Over-determination and Inspiration

Douglas Campbell, author of The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul, has a helpful metric for discussing the rhetorical strategies we use to understand texts: over- and under-determination.  Over-determination is where the text under consideration says something unhelpful or even contrary to what the claims based on it needs (think of how St James says "justification is not by faith alone" (2:24) and then look at the collective hand-wringing being done by searching that phrase in Google).  Under-determination is where the text does not provide the necessary backing for the claims based on it.  He makes a compelling argument in the book that the standard Protestant reading of St Paul and 'justification' is riddled with over- and under-determinations.  The book (which is massive) is well worth a read, even if you don't end up agreeing with his conclusions.  I'd like to use that metric to return to the topic of inspiration of the Scriptures, which I've written on before and will repeat some of the things I said there.  (And, as always, I reserve the right to disagree with myself.)

The stereotypical argument concerning inspiration, at least as I learned it, went something like this:

A: The Bible is God's Word
B: God is Truth (or, negatively, God cannot lie)
C: Therefore, God's Word is true ("in all it speaks on" is a possible under-determination)

None of this is, for the most part, controversial (that the Lord Christ, member of the Trinity, is actually God's Word, from whom the Scriptures derive their authority, is an important point, but more is made of the difference between the two than is actually warranted).  Also, none of this speaks a whit about inspiration.  Inspiration is a teaching about the origin of the Scriptures, not their veracity or reliability.  There may be correlations between the two topics, but they cannot, and so should not, be collapsed into one another.  To do so would be to commit the genetic fallacy: the conclusion that the truthfulness of something is inherent in its origins.  This particular fallacy has gotten lots of play in biblical scholarship over the years, especially in Old Testament studies with the Documentary Hypothesis; it also has a long life within the culture wars when we assume that if we have evolved from brute animals, we must be nothing more than animals (and do note that I'm not making any claims about this subject: it is beyond my ken).

It is possible, though, that even saying inspiration is a doctrine of textual origins is an over-determination.  Once we clear out the texts about God's (and, consequently, His Word's and Spirit's) truthfulness, we have precious few didactic texts about inspiration itself.  The main one is found, of course, in 2 Timothy 3:16: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God..."  Unfortunately, there is no parallelism, nor any explanation of the term used for inspiration, which happens to be, alas, a hapax legomenon.  The term itself, θεόπνευστος, is a compound word from "God" and "breathing," so it could mean "God-breathed." Again, though, this may be problematic as compound words in all languages do not necessarily equal the sum of their parts. As this seems to be a word of Pauline origin (it is not extant in any other relevant ancient literature), it would seem best to look at how God's breath/Spirit is understood in the rest of the Scriptures. Here we find, of course, God's breath fluttering over the primordial Creation (Gen. 1:2), or the filling of Bezalel and Aholiab "in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all workmanship" (Ex. 31:3 -- the connections between this passage and that of 2 Tim. 3 should not be overlooked), or His dwelling with -- and leaving -- the judges and the kings, or the famous passage in Isaiah 61 ("The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me...to preach..."). God's Breath, then, is God's coming in power, especially in regards to the granting of words and wisdom. If we take this background back to 2 Tim. 3, we might see that the passage isn't speaking of origins, but rather how the Scriptures, bearing the Spirit of God, have power and authority: it is because they are a conduit of the divine Spirit that they can "make wise unto salvation...[be] profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." Read like this, the passage is utterly non-controversial. It does not speak about how the Scriptures came to be (other places speak vociferously about that: "the Word of the Lord came to me..."), but about the power of the Word in the apostolic ministry.


That last clause merits some unpacking. The biggest under-determination of this text is using it divorced from its canonical context. While one of the beauties of the Reformation was its opening of the Scriptures to any literate person (and the subsequent drive for mass literacy that is only now waning in Western culture), it came at the heavy price of all Scripture being read flatly, as if all Scripture was addressed to everyone in the same way at all times, and, worse, led to Scripture being read outside of its necessary ecclesial context. An argument I heard while listening to a podcast called "Kingdom Roots," made by Scot McKnight, assumed that this text meant anyone picking up the Scriptures could utilize that power and be "trained in righteousness," etc. However, this misses the point that St Paul the Apostle is writing this epistle to St Timothy, the designated guardian of the Apostolic Deposit (2 Tim. 1:14, 3:14, etc.). For him who has "carefully followed my teaching, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, perseverance, etc." the power, the God-breathedness, of the Scriptures is made available to him for teaching (as a catechist), for reproof (as a pastor), for correction (again), for instruction in righteousness (note the chiasm), "that the man of God [those in St Timothy's care] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work" (3:16-17), or as St Paul put it elsewhere, "and He gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors-teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ..." (Eph. 4:11-12). What tools do these gifted by the Spirit have for this work of equipping and edifying? The God-breathed Scriptures. Along with them, though, and inseparable, is that Apostolic Deposit, that way of life learned from the Apostles, what came by mouth or by letter (2 Thess. 2:15). There is no tension here between the Scriptures and the Tradition, for both came from the same Source: the Spirit given to the Apostles by the Lord Christ. The Church, which is the dwelling place of that selfsame Spirit, is the keeper of the Deposit -- which includes the Scriptures -- and the place where they must be properly understood and applied to the life of the believers in communion.


All this to say, and the true impetus behind writing tonight, is that we need to locate the Source of the Scripture's inspiration: the Spirit working through the Church. We over-determine 2 Tim. 3:16 in an attempt to ground sola Scriptura in Scripture, creating a bizarro circular argument in a text that was never meant to bear the weight of the Chicago Declaration. What is missing in the arguments about inspiration, precisely, is the Church herself. Inerrantists will be quick, in the face of all the text critical facts, to say that the Scriptures have been preserved from all error; yet the Church, the dwelling place of the Spirit (according to those Scriptures), is untrustworthy, fallible, corrupt, etc. What the doctrines of inspiration and inerrancy should make us do is to probe further our own understandings of what God is doing in history through His people, whom He has promised to indwell by His Spirit. The hard questions raised by post-evangelicals who have modified their views of Scripture based on the dilemmas and problems sola Scriptura and inerrancy (particularly) can be answered, but only as (paradoxically) we return to the Scriptures -- in their proper context, the Church -- and see what God has actually said about those Scriptures and the Church (and not just already assume our post-Reformation traditional answers).

The Scriptures, the Church, and the Trinity

Friends, what a long, strange trip it has been.

Over at Eclectic Orthodoxy, Fr. Kimel has been reblogging a shortened series of articles on the relationship between the Scriptures as we have them and the Church.  The full series starts with a fascinating and too-close-to-home salvo entitled "Unitarianism and the Bible of the Holy Trinity".  In it, he responds to a few evangelical thinkers, pastors, and scholars who are traveling the road away from any semblance of historical orthodoxy to a form of 'biblical' unitarianism.  Readers of this blog and close friends will see some remarkable similarities to my story, especially as it was expressed in my "Postmodern Protestant Dilemma" phase.  Reading the sources Fr. Kimel has been critiquing, along with the comments on the various postings, has been a trip down (a very painful) memory lane.  I've, in a certain narrative form, detailed most of the important things from that time before.  I still struggle, from time to time, with holdovers from that formative decade.  The strange thing to me, as I reflect on it further, is how those theological struggles effectively deconstructed my inherited Western (that is, Catholic-Protestant) understanding of God and built in its place an Eastern (that is, Orthodox) understanding via almost all the heresies of the ancient Church (as if they've ever really gone away).  To me, the grace of God is evident in hindsight; I wouldn't have known it at the time, though.

To continue the strangeness, Fr. Kimel's posts have been tackling the same questions I asked (and experienced as spiritual pain), in almost the same order.  One of the main ones, which I'd like to focus on here, is: is it possible to read a set of texts outside of their intended context and get their meaning?  In other words, can the Scriptures be divorced from the historical ecclesial setting they were written in and for, and still lead us to Trinitarian dogma?  It is a fascinating question; one that gets to the roots of lingering problems for Protestants and biblical interpretation.

One of the corollaries of sola Scriptura, as it is commonly practiced today, is that the Scriptures are a self-contained, self-interpreting set of documents.  Since they are the "only infallible rule for faith and life," they must contain completely clear and authoritative teaching on all that is necessary for faith and life.  (I know that this was not the original intent of the Reformation doctrine: I'm looking at my own experience with it and what I see in contemporary Protestantism.)  The Church can err; their interpretation of the documents can be taken as wisdom, but not ultimately authoritative, which includes confessional standards to which individual denominations and individual believers profess some sort of allegiance.  I've discussed this problem before.  Without a binding, authoritative (and implicitly infallible) interpretation from an ecclesial community, it falls to the individual believer to ascertain dogma for themselves.  This is key, as it opens up the problem of relativism: is there a dogma in these texts?  If so, how can we sufficiently prove it for the salvation of all humans?  In other words, once we determine the dogma behind the Scriptures, we must become apostles of it.  One can look at the work of Frank Viola in Reimagining Church for just such a stance.  One may also look at the work of Douglas Wilson and the CREC, or Mark Driscoll and the Acts 29 Network, or...etc.  But, and this is a rather sticky wicket here, if the individual is the arbiter of the text's meaning, how can it be objectively judged as the authoritative and binding (that is, true or infallible) interpretation of the text?

Short answer: it can't.

At this point, even if one were to adhere to some theory of "mere Christianity" (a common core of beliefs that are non-negotiable, whether C.S. Lewis-style or "The Fundamentals"-style), there is no medium to assure and discern either accuracy of interpretation or authoritative status.  One individual's reading is just as likely to be Spirit-inspired as another (especially given the demotion the Spirit often "enjoys" in evangelical circles from reality/hypostasis to emotion).  In the end, there is nothing that can be done about this, which calls for a radically different sort of ecclesiology, very akin to what we see in evangelicalism as it exists today.

However, the Scriptures never assert a doctrine of self-containment or self-interpretation.  In fact, "the Scriptures" itself doesn't exist in the Scriptures as understood in the modern world: what we call "the Bible" or "the Scriptures" are an abstraction.  The implicit understanding is that this collection of books is (a) self-authenticating, (b) complete by its own authority and testimony, and (c) self-contextualizing.  In other words, the Scriptures stand alone interpretively, without historical development or communal use.  This isn't to say that a community (or set of communities) hasn't utilized the books for its "faith and life," but that the community is always under judgment for error of misappropriation (semper reformanda secundum verbum dei).

Looking at the genesis of the texts (and here I'll concentrate on the New Testament), though, we see that this was not the intention of the authors.  Here's my claim: the authors of the New Testament never intended their epistles or books to have meaning outside their use in the ecclesial community started by Jesus Christ through His apostles and their legitimate successors.  In other words, there is no meaning to the, say,  book of Romans outside of its context in the Church.  Certainly, the words and sentences can be read and understood by those trained to read texts; but all that such a reading will generate are interesting tidbits that lack any binding authority for "faith and life."  Such a reading misses, for example, the link between St Paul's language of "faith" and the ecclesial sacrament of baptism.  The letter itself was never intended to be excised from this context, even though it was originally addressed to a certain (set of?) congregation in a historically delimited time and place.  Wherever the local Church is, there is the Catholic Church, we might say.  If we desire, then, to find the "original" meaning of a biblical text, it must be read within the liturgical and ascetic life of the Church.  To do otherwise is to produce, necessarily, eisegesis.

Another example might be the Gospels themselves: there are lots of scholarly theories about what they mean, which of the Lord Christ's sayings are "authentic," and what communities they were written for.  However, there is no evidence that the books ever circulated independently in disconnected communities (this isn't to say that they definitely never did, as one cannot prove an argument from silence): rather, the first mentions of them as authoritative texts come from, say, St Irenaeus who always speaks of them as a diverse unity.  What point, then, is there to trying to find their individual genesis?  Whether or not they ever circulated independently, they were not intended to stay that way (and very quickly left such a situation).  Any attempt to "get behind" the texts to figure out the "Johannine community" (for example) is an eisegetical red herring.

What, then, does the ecclesial context look like?  Here we encounter a question that I've only recently thought to ask: what did the Apostles hand on to the communities they established and nurtured?  I think I had always assumed that they gave them a verbal form of the Scriptures, maybe a copy of the Old Testament (and some not-yet-canonized New Testament works), and left it at that.  However, this assumption is riddled with problems: did they expect those who just came out of paganism, full of idolatry and immorality, to puzzle together what worship was and what it was for?  (I think, although I cannot prove this, that here is the origin of the various theories that put early Christian "innovations" such as invocation of the saints and iconography in the hands of the 'unwashed masses' who foisted them upon powerless and unsuspecting bishops.  These same pusillanimous bishops, of course, are they ones who used their power welded to Constantinian statecraft to force Trinitarian tritheism on the aforementioned pure unitarian 'unwashed masses.')  It seems clear, not only from the New Testament (particularly the necessarily laconic Pastoral Epistles) but also early Church history, that the Apostles were very thorough in passing on liturgies, ascetic practices, institutional forms, and dogmatic assumptions necessary for rightly reading and applying the inspired texts of Holy Writ.  In other words, "Holy Tradition" is just as old -- and necessary -- as the documents of the Church.  Tertullian and St Irenaeus, for example, received the (amazingly consistent, even with their variations) regula fidei from those who went before them as the necessary and unquestionable assumptions that guided biblical interpretation.  Those regula were, by all accounts, Trinitarian in form, even if not as fleshed out as they would need to become by the Arian, Eunomian, Pneumatomachian, Nestorian, Monophysite, Monothelite, Monoenergite, and other controversies that threatened to misinterpret and therefore damage the Apostolic Deposit.

What about the irregularities we see in these early centuries, though?  The whole of the Church Catholic did not, for example, use the so-called St John Chrysostom liturgy.  This is to be expected.  It only becomes a problem if we take the ecclesial context out of its own context: the action and work of the Holy Spirit within the community.  Could the liturgy develop in different ways in different historical and geographical contexts, yet still proclaim the same Faith?  Yes, as long as the same Spirit guided the developments.  Any theory that posits some some of "fall" of the Church needs to commit a terrible heresy: the Holy Spirit abandoned, wholesale, the Church sometime after the death of the Apostles.  In my own personal journey, this was the question that started to break up my own arrogance at interpreting the Scriptures outside the Pneumatic and ecclesial contexts in which their home is: if the Spirit had so abandoned the communities, why was my interpretation privileged?  Could the Spirit have just as easily (if not more easily, given my historical and cultural distant from the original Apostolate) have abandoned me?  Was it Descartes' proposed demon whispering my interpretive work in my ears?

This isn't to say, in the aftermath and my salvation via St Irenaeus and St Antony of Egypt, that things have gotten particularly easier.  The questions of where (that is, in what community) the Spirit resides, which form of the text is authoritative, and so on continue to dog me.  But the air has been sufficiently cleared from trying to read the Scriptures as a stand-alone document.  Conceived as such, they are a wax-nose: the Trinity won't be found in them because, and this is vital, the Trinity is the assumption needed to make sense of the texts.  Salvation is, in the end, sharing the Life of God (called "the Kingdom" and "eternal life"), so it only stands to reason that participating in that Life is necessary for the right use and understanding of the texts gifted to us by that very same God: Father, Son, and Spirit.

Certainty

A friend posted a question on Facebook about those who are Reformed and the use of prayer beads.  A discussion of those who were more or less committed to sola Scriptura ensued, with some Anglicans and Orthodox chiming in.  What was said isn't particularly relevant to what I'm writing right now -- the discussion proceeded down the same old talking points that are common to such things.  No real surprises at all.  For me, the important thing is once again how shaky it all is for us humans.  Either the Church fell into idolatry rather quickly (icons are being found earlier and earlier in the archaeological record, mosaics -- even of the Zodiac -- adorn Jewish synagogues; invocations of the saints are on record from very, very early, etc.) or the Reformation got it wrong.  I've tried, and maybe it is just my feeble mind, but I cannot see it any other way.  Of course, along the way, there were abuses: we shouldn't expect anything else.  But could the Church, whom Christ said He through the Spirit would lead into all Truth (Jn 16:13 -- or could our Lord be saying only the Apostles would be so led, with their descendants having to fend for themselves?), and which St Paul called the "pillar and ground of the Truth" (1 Tim. 3:15), have so monumentally failed in her dogma and worship (the twins that comprise the word "orthodoxy") that the Reformation (in its Calvinist and Zwinglian forms) was necessary to reset it?

And with the ongoing difficulties I've had in my faith, this question has loomed large.  The question is important, since being part of Christ's Body is tantamount to salvation (maybe this is why the Reformation developed the teaching of the "invisible Church"?): but which Church?  Which authority do we submit to that faithfully carries the life of Christ into the world still?  I've been told that I just need to have faith, by which seems to be meant blind belief: but the question of how I might be saved, how I might be healed and restored and glorified -- and the world along with me -- seems to need more than just "faith" in that restrictive sense.  It strikes me as more akin to Kierkegaard's "leap of faith" than what we see in the Gospels and Acts, which is predicated on the active presence of the Spirit.

While I flirted with a certain sort of ecumenism for awhile, I don't think in the end that it works: the mutually conflicting claims from all sides cannot jibe with one another.  We might say that many disagreements affect matters that are not important to salvation, such as a cappella music versus pianos/organs versus modern instruments.  However, if we believe there is any part of our doctrine and practice that does not lead us to or away from salvation in Christ, then we would do better to completely excise that thing.  I've heard, although I cannot confirm it, that Zwingli did not have singing in his churches.  If it doesn't matter how we worship God in song, then song is an unnecessary distraction from the real work of the Church.  If, however, how we sing helps to form us in Christ (and chanting of the Psalms, not metrical singing and certainly not praise bands, has the historical upper hand here), then we should hold firmly to it.  This doesn't mean, by the way, that there is an overly restrictive formula at work, an "if you sing like this, then God must save you" sort of thing: I cannot get into the theory behind the expansiveness of boundaries at this point, but let me point to Zeno and his paradoxes as a guide.

One way forward might be to ask, again, what the nature of salvation is.  If it is merely getting to heaven when we die, then there is no authority by which we might examine that claim.  All near-death experiences are unverifiable, even that little boy's from the popular book and movie, so there really is nothing but blind faith here.  The authority, I think, often lies with those able to be rhetorically astute in their (well-intentioned, no doubt) manipulation of fear.  In other words, sophistry.  We are all afraid of death, or at least have reservations about it, and these sorts of guarantees salve troubled souls.

Let's imagine, then, that salvation is becoming a 'good' person (whatever that means -- a problem with this possibility already).  Many of those who would be considered either heretical or pagan by ostensibly Christian groups produce impeccably moral people.  I'd even, and this is controversial, include atheists into this: I've met many who treat other human being respectfully and with love -- sometimes with greater earnestness and intensity than card-carrying Christians.  The objection might be made that those others are moral without stable reason.  That is, their morality is part of "common grace" but ultimately fails because it is irrationally held: it goes against their deepest held beliefs since only those who believe in the Christian God can be truly moral.  Understandable, but impossible to prove.  Plus, there is plenty of empirical evidence to show that, prima facie, the objection is false.  At any rate, the reality of the virtuous atheist shows up the theory that salvation is being/becoming moral.  This isn't to say that morality plays no part in Christian salvation, but it cannot be the be-all end-all.

Two down.  Maybe salvation is being made into a saint.  Now, you might think that I'm just repeating the "salvation as morality" claim, but I'm not.  A saint is not the same as a moral person, as any look at the history of saints will show.  Nor am I using the common Protestant definition of a saint as any one and every one who believes -- I've yet to see any Scriptural evidence to back up that particular understanding of sainthood (I've come to believe -- and I need to write this up -- that the differences between Colossians and Ephesians hinges on what a "saint" is).  No, a saint is one who has been healed of the corruption inherited from Adam, that is, who partakes of the Holy Spirit to such an extent that they can truly exclaim with St Paul "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me" (Gal. 2:20).  But again, how can this be shown?  Have I met any saints?  If this is the true definition of salvation, to be made a saint, what is the process by which this happens?  In other words, here is the crux of the matter: which ecclesial tradition allows for the possibility to become like the Apostles, like St Mary, like our Lord Christ Himself (albeit by grace, not by nature) in holiness?

And so, again, I'm stuck.

A Small Note on Biblical Interpretation

I recently heard a sermon in which the following argument was made:

1. The Scriptures clearly teach that God "desires all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:10) and God wills the salvation of only some of humankind, actively damning the rest (all, of course, to the praise of His glory -- no texts were used to argue this position, but I'm sure Romans 9 and Ephesians 1 were in the background).

2. These seem contradictory, for how can God will two incompatible things?

3. The reason they seem in contradiction is because of the fallen nature of human rationality, the "noetic effects of sin."

Here's the problem (or at least one of them) in this syllogism: if the noetic effects of sin are so profound, as the Reformed often argue, then the doctrine of perspicuity, that Scripture is clear and understandable in regards to salvation, is moot.  Under the corruptive effects of sin and death, there is no accessible reality that we can call the "clear teaching of the Bible."  We are fallen and so must necessarily always read the Bible through those lenses.  No amount of historical-critical or redemptive-historical or grammatical-historical interpretation can reveal the "clear" meaning of the Scriptures, as these are rational, and therefore necessarily fallen, methods of inquiry.  Since we are always interpreting texts (we never can access them in any so-called objective manner, as argued so cogently by Reformed philosopher James K. A. Smith in his The Fall of Interpretation), we can never come to the "clear" or "pure" meaning of the texts. (Add to this the problem of the non-existent inspired autographa and you've got a massive interpretive dilemma.)

Maybe, though, I'm overstating things.  It certainly sounds like I'm saying that there is no hope for us to understand (and therefore live by) the Scriptures (I'm not, but explanation will have to wait awhile).  Shouldn't we consider the clarifying work of generations of scholars to function sort of like Zeno's Paradox?  That is, while we will never overcome the noetic effects of sin, our rationality still does function somewhat according to its creational design, so we can get approximately close to the intended meaning?  Maybe, but the history of interpretation will destroy any lasting confidence in such a move: Unitarians, cultists, heretics, and so on cleave to a very similar principle.  It depends on an untenable belief in progress: the more we study the text, the closer we must come.  If that is the case, then there is no need to go back to the exegesis, say, of Calvin, as we have progressed from him.  In order to save ourselves, we cut off the branch on which we reside.

All of this to say that the proposed syllogism collapses. The Bible may have a teaching on the relationship between God's desire for the salvation of all and predestination (I think it does, but it is radically different than the Reformed tradition has led us to believe, about which I hope to write more soon -- it has become a summer book project for me), but it is anything but "clear." The final premise neutralizes the first.

Is there no hope? Indeed, there is, but it requires a radically different approach to the Scriptures.

The author of the Scriptures is, at the ultimate level, the Holy Spirit. "Who spake by the prophets" as the Creed puts it. Or as St Peter describes, "For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (2 Pt. 1:21). Modern interpretive methods rely on the human element of the text: the historical context, the literary genre, the cultural background, etc. These are good things, but they partake in the fallenness of the world (an important point brought up by Pete Enns, although I think he goes too far). These methods are essentially apophatic: they tell us what the Scriptures cannot mean, but not what they do mean. It is only as the fallen creational condition of the Scriptures is purified by the Holy Spirit (only thinks here of the role of the Spirit in the conception of the human nature of Jesus) that progress to the meaning and application of the Scriptures can be made. There is no correct interpretation of the Bible apart from the Holy Spirit.

If we are to interpret the Scriptures aright, therefore, we need to acquire (or better, be acquired by) the Spirit of God and Christ. Where does the Spirit reside? The Church. The problems with Sola Scriptura, many of which are already under debate in Reformed circles, always point us back to the "pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Tim. 3:15), of which Christ promised the Spirit would lead us (John 16:13). Of course, this thrusts us into more complicated (and more important) debates as to how we know the true Church. The Fathers, for their part, always argue for the necessity of holiness, that is, living in the Spirit, for proper interpretation and application of the Scriptures: one must engage in the life of the Church, the eternal Life of Jesus Christ, to be a theological authority.

The Problem of Truth and Idolatry

I've been following Dr. Pete Enns's blog as of late. There are many things that we agree on and, significantly, many things that we disagree on. On the agreement side, we both see the need to break out of a fundamentalistic understanding of Sola Scriptura (for the simple fact that it plain doesn't exist in any meaningful fashion); on the disagreement side, I'll never be an evolution subscriber as I don't see conclusive scientific evidence that makes evolutionary theory the best (or only) theory of biological/physical origins. I also am not a scientist, so I don't feel qualified to speak too much about the issue anyway.

As I was reading through a couple of his posts concerning the Conquest of Canaan and the various historical, archaeological, moral, and theological quandaries that stem from that event, I had a bit of an epiphany concerning both that debate and the evolution/creation debate. Both sides (to reduce it that way) rely, at least stereotypically, on a privileging of truth-method. (Note: I'm not saying Dr. Enns holds either of the views I'm going to superficially illustrate -- his blog posts served as a board from which to dive into these waters.) Those who argue for evolutionary origins or a non-occurrence of the Conquest (or the Exodus or David, etc.) often rely too heavily on scientific methodology to base their truth claims. If Kathleen Kenyon says Jericho wasn't destroyed by the Israelites, then it must not have happened (per example). The "facts of scientific investigation" don't back up the Biblical narrative. Or, given the various evidences about the age of the earth, we could say that the Biblical chronologies cannot be accurate. Either way, the main interpreter of the text is scientific findings. This, of course, has been rehearsed by many polemicists much brighter than myself.

The point I'm trying to make, though, is that often those on the other side privilege a literal-historical reading of the text over any other interpretive method. If the Bible "says" it happened this way, then it must have, regardless of any errant scientific findings. If the Bible "says" Jonah was swallowed by a great fish, then somewhere in the past a man named Jonah must have been swallowed by a fish. And so on. So, the Conquest must have happened in such-and-such a way, otherwise all of Biblical truth is at stake. If Adam was not a real historical person, then (the argument goes) Christ's resurrection loses its historical moorings. Whether or not these are valid conclusions, of course, remains to be argued. I've no interest in doing that now.

Both groups privilege one method of interpretation that is, regardless of method, detached from a basis in the living Tradition of the Church, that is, the holy Spirit "leading into all truth" (Jn. 16:13). Both seek an objectivity that is unmoored from the catechetical and theotic purposes of the Church reading, interpreting, and applying the Scriptures. Both are valid ways of addressing the text, but only if they come under the rubric of Christ's Spirit in Christ's Body, otherwise they are idolatry, seeking to make God over in our interpretive image. Any and all interpretive methods of the Scriptures must be connected to the living Spirit: now this does open the questions of who has the Spirit and who has authority (both questions, really, are the same question)? These are questions that I am not, as of now, qualified to answer. However, they do need to be brought up and prayerfully reckoned with in the Body. Too much is at stake, but possibly not what we normally think is at stake. Our readings of Scriptures will come and go, but a union with the Spirit is the definition of eternal salvation.

On Authority

Lately, and for quite some time, my mind has been vexed with the question of authority, especially ecclesial authority. In our fractured experience of Christianity, I wonder who (that is, which communion) has the rightful authority to call itself the Church. This presupposes that there is one true Church. Maybe that is too much to assume, but if God is "not the author of confusion" (1 Cor. 14:33), then there must be one true interpretation and application of Scripture to the life of the believer. The Church is, as Paul asserts, the "pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Tim. 3:15): can there be so many conflicting pillars? I may be looking at this the wrong way, but it seems that while there can be diversity in many things in the Christian life, there must be some sort of unity between the various bodies that comprise the one Body of Christ. Obviously, of course, that bond is the holy Spirit, but does that reality mean anything real and practical? That is, should there be some institutional unity amongst the Church? In many ways, this goes back to the previous post on authority. Hopefully, Lord willing, it is a step forward.

I present it as a dialogue between two people concerning the topic of Sola Scriptura.

Teacher: What should we believe and do so that we might be saved?

Catechumen: We must believe the Scriptures and do as they say, trusting in the grace of God through Jesus Christ.

T: Good. Whose interpretation of the Scriptures?

C: I don't follow. Scripture is self-interpreting. It's meaning is clear to all.

T: Then why are there so many differing interpretations? Should we have bishops or elders? Should we baptize via the process of immersion or sprinkling or pouring? Should we baptize children or only believing "adults"? Pre-mil? A-mil? Post-mil? I could go on, but hopefully you see the point.

C: I do, and it could drive me to despair.

T: Be glad, then, that we are not talking about the problematic presuppositions of textual criticism. The question, whether or not it is ultimately legitimate, often becomes whether or not there is a settled text at all (Dr. Bart Ehrman seems to have embraced this unfortunate train of thought).

C: So, there must be some ground that can guide us to a proper interpretation of the Scriptures, so that we might be saved.

T: Good. What is that "ground"?

C: The Spirit of God is the One who will "lead you into all Truth" (John 16:13).

T: Good. How do we know we have the Spirit, that is, that our interpretation is the proper interpretation of the Scriptures?

C: I do not know. This is something that has puzzled me for quite some time.

T: Let us do a little exercise, then. Who originally had the Spirit and the proper authority to rightly interpret the Scriptures?

C: That would be the Apostles of Christ, I suppose. It does say that the earliest Church grew because of its allegiance to Apostle's teaching, the breaking of bread, and the prayers (Acts 2:42).

T: Good. But what happens when the Apostles die?

C: Then their teaching must survive on in the Church. This, I suppose, is the origin of the New Testament?

T: Yes, but remember that Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles, says that the churches are to follow his Tradition, whether through word -- that is, spoken to them in their presence -- or through epistle -- that is, what will become what we know as the New Testament.

C: Did they contain the same thing?

T: This is a common assumption, but we see no one in early Church history hold to it. There is a common life, what Acts 2 called "the prayers," that needed to be passed on, which is the meaning of the word "tradition."

C: So, there is an apostolic written tradition, the New Testament, and an oral tradition?

T: It would seem so, wouldn't it?

C: But we are still in a quandry: has the Tradition survived throughout all these centuries? Can we trust any group to have held it faithfully throughout all that time? Are not all men sinners?

T: Indeed, all men are sinners. However, we have been given the promise of the Spirit of Truth to guide us into all truth, yes?

C: Yes, we've already established that. But who continues on the Tradition, who has the Spirit?

T: What pattern do we see in the New Testament? Do the Apostles train up men to continue their work?

C: As we've seen in 2 Thessalonians, Paul, at least, passed this assignment onto the individual churches.

T: So now we see the necessity of conciliar unity, yes?

C: Yes, one of the guarantors of proper interpretation is that the ancient churches agreed with one another. If one church did not hold the Tradition faithfully, there were others that would correct them and lovingly restore them. At least theoretically.

T: We see this in Bishop Clement's letter to the Corinthians shortly after the Apostle Paul's death (know as 1 Clement in the Apostolic Fathers). The question, then, is: did the Apostles entrust certain people in the congregation to do the work of guarding the Tradition, passing it onto the next generation, and training others to do the same? Obviously, the Tradition was in the hands of the people, but the church had a leadership -- did they have a role?

C: Of course! The people needed to keep their regular jobs and lives, living out the life of Christ in all their walks. So the leadership would need to be focused on teaching, or on serving, just like it was in the time of the earliest Church (Acts 6). In fact, in his teaching on this to his co-worker Timothy, Paul talks about training up bishops and elders for the work of teaching (1 Tim 3).

T: Good, you are making much progress. So, the Tradition -- the Apostolic interpretation accompanied by the common life and the "prayers" -- was maintained by the individual churches working in concert with one another, but was guarded and passed on by its leadership, the bishops and the elders. In other words, when Paul says that the Church is the "pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Tim 3:15), he means it.

C: So, for the proper interpretation, we need conciliar agreement between the churches, a Tradition passed on through the leadership, and an agreement with the Scriptures themselves?

T: Yes, exactly! This is what Irenaeus and Ignatius, early bishops of the Church, argue in their various epistles. It is called "Apostolic Succession" in theological terms.

C: However, we know from Church history that "Apostolic Succession" isn't enough. Didn't Rome err in the middle ages, necessitating the Reformation? Didn't the Reformers see that the ancient Tradition had been irretrievably lost, necessitating the teaching Sola Scriptura?

T: Well, this depends on what we believe about the Great Schism of AD 1054. It is possible, and I only say possible as this is not the topic of discussion, that the Roman bishop left the apostolic succession when they separated over the question of the Quinisext Council and the Filioque. If that is the case (and, for sake of argument, let us assume that), then the Reformation would have been necessary to restore that communion -- and all the other communions under Rome's jurisdiction -- to unity with the Apostolic Church. If all the other ancient churches, though, had also fallen in the meantime -- that is, if Eastern Orthodoxy, or Coptic Orthodoxy, or Oriental Orthodoxy (I'll not argue which one is most faithful) had fallen away from the Tradition -- then the promise of the Spirit to guide us "into all Truth" and Christ's promise to be with us "even unto the end of the age" (Matt. 28:20) will have failed. So, one of those communions, or set of communions (remember conciliar agreement?), must preserve the Apostolic Tradition faithfully.

C: But this would deny the legitimacy of the Reformation! It is historically evident that the Reformers did not find union with the East, in any form.

T: Like I said, though, it depends on your view of the Great Schism. If Rome had only recently (that is, with indulgences, etc.) fallen into heresy, then the Reformation was a necessary corrective to an erring bishopric.

C: What about Luther's insistence on the conscious of the believer?

T: Ah, a very important question: does the interpretation of the individual trump the conciliar authority, the Apostolic succession, and the agreement of the Scripture with these?

C: Wait, what if the Scripture does not agree? What if, for example, a communion of churches, in conciliar agreement, decide that bishops are to be unmarried, where Paul explicitly commands that they are to be "husbands of one wife" and to have children (1 Tim 3)?

T: You are asking how the Church might be lawfully be reformed?

C: Yes, I suppose so. What happens when one link in the chain fails?

T: We must ask, first, whether one error constitutes a true break of the Tradition? Could the Tradition be flexible enough to allow some "wiggle-room"? No extant church, we might say, totally preserves the Tradition unchanged. This does not mean, however, that the Tradition has been lost, rather that portions -- and we might assume that the Spirit will keep these portions small -- have been developed, or changed, or evolved, without major damage to the whole.

C: While not thinking ill of the Spirit (God forbid it!), is this not a rather large assumption?

T: Maybe and maybe not. As the Gospel goes out into many different cultures, there is bound to be local needs that must be met, not with an ironclad Tradition, but rather one with flexibility. There are dogmas -- things that the Church, in her Spirit-given wisdom -- that must be held to, but there are other parts of the Tradition that must show some flexibility. What happens when bishops, for example, come under great persecution? Is it better to maintain their married status, or to "be like I am" as Paul says (1 Cor. 7), able to serve the Lord without family hindrance in times of distress?

C: There is wisdom in that, I suppose. One would need to have a good rapport with the other leaders to change that back after the persecution ceased, then.

T: Indeed. This is necessary. And part of the reason that, at least in the East, bishop celibacy is the norm, but not a dogma. They have greater battles to fight right now, however, then that one. Lord willing someday this will be addressed. Have you been praying for them?

C: Pardon me, I have not. Should we pray for other communions?

T: It is one of the greatest needs of any time.

C: We still have not addressed my question about the legitimacy of the Reformation.

T: Indeed, we have not. The great question of the Reformation is whether or not it has restored the Church to conciliar unity, with the same teaching passed on by the early Church, and all in line with Scripture. This is the "calling," as it were, of the Reformation churches. It could be her divine calling. Has she succeeded?

C: Historically, no. Rome still holds to the Tridentine councils, even though they have been modified somewhat by the Vatican councils. Does this mean that the Reformation has failed?

T: No, but her calling is in danger, as it will always be. The enemy of our Lord wants nothing more than to keep the churches from uniting in love and truth (and it must be both). The Reformed churches must be spurred on to greater historical study in doctrine, liturgy, and the common life. There are many assumptions that must be jettisoned, I'm sure, but that will require much greater study to ascertain. Despair not! God has not abandoned any who call on the name of Christ, even if, as of now, they disagree. His Spirit will continue to lead us into all Truth, into the full stature of Jesus Christ (Eph 4).

C: Then there is much work to be done.

T: Yes. God bless you.

On Theological Authority

This is not meant to be a diatribe, but rather a thought-piece. I welcome any and all comments and corrections, as I am working through these things and it is easy to be overcome by passion, rather than love. Forgive me, I ask of you, in advance.

As a part of the Reformed community of Christians, I often hear sermons that detail various interpretations of passages given by (for example) Wayne Grudem, John Piper, John Edwards, John Calvin, Martin Luther, maybe John Owens or some other Puritan, and probably either Mark Driscoll or Tim Keller making an appearance here or there. Since these men are "in" with us, I suppose this is natural. However, I am increasingly troubled by the lack of Patristic and Medieval theologians, saints, and fellow believers showing up in our sermons, in our pietistic literature, and in our daily lives. Why is it, for example, that Augustine only makes a rare appearance (that is, when various passages of his can support our understanding of predestination)? Where is John Chrysostom? Or John of Damascus? Or Athanasius? Or Basil of Caeserea?

Part of the problem, I think, is that we do not require much in the way of Church history or historical theology in seminary. This might, although I am not sure, be due to the tendency of the Reformation itself to separate Church history into two parts: pre-Reformation error and Reformation recovery of the gospel. If that is our theological philosophy of history, then it makes sense to ignore (for all intents and purposes) those that came before Luther. This is not, of course, the official story that Reformed denominations hold, but it seems to be the implicit one. However, the view of the work of the holy Spirit that this vision of history entails is ultimately problematic. Jesus promises that the Spirit would "lead you into all truth" (Jn. 16:13). Was that promise only for the Apostles, after which the truth would fall into disrepair, error, and idolatry for 1400 years? If so, did Luther have the Spirit? Or Calvin? Or are we still waiting for the Spirit of Truth to reform us and remake us after Christ's image?

The question that I am asking, apart from these overly emotional arguments, is one of relative authority: to whom should we give interpretive priority, the moderns or the fathers? Note that I am not trying to draw a dichotomy (true or false) between them -- both have their place; my question is "what is that place?" What happens when they disagree? Sometimes sharply? Should the Ecumenical councils (at least the first four, if not all seven) hold some interpretive authority over modern hermeneutics? Or, are we so far advanced over the old ways of thinking as to render them irrelevant and outmoded? If so, does the holy Spirit change over time? Or is it a case of theological infancy blossoming into modern maturity (or adolescence)? Add to this the question of the piety/holiness of the interpreters: is Mark Driscoll more holy than Augustine? Than Maximos the Confessor? Is John Calvin a better witness to Christ than John Cassian? Should the relative holiness of an individual come into judging the relative merits and authority of their theology? Is Evagrius of Pontus correct when he says, "If you are a theologian you will pray, if you pray you are a theologian"?

Part of the difficulty, I think, is that in the Fathers pneumatology (our understanding and experience of the holy Spirit) is inseparable connected to ecclesiology (our understanding and experience of the Church): many of them where hard-working ascetic bishops who believed that they weren't uncovering something that was lost (whether in the first or second or third century), but rather were passing on something unmolested that had been passed on to them by their successors in the episcopate going back to the Apostles (known as "Apostolic Succession," which is attested to by St. Ignatius of Antioch as early as the 90s or 100s AD -- he was the third bishop of Antioch after Peter the Apostle to the Jews). In our Reformation context, we often talk about uncovering, or rediscovering, what had been lost -- and it is often very different from what these Fathers had passed on (for example, I know of no modern Reformed teacher who proclaims either theopoiesis or theosis [except maybe T.F. Torrance], that we are becoming by grace what Christ is by nature and that this is the true "chief end of man", even though this theme shows up in Irenaeus, Athanasius, the Cappadocian Fathers, etc. as a true "Patristic consensus"). This is troubling, especially as I read people who will claim that, for example, Gregory of Nyssa (one of the Cappadocian Fathers) had some bad parts of his theology because he doesn't line up with the Westminster Confession of Faith. Apart from the gross anachronism that this entails in the first place, it assumes that later theological expressions, in this case the WCF, have interpretive priority over earlier ones. Is this a valid assumption? If so, how is this different from Cardinal John Henry Newman's idea of "doctrinal development"? In his case, the development was rooted in the Roman Magisterium: where is it rooted in the Reformed world? Sola Scriptura? Whose interpretation of the Scriptures? Is it possible (taking this to one possible logical conclusion) that all interpretations of Scripture are wrong and we have yet to come to a correct one (and who would have the authority to claim that that one really was the correct one?), but we will because we are getting more and more theologically "mature"?

If we go with the Fathers, by contrast, does this lock us into their ecclesiology? Should Presbyterianism, then, cease to be? (A related question is where was Presbyterian church government before the Reformation? Ignatius of Antioch, as mentioned previously, argues for one bishop per city who loving rules over a collection of presbyters -- this is strikingly similar, albeit not quite the same, as modern Orthodox practice. While arguments can be made for the Biblical precedent for Presbyterianism, where was it in historical actuality? I confess my own ignorance at this point. It may be there and I've just not run into it. If you have sources, please pass them along).

And so, years later, the Postmodern Protestant Dilemma rages on. Lord, have mercy.

The Real Presence of the Christ

This post is somewhat a response to Mr. Robert Arakaki on Orthodox Bridge, a usually delightful site of Reformed-Evangelical and (Eastern) Orthodox dialogue (with, naturally, an emphasis on some prosyletism towards Orthodoxy). Since seminary at Trinity School for Ministry I have developed an interest in the possible connections between the Reformed tradition and Orthodoxy. I realize, after having many conversations both on the internet and off, that there are some unbridgeable parts between the two. Yet, hope springs eternal. I continue my quest to "rethink it all," albeit with a twist. I have changed -- dramatically -- since I started working on this train of thought. The problems that started it still remain (people my age leaving the Church -- this weighs always heavily on my heart and my mind), but my view towards many issues has, hopefully, matured. Part of that (possibly the majority of that) comes from a relatively recent rejection of cynicism. My own words from another journal aptly capture this:

I do not wish to be cynical any more. There is nothing more blinding than to believe that we see clearly when we assume that all operate only under the terms of power, sex, and wealth, or that all but we are ignorant. It is we who are blind and mad for the passions -- Christ is the Other under whom we must submit and learn, whether that Other manifests himself as poor, or woman, or black, or sexual sinner. "He came in the likeness of sinful flesh" to make our bodies like unto his glorious Body...

In other words, when I am cynical, I am enslaved to a point of view that blocks off the world: I can only see what my eyes see, believe only what my rationality leads me to, and so on. It was a logical outcome of my original hyper-Biblicism: I could only believe what I could see in the Bible. In other words, I could only believe at the level of my (paltry) rationality, which given the Reformed emphasis on the noetic effects of sin, led me to despair and cynicism. I remember one day (I shall never forget it), when I shouted out to my wife in despair, "Either God has abandoned His Church since the Apostles died or He has abandoned me!" Turns out, thank God, there were more paths than the dialectic rut I had carved (as I've related elsewhere).

When the scales fell off my eyes and I was allowed to read the Church Fathers sympathetically, I started to notice that many of the things I read in them were, yes, the same that I was finding in Scripture. There was (and is), as it were, a regula fidei, a [T]radition, behind the text that spoke volumes in these few recorded words. However, this has made me an ill-fit as a representative of the "Reformed tradition" (whatever, exactly, that may entail). As much as I long for institutional continuity and support, I am both a Protestant and an academic, which means that where I see the Reformed tradition as being in error, I must take exception (this strikes me as eerily familiar to the position I had previously concerning an over-rationalism: this gives me some food for thought). So, when Mr. Arakaki connected me to the Reformed tradition, and the possibility of Platonism lurking in the background of it, I was taken aback a bit. The branch of Reformed theology that I am most closely allied to, the Amsterdam School of Kuyper, Bavinck, and Dooyeweerd, views Platonism as the ultimate insult to any thinker. This has caused me, as all criticism (hopefully) should, to rethink and return to my own thoughts. Everything posted here at Withdrawals should be understood to not be a hard-and-fast dogmatic ruling (for I have no such authority), but rather meditations that I pray God will forgive me for -- they are meant for His glory, but are presented in decidedly earthen vessels.

Allow me to go through my own train of thought:

If, as Paul seems to say (and I've argued in my Chalcedon series) and Irenaeus definitely asserts, "Christ became what we are, so that we might become what He is," then we must ask what He is. While it took me years to come to and understand, I must confess that he is both man (that is, he has a full human nature, including a will, passions, a mind, a body, etc.) and God (everything that belongs to the essence and nature of divinity He has). However, we cannot stop there, because we would miss what he has become because of his sojourn among us. It is obvious from John's Gospel that the humanity which Christ assumed at the beginning of the Incarnation is transformed (or, better yet, transfigured) via the Resurrection: he can pass through walls, he has no need of eating, he can appear and disappear at will, etc. This is not "normal" humanity. It has gone "beyond" in some way, even if how is hard to conceive or describe. Paul, I think, sums it up nicely in his discussion of the "heavenly body" (I Cor. 15): certainly still a body, still corporeal, but suffused with the Glory and Life of God to such an extent that it breaks up our normal categories (just as the Kingdom itself does). It is a fully saved humanity. This assumes, though, that salvation is more than having sins forgiven (although that certainly is a part of it, thank God); rather salvation is a conquering of death, of misguided passions, and a sharing or participation (and I realize that is a Platonic term -- the use of a term or many terms does not equate with an endorsement of a system, one only has to sympathetically read the Cappadocians or Athanasius to understand that) in the Life that is Jesus Christ the Word of God (John 1 -- "in him was Life and that Life was the Light of the world). The body that Jesus has is the body that we shall get at our own Resurrection (Come quickly, Lord Jesus). But how do we share in this Life now and into the future?

Certainly here is where Paul's doctrine of justification of faith comes in. We enter Christ's Life by swearing our allegiance to him. However, there is more. To share in his body we must share in his Body. We must contextualize that allegiance in the life of his community, the Church (Cyprian and Calvin were right to say that there is no salvation outside of the Church, although I would qualify that a bit to allow for the mysterious and altogether merciful movements of the Spirit). We enter the Church, get ingrafted into the Body (Romans 11), through baptism, and once we are in, we can partake fully of Christ through the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the height of Christian sanctification, then, since we are sharing in the sacrifice of the Son, once for all completed, but always effectual and on offer for us. But there is more. This too easily can be seen as a social club (and, alas, in all parts of Christianity this often seems to be the ruling assumption) that magically guarantees us a "Get out of Hell free" card. How can we start living the Resurrection Life of Christ now? We partake of his Life through his Body, that is, through the Bread and Wine. We must eat Christ if we are to be his Body the Church and if we are to live in the "newness of life" that Paul talks about. For this to happen, it is a necessity that the Bread and Wine be more than mere symbol or "mystical feeding," but rather the Bread and Wine must be the actual, real resurrected and glorified Body and Blood of Jesus Christ himself. "What is not assumed by God is not healed," one of the Gregorys said, yet what is not partaken of cannot heal us. "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no Life in yourselves" (John 6).

I don't, at this point, find anything particularly un-Reformed about this: certainly most Reformed (probably a large majority) have viewed the supper as either entirely symbolic or as entirely spiritual, whence comes "mystical feeding." The problem often seems to be "how can Christ's humanity be present in more than one place at a time?" However, this is only if we understand heaven as a "place" and not as a state of existence (and I am guilty of this confusion -- I have difficulty thinking outside of my own creaturely constraints): Christ, in his theoanthropic unity, "fills all things" (Eph. 1) so it is very possible for him to transform (how this happens, I do not care to know) bread and wine into Bread and Wine, Body and Blood. His humanity, while still being created by God, is a different sort of humanity not constrained by time and space. However, we are. That is why, in the reality of worship, we are transported to the heavenly state, which does transcend creaturely limitations without obliterating them (for which I am thankful). Our worship, then, is a mirroring of, and I would argue a participation in, what Christ is, the union of Creator and creature, while still maintaining the proper distinctions. There is, in my mind, nothing particularly Platonic about this: rather it respects the Creator-creature distinction while leaving room for true unity: the principles of that unity are the holy Spirit (Christ's Life) and the glorified flesh (Christ's Body and Blood).

This may sound different than what I posted in the comments section over at the OB. Certainly, it is. I've had time to think and read the Scriptures and see why it is so necessary for us to partake of the actual humanity of Christ (the question has been piqued because of recent sermons I've heard about how to live the Christian life -- I don't think it is possible without having Christ's Life regularly in us, which happens during worship -- although the Spirit, His Life, is always with us -- a mystery I cannot explain, but I also cannot avoid it). Reformed folks who don't think like me, though, aren't necessarily in danger of Nestorianism, as I (and, by extension, the whole Reformed community) was accused of. If we are in heaven, in the state of existence where Christ theoanthropically dwells, the question of "localized presence" becomes a non-issue. Even if Christ's humanity cannot leave heaven (which I'm not arguing for -- God forbid), our presence there in worship means that we feed on that humanity "whenever we do this".

This has not been a point-by-point response to Mr. Arakaki. I do apologize for that, but I thought it would be more helpful to just lay all the cards out on the table. It is not particularly scholarly either, even though that was what Mr. Arakaki presented for me. Again, I apologize, but the constraints of creaturely existence (time and space) necessitate a more personal and stream-of-consciousness approach.

Further Thoughts on a Crisis

Over two years ago, I wrote a couple of pieces dealing with my so-called Postmodern Protestant Dilemma, in which I did not come to any sort of suitable conclusion, but left myself with a sense of confusion and befuddlement that has persisted to this day. Since then, I have concentrated heavily on defining what the Church is, how authority works in it, and what my own role in that authority structure is. However, the question of a transcendent standard that legitimizes and authorizes the Church continued to evade me. I mentioned, briefly, in my initial post that the Bible had had its own authority questioned by the higher critics, which effectively took the Bible out of the running for most of the Western Christian world, except for the "provincial" fundamentalists, some compromised and schizophrenic Reformed groups, and the Catholics. Since then I've returned to reading a loose collection of essays by Theodore P. Letis called The Ecclesiastical Text. I had read this sometime before my master's work started but after the conclusion of my undergrad, during which time the amount that I read was probably the highest I ever had, so much of what was read has fallen through my Orwellian memory hole.

Letis' broad thesis (if I understand him correctly) is that lower criticism (text criticism) and higher criticism (the conservatively scorned source, form, etc. German academic tools) are organically linked. If pressure to accept the lower form is bowed to (as B.B. Warfield did), then the higher is not very far behind. Why? Because a text that claims to be authoritative must have a fixed form. A constantly changing sacred text cannot be authoritative because it is never the same text (much like a famous Greek river). Since new "critical" editions of both testaments are constantly appearing, the "authoritative" text of the Church keeps changing. Even if textual variants supposedly do not change doctrines (although the case of John 1:18 should put that myth to rest), the fact that we cannot decide which text is "best" or "most original" destroys any forming authority that the Bible can have in the community of the Church and, therefore, the world.

Letis' answer is to restore, in a postcritical, Brevard-Childs-sort-of-way, the Ecclesiastical (or Byzantine or Textus Recptus, etc.) to the state of authorized text in the Church. (A quick note to say that Letis does not advocate for any certain translation to have inspired authority, such as the KJV, which many Byzantine text fans flock to--God spoke in Hebrew and Greek, not English). This text-type has the advantage of being the official text of the Church from the fourth century onward to the rise of lower criticism in Erasmus. The Reformers, both Lutheran and Calvinian, adopted this text over the Roman Vulgate or the Eastern Septuagint as the authoritative text of the Church. Importantly (and Letis labors this point), this text is not inerrant, that is, it suffers from scribal mistakes. However, it is infallible, it contains the Word of God as spoken by Him in the original languages, or in theological terms, it is verbally inspired. The seventeenth-century Protestant dogmaticians spoke at great length for this textual tradition as the authoritative one; so did the WCF. In my mind, the Ecclesiastical Text has a lot going for it and should be considered by all Church communities for their text.

The ET places doctrinal and practical authority back into the text of the Bible, which the Reformers would argue is its proper place. The Bible has transcendent origins and can, in able hands, be applied at all places and all times (which, it is important to note, does not mean it is a collection of universally-applicable propositions--hopefully the narrative focus of postmodern Christianity has put that colonialist impulse to rest). However, its authority stills owes itself to the human-based Church.

With the "inerrant autograph" theory, ultimate authority resides only with the text: the autographs from the pen of Paul or whoever, carry the inspired text of the Bible. Sounds good, except for the fact that the autographs are lost from history. This is the theory that guides Christian textual criticism, with the (fools?) hope that the original text can be recovered through means of objective scientific reconstruction and emendation. Thank goodness that all human fallibility is taken off of the text! Now the perfect, neutral text can reign supreme in faith and practice. Except for the fact that the scientific fingerprint of man is larger than we even thought, it being dusted by Thomas Kuhn (what a paradigm shifting work that was!). The "critical text", a child of the "inerrant autograph" theory, is a new text, never having been used in the wide history of Church until the advent of the NIV and its descendants. In other words, the "inerrant autograph" theory leaves the Church constantly without an authorized text because the authorized text changes all the time. The Word of God is taken out of the hand of everyday folks and placed squarely in the hands of textual critics and committees, the new, unofficial, priesthood of Protestantism.

To return to the ET, the authority of the text is in the text also, but by means of the Church. This is the text that the Church has agreed through many generations is the text that contains God's Word. When this text took its final shape, though, is long after the inspiration period of the apostles, in the fourth century. If you read my original post on my dilemma, part of the problem is that the Church has been so heavily influenced by Greek philosophy, especially as 'orthodoxy' was being determined in the fourth century. Bart Ehrman, one of the premier Church and text historians today, blew this all open with his book The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: 'orthodox' scribes knew how to "turn-a-phrase" to guarantee an orthodox interpretation, just as the heretics knew how. Both groups did it with frequency and much power at stake. Part of the interest for me in ancient christology is how all groups were not just arguing who Jesus was, but what authority Caesar should have in the Church, both sides (to my mind) ignoring the (especially Pauline) evidence that with Jesus, Caesar is unnecessary--but that is another point for another day. So, the ET may not have gotten a pure apostolic sanction either. In other words, no texts that we have can reasonably claim to be the original texts of the apostles and prophets: their faith communities have changed them to fit their needs and agendas. The greatest example of this, to my mind, is the difference in texts between Hebrew Jeremiah and Greek (LXX) Jeremiah. I argued in a term paper once that HJ was the product of the needs of the Babylonian captivity Jews, whereas GJ was the product (most likely) of Jeremiah himself in Egypt and the community there. My conclusions at the time were heavily in favor of the Greek recension, but I have since changed my opinion in favor the Massoretic or Hebrew version. Why? Because, according to Jeremiah!, the Egyptian community was rejected by God for not going into Babylonian captivity, instead returning to their original bondage in Egypt (pardon me for not having the reference on hand). The Babylonian community were the bearers of the Abrahamic promise, so they get the hat tipped in their favor, ecclesiastically at least. The point is that there is no such thing as a pristine text and it is historically arrogant and foolish to try and recover one. Community involvement also throws much of the "critical text" into question, which rests on the assumption that the variants produced by various manuscripts have no taint of theological corruption, except (of course) if the orthodox had their hands on them (which is that case, obviously by now, of the ET).

As a Protestant it pains me to say this, but it seems that the Scripture and "Holy Tradition" are inseparable, at least as far as texts go--interpretation is another matter altogether. The question is, as always, whose "Holy Tradition"? The Catholic Church with its Latin Vulgate tradition, the Eastern Church with its Greek Vulgate, the early Reformed and Protestant with its Hebrew-Greek hybrid and ET, or the modernist Church with its ever-new, never-settled "critical" tradition?

To vote on which text to use is to vote on one's connection to Church history. The modern Church has voted to be completely disconnected and it shows. However, various recent movements have been reversing this trend: the late seventies/early eighties defection to Catholicism, radical orthodoxy, and various "revivals" of ecclesial tradition amongst more conservative Reformed groups. Eventually I think that the textual issue will come to a head in these groups (for the Catholic converts it never was an issue, the Roman Church has stuck by the Vulgate through think-and-thin) and we may see some rejecting of the modernist NIV and its offspring.

As for me, these textual issues leave me in a greater state of disarray than before. I think that the "genesis" of the texts holds the key to offering a stable and long-lasting authority for Protestants and Christians in general. If we could agree what text to use, we might realize that our schizmatic differences are based on interpretation and tradition, bringing us one (admittedly small) step closer to ecumenity. In the end, there is no way of separating the text from its community, so the decision becomes about adherence and allegiance to which community and whether or not the reasons for doing so are legitimate and compelling. Unfortunately, to my mind, there will be no magical cure-all that says "here is the text and there is the community", but instead it will be much more "here is the community and there is the text". So my dilemma to find indisputable divine sanction continues, but isn't this what Church history has been always anyways?

My Postmodern Protestant Dilemma

Right now I'm reading The Soul of the American University by George Marsden. It is a very challenging book to me because Marsden carefully uncovers some of my own cherished beliefs as belonging to the world of secularism. Or, in the case of individualism, he shows how shallow and uncritical my antipathy towards ideas are. Most of all though, and this is mainly due to the professor of the course, I am finding myself once again struggling with the issue of authority and, especially, "ultimate" authority in the Church. I had these same struggles while reading John Henry Newman's The Idea of the University.

With Protestantism as a whole, we have an authoritorial crisis. The Reformers, I believe, originally did not want to separate their ecclesial authority structure from the bishopric of Rome. When (basically) forced out, they wanted to set up their own authoritative tradition, much in line with the whole "Rome" idea, except without all the "added" trappings of 16th century Catholicism. However, they found that many began to take the whole idea of an individual's right to question the authority structure without any ultimate reference to ecclesial authority (by which I am refering mainly to the Anabaptists as I understand their history). With the onset of Enlightenment emphases on individualism and autonomy (notably popularized by means of the Reformation), the authority crisis became graver and deeper: we all know that story by now. In wasn't until the rise of postmodernism (thanks Derrida) that the authority of the individual to make broad, absolute (yet individual, go figure) claims was successfully challenged. The modernist church couldn't answer the claims, since it was largely built on the same and if you are sawing the branch the you sit on you only have two options: you could fall and "great was its fall" or the saw could bind and you could realize your folly. Postmodernism is the outgrowth of that bind (which in many ways proceeded to get off the limb, finish the cut, and then jump after it in existential angsty depression).

So, my postmodern protestant dilemma.

From whence comes authority?

This also grew out of a vague suspicion (once again, something I thought of in class when I probably should have been thinking about other things, but it was a logical jump for me, which isn't saying much...) that "orthodoxy" was ultimately situational because it invariably grew out of an historical context (I feel so adult using 'an' with 'historical'). The ecumenical creeds grew out of a religious and philosophical climate that was decidedly Greek and decidely neo-Platonic. Both of which, I think, have been successfully challenged from a Biblical perspective by H. Dooyeweerd (it was also challenged by the amount of vowels in his name--wow!). So how can we relate these ideas of orthodoxy to our modern context that has shades of Greece, Rome, Israel, Britain, Germany and many other cultures and contexts? Does our orthodoxy look (or read) any different? Is it truly an absolute and timeless truth that we must follow uncritically? Anyway, that's a bit off topic for now.

If we do question the orthodoxy, one of the only remaining vestiges of old church authority remaining in Protestantism as a whole, or even if we don't, where does authority come from? Protestantism already has a history of asking this question of the Bible, hence the rise (and God-blessed demise) of higher criticism. We (by which I mean Protestants) have a strong tradition that if a man senses (or feels or 'knows' or whatever) a call to the ministry, most likely he will end up as a pastor. The judges of this call are men who came to the pastorate by similar means. However, we also have a strong tradition that we don't trust 'feelings' or emotion to judge theological issues, which I think would logically apply to the issue of pastoral calling. The problem being that Protestants have for a long time had a problem determining the workings of the Spirit, fearing (rightly) the absolute quenching of any Spirit activity and also fearing (rightly) the mania that can (but not necessarily) accompany revivals and Charismatic branches of the church. We end up tending to the former end of the spectrum and then usually ending up as cessationists.

What we have used though to determine 'fitness' for leadership, and therefore authority, has been education. Education is close to a co-mediator with Jesus in many Protestant circles, especially as the definition of 'Protestant' becomes larger and larger and more inclusive (and therefore more nebulous). Originally, at Harvard, a man needed to be educated (in the classical tradition, especially with the Biblical languages) to be in the pastorate. I am all for, by the way, the mastering of the Biblical languages by the pastorate (and not just because that is what my academic degree is in). This was because since the Reformers and Reformed had cast off papal authority they needed to back up their claims to Scriptural meaning with first rate exegesis and scholarship (my friends, I hope, will note the drool that just proceeded out of my mouth in excited fervency). However, in many places today, we have "pastor's seminaries" and "academic seminaries"--meaning that "pastor's sem" doesn't need to be (and therefore, as a rule, isn't) academic or inclined to serious scholarship. In other words, you can be a better Biblical scholar by getting an undergraduate degree (or pulling a "Good Will Hunting") in Biblical studies than you can be getting a master's at a "pastor's sem". Although, if you do that, you don't have any authority (but you do get a lot of weird glances from folks who are wary of someone speaking theologically that hasn't been to seminary). This isn't to say that you can't be academically astute by going to a ps (I'm abbreviating further since I didn't know I'd be using the description so much): the pastor at my church is very astute and academically inclined without losing his practicality.

Anyway, the authority is based on education that might not be wonderful. Plus, that sort of education doesn't breed the liberal mind of critical self-and-other inquiry. It is rewarded by the candidate being tested on the basis of a (more) limited, sectarian orthodoxy (not to be confused, necessarily, with the orthodoxy mentioned earlier). Not that nonsectarianism is possible in our present state (or possibly any state). I hope that the problem is coming into focus. If orthodoxy is historically conditioned and we are in a furthered (not a different necessarily since history is a continuum) historical setting, how can we base our authority on a lacking education that conditions to an orthodoxy that may need to have its underpinnings examined in light of Christian philosophy?

One solution is that we need a dictator. Protestants, generally, see the papacy that way and would balk at such an idea. Whether or not I'd identify the papacy with a dictator, I too would balk at the total control of God's church by one fallible human. Order may arise out of that, but it would severely limit the truth of God's word being spoken in any age because it would produce an impenetrable dogma (in the bad sense) that eventually would be codified outside of its historical moorings and may, anyway, be based on philosophical presuppositions that would find the climate of Greece or Rome or Germany or America more favorable than that of ancient Palestine.

Another solution is anarchy. Technically, it has been argued that Jesus' church is to be an anarchy, based on the passage that says "The Gentiles lord (Gr. arche) it over their subjects, but it shall not be so with you..." Unfortunately, 'anarcy' conjures up images of bomb-throwing individualist dictators (they would impose their version of authority and truth on whoever couldn't withstand them--the mafia is a good example) that ends up as a true dictatorship, which brings us back to the other option.

Linguistically I fail to come up with any way to describe an ideal situation of church authority (possibly because I can't think of any ideal situation, but the question of "does language bring it into being or does the being create the language" befuddles the problem further). It would be nice to return to the system of communal appelate judges of the Old Testament, but they had Moses (or the king) to go to to settle hard disputes. We do, technically, have Jesus to go to, but my tradition doesn't believe that he speaks audibly anymore (he only speaks through the pastors, which is a convenient way to befuddle any congregation that thinks about how a pastor is claiming papal powers for himself, even if he contradicts the Protestant pastor--sometimes of the same denomination--down the street on regular occasion).

In the long run, I am reiterating what I starting to say in "The Spirit says 'Come'" (which, by the way, Gideon I would like to speak some other time, thanks for the comment): where is the presence of God today? The Old Testament had theophanies and the New Testament had the ultimate theophany in Jesus (even though I'm critical of 'official' orthodoxy that doesn't mean that I'm not still orthodox). We seem, though, to have nothing, except the feelings of either the "mad" (declared so by the establishment), the "bad" (see previous comment), or the "Godly" (the sort-of-inspired pastor in his "preaching of the word", which, by the way, is a poor misconstruel of what the apostles meant by that phrase--it never meant a sermon, but more on that anon). But feelings, as I've said before, don't cut it in my tradition.

My initial thought (if anything this late in a long post can be called 'initial') is that we need to stop viewing the church as an institution and more as a community. The definition of those two words, however, is greatly debatable--and the two concepts are sometimes conflated (hence the presence of an institutional advancement office at a college that calls itself a 'community'). Most view an institution as something governed by strict rules while a community is more 'informal'. Apart from being impossible (everything has limits and boundaries and rules, although I argued it in a different context), communities always have rules--membership is always by strict rules and exclusion from a community can be harsh and unrelenting. (This, as a side note, lends some credence, I think, to NT Wright's understand in the New Perspective, with faith--given by the Holy Spirit--determining the community's membership).

At this point, I'm at a loss of what to say next. I feel that I've argued this all before, both on this blog and with myself and others to no suitable conclusion. Any comments would be appreciated. If any of you, dear readers, have read this far, thank you for your time and consideration into this poor, bedraggled and ragged 'souls' spiritual wanderings and confusions. Maybe I should rename the blog "Job's Mutterings"?

Thanks for your time.

The Spirit says "Come"

Tonight at assembly...

Quick Note: I am having a dickens of a time typing tonight for some reason...

...we talked about "cults". Cults are interesting because if your view changes, what may have seemed a cult turns out not to be one. Cults look at Evangelical or Reformed assemblies as wayward cults. So, in other words, it is hard to come up with a suitable definition without making it sound something like this:

"A cult is anyone not like us."

Sounds kinda cultish.

Three particular doctrines were singled out as particularly "cultish": no Trinity, no two-natures of Jesus, no salvation by grace through faith alone. My question, though, is: were there any cults before Nicea? The doctrine of the Trinity has a long and sordid history and has never really satisfactorily been defined to an intelligible state (maybe it falls under the "description" idea I posted about earlier?). Also, does this make the Catholic faith at least a "little" cultish...as far as I know the whole third doctrine above (salvation by grace through faith) was the reason for a large Church split back in the 16th century.

So how do we define a cult? A better question, maybe, is how do we define the Church? Part of what the apostles teaching on the Church seems to be that the Spirit of God fills it, much like it did the ancient Temple and Jesus. Could this possibly be the test of what the true (and therefore what the false) Church is: the presence of the Spirit? I don't claim to know, at this point, what the "presence of the Spirit" is, but at times past it seems that God has made it very clear: fiery theophanies, a dove alighting on a wet Messiah, and odd tongues of fire appearing over people's head who were uneducated but speaking several languages fluently (I feel that I missed that part in my former language training).

I've said before here that I think we need pray about the division of the Church into so many parts because it doesn't necessarily show a divided emphasis (which is fine and different places need different things at different times), but because it shows a divided allegiance. God is not at war with Himself, but His Church seems to be at war with itself continually.

I guess that I'm kind of hoping for an Elijah-Mt.Carmel experience for the Church: we need to know who truly has the Spirit of God. Not, of course, that one denomination need have a monopoly on God's Spirit. There are certain beliefs, though, that I'm sure carry the divine imprimatur instead of others.

Come, Holy Spirit, guide us to unity in the faith and to unity of purpose together as God's people.