. Aktionsart refers to what actually happened: it was an ongoing event that spanned many years. The difference between aspect and Aktionsart leads us to another important distinction.
 
Semantics and Pragmatics
 
The terms semantics and pragmatics come from modern linguistics and refer to a distinction that is now applied to the discussion about Greek verbs. Again, it is important that we understand what these terms mean.
 
1. Semantics
When speaking of verbs, semantics refers to the values that are encoded in the verbal form. These values are unchanging and are always there when the particular verbal form occurs (allowing for exceptional circumstances such as anomalous expressions and certain fixed idioms). In anything other than these exceptional circumstances, a semantic value is uncancelable—it is always there and cannot be canceled out. Semantics refers to what the verb means at its core.
 
What does an aorist encode? What is core to an aorist that is different from an imperfect? What does an aorist always carry with it? By the way, it is worth noting a little issue to do with terminology. Often the term semantics is used in a nontechnical sense to refer to the range of meaning that a word may have. This is not the sense in which it is now used in academic discussion. The range of meaning of a particular word is better termed lexical semantics, and the type of semantics that we are interested in at the moment is verbal semantics or grammatical semantics, which refers to the uncancelable properties of the verb form.
 
2. Pragmatics
When speaking of verbs, pragmatics refers to the expression of semantic values in context and in combination with other factors. In other words, pragmatics refers to how it all ends up—the way language is used in context. The way that semantics and pragmatics relate together is a little like this: we take the semantic elements and plug them into a text that will have a range of things going on within it already, which bounce off and interact with the semantic values; the outcome is pragmatics.
 
Pragmatic values can change from context to context; they are cancelable and not always there when particular verb forms are used. Perhaps an illustration will help to clarify further the differences between semantics and pragmatics. Semantics asks, “Who am I?” while pragmatics asks, “What do I do?” These are two different questions (though our Western culture tends to blur them together). Who I am is about who I am at the core of my being—what it is that makes me uniquely me. Who I am might be expressed by what I do, but what I do is not who I am. If you were to ask me, “Who are you?” and I reply that I am a lawyer, I haven’t really answered the question. Who am I? I’m Con. What do I do? I’m a lawyer. But I might quit law and take up jazz music. If I do that, I haven’t changed who I am; I’ve just changed what I do (I know life’s not quite as simple as that, but bear with the analogy). Discovering the semantics of the aorist is to ask, “Who are you, aorist?” To discover the pragmatics of the aorist, we ask, “And what do you do, aorist?”
 
The distinction between semantics and pragmatics is useful in sharpening the difference between aspect and Aktionsart. Aspect is a semantic value. The aspect of a particular tense-form doesn’t change. An aorist will always be perfective in aspect. This will be the case no matter which word (lexeme) is used as an aorist or in what context it is used. Aspect is uncancelable. When asked, “Who are you, aorist?” the answer is, “I am perfective in aspect.”
 
Aktionsart, on the other hand, is a pragmatic value. The Aktionsart of a particular tense-form can change. Sometimes an aorist will be punctiliar in Aktionsart. Sometimes it will be iterative, sometimes ingressive. It all depends on which lexeme is used as an aorist, on the context, and on what actually happened. Aktionsart is cancelable. When asked, “What do you do, aorist?” the answer is, “Well, I do many things. I have many possible Aktionsart outcomes.” Nearly all scholars working with Greek verbs now agree on this distinction between semantics and pragmatics. The remaining question related to the distinction, however, is this: Is temporal reference semantic or pragmatic? If temporal reference is semantic, then Greek verbs truly are tenses. A verb’s temporal reference is uncancelable and is a core part of its meaning. An aorist is a past tense and must always be a past tense. But here, of course, lies a problem. We learn early on that aorists are not always past referring. Therefore, we are led to ask: Is past temporal reference a semantic value of the aorist? Some scholars say no, the aorist is not a past tense. Even though the aorist often ends up expressing past temporal reference when used in Greek texts, this is a pragmatic implicature rather than semantic encoding. After all, these scholars point out, there are plenty of other elements in the text that indicate what the time frame is to be understood as. In fact, there are several languages in which the time frame is indicated purely by such deictic markers—words like “yesterday,” “now,” “later,” and so forth. Even genre can set the time frame. For example, narratives naturally refer to the past (even without needing to use words like “yesterday”) simply because it is understood that they are about events that have already happened. If the time frame is indicated by deictic markers and/or genre, why do we think that verbs must indicate time as well? The answer to that question, for most of us I think, is that we are used to that being the case in English (or so we think, anyway). But such is not the case in at least some other languages, and now the question has been raised with reference to the Greek verbal system. We will return to this issue at several points. Regardless of one’s position on this matter, however, I think the term “tense-form” is more helpful than “tense” when referring to verbs, because it reminds us that it is the morphological form that is being addressed, whatever the form happens to communicate.
 
Conclusion
 
We have seen in this chapter that aspect refers to the viewpoint that an author subjectively chooses when portraying an action, event, or state. There are two viewpoints from which to choose: the view from the outside—perfective aspect—and the view from the inside—imperfective aspect. We have seen that aspect is different from Aktionsart in that the latter term describes how an action actually takes place, whereas aspect refers simply to viewpoint. Finally, we have seen that aspect is a semantic value encoded in the verb and is therefore uncancelable, whereas Aktionsart is a pragmatic value affected by a range of contextual factors and is therefore cancelable.

- Constantine R. Campbell, Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek, pp21-25 

 

Love Drives Genuine Transformation

Only love is capable of genuine transformation. Willpower is inadequate. Even spiritual effort is not up to the task. If we are to become great lovers, we must return again and again to the great love of the Great Lover. Thomas Merton reminds us that the root of Christian love is not the will to love but the faith to believe that one is deeply loved by God. Returning to that great love—a love that was there for us before we experienced any rejection and that will be there for us after all other rejections take place—is our true spiritual work.

 

Ignatius of Loyola suggests that sin is ultimately a refusal to believe that what God wants is my happiness and fulfillment. When I fail to believe this, I am tempted to sin—to take my life into my own hands, assuming that I am in the best position to determine what will lead to my happiness. As I become convinced that God wants nothing more than my fulfillment, surrender to his will is increasingly possible.

 

Properly understood, these three intended destinations of the journey—becoming a great lover, becoming whole and holy, and becoming my true self-in-Christ—demonstrate just how radical Christian spiritual transformation really is.

 

 - David G. Benner, Sacred Companions: The Gift of Spiritual Friendship Direction, 2009.

Becoming Our True Self-in-Christ

Pennington suggests that Christ’s temptations in the wilderness were temptations to live out of such a false center. First the tempter invited him to turn stones into bread. But Jesus said no to the invitation to establish himself on the basis of his doing. Then the tempter invited him to throw himself from the top of the temple into the crowds below, so they would immediately recognize him as the Messiah. Again Jesus rejected the temptation. He chose not to base his identity on the acclaim of others. Finally the tempter offered him all the kingdoms of the world. But once again Jesus rejected the offer, refusing to find his identity in possessions or power.

Jesus knew who he was before God and in God. He could therefore resist temptations to live his life out of a false center based on possessions, actions or the esteem of others.

Merton suggests that at the core of our false ways of being there is always a sinful refusal to surrender to God’s will.

My reluctance to find my identity and fulfillment in Christ leaves me vulnerable to living out of a false center. It leaves me no alternative but to create a self of my own making. This is where the problem begins. The self I am called from eternity to be has meaning only in relation to Christ. The unique self that I am called to be is never a self I simply dream up and decide I’d like to be. It is always and only the self that I actually am in Christ. This is my eternal self. This is the self I am intended to be. This is the only self that will allow me to be truly whole and holy.

- David G. Benner, Sacred Companions: The Gift of Spiritual Friendship Direction, 2009.

 

Becoming Whole and Holy

The purpose of salvation is to make whole that which is broken. The Christian spiritual journey settles for nothing less than such wholeness. But genuine wholeness cannot occur apart from holiness. In The Holiness of God, R. C. Sproul notes that the pattern of God’s transforming encounters with humans is always the same. God appears; humans respond with fear because of their sin; God forgives our sins and heals us (holiness and wholeness); God then sends us out to serve him. This means that holiness and wholeness are the interrelated goals of the Christian spiritual journey. Holiness is the goal of the spiritual journey because God is holy and commands that we be holy (Leviticus 11:44).

Holiness involves taking on the life and character of a holy God by means of a restored relationship to him. This relationship heals our most fundamental disease—our separation from our Source, our Redeemer, the Great Lover of our soul. This relationship is therefore simultaneously the source of our holiness and of our wholeness.

Human beings were designed for intimate relationship with God and cannot find fulfillment of their true and deepest self apart from that relationship. Holiness does not involve the annihilation of our identity with a simple transplant of God’s identity. Rather, it involves the transformation of our self, made possible by the work of God’s Spirit within us. Holiness is becoming like the God with whom we live in intimate relationship. It is acquiring his Spirit and allowing spirit to be transformed by Spirit. It is finding and living our life in Christ, and then discovering that Christ’s life and Spirit are our life and spirit. This is the journey of Christian spiritual transformation. This is the process of becoming whole and holy.

 - David G. Benner, Sacred Companions: The Gift of Spiritual Friendship Direction, 2009.

We Are Rebels

You see, in our time we have over-emphasized the psychology of the sinner’s condition. We spend much time describing the woe of the sinner, the grief of the sinner and the great burden he carries. He does have all of these, but we have over-emphasized them until we forget the principal fact—that the sinner is actually a rebel against properly constituted authority! 

That is what makes sin, sin. We are rebels. We are sons of disobedience. Sin is the breaking of the law and we are in rebellion and we are fugitives from the just laws of God while we are sinners.
 
So it is with sinners. Certainly they are heartbroken and they carry a heavy load. Certainly they labor and are heavy-laden. The Bible takes full account of these things; but they are incidental to the fact that the reason the sinner is what he is, is because he has rebelled against the laws of God and he is a fugitive from divine judgement.

- Tozer, A. W., I Call It Heresy

Understanding Sin

Another way to calculate the importance of a biblical understanding of sin is through the use of a series of theological continua. For example, a high view of humanity (humans are basically good morally) and our capacity for good typically maintains a low view of sin’s serious effects upon humanity. Alternately, a heightened view of sin (humans are radically depraved) will result in a reduced view of human capacity for spiritual good.

The theological understanding of Christ’s work is also impacted by one’s view of sin. A milder view of sin tends to parallel a nonpunitive view of the atonement. When the cross is viewed as an answer to the wrath of God, a clearly heightened view of sin (human helplessness before a holy God) is the presupposition.

God’s grace is another area directly impacted by one’s view of sin. The more sinful we appear to ourselves, the more we recognize the strategic nature of God’s grace. In the matter of soteriology, a positive view of human ability coupled with an optimistic view of the human condition depreciates the need for salvation and opens the door for alternate interpretations of the nature of our deliverance from sin (e.g., liberationist definitions of salvation as deliverance from political, sexual, or racial exploitation). In terms of conversion, repentance and faith are directly related to the nature of sin. Thus, do we have the capacity to repent and believe, or are these capacities granted to us at conversion?

Finally, as became clear to Augustine, one’s view of predestination is impacted by one’s view of sin. A more severe view of sin prompts a more pronounced understanding of predestination and election. Alternately, modifications to God’s free unconditional election (conditional election, for example) are supported by a less stringent view of human depravity.
 

- John W. Mahony, “A Theology of Sin for Today,” in Fallen: 

A Theology of Sin, eds.  Christopher. W. Morgan & Robert A. Peterson, 2013.

The Reality of Sins

The strategic importance of sin theologically and practically prompts us to ask about the nature of sin itself. Typically, post-fall definitions of sin (that is, those that reflect our fallen condition) come from either lexical analyses of the biblical words or from the various biblical images for sin (such as disease, defilement, or debt). Christian confessional statements, articles of faith, and systematic theologies contain definitions that have been coalesced from biblical usage and historical precedents. 

More recent efforts to define sin, however, reflect the existential and realist contexts of the last century: “[Sin] is universal, tragic estrangement, based on freedom and destiny in all human beings, and shall never be used in the plural. Sin is separation, estrangement from one’s essential being.” Existentially, sin is a deep sense of dread or anxiety, the tension that arises from our finitude and the openness of the future.

The trend away from more objective statements about sin tends to cloud the issue of sin’s essence. Compared to the existential, man-centered approach to sin, classic doctrinal statements such as the Westminster Larger Catechism defined sin with a clear reference to God and his law: “Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, any law of God, given as a rule to the reasonable creature.” Within the Roman Catholic tradition, Thomas Aquinas defined sin as “a word, deed, or desire which is against the eternal law.” John Calvin defined sin as “unfaithfulness.”10 James Arminius claimed that sin is “something thought, spoken, or done against the law of God, or the omission of something which has been commanded by that law to be thought, spoken or done.”

Each of these definitions captures the essential meaning of sin as a violation of God’s law, covenant, or will. They also reflect a traditional understanding of the historicity of Adam and interpret the account of the fall in Genesis 3 quite literally. Consequently, sin is viewed more in relation to God. The perspective, however, is still post-fall.

A. H. Strong defined sin as the “lack of conformity to the moral law of God, either in act, disposition, or state.” In a subsequent clarification of the definition, he declared: “It therefore considers lack of conformity to the divine holiness in disposition or state as a violation of law, equally with the outward act of transgression.”

 “Lack of conformity,” however, is only true of humankind after the fall of Adam; the expression cannot be applied either to Adam before the fall or to the incarnate Son of God. From a pre-fall perspective, the essential nature of sin is expressed in a single act of rebellion; from a post-fall perspective, the violation of God’s law is only one component among innumerable others.

In regard to the post-fall perspective, then, sin possesses many different facets and expressions. The Scripture also uses an array of terms for sin and describes it in many different ways. The following is a summary of the biblical usage and serves as an exposition of the post-fall reality.

 

 - John W. Mahony, “A Theology of Sin for Today,” in Fallen: 

A Theology of Sin, eds.  Christopher. W. Morgan & Robert A. Peterson, 2013.