Skip to main content

According To Whom? Edition 9000

I read this today. I like Derek; he writes good stuff every single time. This piece however remains oblivious to the crushing tyranny of Sola Scriptura. Read Jonathan Edwards's final thoughts in this piece. Isn't the "pope of self" exactly what this debate or discussion is entirely about? To whom are you actually submitting when you purport to test everything by the word of God? You might even be clever enough to defer to the community of which you are part. But that only intensifies the question: from whence did their interpretation come? I might be happy as a clam to defer to the doctrinal and juridical decisions of a Presbyterian General Assembly someplace, but unless you are prepared to imbue them with infallibility, you are simply delaying the inevitable conflict between "what the Scriptures say [according to me]" and what the Scriptures say according to them. But if we recall Jason's favorite axiom, "One cannot be both the arbiter of divine revelation, and a humble receiver of it at the same time," we will be forced at a minimum to inquire about the divine sanction of the community to which we defer. At that point, a clever Protestant will appeal to some long-established "historic orthodoxy" like an ecumenical Creed. When this occurs, he will be forced to explain, to himself first and then to others, why he has the right to glean from the determinations from the ancient Church in an ad hoc manner. It had already been ad hoc to decide which portions of the ancient expression of Christianity had properly conformed to Scripture-according-to-him, and now, he has before him an entire authority structure that has not been examined or tested. If he is honest, he finds that he cannot establish one Council as the paragon of orthodoxy and reject another according to a particular reading of Scripture, without asking himself what right he has to do so. He must ask himself the question, "How do I distinguish what God says from what I say?" It's a shorter, more practical version of my axiom, and everybody must face it. When a young, passionate Baptist takes to the Internet to denounce the United Methodist Church for instance, for softening its stance on abortion or gay marriage, isn't he really saying, "I can see that this decision was for human expediency, human comfort, and not for spiritual reasons"? But what do you do when this baseline orthodoxy that you are thrashing around to articulate in the face of obvious concessions to the zeitgeist of the day, comes from a community whose authority you have rejected? What if the only difference between you and Bart Ehrman in this highly arbitrary individualist process of picking and choosing, is that you believe God actually revealed himself? I'll just say it, and leave you to pick up the pieces: Ehrman is a Protestant without a God; you might be a Christian without the Church.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Friend I Once Had, And The Dogmatic Principle

 I once had a friend, a dear friend, who helped me with personal care needs in college. Reformed Presbyterian to the core. When I was a Reformed Presbyterian, I visited their church many times. We were close. I still consider his siblings my friends. (And siblings in the Lord.) Nevertheless, when I began to consider the claims of the Catholic Church to be the Church Christ founded, he took me out to breakfast. He implied--but never quite stated--that we would not be brothers, if I sought full communion with the Catholic Church. That came true; a couple years later, I called him on his birthday, as I'd done every year for close to ten of them. He didn't recognize my number, and it was the most strained, awkward phone call I have ever had. We haven't spoken since. We were close enough that I attended the rehearsal dinner for his wedding. His wife's uncle is a Catholic priest. I remember reading a blog post of theirs, that early in their relationship, she told him of the p
Hilarious Com-Box Quote of The Day: "I was caught immediately because it is the Acts of the Apostles, not the Acts of the Holy Spirit Acting Erratically."--Donald Todd, reacting to the inartful opposition of the Holy Spirit and the Magisterium. Mark Galli, an editor at Christianity Today, had suggested that today's "confusion" in evangelicalism replicates a confusion on the day of Pentecost. Mr. Todd commented after this reply , and the original article is here. My thoughts: By what means was this Church-less "consensus" formed? If the Council did not possess the authority to adjudicate such questions, who does? If the Council Fathers did not intend to be the arbiters, why do they say that they do? At the risk of being rude, I would define evangelicalism as, "Whatever I want or need to believe at any particular time." Ecclesial authority to settle a particular question is a step forward, but only as long as, "God alone is Lord of the con

Just Sayin.' Again.

One interesting objection to this chart has been to say that one gets stuck in a "loop" that doesn't resolve. This is a thinly-veiled way of putting forward the argument that we don't need absolute certainty in religious dogma. But Fred Noltie already dealt with this in the comments on another post. And to the specific objector, no less. I'll be blunt: The only principled thing to do is put down your Bible, resign your pulpit, and lead tours in Europe. Because a man must be able to distinguish dogma from human opinion, and this epistemology doesn't allow us to do that. One of dogma's distinguishing characteristics is infallibility; another is certainty. Without this, essential characteristics of God Himself are put into question. If we say that the most important Person any person could know is God, and the content of that knowledge (doctrine) is the means by which we know Him, it must be certain. This Reformed argument that certainty is a dangerous or un