I desire to ask one favor of you all, before I touch on the words of the Gospel; do not you refuse my request, for I ask nothing heavy or burdensome, nor, if granted, will it be useful only to me who receive, but also to you who grant it, and perhaps far more to you. What then is it that I require of you? That each of you take in hand that section of the Gospels which is to be read among you on the first day of the week, or even on the Sabbath, and before the day arrive, that he sit down at home and read it through, and often carefully consider its contents, and examine all its parts well, what is clear, what obscure, what seems to make for the adversaries, but does not really so; and when you have tried, in a word, every point, so go to hear it read. For from zeal like this will be no small gain both to you and to us. We shall not need much labor to render clear the meaning of what is said, because your minds will be already made familiar with the sense of the words, and you will become keener and more clear-sighted not for hearing only, nor for learning, but also for the teaching of others. Since, in the way that now most of those who come hither hear, compelled to take in the meaning of all at once, both the words, and the remarks we make upon them, they will not, though we should go on doing this for a whole year, reap any great gain. How can they, when they have leisure for what is said as a bywork, and only in this place, and for this short time? If any lay the fault on business, cares, and constant occupation in public and private matters, in the first place, this is no slight charge in itself, that they are surrounded with such a multitude of business, are so continually nailed to the things of this life, that they cannot find even a little leisure for what is more needful than all. Besides, that this is a mere pretext and excuse, their meetings with friends would prove against them, their loitering in the theaters, and the parties they make to see horse races, at which they often spend whole days, yet never in that case does one of them complain of the pressure of business. For trifles then you can without making any excuses always find abundant leisure; but when you ought to attend to the things of God, do these seem to you so utterly superfluous and mean, that you think you need not assign even a little leisure to them? How do men of such a disposition deserve to breathe or to look upon this sun?There is another most foolish excuse of these sluggards; that they have not the books in their possession. Now, as to the rich, it is ludicrous that we should take our aim at this excuse, but because I imagine that many of the poorer sort continually use it, I would gladly ask, if every one of them does not have all the instruments of the trade which he works at, full and complete, though infinite poverty stand in his way? Is it not then a strange thing, in that case, to throw no blame on poverty, but to use every means that there be no obstacle from any quarter, but, when we might gain such great advantage, to lament our want of leisure and our poverty?
Besides, even if any should be so poor, it is in their power, by means of the continual reading of the holy Scriptures which takes place here, to be ignorant of nothing contained in them. Or if this seems to you impossible, it seems so with reason; for many do not come with fervent zeal to hearken to what is said, but having done this one thing for form's sake on our account, immediately return home. Or if any should stay, they are no better disposed than those who have retired, since they are only present here with us in body. But that we may not overload you with accusations, and spend all the time in finding fault, let us proceed to the words of the Gospel, for it is time to direct the remainder of our discourse to what is set before us. Rouse yourselves therefore, that nothing of what is said escape you.
- St. John Chrysostom, 11th Homily on the Gospel of St. John, tr. C. Marriot, ed. Philip Schaff
I find it rather interesting that Chrysostom should emphasize private Scripture reading so strongly. This is typically viewed (both by Protestants and by other Christians) as a characteristically Protestant emphasis (which is not to say that anyone believes that other Christians do not practice private Scripture reading, but simply that they emphasize it less). One reason typically given for this is that the Reformation grew up along side the invention of the printing press, which led to drastic decreases in the cost of books and increases in literacy. What puzzles me most about this passage is that Chrysostom considers the former issue, but never mentions the latter. I noticed earlier in the Homilies on John that Chrysostom discusses how the text should be punctuated (Fifth Homily, discussing John 1:3), and expects his audience to know what he is talking about. Marriott notes in his preface that there is internal evidence that these homilies "were delivered to a select audience at an early hour of the day" and Chrysostom does speak in this passage of his hearers teaching others. So perhaps the homilies were delivered to deacons-in-training or some other such group who had been taught to read already. The homilies are believed to have been delivered between 390 and 398, while Chrysostom was Bishop of Antioch (in 398 Chrysostom became Bishop of Constantinople). Does anyone who happen to be a fount of esoteric historical knowledge and know what the literacy rate was like in Antioch at the end of the fourth century?
I was listening to a sermon on James 2 last night, and I was thinking about how much clearer the passage would be if pistis and it's cognates were translated consistently by "trust" and its cognates rather than by "faith" in the noun form and "believe" or "have faith" in the verb. Let me demonstrate. Here is my translation of vv. 14-25:
What good is it, my brothers and sisters[1], if someone claims to trust, but does not perform [any] actions? Is that 'trust' able to save him? If there exists a brother or sister and they[2] are naked and lacking daily food and someone among you says to them: "Go in peace, be warm and filled," but does not give the necessary things to them what good is that?But someone says: "you have trust, and I have actions: show me your 'trust' without action[3], and I will show you my trust by my actions." Do you 'trust' that God is one? Good job! The demons also 'trust' [in this way] - and tremble!
Do you want to know, senseless person, that 'trust' without action[3] does nothing? Wasn't Abraham our father judged to be on the right side of the law on account of [his] actions when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that trust was working together with his actions and that by action[3] trust is brought to completion, and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, "Abraham trusted God and it was credited toward his being on the right side of the law" and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is judged to be on the right side of the law because of actions and not because of 'trust' only. Likewise, wasn't Rahab the prostitute judged to be on the right side of the law on account of her actions when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also 'trust' without action[3] is dead.
[1] I translate adelphoi, plural, as "brothers and sisters" as it does typically refer to a mixed group, but adelphos, singular, as "brother," as it does not typically refer to a female.
[2] Yes, this is the singular "they." The ESV uses singular "they" here too. Why? Because there's a switch from singular to plural in the Greek. James is not a native speaker.
[3] Lit. 'actions' (pl.)
My position on the debate between Calvinism and Arminianism is that the more moderate forms of each are both plausible and orthodox. Hyper-Calvinism can slide into the heresy of fatalism, or the denial that God loves all people; hyper-Arminianism slides, of course, into Pelagianism. It is only the moderate forms of each which are, I say, plausible and orthodox. These moderate forms, I hold, represent two different man-made philosophical and theological systems designed to uphold the same doctrines revealed in Scripture. I believe that when the disagreement actually reaches all the way down to Biblical hermeneutics, rather than staying in the realm of systematic theology, it is usually the case that someone has strayed into the "hyper" realm. We ought to be able to state what the Scripture says in a "topic-neutral" way because the Scripture does not reveal to us a theory of grace or of soteriology that reaches this level of detail. Now, the revealed doctrines I'm talking about are often considered to be specifically Calvinist doctrines. The reason for this, at least among the people I talk to, is that all of us find that the majority (though by no means all) of the Protestants we talk to fall into two categories: those who accept various forms of hyper-Arminianism implicitly and unreflectively, and those who accept Calvinism consciously and reflectively.
I believe in the compatibility of the Biblical doctrines of grace and election with a moderate Arminianism. I believe that this compatibility is most clearly seen in two verses: John 6:40 and Romans 8:29. Note that I am not claiming that the Bible teaches Arminianism. (Personally, I believe in the moderate Arminian theory I am outlining on grounds of philosophical considerations related to human freedom and personal responsibility.) What I am claiming is that these two verses (and others) teach a doctrine of election/grace/predestination that is compatible with a moderate Arminianism. In outlining what this moderate Arminianism would look like, I hope to offer Biblical considerations against (1) the view that only Calvinism can adequately account for the Biblical doctrines of grace, and (2) various hyper-Arminian views.
John 6:40 reads, "For this is the will of My Father: that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day." Christ says that this is the will of the Father. That is, the Father has made an effectual, sovereign pronouncement. This pronouncement relates to a specific group of people: "everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him." It also has a specific content: they "may have eternal life, and [Christ] will raise [them] up on the last day." There is no natural necessity or connection between seeing the Son and believing (trusting) in Him and having eternal life. Rather, the connection is forged entirely by the sovereign will of God. Those who trust the Son do not thereby work any part of their salvation or come to deserve eternal life. The work of salvation is entirely independent of the individual. In this way, we can, as Arminians, claim that everyone is free to accept or reject Christ, while nevertheless assenting to the Biblical doctrines of election ("You did not choose Me, but I chose you" - John 15:16) and grace (i.e. the view that we are undeserving of God's favor - which is, in fact, the meaning of the word 'grace' as it is used throughout the NT).
Similarly, Romans 8:29 reads, "For those He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers." This passage picks out a specific group of people who God has predestined to be conformed into the image of Christ: "those He foreknew." In order to make sense of this verse foreknowledge must be distinct from, and prior to, predestination. Moderate Calvinist and Arminian views can both do this, but more extreme ones cannot: hyper-Calvinism collapses foreknowledge into predestination, and hyper-Arminianism collapses predestination into foreknowledge. What we need to say in our moderate Arminian theory is that God foreknew something about these people - something they would choose freely - and predestined something entirely unrelated for those people on the basis of his foreknowledge. As in John, we may say that what God foreknew is that they would "see the Son and trust him." The verse itself says what they are predestined for: to be conformed into his image. There is no natural connection or necessity between trusting the Son and being conformed into his image, so by trusting him we do not accomplish our own sanctification. Those who trust the Son do not thereby become worthy to become like him, and therefore we still receive this as a gift of grace.
The core Biblical doctrine that moderate Calvinists and moderate Arminians agree on is this: God, in his sovereignty, has freely chosen, on the basis of his foreknowledge, to save a group of people, the elect, who are unable to contribute anything to their own salvation and are totally undeserving of salvation. The disagreement is over what God foreknew. Our moderate Arminian theory claims that God foreknew decisions which were made freely by the individual members of the group, but which neither contribute to salvation nor render the individual worthy of salvation. The Calvinist denies that the free decisions of humans enter into the equation at any point.
An objection to this view is that human beings are incapable of simply "choosing" to trust the Son:
... both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin, as it is written:
There is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands,
there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,
together they have become useless;
there is no one who does good,
there is not even one. (Romans 3:9-12)
John Wesley deals with this problem with his doctrine of prevenient grace. This doctrine asserts that God intervenes in our lives by his grace in order to enable us to choose him before we ever begin to seek him. But prevenient grace, unlike the grace of God in the Calvinist conception, is not irresistible. An Arminian Molinist can (but need not) still believe in infallible grace, by holding that God only extends prevenient grace to those he knows will accept it, and denies it to those he knows will never accept it so that it is possible to resist prevenient grace, but this never in fact happens. There are, however, reasons for rejecting this view. The principle one is that God seems to feel the need for what political theorists call public justification. That is, although God already knows the our guilt or innocence, he nevertheless plans to hold a public judgment in order to show us his reasons and his justice (Joel 3, Revelation 20:11-15). So it seems that God might want to go through the motions of offering grace even to those he knows will reject it. The alternative is to hold that every person, at at least one moment in his or her life, is elevated by God's prevenient grace out of his or her bondage to sin to just such a degree as to be able to freely chose to trust, or not to trust, in Christ. Some Calvinists will no doubt object that it is impossible that a person who is free in this way should reject Christ after seeing him. This gets into difficult questions of free wills naturally choosing the good and of akrasia, i.e. weakness of the will. The latter is a big problem, especially for the Augustinian/Platonist account of the will that (I think) most Calvinists hold. Nevertheless, I think it should be evident by the time we get to this objection that I have achieved what I set out to achieve: we are well beyond Biblical hermeneutics and deep into the realm of philosophy, guided not by revelation, but by human reason.
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.
Here it is, finally! Almost exactly 13 months after the last post, I am finally continuing my series. For those of you who have forgotten (probably most of you), in May of 2006 I outlined a proposed series providing an argument for belief in the Bible. I'm going to give a fairly detailed recap here because it has been so long since my last post. In Part 1: Plan of Attack I outlined the argument I intended to give. The basic claim of the argument is that historical investigation renders the idea that the canon of Scripture as we have it is divinely inspired a live option, and personal experience in the life of an individual can provide the kind of confirmation that will lead one to reasonably believe in inspiration. I have added to the plan of attack two proposed appendices: the first will deal with the question of what to believe about the Bible, and the second will deal with which Bible to believe in (i.e. with determining the canon). Because they will be dealt with later, I will skirt these issues as much as possible in the current post, though they will have to be addressed in some degree.
In Part 2: The Life and Teachings of Jesus of Nazareth we assumed that a super-human conscious entity had created the world and wanted to live in community with other minds (we didn't assume the Christian God as such, but decided to call him God for convenience). We argued that, if such a being exists, he may well be trying to get our attention, and may perhaps choose to use human language to speak to us. Such a revelation would be validated by a 'signature,' which would be something easy for God but difficult or impossible to counterfeit. We argued that the historical evidence points to the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth as such an event, and therefore concluded that his life and teachings constituted such a revelation. (The whole argument, but this part especially, is indebted to Richard Swinburne and his book Revelation.)
In Part 3: Jesus' Witness to the Hebrew Bible we argued that certain New Testament texts (especially the synoptic gospels, Acts, and 1 Corinthians) could, without assuming inerrancy or inspiration, be treated as reliable historical sources about the life and teachings of Jesus and that these sources tell us that Jesus regarded the Hebrew Bible as a divine revelation to mankind. As a result, the Hebrew Bible is included by reference in God's revelation to mankind in the life and teachings of Jesus.
This post will assume all these things. If you find any of these claims questionable (and I hope some people who find these claims questionable are reading!) you are encouraged to go back and read the previous post and comment on it. For now, however, we've got the Hebrew Bible, and we've got the life and teachings of Jesus as far as we can determine them from the historical sources as a revelation of God (now that we've got the Hebrew Bible he can, without qualification, be called God) to mankind. The next step is the witness of the Church. What do I mean by this?
Our sources (which, recall, are primarily the synoptic gospels, Acts, and 1 Corinthians) are indisputably clear about one thing: Jesus had twelve particularly close followers, and he ultimately named these men as his "apostles." The Greek word apostolos means "emissary" or "ambassador." Now these guys were sent out, it is pretty clear, to continue Jesus' work of proclaiming the good news and so forth after he left. Furthermore, it is also pretty clear that they were to get others to join them in this task, and this was to continue until Jesus returned (for all of this, see Matthew 28:18-20; it's also stated in many other places). This group or organization or whatever it might be, is called the Church, and Jesus himself - whose teachings are the revelation of God to mankind - taught that this group was the divinely authorized and enabled proclaimer of God's revelation to mankind in himself. It is by the witness of the Church that we know a great many things about God, including the canon of Scripture and its status as divine revelation.
My fellow Protestants are getting nervous at this point, but never fear! My Protestant credentials are, on this issue, impeccable: the Westminster Confession is on my side. The beginng of 1.5 reads, "We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture." Some will be quick to point to 1.4 which says, "The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, and obeyed, depends not upon the testimony of any man, or Church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof: and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God." This, however, is a different issue. This says (and, incidentally, Catholic and Orthodox believers generally agree) that the testimony of the Church does not efficaciously make Scripture Scripture. Rather, as 1.5 says, the testimony of the Church "moves" and "induces" us to believe that Scripture is Scripture (but it would be the Word of God whether we were moved to believe that it was or not). I hope to discuss some other parts of WCF chapter 1 in part 5 and appendix B.
Now, we don't yet know much about this Church, but we know that its first members were Jesus' twelve apostles, and we know that it was out telling the world about God's revelation as soon as Jesus ascended, and it's still at it today, and will be until Jesus returns. I recently listed four aspects of ecclesiology (theory of the Church): somatic, apostolic, evangelistic, and eucharistic. Jeremy pointed out a fourth aspect that I can't believe I initially missed: ecclesiastic ecclesiology! That is, the Church is also the assembly of the called, and, as such, one can say that it is most fully the Church when it is assembled.
Be that as it may, all of these accounts are developed with a lot of assumptions already on the table, and at this point in our argument we don't have many assumptions available to us (comparatively speaking). We do, however, know that the Church proclaims the revelation, and the book of Acts tells us a lot about what the Church was like. One passage stands out to me:
And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayers. Then fear came over everyone, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles. Now all the believers were together and had everything in common. So they sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all, as anyone had need. And every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple complex, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And every day the Lord added to them those who were being saved. (2:42-47)
Suppose we begin our inquiry with the apostles themselves, then look to people like Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Papias, and Ignatius whom the apostles recognized as members of the same Church as themselves, and then look to the next generation, and the next, and the next, until the present day. In other words, suppose we assume (1) that being recognized as a member of the Church by a known member of the Church is a sufficient condition for Church membership, and (2) that the "is a member of the same church as" relation is transitive. This could, but need not, take the form of the doctrine of apostolic succession as understood by the Catholic and Orthodox churches, in which we work with the process of ordination of bishops. If we could do this, then we would know where the Church was today and we could just go ask about the Scripture (of course, there are some ways the Church could conceivably be such that even once we identified it, it wouldn't be that easy to find out what it's official proclamations were - for instance, what if the Anglican Communion came out on top? or, what would be even more confusing, what if it was the American Baptist Church? - but leave that aside for now). This, however, will not work.
The first problem is that, in general, organizational membership is (1) vague and (2) not transitive. Consider Thomas Jefferson and Hillary Clinton. Are they members of the same political party? Personally, I think not. But Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party is unproblematically historically continuous with the modern Democratic Party. Furthermore, no point of discontinuity can be identified at which the Democratic-Republican Party ceased and was replaced by the Democratic Party. Surely the name change is irrelevant here. But Thomas Jefferson and Hillary Clinton are nevertheless not members of the same political party. Why? Because something more than historical continuity is required for the persistence of political parties through time. This requirement includes at least some kind of continuity of platform. There comes a point when the platform is so different that, totally regardless of history, it just can't be the same party, and this is the case with the Democratic-Republican Party of Thomas Jefferson as opposed to the Democratic Party of Hillary Clinton. Vagueness enters, because there is no point, no single person or event, that can be singled out as the point where it was no longer the party of Thomas Jefferson. Non-transitivity enters here too: for any person in the Demcratic Party, we can, in principle, come up with a chain of recognition as members of the same party leading back to Thomas Jefferson.
As a political party can't survive a complete change of platform, so the Church could not survive a complete change of mission. Furthermore, a less than complete change could cast doubt on the persistence of the Church, and any change in doctrine will necessarily be a change in mission, since the Church's mission is the preaching of that doctrine. There are other essential characteristics that the Church, or a political party, would not persist through a change in, but these are certainly among the essential characteristics.
Now, suppose a group of people in the Democratic Party today discovered (to their shock!) that the principles of the Democratic Party were not the principles of its founder (or, rather, the founder of its predecessor, the Democratic-Republican Party), and decided to break away into another group, the Jeffersonian Democrats, which would embrace his principles. (I use this example because I have heard friends of mine suggest this very thing - though I suppose they probably weren't shocked by their discovery.) They claim to be the real modern Democratic-Republican Party since, on the one hand, they have historical continuity (through the Democratic Party), and, on the other hand, they have continuity of platform with Thomas Jefferson. However, the Democratic Party leadership doesn't recognize them and this leadership has been passed on through generations according to by-laws. The by-laws weren't around in the time of Jefferson, but they were around in times when he would certainly have recognized the party as still his own, and since they were instituted they were changed only according to their own rules. These grant the leaders legitimacy, but if a party can't survive through too great a change in platform, and the leaders preside over a party whose change in platform was too great, then they don't preside over the party of Thomas Jefferson. Of course, the Jeffersonian Democrats also have a problem, that their historical continuity goes through a party that is not identical with the original, but at least they are an eligible candidate, since they have the original platform (or, at least, continuity with it).
Now, there was one group of Christians, the Reformers, who believed they were in the position of the modern Jeffersonian Democrats in our example. My point is not that they were right (though I think they were, more or less), but that the underlying ideas about the persistence of organizations through time are credible, so that this possibility must be examined. That is, the very nature of the Church, as far as we know it at this point in our argument, is not such as to render their claim absurd.
Furthermore, the history of the Church is much more complicated than the history of the Democratic Party (of course, there is a lot I don't know about the history of the Democratic Party, so perhaps it is more complicated than I think it is). We have a lot of splintering all over the place starting pretty early, and all sorts of rival groups claiming to be the Church. Furthermore, the identity of the Church is complicated by another factor: its spiritual nature. We have all kinds of strange statements in the New Testament like "you yourselves, as living stones, are being built into a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 2:5). The deeply spiritual nature of the Church might be thought to cast doubt on the degree to which its continuity is of the same sort as the continuity of a purely human organization. After all, if the Church is a spiritual entity, mightn't it spring up on earth just wherever it pleases? Mightn't it just suddenly spring up at Azusa Street in 1906 or in Toronto in 1994? Well, I suppose so. That is, if the Church is supposed to be simply that group of people that Jesus has commissioned to continue his mission of announcing the divine revelation (which is all we've argued it is so far), then we can't really prove that it needs historical continuity and doesn't just spontaneously spring up wherever Jesus happens to commission people to preach the revelation. So, if we are to remain suitably general and not beg the question, we are going to have to, in looking for the modern Church, focus on the essential characteristics of the Church rather than on history. (This is not intended to assume that just any group that has these characteristics - or, in particular, the one characteristic already mentioned: announcing the revelation - is the Church, but only that, for all we know at this point in our argument, any of those groups might be.) Nevertheless, we can learn from the diachronic approach. The argument I've given only shows that the further away from the apostles we get, the more uncertain things become. We can, however, safely consider the first few generations of the Church and ask what it proclaimed.
To begin with, we can say that, like Jesus, the first few generations of the Church regarded the Hebrew Bible as the inspired Word of God. Furthermore, they don't seem to take the traditional Jewish view which I worried in part 3 that Jesus may have taken. We can see this in Acts 4:24-25, where Peter and John are recorded introducing a quotation with the phrase, "Master, You are the One who made the heaven, the earth, and the sea, and everything in them. You said..." The quotation which follows is from Psalm 2, part of the Ketuvim.
The most important person the original apostles recognize as a member of the Church is Paul (Galatians 2:9). Mark (Acts 12), Luke (Colossians 4:14), and James the brother of Jesus (Acts 12:17, 15:13-21; James the apostle, the brother of John had already died, in 12:2) are also recognized. This will get us most of the New Testament as the most important writings of the early Church. In terms of authorship by either an apostle or one of these people recognized by the apostles, and historical evidence of this authorship, we've now got all four gospels, Acts, the ten Pauline epistles (excluding the pastorals), James, 1 Peter, and 1 John. That's 18 out of 27 in the canon agreed upon by the Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox churches. We are missing due to disputed authorship 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Hebrews, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and Revelation and due to authorship by someone not well attested as a Church member we are missing Jude.
Note something very important here: we have not established that the Church proclaims these books as inspired accounts of the revelation. Rather, we have established that these books are all written by people who were very clearly members of the Church. Now, the next thing we should say is that it is obvious that these books were treated as authoritative from a very early date. We can pretty safely say that these essentially undisputed books constitute at least the Church's proclamation of the revelation. That's enough to say that if any of these books says something about the revelation of God to mankind in Christ, the fact that it's written there is good reason to believe it, and this might reasonably be called "believing in the Bible." But it isn't enough to say that the books are inspired and absolutely inerrant.
So, what do these books say that is relevant to our question? Well, we don't have 2 Timothy 3:16 yet, because 2 Timothy's authorship is disputed (I know all my fellow believers were just dying to use that one - sorry!), nor do we have 2 Peter 1:20-21, which is also of disputed authorship. There is also 1 Timothy 5:18, where Paul says "the Scripture says," and then quotes Luke 10:7, and 2 Peter 3:15-16, where Peter speaks of Paul's letters and "the other Scriptures." However, if these weren't written by Paul and Peter - and we haven't established that they are - then they don't do us any good, so we're going to have to move on to the next generation. (Of course, if your historical investigations led you to believe that 1 Timothy and 2 Peter were genuine - as many scholars do, in fact, think - then you would already be most of the way to the end of the argument.)
Moving on to the second century already complicates things because by that time we already have the fairly well-attested view that the Septuagint (which includes the Deuterocanon) is the Old Testament, as opposed to the Hebrew Bible. We even have some people, including Justin Martyr, claiming that the Hebrew text has been corrupted and the Septuagint is the only reliable version. However, I will, as I said, be skirting this issue as much as possible for the present.
Writing in the mid-second century, Justin Martyr gives us a window into an early Christian worship service, which is quite relevant to the place of the New Testament:
And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. (First Apology chapter 67)
By the end of the second century, we have a number of writers (e.g., Irenaeus, a disciple of Polycarp, a disciple of John) who are not far removed from the apostles who use the New Testament in their theological writings in much the same way they use the Old Testament, and treat them as absolutely authoritative in all theological disputes (see Bruce, The Canon, chapts. 13 and 14). What is relevant here is that by the second century the Church, in proclaiming the revelation, relied on the Bible - both the Old and New Testaments - as its principle source; it proclaims authoritatively, citing the Scripture as its authoritative source.
The synchronic approach, as has been said, involves examining the claims of various present-day groups claiming the be the Church. It is limited primarily in that there are so many claimants we cannot possibly examine them all. However, we have a bit of luck here: there is substantial agreement among nearly all of them, especially if we ignore for now, as we have resolved to do, disputes among the claimants about certain specific books, and only examine the broad general claim. (There are still disputed books, besides just the duetero-canon - the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, for instance, has a number of additional books; it is also worth considering how one should think about the Book of Mormon in this sort of discussion, seeing as the LDS church is also a claimant here.) All of the major Christian groups agree that Scripture is inspired, and that it includes both the Old and New Testaments. This means that, regardless of precisely what the Church is and how it is manifested in history just at present, we can know that it has indeed proclaimed that the Scriptures are inspired by God, and that we should believe what they say.
I want to note, in closing, the relationship I think this has to how actual converts to Christianity have come to believe in the Bible. I am of the opinion that many of the problems in philosophy (consider, for instance, the refutation of solipsism) are problems of attempting to formalize rational inferences which we draw on an almost instinctive level (solipsism strikes me as a case where our inference is almost indisputably rational, and yet philosophy has had enormous difficulty trying to formalize the inference to prove that it's rational). This, I think, is the case here. Most people who believe in the Bible have, I think, come to believe in it in much the same way: someone told them that they ought to believe in the Bible, for some reason they took that claim seriously and, upon looking closely at it for themselves, some sort of experience they had in connection with the Bible led them to accept the claim originally presented to them regarding its inspiration. Parts two through four have been an attempt to make more explicit some of the lines of reasoning that might lead someone to take a claim like that seriously. I don't think that most people have done these sorts of historical explorations. Rather, I think they have probably simply been told about the Bible by people who have some kind of credibility in spiritual matters due to intelligence, or insight, or, more likely, the kinds of lives they lead. (This, of course, applies to taking Christianity seriously in general, and not just the claim of the inspiration of Scripture.) I hold that this line of reasoning is rational, but I'm skeptical about it getting you much farther than taking the claim seriously. Actually believing it will likely require some personal experience, and that will be the subject of part 5, which I hope to write less than 13 months from now!
John at Locusts and Honey is wondering where the NASB's translation of 1 Peter 2:2 ("long for the pure milk of the word") came from, as compared with the NRSV which has (like many other modern translations) "long for the pure, spiritual milk." The NASB translation led John to suppose correctly that some reference to logos was present in this verse, and I'm sure that's exactly what the NASB translators intended in translating logikos as "of the word." This is precisely what the Greek suffix ikos (from which we get "ic") does: it forms an adjective meaning "having to do with." Now, the thesis of this post is that that word doesn't mean "spiritual."
Now, I confess to being biased by my background in classical philosophy: in Plato and Aristotle (and friends) the word certainly means "reasonable" or "rational" or "intellectual" or, occasionally, "linguistic," but never "spiritual." However, there is a good explanation of why logikos is often translated "spiritual" and that is given in BDAG (the big New Testament/ante-Nicene lexicon): BDAG (I'm working with the second edition; I don't have the third to compare) cites some examples, all of them questionable, for the reading "spiritual," and most of these rest on conflating the faculty of reason with the spirit - something Paul, at least, would never do (though other writers might). However, more importantly, BDAG says "it is to be borne in mind that logikos means spiritual ... also in contrast to 'literal' with the meaning 'metaphorical.'" I hope at some point to write a whole post on the contrast between logos (as in "the Word became flesh") and rhema (as in "the word spoken through the prophet"), but for now suffice it to say that rhema means a specific form of words, whereas logos means "the intelligible content of speech or writing" or some such. Mystical interpreters of Scripture, such as Origen, used the word logikos to describe the inner, mystical meaning found in the metaphorical content of a passage, as opposed to the literal, or rhematikos (I don't think they actually use that Greek word, but it is a real word) sense. Hence it means "spiritual" - that is, related to the deep, inner truth of a thing. I guess "spiritual" sort of means that...
Really, however, the word means "reasonable," "rational," "intellectual," or perhaps "linguistic." What the Origen example shows is that it also means "related to content" (as opposed to form). It simply doesn't mean "spiritual" in the sense I get from this English translation. It only means "spiritual" in the sense mentioned above which, I claim, is not a normal meaning of the English word "spiritual."
Two places where this is important are Romans 12:1 and 1 Peter 2:2, the verse John mentioned. In connection with Romans 12:1, BDAG does cite some previous examples of the phrase "reasonable act of service" (or "spiritual worship" in some translations), including Philo who says that God desires "the sacrifice of a rational spirit" rather than animal sacrifices. Perhaps the idea is that these other uses of logikos derive from that one?
At any rate, Romans 12:1 is correctly translated by the NKJV (following the original KJV), "your reasonable service." The central idea of that passage is that, when you consider the mercies of God, the only reasonable thing to do is to offer your body as a living sacrifice. Logikos. Reasonable.
In 1 Peter 2:2 things are somewhat more difficult, but my point still stands. The translations "of the Word," especially with a capital W, may be a bit much for St. Peter (if it was St. John I wouldn't hesitate), but "reasonable" or "rational" remains the correct translation: the milk we desire is milk for our reason as opposed to milk for our bodies. The translation "spiritual" also has the drawback that it conflates logikos with pneumatikos, which actually does mean "spiritual" and appears in v. 5.
These are, incidentally, the only NT occurences of this word.
Now, I must confess that I have departed somewhat here from the principles of humility and charity I normally try (with varying degrees of success) to follow in disagreeing with Bible translations by simply insisting that these translations are wrong, despite the fact that most modern translations agree, but I just can't see how logikos could possibly take this meaning. The evidence in BDAG mostly consists of these two references (the rest of the citations are either obscure, much later than the NT, or secondary articles, with the already mentioned exception of Philo). Furthermore, BDAG's arguments generally connect the meaning "spiritual" with the meaning "suitable to a creature endowed with reason" or some such, which makes it seem to me to be a misunderstanding of English rather than of Greek. ("Spiritual" doesn't mean that!) By contrast, the meaning I am talking about has dozens of citations in LSJ, from Plato and earlier to Plutarch (a contemporary of the New Testament) and later. Why invent new meanings when the most well-attested central meanings of the words can account for all the evidence?
On the other hand, it is only recent translations, for the most part, that have this translation, and they rely, I'm sure, mostly on BDAG3. Is there new evidence in BDAG3 that I'm missing?
So I suppose, John, that I'm in the opposite situation from you: I can't figure out where all the modern translations got the idea that it means "spiritual" instead of "of the word" (i.e. "rational"). Maybe if you tell me why you thought the NRSV's translation was closer to the Greek, then we'll both be able to figure out what's going on.
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!
Just a couple quick links:
John Fraiser of Chaos and Old Night discusses the attitude Evangelical Protestants ought to take to Church tradition in his post, Sifting Through Church Tradition. Fraiser argues that we need to recognize the influence tradition has on us, and we ought not to try to escape from that influence, but, at the same time, we need to recognize that it is Scriputre and not tradition which is authoritative. I mostly agree with what Fraiser said (though I still think that the West is wrong to talk about Scripture and tradition as wholly distinct - instead we ought to consider Scripture as a sort of 'super-tradition,' as the Orthodox do; I have argued for this postion previously), but, unfortunately, he didn't present much in the way of argument. Or rather, in so far as he did argue for his position, he is arguing against Evangelicals who want to ignore tradition, not Catholic or Orthodox believers who give more authority to tradition than the position he argues for does.
On the other side, we have The God Fearin' Fiddler (with whom I have debated this issue before) presents a Catholic argument against sola scriptura. Unfortunately, the post is kind of long and focuses on debunking an argument that I've never heard any Protestant use, and that I certainly wouldn't use. However, he does make several good points, and I recommend taking at least a skim.
I've already sort of jumped into the fray by leaving a long comment for the Fiddler (Update 6/7/07, 1AM: the Fiddler has responded to my argument in a new and most interesting post), but I may jump in in a more substantial way some time soon. The best way to jump in would of course be to finish by Why Believe the Bible? series that has been sitting unfinished for a year. I'm considering, when I finish it, adding an appendix discussing what beliefs about the Bible the argument justifies. It will, I think, justify innerrancy without a problem, but it isn't clear to me what kind of a uniqueness claim that argument will justify.
Not long ago, I was finally able to read the debate between Gordon Fee and Zane Hodges, which took place in a series of articles in the March and June 1978 editions of the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. (Fee's article, Hodges' response, Fee's rejoinder, Hodges' "surrejoinder") The debate concerns the general methodology of New Testament textual criticism. Fee supports a method known as "reasoned eclecticism," whereas Hodges supports what is known as the "majority text method" or some such. (Contrary to the charges sometimes leveled against it, the majority text method is not just a rationalization for continued use of the Textus Receptus.) A long time ago, when I first began to examine the issue, the majority text method looked very reasonable to me. However, for quite some time now, I have been pretty agnostic about the whole thing. Reading this debate hasn't changed that. It has, however, allowed me to get a clearer grasp (I hope) on the issues involved in methodologies of textual criticism, and I'm hoping that if a post on it, others will come along and help to further clarify these issues.
From this debate, the introduction to The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text (ed. Zane C. Hodges and Arthur L. Farstad), and the introduction to The New Testament in the Text of the Great Church of Christ (A Facsimile Reprinting of the Edition of 1904), I think I've picked out four distinct methods. Before I attempt to outline these, however, the last of the sources needs a bit of a disclaimer. The title I've given it above is my rough translation of a Church Greek title, which may in fact be wrong, since I don't know Church Greek or have a proper dictionary for it (in particular, I'm unsure of the meanings of the following words: egkrisei, translated "text"; photoanastatike, translated "facsimile"; and anatuposis translated "reprinting"). Likewise, the introduction is in Church Greek, and I have looked through it, and I think I understood at least their general method (the syntax of Church Greek is, at least, very simple, and the morphology is still very much like Koine, as far as I can tell). The text itself is a 2004 facsimile edition, produced for the hundredth anniversary of the release of the Patriarchal Text, and contains an exact representation of the first edition of the Patriarcahl Text. While the text is online at the above link, I am not aware of the introduction being online anywhere, or having been translated into English. I'd like to take a stab at translating it sometime to get a better grip on it. At any rate, here are the four methods (as best I can determine them - please offer corrections and/or clarifications):
It appears to me that all four of these views have their merits. Does anyone have a better idea of where to look next? Are there other important considerations I've left out?
In Revelation 11:15, a loud voice from heaven says something which the HCSB translates as "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Messiah, and He will reign forever and ever!" The other translations I had handy (NKJV, NIV, NASB, KJV, RSV) were all very similar. The agreement of the translations makes me wonder if I'm missing something, because it appears to me that there is another reading, which actually seems to me to deal with the grammar better. I would translate this reading as: "The Kingdom of the Universe, [the Kingdom] of our Lord and of His Christ, has begun, and he will reign throughout the ages of ages." (Note: I heard the translation "unto the ages of ages" for eis tous aionas ton aionon in the liturgy of an English-speaking Greek Orthodox Church and liked it; it's more literal than the standard translations.)
In terms of interpretation, there is one reason, I think, for favoring the standard translation over mine: namely, that the world (kosmos) is normally seen as opposed to the Kingdom of God in the New Testament. However, this usage is not constant throughout the NT, and in the Johannine literature I don't think it's even very common (though it is certainly used that way in 1 John 2:15-17, and I haven't done a comprehensive study). Furthermore, the style of the Revelation is supposed to be substantially differen than that of the undisputed Johannine literature (I haven't done a comprehensive study of this either), and in the Revelation the word is used only three times and the other two (13:8 and 17:8) both use it in the phrase apo tes kataboles tou kosmo - "from the foundation of the world" - so there is no usage of this word in the Revelation which clearly has a sense of a world system opposed to the Kingdom of God, the way the word is often used in other NT literature. So this interpretive consideration doesn't seem to be that strong.
Grammatically, I think my translation has a stronger basis than the standard translation, for two reasons: (1) egeneto is placed at the beginning of the sentence. This construction is parallel to the existential use of esti(n) ("there is an x" as opp. "x is y"). Again, it is similar to the idiomatic use of the word without a subject to mean "it came about" (see, e.g., Luke 1:5). To say what the translations interpret it as saying, we would expect egeneto to come in between "of the universe" and "of our Lord and Christ," rather than at the beginning. (2) There is no explicit nominative in the predicate (you'll note that translations that mark such things will have the second usage of "the kingdom" marked as not existing in the Greek). This is not problematic in and of itself, but it is needed to make my translation possible, and it also seems unlikely that this series of genitives with nothing separating them should belong one half in the subject and the other half in the predicate. Rather, "of our Lord and of his Christ" should be interpreted as an appositive.
While none of the translations say this, the Majority Text does have it punctuated as an appositive (that is, a comma is inserted after tou kosmou). NA27 does not. It is curious that the Hodges and Farstad should punctuate it this way, since Farstad worked on both the NKJV and the HCSB (both of which were done after the Majority Text), neither of which translate the phrase as an appositive.
Am I missing anything here? Are there any considerations in favor of the standard translation that I'm missing? Do others think my translation is plausible?
Over at Better Bibles Blog, Suzanne has been doing a series on Bible passages relevant to women in leadership. 1 Timothy 2:12 is of course an important verse to deal with on this subject. She hasn't actually got to it yet, but it came up in the comments to the post on 1 Corinthians 12:27-31, and I felt that I needed to say more about it than could reasonably be said in a comment, so here it is:
1 Timothy 2:12 is a very difficult verse. When taken with the following few verses it appears at first glance to make some argument like the following: Adam was created first and sinned intentionally. Eve was created later, and transgressed as a result of being deceived. Therefore, women should not teach or dominate (the exact meaning of the word autheneo is disputed, but it is stronger and more negative in connotation than "exercise authority") men. This doesn't make any sense. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that Paul is drawing a generalization out of the Adam and Eve story (which is what seems most likely to me). Suppose that, either due to the way God created us initially, or inheriting our ancestors' defects, men are statistically more likely to sin willingly, and women are more likely to sin in by being deceived. It would not be too terribly surprising if this turned out to be true as a statistical generalization (nor would it be too surprising if it turned out not to be true), because many statistical generalizations about male vs. female psychology may be drawn. However, the problem with statistical generalizations is that they are subject to individual counterexamples. It is a logical fallacy to conlude from this type of generalization that some individual woman is more likely to be deceived into sinning than some individual man (or, conversely, that some individual man is more likely to sin willingly than some individual woman). Giving orders about who ought to teach or have authority over whom on the basis of this type of generalization is like deciding that because women are shorter than men, women shouldn't be asked to change light bulbs (or something). But this is just silly. To make matters worse, we've got the baffling verse about being saved through childbirth right after it! (On verse 15: I think it's got to mean either: "she will be preserved [i.e. kept safe] through childbirth" or "she will be saved by the birth of a Child [i.e. Jesus]." Both of these positions are taken by considerable numbers of commentators.)
Now, I don't know what Paul means, but I trust that he means something that isn't silly. Furthermore, Evangelicals believe that this is the word of God and, therefore, where a clear command is given, we obey first and then seek to understand. And the command is, I think, at least much clearer than the reasoning given. It says, literally, "But I do not permit a woman to teach, nor to dominate a man, but to be quiet" ("in silence" is, I think, a bit too strong.) Now, this can't be interpreted to prohibit the activities of Lydia (Acts 16), or Priscilla (Acts 18), or Lois and Eunice (2 Timothy 1). It probably also shouldn't be interpreted to prohibit the activities of Deborah (Judges 4ff.). Furthermore, it can't be interpreted to prohibit a woman from praying or prophesying publicly (1 Cor. 11). It also can't be interpreted to prohibit a woman from doing anything which is required of all Christians (e.g., testifying, announcing the Gospel to non-believers, being in fellowship with other believers, etc.), or receiving anything which is promised to all believers (e.g. hearing the Word, receiving guidance from the Holy Spirit, etc.).
Beyond these limitations, it should be noted that Paul uses the present infinitive, instead of the more common aorist infinitive. The present is used to emphasize "progressive/repeated aspect," which would seem to imply that Paul is only prohibiting a woman from being in the habit or position of doing these things, and not from special instances in extenuating circumstances.
But what of teaching or having authority outside the Church? Well, Paul says "I do not permit," and he was an apostle writing to a young pastor about order in the Church. Should we really interpret him to be making broad, general prohitions? I don't think so. I think that, like most of the rest of the book, this is an instruction about Church order.
Finally, a woman is prohited specifically from "dominating a man," and presumably the prohibition on teaching refers to teaching a man as well. The word is aner. If it meant her husband, it would probably have the definite article (and, actually, in Koine one would usually expect an actual possessive pronoun), which it doesn't. However, this probably does refer specifically to adult men.
So, we have in 1 Timothy 2 a very specific, localized prohibition: within the Church, a woman is not permitted to be in the habit or position of teaching or dominating an adult man. If we don't understand the reason for the command we must not extrapolate anything broader from it. Furthermore, it can't be expanded very much in very many directions without contradicting other Scriptures. However, if we are Evangelicals, we also can't just ignore it. We may not understand the justification, but it's plain to see that the justification is not some specific situation that was going on in Ephesus, but some more general principle. If we take the Scripture to be the Word of God, then we have to obey first and hope to understand later.
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.