I am increasingly of the belief that one of the biggest problems - and the root of many other problems - with contemporary Evangelicalism is what I call "hyper-Reformation theology." I don't mean hyper-Calvinism. I use the term "Reformation theology" to refer to five points which are far more fundamental to the Reformation that the points of Calvinism: namely, the five solas. By the term "hyper-Reformation theology," I mean a collection of exaggerated caricatures of these essential doctrines which are currently popular among Evangelicals. The most visible of these is "hyper-sola scriptura", which I have discussed before, but there are similar positions for each of the others: "sola fide" and "sola gratia" become an excuse for antinomianism; "solus Christus" and "soli deo gloria" mean we shouldn't ever mention any dead saints, and Mary the mother of Christ is not to be mentioned except at Christmas. Now, I deliberately state these absurdly, but I really think that these sorts of caricatures are behind a lot of the problems in contemporary Evangelicalism, and I know that, for my part, it was not until recently that I had any real idea of how to finish the sentences ("scripture alone ... what?"). Now Johnny-Dee is pointing to a very interesting article by J.P. Moreland on "hyper-sola scriptura" which he provocatively calls "Evangelical over-commitment to the Bible." I don't agree with everything he says, but I think he appreciates the nature of the problem and the fact that it can be addressed without rejecting inerrancy or "sola scriptura," properly understood. He also has some interesting reflections on how we got here, which have to do with the sociology of education.
A lot actually. I don't want to start making a list (I might not stop). Regular readers may wonder why I still use the title so prominently, given my concern for history and tradition, and frequent attempts to distance myself from many elements of popular Evangelicalism. The answer is that I agree with the statements of faith of all the major Evangelical para-church groups, including their view of Scripture (my increasingly great respect for tradition has not altered that), and I continue to believe (perhaps more strongly than before) in "generous orthodoxy" - the view that the collection of doctrines we require all of our church members and leaders to subscribe to should be closer to the length and level of detail of the Nicene Creed than to the length and level of detail of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, or even the Westminster Confession. (I say "closer to the length and level of detail of the Nicene Creed" - I certainly don't think that affirming only the Nicene Creed is sufficient for church leadership, and I don't think it's probably enough for membership either - you need at least to hold a view of the authority of Scripture - but I certainly don't think that one should have to affirm a book length statement, even for leadership, unless that book is the Bible itself.)
The reason I bring this up (besides the need to define myself in relation to our recent fascinating Ecumenical discussion), is that I've just read a review by Carl Trueman of a book entitled Is The Reformation Over? on Reformation21 (the magazine not the blog), which was recommended to me by a friend. The review is very well written and I think it does a good job of describing some of the shortcomings of modern Evangelicalism, and giving reasons for nevertheless not giving up on the Reformation. I agree with nearly everything he says.
Last night, I had a brief friendly debate with some Calvinists, which has me thinking about theological method. Briefly, I approach the issue of Calvinism and Arminianism from the perspective primarily of philosophy rather than revealed theology. That is, I argue that libertarian free will, which is incompatible with most (but, surprisingly, not all) versions of Calvinism, but is central to Arminianism, is a philosophically attractive thesis on grounds of, for instance, human moral responsibility, the problem of evil, and the phenomenology of choice. (I don't claim that Calvinists can't provide accounts of these things, I simply claim that Arminians are able to provide better accounts. I also acknowledge that Calvinists might have better accounts of other things.) As an Evangelical, I have to justify this approach, and I generally justify it by arguing that the answer is simply not, or at least not clearly, revealed to us; that the Scriptural arguments pro and con balance, or at least nearly balance. Because I don't believe the answer is revealed to us, and also because of the nature of the question, I don't think this issue is that important, as theological claims go (but it is still a theological claim, and therefore matters). As a result, when it comes up in theological contexts my approach is generally to argue for a claim that I do think is important: the claim that this is not a matter of dogma, i.e. that churches ought not to enforce uniformity of belief on this issue among their members or even among their leadership. I've been trying to think through my reasons for this, and I've realized that they have a lot to do with theological method, so in this post I am going to develop an account of an idealized theological method (still very much a work in progress - objections or suggestions are extremely welcome!), then briefly attempt to identify where in this method Calvinism and Arminianism enter the picture, and suggest that their position ought to disqualify them from being considered dogma. (Wayne Leman's five part series on what the Bible "explicitly" teaches about headship and submission, discusses what it means for the Bible to explicitly teach something and so has also helped to get me thinking about this subject.)
I have wrestled on this blog with questions about Scripture and tradition, and have usually been short on answers. In the context of the present discussion, I am going to venture an answer to the question of how the two relate to one another: tradition, I claim, enters the picture in that the method described below is to be applied primarily by the Church rather than the individual. In saying it is applied by the Church, I mean to include the entire Church, from the beginning to the present. Because the process is iterative and further stages build on past stages, awareness of Christian tradition will be critical if an individual's efforts are to contribute to the total process. (It should be noted that this is not a general answer to the question of the relationship between Scripture and tradition because, as those who have read my Why Believe the Bible? series are aware, I think that the Church and its traditions have something to do with how we know that the Bible should be central to our theological method.) It is a good intellectual exercise, I think, for an individual to start, as it were, from scratch in theology, but we ought not to base our doctrine or our lives on the conclusions that we have drawn from scratch without awareness of the total process being done by the Church.
Although tradition thus has an important place in theology, I suspect that the nature of the method is such that anyone who believes that this is the correct method for the Church to apply agrees with what the Reformers meant by sola scriptura (but I am not an expert on Reformation theology). Also, it is critical to realize that the individual and, especially, the Church is to be guided by the Holy Spirit throughout the process.
Here, then, are the steps in my proposed theological method:
Step 1 is harder than it sounds. For one thing, language and culture come in here. (Fortunately, the Church started the process when the cultural and linguistic context of at least the New Testament was familiar.) For another, we have to be careful not to take things out of context. However, I'm pretty confident that even an individual acting alone could read through the Bible, especially the epistles which are the most explicitly theological portions, and take the general points (without getting bogged down in details) and have enough to go on to get started, and a significant enough percentage of this would be correct that the process would be able to self-correct in later iterations.
In step 2 our primary concern is to form general theories, resolve apparent contradictions, and interpret at a slightly deeper level. In step 3, we wish to know if there are any further points to which we are rationally comitted by accepting the theological points we have earlier discovered. At either of these steps, we may decide that what we previously thought was clear is no longer so clear. Finally, we return to Scripture and begin again by looking at those portions which were previously unclear to us to see if further learning has made them any clearer. From here, we iterate through the process again. Further iterations may lead to modify our previous conclusions, and this is ok.
This is a process that the Church is to undertake communally. We might try (but there are a lot of fuzzy concepts here) to say that someone is within the bounds of historical orthodoxy if and only if he or she shares the general views of the community to a great enough degree to be able to participate meaningfully in the process.
Now, the claim of a belief to be dogma should, it seems, be judged on two closely related issues: first, how early in the process is it discovered, and, second, how confident is the Church about it. These are closely related, because the Church is, in general, most confident about things that can be drawn immediately out of Scripture or derived with very little interpretation and which have not been subject to credible challenges in later iterations. (A third issue, which I will ignore here, is the degree of practical importance attached to the doctrine; if a doctrine has a lot of practical importance in terms of ethics or religious practice churches may be forced to take a position on it.)
As an example, doctrines like "all humans are sinners" (Romans 3:23, etc.) or "those who trust Jesus are not condemned for their sin" (John 3:18, etc.) come from step 1. On the first iteration of step 2, we might get doctrines like the trinity, a basic concept of propitiation (subject to refinement in future cycles), and such things. Then we'll go back and read confusing passages in light of these discoveries.
Now, my claim is that Calvinism and Arminianism are late-comers in this process; an ideal reasoner might get one or the other on the third iteration of steps 2 and 3. One point in support of this is simply that basic exegesis and preaching is rarely directly effected by one's views on this issues; they come in at the level of systematic theology (steps 2 and 3), and even then they are relatively advanced subjects in systematic theology. Another point is that they are late-comers historically. Now, it is important to note that the discussion is not without precedent in Church history, but before Arminius challenged Calvin's views on the subject, the debate was not carried on the way it is today, and it wasn't nearly as focal. Thus, even though some of the issues were around earlier, the actual debate is relatively recent. However, this could have at least two other explanations (and there exist debates having each of these explanations): the first is that prior to that time it was simply assumed that everyone held one view rather than the other, and the second is that some outside circumstance cause the debate to come to prominence. The first I find implausible (though if it were the case, it wouldn't go well for the Calvinists, as their position is an extreme one in the total context of Church history). The second is possible, since the discussion is partially a reaction against perceived Pelagianism in the Roman Catholic church. In short, between the antecedent debates and the outside circumstances, the recentness argument is a relatively minor consideration.
I do think, however, that, on balance, this discussion shows some reason to suppose that the issue of Calvinism or Arminianism is not a good candidate for the status of dogma.
Peter Kirk has posted a discussion of the Latin text Augustine was familiar with and its effect on his doctrine of original sin. The claim is, effectively, this: Augustine believed in the doctrine of original guilt because of an ambiguity introduced by an excessively literal Latin Bible which persists in the Vulgate and later theologians have a propensity to read original guilt into the text of Scripture because Augustine did. The passage in question is the end of Romans 5:12. The English translations are pretty much all the same: "in this way death spread to all men, because all sinned." But Augustine's translation says "in whom all sinned." The English translations are certainly more accurate. It is true, however, that many theologians, following Augustine, have claimed that everyone sinned in Adam. For instance, Michael Rea's paper "The Metaphysics of Original Sin" (which I highly recommend, if for no other reason than because it's fun) discusses several Western accounts of original sin and finds it necessary to examine various accounts of personal identity, since some of these theories require that we actually each be identical with Adam at the time of his first sin, and not identical with him at his second sin, i.e. that in Adam's eating of the fruit we literally all sin in him.
Now, in the comments, Jeremy and others argue, and Peter concedes, that no contemporary Protestant theologian actually makes the argument Augustine makes and, in fact, have other arguments for this conclusion, but Peter nevertheless (plausibly) claims that we tend to be more inclined to accept this view because of Augustine's influence on the tradition.
Peter's claim is supported by the fact that in the Christian East, where Augustine's influence is considerably less (though he is still a canonized saint), theologians have generally accepted original sin while denying original guilt, which, if I read him correctly, is also Peter's view. I have been told that this view was also held by John Wesley who got it from the various Eastern Christian writers he read (he was particularly fond of the Macarian Homilies). The view is this: because of Adam's sin, human nature is corrupted so that none of us is able not to sin (Romans 3:23); however, contra Augustine, we are held guilty only for our own particular acts of sin (which we all necessarily commit due to the corruption of our natures) and not for Adam's sin.
Now, I see the doctrine of original sin as very strongly supported by Scripture, whereas I think the doctrine of original guilt is something that comes primarily out of systematic theology rather than the clear teaching of specific passages of Scripture. (Augustine, of course, had a specific passage teaching this view in his Bible, but that was due to a misleading translation.) In fact, Romans 5:12 seems rather supportive of the original-sin-without-original-guilt view under consideration as against the Augustinian view. For the record, I regard both views as plausible and orthodox, provided that those who deny original guilt make strong enough claims about depravity.
Throughout Romans 5, Paul sets up a parallel between Adam and Christ, the new Adam. "if by the one man's trespass the many died, how much more have the grace of God and the gift overflowed to the many by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ ... from one sin came the judgment, resulting in condemnation, but from the many trespasses came the gift, resulting in justification." (vv. 15 and 16) And the correspondance is real: indeed, there is a theological debate directly parallel to the debate about original guilt, and this is the debate about imputation of righteousness. "To impute" is a King James term for the Greek logizomai which can mean "to charge to one's account" (the word at Romans 5:13 is ellogeo, a cognate that means just exactly and only "to charge to one's account", whereas logizomai is a broader term and can also mean "to reckon," "to add up," "to consider," "to think," etc.). The doctrine of imputation of righteousness says that we are credited ("to credit" is a good translation of logizomai when used with a positive connotaton in some contexts) with Christ's righteousness; that is, in judging us, God considers Christ's righteous life as if it were ours and so acquits ("justifies" - Greek dikaioo) us, rather than condemning us for our sins.
(A brief note on this word: "justified" is often glossed as "declared righteous," and that's not so bad, except that "righteous" is also a technical theological term, and is also originally a legal term in the Greek, and we don't necessarily know what it means. To be righteous is to be on the right side of the law. To be justified means to have a judicial declaration state that you owe no (further) civil or criminal penalty. This can mean one of two things: either you have been found innocent or the penalty has been paid in full and you can now be released. I've used the translation "acquitted," which is footnoted in the HCSB, because it is easy to understand in this context, but I think Paul plays on the broader semantic range of the Greek word: on the one hand, we are acquitted because of Christ's innocence, but on the other hand, we were guilty and Christ paid our penalty for us. I think these are two different metaphors that Paul intentionally merges in his overally view of "justification.")
While Paul speaks of God "imputing" (or, rather, not imputing) sin in several places, the only talk of "imputing" righteousness in the New Testament centers around Genesis 15:6, which uses that wording in the Septuagint. The longest such discussion is Romans 4, immediately before our passage. This verse, as quoted by Paul at Romans 4:3, reads "But Abraham trusted God, and it was counted toward his [being] on the right side of the law" (my translation - traditionally, "Abraham believed God and it was credited to him for righteousness"). At 4:24-25, Paul connects this back to us and to Christ: "[Our trust] is about to be counted in our [favor], since we place our trust in the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead. [Jesus] was betrayed on account of our violations [of God's law] and raised on account of the full payment of our penalty [or 'on account of our acquittal']." (With the traditional theological vocabulary: "[Our faith] is about to be imputed to us [as righteousness], since we have faith in the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead. [Jesus] was betrayed on account of our transgressions and raised on account of our justification.")
This, as I said, leads directly into Romans 5, the first verse of which says, "Therefore, since our penalty has been declared 'paid in full' because we have trusted him [lit. 'from trust' or 'because of trust'], we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." (Side note: I'm beginning to understand why translators use the traditional theological vocabulary - translating into plain English is hard work, and I'm not sure I'm even succeeding!) The traditional Protestant view can be seen as a pretty straightforward inference from this passage: because we trust in Christ's rigtheousness rather than our own, God judges us on the basis of Christ's righteousness, rather than on the basis of our own. There is a lot of Biblical support for this kind of idea, especially in the prophetic books, often with the metaphor of clothing (e.g. Isaiah 61:10, 64:6, Zechariah 3) - I have no intention of tracking down every passage to this effect, because there are a lot of them. In fact, I think this is strongly enough supported that the parallel to imputation of righteousness can be used as an argument in favor of original guilt! Nevertheless, it remains an inference from the text, rather than the immediate teaching of the text. The immediate teaching of the text is something more vague and general, as original sin is more vague and general than original guilt. The text teaches that Adam's sin brought sin and death into the world for everyone, and Christ's righteousness brings life, peace, and justification into the world for everyone who believes.
As this is an inference, there is room for a view parallel to the original-sin-without-original-guilt view: the Christ's-righteousness-without-imputation view which, if I understand this article correctly, may be the view of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The author says "For a Christian, the beginning of eternal-life is the beginning of his belief in Jesus Christ. For him a promise has been given, a reward for eternity because, 'Who soever liveth and believeth in Me, shall never die' (John 11:26)." Later he also says, "Repentance is the exercise of the free will of man, without which there is no salvation ... Repentance is ... the human reaction to the appeal of Jesus Christ." Christ, his righteous life and sacrificial death, his promise, and our trust in him are thus all seen as essential ingredients in salvation. Later, however, judgment is said to be according to "faith and deeds on earth" and reference is made to "the moral progress of the soul." Now, this is admittedly a little vague, and I'm going to interpret it charitably, keeping in mind that the Orthodox theologians who say these things intend them to be compatible with Scripture, including Romans. What could this possibly mean that would be compatible? Well, first we note that repentance and faith are seen as the beginning of this process - no good deed or "moral progress" occurring before this can please God in such a way as to acheive salvation - and that repentance is seen as a "reaction to the appeal of Jesus Christ." We further note that Pelagianism - the view that man is capable of initiating and/or accomplishing his own salvation - is regarded as a heresy in the East just as in the West. The story of salvation begins with "the appeal of Jesus Christ." Only after Christ makes his appeal to us can there be good deeds and "moral progress." We can then understand this Christ's-righteousness-without-imputation view by comparison with the original-sin-without-original-guilt view. Remember that because of Romans 5 we ought to say that we have Christ's righteousness in the same way we once had Adam's sin. As a result of Adam's sin, "death spread to all men because all sinned." We now claim that because of Christ's righteousness life can spread to all who believe, because all can live righteous lives. After repentance and the new birth, the believer can say "I have been crucified with Christ; and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me." (Galatians 2:19-20) Christ in the believer now does what the believer could not do for himself - lives the life pleasing to God. On account of this life, the believer is judged to be righteous and acquitted of his sin. (Everyone who has begun the process - who has repented and believed - counts as "saved" in the Evangelical sense of that term. The Orthodox writer combines the "Great White Throne" judgment by which one enters heaven [Revelation 20:11-15] with the bema judgment for the heavenly reward [2 Corinthians 5:10].)
Now, what this theory needs, which is not mentioned in the article I linked, is an account of atonement. I don't necessarily mean penal substitution - I regard the doctrine of the atonement as an essential point of orthdoxy, but penal substitution as a probably correct but certainly incomplete account of the atonement. If this theory is to work, we cannot claim simply that the believer is "a new creation ... the new things have come;" we must also claim that "old things have passed away" (2 Corinthians 5:17), and the clear Biblical teaching is that, one way or another, it is the death of Christ that takes away our old sins (Romans 6:1-11, Ephesians 2:14-16, etc.).
By way of conclusion, let me say that I regard the traditional Protestant view as solidly Biblically and historically orthodox, whereas the view that I've been sketching here I say might be made to be both plausible and orthodox if sufficiently strong pictures of depravity and atonement can be annexed to it. This is far from an endorsement of this theory, but I present it for your consideration in the hope that it will cause you to reexamine your assumptions and think through the Biblical and rational grounds of your beliefs. Good luck!
In the course of a bit of research on Berkeley's views on the epistemology of religion, I have just come across a little letter Berkeley wrote to one Sir John James, dated June 7, 1741. James was, apparently, an Anglican living in Boston who was considering converting to Roman Catholicism. While for some reason (perhaps because he was Irish) Berkeley is often mistakenly believed to have been a member of the Roman Catholic Church, he was, in fact, a member of the clergy of the Church of England, and wrote against Roman Catholicism on a number of occasions, this being one of them. His writings on the subject are, however, admirably balanced, respectful, and civil as compared with many of the polemics produced by his Protestant contemporaries. The letter to James, published in vol. 7, pp. 143-155 of The Works of George Berkeley, ed. Luce and Jessop, contains some wonderful reflections on individual knowledge and experience of God, the nature and authority of the Church, and the Christian life. Below are some passages that stuck out to me. I've copied quite a lot of text here (hurray for the public domain!) because that much of it was that God and Berkeley's theology is a very neglected topic. Most of the references in brackets are found in Luce's footnotes; a few that Luce missed were added by me.
You observe very justly that Christ's religion is spiritual, and the Christian life supernatural; and that there is no judge of spiritual things but the spirit of God. We have need, therefore, of aid and light from above. Accordingly we have the Spirit of God to guide us into all truth. [John 16:3] If we are sanctified and enlightened by the Holy Ghost & by Christ, this will make up for our defects without the Pope's assistance. And why our Church and her pious members may not hope for this help as well as others I see no reason. That Author of our faith tells us, He that will do the will of God, shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God. [John 7:17]There is an indwelling of Chirst and the Holy Spirit, there is an inward light
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There is an invisible Church whereof Christ is the head, the members of which are linked together by faith, hope, & charity. By faith in Christ, not in the Pope.
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Men travelling in day-light see by one common light, though each with his own eyes. If one man shou'd say to the rest, Shut your eyes and follow me who see better than you all. This wou'd not be well taken. The sincere Christians of our communion are governed or led by the inward light of God's grace, by the outward light of his written word, by the ancient and Catholic traditions of Christ's church, by the ordinances of our National Church which we take to consist all and hang together. But then we see, as all must do with out own eyes, by a common llight but each with his own private eyes. And so must you too or you will not see at all. And not seeing at all how can you too chuse a Church? Why prefer that of Rom to that of England? Thus far, and in this sense every man's judgment is private as well as ours. Some indeed go farther and without regard to the holy Spirit or the word of God, or the writings of the primitive fathers, or the universal uninterrupt'd traditions of the Church, will pretend to canvass every mystery, every step of Providence, and reduce it to the private standard of their own fancy, for reason reaches not those things. Such as these I give up and disown as well as you do.
I grant it is meet the Law of Christ shou'd like other laws have magistrates to explain and apply it. But then as in the civil State a private man may know the law enough to avoid transgressing it, and also to see whether the magistrates deviate into tyrrany: Even so, in the other case a private Christian may know and ought to know the written law of God and not give himself up blindly tot he dictates of the Pope and his assessors.
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Light and heat are both found in a religious mind duly disposed. Light in due order goes first. It is dangerous to begin with heat, that is with affections. To ballance earthly affections by spiritual affections is right. But our affections shou'd grow from inquiry and deliberation else there is danger of our being superstitious or Enthusiasts. An affection conceived towards a particular Church, upon reading some spiritual authors of that Communion which might have left a bias in the mind is I apprehend to be suspected. Most men act with a byas. God knows how far my education may have byassed me against the Church of Rome ... It is our duty to strive to divest our selves of all byas whatsoever.
Whatever unguarded expressions may be found in this or that Protestant Divine, it is certainly the Doctrine of our Church that no particular church or congregation of Believers is infallible. We hold all mankind to be peccable and errable, even the Pope himself with all that belong to him. We are like men in a cave in this present life seeing by a dim light through such chinks as the divine goodness hath open'd to us. We dare not talk in the high unerring positive style of the Romanists. We confess that we see through a glass darkly [1 Cor. 13:12]: and rejoice that we see enough to determine our practice and excite our hopes.
...There is indeed an invisible Church, whereof Christ is head, linked together by charity, animated with the same hope, sanctifyed by the same Spirit, heirs of the same promise. This is the universal church militant and triumphant: the militant dispersed in all parts of Christendom partaking of the same word and sacraments. There are also visible, political or national churches: none of which is universal ... The members of this universal church are not visible by outward makrs, but certainly known only to God whose Spirit will sanctifie and maintain it to the end of time.
The church is a calling ekklesia. Many are called by few are chosen. [Matt. 22:14] Therefore there is no reckoning the elect by the number of visible members. There must be the invisible grace, as well as the outward sign; the spiritual life and holy unction to make a real member of Christ's invisible church. The particular churches of Jersualem Antioch Alexandria Rome &c have all fallen into error. And yet in their most corrupt and erroneous state I believe they have included some true members of that body whereof Christ is head, of that building whereof He is the corner stone. [Eph. 2:20] Other foundation shall no man lay, but on this foundation there may be superstructures of hay stubble [1 Cor. 3:11-12] and much combustible trash without absolutely annihilating the church. This I take to have been evidently the case. Christ's religion is spiritual and supernatural, and there is an unseen cement of the faithful who draw grace from the same source, are enlightened by the same father of lights [James 1:17] and sanctified by the same Spirit. And this, although they may be members of different political or visible congregations, may be estranged or suspected or even excommunicate to each other. They may be loyal to Christ however divided among themselves.
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But perhaps you will say there is need of an infallible visible guide for the soul's quiet. But, of what use is an infallible guide without an infallible sign to know him by? We have often seen Pope against Pope and Council against Council. What or whom shall we follow in these contests by the written word of God, the Apostolical traditions, and the internal light of the logos that irradiates every mind but is not equally observed by all?
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As Plato thanked the gods that he was born an Athenian, so I think it a peculiar blessing to have been educated in the Church of England. My prayer nevertheless and trust in God is, not that I shall live and die in this church, but in the true church. For, after all, in respect of religion our attachment shou'd be only to the truth.
I am no feminist (my wife will confirm my impeccable Neanderthal credentials); I have strong views on women's ordination; but I am saddened by the way Reformed church culture so often tramples its women underfoot with its mindless identification of biblical manhood with something akin to John Wayne and its assumption that all Christian women should make Mary Poppins look domestically incompetent. - Carl Trueman, Reformation21.
I'm not sure where these attitudes come from, or whether they are specifically 'Reformed' tendencies. I know that I sometimes see them in Evangelical circles at Penn, but I would estimate that over half of my Christian friends here are Presbyterian. What's strange to me is that most of the people I come across who have these kinds of ideas are unmarried women. Because I don't know very many men who have these sorts of ideas, I have to wonder where they are getting it from. Quite possibly: each other. Out in the world, I think a lot of the pressure in terms of clothes, makeup, etc., is coming not from men but from other women. It would not be surprising if the same was true of the pressure in certain Christian circles to be "super-Mom." The pressure could also be coming from some segment I don't encounter - perhaps, for instance, from parents. I don't know.
Lauren is going into physics. Not that women who stay home and take care of the kids and the house are not doing something worthwhile, but Lauren has gifts that would be left unused if she did this, and the same is true of many, many other women. The Church, including complementarians, needs to learn to really encourage this, and not criticize these women or make them feel guilty.
The God Fearin' Fiddler has a post up on why Protestants are offended by Mariology. This was one of the issues that came up in our previous debate, so I would like to address it briefly here. Before I do so, I want to make a few preliminary remarks. The first is that the assertion that Mariology is offensive to Protestants contains a terminological mistake, but it is a mistake that is also made by many Protestants. "Mariology" is the branch of theology that deals with Mary. Protestants are not offended by this subject of study. In fact, there is such a thing as "Protestant Mariology." I shall have more to say about this shortly, but for now let me give as an example that Protestants are not Nestorian: we do indeed believe that Mary was theotokos - she carried God Himself in her womb and gave birth to him. This is a statement of 'Mariology' and one which is not offensive to Protestants. Now the particular doctrines of Catholic and Orthodox Mariology, and the practices associated with them, are indeed offensive to Protestants (or, at least, Protestants disagree with them), so we do still have something to discuss. Second, I'd like to point out that in our discussions so far it has become clear that when the Fiddler was a Protestant, he was more 'Reformed' than I am. By 'Reformed' (in scare quotes) I mean two things: first, that on certain issues (which issues these are will, I hope, emerge in coming discussions) his version of Protestantism was further away from Catholic views than mine (of course, on other issues - sacraments, for instance - Presbyterians are closer to Catholicism than I am); second, I mean that his views were more similar to those of Calvin and of prominent Calvinists of later times. As a result, we have sometimes in this discussion found ourselves in unexpected agreement (though I'm not sure we've always realized it).
Having said those two things, let me proceed to the task at hand, which is a brief (I hope) examination of the Protestant view of Mariology and it's differences from the Catholic view.
As I have already stated, Protestants are not Nestorians: we do affirm that Mary gave birth to God. While, as the Council of Ephesus affirmed, Mary is indeed theotokos (lit. "The God-Bearer" - where "bear" means "to give birth to" unlike in the name "Christopher," sometimes translated "Christ-Bearer," where "bear" means "to carry") , many Protestants have objected to the traditional English translation "Mother of God" (from the Latin translation Mater Dei) as it has seemed to some to imply that Mary is the ontological source of God (though clearly no one has ever intended the phrase in this way) or, less radically, that some continuing relationship between Mary and the Godhead is present as a result of her role as theotokos. To this latter claim more attention will be given shortly, but suffice it to say that we all agree that Mary gave birth to God in the flesh.
Now, Protestants have been cautious in making any statements about Mary probably due to what they see as the excesses of Catholicism and so, unfortunately, not much thought is devoted to her in most Protestant circles. There is, however, an urgent need for Protestants to recover the theology of the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), and, of course, in the preceeding passage, Elizabeth says to Mary "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!" (Luke 1:42) Compare this to the text of the traditional Ave Maria:
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
(It is also of interest that Elizabeth says eulogeo in v. 42, but Mary says makarioo in v. 48 - but that's a discussion for another time.)
Furthermore, many (though not all) Protestants have affirmed a tradition regarding the interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:15 which would translate it as something like "But she [i.e. Woman in the abstract] will be saved through the birth of a Child, if they [women, individually] continue in faith and love and holiness with prudence." Obviously, Mariology won't solve every difficulty with this extremely puzzling verse (at least as confusing as the passage immediately preceding it!), but the idea, which is developed in many of the Church Fathers, is that Mary is, in some sense, the new Eve (just as Christ is the new Adam - Romans 5:12-21). Now, this must be carefully developed in a Protestant direction: it is (for reasons I don't particularly understand) Adam who is responsible for the Fall, but Eve took the fruit first, and handed it to him. So there is an idea here of a reversal of sorts. The first Eve took the fruit first, and handed it to the first Adam, and he fell. The second Eve suffered first (in the pain of childbirth - contrary to some ancient and Medieval writers who said that since Jesus was free from the curse of sin his birth must have been painless) in order to bring the second Adam into the world, so that, just as the first Eve put the first Adam in a position to fall, the second Eve put the second Adam in a position to redeem. Nevertheless, it is the first Adam who is responsible for the Fall, and the second Adam who brings about redemption. Mary's suffering does not accomplish or in any way contribute to redemption.
It is also critically important the Christ is unique. No one else could have brought about our salvation. But God could have chosen someone else than Mary, just as he could have chosen someone else than Abram. He could not have chosen someone else than Jesus. Mary, like Abram, is to be praised for her obedience in the face of bizarre divine commands, and for her faith that God would bring about his promise. Protestants should not shy away from making these kinds of assertions.
I am told that Calvin even saw Mary as a type of election. That is, like Mary, each of us is chosen by God to bring Christ into the world around us in our lives and actions; like Mary, we are undeserving.
It will be noted that none of the above squares well with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. There is a further problem with that doctrine as well: it places Christ at a further remove from humanity. By calling Mary a perfect vessel and denying that Christ was born through any ordinary woman, Christ is separated from us not only by his own perfection, but by the perfection of his mother. And how is his mother free from original sin? Some Medieval Catholic writers claimed that this was because Saint Anne (the mother of Mary) was also a virgin at the time of Mary's birth, so that there was no male line to transmit Original Sin, but this was eventually repudiated by the Church (at least that's what Wikipedia says). Furthermore, this contradicts what Paul says throughout Romans (and what is taught through the rest of Scripture) about all humans being sold under sin. Furthermore, it should be noted that, in Luke 1:28 the word translated 'favored' or 'highly favored' in most translations is the Greek charizomai, so that Mary is addressed literally as "woman to whom grace is shown;" but grace (Gr. charis) is by definition undeserved! The Scripture does not treat Mary as "immaculate" but as graciously chosen by God.
A related doctrine is the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary. This one is very common from very early times in the history of Christianity, and it doesn't explicitly contradict any Scripture, nor, I suppose, does it have any particular theological problems, but it requires highly unnatural interpretations of Scripture in a number of places. Firstly, right at the beginning of the New Testament in Matthew 1:25 it says that Joseph "did not know her [Mary] intimately until she gave birth to a son." This is not an explicit contradiction, but in the most straightforward interpretation it implies that he did know her intimately after she gave birth (and this is where Catholics start to be offended by Protestant Mariology!). Second, there are all the references to Jesus' siblings (Matt. 13:55-56, Mark 6:3, etc.). Catholics usually point out (rather questionably) that adelphos can also mean cousin or (less questionably) half-brother or step-brother or brother-in-law (the last of these is, of course, not relevant). So the claim that these were Jesus' cousins doesn't hold any water, but the half-/step-brother claim (that is, the claim that the children were Joseph's by a previous marriage) is a possible interpretation, although it is not the most straightforward one.
The final and, in my view, most important consideration is simply that Mary and Joseph were married. Paul gives the following moral command: "A husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise a wife to her husband. A wife does not have authority over her own body, but her husband does. Equally, a husband does not have authority oover his own body, but his wife does. Do not deprive one another - except when you agree, for a time, to devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again; otherwise, Satan may tempt you because of your lack of self-control." (1 Cor. 7:3-5) It is true that the next verse says "I say this as a concession, not a command," but that most likely refers back to verse 2, where he talks about people marrying at all. Even within Catholicism, a marriage is only valid if it is consummated by intercourse. How, then, could Mary and Joseph be married? And, make no mistake, they were married: the angel commanded Jospeh, "don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife" (Matt. 1:20). There is no ambiguity here. So the doctrine of perpetual virginity is no good Biblically. It probably comes from the similarly unbiblical idea that sex is somehow evil, which was popular among certain segments of early Christianity and in late Medieval (and later) Catholicism.
The other doctrine in this cluster is the Assumption. I have no argument to make against that, other than that it isn't recorded in Scripture. Nothing that happened to me today is recorded in Scripture, but it still happened. Elijah and Enoch were 'assumed' into heaven bodily. In short, my answer to this one is "whatever." I see no good reason to believe that it happened, but I suppose it could have.
Of course, none of these doctrines is the central issue. The really central issue is the differing treatment of the Communion of Saints, and the practice of 'veneration' of saints and icons, as well as prayer to saints. The Fiddler mentions that, during the course of his conversion, he discovered that he was comfortable with prayers to Michael the Archangel for protection, but not prayers to Mary. I suggest that this is actually not because of the general Protestant discomfort with Mary, but because there is good Biblical/theological reason to suppose that Michael the Archangel and hear us and does protect us, but no similar reasons with regard to Mary.
This post has already gotten quite long, so I'm not going to include general arguments about prayers to saints. I've already dealt briefly with the issue of the supposed distinction between 'worship' and 'veneration' in my post on icons. I'm not convinced that the distinction is real, and I think this is the real reason why even some informed Protestants (and not only the ignorant ones) claim that Catholics worship Mary. I would not say this in the context of a discussion with a Catholic, but only because it would be begging the question: we all agree that worshiping Mary would be wrong, but we disagree on whether official Catholic practice (what actually happens in, e.g., Latin America is another story altogether) constitutes the worship of Mary. That, as I have said, is a topic for another post.
As previously promised, this post will treat the presence of the doctrine of Sola Scriptura in Augustine. First, let me state that by Sola Scriptura I do not necessarily mean a particular formulation by Luther or Calvin or any particular church, but rather I mean to show that the cluster of doctrinal positions into which all of these fall exists in the early church. So I really mean the doctrines (plural) of Sola Scriptura, and not some particular doctrine. I define these as follows:
A teaching is a Sola Scriptura doctrine if and only if it asserts that the contents of the canonical books of Scripture possess divine authority* and/or sufficiency for Christian faith and practice in a manner and/or to a degree which is unique and which exceeds, excells, or is otherwise superior to any other religious authority.*By "authority" I mean "the quality of being authoritative," not "the right to command." God has the right to command, and the Scriptures are the authoritative source as to what it is he commands.
I mentioned two Sola Scriptura doctrines, one of which I think is good but incomplete and in general need of refinement, and the other of which I think is totally indefensible, in my post on Church dogma. The good but incomplete one says "Scripture alone is binding on the believer." The indefensible one says "Scripture alone is the source of all our knowledge of God." Another example of a Sola Scriptura doctrine is this excerpt from James Montgomery Boice's Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace, which I got off a bulletin from Tenth Pres.:
the Bible alone is our ultimate authority - not the pope, not the church, not the traditions of the church or church councils, still less personal intimations or subjective feelings, but Scripture only. Other sources of authority may have an important role to play. Some are even established by God - such as the authority of church elders, the authority of the state, or the authority of parents over children. But Scripture alone is truly ultimate. Therefore, if any of these other authorities depart from Bible teaching, they are to be judged by the Bible and rejected.
I would want to change this, as you will have noticed from my footnote above, to "God alone is our ultimate authority, and only the Bible is the ultimate authoritative source as to what he has commanded" (so as not to give the Bible authority separate from God's authority), but this is nit-picky. Let me give one more example of a Sola Scriptura doctrine, this time from the Westminster Confession (note: I like to cite the Westminster Confession because on issues other than soteriology it usually provides succinct and precise summaries of standard Protestant positions on issues. I'm not actually a Clavinist):
The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men ... All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all: yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them ... The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture. (1.6-7, 10)
Now, my question at present is very restricted in scope: it is whether Augustine' teaches a doctrine somewhere in this general cluster. I do not propose in this post to examine whether any of these doctrines is precisely the same as Augustine's, whether they occur elsewhere in Church history, or even whether they are true. All these things should be examined diligently, but I'm trying to do one thing at a time.
De Doctrina Christiana 2.24-29 famously discusses the contents of the canon. Augustine is one of the first to describe a canon nearly identical to our present-day canon. (He of course includes the deuterocanon ["Apocrypha"] and doesn't distinguish it from the protocanon, but the contents of the canon is a separate question from how those contents should be treated.) After this, Augustine says:
These are all the books in which those who fear God and are made docile by their holiness seek God's will ... the matters which are clearly stated in them, whether ethical precepts or articles of belief, should be examined carefully and intelligently. The greater a person's intellectual capacity, the more he finds. In clearly expressed passages of scripture one can find all the things that concern faith and moral life. (2.30, tr. R. P. H. Green)
This already is a Sola Scriptura doctrine by our definition. Augustine says first that the canonical books are unique among all books in that they are the only ones in which we are to seek God's will. Secondly, he says that the canonical books are totally sufficient (even if we only consider the "clearly expressed passages") for our religious and moral instruction. It might, however, still be disputed whether this is really "to a degree which is unique and which exceeds, excells, or is otherwise superior to any other religious authority" because Augustine only explicitly says that it is unique among books and that it is sufficient.
Jeremy Pierce recently had a post on Augustine's belief in the doctrine of inerrancy which quoted a letter Augustine wrote to Jerome:
I have learned to yield this respect and honour only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error ... As to all other writings, in reading them, however great the superiority of the authors to myself in sanctity and learning, I do not accept their teaching as true on the mere ground of the opinion being held by them; but only because they have succeeded in convincing my judgment of its truth either by means of these canonical writings themselves, or by arguments addressed to my reason. I believe, my brother, that this is your own opinion as well as mine.
I don't have a copy of this in Latin (nor can I read Latin well enough to do me any good in this discussion) but the English translation of this passage makes a stronger statement than the English translation of the other: it says that only the authors of Scripture (and not anybody else!) are free from error. The Scripture we believe because it is the word of God. Any other person or text must make an argument from Scripture or from reason in order to gain our assent. Surely this qualifies as a Sola Scriptura doctrine. Augustine has claimed something like the following: Scripture alone is inerrant and the proper source of knowledge about God's will for our lives, and the clear statements of Scripture are sufficient as a rule of faith and practice.
I have recently been participating in a little debate over at The God Fearin' Forum on some of the issues of Church history (primarily history of doctrine) that are significant to Protestant-Catholic (and Orthodox!) disagreements. I encourage you all to head over and read the debate so far, and perhaps someone more knowledgeable than I will jump in! Later today (if I have a chance) I'm hoping to get a case put together for the historical foundations of Sola Scriptura (to show, contrary to GodFearinFiddler's claim, that this doctrine was around prior to the invention of the printing press). If anyone feels like beating me to the punch on that, consider yourself invited.
At the new blog Metaphysical Frameworks, Johnny-Dee (also of Fides Quaerens Intellectum fame) discusses the meaning of sola scriptura in its application to the practical methodology of Protestant theology. His suggestion is that "protestants consider the Bible to be like the Constitution, and the theological tradition to be like legal precedents from the Supreme Court." In other words, the determinations made by previous generations of Christians as to the teaching of Scripture are to be given great weight and not overturned lightly, but, ultimately, they are interpretations of Scripture and it is Scripture that is ultimately authoritative. Therefore, as much weight as they may be give, there are indeed cases where such traditions can be overturned.
I think this is, overall, an excellent interpretation of the sola scripture principle. However, I would like to point out one thing that Western Christians frequently miss due to our fixation on the Catholic-Protestant Scripture vs. tradition debates: at least the canon of Scripture, and probably also the idea of its inerrancy, are themselves extra-Biblical traditions. Perhaps we would like to say that it is an interesting theoretical property of the system of Protestant theology that all of its views can be derived from Scripture - and, indeed, it does seem that at least inerrancy can be so derived - but these are postulates which we, in practice, take prior to our study of Scripture, on the authority of tradition. What I here mean by tradition is not the particular interpretation of Tradition in the Eastern Orthodox Church which I have argued for, but simply the literal, etymological meaning of the word: that which is handed down from one generation to the next. Ultimately, we believe in the canon on the authority of the Church; we believe it because we were told by people we believe to be in a position to know. This is even acknowledged by the Westminster Confession which, after stating in 1.4 that Scripture does not depend on the Church's testimony for its authority, nevertheless goes on in 1.5 to list the testimony of the Church as the first of the several means by which we know the truth of the Scripture. I will discuss this and its relation to the other means listed at greater length if I ever get around to writing the fourth part of my Why Believe the Bible? series, but the point for me is that I think it is highly unlikely that any of the other means would be likely to provide rational ground for belief in precisely the canon we have with no more and no fewer books.
The real point that I'm trying to make here is that the strict disjunction of Scripture and tradition in the West is not actually an accurate way of speaking, but is a product of a particular historical (and continuing) debate. It would be more accurate, I think, to view Scripture as the Constitution and tradition as the total legal system (of course, there is no legislative process in this analogy; only judicial intepretation of the Constitution).
I think Protestants and Eastern Orthodox Christians can agree on this picture; where we will disagree is on the degree of authority of various interpretations (as I understand it, the Orthodox tradition holds the seven ecumenical councils to be totally infallible, and anything contained in the liturgy to be as good as infallible for practical purposes).