Before I respond to some specific comments, I’ll make a general observation. It shouldn’t be necessary to point this out, but some people habitually ignore the obvious.
God hasn’t seen fit to ensure that representatives of his church invariably teach the truth. Even if you inhabit the charmed cuckooland of Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy, those bodies, despite their affectations to sporadic infallibility in some official pronouncement or another, don’t claim to offer an infallible blueprint for everything the faithful are taught in church.
Take the millennium. To my knowledge, neither the Orthodox church nor the Catholic church has staked out an official position on the millennium (e.g. amil, premil, postmil). If a priest or bishop preaches a homily on some passage from the lectionary which implicates the millennium, then he will have to interpret the passage accordingly. And his interpretation will either be right or wrong. There is more than one available interpretation. And they can’t all be right.
Or take all the borderline cases in ethics. There is no infallible blueprint that gives the answer for every conceivable contingency. So if you go to your priest for advice, then there are times when he will give you bad advice. Just consider the different schools of casuistry in Roman Catholicism. And Orthodoxy would be confronted with the same issues.
So even if you’re Catholic or Orthodox, it’s still the case, on your own ecclesiology, that your priest or bishop teaches falsehood from time to time. They are not infallible. They make mistakes. They misinterpret Scripture–or tradition. Or, in many cases, there is not received answer to give you.
Error is part and parcel of living in a fallen world. But in every generation you have some perfectionists to presume to be more pious than God. They are scandalized by God’s administration of the world.
ACOLYTE4236 SAID:
“Do words have meaning?”
They have assigned meanings.
“Do they have a history?”
Yes. And by the same token, their meanings can evolve over time.
“And is there such a thing as original intent?”
See my post:
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2009/12/where-is-meaning.html
“If it’s a term of art then the words pick out a certain meaning and so the words can’t be employed apart from that meaning in that text without ignorance.”
But ignorance is quite germane to what somebody mentally affirms when he recites a creed.
“Or a deliberate putting aside of the original intent.”
i) There’s nothing inherently wrong with setting aside original intent. While original intent is important to the historical meaning of a text, the original intent of an uninspired writer doesn’t obligate the reader. An uninspired writer doesn’t have that unilateral authority over the reader.
ii) If churches produce creeds, then churches can revise or redefine creeds.
This is not the Bible. The authority of a creed is, at best, derivative. It derives whatever authority it enjoys from its conformity to Scripture.
There is nothing sacrosanct about the original intent of a creed–not to mention of the ambiguities of original intent in reference to composite authorship.
Original intent is an important element in telling you what it meant at the time it was written. But how it functions in the life of the church centuries later may be different.
“Moreover, I don’t have to appeal to the Creed, I can appeal to plenty of Reformed Confessions.”
Fine. Of course, that’s shifting the discussion from the original point of reference (the Nicene Creed). I was discussing the public recitation of the filioque. In every church service I’ve ever attended in my far-flung experience, the Nicene creed is the vehicle by which the filioque is recited in public worship.
“Moreover, the ignorance of a reader isn’t relevant.”
It’s relevant to what the reader mentally affirms and thereby professes.
“Nor is whether a reader could reconstruct the doctrine from the words alone.”
It is in reference to the document I was discussing from the get go.
“So its reductionistic to take a documents’ usage of terms in the way its authors intended?”
For reasons I’ve given, that’s simplistic:
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2009/12/where-is-meaning.html
And you’ve offered no counterargument. You merely huff and puff.
Actually, I’m little surprised that somebody with Perry’s level of education is so naïve about hermeneutics and philosophy of language.
“So the average church member is bound only by what he knows phrases stand for in Reformed Confessions?”
Properly speaking, Christians are obligated by Scripture alone. They are only bound by a creed insofar as that creed faithfully reproduces the teaching of Scripture.
“And is he unconsciously substituting one meaning for the other?”
What it means to him depends on his level of knowledge.
“And do you consciously substitute one for the other…”
I’ve already discussed my own practice. Why are you so chronically forgetful? Do you drink too much? Is that it? Do you suffer from blackouts? Does that account for your chronic inability to remember what I’ve said?
“Since you admit that the Reformed Confessions teach a doctrine not found in or derivable from Scripture alone?”
Which is not what I’ve said. That manages to combine a gross oversimplification of what I actually said along with your bait-and-switch.
“So are you suggesting that the intent of the framer of the Westminster Confession and the London Baptist Confession fail to obligate the worshiper when they teach an eternal hypostatic generation?”
Framers don’t obligate readers. Only God has that prerogative.
“If your foremost obligation is to God, isn’t this all the more reason to protest false doctrines about God in your own church? And does your church expect you to abide by the teaching?”
My view of the church is not that proprietary or parochial.
“Did you object to it when you went through the procedures for membership?”
You’re making breeze assumptions without a foundation in fact.
“Are the Confessions a condition for ordination or membership?”
Not in terms of strict subscription. How can you say you used to be a Calvinist and not know these things? For how long were you a Calvinist? Two weeks?
“As for the rest, again, do you know or can you give any significant examples where the Reformed have permitted widespread difference on the Filioqueist construal of the Trinity?”
You have a forgetful habit of repeating questions I’ve already answered in the past. Why is that, Perry? Why do you have such a poor memory?
To take one example, compare Douglas Kelly’s position with Paul Helm’s.
“If you say that the Filioque isn’t justifiable in light of Sola Scriptura but you are able to dissent, then this just admits the internal inconsistency-the Reformed teach Sola Scriptura and doctrines which are not derivable from Scripture alone. So the point has been conceded.”
You’re trying to recast the issue. The fundamental issue isn’t lack of consistency with sola Scriptura, but lack of consistency with Scripture itself.
The issue is the degree to which any theological tradition is fully compliant with the teaching of Scripture, not the degree to which it’s fully compliant with the tenet of sola Scriptura.
For example, both Catholicism and Orthodoxy deny sola Scriptura, but their denial of that tenet, while culpable in its own right, hardly excuses their lack of conformity to Scripture itself.
It is wrong to be inconsistent with sola Scriptura, but it’s equally wrong to be consistent with a position which denies sola Scriptura. And it’s equally wrong to be inconsistent with Scripture itself.
A wrongful consistency is no better than a wrongful inconsistency. Indeed, it’s far worse. For a wrongful consistency is systematically false.
Even if the historic Reformed tradition shares an error in common with Catholicism and Orthodox on this particular issue (i.e. the Father as the fons deitas), they lack any of the compensatory benefits. In that case, it would be wrong on one of the same things they are wrong on without either of them being right on all the other things it got right.
“So if it functions like a contract, are people pen-ultimately bound by Confessions they profess adherence to when they teach the Filioque?”
There’s not much point answering a purely hypothetical question unless you think it corresponds to a typical, real life situation.
“And even if not, do you admit that the WCF and the LBC teach a doctrine concerning the very nature of God that is extra-biblical?”
I’d say that in this particular respect they default to an unscriptural paradigm which is common to both Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.
“The primary importance is if the Filioque doctrine as professed in the WCF and the LBC is derivable from Scripture alone or not.”
No, that’s not the issue of primary importance. Because you’re a man-pleaser who belongs to a theological tradition which deifies man-made traditions, you make internal consistency with one’s theological tradition the primary issue. But that’s symptomatic of your ecclesiolatrous orientation.
The primary issue is not whether a theological tradition is faithful to its own principles, but whether it’s faithful to the word of God.
Any theological tradition, regardless of its formal acceptance or rejection of sola scriptura is culpable in case one or more of its doctrines is inconsistent with Scripture. If a theological tradition rejects sola Scriptura, then that’s just one more strike against it. A theological tradition which is internally consistent with its repudiation of sola Scriptura is more culpable, not less so, than a theological tradition which rightly affirms sola Scriptura, but fails to consistently implement that rule of faith.
“Arian wording is scripturally justifiable too. Jesus is the “firstborn of creation” and the like. Does that imply it is acceptable? Obviously not.”
It’s unacceptable because it defines the phrase contrary to Pauline usage, and Pauline usage is normative since Pauline usage is inspired usage.
“Hence it fails to map the biblical teaching.”
True. And at that point the worshipper has both the right and the obligation to mentally affirm what the Bible teaches–regardless of creedal intent.
“Again, the target is the Reformed Confessions, so switching to the Nicene Creed is no help.”
I was alluding to the Nicene creed all along, so I didn’t suddenly switch to that frame of reference.
“The question is about what Reformed bodies teach, not whether the papally approved language inserted into the Nicene Creed is acceptable on its face. You’ve mistakenly substituted one question for the other.”
Actually, the real question concerns our obligation to cohere with the teaching of Scripture. That’s a question for Calvinists, and no less a question for Catholics or Orthodox.
“If the Reformed Confession is fallible and in error about the doctrine of God, don’t you think it should be reformed…”
Creeds should be updated, as necessary, to align or realign them with Scripture. That applies to fallible Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox creeds as well.
Or course, Catholic and Orthodox sources (e.g. Trent, Vatican II, 2nd Nicea, The Confession of Dositheus) may be so error-ridden that it’s better to start from scratch.
“Isn’t the question not what they currently think, but what the Confessions teach?”
To a great extent it’s a question of emphasis. The filioque is hardly central to Reformed identity. And that’s reflected in seminary education.
“The language is scriptural?”
Don’t play dumb. It’s an English translation of a Latin paraphrase of Johannine passages like Jn 14:26 & 15:26.
“And retaining the wording is tantamount to retention of the unscriptural doctrine…”
Not if the wording is a paraphrase of Scripture.
“So the answer to the question of whether the Reformed Confessions teach a doctrine which is justifiable from Scripture alone is person variable and context dependent? What amazing documents these must be!”
Are you trying to be dense? You posed a general question about whether the “wording is the issue or the meaning.”
That’s not a simple issue in hermeneutics and philosophy of language.
“You should agree that you should protest it.”
You keep using the word “protest” as if I should picket every church whose creedal standards codify some unscriptural position or another. But even if I had powers of bicolation, I’d be spread pretty thin.
“Perhaps not, but you are complicit by your silence aren’t you, concerning what your Confessions teaching, teaching false things about the nature of God?”
I didn’t know my stated positions on Triablogue amounted to silence. Was Triablogue converted to an invitation-only forum when I wasn’t looking? Did you crash the party? Should I summon the bouncers to have you removed?
Our site meter has 2,376,352 hits and counting the last time I checked. So my silence must be pretty penetrating despite the soundproofing.
“All the more reason then that it is relevant what the original intent of the authors of the WCF and the LBC…”
What is ultimately relevant is the divine intent committed to paper by the authors of Scripture.
We are obligated to affirm our belief in God by affirming God’s self-revelation. Affirming our faith in the framers is not our duty. At best, their role is purely instrumental. This is not a question of loyalty to the framers, but loyalty to God. That’s where are allegiance lies. The creed is not, “I believe in the framers” or “I believe in their original intent.”
The point is not to affirm or reaffirm their faith. The point, rather, is to affirm revealed theology.
“Do you mean to tell me that you couldn’t talk to your pastor and/or other church representatives to move them to remove it?”
At present I’m a Christian blogger. I blog on a wide range of issues. Readers can agree or disagree. What they do with it is between them and God. I’m not their priest.
“Has he done that for the Filioque? And if Waters or others have already argued publically against the Federal Vision do you refrain from arguing against it publically too?”
According to my records, I’ve been blogging on the filioque since 3/17/06.
“Sure not lying to God, just to fellow church members and church authorities.”
How?
“So since the WCF and the LBC are used in membership or ordination, then mutual understanding is necessary in the case of the Filioque?”
To my knowledge, someone doesn’t have to affirm the WCF to join the OPC or PCA. And, to my knowledge, strict subscription is not a requirement for ordination.
What is required is for the ordinand to state what disagreements, if any, he has with the WCF. It’s then up to the presbytery to determine if his deviation is permissible. And that, in turn, can be appealed to the general assembly. Or so I understand. I’m not a canon lawyer.
“How about adherence to a Confession faith? How do the corporate entities that subscribe to the WCF or the LBC for example use it? Oh to teach the Filioque.”
Why assume there’s a uniform answer to that question? This is an Orthodox obsession, not a Reformed obsession. It’s a defining feature of your own theological identity, as you define yourself in opposition to Roman Catholicism.
“Moreover, this would come as quite a surprise to major Reformed theologians-Turretin, Hodge, Warfield, Gill, Bavink, et al.”
I believe that Warfield rejected the eternal generation of the Son. And that would have logical implications for his position on hypostatic procession. Likewise, Warfield’s lead on eternal generation has been followed by some other Reformed theologians. Not to mention the filioque.
Steve wrote: “Take the millennium. To my knowledge, neither the Orthodox church nor the Catholic church has staked out an official position on the millennium (e.g. amil, premil, postmil). If a priest or bishop preaches a homily on some passage from the lectionary which implicates the millennium, then he will have to interpret the passage accordingly. And his interpretation will either be right or wrong. There is more than one available interpretation. And they can’t all be right.”
ReplyDeleteSomehow I don’t think I’ll take you as an informative source for what the Orthodox teach on eschatology. For starters, you assume that Revelation is even part of Orthodox lectionaries. That’s a good reason to think that you aren’t a reliable source for Orthodox theology.
“Or take all the borderline cases in ethics. There is no infallible blueprint that gives the answer for every conceivable contingency. So if you go to your priest for advice, then there are times when he will give you bad advice. Just consider the different schools of casuistry in Roman Catholicism. And Orthodoxy would be confronted with the same issues.”
If we were moral legalists in terms of metaethics like Rome or Protestants by and large that worry might have some currency. Comparing us to Rome here just isn’t plausible. We don’t even subscribe to natural law theory.
“So even if you’re Catholic or Orthodox, it’s still the case, on your own ecclesiology, that your priest or bishop teaches falsehood from time to time. They are not infallible. They make mistakes. They misinterpret Scripture–or tradition. Or, in many cases, there is not received answer to give you.”
Tell us the obvious doesn’t really move the ball down the argumentative field.
“Error is part and parcel of living in a fallen world. But in every generation you have some perfectionists to presume to be more pious than God. They are scandalized by God’s administration of the world.”
Evidently a false view of the Trinity enshrined across Reformed and Lutheran Confessions is also part and parcel of living in a fallen Reformation world.
I wrote: “If it’s a term of art then the words pick out a certain meaning and so the words can’t be employed apart from that meaning in that text without ignorance.”
Steve wrote: “But ignorance is quite germane to what somebody mentally affirms when he recites a creed.”
It is so and when present shows that the person fails to take the term according to its established meaning. That doesn’t really seem to help your position.
“Or a deliberate putting aside of the original intent.”
ReplyDelete“i) There’s nothing inherently wrong with setting aside original intent. While original intent is important to the historical meaning of a text, the original intent of an uninspired writer doesn’t obligate the reader. An uninspired writer doesn’t have that unilateral authority over the reader.”
In some cases you are right, there is nothing wrong with putting aside original intent. In some cases there is. Now since the WCF and the LBC fix the meaning in those bodies for the creedal language one isn’t just putting aside the meaning of the Creed, but also that of the Confessions.
Secondly, on Sola Scriptura, the original intent of uninspired writer doesn’t ultimately obligate the reader, but it doesn’t follow that it doesn’t obligate the reader at all in the context of their church’s teaching.
“ii) If churches produce creeds, then churches can revise or redefine creeds.”
Assuming a Protestant Ecclesiology that is true. Have Reformed Churches revised or redefined their Creeds and Confessions on the Filioque? No. So this is irrelevant and hand waving.
“This is not the Bible. The authority of a creed is, at best, derivative. It derives whatever authority it enjoys from its conformity to Scripture.”
If the authority of the Creeds and Confessions are derivative, then so is their ability to obligate. Moreover, dissenting from them in this case only concedes that Confessions are inconsistent since they violate their own principles regarding the doctrine of God.
“There is nothing sacrosanct about the original intent of a creed–not to mention of the ambiguities of original intent in reference to composite authorship.”
True, but I fail to see that it follows that it is dispensible on a whim either on that basis. The former remarks do not license dispensing with Confessional doctrines just on the basis of individual dissent. That is to say that the fact that such language is not sacrosanct or completely unrevisable doesn’t entail that dissenters are in a position to argue that the Confessions don’t have the meaning of their original intenders.
Moreover, I find it not a bit amusing that you have to play the skeptical card about knowing what your Confessions teach in order to try to evade the criticism. Do you seriously wish to argue that the Filioque teaching in the WCF and the LBC are ambiguous?
“Original intent is an important element in telling you what it meant at the time it
“Original intent is an important element in telling you what it meant at the time it was written. But how it functions in the life of the church centuries later may be different.”
ReplyDeleteIs the Filioque language functioning different now in the way the WCF and LBC is taught and believed than centuries ago? No. This is a diversion. Nor have you established that there has been such an alteration.
Acolyte wrote:“Moreover, I don’t have to appeal to the Creed, I can appeal to plenty of Reformed Confessions.”
Steve wrote: “Fine. Of course, that’s shifting the discussion from the original point of reference (the Nicene Creed). I was discussing the public recitation of the filioque. In every church service I’ve ever attended in my far-flung experience, the Nicene creed is the vehicle by which the filioque is recited in public worship.”
Actually I haven’t shifted the discussion from the original point of reference. If you look back at “Chicago Overcoat” and other places where we’ve discussed this I have referred to the Reformed Confessions teaching. The Nicene Creed and its language is subsumed under the Reformed Confessions. You shifted it to the Creed. If you recall this is why you early on brought up a lack of strict subscription. Perhaps there is some miscommunication here, but I have fairly consistently discussed this in terms of Reformed confessional teaching.
Acolyte wrote: “Moreover, the ignorance of a reader isn’t relevant.”
“It’s relevant to what the reader mentally affirms and thereby professes.”
Only in so far as the reader fails to use the terms rightly. The ignorance of someone joining the phrase “inventor of the atomic bomb” and the name “Einstein” is relevant in so far they fail to understand that one doesn’t go with the other.
Acolyte wrote: “Nor is whether a reader could reconstruct the doctrine from the words alone.”
Steve wrote:”It is in reference to the document I was discussing from the get go.”
Even if this were so, it doesn’t wash since the kind of leeway you are trying to establish is cut off by the meaning assigned to it by your own Confessions.
Steve wrote: “And you’ve offered no counterargument. You merely huff and puff.”
Again with the insults. I find it quite amazing that you can’t cut out the insults and just stick with the argument.
Steve wrote: “Actually, I’m little surprised that somebody with Perry’s level of education is so naïve about hermeneutics and philosophy of language.
I am not sure how this advances your argument and it seems to me only serves to insult your interlocutor rather than treat them with respect in so far as you are able to do so.
Secondly, looking over your blog post on meaning doesn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. And it is at best irrelevant since the language and meaning of the creed to which members are pen-ultimately obligated to uphold is fixed by the Confessions.
Acolyte Wrote: “So the average church member is bound only by what he knows phrases stand for in Reformed Confessions?”
ReplyDeleteSteve Wrote: “Properly speaking, Christians are obligated by Scripture alone. They are only bound by a creed insofar as that creed faithfully reproduces the teaching of Scripture.”
In Protestant theology, that much is true. But it is also true that they are pen-ultimately obligated by their Confessions on pain of Sola Scriptura reducing to “Solo” Scriptura. A supreme authority doesn’t render all subsidiary authorities void as you well know. And it is by that same authority that you are permitted to remain a member and dissent.
Now you dissent from your Confession. Fine, but the Confession still teaches a false doctrine about the nature of God. You noted elsewhere that you haven’t made a secret about your rejection of it. That may be so but that really isn’t to the point here. What is to the point is whether you made your elders aware before your admission to membership and they permitted it or after your admission supposing your view changed some time in the past. If you haven’t done so, then the fact that you haven’t made a secret about this view isn’t really to the point.
Acolyte wrote: “And is he unconsciously substituting one meaning for the other?”
Steve wrote: “What it means to him depends on his level of knowledge.”
What it means or what he takes it to mean?
“And do you consciously substitute one for the other…”
I’ve already discussed my own practice. Why are you so chronically forgetful? Do you drink too much? Is that it? Do you suffer from blackouts? Does that account for your chronic inability to remember what I’ve said?
Again more insults. Perhaps if I bring something up again it s because your replies were unclear and I am seeking clarification rather than calling you stupid or asking you fallacious complex questions. Or perhaps I wasn’t persuaded that your reply actually addressed the issue and I wish to revisit it to highlight how utterly lame and hobbled it was. That too is possible.
Acolyte wrote: “Since you admit that the Reformed Confessions teach a doctrine not found in or derivable from Scripture alone?”
Steve: “Which is not what I’ve said. That manages to combine a gross oversimplification of what I actually said along with your bait-and-switch.”
If I made a mistake its not necessarily due to some deliberate attempt to deceive. It would be helpful to refrain from making personal attacks in this way and just point out a mistake. If the argument matters than accusations of deception really don’t matter.
Second, I’ll give you a chance to clarify in the interests of communication. Is it your position that the eternal hypostatic generation taught in the WCF and the LBF is either not in fact taught in those documents, or if it is, that it is in fact justifiable and derivable from Scripture alone?
Acolyte wrote :“So are you suggesting that the intent of the framer of the Westminster Confession and the London Baptist Confession fail to obligate the worshiper when they teach an eternal hypostatic generation?”
ReplyDeleteSteve wrote :Framers don’t obligate readers. Only God has that prerogative.
Please clarify. Is it your position that Confessional standards and ministers don’t obligate in any derivative and pen-ultimate way? If so, what principled difference on that point is there between your position and “Solo” Scriptura? If the church has some measure of divine authority, even if not an infallible authority, isn’t the magisterial Reformation position that the church can obligate to a limited degree its members?
Acolyte wrote: “If your foremost obligation is to God, isn’t this all the more reason to protest false doctrines about God in your own church? And does your church expect you to abide by the teaching?”
Steve wrote : “My view of the church is not that proprietary or parochial.”
Please clarify. Do you mean to say that it is not your view that you don’t bear some responsibility and your church likewise to protest false doctrines about God within it?
Acolyte wrote :“Did you object to it when you went through the procedures for membership?”
You’re making breeze assumptions without a foundation in fact.
I asked a straight forward question in light of your remarks regarding possible dissent. Since you’ve offered no examples of persons relative to church bodies being officially permitted to dissent from it, I figured you’d be the best case.
Second, your response leaves unanswered my question. If you dissent from your own Confession, were you received into that body with knowledge of the dissenting views and permission to be said member and to dissent?
Acolyte: “Are the Confessions a condition for ordination or membership?”
Steve wrote: “Not in terms of strict subscription. How can you say you used to be a Calvinist and not know these things? For how long were you a Calvinist? Two weeks?”
Even if this were true of all Reformed bodies as Gene wishes to inform me, it doesn’t follow that they aren’t a condition of ordination or membership, so more hand waving here.
As to your insults, perhaps it might be helpful if I said that I simply wish to allow you to clarify your own position rather than be accused of putting words in your mouth. Just because I ask a question it doesn’t follow that I don’t know the answer. So your insulting remarks depend on an unjustified claim to knowledge about what I don’t know.
For the record I was in a Reformed body for about five years.
Acolyte wrote: “As for the rest, again, do you know or can you give any significant examples where the Reformed have permitted widespread difference on the Filioqueist construal of the Trinity?”
ReplyDeleteSteve wrote: “You have a forgetful habit of repeating questions I’ve already answered in the past. Why is that, Perry? Why do you have such a poor memory?
To take one example, compare Douglas Kelly’s position with Paul Helm’s.
Perhaps I am forgetful. Perhaps not, but I fail to see how that licenses more insulting and rude remarks. Why are you so rude and disrespectful Steve? Now perhaps it might have to do with oh things like looking through and then writing ten pages of text. Or oh it might have to do with living in near poverty due to uneployment through no fault of your own. Or it might have to do with facing my own probably near mortality in light of a new disease of a sort that I seem to have contracted. Facing a good chance of your own death at the ripe old age of 38 might make you forgetful of things, especially when you’d rather not think about insulting and rude remarks that surround them.
Now let’s take Helm. Did you show that Helm rejects the Filioque? Did you show that it isn’t just something he wrote as part of a philosophical discussion of a matter but was instead something that he brought up before his elders prior to or after his admission as a member or elder of his church? Not that I remember. Perhaps if you did, you can copy paste it for me. The same goes for Kelly.
Acolyte wrote :“If you say that the Filioque isn’t justifiable in light of Sola Scriptura but you are able to dissent, then this just admits the internal inconsistency-the Reformed teach Sola Scriptura and doctrines which are not derivable from Scripture alone. So the point has been conceded.”
Steve wrote: You’re trying to recast the issue. The fundamental issue isn’t lack of consistency with sola Scriptura, but lack of consistency with Scripture itself.
Suppose I am trying to recast the issue. You admit then that the doctrine is inconsistent with Scripture itself. Point conceded.
Suppose further that the Confessions are inconsistent in teaching both Sola Scriptura and the Filioque. Do you concede that or not? If not, why not?
Furthermore, I explicitly said that the Filioque is inconsistent with Sola Scriptura, which means that since both are taught by the Confessions, the Confessions are inconsistent.
“The issue is the degree to which any theological tradition is fully compliant with the teaching of Scripture, not the degree to which it’s fully compliant with the tenet of sola Scriptura.”
This might have purchase if Scripture doesn’t teach Sola Scriptura. But you think it does. Secondly, my aim in pointing out that it can’t be derived from Scripture Alone was to first point out that it is inconsistent with a claim of Sola Scriptura and that both ideas are taught in the Confessions. You argued in response that you can dissent from one and I noted that the dissent leaves untouched the inconsistency of the Confessions and the tradition at large.
“For example, both Catholicism and Orthodoxy deny sola Scriptura, but their denial of that tenet, while culpable in its own right, hardly excuses their lack of conformity to Scripture itself.”
ReplyDeleteBy the same reasoning, the Confessional upholding of Sola Scriptura and the Filioque makes the Confessions and their subscribers inconsistent and culpable.
“It is wrong to be inconsistent with sola Scriptura, but it’s equally wrong to be consistent with a position which denies sola Scriptura. And it’s equally wrong to be inconsistent with Scripture itself.”
If Scripture teaches Sola Scriptura, then doesn’t it follow that to be inconsistent with Sola Scriptura is to be inconsistent with Scripture? If it doesn’t teach it, then being inconsistent with Sola Scriptura wouldn’t entail being inconsistent with Scripture.
In any case the Confessional adherence to the filioque is inconsistent with the adherence to Sola Scriptura. Consequently the Confessions and their subscribers are in the wrong.
“A wrongful consistency is no better than a wrongful inconsistency. Indeed, it’s far worse. For a wrongful consistency is systematically false.”
True enough, but we already know that you think I fall into probably the latter and I don’t. Not very informative and not really relevant.
“Even if the historic Reformed tradition shares an error in common with Catholicism and Orthodox on this particular issue (i.e. the Father as the fons deitas), they lack any of the compensatory benefits. In that case, it would be wrong on one of the same things they are wrong on without either of them being right on all the other things it got right.”
I haven’t argued that the internal inconsistency in Reformed theology at this point picks out Orthodoxy or any other option. I am satisfied with your admission that your Confessions teach extra-biblical doctrines contrary to Scripture and violate the principle of Sola Scriptura.
Acolyte wrote: “So if it functions like a contract, are people pen-ultimately bound by Confessions they profess adherence to when they teach the Filioque?”
Steve wrote: “There’s not much point answering a purely hypothetical question unless you think it corresponds to a typical, real life situation.”
This is rather evasive. The framing isn’t completely abstract. Are members pen-ultimately bound by Confessions they profess adherence to when said Confessions teach the Filioque or not, assuming that they do not knowingly dissent and are not permitted membership in light of dissent on this point?
Acolyte wrote: “And even if not, do you admit that the WCF and the LBC teach a doctrine concerning the very nature of God that is extra-biblical?”
Steve wrote: I’d say that in this particular respect they default to an unscriptural paradigm which is common to both Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.
I’ll take that as a “yes.” Secondly, I’ve already shown that this isn’t a common default position between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. If it were, we’d both profess ADS, like the Reformed and Lutherans, but the Orthodox don’t. We’d also both profess God as self subsisting being like the Reformed and Lutherans do with Rome, but we don’t. Etc.
Acolyte wrote : “The primary importance is if the Filioque doctrine as professed in the WCF and the LBC is derivable from Scripture alone or not.”
ReplyDeleteSteve wrote: “No, that’s not the issue of primary importance. Because you’re a man-pleaser who belongs to a theological tradition which deifies man-made traditions, you make internal consistency with one’s theological tradition the primary issue. But that’s symptomatic of your ecclesiolatrous orientation.”
More insults. I am not the one claiming to be part of a tradition that is faithful to Scripture and has only fallible confessional documents which are supposed to be revisable and reformable, but when push comes to shove persons like yourself pass the buck on to someone else because you have “priorities” or you aren’t an elder and such. Priesthood of all believers anyone? Only God obligates you, but apparently not to reform your own Confession’s false doctrines about the divine nature.
Moreover, your insults do not over turn what I claimed what is of primary importance. They fail to act as an argument demonstrating that the primary importance is something other than internal consistency with one’s theological tradition.
Furthermore, this concedes that the issue has not been consistency with Scripture, but within the Confessions and between their teachings Sola Scriptura and the Filioque.
Thirdly, certainly the primary issue isn’t less than the consistency of the Confessions.
Fourth and more to the point, since some Protestants have made the same kinds of arguments that the Confessions are inconsistent on this point, your remarks amount to an ad hominem and hence fail to advance your position.
“The primary issue is not whether a theological tradition is faithful to its own principles, but whether it’s faithful to the word of God.”
Suppose this is true. At a secondary level it is still a concern.
Secondly, if its principles are in fact that it is to be faithful to the word of God and also not faithful to it, then it becomes a primary issue.
“Any theological tradition, regardless of its formal acceptance or rejection of sola scriptura is culpable in case one or more of its doctrines is inconsistent with Scripture. If a theological tradition rejects sola Scriptura, then that’s just one more strike against it. A theological tradition which is internally consistent with its repudiation of sola Scriptura is more culpable, not less so, than a theological tradition which rightly affirms sola Scriptura, but fails to consistently implement that rule of faith.”
This assumes that Sola Scripture can’t be rejected instead of rejecting the other doctrine that it is inconsistent with. If a tradition rejects SS, well that would be a strike against it, assuming that SS is necessarily entailed by Protestantism and is true. But that would seem to make the Confessions non-revisable and rather infallible with regard to SS, again contrary to SS. If SS doesn’t entail Protestantism and isn’t true then a rejection of it wouldn’t render said tradition culpable. On the practical side, even if SS were true and a tradition rejected it and was culpable, there is nothing written in stone that Confessions are always revised for the better. If they aren’t sacrosanct, then they aren’t sacrosanct.
“Arian wording is scripturally justifiable too. Jesus is the “firstborn of creation” and the like. Does that imply it is acceptable? Obviously not.”
ReplyDelete“It’s unacceptable because it defines the phrase contrary to Pauline usage, and Pauline usage is normative since Pauline usage is inspired usage.”
Right, and the Creedal and Confessional usage is unacceptable because its usage is contrary to Johanine usage. So saying that the language is justifiable was really hand waving and a diversion from simply admitted that the inserted clause in its intended and historical meaning and the Confessional gloss are inconsistent with Sola Scriptura/. The way the Creed and the Confessions use the terms is contrary to the biblical usage. You knew this as well as I did. For some reason it took you about 40-50 pages of text to say as much.
Acolyte wrote: “Hence it fails to map the biblical teaching.”
Steve wrote: “True. And at that point the worshipper has both the right and the obligation to mentally affirm what the Bible teaches–regardless of creedal intent.”
It also seems then that he has the right and obligation to alert his elders that he no longer subscribes to it as such and that they shouldn’t either.
Acolyte wrote “Again, the target is the Reformed Confessions, so switching to the Nicene Creed is no help.”
Steve wrote: “I was alluding to the Nicene creed all along, so I didn’t suddenly switch to that frame of reference.”
Ok, perhaps this is so. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. For what I can see the Nicene Creed is used under the authority of the Confessions and the Confessions fix its meaning on that point, not to mention some others. Now, if that’s the case, the target is still what the Reformed bodies teach since they claim that all their doctrines are derivable from Scripture alone. That being the case the discussion on the Creed is rather moot.
Acolyte wrote: “The question is about what Reformed bodies teach, not whether the papally approved language inserted into the Nicene Creed is acceptable on its face. You’ve mistakenly substituted one question for the other.”
Steve wrote: “Actually, the real question concerns our obligation to cohere with the teaching of Scripture. That’s a question for Calvinists, and no less a question for Catholics or Orthodox.”
On Protestant principles that is the ultimate question, but not the pen-ultimate one. We could skip the latter and just go for the former. That may be baptist practice but it isn’t necessarily the wider practice of the Reformed tradition. So if we go with the latter, the inconsistency in the Confessions is still a significant question that carries with it some measure of obligation. If we go the route you suggest, the question is still if what Reformed bodies teach is consistent with itself and with Scripture. It isn’t whether Papally approved language inserted into the creed is acceptable on it face, especially when you and I both know what that language means and that the Reformed Confessions nail it down to that same meaning before the Reformation.
Acolyte wrote: “If the Reformed Confession is fallible and in error about the doctrine of God, don’t you think it should be reformed…”
ReplyDeleteSteve wrote : “Creeds should be updated, as necessary, to align or realign them with Scripture. That applies to fallible Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox creeds as well.”
As you instructed me, please do not apply your faulty theological assumptions to my own view. So I simply dismiss your claim about fallible Orthodox Creeds.
Second, saying that you think that Creeds should be updated as necessary doesn’t address the question. The question was, do you think the Confessions should be reformed on this point or not? Your answer constitutes an evasion.
“Or course, Catholic and Orthodox sources (e.g. Trent, Vatican II, 2nd Nicea, The Confession of Dositheus) may be so error-ridden that it’s better to start from scratch.”
And you think the Confession of Dositheus has the kind of normative weight of say first or second Nicea in Orthodox theology? Heh.
And of course the Reformed doctrine of God could be so error ridden that it might be better to start from scratch.
Acolyte wrote “Isn’t the question not what they currently think, but what the Confessions teach?”
Steve wrote: “To a great extent it’s a question of emphasis. The filioque is hardly central to Reformed identity. And that’s reflected in seminary education.”
Now suppose we just eliminate the Filioque. On the Reformed Confessional view, the persons are distinguished by real relations of opposition. The Father is ingenerate, the Son begotten and the Spirit proceeds. What then is the difference between being begotten and procession? How will the two persons be distinguished without the Filioqueist relation of opposition? I’d suggest that the only way out is to further reject the notion enshrined in the Confessions that the persons are distinguished by relations of opposition. So that’s another part of the Trinitarian theology that can’t be supported by Scripture Alone not to mention becomes irrational and arbitrary. So a rejection of the Filioque for this and other reasons I will eventually bring to bear isn’t as innocuous and easy to do as you suggest. Moreover and especially for the Reformed, since their Covenant theology is tied very closely with their Triadology, tweaking with the Trinity will or so I’d argue alter their understanding of the Covenants. And then, well, lots of other things are on the board.
And a lack of emphasis doesn’t make it any less false or the Reformed any less inconsistent with their own principles.
Acolyte wrote: “The language is scriptural?”
ReplyDeleteSteve wrote: “Don’t play dumb. It’s an English translation of a Latin paraphrase of Johannine passages like Jn 14:26 & 15:26.”
As for playing dumb, blame Socrates. And no, the language is not Scriptural for the Scriptures never say that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. It isn’t a paraphrase. It’s a philosophical doctrine that went looking for a few biblical terms. The scripture says that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and that the Son in the history of the world sends the Spirit. So I am not willing to concede that the language is scriptural.
Acolyte wrote: “And retaining the wording is tantamount to retention of the unscriptural doctrine…”
Steve wrote: “Not if the wording is a paraphrase of Scripture.”
It is if the historical and intended meaning is unscriptural.
Acolyte wrote: “So the answer to the question of whether the Reformed Confessions teach a doctrine which is justifiable from Scripture alone is person variable and context dependent? What amazing documents these must be!”
Steve wrote: “Are you trying to be dense? You posed a general question about whether the “wording is the issue or the meaning.”
Let’s try a response in you own vein. Are you trying to be stupid? Now, if the meaning is the issue, then the wording doesn’t matter. Bringing it up is a red herring. If the meaning is the issue then with respect to a reader it isn’t context dependent and variable relative to that reader. It has a meaning fixed regardless of how the reader takes it. Readers can make mistakes in how they gloss terms or phrases.
Steve wrote: “That’s not a simple issue in hermeneutics and philosophy of language.”
Perhaps its not, but regardless of how we should cash it out, I think we both agree that the meaning isn’t fixed relative to the reader and their context. That is the import of words having a history. This doesn’t imply that meaning change can’t happen and that words can’t get “re-baptized” in the way Gareth Evans proposed in response to Kripke.
Acolyte wrote: “You should agree that you should protest it.”
Steve wrote: “You keep using the word “protest” as if I should picket every church whose creedal standards codify some unscriptural position or another. But even if I had powers of bicolation, I’d be spread pretty thin.”
If you could bi-locate, you wouldn’t be stretched thin at all. But your response here exaggerates in order to evade what seems incumbent upon you. If you’re a baptist, why not protest it at your own church? And by protest I mean something along the lines of sitting down with your elders and arguing that it should be dropped from the Confessions, going to requisite meetings where such legislation can be drafted and proposed for a vote and then argue for it. Somehow I have doubt you’ve done that. But perhaps given how much I like Cary Grant and you seem to as well, you’ve done so, but I have no way of knowing.
Acolyte wrote: “Perhaps not, but you are complicit by your silence aren’t you, concerning what your Confessions teaching, teaching false things about the nature of God?”
ReplyDeleteSteve wrote: “I didn’t know my stated positions on Triablogue amounted to silence. Was Triablogue converted to an invitation-only forum when I wasn’t looking? Did you crash the party? Should I summon the bouncers to have you removed?”
I didn’t know that your stated positions here amounted to the proper channels and contexts within your own church for airing such things. Your silence is relative to the context of the church, not a blog. This is another red herring.
“Our site meter has 2,376,352 hits and counting the last time I checked. So my silence must be pretty penetrating despite the soundproofing.”
As I noted above, this isn’t relevant.
“We are obligated to affirm our belief in God by affirming God’s self-revelation. Affirming our faith in the framers is not our duty. At best, their role is purely instrumental. This is not a question of loyalty to the framers, but loyalty to God. That’s where are allegiance lies. The creed is not, “I believe in the framers” or “I believe in their original intent.”
The point is not to affirm or reaffirm their faith. The point, rather, is to affirm revealed theology. “
Correction, it is not your ultimate duty. Moreover, when you say “amen” at the end of the Creed it implies your belief in the statements made in the creed and a measure of loyalty to the teachings those statements express. Moreover, to emphasize your ultimate loyalty to God in the way you do only motivates the impetus to reform your Confessions all the more and increases the pressure of the question of why you do not move to do so.
Acolyte wrote: “Do you mean to tell me that you couldn’t talk to your pastor and/or other church representatives to move them to remove it?”
Steve wrote: “At present I’m a Christian blogger. I blog on a wide range of issues. Readers can agree or disagree. What they do with it is between them and God. I’m not their priest.”
This is not the issue nor does it address my question. The question is not what others do with the information, but what you do with it, which is apparently nothing in the context of your church relative to the false doctrine it professes in its official confessions.
Acolyte wrote: “Has he done that for the Filioque? And if Waters or others have already argued publically against the Federal Vision do you refrain from arguing against it publically too?”
Steve wrote:” According to my records, I’ve been blogging on the filioque since 3/17/06.”
Gee, I wonder why you just started blogging about it then. Second, your remarks are hardly constitute of an argument against the Filioque. But perhaps you forgot what you wrote here -> http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/08/ugly-duckling-of-orthodoxy.html
“ii) I reject his paternalistic polity. I reject a church polity in which some adults play the role of grown-ups while other adults play the role of children, subject to the adult supervision of the official grown-ups. Rather, every Christian is answerable to every other Christian. The accountability system is horizontal rather than vertical. A two-way street.”
If that’s true, then you’re not one of the “children” and so it really doesn’t matter if you’re an elder or not since you’re a “grown up” in your church and hence responsible for what it confesses in its official documents. But hey, you’re not an elder right?
Acolyte wrote :“Sure not lying to God, just to fellow church members and church authorities.”
ReplyDeleteSteve: “How?”
It seemed to me at the time what you were proposing was that each individual layman should just reinterpret it in his or her head on a kind of ad hoc basis. That seemed duplicitous. What it seems that you were proffering is a kind of open and corporate re-interpretation. That will remove the deception on one level, but it seems to move it to another. Confessing that one holds to the Creeds carries with it the implicit idea that one holds to the meanings given to those words at the formulation so it strikes me as a bit disingenuous to say that “Our church holds to the Creeds” when in fact they hold to a new interpretation of the Creeds at various points.
Acolyte: “So since the WCF and the LBC are used in membership or ordination, then mutual understanding is necessary in the case of the Filioque?”
“To my knowledge, someone doesn’t have to affirm the WCF to join the OPC or PCA. And, to my knowledge, strict subscription is not a requirement for ordination.”
So let’s take the OPC. To my knowledge even children are examined with respect to the Catachism and adults with respect to the Confession prior to and as a condition of membership. Its even more strict for elders and deacons. Moreover if these are not used as a basis for membership, what is? And why have them at all?
“What is required is for the ordinand to state what disagreements, if any, he has with the WCF. It’s then up to the presbytery to determine if his deviation is permissible. And that, in turn, can be appealed to the general assembly. Or so I understand. I’m not a canon lawyer.”
If the ordinand has to state disagreements with the WCF then it seems that the WCF is a standard and requires some significant measure of subscription and obligation in order for ordination.
“I believe that Warfield rejected the eternal generation of the Son. And that would have logical implications for his position on hypostatic procession. Likewise, Warfield’s lead on eternal generation has been followed by some other Reformed theologians. Not to mention the filioque.”
It would have logical implications but not necessarily ones that would render it incompatible since he affirmed the Filioque.
In any case, there really isn’t any semper reformada here since you refrain from moving to reform the Confessions on the false doctrine of the Filioque.
"For starters, you assume that Revelation is even part of Orthodox lectionaries. That’s a good reason to think that you aren’t a reliable source for Orthodox theology."
ReplyDeleteWhat was that supposed to mean? That EOs do not consider the Book of Revelation as fully canonical?
ACOLYTE4236 SAID:
ReplyDelete“Or oh it might have to do with living in near poverty due to uneployment through no fault of your own.”
Yes, I think you indicated a while back that your thesis advisor plagiarized your research, and his superiors circled the wagons to protect the institution. A grave miscarriage of justice.
“Or it might have to do with facing my own probably near mortality in light of a new disease of a sort that I seem to have contracted. Facing a good chance of your own death at the ripe old age of 38 might make you forgetful of things.”
I’m sorry to hear that. I myself know what it’s like to confront a life-threatening illness.