Well of Answers

MG has responded to something I wrote:

http://woq.blogspot.com/2007/06/response-to-steve-hays.html

“Personally I dislike the style of presentation being used by some of the Eastern Christians over there, and I hope that there can be more diplomatic tones in the future between the Calvinistic camp and the Eastern commenters.”

In that event I’d advise the other Orthodox commenters to steer clear of this particular thread so that MG can focus on the questions and answers of interest to him.

“No one can be certain of what they believe.”

i) I disagree. In fact, the statement is self-refuting. Are you certain that you can’t be certain?

ii) We need to distinguish between first-order knowledge and second-order knowledge. I can know something without proving it. Indeed, I can know something without being able to prove it.

So I reject an internalist constraint on knowledge, according to which I can’t know something unless I can prove what I know.

Rather, I’d distinguish between prereflective (i.e. intuitive, pretheoretical or tacit) knowledge and reflective (i.e. analytical) knowledge.

Even doubt presupposes belief. We may doubt something because it conflicts with something else we believe. So doubt does not exist in a vacuum. One thing is only doubtful in relation to something else which is not doubtful.

“The difference that I think exists between Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism is that one sees the authority of the New and Old Testament canons grounded in public, infallible, divine revelation (the Orthodox Church) whereas the other does not see the authority of the New and Old Testament canons being publicly revealed by an infallible authority. Neither side grants certainty, but the Orthodox side does seem to have a kind of authority behind the canon that is different. And I would say that this authority puts Orthodoxy in a better place in terms of being more consistent with basic Christian assumptions, ie. revelation is public and its truth based on infallible authority.”

i) Other issues aside, you seem to believe in continuous revelation, which amounts to an open canon. And this courts a regressive fallacy, because you are using ecclesiastical revelation to ground canonical revelation. So what grounds ecclesiastical revelation? If the church authorizes the Bible, what authorizes the church?

ii) What is the locus of infallible authority in the church? And how do you establish that claim?

“The issue of who speaks for Orthodoxy is an odd one. Its kind of like asking who speaks for Christianity.”

But evangelicals don’t make the same claims for our spokesman that the Orthodox make for theirs. Orthodoxy ascribes an institutional authority to certain representatives (e.g. patriarchs, metropolitans) that is not equivalent to the role of pastors or theologians or Bible scholars in a low-church polity. So it is certainly germane to ask, in a high-church polity, who speaks for the faith.

“The principle that I operated on when I was testing Orthodox claims (in my Protestant days of not-so-long ago) was the principle of generosity. What this basically means is ‘I should assume the best things—within reason—about my opponents and people I disagree with’.”

I don’t agree. I wouldn’t assume the best when dealing with Mormons or Moonies or Scientology. It depends on what we know about these movements or individuals.

“I also use this principle in dealing with Calvinists, Roman Catholics, and naturalists. This means, when translated to theological and philosophical argument, that I always assume ‘the most credible person/claim/belief/argument should be considered to represent the group that is presenting its claims’.”

I don’t disagree with this. The problem, though, is that you’re operating with an essentially Protestant criterion.

In a high-church polity, the individual who happens to be the best representative or most authoritative spokesmen for the faith is not the most intellectually competent spokesman, but the spokesman with a certain institutional standing.

You’re suggesting an intellectual meritocracy in which the spokesman with the best argument wins the argument. I’m very sympathetic to that approach. But it reflects a low-church, Protestant outlook.

A high-church polity is inherently authoritarian. It’s an appeal to authority rather than reason.

“If we wish to get at truth, it seems to make the most sense to do this. So I think that when we are in a position to assess which of several conflicting claims to correctly represent a tradition is the most likely correct representative, we should go with “whichever claim is the most favorable to that position being true’.”

The question of who is true to tradition begs the question in favor of tradition, and only pushes the question back step. I can be true to tradition without tradition being true.

“In light of all of this, I would say that we should assume that whoever speaks for Orthodoxy is whoever presents the most credible view/argument/claim. This doesn’t imply the person is an authority; it just forces us to deal with the best version/interpretation of a certain position.”

But that isn’t how Orthodoxy is set up. Orthodoxy is hierarchical. It is predicated on the principle of ascribed status rather than achieved status. The Patriarch of Constantinople enjoys a certain authority, not because of who he is, but because of what he is. He enjoys a measure of official authority—authority that comes with the office. It is the office, and not the official, which confers authority. The office confers authority on the office-holder, not vice versa.

Now, some hierarchs may be very gifted, and they may rise through the ranks due to their intellectual attainments. But that is not the source of their authority.

“For me, the question is not epistemic in the sense of a desire for certainty (the project of modernism) but instead is based on a desire for proper authority.”

This is a pomo caricature of modernism. The question for certainty antedates the Enlightenment. Scholastic theologians were concerned with certainty. Augustine was concerned with certainty. Plato was concerned with certainty.

“I’m not sure the issues you raise here are as serious as the issues in a Protestant view of authority. In Mark 16:17 Jesus says that the signs will accompany those who believe; but that doesn’t necessarily mean that this is meant in an unqualified way such that these signs necessarily accompany those saved and only if one can do these signs does that imply a person is saved. Why should we think Jesus means this in an unqualified way?”

i) We should think Jesus means this in an unqualified way because he speaks without qualification.

ii) But suppose, for the sake of argument, that we take it in a qualified way. Tell me what percentage or fraction of the Orthodox exhibit any of these signs. How common is exorcism and glossolalia in modern Orthodoxy? How common is faith-healing in modern Orthodoxy? How many Orthodox believers imbibe poison or handle venomous snakes?

“Again, what I’m not going for is certainty. Rather it’s a matter of public infallible authority: is divine revelation authenticated and taught by public infallible authority, or not?”

i) Isn’t this circular? If you need revelation to authenticate revelation, then where do you begin or end?

ii) Are you saying that the Bible has no inherent divine indicia? That, taken by itself, Scripture is on the same plane as the Wall Street Journal, Gospel of Judas, Book of Mormon, or Celestine Prophecy?

Are you saying that the only thing which distinguishes the Bible from these other works is the extrinsic authorization of the church? That, in principle, the church could just as well have canonized the Gospel of Judas or Book of Mormon?

“Regarding the issue of ecumenical councils, I don’t have any criteria for an ecumenical council that I can be absolutely sure of. It seems to me least arbitrary to think that if the Church has been given the Holy Spirit, and the Church as a whole seems to have made a certain decision (by the consent of the majority of the hierarchy) that the Holy Spirit has indeed led the Church to make that decision with authority. This may seem arbitrary to you; but it doesn’t seem arbitrary to me. This is at least one possible way of understanding how the Holy Spirit functions in the Church. It seems to me to provide a proper grounding for the truth of the biblical canon and the infallible, revealed status of doctrines such as the Trinity and Incarnation. Hence I think it’s a good model for delineating which decisions are ecumenical/authoritative.”

Several issues:

i) Where has the Holy Spirit been given to the church? Are you alluding to some verse of Scripture?

ii) If you’re invoking some Scriptural promise made to the church, then Scripture authenticates the church, not vice versa.

iii) To which ecclesiastical claimant does the pneumatic promise apply? How do you establish which church the Holy Spirit guides?

iv) You equivocate over the identity of “the Church.” In one sentence you go from “the church as a whole” to “the majority of the hierarchy.” But these are hardly convertible entities. At most, the majority of the hierarchy would only be a subset of the church as a whole.

v) Moreover, what about the Arian controversy, when the majority of the hierarchy were Arian while the majority of the laity were orthodox?

By your majoritarian yardstick (“consent of the majority of the hierarchy,” the council of Florence (1438-39) should be an ecumenical council. Is that your opinion? If not, why not?

“I don’t see any reason to think that either side by itself speaks for the whole Church. Individuals and sub-groups within the Church can be fallible and dead wrong, according to this understanding. It is the Church in ecumenical consensus that is infallible. These disputes don’t seem to mean much of anything in terms of the integrity of the Church as a whole.”

Sorry, but this is far too facile. What makes the Russian Orthodox church to be a true church? Apostolic succession, yes? It’s in valid succession to the Greek Orthodox church, which is in valid succession to the apostles. Isn’t that the basic argument?

So which claimant is in valid succession? Is it the Metropolitan of ROCOR or the Patriarch of Moscow? If you can’t answer questions like these, then apostolic succession is unverifiable.

“What I was specifically dealing with when I said ‘Can’t your argument be used to point out the vagueness of Christianity in general?’ was the issue of ‘who speaks for Christianity?’ Your response, however, did not explain why the question ‘Who speaks for Orthodoxy?’ couldn’t be applied with equal force to an evangelical in the form of ‘Who speaks for Christianity?’ This doesn’t directly have to do with the canon arguments that some Orthodox people have been making; it is rather a rebuttal to your point about the vagueness of Orthodoxy.”

From an evangelical perspective, the short answer is: whoever truly speaks for Scripture truly speaks for Christianity. It comes down to who has the right interpretation. And the best supporting argument for his position.

“Regarding what the alternative grounds are for establishing evangelicalism, could you summarize your approach, and explain in what sense the contents of the canon of the Old and New Testaments are considered to be public, infallible, divine revelation on your view?”

I’ve discussed this in some detail on various occasions. The evidence for the canon involves internal and external lines of evidence.

i) The self-witness of Scripture, in the form of authorial ascriptions as well as intertextual connections, constitutes the direct, internal evidence.

ii) Textual criticism and historical testimony constitute the external evidence.

iii) There’s also the argument from religious experience. Christians find the Bible believable.

Being an argument from experience, it’s limited to insiders rather than outsiders. So it will only work in defensive rather than offensive apologetics.

Also, spiritual experience is person-variable. Nonetheless, this is an important element in the case for canonicity, even if it needs to be supplemented.

“I am very aware of such arguments. I think that J. P. Holding’s exegesis is quite sufficient in showing that it is not necessary to infer Calvinism from Romans 9 (and you are very aware of Holding's exegesis).”

Sufficient for you, but not for me—since I’ve critiqued his “exegesis.”

“This becomes even more clear if you add on a couple more points from Forster and Marston’s God’s Strategy in Human History.”

I read this book years ago. It’s hardly a masterpiece of scholarship. For starters, just compare their treatment of the hardening of Pharaoh’s hard with Beale’s monograph or John Currid’s article.

“And Witherington’s Romans: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary,”

Once again, sufficient for you, but not for me—since I’ve critiqued his exegesis.

“And Brian J. Abasciano’s “Corporate Election in Romans 9: A Response to Thomas R. Schreiner” in the JETS. These are more than sufficient to answer the arguments of Calvinist exegetes such as the one you linked to, Schreiner, or Piper.”

I’ll deal with Abasciano in a separate post.

“Can you provide some of the background information on this? I have read a little bit about yada in the OT, but I was under the impression that it is rarely used to unambiguously mean ‘choose’ ‘chose’ etc. when talking about God and his people.”

Frequency is irrelevant to meaning. A rare meaning is still a real meaning.

For example, homosexual activists claim, using your statistical standard, that Gen 19 has no reference to homosexuality since, in the vast majority of its occurrences, yada simply means to “know.”

Yet, in context, yada clearly denotes sexual activity in Gen 19.

“Furthermore, the context within 1 Peter includes verses about prophetic anticipation of the future and God’s foreknowledge of Christ’s appearing. These can both be legitimately interpreted as teaching that foreknowledge involves cognitive awareness of truths about the future; I see no reason this could not also apply to 1 Peter 1:2.”

This is a circular argument because you’re assuming your “Arminian” interpretation of proginosko in 1:20, and then mapping that back on 1:2.

“And as Witherington would be quick to point out, God’s foreknowledge in Romans 11:2, if it does mean choice, did not preclude the apostasy of ethnic Israel. Foreknowledge, if taken to mean choice, would not necessarily require perseverance of the saints, and hence wouldn’t itself have to be unconditional election that can’t be reversed by human sin. (though because the election of Christians is different than that of Israel, perserverance is not precluded)”

Two problems:

i) In the passage, proegno functions as the antonym of aposato. Since the latter means “to reject,” the former means “to choose” (beforehand).

ii) Proginosko applies to the remnant. You and Witherington fail to distinguish between ethnic Israel as a whole and the remnant (v5). It is not the remnant that commits apostasy. To the contrary, the remnant is faithful.

“This may or may not be correct; it definitely assumes Christianity was on the more hardcore side in terms of predestinarianism in early Judaism. Can reasons be given independently of biblical evidence for assuming that Christianity was a more extreme predestinarian group? I thought that Christians would be more moderate, given their close relation to Phariseeism.”

My point is that in the contrast between Essene predestination and Sadducean libertarianism, Paul’s words would clearly range along the Essence end of the spectrum.