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Thursday, December 30, 2010

How mere is "mere Christianity"?


William Lane Craig recently defined Christian essentials as those doctrines to which all Christians subscribe. Conversely, if Christians don’t agree on some doctrine or another, then that’s inessential to the Christian faith.

So he seems to be using Christian consensus as his criterion for Christian essentials. And he’s not the only one to do this. You have people who cite something like the Apostles’ Creed as their common denominator. Christians are defined by their agreement with the Apostles’ Creed. That’s the frame of reference. If it’s not taught in the Apostles’ Creed, then it’s nonessential.

But there’s a basic problem with this criterion. For those who use Christian consensus as their criterion aren’t really using consensus as their criterion. You see, to say that Christian essentials are defined by whatever all Christians believe, you already have to have an idea of what makes them Christians in the first place. For you are claiming that this is something Christians believe in. So Christians aren’t simply defined by their common belief in this or that doctrine. For it has to be Christians believing it that makes it a Christian essential.

So those who appeal to Christian consensus are tacitly going behind the consensus. They actually begin with a preconception of who is or isn’t a Christian. If Christians believe something in common, then that makes it a Christian essential.

The fact that non-Christians disagree on some doctrine or another doesn’t render it inessential. Rather, the fact that Christians disagree on some doctrine or another renders it nonessential.

So consensus isn’t really the criterion. It has to be Christian consensus. In which case, it’s not consensus that defines a Christian, but Christians who define consensus.

Suppose you take the Apostles’ Creed as your frame of reference. Of course, there are people who disagree with one or more articles of the Apostles’ Creed. If you say their dissent doesn’t count because they’re not Christian, then, of course, you have to operate with a preconceived idea of what makes a Christian a Christian. You’ve defined the Apostles’ Creed as a Christian Creed. And you’re measuring Christian profession by that yardstick.

But once again, if that’s the case, then it’s not the consensus of Christians that determines Christian essentials. Rather, you’ve make a prejudgment concerning the status of the Apostles’ Creed, and you thereby judge Christian profession by whether or not a given individual affirms the Apostles’ Creed. That’s the bare minimum.

So folks like Craig don’t begin with consensus. Consensus doesn’t select for the Christian essentials. How would he know what Christians agree on unless he already knows who the Christians are?

But, of course, professing believers represent overlapping beliefs. Some professing believerss agree on premillennialism, but disagree on infant baptism–among many other examples.

So professing believers can be subdivided into many different overlapping groups. They are members of many different Christian subsets. The premillennial Christians or the amillennial Christians. The paedobaptist Christians or the credobaptist Christians. And so on and so forth.

So how does someone like Craig decide which subset represents the relevant unit of consensus? He can’t simply appeal to Christian consensus, for there is no one body of beliefs which represents Christian consensus.

Rather, you have a variety of overlapping positions. But this doesn’t mean they all intersect at the same point. And even if they did, that might be so minimal and incidental that it would hardly amount to a credible profession of faith.

Even something like the Apostles’ Creed is deceptive, for when Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, and Protestants (to take three examples) profess the Apostles’ Creed, they don’t necessarily mean the same thing by the same terms. Clearly they don’t all mean the same thing by the “church” or the “communion of saints.”

20 comments:

  1. Steve,

    How would you define the essentials of the faith, or would you simply leave them undefined?

    God be with you,
    Dan

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  2. Steve,

    What is your understanding of 1John 5:1a,

    “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God,” (NASB)?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Root,

    You do realize that "Jesus", "Christ", and "born of God" are not contentless labels, but that they do have specific meanings that need to be understood, right?

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  4. Dan asked:
    ---
    How would you define the essentials of the faith, or would you simply leave them undefined?
    ---

    You addressed that to Steve,
    so please forgive my intrusion. I think you're making a huge mistake in even asking this question.

    The original purpose of Steve's post is to respond to Craig's assertion that Original Sin is not an essential doctrine.

    So let's think of a different subject. "How would you define the essentials of staying hydrated?"

    That's pretty simple. You drink water. Even if you drink other substances, you are extracting the water from those other beverages to maintain hydration.

    But is it essential to believe that imbibing water will keep you from dying of dehydration? No. It is not essential to *believe* that, it is only essential that you *drink water.*

    But suppose someone says, "I don't believe drinking water is necessary to staying hydrated." That statement is *false*. Water (in whatever form) *IS* essential to staying hydrated.

    Now, how practical is the objection, "But you don't have to believe you need to drink water" to that point? Is it not DANGEROUS to say, "It does not matter if one believes water is necessary or not"? Does that not increase the risk that someone is going to take a long journey into the desert thinking he'll be just fine because he believes something false about hydration? Would you not agree that even though it's theoretically *POSSIBLE* to be hydrated without knowing you need to drink water, a health professional would be not just incompetent but *EVIL* for not disabusing someone of the notion that they didn't need water for hydration?

    Why, then, do we give an apologist--a person who is supposed to be defending the essentials of the faith--a pass on something that likewise is essential to the functioning of the Gospel, even if the mechanics themselves could theoretically be denied and the person still receive the benefits of salvation?

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  5. Another very insightful blog by Steve.

    Peter Pike said...
    Why, then, do we give an apologist--a person who is supposed to be defending the essentials of the faith--a pass on something that likewise is essential to the functioning of the Gospel, even if the mechanics themselves could theoretically be denied and the person still receive the benefits of salvation?

    I suspect it's because WLC doesn't see his role as someone who's supposed to "defend the essentials of the faith"; but rather (that his personal calling is to be) someone who's supposed to defend the truth of Christianity. In his mind those aren't the same thing.

    For listen to the following podcasts of his.

    http://www.rfmedia.org/RF_audio_video/RF_podcast/What_is_Inerrancy_.mp3

    and

    www.rfmedia.org/RF_audio_video/RF_podcast/Some_Personal_Questions_for_Dr_Craig.mp3

    FYI: The main url to the Defenders and Reasonable Faith podcasts http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/PageServer?pagename=podcasting_main


    I defended that conclusion in my comments at Steve's previous blog here:
    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2010/12/rabbit-ears.html

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  6. typo correction:


    "For listen to the following podcasts of his."

    Should be...

    "For [proof] listen to the following podcasts of his."



    If one doesn't want to listen to the entire podcasts, the first minute and a half of the podcast on Personal Questions is relevant. Along with the 9th minute of the podcast on Inerrancy.

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  7. Hi Peter,

    I personally would have probably handled the situation a little differently than Craig did here. It’s one thing to not know about original sin but another to know about it and openly reject it. The issue become not just theological but moral. Also, I think you can answer questions about original sin without getting sidetracked and generally it’s good to answer specific questions that people are stuck on. But that said, original sin (especially as understood in the West) is probably meat not milk and seems to me to help explain and define the Gospel while not being a part of the Gospel itself. For instance, the preaching of the Gospel in Acts do not talk about original sin nor is there a passage in scripture which says you must believe in original sin in order to be saved.

    Anyways, that’s not really why I asked what I did. Defining the essentials of the faith is important in and of itself. Steve objects to using creeds and consensuses as ways to do so. I agree they are secondary to scripture but they are not entirely useless. They serve both as a short cut and sanity check – since they generally show how ostensible believers understand scripture.

    God be with you,
    Dan

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  8. It seems to me that a Christian essential is anything required for us to abide by, carry out or understand God's plan of salvation to wit original sin is most certainly essential.

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  9. I wonder if "Essentialism" is a problem that needs to explored further with suggestions for biblical solutions offered.

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  10. Annoyed Pinoy said:
    ---
    I suspect it's because WLC doesn't see his role as someone who's supposed to "defend the essentials of the faith"; but rather (that his personal calling is to be) someone who's supposed to defend the truth of Christianity.
    ---

    Except that Original Sin *IS* part of the *TRUTH* of Christianity. Imputation is predicated on what's called Federal headship, which is that we are guilty under Adam so that we can be innocent under Christ. The two go hand in hand. There is no logic, no substance to Christianity without this.

    There's a reason Paul mentions it multiple times in his letters. WLC argument, as you've put it here, is essentially "Only Acts matters. The rest of the Bible is irrelevant."

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  11. PETER PIKE said...
    Except that Original Sin *IS* part of the *TRUTH* of Christianity.

    You're right. I guess I wasn't specific enough about what I suspect WLC sees his job is. While he does defend Christianity against other worldviews and religions (e.g. his debates with Muslims), he mainly considers himself a Christian apologist/teacher and Christian philosopher who specializes in the defense of the existence of the Christian God against secular challenges. That's why his magnum opus and one of his websites are both named "Reasonable Faith". I think He purposefully did that in opposition to secularism's claim to be the true champion of reason and rationality. He doesn't consider himself a theologian or pastor, though he does study theology and has pastoral concerns when he does do apologetics.

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  12. Annoyed Pinoy,

    How can Craig be defending Christianity when he is arguing that you can ignore 99% of the Bible? To use my example of hydration yet again, it would be like saying that you're still a champion of nutrition if you say, "You don't have to believe you should drink water in order to stay hydrated."

    Here's the huge elephant-in-the-room problem with Craig's method. Suppose he convinces a secularist that original sin is irrelevant to Christianity, and then that secularist goes out and *reads the Bible*. What's the secularist to conclude after reading Romans and 1 Corinthians? Answer: that Paul has no clue what he's talking about, and that Christianity has nothing to do with Scripture.

    Paul is plain on the topic. Adam is a type of Christ. If you ignore this aspect, there is no logical foundation for the imputation of Christ's righteousness to a sinner.

    Seriously, how hard would it have been for Craig to explain what original sin is instead of blowing it off and saying, "Don't worry about the details"? His answer is not only demeaning to Christians who actually defend CHRISTIANITY, it's demeaning to those who have legitimate questions about Original Sin that now have NO ANSWER to those questions.

    It would be like someone tells a physicist, "Einstein's train example for the relativity of time doesn't make any sense" and the physicist responds by saying, "Not all physicists agree with relativity. You can disagree with relativity and still be a physicist. I'm more interested i whether you, personally, believe in clocks."

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  13. GODISMYJUDGE SAID:

    “How would you define the essentials of the faith, or would you simply leave them undefined.”

    Are you asking what essential to saving faith, or what’s essential for the Christian faith to be Christian?

    i) Apropos the former: as you know, the Bible states certain doctrines one must believe to be saved.

    On the other hand, the Bible also has a principle of graded responsibilities (Lk 12:48; Heb 13:17). So to some extent I expect the propositional content of saving faith is person-variable.

    God holds F. F. Bruce to a higher standard than the paperboy.

    ii) Apropos the latter: in polemical books that deal with doctrinal controversies (e.g. Galatians, 1 John), the Bible spells out certain fundamental doctrines. So I think it’s possible to draw up a partial list of Christian essentials.

    However, those are occasional writings which discuss Christian essentials incidentally rather than systematically. So I think we lack sufficient information to compile a definitive list of Christian essentials.

    Ultimately, it’s incumbent on us to believe whatever the Bible teaches. That will automatically include the “essentials” (since the whole includes the part).

    iii) Of course, Christian Bible scholars, ethicists, and theologians also spend time trying to distinguish timebound Bible statements from timeless Bible statements. And that’s part of distinguishing essentials from nonessentials. But that exercise is not without various degrees of uncertainty.

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  14. Peter,

    Is justification by faith alone on the basis of the imputed righteousness of Christ alone part of the Gospel and Christian Truth in general? If so, then with your reasoning, it would seem that Augustine must not have been a Christian or taught Christian doctrine since he not only didn't believe in sola fide or imputation, but actually wrote against proto-solafidean-like views during his own era. Worse than that, his views on Original Sin falls short of the Calvinistic understanding. It seems to me that the Church down through the centuries needed time to hammer out what views are truly Christian and which aren't. Yet in that process it still remained the Church. In a similar way, it seems to me that that kind of process can happen in the life of an individual professing Christian (regardless of whether truly regenerate or not).

    Peter Pike said...
    What's the secularist to conclude after reading Romans and 1 Corinthians? Answer: that Paul has no clue what he's talking about, and that Christianity has nothing to do with Scripture.

    That doesn't follow, since Craig might himself believe and actually teach new converts that it's incumbent upon professing believers in Jesus to believe everything that the Bible teaches. If the Bible actually teaches Original Sin and does so clearly, then that former secularist might actually conclude that WLC is wrong about Original Sin being both non-essential and not clearly taught in Scripture.

    Peter Pike said...
    Paul is plain on the topic. Adam is a type of Christ. If you ignore this aspect, there is no logical foundation for the imputation of Christ's righteousness to a sinner.

    It might be "plain" to you, but not necessarily plain to everyone else. Especially a new convert. The fact that *Evangelical* Christians themeselves disagree about the finer points of Original Sin shows that the Bible isn't absolutely clear on the subject. Or at least not as clear as other doctrines like the Trinity, the incarnation and other doctrines. Is the doctrine of the Trinity true? If so, does the Holy Spirit proceed from the "the Father [only]", or from "the Father AND the Son", or "from the Father through the Son"? Is the filioque essential to the Gospel or not? Is it essential to the Gospel to know all the essentials of the Gospel?

    I think you might be requiring more from an apologist and from a possible convert than is actually required by Scripture itself. I mean, gosh, it took a THOUSAND years for the Church to explicitly formulate a satisfaction theory of the atonement (ala Anselm). Then it took another half millennium for the Reformers to explcitly flesh out that the atonement is penally substitutionary.

    to be continued in next post:

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  15. If professing Christians could genuinely be saved 1. before the first four "Ecumenical Councils"; 2. before Augustine formulated a primitive view of Original Sin; 3. before Anselm formulated the satisfaction view of the atonement; 4. before the Reformers explcitly formulated justification by faith alone; then why require a new convert to believe these things even given that they are true? I could go on and on with other issues like the Pelagian and Semi-Pelagian controversy, the Donataist Controversy, the Marrow Controversy etc., but you get my point.

    If you listen to WLC, he makes it clear that his goal in apologetics is to get people to a saving faith *in*, and personal relationship *with* Jesus.

    &&&&&&&&&
    Here's a partial transcript I typed of Craig's podcast titled "What Is Inerrancy?" www.rfmedia.org/RF_audio_video/RF_podcast/What_is_Inerrancy_.mp3

    Harris: The debate often centers on Inerrancy with skeptics of the Christian faith and those who are considering [it]...I've seen it go round for years and years just on Inerrancy and that often detracts from the *person* of Christ.

    Craig: Yeah, I think that's just a hugh mistake, Kevin. Because now, what you're trying to make the focus of your evangelism is *Inerrancy* rather than *Christ*...as you say. It's *Christ* that is the center of the Gospel. And so, *He* ought to be the stumbling stone. Not the doctrine of Inerrancy. Inerrancy is an in-house debate for someone who is already a Christian.

    Harris: Okay, alright.

    Craig: It's an in-house argument about what corollaries are there to the concept of inspiration.

    Harris: Now that is very important because, again, you can go off on a rabbit trail for years with a person on Inerrancy. And, again, to detract you from [what Kevin says is garbled but he seems to say "the central truths of the gospel."]

    Craig: It would actually...here's the...here's the serious [thing]...it would keep people from salvation. Which is just horrible. If people have to jump through the hoops of Biblical Inerrancy in order to become a Christian...you will actually prevent people from coming to know Christ. By forcing the unbeliever to embrace this belief in order to be saved."
    &&&&&&&&&

    Peter, I suspect that even you agree that doctrine itself doesn't save anyone. Rather that Christ does. So, for example, one doesn't needs to understand or even assent to the doctrine of justification by faith alone in order to actually be justified by faith alone in Christ alone.

    BTW, I'm not defending WLC so much as I'm trying to read/listen to him in the most charitable way. There are things I both agree and disagree about his beliefs, teachings, methods, and arguments.

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  16. Steve

    I think that best relevant unit of consensus is 1 John 5:1.

    Then we can use the doctrine of Trinity, as other consensus between real christians.

    And a third unit of consensus is justification by faith alone.

    Regards

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  17. Annoyed Pinoy said:
    ---
    Peter, I suspect that even you agree that doctrine itself doesn't save anyone. Rather that Christ does
    ---

    If your first sentence is true, then what does your second sentence even MEAN? What is Christ if you have no doctrine?

    In any case, your response isn't een addressing my complaint with Craig. Again, I've used an illustration of what I'm arguing for: the example of hydration. I'm not saying one must have perfect knowledge of Original Sin in order to be saved: I'm saying that WLC has an OBLIGATION to defend the truth, and *NOT* to go to a "bare minimum" when the Bible itself does not seek the lowest common denominator. If all we need is the bare minimum, there's a heck of a lot of useless spilled ink contained in well over a thousand Bible pages, all for nothing.

    All WLC can possibly do is make the types of "converts" that lack a root, and who shrivel and die at the first bit of controversy. How exactly does one have a genuine relationship with Christ when one has NO FREAKING IDEA who Christ is? If Christ is just a minimalistic label, and doctrine is optional, then the church is dead and our faith is pointless.

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  18. Hi Steve,

    Thanks for your thoughts. I will have to chew it. Back when I thought true believers sometimes fall away I thought along the lines you do - that there’s no object standard or list of beliefs one must hold in order to be. Now that I hold to eternal security, I find this view harder to accept. After all, FF Bruce may well have started out a paper boy.

    As for the rest of your response on it being difficult to define the essentials on the one hand I am too chicken to make a list of the essentials but on the other hand denying such is possible seems closer to the material sufficiency of scripture rather than the formal. At the very lest it would be odd to think that scripture clearly taught what you need believe to be saved while at the same time not teaching that you need to believe it to be saved.

    Happy New Year.

    God be with you,
    Dan

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  19. Peter Pike said...
    If your first sentence is true, then what does your second sentence even MEAN? What is Christ if you have no doctrine?


    Saying "no doctrine" is hyperbolic. Craig wouldn't say no doctrine is necessary.

    Also, Christ is more than a set of doctrines and propositions, even if His significance is not less than a set of doctrines and propositions. Christ is a person who personally saves people.

    The thief on the Cross had very little doctrine when Christ assured him that he would go to paradise.

    Also, there have been instances where the courage of martyrs in facing their impending death have inspired onlookers (sometimes even persecutors) to change their minds and become Christians themselves by being willing to die with the martyrs. I'm sure in some cases this was fleshly zeal without knowledge. But I doubt all such cases were not inspired by the Holy Spirit and by His regenerating power.

    If so, then these are (just some) instances and examples where Christ is more than a set of doctrines; and how Christ can save even with very little knowledge compared to us 21st century American Christians who have access to the internet, amazon.com, local libraries, and movable-type printed codex binded books.

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  20. Peter wrote,

    [[You do realize that "Jesus", "Christ", and "born of God" are not contentless labels, but that they do have specific meanings that need to be understood, right?]]

    Yes, of course. And if Steve replies to my question about his understanding of 1 John 5:1a, I anticipate that his response will have content as well.

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