It seems to me that the church and her theologians spend an inordinate amount of time these days on the doctrine of inspiration. The idea that Scripture is inspired has, in fact, taken first place in the confessional statements of many churches (and seminaries for that matter), particularly those churches of the non-denominational/evangelical/megachurch variety. I find this odd, given that a doctrine of inspiration is not even present in the historic creeds; they, rather, all address the nature of the God who was revealed in Christ. To be sure, the Fathers believed that the Scriptures were inspired, they just did not feel the need to logically define how that mysterious process took place. In general, pre-moderns are much more comfortable with mystery than moderns are.
I suspect that the doctrine of inspiration has been so elevated in recent times because it has come under so much fire from more liberal (in the original sense of the word) sects of the church and those outside the church who hold a priori (or without even arguing for it) that such a doctrine is impossible. Thus, the great dividing line - what makes one a Christian or not - is shifted from what one believes in Christ (the historic definition) to what one believes about the inspiration of the Scriptures.
In one sense, this shift may be appropriate because unless one believes that the Scriptures indeed come from God, then one will not believe in the truth of the things which are said in them, and thus the entire faith crumbles. But in another sense, this shift is entirely inappropriate for it entails the addition of a creedal component that was not agreed upon by the Fathers when the church was still one entity; and, therefore, a creedal component which all parts of the church cannot agree upon. (Again, the church has always believed in the inspiration of her Scriptures, but not in the manner that it is defined by certain sects.) Moreover, this shift gives the disastrous impression of elevating belief in the inspiration of Scripture as the most important aspect of our faith.
Friends, this is simply not the case, and if this is how you have been taught, then you have been taught a faith that, at least in this respect, is in no way consistent with Christianity as passed on from the apostles. The truth is that the most important aspect of our faith, the aspect which Jesus came to earth to witness to is who God is. And all the creeds agree that God is Trinity - Father, Son, Holy Spirit - and, as such, a relational God who desires relation with his creation and will one day restore that creation to himself. All other creedal points - including the inspiration and authority of Scripture - flow out of this point. And as far as I know, you and I can agree on who God is without being completely in agreement on the nature of the word which tells us this. If the Fathers felt no need to define the great mystery of inspiration, I see no reason why we should.
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Wow, very well stated, my friend. The sad thing is that many would read this and brand you a heretic (not knowing what that even means) and completely ignore the assertion you made that Jesus is Lord. How did the Western church get to the point where often times more effort and passion is poured into defending fundamentalist beliefs about the Bible than spreading and living the gospel proclaimed in it's pages? I think you're correct that this is a reactionary response to post enlightenment thinking and I understand this response, but disagree with it. It's just too bad that harsh deductive thinking (it's all or nothing) has led to such a venomous response towards those who don't subscribe to extreme inerrancy. Is this not reminiscent of the religiosity of the Pharisees?
Jackson,
Inspired by you...and by know means replicating your intelligent conversations on here, I created a blog...
here is the address...
http://dreamingtrees.blogspot.com/
Along with taking 2 classes, teaching full time, a nice and fun part-time job, writing, spending "quality" time with my wife, and expecting a new baby...I hope that I will be able to write on there a few times out of the week.
Talk to you later,
JOHN
Jackson --
True, insofar as the gospel revelation of God is the person of Jesus Christ, not the words of Scripture.
The question in our day is how we become aware of the gospel revelation of God in Christ; throughout the history of the church that has resolutely been through the apostolic witness presented in Scripture.
The nature of the gospel is that it must be revealed to man. You and I will not come to knowledge of the gospel by means of our own logical deduction. The knowledge of who God is came to the apostles by personal revelation as they walked with Christ. For later generations such as ourselves, we come to know who God is by means of the apostolic witness, as laid down in Scripture. You and I will not agree on who God is until we agree on the means by which God in Christ has been revealed.
The reason the early church Fathers did not define the doctrine of inspiration of Scriptures was because that particular doctrine was not contested at the time. All confessional statements of the church, both early and modern, were made in response to some heretical or heterodox teaching. In the early church, it was in response to Arius and others to the dual nature (deity and humanity) of Christ. Thus do Nicea and Chalcedon focus on that particular issue. The challenge today (from theological liberalism and elsewhere) is much different - not to the nature of Christ, but to the reliability and veracity of Scripture as it reveals Christ. If the church today is to maintain a Christian witness that is apostolic, it must depend upon the witness of Christ revealed in Scripture. Thus, in light of the challenge presented to the church, it should strike us as only appropriate that modern confessions of the church would begin by and emphasize the truth of God revealed in Scripture - not as a replacement of the truth of Christ presented in the early creeds, but as a particular and necessary response to the challenges faced by the church today.
Without the reliable standard of Scripture, "Jesus" will quickly become whatever any particular group of people happen to believe on a particular day. (And indeed that is exactly what has happened in many churches not holding to a high view of Scripture.) You need to have a firm basis for determining who God is in Christ. And for the church, throughout its history, that has been the apostolic witness as presented in Scripture.
Hi Anon-
I have to disagree with what you say, mainly for liturgical reasons. I have no problem - in fact I encourage - the church engaging the problems of their day. If she doesn't than she becomes irrelevant and that is the beginning of her downfall. But we must be careful in the manner in which we engage these differences that the substance of the faith is not changed. In that many of these churches are adding what amounts to a creedal point - and a change of the canon - to engage culture, these churches are changing the historic, unchanging faith.
I take the historic councils as a better example of how the engaging of culture and changing issues ought to be done. Every council, prior to engaging new material, first accepts as dogma the creeds which has come before. So, in the second ecumenical, before it addressed new problems of the Holy Spirit, etc., first accepted the Nicene Creed, thus affirming the historic faith - and so on down the line to Vatican 2.
When churches put belief in the inspiration of the word (and moreover belief in a certain theory of inspiration - e.g. inerrancy) as the first article in their creed and then follow it up with belief in the Trinity as the second article, they are essentally changing the faith. There are more appropriate ways to engage the culture.
Also, I think that you and I can agree on the nature of the Trinity (and other things) without being in full agreement on a theory of inspiration. I see it happen all the time. The key thing - the thing that was never in dispute by the church is that the Word is revealed by God; we do not need to define exactly how that happened.
P.S. - I wish I knew who I was talking to. :)
You seem to be presenting a more “Catholic” view of inspiration than I would have expected. Do you view the ecumenical councils (even up to Vatican II) as normative for the life and practice of the church? To the best of my knowledge, the Reformers accepted the decrees of the early ecumenical councils, not because they were ecumenical, but because they accorded with a proper interpretation of Scripture. (Sola Scriptura, etc.) Later councils, such a Trent, were rejected on this same basis.
As an aside, have you had occasion to consider Francis Beckwith’s conversion to Catholicism? Do you agree with him?
In the movie O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU John Goodman (portraying a traveling bible salesmen)says, 'I get a mite bit peevish when I'm hungry.' Well, I guess I'm a mite bit peevish myself and I'm going to throw propriety to the wind and indulge it.
I haven't logged in to read the blog in a while and in trying to figure it out why I think part of is has to do with responders like Anonymous. They spew out words like water out of a fire hose without seemingly examining the statements as long as it sounds sufficiently pious and jargonly.
Do you actually read what you write? For example, "The knowledge of who God is came to the apostles by personal revelation as they walked with Christ." Give me a break. These are the same 'duh-ciples' that were jockeying for the temporal/secular seat of privilege at the last supper! These are the ones prepared to fight in the garden to stop the progress of the process that was to give us God's greatest gift. And you are going to tell me that they had knowledge due to their personal walk. Give me a break. At the eleventh hour they did not have a clue.
Sometimes I wonder if we, like Paul, have scales on our eyes. Maybe the scales are sufficiently translucent so as to allow us to truly comprehend only the top line on the vision chart...you know the letters that only the legally blind cannot make out. We then continue to squint at the crenulations on the back of the scale mistakenly thinking we are seeing the chart. Then, after sufficiently torturing what we believe to see, manage to decipher them into something of which we can make sense.
I think there is going to be a lot of crow to eat when we get our first debriefing in heaven.
Respectfully Yours,
Peevish
Responding to the first Anonymous:
I do take the ecumenical councils as normative for the life of the church, particularly the first seven, in which the church was operating as one body. I have more trouble taking the councils after the seventh as normative (as the Catholics do) but not because of their disagreement with Scripture but rather because the entire church is not acting as one body. Yet I still see value in all of the councils for the better defining of the faith.
I question, however, your claim that this is a "Catholic" view of inspiration. (In the technical sense it is actually more Eastern Orthodox than Catholic since I only accept as truly normative the first seven.) But in another sense, it is not Catholic, meaning Roman Catholic, at all - it is simply what it means to be a Christian.
I suspect that you yourself also view the councils (at least the first four) as normative because you likely believe in Trinity and in Jesus Christ as God-man, etc. No doubt you will say that you believe these things because they are in Scripture but I think that this is a false dichotomy. Certainly they are in Scripture, but it took the councils, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to draw out the full significance of what is latent in Scripture. In so far as all Christians think of Trinity in Nicene and Constantinopolitan terms (even though they don't know it) rather than the sometimes obscure and equivocal language of Scripture tells me that all of us view those councils in some way normative.
Thus, my view of inspiration is much more nuanced than to simply say that Scripture is inspired. Of course I believe it was inspired in some manner in its writing, but I also believe that the church (when acting as one) was inspired in choosing which books to canonize (which may be the more crucial moment of inspiration), and also in their discernment of how those books are to be read(through the creeds). Without this more broad view of inspiration, I am not sure how saying that Scripture is inspired really helps us that much.
Responding to the Second Anonymous:
I know what you mean. Don't you wish that all anonymous posters would identify themselves? :)
FREE BARABBAS!
Did we graduate from the same school? I think I didn't get my money's worth. I blog about things like "My God, how big can one Walmart get?" Jackson, my friend, send me an email: ryan@uchurch.tv. I want to talk to you about a job opening I have. My love to Jules.
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