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The Righteousness of God

2007-02-10T05:50:00.000-08:00

As I've said before, I am rather unenthusiastic about the Federal Vision and New Perspective on Paul controversies (I suppose they are linked; they seem to be). I think both sides make immoderate claims, and are often careless with their language. I keep abreast of it primarily through Mark Horne's blog. I prefer to hide in my little patristic bubble and go to church on Sunday. It keeps me out of any mess.

That is why I am about to say what I'm going to say.

I think the "righteousness of God" in Romans 3:21 is Jesus. Perhaps I say this because I've recently been thinking about Ireneaus' theology of recapitulation. I do think that those who say it's God's righteousness as he is in himself, i.e. his "covenant faithfulness," are basically right. But I think incarnational language can be helpful in presenting your case. The word "covenant" gets repeated so much in Reformed theology that it can lose its meaning, or obscure the thought enough so as to make it incomprehensible to someone who isn't already attuned to hear it.

The whole claim that this way of interpreting Romans 3 nullifies the Gospel or justification by faith is absolutely silly. I think this reading of Romans 3 actually vindicates the basic imputation theology of Luther, because it strengthens the claim that the righteousness by which we are saved is Christ's, not our own. All it does is criticizes his grammatical analysis of the text. The problem is with people who think theology is in the grammar. Well, it is to some extent, but I think it is to such a great degree shaped by the internalizing of narratives and life experience that two completely different grammatical approaches can yield fairly similar theology.

But as for a Pauline text on justification by faith, I think Romans 4:4-8 is sufficiently clear, even in the Greek (Paul's Greek can be a little obscure). But like I said, I prefer my little patristic world, so I tend to spend more time in the Gospels. And for that, nothing can be more clear than Jesus' words in John 11:25-26:

"I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?"

Perhaps I'm oversimplifying things. But I think the message of the New Testament, at its heart, is not all that complex.

Monarchianism

2007-02-08T10:43:00.000-08:00

I think it's pretty interesting how heresies often arise to combat other heresies. For example, Eutychianism arose against Nestorianism, Apollinarianism arose against Arianism, and now Monarchianism arises against gnosticism. The main goal of many of the variants of Monarchianism was to avoid the gnostic multiplicity of aeons. Thus many of them rejected the doctrine of the logos and were known also as alogoi.

Dynamic Monarchianism, despite being condemned in Rome at the end of the 2nd century, still managed stick around. The chief tenet was the simple, essential unity of God. The Son was simply a man filled with the divine power of God and therefore was in no way a divine person. Unlike the Arians, the DM's accorded absolutely no divine accolades to Christ. Paul of Samosata, its greatest 3rd-century exponent, taught that the divine logos was nothing more than the unspoken reason of God and therefore impersonal. The power of God in Jesus, so he said, was simply a fuller version of what Moses and the Prophets experienced. This particular heresy seemed to lack vitality, as it was too much of an outright denial of Christ's divinity to really gain any currency, especially against the backdrop of Christian liturgy and hymn that already existed.

The other (and completely) unrelated Monarchianism was the Modalist heresy. Ever heard someone say the Trinity is like water, ice, and steam? Yep, that's modalism. Also known as Sabellianism, this is the heresy that just refuses to die. It lives on today in Oneness Pentecostalism, which likewise teaches that the Son and Spirit are only different manifestations of God. However, the Oneness Pentecostals possibly differ from the old modalism in teaching an inseparable union of the human Jesus with the divine essence.

And then, in an interesting twist, the orthodox response toward Modalism often tended toward subordinationism. Getting the true doctrine exactly right seems to have been a huge challenge for the early Church, especially as the heresies grew more subtle.

The Holy Spirit

2007-02-08T08:12:00.000-08:00

Nicea is often regarded as the watershed moment when Arius was defeated and the whole Christian world held hands in blessed Christian orthodoxy. Despite the overwhelming majority condemning Arius and accepting the Creed, the aftermath was not quite so simple. In fact, a large number of bishops had problems with the homoousious in the Creed and regarded it as drifting toward Sabellianism. This can hardly be faulted to their lack of orthodoxy. In fact, various modalist-type heretics had often used exactly this term in defense and explanation of their heresy. Thus we had the more popular homoiousious, meaning "similar substance." The point of this was to emphasize that the Father and the Son are not strictly identical or merely variant forms of the same thing. However, a large group of conservative anti-modalists rejected the language because of its philosophical nature and departure from Scriptural language. It does in fact appear that Scripture had a much higher authority in the early church than modern Orthodox and Catholic scholars are willing to admit. Lucian of Antioch is one of the best examples of the conservative party. His creed is lengthy, obviously Trinitarian (he calls the Son "only-begotten God...God of God, and the three persons "in harmony one"), yet avoids some specifically Nicene language and is a little vague on the Holy Spirit, although he affirms that the Spirit really is distinct from the Father and the Son.

The conservative party should not be regarded as a heretical sect. However, subordinationist tendencies are undeniable. The work of Athanasius and the Cappadocians to explain, develop, and promote Nicene language was absolutely essential. Furthermore, the Arians gained a political advantage shortly after Nicea, as the emperors, whom the Church had relied on at Nicea, really were not equipped to make theological judgments. Although Arius himself was judged a heretic, Arian theology continued to develop in insidious ways and work itself out.

The Apollinarian heresy also arose as a way to safeguard what they believed was the Nicene doctrine from Arian objections. In order to defend against Arian's charge of a logical absurdity, Apollinarius asserted that Christ's human mind was simply replaced by the mind of the logos. Although the terms mind, will, soul, etc lack the import in our language that they had in the 4th century, the point is that Apollinarius claimed that Christ lacked something essentially human. This clearly negatively affects the doctrine of redemption.

Finally, the Pneumatomachian heresy denied the divinity of the Spirit. This party was often identified as another version of Arianism, especially by the Cappadocians and Athanasius. In particularly, Athanasius argued that only God himself can sanctify renew, mirroring his arguments for the divinity of the Son. However, the original Nicene Creed lacked a defined article on the Spirit, thus leaving the door open for the Pneumatomachians' minimalist interpretation.

Enter the Council of Constantinople. The so-called Second Ecumenical Council reaffirmed Nicea, reaffirmed the condemnation of Arius, strongly rejected all the aforementioned heresies, and added a detailed article on the Holy Spirit, who "with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified," clearly influence by Basil. C of C's clarity finally brought together the Nicene and conservative parties, preventing schism.

Unfortunately, it also weighed in on the growing claims of primacy in Rome and Constantinople, giving the latter city's bishop "primacy of honor because Constantinople is the New Rome." This tied episcopal primacy to the political importance of a city, and furthermore paid little attention to Jesus' answers to his disciples' arguments over who is the greatest. This did in fact seem to sow the seeds of schism, or at least do nothing to nip it in the bud.

The Cappadocians

2007-02-07T18:43:00.000-08:00

I'm going to bore you with more church history now (the following is summarized from Justo Gonzalez and primary sources.

The Cappadocians receive a lot of attention from the East for their philosophical language, articulation of Trinitarian doctrine and Greek, and, in the case of Gregory of Nyssa, mysticism. Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa were brothers, and Gregory of Nazianzus was a mutual friend. Together, they wrote against Arianism in the late 300's and advanced the cause of Nicene faith.

Basil of Caesarea's chief nemesis was Eunomius, who was one of the intellectually more formidable of the Arians. Eunomius had published at least one treatise on Christ arguing for his inferiority to God. In particular, he argued that unbegottenness is the essence of God, that generation is unbecoming of God, and that furthermore generation by its nature cannot be eternal. Basil's riposte was well-thought and can be briefly summarized: A negative property cannot be God's essence. God's essence is not a negation, but is being. Furthermore, he points out the crudity of Eunomius' arguments concerning generation, showing that by "generation," Christians certainly do not mean anything crude, material, or sensory. Rather, by this term an eternal relation is meant.

Basil's greatest contribution to Christianity was the formula "one ousia, three hypostases." Although Tertullian had earlier in Latin used "one substantiva, three personas," this did not translate well into Greek. Thus Basil's formula was a first in the Greek world and provided a clear path between Arianism and Sabellianism. He also argued subtly and ably for the divinity of the Holy Spirit without using belligerent, aggressive language so as to win those not yet convinced. We can also credit him for changing the liturgical formula "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, in the Holy Spirit" to "...together with the Holy Spirit." This language was later reflected at the Council of Constantinople.

Gregory of Nazianzus attacked the Arian culture of theological disputation, because anyone and everyone could debate any point of theology in the lecture hall, turning theology into more of a public, sporting philosophical enterprise. Rather, theology should be limited to the intelligent and virtuous (intelligence alone does not make a theologian--sorry, Tillich) and to subjects about which we can know. Gregory also responded to Arian rhetoric and exposed numerous logical fallacies. Some of his most significant thought is in asserting that the Trinitarian names are names of relation, not essence or action. Thus he avoids a purely economic Trinity, Tritheism or Arianism, and even manages to avoid making his concepts incomprehensible to everyone else.

Gregory of Nyssa is probably my least favorite of the Cappadocians, primarily because of his love of pagan philosophy. He was highly influenced by Origen and centers everything on free will and somehow manages to wind up in universalism via his negation theory of evil (this can be found in his Life of Moses, for example). His idealism led to weird assertions such as that all men are as much the same essence as the three divine Persons, the difference being that the divine Persons shared operations as well. He was also a relatively early advocate (although the Protoevangelium of James might predate him) of the Unbroken Hymen of Mary. From my cursory readings, he appears to be highly influential in Orthodox thought.

So the last is my own thought, should you have survived this long-winded post (That's a singular "you." If you linked a post of mine on your blog, I wouldn't mind). Basically, I think the Cappadocians are highly overrated. Nazianzus was the best of the lot. However, the three of them together gave birth to the purely philosophical notion of theology. Reading them is like chewing Platonic sawdust. Their theology is largely mixing up some proof-texts with endless teasing out of philosophical definitions and logical consequence. They argued well, and they came up with some great language, but ultimately, they failed to address one big question:

"Why should I care?"

This is where they sort of get off the Athanasian train. Athanasius can't stop talking about salvation, redemption, sanctification, providence, revelation--in other words, what it means for us. For the Cappadocians, it's more about just having the right ideas in your head. That doesn't mean they never connect it to practical matters of salvation, but they spend an awful lot of time in the world of ideas. This tendency has never departed Orthodox theology, where the practical consequence of a whole pile of high-minded language about theosis and perichoresis is "Follow the church fasting and purity regulaions," and serious theology is doing something like writing 200 pages on what a hypostasis is.

Cyprian of Carthage

2007-02-03T19:50:00.000-08:00

Cyprian was elected bishop of Carthage in 248 by popular demand. He was a gifted rhetoritician and consistent in his theology. His works are often mined for proof-texts of both Roman and Eastern ecclesiology. But is this actually the case? Certainly, Cyprian is strong on the succession of bishops. However, note that he himself was elected, and it was this election to which he eventually submitted himself to become bishop, not the orders of any kind of supreme "bishop of bishops." And in his De Ecclesiae Catholica Unitate, he maintains that each of the bishops posesses the episcopate in its totality, and in his own life reflected this in his collegiality with other bishops. Never did he look to Rome for an authoritative answer. So when Cyprian speaks of the Church being founded on Peter, it seems as though he is talking about the historical person of Peter, not a "Petrine succession" in Rome.

For Cyprian, the unity of the Church is inseparable from baptism. He is adamant that recognizing the baptisms of heretics and schismatics is to divide the Church. As he says:

Now if rebirth is this washing, that is to say, in baptism, how can heresy, which is not the bride of Christ, give birth to sons, through Christ, to God?

A heretical sect, because it is not the Church, cannot give birth to the elect, and thus cannot have baptism. I think that a desacramentalized Church that encompasses millions and possibly billions of "anonymous Catholics" through some far-fetched "baptism of unacknowledged desire" would have been unconscienable to Cyprian and thoroughly ridiculed by him with his usual withering rhetoric. It is indeed correct to cite Cyprian as supporting that there is only "one holy catholic Church," but it is thoroughly dishonest to do so if you hold that heretical baptism or faith can be effective to salvation, because it is denying the efficacy of such things that gives Cyprian's ecclesiology its shape. In fact, not even schismatics who are otherwise orthodox can have baptism or salvation. For Cyprian, the Church's identity is found precisely in its baptism. To acknowledge that a congregation truly baptizes while denying that it is part of the Church is simply a contradiction of terms.

Second, despite his comments regarding Peter's role in the foundation of the Church, his treatise on the exclusivity of Christian baptism to the Church is directed entirely against the teaching of the bishop of Rome, Stephen. This letter constitutes a denial of the universal jurisdiction and infallibility of the bishop of Rome. In fact, he subtly calls Stephen a heretic, saying:

And the tradition handed down to us is that there is one God and one Christ, one hope and one faith, one Church and one baptism appointed only in that one Church. Whoever departs from that unity must be found in company with heretics; and in defending heretics against the Church, he is launching an attack upon the sacred mystery of this divine tradition.

Cyprian simply cannot be cited in favor of neither the medieval notion nor the mid-19th century notion of the papacy. And, perhaps fortunately, he and Stephen both died martyred within a year or two of this treatise, after which its theology was largely ignored by the practice of the church at Carthage.

One other thing to note...Cyprian's ecclesiology does not give the bishops license of infallibility. Obviously, he believes even the bishop of Rome can err. His insistence on not changing apostolic doctrine one whit certainly does not jive with modern notions of an "organically growing Holy Tradition," either! For Cyprian, traditio is static; it is an unchanging faith explicitly handed down by the apostles. But neither does traditio appear in Cyprian in the usual sense:

For if we go back to the source and fountainhead of divine tradition, human error ceases; we there command a clear view of th enature of the heavenly mysteries, and whatever has lain hidden in obscurity under cover of mist and under cloud of darkness is now brought out into the light of truth...If in any respect the truth has grown faltering or shaky, we must go back to the Lord as our source, and to the tradition of the Gospels and the apostles.

The "apostles" here doubtlessly means the apostolic epistles. It seems that for Cyprian, "tradition" is identical with the contents of the New Testament. And, surpringly (to those who expect Cyprian to be Orthodox or Roman Catholic, anyway), he regards the traditio as sufficiently clear in itself to enlighten with the truth. There is no final appeal to an infallible interpreter, the Living Voice of the Church, or any other version of "look at what we now believe, and that's the correct thing." So, rather than referring to another apostolic authority alongside Scripture passed down orally since apostolic times through the succession bishops (Trent), a unified, living, dynamic mind that includes Scripture among many other things (Orthodoxy), or a Holy Spirit-led, progressive unfolding of divine revelation (Vatican II), Cyprian is simply referring to the apostolic teaching, which is preserved in their writings. I think that he uses the word traditio, not to emphasize that some extra authority besides Scripture is needed, but rather to emphasize both the essential unity of the apostolic teaching and the finality of its authority. In other words, the point is that whether we are talking about Paul, Luke, Peter, Matthew, or John, they are all teaching the same Gospel to the same Church. And furthermore, nothing coming afterward can supercede or add to this authoritative teaching, which judges all teachings. Given the battles the Church was fighting in the 3rd century, how many things were in flux, and how many heresies kept springing up, this makes far more sense than trying to project medieval Catholic concepts back onto it.

Apocrypha Yesterday and Today

2007-01-31T14:01:00.000-08:00

If you go over to New Advent's entry on the Book of Judith, you'll find a rousing defense of its historicity. What brought this up was that I was talking to a Catholic friend of mine about Judith, and she mentioned that her Bible describes the book as a "novel" in the preface, i.e. a work of fiction. Her Bible was published after Vatican II. The Catholic Encyclopedia was published in 1910. I have no commentary on this.

East and West

2007-01-22T13:28:00.000-08:00

Church history is fascinating because it drives us to the question, "How did these guys read Scripture? Did they read it at all?" As we all know, there was a lot of fighting in the centuries of the Imperial Church over who was the greatest--the bishop of Rome, or the bishop of Constantinople? What's more is that this question comes up again in the context of Catholic-Orthodox relations.

To just about every Christian in the Reformation tradition, with its strong emphasis on sola scriptura, this seems amazing in light of Luke 22:24-28, where the disciples are fighting over who is the greatest--at the Last Supper, no less! This is, of course, not the only place where the disciples where arguing over honor, and we all know what Jesus' response is. It seems obvious enough that if you are arguing over primacy, power, and greatness, you are completely missing what Jesus is about.

Yet these fights happened in the Imperial Church without anyone saying "Hey! What did Jesus say about greatness in the kingdom of God?" And they still happen today, as though this ancient question deserves an answer. ("No. It's the pope at Rome. No, it's still the patriarch of Constantinople!") So what happened?

I think when you read the Bible itself, you find the answers. No one knew the Scripture better than the Pharisees, yet they were often completely blinded to its meaning by their own agenda. And I suppose that's what happens. The same thing happened to Southern Presbyterians when it came to slavery. It's really easy to become so convinced that you are right that even God's Word cannot speak to you. The only alternative is to be continually open to correction--which is to sacrifice pride, the greatest idol of mankind.

Annoying (Former) Evangelicals

2007-01-11T11:16:00.000-08:00

Honestly, nothing is more annoying than a former Protestant who's turned either EO or RC. Having turned, they feel the need to harass all their friends and acquaintances with tear-jerking stories of "coming home" and having finally "reconciled myself to the One True Church." The archetype, of course, is Frankie Schaeffer. First, the guy can't shut up. Second, when he opens his mouth, it's always to be incredibly condescending to the poor fools who haven't yet joined the True Church. Third, Orthodoxy is way more diverse and nuanced than he presents it. Fourth, conscientious Orthodox Christians see way more problems in their own communion than Schaeffer will ever admit.

And that's pretty much how most of the converts are. I find that lifelong Catholic and Orthodox Christians tend to be quite tolerable, charitable, Christian folks who tend to be interested in very Christian sort of things like raising one's children in the faith, activities at the parish, social and political issues, the troubling news about some unfortunate strife at church headquarters, etc. Former Protestants are completely different. It seems that people born in the communions (or converted long enough ago to have internalized the identity) are far more likely to be conscious of diversities and current problems than new converts from Protestantism, who are just enchanted by the perfections of their new communions and appalled at the silliness of Protestantism.

The last thing is the blatant hypocrisy of criticizing Protestants for reappropriating things that were formerly jettisoned. Before it was, "You idiot Protestants don't recite the Creed! You deny the Church!" So we start reciting the Creed, and now it's "You idiot Protestants recite the Creed without joining us! You're just a bunch of consumers!" As a Reformed Christian who sees the salutary use of creeds and liturgies, but not praying to things or dead people, uncritical attitudes toward theologians of the Byzantine Empire, dogmatization of medieval myths and works-based paths of salvation, infallible guys in Italy, or the like, I find that criticism to be invalid. As Michael Spencer of the Boar's Head Tavern said, I'd prefer to stay where I am and deal with my own problems than take on yours.

So this final message is for EO and RC converts: You know how you are now convinced that your current communion is the One True Church That Christ Founded to the exclusion of all others, and would never leave it no matter what else happens? So equally are some of us convinced that the Reformation of the 16th century was a necessary restoration of divine doctrine and expunging of un-Christian practice, and because repudiating what the Reformation was about is a condition of joining your communion, we cannot in good conscience do this. We recognize some missteps we made then and since then, but at the core, we are thoroughly convinced in our own minds that the Reformation was necessary, good, and even vital. Please try to understand and respect that our conviction that we cannot join your communion is just as deep and fundamental as your own conviction that we must.

Transubstantiation

2007-01-04T19:46:00.000-08:00

In a discussion with a Lutheran blogger who goes only by the name of CPA, I sought to find what Lutherans might think of transubstantiation. In my Google hunt, I came across instead what some Catholic thinks of the Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation. In any case, you owe it to yourself to read this. If that's the metaphysical understanding behind the Catholic doctrine, well, draw your own conclusions.

Especially curious is their claim that they take Christ's words "literally" why we take them "symbolically." I'm not sure how the Mystical Presence of Reformed theology (i.e. that "This is my body" refers to the spiritual connection we have with Christ in the celebration of the Supper) is any less "literal" than the claim that "This is my body" means "Jesus draws the visible appearance of bread around himself and, in so doing, turns the bread into his entire person such that he is nonphysically present, but present only according to substance." "Body," when juxtaposed with "blood" simply means "flesh." "Body, blood, soul, divinity, and indeed the entire person of Christ" isn't a literal reading; it's just as much an interpolation and product of theological reflection as anything you'll find in Calvin's Institutes. If they said "The flesh of Christ" instead of "Jesus in his full divinity in substance," that would be "literal."

What they should say isn't "We take it literally, and you take it spiritually." They should say "Our theological reflection, philosophical speculation, and centuries of tradition just happen to be right. Yours are wrong. The end." This "literal reading" vs "spiritual reading" stuff is just a bunch of malarky.

2007-01-03T18:36:00.000-08:00

Cool people don't say God-bearer, liturgy, or icon. They say Theotokos, leitourgia, and ikon. That way, people know that you're a real theologian, not like those schmucks who don't know the proper Greek term for things we have perfectly servicable English names for. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go proskyneo Christos my kyrios before bed. This daily zoe is all part of the pistis, you know.

FV

2007-01-02T20:04:00.000-08:00

I feel like I should talk about the Federal Vision controversy. Unfortunately, this is only due to a feeling of vague moral obligation, as every other Reformed blogger seems to care. It is in no way due to any interest of mine. I simply find the whole thing infinitely boring. It should be manifestly clear to everyone that Reformed theology isn't as one dimensional as the 5-points + baby sprinklin' types say it is. It should also be clear that we should steer clear of talking about covenant-keeping as a condition of salvation. I understand what people mean by that, but the problem is that kind of language is still too loaded with medieval baggage to be useful. People are just too likely to automatically think "Racking up credits to use at the heavenly Kwik-E-Mart," and they're not going to read the 300-page book you wrote about it.

Who's a Father?

2007-01-02T15:47:00.000-08:00

A question that's recently been circulating around my brain is "Who gets to be a Church Father? And why?" I have noticed two circular claims made by those who study primarily patristic literature:

This man said great things that we ought to hear because he is a Holy Father.
This man is a Holy Father because he said great things that we ought to hear.

OK, so it's circular. Big deal. However, it got me thinking about the whole selection process for becoming a Father. Of course, you've got to have written something important. That right away eliminates everyone in the era who spent most of his time preaching and little time writing. However, one's writings are only "important" if someone else recognizes them to be so. This "someone" in the case of patristic literature would be the later copyists. The works of blacklisted theologians such as Nestorius and Origen are lost to us for precisely this reason. However, who else is out there that we don't get to see? We have evidence from Augustine and Jerome that there were theologians in their day who neither held to their Stoic view of sexuality nor to the perpetual virginity of Mary. It seems obvious why nothing they said has been preserved--desert monastics transcribing scrolls likely wouldn't have too much interest in someone who believed that sex is no impediment to holiness.

All this is to say that when we say we are speaking of the "view of the Fathers," we implicitly mean the "views of men that monastic scribes thought we should listen to." Of course, a big fan of the Fathers would say that the scribes themselves were also quite holy, being monks, and therefore we should humbly receive that which they have determined we ought to hear.

But I myself don't take such a view. I certainly recognize the value in Augustine, Irenaeus, Athanasius, etc, but at the same time I come at the extant works we have with a recognition that later developments in church history and a profound, uncritical affection for imperial Roman Christianity have played a large part in determining who the "Fathers" are and the particular kind of piety and reverence associated with reading their works.

Fight!

2006-12-23T02:52:00.000-08:00

I just got an e-mail linking me to an article containing a "Feisty defense of Rome against Eastern Orthodoxy!" I guess that's pretty exciting to some people, but come on. This whole medieval "Jesus likes my bishop best" thing is kind of pathetic. Arguing over who gets to wear the pointy hat and write canon laws was relevant back when there was a political power vacuum in Europe and despotic popes were attempting to fill it. But today, the Vatican hierarchy is approaching the relevance of the last of the Western Roman emperors. There's all the pomp and splendor along with the promulgation of endless decrees, doctrines, and laws, but the population is as disinterested as ever in actually listening. People like having a pope--it's nice to have a kindly old man around in a golden robe who appears to represent every virtue a human can exhibit, and when he talks about God being love and calls himself our spiritual father, it does appeal. And for the more spirited among us, arguing over his right to absolute power and jurisdiction gives us that same deep-seated feeling of religious superiority (especially as we imagine that arguing vigorously for his universal power in some way makes us sharers in that power) that it did in 1500, but there is something quaintly medieval about the whole exercise.

Blind Ecumenism

2006-12-22T03:03:00.000-08:00

Writing a blog for an audience of roughly zero is a different thing. Maybe that's why I feel little or no impetus to write about theology, but whatever. I think my interest in the subject is waning, as closer study of the Scripture has led me to the conclusion that most ecumenical theological discourse is akin to trying to fix a broken-down '73 Mustang with a 3-pound sack of duck feathers. Everyone seems to come to the table with the understanding that discussion of the texts themselves isn't going to get anyone anywhere, since we all have our definite ideas of what they say, and thus we must respectfully disagree and continue on with other things. So instead, we ramble about our mutual respect for the "Fathers," whoever they might have been, our "common mission," whatever that means, our "solidarity in the Gospel," whatever that is, or whatever. It's all a giant political spectacle. Protestants fall all over themselves trying to show that we really do have the utmost respect for pointy hats, extravagant processions, ancient basilicas, and paintings of folks with halos and spooky eyes, while Catholics throw us the occasional bone to show they really do, like, care about Jesus and prayer and reading the Bible stuff, the Orthodox try to show that they don't really think that everyone is going to hell, the Anglicans continue to be the incoherent crowd-pleasers they've been for the last 100 years or so, and the Lutherans...what the heck do Lutherans do, anyway?

I don't really see the point, because no one's really backed off any claims except "everyone who isn't just like us will burn in hell." I mean, gee, that's fantastic and all, and I'm happy that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is no longer in the business of handing us over to be tortured or burned alive, I'm glad the 30 Years' War is over, and I'm glad that guys like John Bunyan no longer go to prison. Gosh, it only took 15 centuries. Thanks, Augustine! Maybe in another 15 centuries, we'll start listening to Scripture instead of being just so incredibly impressed at what our own religious philosophers say and so unbelievably devoted to our own theological histories.

But that's highly unlikely. I seem to recall this movement starting about 500 centuries ago on the basic premise that perhaps, just perhaps, someone saying something in the past with fancy Aristotelean language does not necessarily mean he was correct, that just because you have a painting of someone on a golden background with a halo and spooky eyes does not necessarily imply that everything he said was correct, and that just because a fellow has a pointy hat and sits on an imposing throne in a magnificent basilica does not mean that everything he says is correct, either...and that there is some probability that if you take a good hard look at what the apostles wrote and what Jesus said, you might come to some correct ideas. That premise, of course, was beaten to a bloody pulp and discarded by most of Christendom in favor of the obvious clarity of murky encyclicals and opaque 5th-century philosophers. But the irony is that those who proposed this were followed by men who turned their founders' writings into exactly the sort of Tradition that they were so critical of to begin with. So now the arguments are no longer about what Scripture says and the proper way to interpret it (e.g. the proper place of reason, the material principle of Scripture, how we should appropriate exegesis of our forebears, etc), but about whose relics are holiest.

Early Fathers

2006-12-10T20:53:00.000-08:00

As some folks start to learn about church history and things, they get pretty excited about traditions and liturgies and icons and all that stuff. This often makes them prone to uncritically embrace anything someone bearing the name of Church Father, much to their detriment. But let's roll back for a moment:

When you dig into early Christian writings, you do find a lot of weird stuff. By golly, it looks like Christians in those days were a pretty diverse bunch of people who could really go all over the map theologically! Something I have found particularly notable is the rather rapid decline of Pauline theology. Some would say "How dare you say that the theology of the Holy Fathers is anything other than that of Paul?" But to them I would say that theology also involves a certain manner of speaking. For the most part, the early Christian writings we still have today show little influence of Pauline language. You'll find good amounts of John and more than a shade of Plotinus, though. We do see Pauline language in I Clement, but this epistle also demonstrates some flexibility in the way dikaioo and its related vocabulary was used by Christians--compare 30:7 with 32:4, for example. But we must also remember how little survived to our day. Much was destroyed as the Roman empire was dismantled, and later monks preserved those writings that they thought worth preserving. What did Christians in those times say that we don't know about?

Anyway, we do see diversity and change. The era of holy theological inerrancy just plain didn't happen. The second and third centuries are eras like any other--unfortunately full of ordinary humans living their lives. They could be legalistic, petty, moralistic, arrogant, shortsighted, prejudiced, and uncritical.

Just like us.

Anathema!

2006-12-07T20:43:00.000-08:00

The question of the Council of Trent and the status of various Reformed symbols frequently comes up in our circles. These are just a few sketchy thoughts about confessional subscription:

Do you subscribe to a confessional document if you contradict it with other teachings? For example, in Reformed vs Lutheran debates, the claim is typically ventured by the one that the other's doctrine of the Lord's Supper contradicts Chalcedon, despite the equal assertion by both to subscribe to the definition laid down by the Council. So can we really say that both of us subscribe to CoC, or do we necessarily have to conclude that one of us does not actually subscribe?
Do you subscribe to a confessional document if you take the liberty of fundamentally changing what the terms used in it means? For example, the word "tradition" in Trent was understood by its authors to refer to an uncorrupted corpus of doctrine and practice (right down the manifold ceremonies surrounding baptism) handed down orally by Jesus to the apostles and transmitted in unbroken succession until that time. If you don't believe me, check out what the theologians of the time were actually saying. Primary sources, people! But as we know, after Newman and especially Vatican II, "tradition" has been redefined as unfolding, developing, and evolving under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. This view of Tradition has been projected back onto Trent, and the document has been reinterpreted accordingly. So does the Vatican really subscribe to Trent?
Do you subscribe to a document that isn't enforced? And at what level? The PCA doesn't require confessional subscription of its members...not even on baptism. Clergy can take a few exceptions, too. The Vatican seems to take almost an "anything-goes" policy toward its vast array of dogma and canon law. It seems less than adamant that anyone actually believe what it teaches or do what it says, as long as you're showing up in the right building and take your kids there. Jesuits seem to get away with saying all kinds of stuff.

All of this is just part of my generally feeling that boldly-worded, stern statements of doctrine and policy are often little more than paper tigers.

Exegesis

2006-12-07T14:45:00.000-08:00

I've run across some long, boring papers from professional apologists for the One True Church that dikaioo, translated as "justify," cannot possibly mean anything other than "gradually transformed into a state of moral perfection."

Problem. Luke 7:29.

I feel sorry for guys who have to make exegesis conform to dogmas proclaimed by fellows who openly had no interest in what Scripture said. How do they deal with it?

Restarting

2006-12-07T14:44:00.000-08:00

Hi, I'm Stewart. This my blog. I'm Reformed. What else do you want to know?