tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post4481805956683679549..comments2024-03-27T17:15:37.606-04:00Comments on Triablogue: In the choice between “catholicity” and “correctness”, “correctness” should win every timeRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17809283662428917799noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-30143658130431987872015-01-22T09:18:42.158-05:002015-01-22T09:18:42.158-05:00"There's no mechanism that can force some..."There's no mechanism that can force someone to acknowledge something. It comes down to people, not mechanisms. Men of good will. Absent that, there's nothing more to say."<br /><br />How about the sword? (jusssss kiddin')<br /><br />Steve, I'd appreciate your studied feedback on the cross-check method of precept and example I write on here: http://www.churchsonefoundation.com/precept-and-example/ .<br /><br />Thanks.<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05323613617701622125noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-45801067084203859482015-01-21T20:51:50.530-05:002015-01-21T20:51:50.530-05:00"Have you or Steve developed a mechanism by w..."Have you or Steve developed a mechanism by which a man can be challenged to see if his theology or practice is in fact under the authority of Scripture?"<br /><br />There's no mechanism that can force someone to acknowledge something. It comes down to people, not mechanisms. Men of good will. Absent that, there's nothing more to say.stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-19624915530235857562015-01-21T09:18:52.416-05:002015-01-21T09:18:52.416-05:00Thanks much, John. Yes, I meant heavy qualificatio...Thanks much, John. Yes, I meant heavy qualification, because anyone calling themself a biblicist is distrusted among Reformed and Roman Catholics and EO. <br /><br />In the case of RCs and EOs, so what. But from Reformed men, its just strange when they want their claims to be under the authority of Scripture to be taken seriously by anyone outside their circles.<br /><br />Have you or Steve developed a mechanism by which a man can be challenged to see if his theology or practice is in fact under the authority of Scripture?<br /><br />By the way, Kasemann's tidy little aphorism, that the church is "the community created by the Word" was the topic of a recent book by Matt Chandler and 2 others, "Creatures of the Word."<br /><br />But here's push back - if they are created by the Word, why do they resist it's authority in their ecclesial practices? According to 1 Pet. 1:23-25?Ted Bigelowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02558474337614839545noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-26183140731221625612015-01-20T19:55:30.929-05:002015-01-20T19:55:30.929-05:00Ted – I’m not sure what you mean by “clever adject...Ted – I’m not sure what you mean by “clever adjectives” – do you mean “heavy qualification? As I’ve been describing it here, there is no need for a qualifier. I think Frame qualifies it adequately enough and clearly enough in <a href="http://www.frame-poythress.org/in-defense-of-something-close-to-biblicism-reflections-on-sola-scriptura-and-history-in-theological-method/" rel="nofollow">this article</a>. What he does is to deal with some misconceptions.<br /><br />Here, too, is what F.F. Bruce says about the word (in the context of “tradition” or of “subordinate standards”):<br /><br /><i>[T]his term (“biblicist”) is used in no disparaging sense. By heritage and conviction I myself am a biblicist; theologically as well as academically I am “homo unius libri” (a man of one book). One of the functions of recognized subordinate standards, like the Westinster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms in the Presbyterian tradition, is to provide guidelines for the interpretation and application of Scripture. Where subordinate standards are not recognized, it does not follow that there are no such guidelines: Guidelines and even more precise canons are quite likely to be laid down, but because they take the form of “unwritten” traditions, their true nature may be overlooked. Indeed, in some of the more enclosed traditions the authority of Scripture will be identified with the authority of the accepted interpretation and application, because it has never occurred to those inside the enclosure that Scripture could be interpreted or applied otherwise. </i><br /><br />For Bruce, these “subordinate standards”, whether they conflict with one another, or they don’t, should be tested against “Scripture alone”. <br /><br />Footnote on “Scripture alone”: <i>“Concretely expressed, the relationship of the community [the church] and the Word of God is not reversible; there is no dialectical process by which the community created by the Word becomes at the same time an authority set over the Word to interpret it, to administer it, to possess it … for the community remains the handmaid of the Word” (citing Ernst Kasemann)</i><br /><br />So there are going to be written and unwritten “subordinate standards”, all the way from the Roman “Magisterium” (which wants to be the “authoritative interpretation”) to the single person or small community – the Word of God is to be the arbiter of all of these. Why?<br /><br /><i>To many it seems safer and more comfortable to stay within familiar and old-established boundaries. The admission of more light may show up inadequacies in cherished traditions – inadequacies that would otherwise have remained hidden – and they may be disposed to question whether what is claimed to be “more light” is in fact light. <br /><br />But light by nature is self-evidencing, and John Robinson’s choice of this figure for the further truth that might be learned from Scripture was apt. There are those who demand authority for truth, forgetting that truth is itself the highest authority. Where the Holy Spirit guides the people of Christ into further truth, that guidance (though meeting with some initial resistance) tends in the long run to commend itself to their general acceptance. It will not conflict with truth already learned and established, even if it shows that some things previously reckoned to be truth were only imperfectly so, or not so at all. <br /><br />It will be acknowledged to be in harmony with the mind of Christ, as His mind is primarily revealed in Scripture and progressively appreciated in the church. The word by which tradition is to be tested and the church’s faith and life continuously reformed is no mere deliverance of antiquity laying down precedents for all time to come: the Spirit who spoke in that word to the churches of the first century speaks in it to the churches of the twentieth, and does so in terms which address themselves dynamically and relevantly to our present condition. </i><br />John Bugayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17728044301053738095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-55703510947635051942015-01-20T14:32:23.353-05:002015-01-20T14:32:23.353-05:00Thanks for the links and allowing me to catch up w...Thanks for the links and allowing me to catch up with something you and Steve have already hashed through. <br /><br />Sorry for Clarke's condescending tone, too.<br /><br />So, it looks like the word biblicism requires clever adjectives, which end up being ignored by Reformed men anyway?Ted Bigelowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02558474337614839545noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-80866241799613729442015-01-20T10:05:59.786-05:002015-01-20T10:05:59.786-05:00Ted -- I've picked up on the term "critic...Ted -- I've picked up on the term "critical biblicism" here, in relation to "confessionalism":<br /><br /><a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2013/12/by-confession-alone.html" rel="nofollow">http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2013/12/by-confession-alone.html</a><br />Steve's original article (a short one) is here:<br /><br /><a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2013/11/critical-biblicism.html" rel="nofollow">http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2013/11/critical-biblicism.html</a><br /><br />As I mentioned on Facebook the other day, F.F. Bruce classified himself as a biblicist ("Tradition Old and New",pg 13), and while Frame's "Something Close to Biblicism" has drawn some fire, I think it is misunderstood. This isn't to say that Frame gets everything right about everything. But Scripture is the measure against which every other doctrine should be measured. <br />John Bugayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17728044301053738095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-37128610995708095812015-01-20T09:32:20.986-05:002015-01-20T09:32:20.986-05:00Thanks John. Have you found or developed any good,...Thanks John. Have you found or developed any good, one sentence, definitions for biblicist, or is the term so tainted that it is beyond redeeming?Ted Bigelowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02558474337614839545noreply@blogger.com